The Great Pyramid of Giza. Credit: Douwe C. van der Zee / CC BY-SA 4.0
One of history’s oldest architectural puzzles may now have a clear answer. A new study by Simon Andreas Scheuring, a scientist at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York, proposes that the Great Pyramid was not built using massive ramps and brute labor, as long believed. Instead, it may have been constructed from the inside out using internal pulley-like systems and sliding counterweights.
Published in npj Heritage Science, the research introduces a radical idea: the Great Pyramid itself was a machine — a self-contained system designed to lift and place its own building blocks. This concept challenges centuries of theories centered on large external ramps and sheer manpower.
The study suggests that internal stone-lined ramps and pulley-like setups were used to move millions of heavy limestone and granite blocks into place. According to Scheuring, this method would explain how ancient workers could have maintained the astonishing pace of placing one block every one to three minutes over the course of roughly 20 years.
New theory reimagines the Great Pyramid as a machine built to build itself
Key architectural features inside the pyramid support this model. Scheuring identifies the Grand Gallery and Ascending Passage as sloped ramps where counterweights were likely slid downward to generate force.
The Antechamber, long thought to be a security feature, is reinterpreted as a pulley-like mechanism that helped lift even the heaviest blocks — some weighing up to 60 tons (132,000 pounds) — to the upper levels.
Crucially, Scheuring argues that the structure was not built symmetrically from the ground up. Instead, it grew from a central starting point where internal passages split, expanding upward and outward in phases.
Method of assembly of the pulley-like system in the Great Pyramid of Giza. Credit: Simon Andreas Scheuring / CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
This approach allowed builders to place heavy blocks at great heights more efficiently and without relying on the massive ramps traditional theories require — ramps that would have been larger than the pyramid itself and for which no evidence has ever been found.
The machine-like construction process also helps explain several unusual features of the pyramid. The irregular positioning of internal chambers, the variation in layer thickness, the slight concavity of the outer faces, and the vertical groove — or furrow — down the center of each side all align with the internal lifting model.
Archaeological evidence supports internal lifting system over ramp models
Even the recently discovered voids inside the pyramid appear to be consistent with the locations of vertical shafts or workspaces used in this process.
By using counterweights and pulley-like setups on sliding stone ramps, workers could generate the force needed to lift blocks while minimizing friction. The study describes how ropes were threaded over wood beams inside the Antechamber to lift materials through shafts — making the pyramid itself a tool of its own creation.
The theory also addresses the scale of the project. Given that the pyramid contains more than 2 million blocks and rises nearly 146 meters (480 feet), any realistic construction plan must explain how such a feat was achieved with ancient technology.
Scheuring’s model, which distributes the work across all four faces of the pyramid using multiple lifting points, makes such speed and scale physically plausible.
By redefining the Great Pyramid as a machine built to assemble itself, this study offers a new lens through which to view one of humanity’s greatest engineering achievements. It departs from romanticized ideas of divine intervention or endless labor and instead suggests a highly organized and mechanical solution.
Whether the model gains wide acceptance remains to be seen. But for now, it marks a major shift in how researchers approach the mystery of how the Great Pyramid was built — not just as a monument, but as a masterpiece of ancient engineering.
