zoser, on 18 January 2013 - 05:56 PM, said:
Huge ropes don't cut stone
Whose stones were the Inca pulling? Theirs or some left from a previous age? Do we know?
No, but wedges can. Like is demonstrated on your favorite source of information: YouTube. And now you will say they used steel wedges in those videos, but it can also be done using wooden wedges which after becoming wet will expand and split the rock. The starting holes to put the wedges in were cut out by either pounding with cobbles, but most probably with their
hardened bronze chisels (so, not simple copper or common bronze).
The chroniclers mention people working in quarries, and hundreds of people pulling at huge ropes to drag huge stones to their destinations. And then - yes, here he is again - Garcilaso de la Vega hearing from his uncle that sometimes several thousands of people dragged those stones along, and also that sometimes thousands were killed in the process when a stone started slipping away.
Those were not stones left by some unknown people, they were cut from the bedrock by the Incas. If they were left by that unknown people (or 'aliens') how could the Incas fit these stones so perfectly? Luck? I don't think so.
Then we have ramps, like Seeder and I posted photos of.