On 2 May 2004 09:39:37 -0700, (Harry Conover) wrote:
Gary Coffman wrote in message . ..
On Sat, 01 May 2004 21:46:09 GMT, Sunworshiper wrote:
On Wed, 28 Apr 2004 13:08:18 +0000 (UTC), (Mike
Andrews) wrote:
The Egyptians used water levels in laying out and constructing the
pyramids, according to some fairly recent articles in archaeological
journals.

Where? Can't be any leaks. I'd love to see them. Or some key word to
go by to find out what they where thinking.

The Egyptians didn't have garden hose. They dug trenches, filled them
with water, and measured off the water surface. For work too high above
ground level to conveniently reference off water in a surface trench, they
erected troughs or connected two basins with clay pipe.


That must have been a bit of a trick out in the middle of the desert!

It would have been, if they had built in a desert. But of course they
didn't. The heroic architecture of ancient Egypt is found in the Nile
river valley region of Egypt.

Realize that 4,000 years ago North Africa and the Middle East
weren't mostly desert.The Sahara was a great forest. Lebanon
was famous for its cedars. Babylon (Iraq) was a rich farming area.
The Nile valley was the most productive farmland in the known world.
Etc. Deforestation and climate change have turned many of these
regions into badlands today, but it wasn't always so.

Where did all that water originate?

The white Nile rises from Lake Victoria in Kenya (even today the
second largest fresh water lake in the world) and the blue Nile
rises from Lake Tana in Ethiopia. Picture the lower Mississippi
river valley minus the Corps of Engineers flood control dams,
and you'll have a good image of what ancient Egypt was like.

Gary