The math works out a lot more realistically than I think you expect:
20 years times 300 working days a year = 6,000 working days
2,000,000 stones / 6,000 working days = 333 stones a day.
The biggest base layer stones were 3 ft x 8 ft x 4.5 ft. which amounts to 12+32+18 = 62 linear feet of cuts needed.
Then realize estimates of the work force range from 20,000 to as many as 100,000. If we assume just 20,000 and said half worked cutting stones and the rest worked moving them that means 10,000 men / 333.3 stones a day = 30 men worked on a stone in a day. So we have 62 linear feet of cuts on the biggest stones / 30 workers ~ 2 linear feet of cuts per man. Does that sound unrealistic at all?
1.) how did they move 2.3 million 2.5-15 ton stones... 500 miles away?
2.) What stone or bronze tools can cut that much stone that quickly? Have you ever chiseled something? Especially limestone, where a diamond blade is recommended?
3.) How did they stack 2.3 million stones?
The logistics to make all this happen in a matter of decades by peasants with stone tools and wooden scaffolding seems a little far fetched.
The simple answer would be they actually used a type of limestone concrete and cast the blocks in place. This would explain why we didn't have massive amounts of chipped off limestone block and copper chisels all over the site.
The limestone mud was carried up by the bucketful and then poured, packed or rammed into molds (made of wood, stone, clay or brick) placed on the pyramid sides.
How many buckets per stone?
How long would it take the builders to pour that many buckets into one 2-70 ton stones mold?
How long does it take to cure?
You can't really stack the stones too high while the bottom ones cure, so how long in between pouring, and curing, did they have to wait? How much time does that add? Is 20 years sufficient?
It's 92 million cubic feet of material. 20,000 workers working 300 days a year gets you 6 million man days per year. It it takes one man day to mine, mix, and place a cubic foot of concrete (~150 pounds) that's a bit over 15 years for that. For reference a cubic foot is less than two 5 gallon Home Depot buckets, so this is not a lot of material for 8 hours of work.
As far as drying time, it's 481 feet high and the upper layers have a block height of about 1.5 feet, so worst case it's 320 layers thick. It takes 3 days to reach 40% of it's 28 day strength (99% of ultimate strength), so worst case you spend 960 days waiting for it to cure. But in reality the base blocks were substantially taller and there was a lot more material at the bottom, so it's likely if you worked in sections by the time you finished the last part of the bottom layer the bulk of the other stuff had already dried sufficiently to do the next layer. So it wouldn't be until you got closer to the top that the drying time might cause you to have to wait.
None of this is beyond the realm of possibility. 20,000 can do a stupid amount of manual labor over 20 years.
The math works out a lot more realistically than I think you expect:
20 years times 300 working days a year = 6,000 working days
2,000,000 stones / 6,000 working days = 333 stones a day.
The biggest base layer stones were 3 ft x 8 ft x 4.5 ft. which amounts to 12+32+18 = 62 linear feet of cuts needed.
Then realize estimates of the work force range from 20,000 to as many as 100,000. If we assume just 20,000 and said half worked cutting stones and the rest worked moving them that means 10,000 men / 333.3 stones a day = 30 men worked on a stone in a day. So we have 62 linear feet of cuts on the biggest stones / 30 workers ~ 2 linear feet of cuts per man. Does that sound unrealistic at all?
Okay,
1.) how did they move 2.3 million 2.5-15 ton stones... 500 miles away?
2.) What stone or bronze tools can cut that much stone that quickly? Have you ever chiseled something? Especially limestone, where a diamond blade is recommended?
3.) How did they stack 2.3 million stones?
The logistics to make all this happen in a matter of decades by peasants with stone tools and wooden scaffolding seems a little far fetched.
The simple answer would be they actually used a type of limestone concrete and cast the blocks in place. This would explain why we didn't have massive amounts of chipped off limestone block and copper chisels all over the site.
https://www.geopolymer.org/archaeology/pyramids/are-pyramids-made-out-of-concrete-1/
How many buckets per stone?
How long would it take the builders to pour that many buckets into one 2-70 ton stones mold?
How long does it take to cure?
You can't really stack the stones too high while the bottom ones cure, so how long in between pouring, and curing, did they have to wait? How much time does that add? Is 20 years sufficient?
It's 92 million cubic feet of material. 20,000 workers working 300 days a year gets you 6 million man days per year. It it takes one man day to mine, mix, and place a cubic foot of concrete (~150 pounds) that's a bit over 15 years for that. For reference a cubic foot is less than two 5 gallon Home Depot buckets, so this is not a lot of material for 8 hours of work.
As far as drying time, it's 481 feet high and the upper layers have a block height of about 1.5 feet, so worst case it's 320 layers thick. It takes 3 days to reach 40% of it's 28 day strength (99% of ultimate strength), so worst case you spend 960 days waiting for it to cure. But in reality the base blocks were substantially taller and there was a lot more material at the bottom, so it's likely if you worked in sections by the time you finished the last part of the bottom layer the bulk of the other stuff had already dried sufficiently to do the next layer. So it wouldn't be until you got closer to the top that the drying time might cause you to have to wait.
None of this is beyond the realm of possibility. 20,000 can do a stupid amount of manual labor over 20 years.