Ernesto Bozzano on the Phenomena of Bilocation
- Carlos S. Alvarado Ph.D. -
| ||
| ||
.
Library of Professor Richard A. Macksey in Baltimore
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Carlos S. Alvarado - Ernesto Bozzano on the Phenomena of Bilocation
Nandor Fodor - Strange Beasts from the Beyond
Nandor Fodor
These Mysterious People
Publisher: Rider & Co. Published: 1934 Pages: 238.
Chapter 6: Strange Beasts from the Beyond
Story of Franek Kluski
- Nandor Fodor -
| |||||
THE FAMILIARS against whom Moses warred, who loom uncannily in witch trials and old tales of mystery, have been rehabilitated, and tamed, under the name of "controls" by Psychical Research. The ghost world, however, does not always respect the discipline of science, and occasionally investigators are visited by terrors of the dark which would chill the spine of the most hardened adventurer.
There are instances on record in which the visitants, who appear to be born into temporary existence through the agency of a materializing medium, were not human beings. They were the "beasts that perish"; animals whose presence inspired fear. To Franek Kluski, a Pole, whom the late Dr. Gustave Geley, Director of the Institut Metapsychique International of Paris, called the King of Mediums, we owe the most incredible experiences of this kind which scientists ever had the good fortune to share.
For the consideration of those who would accuse them of temporary insanity there are flashlight photographs, which demand an explanation. The best of these pictures (which is reproduced in Dr. Geley's classical Clairvoyance and Materialization(1) was taken in 1919 in Warsaw. A bird, described by Prof. Pawlowski, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, as a hawk or buzzard, was heard to stretch its wings with a whirring sound, accompanied by blasts of wind. It "flew round, beating its wings against the walls and the ceiling; when it finally settled on the shoulder of the medium it was photographed with a magnesium flash, as the camera was accidentally focussed on the medium before, and was ready". 
There was no possibility, we are assured, of introducing that bird surreptitiously into the room or hiding it after the manifestation. It appeared and vanished in the way of human phantoms.
There was another, more dangerous customer in charge of a completely luminous old man. Prof. Pawlowski describes the man (an Afghan native who called himself Hirkill) as a column of light. He illuminated all the sitters and even the more distant objects of the room. The light appeared to be focussed in his hands and in the region of his heart.
(1) "Psychic Science", April, 1926.
The acrid scent was very pronounced with the weirdest of all these apparitions - the Pithecanthropus, which showed itself several times. "One of us," writes Dr. Geley, "at the séance of November 20th, 1920, felt its large shaggy head press hard on his right shoulder and against his cheek. The head was covered with thick, coarse hair; a smell came from it like that of a deer or a wet dog. When one of the sitters put out his hand the Pithecanthropus seized it and licked it slowly three times. Its tongue was large and soft. At other times we all felt our legs touched by what seemed to be frolicsome dogs." According to Col. Norbert Ocholowicz, "this ape was of such great strength that it could easily move a heavy book-case, filled with books, through the room, carry a sofa over the heads of the sitters, or lift the heaviest persons with their chairs into the air to the height of a tall person. Though the ape's behaviour sometimes caused fear, and indicated a low level of intelligence. it was never malignant. Indeed, it often expressed goodwill, gentleness and readiness to obey... It was seen for the last time at the séance of December 26th, 1922, in the same form as in 1919, and making the same sounds of smacking and scratching." Of another small animal, reminding the sitters of a weasel, the following description was quoted by Mrs. Hewat McKenzie, widow of the founder of the British College of Psychic Science:
Kluski's animals are unique in species but not as phenomena. Two other Polish contemporaries, Burgik and Guzyk, demonstrated similar apparitions. Prof. Richet, the world-famous physiologist of the Sorbonne, writes of a séance with Burgik(1):
(1) "Thirty Years of Psychical Research", London., 1923.
Other investigators with other mediums have also testified to such amazing adventures. Gambier Bolton, Fellow of the Zoological Society, writes in his Ghosts in Solid Form:
To return to our Poles, Burgik and Guzyk had questionable reputations. They were professional mediums. Kluski, on the other hand, is a distinguished professional man, a poet and writer. His real name has not been made known. In him powers of "physical" mediumship co-exist with remarkable intellectual psychic gifts; which is a rare combination. Strange presentiments, visions of distant events, and the facility of seeing phantoms, were his endowment from early childhood, but his "physical" powers were only accidentally discovered in a sitting with Guzyk in 1919. Their manifestation annoyed him, but his curiosity was aroused and he consented to experiments. Like Mme. d'Esperance, he preserved consciousness during the phenomena of materialization, and could give invaluable subjective accounts of his own sensations to men of science, whom he was always very willing to oblige. There was no facet in his strange gifts which did not lend itself to the fullest and most rigorous scientific examination. An instance of his luminous phenomena, as recorded by Dr. Geley, is the following:
"A large luminous trail like a nebulous comet, and about half a metre long, formed behind Kluski about a metre above his head and seemingly about the same distance behind him. This nebula was constituted of tiny bright grains broadcast, among which there were some specially brilliant points. This nebula oscillated quickly from right to left and left to right, and rose and fell. It lasted about a minute, disappeared and reappeared several times. After the sitting I found that the medium, who had been naked for an hour, was very warm. He was perspiring on the back and at the armpits; he was much exhausted." At the Institut Metapsychique of Paris there are eloquent proofs of Kluski's supernormal powers on view. They include plaster casts of human hands with fingers bent and joined. The mould is fine and delicate, and the texture of the skin perfect. But whose skin? That question cannot be answered. For the hands which alternately dipped into buckets filled with hot paraffin and cold water ended at the wrist. They had no visible owner. When the paraffin shell thickened the hand faded away, vanished, dematerialized and left a perfect glove behind. The operation only took three minutes. Normally, it would take twenty minutes to produce a paraffin glove. But the hand, withdrawing from it, would burst the shell at the joints if the fingers were bent, and at the wrist. The Kluski gloves defied normal human production. They showed blue spots, traces of cholesterin which Dr. Geley, unknown to all, mixed with the paraffin to have further evidence that the gloves were made on the spot. The excellence of Kluski's phenomena is due to his economy in the use of his mysterious power. Not being a professional medium, he only sits for those he cares for, and at comparatively long intervals. Thus he easily recuperates from the drain on his vital forces. When, after an interval of rest, he agrees to sit again, he knows that his pent-up psychic energies will produce startling manifestations. | |||||
Great Pyramid - PYRAMIDS AND GEOPOLYMERS - 18.A Rebirth of Agglomerated Stone
PYRAMIDS AND GEOPOLYMERS
Twelve hundred years after the great pyramids, agglomerated stone was still in use under Amun's rulership. Because Amenhotep III (1410-1370 BC) was the son of a foreign princess and Tuthmosis IV, a king born under the Memphis god Ra-Harakhtes, he had little chance to succeed to the throne. To become pharaoh he had to legitimize his ancestry, and he did so by assuming the same circumstances surrounding Hatschepsut’s birth, which was Amun’s intervention in his inception.
Figure 97: Queen Montenowia with god Khnum and goddess Hathor (Lepsius). Figure 98: God Khnum fashions the body and the ka of Pharaoh Amenhotep III
The bas-reliefs at Luxor, like those at Deir el Bahari, show the Queen Moutenowia in the arms of the Divine Lover. The confinement was assisted by the god Khnum and the goddess Hathor (Fig. 97), and her son Amenhotep was given over to the hands of two Nile gods. Amenhotep III’s royal legitimacy was warranted due to his kinship to Amun. But it was Khnum who created Amenhotep’s divine body, and the body of his ka. His divine birth is shown in Fig. 98. The reign of Amenhotep III was a reign of peace, among the wealthiest that Egypt had ever known under the rulership of the Theban dynasties.Amenhotep III preferred to go hunting rather than to make war, and he married a Mitanian princess, the fascinating Queen Tiy (Teje). His harem consisted of alien princesses that various kings of the vassal countries sent to Thebes as a pledge of their alliance and obedience. During this period, Egypt was indeed prosperous, for unlike his predecessors, Amenhotep III reinvested part of the national wealth to enhance the industry and agriculture which yielded such good fortune.
To surround himself with wise and trusted assistants, Amenhotep III sought the help of an exceptional man named Huy, whom he later named Amenhotep, son of Hapu. Due to the genius of Amenhotep, son of Hapu, the glory of Amenhotep III’s reign was characterized by the magnificence of its buildings. The Temple of Luxor, dedicated to Amun, surpassed all of the Egyptian monuments built during the New Kingdom in elegance.
Amenhotep III returned the town of Elephantine to its original grandeur and dedicated two temples which he erected to the god Khnum. The Napoleonic work, Description de l’Egypte, is the only document which describes the Temples of Khnum at Elephantine in detail. One temple (Fig .99) was unique in its design, according to the texts of Jomard of the Napoleonic Egyptian Expedition [94]:
“ ... I have noticed that this building is well preserved. Only two pillars were destroyed. What has suffered the most are the stairs which led to the Parvis. We only see the fifth and sixth upper steps, the rest were hidden by a large amount of rubble. Inside, there is practically no trace of destruction. The edges of the corners of the walls are still intact.The sculptures have been slightly damaged, especially on the side facing north.The dark color of all these walls indicates extreme age. There are very few Egyptian monuments where the color of the stone has been as darkened... ”
Figure 99: The Temple of the God Khnum at Elephantine (Description d'Egypte).
This Temple was still standing at the beginning of the Nineteenth Century. Yet, both of Khnum’s Temples were destroyed between 1822-1825 AD by the Turkish governor of Aswan, who built a garrison and storehouses at Syena from their stone. In the absence of any modern archaeological record, I may suppose that the Temple of Khnum was built with the agglomeration technique which characterized this god. The extremely dark color of the stone observed at the temple may indicate that it was produced by agglomeration, using perhaps loose sand and Nile silt of brownish color. The Temple had square pillars such as those of the Old Kingdom when agglomeration was in use. The quote from Jomard continues:
“ ... The pillars are decorated with two standing beings and several columns of hieroglyphic writing. A great vulture with his wings spread out is at the summit. Before describing other sculptures of the Temple, we have to examine the columns which are very unusual to find.. Here I can observe that the capitals of the pillars at Elephantine may represent reed stalks which are strongly tightened with links that form an angle, as was usually done with these plants... ”
In ancient Egypt, all things had a mythological significance. The capitals of these columns, representing reed stalks strongly tightened with links, may signify two of the alchemical products necessary to the agglomeration process characteristic of Khnum. These products were natron (caustic soda) and sodium silicate (see in Appendix I, The Alchemical Inventions). The ashes of the burnt reed contain a very high amount (70 to 75 per cent by weight) of reactive silica SiO2. Natron lakes were covered with reeds, and natron covered these plants in thin layers. To harvest natron, reed stalks were gathered and tightened into bundles, exactly like the stone images of bundles found in the pillars of the Temple of Khnum. The bas-reliefs in the Temple at Elephantine depict Amenhotep III being welcomed by Khnum and Khnum’s wives and daughters, as shown in Fig. 100. According to Jomard:
“ ... The main element in the bas-relief is a symbolic ark ornamented at the stern with a ram’s head facing the entrance of the temple. It [the ark] is laid on an altar which is shorter than it is wide... On the stern there is a different theme. A human carrying an ankh is standing between two figures, who both have one hand on his [Amenhotep III’s] shoulder and are welcoming him into their arms. A vulture spreads out its wings over him at the left of the bas-relief.The god [Khnum] has the head of a ram, and is painted with a blue color... ”
I mentioned previously the significance of the color blue associated with Khnum and later with the god Amun, when in Thebes he became Amun the progenitor. Amenhotep III established a religious compromise which allowed the worship of Amun and Ra-Harakhtes simultaneously. It was for “ political reasons ” that his scribe and architect, Amenhotep, son of Hapu, engineered the Temple of Luxor and one pylon at Karnak for the Temple of Amun. But Amenhotep III’s choice of personal worship was Ra- Harakhtes, of the Old Kingdom.
Figure 100: Pharaoh Amenhotep III is welcomed by the god Khnum at Elephantine (Description de l'Egypte). Figure 101: The colossi of Memnon; Northern on background and Southern on foreground, with author in foreground (1979).
The colossal statues of Memnon
Amenhotep III’s funeral temple (now destroyed) at the foot of the Valley of the Kings, must have been a tremendous monument. It stood behind two unusual colossal statues, the famous Colossi of Memnon, the sole remains of the Necropolis (Fig. 101). The dedication stele of this temple states [95]: “ ... My majesty [Amenhotep III] filled it with monuments, with my statues from the mountain of gritstone [quartzite]... ”
These two colossal statues, representing Amenhotep III, were engineered as monolithic figures by Amenhotep, son of Hapu. They are made with an exceptionally hard stone, which is a siliceous quartzite conglomerate. These two colos- sal statues have suffered severely from the hand of time and have lost their artistic value. The two immense figures, the cubical thrones on which they are seated, the pedestals, are fashioned out of a pebbly and quartzose sandstone- conglomerate of a yellowish-brown color and very difficult if not impossible to carve. The Southern Colossus is in better preservation than the Northern one, but there is little difference between them in point of size. The dimensions of the former, in which the original form is more easily seen, are as follows: height of the figure 15.5 m (51 ft.), height of the pedestal (partly hidden) on which the feet rest 4 m (13 ft), height of the entire monument 19.5 m (64 ft). But when the figure was adorned with the long-since vanished crown, the original height may have reached 21 m (69 ft). The legs from the sole of the foot to the knee measure 6 m (19 1/2 ft.), and each foot is 3.2 m (10 1/2 ft). long. The breadth of the shoulders is 6 m (20 ft).; the middle finger on one hand is 1.4 m (4 1/2ft). long; and the arm from the tip of the finger to the elbow measures 4.7 m (15 1/2 ft).
The Northern Colossus is the famous vocal statue of Memnon. To the left of the king stands his mother Montenowia, to the right his wife Teye; a third figure, between the legs, has been destroyed. On each side of the seat two Nile-gods were represented in sunken relief, twining the representative plants of Egypt (sedge and papyrus) round the hieroglyph for “ to unite ”, a symbol of the union of Upper and Lower Egypt. The statue in the north was damaged during an earthquake that occurred in 27 BC, when the upper part fell. After the earthquake, this statue became universally renowned. Attention began to be directed to the Musical Phenomenon, after it had been broken. When it became known that the Northern colossus emitted a musical note at sunrise, a new myth was invented to explain the fact. Mem- non, who had fallen at Troy, appeared as a stone image at Thebes and greeted his mother Eos with a sweet and plain- tive note when she appeared at dawn. The goddess heard the sound and the morning dews are the tears she shed upon her beloved child. If the sound was not heard, it was taken as a sign that the god was angry. The Greek geographer Strabo, who is the first author to mention the phenomenon, expres- ses doubt as to its genuineness. Owing to its extreme hardness, Plinius, in Natural History, [96] described the stone in the Colossi of Memnon as basalt: :
“ ... The Egyptians have found a stone in Ethiopia that has the color and hardness of iron, and consequently, it was called basalt. It is said that there exists at Thebes, in the Temple of Serapis, a statue which was made with this same stone. It represents Memnon, and makes a sound all during the day when touched by sunbeams... ”.
The phenomenon ceased altogether, in the middle of the Third Century AD, after the time of Septimius Severus, who caused the restoration of the upper portions. The restoration was rather clumsily carried out with five courses of quartzite blocks. None of the various attempts made to explain the resonance of the stone are scientifically satisfactory.
The numerous Greek and Latin inscriptions in prose and verse inscribed upon the legs of the figure by travelers under the Roman Empire, are peculiarly interesting. These are more numerous on the left than on the right leg, and none are beyond the reach of a man standing at the foot of the statue. The earliest was carved in the 11th year of the reign of Roman Emperor Nero, the latest in those of Roman Emperor Septimius Severus and Caracalla, and the most numerous in that of Hadrian (A.D. 130). The colossus was frequently dumb, in which case the visitor usually waited until a more favora- ble occasion. Some were so struck with the phenomenon that they were not content till they had heard it three or four times. Roman Emperor Hadrian spent several days here along with his wife Sahina and a large retinue.
Members of the Napoleonic Egyptian Expedition (1798-1802), documented the first precise description of the material which constitutes the Colossi. Before this investigation, the composition of this material was indefinite. The text of Jollois and Devilliers reads as follows [97]:
“ ... The Colossi are facing the southeast, and are standing parallel to the Nile. They are known in this country by the names of Tama and Chama. Chama is the southern Colossus, and Tama is the northern Colossus. Both are alike in many ways. They show differences in their dimensions that we will indicate step by step: both are made from a variety of conglomerate consisting of a mass of agatized flint, bound together by a cement of exceptional hardness. This material is very dense, and has a highly heterogeneous structure which is much more difficult to sculpt than granite.What we have witnessed shows that the Egyptian sculptors have mastered their task with the greatest success... ”
The pedestal of the Southern Colossus consists of 216 cubic meters of stone weighing 556 metric tons. The monolithic statue itself consists of 292 cubic meters and weighs 749 metric tons, so that the pedestal and the Colossus together weigh more than 1,305 metric tons in total (four times the weight of the New-York Statue of Liberty). The Northern Colossus was broken in the middle. The upper part, beginning with the arms up to the head, was rebuilt with carved quartzite stones.
For each obelisk and colossus made of pink syenite from the quarries near Aswan, there are visible traces which allow us to locate the exact site of quarrying. This is not the case for the Colossi of Memnon. Let us continue the study made by the Napoleonic Egyptian Expedition:
“ ... None of the quartzite hills or quarries show tool marks, as are so common in the sandstone and granite quarries.We have to conclude that a material so hard and unworkable by sharp tools must have been exploited by a process other than that generally used for sandstone, or even granite.... Even if we have not determined the means used, we are forced to admire the results. Nothing is more apt to give us an idea of the high level of the mechanical arts during antiquity than the beautiful execution of the figures, and the clean, pure sketch of the engraved hieroglyphs on this material. The hardness is such that it is more difficult to work than granite.That fact did not discourage the Egyptians who did not seem ever to be perplexed by difficulties that may have stood in their way. When the tool of the engraver in the middle of a hieroglyphic character hit a flint or an agate that constitutes this conglomerate, the line was never hindered, but on the contrary, continued in all its purity. Neither the agate fragments nor the stone itself was even slightly broken by engraving. ”
This exceptional method of “ engraving ” corresponds exactly to the result obtained with the technique of casting moldable stone. When the so called “ engraving ” is obtained by casting stone into a mold, the crystals and heterogeneous fragments of the conglomerate yield exactly to the shape of the mold. Do we have any clues that would suggest any usage of the agglomeration technique by Amenhotep, son of Hapu? Perhaps. On his third statue at Karnak, Amenhotep son of Hapu glorifies his third promotion:
“ ... My lord made me chief of all works ... I did not imitate that which had been done before. I fashioned for him a mountain of gritstone (quartzite) ... there was not one who had done the like since the time of the foundation of the Two Lands. I conducted the work of his statues, immense in width, taller than his column ... In the august mountain of gritstone [Gebel el Ahmar, near Cairo] (I found) material 40 cubits in length. I built an eight vessel, I brought it [the material or the statues?] up-river; it was set up in this great house... ”
Although this text seems very clear, several archaeologists and geologists disagree and do not take for granted that Amenhotep, son of Hapu, extracted the statues, at the Red Mountain of quartzite, Gebel el Ahmar, near Cairo.
For them, the 1,305 metric tons of each Colossus were not carried 440 miles up-river, against the flow of the Nile, from Cairo to Thebes, a truly incredible “ feat ”. Possible quarries might have been located only fifty miles south to Thebes, at Silsilis or at Aswan. The geologists from the Napoleonic expedition (Description de l’Egypte) favored the quarry found near Aswan as the likely origin. Modern French and German scholars follow De Rozière’s claim. On the other hand, English and American scholars defend the hypothesis that the quarry located at Gebel el Ahmar, a few kilometers from Cairo, is the accurate site.
A study carried out with neutronic activation by a team of American scientists from the University of California, Be- rkeley, (Heizer, Bowman, Stross, 1979, 1984, 1988), came to the conclusion that the quarry used for the monolithic southern Colossus was truly that of the Gebel el Ahmar [18]. They confirmed Amenhotep’s statement. They also determined that the restoration performed by the Roman Emperor Septimius Severus on the Northern Colossus, involved blocks extracted from a quarry near Aswan [98]. More recently the investigations published by the German team from the University of Munich, D.D. Klemm (1993), reactivated the controversy [99]. Klemm’s analysis connects both types of quartzite stone (the monolithic and the carved blocks) to the same quarry, Gebel Tingar, located on the west side of the Nile, not far from the Elephantine Island, at Aswan. Klemm performed geochemical analysis on trace elements like lead, copper, zinc, zirconium; he rejected the written historical evidence provided by Amenhotep son of Hapu.
The use of the agglomeration technique by Amenhotep, son of Hapu to fabricate quartzite stone, and cast the giant Colossi of Memnon could explain the manufacture and placement of these seven-storey high statues. It could also solve the dilemma generated by the contradictory analytical results of the various teams of scientists. The Gebel el Ahmar, or red mountain located near Cairo, is composed of a conglomerate of agateous silica quartzite which had close relationship with the stone of Gebel Tingar at Aswan. This conglomerate of agateous silica is a very hard stone composed of flint and agate, that is bound together by a natural cement, which is the result of a chemical precipitation of silica.
This would also be the definition of stone obtained through an agglomeration process. I have learned through experience in my laboratory at the Geopolymer Institute, that flint is a mineral that lends itself best to the synthesis of hard stone. Amorphous silicates, such as opal, flint, and chalcedony are found in considerable quantities in Egypt. The Gebel Ahmar site is characterized by the presence of hard dense quartzite rock accompanied by a less dense, more porous variety which becomes eroded very easily. I could imagine that Amenhotep son of Hapu, did not excavate the statues in the hardest rock, but was lucky to find sufficient quantities of loose material (“ ... 40 cubits length... ”). If naturally loose aggregates originating from the Gebel el Ahmar quarry were agglomerated with a binder produced with minerals from practically any part of Egypt, preferably from Gebel Tingar, then the study of the artificially agglomerated stone of the Memnon Colossi would be compatible with the analysis of both American and German mineralogists and geochemists. Amenhotep’s description on his statue claimed the exceptional nature of this endeavor:
“ ... I did not imitate that which had been done before. I fashioned for him a mountain of gritstone (quartzite) ... there was not one who had done it the like since the time of the foundation of the Two Lands... ”
This latter sentence is reminiscent of the very significant translation of the Famine Stele, located on the island of Sehel, discussed in a previous chapter. God Khnum is giving Zoser a list of minerals and ores:
“ I am Khnum, your creator. I am putting my hands upon you in order to strengthen your body, to take care of your limbs. I give you rare ore after rare ore... Never before since creation has anyone processed them (to make stone) in order to build the temples of the gods or to rebuild the ruined temples... ”
Amenhotep IV-Akhenaton
An event occurred after Amenhotep III’s time that had a major impact on Egyptian history, and an influence on the nucleus of the Judeo-Christian civilization. The ancient worship of Ra-Harakhtes had regained an honorable place within the Egyptian society, but the Amun clergy was like a state within a state, and his power dictated all activities of spiritual life. The aging pharaoh, Amenhotep III, abdicated in 1370 BC in favor of his twelve year old son, Amenhotep IV. For four to five years, Amenhotep IV maintained a regency with the Queen Teye which was characterized by the official introduc- tion of the Ra-Harakhtes worship, popularly represented by the Sun Disk - Aton.
Amenhotep IV imparted many new rules of which two were exceptional. First, it became forbidden to represent gods using animal figures, especially to depict the Sun god in his usual anthropomorphic form of a human body with the head of a ram or falcon. Second, the finances of the different cults were centralized and reserved solely for the Sun Disk, Aton. These two new laws deeply affected the Amun clergy, especially combined with the fact that Amenhotep IV would build at least five monuments dedicated to the cult of Aton near the Temples of Karnak and Luxor. During the second and third years of his reign, Amenhotep IV held extravagant jubilees. It is estimated that Amenhotep IV dedicated eight monuments to Aton. They were later destroyed, but archaeologists have since located most of the stones, and all of them were engraved. The excavations undertaken by the Canadian archaeologist, Donald B. Redford, in 1972 at Kar- nak, enables a more precise location of these buildings. We know the names of five of these monuments: The two most important are Gem Po Atem, which means “ the Solar Disk is found ”, and Hatbenben, which represented the palace of the mythological Benben, the monument where, according to ancient mythology, the god Ra appeared for the first time. Since ancient times, Benben represented the sacred incarna- tion of Ra. In the fourth year of Amenhotep IV’s reign, he changed his name to Akhenaton.
The worship of Amun was forbidden during Akhenaton’s reign, and Amun’s name was not to be spoken or written. Amun’s name was destroyed everywhere possi- ble. The clergy of the new god Aton was not satisfied to remain in Thebes, alongside the immense temples of Amun. So, Akhe- naton decided to create a new town dedicated to his one god. This town (el Armana) was named “ Khouit-Atonou ”, meaning “ the horizon of Aton ”. There, Akhenaton built a palace for himself and a temple called “ Hatbenben ”, for his unique god. This temple was made mainly of fine white limestone, and was 800 m (2,620 feet) in length (including extensions). Akhenaton was a prolific builder due to the as- sistance he received from his grand viziers, Huy and Ay. Each large town in Egypt received a temple to Aton. Thebes alone acquired eight great temples. The town Khouit-Atonou (now called el Armana) is exemplary of the euphoric building atti- tude of Akhenaton. Its temple was vast and its palace was (in its time) the most glorious secular building in the world. The enormous dimensions of the pylons found in the ruins were surprising to the members of the Napoleonic Egyptian Expedition. Akhenaton’s palace was built with bricks dried in the sun like all secular buildings, but the bricks found at el Armana were really very special. They were very hard and according to the Description de l’Egypte:
“ ...The bricks themselves are gigantic. Indeed they are thirty- five to thirty-eight centimeters [fourteen to fifteen inches) long, and thirteen centimeters [five inches] wide, and sixteen to twenty centimeters [6.3 to 7.9 inches] high.They were very carefully piled in alternate layers, laid flat. Although they were made with a slightly sandy earth and are very old, these bricks are still very hard today... ”
Man-made statues: Mansoor's collection
Let us consider the cultural and artistic explosion which characterizes the el Armana period. Ceramic and glass tech- niques were at their paramount. The bust of Queen Nefertiti, discovered in the ruins of el Armana, is a lasting testimony to the high level of the arts during this period. It is one of the most gracious and charming sculptures to have survived since antiquity to our times. It was found in the workshop of the Chief Sculptor Tuthmosis. This very busy master sculptor was helped in his task by numerous apprentices. In his studio, there were master portraits intended for copying by lesser craftsmen, plaster casts taken from sculpture, heads in a variety of materials (agglomerated stones?) in all stages of production, parts of composites statues, and plaster masks. These plaster masks were casts of clay or wax likenesses. The casting of stone slurries with geopolymeric binders in molds based on these plaster masks was feasible and would have yielded various artifacts in stone. This process, while retaining the spontaneity of the original clay, also enables the desired subtleties to be reproduced in a faithful way. Was it actually used? Probably yes, indeed.
The ancient Egyptian Limestone sculptures from Tel- El-Armana, representing Akhenaton, Nefertiti and members of their family I am referring to, are known as the Mansoor Collection (Fig. 102). They were brought to the United States at various times between 1947 and 1950. The Metropolitan Museum of Arts in New York wanted to see some of the Armana sculptures. The Museum’s curator could not make up his mind about their authenticity and asked that they be sent to Mr. William J. Young, Director of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts’ Laboratory, for examination. Young’s report was a terrible shock to the Mansoors [100-101]. He wrote:
“ The larger of the two heads was examined from a minute fragment and appears not to be a natural material. It shows all the indications of being a made stone which could have been fabricated in a great many ways. ”
Zaki Iskandar, former Chief Chemist of the Egyptian Department of Antiquities, who examined 66 of the objects for the Cairo Museum and wrote a report in 1950, supported the genuineness of the Mansoor’s collection [102]. Several geologists confirmed Iskandar’s study and tried to convince the Boston Museum, in vain. The German Palaeoanthropolgist Reiner Protsch [103], 26 years later, subjected 18 of the sculptures to what he called an “anthropological-morphological” examination an made the following assumption: the “astonishing ” anatomical knowledge of the sculptor who had carved the pieces he saw could be explained only by the assumption that the “ Royal family was sitting for the artist ” because such verisimilitude could be achieved only by copying “ from a living individual ”. Protsch’s assumption that the members of the royal family might have sat for their portraits is not taken seriously by the Egyptologists. In his catalogue for the 1973 Brooklyn Museum “ Akhenaten and Nefertiti ” exhibition, Cyril Aldred wrote that “ no sitter could pose long enough for his statue to be chipped in stone or chiseled in wood ”, and certainly not the members of the royal family. Aldred believes the sculptors modeled their subjects very rapidly in clay or wax and then transferred the likenesses, suitably idealized, to more durable materials. These clay or wax models might have been used for the casting of plaster molds.
Figure 102: MANSOOR'S Collection: Akhenaton and Nefertiti
In 1973, a sculpture from the Mansoor collection was tested when it was submitted by its owner to the International Foundation for Art Research NewYork-based non-profit art authentication service [104]. The unnamed investigator who carried out the examination surprisingly brought the argument round full circle: 27 years after Young’s original and much-scorned report, the foundation’s expert seemed to vindicate his conclusions. The sculpture, a head of Akhenaton, was made, he said, of “ Artificial Stone — or a man made product rather than a natural limestone. The composition was most probably crushed limestone with some bright red pigment to give it a pale pink tone and held together with organic adhesive ”.
The owner sent the sculpture to yet another examiner, a prominent geologist, Richard L. Hay, Professor of Geology, University of California, Berkeley. This investigator disagreed violently with the foundation’s expert. The material of the head, he said, was most certainly natural limestone [105]. In his summary he stated (Feb. 10, 1975):
“ I have gone farther than necessary in documenting what is really a simple matter. The intact nature of the delicate foram tests (shells) together with the euhedral shape (rhomb- shaped) dolomite crystals shows that this limestone could not have been made by cementing crushed limestone; ... It can perhaps be conjectured that a technology might exist (say beings from another planet technologically much more highly advanced than Homo sapiens) for artificially duplicating the several geological processes required... ”
I would like to reply to R. Lay that this method existed and was probably used by Hatschepsut’s architects who build her terrace Temple at Deir-el-Bahari. R. Lay (Mansoor's col- lection) and D.D. Klemm (Hatschepsut's Temple) investigated their stones with the same technique. They microscopically identified the same rhomb-shaped dolomite crystals. The Mansoor collection consists entirely of royal portraits made of an unusual pinkish limestone material that was not used by Egyptian sculptors from other epochs.A more recent comparative analysis performed by mycropaleontologist P. Blanc (1986) on the fossil remains states [106]: “ a probable locality for the limestone raw material would be in the Luxor vicinity ”. In other words, in all likelihood, the limestone could come from Hatschepsut’s quarry.As mentioned previously this raw material is so friable that it is easily disaggregated with water. It does not need to be crushed, i.e. foram tests and rhomb- shaped dolomite crystals will remain intact. The outer space beings of R. Lay were Hatschepsut’s Homo-faber.
For Mr.Young,because they were“ made ston”implied that the objects were of fairly modern origin, and thus forgeries. Several geological studies mandated by the Mansoors showed that the patina bore all the signs of a very antique and genuine “ desert varnish ” that could not be replicated by a modern forger. My conclusion to this study of the Mansoor collection confirms that these objects are genuine antique copies fabricated in one of the workshops of El-Armana, 3350 years ago, copies probably obtained by casting a geopolymeric limestone slurry in plaster molds. They are old, and could at the same time be “ made-stone ”. Chief sculptor Tuthmosis and his colleagues had replicated a technique described 700 years earlier by sculptor Irtysen in his Stele C14 (see in previous chapter). Irtysen wrote:
“ ... I know the parts belonging to the technique of molding... I know the making of molds to make repro- ductions cast in a material that will not be consumed by fire, nor washed by water either... ”
In the temples of this period, Khnum, the ram-headed anthropomorphic god, has been forgotten and was obsolete, and it was the god Aton who was the creator of men. The doctrine of Akhenaton was absolutely monotheistic. Egypt and the exterior provinces had no more than one god — Aton, the setting sun, and this was by decree of the King. Akhena- ton was not the originator of the monotheistic doctrine, which previously existed in philosophical form in the Books of Wisdom.
The rise of the Amun clergy introduced another system of worship, thus perpetuating polytheism in Egypt. Akhena- ton died in about the eighteenth year of his reign at thirty years of age, and was buried east of el Armana. He had no sons, therefore two of his sons-in-law succeeded him to the throne. The first to reign was Semenkhekare from 1356-1352 BC, who continued the religious politics of Akhenaton. Next, the famous Tutankhamun reigned from 1352-1344 BC. He visited Thebes and established a compromise with the powerful Amun clergy and the Egyptian army.
----------------------------------------
BOOK: THE PYRAMIDS AN ENIGMA SOLVED
Prof. Joseph Davidovits
Chapter 18
A Rebirth of Agglomerated Stone with AMENHOTEP III and AKHENATON
Twelve hundred years after the great pyramids, agglomerated stone was still in use under Amun's rulership. Because Amenhotep III (1410-1370 BC) was the son of a foreign princess and Tuthmosis IV, a king born under the Memphis god Ra-Harakhtes, he had little chance to succeed to the throne. To become pharaoh he had to legitimize his ancestry, and he did so by assuming the same circumstances surrounding Hatschepsut’s birth, which was Amun’s intervention in his inception.
Figure 97: Queen Montenowia with god Khnum and goddess Hathor (Lepsius). Figure 98: God Khnum fashions the body and the ka of Pharaoh Amenhotep III
To surround himself with wise and trusted assistants, Amenhotep III sought the help of an exceptional man named Huy, whom he later named Amenhotep, son of Hapu. Due to the genius of Amenhotep, son of Hapu, the glory of Amenhotep III’s reign was characterized by the magnificence of its buildings. The Temple of Luxor, dedicated to Amun, surpassed all of the Egyptian monuments built during the New Kingdom in elegance.
Amenhotep III returned the town of Elephantine to its original grandeur and dedicated two temples which he erected to the god Khnum. The Napoleonic work, Description de l’Egypte, is the only document which describes the Temples of Khnum at Elephantine in detail. One temple (Fig .99) was unique in its design, according to the texts of Jomard of the Napoleonic Egyptian Expedition [94]:
“ ... I have noticed that this building is well preserved. Only two pillars were destroyed. What has suffered the most are the stairs which led to the Parvis. We only see the fifth and sixth upper steps, the rest were hidden by a large amount of rubble. Inside, there is practically no trace of destruction. The edges of the corners of the walls are still intact.The sculptures have been slightly damaged, especially on the side facing north.The dark color of all these walls indicates extreme age. There are very few Egyptian monuments where the color of the stone has been as darkened... ”
Figure 99: The Temple of the God Khnum at Elephantine (Description d'Egypte).
South Temple of Amenhotep III. at Elephantine.
The most simple temples were sometimes the most beautiful. This was the case as regards the sanctuaries erected by Amenhotep III. in the island of Elephantine, which were figured by the members of the French expedition at the end of the last century, and destroyed by the Turkish governor of Asûan in 1822. The best preserved, namely, the south temple consisted of but a single chamber of sandstone, 14 feet high, 31 feet wide, and 39 feet long. The walls, which were straight, and crowned with the usual cornice, rested on a platform of masonry some 8 feet above the ground. This platform was surrounded by a parapet wall, breast high. All around the temple ran a colonnade, the sides each consisting of seven square pillars, without capital or base, and the two façades, front and back, being supported by two columns with the lotus-bud capital.
Both pillars and columns rose direct from the parapet; except on the east front, where a flight of ten or twelve steps, enclosed between two walls of the same height as the platform, led up to the cella. The two columns at the head of the steps were wider apart than those of the opposite face, and through the space thus opened was seen a richly- decorated door. A second door opened at the other end, beneath the portico. Later, in Roman times, this feature was utilised in altering the building. The inter-columnar space at the end was filled up, and thus was obtained a second hall, rough and bare, but useful for the purposes of the temple service.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This Temple was still standing at the beginning of the Nineteenth Century. Yet, both of Khnum’s Temples were destroyed between 1822-1825 AD by the Turkish governor of Aswan, who built a garrison and storehouses at Syena from their stone. In the absence of any modern archaeological record, I may suppose that the Temple of Khnum was built with the agglomeration technique which characterized this god. The extremely dark color of the stone observed at the temple may indicate that it was produced by agglomeration, using perhaps loose sand and Nile silt of brownish color. The Temple had square pillars such as those of the Old Kingdom when agglomeration was in use. The quote from Jomard continues:
“ ... The pillars are decorated with two standing beings and several columns of hieroglyphic writing. A great vulture with his wings spread out is at the summit. Before describing other sculptures of the Temple, we have to examine the columns which are very unusual to find.. Here I can observe that the capitals of the pillars at Elephantine may represent reed stalks which are strongly tightened with links that form an angle, as was usually done with these plants... ”
In ancient Egypt, all things had a mythological significance. The capitals of these columns, representing reed stalks strongly tightened with links, may signify two of the alchemical products necessary to the agglomeration process characteristic of Khnum. These products were natron (caustic soda) and sodium silicate (see in Appendix I, The Alchemical Inventions). The ashes of the burnt reed contain a very high amount (70 to 75 per cent by weight) of reactive silica SiO2. Natron lakes were covered with reeds, and natron covered these plants in thin layers. To harvest natron, reed stalks were gathered and tightened into bundles, exactly like the stone images of bundles found in the pillars of the Temple of Khnum. The bas-reliefs in the Temple at Elephantine depict Amenhotep III being welcomed by Khnum and Khnum’s wives and daughters, as shown in Fig. 100. According to Jomard:
“ ... The main element in the bas-relief is a symbolic ark ornamented at the stern with a ram’s head facing the entrance of the temple. It [the ark] is laid on an altar which is shorter than it is wide... On the stern there is a different theme. A human carrying an ankh is standing between two figures, who both have one hand on his [Amenhotep III’s] shoulder and are welcoming him into their arms. A vulture spreads out its wings over him at the left of the bas-relief.The god [Khnum] has the head of a ram, and is painted with a blue color... ”
I mentioned previously the significance of the color blue associated with Khnum and later with the god Amun, when in Thebes he became Amun the progenitor. Amenhotep III established a religious compromise which allowed the worship of Amun and Ra-Harakhtes simultaneously. It was for “ political reasons ” that his scribe and architect, Amenhotep, son of Hapu, engineered the Temple of Luxor and one pylon at Karnak for the Temple of Amun. But Amenhotep III’s choice of personal worship was Ra- Harakhtes, of the Old Kingdom.
Figure 100: Pharaoh Amenhotep III is welcomed by the god Khnum at Elephantine (Description de l'Egypte). Figure 101: The colossi of Memnon; Northern on background and Southern on foreground, with author in foreground (1979).
Amenhotep III’s funeral temple (now destroyed) at the foot of the Valley of the Kings, must have been a tremendous monument. It stood behind two unusual colossal statues, the famous Colossi of Memnon, the sole remains of the Necropolis (Fig. 101). The dedication stele of this temple states [95]: “ ... My majesty [Amenhotep III] filled it with monuments, with my statues from the mountain of gritstone [quartzite]... ”
These two colossal statues, representing Amenhotep III, were engineered as monolithic figures by Amenhotep, son of Hapu. They are made with an exceptionally hard stone, which is a siliceous quartzite conglomerate. These two colos- sal statues have suffered severely from the hand of time and have lost their artistic value. The two immense figures, the cubical thrones on which they are seated, the pedestals, are fashioned out of a pebbly and quartzose sandstone- conglomerate of a yellowish-brown color and very difficult if not impossible to carve. The Southern Colossus is in better preservation than the Northern one, but there is little difference between them in point of size. The dimensions of the former, in which the original form is more easily seen, are as follows: height of the figure 15.5 m (51 ft.), height of the pedestal (partly hidden) on which the feet rest 4 m (13 ft), height of the entire monument 19.5 m (64 ft). But when the figure was adorned with the long-since vanished crown, the original height may have reached 21 m (69 ft). The legs from the sole of the foot to the knee measure 6 m (19 1/2 ft.), and each foot is 3.2 m (10 1/2 ft). long. The breadth of the shoulders is 6 m (20 ft).; the middle finger on one hand is 1.4 m (4 1/2ft). long; and the arm from the tip of the finger to the elbow measures 4.7 m (15 1/2 ft).
The Northern Colossus is the famous vocal statue of Memnon. To the left of the king stands his mother Montenowia, to the right his wife Teye; a third figure, between the legs, has been destroyed. On each side of the seat two Nile-gods were represented in sunken relief, twining the representative plants of Egypt (sedge and papyrus) round the hieroglyph for “ to unite ”, a symbol of the union of Upper and Lower Egypt. The statue in the north was damaged during an earthquake that occurred in 27 BC, when the upper part fell. After the earthquake, this statue became universally renowned. Attention began to be directed to the Musical Phenomenon, after it had been broken. When it became known that the Northern colossus emitted a musical note at sunrise, a new myth was invented to explain the fact. Mem- non, who had fallen at Troy, appeared as a stone image at Thebes and greeted his mother Eos with a sweet and plain- tive note when she appeared at dawn. The goddess heard the sound and the morning dews are the tears she shed upon her beloved child. If the sound was not heard, it was taken as a sign that the god was angry. The Greek geographer Strabo, who is the first author to mention the phenomenon, expres- ses doubt as to its genuineness. Owing to its extreme hardness, Plinius, in Natural History, [96] described the stone in the Colossi of Memnon as basalt: :
“ ... The Egyptians have found a stone in Ethiopia that has the color and hardness of iron, and consequently, it was called basalt. It is said that there exists at Thebes, in the Temple of Serapis, a statue which was made with this same stone. It represents Memnon, and makes a sound all during the day when touched by sunbeams... ”.
The phenomenon ceased altogether, in the middle of the Third Century AD, after the time of Septimius Severus, who caused the restoration of the upper portions. The restoration was rather clumsily carried out with five courses of quartzite blocks. None of the various attempts made to explain the resonance of the stone are scientifically satisfactory.
The numerous Greek and Latin inscriptions in prose and verse inscribed upon the legs of the figure by travelers under the Roman Empire, are peculiarly interesting. These are more numerous on the left than on the right leg, and none are beyond the reach of a man standing at the foot of the statue. The earliest was carved in the 11th year of the reign of Roman Emperor Nero, the latest in those of Roman Emperor Septimius Severus and Caracalla, and the most numerous in that of Hadrian (A.D. 130). The colossus was frequently dumb, in which case the visitor usually waited until a more favora- ble occasion. Some were so struck with the phenomenon that they were not content till they had heard it three or four times. Roman Emperor Hadrian spent several days here along with his wife Sahina and a large retinue.
Members of the Napoleonic Egyptian Expedition (1798-1802), documented the first precise description of the material which constitutes the Colossi. Before this investigation, the composition of this material was indefinite. The text of Jollois and Devilliers reads as follows [97]:
“ ... The Colossi are facing the southeast, and are standing parallel to the Nile. They are known in this country by the names of Tama and Chama. Chama is the southern Colossus, and Tama is the northern Colossus. Both are alike in many ways. They show differences in their dimensions that we will indicate step by step: both are made from a variety of conglomerate consisting of a mass of agatized flint, bound together by a cement of exceptional hardness. This material is very dense, and has a highly heterogeneous structure which is much more difficult to sculpt than granite.What we have witnessed shows that the Egyptian sculptors have mastered their task with the greatest success... ”
The pedestal of the Southern Colossus consists of 216 cubic meters of stone weighing 556 metric tons. The monolithic statue itself consists of 292 cubic meters and weighs 749 metric tons, so that the pedestal and the Colossus together weigh more than 1,305 metric tons in total (four times the weight of the New-York Statue of Liberty). The Northern Colossus was broken in the middle. The upper part, beginning with the arms up to the head, was rebuilt with carved quartzite stones.
For each obelisk and colossus made of pink syenite from the quarries near Aswan, there are visible traces which allow us to locate the exact site of quarrying. This is not the case for the Colossi of Memnon. Let us continue the study made by the Napoleonic Egyptian Expedition:
“ ... None of the quartzite hills or quarries show tool marks, as are so common in the sandstone and granite quarries.We have to conclude that a material so hard and unworkable by sharp tools must have been exploited by a process other than that generally used for sandstone, or even granite.... Even if we have not determined the means used, we are forced to admire the results. Nothing is more apt to give us an idea of the high level of the mechanical arts during antiquity than the beautiful execution of the figures, and the clean, pure sketch of the engraved hieroglyphs on this material. The hardness is such that it is more difficult to work than granite.That fact did not discourage the Egyptians who did not seem ever to be perplexed by difficulties that may have stood in their way. When the tool of the engraver in the middle of a hieroglyphic character hit a flint or an agate that constitutes this conglomerate, the line was never hindered, but on the contrary, continued in all its purity. Neither the agate fragments nor the stone itself was even slightly broken by engraving. ”
This exceptional method of “ engraving ” corresponds exactly to the result obtained with the technique of casting moldable stone. When the so called “ engraving ” is obtained by casting stone into a mold, the crystals and heterogeneous fragments of the conglomerate yield exactly to the shape of the mold. Do we have any clues that would suggest any usage of the agglomeration technique by Amenhotep, son of Hapu? Perhaps. On his third statue at Karnak, Amenhotep son of Hapu glorifies his third promotion:
“ ... My lord made me chief of all works ... I did not imitate that which had been done before. I fashioned for him a mountain of gritstone (quartzite) ... there was not one who had done the like since the time of the foundation of the Two Lands. I conducted the work of his statues, immense in width, taller than his column ... In the august mountain of gritstone [Gebel el Ahmar, near Cairo] (I found) material 40 cubits in length. I built an eight vessel, I brought it [the material or the statues?] up-river; it was set up in this great house... ”
Although this text seems very clear, several archaeologists and geologists disagree and do not take for granted that Amenhotep, son of Hapu, extracted the statues, at the Red Mountain of quartzite, Gebel el Ahmar, near Cairo.
For them, the 1,305 metric tons of each Colossus were not carried 440 miles up-river, against the flow of the Nile, from Cairo to Thebes, a truly incredible “ feat ”. Possible quarries might have been located only fifty miles south to Thebes, at Silsilis or at Aswan. The geologists from the Napoleonic expedition (Description de l’Egypte) favored the quarry found near Aswan as the likely origin. Modern French and German scholars follow De Rozière’s claim. On the other hand, English and American scholars defend the hypothesis that the quarry located at Gebel el Ahmar, a few kilometers from Cairo, is the accurate site.
A study carried out with neutronic activation by a team of American scientists from the University of California, Be- rkeley, (Heizer, Bowman, Stross, 1979, 1984, 1988), came to the conclusion that the quarry used for the monolithic southern Colossus was truly that of the Gebel el Ahmar [18]. They confirmed Amenhotep’s statement. They also determined that the restoration performed by the Roman Emperor Septimius Severus on the Northern Colossus, involved blocks extracted from a quarry near Aswan [98]. More recently the investigations published by the German team from the University of Munich, D.D. Klemm (1993), reactivated the controversy [99]. Klemm’s analysis connects both types of quartzite stone (the monolithic and the carved blocks) to the same quarry, Gebel Tingar, located on the west side of the Nile, not far from the Elephantine Island, at Aswan. Klemm performed geochemical analysis on trace elements like lead, copper, zinc, zirconium; he rejected the written historical evidence provided by Amenhotep son of Hapu.
The use of the agglomeration technique by Amenhotep, son of Hapu to fabricate quartzite stone, and cast the giant Colossi of Memnon could explain the manufacture and placement of these seven-storey high statues. It could also solve the dilemma generated by the contradictory analytical results of the various teams of scientists. The Gebel el Ahmar, or red mountain located near Cairo, is composed of a conglomerate of agateous silica quartzite which had close relationship with the stone of Gebel Tingar at Aswan. This conglomerate of agateous silica is a very hard stone composed of flint and agate, that is bound together by a natural cement, which is the result of a chemical precipitation of silica.
This would also be the definition of stone obtained through an agglomeration process. I have learned through experience in my laboratory at the Geopolymer Institute, that flint is a mineral that lends itself best to the synthesis of hard stone. Amorphous silicates, such as opal, flint, and chalcedony are found in considerable quantities in Egypt. The Gebel Ahmar site is characterized by the presence of hard dense quartzite rock accompanied by a less dense, more porous variety which becomes eroded very easily. I could imagine that Amenhotep son of Hapu, did not excavate the statues in the hardest rock, but was lucky to find sufficient quantities of loose material (“ ... 40 cubits length... ”). If naturally loose aggregates originating from the Gebel el Ahmar quarry were agglomerated with a binder produced with minerals from practically any part of Egypt, preferably from Gebel Tingar, then the study of the artificially agglomerated stone of the Memnon Colossi would be compatible with the analysis of both American and German mineralogists and geochemists. Amenhotep’s description on his statue claimed the exceptional nature of this endeavor:
“ ... I did not imitate that which had been done before. I fashioned for him a mountain of gritstone (quartzite) ... there was not one who had done it the like since the time of the foundation of the Two Lands... ”
This latter sentence is reminiscent of the very significant translation of the Famine Stele, located on the island of Sehel, discussed in a previous chapter. God Khnum is giving Zoser a list of minerals and ores:
“ I am Khnum, your creator. I am putting my hands upon you in order to strengthen your body, to take care of your limbs. I give you rare ore after rare ore... Never before since creation has anyone processed them (to make stone) in order to build the temples of the gods or to rebuild the ruined temples... ”
Amenhotep IV-Akhenaton
An event occurred after Amenhotep III’s time that had a major impact on Egyptian history, and an influence on the nucleus of the Judeo-Christian civilization. The ancient worship of Ra-Harakhtes had regained an honorable place within the Egyptian society, but the Amun clergy was like a state within a state, and his power dictated all activities of spiritual life. The aging pharaoh, Amenhotep III, abdicated in 1370 BC in favor of his twelve year old son, Amenhotep IV. For four to five years, Amenhotep IV maintained a regency with the Queen Teye which was characterized by the official introduc- tion of the Ra-Harakhtes worship, popularly represented by the Sun Disk - Aton.
Amenhotep IV imparted many new rules of which two were exceptional. First, it became forbidden to represent gods using animal figures, especially to depict the Sun god in his usual anthropomorphic form of a human body with the head of a ram or falcon. Second, the finances of the different cults were centralized and reserved solely for the Sun Disk, Aton. These two new laws deeply affected the Amun clergy, especially combined with the fact that Amenhotep IV would build at least five monuments dedicated to the cult of Aton near the Temples of Karnak and Luxor. During the second and third years of his reign, Amenhotep IV held extravagant jubilees. It is estimated that Amenhotep IV dedicated eight monuments to Aton. They were later destroyed, but archaeologists have since located most of the stones, and all of them were engraved. The excavations undertaken by the Canadian archaeologist, Donald B. Redford, in 1972 at Kar- nak, enables a more precise location of these buildings. We know the names of five of these monuments: The two most important are Gem Po Atem, which means “ the Solar Disk is found ”, and Hatbenben, which represented the palace of the mythological Benben, the monument where, according to ancient mythology, the god Ra appeared for the first time. Since ancient times, Benben represented the sacred incarna- tion of Ra. In the fourth year of Amenhotep IV’s reign, he changed his name to Akhenaton.
The worship of Amun was forbidden during Akhenaton’s reign, and Amun’s name was not to be spoken or written. Amun’s name was destroyed everywhere possi- ble. The clergy of the new god Aton was not satisfied to remain in Thebes, alongside the immense temples of Amun. So, Akhe- naton decided to create a new town dedicated to his one god. This town (el Armana) was named “ Khouit-Atonou ”, meaning “ the horizon of Aton ”. There, Akhenaton built a palace for himself and a temple called “ Hatbenben ”, for his unique god. This temple was made mainly of fine white limestone, and was 800 m (2,620 feet) in length (including extensions). Akhenaton was a prolific builder due to the as- sistance he received from his grand viziers, Huy and Ay. Each large town in Egypt received a temple to Aton. Thebes alone acquired eight great temples. The town Khouit-Atonou (now called el Armana) is exemplary of the euphoric building atti- tude of Akhenaton. Its temple was vast and its palace was (in its time) the most glorious secular building in the world. The enormous dimensions of the pylons found in the ruins were surprising to the members of the Napoleonic Egyptian Expedition. Akhenaton’s palace was built with bricks dried in the sun like all secular buildings, but the bricks found at el Armana were really very special. They were very hard and according to the Description de l’Egypte:
“ ...The bricks themselves are gigantic. Indeed they are thirty- five to thirty-eight centimeters [fourteen to fifteen inches) long, and thirteen centimeters [five inches] wide, and sixteen to twenty centimeters [6.3 to 7.9 inches] high.They were very carefully piled in alternate layers, laid flat. Although they were made with a slightly sandy earth and are very old, these bricks are still very hard today... ”
Man-made statues: Mansoor's collection
Let us consider the cultural and artistic explosion which characterizes the el Armana period. Ceramic and glass tech- niques were at their paramount. The bust of Queen Nefertiti, discovered in the ruins of el Armana, is a lasting testimony to the high level of the arts during this period. It is one of the most gracious and charming sculptures to have survived since antiquity to our times. It was found in the workshop of the Chief Sculptor Tuthmosis. This very busy master sculptor was helped in his task by numerous apprentices. In his studio, there were master portraits intended for copying by lesser craftsmen, plaster casts taken from sculpture, heads in a variety of materials (agglomerated stones?) in all stages of production, parts of composites statues, and plaster masks. These plaster masks were casts of clay or wax likenesses. The casting of stone slurries with geopolymeric binders in molds based on these plaster masks was feasible and would have yielded various artifacts in stone. This process, while retaining the spontaneity of the original clay, also enables the desired subtleties to be reproduced in a faithful way. Was it actually used? Probably yes, indeed.
The ancient Egyptian Limestone sculptures from Tel- El-Armana, representing Akhenaton, Nefertiti and members of their family I am referring to, are known as the Mansoor Collection (Fig. 102). They were brought to the United States at various times between 1947 and 1950. The Metropolitan Museum of Arts in New York wanted to see some of the Armana sculptures. The Museum’s curator could not make up his mind about their authenticity and asked that they be sent to Mr. William J. Young, Director of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts’ Laboratory, for examination. Young’s report was a terrible shock to the Mansoors [100-101]. He wrote:
“ The larger of the two heads was examined from a minute fragment and appears not to be a natural material. It shows all the indications of being a made stone which could have been fabricated in a great many ways. ”
Zaki Iskandar, former Chief Chemist of the Egyptian Department of Antiquities, who examined 66 of the objects for the Cairo Museum and wrote a report in 1950, supported the genuineness of the Mansoor’s collection [102]. Several geologists confirmed Iskandar’s study and tried to convince the Boston Museum, in vain. The German Palaeoanthropolgist Reiner Protsch [103], 26 years later, subjected 18 of the sculptures to what he called an “anthropological-morphological” examination an made the following assumption: the “astonishing ” anatomical knowledge of the sculptor who had carved the pieces he saw could be explained only by the assumption that the “ Royal family was sitting for the artist ” because such verisimilitude could be achieved only by copying “ from a living individual ”. Protsch’s assumption that the members of the royal family might have sat for their portraits is not taken seriously by the Egyptologists. In his catalogue for the 1973 Brooklyn Museum “ Akhenaten and Nefertiti ” exhibition, Cyril Aldred wrote that “ no sitter could pose long enough for his statue to be chipped in stone or chiseled in wood ”, and certainly not the members of the royal family. Aldred believes the sculptors modeled their subjects very rapidly in clay or wax and then transferred the likenesses, suitably idealized, to more durable materials. These clay or wax models might have been used for the casting of plaster molds.
Figure 102: MANSOOR'S Collection: Akhenaton and Nefertiti
The owner sent the sculpture to yet another examiner, a prominent geologist, Richard L. Hay, Professor of Geology, University of California, Berkeley. This investigator disagreed violently with the foundation’s expert. The material of the head, he said, was most certainly natural limestone [105]. In his summary he stated (Feb. 10, 1975):
“ I have gone farther than necessary in documenting what is really a simple matter. The intact nature of the delicate foram tests (shells) together with the euhedral shape (rhomb- shaped) dolomite crystals shows that this limestone could not have been made by cementing crushed limestone; ... It can perhaps be conjectured that a technology might exist (say beings from another planet technologically much more highly advanced than Homo sapiens) for artificially duplicating the several geological processes required... ”
I would like to reply to R. Lay that this method existed and was probably used by Hatschepsut’s architects who build her terrace Temple at Deir-el-Bahari. R. Lay (Mansoor's col- lection) and D.D. Klemm (Hatschepsut's Temple) investigated their stones with the same technique. They microscopically identified the same rhomb-shaped dolomite crystals. The Mansoor collection consists entirely of royal portraits made of an unusual pinkish limestone material that was not used by Egyptian sculptors from other epochs.A more recent comparative analysis performed by mycropaleontologist P. Blanc (1986) on the fossil remains states [106]: “ a probable locality for the limestone raw material would be in the Luxor vicinity ”. In other words, in all likelihood, the limestone could come from Hatschepsut’s quarry.As mentioned previously this raw material is so friable that it is easily disaggregated with water. It does not need to be crushed, i.e. foram tests and rhomb- shaped dolomite crystals will remain intact. The outer space beings of R. Lay were Hatschepsut’s Homo-faber.
For Mr.Young,because they were“ made ston”implied that the objects were of fairly modern origin, and thus forgeries. Several geological studies mandated by the Mansoors showed that the patina bore all the signs of a very antique and genuine “ desert varnish ” that could not be replicated by a modern forger. My conclusion to this study of the Mansoor collection confirms that these objects are genuine antique copies fabricated in one of the workshops of El-Armana, 3350 years ago, copies probably obtained by casting a geopolymeric limestone slurry in plaster molds. They are old, and could at the same time be “ made-stone ”. Chief sculptor Tuthmosis and his colleagues had replicated a technique described 700 years earlier by sculptor Irtysen in his Stele C14 (see in previous chapter). Irtysen wrote:
“ ... I know the parts belonging to the technique of molding... I know the making of molds to make repro- ductions cast in a material that will not be consumed by fire, nor washed by water either... ”
In the temples of this period, Khnum, the ram-headed anthropomorphic god, has been forgotten and was obsolete, and it was the god Aton who was the creator of men. The doctrine of Akhenaton was absolutely monotheistic. Egypt and the exterior provinces had no more than one god — Aton, the setting sun, and this was by decree of the King. Akhena- ton was not the originator of the monotheistic doctrine, which previously existed in philosophical form in the Books of Wisdom.
The rise of the Amun clergy introduced another system of worship, thus perpetuating polytheism in Egypt. Akhena- ton died in about the eighteenth year of his reign at thirty years of age, and was buried east of el Armana. He had no sons, therefore two of his sons-in-law succeeded him to the throne. The first to reign was Semenkhekare from 1356-1352 BC, who continued the religious politics of Akhenaton. Next, the famous Tutankhamun reigned from 1352-1344 BC. He visited Thebes and established a compromise with the powerful Amun clergy and the Egyptian army.
----------------------------------------
Great Pyramid - PYRAMIDS AND GEOPOLYMERS - 19.Closing the Knowledge Gap
PYRAMIDS AND GEOPOLYMERS
BOOK: THE PYRAMIDS AN ENIGMA SOLVED
Prof. Joseph Davidovits
Chapter 19
Closing the Knowledge Gap
How much more advanced our civilization might be today if there had been a continuum of science from antiquity instead of the destruction of knowledge by war, civil unrest, religious intolerance, and other circumstances. The burning of the Great Library of Alexandria, reputed at one time to hold about 900,000 manuscripts, is a classical example of the destruction of in- formation. Most written works by pre-Socratic scholars have not survived. A few of the scholars are remembered only by their great reputations, and some are represented through fragments in classical literature.
In our own “ Information Age ”, even general knowledge is not flawlessly transmitted. For example, most contemporary history books credit Pythagoras with discovering that the earth is round, but, as shown by Herodotus’s Melpomene this knowledge existed in ancient Egypt during the reign of Pharaoh Necho II (610-595 BC), who lived before Pythagoras (c. 582-507 BC) [107]:
“ As for me, I cannot help but laugh when I hear the people who have given descriptions of the circumference of the Earth, claiming, without allowing themselves to be guided by reason, that the Earth is round, as if it had been shaped on a potter’s wheel; that the ocean surrounds all of its parts.... As for Libya [during Herodotus’s time the entire African continent was known as Libya], it is surrounded by the sea except for where it is joined to Asia. Nechos, the king of Egypt, was the first to our knowledge to have demonstrated this. When he ceased the construction of the canal joining the waters of the Nile to the Arabian Gulf [Red Sea], he sent a Phoenician crew with orders to sail around and return to Egypt through the Mediterranean Sea by way of the Pillars of Hercules [Strait of Gibraltar].The Phoenicians navigated from the Red Sea to the Austral Sea [Indian Ocean] and every autumn they docked on the Libyan coast and sowed wheat, then waited for their harvest. Having collected their grain, they returned to sea again, and after two years they passed the Pillars of Hercules and in the third year returned to Egypt.The men had claimed, though I do not believe the statements they made, that in sailing westerly around the southern extent of Libya that the Sun was on their right. ”
A true historian, Herodotus documented the report of the circumnavigation of Africa and its cosmographic implications despite his own belief in the possibility of a spherical world. The reported position of the Sun, which rose on the right once the fleet passed the equator, upholds the authenticity of the voyage and affords an accurate calculation of the shape of the earth. It was not until 2,000 years later that the general European populace slowly began to realize that they were living on a spherical world after the New World was discovered by Columbus in early Renaissance times.
The knowledge may have been taken for granted by learned astronomers and cosmographers of Babylon and Heliopolis. The Greeks held extraordinary reverence for the Egyptian sages, and Pythagoras, who visited Egypt and Babylon as a young man, may have been tutored in these lands. Today, some contemporary encyclopedias suggest that the dimensions of the Great Pyramid incorporate information on the spherical shape and size of the earth.
Other lost or obscured knowledge is exemplified by ancient products and processes that are little understood today. Some were mentioned in Chapter 1, and those not already explained will be covered in this chapter. The products of antiquity in question are the result of ancient chemistry or alchemy. Understanding them helps to close the knowledge gap between ancient and modern science, and some of the recovered technology can help solve complex modern problems. This was my main objective at the Institute for Applied Archaeological Sciences (IAPAS), which I founded at Barry University near Miami, Florida, in 1984. This is still one of my objectives at the Geopolymer Institute. Before considering the ancient technology, let us take a brief look at the history of alchemy from a broader historical perspective than ever before possible.
History recognizes that the birthplace of alchemy was ancient Egypt and that alchemy flourished in Alexandria in the Hellenistic period. Though Arabic, Indian, and other forms of alchemy are outgrowths of the old Egyptian science, scholars have been unable to approach the origins of alchemy with certitude. It now becomes clear that Hellenistic alchemy and its outgrowths were descendants of the alchemical processes of Khnum. This opens new avenues for exploring the relationship between the alchemy of pre-Alexandrian Egyptian and Western Europe. The root of the word alchemy, “ chemy ”, is uncertain but can be traced clearly to Khnum, who was spelled shnum during the Old Kingdom (see the discussion in the previous chapter 11). Hellenistic alchemy was especially kindled by documents such as the Famine Stele relating to Imhotep and Khnum. The rise of alchemy that historians recognize in Alexandria was actually the rebirth of alchemy under the Ptolemies.
Why is the founder of alchemy considered to be Hermes Trismegistus, the Ptolemaic equivalent of the Egyptian god Thoth, instead of Khnum? The influence of Khnum saw a brief resurgence during the New Kingdom, but the power of Amun was paramount. The knowledge of Khnum, however, was retained in the Books of Thoth. And Thoth gained prestige under the dominion of Amun, because Thoth was the god of Hermopolis, where Amun was one of the primeval ogdoad. This explains why the knowledge of Khnum was held in the library of Hermopolis, the seat of political rivalry during the Middle Kingdom.
As Amun became more powerful, his clergy usurped for him all of the attributes of the other Egyptian gods, and the influence of Amun is seen even in alchemical literature. The name Amun, for instance, is the root of the word ammonia. Sal ammoniac (ammonium chloride), a product crucial to alchemists attempting to transmute baser metals into gold, literally means the salt of Amun. The whole notion of transmutating baser metals to gold may reflect the extent of the influence on alchemy of Amun, the god presiding over metallurgy. In addition, translation errors from old Egyptian texts into Greek or Arabic may account for the belief that base metals could be transmuted into gold.
Is the legendary Philosopher’s Stone, the agent believed to transmute baser metals into gold and to prolong life indefinitely, synonymous with the pyramid stone? The Philosopher’s Stone had various names in many languages. Zosimos of Panopolis, an early Hellenistic alchemist, called it The Tincture. Some Hellenistic alchemists also called it The Powder. The Arab alchemists called it the Elixir of Life. With science and philosophy united as one body of knowledge, the substance later became known to western European alchemists as the Philosopher’s Stone and sometimes just The Stone. But its various names always characterize the pyramid stone, because they are usually associated with some form of minerals, liquid, or stone.
There is no doubt about its inorganic nature, and mysterious descriptions in alchemical literature, such as “ a stone which is not a stone ”, now become clear. It also becomes clear why alchemists commonly ascribed alchemical works to Khufu (Kheops or Cheops) or other great personality of Egyptian antiquity who was involved with alchemical stonemaking.
When Empedocles influenced the alchemical doctrine by proposing that air, earth, fire, and water composed all matter, he recognized these elements in the primeval Egyptian gods of creation. The links between the creation beliefs of the Old Testament authors and the mythology of Khnum were pointed out in Chapter 9. Other profound esoteric implications involving alchemy will be discussed in the future.
Mysteries of the ancient world unfold as we understand more about ancient technology. The challenge to the age of the Sphinx, which centers on the question of the damaging water’s source is an example. The large amount of water at the site can be explained easily by the fact that the limestone of Giza was disaggregated in situ with water to construct the monuments of Giza (see the discussion in Appendix 2, The Circuit of the Pyramid Plateau).
The so-called pyramid power issue is also settled. Wheat, which is thousands of years old, has been found in good condition stored in stone vessels within pyramids. The grain. was in such excellent condition that researchers made an abeit unsuccessful attempt to germinate it. Well-preserved flowers and other organic materials have also been found. The popular theory of pyramid power, which attributes preservation, in part, to the shape of the pyramid, resembles teachings of the Pythagorean school, which ascribed special attributes to numbers and geometrical shapes. The real se- cret lies in chemistry.
The principle is this: one of several possible formulas for the making of stone vessels is based on the synthesis of zeolites, secondary rock-forming minerals that readily gain and loose moisture. The water absorbed, ten to twenty per- cent by weight of the zeolite, is easily released when heat is applied. The zeolites, therefore, allow any vessel made of geopolymeric material, to store organic material through harmony with natural atmospheric heat and moisture.
The Nile valley is characterized by extreme dryness during the day. At night the humidity level rises. The zeolitic reconstituted stone absorbs humidity at night or any time the humidity rises. During the day, the material absorbs ca- lories from the atmosphere, which has been heated by the Sun, and the previously absorbed humidity evaporates. In the stored material, this exchange maintains a temperature that is constant with that of the atmosphere. It eliminates sweating on the inner walls of the structure and, therefore, mold growth. The material provides for an exchange of humidity from the interior of the vase to the exterior-in other words, automatic humidity and temperature control. There is no renewal of oxygen in a hermetically sealed vessel, and the material has more than adequate strength to prevent inva- sion from gnawing insects and rodents. These parameters combined with the longevity of geopolymeric materials provide ideal conditions for storage.
The zeolitic make-up of geopolymers also explains the method of desalination attributed to the pots described by Plinius. He called the method “ remedying unfit water ”, but the chemical process involved is now called ion exchange. A more sophisticated method of ion exchange is widely used in water softening today. In the chemical reaction at work in the vessels, ions, electrically charged atoms or groups of atoms, were reversibly transferred between the vessel and the salt water, allowing only salt-free water to enter the vase.
The vessels Pliny described would have behaved in exactly the same manner as would the 8,000-year-old white lime vessels from Tel-Ramad, Syria. The fragments I examined contain up to forty-one percent of analcime, one of the many zeolites capable of ion exchange with solutions.
Zeolites were synthesized in the Near and Middle East 8,000 years ago and more to produce chemical reactions now known as geopolymeric. Why were geopolymeric chemical reactions not developed by modern science earlier? The reason is that mineralogy has been neglected by industry. Until developments in recent years, there were no extraordinary breakthroughs in the cement, glass, and ceramic industries for 150 years.
Since the synthesis of urea in the 1800s, industry has invested in research and development of organic chemistry, yielding dye stuffs, drugs, plastics, synthetic fibers, and the like. Industry considered mineralogy useful mostly for classifying rocks and minerals and for producing synthetic jewels, but though analysis of rocks serves to classify them, their major elements were studied primarily. About ten per- cent of a stone is made up of mineral elements that bind that stone together. This ten percent is what interests me, and when I first began my chemical research in mineralogy, there was absolutely no competition. The five to ten percent of mineral elements binding the pyramid blocks, though different from the micritic cement in the bedrock, is every bit as effective.
Another explainable issue is the discrepancy between the dates provided by the recent carbon-14 dating of the pyramids with those historically established. Mortar sampling was carefully performed by the American Research Center in Egypt (ARCE) team for the project sponsored by the Edgar Cayce Foundation. The latter group hoped to date the pyramids to 10,000 BC, the date provided for the construc- tion of the Great Pyramid by Edgar Cayce, a well known reputed American psychic.
The November/December 1985 issue of Venture Inward, published by the Edgar Case Foundation, carried an article describing how the samples were taken and other aspects of the project. In a follow-up article titled “ The Great Pyramid Reveals Her Age ”, appearing in 1986 in the same publication, former Edgar Cayce Foundation member and Egyptologist Mark Lehner remarked:
“ You can look at this almost like a bell curve, and when you cut it down the middle you can summarize the results by saying,“ Our dates are 400 to 450 years too early for the Old Kingdom pyramids, especially those of the Fourth Dynasty ” The discrepancy here is in hundreds of years, not in 8,000 years, but it’s really significant and everybody is excited about it. ”
When asked if he thought the established chronology was wrong, Lehner said he thought they could be wrong within 400 or 500 years, dating the Great Pyramid to about 3100 BC instead of to the Fourth Dynasty at 2650 BC. Lehner, et al, have since published a report in the British Archaeological Report International, Series 379, in which the average difference is 374 years older, instead of 400 to 450 years [108].
When these articles were brought to my attention, I realized their problem. The problem is one of contamination, not through careless sampling, but because of chemical make- up. One of the ingredients used to make the mortar is natron (sodium carbonate), which contains carbon. The actual date of the geological formation of the natron in the samples is uncertain, and very small quantities dramatically affect the age evaluated by carbon-14 dating. Carbon dating could only produce such illogical results as the mortar at the top of the Great Pyramid dating older than that at the bottom. The illogical dates obtained for some of their samples suggest that established chronology is off from 200 to 1,200 years.Although the charcoal and reeds found in the mortar were subjected to acid leaching to remove carbon contamination prior to the dating process, there is no pretreatment that can eliminate contamination due to a concentrated alkaline solution of so- dium or potassium carbonate. The scientific literature describes several cases of error in dating aquatic plants that grew in hard water lakes similar to the Egyptian lakes where natron was harvested [109]. Calcined trees and reeds from a natron lake typically date older. In addition, cellulose fibers are known to chemically react with the highly alkaline so- dium carbonate. Because it is highly porous, charcoal absorbs not only a great deal of natron solution, but also a lot of carbon dioxide, resulting from the decomposition of natron.
Have all of the mysteries of pyramid construction been solved by my research? The examples of Egyptian artifacts previously presenting baffling problems are numerous: the man-made sandstone statuettes of the Thinite epoch examined by Le Chatelier; hard stone vases with long, thin necks and bulbous belies that no known tool could have produced; the diorite statue of Pharaoh Khafra (Khefren or Chephren) supposedly carved with stone or copper tools; other hard stone statues with inlaid eyes; monolithic stone sarcophagi situated in confined spaces disallowing their ingress and egress; heavy portcullises situated in spaces in pyramids too small to accommodate the manpower required for lifting them; huge, perfectly formed monolithic burial rooms made of extremely hard stone materials in Twelfth Dynasty pyramids; the seven story high Colossi of Memnon exhibiting inscriptions that are impossible to produce through carving and which, though originally monolithic were not (based on de Roziere’s examination of the quartzite quarries) quarried in monolithic form; coatings and cements lasting for thousands of years though some were exposed to blistering sunlight and harsh sandstorms through the ages; great temples with blocks too enormous to move; and most popular and conspicuous of all, the massive Great Pyramid structures themselves, each built during the reign of a pharaoh, with their casing stones exhibiting no tool marks and fitting as to closely as 0.01mm. The problems these and other artifacts posed became increasingly more baffling and complex as scientific methods of investigation improved.
The quantity of popular books generated in the last fifteen years about the mysteries of the pyramids and other ancient feats of engineering demonstrate the ongoing quest for a solution. Few Egyptologists take part in this quest. They are willing to accept standard, inadequate explanations of the enigmatic artifacts and are mostly satisfied with logistical studies on the pyramids. However, the problems of logistics accompanying the carving and hoisting theory prove to be larger in scope than has been studied so far. In fact, based on the uniform sizes of pyramid blocks and Klemm’s initial study concluding that the stone used for the Great Pyramid was quarried from all over Egypt, the problems are insurmountable.
The measurements of Coutelle and le Père of the Napoleonic expedition show that many of the largest stones in the Great Pyramid are situated thirty stories high. These measurements, obtained 150 years ago are rarely acknowledged. The problems calculated by Dieter Arnold, who proposed doubling or tripling the life span of pharaohs, merely leave the subject open for debate among Egyptologists, that is, debate based on the carving theory. And Le Chatelier’s revelation of 100 years ago was never applied to other artifacts, even though the use of man-made stone should have been considered as a possible explanation to the age — old riddle of pyramid construction.
Though the standard theory is speculative, with no scientific merit, from every perspective — engineering logistics, geochemistry and geology, Egyptology and other history, feasibility and common sense — all of the mysteries of pyramid construction dissolve when the casting theory is applied.
In 1978, I discovered that Pliny’s description of the murrhine vases was mistranslated. That was 145 years after the publication of the Panckook edition of Natural History in 1832, resulting from the translations of the French Academy of Sciences. How long it will take for my corrected translation to be accepted remains to be seen. And Pliny’s text is in Latin, a language used and understood by many scholars. With fewer expert Egyptian hieroglyphic linguists, identifying and redeciphering relevant texts will take longer.
I am certain that, as well as the Famine Stele and the Irtysen Stele, hieroglyphic texts exist and contain information about the alchemical stone-making process of Khnum, but are mistranslated. As is stated in the Hermetic writings,
“ Hermes ... used to say that those who read my books find them clear and very easy to understand... whereas they will become absolutely abstruse when the Greeks translate them from Egyptian into their language, and this will yield a complete distortion of the original text and a complete misunderstanding of its meaning. ”
When hieroglyphic and cuneiform texts describing metallurgical processes were first translated, thanks to the deciphering of Champollion and Grotefend, metallurgists and chemists were consulted to ensure the correctness of technical words and information. While careful translations were carried out with the help of experts from appropriate scientific disciplines, such translations may not be possible for a long time with texts involving geopolymerization because of the time it will take to produce experts in this field. In fact, it may take several years before experts and organizations involved with Egyptology recognize projects dealing with this topic as valid.
Historians must depend on information derived from Egypt’s ecology, geography, artifacts, and inscriptions, the latter of which are known often to be ritual. Very little of Egypt’s actual history is known until Ptolemaic times. The historian Manetho compiled a chronological list of pharaohs which sheds some light upon some more ancient history. Egyptologists must, therefore, qualify and conditionalize their historical writings. They have never found a historical docu- ment that they recognize as describing their theory of how the Great Pyramids were built. But the Famine Stele and the Irtysen Stele support the alchemical method of agglomerating stone, and the historical reports by Herodotus and Pliny, previously ambiguous, now make perfect sense.
Some years ago, I came across the following quote:
“ ... You might reasonably think that the decipherment of the script would have been greeted with open arms by archaeologists. Not a bit of it! The reaction of the digging fraternity (and sorority) to the most exciting development in archaeology this century has been ... rejection. It is not that they claim, like Champollion’s opponents that the decipherment has not taken place, they simply believe it is Closing the Knowledge Gap not worthy of notice (at least overtly). ”
This quote is from Michael D. Coe’s book Breaking the Maya Code [110]. Coe, from Yale University, wrote a compul- sive account of the decisive breakthrough accomplished by Yuri Knorosov in deciphering the hieroglyphic Maya carvings.
We have reached back into the history of science at its roots. We have followed the evolution of alchemical stonemaking in Egypt from the production of the prehistoric stone to vessels of Khnum to a probable transition of door jambs and floors in royal mastabas, to an entire building made of cast stone,the first pyramid.With the construction method eluding historians, the reasons for the rise and decline of pyramid building are misunderstood.
In general, Egyptologists advocate that early pyramid building put an intolerable burden on manpower and the economy, causing the decline. Some scholars conjecture that erratic changes in climate produced food shortages against which the kings were powerless. Though such elements may be valid, consider that Egypt’s economy became increasingly more depressed because of the erosion of its once enormous construction industry, which in time would jeopardize faith in government. Instead of the decline in the civilization causing the building decline, the opposite is more likely to be accurate.
The reasons for the rise and decline of pyramid cons- truction crystallize when one considers the developments associated with the use of cast stone. The building degeneration may have been caused by a depletion of mineral resources. With the depletion of the Sinai mines the decline originated in the consumption of something quite traceable after all. We know that pyramids were built entirely of man- made reconstituted stone during the Third and Fourth Dynasties, when the Sinai mines were abundant in minerals. The Fifth and Sixth Dynasties are characterized by a dramatic decrease in the amount of cast stone used in the pyramids, corresponding to the depletion of the mines. But on the other hand, under Sneferu, Khufu (Kheops or Cheops) and Khafra (Khefren or Chephren), the entire country was indoctrinated with the gigantic task of supplying combusti- ble for lime calcination. This intensive exploitation of agricultural resources may have generated an ecological disaster. It is easy to see why during the Fifth Dynasty kings began to remove stone from the monuments of their ancestors, though this has never before been adequately explained, and why, with less material to work with, they concentrated on building surrounding funerary complexes, paying special attention to making exquisite bas-reliefs. By the Sixth Dynasty stone was conserved for the most vital parts
of pyramids, such as casing stones and burial chambers. Little stone was used in the Twelfth Dynasty pyramids. During the reign of Senusert I, the discovery of a small vein at Serabit el-Khadim in the Sinai provided only enough stone for the royal burial chamber. The end of pyramid building marked the end of any appreciable amount of mineral
quarrying in the Sinai.
Was the fall in pyramid construction actually attributed to the decrease of lime-ash CaO production, due to a severe shortage in wood fuel? This is quite possible. We start to understand the evolution of pyramid construction and why these great structures were no longer built. Too, we see the transparency of the evidence for the standard theory of pyramid construction presented by Egyptology. Additionally unaware of the two different masonry methods, agglomerated stone and carved stone, Egyptologists recognize only a few stylistic alterations in the monuments of Theban kings, which they attribute to differences in Theban ideas about the afterlife from those of Memphite predecessors. Egyptologists have never fully understood the sudden rise to pre-eminence of the Amun clergy. With the abatement of alchemical stonemaking, the pyramid tradition became increasingly less practical. The Amun clergy, however, could endlessly perpetuate their religious tradition by carving very soft stone.
The Pyramid of Zozer built near 2750 BC, the Pyramid of Khufu (Kheops or Cheops) in 2683 BC, the temples of Amenhotep III erected around 1408 BC, Seti I near 1300 BC, and Ramses II at about 1280 BC, were made of stone. On the other hand, the palaces and fortresses in which these kings resided were made of crude silt brick, sun-dried clay and wood. Stone, either agglomerated or carved, had a sacred value and could not be used for such non sacred structures. It was not until the Ptolemaic reign under Greek domination, some two thousand years after the pyramids were built, and one thousand years after the construction of the Temples of Karnak, Luxor, and Abu Simbel, that stone became a constructional material used indifferently in temples, palaces, and garrisons.
The finest method of cutting stone, represented by fine chisel marks, was applied to stone by the Egyptians when stone had a religious significance. The dowel rod technique, representing the roughest and most primitive method of cutting stone, was used by the Greeks and Romans who did not consider stone to have the same metaphysical aspects as did the Egyptians.
Each block of stone was perfected in the quarry, the manifestation of Amun, as each hewn stone represented a limb or part of Amun. This belief explains why the Egyptians of the New Kingdom did not use the primitive wooden dowel rod method of cutting stone. To haphazardly cut a block of stone into pieces was an act of sacrilege, as unthinkable as to damage the body of Amun, the newly proclaimed progenitor. We have gained precious insight into the old religion of Khnum and also into the religious objectives for producing faience,stone,and glass.Mystery upon mystery is solved.After thousands of years, a substantial part of the secret of the pyramids is revealed and their true story told. However, for the Egyptian authorities (Dr. Z. Hawass and colleagues) only 30 per cent of the archaeological remains have been unearthed
and 70 per cent still remain buried under the desert sand.
I am ending this book, the product of many years of research and reflections, feeling both perplexed and hopeful. The outlook on the history of Egyptian civilizations, that was opened here, should offer young researchers a large and fascinating realm of investigation. Large because of the size of the task that remains to be accomplished. Fascinating because of the undeniable necessity to challenge our views on the civilizations from which we directly proceed. And my perplexity originates in that challenge, in the relationship that men of the past had with the sacred, which was not quite the one our civilization claims to be.
But do Egyptologists see me as the visionary who solved the pyramid riddle? So far, the reaction appears to reflect the NIH (Not Invented Here) factor, if we are to judge by comments appearing in magazine and newspaper articles. Some Egyptologists have commented in the press that my theory is “ a hunch carried too far ” and is “ against reason and logic ”. Their only knowledge, however, of my research comes from the press.
A criticism of me by the general public is that I have taken all of the fun and mystery out of the pyramids. My response is this: carving and hoisting stone is grueling labor that is in no way glamorous or romantic, but ingeniously building pyramids through chemistry, and thereby fooling even brilliant modern minds, is a great credit to the researchers of antiquity.Whether or not this presentation will convince anyone who does not want to be convinced is hardly predictable. The German philosopher Schopenhauer (1788 - 1860) wrote,“ There are three steps in the revelation of any truth: in the first, it is ridiculed; in the second, resisted; in the third, it is considered self-evident ”. It was ridiculed from 1979 to 1988, resisted from 1989 to 1996 and seems to become self- evident now.
I directed my investigation somewhat in the way Sherlock Holmes might have: when all the logical conjectures have been set aside, the one that remains, as improbable as it may seem, is likely to be true.
-----------------------------------
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)