How did the Egyptians carve the world's
largest monument thousands of
years before mount rushmore?
That is absolutely extraordinary!
How did the romans build a dome bigger than the
dome on the U.S. capitol building?
This is just under 2,000 years old.
It is incredible that it is still standing.
And how were the massive stones of stonehenge
moved hundreds of miles across rugged terrain?
Monuments more colossal than
our own, ancient super weapons as mighty as today's,
technology so precise it defies reinvention.
The ancient world was not primitive.
Their marvels were so advanced, we still use them.
Travel to a world closer than
we imagine, an ancient age
where nothing was impossible.
Over 3,000 years ago, one of
Egypt's greatest pharaohs
created this impossibly vast
monument to himself at abu
simbel, an imposing location on the nile river.
To this day, it is still the
largest temple ever carved out of solid rock.
This colossal monster monument
was built in an age before
modern machinery, before there
were even iron tools.
But how did they do it?
To understand what they were up
against, we look at a monster
monument being built right now
crazy horse monument, South Dakota.
This project is so vast that Dr.
Derek muller needs a helicopter to appreciate it.
This is absolutely amazing.
I am coming up close and
personal with one of America's
native American leaders, crazy
horse, who led the native
Americans to victory in the
battle of little big horn.
This sculpture is just
mind blowingly big.
It is the whole mountain.
The statue of this
great native American hero on
horseback will be 563 feet high
when completed.
Just the horse's nostril alone
will be big enough to hold ten full size cars.
This impossible monument is so
massive and time consuming that
the task has been handed down
from father to son.
My dad got a letter from
Henry standing bear asking him
to carve a mountain to the
native American Indian.
And in 1948, he started it.
Crazy horse will be the largest
carving of any kind in the world
as far as mountain carvings go,
and I think it's the tallest
memorial built by man.
But until crazy
horse monument is complete, the
title for the world's largest
monument remains with Abu Simbel, in Egypt.
In a boundless and barren
desert, this monument stands,
carved out of a single mountain
just like crazy horse.
But it took the Egyptians just 20 years to build.
How was this possible so long ago?
Look at that.
That is absolutely
extraordinary.
Oh, wow.
In terms of the scale of the
achievement, the size of the
building, and the fact that this
is cut directly into a mountain,
the great temple at Abu Simbel
is as close as there is to an
ancient impossible mega build.
Well, standing in front of
Abu Simbel right now, I am
incredibly impressed by this structure.
You really only get a sense of
scale when you're right up
against it.
It is just so amazing.
I don't even come up to his feet.
Monuments like
these were built on the orders
of the pharaohs, absolute rulers
of Egypt, who ruthlessly used
every resource they could muster
to celebrate their rule.
But one pharaoh outbuilt all the other pharaohs.
N a massive fit of pride,
Egyptian pharaoh ramses ii
decorated the outside of the
temple with four massive statues of himself.
Ramses ii was an ego maniac.
He was the greatest, powerful,
celebrated pharaoh of all time.
He probably reigned from the age of 24 to 90 years old.
And he built huge monuments to celebrate himself.
He even changed inscriptions on
existing monuments to celebrate himself.
He was the ancient monument
builder of the ancient world, if you like.
It's a grand statement of
power and capability.
You didn't need to be able to read.
You didn't need to be able to
meet the man to know what he was capable of.
This was a visual statement that
I am as powerful as any man,
almost as powerful as a God.
Ramses ii was buried in the
valley of thkings and is now
on display in a museum.
And even though he died over
3,000 years ago, everyone still
remembers him, which I am sure
pleases him enormously.
The vast interior
of Abu Simbel is a great
testament to the phenomenal
ability and craftsmanship of the
ancient builders.
Wow.
Can you believe that?
Look at how amazing this temple is.
You know, as a modern engineer,
I wouldn't believe that this was
possible if someone had told me
they could build a structure
this big and detailed and just
beautifully constructed.
I wouldn't think it's possible.
Despite its tremendous size, the temple of
Abu Simbel was built with
pinpoint precision, an example
of not only advanced engineering
but that the Egyptians also had
an extraordinary knowledge of astronomy.
On exactly two days of the
year, February the 21st and
October the 21st, possibly the
king's birthday and the king's
coronation, the light falls
inside the temple and shines on
the back wall and lights up the holy statues...
The question remains how did the ancient
Egyptians build this impossible temple?
Now we're still trying to
work out what sort of techniques
they could have used to construct it.
It's from another time, and that
doesn't make sense.
Some clues might
lie in another modern mega monument
mount rushmore, South Dakota.
It's been called the eighth
wonder of the world.
Many believe mount rushmore
would not exist if it were not
for the work of the ancient
builders at Abu Simbel.
We are going to see the
modern Abu Simbel, mount rushmore.
But the best way to see it is from a chopper.
I can't wait.
Let's do this.
These faces of presidents Washington,
Jefferson, Roosevelt and Lincoln
are 60 feet high, taller than a 5 story building
wow.
That is truly something special.
You look at the size of that thing, the scale.
You know, its 60 foot high faces.
If those were made into men,
they would stand 465 foot tall.
You think about Abu Simbel and
what they were able to achieve there, the statues of ramses
were actually larger than each of those faces.
Can the construction of mount rushmore
help us to understand what it
took to create Abu Simbel?
Rushmore was carved with explosives.
The people who built mount
rushmore had dynamite.
They had pneumatic drills.
They had all of this very
impressive modern technology.
The result is truly an engineering marvel, but
consider this 3,000 years ago at Abu Simbel,
there was no dynamite or power drills.
All the workers had was this, a small hand chisel
as a modern engineer, I would
not believe that something like
that was capable of being built
thousands of years ago with a
technology as simple as this,
a simple copper chisel.
It gives me a whole new respect
for the ancient Egyptians and
what they were capable of.
The statues of ramses alone are seven feet
higher than the faces on mount rushmore.
Could the Egyptians really have
built this massive temple with
little more than copper chisels?
This is a block of sandstone,
the very same material that the
temple at Abu Simbel was carved
out of, and here I have a
reconstructed tool, the same
type of copper chisel that they
would have used to build the temple.
What I want to find out is just
how difficult it is to work with
this tool on this rock.
It seems impossible to
believe that Abu Simbel was
carved with copper chisels, but
it's the only metal that the
Egyptians could get large quantities of.
Now today, our tools are made of
hardened steel.
And copper isn't even half as
hard as that, which makes abu
simbel one of the most amazing
feats of engineering ever.
We're talking about hundreds,
possibly thousands of men
hacking away skillfully over a
long period of time.
It's the only way you could've
covered this amount of sheer rock.
After just a few
minutes' work, there's a problem.
Looking at my tool after a
few hits, I can see that it's
already started to wear away.
It is estimated
that three or more chisels a
day could have been used by
each man as they pounded the
rock face, far less effective
than a pneumatic drill, let
alone explosives.
How could the Egyptians have
done it?
If you're going through three
copper chisels in a day and
you've got 1,000 stone carvers
working for about 20 years, you
arrive at something like 20 million chisels.
The scale is just hard to believe.
But they did it, and Abu Simbel is still
standing, a constant reminder of
the power of pharaoh ramses ii.
But what's even more impossible
is that thousands of years
after it was built, the entire
temple had to be cut into
thousands of pieces and moved.
It seems impossible
that this temple was carved out
of a mountainside in Southern
Egypt 3,000 years ago.
This monster monument is larger
than mount rushmore and was
created with nothing more than
simple copper chisels
imagine what it would've been
like to be here around 3,000
years ago and watch thousands
of men as they worked on this
rock in 110 degree heat.
To create a monument like this demanded a
highly motivated and organized labor force.
Most experts agree that this
could not be built using mostly slaves.
Well, the workers at abu
simbel were not actually slaves,
they were skilled craftsmen, and
to be working for the pharaoh
would have been a privilege and
an honor, and how they got paid?
Well, in bread and about 8 pints of beer a day.
While the builders
were able to harness enough
manpower to accomplish this
seemingly impossible task.
How were they able to work at
such great heights?
Today we take scaffolding for
granted, but Abu Simbel might
have been one of the first times
that scaffolding was ever used on a large scale.
There are some theories that
show they did have some
scaffolding that would lift them
up the rock so you'd have
hundreds of workers working on
different levels at the same time.
Another theory is
even more remarkable.
Could they have used the
mountain itself as a building platform?
Imagine that you're carving
from top to bottom and you're
filling up the whole area with
sand so as you produce, as you
carve the statue, you're taking
away amounts of sand, your
platform from which you're working.
But there are many
questions that need to be answered.
How would they figure out the
exact size and proportions if
the mountain was covered in sand?
The answer might be found at mount rushmore.
The builders of mount rushmore
first made a clay model.
They scaled up the dimensions
using giant protractors with a
boom and a dangling plum Bob.
Using these measurements they
carved out each presidential face
what's interesting to me is
that some of the techniques they
used to map out where they're
gonna carve may have been the
very same that they used at Abu Simbel.
There's a technique called
pointing where essentially, you
measure out from the top and
then drop a plum Bob down to
indicate where on the rock you
need to cut back.
I mean, it's very difficult to
carve everything just by hand.
You need to also know the
mathematics and the appropriate
engineering to make that work.
It's incredible that techniques used today may
have been the same used on abu
simbel 3,000 years ago.
When I think about the
techniques that must have been
invented in order to produce
such an incredible temple, I
think about the vast advances
that humans made here to such a
point that if people hadn't
figured out how to make this,
they may never have figured out
how to make mount rushmore.
But there is an
important difference between the two monuments.
Ramses the second ordered his
monument to be painted in bright colors.
We see them only as they
exist now, where earthquakes
have shaken off some of the
face, and they're left a dusty
sort of brown color.
In their original state, they
would've been brightly colored,
painted whites and blues and
reds, gilded with gold.
That is truly how these
sculptures should be viewed.
The pharaoh wanted
to be sure everyone travelling
the nile river saw his monument.
He wanted them to know who he
was and be in awe of his power.
But Abu Simbel's prominent
position on the banks of the
river nile put it under threat.
Over 3,000 years after it was
built, Abu Simbel was nearly lost forever.
What I find truly
extraordinary is that the abu
simbel temple actually used to
be 200 feet below the surface of
the nile here.
In 1964 they built a dam at
aswan which flooded this whole region.
So they had to move the whole
temple up 200 feet, and they set
it back 700 feet in its current position.
To me, that is amazing, that
centuries after this mega build,
they made a mega move.
So a team of expert engineers
and contractors took Abu Simbel
block by block, 20 to 30 ton
blocks and moved it onto a higher position.
They created a concrete dome to
help support its structure and
then piece by piece like a giant
Jigsaw put it all back together again.
And what really amazes me is
that they still realigned the
temple so that twice a year, on the king's birthday and the
king's coronation, the sunlight
still hits the back of that
temple wall and lights up the
holy statues of ramses.
Today, the great temple of abu
simbel looks like it's always been here.
It is a great testament to the
ancient builders that
constructed it and to the modern
engineers that moved it the ancient
Egyptians used a massive
workforce for 20 years to create Abu Simbel.
Their tools were simple, but
multiplying simple tools and
techniques with thousands of
workers achieved the impossible
to think about the techniques
that they invented, to think
about their ingenuity and their
manpower, their organization, I
just think it's extraordinary.
If I hadn't seen it for my own
eyes, I wouldn't believe that it's possible.
But is it possible that ancients working thousands
of years before Abu Simbel may
have employed even more advanced techniques?
Thousands of miles and a continent away from the
great structures of Egypt lie the remains of an ancient
impossible monument built by a people long ago.
To this day, there are many theories as to why they built
it, but one thing is sure.
It is a structure years ahead of its time.
Stonehenge is a massive and
mysterious stone circle built 4,500 years ago.
Visiting stonehenge literally takes your breath away.
You stand there in absolute awe.
It's a very iconic, very spiritual place, and it's a real
testament to what people can achieve when they work together.
Stonehenge in Southern england.
Like the pyramids, it is one of
the most famous ancient sites in the world.
Now irrigation and sunshine
in Egypt created a real rich
powerful agricultural economy,
which then in turn gave power
and wealth to create monster monuments.
At the same time in Southern
england, agriculture was on a fairly basic scale.
So how small farming
communities got together and
moved and built something like
this is absolutely incredible.
Sometimes when you stand
inside stonehenge with these
massive stones towering above
you, it's almost impossible to
work out how our ancient
ancestors might have built
something like this, just the sheer scale of it.
These massive stone
archways weigh nearly 100 tons.
Can these ruins give us a clue
as to how this monument was built?
Originally it looked quite
different because today, it's a
ruin because its 4,500 years old.
Quite a lot of stones are missing, but if we look at that
part of the outer circle, that
gives you an idea of what
carried all the way round here.
With no quarries on
site or nearby, it seems
impossible to think this
enormous mega structure was
built in ancient times, but it was.
Stonehenge was built by the
stone age and bronze age inhabitants of britain.
And what they brought here to
build it were two different sorts of stones.
These huge ones are sarsens,
which is a hard sandstone, and
that comes from about 20 miles away to the north.
These things weigh up to 40. Tons, and the smaller ones, they
only weigh up to about five tons.
They come all the way from
wales, about 150 miles in that direction.
This is the site in wales where the inner circle
bluestones from stonehenge come from.
Stonemason selwyn Jones believes
the answers lie in this quarry.
It's incredible to think that these stones from this quarry
were transported well over 100
miles by people who had never
done anything like this before,
and probably would never do anything like it again.
Even today, the scale of
choosing one of these stones,
moving it down the valley by
sled, out to the coast, onto
the water, across the channel.
It's amazing, absolutely amazing.
Today, it takes a few hours to travel 150 miles.
5,000 years ago, it took over a
week, and that's without a 4 ton stone.
There were no roads, no Bridges
and no boats big enough.
How did they get the bluestones here?
James Dean uses advanced
holographic technology to help
solve the ancient mystery.
One theory as to how they
might have done it is they could
have wrapped the stones in
wicker and then rolled them to their destination.
Now this seems like it's going
to be very hard work when you're
going uphill and potentially
lethal when you're going downhill.
Some of the route to stonehenge
is over water, but no one has
any idea about this because
there's no evidence that there were suitable boats that could
have moved these stones.
So this one remains impossible.
Unless, could they have used the
wicker to float a 3 ton stone?
It's possible, but you're going
to need a lot of wood to
displace this much weight.
But the bluestones are the smallest at stonehenge.
It seems impossible to have moved them here, but how could
the ancients possibly transport the heavier stones?
The sarsens are very different from the bluestones.
They're much, much bigger.
These massive stones weigh about 40 tons, and they've got a 10
ton stone perched on top of them.
And they also came from 20 miles away to the north.
So quite how prehistoric people
dragged these enormous stones
across the downs, we honestly don't know.
For thousands of years, the sophisticated society
of Egypt built impossible, massive monuments.
But a mysterious culture in
Southern england was not to be outdone.
The secrets behind the mega
build at stonehenge have
remained a mystery for 5,000 years.
How could these 40 ton stones
have been moved over 20 miles
without modern machinery or roads?
We've got 20 to 50 tons of
granite hard sandstone here.
And it's a 25 mile journey to stonehenge.
We can't drag it, and in fact
even trying to drag it on sleds
seems like hard work.
We could try stone rowing.
So we have two teams of people
on either side of the rock with
big levers, and as they lift the
rock, they shuffle it a tiny
amount forwards, but it's
incredibly slow, and the whole
idea of moving a 40 odd ton
stone 25 miles without transport
or roads seems totally impossible.
But we're not out of ideas yet.
We've seen that the
ancient Egyptians could move massive stones.
But what technology was
available to a stone age culture?
These rollers could work, but
ground in Southern england can
get very muddy and they'll get stuck.
This is a better option, build a
stone age rail road.
We either do it as a continuous
length of track or we re lay it as we go.
Either way it's going to take a
huge number of people.
Is it possible that
stonehenge was built with
technology thousands of years
ahead of its time?
Loads of these balls have
been found near neolithic
monuments in Scotland, and
they're all three inches in diameter.
They could be stone age ball bearings.
These ball bearings could be
laid between two "u" sections
cut from hard oak to make a roller platform.
This is amazing, but we've no
proof that this is what they did.
With a mobile trackway like this
you could move the sarsen stones
with far fewer people.
Despite the theories, how the stones got
here is still a mystery.
But look at their perfectly smooth sides.
It's not difficult to do this today.
But how was it done 4,500 years ago?
The only thing they had to do
that with were stone tools.
Hammers of stone, everything
from the size of footballs that
you'd have to pound away at the
stones with, and then when you
got to a finer surface you'd
need a smaller handheld stone
like this, but can you imagine
just sitting here and pounding
away for hours and days and
weeks and months to create these
smooth surfaces and the joints
that fit the stones together?
Even with the
stones on hand and ready to go,
the problems for these ancient
mega builders were only just beginning.
So they've got the stones
here, they've shaped them.
Then they've got to get them upright.
That in itself is not easy with
a stone of this size.
We think that they must have
known how to use levers to
actually lever the end of the stone up.
Stone age societies
had no metal tools.
They had to improvise.
To get this stone vertical.,
you dig a hole with a vertical
side and a diagonal side using antler picks.
First the stone goes in off this ramp.
And then it's hauled in whilst
the hole is backfilled.
It would work, but it'd take an
incredible number of people to achieve it.
The people who
built stonehenge might have been
able to mobilize enough workers.
But there is still the question
of how they got the final stones in place.
So you've got the upright
stones up, then you've got to
get the lintel on the top, and
that really we don't know in
all honesty how they actually got these stones up.
It's one of the great mysteries of stonehenge.
There are plenty of
theories but still no solid answers.
You can haul the lintel up an
earth ramp to get it into
position, but it's very costly
in terms of time and manpower.
As another possibility, you can
lever up alternate sides and
build supporting timber
underneath until you lever it
sideways on to the stones.
Another idea is that the lintel was lifted on a
sturdy wooden wheel.
Stonehenge comes from a time
before written records.
There's no evidence as to how
or why it was built, but it
remains today a testament to the impossible.
I think one of the things
that we need to understand is that these people were
incredibly ingenious, incredibly skilled.
They were mathematicians.
They were engineers.
They were astronomers.
They had a lot of skills.
We mustn't think of them as
being primitive in any way.
They were unbelievably skilled
people because they built
stonehenge, and it's still here
for us to see 4,500 years later.
Stonehenge remains one of the greatest mysteries of
the ancient world.
But the romans weren't to be
outdone in monster monumental impossibilities.
Our world is full of amazing buildings, but 2,000
years ago, the romans built advanced structures that still
have not been outdone today.
One of these is a 2,000 year old
concrete dome found in the centre of Rome.
It's called the pantheon, built
as a temple to all the gods of ancient Rome.
The pantheon is usually
ascribed to emperor hadrian, but it's actually said to have been
begun by his predecessor, emperor trajan.
These towering grey granite
columns came from Egypt, 3,000 miles from Rome.
They were quarried in aswan
these were first transported up
the river nile, then across the
mediterranean, and then by
barge up the river tiber and
then finally dragged through
the streets to the pantheon.
The sight must have been incredible.
The stone floor was made up of
granite and marble from Egypt,
north Africa and Turkey, the
edges of Rome's vast empire.
But the truly impossible feature of the
pantheon is its dome of unreinforced concrete.
After 2,000 years, its sheer
scale has never been matched.
The dome's diameter, that's
what's not superseded, ever.
So picture, you don't just have
this amazing dome but the width,
the diameter is the same as the
height, so you could fit in that
cylinder a perfect sphere.
Incredibly, the space inside the pantheon could
hold 9 million gallons of water.
It is an amazing structure.
If we compare the pantheon
dome to say a modern dome such
as the capitol building in Washington DC.
Now the pantheon dome has a diameter of 142 feet.
Now the capitol building has a diameter of 96 feet.
The last time the pantheon dome
was repaired was in 202 ad after an earthquake.
The capitol dome was finished in
1866 and has already undergone
two extensive restorations.
How was the pantheon built?
The secret lies hidden in the concrete.
Modern concrete buildings rarely
last 50 years, let alone 2,000 years.
To uncover this secret, we're
going to one of the world's most
dangerous places.
Oh, my God.
It's like being on the moon. Amazing.
Dr. Darius Arya has
come to solfatara volcano in Italy.
This hellish inferno is the key
to the mystery of the pantheon dome.
We think of concrete as a modern invention.
We think about it building our modern mega cities.
But it was invented here in Roman times.
Encased in this bubbling cauldron is the secret
ingredient, this volcanic
material, called pozzolana ash or sand.
The magic ingredient in cement is the pozzolana sand,
and what it has is volcanic
material, including aluminates and silicates.
And this creates a really
important chemical bond with the
lime and with the water.
The bond created by volcanic
ash when combined with other ingredients makes a solid
material, unlike modern concrete which lets water in.
The volcanic ash makes the
concrete weatherproof and resistant to decay.
This simple ingredient makes Roman concrete
a mega build super material more
durable than any concrete made today.
A modern equivalent of the Roman concrete recipe was
amazingly used in the hoover dam.
Fly ash, a by product of the coal fire process, was used in
the hoover dam concrete, and it works in a similar kind of way
to the volcanic ash of the Roman age.
We've found the secret of Roman concrete.
And we've come to Texas to put it to the test.
Concrete expert mark whaling
has always been fascinated by Roman concrete.
He's even visited the pantheon in Rome to study its design.
Mark has made one ton blocks of
Roman and modern concrete to test their strengths.
How will they face up to a true Texas test, a Winchester 73?
We have a showdown between Roman concrete 2,000 year old
technology and modern concrete,
and we're going to see which one is stronger.
Can sharpshooter Kirsten weiss make
a big impact on modern concrete?
Some light damage, penetrated
about half an inch, not much more than that.
Held up pretty well.
Will the Roman concrete be equal to the test?
It's fared every bit as well as the modern concrete did.
The thing with the Roman concrete is that it gets
stronger and stronger as it ages, and that is one of the
reasons why the pantheon is still standing today.
If you take something like the pantheon dome, it's actually
stronger now than when it was built 2,000 years ago.
I'm in complete awe of the engineering and the skill of the
monument builders of the ancient world.
The romans formulated the ultimate building
material and built the impossible.
In 2,000 years it's never been matched.
But another ancient monument stood 2,500 years before the
pantheon was built and is still standing today.
This is the great pyramid of giza.
We like to think that humans have never been more
advanced than they are today, but we're wrong.
As far back as 5,000 years, ancient engineers erected
buildings that have stood the test of time and might outlast
anything we build today.
The temple of Abu Simbel in Egypt is still the world's
biggest monument carved out of a mountainside, but one Egyptian
monster monument even dwarfs Abu Simbel
the great pyramid, built in the 26th century bc.
At a height of over 480 feet, it reigned as the tallest manmade
structure in the world for over 4,000 years.
The building of the great
pyramid is a staggering feat
when you consider the sheer size.
This is an almost impossible achievement.
The Egyptians built
more than 100 pyramids across their kingdom.
It is believed that all were constructed as tombs.
In terms of size, precision and construction time, no mega
build in the world beats the great pyramid of giza.
It is the only wonder of the
seven wonders of the ancient world still standing.
It was constructed as a tomb for Khufu, second pharaoh of the
fourth dynasty, 4,500 years ago.
How did the Egyptians build on
such a scale thousands of years ahead of their time?
I think, undisputedly, the ancient Egyptians were the
mega builders of the ancient world.
The mind boggles to think how they did it.
When we think of big, we think of buildings like
the Pentagon, and while it does have greater ground coverage,
the Pentagon is just a lightweight when it comes to the
sheer volume of the great pyramid.
These are manmade mountains, structures of a size that we
failed to replicate up until, say, the 20th century.
That just gives you some idea of the scope, the scale, the
monumental achievement that this represents.
The great pyramid weighs over 6 million tons.
That's more than seven Pentagon buildings.
The number of stone blocks it contains is simply staggering.
You know, each one of these
pyramids contains about 2 million huge stones.
And you think about how far they had to bring those stones, it just
it boggles the mind.
How was that even possible?
The blocks used at the base of the great pyramid
weigh two and a half tons.
The largest single blocks in the
pyramid weigh as much as 20 tons each.
You think about how long Khufu's reign was and we think
it was between 23 and 25 years,
you divide that time by the number of blocks, you're looking
at putting one of those humungous blocks into place
every couple of minutes.
That in itself is a staggering achievement.
And if you think with enough
rope, enough men, enough force,
you can move anything, and the
great pyramid is the proof of that.
Even more incredible is the precision with
which the great pyramid was built long before computers and
modern surveying equipment were invented
in addition to its phenomenal size, the pyramid is an
incredible feat of precision building as well.
So the base on to which it's built is absolutely level.
There's less than a single inch worth of deviation from that
absolutely perfect level, and all of the four sides of the
pyramid at the base are of identical length.
The difference between the
shortest and the longest is less than two inches.
This is an absolutely incredible feat.
Originally the pyramids were covered with
highly polished white limestone and possibly capped with gold.
Only the pyramid of khafre, the second pyramid, still has
some of its limestone cladding left.
The casing stones that were used to face the pyramid are cut
with incredible accuracy.
So at the corners of the
pyramid, they are cut to a 90 degree angle that is so close
to perfect, it's within 100th of an inch.
Modern builders would find it a challenge to
match such precision on a monster scale.
The Egyptians proved that you can achieve the impossible with
little more than. String, a plumb line, and a set square.
It is a testament to their mega monument building.
For me as an engineer,
this is the most impressive manmade feat on the planet.
I mean, it represents impossible ancient engineering.
The world's greatest mega build is yet to be
surpassed after 4,500 years, and many believe it will remain
long after anything we build today.
The construction of the pyramid as a whole is so well
done that we expect the pyramid
will still be standing in 100,000 years time.
Mega builders of the ancient world made
unbelievable structures impossible to match even today,
from history's most immense monument to the largest concrete
dome and the world's most massive building, proving that
the ancients were to achieve the impossible,
creating monster monuments that still
remain unmatched after thousands of years.