5,300-year-old 'bow drill' rewrites story of ancient Egyptian tools
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Re: 5,300-year-old 'bow drill' rewrites story of ancient Egyptian tools
#2It's what a lot of engineers have been saying for decades: Looking at the surfaces of the artefacts, it's obvious more advanced tooling, than what was claimed by archaeologists, must have been used. Oh irony, the bits were already lying about in the museum's archive for a century.
Re: 5,300-year-old 'bow drill' rewrites story of ancient Egyptian tools
#3It's what a lot of engineers have been saying for decades: Looking at the surfaces of the artefacts, it's obvious more advanced tooling, than what was claimed by archaeologists, must have been used. Oh irony, the bits were already lying about in the museum's archive for a century.
[deleted]
Re: 5,300-year-old 'bow drill' rewrites story of ancient Egyptian tools
#4For the curious, Clickspring has recreated something a lot like this and uses it on his Antikythera Mechanism videos on YT.
Re: 5,300-year-old 'bow drill' rewrites story of ancient Egyptian tools
#5[deleted]
Re: 5,300-year-old 'bow drill' rewrites story of ancient Egyptian tools
#6It's what a lot of engineers have been saying for decades: Looking at the surfaces of the artefacts, it's obvious more advanced tooling, than what was claimed by archaeologists, must have been used. Oh irony, the bits were already lying about in the museum's archive for a century.
Quite frustrating how archeology swings over the years from "we'll believe anything" to "we won't accept any claim without a preserved example". While some of the excesses of the past were clearly excessive, drilled holes should have been sufficient evidence of drills, people living on islands should be sufficient evidence of boats, rope-worn bones should be considered evidence of rope and so forth.
Re: 5,300-year-old 'bow drill' rewrites story of ancient Egyptian tools
#7It's what a lot of engineers have been saying for decades: Looking at the surfaces of the artefacts, it's obvious more advanced tooling, than what was claimed by archaeologists, must have been used. Oh irony, the bits were already lying about in the museum's archive for a century.
Quite frustrating how archeology swings over the years from "we'll believe anything" to "we won't accept any claim without a preserved example". While some of the excesses of the past were clearly excessive, drilled holes should have been sufficient evidence of drills, people living on islands should be sufficient evidence of boats, rope-worn bones should be considered evidence of rope and so forth.
Balance would be nice, yes, but I think the conservative approach is closer to correct, especially given the natural human bias toward believing sensational theories.
Re: 5,300-year-old 'bow drill' rewrites story of ancient Egyptian tools
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
Quite frustrating how archeology swings over the years from "we'll believe anything" to "we won't accept any claim without a preserved example". While some of the excesses of the past were clearly excessive, drilled holes should have been sufficient evidence of drills, people living on islands should be sufficient evidence of boats, rope-worn bones should be considered evidence of rope and so forth.
Balance would be nice, yes, but I think the conservative approach is closer to correct, especially given the natural human bias toward believing sensational theories.
Maybe not closer to correct, but definitely less likely to admit errors. But sometimes the negative space around a particular thing becomes overwhelming. To me this is like circumstantial evidence—in general it’s weaker than physical evidence, but in high enough numbers it can serve.
Re: 5,300-year-old 'bow drill' rewrites story of ancient Egyptian tools
#9Given need, access to anything that might serve as string, pieces of wood, and too much time to think about the problem, most singular humans will come up with that within the year, if not within days.
That thing has probably been independently invented a hundred thousand times over. Trying to figure out who did it first is silly.
Also that is not a "sophisticated" tool at all. It's literally one step above hitting rocks together. Sharp rocks happens to be the only tool you need to make a basic bow drill.
Re: 5,300-year-old 'bow drill' rewrites story of ancient Egyptian tools
#10Given need, access to anything that might serve as string, pieces of wood, and too much time to think about the problem, most singular humans will come up with that within the year, if not within days. That thing has probably been independently invented a hundred thousand times over. Trying to figure out who did it first is silly. Also that is not a "sophisticated" tool at all. It's literally one step above hitting r…
Basic research is never silly.