ancientpolygon, on 16 April 2012 - 02:31 AM, said:
Let's start with the last thing you posted.
The video which you had posted are not even close to explaining what is shown in Sklyarov's video. In your video they show a fairly primitive bow drilling method with a solid copper stick using sand as an abrasive. Ok. You do understand that Sklyarov's video clearly shows at 16:00 that in Karnak they were using a tube drill with a blade thickness of 1mm and a tube diameter of 20cm to drill a block of red granite. The edges of that cut are also very sharp and not something you would achieve with that bow drill which wiggles around(at least in your video). Also in your video they are drilling a seemingly softer piece of material than red granite. Also the regularly spaced notches are not characteristic of that bow drill. There was extreme pressure applied to the tube drill which drilled that red granite.
The video before that, only shows the use of the level tool.. ok how is that relevant at all? Measuring and leveling is one thing, cutting and drilling is another.
I'm sorry but those videos actually serve to damage your position even further.
One of the other links you listed stated
"While metal chisels could be used to shape soft limestone, the metals available to the ancient Egyptians, copper, bronze and during the first millennium BCE wrought iron, were far too soft to work igneous rock. Hard stone vessels were given their form by poundingStonedrill hieroglyph them with hammerstones (See Drawing 1 in the diagram below) made of stone harder than the work piece itself."
Clearly you can see that no hammerstones could make cuts which look like they were done by a fast moving instrument which moved so fast that it nearly polished the surface. Using hammerstones would result in a fairly rough surface. Sklyarov's main focus is not on well done polished off monuments(at least in Egypt) but on the trial blocks where you can see them trying out their instrument and not really focusing or putting any effort into making it "perfect" but seemingly achieving something which would be near impossible to do with a hand tool.
He shows scale many times using both a caliper, measure tape(in centimeters), and a dress pin. He also uses people to show scale at the Aswan Quarry.
I will concede that he made a dating error regarding Pepe II.
Your statement
"At ~ 8:30, Sklyarov utilizes a rather long-distance picture of a block of porphyry to support his claims of circle-saw blade size. Again, no detailed examination of the block's surface in regards to verifying this speculation."
That area of Abydos is basically closed off to tourists, I'm not sure that he could get close to that block of red porphyry.
But even without an extreme closeup you can see that the block surface is very even aside from the 10cm strip which runs along the top of the block.
When he says "one or two motions", you can clearly see the tool, going in very hard and creating two notches. There are two of them, they are also far enough apart that you can deduce that they were done in two separate applications of the tool.
Your statement "At ~10:30, he briefly mentions the concept of the requisite infrastructure...". Using a lot of sophisticated words, what you are really saying I believe it that they didn't find any huge saws or setups for these saws in Egypt. Well, they didn't find them in Peru or Bolivia either, but clearly several advanced technologies were used for both stone quarrying and fabrication in all three of those places. If the setups don't exist then, what, you can throw away the clearly visible resulting evidence of advanced technology being used?
So, all in all I do admire your effort to smudge the evidence shown here but I question your judgment when comparing your examples of simplistic bow drills with the photos seen in the video, they serve to prove the advanced machining case even more. So, thanks for proving Mr. Sklyarov right, is what I'm trying to say.
Apologies for the slow response. As previously mentioned, have been away tending to professional obligations. Will address your comments in the order of their bolding.
1) Pay attention. They are using a comparatively short copper tube-drill bit socketed onto a longer wood shaft.
2) As you have at least briefly referenced, this short section of video was simply to demonstrate the principle. Having utilized lithic-tipped bow drills to create holes in numerous materials (wood, bone, antler, lower density lithics), can personally attest to their functionality and their capability in regards to drilling a straight hole. After a tube-drill bit is started, it becomes rather self-guiding and it is not difficult to maintain a straight bore. In fact, it is notably difficult to alter its direction.
3) Am unsure of your reference here. The placement of drill holes is simply a matter of prior measurement.
4) Support for this statement (other than Sklyarov's claims)?
5) The other tooling was presented in regards to various methods applicable to squaring, leveling, and polish level checking consistent with the culture under consideration.
6) This "trial-block" assumption would not appear to accurate. What you are often seeing in this video are broken sections/fragments of larger creations. This is, in itself, deceptive, as it removes the subject object from its immediate associative context. Thus, one loses useful interpretive context. Another factor that Sklyarov does not address in regards to his "examples" is site taphonomy. Many of the Egyptian areas have been the product of centuries/millenia of post-original alteration and disturbance. An example would be the object shown at ~ 10:00. First, he does not put this object into any degree of context. He then claims to observe "...cuts made by a saw which made a small detour". The photo is from far to distant a perspective for the viewer to verify this claim. In addition, the patination of the scar marks would appear to indicate that they are the result of more recent actions.
7) Scale - Yes, and many times he does not use a scale. Consistently incorporating standard metric scaling into photographic data is routine professional procedure.
8) An even surface does
not necessarily imply the utilization of giant portable stone-saws. Also, in this section, Sklyarov would appear to make another of his exaggerations. In referring to the potential length of a copper blade he utilizes a figure of some 33 ft. Utilizing his figures for the length of the block, this would indicate a most unrealistic total stroke length some 10 ft. A more realistic figure would ~4+ ft. This results in a blade length of ~24-27 ft. Thus Sklyarov's figure is exaggerated by as much as 9 ft. (~ 27 %). And it is not a foregone conclusion that blade technology was the method of production in the first place. His math in regards to his circle-saw blade diameter would also appear to be inaccurate. In this case he actually underestimates his figure. By the way, based upon an average of Sklyarov's proclaimed dimensions, the "top strip" would appear to ~890 cm thick.
9) No, you can not. And you would be hard pressed to find a qualified lithic analyst who would draw such a conclusion based upon the presented photographic information. We are again looking at a fragmentary piece presented without scale or microscopic analysis. You are simply believing what Sklyarov asserts.
10) Again, there would not appear to be credible support for the utilization of advanced technological tooling amongst the cultures referred to. You are blindly accepting Sklyarov's unsupported speculation without putting these constructions into their cultural context. Lithic technology, like many other technologies, can often be quite multiphasic. These processes can include percussion reduction, pecking and grinding, abrasive cutting, and abrasive polishing, to name but a few. Sklyarov would appear to regularly interpret the finished product of these numerous processes as the result of a singular action. This would be inaccurate.
The lack of associated technical/mechanical infrastructure in the archaeological record is most certainly of significance. If these activities were occurring in so many locales and up until quite recent history (archaeologically speaking), then why do we not find a single iota of evidence that would support the contentions of the likes of Sklyarov? May it be that such contentions are based upon an inaccurate interpretation of the lithic data?
At ~ 35:20 Sklyarov delves into his contention that in the past there has been a highly technologically advanced civilization. Twice he uses the phrase "case closed".
At ~35:55 he states in relation to his contention that the "evidence exists to prove this 100%". This is simply untrue. Period.
Were Sklyarov's contentions well founded, they would of course be of interest to the scientific community. To demonstrate the validity of such claims, Sklyarov, et. al., simply need to produce a professional paper that provides well provenienced microscopic evaluation that presents irrefutable evidence of high-speed mechanical lithic modification of his "examples". If they are as qualified as they allude to being, why has such a paper not been produced and presented for peer review? Why, instead, are they pottering about with poorly evidenced videos and fantastic fringe websites? This does not speak well in regards to the level of their credibility.
Remember, Sklyarov would, based upon his own writings, appear to support the contention that the Giza constructs date to some 10,500 BP. And he would appear to maintain this postition in the face of the voluminous radiocarbon, archaeological, and historical data that thoroughly discounts this position.
Until such time as a professional paper that strongly supports
any of his various and highly questionable speculations is presented, he will remain in his position as just another fringe "author" that preys on the gullibility of the uninformed or, as Harte would put it, the "chronically astonished".
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