How were the pyramids built in ancient times? Who built the pyramids? Mysteries of ancient civilizations. III. Skeptical theory
The Americans achieved quite a lot of success in reading Soviet cipher correspondence, and one of the cornerstones of this success was exactly those documents that were provided by the Finns.
Finnish radio intelligence, which played an important role in the victories of the Finnish army in the Winter War and in 1941, after the signing of a truce between the USSR and Finland in September 1944, was, in fact, defeated. However, in the 50s, the Finns restored it, and it continued its work against the USSR, and later against Russia.
Petersburg historian Vyacheslav Nikitin conducted a study of the history of Finnish radio intelligence, in which he touched, among other things, on the issues of the post-war activities of this special service. These little-studied topics will be devoted to his monograph “Competition with the storm. Finnish radio intelligence against the USSR”, which should be published this spring.
Nikitin is the author of books and the blog-page "Competition with the Storm" in the social network "VKontakte", dedicated to the history of the Soviet-Finnish wars. He told the Krasnaya Vesna correspondent about the post-war fate of Finnish radio intelligence, about the role of its developments in the Cold War against our country, and about what this special service is currently doing.
IA Red Spring: Vyacheslav Vyacheslavovich, last time we talked about the successes of Finnish radio intelligence in the war against the Soviet Union. What are her biggest failures?
Vyacheslav Nikitin: The biggest failure of Finnish radio intelligence, in my opinion, was the notorious Operation Stella Polaris. When an armistice agreement was signed with the Soviet Union, it was decided to evacuate to Sweden the best personnel of Finnish intelligence, along with equipment, in order to carry out subversive work against our country already from the territory of Sweden.
Sweden allowed the evacuation of Finnish citizens to its territory as refugees, but, of course, there could be no talk of activity from the territory of a neutral state.
In fact, this operation led to the defeat of the special services as such. All archives and all equipment remained in Sweden. Most of the employees then returned back to Finland, but the best personnel went to work in the Swedish radio intelligence and worked there for many years.
Vyacheslav Nikitin: This question is very interesting, and it has not yet been declassified to the end. It is known that during the operation "Stella Polaris" the Finns managed to bring to Sweden almost all the main documents of the special services describing Soviet systems encryption, and they launched a brisk trade in these documents.
Copies of the documents were sold to the intelligence agencies of the United States, Japan and Sweden, and a fairly significant amount of money was received for them. A fairly large amount of data on Soviet codes and ciphers turned out to be in the hands of American specialists.
Already in 1945, the Americans began to consider the USSR as a potential adversary. A very large secret project to decrypt Soviet traffic began to be implemented in the United States.
The latest documents on this issue were partially declassified in 2017. They clearly show that the Americans have achieved quite a lot of success in reading Soviet cipher correspondence, and one of the cornerstones of this success was precisely those documents that were provided by the Finns.
The proceeds went to the salaries of Finnish radio intelligence workers and to the return of part of the personnel back to Finland. A secret fund was formed from part of the money, for which the rescue of Finnish intelligence leaders was organized, including the head of the Stavka intelligence department, Aladar Paasonen, and the head of radio intelligence, Reino Hallamaa.
Major Reino Hallamaa in Helsinki (Winter War)
Finnish War Museum (SA-kuva)
When the Allied Control Commission arrived in Finland after the armistice, it demanded that both Paasonen and Hallamaa be extradited for interrogation. It was clear to them that they would be immediately extradited to Moscow, because they were key figures not only in Finnish intelligence, but in the entire system of interaction between the special services of the imperialist states opposing the USSR.
Paasonen and Hallamaa were provided with forged passports and smuggled out of Finland, first to Sweden and then to France, where they collaborated with French intelligence.
Then when Soviet Union began to seek their extradition from France, Paasonen was transferred to the French zone of occupation in Germany. The USSR was given an official answer that these citizens do not live in France. And then from the western zone of Germany, Paasonen went to Switzerland, and from there to the USA, and Hallamaa to Spain.
Paasonen then worked for the CIA for many years and worked at the European headquarters of this special service.
Hallamaa eventually retired from intelligence activities and set up a carnation business in Spain. In 1945, he received a passport in the name of the Danish citizen Richard Palma, in Spain he was called in the Spanish way - Ricardo Palma. He lived the rest of his life in Spain, was a prosperous businessman (in addition to trading flowers, he had a construction business) and received his colonel's pension from Finland.
IA Red Spring: The main specialists of Finnish radio intelligence - who are they? You have already spoken about the creator and head of this special service, Reino Hallamaa, when talking about its creation. Tell us about some of the other brightest characters.
Vyacheslav Nikitin: Radio intelligence is associated with highly intellectual activities, so the characters there were very interesting. Both future famous linguists and future famous mathematicians, scientists of world renown, and cultural figures worked there.
Quite a lot of work was done in the radio intelligence of ethnic Russians, since intelligence needed native Russian speakers. And I will tell you more about one of them.
This is a former native of St. Petersburg Yuri Polyakov. He was born in 1902 and at the age of 16 he was imbued with white ideas, went to fight in the White Guard, participated in the Olonets campaign of Finnish nationalists in Soviet Karelia in 1919.
After that, he ended up in Finland, took Finnish citizenship and connected his life with the Finnish army. Polyakov changed his first and last name and became Yuri Palko. After that, he served in Vyborg in the Vyborg Field Artillery Regiment.
In 1937 he went to work in intelligence as a native speaker of Russian and became a successful cryptanalyst. Thanks to cooperation with the Finnish historian K. F. Geust, I managed to get his personal card.
Radio interception operator at work
(from personal archive V. Nikitina)
From 1941 to 1943, Palko headed the radio interception center, which was located in Sortavala, and then led the intelligence school, which trained undercover intelligence workers in Petrozavodsk, occupied by the Finns. After the war, Palko-Polyakov played a big role in restoring the activity of Finnish radio intelligence, and for this he was awarded the Order of the Lion in 1951.
Palko was also awarded with orders Germany, Hungary and Japan (for contributions to Japanese cryptanalytics). He died in 1961, and at his funeral there were representatives of the Japanese embassy with a wreath from the Land of the Rising Sun.
IA Red Spring: What is known about the activities of Finnish radio intelligence in the 21st century? What is her role?
Vyacheslav Nikitin: In the 1950s, the Finns made an attempt to revive radio intelligence. Until 1960, several radio direction finding points and a radio interception center, called the "Research Communications Center", were deployed. For many years, an information vacuum was created around his activities, but in 2017 a big spy scandal erupted.
Two Finnish journalists received several secret documents that were dated 1999 at their disposal. The documents were published in Finland's largest newspaper Helsingin Sanomat and revealed the mechanism of the Finnish radio intelligence at the present time.
Publication in the newspaper Нelsingin Sanomat about Finnish radio intelligence today. Title - "The most secret place in Finland"
Photo by Vyacheslav Nikitin
Currently, the radio intelligence center is located in the town of Tikkakoski near Jyväskylä, and it employs about 150 employees. This state is approximately 40% of all Finnish intelligence. Know what he does. Naturally, the main object of intelligence is the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.
The Finns still continue to trade in intelligence materials. In the published secret documents, it is casually said that the Finns are creating data banks on radio interception and libraries of source signals electromagnetic radiation potential adversaries. They are necessary to form a list of potential targets in preparation for the conduct of hostilities. This information is highly demanded in a very specific international market.
It is clear that this information is not exhaustive, but I will try in my future book to present to the maximum information about the post-war activities of Finnish radio intelligence.
Publications in Helsingin Sanomat led to a scandal. Naturally, the Finnish public was excited not by conducting radio interception against Russia, but by the fact that special services could carry out radio interception in Finland and invade the private lives of citizens.
The consequence of this was the adoption last year of a law on intelligence, where a separate paragraph spelled out the rights and obligations of Finnish radio intelligence. It clearly states that radio intelligence can only be conducted against potential opponents of Finland and only against state structures, and cannot be conducted against private citizens, including those outside Finland.
IA Red Spring: Vyacheslav Vyacheslavovich, thanks for the interesting story! We look forward to the release of your book.
It has been established that the famous pyramid of Cheops contains more than two million stone blocks of impressive size. Each structural element weighs from two to fifteen tons. The blocks are so tightly fitted one to the other that there is no way to stick a narrow blade of a knife between them. Despite their colossal size, the pyramids have very precise proportions. How did the ancients achieve ideality?
The answer to this was sought by the ancient Greeks. The well-known historian and traveler of antiquity, Herodotus, suggested that the pyramids were built using special wooden machines that could lift blocks of stone sequentially from one ledge of the building to another. Other researchers of that time believed that the blocks were transported along a gently sloping earth embankment by dragging or using wooden rollers.
Herodotus in his writings indicates that up to one hundred thousand people were involved in the construction of large pyramids at the same time, who worked on one structure for several decades.
In the 70s of the last century, Japanese engineers tried to build a smaller copy of the pyramid, using a block lifting device and an inclined embankment. But their efforts did not lead to positive results, the experiment failed - the friction between the blocks and the ground was too great. Obviously, the ancient builders knew some special secret, which was subsequently lost and did not reach our times.
How were the pyramids built in Egypt?
Here is one of the methods that serious scientists and engineers consider suitable for the construction of pyramids, with the state of the art that existed several thousand years ago. Stone blocks climbed the pyramid from four sides at once. On each side of the block, a frame made of wooden logs was installed, which had struts. Between the racks of the frame structure there was a thicker log, attached to the frame with bronze rods.
Opposite such a structure, several logs were laid, tying them so that the flooring was just above the edge of the step. On such a log flooring, the block was pulled up and, by means of levers, was installed on a wooden sled. A long strong rope was attached to the sled, which was pulled by several workers by joint efforts. The rotation of the log, fixed on bronze rods, reduced friction.
When the center of gravity of a stone block passed over the edge of the next layer of blocks, the element turned over and took a horizontal position in the required place. The sleigh was lightly returned down for the next block.
As calculations show, with this technology, no more than fifty workers would be required to lay one two-ton block.
Unfortunately, such engineering calculations exist so far only on paper. To confirm or disprove the effectiveness of the described technology, a full-fledged experiment would be needed, which should be very expensive. And yet, the technology described is more credible than the arguments given by a number of researchers in favor of the fact that the pyramids were actually built by powerful aliens.
Several thousand years ago, when the ancient Egyptians built the three pyramids of Giza, for each of the three pharaohs Khufu, Khafre and Menkaure there was not a trace of video cameras or anything like that. And so scientists had to come together to unravel the great mystery of how these huge historical monuments were built.
Over the past two decades, a number of new discoveries and studies have allowed scientists to paint a clearer picture of these exploits.
Pyramids of Giza
The first and largest pyramid at Giza was built by Pharaoh Khufu (his reign began around 2551 BC). His pyramid is 455 feet (138 meters) high, which today is known as the "Great Pyramid" and is considered one of the wonders of the world.
The pyramid of Khafre (his reign began around 2520 BC) was only slightly smaller than Khufu's, but stood on higher ground. Many scholars believe that the Sphinx monument located near Khafre's pyramid was built by Khafre and that the face of the Sphinx was modeled after him.
The third pharaoh responsible for the creation of the pyramid at Giza was Menkaure (whose reign began around 2490 BC), and he built a smaller pyramid 215 feet (65 m) high.
Over the past two decades, researchers have made a number of discoveries related to the pyramids, including a city built near the Pyramid of Menkaure. A study showing how water can facilitate the movement of blocks and papyrus found in the Red Sea. This allowed researchers to better understand how the pyramids of Giza were built. New finds complement the old knowledge gained over the past two centuries.
Development of methods for building a pyramid
The methods used to create the pyramids of Giza have been developed over several centuries, going through all the problems and setbacks that any modern scientist or engineer can face.
The pyramids originated from simple rectangular tombs that were built in Egypt over 5,000 years ago and are believed to have been made by archaeologist Sir Flinders Petrie.
Great progress occurred during the reign of Pharaoh Djoser (kingship began around 2630 BC). His tomb at Saqqara began as a simple rectangular tomb before becoming a six-layer stepped pyramid with underground tunnels and chambers.
Another leap in pyramid building technique occurred during the reign of Pharaoh Shefru (his reign began around 2575 BC), who built no less than three pyramids. Chefrou's architects, instead of building stepped pyramids, developed methods for designing smooth, real pyramids.
It looks like Chefrou's architects ran into problems. One of the pyramids they built at the site of Dahshur is known today as the "Curved Pyramid" because the angle of the pyramid changes slightly, giving the structure a bent appearance.
Scientists usually view the bent corner as the result of a design defect.
Chefrou's architects would have remedied the flaw; the second pyramid at Dahshur, known today as the "Red Pyramid", named after the color of its stones, has a regular angle, making it a true pyramid.
Snefru's son Khufu took lessons from his father and previous predecessors to build the "Great Pyramid", the largest pyramid in the world.
pyramid building
The pharaohs appointed high-ranking officials to oversee the construction of the pyramids.
In 2010, a team of archaeologists discovered papyri dating back to the reign of Khufu at the site of Wadi al-Jarf on the Red Sea coast.
The text of the papyrus said that in the 27th year of the reign of Khufu, his half-brother Ankhaf was the vizier (the highest official, adviser to the pharaoh in) and "the head of all the affairs of the pharaoh," archaeologists Pierre Tallet and Gregory Maruard wrote in the journal "Near Eastern Archeology" .
At the time the papyri said, Anhaf was in charge of the pharaoh, and many scholars believe that there may have been another person, perhaps the vizier Hemiunu, responsible for building the pyramid during Khufu's early reign.
Researchers are still working on understanding the complex planning that would be involved in building a pyramid, and that would be required to build not only the pyramids, but also the temples, boats, and cemeteries located near the huge structures.
The researchers noted that the Egyptians had the ability to accurately coordinate construction with the cardinal points, which could help in planning the construction of the pyramids.
Glen Dash, an engineer who studies the Giza pyramids with the Ancient Egypt Research Associations (AERA), noted that Khufu's pyramid is positioned according to the exact north direction, with an error of within one tenth of a degree.
How the ancient Egyptians did this is not entirely clear. In a report published in the AERA newsletter, Dash writes that the North Star and a piece of rope were used as the construction method.
Building materials and food
Over the past few years, AERA archaeologists have excavated and studied the port at Giza, which was used to bring in building materials, food, and transport labor.
Papyri found at Wadi al-Jarf allude to the importance of the ports of Giza, stating that the limestone blocks used in the outer shell of the pyramid were transported from the quarries to the site of the pyramid's construction by boat.
The port found by AERA archaeologists is located in a city built near the Pyramid of Menkaure.
This city had large houses for high-ranking officials, a barracks complex that probably housed troops, and buildings where a large number of clay tablets (used in record keeping) were found.
Ordinary workers probably slept in simple dwellings near the pyramid.
Estimates given by various archaeologists for the labor force at Giza tend to hover around 10,000 for all three pyramids.
These people were full; in a study published in 2013, Richard Redding, chief Researcher AERA and colleagues found that enough cattle, sheep, and goats were slaughtered each day to produce an average of 4,000 pounds of meat to feed the pyramid builders.
The conclusion was described in detail in the book Proceedings of the 10th meeting working group ICAZ "Archaeozoology of Southwest Asia and Adjacent Territories".
Redding discovered that the animals were brought in from the Nile Delta and kept in paddocks until they were killed and fed to the workers.
Redding concluded that the workers' diet, which was rich in meat, may have served as an incentive for people to work on the pyramids. They probably received much better conditions and food than in their village, Redding wrote in Live Science in 2013.
Block mining
Many of the stones used to build Khufu's pyramids were taken from a quarry located south of the pyramid, wrote Mark Lechner, Egyptologist who leads AERA and engineer David Goodman.
They published their findings as early as 1985 in the journal Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts. According to the researchers, the builders used blocks from a quarry located southeast of the Pyramid of Menkaure.
However, it is not clear which quarry was used for Khafre's pyramid.
When completed, each of the pyramids of Giza was provided with a smooth limestone outer shell. Not only that, the exterior of the hull has been reused for other building projects in Egypt for millennia.
A papyrus found in Wadi al-Jarf tells that the limestone used in the hull was taken from a quarry located in Tours, near modern Cairo, and was shipped to Giza by boat along the Nile River. Papaire said that one boat trip took four days.
Moving blocks
To move the stones overland, the Egyptians used large sleds that could be pushed or pulled by teams of workers.
The sand in front of the sakals was likely dampened with water to reduce friction, making it easier to move the sled, according to a team of physicists from the University of Amsterdam found in a study published in 2014 in the journal Physical Review Letters.
“It turns out that wetting the Egyptian desert sand could significantly reduce friction, which meant that it only took half the people to pull the sled onto wet sand compared to dry sand,” says Daniel Bonn, professor of physics at the University of Amsterdam.
Scientists have noted that there is an ancient Egyptian painting depicting water spilled in front of a sleigh.
Most Egyptologists agree that when the stones were brought up to the pyramids, a system of ramps was used to lift the stones. However, Egyptologists did not know how these ramps were designed.
Little evidence of ramp construction survives, but several hypothetical designs have been proposed over the past few decades.
The scientists of this project are in the process of studying and reconstructing the pyramids of Giza using various technologies. In addition to learning more about the construction of the pyramids, the project may also reveal if there are any other built-in chambers inside.
One of the biggest mysteries in human history is the engineering feat of the ancients that led to the creation of the great pyramids of Egypt. For thousands of years, historians, architects and scientists have tried to find an explanation for the appearance of these gigantic structures. To this day, the mystery has not been fully solved, and no one knows exactly how it was done. Not surprisingly, many different explanations have emerged, and in this review of the 10 most viable theories for the construction of the Great Pyramids.
1. Ancient machines
Naturally, the first thought that comes to mind when thinking about the construction of a building is the need to use cranes to lift and transport heavy pieces of metal or stone. The first pyramids were stepped pyramids with large flat surfaces on which heavy cranes could stand and operate. Of course, ancient cultures knew about levers and pulley systems, and they probably used something similar to build the first pyramids. However, the version of cranes or so-called "cranes" is not particularly plausible in the case of explaining the Great Pyramids of Egypt, since there were too small surfaces to install lifting mechanisms of this magnitude.
2 The Pyramids Were Originally Hills
An interesting but bizarre explanation for the appearance of the pyramids is that they originally arose as natural mountain formations, and then stone blocks were laid down the slopes of these hills from top to bottom. A similar idea was first proposed in 1884 in The Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette at a conference of scientists. Perhaps this is what Herodotus meant when he said that the pyramids were built "from top to bottom."
3. Polishing and leveling by hand
One of the most intricate and puzzling facts about pyramid building is the way in which the Egyptians could cut stones with such extreme precision as to stack them with virtually no gaps between them. Even a sheet of paper cannot be squeezed into the junction between two stones. Therefore, scientists are perplexed how the Egyptians achieved such precision in stone processing. Even today it is impossible to recreate this with diamond cutters, let alone the most primitive hand tools. The following theory suggests that the Egyptians did not have any better tools than they do now. They just made better use of what they had. For example, they allegedly leveled stone blocks using two poles of the same height, connected by a narrow rope, under which the stone was placed. If the rope touched the surface somewhere, this place was marked with red ocher, and then the unevenness was scraped off with a flint scraper.
4. Limestone concrete
Perhaps an even more plausible way of achieving perfectly smooth stone surfaces was that the stones were made by pouring liquid limestone concrete into molds. There seems to be some evidence to support this theory. Under a microscope, Egyptologist Jean-Philippe Lauer found air bubbles on the surface of the stones, suggesting that air could have entered the liquid concrete. According to the findings of the American Ceramic Society, it seems that the internal structure of the stones was formed in a process that happened very quickly, like concrete curing.
5. Zigzag ramps
This is the first of various sloping ramp theories. Direct ramp theories were not considered, since such a ramp would have to be larger than the pyramid itself and extend outward from it for 1.6 kilometers, given the assumed slope of 7 degrees. For the ramp to make sense, it would need to be completed throughout the process of creating the pyramid. While a zigzag ramp would require less material than a straight ramp, this is almost as implausible as it would need to be constantly adjusted as the pyramid got taller. Therefore, such theories have been widely discredited.
6. Wet sand
Today, some proponents of the following theory believe that the stones for the pyramid were dragged over piles of sand, which were pre-wetted to make the stones easier to move. This theory explains the transportation of stones from quarries hundreds of kilometers from the construction site, as well as how workers moved the stones up using some kind of ramp. But would a wet ramp provide enough stability for stones weighing up to 20 tons to be hauled up. Also the question is how much wet sand can be used as a support for the feet of the people who dragged it all. AT best case this theory can only explain the transportation of stones. As a method of lifting stones, it fails.
In trying to develop a plausible ramp theory, people eventually began to realize that a spiral ramp could be built at the same time as the pyramid. It will run along the outer part of the pyramid and continuously rise up as it is being built. Proponents of this outer spiral ramp theory include Mark Lehner, an archaeologist at Yale University. The main problem when using a spiral ramp is the maneuvering of rocks. It's hard enough to haul the huge rocks up the slope, but having to constantly turn them to spiral up makes it even more difficult. That is why the outer spiral ramp theory is implausible.
8. Theory of water mines
How about building a long underground dam under water from a local water source at a reasonable distance from the quarry, and then using water "mines" to lift the rocks up. This theory suggests that a water dam was used to transport the stones, and that the stones were cut and turned in the water. After precise grinding of the stone, pieces of light material were attached to it, which provided buoyancy. Thus, the stone floated up, and its surface was protected from hitting other stones.
There is some evidence that similar water shafts were used to build structures in other parts of the world (for example, the canals are believed to have been used to build Angkor Wat in Cambodia). However, if such a channel was used to build the Great Pyramid of Giza, where did it go and why was it destroyed. Supposedly, the construction took 10 years, and the length of the canal should have been 10 kilometers, since this is the distance from the Nile River to the site of the pyramid at Giza. Also, even if this theory is correct, it still doesn't explain some of the other nuances in the pyramid.
9 Extraterrestrial Intervention
The more time is spent trying to figure out how the pyramids were built by man, the more the answer seems to suggest something else. Although extraterrestrial intervention is generally dismissed by scientists, many Egyptologists and historians believe that the pyramids were built by aliens. Hearing this theory, many will immediately laugh at it. However, extraterrestrial interference is no more "wild" theory compared to many others. Given all that is known about the pyramids, it may be reasonable to conclude that ancient cultures could not have built these incredible structures themselves. Even with all modern technologies today people are completely incapable of building pyramids like those in Egypt. It therefore seems incomprehensible that an ancient primitive civilization possessed both the technology and the ingenuity to build pyramids with such extreme precision.
The Great Pyramid of Giza faces almost exactly north, with a deviation of only 3/60 of a degree. It is even more accurately aligned than the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, London, which points north by 9/60 degrees. Another great mathematical feature of the Great Pyramid is that the perimeter divided by the height is 2π (the deviations are negligible). A number of other precise mathematical numbers associated with the pyramids, but most importantly, one must take into account the speed with which they were built.
Considering 2.3 million stones, each weighing an average of 2.5 tons, it was estimated that one stone had to be installed every two minutes. This includes all the time it takes to cut the stones perfectly, move them miles across the desert, climb the slope of the pyramid, and then lay them in place. It is very difficult to believe that primitive people did all this.
10. Jean-Pierre Goudin on the theory of the inner ramp
Recently, one person has been trying, independently of all others, to unravel the mystery of how the pyramids were built. This is a French architect named Jean-Pierre Goudin. Since the 1990s, he has devoted all his time to the study of the Great Pyramid and has been able to develop the most brilliant pyramid theory ever created.According to Gooden's theory, the Great Pyramid was built using two separate spiral ramps. The first was an outer spiral ramp going up about 30 percent, and the second was an inner spiral ramp through which the heavy stones were pulled all the way to the end. Gooden calculated that this inner slope had a slope of 7 degrees. This spiral ramp also included open sections at the corners for workers to turn the blocks (it is believed that cranes were also used here). In addition to the internal ramp, Gooden was also able to explain how the "King's Chamber" was built, as well as the most mysterious room in the Great Pyramid, the Grand Gallery.
Massive granite blocks to the King's Chamber were dragged through the Grand Gallery using a long system of pulleys. Thus, the Grand Gallery exists for quite practical purposes. Inside are signs that support this theory, such as wedge holes in the rocks. It is believed that they were used to support the pulley system. Using digital technology, the programming team was able to test this idea. They were able to confirm that Gooden's drawings of the pyramid matched the math and that the inner ramp was plausible.
However, the most surprising thing is that they were able to find evidence of the actual existence of the ramp through scanning the pyramid, which revealed a spiral image. It may well be the remains of an internal ramp. By far, this theory provides the most plausible explanation for how the pyramids were built.
AT Ancient Egypt they preferred to use relatively soft and widespread rocks - limestones and sandstones, as well as anhydrites and gypsum. James Harrell for the Encyclopedia of Egyptology, published online by the University of California at Los Angeles, prepared an impressive review, where he took into account and mapped 128 ancient Egyptian quarries. There were probably many more, but some are still not discovered, while others were destroyed in subsequent eras.
AT last years The Internet and other media have been flooded with pseudoscientific fabrications about ancient Egyptian construction methods: stone building blocks are claimed without any reason to be concrete structures. The source for such assumptions was a series of publications by the French chemist Joseph Davidovits (Davidovits, 1986 and others), which stated that the blocks in the pyramids were poured in place from a solution composed of crushed argillaceous kaolinite limestone, common in the Giza region, lime and soda. Of course, geologists and paleontologists who studied the composition and structure of the Egyptian blocks have repeatedly noted that they are processed blocks of natural sedimentary deposits, and by no means a concrete pour (see, for example, Jana, 2007), but, alas, it is precisely the most stupid ideas now it is customary to lift it up on a shield.
Geologist James Harrell from the American University of Toledo (University of Toledo, Ohio) not only meticulously mapped 128 ancient quarries on the territory of present-day Egypt and Northern Sudan (Fig. 2), but also figured out in which eras preference was given to one or another building materials in various parts of the ancient Egyptian state.
The Egyptians used stone blocks and slabs not only for the construction of large-scale stone structures, but also fortified and lined with them buildings made of raw brick - palaces, fortresses, storage facilities, residential buildings. The main building materials were relatively soft, that is, easy to process, sedimentary rocks - limestone and sandstone (Fig. 1, 3). If the limestones were practically pure calcium carbonate, then the sandstones consisted mainly of quartz sand grains with an admixture of feldspars. The Egyptians called limestone "a good white stone from Tura-Masar" (Tura-Masara, or Mazar, is one of the areas where the stone was mined), and sandstone - "a beautiful light hard stone." It is indeed stronger than limestone.
Since the time of the Old Kingdom, limestone has become the main stone of Egyptian builders, since it was this rock that was widespread along the Mediterranean coast and the Nile Valley from Cairo in the north to Esna in the south (Fig. 2, 3a, b). For example, one of the Great Pyramids - Khafra - in Giza was built from limestone, which was mined right behind it (Fig. 3a). Sandstones came to the surface along the banks of the Nile south of Esna (Fig. 2, 3c). They were used less frequently ancient kingdom a dynastic tomb was erected from sandstone at Hierakonpolis and a small pyramid at Nagada. Nevertheless, despite the difficulties with transportation, in the era of the New Kingdom, it is sandstones that are more resistant to destruction that become the main building materials - most of the temples in Thebes, some of the temples in Abydos, the Aten temple in El Amarna. In the Sinai Peninsula and in the western oases, the choice of stone for construction depended on what could be obtained from the nearest quarry.
Less often and probably for special purposes, both practical (to strengthen the building) and ceremonial (to pay honors to the pharaoh or priest), the Egyptians mined and processed very hard granites and granodiorites (Fig. 1) or confluent (heavily silicified) sandstones and basalts. (Basalt and granodiorite are igneous rocks, granite has a complex metamorphic origin.) Two types of salts suitable for construction were mined on the Red Sea coast - anhydrite (calcium sulfate) and gypsum (hydrous calcium sulfate). Interestingly, the name of the rock and mineral - "gypsum" - through the Greeks goes back to the Egyptians, although they could borrow it from the Akkadians. For cladding, the Egyptians also used travertine, or tufa, known as "Egyptian alabaster".
In order to avoid gaps between large blocks in buildings, as well as voids and chips, the Egyptians invented their own type of gypsum-based mortar back in the Predynastic period. When this mineral is heated to 100–200°C, it loses some of its water and turns into a hemihydrate - burnt gypsum. When mixed with water, this substance re-crystallizes in the form of gypsum and quickly hardens. In its pure form, burnt gypsum was more often used to create surfaces on which reliefs were carved, and when it was required as a filler, sand was added. Real cement mortar based on limestone appeared only under the Ptolemies (IV century BC).
Of the 128 known quarries, 89 were mined for limestone, 36 for sandstone, and 3 for gypsum and anhydrite. Although, as a rule, the stone for the construction was taken from the nearest quarry, distant quarries could also be used for facing work, if it was possible to find less fractured limestone of pleasant shades and texture, sustained over a large area: for example, limestone from the Tura and Masara quarries in period of the Old and Middle Kingdoms. And for the temples in Thebes, sandstone was delivered a hundred kilometers away. Usually the stone was mined in open quarries, but when material of special quality was required, adits were punched up to 100 m deep into the cliff (Fig. 3b). With the help of picks and chisels (copper, then bronze, later iron) and stone sledgehammers, rectangular blocks were cut down (Fig. 4).
The map of the quarries, compiled by James Harrell, is accompanied by a list that provides information about the rocks that were mined in each of them: the name of the formation, its age, structural and compositional features, the most characteristic fossil organisms, as well as buildings that are probably , built from blocks mined in this quarry, and the time when work was carried out in it. For example, for the pyramid of Khafre, limestone blocks were cut down not far from it in a quarry (Fig. 3a), which exposed the Middle Eocene Observatory Formation (about 45 Ma old), which is normal marine sediments with abundant shells of giant protozoa - nummulitid foraminifers, as well as microscopic operculinids, globigerinids and other foraminifers; there are remnants sea urchins; the structural features of the limestone indicate that it was formed no deeper than the storm erosion base.
It is the mineralogical composition of rocks (Fig. 5), their structure, texture and other petrographic features, and for sedimentary rocks - also the composition of the fossil fauna - that make it possible to accurately determine from which quarry the future elements of specific structures were taken. The unique features of a sea basin or a small part of it are reflected in the sedimentary rocks formed there over time and freeze in them forever, even if fragments of these rocks become building material.
Also, according to petrographic and paleontological features, at one time they were looking for quarries where limestone was mined for the construction of temples in the Middle Ages. Ancient Russia and France, when they began to restore them. Because even very similar limestone blocks taken from different quarries have a slightly different composition, including chemical composition, which can provoke increased erosion in the restored wall at the junction of “patches” with old stones.
