Energy & Industry / Manufacturing & Construction

Monumental Stone Building (Pyramids)

Egyptian builders cut, moved and stacked about 2.3 million stone blocks into the Great Pyramid (around 2600 BC), 146.6 m high and the tallest structure on Earth for more than 3,700 years.

Djoser's Step Pyramid at Saqqara (reign about 2687-2667 BC) was the first large pyramid; Khufu's Great Pyramid, with a base about 230 m square, a site level to within about 21 mm and sides aligned to the compass points, followed. Copper chisels cut the limestone, sledges, levers and ramps moved it, and boats brought fine limestone from Tura, probably for the casing. The logbook of the official Merer, found at Wadi al-Jarf in 2013, records a crew of about forty men on that run in about year 27 of Khufu's reign. A 1999 study estimated an average workforce of about 14,000, peaking near 40,000, and workers' cemeteries point to organised, conscripted or paid labour rather than slaves.