07-01-2011, 10:49 PM
(06-30-2011, 02:17 AM)IMaDick Wrote: Sand is heavier than water in just about all of its forms, wet dry packed, loose, it doesn't matter if you wanted to minimize the container to achieve the greatest amount of lift by volume sand would make more sense.
as for hauling sand to use it would be much more labor intensive water flows on its own once the route is built, and to release it just pull the plug, and it disappears, sand on the other hand would need to be moved a second time doubling the handling time and labor.
water could also be recycled and used in other ways if they so desired, sand is always just sand.
In my mind water makes way more sense even though more of it would be required to do the same job as sand.
Yes. Exactly.
Sand could work and it would be far easier to pass sand straight up the side and use it in counterweights than it would be to build ramps and drag stones up them. Sand is unwieldy to use. It seems unlikely anyone would wake up one day and say "hey, let's pass sand up in buckets for ballast and see how big a pile we can make".
If I'm right then there just wan't much work for humans in building the great pyramids. The builders said over and over that to make a stairway to heaven that they needed boats, ropes, and ladders and that the Gods did all the real work. "The dead king ascends to heaven, permanent like the earth".
Rather than being pumped up the water just naturally sprayed to 80' where it was caught by a device the builders called the Mehet Weret Cow. Stones wwere lifted straight up to 80' and then Imhotep shortened the ropes so they could go higher. The top stones had to be lifted several times to the top.