Lost Technologies of Ancient Egypt: Advanced Engineering in the Temples of the Pharaohs

by Christopher Dunn

  I first visited the Serapeum in 1995 with a Canadian researcher named Robert McKenty. Since that time, my mind has returned to its mystery and the confounding challenge that it presents modern researchers. It is not on the tourists’ venue because it is considered too dangerous to visit, and it is closed to the public. At the time of my visit in 1995, I possessed a precision-machined parallel that I had been using to determine the flatness of numerous granite blocks scattered around the Giza Plateau. The edge on the parallel was accurate to within 0.0002 inch (0.005 millimeter), or 1/10 the thickness of a human hair.

  I brought it with me on the day of our visit because Robert had asked me to accompany him to Saqqara, where, in the courtyard in front of Unas’s pyramid, he thought he had discovered a piece of granite that might be the result of machining. As it turned out, the object was not exact, and there was nothing about the piece that indicated that it was machined. Above the entrance to the pyramid, however, was a very impressive casing stone that surpasses those found on any of the pyramids on the Giza Plateau—one block above the entrance passage measures approximately 25 feet (7.62 meters) long and 5 feet (1.524 meters) high. Much has been written about the casing stones on the Great Pyramid, but this was the first time I had knowledge of this massive limestone block on the minor Queen’s pyramid.

  Figure 5.3. Queen Unas’s pyramid with massive casing stone

  Unknown to me at the time I visited the pyramid were other artifacts not too far away that would receive my attention and put my parallel to good use. It was about noon and a typical hot day at Saqqara, with the sun beating down unmercifully on our heads. We had already kicked up a great deal of sand traipsing all around the step pyramid and the associated temples and lesser pyramids, so we headed over to the Serapeum, where the Netherland Television people—who had brought me to Egypt to interview me with Graham Hancock and Robert Bauval—were filming. I was not on the storyboard today, having fulfilled my obligation in the Great Pyramid a day earlier, but I appreciated the opportunity to wander a site that is not normally visited by tourists.

  First to greet a visitor who enters the Serapeum tunnels is a massive piece of granite sitting on the floor in an entrance hall. The piece is estimated to weigh approximately 20 tons and has a rough finish. To the right, a larger piece of granite sits in a dimly lit passage where there is barely enough room to get around. The rough outside dimensions of the piece are 7 feet (2.133 meters) in height, 7 feet (2.133 meters) in width, and 13 feet (3.962 meters) in length. With granite weighing 175 pounds per cubic foot, as a solid piece this piece would weigh approximately 55 tons. Peering at the top of the piece, though, I could see that the inside had been roughed out, leaving a wall thickness of approximately 1.5 feet (45.72 centimeters). With this material removed, the box weighs approximately 38 tons.

  The entrance hall is larger in width and height than the tunnels where the boxes are installed. Cut into the walls are rectangular depressions that bring to mind images of large cutting tools boring into the rock to remove material quickly. Along their vertical length, the bottoms of some of the depressions are concave, while others are flat. Some have an arched top and others do not. The arrangement of depressions is haphazard and does not appear to conform to any particular design criteria. Egyptologists’ accounts of the Serapeum speak of hundreds of votive stelae lying in the passageways or embedded in the walls: “These stelae contained dedications to Osiris-Apis and, as already mentioned, were sometimes dated by the regnal years of the reigning monarch.”1 From these stelae, scholars gathered the chronology of the site, for they provided data giving the duration of reigns from the beginning of the twenty-sixth dynasty to the end of the Ptolemaic period.

  Figure 5.4. Roughed out box and lid in the Serapeum

  Figure 5.5. Serapeum entrance hall with rough and random depressions cut in wall

  The niches in the wall are curious features and look remarkably similar to the depressions that are seen on the unfinished obelisk at Aswan. There, on the top of the obelisk and around the trench, we can see similar rectangular depressions, though these have been interpreted as being the result of bashing the area with stone balls. If we consider the discovery of votive stelae installed in these niches, it would be logical to assume that the niches were created specifically to house them. On the other hand, if these depressions were the marks left by the tunnel borers, they may have been convenient places to place the stelae, for not all the stelae were installed in wall niches, and the walls beyond the entrance hall are mostly devoid of them.

  From a historical perspective of the purpose of these niches, the final analysis will surely come down on the side of the Egyptologists. The stelae have been found in situ and the tunnel boring tools have not. Nonetheless, from an engineer’s perspective, they do have the same appearance as the tool marks on the Unfinished Obelisk at Aswan, and an argument could be made that the stelae were made to fit existing depressions in the wall that were left by ancient tools plunging into the rock to carve out this mysterious underground cavern.

  Figure 5.6. The Unfinished Obelisk at Aswan with evident quarry marks (Photograph courtesy of Dan Hamilton)

  Though dark and dusty, the Serapeum was a welcome relief from the heat. Shadows were thrown at intervals along the numerous tunnels by incandescent bulbs, and the place appeared more mysterious because a number of alcoves or crypts were cut at right angles on each side of the tunnel. Both the tunnels and the crypts had barrel-shaped vaulted ceilings that had suffered damage over the millennia, as evidenced by places where large pieces of limestone had separated from the bedrock and fallen. Some areas were protected by wooden frames with thick plywood sheets on top. A fine dust that had been kicked up from the floor hung in the air.

  In the center of each crypt there was a large granite box with a lid on top. All of the boxes were finished on the inside and the bottom side of the lid, but not all were finished on the outside. It appears that work stopped suddenly in the Serapeum, for there were boxes in several stages of completion: boxes with lids, boxes that had yet to have the lids placed on them, and the rough box and lid near the entrance. The floor of each crypt was several feet lower than the tunnel floor. Iron railings were installed to prevent visitors from falling.

  Figure 5.7. Boxes in the Serapeum

  The historical explanation for the boxes in the Serapeum is that they were funerary sarcophagi that were used to hold the carcasses of the sacred Apis Bull—even though no bulls (or their skeletons) were found inside them, so it is assumed that they were rifled in antiquity.

  The Apis Bull was considered to be a god by the ancient Egyptians, and the Serapeum was reputed to house the burial vaults of the Apis cult. With the passage of time and following the removal of many artifacts and dust and rubble from the site, the Serapeum probably looks different today than it did one hundred thirty years ago, and early explorers gave their attention primarily to what could be gleaned from the debris. Yet nagging questions still dwell in my mind about this mysterious, hypogeal refuge from the sandy desert and piercing sun—questions about significant details not found in the historical literature. With the debris removed, my attention was drawn immediately to the engineering of the granite boxes.

  Auguste Mariette (1821–1881) is credited with the modern discovery and exploration of the bedrock tunnels that are what is left of the Temple of Serapis—the Serapeum. Mariette is considered one of the greatest explorers and Egyptologists of his era, and he was the founder of the world-famous Cairo Museum. He is credited with doing more for the preservation of Egyptian monuments and prevention of the pillage of antiquities than any other scholar of his generation. In his exploration of the Serapeum he followed on the heels of other explorers, and he notes the work of the Roman geographer Strabo, the first person to have written about the Serapeum and a recorder whose work has survived the centuries. In his Geography, Strabo writes: “There is also a temple of Serapis, situated in a very sandy spot, where the sand is accumulated in masses by the wind
. Some of the sphinxes which we saw were buried in this sand up to the head, and one half only of others was visible. Hence we may conceive the danger, should any one, in his way to the temple, be surprised by a [sand] storm.”2

  In Le Serapeum de Memphis, Mariette writes with no small amount of intensity and passion and reveals a mind that believes it is on the trail of a major discovery:

  Did it not seem that Strabo had written this sentence to help us rediscover, after over eighteen centuries, the famous temple dedicated to Serapis? It was impossible to doubt it. This buried Sphinx, the companion of fifteen others I had encountered in Alexandria and Cairo, formed with them, according to the evidence, part of the avenue that led to the Memphis Serapeum . . .

  It did not seem to me possible to leave to others the credit and profit of exploring this temple whose remains a fortunate chance had allowed me to discover and whose location henceforth would be known. Undoubtedly many precious fragments, many statues, many unknown texts were hidden beneath the sand upon which I stood. These considerations made all my scruples disappear. At that instant I forgot my mission (obtaining Coptic texts from the monasteries), I forgot the Patriarch, the convents, the Coptic and Syriac manuscripts, Linant Bey himself, and it was thus, on 1 November 1850, during one of the most beautiful sunrises I had ever seen in Egypt, that a group of thirty workmen, working under my orders near that sphinx, were about to cause such total upheaval in the conditions of my stay in Egypt.3

  Mariette’s workers began to excavate the avenue flanked by these sphinxes, which were carted off for display in various museums. After some wrangling with the Egyptian government over permissions, which delayed the work for several months, Mariette’s workers continued and eventually gained access to the tunnels.

  Apparently unknown to Mariette at the time of his discovery was the report of the Englishman A. C. Harris (1790–1869), who identified the Serapeum as the same one described by Strabo and announced his discovery in a lecture in London in 1848. Prior to Harris, a French explorer named Paul Lucas (1664–1737) published his account of a somewhat terrifying descent into the dark and mysterious tunnels in Voyage de Louis XIV dans la Tuquie, L’Asie, Soutie, Palestine, Haute & Basse Egypt, &c. (Rouen, 1719):

  After examining this monument [the obelisk at Matariya] and viewing the three beautiful pyramids that we found on our way, we finally arrived at the pit that we were looking for. It appeared square from the outside and 12 feet in diameter and around 30 feet deep. We all went down and lit up several candles that I had brought with me. As soon as we reached the bottom, we found a hole in which we had to lie on our stomachs for about twenty feet. This first entrance was guarded by a snake that frightened us, and which we killed. If the entrance to Lake Aveine had been as frightening as the one I have just mentioned, poets could have written more dreadful descriptions of Hell that they have left us. After having traversed, with much trouble, this narrow channel, we found ourselves in a large corridor, on both sides of which one could see an endless number of pots of clay of which I have spoken, and of which the covers were sealed with mortar. There were a large number that were broken; the others were still intact: there were within these pots birds, embalmed and swathed in bands and cloth, like the mummies. The underground vault was huge and had many galleries leading to the right and to the left. It was impossible to visit them all. Adopting the strategy of Ariadne and her lover before he entered the Labyrinth to fight the Minotaur, I had brought two thousand fathoms [3,646 meters] of string, but this ran out before I reached the end of the cavern, after which we were not prepared to penetrate further.

  All the galleries were cut in the rock, and there were a mixture of kinds of chambers, those filled with these pots, and the others with mummies, most of them reduced to dust. I noticed in many of the niches the heads of bulls, from which I deduced that this was the place where the god Apis was interred; I have no doubt that the bullhead that was given to me for M. de Valincourt by M. le Maire, Consul in Egypt, came from this place. It had been found by the Arabs of Sacara in a chamber cut in the rock and hermetically sealed, which by a singular chance was opened and an embalmed bull found.

  I found something similar in the catacombs that I have described; this bull was buried in a large case, upon which the head was represented: this case was gilded and painted, and surrounded by a beautiful balustrade around 5 feet high, also gilded and painted in various colours. There was also found in the same area eight urns of white stone, upon the covers of which are represented the heads of young girls, and upon the sides many sorts of hieroglyphs. . . .4

  Aidan Dodson assesses Lucas’s discovery:

  The large gilded and painted case that was surrounded by a five-feet high balustrade, by Lucas’s account, is considered to have been made of wood by modern Egyptologists. However, there is some doubt cast on the accuracy of Lucas’s work because of his presumed lack of literary skills and the fact that his book was assembled from his notes by a ghost writer.5

  Also clouding an accurate understanding of the provenance of the site is the disappearance of Mariette’s excavation journals after he entrusted them to Eugène Grébaut at the Louvre in Paris. The archaeological report of Mariette’s excavations was left to Gaston Maspero, who completed it in 1880, using an incomplete manuscript left by Mariette.

  With uncertainty and confusion surrounding the discovery of the Serapeum, experts on the archaeology of the site, such as Dodson, Ibrahim, and Rohl, have attempted to bring some sense of order to the history of the Serapeum, but they are working with artifacts that provide less than the best evidence for a solid, scientific theory—and they are working with hearsay accounts from ghost writers who cannot provide the accuracy of the original researcher whose methods, by today’s standards, are considered crude: “When Mariette first undertook excavation work at Sakkara he was 29 years of age and without previous archaeological experience. In those days tomb clearance and analysis of finds in situ were still crude operations, to say the least, for it was not until the 20th century that archaeology became a more exacting science.”6

  Despite the confusion, there seems to be no equivocation from Egyptologists about the purpose of the site. This was indeed the burial place of the sacred Apis Bull: Bull heads were found in niches in the tunnels, and a statue of a bull was retrieved from the tunnels and now sits in the Louvre Museum in Paris.

  Because the ancient Egyptians worshipped the Apis as a god, a search was made throughout the land for a replacement of one that died or was about to be sacrificed. When an Apis died, people throughout the land mourned and practiced a self-imposed celibacy. Until another Apis was found—a bull recognized by distinct black and white markings with a saddle mark and white blaze on the forehead—there was no sex. To say that the mourners were motivated to find a bull, and in a hurry, would be an understatement. Once the animal was found, the new god incarnate was installed with celebration and joy. The continuity of the Apis god among the Egyptians was assured, signifying that the heavens were pleased and that the land and its people would be protected and flourish.

  Figure 5.8. The Apis Bull

  Exploring the tunnels of the Serapeum for the first time was both intriguing and frustrating. Along the dusty corridors were more than twenty-two large boxes. Each was cut from a solid block of granite, and remarkable to each was a feature that was characteristic of fourth-dynasty boxes. The inside corners have small radii (see figure 5.7), and such features are significant to engineers and craftsmen because of the added difficulty and time required to create a sharp inside corner in hard igneous rock that is made up of 55 percent silicon quartz crystal (a hardness of 7 on the Mohs scale). The technological questions it raises are straightforward—for example, what type of tool was used and why such sharp corners were needed—but after the passage of time, we can only speculate based on circumstantial evidence (the boxes themselves) and engineering sense. Reconciling these technical questions and their implications with the cultural context of the site as described
by Egyptologists requires some mental gymnastics. One question in an engineer’s mind: Why did the Egyptians transport 70 tons of rock five hundred miles down the Nile just to house the body of an animal? Though we must recognize that different cultures have invested significant expense in worshipping animals, there is something about this particular site that does not add up.

  In one of the crypts there is a granite box with a broken corner, and this box is accessible by means of steps down to the lower floor. The outside of the box appears to be roughly finished, but the glint of a high polish on the inside surfaces beckoned me to climb inside. Running my hand along the surface of the granite reminded me of the thousands of times I have run my hand along a granite surface plate when I was working as a machinist and later as a tool and die maker. The feel of the stone was no different, though I was not sure of its flatness or accuracy. To check my impression, I placed the edge of my precision-ground parallel against the surface—and I saw that it was dead flat. There was no light showing through the interface of the steel and the stone, as there would be if the surface was concave, and the steel did not rock back and forth, as it would if the surface was convex. To put it mildly, I was astounded. I did not expect to find such exactitude, because this order of precision is not necessary for the sarcophagus of a bull—or any other animal or human.