By Guy Demortier, Emeritus professor of physics, University of Namur (Belgium).

https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.33958.75844

Abstract:

Concentrations of light elements using micro-PIXE and micro-PIGE reveal the elemental composition of the various materials used for the construction of the pyramids. Light elements (mainly Na, Cl and S) show a very heterogeneous distribution for the pyramid’s material in contrast with the extremely homogeneous distribution of these elements in natural limestone from quarries of Turah and Maadi and the bedrock of Saqqarah. The micro-PIXE elemental maps present new evidence for the application of a molding procedure.

PDF file for free download:

Click on the image below to download the PDF file.

Pyramids (1) Are Pyramids Made Out of Concrete?
Pyramids (2) The evidences
Pyramids (3) The formula, the invention of stone
Pyramids (4) Videos and book
Pyramids (5) FAQ for artificial stone supporters
Pyramids (6) Deep misleading publications by geologists

Hundreds of thousands of people have read articles and seen videos on the internet dealing with the pyramids of Egypt having been constructed from geopolymer concrete. The arguments of the opponents are always based on the same papers written by American geologists, published 15 to 30 years ago. These publications are draped in scientific impartiality when this is not the case. Here we point out their fatal flaws. Unfortunately, critics relying on said papers persist by pointing out the following three geological studies as the ones that restore the truth. It is time to put an end to this pseudo-science.

1. Dipayan Jana never actually examined the “Lauer Sample”
2. Another major misleading paper by James Harrell and Bret Penrod
3. The fatal flaw failure of geologist Robert Folk and petrographer Donald Campbell

1- Dipayan Jana never actually examined the “Lauer Sample”

Petrologist Dipayan Jana, of CMC-Materials Inc., in the USA, presented a paper at the 29th ICMA Conference in Quebec, Canada, titled “The Great Pyramid Debate” and later published his information in the Proceedings of the 29th Conference of Cement Microscopy, Quebec, Canada, May 20-24 (2007), pp. 207-266. He critiques my scientific findings as well as those of my colleagues, Materials Scientist M. W. Barsoum et al., Microstructural Evidence of the Reconstituted Limestone Blocs in the Great Pyramids of Egypt, Journal of the American Ceramic Society, 89 (12), 3788-3796 (2006)]. Here I will show the fatal flaw in D. Jana’s said work. We start by considering the target sample.

A. What is the Lauer sample?

The controversy concerns the analysis performed on a sample of the Great Pyramid of Cheops entrusted to me by the eminent French Egyptologist Jean-Philippe Lauer in 1981, and on which I have made analyses, publications and conferences. It is defined in the literature under the name of the “Lauer sample”. It is a piece of interior casing of the pyramid, made of limestone material, covered with a white man-made coating of calcium phosphate (hydroxyapatite) 1 mm thick and a red-brown iron oxide paint. See photo of the original Lauer sample from 1982 in Figure 1.

Figure 1: The Lauer sample. Photo taken in 1982.

Parameters for authenticating the true Lauer sample include its 4500-thousand year-old white coating and red-brown paint, and its dimensions.

B. Why did D. Jana test a fake sample instead of the Lauer sample?

D. Jana receive a piece of the “Lauer sample” from the American geologist specializing in the quarries of ancient Egypt, James Harrell, now Emeritus Professor at the University of Toledo. J. Harrell is a geologist opposed to the theory of agglomerated stone; we sent him the Lauer sample and his conclusions are obviously the opposite of those of our team of scientists. He returns what he claims is left of it, a severely damaged sample. However, years later he provides a sample of what is supposedly remnants of the Lauer sample to D. Jana. Thus, Jana calls the Lauer sample the “Lauer-Harrell” sample in his study (Figure 2) published in the Proceedings (see above).

Figure 2: The “Lauer-Harrel” blue sample received by D. Jana.

Page 213: “The Lauer-Harrell was a solid 25 × 45 mm sized, blue epoxy impregnated saw-cut section of a piece, larger than the Lauer-Campbell sample…”

The whole context of the study, described in Figures 12, 13, 14 on pages 252, 253, 254 of the Proceedings, shows that it is a vertical section (in thickness) and that it is not obliquely cut. The dimensions are: 45 mm wide and 25 mm thick.

However, the original thickness of the Lauer sample is 15 mm (see in Figure 3). In contrast, the “Lauer-Harrell” sample supplied by Harrell to Jana is 25 mm thick.

By deduction, the thickness of Jana’s sample proves that it could not have been the authentic Lauer Sample.

Figure 3: The thickness of the genuine Lauer sample compared with the sample studied by D. Jana.

C. In D. Jana’s study, there is no coating. So, is this a FAKE?

Jana observes that the sample he has received from Harrell does not exhibit the distinctive coating of the Lauer sample. The coating is a critically important distinguishing trait that characterizes the authentic “Lauer sample”. In the Proceedings, Jana mentions three times (pages 213, 229 and 255) on the non-compliance of the sample with the scientific literature. Despite the doubt, and despite the sample mysteriously and impossibly growing 10 mm in thickness, he continues his studies claiming that the Lauer sample is natural limestone.

So:

• Page 213: “Neither piece contained the white coating or the red paint that was originally mentioned by Davidovits, which was reportedly (by Harrell) accidentally removed during the preparation of the thin section”.
• Page 229: “Although the actual “coating” was not present in the Lauer sample of this study (reportedly accidentally removed…)”.
• Page 255: legend of Figure 15: “Despite the absence of this coating…”.

J. Harrel published a study in 1993 on this white coating (see in Figure 15, page 255, in the Proceedings), but in 2007 he sent D. Jana a different piece of limestone not covered with this characteristic coating, calling it nonetheless the “Lauer sample”.

It is hard to imagine a competent, skilled geologist accidentally removing the coating from the Lauer sample when preparing a thin section of it. The coating is very firmly welded to the stone and does not flake off. It is not a paint, and the impregnation of blue epoxy is used to prevent such accidents. J. Harrell has made too many thin sections in his professional life to destroy a major archaeological sample. If it does not have its characteristic coating, its origin is doubtful.

CONCLUSION:

The most logical explanation is that the sample D. Jana studied was a piece of natural limestone from Egypt’s Tura quarry 25 mm thick (instead of 15 mm) without the white artificial coating of calcium phosphate.

It is therefore a forgery. Jana’s study of the rock passed off as the “Lauer Sample” can no longer serve as a reference. Jana is, therefore, obligated to retract his paper in good conscience, and Harrell must explain or accept responsibility for his actions.

2- Another major misleading paper by James Harrell and Bret Penrod

A chapter of my book “Why the Pharaohs built the Pyramids with Fake Stones” shows another serious misleading conduct published by Harrell and Penrod. See in Appendix B, page 265 (2017 edition) or 263 (2009 edition). In chapter 7, I describe the Mokattam Formation at Giza comprised of layers of middle Eocene limestones upon which the Great Pyramids of Giza are built. The Mokattam Formation comprises two distinctly different layers of fossil shells limestone: a hard gray upper bed on which the pyramids are built, and a friable marly yellowish bed. It was this friable, earthy deposit (concrete grade) limestone that was exploited to build the bulk of the Great Pyramids of Giza (see the diagram in Figure 4).

Figure 4: cross section of the Giza plateau, the Mokattam Formation and the quarries.

Despite this basic well-published geological knowledge, and clearly visible on the two outcrops located near the monuments, the American geologists J. Harrell and B. Penrod dispute the theorem of the artificial manufacture of limestone blocks, as follows.

In their article [Harrell, JA and Penrod, BE, The Great Pyramid debate; evidence from the Lauer sample, Journal of Geological Education, vol. 41, No. 4, pp. 358-363, 1993], they state: “… Our objection to the geopolymeric process (agglomerated stone process) has to do with disaggregating limestone by soaking it in water — it does not work! We soaked the Mokattam limestones whose composition is given in Table 1 for seven weeks and after this time the samples were just as hard and solid as the day we first immersed them…”

For their demonstration, Harrell and Penrod instead removed hard limestone from Gebel Mokattam, 20 km from the pyramids, on the other side of the Nile (see Table 1 cited in their said publication). That is, they should have sampled from the concrete-grade limestone quarries located in Giza, in the wadis or in the Sphinx trench at the foot of the pyramids. It is well known to all experts on Egyptian geology, and well-published in Egyptological literature, that these two Giza sites (the wadi and the trench in which the Sphinx sits), are where rock materials for the Great Pyramids of Giza are derived. The sample they soaked in water does not come from the Giza pyramid site at all. It is taken from a non-applicable location, the modern quarry of hard limestone behind the Citadel of Gebel Mokattam in Cairo, 20 km east of the Giza pyramids, on the other side of the Nile.

How can professionals consider that the Mokkatam geological formation of Giza is absolutely identical to the geographical designation Gebel Mokattam? Why not have just taken a piece of stone in Giza, on the site of the pyramids? Why make it so complicated? J. Harrell hopes to fool the public, collecting a rock sample of different origin, but bearing the same name, to demonstrate that our theory is false.

C- The fatal flaw of geologist Robert Folk and petrographer Donald Campbell

This is not the first time that geologists have published studies containing serious failures. Thus, immediately after arriving on the Giza plateau in January 1990, the American geologist R. Folk and petrologist D. Campbell observe blocks of stone which seem to them to be natural limestone. They publish an article in Journal of Geological Education [R.L. Folk and D.H. Campbell, Are the Pyramids built of poured concrete blocks, Journal of Geological Education, Vol.40, pp. 25-34 (1992)].

In my book “Why the Pharaohs built the Pyramids with fake stone”, page 268, I reproduce the original text: “Within the first minute at Cheops pyramid, we knew that the pyramids were built of real limestone blocks, not of concrete (reagglomerated stone)….”

We also read:
“… we feel it is the duty of professional geologist to expose this egregiously absurd archeological theory before it becomes part of entrenched pseudo-science… We believe that had Davidovits had any understanding of basic geologic principles and understood the implications of simple geological evidence at Giza, he would have realized that this geopolymer theory had no basis in fact...”

Upon arriving at Giza, Folk and Campbell go directly to the northeast corner of the Great Pyramid of Cheops. In their article, they do not explain the reason for this choice. There, they find natural limestone (see photo in Figure 5). In 1983, the American Egyptologist Mark Lehner mentions the existence of this natural geological layer, going up to 4 meters above the base of the pyramid, in this northeast corner. But R. Folk and D. Campbell ignore this essential information. I publish my answer in a renowned journal “J. Davidovits, The Great Pyramid debate, Concrete International, Vol. 14, No. 2, pp. 17-18, (1992) ”.

Figure 5: the natural limestone at the northeast corner of Cheops Great Pyramid.

Soon after, I receive a letter from R. Folk dated February 18, 1992, which reads:
“…I was impressed by your reasonable and interesting letter in Concrete International, Feb. 1992… Your argument that the lower two courses of Khufu (Cheops), on the east face, are in place bedrock is intriguing and I must admit was a new thought to me. This morning, thanks to your citation, I went over and read Lehner (1983) on Khufu (Cheops) and he does indeed show the NE corner of Khufu to be bedrock in his sketch. Our photo was of that corner. So I concede that, on the North-East corner, you are correct as the bedrock idea had not entered my head at the time we were there…”

Robert L. Folk, renowned for writing the standard limestone geologists refer to, admitted that he has no basic knowledge of the geology of the Giza plateau when he makes his survey and triumphantly proclaims: “… Within the first minute at Cheops pyramid, we knew that the pyramids were built of real limestone blocks, not of concrete (reagglomerated stone)…”

Ironically, the geologists do not differentiate between a natural outcrop of the plateau and blocks of pyramids!!! How to take this study seriously when all tourists can readily see this distinction?

The article by Folk and Campbell, published 30 years ago, is still cited today by those whose purpose it is to discredit my research. They do not know that Folk confessed his error.

References (books):

In French:
2017, J. Davidovits, Bâtir les Pyramides sans pierres ni esclaves, édition Jean-Cyrille Godefroy, Paris, ISBN 9782865532889.

In English:
2009-2017 (2è edition), Joseph Davidovits, Why the Pharaohs built the Pyramids with fake stones (in soft cover and eBook), ed. Geopolymer Institute (Institut Géopolymère), Saint-Quentin, France, ISBN: 9782951482043, available at geopolymer.org/shop or amazon.com and others on line.

2010, Margaret Morris, The Great Pyramid Secret: Egypt’s Amazing Lost Mystery Science Returns, Scribal Arts, Detroit, USA, ISBN: 978-0972043465, available at amazon.com

The theory has many supporters around the world, but there are still opponents criticizing and repeating the same arguments. This page is here to help supporters counter critics.

First, you find below a list of the main opposing ideas, opinions and sometimes evidence, and how to reply to them. Then, we expose an extended abstract of the theory with a simplify list of arguments.

More details, information, videos are available at this page. Only a lengthy summary is disclosed here.

List of the main opposing arguments

1- The context. What you need to keep in mind.

An hypothesis that has a long life.

The theory is now well-known by the public since 1988 (first publication of the book in english), but presented earlier in official egyptology congresses since 1979. The Geopolymer Institute website exists since 1996 and, since the beginning, the theory was exposed in detail. Since then, new scientific papers, new books, new videos, new webpages have been published with the latest updates. Nevertheless, most opponents are always expressing their opinions based on hearsays, preconceived ideas, clichés, and are not taking 10 minutes of their precious time to read what is presented here. Some of them are publishing rebuttals using “wrong” arguments that Davidovits’ has never raised instead of quoting his work (for example, we do not claim to crush stones as aggregates, a useless exhausting effort, but instead asserting the use of weathered or eroded stones). A parody of science since some studies were made on “fake” pyramid samples. See section #5 below and the page: Deep misleading publications by geologists. These published sloppy papers are taken for serious references by the opponents of the re-agglomerated theory. You will be disappointed by the fact that this misleading behavior represents the vast majority of the opponents. Why? Because the artificial stone theory is the truth, they don’t know how to counter it. They are missing the big picture.

A global thinking

People trying to solve the Pyramids mysteries are always thinking in terms of engineering and technique, and worse, they are only focusing on Kheops’ pyramid, forgetting the previous ones and the hundred more built after. If an idea sounds valid for Kheops, it is immediately invalid for the others. Davidovits’ theory is the only theory with a global view encompassing the building of all the pyramids of Egypt for 250 years, from the first of Zoser to those in crude bricks, with solid and valid scientific evidence in geology, mineralogy, chemistry, hieroglyphic studies, religion and Egyptian history… Read the extended abstract below or buy the book to learn more. No other theory has this global approach.

Official theory

The man-made or re-agglometared stone theory exists, is still discussed and countered for more than 40 years! If the arguments against are so easy to expose, to denigrate and are self-evident, why people are still talking about it? Why people are still not convinced by carving theories?

By the way, what is the official theory? Ask the opponents before starting the discussion. The bare truth is that there is none. After centuries, so many studies, scientific investigations, archeological discoveries, carving theories are still a weak hypothesis. Nobody agrees on the main scenario around carving and hoisting. None is approved by the mainstream. What a massive failure after more than one century of egyptology! When someone raises a solution, it lasts 6 months up to 1 year after it vanishes because it leads to other insoluble problems. And the artificial stone theory is there for more than 40 years. After so much time, the carving theories fail !

So, the opponent of the re-agglomation hypothesis believes he acts in the name of truth, when actually he is found defending one of the many unofficial speculative carving theories! Is he convincing? Not at all. It is easy to criticize that his (un)official theory brings up more problems than solutions, and, above all, where is the evidence?

The ultimate evidence

Here is the solid argument that everybody understands:

More and more scientists agree and support the theory. Classical methods of investigation are not relevant. They cannot make a difference between a natural and a synthetic mineral.

Several studies, carried out by independent scientists using the most modern equipment, exposed the ultimate proofs that the pyramids blocks are not natural. You may find various papers or opinions challenging the theory, but all prefer ignoring these independent analysis. Believing in the artificial stone theory, or countering it, is simply no longer relevant. It has become a fact, a truth that is still fought by some people for irrational purposes.

2- There is stone everywhere. Why bother to make a concrete?

This is common sense, isn’t it? You are thinking of the use of stones with a modern mind, in terms of architecture. For 3000 years long, Egyptians used stones (whether man-made or carved) only for religious purposes: temples, tombs and statues. Where are the houses, where are the palaces, where are the garrisons? They were built in crude bricks. During the pyramids time, it was forbidden to carve stones. Man-made stone bears a specific religious meaning related to the creation of life. Read more about this topic in the extended abstract under the “Religious context“.

If it is not convincing enough:

Recent scientific studies using very powerful and modern equipment found the ultimate evidence that the pyramids stones are synthetic. Believing in the artificial stone theory, or countering it, is simply no longer relevant. It has become a fact, a truth.

3- We see fossil shells, so it is a natural stone.

Man-made stone holds around 90% of natural mineral aggregates (here nummulites, fossil shells), and between 5 to 10% of the synthetic geopolymer binder. Some opponents believe that we claim that the geopolymer chemistry is manufacturing fossil shells in situ, which is absurd. But where do the fossil shells come from? From the quarry where we extract the natural stone aggregates. It is like claiming modern concrete is a carved and natural stone because it contains natural sand and natural stone aggregates ! If the stones were carved, why are all shells intact? Why none of them are cut?

There is evidence that limestone blocks come from different quarries. Since we know their origin, without a doubt, the stones are natural? But to make re-agglomerated limestone concrete, it is necessary that the 90% of limestone aggregate come from somewhere. Of course, they come from the same place! So, people have 90% of chance of analyzing a natural aggregate (here, nummulite fossil shell) and stating the artificial stone theory is wrong, setting aside the 10% synthetic binder.

If it is not convincing enough:

Recent scientific studies using very powerful and modern equipment found the ultimate evidence that the pyramids stones are synthetic. Believing in the artificial stone theory, or countering it, is simply no longer relevant. It has become a fact, a truth.

4- If it is a concrete-like stone, all block would have the same dimensions. But they are all different.

Before the first pyramid built out of stone, the ancient Egyptians constructed very imposing crude brick monuments. We find large funerary temple enclosures of the second dynasty, like the Khasekhemwy one (2,730 B.C.). Its massive wall is of crude clay bricks, therefore in a molded material. It is generally agreed, since these bricks were worked in molds, that their dimension must be uniform. However, this is wrong. Despite having been manufactured in molds, the clay bricks are of approximately 5 different sizes, implying the use of several patterns. We find these differences in proportions in all pyramids. This heterogeneity gives the monuments the ability to resist earthquakes by avoiding the amplification of seismic waves.

If it is not convincing enough:

Recent scientific studies using very powerful and modern equipment found the ultimate evidence that the pyramids stones are synthetic. Believing in the artificial stone theory, or countering it, is simply no longer relevant. It has become a fact, a truth.

5- One scientist / expert has analyzed the stones and claims they are natural, so you are wrong!

The analysis methods used today by geologists are not relevant. These methods are used to CLASSIFY not to determine natural or artificial species. They cannot make a difference between a natural and a synthetic mineral. Indeed, the molecule of a mineral is by essence always the same, whether it is natural or synthetic, otherwise it would be another molecule, so another mineral. In addition, experts / scientists who oppose the theory of re-agglomeration have scarcely knowledge or understanding of the geopolymer chemistry. They will not know how to analyze this and will miss the evidence. Have the opponents ever analyzed a geopolymer and gain some understandings? Never! Ask them for their scientific papers on geopolymers, if they have ever published one. Take a close look at their studies: they assert that the stones bear the features of natural rocks, and these are their only claims. They imply that the geopolymer is inherently artificial and therefore that its synthetical nature would be immediately obvious, superbly ignoring the principles of geochemistry. Their ignorance of geopolymers deceives them. To our knowledge, no geologist has yet published a comparative analysis between a present-time geopolymer fossil shell limestone and an ancient pyramid stone. They criticize the system without having the slightest idea of what we are talking about. This leads to an unproductive debate with inconclusive results. Geopolymer is a hard science, not a speculative study. To show the geopolymerization and the artificial nature of the material, they need to work with more powerful methods. These tools are seldom used by them. Studies have been made with modern and powerful equipment, and all show that the stones are artificial. Opponents prefer to ignore them, it is out of their skill to argue against.

To find out more, here are our answers to the 3 geological studies most often cited by the opponents. Our claims are so straightforward that no scientific knowledge is required to understand them. It is time to put an end to this pseudo-science. Read: Deep Misleading Publications by Geologists

If it is not convincing enough:

According to recent scientific studies, believing in the artificial stone theory, or countering it, is simply no longer relevant. It has become a fact, a truth.

6- There are granite blocks that are carved but roughly trimmed. So, your theory is wrong.

We have never claimed granite was artificial (another hearsay). Indeed, granite is not carved (they did not have the right tools) but split (a very different skill). You will read below in the extended abstract under the “Religious context” why they used granite, because it represents the southern country. The granite was not carved in a quarry, but simply taken from individual boulders found in great quantities in the Aswan region. The boulders were split to fine dressed faces, leaving a typical rough undressed back. They represent less than 0.1% of the total blocks. Workers had 10 years to install them in the pyramid, and 10 years to carve a unique sarcophagus with whatever technique they have at their disposal. In short, we don’t care! We care about the 99.9% of limestone blocks. For Kheops, one block must be placed every 3 minutes.

If it is not convincing enough:

Recent scientific studies using very powerful and modern equipment found the ultimate evidence that the pyramids stones are synthetic. Believing in the artificial stone theory, or countering it, is simply no longer relevant. It has become a fact, a truth.

7- The analysis in favor of the artificial stone theory are invalid because they are not official.

Right. Egyptologists are historian, linguists, archeologists but none are material scientists! So, there will never be official analysis carried out by them, they will always rely on experts like us. By the way, are the opponents officials? Are there published rebuttals official? And the person you are talking with, who is against the re-agglomerated stone theory, is it an official person expressing an official opinion? Absolutely not, never, none of them can claim that. Their argument has no more value than yours. You are at the same level! And what about the numerous carving theories, are they official? Are they promoting another new unofficial carving theory? (see above)

If it is not convincing enough:

Recent scientific studies using very powerful and modern equipment found the ultimate evidence that the pyramids stones are synthetic. Believing in the artificial stone theory, or countering it, is simply no longer relevant. It has become a fact, a truth.

8- Another new study / investigation shows something strange in the pyramids…

None of the recent studies, using new tools and high-tech equipments are countering the artificial stone theory. It is often the opposite, it may be interpreted as a new evidence for re-agglomeration. Each time, they raise new questions and enigma that the carving theories cannot answer, fueling crazy speculations.

And, by the way:

Recent scientific studies using very powerful and modern equipment found the ultimate evidence that the pyramids stones are synthetic. Believing in the artificial stone theory, or countering it, is simply no longer relevant. It has become a fact, a truth.

9- Aliens and/or ancient advanced civilization built the pyramids.

These people are reading all the contradictory, unofficial, numerous carving theories, and because all of them raise more questions than answers, they imagine a radical solution: a super civilization must have done it. We consider this belief as an insult to the genius of mankind, as if Homo sapiens is a stupid creature and what we believe are human achievements are a fraud. The geopolymer chemistry used to build the pyramids is a very simple technology, much easier than you think. They have all ingredients at the vicinity. It is a natural evolution of a technology having its origin from mineral binders, ceramics, pigments, ores, and simple chemistries. It gives extraordinary results, yet with straightforward knowledge. It is much more complicated to make copper tools, or metallurgy in general, by selecting the right ore (there are many that look like the same), using the right process at the right time and temperature…

More pictures, drawings, details, information, videos are available at this page. Only a lengthy summary is published below.

Extended abstract of the theory with a simplify list of arguments

In his books, Why the Pharaohs built the Pyramids with Fake Stones (2009-2017), Professor Joseph Davidovits presented a theory on the pyramids’ construction: they were built by using re-agglomerated stone (a natural limestone treated like a concrete and then moulded), and not by using enormous blocks, carved and hoisted on ramps. Initially published in New York in 1988 under the title The pyramids: an enigma solved, this thesis has recently been released in several books with an important update of facts missing in the first American edition.

The theory is based on scientific analysis, archaeological elements and hieroglyphic texts as well as religious and historical aspects. Contrary to other theories that only seek a technical explanation for the Giza Plateau pyramids, and often looking only at Kheops itself and ignoring the others, his theory encompasses the building of all the pyramids of Egypt for 250 years, from the first of Zoser to those in crude bricks.

A- Theory

1. The formula and materials used:

The most important material is limestone. Analysis done by the German geochemist D.D. Klemm [1] showed that 97 to 100% of the blocks come from the soft and argillaceous limestone layer located in the Wadi, downwards the Giza Plateau. According to the Egyptologist Mr. Lehner [2], the Egyptians used a soft and crumbly limestone, unusable for hewn stones. The workmen did not choose the hard and dense limestone located near the pyramids, with rare exceptions for later restorations. The geologist L. Gauri [3] showed that this limestone is fragile, because it includes clay-like materials (in particular kaolinite clay) sensitive to water which explains the extreme softness of the Sphinx body, whereas its head, cut in the hard and dense geological layer, resisted 4000 years of erosion.

This soft argillaceous limestone, too fragile to be a hewn stone, is well adapted to agglomeration. Moreover, it naturally contains reactive geopolymeric ingredients, like kaolinitic clay, essential to manufacture the geological glue (a binder) and to ensure the geosynthesis.

It was not required to crush this stone, because it disaggregates easily with the Nile water during floods (the Wadi is filled with water at this time) to form a limestone mud. To this mud, they added reactive geological materials (mafkat, a hydrated alumina and copper silicate, overexploited at the time of Kheops in the Sinai mines) [4], Egyptian natron salt (sodium carbonate, massively present in Wadi Natrum), and lime coming from plants and wood ashes [5]. They carried this limestone mud in baskets, poured it, then packed it in moulds (made out of wood, stone, crude brick), directly on the building site. The method is identical to the pisé technique, still in use today.

This limestone, re-agglomerated by geochemical reaction, naturally hardens to form resistant blocks. The blocks thus consist of 90 to 95% of natural limestone aggregates with its fossil shells, and from 5 to 10% of geological glue (a cement known as “geopolymeric” binder) based on aluminosilicates.

2. Why do geologists see nothing?

This is due to the geological glue, which, though artificial, is seen by the geologists either as an impurity, and therefore useless to study, or as a natural binder. At best, the analysis tools and the working methods of geologists consider the glue as a perfectly natural “micritic binder”. Joseph Davidovits manufactured an artificial limestone containing 15% of synthetic binder, and submitted it to geologists who, on studying it, suspected nothing [6].

A geologist not informed of geopolymer chemistry will assert with good faith that the stones are natural.

3. The chemical formula:

The geosynthesis aims to react the kaolinite clay (naturally included in the Giza limestone) with caustic soda (see chemical formula 1). To manufacture this caustic soda, they use Egyptian natron (sodium carbonate) and lime (coming from plant ashes) (see chemical formula 2). Then, they get soda which will react with clay.

But the most interesting point is that this chemical reaction creates pure limestone as well as hydrosodalite (a mineral of the feldspathoids or zeolites family). [6]

Chemical reaction 1:
Si₂O₅,Al₂(OH)₄ + 2NaOH = > Na₂O.2SiO₂Al₂O₃.nH₂O
kaolinite clay + soda = > hydrosodalite

Chemical reaction 2:
Na₂CO₃ + Ca(OH)₂ = > 2NaOH + CaCO₃
Sodium carbonate (Egyptian natron) + lime = > soda + limestone

Summary of the re-agglomerated stone binder chemical formula:
clay + natron + lime = > feldspathoids + limestone (i.e. a natural stone)

The re-agglomerated stone binder is the result of a geosynthesis (a geopolymer), which creates two natural minerals: limestone and hydrated feldspar (feldspathoids). We understand why the geologists can easily be misled.

4. Scientific analysis:

Now that more and more scientists agree and support the theory, some have decided to carry on researches without my help and without requesting any approval from egyptologists, so in total independence from both parties.

The analysis methods used today by geologists are not relevant. They cannot make a difference between a natural and a synthetic mineral. Indeed, the molecule of a mineral is by essence always the same, whether it is natural or synthetic, otherwise it would be another molecule, so another mineral. To show the artificial nature of the material, they need to work with more powerful methods (analysis by synchrotron, transmission and electronic scan microscopy SEM TEM, Nuclear Magnetic Resonance, Paleomagnetism, Particle Induced Gamma-Ray Emission, Particle Induced X-Ray Emission, X-ray fluorescence, X-ray Diffraction). These tools are seldom used in this situation. Studies have been made, and all show that the pyramid stones are artificial. [7]

This last paleomagnetism study is simply the ultimate proof that the pyramids blocks are not natural. You may find various papers or opinions challenging the theory, but all prefer ignoring these independent analysis. Believing in the artificial stone theory, or countering it, is simply no longer relevant. It has become a fact, a truth that is still fought by some people for irrational purposes.

We can quote the following scientific papers:

• Paleomagnetic investigation of the Great Egyptian Pyramids, Igor Túnyi and Ibrahim A. El-hemaly, Europhysics News 2012, 43/6, 28-31.
• Were the casing stones of Senefru’s Bent Pyramid in Dahshour cast or carved? Multinuclear NMR evidence, Kenneth J. D. MacKenzie, M. E. Smith, A. Wong, J. V. Hanna, B. Barryand M. W. Barsoum, Mater. Lett., 2011, 65, 350.
• Microstructural Evidence of Reconstituted Limestone Blocks in the Great Pyramids of Egypt, Barsoum M.W., Ganguly A. and Hug G., J. Am. Ceram. Soc. 89[12], 3788-3796, 2006.
• The Enigma of the Construction of the Giza Pyramids Solved?, Scientific British Laboratory, Daresbury, SRS Synchrotron Radiation Source, 2004.
• PIXE, PIGE and NMR study of the masonry of the pyramid of Cheops at Giza, Guy Demortier, NUCLEAR INSTRUMENTS and METHODS in PHYSICS RESEARCH B, B 226, 98 – 109 (2004).
• X-Rays Analysis and X-Rays Diffraction of casing stones from the pyramids of Egypt, and the limestone of the associated quarries., Davidovits J., Science in Egyptology; A.R. David ed.; 1986; Proceedings of the “Science in Egyptology Symposia”; Manchester University Press, UK; pp.511-520.
• Differential thermal analysis (DTA) detection of intra-ceramic geopolymeric setting In archaeological ceramics and mortars., Davidovits J.; Courtois L., 21st Archaeometry Symposium; Brookhaven Nat. Lab., N.Y.; 1981; Abstracts P. 22.
• How Not to Analyze Pyramid Stone, Morris, M. JOURNAL OF GEOLOGICAL EDUCATION, VOL. 41, P. 364-369 (1993).
• Comment a-t-on construit les Pyramides: polémique chez les Égyptologues, HISTORIA Magazine, Paris, No 674, fév. 2003, dossier pp. 54-79 (2003).

B- The Archaeological Evidence

1. The hieroglyphic texts:

We know the Egypt of the Pharaohs quite well, thanks to its numerous steles, frescos and papyrus describing all kinds of religious, scientific, technical knowledge, the craft industry, agriculture, medicine, astronomy, and so on. However, there is not a single hieroglyphic document revealing the pyramids’ construction with carved stones, ramps, and wooden sledges. On the contrary, we find many texts showing that the ancient Egyptians had the knowledge of man-made stones:

The Famine Stele is engraved on a rock at Sehel island, close to Elephantine. It stages the god Khnum, Pharaoh Zoser and his architect Imhotep, builder of the first pyramid at Saqqarah. This inscription contains 650 hieroglyphs depicting either rocks and minerals, or their transformation processes. In column 12, we read: “With these products (mineral) they built (…) the royal tomb (the pyramid)“. In columns 18 to 20, the god Khnum gives to Zoser a list of minerals needed in the construction of these sacred monuments. This list does not mention the traditional hard and compact construction stones like limestone (ainr-hedj), monumental sandstone (ainr-rwdt) or Aswan granite (mat). By studying this text, we notice that we cannot build a pyramid or a temple with simple minerals, except if they are used to manufacture the binder of a re-agglomerated stone. [8]

The Irtysen stele (C14) at the Louvre Museum is an autobiography of the sculptor Irtysen under one of the Mentouhotep Pharaohs, eleventh dynasty (2000 B.C.). It explains the method of manufacturing synthetic stone statues (with “cast stone”). [9]

The Ti fresco, fifth dynasty (2450 front. J.-C.), illustrates the sculptors work on a wooden statue, the manufacturing of a stone statue and mixtures in vases. This fresco perfectly shows the difference between carving a statue (here in wood with hieroglyphic signs depicting the operation of carving), the fashioning of a statue (made out of synthetic stone with hieroglyphic signs representing the action “to synthesize”, “man-made”), and mixing caustic chemicals in ceramic vases to work on this statue. [10]

2. The invention of re-agglomerated stone: growth and decline of a technology

Before the first pyramid built out of stone, the ancient Egyptians constructed very imposing crude brick monuments. We find large funerary temple enclosures of the second dynasty, like the Khasekhemwy one (2,730 B.C.). Its massive wall is of crude clay bricks, therefore in a moulded material. It is generally agreed, since these bricks were worked in moulds, that their dimension must be uniform. However, this is wrong. Despite having been manufactured in moulds, the clay bricks are of approximately 5 different sizes, implying the use of several patterns. We find these differences in proportions in all pyramids. This heterogeneity gives the monuments the ability to resist earthquakes by avoiding the amplification of seismic waves.

20 years later, Zoser ordered Imhotep to build him a stone monument for eternity. The scribe Imhotep is the inventor of re-agglomerated stone (2,650 B.C.) and the architect of the first pyramid of Egypt. Instead of using crude bricks, he simply replaced the clay with a re-agglomerated limestone and kept the same method of moulding bricks. This is why the first pyramid is made in small bricks, which become bigger in dimension as the invention is better mastered. The bricks are manufactured where the stones are extracted, in the Wadi (at the east of the complex [11]) at the Nile flooding period, then carried and placed on the pyramid under construction.

Its invention, inherited from pisé and crude brick, improves with time during the pyramids’ construction at the third and fourth dynasties. Starting from the small limestone bricks at Saqqarah, the stone dimensions increase gradually. For the Meidoum and Bent pyramids, the blocks are produced in the vicinity and are moved up to the pyramid. There is always a Wadi nearby to easily disaggregate limestone with water and to prepare the mixture at the Nile flooding time.

From Sneferu’s red pyramid in Dashur, the blocks are manufactured on the spot, because the dimensions are now too large for them to be transported.

In Giza, some stones (in particular those at the Khefren temple) weigh more than 30 tons. How would they have simply carved them with soft copper tools, without wheels or pulleys?

According to Guy Demortier [12], re-agglomerating stones on the spot greatly simplifies the logistic problems. Instead of 25,000 to 100,000 workmen necessary for carving [13], he deduces that the site occupancy never exceeded 2,300 people, which confirms what the Egyptologist Mr. Lehner discovered with his excavations of the workmen’s village at Giza.

The decline of the agglomerated stone technology appears with the pyramid of Mykerinos, which represents only 7% in volume of Kheops. Why is this pyramid suddenly so small? This decline would have been caused by a sudden reduction in reactive mineral resources, like the exhaustion of the principal Sinai mines at the end of the fourth dynasty. Expeditions of B. Rothenberg [4] showed that they had extracted enormous quantities of turquoises and chrysocollas (called mafkat in Egyptian), quantities so large as to rule out their use in jewellery and decoration, as confirmed by the Egyptologist Sydney Aufrère [14].

The decline would also result from an ecological and agricultural disaster radically limiting the production of lime coming from plant ashes burned for this purpose. If we burn more than what we can produce or renew, a famine or an ecological disaster can occur. Analyzed by D.D. Klemm [15], lime, present in mortars of the third and fourth dynasties, disappears in mortars of the fifth and sixth dynasties. Indeed, the succeeding pyramids, and in particular that of Userkaf, first king of the fifth dynasty, is ridiculously small compared to Mykerinos. In the beginning, they were covered by a limestone coating which hid the bulk of natural blocks, badly worked out. This pyramid is only an uneven stone assembly covering a funerary room made, this time, out of re-agglomerated stone and protected by enormous beams of several dozen tons. Only the core of this pyramid was carefully manufactured, the remainder being botched, because the reactive materials were rare. Thus, we are in the presence of a very different system, which cannot be explained by carving stone. If the pyramids of Giza had been hewn, how can such a drop in architectural quality be explained, while stone is an abundant material? Carving would have resulted in a construction quality equivalent to those of Giza, even with pyramids more reasonable in height, but this is not the case.

With respect to a resource impoverishment, starting from the twelfth dynasty (1,990-1,780 B.C.), Pharaoh Amenemhat I and his successors built crude brick pyramids. But here also, only the funerary room is built, with great care, out of re-agglomerated stone. However, the Egyptians did not choose to carve stone for the body of the pyramids, preferring crude bricks, even though they had harder and more efficient bronze tools had they wished to use them.

We note, then, that the technology of re-agglomerated stone, after a formidable rise, a perfect mastery of the process, an intense exploitation of its resources, went on to  an extremely rapid architectural decline. A mining exhaustion of the chemical reagent resources, and an ecological and agricultural disaster explain this decline. [16] [17]

3. Religious context:

Why did they maintain this need to build out of agglomerated stone or to preserve the agglomeration system, while they could carve stone?

For ancient Egyptians, stone had a sacred quality, used only for religious purposes, that prohibited its use for secular buildings (built rather out of crude bricks, clay and wood, never out of stone). It is only under the Ptolemys, 2,000 years after the pyramids, that stone became a trivial building material. The reasons for this distinction come from religion.

Egyptian civilization lasted more than 3,000 years and, contrary to what the general public thinks, it was not homogeneous. Thus, there are 2 geneses explaining the creation of the World; two distinct gods claim the creation of the World and man: Khnum and Amon.

The god Khnum was worshipped during the Old and Middle Kingdoms (3,000 to 1,800 B.C.). He is depicted as a man with a ram’s head and horizontal horns. He personalizes the nutritious Nile, and at Elephantine, Thebes, Heracleopolis, Memphis, he is the god of creation. In the act of creation, he “kneads” humanity on his potter’s wheel with the Nile silt and other minerals (mafkat, natron) as in the Biblical and Koranic genesis. This does not give an unspecified clay, but a stone called “ka”, i.e. the soul that is not spirit, but eternal stone. Khnum and all the divine incarnations of Râ appear by the act of manufacturing stone. His hieroglyphic sign is a hard stone vase like those of the Nagadean era (3,500 to 3,000 B.C.). Thus, under the Old Kingdom, the purpose of the agglomeration act was to reproduce the divine intervention at the time of the creation of the World and the human soul.

For the two main Pharaohs of the Old Kingdom, Zoser and Kheops, the relationship with Khnum is proven by archaeological discoveries (cf. the Famine Stele). Also, the true name of Kheops is Khnum-Khufu (may the god Khnum protect Kheops). Would Kheops have attached his name to an inferior god? No, Khnum is a major god. It is simply the perception of the Egyptian Pantheon which is not correct.

Amon is the second god of creation. In the beginning, he was only an average god. He became a dynastic god in the twelfth dynasty (1,800 B.C.), but he was not yet the god of creation, this role still being the privilege of Khnum. Then, he became the “king of the gods” and the priests gave him the ability to create the world. In the genesis myth, Amon is identified as a sacred mountain and he “carves” each human being in a part of himself, i.e. in this sacred mountain. Amon and all the divine incarnations of Amon-Râ appear by the act of carving stone, and are at the origin of the New Kingdom monuments, like those of Ramses II, 1,300 years after the pyramids.

Thus, we understand why the tombs were no longer under pyramids, symbols of agglomeration, but under a sacred mountain, the Valley of the Kings, symbol of Amon. In the same way, the temples are built out of stone hewn with great care and the obelisks are called “Amon’s fingers”. During the Old Kingdom, where the name of Khnum (“the one who binds”) is in the complete name of Kheops (Khnum-Khufu), the name of Amon (“the one who is hidden”) is found in the New Kingdom Pharaohs’ names like Amenhotep.

Arguments against the carving theory

Here are arguments presented by the partisans of carving to show that this technique was in use at the pyramids’ time. However, these evidence are anachronous; they date from the Middle to the New Kingdom, in times when the stone was hewn, and not from the Old Kingdom, the time of the pyramids.

The extraction of blocks would have been possible by means of wooden dowels that, once in place, were wetted to cleave the stone. However, D.D. Klemm shows that the Romans only used this primitive technique very late on. Each period left distinct patterns of cut traces in quarries, thus making it possible to date them, except at the time of the pyramids, when no trace remains. [18]

The bas-relief of Djehutihotep illustrates the transport of a colossal statue on a sledge [19]. In the same way, R. Stadelman discovered that Amenemhat II workmen had stolen stones on sledges from the Sneferu pyramid, used as a vulgar quarry. These two events took place under the twelfth dynasty (1,800 B.C.), that is 700 years after the construction of the pyramids.

The Tura stele depicts a stone block dragged on a sledge by oxen [20]. It does not constitute a proof because once again, it goes back to approximately 1,000 years after the construction of the pyramids.

The Rekhmire fresco presents the work of masons setting up blocks with bronze tools. But these new tools were unknown to pyramid builders 1,300 years earlier.

Any ramps would have been made out of crude clay bricks, several kilometres in length (in straight or spiral lines, with the attendant problem of turning corners), representing a considerable amount of material. Each team would have sprinkled the ground with water to ease the motion of the sledge. But the action of water would have transformed the ramp into a soapy and very slippery path. After several teams had passed by, it would have been transformed into mud where sledges and hauler would be stuck!

There is no official theory of carving, hauling blocks on sledges and ramps. There are approximately twenty or so that propose various solutions. These theories are not based on hieroglyphic texts, do not match the technology found on archaeological sites, and do not take into account the historical and religious environment. These theories are essentially focused on the pyramid of Kheops, the most remarkable one, but not on the pyramids that precede or follow it, and even less on those made out of crude brick.

Notes and references

[1] Klemm, Steine und Steinbrüche in Alten Ägypten, Springer Verlag Berlin Heidelberg, 1993.
[2] M. Lehner, The Development of the Giza Necropolis: The Khufu project, Mitteilungun des Deutschen Institutes, Abteilung Kairo, 41, p. 149, 1985.
[3] L. Gauri, Geological study of the Sphinx, Newsletter American Research Center in Egypt, No 127, pp. 24-43, 1984.
[4] B. Rothenberg, Sinai exploration 1967-1972, Bulletin, Museum Haaretz Tel Aviv, 1972, p. 35
[5] J. Davidovits, Ils ont bâti les pyramides, éd. J-C Godefroy, Paris, 2002, pp. 161-162, 307-311
[6] J. Davidovits, La nouvelle histoire des pyramides, éd. J-C Godefroy, Paris, 2004, pp. 57-58 et 72
[7] See ref. [5] and [6] for comprehensive bibliographics notes and debates with geologists.
[8] Pyramid Man-Made Stone, Myths or Facts, III. The Famine Stela Provides the Hieroglyphic Names of Chemicals and Minerals Involved in the Construction , Davidovits J., 5th Int. Congress of Egyptology, Cairo, Egypt, 1988; Egyptian Antiquities Organization; EGY; 1988; pp. 57-58 in Résumés des Communications. See also ref. [5] and [6].
[9] J. Davidovits, Ils ont bâti les pyramides, éd. J-C Godefroy, Paris, 2002, pp. 229-236
[10] J. Davidovits, La nouvelle histoire des pyramides, éd. J-C Godefroy, Paris, 2004, pp. 145-150
[11] M. Lehner, The Complete Pyramids, Thames and Hudson, 1997, p. 83
[12] G. Demortier, La construction de la pyramide de Khéops, Revue des questions scientifiques, Bruxelles, 2004, Tome 175, p. 341-382
[13] M. Lehner, The Complete Pyramids, Thames and Hudson, 1997, p. 224
[14] Sydney Aufrère, L’univers minéral dans la pensée égyptienne, IFAO, Le Caire, 1991, Volume 2, p. 494
[15] D.D. Klemm and R. Klemm, Mortar evolution in the old kingdom of Egypt, Archaeometry ’90, Birkhaüser Verlag, Basel, Suisse, 1990, pp. 445-454
[16] J. Davidovits, Ils ont bâti les pyramides, éd. J-C Godefroy, Paris, 2002, pp. 297-328
[17] J. Davidovits, La nouvelle histoire des pyramides, éd. J-C Godefroy, Paris, 2004, pp. 207-228
[18] Klemm, The archaeological map of Gebel el Silsila, 2nd Int. Congress of Egyptologists, Grenoble, 1979, Session 05.
[19] J. P. Adam, l’Archéologie devant l’imposture, éd. Robert Laffont, Paris, 1975, p. 158
[20] Vyze-Perring, The Pyramids of Gizeh, Vol. III, p. 99

Webinar Spring 2016

This free webinar covers various aspects of the geopolymer science and applications. Yet, you will find a focus on geopolymer cement and concrete to celebrate its successful commercialization that raises a great interest all over the world.
Professor Joseph Davidovits spans a broad spectrum of valuable knowledge in this 2¼ hours video by reviewing the following topics:

1. Geopolymer definitions.
2. Real world and successful applications and commercialization.
3. Heat and fire-resistant geopolymer.
4. Why did it take 30 years to commercialize geopolymer cement?
5. Alkali Activated Materials are not Polymers, so they cannot be used as synonyms for Geo-Polymers!
6. The “good” geopolymer terminology and why using it opens its understanding.
7. Principles of geopolymer technologies (it is first a real “polymer”).
8. Fly ash-based geopolymer concrete: how to make a good one.
9. The 6 basic rules in geopolymer processing.
10. False CO2 emissions calculations.

2h15, 265 MB. Click on the icon on the right to watch it fullscreen.

Webinar Spring 2014: Talk 1 and Talk 2.

These are live recording videos. They constitute genuine tools for those of you who want to learn and increase their knowledge in Geopolymer Science and Technology.

Talk 1/Part 1 – Applications and commercializations

24 minutes. Click on the icon on the right to watch it fullscreen.

Talk 1/Part 2 – What is a geopolymer ?

15 minutes. Click on the icon on the right to watch it fullscreen.

Talk 1/Part 3 – The 6 basic rules in geopolymer processing

33 minutes. Click on the icon on the right to watch it fullscreen.

Talk 1/Part 4 – Geopolymer science and egyptian pyramids

25 minutes. Click on the icon on the right to watch it fullscreen.

Talk 2/Part 5 – Principles of alumino-silicate geopolymer

29 minutes. Click on the icon on the right to watch it fullscreen.

Talk 2/Part 6 – Heat- and fire-resistant geopolymer

12 minutes. Click on the icon on the right to watch it fullscreen.

Talk 2/Part 7 – Fly ashed-based geopolymer (10 min.)

10 minutes. Click on the icon on the right to watch it fullscreen.

Talk 2/Part 8 – Durability tests

9 minutes. Click on the icon on the right to watch it fullscreen.

Talk 2/Part 9 – Geopolymer cement standards / low CO₂

12 minutes. Click on the icon on the right to watch it fullscreen.

Talk 2/Part 10 – Geopolymer science and roman cement

12 minutes. Click on the icon on the right to watch it fullscreen.

FREE download of Chapter 1 of the book “Why the pharaohs built the Pyramids with fake stones” which includes the extended abstract of the theory from an official Press Kit. You can buy the book in hard cover or ebook here:  Book: Why the pharaohs built the Pyramids with fake stones.

Click here to see how you can download paper number I.

Recorded Videos of the Free Geopolymer Webinar Spring 2014: Talk 1 and Talk 2, April 8-9, 2014.

We had a strong attendance (ca. 215 registered participants split between the two daily sessions, see map below).

These are live recording videos. They constitute genuine tools for those of you who want to learn and increase their knowledge in Geopolymer Science and Technology.

Webinar 2014 Talk 1/Part 1 – Applications and commercializations (24 min.)

Webinar 2014 Talk 1/Part 2 – What is a geopolymer ? (15 min.)

Webinar 2014 Talk 1/Part 3 – The 6 basic rules of geopolymer processing (33 min.)

Webinar 2014 Part 4 – Geopolymer science and egyptian pyramids (25 min.)

Webinar 2014 Talk 2/Part 5 – Principles of alumino-silicate geopolymer (29 min.)

Webinar 2014 Talk 2/Part 6 – Heat- and fire-resistant geopolymer (12 min.)

Webinar 2014 Talk 2/Part 7 – Fly ashed-based geopolymer (10 min.)

Webinar 2014 Talk 2/Part 8 – Durability tests (9 min.)

Webinar 2014 Talk 2/Part 9 – Geopolymer cement standards / low CO₂ (12 min.)

Webinar 2014 Talk 2/Part 10 – Geopolymer science and roman cement (12 min.)

Join Professor Joseph Davidovits and listen to the Free Geopolymer WEBINAR Spring 2014 (free Web Workshop), April 8-9, 2014, a 2-day talk of 2 hours including 3-4 breaks with Q&A that will cover:

• The impact of geopolymer on your R&D projects, university research, product marketing or industrial practices.
• The fundamental principles and concept of geopolymer science and technology (geopolymer resins, binders and cements, high-tech composites, fire- and heat-resistance materials);
• The major impact of geopolymer chemistry on our global economy in terms of low-energy and low-CO2 production technologies: geopolymer cements, geopolymer ceramics, eco-building, LTGS bricks;

LANGUAGE IS ENGLISH. Each talk is designed in order to encourage fruitful discussions between Prof. Joseph Davidovits (3-4 breaks with Q&A).

During the webinar, we plan 2 sessions for the same day with the same talk and content but with a different time. It will help to connect with people around the world with different time zones. If you have any doubt for the time and date for your country, visit a time zone converter website like this one: thetimenow.com

April 8, 2014: first day, 2 hour talk

• Session 1: 07:00 UTC+0 (GMT) for Europe, Africa, Asia (09:00 Paris-Berlin time, 12:30 India, 15:00 China, 15:00 Perth, 19:00 Auckland),
• Session 2: 16:00 UTC+0 (GMT) for Europe and Americas (18:00 Paris-Berlin time, 13:00 Brazil, 12:00 New York, 09:00 Los Angeles).

April 9, 2014: second day, 2 hour talk

• Session 1: 07:00 UTC+0 (GMT) for Europe, Africa, Asia (09:00 Paris-Berlin time, 12:30 India, 15:00 China, 15:00 Perth, 19:00 Auckland),
• Session 2: 16:00 UTC+0 (GMT) for Europe and Americas (18:00 Paris-Berlin time, 13:00 Brazil, 12:00 New York, 09:00 Los Angeles).

Outline of the talk:
The talk shows how the development of the geopolymer science concept was governed by the need to solve global technological problems in the industrial fields of extractive minerals, ceramics, cements, building materials, decorative stones and restoration works, fire and heat resistant composites, high-tech composites for aerospace, aircraft, naval and automobile, radioactive and toxic waste containment, thermal insulation. 
It further provides a clear distinction between geopolymer and alkali-activated materials and highlights some historical milestones.
 Upon completion of this presentation, you will be able to make a clear cut between geopolymer technologies and low-tech/alkali-activated systems.

Who shall attend?
Students, scientists, researchers, engineers from public and private organizations, curious or long-term experienced people in their fields of expertise, professionals involved in a wide range of development, including managers, finance specialists, R&D, marketing, business decision makers, technology and products development specialists, etc.

Technical requirements: We will use the GoToWebinar system from Citrix working with many computers (PC, Mac, iOS or Android App), including a fast internet connection, a web browser and the GoToMeeting application that you must install in your computer or your mobile/tablet device. For more information, please verify that you meet the systems requirements for Citrix  GoToMeeting. Before joining the meeting from the e-mail invitation, please join a test meeting to confirm that you are able to successfully join a meeting.

Register Now:

Do not wait to register. You will immediately receive an e-mail with all the details and a personal link to connect to the webinar. More, you will receive 3 reminders by e-mail, one week, one day and one hour before the beginning of each session.

If you have any doubt for the time and date for your country, visit a time zone converter website like this one: thetimenow.com

Privacy statement:

We’ll use this information to keep you informed once or twice a year about news or other plans provided by the Geopolymer Institute, and to gather demographic data yielding visitors statistics. Any information gathered using this form will not be given, sold or traded to anyone outside of the Geopolymer Institute for any reason.
We consider all messages received as confidential because they may contain information that is privileged and exempt from disclosure. We will not transmit to third parties your e-mail address. According to the French law (art. 34 of the law “Informatique et Libertés” ( Computer and Liberty ) 6-jan-1978), you have the right to access, edit, modify and delete all data concerning you. To apply this right, please write us.

It was obvious that this type of test would provide favorable or unfavorable answers. However, as with all other analyzes, J. Davidovits felt that he should not do them himself. He therefore waited for geological physicists specialized in this discipline to grasp the question for themselves and undertake an experiment. It took a long time, because none of the “experts” at the outset wanted, or could not, undertake this study. Advisers are never the payers. This is true here. This was done in 2012 with the scientyific publication by Túnyi and El-Hemaly in the international scientific journal Europhysics News , under the title Paleomagnetic investigation of the Pyramids . These two geophysicists made a paleomagnetic study of the stones of the pyramids of Cheops and Khephren to determine whether the theory of artificial geopolymer limestone was valid or not. See in: Igor Túnyi et Ibrahim A. El-hemaly, (2012), Paleomagnetic investigation of the great egyptian pyramids, Europhysics News 43/6, 28-31.

They had read, 3 years ago, in this same journal, an article written by Guy Demortier, himself a member of the European Physical Society. His article was entitled “Revisiting the Construction of Egyptian Pyramids”, Europhysic News , 40/7, 07. Igor Túnyi is a geophysicist and paleomagnetist at the Geophysical Institute of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava, Slovakia (he died recently after a long illness). Ibrahim A. El-hemaly is a geophysicist at the National Research Institute of Astronomy and Geophysics, in Cairo. They took samples from Cheops and Khephren and other samples were taken from the quarries of Mokattan and Helwan, for comparison. The figure shows the location of the samples. As the article did not contain photos, J. Davidovits linked these sampling sites with photographs taken from his collection.

We have :

Nr 1: south-eastern corner of Khephren; it corresponds to the huge individual blocks of the base.
Nr 2: southwest corner; individual block identical to those located above the terraces, on the 6th step.
Nr 3: one of the 5 terraces cut in the geological layer.
Nr 4: sample taken from the front of the trench of the geological layer.
Nr 5: individual block identical to the blocks of Cheops, but on the east side.
Nr 6: to the east, south side, individual block (no photo).
Nr 7: to the south, east side, rest of the geological limestone substratum (no photo).

The samples Nr 3, Nr 4 and Nr 7 are assigned to a geological limestone dating from the Eocene (30 million years). The picture shows that samples Nr 1, Nr 2, and Nr 5 have magnetic polarization in the south-north direction. Therefore, these samples are artificial (man-made). Block Nr 6 is not clearly defined. It could be an individual block of geopolymer limestone that has been moved. It shows an orientation opposite to that of sample Nr 5, namely a rotation along the north-south axis.

In his book “Why the Pharaohs built the Pyramids with Fake Stones“, Professor Davidovits has clearly shown the location of the natural limestone blocks and terraces (see essentially the Circuit of the Pyramid Plateau at Giza, Egypt, pages 233-262). For example, we know that in the pyramid of Khefren, more than a quarter of the volume of the pyramid is natural stone, namely the terraces carved in the inclined limestone plateau and which constitute the first 5 layers of the pyramid. The book is available at the Geopolymer SHOP and www.amazon.com

Go to his private internet site at
Merneptah Stele Forgery

Divine incarnation in carved stone became the rule under the New Kingdom around 1400-1200 B.C. and the hegemony of the god Amun. The soft sandstone from the Silsilis quarries, used for in the great temples at Karnak and Luxor, is so easy to carve that everything appears simple. So why should there be any controversy about the monuments and objects dating from this period? Because some are made out of an extreme hard material: quartzite!

It is true that 1300 years after the great pyramids, agglomerated stone, geopolymer stone was again being used, albeit sporadically, under the domination of Amun. After all these years, the worship of the god Khnum and initiation into his mysterious technology had not been forgotten. The greatest Egyptian scientist-architect-scribe, Amenophis Son of Hapu (1437-1356 B.C.), eminence grise of the pharaoh Amenhotep III, XVIIIth Dynasty, re-introduced it and used his alchemical (geopolymer) knowledge to build amazing statues made out of quartzite with geosynthesis and geopolymerisation. And the heretical king Akhenaton, son of Amenhotep III, did the same in order to rival the supremacy of Amun by forbidding carved granite stone.

The Colosses of Memnon, with Joseph Davidovits in the foreground (1979).

The clues for geosynthesis (geopolymerization), artificial quartzite stone

Geologists fail to agree between themselves in determining the origin of the quartzite stone used to the famous colosses. To summarise, French and German archaeologists/geologists claim that the Colosses of Memnon were sculpted in a quarry 70 km further south down the Nile and that they were brought up by boat. Other British and American researchers propose an even more extraordinary exploit. According to them, the statues were carved, then transported upstream on the Nile from a place 700 km downstream near to Cairo. Each team of scientists uses more and more sophisticated methods in pursuing their research, including atomic absorption, x-ray fluorescence and neutron activation. When applied to the most enigmatic of Egyptian monuments, these new techniques shed more confusion than light.

In Antiquity, the statues commanded respect; the colosses of Memnon are monoliths: they are made from a single block of stone weighing nearly 1000 tonnes and standing on a pedestal of 550 tonnes. They are 20 metres high, equal to a seven storey building. The stone from which they are made is quartzite, which is practically impossible to carve. The members of the Egyptian expedition organised by Bonaparte at the beginning of the nineteenth century recorded several notes on the stages and on the Egyptian quartzite quarries. Thus we can read in La Description de l’Égypte :

“None of the great quartzite blocks bear any trace of tools that is so common in the sandstone and granite quarries: a material that is so hard, so refractory in the face of sharp tools cannot, it is true, be worked by the same methods as ordinary sandstone nor even of granite. We know nothing of how the blocks of such a rock were squared, how their surfaces were dressed or how they were given the beautiful polish that can still be seen in some places; but though we cannot guess the means, we are no less obliged to admire the results. There is nothing that can give a better idea of the highest state of advancement of the mechanical arts in antiquity as the beautiful execution of these figures and the pure lines of the hieroglyphs engraved in this material, harder and more difficult to work than granite. The Egyptians recoiled in front of none of these difficulties; nothing seemed to hinder them; the working is free throughout. Did the sculptor, in the middle of engraving a hieroglyphic character, strike one of the flints or pieces of agate that are encrusted in the material, the line of the character continued in all its purity, and neither the agate nor its enveloping stone bear the slightest crack.”

The consequences of this last observation are very important. What is the technology that could enable hieroglyphs to be engraved in this way? The Pharaoh Amenhotep III puts these statues down to a “miracle”. Later on, in hieroglyphic documents, the stone is designated as “biat inr”, which means “stone obtained after a miracle”. To what miraculous technology is Amenhotep alluding?
Once we accept the geopolymerization technique we can understand how Amenophis Son of Hapu, was able to make this quartzite rock and cast to the colosses of Memnon, these enormous statues more than seven storeys high. With the technique of geopolymer stone, we can also explain the controversy surrounding the different interpretations of the analysis results obtained by various scientific teams.

On his biographical statue at Karnak, Royal scribe Amenophis (1350 BC) describes the building of these colossal statues by the technique of agglomeration (geopolymer stone) “as bread is made” using a box (a mould) specially made by his workers. Here are lines 16 and 17 of his biographical inscription, in a translation by Joseph Davidovits, which differs from that of egyptologists (see Inscriptions), because they were unable to interpret the technical key-words:

“My master (the Pharaoh Amenhotep III) appointed me head of all works. I have not imitated what was done before me. I created a miraculous quartzite hill a gift of Tum, made by myself with love and intelligence, mastering his copy in the great temple with all minerals like the making of bread. Nobody before me has done such a thing, since the founding of the Two Earths. I have carried out work to make statues of great girth and taller than the colonnade, finer than the pylon 40 cubits tall; this magnificent mountain of miraculous quartzite is near Re-Tum. I had a vessel of 8 built and I had it ascend the Nile to set its image (its statue) in its great temple, according to our calculations (with the technology), as for the making of bread. Here is what I testify to those who come after us. An entire team built a single box (mould) of ingenious design. They fashioned (the statues) with the lightness of their heart, without hesitation, then worshipped the perfect image of the god (pharaoh) thus created. Then came those of Thebes, rejoicing in the colossal statues and satisfied that they would stand for all eternity.”

New translation by Joseph Davidovits (technical keywords are underlined).

Egyptologists translate the technical key-words “making of bread” involving the word “pet” into “enduring like the heavens”, which means nothing (see the traditional translation by egyptologists in Inscriptions). The bread making technology refers to the use of a pasty material that would be worked out like dough to produce geopolymer stone. These key-words are thoroughly discussed in my last book, only available in French so far.

The greatest Egyptian scientist is the biblical Patriarch Joseph.

Professor Joseph Davidovits is presenting his 5th book on the Egyptian civilization, here in connection with the Bible, published by Éditions Jean-Cyrille Godefroy, Paris.

Released on: 29 september 2009

In 1935 in Karnak, in Egypt, two French Egyptologists discover a fresco in the ruins of the memorial temple of Amenophis Son of Hapu, the most eminent scribe and scientist of ancient Egypt, Great chancellor of the Pharaon Amenhotep III, father of the monotheist Pharaon Akhenaton. Recently, 75 years later, Joseph Davidovits noted that the text of this fresco was reproduced word for word in the Bible, Genesis 41, when Pharaon installs the biblical Patriarch Joseph to rule over all Egypt. Royal scribe Amenophis Son of Hapu and the Patriarch Joseph are thus the same person. Moreover, the fresco contains a surprising detail which underlines its authenticity. Indeed, in Genesis 41, Pharaon names Joseph: çaphenat-paneah (sapnath-panéakh), a name which does not mean anything in Hebrew. Indeed, Joseph Davidovits discovered that çaphenat-paneah is the Egyptian name Amenophis Fils of Hapou, written reversely, from left to right, the hebrew language being written from right to left. The surprising detail in the fresco is that, precisely, the Egyptian name Amenophis is also written in hieroglyph reversely, from left to right, instead of from right to left like the rest of the text. There is thus absolute agreement between the fresco text and the Bible.

To read more go to The lost fresco and the Bible.
For those who speak and understand French we recommend the following video at Video-Amenophis.

30 years after the best seller book: The Pyramids: an enigma solved,
after 30 years of new research, and new discoveries,
you will understand why the theory is more alive than ever, why more and more scientists agree, simply because it is the truth.

Buy your copy of the book at The Geopolymer Shop
in hardcover or eBook (ePub and Mobi Kindle formats)

In this book, Professor Joseph Davidovits explains the intriguing theory that made him famous. He shows how the Pyramids were built by using re-agglomerated stone (a natural limestone treated like a concrete), and not with huge carved blocks, hauled on fragile ramps. Archaeology bears him out, as well as hieroglyphic texts, scientific analysis, religious and historical facts.

Here we finally have the first complete presentation on how the Egyptian pyramids were built. We discover its brilliant creator, the great scribe and architect, Imhotep. Joseph Davidovits sweeps aside the conventional image which cripples Egyptology and delivers a captivating and surprising view of Egyptian civilisation. He charts the rise of this technology, its apogee with the Pyramids at Giza, and the decline. Everything is logical and brilliant, everything fits into place.

Chapter by chapter, the revelations are sensational, especially when Joseph Davidovits explains why the pharaohs stopped building great pyramids because of an over-exploitation of raw materials and a likely environmental disaster. We understand why Kheops and Ramses II represent two Egyptian civilisations completely different in their beliefs. On the one hand, the God Khnum mandates Kheops to build his pyramid in agglomerated stone, while on the other hand, the God Amun orders Ramses to carve stone for the temples of Luxor and Karnak.

Why geologists see nothing?

Joseph Davidovits explains how to analyze the pyramid limestones and why geologists see nothing. He demonstrates that a thin section is not the right method to detect artificial stone.
Excerpt from his video conference “Building the Pyramids of Egypt with Fake Stones”.

FREE DOWNLOAD of Chapter 1 of “Why the pharaohs built the Pyramids with fake stones” + the extended abstract of the theory, from an official Press Kit. (574 KB in PDF format).

The book holds:

• 288 pages
• 26 chapters
• 2 appendixes (including answers to opponents)
• 213 figures and pictures
• Available in harcover or eBook (ePub and Mobi Kindle formats)

ISBN: 9782951482043

Buy your copy of the book at The Geopolymer Shop
in hardcover or eBook (ePub and Mobi Kindle formats)

30 years after the best seller book: The Pyramids: an enigma solved,
after 30 years of new research, and new discoveries,
you will understand why the theory is more alive than ever, why more and more scientists agree, simply because it is the truth.

Buy your copy of the book at The Geopolymer Shop
in hardcover or eBook (ePub and Mobi Kindle formats)

In this book, Professor Joseph Davidovits explains the intriguing theory that made him famous. He shows how the Pyramids were built by using re-agglomerated stone (a natural limestone treated like a concrete), and not with huge carved blocks, hauled on fragile ramps. Archaeology bears him out, as well as hieroglyphic texts, scientific analysis, religious and historical facts.

Here we finally have the first complete presentation on how the Egyptian pyramids were built. We discover its brilliant creator, the great scribe and architect, Imhotep. Joseph Davidovits sweeps aside the conventional image which cripples Egyptology and delivers a captivating and surprising view of Egyptian civilisation. He charts the rise of this technology, its apogee with the Pyramids at Giza, and the decline. Everything is logical and brilliant, everything fits into place.

Chapter by chapter, the revelations are sensational, especially when Joseph Davidovits explains why the pharaohs stopped building great pyramids because of an over-exploitation of raw materials and a likely environmental disaster. We understand why Kheops and Ramses II represent two Egyptian civilisations completely different in their beliefs. On the one hand, the God Khnum mandates Kheops to build his pyramid in agglomerated stone, while on the other hand, the God Amun orders Ramses to carve stone for the temples of Luxor and Karnak.

If you want to know how the knowledge evolved after the Pyramids click on Colosses of Memnon

Why geologists see nothing?

Joseph Davidovits explains how to analyze the pyramid limestones and why geologists see nothing. He demonstrates that a thin section is not the right method to detect artificial stone.
Excerpt from his video conference “Building the Pyramids of Egypt with Fake Stones”.

FREE DOWNLOAD of Chapter 1 of “Why the pharaohs built the Pyramids with fake stones” + the extended abstract of the theory, from an official Press Kit. (574 KB in PDF format).

The book holds:

• 288 pages
• 26 chapters
• 2 appendixes (including answers to opponents)
• 213 figures and pictures
• Available in hardcover or eBook (ePub and Mobi Kindle formats)

ISBN: 9782951482043

Buy your copy of the book at The Geopolymer Shop
in hardcover or eBook (ePub and Mobi Kindle formats)

Go to the Boston Globe article of April 22, 2008 titled
A new angle on pyramids
Scientists explore whether Egyptians used concrete

Materials Science: Concrete evidence

J. Am. Ceram. Soc. 89, 3788–3796 (2006)

Some of the massive blocks making up the great pyramids of Giza in Egypt (pictured) are not limestone, but a synthetic mix like concrete, argue materials scientists.

The paper by Michel Barsoum of Drexel University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and his colleagues is the latest entry in a decades-long argument. Most Egyptologists reject the idea, put forth in the mid-1980s by French chemist Joseph Davidovits, that the pyramids contain concrete.

Barsoum’s team took a fresh look at 15 samples using scanning- and transmission-electron microscopes. The samples contain ratios of elements, such as calcium and magnesium, that do not exist in nearby limestone. The imaging also revealed regions of amorphous structure. Both observations suggest that other substances were added to make a concrete mix, say the authors.

The references of this paper are :

Barsoum, M. W., Ganguly, A. & Hug, G. (2006), Microstructural Evidence of Reconstituted Limestone Blocks in the Great Pyramids of Egypt. Journal of the American Ceramic Society 89 (12), 3788- 3796.

You may access the J. Amer. Ceram. Society on line site

Abstract:
Microstructural Evidence of Reconstituted Limestone Blocks in the Great Pyramids of Egypt
M. W. Barsoum (1), A. Ganguly (1) and G. Hug (2)
How the Great Pyramids of Giza were built has remained an enduring mystery. In the mid-1980s, Joseph Davidovits proposed that the pyramids were cast in situ using granular limestone aggregate and an alkali alumino-silicate-based binder. Hard evidence for this idea, however, remained elusive. Using primarily scanning and transmission electron microscopy, we compared a number of pyramid limestone samples with six different limestone samples from their vicinity. The pyramid samples contained microconstituents (μc’s) with appreciable amounts of Si in combination with elements, such as Ca and Mg, in ratios that do not exist in any of the potential limestone sources. The intimate proximity of the μc’s suggests that at some time these elements had been together in a solution. Furthermore, between the natural limestone aggregates, the μc’s with chemistries reminiscent of calcite and dolomite—not known to hydrate in nature—were hydrated. The ubiquity of Si and the presence of submicron silica-based spheres in some of the micrographs strongly suggest that the solution was basic. Transmission electron microscope confirmed that some of these Si-containing μc’s were either amorphous or nanocrystalline, which is consistent with a relatively rapid precipitation reaction. The sophistication and endurance of this ancient concrete technology is simply astounding.
(J. Davidovits, concrete, agglomerated limestone, re-agglomerated, man-made, artificial stone, geopolymer, pyramid)

(1) Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Drexel University, Philadelphia,Pennsylvania 19104 (USA)
(2) LEM ONERA-CNRS, Châtillon, Cedex, France

For further information:

• Geopolymer Institute: Pyramid artificial stone
• Drexel University: PyramidPresentation

Buy your book at Why the pharaohs built the Pyramids with fake stones

Pyramids (1) Are Pyramids Made Out of Concrete?
Pyramids (2) The evidences
Pyramids (3) The formula, the invention of stone
Pyramids (4) Videos and book
Pyramids (5) FAQ for artificial stone supporters
Pyramids (6) Deep misleading publications by geologists

Download an abstract of the theory or buy the book

FREE DOWNLOAD of Chapter 1 of “Why the pharaohs built the Pyramids with fake stones” + the extended abstract of the theory, from an official Press Kit. (574 KB in PDF format). See also Joseph Davidovits’  Book: Why the pharaohs built the Pyramids with fake stones 

Watch a FREE video conference “Building the Pyramids of Egypt with Fake Stones” by Joseph Davidovits, duration 1 hour 20 minutes.

(1) The pyramids stones are man-made (synthetic, artificial), Cast in molds

Latest on NOVA mini-pyramid documentary “This Old Pyramid”. To learn about the swindle go to Mini-Pyramid NOVA swindle

If you want to know how the knowledge evolved after the Pyramids click on Colosses of Memnon

Paleomagnetism study supports the man-made stone concept. Go to Paleomagnetism study.

The Pyramids at Giza have more than 5 million blocks of limestone, until now believed to be CARVED stones, new evidences shows they were CAST with agglomerated limestone concrete.

The website reveals how Ancient Egyptians built the pyramids using man-made stones, which look exactly like natural rocks. The limestone blocks were cast in situ, employing an advanced technology that was later lost, leaving a puzzle hidden for thousands of years inside the pyramid stones. This theory undoubtedly shed an amazing new light on what really happened in Egypt in that remote era.

The scientific background, including analysis, formula, stone making, are disclosed in the recently updated book by Prof. Joseph Davidovits Geopolymer Chemistry & Applications, in several chapters, i.e. Chapters 5, 11, 13, 17 and 20.

If you want to know how the knowledge evolved after the Pyramids click on Colosses of Memnon

Chancellor and Architect of Pharaoh Djoser:

Imhotep making a stone

HIGH PRIEST IMHOTEP INVENTED THE CHEMICAL FORMULA 5000 YEARS AGO.

Designer and builder of the FIRST PYRAMID in history, the Step Pyramid at Sakkara…

A French Scientist Solved the Pyramid Enigma:

Prof. Davidovits examining limestone blocks

Prof. JOSEPH DAVIDOVITS , scientist, REDISCOVERS ANCIENT EGYPTIAN ARI-KAT TECHNOLOGY.

A twelve-tonne replica of a pyramid limestone block was cast at the GEOPOLYMER INSTITUTE in Saint Quentin, France.

In this section: CG pictures, some pictures and texts after Relevant Television.

Impossible to carve stone, part 1

3D recreation of carved stones hauled using ramps.

Generations of school children the world over have been asked to imagine vast teams of Egyptian workers carving the stones, hauling them to the site of the pyramid and hoisting them up until each one was placed in its exact position. But, how could this have been done?
The Great Pyramid of Kheops is comprised of about 2.5 million blocks, most weigh two tons and could have been hauled by no less than sixty men. But some weigh up to seventy tons and these are to be found, not at the base of the pyramid, but some forty meters high. Since the ancient Egyptians did not yet have the wheel, they would have needed more than two thousand men to haul each block.

How could this pyramid have been erected in the 20-year reign of Pharaoh Kheops? To accomplish the task, at least 400 blocks per day would have had to be put in position as from the first day of the pharaoh’s accession to the throne.

Hundreds of thousands of men would have been working simultaneously – squeezed shoulder to shoulder in the space of a single block in a modern city. But this would not been feasible. In such conditions the men would not have been able to budge.

How could the Ancient Egyptians have cut these stones, which are extremely hard, with only the most primitive of tools?. At best they would have been able to use copper saws, and copper is a softish metal, incapable of hewing the hard limestone blocks from which the early pyramids are constructed.

How was it possible to transport the large stones when the wheel had not yet been invented and there were no pulleys to hoist them into the air?
If the stones were carved, as most people believe, where are the fragments of broken stone left over ? Limestone frequently splits on being cut. 5 million tons of limestone blocks must have produced millions of broken blocks and fragments. Yet, not a trace of them has ever been found.

How could a civilization without hard metals have carved the millions of blocks of the Great Pyramid to ten different and exactly-calculated lengths in order to set them in patterns throughout the whole structure to eliminate the formation of vertical joints?

How could these joints between adjacent blocks be achieved so perfectly? The joints between millions of blocks, vertically and horizontally are not more that 2 mm wide. How were the blocks cut and leveled without motor-driven machinery or diamond drills?

The answer has at last been found, and it totally contradicts the stone-carving theories. The pyramids were cast in situ. Curiously enough, that explanation had been there always, waiting to be discovered by examining the mysterious stones from which the pyramids were built.

Since the early eighties, Prof. Joseph Davidovits is proposing that the pyramids and temples of Old Kingdom Egypt were constructed using agglomerated limestone, rather than quarried and hoisted blocks of natural limestone. This type of fossil-shell limestone concrete would have been cast or packed into molds. Egyptian workmen went to outcrops of relatively soft limestone, disaggregated it with water, then mixed the muddy limestone (including the fossil-shells) with lime and tecto-alumino-silicate-forming materials (geosynthesis) such as kaolin clay, silt, and the Egyptian salt natron (sodium carbonate). The limestone mud was carried up by the bucketful and then poured, packed or rammed into molds (made of wood, stone, clay or brick) placed on the pyramid sides. This re-agglomerated limestone, bonded by geochemical reaction (called geopolymer cement), thus hardened into resistant blocks. In 1979, at the second International Congress of Egyptologists, Grenoble, France, he presented two conferences. One set forth the hypothesis that the pyramid blocks were cast as concrete, instead of carved. Such a theory was greatly disruptive to the orthodox theory with its hundreds of thousand of workers taking part in this gigantic endeavor. The second conference stressed that ancient stone vases manufactured 5000 years ago by Egyptians artists were made of cast synthetic (man made) hard stone.
J. Davidovits’ research was fiercely opposed by some experts (geologists and egyptologists) who did not refrain from publicizing the usual brickbats. The theory was finally published in a popular book, in 1989, entitled: “The Pyramids: an enigma solved”, Hippocrene Books, New York (4 printings) and later by Dorset, New York. In 1998, Prof. Davidovits resumed his work and he has presented updated and new results at Geopolymer Congresses. (See details in Archaeology applications in Geopolymer Proceedings ). Also, revised editions of the book has been published since 2003, see They built the Pyramids and also the books published in different languages at J. Davidovits website.

The carving and hoisting theory indeed raises questions that have been insufficiently answered. Using stone and copper tools, how did workers manage to make the pyramid faces absolutely flat? How did they make the faces meet at a perfect point at the summit? How did they make the tiers so level? How could the required amount of workers maneuver on the building site? How did they make the blocks so uniform? How were some of the heaviest blocks in the pyramid placed at great heights? How were twenty-two acres of casing blocks all made to fit to a hair’s breadth and closer? How was all of the work done in about twenty years? Experts can only guess. And Egyptologists must admit that the problems have not been resolved.

Theories of construction are many and continue to be invented. All are based on carving and hoisting natural stone, and none solves the irreconcilable problems. The casting and packing agglomerated stone theory instantly dissolves the majority of the logistical and other problems.

Imhotep the Alchemist

HIGH PRIEST IMHOTEP INVENTED
THE CHEMICAL FORMULA 5000 YEARS AGO
Designer and builder of the FIRST PYRAMID in history,
The Step Pyramid at Sakkara

3D representation of high priest and alchemist Imhotep

Imhotep designed and built the first pyramid in human history, the Step Pyramid at Saqqara, the first manifestation of higher knowledge in ancient Egypt.
He belonged to a closed organization of priests called the School of Mysteries of “The Eye of Horus”, exclusive guardians of knowledge in ancient Egypt.

Imhotep, whose name means “The sage who comes in peace”, occupies one of the most distinguished places in history. He was revered in Egypt for three thousand years – that is, from his own lifetime during the reign of King Djoser right up to the Greek and Roman conquests of Egypt. His father was the royal architect Kanofer, his mother Khreduonkh, an hereditary noble. At a very early age, Imhotep entered the priesthood and began to live at the Temple of Annu on the shores of the Nile – a center of science and religion, with a great library, were Imhotep learned how to read and write in the symbolic language of hieroglyphs.

Imhotep casting a limestone block.

Imhotep left plans with temple designs that were built thousands of years after his death, as stated in the hieroglyphs of several temples. He was a geometer, doctor of medicine, inventor of the Caduceus, the present-day symbol of physicians. The legend says Imhotep devised the way to divide the heavens into 30º sectors, known today as the Zodiacal eras, to record the movements of the stars and constellations.
A priest-scientist like Imhotep, who could make stone vessels, enjoyed a special status, since his knowledge enabled him to give form to stones, and stone for the Egyptians was the symbol of the Eternal. After his death he was deified by the Egyptians who identified him with Thoth the Ibis-faced divinity of wisdom. The Gnostics called him Hermes Trismegistus, the Thrice Great, founder and origin of their esoteric wisdom.

Davidovits the Chemist

JOSEPH DAVIDOVITS, PHD, REDISCOVERS ANCIENT EGYPTIAN
ARI-KAT TECHNOLOGY
A four-tonne replica of a pyramid limestone block was cast
at the GEOPOLYMER INSTITUTE in Saint Quentin, France

Dr Davidovits examining limestone blocks at his laboratory

At the Geopolymer Institute in St Quentin near Paris, Dr Joseph Davidovits researches ancient cements and new concretes, new ceramics and binders for high tech industries. He is renowned for his research into a branch of chemistry whose chief study is geopolymers – a mineral inorganic polymer based on silicium and aluminum geological molecules.
Throughout his long professional life, Professor Davidovits has taught in US universities, has published three important studies on the pyramids and has patented a number of original products that employ sophisticated processes in the manufacture of cement, ceramic and binder. In 1998, he was awarded France’s “Chevalier de L’Ordre National du Mérite” in recognition of his research and of his many patents in an innovative branch of chemistry known as geopolymerization. Finally, he is a member of the International Association of Egyptologists and is regularly presenting his archaeological works during international congresses in egyptology since 1979.

Dr. Davidovits creates new mineral compounds and rocks by copying and accelerating natural processes. He is the author of the books “Ils ont bâti les Pyramides”, Paris 2002, “La nouvelle histoire des Pyramides”, Paris 2004 (2nd ed. 2006) and “The pyramids: an enigma solved”, New York, 1988. His most recent book in English is Why the pharaohs built the Pyramids with fake stones.

Dr Davidovits mixing the ingredients to cast a stone block in his lab

He has taken a special interest in the Egyptian pyramids and has combined a new approach – a chemist’s approach – to hieroglyph interpretation, with in-depth research on the structure and composition of the stone blocks and cements used in pyramid-building.
As a result, and after long experimentation in the casting and molding of stone, he has published a fascinating theory about how the construction of these giant man-made mountains must have been carried out.

Pyramids (1) Are Pyramids Made Out of Concrete?
 Pyramids (2) The evidences
Pyramids (3) The formula, the invention of stone
Pyramids (4) Videos and book
Pyramids (5) FAQ for artificial stone supporters
Pyramids (6) Deep misleading publications by geologists

The scientific proofs

The “Lauer” sample under the optical microscope.

This photo shows a sample of the casing from the ascending passage of Kheops great pyramid, given by the French egyptologist Jean-Philippe Lauer in 1982 to J. Davidovits. Now, the cross section is characterised by the presence of organic fibers and air bubbles that do not exist in normal situation, especially in a 60 millions years old limestone from the eocene ere !
Ref.: X-Rays Analysis and X-Rays Diffraction of casing stones from the pyramids of Egypt, and the limestone of the associated quarries., Davidovits J., Science in Egyptology; A.R. David ed.; 1986; Proceedings of the “Science in Egyptology Symposia”; Manchester University Press, UK; pp.511- 520.

We recently (May 2020) detected a fraudulous scientific study carried out by geologists to discredit our research. They used a false “Lauer” sample. Go to Pyramids (6) Deep misleading publications by geologists

Another study used Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopie

Al and Si NMR spectra of a geopolymer (A and C) are also found in a Kheops stone (B and D). The Kheops stone may hold 15% of artificial geopolymeric cement.

The nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopie depicts similarities between a Kheops stone and a reconstituted stone.
Ref.: PIXE, PIGE and NMR study of the masonry of the pyramid of Cheops at Giza, Guy Demortier, NUCLEAR INSTRUMENTS and METHODS in PHYSICS RESEARCH B, B 226, 98 – 109 (2004).

Left: electronic diffraction of amorphous alumino-silicate from a Kheops casing. Right: electronic diffraction of a natural alumino-silicate (illite) from the Turah quarry near Giza.

In natural stones, we expect to find elements that had the time to cristallize. However, silicates in pyramids stones are completely amorphous (not cristallized). This allows us to think that we are in presence of a cementitious process. The silicates were formed in a very short period of time. Read the paper abstract
Ref.: Barsoum, M. W., Ganguly, A. and Hug, G. (2006), Microstructural Evidence of Reconstituted Limestone Blocks in the Great Pyramids of Egypt, Journal of the American Ceramic Society 89 (12), 3788-3796. More details are found in Davidovits’ recent book in English (2009) Why the Pharaohs built the Pyramids with fake stones, and scientific background information in Geopolymer Chemistry & Applications.

We can also quote the following scientific papers:

• Paleomagnetic investigation of the Great Egyptian Pyramids, Igor Túnyi and Ibrahim A. El-hemaly, Europhysics News 2012, 43/6, 28-31.
• Were the casing stones of Senefru’s Bent Pyramid in Dahshour cast or carved? Multinuclear NMR evidence, Kenneth J. D. MacKenzie, M. E. Smith, A. Wong, J. V. Hanna, B. Barryand M. W. Barsoum, Mater. Lett., 2011, 65, 350.
• Microstructural Evidence of Reconstituted Limestone Blocks in the Great Pyramids of Egypt, Barsoum M.W., Ganguly A. and Hug G., J. Am. Ceram. Soc. 89[12], 3788-3796, 2006.
• The Enigma of the Construction of the Giza Pyramids Solved?, Scientific British Laboratory, Daresbury, SRS Synchrotron Radiation Source, 2004.
• Differential thermal analysis (DTA) detection of intra-ceramic geopolymeric setting In archaeological ceramics and mortars., Davidovits J.; Courtois L., 21st Archaeometry Symposium; Brookhaven Nat. Lab., N.Y.; 1981; Abstracts P. 22.
• How Not to Analyze Pyramid Stone, Morris, M. JOURNAL OF GEOLOGICAL EDUCATION, VOL. 41, P. 364-369 (1993).
• Comment a-t-on construit les Pyramides: polémique chez les Égyptologues, HISTORIA Magazine, Paris, No 674, fév. 2003, dossier pp. 54-79 (2003).

These analysis are the first and seem to invigorate J. Davidovits’ theory, and, obviously, more work has to be done. To join the team of scientists and offer your expertise and means of investigation, please, contact us .

The Geological Proof, part 1.

Jumbled fossil shells in a limestone block of the Great Pyramid. Natural sedimentation at sea bottom normally leaves them in horizontal layers.

In prehistoric times most of present-day Egypt was submerged under the sea. The decomposing remains of marine organisms, shells and skeletons, plants, seaweed and algae, fallen to the bottom of the sea, formed mud that condensed itself into a sedimentary rock we call limestone.
A natural process that lasted thousands of years consolidated and hardened them, forming banks of limestone. The pyramid blocks are made of this limestone, a sedimentary rock formed from skeletons and large fossil shells of marine organisms. These fossil remains are normally found in sedimentary horizontal layers. Yet, in the stones of the Great Pyramid, Professor Davidovits found them in disarray, jumbled up together quite haphazardly as if they were artificially mixed with some kind of pestle.

Another phenomenon observed in the pyramid stones was the presence of air bubbles, organic fibers, bones and animal teeth, foreign materials never found in natural limestone – which would seem to be further proof that the stones were man-made.

Fossil shells

The numilitic limestone (the jumbled fossil shells in pyramid stone)

Mr. XX.. does not specify why he thinks that intact fossil shells in the pyramid blocks prove that they are not concrete. If Mr. XX.. had even the most fundamental knowledge of the cast-stone theory, he would know that the fossil shell rubble of the Giza quarries provided the aggregates for the pyramid blocks.
I hope that Mr. XX.. is not merely repeating Dr. Mark Lehner’s ill-considered critique of the cast-stone theory. In 1988, Dr. Lehner used this very same argument to convince NOVA that the cast-stone theory is bunkum. Even as late as the filming of “This Old Pyramid,” when Lehner and his colleagues on the NOVA staff were busily trying to discredit Davidovits and the cast-stone theory, they still did not understand the basis of the theory. This is a sad affront to science. Their lack of knowledge is demonstrated by the fact that when Dr. Davidovits went to the Giza quarry to examine the limestone, he was driven to the spot by one of Lehner’s assistants (whose name is unknown to me). Dr. Davidovits told me that this assistant turned to him as they were driving along and said, “We know you are wrong.” Dr. Davidovits replied by saying something like, “Oh really? I have researched and studied for over 20 years and you know I am wrong. How is that?” The assistant said, “Because there are fossil shells in the pyramid blocks, just as there are fossil shells in the quarries.” Dr. Davidovits replied by saying something like, “Well, where do you think the aggregates for the pyramid-concrete-blocks came from, the Moon? No, the shells came from the quarries.” The assistant’s eyes opened wide and he said nothing.

The fossil shells would remain intact for the most part but would be jumbled in pyramids blocks. Why would the pyramid builders make more work for themselves by crushing them? As I stated, “When he participated in the filming of NOVA’s “This Old Pyramid”, Dr. Davidovits showed how easily wet Giza bedrock comes apart and releases clay within 24 hours. Sadly, his 10-minute demonstration showing how to make geopolymeric pyramid blocks with Giza limestone was cut from the film in the 1997 edited version.” In other words, the quarry material is rather loosely bound by clay. The clay releases in water so that the shells are no longer bound. Once the shells are loosened, they can be gathered as aggregate. For full information on making geopolymeric concrete in situ in the quarries, see the debates published in the Journal of Geological Education (see the Library for the list of references and also Archaeology applications ).

The Geological Proof, part 2.

Geological Knowledge of the Pyramid Plateau, hard limestone and soft limestone

The Figure displays a simplified cross-section of the Giza Pyramids Plateau. The Giza Plateau is an outcrop of the Middle Eocene Mokkatam Formation. A second outcrop of the Upper Eocene Maadi Formation borders the Pyramids Plateau on the South-South West. A large sandy wadi separates the Mokkatam Formation from the Maadi Formation, created by the South-East dip of the Mokkatam Formation. The North side of the wadi, or the southern line of the Mokkatam Formation outcrop, and the South side of the wadi, or the northern line of the Maadi Formation outcrop, where both Formations dip into the wadi, were extensively quarried during the erection of the Giza pyramids.

Simplified NNW-SSE cross-section of the Giza Plateau. The soft-marly nummulite limestone bed (in yellow) that was extensively quarried (Wadi quarries, Sphinx trench) is sandwiched between two hard-gray nummulite limestone beds (pyramids basement and Sphinx head).

According to geologist Thomas Aigner and egyptologist Mark Lehner, the original ground surface of the Mokkatam Formation that constitutes the basement of the pyramids, is made of a very hard and massive limestone bank of the nummulite type (gray limestone banks on the Figure). On the opposite, the outcrop that dips into the wadi, where the quarries are located and also the trench around the Sphinx and the Sphinx body, consist of softer thickly bedded marly nummulite limestone layers with a relative high amount of clay (yellow bank in the Figure). Concurring to the traditional carving theory, Mark Lehner states “… the builders took advantage of the thickly bedded softer limestones of the south part of the Mokkatam Formation, while founding the pyramids on the hard nummulite bank to the north.”

Lehner postulates that the builders did not use the nearby hard limestone but favored the softer material.

Kheops quarry as designated by geologists. The quarry face shows the soft limestone layer that cannot be used for carving stones.

Disaggregation of soft limestone with water

In October 1991, during the shooting of the TV production “This Old Pyramid” by NOVA, aired on the American PBS network on September 1992, Prof. Davidovits had the opportunity to present this unique property of the Giza limestone. A chunk of limestone taken in the quarry was very easily disaggregated within 24 hours, leaving the nummulites and the clay gently separated from each other, whereas a chunk of the hard Mokkatam limestone did not disintegrate at all.

Joseph Davidovits and Mark Lehner in the TV film “This Old Pyramid”, WGBH, Boston, 1992 (NOVA, PBS)

After 24 hour soaking in a plastic bag with water, the limestone chunk separated into clay and mummulites. In the presence of an excess of water, the heavier clay settles down leaving the nummulites separated from each other. “This Old Pyramid”, WGBH, Boston, 1992 (NOVA, PBS)

This topic has been extensively outlined and discussed in the Session F: Applications to Archaeology of Geopolymer Conferences and published; see details in Archaeology applications in geopolymer proceedings.

The Irtysen Stele Proof

Irtysen Stele at the Louvre Gallery proves that Imhotep’s Formula existed

The Louvre gallery in Paris is where the Irtysen Stele is preserved (room 7 of the thematic circuit). This ancient stone inscription does not go back quite as far as the era when the Great Pyramid was built. But it is very old. Some four thousand years old…
It is the autobiographical funerary stele of Irtysen, a master craftsman of the priestly caste, who lived 2.000 years BC. In this text Irtysen says he possesses a “secret knowledge” to fabricate stone statues, not by carving them but by casting them in molds.

Irtysen affirms he used a material mixture that hardened when cast inside molds to reproduce any kind of object or figure – a material that fire could not consume, nor water dilute. This suggests that Irtysen worked with a chemically-produced binding matter that could be mixed with certain minerals and poured into a mold, to produce statues.

The Sehel Stele Proof

Famine Stele at Sehel Island contains the revelations of Imhotep, with a list of mineral ingredients for a chemical formula.

On Sehel Island, some kilometers downstream from the city of Aswan on the river Nile, an ancient rock can be seen. It is known as the Famine Stele, and its text appears in hieroglyphs occupying 32 columns, that must be read from right to left. The first columns deal with the famine that occurred in the reign of the Pharaoh Djoser, around 3.000 years B.C, in a period earlier than the reign of Kheops.
The engraved hieroglyphs tell the following story: For years, the Nile had periodically flooded its banks, watering the surrounding fields and making them apt for agriculture. In the reign of Djoser, however, the river did not rise. Hence, crops were unable to grow, the soil dried up and became sterile, and the result was a great famine throughout the land.

The stele text was originally deciphered in 1889, but due to the limitations of scientific knowledge of the time, that part containing the formula was misunderstood or not properly translated. Now, professor Davidovits, thanks to his chemical knowledge, has been able to decode its true meaning.

The ARI-KAT hieroglyph, a key to the stone technology

Professor Davidovits was particularly interested however, not so much in the historical passages on the flood as in those which describe a chemical formula used in ancient times by a priest and sage – the great Imhotep – to fabricate an agglomerated block of stone. A section of the stele (known by scholars as “The Revelations of Imhotep”) contains significant words. One of them is ARI-KAT, a composite of two hieroglyphs which form one single adjective. ARI, is a verb meaning “to work with, to fashion, or to form”. It is symbolized by an eye, alongside a seated human figure, which represents the man who does the work. The addition of KAT – two hands held aloft and a semicircle – gives a new meaning: man-made, created by man. ARI-KAT, therefore, is something fashioned by man and, when associated with minerals, something processed or synthetically made.

A discussion of the FAMINE STELE ( read this comprehensive chapter ) was presented at the Vth International Congress of Egyptology, held in Cairo, Egypt, on Oct. 29, 1988. This paper (see the Library to download the full text) is introducing the first study which could be a good step forward in the discovery of other texts. See also Davidovits’ recent book in English (2008) They built the Pyramids.

The Vessels Proof

One of Sakkara’s 30.000 stone vessels at the Cairo Museum.

Beneath the earth, below the base of the Sakkara Step Pyramid, Imhotep his builder and designer quarried out almost three miles of stone and built a series of corridors and inner chambers.
He decorated some of the chambers with blue enamel tiles, as far we know the first ever made by man; a proof of his advanced knowledge of alchemy.

In addition to all this, some thirty thousand stone vessels of the utmost perfection were found in these subterranean chambers. There are unique and enigmatic hard stone vessels, made of slate, diorite and basalt. Some of these materials are harder than iron. No sculptor today would even attempt to work with such material.

One wonders how could they have been carved? Their design is extremely beautiful and impossible to carve. No tool marks are found on their surfaces. They must have been cast in molds, in accordance with the indications suggested by the Irtysen Stele at the Louvre gallery. See also more details on the Fresco of Ti (Vth Dynasty) in Davidovits’ recent book in English (2008) They built the Pyramids.

The Le Chatelier Proof

Henri Le Chatelier.

The first man to posit a reasonable solution to how the Egyptians made their stone statues, was Henri Le Chatelier, a chemist, ceramist and metallurgist, born in France in 1850.
In the early twentieth century, he noticed that the famous statue of Pharaoh Khafra (or Khefren) revealed no sign of tool marks. Yet it had been made of diorite, the hardest type of stone, at a time when artisans possessed only simple stone or copper chisels. He concluded that with tools like these it would have been impossible to produce such a masterpiece.

Diorite statue of Pharaoh Khefren.

Le Chatelier suspected that it had not been carved at all, but made of agglomerated stone cast in molds, so he began to examine other statues. He looked at ones that were apparently enameled, and cut thin sections of them with a diamond-tipped saw, and found that the enamel was not an applied coating but part of the material from which the statue was made. He asserted that they were cast in some kind of synthetic material not sculpted in natural stone.

Pyramids (1) Are Pyramids Made Out of Concrete?
Pyramids (2) The evidences
Pyramids (3) The formula, the invention of stone
Pyramids (4) Videos and book
Pyramids (5) FAQ for artificial stone supporters
Pyramids (6) Deep misleading publications by geologists

Why do geologists see nothing?

This is due to the geological glue, which, though artificial, is seen by the geologists either as an impurity, and therefore useless to study, or as a natural binder. At best, the analysis tools and the working methods of geologists consider the glue as a perfectly natural “micritic binder”. A geologist not informed of geopolymer chemistry will assert with good faith that the stones are natural.

The scientific background, including analysis, formula, stone making, are disclosed in the recently updated book by Prof. Joseph Davidovits Geopolymer Chemistry & Applications, in several chapters, i.e. Chapters 5, 11, 13, 17 and 20.

If you want to know how the knowledge evolved after the Pyramids click on Colosses of Memnon

The chemical formula:

People think that because we use chemicals, it is very easy to find these ingredients in the final product. This is wrong. Thanks to the geopolymer chemistry, the chemical reaction generates natural elements, minerals that can be analysed as natural if scientists are not aware of their artificial nature.

So far, we identified at least two chemical systems, one used for the manufacture of the core blocks (the greatest quantity of stones), the second for the casings. In the recent study by Barsoum, Gangly and Hug , the core blocks are illustrated by the samples MENK, whereas the casings relate to the LAUER and OC samples.

The MENK sample is representative of the blocks forming the core of the pyramids. It consists of numulitic shells, as for the other pyramids. It was taken in a large block belonging to a satellite pyramid of Mykerinos (the one in the middle):

M. Barsoum sent an e-mail to J. Davidovits in June 2004, asking if he had an explanation with respect to their analyzes, in particular the presence of magnesium and the absence of sodium carbonate (natron). How to get magnesium Mg involved in the geopolymeric chemical reaction? But, there was another chemical element just as important as the others in this MENK sample. It is the presence of halite salt, NaCl (cooking salt), as can be seen in the figure made with the SEM / EDS electron microscopical investigation which gives the chemical structure of the geopolymer glue, located between the numulitic fossil shells. The chemical formula of the microconstituent (mc ’) includes a molecule of NaCl.

Why is it meaningful? When Davidovits went to the Giza site in 1984, he picked up a few small pieces of stone from the Cheops pyramid. Because he is a chemist, he tasted these stones with his tongue: they were salty. There was NaCl salt in them, cooking salt. Then he took a piece of geological limestone, tasted it: it was not salty. He repeated the experience on each of his visits, in 1988, 1991, 2003; he shared it with his wife Doris and his son Ralph, who accompanied him and confirmed the issue. He pointed this out to the Head of the Chemistry Department at the Palais de la Découverte in Paris, who was preparing an exhibition on the subject titled: How to build a pyramid, and scheduled for Nov. 2006 to April 2007. The chemist was surprised and replied: “It turns out that my daughter is currently on the Giza site; I will send her a message. ” A week later, his daughter confirmed this strange phenomenon to him.

The presence of NaCl salt is just an anecdote for Egyptology. For some Egyptologists, this occurrence of NaCl would be normal since the limestones are sedimented at the bottom of the salty oceans. This is silly reasoning. According to them, all the walls of our buildings and all our cathedrals built with limestone should be covered with salt. They are not, of course. Others say that tourists who urinate on the stones in the rooms leave their mark. Just as silly. Nevertheless, it was present on the stones of all the chambers of the pyramids. Davidovits, in 1988, detached a piece of this salt from the surface of a block located at the top of the corbelled “mortuary” chamber of the Meidum pyramid. But the most significant is the description made by Caliph Al Mamun when he opened in 820 AD the Great Pyramid, which had been sealed for several centuries. He found in the interior rooms that the stone was covered with a layer of 1.5 cm thick cooking salt, halite NaCl.

The blocks of the pyramids do contain halite, NaCl. Since they were made like geopolymer concrete, they also contain moisture. It migrates to the surface, dries, and the NaCl salt crystallizes. We expected to find a migration of sodium carbonate (excess natron) or baking soda, resulting from the chemical reaction of the excess of NaOH alkali with the carbon dioxide in the air. Instead, we are dealing with halite salt, NaCl. Where does it come from? What is the geopolymer chemical reaction generating this NaCl cooking salt?

1) Chemistry of the core blocks

During geosynthesis kaolinite clay (naturally included in the Giza limestone) first reacts with caustic soda (see chemical formula 2). To manufacture this caustic soda, one uses Egyptian natron (sodium carbonate) and lime (coming from plant ashes) (see chemical formula 1). The so obtained caustic soda, NaOH, will react with clay.

The most interesting point is that this chemical reaction creates also pure limestone (calcite) as well as hydrosodalite (a mineral of the feldspathoids or zeolites family).

But, the mixture is still quite caustic. In order to neutralize it, one adds a special salt called carnallite (magnesium chloride) easily found in evaporites, in saline deposits like natron but not at the same place (see chemical formula 3 and 4). Alkalis have been transformed into neutral salt halite, which explains the high content of NaCl found in pyramid stones. Naissant calcite and magnesite may combine to form rhombohedral crystals of dolomite.

2) Chemistry of the casing stones

In the chemical formula 2, the clay may be replaced partially (or entirely) by hydrous siliceous mineral varieties, such as diatomaceous earth (hydrated amorphous) yielding sodium silicate (water glass), which will react with carnallite according to chemical formula 3, and formation of magnesium silicate.

The re-agglomerated stone binders are the result of these geosynthesis (geopolymers) that create several natural minerals: limestone (calcite), hydrated feldspars (feldspathoid, mica-chlorite), magnesium silicates, magnesite (also dolomite resulting from magnesite+calcite) and halite. Egyptian natron often contains Na-sulfate that yields the formation of Ca-sulfate. We understand why geologists can easily be misled.

Imhotep’s formula to make limestone blocks

Imhotep had two different chemical formulas: a very simple one for the casting of the limestone core blocks, and another one to produce the high quality stones of the exterior layer. When all the blocks of the core were set in place, a layer of casing was applied. This meant preparing a more sophisticated type of mold to produce inclined limestone blocks following the slope of the pyramid, adding new ingredients to the mixture to yield a higher quality stone.

1. SOFT LIMESTONE

Pouring Natron salt to the reaction basin

To build the Step Pyramid, Imhotep located a quarry of soft limestone, just one kilometer from the construction site to provide the raw material he needed to cast millions of modular stones. Soft limestone can be easily disaggregated either under pressure or by diluting it in water.
Shallow canals were dug in the soft limestone along the Nile, forming ideal basins for producing large quantities of muddy limestone. Imhotep’s men began disaggregating the clayish soft rock with its water, until the lime and the clay separated, forming a mud with the fossil shells at the bottom.

2. NATRON SALT

The mixing of lime, Natron, limestone and water.

Next, a substance called Natron salt (sodium carbonate) was poured in. Salt is a very reactive substance that has a petrifying effect, which is why it is used to avoid the putrefaction of organic tissue (mummification).
Natron is found in very great quantities in the desert and in Wadi-El-Natron.

3. LIME

The limestone concrete paste.

More lime, the mineral which binds, was added. Lime is a powdery residue obtained by burning and reducing to ashes sedimentary rocks such as limestone and dolomite. The fire oxidizes and converts the rocks into a powdery residue, and that is lime. The ashes of plants are also rich in lime and the priests established the custom of receiving ashes from cooking fires from all over Egypt, to add them to the mixture.

4. CAUSTIC SODA

The first mold filled with limestone

Lime mixed with natron and water produced a third substance, a much more corrosive one, that sparks off a strong chemical reaction and transforms other materials. The water dissolved the Natron salt and put the lime in suspension, forming caustic soda.
Caustic Soda is the catalyst Imhotep needed to trigger off a powerful chemical reaction, one which would produce the fast integration of silica and alumina.

5. CEMENT

The leveling of the second mold.

Men mixed the ingredients in the canals until a homogeneous binder paste was obtained. Imhotep had invented a water-based cement. Now, he had only to convert that cement into concrete.

6. LIMESTONE CONCRETE

His workers added more fossil shells, limestone rubble and silt from the river Nile, producing a concrete paste, which they carried up to where hundreds of small wooden molds had been prepared. These molds had been smeared with rancid oil to facilitate the release of the concrete once hardened.
The mixture was rammed into the molds as in the making of the packed earth called pisé, becoming a dense re-agglomerated limestone, which was let to dry in the shade, to avoid its cracking under the glare of the hot sun.

7. LIMESTONE BLOCKS

The filling of the third mold.

The hardened blocks were released from their molds and easily carried up to the construction site, by means of small ramps over the tiers already set, until the men placed each block in its correct place.
The towering Step Pyramid was not only the first, but also the only one made entirely of small modular blocks weighing approximately 60 kilos apiece, easily carried by two men.

8. IMPROVING THE MANUFACTURE

This Step Pyramid was just the first one that simply took the crude brick techniques and, instead of using mud, Imhotep used a limestone paste. Then, the three Sneferu’s pyramids improved step by step the technology by increasing the size of the blocks and the height of the monuments. Whereas the pyramids at Giza showed how technical improvements helped to achieve one of the famous wonders of the world, only 60 years after the first pyramid at Saqqarah. In later times, by Sneferu’s Red Pyramid, at Dashour, much heavier blocks were molded and cast directly on the spot, which means they were not moved. This is how the Great Pyramids at Giza were built.

At the Geopolymer Institute, we tried to replicate this masterpiece by making life size blocks, that is to say from 1 to 4.5 tonnes. The next pages illustrate our experience.

RECIPE USED IN THE NEXT PAGE VIDEO

1) Nummulitic limestone outcrop (fossil shells), naturally friable, from Tracy-le-Val south of Saint-Quentin (France). It resembles that of Giza but does not contain kaolinitic clay, which has to be added.
2) Into the pool containing two cubic meters of water are poured 160 kg of kaolinitic clay to imitate the Giza limestone, followed by 60 kg of sodium carbonate (natron) and 80 kg of slaked lime.
3) The geological glue is mixed with 4500 kg of limestone using a simple wooden paddle.

After drying, the final mixture contained between 18-20% weight water.

An example of a re-agglomerated limestone
How the pyramid blocks were built ?

Does the picture show an artificial or a natural stone? Scientists of the Geopolymer Institute have successfully manufactured and cast a re-agglomerated limestone. The geological material used here is very similar to the one found at the Giza plateau in Egypt, a soft material with lots of nummulitic shells coming from a quarry in France. The purpose of this test was to demonstrate that this type of limestone is perfect for re-agglomeration. We have disaggregated this soft material with water, then mixed the muddy limestone and its fossil shells with kaolin clay, and a simple geopolymeric binder. Then, the limestone mud was packed into the mould (a pyramid shape!). This re-agglomerated limestone, bonded by a geochemical reaction, thus hardened into a resistant block, much harder than the original material. We have strengthened the stone and made it more resistant to pollution, acid rain, and freezing.

A close-up of the mini-pyramid. Fossil shells are intact and the geopolymer binder is integrated within the calcite matrix.

The mini-pyramid is 9 cm (3.55 inch) large. In these pictures, you can clearly see that anyone who is not aware of the possibility of the geopolymer chemistry can be easily fooled. The final result has not a modern concrete appearance. It is a natural limestone, the material was not crushed but gently disaggregated, and all fossil shells are intact.

A close-up of the bottom of the mini-pyramid. The bottom was the top of the mould, the mini-pyramid was cast upside-down.

Because we were not authorized to sample original materials from the Giza plateau quarries, we did not used the exact ancient Egyptian formula. The French limestone, used in this experience, is very similar but has no reactive clay in it, and we had to add some. Nevertheless, the final result is chemically and geologically close to what we find in Egypt.

With the Egyptian formula, the result is different because it requires bigger blocks for a better cohesion. It is not suitable for small items. Whatever the formula, we have clearly demonstrated that the key of success is an appropriate raw material.

Pyramids (1) Are Pyramids Made Out of Concrete?
Pyramids (2) The evidences
Pyramids (3) The formula, the invention of stone
Pyramids (4) Videos and book
Pyramids (5) FAQ for artificial stone supporters
Pyramids (6) Deep misleading publications by geologists

Download an abstract of the theory or buy the book

FREE DOWNLOAD of Chapter 1 of “Why the pharaohs built the Pyramids with fake stones” + the extended abstract of the theory, from an official Press Kit. (703 KB in PDF format). See also Joseph Davidovits’  Book: Why the pharaohs built the Pyramids with fake stones 

Watch a conference

Prof. Joseph DAVIDOVITS presents, in this 1h20 conference, his famous theory on how the Egyptians pyramids were built with re-agglomerated limestone. This conference was recorded in 2008 representing the knowledge of that time.

Since then, recent scientific studies using very powerful and modern equipment found the ultimate evidence that the pyramids stones are synthetic.

Believing in the artificial stone theory, or countering it, is simply no longer relevant. It has become a truth, a fact.

Read the FAQ for artificial stone supporters.

1 hour 20 min, a 204 MB. Click on the CC icon to display subtitles in english and français. Click on the icon on the right to watch it full screen. Available on Youtube !

How to built a pyramid?

Latest on NOVA mini-pyramid documentary “This Old Pyramid”. To learn about the swindle go to Mini-Pyramid NOVA swindle

If you want to know how the knowledge evolved after the Pyramids click on Colosses of Memnon

Paleomagnetism study supports the man-made stone concept. Go to Paleomagnetism study.

Here is a small video documentary that shows how a crew of only few people is able to rapidly and easily produce several tons of pyramid stone blocks! If you want to learn more about the technology employed, please read the topic developed in this web site. This theory is also related in Davidovits’ recent book in English (June 2008) Why the Pharaohs built the Pyramids with fake stones.

5 minutes, 46.2 MB. Click on the icon on the right to watch it fullscreen.

Here is a small video explaining the theory for the general audience and 3D animations demonstrating how the re-agglomerated stone theory is very easy to implement.

6 minutes, 69.6 MB. Click on the icon on the right to watch it fullscreen.

How to analyze pyramid stones

Joseph Davidovits explains how to analyze the pyramid limestones and why geologists see nothing. He demonstrates that a thin section is not the right method to detect artificial stone.
Excerpt from his video conference “Building the Pyramids of Egypt with Fake Stones”.

9 minutes, 21.8 MB. Click on the icon on the right to watch it fullscreen.