Proof that the ancients used concrete

originally posted by: Painterz
A lot of the statues isis destroyed were either replicas or originals that had been repaired and restored in the modern Era, hence the rebar and modern concrete.

Same in Egypt, a lot of things are repaired or reinforced to make sure they don't fall over on tourists.

I suspect these explain the things in the video.

Did you watch the video, though? The narrator actually discusses questioning whether some of the statues and stuff are modern recreations (fakes, since they're claimed to be the real thing) or if they are ancient creations using more modern techniques than are attributed to them.

But there's a lot more to the video than just the things that ISIS destroyed--it's worth a watch.

a reply to: Byrd

That doesn’t explain how the sarcophagi were hollowed out square though. The only thing hard enough to cut through granite available to them was crushed granite or quartz finings which would theoretically embed into the copper tools they had at the time.
Even if drills were used to hollow out the corners they would still need a method of squaring them off somehow. Today we would use chisels for such work but they had no materials hard enough to chisel them square.

How do you hollow out a granite rectangular box using only saws and drills? For that matter how would hollow out a rectangular box of any material using only saws and drills? The answer is you can’t.

originally posted by: pheonix358

Now then, no one is looking for the stolen Antiquities because ISIS smashed them

So..in other words, ISIS knew all these statues were fakes, and the real ones had been stolen long ago.

Then, they publicly smashed the fake statues to show everyone "the great deception" that was being perpetuated on the public.

All those tourists paying to visit these "fake sites" with the "fake statues", believing they were seeing the originals.

But, the western news media is part of the cover up and deception, and reports ISIS action differently, telling us instead that ISIS considered these statues filled with demons, and jinn, and were destroying these prescious monuments because of superstition, and ignorance, and to prevent modern people from worshiping these "false gods" etc...

All the while ISIS was simply trying to "pull back the veil" that had been covering the illusion the elite had created to mint money from antiquities, so called precious art, and Sotheby's annual multi-million dollar ancient artifact auction scheme.

It's all about valuations and appraisals. The store of value held by the super rich class. Those that don't know, are paying small fortunes for fake junk.

ISIS the revealers.



Who ever thought they'd be the "good guys" ?

And what possible reason wouldn't they know of concrete and mortar? From Biblical times there have been those with technology thought too advanced to have had. Yet one of the earliest instances was Cain, son of Adam and Eve.

If Tubal-Cain was indeed the first known artificer in metals, his disciples today would have the job description of tool engineers, who provide the expertise to design and build the machines, and devise the methods and create the tools to be used. It’s not surprising that many of the ‘working tools’ presented to us in our degrees are essential tools in the basic fabrication of metals.

a reply to: SlapMonkey


You have exactly the same building techniques used in South America, at least as the base blocks are concerned. Then in Egypt and S.A. subsequent construction on top of these base stones is of a completely different style. Then no one knows how the base blocks were made. Which looks like their was a great worldwide stop on this style. Which sounds like some sort of major climatic or geological cataclysm. Personally the math's of the Sphinx, and how it suggest twelve thousand five hundred year cycles. Which by the way is the average time of the warm interglacial periods re. the Greenland and Antarctic ice cores. Did they worship the Sun, or study it so they could predict the grand solar minimums. The normal state of the Earth over the eons is glaciation at least down to the latitude of London, if a Civilization was advanced as ours and ,a rapid cooling occurred lack of production would cause much chagrin. As far as written history was concerned, any book would be on a fire to warm the place up in no time at all.

Concrete has been around for 9 thousand years. It’s almost as old as civilization itself.

originally posted by: surfer_soul
a reply to: Byrd

That doesn’t explain how the sarcophagi were hollowed out square though. The only thing hard enough to cut through granite available to them was crushed granite or quartz finings which would theoretically embed into the copper tools they had at the time.
Even if drills were used to hollow out the corners they would still need a method of squaring them off somehow. Today we would use chisels for such work but they had no materials hard enough to chisel them square.

How do you hollow out a granite rectangular box using only saws and drills? For that matter how would hollow out a rectangular box of any material using only saws and drills? The answer is you can’t.

Their copper was not quite as soft as you think it might be. In that area, the copper has arsenic in it as well, which approximates a type of bronze. In addition, the corners are square-ish... if you look closely at them, you can see the corners are rounded (drilled) and not sharp joints. Even the bottom is very irregular -which would not happen with a poured stone.

And yes, you can hollow out vases and boxes and so forth with saws and drills. People have been doing it for thousands of years. Although you may not know how to do it, there are many who do know how to do it.

originally posted by: surfer_soul
a reply to: Byrd

That doesn’t explain how the sarcophagi were hollowed out square though. The only thing hard enough to cut through granite available to them was crushed granite or quartz finings which would theoretically embed into the copper tools they had at the time.
Even if drills were used to hollow out the corners they would still need a method of squaring them off somehow. Today we would use chisels for such work but they had no materials hard enough to chisel them square.

How do you hollow out a granite rectangular box using only saws and drills? For that matter how would hollow out a rectangular box of any material using only saws and drills? The answer is you can’t.

you could core out round holes. this would give u a relatively flat bottom that ends at a sharp angle. from there its only a matter of how much time u have on your hands. personally im not so sure that they didnt have iron tools. they had blades made from meteorites so they had the knowledge and an empire of that size just having a few hundred chisels made of an iron alloy would go a long ways.

a reply to: DISRAELI

The Mavi Mosque (Blue Mosque) in Istanbul is built from concrete but Hagia Sophia is constructed of stone block and columns with buttresses.

a reply to: AMPTAH
Yes agree with you best to keep an open mind and to do that one has to factor in that maybe there were different size humans doing the work. The idea that they used molds for building becomes everyday more and more possible. Thanks again.

a reply to: SkeptiSchism
I must admit that my remarks were based on observations made on English sites.
The Byzantines had more money, they could afford the best.

a reply to: anonentity
They all used concrete, they just had a bit different recipes for it, mostly based on what was accessible or near by. Though Roman concrete is still the best even today, especially if used for underwater reasons as the sea water just makes it stronger over time, were others would have the opposite effect. The Egyptians though were lacking in volcanoes and ash so were not so lucky, even though they were rich in sand.

The ancient egyptians did not use concrete.
the type of used bedrock is clearly of another type.

see the seashells? guess what..

originally posted by: anti72
The ancient egyptians did not use concrete.
the type of used bedrock is clearly of another type.

see the seashells? guess what..

Just because seashells are present does not mean it’s not concrete. Do you know what concrete means? You can use different aggregates inside cement to make concrete.

You can use crushed human bones and it would still be considered concrete.

a reply to: TheLotLizard

ask ANY professional geologist..he will tell you what that is.
and the difference to modern concrete.

originally posted by: anti72
The ancient egyptians did not use concrete.
the type of used bedrock is clearly of another type.

see the seashells? guess what..

there was actually some people who tested a theory using crushed limestone filled with "seashells" from the same quarry used for the pyramids. i cant remember if they added anything other then water to the mix and it created a relatively strong limestone block. i found it curious because ive seen in other documentaries and pictures of the pyramids in the underground tunnels and the more obscure places without granite facing and many of the blocks had a similar look to the blocks they made. would make moving a massive amount of material up to those heights much easier if all u had to carry was a bucket or basket filled with the mix which u could then dump into a mold. i question the actual strength of such a thing when it inevitably settles over time but there is evidence of the pyramid settling during construction, so who knows. they said one way to know would be to carefully dissect a block and see if the seashells were uniformly crushed. if so it would have had to of been man made.

a reply to: TheScale

you can test the material by ph to determine if it is cement or natural, limestone has a ph of around 7.2-8.2ish, cement (hydrated limestone/chalk) has a ph of 10-13.5.
you can also test the sample for how much water is bonded to the calcium and traces and can be dated and source enviroment it was made in by looking at biological content spores, pollen and seeds for example.

originally posted by: Byrd

originally posted by: surfer_soul
a reply to: Byrd

That doesn’t explain how the sarcophagi were hollowed out square though. The only thing hard enough to cut through granite available to them was crushed granite or quartz finings which would theoretically embed into the copper tools they had at the time.
Even if drills were used to hollow out the corners they would still need a method of squaring them off somehow. Today we would use chisels for such work but they had no materials hard enough to chisel them square.

How do you hollow out a granite rectangular box using only saws and drills? For that matter how would hollow out a rectangular box of any material using only saws and drills? The answer is you can’t.

Their copper was not quite as soft as you think it might be. In that area, the copper has arsenic in it as well, which approximates a type of bronze. In addition, the corners are square-ish... if you look closely at them, you can see the corners are rounded (drilled) and not sharp joints. Even the bottom is very irregular -which would not happen with a poured stone.

And yes, you can hollow out vases and boxes and so forth with saws and drills. People have been doing it for thousands of years. Although you may not know how to do it, there are many who do know how to do it.

Byrd, I really respect your thorough knowledge on AE and archeology in general. However I think Archaeologists are so specialised in their respective fields they have overlooked the engineering principles in cutting hard stone.
You see even if they used bronze tools it would make no difference as they would barely make a scratch on hard stones such as granite. It wasn’t and can’t have been the metal that was doing the cutting. Rather it was the quartz and other hard minerals embedded in the the metal which would allow it to cut the stone.
Experimental archaeologist professor Stocks demonstrated such. It was only possible though to cut a straight line or a circular hole with this method. And it would be a painstakingly long process even so.

I take it the link you attached is the sarcophagus inside the great Pyramid? What a sorry state that appears to be in these days... I was thinking more in terms of the sarcophagi of the Serapeum. But here’s an image of one that is in relatively good condition, notice the square and perfectly flat right angles I was referring too.
Image

My background is in Engineering and as such I have learned a thing or two about cutting and working with various materials. I am yet to find a satisfactory explanation of how ancient and supposedly primitive people managed to make such precise and extraordinary work in such hard and easily fractured materials with the basic tools we are told they used.

a reply to: anti72

It’s still concrete...

a reply to: suicideeddie

This was done, and is included as part of the video that I posted here (at the bottom of Page 1).

It was determined that the (re)agglomerated stone blocks that the Geopolymer Institute was creating were indistinguishable, down to examining at the elctron-microscope level. The experts examining it couldn't tell the difference between it and stone samples taken from blocks from pyramids and quarries at Giza.

It is my opinion that those who still claim that it is not possible that most of the blocks used in ancient-Egyptian temple and pyramid building could be concrete/cement/re-agglomerated geopolymers aren't looking into the possibility enough. I'm far away from being an expert, but when scientific results show that there are differences in how the shell fossils in Egyptian blocks are randomly aligned, but natural blocks show a directional alignment, that should at least cause one's mind to open to the possibility.

Closed minds are the problem in modern Egyptology--I'm not saying that every possible theory must be believed, but I'm saying that some bring with them evidence that should cause people to at least pause and think.

That video also discusses Ph differences, like you noted.