MYSTERIOUS ANCIENT CONSTRUCTIONS

originally posted by: Hanslune
a reply to: Harte

Hey Harte I suspect his use of 'watermark' means erosion as he is not a native speaker, however, I also suspect we'll get a barrage of verrückt diskussion in response!

Not much erosion either.

Harte

a reply to: Hanslune

Hi there.
Pretty much the same old same old: grainsize analysis, a bit of palynology and micropalaeontology thrown into the mix and some microscopy for good measure.
We do have a trebuchet we made though, which we are using to model volcanic bombs. So far, in field tests it throws a 5kg ball 90m, with pretty good reproducibility...oh, and an air cannon too. Discovery Channel came and filmed them in use, but it was only available in North America, so I haven't seen it yet.

originally posted by: aorAki
a reply to: Hanslune

Hi there.
Pretty much the same old same old: grainsize analysis, a bit of palynology and micropalaeontology thrown into the mix and some microscopy for good measure.
We do have a trebuchet we made though, which we are using to model volcanic bombs. So far, in field tests it throws a 5kg ball 90m, with pretty good reproducibility...oh, and an air cannon too. Discovery Channel came and filmed them in use, but it was only available in North America, so I haven't seen it yet.

Pretty cool, all the media coverage I ever got was from the Phileleftheros (local Cypriote paper) - and they spelled my name wrong the swine.

As far as the science of rocks, personally i havent got a clue. However the video in the op was an interesting watch. Wish it would have elaborated as to the location of the sites. Some of them were new to me.

Are all of these pictures from one location in Turkey or were they from different parts of the world? Looked like many different styles.

originally posted by: Harte
No, you get crushed grain removal.

sooner or later youd get larger braking edges.
theres still pressure waves going through the material as you pound it.
crystal by crystal removal is practically pretty much impossible as granite lacks any elasticity.

Granite is not homogeneous. The crystals vary in size and by mineral, as was pointed out a couple of times (remember - feldspar?)
Shattering one crystal at a time would take a long time, but you could shape granite even that way.

its chunks of crystal grids forming a rigid and brittle structure.
by pounding on it youd break off whole chunks of crystals, and cause fragmentation within the material, SINCE it is not homogeneous.
after youve been beating on that thing for days youd barely have anything left that wont crumble to bits.

dont only take the fineworks into account.
if you scrape of tiny little bits very carefully you eventually manage to not pruduce alot of gravel.
in order to hollow out one of those sarkophagi, within those estimated 20 years, using pounding stones, you gotta use some force tho, wich leads to gravel...
shaping granite in any practical manner requires cutting. pounding and brittle materials dont go togeather very well.
ive even shattered brittle metals using a tinyish hammer and very little force, for the reasons described here during material-science lessons.

/edit: call it preventive measures...
NO im not talking of carbon rare steels or tension. rapidly cooling off metals can prevent them from forming a homogeneous crystaline structure.
even after youve heated them up again to take the tension, they remain very very fragile.

The grains removed are created by the crushing force of the pounding stone against the surface crystals of the stone. It doesn't affect the crystals in the middle or on the other side of the stone.
You're pretending that granite is one, solid crystal.

if it were one homogeneous crystal it wouldnt suffer from that problem.
due to the fact that the crystaline clusters are more or less bound "loosely togeater", sending thousands of pressure waves through that material, would cause alot of tiny breaking edges alongside the surfaces of the clusters within the material over time.

Tube saws had to be pulled and twisted out to add more sand.
Then they had to be push-twisted back in the hole to continue drilling.
Funny how Dunn never mentions that.
The idea Dunn uses comes from Petrie, who himself believed it - until he talked to some machinists.

then wed have alot of scrathes on the earlier revolutions, barely leaving any toolmarks on the start-end to examine, due to the drill being pushed down the hole lots and lots of times.
the reinsertion of the saw wouldve caused marks, wich would dimish as you go down farther into the hole.
something ive examined quite often while drilling holes. if you have to reinsert the drill you clearly see it afterwards in the surface-structure of the hole.
that isnt the case however...

The claim you make comes from Robert Schoch. Schoch doesn't use any "watermarks" to date the Sphinx, and his claims (which you appear not to understand) have been refuted by his peers, as well as by several people right here at ATS.
There aren't any "watermarks" on the Pyramids.

i wasnt refering to the rainfall-sphinx-erosion stuff.
and i dont see why claims that the outter shell clearly had watermarks before it came down should be ignored...
sacredsites.com...
prolly bc we should not have facts interfere with a good story. :p

a reply to: Dolour

Howdy,

I've smashed a lot of rocks over the last three years... Using nothing but a rock hammer, although I really should have been using a chisel. As a result, I've acquired a rather large and varied collection of rocks, crystals, and fossils... (All right, the fossil collection is mostly trilobites, but varied trilobites... I digress.) I've seen more bedded granites, basalts, marbles, limestones and dolostones, sandstones, and especially shales and siltstones than most people. I have seen and can identify more rocks (from hand samples in my college's collection) than the average person.

What is my point? I know rocks. I have a collection of hand sized chunks of granite, pegmatite, diorite, granophyre... I just looked through all of my granite and granite-like rocks (the kind I described). I was struck by the remarkably flat surfaces and sharp, sometimes close to 90 degree angles these samples have. I have previously described why and how you get flat surfaces as a result of mineral cleavage and twinning, but I had never noticed the features common to all my samples, which I have collected for mainly mineralogical interest. And I collected those all with a single rock hammer, with no care for precision angles.

I will refer you to my posts on pages 2 and 3, in case you missed the talk of cleavage, grains, and twinning... And allow me to go a step further and mention that what doesn't break along the easy stress relief areas of natural cleavage and twinning would only then break along the crystal edges. (Except quartz, because it has no preferred cleavage...)

Some granite does also act as one, giant crystal... Or a bunch of giant crystals. Graphic granite/granophyre is essentially granite that has had the quartz grains and feldspar grains grow at the same time, making the rock optically two single grains, regardless of size. There are also coarse grained granite pegmatites, which often exhibit twinning in feldspar.

Yes, breaking them to nearly flat surfaces is relatively... as easy as hitting something with a hammer. If you want finer details, it takes time and attention. Now, I've seen glacial polish on hard igneous rocks as smooth as any man-smoothed surface, probably smoother, and that's just a result of a bit of grit and a lot of ice movement over rocks over time.

As for tool marks, you can buff those out with some sanding. I've done it with moonstone (feldspar) using sand and beryl... It takes a while, yes, but it can be done. (I've since invested in modern technology to save me the time and hand pain...) Also, do you not think* sand being blown over the rocks/water and weathering might have removed what traces there were on exposed surfaces? I mean, feldspars weather to clay slowly, but scour it with some sandstorms and you might remove a lot of the scratches...

Regards,
Hydeman

originally posted by: hydeman11

What is my point? I know rocks.

cool, i like solid information bases.

I have a collection of hand sized chunks of granite, pegmatite, diorite, granophyre... I just looked through all of my granite and granite-like rocks (the kind I described). I was struck by the remarkably flat surfaces and sharp, sometimes close to 90 degree angles these samples have.

ok, i hope you agree if i say that we must distinquish between layered, similary as for example limestone, type granite(with wich i personally have very little expirience really. but we used other materials with layered structures that should at least react similar to some degree), and the solid/massive type that hasnt got any of those layers(wich is what weve been working with, and what i meant when i sayd "granite". sorry for being unprecise here.).
now its is unsuprising to get a flat surface, in case of the former one, along those layers.
the problem is to get a 90° angle diagonally to the direction of the layer.
on the top and bottom of that stone id expect some of the surface layers to chip off, due to different resistances to force depending on the direction.
what i mean is, a flat surface is one thing, but getting an object square, all angles 90° to each other, without damaging at least one of the surfaces is... challanging if youd use a pounding tool.
that is much less of an issue if you work with any form of rotary tool, wich is why we use milling cutters today to shape granite, instead of glassing jacks, wich would eventually damage the object.

I have previously described why and how you get flat surfaces as a result of mineral cleavage and twinning, but I had never noticed the features common to all my samples, which I have collected for mainly mineralogical interest. And I collected those all with a single rock hammer, with no care for precision angles.

would theese tools allso be sufficient to purposely get those objects into a desired shape?
took me a whole week(40h straight) to get those angles and surfaces right on a piece of iron the size of my hand.
i know, it doesent really sound that challanging at all, but it in fact was one of the most difficult things ive ever done.
and thats not bc i have 2 left hands or something, the othe 25 folx in class really had to sweat to get this done too...

I will refer you to my posts on pages 2 and 3, in case you missed the talk of cleavage, grains, and twinning... And allow me to go a step further and mention that what doesn't break along the easy stress relief areas of natural cleavage and twinning would only then break along the crystal edges. (Except quartz, because it has no preferred cleavage...)

i agree(and i managed to ruin quite my share of reference plates by dropping jaw chucks or something on them btw.), but mind that if you were to remove a couple cubic metres of material, youd need ALOT of pounding, thus alot of stress on the material, wich leads to a real good likelyhood of getting an unwanted breaking edge, or at least some cracks in the plate/block.
now, where are the samples where they f*cked up?
btw, how do you shape a tool of emerald in the first place(no sarcasm, im really curious if that'd actually work)?

Yes, breaking them to nearly flat surfaces is relatively... as easy as hitting something with a hammer. If you want finer details, it takes time and attention. Now, I've seen glacial polish on hard igneous rocks as smooth as any man-smoothed surface, probably smoother, and that's just a result of a bit of grit and a lot of ice movement over rocks over time.

again, one surface alone should indeed not be the problem. looking at the whole creation process tho i can hardly imagine this'd work with a halfway reliable rate.
if you just get every 20th object proper its not really working at all...
astonishingly enough isnt the place not just not littered with failed attempts, theres very little failed attempts beeing found like one would expect(are there even any? i really cant recall atm, lol).

As for tool marks, you can buff those out with some sanding. I've done it with moonstone (feldspar) using sand and beryl... It takes a while, yes, but it can be done. (I've since invested in modern technology to save me the time and hand pain...)

www.gizapyramid.com...
the marks closer to the camera should look somewhat polished if the commonly accepted sand-drill thing wouldve been used, bc the sawblade wouldve had contact with that area of the surface at where the drilling started for alot more revolutions, thus polishing it alot more, than compared to deeper down into the hole.
without a plaster cast its really hard to tell, but seriously if those werent applied after the drilling, and we see the actual feedrate the drilling head mustve been like wtfbbq.
if you try that with any modern drill all you get is a broken or molten tool(allso something ive "managed" to do. sadly both of it, lol).
whatever drilled that whole mustve been eating through the material like idunnowhat.
causing tremendeous heat and tension the tool wouldbe been exposed to.

/edit: just to put this into perspective: we use granite AS material for some drills(well ok, for aluminium and other relatively soft materials, but still).
for someone like me, whos into maschining stuff, this is plain amazing!

Also, do you not think* sand being blown over the rocks/water and weathering might have removed what traces there were on exposed surfaces? I mean, feldspars weather to clay slowly, but scour it with some sandstorms and you might remove a lot of the scratches...

that doesent work for the stuff in the pyramids chambers tho, or the sarkophagi in the serapheum.
allso sand constantly eroding a surface would not only cause a pretty rough finish, it allso cant explain sawmarks.
dont ask me why they had to try it 3 times, or weather its more likely that someone using hand-driven saws is more likely to mess up or not tho. :p

a reply to: Dolour

Howdy,

Granite is an igneous rock. It doesn't really "layer." It is known as an intrusive rock, because it kinda just wells up in a blob. It can differentiate (in fact, the magma that forms granite most have differentiated, as all mantle material is much more mafic.), but this process of differentiation won't actually create layers. Perhaps you mean intrusive sheets, like a dyke or sill? Sedimentary rocks like limestone are not very similar to igneous rocks... Also, limestone might be the most similar, being made of mostly crystalline calcite... It also cleaves perfectly and can have stress induced twinning...

I happen to have both dyke material and massive (as in an igneous mass) granite in my collection. The dyke material is a rectangular rock with striking 90 degree corners... (It's actually a dyke of granite that intruded into a massive basalt, and I collected it with a basalt section which conforms to the shape of the rock...). By far the majority of material I have is massive granite, in fact, and most slowly cooled granites will have twinning planes based on feldspar... And all granite is slowly cooled, or else it wouldn't be granite. The exception might be something like a metagranite, where a granite is cooked again to the point where it might start melting?

I think the problem here is that you assume that all work would be done simply by hammer. Is it not possible that refining of sides was done with something akin to abrasion? Like sanding? You can hammer out the rough block and refine the sharp edges where they need to be. (Feldspars actually cleave quite nicely).

Now let me restate, I was not intentionally breaking granite into square shapes or 90 degree angles. That's just how they broke. I wouldn't use just a hammer to do so, and I certainly wouldn't use emerald as a pounding tool. (I used a hexagonal crystal of beryl I found in some pegmatite to grind the rough surfaces of my moonstone. Not really a tool... )

As for the removal of a lot of material, I agree. You'd increase the likelihood of an unwanted break. I imagine these people were well trained and yet still made plenty of mistakes... I'm not an archeologist, so I can't point you to any, and I am not even versed in the tools used by the ancient Egyptians. All I can tell you is that granite tends to fracture into blocky rocks.

I have read (I think in this thread, from the comments I was originally responding to...) that the ancient Egyptians used fire to help cut and process rocks. This, or the friction from grinding, could possibly account for the "polished" look to those tool marks. (I mean, you could potentially be heating the granite up enough to give some elasticity to the rocks and possibly even melt some of the minerals? I don't know how hot these tools got...) I would have imagined they'd use water as a lubricant, but perhaps that is counter intuitive and heat would be preferred.

As for the stuff in the pyramid's chambers, they weren't always there, were they? They could have been outside the pyramid weathering for some time in their travels... but I do agree with you. And the saw marks, perhaps they are not saw marks? Perhaps they are those chips you were talking about?

Again, I am not an expert on ancient Egypt, their tools, or their methods. I just wanted to discuss rocks, specifically granite, which does have the tendency to break into blocky material, from my experience. I honestly don't know how the Egyptians did it, but I do believe stone tools would be sufficient to shape the material. That's all I can say.

Regards,
Hydeman

a reply to: Dolour

Hello again!

I've no idea if you ignored my post on the stone working process out of hand etc or just missed it, but i was pretty clear that a maker would not simply pound and pound away at a block, be it granite or otherwise -

the problem is to get a 90° angle diagonally to the direction of the layer.
on the top and bottom of that stone id expect some of the surface layers to chip off, due to different resistances to force depending on the direction.
what i mean is, a flat surface is one thing, but getting an object square, all angles 90° to each other, without damaging at least one of the surfaces is... challanging if youd use a pounding tool.

as already stated a pounding tool is not used to work the angles or get a supremely flat surface, and an absolute minimum of force is applied, it's simply a rubbing motion and abrasion - i'll re state what i posted for convenience's sake:

The same technique will not be used all of the way through in the working of a granite block - hammer stones will do the primary reduction work, and then for final smoothing/flattening and polishing the process will be different.

Flattened stones will do the flattening - these tools are usually made by rubbing two of the same stones together in a circular motion which makes both connecting surfaces flat. These are then rubbed on the granite and I would expect they are rinsed regularly to remove rock-dust from the granular texture, ensuring that they remain abrasive; or a sand and water/fat slurry would create the abrasion. Both techniques would produce the desired result.

A final polish can be achieved by making a slurry (fine rock dust in a water or fat suspension) very similar to a modern polishing compound. I believe Erret Callaghann achieved a reflective finish on stone using charcoal dust and tallow in a leather pad.

It's a common enough mistake to assume that the same tool is used all of the way through which probably leads to the typical misunderstanding that the rock cannot bear the stress of the later stages of being shaped; but the rock is not being put under any stress - it is being gradually and slowly worked in to shape using abrasion under the direction of a skilled craftsman's careful and highly experienced eye and they would ofc have the benefit of at least plumb-lines. It is still highly challenging work like you say, but that is the life of a master crafter - careful, measured work from start to finish and no one is suggesting that it is easy to make exact stonework.

As you said:

one thing i know from that is that if you pound a brittle material like granite, itll burst to bits.
ANY tool used for pounding in ANY way, would NOT be able to shape granite blocks.

again, it's understandable you may think this , but pages later i hope something of an understanding has been reached that granite can be pounded, that only a few grains at a time are removed and the granite does not in fact burst to bits when the technique is correct; also the process was as previously described more involved than your initial suggestion that the entire process was simply pounding.

You could even reinforce this by actually physically taking rock to rock as a number of people in this thread have - my own understanding of these processes improved a great deal when i got my own hands all bruised and dirty and worked through piles of different rocks to see how they behaved and learned to work them in a primitive fashion.

I don't have all of the answers regarding the process used by the AE's, but i do know primitive crafting techniques and have a reasonable amount of hands on experience of them, being that i now make a living teaching stone-age skills as well as selling traditional craft work.

It would be extremely interesting for the rock hounds saying with 100% certainty, the ancients accompliahed such works with the basic tools you suggest.

Id like to see just a miniature around 10" to 12" in size duplicating some of these 90 degree precision angles in perfectly straight lines, such as the halways shown in the video.

Im personally on the fence about this issue but think it would go a long way in proving your theories.

I know it wont happen because of time constraints but would be interesting none the less.

originally posted by: hydeman11
a reply to: Dolour
As for the removal of a lot of material, I agree. You'd increase the likelihood of an unwanted break. I imagine these people were well trained and yet still made plenty of mistakes... I'm not an archeologist, so I can't point you to any...

The pics in this thread showing the "scalloping" done with pounding stones in the Aswan quarry come largely from the Unfinished Obelisk quarry site.

I'd like to point out that the obelisk is "unfinished" because it broke.

originally posted by: hydeman11I have read (I think in this thread, from the comments I was originally responding to...) that the ancient Egyptians used fire to help cut and process rocks. This, or the friction from grinding, could possibly account for the "polished" look to those tool marks. (I mean, you could potentially be heating the granite up enough to give some elasticity to the rocks and possibly even melt some of the minerals? I don't know how hot these tools got...) I would have imagined they'd use water as a lubricant, but perhaps that is counter intuitive and heat would be preferred.

The idea of using heat involves building fires on the granite, then cooling rapidly, perhaps with water. That's a tricky proposition, of course. You'd need to ensure that the granite didn't get too hot too deep because the temperature differential could well crack the stone.

A small fire for a short time, along with the cooling, would shatter the surface crystals, facilitating their crushing/removal. You wouldn't want to heat the granite to any great depth. That means the process would need repeating once the workers came up against untreated stone after removing the surface layer (treated layer.)

A similar process, on a smaller scale, would have been of great usefulness in carving the almost perfect glyphs we see on the surfaces of the various granite obelisks around Egypt.

originally posted by: hydeman11As for the stuff in the pyramid's chambers, they weren't always there, were they? They could have been outside the pyramid weathering for some time in their travels... but I do agree with you. And the saw marks, perhaps they are not saw marks? Perhaps they are those chips you were talking about?

The Egyptians used bronze slabbing saws on stone. They left artwork depicting the process (the artwork also demonstrates the use of rubbing stones - the sanding process you mentioned.) It's not known whether they used slabbing saws on granite, but it has been demonstrated that such an operation would work. link

It is confirmed that they used bronze or copper tube saws on both limestone and granite, though. So, saw marks are not at all unexpected.

"Experiments in Egyptian Archaeology" by Denis Stocks. This book involves itself primarily with how they made stone vessels (many are made with harder stone than granite,) but it shows many things not thought of by amateur forum posters.

Harte

originally posted by: hydeman11
a reply to: Dolour
It doesn't really "layer." It is known as an intrusive rock, because it kinda just wells up in a blob. It can differentiate, but this process of differentiation won't actually create layers. Perhaps you mean intrusive sheets, like a dyke or sill? Sedimentary rocks like limestone are not very similar to igneous rocks... Also, limestone might be the most similar, being made of mostly crystalline calcite... It also cleaves perfectly and can have stress induced twinning...

i didnt meant layerd as with schist, but the layers formed by the described welling up.
they are by no means as evenly as you got in sedimentary stones ofc, but still have something like naturally predifined zones, where the stone is presumably going to break, due to the impurities forming a distinguishable border to the adjecting material.
ive learned that not every piece of granite is suitable to become precison reference material(wich is by far the most common apllication for granite in the technical world ive came arcoss), because of those impurities causing multiple problems at once.
thats what i meant by two types of granite, you allso got chunks wich are very homogeneous, without any visibly different materials being enclosed in that perticular block of stone.
whenever i broke off pieces from the latter one, the result was just randomly shaped chunks with rough breaking edges.

The dyke material is a rectangular rock with striking 90 degree corners... By far the majority of material I have is massive granite, in fact, and most slowly cooled granites will have twinning planes based on feldspar... And all granite is slowly cooled, or else it wouldn't be granite. The exception might be something like a metagranite, where a granite is cooked again to the point where it might start melting?

well, i can see how the cooling prozess would naturally cause a horizontal plane, i still dont get how this could apply for the vertical dimension tho...
allso, its pretty impractical to rely on coincidential attributes of a material if you need vast ammounts of it.
how much geological and/or material science related knowledge can a culture posess that didnt develop, as far as egyptologists know, any higher mathematics, in order to locate sources of apropriate material?

I think the problem here is that you assume that all work would be done simply by hammer. Is it not possible that refining of sides was done with something akin to abrasion? Like sanding?

im not aware if your familiar with the measuring accuracies a relatively primitive looking beveled steel square achieves.
those tools surfaces are produced with tolerances in the 1/1000th inch range, and the slightest scratch to them is clearly visible in any measurement.
by observing how much light passes through the chasm between the piece you wanna measure and the tool, you can make an aberrance of a couple 100th of an inch visible by just holding them togeather at an angle.
you need a dial gauge if it goes into the 1/1000th's, but this totally unspectacular looking tool is an amazingly accurate way of measuring.

just have a look on some of the pictures dunn made, or even better, find another engineer, or anyone whos into maschiening stuff, and show it to him or her.
thats all i say... ask someone who knows how stuff with tolerances of 1/100th inch is built, and listen to what this person says.

now, if youd want to grind that stone flat using some sort of grains(letz assume they just had the apropriate stuff), youd need a totally even tool, that will not be affected by the abrasion.
its real hard with even a totally flat steel rasp to not end up with a slightly roundish surface, and granted that whatever tool they might have used wouldve ended up slightly roundish too over the long run, i can NOT imagine ANY way that could have worked over a several metre long object.
the larger the object gets, the harder it is to maintain angles, surfaces, radii, and none of the theories ive seen(ofc ive been reading into alot of classical explanations too)is even remotely in the realm of possibilities, if dunn didnt hoax those pictures.

the sarcophagi in the serapheum is AS precise as we could do it using computer controlled robots.
not even today, using carbonized tools and the latest inventions that would make any handyman the happiest guy on earth, can we produce something like this by a manufacturing, as in handmade, process.

lemme not even get started on how they would first somehow manage to come up with an accurate beveled steel square to measure wth they were doing, and point out that our finest toolmakers cannot built this stuff without the aid of cnc-mills.

Now let me restate, I was not intentionally breaking granite into square shapes or 90 degree angles. That's just how they broke. I wouldn't use just a hammer to do so, and I certainly wouldn't use emerald as a pounding tool. (I used a hexagonal crystal of beryl I found in some pegmatite to grind the rough surfaces of my moonstone. Not really a tool... )

how large was the sample youve created?
again, dont underestimate how much more difficult it gets if you want to maintain that surface, relative to ALL other angles, on a several metre object.

As for the removal of a lot of material, I agree. You'd increase the likelihood of an unwanted break. I imagine these people were well trained and yet still made plenty of mistakes... I'm not an archeologist, so I can't point you to any, and I am not even versed in the tools used by the ancient Egyptians. All I can tell you is that granite tends to fracture into blocky rocks.

www.gizapower.com...
that is not coincidentially broken into this shape...

maxmimum pstlenght reached...

originally posted by: hydeman11
I have read (I think in this thread, from the comments I was originally responding to...) that the ancient Egyptians used fire to help cut and process rocks. This, or the friction from grinding, could possibly account for the "polished" look to those tool marks. (I mean, you could potentially be heating the granite up enough to give some elasticity to the rocks and possibly even melt some of the minerals? I don't know how hot these tools got...) I would have imagined they'd use water as a lubricant, but perhaps that is counter intuitive and heat would be preferred.

there werent any traces of carbon found, neiter from torches inside the buildings, nor on any of the material thats been tested.
something "pyramidiots" love to point out btw, and a good example on how much egyptology gives about evidence as long as it doesent serve their purpose. :p

As for the stuff in the pyramid's chambers, they weren't always there, were they? They could have been outside the pyramid weathering for some time in their travels... but I do agree with you. And the saw marks, perhaps they are not saw marks? Perhaps they are those chips you were talking about?

the sarkophagus in the kings champer is larger than the entrance and muste been incorporated during the building process.
another thing the fringe side likes to point out. :p

Again, I am not an expert on ancient Egypt, their tools, or their methods. I just wanted to discuss rocks, specifically granite, which does have the tendency to break into blocky material, from my experience. I honestly don't know how the Egyptians did it, but I do believe stone tools would be sufficient to shape the material. That's all I can say.

i agree on stone tools beeing sufficient for the removal of material in general, but thats totally not my point.
the point is that shaping objects that size, with the precision displayed in egypt, and in numerous other places btw, is TOTALLY off the hook!
while you can for sure break granite into "roughly block shaped" chunks, or even optically accurate forms, its something completely different to get them right to a portion of a millimetre, perfectly angled, polished AND fitted them togeather with 1/10mm tolerances, regardless the weight of up tp 70 tons per block.
we dont use theese kinda tolelrances for constructing buildings, its used for small filigrane works that HAVE to be right to that degree.
and them utilizing whonkows what method to get stuff that size, this accurate, is a jaw-dropping display of technical knowledge.

but hey, ofc noone gives a crap about what some weirdo on the internetz says.
go ask someone YOU know personally, whos into maschiening stuff, what he/she's got to say when you show him some of this stuff, not mentioning that its from ancient egypt. ;o

a reply to: Dolour

So, if you are so convinced that they used advanced machines which you say we cannot even match today - why can we find absolutely no trace of such machinery, its development or production in the archaeological or historical record?

Why no sign of any high tech of any kind?

Your argument continues to be from persönliche Ungläubigkeit.

originally posted by: Dolour

I think the problem here is that you assume that all work would be done simply by hammer. Is it not possible that refining of sides was done with something akin to abrasion? Like sanding?

im not aware if your familiar with the measuring accuracies a relatively primitive looking beveled steel square achieves.
those tools surfaces are produced with tolerances in the 1/1000th inch range, and the slightest scratch to them is clearly visible in any measurement.
by observing how much light passes through the chasm between the piece you wanna measure and the tool, you can make an aberrance of a couple 100th of an inch visible by just holding them togeather at an angle.
you need a dial gauge if it goes into the 1/1000th's, but this totally unspectacular looking tool is an amazingly accurate way of measuring.

just have a look on some of the pictures dunn made...

I've seen Dunn's pictures. I'm not impressed.

Let him make a video of him checking the flatness of the ALL the stones in the King's Chamber, showing the proper use of the gauge.

Anyone can find a few perfectly flat spots for a camera to snap, even on an undulating surface.

originally posted by: Dolour, or even better, find another engineer, or anyone whos into maschiening stuff, and show it to him or her.

You're talking to a former Mechanical Engineer right now. Though I don't know Skalla 's or other poster's fields, it's easy to see that there are several people here at ATS - in this thread alone - that know what they're talking about concerning stone. Far more so that you seem to.

Harte

originally posted by: Dolour

originally posted by: hydeman11
I have read (I think in this thread, from the comments I was originally responding to...) that the ancient Egyptians used fire to help cut and process rocks. This, or the friction from grinding, could possibly account for the "polished" look to those tool marks. (I mean, you could potentially be heating the granite up enough to give some elasticity to the rocks and possibly even melt some of the minerals? I don't know how hot these tools got...) I would have imagined they'd use water as a lubricant, but perhaps that is counter intuitive and heat would be preferred.

there werent any traces of carbon found, neiter from torches inside the buildings, nor on any of the material thats been tested.

A good example of your not knowing much (people get angry when I call ignorance ignorance, so...)
Nobody has tested the surfaces of the interior of any Egytpian constructions for carbon. Why should they?

The fires I'm talking about would be in the quarries. They would result in the heated surface layers being more easily removed. Get it? REMOVED.

originally posted by: Dolour
i agree on stone tools beeing sufficient for the removal of material in general, but thats totally not my point.
the point is that shaping objects that size, with the precision displayed in egypt, and in numerous other places btw, is TOTALLY off the hook!
while you can for sure break granite into "roughly block shaped" chunks, or even optically accurate forms, its something completely different to get them right to a portion of a millimetre, perfectly angled, polished AND fitted them togeather with 1/10mm tolerances, regardless the weight of up tp 70 tons per block.

Not only are you taking a few measurements by Dunn as gospel, you're granting Dunn far more than even he claimed. For example, please link to the measurements of the outside surfaces of the granite ceiling stones in the King's Chamber. And while you're at it, show us the angle measurements between the inner surfaces and all four side surfaces on each stone.

Harte

a reply to: Dolour
Master machinist here, 25 yrs and counting.
The AE were almost supernatural in their stone working skills, and that's because that's all those guys did, cut stone , drink beer , eat some bread , cut stone , sun up to sundown. And it leads to craftsmen with fantastic skill.
I would love to have the opportunity to physically inspect the pyramids.
Now you mentioned tolerances of 1/100" that's close but if I miss a dimension by .01"I didn't make anything.
People don't appreciate what a skilled craftsman can do anymore, because they are so far removed from it in today's world.
Wrap your head around this ,
High quality machine tools so almost always have hand scraped ways, a way is a feature that moving elements slide on and is part of structural casting.
After milling and grinding the ways are scraped by hand to bring the flatness to within
40/1,000,000", with just a scraper ,straight edge and gage block.
40/1,000,000 ths of an inch.
It time consuming and the skill is so rare that a company will bring a craftsman in from Japan to scrape the ways on one machine.

originally posted by: Harte

For example, please link to the measurements of the outside surfaces of the granite ceiling stones in the King's Chamber. And while you're at it, show us the angle measurements between the inner surfaces and all four side surfaces on each stone.

Harte

Now Harte that just mean, but funny (about the ceiling stones in the King's chamber), lol

a reply to: Harte
Hi Harte,
The other thing that people don't realise is that the kings chamber was likely finished while it was still under an open sky, so no torches needed.

originally posted by: punkinworks10
a reply to: Dolour
Master machinist here, 25 yrs and counting.
The AE were almost supernatural in their stone working skills, and that's because that's all those guys did, cut stone , drink beer , eat some bread , cut stone , sun up to sundown. And it leads to craftsmen with fantastic skill.
I would love to have the opportunity to physically inspect the pyramids.
Now you mentioned tolerances of 1/100" that's close but if I miss a dimension by .01"I didn't make anything.
People don't appreciate what a skilled craftsman can do anymore, because they are so far removed from it in today's world.
Wrap your head around this ,
High quality machine tools so almost always have hand scraped ways, a way is a feature that moving elements slide on and is part of structural casting.
After milling and grinding the ways are scraped by hand to bring the flatness to within
40/1,000,000", with just a scraper ,straight edge and gage block.
40/1,000,000 ths of an inch.
It time consuming and the skill is so rare that a company will bring a craftsman in from Japan to scrape the ways on one machine.

The ancient craftsmen were amazing here are a few quotes from an article on the quality of work done on the Parthenon

After analyzing marks left on the marble surfaces, Korres is convinced that centuries of metallurgical experimentation enabled the ancient Athenians to create chisels and axes that were sharper and more durable than those available today. (The idea is not unprecedented. Modern metallurgists have only recently figuredout the secrets of the traditional samurai sword, which Japanese swordsmiths endowed with unrivaled sharpness and strength by regulating the amount of carbon in the steel and the temperature during forging and cooling.) Korres concludes that the ancient masons, with their superior tools, could carve marble at more than double the rate of today’s craftsmen. And the Parthenon’s original laborers had the benefit of experience, drawing on a century and a half of temple-building know-how.

On some of the largest Parthenon blocks, which exceed ten tons, the (modern) masons use a mechanized version of the pointing device, but repairing a single block can still take more than three months. The ancient workers were no less painstaking; in many cases, the joints between the blocks are all but invisible, even under a magnifying glass.

Today’s restorers have been replacing damaged column segments with fresh marble. To speed up the job, engineers built a flute-carving machine. The device, however, is not precise enough for the final detailing, which must be done by hand. This smoothing of the flutes calls for an expert eye and a sensitive touch. To get the elliptical profile of the flute just right, a mason looks at the shadow cast inside the groove, then chips and rubs the stone until the outline of the shadow is a perfectly even and regular curve.

Link to the most accurately built building of the ancient world