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Apparently the Egyptians poured just enough water on the sand to make it more slippery. It is a really neat idea and stands up. It even makes sense if you think about it. The ancients were very practical people and all it takes is one dude to notice the slipperiness of slightly wet san to change things.The Link: http://www.iflscience.com/physics/mystery-how-egyptians-moved-pyramid-stones-solved
So it's a promising theory, but I don't think it's conclusive enough for historical purposes. According to the picture, the experiment they did was in a lab under controlled circumstances. How would factors such as hills, varying sand types, or sand absorption rate affect the glide of the sled? And although they did find an Egyptian picture to corroborate the theory in part, doesn't it seem like they'd need much more than a few slaves pouring water directly in front of a sled carrying a 2+ ton statue to make it slide effectively? This is a situation where experimental archaeology could help us: someone should try this out in real life conditions to see if it would work.
But it's not flat either. Sand dunes? If the ground was muddier back then than it is now (from swamp life or farming soil), then maybe this is feasible because that would be more slippery. But moving things in sand isn't easy…wet or dry.(and how do we know whether that picture shows he's pouring water to move the statue or to bless it?)
Well, I know the area around the Temple of Hatshepsut, near Luxor, was quite hilly/rocky. The Egyptians would have had to transport monuments in many more places, and over longer distances, than the flat area near Giza. And even if we set aside “hills” per se, any kind of uneven terrain could have proved problematic if we're talking huge stones. I'm not dismissing the water-sled strategy; rather, it raises several other questions which need to be answered about its context.
Physics seem to confirm that theoryhttp://physics.aps.org/synopsis-for/10.1103/PhysRevLett.112.175502
