Engineer sets the record straight on Bent Pyramid
AN ENGINEER has outsmarted archaeologists to save a 4,600-year-old pyramid in Egypt.
Peter James, 76, solved the problem of why the Bent Pyramid had started to fall apart – with ancient stones breaking away.
Archaeologists believed it was down to a mix of the foundation moving and thieves stealing keepsake stones from the historical structure.
But Peter figured out the problem was due to the pyramid expanding in the heat.
Specialist engineer Peter, from Newport, is now set to carry out work on the pyramid with his company Cintec.
He said: “Archaeologists appear not to be trained in construction or natural science. They seem to think that because the blocks of stone are big, they don’t conform to natural laws dictating that when material is heated it expands.”
Cintec has already restored heritage stone buildings in Egypt after the devastating earthquake in 1992.
It has also strengthened 22 mosques, the Temple Hibis, the Red Pyramid, and the burial chamber of Egypt’s oldest pyramid – the Step Pyramid.
Peter, a former deputy building superintendent for Cardiff city council, was invited to examine the Bent Pyramid in Dahshur in 2013.
He found that the outside of the structure was made up of several layers of large stones measuring three metres deep.
They would expand during the 40°C heat in the day, but would then contract when temperatures plummeted to 3°C at night.
It meant they had been spreading out by tiny amounts every day for 46 centuries.
Peter said: “The archaeologists’ theories didn’t make sense. For one thing, there was no evidence of foundation movement. And for another, the pattern of collapse at the corners supports the theory of thermal expansion.
“The idea of mystery stone robbers doesn’t hold either. The stones coming loose are high up. You’d need elaborate scaffolding to get at them, and it would be a very dangerous business.
“Then you’d need to lug them 40km back to Cairo, iro, when there are stones just as good d in the hills around the city. I just can’t see anyone doing that.”
Peter believes ieves that the pyramid faces aces would have crept t forward over 50mm m since he first saw the he pyramid seven years ago.
But nobody dy believed his theory of thermal hermal expansion to begin with – including Egypt’s Supreme reme Council of Antiquities.
Civil engineers gineers at the University sity of Cairo eventutually backed the theory
and his team are now waiting to carry out drill tests.
Cintec will now use its anchoring system to pin the pyramid face to the core – by drilling 10 holes and inserting rods inside.
It is hoped the work will keep the pyramid stable for hundreds more years and allow the Egyptian government to open it for tourism.
The Bent Pyramid was built 4,600 years ago at a royal necropolis 24 miles south of Cairo.
Peter has also worked on Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey and the White House. He received an Outstanding Achievement Award for innovation in heritage conservation from the Chartered Institute of Building in 2014. He added: “I have a very active brain and I read millions of books on structures, and natural sciences as well.”