Inca stone walls

[DWT]

uuuh... Are we looking at different devil's postpile pics or something? Those things are smooth and very consistent in their angularity. Looking at the top of them is almost crazier than the face.

I see hexagonal, pentagons, trapezoids etc and I bet you couldn't put an angle finder on one and it be consistent all the way around. That's how nature does things.

 

[Sandy Johnson]

I see hexagonal, pentagons, trapezoids etc and I bet you couldn't put an angle finder on one and it be consistent all the way around. That's how nature does things.

Those are somehow more natural looking than this?

 

[DWT]

Those are somehow more natural looking than this?

That's Montana, the thread is about inca walls hence I said "the topic of this thread". I can see your confusion, I should be more specific when talking to people from speckles.

 

[Sandy Johnson]

That's Montana, the thread is about inca walls hence I said "the topic of this thread". I can see your confusion, I should be more specific when talking to people from speckles.

oh ha, yeah. We're dense AF.

The inca walls are impressive, and I have my own dumb theories no one wants to hear for those, but not aliens.

 

[DWT]

oh ha, yeah. We're dense AF.

The inca walls are impressive, and I have my own dumb theories no one wants to hear for those, but not aliens.

I don't think it was aliens in the comic book sense but I'd bet it was another civilization that was here long before us. Too much stuff that isn't possible according to modern thinking and way WAY too much stuff suppressed by the Smithsonian and the Vatican over the years to simply ignore.

 

[Sandy Johnson]

I don't think it was aliens in the comic book sense but I'd bet it was another civilization that was here long before us. Too much stuff that isn't possible according to modern thinking and way WAY too much stuff suppressed by the Smithsonian and the Vatican over the years to simply ignore.

I've always felt that stone is one of the few things that would be left thousands of years later. Everything else corrodes back to nothing. I wonder what from our time will be left in a few thousand years. Some of the monuments in DC maybe? Mount Rushmore?

 

[TrailTamer]

Pyramids are similar but the stone is sandstone and easier to shape than the granite the incas and Mayans used...

Even then, how did they moved and stacked a bunch of them?



I think we can do it. We’re just lazy!

As recently as 1782 Russians transported a 1,700 tons rock over land and water, entirely by human power.

Bronze Horseman - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[DVanVorous]

Even then, how did they moved and stacked a bunch of them?



I think we can do it. We’re just lazy!

As recently as 1782 Russians transported a 1,700 tons rock over land and water, entirely by human power.

Bronze Horseman - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

One can slide/roll up ramps without too much ado. Look at the Easter Island statues and how the folks not only cut them out of the side of rock cliffs but moved and uprighted those...

Archimedes once said "Give me a place to sand and a footing for the fulcrum and I can move the world" that was ca 227BC. He had his hand in developing/inventing many of the mechanical advantage devices commonly used these days.

Never say never when dealing with human ingenuity...to use an old Engineering saw, "Anything is possible, the supposedly impossible just take time and money."

 

[Sceep]

Mount Rushmore?

Not without maintenance.

Preservation - Mount Rushmore National Memorial (U.S. National Park Service)

www.nps.gov

 

[Mikel]

 

[east_beast]

Not without maintenance.

Preservation - Mount Rushmore National Memorial (U.S. National Park Service)

www.nps.gov

Oh, it would definitely still be there. Weathered? Sure. A nose or two fallen off? Probably. But it would still be very obvious that was not a natural feature.

 

[Mikel]

Roman flat arch at the Colosseum. Defying gravity for 2000 years.

 

[subybaja]

Arr, matey. Page 5.

I did that too.

A Roman flat arch, in place for two millennia.

 

[Mikel]

It was a test to see if people were paying attention

 

[Pook]

Someone explain the mud floods and world fairs. That's a whole other rabbit hole to go down. have fun on Youtube.

Tartarian Empire - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[subybaja]

This guy is more precise by hand than some machines

The audio is hilarious- "Duhr, how did they do it?" over a video showing exactly how.

 

[east_beast]

The audio is hilarious- "Duhr, how did they do it?" over a video showing exactly how.

These ancient civilizations supposedly didn't have metal tools beyond potentially copper which is extremely soft.

 

[subybaja]

These ancient civilizations supposedly didn't have metal tools beyond potentially copper which is extremely soft.

Well, if they didn't have CNC tungsten carbide, I guess it must be aliems. 🤷‍♂️

I'm not gonna go look, but I posted videos in this thread of a guy carving granite with bronze or flint or something.

 

[east_beast]

Well, if they didn't have CNC tungsten carbide, I guess it must be aliems. 🤷‍♂️

I'm not gonna go look, but I posted videos in this thread of a guy carving granite with bronze or flint or something.

Dismissing the mysteries of ancient accomplishments by automatically assuming any pondering of how they did it as ancient alien bullshit is just lazy.

 

[subybaja]

What's to ponder? They chiseled stone accurately.

Or did you mean "I wonder if they used bronze or flint chisels?"

Saying "It's just inexplicable magic- they poured it in place!" is lazy. That's fiction, not history.

Now, if you want to talk about the Egyptian worker's quarters just down from the pyramids, or the 1/2 cut blocks in the quarries, or the abandoned tools in those quarries, that's interesting discussion.

Similar archeological evidence in South America would be really interesting.

 

[east_beast]

What's to ponder? They chiseled stone accurately.

Or did you mean "I wonder if they used bronze or flint chisels?"

Saying "It's just inexplicable magic- they poured it in place!" is lazy. That's fiction, not history.

Now, if you want to talk about the Egyptian worker's quarters just down from the pyramids, or the 1/2 cut blocks in the quarries, or the abandoned tools in those quarries, that's interesting discussion.

Similar archeological evidence in South America would be really interesting.

Yeah, it's super simple to create megalithic structures by hand using primitive tools.

They formed very exact structures out of very hard stone supposedly using stone or crude soft metal tools then moved gigantic stones using what? Archaeologists can't even agree on how they did it. If you can put together a team and demonstrate how it was done you'll be world famous. But you'll probably just scoff on the internet.

I don't think it was aliens. I don't think it was "magic". I think they likely used technology that has been lost to history.

 

[JR4X]

Well, if they didn't have CNC tungsten carbide, I guess it must be aliems. 🤷‍♂️

What's to ponder? They chiseled stone accurately.

Or did you mean "I wonder if they used bronze or flint chisels?"

Saying "It's just inexplicable magic- they poured it in place!" is lazy. That's fiction, not history.

Now, if you want to talk about the Egyptian worker's quarters just down from the pyramids, or the 1/2 cut blocks in the quarries, or the abandoned tools in those quarries, that's interesting discussion.

Similar archeological evidence in South America would be really interesting.

I don’t believe in ancient aliens except that we are the ancient aliens. It’s just intriguing how much big shit got completed by what we are supposed believe were primitive people. You like to be dismissive. Are you not interested in the math of it at all?

The great pyramid, if you placed 10 blocks a day it would have taken 664 years to build just that one. There’s 118 pyramids just in Egypt, every last one of them completed by 4,500 + years ago. First of all, the workmanship on most of that shit does not exude the work of a starving slave. Second. You want me to believe that there was constant stream of able adult slaves cutting forming moving assembling them? For the thousands of years it had to take to do just those 118?

Sticking with the great pyramid, Rock quary is 500 miles away. The smallest blocks weigh between 2600~2700 pounds. They only get much bigger from there.

So if each block had to travel singularly in one direction that’s 3,320,000 miles for the blocks alone. How many people did it take making 1000 mile round trips to fetch one block and return with it. On what? In what? How about keeping enough nourishment on hand to keep whatever animals and people moving to complete the work.

There is way more to consider than just the chiseling part. So come on, dismiss away, pick that apart and make it sound simple or unimpressive. I am aware that I did pick the biggest pyramid.

 

[ExWrench]

Sticking with the great pyramid, Rock quary is 500 miles away. The smallest blocks weigh between 2600~2700 pounds. They only get much bigger from there.

So if each block had to travel singularly in one direction that’s 3,320,000 miles for the blocks alone.

OR - Giza was the rock quarry, and all the sand there now is just the pile of dust from cutting out & shaping all the pyramid blocks onsite

 

[JR4X]

What's to ponder? They chiseled stone accurately.

Or did you mean "I wonder if they used bronze or flint chisels?"

Saying they poured it in place!" is lazy. That's fiction, not history.

I don’t think the blocks of the pyramids are poured. I do think the blocks of the Inca walls are poured. Poured in a leather bag to really hang my ass out there. The Incan blocks are the polar opposite of pyramid blocks. A pyramid block is true, nice, precise. The Inca blocks are none of those things, they are a mess of angles and sizes. As if thrown together in the moment with zero fore thought put into it. Just started somewhere and worked toward the end goal.

Similar archeological evidence in South America would be really interesting.

As in? The quarries? There are pyramids in South America. Far more beautiful than any in Egypt although much smaller. Far numerous however, there is nearly 2000 pyramids in the americas and statues and carvings aplenty that make the stuff in Egypt look like amateur hour.

 

[Provience]

Oh, it would definitely still be there. Weathered? Sure. A nose or two fallen off? Probably. But it would still be very obvious that was not a natural feature.

Muslims going to find it?

 

[JR4X]

 

[Pocahontas]

What's to ponder? They chiseled stone accurately.

Or did you mean "I wonder if they used bronze or flint chisels?"

Saying "It's just inexplicable magic- they poured it in place!" is lazy. That's fiction, not history.

Now, if you want to talk about the Egyptian worker's quarters just down from the pyramids, or the 1/2 cut blocks in the quarries, or the abandoned tools in those quarries, that's interesting discussion.

Similar archeological evidence in South America would be really interesting.

Not to pick on you but you need to do some more research.

There’s four things that are puzzling to me in Egypt, not that it couldn’t be done but it’s doubtful it could be done with the tools and methods we attribute to them. Haven’t looked into Incas that much but the construction doesn’t seem logical, inferring some different understanding of materials.

For Egypt.

1. Tube drills in granite, scratches seem to show a drill being used eating away at the rock at approximately 1/16 to 1/32 per turn.

2. Vases made out of granite and other hard stones that are “perfect” to within a few thousands as well as being very thin.

3. Polishing of granite or other hard stones to a mirror finish, not just on a plane but in complex shapes.

4. The logistics of all the building that they did, from the mining to transport to construction. You have to have thousands of people working on each one of these projects, requiring a complex social structure as well as the financial agricultural means to support the workers.


At a minimum they had access to a lathe which opens the can of worms if they had a lathe and drill what else did they have? Not saying in any way it was aliens but technology that is not attributed to them at a minimum and if they went down a different development trajectory maybe they used some other method we haven’t rediscovered.

 

[subybaja]

I don’t believe in ancient aliens except that we are the ancient aliens. It’s just intriguing how much big shit got completed by what we are supposed believe were primitive people. You like to be dismissive. Are you not interested in the math of it at all?

The great pyramid, if you placed 10 blocks a day it would have taken 664 years to build just that one. There’s 118 pyramids just in Egypt, every last one of them completed by 4,500 + years ago. First of all, the workmanship on most of that shit does not exude the work of a starving slave. Second. You want me to believe that there was constant stream of able adult slaves cutting forming moving assembling them? For the thousands of years it had to take to do just those 118?

Sticking with the great pyramid, Rock quary is 500 miles away. The smallest blocks weigh between 2600~2700 pounds. They only get much bigger from there.

So if each block had to travel singularly in one direction that’s 3,320,000 miles for the blocks alone. How many people did it take making 1000 mile round trips to fetch one block and return with it. On what? In what? How about keeping enough nourishment on hand to keep whatever animals and people moving to complete the work.

There is way more to consider than just the chiseling part. So come on, dismiss away, pick that apart and make it sound simple or unimpressive. I am aware that I did pick the biggest pyramid.

I didn't say it was simple or unimpressive. It was neither.

Get with the times. "Slaves" was the 1950s explanation. Since then, they've found the seasonal worker's quarters, what they ate, pay records, timecards of who worked how much in between farming...

The Lost City of the Pyramid Builders|AERA

aeraweb.org

In December 1988, we began excavating a previously unknown site 400 meters south of the Sphinx that was near a monumental stone wall known in Arabic as Heit el-Ghurab (or “Wall of the Crow” in English). The 4th Dynasty settlement we discovered here proved to be an urban settlement that sprawled across more than 7 hectares (over 17 acres). Purpose-built by the crown, this city served as the base of operations for constructing the great pyramid complexes of kings Menkaure, Khafre, and probably Khufu. Its large population of laborers, craftsmen, managers, and administrators all directly or indirectly worked toward the single goal of erecting their king’s eternal home.


This vast town not only housed the workers who built the pyramid complexes, but also those who sustained the town and its workforce. Here craftsmen made statues and furnishings for the temples, as well as the tools and equipment for actually creating the mortuary structures, while support staff worked to provide the town with food and basic supplies. The town’s streets and alleyways were lined with craft workshops, industrial yards, bakeries, commissaries, kitchens, warehouses, small houses, and stately homes/offices for site administrators.


Raw materials from across Egypt flowed into the site for building, furnishing, and decorating the pyramid complexes and for producing the workforce’s food, clothes, shelter, tools, and equipment. During the annual Nile inundation, these materials were ferried by boat to the town’s doorstep on long extinct waterways, while at other times they were hauled there by men and animals. Massive royal silos stood in a large compound where the grain was distributed to create the beer and bread used to help feed this massive workforce.

People talk about "slaves" as though it's a southern plantation harvesting a field. Think of it more as the Holy Roman Emperor turning the entire Catholic religion to building the Hoover Dam. The pyramids were massive centralized community works, financed by the rulers of an empire 10x older then America. You think the Feds are powerful and wasteful? Try a bureaucracy that's been around for 80 generations!

Go back and read this thread. I've already posted examples of contemporary barges plenty big to haul the stones from the quarries. The quarries with half-cut stones still in place. There's no mystery.

Poured in a leather bag to really hang my ass out there. The Incan blocks are the polar opposite of pyramid blocks. A pyramid block is true, nice, precise. The Inca blocks are none of those things, they are a mess of angles and sizes. As if thrown together in the moment with zero fore thought put into it. Just started somewhere and worked toward the end goal.

This is why I'm dismissive. That's History Channel stuff. There are clearly understood methods of making closely-fitting stone blocks. There are zero known (or even theoretical) methods of pouring actual stone (not concrete). That suggestion is in the same ballpark as the people who say "It's really heavy, must be antigravity!".


"Inca Quarry Trail". Huh.

Loading…

www.viator.com

Not to pick on you but you need to do some more research.

There’s four things that are puzzling to me in Egypt, not that it couldn’t be done but it’s doubtful it could be done with the tools and methods we attribute to them. Haven’t looked into Incas that much but the construction doesn’t seem logical, inferring some different understanding of materials.

For Egypt.

1. Tube drills in granite, scratches seem to show a drill being used eating away at the rock at approximately 1/16 to 1/32 per turn.

2. Vases made out of granite and other hard stones that are “perfect” to within a few thousands as well as being very thin.

3. Polishing of granite or other hard stones to a mirror finish, not just on a plane but in complex shapes.

4. The logistics of all the building that they did, from the mining to transport to construction. You have to have thousands of people working on each one of these projects, requiring a complex social structure as well as the financial agricultural means to support the workers.


At a minimum they had access to a lathe which opens the can of worms if they had a lathe and drill what else did they have? Not saying in any way it was aliens but technology that is not attributed to them at a minimum and if they went down a different development trajectory maybe they used some other method we haven’t rediscovered.

I've done plenty of research, and I'm not seeing a mystery, just talented craftsmen working for decades.

1. Yeah, and? Principles of tubular free abrasive drilling - Антропогенез.РУ

2. Yep, they were competent at their jobs. God-King said "Make this perfect.", and they did.
Well, mostly. Here's one with mistakes.

LINK

Fig. 17. A cross-sectioned Middle Kingdom travertinevessel from the Southern Pyramid at Mazghuneh. (TheManchester Museum, Photograph by Jon Bodsworth TheEgypt Archive)


LINK

Fig. 2. a) Egyptian carpenters using a bowdrill.b) Beadmakers using a triple bit bowdrill and threading beads for a necklace.Both from a tomb at Thebes c.1450 BC (after Singer et. al. 1954).

Pics or it didn't happen! OK:

LINK

Fig. 3. a) Tomb representation of vase making using arboring tool. b) Tool reconstruction of type used in gypsum vessel manufacturing(after Hodges 1964).




3. Sanding something smooth is puzzling? I mean, it's great artisanship, but rubbing rocks together doesn't seem like a mystery.

Hand finishing a sculpture to polish and smooth the stone curves

Using carborundum blocks I hand polish the stone sculpture to give smooth curves and beautiful finish

jennifertetlow.co.uk

Abrade, repeat – abrade, repeat, repeat, repeat …..

To achieve smooth curves and clean lines in stone (which I like in my sculpture), I need abrasives. Lots of them, and lots of elbow-grease. After the chiseling, and filing, the surface still has marks, and these need to be sanded away. My hand feels the stone surface, finds the ‘blemishes’ and the other hand gets busy rubbing with the sanding block. The eye very easily spots a wobbly line, or uneven surface and this interrupts the flow and elegance of a piece, so I work hard to get rid of them.

4. See above. They HAD thousands of workers, complex structure, etc.

No lost technologies, no inexplicable mystery, just a gigantic ancient empire employing generations of competent craftsmen, leaving behind tools, buildings, records, and methods as they went.

Ancient megaliths are fascinating in their own right, as human achievements. The organization, labor, and techniques are worthy of study. Dismissing their achievements as magic degrades them to fairy stories.

 

[Grnjp92]

I didn't say it was simple or unimpressive. It was neither.

Get with the times. "Slaves" was the 1950s explanation. Since then, they've found the seasonal worker's quarters, what they ate, pay records, timecards of who worked how much in between farming...

The Lost City of the Pyramid Builders|AERA

aeraweb.org

People talk about "slaves" as though it's a southern plantation harvesting a field. Think of it more as the Holy Roman Emperor turning the entire Catholic religion to building the Hoover Dam. The pyramids were massive centralized community works, financed by the rulers of an empire 10x older then America. You think the Feds are powerful and wasteful? Try a bureaucracy that's been around for 80 generations!

Go back and read this thread. I've already posted examples of contemporary barges plenty big to haul the stones from the quarries. The quarries with half-cut stones still in place. There's no mystery.



This is why I'm dismissive. That's History Channel stuff. There are clearly understood methods of making closely-fitting stone blocks. There are zero known (or even theoretical) methods of pouring actual stone (not concrete). That suggestion is in the same ballpark as the people who say "It's really heavy, must be antigravity!".


"Inca Quarry Trail". Huh.

Loading…

www.viator.com

I've done plenty of research, and I'm not seeing a mystery, just talented craftsmen working for decades.

1. Yeah, and? Principles of tubular free abrasive drilling - Антропогенез.РУ

2. Yep, they were competent at their jobs. God-King said "Make this perfect.", and they did.
Well, mostly. Here's one with mistakes.

LINK

Fig. 17. A cross-sectioned Middle Kingdom travertinevessel from the Southern Pyramid at Mazghuneh. (TheManchester Museum, Photograph by Jon Bodsworth TheEgypt Archive)


LINK

Fig. 2. a) Egyptian carpenters using a bowdrill.b) Beadmakers using a triple bit bowdrill and threading beads for a necklace.Both from a tomb at Thebes c.1450 BC (after Singer et. al. 1954).

Pics or it didn't happen! OK:

LINK

Fig. 3. a) Tomb representation of vase making using arboring tool. b) Tool reconstruction of type used in gypsum vessel manufacturing(after Hodges 1964).




3. Sanding something smooth is puzzling? I mean, it's great artisanship, but rubbing rocks together doesn't seem like a mystery.


4. See above. They HAD thousands of workers, complex structure, etc.

No lost technologies, no inexplicable mystery, just a gigantic ancient empire employing generations of competent craftsmen, leaving behind tools, buildings, records, and methods as they went.

Ancient megaliths are fascinating in their own right, as human achievements. The organization, labor, and techniques are worthy of study. Dismissing their achievements as magic degrades them to fairy stories.

Spoilsport!

 

[subybaja]

Hidden Secrets of Ancient Egyptian Technology - The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Conservator Anna Serotta and Associate Research Scientist Federico Carò explore a small stone fragment from the Museum's collection that may hold key information about the use of high-performance abrasives in ancient Egypt.

www.metmuseum.org

This fragment has several vestiges of what resemble drill holes, cut at slightly different angles. The main drill hole is about one centimeter wide and has a protruding stump at the bottom left by a broken drill core.
...
The presence of abundant corundum particles conveys high abrasive efficiency to this material, and strongly suggests that this mixture was deliberately used in the drilling process of the hard limestone fragment. Remains at the bottom of the drill hole thus consist of a mixture of the abrasive, the powdered limestone, and corroded fragments of the bronze drilling tool. All together, these findings suggest the use of a bronze tubular drill[6] in conjunction with a corundum-rich abrasive mixture.