Ancient methods of dealing with Granite

I have often wondered if the AE used the human powered hamster wheel to supply the motive force for the cutting of stone at or near the building site ..... a large dia blade would have a good peripheral speed once spinning....one would just need a suitable in-feed for the stone into the blade....a happy combination of speed and feed. because the machine is made of timber....once no longer needed the timber is repurposed ....or chopped up and burnt.. The Ancient Greeks had to get the idea from some where....Egypt seems to be a possible place... just my fringe thoughts.......

I have the same thoughts about human power being compounded to help cutting or lifting. A stone flywheel on the spindle , as I’ve mentioned before , would add a tremendous amount of torque to any spinning saw , or lathe type device .
A large blade is actually far more efficient than you would think.
Let’s also ask ourselves , how many completed building sites have you seen where the builders left all their tools and jigs behind once the work was done?
Zero.
The forensic evidence exists at Abu Ghirab for a 35ft diameter saw. But common sense tells us that it would have been re purposed after use without a doubt .
We aren’t the first humans to recycle .
The forensic evidence in the stone tells you that it existed .
And hey, don’t worry about ‘fringe ‘ thoughts either , history shows us that in many fields ranging from art, music, indeed even science , that ‘fringe ‘ concepts often become mainstream. After people like Harte have spent years or decades shouting them down.
J Harlen Bretz being one particular example that springs to mind. Do look him up … a reply to: tri-lobe-1

originally posted by: bluesfreak
The forensic evidence exists at Abu Ghirab for a 35ft diameter saw. But common sense tells us that it would have been re purposed after use without a doubt.

Here you probably mean Abu Rawash

originally posted by: bluesfreak
And hey, don’t worry about ‘fringe ‘ thoughts either , history shows us that in many fields ranging from art, music, indeed even science , that ‘fringe ‘ concepts often become mainstream. After people like Harte have spent years or decades shouting them down.
J Harlen Bretz being one particular example that springs to mind. Do look him up

If you look at the saw marks on the stone involved in this 35 foot circular saw claim, you can see that the grooves don't match the curve of the uncut surface:

I don't shout anyone down. I present the facts. Not my fault if your perception of facts (and their impact on your ego) are skewed.

Harte

Abu Rawash , my mistake .
If you knew anything about engineering and cutting surfaces, you would know that ‘leading edge ‘ marks often obscure or confuse a feed rate. You can’t always tell a feed rate in this way.
Dependent on the material being cut and the tool used. And also if the cut is run again in a second , or third pass , multiple striations can form , even in apparent uniformity . I’ve seen it at work.
Even retraction of a spinning blade half way through a cut to clear particles from the blade will change what you see. That’s nothing special at all.
You have only shown a tiny section of this granite slicing,
If you look close to the resultant curve at the end of this procedure you can see striations that adhere to the curve in places .
The striations themselves don’t look particularly straight either . They appear to have a slight curve to them .
Remember too, grains of granite material caught between the blade and surface will also produce confusion on the surface .
Your answer is no final rebuttal against the circular saw argument , make no mistake .

Perhaps you can explain how the resultant curve was produced without any other markings visible to ‘cut’ a curve into this large piece ? No chisel marks to create a curve here….

a reply to: Harte

originally posted by: bluesfreak
Remember too, grains of granite material caught between the blade and surface will also produce confusion on the surface.

A point I've tried to make to you before, but in the context of the "spiral" grooves on a drilled core. Glad to see you coming around to my point of view.
Except it is grains of sand, not grains of granite.

What is your opinion on the Petrie granite core which was recently examined by C Dunn? He was allowed to take a moulding of it . The geometry of the striations do seem to show a spiral cut in one go. What does this tell you about tooling, tool sharpness, rigidity of the set-up used to cut it , and also downforce on the tool to achieve this?

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Point is - there really is no spiral on the Petrie cores. And Stock's method isn't amenable to measuring feed rate by the toolmarks because it is too intermittent. The claim was made that there aren't even any grooves with Stocks dry sand method - it's in one of the links in this thread, I think. The paper said only diamond could leave grooves like that, based on their experiments. But Stock's own work shows these grooves - even the demo for NOVA shows them in the pic I've given you many times.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Harte

If I ever ‘come round’ to YOUR way of thinking I’ll jump off a cliff mate.
Now, you’re just showing yourself up AGAIN quite badly in knowledge about engineering /cutting/sawing .
As you cut through a surface , let’s say with a 35ft circular saw, MANY pieces of dust and ground pieces of granite will make their way up the blade as it turns . If you dont retract the blade, or the piece being cut itself, this will build up and clog the saw teeth and create pressure between the blade and either side of the cut , in the ‘walls’ of the cut.
It would contribute to damage on your very expensive tool. Anyone in fabrication knows this stuff.
This piece we are talking about has nothing to do with ‘coring’ as it is obviously ‘sawn’ not drilled. I REALLY hope you know the difference .
With regard the Petrie core, I’m of the opinion that ANYONE drilling anything into granite will HAVE to remove the drill quite regularly for the same reasons I stated above. I wouldn’t expect to see a continuous spiral from top to bottom of the core , but broken up sections of spirals as repeat the stated (and necessary ) procedure I’ve outlined . This is exactly what’s seen on the Petrie core- sections of spirals.

Why would sand be used in the Abu Rawash piece?
Prove sand was used before you declare it a fact.

Again, here is the crucial question your entire premise rests on regarding the Abu Rawash picture you posted that shows the resultant curve left behind by the proposed 35ft circular saw:
I’ll ask it again , as you sidestepped it by talking about sand . Here it is again, in case you forgot about it conveniently:

“ Perhaps you can explain how the resultant curve was produced without any other markings visible to ‘cut’ a curve into this large piece ? No chisel marks to create a curve here…. “


a reply to: Harte

originally posted by: Akragon
a reply to: Harte

And as the person that made the video states... they've been pounding on the rocks that are given as demonstrations for 10 or 20 years and only managed dust as you just said...

this doesn't explain how the scoop marks all around the area were accomplished... you can't pound out huge scoops in granite with a rock... apparently "scoop marks" isn't specific enough... or you just didn't pay attention while watching the video...

again... you can not make those marks with a rock.... can't be done... never been demonstrated IF it can be.

and it was said that the marks look more like sand blasting...

not to mention said marks are found under the unfinished obelisk... which is even more impossible considering the tight space...

heres more of said scoop marks.... a little more detail in this video

www.youtube.com...

This may have only been possible during a certain period of time. I suggest that anyone who wants to know more about what I’m talking about to read Immanuel Velivskovskis books Worlds in Collision or Ages in Chaos. He was an extremely intelligent man who was shunned and had his books banned because people thought he was off his rocker. That was until many of his predictions about the planet Venus was proven to be correct! He claimed that in the far past that Venus was a comet and passed close to Earth. During that time it caused global catastrophe which created a lot of volcanic activity. If the granite was softened during that time, you could have used a type of “scoop” to create the marks which you see in the picture.

originally posted by: bluesfreak
If I ever ‘come round’ to YOUR way of thinking I’ll jump off a cliff mate.
Now, you’re just showing yourself up AGAIN quite badly in knowledge about engineering /cutting/sawing .
As you cut through a surface , let’s say with a 35ft circular saw, MANY pieces of dust and ground pieces of granite will make their way up the blade as it turns . If you dont retract the blade, or the piece being cut itself, this will build up and clog the saw teeth and create pressure between the blade and either side of the cut , in the ‘walls’ of the cut.
It would contribute to damage on your very expensive tool. Anyone in fabrication knows this stuff.
This piece we are talking about has nothing to do with ‘coring’ as it is obviously ‘sawn’ not drilled. I REALLY hope you know the difference .

A tube saw is a saw. Perhaps your background is too limited to notice this fact.
Think of how doorknob holes are "drilled" into a door. That should help.

originally posted by: bluesfreakWhy would sand be used in the Abu Rawash piece?
Prove sand was used before you declare it a fact.

Assuming the piece is from Ancient Egypt (and you nor anyone else has given any context or providence for the slab,) it is known that the AEs used sand to saw granite - evidence of it is in the faience they made (by sintering - ever heard of that?) from the rock dust they collected.

originally posted by: bluesfreakAgain, here is the crucial question your entire premise rests on regarding the Abu Rawash picture you posted that shows the resultant curve left behind by the proposed 35ft circular saw:
I’ll ask it again , as you sidestepped it by talking about sand . Here it is again, in case you forgot about it conveniently:

“ Perhaps you can explain how the resultant curve was produced without any other markings visible to ‘cut’ a curve into this large piece ? No chisel marks to create a curve here…. “

Your entire premise rests on a piece of stonework with no providence. Just because a thing is in Egypt doesn't make it Egyptian. The Romans used Abu Rawash as a quarry, as did later Arabs.
Besides, any answer would depend on which curve you're talking about. The surface is curved too, as well as the lip. The curvature of the surface cannot be explained by a circular blade, but it can be explained by a bent slabbing saw - though why anyone would want to do that is beyond me. The saw used obviously did not create the curved lip. If it did, the striations would be curved the same way the lip is curved - and they aren't, as I pointed out.

Harte

originally posted by: Mike27

originally posted by: Harte

originally posted by: bluesfreak

We've all learned that you're just not worth replying to.

Or it’s because you can’t converse with me on an engineering level because a) it’s my job (this job involves LOTS of thinking about OTHER WAYS to complete a task
B) your knowledge of engineering and fabrication falls WAY short of mine , so you would rather mock out of self protection .

Maybe you can answer WHY one would overcut with a copper handsaw into Granite or basalt, what with it being so time consuming and physical by your preferred method….
a reply to: Harte

Hundreds of reasons, the simplest being an inexperienced worker making the wrong cut.
Yet you can't bring yourself to consider other reasons.
Even though you say "this job involves LOTS of thinking about OTHER WAYS to complete a task," You can't allow yourself to even consider other possibilities. Ergo, not worth replying to.

Harte

Have you ever used a handsaw to cut something, even wood?

Of course. And I've made mistakes both cutting by hand saw and power saw. I've even re-used the wood that was cut mistakenly, which is a reasonable explanation for these extra cuts being visible on the stone.

Put it this way, it's a MUCH more reasonable explanation than granting 35 foot circular saws (or powered saws) to the AEs.

Harte

A tube saw is a saw. Perhaps your background is too limited to notice this fact. Think of how doorknob holes are "drilled" into a door. That should help.

Get your terminology right then, as you like to say to others .
Todays “hole saws” for WOODWORK have teeth and REQUIRE POWER TOOLS to work , attached to a nice high rpm drill.
What did carpenters use before modern power tools to hollow door handle holes . A) smaller (non tube) drill bit (easy on old hand wound drills, I have one) -still VERY COMMON TO SEE TOO, simply a wider non tube drill bit , OR a thin chisel was used.
My grandfather was an expert carpenter and joiner , I grew up with his skills and learned a lot from him.
Ancient Egyptian Tube Drills are an abrasive technique , not a tooth-related ‘cut’ .

The surface is curved too, as well as the lip. The curvature of the surface cannot be explained by a circular blade,

Wrong AGAIN. Another sweeping answer as if you are an ‘expert’ in machining . Which you aren’t .
This is why I postulate more than one pass on this piece-
After abrading to the depth required (the resultant curve) the piece is then fed again through the blade but at a SHALLOW ANGLE . This will form a concave shape in the piece . From a circular rotating ‘saw’.
I have done this very procedure for a client who wanted a lost piece from a car roof-rack replicated .
It must be done slowly as the blade can flex but easy , simple and VERY do-able with a circular blade.

but it can be explained by a bent slabbing saw

!!!! No. It cant. How do you keep the blade in a consistent concave curve throughout the cut as appears in this piece? Manually?!! Two guys bending a saw and trying to cut into granite AND keep the blade bent consistently throughout ?? !!! !!!!!!!??!?!
Not a chance. Please stop your pretend expert opinions on fabrication. Please , it’s embarrassing.

The saw used obviously did not create the curved lip

It obviously did.
This is where your ‘saw’ perception is wrong.
I don’t believe a large circular saw of this size would have ‘teeth’ as we see them in carpentry tools. It’s going to be more of an “abrasive “ technique.
Ever seen TODAYS abrasive blades ? No teeth and a rounded edge.
NONE of the tube drilling replicated today by Stocks or others on YouTube use TEETH , just a flat edge for abrasion.
Why would the AE alter this for other granite processing?

Lastly , if Abu Rawash was used as a quarry by later cultures (as many AE sites were ,agreed) WHICH other culture was capable of a saw this large, OR replication of AE tool markings, OR this technique?

Stop showing yourself up with your ‘pretend’ knowledge of how things are/can be made.
You might just learn something, but I doubt you want to.
a reply to: Harte

originally posted by: mcsnacks77
a reply to: Akragon

There’s an ancient solution to everything. Things NASA is just starting to figure out. Anything we can make now they could make then. The elements available haven’t changed.
Even scientists at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies and the University of Rochester are taking a critical look at the scientific evidence that ours is the only advanced civilization ever to have existed on our planet.
If humans went extinct today, any future civilization that might arise on Earth thousands of years from now might find it hard to recognize traces of human civilization. By the same token, if some earlier civilization existed on Earth thousands of years ago, we might have trouble finding evidence of it.

What is the difference between Cro-Magnon and Neanderthals?
Neanderthals lived approximately 400,000 to 40,000 years ago throughout Europe and southwestern and central parts of Asia, while Cro-Magnons lived in Europe approximately 40,000 to 10,000 years ago. Cro-Magnons and humans (both Homo sapiens) are not direct genetic descendants of Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis).

there is some confusion on timelines.

until it is figured out. we won't under stand much about how or who did things.

i guess it's mainstream that we evolved from lower to higher intellect.

gobecki tepe is thought to be 12,000 yrs old. thats in cro magnon time.

the great pyramids 4-5000 yo?

who really knows?

Neanderthals were around a very long time.

but how could such primitives do anything besides hide from predators?

so some serious rethinking is in order.

how long has it been since the wright brothers to elon musk? less than 200 yrs?

sorry about the post, i was in the middle of it and all hell just broke loose.

OMG, i drifted some, from the op.

i was speaking from a more anthropological point of view than a stone working point.

anyway, to me it seems impossible to pound out all these creations by hand.

what happens to the rest of society while these are being built?

did the workers just put in their 40 hrs and take sunday off?

where did everything come from?

food, tools, ropes etc.

i believe they needed,,power tools.

a reply to: sarahvital

There’s a passage that says the pyramids were built without hammering, or any loud banging noises. It was a quiet process.
The only thing I can come up with is them building it with molds, then dumping buckets of pre mixed limestone into them. You get a 1000 people lined up and just pass buckets down. Another row to their back passing the empty buckets back down. One side gets tired you swap around. Seems pretty easy that way.

a reply to: sarahvital

The old humans were found in a cave in jebel toubkal mountains. Which is near where Atlantis was at. There wasn’t anything advanced found with them, just the usual primitive tools. Maybe Atlantis was advanced and they were experimenting with DNA of homo-erectus making Denisovans,cro-magnon and Neanderthals. When a cataclysmic event took place and their experiments were released. A few of the Atlantis survivors after losing everything they had regrouped and started building a device to signal their home in another galaxy since their portal went down with the city. They also lost their regeneration beds so they started aging. After 50,000 years they started dying off one by one.
Seems possible

Here is another piece of Granite, this time from Abu Sir, showing more evidence of a large circular saw .




This piece doesn’t appear to be concave .
Again a RESULTANT arc at the end of the cut is plainly apparent , as also seen in the previous piece discussed from Abu Rawash.

a reply to: bluesfreak

Heres those cuts that were disgarded due to over cutting we were talking about...

originally posted by: Lazarus Short
I suppose the ancient Egyptians would be as amused at modern American tourists trying to pound granite as the same Americans would be of cargo cult members constructing "airplanes" out of sticks so that cargo might arrive.

The scoop marks look as casual as the marks left after scooping ice cream. I have seen them in photos of building stones in places other than Egypt.

BTW, any thread such as this should mention Christopher Dunn.

Your train of thought is dead on. This is a puzzle that comes to us from extreme antiquity. And to complete the puzzle the first thing to realize is there are powers, forces in place that wish us not to complete it.

Cargo cult mentality is exactly what we have, not just this subject but others as well. Once the great flying machines flew off they took all the support equipment, and knowledge with them, never wasting any time on the education of the people. The people could only share what they saw. And as the last plane flew off, it left what we call tire tracks. Its the last thing they saw. They replicated what they saw. We never actively tried to dissuade their thinking or correct them. There wasn't one thought given to how we influenced them.

Now to those "scoop marks". They are the footprint, minus the foot, the tire track minus the tire. Its what we see. The people of the cargo cult were simply responding to the events, observations from a very ignorant position. Are we really any different? If we landed back on those islands we would have no problem giving those people the information they were lacking. There is no law keeping us from doing this. They then might start to understand the "Technology (knowledge)" behind the flying machines. We, are not so lucky. We did not build a intellectual box for the cult to live in, they may think the way they wish. But we, on the other hand do reside within a paradigm driven intellectual box.

To solve the puzzle, one must, think outside that box. And our box does not contain the most basic primeval knowledge we require to solve it. We are only now understanding that everything has a frequency it resonates at.
Horns blew at Jericho, and the walls came tumbling down. The scoop marks look as if the stone itself was somehow transitioned to the state of clay, softened, then scooped out with a scoop. One scoop at a time. What was being directed at the stone to cause such a change? Frequency, sound? And if this were the process, then there should be some remnant of the removed material, somewhere, doing something. Where is the removed material?

The "Horn" at Jericho, was it a resonator? Resonating a frequency?

The power of such a device could actually, destroy our world, if it fell into the wrong hands... And looking into the state of our present world, it would be a bad idea to make it public...

originally posted by: All Seeing Eye


The "Horn" at Jericho, was it a resonator? Resonating a frequency?

The power of such a device could actually, destroy our world, if it fell into the wrong hands... And looking into the state of our present world, it would be a bad idea to make it public...

Harmonic/accoustic resonance technology of some sort would explain the "saw marks". What if instead of a rotating blade, it was acoustically vibrating?

Everything the guy in the OP's video is doing, would be easier if some kind of harmonic vibration were vibrating the rocks, instead of him having to rapidly pound on it.


And there is good reason why Ice age mammoth hunters would have learned to understand harmonic vibration. Modern elephants are able to use ultra low frequency sounds that travel over kilometers. A low enough frequency that you can feel it in your body, instead of hearing it with your ears.

www.sciencedaily.com...#:~:text=Elephants%20can%20communicate%20using%20very,in%20elephants'%20complex%20social %20life.

Ice age hunters would have learnt how to use that in order to detect them and track them, because it can allow you to be aware of their passage through an area even when they are far away, out of sight. (Or if your clan is huddling by a fire in a cave somewhere and don't feel like going outside to look.)

But once having discovered it, it would have had other uses.

These "scoop marks" are usually referred to as scalloping and they are created by using pounders (which are found by the hundreds laying around in the quarries) to pulverize the granite.

Scalloping is found in EVERY ancient quarry where hard stone was quarried in ancient times. In South America these quarries date from pre-Columbian TROUGH the Spanish conquest. Meaning the method was in use even in the 16th Century.

No magic machinery, just work.

Harte

originally posted by: bluesfreak
OVERCUTTING a slab of granite is the proof that tooling other than ‘hand saws’ were used.
And I’m not talking about electricity either .
Hand cranked tooling would achieve a suitable RPM for cutting using circular saws or slitting saws .
We hear constantly from the self -proclaimed guardians of the status quo on here that the AE had nothing BUT time on their side to create these wonderful stone objects , and yet, we hear nothing from the said guardians about the pointless use of this time .
Hypothetical Example from AE :
me and my work partner have just spent countless hours with our copper saw extracting granite slabs from a larger piece.
We have reached the end of our ‘cut’ , and the measured length we required, but because we have ‘so much time on our hands ‘ we decided to carry on cutting the same slit for another six hours or more, just to make some nice pretty slitting lines in this chunk of granite. We did it several times too in the same rock .
Sound utterly pointless? Because it is.
Until the said ‘guardians ‘ can satisfactorily explain ‘over cuts’ with handsaws and the reason , I am leaning ever more toward the thought that hand cranked rotational tooling was used .
There are many many examples to see , around Giza plateau for example , do a simple google image search .
I also contend that ‘Time’ was NOT something they had in more abundance than we do today , as is often suggested by Harte on here. How is this so?
They could not continue working through the night at large construction sites , no floodlit work conditions for, say for example , the Great Pyramid , one block every two minutes for 24 hours for 25 years .
Oil lamps? How many? How much oil would you need ?
Time was LESS on their side than we have today , and therefore OVERCUTTING the piece of stone you are working on is a) POINTLESS b) an insult to the Pharoah on whose ‘Time’ you are being paid .
Do we see evidence of ‘Over-Pounding’ ??!

so the ancients did these things because it was hard or easy?

when has man did things because it waS HARD?

even going to the moon was easy.

we had everything needed just had to put it all together.

i really don't see some schlub pounding through daylight more than 3 days a week for 1/2 his life expectancy.

even tag teaming a rock doesn't seem plausible. everyone would need to be at the same level of expertise.

if one made model rockets as a hobby, does it mean they could make a saturn 5?
it might be a poor example but i think people get the idea.

and if it was as easy as pounding out something with some rock laying around, why haven't more one man jobs been found?

i think of what logistics goes into barn raising.

originally posted by: sarahvital

i really don't see some schlub pounding through daylight more than 3 days a week for 1/2 his life expectancy.

What you choose to personally believe is your own affair, even when it flies in the face of the evidence.

originally posted by: sarahvitaleven tag teaming a rock doesn't seem plausible. everyone would need to be at the same level of expertise.

This is unfinished stone. Why on Earth would you assume it takes some level of "expertise?"
The expertise comes in once you have the stone bashed out of the quarry - with the exception of the large obelisks, at least one of which was being shaped and smoothed before it was even broken loose from its bed.

Harte