From the Archives: Pyramids and Ramps

I've been composing this blog since July of 2014. That's five years and 151 entries. My good friend Jeff Mann, the true Yard Ramp Guy, has asked me to revisit some of my original contributions. And so: my From the Archives series. Fitting, then to start from the very beginning, with my very first entry...


The pyramids are among the wonders of the ancient world for a pretty simple reason: they're huge. Doesn't take much to figure that one out. But what got me interested in the pyramids in the first place was their construction.

Great Inventions: The PyramidsThe ancient Egyptians obviously didn't have the technology for moving heavy loads that we did. All they had were a few primitive cranes, some basic levers and rollers, and, of course, ramps.

The old idea about how the Egyptians built the pyramids involved thousands of slaves hauling blocks up huge straight ramps to the top. It looks cool in the movies, but it doesn't actually work that well. The amount of material and labor needed to construct straight ramps to the top—and to continue building them up as the pyramid grows—is pretty close to the amount you'd need to build the actual pyramid itself, not to mention that they haven't actually found any evidence for ramps that colossally huge. Building ramps that huge, I say, is just a waste.

pyr1It seems more likely that they instead either zigzagged the ramp up one side or spiraled it around the pyramid, using uncompleted segments as the ramp. This would have allowed them to construct the vast majority of the pyramid easily, though the top third of the structure would have needed to be moved up, using levers. Since it's so much narrower at the top, though, that top third makes up less than five percent of the total weight of the pyramid. That's working smart.

Historians and archaeologists also think that rather than huge hordes of slaves, the pyramids were constructed by smaller teams of well-paid skilled laborers, who were cheaper than feeding an army of slaves and got things done much quicker. No one's said anything about ancient Egyptian unions, but I've got some cheerful suspicions about that.

The Yard Ramp Guy®: Planned Industrial Longevity

This week, my friend The Yard Ramp Guy makes a Ramp Rules-worthy connection between Greta Garbo's perfume and industrial yard ramps.

Sniff it out it HERE.

Mapping the World

The Ortelius Theatrum

And lawn care.

The world map from Theatrum Orbis Terrarum

These days you don't see atlases very often. Google Maps are just much more prevalent and often more useful. Atlases are unquestionably a direct ancestor of Google Maps, however. The oldest ever atlas? The Theatrum Orbis Terrarumor “Theatre of the World.” (Sorry, no Greek mythology jokes for you today.)

Originally published in May 1570, Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, was written by the mapmaker Abraham Ortelius (my favorite Brabantian). It contained a total of 53 maps, all bound together. Despite being a skilled mapmaker himself, all the maps included were from other mapmakers. (Though he frequently tidied them up a bit.)

Unusually for the time, Ortelius actually credited all 33 mapmakers in the bibliography. He also included a list of other quality mapmakers he knew in the back, which grew longer with every edition published during his lifetime.

Ortelius published 25 editions in his lifetime, the last of which contained 167 maps and was published in seven different languages. Naturally, I hold much admiration for someone who devoted such time and painstaking care to improve on such a singular undertaking. I’d like to think that Maggie thinks of my work on, say, the lawn, with such approval. Though Maggie might say otherwise.

(Confirming: Maggie just said otherwise.)

Theatrum Orbis Terrarum was hugely significant. Not only was it vital in pushing forward the navigational feats of the Age of Exploration, it also is considered to be the starting point for the Dutch Golden Age of Cartography, which lasted a solid century.

The maps included in Theatrum Orbis Terrarum were remarkably accurate for their time. Possibly even more importantly, it made geography accessible to the growing middle classes at the time, who hadn't been able to easily afford maps before this.

It massively improved the state of public education at the time, and made the world a more understandable and less mysterious place. That’s a good thing, right?

The Yard Ramp Guy®: Angling Ramps Into Warehouses

This week, my friend The Yard Ramp Guy follows the flow of warehouse scenarios and eloquently shows that many of those streams run through yard ramps.

Check out his great piece HERE.

On Roman Concrete

Learning from the School of Hard Rocks

Stylized painting of the Pantheon in Rome as an example of concrete that lasts.

It's Written in the Concrete

Though the Romans have a pretty impressive reputation, in many regards they weren't nearly so clever as people tend to think they were.

For example, their fabled legions, while effective early in Roman history, became rather useless toward the end: the knight was basically invented by barbarians looking to defeat Roman legions. Even after it became apparent that the legions were a tool of the past, the Romans foolishly just kept sticking with it.

However, one area in which they were unquestionably brilliant was in architecture and construction.

Much has been made of Roman aqueducts and other construction techniques, but one technology that doesn't get discussed nearly as much as it should is their concrete. Roman concrete—known as opus caementicium—is, interestingly, much more durable than modern day concrete.

We have many examples of Roman concrete that have survived all the way to today. The Pantheon in Rome (not to be confused with the Parthenon), for instance, is a concrete dome that has survived intact since 126 AD.

Even more impressive is Roman concrete's resistance to seawater. Seawater is incredibly corrosive to modern buildings, corroding and destroying them in mere decades. We're lucky to get 50 years out of modern concrete. Roman concrete, however, can survive immersion in seawater for centuries or even millennia; plenty of docks and pilings from Roman times can still be found off European shorelines.

What was their secret? Well, we don't know the exact composition of Roman concrete, but we do know one of the major secrets: they used volcanic ash instead of the fly ash we use today. When submerged in seawater, the seawater reacts with the mineral phillipsite, found in volcanic ash. Over time, a new mineral known as tobermorite forms in the cracks of the concrete. As it forms, the concrete actually gets stronger and stronger.

Roman concrete today is stronger than when it was first laid down.

Many people are trying to mimic Roman concrete today. Not only is it more durable and long lasting, but it's also cheaper and more environmentally friendly. The problem, of course, is the extremely long setting time: most builders don't want to wait long enough for Roman concrete to set.

Haste makes waste. Some people are okay with that. Roman concrete endures.

The Yard Ramp Guy®: Going Above & Beyond

This week, my friend The Yard Ramp Guy describes how his team focuses on building trust and relationships. It's healthy and refreshing to read of such a fine approach.

Check out his new blog HERE.

Flooding for Security

A Dutch Treat

Going Dutch

The Dutch are, without a doubt, the most impressive hydrological engineers on the planet.

You really have to be when much of your country lies below sea level and is vulnerable to floods. I could spend blog post after blog post talking about how impressive the Dutch are at what they do, and I might just do so at some point. For now, though, I'm exploring one of the most innovative pieces of hydrological engineering they created: the Dutch Water Line.

The Dutch Water Line was a series of defenses built to flood huge chunks of the Netherlands (then Holland) if invading forces threatened. Engineers first dreamed up the idea in the early seventeenth century and built it quickly afterward.

The idea didn't appear from thin air (or, er, shallow water). The Dutch eighty-year war of independence against Spain featured several instances of flooding used as a defense. Yet, building out this new concept—to cut off all of Holland was a much larger and more ambitious step forward. The Dutch finished the line in just a few short years. Which brings us to the early 1630s.

Less than four decades later, strategists first tested Dutch Water Line during the Franco-Dutch War, also known as the Third Anglo-Dutch War. (Keeping track of European wars is an exhausting and unrewarding task that I've never bothered to pursue, except in reference to more interesting parts of history.)

The Dutch Water Line managed to keep the French armies out, while the Dutch somehow managed to defeat the terrifying English navy at sea.

The Dutch Water Line was used several more times throughout its history, to mixed success. Waiting for the body to freeze over—in order to cross—was an entirely viable strategy.

Modern bombers and missiles have largely rendered the defensive line useless. Instead, the Dutch now often use those drained lowlands of the water line for bicycle and hiking trails. And today, we’ll find many natures reserves along and around the line.

Swords into plowshares.

The Yard Ramp Guy®: Material Strength

This week, my friend The Yard Ramp Guy measures the strength of steel and looks at possible innovations in the industry. (Nice shout out to vibranium!)

Check out his terrific post HERE.

Grounds for Civilization

Or: A Cup of Java is Good for Us

Intellectual Coffee

Me, Getting Smarter by the Sip

Fun fact: We have coffee to thank for economics, geology, and countless other scientific and intellectual advancements.

Seventeenth century Scotland was a nasty place in many ways, filled with poverty, disease, and chronic alcoholism—in great part because the water wasn't safe to drink. Raids from highland clans were also a fact of life.

By the eighteenth century, however, things had changed radically. The highland clans were defeated, the economy was looking up, and things were just improving all around.

And then coffee showed up.

All of a sudden, you had something to drink that would neither make you sick, like the water, or drunk, like the ale.

Intellectuals started gathering in social clubs and became massively more productive. Among those intellectuals were Adam Smith, the father of modern economics; James Hutton, the father of modern geology; Robert Burns, one of the greatest English language poets of all time (as well as Scots language poets); Joseph Black, the chemist who discovered magnesium and carbon dioxide; philosopher David Hume; and many more.

What's more, they weren't operating alone. They largely all knew one another. Joseph Black, James Hutton, and Adam Smith were all incredibly close friends.

This was a movement focused on empiricism and reason, and it came to be known as the Scottish Enlightenment.

These changes weren't just limited to Scotland, either. Everywhere coffee traveled, there tended to be increases in productivity, intellectual development, and general economic well-being of a nation (though not necessarily for individual members of a nation.)

Coffee is by no means an unadulterated good in history, especially not at the growing end of the supply chain, but it did radically change history wherever it arrived.

Pretty impressive for a beverage.

The Yard Ramp Guy®: The Year in People and Forklifts

This week, my friend The Yard Ramp Guy sums up 2018 and, with typical humbleness, shows why integrity is the keystone to a successful business.

Check out his magnificent year-ending post HERE.