How did the ancient Egyptians drill through granite?

A question that has always intrigued archaeologists is how past civilizations made their objects and monuments. Works such as the exquisite staircases of Machu Picchu, the geoglyphs of Acre, and the pyramids of Egypt raise questions about the use of technologies and tools.

The lack of understanding usually leaves room for hypotheses about contact with aliens or the idea that these people were beyond their time; dangerous arguments when it comes to a faithful understanding of the past.

The ancient Egyptians, known for their temples, pyramids, and hieroglyphic writing, have always been a challenge for researchers.

And a skill that still intrigues many people is the ability to carve objects in granite – rock much harder than limestone or sandstone.

So, what tools did they have to hand? How long did the carving process take? Had they been helped by fantastic beings? Check out some of the possibilities below.

Egyptian artisans, the working class responsible for all the grandeur that has come to us, used instruments depicted in paintings that resisted time, showing the use of axes, saws, and bows, among others.

The most accepted theory is that these builders used wooden, bronze, and copper tools to carve the granite, mastering strict rules that allowed a good job.

Around 3500 BC, many copper tools were used, adding to the skills of the artisans, which made it possible to carry out any and all work with accuracy.

But would wooden tools be enough to carve granite? That was the main question during the nineteenth century when archaeologists came across artefacts like these.

Only later studies, not focusing on the objects themselves but on the way in which they were used, came closer to a solution.

Methods

According to current archaeology, the ancient Egyptians drilled granite with a method that consisted of introducing wooden wedges into a natural crack in the rock and soaking them with water. As the wet wood expanded, the original crack widened, and after successive repetitions of the process, the rock split into smaller pieces.

Stone artisans, ancient and modern, use this natural process based on weaker parts of the rock. Another method used was successive incisions in the stone with metal objects, which, little by little, carved lines and designs, intervening in different ways in the rock.

However, such methods do not seem to explain everything. The English engineer, Christopher Dunn, is one of the great promoters of these issues, and since 1977, he has been questioning himself about the use of technologies in Ancient Egypt.

Talking to Egyptologists and visiting sites, Dunn was not convinced by the wedge and water method alone.

According to him, “the quarry marks I saw did not convince me that the methods described were the only means by which the builders of the pyramids worked their rocks.”

The tools displayed as instruments for creating many artefacts are physically incapable of being reproduced. For the engineer, the artefacts would only have reached such a degree of precision with the use of saw blades and objects with a hardness comparable to that of a diamond.

Discussions like these are still current, and perhaps Egyptologists have yet to find tools that better explain the construction of these objects.

But what we must keep in mind is that maybe we are the limited ones, relying too much on our own technologies and applying contemporary ways of seeing the world to the past.

Mysteries Of Ancient Egypt: The Unfinished Obelisk Of Aswan

Abandoned thousands of years ago in the quarries of northern Aswan, ancient Egypt, the Unfinished Obelisk are a mass of granite 40 meters long (138 feet) and more than 1,090 tons (1,200 short tons) that makes up one of the most important mysteries of the archaeological world.

Historical origin

The creation of the obelisk was ordered by Hatshepsut (1508–1458 BC), the fifth pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt. The history of its origin is uncertain, but it is believed that the obelisk started to be built, possibly, to complement what would later be known as the Lateran Obelisk – originally built in Karnak and later sent to the Lateran Palace in Rome.

One of the biggest factors that puzzle scholars are the fact that the unfinished obelisk is a third larger than other ancient Egyptian obelisks erected throughout history.

It is estimated that it could measure more than 40 meters (138 feet) and weigh around 1,090 tons (1,200 short tons), if completed – to better understand, imagine the weight of 200 African elephants.

It is believed that the creators of the obelisk started to excavate it directly from a rock, but during the process, they noticed cracks under the granite.

This fact would have been the main reason that led them to abandon the project, however, the lower side of the obelisk remains, even today, fixed to the rock.

Important discoveries

Although this project has not been completed, from an archaeological and historical point of view, this obelisk is important for understanding the ancient Egyptian techniques used in stonework.

During the investigations, researchers discovered marks on the workers’ tools, which even after hundreds of years, remain preserved. In addition, they found lines of ocher colours marking the location of the workers.

Another surprising discovery was made in 2005 in the Aswan quarries. At the time, the researchers found an unfinished and partially worked obelisk base.

In addition, they found sculptures made of stones that may be linked to the place of origin from which other obelisks were created.

Currently, all of these discoveries are on display in an open-air museum, managed by the Egyptian government, which is considered an archaeological and heritage site.

A sea of ​​unknowns

Obelisks created by the ancient Egyptians are a great topic of debate because they raise numerous questions that we are still unable to answer to this day.

How did they carve them into a single block? How have they transported hundreds of miles away? How did they lift the huge, heavy columns?

There are numerous theories that indicate that the obelisks were transported by boats on the Nile River, although it is difficult to explain how the granite masses moved to the boats, or how the boats supported such a weight.

Carving the monuments directly into the bedrock was a common technique, and masons used stone balls to remove any imperfections until the surface was smooth.

There are still samples of these Dolerite balls in Aswan that were harder than granite and did not crack or break after repeatedly hitting the surface of the granite.

“It would have been the largest piece of stone worked by man to date”

An ancient temple dedicated to Zeus unearthed in Egypt

Archaeologists in Egypt have uncovered the remains of an ancient temple built to honour Zeus-Kasios, a deity sporting the features of both Zeus and the weather-god Kasios, the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities announced on Monday.

The ruins were unearthed at the Tell el-Farama archaeological site in the northwestern Sinai Peninsula.

In Greco-Roman times (332 B.C. to A.D. 395), this area was known as the city and harbour of Pelusium, which sat on the far eastern mouth of the Nile River.

Due to its strategic location, people used Pelusium for various functions, including as a fortress during the time of the Egyptian pharaohs;  and artefacts dating to the Graeco-Roman, Byzantine, Christian and Islamic periods suggest it was in use in various ways then as well, according to a 2010 paper presented at the Sinai International Conference for Geology and Development.

The archaeological team zeroed in on the temple after excavating around the remains of two pink granite columns lying on the ground’s surface, Mostafa Waziri, secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, said in the statement.

These columns once formed the temple’s front gate but collapsed in ancient times when a mighty earthquake rocked the city.

Researchers have been aware for several decades that there might be a Zeus-Kasios temple at the site.

In the early 1900s and later in the 1990s, archaeologists ascertained that the granite columns were likely brought on barges via the Nile from Aswan in southern Egypt to Pelusium, according to the 2010 paper.

Moreover, the late French Egyptologist Jean Clédat found Greek inscriptions at the site, indicating that a temple for Zeus-Kasios had been built there in Graeco-Roman times. However, archaeologists never did a formal excavation at the site, which is near an ancient fort and a church.

Now, archaeologists have discovered previously unknown remains of the temple, including granite blocks that were likely part of a staircase leading to the temple’s entrance on the eastern side of the building, Ayman Ashmawy, head of the Egyptian Antiquities Sector at the Supreme Council of Antiquities, said in the statement.

Several large blocks of pink granite were found in the streets around the temple site, indicating that later workers repurposed the temple’s stones for other projects, such as nearby churches.

Scientists are now documenting the newly analyzed blocks with photogrammetry, a technique in which many digital images are used to create virtual 3D images, which will help the team attempt to recreate the temple virtually, Hisham Hussein, the director of Sinai archaeological sites, said in the statement.

Inscriptions found on some of the granite blocks suggest that Roman Emperor Hadrian (ruled A.D. 117-138) renovated the temple, Hussein added.

Sixth Dynasty Official’s Tomb Discovered in Saqqara

A team of archaeologists in Egypt has discovered the 4,300-year-old tomb of a man named Mehtjetju, an official who claimed that he had access to “secret” royal documents. 

“The dignitary bore the name Mehtjetju and was, among other things, an official with access to royal sealed — that is secret — documents,” according to the hieroglyphs on the tomb, Kamil Kuraszkiewicz, a professor at the University of Warsaw’s Faculty of Oriental Studies, said in a statement.  

Mehtjetju’s tomb was found next to the Step Pyramid of Djoser, which was constructed about 4,700 years ago in Saqqara. 

It’s no coincidence that Mehtjetju’s tomb is next to the Step Pyramid, the first pyramid built by the ancient Egyptians.

Djoser “was an important and revered king from the glorious past,” and officials sometimes wanted to be buried beside his pyramid, even centuries after Djoser died, Kuraszkiewicz told Live Science in an email. 

Mehtjetju lived sometime during the reign of the first three pharaohs of the sixth dynasty: Teti (reign ca. 2323 B.C to 2291 B.C.), Userkare (reign ca. 2291 B.C. to 2289 B.C.) and Pepi I (reign ca. 2289 B.C. to 2255 B.C.).

Mehtjetju would have served one or more of those pharaohs. His other titles included “inspector of the royal estate” and he was also a priest of the mortuary cult of the pharaoh Teti, according to the statement. 

So far, archaeologists have excavated the façade (entrance) of the tomb’s chapel, finding hieroglyphic inscriptions, paintings and a relief depicting Mehtjetju. No family members are mentioned in the hieroglyphic inscriptions, but the burial chamber has not been excavated yet and the tomb seems to be part of a larger complex that may hold his family’s remains, Kuraszkiewicz told Live Science.

Mehtjetju’s high social status meant he could hire skilled artisans to build the tomb, according to the archaeologists, who said the façade’s reliefs were crafted by a skilled hand. However, some of the tomb’s rock is brittle and eroded, prompting conservators to intervene during the excavation.

Scholar reacts

Several details suggest it’s possible that the tomb’s decoration was not completed, Ann Macy Roth, a clinical professor of art history and Hebrew and Judaic studies at New York University, who was not involved in the finding, told Live Science in an email. 

Roth noted that one of the paintings shows the outlines of a man beside a large antelope known as an oryx. The fact that only the outline is shown “suggests that the decoration wasn’t completed,” Roth said, noting that this is an “interesting tomb” and she looks forward to hearing about future finds. 

The discovery is “very exciting, as new tombs always are,” Roth said. 

The team plans to resume excavations in September and hopes to uncover the burial chamber of the tomb at that time. The chamber may contain the mummy of Mehtjetju. 

There is a hidden underground ‘city’ beneath the Giza Pyramids, experts claim

An enormous system of caves, chambers and tunnels lies hidden beneath the Pyramids of Giza, according to a British explorer who claims to have found the lost underworld of the pharaohs. Populated by bats and venomous spiders, the underground complex was found in the limestone bedrock beneath the pyramid field at Giza.

“There is untouched archaeology down there, as well as a delicate ecosystem that includes colonies of bats and a species of spider which we have tentatively identified as the white widow,” British explorer Andrew Collins said.

Collins, who will detail his findings in the book “Beneath the Pyramids” to be published in September, tracked down the entrance to the mysterious underworld after reading the forgotten memoirs of a 19th-century diplomat and explorer.

“In his memoirs, British consul general Henry Salt recounts how he investigated an underground system of ‘catacombs’ at Giza in 1817 in the company of Italian explorer Giovanni Caviglia,” Collins said.

The document records that the two explored the caves for a distance of “several hundred yards,” coming upon four large chambers from which stretched further cave passageways.

With the help of British Egyptologist Nigel Skinner-Simpson, Collins reconstructed Salt’s exploration on the plateau, eventually locating the entrance to the lost catacombs in an apparently unrecorded tomb west of the Great Pyramid.

Indeed, the tomb featured a crack in the rock, which led into a massive natural cave.

“We explored the caves before the air became too thin to continue. They are highly dangerous, with unseen pits and hollows, colonies of bats and venomous spiders,” said Collins.

According to Collins, the caves — which are tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of years old — may have both inspired the development of the pyramid field and the ancient Egyptian’s belief in an underworld.

“Ancient funerary texts clearly allude to the existence of a subterranean world in the vicinity of the Giza pyramids,” Collins told Discovery News.

Indeed, Giza was known anciently as Rostau, meaning the “mouth of the passages.”

This is the same name as a region of the ancient Egyptian underworld known as the Duat.

“The ‘mouth of the passages’ is unquestionably a reference to the entrance to a subterranean cave world, one long rumoured to exist beneath the plateau,” Collins told Discovery News.

Collins’ claim is expected to cause a stir in the Egyptological world.

Zahi Hawass, chief of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, has dismissed the discovery.

“There are no new discoveries to be made at Giza. We know everything about the plateau,” he stated.

But Collins remarks that after extensive research, he found no mention of the caves in modern times.

“To the best of our knowledge, nothing has ever been written or recorded about these caves since Salt’s explorations. If Hawass does have any report related to these caves, we have yet to see it,” Collins said.

Restoration Reveals Engravings in Egypt’s Temple of Esna

The Egyptian-German archaeological mission has uncovered original reliefs and engravings on the walls and ceilings of the Temple of Esna in Luxor, Upper Egypt during ongoing restoration work.

The mission uncovered a distinguished relief on top of the entrance gate of the temple showing 46 eagles standing in two rows, with some bearing the heads of the Upper Egypt goddess Nekhbet, and others bearing the head of the Lower Egypt goddess Wadjet.

“This is the first time to find this relief,” said Mostafa Waziri, secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities. “It was not seen or mentioned in the works published by the French Egyptologist Serge Soniron, who documented the temple’s reliefs in 1963 and 1975, Waziri added.

Hisham El-Leithy, the head of the Central Department for Egyptian Documentation Centre and head of the mission from the Egyptian side, explained that the uncovered reliefs and engravings at the Esna temple were hidden beneath dust and accumulation of salts and birds deposits over the last 2000 years.

This discovery made it important for us to begin a restoration project, funded by the American Research Centre in Cairo, to protect the temple and uncover its decorations, El-Leithy stressed.

Meanwhile, the mission also found a Roman engraving in red ink on the western side of the temple dating from the era of the Roman Emperor Domitian, 81-96 CE, who might have completed the construction of the temple.

More studies will be carried out on these engraving to show more details.

Construction on the Temple of Esna, which is dedicated to the ram god Khnum and his divine consorts, began in the Roman era during the reign of Emperor Claudius (41-54 AD) and its decoration was completed during the reign of Emperor Decius (249-251 AD).

During the 19th and 20th centuries, the Temple of Esna suffered from urban encroachment, which limited access to the site only through one of the houses built around it.

During the reign of Mohamed Ali Pasha (1805-1840 AD), the temple is reported to have been used as a storage facility for the cotton crop.

The Spirit Cave Mummy is Over 10,000 Years Old

The remains were found with moccasins, a rabbit-skin blanket, and many other artifacts.

Mummies are deceased humans or animals that have been preserved, which keeps their remains from decaying any further. While Ancient Egyptians are most commonly associated with the mummification process, there are actually mummies found all over the world.

The process can either be deliberate or accidental.

Although you may have used toilet paper for a mummy costume in the past, the real method includes wrapping the dead body in linen and embalming it. And on rare occasions, environmental conditions happen to be just right to result in a body’s preservation.

Now you may be wondering who the oldest mummy is, and that honour goes to the Spirit Cave Mummy at 10,600 years old. However, its importance runs deeper than just its old age.

The Spirit Cave Mummy was part of a fierce battle between the government and a Native American tribe over its cultural and scientific significance.

The Spirit Cave Mummy was discovered in 1940 by archaeologists and husband-and-wife team George and Sydney Wheeler. They found several sets of remains in a small rocky cave located in northwest Nevada, one of which was partially mummified.

The mummified man was determined to have died while he was in his forties. His remains were found wrapped in a rabbit-skin blanket and reed mats, and he was still wearing moccasins.

At the time the man’s mummy was found, it was estimated that he died between 1,500 and 2,000 years ago. However, when more advanced testing methods came along in the 1990s, it was found that the skeleton was actually 10,600 years old, making the Spirit Cave Mummy the oldest mummy found in North America.

There was a long legal argument starting in 1997 over who should have possession of the oldest mummy in North America. Native Americans from the region believed that they should have the remains due to cultural affiliation since the mummy was found in their ancestral homeland. However, when the federal government rejected their request for possession, the Paiute-Shoshone Tribe of the Fallon Reservation and Colony sued the government.   

The government alleged that they wanted possession of the remains for scientific research, but the US Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act states that Native Americans have control over resurfaced items and remains to which they have biological or cultural connections.

The US government’s Bureau of Land Management is the agency that declined the tribe’s request. Although a US District Court Judge told the agency to reconsider their decision, no progress was really made with this case for 20 years.

Initially, the Paiute-Shoshone Tribe did not want to pursue genetic analysis to prove that the mummy was an ancestor, but eventually, they agreed to do so.

A couple of years later, the DNA sequencing test revealed that the skeleton was in fact related to the indigenous people of North and South America. On November 22, 2016, the mummy was repatriated to the Paiute-Shoshone Tribe and they held a reburial for the remains.

Several scientific findings were made due to the discovery of the Spirit Cave Mummy. It was one of the first to be dated using accelerated mass spectrometer radiocarbon dating, a process that revealed the mummy to be much older than previously thought. It raised further questions about migration patterns in early North and South America. Additionally, a total of 67 artefacts were recovered from the cave along with the mummy, revealing how ancient humans lived and died.

Although it took many years for the mummy to be repatriated to the local Native American tribe, DNA testing ended up being a win-win for all parties involved.

The Paiute-Shoshone Tribe was able to prove ancestry and have the remains returned to them, and the government was able to gain some vital scientific information from performing the test before repatriating the remains.

There is so much more to be discovered about the past, and each finding brings scientists closer to more answers. DNA analysis on the Spirit Cave Mummy gave more insight into early humans and resolved the conflict between the federal government and the Fallon Paiute-Shoshone Tribe.