Every article calling this object impossibly precise leaves out one detail. It was found in pieces. Crushed and scattered across the floor of a tomb at Saqqara, and reassembled by hand in the 1930s. Emery pulled 48 stone vessels out of that burial chamber, most of them broken, in... twenty different forms. This was the most elaborate one. Not an anomaly among pottery. The showpiece of a workshop that made hundreds of these.show more

Don’t hate me… at first glance I thought I was looking at a hubcap

Old line archeologists are the best - still calling this an ‘urn’ or ‘vessel’. Just say you have no idea - it would be closer.

they almost appear to be like an impeller blade

How was the original artifact created? With what tools? Copper and pounding stones? 40000 intact stone vases of basalt, diorite, granite with aerospace level precision under the Step Pyramid. Broken pieces are still there I saw with my own eyes

"Not an anomaly among pottery. The showpiece of a workshop that made hundreds of these." LOL wut? How is it not an anomaly among pottery, and where are the other hundreds? Why does it matter that it was broken when it was found?

What if it was simply a schist bowl? It was made from the same type of stone, schist, a medium-grade metamorphic rock, and was found in roughly the same area of Saqqara, dating to approximately the same period, around 5,000 years ago. The bowl shown below is slightly different in size, but not by much.

I think its a casting piece or prototype. Kept not used. You could take accurate measures from this master and size up or down in wood, maybe clay, or lost wax casting. It looks like it could winnow grain or whip liquids, maybe butter once fitted onto a axle on a water mill

Modern version:

Looks like some kind of impeller to me.

@grok I've been seeing this pop up on x repeatedly over the past year. Always fascinated me.

Makes you wonder why carve it out of schist stone. To be so thin and fragile what was its function that wood or copper couldnt achieve? Many extremely precise and difficult to reproduce artifacts that boggle our minds are the oldest and from the most "primitive" people.

An impeller pump, but one so hard to carve

These blades are made to move liquid. Nobody build something like that, just to look at it and think: "What if it was simply a schist bowl?" This device was made to move if you ask me, to move mercury.

I suspect that they will fly if spun fast enough.

Looks like they could create vortices in water

It is not pottery. It is made of metaschist stone.

Water impeller.

It's a propeller.

You're showing a steel wire reel for a military telephone. They were common during World War Two. Modern Egyptian military probably stashed a few of them in old tombs. The Dahshur area WAS restricted to the Egyptian military.

That’s the rim from a 52 Chevy

Its a model of a valve. Probably the functioning one was made of bronze or even wood.

I feel like water went through that and was used for hydroelectricity. Looks like a simple rotary engine.

Its really easy to make! We do it with kids now! Age and techniques GEOPOLYMER We call it natron Theory in practice. FOLLOW for education

3D print one just like it and spin it submerged in water.

It's a weight for a large pump drill.

That's it! Ancient Lazy Susan!

Used to sand cast a metal version. Three ropes position it as a drill guide

Wort paddle mixer for beer

So is it a stone vessel or pottery?

Chariots’ on 22’s, I ain’t did nuthin in life but slave Jews David Banner clearly stole his hit song from a pharaoh

Looks like a fan

I never previously considered that this item was found in fragments and "restored" in the 1930s. How different might it look today if it had never been smashed.. or had been restored by a team with different ideas of what they had been given to work with...

Pimp my chariot bruh ! no mystery.