US Mall 1 - This Old Pyramid

I think Margaret is right in her review when she says that Nova was not very honest or scientific about their methods, but there is a healthy smattering here of good pyramid lore and architectural information that only adds to the entertainment of the frustrated builders. When "This Old Pyramid" first premiered, I predicted a place on the underground cult classics list. Unfortunately, this didn't happen. Check it out.

First, although the film stated that only ancient means would be used, NOVA used modern steel tools to quarry and shape all of its pyramid blocks. NOVA's blocks were of the softest limestone at Tura. This stone is much softer than the blocks of the Great Pyramid, which are mostly medium-hard to hard and cannot be leveled or otherwise correctly shaped with the copper tools of the Pyramid Age. Moreover, fossil shells in Giza limestone make it particularly difficult to shape correctly with primitive tools. NOVA's modern steel tools are unacceptable for an experiment showing how the ancient Egyptians might have quarried, leveled and otherwise correctly shaped fossil shell limestone blocks. Pyramid Age tools were made of wood, copper (a relatively soft metal) and stone, and their capabilities have no relationship to those of steel tools. Thus, NOVA defied both scientific methodology and up-to-date Egyptology. Dieter Arnold, for instance, admits that the means of quarrying is unknown. Arnold writes, "The question as to what kind of tools were used to cut the separation trenches and to lift the blocks from their beds has not been answered satisfactorily because of the contradiction between the tool marks left on the quarry walls and the tools actually found in ancient Egypt" (Building in Egypt, 1993).

Second, the film advocates that copper tools were used to shape ancient pyramid blocks, ignoring the most up-to-date Egyptology. For instance, Arnold's Building in Egypt acknowledges that copper tools could not have been used. Aside from the inadequacy of copper tools, the mines could not have supplied the amount of copper needed.

Third, while ramps are suitable for building small pyramids, engineers, including Peter Hodges, showed that the Great Pyramid would not exist if its construction depended on any kind of ramp. NOVA should not have implied that its experiment solved major problems of building the Great Pyramid. Yet, the film concluded by claiming that NOVA solved the major unresolved problems.

Fifth, there is a basic methodological distortion in drawing conclusions from such a mini-experiment. Engineering problems multiply in full-scale operations. The congestion on a ramp of the size required for the Great Pyramid would be extraordinary. The frequent application of water would quickly cause such a ramp, made of clay and stone rubble, to become unstable.

Sixth, NOVA suggested that using a spiral ramp solves outstanding construction problems. However, such a device produces more problems than it solves with regard to the Great Pyramid's construction. The film displayed a three-dimensional computer-rendered image of a cantilevered spiral ramp. In reality, its special cantilever support beams would have to be built into the pyramid faces to meet complex engineering requirements. For instance, the beams would have to extend far enough into the core masonry to counterbalance the weight of their unsupported lengths extending beyond the pyramid's faces. Each beam must also have enough counterbalance to support the weight of its proportional load of the finished ramp, plus the proportional load of the heaviest weight moving along the ramp (like the 27 foot-long beams over the King's Chamber). The cantilevered ramp system is so demanding that it would dramatically impact calculations for building the Great Pyramid. Theorists, for instance, mostly work with an average block size of 2.5 tons, but they would need to factor in the elevation of thousands of enormous cantilever beams for the ramp itself. Given the overwhelming demands of the cantilevered ramp, it is surprising that NOVA introduced the idea. Critics of the spiral ramp point out that it would obscure the true reference points (the four corner stones at the pyramid's base, the angle of the pyramid's sides, and its baseline). Failure to make all measurements from these absolute reference points would introduce errors that would compound as the pyramid rose. Even the slightest error would have compounded as workers took successive measurements from inaccurate reference points. The result would be a structure with irregular sides that would not form a proper pyramid shape. NOVA offered no solution to this problem, making it impossible to take this design seriously. This misleading film is an affront to scientific methodology. It sends a terrible message to students, who need to learn honesty and respect for scientific method.