You mean we are not that good at cutting stone with ancient techniques, or perhaps more accurately nobody wants to expend the manual labor when there are more efficient methods. Stone carving is still a trade you can get into but you use manual techniques for fine detail, and grinders and pneumatic tools for bulk cutting.

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nine_k 3 days ago | parent [-]

Wielding a modern power tool that can cut stone 1000x faster than ancient hammer and chisel, you'd likely still have trouble to cut a pyramid block precisely. Modern precise-cutting machines are huge compared to the things they cut.

It's the ability to precisely measure and mark huge pieces of rock what looks like a miracle to me. Producing the exact shape is easy when you can always check how close to the desired shape you are, and it's the hard part.

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Legend2440 3 days ago | parent [-]

I think you are overestimating the precision of ancient pyramid blocks. Most of them are quite crudely cut, with the gaps filled with rubble and mortar.

	▲	nine_k 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		Speaking of the Great Pyramid, the bulk of it is crudely cut, but the outer casing and the lining of the interior chambers has gaps well below 1 mm in width. These stones are about 2.5m long, much longer than a typical human, and weigh several tons. Not only had they to be cut to sub-millimeter precision, they also had to be installed equally precisely. This takes serious engineering chops, especially when you don't even have steel.