The Evidence is Cut in Stone: A Compelling Argument for Lost High Technology in Ancient Egypt

Ancient Origens ^ | August 2017 | Brien Forrester

[wildbill]

Most people know of the great construction achievements of the dynastic Egyptians such as the pyramids and temples of the Giza Plateau area as well as the Sphinx. Many books and videos show depictions of vast work forces hewing blocks of stone in the hot desert sun and carefully setting them into place. However, some of these amazing works could simply not have been made by these people during the time frame that we call dynastic Egypt.

Up until the 7th century BC there was very little iron present in Egypt, as this material only became commonly used once the Assyrians invaded at that time; in fact, the ancient Egyptians regarded iron as an impure metal associated with Seth, the spirit of evil who according to Egyptian tradition governed the central deserts of Africa. A few examples of meteoric iron have been found which predate the Assyrians, but this consists largely of small ornamental beads.

[Alas Babylon!]

What is so exasperating is so many people here saying this couldn’t be done, or that is impossible, or we can’t even do that today—yet there it is!

It WAS done.

I don’t think any of us can definitively say ONLY a modern computer-driven laser could have cut that stone. That is an assumption on someone’s part.

There in fact may be many primitive methods to do what is seen here we don’t know about.

How else can you explain them?

[wildbill]

I haven’t read much about the dimensions of the boxes vs. the dimensions of the hallway. I know there is one in the middle of one hall, left there without finishing up in a niche for some reason. Perhaps they made it too big—or just got tired of hammering, eh?

[SunkenCiv]

Abandonment probably occurred due to a military or other national crisis. Contrary to the modern agitprop, ancient Egypt was not politically stable for thousands of years. Still isn't.

[Openurmind]

I agree, The thing that hangs me up is it would just have to be mirrors. The amount of time it would take to do that amount of work would have left at least a 1/4” of accumulated soot if any available flame methods of illumination at that time were used, low soot or not just because of the amount of time it would have taken it would have accumulated at least some.

Had to be mirrors or some other unknown “method”. :)

[imardmd1]

Yes, bert, as a PhD-degreed sicientist in ceramics and glass, I'm aware of that, but it's good that you brought it out for the layman. And anyone who has observed the use of equipment in concrete roadway finishing and repair will remember that water-cooled wearable resin-bonded carbide or diamond stone saws can slot concrete very quickly and efficiently. But of course, all of this depends on powerful motors which concentrate energy, and such power sources were not known to be available to stone-cutters before the 20th century.

Where the imagination must be allowed to play is in the area of acoustic harmonics, which can cause sound energy (drums? air-driven whistles?) to concentrate and focus great amounts of acoustic energy to be used within a narrow area.

Or on the other hand, the mechanical energy of animals turning a wheel to be coupled with pulleys for an essentially tireless supply of rotary energy fo turning a disc or for lateral back-and-forth oscillation of a slurry-activating blade.

Within their purview, the professional diggers need to be thinking outside the box, so to speak. (pun for those who read the article)

As far as moving and lifting large and heavy objects (pyramid blocks, Stonehenge pillars) with simple tools, that has all been thought out and is readily available to the inquirer.

[catnipman]

i found this chiseled onto a little stone table i dug up in my backyard the other day, and it definitely proves that advanced civilizations were here before us ...

[Big Red Badger]

Chemistry,
Stone and
Evaporate.
.
Okay,i’ll have
A Beer!

[SunkenCiv]

Your estimate of the soot seems far too high; probably your estimate of the time needed to carve out those KV tombs for example; regardless, if there were a visible accumulation, moisture and old father time would have delivered almost all of it onto the floor, along with the erosional deposits and flaked off paint, bits of mummy, that kind of thing. And that's assuming the last task of the workmen wasn't cleaning off any accumulated soot as they left the tomb.

[GingisK]

We can do anything with the power tools of today. We can even put signatures in LEDs on semiconductor substrates. That is beyond merely polishing any substance or making things at the visible level.

[GingisK]

Nonsense. We can measure the diameter or molecules. That allows for making things to that scale.

[SunkenCiv]

Prof. Joseph Davidovits presented in july 2019, at the 11th annual Geopolymer Camp meeting at Saint-Quentin, France, his keynote on the "State of the geopolymer R. & D. 2019”. It is a review on what happened in 2018 and the first semester of 2019 on geopolymer science and applications. In his keynote, he developed following topics:

• Celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Geopolymer Institute, 1979 - 2019
• Celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Geopolymer Camp, 2009 - 2019
• List of 35 real world geopolymer commercial applications
• Ancient Geopolymers in South-American Monuments, Pumapunku/Tiwanaku, Lake Titicaca, Bolivia.
• 3 Research topics:
  • Creating standards for Geopolymers (example of testing the reactivity of metakaolin)
  • Geopolymer Material for Radioactive waste, Particules and gaz pollution
  • Forget about Fly Ash, go with Ferro-sialate geopolymer concrete!

State of the Geopolymer R&D 2019 | Geopolymer Institute | Published on July 16, 2019

[GingisK]

Have you ever considered that the maker of those movies might not know what he is talking about? I used to hang out with “New Age Experts” in a lot of things. They are all quite ignorant of physics and chemistry.

[roadcat]

It would better for them to say they don't know how to duplicate it today, not that it couldn't be done (because it WAS)--they don't know--is the final answer.

Ah, but the question posed was "Name one artifact that we couldn’t produce."

You're moving the goalposts. These artifacts can't be produced today with our technology. Of course you can begin a Manhattan-project endeavor if your pockets are deep enough for the billions or trillions of dollars required in order to duplicate artifacts of the type that can't be figured out now. Just try to do it today. Without saying it is possible but we don't currently know how. Of course it was done millennia ago and they exist. That isn't the question. The question is how did the ancients get it done, and what tools did they possess to get it done.

[roadcat]

I don’t think any of us can definitively say ONLY a modern computer-driven laser could have cut that stone. That is an assumption on someone’s part.

I don't think anyone here said that, not at all. I didn't. You're misconstruing comments. Maybe there are many hi-tech methods that were used that we don't understand. Maybe high-pressure water jets (which I've used to cut metal sheets for fabricating electronics equipment).

[roadcat]

Have you ever considered that the maker of those movies might not know what he is talking about?

All the time. I'm skeptical of everything I hear or read, even stuff posted here on FR. (But FR is far more believable than Congressional hearings...)

[blueplum]

maybe part of the problem is viewing ancient Egyptians as Egyptian.

Consider that Tut’s remains were found encased in a one-piece carved block of red quartzite (iirc his dad’s was of a pure-white quartzite or maybe it was granddaddy.) Quartzite isn’t a material that can be carved easily. It sparks, repels hammer strikes, and when struck it will shed very sharp shards, so eye and body protection would have been essential for the carvers. It’s considered a powerful stone, partly because of hematite content which was considered auspicious, partly because it’s not a stone that degrades down to ‘dirt’, and because quartzite exhibits ‘metamorphism’. It incorporates any sandstone and iron into itself, either structuring around it or, under heat and pressure, changing the physical composition of the sandstone; it can grow itself. Quartzite is one of the most durable and chemically-resistant stones to be found but not so great for tool-making or precision cutting. Red quartzite was found in mountainous China, but not in ancient Egypt, so maybe the Chinese had a larger role in ancient Egypt than we think? At the very least, one must wonder how such a large casing was carved with such precision from a single huge block of a quartz that simply isn’t favorable to being carved at all. Or why such a casing material was chosen in the first place. Or if the legacy of ancient Chinese women as empowered leaders, buried with grave goods just like the men, rubbed off on the ancient Egyptians?

https://tutankkhamun.weebly.com/the-mummy.html

[Oatka]

Basically, I was just asking if anybody had taken measurements to see if there were variations that implied hand-tooling. They seemed to have measured just about everything else. The precision just reminded me of someone with a router carving the images.

There in fact may be many primitive methods to do what is seen here we don’t know about.

I had to laugh at how deftly Christopher Dunn got around a question/statement by Giorgio Tsoukalos. They were looking at some ancient artifact that looked machined and Tsoukalos tried to get Dunn to agree that it was made by aliens. Dunn replied that "It looks to be fashioned by machinery we have not yet discovered". That's what I believe.

We are told that homo sapiens has been on earth for at least 200,000 years, and that they had the same brain as we do today. That leads me to believe that higher civilization have existed and were wiped out in cosmic disasters. If 95% of humanity was killed today, how long would it take the survivors to come back to our present stage?

[TXnMA]

"Such work cannot be done with stone chisels."

Such work can be done by pecking to near-net shape with a slightly harder stone -- then planing by abrading with a similar stone, with quartz sand as an abrasive -- to smooth and flatten the surface, while removing the micro-fractured surface from the pecking..

Native Americans made many finely-finished ground stone artifacts that way.

[Bob Ireland]

The article mentions engineer and expert machinist Christopher Dunn, author of Lost Technologies of Ancient Egypt: Advanced Engineering in the Temples of the Pharaohs. I have his book and some videos with Dunn, a fascinating character with some provocative ideas.

He definitely believes some sort of power equipment was sometimes used. He has done scale graphics of stone carvings such as the large Ramses statues and demonstrated that dividing the faces in half and folding the graphic over on itself the two sides matched perfectly such as we would do today but with computer controlled machinery.

Flinders Petrie recorded a stone he claimed had to have been 'grooved' with a saw of some kind

but as far as I know no followup was ever done.

Puma Punku in Peru has grooved stones, some with equally spaced holes drilled right through from inside the grooves. Best to forget all that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumapunku

[Jeff Chandler]

https://www.geopolymer.org/archaeology/pyramids/