PYRAMID SLEUTH BACKED ON THEORY: MEGALITHS CAN 'FLY'.

Byline: Dana Bartholomew Staff Writer

A kite soars, someone screams, and a 4-ton obelisk slides across the desert before tipping up and swinging free from the ground.

To Reseda businesswoman Maureen Clemmons and her team of engineers from the California Institute of Technology, the 45-second ``flight'' of the multiton stone pillar across the Mojave Desert last month represents a Kitty Hawk milestone in low-tech aeronautics.

And for Clemmons and her company of amateur Egyptologists, raising the megalith on a light desert breeze solves a far more compelling mystery: how the giant pyramids were built.

``We did this in a 15 mile-per-hour wind, which is nothing,'' said the 44-year-old hair-care entrepreneur and management consultant whose Winnetka office is filled with mementos of ancient Egypt.

``Who says temples could not be built using kites? I think these people were masters of their own technology and resources.''

Clemmons, who gained international attention - and derision - for lifting a 400-pound concrete obelisk on two nylon kites in Northridge four years ago, means to repeat the feat later this month in a public demonstration in Quartz Hill west of Lancaster.

And with the aid of Caltech engineers and bigger and better parafoil- and-pulley systems, the sky's the limit on the size of rocks that can be raised by wind alone, she and the researchers say.

While it once took 900 men and 74 horses to tip up a 340-ton Egyptian obelisk at St. Peter's Basilica in 16th century Rome, Caltech engineers calculate they can raise such a stone with four kites, a 30 mile-per-hour wind and a scaffold of 36 pulleys in all of seven minutes.

``Historically, I think it's very significant,'' said Mory Gharib, professor of aeronautical engineering at Caltech in Pasadena, who endorsed Clemmons' concept of how ancient stones were moved.

``Egyptologists like to think of extraterrestrials or slaves only, but not in terms of clever techniques. This shows that ancient technology could have worked, that this kind of technology can be used to solve so-called impossible problems.''

Others pooh-pooh Clemmons and her supporters as ``pyramidiots.''

Scholars generally agree that the pharaohs' hulking temples, obelisks and more than 70 pyramids - the largest holding 2,500 stones of 2 1/2 tons each - were built on the backs of slaves using ramps and levers.

``The kite project seems like a lot of fun, but it doesn't prove the pyramids were built that way,'' said Willeke Wendrich, associate professor of Egyptian archeology at the University of California, Los Angeles.

``The evidence we have all points at other means,'' she said. ``The trouble is a lot of (amateurs) who do this kind of research get carried away: They don't look at the evidence.''

Clemmons, whose work has been featured in Time and by broadcasters around the world, remains undeterred. Calling herself a backyard scientist, she even trademarked ``pyramidiots'' for a series of pocket protectors and T-shirts.

Ever since she first noticed a picture of a failed attempt by modern Egyptians to heft a 40-ton obelisk by muscle alone, she has seen wind as the power beyond the seas.

``These guys are pulling these ropes, trying to get this thing upright. It's swelteringly hot, and I remembered my history clear back to the eighth grade that the Egyptians drank beer breakfast, lunch and dinner,'' said Clemmons, who laughs with raucous gusto.

``There's no way to move rocks when you're drinking that much beer,'' she said. ``Then I heard about the 1,000 winds of Egypt, and it hit me: They used the wind to move the blocks.''

Clemmons, a mother of two who wrote her doctoral dissertation on innovators, now sees evidence for her theory in everything from hieroglyphs to wings etched in ancient tombs to kite-flying stances in classic Egyptian poses.

In addition to pyramid interests, the former vice president of Sebastion International juggles her shampoo company, her consulting business and a company founded to raise money for archeological research. She also tends to her husband and their children, 8 and 12.

To raise money, Clemmons not only launched a pyramid-shaped perfume called Ala - Latin for ``wing'' - with sales of more than $10,000 last year, but also dropped $20,000 out of pocket for materials, including the kite and lines.

She sees other possibilities for her Caltech team research.

``A lot of Third World countries without a lot of resources don't have bulldozers and heavy equipment,'' Clemmons said. ``Maybe they can use kites for heavy construction.''

Others are taking notice.

The Mexican University of del Sol has volunteered students, and a descendant of Inca monument-makers has offered to build bigger and bigger scaffolds and Washington Monument-shaped stones. Plans are in the works to duplicate the experiment using linen, hemp and other materials common to ancient Egypt.

``The beauty of this project is it isn't high-tech. It's very down-to-earth, simple mechanics that appeals to a lot of people,'' said Emilio Castano Graff, 21, the Caltech student from Brazil who engineered the kite-and-pulley system.

``It's never been done before: Nobody has ever lifted heavy objects like this before,'' he said about known research. ``The power that we're getting out of a kite is tremendous.''

CAPTION(S):

photo, box

Photo:

(color) Behind a pulley-tower model, Maureen Clemmons holds an ankh, a symbol of life. She believes ancient Egyptians used ankhs to hold strings of kites used with pulleys to ``fly'' huge stones.

John McCoy/Staff Photographer

Box: HARNESSING THE WIND

Jon Gerung/Staff Artist