Petrie died during the Second World War so that although his passing was recorded by both learned journals and the press, it did not receive the attention that would undoubtedly have been accorded it in peaceful and less difficult times. Much has been written about Petrie, perhaps the most controversial figure in the whole annals of archaeology, both during his lifetime and afterwards, and probably more eulogies both critical and uncritical have been accorded him than to any other Egyptologist since Champollion. Some have written serious analytical discussions of his work and achievements, or allegedly frank assessments of his faults, yet no one has produced a list of his publications.2
Figure 11.1. Outside the Petrie Museum in 2003
Professional disagreement can sometimes turn into heated debate, though such debates may not have been as public in Petrie’s day as they are now considering the development of communication technology and how it is used to promote ideas. One of the more widely known debates of the modern era was a contentious disagreement at the American Association for the Advancement of Science Convention in Chicago in 1992 between Egyptologist Dr. Mark Lehner of the Oriental Institute and geologist Dr. Robert Schoch of Boston University. Schoch became involved with ancient Egyptian studies when he was persuaded by John Anthony West to write an opinion on West’s claim, after Schwaller de Lubicz, that water weathering on the Great Sphinx, and especially on the Sphinx enclosure wall, was indicative of a much earlier-thanaccepted date for its carving. After performing an on-site analysis, Schoch reported that the Great Sphinx is thousands of years older than scholars generally believe. Lehner called these findings “pseudoscience,” and the normal cool politeness of academic debate was thrown on the sacrificial fire as heated voices continued past the time allotted and on into the hallway after the presentation.
Lehner argued: “You don’t overthrow Egyptian history based on one phenomenon like a weathering profile” and “that is how pseudoscience is done, not real science.”3
Schoch, however, held to his evaluation, which was based on the science in which he has been trained—geology—and he reiterated his studies of the Sphinx’s erosion. He used sound waves, which suggested that the monuments crevices were carved sometime between 7000 and 5000 BCE.
Scholars of Egyptian history have been scornful of Schoch’s science because it is contrary to the research that generations of Egyptologists and archaeologists have developed. Because of his understanding that people from that period were believed to be hunter-gatherers who had not advanced sufficiently to build cities like those of the ancient Egyptians, Lehner asked for evidence of a culture living at that time that was advanced enough to carve the Sphinx. Lehner added, however, that he was willing to consider evidence, such as a potsherd, that would provide a cultural context for this lost civilization.
Dr. Schoch responded that perhaps later civilizations came on to the scene and cleaned up the area.4 To a layperson and a scientist, this idea does not seem outlandish, considering what we know about how later cultures can absorb and mask previous cultures by destroying or corrupting evidence, as Dr. Andrews pointed out in the foreword to this book. Modern societies, while living and working in the shadows of a previous generation’s constructions, create artifacts that are entirely different and may give future archaeologists the wrong idea of what existed here previously should there be a break in the generational transfer of knowledge. Also, when we look at the evidence highlighted in the previous chapters of this text, this idea does not sound so foreign, and it becomes obvious that more has been lost than we previously believed.
Schoch is also not the first to propose that the ancient Egyptian civilization was older than scholars believe it to be. Lehner himself benefited from followers of the sleeping prophet, Edgar Cayce, whose organization, the Association of Research and Enlightenment, funded his research in Egypt in search of the fabled lost continent of Atlantis—evidence of which was supposed to come to light in 1998. Ultimately, Lehner rejected this outside-the-box view after he failed to find evidence of lost civilizations, and seems to reject the ideas of those who might think that they have succeeded.
The relevance of ancient megalithic construction and precision cutting of igneous rock relies on engineering principles, not on geology or Egyptology. The potsherds Lehner asked to see that would change his mind about ancient Egyptian history are found in Egypt and in museums all over the world. The ones I have studied reside not in Egypt, but are situated in a glass display case in the Petrie Museum in London. The recent documentaries that have been broadcast by Egyptologists have been a distraction from what was really going on in ancient Egypt. They mislead by not addressing the incredible precision of the available artifacts. They do not address the remarkable geometry and exactness of the ancient Egyptians’ statues, and they have ignored evidence presented by Flinders Petrie in 1883 that proves that the ancient Egyptians used highly sophisticated methods for cutting stone—including efficient and versatile lathes.
The lathe is a natural development from the potter’s wheel depicted in ancient artwork and presumed to have existed in ancient Egypt. The type of potter’s wheel in ancient Egypt is taken from an Egyptian relief showing the god Khum seated at what is theorized to be a kick wheel.
From the early origins of potter’s wheels, improvements evolved the technology to what we see today, and the spin-off of the potter’s wheels that are still in use are found in every manufacturing plant in the world. They have progressed from manually driven machines to water-driven and steam engine–driven line shaft pulleys and belts to the electric motor. In 1968, I was employed as a journeyman lathe turner in the tool room at the venerable J and S Eyres Ltd. engineering company in Manchester, England. This was the only company where I worked that had an old-fashioned line shaft driving several machines. Manufacturing and repairing the leather belts for the line was considered a craft in and of itself, with specialists employed to perform such work.
Figure 11.2. Egyptian relief showing the god Khum and a cross section of a potter’s wheel assembly: A. Bench B. Work C. Rotating table D. Kick wheel E. Bearing. Drawing by C. Dunn after Hodges.5
The potsherds in the Petrie Museum, however, are of a different quality than what can be produced on a potter’s wheel or even a woodworking lathe of the kind used by undeveloped cultures. What is depicted in figure 11.2 does not explain two potsherds that Petrie describes in The Pyramids and Temples of Gizeh and which are called out there as 14 D and 15 D in figure 10.13:
The principle of rotating the tool was, for smaller objects, abandoned in favour of rotating the work; and the lathe appears to have been as familiar an instrument in the fourth dynasty, as it is in modern workshops. The diorite bowls and vases of the Old Kingdom are frequently met with, and show great technical skill. One piece found at Gizeh, No. 14, shows that the method employed was true turning, and not any process of grinding, since the bowl has been knocked off its centring, recentred imperfectly, and the old turning not quite turned out; thus there are two surfaces belonging to different centrings, and meeting in a cusp. Such an appearance could not be produced by any grinding or rubbing process which pressed on the surface. Another detail is shown by fragment No. 15; here the curves of the bowl are spherical, and must have therefore been cut by a tool sweeping an arc from a fixed centre while the bowl rotated. This centre or hinging of the tool was in the apex of the lathe for the general surface of the bowl, right up to the edge of it; but as a lip was wanted, the centring of the tool was shifted, but with exactly the same radius of its arc, and a fresh cut made to leave a lip to the bowl. That this was certainly not a chance result of hand-work is shown, not only by the exact circularity of the curves, and their equality, but also by the cusp left where they meet. This has not been at all rounded off, as would certainly be the case in hand-work, and it is clear proof of the rigid mechanical method of striking curves.6
As seen in the photographs of the bowl shard housed in the Petrie Museum, illustrated in Petrie’s drawing is the back
side, convex part of a bowl shard (figure 11.3 A). In my article “Advanced Machining in Ancient Egypt?” and in my book, The Giza Power Plant: Technologies of Ancient Egypt, with a chapter of the same name, I incorrectly illustrated it as a concave, dish-shaped feature. After visiting the museum and examining the artifact in question, University College London (UCL) ref. UC41398, I am now able to correct this error.
Petrie, however, did not discuss a more important feature of this shard: the concave surface on the opposite side of the surface he had illustrated. This is surprising, because the radial gouge on the dished side of the potsherd (see figure 11.3 B, C, and D) can provide a clue as to what may have caused the bowl to be knocked off axis in the lathe—or at least another result of the bowl’s displacement in the lathe. The questions it raises, however, cannot be answered by conceptualizing the lathes used in ancient time that are depicted in history books. The groove on the “dish” may have been the result of the material shifting on its axis causing the tool to plunge into the material, knocking it off-axis and causing the biaxial, convex radius on the outside of the bowl.
Because it has the impression of the geometry of the tool bit being applied to the surface, the existence of the gouge also proves Petrie’s contention that the surfaces noted on his 15 D were created with a single-point tool and were not the result of rubbing with abrasive. This is an important point when we consider the ancient Egyptians’ level of technology.
Regarding the use of a single-point tool, Petrie writes:
That the Egyptians were acquainted with a cutting jewel far harder than quartz, and that they used this jewel as a sharp pointed graver, is put beyond doubt by the diorite bowls with inscriptions of the fourth dynasty, of which I found fragments at Gizeh; as well as the scratches on polished granite of Ptolemaic age at San. The hieroglyphs are incised, with a very free-cutting point; they are not scraped nor ground out, but are ploughed through the diorite, with rough edges to the line. As the lines are only 1/150 inch wide (the figures being about .2 [inch]), it is evident that the cutting point must have been harder than quartz; and tough enough not to splinter when so fine an edge was being employed, probably only 1/200 inch wide. Parallel lines are graved only 1/30 inch apart from centre to centre.
Figure 11.3. Petrie’s bowl shard (his 15 D) housed in the Petrie Museum, UC41398, diorite, width 2.7 inches (6.8 centimeters), length 3.8 inches (9.6 centimeters)
We therefore need have no hesitation in allowing that the graving out of lines in hard stones by jewel points, was a well known art. And when we find on the surfaces of the saw-cuts in diorite, grooves as deep as 1/100 inch, it appears far more likely that such were produced by the jewel points in the saw than by any fortuitous rubbing about of a loose powder. And when, further, it is seen that these deep grooves are almost always regular and uniform in depth, and equidistant, their production by the successive cuts of the jewel teeth of a saw appears to be beyond question. The best examples of equidistance are the specimens of basalt No. 4, (Pl. viii), and of diorite No. 12; in these the fluctuations are no more than such as always occur in the use of a saw by hand-power, whether worked in wood or in soft stone.7
Implied in the manufacturing errors in UC41398 (figure 11.3) may be the action of two tools at the same time, one on the outside and one on the inside, which indicate that as the tool created the gouge on the inside of the bowl, it pushed the bowl into a component of the chuck that was holding the bowl until the stone broke under the pressure. I make this observation based on the corresponding start points of the inside gouge and the outside undercut. It is difficult to imagine, however, the multiple grooves on the outside of the dish in the sunken area all being created at the same time it took for the inside groove to travel from start depth to finish depth—but then, there are still many mysteries about ancient Egyptian technology that are not completely understood, and, in this case, without the machines to explain them, we can only speculate.
As we can see on the dished surface, the groove increases in depth until it meets the broken edge. Reference lines have been drawn on the bowl shard indicating the trueness of the radial groove. The arc describing the spherical dish radius that travels from the outside of the bowl to the center was created from three points, as noted in figure 11.3 C and D. This is drawn not to provide dimension to the piece or assert a degree of precision, but as a visual reference and evidence of the curvature.
Perhaps the most important question to ask when we try to determine how these errors were created is: What kind of power was behind the lathe to allow a single-point tool to cut a gouge so deep into the material that the stone would ultimately fail and break? The forces implied with this simple potsherd are not the forces associated with a potter’s wheel or a spindle lathe that is spun via the manual push and pull of a strung bow. If a manually operated lathe met such resistance, it would come to a stop. To argue that only manpower was used in the process of creating this error would be to argue that the operator acquired some sort of lever to rotate the chuck that held the stone and made a conscious decision to drive the tool deeper into the diorite and ruin his or her work.
Petrie’s 15 D shows the versatility of the lathe employed to create it. As seen in figure 11.4, the surface is double dish shaped with tantalizing telltale shallow striations on the surface. These striations would not be out of place on a modern artifact created on a lathe when a tool, which had made a cut across the surface, was reversed across the same path it took when it made the cut. The grooves shown just below the cusp indicate that as the bowl turned in the lathe, the tool moved rapidly across the surface. Witnesses to this event are the arcs of the grooves not being concentric with the arc of the cusp and the distance between the grooves. In other words, we can clearly see that the shallow grooves do not follow the same arc as the cusp where the radius changes (see figure 11.5) and are somewhat irregular. If the grooves did have the same arc as the cusp, it would mean that the tool was stationary while the bowl rotated. These grooves are also evidence of the use of a single-point tool to machine the bowl.
Figure 11.4. Petrie’s potsherd (his 15 D), housed in the Petrie Museum, University College London, UC43197, diorite, width 2.5 inches (6.3 centimeters), height 2.3 inches (5.9 centimeters). Note the difference between this piece and figure 11.3: figure 11.4 has a cusp within the dish where two radii intersect and a raised lip around the outside.
Figure 11.5. Petrie’s 15 D with axes of rotation for the sweep of the tool. Point A is the original pivot point of the tool. Point B is the secondary pivot point of the tool and creates the bowl’s lip and the cusp (C), where the radii intersect.
When I examined these pieces physically by running a finger across the surface of the dished-out stone, they were smooth, machined surfaces with no dips or high spots. When we take these into consideration along with the sharp cusp and the scratches in the surface in Petrie’s 15 D and the deep groove in his 14 D, the implication is the use of a lathe that was under significant power and that the rotary axis of the bowl and rotation of the tool that cut Petrie’s 14 D (see figure 11.3) and the rotary axis of the bowl in Petrie’s 15 D (see figures 11.4 and 11.5) were dependent upon precise bearings. This technology pushes the envelope further. It is definitely not discussed in Egyptology books and moves the state of the art of ancient Egypt much higher than where Robert Moores moved it with his drag saw. The use of precise bearings would also be necessary for the proper functioning of megasaws at Abu Roash and at Giza.
Figure 11.6 shows a horizontal lathe that was commonly in use the 1950s through the 1970s. Egyptologists would consider such a lathe beyond the ancient Egyptians’ capabilities. Some shops may still have such a lathe on their floor. Progress and inventiveness have seen the lathe evolve tremendously over the last fifty years. Figure 11.7 shows a modern Computer Numerical Control (CNC) vertical lathe. In the span of fifty years, vast improvements have been made to our machines, though we are expected to believe that in ancient Egypt in a span of three thousand years, th
ey were still using sticks and stones and copper saws and drills. It seems that the evidence, not to mention human nature, proves otherwise.
Figure 11.6. Horizontal engine lathe (Courtesy Danville Metal Stamping)
Considering that the pyramids were crafted with such precision, is it surprising to find circumstantial evidence that proves that exact and robust machine-tools existed in prehistory? Such machines did not just saw blocks for the pyramids and temples, but they also crafted delicate and precise stonework, such as the Ramses statues and the stone bowl fragments discovered by Petrie. Could we re-create the granite and basalt boxes in the Serapeum without employing some fairly sophisticated machinery? If we did not have the materials to devise such machinery, had not developed an understanding of metrology, and were without an inventory of instruments to measure precisely, how would we achieve these miracles in stone? Is anyone today willing to take on the fabrication of an Apis Bull box?
Petrie not only provides us with a cogent description of the use of lathes in ancient Egypt, a talent that most likely made his ideas controversial, he also describes an artifact that has been the topic of much discussion over the years. I became aware of the discussion in 1995, when I received an e-mail from a man who had read my 1984 Analog magazine article and started the discussion on dejanews.com. The original article was subsequently published in other magazine articles, the editors of which were attracted to the controversial content and that perhaps it provided answers to how the ancient Egyptians performed inexplicable feats of stone cutting. The method I had postulated is that ultrasonic machining may explain the characteristics found in a very unique artifact in Petrie’s collection.8 This artifact is described by Petrie as 7 G (see figure 10.13; more popularly known as Core 7) and is housed in the Petrie Museum (see figure 11.8). The hypothesis of ultrasonic machining stimulated both positive and negative reactions, with those who opposed the idea offering helpful suggestions on how my mind might be changed.
Lost Technologies of Ancient Egypt: Advanced Engineering in the Temples of the Pharaohs Page 26
