Industrial sized Lathe type devices in Ancient Egypt

originally posted by: surfer_soul

Certainly meant to blow your mind, to impress you so much that you look deeper.
From what I can tell all those pillars are all individually worked, however the detailing could have been done separately and then added to the pillars using a mortise and tenon style joint.

You are correct that they were gotten into basic shape at the quarries and then sent to the workshops. Final detailing (like carving inscriptions) was done after they were set in place.

Mortise and tenon was the preferred method of making sure everything stayed together.

Right.. deep breath…
This is the point where archaeology (or Egyptology too) and engineering will diverge as I can break down for you really simply why the vessel in the video is not made in the same method as the vessel scanned at Rolls Royce . And yep, it’s down to workholding and method of tool application .

Before I start , just cast your mind back to two elements I’ve been repeating , and this is all echoes of the Tanis columns, the Lathe reason for this thread - Symmetry, Tapers, Rotating the workpiece on a single axis . (That goes for columns, bowls , stone, or wooden vases and bowls or tapered columns )

A note about the vid - I have some points .
One of the reasons that the finished vessel ‘looks’ but is in fact ‘nowhere near ‘ the RR vessel is the rigidity of EVERY method shown .
The range of movement is shocking and is why it’s heroic, but incorrect , things are rocking all over the place , this affects the precision and the cut itself and could never produce a planar accurate vessel like the RR example . However many times one tried . Believe me .

They showed the finished article all shiny. But that was because it was wet. At the end they showed you it again and it was a bit dull and had a lacklustre pastey finish .
Whereas this RR example :

Reflects light because the surface was amazing before it was even polished . From single point turning .

Next : marble , not red Aswan granite.

Now you’ll be thinking that I’m being snidey to this lady , but I promise you , with her skills, if she was trying this on one axis , her result would have been far different .
I’m sorry to hear about your husband Byrd , woodturning is awesome , I have friends who do it.
it relates to everything we’ve discussed too. I believe the AE were turning stone how you know wood turners do a bowl today . And columns between two centres, same method , same tooling .

Here is the Petrie 8cm cup. ( try doing this cup in mini wooden boxes and frames like in your vid?! You’ll smash it to pieces . )
Blurry pic to start with I know , but I have zoomed in to show you something .
I have added some red lines to show you where a single point tool has moved across the surface , or when pressure was re applied . The incisions are the white lines you see in the cup , made by an effective and rigid (and sharp) tool , as this cup rotated .

Very regular aren’t they? Have a zoom in. I’ve done my best to find as many tool points as were obvious .
The cup is moving ,(rotating) the tool is the stationary element(on a fixed point,or plane moving along the vessel )

Here is the vessel from the ‘drill lathe ‘ grindy smashey thing .
Have a zoom in to examine the striations .

This is back and forth grinding under no control showing no parallelism . Diagonal marks too.
This isn’t a case of ‘ a skilled craftsman would be better ‘ , it’s simply that it wasn’t done in this manner .

With the workpiece spinning horizontally, you have better motor skill control of your hands . Wood lathes have been horizontal turning forever . No one does it vertically like a potter.
Stone the same in my opinion on all scales .

Here is its parallelism . This is not because she’s not a master , it’s because it’s not turned on one rigid axis .
I’ve added some more red lines too:
Zoom in


I Really don’t have to go over the ‘Planar Parrelism’ thing again in relation to true turning ( columns too) , but this is why the RR vessel has this to within 1/1000th of an inch ;
I hate to burst your ‘proof of concept bubble ‘ but this ain’t it .
The accuracy comes from work holding , cutting tool geometry . Not practice .

It’s also why the RR vessel has its hole DEAD centre , an equal ‘rim’ the entire circumference , and this one is, er, off to the right by way more than a few 1000”, because it can’t be truly found when it’s ‘waggled ‘ by a tube drill for hours in a waggly frame around some waggly stones .


How come her piece looks 2000 yrs older than the RR piece? Nothing to do with being a master at it , I’m sorry .
Because it has none of these :
Edges, definition, tooling , workholding , work position , constant fixed rotation .
It’s not about ‘time’it’s the forensic marking of the tool( Petrie cup) and the engineering principles of turning (Tanis columns) effectively which produces accuracy .







a reply to: Byrd

Just as a quick ps to the rest of your previous post amd links :
The Egyptian craftsmen are copying ancestral objects but ALL using steel tools. I know, speed of production etc , but steel wasn’t available to the AE, and makes light work of these stone types used .
It’s like me suggesting an electric motor on these raised platform lathes I propose .

Secondly , I have read the article you posted about vessel making , and it contains a lot of supposition indeed .
It even shows the Petrie 8cm cup and proposes a method which cannot produce the accurate striations that are visible .

You are unfortunately deluded if you believe that the Petrie vessel was made by a conical ‘drill’. waggled over it .
)a it would break.
It’s actually technically laughable proposing a ‘conical ‘ drill , and it’s conveniently glossed over without any detailed explanation of how (it wouldn’t) work.
B) the forensics of the striations don’t match the method ascribed by the ‘expert’ who proposes them .

The article also states that the ‘representation’ of the wood lathe from the tomb is the actual method used and calls it a ‘pole lathe’.
Well those ‘poles would have to be a metal of some kind , even to withstand the tool force application of turning wood. Even the apparent pencil sized implement being turned in the tomb picture .
I argue that this is a ‘drawn in profile ‘ representation of a horizontal wood lathe made from planks , in a box shape .
‘Poles’ aren’t rigid . Especially turning the piece right at the far end of the poles ! !!
He conveniently doesn’t talk about what ‘clamps’ the poles at the desired width for the workpiece upon the other ‘poles’.
It’s all supposition , and not an article you should take as ‘truth’ as the technical detail leaves a lot to be desired , im afraid .

‘Pure ‘ circles and bowls, and vase openings are done by turning , NOT vertical grinding , and you can spot the difference immediately.
The methods from the video, and that article , are NOT proof of concept , as no vessel has been produced that matches the pre dynastic accuracy , not even close. And your ‘team’ has had years of research to do exactly that. But the methods you propose will NEVER create planar symmetry to 1/1000th of an inch no matter how many times you try, or wish it to be true.
a reply to: Byrd

Regarding the right angles, flat surfaces, and general precision and symmetry, within tolerances of micrometers mind, you couldn’t achieve that without the aid of something guiding your tool at the very least. To my mind these things are more the effect of the the tools and techniques used rather than something that was laboriously incorporated into the design with hand tools. In these pillars we see examples of detailed intricate hand carved work and also lathe or machined work.

I agree entirely. a reply to: surfer_soul

originally posted by: bluesfreak
Right.. deep breath…
This is the point where archaeology (or Egyptology too) and engineering will diverge as I can break down for you really simply why the vessel in the video is not made in the same method as the vessel scanned at Rolls Royce . And yep, it’s down to workholding and method of tool application .

It really is a topic for a different thread. However, yes, if she was working for a workshop in ancient Egypt, no doubt they'd have her do a lot of modifications to her turning device and the way she handled it. They had the advantage of thousands of years to refine things.

She was answering "can you make a granite bowl with rocks?" The answer is "yes."

The range of movement is shocking and is why it’s heroic, but incorrect , things are rocking all over the place , this affects the precision and the cut itself and could never produce a planar accurate vessel like the RR example . However many times one tried . Believe me .

Except there's the raw footage. She did this.

They showed the finished article all shiny. But that was because it was wet. At the end they showed you it again and it was a bit dull and had a lacklustre pastey finish .
Whereas this RR example :

Reflects light because the surface was amazing before it was even polished . From single point turning .

Yes, her bowl was unpolished. The workshop would have finished that. And I'm sure a master craftsman of that time would probably have smacked her with a stick (like they did to apprentices when the work was not up to standard) for some of the errors and inefficiencies.

Now... while I'd love to discuss the fine points of stone vessels, I think it needs to be in a separate discussion. Just because you can do one thing does not mean you can scale it up for other things. As an example, they had drills for drilling holes in stone beads... but that doesn't mean they had drills for drilling water wells.

They didn't have the equipment or the power to rotate a large stone column on a lathe. Nobody did at that time.


In other places in the Levant (including areas like this one that had been under Egyptian rule) we find unfinished columns in quarries

And these columns from a Roman quarry also show that the Romans (the most advanced engineers of the ancient world) weren't using giant lathes, either.

Here's a PDF of a slideshow about quarrying techniques. It shows that they cut the drums (standing) in the quarry and has photos of objects abandoned in quarries in half-finished states.

Now, if there'd been lathes we would see half-finished stuff from lathes... but we don't.

originally posted by: bluesfreak
Just as a quick ps to the rest of your previous post amd links :
The Egyptian craftsmen are copying ancestral objects but ALL using steel tools. I know, speed of production etc , but steel wasn’t available to the AE, and makes light work of these stone types used

I certainly agree, and so do engineers and Egyptologists... what they're looking at, however, is "how were things done in the past" because the present action is a modification of practices developed when they didn't have such strong tools.

The article also states that the ‘representation’ of the wood lathe from the tomb is the actual method used and calls it a ‘pole lathe’.
Well those ‘poles would have to be a metal of some kind , even to withstand the tool force application of turning wood. Even the apparent pencil sized implement being turned in the tomb picture .

Wooden rods are good enough for vases and so forth. You couldn't use them with anything larger, though.

The methods from the video, and that article , are NOT proof of concept , as no vessel has been produced that matches the pre dynastic accuracy , not even close. And your ‘team’ has had years of research to do exactly that.

But not decades of practice under a master - which is what produced those vessels. Not a "one off" using modern machinery.

But the methods you propose will NEVER create planar symmetry to 1/1000th of an inch no matter how many times you try, or wish it to be true.

Why not? They're the exact same method, but done by hand.

a reply to: Byrd

Roughed out and then polished . This one might be the Ah AH moment. www.youtube.com...

It really is a topic for a different thread. However, yes, if she was working for a workshop in ancient Egypt, no doubt they'd have her do a lot of modifications to her turning device and the way she handled it. They had the advantage of thousands of years to refine things. She was answering "can you make a granite bowl with rocks?" The answer is "yes."

Byrd , the YouTube channel of your video link is called “ scientists against myths” I believe , and in their ‘about ‘ section they say something like “ are you tired of conspiracy theories .. well let us show you how it was done” .. yeh right. “Scientists creating myths “ would be more appropriate .
Why didn’t she tackle granite?
And yes , the ‘machines ‘ she uses are literally Stone Age, and give no value or consideration to the work the AE produced .
Her frames were tied together with string , not very scientific if you ask me, all she had to do was look at some AE carpentry work:


See the ‘jointing’ of these legs ? These legs are lathe turned , beautiful ringwork lower down; and not by a ‘pole lathe’ ( how does the pole fix into the ground ? It wasn’t poles)
And these…?


Look how accurate the jointing is, 90 deg angles , 45’s, perfectly accomplished .
Are these tied together with string for rigidity ?
What a joke . Some pretty cr*p science there if you ask me.
The reason her marble attempt fails is because it wasn’t created on one axis, it’s taken out of several ‘machines ‘ therefore losing the ‘centre’ repeatedly , causing the hideous inaccuracies I pointed out.
On a fixed axis , after shaping and boring out , you can also : polish effectively , and ‘ part off’ (cut off) the piece accurately at the base. She sawed it off really roughly .
It’s not a case of ‘decades under a master ‘ , I know you’d like to believe in the nobility of this, but in industry , there isn’t time , or materials for that .
Decades are not going to help as the method is so inaccurate it could never produce the RR piece , ever.
Single axis turning with granite could be mastered in Months .
People in AE generally only lived until they were 30 or so! ‘Decades ‘ to master, make a few pots then die? Don’t think so…

The RR piece is pre dynastic I believe , so where are the thousands of years of development ?

Our hands are literally incapable of the rigidity required for a 1/1000” planar accuracy at 90 degrees around the entire rim of a granite vessel.
It’s a fixed vessel, and a fixed sturdy tool.

This all relates to the thread as the thread is about Turning. And Turning on the largest scale.

Just because you can do one thing does not mean you can scale it up for other things. As an example, they had drills for drilling holes in stone beads... but that doesn't mean they had drills for drilling water wells. They didn't have the equipment or the power to rotate a large stone column on a lathe. Nobody did at that time.

Well, actually , it does mean you can scale things up , as that’s what clever people do.
How did the AE erect the columns , move them? The obelisks ? What equipment would they need for that?
Here’s an example from the stone work slideshow method paper: small ‘pounding ‘ stones become ‘rolling balls’ when they are too big to pick up and use to pound :

You’d have to be strongman Atlas Stones expert to pound with the large ones . Why aren’t the smaller ones rollers? Just as hard stone, just as effective as roller balls..

The AE had huge core drills, I’ve seen pics of ones that are 8” in diameter, and larger ones for hinges on temple doors- do you know how much torque is required to turn something of that diameter? A lot.
It wouldn’t need much power to turn a large granite column - rocking it back and forth on its spindle would start it .
They would have needed thousands of men to remove the unfinished obelisk and you are fine with that .. probably up to 10 men at most to get a column spinning . At most .

the paper on stone work methods was interesting, most is far later than the Tanis timeframe , there’s also some hilarious suggestions by your ‘team’ on this that both make me laugh, but also infuriate that you guys think like this :



So they had perfectly flat roads to pull this on?
You’ve just made a column- roll it on uneven ground to snap it , or ruin the surface on the way to the temple.?
If it takes 4 horses to pull it, it takes 4 horses to stop it too. Wonder how many horses were crushed going downhill on those perfectly flat roads to the temples?
Most columns are tapered. Roll a taper; it turns in a circle , doesn’t run straight .

I’ve added some more lines to show you something else relating to dogs, centre point , turning …. Remember the piece you showed me where the centre line was out and had no dog or centre drill holes in either end ?
Well , I’ve tried to leave a space around this circular column so you can see it’s circularity compared with the one where the centre point was ‘out’:

Very circular. Centre point is very accurate . Turned I will argue .
When you carve the dog into your rough piece , and start to turn it , the dog ‘becomes’ the centre of the whole piece as the rough shape becomes a true circle around it . That’s turning.
There are plainly many methods of creating columns , so far I haven’t seen one explanation for the dog and centres on these one piece granite columns at Tanis, no pins or sockets for them to fit into


I suggest a small sand hill in a Worksop to raise a column to the height of the dog and centre, you think it was unworkable ,too much work, yet here;

They are literally filling a temple with sand ?!! Please.
Again, carpenters would be making scaffold, well jointed for this , and perfectly strong enough .

All these ‘grinding ‘ techniques ‘ you believe in do not make the same marks as accurate turning on super hard stone. Or results as is plainly obvious .
How were the Petrie cup parallel forensics achieved by grinding by hand ? They really, really weren’t .


a reply to: Byrd

Where and how is the main ‘pole’ fixed ?

Here is a picture from a tomb from one of my books at home - a British Museum book- of a donkey with its pack.
Did they really walk around AE with the other ‘side’ of the pack sticking up in the air?


Same book, does this woman sit on the side of this stool, with the lattice section facing you ? Ie, the stool on its side?




a reply to: Byrd

Sorry Anon, just watched that video - that box is incredible isn’t it? Straight resultant edges .
the odd thing is, that’s how a cnc programmer would go about creating that arced edging .
It definitely looks like a guided tool for sure , the width of each segment is consistent throughout its length.
What an interesting find. a reply to: anonentity

a reply to: bluesfreak
www.pinterest.nz...
I also came across this, Leonardo Da Vinci designed a lathe back in 1480, he probably didn't think it up.But might have been an upgrade to what was being used.

Awesome.
That’s the fly wheel I’ve been talking about !
If it was made of stone, you could achieve some nice torque with it . Especially turning other stone for bowls etc , including granite .
What a great find .

I always imagined that for turning stone vessels, that set up would be stone .
Some slightly wider , but stone posts either end instead of wood, would provide some great rigidity for turning very hard stones.
And we all know the AE were perfectly capable of drilling holes into granite which would support such an idea :
This is just one example of AE drilling (we’ve all seen the pics ) from Abu Sir..


A gate-post sized chunk of stone at each end , sunk into the ground or large enough to stand alone, holes drilled in, you have the start of an accurate rigid lathe for turning out something as accurate as the Petrie cup , and the RR vessel, and the ability to produce those striations too, and the Planar accuracy that can’t be explained by ‘handwork’.

Maybe we should start a YouTube channel “ Engineers against Scientists against myths “ heh heh .

Sending you a 4 pack of e-beers , Anonentity.


a reply to: anonentity

a reply to: bluesfreak

Note that the handle on the right has a screw for the center hole so a thread was well-known. Which would push the thing being turned into the driven end with the spur for the wood. Thanks for the beer.

Yes that’s a seriously interesting article .
Note Stuart King says here what I stated earlier about the AE tomb depiction :

The earliest illustration of a lathe is from a well known Egyptian wall relief carved in stone in the tomb of Petosiris dated some 300 BC. As with many Middle Eastern and eastern lathes of this type it was operated at ground level, in this case by two men. One man provides the power by pulling backwards and forwards on a cord or leather strap wrapped around the work piece while the turner sits opposite with his chisel on the tool rest. Due to standard Egyptian artistic convention each element of the lathe is depicted in the most comprehensible manner for the observer. This results in a misleading depiction as it appears to show a vertical lathe when in fact what is intended is a horizontal strap lathe.

Cool a reply to: anonentity

a reply to: bluesfreak

Since we are talking about precision, in some difficult stones like quartzite granite, and since those that have followed the thread would know that, then could this be the reason that the pink granite was used, I came across an old army information film about how the quartz crystals are cut to maintain stable frequencies for radio wave propagation. Since the GP appears to have a few of the bits and pieces available for putting the chambers into a circuit, the Piezoelectric effect would on the surface produce a very low frequency. The top of the pyramid, or where the top should be seems to have the ability to charge a Leyden jar. This begs the question were they able to do things at certain frequencies that we have no idea of? Many people have mentioned tuning. www.bitchute.com...

Im fascinated as to why the AE would want to work Granite as they did, the single piece columns, the beautiful accurate turned vessels.
I would argue that they fully understood the properties of granite , its tensile strength. Its capabilities.

I went to a machinist suppliers the other day, run by an a very experienced chap I’ve known for years .
I showed him the pictures of the dog and centre drilled holes on the Tanis columns , I simply said “ look at these pictures of ancient Egyptian columns “
I said nothing about lathes or turning .
He simply said “ they’ve turned those bloody things between two centres “.
I then showed him more pics of the dogs at Tanis and told him that Egyptology doesn’t believe that it could be done by the AE.
“ well they don’t know what they’re f’ing talking about “ was his reply.
We both laughed a bit about how Egyptology wouldn’t care for opinion on this subject , but It’s interesting to get opinion from other people who recognise turning when they see it , and also from a very experienced engineer, that I personally truly respect and have learned from.
a reply to: anonentity

a reply to: bluesfreak

Here is a bit of an update on the vase, with regards to the precision between the handles which obviously could not be done on a traditional lathe.

Finally got round to watching it .
Anyone Interested in this thread should have a watch, it gives out some more interesting figures regarding the precision and parallelism - the stuff Byrd and non engineers can’t understand how it’s relevant or achieved - it’s a very interesting video, and hopefully non engineers will realise that seeing ACTUAL high level engineers blown away by the findings does mean something , regardless of what other ‘experts ‘ may say .

I know it sounds like I’m being a ‘know it all’ here, but I do disagree on the statement that the ‘lug handles ‘ section couldn’t be achieved on a lathe alone.
It could.
I could do it .
Just very very slowly , and that one section would take quite a long , patient , time .

Here’s how:
The ‘lug’ handles would be marked on the workpiece where they should be ( there would be a rim of a larger diameter than the rest of the vase where the handles would be , and will emerge from)
The workpiece would be turned very slowly by hand ( very very slowly) in between the marked sections .
The tool would be removed at the start point of a lug, and reintroduced at the other side of the lug.
This would continue around the vase , turned by hand super slowly , until the operator reaches the lug handle on the opposite side.
The tool is removed , and reintroduced again at the other side of the lug.
This would be done over and over again to bring the sections in between the lugs ‘down’ to the same height as the rest of the turned sections .
Very slow indeed but 100 percent achievable as I have done a similar operation myself some years back , with what would have been one ‘lug’ on a cylinder .

I know the modern engineer thinks about cnc machines doing this work, but old methods of sometimes having to turn the workpiece with your left hand super slowly while administering the tool with your right hand mean that a well knowledgable lathe operator wouldn’t think that the lug sections are impossible, just time consuming .
It is possible , i have done this procedure myself.
If I get time, I’ll find a scrap bit of crap and do a short video or pics of how it’s achieved .

It does throw into the equation the questions of just what kind of rigid tool set-up was going on here, and with those tolerances achieved , and the planar parallelism on display this little vase was held VERY firmly as it turned .

Byrd said before that she thought the video was shot in a warehouse somewhere (as if that matters) but if you take a look at the part of the new video where they show the vase on a rotating table being measured by a dial test indicator , you can see in the background two milling machines , so it’s at a modern machine shop somewhere , quite possibly Rolls Royce , where those guys work.

More questions for the ‘experts’ then. More evidence of effective workholding, rigid tools .
For those who want to, you can get a link to download the .stl file of the vase ( a 3d computer CAD rendering of the actual vase ) with all its measurements in both inches and metric.

What a great piece of democratised knowledge and information on that pre dynastic vase for us all to investigate freely without all the bull***t of other ‘experts’ or academia blocking its study.
I’m going to download it !




a reply to: anonentity

originally posted by: bluesfreak
Roman ‘dog drive’ .

Genuine question from someone that has no experience working with lathes.

How was those deep "flutes" (unsure of wording) turned?
I can envision the spiral style "flutes" being made as the piece being worked rotates and the cutting tool is moved.
But how do you keep the straight deep lines of the flutes whilst the piece turns?

Hi Dmvr,
The flutes on the side of those columns are done afterwards, at the end of the process.
The workpiece would be turned to the required size, could still be stationary on the lathe at this point , with the flutes being marked out through a dividing of the circumference process , then cut in.
They could also be cut when the workpiece is removed from a lathe and divided the same way.

I would personally love to measure those particular flutes, they all look like they are very accurate , and it looks like the same tool made them, or that they were ‘carved’ to a very accurate template.
Today, we would feed a rotating ‘ball nosed’ cutter along the length of the workpiece to create such a shape .
I’d love to measure those flutes with a gauge and see how each flute depth and width and curve relate to each other. It could also throw up a lot of questions if they are perfectly replicated .
a reply to: Dmvr34