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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 a

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?
- Retric 3y ago
  Tutankhamun's meteoric iron dagger is ~3,350 years old and shows minimal degradation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tutankhamun's_meteoric_iron_dagger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tutankhamun's_meteoric_iron_da... Egypt is a wonderful place to preserve iron, but archaeologists would hardly ignore piles of rust that kept showing up.
- wl 3y ago
  Ancient iron production leaves behind bloomeries. And in places like Egypt that are so dry, ancient iron (including meteoric iron predating smelting) does survive pretty well.
tazjin 3y ago
There's various theories about how specific aspects could have been made, for example, there are several ideas about how to hand-polish granite surfaces to the required degree. I haven't seen one that explains all aspects of this at once and it's intellectually lazy to say "(most of) these questions are solved in isolation, so it's not a valid question anymore", with things like the consistent wall thickness being especially difficult (and for which it would be very interesting, for example, to measure whether the miniscule imperfections mirror each other on the inside/outside, to make some deductions about the manufacturing process). UnchartedX, as far as I know, is one guy who happens to be enthusiastic about a bunch of these things. Regardless of how crazy some of his theories might be, he's sure as heck doing a lot more objectively useful work to find out things about them than insulting people on an online forum.

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?
Retric 3y ago
Tutankhamun's meteoric iron dagger is ~3,350 years old and shows minimal degradation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tutankhamun's_meteoric_iron_dagger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tutankhamun's_meteoric_iron_da... Egypt is a wonderful place to preserve iron, but archaeologists would hardly ignore piles of rust that kept showing up.
wl 3y ago
Ancient iron production leaves behind bloomeries. And in places like Egypt that are so dry, ancient iron (including meteoric iron predating smelting) does survive pretty well.

tazjin 3y ago

There's various theories about how specific aspects could have been made, for example, there are several ideas about how to hand-polish granite surfaces to the required degree. I haven't seen one that explains all aspects of this at once and it's intellectually lazy to say "(most of) these questions are solved in isolation, so it's not a valid question anymore", with things like the consistent wall thickness being especially difficult (and for which it would be very interesting, for example, to measure whether the miniscule imperfections mirror each other on the inside/outside, to make some deductions about the manufacturing process). UnchartedX, as far as I know, is one guy who happens to be enthusiastic about a bunch of these things. Regardless of how crazy some of his theories might be, he's sure as heck doing a lot more objectively useful work to find out things about them than insulting people on an online forum.