<HTML>PART 3: Block Sizes
Block Sizes
Frank Doernenburg asks, “Why make 2.3 million individual blocks, instead of making one HUGE block every day? All they do is start packing at one end, then continue until dark. They will always be adding to fresh concrete, and there should NEVER be a gap, except in the one space where they ended one day, and started the next.”
Margaret Morris replies: Today, the kind of huge concrete units Frank Doernenburg describes would be steel-reinforced. The 4th Dynasty Egyptians had no strong metal or concept of building with huge metal reinforcements.
Moreover, Frank Doernenburg again shows that he has not bothered to read or understand the scientific literature on geopolymerization before attacking the geopolymer theory. His tactic defies proper scientific protocol.
To directly answer Frank Doernenburg’s remarks, when building with rock-concrete, the Egyptians drew on their knowledge of working with adobe--Egypt’s oldest building material. The first pyramid contained relatively small blocks. In general, blocks size increased in later pyramids, as the alchemically-made stone proved its excellence. But huge blocks of the size Frank Doernenburg describes require rapid setting, which was a more expensive process because it required the extraction of minerals like olivenite and scorodite from the Sinai mines.
In other words, while moderately large blocks can be made with simple ingredients abundant in Egypt (primarily kaolinitic limestone like that of the quarries at Giza and Saqqara), producing enormous blocks required additional mining activities in the blazing hot, barren Sinai Desert.
After the extraction, the minerals for rapid setting had to be transported to the construction sites by large donkey trains. This kind of expensive process would have been reserved only for large casing and exterior temple blocks that were meant to be seen. There was a finite amount of the needed minerals.
One could ask the same question Frank Doernenburg raised of the carve/hoist theory: If the Egyptians were able to lift 27-foot-long beams up to the level above the King’s Chamber, why did they not build the entire Great Pyramid with units of that size? If they had the ability to place a myriad of 30-foot-long casing blocks as far as the eye could see on the exterior of the Great Pyramid, as reported by Herodotus (5th century BC) and Abd el-Latif (AD 12th century), why did they make the core and backing blocks of smaller sizes that could be more easily carted away?
It is important to be objective, and to hold the accepted paradigm up to critical scrutiny, rather than assuming it is correct. Frank Doernenburg does not exercise such methodology when posing objections.
Frank Doernenburg continues, “That is one of the many riddles connected with the whole idea I listed on my home page. Together with the clearly visible loose stacking, the un-uniformity (althoug, [sic] as Mrs. Morris stated, the blocks of Zoser were moulded in mudbrick moulds they are much bigger and have lost their form, in contrast to the much softer mudbricks...) [sic] I guess, these questions will never be answered sufficiently.”
Margaret Morris replies: I will allow Dieter Arnold, Alexander Scharff, Somers Clarke and Reginald Engelbach to address Frank Doernenburg’s contention concerning the relationship to mud bricks. Arnold does indeed view the beginning of stone architecture relative to brick construction. He summarizes:
"The construction methods of brick building were applied at first to building in stone. Small, regular blocks were set in a pattern of brick bonding, frequently in rows that inclined inward and were joined with a lot of mortar. Just a few generations after King Djoser, in the reigns of Snofru, Cheops, and Chephren, pyramids and pyramid temples of gigantic dimensions were erected with blocks weighing up to 200 tons;” (Arnold, D., Arnold, D., Building in Egypt: pharaonic stone masonry. New York, N.Y., Oxford University Press (1991), page 3)
Egyptologist Alexander Scharff hit the nail on the head when he compared the blocks of Zoser’s pyramid complex to “petrified bricks”:
"Looking at a well-founded reconstruction of a building belonging to King Djeser's [Zoser] temple-complex, we are struck by the smallness of the stones, which seem to be petrified bricks…" (Scharff, A., "On the Statuary of the Old Kingdom," Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, Vol. XXVI, page 43)
Clarke and Engelbach express the same idea, that Zoser’s complex imitated brick construction:
“An interesting problem arises in connexion with the Zoser masonry, whether the architectural forms and technique developed during the reign of Zoser or whether they had a considerable history behind them. At first it seems incredible that they could have been evolved so quickly, and the presence of pilaster has been held to be proof absolute that free-standing columns must have existed in early stone buildings. The writers are inclined to believe that the art of laying finely dressed blocks may well have developed during Zoser’s reign, the forms being translated from brick and from vegetable growths.” (Clarke, S., Engelbach, R., Ancient Egyptian Construction and Architecture, Dover pub., NY [1990], 10)
Frank Doernenburg quotes me as follows, “The ancient Egyptians translated their knowledge of working with adobe into rock-concrete. Thus, the limestone-concrete blocks of the first pyramid of Zoser were the size and shape of mud bricks. Arnold summarizes the beginning of stone architecture relative to brick construction.”
Frank Doernenburg declares this to be wrong. He writes, “which again is wrong. Neither size nor form or dimension [sic] of Djosers [sic] blocks are similar to the mudbricks used at that time. I will expand my page to show the size difference this weekend...”
Margaret Morris replies: Notwithstanding the above-quoted observations of Arnold, Scharff, Clarke, and Engelbach, Frank Doernenburg fails to understand that it makes no difference to his argument what size and shape the blocks are. What matters is whether they are hydraulic concrete or not. One can discover a painted wall and argue over whether the paint was sprayed on, brush-coated or applied with a sponge, etc., but the wall is still a painted wall. Similarly, when scientific tests prove stone to be geopolymerized, no amount of tool marks or odd shapes or objections negate that simple fact.
This is an important point that I have had to make repeatedly to critics like Frank Doernenburg who do not appreciate the results of scientific testing: the nature of the building units cannot be determined by their size or shape or by the presence of tool marks. What is required are scientific tests involving chemical analysis, petrography studies and testing for chemically-bound water.
Frank Doernenburg continues, “And as I said before: The mudbricks, even from the Mastabas of Dyn. I in Sakkara are still in perfectly rectangular form, whereas the stones of Zoser are un-uniform. IF they had been casted in moulds as you suggest, they
must have lost form due to deformation. But IF they have been deformed so much (bulging out in one direction means bulging in in [sic] another) WHY is the pyramid so precise today? It must have sunken in irregularily.” [sic]
Margaret Morris replies: See the quotes above by Dieter Arnold, Alexander Scharff, Somers Clarke and Reginald Engelbach. And remember: geopolymerization is a very flexible system that allows for a wide variety of building techniques. The rock-concretes can be hand packed chunk-by-chunk and compressed, cut in an uncured state, fashioned on a potter’s wheel, packed into molds, and even poured as a slurry into closed molds (geopolymers will cure in a closed mold). Geopolymeric binders can be painted on as a thin cement (compare the durable paper-thin cement between casing blocks on the Great Pyramid), and mixed with paints. Geopolymerization can produce glazes and resins. Newly made blocks, made by packing the material down so that it is condensed, are strong enough to walk on immediately. As such, Frank Doernenburg cannot build a legitimate case by pointing out the shapes of building units or tool marks on them.
Please continue to the next segment..
Margaret Morris
August 7, 2000
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