The idea was that as one end of the column rose, the base would roll across the ground on a trolley.Įarlier this year, the team put Clemmons's unlikely theory to the test, using a 40-square-metre rectangular nylon sail. So they rigged up a tent-shaped scaffold directly above the tip of the horizontal column, with pulleys suspended from the scaffold's apex. The key was to use a pulley system that would magnify the applied force. Even a modest force, if sustained over a long time, would do. Their initial calculations and scale-model wind-tunnel experiments convinced them they wouldn't need a strong wind to lift the 33.5-tonne column. Gharib and Graff set themselves the task of raising a 4.5-metre stone column from horizontal to vertical, using no source of energy except the wind. And since he needed a summer project for his student Emilio Graff, investigating the possibility of using kites as heavy lifters seemed like a good idea. The possibility certainly existed that it was a kite/ he says. The object in the sky apparently had wings far too short and wide for a bird. He too was puzzled by the picture that had sparked Clemmons's interest. 'Coming from Iran, I have a keen interest in Middle Eastern science/ he says. Intrigued, Clemmons contacted Morteza Gharib, aeronautics professor at the California Institute of Technology. She wondered if perhaps the bird was actually a giant kite, and the men were using it to lift a heavy object. They were holding what looked like ropes that led, via some kina of mechanical system, to a giant bird in the sky. While perusing a book on the monuments of Egypt, she noticed a hieroglyph that showed a row of men standing in odd postures. Now a Californian software consultant called Maureen Clemmons has suggested that kites might have been involved. But there is no evidence to back this up. The conventional picture is that tens of thousands of slaves dragged stones on sledges. The pyramids of Egypt were built more than three thousand years ago, and no one knows how. Marcus Chown reckons the answer could be 'hanging in the air'. No one knows exactly how the pyramids were built.
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