Sunday, November 28, 2010

Was the Bent Pyramid Made from Fabricated Concrete Blocks?

I have read a few earlier articles about the pyramids being constructed out of "concrete" but until this article, I hadn't read it in language that I actually understood.  It is certainly an intriguing theory.  The ancient Egyptians were not stupid people.  If they developed a method to fabricate the enormous blocks of  "stone" used to build the bent Pyramid and the later pyramids at Giza, they would have used it, rather than quarrying and dragging solid stone blocks weighing several tons each on sledges x-number of miles after somehow managing to get the giant stone blocks to the Nile and floating them downstream (or upstream) to the building sites. 

Come on, if you were the person charged by the almighty Pharaoh (probably with death hanging over your head if Pharaoh was not pleased) with building his timeless death-to-life memorial, what would you opt for?  The hard way, or the easy way? Just because we've lost the technological formula to replicate this technique today doesn't mean it didn't happen because, quite clearly - as the evidence is under our noses, it existed and it worked.

Kiwi may have solved mystery of the pyramids
Published: 6:31PM Saturday November 27, 2010 Source: ONE News

A Wellington scientist has come up with an explanation that may help solve the question of how the ancient Egyptians built the pyramids.

It has been widely thought massive blocks of stone cut from quarries were dragged to the building sites.

But Professor Ken MacKenzie from Victoria University had his doubts, so he tested a small sample of a block from the famous Bent Pyramid, built more than 4500 years ago, at his Lower Hutt lab.

He ground it to powder, put in a spectrometer containing a powerful magnet and spun it at a staggering 12,000 revolutions per second.

From that, he was able to get a sub-atomic analysis of the pyramid block. It showed that rather being solid stone, it was a mixture of several materials, a sort of ancient concrete.

"The concrete that would have been used in this instance, if we call it that, this re-constituted stone, would be the earliest form of concrete we know," said MacKenzie.

The mixture, limestone and silica mixed with water and poured into wooden moulds, would have formed symmetrical blocks after setting.

There could be a modern point to all this research into ancient architecture.

Scientists say that if we could replicate those building techniques and materials today, it would be much better for the environment

Making a tonne of modern cement produces almost the same weight in greenhouse gases.

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