The discovery of perfectly polished Egyptian granite vases in Syria, within a 3,500-year-old burial and dating back to the period of the Egyptian Old Kingdom, could help map out the movement and significance of these important artifacts.
The archaeological discovery dates back to 2010, but it is relevant news today, in 2025, due to the growing archaeological significance that these extremely hard stone vases, dating to the Egyptian Old Kingdom, have been gaining in recent weeks.
An important discovery was made in Qatna, in present-day Syria, by the German-Syrian research team led by Michel al-Maqdissi and Peter Pfälzner, as reported by archive.archaeology.org. The find concerns an intact burial crypt beneath the northwestern wing of the royal palace, dating back to the period between 1600 and 1400 B.C.
Inside the crypt, the bone remains of at least 30 individuals were found, likely members of the royal family or court. The arrangement of the bones suggests they may have been transferred from an earlier burial site.
Among the artifacts uncovered were a number of ceramic and stone objects, including granite vases dating back to the Egyptian Old Kingdom—about a thousand years older than the burials.
Granite vases from that era, as often pointed out by Ben from UnchartedX, are found all over the world today and exceed 100,000 units, based on verified historical records. However, many of these are the result of more recent trade. Finding intact tombs containing these artifacts helps establish clearer boundaries regarding their movement in antiquity, during the time they are believed to have been made.
The uniqueness of these vases, which has been noted in the past but is now confirmed with increasingly precise instruments, lies in their incredible craftsmanship based on mathematical calculations and geometric shapes once thought unimaginable for the time. These appear to include knowledge of the Greek numbers Pi (π) and Phi (φ), as well as the ability to produce them with a precision down to 4/10 of a micron (0.000016 inches), which is about one hundredth the thickness of a human hair. For more details, refer to this article, and further updates will certainly follow in the coming weeks and months.