[Bob Ireland]

***Power tools? Odd that there's no sign of ancient power generation, literally anywhere, apart from the Baghdad battery, and the metal power tools have not survived anywhere, not even in a picture on a tomb wall...***

It is certainly an enigma; of course it presupposes that they would have used the same technology that we use, and since by evolution we are light years ahead of them they could not know a technology that we have not discovered. BUT also, when I look at Gobekli Tepe, perhaps Machu Picchu and such, I sometimes wonder if they had total recall {of course that is too high a brain function for primitives.}

I don't remember if it was Petrie or Dunn or whoever who says they found slit trenches on the Giza Plateau where large blades {of what?} or thin wheels might have rotated for cutting or grinding or whatever - powered by oxen??? Obviously just speculation.

***Dunn's just full of it.***

:^D See, I said he was provocative. Wun and Dunn.

***Joseph Davidovits claims that he has found "organic matter in volcanic rock", which is, by nature, impossible

...just some unknown technology -- or Ancient Aliens.

{{I'll check out that link ... looks over my head!}}

[GingisK]

The wall paintings manage to show every facet of Egyptian life except the use of power tools. Maybe they didn’t think those things were noteworthy. On the other hand, maybe they didn’t have exotic tools after all, just craftsmen who worked on something for a lifetime.

[SunkenCiv]

One of the problems people have is that these drill holes and cuts have never been dated (cosmic ray exposure dating might work for some of them). The most likely explanation for modern-looking damage (because by and large, the holes and cuts don't appear to be original to the work) is that the damage *is* modern (iow, sometime in the past few hundred years). We don't have surveillance vids to rely on, and we know that, for example, in the MIddle Ages some muzzie ruler of Egypt tried to dismantle the pyramids of Giza, and that even in pharaonic times and ever since the local gentry (of whatever ethnic group) has been trying to find hidden treasure. Even to the current day the "guards" and "watchmen" apparently left in charge for the security of Egyptian monuments will let a visitor go almost anywhere and do almost anything as long as the money's right and no one in authority is around to catch someone in the act.