4 ms·
> It is hard to believe later generations were always just too impatient to bother doing top quality work. I very much feel that this is an exact mirror of wha
by once_inc 4y ago
> It is hard to believe later generations were always just too impatient to bother doing top quality work.
I very much feel that this is an exact mirror of what we see today in modern construction: simpler, _cheaper_ materials, less time-intensive work to reduce the cost of construction. As time progressed in Ancient Egypt, people might have had different perceptions of what was desirable in construction of these landmarks. Perhaps the political will as lacking to keep building vast, high quality landmarks, or perhaps the pharaos found out building something for three decades is risky since you don't know if you will live that long.
- ljlolel 4y agoPerhaps ancients had a similar ratio of high quality and mostly low quality. It’s just that the only pieces that survived are the very large high quality rocks, all of their quick cheap stuff broke up quickly.
- mitthrowaway2 4y agoIt's not the lack of ancient low-quality work that surprises, but the absence of more recent high-quality work.
- dr-detroit 4y ago
- ncmncm 4y agoExactly. If they could still do high-quality work: mirror-smooth surfaced, extra-hard diorite, carved with exact bilateral symmetry, you would expect to find some of it done for highest-status people, even if it were no longer squandered on huge monuments.
- ncmncm 4y agoThat does not account for the entire lack of late, smaller, top-grade work. So, maybe 100-ton mirror-smooth columns no longer impress. Not making anything mirror-smooth, at any scale, or anything 100 tons even if no smooth, really calls into question whether you still can.
- simonh 4y agoSure, maybe they couldn't because the techniques had been lost which we know is a thing that happens, or maybe they chose not to. Or maybe aliens. This is basically a god of the gaps argument, we don't know so therefore let's fill the gap with the wackiest made up fantasy crap we can think of. Well ok, if you like but it's basically just entertainment and nothing to do with reality.
- ncmncm 4y agoLost skills is wacky, now?
- simonh 4y ago"or maybe aliens" is wacky, but that's just a personal opinion.
- ncmncm 4y agoYou interjected the "or maybe aliens" yourself. Nobody else even hinted at it. You reveal that you never had any intention of engaging honestly.
- simonh 4y agoMaybe I'm reading too much into the claim that these objects were not created by the ancient Egyptians, and the assertion that they were 'machined'.
- ncmncm 4y agoNobody suggested they were not made by Egyptians. You made that up, too. We don't know which generation of Egyptians did the top quality work. As already noted, inscriptions only establish a lower bound on age, but no upper bound. Evidence strongly suggests the means to do such work were lost, early on. "Machined" describes the precision of the work. If you know how to get that without precision equipment, reveal it.