Davidovits, Joseph

Published November 28, 2021

Joseph Davidovits (1935- ) is a French scientist who has worked on geopolymers since the 1970s. which can be used to create cement that is economically and ecologically superior to Portland cement.

In the late 1970s, Professor Davidovits shook the world of Egyptology with his claim that some of the blocks used to build the Great Pyramid had been cast rather than carved^(a)(e)! This generated a debate that has rumbled on over the past four decades^(c). Professor Michel Barsoum supports Davidovits^(g), Professor Linn Hobbs of MIT is ambivalent^(h), while geologist Dipayan Jana is strongly opposed⁽ⁱ⁾.

Ioannis Liritzis is an archaeologist at the University of the Aegean, who, along with his team, challenged Joseph Davidovits’ theory in 2008. Liritzis pointed out that the material used to build Egypt’s most famous monuments “contain hundreds of thousands of marine fossils” that are distributed throughout the blocks in a manner compatible with natural rock^(l).

In 2020, Davidovits published a rebuttal of arguments put forward by Jena and others, ensuring the continuance of the controversy for some time to come^(k).

Not content with upsetting Egyptologists Davidovits has now annoyed archaeologists at other sites with his more recent claims that casting and not carving had also been used at Tiwanaku and Puma Punku in Bolivia^(b) as well as on Easter Island^(d)! This proposed connection between the Easter Island moai and South America is explained in an interesting video from Davidovits^(j).

I have always been cautiously sympathetic towards Davidovits’ geopolymer theories, However, when I read of his claim that the Easter Island statues were also made with artificial stone, my doubts grew. I consulted my well-thumbed paperback copy of Thor Heyerdahl‘s Aku-Aku ^[1938] and found images between pages 112 and 113 showing unfinished giant moai in a quarry still with the back part of the statues to be cut free from the rock. The stone tools used for the sculpting of the giants still lay nearby. I am now waiting for Davidovits to comment on Stonehenge!

Furthermore, the claim of casting rather than carving implies the use of moulds, something that I have never seen represented on the walls of any of the tombs or temples of Egypt nor have the physical remains of any such moulds been found. Compounding this is the fact that sites identified by Davidovits as having used artificial stone, particularly Egypt and Easter Island, suffered from a dearth of suitable timber for making moulds!

Davidovits has also published a short series of ebooks concerning the Bible and Egypt^(f). Additionally, there are many other papers by Davidovits on the Researchgate website^(m). relating to various aspects of his work.

In 2024, a proposal comparable with Davidovits’ theory was made by Marcell Fóti in The Natron Theory^[2108], in which he claims that the “ancient technique of casting artificial stone has been rediscovered and is even being used again in various parts of the world today⁽ⁿ⁾“. Fóti was also chosen as Author of the Month for February 2025 on Graham Hancock‘s website^(o).

>>A claim related to those of Davidovits and Fóti was put forward in a 2012 article on the Ancient Origins website by Lia Mangolini^(p) offered her view that crude chemistry, using plant extracts, provided the means of dissolving rock, which could explain how some quality artefacts as well as tight-fitting ancient masonry, such as found in Peru and Egypt, may have been achieved. This is certainly worth a read, but I would prefer to see a demonstration. She expanded on the use of this acid, known in the Middle East as ‘shamir’, in a separate paper^(q).<<

^(a) https://www.geopolymer.org/archaeology/pyramids/are-pyramids-made-out-of-concrete-1/

^(b) https://www.geopolymer.org/archaeology/tiahuanaco-monuments-tiwanaku-pumapunku-bolivia/

^(c) https://www.geopolymer.org/archaeology/pyramids/deep-misleading-publications-by-geologists/

^(d) https://www.geopolymer.org/library/video/they-came-from-america-to-build-easter-island/

^(e) https://www.geopolymer.org/shop/product/why-the-pharaohs-built-the-pyramids-with-fake-stones/

^(f) https://www.geopolymer.org/shop/cat/archaeology/

^(g) https://www.livescience.com/1554-surprising-truth-great-pyramids-built.html

^(h) https://news.mit.edu/2008/gathering-concrete-evidence

⁽ⁱ⁾ https://www.academia.edu/36995042/THE_GREAT_PYRAMID_DEBATE_Evidence_from_Detailed_Petrographic_Examinations_of_Casing_Stones_from_the_Great_Pyramid_of_Khufu_a_Natural_Limestone_from_Tura_and_a_Man_made_Geopolymeric_Limestone

^(j) https://www.geopolymer.org/library/video/they-came-from-america-to-build-easter-island/

^(k) Archive 7474 | (atlantipedia.ie)

^(l) Pyramids packed with fossil shells › News in Science (ABC Science) (archive.org)