Pyramid power, peopfe power

摘要

How many men does it take to build a pyramid? It's a vexed question, made all the more so by our ignorance of just how the pyramids were built. Herodotus reported that it took 100,000 men to construct the Great Pyramid, but he wrote two thousand yearsafter it was erected, and he wasn't terribly reliable. But we may not need to know how the pyramids were built to get a good estimate of the manpower required: the mere fact that they were built, in an age not noted for heavy machinery, gives a surprisingly effective handle on the question. Or so Stuart Kirk-land Wier argues, with a fair degree of conviction, in the Cambridge Archaeological Journal (6,150-163; 1996).