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Ancient Egyptian Stone-Drilling (1983)

<p>More than most technical procedures in the ancient world, drilling of hard stone such as quartz and granite has evoked […]</p>

Note the similarity of the concentric lines (arrow) found on the core.This unresolved question, raised by Petrie as early as 1883, is important not only to Egyptologists, but to scholars of ancient lapidary technology anywhere in the world where hard stone was drilled. “In my opinion to suppose the knowledge of cutting these gem stones to form teeth and of setting them in the metal in such a manner that they would bear the strain of hard use and to do this at the early period assigned to them, would present greater difficulty than those explained by the assumption of their employment . … It seems physically impossible that any particle of a loose powder could become so embedded in a soft metal by the mere accidents of rubbing that it could bear the immense strain needed to plough out a groove of any considerable depth in such a hard material as quartz.

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