Last edited Sun Aug 23, 2020, 08:20 PM - Edit history (1)
some years ago but I can't find the thing now, so treat this as apocryphal.
After much discussion about how many men it would take to move a massive block of stone from a boat on the Nile to Giza, one elderly scientist had a flash of inspiration. He went out the next day with a crew carrying buckets of loose mud, the type potters use. He had it poured on the trackway and had the crew level the stone up to get it underneath. He then proceeded to push this massiuve stone up a slight grade with one hand.
They don't call it "slip" for nothing.
While I doubt the one old man using one hand part, it does make a lot of sense. Slip would overcome a lot of friction and it was certainly an abundant material. Instead of all those old bible movies with the thousands of slaves under the lash (which also wasn't true, they were farmers in the off season trying to learn a little extra dosh), movement could have been accomplished by very few people without breaking their backs.
I've always been fond of mud, from smearing it on insect bites and bee stings when I was a kid (we swore it worked) to helping friends who are well enough off to live in adobe houses to mud up the walls in spring, tp drinking my tea out of it in the form of a terra cotta cup, I find it an amazing material.
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