Originally Posted By brass:
I can see that local 'dirt' fro the limestone quarry area could be used as filler, except for the interior tunnels, then bec appsed wiht a layer of limestone.

Loose Gravel has an Adipose/resting angle of 50° So if a pile of it was simply poured out, the angle on the edges of the pile to ground are 50° from horizontal/40° from vertical.

If they built the pyramids as a spiral, a chain of people carrying buckets of crushed limestone, then dumping it, while stone masons sat limestone around the edge to contain it at a slightly steeper angle from the extra friction (51° to 53° are the actual numbers for the large pyramids), it would be WAY faster and easier to make a spiral ramp up, as the elevation increased, the stone masons would increase the tunnel's progress, make sure it's angled correctly, etc.  Would make it easy to make a perfectly straight line by looking down tunnel to a light, and keeping it centered with the walls aligned, then using 2-3 rows of limestone around those tunnels to 'lock' it permanently assisted by the weight that will be added atop it.

Casing stones are exact same story as internal tunnels and traps, eye down to keep it level with extra input from people on the ground before next course of gravel is dumped for new limestone placement to keep the Look correct.   One line carrying stone, another bucket brigade gathering loose larger sized gravel to be compacted down during the rest of construction.  This would leave one small area that would need climbing, and only needing to place stones even with the neighbors, then dump the gravel in from top, run around in little circles packing it down (people HAD worked extensively with dirt structures, if history is believed at all, (and if not history, common sense would say they'd noticed certain properties of different 'types of dirt' due to living in it for several hundred years, enough to have time to worry about sacrifices instead of merely survival).  If done that way, the lat bit would be smooth with rope and tackle tug/slides along the blocks already laid, and a bucket brigade of a few dozen people, 2-3 on each course of stone with a rope, to pull the next bucket o gravel up, and put it on the ropes for the guys above it to life higher, repeat.

That said, that's the ONLY way I can picture a ramp being used.   They wouldn't have been wasteful like our current construction, temporary mega structures built to help build something else, then entirely dismantled, Nope, that's just faster for us, not the most direct method.   Building ramps leading up the pyramid would be more of a task than building the pyramids themselves. looking at volume and run size desired, a 15° slope starting at zero leading to the top, say 40 ft wide (conservative) Plus the extra dirt due to the friction angle/adipose angle of whatever they need the rock fromo (half again as much), leads to more than moved for two entire pyramids once adding in the rebuilding of ramps to "point" to different endpoints.

I like this idea as it explains a few things - easy way to fill center of pyramid, most efficient use of limestone blocks in both function and lifetime durability, Ramp doesn't need to be removed later, the Ramp IS the pyramid, and last, but not least:  Moving big buckets of large, dens packing gravel (crushed limestone, anything not rounded by a river) would be far easier, faster, and efficient to carry by hand and using ropes.   The casing blocks could be dragged up the slope resting on 2 'point bearings, the two steps below each stone.   That might explain their very uniform sizes - just long enough to span 2 points of existing courses, yet small enough to fit up the ramp opening remaining, while keeping it light enough to move freely.   Limestone has  Moh's hardness of 3.  Raw copper is also hardness of 3, but can be bumped to 4 or 4.5 simply by work hardening (making a bunch of little dimples in it, causing stretching and bending in amounts small enough to move the metal, but not go past yield strength, these dimples would also hold grains of limestone (calcite), which could easily grind through itself.   Even having a medium heavy copper saw 3-4 ft tall would allow them to quarry a limestone brick out by dropping it in one end, helpers keep it vertical, and 1 or more guys pull on rope attached to blade to abrade the rock.   - Straight edge, consistent thickness due to size of copper 'blade', and many doing htis at same time.  Copper would be enough to get a cut starte,d and the cuttings from it would catch in the work hardened copper and make the abrasion  faster.

If anybody would like to buy me a piece of half hard copper, say.. 8' x 5' and 3/8" thick, I'll happily do the experiment.  

--ETA:  I'd be OK with welding together 16 6" wide, 6 ft long bars of half hard to perform the experiment, for anybody wanting to help in interest of Science.

Originally Posted By 6GUNZ:

You're not supposed to talk about those!

Move along folks, nothing to see here. Now back to your regularly scheduled programming while we move these to the Smithsonian's basement for "safekeeping."