Seashell Stoned Egyptian Monuments
posted in Amazing Facts, Pollution |Egypt mainly known for its giant monuments like Cheops and Sphinx is once again in news. According to the latest news the walls of these monuments contains millions of marine fossils. These marine fossils are entirely intact and preserved in the walls.
The study was conducted by Ioannis Liritzis et.al, from the University of Aegean and University of Athens. Researchers suggest that the monuments are made from stones carved out of natural stone. According to Ioannis Liritzis et.al “The observed random emplacement and strictly homogenous distribution of the fossil shells within the whole rock is in harmony with their initial in situ setting in a fluidal sea bottom environment.”
Researches chiseled out small samples from the Sphinx Temple, Cheops, the Valley Temple, the Osirion Shaft, Khefren, the Temple of Seti I at Abydos, Osirion at Abydos and Qasr el-Sagha at Fayum. These samples were taken for mineralogy analysis and chemical composition and structure.
With the help of radioactivity measurements and X-ray diffraction researchers were able to find the composition of the samples. The result of these analysis showed that the primary building material consists of white and black granite, pinky granite sandstones and different types of limestone. Limestone mainly contained number of nummulites gen shell fossils. Journal of Cultural Heritage have accepted to publish these findings.
Giving example of Cheops, researchers told that 40% of the whole building stone rock was constituted by the shell fossils of nummulites gen. Nummulites were very simple marine organisms with the literal meaning “little coins”. These shells lived around 55.8 to 33.9 million years ago in Eocene period and are commonly found in limestone of Egypt.
The main argument presented by Ioannis and team is that the stones used for the construction of the monuments instead of cast in molds they are carved out of the natural stone. And the reason behind this argument is the undamaged and random distribution of shell fossils within the stone. Secondly X-ray pattern shows absences of lime, which is ought to be present in case of cast stones. They also pointed out that in ancient Egyptian paintings, text or sculptures there is no references of casting tools like buckets or molds.