In another string Anthony mad the somewhat ungenerous comment of a post that I had written....

Rick Baudé Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I just claimed
> that the Egyptians could carve granite like warm
> butter and this isn't based on looking at a few
> photographs, but actually examining the
> sculptures.

So it's your false claim. If you wish to state they carved granite "like warm butter", then you'll have to support it with evidence.

To date, all we can determine is that they used chisels, pounders and adzes, as well as rubbing stones for abrasive polishing.

I'd be interested in any further evidence you can bring to the table to prove they "carved it like warm butter", though. That would be fascinating.


Okay. Well let's see what we can do with this proposition: Could the Egyptian's carve granite like warm butter; Yes or no.

Well I already know this is going to be a very long string...so I'll start with just the title of a paper and portions of the abstract...

Examination of the correlation of butter spreadability and its fat conformation by DSC
Authors: Litz, Bernadett; Obert, G.; Szily, B.1

Source: Journal of Thermal Analysis and Calorimetry, Volume 84, Number 2, May 2006, pp. 425-428(4)

Publisher: Springer

Before we can answer the question "Could the Egyptians Carve granite like warm butter" we first have to determine what constitutes warm butter. After all this is a conditional state, my warm butter might be your frozen solid butter. On the other hand your warm butter might be my liquid butter...So let us turn to the abstract and see what it has to say on the subject of warm butter....

"...it was established that butter made from the cream ripened by the heat-step method had three characteristic melting peaks as distinct from the two melting peaks of butter made from cold-ripened cream, and the temperature of the second melting peak for butter from heat-step cream was identical to the characteristic melting temperature for fat particles from earlier EPR spectroscope assays...."

That's enough for tonight.
We'll continue tommorow...

As Don Barone always says, or used to say

Food for thought