Keeping Up with the Egyptians: Building Pyramids

Hello, my name is James A. Kizer. I was born and raised in Northwest Indiana.

At the age of eleven my fifth grade teacher introduced the class to mechanical reasoning. She covered things like pulleys, levers and the incline plain. Then, went on to show us examples, like the ramp theories thought to have been used to build the Egyptian Pyramids. She also informed us that no one knew for sure how they were built. My little eleven-year mind studied and calculated heights and distances for a few minutes and I came to the conclusion: the ramp idea didn’t make sense and perhaps someday, I will figure it out!

So I went on with life. In high school, I usually tested above average in areas like mechanical thinking and spatial relations and before long, was awarded an apprenticeship with the Boilermakers, based on testing well in these areas.

I served my apprenticeship and went on working as a journeyman in the trade. Sometime around my 15th year of boilermaking, I remembered that day in school, when I was eleven.

After fifteen years of heavy rigging, steel construction, working with others, planning and running work, I realized, I now had the tools to answer the elusive question: How were the Egyptian Pyramids built?

From time to time, as a boss, I would get long periods of time to ponder this question. Simply, by combining my construction experience, research, running models by trial and error and adding in some prayer. The theory slowly emerged. It took nearly twelve years to develop. But, once I got on the right trail, questions started answering themselves. Every theory I’ve ever heard, usually takes me a short moment to poke a hole, right through it. This theory holds water!