Yah know, some years ago I saw someone try lifting a large (pyramid construction size) stone block using wedged, lever and building a ‘lincoln log’ style frame under it as the stone went up.
The experimenter thought it wasn’t a good way to do it, but I don’t think he wast going about it properly. That is he was using whatever odd size of wood they had lying around and it was their first crack at doing this.
I would bet good money that if properly squared timbers were used, and a crew of men had a chance to practice and master the technique, a huge stone block could be raised rather easily.
It seems to me that if you can raise a block five feet and then pull it forward five feet, you can raise blocks in a staircase fashion as high as you please.
Yep... I’ve seen the same thing. It may have been the same guy that used some relatively simple balance points to manhandle huge blocks of stone all by himself.
Back then they knew all about levers. They had the wheel and axle, they had ropes. They could easily have built large machines for handling big stones. I’d bet that if we could go back in time and see how they really did all this stuff we’d be amazed at what they did... and how really simple it all was.