The Natron Theory
With the recipe of the impossible stone blocks of the Great Pyramid of Giza
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The Natron Theory
Narrated by:
Virtual Voice
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Narrated by:
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Virtual Voice
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By:
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Marcell Fóti
This title uses virtual voice narration
Virtual voice is computer-generated narration for audiobooks.
About this listen
Take the Incas, ancient Egyptians, or Indian builders, for example—how did they transport stones weighing hundreds of tons from quarries to construction sites, long before the invention of the wheel? How did they lift them, and more impressively, move them across mountains to the peaks of hills in Peru?
And how were they able to carve these massive stones with such precision using only copper chisels, leaving no space for even a razor blade to slide between them? Why do the stones have such seemingly random shapes? Was it all really just about earthquake-proofing?
Or how did they fit 40-60 ton granite boxes into narrow chambers at Saqqara in Egypt? Moving stones of this size should have required 400-600 men, yet the tunnels around these stones are barely wide enough for a dozen people to fit.
Spoiler alert: they didn’t do it the way we think. Or to put it more bluntly—they used buckets. These ancient, gigantic stones and sarcophagi are as artificial as the concrete slab on my roof—just made with a very different recipe.
Oh, and in case you're wondering—yes, I have the recipe. It’s right here in the book. This ancient technique of casting artificial stone has been rediscovered and is even being used again in various parts of the world today.
Before I take all the credit, though, I should mention that in the 19th century, almost everyone knew about this technology. Books were published on the topic in the U.S., Germany, and the Netherlands, and there was widespread excitement about artificial stone—until Portland cement, with its cheapness and simplicity, caused the technique to fade into obscurity.
How many times has this technology been discovered and forgotten over the course of history? Personally, I’ve identified at least five different historical periods. In my “catalog,” ancient Egyptian artificial stones are version 4.0.
To discover Stone 1.0, we have to go back to the last Ice Age, when humanity may have accidentally stumbled upon the process of creating artificial stone—just as wine and other inventions were discovered by chance. Once they observed the natural process of stone formation, early humans could replicate it, leading to the creation of Stone 1.0—the menhirs.
There are over 50,000 menhirs in Europe, and they weren’t quarried from anywhere. In ancient times, the four classical elements—earth, water, air, fire—had real, practical meanings. We’ll explore what those truly were.
As we move forward, we’ll trace the history of artificial stone right up to modern 21st-century geopolymer materials. What could a contemporary French chemist possibly have to do with the stones of the pyramids?
And if I tell you that this entire subject is closely tied to rising global temperatures and climate change, I think jaws will drop.
All we need to do is map the emergence of ancient civilizations in chronological order, and we can see that human history is also the history of migration northward: from the Sumerians, Egyptians, and Babylonians (Assyrians), to the Persians, Greeks, Hittites, Romans, and finally Europe. Once you see this pattern, you can’t unsee it.
These are the questions we’ll explore together, with just a pinch of high school-level chemistry thrown in. Chemistry—or alchemy—only became a “ridiculous pseudoscience” during the Middle Ages, when people became obsessed with turning everything into gold. But what didn’t go off the rails in the Dark Ages?
In ancient times, (al)chemistry was a real, practical science of material transformation, and without it, we can’t answer these questions. Don’t worry—I promise, it won’t hurt!
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