Monolithic artifacts of antediluvian culture. Part 1

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

We will return to lead floats in the second part of this article. Now consider a drawing by Piranesi, depicting the same artifact, but made of marble, found during the excavation of the Villa Emo in Rome. It differs from Hermitazhev's only in the presence of small details in the area of the legs attachment, as well as in the presence of a bas-relief around the circumference. Perhaps it was from this vase that a copy was made.

Another Hermitage exhibit with an interesting history.

And again Piranesi.

And here's a strange thing - when I studied the annotations for Piranesi's album, depicting antique marble household items and not only (the two above drawings are from him. The complete collection of Piranesi's works, including this album, you can download from the link: I came across amazing things - they say he drew some artifacts from life, but he just invented some artifacts! If the exhibits have survived, such as this tripod, which is located in one of the Vatican museums, then it is real, if the exhibit has not survived or in the storeroom (and I am more than sure of that), then Piranesi invented it.

But Piranesi has such things. Yes, this is all marble - a soft stone that is very easy to work with, but the quality is of the highest level. The smallest veins of leaves, animal hair, a spiral on the horns, voluminous grapes hanging from a cornucopia … Some artifacts are now exhibited in museums, some I could not find:

In the Vatican museums there are a lot of "antique" products made of various types of stones.

Ancient Roman vase. Marble. 2nd century AD. Pius Clementius Museum, Vatican.

Now let's take a look at more complex hard stone products in the Hermitage.

The vein suggests that this is precisely a stone of hard rock, and not plastic, as it seems at first glance, and it is unclear which one, for there is no explanation for this exhibit in the Hermitage itself.

The same incredible exhibit is already in the Museum. Vrubel in Omsk from porphyrite (with comments from the person who photographed it)

"This is a porphyry vase. Rock. A solid piece of rock, not casting, but solid machining - I could not find the joining points."

This is definitely a rock, look at the characteristic pattern of the rock. And the edges, the edges are perfectly even, what are the corners, the hemispheres. Personally, I doubt that this can be done now.

And how to make such internal right angles?

And the inner depression is just space!

I worked at an enterprise as a designer and technologist - I have no idea how to do this. Even with bronze casting under high pressure, such figures and facets cannot be obtained!

Here is also a masterpiece.

A very difficult vase to make."

The same malachite in the Hermitage:

And the last one:

Comrades! Put your drooping lower jaw back in place, for we haven't even gotten to the middle of the article yet. Do you think you've seen everything? Far from it! Wonderful square antique vase in red Egyptian marble, 1st century AD, Vatican Museum. This is a dangerous thing, I can tell you - the Internet. Every now and then there is some desperate one who will find and compare.

Which is older - exhibits in the Hermitage or an "ancient Roman" vase?

Another vase in the Vatican. You guessed it - antique:

And these are vases of the early 19th century, officially created by the Italian Benedetto Boschetti:

Now let's look at this …

Think this is another Piranesi drawing? Not at all. This is a jasper vase with a hardness of 7 out of 10 on the Mohs scale (that is, as hard as granite and porphyry). It stands in the Hermitage and dates back to 1873.

Here are 18th century porphyry vases from the Louvre, Paris, France. It should be noted that on the Mohs rock hardness scale, quartz porphyry is approximately as hard as granite.

Porphyry Roman antique vase with bearded masks, 1-2 century AD, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Porphyry vase from the private collection CHISWICK HOUSE COLLECTION, 18th century, London, UK

Roman porphyry vase. 2-3 century A. D.

And this is already a porphyry product from the Hermitage. Mid 19th century.

And if the previous exhibits 19 somehow still invest in the idea that it is possible to do this on machines with a foot drive or driven by a mill, even though hard stone requires not only very high revolutions, but also special hard tools made of hardened high-alloy steel with a diamond coating (as a rule, rotating circular saws are used on modern milling and turning machines for processing soft and medium-hard rocks, all production is automated), then this incredible vase from the Hermitage defies any attempts of common sense to explain but how is it done. Volumetric "3D" leaves on the lid, a volumetric wriggling ribbon near the volumetric head with a detailed hairline, 3 holes on the handle of different diameters, which look as if they came a couple of hours ago from a super-technological Japanese production, and a lot of other things, what for engineers and technologists will only shrug their shoulders in bewilderment. I am silent about the perfect polish and shine. In the video, you can also see a support for it that is not inferior to a vase, on which there are chips. There is no description for the exhibit, and it is not known what kind of brown stone without any inclusions this miracle was made of. I assume that this is the porphyry from which the vase from the London Exhibition is made.

Mikhail Volk and the "Seeker Info" team