6 ms·

That sounds interesting, do you have a link? But then again, how do you "bang" 20-50 ton rocks together?

fit2rule 6y ago
Yeah, that's a bit glib. A lot of the joints and seams technology in Peruvian ruins is unexplainable - even with modern industrial processes, we would be very hard pressed to replicate the results of some of these structures. Like it'd be very, very hard to do it as well as the ancients did, even with our crazy construction technology...
- brutt 6y ago
  It's concrete.
  - naasking 6y ago
    That doesn't solve the problem. Concrete forms in a mold. Now you have to explain how the mold was made so flat.
    - dredmorbius 6y ago
      Bang, er, well, grind three rocks together. http://precisiongranitecn.com/info/how-to-make-granite-surface-plate-22832971.html http://precisiongranitecn.com/info/how-to-make-granite-surfa...
      - ncmncm 6y ago
        So, they made a unique, precision rock mold, exactly one for each unique, poured-concrete megalith, and then... turned the mold into more concrete, and poured that into another unique, laboriously constructed rock mold? Color me not satisfied with this picture.
        dredmorbius 6y ago
        I'm not saying that's what the Inca did. But it's how you arrive at a microscopically flat surface plate.
        brutt 6y ago
        Why rock? Mold can be made from wood, animal skin, clay, or just dug hole in earth.
    - brutt 6y ago
      Mold is made from animal skin (waterproof) and wood, then block is cast in place. Skin degraded with time, so nothing left between blocks. It's easy to notice bumps on blocks where animal legs were.
  - fit2rule 6y ago
    Yeah, no. Its basaltic and granite blocks, literally cut with micro-mm precision, and glued together in a fashion that prevents seam gaps. These seams, in some cases, are thousands of years old .. And then, there are the fused-rock glasses found on some monuments which defy explanation. Lightning? Perhaps, but then there's that corona eruption theory .. Someone was melting rocks. Maybe with microwave resolutions.
    - brutt 6y ago
      Can you point to the source? Last time I checked it, it was concrete. Forms for blocks are made from animal skins. Cement was made in kiln. At least one kiln has pretty modern look.
      - fit2rule 6y ago
        Look, there are all sorts of schools of thought on how these things were built, but none of them were conclusive. I'm not saying it was rock-melting alien technology, but it was clearly some form of advanced technology we are unable to duplicate or conceive was available to the builders. Here's where to go to get on the Graham Hancock/Randall Carlson train, in case you haven't seen it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDejwCGdUV8&t=1s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDejwCGdUV8&t=1s Some interesting observations which are counter to the narrative: https://www.ancient-origins.net/ancient-places-americas/unravelling-mystery-behind-megalithic-stone-walls-saksaywaman-001470 https://www.ancient-origins.net/ancient-places-americas/unra...
- pakitan 6y ago
  Well, given a choice between the 2 hypotheses: 1. Lots of people with lots of time on their hands did something that we'd be currently hard pressed to do but no one has really tried yet. OR 2. Two aliens land on Earth and one of them says "Hey, how do we help out these poor savages to advance their civilization? I know, we'll teach them to build really cool walls from stone!" ...I know which one I'll pick. The wiki article doesn't offer any suspicions of extraterrestrial origin. In fact, a contemporary account suggests it's just hard work: "to save themselves the expense, effort and delay with which the Indians worked the stone, they pulled down all the smooth masonry in the walls. There is indeed not a house in the city that has not been made of this stone, or at least the houses built by the Spaniards." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacsayhuam%C3%A1n https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacsayhuam%C3%A1n EDIT: Do you have a reference for the 0.005mm precision claim? Some of those walls look impressive but the pictures I'm looking at, definitely don't suggest such God-like precision: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacsayhuam%C3%A1n#/media/File:Sacsayhuam%C3%A1n,_Cusco,_Per%C3%BA,_2015-07-31,_DD_27.JPG https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacsayhuam%C3%A1n#/media/File:... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacsayhuam%C3%A1n#/media/File:Sacsayhuam%C3%A1n,_Cusco,_Per%C3%BA,_2015-07-31,_DD_21.JPG https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacsayhuam%C3%A1n#/media/File:...
  - RikNieu 6y ago
    Or 3, some ancient people had better construction technology than we give them credit for. No need to bring up aliens every time someone questions orthodoxy.
    - fit2rule 6y ago
      Yes, there are many theories that can be entertained. My favourite is the mythos that, over a hundred thousand years, perhaps humans did evolve to the point they had technology to leave the planet, tidying up after themselves as they did, and its just us stragglers left behind that have been slowly devolving the tools they also left behind .. 'what if' doesn't have to be disregarded, just because its preposterous. I mean, I never once mentioned two aliens in a UFO, but hey .. sure, why not.
  - sergeykish 6y ago
WalterBright 6y ago
Pretty simple. First you pick two rocks that have nearly the right shape (its obvious they did that, because each joint is clearly custom). You put some dust on one surface. Take the mating surface, and rub it a bit on that dust. That will reveal the high spots. Take a smaller rock and bang on the high spots to grind them down a bit. Repeat the process until no more high spots. It's not dissimilar to how telescope mirrors are ground to perfection, and how to make a perfectly flat steel surface.
- ncmncm 6y ago
  Doesn't explain the entire lack of tool marks, though. Or the lack of embedded shells. I am curious about the perfectly flat, right-angled interiors of the 50+-ton (always empty!) basalt boxes in Egyptian mausoleums. We have a plausible story about cutting the outsides using copper saw blades with gems embedded in the edge, but no similar one for the insides, particularly the inside corners. We also need to understand why the tech for working the biggest rocks was lost before the Inka took up building. The late work always uses much smaller rocks, and is relatively crude.
  - WalterBright 6y ago
    > Doesn't explain the entire lack of tool marks, though. Because they didn't use tools. I've watched telescope mirrors ground to incredible precision by hand, no tools. > Or the lack of embedded shells. Use rocks without embedded shells. > inside corners Use drills, clean up with files or blocking. Remember the Pharaohs had essentially infinite resources to do that for one box. He would have used the best masons, paid them well, and gave them the time they needed. > why the tech for working the biggest rocks was lost We can't know why, but the most plausible explanation is one that accounts for lost technology everywhere. People didn't have writing or didn't bother to write it down or lost the books.
    - ncmncm 6y ago
      >> Doesn't explain the entire lack of tool marks, though. > Because they didn't use tools. I've watched telescope mirrors ground to incredible precision by hand, no tools. Good one. That doesn't work on non-convex polygonal shapes. Notably, the faces are not just identically curved, as one would get by interfering faces. They are both flat. >> Or the lack of embedded shells. > Use rocks without embedded shells. The rock faces in the quarries have embedded shells. Only the cut faces of rocks from those quarries lack them. >> inside corners > Use drills, clean up with files or blocking. Remember the Pharaohs had essentially infinite resources to do that for one box. He would have used the best masons, paid them well, and gave them the time they needed. Infinite labor doesn't help in a box. Only one or two masons would fit. We know what their rock drills were like; they had a minimum radius measured in inches. And, again, no tool marks. You don't get to define out the unknown by inventing excuses to ignore it; that is the same as inventing aliens. It takes actual work.

Yeah, that's a bit glib. A lot of the joints and seams technology in Peruvian ruins is unexplainable - even with modern industrial processes, we would be very hard pressed to replicate the results of some of these structures. Like it'd be very, very hard to do it as well as the ancients did, even with our crazy construction technology...

brutt 6y ago
It's concrete.
- naasking 6y ago
  That doesn't solve the problem. Concrete forms in a mold. Now you have to explain how the mold was made so flat.
  - dredmorbius 6y ago
    Bang, er, well, grind three rocks together. http://precisiongranitecn.com/info/how-to-make-granite-surface-plate-22832971.html http://precisiongranitecn.com/info/how-to-make-granite-surfa...
    - ncmncm 6y ago
      So, they made a unique, precision rock mold, exactly one for each unique, poured-concrete megalith, and then... turned the mold into more concrete, and poured that into another unique, laboriously constructed rock mold? Color me not satisfied with this picture.
      - dredmorbius 6y ago
        I'm not saying that's what the Inca did. But it's how you arrive at a microscopically flat surface plate.
      - brutt 6y ago
        Why rock? Mold can be made from wood, animal skin, clay, or just dug hole in earth.
  - brutt 6y ago
    Mold is made from animal skin (waterproof) and wood, then block is cast in place. Skin degraded with time, so nothing left between blocks. It's easy to notice bumps on blocks where animal legs were.
- fit2rule 6y ago
  Yeah, no. Its basaltic and granite blocks, literally cut with micro-mm precision, and glued together in a fashion that prevents seam gaps. These seams, in some cases, are thousands of years old .. And then, there are the fused-rock glasses found on some monuments which defy explanation. Lightning? Perhaps, but then there's that corona eruption theory .. Someone was melting rocks. Maybe with microwave resolutions.
  - brutt 6y ago
    Can you point to the source? Last time I checked it, it was concrete. Forms for blocks are made from animal skins. Cement was made in kiln. At least one kiln has pretty modern look.
    - fit2rule 6y ago
      Look, there are all sorts of schools of thought on how these things were built, but none of them were conclusive. I'm not saying it was rock-melting alien technology, but it was clearly some form of advanced technology we are unable to duplicate or conceive was available to the builders. Here's where to go to get on the Graham Hancock/Randall Carlson train, in case you haven't seen it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDejwCGdUV8&t=1s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDejwCGdUV8&t=1s Some interesting observations which are counter to the narrative: https://www.ancient-origins.net/ancient-places-americas/unravelling-mystery-behind-megalithic-stone-walls-saksaywaman-001470 https://www.ancient-origins.net/ancient-places-americas/unra...
pakitan 6y ago
Well, given a choice between the 2 hypotheses: 1. Lots of people with lots of time on their hands did something that we'd be currently hard pressed to do but no one has really tried yet. OR 2. Two aliens land on Earth and one of them says "Hey, how do we help out these poor savages to advance their civilization? I know, we'll teach them to build really cool walls from stone!" ...I know which one I'll pick. The wiki article doesn't offer any suspicions of extraterrestrial origin. In fact, a contemporary account suggests it's just hard work: "to save themselves the expense, effort and delay with which the Indians worked the stone, they pulled down all the smooth masonry in the walls. There is indeed not a house in the city that has not been made of this stone, or at least the houses built by the Spaniards." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacsayhuam%C3%A1n https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacsayhuam%C3%A1n EDIT: Do you have a reference for the 0.005mm precision claim? Some of those walls look impressive but the pictures I'm looking at, definitely don't suggest such God-like precision: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacsayhuam%C3%A1n#/media/File:Sacsayhuam%C3%A1n,_Cusco,_Per%C3%BA,_2015-07-31,_DD_27.JPG https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacsayhuam%C3%A1n#/media/File:... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacsayhuam%C3%A1n#/media/File:Sacsayhuam%C3%A1n,_Cusco,_Per%C3%BA,_2015-07-31,_DD_21.JPG https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacsayhuam%C3%A1n#/media/File:...
- RikNieu 6y ago
  Or 3, some ancient people had better construction technology than we give them credit for. No need to bring up aliens every time someone questions orthodoxy.
  - fit2rule 6y ago
    Yes, there are many theories that can be entertained. My favourite is the mythos that, over a hundred thousand years, perhaps humans did evolve to the point they had technology to leave the planet, tidying up after themselves as they did, and its just us stragglers left behind that have been slowly devolving the tools they also left behind .. 'what if' doesn't have to be disregarded, just because its preposterous. I mean, I never once mentioned two aliens in a UFO, but hey .. sure, why not.
- sergeykish 6y ago

WalterBright 6y ago

Pretty simple. First you pick two rocks that have nearly the right shape (its obvious they did that, because each joint is clearly custom). You put some dust on one surface. Take the mating surface, and rub it a bit on that dust. That will reveal the high spots. Take a smaller rock and bang on the high spots to grind them down a bit. Repeat the process until no more high spots. It's not dissimilar to how telescope mirrors are ground to perfection, and how to make a perfectly flat steel surface.

ncmncm 6y ago
Doesn't explain the entire lack of tool marks, though. Or the lack of embedded shells. I am curious about the perfectly flat, right-angled interiors of the 50+-ton (always empty!) basalt boxes in Egyptian mausoleums. We have a plausible story about cutting the outsides using copper saw blades with gems embedded in the edge, but no similar one for the insides, particularly the inside corners. We also need to understand why the tech for working the biggest rocks was lost before the Inka took up building. The late work always uses much smaller rocks, and is relatively crude.
- WalterBright 6y ago
  > Doesn't explain the entire lack of tool marks, though. Because they didn't use tools. I've watched telescope mirrors ground to incredible precision by hand, no tools. > Or the lack of embedded shells. Use rocks without embedded shells. > inside corners Use drills, clean up with files or blocking. Remember the Pharaohs had essentially infinite resources to do that for one box. He would have used the best masons, paid them well, and gave them the time they needed. > why the tech for working the biggest rocks was lost We can't know why, but the most plausible explanation is one that accounts for lost technology everywhere. People didn't have writing or didn't bother to write it down or lost the books.
  - ncmncm 6y ago
    >> Doesn't explain the entire lack of tool marks, though. > Because they didn't use tools. I've watched telescope mirrors ground to incredible precision by hand, no tools. Good one. That doesn't work on non-convex polygonal shapes. Notably, the faces are not just identically curved, as one would get by interfering faces. They are both flat. >> Or the lack of embedded shells. > Use rocks without embedded shells. The rock faces in the quarries have embedded shells. Only the cut faces of rocks from those quarries lack them. >> inside corners > Use drills, clean up with files or blocking. Remember the Pharaohs had essentially infinite resources to do that for one box. He would have used the best masons, paid them well, and gave them the time they needed. Infinite labor doesn't help in a box. Only one or two masons would fit. We know what their rock drills were like; they had a minimum radius measured in inches. And, again, no tool marks. You don't get to define out the unknown by inventing excuses to ignore it; that is the same as inventing aliens. It takes actual work.