If you are looking for information on how the Egyptian pyramids were built, there is information on the location of the quarries, tools used to cut the stone, how the stone was transported and how the foundation was leveled. If you want to know how the stones were lifted to the height of the pyramids, there is not much help from historical accounts.
The most commonly accepted theory is that ramps along with levering was used to move the blocks, but archaeological evidence shows only small ramps which definitely could have been used for constructing the pyramid. Even though there is no evidence, it has been accepted that only a large straight external ramp can be used for constructing something of that size.
French Architect Jean-Pierre Houdin has concluded, after an eight year study, that the tomb of Khufu was built using a ramp that spirals around the pyramid’s interior.
Houdin’s theory posits that a long, straight ramp was used to build the first 129 feet (39 meters) of the pyramid and the internal ramp was used to complete construction.
Drawings from a 1986 survey of the pyramid show a “spiral anomaly” inside that conforms exactly to this theory, he said. [Great Pyramid Built Inside Out, French Architect Says]
Greek writer Herodotus wrote about the pyramids, 2000 years after it was constructed. So did Diodorus Siculus and both of them gave two different techniques which boil down to levering and ramping. People do not think Jean-Pierre Houdin’s theory as outlandish, but still he was denied permission to test his theory.
If Jean-Pierre Houdin investigates how Raja Raja Chola built the Big Temple at Tanjore, for which he had to move more stones than the pyramid at Giza, he will find that external ramps were used.
Note: Image shows how a large straight external ramp is used.
