Hacker News Reader

Comment by givan | Hacker News Reader

Why do we still think that they were built with chisel and hammer when we know is impossible with these tools to cut the stones from king chamber to laser precision or cut stones to make a perfectly symmetric pharaoh statue?

View on HN

Didn't Rafaello and Michelangelo use those tools to work with rock?

There are two things to keep in mind. Rafaello and Michelangelo worked with stone that wasn't nearly as hard as granite (granite being one of the hardest stones). Secondly, we don't believe metals were nearly as developed during the period of dynastic Egypt and some Egyptologists theorise (but I think this is crazy) that stone tools were used to carve the blocks.

Granite? Who crazy would come up with the idea to build pyramids with something as heavy and hard as granite.

They were not even carved out of limestone blocks, they were casted by an early form of concrete created using a mixture of limestone, clay, lime, and water. Similar to how they would have been built nowadays. http://www.livescience.com/1554-surprising-truth-great-pyram...

The walls of the king's chamber are pink granite. They also happen to be some of the more precise work in the pyramids.

How do we know that?

What's the alternate theory?

Ancients could build complex mechanical devices https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism maybe the technology was even older.

Are you suggesting a CNC mill was involved?

What's your point? Neither the article nor anybody here mentioned chisels...

I'm not sure I get your point.

How does one cut and move granite blocks with a calculator?

Well, that is much less ancient, and from a different part of the world.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com