Davidovits
To view his video on the reconstruction of limestone blocks (3 megabytes):
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Davidovits
http://www.geopolymer.org/fr/science_archeologie/pyramides_egypte/video_faire_blocs_calcaire.html
August 15, 2005
I've somewhat lost touch with Egyptology over the past year, regretting that I was unable to publish my work in this field at the specialized conference held in Grenoble in 2004, nor in the Bulletin of the French Institute of Oriental Archaeology.
I came across the August 2005 issue of Science et Vie. On page 10, in the section "On en parle" ("We're talking about it"), there's a headline: "Official analyses will finally begin." These analyses concern stones taken from the Giza pyramids and other sites. The article mentions "the serious work of Joël Bertho, specialist in composite minerals, and Suzanne Raynaud, geologist at the Montpellier II laboratory of technophysics." It states:
"The Egyptians partly built their pyramids using poured and molded stones on-site."
Joël Bertho's book, "Pyramide reconstituée," published by Unic, is cited. I haven't read it, but here’s how you can obtain it:
http://www.pyramide-reconstituee.com/pyramide/commander.htm
The Science et Vie article further clarifies that "financed by the CNRS, these studies will span three years."
Let us now cite Joseph Davidovits's book:
August 18, 2005: Davidovits asks me to redirect readers to his previous book: "Ils ont bâti les pyramides" ("They Built the Pyramids"). Indeed, the cited book, now out of print, will not be reissued before September 2005.
I won’t repeat all the fascinating and well-supported theses presented in this work. Those who have read my own research know that I have developed a model for constructing the great pyramids that does not require stone molding. But this does not mean I am entirely right or entirely wrong. Egypt presents a host of problems that constitute genuine puzzles—problems that official archaeology simply pretends to ignore. We must understand why. An Egyptologist, by tradition, is above all a decipherer of hieroglyphs. These inscriptions appear on two types of supports:
- On monumental works
- On papyri
In the first case, the inscriptions could be likened to "advertising panels." Most of them tell us: "I, Pharaoh So-and-So, did this or that, and I utterly defeated the people of Such-and-Such at such-and-such a place."
There is another aspect to monumental inscriptions:
their magical character.
Ancient Egyptians believed that by depicting scenes on walls and bas-reliefs, these images functioned as pictorial or sculptural incantations. This is why scenes of domination or submission are endlessly repeated over centuries in Egypt (over 1,500 years). Anyone who has visited the country will recall the scene found on the façades of all temples, reproduced identically: the pharaoh grasping the hair of his traditional enemies—the Semite and the African—about to smash their heads with his raised mace. In the minds of priests and sculptors, this magical image was meant to reinforce the pharaoh’s power, even if only by imprinting itself on the minds of visitors. It is precisely to achieve this reinforcing effect that the image is endlessly reproduced in a stereotypical manner. This is not, as Caratini suggests in his book L'Egyptomanie, une imposture (Albin Michel, 2002), merely a "lack of imagination." This former schoolteacher, whom I knew well, possessed a phenomenal memory and styled himself an encyclopedist, but as my friend Jacques Vasselin called him, he was above all an "encyclopedant" with singularly narrow views.
This book is, in my opinion, the most grotesque and pretentious thing I have ever read on Egyptology. For Caratini, Egypt is "problem-free." One of his chapters is titled "The Non-Mystery of the Pyramids."
This good man is mistaken. Science and knowledge about ancient Egypt were largely lost, due to the medium on which they were recorded: papyrus, inherently perishable and... flammable, in a country where there is no wood! Thus, documents concerning medicine and mathematics survive only in a few miraculously preserved papyri. The vast majority have disappeared. This is not the case with cuneiform tablets, made of fired clay—absolutely impossible to reuse and entirely indestructible. This is why we know so much about Babylonian civilizations (for example, the cubic meters of the library of Nineveh).
In general, archaeologists tend to glorify civilizations that left written records. Today, we realize that by privileging this criterion, we are very likely overlooking ancient knowledge that was never written down, and histories transmitted orally. The Egyptians did write, certainly. But what does that mean? These knowledges were secret. One should not expect to find details about construction techniques on the walls of temples or pyramids. It would be like trying to decipher our modern era by reading advertising panels on Morris columns, subway corridors, or municipal election boards.
There remain the mysteries—incalculably numerous—that Davidovits catalogs, which people like Caratini and many other archaeologists prefer to pretend to ignore. On page 21 of Davidovits’s book, there is a photograph of a cross-section of anorthositic gneiss, exhibited at the Louvre in 1999, part of the vast collection of "hard stone vessels" found in the Saqqarah tombs (Old Kingdom).
Cross-section of anorthositic gneiss, no. 99. Catalogue of the exhibition "Egyptian Art at the Time of the Pyramids," Réunion des Musées nationaux, 1999
If you travel to Egypt, your guide will take you to a workshop for carving "stone vessels." But these will be made from soft stone: alabaster. No one today could carve a vessel like the one in the photo, especially using the tools available in ancient Egypt. Yet its shape suggests folding. It would be extremely easy to create such a vessel from clay and then fold its edges. But how did the ancient Egyptians actually do it? Did they know how to reconstitute stone as hard as this anorthositic gneiss? The achievement defies imagination.
Yet people like Davidovits have demonstrated that it is possible to reconstitute genuine stone objects by mixing certain ingredients. This is what we do with our cements, albeit in a very primitive way. Indeed, cement’s longevity is extremely limited—no more than half a century. Our cements are porous and suffer internal chemical degradation, not just surface-level. They lose their mechanical properties. Thus, all monuments built in our time, from American skyscrapers to the Arc de Triomphe, are merely temporary constructions...