Building the Pyramids of Meroe

The following transcript includes both the text from the captions and a text version of the audio descriptions.

DESCRIPTION: In the following video, Architect Friedrich Hinkel stands beside an ancient stone wall. Later, we see a diagram of a lifting device: a tall wooden post, with a cross-beam lever-arm stands at the top of a half-built pyramid. Using ropes, workers on the ground pull one end of the cross-beam down; the other end lifts a stone up a series of step-like platforms, built into the side of the steep pyramid.

NARRATOR: Hinkel had discovered a faint carving of the original blueprint of the pyramid, 2,000 years old, on the wall of one of the chapels.

HINKEL: To build the Meroitic pyramids, they used a lifting device with a pole in the center of the pyramid and an arm lifting the blocks. In such a way, such a technique, you can't make a complete pyramid. You have to stop on a platform to move this wooden pole and to finish with a special capstone.

NARRATOR: Hinkel also discovered remains of wooden posts in the centers of several pyramids. He combined this evidence and the Kushite blueprints with his knowledge of the lifting device called a shadoof to construct his theory for how these pyramids were built.

HINKEL: So all Meroitic pyramids were built like this — very steep inclination, because with the shadoof you can't build a pyramid with a low inclination.

NARRATOR: Each pyramid had three main parts: the pyramid itself; a chapel in front, where prayers and offerings were made; and an underground chamber where they buried the kings and queens and their treasures. Studying the drawings carved into the chapel walls honoring the rulers is American art historian Janice Yellin.