Episode #120: Lost Technologies of Ancient Egypt - Part 2

This is part two of what is now obviously going to be a three-part series on a detailed look at engineer Chris Dunn's book, "Lost Technologies of Ancient Egypt". In this part, we go back to the beginning of the book where Dunn is studying aspects of the many enormous monolithic statues that can be found in temples all over Egypt. Again and again, his studies find evidence of advanced planning, advanced machining, and the ability to check precision to a very high degree of accuracy.

We also read some very interesting accounts from the book, taken from the writings of explorers from previous centuries who delved into the Serapeum tunnels when the entrance was still concealed under sand.

There is so much information in this book! Part three coming next week.

Enjoy!

CLICK TO PLAY Brothers of the Serpent Episode 120 

Episode #119: UnchartedX

Ben from UnchartedX joins us to talk about "the case for rewriting history", his travels to ancient sites around the world, and his excellent work on his fast-growing youtube channel. Ben has been to Peru and Egypt several times each, traveled with Graham Hancock and Brien Forester, and taken many terabytes of high quality video and photographs of mysterious aspects of ancient sites, some of which are not easy to get to.

All in all it was a great conversation covering many of our favorite topics. Enjoy!

CLICK TO PLAY Brothers of the Serpent Episode 119 

Bulldozer Rampage


Ben has a fantastic gallery of images from his travels already available on the web. Take a look! most of the topics we cover on this episode have relevant images in the gallery.

UnchartedX Website

Episode #118: Lost Technologies of Ancient Egypt - Part 1

We catch up on listener emails and comments and open a couple of 1up Boxes. Then Kyle reads a story about recent cattle mutilations in Oregon and we spend some time discussing the history of this strange phenomena and what the "popular" explanations are.

For the second half of the show, we dive into Christopher Dunn's excellent book "Lost Technologies of Ancient Egypt", looking at the Unfinished Obelisk in Aswan, an anomalous piece of granite with strange tool marks in Abu Roash, and the infamous "Core #7" found by Petrie. All of these objects hold clues as to the methods for working stone that were used by the ancients, and Dunn does an excellent job investigating them.

CLICK TO PLAY Brothers of the Serpent Episode 118 

Split-end on the sun

Obelisks

Detailed Hieroglyphs carved into the granite

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The glyphs are so similar they are like stamps

Very fine three dimensional work on the glyphs

Unfinished Obelisk, Aswan

The obelisk would have been enormous

Deep troughs and cut marks

Linear cuts along the side, with noticeable horizontal striations

Cuts in the trough

Cutting around corners?

Sharp inside corners in trough cuts

Cutting around corners

Diorite quarry stone

Modern quarry excavator saw. Imagine this, but with a chainsaw bar instead of a circular blade

"Unfinished Pyramid" at Abu Roash

Granite block with strange evidence of cutting on it

Curved in this direction

Curved in this direction as well

Broken edge, curved horizontal cut edge, and step indicating curved vertical cut

Could there have been enormous saws mounted in these?

Petrie's infamous "Core #7"

Cut marks, spiral or horizontal?

Wrapping the core with string along the cuts

Ancient stone vases, machined on a lathe

Vase made of diorite

Episode #117: The History of Precision

Archer joins us again in the Tangent Cube to give a slideshow presentation about precision. What does it mean to do precision work? How do you get a perfectly straight edge, or a perfectly flat surface? How do we do it in the modern day, and what does that mean for highly precise work done in ancient times?

This was an awesome conversation. We really recommend watching the youtube video so you can see the slides.

Enjoy!


CLICK TO PLAY Brothers of the Serpent Episode 117

Here is the YouTube Video:

Below are some of the slides from GMA's presentation: