{"it":{"id":"W21LA09","kind":"artifact","sub":"Authenticated","name":"Serapeum box with lid sawn off (Cairo Museum)","place":"Cairo","mat":"granite","dims":"not given","loc":"Egyptian Museum Cairo","acc":"not given","find":"Serapeum?","flag":"genuine ancient","src":[198],"lat":30.048,"lon":31.234,"tags":[],"sum":"Under the desert lies the Serapeum, a long gallery of tombs for sacred bulls. In its side chambers sit 21 granite boxes, each about 65 tons, about 100 tons with its lid. A smaller granite box now in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo is said by some to have come from the same place.\n\nIts origin is uncertain, and that matters. Without a firm find site, the box cannot tell us where or when it was made.\n\nWhat makes the Serapeum boxes hard to explain is their finish. Christopher Dunn, an engineer, measured the inside of one and described it as 'perfectly flat', with faces parallel to .0002 inch. He reads that as evidence of machine work, and treats the Cairo box as part of the same tradition.\n\nThe workshops answer part of the claim. Flinders Petrie found the Egyptians cut granite with fixed points of very hard stone, probably corundum, under heavy pressure, and Denys Stocks, in a 1999 trial at Aswan, cut granite with a copper tube, sand and a bow. Flat surfaces can be ground by hand against a flat reference, given time and abrasive. What no one has done is measure the Cairo box against the Serapeum boxes (single source).\n\nSo the open question is twofold: did this box come from the Serapeum at all, and if so, how flat is it really, measured by someone else?","why":"An object of uncertain origin tied to one of the biggest granite mysteries in Egypt.","nfacts":0,"nsrc":1,"yt":"Find the accession record.","rel":["SAQ-SER"],"hook":"A granite box in Cairo is said to come from the Serapeum, where 21 boxes weigh about 65 tons each."},"S":{"198":["Christopher Dunn, Lost Technologies of Ancient Egypt: Advanced Engineering in the Temples of the Pharaohs (Bear & Co 2010, ISBN 978-1-59143-102-2); printed-page refs","file:books/upload5.pdf"]},"rec":{"id":"W21LA09","alias":[],"ms":[],"lab":[],"eng":[],"ori":[],"gaps":[],"dat":[],"aa":[],"ac":[],"me":[],"ci":[],"cq":[],"sd":[],"art":{"claimed_anomaly":"precision box","mainstream_reading":"not opened","provenance_flag":"genuine ancient","current_location":"Egyptian Museum Cairo","find_circumstances":"Serapeum?","claimant":"Christopher Dunn","status":"no data","dimensions":"not given","material":"granite","date":"","culture":"","museum_accession":"not given","b":"S","s":["W21LS01"]},"sub":[],"src":[{"id":"W21LS01","t":"Christopher Dunn, Lost Technologies of Ancient Egypt: Advanced Engineering in the Temples of the Pharaohs (Bear & Co 2010, ISBN 978-1-59143-102-2); printed-page refs","u":"file:books/upload5.pdf"},{"id":"VW21LA09-2","t":"Christopher Dunn, GizaPower: Advanced machining in ancient Egypt","u":"http://www.gizapower.com/Advanced/Advanced%20Machining.html"},{"id":"VW21LA09-3","t":"Petrie 1883, Pyramids and Temples of Gizeh, ch. 19: mechanical methods of the pyramid builders","u":"https://www.ronaldbirdsall.com/gizeh/petrie/c19.html"},{"id":"VW21LA09-4","t":"Anarkia333: Aswan 1999 expedition, 8 cm tube (believer page)","u":"https://www.anarkia333data.center/megalithe/exp-dassouan-de-1999-tube-de-8cm"}],"qs":["This box's origin is uncertain. How much weight should we give an object whose history is unclear?","Why would Egyptians put so much effort into granite boxes for sacred bulls?","If masons reached near-machine flatness by hand, what does that say about what skilled people can do?"]},"img":null,"md":{"h":"img/m/W21LA09-16x9.webp","w":1600,"hh":900,"alt":"Serapeum box with lid sawn off (Cairo Museum), Cairo — Apis Sarcophagus of Khabash in the Greater Vaults of the Serapeum of Saqqara. Its lid is inscribed with the words…","by":"Carole Raddato","lic":"CC BY-SA 2.0","lu":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0","p":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Apis_Sarcophagus_of_Khabash.jpg","g":false,"ct":false,"cap":"","sec":[]},"hh":[{"v":"not given","h":"Recorded dimensions","s":[269]},{"v":"Granite","h":"Made of","s":[269]},{"v":"Serapeum?","h":"Where it was found","s":[269]}],"hs":{"269":["Christopher Dunn, Lost Technologies of Ancient Egypt: Advanced Engineering in the Temples of the Pharaohs (Bear & Co 2010, ISBN 978-1-59143-102-2); printed-page refs","file:books/upload5.pdf"]}}