Table of Contents
On Károly Póka’s Ancient Technology podcast, Adam Young argues from instruments about certain Egyptian stone vessels, especially hard granite pieces from the centuries just before and at the opening of the dynasties. His test puts the object in a three axis frame and sets curves against an ideal circle, ball, or tube, and faces against a true flat. An early red granite piece was the tightest of his first small group. On sample slices, scatter around a perfect circle falls near ten to twenty microns, and the inside can match the outside. A machinist, he says, could compare that only with a modern missile optic in a very hard ceramic. The familiar story of copper tubes, pounding stones, and grit over several years has not, in his view, hit those deviations. Copy attempts made rougher objects and measured them the wrong way. The historical edge is that the best pieces are the earliest, that later dynastic shops did not make them, and that granite workshops now would rather cut the same shapes in marble.
Key points
- Young compares vase curves with ideal circles, spheres, and cylinders, and faces with a true plane.
- He reports point scatter on the order of ten to twenty microns on some granite sections, inside and outside.
- He says copy attempts produced cruder objects and did not measure the same deviations.
- He treats the finest work as earlier than the dynasties and says those later shops lacked the kit to repeat it.
- Granite workers today, as he reports them, would rather cut such shapes in marble.
- He asks for control scans of rough handmade pieces and does not call every early vessel precise.
Short quotes
every Point's a little bit different so this is 12 microns this is 16 microns
Adam Young, Precision Egyptian vases
Two nearby spots on one vessel read twelve microns and sixteen microns. Watch at 1:30
the mainstream explanation is that these would have taken several years
Adam Young, Precision Egyptian vases
He repeats the usual account that hand work on the vessels lasted for years. Watch at 41:43
the dynastics didn't make these at all
Adam Young, Precision Egyptian vases
His historical claim is that the dynasty era workshops were not the makers of the tightest vessels. Watch at 1:55:24
we wouldn't make this in Granite we would make this out of marble
Adam Young, Precision Egyptian vases
He is repeating granite specialists who told him the same form would be cut in a softer stone. Watch at 2:01:41
Video by Károly Póka. Watch on YouTube.