Original subtitles

[music playing]

NARRATOR: How did the Egyptians carve the world's largest

monument thousands of years before Mount Rushmore?

That is absolutely extraordinary.

NARRATOR: How did the Romans build a dome bigger

than the dome on the US Capitol building?

This is just under 2,000 years old.

It is incredible that it is still standing.

NARRATOR: And how were the massive stones of Stonehenge

moved hundreds of miles across rugged terrain?

[music playing]

Monument's more colossal than our own, ancient super weapons

as mighty as today's, technology so

precise it defies reinvention.

The ancient world was not primitive.

Their marvels were so advanced, we still use them.

Travel to a world closer than we imagine--

an ancient age where nothing was impossible.

[music playing]

Over 3,000 years ago, one of Egypt's greatest pharaohs

created this impossibly vast monument to himself

at Abu Simbel, an imposing location on the Nile River.

To this day, it is still the largest temple ever carved out

of solid rock.

This colossal, monster monument was built in an age

before modern machinery, before there were even iron tools.

But how did they do it?

[music playing]

To understand what they were up against,

we look at a monster monument being built right now--

Crazy Horse Monument, South Dakota.

[music playing]

This project is so vast that Dr. Derek Muller needs a helicopter

to appreciate it.

This is absolutely amazing.

I am coming up close and personal

with one of America's Native American leaders, Crazy Horse,

who led the Native Americans to victory at the Battle of Little

Bighorn.

This sculpture is just mind-blowingly big.

It is the whole mountain.

[music playing]

NARRATOR: The statue of this great Native American hero

on horseback will be 563 feet high when completed.

Just the horse's nostril alone will be big enough

to hold 10 full-sized cars.

[music playing]

This impossible monument is so massive and time-consuming

that the task has been handed down from father to son.

My dad got a letter from Henry Standing Bear,

asking him to carve a mountain to the Native American Indian.

In 1948, he started it.

Crazy Horse will be the largest carving

of any kind in the world, as far as mountain carvings go.

And I think it's the tallest memorial built by man.

NARRATOR: But until Crazy Horse Monument is complete,

the title for the world's largest monument

remains with Abu Simbel in Egypt.

In a boundless and barren desert,

this monument stands carved out of a single mountain

just like Crazy Horse.

But it took the Egyptians just 20 years to build.

How was this possible so long ago?

Look at that.

That is absolutely extraordinary.

Oh, wow.

[music playing]

CHRIS NAUNTON: In terms of the scale of the achievement,

the size of the building, and the fact that this is cut

directly into a mountain, the great temple at Abu Simbel

is as close as there is to an ancient impossible mega-build.

DEREK MULLER: Well standing in front of Abu Simbel right now,

I am incredibly impressed by this structure.

You really only get a sense of scale

when you're right up against it.

It is just so amazing.

I don't even come up to his feet.

NARRATOR: Monuments like these were built

on the orders of the Pharaohs--

absolute rulers of Egypt, who ruthlessly used every resource

they could muster to celebrate their rule.

But one pharaoh out-built all the other pharaohs.

In a massive fit of pride, Egyptian pharaoh Ramesses II

decorated the outside of the temple

with four massive statues of himself.

KARL UDE-MARTINEZ: Ramesses II was an egomaniac.

He was the greatest, powerful, celebrated pharaoh of all time.

He probably reigned from the age of 24 to 90 years old,

and he built huge monuments to celebrate himself.

He even changed inscriptions on existing monuments

to celebrate himself.

He was the ancient monument builder of the ancient world,

if you like.

CHRIS NAUNTON: It's a grand statement

of power and capability.

You didn't need to be able to read.

You didn't need to be able to meet the man

to know what he was capable of.

This was a visual statement that I am as powerful as any man,

almost as powerful as a God.

KARL UDE-MARTINEZ: Ramesses II was buried

in the Valley of the Kings, and is now on display in a museum.

And even though he died over 3,000 years ago,

everyone still remembers him, which I'm

sure pleases him enormously.

[music playing]

NARRATOR: The vast interior of Abu Simbel

is a great testament to the phenomenal ability

and craftsmanship of the ancient builders.

DEREK MULLER: Wow.

Can you believe that?

Look at how amazing this temple is.

You know, as a modern engineer, I

wouldn't believe that this was possible.

If someone had told me they could build a structure

this big and detailed and just beautifully constructed,

I wouldn't think it's possible.

NARRATOR: Despite its tremendous size, the temple of Abu Simbel

was built with pinpoint precision--

an example of not only advanced engineering,

but that the Egyptians also had an extraordinary knowledge

of astronomy.

KARL UDE-MARTINEZ: On exactly two days of the year,

February the 21st and October the 21st--

possibly the king's birthday and the king's coronation--

the light falls inside the temple and shines

on the back wall and lights up the holy statues.

NARRATOR: The question remains--

how did the ancient Egyptians build this impossible temple?

DEREK MULLER: Now we're still trying to work out

what sort of techniques they could

have used to construct it.

It's from another time, and that doesn't make sense.

NARRATOR: Some clues might lie in another modern

mega-monument--

Mount Rushmore, South Dakota.

It's been called the eighth wonder of the world.

Many believe Mount Rushmore would not exist if it were not

for the work of the ancient builders at Abu Simbel.

We are going to see the modern Abu Simbel--

Mount Rushmore.

But the best way to see it is from a chopper.

I can't wait.

Let's do this.

[music playing]

NARRATOR: These faces of Presidents Washington,

Jefferson, Roosevelt, and Lincoln are 60 feet high--

taller than a five-story building.

DEREK MULLER: Wow.

That is truly something special.

You look at the size of that thing, the scale.

You know, 60-foot high faces.

If those were made into men, they would stand 465-foot tall.

When you think about Abu Simbel and what

they were able to achieve there, the statues of Ramesses

were actually larger than each of those faces.

[music playing]

NARRATOR: Can the construction of Mount Rushmore

help us to understand what it took to create Abu Simbel?

Rushmore was carved with explosives.

[explosions]

DEREK MULLER: The people who built Mount Rushmore had

dynamite.

They had pneumatic drills.

They had all of this very impressive modern technology.

NARRATOR: The result is truly an engineering marvel.

But consider this--

3,000 years ago at Abu Simbel, there was no dynamite or power

drills.

All the workers had was this--

a small hand chisel.

As a modern engineer, I would not believe that something like

that was capable of being built thousands of years ago with

a technology as simple as this-- a simple, copper chisel.

It gives me a whole new respect for the ancient Egyptians

and what they were capable of.

NARRATOR: The statues of Ramesses alone

are 7 feet higher than the faces on Mount Rushmore.

Could the Egyptians really have built this massive temple

with little more than copper chisels?

This is a block of sandstone, the very same material

that the temple at Abu Simbel was carved out of.

And here, I have a reconstructed tool--

the same type of copper chisel that they would

have used to build the temple.

What I want to find out is just how difficult

it is to work with this tool on this rock.

It seems impossible to believe that Abu Simbel was carved

with copper chisels, but it's the only metal

that the Egyptians could get large quantities of.

Now today, our tools are made of hardened steel.

And copper isn't even half as hard

as that, which makes Abu Simbel one of the most amazing feats

of engineering ever.

[music playing]

You're talking about hundreds, possibly thousands,

of men hacking away skilfully over a long period of time.

It's the only way you could have covered

this amount of sheer rock.

NARRATOR: After just a few minutes work,

there's a problem.

Looking at my tool, after a few hits,

I can see that it's already started to wear away.

NARRATOR: It is estimated that 3 or more chisels a day

could have been used by each man as they pounded the rock face.

Far less effective than a pneumatic drill, let alone

explosives.

How could the Egyptians have done it?

If you're going through three copper chisels in a day,

and you've got 1,000 stone carvers working

for about 20 years, you arrive at something

like 20 million chisels.

The scale is just hard to believe.

NARRATOR: But they did it, and Abu Simbel is still

standing, a constant reminder of the power of Pharaoh Ramesses

II.

But what's even more impossible is that thousands of years

after it was built, the entire temple

had to be cut into thousands of pieces and moved.

It seems impossible that this temple was carved out

of a mountainside in southern Egypt 3,000 years ago.

This monster monument is larger than Mount Rushmore

and was created with nothing more than simple,

copper chisels.

DEREK MULLER: Imagine what it would have been like to be here

around 3,000 years ago and watch thousands of men

as they worked on this rock in 110-degree heat.

NARRATOR: To create a monument like this demanded

a highly motivated and organized labor force.

Most experts agree that this could not be built using mostly

slaves.

KARL UDE-MARTINEZ: Well, the workers at Abu Simbel

were not actually slaves.

They were skilled craftsmen.

And to be working for the pharaoh

would have been a privilege and an honor.

And how they got paid-- well, in bread and about eight pints

of beer a day.

NARRATOR: While the builders were

able to harness enough manpower to accomplish this seemingly

impossible task, how were they able to work

at such great heights?

Today, we take scaffolding for granted,

but Abu Simbel might have been one of the first times

that scaffolding was ever used on a large scale.

There are some theories that show

they did have some scaffolding that would lift them

up the rock.

So you'd have hundreds of workers working

on different levels at the same time.

NARRATOR: Another theory is even more remarkable.

Could they have used the mountain itself

as a building platform?

DARIUS ARYA: Imagine that you're carving from top to bottom,

and you're filling up the whole area with sand.

So as you produce, as you carve the statue,

you're taking away amounts of sand-- your platform

from which you're working.

NARRATOR: But there are many questions

that need to be answered.

How would they figure out the exact size and proportions

if the mountain was covered in sand?

The answer might be found at Mount Rushmore.

[music playing]

The builders of Mount Rushmore first made a clay model.

They scaled up the dimensions using giant protractors

with a boom and a dangling plumb bob.

Using these measurements, they carved out

each presidential face.

DEREK MULLER: What's interesting to me

is that some of the techniques they used to map out where

they're going to carve may have been the very same that they

used at Abu Simbel.

There's a technique called pointing, where essentially you

measure out from the top and then drop a plumb bob down

to indicate where on the rock you need to cut back.

I mean, it's very difficult to carve everything just by hand.

You need to also know the mathematics

and the appropriate engineering to make that work.

NARRATOR: It's incredible that techniques used today

may have been the same used on Abu Simbel 3,000 years ago.

DEREK MULLER: When I think about the techniques that must have

been invented in order to produce such

an incredible temple, I think about the vast advances

that humans made here--

to such a point that if people hadn't figured out

how to make this, they may never have figured out

how to make Mount Rushmore.

NARRATOR: But there is an important difference

between the two monuments.

Ramesses II ordered his monument to be painted in bright colors.

DEREK MULLER: We see them only as they exist now,

where earthquakes have shaken off some of the face.

And they're left a dusty, sort of brown color.

In their original state, they would

have been brightly-colored, painted whites and blues

and reds, gilded with gold.

That is truly how these sculptures should be viewed.

NARRATOR: The pharaoh wanted to be

sure everyone traveling the Nile River saw his monument.

He wanted them to know who he was and be in awe of his power.

[music playing]

But Abu Simbel's prominent position

on the banks of the River Nile put it under threat.

Over 3,000 years after it was built,

Abu Simbel was nearly lost forever.

[music playing]

DEREK MULLER: What I find truly extraordinary

is that the Abu Simbel temple actually

used to be 200 feet below the surface of the Nile here.

In 1964, they built a dam at Aswan, which

flooded this whole region.

So they had to move the whole temple up 200 feet,

and they set it back 700 feet in its current position.

To me, that is amazing--

that centuries after this mega-build,

they made a mega-move.

[music playing]

KARL UDE-MARTINEZ: So a team of expert engineers

and contractors took Abu Simbel block-by-block--

20- to 30-ton blocks--

and moved it onto a higher position.

They created a concrete dome to help support its structure,

and then piece by piece, like a giant jigsaw,

put it all back together again.

And what really amazes me is that they still realigned

the temple so that twice a year, on the king's birthday

and the king's coronation, the sunlight still

hits the back of that temple wall and lights

up the holy statues of Ramesses.

Today, the great temple of Abu Simbel

looks like it's always been here.

It is a great testament to the ancient builders that

constructed it and to the modern engineers that moved it.

NARRATOR: The ancient Egyptians used a massive workforce for 20

years to create Abu Simbel.

Their tools were simple, but multiplying simple tools

and techniques with thousands of workers

achieved the impossible.

DEREK MULLER: To think about the techniques

that they invented, to think about their ingenuity

and their manpower, their organization--

I just think it's extraordinary.

If I hadn't seen it for my own eyes,

I wouldn't believe that it's possible.

NARRATOR: But is it possible that ancients working thousands

of years before Abu Simbel may have employed even more

advanced techniques?

Thousands of miles and a continent

away from the great structures of Egypt

lie the remains of an ancient impossible monument, built

by a people long ago.

To this day, there are many theories as to why they built

it, but one thing is sure.

It is a structure years ahead of its time.

KARL UDE-MARTINEZ: Stonehenge is a massive and mysterious stone

circle built 4,500 years ago.

Visiting Stonehenge literally takes your breath away.

You stand there in absolute awe.

It's a very iconic, very spiritual place.

And it's a real testament to what people can achieve when

they work together.

NARRATOR: Stonehenge in Southern England--

like the pyramids, it is one of the most famous ancient sites

in the world.

KARL UDE-MARTINEZ: Now irrigation and sunshine

in Egypt created a real rich, powerful, agricultural economy,

which then in turn gave power and wealth

to create monster monuments.

At the same time in Southern England,

agriculture was on a fairly basic scale.

So how small farming communities got together and moved

and built something like this is absolutely incredible.

[music playing]

Sometimes when you stand inside Stonehenge with these

massive stones towering above you,

it's almost impossible to work out how our ancient ancestors

might have built something like this--

just the sheer scale of it.

NARRATOR: These massive stone archways weigh nearly 100 tons.

Can these ruins give us a clue as to how this monument was

built?

JULIAN RICHARDS: Originally, it looked quite different.

Because today it's a ruin, because it's

4 and 1/2 thousand years old.

Quite a lot of stones are missing,

but if we look at that part of the outer circle,

that gives you an idea of what carried all the way around

here.

NARRATOR: With no quarries on site or nearby,

it seems impossible to think this enormous mega-structure

was built in ancient times, but it was.

Stonehenge was built by the Stone Age and Bronze Age

inhabitants of Britain.

And what they brought here to build

it were two different sorts of stones.

These huge ones are sarsens, which is a hard sandstone.

And that comes from about 20 miles away to the North.

These things weigh up to 40 tons, and the smaller ones--

they only weigh up to about five tons--

they come all the way from Wales, about 150 miles

in that direction.

[music playing]

NARRATOR: This is the site in Wales, where the inner circle

bluestones from Stonehenge come from.

Stonemason Selwyn Jones believes the answers lie in this quarry.

It's incredible to think that these stones from this quarry

were transported well over 100 miles by people who would never

do anything like this before and probably would never

do anything like it again.

Even today, the scale of choosing one of these stones,

moving it down the valley by sled, out to the coast

onto the water, across the channel.

It's amazing, absolutely amazing.

NARRATOR: Today, it takes a few hours to travel 150 miles.

5,000 years ago, it took over a week.

And that's without a four-ton stone.

There were no roads, no bridges, and no boats big enough.

How did they get the bluestones here?

James Dean uses advanced holographic technology

to help solve the ancient mystery.

One theory as to how they might have done it is they

could have wrapped the stones in wicker

and then rolled them to their destination.

Now this seems like it's going to be very hard work when

you're going uphill and potentially lethal

when you're going downhill.

Some of the route to Stonehenge is over water,

but no one has any idea about this

because there's no evidence that there were suitable boats that

could have moved these stones.

So this one remains impossible.

Unless, could they have used a wicker

to float a three-ton stone?

It's possible, but you're going to need a lot of wood

to displace this much weight.

[music playing]

NARRATOR: But the bluestones are the smallest at Stonehenge.

It seems impossible to have moved them here, but how

could the ancients possibly transport the heavier stones?

SELWYN JONES: The sarsens are very

different from the bluestones.

They're much, much bigger.

These massive stones weigh about 40 tons,

and they've got a 10-ton stone perched on top of them.

And they also came from 20 miles away to the North.

So quite how prehistoric people dragged these enormous stones

across the Downs, We honestly don't know.

NARRATOR: How did they achieve the impossible

and move giant stones weighing over 40 tons?

For thousands of years, the sophisticated society of Egypt

built impossible, massive monuments.

But a mysterious culture in Southern England

was not to be outdone.

The secrets behind the mega-build at Stonehenge

have remained a mystery for 5,000 years.

How could these 40-ton stones have been moved over

20 miles without modern machinery or roads?

We've got 20 to 50 tons of granite-hard sandstone here,

and it's a 25-mile journey to Stonehenge.

We can't drag it.

And in fact, even trying to drag it on sleds

seems like hard work.

We could try stone-rolling.

So we have two teams of people on either side of the rock

with big levers, and as they lift the rock,

they shuffle it a tiny amount forwards.

But it's incredibly slow, and the whole idea

of moving a 40-odd-ton stone 25 miles without transport

or roads seems totally impossible,

but we're not out of ideas yet.

NARRATOR: We've seen that the ancient Egyptians could move

massive stones, but what technology

was available to a Stone Age culture?

These rollers could work, but ground in Southern England

can get very muddy, and they'll get stuck.

This is a better option.

Build a Stone Age railroad.

We either do it as a continuous length of track,

or we relay it as we go.

Either way, it's going to take a huge number of people.

NARRATOR: Is it possible that Stonehenge

was built with technology thousands of years ahead

of its time?

Loads of these balls have been found in Neolithic monuments

in Scotland, and they're all three inches in diameter.

They could be Stone Age ball bearings.

These ball bearings could be laid between two U sections cut

from hard oak to make a roller platform.

This is amazing, but we have no proof

that this is what they did.

With a mobile trackway like this,

you could move the sarsen stones with far fewer people.

NARRATOR: Despite the theories, how the stones got here

is still a mystery.

But look at their perfectly smooth sides.

It's not difficult to do this today, but how was it done

4 and 1/2 thousand years ago?

JULIAN RICHARDS: The only thing that they had to do

that with were stone tools--

hammers of stone, everything from the size of footballs

that you'd have to pound away at the stones with.

And then when you got to a finer surface,

you'd need a smaller, hand-held stone like this.

But can you imagine just sitting here and pounding away

for hours and days and weeks and months

to create these smooth surfaces and the joints that

fit the stones together?

NARRATOR: Even with the stones on hand and ready to go,

the problems for these ancient mega-builders

were only just beginning.

JULIAN RICHARDS: So they've got the stones here.

They've shaped them.

Then they've got to get them upright.

That, in itself, is not easy with the stone of this size.

We think that they must have known

how to use levers to actually lever the end of the stone up.

NARRATOR: Stone Age societies had no metal tools.

They had to improvise.

To get this stone vertical, you dig a hole with a vertical

side and a diagonal side using [inaudible] picks.

First, the stone goes in off this ramp.

And then it's holding whilst the hole is backfilled.

It would work, but take an incredible number of people

to achieve it.

NARRATOR: The people who built Stonehenge might have been

able to mobilize enough workers, but there is still

the question of how they got the final stones in place.

So you've got the upright stones up.

Then you've got to get the mantle on the top,

and that really--

we don't know, in all honesty, how they actually

got these stones up.

It's one of the great mysteries of Stonehenge.

NARRATOR: There are plenty of theories,

but still no solid answers.

You can pull the lintel of an Earth ramp

to get it into position, but it's very costly in terms

of time and manpower.

There's another possibility.

You can lever up alternate sides and build supporting timber

underneath until you lever it sideways onto the stones.

NARRATOR: Another idea is that the lintel was lifted

on a sturdy, wooden wheel.

Stonehenge comes from a time before written records.

There's no evidence as to how or why it was built,

but it remains today a testament to the impossible.

I think one of the things that we need to understand

is that these people were incredibly ingenious,

incredibly skilled.

They were mathematicians.

They were engineers.

They were astronomers.

They had a lot of skills.

We mustn't think of them as being primitive in any way.

They were unbelievably skilled people

because they built Stonehenge, and it's still here

for us to see 4 and 1/2 thousand years later.

NARRATOR: Stonehenge remains one of the greatest mysteries

of the ancient world, but the Romans

weren't to be outdone in monster monumental impossibilities.

Our world is full of amazing buildings,

but 2000 years ago, the Romans built advanced structures that

still have not been outdone today.

One of these is a 2000-year-old concrete dome

found in the center of Rome.

It's called the Pantheon, built as a temple

to all the gods of ancient Rome.

The Pantheon is usually ascribed to Emperor Hadrian,

but it's actually said to have been begun by his predecessor,

Emperor Trajan.

These towering, gray, granite columns came from Egypt

3,000 miles from Rome.

They were acquired in Aswan.

These were first transported up the River Nile, then

across the Mediterranean, and then by barge up the River

Tiber, and then finally dragged through the streets

to the Pantheon.

The sight must have been incredible.

The stone floor was made up of granite and marble

from Egypt, North Africa, and Turkey--

the edges of Rome's vast empire.

NARRATOR: But the truly impossible feature

of the Pantheon is its dome of un-reinforced concrete.

After 2000 years, its sheer scale has never been matched.

The dome's diameter-- that's what's not superseded ever.

So picture, you don't just have this amazing dome,

but the width--

the diameter-- is the same as the height.

So you could fit in that cylinder a perfect sphere.

NARRATOR: Incredibly, the space inside the pantheon

could hold 9 million gallons of water.

It is an amazing structure.

KARL UDE-MARTINEZ: If we compare the pantheon dome to, say,

a modern dome, such as the Capitol building in Washington

D.C. Now the pantheon dome has a diameter of 142 feet.

Now the Capitol building has a diameter of 96 feet.

The last time the Pantheon dome was repaired

was in 202 AD after an earthquake.

The Capitol dome was finished in 1866

and has already undergone two extensive restorations.

NARRATOR: How was the pantheon built?

The secret lies hidden in the concrete.

[music playing]

Modern concrete buildings rarely last 50 years,

let alone 2000 years.

To uncover this secret, we're going to one of the world's

most dangerous places.

[music playing]

Oh, my god.

It's like being on the moon.

Amazing.

NARRATOR: Dr. Darius Arya has come to Solfatara Volcano

in Italy.

[music playing]

This hellish inferno is the key to the mystery of the Pantheon

dome.

DARIUS ARYA: We think of concrete as a modern invention.

We think about it building our modern, mega-cities.

But it was invented here in Roman times.

NARRATOR: Encased in this bubbling cauldron

is the secret ingredient--

this volcanic material, called pozzolana ash or sand.

DARIUS ARYA: The magic ingredient in cement

is the pozzolana sand.

And what it has is volcanic material, including [inaudible]

and silicates, and this creates a really important chemical

bond with the lime and with the water.

KARL UDE-MARTINEZ: The bond created by volcanic ash,

when combined with other ingredients,

makes a solid material, unlike modern concrete

which lets water in.

The volcanic ash makes the concrete weatherproof

and resistant to decay.

NARRATOR: This simple ingredient makes Roman concrete

a mega-build super-material more durable

than any concrete made today.

KARL UDE-MARTINEZ: A modern equivalent

of the Roman concrete recipe was amazingly used in the Hoover

Dam.

Fly ash, a byproduct of the coal fire process,

was used in the Hoover Dam concrete,

and it works in a similar kind of way

to the volcanic ash of the Roman age.

NARRATOR: We found the secret of Roman concrete,

and we've come to Texas to put it to the test.

[music playing]

Concrete expert Mark Whaley has always been fascinated

by Roman concrete.

He's even visited the Pantheon in Rome to study its design.

Mark has made one-ton blocks of Roman and modern concrete

to test their strengths.

How will they face up to a true Texas test--

a Winchester 73?

MARK WHALEY: We have a showdown between Roman concrete,

a 2000-year-old technology, and modern concrete.

And we're going to see which one is stronger.

NARRATOR: Can sharpshooter Kirsten Weiss make a big impact

on modern concrete?

[gunshots]

Some light damage, penetrated about half an inch,

not much more than that.

Held up pretty well.

NARRATOR: Will the Roman concrete be equal to the test?

[gunshots]

MARK WHALEY: It's fared every bit as well as

the modern concrete did.

The thing with the Roman concrete

is that it gets stronger and stronger as it ages.

And that is one of the reasons why the Pantheon is still

standing today.

KARL UDE-MARTINEZ: If you take something like the Pantheon

dome, it's actually stronger now than when

it was built 2,000 years ago.

I'm in complete awe of the engineering

and the skill of the monument builders of the ancient world.

NARRATOR: The Romans formulated the ultimate building material

and built the impossible.

In 2,000 years, it's never been matched.

But another ancient monument stood 2,500 years

before the Pantheon was built, and is still standing today.

This is the Great Pyramid of Giza.

We like to think that humans have never

been more advanced than they are today, but we're wrong.

As far back as 5,000 years, ancient engineers

erected buildings that have stood the test of time

and might outlast anything we build today.

The temple of Abu Simbel in Egypt

is still the world's biggest monument carved out

of a mountainside.

But one Egyptian monster monument

even dwarfs Abu Simbel--

the Great Pyramid.

Built in the 26th century, BC at a height of over 480 feet,

it rained as the tallest man-made structure in the world

for over 4,000 years.

The building of the Great Pyramid

is a staggering feat when you consider the sheer size.

This is an almost impossible achievement.

[music playing]

NARRATOR: The Egyptians built more than 100 pyramids

across their kingdom.

It is believed that all were constructed as tombs.

In terms of size, precision, and construction time,

no mega-build in the world beats the Great Pyramid of Giza.

It is the only wonder of the Seven Wonders

of the Ancient World still standing.

It was constructed as a tomb for Khufu,

second pharaoh of the Fourth Dynasty, 4,500 years ago.

How did the Egyptians build on such a scale thousands of years

ahead of their time?

I think, undisputedly, the ancient Egyptians were

the mega-builders of the ancient world.

The mind boggles to think how they did it.

NARRATOR: When we think of big, we

think of buildings like the Pentagon.

And while it does have greater ground coverage,

the Pentagon is just a lightweight

when it comes to the sheer volume of the Great Pyramid.

These are man-made mountains, structures of a size that we

failed to replicate up until, say, the 20th century.

That just gives you some idea of the scope, the scale,

the monumental achievement that this represents.

NARRATOR: The Great Pyramid weighs over six million tons.

That's more than seven Pentagon buildings.

The number of stone blocks it contains is simply staggering.

You know, each one of these pyramids

contains about two million huge stones.

And you think about how far they had to bring those stones.

It just-- it boggles the mind.

How was that even possible?

NARRATOR: The blocks used at the base of the Great Pyramid

weigh 2 and 1/2 tons.

The largest single blocks in the pyramid

weigh as much as 20 tons each.

You think about how long Khufu's reign was,

and we think it was between 23 and 25 years.

You divide that time by the number of blocks.

You're looking at putting one of those humongous blocks

into place every couple of minutes.

That, in itself, is a staggering achievement.

And if you think, with enough rope, enough men, enough force,

you can move anything, and the Great Pyramid

is the proof of that.

NARRATOR: Even more incredible is the precision with which

the Great Pyramid was built, long before computers

and modern surveying equipment were invented.

In addition to its phenomenal size, and the pyramid

is an incredible feat of precision building as well.

So the base onto which it's built is absolutely level,

and there's less than a single inch worth of deviation

from that-- absolutely perfect level.

And all of the four sides of the pyramid at the base

are of identical length.

The difference between the shortest and the longest

is less than 2 inches.

This is an absolutely incredible feat.

NARRATOR: Originally, the pyramids

were covered with highly-polished white limestone

and possibly capped with gold.

Only the Pyramid of Khafre, the second pyramid,

still have some of its limestone cladding left.

[music playing]

CHRIS NAUNTON: The casing stones that

were used to face the pyramids are

cut with incredible accuracy.

So the corners of the pyramid--

they are cut to a 90-degree angle that

is so close to perfect.

It's within one-hundredth of an inch.

NARRATOR: Modern builders would find it a challenge

to match such precision on a monster scale.

The Egyptians proved that you can achieve

the impossible with little more than string, a plumb line,

and a set square.

It is a testament to their mega-monument building.

For me, as an engineer, this is the most impressive man-made

feat on the planet.

I mean, it represents impossible ancient engineering.

NARRATOR: The world's greatest mega-build is yet

to be surpassed after 4,500 years,

and many believe it will remain long

after anything we build today.

CHRIS NAUNTON: The construction of the pyramid as a whole is so

well-done that we expect the pyramid will still be standing

in 100,000 years time.

NARRATOR: Mega-builders of the ancient world

made unbelievable structures impossible to match even today.

From history's most immense monument to the largest

concrete dome and the world's most massive building,

proving that the ancients were able to achieve

the impossible, creating monster monuments

that still remain unmatched after thousands of years.