Claim: Ancient Cultures inherited Structures and Artefacts from Pre-Historic Lost Civilizations with Advanced Manufacturing Capabilities

[DarkLight]

Ban van Kerkwyk worked together with some metrologist to get some measurements on a vase made out of rose granite from a private collection of ancient Egyptian artificats. They claim that the manufacturing precision of of the surfaces makes the use of hand tools highly unlikely and suggest that an advanced manufacturing technique was put to use (begins at 16:51) :



Note: STL file of the vase is likely to be released within the following up weeks with supplementary reporting and documentation.

Honestly, to me the object pictured looks like a fairly sloppy job of milling done on a modern lathe. Granite is turned routinely for use as decorative items, and the relationships that the people in the video were amazed by are pretty much par for the process.
A scan of well-made modern production granite vessels might even yield consistently comparable values.
Of course, they didn't do that.

The trade in fake artifacts is huge, and it's not surprising that someone would be reluctant to admit that they bought a fake. Pair that with a couple of technicians who are working from the assumption that the object is old and a content creator with a narrative to sell and you get what you see in the video.

 

[Mendel]

Also the "ratio" R(n) from that diagram is complete non sense.

This is a geometric series, with a factor of (square root of 1.5). Labeling the sizes R(3) and R(4) just says one is (square root of 1.5) as big as the other, and R(5) is simply 1.5 times as big as R(3), which doesn't feel like it'd require a computer to design. Why that number? Who knows.

P.S.: Note also that the square root of 1.5 is the geometric mean of 1 and 1.5, which can be constructed geometrically in a way I'm confident Egyptian science was aware of.

Spoiler: geometry

https://planetmath.org/compassandstraightedgeconstructionofgeometricmean

 

[Mendel]

That means a radial spread of around 3-4/1000 along both the third and fourth images

thank you!

so the outer surface varies by as much as 0.1 mm, hmm
this feels super sloppy for a modern lathe, where the quality of the bearings would determine how out of round the object can be,
and feels achievable with hand tools

So when you have a good quality tool and optimised feed rates and speeds, I am sure roughnesses of less than ±10um (±1/2000") are possible for freeform objects.

that's 0.01 mm, an order of magnitude better than the scan of the object shows

I'm not convinced that the workmanship and tolerances imply machine work.

 

[Ravi]

View attachment 58649
This is a geometric series, with a factor of (square root of 1.5). Labeling the sizes R(3) and R(4) just says one is (square root of 1.5) as big as the other, and R(5) is simply 1.5 times as big as R(3), which doesn't feel like it'd require a computer to design. Why that number? Who knows.

It is not the mathematical expression I am tripping over, I am tripping over the circle "fitting" done on the photograph of the vase. That someone can later on play with the math of these constructed circles is no magic.

 

[Mendel]

It is not the mathematical expression I am tripping over, I am tripping over the circle "fitting" done on the photograph of the vase. That someone can later on play with the math of these constructed circles is no magic.

yeah, but the maths is also either enriched with mumbo-jumbo, or bears the hallmark of a dillettante.

Basically, their argument goes, "there's geometry and maths, therefore some kind of computer was involved", and it's bunk. Nothing in their geometry is beyond Pythagoras, and I dxpect ancient Egyptian knowledge rivaled his. It's not inconceivable to me that in the land that invented papyrus (which "paper" is named after) some geometer designs a vase, makes a cutout guide, some potter shapes the body from clay, and then a granite cutter sets out to duplicate that. The fact that there are some mathematical relationships, like how the vase is 2.25 times as wide overall as the size of the hole, doesn't "prove" any anachronisms, it just proves that stone mason was more comfortable with geometry than this numerologist.

 

[NorCal Dave]

some geometer designs a vase, makes a cutout guide, some potter shapes the body from clay, and then a granite cutter sets out to duplicate that

I would argue, it's less complicated than that. Some craftsmen come up with a nice design so they may have create a "jig" for others to follow. No need for a "geometer". Beyond that, it only matters IF there are multiple copies of the same artifact. I'm still searching, but the notation that there were 40K vases of similar design seems very tenuis. There were a reported 40K "stone vessels" found, but from what I've found so far, they were of various different designs, maybe each being unique. Still looking into it.

 

[Ravi]

I am uncertain an artisan from those times needed a drawing or design. Would it not be that the person making the vase simple went as it goes? I see plenty of stone vessels (yt videos etc) that are rounder, some are thinner, some are thicker etc. One could argue that they simply reprogrammed their advanced machines to make a new vessel, but it does not make any sense to me.

It is in my eyes purely made by a person sweating away for days on a vessel and along the way decides if it is big or small, or nice or rather poor. I am sure if ones researches all the found vases, that there is not 1 alike.

 

[Ann K]

I would argue, it's less complicated than that. Some craftsmen come up with a nice design so they may have create a "jig" for others to follow.

You forget, these vessels are made of stone. Isn't it just as likely that they are simply cut according to the piece of stone they have? Not just the size and shape, but any cracks in the stone would need to be avoided, and for aesthetic reasons, color variations in the stone might influence the choosing of the stone, and thus the shape of the final product.

 

[Mendel]

I am uncertain an artisan from those times needed a drawing or design. Would it not be that the person making the vase simple went as it goes? I

To have the maximum lip diameter be pi times the opening radius requires design. It's not hard to achieve if you have a disc the size of the hole, fit a thread around the disc and halve that to get the diameter measurement, but that is a geometric operation (well within the reach of any crafter) which exhibits forethought.

 

[Ann K]

To have the maximum lip diameter be pi times the opening radius requires design. It's not hard to achieve if you have a disc the size of the hole, fit a thread around the disc and halve that to get the diameter measurement, but that is a geometric operation (well within the reach of any crafter) which exhibits forethought.

It's still a sample size of one that we are talking about. We would need to find the statistics for a randomly-chosen collection of pots of different sizes before making any judgement about whether the pots' design required any type of mathematics at all.

Here are a few (pre-dynastic to first dynasty) vases:

 

[Ravi]

To have the maximum lip diameter be pi times the opening radius requires design. It's not hard to achieve if you have a disc the size of the hole, fit a thread around the disc and halve that to get the diameter measurement, but that is a geometric operation (well within the reach of any crafter) which exhibits forethought.

I missed that calculation. Can you show where I can find it? And still, if that would be the case, how precise is the match? Also, do all the other stone vases have similar Pi involvement? I am not certain. Also agreeing with @Ann K here.

It all reminds me a lot of this video showing how easy it is to come up with fits and whatnot. Based on a photograph..:

Source: https://youtu.be/CQGVGHyUZvA

 

[Mendel]

I missed that calculation. Can you show where I can find it? And still, if that would be the case, how precise is the match?

PDF, page 17; or the website.
Accuracy is 0.05%, as expected for a 3-digit measurement.

 

[Ravi]

PDF, page 17; or the website.
Accuracy is 0.05%, as expected for a 3-digit measurement.

Thanks. I must admit I hadn't looked at that pdf before. I see your point very well. One can argue about the fits of the curves and diameters of the body of the vessel, but the measurements as performed on the inner/outer diameter of the neck are undeniably accurate. The ratio cannot have been accidental, I agree. Still does not prove it was done by CNC machine though.

 

[Mendel]

Still does not prove it was done by CNC machine though.

Well, yeah, that's exactly my point.
"Involves maths, therefore done by computer" is the reasoning aimed at a modern, mathematically illiterate audience, when all it takes to implement that design is a piece of string.

 

[NorCal Dave]

It's still a sample size of one that we are talking about. We would need to find the statistics for a randomly-chosen collection of pots of different sizes before making any judgement about whether the pots' design required any type of mathematics at all.

Yes, I think all we can say is that this particular vessel has some sort of Pi relationship on the top of it. As Mendel pointed out, that relationship can be achieved with a wooden disk and a string, not lots of math and certainly not an ancient computer running CAD.

The logic goes something like this:

1. There were ~40K "stone vessels" from pre-dynastic times found buried at Djoser's Step Pyramid in Saqqara.
2. These vessels exhibited signs of machining or mechanical manufacture.
3. The vessel in question from the OPs shows signs of "complex design" and Pi relationships.

Therefore, the ~40k stone vessels were designed using some sort of CAD system and produced with mechanical manufacturing similar to our own modern technology and not by dynastic Egyptians.

I supposed it could be split up into multiple threads, but what's found, or claimed to be on these vases seems to form a big chunk of the evidence for the inherited artifacts from lost civilizations with advanced technology (Atlantis).

It's a bit of a twist on the more classic "Egyptians, and other ancient people, learned how to do what they did from, and/or with advanced tech from Atlanteans. I can't quite tell, but in this version, I get that they will acknowledge the Egyptians were piling up blocks with ramps and levers and whatever else they had, but the vessels in question where leftover from a high-tech society. If the vessels were left over, possibly the Egyptians also inherited the cutting equipment to make the blocks? I don't know, as were talking about various groups with differing ideas.

As far as the vase in the video, we've already established that its origin is unknown, and it represents a sample size of 1, so any conclusions drawn from its study are very limited. Even if this vase is from the ones found at Saqqara, as noted, unless there were lots of very similar or identical vases it tells us little.

I've been unable yet, to find any primary sources for the collection of the 40K vessels. The claim appears in many books and articles and I'm fairly confident that something like this did happen, but it seems that what was found varied greatly. There are a few photos:

So, there doesn't seem to be a large number of replicas as one would expect if they're being mass produced and vases is just onesub-set of what was found. There were bowls, plates, jugs and all kinds of designs. In addition, the idea that they're ALL pre-dynastic is not true:

The other galleries, especially the sixth and seventh, were crammed with stone vessels—some 40,000 have been recovered—of various shapes and sizes. Quite a number of them bore the names of earlier rulers from the First and Second Dynasties, including Narmer, Djer Den, Adjib, Semerkhet, Kaa, Hetepsekhemwy, Ninetjer, Sekhemib and Khasekhemwy. It is generally assumed that these had been looted from earlier tombs, but when and by whom is a mystery.One theory is that Djoser collected the surviving material from royal tombs pillaged in the factional strife that characterizes much of the Second Dynasty. The fact that most of the tombs involved were located in Abydos raised further questions.

https://www.odysseyadventures.ca/articles/saqqara/saqqara_text02pyramid.html

I found the notion that many of the vessels had the name of 1st and 2nd dynasty rulers in various places, so it seems that many of these vessels are not in fact pre-dynastic.

What would be fun to find is an actual catalog of all these vessels to see how many are similar and/or identical.

The idea that they show "machine" marks is consistent with hand tooled production. Here are the guys from Scientists Against Myths showing that an Egyptian flywheel drill will leave the exact "machine" markings that are claimed to be made by machines:

Lastly, does the jug in the center appear a bit off? Maybe the CNC machine was out of alignment.

 

[Ann K]

The ratio cannot have been accidental, I agree.

Why can it not be accidental? You're still measuring just one vase, and pi is just one number to which that particular vase corresponds. Unless you find it in a good many others, it's as likely as any other ratio.

 

[MapperGuy]

Yes, I think all we can say is that this particular vessel has some sort of Pi relationship on the top of it. As Mendel pointed out, that relationship can be achieved with a wooden disk and a string, not lots of math and certainly not an ancient computer running CAD.

The logic goes something like this:

1. There were ~40K "stone vessels" from pre-dynastic times found buried at Djoser's Step Pyramid in Saqqara.
2. These vessels exhibited signs of machining or mechanical manufacture.
3. The vessel in question from the OPs shows signs of "complex design" and Pi relationships.

Therefore, the ~40k stone vessels were designed using some sort of CAD system and produced with mechanical manufacturing similar to our own modern technology and not by dynastic Egyptians.

I supposed it could be split up into multiple threads, but what's found, or claimed to be on these vases seems to form a big chunk of the evidence for the inherited artifacts from lost civilizations with advanced technology (Atlantis).

It's a bit of a twist on the more classic "Egyptians, and other ancient people, learned how to do what they did from, and/or with advanced tech from Atlanteans. I can't quite tell, but in this version, I get that they will acknowledge the Egyptians were piling up blocks with ramps and levers and whatever else they had, but the vessels in question where leftover from a high-tech society. If the vessels were left over, possibly the Egyptians also inherited the cutting equipment to make the blocks? I don't know, as were talking about various groups with differing ideas.

As far as the vase in the video, we've already established that its origin is unknown, and it represents a sample size of 1, so any conclusions drawn from its study are very limited. Even if this vase is from the ones found at Saqqara, as noted, unless there were lots of very similar or identical vases it tells us little.

I've been unable yet, to find any primary sources for the collection of the 40K vessels. The claim appears in many books and articles and I'm fairly confident that something like this did happen, but it seems that what was found varied greatly. There are a few photos:

So, there doesn't seem to be a large number of replicas as one would expect if they're being mass produced and vases is just onesub-set of what was found. There were bowls, plates, jugs and all kinds of designs. In addition, the idea that they're ALL pre-dynastic is not true:

The other galleries, especially the sixth and seventh, were crammed with stone vessels—some 40,000 have been recovered—of various shapes and sizes. Quite a number of them bore the names of earlier rulers from the First and Second Dynasties, including Narmer, Djer Den, Adjib, Semerkhet, Kaa, Hetepsekhemwy, Ninetjer, Sekhemib and Khasekhemwy. It is generally assumed that these had been looted from earlier tombs, but when and by whom is a mystery.One theory is that Djoser collected the surviving material from royal tombs pillaged in the factional strife that characterizes much of the Second Dynasty. The fact that most of the tombs involved were located in Abydos raised further questions.

https://www.odysseyadventures.ca/articles/saqqara/saqqara_text02pyramid.html

I found the notion that many of the vessels had the name of 1st and 2nd dynasty rulers in various places, so it seems that many of these vessels are not in fact pre-dynastic.

What would be fun to find is an actual catalog of all these vessels to see how many are similar and/or identical.

The idea that they show "machine" marks is consistent with hand tooled production. Here are the guys from Scientists Against Myths showing that an Egyptian flywheel drill will leave the exact "machine" markings that are claimed to be made by machines:

View attachment 58677

Lastly, does the jug in the center appear a bit off? Maybe the CNC machine was out of alignment.

View attachment 58679

If there were 40,000 "stone vessels" manufactured by modern methods then I would expect to find many groups of vessels of identical dimensions. Even with modern methods changing the settings of the machines to make every individual one unique would be a lot of work. Modern manufacturers pride themselves on being able to make many objects with identical dimensions, indeed that is part of the reason to use computer controlled machines. Ancients using modern methods would pride themselves on making many identical objects, not just objects of similar size like those made by many craftsmen by hand.

So, has anyone identified groups of these vessels of identical dimensions? And I mean IDENTICAL. Craftsmen can certainly try to make objects with identical dimensions but there are limits to their methods. One of the hallmarks I would expect of machine made objects is large numbers of perfect replicas.

 

[Mendel]

Why can it not be accidental? You're still measuring just one vase, and pi is just one number to which that particular vase corresponds. Unless you find it in a good many others, it's as likely as any other ratio.

1) it's a ratio of diameters/radiuses on the vase, so there's an uncomplicated way to produce this ratio. As a counterexample, if they had found the ratio of width to height to be pi, I'd be more dismissive of it.

2) the chance of hitting pi this exactly is 1:1000 (less if simple factors are involved), which is long odds against it happening randomly. As a counterexample, 32/5 is not that special, because there are over 1000 ways to make ratios from whole numbers 1-100.

To sum it up, 1) there's an easy way to do it on purpose, but 2) it's hard to get it by chance.

 

[Ravi]

Why can it not be accidental? You're still measuring just one vase, and pi is just one number to which that particular vase corresponds. Unless you find it in a good many others, it's as likely as any other ratio.

See Mendel's post above me, he mentions good arguments for not being accidental. But, if it is the only vase that has this, there is a small but real chance it was not on purpose.

I don't believe the ancients had advanced machines, and some art work is incredibly well made. I cannot imagine the level of determination to get to finish a product like such.
It is amazing what they could do back then (not only our Egyptian friends).

 

[FatPhil]

Why can it not be accidental? You're still measuring just one vase, and pi is just one number to which that particular vase corresponds. Unless you find it in a good many others, it's as likely as any other ratio.

Given that it was a radius and diameter being compared, the correct magic number to look at is surely Pi/2 rather than Pi? Maybe they were really sloppy (3% out) and aiming for the universally most appealing of ratios[*] - the golden ratio:

? Pi/2
1.57
? (sqrt(5)+1)/2
1.62

[* the rhetoric expressed in the six words before this footnote is of course pure unadulterated bunk, and is included as an in joke to those familiar with it. In fact, this whole post is effectively little more than a "+1 Agree", I've just added an example.]

 

[Mendel]

aiming for the universally most appealing of ratios[*] - the golden ratio:

you're joking, but the numerologists found it, albeit squared:

Again, significance nil, since the golden ratio (phi) was around long before computers:

Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_ratio

 

[FatPhil]

you're joking, but the numerologists found it, albeit squared:

Oh, did I say 1.62? What I meant was 1.65, the root of the base of natural logarithms

? exp(.5)
1.65

There are a lot of "special" fractions. So many, none of them are special.

 

[Ann K]

2) the chance of hitting pi this exactly is 1:1000 (less if simple factors are involved), which is long odds against it happening randomly. As a counterexample, 32/5 is not that special, because there are over 1000 ways to make ratios from whole numbers 1-100.

To sum it up, 1) there's an easy way to do it on purpose, but 2) it's hard to get it by chance.

If, as you state, the chance of this level of accuracy is one in a thousand, and the claim is that 40,000 vases were found in one place, then there ought to be forty such examples in that one place alone. It's not that special. It's still just one vase.

 

[Ravi]

If, as you state, the chance of this level of accuracy is one in a thousand, and the claim is that 40,000 vases were found in one place, then there ought to be forty such examples in that one place alone. It's not that special. It's still just one vase.

Indeed. I am very curious about the other vases's dimensions. From the pictures alone I can tell they are very different.

What nags me is the fact we/they don't know the origin of this specific vase..

 

[psikiwi]

What nags me is the fact we/they don't know the origin of this specific vase..

As has already been hinted at above, by a few members.... It is enough for me to think that, without provenenace being shown for this vase in particular, this is all a theoretical exercise. Can they prove it is NOT of recent origin, thus NOT using modern machining? Thereafter this particular sub-thread topic could become a debunk and less of a ramble...

Enjoying the input from those flexing mathematical muscles, and the musings from others - but I do agree with the general consensus that numerological analysis is throwing numbers until something 'fits', with 'special' significance.

 

[Mendel]

If, as you state, the chance of this level of accuracy is one in a thousand, and the claim is that 40,000 vases were found in one place, then there ought to be forty such examples in that one place alone. It's not that special. It's still just one vase.

I don't think that's valid unless you can show they actually picked through hundreds of vases, which seems unlikely.

Enjoying the input from those flexing mathematical muscles, and the musings from others - but I do agree with the general consensus that numerological analysis is throwing numbers until something 'fits', with 'special' significance.

The point I've been trying to across is that even if the numerology is real, it doesn't prove machining. We've learned from @overlord's analysis that the workmanship is no better than 0.1mm precision, and that the drilling in the handle holes is seriously misaligned, which feels like it should disprove a fully automated process.

Even if some of the numerology is by design, there is no evidence for
• computers
• machines
• ancient provenance
• and none of the numerology is modern.

 

[NorCal Dave]

Indeed. I am very curious about the other vases's dimensions. From the pictures alone I can tell they are very different.

What nags me is the fact we/they don't know the origin of this specific vase..

From the few pictures I can find, the vessels were quite varied. The excavations that revealed them seems to have taken place around the 1920's, but I can't pin that down either. Most of the reports about these are in older books and not available online. The local Cal State University down the road has some Egypt books in the library. If I get some time, I'll see what their policy is for alums looking at books.

As for the vase in the video, just as a side note I noticed that in the pictures of it as well as the scans, the often touted "machine" marks do not appear. As noted above the "machine" marks are in fact evidence for hand tool manufacturing. It could still be hand made and the marks have been polished away. Or it's made on some sort of modern machined that does not leave marks:

Just further musing a bit, I don't think ANY CNC machine was ever used to produce these in ancient or modern times. The vessels were discovered in the first 3rd of the 20th century, so any modern copies would have been produced after that. Modern CAD/CNC production really gets going in the late 20th century, right? And even then, it's big and very expensive. Far too expensive I would argue to be used to make fake vases for the antiquities trade.

The whole point of CNC is creating exact replicas in large numbers, using the economies of scale. Flooding the market with thousands of the exact same vase makes it harder to sell them as authentic.

These are all handmade, in ancient times with ancient tools and in modern times with power hand tools. The modern ones are likely made by a few guys in a shop somewhere using electric hand grinders and polishers with a variety of designs to approximate. If I were doing it, I would actually be adding the machine marks to my modern fake to mimic the ancient tools.

 

[DarkLight]

From the few pictures I can find, the vessels were quite varied. The excavations that revealed them seems to have taken place around the 1920's, but I can't pin that down either. Most of the reports about these are in older books and not available online. The local Cal State University down the road has some Egypt books in the library. If I get some time, I'll see what their policy is for alums looking at books.

As for the vase in the video, just as a side note I noticed that in the pictures of it as well as the scans, the often touted "machine" marks do not appear. As noted above the "machine" marks are in fact evidence for hand tool manufacturing. It could still be hand made and the marks have been polished away. Or it's made on some sort of modern machined that does not leave marks:

View attachment 58683

Just further musing a bit, I don't think ANY CNC machine was ever used to produce these in ancient or modern times. The vessels were discovered in the first 3rd of the 20th century, so any modern copies would have been produced after that. Modern CAD/CNC production really gets going in the late 20th century, right? And even then, it's big and very expensive. Far too expensive I would argue to be used to make fake vases for the antiquities trade.

The whole point of CNC is creating exact replicas in large numbers, using the economies of scale. Flooding the market with thousands of the exact same vase makes it harder to sell them as authentic.

These are all handmade, in ancient times with ancient tools and in modern times with power hand tools. The modern ones are likely made by a few guys in a shop somewhere using electric hand grinders and polishers with a variety of designs to approximate. If I were doing it, I would actually be adding the machine marks to my modern fake to mimic the ancient tools.

I think that the idea that the object pictured would require CNC technology to create may have originated with that video, perhaps included just to add to the impression of extreme precision requiring advanced technology.
Stone is routinely turned on manual lathes-you can find a number of examples on YTube videos, and with a bit of care, there is no reason that I can see that they wouldn't end up with the same level of symmetry exhibited by the example in the video-it's just a matter of how much time someone wanted to spend working the piece.
The claim in the video that forming that object would require modern computer controlled equipment is simply unsupported by any evidence, and I would never underestimate the ingenuity of people working with older styles of manual milling equipment-when I started as a machinist I was fortunate enough to work with older journeyman who could make just about anything with machinery that would nearly qualify as antiquities themselves.

 

[deirdre]

Yes, I think all we can say is that this particular vessel has some sort of Pi relationship on the top of it. As Mendel pointed out, that relationship can be achieved with a wooden disk and a string, not lots of math and certainly not an ancient computer running CAD

1. There were ~40K "stone vessels" from pre-dynastic times found buried at Djoser's Step Pyramid in Saqqara.

Article:

In Ancient Egypt the stone vases were considered as first rate luxury objects: they appear only in the royal tombs as well as in the graves of the elite. The art of vessel carving had already reached its peak as far back as the Old Kingdom: for example, the artisans working under the pharaoh Djoser can be credited with tens of thousands of vessels that were placed in the magazines of the step pyramid of Saqqara – we are referring to 30 - 40,000 vases of various shapes and materials, the majority of which were found broken.

Source: https://www.e-tiquities.com/new-arrivals/ancient-egyptian-basalt-bar

 

[NorCal Dave]

Article:

In Ancient Egypt the stone vases were considered as first rate luxury objects: they appear only in the royal tombs as well as in the graves of the elite. The art of vessel carving had already reached its peak as far back as the Old Kingdom: for example, the artisans working under the pharaoh Djoser can be credited with tens of thousands of vessels that were placed in the magazines of the step pyramid of Saqqara – we are referring to 30 - 40,000 vases of various shapes and materials, the majority of which were found broken.

Source: https://www.e-tiquities.com/new-arrivals/ancient-egyptian-basalt-bar

I bolded a big "maybe", as noted above, what I've found is that:

Quite a number of them bore the names of earlier rulers from the First and Second Dynasties, including Narmer, Djer Den, Adjib, Semerkhet, Kaa, Hetepsekhemwy, Ninetjer, Sekhemib and Khasekhemwy.

https://www.odysseyadventures.ca/articles/saqqara/saqqara_text02pyramid.html

While I've found this claim in a number of places, I still can't track down any more primary sources. So, the vessels at Saqqara could be a large collection from pe-dynastic through the early dynasties and up to the time of Djoser.

The other interesting thing is that the pictures available seem to confirm that the majority were broken so even if there were ~40k of them, the complete and intact ones represent a small sample size.

More interesting from your source is the bibliography cited for the explanation of the piece:

Bibliography: ARNOLD D., PISCHIKOVA E., Stone Vessels: Luxury Items with Manifold Implications in Egyptian Art in the Age of Pyramids, New York, 1999, pp. 121-131.

ASTON B.G., Ancient Egyptian Stone Vessels, Materials and Form, Heidelberg, 1994.

BEVAN A., Stone Vessels and Values in the Bronze Age Mediterranean, Cambridge, 2007.

EL-KHOULI A., Egyptian Stone Vessels: Predynastic to Dynasty III, 3 vol., Mainz am Rhein, 1978.

KLEMM R., KLEMM D. D., Stein und Steinbrüche in Alten Ägypten, Berlin, 1993.

NICHOLSON P. T., SHAW I., Ancient Egyptian Materials and Technology, Cambridge, 2000.

PETRIE W.M. F. , QUIBELL J.E., Naqada and Ballas: 1895 , London, 1896, pl. VIII, 34 and 35.

STOCKS D. A., Making Stone Vessels in Ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt, in Antiquity, A Quarterly Review of Archaeology 67, 1993, pp. 596-603.

Some titles and journals to try and track down.

But be careful not to hit the "Add to Cart" button :

, https://www.e-tiquities.com/new-arrivals/ancient-egyptian-basalt-bar,

 

[Vattic]

personally i feel the absence of text would more verify the pyramid as a tomb. i still cannot imagine scrawling graffiti on a "God's" tomb, let alone signing it with the name of your gang. Am i really going to build a tomb to God God and scrawl on it "God rocks, love deirdre"? I guess if we go with the idea Kings were just 'representatives' of Gods it might be more plausible. still seems incredibly disrespectful to me to scrawl graffiti on a tomb.

It's difficult to know what would be considered acceptable to individuals from so long ago. Graffiti in English churches are the examples I am most familiar with.

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2014/mar/29/medieval-graffiti-pictures-lydgate

Thousands of examples of medieval graffiti have been found to survive in more than 65% of East Anglia's old churches

Many East Anglian churches are so heavily covered in early graffiti inscriptions, ..., that individual inscriptions are difficult to decipher.

A lot of it looks devotional, and perhaps churches are a more acceptable target than tombs. It doesn't seem appropriate to me in this day and age to graffiti tombs or churches. Either sensibilities were different, or, as is the case today, some people found the risk acceptable.

Edit to add: You also have this famous example. Not graffiti exactly, and It's fairly rude so I'll just link.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/all-saints-church-crude-sculpture/

 

[deirdre]

But be careful not to hit the "Add to Cart" button :

this one -about the same age as the one in this thread being analyzed- is only 4,000$ probably because it's rim isnt symmetrical enough (and it has a few cracks). I guess the artist didnt have access to the "machine" that day or didnt know his geometry mathematics.

https://www.e-tiquities.com/gallery/ancient-predynastic-egyptian-pink-indurated-limestone-jar

 

[deirdre]

A lot of it looks devotional, and perhaps churches are a more acceptable target than tombs. It doesn't seem appropriate to me in this day and age to graffiti tombs

my issue is more that the claim is that the BUILDERS put the viewable graffiti on Egyptian "tombs". Although i concur with your sentiment that perhaps back in ancient egypt it was acceptable for paid workers to vandalize the project they were hired to build.

 

[Ann K]

my issue is more that the claim is that the BUILDERS put the viewable graffiti on Egyptian "tombs". Although i concur with your sentiment that perhaps back in ancient egypt it was acceptable for paid workers to vandalize the project they were hired to build.

Deirdre, you're ascribing your own modern Christian mindset to the feelings of those who built a pyramid several millennia ago. Stop calling it "disrespectful" or "vandalism", please. The inscriptions are not rude or insulting in any way. None of it sounds like anything but respect for the pharaoh. You know no more about their feelings, intentions, or practices than they knew about yours. Interpreting the past is a lot more complicated than just saying "I wouldn't do that".

 

[Vattic]

my issue is more that the claim is that the BUILDERS put the viewable graffiti on Egyptian "tombs". Although i concur with your sentiment that perhaps back in ancient egypt it was acceptable for paid workers to vandalize the project they were hired to build.

I thought your argument was that graffiti wouldn't be done because it was an important religious site, not that they were being paid. I figured giving examples of other people seeing nothing wrong with graffiting a site of religious importance for them was fair.

You say visible, but most, if not all, graffiti was found in areas not accessible once building was finished.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pyramid_of_Giza

In 1837 four additional Relieving Chambers were found above the King's Chamber after tunneling to them. The chambers, previously inaccessible, were covered in hieroglyphs of red paint.

 

[John J.]

It's difficult to know what would be considered acceptable to individuals from so long ago.

I think that's probably right; even cultures nearer our own time had funerary practices that might be shocking to us.

"Sati" was the practice of a newly-widowed woman being immolated on her husband's funeral pyre (although even in the areas where it occurred it wasn't the norm)

Hindu reformers such as Ram Mohan Roy ultimately led the British Governor-General of India Lord William Bentinck to enact the Bengal Sati Regulation, 1829, declaring the practice of burning or burying alive of Hindu widows to be punishable by the criminal courts.

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sati_(practice)

The Fore people of Papua New Guinea ate their deceased relatives up to the 1950's or 60's, inadvertently contracting the terrible prion disease Kuru- the details are unpleasant so I won't quote them here, but the (US) National Institutes of Health online resource Medline Plus, part of the National Library of Medicine, gives an overview under "Kuru"
https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/001379.htm#:~:text=Kuru is a very rare disease. It is,dead people as part of a funeral ritual.

I remember seeing (on TV) the apparent chaos surrounding the funeral of Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran, which looked like a riot.

As the excitement grew, the body of the Ayatollah, wrapped in a white burial shroud, fell out of the flimsy wooden coffin, and in a mad scene people in the crowd reached to touch the shroud.

"Amid Frenzy, Iranians Bury The Ayatollah"
https://www.nytimes.com/1989/06/07/world/amid-frenzy-iranians-bury-the-ayatollah.html New York Times, 07/07/89, John Kifner, quoted here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_and_state_funeral_of_Ruhollah_Khomeini
To me it seemed massively undignified (and there was some speculation that the body was damaged) but I don't doubt the sincerity or devotion of those there at that time.

We don't know, but I would guess that the final sealing of a Pharaonic tomb was an event of some ceremony.
I doubt if the work crews were left to get on with it, pushing a final block in place while everyone else carried on day-to-day life.
It's conjecture on my part, but I think it's likely that at least a priest might be present. Maybe family members (Khufu's sons and heirs Djedefre and Khafre both had their own pyramids to consider) would want to set a precedent of a good "send-off" for the Pharaoh, knowing their own time would come.

I can't see a gang of workers sneaking past a (hypothetical) "sealing ceremony" with a bucket of red paint!
-And painting the name of their work crew would seem a high-risk venture if it was unwelcome.
I don't know how common literacy was in 4th Dynasty Egypt, I think the indications are that scribes were relatively powerful

The hieroglyphic language of the ancient Egyptians was complex and beautiful and those who mastered it held a valued position in society. Scribes were the protectors and developers of ancient Egyptian culture

-from the Ancient Egypt Online website, "Scribes in ancient Egypt", J. Hill, 2018 here https://ancientegyptonline.co.uk/scribe/
The information in that article doesn't say if 4th dynasty people other than scribes were literate, though it makes clear that in the New Kingdom some (maybe many) non-scribe people (including women) could read and write.

Who says they were defiling the tomb?

I do. I am saying it.

A fair point! I don't have any privileged knowledge on the subject, and you might well be right. (Grits teeth, spits feathers...)

I just kinda like the idea that, as an honour for services rendered, the last work crew were allowed to write the name of their team, which references Khufu in a positive way

"The gang, The white crown of Khnum-Khufu is powerful"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pyramid_of_Giza and that each man- perhaps taught by a scribe for the occasion- wrote the name (or a name) of Khufu just once, to show the Pharaoh's risen Ka that they each knew who he was. Or maybe that they were "crying out" after him.
-Total supposition, I know. But there are worse things you could paint in a tomb if you were aiming to desecrate it, I think.

Edited to add: Regards to Ann K and Vattic- I hadn't seen your posts when I posted this. And to deirdre, of course- you make me have to think, which is good!

 

[deirdre]

And to deirdre, of course- you make me have to think, which is good!

yes MB makes me have to think of new things too, which is good. I was previously leaning toward the English explorers scribbling those, but now i'm more happy with my new idea that they could really just be quarry marks claiming stones the gangs (like the Drunkards of Menkaure) wanted to claim . [add: which also might explain why the one we typically see from the GP is sideways]

Now i'll have to research how "scientists" know all those different "nick names" they found of khufu, actually were nick names for khufu. Always happy when a new interesting research topic comes across my desk

 

[NorCal Dave]

In post #189 Ms @deirdre had a link to an auction site advertising an Egyptian vase that contained a bibliography and I managed to track down one of the journal articles cited. My kids are much smarter than me and are grad students, so I can bug them for access to stuff behind paywalls.

In particular was:

Making stone vessels in ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt

STOCKS D. A., Making Stone Vessels in Ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt, in Antiquity, A Quarterly Review of Archaeology 67, 1993,

The author describes various methods for creating the vases in question and experiments that he conducted confirming his ideas. Here are a few highlights. It's from a pdf so it copies a bit wonky.

First is the idea that the ancient tools he recreated are from the archeological record. Not only are there drawings of the Egyptians using fly wheel drills, but some of the actual parts have been found:

In Egypt, this particular borer has
been discovered at Hierakonpolis, a site
associated with late predynastic and early
dynastic stone vessel production (Quibell &
Green 1902: plate LXII, 6) (FIGUREIb)

In addition, the Mesopotamians were using similar tools to create similar bowls and things:

Circular borers were used to grind stone bowls whose interior was no wider than the mouth. A stone borer in the British Museum (BM 124498 from Ur), curved underneath and flat on top, has a piece cut out from each side of its upper surface, also for retaining a forked shaft. At Ur, stone borers were common in the Uruk and Jemdet Nasr periods

Borers were made out of various material, including diorite, which can be used to bore and shape diorite:

Borers made from diorite are
common to Mesopotamia and Egypt; other
stones utilized in Egypt included chert,
sandstone and limestone.

As noted in other posts, the use of the tools leaves striations on the artifact, but also on recovered borer tools:

Striations on Mesopotamian vessels, and the bottom surfaces of stone borers, are similar to striations seen on their Egyptian counterparts - generally 0.25 mm wide and deep. Archaeological (e.g. BM 124498 borer from Ur; Petrie 1883: plate XIV, 7, 8; 1884: 90; Petrie Collection alabaster vase UC 18071) and my recent experimental evidence (Stocks 1998 111-36) strongly indicate that stone borers and copper tubes, were both employed with quartz sand abrasives.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence as we say, so even though there are no copper tube drills that have been found, there are drawings of them:

No copper tubes for drilling stone have ever been discovered in Egypt or Mesopotamia; tubes wear down during use, and the short stubs left would have been melted down as scrap. Neither the forked wooden shafts nor the tools that drove them have been discovered. However, they are illustrated in a number of Egyptian tombs constructed between Dynasties V and XXVI; there are no known representations from Mesopotamia.

Interestingly, a fly-wheel drill with a forked drill shaft that is used with the stone borer became the ideogram for words like "craft" and "art":

In these Egyptian illustrations, the vessel obscures the lower, working end of the tool's shaft. However, during Old Kingdom times the ideogram used in words for 'craft', 'art' and other related words depicts a forked, central shaft with two weights (Gardiner 1957: 519, sign U25; Murray 1905: I, plate XXXIX, 65)

I think the important thing here, is that there is evidence that the Egyptians, as well as various Sumerians, were making these vessels using drills and borers that are depicted in contemperanious drawings. The tools used can in fact produce the vessels in question. One of the often cited bits of evidence for CNC manufacturing is the "tool marks" or striations, but here is yet another source, from the '90s, showing that these marks are consistent with copper and stone tools used in conjunction with sand.

In this paper the author goes on to create a vase using the techniques and tools described, much the same way the various YouTubers did in previous posts.

 

[Bill Ferguson]

No It is not; only very few people make this claim. Most researchers reject these claims. Also in this topic more then enough evidence has been posted shown it can be done with simple tools available at the time.

Claiming it must have been done with power tools is simply a false claim.

Have you read Chris Dunn's book? He is an engineer who has measured and researched these objects and how they would have necessarily been made by machines. Can you show one example of one of these granite bowls could have been made without a high speed lathe? Is Chris Dunn mistaken?

 

[yoshy]

Have you read Chris Dunn's book? He is an engineer who has measured and researched these objects and how they would have necessarily been made by machines. Can you show one example of one of these granite bowls could have been made without a high speed lathe? Is Chris Dunn mistaken?

@Ravi already posted a video in post #171 demonstrating how poor Dunn's methodology is.