Ancient Technology that may or may not be Ahead of its Time, or Even True

[Will The Serious]

I was just having a great chat with Google's AI online, about ancient Egyptian quarrying techniques. I asked specifically about the use of natron. Google said it could work for that purpose, but it thought the logistics didn't make sense because it wasn't necessary.

Natron lowers the melting point of silicates making it valuable in the ceramic and glass industry, but the amount of penetration achievable using natron to etch out a stone at a quarry would be around 2mm before the slurry of natron water needed to be scraped and reapplied under a trenched woodfire. The woodfire alone would have a similar effect on crumbling the stone without adding the natron.

While natron lowers the melting point and can soften the silica particles in granite, it doesn't melt it into a pourable liquid. A hot woodfire by itself would undermine the micro bonds of the stone particles all on its own.

Apparently, archeologists have documented the use of fire in this way, by analyzing the stone to discover the wood coal, and through hieroglyphic documentation of the processes. Stone-on-stone pounding, as well as bronze tool scraping of the flaky results are believed to be reasonably achievable under these fire-based techniques.

-Will

 

[Candleicious Ghost]

I was just having a great chat with Google's AI online, about ancient Egyptian quarrying techniques. I asked specifically about the use of natron. Google said it could work for that purpose, but it thought the logistics didn't make sense because it wasn't necessary.

Natron lowers the melting point of silicates making it valuable in the ceramic and glass industry, but the amount of penetration achievable using natron to etch out a stone at a quarry would be around 2mm before the slurry of natron water needed to be scraped and reapplied under a trenched woodfire. The woodfire alone would have a similar effect on crumbling the stone without adding the natron.

While natron lowers the melting point and can soften the silica particles in granite, it doesn't melt it into a pourable liquid. A hot woodfire by itself would undermine the micro bonds of the stone particles all on its own.

Apparently, archeologists have documented the use of fire in this way, by analyzing the stone to discover the wood coal, and through hieroglyphic documentation of the processes. Stone-on-stone pounding, as well as bronze tool scraping of the flaky results are believed to be reasonably achievable under these fire-based techniques.

-Will

Hey here's a neat video about the Pyramids

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[Will The Serious]

Since I like to sail, I'm reading a book called, We the Navigators, by David Lewis.

It's about the navigation practices of the Polynesian and Micronesian people. The first part is about star navigation, in which these people, who were basically a stone age culture, even in the 1970s, were well aware of the relationships the stars had to the viewers on the surface of our planet. They couldn't do the trigonometry, but they had a detailed understanding of how the stars moved across the sky with the day, with the seasons, and with their movement over the surface of the ocean.

In the chapter about dead reckoning, the plotting of a course in advance based on the vectors of boat heading and speed, the currents, and wind angles, Lewis talks about the navigators' perception of their position in the world. The navigators maintain a positional reference based upon some "home" reference point, rather than thinking of themselves as the center from which everything else is referenced.

To this end, the other concept that caught my attention was that of the islands among which the navigators sailed, were referred to as moving. This is an interesting, relativistic way of thinking about the islands.

These people, of course, know the islands are not moving, but for them, the stars are the ones that are fixed, always the same, their courses across the sky established and fixed. So, when they identify the position of a target island, they learn, from where they are, under which stars their destination lies. That means, Since the stars are fixed, when they travel beneath the stars, their destination island moves so that as they near that island, it is no longer under the pointer star, so it is the island that "moves".

This concept also speaks to the ancient world's cosmology of the dome of stars, Sun and Moon, in which it is the dome that moves around the Earth, and not the surface of the Earth moving beneath the stars. For the islanders, as well, I suspect, as many people of Earth, astronomy was not a discipline of study outside its use in navigation. It is navigation that is the subject, and astronomy is a road on the route to getting there.

I learned an important navigator's concept in reading this book. I did not realize that stars located upon the celestial plane of the Earth's equator, that is, they have a declination of, or nearly, zero degrees. They always rise over the horizon at exactly East and set below the horizon at exactly West. It doesn't matter where one stands upon the Earth, with the exception of the poles where there is only South, you can always find East or West by knowing, for example, Mintaka, the western most start in Orion's Belt, is located about a tenth of a degree from 0° off the equatorial plane of Earth. Sadalsuud (Beta Aquarii), and Sadaltager (Zeta Aquarii), in the constellation Aquarius, are also both on the equatorial plane.

So, these seem like pretty sophisticated technological concepts of our universe, and a people who's only interest in stars is their ability to navigate, have learned these ideas without aligned temples or compass or sextant

-Will

 

[Rebel Scum]

So, these seem like pretty sophisticated technological concepts of our universe, and a people who's only interest in stars is their ability to navigate, have learned these ideas without aligned temples or compass or sextant

-Will

Being visually observant of one's physical environment for the purposes of earthly navigation aren't technological concepts of the universe, it's simply understanding how to get from point A to point B.

 

[TIN_MAN]

Since I like to sail, I'm reading a book called, We the Navigators, by David Lewis.

It's about the navigation practices of the Polynesian and Micronesian people. The first part is about star navigation, in which these people, who were basically a stone age culture, even in the 1970s, were well aware of the relationships the stars had to the viewers on the surface of our planet. They couldn't do the trigonometry, but they had a detailed understanding of how the stars moved across the sky with the day, with the seasons, and with their movement over the surface of the ocean.

In the chapter about dead reckoning, the plotting of a course in advance based on the vectors of boat heading and speed, the currents, and wind angles, Lewis talks about the navigators' perception of their position in the world. The navigators maintain a positional reference based upon some "home" reference point, rather than thinking of themselves as the center from which everything else is referenced.

To this end, the other concept that caught my attention was that of the islands among which the navigators sailed, were referred to as moving. This is an interesting, relativistic way of thinking about the islands.

These people, of course, know the islands are not moving, but for them, the stars are the ones that are fixed, always the same, their courses across the sky established and fixed. So, when they identify the position of a target island, they learn, from where they are, under which stars their destination lies. That means, Since the stars are fixed, when they travel beneath the stars, their destination island moves so that as they near that island, it is no longer under the pointer star, so it is the island that "moves".

This concept also speaks to the ancient world's cosmology of the dome of stars, Sun and Moon, in which it is the dome that moves around the Earth, and not the surface of the Earth moving beneath the stars. For the islanders, as well, I suspect, as many people of Earth, astronomy was not a discipline of study outside its use in navigation. It is navigation that is the subject, and astronomy is a road on the route to getting there.

I learned an important navigator's concept in reading this book. I did not realize that stars located upon the celestial plane of the Earth's equator, that is, they have a declination of, or nearly, zero degrees. They always rise over the horizon at exactly East and set below the horizon at exactly West. It doesn't matter where one stands upon the Earth, with the exception of the poles where there is only South, you can always find East or West by knowing, for example, Mintaka, the western most start in Orion's Belt, is located about a tenth of a degree from 0° off the equatorial plane of Earth. Sadalsuud (Beta Aquarii), and Sadaltager (Zeta Aquarii), in the constellation Aquarius, are also both on the equatorial plane.

So, these seem like pretty sophisticated technological concepts of our universe, and a people who's only interest in stars is their ability to navigate, have learned these ideas without aligned temples or compass or sextant

-Will

We can add to this the more recent discoveries that people in various parts of the world have been sailing, or at least making long distance voyages by boat, for many thousands of years before recorded history. I've long felt that this is the reason so many ancient cultures were so good at astronomy while at the same time being relatively 'primitive' to varying degrees, in other arts and sciences. I know the authors of 'Hamlets Mill' get a lot of flak for some of their ideas, but I think the basic gist of their argument that ancient cultures around the world understood precession and incorporated this into their myths is essentially correct.

 

[Will The Serious]

This volcanic glass (Melian obsidian), prized for its sharpness and durability, became one of the most sought-after materials of the prehistoric world. Archaeological discoveries of Melian obsidian dating back to the Upper Palaeolithic provide some of the clearest evidence for early seafaring in Greece.

https://greekreporter.com/2026/05/19/obsidian-milos-human-civilization/

The circulation of obsidian from Milos demonstrates that Aegean peoples were capable of organized navigation as early as 11,000 years ago, long before the rise of the Minoans or Mycenaeans.

https://medium.com/@bill.giannakopoulos/melos-obsidian-and-the-forgotten-mariners-of-the-prehistoric-aegean-008c56044544

This demonstrates the technology of seafarering, and long distance navigation, in the same era as the development of agriculture.
https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/development-agriculture/
Both practices benefit from studies of astronomy and tracking seasonal changes.

-Will

 

[Will The Serious]

Just think what the implications of these factors suggest. Somehow, a vast deposit of obsidian was discovered on an island about 170km from any other land. That's a lot of sailing. In a primitive canoe (paddle driven) that travels at about 3 knots, they may be able to cover the distance in 3 days of shift paddling (8 hours per day), but they probably were hesitant to stop, and may have reduced their speed in order to maintain headway for a full 24 hour daily cycle. I would think an experienced and healthy crew could paddle 6-on-6-off at half their members per watch. That might reduce their speed to 2.5 knots and about 112 km in 24 hours. That means they could reach Milos in a day and a half, with most of that time being beyond the sight of land, and subject to local currents and weather that, without an understanding of weather prediction technology, could be extremely dangerous.

But, if the mariners found a ready supply of obsidian, they would have began settling the nearby islands and eventually those outposts would become permanent villages that, with other resources found on larger islands like Crete, would grow those villages into cities with defenses from raiders and wealth from traders.

If you were a large city like Krossos, you would dominate those maritime trade routes, leaving you in a unique position in all of the blossoming new civilizations. You would have exposure and access to the the latest technology from all over the Mediterranean. You would become a magnet for inventors, thinkers who wanted to work where people could afford to patronize their ideas and inventions. The wealthy ruling class would demand better this and that then what their trading neighbors had, driving invention. Eventually, a whole civilization would develop in advance of every other growing civilization. All because a unique resource like obsidian drives tool making, which drives wealth and invention.

-Will

 

[Will The Serious]

More about the Antikythera:

https://spacedaily.com/d-the-antikythera-mechanism-recovered-from-a-greek-shipwreck-and-dated-to-roughly-100-bc-was-a-hand-cranked-bronze-computer-that-tracked-the-heavens-of-unknown-origin-and-mechanically-unmatched-for-m/

---

"Geared devices of similar ambition do not reappear in the physical record until medieval astronomical clocks in Europe. But the Roman writer Cicero, within a generation or two of the shipwreck, described mechanical models of the sky built by Archimedes and by Posidonius. If those accounts are accurate, the Antikythera mechanism was not a single object without ancestors or peers. It was the one example that happened to end up on a seabed and stay there."

---

The article goes on to discuss some of the studies that match the mechanism with the Lunar year, and one effort to determine if the mechanism ever worked at all.

It doesn't really seem important to dwell on the working craftsmanship or the viability of the design. It's that the math works and was engineered into a mechanical astronomical clock at all is the significance of this find.

-Will

 

[Candleicious Ghost]

More about the Antikythera:

https://spacedaily.com/d-the-antikythera-mechanism-recovered-from-a-greek-shipwreck-and-dated-to-roughly-100-bc-was-a-hand-cranked-bronze-computer-that-tracked-the-heavens-of-unknown-origin-and-mechanically-unmatched-for-m/

---

"Geared devices of similar ambition do not reappear in the physical record until medieval astronomical clocks in Europe. But the Roman writer Cicero, within a generation or two of the shipwreck, described mechanical models of the sky built by Archimedes and by Posidonius. If those accounts are accurate, the Antikythera mechanism was not a single object without ancestors or peers. It was the one example that happened to end up on a seabed and stay there."

---

The article goes on to discuss some of the studies that match the mechanism with the Lunar year, and one effort to determine if the mechanism ever worked at all.

It doesn't really seem important to dwell on the working craftsmanship or the viability of the design. It's that the math works and was engineered into a mechanical astronomical clock at all is the significance of this find.

-Will

It's one of my favourite devices of the ancient world.

Imagine traveling back in time and seeing one brand new.