I'm pretty sure we've conclusively answered these questions. Hand tools, skill, and absolutely unreasonable amounts of time and patience.
Any master stoneworker from any era should be able to carve stone to that level of precision given enough time and reason. The problem, as always, is that there is usually very little reason to put in that amount of time and effort when you can get 90% as good for 50% the effort.
There's a lot of incentive to put in the effort when your customer is also your God King.
I only recently learned that there are the equivalent of graffiti tags left by different work crews within usually inaccessible chambers that boast the respective team's pride. The discovery did away with the earlier assumption that it was all slaves.
Can experimental archaeology actually replicate this? If not, I don't find the speculation, even though logical, to be conclusive.
Yes, experimental archaeology has reproduced the process from quarrying to transport.
But also there are accurately hewn stones all over the world from many eras of history. It is not unique or special in any way.
The pyramid stones also aren't generally that accurate in an absolute sense. They just fit really well together. The vast majority aren't particularly flat or square, but have been worked to mate with their neighbors, which is a very different and far more mundane type of work. Some stones, particularly exposed interiors and the outer face of the casing stones were cut pretty accurately, but only the parts you can see. Inside they're usually pretty rough.
Ancient Egyptian stoneworking was impressive, even at the time, but not spectacular or exceptional. Other civilizations throughout history have built to equal skill, if not scale. People in the West just get so caught up in the mystery of the ancient Egypt myth that they think it's magical ancient lost technology. It was just regular human labor and skill, but a whole hell of a lot more of it applied in one spot than anything we can imagine today.
Yes