Forbidden History: Prehistoric Technologies, Extraterrestrial Intervention, and the Suppressed Origins of Civilization

35 Precision

Did the Ancients Have It? And If They Did, Should It Matter to Us?

Christopher Dunn

The word precision comes from precise, which Webster’s defines as “sharply or exactly limited or defined as to meaning; exact; definite, not loose, vague, or equivocal; exact in conduct; strict; formal; nice; punctilious.” Preciseness is “exactness; rigid nicety; excessive regard to forms or rules; rigid formality.” Precision is “the state of being precise as to meaning; preciseness; exactness; accuracy.”

To many people, the application of precision in their lives is related to their words and actions. We have precise speech, precise timekeeping, and the precision of a military drill. We may have the good fortune to be invited to a dinner party by a “precision” and find the tableware in exact order, with nary a spoon or a goblet out of position.

The application of precision, as noted above, is part and parcel of being civilized. It is the discipline and order that is necessary for civilization to function successfully.

Beginning in the late 1800s, a different application of precision was gaining increased importance and seen to be necessary to ensure the successful outcome of human endeavors. The machines that were invented and used as laborsaving devices depended on precision components to function properly. In the 1800s, the cotton industry and steam power spawned the Industrial Revolution in the north of England. The demand for more-efficient spinning mills and looms gave rise to a greater emphasis on producing components that functioned precisely.

To make products that were consistent, variables in the manufacturing process had to be reduced or eliminated. To accomplish this, dimensional variables that were inherent in the manufacture of critical components needed to be reduced to acceptable levels. However, because of the inaccuracies of the machine tools of the day, skilled fitters were needed to scrape, chisel, and file components to close dimensions in order for them to fit properly.

Wars have accelerated the evolution of standardized measurements and the elimination of variables in the manufacturing process. Put yourself in the place of a soldier during the Civil War. His rifle was precision-crafted, but when replacing a component in the field, he had to hand-file the pieces to fit. Obviously, this was time-consuming, and in war, timing could make you a winner or a loser. Standards were necessarily instituted and suppliers had to meet these standards or lose business.

Anyone who has brought home a bicycle or piece of “ready-to-assemble” furniture can appreciate the precision that is required for these objects to go together easily. Have you ever found yourself trying to a bolt in a predrilled hole that is off by an eighth of an inch? This is an example of the need for precision, and how the effort to produce precision products is actually an expensive, difficult endeavor.

In manufacturing today, components are made throughout the world and come together in an assembly plant. The exacting standards and precision of the product shipped from thousands of miles away ensure that when they go to the assembly line, the components fit together without additional work.

Most people will never actually create objects to a high precision. It is understandable, therefore, that most people overlook this important aspect of a civilization’s infrastructure. To laypeople, precision is an abstract concept. This is not a criticism. If you have not had precision manufacturing experience, either professionally or as a hobby, an understanding of the concept of precision is academic.

We are end users of powerful precision technologies that fuel our civilization and make our lives easier. Without manufacturing precision, cars would not run, planes would not fly, and CDs would not play. The precision we create is born out of necessity. We do not create it without good reason, because the costs of producing artifacts today go up exponentially if the demand for accuracy is greater.

An example of close accuracy and precision is the twelve-inch straightedge that I took to Egypt in 1999 and 2001. The edge was finished on a precision grinder. Its deviation from a perfect, straight line was a mere .0001 inch. For the reader who cannot relate to what that means in real terms, take a hair out of your head and split it equally along its length into twenty parts. One part is approximately equal to .0001 inch. (The average hair is .0025 inch.) Or, to compare it to our “some-assembly-required” example above, this straightedge is 1,250 times more precise than the predrilled hole that was off by an eighth of an inch.

If we were to miraculously uncover an unidentified artifact in the Sahara Desert that had been buried for thousands of years, how would we determine its purpose? If the speculation arises that it may have had some technological purpose, the challenge would be to prove it, which would require us to reverse-engineer its design to determine its function. Reverse engineering has been a part of industrial competitiveness for years. Engineers would buy a competitor’s product and by studying its design and components would understand the science and engineering behind its function. This is why the recovery of a potential or real enemy’s weapons of war is important.

If, after a cursory examination of this unidentified prehistoric artifact, we determine that it may have been a machine that functions as a tool to create artifacts, how would we know that it was a precision machine tool? In order to prove the case for our prehistoric precision machine tool, it would need to be measured for accuracy. Certain components associated with precision machine tools are manufactured to a high accuracy.

Flat surfaces necessary for the machine to function properly would be finished to within .0002 inch. This kind of accuracy separates primitive tools and those that are the result of need and development. The discovery of this precision would elevate the artifact to a higher purpose. If these components were not precise, the arguments against it being the product of an advanced society would be strengthened.

The critical evidence, therefore, is the accuracy of the surfaces being measured. Artisans do not create surfaces with such accuracy unless the artifact they are creating needs to function to exact specifications. Unless there is a need, precision isn’t even a consideration.

When looking for prehistoric machines, though, we tend to look for artifacts that are made of iron or steel, not granite, primarily because we use iron and steel to construct our machines. We see things as we are, not how they are. Nevertheless, the critical proof that would be demanded to support the conclusion that a steel artifact was a precision machine is its precision and the product of the machine. This precision can be found in Egypt—crafted into many artifacts made of stable igneous rock that would survive tens of thousands of years and still retain their precision.

We may not have the iron and steel used to create the artifact, but we have the products in abundance. Many of these artifacts, I believe, may have been misidentified and assigned to a time that doesn’t support the hypothesis, that the tools used to create them may have eroded over a much longer period of time than established dates would allow. There is support for such a speculation if we look at artifacts purely from an engineering perspective. It has been said that to understand the ancient Egyptian culture, you have to think like an Egyptian. To understand its technological accomplishments, however, you have to think like an engineer.

THE SERAPEUM

The granite box inside Khafre’s pyramid has the same characteristics as the boxes inside the Serapeum. Yet the boxes in the Serapeum were ascribed to the eighteenth dynasty, more than eleven hundred years later, when stoneworking was in decline. Considering that this dating was based on pottery items that were found and not the boxes themselves, it would be reasonable to speculate that the boxes have not been dated accurately.

Their characteristics show that their creators used the same tools and were blessed with the same skill and knowledge as those who created Khafre’s pyramid. Moreover, the boxes in both locations are evidence of a much higher purpose than mere burial sarcophagi.

They are finished to a high degree of accuracy; their corners are perfectly square, and their inside corners are astoundingly sharp. All of these features are extremely difficult to accomplish, and none of them is necessary for a mere burial box.

In 1995 I inspected the inside and outside surfaces of two boxes in the Serapeum with a six-inch precision straightedge that was accurate to .0002 inch. My report on what I discovered has been published in my book The Giza Power Plant and published on my Web site.

The artifacts I have measured in Egypt have the marks of careful and remarkable manufacturing methods. They are unmistakable and irrefutable in their precision, but origin or intent will always be open to speculation. The accompanying photograph was taken inside the Serapeum on August 27, 2001. Those taken of me inside one of these huge boxes show me inspecting the squareness between a twenty-seven-ton lid and the inside surface of the granite box on which it sits. The precision square I am using was calibrated to .00005 inch (that is, 5/100,000 of an inch) using a Jones & Lamson comparitor.

The underside of the lid and the inside wall of the box are incredibly square. Finding that the squareness was achieved not just on one side of the box but on both raises the level of difficulty in accomplishing this feat.

Think of this as a geometric reality. In order for the lid to be perfectly square with the two inside walls, the inside walls would have to be perfectly parallel. Moreover, the topside of the box would need to establish a plane that is square to the sides. That makes finishing the inside exponentially more difficult. The manufacturers of these boxes in the Serapeum not only created inside surfaces that were flat when measured vertically and horizontally, but they also made sure that the surfaces they were creating were square and parallel to each other, with one surface, the top, having sides that are five feet and ten feet apart from each other. But without such parallelism and squareness of the top surface, the squareness noted on both sides would not exist.

As an engineer and craftsman who has worked in manufacturing for more than forty years and who has created precision artifacts in our modern world, in my opinion this accomplishment in prehistory is nothing short of amazing. Nobody does this kind of work unless there is a very high purpose for the artifact. Even the concept of this kind of precision does not occur to an artisan unless there is no other means of accomplishing what the artifact is intended to do. The only other reason that such precision would be created in an object is that the tools that are used to create it are so precise that they are incapable of producing anything less than precision. With either scenario, we are looking at a higher civilization in prehistory than what is currently accepted. The implications are staggering.

This is why I believe that these artifacts that I have measured in Egypt are the smoking gun that proves, without a shadow of a doubt, that a higher civilization existed in ancient Egypt than what we have been taught. The evidence is cut into the stone.

The boxes that are off the beaten tourist’s path in the rock tunnels of the Serapeum would be extremely difficult to produce today. Their smooth, flat surfaces, orthogonal perfection, and incredibly small inside corner radii that I have inspected with modern precision straightedges, squares, and radius gauges leave me in awe. Even though after contacting four precision granite manufacturers I could not find one who could replicate their perfection, I would not say that it would be impossible to make one today—if we had a good reason to do so.

But what would that reason be? For what purpose would we quarry an eighty-ton block of granite, hollow its inside, and proceed to craft it to such a high level of accuracy? Why would we find it necessary to craft the top surface of this box so that a lid with an equally flat underside surface would sit square with the inside walls?

There may be arguments against the claims of advanced societies in prehistory. Some may argue that the lack of machinery refutes such claims, but a lack of evidence is not evidence. It is fallacious to deny or ignore what exists by arguing for what does not exist. When we ponder the purpose for creating such precision, we inexorably move beyond the simple reasons espoused by historians and are forced to consider that there was a civilization in prehistory that was far more advanced and vastly different from what was previously thought. We do not need to look for secret chambers or halls of records to know that this civilization existed. It is crafted into some of the hardiest materials with which they worked—igneous rock.