New research strongly suggests the Giza pyramids were constructed using artificial stone

reply to post by tauristercus


Many of Egypt's most famous monuments, such as the Sphinx and Cheops, contain hundreds of thousands of marine fossils, most of which are fully intact and preserved in the walls of the structures, according to a new study.
The study's authors 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.

Liritzis and his team argue that since the fossils are largely undamaged and are distributed in a random manner within the stone, in accordance with their typical distribution at sea floors, the large building stones used to construct the monuments must have been carved out of natural stone instead of cast in molds.

Originally posted by dragonridr
reply to post by tauristercus

 

Many of Egypt's most famous monuments, such as the Sphinx and Cheops, contain hundreds of thousands of marine fossils, most of which are fully intact and preserved in the walls of the structures, according to a new study.
The study's authors 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.

Liritzis and his team argue that since the fossils are largely undamaged and are distributed in a random manner within the stone, in accordance with their typical distribution at sea floors, the large building stones used to construct the monuments must have been carved out of natural stone instead of cast in molds.

Apparently under microscopic examination, the following is evident:

Note the section referring to "jumbled nature of the fossil shells" which possibly answers one of your questions above.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/6c294315adc4.jpg[/atsimg]


Davidavits also writes ...

"If the ancient Egyptians had the ability to produce exceptionally high-quality [limestone] cement, what prevented them from adding fossil shells to their cement to produce high-quality concrete? The answer is that nothing prevented them."

"Minerals were mined for the cement from various sites, and fossil shells were gathered for the building blocks at Giza."

Some of you may have been surprised by reading these posts that the ancient Egyptians quite possibly may have had knowledge of various chemical processes which may have allowed them to create the "artificial limestone blocks" for pyramid construction.

Apparently, their "chemical expertise", which I guess should actually be called "alchemical expertise", was quite extensive and applied in various ways. This came as quite a surprise to me when I read about these ancient skills of theirs !

So for those of you who may be interested, the following lists and describes (approximately chronolgically) some of their major alchemical achievements. Makes for very interesting reading ... and goes to show that ancient Egyptians were in fact, a very "advanced" culture !

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/7fb19ea60b87.jpg[/atsimg]
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/a2aed5040079.jpg[/atsimg]
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/cdee6a78fa76.jpg[/atsimg]
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/bc41a79388fd.jpg[/atsimg]
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/4e02cebfe7fe.jpg[/atsimg]
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/f9d5e5c94a9c.jpg[/atsimg]
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/bfcfff6ae01d.jpg[/atsimg]
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/d7b2d51f5c0f.jpg[/atsimg]

Very interesting theory, but as said before it doesint explain the granite blocks, and it really doesint solve the problem of the actualy building ..............anyway no matter how they were actually built, the most intersting thing to me about the pyramids is the extensive mathematical knowledge encodedwithin them, inluding the pi ration, the fact that they are aligned to perfect north, south, east and west, the fact that they are a mathematical representation of the Northern hemishpere, and are situated on the Earths centre of landmass, of course how they corelate to Orions belt, they are just such an enigma that modern Egyptology has conspired to make appear mundane....................hopefully the answers will come in time.

Though I must say I have always found the Leedskallin story highly intruiging, and of course the ancient Egyptian legends of magi capable of manipulating rocks through the air with trumpets, and the Mayan legends of Vracocha being capable of lifting stone, an open mind is required I believe above all things when it comes to the extraordinary achievements of our ancestors.

This is a fascinating thread that really made me think, so thanks for posting it!

Originally posted by azzllin
Chisel marks could be simply down to reduction or shaping because of anomalies left behind by whatever was used to set the concrete in, perhaps there was some expansion or reduction in the process, that required them to finish off each cast to match the others?

Possibly but it sounds a bit odd that they would be chiseling molded stones.

Originally posted by micpsi
Christopher Dunn has uncovered amazing evidence for saws being used to cut stone and of granite blocks with perfectly drilled holes (exhibit 23) complete with the original, spiral bore marks:
www.gizapower.com...

Think the ancient Egyptians had only copper chisels? Phooey! They had MACHINERY that cut blocks of granite to any size and shape they wanted. Dunne has discovered the artefacts to prove this. Only it is ignored by Egyptologists because it does not fit the academic view of history as a state of ever-progressing technology

that's very interesting evidence!

Originally posted by Byrd

Originally posted by tauristercus
As far as I can understand it, and I'm relying on his established expertise in the subject, Davidavits is saying that the result of geopolymerization in the case of the limestone blocks, is that once they've been set and allowed to harden, that they are visually indistinguishable from naturally occuring limestone.

That's not true. Limestone (unlike concrete) is not a single consistency. When I work on my dinosaur fossils, I encounter pockets of crystal as well as tiny areas of mudstone. There is an "up" and a "down" as well.

It'll look like it to someone who doesn't work with limestone. But microscopically and in other ways, it won't.

Besides, he hasn't explained why (once they had concrete) they would make millions of individual sized molds to cast every block (no two are exactly alike) rather than using a few molds and pouring those.

I find it hard to believe that molded stones would be indistinguishable from natural stones. He just may not know how to tell the difference but as Byrd suggests, under close enough examination, the difference should be apparent.

and the point about the different sized molds is a good one too, why have so many mold sizes?

Originally posted by tauristercus
So, assemble your wooden planks where you need it, cast the new block, let it harden, then dissasemble your wooden mold and move to the next location ... and repeat the process.
In fact, the majority of blocks would only require a 3-sided wooden mold as the previous cast block would provide the 4th side.

I don't see how that explains the use of different mold sizes.

reply to post by Outlawstar


You know, we don't do this particular sort of thing, pyramid building. Well, we do, but that is in commerce. We don't have thousands of years of experience. The very first appearance of concrete could have come about from plain ol' housebuilding, and could have been refined over centuries for temples and pyramids. Hell, long before anyone ever dreamed of a pyramid thatched roofing was common in the Euphrates valley.

To immediately assume that some sort of exotic technology other than the stone age variety is simply a case of overwriting their culture with ours. And the second mistake is to assume that there was only one method tested and proven. All these methods could have easily evolved into areas of specialization.

A while back someone posted a passage from Exodus about how Pharaoh withheld hay for building. On the surface it looks ridiculous, we know that hay and mud don't make a corner or capstone. But when you think about it, it makes all the sense in the world, because, the real laborers were the oxen, and what do they use for fuel? So what we have here is the most ancient account of an energy crisis! And what are we dealing with today? That's right, you guessed it, and where is the nexus of this crisis located? Yep, same area. Some things never change.

All that horrendous labor would be exactly that if the oxen were taken out of the equation. The story appears to be an account of mass punishment by controlling the supply of fuel. And we are still watching it transpire. It goes to show who is in charge. But I digress.

Wherever you see labor of the heavy type, read in oxen. In that regard it can be said men did not need to do the milling, the hoisting, the hauling. But take away the oxen by taking away the food supply, and you are going to get the first account of a strike. Power in numbers, see there, nay, it would be riots in the streets! If your entire labor force is protesting nothing is going to get done.

Point is, every piece is vital to the entire operation. Nothing can be eliminated or looked over or the big picture won't make sense. So they quarried the stone, they hewed the stone, they transported the stone, they polished the stone, they made the concrete from the rubble, they poured the molds, they used the trees to float the stones, and as levers, and as cradles, and eventually as fuel for creature comfort.

It was a national effort. And rival kingdoms were attempting to achieve the same. A race to power, and to maintain that power at all costs.

Like I said, some things never change.

As said, a very interesting theory that needs to be studied seriously,

Amazingly few inquiries have been made by mainstream archaeology concerning the nature of the Giza Pyramid limestone blocks, considering that this theory has been around for a while, and some stones tested seem to confirm it,

Still, if this technique was known and practiced by the old Egyptians, the "Egyptian Pyramid Mystery" is still far from solved.

It still does not explain a large number off odd architectural construction feats that the Egyptians pulled off, such as the mathematical precision behind the monuments, its perfect alignment with true north (the Great Pyramid of Giza are aligned to within 0.5% of true north, an amazing feat), or why the granite sarcophagus in the King's Chamber seems to have been worked with high power tools (and it's even more deplorable to see Morris attack Christopher Dunn - who is behind the theory - without having anything concrete to refute his theory with),

You also have to put the Great Pyramid into a greater, global context.

How the Great Pyramid was constructed is of great importance, true, but even more so why.

And why were similar monuments constructed all over the planet, using huge slabs of stone almost impossible to move, transport and put in place?

Even IF the Great Pyramid makers used prefab stones, it does not explain how for instance Baalbeck was constructed, or Tiahuanaco. Perched on 12 500 feet above sea level (where the air is thin and manual labor therefore very hard), they used 100 ton stone blocks transported from vast distances, and so perfectly cut and fitted together that no mortar was needed.

It also does not explain why the Stonehenge monoliths were quarried 240 miles away and somehow transported to the Salisbury plain.

Why this fascination - in our early recorded history - for not only creating almost impossible monuments, but also constructing them in an almost impossible way?

Is that a message in itself?

Originally posted by Heliocentric
As said, a very interesting theory that needs to be studied seriously,

Amazingly few inquiries have been made by mainstream archaeology concerning the nature of the Giza Pyramid limestone blocks, considering that this theory has been around for a while, and some stones tested seem to confirm it,

Still, if this technique was known and practiced by the old Egyptians, the "Egyptian Pyramid Mystery" is still far from solved.

It still does not explain a large number off odd architectural construction feats that the Egyptians pulled off, such as the mathematical precision behind the monuments, its perfect alignment with true north (the Great Pyramid of Giza are aligned to within 0.5% of true north, an amazing feat), or why the granite sarcophagus in the King's Chamber seems to have been worked with high power tools (and it's even more deplorable to see Morris attack Christopher Dunn - who is behind the theory - without having anything concrete to refute his theory with),

You also have to put the Great Pyramid into a greater, global context.

How the Great Pyramid was constructed is of great importance, true, but even more so why.

And why were similar monuments constructed all over the planet, using huge slabs of stone almost impossible to move, transport and put in place?

Even IF the Great Pyramid makers used prefab stones, it does not explain how for instance Baalbeck was constructed, or Tiahuanaco. Perched on 12 500 feet above sea level (where the air is thin and manual labor therefore very hard), they used 100 ton stone blocks transported from vast distances, and so perfectly cut and fitted together that no mortar was needed.

It also does not explain why the Stonehenge monoliths were quarried 240 miles away and somehow transported to the Salisbury plain.

Why this fascination - in our early recorded history - for not only creating almost impossible monuments, but also constructing them in an almost impossible way?

Is that a message in itself?

Very well said, its godarn its so intriguing it hurts.

Originally posted by Matyas
reply to post by Outlawstar

 

You know, we don't do this particular sort of thing, pyramid building. Well, we do, but that is in commerce. We don't have thousands of years of experience. The very first appearance of concrete could have come about from plain ol' housebuilding, and could have been refined over centuries for temples and pyramids. Hell, long before anyone ever dreamed of a pyramid thatched roofing was common in the Euphrates valley.

To immediately assume that some sort of exotic technology other than the stone age variety is simply a case of overwriting their culture with ours. And the second mistake is to assume that there was only one method tested and proven. All these methods could have easily evolved into areas of specialization.

A while back someone posted a passage from Exodus about how Pharaoh withheld hay for building. On the surface it looks ridiculous, we know that hay and mud don't make a corner or capstone. But when you think about it, it makes all the sense in the world, because, the real laborers were the oxen, and what do they use for fuel? So what we have here is the most ancient account of an energy crisis! And what are we dealing with today? That's right, you guessed it, and where is the nexus of this crisis located? Yep, same area. Some things never change.

All that horrendous labor would be exactly that if the oxen were taken out of the equation. The story appears to be an account of mass punishment by controlling the supply of fuel. And we are still watching it transpire. It goes to show who is in charge. But I digress.

Wherever you see labor of the heavy type, read in oxen. In that regard it can be said men did not need to do the milling, the hoisting, the hauling. But take away the oxen by taking away the food supply, and you are going to get the first account of a strike. Power in numbers, see there, nay, it would be riots in the streets! If your entire labor force is protesting nothing is going to get done.

Point is, every piece is vital to the entire operation. Nothing can be eliminated or looked over or the big picture won't make sense. So they quarried the stone, they hewed the stone, they transported the stone, they polished the stone, they made the concrete from the rubble, they poured the molds, they used the trees to float the stones, and as levers, and as cradles, and eventually as fuel for creature comfort.

It was a national effort. And rival kingdoms were attempting to achieve the same. A race to power, and to maintain that power at all costs.

Like I said, some things never change.

For some reason I find it hard to understand you, sorry about that, but I would just like to say there is NO definitive evidence that the Egyptians were even the ones who built the pyramids, and assuming a higher technology was used is not as you say "simply a case of overwriting their culture with ours" its common sense frankly, the only conclusion that is logical on examination of the evidence.

I'm not sure that this technique would make the building of the pyramids much easier. You still have to haul all the tonnage up somehow. Anyway you work it, you have to either bring the completed blocks up a ramp, or you have to lug the ingredients for the cement up. It's certainly much easier to haul a small amount of cement mix and water up, but you wind up having to make that many more trips. Instead of (say) 10 guys shoving a 1-ton rock, you get 10 guys each hauling around 200 pounds of cement mix up the pyramid. Where's the savings of time or effort? OK, they don't have to chop stones out of a quarry, but they still have to find all the ingredients and haul it to the pyramid, and then up the pyramid.

I like this explanation because it answers one question - how the pyramids got their stones to meet so smoothly. If these were cement blocks, then it wouldn't be all that difficult. I have no problem with the notion that the Egyptians discovered cement. Why not? They used all those ingredients for other purposes. It's not so strange that they could have discovered that combining them could result in a rock-like substance.

But any way you look at it, building the pyramids would have involved massive amounts of hard labor over many years.

I dont see how they could accomplish the 3 blocks a minute, if they had to wait days or even weeks for the "concrete" to cure.

this is very possible...

Originally posted by HooHaa


I dont see how they could accomplish the 3 blocks a minute, if they had to wait days or even weeks for the "concrete" to cure.

I tend to agree with you that 3 blocks a minute seems somewhat exagerated but as quoted earlier from Davidavits' book ... and remember that he is a world renown expert on geopolymerization ...

"Once cast, within hours or even less, depending on the formula ([Color=Red]minutes using today's formula), a block hardened".

So if he's correct, a block could be cast and be ready to have another one cast next to it in a very short time ... so conceivably it wouldn't take all that long to do a complete layer of the pyramid ... especially if you have 4 teams starting the casting process for that layer at each corner of the pyramid and working their way towards each other and eventually meeting at the center point of each of the 4 sides.

Maybe I am missing something here ...

When they got to moulding the top of the pyramids they would still needed to have set these wooden moulds into place and pour in the liquid, right?

That cement mixture would likely weight very close to the hard formed brick at the end and so they would still have needed to have lifted that heavy mixture up to the top prior to setting?

If so, how?

Originally posted by Matyas

Point is, every piece is vital to the entire operation. Nothing can be eliminated or looked over or the big picture won't make sense. So they quarried the stone, they hewed the stone, they transported the stone, they polished the stone, they made the concrete from the rubble, they poured the molds, they used the trees to float the stones, and as levers, and as cradles, and eventually as fuel for creature comfort.

What trees?

If you are suggesting they used trees/logs as rollers/ramps then where did those trees come from?
Egypt does not have an abundance of trees so it would have had to have been imported in vast quantities. However, I have heard that at the time there was no other nation that would have allowed this, as you say, it was a race for power.

Originally posted by george_gaz
Maybe I am missing something here ...

When they got to moulding the top of the pyramids they would still needed to have set these wooden moulds into place and pour in the liquid, right?

That cement mixture would likely weight very close to the hard formed brick at the end and so they would still have needed to have lifted that heavy mixture up to the top prior to setting?

If so, how?

I agree with you that the weight of the cast and hardened block would be at least equal to the weight (drying by evaporation would reduce the final weight slightly) of the slurry that would have to be manhandled to the upper sections of the pyramid.
But instead of having to expend a colossal amount of labour, time and material in say, constructing a ramp running around the pyramid ... what about something as simple as a chain of workers positioned one above the other on the already completed steps of the pyramid and using a "bucket brigade" system to transfer the required amount of slurry from the ground to the construction level ?
That's just off the top of my head ... could have used different systems that might have achieved the same purpose.

Beautifully posted and researched thread even if some of this was touched on earlier. It's very hard not to rehash some of these ideas, we've all seen that even with this "cutting edge" forum at times there's nothing new under the sun. But you've added to the body of information. Thank you.

Most people attribute the Romans with the creation of concrete.

this is wrong.

Some people KNOW that the romans gained their knowledge from the Egyptians. In educated circles, it is common knowledge.

Some people KNOW the Giza pyramids are primarily constructed of Concrete cast in-situ.

The reason that so much is held back about huge ancient civilisations is because it would interrupt continued authority of governments and paradigms perpetuated throughout modern societies.

If everybody knew that high civilisation comes and goes via disaster, war, pestilence, disease etc. Then what would there be to strive for? Motivation would be lost if everyone knew the true impermanence of everything.

You, me and everybody walking the face of the planet will be utterly and entirely forgotten in 200 years or less! With very few exceptions and those who are committed to history will not be "known" in any true sense and their story will certainly not be the whole truth of the matter will it?

Consider that the next time you fret about your electricity bill or your own mortality. LOL. It is just NOT important.

Live your life, be good to others, be kind to yourself. That's all there really is that is worthwhile.

reply to post by tauristercus


This is quite interesting indeed. I never thought of this myself. The only thing is, Im quite sure it would not only be harder to construct a structure of this size with "liquid rock" as apposed to solid state rock as half of the weight would be evaporated as water. It would take longer... However it would be easier to drag the materials. Where it would have taken 100 men to pull one stone, 200 men could have carried a single bucket of concrete.

Originally posted by Dracan6
reply to post by tauristercus

 

This is quite interesting indeed. I never thought of this myself. The only thing is, Im quite sure it would not only be harder to construct a structure of this size with "liquid rock" as apposed to solid state rock as half of the weight would be evaporated as water. It would take longer... However it would be easier to drag the materials. Where it would have taken 100 men to pull one stone, 200 men could have carried a single bucket of concrete.

But you also have to take other logistics into account ...

Not having to physically carve limestone blocks out of a mountain ... not having to dress the block ... not having to create and maintain an ever growing earth ramp encircling the pyramid under construction ... not having to feed and shelter a vast number of workers ... not having the danger and effort of harnessing 100's of workers to a 20 ton block and drag it uphill up the ramp ... not having to manhandle the block into position ... etc ... etc

I think that given the choice of busting a gut trying to drag a monster of a block a few hunddred meters uphill OR casting the block in place and letting it quickly harden ... I know which alternative I'd pick !