In 1997, in Tokyo, Japanese engineers tested an elevation method conceived of by Cambridge University engineer Dick Parry. He rejected the theory that pyramid builders moved blocks up ramps on sledges, because he recognized that the number of men required would be too great.
Innovating upon the so-called rockers theorized by Clarke and Engelbach, Parry proposed that four rockers be arranged around a block to form a cylinder. Builders coiled a long rope around the cylinder to move it uphill.
When workers pulled on the rope from the top of the ramp, the rope uncoiled, causing the cylinder to roll up the ramp. Parry's ingenious operation reduces the amount of force needed to elevate blocks.
Parry's method was tested on 2.5 ton blocks. To push a 2.5 block on a level surface required only three men. To pull a block up a ramp with a one-in-four gradient required only 16 to 20 men. Workers pulled the 2.5 ton block up a 49-foot slope in only one minute.
Even this clever system fails because it depends upon the use of an enormous ramp. We have already seen that building a ramp of this gradient for the Great Pyramid would be too demanding. Parry's system calls for a very demanding ramp, because it must be either very wide or extremely strong. Consider the scenario when his cylinders have to raise the beams up to 27-feet long making up the ceiling of the King's Chamber.
A beam is most stable when positioned so that its length is in a horizontal position. Imagine these huge beams up to 27-feet long rolling up a spiral ramp. If the beams are hauled in the horizontal position to a height of about 160 feet, the spiral ramp would have to be constructed with extremely wide corners--wide enough to accommodate beams up to 27-feet long being turned around them. The ramp would have to be extremely strong, and most likely it would have to be keyed into the Great Pyramid's masonry with long support beams.
Moving the beams in a vertical position would not require such wide ramp corners. But the ramp would have to be extremely strong. When moving a beam in a vertical position, its weight is distributed over a smaller surface area of the ramp. In other words, the ramp must be quite strong, at least up to 160 feet high, the level of the ceiling of the King's Chamber where granite beams up to 27-foot long are situated.
If the cylinders up to 27-feet long are moved up a straight-on ramp in a horizontal position, then this ramp, too, would have to be strong and solid. The ramp would require far more effort to build and tear down than needed to build the Great Pyramid itself. We see that the fundamental problem with Parry's theory relates back to the construction ramp itself being entirely unworkable.
Finally, if Parry's method existed, we would expect that the Egyptians would have used the wheel for transportation from that point forward. However, the wheel did not come into use for transportation until much later.
The above excerpt helps to demonstrate that the clever lifting devices that depend upon a ramp do not work because using a giant ramp to build the Great Pyramid is unworkable. ]
Another system raises blocks without the use of a ramp. This system was tested in the 1992 NOVA film titled This Old Pyramid. The next excerpt from The Egyptian Pyramid Mystery Is Solved! concerns this experiment conducted by NOVA.
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