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 -- and this is the major challenge almost all theories simply ignore.
Engineering calculations prove that there was sufficient area for the number of rope pullers required.
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.