Advanced Machining
in
Ancient Egypt
In August, 1984, Analog magazine
published my article "Advanced Machining in Ancient Egypt?" It was a
study of "Pyramids and Temples of Gizeh," written by Sir. William
Flinders Petrie. Since the article’s publication, I have visited Egypt twice, and
with each visit I leave with more respect for the ancient pyramid builders. While in Egypt
in 1986, I visited the Cairo museum and gave a copy of my article, along with a business
card, to the director of the museum. He thanked me kindly, threw it in a drawer to join
other sundry material, and turned away. Another Egyptologist led me to the "tool
room" to educate me in the methods of the ancient masons by showing me a few cases
that housed primitive copper tools. I asked my host about the cutting of granite, for this
was the focus of my article. He explained that the ancient Egyptians cut a slot in the
granite, inserted wooden wedges, and then soaked them with water. The wood swelled
creating pressure that split the rock. Splitting rock is vastly different than machining
it and he did not explain how copper implements were able to cut granite, but he was so
enthusiastic with his dissertation that I did not interrupt. To prove his argument, he
walked me over to a nearby travel agent encouraging me to buy airplane tickets to Aswan,
where, he said, the evidence is clear. I must, he insisted, see the quarry marks there, as
well as the unfinished obelisk.
Dutifully, I bought the tickets
and arrived at Aswan the next day. After learning some of the Egyptian customs, I got the
impression that this was not the first time that my Egyptologist friend had made that trip
to the travel agent. The quarry marks I saw there did not satisfy me that the methods
described were the only means by which the pyramid builders quarried their rock. There is
a large round hole drilled into the bedrock hillside, that measures approximately 12
inches in diameter and 3 feet deep that is located in the channel, which runs the length
of the estimated 3,000 ton obelisk,. The hole was drilled at an angle with the top
intruding into the channel space. The ancients may have used drills to remove material
from the perimeter of the obelisk, knocked out the webs between the holes, and then
removed the cusps.
Quarry Marks at Aswan
Drill Hole at Aswan
The Aswan quarries were educational,
though after returning to Cairo the following day and while strolling around the Giza
Plateau later in the week, I started to question the quarry marks at Aswan even more.
South of the second pyramid I found an abundance of quarry marks of similar nature. The
granite casing stones that had sheathed the second pyramid were stripped off and lying
around the base in various stages of destruction. Some of the stones were still in place,
though sections had been split away from them, and there I found the same quarry marks
that I had seen earlier in the week at Aswan. This was puzzling to me. Disregarding the
impossibility of Egyptologists’ theories on the ancient pyramid builders’
quarrying methods, are they really valid even from a non-technical, logical viewpoint? If
these quarry marks distinctively identify the people who created the pyramids, why would
they engage in such a tremendous amount of extremely difficult work only to destroy their
work after having completed it? It seems to me that the quarry marks found at Aswan and on
the Giza Plateau were from a later period of time, and they were created by people who
were interested only in obtaining granite without caring about the source from where it
came.
Quarry Marks at Giza
Archaeology is largely the study
of history’s toolmakers, and archaeologists understand a society’s level of
advancement with tools and artifacts. The hammer was probably the first tool ever
invented, and hammers have forged some elegant and beautiful artifacts. Ever since man
first learned that he could effect profound changes in his environment by applying force
with a reasonable degree of accuracy, the development of tools has been a continuous and
fascinating aspect of human endeavor. The Great Pyramid leads a long list of artifacts
that have been misunderstood and misinterpreted by archaeologists, who have promoted
theories and methods that are based on a collection of tools that they struggle with to
replicate the most simple aspects of the work.
"Quarrymen of the Pyramid age would have
accused Greek historian Strabo of understatement as they hacked at the stubborn granite of
Aswan. Their axes and chisels were made of copper hardened by hammering."
Dr. IES Edwards~Egyptologist
For the most part, primitive
tools that are discovered are considered contemporaneous with the artifacts of the same
period. Yet during this period in Egyptian history, artifacts were produced in prolific
number with no tools surviving to explain their creation. The ancient Egyptians created
artifacts that cannot be explained in simple terms. These tools do not fully represent the
"state of the art" that is evident in the artifacts. There are some intriguing
objects that survived after this civilization, and in spite of its most visible and
impressive monuments, we have only a sketchy understanding of the full scope of its
technology. The tools displayed by Egyptologists as instruments for the creation of many
of these incredible artifacts are physically incapable of reproducing them. After standing
in awe before these engineering marvels, and then being shown a paltry collection of
copper implements in the tool case at the Cairo Museum, one comes away bemused and
frustrated.
British Egyptologist, Sir.
William Flinders Petrie, recognized that these tools were insufficient. He explored this
anomaly thoroughly in "Pyramids and Temples of Gizeh," and expressed
amazement about the methods the ancient Egyptians used to cut hard igneous rocks. He
credited them with methods that "......we are only now coming to understand." So
why do modern mainstream Egyptologists insist that this work was accomplished with a few
primitive copper instruments?
I'm not an Egyptologist, I'm a
technologist. I do not have much interest in who died when, whom they may have taken with
them and where they went to. No lack of respect is intended for the mountain of work and
the millions of hours of study conducted on this subject by intelligent scholars
(professional and amateur), but my interest, thus my focus, is elsewhere. When I look at
an artifact to investigate how it was manufactured, I am not concerned about its history
or chronology. Having spent most of my career working with the machinery that actually
creates modern artifacts, such as jet-engine components, I am able to analyze and
determine how an artifact was created. I have also had training and experience in some
non-conventional manufacturing methods, such as laser processing and electrical discharge
machining. Having said that, I should state that contrary to some popular speculations, I
have not seen evidence of laser for cutting on the Egyptian rocks. Still, there is
evidence for other non-conventional machining methods, as well as more sophisticated,
conventional type sawing, lathe and milling practices. Undoubtedly, some of the artifacts
that Petrie was studying were produced using lathes. There is also evidence of clearly
defined lathe tool marks on some "sarcophagi" lids. The Cairo Museum contains
enough evidence that will prove that the ancient Egyptians used highly sophisticated
manufacturing methods once its properly analyzed. For generations the focus has centered
on the nature of the cutting tools used by the ancient Egyptians. While in Egypt in
February 1995, I discovered evidence that raises the question, "What guided the
cutting tool?"
A variety of people have
speculated that to erect a building as perfect as the Great Pyramid, the builders must
have possessed supernatural powers. Some even speculate that the builders used lasers to
cut the masonry and then levitated the stones into place in the pyramid. While I cannot
speak authoritatively regarding the builders’ powers of levitation, whether the
implementation of those powers was through the use of the mind or through the use of
technology, I can say with reasonable confidence that no lasers were used in cutting the
materials which went into building the Great Pyramid. Although the laser is a wonderful
tool with many uses, its function as a cutting tool is limited to economically viable
applications, such as cutting small holes in thin pieces of metal and refractory material.
As a general purpose cutting tool, it cannot compete with the machining methods that were
available before its inception.
The methods used to cut the
masonry for the Great Pyramid can be deduced from the marks they left behind on the stone.
The bulk of the Great Pyramid was constructed with limestone blocks weighing an average of
2 1/2 tons each. While there are some interesting points to be made concerning the
limestone that encased the pyramid, and they will be addressed later, these stones do not
offer the same information about the methods that were used to produce them as the
thousands of tons of granite. At the expense of considerable time and effort by the
original creators, the granite artifacts found in the Great Pyramid and at other sites in
Egypt offer the clues we are looking for.
Before we investigate the granite
that was included in the Giza pyramids, there are several artifacts that indicate
machinery power being used by the pyramid builders. These artifacts, scrutinized by
William Flinders Petrie, are all fragments of extremely hard igneous rock. These pieces of
granite and diorite exhibit marks that are the same as those resulting from cutting hard
igneous rock with modern machinery. It is surprising that Petrie’s studies of these
fragments have not attracted greater attention, for there is unmistakable evidence of
machine tooling methods. It will probably surprise many people to know that evidence
proving that the ancient Egyptians used tools such as straight saws, circular saws, and
even lathes has been recognized for over a century. The lathe is the father of all
machine tools in existence, and Petrie submits evidence showing that not only were lathes
used by the ancient Egyptians, but they performed tasks which would, by today’s
standards, be considered impossible without highly developed specialized techniques, such
as cutting concave and convex sperical radii without splintering the material.
While digging through the ruins
of ancient civilizations, would archeologists instantly recognize the work of machine
tools by the kind of marks made on the material or the configuration of the piece at which
they were looking? Fortunately, one archeologist had the perception and knowledge to
recognize such marks, and, although at the time Petrie’s findings were published the
machining industry was in its infancy, the growth in the industry since then warrants a
new look at his findings. Read more about Petrie's findings in "The Giza Power Plant:
Technologies of Ancient Egypt" and at The
Pyramids and Temples of Gizeh Online
One can gather by reading
Petrie’s work that he involved himself in some extensive research regarding the tools
that were employed in cutting hard stone. Even so, there is a persisting belief among some
Egyptologists that the granite used in the Great Pyramid was cut using copper chisels.
Having worked with copper on
numerous occasions, and having hardened it in the manner suggested above, this statement
struck me as being entirely ridiculous. You can certainly work-harden copper by striking
it repeatedly or even by bending it. However, after a specific hardness has been reached,
the copper will begin to split and break apart. This is why, when working with copper to
any great extent, it has to be periodically annealed, or softened, if you want to keep it
in one piece. Even after hardening in such a way, the copper will not be able to cut
granite. The hardest copper alloy in existence today is beryllium copper. There is no
evidence to suggest that the ancient Egyptians possessed this alloy, but even if they did,
this alloy is not hard enough to cut granite. Copper has predominantly been described as
the only metal available at the time the Great Pyramid was built. Consequently, it would
follow that all work must have sprung from the able use of this basic metallic element. We
may be entirely wrong, however, even in the basic assumption that copper was the only
metal available to the ancient Egyptians. For another little known fact about the pyramid
builders is that they were iron makers as well. Hidden chambers and Metal plate
CARBON-14 DATING THE GIZA PYRAMIDS?
The Small Relics Found Inside The Pyramids - DE49
In proposing more primitive
methods of manufacture, it has been demonstrated that copper charged with quartz sand can
also be used to wear away the granite. Also, small balls made of dolorite, a stone that is
harder than granite, have been found in the granite quarries which have led Egyptologists
to suggest that granite artifacts were created by bashing the material.
Unforbidden Geology explores
the more simple approach to working granite.
While there may be some who are
satisfied with believing that these simplistic methods were adequate in creating the
artifacts I have seen and measured, I am not. This is because they do not explain the full
scope of the work.
Without going back in time and
interviewing the craftsmen who worked on the pyramids, we will probably never know for
sure what materials their tools were made of. Any debate of the subject would be futile,
for until the proof is at hand, no satisfactory conclusion can be reached. However, the
manner in which the masons used their tools can be discussed, and, perhaps if we compare
current methods of cutting granite with the finished product (i.e. the granite coffers),
there may be some basis on which to draw a parallel.
Today's granite cutting methods
includes the use of wire-saws and an abrasive, usually silicon-carbide which slices
through granite with ease. The wire is a continuous loop that is held by two wheels, one
of the wheels being the driver. Between the wheels, which can vary in distance depending
on the size of the machine, the granite is cut by being pushed against the wire or by
being held firmly and allowing the wire to feed through it. The wire does not cut the
granite, but is designed to effectively hold the silicon carbide grit that does the actual
cutting.
By looking at the shapes of the
cuts that were made in the basalt items 3b, and 5b, one could certainly speculate that a
wire saw had been used and left its imprint in the rock. The full radius at the bottom of
the cut is exactly the shape that would be left by such a saw.
Mr. John Barta, of the John Barta
Company informed me, that the wire saws used in quarry mills today cut through granite
with great rapidity. Mr. Barta told me that the wire saws with silicon-carbide cut through
the granite like it is butter. Out of interest, I asked Mr. Barta what he thought of the
copper chisel theory. Mr. Barta, possessing an excellent sense of humor, came forth with
some jocular remarks regarding the practicality of such an idea.
If the ancient Egyptians had
indeed used wire saws for cutting hard rock, were these saws powered by hand or machine?
With my experience in machine shops and the countless number of times I have had to use a
saw (both handsaws and power saws), there appears to be strong evidence that, in at least
some instances, the latter method was used.
Once again, Petrie provides a
clue:
"On the N. end (of the coffer) is a place, near the west side,
where the saw was run too deep into the granite, and was backed out again by the masons;
but this fresh start they made still too deep, and two inches lower they backed out a
second time, having cut out more than .10 inch deeper than they had intended..."
The above was Petrie’s notes
on the coffer inside the King's Chamber in the Great Pyramid. The following concerns the
coffer inside the Second Pyramid:
"The coffer is well polished, not only inside but all over the
outside; even though it was nearly all bedded into the floor, with the blocks plastered
against it. The bottom is left rough, and shows that it was sawn and afterwards dressed
down to the intended height; but in sawing it the saw was run too deep and then backed
out; it was, therefore, not dressed down all over the bottom, the worst part of the sawing
being cut .20 inch deeper than the dressed part. This is the only error of workmanship in
the whole of it; it is polished all over the sides in and out, and is not left with the
saw lines visible on it like the Great Pyramid coffer."
Petrie estimated that a pressure
of one to two tons on jeweled tipped bronze saws would have been necessary to cut through
the extremely hard granite. If we agree with these estimates as well as with the methods
proposed by Egyptologists regarding the construction of the pyramids, then a severe
inequity can be discerned between the two.
So far, Egyptologists have not
given credence to any speculation that suggests that the builders of the pyramid might
have used machines instead of manpower in this massive construction project. In fact, they
do not give the pyramid builders the intelligence to have developed and used the simple
wheel. It is quite remarkable that a culture, which possessed sufficient technical ability
to make a lathe and progressed from there to develop a technique that enabled them to
machine radii in hard diorite, would not have thought of the wheel before this.
Petrie logically assumes that the
granite coffers found in the Giza Pyramids were marked prior to being cut. The workmen
were given a guideline with which to work. The accuracy exhibited in the dimensions of the
coffers confirms this, plus the fact that guidelines of some sort would have been
necessary to alert the masons of their error.
While no one can say with
certainty how the granite coffers were cut, the saw marks in the granite have certain
characteristics, which suggests that they were not the result of hand sawing. If there was
not evidence to the contrary, I might agree that the manufacturing of the granite coffers
in the Great Pyramid and the Second Pyramid could quite possibly have been achieved using
pure manpower, and a tremendous amount of time.
It is extremely unlikely that a
team of masons operating a 9-foot handsaw would be cutting through hard granite fast
enough that they would pass their guideline before noticing the error. To then back the
saw out and repeat the same error, as they did on the coffer in the King's Chamber, does
nothing to confirm the speculation that this object was the result of hand work.
When I read Petrie’s passage
concerning these deviations, a flood of memories came to me of my own history with saws,
both power and manual driven. With these experiences, plus those observed in others, it
seems inconceivable to me that manpower was the motivating force behind the saw which cut
the granite coffers. While cutting steel with handsaws, an object that has a long
workface, and certainly one with such dimensions as the coffers, would not be cut with
great rapidity, and the direction the saw may turn can be seen well in advance of a
serious mistake being made; the smaller the workpiece, naturally, the faster the blade
would cut through it.
On the other hand, if the saw is
mechanized and is cutting rapidly through the workpiece, the saw could "wander"
from its intended course and cut through the guideline at a certain point at such a speed
that the error is made before the condition can be corrected. This is not uncommon.
This does not mean that a
manually operated saw cannot "wander," but that the speed of the operation would
determine the efficiency in discovering any deviation that the saw may have from its
intended course.
Another interesting point to
consider is that the saw was run too deeply, backed out, and then proceeded to cut again.
Anyone who has been faced with the problem of drawing a saw-blade out of a cut and then
making a restart on only one side of the cut, which is essentially what was done with the
granite, knows that excessive pressure on the saw-blade would force it back into the
original cut. To make a restart of this type it is necessary that very little pressure is
put on the blade. With these considerations, it is doubtful that Petrie’s deductions
of two to three tons pressure being necessary to cut the granite can be verified.
Making a restart in the middle of
a cut, especially one of such dimensions as the granite coffer, would be more easily
accomplished with machine sawing than it would be with hand sawing. With hand sawing there
is little control over the blade in a situation like this, and it would be difficult to
accurately gauge the amount of pressure needed. Also, the blade of the handsaw would be
moving quite slowly; a fact that would question further the suggestion of a handsaw being
used. At such a slow speed and with very little pressure, accomplishment of such a feat
would be almost, if not completely, impossible.
With the power driven saw, on the
other hand, the blade moves rapidly, and control of the blade is possible. The blade can
be held in a fixed position, with uniform pressure over the entire length of the blade,
and in the direction necessary to restart. This front and side pressure can be accurately
maintained until sufficient material has been removed from the workpiece to allow a
continuation of normal cutting speed.
The fact that a normal cutting
rate was attained shortly after rectifying the mistake can be deduced by noting that in
the Great Pyramid’s coffer, the mistake was repeated two inches further along. This
is another example of the blade cutting through the granite at the wrong place faster than
the men were able to detect and stop it.
Another method of correcting a
mistake while using a handsaw, if the error was only in a small area of the cut, would be
to tilt the blade and continue cutting in the unspoiled area, so that when the blade
reached the area which needed correcting, the blade would be supported by the fresh tilted
cut and would have sufficient strength to combat any tendencies to follow the original
straight cut.
If the granite coffers had been
cut with handsaws, it is conceivable that this method could be used in correcting the
errors on the granite coffers. However, it has probably become apparent by now that
William Flinders Petrie had the eye of a hawk and documented just about anything which
came in sight. At the same time he was studying the cutting mistakes in the granite, he
was also noticing other features:
"It is not finely wrought, and cannot in this respect rival the
coffer in the Second Pyramid. On the outer sides the lines of sawing may be plainly seen:
horizontal on the N., a small patch horizontal on the E., vertical on the S., and nearly
horizontal on the W.; showing that the masons did not hesitate at cutting a slice of
granite 90 inches long, and that the jeweled bronze saw must have been probably about 9
feet long."
If the operators of the saw, in
an attempt to correct a mistake, had tilted their blade in the manner described above, the
saw lines would show a difference with the pre-error saw lines, because they would be at
an angle. The mistakes in the granite were found on the north side of the coffer, and
Petrie observed that the saw lines on this side were horizontal. Following Petrie’s
footsteps in 1986, I was able to verify his observations of the coffer in the Great
Pyramid. The saw lines on the side where the mistakes were made are all horizontal. Any
argument proposing that the mistake was overcome by tilting the blade, which is probably
the only method that would be successful using a hand-saw, is invalidated. This evidence
points to the distinct probability that the pyramid builders possessed motorized machinery
when they cut the granite found inside the Great Pyramid and the Second Pyramid.
Today these saw marks would
reflect either the differences in the aggregate dimensions of a wire bandsaw with the
abrasive, or the side-to-side movement of the wire, or the wheels that drive the wire. The
result of either of these conditions is a series of slight grooves. The feed-rate and
either the distance between the variation in length of the saw or the diameter of the
wheels determine the distance between the grooves. The distance between the grooves on the
coffer inside the King's Chamber is approximately .050 inch.
Along with the evidence on the
outside further evidence of the use of high speed machine tools can be found on the inside
of the granite coffer in the King's Chamber. The methods that were evidently used by the
pyramid builders to hollow out the inside of the granite coffers are similar to the
methods which would be used to machine out the inside of components today.
Tool marks on the inside of the
granite coffer in the King's Chamber indicate that when the granite was hollowed out,
preliminary roughing cuts were made by drilling holes into the granite around the area
which was to be removed. According to Petrie, these drill holes were made with
tube-drills, which left a central core that had to be knocked away after the hole had been
cut. After all the holes had been drilled, and all the cores removed, Petrie surmises that
the coffer was then handworked to its desired dimension. The machinists on this particular
piece of granite once again let their tools get the better of them, and the resulting
errors are still to be found on the inside of the coffer in the King's Chamber:
"On the E. inside is a portion of a tube-drill hole remaining,
where they had tilted the drill over into the side by not working it vertically. They
tried hard to polish away all that part, and took of about 1/10 inch thickness all around
it; but still they had to leave the side of the hole 1/10 deep, 3 long, and 1.3 wide; the
bottom of it is 8 or 9 below the original top of the coffer. They made a similar error on
the N. inside, but of a much less extent. There are traces of horizontal grinding lines on
the W. inside."
The errors noted by Petrie are
not uncommon in modern machine shops, and I must confess to having made them myself on
occasion. Several factors could be involved in creating this condition, although I cannot
visualize any one of them being a hand operation. Once again, while working their drill
into the granite, the machinists had made a mistake before they had time to correct it.
Let us speculate for a moment
that the drill was being worked by hand. How far into the granite would they be able to
cut before the drill had to be removed to permit cleaning the waste out of the hole? Would
they be able to drill 8 or 9 inches into the granite without having to remove their drill?
It is inconceivable to me that such a depth could be achieved with a hand-operated drill
without the frequent withdrawal of the drill to clean out the hole, or provisions being
made for the removal of the waste while the drill was still cutting. It is possible,
therefore, that frequent withdrawals of the drill would expose their error, and that they
would have noticed the direction their drill was taking before it had cut a .200 inch
gouge into the side of the coffer, and before it had reached a depth of 8 or 9 inches.
Can’t we see the same situation with the drill as with the saw? Here we have two high
speed operations where errors are made before the operators have time to correct them.
Although the ancient Egyptians
are not given credit for having a simple wheel, the evidence proves that they not only had
the wheel, they had a more sophisticated use for it. The evidence of lathe work is
markedly distinct on some of the artifacts housed in the Cairo Museum, as well as those
that were studied by Petrie. Two pieces of diorite in Petrie’s collection he
identified as being the result of true turning on a lathe.
It is true that intricate objects
can be created without the aid of machinery, simply by rubbing the material with an
abrasive such as sand, using a piece of bone or wood to apply pressure. The relics Petrie
was looking at, however, in his words, "could not be produced by any grinding or
rubbing process which pressed on the surface."
The object Petrie was studying
would hardly be considered remarkable to the inexperienced eye. It was a simple rock bowl.
Studying the bowl closely, however, Petrie found that the spherical concave radius,
forming the dish, had an unusual feel to it. Closer examination revealed a sharp cusp
where two radii intersected. This indicates that the radii were cut on two separate axes
of rotation.
I have witnessed the same
condition when a component has been removed from a lathe and then worked on again without
being recentered properly. On examining other pieces from Giza, Petrie found another bowl
shard that had the marks of true lathe turning. This time, though, instead of shifting the
workpiece’s axis of rotation, a second radius was cut by shifting the pivot point of
the tool. With this radius, they machined just short of the perimeter of the dish, leaving
a small lip. Again, a sharp cusp defined the intersection of the two radii. While browsing
through the Cairo Museum, I found evidence of lathe turning on a large scale. A
sarcophagus lid had distinct lathe turning marks. The radius of the lid terminated with a
blend radius at shoulders on both ends. The tool marks near these corner radii are the
same as those I have observed when turning an object with an intermittent cut. The tool is
deflected under pressure from the cut. It then relaxes when the section of cut is
finished. When the workpiece comes round again to the tool, the initial pressure causes
the tool to dig in. As the cut progresses, the amount of "dig in" is diminished.
On the sarcophagus lid in the Cairo Museum, tool marks indicating these conditions are
exactly where one would expect to find them.
Egyptian artifacts representing
tubular drilling are clearly the most astounding and conclusive evidence yet presented to
indicate the extent to which knowledge and technology was practiced in pre-history. The
ancient pyramid builders used a technique for drilling holes that is commonly known as
"trepanning." This technique leaves a central core and is an efficient means of
hole making. For holes that didn’t go all the way through the material, they reached
a desired depth and then broke the core out of the hole. It was not only evident in the
holes that Petrie was studying, but on the cores cast aside by the masons who had done the
trepanning. Regarding tool marks that left a spiral groove on a core taken out of a hole
drilled into a piece of granite, he wrote, "the spiral of the cut sinks .100 inch
in the circumference of 6 inches, or 1 in 60, a rate of ploughing out of the quartz and
feldspar which is astonishing." After reading this, I had to agree with Petrie.
This was an incredible feedrate (distance traveled per revolution of the drill) for
drilling into any material, let alone granite. I was completely confounded as to how a
drill could achieve this feedrate. Petrie was so astounded by these artifacts that he
attempted to explain them at three different points in one chapter. To an engineer in the
1880’s, what Petrie was looking at was an anomaly. The characteristics of the holes,
the cores that came out of them, and the tool marks indicated an impossibility. Three
distinct characteristics of the hole and core, as illustrated, make the artifacts
extremely remarkable. They are:
- A taper on both the hole and the core.
- A symmetrical helical groove following
these tapers showing that the drill advanced into the granite at a feed rate of .100 inch
per revolution of the drill.
- The confounding fact that the spiral
groove cut deeper through the quartz than through the softer feldspar.
In conventional machining the
reverse would be the case. In 1983, Mr. Donald Rahn of Rahn Granite Surface Plate Co.,
Dayton, Ohio, told me that in drilling granite, diamond drills, rotating at 900
revolutions per minute, penetrate at the rate of 1 inch in 5 minutes. In 1996, Eric
Leither of Trustone Corp, told me that these parameters haven't changed since then. The
feedrate of modern drills, therefore, calculates to be .0002 inch per revolution,
indicating that the ancient Egyptians were able to cut their granite with a feed rate that
was 500 times greater or deeper per revolution of the drill than modern drills. The other
characteristics also create a problem for modern drills. They cut a tapered hole with a
spiral groove that was cut deeper through the harder constituent of the granite. If
conventional machining methods cannot answer just one of these questions, how do we answer
all three?
In the Fall 2000 issue of the
magazine, "Egypt Revealed," Dr. Mark Lehner, probably the most vocal and visible
Egyptologist to apply his knowledge of manufacturing in analyzing the technology of the
ancient Egyptians, postulated the existence of a copper shop in the newly discovered
"worker's village." He stated that it was used "...to fashion thousands of
copper chisels each probably no wider than your thumbnail for dressing the acres of
limestone casing for the pyramids." In his documentary Obelisk I, Lehner passionately
states that he is convinced that hieroglyphs and reliefs, the attributes of which Petrie
marveled at because of their fine cross sections, measuring a mere .100 inch, indicating
that the tool that created them had to have ploughed through the granite in a single pass,
were actually created by bashing the granite with dolerite pounders.
One can gather by reading
Petrie’s work that he involved himself in some extensive research regarding the tools
that were employed in cutting hard stone. Even so, there is a persisting belief among some
Egyptologists that the granite used in the Great Pyramid was cut using copper chisels.
I.E.S. Edwards, British Egyptologist and the world's foremost expert on pyramids, makes
the following statement.
“Quarrymen of the Pyramid age would have
accused Greek historian Strabo of understatement as they hacked at the stubborn granite of
Aswan. Their axes and chisels were made of copper hardened by hammering.” (Edwards, I.E.S. Ancient
Egypt, Page 89. (1978 - National Geographic Society, Washington, DC.)
Hopefully, besides mainstream
Egyptologists, such as Mark Lehner and IES Edwards, (RIP) other Egyptologists do not
suggest that the copper chisels, that can now be found in the Cairo Museum, were
representative of the tools used to build the pyramids. If they were I would strongly
suggest that they make an effort to learn about the materials and processes that they are
proposing by actually creating one of these artifacts. To identify copper as the metal
used for cutting granite is like saying that aluminum could be cut using a chisel
fashioned out of butter. What follows is a more feasible and logical method, and it
provides an answer to the question of techniques used by the ancient Egyptians in drilling
into granite.
The fact that the feedrate spiral
is symmetrical is quite remarkable considering the proposed method of cutting. The taper
indicates an increase in the cutting surface area of the drill as it cut deeper, hence an
increase in the resistance. A uniform feed under these conditions, using manpower, would
be impossible. Petrie theorized that a ton or two of pressure was applied to a tubular
drill consisting of bronze inset with jewels. However, this doesn’t take into
consideration that under several thousand pounds pressure the jewels would undoubtedly
work their way into the softer substance, leaving the granite relatively unscathed after
the attack. Nor does this method explain the groove being deeper through the quartz.
It should be noted that Petrie
did not identify the means by which he inspected the core, whether he used metrology
instruments, a microscope or the naked eye. It should also be noted that all Egyptologists
do not universally accept his conclusions. In "Ancient Egyptian Materials and
Industries," Lucas takes issue with Petrie's conclusion that the grooves were the
result of fixed jewel points. He states:
"In my opinion, to
suppose the knowledge of cutting these gem stones to form teeth and of setting them in the
metal in such a manner that they would bear the strain of hard use, and to do this at the
early period assigned to them, would present greater difficulties than those explained by
the assumption of their employment. But were there indeed teeth such as postulated by
Petrie? The evidence to prove their presence is as follows.
(a) A cylindrical core of granite grooved round and round by a graving
point, the grooves being continuous and forming a spiral, with in one part a single groove
that may be traced five rotation round the core.
(b) Part of a drill hole in diorite with seventeen equidistant grooves
due to the successive rotation of the same cutting point.
(c) Another piece of diorite with a series of grooves ploughed out to a
depth of over one-hundredth of an inch at a single cut.
(d) Other pieces of diorite showing the regular equidistant grooves of
a saw.
(e) Two pieces of diorite bowls with hieroglyphs incised with a very
free-cutting point and neither scraped nor ground out.
But if an abrasive powder had
been used with soft copper saws and drills, it is highly probable that pieces of the
abrasive would have been forced into the metal, where they might have remained for some
time, and any such accidental and temporary teeth would have produced the same effect as
intentional and permanent ones…"
Lucas goes on to speculate that
withdrawing the tube-drill in order to remove waste and insert fresh grit into the hole
created the grooves. There are problems with this theory. It is doubtful that a simple
tool that is being turned by hand will remain turning while the artisans draw it out of
the hole. Likewise, placing the tool back into a clean hole with fresh grit would not
require that the tool rotate until it was at the workface. There is also the question of
the taper on both the hole and the core. Both would effectively provide clearance between
the tool and the granite, thereby making sufficient contact to create the grooves
impossible under these conditions.
The method I propose explains how
the holes and cores found at Giza could have been cut. It is capable of creating all the
details that Petrie and myself puzzled over. Unfortunately for Petrie, the method was
unknown at the time he made his studies, so it is not surprising that he could not find
any satisfactory answers.
The application of ultrasonic
machining is the only method that completely satisfies logic, from a technical viewpoint,
and explains all noted phenomena. Ultrasonic machining is the oscillatory motion of a tool
that chips away material, like a jackhammer chipping away at a piece of concrete pavement,
except much faster and not as measurable in its reciprocation. The ultrasonic tool-bit,
vibrating at 19,000 to 25,000 cycles per second (Hertz) has found unique application in
the precision machining of odd-shaped holes in hard, brittle material such as hardened
steels, carbides, ceramics and semiconductors. An abrasive slurry or paste is used to
accelerate the cutting action.
The most significant detail of
the drilled holes and cores studied by Petrie is that the groove is cut deeper through the
quartz than the feldspar. Quartz crystals are employed in the production of ultrasonic
sound and, conversely, are responsive to the influence of vibration in the ultrasonic
ranges and can be induced to vibrate at high frequency. In machining granite, using
ultrasonics, the harder material (quartz) would not necessarily offer more resistance, as
it would during conventional machining practices. An ultrasonically vibrating tool-bit
would find numerous sympathetic partners while cutting through granite, embedded right in
the granite itself! Instead of resisting the cutting action, the quartz would be induced
to respond and vibrate in sympathy with the high frequency waves and amplify the abrasive
action as the tool cut through it.
The fact that there is a groove
may be explained several ways. An uneven flow of energy may have caused the tool to
oscillate more on one side than the other. The tool may have been improperly mounted. A
buildup of abrasive on one side of the tool may have cut the groove as the tool spiraled
into the granite.
The tapering sides of the hole
and the core are perfectly normal when we consider the basic requirements for all types of
cutting tools. This requirement is that clearance be provided between the tool’s
non-machining surfaces and the workpiece. Instead of having a straight tube, therefore, we
would have a tube with a wall thickness that gradually became thinner along its length.
The outside diameter getting gradually smaller, creating clearance between the tool and
the hole, and the inside diameter getting larger, creating clearance between the tool and
the central core. This would allow a free flow of abrasive slurry to reach the cutting
area.
A tube drill of this design would
also explain the tapering of the sides of the hole and the core. By using a tube-drill
made of softer material than the abrasive, the cutting edge would gradually wear away. The
dimensions of the hole, therefore, would correspond to the dimensions of the tool at the
cutting edge. As the tool became worn, the hole and the core would reflect this wear in
the form of a taper.
Ultrasonic Machining the
Granite Hole & Core
With ultrasonic machining, the
tool can plunge straight down into the workpiece. It can also be screwed into the
workpiece. The spiral groove can be explained if we consider one of the methods that is
predominantly used to uniformly advance machine components. The rotational speed of the
drill is not factor in this cutting method. The rotation of the drill is merely a means to
advance the drill into the workpiece. Using a screw and nut method the tube drill could be
efficiently advanced into the workpiece by turning in a clockwise direction. The screw
would gradually thread through the nut, forcing the oscillating drill into the granite. It
would be the ultrasonically induced motion of the drill that would do the cutting and not
the rotation. The latter would only be needed to sustain a cutting action at the workface.
By definition, the process is not a drilling process, by conventional standards, but a
grinding process in which abrasives are caused to impact the material in such a way that a
controlled amount of material is removed.
Another method by which the
grooves could have been created is through the use of a spinning trepanning tool that has
been mounted off-centered to its rotational axis. Clyde Treadwell of Sonic Mill Inc.,
Albuquerque, NM, explained to me that when an off-centered drill rotated into the granite,
it would gradually be forced into alignment with the rotational axis of the drilling
machines axis. The grooves, he claims, could be created as the drill was rapidly withdrawn
from the hole.
If Treadwell's theory is the
correct one, it still requires a level of technology that is far more developed and
sophisticated than what the ancient pyramid builders are given credit for. This method may
be a valid alternative to the theory of ultrasonic machining, even though ultrasonics
resolves all the unanswered questions where other theories have fallen short. Methods may
have been proposed that might cover a singular aspect of the machine marks and not
progress to the method described here. It is when we search for a single method that
provides an answer for all data that we move away from primitive, and even conventional
machining, and are forced to consider methods that are somewhat anomalous for that period
in history.
Further studies need to be made
of the cores; indeed it has been suggested that replication of the cores using the methods
I propose and those proposed by some Egyptologists using primitive methods. Following such
a replication, a comparison should be taken of the cores using metrology equipment and a
scanning electron microscope. Microscopic changes in the structure of the granite can
occur due to pressure and heat while it is being worked. It is doubtful that Egyptologists
will share my conclusions regarding the pyramid builders' drilling methods, and it would
be beneficial to perform these tests in order to prove conclusively the true methods used
by the pyramid builders for cutting stone.
In February 1995 I joined Graham
Hancock and Robert Bauval in Cairo to participate in a documentary. While there, I came
across and measured some artifacts produced by the ancient pyramid builders, which prove
beyond a shadow of a doubt that highly advanced and sophisticated tools and methods were
employed by this ancient civilization. Two of the artifacts in question are well known;
another is not, but it is more accessible, since it is laying out in the open, partly
buried in the sand of the Giza plateau. For this trip to Egypt I had brought along some
instruments with which I had planned to inspect features I had identified during my trip
in 1986. The instruments were:
- A "parallel": A flat ground
piece of steel about 6 inches long and 1/4 inch thick. The edges are ground flat within
.0002 inch.
- An Interapid indicator. (Known as a clock
gauge by my British compatriots.)
- A wire contour gage. A device once used by
diesinkers to form around shapes.
- Hard forming wax.
I had brought along the contour
gage to check the inside of the mouth of the southern shaft inside the King's Chamber, for
reasons to be discussed in a forthcoming chapter. Unfortunately, I found out after getting
there that things had changed since my last visit. In 1993, a German robotics engineer
named Rudolph Gantenbrink installed a fan inside this opening and, therefore, it was
inaccessible to me and I was unable to check it. I had taken along the parallel for quick
checking the surface of granite artifacts to determine their precision. The indicator was
to be attached to the parallel for further inspection of suitable artifacts. Though the
indicator didn’t survive the rigors of international travel, the instruments with
which I was left were adequate for me to form a conclusion about the precision to which
the ancient Egyptians were working. The first object I inspected was the sarcophagus
inside the second (Khafra’s) pyramid on the Giza Plateau. I climbed inside the box
and, with a flashlight and the parallel, was astounded to find the surface on the inside
of the box perfectly smooth and perfectly flat. Placing the edge of the parallel against
the surface I shone my flashlight behind it. No light came through the interface. No
matter where I moved the parallel, vertically, horizontally, sliding it along as one would
a gage on a precision surface plate I couldn’t detect any deviation from a perfectly
flat surface.
A group of Spanish tourists found
it extremely interesting, too, and gathered around me as I animatedly exclaimed into my
tape recorder, "Space-age precision!" The tour guides were becoming quite
animated, too. I sensed that they probably didn’t think it was appropriate for a live
foreigner to be where they believed a dead Egyptian should go, so I respectfully removed
myself from the sarcophagus and continued my examination outside.
There were more features of this
artifact that I wanted to inspect, of course, but I didn’t have the freedom to do so.
The corner radii on the inside appeared to be uniform all around with no variation of
precision of the surface to the tangency point. I was tempted to take a wax impression,
but the hovering guides expecting bribes (baksheesh) inhibited this activity. (I was on a
very tight budget.)
My mind was racing as I lowered
myself into the narrow confines of the entrance shaft and climbed to the outside. The
inside of a huge granite box finished off to an accuracy that we reserve for precision
surface plates? How did they do this? And why did they do it? Why did they find this piece
so important that they would go to such trouble? It would be impossible to do this kind of
work on the inside of an object by hand. Even with modern machinery it would be a very
difficult and complicated task!
Petrie gives the dimensions of
this coffer, in inches, as: outside, length 103.68, width 41.97, height 38.12; inside,
length 84.73, width 26.69, depth 29.59. He stated that the mean variation of the piece
was .04 inch. Not knowing where the variation he measured was, I’m not going to make
any strong assertions except to say that it’s possible to have an object with
geometry that varies in length, width and height and still maintain perfectly flat
surfaces. Surface plates are ground and lapped to within .0001-0003 inch, depending on the
grade of the specific surface plate; however the thickness may vary more than the .04 inch
that Petrie noted on this sarcophagus. A surface plate, though, is a single surface and
would represent only one outside surface of a box. Moreover, the equipment used to finish
the inside of a box would be vastly different than that used to finish the outside. The
task would be much more problematic to grind and lap the inside of a box to the accuracy I
had observed, which would result in a precise and flat surface to the point where the flat
surface meets the corner radius. There are physical and technical problems associated with
a task like this that are not easy to solve. One could use drills to rough the inside out,
but when it came to finishing a box of this size with an inside depth of 29.59 inches
while maintaining a corner radius of less than 1/2 inch, there are some significant
challenges to overcome.
While being extremely impressed
with this artifact, I was even more impressed with other artifacts found at another site
in the rock tunnels at the temple of Serapeum at Saqqarra, the site of the step pyramid
and Zoser’s tomb. I had followed Hancock and Bauval on their trip to this site for a
filming on Feb. 24, 1995. We were in the stifling atmosphere of the tunnels, where the
dust kicked up by tourists lay heavily in the still air. These tunnels contain 21 huge
granite boxes. Each box weighs an estimated 65 tons, and, together with the huge lid that
sits on top of them, the total weight of the assembly is around 100 tons. Just inside the
entrance of the tunnels there is a lid that had not been finished and beyond this lid,
barely fitting within the confines of one of the tunnels, is a granite box that had also
been rough hewn.
The granite boxes are
approximately 13 ft. long, 7 1/2 ft. wide and 11 ft. high. They are installed in
"crypts" that were cut out of the limestone bedrock at staggered intervals along
the tunnels. The floors of the crypts were about 4 ft. below the tunnel floor, and the
boxes were set into a recess in the center. Bauval was addressing the engineering aspects
of installing such huge boxes within a confined space where the last crypt was located
near the end of the tunnel. With no room for the hundreds of slaves pulling on ropes to
position these boxes, how were they moved into place?
While Hancock and Bauval were
filming, I jumped down into a crypt and placed my parallel against the outside surface of
the box. It was perfectly flat. I shone the flashlight and found no deviation from a
perfectly flat surface. I clambered through a broken out edge into the inside of another
giant box and again, I was astonished to find it astoundedly flat. I looked for errors and
couldn’t find any. I wished at that time that I had the proper equipment to scan the
entire surface and ascertain the full scope of the work. Nonetheless, I was perfectly
happy to use my flashlight and straight edge and stand in awe of this incredibly precise
and incredibly huge artifact. Checking the lid and the surface on which it sat, I found
them both to be perfectly flat. It occurred to me that this gave the manufacturers of this
piece a perfect seal. Two perfectly flat surfaces pressed together, with the weight of one
pushing out the air between the two surfaces. The technical difficulties in finishing the
inside of this piece made the sarcophagus in Khafra’s pyramid seem simple in
comparison. Canadian researcher Robert McKenty accompanied me at this time. He saw the
significance of the discovery and was filming with his camera. At that moment I knew how
Howard Carter must have felt when he discovered Tutenkahmen's tomb.
The dust-filled atmosphere in the
tunnels made breathing uncomfortable. I could only imagine what it would be like if I was
finishing off a piece of granite, regardless of the method used, how unhealthy it would
be. Surely it would have been better to finish the work in the open air? I was so
astonished by this find that it didn’t occur to me until later that the builders of
these relics, for some esoteric reason, intended for them to be ultra precise. They had
taken the trouble to bring into the tunnel the unfinished product and finish it
underground for a good reason! It is the logical thing to do if you require a high degree
of precision in the piece that you are working. To finish it with such precision at a site
that maintained a different atmosphere and a different temperature, such as in the open
under the hot sun, would mean that when it was finally installed in the cool, cave-like
temperatures of the tunnel, you would lose that precision. The granite would change its
shape through thermal expansion and contraction. The solution then as it is now, of
course, is to prepare precision surfaces in the location in which they were going to be
housed.
This discovery, and the
realization of its critical importance to the artisans that built it, went beyond my
wildest dreams of discoveries to be made in Egypt. For a man of my inclination, this was
better than King Tut’s tomb. The Egyptians’ intentions with respect to precision
are perfectly clear, but to what end? I would suggest that further studies of these
artifacts be made and, where applicable, should include thorough mapping and inspection
with the following tools.
- A laser alignment tool with retroreflector
surface flatness checking capabilities
- An ultrasonic thickness gage to check the
thickness of the walls to determine their consistency to uniform thickness.
- Inside micrometers to accurately measure
the distance between the inside walls.
- An optical flat with monochromatic light
source. Are the surfaces really finished to optical precision? (Though a question remains
as to whether there would be sufficient reflection from the surface.)
Granite Box in the Rock Tunnels at the temple of
the Serapeum at Saqqara.
For an update on the precision of these boxes, see ../Precision.htm
I have contacted four precision
granite manufacturers in the US and haven’t been able to find one who can do this
kind of work. With Eric Leither of Tru-Stone Corp, I discussed in a letter the technical
feasibility of creating several Egyptian artifacts, including the giant granite boxes
found in the bedrock tunnels the temple of Serapeum at Saqqarra. He responded as follows:
"Dear Christopher,
First I would like to thank you for providing me with all the
fascinating information. Most people never get the opportunity to take part in something
like this. You mentioned to me that the box was derived from one solid block of granite. A
piece of granite of that size is estimated to weigh 200,000 pounds if it was Sierra White
granite which weighs approximately 175 lb. per cubic foot. If a piece of that size was
available, the cost would be enormous. Just the raw piece of rock would cost somewhere in
the area of $115,000.00. This price does not include cutting the block to size or any
freight charges. The next obvious problem would be the transportation. There would be many
special permits issued by the D.O.T. and would cost thousands of dollars. From the
information that I gathered from your fax, the Egyptians moved this piece of granite
nearly 500 miles. That is an incredible achievement for a society that existed hundreds of
years ago."
Eric went on to say that his
company did not have the equipment or capabilities to produce the boxes in this manner. He
said that his company would create the boxes in 5 pieces, ship them to the customer and
bolt them together on site.
Another artifact I inspected was
a piece of granite that I, quite literally, stumbled across while strolling around the
Giza Plateau later that day. I concluded, after doing a preliminary check of this piece,
that the ancient pyramid builders had to have used a machine with three axes of movement
(X-Y-Z) to guide the tool in three-dimensional space to create it. Outside of being
incredibly precise, normal flat surfaces, being simple geometry, can justifiably be
explained away by simple methods. This piece, though, drives us beyond the question,
"What tools were used to cut it?" to a more far reaching question, "What
guided the cutting tool?" In addressing this question and being comfortable with the
answer, it is helpful to have a working knowledge of contour machining.
Many of the artifacts that modern
civilization creates would be impossible to produce using simple handwork. We are
surrounded by artifacts that are the result of men and women employing their minds to
create tools which overcome physical limitations. We have developed machine tools to
create the dies that produce the aesthetic contours on the cars that we drive, the radios
we listen to and the appliances we use. To create the dies to produce these items, a
cutting tool has to accurately follow a predetermined contoured path in three dimensions.
In some applications it will move in three dimensions, simultaneously using three or more
axes of movement. The artifact that I was looking at required a minimum of three axes of
motion to machine it. When the machine tool industry was relatively young, techniques were
employed where the final shape was finished by hand, using templates as a guide. Today,
with the use of precision computer numerical control machines, there is little call for
handwork. A little polishing to remove unwanted tool marks may be the only handwork
required. To know that an artifact has been produced on such a machine, therefore, one
would expect to see a precise surface with indications of tool marks that show the path of
the tool. This is what I found on the Giza Plateau, laying out in the open south of the
Great Pyramid about 100 yards east of the second pyramid.
There are so many rocks of all
shapes and sizes lying around this area that to the untrained eye, this one could easily
be overlooked. To a trained eye, it may attract some cursory attention and a brief muse. I
was fortunate that it both caught my attention, and that I had some tools with which to
inspect it. There were two pieces laying close together, one larger than the other. They
had originally been one piece and had been broken. I found I needed every tool that I had
brought with me to inspect it. I was most interested in the accuracy of the contour and
its symmetry.
Contoured Block of Granite on the Giza Plateau
Coaxial check of Contoured Block
Wax impression taken
Tangential Radius Verified
Tangential Radius Verified
What we have is an object that,
three dimensionally as one piece, could be compared in shape to a small sofa. The seat is
a contour that blends into the walls of the arms and the back. I checked the contour using
the profile gage along three axes of its length, starting at the blend radius near the
back, and ending near the tangency point, which blended smoothly where the contour radius
meets the front. The wire radius gage is not the best way to determine the accuracy of
this piece. When adjusting the wires at one position on the block and moving to another
position, the gage could be re-seated on the contour, but questions could be raised as to
whether the hand that positioned it compensated for some inaccuracy in the contour.
However, placing the parallel at several points along and around the axes of the contour,
I found the surface to be extremely precise. At one point near a crack in the piece, there
was light showing through, but the rest of the piece allowed very little to show.
During this time, I had attracted
quite a crowd. It’s difficult to traverse the Giza Plateau at the best of times
without getting attention from the camel drivers, donkey riders and purveyors of trinkets.
It wasn’t long after I had pulled the tools out of my backpack that I had two willing
helpers, Mohammed and Mustapha, who weren’t at all interested in compensation. At
least that’s what they told me, but I can honestly say that I lost my shirt on that
adventure. I had cleaned sand and dirt out of the corner of the larger block and washed it
out with water. I used a white T-shirt that I was carrying in my backpack to wipe the
corner out so I could get an impression of it with forming wax. Mustapha talked me into
giving him the shirt before I left. I was so inspired by what I had found I tossed it to
him. Mohammed held the wire gage at different points along the contour while I took
photographs of it. I then took the forming wax and heated it with a match, kindly provided
by the Movenpick hotel, then pressed it into the corner blend radius. I shaved off the
splayed part and positioned it at different points around. Mohammed held the wax still
while I took photographs. By this time there was an old camel driver and a policeman on a
horse looking on.
What I discovered with the wax
was a uniform radius, tangential with the contour, the back and the side wall. When I
returned to the US, I measured the wax using a radius gage and found that it was a true
radius measuring 7/16 inch.
The side (arm) blend radius has a
design feature that is a common engineering practice today. By cutting a relief at the
corner, a mating part that is to match or butt up against the surface with the large blend
radius may have a smaller radius.
Corner Radius with Relief
This feature provides for a more
efficient machining operation, because it allows a cutting tool with a large diameter,
and, therefore, a large radius to be used. With greater rigidity in the tool, more
material can be removed when making a cut. I believe there is more, much more, that can be
gleaned using these methods of study. I believe the Cairo Museum contains many artifacts
that when properly analyzed, will lead to the same conclusion that I have drawn from this
piece. The use of high-speed motorized machinery, and what we might call modern techniques
in non-conventional machining, in manufacturing the granite artifacts found at Giza and
other locations in Egypt warrants serious study by qualified, open-minded people who could
approach the subject without preconceived notions.
In terms of a more thorough
understanding of the level of technology employed by the ancient pyramid builders, the
implications of these discoveries are tremendous. We are not only presented with hard
evidence that seems to have eluded us for decades, and which provide further evidence
proving the ancients to be advanced, we are also provided with an opportunity to
re-analyze everything from a different perspective. Understanding how something is
made opens up a different dimension when trying to determine why it was made.
The precision in these artifacts
is irrefutable. Even if we ignore the question of how they were produced, we are still
faced with the question of why such precision was needed. Revelation of new data
invariably raises new questions. In this case it’s understandable to hear,
"Where are the machines?" Machines are tools. The question should be applied
universally and can be asked of anyone who believes other methods may have been used. The
truth is that no tools have been found to explain any theory on how the pyramids were
built or granite boxes were cut! More than eighty pyramids have been discovered in Egypt,
and the tools that built them have never been found. Even if we accepted the notion that
copper tools are capable of producing these incredible artifacts, the few copper
implements that have been uncovered do not represent the number of such tools that would
have been used if every stonemason who worked on the pyramids at just the Giza site owned
one or two. In the Great Pyramid alone, there are an estimated 2,300,000 blocks of stone,
both limestone and granite, weighing between 2½ tons and 70 tons each. That is a mountain
of evidence, and there are no tools surviving to explain its creation.
The principle of "Occams
Razor," where the simplest means of manufacturing holds force until proven
inadequate, has guided my attempt to understand the pyramid builders' methods. With
Egyptologists, there is one component of this principle that has been lacking. The
simplest methods do not satisfy the evidence, and they have been reluctant to consider
other less simple methods. There is little doubt that the capabilities of the ancient
pyramid builders have been seriously underestimated. The most distinct evidence that I can
relate is the precision and mastery of machining technologies that have only been
recognized in recent years.
Some technologies the Egyptians
possessed still astound modern artisans and engineers primarily for this reason. The
development of machine tools has been intrinsically linked with the availability of
consumer goods and the desire to find a customer. One reference point for judging a
civilization to be advanced has been our current state of manufacturing evolution.
Manufacturing is the manifestation of all scientific and engineering effort. For over a
hundred years industry has progressed exponentially. Since Petrie first made his critical
observations between 1880 and 1882, our civilization has leapt forward at breakneck speed
to provide the consumer with goods, all created by artisans, and still, over a hundred
years after Petrie, these artisans are utterly astounded by the achievements of the
ancient pyramid builders. They are astounded not so much by what they perceive a society
is capable of using primitive tools, but by comparing these prehistoric artifacts with
their own current level of expertise and technological advancement.
The interpretation and
understanding of a civilization's level of technology should not hinge on the preservation
of a written record of every technique that they had developed. The "nuts and
bolts" of our society do not always make good copy, and a stone mural will more than
likely be cut to convey an ideological message rather than the technique used to inscribe
it. Records of the technology developed by our modern civilization rest in media that is
vulnerable and could conceivably cease to exist in the event of a worldwide catastrophe,
such as a nuclear war or another ice age. Consequently, after several thousand years, an
interpretation of an artisan’s methods may be more accurate than an interpretation of
his language. The language of science and technology doesn’t have the same freedom
as speech. So even though the tools and machines have not survived the thousands of
years since their use, we have to assume, by objective analysis of the evidence, that they
did exist.
There is much to be learned from
our distant ancestors, if only we can open our minds and accept that another civilization
from a distant epoch may have developed manufacturing techniques that are as great or
perhaps even greater than our own. As we assimilate new data and new views of old data, it
is wise to heed the advice Petrie gave to an American who visited him during his research
at Giza. The American expressed a feeling that he had been to a funeral after hearing
Petrie’s findings, which had evidently shattered some favorite pyramid theory of the
time. Petrie said, "By all means let the old theories have a decent burial; though we
should take care that in our haste none of the wounded ones are buried alive."
With such a convincing collection
of artifacts that prove the existence of precision machinery in ancient Egypt, the idea
that the Great Pyramid was built by an advanced civilization that inhabited the Earth
thousands of years ago becomes more admissible. I am not proposing that this civilization
was more advanced technologically than ours on all levels, but it does appear that, as far
as masonry work and construction are concerned, they were exceeding current capabilities
and specifications. Making routine work of precision machining huge pieces of extremely
hard igneous rock is astonishingly impressive.
Considered logically, the pyramid
builders' civilization must have developed their knowledge in the same manner any
civilization would and had reached their "state of the art" through
technological progress over many years. As of this writing, there is much research being
conducted by many professionals throughout the world. These people are determined to find
answers to the many unsolved mysteries indicating that our planet Earth has supported
other advanced societies in the distant past. Perhaps when this new knowledge and insight
is assimilated, the history books will be rewritten and, if mankind is able to learn from
historical events, then perhaps the greatest lesson we can learn is now being formulated
for the benefit of future generations. New technology and advances in the sciences are
enabling us to take a closer look at the foundations upon which world history has been
built, and these foundations seem to be crumbling. It would be illogical, therefore, to
dogmatically adhere to any theoretical point concerning ancient civilizations.
