The Great Pyramid Of Giza And Why It Was Probably Not A Tomb

originally posted by: jeep3r

originally posted by: Harte

Except Davidovits has been utterly unable to recreate what he said he sees in this "concrete" in a geopolymer laboratory, though he's tried many times, and still is trying, presumably. Evidently, the way he claims the concrete was made - necessary for it to look exactly like limestone - apparently doesn't work.

I'm not 100% sure he succeeded in the end but I think I recall him demonstrating it at some point in the natural environment of the stones somewhere at or close to Giza.

Below is a quote of how the stone was re-agglomerated, according to him, from his original paper (which also addresses the issue of intact fossils found inside the stone):

It was not required to crush this stone, because it disaggregates easily with the Nile water during floods (the Wadi is filled with water at this time) to form a limestone mud. To this mud, they added reactive geological materials (mafkat, a hydrated alumina and copper silicate, overexploited at the time of Kheops in the Sinai mines) (...)

This limestone, re-agglomerated by geochemical reaction, naturally hardens to form resistant blocks. The blocks thus consist of 90 to 95% of natural limestone aggregates with its fossil shells, and from 5 to 10% of geological glue (a cement known as “geopolymeric” binder) based on aluminosilicates.

Source

As noted before Davidovits may believe this but others don't. It would have increased the work by an immense amount - you do know right the tiers were all different sizes?

www.cheops-pyramide.ch...



So not only were the sizes different but simply looking at the existing stones shows they were not uneven and irregular - which would require unique one of a kind molds........



Look carefully at this image it shows an entire tier - notice they irregularity of the stone shapes? Does this look like cloned mold shaped stones?

No they do not.

a reply to: Hanslune

I thought we're talking about casing stones? Davidovits and Barsoum mentioned that most of the core blocks are probably natural limestone. Meaning they took samples from the GP's inner and outer casing.

A method using re-agglomerated limestone would look like more work at first but also has advantages in terms of logistics (smaller chunks can be transported). Different courses may imply different sizes, heights, molds and different shifts of the workforce. Some molds certainly would have had a limited product life cycle and would need to be replaced.

Have there not been any counter analyses from within the Egyptology community regarding these stones? I think that would be the most efficient way to refute Davidovits' and Barsoum's theory.

a reply to: Hanslune

The release from deception is a quite fitting name for this piece, because in many places students were played by giving them a chisel and a piece of rock, while they never actually saw the master or teacher working their pieces, nobody was/is allowed to observe the process.

Its strange how things are learned and forgotten and how facts change over the years in one direction or towards another.

a reply to: Hanslune

irregularity proves nothing, i have lots of molds that produce unique pieces. It all depends how the mold is built and how it is used.

originally posted by: solve
a reply to: Harte

And at the same time scientist struggle to explain the presence of silica spheres that are present in the pyramid blocks and are not found on stone deposits around the area.

Strange world.

I think that, if you look into this "debate," the only one struggling to explain anything is Davidovits.

Harte

originally posted by: jeep3r
a reply to: Hanslune

I thought we're talking about casing stones? Davidovits and Barsoum mentioned that most of the core blocks are probably natural limestone. Meaning they took samples from the GP's inner and outer casing.

Perhaps Davidovits has changed his claim. He was adamant that the core stones were also poured last I checked.

Beyond how the stones look, as Hans has pointed out, please note that these stones (according to Davidovits) were supposedly poured in place.

He has yet to address the obvious problem with this claim - the observable fact that the stones are all quite clearly separated between the tops of one layer and the bottoms of the next layer up. How do you pour stone on stone and have a gap between them? The only way to do that is to have a bottom on your mold. The question then becomes why would they have a bottom on their molds and how on Earth did they remove the bottoms?

Harte

A method using re-agglomerated limestone would look like more work at first but also has advantages in terms of logistics (smaller chunks can be transported). Different courses may imply different sizes, heights, molds and different shifts of the workforce. Some molds certainly would have had a limited product life cycle and would need to be replaced.

Have there not been any counter analyses from within the Egyptology community regarding these stones? I think that would be the most efficient way to refute Davidovits' and Barsoum's theory.

The Limestone showing evidence of being cast from mortar can be explained fairly well by this hypothesis:

www.youtube.com...

They think the limestone was kept in water while it was being cut, because if you quarry it carefully in a way where it never gets exposed to the air it will remain more soft, and easier to cut.

So the theory is they put floatation devices on top of the blocks, to move them via water, but never actually let the block be exposed to air until it was done being shaped.

That might cause it to look somewhat like it had been worked as concrete.

originally posted by: Harte

originally posted by: Mark08
I've read, and I think I agree, that the Egyptians built the outer parts of the pyramids over existing structures that were already maybe thousands of years old. And the sphynx mayber was alot older and they reshaped it. I think that's the real mystery of Egyot.

Unlikely, given that Egyptian hieroglyphs have been found inside the so-called "air shafts," which run through the core of the GP.

Harte

Do we have any reason to believe the builders who built over the structure would not have been able to get inside the shafts to write stuff there?

Just about every explorer who ever found or climbed the pyramid seems to have felt the need to write some grafitti on it.

originally posted by: Hanslune


Almost all AE tombs were looted only one Pharaoh's tomb was not looted - and it wasn't Tut.

All ancient Roman emperor's tombs were looted, most ancient tombs of any culture were looted 99%.
...well ran out of time will comment further later

True, but in the Great Pyramid's unique case, the first people to enter the tomb could be confident that they were the first because the plug stones were still in place, and no other tunnels (besides theirs) were visible.

And they said it had no treasures inside.

a reply to: Harte

There are a number of ways to achieve the gap between the stones,

Personally i would use a layer of resin or a wax.

a reply to: jeep3r

Watched the video last night. Very informative. Learned a couple of things didnt know about.

I know it's easy being an armchair "expert" and spout your opinion, but sometimes all we have or will ever have is our common sense. Plenty of common sense stuff in the video that logically points to this not being a tomb. Or at least, it wasnt designed as such.

No other pyramid can compare to it.

I'm not gonna pretend it's my ideas, but to me, the most reasonable assumption is that the biggest one was an earlier creation by an unknown race of people, from a time long forgotten. Later Egyptian pharaos tried to emulate what they saw, by building hundreds more, but none of them could ever match the precision, the craftsmanship of the original Pyramid. If they had managed to build anything similar (other then appearance from distance), I would have not doubted the Egyptian narrative. Yet what we see clearly is that they tried...but failed.

It doesnt surprise me that they would want to claim the awesomeness of building the Pyramid for themselves, but there is no written account of anything like that happening.

originally posted by: MarioOnTheFly

No other pyramid can compare to it.

There's a documentary called "Life After People" (not the series but the one-off or pilot that was first released) where researchers suggested that, if all people suddenly vanished today and nobody would be there to maintain our buildings, the only visible remains of our civilization after 10.000 years would be our earliest and most massive stone structures, like Mount Rushmore, the Chinese Wall... and of course the pyramids of Giza.

Here the link that will take you to the relevant part of that documentary: www.youtube.com...

Truly "Built to Last"...

originally posted by: jeep3r


Truly "Built to Last"...

Howdy Jeep

After 10,000 years? There would be millions of tons of ceramics, glass, brick and other materials that would still survive along with gold and a few corrosion resistant metals, traces of radioactivity, extensive modifications of the earth to include kilometer long tunnels driven through granite mountains. Hundreds of thousand of drill holes for oil and water, etc, tens of thousands of mines cut deeply into solid rock, citizens, towns etc., preserved under lava flows. Millions and millions of cut gems, etc., etc., not to mention all the crap we've left in sediments and ice - not counting the space craft on the Moon, Mars and in orbit.

Stuff survives - didn't mention the stuff that would have survived in peat bogs and in frozen areas.

archive.archaeology.org...

Civilizations don't disappear from the archaeological record unless the crust itself is sub-ducted.

originally posted by: bloodymarvelous

True, but in the Great Pyramid's unique case, the first people to enter the tomb could be confident that they were the first because the plug stones were still in place, and no other tunnels (besides theirs) were visible.

And they said it had no treasures inside.

I believe you may have forgotten about the 'well' or robbers tunnel that bypasses the stone plugs

thumbs-prod.si-cdn.com...=/fit-in/1072x0/public-media.si-cdn.com...
www.smithsonianmag.com...

a reply to: Hanslune

You have a point there, but we were talking about buildings and structures. The pyramids were truly "built to last" and quite successfully so. Of course, some synthetics and plastic will take millions of years to be claimed back by nature.

Did you at least enjoy the song?

originally posted by: solve
a reply to: Hanslune

irregularity proves nothing, i have lots of molds that produce unique pieces. It all depends how the mold is built and how it is used.

Yeah but what is the point of using a mold to create irregular stones each different from all others? I mean the AE would have had to been pretty nutty to cut out square blocks of limestone





The quarries used for the pyramids show they cut out square blocks - so let me see. They cut out square blocks, crushed them put them into molds to then make irregular shapes each of which was unique.......okay., okay.

Originally posted by: MarioOnTheFly
a reply to: jeep3r

... the most reasonable assumption is that the biggest one was an earlier creation by an unknown race of people, from a time long forgotten.

But the cartouche names of Khufu (forming part of work-crew names) in the relieving chambers date it to the reign of Khufu.

It doesnt surprise me that they would want to claim the awesomeness of building the Pyramid for themselves, but there is no written account of anything like that happening.

You seem to have overlooked the Journal of Merer, which describes how limestone (probably intended for cladding) was ferried to Giza from the quarries at Tura.

originally posted by: solve
a reply to: Harte

There are a number of ways to achieve the gap between the stones,

Personally i would use a layer of resin or a wax.

Right. First wax, then the mortar.

Sounds fairly ridiculous to me.

Harte

originally posted by: bloodymarvelous
Do we have any reason to believe the builders who built over the structure would not have been able to get inside the shafts to write stuff there?

You mean other than the fact the shafts go through the core, the gylphs are several meters up the shaft, and the shafts are only about 8x8 inches in size?

Harte

a reply to: Hanslune

We can go back and forth with this forever...

You know how the ancient aliens believers always point out those quarries for the reason -well how did they cut away the back wall of the stone?-

You know those places when it looks like someone literally just pulled a square piece straight from the ground in a weird angle?

...Anyways i think they did not bother to weigh the amounts they used in the "concrete" but rather they were working with a set of measurements, like if i take one egyptian cubic metre of limestone i know it weighs blaablaah on average.

This is why the quarries give the illusion of blocks being cut and taken.

also can add that i do believe some were cut, but many others were powdered and cast.

originally posted by: solve
a reply to: Hanslune

We can go back and forth with this forever...

It's one of more common misconceptions/consideration/fringe memes

You know how the ancient aliens believers always point out those quarries for the reason -well how did they cut away the back wall of the stone?-

You know those places when it looks like someone literally just pulled a square piece straight from the ground in a weird angle?

...Anyways i think they did not bother to weigh the amounts they used in the "concrete" but rather they were working with a set of measurements, like if i take one egyptian cubic metre of limestone i know it weighs blaablaah on average.

This is why the quarries give the illusion of blocks being cut and taken.

also can add that i do believe some were cut, but many others were powdered and cast.

Well yes you can believe that but it goes against what evidence we do have.

For a good view of how the ancients viewed concrete you can look at what the Roman's did with it. Oddly they tended to make very large structures out of one piece - one of the pros about concrete.

The roof of the pantheon is estimated at 5,000 tons and was cast in one piece - now that was a good piece of engineering.

I don't recall the Roman's ever creating concrete blocks of unique size for then building larger structures. Harte or Hooke do you remember them ever doing that?

I don't recall any instances of that. But I'm not an expert on the Roman Empire.

Harte