Page 324 - Fingerprints of the Gods by Graham Hancock

Graham Hancock – FINGERPRINTS OF THE GODS

because identical vessels had been found in pre-dynastic strata dated to
4000 BC and earlier, and because the practice of handing down
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treasured heirlooms from generation to generation had been deeply
ingrained in Egypt since time immemorial.
Whether they were made in 2500 BC or in 4000 BC or even earlier, the
stone vessels from the Step Pyramid were remarkable for their
workmanship, which once again seemed to have been accomplished by
some as yet unimagined (and, indeed, almost unimaginable) tool.
Why unimaginable? Because many of the vessels were tall vases with
long, thin, elegant necks and widely flared interiors, often incorporating
fully hollowed-out shoulders. No instrument yet invented was capable of
carving vases into shapes like these, because such an instrument would
have had to have been narrow enough to have passed through the necks
and strong enough (and of the right shape) to have scoured out the
shoulders and the rounded interiors. And how could sufficient upward
and outward pressure have been generated and applied within the vases
to achieve these effects?
The tall vases were by no means the only enigmatic vessels unearthed
from the Pyramid of Zoser, and from a number of other archaic sites.
There were monolithic urns with delicate ornamental handles left
attached to their exteriors by the carvers. There were bowls, again with
extremely narrow necks like the vases, and with widely flared, pot-bellied
interiors. There were also open bowls, and almost microscopic vials, and
occasional strange wheel-shaped objects cut out of metamorphic schist
with inwardly curled edges planed down so fine that they were almost
translucent. In all cases what was really perplexing was the precision
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with which the interiors and exteriors of these vessels had been made to
correspond—curve matching curve—over absolutely smooth, polished
surfaces with no tool marks visible.
There was no technology known to have been available to the Ancient
Egyptians capable of achieving such results. Nor, for that matter, would
any stone-carver today be able to match them, even if he were working
with the best tungsten-carbide tools. The implication, therefore, is that an
unknown or secret technology had been put to use in Ancient Egypt.

Ceremony of the sarcophagus

Standing in the King’s Chamber, facing west—the direction of death
amongst both the Ancient Egyptians and the Maya—I rested my hands
lightly on the gnarled granite edge of the sarcophagus which
Egyptologists insist had been built to house the body of Khufu. I gazed

For example, see Cyril Aldred, Egypt to the End of the Old Kingdom, Thames &
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Hudson, London, 1988, p. 25.
21 Ibid., p. 57. The relevant artefacts are in the Cairo Museum.

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