Some heretics have dared to suggest that some of the blocks in the Egyptian pyramids were cast in place with a kind of crude concrete. They are currently being rounded up and shot. You can read all about it in this Boston Globe article.

I am in no position to add anything intelligent to this argument, but this passage from the article really struck me….

Archeologists, however, say there is simply no evidence that the pyramids are built of anything other than huge limestone blocks. Any synthetic material showing up in tests – as it has occasionally, even in work not trying to prove a concrete connection – is probably just slop from “modern” repairs done over the centuries, they say.

This is either really bad reporting or the Archeolgoists have a really weak argument. How can you say out of one side of your mouth that there is no evidence for the opposing camp and out of the other side of your mouth that the evidence “probably” was caused by something else?

Other gems from the article…..

Nearly every prominent Egyptologist is adamant that the pyramids are made solely of giant blocks cut with crude copper or stone tools. They note that proponents of the concrete theory are chemists or materials specialists with little experience at ancient digs – lab researchers, not shovel-wielding field archeologists.

I am all in favor of people who get their hands dirty, but are archeologists really arguing that chemists or materials specialists have no special skills that archeologists do not? Do they really ignore the insights of all the other branches of science?

And one last gem…

Zahi Hawass, head of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, minced no words in assailing the concrete idea. “It’s highly stupid,” he said via a spokesman. “The pyramids are made from solid blocks of quarried limestone. To suggest otherwise is idiotic and insulting.”

Now that is my style of arguing.