I've been researching this for 30 years, and the government has paid me an incredible amount of money. . . and I'm pretty sure it was a guy named Eddie.

IgG4: I thought they were made out of stone?

These look like they were HOT cast too.

I'm not saying this meme is tired... but this meme is tired.

FloydA: IgG4: I thought they were made out of stone?

They are- Khufu's pyramid is made entirely of limestone. We even know where they got the stones. We've found their quarries.

Here, you can see where blocks have been removed and others have been shaped. Those blocks that fractured during shaping were left there.

[i105.photobucket.com image 500x312]

In the middle, you can see the back of the Sphinx's head, to help you orient the picture.

The claim that Davidovits is making is that some of the casing stones (not the structural stones) might have been cast. It's a controversial hypothesis. Personally, I suspect it's baloney, but I might be wrong.


But anyone who claims that the structural stones were cast concrete is trying to sell you something.

That's a quarry for obelisks. You can see an unfinished one in your picture.
The quarry stones had no air bubbles, the stones in the casing have air bubbles.
There are stones with composite materials from two different quarry sites.
This makes sense. It may be wrong but it's a fair theory.

Also:
Let's all say 'Good Bye' to Zahi Hawass, long time (and now former) Egyptian Minister of Antiquities!

You could use the aliens for cladding but they are too squishy for anything structural.

tinyarena: FloydA: IgG4: I thought they were made out of stone?

They are- Khufu's pyramid is made entirely of limestone. We even know where they got the stones. We've found their quarries.

Here, you can see where blocks have been removed and others have been shaped. Those blocks that fractured during shaping were left there.

[i105.photobucket.com image 500x312]

In the middle, you can see the back of the Sphinx's head, to help you orient the picture.

The claim that Davidovits is making is that some of the casing stones (not the structural stones) might have been cast. It's a controversial hypothesis. Personally, I suspect it's baloney, but I might be wrong.


But anyone who claims that the structural stones were cast concrete is trying to sell you something.

That's a quarry for obelisks. You can see an unfinished one in your picture.
The quarry stones had no air bubbles, the stones in the casing have air bubbles.
There are stones with composite materials from two different quarry sites.
This makes sense. It may be wrong but it's a fair theory.

Also:
Let's all say 'Good Bye' to Zahi Hawass, long time (and now former) Egyptian Minister of Antiquities!

And good riddance.

This sounds like a "History Channel" segment

FRA: Recent theories and scientific evidence suggest that people assembled cement blocks on site to construct the exterior of the pyramids.

So the headline should read:

Materials scientist examines building material of Great Pyramids. Subby is not saying they used Portuguese aliens...but they used Portuguese aliens

Tony_Pepperoni: Maybe they used Both?

Link (new window)

JasonOfOrillia: You could use the aliens for cladding but they are too squishy for anything structural.

Look, just because we don't have the modern technology to understand how they turned dead aliens into stone, doesn't mean they didn't. We need to give ancient man some credit for the ingenuity and creativity they showed.

Marcus Aurelius: [img.ffffound.com image 461x403]


/agrees

Mugato: That's it. when I'm finally done with my time machine, I'm going back and terminating that Ancient Aliens guy's mother just so that weather beaten meme is never invented.

Look, I'm not SAYING that it will be aliens who will help you finish your time machine, but ... it will have to be aliens.

DerechoSCK: I'm not saying this meme is tired... but this meme is tired.

X-Ray Diffraction does not work that way!

From their own paper:

"...came to the conclusion that each (of 20) stones analyzed corresponded to a different quarry, suggesting that if the stones were natural that the Egyptians quarried stones from all over Egypt: an incredible feat."

First: while incredible, it's a totally rational idea. It's a relatively common practice for different portions of the country/region to contribute raw material and/or labor to monumental architecture. It's part of the unifying nature of such work.

Second: those comparative graphs of XRD signatures are far more similar than they'd suggest in the article (look at the peak values and not the pattern of the lines, the base of the peak can get wider/fuzzy pretty easily). They don't demand the invoking a man-made source (they don't rule it out however).

Third: you should probably do some stats to get the range of variation of the quarries...but perhaps there wasn't enough room in the paper.

Fourth: Unsure of how the samples were gathered, and whether surface treatment was controlled for (so using sand to polish or cut the stone very well could be responsible for increasing the amount of Si0₂ seen in the diagram. Not enough emphasis on the petrography showing these airbubbles...hard to really evaluate in any meaningful way.

Finally: It's an interesting paper, but really needs a lot more work. What he really proved is that the limestone seems to be more variable than any one quarry (and might represent several regional quarries), and that there is something different about the current state of the limestone compared to the quarries. For a pilot study great. For the claims he's making? Eh.

One is that christianity spread though the peasants of Egypt without any major problems which means the existing religion was compatible or way too primitive

Except for the whole 400 years or so of being fed to the lions...

milominderbinder: Except for the whole 400 years or so of being fed to the lions...

The Christians in Alexandria had a different time than the ones in Rome did. Indeed the greatest threat to Christians in Alexandria ended up being the church in Rome.

tinyarena:

Let's all say 'Good Bye' to Zahi Hawass, long time (and now former) Egyptian Minister of Antiquities!


If he can't get credit for it, the theory MUST be wrong!

Good showman, excellent empire builder and politician, pathetic archeologist.

I met Mr. Hawass once. Seemed like a humble guy at the time.

/csb

Haven't we had ten of these headlines in the past week?

It's getting old.

nuclear magnetic resonance experiments show the casing stones of Senefru's Bent Pyramid to be a combination of limestone grains from one quarry cemented with a calcium-silicate gel from a second quarry.

IMHO a better headline could have been:
Magnet scientist examines building material of Great Pyramids. Subby doesn't know how they work.

I thought it was known for a long time that the interior, structural stones of the pyramids were rough hewn and then the whole thing was stuccoed over? or am I missing something here?

Old idea. I believe there was an article about this in Omni mag back in the early 80's

FloydA: IgG4: I thought they were made out of stone?

They are- Khufu's pyramid is made entirely of limestone. We even know where they got the stones. We've found their quarries.

Here, you can see where blocks have been removed and others have been shaped. Those blocks that fractured during shaping were left there.

[i105.photobucket.com image 500x312]

In the middle, you can see the back of the Sphinx's head, to help you orient the picture.

The claim that Davidovits is making is that some of the casing stones (not the structural stones) might have been cast. It's a controversial hypothesis. Personally, I suspect it's baloney, but I might be wrong.


But anyone who claims that the structural stones were cast concrete is trying to sell you something.


The age of the Should maybe 5k~10k years older than the other pyramids.

Anyone have an ETA for when this stupid meme will be played out? It's bad and you should feel bad for using it.

I stood on the great pyramid a month ago. It was cool.

Cool bucket list bro.

tinyarena:
Also:
Let's all say 'Good Bye' to Zahi Hawass, long time (and now former) Egyptian Minister of Antiquities!

I was wondering if they would get rid of him with the whole uprising thing. He seems like a rather intelligent and very busy man, but he is essentially tasked with maintaining the status quo on Egyptian archaeology (and their tourism trade), so anything that doesn't fit the line gets thrown out.

DON.MAC: A few things bother me about some of the ancient stories. One is that christianity spread though the peasants of Egypt without any major problems which means the existing religion was compatible or way too primitive..

Well, Egypt was probably under the control of Rome at the time, and the Romans were pretty good at maintaining public order. Also, aside from the whole feeding Christians to lions thing during one point, they tended to be pretty laid back as far as religious tolerance went, didn't much care what you worshiped so long as you didn't cause trouble because of it. Didn't have a problem with atheists and skeptics either, Julius Caesar himself was an admitted atheist and he was still elected Pontifex Maximus of the Collegium Pontificum, which would be like Richard Dawkins becoming the next Pope. Part of the reason they managed to maintain such a large empire with so many disparate peoples for so long.

FloydA: HempHead:

The age of the Should maybe 5k~10k years older than the other pyramids.

Accidentally the whole thing?

I love my my HP Touchpad, but the autocorrect is worse than my iPhone!

Zahi Hawass, long time (and now former) Egyptian Minister of Antiquities calls the theory of cement-cast pyramids "plain stupid", adding in a 2006 conversation:

Of course they're not. They're made from solid blocks of quarried limestone. To suggest otherwise is idiotic and insulting.

All hail Zahi Hawass, undisputed king of the quote!