Simple Machines And Building The Great Pyramid B

CloseSystems and Simple MachinesSimple Machines and Building the Great PyramidCorrelationFountas & PinnellNDRA30Estimated LexileMeasure660LWritten under funding from Monroe 2–OrleansBOCES by:Antonietta Quinn, Resource TeacherDanielle Hoch, Reading SpecialistDesigned and Printed by the BOCES 2 Printingand Graphics Services.10/11Copyright 2011 by the Board of Cooperative Educational Services for theSecond Supervisory District of Monroe and Orleans Counties, ElementaryScience Program. All rights reserved. This publication may only be reproducedfor one-time classroom use. No part of this publication may be stored in aretrieval system, or transmitted or reproduced, in any form by any means,electronic, mechanical photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the priorwritten permission of Monroe 2–Orleans BOCES, Elementary Science Program.ElementaryScience Programwww espsciencetime orwww.espsciencetime.org

Table of ContentsBackground .3Great Pyramid .4Gather and Move Stone .6Levers and Inclined Planes .7Wedges. 11Conclusion .12Glossary.13215

BackgroundLevera stiff bar that sits or turns on a fulcrumused to raise or move a load.Limestonea rock used as a building stone.Pharaohan ancient Egyptian king.Quarrya pit where stone is gathered.Simple machinea machine with few or no moving partsthat helps make work easier.The pyramids of Egypt are amazing. Theywere built without the tools we use today.There were no computers. There were nocomplex machines to cut and move thelarge stones. The Egyptians did not haveelectricity. Still they were able to buildthese giant pyramids.About four thousand years ago, Egypt wasruled by kings. These kings were calledpharaohs (fair-ohs). When the pharaohsdied, they were buried in the pyramids.Some people believed that the sides of thepyramid were ramps to help the king’s spiritclimb to the sky.Spiralcircling around a center point and slowlygetting closer to or farther away from it.Wedgea simple machine used for splitting orcutting.143

Great PyramidThe largest pyramid is called the GreatPyramid. It was built for King Khufu nearCairo, Egypt. It took 30 years to build. Thispyramid covers a large area and is 481 feethigh. It was built with 2 million limestoneblocks. The blocks were cut and movedwithout the large tools we use today.GlossaryBargea large boat with a flat bottom used tomove goods.Chisela tool with a cutting edge shaped likea wedge used to cut or shape wood andstone.Complexto make difficult.Egypta country in northeast Africa.The GThGreatt PPyramididFulcrumthe fixed point on which a lever arm turnsor balances.Great Pyramidthe oldest and largest pyramid in Egyptbuilt as a tomb for an ancient pharoah.Inclined planea flat surface raised on one end, such as aramp.413

ConclusionThere are still many things to learn abouthow the pyramids were built. Some peoplebelieve a spiral ramp was built inside of thepyramid. They think it was used to raisethe blocks to high levels of the pyramid.Wouldn’t it be exciting if we removed afew blocks from the outside of the GreatPyramid and see a ramp inside it? As youcan see, there are still many mysteriesabout these great structures.Thousands of men built the pyramids.Many believe the men who built the GreatPyramid were slaves. Most of the workerswere farmers. Their farms were near thebanks of the Nile River. The Nile Riverflooded every year. The farmers workedon the pyramids when their farms flooded.These workers were paid in food andclothes.The men worked hard to build the pyramids.They had to push, pull, and lift tons ofrock. How did they lift and move theseheavy blocks? They did it all by using simplemachines.Spaces in the corners are thought tohave been used for turning the stonesthat were being moved to higher levels.12Ramp insidethe pyramidRamp outsidethe pyramid5

Gather and Move StoneWedgesThe workers building the Great Pyramid hadto get the stone. The men got the stonefrom a quarry (kwor-ee). A quarry is a placewhere large amounts of rock can be foundin the ground. Hammers and wedges calledchisels cut the rock from the ground. Thestone was shaped into blocks and moved bythe men.Some of the stone blocks needed to bebroken into different sizes. Workers woulduse a hammer and chisel to make a crack inthe rock. They put a wood wedge into thecrack, and the wood was soaked in water.The water caused the wood to swell. Whenthe wood swelled, it pushed the stone apart.Over time, a piece of stone would break offthe stone block.hhammerchiselhis l611

Levers and Inclined PlanesA lever crane was used by the workers tomove the stone. A lever crane works likea seesaw. The rock to be lifted and movedwas on one side, and the men pulling onropes were on the other side. The fulcrumwas in the middle. The stone blocks weremoved into their final place with the smallerwood levers.fulcrumThe men used levers to move the stoneblocks from the quarry. The levers werewood logs. One end of the log went underthe stone. The men pushed down on theother end. This lifted the stone block ontoa wood sled. Then the sleds were pulledby rope onto a ramp or inclined plane. Theramp was made of mud and stones. It wasnot smooth. It was not easy to move thesleds. The men poured water under thesleds to help the sleds move.people pushdownweightmoves uplever craneroock10lever7

The ramps led to a barge on the Nile River.A barge is a type of boat. They placedthe sleds onto the barges, and the bargesfloated down the river to the pyramid site.At the site, the sleds were moved off thebarges to another inclined plane (ramp).At the site, two simple machines used tobuild the pyramids were the inclined planeand the lever. They used the inclined planeto move the rock higher and higher as theybuilt the pyramid.Sometimes they put the sleds on rollersmade of logs. The logs would act as wheels.They made it easier to push and pull thestone.An inclinedplane aroundthe pyramid.An inclined planein front of thepyramid.sledrollers made of logs89

Great Pyramid The largest pyramid is called the Great Pyramid. It was built for King Khufu near Cairo, Egypt. It took 30 years to build. This pyramid covers a large area and is 481 feet high. It was built with 2 million limestone blocks. The blocks were cut and moved without the large tools we use today. The Great Pyramidid 4 Barge