Best Conspiracy!!! Ancient Diorite sic cut, page 2

reply to post by Blackmarketeer

I've read about the interpretation of the Famine Stele several times in relation to 'polymerization.' The page you linked is from a 1988 presentation available on pdf here. There's a more accessible explanation of the process here.

They make for interesting reading and the processes are plausible and practical based on the materials available at the time. To my mind, they are working on two premises that are flawed.

The first premise is the one that has led to any number of bizarre explanations for the construction techniques of the Giza Pyramids...anti-grav, aliens, vanished advanced civilizations etc. It's the premise that the numbers are too big, the scale too massive to be achievable by conventional methods. Any exponents of polymerization and obscure theories tend to support their ideas by a sort of appeal to ridicule...."How could they possibly have created the pyramids?" They cite math that demonstrates a block being laid every three seconds etc. Certainly there are elements of ridicule to their claims.

The second premise willfully ignores the evidence that there is a substantial record of quarrying blocks, masonry marks and other stone structures that clearly aren't made using techniques of polymerization.

I posted an image of one of several quarries that clearly show the square remains of blocks. Copper tools are still found under rubble. Unused blocks remain in place and can be found en route to the pyramid sites. The Unfinished Obelisk represents the scope of their ambitions...1200 tons of solid granite was considered possible. Shifting limestone blocks that averaged 2-3 tons is not quite the impossible task that alternative theorists like to imagine.

I've mentioned before that I've some experience in construction. Shuttering is the process needed to 'shore up' up the wet agglomeration. The wooden planks suggested in the second link illustrates two props...impossible. The downward force of over 2 tons of mix demands robust timber supports at 45 degree angles. This would mean that the adjacent blocks couldn't be laid until that block had 'gone off.' In the UK, with fast drying cement, a two ton cube of cement would take around a week before the shuttering is removed. Allowing for the dry climate of Giza (and ignoring the adverse night time temperatures-expansion forces v contraction), let's imagine 2-3 days? The theory begins to fall over...agreed...the transport of the mass could less labor-intensive but construction would be very slow.

I'm not Lehner or any form of Egyptologist...it seems that until other theories gather the weight of evidence...conventional, evidenced, tested explanations will remain.