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Using AI to further debunk ancient Egyptians used technologies to drill granite far beyond the current level.

stevevw

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No .. it doesn't.
The GPT-4o analysis, taken from the image of original sample, demonstrates the large differences in the resulting core pattern between our modern way of drilling cores and manual methods. The pattern falls well into the category of using imprecise mechanical apparatus/abrasion techniques.

Petrie and Dunn's envisioning what they perceived as being a spiral pattern, is more likely caused by their over-active imaginations, rather than what is evidenced. Their measurement method was sloppy....
So your saying one of the worlds best Egyptologists who also had archeological and engineering background enaged in sloppy work. Have you even read his papers on this. He has extensive and detailed observations and measurements.

In fact he had to check and recheck his findings as it provoked such a reaction to prove his position. But no one disputed his observations and measurements. It was the implications of ancient advanced tech that scientists at the time objected to.

I suggest if we are to be fair about looking at all the evidence then we start with Petries as he was the first and unlike most other objectors spent 7 years in direct observation of not just core 7 but all the cores. Which puts him in a much better position that any critic.

Scientific excavation methods​

Flinders Petrie's painstaking recording and study of artefacts set new standards in archaeology. He wrote: "I believe the true line of research lies in the noting and comparison of the smallest details."
What makes that 'strange'?
Well because its usually the other way around. We were primitive cavemen, then hunter gatherers, then gradually increased in skill and knowledge until today. Thats why we call certain artifacts like say the Antikythera mechanism an out of place artifact. Thats why some of these ancient works are regarded as out of place because they don't fit what the evidence was showing. Like Gobekli Tepe.
I mean, we don't see enormous pyramids being built out of huge stone blocks thesedays, or clocks made from wood, or say the mechancal hand-drills I gew up with as a kid being used in constructions, now do we?
Skills rapidly become archaic (and extinct) whenever the time/effort required to perfect them exceeds the time/effort to achieve similar end results using more modern methods and techniques. This is a consistent phenomenon which accompanies human behaviour throughout history.
I have no disagreement with this. But I will say with your example of the hand drills when you were a kid compared to todays ones. The out of place tech and knowledge we see early in the time line would be like finding todays drill back then and then finding the old hand drill later. So its the other way around and thats why this is so amazing and interesting I think.
Also the Stone Age went for an extremely long time in comparison with the timespan of metallic mechanization. There was plenty of time for Stone Agers to perfect stone-working to the degree we see in megalithic works. (Not to mention the pressures those folk were under to survive nature (and eachother).
I disagree with the traditional time line. I don't think it followed a linear pattern nor was based on any particular behaviour or thinking. Like the traditional one that says cultivation came first which brought people together and out of this came socialisation, culture and religion.

I think religion or culture was also a motivation for why people came together and it is out of this came the need for organisation such as agriculture. So the level of skill and knowledge was not linear in that agriculture came first. People were much more skilled and knowledgable well before agriculture.
Those were obviously huge motivators for them to go to the extremes for which they then left evidence behind, demonstrating their struggles against those pressures).
Actually the evidence shows that the only motivation was belief and more about culture. Their worldview was so steeped in belief of other worldly aspects that they were willing to build these megaliths and precision works to their gods or spirits or whatever it was they thought was beyond their physical world.

Astrology plays a big part as well and they seem to be well versed in the star and planet movements. But this was attached to their beliefs. So it may have been like some paganistic belief about nature and animals being gods or spirits. But its the skill and knowledge in knowing this so early on well before the development of agriculture.
Meh .. if copper was useful and valuable, it could've easily been melted down and used for other things ..
Unconvincing argument.
Just like its an unconvincing arguement that there was not alternative tools or mechanisms use which better fits the evidence. They could have all been lost to time, melted down or destroyed before the people came along who found them.
 
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stevevw

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The is this one of your typical about faces which is frankly getting rather tiresome.
No I have not did an about face. Show me where I have done this. I said that this whole debate has been going on for decades and still neither side can claim 100% proof. I have mentioned this several times throughout the other thread. I have not backed down from the evidence I have presented.

But if you find it tiresome then just don't reply.
Why don’t you try reading and comprehending what I stated for once, the issue is about the video I posted and the close up comparisons with Petrie’s sample which you implied are fraudulent.
I did reply and you ignored it with a fallacy. I said the findings are inconclusive because we have several different results and none are consistent and repeated science by independent tests. Your claiming and standing on one piece of evidence which is an image you linked without any reference. Any vigelant researcher would reject this as foolproof evidence because its weak.

I said other researchers have been caught fudging things so I am skeptical of an image without any reference or context. And I later found I was justfied as the very same article that your image appears also includes the methods and other results which show inconsistent testing methods and findings.

Some experiements were done with split copper pipes of varying types as opposed to say Stock's experiement using an uncut pipe. There were also different abrasives. Primarily most tests were done with sand/quartz and corundum and water as the abrasive.

So which result is the correct one. We have several different results. Most look nothing like Petrie's core 7 and look more like other experiments where the results were more like smooth abrasions and light horizontal strirations as in the Dunns and the 1983 paper.

The one that does look anything like Petries core 7 and I assume your pic (5th below) looks different as well, very uniform and no where near as deep spiral grooves. It seems the cut in the tube may be causing the light and uniform horizontal strirations.

1733208586775.png

1733208926403.png


1733209488270.png


1733209589245.png


Then we have the other results from experiments done.

The the Russian video Scientists against Myths

1733210979310.png

Stocks experiment in the PBS Nova special.

1733210809911.png


From the 1983 tests by Leonard Gorelick and A. John Gwinnett

1733211770220.png

7d. The abrasive used was diamond. A finding similar to that produced by both emery and corundum is evident. It would be of interest to determine what pattern would be produced by beryl and topaz whose Mohs hardness is 8.

Dunns tests
1733211509111.png


Another independent test using copper pipe and quartz sand as the abrasive

1733212074723.png


So you tell me which is the correct result. If anything the majority show a smooth finish with some light striraions which is what we would expect from abrasing and wearing down the granite.

The strirations which are inconsistent for the most part seem to be the result of how the copper pipe is cut and placed in the hole and what method used. But this is more a wear mark than a cutting into the granite mark. Which makes sense as copper and sand abrasive cannot cut into granite.

I will leave this part of the thread seperate as I think it needs to be addressed seperately.

By the way I have all the links to the images above and can cite them if you want. I did in the last thread so they are also there. BUt because most are from video's that refer to the tests llike Stocks experiment there would have been too many video's loaded up taking up the space as well as all the pics.
 

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sjastro

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No I have not did an about face. Show me where I have done this. I said that this whole debate has been going on for decades and still neither side can claim 100% proof. I have mentioned this several times throughout the other thread. I have not backed down from the evidence I have presented.

But if you find it tiresome then just don't reply.

I did reply and you ignored it with a fallacy. I said the findings are inconclusive because we have several different results and none are consistent and repeated science by independent tests. Your claiming and standing on one piece of evidence which is an image you linked without any reference. Any vigelant researcher would reject this as foolproof evidence because its weak.

I said other researchers have been caught fudging things so I am skeptical of an image without any reference or context. And I later found I was justfied as the very same article that your image appears also includes the methods and other results which show inconsistent testing methods and findings.

Some experiements were done with split copper pipes of varying types as opposed to say Stock's experiement using an uncut pipe. There were also different abrasives. Primarily most tests were done with sand/quartz and corundum and water as the abrasive.

So which result is the correct one. We have several different results. Most look nothing like Petrie's core 7 and look more like other experiments where the results were more like smooth abrasions and light horizontal strirations as in the Dunns and the 1983 paper.

The one that does look anything like Petries core 7 and I assume your pic (5th below) looks different as well, very uniform and no where near as deep spiral grooves. It seems the cut in the tube may be causing the light and uniform horizontal strirations.

View attachment 357962
View attachment 357963

View attachment 357970

View attachment 357971

Then we have the other results from experiments done.

The the Russian video Scientists against Myths

View attachment 357981

Stocks experiment in the PBS Nova special.

View attachment 357980

From the 1983 tests by Leonard Gorelick and A. John Gwinnett

View attachment 357986
7d. The abrasive used was diamond. A finding similar to that produced by both emery and corundum is evident. It would be of interest to determine what pattern would be produced by beryl and topaz whose Mohs hardness is 8.

Dunns tests
View attachment 357984

Another independent test using copper pipe and quartz sand as the abrasive

View attachment 357987

So you tell me which is the correct result. If anything the majority show a smooth finish with some light striraions which is what we would expect from abrasing and wearing down the granite.

The strirations which are inconsistent for the most part seem to be the result of how the copper pipe is cut and placed in the hole and what method used. But this is more a wear mark than a cutting into the granite mark. Which makes sense as copper and sand abrasive cannot cut into granite.

I will leave this part of the thread seperate as I think it needs to be addressed seperately.

By the way I have all the links to the images above and can cite them if you want. I did in the last thread so they are also there. BUt because most are from video's that refer to the tests llike Stocks experiment there would have been too many video's loaded up taking up the space as well as all the pics.
It's ironical you ignored to respond to the final paragraph in my post which is repeated here to refute your incoherent ramblings.

"You are in complete denial mode, having been shown videos of people cutting through granite using copper saws and abrasive, drilling holes through granite using copper tube and abrasives producing similar patterns to Petrie’s sample. There was even evidence of copper tube and abrasives in partially drilled limestone which you ridiculously hand waved away by suggesting the Egyptians used primitive technologies on softer stone and advanced technologies way beyond current levels for granite."

This thread is about the analysis of Petrie's No. 7 sample and for the reasons given is further evidence the variable pitch is consistent with the use copper tubes, abrasives and bow drives and not the nonsense conjured up by Dunn.
 
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stevevw

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Do you realize this link bags Dunn’s hypothesis and is yet another example of your contradiction of championing Dunn while coming up with a link which opposes it?
Actually he agrees with Dunns findings. He just disagrees with Dunn's hypothesis for what caused the fast feed rate. Dunn hypothesied it may be somethink like a jack hammer or sonic vibration. The author of the article is prosing some chemical basis that sofyened the granite to make it easier and faster to cut.
This one is equally nonsensical as pure solid hydroxides namely NaOH and KOH needed to make concentrated alkali solutions require technologies which the Egyptians did not possess.
Various ideas have been proposed to fit the signatures in the stone that in some examples look like it has been softened by some process of chemical reactions. Another idea proposed is softening or weakening stone with electrical currents and electrodes.

There is some evidence that stones may have been softened and react together. For example certain sones like limestone is a conductor of electrical currents as opposed to granite. Limestone has been known to weaken granite. Many Egytian works are a combination of limestone, basalt and granite where you can see the deterioration of the basalt. Other stones look softened.

Take a look at the top face of this stone wall layer from Sacsayhuamán where the top face of the stones looks like it was plasticine and molded to the underside of the stones that were on top.

I don't think someone sat there rubbing away stone to make each block interfaces match perfectly by continually going back and forth gradually mating each surface. For one some of the stones are 100 tons. Also many of the stones are vitrified and have a glassy finish which is a sign the stone was melted.

But I am not saying this is the case. Rather its a possibility that should not be shut down and dismissed as psuedoscience because there is some evidence and it needs to be addressed but more research needs to be done. Just use your own eyes to see what the evidence says.


1733221034203.png


Here are other signatures that point to stone softening.

1733221541346.png


1733222380980.png


1733222568759.png


1733221759592.png



Plasma Destruction of Antecedent Egyptians


There is also no evidence of any form of chemical etching in Petrie’s core no.7 sample only striations produced by mechanical action.
I am not saying that. there is evidence but that we should not just discount it out of hand under further investigation.
You are in complete denial mode, having been shown videos of people cutting through granite using copper saws and abrasive, drilling holes through granite using copper tube and abrasives producing similar patterns to Petrie’s sample.
No I just showed you its not similar and there are many different results. That you say this shows you are doiung exactly what you accuse me of doing.
There was even evidence of copper tube and abrasives in partially drilled limestone which you ridiculously hand waved away by suggesting the Egyptians used primitive technologies on softer stone and advanced technologies way beyond current levels for granite.
Yes thats exactly what I am saying. Show me an experiment where that particular bow drill that made that hole in softer limestone doing the same in the hardest of stones and cutting through quartz just as easily as feldspar.

There is evidence for many cultures besides Egypt using bow drills the exact same as in Egypt and they come later. We have absolutely no bow drills from the early and pre-dynastic Egyptians.

It is well acknowledged and seen within the signatures of the rocks and the tools in the records that there appears to be 2 levels of works going on. The megaliths and precisions and advanced tech works in the hardest stones and the less quality works that seem to honor and copy the ealier inferior works in softer stones.
 
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stevevw

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It's ironical you ignored to respond to the final paragraph in my post which is repeated here to refute your incoherent ramblings.
Incoherent ramblings. Do you honestly thing they were all just ramblings and nothing I said was worth considering. I don't think your are debating in good faith that you say absolutely nothing about what I just linked. Not even a reason arguement as to why its wrong. Just a complete dismissal out of hand and a logical fallacy to avoid the evidence I linked.
"You are in complete denial mode, having been shown videos of people cutting through granite using copper saws and abrasive, drilling holes through granite using copper tube and abrasives producing similar patterns to Petrie’s sample. There was even evidence of copper tube and abrasives in partially drilled limestone which you ridiculously hand waved away by suggesting the Egyptians used primitive technologies on softer stone and advanced technologies way beyond current levels for granite."
I did address this but you did not look. Just to clarify are we talking about the video with the Russian scientists doing the drilling experiments. If yes I did address this here

The results from the Russian video Scientists against Myths

1733210979310.png

1733225463582.png


This is the results from these experiment which shows that the core is completely different to your pic from the other experiment and more importantly Petrie's core 7. Believe it or not thats the Russian's finger tips when they were sitting on the bench discussing their findings.

Notice there are not consistent lines or faint lines with large patches where the lines are missing unlike Petrie's core. They are also not spiral. Almost a horizontal nick on the surface from the copper pipe end. But certainly not biting into the granite and cutting through the quartz easily like on core 7.

This backs my claim that so far all the evidence is inconsistent and not very good science and therefore no absolute claims like your making are justified.
This thread is about the analysis of Petrie's No. 7 sample and for the reasons given is further evidence the variable pitch is consistent with the use copper tubes, abrasives and bow drives and not the nonsense conjured up by Dunn.
Dunn is only one of several different findings and hypothesis. You have no right to make out Dunns findings are nonesense. He backed Petries findings and this has also been backed by other independent analysis which I linked. This shows that the groove was spiral, cut deep into the granite, cut through quartz as easily as fledspar and cut quickly into the granite as though by fixed points harder than granite.

A functional analysis of the drilling of a granite sarcophagus lid from the Old Kingdom period has begun to suggest resolutions to an important scholarly controversy between Petrie and Lucas, and has produced some preliminary insights into the hitherto speculative technology used. These are: 1) loose, dry abrasives (except diamond) did not produce concentric lines; 2) fixed abrasives or those in a watery slurry or a lubricant such as olive oil did produce concentric cutting lines; 3) corundum and diamond cannot be ruled out as not having been used to drill granite.
Expedition Magazine | Ancient Egyptian Stone-Drilling


Reading Tool Marks on Egyptian Stone Sculpture
This systematic recording of tool marks also generates a number of new questions, and there are still some tool marks that cannot yet be explained by existing scholarship. Are there, as Stocks suggests, tools that are completely missing from the archaeological record? Maybe points made from hard minerals like corundum, microcrystalline varieties of quartz or other gemstones could be embedded in another material like copper or wood and used as a graver.
Reading Tool Marks on Egyptian Stone Sculpture - Rivista del Museo Egizio

Like I said there is no conclusive evidence either way. I am willing to consider all possibilities. But it seems you are claiming an absolute and the truth for this matter by not even acknowledging the evidence I have put forth. Or even explained how its wrong. Why would two independent findings support the possibility of a fixed cutting point like diamond or corundum causing the grooves.

Why is there such inconsistency in the findings from all the tests. Surely you can be claiming the truth based on one finding in among many different ones who all claim the truth.
 
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SelfSim

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@stevevw's arguments on ancient technologies rank right up there with RFK's laughable conspiracy theories on medical science.

Why is it that largely uninformed people, (in general), seem to think its ok to disrupt hundreds of thousands (milliions) of hours of painstaking, meticulous research and working conclusions guided by real evidence at hand, with the notion of: "I, alone, have a better (but incoherent) idea"?

I mean, do people think that real scientific thinkers don't have to deal with their own incoherent ideas, albeit in a more disciplined and thereby a more practical and useful way?

Science is largely about forming views about where to look next, and for what.
Why would anyone go on some kind of scavenger-hunt, rabidly chasing imagined, fantasy-based 'advanced' technologies from the ancient past, as the alternative? :scratch:

The Antikythera mechanism popped out of the blue, but no-one is suggesting it wasn't produced by someone who was guided by their own highly disciplined thinking, about sub-technologies already used in other areas.
 
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sjastro

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Actually he agrees with Dunns findings. He just disagrees with Dunn's hypothesis for what caused the fast feed rate. Dunn hypothesied it may be somethink like a jack hammer or sonic vibration. The author of the article is prosing some chemical basis that sofyened the granite to make it easier and faster to cut.

Various ideas have been proposed to fit the signatures in the stone that in some examples look like it has been softened by some process of chemical reactions. Another idea proposed is softening or weakening stone with electrical currents and electrodes.

There is some evidence that stones may have been softened and react together. For example certain sones like limestone is a conductor of electrical currents as opposed to granite. Limestone has been known to weaken granite. Many Egytian works are a combination of limestone, basalt and granite where you can see the deterioration of the basalt. Other stones look softened.

Take a look at the top face of this stone wall layer from Sacsayhuamán where the top face of the stones looks like it was plasticine and molded to the underside of the stones that were on top.

I don't think someone sat there rubbing away stone to make each block interfaces match perfectly by continually going back and forth gradually mating each surface. For one some of the stones are 100 tons. Also many of the stones are vitrified and have a glassy finish which is a sign the stone was melted.

But I am not saying this is the case. Rather its a possibility that should not be shut down and dismissed as psuedoscience because there is some evidence and it needs to be addressed but more research needs to be done. Just use your own eyes to see what the evidence says.


View attachment 357990

Here are other signatures that point to stone softening.

View attachment 357992

View attachment 357994

View attachment 357995

View attachment 357993


Plasma Destruction of Antecedent Egyptians



I am not saying that. there is evidence but that we should not just discount it out of hand under further investigation.

No I just showed you its not similar and there are many different results. That you say this shows you are doiung exactly what you accuse me of doing.

Yes thats exactly what I am saying. Show me an experiment where that particular bow drill that made that hole in softer limestone doing the same in the hardest of stones and cutting through quartz just as easily as feldspar.

There is evidence for many cultures besides Egypt using bow drills the exact same as in Egypt and they come later. We have absolutely no bow drills from the early and pre-dynastic Egyptians.

It is well acknowledged and seen within the signatures of the rocks and the tools in the records that there appears to be 2 levels of works going on. The megaliths and precisions and advanced tech works in the hardest stones and the less quality works that seem to honor and copy the ealier inferior works in softer stones.
More incoherent ramblings.

Here are three more to the list.
(1) "Actually he agrees with Dunns findings."
“He” argues that Dunn is wrong because a chemical treatment can explain the high feed rate. Your denial mode has now degenerated into total delusion and you wonder why I question your reading comprehension skills.

(2) "I am not saying that."
This seems to be a general theme, I’m the one making the statements not you.
You are now so confused you don’t understand who said what.

(3) "Show me an experiment where that particular bow drill that made that hole in softer limestone doing the same in the hardest of stones and cutting through quartz just as easily as feldspar."
This is nonsense and you keep avoiding the question why would the Egyptians use primitive tools to drill through limestone and technology well beyond current levels to drill through granite?
Go back into this thread and look at the video which shows a flywheel, copper tube and on further investigation corundum instead of sand as the abrasive which the Egyptians imported.

Depending on the material being drilled they used a bow drive or flywheel as the evidence shows.

painting.png
 
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sjastro

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Incoherent ramblings. Do you honestly thing they were all just ramblings and nothing I said was worth considering. I don't think your are debating in good faith that you say absolutely nothing about what I just linked. Not even a reason arguement as to why its wrong. Just a complete dismissal out of hand and a logical fallacy to avoid the evidence I linked.

I did address this but you did not look. Just to clarify are we talking about the video with the Russian scientists doing the drilling experiments. If yes I did address this here

The results from the Russian video Scientists against Myths

1733210979310.png

View attachment 357996

This is the results from these experiment which shows that the core is completely different to your pic from the other experiment and more importantly Petrie's core 7. Believe it or not thats the Russian's finger tips when they were sitting on the bench discussing their findings.

Notice there are not consistent lines or faint lines with large patches where the lines are missing unlike Petrie's core. They are also not spiral. Almost a horizontal nick on the surface from the copper pipe end. But certainly not biting into the granite and cutting through the quartz easily like on core 7.

This backs my claim that so far all the evidence is inconsistent and not very good science and therefore no absolute claims like your making are justified.

Dunn is only one of several different findings and hypothesis. You have no right to make out Dunns findings are nonesense. He backed Petries findings and this has also been backed by other independent analysis which I linked. This shows that the groove was spiral, cut deep into the granite, cut through quartz as easily as fledspar and cut quickly into the granite as though by fixed points harder than granite.

A functional analysis of the drilling of a granite sarcophagus lid from the Old Kingdom period has begun to suggest resolutions to an important scholarly controversy between Petrie and Lucas, and has produced some preliminary insights into the hitherto speculative technology used. These are: 1) loose, dry abrasives (except diamond) did not produce concentric lines; 2) fixed abrasives or those in a watery slurry or a lubricant such as olive oil did produce concentric cutting lines; 3) corundum and diamond cannot be ruled out as not having been used to drill granite.
Expedition Magazine | Ancient Egyptian Stone-Drilling


Reading Tool Marks on Egyptian Stone Sculpture
This systematic recording of tool marks also generates a number of new questions, and there are still some tool marks that cannot yet be explained by existing scholarship. Are there, as Stocks suggests, tools that are completely missing from the archaeological record? Maybe points made from hard minerals like corundum, microcrystalline varieties of quartz or other gemstones could be embedded in another material like copper or wood and used as a graver.
Reading Tool Marks on Egyptian Stone Sculpture - Rivista del Museo Egizio

Like I said there is no conclusive evidence either way. I am willing to consider all possibilities. But it seems you are claiming an absolute and the truth for this matter by not even acknowledging the evidence I have put forth. Or even explained how its wrong. Why would two independent findings support the possibility of a fixed cutting point like diamond or corundum causing the grooves.

Why is there such inconsistency in the findings from all the tests. Surely you can be claiming the truth based on one finding in among many different ones who all claim the truth.
Are you that naive to conclude the Petrie sample is a baseline for comparison when the variable pitch destroys the argument technology beyond our own was used, or zero evidence of chemical etching which you have ridiculously asserted as agreeing with Dunn’s findings?

Furthermore, given the number of variables involved such as the type and size of abrasive used, the variation in RPMs, the degree of copper tool wear and the skill level of the operator, it is not surprising the Petrie sample is not duplicated.

Then there is your nonsensical concept of evidence which is based on personal opinion and not on real evidence for the existence of advanced tooling or chemical treatments.
Anyone with a basic knowledge of science and engineering can readily discount the pseudoscience nonsense served up by Dunn and others.
Your opinions are based on wilful ignorance.
 
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SelfSim

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...
Furthermore, given the number of variables involved such as the type and size of abrasive used, the variation in RPMs, the degree of copper tool wear and the skill level of the operator, it is not surprising the Petrie sample is not duplicated.
Also let's not forget to mention:
i) the overwhelming human manpower which could easily be brought to bear on the problem .. by people likely motivated by fears of death (or worse);
ii) the possible effects of accidental impurities, (or deliberately selected alloys), produced during the manufacture of copper, having the effect of increasing the hardness of certain toolbits. A small number of conscripted artisans may well have been aware of this before full scale production of such metals became mainstream.
iii) there is/was a lot of scope for enhanced physical toolbit design too, in order to maximise its success;
iv) the replenishment rate of the abrasive/slurry may also have been selected to optimise drilling durations, too;
v) variations in the bow design and its bearing components to improve drilling success, etc.

None of those would have required 'advanced technologies beyond .. {etc}' and would likely not have been recorded in depictions etc of the time.
 
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sjastro

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Also let's not forget to mention:
i) the overwhelming human manpower which could easily be brought to bear on the problem .. by people likely motivated by fears of death (or worse);
ii) the possible effects of accidental impurities, (or deliberately selected alloys), produced during the manufacture of copper, having the effect of increasing the hardness of certain toolbits. A small number of conscripted artisans may well have been aware of this before full scale production of such metals became mainstream.
iii) there is/was a lot of scope for enhanced physical toolbit design too, in order to maximise its success;
iv) the replenishment rate of the abrasive/slurry may also have been selected to optimise drilling durations, too;
v) variations in the bow design and its bearing components to improve drilling success, etc.

None of those would have required 'advanced technologies beyond .. {etc}' and would likely not have been recorded in depictions etc of the time.
The other piece of evidence the Petrie sample was not cut with a diamond tipped tool is the presence of three pitches that have converged into one.

Converge.png

The only explanation is the displacement of abrasive particles during the drilling process which were not an integral part of the copper tool but added as slurry.
 
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Warden_of_the_Storm

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Also let's not forget to mention:
i) the overwhelming human manpower which could easily be brought to bear on the problem .. by people likely motivated by fears of death (or worse);
ii) the possible effects of accidental impurities, (or deliberately selected alloys), produced during the manufacture of copper, having the effect of increasing the hardness of certain toolbits. A small number of conscripted artisans may well have been aware of this before full scale production of such metals became mainstream.
iii) there is/was a lot of scope for enhanced physical toolbit design too, in order to maximise its success;
iv) the replenishment rate of the abrasive/slurry may also have been selected to optimise drilling durations, too;
v) variations in the bow design and its bearing components to improve drilling success, etc.

None of those would have required 'advanced technologies beyond .. {etc}' and would likely not have been recorded in depictions etc of the time.

Just a minor nitpick: the workers that built the pyramids were well paid labourers. Heck, the even went on strike over pay in circa 1158 BC.
 
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stevevw

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@stevevw's arguments on ancient technologies rank right up there with RFK's laughable conspiracy theories on medical science.

Why is it that largely uninformed people, (in general), seem to think its ok to disrupt hundreds of thousands (milliions) of hours of painstaking, meticulous research and working conclusions guided by real evidence at hand, with the notion of: "I, alone, have a better (but incoherent) idea"?
Another fallacy. The question could also be is why seemingly intelligent people even those with so called expertise can become so irrational themselves when the mere mention of advanced tech is mentioned like its a trigger of some sort.

Its a total misrepresentation to say that those proposing alternative explanations or just questioning the status quo are knuckleheads who are not backing their position with science. Many do have extensive science behind what they say. To say they don't is a gross misrepresentation.

The other thing to note which is very telling is that the small number who are claiming its all Woo are themselves engaging in psuedoscience by constantly creating logical fallacies one after the other and never stopping to engage in the actual content and evidence.

I reckon so far your side has done 90% fallacies and 10% actual discussion on content and evidence. The proof is in the pudding. While complaining about pushing bunk they push bunk lol.
I mean, do people think that real scientific thinkers don't have to deal with their own incoherent ideas, albeit in a more disciplined and thereby a more practical and useful way?

Science is largely about forming views about where to look next, and for what.
Why would anyone go on some kind of scavenger-hunt, rabidly chasing imagined, fantasy-based 'advanced' technologies from the ancient past, as the alternative?
Another logical fallacy often employed by the radical skeptics. Make out those questioning the status quo are promoting some unreal and mystical power. NOne of the people you mention like Dunn and Petrie are proposing anything Woo.

They are simply using science on the signatures in the stones and question how the current tools in the archeological records could have produced them.

In accumulating data on the artifacs themselves and examining the works and the signatures in the works they present evidence shoing that the current tools claimed could not have produced the results.

How the results were achieved is unknown and that is where the speculation comes in and none of those questioning the tech are proposing any idea as fact and they acknowledge that. Like you said science is about the evidence and then spectulating what may be the cause and then testing again and again until we can get closer to the truth.

But all I am seeing here is a big logical fallacy of trying to paint everyone that disagrees as a woo merchant without every showing that to be the case.
The Antikythera mechanism popped out of the blue, but no-one is suggesting it wasn't produced by someone who was guided by their own highly disciplined thinking, about sub-technologies already used in other areas.
Your missing the point. I cited this as an example of an out of place artifact that is more technical than we expected from that period. Which shows we do and can recognised more advanced tech when we find it.
 
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stevevw

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More incoherent ramblings.
I would appreciate it that you don't start with everything I say as being ramblings or delusion or anything like that until we go through this and determine if this is actually the case.

I keep correcting your misrepresentations but you keep on wwith the same demeaning language that another persons opinions are ramblings or delusions. Even if they are wrong or misinformed you don't tell people their opinions and beliefs are delusions. You explain perhaps why they are for which you have not done by the simple fact that I have knocked down you misrepresentations many times already.
Here are three more to the list.
(1) "Actually he agrees with Dunns findings."
“He” argues that Dunn is wrong because a chemical treatment can explain the high feed rate. Your denial mode has now degenerated into total delusion and you wonder why I question your reading comprehension skills.
You completely missed the important point. The fact that the author is proposing that the stone was softened to explain the fast feed rate shows that he agrees with Dunn on his findings that there was a fast feed rate.

Isn't that the big furore your going on about that Dunn was wrong about the fast feed rate.

They are only disagreeing on how that fast feed rate happened. Dunn says with some sort of sonic pulse like a hammer drill and the author claims its stone softening with chemicals which allows the drill to drill through the granite faster.

But I also find it ironic that you want to use someone promoting alchemy stone softening to disprove Dunn is promoting psuedoscience when your claiming not to use woo as your evidence.
(2) "I am not saying that."
This seems to be a general theme, I’m the one making the statements not you.
You are now so confused you don’t understand who said what.
Not confused at all. I think I have maintained consistency in navigating through all these logical fallacies. I spot them a mile away. The only reason keep clarifing that I am not promoting Woo or that the links I am providing are not promoting woo is because I have to due to the large number of ad hominems being made falsely make out everything said is woo lol.

Its actually you who are confused because of the fallacious thinking. You have created for yourself a cow web of mispresentations and you can't tell fact from fiction anymore.

Once again I come back to basic. Show me exactly where I have promoted anything psuedoscience. You tried with Dunn but I showed it was a misrepresentation. You had not even read his papers or writings on this and assumed it was all bunk. I showed you that several scientists are now agreeing. I showed you they have found electrodes in the great pyramid just as Dunn predicted. Isn't correct predictions good science.
(3) "Show me an experiment where that particular bow drill that made that hole in softer limestone doing the same in the hardest of stones and cutting through quartz just as easily as feldspar."
This is nonsense and you keep avoiding the question why would the Egyptians use primitive tools to drill through limestone and technology well beyond current levels to drill through granite?
Its not nonsense and a ligitimate observation. You can't apply the same tech used some 2 or 3,000 years later in a completely different stone as evidence. Its the wrong stone and time period for starters. When do we ever do that in science. Use a completely different time period as evidence for another time period.

We can then take the type of drill or saw or sled from the pic and apply it to these ancient megaliths and works to see if they also apply to works beyond that period.

Guess what they don't match and the primitive tools don't scale up to account for these precision and megalithic works fullstop. The small saw and bow drill in the pics cannot scale up. They are inadequate and we can't assume there's bigger versions because there are none in the archeological records nor painted examples on the walls.

I don't know how they did it. Thats the whole point and dilemma we have. We don't know how they did it. But they certainly didn't do it with the tools in the archeological records.

Its well acknowledged by many archeologists that we see two types of tech in the rocks. As though two completely different skills and knowledge sets were at work where one is with the megaliths and precision works in the hardest stone that come very early and the other is with less quality works in softer stone for the most part that come later.

You can't equate the two with the same culture. If the later culture is the same culture that made the earlier megaliths and precision works then whydid they then start to make less quality works. Even when repairing, adding extensions or something like Hiroglyphs later they are all inferior as though a completely different culture with a different level of skill and tech were working on the same peices.
Go back into this thread and look at the video which shows a flywheel, copper tube and on further investigation corundum instead of sand as the abrasive which the Egyptians imported.
I have looked at the video several times now and found other ones from the same guys Scientists against Myth. The name itself says a lot. Yes we see experiements with a weighted flywheel copper tube drill drilling out granite. They got the idea for the flywheel from the pic so of course its going to be the same.

But that does not prove the earlier ones like Petrie's core 7 were made this way. Look at all the cultures who had bow and flywheel drills. They all came around much later at the same time and most do not have granite cores. They all have softer stones and human knowledge was at this point. The same principle was used for fire making.

I showed you the results of that video where the signatures on the cores were not only different to Petries but different to other independent experiments and even their own. There are only light lines, strirations rather than deep cuts into the granite as though cut with a diamond or corundum as a fixed point or points. There was no spiral.

Only horizontal; strirations and light stratches or abrased sections which had not lines. Which is exactly what we would expect if the granite is being abrased and worn down by grinding with a sand, quartz sand or corundum and lubricants. Because there are not fixed points that will cause a single cut but a powery grit of varying grades which will sandpaper the walls.

The copper pipe will leave light lines depending on whether the pipe is cut or holed and the method where the pipe is rocking into the walls as it rotates and the bottom edge will fray leaving light horizontal lines. But certainly not spiral or deep as there is no fixed point of cutting and copper is way softer than granite.

This is the main dispute in the signature of the stone that the grooves are deep and spiral.

So far your side has presented several experiments and examples such as Stocks demonstration on the PBS Nova doco and the Russian scientists. There are also the 1983 findings and another 3 or 4 I have presented. All have varying results and none match Petries core number 7 good enough to delare victory.
Depending on the material being drilled they used a bow drive or flywheel as the evidence shows.
Yes and as you said depending on the stone. Why is it we find plenty of softer sones in the later works but the precision granite works stop.
Yes and as I said this comes later. The granite vases are at least 5,000 years old if not older. Found under the Stepped Pyramid which goes back at least 5,000 years.

You can't use a couple of blokes that look like they are having a casual afternoons work on a completely different stone in a completely different time period. Thats not science but assumption.

The logic would also follow if you are saying the flywheel drill proves all drill cores then the small saws depicted accounts for all the saw cuts that look machined. For which we can clearly see between the size of the saw and the massive and precision cuts it completely unreal and a denial of objective reality.
 
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stevevw

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1733329316420.png


This is ony 400 tons let alone up to 2000 tons. Thats 5 times the weight.

If the Egyptians did move these mega ton blocks then you would think they would have a memorial showing the feat. For context the depiction would be something like this as far as size compared to humans.

1733329730721.png


The one above the ground is around 1500 ton but the one in the ground is near 2000 tons.
 
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Warden_of_the_Storm

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View attachment 358098

This is ony 400 tons let alone up to 2000 tons. Thats 5 times the weight.

If the Egyptians did move these mega ton blocks then you would think they would have a memorial showing the feat. For context the depiction would be something like this as far as size compared to humans.

View attachment 358099

The one above the ground is around 1500 ton but the one in the ground is near 2000 tons.

There is artwork:
1733330025384.jpeg

Pedestal of the Obelisk of Theodosius I in Istanbul, showing the moving of the Obelisk.
This one is interesting since the obelisk was created during the reign of Thutmose III, who ruled from 1479 to 1425 BC, so this is a contemporary piece of work for sure and was done to commemorate and immortalize the construction of his obelisk.

There's also this:
1733330138477.jpeg

Modern reproduction but it's clearly ancient Egyptian.

1733330329543.jpeg

A wall painting from The Tomb of Tehuti-Hetep or Djehutihotep who lived around 1900 BC. Bit hard to see what's going on in the original, but luckily, we have:
1733330468536.jpeg

An artist's reproduction! Which shows them pulling the statue, that is roughly four times the height of a man (if we take the bits at the side as an attempt at scale) on a sled, and on the bottom right, we see men carrying buckets of water, which would be used to wet the sand which, if you know anything about sand, becomes much more solid and rigid when wet, allowing the sled that is carrying the statue to be moved. Obviously, it wouldn't be fast nor easy, but it was done.

And then, just for the sake of it, there's also these diagrams that were added to the Luxor Obelisk in Paris in 1889, contemporary to your oft-quoted favourite Egyptology, Flinders Petrie:
1733330809750.jpeg


So... yeah. Believe it or not, people have known for YEARS how the Egyptians moved obelisks and statues and other great big pieces of stone! It's no-one's fault but your own for not knowing this.
 
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SelfSim

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Just a minor nitpick: the workers that built the pyramids were well paid labourers. Heck, the even went on strike over pay in circa 1158 BC.
Hmm .. Ok .. I stand corrected. It seems evidence of slavery exists from as early as the old Kingdom (Sneferu, 26 BC) but there is a consensus based on archaelogical discoveries among Egyptologists, that the Great Pyramids were not built by slaves, but by farmers during flooding periods. (However, I will remain skeptical about they were treated by their employers whilst their backs were against the wall when they likely had so few options during these periods).

Nonetheless, accepted. Good catch .. thank you, @Warden_of_the_Storm! :)

PS: ETA - Should read: 'the old Kingdom (Sneferu) 26th century BC' .. (which puts it more in the ballpark of the era we're discussing.
 
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Warden_of_the_Storm

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Hmm .. Ok .. I stand corrected. It seems evidence of slavery exists from as early as the old Kingdom (Sneferu, 26 BC) but there is a consensus based on archaelogical discoveries among Egyptologists, that the Great Pyramids were not built by slaves, but by farmers during flooding periods.

Good catch .. thank you, @Warden_of_the_Storm! :)

Oh, it's such a weird thing to learn, but it also makes sense. Slave labour can easily get the job done and in good time, but if you want it done right, then hiring people who have an incentive to work (food and money being the big two) gets the job done better and done faster.
 
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Hans Blaster

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I'm joining in because of the word "woo" which as far as I know was only used by me in the *other* thread derived from the original thread which was about ripples from Missoula glacial outflow floods. That thread was slowly taken over and shifted by you to being about ancient stonework. (The ripples are natural phenomena with few if any humans in the area at the time the were formed.)
Another fallacy. The question could also be is why seemingly intelligent people even those with so called expertise can become so irrational themselves when the mere mention of advanced tech is mentioned like its a trigger of some sort.
First of all, no one here is an expert on anything discussed in any of these threads. @SelfSim may not realize that all of the arguments you have presented are from other people which you sort of cite. The rest of us are amteur enthusiasts or members of the interested lay public to some extent. Most of us are aware of the attempts to gin up fanciful explanations for things that are or are not yet understood, and the material you have posted in these threads is dripping with warnings of that.

Its a total misrepresentation to say that those proposing alternative explanations or just questioning the status quo are knuckleheads who are not backing their position with science. Many do have extensive science behind what they say. To say they don't is a gross misrepresentation.
Your primary sources on this specific matter are an archeologist who died in the 1940s and an engineer with no presented expertise in stoneworking.
The other thing to note which is very telling is that the small number who are claiming its all Woo are themselves engaging in psuedoscience by constantly creating logical fallacies one after the other and never stopping to engage in the actual content and evidence.
I used the term "woo" in the other offshoot thread (your thread in the History section) because that was the softest and most permittable thing I could say about rock transport portals. They are woo nonsense which is not possible with any techonology and certainly not with a blank block of rock.

I reckon so far your side has done 90% fallacies and 10% actual discussion on content and evidence. The proof is in the pudding. While complaining about pushing bunk they push bunk lol.
You've been crying "logical fallacy" a lot of late, but I haven't seen much of attempt by you to *DEMONSTRATE* that anyone is falling into fallacies.
Another logical fallacy often employed by the radical skeptics. Make out those questioning the status quo are promoting some unreal and mystical power.
Some of the same sources you cite have in other contexts.
NOne of the people you mention like Dunn and Petrie are proposing anything Woo.
Petrie is dead (and died so long ago that Hitler was still in power) and can propose nothing. Dunn, as far as he has been presented as an engineer who does hands on stuff exploring Egyptian stone working. Nothing has been presented that Dunn has any training or expertiese on ancient Egyptian archeology or history, nor expertise on stoneworking with pre-modern hand tools.
They are simply using science on the signatures in the stones and question how the current tools in the archeological records could have produced them.

In accumulating data on the artifacs themselves and examining the works and the signatures in the works they present evidence shoing that the current tools claimed could not have produced the results.

How the results were achieved is unknown and that is where the speculation comes in and none of those questioning the tech are proposing any idea as fact and they acknowledge that. Like you said science is about the evidence and then spectulating what may be the cause and then testing again and again until we can get closer to the truth.
As others have demonstrated, the contemporary technologies we know of certainly get fairly close (at least) to the creation fo the features that Dunn et al. focus on. It is perfectly reasonable to think that there are refinements to the techniques that developed over decades and centuries that are not recorded in any surviving text.

I have only seen these "needed high tech to happen" claims, but nothing suggesting what this missing technology actually is. Do your sources provide any details or suggestions what this missing, ancient stone working technology is?

But all I am seeing here is a big logical fallacy of trying to paint everyone that disagrees as a woo merchant without every showing that to be the case.


Moving beyond the response to this post. I viewed much of the "UnchartedX" video posted in post #1026 of the original thread last night and virtually everything they said was familiar from you posts on the cores and drilling at Giza in that thread and this one. Clearly you have extracted much of your argument from them. So, I went to the youtube front page and put "UnchartedX" into the search bar and after the posts from that channel, it listed a few "others people watched" from different channels and boy were they doozies. The first was subtitled "Massive granite boxes humans could never build" and the next was captioned "Humans didn't build this" in the still frame over a picture of pseudohistorian Graham Hancock. Without digesting all of UnchartedX's content, it sure seems like they attract attention from people interested in the worst in ancient archeology and history. (As I recall from bits here and there over the last couple weeks, UnchartedX is a fan of Hancock as well.)

You seem to have dived deep in to a pool filled with content creators who either practice pseudoarcheology or promote it, and are looking for profound solutions to things they don't understand (some of which are mysterious to professionals, others not) or willing to exploit those who are looking for the same. These kinds of bad to false ancient history and archeology videos are all over YouTube (and I presume other places I do not visit) and pop up even when you start from solid chanels like the "Fall of Civilizations" podcast or the (ex) Oriental Institute at the U of Chicago. (The algorithm apparently hates sound information and would prefer to steer us towards junk science and in the case of politics and society toward hate and extremism.)


Since I mentioned them here are a couple of very solid YouTube channels built on sound scholarship of the ancient world:


Fall of Civilizations podcast

Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East

U Chicago Ist. for study of Ancient Cultures (ex-Oriental institute)
(This organization has their own outpost in Egypt called "Chicago House" for research on ancient Egypt.)

Archaeology Now


"History with Cy" seems to do a decent job at quick summary videos of ancient history with funky battle animations:

History with Cy

I also spotted a few more that seemed OK will hunting down these links, but I haven't had a chance to check them out more thoroughly.
 
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SelfSim

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If the Egyptians did move these mega ton blocks then you would think they would have a memorial showing the feat. For context the depiction would be something like this as far as size compared to humans.

View attachment 358099

The one above the ground is around 1500 ton but the one in the ground is near 2000 tons.
As an aside: maybe they left the 2000 tonner in the ground cause they couldn't lift it with your speculated so-called 'advanced technologies'(?) Which would then more or less imply their recognition of the domination of real-world constraints over both that technology and their imaginations when it came solving such garguantuan issues(?) I wonder if the block in the ground could be lifted, or imagined to be lifted, nowadays? (I wonder what AI would have to say on that question?)
¯\_(ツ)_/¯

.. Interesting ..
 
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SelfSim

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First of all, no one here is an expert on anything discussed in any of these threads. @SelfSim may not realize that all of the arguments you have presented are from other people which you sort of cite. The rest of us are amteur enthusiasts or members of the interested lay public to some extent. Most of us are aware of the attempts to gin up fanciful explanations for things that are or are not yet understood, and the material you have posted in these threads is dripping with warnings of that.
I think I'm distracted by the the incoherency of @stevevw's presentation of those cited references. His determination to keep repeating such incoherency keeps raising the question of why does he keep doing that, yet he also repeats 'we don't really know how it was done'(?)
Why not argue the latter, rather the former (incoherent) one? :scratch:
 
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