The Old Kingdom Egyptians obviously used some kind of rudimentary but powerful "lifting machine" - one they could have readily fabricated based on available materials and known skills.
The Egyptian Pulley is a simple but true pulley - a lifting machine.
It is proposed that the Old Kingdom Egyptians, builders of the Great Pyramid, used such a simple, robust pulley to both move and lift the Pyramid's 2.3 million stone blocks.
Provides the solution to how one stone was lifted every five minutes for ~ thirty years.
Full scale experiments have successfully demonstrated the operation of the Pulley.
Evidence of the Egyptian Pulley exists in the Great Pyramid itself.
The recent discovery of a steep ramp in the Eastern Desert of Egypt proves that the Old Kingdom Egyptians utilized steep ramps to lift heavy stones. And steep ramps necessitate the use of a rope direction changing mechanism -- a true pulley being the most efficient.