Would The Egyptians Have Built The Pyramids Faster Using Castors?

By Author: Mark Farrell
Total Articles: 56
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The Ancient Egyptians are easily one of the most inspiring civilisations in history. Incredibly advanced for their time, they prospered between 3150BC and 31BC, when Egypt was absorbed into the Roman Empire after its fall. They developed incredible culture, art and architecture as well as achieving all sorts of feats that have paved the way for various modern developments. For example, they introduced irrigation systems into agriculture, developed medicines and used glass technology, but no feat was more astounding than the construction of the pyramids. Still a major tourist attraction today, there are 138 pyramids in Egypt, most of which were constructed as tombs for the pharaohs. Just imagine how many more of them there would have been, though, had they had Castors!

The most famous pyramid in Egypt is the Great Pyramid of Giza, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World and the only one still intact. It was finally finished in 2560BC after taking between 14 and 20 years to build from start to finish. It is also constructed of stone so you can imagine all of the hard labour that went into it. After all, each block ...
... of stone had to be transported from various quarries, all of which were at least several miles away. They used various animals to pull the carts full of stone but doing so in sweltering temperatures was incredibly difficult and took hours in some cases. This is actually where the castors would have come in, making life far easier for the animals and the men driving them onward.

Aside from cutting the journey in half at the very least in terms of time, they would have made the journey from the quarry to the pyramid site much smoother. After all, the castors would have glided over the terrain, making it much easier for the animals to pull the stone than if they were pulling heavy wooden carts with unreliably heavy wheels. Take the 2BZQX/XXH/SZ (from BIL Castors & Wheels) series as a prime example as to why. Measuring 200mm to 400mm in diameter, they support loads of between 2800kg and 11,500kg. That is more than enough support for the stone! As such, not only would it have been far faster to get the stone to the pyramids but it would also have taken fewer trips to do so.

Castors were not available to the Egyptians and, in terms of history, this does not really matter because they developed so much in terms of a legacy that it is easy to see why a small wheel was a not a priority for them. However, if they would have known that a few castors would have saved them 10 years of building one of the Seven Wonders of the World then you can bet that they would have looked into the possibility!

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