Stone Egyptian Vases

[Don Witcher <witcher2@zzzzzzzzzzzz>]

I took a Nile tour about thirty years ago and saw, at several places along
the Nile, groups of artisans turning alabaster vases with extremely
primitive lathes similer to the most primitive of potters wheels.  These
vases were being produced in large numbers for the tourist trade.  The
alabaster seemed to be very soft and was probably fresh out of a local
quarry. They were turning out small vases with less effort than it would
take to make it out of clay.  I was only doing pottery at the time myself
and had not yet worked in stone so didn't appreciate some of the fine points
of what I was seeing.

My impression was that they were using two to three thousand year old
technology  for this kind of stone work and for much of their  functional
pottery.  This also seemed to be true for much of their agriculture and
rural building that used brick fired locally in simple brick stopes.  My
impression at the time was that a significant part of the country could go
back to the way things were a couple of thousand years ago and never miss a
beat. Cairo and other urban areas were entirely modern of course.  Some of
the old Quarry's near Aswan  still could be seen with  abandoned  projects
(a bad crack  developed) and many tools.

Don Witcher