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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

#51

Post by Intermernet »

Oarch wrote: post #4

For the curious, Clickspring has recreated something a lot like this and uses it on his Antikythera Mechanism videos on YT.

Thankyou. I was going to point this out. Chris (ClickSpring) is the first to say that his methods are not proven, they're just highly believable given the technology of the time. I did some archaeology at uni and I know we're not meant to say this, but sometimes things are just so obvious even when there is no physical evidence of it.

Archaeological proofs have the unfortunate property of having each deductive step being fairly obvious and limited, but proving those steps can be literally impossible.

Re: 5,300-year-old 'bow drill' rewrites story of ancient Egyptian tools

#52

Post by Intermernet »

jazz9k wrote: post #50
toolslive wrote: post #2

It'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.

It's this kind of gate keeping in archaeology that has kept Graham Hancock out of the industry for years, and we are now just finding out his theories are true. My theory is that the industry is so small, they are afraid it will put them out of a career.

No judgement, but what theories of Hancock have been proven to be true?

Re: 5,300-year-old 'bow drill' rewrites story of ancient Egyptian tools

#53

Post by Intermernet »

MarkusQ wrote: post #6
toolslive wrote: post #2

It'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.

This is true, but archaeology has been settled for a while now on what constitutes sufficient evidence. Believe it or not, it's actually a pretty new science.

Re: 5,300-year-old 'bow drill' rewrites story of ancient Egyptian tools

#54

Post by ReptileMan »

vee-kay wrote: post #39
ReptileMan wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But to make a drill bit of highly alloyed copper you need a bit more tools and knowledge

Do a web search for "Wootz steel", "Damascus blades" and "Iron pillars India". The ancient world certainly had expertise in advanced metallurgy. Wootz steel was actually nanotech.

Except it wasn't. It relied on contaminated ore, which nobody understood really why it worked. Unlike bronze that was well understood.

Re: 5,300-year-old 'bow drill' rewrites story of ancient Egyptian tools

#55

Post by vee-kay »

jstanley wrote: post #42
vee-kay wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do a web search for "Wootz steel", "Damascus blades" and "Iron pillars India". The ancient world certainly had expertise in advanced metallurgy. Wootz steel was actually nanotech.

But that doesn't mean the average person will produce all that stuff from a standing start within 12 months just because they would like to drill a hole.

Nah, they just bought their drilling tool from whatever was their local version of Walmart in that ancient era.

Re: 5,300-year-old 'bow drill' rewrites story of ancient Egyptian tools

#56

Post by Intermernet »

saidnooneever wrote: post #40
MarkusQ wrote: post #6

Earlier 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.

they dont even accept claims with properly documented and preserved samples. your methodology doesnt matter if it disagrees with the common accepted 'truth'. archeology is a cesspool. not to mention tons of hings being twisted into weird shit only to try and push colonial agendas!

This has been less true for the last 50 years. Archaeology as a field is very aware of this cultural bias, and the old school are mostly dead. Think of it like the doctors of 150 years ago prescribing "cucaine for ill humors". It's a pendulum, but it's settling.

These days it's seen as a dynamic decision tree. If such and such people had so and so technology, then the logical ways to achieve that are x, y and z methods. Let's look for evidence for those things and weigh up the probability of each. Importantly, let's not allow cultural bias to cloud that analysis by consulting with the closest living relatives of said people.

The problems are, amongst others, maintaining that lack of cultural bias, recognising that you have to allow for unknown paths to technology, and being aware that every deductive step exponentially expands the decision tree whilst simultaneously clouding the certainty.

This is why modern archaeology is actually highly averse to saying things are "true", but it's also very strong on saying other things are almost certainly "false".

Most things in this tree of dwindling probability are "false" , and it takes serious evidence, linking a bunch of deductive steps, to flip the consensus to "true".

Re: 5,300-year-old 'bow drill' rewrites story of ancient Egyptian tools

#57

Post by jcgrillo »

chmod775 wrote: post #45
chmod775 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You need to create string. That region typically used flax for string. That's another thing that can be done with virtually no tools. Even if you skip the retting and merely hand-strip the fibers you still get something usable enough for some use. These people didn't sit inside looking at screens all day. If your region had a plant that can be trivially turned into usable string you'd know - especially since they h…

> That region typically used flax for string. Replying to myself because I looked into this a bit. Looks like date palm fiber might have been more common for rope (likely much easier to make if you needed a lot). For this use-case probably nowhere near as good though.

I've made bowdrills for fire starting with hand twisted hickory cordage. Soaking the bark makes it easy to separate the inner bark, which you then tear into long strips and twist into rope with a "reverse wrap"--basically twist until it curls back on itself then give the "bundle" a half twist back to lock it in. I'm sure many species of tree would work similarly.

That is to say there's nothing special about rope, you can make it with nothing but your bare hands.

Re: 5,300-year-old 'bow drill' rewrites story of ancient Egyptian tools

#58

Post by MomsAVoxell »

Sharlin wrote: post #49
rm30 wrote: post #47

I wonder if the bow drill principle for boring holes evolved from fire-starting techniques, where the same reciprocal motion was already understood and mastered in that years. Just speculation, but it suggests how practical problem-solving builds on existing techniques rather than appearing fully formed.

Given that humans must have "always" known that carving a hole in something is easier if you use your wrist to reciprocally rotate the tool, I'd be inclined to suspect that both hole-making and firestarting with a bow drill were invented more or less contemporaneously.

Yes, but didn’t our wrists evolve because of all the fire-starting?

Re: 5,300-year-old 'bow drill' rewrites story of ancient Egyptian tools

#59

Post by twodave »

mmooss wrote: post #25
twodave wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But what does the negative space indicate? It says something is missing - which few will dispute - but there are many possible answers in a sort of superposition. Speculation about this answer or that one isn't reliable. It resolves to one answer (or a few) when you have actual evidence.

Sure, you can’t always make a definitive statement, but you can at least determine classes of things. Same way we can determine a murder occurred without recovering a weapon or sometimes even without finding a body. Maybe we can’t be very specific about the how, but IME it is also OK to draw comparisons to modern tools so long as those comparisons are helpful.

Re: 5,300-year-old 'bow drill' rewrites story of ancient Egyptian tools

#60

Post by thordenmark »

Conspiracy theorists have long pointed out the obviously drilled holes in stonework that was >5000 years old. Of course they want to attribute it to lost advanced technology, but the more believable answer is that ancient Egyptians had really refined mundane tools like a bow drill.

I still want to know how the scoop marks were made in the ancient quarries. What tool could do that?

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