Towering over the Giza plateau, the Great Pyramid stands in testimony to one of the world's most unfathomable feats of enginerring- and cooperation. Built over 4,000 years ago, the stupendous structure marks the effort of tens of thousands of workers who, over some 23 years, cut, raised, and precisely placed its two million blocks of heavy ston. Looming over Egyptologist Mark Lehner, stonemason Roger Hopkins (of this Old House), and a team of Egyptian workers is a daunting challenge: to replicate this achievement (albeit on a small fraction of the scale), while putting some pyramid-csontruction theories to the test. How did the pharaoh's builders align the sturcture's sides to the compass points? Were its blocks dragged up on the ramps? Inched up by the levers? And if the NOVA gang gives all these hypotheses a try, will they ever finish an 18-foot pyramid before their three-week deadline is up? I don't think there are any huge mysetries about the nuts and bolts of how they made a pyramid, concludes Lehner. But what caused them to do it all of a sudden? What motivated them to do that? That's the real mystery.
