Egyptians OBVIOUSLY worked granite [REDUX] 

Context for anyone who missed the first video: I basically released this same video a week earlier where I asked the same questions but they were phrased differently because I was questioning the idea that Egyptians couldn't work granite at all. Some in the comments thought that I was taking the weakest interpretation of the idea that Egyptians inherited some monuments. So I went away, thought about and reworded the questions.

Milo couldn’t have possibly made this video, he simply inherited it

I'm a blacksmith and tool historian. Working any rock is easy, but especially granite since it's a igneous rock with varying grain sizes. If the statues were made of chalcedony, that would be a head scratcher.....but it's just granite and granite cuts granite, so does any harder rock, including sand.

That father/son funerary monument was breathtaking not only in detail but also the context. One of the most literal examples of a snapshot in time I've seen from any pre-photography society.

As a mason it really ticks me off too when I hear people talk about aliens building great pyramids or the stonework in Peru. It’s really good stonework but it’s not impossible stonework

I took a class where we made a metabasalt Celt using only stone tools and sand as an abrasive. I finished in under two days. I made a nephrite pendant with a bow drill and feldspar as an abrasive. Nephrite is one of the hardest toughest stones worked by our ancestors all over the world. The kind of person who says it had to be aliens greatly underestimates the fact that for ninety-five percent of our history we made and used stone tools. In that time humans became expert in the properties of stone and how to work it. If the armchair experts would get out of their chairs and do a little physical labor and experimental archeology they would see that with the patience of those who didn't have diamond drills and electricity to make things easily and fast made those beautiful things without alien help. It's that simple.

The nonsense argument "even today we can't reproduce this work" neglects the fact that we have no one alive today who comes from an uninterrupted tradition of stonework, nor do we have anyone willing to devote their entire lives to the work.

It would be a better RU-vid if every content provider was as diligent yet humble as you, Stefan. No need to say more. Thanks for what you produce.

Not only could the Egyptians move the obelisk, but obviously the Romans were able to as well given how they relocated it to Rome, thus the ability to move very large objects around in antiquity cannot be disputed.

In case you do a sequel for this video, here's another question you can throw in: *Where is all the Atlanteans' regular stuff?* Where are their graves, their non-monumental ordinary settlements, their pottery, trash middens, tools, weapons, and so on? We can find all these things for other cultures (including the Egyptians)--and even for sparse camps of Neanderthal hunter-gatherers. Why would the Younger Dryas cataclysm be sooooo selective that it would wipe out every single trace of the Atlanteans (aside from Cool Stuff made from stone), but leave tools and campsites of _Homo erectus_ intact? Small tribes of hominids left more evidence than a global advanced civilization, really?

The over arcing theme if this video is Stefan was trying to get his 10,000 steps in. Great video as always.

Great video Stefan, I feel your frustration. I was lucky enough to do a lot of travelling over 2016/17 and unfortunately even with the evidence staring people in the face, they refuse to believe people are and were capable of such construction. At Ollantaytambo in Peru, there are the famous stone walls that you cannot fit a piece of paper between. Tourists were ignoring the guides saying "look around you" at all of the walls they had built leading up to this one - you could see clear progression of skill. Instead tourists were talking very loudly about how no one really knows the truth and its quite clearly impossible for humans to create this. It's a massive disservice to the ability and ingenuity of human beings who would have dedicated years to their craft and used thousands of people for these mega constructions.

I feel like as educational science youtubers, we have an obligation to debunk certain topics every few months.

I didn't even realize that this was an issue people insisted on fixing. We've been working stone for hundreds of thousands of years. Surely it's believable that we got really good at it eventually.

This would be tangential to your normal topics, but a video in the evolution of stone-working techniques over time would be super cool

When someone says: "I don't understand how did they make that?", I say "You don't know how your computer works, but you use it and you don't praise aliens for that!"

Judging by how many people can be engaged in moving an object, and recent experiences in North Korea of a friend of mine who installed a Gondola with no heavy equipment, he says the following, "Humans have absolutely no trouble moving anything under 50-tons, no matter where it is going. Once it gets over 1,000 tons, things get difficult, but not impossible."

Sometimes, this kind of thorough work is really taken for granite.

the biggest problem I have with the reasoning about the Egyptians not working granite is a lack of imagination and cost of labor. it is weird to think that a preexisting culture could do something that a latter one would then be completely unable to figure out. really these people don't understand hand work and that a large amount of labor hours being spent on making objects was normal. it didn't matter how slow the process was as long as progress could be made. the ancients worked long days every day pretty much. not 40 hour work weeks.

Oh thank you! I started watching your videos then someone else’s video popped up saying how the Egyptians must’ve used sonic drills, my bs detector went off but I was a tad blazed and gave it a tiny bit of stock. Glad to learn more about them that ACTUALLY happened

scientists against myth is a fantastic channel where they actually cut granite with FLINT , copper and diorite stone

Technology moved slowly in those times. So imagine generations and generations of human beings today, all using basically the same tools and medium. Imagine how deep the knowledge of sculping the same material over and over and over again for generations. Their minds and dexterity were just as great as ours. They are the same humans.

I've been arguing about these things on the internet for years and by the end the "lost advanced civilization" side of the argument usually boils down to "yeah I guess it's possible Egyptians/Romans/etc. could have done it but it would have been hard and time consuming"

Somewhere out there in the afterlife, egyptian pharaos are watching subbed History channel: "These Pyramids could not be build by humans, they must have been build by [powerfull, technologicaly advanced sky beeings]." Pharao: "Damn right you are."

the father-son engraving... i have no words, we’re so lucky to have had it survive this long so that we can get this glimpse into such an intimate part of these people’s lives. it’s honestly astounding that anyone refers to any of the hieroglyphics as “crappy”, i hate that too. people just want there to be some kind of mystery to be solved, when they could just use their critical thinking skills and be able to appreciate this civilization’s dedication and skill. it’s always come off as incredibly disrespectful, to me, to insinuate that a group of people were incapable of accomplishing something. have you seen people??? we accomplish huge things all the time, even that far back in time.

Whenever I see "there's NO WAY these people could have made these ancient works!" I just think about that guy who made a replica of Stonehenge with only contemporary tools. By himself

Thank you, Stefan. The photos you showed were outstanding; one of the best compilations I've seen. Bravo!

Pseudoscience victim: But Stefan, I've already invested years of my life watching "alternative history" RU-vid videos and convincing myself that the Giza pyramids generated electricity...just like my hero Nikola Tesla. It's going to be very difficult for me to let go of that belief now and accept that I'm being fooled by people who are $tirring my emotion$, exploiting my ignorance...and ca$hing in on my inexperience. Lets face it, I like to get excited when I hear stories about "unsolved mysteries and "lost civilizations" on RU-vid.

Your channel is like a necessity to youtube. I'm sure from your point of view, it's a lot of hard work. From the viewer's point of view it is a no brainer and fits beautifully into what they want from a good channel. Stefan Milo reports on history, makes it entertaining, and has real scientists on his channel. What more could you ask for? I went back and watched this looking forward to today's upload. Thanks!

Didn't see the original. So excite.

I've done some amateur stone carving over the years and the idea that the Egyptians just couldn't work granite sounds kind of insane to me. While people imagine hammering away at a piece of rock with a metal chisel when they think of stone working (and there is certainly a bit of that, especially with larger pieces), the tools I spend the vast, vast majority of my time using are files. I could carve a stone statuette from start to finish with no other tools at all if I had a good file set. Now I have the luxury of high quality modern metal files, but the reason I bring this up is to point out that it's perfectly possible, and even often desirable, to carve stone by shaving away tiny bits of it at a time. My usual pattern is to cut the block to a general shape, file it into it's final form, polish with steel wool, do fine detail work with a dremel, and then do a second round of light polishing. It would be entirely possible though to do the whole thing with just the filing step, or even just the polishing step. It would take much more time and effort than my spoiled modern ass would be willing to put in, but it's perfectly possible to carve a high quality granite statue just by getting it wet and rubbing it in the right places really hard for a really long time with another stone, a piece of wood, or even a rough cloth. As long as you can remove material, no matter how little, you can shape that rock as long as you are willing to work at it long enough. There isn't some technological line you cross where now you have the power to shape granite. Water shapes granite all by itself. It just takes a long ass time. The implication seems to be that you need metal tools, which is just strange. Why aren't you finding atlantean metal tools in these areas then? What that seems to imply to me is that this granite was just carved without metal tools.

There's also an inherent suggestion that there were never any apprentices, that everyone instantly knew how to work stone perfectly from the first time they picked up the tools. I found a video that showed some walls of a tomb (or some such) that were only partly done... they had the "sketches" showing where the parts were to go and some of the walls had started to be finished... ie a great site showing "work in progress". That sarcophagus you showed looked just like that (and just as you said)... as if it had been sketched in, ready to move to the next stage and then left because something happened to stop them working on it (which of course happened at a number of sites etc). Great work as always Stefan... you're a pleasure to watch and listen to (great gift too!).

I think the bigger question is how his beard magically dissapeared and reapeared

I really appreciate that you approached this with respect and focused on the facts and didn’t make a video simply mocking people that have fallen down the rabbit hole

Thank you. Always pleased when another of your videos pops up in my reçus.

Bless you, Stefan, you really are too good for this mad mad world. Another cracking video! I especially loved the stela of the father and son showing off their respective works/rulers. Such a personal snapshot of time, amazing!

This is the adult version of finding out Santa doesn’t exist.

Had to get in quick before the video is taken down again! You should know that your videos are based on sound logic and reasoning, rather that feelings and make believe, however, I must draw to your attention with regards to the hypothesis of the Papyrus writings, we all know that this was only done via laser printers… lol keep-up the good work

The content and the way you present it is absolutely beautiful.

I love your videos so much!!! Great choice of music in this one, too!

.. "Shocking evidence, the scientists can't explain!!" Meanwhile, Stefan and other archeologists explain it perfectly....

I've never understood the concept that the quality of workmanship some how shows a period of time. I'm a tradesman and I think my work is pretty decent, but I know lots of tradesman that their work isnt so great. Also people that aren't tradesman make things and they often aren't very good at all. Same as today... two objects made in the same town made in the same year can have vastly different levels of quality.

I discovered your channel thanks to your video about the Graham Hancock series on Netflix. I have to say for the record: I'm really impressed by the quality of your videos. Analyzing the anthropology and archeology of ancient civilizations using real science is wonderful, and you are certainly making a great contribution to spreading of these areas and critical and scientific thinking. My congratulations for your excellent work.

The snarky captions are giving me life

stefan: these writings are clearly made by egyptians me who has no idea what I'm looking at: yeah, clearly!

There has always been a strand of Egyptology that wasn't able to reconcile the glories of ancient Egypt with the absence of white builders - initially early Egyptologists invented a history of early european contact to explain how these wonders came to be, with the African elements of their development coming in after the great works - I don't know if there is a direct line from that to the current claims of alien builders or lost Atlantians, but it is interesting to me that the focus of alien conspiracies is on Egypt and not ancient Greece

So happy to finally watch the video!! I saw you uploaded the first one and said I will wait till after dinner lol by then it was to late xD

Love your videos! Keep doing what you’re doing :)

It really bamboozles me how these ancient guys actually did all that rock carving, and left little to describe how they did it. Like it was so mundane and normal to create a relief in rock with such precision. The same way we wouldn't leave documents today informing future civilizations how we opened doors or got some water from the tap

It would really be ironic if a future archeologist dug up our civilization and said “they obviously weren’t smart enough to build these, must be aliens”

I literally can’t wait for these videos to come in, cheers 🙌

Yay.. I have been waiting very impatiently for this 😝😝

Aw man, question 2 just made me remember when I went into the Egyptian exhibition in Berlin more than 10 years ago and I was so freaking amazed and astounded of the quality of the chiselled stone inscriptions! I mean, that stuff had been lying in sand for thousands of years, how can the inscriptions be so perfect?! Also, the question of a possible technologically advanced prehistoric civilization is not even that interesting to me, but the fact, that since the dawn of humans, they had a similarly advanced cultural life and cultural practices that might have been unbelievable different, and similar at the same time! And Stefan, did you really give „concrete“ examples in the video, or „granite“ ones?! :P

Brian Forester suffer from as serious case of Dunning Kruger effect, or maybe he just needs a spectacular story to attract enough gullible people for the commercial trips he organises. Well done Stefan, clear logic and evidence always does the trick. Aristotle would have been pleased. Leave the super natural, or the semi super natural out of it. It always muddies the water.

I remember watching that video about criticizing the artwork. I thought he had a good argument about comparing the artwork with the architecture. But watching your rebuttal totally blew away his argument. Nice work.

glad to see you again! We missed you!

I'm baffled that people don't find enough to wonder and be amazed about in Egypt, as is.

Excellent Stefan. The problem with Mr Bright, Sibson, Foerster, etc is that they have no knowledge on how stone is worked. Modern masons are exceptional craftsmen but letter cutters are a breed apart displaying fantastic skills as well as artistic ability, it stands to reason that this was also the case in ancient Egypt. Compare a group of people's handwriting, perhaps one example is considered "beautiful" whilst some maybe almost unintelligible but they all started with an identical tool, a pen. Letter cutting is the same, it is a specialist skill and when done well it is a marvel.

Always entertaining and educational. Thank you

The smooth jazz sets an excellent mood lmao always enjoy your vids man. I still do think there a genuine historical mysteries which include older civilisations, but they are certainly far less fantastical than many claim.

So these people are saying that the ancient Egyptians were too primitive to work granite, but then claim that an even much older civilization had already done it before them.

Stefan Milosavljevich have you ever considered doing a video with your analysis of the stonework done at Cuzco and Machu Picchu? I always appreciate your videos and analysis.

Worth the wait, great vid

great work. thank you Stefan

My family owns a rock and crystal shop. My mom has recently started believing in "lumerians" which are basically atlanteans because of some striations on some crystals being ancient encoded messages. 🤷‍♂️ I love my mom but that's weird to me.

When I lived in Upstate New York I frequently went in search of fossils in shale and limestone and quartz crystals in dolomite. I invariably returned home from a day's outing minus a chisel or wedge. So I expect that misplaced tools would be found on any quarrying or sculpting site.

Great commentary, thanks for sharing.

Yess finally the "redux" is here! Excited to see how this vid compares to the original.

Great video! Although, I'm also looking forward to the redux-redux where you crowdsource the most extreme conspiracy strawmen for a top tier shitpost

How come I always feel highly insulted whenever somebody says: 'Normal humans can't do it'? If you count the Lomekwian stone tool industry as a stone tool industry, mankind has been working with stone - (AND wood, AND grass that did both not survive) - for 3.300.000 years. So far as we know for now at the end of the Mesolithic, about 10.000 BP the Megalithic era kicked off, probably with big stone-monuments - partly - replacing - hypothetical - older wood-monuments because of durability. And then at the very last breath of the Stoneage after 4700 BP some guys come along that aren't happy with their megalithic family-hills, but think themselves larger than life and want a mountain... - And suddenly it is 'impossible', and best: 'Aliens did it'. Just because the first one that wanted a mountain built all for himself was - obviously - lunatic, and people were dazzled and charmed enough not to off him the moment he showed the first signs - neither he nor them were alien. On the contrary: Megalomania (and clustering and ducking around the big boys) is all too human. Every human population produces about 15-20% lateral thinkers who refuse to follow traditions and rules (at least when young). 5% of these are even brilliant and envision something completely new and if what they have been given by their culture isn't enough to make their ends meet, they find the means to make their - or rather their bosses - ends meet. That's not alien, this is just us.

Thanks Stefan for putting some sanity back into the ancient egypt videos on youtube.

Thanks Stefan - those timelines were so useful and instructive. I hadn’t realised the golden periods were so fleeting... just a few hundred years each. Kind of makes more sense to me now. Cheers 👍

I remember being a little kid watching "In Search Of" with Leonard Nimoy (basically "Ancient Aliens" of the 1970's) and my dad telling me it was bullshit.

I feel your pain, Stefan. I have similar feelings respecting people who discredit William Shakespeare and attribute the authorship of his plays to everyone from the Earl of Oxford to Elizabeth I.

Enjoy the logic in your discussions. New subbie. Good work and research.

Splendid demonstration through questioning of the absurdity of the alternative technology theories. Stefan's patience and good humour is inspiring and - really! - heroic. I appreciate his searching out the human story of these craftsmen in the stele from the granite quarry.

I really wish you'd just left the orginal video up, along with the original comments and the replies. The folks espousing ridiculous alternate ideas were getting trounced in the comments and there was a good discussion going.

Thanks so much for this excellent upload Stepan. I remember over a decade ago when "Ancient Aliens" became popular, I was intrigued. But watching their ridiculous claims lead me to channels like yours. Thanks for helping me see history for what it really is, with no aliens required. I also must thank the "Scientists against myths" channel because they are just as brilliant as you. Cheers from a girl from Australia ✌🇦🇺🙃

That Men and Bek inscription is incredible

I think you're cool and authentic. Knowing less and having just binged a bunch of Graham Hancock and looking for the other side I find you. These questions are about the idea of an ancient civ doing the work for the Egyptians. I think the alternate folks (probably nutty) are talking about knowledge transfer at the start of new civs.

I actually find it kind of disturbing how popular pseudoscience videos are on youtube, and how rabid the fans are to defend them against any questions

Love the video! I don't want to make any broad statements because I don't know Brian Forester's work, but my very ignorant view of his ideas makes it sound like he enjoys the Ancient Aliens approach of assuming humans or civilizations are far too stupid to achieve the works commonly ascribed to them. I mention that because I think it would be great to see you or other experts do companion pieces to a lot of the more popular Ancient Alien videos in a similar way to how this video addresses the discussion about Egyptian granite.

Great stuff Stefan

The background music is great so calming.

A lot of people tend to deny the achievements of many indigenous cultures, from Egypt to Peru, seemingly by default and almost as an article of faith... But I've yet to witness people argue (let alone with similar fervor) that, say, Mycenae was "inherited" by the Mycenaeans, or Hattusa by the Hittites, because their stoneworking skills "obviously" weren't up to the task. Really makes me think this has more to do with racial prejudice than anything else.

not sure if it is good for you to waste your time with these things. Outside of the fringes, such claims are not taken seriously

Keep up the good work brother x

Hello Milo. I am new to your channel. Love it. You have a great sense of humor. Take care..

People aren't realistic, too much cartoon. If you went to luxor you'll find too many unfulfilled projects where they used conventional techniques like building dune of sand to build a wall, and when the king dies they just stop working and leaving the dune for thousands of years

UnchartedX and Bright Insight are amongst the most stupid channels out there regarding ancient history

Stefan Milosavljevich - Thank you man! You provided photos of Egyptian frescas showing them knowing about advanced mechanics of drilling. In one of them - a guy holds a tool that resembles a bow, and the string is wrapped around a drilling shaft - no pun intended (as you might say). Egyptians 4-5 thousands years ago, were just the Homo Sapiens as we are today. They could've and might have used even more advanced techniques by *scaling* these "bows", using pulley wheels, pendulums, bronze drilling shafts and make it less miserable job by allowing more than one-two persons doing it at the same time. That's much more economical theory than introducing a long lost civ that should've existed alongside with nomadic Homo Sapiens, omg - Neanderthals possibly, or in a case of, I have a sudden acid reflux, Mr. Graham Hancock who would allow for such civ to have existed more than 100k ago, it would exist alongside Homo Erectus - at least in some pockets of a world. It's just incredible and doesn't make any sense to me.

6:30 Fun fact: Egyptian scribes did mess up regularly. Hieroglyphics were (likely) a very ritualized script and not commonly used, so many of the artisans inscribing them on the wall just repeated what was given to them, without understanding what they were writing. If a mistake was found, it was filled with plaster and inscribed correctly. And in the thousands of years, the plaster fell out and we can now see the mistakes. But there was never any Atlantian writing under any of the plastered over segments!

When made to choose between 'brown people did it' and 'ancient aliens did it', some people will ALWAYS choose the latter.

Studied Egypt for several years at Uni and very much sick of listening to people with super limited historical understand or understanding of critical thinking explaining things from a top down approach (looking at the data with a premeditated question and retrofitting information). Whilst I understand videos like these are important for sparking debate. I sometimes wonder if these sort of videos in a way validate these unfounded, unsubstantiated and honestly, often racially motivated arguments about an ancient society's ability to create art. Do these videos in a way bring these fringe theories into the mainstream academic discussion where they do not belong?

Once again, I learned a lot thanks to you, Mr Milo:)! Love the hat, hello from Vietnam!

Wow. I didn't realize that such statues were made. Thanks for this video!!

I think "lost civilization" and "ancient alien" type claims are so ridiculous, that they are not even worth addressing. The burden of proof is on the silly people who make these silly claims. Saying that, I appreciate you addressing it, and continue to enjoy your uploads. Cheers.

They obviously used some methods that current archeology is not aware of. Cutting over a million giant stone blocks that weigh multiple tons with those copper saws that require sand and water to actually be somewhat functional is not possible. Not mention the copper saws go dull after a few minutes of use. The mainstream theory isnt really feasible when you take into account all of the factors

Loved the video!

nice surprise gag at the end there, good video, cheers