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3D-models of Puma Punku stone blocks


redfox11

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Well, there is a guy who appears on Ancient Aliens called Roger Hopkins who says he's been a Stone Mason for over 40 years IIRC.

So he says.

Why would a guy of his standing lie about the stone that is being shown?

He's getting paid to show up on TV.

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Well it's not difficult to Google about him.

If you think you can produce that stuff by hand go give it a try....come back to me once you've finished your perfect piece of hand worked granite....no machines allowed ;)

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I know it's a little O/T but it's relevant to the link I posted above.

Some of you will be pleased to know that after 7 months of pure hard graft and toil, Ronald Rae has finally finished hand carving the baby elephant. :w00t:B)

Rather than talking a good job on the internet how granite can be worked and finishes that can be expected by hand, the man put his money where his mouth is and the skills that he has learnt over many years and created a master piece right before your very eyes, a fantastic piece of art made from granite. I wouldn't want to imagine where he'd like to stick his tungsten carbide chisel and club hammer at some of the comments on this and some of the other threads. :lol:

I'll say that again for those that missed it the first time GRANITE, you know, that soft material the ancients never seemed to have a problem with and was able to somehow produce faultless pieces with perfect inside cuts, angles and surfaces however big or small :lol:

Makes you think doesn't it. :yes:

Well done that man !! :tu:

Edited by Banksy Boy
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I know it's a little O/T but it's relevant to the link I posted above.

Some of you will be pleased to know that after 7 months of pure hard graft and toil, Ronald Rae has finally finished hand carving the baby elephant. :w00t:B)

Rather than talking a good job on the internet how granite can be worked and finishes that can be expected by hand, the man put his money where his mouth is and the skills that he has learnt over many years and created a master piece right before your very eyes, a fantastic piece of art made from granite. I wouldn't want to imagine where he'd like to stick his tungsten carbide chisel and club hammer at some of the comments on this and some of the other threads. :lol:

I'll say that again for those that missed it the first time GRANITE, you know, that soft material the ancients never seemed to have a problem with and was able to somehow produce faultless pieces with perfect inside cuts, angles and surfaces however big or small :lol:

Makes you think doesn't it. :yes:

Well done that man !! :tu:

The test here is in the failure, not the success. It's all well and and use modern tools and show the trials and tribulations thereof.

Now let's see him use primitive tools and methods and not succeed. You know, unlike Jean-Pierre Protzen in the course of his experimental research.

http://www.videopediaworld.com/video/31421/Secrets-of-Lost-Empires-The-Inca-Empire-Part-1-of-6

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/transcripts/2404inca.html

Sure, he used modern tools afterwords but only to expedite the work for TV.

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Now tell the viewers what type of stone that is in your link.

Andesite. Volcanic analog of diorite. Generally finer grained like basalt but not all that much softer than granite.

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And the hammer stone ?

Nothing in that link. Other sources cite "granite, quartzite, or olivine basalt" for the originals. This one states quartzite, rhyolite and hematite, as well as other materials for the blocks themselves:

http://ipna.unibas.ch/personen/menotti/Inkas/Inkas.htm

What does it matter though? Any way you slice it, the point is they're using stone to work stone.

Here's another one where one of the authors also conducted experiments and made estimates from them. Note both the quote from a contemporary source and the observation about the shapes of the pre-worked blocks:

The Inca world: the development of pre-Columbian Peru

That last point I believe I've made before elsewhere. The assumption with so-called "cyclopean" interlocking block construction is they pre-conceived some grand complex pattern in shaping and arranging the blocks, when ideally, if they selected blocks that were already close matches, all they had to do was remove the minimum amount of material to make them fit, rather like dry masonry with a slight touch-up.

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Hi Oniomancer;

Just looking at the shaped stones at puma punku gives an initial impression of mechanisation. The blocks look uniform enough to be production line manufacture. Some appear to have holes drilled. The stone works at the site simply look high tech and removed from what could seemingly be achieved using stone pounders to shape. I cant grasp why or how these designs would have been planned without the technology to make them realisable.

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Hi Oniomancer;

Just looking at the shaped stones at puma punku gives an initial impression of mechanisation. The blocks look uniform enough to be production line manufacture. Some appear to have holes drilled. The stone works at the site simply look high tech and removed from what could seemingly be achieved using stone pounders to shape. I cant grasp why or how these designs would have been planned without the technology to make them realisable.

I have yet to see any proof that precision and uniformity isn't possible by hand means. If anything, I've been helpfully provided with evidence to the contrary. Primitive drilling technology likewise works much the same as advanced and I see no reason to assume other cutting technologies wouldn't or couldn't as well. You're actually more liable to be precise because you're going slower and removing less material at a slower rate.

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  • 3 weeks later...

The test here is in the failure, not the success. It's all well and and use modern tools and show the trials and tribulations thereof.

Now let's see him use primitive tools and methods and not succeed. You know, unlike Jean-Pierre Protzen in the course of his experimental research.

http://www.videopediaworld.com/video/31421/Secrets-of-Lost-Empires-The-Inca-Empire-Part-1-of-6

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/transcripts/2404inca.html

Sure, he used modern tools afterwords but only to expedite the work for TV.

Have finally been able to show the Ol' man a small part of the video in your link i.e. Part 3 at about 1 minute in.

Ok, for a start the stone being used looks and appears to be an 'open' stone rather than a 'closed' stone like granite....i.e. it ain't nothing like granite.

Secondly, the stone shown sounds quite hard but doesn't 'ring' anything like granite.....i.e. it ain't granite. Could be our speakers but I doubt it.

Thirdly, the block being used is on a miniscule scale which hardly compares with anything the Incas apparently achieved.

Now lets see the guy go a do it with granite, constantly having to move mega ton blocks to shape everything up and see how long it takes before he chucks the towel in. Or isn't the stone as hard as he is making out ? or even on par with the granite blocks at Puma Punku which the thread was originally about ;)

Once he's impressed me with that, I'm sure he'll be more than capable of showing me a perfect cut out shape such as the those shown at Puma Punku from a piece of granite.

Anyway, I'm happy I've shown what it takes to work a relatively small piece of granite by showing a guy who has nothing to prove using modern hand tools only produce his piece of art. Now lets see the guy in your video make it with a small hand cupped stone and see how far he gets. We can all then see the test in his failure or success. The material removal rate will certainly be slow for his precision work :lol:

As said before, the problem with stone work, is that there are too many people who can talk a good job rather than being actually having the knowledge, skills, understanding and capability of being able to do one. ;)

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I have yet to see any proof that precision and uniformity isn't possible by hand means. If anything, I've been helpfully provided with evidence to the contrary. Primitive drilling technology likewise works much the same as advanced and I see no reason to assume other cutting technologies wouldn't or couldn't as well. You're actually more liable to be precise because you're going slower and removing less material at a slower rate.

I agree. It would seem to me that uniformity would be as easy as using a blanket of an established size as a template. Uniformity of size is not so hard to acheive.

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Have finally been able to show the Ol' man a small part of the video in your link i.e. Part 3 at about 1 minute in.

Ok, for a start the stone being used looks and appears to be an 'open' stone rather than a 'closed' stone like granite....i.e. it ain't nothing like granite.

Secondly, the stone shown sounds quite hard but doesn't 'ring' anything like granite.....i.e. it ain't granite. Could be our speakers but I doubt it.

You can't go by the surface appearance of the rough parts. Notice the smoothness of the polished edges. It's likely a finer grained stone than he's used to working with. The finer the grain, the easier it works, to a point, depending on the minerals involved and the structure of the rock. Granite has those big interlocking grains, a third of which are quartz, so it's a lot tougher. By contrast, you can knapp some basalt. In fact I see andesite listed as a potentially knappable lithic. Ask him if he's ever worked andesite or basalt or something similar.

As for the sound, do you mean where he's using a hammerstone or when they use chisels or both, because stone on stone sounds way different than steel on stone like he's familiar with. Even a cold chisel versus hardened carbide tipped. He's also using more of a flat strike with a blunt implement to crush the surface rather than cleave it away, which is liable to produce a deader sound than the pinging when you're popping off chips. Again too, the finer texture of the rock may affect the sound as well.

Thirdly, the block being used is on a miniscule scale which hardly compares with anything the Incas apparently achieved.

One man working one block. Multiply the work by the number of workers. (deja vu)

Now lets see the guy go a do it with granite, constantly having to move mega ton blocks to shape everything up and see how long it takes before he chucks the towel in. Or isn't the stone as hard as he is making out ? or even on par with the granite blocks at Puma Punku which the thread was originally about ;)

Once he's impressed me with that, I'm sure he'll be more than capable of showing me a perfect cut out shape such as the those shown at Puma Punku from a piece of granite.

I don't see where granite matters at all as we've established that virtually none of the stones at Puma Punku are granite, mostly sandstone and andesite. The closest you get I can think of offhand is a reference I found saying the largest stone there, the platform, is made of tonalite, which is basically the same as diorite only with greater than 20% quartz.

A smart worker also plans out the work he's doing ahead of time so he doesn't have to move it every which way.

Anyway, I'm happy I've shown what it takes to work a relatively small piece of granite by showing a guy who has nothing to prove using modern hand tools only produce his piece of art. Now lets see the guy in your video make it with a small hand cupped stone and see how far he gets. We can all then see the test in his failure or success. The material removal rate will certainly be slow for his precision work :lol:

As said before, the problem with stone work, is that there are too many people who can talk a good job rather than being actually having the knowledge, skills, understanding and capability of being able to do one. ;)

That seems to be the problem all around.

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To add, I got a bit off track but it doesn't really make much difference if it's granite or not since You're not carving the rock, but pulverizing it, or grinding it depending on the operation, which works regardless of how hard the rock is and There's not much variation in that regard between that and andesite. The main distinction as others have said would be toughness, which effects how the rock can be fractured.

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I showed him your reply and after having good laugh together, his exact words to me were......

"Forget it mate, your flogging a dead horse there and I'm not interested in tennis match......I'd rather watch Moto GP :lol: "

So there you have it, he's turned his back and walked away to quietly tap away on his new piece of stone. :tu:

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I showed him your reply and after having good laugh together, his exact words to me were......

"Forget it mate, your flogging a dead horse there and I'm not interested in tennis match......I'd rather watch Moto GP :lol: "

So there you have it, he's turned his back and walked away to quietly tap away on his new piece of stone. :tu:

I notice that can be taken either way.

I welcome corrections on any outright mistakes...provided they're backed up. Unless you've got a piece of andesite right there though,

one set of speculations is as good as another. If you want to convince yourselves it's entirely a soft, open stone, maybe you'd like to see how it polishes up.

http://www.bodartproductions.com/art.php?category=2

(under hardstone, in case you didn't know)

I suppose you'll claim it's double-dipped in carnauba though.

Here's another of almost nothing but andesite carvings but be advised, I got a virus threat warning when I opened it:

http://www.tekupenga.com/

This page of the above provides some info on the stone:

http://www.tekupenga.com/index.php?menuid=4

It does mention the stone as being softer and more porous when weathered. It may not be _quite_ as hard as granite normally either but still this isn't Bath or Purbeck we're talking about here.

Soft or hard, this is the predominant stone at Puma Punku and other Andean sites, so as far as I can tell, you've already lost. If it's hard, then Protzan had already demonstrated the feasibility of the proposed method. If it's soft, the whole thing is a moot point. You want to continue to dodge my points about your granite straw man argument though, go right ahead. It hurts my position not at all.

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Did these people have diamonds? as any builder will tell you the only way to cut stone or granite with any sort of efficiency and accuracy it with a diamond wheel. Could it be possible that ancient civilisations used this technique?

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The test here is in the failure, not the success. It's all well and and use modern tools and show the trials and tribulations thereof.

Now let's see him use primitive tools and methods and not succeed. You know, unlike Jean-Pierre Protzen in the course of his experimental research.

http://www.videopediaworld.com/video/31421/Secrets-of-Lost-Empires-The-Inca-Empire-Part-1-of-6

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/transcripts/2404inca.html

Sure, he used modern tools afterwords but only to expedite the work for TV.

I really enjoyed that Secrets of Lost Empires The Inca Empire link Oniomancer. Great show, thanks for sharing. :tu:

Quite amazing how that appears to have been accomplished.

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I really enjoyed that Secrets of Lost Empires The Inca Empire link Oniomancer. Great show, thanks for sharing. :tu:

Quite amazing how that appears to have been accomplished.

You're welcome. It's hard to find it when I need it. It keeps disappearing from youtube and I didn't realize videopedia had such a weird setup. The transcripts are a bit easier to locate. You should look up the rest of the Lost Empires series too if you haven't already. They do a lot of experimental replication work on other sites too, like stonehenge and Easter Island. Mostly moving stuff.

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You're welcome. It's hard to find it when I need it. It keeps disappearing from youtube and I didn't realize videopedia had such a weird setup. The transcripts are a bit easier to locate. You should look up the rest of the Lost Empires series too if you haven't already. They do a lot of experimental replication work on other sites too, like stonehenge and Easter Island. Mostly moving stuff.

I will definitely look the others up. It was a bit of a chore tracking down all 6 parts of this one though, even with your initial link. I ended up having to search independently because I didn't see any intuitive linkage from part 1.

But it was well worth the effort. My thanks again. :tu:

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I welcome corrections on any outright mistakes

I'll start with the very first sentence then.

You can't go by the surface appearance of the rough parts.

That and watching and understanding what is going on within the clip ;) , how else do you think you can tell whether the stone is 'open' or not ? You do understand what the terms 'open' and 'closed' mean don't you ?

Where did I say that the stone was soft ?

You see that's 50 years of worth of experience working with and handling the stuff right there for a start. I previously got the length of experience time wrong, he's worked with the stuff from the ages of 15-65.

so as far as I can tell, you've already lost.

Is this a competition then ?.......Oh yeah ok you win then, he's really not that interested tbh and has nothing to prove to anybody by me sticking links up everywhere to try and prove a point ;) .......tap tap tap :)

You want to continue to dodge my points about your granite straw man argument though

Not dodging your points at all, we are told in the AA program by a stone mason who says he has 45 years worth of experience that some of the worked stone is of granite. You can argue all you like whether there is granite or not and how much there is of it. I can't see why a guy of his reputation would ruin that just for a few quid and to appear on a TV program. I suppose it all depends on what side of the fence you stand and what reputation you have to lose or gain.

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I'll start with the very first sentence then.

That and watching and understanding what is going on within the clip ;) , how else do you think you can tell whether the stone is 'open' or not ? You do understand what the terms 'open' and 'closed' mean don't you ?

Self-explanatory. You're making out like it's porous and practically friable. The stone's been pounded within an inch of it's life and subjected to hundreds of years of picking of the grains from weathering on the older examples besides. Just because the grains appear to be coming off in a sandy fashion doesn't mean it isn't tightly cemented. That's what happens when you literally pulverize the stone that way. (and yes, I have tried this a bit just to see. It's slow, but it does produce results.)

Did you bother to look at the last links I posted?

Where did I say that the stone was soft ?

Why else are you bringing up the grain structure then, other than to insinuate that the stone is easily worked?

You see that's 50 years of worth of experience working with and handling the stuff right there for a start. I previously got the length of experience time wrong, he's worked with the stuff from the ages of 15-65.

With all due respect to his experience, that only speaks to one way of doing it, the way he was trained. It says nothing about other possible ways, especially those that happen to go completely against all that training.

Is this a competition then ?.......Oh yeah ok you win then, he's really not that interested tbh and has nothing to prove to anybody by me sticking links up everywhere to try and prove a point ;) .......tap tap tap :)

Who compared this to a tennis match? All debate is competition, but you did seem to act as though you'd scored some telling blow that settled the matter yourself.

Not dodging your points at all, we are told in the AA program by a stone mason who says he has 45 years worth of experience that some of the worked stone is of granite. You can argue all you like whether there is granite or not and how much there is of it. I can't see why a guy of his reputation would ruin that just for a few quid and to appear on a TV program. I suppose it all depends on what side of the fence you stand and what reputation you have to lose or gain.

Stone tradesmen have a bad habit of calling a lot of things granite that aren't. There's a reason they call those kind of shows infotainment. Getting their facts absolutely correct is about as crucial as it is to your average episode of Blackadder, and there is such a thing as spin. You'll recall much of this whole argument to begin with stems from Tsoukalos's preposterous and demonstrably false statements about diorite proper. They say what they like and no one challenges them on it. No one _thinks_ to challenge them on it, because they just assume they know what they're talking about.

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