THE MECHAN ICAL TR IUMPHS OF THE

ANCIENT EGY PTIANS .

THE

M EC HA N ICA L T R I U M PHS

OF THE

N Y P IAN AN C I E T EG T S .

M . F . 13 CO M MA N DE R ARBE R , ! ! N T T T N U I ED S A ES AVY ,

RETI RED

LATE N AVAL ATTAcmS-

A P N D . BERLIN, ROME, VIENNA, TOKIO, EKIN

LONDON

K TR B ER U N 8: CO . EGAN PAUL, TRENCH , , LTD .

P O C G C ATERNOSTER H USE HARIN ROSS ROAD . ' dszswiqk tnEss : CHARLES wmn mc m AND co. moms OU T N ERY L E L N C R CH C N O DON . , A A , I NTROD U CT I O N .

As a result of three visits to Egypt it has been x r my e pe ience that, notwithstanding the ulti mate paramount interest of travellers in the manners and customs of the ancient Egyptians i s s m m and the nature of the r tupendou onu ents , the question most fr equently asked with regard to the latter is not why did they create them , s but how . How did they tran port these great stones , and how did they lift them to the posi tions in which they are now found In many s r cases the cau e of this very practical inqui y is , m h perhaps , not far to seek , for this is a ec anical age, and it is probable that fifty per cent. of the people who visit Egypt to - day owe that privi lege to the mean s derived from some applica tion of the mechanic arts . With them the idea is instinctive but, indeed , with everybody it may be said that it is the physical problem which ae first attracts the mind , and not the sthetic , or h the et nographic , or the religious . It has been my object in preparin g this e ssm; to solve thisp roblem in a more comp\e te man n a

LI ST OF I LL U ST RATI ON S .

ILLUSTRATIONS IN TEX T.

THE WEIOHING O F THE HEART THE PYRAMID PLATEAU STONE ON Ox SLEDGE PAEON IUS PAR EUCE LE FIN ISHED CASINO STONES A SHADOOF CRANE L or P MAUS OLEUH AR P AN A IS , SAQQ AH N P or W TRA S ORT A COLOSSUS ON A SLEDGE, ON ALL or Tom AT EL BERSHEN E E S ER INGPATAM OB LIS AT , INDIA METHOD or ERECTING VATICAN OBELISE

METHOD or ERECTING SERIN GAPATAM OEELIS E . rawn from e scri ion ELEVATI ON . D D pt I METHOD OE ERECTING SER NGAPATAM OBELISE . w fr m ri ion PLAN . Dra n o De sc pt METHOD or ERECTI N O PARIS OBELI SE METHOD or ER ECTINO LONDON AND NEW YORK OEELisxs X LIST OF I LLUSTRATIONS .

- FULL PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS .

THE SHADOOF THE S AQQUIEH

’ QUEEN HATAsoo s EXPEDITION TO PUNT ’ QUEEN HATAsoo s EXPEDITION To PUNT

B B C . 1 600 A OUT . THE Y ! W P RAMIDS AT GI EH, SHO ING HEIGHT O F PLATEAU HERODOTUS INCLINED PLANE POLYSPASTON OF THE TIME OF VITR UVIUs UNFINISHED OBELISK AT ASSOUAN TRANSPORT OF OBELISKS TRANSPORT OF AN OBELISK TRANS PORT OF AN OBELISK TRANSPORT OF AN OBELISE F FIRST COLOSSAL IMAGE O AMENHOTEP III . AT THEBES SECOND COLOSSAL IMAGE COLOSSUS OF R AMES Es THE GREAT AT MEM PHIs To face 1 1 8 THE

M ECHAN ICAL TR IU MPHS OF THE

AN C IE NT EGY PTIAN S .

CHAPTE R I .

GYP AN K NOWL DG OF M C ANI C E TI E E E H S .

A LL our knowledge of the ancient Egyptians goes to show that they were eminently a scie n i t fic and mechanical people . Thoth was the n and Tosorthros a God of Scie ce , or Nebk ,

. . R C 66 second king of the I I I Dyn , 3 7 , was “ skilled in the art of erecting solid masses of hewn stone long before Cheops built the great i and pyram d , the art never died out . Though there were civil wars and almost a blank in

i B . C . I B C 2 . . 6 6 Egypt an history from 3 3 3 to 4 ,

still when history does reappear, we find

U r B . 2 r se te se n C . I 433 , e ecting obelisks at H c eliopolis, and ea h king thereafter for a

thousand years surpassing his predecessor. Moreover the ancient monarchs of all nation s were for some unknown reason much given to erecting monolithic monuments of enormous n t u size, and of using mo s ro s blocks in compo n i e re d a m ama site buildings . That it was co s d B THE MECHANICAL TRIUMPHS OF of great merit is mentioned both in the B ible h and in josephus . This passion appears to ave e reached its maximum in Egypt, and the th n

. . B . C . 1 600 known world, from the XVI I I Dyn , ,

. 1 200 . to the XX . Dyn , Whereas Cheops was content with stones weighing fifty to sixty his tons in pyramid , the two huge statues of

s. . r Amenhotep I I I . (fig xxi and w ought a 00 years afterward , and even fter 3 , 3 more years still sitting so solemnly in the great plain 800 t of Thebes , each weigh from to ons , and were only two of the many that formed the avenue leading to his mausoleum . A mble t found there dwells upon the magnificence of the temple and the siz e of the stone monuments he had erected in Thebes . I have filled her with monuments in my name from the hill of the

wonderful stones . Those who show them in i i ” their place are full of great joy at the r s ze. Near by is the broken granite statue of Rameses a 00 the Gre t, weighing 9 tons, and at Tanis in

. o f lower Egypt, Prof Petrie found the remains another statue of Rameses of which the grea t ’ u toe was the size of a man s body, and the stat e itself must have been 9 2 feet high and weighed

more than tons . Baalbe c is I n Syria, at , a stone now lying h in the quarry w ich weighs tons, and u 6 x I x 1 meas res 9 7 4 feet, and there are three THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS . 3 more like it twenty feet up in the wall surround

ing the Temple of the Sun a mile away . The

I 200 B . C . date is approximately Solomon , who i 1000 B . C l ved . , placed a ninety ton stone in the outer wall of Temple H ill at Jerusalem 100 feet

above the ground , and the treasury of Atreus, M ce nze l near y in Greece , bui t about the same

time , has its portal covered with a stone weigh 1 ing 30 tons . I do not speak of the marvels Diodorus M crobius related by Herodotus , , y ,

Pliny and others . Those that I have me n tione d can be seen to - day with the exception

of the Tanis statue of Rameses , which was Orsoke n cut up to build a pylon by I I . about B C . . 900 .

Ferguson , in his history of architecture, thinks that this handling of huge blocks was mere v anity but it must be admitted that in a com p osite buildin g it is a sound principle to have as few joints as possible, though modern archi t e e ts , except shipbuilders , are disposed to ignore f it, and in ancient times it was much more di ficult to destroy a wall or a temple that contained huge

- blocks than it would be to day . Even so late as A D Hid oshi the end of the sixteenth century , , y at placed stones in the castle wall Osaka, Japan , 10 i which are 40 feet long and feet th ck , and no one knows how wide they are probably wider a l 1 0 fe e t w iAe th n they are thick , but even if on y 4 THE MECHANICAL TR IUMPHS OF they would weigh 300 tons . I t cannot be denied either that there is something more solem nly impressive about a huge stone statue than about a anything th t is merely joined together . The

. . 1 0 N Y Goddess of Liberty, 5 feet high , the 1 60 sleeping Buddh of Bangkok , feet long, are both beautiful and impressive ; but in spite of their artistic merit every one kn ows that they i t are hollow , and that sense of behold ng a s ub O born triumph ver natur e is lost . They need t re care to prevent decay, and hey will never main ofthemselves an everlasting monument of

the godlike power of a king. But for man himself nearly every monument erecte d in Egypt

- a and would be there to day . Earthqu kes floods a o h ve done little, but Cambyses and his success rs

have done much . Two thousand statues we re off carried to Babylon , two obelisks to Nineveh, two more to Constantinople and a dozen to sam e s Rome, while we moderns have our own w

of vandalism in Paris , London , and New York . Such statues of kings and gods as the ancients off could not carry they always tried to destroy , and it was to prevent this as much as possible

that great size was deemed so important, and why the material so frequently chosen was i i granite, for the bu lder and the l me kiln were always the ready and deadly enemies of marble

or other species of lime stone . Cheops suc THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS. 5 ce e de d in defying even these by the mere bulk

- e l- at of his creation . When Abd Lateef saw it the beginning of the thirteenth century AD it

was absolutely perfect , clad in all its glittering

casing, and although this has since gone to build

half the palaces of Cairo, it was but the peel of

the orange, the fruit itself has remained and

always will remain to astonish mankind . This passion for gigantic undertakings and the art of accomplishing them seems to have been continued through the Greek Ptolemies to

the e n d of the Roman Empire . Though no obelisks appear to have been cut after the

XV I I I . Dyn . , still they were continually being an d as moved about , other objects , such shrines, r sac ificial tables and sarcophagi , of even greater bulk were quarried and transported throughout a the length of Egypt . I n the quarries of Shell l at the First Cataract can be seen two unfinished A nh B 1 2 m e t . C un e o . 0 statues of p I I I , . 4 , some deta ched sarcophagi apparently intended for r l sac ed bul s of unknown date , and some smaller detached sarcophagi or baths partly hollowed

out, and from their style undoubtedly of Roman ’ times , all within a stone s throw of each other. Whatever methods were adopted by the ancients they seem to have been continued on down to the methodsofthe Romans without com ’ an D n r m m'ax ment on the part of any histori . g 6 THE MECHANICAL TRIUMPHS OF

Empire, although art and taste degenerated , mechanical sciences still flouri shed ; according Lanciani to Professor , the bronze statue of N ero,

100 1 2 1 A. D . over feet high , was moved in by the architect De me trian us from the site of the golden house of Nero in Rome to a spot near the

00 . Coliseum , a distance of 4 feet The displace ' ment was e fle cte d with the help of twenty - four all elephants , the statue remaining the while upright and suspended from the movable ” c ff in s a olding. There is now the Colonna a Gardens in Rome , stone weighing twenty

seven tons, which formed part of the coping on

top of the wall of the Temple of the Sun , which

A. D was built by Aurelian on the Quirinal H ill , . 2 I 70. This stone was 5 0 feet above the Quirinal 2 0 on one side , and 4 feet above the Campus

Martius on the other side , which was a sheer

. Baalbe c precipice Aurelian had visited , an d from graffi tti found in the basement it is S Up ~ Baalbe c posed that he employed workmen.

But the dark ages of Europe, from the fifth to the ninth century not only ceased all such under takings , but they extinguished the knowledge of how they were accomplished . Of all the obelisks erected in Rome, the only one that remained standing was that of Caligula, which had been brought from Egypt in the first A D century . . and erected in his circus, and it is THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS . astonishing to read that though various Popes had wished for hundreds of years to remove it f ’ to its present site in ront of St . Peter s , no i 1 8 engineer was found competent unt l in 5 5 , f when Pope Sextus V . succeeded a ter public competition in securing the services of Fontana, who successfully carried out the project in a f manner to be described later on . Su fice it to say at this point that he had unlimited command

of men and money , the right to clear away all interfering buildings , and no one was allowed to a enter the inclosure under pen lty of death . Two ’ n masses were held in St . Peter s to implore divi e s as istance, and just before the operation com me nce d , the whole vast assembled multitude

knelt in prayer . The pretty little anecdote about the hardy sailor calling out at a critical juncture ” to wet the ropes , and thus saving the situation ,

is told in connection with this enterprise , and there is a family named Bresca in Bordighera who have ever since retained the privilege of ’ supplying palm branches to St . Peter s on Palm Sunday in consequence of it ; but the same story ’ is told about the cross on St . Isaac s , and about

the statue of Peter the Great in St . Petersburg, al and so about the raising of the obelisk in Paris , and it seems hardly possible that there could be

truth in any of them . de rtakin s How , then , were such gigantic un g 8 THE MECHANICAL TRIUMPHS OF

carried out by the ancient Egypti ans who origin ? a ated them Obviously , from wh t has been stated about there being no loss of continuity ae f from Cheops to C sar, the natural in erence is that approximately the same methods were al in s in ways use . These methods consi ted various

applications of the simple mechanical powers ,

» the lever, the wheel and axle, the pulley, the in h cline d an d t e . plane , the wedge screw Besides n these the Romans knew of the power of torsio ,

or twisted rope, of shrinkage from wetting and t the of the elastici y of springs , and possibly of

hydraulic press . They knew practically nothing e of steam , although its expansive power had be n

discovered , or of electricity , though some of its

properties were understood . Their source of

power was always either men or animals , and it should be noted here as a fact to be referred to e lat r on , that with such power the apparatus for applying it always increases in complexity as the a amount of avail ble power diminishes . c To tra e the origin , invention , or first use of the simple mechanical powers is a most unsatis a s f ctory undertaking. The art of war have of found many historians , but the arts peace have had very few, and in Roman times it is mostly by the study of the former that one arrives ci at the latter . Vitruvius , the only an ent writer on architecture whose works have come down and in his time the library was the lar gest in the world ; it was transferred to Alexandria by

B . C. 0 Ptolemy Soter, 3 5 . and from that day the

. m r university declined Ptolemy, hi self a G eek , encouraged the immigration which had com me nce d under Psamtik three hundred years i before , and there arose that constant and fam il ar intercourse which led a celebrated writer to say “ i r C that the Egypt ans originated , G eeks op ied, s an d eized on a beauty wherever they found it , ” made it their own by improving it. Ptolemy invited Euclid to found the school of mathe

atics Archimide s D. C. 2 8 m , and , born 7 , came to m w a th is school when a young an. H e s the greatest mathematician and the most inventive

genius of antiquity , to him are credited the r discovery of the endless screw , the hollow sc ew in which water is drawn up and which he u sed for di scharging the bilge water from the hold had of a ship that H iero , king of Syracuse, u e built, and which he is also said to have s d in a journey made in Egypt to dry the lands c e s inundated by the N ile Pulleys and ta kl , him cog wheels and racks are also ascribed to , and it was with a tackle and capstan that h e surprised king H iero by hauling a ship out of his the water and up the beach . I n book vii ” I On Bodies Floating n Liquids , he for the first 1 1 THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS . time enunciates the principle of the hydraulic

press or jack , each particle of a fluid mass when in equilibrium is equally pressed in every “ r . di ection Larousse , in his Grand Dictionnaire ” U niversel , well says that it is very likely that at this celebrated school of Alexandria he made ” himself acquainted with all anterior discoveries . the can Probably same thing be said of Hero ,

c B . C 1 0 the dis overer of the steam engine, . 3 , Cte sibus and , the inventor of the force pump,

B . C . 1 20 . l Ptolemy Phi adelphus, who succeeded Ptolemy Archimide s Soter and was contemporary with , is described by Josephus and others as being very fond of the mechanical sciences he erected m the fa ous Pharos or lighthouse at Alexandria, 400 feet high he re - opened the canal between

the Red Sea and the Nile , and he removed

- and re erected obelisks . It is extremely probable that the fundamental principles of all the so called inventions of Archimedes and other Greeks had already been discovered by the Egyptians ; but they had never been developed

beyond a point adapted to their simple wants,

as will be shown later. That the Egyptians were acquainted with the

principle of the lever is beyond a doubt . The weighing of the heart (fig. as described in n the Book of the Dead , a work already ancie t 1 2 THE MECHANICAL TRIUMPHS OF in the time of Menes . the first recorded king,

D. C . 00 44 , shows a lever of the first order , where the fulcrum is between the power and the weight . A common shadoof (fig . which is conceded by all writers to be pre - historic in its origin , is another example . That the Egyptians had a knowledge of the wheel and axle is also r plain . The sac ed beetle with his ball of earth

W G . THE I OF THE FI . I EIGH NG HEART. B ook ofth D d e e a . embodies suffi cient idea of rotary motion in su general , and Babylonian or cylinder seals, ch an as were found in the tomb of Menes , are

example of actual wheels . A vase of obsidian evidently turned in a lathe was found at the ’ same time. Water wheels and the potter s o wheel were always in use, and the empl yment of logs of wood for rollers hardly requires de

monstration . A large wooden wheel was found

1 TH E ANCIENT EGYPTIANS . 3

Nav ille i e l by M . at De r Bahri in a tomb of the

. B C . 2 00 XI Dyn . , . 5 , and in the museum at Cairo is a beautiful golden model of the bark of b r in a fi ur A h s e a e a me B . C . 1 6 the dead, g g of , 00 it is mounted on wheels three inches in diameter. Tomb paintings Copied by Ame line au of the same date show the manufacture of chariot

B . C . 1 600 at wheels , and the tomb of Pahu , , El

Kab shows a car on wheels . When we arrive at the Rame side dynasty two hundred years later, one sees innumerable sculptures of war chariots , and they were , according to Ebers, largely exported from Egypt at that time ; but the most in teresting specimen is the one now th us actually in e m e umof Florence , which was f ‘ found in a tomb fat - Thebes of the date of s 1 400 B . C . and is aid to be Scythian and to have been captured in the north by some Egyptian warrior : but its wheels are exactly like those shown by Ame lin e au in process of ma nufacture in Egypt over two hundred years before . The lightness of this vehicle is some thing extraordinary , far exceeding that of an American trotting sulky there is not a particle a of metal bout it , nothing but ash and leather, and yet this specimen must have been in actual use . Although it is under glass in the museum at Florence it is now being injured by worms . 1 4 THE MECHANICAL TRIUMPHS OF

i h s d il sa u . u o W The qq e (fig is pp m by kinson and most other writers to have been introduced into Egypt at the time of the Persian

B . C . 2 : Violle t le invasion , 5 7 but Duc, one of the most noted architects of the nineteenth ce n tury and the most painstaking historian of " o f architecture , says , in his Habitations M an , that the saqquie h was co mmon in Egypt in the

first three dynasties . I t is a most important sa uie h point, for the qq contains the principle of the capstan and the windlass . That the ancient Egyptians had a knowledge of the pulley is a much debated point , most write rs inclining to the Opinion that they had

' not There is a pulley supposed to have be e n for a well rope in the museum of Leyden , but its date is unknown ; and there is also a small wheel used as a reel for thread and inscribed D . n. with the name of a king of the XVI I I y , i 1 6 . B C . 00 . I n the museum at Ca ro there are 8 several specimens , a wooden cylinder in . long a by 5 in . diameter, with hole for an axle and a 2 small wooden block 3 in . by in . with a wheel r in one end, what sailors call a tail block, as the e is a hole at the end Opposite the wheel for a can a rope tail by which it be m de fast . Ther e

o 10 . is also a st ne wheel in in diameter and 3 in . i c thick , with a deep score in the c rcumferen e and a hole in the centre . They are all supposed

THE E 1 ANCI NT EGYPTIANS . 5

n n to be a cient, but unfortu ately no definite dates are known . is f I t , however, not di ficult to prove , in a manner I believe hitherto unattempted , that l had ul they not on y p leys, but exactly how far they were advanced in the use of tackles for ’ multiplying power . I n Queen Hatasoo s Ex ”

di B C . 1 6 e tion . 00 p to Punt, about , the boats e l represented on the walls of Deir Bahri (figs . d . an 0 iv must have been about 9 feet long, with one hoisting yard about 80 feet long and a 2 square sail about 5 feet high . This yard made of pine or cedar would weigh at least lbs . ,

i . and the sa l , made of No 5 cotton canvas , suit u i 0 able for boat sails; wo ld we gh 3 0 lbs . The

i 00 . gear would we gh at least 3 lbs , making a a total of lbs . I t will be observed th t the crew of this boat consists of fifteen men on each and side , besides a few sailors for going aloft , it will also be seen that the halliards consist of two heavy single ropes each separately made fast to the yard by a Clove hitch . These halliards lead up fro m the yard through a cage on top of

the mast, then down aft and disappear below

the rail of the boat undoubtedly, however , the end of each goes forward on its own side of the boat, passing by the men at the oars on that side so that they can haul on it when required i without leaving the r stations . Now the utmost 1 6 THE MECHANICAL TRIUMPHS OF power that a man can exert when pulling in

100 . r that fashion is lbs , and that only for a sho t time . U nless , then , there were large , well greased pulleys both in the stern of the boat c and in the cage at the masthead , the sail ould u not have been hoisted at all . Even with p lleys t ’ the loss by fric ion , according to the sailor s

- the e thumb rule , is one sixth of power exert d for every change of direction , and here there C are two hanges of direction , one at the stern and one at the masthead . The total power exerted by the men is lbs . , the loss by

i 1 000 1bs. frict on about , , and the weight to be lifted lbs . If instead of being hitched to the yard the halliards were hitched to the mast head and rove through a pulley on the yard and n a the back through pulley at the masthead , it would have made the work of the cr ew o n e v half l as great, but the time of hoisting the sai twice as long . Either the Egyptians did not know this or they did not care to save their men , for surely a royal fleet would have been supplied S with the latest appliances of eamanship . Ah other proof of the knowledge of single pulleys is to be found in the lead of the numerous lifts which support the lower yards . They appear che e kblocks an to pass through on the mast, d nearly the same thing is to be seen in a Burmese f boat of the present day, though here the li ts rrw : N P373" l

g u M N y o ‘ “ m nu you“ . 1 THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS . 7 l applied to the upper yard , because the sai hauls out instead of hoists . The Burmese boat presents a still older feature of Egyptian naval architecture in the double mast , such as is seen

o n . B C . the boat in the tomb of Ti in the V . Dyn , . 2 E tizin 3 5 3 . I n Siam the gyp double steering oar is still in use , and is hung to the boat in the same way . The inclined plane is of all the mechanical powers the one rightly supposed to have been most used by the ancient Egyptians . H erodotus and Diodo rus speak of it . in connection with n the the buildi g of pyramid of Cheops , and the remains of two are to be seen at Gizeh . The . unfinished pylons of the great temple of Karnak

m D . C. 00 date from the Ptole ies , 3 , and there are the remains of inclined planes still against them h which may ave been the original ones . I n ff deed, the Nile mud a ords so convenient a substance for constructing inclined planes of sun - dried bricks that an engineer of the present day would probably build a pylon at Thebes in ff the same way , instead of using sca olding and un cranes , provided that his human labour was limited in quantity . Lumber was always scarce in Egypt the cedar, pine , and other light woods were brought from Syria and wer e not of large h dimensions , as shown by the fis ed yards of ’ Queen Hatasoo s boats ; the acacia and syca C 1 8 THE MECHANICAL TRIUMPHS OF

more came from Ethiopia . Heavy timber was i probably extremely expens ve, and could only

be afforded by royalty . The use of the wedge

is but another application of the inclined plane, and was undoubtedly as well known to the

ancient Egyptians as to ourselves . The use of the screw is more difficult to trace

than any other of the mechanical powers . We find among the tomb paintings excellent ex amples of the use of the brace and bit and the whip drill for boring holes ; but it does not h follow that the bit was of the s ape of a screw,

for a spoon drill might have been used . Cer tainly no large screws have been foun d but as it is the simplest instrument for converting a i motion of rotat on into a motion of translation , it is strange if such a mechanical people did not

. c r know of it They were ex ellent rope make s , and this manufacture itself might almost have suggested it . Vitruvius speaks of screw oil presses being in use by the Greeks and Romans , and the Egyptians were large consumers of olive oil. They were also acquainted with the effects of n i as torsio . or twist ng, shown in some of the i i tomb paint ngs of wine mak ng, and in Queen ’ d s . . an Hatasoo boats (figs iv v . ) can be seen many rope loops with sticks thrust in them and twisted opposite ways ; as fine examples of a

- 1 THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS. 9

Spanish W indlass as any seaman of to - day l cou d make , and it might be added that there are many other wrinkles of seamanship shown a r in these bo ts , such as g ommets , half hitches ,

r e tC . ound turns , furling lines , selvagees , , which

gi ve an added meaning to the time - worn saying and that there is nothing new under the sun , in the 99th chapter of the ritual translated by a Wilkinson from Lepsius, the halli rds are called ’ ” S et tut, which bears a strange resemblance to ” t e our term set taut, h order given preliminary

' i to hoisting a sa l. Regarding the Egyptian knowledge of hy d raulics h drostatics w e ca n and y , only infer that it n was extensive e ough tomeet their requirements . u They were a nation of sailors and agric lturists , a nd as the life of the nation depended upon the N ile , such problems must have been continually

- presented to them . One can see to day the water the screw used in lower N ile , where the banks tfibut are low, and also the , a kind of wheel k with hollow felloes , the shadoof where the ban s are sa uie h higher, and the qq where they are l sti l higher, and in the Fayum great automatic a 0 undershot w terwheels, 3 feet in diameter, with in pottery buckets , which Mr . J ohn Ward in his “ ” te re stin g Pyramids and Progress , says are

- . E R . deemed by Major Brown , , Director General of I rrigation , so much more economical for the 20 THE MECHANI CAL TRIUMPHS OF

t purpose than any modern substitute, hat they are being repaired instead of replaced . The c same wheels are found in China. I nasmu h as all writers agree that the maximum of Egyptian z in civili ation was found the time of M enes , where history commences, it certainly seems h plausible, as M . With says in his istory of the mechanical powers , that Archimedes found the w ater screw already in existence. We have tomb pictures of the siphon and bellows with ’ Ct sibus B C . e valves . , and in day there “ were valves in the buckets of improved saq q uie hs possibly the force pump idea came from

t . there, as others have sugges ed Mechanically speaking the Greeks discovered the Egyptians just as the J esuits discovered the

Chinese three hundred years ago . I n both cases there was found the same rudimentary know of ledge all the sciences, arts , and professions, but the development of none , and in both cases a there was the same c use , the density of the

u . a pop lation I n China, as Williams s ys, there " are a million people for every day of the year, and they are all crowded to the coasts an d

river valleys . I n ancient Egypt there were people crowded into a space of only 1 n square miles , thus giving a de sity of 6 l u 95 per square mile . Be gium , the most pop lous country in Europe and the nearest to an cient I 2 1 THE ANC ENT EGYPTIANS .

a 1 Egypt in size , has in a sp ce of 6 square miles, giving a density of 5 3 per square i m le . According to both Buckle and Malthus , there was never such a country as ancient Egypt i for producing populat on . There were unlimited a the d tes and durrah for food , and climate, by its heat, both diminished the appetite and rend ered clothing unnecessary . According to Dio

0 B . C dorus , who visited Egypt about 5 it did — not cost more than twenty drachmas about — three dollars and a quarter to bring up a Child to manhood . There were few foreign wars in ancient days , and beyond an occasional famine ther e was nothing whatever to check the in a a crease of popul tion . The result of such

a far situ tion , so as concerns the mechanical n scie ces , is invariably to stifle them altogether or to divert them from their original purpose of economizing human labour into a means for a employing it . Chin boasts a Civilization as old as that of Egypt, and yet the Chinese never advanced beyond the single pulley any more than was apparen tly the case with the Egyp tians . They had also a rude windlass , because there ar e some situations where human power takes up too much space if attached to a rope E n m probably the gyp tio s had the sa e . Now the Chinese are an extremely ingenious and in ve ntiv e m n people , and have a y other traits in 2 2 THE MECHANICAL TRIUMPHS OF

n common with the ancient Egyptians , includi g

a dislike of foreigners , for the Greeks were bit te rly detested for ages after they were allowed d to enter Egypt , and were for centuries confine , N a i n ukrat s. as a trading community , to Patie t r e and persevering to the last deg ee , the Chines have a genius for simplicity in mechanical de vices which enables them to produce results requiring much more complicated appliances i n

other countries . It has never been the ambi tion of the rulers of China to create gigantic a person l monuments , as was the case in Egypt but in whatever they have attempted they hav e a succeeded . The Great W ll was built by Tsin

- Hwan i t B . C . 2 0 chi g ; it was finished 4 , having a w as 1 00 been ten ye rs in building. I t , 5 miles a long, and , ccording to Williams , would stretch

from Philadelphia to Topeka , or from Portugal to Naples . In its main portion it is 30 to 40 e 2 c fe t high and 5 feet thick , built of many thi k and nesses of brick , with towers at intervals, l l fi led in with rubble. The bricks are 5i x 7} 6 0 . x 35 inches, and weigh about lbs each . Nearly the whole of the wall passes through a in ou ntaino us country , one peak which it sur u mo nts being over feet high , and at Shan

i- se a q uan , where it comes down to the , the H3 a are so precipitous, th t the legends of tative s assert that the bricks were ca rried THE 3 ANCIENT EGYPTIANS . 3 u p one at a time on the backs of goats . All w Pum e lle as riters, except p y , speak of this wall a military absurdity and a monument of labori ous folly ; but its object was to keep out the

Tartars , and I was struck , when I was there , with the fact that even to this day the natives outside the wall at Shan - hai - quan go well armed while those inside the wall carry no arms what ever. The Grand Canal and the old high road from Pekin to Canton , over miles long, a re other examples of enormous expenditure of a human labour, and Pol m bridge on the old hi gh road, about forty miles from Amoy, is tr uly Egyptian in the simplicity and massive

n ess of its conception . Several of the stones o f which it is composed measure 7 8 feet long

1 0 . by 5 feet square , and weigh 4 tons each They must have been gotten into position by the simple mechanical appliances which we a know the Chinese to have possessed , ided r l p obably by the tide . At the great hal of

the Ming tombs , near Pekin , the roof is sup 2 o f 2 ported by 3 columns teak , each one 3 1 2 feet long and over feet in circumference . 1 They weigh 5 tons each , and must have been brought over miles by sea and 30 by all a land, or possibly the way by land, for Si m

- is the nearest teak growing country. Other ex

amples might be cited , and it can also be said 2 4 THE M ECHANICAL TRIUMPHS OF

that even to - day Chinese engineers will sto breach in the bank of a flooding river that w o

defy any engineer in Europe . Huge

made of millet stalks , bamboo rope a b skets , and myriads of workmen, properly

r n i . di ected , co stitute the entire equ pment It di was these myriads of workmen , properly re cte d n , that e abled the ancient Egyptians to accomplish their great works with the simplest of c mechani al applianc es . The government was a despotism , where the rich were very rich and the poor very poor, and the labour market was

flooded . This threw all the labour of the country into the hands of the few, who had education enough to guide it , and whatever may be said of the grinding misery of the people ne ce s~ under the early Pharaohs , it was probably sary to keep them fed and employed , either to prevent starvation or idleness, which is sure to as a breed mutiny, every ship capt in knows, and a Pliny says the Egypti ns were lazy . When the N ile was in flood there must have bee n a vast f t unemployed population , and Pro essor Pe rie thinks that it was at this season only that the

work on the pyramids was performed . The i a an d question of m sery also is rel tive , depends

upon the point of view. We look upon every

man as a reasoning being with a soul , but in

the Orient a coolie has no soul , and his life

C HA PTE R II .

TH E PY RAMI DS .

ACCO RDING to Maspero the co nstruction of pyramids was a common state affair from the d . B .C. e n beginning of the I V . Dyn , 37 3 3 , to the

. B . C 2 200 of the X I V Dyn . , about . , and of the sixty or seventy which still exist , the three at t Gizeh are the most notable . They are situa ed seven miles from Old Cairo upon a rocky plateau 1 about 00 feet high (figs . vi . and vii . ) at the e dge of the Great Sahara Desert and overlooking the a and i v lley of the Nile , they all contain var ous passages and chambers that are connected of with the outside by a tunnel , the mouth which was closed by a stone undistinguishable

from the rest of the surface . The investiga on tions of Professor Petrie , the latest authority m 1 880 pyra ids, , seem to show that the closing o so stone w rked on a horizontal hinge of stone, that the tunnel was at all times accessible to the

priests . The principal pyramid at Gizeh is

B C . ut that of Cheops , . . 37 33 It is located abo f one thousand eet from the edge of the plateau, an d a n e , ccordi g to Professor Petrie , it was open d

2 8 THE MECHANICAL TRIUMPHS OF

B . 1 B . C. 2 during the civil wars from C. 3 00 to 5 00 ; it was again opened by the Persians between

and D. 00 600 C . 5 , and probably also by the

Romans . All of these people seem to have an known of the entrance , for no writer makes y mention of its being concealed but at the time A D 8 1 8 of the Khalif Mamoun , . . 3 to 33 , this

knowledge had disappeared, and he quarried a tunnel into the middle of the north side a few

feet above the ground . After penetrating some 100 feet his engineers cut into the original n tunnel , whose mouth bei g traced back was found to be 2 3 feet on one side of the spot the

Khalif had naturally selected for tunnelling. Since that time the entrance has never been c closed . This pyramid is onsidered by every authority to be the greates t monument in the o and a w rld , the fact that it is lso the oldest c monument, ex epting possibly the step pyra S a uara an mid at qq , lends additional interest to any investigation as to the methods by which was n it co structed . I t is difficult in the first place for the mind to grasp the amount of human labour that is concentrated in this one a spot, and perhaps an bundance of detail may i assist in th s respect. We know from Professor Petrie that it is nearly 7 5 6 feet square and 45 1 i i 8 1 h feet high , and that or g nally it was 4 feet igh . It is composed of 206 courses of lime stone

2 THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS . 9 that vary irregularly from 4 feet 10 inches to 2 2 feet inches in height, and the blocks of stone in the mass vary in weight from two to i n s xty tons, the largest bei g the ones that cover ’ the king s chamber. The entire pyramid was originally covere d with a smooth stone casing such as can still be seen at the top of the second

pyramid . Several blocks of it remain in s place at the ba e , and they weigh about sixteen

tons each . The pyramid covered thirteen and a a half acres of ground , which is more th n six Lon don blocks and more than the whole of ’

- Lincoln s I nn Fields , and contained eighty nine

‘ i t ‘ a m llion cubic fee of stone, which if dr wn out in a line a foot square would reach two thirds

round the earth . I t is nearly three times as ’ ‘ ahd large as St. Peter s at Rome , fifty feet higher I but, as M iss Edwards says , there s nothing which gives one so impressive an idea of its size as to watch its mighty shadow creeping across the

N ile valley when the sun is setting behind it . “ Buckle , in his H istory of Civilization says B Di d 0 . C . o orus that Herodotus in 45 , and in

50 D. C . were the only two ancient historians who actually visited Egypt : the former obtain ing his information from the priests at H elio

polis and the latter from the priests at Thebes . a a Buckle thinks Herodotus the most ccur te . e m o e d According to him , men were wy 30 THE MECHAN ICAL TRIUMPHS OF for twenty years in building the pyramid of Diodorus Cheops, and according to , men were employed for the same length of time. ’ a mi T king Herodotus figures, and assu ng that m they did no night work , the actual working ti e becomes ten years of continuous and labour, calculating according to

- tables, five men to one horse power, we have a f w Ould orce of horse power, which be suffi cient to drive a ton steamer at the rate of 2 0 knots per hour seventy times round

. h the world in that time Supposing, lastly, t at a the pyr mid could be made to slide on its base, it would require men to drag it

“ Maspero well says of this pyramid, We may 200 touch hundreds of courses of blocks, cubic r feet in size, and thousands of othe s scarcely less in bulk, and we are at a loss to know what force r has moved , transported and raised so g eat a number of colossal stones what machine ry i to they had , and in proportion to our inab lity answer these questions we increasingly admire the power which regarded such obstacles as ” ArC ih trifle s. And Ferguson in his history of h tecture thus sums up : No one can possibly examine the interior of the Great Pyramid without being struck with astonishment at the wonderful mechanical skill displayed in its

3 : THE MECHANICAL TRIUMPHS or metry and harmony of their lines and the i r t perfect simplicity and freedom from ornamen . they convey to the beholder a sense of grande ur n and majesty, they produce within him a feeli g e of astonishment and awe, such as is scarc ly ” caused by any other of the erections of man . The full object of the construction of the e r pyramid of Cheops will never be known . Aft o the years of discussion of this curious t pic , scientific world has reached the conclusion that pyramids were tombs and nothing but tombs : at the same time , however, the extraordinary m athematical properties of this one (whatever we may think of their peculiar application by a Pi zzi Smyth , M enzies , and others in order to demonstrate the obsc urities ofthe Bible) certainly impresses one with the idea th at this pyramid at least was more than a tomb . The fact that a th it is in latitude that it f ces exactly e , to true north , and its entrance tunnel points ° the North Pole ; that its angle of 5 2 it to become an exact integral part of we solid contents of the earth that it expr the relation between the diameter and r ference of a ci cle, the relation between s a the side and hypotenu e of a right tri ngle, distance of the earth from the sun the nature of h t the orbit of the eart round the sun , and he proportion of that revolution to that of the I THE ANC ENT EGYPTIANS . 3 3

‘ l OIIIId its i own ax s , the length of that axis, etc ate . Surely all these cannot be the purely acci d n f e tal accompaniments o the tomb of a tyrant. W n he one considers , too , the inexplicable and W exact arrangement of the various Chambers a nd l ga leries , and that there is room for I m ore such chambers , provided we could find t m hem , we can al ost be tempted to believe that W e have not yet discovered all the Chambers or e C a ven the true h mber of Cheops, for Herodotus s ays that before the pyramid was built a channel w as cut from the Nile and an island made under n eath the foundation , and that this island con

tai ns the tomb of the king . This chamber must be at least 50 feet underneath the lowest chamber e t y discovered , and not necessarily directly below

that one , as Colonel Vyse seemed to have thought

when he sunk a pit there . I t might lie under

any part of the structure , for investigation in all pyramids has demonstrated the fact that the original architects expended a vast amount of ingenuity in creating false chambers and

passages, for no other purpose apparently than to deceive and delay as long as possible the r future rifle of the tomb . I n the construction of the Great Pyramid the ' n highest type of the maso s art is shown . The bulk of the stones are squared and rough

finished , and united by a mortar apparently D 3 4 THE MECHANICAL TRIUMPHS OF

c s composed of sand , lime and ru hed red pottery, as it has a slightly pinkish color ; but the gran ite slabs which line the chambers and galleries are united with the utmost nicety without cement. The exterior coating exhibited the same ex

uisite a - e l- q accur cy, and Abd Lateef, thirteenth

r A . D centu y, . , says that the blocks were adjusted with a nicety so precise that “ not even a hair or a needle can be inserted between any two of ” them . Professor Petrie confirms this state

ment, and says in addition that the joints which he found between the casing blocks remaining at the foot of the pyramid were not only almost ” invisible but they were cemented . Herodotus tells a curious story about the outside of the

pyramid, showing an inscription stating the t amount of money hat was expended , n in radishes, onions and garlic for the workme .

These so - called inscriptions may have been of c rafliti the a religious haracter or merely g , scrawl and are ings of workmen travellers, such as to

be found on all the other monumen ts of Egypt .

There is little doubt, however, that something s t a was there, for Professor Budge state h t “ a Balde nse l f Willi m of , who lived in the our te e n th l n century , tel s us that the outer coati g of the two largest pyramids was covered with a i ” great many inscript ons arranged in lines.

Possibly, as Miss Edwards suggests , when the THE ANCIENT EGYPTIAN S . 35 future archa o logist shall investigate the ruins of

Cairo , he will find many of the stones of the palaces to have pyramid hieroglyphics on the r ma l a . inside su face, and these y then be trans ted The limestone of the pyramid came partly from the plateau upon which it is located and partly from the quarries of Masara and Tfi ra in the Mokattam hills on the opposite side of the N ile and about twelve miles distant in a

- i south east d rection . The two quarries are very near together and in ancient times the rock must have had a perpendicular face ; this being cut away, tunnels were run into the hills and the rock worked out from there . The remains of an inclined plan e can still be seen leading to the river less than half a mile away, and the deep scores in the road show where the runners

s . of the sledges have pas ed These sledges, or similar ones, which are to be seen in the Gizeh museum , show the crudest form of workmanship ; but it was ample for the purpose intended . I n one of the quarries at Masara is a representation

. i of a block of stone drawn by six oxen (fig vii ) , with an i nscription showing that this was one of he Aahme t methods employed in the time of s I .

B . 1 6 C . 00 . XVI I I . Dyn . , Professor Petrie found the same picture among the broken stone of

Illahun . . pyramid of the time of the XI I Dyn ,

6 . a B . 2 6 t C . 4 This shows a continuity of pr c ice 36 THE MECHANIC AL TRIUMPHS OF of 800 years which is quite acter. From this Masara p have inferred that this was the method adopted f by the pyramid builder years be ore. It may have been one of the methods , but in that day of teeming population it was probably too expensive to have been the usual one . The block shown on this ox sledge is apparently a huge one bei ng 8 feet long and 4 feet high but it must be a very thin one or six oxen could not a f 600 . c o draw it . A lb ox can only exert for e

G . . ON X G FI VIII STONE O SLED E.

1 50 lbs . at the rate of a mile and a half an hour

u 00 . for eight ho rs, or 9 lbs for the six oxen . The weight that can be thus pulled under ordinary circumstances is about five times the S tractive power, as will be hown later, and this

limits the block to a weight of lbs. Estimating Egyptian limestone to weigh 1 66

. can lbs per cubic foot, we find that the block 1 only be 0 inches thick . It is standing on its s edge, and judging from the width of the sledge in the Gizeh museum this must have been usually

the case . The stones on top of the pyramid THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS . 3 7

2 average roughly 4 x 3 x feet , they would weigh a ut r - fifths bo fou as much as this one , and prob ably there are few others in the pyramid so

small . Man power would be cheaper than oxen ’ for a twenty years contract in hauling such

stones . Why, said an old mandarin to a mission n ary in the i terior of China , should we employ an 0x (water buffalo) when five men can live on the same amoun t of food ? the ox can only work in o n e place while the men can work in five , and he

c annot live nearly so long as a man . When al draught anim s and men live on the same food , as is the case in China and was the case in A ncient Egypt, the problem of the relative value o fman power and animal power is reduced to its

s implest equation . Between the pyramid and the Nile was another inclin ed plane whose remains can yet be seen

( fig. vi . ) I t is thus described by Herodotus The time during which the people were thus harassed by toil lasted ten years on the road which

they constructed , along which they drew the t s ones , a work in my opinion not much less than —a the pyramid , for its length is five stades bout — or ae —60 feet , and its width ten gy feet, i o r m and its he ght , where it is the highest , eight gy

- 8 4 feet, and it is of polished stone with figures ” ’ carved on it. It is evident that Cheops engineer thoroughly understood the advantages of a good 38 THE MECHANICAL TRIUM PHS OF road bed in its relation to facility of transport, a i matter of extreme importance , for one thingwh ch causes the works of the ancient Egyptians to r m appear so inc edible , is that we now see the all over Egy pt surrounded by mountain s of sand or seas of mud, with scarcely a vestige of a road

S . anywhere . From an inquiry made by the U . 1 8 Dept . of Agriculture in 95 , the fact was de f l d S . tran s rto ve ope that in the U . the cost of po one ton of farm produce over wagon roads , was 2 c s 5 cents per mile, while the average o t in 8 6 ff Europe was cents , the di erence being mainly due to the quality of the roads, the Euro pean farmer being able to haul th ree or four tons

U . S . at a load, while farmers were only able to haul a ton or less than a ton . With a solid stone road bed such as the Egyptians had , they would r is not have wasted their man power, and the e an additional advantage in a solid stone road bed where sleds are used in the fact that grease, liberally applied, diminishes the traction very xvi much by reducing the friction . Fig. , which i w ll be discussed later on , represents the only picture that has come down to us from the ancient Egyptians themselves as showing their method

of transport of a colossus . A man can be seen

there pouring oil on the road bed . I n many

- other tomb pictures also, one sees life sized n statues of the deceased being draw on sleds.

40 THE which he g had been cut through at th and the incline continued

feet distant, such a remained to this day , but

M . Ameline au saysthat the at the end of the eighteenth ruins of the one leading to the still visible (fig. vi . ) It illus ality of human labour in that day to t i all three pyramids must have been bui 100 had wri years, and that each its o causeway for transporting the materia n an inclined plane — feet lo g , and - wOuld n high , the incline only have bee 2 e at 5 , a very easy grade indeed on a gr w nd is to H cause ay, a the next point much human power was necessary to ha over it . Various experi ments have been I different coun tries in regard to man po

‘ it is found that he can exert a force vs 1 a the way from 5 0 lbs . down to nothing to the position which he is compelle d tc

H arnessed in traces like a horse , he c fo r a few momen ts a force of 7 5 to pose n lbs . , but he ca not keep it up , and the he commences to move the rate falls

1 THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS. 4

’ i Masche t s i A ccord ng to tables , for steady pull ng a t the rate of 13 mile per hour for 8 hours per

d a as 0 . y , it falls as low 3 lbs Though the Egyptians were a light built people they worked u r nder the lash like o dinary cattle, andatleast this a mount of force must have been obtained fr om e man ach , though probably not more, for it must have been to the interest of their task masters to have worked them regularly each day and to have kept them in fair physical condition . Thirty pounds per man therefore is a reasonable esti ow e r ne ce ssar mate . For the amount of p y to drag le a body on a crad .along greased ways , it v found by M . Le Bas the eminent French Na al Constructor who brought the Paris obelisk from

1 8 2 a a s ! Luxor in 3 , th t n e timate of to gof the . total weight ofthe object w asample for all grades up to 1 foot in 10 . We can assume then that is i a fair proportion . Applying these conditions 60 to the heaviest stone in the pyramid, tons, and we have a force of 1 2 tons actually to be applied to drag it to the pyramid plateau , a force 00 e represented by about 9 men . Harn ssed in double rank on four draft ropes , they would cover a space on the causeway about 2 2 5 feet long by 1 6 wide, a very manageable and compact force, the 2 6 stone itself being about 7 x x 45 feet, and ’ as s 60 i H erodotu road was feet w de , there was ample room for three such bodies at one time . 4 2 THE MECHANICAL TRIUMPHS OF

As will be see n later the Egyptians in the ti m e H D 1 ataso o . C . 600 of , , were capable of building barges or lighters for transporting two obelisks c at one time, even if pla ed end to end . Such u 2 0 lighters m st have been at least 5 feet long . ’ i Probably in Cheop s t me they could do the same, iz d an d if for civil ation ran backwar in Egypt , such were used for the ferry across the N ile , 6 00 about miles, the force of 9 men could have marched directly on board with their stone and off again without the necessity of any lifting machines for moving the stone from the land to c sa the boat and vi e ve r . As the ferry was down stream , the entire trip from the quarry to the pyramid could have been made in one day . The granite blocks in the pyramid were

brought from Assouan at the First Cataract . They are quarried there from boulders or from the face of the rock about a mile from the right i bank of the N le and only a few feet above it . I have never seen in Egypt any ancient pit quarries where machinery would have to be used

to hoist out the blocks . The transportation of these stones was effected by means of lighters n or rafts . Most writers i cline to the latter idea : but the Egyptians appear from tomb paintings to have been capable of constructing any kind

- - u of floats from dug out canoes to built p ships,

‘ 4is doubtful if rafts pure and simple have THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS . 43 sufficient buoyancy for the purpose. I n the

I . . D B n C . 2 V I y . , . 3 33 , U na, an engineer of Pepi , was sent to the quarries of Hatin ubu for an ' ofl rin alabaster table of e gs. According to

Wilkinson , he transported the huge stone to S a uara 60 0 i i qq on a raft x 3 cubits , wh ch be bu lt in seventeen days . The time here shows that it could not have been a lighter ; but the royal 20 cubit being equal to 7 inches , this raft would ha 1 0 x 2 ve measured 4 5 feet, and if made of

1 2 m - inch locust logs , the co mon ship building i t mber of Egypt, would have had a carrying

c 2 . apacity of only 7 tons It must, therefore, have b een supported by boats to give it greater b uoyancy, or in other words it was a floating b ridge or pontoon . It might also have gained additional buoyancy from inverted earthenware vessels such as were common twenty years ago i n Egypt, where they were brought to market at

Alexandria in this manner . Rafts of this kind are common on the Ganges in I ndia and Yangtse hi in C na, on the latter river the earthenware vessels are as large as hogsheads . On the coast of Brazil north of Pernambuco all the navigation between ship and shore is performed by means of au ada rafts made of J g wood , which is almost as i light as cork, yet very few tons of dead we ght can be carried . On the north coast of Celebes in i off the Dutch East Ind es , ebony is brought on 44 THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS .

fe w be huge rafts of light wood , but blocks can e carried at once , and the rafts are under wat r con nearly all the time . Stone represents such a ce ntrate d w e n eight, that lighters must have be more in use by the ancient Egyptians than rafts .

46 THE MECHANICAL TRIUMPHS OF ready on the first range : and from this it was drawn to the second range on another machine : for the machines were equal in number to the a r nges of steps or they removed the machine, which was only one , and portable, to each range i in succession , whenever they wished to ra se the stone higher : for I should relate it in both ways , as it is related . The highest parts of it, a therefore, were first finished and fterwards they completed the parts next following : but a last of all they finished the p rts on the ground , Di d and that were lowest . o orus says The stone is said to have been brought from Arabia (the east side o f the Nile was in ancient days called the Arabian shore) a considerable dis tance and the building made by means of mounds (inclined planes) machines not having ” yet been invented . He then goes on to wonder what had become of these mounds. The Egyptians told him that they were com posed of nitre an d salt and dissolved by water when no longer required : but Diodorus does not “ believe this, and concludes that The same number of hands that raised the mounds re moved the whole to the original place whence ” they were brought . Wilkinson , who has written the most comprehensive existing work on the a n m nners and customs of the ancie t Egyptians , 1 8 1 1 8 3 , and Colonel H oward Vyse , who, in 3 7 , THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS . 4 7 m ade the first accurate modern survey of the n pyramids , are both of the opi ion that the machine of Herodotus for raising the blocks ” w as similar to the Polyspaston described by

Vitruvius . Polyspaston , or many pulleys , is , ’ a i w ccord ng to Ne ton s translation , the term applied by Vitruvius to a species of two- legged

S heers supporting tackles . Newton supplies an i ’ illustration drawn from Vitruv us s description , which is accurate in principle ; but fig. x . is c the exa t representation , since it is from a sculpture on a tomb !probably that of an ar i B c h te ct . C . ] of the early Roman Empire , 44 2 to 9, and now in the Lateran M useum in far I a Rome . So as am aw re it is the oldest contemporary illustration of a combination of tackles in existence . I n support of his view Colonel Vyse says I n blocks of each course 8 and where visible , are holes inches in diameter a 4 inches deep, pparently to support the machinery described by Herodotus . I have never been able to find such holes but I have never had his opportunities for making a “ thorough search . H e also says : I n front of the northern face of Cheops are several rows of 4 or 5 feet apart of three or four circular ho les in 1 2 the level rock about inches in diameter, 8 10 c and to in hes deep, probably to support ” f in sheers or scaf olding for turn g the blocks . 48 THE MECHANICAL TRIUMPHS OF

u r Such holes are , of course , sually cove ed with sand . Professor Petrie ( 1 88 1 ) has another theory as follows It would be very feasible to employ the method of resting them (the t an d p c s ones) on two piles of wooden slabs , o k ing them up alternately to one side and the i h other by a spar under the block , thus he g ten

in ston . g the piles alternately, and so raising the e This would also agree with the mysteri o us de scription of a m achine made of short pi e ces of i wood ( Herodotus) , a descr ption of which it is ” ’ ffi r otherwise di cult to ealize . Murray s H and ” book ofEgypt speaks of this mode of construct ” tion as being the most probable. I n my opinion the methods described by Herodotus and Diodo rus are suffi cient to accoun t for the building of the main portion of the entire pyra r in mid, except the casing, without reso t g to so complicated a machine as that of Colonel Vyse or so primitive a device as that of Professor ’ Petrie . From H erodotus description one infers that the actual building of the pyramid itself, ff such as we see it now, did not o er any very extraordinary features ; it was the application of the casing alone that was a novelty and re h Diodorus m n quired mac inery . says in so a y words tha t the pyramid w as built by inclined l p anes, and that must have been the easiest way

n . a of doi g it I t is somewhat startling, perh ps , R U I S . ' T HE ME IT PO LYS PAS I ON O F TI V V U F IG . X .

THE I E T ANC N EGYPTIANS. 49 to contemplate the great pyramid from the n M e a house which lies to the north of it, and

think what an inclined plane, reaching to even a h lf the height, must have been but if one can ’ imagine one s self at the point of view of an ff Oriental despot the case would be di erent . Of the H indu temples in the district of Tan a j ore in Southern I ndia , the most import nt is the huge edifice dating from the fourteenth cen

t A . D . . ury, , in the city of Tanjore itself The central tower of this gre at zte mple is 2 08 feet

6 s uare ata th high and 9 feet q e base. The huge ‘ to circular dome at the p is a granite monolith , and from personal obsmzvatio n l should say that it weighs more than the largest stone in the

pyramid of Cheops . According to Mr . W . S . n on Caine , a most interesti g and reliable writer “ a I ndi n travel , a local tradition says that

inclined plane of five miles in length was built, up which this enormous stone was rolled to the ” top of the tower, by forced labour. Five miles would have been an unnecessary length but the

tradition is only five hundred years old , and

that is the main point, for it comes well within the period of application of all the mechan ical powers in I ndia ; whatever might have been their early I ndian history they were all brought

B . C 2 6 to the banks of the Indus by Alexander, . 3 . A heap or pile is the simplest of all ar chite c E 50 THE MECHANICAL TRIU MPHS O F tural objects and is the i nstinctive form of monument for mankind to erect in all ages .

The savage builds his cairn of stones , a Tamer a Al attus u s l ne his heap of skulls , an y his tum lu larger than the tomb of Cheops : but it is in the solid square stone pyramid that the mechanic arts may first be said to come into play . I t is a shape which lends itself to the use of the c and simplest mechanical applian es , unlimited l i a a human abour be ng given , the ppli nces of the present time would be of small advantage to

- to the architect. Supposing that to day one had a reconstruct the pyramid of Cheops , the ro d and a ferry from the qu rry being in working order, and the floor plan having been laid out at one thousand feet from the edge of the plateau . O h viously the first lot of sto nes would be hauled directly to the pyramid site and, after being dressed , arranged in place by gangs of men

- with hand spikes . So far as we now know, the only thing that would have to be looked out for on this ground floor would be a hole about four feet square at about one hundred and forty- two a feet from the northern edge , where a pass ge m co menced , extending to the blind pit about one

hundred feet below the floor. The second course

of stones would now be taken in hand , and the following question arises Would one locate lifting machines or men with blocks and spars

5 3 THE MECHANICAL TRIUMPHS OF

i had d a boat, the ancient Egypt ans probably no i e me n beyond the single pulley, and the number of required for it could be worked to much be tter f t advantage on an in clined plane . The act tha each pyramid had its own inclined causeway from the N ile valley to the plateau is strong presumptive evidence that it was intende d to a to prolong th t incline the pyramid itself, because otherwise it would have been simpler to have used the Cheops incline always and to have dragged the stones ‘ for the second and third pyramid round the corner of the first pyramid and across the plateau to their ultimate destina tion . The inclined plane between the edge of the plateau and the pyramid site was probably

i - bu lt of Nile mud bricks, either sun dried or

fi re - i baked , and such chipp ngs as dressing the stones on each pyramid terraces rose one upon another . which this inclined plane rose, or the it , can never be known except appro When it reached the same angle as the tus plane so as to be a simple prolongation , it then reached the pyramid at the height of about n s forty feet from the base, and the large sto e just above the mouth of the pyramid entrance

e . n t its are n ar this point Whatever its le g h , height must have been at least two hundred feet for the heaviest stones are found there in the THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS . 5 3

’ o r of of the king s chamber . An inclined plane fro m the edge of the plateau to this point v would ha e an angle of one to seven , and to drag a sixty ton stone up this angle would require even more than the nine hundred men

that I have calculated for a grade of one to ten . o That calculati n was , however, a liberal one, and f a few more men would su fice . I n regard to t n his point a commu ication of Colonel Wilks ,

R . A. 1 8 2 1 , published in , in the Transactions of ” the Royal Society of Edinburgh on the methods of the natives for raising the immense stones found in the walls of I ndian temples is very

interesting . These stones are moved end i l foremost up an incl ned p ane of solid earth , of as small an angle with the horizon as circum

stances admit, to the spot which they are to c o cupy in the wall . Long bamboo poles lashed t h to the s one at right angles with its lengt , and at such distan ces as mer ely to admit the efforts u of rows of labo rers between , constitute the a o chief me ns of propelling it, by main f rce, up a the inclined pl ne, and its ascent is facilitated by

means of rollers of small diameter, successively

introduced under the stone , and prevented from sinking into the ea rth by rows of planks placed on eac h side of the stone parallel to the line of

ascent . When it has ascended the desired height it is twisted horizontally round by similar 54 THE MECHANICAL TRIUMPHS OF

t mean s into its destined posi ion . Whether the a civiliz tion , religion and arts of the I ndians b o were Egyptian in origin , as is claimed y s me authors and as is shown for example in bull

worship, it is certain that in their simple methods of accomplishing heavy tasks they are astonish in l g y similar, and this method of moving large

blocks is an instance . If we apply this method d o l to the sixty ton stone before escribed , it w u d give a practical additional force of about 2 56 men arranged on sixteen spars lashed across it

1 8 1 2 8 . inches apart , men on each side This would bring up the total number to 5 6 which ’ 3 a would be ample . The area of the pyr mid

platform at this point is only one - third of what 0 it is at the base , but it is still nearly 4 5 feet a c square , over four and half a res , an ample space

for working bodies of men . Another method suggests itself at this point as a means of over a coming steep incline. It is the method of Pae on ius the architect of the temple of Diana at

u B . C . ac Ephesus in the fifth cent ry Wishing, me asur cording to Vitruvius , to transport a block 1 2 8 6 n ing x x feet, and weighing over forty to s , a distance a from the quarry to the temple , of ne rly c c two miles , he in losed it in wood to form a y and linder rolled it by means of a rope. Fig . xi . , r drawn f om the description , will give an idea. Pae onius only wanted this block for the base of T HE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS . 5 5

t the sta ue of Apollo , but he here seems to have ” n been the i ventor of the parbuckle, the simplest method of sailors for getting spars on board when there are no masts in the ship to

which tackles can be hooked . The ends of two

F PAEO S P C . IG . NIU . XI ARBU KLE ropes being made fast on top of the pyramid

platform , the other ends carried down the incline and brought back again and the cylindrically

- wood padded stone placed in the loop or bight , the stone could be rolled up with less than half the force required to drag it on a sled ; un E fortunately for this theory, however, the gyp 5 6 THE MECHANICAL TRIUMPHS OF tians apparently did not understand the value of a pulley attached to the object to be moved , as H ’ was shown in discussing Queen atasoo s boat. This being the case they would not have under of stood the advantage the parbuckle , and they would have been more likely to have lengthened out the inclined plane so as to make simple fi dragging less dif cult.

Beside the inclined plane and handspike , the pyramid builders probably had some other mechanical appliances for lifting the casing a stones and putting them in pl ce. Herodotus distinctly says they had , but unfortunately his c description , a machine made of short pie es of ” a wood, is utterly unintelligible because it l cks the essential element of a machine , the a source of power. There must be lever or a spring or a screw or some other motive force before an assemblage of pieces of wood becomes n a machine . I n his description somethi g very essential has been left out either by himself or his translators, and he appears himself to be in some doubt about the apparatus, for he says that it was described to him in two ways. It is not surprising if the accounts of the priests were somewhat vague, considering that the legend a years old when Herodotus he rd it, and possibly had no more foundation in fact than the goat story about the Chinese wall . A finished THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS . 5 7

n . x u . t casing sto e , fig , weighing from fifteen ons

to one , would be an awkward object to handle at

best, and it may have been necessary to clamp it into some kind of a wooden cradle for the

PI C . XII . FINISHED CASING STONES.

machine to get hold of it, or it might have been necessary to have had a succession of cradles on each step of the pyramid in which to land it in order that the next lifting machine could take hold and a final landing cradle in 53 THE M ECHANICAL TRIUMPHS or which it could be slid sidewise on the step of the pyramid with its end exposed to make jo int i with its predecessor . A pair of cranes w th a ib a a swinging arm or j , cap ble of short vertical w motion , mounted on each step , ould be a satisfactory means of lifting the casing blocks and use swinging them into place, or, indeed , to anywhere about the pyramid , but history fails us when we seek authority on the subject so far asthis back , though , as before mentioned , Colonel Vyse says he found holes for machinery of so me in . B . C . 0 sort Thucydides , 47 , mentions a swing g

B. C . lever, and Livy , 5 9 , says that cranes were

invented in the time of Servius Tullius , the sixth

B C 60 . king of Rome, . . 5 They form a variety of the Charche fium described by Vitruvius as

used by the Greeks and Romans , and the idea of such a machine for assisting in building the pyramid is very natural on account of its simpli a city . I n curious book called The Origin of

the Laws , Arts and Sciences and their Progress among the Ancient Peoples from the Deluge to C n the Death of jacob by Antoine og et, pub lishe d 1 8 in Paris in 7 5 , the author suggests this

idea for the building of the entire pyramid , and s gives a large woodcut to illustrate his idea . H is machine consists of a simple frame upon the top of which is a beam pivoting on its centre : one end of the beam is attached to a

F IG X A F . III . SHADOO CRANE.

a Egypti ns . Replace the pole and bucket at one end of the beam by a rope - sli ng for a stone ; replace the ball of mud at the other end by a so um a n if or net into which small sto 6 1 THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS . h be t rown , and we have a machine whose every feature and principle we know them to have been a and cquainted with , which they could make as strong as wood and rope , without iron , would allow , fig . xiii . Some writers on Egypt refer to the crude forms of rope which the early Egyptians a a must have had , but this is mist ke . Even the and ma South Sea Islanders make good rope , it y also be said that rope making marks the first stage of civiliz ation where man improved upon the thong , cut from the raw hide or sinew of an the i animal . I n Babylonian expedit on of the University of Pennsylvania in 1 89 2 there was found under the temple of Bel , the ruins of a

- drain with a key stone arch , and in it a vase of terra cotta with a rope pattern on the exterior. Hil re ch . t 000 B . C The vase Dr p places at 5 . , and also the arch and the weight of authority now adays supposes the Egyptians to h ave come f rom that part of the world . The pictured boats

. . and i in the tomb of Ti , V Dyn , espec ally those H t a asoo . . v of Queen , figs iv and . , show an immense amount of knowledge of rope making ' an d ro e a p using. Sever l ancient specimens of rope made from the fibre of the date palm have been found in Egypt ; but it is not surprising a d “ th t more have not been discovere , for dry ” t rot, tha peculiar enemy of ropes made of t vege able fibre , must have been very prevalent 6 2 THE MECHANICAL TRI UMP HS OF

u t in that country . U ndoubtedly they m s have had still stronger ropes of raw hide and human hair, which were much in use by all ancient ’ n ar l nations, women s hair bei g p ticu arlyin request i for the tw sted ropes of catapults , on account of

to - its fineness and strength . Even day one can Ho n won e see in the new g j temple of Kioto, n Japan , great coils of rope whose fibre has bee contributed voluntarily by pious women through had out the Empire . The ancient Egy ptians also the knowledge of the use of many rope supports for a weak spar, as is shown by the multi tude of lifts on the slender lower yard of Queen ’ Hatasoo s boat . This kind of support would be necessary in the case of the shadoof lifting machine to enable it to lift a weight of five or six tons, and it could never have been able to do much more than that, for wood and rope have is their limits, and this simple form of lever a a be very poor one mech nically, the strain on it ing double the weight to be lifted . The fore and main yards of an old fashioned frigate could lift from ten to twelve tons when working to gether, and it is not probable that the ancient

Egyptians could have done better . I ron and steel cranes or derricks are absolutely necessary to lift and swing such great stones as are to be found in the pyramid , and the ancient Egyptians had no iron for structural purposes , for Professor 6 THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS . 3

Petrie states that ir on was very little used before B 8 . C . 00 , and none has ever been found except in n a d . the shape oftools , clamps other small objects a i it a Such cranes being w nt ng, the necess y is p parent of an inclined pla ne at least as high as the point where the roofing stones are found over the ’ a king s chamber. Th t such a machine as I have imagined would have been of great convenience a a l nywhere about the pyr mid p atform , as it rose c on ea h successive stage, is evident, especially at the edges where men could only work with hand

spikes on one side of a stone . I ndeed , but for ’ H erodotus statement that the casing was put on o from the top d wnward , one can hardly see why

it was not done the other way, and the whole

pyramid , casing and all , finished at each stage , c ex epting in the part next the inclined plane , which part would of course be finished as the

inclined plane was taken down . I t would be interesting to take offa casing stone from one of the other pyramids to see if one could discover a how the lifting m chine took hold of it . Possibly o i n n thing would be found , for the Egypt a s , Greeks and Romans usually left projections for r off this purpose, which we e afterwards cut when o the st ne was in place, though the operation would have been very awkward with a casing

stone . Other methods were also sometimes

te . the S ilsilis adop d I n sandstone quarries of , 64 THE MECHANICAL TRIUMPHS OF

00 o i 5 miles ab ve Ca ro, there was found a sculpture representing some tools employed by the quarrymen ; two of these are apparently

- i o wedges , but the other is a metal eye bolt let nt a hole in a stone and secured there temporarily bya removablewedge . This method is described in also by Vitruvius, and there is an American ’ v e ntion Le wisbolt k called a , for use in ships dec s, which is the same thing . I n the Greek temples

B C . i at Girgenti in Sicily, fifth century . , bu lt of a soft stone, grooves are cut in the shape of a horse - shoe in each stone at the joining su rface of the ends . Each stone could thus be swung the to exactly the place it was to occupy , and r0pe strap passing round the horse- shoe with s drawn . These temple are on the top of steep a hills, and no inclined planes were reason bly i poss ble . I f we admit that the pyramid builders could have had such machines as I have described , it then becomes possible to consider their use in the building of the whole pyramid above the 200

a . foot st ge When this point has been reached , a about tons will have been pl ced , and there remains only about tons or one c fifth of the whole pyramid to omplete it . To carry an inclined plane to the top of the pyramid at a grade of one in ten , it would be necessary to commence it feet away in the N ile T HE ANCI ENT EGYPTIANS . 65 valley at a point (9) over feet before the

c . ix . ommencement of the H erodotus incline , fig I n addition to the H erodotus incline I have considered also as necessary the plane reachi ng from the edge of the plateau to the 2 00 foot level. I n order to carry these two planes up to the plane reaching to the top of the pyramid , cubic feet of N ile bricks would be n f u ecessary, or our times the n mber of cubic feet of stone still required to finish the pyramid . Of course this rise in the plane would take place gradually, but there would always be four times as much work to do on the inclined plane as o n the pyramid . The labour consideration would was s not enter the problem , since there omuch of it ; but the time element involved in finishin g the pyramid would always have been of import for ance, it is not likely that Cheops could have Ce hr e n had much confidence in the zeal of p , his Ce hre n successor, to finish his pyramid when p had his own to think about . U nder these circumstances it is reason able to suppose that when the stones grew light enough for the c i ma h nes to compete with the inclined plane, the latter was stopped . I n connection with these shadoof cranes there might have been s Violle t le cap tans or windlasses , provided Duc is right in dating saqquie hs from the r ie ea l st dynasties, but they do not appear to F 66 THE MECHANICAL TRIUMPHS OF

n i . i have been esse t al There is st ll , however, n ot one point that I have been able to clear up, i and that is , how the pyramid bu lders were able to move the very heavy blocks of granite in the confined spaces that are sometimes found, the particularly according to Professor Petrie, in for u second and third pyramids, it seems q ite impossible that everything could have be en built in place as each course of the pyramid was completed . The movement required may have been only a few inches ; but there is no space for any motive power except a hydraulic or ha screw jack . It s been urged by many writers that the ancient Egypti ans must have possessed inventions of which we have no k in all other parts of the world th has developed in but one way in

mechanical sciences , and there is no reason to suppose that the Egyptian mind

any other way . It is more possessed many inventions which

r e - in discovered , the intervening connect g thread a c has of information h ving been lost. Ne essity

been the mother of invention with us, and it

must have been the same with them . The screw jack or press affords an excellent example

- of this matter of te invention . As befor e

stated , the dark age of Europe, from the fifth

t A. D . a to the ninth cen uries , , lost to us ne rly

68 THE MECHANICAL TRIUMP HS OF

B e and was continued to 50 . C . I have be n unable to find any record of their pr ecise

B .C 1 60 method of burial before . 0 ; but at this time the huge stone sarcophagus was lowered t in o a deep pit sunk in the solid rock, which

B . C . 1 1 00 method was continued down to , when

system of tunnelling was introduced, which method continued down to the time of the later

m B . C . 0 Ptole ies, . 5 A visit to this Apis mausoleum in the Saqqarah desert is very

interesting from a mechanical point of view. l lie As shown in fig . xiv, the vau ts on both

sides of the tunnel , but never opposite ; the 1 average size of a sarcophagus is 3 feet long, 1 1 6 high , and 7} wide , and the weight 5 tons ; the floor of the vault is three or four feet below the t that of the tunnel , and width and leng h of the vault are only about two or three feet greater

than the sarcophagus itself. In the tunnel lies a sarcophagus nearly blocking it up ; it was left there by one of the viceroys !who had taken it from its vault] on account of the mechanical ffi u di culty of removing it to the muse m at Cairo . Except in the tunnel there is absolutely no room

to work a gang of men or to use either lever ,

wheel and axle, pulley, inclined plane or wedge, nothing In fact but the screw or hydraulic jack There is not a hole or a projection either on fl the sides , roof or oor of the tunnel , vault or TH E A 6 ANCIENT EGYPTI NS . 9 sarcophagus . The entire mechan ical surround

ings call for the jack and nothing else , and the very fact that the vaults do not come opposite each other is almost positive proof that a jack w as was used , because a solid wall necessary to i push against . The point to which I w sh to draw particular attention in this matter is that the same kind of work had been going on here 800 d for years before Archime es was in Egypt, a nd was continued for 2 00 years after he left

FI X IV P F P G. . O . LAN A IS MAUSOLEUM, SAQQARAH

1 0 the country, the locality was less than 5 miles f a rom his university, and the two pl ces are con

ne cte d by water . The mechanical problems in connection with the construction of the pyramid of Cheops are i n interesting, but the executive abil ty show by its con structor is more to be admired than the mechan ical problems which that ability was k able to overcome . Professor Rawlinson thin s that Cheops must have been divinely inspired

simply to conceive of so wonderful a creation , so absolutely perfect in all its parts ; but the 7 0 THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS . man who was able to carry out the conception is deserving of more credit than he, for few men could have had a more diffi cult task since the world was created . To plan the great work , to lay it out , to provide for all possible emergen all cies and accidents , to see that the men were continuously and profitably employed , that the means of transportation was ample an d always a in order, that the commissariat did not fail , th t the water supply was ample and conveniently i a d sposed , that the sick reliefs were on h nd , h t t at the master workmen were not discon ented , r the journeymen not idle, and the app entices well disciplined ; combine all these and many other sou rc es of care and irritation with the in conveniences and interruptions of a cumber some religion , whose ceremonies must have continually interfered with the prosecution of a l w as a re igious work such as this , and we h ve a sum total which would tax the ablest organizer that has ever lived . CH APTE R I V .

QUARRY ING .

T H E exact method by which the ancient Egypt ians were able to quarry any kind of stone from he w s t softest to the hardest is unkno n , becau e bo th Greeks an d Romans have continued work i i n the same localit es , and it is impossible to c Al distinguish the tra es from each other. though De Roziere , Belzoni , Kircher, and others have imagined the ancients to have had power ful and unknown machinery for chiseling and b reaking away huge blocks from a quarry face , the rinci al there is no proof of it , and p p methods followed wer e p robably the simple ones pursued o wn in I ndia in our time , which are ample for n all the co ditions involved . These are of two one kinds, depending upon fire the other upon e r u and p c ssion , and at Assouan Shellal are

evidences of e ach . The first is described by : Sir J . F . Herschell as follows The work man marks o n the stone a line in the direction of c r the intended separation , along whi h a g oove

is cut with a chisel , about a couple of inches in

de pth . Above this groove a narrow line of 7 2 THE MECHANICAL TR IUMPHS or fire is then kindled and maintained till the rock below is thoroughly heated , immediately on o which a line of men and w men , each provided w off with a pot full of cold ater, suddenly sweep the ashes and pour the water into the heated groove , when the rock at once splits with a clear ” f r n ractu e. The second method is thus give 1 for by C0 . Wilks The workman looks a f e n plain naked surface of su ficient ext t, and a stratum of the proper thickness sufficiently near to the edge of the rock to facilitate the

i . separat on , or made so by previous trimming r The spot being dete mined , a line is marked i n along the direction of the nte ded separation , and a groove, about two inches wide and deep, is cut with chisels or if the substratum be i n thin , holes of the same d mensio s , at one and one half feet or two feet distant, are cut along the line . I n either case all being now ready, a workman with a small chisel is placed at each i hole or nterval , and with small iron mallets the line of men keep beating on the chisels, but not f f with violence, rom le t to right or from right to f le t ; this operation , as they say , is sometimes continued for two or three days before the sepa ” ration is effected . There is also to be seen at Assouan evidences of the possibilities of another was i method which suggested by W lkinson , and seems to be un iversally accepted as the most THE ANCIE NT EGYPTI ANS. 7 3

plausible. This consists of the long groove described by Herschel and Wilks as being used i it i e l in I nd a ; but has , at ntervals in it, chis t s holes ; thes e holes are hought by Wilkin on , r De Morgan , and othe s to have been intended i for dry wooden wedges wh ch , after being driven e r i nto the hol s , we e swelled by water poured i nto the groove, the rock being split by the ex ansion p of the wedges . I have examined many

of these grooves , and the holes appear to be so al sh low and tapering, that a wooden wedge would back out as soon as it commenced to in swell. Many of the grooves also are on an cline d surface , where water could not be kept in

them even by damming . From a somewhat intimate acquaintance with Asiatics and the minute character of the precautions to be taken to ensure that no mistakes are made by these

human machines , I am inclined to the opinion that Colonel Wilks ’ method was the one em w ployed, and that the holes ere placed in the groove in order that each one in the row of workmen might know exactly where to place

his chisel when the stone was to be split. an As to the tools used by the ancient Egypti s, the fl l y were of int, bronze, and iron , and all three

have continued in use down to the present. ce n One explorer , even during the nineteenth

tury , having found an old man in his party of 74 THE MECHANICAL TRIUMPHS o r native followers who shaved his head in a most a fl i uns tisfactory fashion with a int razor, wh le

- - his up to date grandsons used Sheffield steel .

Very few iron tools have been found , probably because of its rapid oxidation , as the soil of l l Egypt is special y nitrous . A sma l piece of

plate iron , now in the British M useum , was found in one of the air passages of the great r pyramid by Colonel Vyse , and also some i on clamps which secured one of the stones in

position where two passages join , and a few iron tools are to be found in the large museums u of Europe . Herodot s says also that the pyra m had me n mid work en iron tools, or rather he m s e culat tions iron tools , among other ite s , in p

ing on the cost of the pyramid . Apparently the ancients had either steel tools or some method a of tempering bronze unknown to us , bec use of the marvellous precision and finish with which hieroglyphics and other ornaments are cut upon

the hardest monuments . M . Le Bas, who was detained so me time at Luxor while waiting the rising of the Nile before floating down the Paris

obelisk , made some careful experiments , which i are worth not ng . H e says that Egyptian granite can be cut easily enough with mode r n and chisels , making light blows, the chisel m half a day ; time alone is require d : quick cut

ting blunts the chi sel immediately . The hiero

76 THE MECHANICAL TRIUMPHS OF e asily tu rned by striking it against the very t s one it was made to cut. Probably time alone had drawn its temper . Professor Petrie is of Opinion that bronze tools with diamond teeth were used by the pyramid builders both in the f a and l orm of s ws ho low drills , and he makes an able argument in favour of this view. Whatever the nature of the tools , they certainly bored holes in the hardest stone with so me kind of a hollow

l off . dri l , and afterwards broke the core An example of this can be seen at Karnak , near the

u T . D . 1 hothme s . C 0 lot s columns of I I I , 5 3 , a r is before the s nctua y , and another example ’ at the Lion s gate in the old citadel of Myce n a

. is B C . 1 100. in Greece, This one remarkable in another respect. There are two holes drilled l overhead in a corner of the door intels, where there is no room to have made the revolution of an ordinary drill brace, and some kind of a

ratchet must have been used .

Apparently all statues , obelisks , sarcophagi ,

. r f etc , were finished at the quar y be ore trans orta tio n p , except, perhaps , the polishing and

cutting of hieroglyphics . With the clumsy e methods of transportation in vogue, any exc ss we i s of ght mu t have been an important matter, but the primary re ason was most likely be cause the weather was always pleasant and the work could as well be done in the open air at the THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS. 7 7

u fl dis q arry as anywhere else , and if aws were cover ed the piece could be rejected then and

i - he te there. The unfin shed statue of Amen p

. at l I I I Shella is probably an example , and the un unfinished obelisk at Assouan (fig . d fl can doubte ly is ; the aw be seen , though it is

not visible in the illustration . The marks there shown are grooves made at some later date with b s the intention of cutting it up . This o eli k is 9 5 feet long and 1 1 feet 1; inches square at the l base, and wou d form one of the most interesting sights in Egypt if it were kept properly cleared f o sand by the authorities . A stone of this size that has lain in a quarry for years and w hich looks as if the workmen had only left for l m the day and wou d be back again to orrow , s hould be something quite impressive . As it

is . , however, it is very disappointing Whatever methods the Egyptians may have adopted for e xtracti ng ordinary blocks it is evident tha t in this particular case they could have made use of n either of the I ndian methods that I have de s t cribed , because the s one has been laboriously ’ cut free on three sides and remains attached

only by its under side to the bed rock . Regard in m g the final detach ent, Wilkinson thinks that spaces were cut underneath which were filled with wood and the remaining rock supports cut n in away, leavi g the obelisk rest g on the wood . 7 8 Probably the sled on which it was n i ported was built u der it at th s time. We

know from the sculpture at Deir - cl- Bahr i of the

tra nsport of an obelisk on a boat (fig . that a u it rested on sled, and this wo ld have been the most favourable time for putting the obelisk

upon it . I t is seldom that one sees a more striking eviden ce of what can be accomplished ff e by patient, unremitting toil than is a ord d by this obelisk ; but many writers are disposed to think that it is in itself a larger object than would be undertaken nowadays even with the aid of modern explosive s ; but this is far from

being the case. Only last year, according to ”

U . S . u a the Industrial Jo rn l , a block of granite w as blown without fracture from the

a . H 1 e qu rry of Redstone, N . , which was 45 f et 2 8 long, 3 5 feet wide , and feet deep, a mass more than twelve times as large as this Assouan

obelisk . Though the ancients were faultlessly fo r accurate in fitting granite blocks together, some unknown reason they were not always so particular in cutting the sides of their obelisks . I t has been found that the two obelisks of r Luxor, which we e more accurately measured an — one than y others , are crooked the in Paris i i being a little more so than the rema n ng one . fl Two of the sides of both obelisks are at, but the other two swell out over an inch and a

TH E ANCIENT EGYPTIANS . 79

q u arter both as they originally stood at Luxor

h d W . . . a the swelled sides in a N . and S E d i was rection , and the centre of each obelisk

W c . c N . urved half an inch in a . dire tion P ossibly this warping might happen to any stone t aken fresh from the quarry and placed on end i n o l the br i ing sun of Egypt . The Paris obelisk w a s a little smaller than the other , and was i p laced half a d ameter in advance, so that to a p erson approaching by the sphinx avenue lead ing to the temple they would look exactly the

same . That the Paris obelisk was ever taken

away is much to be regretted , for Luxor is the

only temple in Egypt in which temple , pylon , l statues, and obe isks still occupied their original

positions . I n the matter of polishing granite the ancient

Egyptians were unexcelled . Le Bas says that

he found from experiment that sandstone, pumice

stone, and time are all the elements required ,

and Dr . Kennedy describes a method practised a in India which lso seems reasonable . The stone having been brought to a surface by the

is - n chisel , then water dressed in the man er “ usu al to masons . It now only remains to

apply the black shining polish , which is done as follows : A block of granite of considerable size is rudely fashioned into the shape of the end of

a large pestle . The lower face of this is hollowed 80 THE MECHANICAL TRIUMPHS OF

out into a cavity, and this is filled with a mass

composed of powered corundum stone , mixed

with melted beeswax . This block is moved s by means of two sticks or piece of bamboo,

placed one on each side of the neck , and bound o w i ti t gether by cords, t sted and ghtened by

sticks . The weight of the whole is as much as

two workmen can easily manage . They se at themselves upon or close to the stone they are

to polish and , by moving the block backwards

and forwards between them , the polish is given

by the friction of the mass of wax and corundum . I t would appear that the polish thus given to gran ite may be said to be as imperishable as the material itself to which it is applied . In the end of the year 1 7 94 I had an opportunity of visiting the ancient city of and of s eeing a granite gateway, standing within the a bounds of the palace , the fine bl ck polish of which appeared to have lost . nothing of its or iginal lustre . The gateway in question could scarcely have bee n less than 500 n e r l old, and might probably have been co sid ab y ” older .

8 2 THE MECHANICAL TRIUMPHS

the two obelisks stowed base to base lengthwise the a of bo t, instead of alongside each other as shown in fig. xviii . By this sculpture the fol i lowing points have been cleared up . F rst extremely heavy weights were transported by k othe r wr ite rs water, though Wil inson and some believ e that they were always transpo rted by

- o r i land . Second a regularly built barge l ghte r 1 2 was used, which must have been at least and 2 0 feet high out of water 5 feet long, with

pointed ends , and not a low pontoon raft. Third : the Egyptians must have discovered by former experience that if they stowed the u nar obelisks end to end , the vessel co ld be a rower, and would thus be more manage ble in a c urrent than if the obelisks were carried a n e ce s parallel to e ch other as shown , which

sitate s more beam . That the wider boat had already been tried is to be inferred from a text

. aville given by M N , showing that in the reign s I H Thothme . atasoo of , the father of , one Anna had brought down two obelisks on a boat 2 00 6 feet long and 9 feet wide . The width of this

- boat is one third the length , and as the remain Th ing obelisk of othme s I . at Karnak is 9 3 a 200 feet high , length of feet would not be

sufficient for two such , end to end, and allow a margin for the taper and rise of the bow and : stern. Fourth they knew that a vessel so con T E I 3 H ANC ENT EGYPTIANS . 3

structed would hog or droop at the ends, as the centre only would be waterborne, and they i nvented the rainbow truss, which we thought a l n bri lia t American idea, when the shallow water of the Mississippi necessitated a similar inve n for tion large steamers , and it was called a hog ” can frame . This rope truss be seen to better H ’ advantage in fig . v . All of Queen atasoo s Punt boats were supplied with it . There it is nearly ’ c l r as large as a man s waist , and so mu h arge than was used on board modern ships before the days of wire rope and chain , that there are A no tables for calculating its strength . pp rox i m a u ately , on the basis of M nilla hemp , it wo ld stand the strain of over 300 tons . It will be

o . . n ted in fig xvii , that there is a small picture of an obelisk on a boat, marked O , just above the large obelisk ; this is the determinative sign attached to the hieroglyphic name of the b oat , and apparently is symbolical merely , as it m simply represents half the boat, with a ste and rudder attached to it, and cuts the rainbow u u truss in the middle. C riously eno gh , how it s ever, hows exactly how the lashings were passed under the obelisk and over the truss, the weight of the obelisks thus pulling the middle of the truss down and lifting the bow and stern . In 1 834 there were found at the Pirmus some

- marble tablets , being what we would call to day 84 THE MECHANICAL TRIUMPHS C the book of allowances of the ancient

' ian fleet ; among other articles are men . ” h o z o mata 1 yp , which formed a part of o f sh01 every ship, and was stored on w a she was laid up in the dockyard . It which wen t from end to end of the as t o e nei her Professor B kh , the translat ff Attic tables, nor Graser , Schae er , W1 Roy , Bloomfield or any other modern been able to give a clear idea of its use c Isadore , a Spanish writer of the sev

century, says that there was in ancient e rope going from end to end , and call d ” Ev mentum , because it was twisted . seemed to think it w as a rope like a going round the gunwale just under the He s chius Pol bi older writers, like y and y a the no clearer, though Athen eus says hyp oz omata on board the great ship of Philo e te r 8 p , which was 4 3 feet long, B built . C. 300 . Smith in his Voy ”

h . 1 8 8 f S ipwreck of St Paul , 4 , for the advance s the theory that because the Greek ships wer e so long and had suc h rostra and towers at each end, the yp

' might have been a rope be tvte e n the h m 1 and ste post, which was twisted in 1 manner as the rope of a catapult . I t has for the walls of Deir e l Bahri to show tl

86 THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS. only because penal servitude in the quarries was the usual form of punishment for both political ff and civil o ences , but because it must have been

necessary to keep the quarry free from sand . This superintendent would have been constantly prospecting the site for obelisk blocks in order

to find localities free from flaws , all ready to m com ence work upon , even if he did not keep

ready cut obelisks in stock . Governments were not different in those days from what they are and now, when a government wants anything it a an d w nts it in a hurry , as every contractor ffi s executive o cer is aware . Be ides , with such l a climate as Egypt has , night work wou d have

been as easy as day work , and the seven months

would practically be fourteen . 10 One of these obelisks was 5 feet high , the 8 a other 9 , and the weight of each bout 3 7 4

tons . The former is still standing. Doubtless land a the whole story of the quarrying, tr ns port and erection was told in sculpture at Deir e l Bahri but it has nearly all disappeared . The only illustration that has ever been foun d in Egypt descriptive of the transportation of a

heavy object on land, is the celebrated Colossus ” on a sledge, fig . xvi . , which was found on the B rsh h wall of a tomb at El e e . For the purposes of my essay it is the most interesting discovery i h t ad b e cause . t s o w s hat has ever bee n m e ,

88 THE MECHAN ICAL TRIUMPHS OF

beyond a doubt that no labour saving machinery an d we whatever was employed in such cases , can gather certain facts from the picture and

the hieroglyphic inscription, which enable us to prove that the work was even more gigantic

than would appear at the first glance . The text of the inscription is said by all Egyptologists to ffi main be extremely di cult to translate, but the 1 8 so far as facts, as translated by Chabas in 7 3 , difife r fmm they relate to my purposes , do not

the later translations of Maspero,

Brugsch or Newberry . The tomb a to gentleman named Kai , who lived in the

B . C . 2 66 X I I . Dynasty, 4 , and was of royal blood ’ on his mother s side ; he was also governor of the town to which the Colossus was transported a d from the qu rry. The work is e scfi be d as a e u tr mendous undertaking, as indeed it m st

have been , and all the inhabitants of the town a c me out to meet it, while the women sang n i so gs in praise of the wonderful ach evement. a The old vied with the young, and e ch one ” a ff a m de the e ort of a thousand . Ch bas says that the eighty - four men in seven groups in the u upper part of the pict re, who look like soldiers,

' c s re c u to co r or on ist of r its make the road , p anons w te and o w of d workmen , st ne cutte rs ith the ir w a ters ; while Mr . to the r i men d agg ng the statue, that

90 THE MECHANICAL TRIUMPHS OF

s 1 the the Colo sus is 5 inch , the same as average height of the men on the dr ag ropes or 5 5 feet . r e r 0 8 If the figu e w e standing, it would be 3 feet

high and 8 4 feet broad across the shoulders . S ince similar solids are to each other in propor i i tion to the cubes of the r like d mensions , an

Egyptian 30 8 feet high would weigh 1 tons. If this Egyptian were placed in water and his w u lungs filled ith it as in drowning, he wo ld i his just sink , show ng that weight is slightly e l w h avier than an equal bu k of ater, his specific gravity is about 1 0 10 ; but the specific a 2 00 gravity of al baster is 7 , and therefore the weight of the figure in alabaster would be 3 1 8 o is t ns . But beside the figure there the chair c upon which it is sitting, and the base upon whi h u t m the chair is resting, and , as is c s o ary with

Egyptian sitting statues, both are solid . Using the height of a man as a standard of measure h we find that the square part of the c air, if 10 06 feet wide , measures 9 cubic feet , and as 6 6 1 8 . alabaster weighs lbs per cubic foot, its 68 a weight is tons . The back of the ch ir in similar cases to be seen in the museums is most frequently only a support for the back u u of the figure , and in this case wo ld be abo t n 5 feet wide and would weigh 7 to s . The base is more than 19 feet long and would

weigh 26 tons . Adding these weights toge THE I : ANCIENT EGYPT ANS . 9

1 2 ther, we have a total weight of 3 tons on the sledge . If instead of calculating the weight of the figure separately from that of the chair and base, we measure the whole solid mass , using as before the height of a man as a standard , we will fin d its weight to be a little over 1 40 tons . s As , however, we cannot by thi me thod allow for a the v rious cavities, since we only have the profile and an estimated width upon which to base our calculations, it is fair to assume that the weight of 1 3 2 tons is the most accurate . The total number of men required to drag this i as we ght, previously explained in the case of the pyramid stone , would be instead of the 1 7 2 that are attached to the drag ropes . I t iffi is d cult to explain this anomaly , unless there is something in the text which has not yet been properly translated , for average human strength has not changed since the days of the ancient “ ”

. a Egyptians The Scientific American , th n ' “ whom there is no better authority , says The ’ limit of a man s walking pull is about 40 lbs . The utmost that he can pull by moving forward at a pulling angle that will keep him from slip

i - p ng may be one half his weight, say 7 5 lbs and since the Egyptians were not equal to u n l E ropeans or America s in physique , have in my calculations used even a less estimate . The 92 THE MECHANICAL TRIUMPHS OF whole of these 1 7 2 men pulling with a force of 0 l 4 lbs . each cou d not have dragged a Colo ssus of more than one - ninth the size of that shown on the sledge , and if exerting their utmost force of 7 5 lbs . each , which would merely enable them l to start and not keep going, they cou d only

- fifth have moved one of one the size . Chabas and other early writers speak of the twelve men in rear of the statue as supernume raries ready ” to render assistance ; but M r . Newberry, the i latest investigator, says that the nscription shows that one of the men in the rear was the a h r a sculptor and not e high steward . H owever am i l this may be, I nc ined to the opinion that there was perhaps some reason for putting ex actl w y t elve men in rear, from the fact that twelve times the 1 7 2 men at the drag ropes is 8 a i which is only 4 more th n my est mate , and that the painter having occupied with 1 7 2 men all the space allowed him could only indi

cate the remainder. It is possible, also, that what Chabas and others have translated about each one making the effort of a thousand may

bear upon this point. On the knee of the Colossus a man is seen

giving the step by clapping his hands . The object of the man in front is given a variety of interpretations one thinks he may be throwing

something ; another , from the inscription , that

94 THE MECHANICAL TRI UMPHS OF

would cover a space of about feet, about twice the length of the most modern ocean steamer, with men on each rope . T here is no doubt that this force could drag the stone l t when they were once drilled to pu l ogether, and here we have an excellent reason why in n all the pictures , we see only men and not a imals a employed for hauling v luable wrought stones . Men can be drilled to march in absolute cadence

to a song or timekeeping instrument, even when

hauling a weight and a one, two, three , and a ” surge will produce a momentary force repte sente d by nearly the weight of the whole mass i i lin of men , or several t mes their ord nary pul g c s force . Vacancies in the ranks au ed by sick ness can also be filled without materially affect ai ing the drill of the rem nder, and cattle can

never be so well organized . The embarkation was probably effected as

follows . A dry dock was dug out at a short ’

distance from the river bank at Assouan , in a position at right angles across the road along whi ch the obelisks were to be dragged from the i . t quarry I n th s dock the ligh er was built, and was afterward floated so that its deck was the

exact height of the roadway . The obelisks were then hauled from the quarry and turned an d half round just before reaching the lighter, n launching skids were led to the deck . I this THE ANCIENT EGYPTI ANS. 95 position 40 drag ropes could be made fast to the obelisk and led over the ship’s deck to the 1 0 har roadway beyond , where 4 men could be s d n e s e to each , and the obelisk dragged on e board . The dike s parating the dock from the

N ile was then entirely cut away , and the lighter

fl oated into the river. When the boat reached a Thebes the operation w as reversed . C pstans and screw or hydraulic jacks would have been e articu xtremely useful in all these operations, p lar ly for placing the obelisks in the exact centre line of the lighter, but they were not absolutely necessary as long as there was room to work all the men on the drag ropes and for the use of handspikes of sufficient length . The water transport of these obelisks is most interesting . Fig. xvii . shows a portion of the remains of the sculpture , and figs . xviii . xix . xx . ’

. aville s show M N ingenious interpretation of it. In the sculpture the boats are arranged in three columns of ten boats each ; both the boats and e che lon ne d the columns are as in fig . v . because of the contracted space on the wall which was

allowed to the sculptor. Each boat had 3 2 a 20 a 60 rowers , m king 3 in e ch column , or 9 in

all. On each side of the lighter was a small dis a p tch boat and in rear were three sacred boats ,

for an obelisk was a religious monument, and a

pan of frankincense is placed upon it . The 96 THE MECHANICAL TRIUMPHS or lighter was steered by four rudders and the two o rear boats in each column had tw rudders. s The steering mu t have been very bad , and possibly if the whole of the stern of the obe lisk lighter Could be found it would be seen that there were drags out astern to assist in keeping

he r head straight . They would be very e fi cie nt o under such circumstances , and H erod tus says that they were in common use on the Nile i n

B. C . 0. his day , 45 Where objects larger than obelisks were tr ans m man ported, the problem of e ploying mere

. t power becomes more formidable If we ake, t for example, the gritstone colossi of Amenho ep

. B . C . 1 20 I I I , about 4 , in the plain of Thebes ,

. i figs xxi . xxii . , we find that each we ghs from 800 to tons or more than both the obelisks H atasoo . of Queen According to Rawlinson, a text that has been found gives the following “ from the lips of the sculpto r himself : I caused to be built eight shipswhe re up on the statues were carried up the river ; they were emplaced in their sublime temple ; they will last as long as n e heaven . A joyful eve t was it wh n they were ” landed at Thebes and raised up in their places. These eight ships must have constituted the

floats of one or two pontoon rafts , each float carrying capacity of 2 50 tons or a total

tons. As the weight of an ordinary

No. 2.

. . FIG XVIII FIG . XIX.

‘ O RT O F AN E S . P AN OB LI K TRANS ORT O F OBELISK .

1 E x loration F und E t E loration un p . gyp xp F d.

9

I S K . F G . X X T T F AN Q B EAA . RA N S PO R O

a r T? v n l n r n ti n n F u n d .

9s TrmMECHANICAL TRIUMPHS 01?

o l ha disembarkation , h wever , it is probab e t t the pontoon was floated in time of flood quite near to the point required and a canal cut from there i t m to the e iac site. The colossi at that ti e stood on fhe edge of the desert ; at present the l a f soi rises to height of 7 eet above the base, and they are annually surrounded by water . The s i huge colossus of Rame es I I . , whose rema ns i lie a short d stance away, is of about the same weight, and was probably handled in the same manner . The number of men here mentione d could have transported any statue or stone now

i . , ex sting in ( Egypt or elsewhere or any that are mentioned in such hi e rogly phic texts as I am aware of ; and I think it may be safely assumed that from to tons marked the limit of the capacity . of ancient engineers in this direction ; the distance to which the stones were transported was not of importance mechanically w or other ise to an Egyptian despot . If it could be moved a foot, it could be moved the length of Egypt if he wished it . Time alone was required . Ancient writers give accounts of objects of greater dimensions , but not in remote times . The most marvellous is the account gi ven by Herodotus of a temple of Latona in the city of

Buto , near one of the mouths of the Nile.

This, he says, was made of one single stone ,

TH E ANCIENT EGYPTIANS. 99

4 0 cubits or 70 feet squar e . S upposing that e 6 t the walls wer feet hick, it has been esti mated to w eigh tons . Most write rs have a ssumed that it was brought fro m Assouan ; bu t H erodotus says nothing about its being m is oved , and it quite possible that it was a b u r the o lde cut into shape on the spot , like huge 7 0 feet J ain image on the top of a hill at S hravana Be la ola g in Mysore , and the still more rem arkable Kylas at Ellora in Hyder 6 1 2 abad, a veritable cathedral , 3 5 feet long, 9 6 e feet wide , and 9 f et high , cut out of the solid an c r rock , hollowed out d a ved , both inside and u out with the most elaborate sculpt res . Sup posing that the ' ton temple had been

d from Assoua n- Lt. would have required i t men , and is doubtful if even the Egypt ians could have drilled so large a body of men to l the long pul , the strong pull , and the pull all together that would have been necessary . Psamthe k Moreover this was in the age of , 66 O B . C . N au 4, when Egypt had an pen port at kratis , where there was a large Greek colony .

Latona was the mother of Apollo, and a temple to her was undoubtedly owing to Greek in

flue nce s. Herodotus also mentions a chapel Am i B as s . C . 0 s of a single stone that , 5 7 , cau ed to be brought from Assouan to Sais , but its 80 s weight was only 4 tons , far le s than the 1 00 THE MECHANICAL TRIUMPHS OF

colossi at Thebes . I t was brought by ” occu men , all pilots , and three years were r pied in the transit. This muste of men would

have been only one - third of the number re a as quired to drag it by m in strength , and ,

Herodotus says , that the king would not allow

it to enter the sacred precincts , because one of the men employed at the levers was crushed by f fo r it, one might in er that they used capstans , injuries to men by capstan bars are not at all

uncommon on board ship . Whether the Egypt ians of the time of Psamthe k and Amasis em ployed capstans or not the Assyrians , at about the same date , used nothing of the sort , for the sculptured slabs in the British Museum , dis o c vered by Layard at Nineveh , show colossal

B. C . 0 stone bulls in the time of Sennacherib , 7 4 6 6 to 7 , drawn on sledges by men ; rollers are placed under the sledges and huge levers are used in rear. Finally the sledge is drawn up an d an inclined plain constructed of earth , the colossus is placed . The Egyptians were pro a u a a b bly no f rther dv nced than this . The lifting and transporting of modern buildings weighing tens of thousands of tons by means of jacks far exceeds anything ever attempted by the ancients . The method of water transportation of obe lisks by modern engineers is practically the

1 02 THE MECHANICAL TRIUMPHS OF into the water as recommended by Pae on ius at the temple of Ephe sus ye ar s before. Arrived in London it was brought directly to me n the site on the Thames embank t, the cylinder taken to pieces and the obelisk slid sidewise on greased ways to the point of erec ra rte tion . The New York obelisk was t nspo d l on land for several miles on iron bal s, between two iron channels , after the manner of Count Carburi in moving the 600 ton pedestal of the statue of Peter the Great from Karelia to St. Petersburg ; but trouble occurred to Gorringe from the splitting of the channel irons , and resort was had with success to the system of the ar e ordinary marine railway , where rollers used between metal ways . I n one of the chambers at Karnak are quantities of stone balls, which some consider to have been used in this way by are the Egyptians, but they all made of soft a stone, and are more likely to h ve been used for catapults or cannon , and are probably not at all ancient . Colonel Wilks in the Transactions of the 18 2 1 Royal Society of Edinburgh in , thus describes the transportation of an obelisk made and erected by natives at Seringapatam to the ’

. 1 8 memory of Dr Webb in 05 . As the colonel s remembrance of the exact dimensions was not n clear, I have obtained through the kind ess EMBXHP1flhAIWS . no 3

. De saiv lle s of Colonel j y , Chief Commandant

Mysore state troops , an exact drawing, fig . xxiii . , which shows the dimen sions to

be 3 x 3 x 5 2 feet . This gives

a weight of about 3 5 tons , only the tenth part of that of the huge Egy ptian obelisks ; but the methods employed both for transportation and erection are so primitive that they might well have been Egyptian . The stone having been detached from the ledge !which was in a quarry about tw o miles from the site] with iron wedges in the manner described in the chapter on quarrying, the narrative pro ce e ds as follows : The obelisk was first bloc ked out in the rough , to lighten it , before being 3 313 in” placed on its carriage, by means which will easily be ' ' x 6 fx s i conce ved, after de scribing those used for

n o . x xm ossu sx its erection . The car . AT S ER mcm ‘ n “ ‘ ND'A : rta e f g , a ter repeatedly i sinking nto the hard road , as into a swamp, was ultimately moved over a succession of

balks of timber , placed to support it. Granite 1 0 4 THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS .

t is so excessively brittle, that it was hought haz ardous to employ draught cattle or any power less manageable than that of men : and r the number employed at one time , on the d ag ropes , as well as I can venture to say, from the 600 picture left on my memory , was about ” w as men . The carriage made of heavy timber . I t had four inner and four outer i wheels, and is not so practical as an Egypt an sledge, which according to my calculation would 2 have required 5 5 men , and would have dis tributed the weight of the obelisk more evenly over the road bed . It is to be noted that the I ndians preferred men to cattle on account of their superior intelligence .

° 1 06 THE MECHANICAL TRI U MPHS OF

engineers in handling the same objects , and try to deduce from these the most probable course

. V. O F R C VATl CAN I FIG XXI METHOD E E TING OBEL SK . ll fo owed by the Egyptians themselves . The m m an s so as w e kn ow it e the . cu io q , far r us 10 THE ANC IENT EGYPTIANS . 7 a l ccount by Ammianus Marcel inus , of the o riginal erection of the Lateran obelisk by the

i A . D a Emperor Constant ne, . 345 , lways erected a high framework over the pedestal and lifted the obelisk bodily from the ground by means of l tackles , lowering it upon brass blocks p aced

upon the pedestal . These blocks were usually of the form of crabs because the obelisk in one

sense symbolized a ray of the sun , and the crab

belonged to Apollo the sun god . The Egyptians always rested their obelisks with the base flat

upon the pedestal , and it is therefore probable a th t they never lifted them bodily . I n either case an obelisk is much more firm than its ap n u p e ar a ce wo ld indicate . Taking the average a i of those now st nding at Luxor, Par s , London , a 2 and New York , it would require bout 5 tons

pressure at the top to push one over, or about 7 5 tons if applied to the whole side as in the

case of a wind . A hurricane would not exert u more than a quarter of this amount of press re . ’

. s 1 80 Fig. xxiv repre ents Fontana s method in 5 , a which was simil r to that of the Romans . He d erected a huge structure , compose of beams a ’ a metre square , which was nicknamed Fontan s ” Castle , and by means of tackles, capstans, and

levers , he lifted and lowered the obelisk and transported it to the Vatican where the castle

- was re erected and the operation reversed . An 1 08 THE MECHANICAL TRIUMPHS OF excellent painting of it can be seen in the Vati can. The Egyptians probably had no know s ledge of multiplying power by the use of tackle , and without such knowledge this method would have been impossible to them . No number of sumce d single fixed pulleys would have . Next in chronological order is the monument of Dr. 1 80 s Webb at Seringapatam , in 5 , which is thu

7 m x v sm u x . r 1. 11t s w osw s x x . T o n o . ME HOD

described by Colonel Wilks (figs . xxv . xxvi . ) s Conceive the shaft fini hed , and placed ready s for erection , in a horizontal po ition raised to the t proper height, and with its base accura ely placed for insertion in the top of the pedestal , i when it should atta n a vertical position . Then imagine a strong wall , built at right angles with the line of the shaft, and a few feet beyond its smaller end : with two lateral retaining walls parallel to the shaft, and a fourth , of smaller

\ 1 1 0 THE MECHANICAL TRIUMPHS OF i very fragile substance . I n proport on as eleva tion was thus gradually obtained for the smaller end , the space below was filled with rammed earth , and the same process was repeated , with l s the para lel . balks of timber, hand pikes and chocks ; the small end gradually rising at each successive step , the wall behind increasing in height and an inclined plane of solid earth gradually increasing its angle with the horizon , until it equalled that at which solid earth could i d with safety be employed , when the force requ re m being proportionately diminished , ti ber alone was employed for its elevation . Finally scaffolding of timber was erected embracing

‘ and ne arl three sides of the pedestal , y equal to the ultimate height of the obelisk : ropes were applied to the summit of the shaft , in such di rections as to steady and check it : handspikes gave the requisite impetus until it felt the pow er i f of the ropes , and was ult mately and sa ely lodged in its shallow receptacle . H ere is a method which is absolutely primitive, and it is well within the bounds of reasonable conjecture that it was derived from the Egyptians them selves . I t is a method that is perfectly safe and is practical whether it is applied to an n obelisk of 35 to s or 350 tons . The only limi tation a a is the horizont l sp ce required , for it is obvious that the heavier the obelisk the more 1 1 1 TH E ANCIENT EGYPTIANS . ex tensive must be the gradually rising pla tform ff in closing the inclined plane, in order to a ord

roo m for levers of the necessary length .

The French method ( 183 2 ) is next in order .

I t is shown in fig . xxvii. I ts simplicity is such

that it requires but little explanation . A wide, high frame derrick is placed nearly at right

angles to the obelisk , and a heavy lashing is passed from the top of this frame round the

head of the obelisk. Tackles being also attached

to the top of this frame, they are hauled upon

G . V . T OF R CT G P FI XX II ME HOD E E IN ARIS OBELISK.

a until the obelisk is vertic l , the derrick pivoting upon its heel while the obelisk pivots upon the

edge of its base . The reverse operation was

pursued in lowering the obelisk at Luxor . The instinctive idea of anyone looking at an obelisk is that it was raised by lifting the head while

the base rested on the pedestal , and the second thought is that the edge would be splintered in ff the e ort unless provision was made for it. Nearly all the obelisks that we see out of Egypt 1 1 2 THE MECHANICAL TRIUMPHS OF

are more or less splintered at the bottom . They o have all been moved more than nce , and the ff n base has probably su ered in conseque ce. Le ’ Bas method of protecting the base was in ge nio us ; he cut away the edge of the pedestal underneath the Luxor obelisk , and inserted a a l long, square oak block h ving a semicircu ar groove in the upper part lying just underneath d the edge of the base of the obelisk , and fitte to this edge a long, round oak block which corre spo nde d exactly with the semicircular groov e in the pedestal block . He thus had a hinge which functioned perfectlywhen he lowered the obelisk . Le Bas says that in the pedestal of the obelisk remaining at Luxor there is a semicircular e groove just und rneath the edge of the obelisk , and he thinks that the ancient Egyptians utilized it for a hinge but he does not say if there was one in the pede stal of the obelisk which he re moved , and there is none visible in the pedestal ’ s a of Hatasoo obelisks at K rnak . The prin ’ ciple s involved in Le Bas method are such as the Egyptians must have been well acquainted ff a Bas with , the only di erence being th t Le used manifold tackles and capstans and employed a dozen Europeans and a hundred or two of

Arabs , whereas the Egyptians would have used at all either single pulleys or none , and would have employed huge ropes and thousands of

TH E T 1 1 ANCIEN EGYPTIANS . 5 from time to time to account for the erection of Egyp tian obelisks but none of them are p rac

. i a tical Sharpe th nks it was by inclined pl nes , and Cooper by rollers of continually increasing diameter, as though inclined planes and rollers e were animated objects . Another writ r suggests surrounding the obelisk with a tank of water, f and attaching a loat to the upper end , without thinking how large would be the tank require d and how impossible of erection at any of the localities where obelisks were used , and a still 1 8 8 later writer , in 9 , thinks that an obelisk could be dragged up an incline d plane base first and then allowed to slide down a steep incline on the other side to its pedestal , without suggesting any method of disposin g of the force that would drag it up or any method of controlling it, a far more serious matter, when it was sliding down . It seems probable that in most cases the I ndian method and the French method were used in conjunction , in such a manner that ropes were led from the head of the obelisk over some c high obje t erected in the vicinity , or led hori z ontally from a vertical frame astride of the obelisk. By attaching a large number of men at to these ropes, the work of the men the levers under the head of the obelisk would be materially assisted . Whether the pylon of the temple 1 1 6 THE MECHANICAL TRIUMPHS OF could be utilized is doubtful on account of the lack of space behind it for handling the men but there would be no lack of space parallel to the pylon. Take, for example, a specific case, that of the remaining Luxor obelisk . If M . Le Bas was right in his interpretation of the groove o in its pedestal , this obelisk was brought fr m the river in a direction parallel to the pylon o f t iw the emple, and placed with base over the i and n h nge groove the hi ge attached , or the edge itself might possibly have been allowed to e trav l in the groove or to rest on the surface , protecte d by some tough substance like raw hide : a stout heel lashing was then passed ro und the upper edge of the base of the obelisk e and s cured to stakes driven into the ground. This would prevent the obelisk from slippin g a when the he d commenced to rise . If the Egyptians did not have the wit to build a frame derrick astride the obelisk , as M . Le Bas did, then they must have built a wall on the other side of the pedestal at right angles to the pylon , an d nearly as high as the obelisk would be whe n ere cted . The ropes were then led over the top

. l f . e of this wall With the derrick , M Bas ound that a pull of 1 1 3 tons was sufficient to raise his 2 2 obelisk , which weighed 5 tons , without the its i use of levers under head . Th s would cor respond to about men . With the wall r 18 THE MECHANICAL TRIUMP HS OF

Regarding the Egyptian me thod porting and erecting standing statues i w ser than in regard to obelisks . probably transported horizontally and as i the same manner obel sks , where space for it ; but there are some still re maini ng in positions which point directly to the use of u the jack for their final adj stment at least. An interesti ng example of how much power is te quired to handle one of these huge masses is ’ afforded by Major Bagnold s experiences in 18 87 in lifting out of the mud the two statues of

' the Gre at to Rameses , so familiar Egy ptian

s . o travellers at Memphi One is of limest ne,

1 . e r and weighs about 00 tons (fig. xxix ) the oth

a 60 . of gr nite , weighing about tons The former was found in a' pool with a small portion 200 of the back exposed , and the latter about yards away, with its left shoulder and crown projecting from the mud . The operation was successfully accomplished in three months and a half, and the statues placed in their present horizontal positions beyond the reach of high

N ile . In the Appendix is given a list of what M ajor Bagn old thinks are essential for a work of this kind . The list is taken from the Pro ce e dings of the Society of Biblical Arche ology th 1 888 t of j une 5 , , and is of very great interes when one remembers that the ancient Egypt

THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS .

Alexander that he should carve Mount Athos n a i to the statue of a man with a city in one h nd, in and a basin the other, which should receive all the waters of the mountain and again dis ” charge them into the sea . APPE N D IX .

ist o Cam E ui mm t Tools A lia mes and L f p g p , , pp , M ate r ials e mploy e d in r aising t/ze two Colossz /z at M amp is.

ARTICLES .

ui me nt Camp E q p .

e dste ads orta e e ddin cam e tt e s B (p bl ) , b g, p k l , f ta e s &c . or uro e an s. bl , , 4 E p

e nts ndian atte rn ou e - o e otton T , I p , D bl P l (C )

’ ar e nte rs too s com e te in c e st C p l , pl h ’ Masons too s com le te in c e st l , p , h Axe s ic , p k " ’ ars orin I x 6 B , b g, % ’ crow , 5 ’ ars crow B , , 4 amme rs s e d e H , l g

au s wood iron - oo e d M l , , h p tone s rin d S , g a e me asurin T p , g Vice s standin l 6 . , g, 3 bs

arrows w e e B , h l 1 2 2 I APPEND X .

oc s Bl k , snatch double tre ble " ma e a e iron dou e ll bl , 4 bl " 5 snatch ucke s 1ron lvanwe d B t , , p ans wate r for fi lin ac s C , ( l g j k )

tip Cordage : " e m arre d 6 H p, t , " 3

white Manilla 2 m un r {la l e s a n u d bs. H p, p y , 3 h e S l, “ ” Ca stans crab frame s a c . p , , bars

ain - ca Ch ble , rums or re els for Wi re ro e D , p

’ ac s drau ic an e s o - ton J k , hy l (T g ) 3 ’ W lk s - t (Te nne tt and a m ), 4o 0n ’ (Tangye s) 1 00- ton e rs i 1 A in 2 im Ladd , l ght, 5 , p ” s Ba ue r c ain 2 in. wi orse e ar to Pump , , h , } th h g ,

no fl .

iron double - a de d wi chain . h , th

’ " Rolhn onkg f x s

CH S W ICK R ES S : CHAR LES W H TT NGH M AN D C I P I I A 0.

TOO K S COURT CH NCERY L NE LONDO N . , A A ,