Enigmatic Archaeology

Yes, he must be kidding. Any engineer would tell you that it's impossible even with the equipment we have today.



Exactly my point. Thanks.

Will post some here but maybe not right now. The book I am reading, "Kristin Lavransdatter" beckons. That was written by the daughter of an archaeologist!

Thinking outside the engineering box here:

Perhaps rock might have properties that reinforced concrete does not?

In many circumstances concrete tends to rot over time. It's a big problem with the bridges in Massachusetts right now. Stone, forged by nature over millions of years, will last far longer.

I haven’t had time to visit Godlike for some days and this morning I see this thread has revived itself and is pinned. Sixteen “Crap” votes though. Ouch. But there are 25 responses by interested posters so let’s see what good can come of this. I will spend this morning reading the posts and links and responding to them briefly. I will start with the latest post and work my way back.

Muy Buenos dies a todos.
Christopher

Those cut stones are huge. Assuming that they're not cast (as some people claim the Egyptian megaliths were) and are granite or basalt (or even sandstone) then I don't see how it'd be possible to move them, given the typical moving-roller mechanism common a couple of millennia ago.

However, not having seen the underlayment of the location itself, nor whether it might be possible to trench and actually move these stones, I can't say for sure how they were moved.

I doubt, though, that any culture able to move such stones weould be any more advanced than ours, simply because any advanced technology culture would do the easier approach: cast reinforced or pre-stressed concrete. Engineers and project managers, even great ones like Imhotep, always try to get the most bang for the buck. Why use rock when a reinforced concrete is so much easier, especially if you have the technology to use it?

I would like to see some good papers written by a civil engineer who has actually ben there and would lend his thought to this problem. I certainly lack the knowledge to even make a guess.

Those cut stones are huge. Assuming that they're not cast (as some people claim the Egyptian megaliths were) and are granite or basalt (or even sandstone) then I don't see how it'd be possible to move them, given the typical moving-roller mechanism common a couple of millennia ago.

However, not having seen the underlayment of the location itself, nor whether it might be possible to trench and actually move these stones, I can't say for sure how they were moved.

I doubt, though, that any culture able to move such stones weould be any more advanced than ours, simply because any advanced technology culture would do the easier approach: cast reinforced or pre-stressed concrete. Engineers and project managers, even great ones like Imhotep, always try to get the most bang for the buck. Why use rock when a reinforced concrete is so much easier, especially if you have the technology to use it?

I would like to see some good papers written by a civil engineer who has actually ben there and would lend his thought to this problem. I certainly lack the knowledge to even make a guess.


Duncan,
View the youtube of Wally Wallington moving and stacking huge blocks of concrete. I think he may well have the answer as to how these huge stone were manipulated.

"I will begin with a link that includes photos, drawings and a brief description of the site of Baalbek in Iraq (from about 3,500 B.C.) where the largest known stones ever cut and moved by humans are found"

cut and moved by humans

You are kidding, right?

First: The three blocks used weight about 800 tons each, the heavy, unmoved block weights about 1200 tons.

Second: The quarry for the blocks lies higher then the temple, about 15 meters. Distance to the platform: about 600 meters, but to get round a ditch the way had to be about 1100 meters long.

Third: A German expedition dug 1904/1905 through to the foundations of the temple. The temple platform is through and through of Roman origin. They found typical roman masonery, roman trash and so on, down to the bedrock. Nothing un-Roman was found! Btw: The temple platform was not built from massive stone, but typically roman honeycombed. Only the outer shell looks like a massive building.

Fourth: The trash you can read about the temple comes mostly from a book from 1864 ("Voyage autour de la mer morte" by Felicien ce Saulcy) and an article from a professor Modeste Agrest, who based his story on a book "published in Paris in 1898" - long befor any serious dig was done. These sources were used by authors like Daeniken and Sitchin. The first real investigation from 1904/1905, published 1921 (Wiegand, Ballbek, 3 bde, 1921-1925), is "forgotten" by these guys.

As you might know, Rome is the city with the most obelisks outside of egypt. They stole the things by the dozen and took them home. The heaviest known obelisk weighs 510 tons, and it was transported some 1000's of *kilometers*. This transport was documented by the roman author Marcellinus Comes. The romans even left detailed paintings and reliefs about the ways to move such things : as on the bottom of the Theodosius-obelisk in Istanbul.

They used "Roman-patented" winches, in German called "Göpelwinden" which work with long lever ways. To move a 900 ton stone, they needed only 700 men. The transport was slow, about 30 meters a day, because they had to dismantle and rebuild the winches every few meters, to pull the obelisk with maximum torque. But in Baalbek, where they moved several blocks, maybe they built an alley of winches, where they passed the block from winch to winch.

But its irrelevant, because they needed only three weeks per block, and that's OK. Oh by the way, the Romans worked a few hundred years on the temple, until the project was finally canceled.

It would be nice if you would read just some of the basic stuff about antique transporting techniques before arguing about "I don't know how to do it, and therefore anciens certainly didn't know it". From Roman times, and the trilithon was built in Roman times, we have full documentations about the methods they used. For example, the transport of a 900 t block at the time of Thedosius (compareable to the Bal Bekaa blocks) was accomplished with 12 winches manned with 24 men each - or only 264 men!!!

...Next point: Why do I write Bal Bekaa instead of Baalbek? Because this is the original name of the settlement after roman times: Bal Bekaa means "Valley of the Bekaa" and has nothing to do with the old god Baal (you notice the similarity between "Valley of Bekaa" and the famous "Bekaa-plateau" in Lebanon??? Yeah, right, they both mean the same location.) . "Bal Bekaa" was the official name up to the 19th century, and the French use this writing (or the shortened form Bal Bek) until today.
In fact, the whole settlement is of Roman origin, first mentioned in about 20 AD as "Colonia Iulia Felix Helipolitania", named not after the Greek sun god Helios (as Sitchin proposes), but after a local Roman hero, Iuppiter Heliopolitanus. The city lay in the center of several trade routes and therefore flourished after it had to be abandoned because of the onrush of the Arabs.

...All these things are known since the publishing of the Wiegand- Baalbek-report between 1921-1925. Z. Sitchin (from where you as I believe you got the "facts") is or was in posession of these reports (because he uses pictures from these books, without mentioning their origins). He publishes the pictures, but doesn't mention the other facts published in the three volumes - so I think I can say, he is a fraud. Once I believed in these people, too. Because I thought "When they publish such things they must be true, because nobody can publish lies as facts". Silly me. When you care to take a look at my home page, you can find some of these silly old believes right there. And I only can say: Think before you flame against "schoolbook science". There is a reason because we have to go to school ;-)

Frank Doernenburg

Christopher

What did you make of the Fuente Magna? Sumerian artefacts in Bolivia!

[link to www.world-mysteries.com]

I recommend that you look at it again and even download his one-hour video. His techniques are not that slow and he is working alone. Check it out. No one else has provided us with a better solution to this enigma of the ancients moving and stacking stones of great weight.

"I will begin with a link that includes photos, drawings and a brief description of the site of Baalbek in Iraq (from about 3,500 B.C.) where the largest known stones ever cut and moved by humans are found"

cut and moved by humans

You are kidding, right?


The site does not date to "3500 BC." It is Roman through and through.

Here is an example of a few of the many, many things that are known about the site:

First: The three blocks used weight about 800 tons each, the heavy, unmoved block weights about 1200 tons.

Second: The quarry for the blocks lies higher then the temple, about 15 meters. Distance to the platform: about 600 meters, but to get round a ditch the way had to be about 1100 meters long.

Third: A German expedition dug 1904/1905 through to the foundations of the temple. The temple platform is through and through of Roman origin. They found typical roman masonery, roman trash and so on, down to the bedrock. Nothing un-Roman was found! Btw: The temple platform was not built from massive stone, but typically roman honeycombed. Only the outer shell looks like a massive building.

Fourth: The trash you can read about the temple comes mostly from a book from 1864 ("Voyage autour de la mer morte" by Felicien ce Saulcy) and an article from a professor Modeste Agrest, who based his story on a book "published in Paris in 1898" - long befor any serious dig was done. These sources were used by authors like Daeniken and Sitchin. The first real investigation from 1904/1905, published 1921 (Wiegand, Ballbek, 3 bde, 1921-1925), is "forgotten" by these guys.

and

As you might know, Rome is the city with the most obelisks outside of egypt. They stole the things by the dozen and took them home. The heaviest known obelisk weighs 510 tons, and it was transported some 1000's of *kilometers*. This transport was documented by the roman author Marcellinus Comes. The romans even left detailed paintings and reliefs about the ways to move such things : as on the bottom of the Theodosius-obelisk in Istanbul.

They used "Roman-patented" winches, in German called "Göpelwinden" which work with long lever ways. To move a 900 ton stone, they needed only 700 men. The transport was slow, about 30 meters a day, because they had to dismantle and rebuild the winches every few meters, to pull the obelisk with maximum torque. But in Baalbek, where they moved several blocks, maybe they built an alley of winches, where they passed the block from winch to winch.

But its irrelevant, because they needed only three weeks per block, and that's OK. Oh by the way, the Romans worked a few hundred years on the temple, until the project was finally canceled.

and

It would be nice if you would read just some of the basic stuff about antique transporting techniques before arguing about "I don't know how to do it, and therefore anciens certainly didn't know it". From Roman times, and the trilithon was built in Roman times, we have full documentations about the methods they used. For example, the transport of a 900 t block at the time of Thedosius (compareable to the Bal Bekaa blocks) was accomplished with 12 winches manned with 24 men each - or only 264 men!!!

...Next point: Why do I write Bal Bekaa instead of Baalbek? Because this is the original name of the settlement after roman times: Bal Bekaa means "Valley of the Bekaa" and has nothing to do with the old god Baal (you notice the similarity between "Valley of Bekaa" and the famous "Bekaa-plateau" in Lebanon??? Yeah, right, they both mean the same location.) . "Bal Bekaa" was the official name up to the 19th century, and the French use this writing (or the shortened form Bal Bek) until today.
In fact, the whole settlement is of Roman origin, first mentioned in about 20 AD as "Colonia Iulia Felix Helipolitania", named not after the Greek sun god Helios (as Sitchin proposes), but after a local Roman hero, Iuppiter Heliopolitanus. The city lay in the center of several trade routes and therefore flourished after it had to be abandoned because of the onrush of the Arabs.

...All these things are known since the publishing of the Wiegand- Baalbek-report between 1921-1925. Z. Sitchin (from where you as I believe you got the "facts") is or was in posession of these reports (because he uses pictures from these books, without mentioning their origins). He publishes the pictures, but doesn't mention the other facts published in the three volumes - so I think I can say, he is a fraud. Once I believed in these people, too. Because I thought "When they publish such things they must be true, because nobody can publish lies as facts". Silly me. When you care to take a look at my home page, you can find some of these silly old believes right there. And I only can say: Think before you flame against "schoolbook science". There is a reason because we have to go to school ;-)

Frank Doernenburg

Source:
[link to www.ramtops.co.uk]

This site is well-known, completely explained and not particularly interesting in any case.

Next?

Harte

Thank you Harte. You are right, I looked at the website that had a brief and apparently inaccurate description of the site, was flabbergasted by the size of the stones, and just decided to post it as it was presented. Shame on me. Your critical thinking and investigation into background and context of these “enigmas” is exactly what I hope to inspire here.

The websites that you posted yesterday are also very informative in this regard. I spent most of the afternoon yesterday reading them.

hey harte your a closed minded jackass

Coward 190206,

You're welcome to your opinion, as am I. Speaking of which, here's mine.

You are an ignorant idiot. Ignorance, of course, is not a fault. An ignorant person merely is unaware of the facts. IOW, an ignorant person need not remain so, since facts are available and it is possible to learn them.

But you are an idiot because you wish to remain ignorant. You want to wallow in the filth of your own comfortable ignorance. It disturbs you when someone tries to shine a light on any fact that contradicts the flawed world view you've concocted based on this ignorance.

For example, an ignorant person can be misled by the authors mentioned in the title of this thread. They can develop an erroneous world view based on the scams perpetrated on them by these con men.

The difference is, the ignorant person, having become informed, becomes angry at the authors that lied to them. The idiot, on the other hand, becomes angry at the person that informed them.

Harte

You obviously have an interest in these types of investigations and your input is much appreciated.

Christopher.

I recommend that you look at it again and even download his one-hour video. His techniques are not that slow and he is working alone. Check it out. No one else has provided us with a better solution to this enigma of the ancients moving and stacking stones of great weight.


Of course they don't look that slow in his tape, he doesn't show you all the prep time.There is a lot of editing going on there. Also in order to move those stones across all that sand your going to need one helluva road, of which there is no trace.
It's not a bad idea, but there's no more evidence for that one than there is for flying saucers being responsible. In the carvings and paintings of the era you do not see anyone using Wally's technique, you see slaves attached to bull lines and dragging the blocks. If they used such a simple technique as Wally's (which isn't really his in the first place) you would think there might be some evidence?
Remember, the Giza complex, to be completed in the amount of time specified, required the placement of two blocks per second 24 hours a day seven days a week.

Thanks again Harte, I caught those links yesterday. I cannot find the Hairy_ballz link though. I googled it and found a thread on ATS but no link.