No ancient text reveals how Egypt’s first pyramid was built, but in 2024, a non-archaeologist team proposed a stunning answer: a water-powered hydraulic lift inside the Step Pyramid of Djoser. The theory, based on satellite data, claims a massive stone enclosure captured desert rain to drive a float and pulley system raising 300-kilogram blocks.
No ancient text describes how Egypt’s first pyramid was actually built. Nearly two centuries of research have not settled the question either. In 2024, a team of materials scientists and hydrologists—none of them Egyptologists—published a proposal that a water-powered lift helped raise the stones of the Step Pyramid of Djoser at Saqqara. Their findings, based largely on satellite data and existing…