Première partie
L’Égyptien Ossama Alsaadawi (décédé en octobre 2010), était docteur en électronique militaire et professeur à l’Egyptian Air Defense College. Spécialiste des hiéroglyphes qu’il étudia pendant vingt-cinq années, il est l’auteur d’une quinzaine d’ouvrages, dont un dictionnaire électronique hiéroglyphes/anglais/arabe qui comporte plus de 40.000 pages.
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| Ossama Alsaadawi |
Sur son site internet, il a exposé partiellement sa théorie sur la construction des pyramides égyptiennes, à commencer par la plus grande : celle de Khéops. Selon lui, toute hypothèse d’utilisation d’une rampe est à exclure, une telle structure ne résistant pas à l’effet d’écrasement causé par le poids des blocs à transporter. La seule technique valable, toujours selon notre auteur, repose sur l’utilisation d’une source d’énergie à la fois proche et immédiatement disponible : les eaux du Nil. “Presque toutes les pyramides et même les mastabas, affirme Ossama Alsaadawi, ont été construits avec l’utilisation de la même technique : les ascenseurs hydrauliques.”
L’articulation globale de la démonstration met l’accent sur les erreurs et les incohérences techniques de toute théorie basée sur l’utilisation d’une rampe pour le transport des blocs, et surtout des monolithes de la Chambre du Roi. D’où le recours à l’énergie hydraulique naturellement engendrée par les eaux du Nil durant les périodes d’inondation.Mais dans le détail, en quoi consiste exactement la théorie “hydraulique” de l’auteur ? Les quelques textes en anglais (des traductions de textes arabes) que l’on peut consulter sur le site internet d’Ossama Alsaadawi ne permettent pas de s’en faire une idée précise et complète, même en ayant recours au texte original, en arabe, de ces articles. Malheureusement, Ossama Alsaadawi n’est plus de ce monde pour répondre à notre attente. Il n’a pas eu le temps ou l’opportunité d’exposer publiquement le “cœur” de son secret. Nous sommes donc contraints de juxtaposer des éléments de solution et d’en rester au principe global des ascenseurs hydrauliques : nous le recevons comme tel et Pyramidales le publie ci-dessous, en hommage à son auteur, avec l’amicale autorisation de son fils Ismaïl Alsaadawi.
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| Une "solution" vouée à l'échec ! |
“To travel from the USA to Egypt in just few hours is a real wonder, but using a Boeing 747 is a much more wonderful fact. Both are true wonders that no one can deny. However, when one arrives to Giza Plateau in Egypt and looks to the Great Pyramid (GP) of Khufu, he or she stands at once astounded, knowing that he or she is facing a real true fact that dates back to immemorial ancient civilization. The mind is sparkled immediately by three questions :
1- When ?
2- Why ?
3- How ?
Unfortunately and surprisingly, modern humans have failed to answer these three logic questions for more than 4.000 bygone years. Even Herodot failed to answer it when he visited ancient Egypt in 430 BC.
In this article, we'll try to shed light on the primary answer of the third question only, that is : How the Ancient Egyptian Great Pyramid of Khufu has been constructed ?
There are remnants of nearly 80 pyramids that stand alongside the path of the river Nile in Egypt. Some of them are still in good condition, but we are mainly interested in GP because it is the highest and most interesting one.
Knowledgeable archaeologists and Egyptologists explain that : the main bulk of the GP is composed of 2.5 millions stone blocks, each weighs 3 tons in average. This colossal mass of stone blocks is compiled in a pyramid-shaped construction with a maximum height of 146 m and base side-length of nearly 230 m. It stands on top of a plateau, or big rocky hill, the roof of which is raised 60 m above the water level of the Nile, known as Giza Plateau.
Écueils de la théorie de la rampe, tels qu'ils apparaissent dans un simple raisonnement mathématique
Up to now, there is no real problem. However, one little bit of technical data is really interesting. Architects assert that the King's Chamber (KC) only is roofed by 9 vast massive granite stone blocks, each weighing 75 tons. Egyptologists say that they are no more than 40 tons, according to their rough estimations. Archaeologists say that that each weighs 55 tons. KC is placed at a height of nearly 70 m from the base of the GP or nearly 130 m from the water level of the Nile.
Here, we reach the real problem of the GP construction, which is summarized by the following very simple question : How could engineers of King Khufu raised-up 55 ton stone blocks to a height of 130 meters ?
To clarify this question in a better way, let's ask : How could modern humans raise a 55 ton truck up to the roof of a skyscraper, like the Empire State Building for instance, without using any kind of machinery or self-propellant engines ?
Egyptologists answered this question by bringing forth the ramp-theory, which states that the ancient Egyptians raised up these 55 ton stone blocks by dragging them up a ramp with a slope of 6-8 degrees, made of dust or hard mud using no rollers, but only manpower and some lubricants ! Many people believed them, but a few believe it to be impossible.
Why do they believe it impossible ? Well, let simple mathematics speak : work done = mass x gravity x height ; that is : w = m x g x h. Therefore, work done to raise up one 55 ton stone block is : w = 55.000 kg x 10 x 130 = 71.500.000 joules (nearly 71 million joules). 1 horsepower = 750 joules/sec. Therefore, energy needed to raise up only one granite beam is equal to nearly 95 thousand horsepower/sec, or nearly a million manpower/sec, which is impossible to attain by human force alone.
Then, what if we calculated the whole work done necessary to build up the whole Great Pyramid, (I say) that it is given simply as : total work done = 0.22 x total mass x gravity x maximum height. So, total work done used to build the Great Pyramid is : 0.22 x 7.5 billions kgs x 10 x 146 > 2.4 Tera Joules. Therefore, calculations indicate that King Khufu needed billions of horsepower to realize this historic world wonder that has survived for long thousands of years.
Conclusion : no way with ramps and no way with manpower alone to build the GP. There must be some kind of external natural active-power to realize the job.
Un grand complexe hydraulique
The question now is : What was this active power ?
One new theory is that this active power was water. That is, hydraulic force of successive inundation waters that was used within a highly organized state project to raise up the main massive stone bulk of the Great Pyramid within a big hydraulic complex, using ascending wells, leakage water tunnels, heavy wooden floats, boats, etc.
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| The principle of hydraulic lift which allows lifting of heavy loads by small force |
So, the question of how 5 ton stone blocks could be raised up to a height of 20 meters without using modern machinery or human labor, could be answered that it could be done by hydraulic lifts. If this new theory is true, Pharaoh Khufu used ascending wells, hydraulic lifts and hydraulic techniques for building his Great Pyramid. Power = water mass / area of ascending well : this would be the golden hydraulic rule on which Khufu may have relied, to design very effective hydraulic lifts and to raise-up colossal heavy stones up to high altitudes. This leads to the assumption that nearly all pyramids and even mastabas were built using the same technique, that is hydraulic lifts.
Those people who agree with this modern theory also state that “Ossama is right” : If friction is ignored, then the work done (energy spent) is m*g*h, no matter what path is taken by the mass ; it is only the change is height that is important. This is a result of physics that applies to many different situations. Including the effect of friction can only increase the required amount of work, and now the path taken to raise the mass is important. The least work would be done by lifting the mass straight up (pushing the mass up a slope, even if it were on wheels, would take more energy). No matter what method of construction they used (ramps, pulleys, cranes, counter-weights or levers), this is the amount of energy that had to be spent by the workmen, if no other source of power was harnessed.
“Inundation power” : la solution pour échapper aux erreurs techniques de la théorie de la rampe
The granite beams would destroy these ramps, so these blocks may have been lifted by some other method. Inundation power would greatly simplify this, as the problem becomes a matter of buoyancy which invalidates the use of m*g*h. Furthermore, these granite beams had to have been lowered into position. Surely sliding them into position would pull the King's chamber apart.
Some people try to ignore all scientific and physical evidence to prove that their imaginary wrong assumptions are correct. They insist that a group of men is able to raise up a 50 ton granite block up a muddy ramp to a 50 meter height using only their hands and manpower. When we told them that physics and science proved that this is impossible, they said we'd prove it practically !
They brought 1-ton ston e block (using a truck) to the location and used about 20 men to drag the stone up a very small pre-prepared ramp that extends to only 2 meters height in 2 hours hardworking. Then they said : “You see, the experiment has succeeded !”
But what if they tried another only additional eight meters of height ? In fact, the stone weight will not remain 1 ton. It'll be 1 ton plus its new gravitational weight, which is (1+m*g*h). It means the new stone weight is (1+1000*10*10/10/1000/2) = (1+5) = 6 tons.
Now they need much more men to raise-up the new weight, which is 6 tons, not only 1 ton.
Then what about only additional 20 meters ? Or at upper courses of the GP at an altitude of 130 meters for instance ?
As one might expect, those who do not agree with the old theories of pyramid construction call the experiment a big failure, even using only a 1-ton stone block.
Followers of the new theory also have further stated : Our calculations convinced us that most of the ramp concepts would have been impractical because they involved a construction effort greater than that required for the pyramid itself. We assumed that the ancient Egyptians would not commit resources to building anything more than minimally required given the fact that the ramp had to be demolished at the conclusion of construction.
Un chantier sans arrêt
According to the new theorists : The Lehner-Hawas ramp theory failed to find ‘any' scientific proof further than faint traces of some small ramps used for labor traffic and water motion control.
Le système hydraulique
Meanwhile, (my) new Hydraulic Theory has not denied evident scientific and archaeological facts. One example only is that archaeologists found more than 10 ships and barges preserved inside `airtight' pits on top of Giza plateau. Some people said that those barges were used by the pharaoh and his inferiors to ride the sunbeam to go to the sky to meet sun-god (Râ). Scientifically these boats were used as an integrated part of the massive hydraulic system.
The major reason for rejecting the theory of a ramp was the geographical limitation of the Giza Plateau. All kinds of mathematical estimations and physical evidence proved that it was impossible to use high ramps in raising-up massive stones of the GP.
In other words, the builders had to wait for the water level to reach the required course, place the stones in the same pace of the water rising, and stop working as soon as the level exceeded the desired level. The next year, they still had to wait idle until the water level reached where they have stopped previously, and race against time again fulfilling the 9-10 courses quota before the water level changed again.
This had to be repeated over several years, until the Nile could not reach the required original height of 481 ft. Then they would proceed by using an engineering system means to ‘control' waters motion and levels by some well-known hydraulic techniques like the case in shipyards using water locks. In fact, working on GP construction never stopped because of differentiation of inundation power. Raising up was only one small operation of the whole project.
An interesting fact : the stones of the initial 18 courses average 2-6 tons apiece. Starting the 19th course, the stones became huge (10-15 apiece) for the next 203 courses. The rule of logic dictates a progressive diminution of mass as one goes upwards.
That's why Hydraulic Theory is believed by some to be the only one that works.
This would be the real genius of Khufu and the GP. For this reason 8 major armies failed, in the long history of Egypt, to demolish the GP.”
à suivre : deuxième partie
