Inca stone walls

[Mikel]

Not speculation, this guy does it on camera.

Now take 10,000 of him, with a Hoover Dam budget.

So the man is moving 1600 lb blocks using modern engineering knowledge.

I'm not taking credit away from the incas. If what they did wasn't amazing, we would not be here today, arguing about how they did it.

 

[subybaja]

So the man is moving 1600 lb blocks using modern engineering knowledge.

I'm not taking credit away from the incas. If what they did wasn't amazing, we would not be here today, arguing about they did it.

I think you missed a decimal. And don't forget be's a hobbyist.

Ropes, boards, sand and water? Not very modern... Don't mistake people in the past for stupid because they didn't have satelites.

 

[Mikel]

I think you missed a decimal. And don't forget be's a hobbyist.

Ropes, boards, sand and water? Not very modern... Don't mistake people in the past for stupid because they didn't have satelites.

Compound pulleys may seem trivial to you, but for a society that did not know the wheel, it likely had to wait until the evil Spaniards showed up.

 

[Chevy_man]

Compound pulleys may seem trivial to you, but for a society that did not know the wheel, it likely had to wait until the evil Spaniards showed up.

Could very well be they had round objects as pulleys.

They just didn't think up cars because they didn't have brakes and they dismissed it after the first 3 guys fell off a cliff

 

[subybaja]

https://trekandteach.com/inca-influence-todays-society/

pulley baskets- For long distances where a suspension bridge would prove inadequate, the Inca used a third type of bridge. The Inca would stretch a rope across the obstruction and hang a basket from it. This basket could typically hold up to two or three people. Once inside they would be pulled across using a pulley system. These bridges proved useful moving people or supplies across wide rivers or steep mountain ravines.

.

 

[plym49.2]

I think you are only looking at the volume of stone to be carved. My solution clearly has more.

What I find mind boggling is the amount of effort and skill to create a very intricate 3-D puzzle, in a world where you can't lift a huge stone and try fitment a dozen times with a hydraulic crane. These things often have gaps in which you can't get a knife blade in. Even using plaster templates it is a metric ton of work.

For us, because we tend to be helpless without our modern tools and equipment. For them, they worked with what they had just as we do today. In a couple of millennia they'll wonder how we built stuff with dozers and cranes.

How did Stradivarius build such awesome violins with basic hand tools? And no synthetic finishes or materials? No CAD?

It's the epitomy of arrogance to sell the ancients short just because we have more advanced tech. They were humans as we are with the same brains and the same gifts for innovation and creativity.

I mean, I should know, I'm old enough.

 

[IowaOffRoad]

For us, because we tend to be helpless without our modern tools and equipment. For them, they worked with what they had just as we do today. In a couple of millennia they'll wonder how we built stuff with dozers and cranes.

How did Stradivarius build such awesome violins with basic hand tools? And no synthetic finishes or materials? No CAD?

It's the epitomy of arrogance to sell the ancients short just because we have more advanced tech. They were humans as we are with the same brains and the same gifts for innovation and creativity.

I mean, I should know, I'm old enough.

Yep, the key is time and wealth. The difference between ancient times and now is the technology to do great things is in the hands of many more people. Back then the technology was geared mostly towards vanity projects for the ultra wealthy and powerful as they are the only ones who had the money, and therefore time, to spend.

 

[49willys_mogon]

Seems that the monoliths were built before the Mayans which built on top of them.

Also heard a theory that the monoliths might of been poured like concrete instead of cut.

 

[78bronco460]

Yep, the key is time and wealth. The difference between ancient times and now is the technology to do great things is in the hands of many more people. Back then the technology was geared mostly towards vanity projects for the ultra wealthy and powerful as they are the only ones who had the money, and therefore time, to spend.

They also has slaves, lots of slaves.

 

[plym49.2]

Mikel, a postscript to my most previous response.

Don't neglect that people can be really, really good at what they do.

How many of us can feel a thousandth and be able to spot-on eyeball points gap or ring gear play? Quite a few, I reckon.

My grandfather was a cntractor and a mason. Usually worked by himself because no one he hired could keep up with him. He mixed every load of concrete by hand, drove every nail by hand, cut every board by hand, and drilled every hole with a hand brace.

He could - and did - lay a block wall that was plumb and square and level by eye - not even a string for a guide. He would plaster a wall over lath (two scratch coats and one finish coat) that anyone woud swear was sheetrocked.

Craftsmen can do a lot by eye. I mean, how could Michelangelo paint figures perfectly proportioned from a viewpoint 30 feet below when he was laying on his back 18" away from the ceiling? I mean, no one can do that without a CAD image laser projected onto the ceiling, right?

I betcha thos stones were roughed out under some master's eye and then finished by the uber-master. No plaster casts or cranes for trial and error needed.

 

[vetteboy79]

Craftsmen can do a lot by eye. I mean, how could Michelangelo paint figures perfectly proportioned from a viewpoint 30 feet below when he was laying on his back 18" away from the ceiling? I mean, no one can do that without a CAD image laser projected onto the ceiling, right?

Did you ever see "Tim's Vermeer"?

Tim's Vermeer - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Pretty cool exploration into some very clever methods/theories about how Vermeer was able to capture such realism in his paintings.

 

[Splib]

Granite and Diorite ROCK may not be formed by pouring into clay moulds. To suggest so displays a complete ignorance of lithology. End of story. It is imbecilic. A plausible explanation for the Inca shapes is resistance to seismic shaking. There was a pretty deep multi page thread on the ancients stone work a while back. Sirch nubes.

 

[jpmassey]

I climbed around on those exact rocks in Peru. My point was that if they could carve them so accurately, why not make them rectangular like the Europeans did? Our theory from looking at them is that much of the rocks were carved in place from larger stones. Or, taken from a formation of naturally fracturing rocks. Why would you curve an inside corner so accurately, but them have a even and pronounced radius with the intersection with the next rock? Why not a perfect flat intersection like the Egyptians?

Overall, I wasn't terribly impressed.

 

[jpmassey]

Right around the corner are huge naturally occurring rock formations. They carved them into a slide.

 

[Splib]

My point was that if they could carve them so accurately, why not make them rectangular like the Europeans did?

Seismic properties. Look at them. Similar rectangular walls will collapse.

 

[jpmassey]

Seismic properties. Look at them. Similar rectangular walls will collapse.

Um, no. You think the inca had that level of engineering? Those rocks have crazy intersections because those are natural fault lines.

 

[Mr Stubs]

Right around the corner are huge naturally occurring rock formations. They carved them into a slide.

Looks like grooves made from lowering items down…

Like a lot of items, over a long time

 

[jpmassey]

Looks like grooves made from lowering items down…

Like a lot of items, over a long time

The explanation is probably much more simple. Just like those fancy rocks. The slide was carved to follow a natural depression by a dad on the weekend for his kids. The fancy rocks are half carved in place from large boulders and half smaller ones stacked on top because it was the easiest way to do it.

I slid down those slides a bunch of times. It fits your butt just perfect. They are just slides.

View from the top:

 

[Gregj50!!!!!]

They used cardboard and scribes…..
Bezos is a time traveler!!!!!

 

[Splib]

Um, no. You think the inca had that level of engineering? Those rocks have crazy intersections because those are natural fault lines.

Faults - You do not really know or understand faults or really anything about them. I do, I am a geologist. It's like the explanation about pouring granite into clay moulds. Not going to debate that natural faults made a geometric rock design and formed a wall with them. Anyone with an entry level of geologic education or understanding of the field would flag those ideas as a complete and total NO. Anyone. Nolo contendre.

I agree that the Inca did not have that level of engineering. The megaliths are theorized to be pre-Inca. There was an elaborate thread here on the Egyptian vases that went into all kinds of great detail and theory on the evidence for pre-bronze age civilizations. Dig that up there is a lot of info there if you have the time. Lots of time

 

[Splib]

Here ya go !! 20 pages of goodness. Notice I changed my tune over time in that thread.

In the vein of ancient apocalypse.

The bit about the granite vase is crazy, and it’s mind blowing to think that it took thousands of years for us to even come up with the nomenclature to describe what they were able to do as far as accuracy goes.

irate4x4.com

 

[jpmassey]

Faults - You do not really know or understand faults or really anything about them. I do, I am a geologist. It's like the explanation about pouring granite into clay moulds. Not going to debate that natural faults made a geometric rock design and formed a wall with them. Anyone with an entry level of geologic education or understanding of the field would flag those ideas as a complete and total NO. Anyone. Nolo contendre.

I learned a long time ago that when I started my arguments with 'I'm an engineer', I didn't know enough about that particular subject to talk about it.

 

[TrailTamer]

Um, no. You think the inca had that level of engineering?

yes, yes they did. probably best to consider it as stonemasonry than engineering. Even though, the way they constructed them it's clear they were done on purpose.

you probably will change your mind after watching this. Amazon.com
India people carved cave into SOLID granite rock, with flatness, straightness and squareness exceeding our today's capability and to top it off, they polished everything to mirror finish. Centuries later, still can see oneself's reflection.

so mind blowing.

I truly will love to learn how these ancient builders did it.

 

[plym49.2]

Yep, the key is time and wealth. The difference between ancient times and now is the technology to do great things is in the hands of many more people. Back then the technology was geared mostly towards vanity projects for the ultra wealthy and powerful as they are the only ones who had the money, and therefore time, to spend.

You can say the same thing about power tools. In the 60s and 70s it was unheard of for a regular person to have an impact wrench. Or air compressor. Or hydraulic floor jacks. And so on and so forth.

Nowadays no one can drive a screw unless it has a Phillips head and they have a cordless drill.

George Barris built awesome custom cars with an OA torch, lead, wooden paddles, and a container of beeswax. Now, go check out Robby Layton's auto body shop on YT.

It is the nature of humans to create better and better tools. That doesn't mean that our ancestors could not perform sme amazing shit n their ownright.

 

[Gregj50!!!!!]

You can say the same thing about power tools. In the 60s and 70s it was unheard of for a regular person to have an impact wrench. Or air compressor. Or hydraulic floor jacks. And so on and so forth.

Nowadays no one can drive a screw unless it has a Phillips head and they have a cordless drill.

George Barris built awesome custom cars with an OA torch, lead, wooden paddles, and a container of beeswax. Now, go check out Robby Layton's auto body shop on YT.

It is the nature of humans to create better and better tools. That doesn't mean that our ancestors could not perform sme amazing shit n their ownright.

You get those Fkn Philips head screws the fk outa here!!!!!!
Torx or square drive are the new deal for not stripping!!!!

 

[JK13]

Here ya go !! 20 pages of goodness. Notice I changed my tune over time in that thread.

In the vein of ancient apocalypse.

The bit about the granite vase is crazy, and it’s mind blowing to think that it took thousands of years for us to even come up with the nomenclature to describe what they were able to do as far as accuracy goes.

irate4x4.com

Thanks, I was catching up reading the thread and was hoping someone would link this 🤙🏻

 

[Mikel]

 

[subybaja]

100 tons, accurate to 20nm.

Casting a $20 Million Mirror for the World’s Largest Telescope

The glass arcs that will let astronomers peer back millions of years are decades in the making

spectrum.ieee.org

the recent castings of the 15-metric ton, off-axis mirrors for the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT) forced engineers to push the design and manufacturing process beyond all previous limits.
...
The seven 8.4-meter-wide mirrors will combine to serve as a 24.5-meter mirror telescope with 10 times the resolution of the Hubble Space Telescope.
...
more than 17,000 kilograms of special glass are ordered and inspected for flaws. Next, a crew must build a 15-metric ton ceramic structure to serve as a mold
...
The glass is slowly melted and continuously spun in a furnace to create a parabolic shape, then cooled by fractions of degrees over the course of three months.
...
Then they reposition the mirror in order to shape and polish the front face to within 20 nanometers of perfection—a process that takes about 18 months.
...
Any mammoth mirror requires much of the same engineering, but six of the seven GMT mirrors have an off-axis, parabolic shape. Producing an off-axis mirror at this scale is a new achievement
...

 

[arse_sidewards]

Only 100 tons?

 

[Mikel]

Flat arch at the Colosseum. Quite the piece of engineering.