Was this artifact technologically designed and manufactured?

[Piney]

1 hour ago, Dynamo X said:

No probs. I'm aware of your native background to some extent and I've always had great respect for your cultures and history. Go easy on the chaisaw though 'cos trees are a valuable commodity lol. Mr van Kerkwyk is the author of these claims so I'll have to see how his account stacks up. I haven't found much else, good or bad, out about him yet but the internet is a vast place so there's plenty of digging to do. I was hoping that somebody here would have something more solid on him either way. It looks like glass coffin time (remains to be seen)

We are strictly woodland management and will not do land clearing. I only cut down the bad trees. 

[Harte]

On 5/24/2023 at 6:27 PM, OverSword said:

Yeah, I'm not saying that.  I just think they may have used something else as well as a lathe.  Or it could be that granite is way softer than I assume it is.  Maybe they left a ridge all the way around and sanded off by hand everything that was not left for the handles?

 

Lathes weren't used by the Egyptians to make stone vases.
Most of of them are predynastic - WELL before the first lathe was invented.
They did the inside with a saw and then by spinning a grinder inside.
The outside was carved then pecked into shape then finished by abrasion.

Harte

[Kenemet]

On 5/24/2023 at 7:33 PM, cladking said:

Precision can not be achieved without precise tools and precision measurements.  If this is real, and there's no reason to believe it isn't, then we are wrong about those who made it.

What happened to "thinking outside the box?"

There are hundreds of ways to achieve precision.  I can prop up a stick at sunrise and bingo - an exact line along which to orient a building.  You can put a pin on a surface, tie a string to it, pull the string to its full extent, and use that to draw a circle that's very precise.  You can precisely measure mass and volume using water displacement.  You can precisely smooth a surface by pouring water on it to find the low spots.

etcetera, etcetera.

[cladking]

11 hours ago, Kenemet said:

What happened to "thinking outside the box?"

There are hundreds of ways to achieve precision.  I can prop up a stick at sunrise and bingo - an exact line along which to orient a building.  You can put a pin on a surface, tie a string to it, pull the string to its full extent, and use that to draw a circle that's very precise.  You can precisely measure mass and volume using water displacement.  You can precisely smooth a surface by pouring water on it to find the low spots.

etcetera, etcetera.

There's just that big of difference between appearing precise and being precise.  Any pin in a surface will bend when a string tied to is pulled.  The surface will not be flat but have various waves and imperfections.  Even the texture of the surface will affect where the marking implement leaves a line and where it does not.  The string itself will stretch more under heavier load.  If done carefully the eye will not detect these imprecisions and it's impossible to even measure them without precise instruments but they still exist.  

 

Precision was invented because modern tools and machines require precision.  Before such precision could be engineered into machinery it was necessary to first be able to measure with great accuracy.  

We are really left with two questions. How did they achieve such accuracy but more importantly is how did they invent it?  The second question casts doubt on both the assumption these were built by the people described by Egyptology and that there a good accounting of Egyptian tools and methods in museums and the "cultural context".  

[Thanos5150]

Petrie speaking of the same stoneware found in the 4th Dynasty: 

The methods employed by the Egyptians in cutting the hard stones which they so frequently worked, have long remained undetermined. Various suggestions have been made, some very impractical; but no actual proofs of the tools employed, or the manner of using them, have been obtained....

The typical method of working hard stones - such as granite, diorite, basalt, etc.- was by means of bronze tools; these were set with cutting points, far harder than the quartz which was operated on. The material of these cutting points is yet undetermined; but only five substances are possible - beryl, topaz, chrysoberyl, corindum or sapphire, and diamond. The character of the work would certainly seem to point to diamond as being the cutting jewel; and only the considerations of its rarity in general,...interfer with this conclusion.

Many nations,..., are in the habit of cutting hard materials by mean of a soft substance (as copper, wood, horn etc.), with a hard powder applied to it; the powder sticks in the basis employed, and this being scraped over the stone to be cut, so wears it away. Many persons have therefore very readily assumed (as I myself did at first) that this method must necessarily have been used by the Egyptians; and that it would suffice to produce all the examples now collected. Such, however, is far from being the case; though no doubt in alabastar, and other soft stones, this method was employed.

That the Egyptians were acquainted with a cutting jewel far harder than quartz, and that they used this jewel as a sharp pointed graver, is put beyond doubt by the diorite bowls with inscriptions of the fourth dynasty, of which I found fragments at Gizeh; as well as the scratches on polished granite of Ptolemaic age at San. The hieroglyphs are incised, with a very fre-cutting point; they are not scraped or ground out, but are ploughed through the diorite, with rough edges to the line. As the lines are only 1/150 inch wide (the figures being about .2 long), it is evidence that the cutting point must have been much harder than quartz; and tough enough not to splinter when so fine an edge was being employed, probably only 1/200 inch wide. Parallel lines are graved only 1/30 inch apart from centre to centre.

We therefore need have no hesitation in allowing that the graving out of lines in hard stones by jewel points, was a well known art. And when we find on the surfaces of the saw-cuts in diorite, grooves as deep as 1/100 inch, it appears far more likely that such were produced by fixed jewel points in the saw, than by any fortuitous rubbing about of a loose powder. And when, further, it is seen that these deep grooves are almost always regular and uniform in depth, and equidistant, their production by the successive cuts of the jewel teeth of a saw appears to be beyond question....

That the blades of the saw were of bronze, we know from the green staining on the sides of the saw cuts, and on grains of sand left in a saw cut. The forms of the tools were straight saws, circular saws, tubular drills, and lathes. The straight saws varied from .03 to .2 inch thick, according to the work; the largest were 8 feet or more in length..." "...No. 6, a slice of diorite bearing equidistant and regular grooves of circular arcs, parallel to one another; these grooves have been nearly polished out by cross grinding, but are still visible. The only feasible explanation of this piece is that it was produced by a circular saw.

These tubular drills vary in thickness from 1/4 inch to 5 inches in diameter, and from 1/30 to 1/5 inch thick. The smallest hole yet found in granite is 2 inch diameter.

At El Bersheh... there is a still larger example, where a platform of limestone rock has been dressed down, by cutting it away with tube drills about 18 inches diameter; the circular grooves occasionally intersecting, prove that it was done merely to remove the rock.

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

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

There is no difference in the product being made from Naqada II/III to the OK except for the fact as noted that after the 2nd Dynasty stone ware production begins to decrease exponentially and the finer examples become increasingly less common. 

[cladking]

How something is cut has no effect on its precision.  Certainly cutting stones with dynamite is less precise than cutting them with diamond however.  

[Antigonos]

20 minutes ago, cladking said:

How something is cut has no effect on its precision.  Certainly cutting stones with dynamite is less precise than cutting them with diamond however.  

“What’s your favorite planet? Mine’s the sun.”

[Oniomancer]

2 hours ago, Thanos5150 said:

The typical method of working hard stones - such as granite, diorite, basalt, etc.- was by means of bronze tools; these were set with cutting points, far harder than the quartz which was operated on. The material of these cutting points is yet undetermined; but only five substances are possible - beryl, topaz, chrysoberyl, corindum or sapphire, and diamond. The character of the work would certainly seem to point to diamond as being the cutting jewel; and only the considerations of its rarity in general,...interfer with this conclusion.

Petrie again, ignoring the fact that like cuts like.

Also, according to wiki, excepting quartz diorite, diorite consists primarily of feldspar biotite, hornblende, and sometimes pyroxene, all of which are generally softer than quartz.

(personally I'm inclined to believe the pre-dynastic AE did in fact possess some form of primitive lathe, lack of evidence for which may be filed alongside the various pyramid construction methodologies.)

[Doc Socks Junior]

3 hours ago, cladking said:

How something is cut has no effect on its precision.  

I'm just a simple man who makes holes in rocks. Could you explain this a little more?

[Piney]

8 minutes ago, Doc Socks Junior said:

I'm just a simple man who makes holes in rocks. Could you explain this a little more?

Geysers. 

[Trelane]

4 hours ago, cladking said:

How something is cut has no effect on its precision.  Certainly cutting stones with dynamite is less precise than cutting them with diamond however.  

????????...........

Edited May 26, 2023 by Trelane

[cladking]

1 hour ago, Doc Socks Junior said:

I'm just a simple man who makes holes in rocks. Could you explain this a little more?

It's the meaning of the word 'precise".   If you cut a log with dynamite it isn't as flat a cut as if you used an axe.  If you use an axe it's not as flat as if you use a chainsaw which isn't as flat as a two man saw.  You can run a block planer over it and then sand it flatter and flatter.  You can make the cut ever more precise looking but it simply impossible to get it as precise as the vase without precision tools and precision measurement. 

We only imagine our eyes are capable of detecting small flaws and process errors.  Petrie said stones on the pyramid were fitted with "optical precision" which he established by inserting feeler gauges into the joints not by eye balling them.  

 

Things that are out of round are out of round whether we can see it or not.  This vase is not out of round.  

[cladking]

1 hour ago, Doc Socks Junior said:

I'm just a simple man who makes holes in rocks. Could you explain this a little more?

I should mention as well that it doesn't matter whether you use diamond or quartz to cut a groove in something as regarding precision.  To get a precise cut it is necessary to hold the tool and the work steady.  Speculation about what might or might not have been used to cut something has no bearing at all on precision.  
 

In anticipation of the response I'll also note that it's impossible to polish or sand out flaws to achieve precision.   All you do is introduce new variations in the measurements just like "polishing" a gravel road creates a washboard effect.  

[Kenemet]

13 minutes ago, cladking said:

I should mention as well that it doesn't matter whether you use diamond or quartz to cut a groove in something as regarding precision.  To get a precise cut it is necessary to hold the tool and the work steady.  Speculation about what might or might not have been used to cut something has no bearing at all on precision.  
 

In anticipation of the response I'll also note that it's impossible to polish or sand out flaws to achieve precision.   All you do is introduce new variations in the measurements just like "polishing" a gravel road creates a washboard effect.  

As you see, the answer is "no, it is entirely possible."

Also note that the folks in the video just measured the diameter.  They weren't actually measuring the surface roughness.

None of the things we found in ancient Egypt (or anywhere else) matches what we can do today with lapidary tools.  They couldn't get a mirror-like surface, though they could get a decent polish on things.

  

 

(this last one is really spectacular; the artist is discussed, along with examples of their work, on this blog: https://thejewelerblog.wordpress.com/2015/07/27/wallace-chans-unique-carving-style-creates-eerily-lifelike-3d-images-within-gemstones/

Edited May 26, 2023 by Kenemet

[Piney]

47 minutes ago, cladking said:

It's the meaning of the word 'precise".   If you cut a log with dynamite it isn't as flat a cut as if you used an axe.  If you use an axe it's not as flat as if you use a chainsaw which isn't as flat as a two man saw.  You can run a block planer over it and then sand it flatter and flatter.  You can make the cut ever more precise looking but it simply impossible to get it as precise as the vase without precision tools and precision measurement

 

Had to quote this since I have a Alaska mill on one of my 661 Magnums and it cuts more precise than a circular mill. 

And a chainsaw cuts more precise than a 2 man rip saw.

I don't use dynamite. 

[Oniomancer]

46 minutes ago, Kenemet said:

None of the things we found in ancient Egypt (or anywhere else) matches what we can do today with lapidary tools

Their Greek contemporaries or near-contemporaries were however still capable of some amazing things using only hand tools.

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

[Piney]

39 minutes ago, Oniomancer said:

Their Greek contemporaries or near-contemporaries were however still capable of some amazing things using only hand tools.

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

Minoans were great artists 

[Kenemet]

3 hours ago, Oniomancer said:

Their Greek contemporaries or near-contemporaries were however still capable of some amazing things using only hand tools.

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

Oh, absolutely!  But that was at least 1,000 years after the Predynastic Egyptian vase and with different stone and tools.

Edited May 27, 2023 by Kenemet

[Oniomancer]

14 minutes ago, Kenemet said:

Oh, absolutely!  But that was at least 1,000 years after the Predynastic Egyptian vase and with different stone and tools.

Let's just say that some Egyptians are more ancient than others.

[cladking]

16 hours ago, Kenemet said:

Also note that the folks in the video just measured the diameter.  They weren't actually measuring the surface roughness.

You can sand wood smooth and flat but you can not sand it to a flatness of .003".  

They looked at thousands of points on the vase and most of them were within .003" of the correct place.  

[Thanos5150]

16 hours ago, Harte said:

Lathes weren't used by the Egyptians to make stone vases.

Petrie certainly thought examples he found in the OK were. And its not just "vases' but stoneware in general. 

Quote

Most of of them are predynastic -

This is not true. Most are of course from the early Dynastic period which not only that but the 1st/2nd Dynasties are also by far the most prolific period for stone vessel production at any point in AE history.

Quote

WELL before the first lathe was invented.

If the evidence requires it, as it does with tubular drills and saws for example, then apparently not. A lathe isn't exactly rocket science- its a means of rotating an object against a cutting tool.  

Quote

They did the inside with a saw and then by spinning a grinder inside.

A saw you say...? Umm, no. The "inside" was first made with a tubular or coring drill.  

[+Hammerclaw]

On 5/25/2023 at 7:31 PM, Harte said:

Lathes weren't used by the Egyptians to make stone vases.
Most of of them are predynastic - WELL before the first lathe was invented.
They did the inside with a saw and then by spinning a grinder inside.
The outside was carved then pecked into shape then finished by abrasion.

Harte

Predynastic artifacts. That design was very common.

[Thanos5150]

On 5/25/2023 at 1:03 AM, Dynamo X said:

I found this interesting because I'm an Engineer.  If these measurements are as accureate as they are saying, even with todays equipment, it would be extremely difficult to produce one of these things, let alone many.  Yes it could be done using modern CNC equipment used by highly skilled pro's etc, but to acheive this by hand, to this accuracy and on the lathes of the time would be impossible IMHO. More research needs to be done and could well be worth the effort, money and time invested. The problem that I can see is that the findings, if confirmed as correct, may raise a few too many awkward questions for some.

In fairness, assuming the artifact is genuine which if a fake it is a very good one, the demonstrated precision is something that needs an explanation. The video you posted in the OP, the source and the information he relies on does not strike me as reliable and more of a fun with numbers rant which if the same were done to other random objects the same results can be derived. Like for example, a vase you can buy of Amazon: 

I find the original video more "credible" for what it is worth: Scanning a Predynastic Granite Vase to 1000th of an Inch - Changing the Game for Ancient Precision!

While an explanation is required it does not mean there is none particularly one that does not fit within historical parameters. For those who somehow think advanced machining, computers etc were required, if you look at the under cut of the lip and around the lug handles you can clearly see the marks of hand tools, the same found on any example. If such space age tech were used this would not be required which the same is found and can be said of all AE stone working.  

[Thanos5150]

1 hour ago, Hammerclaw said:

Predynastic artifacts. That design was very common.

...HERE

To amend that post, there are some examples some even attribute to late Naqada I and the Badari. 

[Antigonos]

18 minutes ago, Thanos5150 said:

...HERE

To amend that post, there are some examples some even attribute to late Naqada I and the Badari. 

The double lion in the lower right, that has its origins in Mesopotamia correct? A variation of the Master of Beasts motif?