Dolerite vs Granite | Could Ancient Egyptians carve obelisks? 

None because that's not how they carved the granite

@@hattershouse710

@@hattershouse710 🤣🤣🤣 nice seeing someone using their brain in this comment section. A rare sight. Hilarious handicapped experiment here. For every 570 tons of material removed they'd need 249 tons of Dolerite. Check out some of my work.

@@hattershouse710 How did they do it? And how do you know? Let’s see your evidence.

@@FirstnameLastname-bn4gv That's exactly the point we don't know. The evidence is the stones themselves and the fact that we can't do it today and we can't figure it out.

The ancient Egyptians were not distracted with smartphones and other modern entertainment gadgets. They were paid to perform tasks and worked their shifts much as today. While physically demanding the people who worked stone in ancient Egypt likely had a good gig going vis a vis they lived better than the average Egyptian toiling in the fields etc.. As such they would work hard and well lest they lose that plum job.

​@@varyolla435 plus they probably didn't know about silicosis.

@@garethbaus5471 Or perhaps they did not care. Consider the Romans. They mined and used lead for centuries creating lead pipes etc.. Yet the adverse effects of lead mining and smelting were known and documented. Hence they likely used "expendable" people to do these tasks and/or people did so given the economic benefits available to such. Think today where jobs considered to be hazardous still attract people as they often pay well.

It's a logistics problem also. The great pyramid was built? 2600 BCE. It took 27 years. There are 2.5 million stones in the great pyramid.. That's 1 stone quarried, transported 500 miles, cut to shape, and laid every 6 and a half minutes for 27 years....

@@kayakMike1000 nothing is a problem if you have motivation. If something is physically possible then it can be done, no matter how unprofitable it moght be.

Dude even one time is enough, these guys all fucked their lungs up cutting those rocks in that room with no respirators, insane!

@bobby gets banned Seems as if they know very little about safety methods 😂 After watching alot of there videos the seem to be “scientist” against myths instead of actually busting myths

I know. Waiting for them to start running with scissors.

And the Egyptians did it for years right? Means early death for many workers. 2 years to carve one obelisk. How many men? Seems there's not enough bodies in Egypt to build everything if they proceeded at this pace..

@@alandonly they average age according to egyptologists was low 30's

154.32 lbs.

These guys bare knuckle box when they're not sciencing.

I suspect he accidently tore the granite stone apart.

How did they get the stones up the pyramid... they had one of these guys lol.

Yeah, would an ancient Egyptian that was 165 cm tall, with a life expectancy of 35 years, been able to do that? These are big healthy Russians that probably were really sore the next day, and they were taking breaks. I like the experiment and they show it's possible, but 180 cm, 90 kg healthy Russian is going to be able to hit harder and longer. Probably multiples more effective than an ancient Egyptian would have been.

@@kristopetrov4713 It would be quite unlikely, no? There's literally no proof, nor any reason to think they did.

@@diobrando2160 No proof if you completely ignore all the stone artifacts the Egyptians and other ancient peoples around the world left behind. The evidence that amazing work with hard stone materials can be done by skilled workers with primitive tools is scattered all over Earth. No need to dream up some space Santa Claus.

@@JH-pt6ih Space Santa Claus?! Oh boy you're killing me here. 🤣🤣🤣 I'm gonna use that one in the future.

"Could you cut and shape a rock by letting water drip on it?" The answer is clearly "Yes" here too. But does it sound like a likely method used for shaping megaliths? Maybe. I just need some guy in a Indiana Jones hat tell me that.

a partial answer is still not an answer to me. Those multi ton stones have 6 sides, this would only account for 5 sides, not the bottom one. great video but it didnt convince me.

Thank you!)

Don't misunderstand the idea of not agreeing with your theory with a disbelief in science. There's something wrong with you if you think that guilting or shaming someone into believing your idea is correct when all it is is another theory.

@@francischambless5919 what another theory you are talking about?

"You need to put about 20,000 psi onto a stone before it disintegrates at the impact point, and a rock in your hands doesn’t cut it." My dude you can go ricght now and peck a grove into a granite slab, it's not impossible at all

The experts in Egypt disagree, it was done by hand pounding. The video you have to watch at the site literally shows you this.

No you dont need 20000 psi, who tf told you that? You can scratch stone with only a couple of pounds of force with a sufficiently hard object.

Whatever they did, it wasn’t done by just banging rocks together. I wish they would consult skilled tradesman before publishing these weak theories or at least make a serious attempt at applying them through experimental archaeology.

@@elijahbachrach6579 they have consulted masons and other trades men. just not the con artists the ancient aliens and Atlantis clowns use. There are masons online doing similar debunk videos.

I can imagine it being a plausible thing. Mining in the medieval era often used the same method, where a fire was built in an existing shaft, and water was thrown onto the rock.

@@elijahbachrach6579 Their goal is to show that it's possible with the tools that the Egyptians had. They are doing this to counter the ancient aliens and advanced ancient civilization crowd. This one is specifically busting the myth that you can't shape granite by pounding it with rocks. They aren't saying it was definitely done this way.

@@elijahbachrach6579 This would have been incredibly inefficient technique. The bosses would have been counting the money the pharoah's gave them and would have figured out ways to improve artisanal construction. Since obelisks are technically sculptures I would consult a modern day sculptor who would probably say they used various techniques such as heating stone and then dousing it with water to make it crack. The classical techniques used then were also used by Michaelangelo when he carved the statue of David. He just had different tools and a softer stone. Or not just using not just dolerite stones but also the dust made from polishing gemstones (for example to make diamonds you have to rub it against another diamod resulting in diamond dust. that dust can be layered on a coating of an Ancient glue the gemstone dust being much harder by it diamond or saphire or garnet or whatever, as long as it's harder it will cut into the stone with relative ease. They also had reed ropes so I could imagine making a larger contraption and using a treadwheel (like a hamster wheel but for humans) and a couple of logs one could create a large saw with enough relatively pure copper

Indeed!

Mike Haduck Masonry channel, look up his Menkaure pyramid video, shows old school drilling of stone same size as the rest pits

Buddy they don't have the people or the time to do that, they and others have shown proof of all the necessary techniques to do it

Check out the corner in granite video they did. Very compelling. The things humans can do with time and a little craftsmanship is astounding! I still think there was more than one rise of civilization that was wiped out but they probably didn’t get to machines like us, they just got really, really good with the stones against the stones. No need for hard metal or diamonds. The stone cuts the stone! And humans are incredibly skilled with a lot of time to focus on getting good at something.

It’s like me giving you all the equations in order for you to solve a problem. But you still insist on me doing all of the problem despite me already showing you. You can do it yourself, it simply requires a bit of elbow grease and some cunning techniques.

It would help to have several generations of craftsmen perfecting a trade of this as they most likely did in Egypt. These guys don’t have that kind of time or labor force. You have to realize when the alternative side states that you need to demonstrate the exact same level of skill as someone who most likely used these techniques their entire life (passed down through generations and improved upon), they are setting a near impossible standard as to keep the grift going.

Yes, nobody has come anywhere near precision cutting of granite without the use of diamond tooling and again there are many pointers to possibly much earlier civilisations having the ability to carry out the precise cutting and polishing. I have postulated before that simple and powerful machines can be constructed from wood and bronze, needing only the cutting power of diamond.

Why not try a 100 ton granite box? That would be a proof.

@@ultrafeel-tv The main reason would be cost. They found the granite rock they used for this on the side of the road, so it was free. Getting a >100 ton piece of quality granite, plus at least a few more laborers, plus paying all their bills for two or three years would add up to a lot of rubles. They've shown that the tools available to the ancient Egyptians will do the job if you don't need your obelisk or box by next Tuesday, and that's really proof enough. Have any of the LAHT theorists ever removed a kilogram of granite using "sonic resonance," or made a granite block out of "geopolymer?" They have yet to show that Atlantean power crystals can work as well as dolorite hammers, so the burden of proof is on them.

@@ultrafeel-tv does a heavier block make it harder to cut? Photos from late 19th century show granite workers moving heavier blocks than that to make memorials and major public buildings. The obelisks moved to Paris, London, New York moved across the ocean and much heavier. Using rope and wood. Therefore... proven.

@@kevincrady2831 to be fair they have moved asses and dollars on their tours. so there is something to sonic resonance flux capacitor buzzword technology.

@@SacredGeometryDecoded I didn't mean "moving" them. I meant 'cutting' huge stones just with stone pounders.

You overlook a critical element = "fire". There is physical evidence at Aswan of their employing fire along with pounding using dolerite to cut through the bedrock at critical weak points. Along natural seams Egyptologists have found the remains of mud bricks and charcoal. Geo-archeologists such as Adel Kelany have tested it to determine you could hammer through the bedrock much faster after heating/quenching it than simply pounding alone. So work in their quarries was always ongoing and likely employed hundreds of not thousands. To obtain a basic outline could be done using the fire method. Then what follows is more careful hammering on the surface and smoothing that using flat blocks and abrasives such as sand or corundum - likely in a medium of some type. Think modern kitchen cleansers which have mild grit in an emulsion medium. So sand mixed with perhaps moistened clay - Egyptian tafla which they mined and used in vast quantities for a myriad of applications - would be useful for smoothing rock surfaces after hammering it out somewhat smooth. Plumb could be checked using carpenter squares such as have been found in tombs and which are seen in Egyptian iconography. The tomb of Rekhmire shows Egyptian craftsmen at work with one checking the plumb on the side of a stone block using a large square. 🤔 p.s. - the video deals with dolerite but flint was also a commonly used gneiss stone tool which can be shaped for more fine detail. Upon drawing a design as an example then using a tapered flint shard it would be possible to chip/scrape out the design in time. Yes it is time consuming = but it is possible. Final thought. There is ample evidence to indicate "a division of labor". Unfinished tombs in the Valley of the Kings as an example show partially completed walls. A basic artisan - apprentice - drew designs on a plastered wall. Another came behind them - supervisors - to make corrections. Finally someone painted the edited design - master craftsmen. Hence they likely had teams of variously skilled workers who would follow each other's work as opposed to a single one doing it all themselves.

There is a theory that they speed the work with heat (fire) treatment.

@@jonpaul3868 I have not seen anyone test it so there's no way to tell whether or not it would be faster and if it would, how much faster.

​@@outandabout259 An earlier commenter already pointed out that fire setting has been tested. Adel Kelaney was the author of the study.

Stone mason here. There are no archaeologists working at my mining company and our sister company who works with Granite. Why the hell would your opinion matter at all lol pathetic attempt to explain how they cut and moved stone weighing in the 1,000+ tone scale. An architect, construction worker, or astronomer would not ask you in the aiding in the construction of the great pyramids. Humble yourself, archaeologists aren’t real scientists.

Yes. At Aswan in places along natural seams in the granite bedrock the remains of mud brick and charcoal was found. That showed where they identified "weak spots" in the bedrock and lined that area to build a fire which was then quenched. Heating/quenching the stone softened it allowing them to hammer through it more easily.

Creating partial strawmen that very closely resemble what they're trying to debunk interspaced with comedy is basically how the channel works. Although perhaps 'works' isn't the best term as it kinda... Doesn't.... Doesn't work. But yeah.

Explain why your mom is so fat.

There is clear evidence of applying heat to granite to "soften" it for sculpting. The enormous obelisk that was uncompleted and found in at the quarry in Aswan was found with considerable evidence for heating the granite surface. they found charcoal and ash all around its in the excavated layers.

But those scoop marks are in impossible positions for rocks to be used plus if you're thinking about the broken obelisk it's 1200 tonnes

@@muckyguru how so? In what way are they “impossible”? And given that marks are physically there, and were made during the New Kingdom, which had Bronze Age masonry technology.

Not quite the same as the scoops. You'd need another army of people making the dolorite hammers given the loss.

What? “Scoop marks” ?? You do realise the obelisk was carved and those “scoop” marks were UNDER that obelisk…so tell me, which idiotic Egyptian will be the dumb one to be under it to “scoop” the last section risking collapse? This experiment virtually proved nothing apart from what was obvious ie a denser stone will VERY slowly chip a less dense one…🤦‍♂️

Personally I think they might have drilled out those passages, then shaped em up with the pounders. Drilled with the same technique these guys already showed

Lol. Must have been aliens, then, right?

They melted it with lenses

@@tehbonehead Who the heck is talking about aliens? Super weird comment.

@@fifthcylinder Melted what? Granite? You can't melt granite and still have granite.

Thank you. Maybe!

That is a great question @MrAchile13....the fire thing has always puzzled me. Heat always rises right ?......so if you are trying to dig down by lighting a fire...all you are doing is heating the air above...I would like to see this experiment.

@@dazuk1969 The heat itself radiates all around the heat source, including downwards. The hot air is the one that rises. Archaeologists often find house fire hearts vitrified by the heat, even though the fire was above it, not under. Besides, there are clear marks of fire setting at Aswan. The method is attested since neolithic times and researchers proved granite can be broken easily if fired first. You can find more about this on Per-Stemir's website or on the documentary "Egypt top 10 discoveries (or so)", where they did a fire setting experiment, on granite.

@@MrAchile13 I agree that a certain amount of heat will radiate around a fire...including downwards. However, given the composite make up of granite (felspar and so on) it needs 1000+ degrees to heat it to point of being able to remove it....this is not possible lighting a fire on top of it. Any steel worker or Iron monger will tell you this. I have also looked at the unfinished obelisk extensively and I see no evidence of fire being used. It was either stone pounders or some method we are as yet unaware of.

@@dazuk1969 have you seen the mentioned experiments ?

Two really good cents. I think they had some type of machinery for this, like a ball drill, how they were powered I have no idea.

Yeah, fire usage would have left some traces on the quarry walls, but instead all we see are consistent 'scoop marks.' I have also considered a large drill using the dolerite stones, or even a vertical ram ala a primitive stamp mill running on a cam. But the vertical ram seems unlikely to leave a square work face.

If I wanted to make a stone for a pyramid, I would drill holes in a line first. From your experiments it seems, drilling is more efficient than hammering.

Wellcome!

Please just be patient Shidoin..I believe they are working on more experiments related to that....If you watch a lot of thier vids, you will see that you can use stone to cut granite and even dolimite...and very cleanly...they are learning as they go, as this type of thing hasn't been done in a while and they have to figure it all out using the same tech the Egyptians and other Stoneage civilizations used.

they would no separate the obelisk from the ground like that when they could just split it off with wedges, like how they do it in quarries. the 'scooping' is more patterned? how so? the scooping here looks similar, but more shallow and also only one depression. But that is reasonable because they only did it for 2hr

@@diobrando2160 they're isn't enough room under the obelisk to get enough force to hammer the stone. This is granite not limestone

@@BluntofHwicce I've seen very slow outside cutting on blocks. I have yet to see a 30+ ton granite block hollowed out

There are lots of pics and videos of miners chasing narrowing streams of ore in spaces smaller than the underside of unfinished obelisk. Unlike the squarish “scoop marks” that are on the top the sides and underneath of unfinished obelisk are long grooves. Indicating grinding action being used. Though you only need 6 inches/15 cm room to bring the hammer back. Plenty of room to do that, the same action they are doing here. It’s not necessary to lift it high above your head.

Thanks, an interesting idea

Be careful working with flint, I've seen little chips flake off and cause some nasty cuts.

@@mnomadvfx to be authentic I have ancient work place safety standards . I never do this work without my sandals on. Safety first! 😀

@@SacredGeometryDecoded A couple of the fellows in this video should take your safety advice - a disturbing lack of eye protection in some places. But then, if I go with Russian stereotypes and try to type with a Russian accent I can just respond for them: " In Russia, the eye does not need protection from the stone, the stone needs protection from the eye."

@@JH-pt6ih as someone of Slavic descent i appreciate that mindset. The tractor i’m working under is held up by some rickety pallets but it’s ok. I’m wearing a long sleeve shirt

I made a similar comment. All you'd need is a hole in the top of the dolerite and a pole of some sort and you could lift and drop the dolerite from a standing position. If you just hit the dolerite as they suggest from a crouched position your back would be busted very quickly and I doubt you hands would last long either before you'd kill all the nerves.

@@roland20002000 I agree with broken back and hands. But they never found any wooden handles or hammers like suggested. Also you'd need need 1 person making the tools for every man using them given how much is lost.

@@thebobman69 I'm not talking about a hammer more like spear with a lump of dolerite attached rather than a point. Theses could be made fairly quickly. I can even explain how using the methods shown in these video's. I just think there must have been something along these lines. I'm a carpenter and every now and again you end up stupidly using your hands to knock timber in place and every time you do this you will soon regret it . I just don't think you could do that all day everyday for very long before your hands would just not work. Obviously I could be wrong. Maybe their next video should be "How long can we hit dolerite before our hands no longer function" LOL

​@@roland20002000 Oh ok i think i understand, essentially a ball on a stick, a primitive sledge hammer, yeh make sense, can stand and use and get more force. With the hands thinghs, yeh exactly, your hands would be ruined after a week, jointd riddle with artitius in a few months.

@@thebobman69 This theory and experiment is for the half-witted, it doesn't stand, its garbage. RMT(massage sschools) have a course on bio-mechanics. They teach their students how to stand properly, how to apply pressure on the patient so your wrists and fingers dont strain after repetitive motion over course of months then years, and we're talking about soft human flesh. Using this stone pounding technique would injure and handicapp workers in 6 work shifts. And if you tied a stick to it like a spear, you'd have to have a top down plunge motion into the stone while you control the stick, meaning your hands would have to be on the stick constantly, experiencing friction. I'm a builder and this type of motion(top down plunge) makes the skin come off your hands thru your gloves in a few shifts, when digging compact dirt-gravel. Shovels are not designed for it nether is any other manual instrument with a poll for a handle, other than a pick axe. And pick-axes are out of this entirely with totally different biomechanics and strain on hands involved.

If you can only conceptualize "lifting" things then perhaps you should stick to focusing upon loin cloths........ - just saying. 🤨

@@varyolla435 Perhaps some "displacement" of efforts would be more conducive to your future "insights'. Cheers/Dolores Diorite -

Extremely low IQ comment

Well if guys who are ranks amateurs compared to experienced ancient egyptian craftsmen can get at least some credit from you for a single experiment then what does that suggest about the capabilities of someone who was trained to do this, did it their entire life, and had to do it well to support themselves and their family?

If one views it simplistically........ Otherwise a 10% weight loss in the dolerite pounder considering its original weight when taken in account to what you are trying to achieve is manageable.

Pulling 1000kg of copper ore out of the ground to extract 40-120kg of copper is also laughably inefficient, but mining companies are immensely rich because the outcome justifies the cost

That's what conspiracy theorists fail to think about. When you have huge teams of hundreds or thousands of stone workers ranging from new apprentices to masters with 20+ years of knowledge... This kind of thing will take less time than for relative amateurs doing experimental archaeology.

@@milo1047 And it's still a theory. I certainly don't believe aliens have come to this planet, but sorry, even with your experiments i'm certainly not convinced the old kingdom Egyptians made everything as your describe. There's still more evidence needed.

@@francischambless5919 there are those who believe aliens were responsible (which is a complete nonsense), but there are also others who believe ancient civilization were probably more advanced than we thought, which although lacks hard evidence, still makes good sense. Sadly however, the mainstream academics treat both these groups equally the same, often with the same ridicule. For me, the ancient technologically advanced civilization hypothesis seems plausible, that doesn't mean the currently accepted theory of the mainstream academic is completely wrong. And vice versa - the current theory of the mainstream academic is also plausible, that doesn't mean the advanced civilization hypotheses is completely wrong. Both are just trying to explain an idea - why can't we put aside the differences and work together to find the real answer? Why ridicule other idea when your idea is also still a theory? I believe there are many things that we can still discover beneath the pyramids or other ancient megalithic structures, why can't we focus on that besides arguing who has the better theory? Keep finding the evidence, that's what we should be doing right now. Who knows what we might uncover?

@@cooljosh2307 Thank you! A voice of reason is ALWAYS welcome in my striving efforts towards objectivity!

@@francischambless5919 where do you think that extra bit of evidence is at, or will come from..?? in the end, its just a simple choice..

You have to watch our video about Serapeum

"Scale" = is never a compelling argument - ever. If one can generate a stone object using a particular technology/technique = creating larger objects simply requires a bit more effort/workers. There is ample evidence to support the ancient Egyptian civilization maintaining a tantamount "industry" dedicated towards the creation of what we see. The Pharaohs maintained their own castes of craftsmen much as the temples did - or the quarries which produced the stone needed for construction. These were "salary workers" who were provided with housing and sustenance as their pay. To support them there were further ancillary industries to provide the raw materials needed - and the food given to the workforce. The Pharaohs as an example maintained "State farms" if you will where workers produced food used to sustain the workforce laboring on various projects. Meanwhile those workforces were further supplied manpower in addition to the professionals in the form of the _"corvee"_ which required able bodied workers to labor a part of each year on public works. So you need to supposedly show how the tools/techniques depicted in the video can not work - except that they can - because as alluded to the Egyptians maintained the requisite infrastructure necessary to generate a host of things ranging from constructing buildings to turning out statues and votive offerings for whomever wanted one and could afford it. "Scale" means infrastructure = which as we see they had. 🤔

@@varyolla435 No if you are making a positive claim the burden of proof is on you to demonstarte how this can be built, and moved by primitive tools and methods.

​@@hattershouse710 It already has been proven. They just proved that you can shape granite with dolomite. It's in the video. The burden of proof is on you to show that they had plasma cutters and anti-gravity fields or whatever it is you claim they had. But the ancient aliens crowd has so far been unable to show even one remaining fragment of such a device.

@@hydra70 The proposed challenge is making a geometrically perfect vase or similar object by hand. The human eye cannot detect such precision therefore bringing up the hypothesis that these objects with extreme precision can't be made by hand. Nothing of this sort has been demonstrated and never will be.

An example of what I mean: drmsh.com/PaleoBabble/Inca%20Quarrying%20and%20Stonecutting.pdf "Cutting and Dressing" starts on page 9.

Since it seems I can no longer post links without getting the posts deleted, look up the work of Jean-Pierre Protzen from UC Berkeley. Specifically, "Inca Quarrying and Stonecutting".

@@powerman7776 thank you!

How did they quarry and shape all that dolomite.

@@danielabdalla8488 rocks can be cracked but mostly they let nature do the (they found good rocks) work. The rounded dolemite rocks that are in the quarry are the worn out tools. Heating the areas to be cut and hitting the area with water made the rock much easier to smash. These people got real good at their jobs. The obelisk were quarried out in less than 1/2 year according to records and moved on boats during the yearly flood.

Why would anyone say that in the absence of miraculous things?

If genuinely interested go to the channel: World of Antiquity - watch the UNFINISHED OBELISK of ancient Egypt. He interviews geo-archeologist/Egyptologist Adel Kelany who specializes in ancient Egyptian quarries and quarrying techniques. About 24 minutes into the interview he speaks to his experiment in firesetting at Aswan using the dolerite pounders which littered the quarry. The accent is a bit "thick" I'm afraid by the photos show a considerably higher rate of stone being removed post-heating compared to simple pounding alone. 🤔

@@varyolla435 i remember that episode, i watch david's channel regularly.

This was good science. Definitely agreed here.

Using fire and putting it off (w/ water) increases massively the speed

There were many different shaped pounders. They end up round. You get better results with different shapes.

Also allow for "abrasion" for stone removal. After all when you "polish" something you are basically abrading the surface using some medium to slowly erode the surface away. So imagine rows of Egyptian masons sitting in the trench of the unfinished obelisk. Each is responsible for a set area in front of them. They heat an area and then methodically chip down through the bedrock to open up a work area. Then they can set to work evening out the surface of the side of the obelisk to their front - or the walls of the trench they create. Using dolerite pounders one can chip the sides away and then "swoop down" with a stone pounder rubbing against the sides of the obelisk to sand it down. One can do the same for the work area to make it easier for the workmen to sit and work in it = causing your "scoop marks" to form on the opposite walls.

Who fed them if they were not working?

I agree because the scorpion king Narmar is depicted on a tablet with a stone mace or club

Thank you! We do not know anything about the use of such mirrors in Ancient Egypt.

You are speaking about orders of magnitude. I can't find any experiments that match what you say. Can you tell me the sources?

Soooo clever

Well it makes the exact same marks . Maybe they tied them to sticks to make hammers or heat and blanched the area to be cut to crumble the stone. Lol ball bearings in sand? Please record that experiment and show depiction or hieroglyph that show that. I need to see this.

​@@pranays Ball bearings are known to be able to move large stones without the need for machinery using rotational movement. There was an eccentric construction expert who proved it is possible a coupke of years ago in his back yard. You place the object on the ball bearing and use it as a fulcrum and then rotate it around the fulcrum and then place another one and rotate it around that one. This is a means to move heavy things using primitive methods. The reason I don't think it was hand and stone was that it would take a long time to carve a single brick using this method and we have a time frame for the construction of some of these monuments that doesn't line up with the rate of cutting. You could break it down into two rates and then compare them: rate of blocks quarried per minute and then rate of blocks required per minute to construct any given monument in the agreed time frame. If it takes even a short time like a week to carve out a single brick (judging by the rates achieved here it takes a lot longer) then you would struggle to make any large monument in a reasonable time frame. For the great pyramid, with 2,300,000 blocks, you would need a block every 4 and a half minutes to build it in the 20 year time frame. So this method with its rate of cutting of inches per day at maximum doesn't agree with that. Even if it took 100 years to build the great pyramid that is still a block every 22 minutes required to be quarried, transported and placed. If they understood pulleys then they understood mechanical advantage, and if they understood mechanical advantage then why would they they not use that to make a more effective tool than a hand and a stone? If it was made of something less hardy than stone like wood then it could have deteriorated and only left the dolerite heads of the tool.

@@kyrman6038 Hi. I think the previous commenter meant that using the relatively small dolerite balls in sand would not work well. Wally Wallington did amazing demonstrations with pivot points but without a hard ground surface, you would need to compensate somehow. I like the demonstration in this video and the calculated removal rates of both tools and work piece. And remember they did not use fire setting to weaken the rock. The unfinished obelisk quarry shows the signs of fire and simple experiments have been performed to compare removal rates. The quarry also contains ancient markings showing removal rates over a time period. It is also important to realize that the building of the pyramid can't be calculated by dividing tidal blocks by 20 years since that artificially limits you to placing 1 block at a time. Multiple teams would have been working in tandem for all phases of quarrying, processing, transporting and placing of blocks. Cheers.

​@@Eyes_Open Thanks for the reply. There is much to be explored on this issue. You are right that the dolerite would not work on the sand, I was more talking about the removal of large stone structures from the uneven quarry sites where the quarried structure has to be removed from the surrounding granite before other types of rollers could be placed under it. The pyramid building calculation gives only the average blocks per minute necessary to build it in 20 years. It doesn't say anything about the actual period between blocks being laid. For example: if every block was hypothetically quarried in the first five years and then put in place in the last five years of that 20 year span that would still give the same average rate of construction. There is actually a lot of calculation we could do on this problem if we had a good estimation of the time it would take to quarry a single block using this method. The time it would take to transport a block to the pyramid site and the time it would take to lay a block in place once it had reached the site. If we had good estimations of these, combined with the average work hours per day of a labourer we could work out a good estimation of how many workers would actually be necessary to make it all happen within the stated period. We could then compare that with the known population of Egypt at that time and see what happens. Because presumably it's a lot of workers and they would themselves need an even larger wider economy to support everything they were doing. It would be good to get some numbers on this. If I had good estimations I could maybe even write a code which would number crunch a wide range of estimations against all the others then select the most probable arrangements from the result (because presumably we would be working with indefinite groups of numbers rather than exact known figures.)

Wellcome

2 years, how is it so hard to believe people just enjoy making cool shit man

I’m with you, man! How does someone even make the leap from pounding big rocks with small rocks to bashing into existence a thousand ton, 120 foot obelisk? I mean, I’m sure they worked their way up over the centuries, but still. Imagine being an ancient Egyptian and showing up for the first day of work on the giant obelisk job. What would run through your mind when the boss picks up a pounding stone and tells you that that’s how it’s gonna be carved, by you and your fellow laborers pounding away in that hot, pitiless Egyptian sun! Must have been rough!

In the video that you reference, was the grinding combined with any fire setting or strictly raw stone vs raw stone?

Yes chipping the stone via "bouncing" your stone pounder upon the surface of the stone will cause it to slowly be eroded away. As you noted irregular stone pounders with sharp sides will facilitate this. Once the pounder gets "rounded out" then it does not effectively remove sizable amounts of stone. Yet for smoothing your subsequent surface however rounded pounders might work much as flat stones. That is where your "abrasion" comes into place = sanding the surface down. So both methods apply as the former can create your basic shape which can then be refined via abrasion. p.s. - I have long suspected that is how they etched hieroglyphs into stone objects. An artisan draws the intended design on the surface of the stone and then using pointed stone tools such as flint the inner area can be carefully chipped out followed by it being "rubbed" using another pointed stone tool to smooth that area down further. Perhaps using pointed wood sticks and soft leather cloths an abrasive medium such as sand or corundum mixed with clay to create an emulsion can then be used to further polish the interior of the lettering/designs the same as the surface itself.

Not for pounders. If you are working limestone or sandstone which are extremely porous, then adding water makes an enormous difference, and progress is many times faster. This has been shown repeatedly by many experiments carving and bashing limestone. Limestone and sandstone are extremely hygroscopic. Slurries are great for polishing or drilling holes, as it is the abrasive slurry that does the cutting, and not the circular drill bit. Granite is also a porous rock, but it does not absorb water anything like limestone or sandstone.

Yes. Yes it does. That is EXACTLY what makes a monument: the amount of stone taken off by each hammer blow is miniscule. This means that until you get down to polishing, all you are doing is smashing one rock into another rock, many many MANY times. Or do you think there is a different way the stones were quarried, and shaped? o_O

@@Chris.Davies Please make me a dolerite stone that has perfect 90 degree angles, increadible precision in the ten thousandths of an inch by bashing rocks then polishing. Or were you serious?

Actually adding a handle will not reduce the impact as far as what your body is exposed to. It simply gives you more leverage and control allowing you to hit something with more force in a more precise manner. What the Egyptians likely did was to "bounce" their hammerstones onto the surface from a short distance. That would still impart force into the area you wanted - yet prevent the unwanted trauma to your joints. So you swing your stone down and just before you make contact = you release it to grab it again after it "hammers" into the surface to repeat the process.

@@varyolla435 as written the handle will provide better control, and you do not hold the stone with your arms. Also less force is needed per hit.

Exfoliated granite, likely from fire setting, can still be seen in the Aswan granite quarry. Besides, charcoal, burned granite flakes and burned mudbrick have been found in the quarry.

@@MrAchile13 o

Remember that the point here was not to convince anyone. Experts have already concluded the methodology employed. This was a simple practical experiment to demonstrate material removal rates. Firesetting would have resulted in even more material removed. Other tools would be used to further shape a stone.

Yes, now provide an example of what you ask.

Specifically, the curved surfaces. Not just a flat piece of stone.

Yup!!

They've they to show how the main blocked were quarried, they lost nearly as much dolerite as they produced meaniful work.

@@thebobman69

This video is sadly an insult to the pre dynastic Egyptians

Hammering out the basic shape appears to have been the method used. Then the approximated surface can be smoothed via your grinding along with abrasives while plumb can be periodically checked using a wooden square for smaller blocks or some pre-built wood frame for larger areas. We have examples of ancient Egyptian weighted plumb lines. So it would not be difficult to fashion a straight edge of sufficient length from which the sides of an obelisk or whatever could be checked for straightness. Hence it was not one or the other = but both. Hammering for the basic shape and grinding to polish that out for finishing. p.s. - Egyptologists have unearthed as an example a partially completed criosphinx such as lines the Avenue of the Sphinxes at Karnak in the quarry area of Gebel el-Silsila - a sandstone quarry. They were clearly hammering it to approximate shape - after which had it been completed it would be transported to Karnak and smoothed out. Sandstone is almost as hard as granite.

Why would anyone trust a Russian?

@@daveblock So claims another recently created sockpuppet account - which is probably = a botski....... How's the weather in St. Petersburg then...... 🥱

@@daveblock Fortunately, science and experimental methodologies transcend politics. As long as you're doing it right, it doesn't matter if you're russian or not

@@finesseandstyle Yes it does….there is no more untrustworthy group of people than Russians….

*ignored by people on the internet

This experiment literally shows why it should be ignored.

@@thebobman69 How?

@@FirstnameLastname-bn4gv they lost nearly as much hammer as they removed from the block. They also used multiple people not one person all day. They skewed the methods to try to prove them right and still failed

@@thebobman69 How do either of those things prove that they “failed”? How is that “skewing the methods”?

Yep - lots of techniques to exploit for better efficiency

The scoop marks are far too smooth for this technique to have been used. MANY such details are conveniently ignored.

@Kommander_Rahnn Not true, the dolerite stones are dragged to some extent as they deliver their hammer strike which results in some smoothing. If you look at the scoop pattern it always has a dominant lineament (long axis) but the scoops don't line up side to side. The ridges are more prominent along the lineament since they don't receive direct strikes in that direction. It's all straightforward physics.

@@tomszabo7350 You literally said "chipped". There are no chip marks on the scoops. Stop coping so hard. You'll bust a vein.

They did not accomplish much.

I would imagine that they could achieve it faster by coring out pieces of the bedrock at set distances and using the principle of expanding wood to crack the stone between the core holes. That way whole sections could be lifted away in a relatively short space of time by comparison to the more laborious way of banging at it. Then you can switch to the other methods for refining the shape before separating it from the bedrock.

> and for 150 men to spend two years of back breaking labour just to be told that the rock is unusable just seems far fetched. Do you really live on this planet?

@@ScientistsAgainstMyths I do live on this planet and one thing that is evident is that people always find a way to improve a process. This process is possible but I can't imagine that it is practical with serious adjustments. One thing I don't think you've taken into account is the location of the quarry compared to the river nile. Now I know the river's course has changed slightly over the years but it seems to me that the quarry would be in the floodplain and therefore anywork would be impossible during the yearly flooding. This will greatly extent the 2 year estimate.

@@lmonk9517 I repeat the question: you live on this planet, but it seems "far fetched" to you that people can work for several years in vain? :-) > people always find a way to improve a process People very often find a way to slow down a process. Share rose-colored glasses plz

@@lmonk9517 I do believe the cold hammering was done only for finishing and flattening and that the quarrying was done using fire setting/rapid cooling and hammering. Exfoliated granite, burned granite, burned mudbricks and charcoal have been found (some can still be seen) in the granite quarries. Interesting enough, burned granite flakes have been found near the pyramid of Menkaure, which was a granite casing that has been worked in place, most of which is still unfinished. Besides, quarrying a regular obelisk (200-300 tons) would be much faster then quarrying the unfinished one (1000-1100 tons). One obelisk erected by Hatshepsut bears an inscription attesting that the obelisk was made in just 7 months.

Those tools had nothing to do with what they were testing. Nothing.

Have you watched the whole video or just the first couple of seconds?

@@JH-pt6ih And that method clearly showed that it has nothing to do with how they cut the unfinished obelisc with narrow clearence, neither thousands of hard granite lated vessels, nor the 3 lobe artifact ....

@@flparg2 I believe in flat earthers before thinking they made the hierogliphs or cut obeliscs or made perfect lated thin wall vesels this way

@@rachelbrionesbriones8042 Considering you can't even spell heiroglyphs or obelisks properly that is little skin off their backs I imagine. You only serve to demonstrate the casual viewer that finds their videos first and is taken in by their con. I'm sure you'll be happy keeping them going by buying all their products which are the true and only reason their channels exist - because it certainly isn't any dedication to the furthering of archaeology. The one channel I found that sometimes has some of their viewpoints is Ancient Architects - but even he at least tries to be scientific about it and can see some of the cons for what they are now. By the way, the woman on this channel has demonstrated that working finely in granite is possible with a flint chisel - so marking with heiroglyphs is far from impossible with basic tools, even if the tools do not last long due to wear.

Where is the logic in your objection? This process is used for quarrying, not for carving statues. It's like seeing someone quarrying marble with a pick axe and claiming that you can't carve a marble statue with a pick axe, therefore the technique is nonsense... Researchers have already proven detailed work and carving can be made with sharp flint and obsidian tools.

@@MrAchile13 the video clearly states "carve", not quarry. You can in fact see that they are trying to replicate how they carved, for example, the Aswan Obelisk (which according to egyptologists was shaped with a diorite ball, a ludicrous theory given the marks on the Obelisk itself). Therefore, my comment was in the sense of "they could draw with sharp precision lines on diorite, you really think they had to use such a primitive method to shape an Obelisk?". Nobody has ever reproduced the fine lines and facial features of the Egyptian statues with flint and stuff. They reproduced very raw and grossly shaped objects and such. As I've reported in my previous comment, one of the father of egyptology himself believed they used other, still not known methods to do those "laser-like" cuts. The logic in my objection was just this, that you can shape objects with diorite balls etcetera, but surely you cannot reproduce a really complex facial feature with optical precision such as the Egyptians did.

@@logicalthought1225 That is the title indeed, but I though the difference was obvious. Do you really believe they are claiming this is how detail work, corners and inscriptions were made? Despite the title, they are referring to the quarrying process, not the carving. So again, where is the logic in the objection? The theory is in fact, the best one so far. Extensive evidence of fire setting and hammering has been found in the granite quarries and the "scoop marks" do match the dolerite balls. I don't understand why people believe this is a mystery. The laser-like cuts are not in fact laser like. "Perfect" objects have been proven to be imperfect upon closer analysis, like the statue of Tutmes III from the Luxor museum or the Serapeum sarcophagi (as proven by the measurements taken by the ISIDA Project team). I see no reason why they couldn't carve the statues using flint and obsidian. Researchers already proved what can be achieved, carving internal 90 degree angles in igneous rock. It's like arguing Michelangelo could not carve David by hand, using iron rods. One researcher even replicated the carvings of the Tutankhamun's quartzite sarcophagus, in quartzite, using stone tools.

@@MrAchile13 I agree, evidence of fire setting and hammering has been found, but it's also true that they've been using the same quarries over millennia, and processes might've changed. And I believe they were more advanced before than the dynastic Egyptians. To me and many other researchers the "scoop marks" do not match the pounding, because the marks look like "softened". If you go next to the Aswan quarry, there's a huge stone where you can try the technique for yourself. This only proves that it wasn't feasible, because you can see that the marks left by hundreds of people over decades didn't even scratch the stone. The major mystery, however, lies in the undercuts of the unfinished Obelisk. There you can really see a still unknown process and technique. The cuts are regular, evenly spaced, and go right under the Obelisk, absolutely impossible to achieve them by pounding and it would also have no sense. In the ISIDA project research they do admit that the 90 degree angles are straight, and I still haven't seen a perfect 90 degree cut replicated on granite (if you do have the sources, I'd love to see it). The Main thing that divides the sarcophagi at saqqara and makes me think the sarcophagi were earlier that the dynastic Egyptians, is that the inscriptions that were made on some of the sarcophagi are raw, badly done, and rationally were not made by the same people that shaped the sarcophagi, otherwise they wouldn't have been so raw. Still, to make flawless facial features on diorite (let's remember the materials Michelangelo shaped were much, much softer) you'd need a diamond cutting point, like mister Petrie already suggested, and like scientists at NASA suggested (I can link you sources if you want). I won't even mention the question on how they could move and place the sarcophagi underground, when modern humans like us weren't even able to move the lids if not by making them explode. And let me be clear, I don't believe in ancient aliens or stuff like that. I just think that some of the processes they used are largely unknown to us, and that they might've been passed on from earlier generations of people that were eventually erased by a catastrophe. It's only a couple of weeks ago that one of the major geologists in the USA published a scientific paper in favor of the Younger Dryas Hypothesis, accusing modern archaeology of bias and misconceptions. This would indeed explain all the mythological references of a deluge in every single mythology of the first civilizations, and would give a hint of truth to the accounts of Plato (which source came directly from Egypt). During all my PhD years, this was the first time a renown scholar tries to expose the flaws of modern archaeology and history. Anyways, in the end these are all theories, but to me, and to many others in this field, the logical and rational conclusion is that based on the analysis of the structures and statues made by the dynastic Egyptians, they didn't have the know how to build something like the saqqara sarcophagi or the Osireion. Like Herodotus said in his IV book of the Historiae, the Egyptians told him some structures were already incredibly ancient even to the Egyptians themselves. No one knows the truth for sure, and we can only make assumptions. But I've seen many scholars reconsider their belief systems in light of new findings and theories. In the end, I wanted to say thank you because you replied in an articulate and intelligent manner, with references and stuff. 95% of the times I find people that just like to bash comments without any kind of actual knowledge. Cheers from Italy!

@@logicalthought1225 Hey, thanks for the reply. I do believe some of the points above are not valid and I'll try to explain why. Let me know what you think. 1) Agreed, in fact in the same Aswan quarry there are traces of wedge & feather technique, used to split the granite, which date from the iron age. But there is no evidence of anything pre-Egyptian being more advanced then the Egyptians, on the contrary. The data is clear on that. 2) What makes you say the granite looks softened? We still don't know any method of softening granite, or if it's even possible, do we? That's the exact purpose of the fire setting, to weaken the granite and make it easier to break. But if you take a pounder and start hammering the granite bedrock, what marks do you think you will obtain? 3) I've been at Aswan and tried hammering granite myself. While it's a slow process, it's actually faster then I expected. The video we are commenting on proved you can work granite by pounding alone, but again, for quarrying, fire setting and pounding will speed up the process significantly 4) the unfinished obelisk has no undercut trench cut beneath (I used to believe it does, until I seen it in the quarry). The stone you are referring is a smaller one, near the obelisk. Here I have to disagree, there is enough space to swing the hammers and the marks can be made by hand. They are by no means uniform as the traces made by a machine. The undercut trench is necessary in order to snap the block free from the bedrock. 5) ISIDA Project posted photos of their measurements (electronic measuring device) and the corners range between 90+ and 91+ degrees. I did not seen any 90.0 angle on their website, which disproves the "machine precision" many claim. Researchers have carved very precise inner 90 degrees angles in rhyolite (which is an igneous stone), using obsidian flakes (Jean Pierre-Protzen/Stella Nair - Stones of Tiahuanaco, page 162 - there's a photo of it) 6) But here is the problem, not only we have no evidence of the Serapeum sarcophagi being older, but the assertion is not logical. One can say, at best, that one pharaoh made a sarcophagus and a few generations later, another usurped it and hastily inscribed it. To claim the sarcophagus is pre-Egyptian is not backed up by any evidence, nor by logic, as the neolithic people were not capable of such projects. We know for a fact the Egyptians were well able to deeply inscribe granite, as proven by the deep inscriptions on the obelisks (most of which are now in Rome) 7) You don't need diamond to shape diorite, other stone tools would do. Researchers are working diorite without diamond. While marble is softer, this has nothing to do with the precision. If Michelangelo made David without advanced machines and technology, why couldn't the Egyptians? If anything, it's easier to over carve in soft stone by mistake, rather then hard one. 8) Just because Mariette has blown up the lid, doesn't mean we are unable to move it, it means it's easier and faster to have it blown up. The key is mechanical advantage. Mariette found evidence of rollers and even 2 winches (I suspect they are capstans, but he doesn't specify). If you use capstans and simple pulley systems, you can move the sarcophagi in tight spaces, with few people. For example, a simple pulley system with only 4 pulleys, can generate a mechanical advantage of 5:1. You take this system and connect it to a capstan moved by 8 people, thus increasing the advantage even more. The longer the levers of the capstan (Marriete found winches with 8 levers) compared to the central axis, the more mechanical advantage the capstan produces. 9) I didn't study geology or the impact hypothesis so I cannot argue for or against it. However, here I see another problem of logic. How can a geologist, proposing an impact, can criticize archaeology? In other words, how can an impact be evidence of a previous civilization? It can't. It tells us nothing if there were just hunter gatherers or civilizations. The only way to make the claim is to discover their material traces, which we have literally none at the moment. An impact cannot erase all the evidence of a global advanced civilization, as many claim. Keep in mind we have plenty of evidence from the small hunter gatherer communities, including wooden artifacts, bone artifacts, cave paintings, terracotta etc. 10) Why couldn't the Egyptian be able to build the Osirion? It's a simple building, structurally speaking, similar to the other temples. As for the Serapeum sarcophagi, the Romans made better ones. Have you seen the sarcophagi of Constantina and Hellena from the Vatican? Similar in size (a bit smaller) made from porphyry and with amazing 3D decorations. The Egyptians never made anything like that. If this can be made with simple tools, why not the Serapeum sarcophagi? You're a lucky man, Italy is an amazing place. I've been to Rome and Torino and fell in love with the country! Can't wait to go back!

What do you mean? Please show proof of this precision and the lack of this precision in "modern times"

i also would like to know

none were used they just threw out a number out there to sound scientific.

The more and more I dive into this channel the less credible it seems. They do some good work sure but the amount of mid wits commenting ‘hur due Hancock thinks it was aliens’ is such a straw man it’s hard to believe any of this genuinely debated. People are leaning way too far on the assumption that modern day academia isn’t filled with lazy propagandists. They are way too quick to say I’m right because of my degree and you’re wrong cuz all you have is 40 years of practical experience in a field of expertise.

No 😂 It's alright. They proved it's possible to carve the unfinished obelisk with dolomite rocks and a very committed army of workers.

Prove it.

@@hydra70 i do not have to prove anything . it is simply common sense . When you look at the megalithic structures of Egypt then you can tell that they were way more advanced than us in working with stone.

​@@djedpillar2718 This is called the argument from incredulity. This is a (unfortunately very common) logical fallacy. Just because you as an individual can't understand how they did it with their technology, doesn't mean that they didn't do it with that technology. You are making a claim. The burden of proof lies with you to prove that claim. If we aren't using evidence as the basis for forming conclusions, then all discussion about the topic is meaningless.

@@hydra70 The argument is not how they did it but the impressive results they had achieved while we can not achieve anything simillar to them. Take the serapium huge boxes as an example of this and challenge any company in the whole world to construct this from one piece of Granite. Thank you

@@djedpillar2718 The idea that they couldn't do it then is already tenuous. The claim that we can't do it today is absolutely absurd. Give me a million dollars and I will go commission a company to make a similar box right now. The only reason people don't do it is because granite and granite-working is extremely expensive. Don't fall into the trap of thinking that just because we *don't* do something, that means that we can't.