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It's ridiculous that everyone with alternative ideas is labeled a "conspiracy theorist". For example, there's a bunch of people with experience in engineering,

by tazjin 3y ago

It's ridiculous that everyone with alternative ideas is labeled a "conspiracy theorist". For example, there's a bunch of people with experience in engineering, material science and so on who've been spending a lot of time doing extensive analysis (high-resolution 3D scans, material analysis with state of the art tools etc.)[0][1][2] of ... granite vases from Egypt. They're not coming up with theories saying "aliens made these vases!!!" or something, they're saying "we don't know how these were made, but with modern knowledge we believe it would not have been possible to make them by hand, and here's a list of arguments for why". Yet they're labeled as conspiracy theorists and ridiculed, by people who're convinced that whatever they learned in school 20 years ago is the immutable ground truth, or - worse - by people whose careers are based on this ground truth being correct. Maybe another factor is that a lot of people involved in these projects are not from academic career backgrounds, so they're excluded on the basis of elitism. [0]: https://unchartedx.com/site/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Danville-Summary-Results-2023-10-01.pdf https://unchartedx.com/site/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Danvi... [1]: https://unchartedx.com/site/vase-scan-resources/ https://unchartedx.com/site/vase-scan-resources/ [2]: https://unsigned.io/granite-artefact/ https://unsigned.io/granite-artefact/ EDIT: Added links for people who aren't aware of these things going on.

billyoyo 3y ago
https://www.metabunk.org/threads/claim-ancient-egyptians-could-not-work-granite-without-high-tech-diamond-tools.12963/#post-290360 https://www.metabunk.org/threads/claim-ancient-egyptians-cou... Here's a nice compilation of evidence showing it's completely explainable how they could have made them.
- tazjin 3y ago
  That thread is all over the place, the only two vase-related things I found were: a) A woman in Russia hand-made a vase that looks similar to the Egyptian ones. b) Some guy said the vases are forged, and made in modern times, because their provenance is not proven. Neither of these strike me as particular interesting statements, and the rest of that thread is about completely unrelated topics. I closed it at the "Dudes Think They Can Prove Atlantis by Measuring a Vase" link, because that's exactly the kind of condescending crap I'm talking about.
jacquesm 3y ago
> with modern knowledge we believe it would not have been possible to make them by hand This presumes that knowledge can't be lost but we have plenty of evidence that it can be lost and that historical inventions (such as the potters wheel, one of the oldest practical machines) have been made in more than one place. I don't think elitism is as much a factor as the lack of rigor underlying the analysis, not the fact finding itself. It's perfectly possible to do a whole bunch of materials science and yield some new facts but putting those facts into perspective and getting to the right conclusions is another matter entirely. Most of that 'conspiracy theorist' stuff tends to be 'this was my preferred conclusion and here is the data that supports that conclusion' whilst leaving out everything that contradicts that conclusions (and this is unscientific and may well be why mainstream science doesn't pick up on the ideas, they don't satisfy some of the already known constraints).
DoItToMe81 3y ago
We do know how the vast majority of these artifacts were made, though. Most of the people "just asking questions" are ignorant of craftsmanship and historical achievements, whereas the 'academics' are not. Quartz and diorite are harder than granite. Quartz sand abrasion, hand drills utilizing quartz, diorite smoothing tools and melting with hot coals are all techniques recorded by the Egyptians, and have been reperformed by scientists and engineers with similar results. UnchartedX is run by absolute whackjobs who believe an ancient super civilization, despite no iron, no lithium, no artifacts indicating use of electricity, milled these hand crafts with computer guided drills. It's even dumber than ancient aliens, because at least aliens could take the evidence of their existence with them.
- hypertele-Xii 3y ago
  Iron and lithium corrode and rust away exposed to air. There wouldn't be any iron nor lithium artifacts thousands of years old.
  - h2odragon 3y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_pillar_of_Delhi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_pillar_of_Delhi
  - eesmith 3y ago
    We have iron artifacts which are thousands of years old. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Age https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Age says "The earliest-known meteoric iron artifacts are nine small beads dated to 3200 BC, which were found in burials at Gerzeh, Lower Egypt, having been shaped by careful hammering." That's 5,000 years old. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaca_H%C3%B6y%C3%BCk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaca_H%C3%B6y%C3%BCk shows "Dagger with iron blade and golden hilt from Alaca Höyük. Early evidence for the use of iron in Anatolia. 2500-2400 BC." You can see the iron is heavily rusted, but clearly present over 4,000 years later." https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10814-019-09129-6 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10814-019-09129-6 says "Larger numbers of iron artifacts, too many to list individually, appeared in the second millennium BC. Waldbaum (1978, 1980, 1999) produced several early syntheses of available references to iron in the Bronze Age Mediterranean and parts of the Near East, totaling about 150 artifacts. The majority of these come from the Late Bronze Age (c. 1600–1200 BC)." These are over 3,000 year old. Even if iron could not be found, where are the furnaces, tuyeres, and slag which are part of iron production?
rabf 3y ago
Maybe you should try carving granite by hand, I assure you its entirely possible.
eesmith 3y ago
The pdf at [0] clearly says that while they believe it could not be made without "high-precision modern machinery", that is only a belief. They are aware of that flaw writing: "To address the question of whether or not such manufacturing accuracy is possible by hand, we will need to expand the analysis to include both modern and ancient objects that are known to have been hand-made." I read [2]. It comes across as post-hoc numerology - looking for patterns on the assumption they are present. It is also missing a way to perform the same analysis on other objects - are all such vessels using R(n)? Can you find similar patterns in "ancient objects that are known to have been hand-made"? There's also a complete lack of discussion of known archeology. With a bit of searching I found a picture of an Egyptian making stone vases by hand ca. 1504–1425 B.C at https://academic.oup.com/occmed/article/72/9/595/6966500?login=true https://academic.oup.com/occmed/article/72/9/595/6966500?log... . "Ahh, but the object scanned is from pre-dynastic or early dynastic Egypt more than a thousand years previous" I imagine you saying. Digging some more I found "Artists and Patrons in Predynastic and Early Dynastic Egypt" at https://www.jstor.org/stable/44325730?seq=8 https://www.jstor.org/stable/44325730?seq=8 > The first assemblage to my mind unquestionably connected with [stone-working] is not funerary; Room 12 in House Group 89 in the early Old Kingdom town at Hierakonpolis was a vasegrinder's workshop. Quibell and Green found one quartzite and two sandstone drills, as well as the benches and stands used by the cutters and the remains of their abrasives It cites page 17 of https://archive.org/details/hierakonpolis00petrgoog/page/n26/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/hierakonpolis00petrgoog/page/n26... under the section "Vase Grinder's Workshop". > Round the room ran a bench of beaten earth 0.8 m. (2½ feet) above the floor. This bench projects considerably in the W. angle and to a lesser degree in the S. angle. The upper parts of these projections have cup-like hollows in which were vase borers such as are shown on Pl. LXII. That marked .1. was of chert. It stood with working surface upwards in the depression in the bench ; under it was a quantity of sand that had been used as the abrading material. On the top of the borer were two rough pieces of chert. Near to it (marked 2) was an oblong corn grinder. The borer marked 3 on the drawing was of diorite. Both sides had been used as working surfaces. Little or no sand was found in the socket or depression in the bench. > From the fact of the bench being 0.8 m. above the floor, it seems as if the workmen must have stood to their task ; the squatting position is, however, that represented on the reliefs, when the operation of vase making is represented. Why can we find a room where stone vase grinders worked, and depictions of them making vases by hand, if at that time they had access to machine-made vases? Given there were clearly hand-made stone vases, what are the odds that the first vase analyzed happens to be machine made? How do you distinguish between hand-made and machine-made vases?
Hikikomori 3y ago
Dr David Miano has made several videos debunking unchartedx, have you seen them? This is the latest one https://youtu.be/Wcl82hQr8xc?si=FgYeoP2Nc-lJhoTu https://youtu.be/Wcl82hQr8xc?si=FgYeoP2Nc-lJhoTu
- tazjin 3y ago
  The childish title of the video makes me not want to engage with it, the guy should write a blog post instead. At least I can consume the information from the vase scan folks without watching hour long videos. We need summarisation tools for clickbait videos. Maybe they already exist?
  - Hikikomori 3y ago
    It's a video because he's responding to an uncharted x video. It's what most people interested in this is going to see.

by tazjin 3y ago

billyoyo 3y ago

https://www.metabunk.org/threads/claim-ancient-egyptians-could-not-work-granite-without-high-tech-diamond-tools.12963/#post-290360 https://www.metabunk.org/threads/claim-ancient-egyptians-cou... Here's a nice compilation of evidence showing it's completely explainable how they could have made them.

tazjin 3y ago
That thread is all over the place, the only two vase-related things I found were: a) A woman in Russia hand-made a vase that looks similar to the Egyptian ones. b) Some guy said the vases are forged, and made in modern times, because their provenance is not proven. Neither of these strike me as particular interesting statements, and the rest of that thread is about completely unrelated topics. I closed it at the "Dudes Think They Can Prove Atlantis by Measuring a Vase" link, because that's exactly the kind of condescending crap I'm talking about.

jacquesm 3y ago

> with modern knowledge we believe it would not have been possible to make them by hand This presumes that knowledge can't be lost but we have plenty of evidence that it can be lost and that historical inventions (such as the potters wheel, one of the oldest practical machines) have been made in more than one place. I don't think elitism is as much a factor as the lack of rigor underlying the analysis, not the fact finding itself. It's perfectly possible to do a whole bunch of materials science and yield some new facts but putting those facts into perspective and getting to the right conclusions is another matter entirely. Most of that 'conspiracy theorist' stuff tends to be 'this was my preferred conclusion and here is the data that supports that conclusion' whilst leaving out everything that contradicts that conclusions (and this is unscientific and may well be why mainstream science doesn't pick up on the ideas, they don't satisfy some of the already known constraints).

DoItToMe81 3y ago

We do know how the vast majority of these artifacts were made, though. Most of the people "just asking questions" are ignorant of craftsmanship and historical achievements, whereas the 'academics' are not. Quartz and diorite are harder than granite. Quartz sand abrasion, hand drills utilizing quartz, diorite smoothing tools and melting with hot coals are all techniques recorded by the Egyptians, and have been reperformed by scientists and engineers with similar results. UnchartedX is run by absolute whackjobs who believe an ancient super civilization, despite no iron, no lithium, no artifacts indicating use of electricity, milled these hand crafts with computer guided drills. It's even dumber than ancient aliens, because at least aliens could take the evidence of their existence with them.

hypertele-Xii 3y ago
Iron and lithium corrode and rust away exposed to air. There wouldn't be any iron nor lithium artifacts thousands of years old.
- h2odragon 3y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_pillar_of_Delhi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_pillar_of_Delhi
- eesmith 3y ago
  We have iron artifacts which are thousands of years old. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Age https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Age says "The earliest-known meteoric iron artifacts are nine small beads dated to 3200 BC, which were found in burials at Gerzeh, Lower Egypt, having been shaped by careful hammering." That's 5,000 years old. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaca_H%C3%B6y%C3%BCk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaca_H%C3%B6y%C3%BCk shows "Dagger with iron blade and golden hilt from Alaca Höyük. Early evidence for the use of iron in Anatolia. 2500-2400 BC." You can see the iron is heavily rusted, but clearly present over 4,000 years later." https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10814-019-09129-6 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10814-019-09129-6 says "Larger numbers of iron artifacts, too many to list individually, appeared in the second millennium BC. Waldbaum (1978, 1980, 1999) produced several early syntheses of available references to iron in the Bronze Age Mediterranean and parts of the Near East, totaling about 150 artifacts. The majority of these come from the Late Bronze Age (c. 1600–1200 BC)." These are over 3,000 year old. Even if iron could not be found, where are the furnaces, tuyeres, and slag which are part of iron production?

rabf 3y ago

Maybe you should try carving granite by hand, I assure you its entirely possible.

eesmith 3y ago

The pdf at [0] clearly says that while they believe it could not be made without "high-precision modern machinery", that is only a belief. They are aware of that flaw writing: "To address the question of whether or not such manufacturing accuracy is possible by hand, we will need to expand the analysis to include both modern and ancient objects that are known to have been hand-made." I read [2]. It comes across as post-hoc numerology - looking for patterns on the assumption they are present. It is also missing a way to perform the same analysis on other objects - are all such vessels using R(n)? Can you find similar patterns in "ancient objects that are known to have been hand-made"? There's also a complete lack of discussion of known archeology. With a bit of searching I found a picture of an Egyptian making stone vases by hand ca. 1504–1425 B.C at https://academic.oup.com/occmed/article/72/9/595/6966500?login=true https://academic.oup.com/occmed/article/72/9/595/6966500?log... . "Ahh, but the object scanned is from pre-dynastic or early dynastic Egypt more than a thousand years previous" I imagine you saying. Digging some more I found "Artists and Patrons in Predynastic and Early Dynastic Egypt" at https://www.jstor.org/stable/44325730?seq=8 https://www.jstor.org/stable/44325730?seq=8 > The first assemblage to my mind unquestionably connected with [stone-working] is not funerary; Room 12 in House Group 89 in the early Old Kingdom town at Hierakonpolis was a vasegrinder's workshop. Quibell and Green found one quartzite and two sandstone drills, as well as the benches and stands used by the cutters and the remains of their abrasives It cites page 17 of https://archive.org/details/hierakonpolis00petrgoog/page/n26/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/hierakonpolis00petrgoog/page/n26... under the section "Vase Grinder's Workshop". > Round the room ran a bench of beaten earth 0.8 m. (2½ feet) above the floor. This bench projects considerably in the W. angle and to a lesser degree in the S. angle. The upper parts of these projections have cup-like hollows in which were vase borers such as are shown on Pl. LXII. That marked .1. was of chert. It stood with working surface upwards in the depression in the bench ; under it was a quantity of sand that had been used as the abrading material. On the top of the borer were two rough pieces of chert. Near to it (marked 2) was an oblong corn grinder. The borer marked 3 on the drawing was of diorite. Both sides had been used as working surfaces. Little or no sand was found in the socket or depression in the bench. > From the fact of the bench being 0.8 m. above the floor, it seems as if the workmen must have stood to their task ; the squatting position is, however, that represented on the reliefs, when the operation of vase making is represented. Why can we find a room where stone vase grinders worked, and depictions of them making vases by hand, if at that time they had access to machine-made vases? Given there were clearly hand-made stone vases, what are the odds that the first vase analyzed happens to be machine made? How do you distinguish between hand-made and machine-made vases?

Hikikomori 3y ago

Dr David Miano has made several videos debunking unchartedx, have you seen them? This is the latest one https://youtu.be/Wcl82hQr8xc?si=FgYeoP2Nc-lJhoTu https://youtu.be/Wcl82hQr8xc?si=FgYeoP2Nc-lJhoTu

tazjin 3y ago
The childish title of the video makes me not want to engage with it, the guy should write a blog post instead. At least I can consume the information from the vase scan folks without watching hour long videos. We need summarisation tools for clickbait videos. Maybe they already exist?
- Hikikomori 3y ago
  It's a video because he's responding to an uncharted x video. It's what most people interested in this is going to see.