Great Pyramids Made Out of Concrete
May 26th, 2007Via: Yahoo / Live Science:
…The mysteries had actually been solved by Joseph Davidovits, Director of the Geopolymer Institute in St. Quentin, France, more than two decades ago. Davidovits claimed that the stones of the pyramids were actually made of a very early form of concrete created using a mixture of limestone, clay, lime, and water.
“It was at this point in the conversation that I burst out laughing,†says Barsoum. If the pyramids were indeed cast, he says, someone should have proven it beyond a doubt by now, in this day and age, with just a few hours of electron microscopy.
It turned out that nobody had completely proven the theory…yet.
…
A year and a half later, after extensive scanning electron microscope (SEM) observations and other testing, Barsoum and his research group finally began to draw some conclusions about the pyramids. They found that the tiniest structures within the inner and outer casing stones were indeed consistent with a reconstituted limestone. The cement binding the limestone aggregate was either silicon dioxide (the building block of quartz) or a calcium and magnesium-rich silicate mineral.
The stones also had a high water content—unusual for the normally dry, natural limestone found on the Giza plateau—and the cementing phases, in both the inner and outer casing stones, were amorphous, in other words, their atoms were not arranged in a regular and periodic array. Sedimentary rocks such as limestone are seldom, if ever, amorphous.
The sample chemistries the researchers found do not exist anywhere in nature. “Therefore,†says Barsoum, “it’s very improbable that the outer and inner casing stones that we examined were chiseled from a natural limestone block.â€
More startlingly, Barsoum and another of his graduate students, Aaron Sakulich, recently discovered the presence of silicon dioxide nanoscale spheres (with diameters only billionths of a meter across) in one of the samples. This discovery further confirms that these blocks are not natural limestone.
…
Why do the results of Barsoum’s research matter most today? Two words: earth cements.
“How energy intensive and/or complicated can a 4,500 year old technology really be? The answer to both questions is not very,†Barsoum explains. “The basic raw materials used for this early form of concrete—limestone, lime, and diatomaceous earth—can be found virtually anywhere in the world,†he adds. “Replicating this method of construction would be cost effective, long lasting, and much more environmentally friendly than the current building material of choice: Portland cement that alone pumps roughly 6 billion tons of CO2 annually into the atmosphere when it’s manufactured.â€
“Ironically,†says Barsoum, “this study of 4,500 year old rocks is not about the past, but about the future.â€
This statement reminded me of the possibility that the Pyramids were built by E.T.s, “sample chemistries the researchers found do not exist anywhere in nature.”
There is a lot of evidence that points to intelligent life, other than earth humans, building the Pyramids long ago. Why they built them is still a mystery.
I don’t know, but there’s probably a reason why the secret societies are obsessed with ancient Egypt. Might this story have something to do with that? I have no idea.
here’s a link to something interesting.
http://www.nexusmagazine.com/articles/ancatomicwar1.html
this is part one of 2. part 2 is linked from part 1.
the suggestion that our collective histories is ‘as presented’ within the education system requires some scrutiny. i do not present the above article as fact, only information.
http://glenavalon.com/ldglass.html
just for the visual, there are a few more image sites out there as well.
I’m interested in how they built the pyramids out of curiosity. So did they cast them in place or nearby and roll them into place? Still a good question.
I found this book rather thought-provoking, though I don’t exactly know what to make of it. Entertaining if nothing else, maybe it’s true!?!
in response to bob m, some of the vedic texts contain relatively detailed descriptions of how to build vimanas, flying machines, which approximate to some of the best modern antigrav research out there today (canister of mercury under high pressure, spun rapidly, see the tr-3b/aurora project).
@ DrFix, Being in the concrete industry I can lend a little knowledge here. One of the properties of concrete that makes it an attractive building material is the initial plasticity. From what I gathered from the article, roughly half of the pyramids height was constructed of either precast or limestone, and that the upper half would be entirely cast in place. The bucket brigade may have built the top half. Still an immense amount of work regardless.
Jason, I agree that the work was immense regardless. When you look back and see the amount of concrete work having been done during the Roman period ,and thats impressive by itself, seeing this in Egyptian structures is all the more startling. Makes you wonder just where the root source, or culture, of this knowledge is?
Concrete, as a technology and building material, has been discovered at least three separate times in recorded history.
The Minoan civilization on the isle of Crete is known to have used concrete to build structures as early as 1400 bc. In fact, the latin term concretum can be seen to mean literally “of crete” (‘con crete’).
The knowledge of how to make concrete was lost with the collapse of the Minoans, only to be rediscovered (and improved upon) by the Romans some thousand years later. Dampproof Roman concrete was so good that some Roman concrete structures (aquaducts, artificial harbors and breakwaters, amphitheaters, public baths, the Colosseum of Rome, the Pantheon) survive to this very day.
With the collapse of Rome, once again the knowledge of how to manufacture concrete was lost to the ages until the (late) 1800’s. But note that many Roman concrete structures survived for thousands of years, yet “modern” concrete structures from as little as a half-century ago are already crumbling away.
So yes, I could definitely see a highly mature and developed civilization such as that of the Egyptians during the Old Kingdom having knowledge of concrete, and then later as that civilization collapsed back to a lower level, effectively “lost” this knowledge. We know it has happened at other times in recorded history.
How many more times might concrete have been
“discovered”, and then lost to antiquity during earlier eras?
Hey Kevin, this one is so far off topic, I can’t image where to post it, but as a farmlet farmer, I thought you might get a laugh out of this idea. A modern day pyramid combined with the hanging gardens of babylon; two wonders of the world for the price of one!
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/06/sky_farm_propos.php
A skyscraper as a farm…coming soon to a city near you! HA HA!