Early technique in cutting stones

Discussion in 'General Science & Technology' started by arauca, Jan 11, 2012.

Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.
  1. Stoniphi obscurely fossiliferous Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,256
    A couple of points here:

    Copper is very soft, but it gets much harder if you beat it for a while with a hammer.

    Because copper is soft, you can press other stuff into it pretty easily - stuff like garnet, corundum or diamond sand. Natural wave action separates those out on the beach, you can easily see this by looking at the various colour banding in the beach sand. The black sand is hornblende, the white sand is quartz, the red - coloured sand is garnet, all one needs do is pick it up and use it.

    While the individual grains of red sandstone are quartz with a Mohs hardness of 6.5, there are numerous small air spaces between the grains that make the effective hardness of the stone much less and make it much more workable. Red sandstone can be easily worked with mild steel.

    Any stone that will polish (some - like pumice, say, will not polish) can be polished by rubbing it with another stone of the same kind. Diamonds are polished using diamond powder, for example. Granite can be polished with another piece of granite, diorite with another piece of diorite.

    Tin oxide is a commonly used lapidary polish, as is alumina. Both are naturally occurring substances that are easily obtainable and simple to use (alumina is those grey clay outcrops that you see in riverbanks). A wet piece of leather covered with either of those is a very usable polishing cloth for many stones. Loose diamonds have been around for many centuries, those that are too dark or dirty to cut into gems are routinely used to cut other stones. A rough diamond crystal shard stuck into the end of a copper rod will drill through pretty much anything and the precision of the cutting is a matter of the lapidary's skill. All it takes is a taught string (like a chalk line) to draw a straight line and a decent crafts-person to cut that line to a very close tolerance. No aliens needed.

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
  2. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  3. wlminex Banned Banned

    Messages:
    1,587
    Stoniphi . . . . great post! . . .wlminex (the geologist)
     
  4. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  5. kwhilborn Banned Banned

    Messages:
    2,088
    @ river,

    If you are curious about anomalies in pyramids I highly suggest watching this video and then the entire series. My wife is buying me the second book by his guy. If you watch this video you will see that his theories do seem to be more "logical" than what we have seen here so far.

    Christopher Dunn youtube video (in middle of series as this video is most intriguing).

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAMRUGqssdA&feature=related

    I am not here to argue alternative theories, I am just saying that Christopher Dunn makes sense here. He is a highly paid engineer and took this on as a hobby.

    The start of this video series is here...
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUjYsOXm3IA&feature=related

    This video series if watched in full may sway any hard core skeptics that Egypt did have advanced technology in some forms that we may not understand yet.
     
  6. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  7. adoucette Caca Occurs Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    7,829
  8. sifreak21 Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    1,671
    Ok then how do you make a perfectly circular hole in it? A small perfectly circular hole the hardest thing to do freehand
     
  9. Trippy ALEA IACTA EST Staff Member

    Messages:
    10,890
    Because it's not done free hand. It's done with a drill in conjunction with an abrasive substance. Alternatively you can make a perfect circle with two sticks and a piece of string.
     
  10. sifreak21 Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    1,671
    Into dyrite and have it perfectly straight? Don't think so
     
  11. sifreak21 Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    1,671
    Or how you move a 1000 tonne block
     
  12. adoucette Caca Occurs Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    7,829
    Damn these blocks keep getting bigger and bigger.

    LOL
     
  13. Trippy ALEA IACTA EST Staff Member

    Messages:
    10,890
    For what must be the tenth time, it's diorite. You've been corrected every time you've participated in one of these threads, and still you persist.

    And yes. Into Diorite. And we have the physical hard evidence to support the hypothesis (we have incomplete vases and discarded beads, for example, depictions on tomb walls, and even some material that has been stained by the copper).

    Not only that but we have been able to perform experiments using only materials the egyptians would have had, that have confirmed these observations and asserions, and those have been peer reviewed, withstood scruiteny and published EG DA Stocks: Testing ancient Egyptian granite-working methods in Aswan. Upper Egypt, Antiquity, 75, 89-94 (2001)

    What have you got again? Oh yeah, incredulity.
     
    Last edited: Jan 12, 2012
  14. Stoniphi obscurely fossiliferous Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,256
    I think that it is wonderful that cultures we modern humans consider to be "primitive" routinely did things thousands of years ago that many of us still cannot comprehend humans doing - especially back then. Including the routine drilling of straight, clean, symmetric holes in very hard stones.

    Thanks, wlminex. I like rocks quite a lot too.

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
  15. arauca Banned Banned

    Messages:
    4,564
    Add, those primitive human were very creative in developing tools and using them, I take off my hat to many if them.
     
  16. kwhilborn Banned Banned

    Messages:
    2,088
    The type of stereotypical hat shown in post 85 would help hearing if it were made of something that could reflect sound. The Egyptians seemed to have good acoustical understanding.

    I have heard one proposed method (SETH) of carving granite from a SETH book, and it involved manipulation of sound on the surface of the rock. This is not my theory, but I am commenting on it here as it is applicable and River seems to be looking for alternative theories.

    I also think River or anyone looking for alternative theories should look at my previous post # 83
     
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.

Share This Page