Read Online From Atlantis to the Sphinx by Colin Wilson - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Colin Wilson
Ads: Link
possessed some highly sophisticated technology. Even the Great Pyramid contains no such blocks. The conclusion would seem to be that if the Sphinx and its temples were built centuries—or perhaps thousands of years—earlier than Cheops and Chefren, the builders were more, and not less, technically accomplished.
This brings us to another question about the ‘know-how’ of these ancient people.
In 1893, Flinders Petrie had excavated the village of Naqada, 300 miles south of Cairo, and found pottery and vases that revealed a high level of skill. The pottery showed none of the striated marks that would indicate a potter’s wheel, yet were so perfectly rounded that it was hard to believe they were made by hand. The level of workmanship led him to assume that they must date from the 11th Dynasty, around 2000 BC. They seemed so un-Egyptian that he called their creators ‘the New Race’. When some of these ‘New Race’ vases were found in tombs of the 1st Dynasty, dating from about a thousand years earlier, he was so bewildered that he dropped the Naqada vase from his chronology, on the principle that what you cannot explain you had better ignore. In fact, the Naqadans were descendants of Palaeolithic peoples from North Africa who began raising crops (in small areas) some time after 5000 BC. They buried their dead in shallow pits facing towards the west, and seem to have been a typical primitive culture of around the fourth millennium. But the vases that puzzled Petrie seemed too sophisticated to have been made by primitives.
When he examined the great red granite sarcophagus that was found in the King’s Chamber of the Great Pyramid (of which there will be more in the next chapter), Petrie found himself once again puzzling about ancient craftsmen. It seemed to present insuperable technical problems. Measurement revealed that its external volume—2,332.8 litres—is precisely twice that of its internal volume. That meant cutting with incredible precision. But with what tools? Flinders Petrie thought that it must have been sawn out of a larger block with saws ‘eight feet or more in length’. Such saws, he thought, would have to be made of bronze set with diamonds. No one has ever seen such a saw, and no ancient text describes it, but Petrie could see no other solution.
But what tools were used to hollow out its inside? Petrie makes the extraordinary suggestion that the ancient Egyptians had created some kind of circular—or rather tubular—saw which ‘drilled out a circular groove by its rotation’. This notion of tubular saws with diamonds somehow inserted into the points sounds like science fiction. And even if such saws could have been made—and the diamonds set so firmly that they did not shoot out when the saw was used, or get driven back into the bronze that held them— how did the Egyptians make them ‘spin’? We assume that, at this early stage of technology, drills had to be ‘spun’ by hand—or perhaps with a bowstring wound around the shaft. It sounds, quite simply, impossible.
Petrie also speaks about granite slabs and diorite bowls incised with quite precise inscriptions. The characters, says Petrie, are not ‘scraped or ground out, but are ploughed through the diorite, with rough edges to the line’. Diorite, like granite, is incredibly hard.
Graham Hancock had also seen various kinds of vessels of diorite, basalt and quartz, some dating from centuries before the time of Cheops, neatly hollowed out by some unknown technique. The most baffling of all were ‘tall vases with long, thin, elegant necks and finely flared interiors, often incorporating fully hollowed-out shoulders’. (More than 30,000 were found beneath the Step Pyramid of Zoser at Saqqara.) The necks are far too thin to admit a human hand—even a child’s—some too narrow even to admit a little finger, Hancock points out that even a modern stone carver, working with tungsten-carbide drills, would be unable to match them,
This brings us to another question about the ‘know-how’ of these ancient people.
In 1893, Flinders Petrie had excavated the village of Naqada, 300 miles south of Cairo, and found pottery and vases that revealed a high level of skill. The pottery showed none of the striated marks that would indicate a potter’s wheel, yet were so perfectly rounded that it was hard to believe they were made by hand. The level of workmanship led him to assume that they must date from the 11th Dynasty, around 2000 BC. They seemed so un-Egyptian that he called their creators ‘the New Race’. When some of these ‘New Race’ vases were found in tombs of the 1st Dynasty, dating from about a thousand years earlier, he was so bewildered that he dropped the Naqada vase from his chronology, on the principle that what you cannot explain you had better ignore. In fact, the Naqadans were descendants of Palaeolithic peoples from North Africa who began raising crops (in small areas) some time after 5000 BC. They buried their dead in shallow pits facing towards the west, and seem to have been a typical primitive culture of around the fourth millennium. But the vases that puzzled Petrie seemed too sophisticated to have been made by primitives.
When he examined the great red granite sarcophagus that was found in the King’s Chamber of the Great Pyramid (of which there will be more in the next chapter), Petrie found himself once again puzzling about ancient craftsmen. It seemed to present insuperable technical problems. Measurement revealed that its external volume—2,332.8 litres—is precisely twice that of its internal volume. That meant cutting with incredible precision. But with what tools? Flinders Petrie thought that it must have been sawn out of a larger block with saws ‘eight feet or more in length’. Such saws, he thought, would have to be made of bronze set with diamonds. No one has ever seen such a saw, and no ancient text describes it, but Petrie could see no other solution.
But what tools were used to hollow out its inside? Petrie makes the extraordinary suggestion that the ancient Egyptians had created some kind of circular—or rather tubular—saw which ‘drilled out a circular groove by its rotation’. This notion of tubular saws with diamonds somehow inserted into the points sounds like science fiction. And even if such saws could have been made—and the diamonds set so firmly that they did not shoot out when the saw was used, or get driven back into the bronze that held them— how did the Egyptians make them ‘spin’? We assume that, at this early stage of technology, drills had to be ‘spun’ by hand—or perhaps with a bowstring wound around the shaft. It sounds, quite simply, impossible.
Petrie also speaks about granite slabs and diorite bowls incised with quite precise inscriptions. The characters, says Petrie, are not ‘scraped or ground out, but are ploughed through the diorite, with rough edges to the line’. Diorite, like granite, is incredibly hard.
Graham Hancock had also seen various kinds of vessels of diorite, basalt and quartz, some dating from centuries before the time of Cheops, neatly hollowed out by some unknown technique. The most baffling of all were ‘tall vases with long, thin, elegant necks and finely flared interiors, often incorporating fully hollowed-out shoulders’. (More than 30,000 were found beneath the Step Pyramid of Zoser at Saqqara.) The necks are far too thin to admit a human hand—even a child’s—some too narrow even to admit a little finger, Hancock points out that even a modern stone carver, working with tungsten-carbide drills, would be unable to match them,
Similar Books
