Smoking Gun Evidence for Ancient, Machined Stone! The Granite Cornice blocks on the Giza Plateau.

UnchartedX1:27:48

YouTube auto-caption timing.

Ben uses the surviving cuts in an unfinished Cairo stone box to infer how its corners and walls were made.

A small Amarna fragment preserves more than tool marks: some of the material left in an ancient drill hole. The Met’s limestone object 57.180.142 stands just 8 cm high. Its roughly 1 cm channel contains a broken stone core surrounded by grains.

Anna Serotta and Federico Carò used electron microscopy and elemental analysis to identify abundant angular corundum, fine calcite and corroded bronze. Larger particles measured 50–200 micrometres; finer material was below 10 micrometres. Together, the residues support a bronze tubular drill working with corundum-rich abrasive. Here the evidence comes from what remained inside the cut: traces of the abrasive, stone and tool in one sample.

Original research

Full transcript

[groaning]

[music]

Welcome back to Uncharted X. This is Ben

and I hope that you're all doing well.

In today's installation of You're Not

Making That by Hand, I wanted to take a

quick look at a couple of incredible

ancient granite artifacts that are still

sitting around and soaking up the

Egyptian sun on the Giza Plateau. I'm

talking about the remarkable cornice and

so-called couch blocks that are the

remnants of architectural features from

[music] the massively megalithic valley,

Sphinx, and Pyramid Temples, which are

all part of the Middle Pyramid [music]

complex. I've mentioned these in passing

in previous videos, but they're always

something that I like to show people and

discuss when we're visiting the plateau.

They're beautiful and remarkable pieces.

They're wrought [music] from single

solid chunks of the finest Asswanian

granite. I find them particularly

interesting for a couple of reasons.

Firstly, some analysis has been done on

them from a machining and manufacturing

perspective, which we'll get into, but

that work gives us significant insight

into the sophistication of the process

that must have been required for their

creation. They also occupy what seems to

me to be a convenient middle ground when

it comes to [music] explaining and

diving into the complex realms of

precision in ancient artifacts. As I'm

sure many of you know, I've done deep

dives into the precision topic in the

past. And admittedly, the subject,

particularly as applied to some of these

incredible ancient relics, [music]

has a lot of nuance, subtlety, and

detail. If you haven't seen my video on

precision that gets into its nature, its

relationship to function, how precision

was developed and is used in our own

modern world and then how that applies

to the remnants of the ancients, it's a

good primer video into the topic. The

link is below in the description. I've

also made several other more specific

precisionoriented videos on specific

artifacts and topics. Things like the

cerapium and lahun boxes and of course

the amazing new findings and metrology

that's come from recent detailed

examinations of the hardstone vases,

many of which predate the dynastic

ancient Egyptian civilization as we know

it.

Hey there. A quick note from editor Ben

over here. I wanted to make this video a

little shorter, but as usual, uh there

is a lot of context to get through to

properly frame the discussion and talk

about the things that I want to talk

about. And this thing ended up obviously

at well over an hour. Now, I generally

don't have a problem doing this. I do

want each video that I make to be able

to stand up on its own without, you

know, requiring a bunch of other videos

to support all of the context. And I

usually write them that way with quite a

bit of context to set up the things that

I'm trying to say. Although frankly it

does end up making it a lot more work

for me to put together the final video.

In this case the context that I get into

around the corners blocks is things like

the types of precision that we see in

ancient artifacts. How these corners

blocks fit into that as well as the

bigger picture. The context of where

they originally and specifically were uh

in terms of being part of the granite

casing of these massive megalithic

structures on the Giza plateau. just how

old those megalithic structures might be

and how they were made. So, although

there are some new observations and

updates in this context section of the

video, if you've heard me talk about

those things before and you want to skip

straight to where I get into a detailed

investigation of the corners blocks,

please do use the chapters in this video

to get there or skip forward to roughly

around I think it's 48 minutes, which is

where I start to get into the specific

details of these corners blocks.

Otherwise, sit back and enjoy the video

as we start to get into the topic of

ancient precision.

Why I'm saying that these corners blocks

at Gizer occupy a convenient middle

ground when it comes to precision is

related to the nature of the

observations that we can make about

them. When talking precision stonework,

the specific attributes of the artifacts

being discussed can be fairly simple or

they can be extremely complex. At the

simple end, we can look at attributes

like flat surfaces, 90° corners, and

perpendicular faces. These are often

discussed aspects of the relatively

simple geometries of artifacts like the

single piece ignous stone boxes. These

have been found extensively across

ancient Egypt with perhaps the best

collection of them being in the

underground cerapium of Sakara. Still

home to 24 of these enormous enigmatic

masterpieces wroughan cyanide and

diorite some of which mass up to

approximately 100 tons with their lids.

I've discussed the Serapium in detail in

the past. It was one of the first

projects I worked on with this channel

more than five or six years ago now, and

I fully intend to revisit it in detail

to update my observations, having since

spent many more days inside these

amazing galleries, and this has

inevitably led to an evolution on my

perspective and conclusions.

It's safe to say that the precision and

logistic achievements represented by

boxes like these being found where they

are having been transported through

underground tunnels and carefully

lowered into these huge aloves presents

some extreme challenges for advocates of

the mainstream perspective that all it

took to do was rocks, sticks, sand, and

a can do attitude. Several people seem

to have gone out of their way to try and

dismiss the findings of qualified

experts like engineer Christopher Dunn

who has performed metrology on these

boxes down here by specifically looking

for examples of things like outside

corners that aren't 90° or the like and

using that to somehow claim that the

boxes aren't precise, employing logic

that only a toddler might be able to

follow. Now, I'm not claiming that every

surface of every box is perfectly flat.

I know that's not the case. I've been in

and around most of them and seen most of

the worked stone surfaces in the

cerapium for myself. And I also

understand that there is no such thing

as perfectly flat. It's all just a

matter of tolerance. Nor is every corner

perfectly 90° either inside or out. I do

want to say that the examples that are

given by some of these skeptics,

particularly those concerning the

outside corners of the boxes shows just

how transparently disingenuous their

intentions really are. As far as I know,

no one has ever claimed anything about

the accuracy of the outside corners of

these boxes or lids. A cursory

examination of them will also reveal

that the makers of these boxes didn't

care to try and make them 90° either. It

just didn't seem to be a design

parameter for them at all. Using these

outside corners as an argument against

the precision of these boxes is a great

example of the type of thing that I see

all the time. Logical fallacies used as

rebuttals against hard evidence, hoping

that their audience will cheer it on and

not notice the invalid nature of the

argument, which in this case is creating

a straw man position, or at least one

that I certainly don't occupy, and then

arguing against it. The same thing has

been happening lately with the vases,

and I've got a 10 or 12 th000word

article explaining just how dumb that is

on my website if you want something to

read. The fact remains that there are

extremely flat surfaces in these boxes,

and there are very accurately and

precise 90° corners, just as there are

extremely accurate perpendicular and

parallel faces inside these boxes, as

well as between individual boxes and

their lids. These must be included as

part of any explanation seeking to

dispel the mystery of how these boxes

were made, let alone the mystery of how

they were moved down here into these

underground galleries. Arguments

focusing on specific spots showing less

than perfect angles or faces are purely

a distraction from the fact that there

are and there does exist extremely

precise attributes on these boxes. And

again, these attributes must be included

in any explanation for their creation.

I've not seen that anyone has come even

remotely close to addressing these

characteristics at the same time as also

insisting that yep, loin clothwearing

primitives made these by banging on

massive quarried sinite blocks with

rocks and sticks and sand. There is of

course much more detail and nuance here.

I happen to think that these surfaces

shown to be less than perfect or some of

these inside walls that have bevels or

unfinished corners or scoops in them are

completely understandable when you

consider the specific design parameters

of the builders and what aspects or

characteristics of these boxes they

thought to be most important. It's a

hypothesis that I've been considering

for several years now, and I've come to

something of a conclusion about it

fairly recently after many years of

studying therap.

I'm going to save this conclusion for

the dedicated video that I'm working on.

But here's a clue. Precision was not the

most important design aspect of these

things.

What I think was the most important

aspect to the builders has a significant

implication for their true original

purpose and function, which is most

definitely not to serve as burial boxes

for mummified bulls. Even if later

occupations on and around the Capium by

a far more primitive people thought

doing something like that along with

crudely scratching the names of rich

people into these priceless artifacts

was a good way to make a living. Getting

back to the nature of precision, we can

and people like Flenders Petri have

extended the analysis of simple

geometries like flat surfaces and 90°

corners into the more complex topic of

relative geometry, the overall relative

precision of opposing faces, and how

accurately aligned parts of the object

are to others. Petri called this the

proportion of scale when he discussed it

and it's where most of the true

complexity and the marvelous nature of

the achievements represented by boxes

like these or like the one under the

pyramid at Lahoon [music] truly lies

getting opposing faces of a single piece

box and we're talking about internal

walls that are often separated by 10 or

more feet to be precisely parallel or

perpendicular relative to each other

with a margin of error in the single

single digit thousands of an inch is an

incredibly difficult and complex task.

If you mess this up in a single piece

box, you can't fix those mistakes by

simply removing [music] more material.

Yet, this is an achievement that seems

to have been met and repeated time after

time. Again, these skeptics of these

claims will often seek to debunk them by

just ignoring these details and

simplifying the arguments by saying,

"Well, you can use stone to manually lap

a surface to be quite flat." [music]

This, as a general statement, is

certainly true. You can lap stone to be

pretty flat. Another thing that I've

seen done is somebody taking a chunk of

stone and laboriously manually carving

or chiseling a small three- angle corner

into it [music] and then declaring

victory. You know what never gets

discussed, addressed [music] or has

attempts made to replicate it by these

skeptics? Relative geometry. How you

keep that entire inside face not only

flat but parallel with the other surface

on the other end of the single piece

box. how you actually cut a three- angle

corner on the inside of the box where

you don't have the room to move your

pounding stone or chisel or whatever

that you do have when you're hammering

away on the outside of a chunk of stone.

These claims made by these skeptics are

just disingenuous. [music]

They're the ignorant grasping at straws

in a desperate attempt to distract away

from the true achievements and the hard

measured evidence and facts of precision

represented in aspects of these

artifacts.

More of that same evidence is coming in

the near future. We've managed to use

cuttingedge laser scanning tools to

examine parts of these boxes. And while

the analysis is still ongoing, these

results will be released in the future.

The concept of relative geometry as a

vector for precision also came up during

the ancient hardstone vase project. In

fact, it was the focus of the initial

investigation into the OG vase. And I

went to some length to try and explain

its importance in my first couple of

videos on that topic. Precision on these

vases starts with relatively simple

two-dimensional aspects. taking slices

of the vases and measuring how circular

they are and how well aligned that

circle is to the center line of the

vase. This is more complex than it first

sounds as you first have to very

accurately find the true center line and

that's a whole process in itself.

Two-dimensional circularity is certainly

not the only way to measure precision on

these vases. We can and did measure

things like how flat is the top of the

vase. And from there, as well as

determining the vase's center line, you

can create reference surfaces or planes

against which other parts of the vase

can be measured for things like

parallelism or perpendicularity.

We can also look at things like wall

thickness and specifically how

consistent the wall thickness is around

the body of the vase at a certain height

which when we were doing hands-on

metrology experiments with multiple

vases in a precision machining lab

proved to be astonishingly consistent

within a couple thousand of an inch.

>> What was that? Right.

>> It's like it's it's two thou maybe.

>> No.

It's like almost a thous each each line

is one. So

>> maybe Oh, yeah. Maybe 2,00.

>> You know, I'd like at this time to honor

our ancestors created.

>> Yeah.

Can't go to Egypt and not be blown away

by what we accomplished.

>> No, this one's insane.

>> Yeah. Be insane.

>> Mhm.

>> Maybe I'll just start logging these into

Excel today.

>> See? Yeah. About impossible.

>> Yeah.

>> Well, not impossible, obviously.

>> Expensive.

From there, the nature of precision

measurements on these vases gets more

complex. how well specific parts of the

artifact match geometric primitives and

how well those parts are aligned with

the reference planes or grid generated

by the part. The vases are irregular

shapes generally ellipsoid in nature and

don't on the whole exactly match 3D

geometric primitives like spheres torids

cylinders or cones but parts of them do

and you can very accurately map those

parts to said geometric primitives. The

vasecan project did exactly this. Using

tens or hundreds of thousands of points

of reference in the scanned models to

exactly match segments of the vase to

geometric primitives, which then allows

geometry to be performed. Operations

like where exactly in our 3D grid is the

center point of the sphere that matches

to the vase body. How close is that

center point to the center line of the

vase which is formed from the cylinder

that was matched to the vase mouth? How

accurately aligned or parallel are the

cylinders or torids that were matched to

the lug handles? How accurate are they

to each other? How accurate are they to

the top surface, the xaxis, the

reference plane of the vase? How

parallel is the bottom of the vase to

that same top surface or reference

plane?

There is a huge depth of complexity in

this level of analysis. It takes

educated, qualified professionals to do

it. That's why they're called

metrologists and they have to work in

complex and specialized software

platforms. But thanks to the dedication

and efforts of several such

professionals, this work has been done

and the results were frankly completely

astonishing. I covered them in my first

few videos on the vasecan project. I can

tell you no one expected these vases to

be as amazingly precise as they seem to

be and I was proud to be able to share

those results with the world in my

content on this topic.

This work and the vasecan project itself

is still ongoing. The process of

determining precision is continually

being refined and streamlined and at

this point around 200 vases have been

scanned in micron level detail. The

Artifact Foundation recently returned

from several days spent working in the

British Museum, scanning artifacts in

their vast collection, and they'll add

those results to the ones being worked

on from other institutions like the

Boston Museum of Fine Arts, along with

the results from many artifacts held by

private collectors.

So the precision topic goes from

relatively simple concepts flat surfaces

and 90° corners to far more complex ones

like the relative geometry of segments

of three-dimensional ellipsoidal complex

shapes that are mapped to geometric

primitives. A relatively unexplored

aspect of precision that is potentially

even more complex is contained within

some of the massive statues of ancient

Egypt. We know that several of them

display remarkable symmetry when mapped

from left to right. Symmetry being an

aspect of precision. But this is barely

a preliminary observation, an attempt to

simplify what is ultimately an

incredibly complex three-dimensional

object down to a 2D plane that overlaps

left on right and vice versa.

I'm sure there is a world of analysis

yet to be done on some of these

artifacts that visually at least seem to

display significant characteristics of

precision. There are a few 3D models of

parts at least of these statues. I had

one made via photoggramometry of the

head of one of these massive so-called

Ramsay statues at Luxor Temple back when

the head was still on the ground and

could be examined for sure. What is

needed here is for these artifacts to be

scanned in far higher resolution with

more advanced tools. I can only hope

that the ongoing efforts of individuals

and organizations like the artifact

foundation to progress the legitimacy of

engineering focused analysis and study

of ancient artifacts will make this

analysis of larger on-site artifacts

like these statues a possibility in the

future. I am pretty optimistic about

this as this effort is obviously gaining

much more traction particularly in the

recent couple of years thanks both to

the rapid development of modern and

portable highresolution scanning tools

and the access that such groups like the

artifact foundation are being granted to

go into prestigious institutions like

the British Museum. I happen to know

that there is some big news coming here

in the future.

Back to the corners blocks on the Giza

Plateau. They occupy from a precision

and manufacturing perspective something

of a middle ground. They're not as

simple as the flat surfaces and square

corners of a single piece box. Nor are

they as complex as these subtle

geometries and interrelated aspects of a

hardstone vase or statue. The geometry

and consistency of their manufacturing

with their precisely blended curvatures

made up of tangent circles of different

radi show significant sophistication.

And in fact, one aspect in particular on

these granite blocks is indicative of

machine processing as it's exactly how

we would do such a thing with our

machines today. We'll get into that.

First of all, some context for these

blocks. What exactly are they? Well,

there's three structures we're concerned

with to answer that question. The

corners blocks are remnants from the

mighty valley and sphinx temples that

sit at the eastern end of the great

causeway of the middle pyramid complex.

And these temples are all considered

parts of that same complex. They're all

attributed to the pharaoh kafra of the

fourth dynasty, as is the great sphinx

that they sit adjacent to. The so-called

couch blocks that we'll discuss later

can be found just south of the remnants

of the structure known as the pyramid or

morttery temple which sits up at the

other end of the causeway just east of

the middle pyramid. These shaped granite

blocks were all originally part of the

granite casing on these structures.

These buildings are even today some of

the most impressively constructed

megalithic architecture to be found

anywhere. The core or internal masonry

of the valley, sphinx, and pyramid

temples is made up of stacked and simply

enormous limestone blocks. Some weighing

anywhere from 40 to 50 tons right up to

an astonishing 450 tons. I have a video

on this channel showing that 450 ton

block specifically a part of the pyramid

temple of the middle pyramid complex and

it might well be the largest single

stone block on the entire Giza plateau.

The link for that is below.

The limestone coremasonry of these

structures is, as you can obviously see

here, very heavily eroded. In places,

this erosion has eaten so far into the

limestone, two or more feet, that it's

caused the massive stacked blocks to

topple over

here.

As you can see, this entire wall fell

down like that.

>> This is the casing stone from granite

and some of it still

>> at the side. But you can see that this

block used to be up until here.

>> And you can see the deterioration

on both sides on this block and on the

one that flipped.

>> Yeah.

>> Huh. Here.

>> Yeah.

>> So until the level that it could not

stand on top of it. So it fell down like

this. So all this happened from the

severe erosion.

As you can see the casing is stone here.

>> That's that used to encase the entire

temple.

>> Yeah.

>> Just like the valley temp down there.

And

>> as we mentioned before

that this block here

>> fell

>> fill.

It used to be on top of this one here.

Yeah. And some people think this is like

evidence for some sort of ramp or David

taken blocks here. But this actually

fell. It's a stupid idea. Yeah.

>> This is according to his YouTube

research. [laughter]

>> But we see the height of the lower

block. This is a separate block from

that one. And they are separated right

here.

>> And we can see the line of erosion. The

original width of the block is from

here.

until here, of course.

>> And the same for the one that fell.

>> Yeah.

>> So, as we can see, the deterioration

>> kept eroding and eroding until they

could no longer support each other

>> and it fell.

>> Yeah.

>> Just by realizing that, I looked at the

rest of the structure and you can see

the entire structure is actually falling

apart. Not from recycling.

>> From erosion.

>> From erosion.

>> Yeah, that's crazy.

>> It's crazy.

>> It is. Well,

>> it looks really old.

>> It does. It does seem quite old. Yes.

>> Of course,

>> need more investigation about this, but

it's not hard because if you compare the

other stones that were exposed and we

realized that the difference in stone

masonry.

>> Yeah.

>> Down there in the very thin, the same

quality of stone is over there. And it

was exposed. It was not even under a

kissing stone of granite.

>> Over the last century or so, the

antiquities department in Egypt has made

extensive repairs to try and stabilize

what's left here. They use bricks and

plaster to fill gaps. Then, usually

they'll plaster or concrete over the top

of that and then texture and paint the

repair to imitate the original

limestone.

Some of the repairs that have been made

here are super obvious, but in other

spots, it can be a little hard to tell

exactly what you're looking at unless

you're very familiar with spotting this

sort of modern repair work.

>> Now, we know that these stones were

encased with granite all the way to the

top and even there is some granite stone

casing

>> here on the other side.

>> Now,

the erosion was so severe.

>> I mean, look at this. the antiquities

>> repaired this

>> you know repaired it by by putting these

big blocks inside the erosion. So you

can imagine how severe this erosion was.

So this here is a restoration by the

ministry of antiquities and it's not the

only part.

>> Yeah.

>> There is this part here. This is the

part. All this is also smaller pieces

were made as reinforcement

for

>> this piece. Yes. This is all from

concrete in here. Yeah.

>> Restoration by the Ministry of

Antiquities

>> right here.

>> And I showed them these.

>> Yeah.

>> And then this is just like that with a

layer of cement on top.

>> That's all. [laughter]

>> And look at all the filling that was

created by the ministry. The entire

temple

>> all around. It was not just one softer

block that was eroded.

This entire section is filled with small

stones and then a little coating of

cement

>> to make it look like old limestone. Look

how eroded they are. Look at this.

>> I've seen some people mistake these

modern repairs as evidence for ancient

geopolymer use. That's definitely not

what this is. And nor for that matter

were any of these original limestone

blocks formed through some sort of

mysterious geopolymer process. I really

try hard not to get triggered by that

word, but I usually fail. These are

quarried blocks. The limestone comes

mostly from the plateau. We know where

the quaries are. And in these quaries,

you can see where they cut and removed

blocks from the bedrock. The limestone

itself is numalytic, which means it's

full of numalytes, which are fossils.

These are fossils of organisms that were

encased into the stone when it was

formed millions of years ago, back when

this was all an ancient seabed. The

limestone as a sedimentary formation

also has sedimentary layers in it, each

with slightly different hardnesses,

which leads to the specific erosional

patterns that we can see today where

parts or layers of the blocks have

eroded at different rates. We see the

exact same layered erosional patterns in

the exposed and cut bedrock of places

like the walls of the Sphinx enclosure.

These blocks are simply not cast from

some magical mysterious geopolymer

process. The erosion patterns, however,

on these blocks shows us something else.

Astonishingly, the ancient builders seem

to have lined up blocks from the same

part of the quarry and aligned them next

to each other with the same sedimentary

layers. As you can today see those

layers and the erosion on them going

across multiple blocks in structures

like the Sphinx temple. Bear in mind

that this remarkable and I'm sure very

troublesome and difficult detail of

aligning sedimentary layers across

multiple blocks was never even meant to

be visible as we're only talking about

the core masonry here.

All of these gigantic limestone blocks

were fully encased with similarly

massive granite blocks on both the

inside and outside of these structures.

The

>> same piece

also has one

rock the the grand stone casing and all

this work up there shows and the one on

top of it as well.

>> Yeah.

>> Shows that. So the temple was encased in

and out with granite stone which we see

the ruins of everywhere.

>> Yeah. This is granite. This is a granite

casing stone. So all of these all of

these shapes you see in the limestone

blocks that's all heavily eroded will

all cased in granite. And

>> most of these are

more than 100 ton. Most of the huge

blocks that we see

you can see over from granite stone and

white calite crystal as well.

>> Yeah. This is calcite, isn't it?

>> Yeah.

So the entire surrounding all this used

to be out until here. So this much

material eroded.

>> Yeah. It's I mean it's just

>> like this was once a perfect cube just

like the one on the other side.

>> Yeah.

>> The parts that is exposed

got eroded and only got exposed after

the granite is stone. Can you see what's

gone?

>> You can also see

>> the granite stone right here.

>> We can see this entire line that was

filled.

>> This is all Yeah.

>> And the higher parts as well.

>> And then is built

>> and then this is the casing stone.

Actually, this is the back of the casing

stones here.

You

>> kind of see it. So, this would have the

limestone came out to here.

>> Yeah.

>> And then this is the casing stone still

in place.

>> It came out further.

>> Yeah.

>> It looks like the granite came all the

way out here.

You can still see the patterns remaining

in the limestone walls of how the

granite was inset into the limestone at

different depths, adding to the

strength, complexity, and resilience of

these amazing megalithic buildings.

The Valley Temple is by far the best

preserved of the three and still has its

granite casing in place, at least on a

portion of it. The casing was likely

preserved from the deliberate

destruction, recycling, and quarrying

activity because it was buried in sand

for thousands of years. Lucky for us, as

we can still marvel today at the

incredible precision, fit, and finish of

this granite casing. Mortal joinery so

fine that in places it's difficult to

even see where one block has been fit to

the next. The tiny and abrupt ending of

the quartz, feltspar, and mica minerals

in the stone being the only clue. When

you're visiting the Valley Temple, it's

important to also apply the lens of

millennia of time to what you're seeing.

The majority of the preserved granite

casing today looks a little rough. But

as with the limestone, this is the

result of the long process of erosion

that again just like the limestone has

also affected the extremely hard ignous

rock of the casing. In a couple of

spots, like this unique dark colored

diorite or cyanite block, that's

obviously even harder than the granite

around it, you get an indication of what

the original finished and polished

surface of all of this granite casing

might have once been like. An inch or

more of the surface on most of these

granite blocks has spalled off due to

erosion over time. And the incredible

precise joinery between these massive

stones has become a little more obvious

due to the edges and corners of these

blocks eroding a little faster than the

rest of the surface, leaving the join

lines somewhat indented and indeed more

obvious.

When these amazing structures were in

their full pristine, majestic and

original states, it's very likely that

none of the joints were ever obviously

visible. likely not even perceivable

unless it was very closely inspected. In

one place, on one granite casing block

in an al cove of the Valley Temple, a

small patch of the original polished

granite surface is still incredibly

smooth to the touch, and it still

reflects light like a mirror. All of the

external surfaces of all of the casing

stones would have been originally flat,

smooth, and reflective, even more so

than this small patch.

Although I've lost count of how many

visits I've made in and around this

incredible building, it still blows my

mind every single time I see it in

person. Speaking of seeing it in person,

if you do want to come to Egypt with us

and see it for yourself, along with a

bunch of these other artifacts that I'll

eventually get around to discussing in

this video, we are going back to Egypt

in December of this year, and there

still are a few spots available on that

tour. If December doesn't work, my

annual Uncharted X Egypt tour for 2027

will take place in March next year. So,

if you're interested in that, make sure

you subscribe to my social media to

catch the announcements when

registrations become available. Links to

everything are below, and I'll give you

some more details on those trips at the

end of this video.

The Valley Temple serves another

important purpose when you're visiting

the plateau. When you're inside the

temple marveling at its intact casing

stones, alabaster floors, and huge

granite pillars, you should keep this

image in mind as it's what both the

Sphinx temple and the far larger pyramid

or morttery temple up at the other end

of the causeway would have originally

looked like. Today, we need to use our

imagination when we're viewing them, as

those structures have been almost

entirely pillaged of their alabaster and

granite.

There are only a few scattered and

broken blocks left as evidence for the

amazing casing stones [music] and huge

granite pillars that once stood here.

The interior of the Valley Temple had 16

of these huge singlepiece [music]

granite pillars, while the Morttery

Temple up next to the pyramid had 24 of

them and a far larger footprint.

The Sphinx Temple, which sits right next

to the Valley Temple, is off limits to

the public and hasn't [music] been

accessed or well documented for decades,

at least until my contacts in Egypt

worked with the tourism ministry to

create a special permission in order to

enter it. And I got to document the

first good look inside the Sphinx Temple

in decades. And I reported on all of

that in this video here linked below.

It's also quite likely that these

structures had more than one level to

[music] them. Although just the ground

or lower level is what's left to us

today. In fact, there's hard evidence

for an upper level at the Valley Temple.

[music] In places, you can see that the

exposed limestone core masonry blocks,

which are very heavily eroded, go quite

high up vertically, far above the

buttress ceiling of the inner courtyard.

When you're walking up the ramp to the

Sphinx viewing platform, if you look up

above you, you can see evidence for a

granite doorway, which evidently led to

somewhere. And this is clearly the

remnants of a passage on an upper level.

This same passage that you walk through

today to get to the Sphinx is open to

the sky, but in the past it was almost

certainly fully encased and internal to

the structure. Another thing to look at

as you walk up this ramp on the left and

right there are two closed off ales.

I've never managed to get behind these

locked doors, but if you shine a

flashlight in there, what you'll see is

quite amazing. The walls are made of

solid blocks of beautiful white

alabaster that contrasts vividly against

the surrounding granite. I think that

these were most likely staircases to

access the upper levels. And maybe one

day I'll get the chance to get in here

and take a closer look. There are a

couple of obvious mysteries apparent to

anyone who carefully considers the

megalithic structures of the valley

sphinx and pyramid temples. The primary

question about them, which has long

occupied my mind, is just how old must

they be? I've done a deep dive into the

erosional features of the limestone

coremasonry in this video. I'd highly

recommend it if you haven't seen it, as

I think it presents some of the

strongest evidence for a far longer

timeline of occupation on the Giza

Plateau.

In summary, though, getting two or more

feet of erosion into hard numalytic

limestone takes many, many thousands of

years. many times more than the 4,500 or

so years of age attributed to this work

by mainstream Egyptology. And this would

be the case even for environments that

are far more erosive to limestone than

the dry desert climate of the Giza

Plateau.

The extreme age of these structures

becomes far more apparent when you

perform the simplest of comparisons

between them and the other fourth

dynasty structures around them. For

example, the place known as the Western

Cemetery, which sits to the west of the

Great Pyramid, is absolutely attributed

to King Kufu of the fourth dynasty.

According to the standard model, the

Western Cemetery is even slightly older

than the Valley, Sphinx, and Morttery

temples found in the middle pyramid

complex, which is all attributed to

Kufu's descendant, Kafra. The structures

of the Western Cemetery are not very far

away from the megalithic pyramid temple.

They are made of the same limestone as

the pyramid temple, albeit from vastly

smaller individual blocks. The

structures are at the same elevation

level as the pyramid temple, and they

would have been subject to exactly the

same climatic and erosional forces over

the last 4,000 years.

Despite this, the Western cemetery is

generally in great condition today. In

parts, it's barely even eroded at all.

And certainly it is in a far better

state than the extreme erosion we can

find on the much larger megalithic

masonry of the pyramid sphinx and valley

temples.

>> So this is all fourth dynasty.

>> Yeah.

>> Part of the pyramid complex.

>> Of course. This is part of the pyramid

city.

>> The pyramid city, right?

>> Yeah. You can see the stone masonry is

beautiful.

>> Yeah. It's lovely.

>> That's why we always say we don't want

to underestimate the dynastic Egyptians.

Look at the beautiful stone me.

>> It lasted for thousands of years.

>> Yeah.

>> But this is finished. When we look at

something like that, that is also eroded

because it was never finished. It was

never flattened.

>> Yeah. You can see that. So this was

flattened here.

>> Yeah. This one is flattened. The rest

this was the erosion of the mountain

itself

>> when they

>> just Yeah. When they extracted

the other ones is the ones that got

finished after construction. M.

>> So this was finished in the old kingdom

days and here it is. This is the same we

we're looking at this example because

this is the same type of stone that we

looked at the interior over there. This

is exactly the same because it's coming

from here from the bedrock here.

>> And as you can see,

>> yeah, it's nicely not eroded. Yeah.

Yeah.

>> Oh, look how it looks like it's it is

thousands of years old. But the level of

erosion,

>> it's not the same.

>> It's not the same. Here we see this

erosion. This is the erosion of the

rocks itself before they flatten the

surface. The other one we know that it

was built and it was indented to have

the kissing stone of the granite and

then the erosion happened after the

granite stone was removed.

>> What's more, none of this barely eroded

limestone in the western cemetery was

ever encased in granite. How is this

possible? The much larger megalithic

structures of the valley sphinx and

pyramid temples with their internal

limestone blocks weighing up to 450 tons

would have been protected from the

elements by similarly massive granite

casing stones themselves weighing in

easily at 30 40 50 even 80 tons or more.

Presumably this protection would have

been there for thousands of years. So,

just how long must it have taken to both

fall apart and then for erosion to

affect the inner limestone to this

degree? It just doesn't make sense if

you're trying to put everything here on

the plateau on the same timeline.

It does make sense, however, if you open

your mind to the possibility that the

gigantic and megalithic structures might

just be far older than the surrounding

smaller blocks of the more primitive

construction that is also all attributed

to the fourth dynasty in the standard

model.

Once you see it, this comparison between

building styles, the smaller blocks of

the less eroded structures contrasted to

the massive megalithic and heavily

eroded buildings, the difference between

them becomes extremely obvious and very

difficult to rationalize within the

standard model.

There is one last little thing that I

want to mention before I get into the

corners blocks, as it's something I've

been puzzling over for several years

now. I've heard some people report that

in places on the valley temple, it seems

like the granite has been shaped to fit

the erosion of the limestone core

masonry that sits behind it. This has

never really made sense to me. If this

was the case, it implies that there were

multiple phases of construction here,

likely separated by many thousands of

years.

We know that the limestone core blocks

were originally in good condition, flat

and square, as we can see that

characteristic on some of them that are

still protected from the elements by

their neighbors. This means that they

must have stood there without casing

stones for many thousands of years, very

likely tens of thousands of years to

become so very eroded, after which time

they were then cased by megalithic

granite that was shaped to fit them. The

granite casing itself was also an

incredible effort of megalithic

construction. Huge granite blocks

shipped from roughly 500 miles away,

precisely fitted together without mortar

with the characteristic around the

corner joinery and polished to a flat

and reflective finish. I do not believe

that the dynastic Egyptians were capable

of this work. I think it's far older and

was likely work done by a more advanced

civilization, one that existed much

further back in time than the fourth

dynasty of the old kingdom. That this

granite work is extremely old is

supported by the spalled and eroded

granite surfaces of the stones that

still remain. It's not as bad as the

limestone erosion, but that's because

granite is far harder and tougher stuff

than limestone, and it erodess at a

vastly slower rate. If we consider all

this under the premise that this granite

was shaped to fit the already eroded

limestone, we're now talking about

multiple ancient civilizations doing

massive megalithic work. Civilizations

that were separated themselves by tens

of thousands of years. And I just don't

think that's how these structures were

designed. So, like I said, this premise

really does not make sense to me. So,

I've been seeking out these places where

it seems that the granite has been

shaped to fit the eroded limestone. By

no means is my investigation complete.

In fact, it'll be a focus for me the

next time I'm there on the Giza Plateau.

But one of these main spots, as far as I

can tell, is behind one of the

front-facing granite casing stones. And

it looks like indeed this has been

shaped and fitted to an eroded limestone

block behind it. However, as I said

before, it can be tough to know exactly

what you're looking at because this is a

modern concrete repair. Much like the

eroded limestone, the granite blocks

have also been reconstructed and

repaired over the last couple hundred

years by the Ministry of Antiquities in

Egypt. And here, the whole space behind

this granite block has been filled in

with bricks, plastered and concreted

over, and then painted and textured to

look like granite. So, no, I do not

think that the granite casing was fitted

to this structure after it was already

eroded. I think it was designed this way

to have a limestone core and a granite

casing. In fact, when you think about

it, it's the only way the structures

design makes sense. That it was intended

to have both layers and that both the

core and casing masonry are contemporary

with each other. That it was designed

this way is further supported by the

obvious evidence for the indentation of

the limestone blocks intended to take

and socket in the granite casing stones.

Further, we still have several intact

granite casing stones, as well as these

granite corners blocks that were all

part of the casing, and they're all

standing separate and alone. None of

them show any evidence on any side of

being deliberately shaped to fit the

random patterns of erosion. I am going

to look into this further, but at this

point, no. The granite of the valley

temple was not fitted to already eroded

limestone blocks. I think it was

originally designed and built with both

the limestone core and granite casing in

mind.

So, as I mentioned, one aspect of the

granite casing on these structures is

that it most definitely featured a

cornis, which is an artistic curved lip

that likely ran around the entire

building at its top.

I've monkeyed around with some of the AI

tools to try and illustrate just how a

multi-level megalithic valley temple

with a cornice might have looked. Now, I

don't think this is anything close to

the truth. And to be honest, being a

real life full-time YouTuber who writes

his own scripts, records his own

voiceovers, films his own on-site

footage, and painstakingly, believe me,

assembles his own videos, I'm not a big

supporter of AI generation tools.

Frankly, it's a scourge on YouTube. I

can't stand the AI content. It just

drives me nuts. But in this case, I hope

that my 5 minutes of effort playing

around with Grock and Gemini can at

least give an indication of the role

that this cornis likely played on the

original structure. Even if I don't

think that any of these really represent

what the structure originally looked

like. So, how do we know that there was

a corners here? Well, because we still

have some of these granite cornis

blocks, and they're amazing. Lying on

the ground next to the exposed limestone

of the southern wall of the valley

temple, you can find several broken

pieces of corners blocks. And one of

them has been incredibly well preserved,

likely buried in sand for millennia. And

it's a good place to start our closer

examination of them. Just visually, you

can still see the amazing polish of the

precisely machined smooth surface. It

still reflects light. The granite here,

as is most of the granite of these

structures, is of amazingly high quality

with large mineral and crystal

formations, indicative that it was once

quarried from deep within a granite

outcrop. You just can't get granite of

this quality anywhere near the surface.

You have to go deep inside a granite

formation to be able to quarry out large

blocks of highquality flawless granite

like this. When I'm at the plateau, I

really love to show people this block as

you can get a tactile hands-on sense of

just how smooth and consistent the

finish really is. I've personally put a

precision straight edge across the

surface of this block and did not

perceive any variation in the surface

finish. And I'm certainly not the first

to do so. In fact, I was replicating an

investigation that was conducted by my

good friend and teacher, manufacturing

expert and engineer Christopher Dunn. He

was first shown this same corners block

by author Steven Maylor in 2004. And he

wrote about it in his book Lost

Technologies of Ancient Egypt. Quoting

Christopher Dunn, quote, I was curious

to see this example of ancient Egyptian

stonework and my curiosity was rewarded.

It provides an excellent example of what

could be described as an evolutionary

step from a simple flat surface to the

more complex geometries of ancient

Egyptian statuary. In other words, if we

consider a flat surface as the

projection of a flat vertical line along

a horizontal line, then the block on the

south side of the valley temple is the

projection of a profile composed of

tangent radi and straight lines across a

perpendicular horizontal line. What is

remarkable and important about the

valley temple contoured block is that it

shows that the ancient Egyptians crafted

not only flat surfaces but also

contoured surfaces with uncommon

precision. As any engineer can tell you,

a customer's specifications regarding

the accuracy of their product will

determine its final cost when

considering the significance of this

contoured block. Therefore, we must keep

in mind that it was obviously an

architectural element that at one time

was positioned on the top of a wall

beyond the close inspection of

passerbys.

If the contour varied slightly from its

path, it would not be noticed, nor would

it affect the purpose it served. Sliding

the 12-in straight edge along the crown

of the convex radius there, I could not

detect any variation, which would be

revealed by light showing through the

straight edges interface with the stone.

At several locations around the ark, I

repeated the inspection with the gauge

coaxle with the center line of the

radius and found remarkable consistency.

From a photograph taken at the end of

the cornis, we discovered that the

ancient Egyptians applied the geometry

of tangent circles in building

three-dimensional form. I tried to

detect a variation in the smoothness of

the transition between the large concave

radius and the small convex radius, but

I could detect nothing but perfection of

form. There are no ripples on the

surface. There are no ridges or bumps or

depressions. The precision and geometry

of the piece cause it to stand apart

from many other artifacts laying around

it. We can be reasonably certain,

especially following what we have

learned of the design protocols on the

statues and crowns, that the piece was

crafted to conform to exactness using

true arcs as the design element. But the

question still remains, why go to such

trouble for an architectural detail that

goes into a building? from a distant

epoch in time. It would not be

surprising to find a cornice that had

been bush hammered and then given a

polish without regard to a high level of

precision. But to discover not only

strict constraints in the design, but

also the adherence to machine-like

precision on a granite block that is

destined merely to look elegant and

attractive provides more evidence in the

emerging picture of lost technology in

ancient Egypt. End quote. Chris is

asking a relevant question here, one

that does not have an apparent answer.

If you believe that this contoured

cornis block was made by hand with the

primitive technologies attributed to the

fourth dynasty, namely by manually

banging on it with rocks and rubbing on

it with sand. The question of why this

block seems to have been made from a

strict design with machine-like

precision does have an obvious answer if

you're open to the possibility that

indeed that's exactly what happened. It

was made from a design with a machine. A

machine that followed those design

parameters and delivered them with

exactness and precision. This is

precisely what this evidence suggests.

Chris Dunn here does ask another

interesting question, one for which I

happen to have the answer, and it's an

answer that supports my last statement

about machine-made stone blocks with

more hard evidence. Quote, there is an

even greater mystery to this forgotten

piece of Egyptian architecture. If we

discount the smaller piece nearby as

originally a part of the piece we are

studying, then there is only one piece

that has survived. If the entire wall of

the temple was capped by dozens of these

elements that weigh approximately 17

tons each, where did the rest of them

go? It seems that more of them would

have survived if such a large number of

pieces had been manufactured. End quote.

The smaller piece that Chris is

referring to here is a broken section of

the block that we've been looking at.

It's lying on its side just nearby.

Although it would not be an implausible

conclusion that all of the other corners

blocks had been quarried and recycled

through the thousands of years of

deliberate destruction that took place

here. A pretty good percentage of these

other corners blocks that Dun is

searching for do indeed exist and I know

exactly where they are. There are two of

these corners blocks that are still

sitting out in front of the Sphinx

temple. They are of the exact same form

as the block we were just looking at,

albeit with more degraded surfaces.

These two have not been as well

preserved over the millennia as the

other example.

>> These are the pieces that used to hold

the top of the temple. We can call it a

car.

>> Yeah.

>> On top of the casing stone. It's upside

down, of course.

>> Yeah. Yeah.

>> And this is the famous pieces according

to

Christopher Dan the engineer. He labeled

those as the smoking guns he saw in

these the ultimate evidence of ancient

advanced technology.

>> There are also many more of these same

corners blocks, well over a dozen of

them. However, they're outside of the

public view placed in the space between

the valley and sphinx temple behind the

lock steel gates that have bounded this

area for decades. The corners blocks

here are all oriented such that their

contoured corners fronts are hidden from

view. And looking down the gap here in

front of the temples through the steel

grate, it appears as if these are

nothing more than relatively regular and

square granite casing stones. Those

things that are in evidence from all

over this area. However, if you peek

down at them from the other side from

the end of the Sphinx viewing platform,

you start to get a hint of their hidden

complexity and form. If you're lucky

enough to gain access into the Sphinx

Temple via a special permission, as my

group has on several occasions, you can

get right down into this area and take a

much closer look at the many corners

blocks that are tucked away in here.

Here is the answer to Chris Dunn's

question. As by my count, there are at

least some 17 of them stashed away in

this alley between the Sphinx and Valley

Temples.

So, in this is the area between the two

temples.

And you can see this is the outside of

the valley temple. It was cased. These

were both cased in granite. In fact, you

can still see some more interior granite

works, but you can see how the granite

blocks were locked in place here. And I

think one of the most interesting parts

of this whole space that they hide away

from us, and I pointed this out on the

first day, I think you can peek through

the the door and see it, but we get to

see it now, is these a whole stack of

these corners blocks. These were the

corners blocks that were at the top

layer of the temple.

And uh they're all very regular, very

very nicely made granite blocks like the

ones we saw

uh on the other side. But there's, as

you can tell, there were a whole stack

of them.

I just pile them up here and sort of

turn them around so people can't see it.

And just getting this sort of repeated

compound curved surfaces so consistently

made is just super impressive. Like this

is you can just imagine these temples

with their granite casing and then this

these cornises across the front probably

around the sides as well. There were a

lot more of these blocks at the time.

There's more of them here turned on

their side just massive chunks of

granite that were all So this was you

know lining granite. This was this the

the Sphinx temple here was also uh cased

in granite. Now I haven't taken

measurements of these blocks in any

significant detail but this is

absolutely something that I think should

happen. Technically even using a simple

measuring tape on the Giza plateau is

against the regulations. Although minor

acts of rebellious unregulated science

like that are mostly ignored in

practice. [music]

However, any actual significant effort

to document or investigate artifacts

like these is [music] really only

possible with the very complex,

expensive, and politically difficult

permissions granted from the authorities

and institutions in charge. I say this

so it's clear that I don't know for sure

just how exact these blocks are relative

to each other, and I don't know their

exact [music] dimensions. But having

been in this area several times, I can

tell you that they certainly seem to be

more or less identical to each other,

particularly in their contours and in

the radi of the tangent circular curves,

as if they were stamped out in some sort

of factory.

That observation has led me to suspect,

building on the speculation of Chris

Dunn, that they may well have been

produced or machined, if you will, from

the same design, with the same

constraints, and delivered with the same

precision. Hm. On an unrelated note, it

is quite amazing what can be learned

with the use of a modern LAR sensor. So,

you never know.

Up at the other end of the causeway at

the Pyramid or Morttery Temple, which

sits just east of the Middle Pyramid,

there is another granite block that has

remarkable implications for ancient

machining and precision on the Giza

Plateau. Found just to the south of the

eroded remains of that pyramid temple.

And next to one of the so-called boat

pits, you can find contoured granite

pieces that are somewhat colloquially

known [music] as the couch blocks.

They're called the couch blocks for the

obvious reason they kind of look like a

couch. The curvatures and shapes cut

into the granite are somewhat in the

shape of a couch or a sofa. It has a

seat. It has two arms and it has a back

rest. The piece is broken into two

pieces with one end of it with an arm of

the couch sitting on its side just next

to the main piece. This stone block,

although somewhat similar to the corner

stones, is not a cornice. It has a

beginning and an end with the two arms

and they border a specific span. And I

suspect this might have been installed

over the top of a doorway or opening.

There are examples of other similar

shapes that have been roughly carved

into limestone blocks or into bedrock at

other parts of the plateau. I suspect

this is imitation of the older granite

work, a topic that we'll touch on later,

but the point is this original granite

block was probably something placed in a

specific and important location. We'll

never likely know exactly where it was,

as overall the pyramid temple has been

quarried and robbed of its granite to a

much greater extent than the Valley

Temple. It's possible, I'd say it's even

likely that this structure also featured

a cornice on its outer casing, but I've

not seen any evidence or remnants of

actual cornice blocks up here at this

end of the causeway. That said, this

contoured couch block, while similar in

its curvatures to the cornerstones, is a

bit more complex than them with its

inside corners, relief, and opposing

faces. I remember when we were standing

here on the technospiritual tour 2013

and I listened to Christopher done

lecturing about this. But he said the

finishing that was done here as if it

was done with a a bowl.

>> Yeah.

>> Finishing this work after it was you

know.

>> Yep.

>> So and you can see this in here. He he

makes he makes

>> I see it also on the unfinished the box

by the way.

>> Yeah, it's the same as this. He he makes

the point that this is actually a modern

manufacturing technique

>> that's done to widen this.

>> It it makes this Yeah. widens the curve

so it's it's less likely to fail. And he

said this is exactly what you would do

with modern manufacturing to strengthen

something. [laughter]

>> And it's insanely smooth.

>> Yesterday is similar like today.

>> Yeah. like philender Petri noticed the

machining and called it modern

machining. When humanity reached that

level of understanding or of this

machinery,

>> we started to become aware of it.

>> Analysis of its features work done by

Chris Dunn over several visits here has

significant implications for how it must

have been created and quite simply the

results show that it's just not

something that could ever have been made

by hand. Quoting Chris Dunn from the

Giza power plant. Quote, "Another

artifact I inspected was a piece of

granite that I quite literally stumbled

across while strolling around the Giza

Plateau later that day. I concluded

after doing a preliminary check of this

piece that the ancient pyramid builders

had to have used a machine with three

axes of movement XYZ to guide the tool

in three-dimensional space to create it.

This artifact is very precise even

though it is a complex contoured shape.

Flat surfaces having a simple geometry

can justifiably be explained as having

been created by simple methods. This

piece though because of its shape drives

us beyond the question what tools were

used to cut it to a more far-reaching

question what guided the cutting tool.

To properly address this question and to

be comfortable with the answer, it's

helpful for us to have a working

knowledge of contour machining. Most of

the artifacts that modern civilization

creates would be impossible to produce

using simple handwork. We are surrounded

by artifacts that are the result of men

and women employing their minds to

create tools that overcome physical

limitations. We have developed machine

tools to create the dyes that produce

the aesthetic contours on the cars that

we drive, the radios we listen to, and

the appliances we use. To create the

dyes to produce those items, a cutting

tool has to accurately follow a

predetermined contoured path in three

dimensions. The development of computer

software has allowed some applications

to move in three dimensions while

simultaneously using three or more axes

of movement. The Egyptian artifact that

I was looking at required a minimum of

three axes of motion to machine it. to

know that an artifact had been produced

on such a machine. Therefore, one would

expect to see a precise surface with

indication of tool marks that show the

path of the tool. This is what I found

on the Giza plateau lying out in the

open south of the Great Pyramid about

100 yards east of Kuffis Pyramid. End

quote. Chris Dunn investigated the

so-called couch block with several

machinists tools. He used a precision

straight edge on the axial surface of

the contour along its length and found

the surface to be quote extremely

precise with no light showing through.

The only imperfection he could detect

was where the part had cracked and

that's really to be expected.

Continuing now with Dunn from his later

work, Lost Technologies of Ancient

Egypt. Quote, "The seat of the couch

comprises tangent radi that flow down to

the front with no discernable variation,

ripple, dips, bumps, or ridges. The

quality and precision of the piece are

the same as on the corners near the

valley temple. The only drift from

perfection is a crack that runs

perpendicular to the length. The radi

are expressed in figure 6.19 as three

circles. There are slight variations in

this view because of the unevenness of

the broken ends. The inset shows the end

view without the drafted overlay. I

inspected the seat by holding the

straight edge at several locations along

its length and around the contour. There

was no variation in the accuracy of the

contour along the length of the seat.

End quote. The radius of the contour of

the seat of the couch was checked in

several locations with a wire radius

gauge. And again, Chris Dunn found it to

be extremely consistent and precise at

different locations along its length.

The inner contour or the relief, the

small radius that is carved into the

tangency point between the seat and the

arms and the back rest was measured with

forming wax. The way this works is the

wax is heated up and then it's pressed

into the radius of the contour. Once it

forms and hardens, you can then check

the consistency of the radius at other

places of the piece. Using this method,

Chris Dunn verified that the radius of

this relief is also precisely consistent

wherever he checked it. As amazing as

this is, it wasn't the only observation

that he made about this radial relief,

and it's not even the most significant.

Quote, "From a manufacturing

perspective, this piece would be more

difficult to manufacture than the

corners. The corners has a simple

contour that is projected along a

precise path without interruption. The

couch has three vertical walls that I

call arms and back with a transitional

and true 0.437

in or 11.112 mm tangent blend radius

between the profile of the seat and the

vertical arms and back. That is

consistent by comparative measure all

around. The comparative measure was made

from forming wax that was pressed into

the radius and then checked in several

places along the arm and back. What I

discovered with the wax was a uniform

radius tangental to the contour the back

and the side wall. This I believe is a

significant finding, but it was not the

only one. The side blend radius I found

has a design feature that is a common

engineering practice today. The ancient

machinists had cut a relief at the

corner, a technique that modern

engineers used to allow a mating part

with a small radius to match or butt up

against a surface with a larger blend

radius. This feature provides for a more

efficient machining operation because it

allows the use of a cutting tool with a

large diameter and therefore a large

radius. This means that the tool had

greater rigidity and more material can

be removed when making the cut.

We can clearly see the machinist

friendly feature of the couch in the

corner of figure 6.20, the radius relief

in the corner. This technique is

commonly used by designers who wish to

have a corner that has strength and also

allows for the use of a larger instead

of a weaker tool in machining. In view

AA in figure 6.17, we see the

difference. Using a tool the diameter of

D instead of E along with a relief cut

into the seat allowed straight edge C to

fit closer to the arm. The contoured

block on the Giza plateau is an

extraordinary piece. End quote. This is

astonishing evidence for ancient

machining. There's really no other way

to explain this radial relief on the

inside corner. the blended interface

between the seat, back and arms of this

block. Even a layman with no

understanding of machining at all can

look at this and see that it would be

difficult to create under any

circumstance. But when the best

explanation for it is so coupled to the

intricacies of modern machining methods,

how else do you account for it? to try

and explain this away under the standard

model of primitive handwork whereby this

feature was created with remarkable

consistency and precision for that

matter by some poor loin clothwearing

worker just rubbing back and forth on

this granite block with a small stone

ball

>> as if it was done with a a ball

>> and somehow getting consistent precise

results is pure infantile ignorance.

It's just nonsense. But hey, if you

think that, I know one way that you can

test it. Get yourself some granite, get

yourself a small stone ball, and go to

town. Good luck with that. This feature

is hard evidence for sophisticated

ancient machining. And the couch block

at Giza isn't even the only place that

you can find it.

>> You can see it also on the unfinished

box. By the way,

>> in the old Cairo Museum, one of the more

interesting pieces is an unfinished and

uninscribed stone box. It's tucked away

in a tight corner because it's not

considered to be particularly important

as it has no inscriptions. Nothing could

be further from the truth as this is an

incredibly important ancient artifact.

Many of you may have seen it before in

various videos and I've certainly talked

about it before. It primarily gets

attention because of the huge saw cuts

and striations on its bottom side where

the lid was in the process of being sorn

off the quarry block and then at some

point the lid cracked, it broke off and

the piece was abandoned. The inside of

the box gets far less attention than the

saw cuts on its bottom. However, I

always take the time to show people the

inside of it and discuss it when we're

here in the museum. I do this because

the inside of the box is also unfinished

and it has the same feature of advanced

machining as does the couch block at

Giza. The cavity of the box here was

almost complete, but not quite. It had

been already hollowed out, but the

surfaces, the walls and the floor of the

box had not quite been lowered or cut

down to what would have likely been

their intended heights. In that radial

interface between the floor and the

walls of the box, we can see the exact

same feature that we saw on the

interface between surfaces of the couch

block, a contoured radial relief. So,

you can see how these things were made.

There's actually, you see, they they

weren't finished flattening these walls

down. You see how there's there's like

an indent, a curve

>> along the inside,

>> and it's a it's at a lower level than

the walls. So they would they would cut

these corners out to where they wanted

it to be and then they were slowly

flattening these walls down to get them

to that level. But for whatever reason,

I guess when the lid broke, they must

have been working on both the inside and

the outside at the same time.

>> And this very pronounced over here

almost like a Dremel,

>> some sort of some sort of Dremel tool

was used

>> on the on the inside curvatures.

So this is the value of unfinished work,

right? But we can get a look at some of

the machine witness marks from the

process and then get an idea on how they

were doing this. They were, you know,

they were finishing the inside corners

first and then flattening the surfaces

of the box down to it. And once the lid

broke off the back, I guess they just

abandoned it and left it be. There's

even a nub on the back wall there still

left for some reason. As with the couch

block at Giza, in this unfinished block

in the Ko Museum, we find a machinist's

friendly feature that is similar to how

we would do this sort of work today with

our modern and computerguided machines.

This radial relief allows for a larger

tool to be used, which is stronger than

a smaller tool, which can remove more

material and still create an angle

change with some strength.

We only see the witness marks of this

process today because this box is

unfinished. I expect that the intention

was to lower the level of the floor and

walls on the inside of the box such that

they were tangental at 90° to the radius

of the curve in the corner, leaving just

a corner radius without any actual

relief. Perhaps this is how many of

these stone boxes were made. It's quite

remarkable and it's only something you

would do if you had access to such

tools, ones that worked in a similar

fashion to our modern tools. And this

witness mark is only still available to

us because the piece was never finished.

The last topic I want to touch on here

is the form and stylistic connections

that stretch over thousands of years

between the different industries and the

different technological levels of

ancient Egyptian artifacts and

architecture.

If you've seen some of my work before,

you may be familiar with this concept.

It's something I've termed the tale of

two industries. It's quite evident that

there are two very different and

distinct technological levels at play in

the remains of the artifacts and

architecture from ancient Egypt. We have

already briefly discussed this concept

by [music] comparing the massive

megalithic limestone and granite

structures standing on the Giza plateau,

those that are very heavily eroded and

visibly ancient to the other structures

on the plateau, those made from much

smaller and less complex stone blocks

that are also typically far less

weathered and in comparatively good

condition. While all of this put

together is all attributed in the

standard model to the same time period,

the fourth dynasty.

This concept extends across just about

every category of artifact or

architecture. From these small stone

vases to the statues, boxes, obelisks,

columns, temples, and even to the mighty

pyramids themselves. [music]

For each of these, there exists a

relatively primitive industry. One whose

artifacts and output is well explained

by the tools we've discovered the

ancient dynastic Egyptians used. Things

like flint and copper chisels, pounding

stones, sticks, hemp rope, and simple

levers.

The tools that we found and how they

were used is depicted and documented on

the walls of temples and tombs from that

time period in scenes of daily life and

the work and trades from a flourishing

bronze age culture.

However, at the same time, there also

exists a far more advanced industry. One

of massively megalithic structures made

from impossibly precisely joined blocks

of ignous rock. One of precision

artifacts, of unbelievable logistical

achievements, and of machined stone with

complex sophisticated attributes and

sometimes even the witness marks left

from powerful tools.

This industry and its output cannot be

explained by the primitive tools of the

dynastic Egyptians. It is not depicted

in any scenes drawn on walls from that

civilization and it presents a whole

host of challenging problems and

contradictions for the standard model of

history which insists that these are all

one and the same thing. They are not.

One of the primary contradictions

presented by these two industries comes

from how the standard model is forced to

date them. The advanced work, the

difficult, complex, precise and

megalithic artifacts and architecture

was definitely there at the beginning of

dynastic Egypt. So the standard model

has to date them that way as the work

from the earliest parts of that

civilization with much of the far more

primitive industries output being dated

to later times. This just isn't how

technological progress works. You don't

put the Porsche before the horse and

cart. But here we are. It's a huge and

generally unagnowledged contradiction in

the standard model of ancient Egyptian

history that the older stuff is so much

more sophisticated, complex, and

difficult than later work.

For example, the very long list of

incredible achievements represented by

the great pyramid and its neighbors at

Giza, Dashor, Madum, Abberash, and

elsewhere are attributed to the very

beginnings of dynastic Egypt, the third

and fourth dynasties and are supposedly

amongst the first pyramids ever made.

There are many more pyramids that were

made after this. The dynastic Egyptians

kept on building them right into the

beginnings of the new kingdom, thousands

of years after the fourth dynasty. But

these pyramids are all far more

primitive and much smaller mud brick

structures. Not remotely the same thing

as the mighty and ancient megalithic

stone structures that we still stand in

or of today at the Giza Plateau. A

similar story presents itself with the

hardstone phases, which go back far into

pre-dynastic times and seemingly cease

production early on in the Old Kingdom,

only to be replaced by an industry of

far more primitive handmade and not at

all precise alabaster vessels. This list

of contradictions and problems in the

standard model when considering these

two industries goes on and on. And I've

covered these topics in depth in several

videos, but primarily in this one, which

is my full lecture on the tale of two

industries. I'd recommend that if you

want to get into the details. How this

concept applies here to the blocks that

we're talking about today involves a

couple of the other primary concepts

that must be considered when

investigating these mysteries. namely

those of inheritance, imitation, and

reuse. I think, and this will not really

be a surprise to anyone, that the best

way to explain the evidence of these two

industries and the apparent timeline in

ancient Egypt is to be open to the

possibility that a far more advanced

civilization, one with the capability to

do the sort of things I talk about on

this channel, existed far back in time,

long before the civilization that we

know as dynastic Egypt ever existed.

This lost ancient civilization was wiped

out likely from some form of global

cataclysm. But regardless of the cause,

it's evident that it stopped [music]

suddenly and it was then lost to the

mists of time and many thousands of

years only to be remembered in the

creation myths of cultures from all

around the world and evidenced by the

incredible and ancient stonework that is

left as the only physical remnant of

their presence.

Within this context, you might imagine

how an emerging civilization like the

one that began in Egypt around 3000 BC

of a people who by nature of their

distant ancestors inherited [music] and

began their culture with not only a

cultural memory of this lost

civilization, but also a host of

inherited stone artifacts and massive

[music] megalithic stone structures.

They would respect and revere these

impressive works. They would connect

them to the glory and power of their

ancestors. And perhaps over time, as

their own capabilities grew, they would

even seek to imitate, to replicate, and

to reuse them. I think this is exactly

what we see in ancient Egypt in the

output of the tale of two industries.

[music] a great effort on the part of

the dynastic Egyptians over thousands of

years to replicate and imitate the works

of their ancestors to put themselves

closer to them. [music]

In the perception of the donastic

Egyptians, they evidently considered

their distant ancestors as powerful,

magical, and godlike. How else could you

perceive them? If you're living in a

cave, banging on things with rocks, and

you come across a 1,000 ton granite

statue of a god, or a massive megalithic

stone structure, standing alone and

uninscribed in the middle of the desert

sands. Indeed, godlike is exactly how

they are described in the ancient

Egyptian history, which stretches back

more than 40,000 years to the time of

Zepte when they say that the gods

themselves walked to the earth before

they were struck down with cataclysm.

funnily enough, this account of

civilized ancestors being destroyed and

of humans being forced to begin the

process of civilization again generally

matches the other origin stories and

legends from many other cultures, our

own included.

However, in the case of the ancient

Egyptian histories and timelines, as is

the case for pretty much every other

cataclysmic origin story from around the

world, our modern historians in all

their arrogance dismiss [music] them as

purely fictional myth. I think the forms

that we see wrought in the stone of the

megalithic machined and precise

structures, the corners, the bullnoses,

the overall architectural design, I

think that came from this lost ancient

civilization. I think these forms were

imitated and replicated in the later

works of the donastic Egyptians. Many of

these forms, things like cornises and

bullnoses or the flared design of lotus

flower or palm columns or the mighty

obelisks themselves are all attributed

and specifically dated to the later

periods of dynastic Egypt by

Egyptologists to the [music] new kingdom

or the tomic era. These artifacts that

have these features, things like the

great granite shrine and the other

granite artifacts that are found on

Elephantine Island, all the massive

obelisks that are found on Luxor and

Carak temples are all dated to these

later periods because the site itself is

dated to those periods. The truth is

much more nuanced than that. However, on

many even most of these sites that are

generally attributed to the later

periods, places like Carac or Lux

Temple, Alphantine Island, the Ramiseum,

there is absolutely evidence that these

sites were there and did exist in the

Old Kingdom which was thousands of years

prior.

Just because the sites had been

renovated, rebuilt or extended in the

new kingdom or the tomic Greek Roman

period, it does not mean that everything

here dates to that period. The great

temple to Horus at Edfu is dated firmly

to 57 BC, which was in the tomic period.

There's records of it being built.

Perhaps being rebuilt is a better term

because it was being built on and around

a pre-existing site. Records exist of

King Zoza of the Third dynasty from the

2,600s BC traveling to Edfu and making

offerings here. This whole temple is

built around a granite shrine with all

the hallmarks of lost ancient

technology. And I think that's exactly

what happened. This temple was rebuilt

and renovated around artifacts long

inherited by the ancient Egyptian

civilization.

Nonetheless, because these sites are

dated to later periods, Egyptologists

make the faulty leap of logic to say

that everything on the site like the

shrines, singlepiece granite columns,

obelisks, and gigantic statues were all

made by the dynastic Egyptians in that

period. And therefore, they were capable

of this work regardless of the tools

that we found. [music] And that these

forms and styles represented in these

artifacts is a characteristic of these

later periods. So when they're present,

these styles can be used as a method of

dating in their own right.

This is, as I said, faulty logic, and

it's contrary to existing [music]

evidence, but it's just one of those

contradictions that never really gets

addressed by the proponents of the

standard model. The evidence against

this presumption that these styles and

forms are exclusive to the later periods

has recently grown stronger. We now know

from new excavations that recently took

place at the Old Kingdom site of Abusier

in lower Egypt that all of these

architectural and stylistic features of

stonework were well present in the

earliest of times. [music]

I documented this in this video on those

new digs and what they uncovered. The

link is below in the description if you

haven't seen it. Cornishes, bullnosses,

along with huge singlepiece flared

columns, [music] precisionmade hardstone

statues, all existed and were present in

the earliest of times in the [music] Old

Kingdom along with the massive

megalithic works that are also found on

those sites. This is in my [music]

opinion most likely because in the old

kingdom these artifacts were already

ancient and already inherited by the

people living in that area. And then the

sites were rebuilt, renovated, and

reused. [music]

Even obelisks, which I've definitely

heard described by academics as purely

[music] a new kingdom phenomena, were

present in the earliest periods of the

Old Kingdom. The largest obelisk ever

thought to have existed once stood at

the so-called sun temple of Abuarab,

which is an old kingdom site in lower

Egypt. And depictions of its massive

size can be found in the stonework there

along with its mighty pedestal which

many people mistake as a small pyramid

remaining as evidence of its presence.

So I think within this context of longer

timelines within the concepts of

inheritance and imitation the mysteries

of ancient Egypt can [music] be

unraveled and we can get closer to

understanding the truth of our own past

on this planet. Thanks for watching. All

>> [music]

>> right, thank you very much. I hope you

guys enjoyed that look into the details

around these corners blocks on the Giza

Plateau. They're some of, I think, the

most fascinating, most interesting

artifacts that are still left laying

around up there. They're often missed by

people. Uh, it's very easy to walk right

by them, although I always try to take

the time to show them to people when

we're up there at the Giza Plateau. Uh,

please do forgive any noise issues with

the microphone I was using. Uh, I wasn't

using my regular mic for this. Uh, I was

trying to make this video while I'm also

in the process of moving house and the

houses. Some happen to be 2,500ish miles

apart. So, [music]

I did the best I could with the gear

that I had at the time, and hopefully it

didn't turn out too bad. So, as I said

earlier on, if you want to come and see

these blocks as well as the plateau and

a lot of these other sites for yourself,

we are going back to Egypt in December.

There are still a few spots available

for that tour. The link to see that tour

and the full itinerary is down below.

And I do want to say that also my annual

Uncharted X tour, the special permission

tour that I put on every year, uh, is

happening for 2027 [music] in March of

next year. So, if you're interested in

joining that, the honestly these tours

do tend to sell out pretty quickly. Um,

the best thing to do is to join up as a

patron or as a supporter of the channel.

I give all of my patrons and supporters

early access to register for these

tours. Sometimes I just sell out within

that community. I also give patrons

early access to videos. In this case, we

did a live streamed review of my final

edits and my thoughts on this video as

we went through it, as well as a host of

other benefits, obviously. And as

always, I do want to thank everybody who

does choose to support Uncharted X

through that value for value model. This

is all free content. You have to,

[music] you know, choose to support the

work that I'm doing. I I am greatly

appreciative for everybody who does

that. So, I try to give back as much as

I can to the people who do do that.

Another great way to support the channel

and to get something back for yourself,

in this case, some new threads, is to go

take a look at the Uncharted merch

store. I think I've got a lot of fun

designs in a lot of different apparel

out there. You can find all of that at

uncharted.com/merch

or through the link below to my dashy

store. I hope you're all well. I hope

you enjoyed that video and I'll catch

you in the next one. Bye-bye now.