The hard granite, used for burial chamber walls and some of the exterior casing, would have posed a more difficult problem. Workmen may have used an abrasive powder, such as sand, with the drills and saws.
Knowledge of astronomy was necessary to orient the pyramids to the cardinal points, and water-filled trenches probably were used to level the perimeter. A tomb painting of a colossal statue being moved shows how huge stone blocks were moved on sledges over ground first made slippery by liquid. The blocks were then brought up ramps to their positions in the pyramid.
Finally, the outer layer of casing stones was finished from the top down and the ramps dismantled as the work was completed. Most of the stone for the Giza pyramids was quarried on the Giza plateau itself. Some of the limestone casing was brought from Tura, across the Nile, and a few of the rooms were cased with granite from Aswan.
Marks of the quarry workers are found on several of the stone blocks giving names of the work gangs such as "craftman-gang". Part-time crews of laborers probably supplemented the year-round masons and other skilled workers.
The Greek historian Heroditus reported in the fifth century BCE that his Egyptian guides told him , men were employed for three months a year for twenty years to build the Great Pyramid; modern estimates of the number of laborers tend to be much smaller. NOVA: What evidence do you have that the pyramids and tombs at Giza were from, as you say, no more than 5, years ago.
HAWASS: First of all you have inscriptions that are written inside the tombs, the tombs that are located on the west side of the Great Pyramid for the officials, and the tombs that are located on the east side of the Great Pyramid for the nobles, the family of the King Khufu. And you have this lady, the daughter of Khufu.
And this man was the vizier of the king. This one was the inspector of the pyramids, the chief inspector of the pyramids, the wife of the pyramid, the priest of the pyramid.
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