Posted on 12/31/2001 12:33:44 PM PST by John Farson
Like millions of tourists, from the Ancient Greeks on, the Blairs may have been victims of one of the world's oldest confidence tricks when they walked round the Pyramids on the Prime Minister's holiday trip to Egypt.To the uninitiated eye, the 2.3 million blocks of stones rising to a 146-metre peak on the 4,500-year-old Great Pyramid near Cairo look as solid as pure granite. But French architects and scientists believe they are nothing more than weathered concrete blocks, moulded on the spot, stone by stone and layer by layer, from the ground upwards.
The theory, being explored by scientists at Montpellier University, has thrown Egyptology into turmoil. It could destroy thousands of years of speculation on the greatest of all riddles of the sands, one that has fascinated Hollywood and made fortunes for novelists such as Christian Jacq. Researchers believe that only the reluctance of the Egyptian authorities to allow more samples to be examined stands between them and final proof.
Joël Bertho, an architect and specialist in trompe-l'oeil, used his expert knowledge of reconstituted stone to explain how easy it was to pass off concrete and mortar for real carved stone. 'It needs a trained specialist to identify the basic material,' he said.
'The Egyptians had mastered many techniques of plaster and mortar and knew all about making bricks. There is no reason why they could not reconstitute stone into blocks weighing two or three tonnes layer by layer rather than try to heave huge weights up several hundred feet without even the benefit of crude cranes. I have even been able to identify frame marks left by some moulds.'
The theory, set out in a book called La Pyramide Reconsti tuée (Unic), is largely based on the precision of the joints between the stones. 'Joints are invisible and it would be impossible to pass a cigarette paper between them. To carve blocks of solid stone to tolerances of hardly a millimetre would need incredible skill without the benefit of machine tools.'
Montpellier was drawn into the research because Bertho is designing a scientific park in the city. At its Laboratoire de Tectonophysique, Suzanne Raynaud has cut samples of stone from the Great Pyramid into thin slices to examine under a microscope. 'I went from surprise to surprise,' she said. 'The arrangement of micro-fossils had been disturbed, which could be explained by the manipulation of reconstituted stone. The components of what appears to be solid stone could have been crushed or passed through a sieve before being put into moulds.'
Other tests are under way but another top scientist, Claude Gril, said they were unlikely to be conclusive without comparisons between the blocks of stone in the pyramid walls and material from quarries where they are found. 'Unfortunately, the Egyptian Antiquities office is opposed to more detailed research, which we are carrying out with a Belgian nuclear laboratory, and will not allow more samples to be gathered for comparison,' he said.
As a result, a hunt has started among Egyptology collections in Europe, including a Rouen museum which has a rock from the Great Pyramid in its reserve. A Paris laboratory has declared that the stone is a form of mortar, but there have been protests from several Egyptologists who say Bertho's theory is nonsense.
If the claim is proved, it would destroy pages of speculation on how the pyramids were built. But until the mould theory is proved or shattered, the dominant opinion will remain Cecil B. De Mille's images of slaves and whips.
OTOH, if it continues to debunk the alien theories, then that's a good thing.
The answer has to be simple; Every year the river flooded and then receded. It had to be dredged every summer. What to do with the silt? Make it into blocks and build something big. It could have been built using bucket brigades passing baskets of silt to a form, then mixed into concrete, covered with straw and fired.
Would have taken ten years to build a pyramid this way, as opposed to never, ever being done via the slave/block/no trees in Egypt method.
Whatever the outcome of the research, DeMille's images of slaves and whips will endure--but the pictures of ropes, pulleys and huge blocks of granite will be replaced by endless lines of slaves shuffling along with big buckets of freshly mixed concrete on their backs.
Not so! Here's the problem. In order to pour that much concrete you would need the Mafia cement contractors from New Jersey. And since Egypt is not unionized they wouldn't go work there.
SO, NEXT THEORY!!!
This concrete would have to be absolutely the best and most durable ever created. I know the Egyptians were advanced, but I think such an understanding of chemistry is a lot less likely than the ability to move large stone blocks.
Is this sarcasm? The theory is entirely logical. Concrete is a sand/gravel slurry that is held rigid until a hydrating binder cures. One can even make free-standing continuous-cast concrete objects with minimal forming, simply by slip-casting. Silos are made that way.
The newest theories that I have been reading is that there is no evidence that the ancient Egyptians used slave labor, except for one period, when the Hebrews were enslaved. This implies that slavery was invented as a way of controlling the Hebrews, rather than because it was needed for labor. Evidence which has been recently excavated show that the Pyramid builders lived as free men, not as slaves (their houses were not prisons, and allowed easy entrance and exit). They apparently built the pyramids as part of their own religious observances, worshipping their Pharoah/God.
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