Convenient video just released by World of Antiquity.
Here's the agenda. The video itself actually is mainly a compilation of other channels establishing the listed claims. It's just convenient to have so many links and techniques in a single video if you need to find a specific claim. It even uses the exact moment
@Ravi screenshotted in post #41. Please note that Dr. Miano links to every video referenced in the video in the description. I'll list out the references made throughout the video to make it easier to follow up on specific claims.
1.
Stone tools could carve limestone:
CARVING STONES WITH ANCIENT TECHNOLOGY (Mike Haduck) Haduck shows various techniques, all simple and available to the Egyptians. Includes carving right angle and drilling too.
2.
Copper tools could carve limestone:
Copper chisel against rock | Geologist against myths (Spoiler: copper chisel wins, slowly). This chapter also includes a description of how the Mohs scale is often misused. It is
not the right measurement for this subject. Short rundown: Mohs is a relative scale. Rockwell scale is an absolute scale more common in engineering. Paraphrasing Miano here: If you want to know if one material can chip away at another for sculpting, hardness is the wrong measurement; toughness is the correct measure. 2 of the links provided in the description describe toughness and hardness in more detail. Helpful viz here at 13:15. They are correlated, but, for example, note that diamond is the hardest but not the toughest, so it's 1:1.
3.
Iron Tools Could Carve Granite: Starts with a clip of Brien Foerster (who shows on this website a lot) using hardness to say that only "diamond technology" could have cut granite. Miano uses ancient Roman and India as examples of societies that made beautiful structures of granite using iron. But even better, a monastery is being built in Hawaii currently using traditional techniques:
Stone Bell Hole Drilling. There is some mention of chiseling, but the main focus is drilling with traditional techniques. At 16:30, there is video of how holes are drilled by a team of two: one with a mallet and the other with a rounded end chisel. They just get in a rhythm and go at it: the process takes about 6-7 hours to drill 18 inches. Every few minutes they remove powdered stone with a wet sponge. Next video in this chapter:
The Daily Life of our Temple Carvers Summary of the clips shown: chiseling. Lots of chiseling with simple tools.
4.
Stone tools could carve granite: Could granite have been carved before the iron age? The answer is yes. Back to Mike Haduck's video from chapter 1. He demonstrates with various stones, including a primitive hammer he made, that you literally just hit the granite over and over, and it slowly chips away. Miano also states that stone tools were continued to be used even as better technology became available because stone still had some advantages over the new materials. Again, it's a slow process for Haduck but professional Egyptians would have been much faster. He manages to carve a nearly perpendicular hole in the granite at 23:55. He's an amateur at these techniques but was still able to do it! Scientists against Myths, another great youtube channel, have also demonstrated carving granite with flint:
How the Ancient Egyptians Cut Granite with Flint | Experiment. Similar results: slow but steady progress. They carved a quite nice looking Egyptian style eye.
Linking since it's quite nice looking and a screenshot wouldn't do it justice.
The Race to Bury King Tut by National Geographic is referenced in this section but does not have a youtube video I can link to. Compares steel, bronze, and flint. The flint, as usual, works! (Again, very slowly). For larger portions that don't need precision, the sculptor just bashes away the granite with quartzite chunks and granite powder (I think, I had a little trouble understanding the audio here).
Results after 4 weeks of work. Again, quite nice!
5. Stone Abrasives Could Carve Granite: First video is again by Scientists against myths:
Ancient Egyptian Granite Sawing Technology: reconstruction. Copper saw combined with an abrasive saws through granite very nicely. Next up:
Pyramids Builders: New Clues. Summary: bashing granite with stones mostly. The resulting granite powder can then be used to create abrasives for cutting. In this video, they come up with a method using Nile silt and emery powder to create an abrasive and then use a copper blade to saw the granite. Similar to the other videos, they also flint for precision work. Quoting the video at
34:38: "They managed to make a perfect angle with the tools available in Khufu's era: dolerite balls, a copper blade, abrasive emery paste, and flint.
6. Bonus chapter: Techniques and Hand-Powered Machines: First video (I think already linked somewhere in this thread):
Making a Serapeum Box with PRIMITIVE Copper & Stone Tools.What LAHT just won't share with you! by
SGD Sacred Geometry Decoded. Video specifically calls out Foerster for his claims regarding the striations couldn't have been made by primitive tools. Guess what? They can and it's demonstrated in the video.
Drilling Cores in Solid Granite using REAL Egyptian Technology: 1 minute video showing the drilling while playing audio from a Joe Rogan episode where of course the guest claims it's impossible.
Egypt's Stone Carvers Keep Their Ancestors' Traditions Alive | Still Standing Another example of traditional tools. (This is the video mentioned by
@Ravi.) Miano does not here that we are not sure if the techniques used here are the same techniques used in ancient Egypt, but the point is still made that modern equipment is not necessary. Next video, Scientists against Myths again:
ANCIENT STONE CRAFT TECHNOLOGY: What Materials Did They Use? Perfect right angle made using flint and some other demonstrations. One of her pieces took 7 months! She will be making a diorite vase using primitive tools next!
Almost all of these videos are amateurs in ancient Egyptian techniques but they still manage to make very impressive carvings!
So, to summarize, how did the ancients build their megalithic structures?
Patiently