Was the Bent Pyramid Made from Fabricated Concrete Blocks?

I have read a few earlier articles about the pyramids being constructed out of "concrete" but until this article, I hadn't read it in language that I actually understood.  It is certainly an intriguing theory.  The ancient Egyptians were not stupid people.  If they developed a method to fabricate the enormous blocks of  "stone" used to build the bent Pyramid and the later pyramids at Giza, they would have used it, rather than quarrying and dragging solid stone blocks weighing several tons each on sledges x-number of miles after somehow managing to get the giant stone blocks to the Nile and floating them downstream (or upstream) to the building sites. 

Come on, if you were the person charged by the almighty Pharaoh (probably with death hanging over your head if Pharaoh was not pleased) with building his timeless death-to-life memorial, what would you opt for?  The hard way, or the easy way? Just because we've lost the technological formula to replicate this technique today doesn't mean it didn't happen because, quite clearly - as the evidence is under our noses, it existed and it worked.

Kiwi may have solved mystery of the pyramids
Published: 6:31PM Saturday November 27, 2010 Source: ONE News

A Wellington scientist has come up with an explanation that may help solve the question of how the ancient Egyptians built the pyramids.

It has been widely thought massive blocks of stone cut from quarries were dragged to the building sites.

But Professor Ken MacKenzie from Victoria University had his doubts, so he tested a small sample of a block from the famous Bent Pyramid, built more than 4500 years ago, at his Lower Hutt lab.

He ground it to powder, put in a spectrometer containing a powerful magnet and spun it at a staggering 12,000 revolutions per second.

From that, he was able to get a sub-atomic analysis of the pyramid block. It showed that rather being solid stone, it was a mixture of several materials, a sort of ancient concrete.

"The concrete that would have been used in this instance, if we call it that, this re-constituted stone, would be the earliest form of concrete we know," said MacKenzie.

The mixture, limestone and silica mixed with water and poured into wooden moulds, would have formed symmetrical blocks after setting.

There could be a modern point to all this research into ancient architecture.

Scientists say that if we could replicate those building techniques and materials today, it would be much better for the environment

Making a tonne of modern cement produces almost the same weight in greenhouse gases.

Huge Structure Discovered Near The Bent Pyramid

Still more news out of Egypt.  With those ever-shifting sands, archaeologists will still be discovering ruins 1,000 years from now!

At Heritage Key
'Huge' structure discovered near Snefru's Bent Pyramid in Egypt may be an ancient harbour
Submitted by owenjarus on Wed, 08/25/2010 - 18:27

(Excerpted)

The passageway of the newly discovered causeway.
It can easily fit two fully grown men. Its walls are three meters high and
built with mud brick. They end with a vault at the top. The walls
have bits of undecorated white and yellow plaster on them. Archaeologists
can tell that these walls have gone through four phases of plastering.
They believe that this causeway was maintained for at least 40 years.
Copyright: Cairo Department of the German Archaeological Institute.

Archaeologists have discovered a large structure – to the northeast of the 4,600 year old Bent Pyramid – which may be the remains of an ancient harbour. It connects to one of the pyramid’s temples by way of a 140 meter long causeway.

. . .

The structure itself is U-shaped, 90 meters by 145 meters. It was built with mud brick and has no wall on its east side. “Maybe this structure can be interpreted as (a) harbour or something like that,” said Dr. Nicole Alexanian of the German Archaeological Institute, Cairo. She said that it may have been beside water, “it’s possible that ships could enter by a canal in this area.”

Harbours are known from later Egyptian pyramids and may have served as a receiving point for the body of the pharaoh. It is unlikely, however, that the newly discovered structure was used for the burial of the Bent Pyramid’s creator – the pharaoh Snefru. It is widely believed by Egyptologists that his final resting place was the Red Pyramid, located two kilometres to the north of the Bent Pyramid.

. . .

The causeway runs due east of the temple and has a vaulted roof. This appears to be the earliest known instance in which a roofed causeway was used in an Egyptian pyramid complex.

“The walls - they built them to a really astonishing height, almost three meters,” said Dr. Alexanian. “It was like a tunnel - astonishingly it’s also very steep.”

The interior of the causeway contained a passageway more than 2.5 meters wide. Its walls were lined with undecorated white and yellow plaster which appears to have been maintained for a long time.

“Four phases of the plastering could be distinguished which attest that it was renewed several times,” said the team in a recent report. “From (the) state of weathering of the different plaster layers it can be inferred that the causeway was used for a substantial period of time i.e. at least 40 years.”