<HTML>Anthony, there's a chapter in Margaret Morris's The Egyptian Pyramid Mystery Is Solved! The chapter is titled Building with Geopolymer which I already mentioned with regard to your "goop" questions. This chapter does cover your present questions and several others. When I read it I was impressed by how much work was involved in building the Great Pyramid even with geopolymeric concrete, which is vastly more easy and efficient that trying to quarry, cut raise and set blocks.
As Morris has not released her book yet I can't give you quotes but I will say that the engineer who contributed the chapter reckoned the problems with eight hour work days 180 days per year.
He calculated parallel files of men passing the baskets between them at a rate of a few seconds per basket. Six files of men could move baskets at that rate. Standing three feet apart 350 men are required for each file to reach the base of Khufu, for a total of 2100 men.
Today when Egyptians restore the Great Pyramid with concrete blocks they stand on the monument and pass baskets up the line this way.
To build the GP tiers were started in many places at once. When a block is made and packed down it is strong enough for a man to walk on immediately.
I am sorry not to give you more detail but I can't post her unpublished book on this board -- I'm sure you understand.
In case you don't know this -- and this is something MM stresses in her book -- the 2-1/2 ton weight is an average. It's used in calculations and mitigates the problem of moving real weights -- like the blocks high in the GP that take up the space of two tiers. The calculation disposes of the problem of moving those 30 foot long blocks Herodotus reported seeing as did el-Latif. There are charts that show the tier heights and show heavy blocks at all levels of the GP although the tiers do tend to get shorter as the structure rises.
Let me give you a couple of facts that might help you wrap your mind around the geopolymer theory. It is vast as you say so there are so many issues that could be picked over and everyone has their own approach. Only two fundamental facts helped me get the basis to build my understanding on.
1. Davidovits is not the first one to discover the Egyptians made stone. The discovery was made by Henry Le'Chatelier (1850-1935). In his day Egyptologists thought Egyptian faience was real sandstone with a painted surface (Morris posted a reference and discussion on this board). Le'Chatelier studied this "sandstone" and proved that it is synthetic. His microscopic studies showed air bubbles in it and sandstone does not contain air bubbles. He also showed the self-glazing process, the migration of minerals from the inner portion of the stone to the outside.
So you see Anthony it is a little known but established fact that the Egyptians made stone.
After Henry Le'Chatelier made his discovery the "sandstone" had to be renamed and was thereafter called Egyptian faience. But it is very important to recognize that Le'Chatelier established that the Egyptians made stone.
2. Dr. Davidovits re-created the mortar on the Great Pyramid and showed it is geopolymeric -- lime gypsum mortar. This is why it has lasted so long while ordinary gypsum mortar does not endure for long periods. So we have geopolymerization right there on the Great Pyramid in the form of mortar. Dr. Davidovits knew that a simple variation in the mortar formula would make limestone concrete without using any heat.
Once I learned that the Egyptians made stone and that geopolymeric mortar exists on the Great Pyramid and how easy the low temp limestone concrete is to make, everything else started to fall into place.
People assume that the GP could have been built the assumed way. After reading the enginering experiments and other studies in MMs book I no longer believe that it could be--at least not in 24 years with 4th D. tools.
Sandy</HTML>
