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

[John J.]

Turning was invented in the 1,800's as I understand it.

You understand incorrectly.
You really think that societies that built ocean-going ships mounting 100 cannon couldn't turn wood?
That in the newly-independent USA, Napoleonic France, Regency Britain- no-one could turn wood?!

With respect, we had practical steam engines from 1712.
From 1825, Stephenson's Locomotion No. 1 was running on the world's first public railway.

You really don't think that there might be some wood-turned components here?
HMS Victory, launched 1765- click to enlarge.

Or perhaps in Isaac Newton's third reflecting telescope of 1672?
(This is a restored part-replica; the original had a wood ball-mount- we don't know if that's the one here though).

Woodturning definitely goes back over 2,300 years, and probably much longer.

Egyptian monuments illustrate a strap used by a helper to rotate the lathe while another worker cut the wood.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodturning

I think this (or something similar) has already been posted in this thread:

The following image can be found in a bas-relief carving at the tomb of Petosiris, a high priest who lived in Hermopolis, Egypt, dated to about 300 BC.

From https://firearmshistory.blogspot.com/2014/03/ancient-techniques-of-rifling-machines-i.html

...Iron Age inhabitants of the Glastonbury Lake villages have been shown to be very competent woodturners. Excavations show these English West Country Celts to have produced some quite sizable turned artefacts such as spokes and hubs for wheels. Mallets, bowls, tool handles as well as smaller items like stoppers for jars are among items recovered by amateur archaeologist Arthur Bullieid and Harold St George Gray over a century ago.

Stuart King, "History of the Lathe: part one – reciprocal motion",
https://stuartking.co.uk/history-of-the-lathe-part-one-reciprocal-motion/

Viking pole-lathes have been found in York, England (As Jorvik, York was a Viking town).

This very clear illustration of a pole-lathe is from a French illuminated manuscript from the 13th century

(From "History of the Lathe: part one – reciprocal motion", link as above.

...instead of making advancements in technology, as one would expect, the precision was lost.

Yeah, I don't know why they bothered....

 

[Bill Ferguson]

Don't forget Ignatius Donnelly. His Atlantis: The Antediluvian World (1882) and Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel (1883) inspired, shall we say, Graham Hancock right down to the comet.

What about the claim being made here though?

 

[Bill Ferguson]

You understand incorrectly.
You really think that societies that built ocean-going ships mounting 100 cannon couldn't turn wood?
That in the newly-independent USA, Napoleonic France, Regency Britain- no-one could turn wood?!

With respect, we had practical steam engines from 1712.
From 1825, Stephenson's Locomotion No. 1 was running on the world's first public railway.

You really don't think that there might be some wood-turned components here?
View attachment 59086 HMS Victory, launched 1765- click to enlarge.

Or perhaps in Isaac Newton's third reflecting telescope of 1672?
(This is a restored part-replica; the original had a wood ball-mount- we don't know if that's the one here though).
View attachment 59089


Woodturning definitely goes back over 2,300 years, and probably much longer.

Egyptian monuments illustrate a strap used by a helper to rotate the lathe while another worker cut the wood.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodturning

I think this (or something similar) has already been posted in this thread:

The following image can be found in a bas-relief carving at the tomb of Petosiris, a high priest who lived in Hermopolis, Egypt, dated to about 300 BC.

View attachment 59084
From https://firearmshistory.blogspot.com/2014/03/ancient-techniques-of-rifling-machines-i.html

...Iron Age inhabitants of the Glastonbury Lake villages have been shown to be very competent woodturners. Excavations show these English West Country Celts to have produced some quite sizable turned artefacts such as spokes and hubs for wheels. Mallets, bowls, tool handles as well as smaller items like stoppers for jars are among items recovered by amateur archaeologist Arthur Bullieid and Harold St George Gray over a century ago.

Stuart King, "History of the Lathe: part one – reciprocal motion",
https://stuartking.co.uk/history-of-the-lathe-part-one-reciprocal-motion/

Viking pole-lathes have been found in York, England (As Jorvik, York was a Viking town).

This very clear illustration of a pole-lathe is from a French illuminated manuscript from the 13th century
View attachment 59085
(From "History of the Lathe: part one – reciprocal motion", link as above.


View attachment 59091
Yeah, I don't know why they bothered....

What about the claim being made here though? Any comment?

 

[Lu Ann Lewellen]

Just to start let's get who the host is:

Ben Van Kerkwyk is a researcher and creator of UnchartedX, a website and YouTube channel looking into ancient mysteries, presenting new ideas about humanity's past.

He has been travelling the world for decades, filming ancient sites and interviewing leading historians, which has taken him on a journey of suspicion surrounding established history. (The establishment must always be viewed with a sceptical eye. Just like "trusting the science" is a bad move, so is "trusting the history".)

https://jermwarfare.com/conversations/ben-van-kirkwyk

Next, at 12:29 Mr. van Kerkyk attempts to address the elephant in the room, namely that they have no idea where this vase came from. He claims it's pre-dynastic but says there is no provenance. Nevertheless, he's confident that it is in fact a pre-dynastic vase. Earlier in the video he and a guy named A. Young both said that they have been to enough museums to know precision made artifacts just by sight, so no need to bring in an Egyptologist or archeologist to help identify this vase. In light of his bio above, said experts are not to be trusted anyway.

After a while I gave up, the thing is an hour long. Van Kerkwyk is clearly a Hancock acolyte that believes in an Atlantis like super civilization that was completely wiped out by a comet impact that ushered in the Younger Dryas. Despite ANY AND ALL physical evidence of this high-tech people being wiped out and completely vanishing from the Archeological record they managed to teach lots of ancient people how to use their now lost technology, while still leaving no trace of said technology.

At best these guys have a really cool vase that some ancient craftsman managed to create, and they took a lot of measurements of it. It's very impressive, but so are the Pyramids. At worst they have modernish fake, that they took a lot of measurements of.

What they do not have is any physical evidence of a pre-ancient civilization or Atlantis.

This is my favorite dissection of UnchartedX:


Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_NguZUDku4&t=9815s


Dr. Miano has taken on Bright Insight, too. And he does it so nicely.

 

[John J.]

What about the claim being made here though? Any comment?

What claim?

Oh, Bill, your "quote" of my post leaves out the line quoting you, immediately above the picture of Tutankhamun's mask.
That changes the context and the intended meaning, don't you think?

This was the original:

...instead of making advancements in technology, as one would expect, the precision was lost.

Yeah, I don't know why they bothered....

 

[Lu Ann Lewellen]

They offer no explanation for the precision we see because they have no explanation. Thousands of jars, bowls and vases made of granite and harder stone such as corundum were manufactured. A recent scan of one of vase shows astonishing precision to 1/1000ths of an inch. What tools did the dynastic Egyptians use (before the wheel was invented) to carve these magnificent pieces? Why such precision? If you know what tooling they used, please let me know. There is a real mystery here.

They had potters' wheels. Wheeled vehicles had been invented by neighboring cultures but they weren't practical in sandy soil, at least until the Hyskos introduced war chariots and horses. There's only one road known from the Old Kingdom and it led out of a quarry. It was probably paved to facilitate the moving of blocks.

Canals were the preferred method of transporting people and goods. They also had foot trails and sedan chairs.

(Apologies if this has already been answered. I haven't read the whole thread yet.)

 

[Lu Ann Lewellen]

What about the claim being made here though?

Which claim? This one? "The key claim is, that these structures and artifacts were not manufactured by these ancient cultures self, but instead merely inherited from lost pre-historic civilizations with advanced manufacturing capabilities."

There was no LAHT or Lost Civilization, therefore the ancient (and not so ancient in the case of the Maya, the Inca, the Aztecs, etc.) civilizations did not discover, inherit, stumble across or commandeer their work. It's an argument from incredulity with a large dose of racism (or "unconscious bias" if you prefer) thrown in. The indigenous people who built these works were not too primitive or inept to have done the works attributed to them using the technology they had. They weren't stupid.

 

[Lu Ann Lewellen]

Granite is a 7 on the Mohs scale of hardness, diamond is a 10, The granite would have had to have been carved with something harder than it is.

Dr. Miano addresses a common misconception about the Mohs scale at 11:57 in this video:


Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3A_kItgymQ


Toughness is more important than hardness. It's worth noting that all these ancient cultures had flint.

 

[Mendel]

Let me bold some claims:

But we are talking about granite and centuries before the potter's wheel. A simple lathe cannot reproduce the geometry to within a few thousands of a millimeter, consistently throughout the piece even the inside. The point made in the Unchartedx video is that high speed rotary tools guided by some kind of computing mechanism would have been required. A modern example of 5 axis milling machines are popular on youtube and they move and look sort of robotic. Thank you.

The scan data does not support this claim. The precision is 0.1 mm (one tenth) at best, not 0.001 mm (one thousandth). The handle holes are so severely misaligned that the idea that they were created by a CNC machine seems ludicrous.

My rebuttal is based on @overlord's analysis of the scan data earlier in this thread, please read those posts! You can find them at https://www.metabunk.org/threads/cl...-manufacturing-capabilities.12240/post-289224 and https://www.metabunk.org/threads/cl...-manufacturing-capabilities.12240/post-289266 .

Please stop repeating claims that are demonstrably false.
Please stop trusting the people who misrepresent the facts.

 

[Lu Ann Lewellen]

Turning was invented in the 1,800's as I understand it. An odd thing about these artifacts is that everyone agrees they are pre-dynastic and 5,000 years old but instead of making advancements in technology, as one would expect, the precision was lost. The bulk of these vases were discovered hidden under the step pyramid just in the past 100 years or so, I believe. There are videos on YouTube that show pieces and shards still there today. One piece exist that shows signs of turning. In the base of a broken vase you can see from the mark left in the base that it was being turned off-center. The turn was stopped, the piece adjusted and then re-turned, carving a distinctly different circular pattern in the base. The guys doing the analysis are just nerds who have been trying to measure these things for years. I look forward to the next one they scan. Thank you.

The precision was lost? That sounds like a Christopher Dunn argument to me. The schist vases were found at the site of Djoser's pyramid complex, weren't they? That's Old Kingdom. Ceramics were advancing at the time and the kiln was invented in the early Old Kingdom at the latest. Schist vases may simply have gone out of style as ceremonial marl clay vases became more popular. They are very precise.

More on schist vases and how they were made:

http://www.theglobaleducationproject.org/egypt/articles/hrdfact3.php

 

[Lu Ann Lewellen]

Does it get more precise than this?

https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/544781

[h3][/h3]

 

[Bill Ferguson]

This is my favorite dissection of UnchartedX:


Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_NguZUDku4&t=9815s


Dr. Miano has taken on Bright Insight, too. And he does it so nicely.

Thank you. What about the geometry of the vase and the claim made about the manufacturing process? The metrology is hard data posted online for anyone to challenge, verify or duplicate. It is scientific data.

 

[Lu Ann Lewellen]

Thank you. What about the geometry of the vase and the claim made about the manufacturing process? The metrology is hard data posted online for anyone to challenge, verify or duplicate. It is scientific data.

I think it was pointed out that you can draw triangles and circles on just about anything and get some impressive geometry. Anyone with a crafter's eye will just go for a pleasing shape and not start with geometric patterns. There is a papyrus that shows a knowledge of pi, though. The ancient Egyptians had math.

You mentioned turning - as on a lathe? A potter's wheel is a vertical lathe. The same basic technique was used for stone. Slow wheels were invented some time during the Fourth Dynasty or earlier; fast, two-man wheels and wheels operated by the potter's foot were developed in the New Kingdom. Before potter's wheels they used a rotating pilaster.

 

[Bill Ferguson]

I think it was pointed out that you can draw triangles and circles on just about anything and get some impressive geometry. Anyone with a crafter's eye will just go for a pleasing shape and not start with geometric patterns. There is a papyrus that shows a knowledge of pi, though. The ancient Egyptians had math.

You mentioned turning - as on a lathe? A potter's wheel is a vertical lathe. The same basic technique was used for stone. Slow wheels were invented some time during the Fourth Dynasty or earlier; fast, two-man wheels and wheels operated by the potter's foot were developed in the New Kingdom. Before potter's wheels they used a rotating pilaster.

Additional evidence of machining can be seen in the screenshots below and in the words of Flinders Petrie ("Father of Archaeology").

Flinders Petrie (1853-1942): Father of Archaeology

"The principle of rotating the tool was, for sma!ler objects, abandoned in favour of rotating the work; and the lathe appears to have been as familiar an instrument in the fourth dynasty, as it is in modern workshops. The diorite bowls and vases of the Old Kingdom are frequently met with, and show great technical skill. One piece found at Gizeh, No.14, shows that the method employed was true turning, and not any process of grinding, since the bowl has been knocked off of its centring, recentred imperfectly, and the old turning not quite turned out; thus there are two surfaces belonging to different centrings, and meeting in a cusp. Such an appearance could not be produced by any grinding or rubbing process which pressed on the surface. Another detail is shown by fragment No.15; here the curves of the bowl are spherical, and must have therefore been cut by a tool sweeping an arc from a fixed centre while the bowl rotated. This centre or hinging of the tool was in the axis of the lathe for the general surface of the bowl, right up to the edge of it; but as a lip was wanted, the centring of the tool was shifted, but with exactly the same radius of its arc; and a fresh cut made to leave a lip to the bowl. That this was certainly not a chance result of hand-work is shown, not only by the exact circularity of the curves, and their equality, but also by the cusp left where they meet. This has not been at all rounded off as would certainly be the case in hand-work, and it is a clear proof of the rigidly mechanical method of striking the curves".
One of the screenshots show jars found in a grave radiocarbon dated to between 14,000 and 12,000 years old.

Thank you.

 

[Ann K]

One of the screenshots show jars found in a grave radiocarbon dated to between 14,000 and 12,000 years old.

Radiometric data can be very precise, emphasis on "can be". But it takes careful sample selection and preparation to get reliable dating, and contamination or anomalous inclusions can invalidate the results. Multiple tests or multiple methods should have been used when a result is that far outside the norm. Or, as before on this topic, we need to ask "is this claim true?", because unscrupulous parties have certainly made spurious claims before.

 

[Bob Jase]

Additional evidence of machining can be seen in the screenshots below and in the words of Flinders Petrie ("Father of Archaeology").

Flinders Petrie (1853-1942): Father of Archaeology

"The principle of rotating the tool was, for sma!ler objects, abandoned in favour of rotating the work; and the lathe appears to have been as familiar an instrument in the fourth dynasty, as it is in modern workshops. The diorite bowls and vases of the Old Kingdom are frequently met with, and show great technical skill. One piece found at Gizeh, No.14, shows that the method employed was true turning, and not any process of grinding, since the bowl has been knocked off of its centring, recentred imperfectly, and the old turning not quite turned out; thus there are two surfaces belonging to different centrings, and meeting in a cusp. Such an appearance could not be produced by any grinding or rubbing process which pressed on the surface. Another detail is shown by fragment No.15; here the curves of the bowl are spherical, and must have therefore been cut by a tool sweeping an arc from a fixed centre while the bowl rotated. This centre or hinging of the tool was in the axis of the lathe for the general surface of the bowl, right up to the edge of it; but as a lip was wanted, the centring of the tool was shifted, but with exactly the same radius of its arc; and a fresh cut made to leave a lip to the bowl. That this was certainly not a chance result of hand-work is shown, not only by the exact circularity of the curves, and their equality, but also by the cusp left where they meet. This has not been at all rounded off as would certainly be the case in hand-work, and it is a clear proof of the rigidly mechanical method of striking the curves".
One of the screenshots show jars found in a grave radiocarbon dated to between 14,000 and 12,000 years old.

Thank you.

Argument from outdated authority - you may be shocked to know other folks have learned new things in the past eighty years

 

[Ann K]

Any comment on the substance?

Bill, you keep demanding we address "the substance" without specifying which particular claims you want us to address. A long YouTube video containing many claims is not useful for the purpose (and is outside the posting guidelines for that reason).

And yet ...you have so far refused to address the rebuttals that many of us have posted. Indeed, it seems likely that you neither watch nor read what we have to say. We examine the evidence to try to figure out what really happened, but it would appear that you've made up your mind based on one presentation while conveniently ignoring all the ones that debunk that view.

Is there a reason for us to continue to engage with you?

 

[Landru]

This topic may have gone off the rails. Do not provide a link/video unless you provide explanation/context. If a user has to click on the link to get what you're trying to say it is a violation of the Posting Guidelines and will be deleted.

 

[Lu Ann Lewellen]

Additional evidence of machining can be seen in the screenshots below and in the words of Flinders Petrie ("Father of Archaeology").

There was "machining" but it was done with a sort of "drill press" and a "vertical lathe". Chunks of flint could be used to shape even the hardest stone such as diorite.

Drills were similar to this:

The process is demonstrated in the following video. Speed isn't necessary to do the shaping (the film is speeded up in some places) so a power source such as electricity wasn't needed. In some places the sculptor (Olga Vdovina) uses a bow drill. In others she just hand cranks her drill. Tool materials include wood, sandstone, corundum, hemp string, alabaster, and quartz. She made a grinding and drilling machine, a bow drill, a chambering tool (a grindstone on a wooden handle), a copper saw, and copper drills of various diameters; these are all shown in the video. The total work time was about 6 months, 6 to 8 hours a day with 2 days off a week. Two months were spent on making and testing the tools. I have no doubt this woman could meet the challenge in UnchartedX's scanning video. She would just need to change the shape of the vase and the type of stone.


Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dC3Z_DBnCp8

 

[Ravi]

From the video in post #299, this part is very likely the way it was done, using rigs. As long as you are able to keep everything rather stable and not too much play, one can achieve pretty good roundness/shaping. Everything rotating around a central point creates a mathematically perfect circle, as long as you can do it rigidly and stable.

 

[Lu Ann Lewellen]

What machines? Where are they? The general idea has been around for a while, with H.P. Lovecraft using it fictitiously, then books like Midnight of the Magicians and of course Chariots of the Gods down to Hancock's Fingerprints of the Gods and shows like Ancient Aliens.

Don't forget Ignatius Donnelly. His Atlantis: The Antediluvian World (1882) and Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel (1883) inspired, shall we say, Graham Hancock right down to the comet.

 

[Lu Ann Lewellen]

From the video in post #299, this part is very likely the way it was done, using rigs. As long as you are able to keep everything rather stable and not too much play, one can achieve pretty good roundness/shaping. Everything rotating around a central point creates a mathematically perfect circle, as long as you can do it rigidly and stable.

View attachment 59107

The handles had me baffled but it looks like she left a ridge, then sawed into it. Removing the material in between and then "perfectly" rounding it could be a challenge but probably no more difficult than rounding an arm on a statue. The techniques were handed down from father to son and what may look "impossible" to us was probably child's play to them. Apprentices could have done the grudge work of rough shaping and even final polishing so the master craftsman didn't have to spend every waking moment on the vase. Vase making was an industry in other cultures as well.

I'm wondering why they drilled holes in the handles. Was this decorative or could it be for threading string through for carrying or for hanging?
The Djoser collection goes back to previous kings from the First and Second Dynasties; the items weren't all made for him. There would have been no rush to complete the items in time for his funeral so so what if each item took a long time to make? They were crafting for eternity.

 

[Lu Ann Lewellen]

One of the screenshots show jars found in a grave radiocarbon dated to between 14,000 and 12,000 years old.

That's not astounding, really.

Ceramic Art In The Paleolithic Era (20,000 BC)

The earliest pottery vessels date from East Asia, with discoveries in China and Japan, which were still linked by a land bridge at the time, as well as some in what is now the Russian Far East, providing many between 20,000–10,000 BCE despite the vessels being simple utilitarian tools.

At Xianrendong Cave in Jiangxi province, prehistoric pottery shards dating back 20,000 years were discovered. Mobile foragers who hunted and gathered their food during the Late Glacial Maximum created ceramic containers long before the advent of agriculture. Many of the ceramic fragments had scorch marks on them, suggesting that they had previously been used for cooking or storage.

Source: https://themarshallgallery.com/post/4956-what-is-the-history-of-ceramic-art-sculpture

You don't say where the grave was but vases have been around for a very long time.

 

[Mendel]

You don't say where the grave was but vases have been around for a very long time.

Build a campfire on clay, boom: you discover pottery, essentially.

 

[Lu Ann Lewellen]

Build a campfire on clay, boom: you discover pottery, essentially.

And it smells better than animal skins for toting water.

There is - or was - a Cherokee potter who fired her small sculpture in the bonfire during storytelling. The fire left a nice smoky patina on her little owls and they were as hard and durable as anything fired in a kiln. She'd retrieve them after the fire had died down. I think her hands were about as high-tech as she got.

 

[Lu Ann Lewellen]

Have they used this methodology on samples of known handmade vases of high quality? Without any comparison data, it's just the old CT staple, argument by incredulity, again.

I would like to see them scan this one:

It's a blackware vase by Louise Bigmeat Maney. She uses a wheel but traditional Cherokee potters use no wheels or kilns. It's handbuilding only and firing is done in an open fire. They were not taught by Atlanteans. In their tradition, it was a mud dauber wasp who rewarded a girl for helping him by teaching her how to make pots.

 

[Lu Ann Lewellen]

Argument from outdated authority - you may be shocked to know other folks have learned new things in the past eighty years

They sure have. This is my favorite cherry-picked quote from Petrie:

"The typical method of working hard stones,—such as granite, diorite, basalt, &c.,—was by means of bronze tools; these were set with cutting points, far harder than the quartz which was operated on. The material of these cutting points is yet undetermined; but only five substances are possible: beryl, topaz, chrysoberyl, corundum or sapphire, and diamond. The character of the work would certainly seem to point to diamond as being the cutting jewel; and only the considerations of its rarity in general, and its absence from Egypt, interfere with this conclusion, and render the tough uncrystallized corundum the more likely material."

Petrie, Flinders. The Pyramids and Temples of Gizeh (p. 249). Read Books Ltd.. Kindle Edition.

Arsenical copper is harder than ordinary copper but it was the abrasives that did the cutting. Traces of abrasives have even been found in some of the cuts. No jewel points needed; the saws didn't even need teeth. Copper tools were for fine finishing. There was a foundry near the workers' town at Giza just for forging and sharpening the copper tools. Blocks were split at the quarry along natural fault lines then numbered so they'd be in the correct order when they arrived at their destination.

I don't know exactly how hieroglyphs were cut into polished granite but I'll bet Denys Stocks does. Did Petrie even mention flint tools?

 

[Alexandria Nick]

From the video in post #299, this part is very likely the way it was done, using rigs. As long as you are able to keep everything rather stable and not too much play, one can achieve pretty good roundness/shaping. Everything rotating around a central point creates a mathematically perfect circle, as long as you can do it rigidly and stable.

View attachment 59107

I see a picture like this and it makes me go down a completely different path than the "alternative" history people. They see multiple objects of highly precise dimensions or duplicate objects with approximately identical dimensions. Then they go "obviously they had CNC machines or something!" I think "They were just all made on the same jig?"

 

[Lu Ann Lewellen]

A tweet from one of the guys doing measurements.

How? Ask the go-to ancient tools guy, Denys Stocks.

Paraphrasing:

The experiments indicated that the exterior shaping of all hard stone vessels [found at Saqarra in Djoser's tomb], including those made of basalt, diorite, porphyry, breccia, granite, and even the softer calcite, in every period, must have been completed with flint chisels, punches and scrapers.

Experiments in Egyptian Archaeology - Denys A. Stocks

 

[Lu Ann Lewellen]

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

Denys Stocks' source was J.E. Quibell, Stone Vessels From the Step Pyramid,1935

I see a picture like this and it makes me go down a completely different path than the "alternative" history people. They see multiple objects of highly precise dimensions or duplicate objects with approximately identical dimensions. Then they go "obviously they had CNC machines or something!" I think "They were just all made on the same jig?"

I see a picture of several together and they're all different shapes and sizes. They might all have been made using the same techniques but they weren't mass-produced, or even all made in the same dynasty.

What's amazing to me is the skill and craftsmanship so long ago, not the precision. The precision simply isn't there.

 

[Bill Ferguson]

From the video in post #299, this part is very likely the way it was done, using rigs. As long as you are able to keep everything rather stable and not too much play, one can achieve pretty good roundness/shaping. Everything rotating around a central point creates a mathematically perfect circle, as long as you can do it rigidly and stable.

View attachment 59107

It would not be possible to maintain the geometry and consistent measurements to within the width of a human hair using the technology shown in this video. The precision found in the scanned vase and what we see in this video is apples and oranges. It is like comparing a Ferrari to a horse and buggy.

 

[Mendel]

It would not be possible to maintain the geometry and consistent measurements to within the width of a human hair using the technology shown in this video.

Why not? "Human hair" is 0.1 mm.

Btw the curve of the body of the vase is not symmetrical; the upper part of the body is more slender than the lower part.

If you rotate a heavy object, it'll wobble if it is off-axis; this is more pronounced the heavier it is. Control the wobble on the rig, remember that a spinning axis is stable, and then the work is going to be precise.

 

[Lu Ann Lewellen]

It would not be possible to maintain the geometry and consistent measurements to within the width of a human hair using the technology shown in this video. The precision found in the scanned vase and what we see in this video is apples and oranges. It is like comparing a Ferrari to a horse and buggy.

Sure it's possible. Olga Vdovina is a sculptor but she doesn't have the advantage of generations of expert stonemasons behind her. She's doing amazing work for an "ancient novice". The bird is even better, IMO.

I just want to know that if she accepts the challenge who's going to pay for her time?

 

[Bill Ferguson]

Why not? "Human hair" is 0.1 mm.

Btw the curve of the body of the vase is not symmetrical; the upper part of the body is more slender than the lower part.

If you rotate a heavy object, it'll wobble if it is off-axis; this is more pronounced the heavier it is. Control the wobble on the rig, remember that a spinning axis is stable, and then the work is going to be precise.

Thank you for your comment.

The upper and lower parts of the vase have different contours as part of its design but that doesn't mean it isn't symmetrical. In other words, if you cut the piece in half from top to bottom both halves will be the same. The thickness of the walls, the radius where the lugs meet the body on one side is the same radius as the other side and the area between the lugs, which could not be removed by the same turning process as the rest of the piece, have measurements as though it was turned with no lugs. However the contour must be a key part of their measurements because every angle and radius is related to and dependent on the other perhaps similar to how the golden ratio works.

 

[Bill Ferguson]

Sure it's possible. Olga Vdovina is a sculptor but she doesn't have the advantage of generations of expert stonemasons behind her. She's doing amazing work for an "ancient novice". The bird is even better, IMO.

I just want to know that if she accepts the challenge who's going to pay for her time?

Its all about the details. Is it possible to pound out a functional vase using sticks and stones that, from a distance, looks like the object? Of course it's possible. Is it possible to pound out a vase using sticks and stones to specifications and tolerances being discussed? No. The first problem would be the measuring tool. For example, how could she check the piece to make sure the wall thickness was the same throughout to within a few microns? It simply isn't possible and I'm sure she would agree.

 

[Mendel]

Thank you for your comment.

The upper and lower parts of the vase have different contours as part of its design but that doesn't mean it isn't symmetrical. In other words, if you cut the piece in half from top to bottom both halves will be the same. The thickness of the walls, the radius where the lugs meet the body on one side is the same radius as the other side and the area between the lugs, which could not be removed by the same turning process as the rest of the piece, have measurements as though it was turned with no lugs. However the contour must be a key part of their measurements because every angle and radius is related to and dependent on the other perhaps similar to how the golden ratio works.

Yes. The symmetry you describe comes from turning, it's rotational symmetry. This is true regardless of whether it was turned by hand or by a motor.

From overlord's data plot, the accuracy is indeed worse between the lugs. I don't see any maths that applies to it, nor do I doubt that a good craftswoman can smooth out an inch of curve.

 

[Mendel]

For example, how could she check the piece to make sure the wall thickness was the same throughout to within a few microns? It simply isn't possible and I'm sure she would agree.

Hey, guess what, the wall thickness of this vase varies quite a bit over its height. It it not the same throughout. The inside has a noticeable kink in it near the bottom.

Here all points are plotted with their distance from the centerline (green) on the vertical axis, the four images on the top are the zoomed in portions of their respective blue rectangles.
Note the messy curvature of the interior and the varying wall thickness along the vase.

View attachment 58628

And you look dishonest when you call 100 "few".

 

[Lu Ann Lewellen]

Yes. The symmetry you describe comes from turning, it's rotational symmetry. This is true regardless of whether it was turned by hand or by a motor.

If only there were a copy of a wall painting from the tomb of Rekhmire showing a stone vase being drilled........

However, drilling was a late stage in the process; firstly, the artisan would have chiselled out a rough hole in the vase; the crank drill being used thereafter and possibly with the aid of a sand abrasive [3]. The crank drill comprised of two wooden parts and two stone parts. The wooden parts were the shaft held in the artisan's right hand; and a diagonal crank at the top used to rotate the drill back and forth [3]. The stone parts were the drill bit held by a fork in the lower end of the shaft and a stone ballast ring at the top. A solid stone ballast was used from the Middle Kingdom onwards; earlier drills used bags of sand or cobbles to provide the ballast [3]. Both versions of the stone-workers drill were represented in hieroglyphic form.

https://academic.oup.com/occmed/article/72/9/595/6966500

 

[Mendel]

If only there were a copy of a wall painting from the tomb of Rekhmire showing a stone vase being drilled........

It's not just about the drilling, it's about the exterior and interior being rotated on the exact same axis, suggesting that the same rig was used for shaping both—or that someone was very good at centering.

 

[Miss VocalCord]

Additional evidence of machining can be seen in the screenshots below and in the words of Flinders Petrie ("Father of Archaeology").

Nowhere is Petrie talking about (modern/advanced) machining. It is clearly he describes technologies available at that time to create the stone works, as can be read when you read the full chapter:

From the examples of work which I was able to collect at Gizeh, and from various fixed objects of which I took casts, the questions so often asked seem now to be solved.

That the blades of the saws were of bronze, we know from the green staining on the sides of saw cuts, and on grains of sand left in a saw cut.


The forms of the tools were straight saws, circular saws, tubular drills, and lathes.

https://www.ronaldbirdsall.com/gizeh/petrie/c19.html

When Petrie talks about

That this was certainly not a chance result of hand-work is shown

it is clear he means the use of any type of machining or tooling. That is made very clear in the very next paragraph which you left out from your qoute:

Hand graving tools were also used for working on the irregular surfaces of statuary; as may be well seen on the diorite statue of Khafra found at Gizeh, and now at Bulak.

https://www.ronaldbirdsall.com/gizeh/petrie/c19.html