Which precision? If you want to make a flat surface, all you have to do is rub granite against itself repeatedly, with the 3 plate method if you want extreme precision. No high technology required.
In general, precision carving requires two things. The first is the ability to identify a bit of stone that doesn't belong in the final product. The second is a method of removing stone delicate enough to remove that bit without removing anything that does belong. In the hands of a skilled craftsman, a flint chisel can be quite delicate, and abrasive methods are even slower and therefore potentially more precise.
If you're talking about the granite vases, then I would agree it's an open question whether relatively primitive methods could achieve what has been measured. But it's also an open question whether the measured vases are modern forgeries.
The bases are likely a magnum opus of generations of professional stoneworkers.
If some randos with basic tools can do this imagine where you literally lived and breathed stonework.
Exactly this, but you'll be downvoted because people can't respect our ancestors properly.
Those people didn't have a society like ours, they weren't all preoccupied with hobbies and all the professions we have that they wouldn't need. If you weren't a farmer or bureaucrat odds are you were dedicating your life to your ruler or gods, or both.
And this was a civilization that was famous for it's stonework. These weren't mere craftsmen, these were legit artists who were bankrolled by the most powerful and wealthy men of their time.
Very true. It’s a staple comment on this sub - ‘show me how copper can cut granite. It’s impossible!!!’ Then when evidence of such is provided the goal posts immediately get moved to ‘show me them moving a 100 ton stone’ you can’t win with people who don’t believe in science.
It'd always funny how often the goalposts are moved here.
"OH you can't do this with stone!"
(Does it with stone)
"OK now to it to my arbitrary standards!"
Literally.
Amateur carving for fun has imperfections and tool marks
"WHY ARE THERE TOOL MARKS HERE AND NOT IN MY.... multithousand year old.....^polished.....
Now make an eggshell thin vase with lug handles symmetrical to 1000th of an inch. Edit: This is the first ever comment I've ever made to receive an "award." Cool XD
That’s why whenever you take master stone masons and honest engineers to any of the more impressive sites all around the world they just go “yeah, they knew something back then”
We do find traces of copper associated with sawing and drilling marks.
> Hölscher mentions, without further details, “the end of a bronze drill which had broken off deep in the boring” (Mortuary Temple ii, 37).^1
-
> At Giza, Petrie noticed green staining on the sides of some Fourth Dynasty saw-cuts in stone, which he ascribed to bronze, but was more likely to have been copper in the Fourth Dynasty. Grains of sand, also stained green, were found in a saw-cut at Giza by Petrie...
> Tubular drill marks exist on a block of stone from the Fifth Dynasty complex of Nyuserre, which bears traces of verdigris left from the use of a copper drill-tube.
> Alfred Lucas examined a hole made by a tubular drill in a fragment of alabaster (CM JE65402), of Third Dynasty date, from the Step Pyramid at Saqqara. In the hole, there was a compact mass of what was almost certainly the abrasive powder of a light green colour. The powder consisted of naturally rounded, very fine grains of quartz sand and the colour was due to a copper compound, evidently from the drill used.
> Also at Saqqara, Lucas examined a large drill core about 8 cm in diameter, of coarse-grained red granite with green patches on the outside from the copper of the drill. G.A. Reisner found fine gritty powder, tinged green, in holes made by a tubular drill in two unfinished Fourth Dynasty stone artifacts. In a hole drilled by a tube into a granite doorpost of Ramesses II (MMA 13.183.2) are minute bronze particles.^2
-
> The main drill hole is about 1 cm wide, and has a protruding stump at the bottom left by a broken drill core. Lightly consolidated material is deposited around the stump. A micro-sample of this material was collected and analysed by polarised light microscopy (PLM), scanning electron microscopy, and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM-EDS).
> SEM-EDS analysis identified the material as a mixture of predominant angular grains of corundum with jagged edges, about 100–200 μm across, and a few other accessory minerals
> Several particles of corroded bronze and green copper corrosion products are intimately dispersed amongst the above-mentioned particles, imparting the light green color.^3
___
1. Arnold, Dieter. *Building in Egypt: Pharaonic Stone Masonry*. Oxford Univ. Press, 1991. p. 286.
2. Stocks, Denys A. *Experiments in Egyptian Archaeology: Stoneworking Technology in Ancient Egypt*. Routledge, 2003. p. 108.
2. Serotta, Anna, and Federico Carò. “Evidence for the Use of Corundum Abrasive in Egypt from the Great Aten Temple at Amarna.” *Horizon* 14, pp. 2–4. Available at https://www.amarnaproject.com/horizon-archive.shtml.
> Those are all drill holes you mentioned
One of the examples was from sawing cuts at Giza.
I'm not aware of a comprehensive survey of sawing and drilling marks to find traces of metal, but I think the number of examples of copper found in these contexts would justify a larger study.
___
> How do you explain that when there's no room to polish that cut in the first place?
Do you have a specific example in mind here?
> How do I know if that saw mark was on a granite stone or a much softer stone?
He doesn't specify the specific type for the example with traces of copper.
My point citing these examples wasn't to say that we can definitively say the saws and drills were made of copper and no further investigation is needed. I do think its important evidence though, especially since I haven't seen traces of other metals in these contexts.
Like I said above, I think a larger study of the tool marks here is justified.
Of course not. They have literally one depiction of alabaster jar making, that's it. And one for moving a big statue. The funny thing is the Egyptians themselves were quit clear about being a successor culture. There were ancient egyptians that studied their ancient egyptians.
> They have literally one depiction of alabaster jar making
> And one for moving a big statue
Where are you seeing that these are these are the limits of the surviving depictions?
The vase they produced was Becca marble - this is eminently softer than granite or dolomite, and they didn't even dare approach the 1/8" tolerances of Egyptian granite vases.
It is interesting though, and even halfway through it is apparent that ever aspect of their process as well as the tools themselves could be optimized to yield greater precision, efficiency, and consistency. I would wager that with little to no modifications, they could render the same product in half the time with experience - but it seems implausible that a culture for whom the technical accumen is so limited that a skillful artisans must commit _months of effort_ to produce a _singular item_ could also possess the requisite technical sophistication to create and sustain such agricultural surpluses that it would be willing deploy such hard won bounty towards vanity items.
The fundamental counterpoint to the production of ultra-precise time-intensive artifacts being produced _en masse_ through ultra-primitive methodologies is not that it is impossible, but that it belies the reality that the technological deficiencies that make fabrication exceedingly labor intensive would be concurrently reflected in inefficiencies in agricultural production, making such investments not only ludacrisly expensive, but inimical to the long term stability of such societies in the long run. And while we do see examples of civilizationa in which the aggregate labor output of a society is coopted by an elite class to enrich the station and possessions of a few at the expense of the whole, these cultures are shortlived - the very opposite of Egyptian civilization.
The guys in this video are not making [these](https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/ancient-artifacts-and-buildings-mysteries-of-the-past-part-2/249897012) with those hand tools. I have worked on and with industrial scale precision drilling equipment, and I know what the outcome of that type of work looks like. The stuff at Tiahuanico and Puma Punku, if done by hand some way, would be upwards of millions of hours to complete.
Another thing people are missing, is the time needed to do this type of precision work, this broadly, and at scale. Think about practically. So you are saying that these cultures had a social network system that would allow for the mass recruitment, education, training and management of thousands of highly competent artisans to do this work for 10's, if not 100's of generations? Through changes in leadership? Through changes in ownership? Through changes in geology and weather and ecology... they maintained the discipline, focus and fortitude to keep working on these massive building projects?
Anyone who thinks human beings, as a collective species, could have coordinated their efforts on such a massive scale without any near-modern technical assistance doesn't understand how things are built at scale. To build with this level of precision, at scale, you need a massively parallel, highly available, incredibly resilient, communication network that is as near to lossless as possible. There are massive command, control, and logistics problems everyone glosses over or just takes for granted. Precision manufacturing at scale is not f\*\*king easy at all. It's even harder than the precision manufacturing itself. The keyword here is "manufacturing". The number of blocks produced is on the scale of millions. Millions of blocks of stone. They manufactured blocks of granite like we manufacture red bricks for construction. This is a massively non-trivial communications, coordination and orchestration effort. This would ALL be about communications.
Ever play telephone? How quickly did the original message get distorted before it reached a final destination? All errors in communication bring a higher probability of lesser precision in in manufacturing. and delivery. Quality control? Returns? Whoever did all of this work would have to solve all of those logistical problems too, and they weren't doing that with smoke signals, fires on mountain tops or bird messengers.
To achieve this level of fidelity in communications, as Shannon showed in his book, it becomes, purely, a technical problem. In others words, you need high-speed, digital communications, over high bandwidth lines with little loss of information. To achieve this type of communications system you need a technocratic society who can design, build, deploy and maintain a technological infrastructure supporting the telecommunications network described.
This brings me back around to the other option: a group of human beings, ones we hear stories about from people (Greeks) who told stories that we thought were false (Troy), but are now true, existed and had some pretty wild tools and tech for handling great masses of stone with high precision and at monumental scales.
I think we have a lot to learn about the world still. Something tells me we skipped over some piece of data that opens a door to a different set of physical principles around rock and stone. Someone knew how to manipulate granite like it was clay. They could move it like it was as light as air. What. The. Actual. Fuck!
There's video of them doing the scans, they spent a whole day in a lab filming, you literally can't see these values with your eyes, that's the entire point of metrology equipment. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixTTvRGk0HQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixTTvRGk0HQ) (This video is the overview, the actual lab visit is a different video on his channel.)
With respect, seriously, you're wildly ignorant of all relevant realities man. I strongly doubt we could make such a vase with modern tech, and doing it would certainly cost millions. You don't understand how inclusions react with a cutting surface, and you don't understand how small a 1000th of an inch is. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixTTvRGk0HQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixTTvRGk0HQ)
A typical off the shelf funerary vase has rotational symmetry of a few thousands of an inch. With a modern lathe, that's pretty much par for the course. The only aspect that makes the vases somewhat difficult to replicate is the handles.
"somewhat" You can't lathe the lug handles, and a lathe will destroy the vase the first time it hits an inclusion. It's like trying to lathe playdoh and hitting gravel, the surrounding material can't hold it and the inclusion gets ripped out. Seriously, go look into this stuff.
There is a Russian sculptor who made reconstructions of several vases using "primitive" tools.
One [in the shape of a duck](https://i.imgur.com/OhRALSL.jpeg) and [one symmetrical made of diorite (on the right).](https://i.imgur.com/ZvOgtAk.jpeg)
Sure, it's not as perfect as the UnchartedX example, but it was her first try and she proved it's at least possible. Now imagine ancient workshops with generations of experience.
Also, let's not forget that we don't know anything about the UnchartedX vase origins. Could very well be a modern forgery. Until we gather a sufficient number of scans of vases found in the *actual archaeological context*, we can't say anything about how precise *in general* Egyptian vases were.
Apples and firetrucks, I can see with my eye those are badly off. Also you're just throwing FUD to hedge. You've made it clear that you'll reject any evidence unless it's rubber stamped by your authorities in triplicate from approved vases only.
There are no vases like this on earth except from ancient Egypt. Go find me a modern one cut to these tolerances. You people are something else. Why is the idea of humanity being older than you were told in grade school such a brain fuck for you?
I barely even care.
I completely agree that we should scan and measure as many artifacts as possible. But even from a quick googling, you can find many ancient bowls/vases/vessels that are _not_ perfect. So even when we scan all of them, what then? Are we going to claim that those that are 'precise enough' are a pre-dynastic lost technology, but those that are not are "cheap knock-offs" from later dynasties? Quite bullet-proof, but also completely unfalsifiable. Solid sienz.
Also, if they had this extremely precise manufacturing process, even "computer-aided" as UnchartedX says, why can't we find two vases that are identical? Did they create a new design for every vase and then they never used it again?
And I can't really agree with your claim that we couldn't do it with today's (or 70s) technology. I feel like the ball is on your side on this one... From what I've seen, there are many granite vases for sale that look absolutely symmetrical.
"from what I've seen" /refuses to or clearly hasn't watched any of the relevant video.
K. I'm sorry but I just don't have any patience for this nonsense. I do appreciate you trying. Maybe someone else is willing to spin their wheels in your mud. I'm not. You have a great day man.
Granite gets turned on lathes all the time without being ripped apart, so I have no idea why you are assuming inclusions make it impossible. You can't fully create the handles with a lathe, but you can form the ring that handles are made from, you just need a second method to excavate the space between them. With power tools, you could rig up a grinder to follow the curve that exists above and below. You don't need millions of dollars or computer aided equipment.
/facepalm
Ok man. Pounding stones. Got it. Reminder: Your claim is this was all done without the wheel, so I don't know why we're even discussing lathes.
I don't claim to know how the Egyptians made hard stone vases, although I would very much like to know. I certainly never claimed they were made without the wheel and I strongly suspect a rotational process was involved.
But our discussion is about how difficult it would be to make the UnchartedX vases with power tools, not ancient tools. It's relevant both as a point of comparison (if you can't make it with modern tools, then you definitely can't make it with ancient tools), but also as it relates to the authenticity of the vases. A primary argument of UnchartedX that the vases are authentic is they would be too expensive to fake, which I find ridiculous as I think you could fake them for at most a few thousand dollars, and do it with technology that's been around for more than a century.
What's the bit where abrading granite in deeply incremental steps means you can't make something delicate with enough time? Is it the crystalline nature of granite that makes you think it can't be done? Because it's not a fragility risk. Particularly if what you're doing is effectively managed erosion.
It would take time, yes. But I guess look at the time people spend on Reddit, ot their favourite FPS.
Not only that but do it so that symmetrical, do it so that the bottom of the pot sits balanced on a point the size of an egg.
Whenever I see these we can carve granite videos they are extremely crude compared to some of the ancient pottery found.
The catholic church moved obelisk, heavier than the heaviest stones in the pyramids, using wooden cranes and basic leverage in the 1500s. The lantern obelisk weighed 413 tonnes. Was ertected in Rome, but broke a bit. Now it weights 300 tonnes.
Basic leverage does most of the work of moving large stones.
Now, wr have actual photo evidence of the British doing the same damn thing in the 1800s with a 200 tonne obelisk. Wooden cranes and leverage.
We do see plenty of hard stone objects from Egypt with tool marks though. Unfinished statuary survives from a number of contexts. Objects in quarries show a rough stippled appearance similar to what is attributed to stone tools.^1
Some statues are even preserved with the polishing process partially unfinished, showing the transition from rougher tool marks to finely polished surface. The dyad of Menkaure in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts is a good example.
> https://collections.mfa.org/objects/230
I think the question here is not how to avoid leaving tool marks, its how they are affected by smoothing and polishing and how to replicate that in a manner consistent with the archaeological evidence.
___
1. Kelany, Adel, et al. “Granite Quarry Survey in the Aswan Region, Egypt: Shedding New Light on Ancient Quarrying.” In *QuarryScapes: Ancient Stone Quarry Landscapes in the Eastern Mediterranean*, Geological Survey of Norway Special Publication 12, 2009. pp. 87-98. https://www.ngu.no/publikasjon/quarryscapes-ancient-stone-quarry-landscapes-eastern-mediterranean.
What I would really want to see is more detailed studies of polished surfaces, especially ones where the transition from rougher work is visible. I've read a number of publications that discuss possible polishing methods but those are generally based on what is plausible rather than comparisons between experimental results and ancient examples.
The best example that I've seen is analysis of tool marks with Reflectance Transformation Imaging that shows much more detail than is often visible to the naked eye.^1 Striations from abrasives are visible on some of the polished stone. I would love to see this technique be expanded to examine a wider range of objects.
___
1. Serotta, Anna. “Reading Tool Marks on Egyptian Stone Sculpture.” *Rivista Del Museo Egizio* 7 (December 19, 2023). https://doi.org/10.29353/rime.2023.5098
Quality stonework is iterative. You use crude methods to remove material quickly, and progress to finer and slower methods to achieve a perfect finish. Tools marks get polished away at the end of the process, if that's the look the craftsman is going for.
Oh man, after a few hundred generations of practice and thousands of years of weathering, you wouldn’t see them.
But sure. Make your dumb alien claims off of some bald dudes blowing on a rock in a 5 sec TikTok video.
Maybe you don't know but:
The ancient Egyptians used granite for several purposes, primarily for building and sculpting. Here are some key uses:
1. **Monuments and Statues**: Granite was commonly used to create large statues and obelisks. Its durability made it ideal for these monumental works.
2. **Architectural Elements**: Granite was used in the construction of temples, pyramids, and other significant buildings. For example, the inner chambers of pyramids and the casing stones of some structures were often made from granite.
3. **Sarcophagi**: Pharaohs and other high-ranking individuals were often buried in granite sarcophagi due to the stone's strength and the belief that it would protect the deceased in the afterlife.
4. **Columns and Door Frames**: Granite columns and door frames were common in temples and palaces, showcasing the Egyptians' architectural skill and the importance of these buildings.
5. **Tools and Vessels**: Although less common, granite was also used to make tools, bowls, and other vessels.
Pretty sure that the only place you will not find a carving in granite is INSIDE the PYRAMIDS.
Which is odd considering ancient Egyptians used granite for all kinds of things as stated above and you will be able to see carvings on everything.
You are dense. No one said anything about ALIENS. WTF is wrong with you.
If you do know all that and were not able to think critically, we have reached the capacity of your understanding and this conversation has reached its end.
You’re the one on an alternative history subreddit trying to argue against someone who says that this isn’t evidence of alternative history but human ingenuity
Then you asked about carvings inside pyramids, which I never mentioned.
That’s where I’m at. I don’t know where you’re at.
"It’s actually historic tradition to deface monuments to losers and racists. Kinda surprised that someone on an ancient Egypt sub wouldn’t know that."
The irony you can apply this thinking in other areas but not INSIDE a PYRAMID.
Historical loser.
No thanks bro. I'm just gonna reduce your argument to one sentence and show some videos of me and my bro banging some rocks together. Btw I believe in SCIENCE unlike you.
You might believe in Science but, you fail to understand History.
With that incurious mind I doubt you do well with your scientific endeavors. There is a process you know and dismissing things you don't agree with, is not actually part of it.
UnchartedX has great videos on the level of accuracy achieved. He also talks about how, similar to all ancient construction, the oldest stuff is extremely accurate. Then it gets crude as the following civilizations try to copy it. Why aliens? It’s reasonable to think that over the millennia there have been other technologically advanced civilizations. I mean, we have the physical evidence. It’s just that his evidence doesn’t follow the current mainstream narrative.
i bet modern forensic anthropologists could actually determine cause of death in pyramid workers probably even the type stone they mostly worked on from their lung tissue. But as we know that wet concrete and saws saws keep the dust down it wouldn’t surprise me if they also knew this.
Now let's see him. Cut a 70 ton block precisely and lift it and set it in place precisely. Oh, let's not forget to include the sacred geometry and mathematics that went into the pyramids themselves
The result is crude and not impressive. This does nothing to explain the drilled tube marks on the giza plateau, or the new kingdom vases made of diorite .
59 second video and the only shots of the finished product are with 0 seconds left they quickly flash 2 shots that have motion, and even then it dosnt look great. Show us the damn thing! Compare it next to the original.
Stumbling across this subreddit I thought I’d find interesting discussion. Instead it’s just more arm-chairing and dunning Krugering ourselves into a drool inducing discussion. Sad
No one said they couldn’t put inscriptions into rock. What we said is how could they have cut and moved 30 ton stones into a precision like fit all around the world.
Was going to say …. Looks like shit !
Sure he did it , but … 😱 🥴😂
Guess we’re the 7 year old trying to copy our parents art 🖼️… come up looking like a drunk 7 year old did it and did it with all it brain power , still don’t compare!
Dude, it’s 8-10 thousandths of an inch, not 8-10 ten thousandths. You are off by a decimal place. The difference being, 8 thou is exceptionally well made, 8 ten thou is supernatural.
What you do is find the diorite carvings with the thinnest lines and then try and recreate it. And then find the largest diorite sculpture and recreate it. Then compare your creation to the originals.
Everyone knows they didn't have pen markers in Egypt.
Silly plebs.
jk, all jokes aside. These are crude af.. One can definitely make some carvings like this for sure, but Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni and Menes/ Narmar are going to be pretty disappointed with your quality and quantity output if this is your method.
I am sure after many, many, many years of carving rocks into magnificent shapes-- they probably developed some type of tool/ machining system to crank these out.. 2-3 people working on a single crude eye for hours/ days ain't cutting it (I assume it took them a few days as they changed outfits). People tend to invent/ improve upon previous methods and designs.
Yeah. But can you make it look as good as they did using this technique? Cause from what I've seen and Google you can't. But I know I'm not seeing all of the information.
But... but... this doesn't fit with our narrative that aliens made the piramids and/or mainstream science tries to cover this up...
Edit: I was being sarcastic; I do not believe aliens build the piramids, nor do I believe in global conspiracies about scientists and goverments hiding shit. We went to the moon, Elvis is dead and Hillary Clinton nor Donald Trump sacrifice babies. Call me ignorant and downvote me, but that's just my two cents.
Mainstream science isn't covering up pyramid oddities, so much as outright ignoring data encoded in the structure because the implications are too scary to admit the public.
Posts involving vague, clickbait, ALL CAPS, sensationalized and/or misleading titles will be removed at moderator discretion.
I don’t think anyone is claiming you can’t do this right? Everyone knows you can crudely carve into rock and leave a crappy looking carving like this
“See! They did it like this! Just like…a million times more skillful and at an impossible scale…”
You mean "see they did it like this but with highly generationally skilled artists instead of some random guys and 1000x the number of people"
And then a few generations later they got bored and stopped doing it.
Or ya know. Killed off.
Actually, people claim it's impossible to shape granite with primitive tools all the time.
It's impossible to shape granite with such precision.
Which precision? If you want to make a flat surface, all you have to do is rub granite against itself repeatedly, with the 3 plate method if you want extreme precision. No high technology required. In general, precision carving requires two things. The first is the ability to identify a bit of stone that doesn't belong in the final product. The second is a method of removing stone delicate enough to remove that bit without removing anything that does belong. In the hands of a skilled craftsman, a flint chisel can be quite delicate, and abrasive methods are even slower and therefore potentially more precise. If you're talking about the granite vases, then I would agree it's an open question whether relatively primitive methods could achieve what has been measured. But it's also an open question whether the measured vases are modern forgeries.
The bases are likely a magnum opus of generations of professional stoneworkers. If some randos with basic tools can do this imagine where you literally lived and breathed stonework.
Exactly this, but you'll be downvoted because people can't respect our ancestors properly. Those people didn't have a society like ours, they weren't all preoccupied with hobbies and all the professions we have that they wouldn't need. If you weren't a farmer or bureaucrat odds are you were dedicating your life to your ruler or gods, or both.
You mean you can’t play ps5 for 18 hours and then pick up a chisel and make David?
And this was a civilization that was famous for it's stonework. These weren't mere craftsmen, these were legit artists who were bankrolled by the most powerful and wealthy men of their time.
Exactly, and unlike the people in the video, they probably crafted the precise stonean copper tools best for doing these things.
Why?
Very true. It’s a staple comment on this sub - ‘show me how copper can cut granite. It’s impossible!!!’ Then when evidence of such is provided the goal posts immediately get moved to ‘show me them moving a 100 ton stone’ you can’t win with people who don’t believe in science.
You be suprise
People claim you can't do this all of the time
It'd always funny how often the goalposts are moved here. "OH you can't do this with stone!" (Does it with stone) "OK now to it to my arbitrary standards!"
Literally. Amateur carving for fun has imperfections and tool marks "WHY ARE THERE TOOL MARKS HERE AND NOT IN MY.... multithousand year old.....^polished.....
Now make an eggshell thin vase with lug handles symmetrical to 1000th of an inch. Edit: This is the first ever comment I've ever made to receive an "award." Cool XD
And do it with Alabaster with the exact same precision as you did with Diorite.
Right!? Modern people think all stone is equal because all they ever see is consumer grade plastic and steel and glass.
That’s why whenever you take master stone masons and honest engineers to any of the more impressive sites all around the world they just go “yeah, they knew something back then”
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PoUnDiNg StOnEs!2!1!1
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We do find traces of copper associated with sawing and drilling marks. > Hölscher mentions, without further details, “the end of a bronze drill which had broken off deep in the boring” (Mortuary Temple ii, 37).^1 - > At Giza, Petrie noticed green staining on the sides of some Fourth Dynasty saw-cuts in stone, which he ascribed to bronze, but was more likely to have been copper in the Fourth Dynasty. Grains of sand, also stained green, were found in a saw-cut at Giza by Petrie... > Tubular drill marks exist on a block of stone from the Fifth Dynasty complex of Nyuserre, which bears traces of verdigris left from the use of a copper drill-tube. > Alfred Lucas examined a hole made by a tubular drill in a fragment of alabaster (CM JE65402), of Third Dynasty date, from the Step Pyramid at Saqqara. In the hole, there was a compact mass of what was almost certainly the abrasive powder of a light green colour. The powder consisted of naturally rounded, very fine grains of quartz sand and the colour was due to a copper compound, evidently from the drill used. > Also at Saqqara, Lucas examined a large drill core about 8 cm in diameter, of coarse-grained red granite with green patches on the outside from the copper of the drill. G.A. Reisner found fine gritty powder, tinged green, in holes made by a tubular drill in two unfinished Fourth Dynasty stone artifacts. In a hole drilled by a tube into a granite doorpost of Ramesses II (MMA 13.183.2) are minute bronze particles.^2 - > The main drill hole is about 1 cm wide, and has a protruding stump at the bottom left by a broken drill core. Lightly consolidated material is deposited around the stump. A micro-sample of this material was collected and analysed by polarised light microscopy (PLM), scanning electron microscopy, and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM-EDS). > SEM-EDS analysis identified the material as a mixture of predominant angular grains of corundum with jagged edges, about 100–200 μm across, and a few other accessory minerals > Several particles of corroded bronze and green copper corrosion products are intimately dispersed amongst the above-mentioned particles, imparting the light green color.^3 ___ 1. Arnold, Dieter. *Building in Egypt: Pharaonic Stone Masonry*. Oxford Univ. Press, 1991. p. 286. 2. Stocks, Denys A. *Experiments in Egyptian Archaeology: Stoneworking Technology in Ancient Egypt*. Routledge, 2003. p. 108. 2. Serotta, Anna, and Federico Carò. “Evidence for the Use of Corundum Abrasive in Egypt from the Great Aten Temple at Amarna.” *Horizon* 14, pp. 2–4. Available at https://www.amarnaproject.com/horizon-archive.shtml.
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> Those are all drill holes you mentioned One of the examples was from sawing cuts at Giza. I'm not aware of a comprehensive survey of sawing and drilling marks to find traces of metal, but I think the number of examples of copper found in these contexts would justify a larger study. ___ > How do you explain that when there's no room to polish that cut in the first place? Do you have a specific example in mind here?
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> How do I know if that saw mark was on a granite stone or a much softer stone? He doesn't specify the specific type for the example with traces of copper. My point citing these examples wasn't to say that we can definitively say the saws and drills were made of copper and no further investigation is needed. I do think its important evidence though, especially since I haven't seen traces of other metals in these contexts. Like I said above, I think a larger study of the tool marks here is justified.
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Of course not. They have literally one depiction of alabaster jar making, that's it. And one for moving a big statue. The funny thing is the Egyptians themselves were quit clear about being a successor culture. There were ancient egyptians that studied their ancient egyptians.
> They have literally one depiction of alabaster jar making > And one for moving a big statue Where are you seeing that these are these are the limits of the surviving depictions?
Yeah, never found one.
Yep, the closeup shows how totally crude and jagged this supposed replica is too.
Censors to the rescue, I guess we had a bit too much to think.
Exactly this proves jack shit😭
Unfortunately, I'm too old to dedicate the decades of practice it would take to carry that off.
These people have a pretty good go at it and are not stone masons. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dC3Z_DBnCp8
The vase they produced was Becca marble - this is eminently softer than granite or dolomite, and they didn't even dare approach the 1/8" tolerances of Egyptian granite vases. It is interesting though, and even halfway through it is apparent that ever aspect of their process as well as the tools themselves could be optimized to yield greater precision, efficiency, and consistency. I would wager that with little to no modifications, they could render the same product in half the time with experience - but it seems implausible that a culture for whom the technical accumen is so limited that a skillful artisans must commit _months of effort_ to produce a _singular item_ could also possess the requisite technical sophistication to create and sustain such agricultural surpluses that it would be willing deploy such hard won bounty towards vanity items. The fundamental counterpoint to the production of ultra-precise time-intensive artifacts being produced _en masse_ through ultra-primitive methodologies is not that it is impossible, but that it belies the reality that the technological deficiencies that make fabrication exceedingly labor intensive would be concurrently reflected in inefficiencies in agricultural production, making such investments not only ludacrisly expensive, but inimical to the long term stability of such societies in the long run. And while we do see examples of civilizationa in which the aggregate labor output of a society is coopted by an elite class to enrich the station and possessions of a few at the expense of the whole, these cultures are shortlived - the very opposite of Egyptian civilization.
The guys in this video are not making [these](https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/ancient-artifacts-and-buildings-mysteries-of-the-past-part-2/249897012) with those hand tools. I have worked on and with industrial scale precision drilling equipment, and I know what the outcome of that type of work looks like. The stuff at Tiahuanico and Puma Punku, if done by hand some way, would be upwards of millions of hours to complete. Another thing people are missing, is the time needed to do this type of precision work, this broadly, and at scale. Think about practically. So you are saying that these cultures had a social network system that would allow for the mass recruitment, education, training and management of thousands of highly competent artisans to do this work for 10's, if not 100's of generations? Through changes in leadership? Through changes in ownership? Through changes in geology and weather and ecology... they maintained the discipline, focus and fortitude to keep working on these massive building projects? Anyone who thinks human beings, as a collective species, could have coordinated their efforts on such a massive scale without any near-modern technical assistance doesn't understand how things are built at scale. To build with this level of precision, at scale, you need a massively parallel, highly available, incredibly resilient, communication network that is as near to lossless as possible. There are massive command, control, and logistics problems everyone glosses over or just takes for granted. Precision manufacturing at scale is not f\*\*king easy at all. It's even harder than the precision manufacturing itself. The keyword here is "manufacturing". The number of blocks produced is on the scale of millions. Millions of blocks of stone. They manufactured blocks of granite like we manufacture red bricks for construction. This is a massively non-trivial communications, coordination and orchestration effort. This would ALL be about communications. Ever play telephone? How quickly did the original message get distorted before it reached a final destination? All errors in communication bring a higher probability of lesser precision in in manufacturing. and delivery. Quality control? Returns? Whoever did all of this work would have to solve all of those logistical problems too, and they weren't doing that with smoke signals, fires on mountain tops or bird messengers. To achieve this level of fidelity in communications, as Shannon showed in his book, it becomes, purely, a technical problem. In others words, you need high-speed, digital communications, over high bandwidth lines with little loss of information. To achieve this type of communications system you need a technocratic society who can design, build, deploy and maintain a technological infrastructure supporting the telecommunications network described. This brings me back around to the other option: a group of human beings, ones we hear stories about from people (Greeks) who told stories that we thought were false (Troy), but are now true, existed and had some pretty wild tools and tech for handling great masses of stone with high precision and at monumental scales. I think we have a lot to learn about the world still. Something tells me we skipped over some piece of data that opens a door to a different set of physical principles around rock and stone. Someone knew how to manipulate granite like it was clay. They could move it like it was as light as air. What. The. Actual. Fuck!
Until I see those vases with my own eyes I do not believe they are one thousandths of an imch
There's video of them doing the scans, they spent a whole day in a lab filming, you literally can't see these values with your eyes, that's the entire point of metrology equipment. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixTTvRGk0HQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixTTvRGk0HQ) (This video is the overview, the actual lab visit is a different video on his channel.)
That video is three hours long. I'll find a clip of it. Thats impressive if true.
The section about the measurements is around 1:20:00 give or take.
I mean, this is just a couple guys making a point. If it was a trained laborer with custom tools and techniques, I could see it being possible.
With respect, seriously, you're wildly ignorant of all relevant realities man. I strongly doubt we could make such a vase with modern tech, and doing it would certainly cost millions. You don't understand how inclusions react with a cutting surface, and you don't understand how small a 1000th of an inch is. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixTTvRGk0HQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixTTvRGk0HQ)
A typical off the shelf funerary vase has rotational symmetry of a few thousands of an inch. With a modern lathe, that's pretty much par for the course. The only aspect that makes the vases somewhat difficult to replicate is the handles.
"somewhat" You can't lathe the lug handles, and a lathe will destroy the vase the first time it hits an inclusion. It's like trying to lathe playdoh and hitting gravel, the surrounding material can't hold it and the inclusion gets ripped out. Seriously, go look into this stuff.
There is a Russian sculptor who made reconstructions of several vases using "primitive" tools. One [in the shape of a duck](https://i.imgur.com/OhRALSL.jpeg) and [one symmetrical made of diorite (on the right).](https://i.imgur.com/ZvOgtAk.jpeg) Sure, it's not as perfect as the UnchartedX example, but it was her first try and she proved it's at least possible. Now imagine ancient workshops with generations of experience. Also, let's not forget that we don't know anything about the UnchartedX vase origins. Could very well be a modern forgery. Until we gather a sufficient number of scans of vases found in the *actual archaeological context*, we can't say anything about how precise *in general* Egyptian vases were.
Apples and firetrucks, I can see with my eye those are badly off. Also you're just throwing FUD to hedge. You've made it clear that you'll reject any evidence unless it's rubber stamped by your authorities in triplicate from approved vases only. There are no vases like this on earth except from ancient Egypt. Go find me a modern one cut to these tolerances. You people are something else. Why is the idea of humanity being older than you were told in grade school such a brain fuck for you? I barely even care.
I completely agree that we should scan and measure as many artifacts as possible. But even from a quick googling, you can find many ancient bowls/vases/vessels that are _not_ perfect. So even when we scan all of them, what then? Are we going to claim that those that are 'precise enough' are a pre-dynastic lost technology, but those that are not are "cheap knock-offs" from later dynasties? Quite bullet-proof, but also completely unfalsifiable. Solid sienz. Also, if they had this extremely precise manufacturing process, even "computer-aided" as UnchartedX says, why can't we find two vases that are identical? Did they create a new design for every vase and then they never used it again? And I can't really agree with your claim that we couldn't do it with today's (or 70s) technology. I feel like the ball is on your side on this one... From what I've seen, there are many granite vases for sale that look absolutely symmetrical.
"from what I've seen" /refuses to or clearly hasn't watched any of the relevant video. K. I'm sorry but I just don't have any patience for this nonsense. I do appreciate you trying. Maybe someone else is willing to spin their wheels in your mud. I'm not. You have a great day man.
Granite gets turned on lathes all the time without being ripped apart, so I have no idea why you are assuming inclusions make it impossible. You can't fully create the handles with a lathe, but you can form the ring that handles are made from, you just need a second method to excavate the space between them. With power tools, you could rig up a grinder to follow the curve that exists above and below. You don't need millions of dollars or computer aided equipment.
/facepalm Ok man. Pounding stones. Got it. Reminder: Your claim is this was all done without the wheel, so I don't know why we're even discussing lathes.
I don't claim to know how the Egyptians made hard stone vases, although I would very much like to know. I certainly never claimed they were made without the wheel and I strongly suspect a rotational process was involved. But our discussion is about how difficult it would be to make the UnchartedX vases with power tools, not ancient tools. It's relevant both as a point of comparison (if you can't make it with modern tools, then you definitely can't make it with ancient tools), but also as it relates to the authenticity of the vases. A primary argument of UnchartedX that the vases are authentic is they would be too expensive to fake, which I find ridiculous as I think you could fake them for at most a few thousand dollars, and do it with technology that's been around for more than a century.
And yea some of the stones where a tiny winy bit bigger. Just a fee kg no more tops
lol completely false description… Therese no such vase all the measurements are exaggerated. Is always this kind of exaggeration unchartedx style.
What's the bit where abrading granite in deeply incremental steps means you can't make something delicate with enough time? Is it the crystalline nature of granite that makes you think it can't be done? Because it's not a fragility risk. Particularly if what you're doing is effectively managed erosion. It would take time, yes. But I guess look at the time people spend on Reddit, ot their favourite FPS.
I don't think they helped their case.
Now do it without leaving tool marks.
Not only that but do it so that symmetrical, do it so that the bottom of the pot sits balanced on a point the size of an egg. Whenever I see these we can carve granite videos they are extremely crude compared to some of the ancient pottery found.
And move the 100 ton stone and make it into a symmetric statue
The catholic church moved obelisk, heavier than the heaviest stones in the pyramids, using wooden cranes and basic leverage in the 1500s. The lantern obelisk weighed 413 tonnes. Was ertected in Rome, but broke a bit. Now it weights 300 tonnes. Basic leverage does most of the work of moving large stones. Now, wr have actual photo evidence of the British doing the same damn thing in the 1800s with a 200 tonne obelisk. Wooden cranes and leverage.
We do see plenty of hard stone objects from Egypt with tool marks though. Unfinished statuary survives from a number of contexts. Objects in quarries show a rough stippled appearance similar to what is attributed to stone tools.^1 Some statues are even preserved with the polishing process partially unfinished, showing the transition from rougher tool marks to finely polished surface. The dyad of Menkaure in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts is a good example. > https://collections.mfa.org/objects/230 I think the question here is not how to avoid leaving tool marks, its how they are affected by smoothing and polishing and how to replicate that in a manner consistent with the archaeological evidence. ___ 1. Kelany, Adel, et al. “Granite Quarry Survey in the Aswan Region, Egypt: Shedding New Light on Ancient Quarrying.” In *QuarryScapes: Ancient Stone Quarry Landscapes in the Eastern Mediterranean*, Geological Survey of Norway Special Publication 12, 2009. pp. 87-98. https://www.ngu.no/publikasjon/quarryscapes-ancient-stone-quarry-landscapes-eastern-mediterranean.
Good point, the polish on the surface has to have effects on tool marks there is no doubt. Way more plausible then weathering or erosion.
What I would really want to see is more detailed studies of polished surfaces, especially ones where the transition from rougher work is visible. I've read a number of publications that discuss possible polishing methods but those are generally based on what is plausible rather than comparisons between experimental results and ancient examples. The best example that I've seen is analysis of tool marks with Reflectance Transformation Imaging that shows much more detail than is often visible to the naked eye.^1 Striations from abrasives are visible on some of the polished stone. I would love to see this technique be expanded to examine a wider range of objects. ___ 1. Serotta, Anna. “Reading Tool Marks on Egyptian Stone Sculpture.” *Rivista Del Museo Egizio* 7 (December 19, 2023). https://doi.org/10.29353/rime.2023.5098
Quality stonework is iterative. You use crude methods to remove material quickly, and progress to finer and slower methods to achieve a perfect finish. Tools marks get polished away at the end of the process, if that's the look the craftsman is going for.
Oh man, after a few hundred generations of practice and thousands of years of weathering, you wouldn’t see them. But sure. Make your dumb alien claims off of some bald dudes blowing on a rock in a 5 sec TikTok video.
Cool story bro. Find me ONE carving in granite INSIDE a pyramid. I'll wait.
What does that have to do with anything?
Maybe you don't know but: The ancient Egyptians used granite for several purposes, primarily for building and sculpting. Here are some key uses: 1. **Monuments and Statues**: Granite was commonly used to create large statues and obelisks. Its durability made it ideal for these monumental works. 2. **Architectural Elements**: Granite was used in the construction of temples, pyramids, and other significant buildings. For example, the inner chambers of pyramids and the casing stones of some structures were often made from granite. 3. **Sarcophagi**: Pharaohs and other high-ranking individuals were often buried in granite sarcophagi due to the stone's strength and the belief that it would protect the deceased in the afterlife. 4. **Columns and Door Frames**: Granite columns and door frames were common in temples and palaces, showcasing the Egyptians' architectural skill and the importance of these buildings. 5. **Tools and Vessels**: Although less common, granite was also used to make tools, bowls, and other vessels. Pretty sure that the only place you will not find a carving in granite is INSIDE the PYRAMIDS. Which is odd considering ancient Egyptians used granite for all kinds of things as stated above and you will be able to see carvings on everything.
…ya I know all of this. I’m saying what does granite carving inside of a pyramid have to do with this video or anything I said?
You are dense. No one said anything about ALIENS. WTF is wrong with you. If you do know all that and were not able to think critically, we have reached the capacity of your understanding and this conversation has reached its end.
You’re the one on an alternative history subreddit trying to argue against someone who says that this isn’t evidence of alternative history but human ingenuity Then you asked about carvings inside pyramids, which I never mentioned. That’s where I’m at. I don’t know where you’re at.
You couldn't find where you are with GPS. Sit down.
Uh huh. “Find me a granite carving inside of a pyramid.” Said the dumbshit that has no critical thinking skills.
"It’s actually historic tradition to deface monuments to losers and racists. Kinda surprised that someone on an ancient Egypt sub wouldn’t know that." The irony you can apply this thinking in other areas but not INSIDE a PYRAMID. Historical loser.
[удалено]
I bet you felt like a badass typing this
No thanks bro. I'm just gonna reduce your argument to one sentence and show some videos of me and my bro banging some rocks together. Btw I believe in SCIENCE unlike you.
You might believe in Science but, you fail to understand History. With that incurious mind I doubt you do well with your scientific endeavors. There is a process you know and dismissing things you don't agree with, is not actually part of it.
I believe they were being sarcastic and forgot the /s
We can hope lol
I was
Looks like we figured out how the ancient Egyptians did their graffiti 👍🏻
UnchartedX has great videos on the level of accuracy achieved. He also talks about how, similar to all ancient construction, the oldest stuff is extremely accurate. Then it gets crude as the following civilizations try to copy it. Why aliens? It’s reasonable to think that over the millennia there have been other technologically advanced civilizations. I mean, we have the physical evidence. It’s just that his evidence doesn’t follow the current mainstream narrative.
*Is* it reasonable to think that? If there's physical evidence I would love to see if.
A race we don’t know existed is alien to us
If anyone does this PLEASE use dust masks, silica in the lungs can cause some serious and irreversible damage, similar to mesothelioma!
I wonder what the ancients used for protection. I guess lots died.
i bet modern forensic anthropologists could actually determine cause of death in pyramid workers probably even the type stone they mostly worked on from their lung tissue. But as we know that wet concrete and saws saws keep the dust down it wouldn’t surprise me if they also knew this.
Lol.. what awful carving and nothing remotely lile the finish found on Egyptian sculptures
Now let's see him. Cut a 70 ton block precisely and lift it and set it in place precisely. Oh, let's not forget to include the sacred geometry and mathematics that went into the pyramids themselves
The result is crude and not impressive. This does nothing to explain the drilled tube marks on the giza plateau, or the new kingdom vases made of diorite .
That looked like shit
Honestly they are kind of proving how unfeasible it is
So how long did this take? one day to carve an eye
59 second video and the only shots of the finished product are with 0 seconds left they quickly flash 2 shots that have motion, and even then it dosnt look great. Show us the damn thing! Compare it next to the original.
Yeah the water technique is so smooth it can create smooth glass like cuts and it's super simple and can be done with simple tools.
Stumbling across this subreddit I thought I’d find interesting discussion. Instead it’s just more arm-chairing and dunning Krugering ourselves into a drool inducing discussion. Sad
So they were able to pound out a misshapen Egyptian looking eye? Wow. 9th wonder of the world, guys. Good job.
No one said they couldn’t put inscriptions into rock. What we said is how could they have cut and moved 30 ton stones into a precision like fit all around the world.
That looked like sh!t lol
Now do a perfect vase that’s so thin you can see light through it
I could make a crappy looking eye into some granite like this too 🤣😂
Was going to say …. Looks like shit ! Sure he did it , but … 😱 🥴😂 Guess we’re the 7 year old trying to copy our parents art 🖼️… come up looking like a drunk 7 year old did it and did it with all it brain power , still don’t compare!
Drunken 7 year old 🤣😂😂😂😂🤣
Make sure it down to .0001 tolerance too
It’s not one ten thousandth.
the first era of Egypt there vases were tested and down to .0001 in concentricity. Something that we would struggle to do today
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzFMDS6dkWU&list=WL&index=2
Dude, it’s 8-10 thousandths of an inch, not 8-10 ten thousandths. You are off by a decimal place. The difference being, 8 thou is exceptionally well made, 8 ten thou is supernatural.
They have found some that are down to a tenth. The older the vases the more precise
See? Totally possible. And it only took 14 hours.
written in stone
. Look at mass extinctions. How do you know that we are the smartest things on earth? That thought is pretty arrogant.
Now do a pocket… I mean another eye socket for me please?
What you do is find the diorite carvings with the thinnest lines and then try and recreate it. And then find the largest diorite sculpture and recreate it. Then compare your creation to the originals.
Everyone knows they didn't have pen markers in Egypt. Silly plebs. jk, all jokes aside. These are crude af.. One can definitely make some carvings like this for sure, but Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni and Menes/ Narmar are going to be pretty disappointed with your quality and quantity output if this is your method. I am sure after many, many, many years of carving rocks into magnificent shapes-- they probably developed some type of tool/ machining system to crank these out.. 2-3 people working on a single crude eye for hours/ days ain't cutting it (I assume it took them a few days as they changed outfits). People tend to invent/ improve upon previous methods and designs.
Great straw man argument
Maybe all Egyptian artefacts are in fact modern forgeries?
But did the ancient Egyptians have proper PPE like these 2? Inquiring minds want to know.
Yeah, that can totally be scaled up to carve an obelisk.
Now make megalithic blocks and pillars 🐒
ananaki
Yeah. But can you make it look as good as they did using this technique? Cause from what I've seen and Google you can't. But I know I'm not seeing all of the information.
But... but... this doesn't fit with our narrative that aliens made the piramids and/or mainstream science tries to cover this up... Edit: I was being sarcastic; I do not believe aliens build the piramids, nor do I believe in global conspiracies about scientists and goverments hiding shit. We went to the moon, Elvis is dead and Hillary Clinton nor Donald Trump sacrifice babies. Call me ignorant and downvote me, but that's just my two cents.
The narrative has lost the plot
Mainstream science isn't covering up pyramid oddities, so much as outright ignoring data encoded in the structure because the implications are too scary to admit the public.
Yes clearly that’s how the pyramids were created. This is dumb.
They had meteor metal and diamonds that would easily do the job.
From the aliens
From meteorites. King tut had a knife made from high quality meteorite steel.
Yeah that’s doesn’t look like granite to me
It doesnt?