DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.42779#0294
FOR WORKS IN HARD AND SOFT STONE 2x3
jumper drill is obtained by the hammer and the cutting
power comes from percussion and not from revolution.
Note on Egyptian tubular drills. Thanks to Professor Sir
Flinders Petrie’s brilliant exposition of the types of tubular
drills used in Egypt and the manner of their use, we are more
fully documented in this matter than for any other detail
of the technical methods of stonework in antiquity.1
He points out the following facts and illustrates them with
examples (Plate vm of The Pyramids and Temples of Gizeli).
The Egyptians had perfected tools of bronze in which one
or more cutting-points were mounted. These cutting-points
were probably of ‘tough uncrystallized corundum’. Dia-
monds were perhaps used, but their extreme rarity and their
natural absence from Egypt makes this improbable. Simple
burins with a corundum point are inferred from the cutting
of inscriptions on diorite bowls. Tubular drills with such
points mounted on their cutting-edge, so as to make them,
as it were, into tubular saws, were certainly in use, and their
dimensions can be established from extant cores and holes
in stonework. In the plate above referred to illustrations of
several cores and half-finished work by drills are given. The
dimensions of the drills varied from a quarter of an inch
diameter to one of the astonishing size of 18 inches. This
immense instrument was used simply for quarry work. Its
traces are to be seen on a limestone pavement at El Berseh.
Tubular drills were invariably used for the hollowing of
granite coffers. The process was to make rows of drill holes
round the portion to be removed and then to break down the
intervening pieces and to break off the cores. The tool was
rotated slightly in the case of heavy work, or the object, if
a small one, was rotated against the tools. This gives the
drill-hole a slightly conical shape. The pressure required
on a tubular drill was considerable. He calculates that a
1 The Pyramids and Temples of Gizeh, 1883, chapter vii, and Anthropo-
logical Journal, 1883, ‘Mechanical Methods of the Egyptians’.
jumper drill is obtained by the hammer and the cutting
power comes from percussion and not from revolution.
Note on Egyptian tubular drills. Thanks to Professor Sir
Flinders Petrie’s brilliant exposition of the types of tubular
drills used in Egypt and the manner of their use, we are more
fully documented in this matter than for any other detail
of the technical methods of stonework in antiquity.1
He points out the following facts and illustrates them with
examples (Plate vm of The Pyramids and Temples of Gizeli).
The Egyptians had perfected tools of bronze in which one
or more cutting-points were mounted. These cutting-points
were probably of ‘tough uncrystallized corundum’. Dia-
monds were perhaps used, but their extreme rarity and their
natural absence from Egypt makes this improbable. Simple
burins with a corundum point are inferred from the cutting
of inscriptions on diorite bowls. Tubular drills with such
points mounted on their cutting-edge, so as to make them,
as it were, into tubular saws, were certainly in use, and their
dimensions can be established from extant cores and holes
in stonework. In the plate above referred to illustrations of
several cores and half-finished work by drills are given. The
dimensions of the drills varied from a quarter of an inch
diameter to one of the astonishing size of 18 inches. This
immense instrument was used simply for quarry work. Its
traces are to be seen on a limestone pavement at El Berseh.
Tubular drills were invariably used for the hollowing of
granite coffers. The process was to make rows of drill holes
round the portion to be removed and then to break down the
intervening pieces and to break off the cores. The tool was
rotated slightly in the case of heavy work, or the object, if
a small one, was rotated against the tools. This gives the
drill-hole a slightly conical shape. The pressure required
on a tubular drill was considerable. He calculates that a
1 The Pyramids and Temples of Gizeh, 1883, chapter vii, and Anthropo-
logical Journal, 1883, ‘Mechanical Methods of the Egyptians’.