♦Livre♦

Experiments in Egyptian Archaeology: Stoneworking Technology in Ancient Egypt
130. Two workers pushed and pulled the saw from opposite sides of the block. The blade rocked from side to side during each forward and backward movement, creating a V-shaped slot.61 At a depth of 8 cm, the V’s cross-sectional shape measured 2.5 cm at the top and 6 mm at the bottom, each side angled at 7° to the vertical. This V-shaped slot is similar to the two partially sawn slots seen in Hordjedef’s rose granite sarcophagus in the Cairo Museum, and saw-slots cut into a basalt pavement block near Khufu’s pyramid at Giza.62 The laterally curved bottoms of these slots are a further consequence of the rocking action of the ancient saw blade, which itself would have assumed a laterally curved shape along its cutting edge. These phenomena occurred in the wet and the dry sand-sawing experiments.

Long parallel striations of varying depths and widths, similar to those seen in ancient stone objects, were visible on the sides and the bottom of the slot, and upon the saw’s individual flat edges between the notches. There was extensive pitting to the sides of the saw, also seen in the subsequent dry sawing test. In both the wet and the dry tests, the extra granite abraded to form the V-shape has been disregarded when calculating the cutting rate. It was noticeable that the sand had to be kept fluid; drying-out sand rapidly increased an already significant effort to move the saw. The used sand powder slurry poured over each end of the slot, its copper content largely washed away into the ground below.

♦Mégalithe♦

Exp : Nikolas Vasiutin - Forage du granit