Pyramids: Scientists Explore Whether Egyptians Used Concrete
April 28, 2008
CAMBRIDGE - It's a theory that gives indigestion to mainstream archeologists. Namely, that some of the immense blocks of Egypt's Great Pyramids might have been cast from synthetic material - the world's first concrete - not just carved whole from quarries and lugged into place by armies of toilers.
"It could be they used less sweat and more smarts," said Linn W. Hobbs, professor of materials science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "Maybe the ancient Egyptians didn't just leave us mysterious monuments and mummies. Maybe they invented concrete 2,000 years before the Romans started using it in their structures."
A handful of determined materials scientists are carrying out experiments with crushed limestone and natural binding chemicals - stuff that would have been readily available to ancient Egyptians - designed to show that blocks on the upper reaches of the pyramids may have been cast in place from a slurry poured into wooden molds. These researchers at labs in Cambridge, Philadelphia, and St. Quentin, France, are trying to demonstrate that Egyptians of about 2,500 BC could have been the true inventors of the poured substance that is humanity's most common building material - used in everything from Rome's Pantheon to Boston's Big Dig.
The aim of the class is to teach engineering innovation, but the project may also prove that ancients, at least in theory, could cast pyramid blocks from similar materials, which would have been available from dried river beds, desert sands, and quarries.
Hobbs describes himself as "agnostic" on the issue, but believes mainstream archeologists have been too contemptuous of work by other scientists suggesting the possibility of concrete. "The degree of hostility aimed at experimentation is disturbing," he said. "Too many big egos and too many published works may be riding on the idea that every pyramid block was carved, not cast."
Archeologists, however, say there is simply no evidence that the pyramids are built of anything other than huge limestone blocks. Any synthetic material showing up in tests - as it has occasionally, even in work not trying to prove a concrete connection - is probably just slop from "modern" repairs done over the centuries, they say.
"The blocks were quarried locally and dragged to the site on sleds," said Kathryn Bard, an Egyptologist at Boston University and author of a new book, "An Introduction to the Archaeology of Ancient Egypt." "There is just no evidence for making concrete, and there is no evidence that ancient Egyptians used the stuff," she said.
The idea that some pyramid blocks were cast of concrete-like material was aggressively advanced in the 1980s by French chemical engineer Joseph Davidovits, who argued that the Giza builders pulverized soft limestone and mixed it with water, hardening the material with natural binders that the Egyptians are known to have used for their famous blue-glaze ornamental statues.
Such blocks, Davidovits said, would have been poured in place by workers hustling sacks of wet cement up the pyramids - a decidedly less spectacular image than the ones popularized by Hollywood epics like "The Ten Commandments," with thousands of near-naked toilers straining with ropes and rollers to move mammoth carved stones.
"That's the problem, the big archeologists - and Egypt's tourist industry - want to preserve romantic ideas," said Davidovits, who researches ancient building materials at the Geopolymer Institute in St. Quentin, France.
In 2006, research by Michel W. Barsoum at Philadelphia's Drexel University found that samples of stone from parts of the Khufu Pyramid were "microstructurally" different from limestone blocks.
Barsoum, a professor of materials engineering, said microscope, X-ray, and chemical analysis of scraps of stone from the pyramids "suggest a small but significant percentage of blocks on the higher portions of the pyramids were cast" from concrete.
He stressed that he believes that most of the blocks in the Khufu Pyramid were carved in the manner long suggested by archeologists. "But 10 or 20 percent [of the blocks] were probably cast in areas where it would have been highly difficult to position [whole stone] blocks," he said.
Barsoum, a native of Egypt, said he was unprepared for the onslaught of angry criticism that greeted peer-reviewed research published two years ago by himself and scientists Adrish Ganguly of Drexel and Gilles Hug of France's National Center for Scientific Research.
"You would have thought I claimed the pyramids were carved by lasers," Barsoum said.
Nearly every prominent Egyptologist is adamant that the pyramids are made solely of giant blocks cut with crude copper or stone tools. They note that proponents of the concrete theory are chemists or materials specialists with little experience at ancient digs - lab researchers, not shovel-wielding field archeologists.
Zahi Hawass, head of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, minced no words in assailing the concrete idea. "It's highly stupid," he said via a spokesman. "The pyramids are made from solid blocks of quarried limestone. To suggest otherwise is idiotic and insulting."
Hobbs and his students are undismayed by the controversy. "It's fascinating to think that ancient Egyptians may have been great materials scientists, not just great civil engineers," Hobbs said. "None of this lessens the accomplishments of the ancient Egyptians, although I suppose pouring concrete is less mysterious than moving giant blocks. But it really just suggests these people accomplished more than anyone ever imagined." -- Source
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Posts: 1549 | From: California, USA | Registered: Jan 2006
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posted
Myra Wysinger, I remember this topic came up years ago. I think one of the problems between limestone and concrete made from limestone is the layering effect (grains) in natural limestone. Poured concrete has no grains or layers. I also think of concrete was used it would be also in other places like temples and statues.
Posts: 342 | Registered: Feb 2003
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It'd be amazing if it is discovered that the ancient Egyptians used concrete long before the Romans did.
Posts: 603 | From: Mobile, Alabama | Registered: Jan 2007
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Egypt's pyramids contain large number of preserved marine fossils
Times Internet Limited April 26, 2008
WASHINGTON: A new study has determined that many of Egypt's pyramids contain hundreds of thousands of marine fossils, most of which are fully intact and preserved in the walls of the structures.
The study was carried out by researchers from the University of the Aegean and the University of Athens.
The researchers suggest that the stones that make up the examined monuments at Giza plateau, Fayum and Abydos must have been carved out of natural stone since they reveal what chunks of the sea floor must have looked like over 4,000 years ago, when the buildings were erected.
"The observed random emplacement and strictly homogenous distribution of the fossil shells within the whole rock is in harmony with their initial in situ setting in a fluidal sea bottom environment," said Ioannis Liritzis, one of the researchers.
For the study, the researchers analyzed the mineralogy, as well as the chemical makeup and structure, of small material samples chiseled from the Sphinx Temple, the Osirion Shaft, the Valley Temple, Cheops, Khefren, Osirion at Abydos, the Temple of Seti I at Abydos and Qasr el-Sagha at Fayum.
X-ray diffraction and radioactivity measurements, which can penetrate solid materials to help illuminate their composition, were carried out on the samples.
The analysis determined the primary building materials were "pinky" granites, black and white granites, sandstones and various types of limestones.
The latter was found to contain numerous shell fossils of "nummulites" gen. At Cheops alone, they constituted a proportion of up to 40 percent of the whole building stone rock.
Nummulites, meaning "little coins," are simple marine organisms.
Shells of those that lived during the Eocene period around 55.8 to 33.9 million years ago are most commonly found in Egyptian limestone. Fossils for the organisms have also been unearthed at other sites, such as in Turkey and throughout the Mediterranean.
When horizontally bisected, a nummulite appears as a perfect spiral. Since they were common in ancient Egypt, it's believed the shells were actually used as coins, perhaps explaining their name.
According to Robert Temple, co-director of the Project for Historical Dating, "Egyptian pyramid blocks of limestone tend to contain fossil shells and nummulites, often huge quantities of them, many of them intact, and many of them of surprisingly large size."
Fossils for ancient relatives to sand dollars, starfish and sea urchins were also detected in the Egyptian limestone. - Source
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Posts: 1549 | From: California, USA | Registered: Jan 2006
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quote:"Hobbs and his students are undismayed by the controversy. "It's fascinating to think that ancient Egyptians may have been great materials scientists, not just great civil engineers," Hobbs said. "None of this lessens the accomplishments of the ancient Egyptians, although I suppose pouring concrete is less mysterious than moving giant blocks. But it really just suggests these people accomplished more than anyone ever imagined." -- Source
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Though this may not be the case: I agree.
Posts: 5555 | From: Tha 5th Dimension. | Registered: Apr 2006
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quote:Originally posted by Myra Wysinger: Another new research.
Egypt's pyramids contain large number of preserved marine fossils
Very interesting article, Myra, thanks for posting it here!! Posts: 30135 | From: The owner of this website killed ES....... | Registered: Feb 2004
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