Certainly, water played a role: much of the stone was shipped from quarries some distance away.
It's also imaginable that they used canals to bring the blocks further inland, closer to the pyramid construction site.
However, the near-vertical water tower and lock system would be a challenge to build today, let alone with the technology of the era. The pyramids were built before the widespread use of the wheel, and with soft copper tools, not bronze. They predate the invention of nails, as in the type used to join wood. For example, the planks of Khufu's ship were bound together with knotted ropes and its sails were moved without the aid of block and tackle, as this would have required wheels and axles! It's a sight to behold...
That was really interesting. Itr's weird to think of how many mundane technologies actually had to be invented, and how things would have worked before. The idea of a boat built without nails is kind of crazy.
Bizarrely, for me, seeing Khufu's ship in person was far more memorable than the pyramids themselves. The pyramids are just... piles of rock. Sure, they're big and impressive, but no more. Without using your imagination, you can't see how they were built, what life was like at the time, or what the technology was like.
The ship was incredible, to my eyes at least. My partner wasn't interested, but she never studied engineering! To my eyes it looked almost modern, yet absolutely bizarre to the point of being nearly alien, but only in the details. The joinery. The rope work. Things like that.
I liken it to seeing a jumbo jet fly over for the first time. It's huge and impressive, like the pyramids. But to me, seeing an airport was the real wonder. All those planes with the engine nacelle covers open, showing the intricate tubing and turbine housings. The bizarre low trucks and specialised equipment that's used nowhere else. The fuel pump trucks that suck up jet fuel from underground pipes. The strange land of endless concrete. People waving glowing sticks. And so on and so forth. It's an entire "world" that's different from the normal world outside. You get to see the inner workings of the technology up close, not just a superficial end product from a distance. That's what it felt like to see Khufu's ship for me. I felt like I had stepped into the era of the Pharaohs.
On a smaller scale, that reminds me of the clock at Wells Cathedral (https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/objects/co1347/...) for 1392. The Cathedral is a great example of its kind, but for me the clock was a lot more interesting. Although that might be bacause I've been to dozens of medieval cathedrals so they do kind of blur into one.
I'd like to visit the Pyramids, but I'm more interested in the insides. Khufu's ship sounds fascinating, will definitely take a look if we go.
That style of clockwork reminds me strangely of the Doctor Who episode The Girl in the Fireplace (1), with the clockwork robots, which in turn is the same kind of "odd" feeling I get from Khufu's ship, or steampunk in general (2).
