Pyramid Stones Were Poured, Not Quarried 445
brian0918 writes "Times Online is reporting that French and American researchers have discovered that the stones on the higher levels of the great pyramids of Egypt were built with concrete. From the article: 'Until recently it was hard for geologists to distinguish between natural limestone and the kind that would have been made by reconstituting liquefied lime.' They found 'traces of a rapid chemical reaction which did not allow natural crystallization. The reaction would be inexplicable if the stones were quarried, but perfectly comprehensible if one accepts that they were cast like concrete.'"
It has to be said (Score:5, Funny)
That is what I call concrete evidence!
Re:It has to be said (Score:5, Funny)
It would have been conclusively proven years ago, but the investigation was stonewalled.
Well... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:It has to be said (Score:5, Insightful)
Which is PLENTY of reason for news, even if the theory was widely believed.
I mean, there's a theory that the Sphinx was built about 10,000 years earlier than was previously thought, by an entirely different civilization. It's not widely believed, but the guy does have some evidence.
As for the current theory, I doubt *IT* was widely believed either. I've watched a few shows on Egypt, and never heard of it before now.
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FTA: This wet "concrete" would have been carried to the site and packed into wooden moulds where it would set hard in a few days.
So they brought the concrete to the base of the pyramid to let it harden or to the top? If they brought it to the base and then carried it up the pyramid, then what's so special about it (again, besides the fact they used concrete). The article mentio
Re:It has to be said (Score:5, Insightful)
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My roof is not a very good place for casting a lot of concrete blocks that need to set for a few days. On the other hand, between a single 2000 lb block, and 2000 lbs of sand, which would you rather move to my driveway from miles away with a wheelbarrow?
Re:It has to be said (Score:5, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:It has to be said (Score:4, Insightful)
The ancient egytians knew how to make concrete. How come not everything made out of concrete? Why or how did that knowledge completely disappear from the planet for thousands of years. How come it never traveled outside of egypt?
Re:It has to be said (Score:4, Insightful)
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blocks near the base may have been quarried and dragged to the site.
Joe Egyptian thought "Damn, this is some hard work, pulling these tons of blocks and stuff... why don't we pound this stone into dust... carry it in bags... and add some water and beer into the mix when we get to it..."
Re:It has to be said (Score:5, Interesting)
No.
The compressional forces that concrete or any mineral type of rock can endure are almost endless. man-made concrete is just as strong as some of the toughest rocks in nature.
You don't see the grand canyon walls (larger and steeper than any pyramid) collapse? Those are (top 100's of feet) made out of sandstone, which is probably not even as strong as concrete or limestone.
Re:It has to be said (Score:4, Informative)
The problem with explaining say, the Great Pyramid at Giza, is that given near-infinite wealth and all available modern technology, we either could not build it today or it would be extremely difficult.
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pyramid_of_Giz
Whether they can cast concrete or not, the idea that a civilization which did not even have the wheel could build a structure that was visually indistinguishable from the Great Pyramid, if they were willing to work hard enough to do it, could maybe be plausible. But the idea that they could have built such a structure, to those tolerances and with that degree of precision is laughable at best. The diamond-tipped blades typically used to cut large blocks of stone wear and warp (both due to mechanical stress and due to heat) during use sufficiently that they could not cut stone with that kind of precision -- to the casual observer the cut would look quite straight, but detailed measurements would not show the kind of tolerances found in the Great Pyramid.
Additionally, the Great Pyramid is currently aligned with true (not magnetic) North with only 3/60th of one degree of error; bear in mind the true North shifts position over time, therefore in the past it was aligned exactly. The king's coffer in the Grand Chamber is made of one solid piece of granite; microscopic analysis of the holes drilled into it indicate that it had to have been done with a fixed-point drill, using hard jewel bits and a drilling force of two tons. The measurements of the pyramid's features "coincidentally" yields, to a high precision, numbers such as the number of days in a year, the earth's distance to the sun, the earth's mass, the speed of light, the sun's radius, etc. See this link [infinitete...gies.co.za].
The Pyramid is far more mysterious than most people would have you believe. My personal theory is that civilization is cyclical just as every other aspect of nature, that is, that eons ago there were civilizations that existed and had high technology, probably superior to ours, which either eventually destroy themselves (and civilization) or are destroyed by polar reversals, asteroid impacts, or other such cataclysms. The idea that we are the very first people who have ever had computing power or nanotechnology is at best an unfounded assumption.
While theories etc. are fun, I honestly have to say that I have no idea how that pyramid got there. And from what I can tell, neither does anyone else.
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If you pay attention, you will notice that the less discoveries like this fit in with our existin
Re:It has to be said (Score:5, Informative)
Re:It has to be said (Score:5, Insightful)
Complete and utter nonsense (Score:2)
As for the entire law vs hypothesis thing - complete claptrap as well. There's no rhyme or reason why something is a law versus a theory. Generally, laws of physics come from the time when science was still lumped together with ethics and neurology under philosophy (with science
Re:It has to be said (Score:4, Insightful)
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Which is of course impossible.
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Right, it's the prooving that's the hard part. That and the spelling.
Yeah, but... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Yeah, but... (Score:5, Funny)
We know for a fact that they were built by humans.
Aliens just supplied the anti-gravity beams.
Oh come on! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Oh come on! (Score:5, Funny)
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Swi
Re:Oh come on! (Score:4, Funny)
Could you imagine the volatility of a pyramid made of naquadah?
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Re:Oh come on! (Score:5, Funny)
Casting Vs Forming (Score:5, Informative)
My dad always used to tell me that when Alexandria was burned, all the publications holding the Roman recipe for concrete went with it. That, he claimed, was why all concrete poured was inferior to the Roman Aqueducts. And why it wasn't until 1948 that the right combination of limestone & other minerals was discovered to be able to resist water and hold that high a level of precision. Cement/concrete are by nature porous surfaces and so often sap water which causes structural problems. The fact that the some of the aqueducts still hold their accuracy within inches of their architectural specifications after 2000 years is nothing to overlook.
If Egyptians (for thousands of years prior to the Romans) had experimented with or refined this process and if an Aristotelean (such as Demetrius of Phaleron) had moved this information to Alexandria, that would explain how the structures like the aqueducts were constructed with such high quality mixtures.
I have one tiny problem with the summary as the article states: While summary uses the word cast: I would like to point out that this is known as forming [wikipedia.org] concrete and not casting [wikipedia.org] concrete. The difference is like the difference between pouring concrete for a foundation of a house and laying brick. Laying brick is casting while pouring concrete (like the article alludes to) is called 'forming.'
This might sound like a small matter but laying brick & forming concrete walls are two entirely different professions.
In all honesty, if you were to ask me to construct a pyramid today--knowing what I know, I would build the core of the pyramid out of laid brick. And then I would, starting from the bottom, form up the angled sides and fill in those areas. If you're wondering why I would take this route, try it with paper. Cut out blocks of paper from a notebook without making marks and try to make a perfect angled edge between them. Pretty difficult. Now try it in three dimensions with 2000 year old tools.
It makes sense that they would have both technologies (like the article states), one quarried for huge bricks and the other formed up ash, salt & lime. It would also explain a lot of technologies the Romans had.
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Re:Casting Vs Forming (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not keen on Roman/Egyptian history but I think that the Egyptian society and race are a bit older than the Romans. Wikipedia tells me that the Egyptian empire ran some 7,000 years while the Roman Empire technically only lasted only from 44 BC to AD 476. Ok so in 500 years, how many experiments with possible mixtures could you test. You can test for hardness & solubility on the fly but not duration. If you mix limestone with gypsum, you come up with something like drywall that won't last long at all in the elements. but might initially have a very hard composure.
Go look at some of the adobe structures that have lasted for hundreds upon hundreds of years in the Southwest of the United States. They were using the most abundant resource that was known to last the longest. R&D for the Romans was probably pretty high quality but I was just speculating that nothing then could match 7,000 years of research for something that would bring your leader's through the ages.
It was just speculation on my part but I highly doubt the Romans were the sole originators of the formula for the aqueducts. It really is too bad Alexandria was burned. If I could undo one thing in history, I would be tempted to pick that one.
Re:Casting Vs Forming (Score:5, Informative)
To be fair, you should probably measure the duration of the civilization, not just the time when it was called an "empire." In that case, the Roman civilization (monarchy, republic, and empire) lasted from 753 BC to AD 476.
Also, the Wikipedia article on Ancient Egypt says that your 7,000 year figure is high by a factor of 2:
So the Egyptions lasted longer than the Romans, but not by nearly as wide a margin as you stated.
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A series of different empires occupied similar territory over a span of more like 3000 years. The Pyramids were all built by the first one, over a fairly short period.
Re:Casting Vs Forming (Score:4, Interesting)
One of the main binding factors of ancient Egyptian civilization was the common religion. And an interesting point about the religion, is that they (the priesthood) exercised very strict controls on everything related to the religion, including artistic style (and techniques), monumental architecture, funerary rituals and rites, language, etc. It was this cultural inertia that bound the Egyptian civilization together across thousands of years, dozens of dynasties, even through foreign invasions and occupations.
The very fabric of the civilization was guided by the notion that CHANGE IS BAD. Pharoh is God. As long as we follow our religion and keep God happy, and make sure God's remains are preserved FOREVER, then Egypt will continue forever.
By that notion alone, it seems unlikely that there was a vibrant experimentation going on.
From the art historian perspective, you can compare the stylistic qualities of sculpture over thousands of years, and the features remain virtually unchanged (except for the Armana period, which really only lasted a couple of decades). During Akhenaten's reign, this changed, because he ousted the priesthood, and introduced his own religion - and during this brief period, the art style changed dramatically. Then the priesthood regained control, and used his son, Tutenkamen, as a puppet, to restore the previous order, and the old art style returned, though it was never again as static - and began taking influence from other medeterranean cultures with which the Egyptians traded (ie. Greek, Persian, etc.)
I'm not saying that they did not discover the perfect concrete formula through experimentation (and it's pretty clear that there WAS a process of improvement in their embalming process over the centuries)- but what I'm saying is that taking 500 years of Roman history, and mapping that over to 7000 years of Egyptian history is like comparing apples to oranges. Egyptian progress most likely moved VERY slowly, in comparison. But they did have a lot of time to work at it.
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Bucky Fuller only had a high school degree, so it's not like he was a scholar on building geodesic domes.
Cut out blocks of paper from a notebook without making marks and try to make a perfect angled edge between them. Pretty difficult. Now try it in three dimensions with 2000 year old tools.
Euclid: circa 365-275 BC. I might also note that the ancient Egyptians were so adept at making marks directly on stone that some of thos
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The ACI Committee 318 Building Code defines "Precast concrete" as "Structural concrete element cast elsewhere than its final position in the structure," which would suggest to me that structural concrete members that are not precast are in
Brick Pyramids (Score:4, Informative)
A lot of the later pyramids actually were built with a core of laid brick, and cased in stone. These didn't hold up as well as the older, all stone pyramids, like the Great Pyramid, because the bricks were made out of mud and eventually turned to dust. Today, a lot of the brick pyramids basically resemble mounds of dirt and rock, with the original pyramid shape just barely distinguishable.
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Actually, I'm not so sure I agree with the authors on this point. Assuming some of them are made and not quarried, then if they were formed in place, why are they still clearly distinctive stones with detectable (t
Roman concrete (Score:2)
Very likely the Romans did not invent this technique. Their written language was bought from the Etruscans and much of their science and philosophy was forcibly taken from the Greeks. Much of their religi
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That, and running water.
Re:Casting Vs Forming (Score:4, Interesting)
The brief article seems to imply that the authors of the study could not be certain of the top/bottom relationship because of their lack of material for study. This is unfortunate as I suspect with more material this hypothesis of their might be completely demolished. I have two major problems with it. First, they are materials scientists, not geologists, so they have no acknowledged expertise in the art of geology. Second, even if they were geologists, they are still arguing from ignorance, claiming that nature could not be responsible for the form of these limestone blocks. Well, nature is often a mystery to those who have not bothered looking at it, and it is easy to claim that something could not happen in nature if you are unfamiliar with it. Just ask the anti-Darwinists.
I can hear the Egyptologists now... (Score:2)
... b.b.b.but what about the evidence we've found throughout the years about the workers in the area? And what about the timelines?
I would think that this will throw a bone in some of their theories, so I'm surprised that the two researchers were even allowed on to the site... At any rate, this explains why the separation between the "stones" is so tight in certain places.
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Someone had to drive the cement trucks!
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Um, casting some of the stones from concrete doesn't mean the pyramids weren't massive projects requiring huge numbers of workers. I don't see how it explains the tightness of the stones particularly; they couldn't have been poured in-place if that's what you're thinking, or there wouldn't be any seperation at all. I'm not celar what theories you think this one piece of the puzzle invalidates, or why you think Egyptologists are corrupt schemers uninterested in new data.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
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It wouldn't make sense to use such processes for the lowly commoner but it would make sense to use this process for a god's structur
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You haven't read much Egyptian history, I see.
Some Pyramids were cannibalized to finish up others, when they were needed suddenly (by an untimely death). Some Pharoahs (Tutankhamon, for instance) were buried in whatever tomb happened to be ready when he died.
The Egyptian Pharoahs were Gods, alright. But mostly the dead on
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The ancient Egyptians had a marvellous habit of recording a great many things on very durable media - including how their own technology worked.
A 1: If they were so good at recording their technology, then why are we still debating how they made the pyramids? Are there pictographs showing hundreds of slaves pushing/pulling a giant slab up the face? Maybe there are, but I haven't heard of them, and they surely would have removed a lot of the mysteries.
A 2: They article states that the method was used on more than one pyramid, so yes.
Silly rabbit, sigs are for kids
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I find it difficult to believe that they would've evolved this kind of technology (concrete) and used it exclusively for the task of pyramid-building.
That's because you don't live in a primitive era where the local boss was considered an actual deity (the reincarnation of Horus, if I recall my amateur Egyptology correctly).
Formula (Score:5, Funny)
Yes. It goes like this:
Bird's eye bird's eye, dancing guy, two chicks looking at each other, bird's eye, chicks again, that dog faced god looking to the heavens, some women throwing wheat into the air, guys picking ground, bird's eye, god of something, mound of cement.
There you go!
Re:Formula (Score:5, Funny)
First off your knowledge of ancient egyption is obviously flawed. Secondly... language! There could be children reading this.
Re:Formula (Score:5, Funny)
Quit being a Grammar Centurion.
According to late night talk radio (Score:2, Funny)
Why those lying egyptians! (Score:3, Funny)
Just PR to misinform (Score:3, Funny)
Doesn't make sense (Score:5, Funny)
4000 AD (Score:5, Funny)
"The Americans had slaves that carried concrete slabs to form long unending structures. We also have evidence that these were called "free-ways". We think these "free-ways" were in worship to some sort of God and the metal heaps on these "free-ways" offerings for this God."
Re:4000 AD (Score:4, Informative)
That reminds me of a great children's book I ran across a few years ago called Motel of the Mysteries [amazon.com]. It was a comical take on what archaeologists might think of our culture as they unearth a 20th century motel. It really makes you wonder how utterly wrong our understanding of history may be. The one thing I remember best from the history of ancient Greece is that all of our knowledge of that culture is based on a single book and a few fragments.
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"The burning of the Great Archive.org of The Internet was the single biggest tragedy of the Web 2.0 era, much like losing the Library of Alexandria was to the ancients. Because of its loss, we will never know what wisdom lay in goatse.cx or tubgirl.org, sites that are so frequently mentioned in txts of that
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2nd time I've heard this (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:2nd time I've heard this (Score:4, Funny)
So... yesterday?
Yes, poured like concrete (Score:3, Insightful)
Or, aliens from mars mixed the concrete on their spaceships and poured the casts while hovering over each apex...
That's cement, not concrete (Score:5, Interesting)
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You kids today with your sprirographs and your silly theories...
Why quarry granite then (Score:4, Interesting)
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Unless they were chiseled off by a worker.
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Not the first time (Score:4, Interesting)
Tut tut... (Score:2)
Misleading Summary... only the highest sections (Score:3, Insightful)
The majority of the pyramid material was still quarried.
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Times Online is reporting that French and American researchers have discovered that the stones on the higher levels of the great pyramids of Egypt were built with concrete.
Mortar (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Mortar (Score:4, Informative)
A little insight (Score:5, Informative)
The Bent Pyramid (an older pyramid), its obvious blocks put into place from a quarry up until where it bends.
http://www.richard-seaman.com/Travel/Egypt/Dahshu
Now, look inside the Red Pyramid (a newer pyramid), tell me they carved 26 million bricks with such perfect precision. They carved Limestone, using copper tools (ahem, softer than limestone), so perfectly together that you can't even fit a playing card between them? I don't think so.
http://www.richard-seaman.com/Travel/Egypt/Dahshu
This article can also be found on the New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/01/science/01pyram
Bronze, not copper. (Score:5, Informative)
Also, the bronze technology of the time was more advanced than anything known to Victorian civilization - Burton writes about the bronze chisel (found inside a pyramid or temple, I forget) that was harder than wrought iron when he's discussing the switch from bronze weapons to iron weapons in The Book of the Sword.
We know that the ancient Egyptians had bronze tools hard enough to work limestone. We have at least one example.
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This Isn't Exactly New (Score:2, Informative)
The Pryamids [amazon.com]
Meanwhile, a retired carpenter.. (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.theforgottentechnology.com/ [theforgott...nology.com]
I seriously doubt it... SERIOUSLY (Score:5, Funny)
One might wonder what this has to do with the ancient Egyptians capacity to mix concrete. Well it has a LOT to do with it. You have to remember the ancient Egyptians were very keen on rhyming. The entire mummification process rhymed, as well as all the names of all the pharaohs. So it's only logical that all their building materials should rhyme as well. Concrete doesn't rhyme with anything. Therefore the ancient Egyptians didn't use it.
This if you will, is the cornerstone of Egyptology.
To Quote Marty McFly (Score:3)
Whoa, that's heavy!
Sensible methods (Score:2)
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Sandy, dry soil, lower than the surface of the river, yet mysteriously above the water table. I'm not buying it.
"This is but one way to harness water power in the absence of natural elevation. There are others"
There are various ways to use water to store energy (by pumping it up a hill/tower), but without a difference in elevation, water doesn't have any energy. But if you're going to pump water up, why not just pull stone up, and skip the inefficiencies? I'm having a hard time envisioning anything simpl
Just FYI... (Score:5, Informative)
The limestones they are talking about used to cover the pyramid to give it flat sides, and the only remains left at Giza can be seen at the very top of the middle pyramid in this photo [www.ashmolean.museum]. (FWIW, this is the pyramid of Khafre (Chepren) - next the the Great Pyramid of Khufu (Cheops), which has had all of its limestone block cladding removed.)
The third large pyramid at Giza (Menkare/Mycerinus, foreground in the group photo) was intended to be covered in granite cladding. ed
Is this news? We knew they had plaster tech (Score:3, Insightful)
The pyramids were originally covered in a limestone plaster veneer which would have given them smooth sides rather than the jaggies we know today. It can still be seen on small areas on some pyramids but most of that smooth plaster layer has been eroded over time by the sand and wind and rain. Or low-res game graphics. Take your pick.
The point is that the plaster was installed using the exact same set of ingredients, tools and technologies that could also have been used to produce the concrete. If they knew how to do one, they might know how to do the other.
Modern analogy: we know how to build Intel PCs. Using many of the same parts, you can build an AMD PC. That's sort of the difference between plaster and concrete. Kinda.
Either way, there's not a quantum jump from one to the other.
Kudos to the builders for coming up with a concrete mix that has managed to fool scientists for hundreds of years. To some future civilization, our modern freeway interchanges will look like water-eroded structures or something created by aliens.
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Actually, if the process were innacurate, blocks would be easier so they could undo mistakes in smaller portions. Additionally, separate blocks are probably sturdier than one solid wall, and finally, depending on how fast the stuff set, they may have time to fill a block mold with the concrete, but not a full wall mold.
Re:so why then use blocks ? (Score:5, Insightful)
It isnt really viable with bronze age technology to do large scale in-place casting.
So with blocks, they could be prepared nearby, and when cured be put in place.
The big advantage is not that they dont have to be lifted up, but that they dont have to be fetched from distant quarries.
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Good question. The answer to that would be the lack of reinforced concrete. Concrete is a very durable material, but designed to only withstand compression. Because of it's makeup, it's not as durable as stone unless it's been reinforced by something that can handle the tension required to keep it together (like steel rods).
Think of bricks. Yes, you can build a brick out of mud or clay, and it will work find on it's own. But in order to use it to build structures that were strong, they needed to in
Thermal stress (Score:5, Informative)
Go look at a concrete highway sometime, and check whether the concrete is continuous (like asphalt*) or whether it has regular seams. There's a reason for the seams: namely, that concrete expands and contracts with temperature. If we poured roads as once continuous chunk they'd expand in the heat and buckle, or contract in the cold and crack. The seams are there to relieve the temperature-induced strain.
Now, consider the fact that the Egyptions lived in the middle of the desert. One particular feature of such a climate is that there are wide extremes of temperature: it gets really hot during the day, and really cold at night. Once you realize that the Egyptions probably had prior experience with the materials before trying to build the biggest structure in the world out of them, you might expect that they'd realize the same thing current civil engineers do, and put in releases to prevent cracking. In 3D, this would mean pouring the concrete in blocks.
(*note: asphalt can be laid in continuous strips because it's much less brittle than concrete, at least at normal service temperatures.)
Re:so why then use blocks ? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:so why then use blocks ? (Score:5, Interesting)
You can't just pour something the size of the pyramids and expect to have it set in any reasonable time frame.
Ever see movies of the building of the Hoover dam? It was done in a lot of small blocks, and for a very good reason:
"The Bureau of Reclamation engineers calculated that if the dam were built in a single continuous pour, the concrete would have gotten so hot that it would have taken 125 years for the concrete to cool to ambient temperatures. The resulting stresses would have caused the dam to crack and crumble" [answers.com]