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Gordon Pipes  
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A NEW AND UNIQUE THEORY ON THE MOVEMENT 
OF HEAVY STONES 

by Gordon Pipes 

All Contents on this page are Copyright 2004 by Gordon Pipes
All Rights Reserved. Reprinted with Permission 

Introduction 

A pyramid can be constructed without the use of ramps, heavy stones can be
moved without dragging them along and with 75% less manpower than is
presently thought necessary. This article will show how. It has been
compiled as a result of actual experiments conducted in my back yard with
a 4 ton block of concrete made expressly for this purpose and hopefully
will lead to properly conducted experiments that will prove this theory
beyond doubt.

How to elevate a 50ton stone to the upper levels of a pyramid without the
use of ramps, ropes or extensive manpower.

How the ancient Britons could have transported the sarsen stones to
Stonehenge without dragging them along.

How to erect a 40ton stone without the use of ramps, ropes or 'A' frames
and with less than 25 men.

How to place the lintel stones on the uprights at Stonehenge with less
than a dozen men.

IS THIS REALLY HOW PRE-HISTORIC MAN BUILT STONEHENGE AND THE PYRAMIDS ?

The picture shows a 40 ton stone being hauled down a slope of 1:20, note
the apparent strain on the leg muscles of the men on the ropes, remember
this is downhill. How long do you think the human frame can maintain this
kind of effort?

Archaeologists would have us believe men can haul such loads uphill and
down-dale all day long. If you believe them, try this little experiment.
Take the car and park it on a gentle slope, release the handbrake and
gravity will propel the car downhill. Now stop the car and see how far you
can push it back up the slope before your leg muscles cry stop. Do not try
this experiment unless you are fully fit.

Quote by Prof I E S Edwards, British Museum. "Only one method of lifting
heavy weights was open to the Egyptians, namely by means of ramps composed
of brick and earth which sloped upwards from the level of the ground to
whatever height was desired". This statement by Prof Edwards is just an
opinion, not a fact.

Quote by Prof John Baines, Oxford university. "As the pyramid grew in
height the length of the ramp and the width of its base were increased in
order to maintain a constant gradient ( about 1 in 10 ) and to prevent the
ramp from collapsing. Several ramps approaching the pyramid from different
sides were probably used". Again an opinion, not a fact.

HAVE THESE LEARNED GENTLEMEN EVER ACTUALLY TRIED DRAGGING SUCH STONES
ABOUT?

EXPERTS ARE NEVER 100% RIGHT 100% OF THE TIME

In this case I believe the "Experts" are 100% wrong, in fact I know the
experts are wrong. A pyramid can be constructed without the use of ramps,
heavy stones can be moved without dragging them along and with 75% less
manpower than is presently thought necessary.

FACT: The Great Pyramid contains over 2 million cubic metres of stone.

FACT: A ramp with a gradient of 1 in 10 capable of reaching the top of
this pyramid would need to be 4800ft long and would contain 8 million
cubic meters of building material.

QUESTION: If the builders of the Great Pyramid had used a ramp to
construct the pyramid, what did they do with the 8 million cubic meters of
ramp when it was finished?

To answer this question Egyptologists have come up with a novel solution.  
Instead of constructing a mile long ramp up which to haul the stones,
build a ramp that wrapped itself around the pyramid. Much less material
would then be required, solving the problem of subsequent disposal.
BRILLIANT!!! Eh, not quite.

FACT: The Great Pyramid was constructed using dressed stone blocks each
weighting from 2 to 12 tons on the outer skin, in-filled with random stone
and rubble. A number of chambers and passages were created inside the
pyramid as it was being built, the most amazing of which is the main
burial chamber which was constructed in the upper levels of the pyramid,
This chamber was then sealed with more than 40 massive slabs of granite
each weighing as much as 50 tons.

QUESTION: If a ramp which wrapped around the pyramid was used to move
these massive slabs of granite, how did the builders negotiate the corners
of the ramp? This operation would be difficult with even the smallest of
the stones used in the building of the pyramid (2 tons), extremely
difficult with larger stones ( up to 12 tons ) but would have been totally
impossible with a stone weighting 50 tons.  To haul such a stone up a ramp
of 1 in 10 would require a team of at least 400 men pulling on ropes
strung out far in front of the stone, when the leading members of this
team rounded the first corner they would be unable to assist further,
bringing the whole operation to a halt. Without a system of pulleys ( and
pulleys at this time had not been invented ) this idea simply will not
work.

POWER OF LEVERS

For more than 20 years I have been looking for an answer to the problems
posed above. When the answer came it was all so simple. Instead of trying
to find a way of dragging heavy stones 20 miles or more ( in the case of
Stonehenge ) find a way to move the stones just a few feet, but in a way
that takes so little effort it can be repeated time and again.

I knew that levers could be employed to lift extremely heavy objects with
almost no effort at all. Suddenly I could see how to move the object at
the same time equally effortlessly. ( In theory anyway, but would it work
in practice)

A visit to see my friend ( a local builders merchant ) confirmed the
theory. The two of us were able to move a pallet full of concrete
curbstones quite easily.

I was sufficiently encouraged to contemplate a more ambitious experiment.
Lack of available space, money and helpers put a limit on my ambitions
however. In the end I decided that an experiment with a stone of 4 tons
would be both meaningful and within my scope. I worked out the dimensions
of a concrete block that would weight 4 tons, built a mould and filled it
with concrete.

The experiment was set up as below.

With the stone in this configuration moving the stone along the track is
easy and simple.

STEP1. press down on the ends of the levers. (The stone will rise clear of
the support logs).

STEP 2. While holding the levers down move the ends of the levers
forwards. (The stone will move back along the track).

STEP 3. Release the levers. (The stone will settle in a new position on
the track).

STEP 4. Reposition the levers, this can be done simply by raising the end
of the lever above head height until it is clear of the fulcrum log and
walking back to a new starting position. The stone will now be in a new
position on the track (about 2 feet along) and the lever will have
automatically repositioned ready for the next lift. This operation can be
repeated time and again all day long without causing undue tiredness in
the lever operators. With practice it should be possible to move the stone
up to 1 mile per day.

Below is a series of obvious questions you might like to ask about this
experiment.

Question & Answers

Q: What were the levers made of and what size?  A: Freshly felled young
larch tree trunks 20ft long and 6in in diameter at the base.

Q: Could the method be used on bigger stone, such as the sarsen stones at
Stonehenge weighting up to 40tons?.  Q: Yes. I estimate that as few as 24
levers of this size arranged 12 on each side, with two men on each lever
would be more than sufficient to lift and move a stone of 40tons.

Q: Would there be a problem synchronizing that many levers?  A: No. a
simple whistle or drum would be enough. Such a system worked well on the
Roman slave galleys. In practise the weight of the stone helps.

Q: How does the weight of the stone help synchronization?  A: Until all
the lever operators are working in unison the stone simply will not move.

Q: Is the position of the fulcrum log important?  A: Vitally. The nearer
the fulcrum log to the stone, the easier it is to lift.  However this
results in less distance gained with each lift. More research needs to be
done to find the optimum position.

Q: What is wrong with the old idea of moving the stones on timber rollers?  
A: This idea has been tested by archaeologists and abandoned for a variety
of reasons.

Below is an extract from a paper presented to the British Academy entitled
Science and Stonehenge by archaeologist Julian Richards and engineer Mark
Whitby.

"The orthodox method using rollers to move the stone was considered but
rejected.  Subsequent experiments in moving the 10 tonne lintel proved
that it is a practical system, but has limitations. The direction of the
stone is difficult to control on all but the most level ground and the
method involves high risk as rollers have to be placed ahead of the moving
object. As the load goes up, the system becomes prone to binding as the
weight of the whole load will at times bear on only one or two of the
rollers due to the unevenness either in the rollers or in the ground
surface. The latter can be overcome by running the rollers on a flat,
possibly timber track, and the former by selecting rollers of a uniform
diameter. However, directional control remains an issue, as any roller
placed out of true to the track will cause the load to veer off."

Overcoming all the problems with this method is more difficult than is
suggested in this extract. To find rollers of a uniform diameter would
have been almost impossible for pre-historic man. I presume tree trunks
would have been used for the rollers, tree trunks naturally taper in their
length, and are therefore useless as rollers as a tapering roller will
roll in circles. Hand crafting such a roller to a uniform diameter with
stone tools would have been extremely difficult, if not impossible. Hand
crafting sufficient of these rollers to exactly the same diameter? I offer
no comment.

Q: OK. What about greased slipways?  A: This idea works well downhill,
although the slipway must be smooth and level.  On level ground it is much
more difficult and on anything but the slightest of uphill gradients
almost impossible.

Using a greased slipway as a method for transporting stones has one great
drawback. While the idea makes good sense when travelling downhill
(gravity will do most of the work), uphill, gravity becomes the enemy.
With the friction between stone and ground reduced, the force of gravity
on anything but the most gentle of gradients will send the stone back
downhill. In the case of the Great Pyramid, with a stone of 50 tons on a
slope of 1 in 10 this force will become irresistible when the pulling team
begin to tire (as they surely must). When the team are unable to resist
this pressure any longer, gravity will take over and the stone will begin,
slowly at first, but with increasing speed and momentum, its journey back
down the ramp.

Q: Will your method work uphill?  A: Yes

Having satisfied myself that the method worked on level ground, the next
question was, will it work uphill. This was the big question, (I accept
that heavy stones could have been hauled downhill, however I was skeptical
how far Neolithic man could have hauled stones of the size that make up
Stonehenge over level ground before exhaustion set in. Furthermore I was
convinced that hauling such stones uphill would prove impossible, human
leg muscles are not up to the task.) As I had no way of moving the stone
to a suitable hill, I decided to jack up the track to an angle of 1:8.

Unbelievably it was no more difficult to move the stone up the ramp than
it had been to move it on level ground, with one exception, after step one
"pull down the levers" step two "push the levers forward" had to be
initiated immediately, otherwise gravity took over and caused both the
levers and the stone to slide down the ramp. This problem was overcome by
having a "brakeman" behind the stone using a short lever as a brake, as
long as the "brakeman" prevented the stone from gaining any initial
momentum, (and this was not difficult) moving the stone to the top of the
ramp was as easy as on level ground.

The method was now beginning to show massive advantages over orthodox
theories, stones could now be moved up fairly steep hills, (I am confident
that hills much steeper than 1 in 8 could be negotiated this way) without
greatly increasing the workforce. Thus such stones could be transported in
a direct line from there place of origin. Only a crude log track-way was
needed, a small workforce (less than one man per ton of stone even
uphill). Great economy of effort means the team can work all day. The
advantages are such that I believe this idea deserves serious
consideration by academics.

Erecting the stones

Flushed with success from my experiments I began to wonder if the same
small workforce could also erect the stones, using the same crude
implements, wooden levers and rough logs.

After much head scratching I eventually began to see how it might be
possible. I dug a hole and positioned the stone horizontally across it.
The idea was to raise the horizontal stone into the air (levers were again
used for this task)  supporting it as it rose on two stacks of rough logs.
As I had no logs available I used timber pallets instead. When the stone
had reached what I estimated as the right height I placed a collapsible
'A' frame (made from two rough logs joined together at one end with a
wooden dowel, a length of rope between the legs of the 'A' frame held the
legs in place) under one end of the stone so that the stone was now
resting on the 'A' frame at one end and the tower of pallets at the other.
I now removed the tower of pallets that had become redundant.

Now all I had to do was cut the rope holding the legs of the 'A' frame and
the 'A' frame would collapse allowing the stone to fall into the hole, as
it did so the forward motion created by this action would propel the stone
perfectly upright.  That was the theory anyway. To accomplish this safely
I built a small fire under the rope, light it and retired to a safe
distance. As I had no way of retrieving the stone once it was planted this
experiment had to be 100% successful first time. Unfortunately, I had
overlooked one thing, as the stone arced down and into the hole the stack
of pallets moved back, it was only a matter of inches but it robbed the
stone of much of its forward momentum. The stone was bang on target but
only stood at about 80 degrees.

I could not repeat the experiment, as I had no way of retrieving the
stone.  However I was fairly satisfied, the stone was in the hole and I
was confident that if I ever got the chance to repeat the experiment with
a bigger stone, next time I would get it right. All that was needed to
stop the support tower moving was a buttress of wooden props. this would
ensure the stone finished perfectly upright.

Although this experiment was conducted on a stone of only 4 tons, I am
confident that this method will work just as well on a stone even as big
as the biggest at Stonehenge, 40 tons.

The advantages of this method are:

Great savings in manpower. A 40 ton stone could be erected by a team of
less than 25 men.

Great savings in time. The whole operation could be completed in one day.

No preparations required. The orthodox method requires the construction of
a massive earth ramp (read the segment below).

* * *

Another extract from the paper entitled "Science and Stonehenge".

Raising the uprights.

"This part of the experiment involved raising one of the 40 tonne uprights
to vertical in a stone-hole (prepared by machine excavation) the profile
of which was based on that of stone 56 excavated by Gowland. the
assumption was made that the stone was inserted from the ramped side of
the hole.

Most published diagrams and illustrations of raising the stones to
vertical show various systems whereby the stone is levered up from its top
end, or hauled up using ropes on a timber 'A' frame (see for example
Atkinson 1956, 128; English Heritage 1995; 26-70) Both systems would
require a lifting force of at least 20 tonnes, some 3.5 times greater than
the maximum 6 tonne force generated by the team of 130 volunteers. Whilst
the 'A' frame could give some considerable mechanical advantage and levers
could be used to generate lifting force, both systems lack the necessary
control that would ensure that the stone could be inserted into the hole
without sliding forward on tilting and jamming against its front face.
Precise positioning of the stone would be of critical importance as its
recovery from a partially inserted position would have been extremely
difficult. A system was required which allowed the stone to rotate to an
angle of 70 degrees from horizontal, to clear the front face of the
stone-hole and finally drop the remaining short distance into the bottom
of the hole.

The approach that was adopted recognised that for the stone to rotate
successfully into the hole, it would require a hard 'pivot point' on which
to rotate. An alternative means of generating the force required to rotate
the stone was also sought. The most suitable pivot point that could be
envisaged was one of stone and initial thoughts were that the upright
could be notched in order to hook over the pivot stone as it rotated. The
present appearance of the upright sarsens at Stonehenge does not support
this concept which was eventually modified to one where the front of a
wooden sledge, to which the upright was tightly lashed, provided the
'notch'. The pivot 'stone', triangular in section and reminiscent of some
of the wedge-shaped stones in the sarsen circle, was made of reinforced
concrete and was set immediately adjacent to the stone-hole, the line of
the sloping face of which extended up through the sloping side of the
pivot stone (70 degrees from horizontal). A ramp of crushed stone
(representing a chalk ramp) laid to a slope of 1 in 20 was constructed
behind the pivot stone, and timber rails, identical to those employed in
the moving experiment, were laid on its surface.

Trial models suggested that the pivot was best set 1500 mm above the
ground level, so that the stone, bearing in mind it was heavier at its
'bottom' end due to its shape, was not in danger of overbalancing either
forward when near the horizontal or backwards once tipped to an angle of
70 degrees. The stone was placed on a sledge on the ramp with its centre
of gravity positioned to the rear of the pivot point. In order to provide
force to assist with the rotation of the stone, timber rails were placed
along its length and on these was placed a small wooden sledge to which
were lashed six, 1 tonne concrete blocks. The principle of this method was
that the near horizontal stone could be pivoted using the weight of the
'tilting stones' as they reached the tip of the stone overhanging the
hole. The stone was lashed to the sledge in such a position that
theoretically, on completion of its rotation through 70 degrees, the
leading edge of the sledge would engage with the lip of the pivot stone.
The stone would be held momentarily in this position before breaking free
of its lashings and dropping into the base of the hole"

See drawing below.

When the stone had settled in the hole it was hauled upright as in the
photo below by means of ropes attached to a massive 'A' frame.

I have several reservations about accepting this as the method used by the
builders of Stonehenge. Firstly, the amount of preparation required,
hundreds of hours wasted building a ramp with a hard pivot point, more
hours wasted making thousands of yards of rope by hand.

Secondly, the use of an 'A' frame as gearing to reduce the amount of
manpower required, it is one thing to suggest that Neolithic man probably
knew how to use a simple lever, (something he could have discovered by
accident thousands of years before) but something else entirely to presume
that he had a grasp of the engineering principals involved in using an 'A'
frame as gearing.

Thirdly, the amount of manpower required, even using an 'A' frame at least
130 individuals, without the use of an 'A' frame around 400. The
population of Britain at this time was small and spread thinly from
Cornwall in the south, to the Orkneys off the northern coast of Scotland.

Raising The Lintel Stones

I was happy that with a limited workforce heavy stones could be
transported to and erected on site at Stonehenge without undue effort and
using only materials that were readily available at the time Stonehenge
was built. Only one question remained. Could the lintel stones be put in
place just as easily?

Raising the lintel stones is a comparatively easy task. Use the same
method as used when elevating the upright stones prior to erection. A crib
of logs is progressively inserted under the stone as it is being raised by
the levers. When the levers have reached a height that causes difficulty
for the operators, provide the operators with a platform on which to work
that rises as the stone rises.

This method has been tried and tested by archaeologists with some success,
below is an extract from a paper presented to the British Academy by
archaeologist Julian Richards.

Crib method.

"The timber 'crib', essentially a platform of alternating horizontally
laid timbers, has often been suggested as the method by which the lintels
were raised.  Some illustrations show a plank decking on which workers use
levers to raise alternate ends of the lintel, which are then supported
before the process continues. This method was tested using a platform of
railway sleepers and demonstrated that the lintel could be raised quite
satisfactorily. Each end of the stone could be raised by the depth of a
railway sleeper (approximately 150 mm). The process of levering was shown
to be quite easy and swift, with considerably more time being taken to
raise the remainder of the platform up to the corresponding level. Once
the platform had reached a height above which a direct down-ward pull
could not be applied to the ends of the levers, then the levers could only
be operated by means of ropes. Operated in this way the levers were prone
to slipping."

Had the archaeologists concerned with this experiment thought to provide
the lever operators with a working platform as in the sketch above this
problem would not have arisen. The stone could then have been raised to
whatever height was required easily and swiftly.

Below is another extract from the paper presented to the British Academy
entitled "Science and Stonehenge".

Ramp method.

"The method devised for raising the lintel (see below) is essentially a
variation on the ramp method suggested by a number of previous authors
(e.g.  Stone 1924a) and tested at a considerable scale by Pavel (Pavel
1992). A 30 degree scaffolding ramp was constructed, intended to represent
one built of timber and earth, but with due regard to health and safety.

A slipway of three parallel wooden rails was built on the ramp up which
the lintel was to be hauled, lashed to a sideways running sledge. At the
point at which the angled ramp joined the horizontal decking around the
top of the uprights, the final section of the rails projected the 30
degree ramp angle. The rails here were designed to break as the stone
reached this point, allowing it to slide the final horizontal distance of
1.5 m into a position just in front of the two uprights. The level of this
was such that it was set to clear the top of the tenons on the upright
stones, by running off the slipway onto two greased blocks set on top of
the stones.

It was calculated that the force required to haul the 10 tonne lintel up
the greased slope of 30 degrees was approximately 6 tonnes, with a team of
90 people the lintel on its sledge was hauled up the ramp using the 'A'
frame lever, at each stage the sledge was tied back and the lever reset.
Once teething problems with both lashing and with the sledge binding on
the rails had been overcome, the lintel was raised in about 3 hours.
However in pulling up the ramp, the lintel had drifted out of line with
the tenons and was 100 mm out of position.  Over 4 hours was then spent
coaxing the stone over that final short distance using levers."

Reading this last sentence I can only presume that modern man has
forgotten how to use levers correctly. By using levers correctly, with the
necessary fulcrums an adjustment of 100 mm should take no more than a
minute. It is not therefore surprising that modern archaeologists cling to
the notion that the only way Stonehenge and the pyramids could have been
achieved is by means of ramps.

The ancient Egyptians could also have used this method to build the
pyramids.

Why build a massive ramp to haul heavy stones up a pyramid, when the
pyramid itself is nothing but a giant staircase up which it is easy to
move a stone with levers? Elevate the stone to the level of the first
step, then use the pivoting action to move the stone onto the step. Again
provide the lever operators with a simple working platform that rises at
the same rate as the stone. As the stone progresses up the pyramid the
support logs at the lower level can be reused as they become redundant.

Using this method to build pyramids offers many advantages, great saving
in manpower, less than ten men to transport and to elevate a stone of 10
tons.

Great savings in construction time, by eliminating the need to construct
ramps, the volume of which would necessarily have had to be around three
times the volume of the pyramid itself, this time could be devoted to
pyramid construction.

With only a comparatively small team needed to transport and elevate each
stone many more stones could be moved at the same time by any given
workforce, each stone could be delivered to the exact point of the pyramid
were it is needed and many stones at once could be elevated from all four
sides.

To anyone who remains unconvinced by my arguments I conclude with one last
fact.  Two thousand years before the building of Stonehenge or the
pyramids, stone-age man was transporting a large stone several kilometres
across northern France.  Known as Le Grand Menhir Brise this stone, now
broken into four pieces, lies on the coast near the town of Carnac.
Compared to anything used in the construction of either Stonehenge or the
pyramids this stone is truly colossal. According to archaeologists it once
stood erect and was as tall as a four storey building, it is estimated to
weigh as much as 350 tons!!! An army of thousands, hauling on ropes, could
not have moved this stone, not by so much as one inch! Yet it was moved
several kilometres by our ancestors. How? There can be only one answer to
this question, levers.

It is my ambition to repeat the experiments described on this web site on
a more meaningful scale, using a stone of perhaps 10 or even 40 or 50
tons. As an ordinary working man, a carpenter, I lack the resources to
further this ambition.  If you think you may be able to help in this
respect, or would just like to comment on the experiments so far, I would
be pleased to hear from you.

Contact Gordon Pipes: YOUR COMMENTS

Gordon Pipes web site: http://www.stonehengetheanswer.com/

Copyright © 2004 by Gordon Pipes All Rights Reserved. Reprinted with
Permission

Gordon Pipes is a carpenter. He is presently working on a book about his
experiments and attempts to convince the establishment of the validity of
these theories.  Many thousands of construction workers, farmers, third
world villagers, etc could tell the academics how to move heavy stones
with levers, but few are interested in pre-history so they have not
applied their knowledge to the problems of the pyramids, Stonehenge etc.

Gordon Pipes web site: http://www.stonehengetheanswer.com/ 

Copyright 2004 by World-Mysteries.com