SCIENTISTS have finally solved the mystery behind how the ancient Egyptian pyramids were really built.
Groundbreaking new information may provide answers to the age-old mystery surrounding the towering 4,500-year-old wonders.
Findings of a new study unexpectedly suggest water might have been involved in creating the sophisticated structures.
Though deserts are typically known to lack moisture the study – published in Plos One – theorized that Egyptians used water power to build the pyramids.
The Step Pyramid of Djoser, constructed 4,500 years ago, may have been put up using a unified water-powered hydraulic lift system, the study authors found.
Previous theories of how the Step Pyramid came to be suggested that ancient Egyptians used a system of ramps and levers to give the pyramids their impressive height.
But the new idea suggests the pyramids’ architects made use of nearby canals for their construction, much like Egyptians of the time used the canals to irrigate their crops.
The researchers wrote: “Ancient Egyptians are famous for their pioneering and mastery of hydraulics through canals for irrigation purposes and barges to transport huge stones.”
“This work opens a new line of research: the use of hydraulic force to erect the massive structures built by Pharaohs.”
The study argues that the ancient Egyptians used pressurized water to float the pyramid’s building stones toward the upper levels of the growing structure through an internal shaftway.
This process is known as “volcano” construction.
The researchers said they found evidence of a unified water filtration and hydraulic system at the Step Pyramid that purified water from nearby canals and regulated its flow for practical uses.
They believe the Step Pyramid may have been built downstream from a watershed.
And they think the nearby mysterious Gisr el-Mudir enclosure was a massive sediment trap featuring an open check dam.
The scientists claim they discovered the potential presence of a dried-up temporary lake west of the pyramid.
This likely filled up the “dry moat” encircling the pyramid complex, which then connected with a deep trench that brought water below the ground and up into the shaft inside the pyramid.
The report authors concluded: “We have uncovered a possible explanation for how the pyramids were built involving hydraulic force.”
“The internal architecture of the Step Pyramid is consistent with a hydraulic elevation device never reported before.”
The authors hope to conduct further research to understand in more detail how the possible water lift system worked.
It comes as researchers believe they may have solved the mystery of how the huge stones of Stonehenge were transported to the iconic structure.
It is claimed that the megaliths for Stonehenge, located near Amesbury, in Wiltshire, were moved from Welsh quarries using a “stone highway” – potentially explaining how they travelled from Wales to Salisbury Plain.
The journal Antiquity claims that the route initially thought to be true – proposed by H.H. Thomas in 192 – is wrong.
It reads: “New analytical techniques, alongside transmitted and reflected light microscopy, have recently prompted renewed scrutiny of Thomas’s work.
“While respectable for its time, the results of these new analyses, combined with a thorough checking of the archived samples consulted by Thomas, reveal that key locations long believed to be sources for the Stonehenge bluestones can be discounted in favour of newly identified locations at Craig-Rhos-y-felin and Carn Goedog.”
A study claims that the stones were moved from Pembrokeshire to Wiltshire on route using roads and rivers.
