Egypt dismisses theory that concrete was used in pyramids

0 Comments | AFP, December, 2006

CAIRO (AFP) — Egypt's antiquities supremo Zahi Hawass has derided new studies according to which an early form of concrete rather than natural limestone was used to build the great pyramids. "It's really silly. It was limestone, it's been studied before by hundreds of chemists," Hawass, who heads the Supreme Council of Antiquities, told AFP on Sunday.

French Professor Gilles Hug, from the Office of National Aerospatial Studies and Research) and Egyptian-born Michel Barsoum, a professor at Philadelphia's Drexel University analysed the mineralogy of samples from the Giza pyramids. They found that what would be the earliest known occurrence of concrete was used and not only limestone from the nearby quarries, explaining in part the mystery of how the Egyptians were able to...