1 00:00:00,120 --> 00:00:04,000 Speaker 1: Imagine for just a second that you're sitting down at 2 00:00:04,040 --> 00:00:08,800 a table with this beautifully cooked, thick, perfectly marbled steak 3 00:00:09,000 --> 00:00:09,800 right in front of you. 4 00:00:09,919 --> 00:00:11,400 Speaker 2: Okay, sounds pretty good so far. 5 00:00:11,640 --> 00:00:14,720 Speaker 1: Right. You're starving, you're ready to dig in, and you 6 00:00:14,800 --> 00:00:18,800 reach for your utensils, but all you have is one 7 00:00:18,800 --> 00:00:22,920 of those flimsy, white plastic spoons from a cheap takeout place. 8 00:00:23,519 --> 00:00:26,679 Speaker 2: Oh no, that's not going to end well exactly. 9 00:00:26,879 --> 00:00:28,679 Speaker 1: I mean, you could push the back of that spoon 10 00:00:28,719 --> 00:00:31,280 into the meat. You could try, you know, sawing back 11 00:00:31,280 --> 00:00:33,280 and forth with that dull plastic edge. 12 00:00:33,399 --> 00:00:38,200 Speaker 2: You'd honestly spend hours doing that, sweating, frustrated, and. 13 00:00:38,200 --> 00:00:40,039 Speaker 1: Ultimately the meat is going to win. You're just going 14 00:00:40,079 --> 00:00:43,200 to end up with this absolute mangled mess on your plate. 15 00:00:43,320 --> 00:00:46,479 Speaker 2: Yeah, it would be an exercise in pure mechanical futility 16 00:00:46,560 --> 00:00:49,880 because the hardness and the well the capability of your 17 00:00:49,920 --> 00:00:53,439 tool simply doesn't match the physical requirements. 18 00:00:52,840 --> 00:00:55,679 Speaker 1: Of the task, and that exact feeling of futility, that's 19 00:00:55,840 --> 00:00:58,920 fundamental mismatch between the tool and the task is what 20 00:00:58,960 --> 00:01:01,079 we're looking at today. You know, scaled up to the 21 00:01:01,079 --> 00:01:01,399 size of. 22 00:01:01,399 --> 00:01:04,040 Speaker 2: A mountain, it's a massive discrepancy. 23 00:01:03,719 --> 00:01:07,319 Speaker 1: It really is welcome to thrilling threads. Today, we are 24 00:01:07,319 --> 00:01:10,319 tracking down the missing tools of the ancient builders, a. 25 00:01:10,319 --> 00:01:12,519 Speaker 2: True ancient cold case exactly. 26 00:01:13,200 --> 00:01:16,159 Speaker 1: And to do this we're pulling for this fascinating stack 27 00:01:16,200 --> 00:01:19,120 of sources. We've got the historical journals of the nineteenth 28 00:01:19,120 --> 00:01:24,040 century archaeologist Sir Flinders Petrie and deep dive analyzes by 29 00:01:24,159 --> 00:01:25,319 historian Debbie. 30 00:01:25,040 --> 00:01:29,159 Speaker 2: Challis, plus the modern engineering test from precision machinist Chris Dunn. 31 00:01:29,120 --> 00:01:33,200 Speaker 1: Right, and the hands on reality checks of master stonecutter 32 00:01:33,280 --> 00:01:36,959 Roger Hopkins. So we're putting all these perspectives together to 33 00:01:37,079 --> 00:01:38,519 investigate what really happened. 34 00:01:38,560 --> 00:01:40,560 Speaker 2: And it truly is a cold case, because if you 35 00:01:40,599 --> 00:01:43,319 look at the bigger picture, the sheer volume of evidence 36 00:01:43,439 --> 00:01:46,799 is just it's overwhelming. We know absolutely that these monuments exist. 37 00:01:46,840 --> 00:01:49,319 Speaker 1: I mean you can walk right up and touch the megalists. 38 00:01:48,840 --> 00:01:52,640 Speaker 2: Exactly, but the physical instruments required to actually build them, 39 00:01:52,840 --> 00:01:55,879 the tools needed to craft those colossal statues to an 40 00:01:55,920 --> 00:01:57,519 incredibly high order. 41 00:01:57,319 --> 00:02:00,840 Speaker 1: Of precision, or to shape those massive igneous stone boxes 42 00:02:01,000 --> 00:02:03,519 to modern day engineering tolerances. 43 00:02:03,239 --> 00:02:06,680 Speaker 2: Right, they seem to be entirely absent from the archaeological record. 44 00:02:07,319 --> 00:02:11,039 The core friction here is that the spectacular, hyper precise 45 00:02:11,159 --> 00:02:14,719 output of the ancient Egyptians simply does not match the 46 00:02:14,719 --> 00:02:16,319 primitive tools were told they had. 47 00:02:16,439 --> 00:02:19,919 Speaker 1: It just doesn't add up. So to understand this mystery, 48 00:02:20,240 --> 00:02:23,680 we have to completely shift our perspective. We usually look 49 00:02:23,759 --> 00:02:26,479 up at the pyramids, but today we need to look 50 00:02:26,560 --> 00:02:28,120 down into the dirt, down. 51 00:02:28,000 --> 00:02:29,800 Speaker 2: At the manufacturing process itself. 52 00:02:29,919 --> 00:02:32,120 Speaker 1: Yeah, through the eyes of someone who actually bothered to 53 00:02:32,120 --> 00:02:34,759 search for it, which requires a trip back to the 54 00:02:34,840 --> 00:02:38,599 late nineteenth century to look at Sir Flinders Petrie. 55 00:02:38,159 --> 00:02:41,400 Speaker 2: And historian Wi Challis provides some incredible insight into his 56 00:02:41,520 --> 00:02:44,879 unique mindset here, because you have to remember the context 57 00:02:45,000 --> 00:02:46,800 of nineteenth century archaeology. 58 00:02:46,919 --> 00:02:48,919 Speaker 1: It was basically the wild West, right. 59 00:02:48,759 --> 00:02:50,960 Speaker 2: It really was. I mean a lot of Petries contemporaries 60 00:02:50,960 --> 00:02:54,039 were essentially just high end treasure hunters. They were obsessed with, 61 00:02:54,319 --> 00:02:57,719 you know, finding gold masks, opening pristine tombs. 62 00:02:57,319 --> 00:03:01,280 Speaker 1: Hauling the biggest, glamorous statues back to your museums exactly. 63 00:03:01,719 --> 00:03:05,000 Speaker 2: But Petrie he had completely different obsession. He was scouring 64 00:03:05,000 --> 00:03:08,080 the Egyptian sands looking for the smallest items. 65 00:03:07,840 --> 00:03:10,400 Speaker 1: Because he was an engineer at heart. He wasn't just 66 00:03:10,520 --> 00:03:13,439 interested in the final products sitting on a pedestal somewhere. 67 00:03:13,520 --> 00:03:15,159 Speaker 2: He wanted the nuts and bolts right. 68 00:03:15,400 --> 00:03:18,400 Speaker 1: He wanted to know the step by step mechanics of 69 00:03:18,400 --> 00:03:20,960 how the society actually functioned. 70 00:03:20,560 --> 00:03:24,280 Speaker 2: And according to Challis, he was fascinated by their technical achievements. 71 00:03:24,520 --> 00:03:28,199 He was constantly asking these manufacturing questions like how did 72 00:03:28,240 --> 00:03:30,879 they cut this, what was the kinetic motion used? 73 00:03:31,280 --> 00:03:34,120 Speaker 1: How did the tools evolve? And because he was looking 74 00:03:34,159 --> 00:03:38,599 where the treasure hunters weren't, he started finding physical artifacts 75 00:03:38,599 --> 00:03:44,199 that violently argue against the accepted historical narrative, artifacts. 76 00:03:43,759 --> 00:03:47,039 Speaker 2: That completely defy the idea of a simple primitive society. 77 00:03:47,319 --> 00:03:50,000 Speaker 1: Which brings us to one of his most mind bending fines. 78 00:03:50,479 --> 00:03:53,319 And wasn't a giant obelisk or a golden chariot. It 79 00:03:53,439 --> 00:03:56,960 was this tiny fragment of a bowl made out of diarite. 80 00:03:57,159 --> 00:03:59,360 Speaker 2: Ah, Yes, the diorite bowl. 81 00:03:59,439 --> 00:04:01,280 Speaker 1: We need to talk about the physics of diarite for 82 00:04:01,319 --> 00:04:04,000 a second, because that word gets thrown around in museums 83 00:04:04,080 --> 00:04:06,560 like all the time without any real context. 84 00:04:06,639 --> 00:04:08,520 Speaker 2: Yeah, people just read the placard and move on. 85 00:04:08,960 --> 00:04:15,199 Speaker 1: Exactly. Diarite is an incredibly dense, unforgiving igneous rock on 86 00:04:15,280 --> 00:04:18,279 the most scale of mineral hardness. It sits right up 87 00:04:18,319 --> 00:04:19,480 there around a six. 88 00:04:19,360 --> 00:04:23,680 Speaker 2: Or seven, which is huge because for context, copper, which 89 00:04:23,720 --> 00:04:26,160 is what the Egyptian supposedly use for all their tools, 90 00:04:26,199 --> 00:04:27,120 is only about a three. 91 00:04:27,199 --> 00:04:29,879 Speaker 1: Right, You cannot casually whittle away a diarrite. 92 00:04:29,920 --> 00:04:33,839 Speaker 2: You really can't. In fact, ancient civilizations often use diarite 93 00:04:33,839 --> 00:04:36,800 to make anvils because it can take just an unbelievable 94 00:04:36,839 --> 00:04:38,360 amount of punishment without breaking. 95 00:04:38,480 --> 00:04:40,079 Speaker 1: So the fact that they made a bowl out of 96 00:04:40,079 --> 00:04:43,120 it is impressive enough on its own. But the anomaly 97 00:04:43,279 --> 00:04:45,959 is the specific marking Petri found on this. 98 00:04:45,879 --> 00:04:47,199 Speaker 2: Fragment, the lave mark. 99 00:04:47,360 --> 00:04:51,160 Speaker 1: Yes, when you examine this incredibly hard material closely, you 100 00:04:51,279 --> 00:04:53,720 find a literal lay the mark on it, and a 101 00:04:53,839 --> 00:04:56,720 lath mark completely changes the technological conversation. 102 00:04:56,879 --> 00:04:59,040 Speaker 2: It absolutely does, because when you or I think of 103 00:04:59,120 --> 00:05:02,199 ancient carving, we picture a guy sitting cross legged in 104 00:05:02,240 --> 00:05:04,959 the dust with a chisel and a mallet, just chipping away. 105 00:05:05,079 --> 00:05:07,600 Speaker 1: But a lath isn't a hand tool. A lath that 106 00:05:07,639 --> 00:05:09,160 implies a mechanized system. 107 00:05:09,279 --> 00:05:10,199 Speaker 2: You need an axis. 108 00:05:10,600 --> 00:05:12,319 Speaker 1: Right, to get a lay mark. You have to take 109 00:05:12,360 --> 00:05:15,639 your piece of raw material mounted perfectly on an axis, 110 00:05:16,120 --> 00:05:19,600 spin it at a high consistent rotational velocity and then 111 00:05:19,639 --> 00:05:21,240 apply a fixed cutting. 112 00:05:20,959 --> 00:05:24,600 Speaker 2: Tool, a tool that is fundamentally harder than the material 113 00:05:24,639 --> 00:05:29,800 being spun. It implies mechanized symmetrical precision and. 114 00:05:29,720 --> 00:05:33,959 Speaker 1: A deep understanding of rotational physics and material science. You 115 00:05:34,000 --> 00:05:36,199 don't accidentally leave a lays mark on one of the 116 00:05:36,240 --> 00:05:37,439 hardest rocks on Earth. 117 00:05:37,519 --> 00:05:38,759 Speaker 2: No, it's very deliberate. 118 00:05:39,000 --> 00:05:41,639 Speaker 1: It's honestly like digging down into a geological stratum for 119 00:05:41,800 --> 00:05:44,759 millions of years before the wheel was invented and finding 120 00:05:44,800 --> 00:05:47,759 a perfect treaded tire track baked into the mud. 121 00:05:47,879 --> 00:05:49,720 Speaker 2: That's a great way to put it. It just completely 122 00:05:49,800 --> 00:05:52,839 upends our timeline of technological evolution, it really does. 123 00:05:53,160 --> 00:05:55,800 Speaker 1: But finding a manufacturing mark on a bowl is one thing. 124 00:05:56,199 --> 00:05:57,480 Petrie didn't stop there. 125 00:05:57,800 --> 00:06:00,560 Speaker 2: No, he eventually stumbled upon an actual tool of creation, 126 00:06:01,199 --> 00:06:03,439 the physical instrument used to make the deep holes in 127 00:06:03,480 --> 00:06:04,800 these megalithic. 128 00:06:04,279 --> 00:06:07,319 Speaker 1: Blocks, and he found it inside the Great Pyramid at Giza, 129 00:06:07,519 --> 00:06:09,759 of all places, which is just incredible. 130 00:06:09,800 --> 00:06:12,759 Speaker 2: When you look at the physical artifact Challice analyzed in 131 00:06:12,839 --> 00:06:17,040 her writings, it completely defies the primitive narrative. It's a 132 00:06:17,079 --> 00:06:18,519 tugular drill made. 133 00:06:18,399 --> 00:06:21,360 Speaker 1: Of granite, but it isn't just a hollowed out crude 134 00:06:21,439 --> 00:06:23,480 rock used to mash away at other rocks. 135 00:06:23,720 --> 00:06:26,720 Speaker 2: Now, the geometry of this thing is what gives it away. 136 00:06:26,959 --> 00:06:30,800 It's carefully curved and it actually tapers at the cutting end. 137 00:06:31,439 --> 00:06:33,959 Speaker 1: The taper is such a brilliant piece of engineering. 138 00:06:34,199 --> 00:06:37,399 Speaker 2: It's essential. If you're drilling a deep hole into solid 139 00:06:37,480 --> 00:06:40,519 rock with a straight tube, the friction against the sides 140 00:06:40,560 --> 00:06:42,680 of the hole is eventually going to cause the tool 141 00:06:42,800 --> 00:06:44,160 to bind and seize up. 142 00:06:44,240 --> 00:06:45,879 Speaker 1: It's just going to get stuck, exactly. 143 00:06:46,199 --> 00:06:49,240 Speaker 2: But by tapering the drill, you reduce the surface area 144 00:06:49,319 --> 00:06:52,839 dragging against the wall of the hole, which dramatically reduces 145 00:06:52,839 --> 00:06:53,279 the friction. 146 00:06:53,519 --> 00:06:56,600 Speaker 1: That implies the makers understood the physics of deep hole boring. 147 00:06:56,720 --> 00:07:00,360 Speaker 2: They absolutely did. But the most staggering feature of this 148 00:07:00,519 --> 00:07:02,279 granite drill is the grooving. 149 00:07:02,519 --> 00:07:03,839 Speaker 1: Oh the spiral lines. 150 00:07:04,000 --> 00:07:07,680 Speaker 2: Yes, as you examine the cutting surface, you find very fine, 151 00:07:07,879 --> 00:07:11,759 continuous lines spiraling around the tool. We're talking about parallel 152 00:07:11,759 --> 00:07:14,720 lines that are literally a couple of millimeters apart. 153 00:07:14,639 --> 00:07:17,920 Speaker 1: Going perfectly all the way around without any waves or wobbles. 154 00:07:18,079 --> 00:07:19,759 Speaker 2: Right, And this is where we have to talk about 155 00:07:19,759 --> 00:07:21,000 the concept of feed rate. 156 00:07:21,240 --> 00:07:24,839 Speaker 1: The feed rate because The distance between those spiraling grooves 157 00:07:25,199 --> 00:07:27,600 tells us how deeply the drill was biting into the 158 00:07:27,600 --> 00:07:29,399 granite with every single revolution. 159 00:07:29,759 --> 00:07:33,480 Speaker 2: Precisely, If the grooves are two millimeters apart, it means 160 00:07:33,519 --> 00:07:37,399 the drill was plunging two millimeters into solid granite every 161 00:07:37,439 --> 00:07:40,240 time it turned three hundred and sixty degrees. 162 00:07:40,000 --> 00:07:43,160 Speaker 1: Which is insane. To force a cutting edge into igneous 163 00:07:43,240 --> 00:07:46,480 rock at that speed requires an immense amount of downward 164 00:07:46,519 --> 00:07:48,519 pressure and massive torque. 165 00:07:49,040 --> 00:07:52,879 Speaker 2: Patrey recognized this immediately. He kept returning to this single 166 00:07:52,959 --> 00:07:56,680 artifact throughout his life, trying to reverse engineer it in his. 167 00:07:56,720 --> 00:07:59,439 Speaker 1: Mind, because he knew the crystalline hardness of the stone 168 00:07:59,439 --> 00:08:00,680 they were cutting right. 169 00:08:00,680 --> 00:08:03,519 Speaker 2: So his logical deduction, the only way he could make 170 00:08:03,560 --> 00:08:05,759 the physics work in his head to account for those 171 00:08:05,879 --> 00:08:09,879 perfectly parallel millimeter space grooves, was that they must have 172 00:08:09,959 --> 00:08:11,319 used diamonds or at least some. 173 00:08:11,279 --> 00:08:13,839 Speaker 1: Kind of equivalent jewel set into a metal tool. 174 00:08:13,759 --> 00:08:16,800 Speaker 2: Exactly, something hard enough to bite into granite with that 175 00:08:16,920 --> 00:08:18,399 kind of astonishing aggression. 176 00:08:18,639 --> 00:08:21,160 Speaker 1: Okay, but I have to jump in here and push 177 00:08:21,240 --> 00:08:24,480 back heavily on Patriots diamond theory. Go for it, because 178 00:08:24,480 --> 00:08:27,920 when I hear diamonds being used for industrial scale construction, 179 00:08:28,560 --> 00:08:31,480 the physics of wear and tear immediately come to mind. 180 00:08:31,560 --> 00:08:33,159 Speaker 2: Oh, sure they break down, right. 181 00:08:33,440 --> 00:08:37,360 Speaker 1: Diamonds are incredibly hard, yes, but they also have cleavage planes. 182 00:08:38,200 --> 00:08:41,840 If you subject them to immense impact and friction while 183 00:08:41,879 --> 00:08:44,519 grinding through thousands of tons of solid. 184 00:08:44,200 --> 00:08:48,240 Speaker 2: Granite to build an entire civilization's infrastructure. 185 00:08:47,639 --> 00:08:50,480 Speaker 1: Exactly, they're going to fracture, they're going to dull, and 186 00:08:50,519 --> 00:08:53,480 they'll wear out. So did they just grind millions of 187 00:08:53,480 --> 00:08:55,480 diamonds down to absolute dust or. 188 00:08:55,360 --> 00:08:58,440 Speaker 2: Were they so valuable that they eventually traded every single 189 00:08:58,480 --> 00:08:59,240 one of them away. 190 00:08:59,519 --> 00:09:02,960 Speaker 1: Yeah, that's exactly the right critical lens to apply. You're 191 00:09:02,960 --> 00:09:05,120 looking for the mechanism of disappearance, like why is there 192 00:09:05,159 --> 00:09:05,720 no footprint? 193 00:09:05,799 --> 00:09:09,799 Speaker 2: And that glaring historical reality is what completely sank Petrie's 194 00:09:09,799 --> 00:09:13,960 theory because he never discovered a single diamond in ancient Egypt. 195 00:09:14,080 --> 00:09:16,799 Not a fractured chart, not one, not a worn down 196 00:09:16,879 --> 00:09:20,039 nub in a royal treasury, not one embedded in a 197 00:09:20,039 --> 00:09:24,519 tomb wall. They are entirely absent from the archaeological record 198 00:09:24,559 --> 00:09:25,039 of that era. 199 00:09:25,360 --> 00:09:28,519 Speaker 1: So if they didn't have diamond tipped hole saws, what 200 00:09:28,639 --> 00:09:31,240 mechanism could possibly bite into stone like that. 201 00:09:31,600 --> 00:09:35,000 Speaker 2: Well, the total absence of diamonds forces us into a corner. 202 00:09:35,399 --> 00:09:38,000 We can't rely on imaginary tools. We have to evaluate 203 00:09:38,000 --> 00:09:40,879 the tools the Egyptologists tell us they supposedly did have. 204 00:09:41,519 --> 00:09:45,360 Speaker 1: And the accepted mainstream historical theory is that the Egyptians 205 00:09:45,879 --> 00:09:49,480 achieved all of this megalithic architecture with the most basic 206 00:09:49,559 --> 00:09:50,879 materials imaginable. 207 00:09:50,919 --> 00:09:54,360 Speaker 2: We're talking about soft copper tubes, loose courtz sand acting 208 00:09:54,399 --> 00:09:58,440 as an abrasive slurry, and vast unimaginable amounts of human 209 00:09:58,480 --> 00:09:59,240 time and labor. 210 00:09:59,759 --> 00:10:02,840 Speaker 1: Since the physical evidence of diamonds doesn't exist, we have 211 00:10:02,919 --> 00:10:05,799 to test that accepted theory of copper and sand. But 212 00:10:06,120 --> 00:10:08,039 you can't test that just by thinking about it in 213 00:10:08,039 --> 00:10:08,559 the library. 214 00:10:08,720 --> 00:10:11,399 Speaker 2: Now, you need someone who understands the physical realities of 215 00:10:11,519 --> 00:10:14,200 machining and material removal to actually try it. 216 00:10:14,320 --> 00:10:17,279 Speaker 1: And that's where modern machinist Chris Dunn comes in. I 217 00:10:17,320 --> 00:10:19,960 love is approach because he decided to subject himself to 218 00:10:20,039 --> 00:10:23,559 the exact process that historians claim built the pyramids. 219 00:10:23,639 --> 00:10:26,279 Speaker 2: Yeah, Dunn went to his workshop and physically built the 220 00:10:26,279 --> 00:10:31,159 egyptologist's theory. He created a crank operated copper tube drill and. 221 00:10:31,159 --> 00:10:34,399 Speaker 1: To give the ancient theory every possible advantage. He didn't 222 00:10:34,399 --> 00:10:36,080 even use regular quartz sand diddy. 223 00:10:36,399 --> 00:10:39,600 Speaker 2: No, he loaded his drill up with silicon carbide, which 224 00:10:39,639 --> 00:10:43,600 is a highly aggressive modern abrasive, and a slurry of water, 225 00:10:43,960 --> 00:10:46,240 and he went to work on a solid piece of granite. 226 00:10:46,320 --> 00:10:49,000 Speaker 1: Let's quickly explain how an abrasive drill actually works for 227 00:10:49,000 --> 00:10:52,360 a second, because the copper tube itself isn't cutting the rock. 228 00:10:52,440 --> 00:10:54,919 Speaker 2: Right, The copper is just the carrier exactly. 229 00:10:55,279 --> 00:10:58,240 Speaker 1: It pushes the abrasive sand crystals against the rock, and 230 00:10:58,279 --> 00:11:01,639 as you spin the tube, those little jagged crystals roll around. 231 00:11:02,120 --> 00:11:06,159 They violently grind, scratch, and crush the rock beneath them. 232 00:11:06,320 --> 00:11:10,639 Speaker 2: It is a messy, chaotic, friction based process, and an 233 00:11:10,720 --> 00:11:15,159 agonizing one. Dunn spent hours turning this crank, physically grinding 234 00:11:15,200 --> 00:11:18,240 this copper tube and silicon carbide into the granite. 235 00:11:18,120 --> 00:11:19,639 Speaker 1: Just hours of manual labor. 236 00:11:19,799 --> 00:11:24,159 Speaker 2: Yes, he subjected himself to immense physical exertion just to 237 00:11:24,159 --> 00:11:26,919 get deep enough to finally pop out a single core 238 00:11:26,960 --> 00:11:31,080 of stone, one little cylinder of modern abrasive drilled rock. 239 00:11:31,480 --> 00:11:33,960 Speaker 1: But the sweat equity wasn't really the point of the experiment. 240 00:11:34,000 --> 00:11:35,960 He needed that modern core so he could take the 241 00:11:36,000 --> 00:11:38,440 scientific community into the inspection lab. 242 00:11:38,519 --> 00:11:42,200 Speaker 2: Right the microscopic showdown, which is just fascinating, it really is. 243 00:11:42,399 --> 00:11:44,399 On one side of the lab he has the core 244 00:11:44,480 --> 00:11:47,879 he just made using the accepted historical mechanics, and on 245 00:11:47,919 --> 00:11:51,120 the other side he brings in a highly accurate LATEX 246 00:11:51,240 --> 00:11:53,879 cast of the ancient core that Petrie found, the. 247 00:11:53,840 --> 00:11:55,279 Speaker 1: One sitting in the Peatrie Museum. 248 00:11:55,360 --> 00:11:59,240 Speaker 2: Yes, and he compares them side by side, microscopic groove 249 00:11:59,519 --> 00:12:01,360 by micro scopic groove, and. 250 00:12:01,360 --> 00:12:03,919 Speaker 1: The difference between the two is what Chris Dunn refers 251 00:12:03,960 --> 00:12:07,600 to as a literal smoking gun. It's night and day 252 00:12:08,120 --> 00:12:11,519 because when you look at Dunn's modern core under the microscope, 253 00:12:12,039 --> 00:12:15,480 the surface is exactly what the physics of an abrasive 254 00:12:15,559 --> 00:12:17,879 slurry dictate. It looks chaotic. 255 00:12:18,200 --> 00:12:21,480 Speaker 2: The striations, the scratch marks left behind by the rolling 256 00:12:21,519 --> 00:12:25,039 pieces of silicon carbide are completely messy. 257 00:12:25,159 --> 00:12:28,919 Speaker 1: There's shallow, they overlap randomly, and there's absolutely no distinctive 258 00:12:28,919 --> 00:12:31,240 feed rate. This looks like a rock that has been 259 00:12:31,360 --> 00:12:32,840 violently randomly rubbed away. 260 00:12:32,919 --> 00:12:35,600 Speaker 2: Now contrast that chaotic surface with the cast of the 261 00:12:35,639 --> 00:12:38,320 ancient core from the Peaching Museum under the microscope, you 262 00:12:38,360 --> 00:12:40,159 see something fundamentally different. 263 00:12:40,440 --> 00:12:44,159 Speaker 1: The stridations on the ancient artifact are incredibly clean. 264 00:12:44,159 --> 00:12:48,480 Speaker 2: Clean, uniform, and quite deep. They do not look like 265 00:12:48,559 --> 00:12:51,519 the random scratches of rolling sand, not at all. They 266 00:12:51,519 --> 00:12:55,840 show a fixed tool biting into the rock with distinct, powerful, 267 00:12:56,000 --> 00:12:57,039 organized pressure. 268 00:12:57,159 --> 00:13:00,200 Speaker 1: It's like comparing a blurry, muddy footprint left in a 269 00:13:00,200 --> 00:13:03,600 puddle to a high resolution laser scanned photograph. 270 00:13:03,600 --> 00:13:07,120 Speaker 2: That's the perfect analogy. One is the chaotic result of friction, 271 00:13:07,440 --> 00:13:09,679 the other is engineered mechanical precision. 272 00:13:09,799 --> 00:13:13,279 Speaker 1: It is physical, undeniable proof that the ancient methods were 273 00:13:13,480 --> 00:13:17,639 entirely different and vastly superior to just rubbing soft copper 274 00:13:17,679 --> 00:13:19,399 and sand together for a few decades. 275 00:13:19,519 --> 00:13:23,159 Speaker 2: The micro evidence completely dismantles the macro theory, and this 276 00:13:23,279 --> 00:13:26,440 leads to an even more staggering realization, which is, well, 277 00:13:26,480 --> 00:13:30,360 if they're drilling technology was secretly disadvanced on a small scale, 278 00:13:30,519 --> 00:13:32,600 what happens when we scale up? What happens when we 279 00:13:32,600 --> 00:13:35,639 look at how they finished massive, completely flat services. 280 00:13:35,720 --> 00:13:37,399 Speaker 1: Right, we have to move from a tiny drill corp 281 00:13:37,440 --> 00:13:40,480 to something colossal. We have to talk about the serapim 282 00:13:40,480 --> 00:13:41,080 of Sokora. 283 00:13:41,519 --> 00:13:45,519 Speaker 2: The serapim is a deeply mysterious subterranean necropolis in Egypt, 284 00:13:45,799 --> 00:13:47,879 supposedly around three thousand years old. 285 00:13:48,120 --> 00:13:52,320 Speaker 1: It's this massive network of dark, tight tunnels right yes, 286 00:13:52,559 --> 00:13:57,120 holding absolutely gigantic solid granite and basalt boxes. Some of 287 00:13:57,159 --> 00:13:59,519 these boxes way up to one hundred tons. 288 00:13:59,320 --> 00:14:01,799 Speaker 2: One hundred tons underground exactly. 289 00:14:02,080 --> 00:14:05,320 Speaker 1: And Chris Dunn, bringing his precision machinist background to bear, 290 00:14:05,720 --> 00:14:08,679 decided to take his modern inspection tools down into this 291 00:14:08,799 --> 00:14:09,799 ancient environment. 292 00:14:09,960 --> 00:14:12,639 Speaker 2: He didn't just walk in with a tape measure, no, no, he. 293 00:14:12,639 --> 00:14:15,200 Speaker 1: Brought a tool called an inspection surface plate. 294 00:14:15,600 --> 00:14:18,399 Speaker 2: And for those who aren't in the machining world, a 295 00:14:18,480 --> 00:14:21,679 surface plate is a solid piece of material, usually granite 296 00:14:21,759 --> 00:14:24,960 or cast iron, that has been ground perfectly flat in 297 00:14:25,000 --> 00:14:26,519 a temperature controlled labratory. 298 00:14:26,720 --> 00:14:29,679 Speaker 1: It is the absolute gold standard used to test how 299 00:14:29,679 --> 00:14:32,000 perfectly flat an other surfaces. 300 00:14:31,480 --> 00:14:34,080 Speaker 2: And Done's specific gauge was ground to a tolerance of 301 00:14:34,120 --> 00:14:35,720 within two ten thousands of. 302 00:14:35,720 --> 00:14:37,960 Speaker 1: An inch two ten thousands. 303 00:14:37,639 --> 00:14:41,200 Speaker 2: To visualize that, it's roughly one tenth the thickness of 304 00:14:41,240 --> 00:14:44,440 a single human hair. It is a tool of extreme, 305 00:14:44,960 --> 00:14:50,080 uncompromising modern industrial precisions. So Dunn takes this modern marvel 306 00:14:50,120 --> 00:14:53,159 of flatness. He goes deep underground into the dark tunnels 307 00:14:53,200 --> 00:14:55,799 of the Serapium, and he places his gauge against the 308 00:14:55,919 --> 00:15:00,279 massive inside vertical surfaces of these giant granite books. 309 00:15:00,399 --> 00:15:03,679 Speaker 1: And the physical reality of what he finds is just astonishing. 310 00:15:03,960 --> 00:15:06,279 When he placed his gauge against the granite, he found 311 00:15:06,279 --> 00:15:10,279 that the inside surfaces of these massive, thousands of years 312 00:15:10,320 --> 00:15:14,480 old stone boxes were perfectly flat to within two thousands 313 00:15:14,519 --> 00:15:14,759 of an. 314 00:15:14,720 --> 00:15:16,879 Speaker 2: Inch, which is almost incomprehensible. 315 00:15:16,960 --> 00:15:19,159 Speaker 1: He noted that if you took a single standard piece 316 00:15:19,200 --> 00:15:21,360 of paper and slipped it under one edge of his 317 00:15:21,440 --> 00:15:25,080 precision blade, the tolerance of the stone was so impossibly 318 00:15:25,159 --> 00:15:28,519 tight that the microscopic lift of the paper would actually 319 00:15:28,559 --> 00:15:31,559 cause light from his flashlight to leak through the gap. 320 00:15:31,600 --> 00:15:35,240 Speaker 2: Two thousands of an inch over massive, multi ton slabs 321 00:15:35,240 --> 00:15:38,840 of granite in a dark, subterranean tunnel where you barely 322 00:15:38,840 --> 00:15:41,360 have room to move, let alone operate giant machinery. 323 00:15:41,519 --> 00:15:42,039 Speaker 1: It's wild. 324 00:15:42,200 --> 00:15:44,840 Speaker 2: As Done pointed out, those kinds of tolerances simply do 325 00:15:44,960 --> 00:15:47,240 not appear by accident. You do not rub a rock 326 00:15:47,279 --> 00:15:50,200 with sand and accidentally achieve a surface perfectly flat to 327 00:15:50,240 --> 00:15:51,360 a fraction of a human hair. 328 00:15:51,600 --> 00:15:53,120 Speaker 1: No, you definitely do it. 329 00:15:53,159 --> 00:15:56,000 Speaker 2: Was astounding to him to walk into an ancient facility 330 00:15:56,080 --> 00:15:58,600 and find the exact same kind of precision that he 331 00:15:58,679 --> 00:16:02,159 actively strives for and struggles to achieve in a modern 332 00:16:02,200 --> 00:16:03,840 computer controlled machine shop. 333 00:16:04,080 --> 00:16:06,159 Speaker 1: It completely shorts out your brain when you try to 334 00:16:06,240 --> 00:16:08,480 visualize the mechanics of doing that by hand. 335 00:16:08,600 --> 00:16:09,399 Speaker 2: It really does. 336 00:16:09,720 --> 00:16:12,679 Speaker 1: And to really ground this in human reality, the sources 337 00:16:12,679 --> 00:16:16,440 bring in Roger Hopkins. He's a master stonecutter with forty 338 00:16:16,559 --> 00:16:19,320 years of hands on commercial experience in. 339 00:16:19,279 --> 00:16:22,360 Speaker 2: The business, so he knows exactly how stone behaves when 340 00:16:22,399 --> 00:16:23,000 it is struck. 341 00:16:23,159 --> 00:16:26,559 Speaker 1: Yes, and he provides a vital reality check regarding the 342 00:16:26,559 --> 00:16:28,440 materials supposedly used. 343 00:16:28,360 --> 00:16:31,720 Speaker 2: Because he acknowledges that ancient people knew how to harden 344 00:16:31,759 --> 00:16:36,000 copper through cold hammering right repeatedly striking the metal to 345 00:16:36,080 --> 00:16:37,679 alter its crystalline structure. 346 00:16:37,840 --> 00:16:41,559 Speaker 1: Yeah, but he emphasizes the physics of the interaction. Even 347 00:16:41,639 --> 00:16:44,360 heavily work hardened copper will not make a dent in 348 00:16:44,519 --> 00:16:46,399 rocks like basalt or granite. 349 00:16:46,480 --> 00:16:49,000 Speaker 2: The atomic bonds in the quartz crystals of the granite 350 00:16:49,039 --> 00:16:51,200 are simply stronger than the bonds in the copper. 351 00:16:51,399 --> 00:16:53,679 Speaker 1: Exactly if you hit a granite block with a copper 352 00:16:53,759 --> 00:16:56,440 chisel all day. You're just gonna bend and blunt your chisel. 353 00:16:56,480 --> 00:16:57,120 It's useless. 354 00:16:57,559 --> 00:17:01,279 Speaker 2: So if the copper tools are physically use, what does 355 00:17:01,279 --> 00:17:04,480 a historical establishment say they use to hollow out these 356 00:17:04,559 --> 00:17:07,039 hundred ton boxes and achieve hairwith flatness. 357 00:17:07,519 --> 00:17:10,359 Speaker 1: Well, some historians suggest that the ancients just sat there 358 00:17:10,400 --> 00:17:14,640 with little loose shards of quartz and literally scratched away 359 00:17:14,680 --> 00:17:18,119 at the granite, just scratching, just scratching and dragging and scraping, 360 00:17:18,400 --> 00:17:21,519 day after day, year after year, for generations. 361 00:17:21,680 --> 00:17:25,279 Speaker 2: The sheer human toll of that theory is staggering when 362 00:17:25,319 --> 00:17:28,200 you actually think about the logistics. It assumes that an 363 00:17:28,400 --> 00:17:32,200 entire society was willing to devote decades, perhaps entire human 364 00:17:32,240 --> 00:17:37,640 lifetimes of unbearable, mind numbing physical labor, just to hollow 365 00:17:37,680 --> 00:17:38,759 out a single. 366 00:17:38,480 --> 00:17:40,480 Speaker 1: Box by scratching it with a rock, and. 367 00:17:40,400 --> 00:17:41,759 Speaker 2: Then to do it perfectly flat. 368 00:17:41,839 --> 00:17:43,880 Speaker 1: You can almost see the smoke coming out of Hopkins's 369 00:17:43,880 --> 00:17:46,599 head when he confronts that theory. You have this real 370 00:17:46,680 --> 00:17:50,839 life master stonecutter looking at the ancient work in the serapeum, 371 00:17:51,559 --> 00:17:54,079 and his reaction is incredibly raw. 372 00:17:54,160 --> 00:17:54,920 Speaker 2: What did he say? 373 00:17:55,079 --> 00:17:57,000 Speaker 1: He stated that if a client came into his modern 374 00:17:57,000 --> 00:17:59,400 shop today and asked him to replicate just one of 375 00:17:59,400 --> 00:18:04,039 those granite by hand using primitive scraping methods. He wouldn't 376 00:18:04,039 --> 00:18:05,119 do it for any amount of money. 377 00:18:05,279 --> 00:18:07,160 Speaker 2: Any amount of money, wow. 378 00:18:07,000 --> 00:18:09,319 Speaker 1: He flat out refused. He said it would be a 379 00:18:09,359 --> 00:18:11,839 complete waste of a human life to attempt something that 380 00:18:12,000 --> 00:18:14,920 laborious without advanced mechanized technology. 381 00:18:15,000 --> 00:18:17,880 Speaker 2: That is the ultimate testimony from the field. A man 382 00:18:17,960 --> 00:18:21,720 with four decades of literal stone cutting experience telling you 383 00:18:21,799 --> 00:18:26,519 that the accepted historical narrative is practically speaking impossible for 384 00:18:26,599 --> 00:18:27,920 a human being to execute. 385 00:18:28,240 --> 00:18:30,400 Speaker 1: It brings us right back to the central theme. 386 00:18:30,279 --> 00:18:33,119 Speaker 2: Right the physics demand that they must have had some 387 00:18:33,160 --> 00:18:37,039 sort of advanced technology, some mechanized high torque technique that 388 00:18:37,319 --> 00:18:40,039 entirely escapes our modern understanding of their era. 389 00:18:40,519 --> 00:18:42,440 Speaker 1: So what does this all mean for us today? It 390 00:18:42,559 --> 00:18:46,359 leaves us with this incredible, almost uncomfortable friction between what 391 00:18:46,400 --> 00:18:49,160 we physically observe and what the history books claim. 392 00:18:49,359 --> 00:18:53,160 Speaker 2: We're looking at modern day hairwith precision carved into three 393 00:18:53,200 --> 00:18:54,599 thousand year old granite. 394 00:18:54,680 --> 00:18:58,440 Speaker 1: We're looking at the deep, uniform, microscopic bite marks of 395 00:18:58,559 --> 00:19:01,720 high speed mechanized drill. But when we look in the 396 00:19:01,799 --> 00:19:04,920 museums for the tools that made those marks. All we 397 00:19:04,960 --> 00:19:08,079 are finding is rudimentary copper and a pile of sand. 398 00:19:08,279 --> 00:19:11,200 Speaker 2: The physical evidence of the action is everywhere, baked into 399 00:19:11,200 --> 00:19:14,440 the stone itself, but the instrument of the action has 400 00:19:14,519 --> 00:19:16,079 vanished completely from the earth. 401 00:19:16,359 --> 00:19:18,640 Speaker 1: We know the tools must have been equal to the task. 402 00:19:19,279 --> 00:19:22,000 You cannot build the serapeum with the equivalent of a 403 00:19:22,000 --> 00:19:25,640 plastic spoon, but the tools, they're just gone. 404 00:19:25,759 --> 00:19:27,599 Speaker 2: It's the ultimate mystery, it really is. 405 00:19:27,880 --> 00:19:30,559 Speaker 1: Which brings me to a question for you listening right now. 406 00:19:31,319 --> 00:19:33,720 I want you to really put yourself in the sandals 407 00:19:34,119 --> 00:19:38,799 of an ancient master builder. If you possessed mechanized technology 408 00:19:39,400 --> 00:19:42,880 capable of two thousands of an inch precision, what did 409 00:19:42,920 --> 00:19:45,799 you do with those tools when the massive jobs were 410 00:19:45,839 --> 00:19:46,720 finally done. 411 00:19:47,000 --> 00:19:49,480 Speaker 2: Were they made of a material that was eventually melted 412 00:19:49,519 --> 00:19:51,200 down and repurposed for war. 413 00:19:51,400 --> 00:19:53,920 Speaker 1: Or were they intentionally hidden away in a subtranean chamber 414 00:19:53,960 --> 00:19:57,160 we simply haven't found yet. Or is it possible they 415 00:19:57,160 --> 00:20:00,119 belong to someone else entirely, someone who packed up their 416 00:20:00,200 --> 00:20:02,920 highly advanced tools and took them with them when they left. 417 00:20:03,119 --> 00:20:04,200 Speaker 2: That's a fascinating thought. 418 00:20:04,400 --> 00:20:07,559 Speaker 1: Wonder that mechanical mystery. Let us know where you stand. 419 00:20:07,880 --> 00:20:10,480 Drop a comment below and share your theories on where 420 00:20:10,519 --> 00:20:13,079 the tools went. We would love to read your thoughts. 421 00:20:13,880 --> 00:20:15,960 Thanks for joining us on this deep dive into the 422 00:20:16,000 --> 00:20:19,279 engineering mysteries of the past, right here on Thrilling Threads.