HOW THE EGYPTIANS BUILT THE PYRAMIDS by Jim McCulliuc If people can lift water with a counter weight, why not use the same principle to lift stones, huge stones, like the ones used to build the pyramids? Back in ancient Egypt, a device called a shadoof was commonly used to move water. A shadoof is a long pole, weighted at one end, perhaps with a stone, and a vessel on the other end, used for …showed first 75 words of 818 total…

…showed last 75 words of 818 total…about how they lifted the stones to the level they wanted them once the stones were delivered to the pyramid. To lift a five-ton stone using a shadoof, the counter weight would have to weigh almost as much as the stone to be lifted. So how could the workers produce a counter weight to lift the stone almost the same way the shadoof lifts the water? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ **Bibliography** Bibliography 1. www.egyptspyramids.com by Richard Koslow