Iron sharpens Iron and Granite Smoothes Granite
Granite Smoothes Granite
Modifying Moh’s hardness scale explains a lost technique and solves ancient mysteries
Andrew Garcia
League City Tx 77573
Rough-surfaced materials of the same hardness can scratch each other. Friction between two materials of the same hardness is missing in the current hardness scale.
What we consider a lost ancient stone cutting technique is simply friction between materials of the same hardness, if one, or both possesses a rough-hewn surface.
Two rough-edged granite stones that are rubbed against each other will produce two stones with smooth flat surfaces. The friction during rubbing also results in a strong burning smell, and the corresponding elements are reduced to particulates and powder. Once the surface of each stone is completely smooth, the process ceases and the materials can no longer become smoother or flatter. This mechanism explains the achievement of such fitting accuracy.
Granite rock cracks, chips and breaks when it is struck by the same material. Via the use of safety glasses and gloves when reproducing this experiment, iron sharpens iron and granite Cuts granite.
Evidence of this phenomenon occurs at the base of the Great Pyramid of Giza, where large piles of smooth, rounded diorite stone were discovered1. I believe this was the stone used to grind, shape and smoothen the red Aswanian granite employed for constructing the Great Pyramid of Giza. Notably, once the “grinding” stones were reduced to small smooth chips, they were discarded in waste piles.
This technique also provides answers to the construction methods for many oddly shaped geological structures worldwide previously attributed to weathering. Friction between materials explains the craftsmanship of ancient stone objects including granite vases, bowls, statues and notably the Schist Disk of Sabu in Egypt2.
The effect we refer to as “stone softening” or the structures attributed to a lost technology are likely a product of the frictional force between similar materials. Machu Pichu, Petra, Easter Island and Giza as well as other unexplained ancient megalithic sites would have been built using this technique.
It is my belief that because we treat these relics with such care and because we no longer employ stone as our main resource for building shelter, we have lost this technique to time. Until now.
I believe that we should revise Moh’s scratch hardness scale3 to state that materials of equal hardness will scratch, break, crack, pulverize and mill down one another.
References
1. Harrell, J. A. & Storemyr, P. Ancient Egyptian quarries—an illustrated overview in QuarryScapes: ancient stone quarry landscapes in the Eastern Mediterranean (eds. Abu-Jaber, N., Bloxam, E. G., Degryse, P. & Heldal, T.) 7-50 (Geoological Survey of Norway Special Publication, Trondheim, 2009).
2. Emery, W. B. Great tombs of the first Dynasty (Cairo Government Press1949).
3. Mohs, F. The characters of the classes, orders, genera, and species, or the characteristic of the natural history system of mineralogy (W. and C. Tait, Edinburgh, 1820).
Additional Information
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