Who Built The Pyramids?

Harvard Magazine ^ | 8-17-2003 | Jonathan Shaw

[joonbug]

Al Gore, before he invented the internet.

[Khurkris]

Also, to provide good cheer for the workers, the ancient Egyptians are credited with the 1st commercial brewing of beer.

For this we can all be thankful.

[keithtoo]

Larriphut, Moepet and Curlijoephet - Engineers, LLP.

[Young Werther]

Here's an interesting story. I left the Air Force in 1973 and went back to school under the GI Bill in 1976. I did summer theater two years at Minot State University and one of my fellow thespians was Lois Lehner. She actually traveled to Egypt while Mark was still studying for his degree. I remember one of the summer musical cast parties when Lois brought a slide projector and showed us the slides of her trip. She was able to travel to the top of Cheop's pyramid because Mark was a certified investigator.student with many friends at the Egyptian museum in Cairo.

Go figger!

[Republic If You Can Keep It]

Q. What were the plumbers called who installed water service into the pyramids?


A. The Pharoah Faucet Majors

[dasboot]

Dude, read Pharaohs and Kings by Rohl. You gotta read this book. You gotta read this book. It answers a lot of your questions. You GOTTA read that book!

[Dog Gone]

Can you tell me the answers without me waiting for the book?

[blam]

"I'm still curious why ancient people people felt compelled to build pyramids. We see it in virtually every ancient culture from Egypt to Peru, and north."

Dr Robert Schoch, in his book,Voyages Of The Pyramid Builders, speculates that all the world's pyramid builders originated on the Sunda Shelf (Indonesia) that went underwater at the end of the Ice Age. They took the culture of pyramid building with them all over the world as they fled the flooding. Also, he said that if there was an Atlantis, that was probably it.

[Rockpile]

I read his book about 15 years ago and thought that the theory was fascinating. Of course he made the Egyptologists hysterical :}

Something that I thought was really interesting was that the ancients had plywood which would make producing moulds easier.

It would also be a hell of a lot easier for the hired hands to tote wheelbarrows or baskets of material and jugs of water way up high than would moving 5000 pound blocks of rock.

This came from world-mysteries.com

Joseph Davidovits

Biography

International renown French Scientist, born in 1935, working in France, Europe, USA, Australia and China. Honored by French President Jacques Chirac with one of France's two highest honors, the grade of " Chevalier de l’Ordre National du Mérite " (Nov. 1998).

Education: French Degree in Chemical Engineering German Doctor Degree in Chemistry (PhD) Professor and founder of the Institute for Applied Archaeological Sciences, IAPAS, Barry University, Miami ,Florida, (1983-1989). Visiting Professor, Penn State University, Pennsylvania (1989-1991). Professor and Director of the Geopolymer Institute, Saint-Quentin, France (1979 to present). Honorary Professor, Xian Universtity of Architecture and Technology, China (1999).

Professional expertise: World expert in Modern and Ancient Cements. World expert in Geosynthesis and man-made rocks. Consultant (expert) to the European Union Commission. Inventor of Geopolymers and the chemistry of Geopolymerization. Polyglot: English, French, German, Spanish, Latin, Ancient Greek, Hieroglyphs

Member of the following societies: International Association of Egyptologists American Chemical Society American Concrete Institute New York Academy of Sciences American Ceramic Society

International Scientific Award: NASTS Gold Ribbon, awarded at the National Press Club, Washington DC, Sept. 26, 1994, by the National Academy of Engineering, The Federation of Materials Societies and the National Association for Science, Technology and Society.

Articles, Interviews, TV Radio Appearances: 1.from 1981 to 1992, numerous articles and interviews dedicated to science, technology and archaeology (pyramids) in: New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Globe and Mail (Toronto), Sunday Times, Miami Herald, Omni Magazine, Geo Magazine, American Way, Readers Digest, World and I, UPI, Associated Press, Agence France Press, etc; radio: BBC, various American radio networks; TV: NOVA/PBS, CNN, various local TV (San Francisco, Detroit, Miami, etc.) 2.between 1992 and 1999: declined any public appearance, interview, and TV appearance. Focussing on scientific research.

X-Ray Analysis and X-Ray Diffraction of Casing Stones from the Pryramids of Egypt, and the Limestone of the Associated Quarries (1984) by Joseph Davidovits

published in Science in Egyptology, Proceedings of the Science in Egyptology Symposia, Manchester, U.K., pp. 511-520, 1984.

The hypothesis that the limestone that constitutes the major pyramids of the Old Kingdom of Egypt is man-made stone, is discussed. Samples from six different sites at the traditionally associated quarries of Turah and Mokattam have been studied using thin-section, chemical X-Ray analysis and X-Ray diffraction. The results were compared with pyramid casing stones of Cheops, Teti and Seneferu. The quarry samples are pure limestone consisting of 96-99% Calcite, 0.5-2.5% Quartz, and very small amount of dolomite, gypsum and iron-alumino-silicate. On the other hand the Cheops and Teti casing stones are limestone consisting of: calcite 85-90% and a high amount of special minerals such as Opal CT, hydroxy-apatite, a silico-aluminate, which are not found in the quarries. The pyramid casing stones are light in density and contain numerous trapped air bubbles, unlike the quarry samples which are uniformly dense. If the casing stones were natural limestone, quarries different from those traditionally associated with the pyramid sites must be found, but where? X-Ray diffraction of a red casing stone coating is the first proof to demonstrate the fact that a complicated man-made geopolymeric system was produced in Egypt 4,700 years ago.

[Dog Gone]

I have little doubt that the reference in Genesis to the
Tower of Bable refers to a pyramid. Those were an important part of early civilization.

[blam]

"Go figger!"

Small world indeed.

[NormsRevenge]

The Orion Mystery

[Young Werther]

The Egyptians did indeed build lakes around the base of the pyramid. They performed this engineering action to level the foundation of the pyramid. Evidence of dikes have been found. The dikes were filled with Nile river water to create a lake. A boat was rowed about the lake in an even set of rows and a sticks of equal length were driven into the lake until a red ring around the top of the stick was level with the water. The water was then drained away. The excavators dug the foundation to the base of the sticks and since they were all of equal length and had their top most ring even with the water level their foundation would be level, (parallel lines!).

Also the dimensions of the pyramid are evenly divisible by PI because the Egyptians used a wheel with a circumference equal to one cubit. So whenever they rolled that wheel to measure cubits they were encorporating PI in the measurement. No big secret there either.

[blam]

"Tower of Bable refers to a pyramid. Those were an important part of early civilization."

Possibly a ziggurat also.

[dasboot]

Rohl is an Egyptologist who builds a very deep and compelling case that the traditional time-lines for working backward through Egyptian history are off several hundred years; and, thus, the evidence of Hebrew presence in Egypt is there, but out of the traditional time-line.

It's pretty technical, but he presents known archiological evidence within the framework of his revised time-line and builds a convincing case that the Exodus accounts, e.g., aren't too far off, if off at all.

He has no religious axe to grind, BTW.

[dark_lord]

There are numerous references, though, to setbacks that Egypt incurred during history. If they managed to survive the blows delivered during the Exodus without a trace, that would be remarkable, especially during the Golden Age.

Except that most of the "plagues" may not have been that big a deal. For example: the Nile turning red -- the upper Nile, anyway, often turns a reddish hue during the annual flooding due to minerals from the Abyssinian lakes. Frogs and flies often swarm during the flooding. "Cattle pest" causes painful boils in both cattle and humans and did sometimes appear extensively. The darkness is caused by the Khamsin wind -- remember when during the Iraq war there were a couple days when day turned as dark as night due to the windborn sand?

Basically, every single plague except the "death of the firstborn" is not abnormal. So it is quite possible that even if they all struck in a short period, while it would definitely cause unrest I doubt that anything would be carved into stone about it. As for the death of the firstborn, that would be supernatural and you would expect that to be recorded. You can believe it never happened and so of course was never recorded, or it did happen supernaturally and was possibly supernaturally suppressed from being recorded. After all, if it really DID happen, and God caused it, then the logical corollary is that yes, Satan also exists and might have a vested interest in suppressing any recorded evidence. You basically get God and Satan in the same package in both Judism and Christianity, so....

[joanil]

Incredible as it may be, the pyramids were great stations to pump water.
Vast amounts of electrical current were produced on every swing of the sluice gate. A giant power plant Cheops was.
Pumping water and generating electricity at the same time.
Copper anodes in the chambers, vast water chambers in the depths below the baseline. Water is in the sunken chambers in the middle of as desert.
A mystery to be sure.

[jimkress]

Everyone knows the Goa'uld built the pyramids.