Saqqara Pyramid Construction Technology: The Hydraulic Lift Theory Explained

A 4,700-Year-Old Assumption Just Got Reopened

A 2024 peer-reviewed study published in PLOS ONE proposed that the Step Pyramid of Djoser was built using a hydraulic lift system capable of raising about 100 tons of stone, overturning the 4,700-year consensus on Saqqara pyramid construction technology that armies of laborers stacked the blocks of the world's first stone pyramid.¹ The Pyramid of Djoser construction is dated to around 2670 BCE under the architect Imhotep, vizier of Pharaoh Djoser, and the structure originally stood 62.5 meters tall.² It marks "the earliest large-scale cut stone construction made by man" in the broader trajectory of ancient Egypt construction technology.²

Lead researcher Xavier Landreau of the Paleotechnic Institute described the finding as "a watershed discovery."³

"This is a watershed discovery. Our research could completely change the status quo of how the pyramid was built." — Xavier Landreau, lead author of the PLOS ONE study

The Landreau hydraulic theory proposes three integrated components: the Gisr el-Mudir enclosure functioning as a check dam, the Deep Trench operating as a water treatment facility, and twin internal shafts containing a hydraulic lift mechanism.¹ The stones being lifted average around 300 kilograms, with the largest reaching about 2,500 kilograms.⁴ If the hydraulic system was real, it was solving a real lift problem at scale on a project that produced a 62.5-meter monument out of cut limestone.

Traditional consensus has been ramps and skilled labor under Imhotep's direction. That consensus is now in motion.

But the theory is not settled.

The Theory Is Contested. That's the Point.

The Step Pyramid hydraulic lift theory is published in a peer-reviewed journal and supported by some civil engineers, and it is also rejected by named archaeologists at LMU Munich, Toronto, and Warsaw.

Julia Budka of Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich said the hypothesis "is not proven at all" and noted that no Egyptologists or archaeologists were directly involved in the research.³ Oren Siegel of the University of Toronto argues the proposed reservoir "could not have held enough water from occasional rains" to maintain the system.⁴ Kamil Kuraszkiewicz of the University of Warsaw argues that moving stones with manpower would require less effort than constructing the proposed device, and notes that the lake the theory requires is not described in any ancient Egyptian writings.⁴

The civil engineering response has been more sympathetic. Marcelo Garcia, civil engineering professor at the University of Illinois, said of the work: "I think they do make the case for a very highly developed water management system."⁵ His reservation focused on the lift mechanism. The water-management framework around it he largely accepted.

The named critics here are Western academics. The Egyptian archaeological authorities most directly responsible for Saqqara have not been quoted in the English-language coverage of this dispute.

The question is now open. Both camps belong in the room while the work of resolution continues.

Whether the hydraulic theory turns out to be right or wrong is not the lesson here.

Your Firm Runs on a Similar Assumption

When a 4,700-year-old assumption gets credibly reopened, the lesson sits one level above the question of which theory is right. The lesson is that "we know how this was built" is no longer a closed question. The same kind of reopening is hitting the labor-pyramid assumption your AEC firm has been running on your entire career.

The hydraulic theory may turn out to be wrong. The reopening of the question is the load-bearing event. If the assumption that armies of laborers stacked the blocks at Saqqara can be reopened after 4,700 years, the assumption that armies of junior staff drive your firm's leverage is not safe to default to either. That second assumption is younger, and it is more directly observable, and it is already being tested in real time by AI in adjacent professional services.

This article is for AEC founders running mid-market firms and the operating-model question they are now living inside, whether or not anyone in the firm has named it out loud.

So look at the pyramid your firm is actually running on.

The AEC Pyramid Hierarchy Is the Default Until It Isn't

The traditional AEC firm hierarchy runs on a pyramid that Procore calls "still the most common type of organizational structure in the construction industry"⁶: CEO down through VP, Division Manager, Project Manager, Superintendent, and Foreperson, with crews and laborers at the base.

An org chart is the surface. Below it, the pyramid encodes the economic logic of how AEC firms have priced, staffed, and won work for generations.

The chain looks like this:

• CEO / President
• VP / Department Head
• Division Manager
• Project Manager
• Superintendent
• Foreperson
• Crew
• Laborer

That eight-tier chain is the "pyramid" the article's "8-to-2" title points at. The "to-2" end is illustrative of compression direction; the exact destination is firm-specific.

The leverage model encoded in the chain is straightforward. Senior judgment is expensive. Junior execution is cheap. The ratio of junior to senior people drives margin. The base of the pyramid does the routine work: drafting, takeoffs, document review, schedule entry, RFI triage, coordination ticketing. The base is where routine work lives, and routine work is the first thing AI absorbs.

That structural reality is now being named outside AEC. McKinsey's framing is that "organization charts based on traditional hierarchical delegation will pivot toward agentic networks or work charts based on exchanging tasks and outcomes."⁷ Translated into firm-shape terms: the layers between executive intent and project execution start to compress.

For most of the past decade the pyramid has been getting taller. Layers got added during growth phases.⁷ Specialization deepened. Working through the cultural shift this requires inside the firm is its own discipline, and one we cover in detail in building AI culture.

And the compression is no longer hypothetical. It is already happening next door.

What's Already Happening Next Door: Consulting's Frozen Base

McKinsey, BCG, and Bain have frozen graduate starting salaries for the third consecutive year, and two Big Four executives estimate that UK graduate consulting hiring is down roughly 50% as AI absorbs the routine work that used to fill the bottom of the pyramid.⁸

PwC also missed its 100,000-person growth target, set five years prior.⁸ The hiring pace has slowed beyond a pause. The growth shape the firm publicly committed to is no longer the shape the firm is becoming.

Mark Bunker, former Deloitte partner and managing director of Queen's Tower Advisory, put the dynamic directly: "The base will shrink as routine work is automated, but experienced judgment at the top becomes more critical."⁸ Namaan Mian, COO of Management Consulted, observed that "real productivity improvements from AI implementation inside firms" are creating "downward pressure on salaries."⁸

Read those two quotes together. The base is shrinking because routine work is automated. Salaries are falling because the productivity gains are real. The firms running pyramid disruption for their clients are running it on themselves.

Consulting and AEC are different industries. Different client mix. Different regulatory load. Different work product. They share the same pyramid, and the pyramid is being measurably compressed in an adjacent professional service in real time. That is the comp set.

So what does the same compression look like inside AEC?

The Saqqara Pyramid Construction Technology Lesson Applied to AI in Construction

Only 27% of AEC professionals currently use AI in their operations, but 94% of those AI users plan to expand their use in 2026, according to a Bluebeam global survey of 1,000 AEC professionals.⁹ The gap between adopters and laggards is about to widen, fast.

David Wilson of Bechtel summarized AI's effect on AEC operations bluntly: "It's changing days of activity into minutes."⁹ When Bechtel says it about itself, the smaller firm in the same market is on the wrong side of a measurable speed gap.

The Bluebeam survey identifies the friction⁹:

• 56% of AEC respondents believe AI will help address construction skills shortages
• 42% cite data-sharing security concerns as a barrier
• 33% identify cost and complexity as a barrier

AEC Magazine's prediction is more structural. Design firms will follow the path software companies took: from "large, functionally siloed teams" toward "smaller, cross-functional, AI-first product teams."¹⁰ The same article names a role concept called the "model-centric full-stack designer" as one concrete shape those firms might take.

Mid-market AEC ($20M–$100M revenue) is the most exposed segment in this transition. Larger firms have enterprise-grade resources to absorb the cost of restructuring, run pilots in parallel, and survive a wrong call. Smaller firms can stay small and survive on judgment alone, or specialist niche, or relationship density. Mid-market is the segment with the most layers exposed to compression and the least margin to absorb a strategic miss. Knowing what counts as the metrics that distinguish a real AI workflow from an AI experiment has graduated from research project to sizing question.

Which leaves you with three questions worth running before someone else runs them for you.

Three Questions Mid-Market AEC Leaders Should Be Asking

Mid-market AEC firms are uniquely exposed because they are large enough to need a real answer about AI-driven labor compression, but small enough that the cost of a wrong answer can sink them— and the answer is firm-specific.

The work here is naming the assumption your firm currently runs on, then asking whether it still holds in 24 months. Picking a tool comes later. Three questions are worth running, in this order.

1. Which of our work is currently bottom-of-pyramid by economic logic, and how much of it is AI-routinizable in the next 18 months?

Frame the question precisely. What work is currently priced as junior labor that AI can absorb at the cost of compute? Specifics matter. Drafting and markup. Takeoffs and quantification. RFI triage. Schedule updates. Document coordination. Code-review pre-screen. Each of these is a discrete economic line. Mark each one against the next 18 months and the answer becomes a balance sheet.

2. Which roles in our firm could become "full-stack" if the layer below them is automated, and are those people set up to lead, or set up to manage?

AEC Magazine's "model-centric full-stack designer" is a real role concept now.¹⁰ When the layer below a role is absorbed, the person in that role either rises into orchestration or stalls. Promotion logic is the harder question than automation logic, because promotion is a people decision in a firm where you already know the names. A decision framework for founders evaluating where to invest first is closer to the kind of frame this question wants.

3. What shape do we want our firm to be in 24 months, and is the answer "the same shape, smaller" or "a different shape entirely"?

"The same shape, smaller" is one valid answer. "A different shape entirely" is another. McKinsey's agentic-network framing is one option for the second answer.⁷ "We haven't decided" does not count as an answer. The leverage assumption is no longer safe to default to, and "wait and see" is itself a decision.

Reopen Your Load-Bearing Assumptions Before They Fail

The hydraulic theory may turn out to be wrong. The agentic-organization framing may be over-promised. The cost of ignoring both is being the firm whose load-bearing assumption fails while everyone around them already adjusted.

The reopening is the work itself. The discipline is refusing to default to "we know how this works" when the comp set is telling you something else. AI amplifies human capability. The question for the AEC operator is which human capabilities the firm is structured to amplify in 24 months, given what AI now absorbs at the bottom and orchestrates in the middle.

If running these three questions inside your own firm is the next thing on your list, that is the work an AI strategy partner for mid-market AEC firms does with founder-led AEC firms.

FAQ

Is the hydraulic lift theory for the Step Pyramid of Djoser accepted by Egyptologists?

No. Named archaeologists at LMU Munich, the University of Toronto, and the University of Warsaw have publicly rejected or disputed the theory, with Julia Budka noting it "is not proven at all" and pointing out that no Egyptologists or archaeologists were directly involved in the research. Civil engineers have been more receptive, with University of Illinois professor Marcelo Garcia accepting the water-management framework while reserving judgment on the lift mechanism itself. The theory is published in a peer-reviewed journal but remains actively contested.

How much of the AEC industry is actually using AI right now?

According to a Bluebeam global survey of 1,000 AEC professionals, only 27% currently use AI in their operations. However, 94% of those who do use AI plan to expand their use in 2026, meaning the gap between adopters and laggards is expected to widen quickly. Bechtel's David Wilson described AI's operational effect as "changing days of activity into minutes."

What is happening to consulting firm hiring, and why does it matter for AEC firms?

McKinsey, BCG, and Bain have frozen graduate starting salaries for the third consecutive year, and two Big Four executives estimate UK graduate consulting hiring is down roughly 50% as AI absorbs routine work at the base of the pyramid. The article uses this as a direct comp set for AEC because both industries share the same pyramid labor model, where margin depends on a ratio of cheap junior execution to expensive senior judgment. Former Deloitte partner Mark Bunker summarized the dynamic: "The base will shrink as routine work is automated, but experienced judgment at the top becomes more critical."

Why are mid-market AEC firms specifically called out as the most exposed segment?

The article defines mid-market as firms with $20M–$100M in revenue and argues they face a structural squeeze from both directions. Larger firms have the enterprise resources to run parallel pilots and absorb the cost of a wrong strategic call, while smaller firms can survive on judgment, specialist niches, or relationship density alone. Mid-market firms have the most organizational layers exposed to AI-driven compression and the least margin to recover from a strategic miss.

References

1. PLOS ONE, "On the possible use of hydraulic force to assist with building the step pyramid of saqqara" (2024) — https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0306690
2. Wikipedia, "Pyramid of Djoser" (2026) — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_of_Djoser
3. Live Science, "Ancient Egyptians used a hydraulic lift to build their 1st pyramid, controversial study claims" (2024) — https://www.livescience.com/archaeology/ancient-egyptians/ancient-egyptians-used-a-hydraulic-lift-to-build-their-1st-pyramid-controversial-study-claims
4. Science News, "Was Egypt's first pyramid built with hydraulics? The theory may hold water" (2024) — https://www.sciencenews.org/article/hydraulic-lift-egypts-first-pyramid
5. American Society of Civil Engineers, "Did ancient builders use hydraulic engineering to build step pyramids?" (2024) — https://www.asce.org/publications-and-news/civil-engineering-source/article/2024/10/11/did-ancient-builders-use-hydraulic-engineering-to-build-step-pyramids
6. Procore, "Construction Company Hierarchy: Creating an Organizational Chart" (2025) — https://www.procore.com/library/construction-company-organizational-chart
7. McKinsey & Company, "The agentic organization: Contours of the next paradigm for the AI era" (2025) — https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/people-and-organizational-performance/our-insights/the-agentic-organization-contours-of-the-next-paradigm-for-the-ai-era
8. The Irish Times, "Top consultancies freeze starting salaries as AI threatens 'pyramid' model" (2025) — https://www.irishtimes.com/business/2025/12/01/top-consultancies-freeze-starting-salaries-as-ai-threatens-pyramid-model/
9. American Society of Civil Engineers, "Architecture, engineering, construction sector slow to adapt AI, survey shows" (2025) — https://www.asce.org/publications-and-news/civil-engineering-source/article/2025/12/18/architecture-engineering-construction-sector-slow-to-adapt-ai-survey-shows
10. AEC Magazine, "AI, design, and re-shaping the AEC industry" (2026) — https://aecmag.com/business/ai-design-and-re-shaping-the-aec-industry/