<HTML>Excuse me, but about what are you all talking about?
Yes, it's true that petrie found several scratches on core samples, one he could trace for several revolutions. I myself have examined several drill holes in Abusir and Sakkara, and they have irregular groves, some of them can be traced for several revolutions, too (a summary can be found in Lucas/Harris, Ancient Egyptian Materials and Industries, p. 70, 71)
BUt WHATS THE BIG SECRET THERE????????????????
All the groves are not running parallel, they are of different depth and are clearly made by quarz grains which have been trapped between tube and wall and carried around for some turns. So what?
That the core samples ARE core samples can be seen on the conical form and on the fact thet we have thousands of holes with inner structures which clearly show that there once were broken cores inside. The conical form of the cores comes from the degradation of the copper tube: Near the top the tube is fresh so the core has a smaller diameter than deeper down where the tube has gotten thinner...
All the cores also have the same rounded top I could reproduce. This comes from the difficult starting phase of the hole where the tube tumbles around a bit because the hole is not yet deep enough to stabilize it.
BTW: Lahtes were unknown in Egypt.
You are making a riddle out of nothing. I really don't see the reason for this hubub. Maybe I should tralslate my core drilling pages with larger priority :-)
FD</HTML>
