For those who continue to believe nobody knows why the pyramids were built

originally posted by: sapien82
Aye fair enough , I just dont think the AE had the level of technology to do that , copper chisels cant cut quartzite ,dolomite, rose granite etc a simple rule of hardness , and there is no other known method for cutting stones back then !

You're flat wrong. Probably because you're stuck on the idea of cutting.
Hard stones like granite were pounded. There's evidence all over the place.
In the artwork AND in the quarries.
Also they were sawn. Tube saws were used to start things like bowls and vases etc. and to carve out hollows such as in stone sarcophagi.
Again, evidenced by their art and by examination of the cuts.

Harte

a reply to: Phage

I don't believe so but the last time they were repairing it they came upon markings on the stones that showed the workmen what to do.

originally posted by: sapien82
a reply to: Hanslune

so the rule of thumb is accurate enough to build one of the largest structures on earth impressive for the thumb eh!

Aye fair enough , I just dont think the AE had the level of technology to do that , copper chisels cant cut quartzite ,dolomite, rose granite etc a simple rule of hardness , and there is no other known method for cutting stones back then !

Yep, now there may have been some sort of plan but it obviously didn't survive and even later dynasties left no such plans - there are however some drawings of how a garden would be set out.

"copper chisels cant cut quartzite ,dolomite, rose granite etc" yeah but they didn't do it that way - basic research would obtain the answer which is well known - they used pounders and abrasives - why are you repeating these decades old canards debunked long long ago?

a reply to: Harte

sawn with which metal alloy that's hard enough or durable enough to cut through it ?

it doesnt matter the process its how hard the material is !

sawn or pounding , copper still isnt hard enough to cut those stones

unless they used stones of the same hardness or harder to cut or shape them

but im not sure how you'd get perfectly flat surafces using a pounding technique , abrasives yes possibly
and they cut and shaped that many blocks in 20 years using the abrasive method , didnt I guy try that recently and it took him over 3 days to get a few mm ? how many blocks are there again over 10 million ?

I just dont see that happening its such a slow process, and under that kind of deadline im sure you wouldnt want to take up too much of the pharaoah's time

originally posted by: sapien82

Aye its very interesting as you say there are no plans for the culture that supposedly made them before the AE
I guess we will never know for sure unless new discoveries are made .

Archaeology has been underway in Egypt for 2+ centuries not one item has been found that can be associated with the invisible civilization - civilization leave stuff all over everything, 10's of millions of items for the AE and the same for the Sumerian and all other civilizations. The invisible civilization - nada, zilch.

if the current model is to be accepted then the AE were bloody good builders
however I dont believe humans could organise and carry out such a grand structure without any sort of record or detailed plans , a structure that size is so complicated especially with load bearing walls etc , I just dont believe it possible for everyone to remember all of that information in their head!

So if its so impossible how did the invisible civilization do it? Without cities, quarries, writing, stone tools, metal, burials or pottery - and how in the heck did they hide ever aspect of their existence?

However they may have constructed small models for this purpose and those just havent survived , or as suggested they started with the precursor models of the stepped , bent and mastaba pyramids !

They may have made models Pyramid G1-d may actually have been for that purpose - speculation of course.

en.wikipedia.org...

originally posted by: sapien82
a reply to: Harte

sawn with which metal alloy that's hard enough or durable enough to cut through it ?

it doesnt matter the process its how hard the material is !

sawn or pounding , copper still isnt hard enough to cut those stones

The saw put pressure on the abrasive that did the cutting.

but im not sure how you'd get perfectly flat surafces using a pounding technique , abrasives yes possibly
and they cut and shaped that many blocks in 20 years using the abrasive method , didnt I guy try that recently and it took him over 3 days to get a few mm ? how many blocks are there again over 10 million ?

600-900,000 and the vast majority - the core stones are very roughly cut

Here is drawing of the top tier of G1 you can see the general shape of the stones



files.abovetopsecret.com...

Stones showing the finely made outer cladding of G2 and the rough core stones

I just dont see that happening its such a slow process, and under that kind of deadline im sure you wouldnt want to take up too much of the pharaoah's time

Your personal incredulity aside - no they seemed to be able to do it and they did it multiple times.

a reply to: Hanslune

entirely possible that the civilisation didnt communicate through writing at all! maybe they communicated through speech only and had no writing but had verbal history. Maybe they were telepaths!

maybe its that old that all evidence other than the pyramid is all thats left !
who knows !
its fun to guess though

I remember watching a video , and they said that there was another mock pyramid they think is the test plans for the internal kings chamber etc would be interesting if that is the case .

It would be so funny if an alien race came here and told us they are for something completely trivial and in no way anything close to what we believe they are for !

a reply to: Hanslune

Hey Haslune , Im at work so those images are blocked due to web sense!
I will have a look when I get home , thanks though !

my personal incredulity aside , the currently held theory is they did it , multiple times, but its never been proven fact!

take for example all of those amazing carved boxes in the serrapeum , how did they make those with those abrasives , those internal angles at 90 degrees , how they moved those giant boxes in there ? I know thats another subject aside the pyramids .
they built that grand pyramid with rule of thumb and got perfectly aligned angles we cant even replicate today with lazer technology!

Sorry but it is pretty hard to believe

double post

originally posted by: sapien82
a reply to: Hanslune

entirely possible that the civilisation didnt communicate through writing at all! maybe they communicated through speech only and had no writing but had verbal history. Maybe they were telepaths!

maybe its that old that all evidence other than the pyramid is all thats left !
who knows !
its fun to guess though

I remember watching a video , and they said that there was another mock pyramid they think is the test plans for the internal kings chamber etc would be interesting if that is the case .

It would be so funny if an alien race came here and told us they are for something completely trivial and in no way anything close to what we believe they are for !

Archaeological evidence can exist for millions and millions of years. If you go out side and drive a wooden stake into the ground. That imprint into the earth will last for hundreds of millions of years. Stone tools are essential indestructible.

Here is what a civilization or culture would have to do to remain invisible to archaeologists and other scientist:

How a civilization can remain undetected

1. have very few people - but this will tend to limit your technological advancement
2. don't make fires
3. don't make pottery or bake clay
4. don't modify the environment in any way
5. don't domesticate animals or plants
6. don't eat shell fish (the middens are easy to spot)
7. don't bury people, destroy bodies at death and disperse the bones - crush the teeth
8. absolutely no use of stone for tools, do not modify ivory, bone or shells either
9. never disturb the earth (by driving in a stake)
10. don't hunt animals and if you do widely disperse their remains
11. move constantly to avoid a build-up of waste, both human and food remains
12. don't live near a lake or other place where sediments, pollen and pollutants gather

There if you do all that you'll be fairly undetectable

originally posted by: sapien82

they built that grand pyramid with rule of thumb and got perfectly aligned angles we cant even replicate today with lazer technology!

Sorry but it is pretty hard to believe

Chuckle nope not perfectly aligned not even close, good but not close. The CERN collider is aligned to an accuracy the AE couldn't even see.

You believe to much in what the fringe says - do research and get the truth.

So its hard to believe that the AE were capable stone workers but you CAN believe in an invisible civilization?

originally posted by: sapien82
a reply to: Harte

sawn with which metal alloy that's hard enough or durable enough to cut through it ?

it doesnt matter the process its how hard the material is !

sawn or pounding , copper still isnt hard enough to cut those stones

I've posted pics and videos of this very thing - sawing rose granite from Aswan with copper tube saws and sand - multiple times here at ATS and elsewhere. It's been done many times by Denys Stocks, including measuring the wear on the copper and correlating it with the depth of the hole cut.

You can choose to believe whatever you want, but you would be choosing not to believe your own eyes.

Harte

ETA: Experiments in Egyptian Archaeology
Copper slabbing saw on granite demo
Methods shown here with pics (PBS took down the youtube vid since the last time I had to do this.)

H.

a reply to: Harte
Sorry, the Stocks book linked above shows only chapter 5.
Here's the entire book.
Chapter 6 has the measuremebnts I mentioned.
Or, you could read about these measurements at this summary of Stock's findings:
Solenhofen

Harte

So if we take the Granite box on Elephantine Island as an example, are you telling me with a straight face that this was ‘pounded’ into shape? Saws don’t cut 90 degree recessed edges either. It is my opinion as a machinist that this piece was ‘cut’ not pounded or sawn. The ‘pyramid’ shape at the top of this object,for example, has ‘resultant’ edges. That is to say that the edges are the RESULT of the stone being passed along a cutter or vice versa. You can’t ‘pound’ an edge that accurately as pounding would produce random breakages within the stone which would at some point affect the edge.we could talk at length on how it was ‘hollowed’ out too , that’s neither chiselled , sawn or pounded.
I know that the structure blocks of the great pyramid are not granite , but there are plenty of anomalies that are, this object being no exception.And im not talking aliens either,so don’t put me in that box!
The problems that arise from Stocks’ trials appear when you try to imagine what ‘jig’ system they had for keeping a saw blade on course throughout the length of the cut to produce something of this symmetry. There are no AE artworks showing frames they used to hold the saw perfectly for the depth/length of cuts we regularly see, just usually two guys on a straight saw. That wouldn’t produce this object, I’m afraid to say.
Can’t seem to upload a pic, but you know the one I’m talking about, right? On its side, pyramidal top? Maybe someone else could upload a few pics? There’s some good ones of the inside too..
a reply to: Harte

a reply to: bluesfreak

Here go some illustrations:



Pics taken from the video below (skip to the 1m50s mark for the box):

Ps - id also like to see how Stocks’ core drill technique would work in the case of this object: it has core holes at the top of the recesses inside that would prevent a manual method of turning the core drill as has been suggested. I presume it also has core holes in the bottom of these recesses to match up with the top ones to produce hinges for two small doors either side? So when drilling the upper core holes, how did the sand stay in the hole? Gravity suggests it can’t, so that means they turned the entire quite large granite piece on its head or at a good enough angle , for two small core holes, in order for the sand to stay in the holes to enable abrasive drilling?
I haven’t seen a demo of ‘sideways’ abrasive coring, and not sure if the forces it requires could be done sideways, that’s if you assume it was made sideways. If it was made ‘standing upright’ the bottom core holes could be achieved but not the top ones without turning the entire piece to a suitable angle.
This object raises many problems for those in favour of a purely manual method of creating it. Edges are formed when two surfaces that are cut, meet. Edges aren’t ‘made’ ,they are a result.
This object contains nothing BUT resultant edges.
Copper chisels and abrasive manual sawing?
reply to: Harte

a reply to: bluesfreak

Are your referring to the imaged item that Jeep3r put up?

Given the video is by Foerster I would not trust his identification that this is an ancient construction. It might be but I would suspect it is more modern. You might want to check that. Foerster has a long history of faulty claims or just being wrong.

The object resembles an Islamic Minbar.

en.wikipedia.org...

hagiasophiaturkey.com...

You seem to be concerned about the abrasive. If this was an ancient piece and they didn't turn it they would use a glue/honey/resin to hold the abrasive in mixture allowing it to remain in place - messy and sloppy but it would work.

Lets reverse the question: can you provide evidence of a more mechanical aspect to AE stone working?

A new resource: Egyptology Books and Articles in PDF online

www.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk...

There are 5,000 hard to fine, expensive to buy pieces of material here. Old and new research - enjoy

originally posted by: Hanslune
a reply to: bluesfreak

Are your referring to the imaged item that Jeep3r put up?

Given the video is by Foerster I would not trust his identification that this is an ancient construction. It might be but I would suspect it is more modern. You might want to check that. Foerster has a long history of faulty claims or just being wrong.

The object resembles an Islamic Minbar.

en.wikipedia.org...

hagiasophiaturkey.com...

Like you, I'd like to see the provenance of the object before I waste any time on it.
The Copts had churches there, this could be something of theirs too.
I know it's not featured on websites about Archaeology on Elephantine, except on the sites of those chronically astonished purveyors of fringe beliefs.

Harte

Yes I was talking about the object that was so kindly uploaded by Jeep3r . Having trouble uploading pics, not sure why ..
You have cleverly not really addressed the points I raised regarding this object, and are now saying it might not be AE ? I thought it was assumed by Egyptologists that it was.
Bringing Foerster into my questions simply to use him as a means to not address my points is a cheap shot. Regardless of your opinion of him, it doesn’t in my mind detract from the accuracy and non-manual look of this object.
If it IS AE then you should be worried regarding the manual hypothesis, which is why ,I suggest, you didn’t really address my point regarding ‘resultant ‘ edges and the difficulty of core drilling those holes inside a recessed section : how do you manually core drill inside a recess using the coring method suggested? How do you turn the drill when it’s placed at the end of a 90 degree (half square)recess?
This isn’t plonking a core drill on top a piece of granite, getting two guys to stand above and using handles turn the core drill with some weight on it. That, my friend , is a precision piece of coring, done in a place where handles CAN’T TURN .

If it is ‘more modern’ as you surmise, I wonder perhaps, how ‘modern’ you think it is? The last 100-150 years ‘modern’? Because that’s what it would have to be to machined how it has been. Those resultant edges, the inside, the recesses the curved section at the top before the pyramid are not done by copper chisels or un-guided saws or pounding.
It’s no good simply turning my question back to me, I have come here as a machinist to ask the ‘experts’ . Most AE Granite work astounds most stonemasons . What about the symmetrical bust/face of Ramses at Luxor in granite? You want more evidence of technology? That takes some explaining . But wait, dolerite (softer than granite) pounders, bronze (softer than granite) chisels probably did it, no use for an abrasive saw there.....
a reply to: Hanslune