Scientists claim that the great pyramids of Giza were built with concrete rather than rocks. They say that the ancient Egyptians poured concrete into blocks high on the site rather than hauling up giant stones, according to a new Franco-American study. The study claims that the pharaohs’ craftsmen had enough skill and materials at hand to cast the two tone limestone blocks that dress the Cheops and other Pyramids. The concrete

method was used only for the stones on the higher levels of the Pyramids. There are some 2.5 million stone blocks on the Cheops Pyramid. The 10- onne granite blocks at their heart were also natural, they say. The professors agree with the “Davidovits theory” that soft limestone was quarried on the damp south side of the Giza Plateau. This was then dissolved in large, Nile- ed pools until it became liquid. Lime from fireplace ash and salt were mixed in with it. The water evaporated, leaving a moist, clay- ike mixture. This wet “concrete” would have been carried to the site and packed into wooden moulds where it would set hard in a few days. Mr Davidovits and his team at the Geopolymer Institute at Saint- Quentin tested the method recently, producing a large block of concrete limestone in ten days. The concrete theorists also point out differences in density of  the pyramid stones, which have a higher mass near the bottom and bubbles near the top, like old style cement blocks. 

An Egyptian-Polish archaeological mission found a large collection of pottery fragments, pieces of car tonnage and parts of the priest Bani-mesu's sarcophagus while excavating at Queen Hatchepsut temple at Deir al-Bahari on Luxor's west bank. Numerous pieces of ostraca, pottery, ushabti figurines, papyri   written   in   Coptic   and

fragments of a nemes  headdress of king Thutmose III have also been unearthed. The team also continued its program of restoring, documenting, and drawing of the New Kingdom shrines on the third terrace of Deir al-Bahari, including those of Thutmose III, Queen Hatchepsut, and the northern and southern shrines of Amun-Re.