Quote Originally Posted by zorkuus View Post
You have to keep in mind that primitive tools was the only thing ancient people had, and so they learned and mastered their craft in them for a lifetime, for generations. We on the other hand aren't good with primitive tools because we don't need them, we don't use them and we haven't mastered them for generations. So it's not fair to say that if we cannot do these things with primitive tools then ancient people couldn't either.
There was a saying in either Chinese or Japanese culture I once heard that ran counter to the American belief that as you get older your skill wanes. It was something an architect said and was along the lines of 'when I am 20 I will be able to draw houses, when I am 30 i will be able to design buildings, when I am 40 I will be able to design entire cities, etc etc ect and when I am 80 i will be able to render the whole world with a single stroke".

While I agree that skill continues to develop with age the body does eventually fail you. But these things they are showing on the show are mechanically perfect. Not near perfect, or perfect to the naked eye - perfectly square, and perfectly flat.

And what about other structures made of dense material like granite? It may have been the same episode, not sure, but they were discussing some architecture cut of material so dense you need denser granite or diamonds to cut it. But the way it was cut didn't leave any striation that you would get from using granite or diamond drill bits.