 In the modern world, we are surrounded by squared, straight, and level edges everywhere. But in the natural world, such things are kind of rare to find. Slap holds is kind of a unique challenge. You might not think about day to day. If you don't have modern tools like a ruler, level, or set square, how do you keep things from being completely lopsided? Well, let's look at and then make some of the tools that ancient Egyptians used to build the pyramids. Everything we use comes from 8,000 generations of collective innovation and discovery, but could an average person figure it all out themselves? And worked their way from the Stone Age to today? That's a question we're exploring. Each week I try to take that next step forward in human history. My name is Andy, and this is how to make everything. Be sure to subscribe and turn on notifications so you don't miss the next step in this journey. Thank you to Simply Safe for sponsoring this video. 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To learn more, visit simplysafe.com slash howtomakeeverything. First up, let's take a closer look at what these tools can build. The first pyramid was built around 2630 BCE, with the largest one of Giza, 2580 BCE. The Great Pyramid of Giza stood at over 481 feet when completed, and remained the tallest building ever built for almost 4,000 years. Aligned to True North within one degree of accuracy, they are measly precise in their measurements. The four sides are equal within inches, and the base of it is level within almost half an inch. Measuring precision like that requires an accurate way to make straight lines, parallel lines, squared edges, and measuring level. So those are the challenges I'll need to overcome. The tools I have available to me right now are the hammer I previously cast, the knife and the dagger, as well as the twine I previously spun. To help us find woodworking, let's cast a few more varieties of wood chisels and a bronze saw. My attempts at the saws ended up working out, so I opted to turn my knife into a saw blade using a chisel. So the first challenge I face is getting a straight line. In nature, things like curve. So getting an actually straight line is a little bit of a challenge, and one solution the Egyptians used was to take a piece of string, hold it tight between two points, and that would be a perfectly straight line. And then to mark it, they would dip it in chalk, coat it in ash or colored dye, and then snap it. And it'll transfer that dye onto the surface, and you have a nice little guide. So I have a little bit of chalk from Dover, I can try crushing up, but I'm thinking black might be a little bit more effective for what I'm working with. So I'm going to try crushing up some wood ash to make a black pigment to apply to the twine so we can snap it and get some nice black lines. Let's give that a shot. Go play with the string. So now I figured out how to make a straight line. Next I want to find a good way to measure and compare distances and make parallel lines so I can cut straight objects pretty easily. So the tool I'm going to make is called a marking gauge. I can't even be able to find much information on its history, so I don't know for sure if the ancient Egyptians would have used this, but it's such a simple tool, it's hard to imagine they wouldn't have. Basically it's just a stick that one end has a little marking spot apart that slides back and forth and you can set to whatever distance you want. Most of them today use a screw to tighten it and lock it in place, but we haven't invented the screw yet, so we're going to use a wedge to lock it in. So it's just going to be three pieces, going to be the rod, the gauge, and then a wedge. So first up we're going to make a straight line using our chalk line and use that as a guide for carving up some wood. Try and get some straight pieces, the gauge can slide down. For the marking needles of the gauge, I cast a small blade using wax and cob. So now thanks to the chalk line, we're able to make pretty straight lines. To help the measuring gauge, I can pretty easily make parallel lines. So now if you want perpendicular, probably the simplest way that it might have been done is you just kind of eyeball it, get it as close as possible, brace it so it doesn't move or anything, and then you just do one side, flip it, and do it from the other side. That way if it's off from 90 degrees, you kind of take the average between the two and it should be pretty close to right angle. However, there's a few other possible ways to do it. Anyone who's taken algebra, like sixth grade or whatever, they will be familiar with the Pythagorean theory. Pythag- Pythag- Pythag- Pythagoras. Pythagoras theory of A squared plus B squared equals C squared. Simple math, you get a triangle with the right angle. Pythagoras came a lot later, so it's not entirely certain that they would have known that math. But I know the possible option they would have done is using concentric circles that will help you find a perpendicular. So let's do that and try and get a perpendicular line that I can then use to make a set square. So I have a kind of very crude compass. I'm going to mark two spots on the line to go over roughly right here. So I'm going to do two overlapping ones. So try and do like right there and right there. Just enough room. Now I have the two circles where the intersect at the top and bottom straight through them should in theory be perpendicular. So let's get the chalk line and draw that line in. There we go. I would say that's pretty spot on. Next, dig some lumber and attempt to mill it into straight and square blocks to make the set square. Now to connect them, I'll use a mortise and tenon joint. A former wood joinery was actually found in some of the works in the Giza pyramid complex and has been found to be used since at least 5000 BCE. To make a wood glue, I've boiled some leftover gear hide from the book I made a few years ago. Once fully boiled and dissolved, it makes a nice hide glue. That was a common wood glue for many centuries through to today. I have these set squared all glued up and I can use markings I made before with my geometry to confirm that it should be square. Next up, I can turn this into a plumb bob that will measure levelness. The plumb bob gets his name from the Latin word for lead, plumbum, as that's the material they were first made of. But I'm going to use bronze. The plumb bob is also very good at terms like plumb, meaning straight and vertically level. So first I cast this guy. This is Bob. He's just basically a pointed weight. This could be added onto this and we're going to tie it to a string and that will give us a vertical level. The challenge then is to go from vertical to horizontal, which is why we needed a right angle. I went through and measured the center point to drill the hole for the plumb bob, put the hole in there in the string and then I can also find center here and then I use this to find a vertically level edge and a horizontally level edge. And then if you want to use it this way to find if a surface is level, I measured out the two edges from here using a piece of string, marked them the same, then drew a line across and sawed them and then I can hang the weight here and put a mark wherever perfect level is and use it as gauge. Spread on, that's level. And also allows us to do some math if we wanted to figure out different degrees. So if we are building say a pyramid and want to add a certain angle, you get that marked and then have a consistent gauge for every slope. All right, so I have my completed plumb bob here and it's all calibrated and should be able to show both vertical and horizontal level. Yeah, so this is kind of the standard tool up until at least 17th century and even today it has some use for a variety of different things for surveying and such. Basically a tool set the Egyptians would have had. So I'm going to put these to the test and see if I can measure out accurately the dimensions of one average block for the pyramid. So I introduced a unit of measurement called the qubit, which was a standard measurement used for Egyptians, the royal qubit, which was a specific length, middle finger to elbow. This is my own personal qubit. I'm going to use it as a reference. An average block was, they tended to vary a lot, but I'm going to do about two and a half by two and a half qubit and then one and a half top. See how well it all stacks up and double check it with some modern tools and see how close I can get it to see if I can finally experience true low. All right, so we have the kind of reference marks now if we were to carve a brick, we have a theoretically perfect square on the floor of two and a half by two and a half qubit. Then we have the one and a half qubit mark here that is theoretically level. So here's a projection of our fancy technology of what that block would look like. This would be several tons of limestone. Let's just measure it up using some modern tools and see how close I got using these ancient tools. My suspicion is that these can be pretty accurate, but I haven't been able to calibrate them perfectly. So I'll see how close I got it. This is the one I didn't measure. That one shows some inaccuracies there. Let's say the three I measured turned up pretty good. It's the one I didn't. It's a little off. Carpentry trick to make sure you have something perfectly square is to measure the diagonals. And if they're equal, then it should be a perfect square. So we're about 72 and a quarter, 73 inches. So we're a little askew. All right, I got the laser level. Drill it to the test until it's a little bit of inaccuracy there. So overall, it wasn't the most accurate in my results. And part of that is just the refinement of these tools themselves. They're still not perfectly straight, learning how to use them. Their sensitivities a little bit better would probably help too. And I imagine also when they were using these tools, they would often use multiple methods to double check and confirm it. When they make a square, they weren't just going to measure three angles and hope the fourth lines up. They would measure that and probably also measure the diagonals. They're close, but not accurate. The surprising thing about this is just how difficult it was to get kind of the starting point of milled wood and getting wood that's actually square. A tool like this will definitely be useful in the future for especially milling larger logs and such to be able to know if it's perfectly square. And speaking of useful tools, unit of measurements. We talked about the qubit. It's kind of a standard in this era. A lot of different civilizations had their own version of it. I'm my own civilization. I'm building from scratch. So I'm going to invent my own standard units of measurement. I don't know if I'm going to necessarily stick to the qubit and other standard forms. So you have any suggestions of what the basis should be on my measurement? Should they be human anatomy? Leave that in the comments. Then you might be wondering, when are you going to build your pyramid? The theories of how exactly pyramids were built and how long it took, most commonly believed is about 25,000 laborers over the course of roughly 20 years. So to do that myself, assuming I could move the stones and all the work myself, everything scaled, it would take half a million years. So that'll be coming out in the year 50, 2020. So stay tuned for that. If I wanted to actually hire somebody to do it, the most commonly held theory right now is it wasn't slavery necessarily, but agricultural workers in their off season were available and they were paid in bread and beer. And so far I've already made bread. And next up, I'm going to make my own beer. That's actually going to be the next video. So stay tuned for that. Thanks for watching. Thanks again to Simply Safe for sponsoring us. Give it a try today at simplysafe.com forward slash how to make everything. If you enjoyed this video, be sure to subscribe and check out other content we have covering a wide variety of topics. 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