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τοὺς ἐπιλὸίπους. ‘The rest of the stones,’ i. e. to fill up the triangular gaps between each ‘step’. The great pyramid when finished presented a smooth surface, though in the present day the stripping off of most of its stone covering (here described, §§ 2-5) has made it once more ‘like steps’.

μηχανῇσι. Petrie writes (u. s. p. 212): ‘for the ordinary blocks of a few tons each it would be very feasible to employ the method of resting them on two piles of wooden slabs, and rocking them up alternately to one side and the other by a spar under the block, thus heightening the piles alternately, and so raising the stone.’ He goes on to show how this method could be applied to the largest blocks in the pyramid, of fifty tons and upwards. But the explanation of Choisy (L'Art de bâtir chez les Égypt., 1904, p. 80 seq., with pictures and diagrams) is better, viz. that the stones were raised with ‘ascenseurs oscillants’; these resemble in shape the wooden framework, used to support temporarily arches in England; ancient models of them are in the B. M., the Louvre, and at Cairo (cf. App. IX. 4).

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