A Theory on Egypt...

[alexander]

So i have mentioned this in the egyptian rations thread, today i was discussing this with a friend, so i decided to post up my side of the conversation, figuring that we may get either a good discussion, or a eye-opener going here :)

 

lets start here:

 

"here would be some preface to my theory

 

i have read a fair amount about egypt

 

especially about egyptian engineering, and stone working techniques, i have read about monuments, i have read about quarrying, stones, and how modern science thinks that it was all put together

 

i have to say that i have also not been to egypt, yet, but i have a hunch that would just completely up my theory status by providing concrete evidence...

 

here is the thing too, you see, most egyptian monuments and statues and "achevements" fall into 2 general types of rock: smaller soft rock, such as the one used in the pyramids, and many temples (smaller is a relative term, smaller means that the rocks are merely tens or hundreds of tons). The second rock is the one that interest me the most, its the hard granite, grey granite, quartz and other really, really hard rock

 

the interesting thing is that many of things that are made of that hard rock, are made with pieces much bigger, and much more precise then the rock used in say the great pyramid

 

and although to most people, pyramid is a great achievement, and that it is, it requires less technology to build then something made out of a much larger slab of rock, like say a sarcophagus..."

after making some tea, i'm back

"

questions, so far?

 

Ok, so here is the thing, i understand that with perseverance may come near perfection, problem is, perseverance takes a lot of time, and it takes even more time with simple tools, and both quarrying with simple tools, and cutting perfect shapes out of hard rock, is not something that is either simple, nor fast.

 

I must now make a distinction, between near perfection and perfection. A rock is a hard material that, back in those days, most historical engineers claim that was done by using dimple stone on stone grinding and stone on stone chipping

"

at this point my friend had to go, so here is the continuation of the thought:

 

the problem is, there is no way to putty any kind of an imperfection in a hard rock, thus the work that had been done to that point, would have to have been redone, if the perfection had to be achieved, and the problem is that too many things made of this hard grey granite was perfect, not nearly perfect, 100% perfect, to this day, 100% perfect, so perfect, it would take months to do on the modern machinery, if some of that was even possible on the modern machinery... If it took 10 times longer to do it with the Egyptian technology, at this point stretching work to many years, a simple grumpy work attitude, or a disagreement with your wife, and you would have to restart work, and in 5-7 years, there is plenty of opportunity to have something go wrong, and there are too many artifacts in egypt to make up for redoing good work.

 

Lastly i have to say that while there is a way to date the stone, and remains of people, there is no way to find out when a particular stone was cut, thus making an intreaguing thought pop in my head one day, and that is my theory on ancient Egypt.

 

So one day thinking about various aspects of egypt that did not make any sense to me, possibility-wise, because too much things did not stick, for example, modern rock saws that can cut a piece of grey granite into a top for a sarcophagus, 3 by 4.5 meters in size, would have the thickness of the blade nearing 15-17mm, thats with modern day carbonated steel, ceramics and diamond powder. Ancients had no mention of any such technology, i mean at some point they were excited to make bronze, and that discovery is far too late, and the metal is still far too brittle to cut this type of hard stones, which brings an interesting question, on the unfinished sarcophagi, where the gap of the cut is sometimes less then 3-5mm, there is no way that an ancient with a giant round stone could have banged that through, and created a flawless surface on top of all of this. The sarcophagi with the lids that have a curved face on them, the face is perfect perfectly round all the way, like they took a giant saw (talking 6-7 meters across) and just let it loose and then finished it all off with a polishing wheel to a smoothness that takes literaly weeks of polishing with a hydraulic or pneumatic machine and diamond dust polishes and heads, a technology far out of the reach of the ancients. When you see holes boared through some granite, with obvious cut groves on the sides, a couple of inches across, and several feet high. You look at test holes, maybe 2 feet wide, and 6-7 feet high, that the current construction theories say "were made by a man with a round stone, chipping away for a long time... But the surface is cut perfect, all the way down, all the sides are perfect, and a man with a round stone could barely stand in the "manhole" never mind hitting a large boulder against a big *** mountain.

 

After being confuzzled by all of this, nonsense, i think that only two logical answers may be found (and please correct me if you think that it may be something else):

 

Theory one: Egyptians were actually smarter then we think, and were using advanced technologies that none of them could have conceived at the time. Thus pushing us to believe of an intervention of a much more advances beings...

 

Theory two: Perhaps egypt built their monuments, cities, statues, etc, around things they themselves could not explain, around giant statues cut out of a rock, weighing thousands of tons, build their toumbes around the areas of sarcophagi that they found themselves, and worshiped a more advanced race (and scriptures that refer to this, some may have heard of atlantians) that went extinct prior to egyptians occupying the land...

 

tis it for now, i want some tea, so, you guys have at it, ask questions, or argue the opposite, find evidence to crush the theories, and with any luck, something cool may come out of this :)

[lawcat]

yeah,

 

It's interesting how they cleaned up nicely behind themselves; so that no one can find any evidence of advanced tools or technology--except for the pyramids and sarcophagi.

 

They cleaned up real nice.

[alexander]

that does not make any sense to me either, if a civilization exists, there must be archeological proof of it's existance, homes, tools, bones, something, but there are certainly none of that found yet for this "advanced civilization theory", problem is, there are no tools remaining from the cutting of the hard rock, anyways. No tools, no techniques, no references in the scriptures or even folklore... like they were never even processed or cut, and they, as far as the pictures show, were cut, not flint-napped, or chiseled, the edges are too perfect, sometimes even rather sharp, and the way the lid fits on the sarcophagus too, light does not penetrate that seal... and the fact that they exist proves that the stones were processed, thus cut, and technology for cutting stone has not existed for a very long time at all, polished, but if you are thinking sand and water, sand is softer then grey granite, fitted, and as i described, perfectly fitted at that, and installed, unless all the giant statues in egyptian cities were cut out of rock that does not even appear in the local region geologically, someone had to move a 1000ton rock, with smooth polished surfaces and delicate details, thing that we still can't do with today's tools...

 

I'll give an example of moving a big rock. In order to deliver the base for a monument to Marshall Zhukov, weighing approximately 100 ton (in Moscow), required the help of a dozen of tanks...

[alexander]

also after some asking around, i found that a 3 meter wide cutting disk is 15mm thick, the unfinished sarcophagus has a 5mm gap, and the cutting disc would have to be a lot larger in diameter.....

[lawcat]

I have to disagree with you. Not too long after the egyptians, the greeks used very refined techinques to create perfect art from stone, marble and granite.

 

Stone craft is one of the oldest. If you reasearch today's techniques, you will find some artists who use ancient techniqes in sculpture, quite effectively. This is more of an art technology subject.

[Eclogite]

A few random thoughts on your speculations:

 

1. Sarcophagi are not especially large when compared with some of the stones used in portions of some temples and pyramids.

 

2. You mention grey granite is harder than sand. Not so. Granite consists of mainly quartz, feldspar and mica. Most sand - and certainly the sand you would use for grinding an polishing, consists of quartz. Feldspar and mica are both softer than quartz. Therefore we can certainly grind and polish a block of granite with sand, especially if we have a lot of sand. (What would be need as a source for sand? Let's see - a desert might be quite useful.)

 

3. You mention the possibility that the Egyptians built their monuments around pre-existing granites blocks. I don't see how that would work for the Great Pyramid, where the Grand Gallery, rising high in the pyramid towards the King's chamber, with both lined with granite yet surrounded by limestone blocks. (In passing, my recollection - having stood inside the Great Pyramid many times - is that the granite here is red.)

[alexander]

actually i think its the weird way of explaining that i use that caused some of those units above, so let me explain myself here a little more:

 

3.

I should specify what i mean when i say "built around preexisting monuments", when i say built around preexisting monuments, i am referring to temples, and towns that have the exceedingly large statues made out of a single stone, polished to perfection, etc. Certainly the sarcophagi in the pyramids were put there after the construction of the pyramids, but they are different from the grey granite ones found in the underground tombs that i am referring to, different in structure, different in size, different in the stone used.

 

I use grey granite as an example, in all reality there are things cut out of many really hard stones, including pink granite, marble and others, i use grey granite as a softer example of the harder rocks used in construction (thats what most of the sarcophagi were made of anyways)

 

2.

Agreed, grey granite is not harder then sand, problem is, you still can't polish it to the level it was polished to using sand, it's too course for he job, we are talking about surfaces that would take 1500 grit diamond polishing pads, i dont believe you can find sand anywhere near the right coarseness, and am not sure if you can make it...?

 

1.

one of many examples, as i said, some sculptures are estimated to weigh well over 1000tons, infact the unfinished obelisk in aswan would weigh close to 1160tons, the largest stone used in the building of the Gret pyramid, by comparison, weigs 70, and most of them are much, much smaller, average weight of a stones used in building the Khafre's pyramid is around 2.5tons.

 

Interestingly enough, largest stones used in buildings at the time were used in temples, the temple just by the pyramid has a block that is estimated to be 400tons, which ads to my theory again...

 

Before i run, i have to say that i am my own critic, i would like to find out i am wrong but have so far not found enough convincing factors to do so...

[Moontanman]

Probably the best reason why there wasn't a more advanced civilization the Egyptians used for some of their monuments is the lack of any trace of them. no throw away tools or pottery or anything. Having said that there is indeed some indication of a civilization that preceded Egyptians, there are some traces of cities drowned by about 100 feet or more of water in several places around the world. these places would have been coastal river mouths and other coastal areas around 10 to 15 thousand years ago, just before the big thaw of the last ice age. Now if these cities prove to be real then you might have a basis for a civilization but the time differences would be pretty far out of sync.

[alexander]

Probably the best reason why there wasn't a more advanced civilization the Egyptians used for some of their monuments is the lack of any trace of them.

i am the first to say that, except for the unexplainable methods of stone carving, and traces of tools that can not be matched by even modern technology. no traces of the civilization have been found, yet...

 

So for now, you don't have to prove that there was someone and they bit the apple with their teeth, if you have an apple with tooth marks on it, its self-conclusionatory, such as either advanced or so far unknown tools/techniques or people who built some of the statues and monuments in Egypt...

[Moontanman]

i am the first to say that, except for the unexplainable methods of stone carving, and traces of tools that can not be matched by even modern technology. no traces of the civilization have been found, yet...

 

So for now, you don't have to prove that there was someone and they bit the apple with their teeth, if you have an apple with tooth marks on it, its self-conclusionatory, such as either advanced or so far unknown tools/techniques or people who built some of the statues and monuments in Egypt...

 

 

Well, maybe the Egyptians plundered the remnants of a earlier civilization that was swept away by the great flood when the ice caps melted and huge chunks of ice fell into the ocean causing titanic tsunamis that swept around the globe drowning the coastal cities of this seafaring culture? This could also be the source of the all the great flood myths of the ancient cultures.

[HydrogenBond]

Instead of using the assumption of other advanced civilizations to explain how relatively simple folk could achieve such results, an alternate explanation is the brain is more than the conscious mind. Their conscious mind fit their times but the unconscious mind exerted at a more advanced state of mind than the capabilities in their conscious mind. They were able to tap into these higher processing areas of the brain that are traditionally unconscious. They projected this affect into their gods with them thinking this knowledge was from the gods.

 

For example, invention is not a course you can take in school, or else everyone would be inventing. It requires a certain type of natural skill that allows unconscious processing and an interface to the conscious mind. The idea pops into the imagination with logic and action coming after. But there was no logic to record, which may be why it was not written in records. The ideas of higher civilizations or even UFO's helping also imply intelligence higher than the base level of their conscious minds. This is the unconscious mind.

 

To put it in perspective, simple walking is so easy a 1 year old child to go it with the conscious mind. But if we dig deeper that simple motion is very complex in terms of all the muscles and muscle fibers that that need to be controlled and coordinated. This is all processed at an unconscious level. Even computer simulations of walking and robots, with supercomputers, don't get it quite as smooth as natural. If we tried to do all this consciously the walking will look like an old fashion robot.

 

Picture if while you were walking, you were conscious of all these things going on in the background, so you can perceive say 20 multi-tasks at the same time. It is hard to describe but the gist could make programming walking much more efficient. It may go in a new direction that looks like an alien showed you. Nobody could teach you this but it would be a creative impulse to do the impossible for that time based on a conscious effort. We are more comfortable saying Atlantis or UFO's because the unconscious is a scary place and reminds you of psychosis, where you hear voices and see things that are not in reality, such as those funny pyramids things being assembled before they were.

[GAHD]

2.

Agreed, gray granite is not harder then sand, problem is, you still can't polish it to the level it was polished to using sand, it's too course for he job, we are talking about surfaces that would take 1500 grit diamond polishing pads, i dont believe you can find sand anywhere near the right coarseness, and am not sure if you can make it...?

I need to polish stone...I use a piece of the same stone against it, and they polish each other chipping bits off and slowly crushing those bits into a fine powder between the two sliding slabs. By using 2 blocks of the same material the loading actually helps the final polish quite a bit. Keeping the slabs to a significant fraction of each other's size I can even polish to very fine accuracies, all of it taking just time and effort with repetitive motions.

 

Egyptian teeth are prime exaples of the effects of sand and stone wearing away at things. It's not magic, it's simple logic and material knowledge with a bit of effort and a lot of boredom.

 

They had no tv

 

they had no radio

 

there was a large populace with lots of time to spare in between caring for crops.

 

I'm not surprised in the slightest what a mass of bored people can do if given direction.

[alexander]

Gahd, if you are pondering that i haven't thought of that, i have, ofcourse what would be easier then just using one rock to polish the other side.

 

Here's the deal, a, surfaces i'm referring to are uneven, they not just flat on top, they are concaved, pwefectly cut, perfectly rounded or angled, and still polished to perfection, you are talking about perfect cuts between the two pieces that would be used, but you how, simply how, can you have a perfect cut between two pieces of stone that are over 3 by 4 yards in size, current egyptian scripture refers to no tools that could be used to make them. Another place where that logic gets quirky, is looking at unfinished sarcophagi, with concave surfaces, and lots of small grooves, very periodic, very similar, something you see after a large cutting wheel went through and cut the stone, very large, and here is where it falls apart, egyptians cataloged a lot of what they have, we have pictograms explaining the assembly of the pyramids, we have pictograms showing the making of blocks, and hauling them into place, we have pictographs of the mummification process, and making of the later pharaoh sarcophagi, but when it comes to stone working, outside of the much softer, sandstone, used in building the later structures, there is little describing their stone work. And i am more then willing to accept that they used hand tools and ingenuity and time, but some things totally throw me off...

 

here are some examples

 

gahd and i wont disagree, but what are the first thoughts when you look at these slabs of rock, here:

 

http://media.commercialappeal.com/mca/content/img/photos/2008/06/05/6pyramid.jpeg

http://www.geocities.com/unforbidden_geology/basalt_pavement.jpg

http://www.geology.enr.state.nc.us/03072002buildingstones/NC%20Granite%20water%20jet%20slot.jpg

http://www.delange.org/Quarry/Mvc-013s.jpg

http://www.quarryscapes.no/images/Egypt_sites/fa4.jpg

 

 

 

i have finally found a historical reference to tools that can produce such cuts, namely china and around 1900bc, over 1000 years after the earliest possible time frame i am referencing to, but once again its not necessarily straight cuts that i question, it's the concaved ones with groves going across that puzzle me the most at the moment... i'll look if i can find some photos online, it's been long and i saw most of what i describe in nat geo videos, and such....

 

i will restate, i don't believe or try to propagate ideas that there was some more advanced civilization before egyptians, that they talked to atlantis people, that they were magicians, that they had access to higher technology, not at all believing any of that, but i'm simply pondering explanations...

[HydrogenBond]

In a physics forum I posted a topic the physics of the imagination. The human imagination is not confined to cause and affect or even the laws of probability. The example I used is, one can imagine themselves winning every lottery while flying in space without a machine. The mechanism of consciousness, which is not fully understood, can create output affects that are not under the laws of nature that we currently know. If we could hock up the brain and project this on a monitor we could record this affect.

 

For the ancient egyptians to make complex engineering like the pyramids, that could not depend on the rational laws of the time or probability. Even now it sort of defies reason, which is why we have this topic. But it falls in the realm of what is possible in the imagination. I said unconscious affects wired into this part of the brain.

 

The way to picture it is a bunch of religious zealots, who at one level are aware of the world around them but also compelled by the irrationality of their collective beliefs. Within this collective trance or delusion, their imagination is caught in a flux. The design and construction is happening to them via unconscious compulsion. Maybe they called it the gods acting through them and will power.

 

The artist in the trance creates a final result without planning or even be able to ever reproduce it again. This is hard for the modern mind to grasp who would like to project reason and logic before it was even invented by the Greeks. Their skill set was out of their expected time element. Their art is fairly low quality compared to this engineering feat and was more indicative of another time, which is not a problem in the imagination.

[alexander]

i didn't say they didn't have a drive, i simply said that from the looks of some of the evidence, i couldn't even really examine, never been to egypt, it looks as thought they had tools that can easily surpass the most advanced rock cutting tools of our day. So much of it just does not seem to make any sort of sense, from a perspective of someone who understands the difficulties in that kind of resource processing, someone who likes to think outside of the box that any guide out there would put you in, like the unfinished obelisk, they say men with round rocks were cutting into the rock to create what we see, but what we see is a perfectly cut obelisk, sharp edges, perfect faces, etc, being seeming cut out by a bunch of people with small round rocks, which, to my knowledge, would be so extremely hard to do, that it would be simpler to develop the technology to do this and then cut the faces, then sit there with round rocks and do this, without a slightest hint of a mistake, or a slightest imperfection on 3 of the 4 surfaces, it makes one wonder, was it really that ancients used techniques that were so-proposed by these people, or did we not find out how they did it, and we stick with what cave men did to make their spears...?

[HydrogenBond]

I can see them using 4 stone cutters professions in an assemble line. The first type of cutter specialized in rough cut to make the basic shape or size stone. These come from the quarry, rough, and are transported to site. The second cutter profession chiseled it into the final shape but would leave rough chisel marks. He didn't have to wait for the stone to reach the site but could work during transport if a fixed size was needed. The third specialty were the polishers who then knocked off the chisel edges. Finally you had the fine tuner who shape to fit. The polishers could also work in transit to get the face smooth, but the fitters were on site.

 

I have a friend who is a plasterer. He can eyeball a long wall and square it off with only his eye and trowel. So someone making an arc cut could just see the cut and chisel it out. The more you do it the faster it will become. With an assemble line, each step could use basic tools with a good eye to do their job. They may even engineered labor saving improvements, but like a sword, it was custom improvements, and not off the shelf.

 

If you have one person doing one of the assemble line steps he can get really good at it. The rough cutter would therefore make less and less work for the shaper, who them made less and less work for the polisher-fitter. Before long as fast as the stones arrived they are ready to install.

 

Transporting stones was another matter and may have also used an assemble line to help keep the labor force fresher. For example, line your guys the entire way from quarry to pyramid. Or at least over a long span of distance. The guys are changing out by staying in their area in the line. If the stones were spaced properly, the labor force will get to rest their arms and shake off the legs. The supply lines brought water and food in a constant stream countercurrent to the stones.

[Southtown]

...It's not magic, it's simple logic and material knowledge with a bit of effort and a lot of boredom.

 

They had no tv

 

they had no radio

 

there was a large populace with lots of time to spare in between caring for crops.

 

I'm not surprised in the slightest what a mass of bored people can do if given direction.

I think the motivation was more likely to have been provided by brutality rather than boredom.