<HTML>>Given that Archae wishes to explain away
>all features with stone cutting methods,
>let us see how he deals with the
>following example: The Church father
>Clement of Alexandria (c. A.D. 150-215)
>preserved a description of the
>manufacture of the stone colossus of the
>Greco-Egyptian god Serapis:
_"qoute" snip>
>This is not an example of glass, faience,
>or metal. Clement described agglomerated
>stone, which included sacred metals
>(gold was considered the flesh of the Sun-god;
>silver the flesh of the Moon, etc.), all kinds
>of rocks and the funerary remains of the
>Apis bull--all fashioned into the colossus.
>No stonecutting was involved.
I seriously doubt that this statue was entirely made
of "filings of gold, and silver, and lead, and in
addition, tin; and of Egyptian stones not one was
wanting, and there were fragments of sapphire, and
hematite, and emerald, and topaz" . That would be an
enormous waste of very valuable materials...
I fail to see the relevance to the sculpture of the
ancient Egyptians. Sure it was not a mossaic?
>With regard to the Colossi of Memnon,
>Joseph Davidovits has re-created quartzite
>that chemically matches an analysis
>of the northern Memnon statue. (Bowman,
>H., et al., “The Northern Colossus of
>Memnon: New Slants,” Archaeometry
>[1984], Vol. 26, 218-229)
What is Davidovits' definition of a "quartzite"?
Considering that it's a siliceous sandstone it's not
surprising that it chemically matches the rock i.e.
mostly quartz. Remember, that the siliceous sandstone
of Egypt form from hydrothermal alteration and
precipitation of quartz from solution under lithostatic
pressure not by mixing it up is a lab and letting it dry.
So does it match in any other respects the natural
"quartzites" found in Egypt?
>As pointed out in our 1988 book,
>researchers have searched in vain for
>extraction sites from which the 63 foot high
>Colossi of Memnon could have been
>extracted. It would be hard to miss
>63-foot holes in the quartzite bedrock, but the
>extraction sites have never been found.
Not surpassing, go to any quarry one year and
it is different the next since that is what is done at
quarries... quarrying. Obviously, if it was quarried
it was good quality rock, the rest would more than
likely be quarried away at a later date. There are
"quartzite" quarries in Egypt are there not? The
ancient Egyptians were quarrying "quartzite",
if so for what purpose certainly not for raw materials
to be ground up to be used in synthetic "quartzite",
since if that were the case it would not be called a
"quartzite" but a breccia or microbreccia.
_snip>
>Synthetic Mesopotamian Basalt: With regard
>to the geological descriptions of the basalt from
>Egypt and Mesopotamia,
>Archae Solenhofen asks if the descriptions compare
>"mineralogical or chemically?"
>Both descriptions I alluded to are of features
>of the rock matrix, not of chemical analyses.
Yes, you really need to point out that it is described
as "superficially resembling natural basalt, but distinctive
in chemistry and mineralogy"... these are not basalts in
a geological context and they are not identifies as such
in the paper I have read (Stone et.al., 1997)
"Compositionally, this material falls outside the range
of known basalts"
>The point is not that there is altered glass in basalt.
Yes, that is correct altered glass occurs naturally in
some basalts.
>The point is that the Mesopotamian basalt has been
>determined to be synthetic by an independent team.
You really should not be claiming they are basalts but
"synthetic basalt" in appearance only, which is how it is
described in the paper.
_snip>
>It is
>fortunate that the Mesopotamian basalt looks
>synthetic.
_snip>
>Davidovits and Courtois
>thereby proved that a simple
>geopolymer, a chemical reaction producing
>synthetic zeolites, was produced 8,000
>years ago in the Eastern
>Mediterranean. Innovating to make stone
>is not much of a technological leap.
Lime vases are one thing, holocrystalline medium-grained
igneous rocks are a completely different story. If it is not
much of a leap... why have you not created an exact
duplicate of the diorite vase (or for that matter any item
that resembles a ancient Egyptian diorite artifact) as you
insist Stock must first accomplish. Stocks has conducted
experimentation that clearly demonstrates that diorite and
granite can be worked with the tools available to the
ancient Egyptians.
Archae Solenhofen (solenhofen@hotmail.com)
>Pleasse see Part 2 (next posting)</HTML>
