Too precise for hand tools? The argument from ancient craftsmanship
October 5, 2026 · 13 min read
Cassie Coppersmith points to jade pieces and Indian pillars that look machined or lathe-turned, Dan Richards examines the Great Pyramid's precision and how it could have been achieved, and Timothy Alberino questions who could have cut Peru's megaliths. The argument recurs across very different cultures, so it is worth seeing what it proves and what it only suggests.
The rules, numbers and steps worth keeping in front of you.
- The argument: work looks too precise for the assigned tools and dates, so one of them must be wrong.
- What it shows: real puzzles and gaps, not measurements, tools or known makers.
- Coppersmith: jade pieces look machined; the string-and-abrasive account does not convince her.
- Coppersmith admits she does not know the measured flatness of the jade discs.
- Archaeologists concede the Indian pillars were lathe-turned; the dispute is what powered the lathe.
- Those pillars are a soapstone that is softer when quarried.
- Coppersmith: an inscription dates the inscription, not the building.
- Richards: the pyramid's 756-foot sides are squared to within two to three inches.
- Richards on lost high technology: where are the tools?
- Richards: exhaust mundane explanations first; keep known facts apart from guesses.
- Alberino: Spanish cathedrals fell in earthquakes while the older walls stood.
- Fine work beneath crude work argues for sequence, not a date or a method.
- Lost skill explains the facts as well as lost machines.
- No archaeologist, stonemason or engineer speaks in these conversations.
This is the short form. The full insight has every expert's reasoning, their own words and the sources.