Archaeology & History

Egypt's pyramids were built using an internal lifting system, study suggests

By T.K. Randall
January 21, 2026

Image: Pyramids of Giza
Credit: KennyOMG / CC BY-SA 4.0 (adapted) The effort and skill needed to construct something like Egypt's Great Pyramid cannot be understated.

Long before the availability of modern technology, the ancient Egyptians had mastered the art of moving and placing huge stone blocks with a remarkable level of precision.

Exactly how they did this has long remained a topic of heated debate, with archaeologists unable to decide on a definitive explanation for how they managed to lift the blocks into place.

Now, in a new study, Dr Simon Andreas Scheuring of Weill Cornell Medicine in New York has outlined a case for a complex system of sliding counterweights and pulleys situated inside the structure itself.

This, he argues, would have been essential as brute force wouldn't have been enough on its own.Using counterweights, the builders could have lifted huge stone blocks to the upper levels of the pyramids in a remarkably short time - even as quickly as one block per minute.

Dr Scheuring maintains that architectural features within the Great Pyramid - such as the Grand Gallery and Ascending Passage - are evidence of where the counterweights might have dropped.

He also suggests that the Antechamber may have been part of a pulley-like mechanism.

Such a system would have certainly made the construction easier, especially compared to having large numbers of workers manually hauling each and every stone block into position.

Proving beyond doubt that such a method was actually used, however, is likely to prove quite the challenge.

Source: Mail Online

Tags: Egypt, Pyramids