Q&A: how many stones are used in building the great pyramid of Egypt?
October 21st, 2011 | 
Author: Question by pokemon: how many stones are used in building the great pyramid of Egypt?
The great pyramid of Egypt :
1- location of the pyramid is in giza city, Egypt.
2- size of the pyramid is the biggest pyramid in Egypt.
3- name of the pyramid is KHOFOU.
4- KHOFOU is a name of an ancient egyptian king.
5- function of the pyramid is to carry the body of the king after his death with his treasures.
Tips: -ancient egyptians used to take their treasures in the graves with them cause they believed in the other world after death.
-the great pyramid of egypt resist earthquakes.
Best answer:
Answer by Opus
Lots and lots.
What do you think? Answer below!
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2 million blocks of stone
A total of over 2,300,000 (or only 590,712)* blocks of limestone and granite were used in its construction with the average block weighing 2.5 tons and none weighing less than 2 tons. The large blocks used in the ceiling of the King’s Chamber weigh as much as 9 tons.
* According to Socrates G. Taseos, the actual number of stones used to build the Great Pyramid is only 590,712. In his book Back in Time 3104 B.C. to the Great Pyramid- Egyptians Broke Their Backs to Build It- How the Great Pyramid Was Really Built he presents results of his computer calculations. The following is derived from the book mentioned above.
Nearly 2,400,000 stones were used in the construction of the Pyramid of Egypt with over 50000 workers working for nearly 20 years.
The study estimates the number of blocks used in construction was between 2-2.8 million (an average of 2.4 million), but settles on a much reduced finished total of 2 million subtracting the estimated area of the hollow spaces of the chambers and galleries
Materials and labor
Many varied estimates have been made regarding the labor force needed to construct the Great Pyramid. Herodotus, the Greek historian in the 5th century BC, estimated that construction may have required the labor of 100,000 workers for 20 years. Recent evidence has been found that suggests the workforce was in fact paid, which would require accounting and bureaucratic skills of a high order. Polish architect Wieslaw Kozinski believed that it took as many as 25 men to transport a 1.5-ton stone block; based on this, he estimated the workforce to be 300,000 men on the construction site, with an additional 60,000 off-site. 19th century Egyptologist William Flinders Petrie proposed that the labor force was largely composed not of slaves but of the rural Egyptian population, working during periods when the Nile river was flooded and agricultural activity suspended.[4]
Egyptologist Miroslav Verner posited that the labor was organized into a hierarchy, consisting of two gangs of 1000 men, divided into five zaa or phyle of 200 men each, which may have been further divided according to the skills of the workers.[5] Some research suggests alternate estimates to the aforementioned labor size. For instance, mathematician Kurt Mendelssohn calculated that the labor force may have been 50,000 men at most, while Ludwig Borchardt and Louis Croon placed the number at 36,000. According to Verner, a labor force of no more than 30,000 was needed in the Great Pyramid’s construction.[4]
A construction management study carried out by the firm Daniel, Mann, Johnson, & Mendenhall in association with Mark Lehner and other Egyptologists, estimates that the total project required an average workforce of 13,200 people and a peak workforce of 40,000. Without the use of pulleys, wheels, or iron tools, they surmise the Great Pyramid was completed from start to finish in approximately 10 years.[6] The study estimates the number of blocks used in construction was between 2-2.8 million (an average of 2.4 million), but settles on a much reduced finished total of 2 million subtracting the estimated area of the hollow spaces of the chambers and galleries.[6] Most sources agree on this number of blocks somewhere above 2 million.[7] The egyptologists’ calculations suggest the workforce could have sustained a rate of 180 blocks per hour (3 stones/minute) with ten hour work days for putting each individual block in place. They derived these estimates from construction projects in the third world that did not use modern machinery.[6] This study fails to take into account however, especially when compared to modern third world construction projects, the logistics and craftsmanship time inherent in constructing a building of nearly unparalleled magnitude with such precision, or among other things, the use of up to 60-80 tonne stones being quarried and transported a distance of over 500 miles.
In contrast, a Great Pyramid feasibility study relating to the quarrying of the stone was performed in 1978 by Technical Director Merle Booker of the Indiana Limestone Institute of America. Consisting of 33 quarries, the Institute is considered by many architects to be one of the world’s leading authorities on lime stone. Using modern equipment, the study concludes:
“Utilizing the entire Indiana Limestone industry’s facilities as they now stand [for 33 quarries], and figuring on tripling present average production, it would take approximately 27 years to quarry, fabricate and ship the total requirements.”
Mr. Booker points out the time study assumes sufficient quantities of railroad cars would be available without delay or downtime during this 27 year period and does not factor in the increasing costs of completing the work.[8]
These accepted values by egyptologists bear out the following result:
2,400,000 stones used ÷ 20 years ÷ 365 days per year ÷ 10 work hours per day ÷ 60 minutes per hour = 0.55 stones laid per minute
Thus no matter how many workers were used or in what configuration, 1.1 blocks would have to be put in place every 2 minutes, ten hours a day, 365 days a year for twenty years to complete the Great Pyramid within this time frame. To use the same equation, but instead assuming the time of completion to be one hundred years instead of twenty, it would require 1.1 blocks to be set every ten minutes.
This equation, however, does not include the time and labor required to design, plan, survey, and level the 13 acre site the Great Pyramid sits on. Nor does it include the construction time for the two other main pyramids on the site, the Sphinx, the temples, networks of causeways, several square miles of paving stones, the leveling of the entire Giza plateau, the 35 boat pits carved out of solid bedrock, or several other highly laborious features. When considering the time it would have taken to build the Great Pyramid alone, it is worth noting that the entire Giza plateau was constructed over the reign of five pharaohs in less than a hundred years. This feat is even more impressive, given that beginning with king Djoser who ruled from 2687-2667 BC, three other massive pyramids were built – the Step pyramid of Saqqara (believed to be the first Egyptian pyramid), the Bent Pyramid, and the Red Pyramid. Also during this time period (between 2686 and 2498 BC) the Wadi Al-Garawi dam which used an estimated 100,000 cubic metres of rock and rubble was built.[9] Beginning with Saqqara, Egyptologist Barbara Mertz estimates nearly 700 pyramids were constructed in Egypt during a roughly 500 year period .[10]
A total of over 2300,000(or only 590,712)blocks of limestone and granite were used in its construction.
more than 4