eli5: How was the Great Pyramid build so quickly?

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The Great Pyramid has an estimates 2.3 million 6 ton blocks and was built over a period of 27 years. Just doing the math shows they would have had to place one block every 6 minute.

2,300,000 / 27 = 85,185 blocks a year
85,185 / 365 = 233 blocks a day
233 / 24 = 9.7 blocks an hour, round that to 10.

So 10 blocks an hour or 1 block every 6 minutes for 27 years. Not counting time off for nights and whatnot.

I know they used a lot of people, somewhere in the tens of thousands, but this seems fast. Am I missing something?

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7 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Tens of thousands of slaves, using ingenius building tactics for the time such as using ramps, rolling blocks on the corner rather than on their flat side, etc.

It was just the sheer amount of manpower they had, really. They probably would have groups of people with bricks lined up, getting many done a day.

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