Some great monuments stand as testimony to the ancient Egyptian excellence in Egyptian engineering – the Pyramids. Egyptians were undoubtedly the first builders on earth.

It is to the common knowledge of historians that the Egyptians had unprecedented knowledge and talent in engineering skills. Pyramids were built on a perfectly horizontal base, which needed accurate measurements and able-bodied men.

Egyptian Engineering and Construction

Masons, engineers and construction workers used their body parts as a system of measurement. Cubit was the basic unit, the distance between the elbow and the tip of middle finger. It was used for small projects. The royal cubit was the standard unit used for pyramids and temples.

Architects, surveyors and construction workers used special tools and instruments for architectural design and construction engineering. The primitive knowledge and naive tools match modern technology and equipment.

The architectural monuments include the pyramids of Giza and the Great Sphinx which are among the largest and most famous buildings in the world.

Necessary stone blocks were made of solid stones, copper or bronze tools. Courses of block work, column bodies, and crowns, beams and ceilings were hoisted to the required level over mud and earth ramps up to the top of sand heaps adjacent to walls. Lifting devices used consisted of wooden gliders, rollers, ropes, and levers.

Well-trained teams of workers rowed stone-carrying boats across the Nile and then pulled the huge boulders overland to their destination. The process demanded sincere efforts and considerable endurance and patience on the part of huge numbers of workers and other staff, working in harmony and unison. Undoubtedly this was a significant success factor for ancient Egyptian architects.