The Enigma of the Construction of the Giza Pyramids Solved?

From our own correspondent

	Prof. Guy Demortier in Slovenia. Photo: Manolis Pantos	Venue of the COST-G8 Workshop National Gallery of Slovenia
	Blocks were not carried, but cast into molds Belgian physicist Demortier has analysed the material from which the Cheops pyramid is made. He is certain that they were not made of carved blocks of stone According to Belgian physicist Guy Demortier, it is not possible that almost 5000 years ago, the Cheops pyramid was made by stone carving and assembling. He has spent over a decade on  physico-chemical analyses of the material from which it is made, and his findings contradict most egyptologists. In his lecture entitled Construction of the Cheops pyramid in Giza- the enigma solved at the National Museum of Slovenia, he presented the arguments for his hypothesis, that the grand pyramid, the construction of which has for centuries been firing up the debates and stirring imagination, was built by casting the material, which could be found in the surroundings of Cairo, into molds. Header of article by Barbara Hoceva, in the CULTURE section of the newspaper DELO, Ljubljana, 11 June 2004, translated by Jana Kolar.
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The reasoning for this rather radical (and  for the last thirty years hotly disputed) view  is based on the proposition made by the French scientist Prof. Joseph Davidovits². Davidovits is the inventor of a patented novel construction material called Geopolymer®. Until recently he was the director of the Geopolymer Institute, based in France.

The main arguments used by Davidovits and Demortier for questioning the traditional theory of the construction of the great pyramids at Giza, Cheops, Chefren and Mykerinos, are as follows:
 

1. On engineering and logistical grounds alone, quarrying and transporting the stone megaliths for the construction of such massive structures  could not have been possible within the time reported in the ancient literature, 20 years for the biggest of the three and during the lifetime of the great engineer Imhotep (who was deified by the Ptolemies some 22 centuries later). Prof. Demortier calculates, on the assumption that the whole of the Cheops pyramid was made of lego-like blocks, an average sized 1 m3 2-ton block would have to be put into place every 2 minutes and a 1 m2 of hewn face to have beenready every 2 seconds! 2. The ancient Egyptians may have been in possession of much more sophisticated scientific knowledge than we credit them for. This technological know-how would have enabled them to use building materials  that were available in plentiful quantities  (silica sand, crushed limestone, water from the Nile) and special ingredients such as natron from Wadi Natrun. 3. Herodotus' account of what Egyptian priests told him, some 2000 years after the construction of the great pyramids of Giza, points perhaps to some crucial details: "There is a tablet on the pyramid inscribed with Egyptian letters, and which details the amounts spent on radish, onions and garlic for the workers. And I remember very well that , as the translator told me, the amount of 1600 talents of silver was mentioned. My goodness, if this is true, how much would it have cost for all the rest! Herodotus also comments on a rather strange, transportable wooden device made of short planks used to place the blocks into position. Herodotus Histories, Book 2, EUTERPE 125.

The plentiful raw materials in the vicinity of the Giza plateau could have been used to produce a kind of a fast setting concrete that can be poured into wooden molds, in situ. This method would have obviated the Atlantean task of transporting massive limestone megaliths from great distances, some from across the Nile, shaping them into tight-fitting blocks to rather challenging accuracy, lifting them into position up to great heights, in limited working space, and even dressing the whole structure with a shiny white layer of casing stones, only a few of which  survive today at the top of the Chefren pyramid. And all that, before the invention (as far as we know) of hard bronze or iron chisels! Quite a challenge even for today's space age technology.

Irrelular block with near perfect joining surfaces. Fig 25 of ref. 1

Prof. Demortier points out that there is a mineral called "garlic stone", an arsenic containing compound, that the Egyptians had access to at the time, particularly from the mines of Sinai. Garlic as well as onions and radish owe their distinctive smell to trace quantities of elements such as arsenic. Arsenic acts as a catalyst in silicon-oxygen bond breaking/forming chemical reactions in highly alkaline solutions (pH>9), thus the need for plentiful quantities of natron, and at elevated temperatures, ca. 60oC,  not a problem in the heat of the Egyptian sun!

Scorodite mineral. skorodo: Greek for garlic. Chemical Formula FeAsO42(H2O)

Three of the slides shown by Prof. Demortier as evidence of molded material

Prof. Demortier is a well known expert on ion beam technology (PIXE/PIGE) applications to cultural heritage science and medicine. He has examined material from the pyramids and has detected arsenic in amounts that he reckons are higher than naturally occurring in geological limestone. Prof. Davidovits has reported measurements using a technique called Magic Angle Spinning NMR (Nuclear Magnetic Resonance) which permits the quantification of the relative abundance of double, triple or quadruple Silicon-Oxygen bonds. This he considers as evidence that an externally induced chemical reaction has taken place leading to the formation of a  geopolymer®, a network of aluminosilicates similar to present date synthetic zeolites. According to  Davidovits and  Demortier,  several other visually determined clues such as consistent differences in porosity and texture between the top and bottom of blocks and the irregular, but still tight-fitting, shape of some blocks, raises legitimate questions about the conventional quarry-carve-transport-lift construction theory.

These two potentially key scientific results, the presence of arsenic and the unusual SiO_x bond-type distribution, have not been appreciated or even commented on by fellow scientists who have addressed the issues raised by Prof. Davidovits's early publications on the issue. The arguments for the widely held opinion that the great pyramids were constructed of geological limestone blocks are based on observations of the morphology of a small number of samples from the pyramid blocks and comparison with geological material from  limestone quarries, thought to be the source of the raw material, some of them across the Nile. These observations, performed by reputable scientists quite a few years ago, showed nothing exceptionally unusual in content, texture and morphology than what one may expect in natural, geological limestone.

However, scientific techniques have moved on somewhat since the 1980's when the debate first started. It is now possible to put the pyramid material to more exacting scientific tests which do not rely on  morphological investigations using optical or electron microscopy methods alone. Techniques such as X-ray Absorption Spectroscopy (XAS), Small Angle X-ray Scattering (SAXS), High Resolution Powder Diffraction (HRPD) and trace element analysis of  the composition of pyramid stone samples by a whole battery of cutting-edge materials science techniques may produce new and definitive evidence, for or against the respective pyramid construction theories. Some preliminary results obtained at the UK's national synchrotron radiation source at Daresbury Laboratory have indicated the feasibility of obtaining new information from such measurements. But there is still a lot of detailed work that needs to be done. The stumbling block in drilling further into the secrets (or absence of any) of ancient Egyptian advanced  know-how is that authenticated material is rather hard to come by. At present, the Egyptian archaeological authorities operate a strict embargo on export of all archaeological material of any type, period or provenance. Material that could be made available to European researchers, such as casing stones and other pyramid related objects in British museums from the Flinders Petrie collection and perhaps other European museums and collections, could provide the basis for further investigations using state-of-the-art  materials science facilities with samples properly researched, documented and authenticated. This would require adherence to certain stringent conditions of creditable scientific procedure and the pooling of the resources of a multidisciplinary scientific team. Not an impossibility. Where there is a will, there may be a way. One thing is certain: there is no point in further unproductive speculation and web polemics. To paraphrase Aesop, "The proof of the pudding is in the eating". Let Science do the talking.

Note 1: The first public announcement of Prof. Demortier's thesis was at the conference "The use of ion beams in material sciences, medicine and archaeometry", Facultés Universitaires Notre-Dame de la Paix, Namur, Belgium, May 22-24, 2003. Published in "Non-destructive depth profiling of solid samples by atomic and nuclear interactions induced by charged particles", JOURNAL OF ELECTRON SPECTROSCOPY AND RELATED PHENOMENA 129 (2-3): 243-271 June 2003.
Note 2: For further details on Prof. Davidovits's arguments, see publications referred to at his Science Applied to Archaeology website.