Moving Megalithic Stones-the Search for a Unified Theory

[Hanslune]

3 hours ago, docyabut2 said:

Im just suggesting that the stones of  Göbekli Tepe are not the frist temple but the frist temple was from spain . 

 

Posted August 7 (edited)

spain 

What source gives that old of a date for minorque-taula?

[Thanos5150]

3 hours ago, docyabut2 said:

Im just suggesting that the stones of  Göbekli Tepe are not the frist temple but the frist temple was from spain .

 

 

Posted August 7 (edited)

spain 

I see. Though there is a case to be made these monuments may be older than the 1,000BC they are ascribed, RCD places occupation of this island at 5,000BC with some related to the sites at 2,500BC, and the Talayotic culture who supposedly built them were relatively primitive cave dwellers which strains credulity they were up to the task, there is no evidence they date any where close to Gobekli Tepe let alone before. 

[Thanos5150]

On 8/12/2022 at 12:17 PM, Trelane said:

I do wonder how the people who constructed Gobekli and Krahan Tepe did it. Looking that far back into the past, did they have a point of reference? Were they an agricultural people or were they hunter/gatherers? 

There are ways of knowing these things....They were hunters who were also agricultural. There is no evidence of domesticated grains, but rather that they were prolific harvesters of wild grains and plants, importantly most likely einkorn, a kind of wild wheat, one of the "founder crops", that lead to domestication and agriculture as we know it. Evidence suggests wild einkorn was used to make bread at a site in Jordan barely 20 miles from Gobekli Tepe and 2,000yrs older. 

Edited August 19, 2022 by Thanos5150

[Abramelin]

On 8/16/2022 at 7:34 PM, jethrofloyd said:

It's a mindblowing to think how this heavy blocks were moved by the people without use of any machines and a technology.

I have the answer everyone was looking for: sound!

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/power-sound-levitation-stephen-metcalfe-davies

[Oniomancer]

On 8/6/2022 at 11:29 AM, Thanos5150 said:

It is confusing why you keep suggesting it is only me that is arguing mounds were likely not used in construction and/or that all dolmens were intended to be covered by a mound while repeatedly ignoring the source I have cited several times now including quoting them directly to you on this very point. 

Again: To quote the authors (Professor Vicki Cummings of the University of Central Lancashire and Professor Colin Richards of the UHI Archaeology Institute):

Are either of them here making their own assertions? No? Then to whom, pray tell, should I be directing my replies?

On 8/6/2022 at 11:29 AM, Thanos5150 said:

If raised earth were used to aid construction it is obvious it would not initially take the form of a mound, but rather ramps and platform work deck

Obvious to you perhaps. A single ramp however has the limitation of only being able to manipulate the stone in one direction, and only as far as the ramp reaches.

On 8/6/2022 at 11:29 AM, Thanos5150 said:

The dirt must not only be compacted but include rock and/or timber as supporting material

Nonsense. Rammed earth is perfectly capable of supporting it's own weight without collapse. A shallow mound would also tend lay at it's natural angle of repose.

On 8/6/2022 at 11:29 AM, Thanos5150 said:

It has to be wide and long enough on both sides of the apex to support rollers and sled to physically move the stone not to mention the dozens of workers (and beast of burden if available) required.

Egg-xactly, something a single narrow ramp would be incapable of doing, whereas with a encompassing mound, the lintels can be manipulated in all directions.

On 8/6/2022 at 11:29 AM, Thanos5150 said:

There are tens of thousands of free standing non barrow/passage dolmens in Eurasia which except for the barrows and passage tombs otherwise all of their supposed mounds just so happen to have all magically disappeared.  

Mayhaps like the missing mummies of Egypt, of which much has been made by many. Since this is being presented as a numbers game though, perhaps it would be interesting to compare the number of exposed dolmens to the number of various intact megalithic burial mounds in the same regions. But again, I don't deny the possibility that said dolmens may have been erected without external structures, I merely disagree with the assertion that the absence of said material is conclusive proof of it's non-existence.

On 8/6/2022 at 11:29 AM, Thanos5150 said:

Speaking of obtuse, why would you take this to mean something that obviously is not what is being suggested. Surely even the most "duh" person can understand this would be a mound up to the height of the work being done and not a completed mound, hence the alleged need for such a mound in the first place.  

Yes, but in those cases where a completed mound is present, it most logically follows that said mound must've been put in place after the enclosed stones, does it not?

[jethrofloyd]

15 hours ago, Thanos5150 said:

Evidence suggests wild einkorn was used to make bread at a site in Jordan barely 20 miles from Gobekli Tepe and 2,000yrs older. 

What is a name of the site in Jordan?

[Abramelin]

59 minutes ago, jethrofloyd said:

What is a name of the site in Jordan?

I assume Thanos meant Syria, not Jordan:

The only place in Syria I can think of is Tell Mureybit:

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1438-8677.1968.tb00064.x

It's indeed close to Göbekli Tepe:

Edited August 20, 2022 by Abramelin

[jethrofloyd]

Then he probably meant Tell Qaramel site. That rchaeological mound,is indeed very old.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tell_Qaramel

[Abramelin]

1 hour ago, jethrofloyd said:

Then he probably meant Tell Qaramel site. That rchaeological mound,is indeed very old.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tell_Qaramel

Quote from your link:

The site is roughly contemporary to that of Göbekli Tepe in Turkey.

According to Thanos the site should be some 2000 years older than Göbekli Tepe.

[jethrofloyd]

47 minutes ago, Abramelin said:

According to Thanos the site should be some 2000 years older than Göbekli Tepe.

I think that is hardly possible. A few hundred years older maybe, but 2000 years older is almost impossible. It would mean that people were capable of building the monumental stone structures already during the Ice Age. The time building limit of the archaeological sites cannot be constantly pushed down. Something must be the first thing built. And yes, I know there wasn't an ice age down there at the fertile crescent, but that's kind of the age parallel I used . And to add, I think GT and Tel Qarmel belong to the same oldest hunter-gatherer culture that figured out how to build the monumental stone buildings.

[Thanos5150]

7 hours ago, jethrofloyd said:

What is a name of the site in Jordan?

Lol. No, the Jordan site is not 20 miles from GT. My bad, I was thinking of something else, but yes I am reffering to a site in Jordan:

Shubayqa 1

"Seven radiocarbon dates of short-lived charred plant remains from within the fireplaces indicate their use around 14.4–14.2 ka cal BP, which corresponds with the early Natufian period (7)."

Stone fireplace:

 

Edited August 20, 2022 by Thanos5150

[Kenemet]

Late to the party, but a "unified theory" isn't possible or desirable.

You can have a "unified theory" if conditions are provably the same -- same exact type of stone, same exact environment, same exact level of technology, same exact access to metals, same exact tools.

There's no such thing.  The variables are all over the place; different technologies, different stone, different wood, different tools, even different draft animals (if they had any.)

[Thanos5150]

On 8/17/2022 at 9:19 AM, Thanos5150 said:

As to the rest of your comment: "...at the same time the archaeological record mainly supports only that construction started under Khufu..."

There is no archeology that supports this claim. It is an assumption based on the fact Khufu is associated with it. While this assumption may be true, it may also not be true in which G1 may have been started in some form or another before his reign as may have G2 and other structures at Giza. Giza was occupied since at least the 1st Dynasty including a 1st-3rd Dynasty cemetery with large 1st Dynasty serekh mastaba. There was a pre-Khufu cemetery, early 4th at best if not 3rd Dynasty, that would have been right where the G1 West Field is now that was demolished to make room for the "new" cemetery under Khufu. There is also evidence and/or Egyptological opinion some of the existing mastabas at Giza may date to the 3rd Dynasty if not earlier including some in the East Field.

To quote Petrie:

“It is a new view of Gizeh to see that it did not become occupied first by the Pyramid kings, but that it had a continuous history as a cemetery from the beginning of the 1st Dynasty". 

Don't have the time at the moment, but we can also question the actual length of time it took to complete these projects which may just as well have spanned multiple Dynasties ending sometime at the end of the 5th with 6th being involved as well.

Not to be outdone by Lehner's announcement of finding the "Lost City of the Pyramid Builders", which turned out not to be for the pyramid workers after all, Hawass announced the discovery of the "Tombs of the Pyramid Workers". Hawass has said:

"The excavations in this area began in 1990 when the Lower Cemetery, which consists of the burials of the workmen who moved the stones in the construction of the pyramids, was discovered."

While true there are many titles found related to pyramid working the rub is that virtually none (if not completely none) of these tombs date to the 4th Dynasty, but rather the 5th. Over 5,000 lines of hieroglyphs and none mention Khufu, Khafre, or Menkaure with the only pharaoh named Djedkare Isesi, the 2nd to last pharaoh of the 5th Dynasty. The weird thing is Hawass knew this when he first announced the discovery and even more so now yet he is still going to tell you this 5th Dynasty cemetery is the "Tombs of the Pyramid Workers". I believe he is correct, these are the tombs of the 5th Dynasty pyramid workers, meaning the pyramids and complexes were worked on to the end of the 5th and early 6th Dynasties.   

Also to consider is the fact in the harbor and "not pyramid workers town" there is no evidence of Khufu, very scant evidence of Khafre with just a few seals being found, with all the evidence dating to Late Menkaure into the 5th Dynasty. Approximately 75% (or more) of the tombs surrounding the pyramids date to the 5th and 6th Dynasties. If we look at the Giza cemeteries, regardless of who reigned, the majority of tombs contemporary with pyramid construction are at G1:

 The Central Field has relatively few tombs. Except for 4/5 mastabas, and Khentkaus "pyramid" complex, all are rock-cut tombs dating to the end of the 4th, beginning of the 5th. 

Cemetery GIS, also small, several date to Menkaure, the rest to the 5th/6th Dynasties.  The Menkaure cemetery is very small and mostly contains poorly made rock cut tombs dating IIRC to the 5th Dynasty and later. South Field among others periods is where the 1st-3rd Dynasty tombs are. 

We are told each pharaoh is supposed to be a god. The pyramid is supposedly the tomb of the pharaoh. The subjects and family supposedly wanted to be buried next to the pyramid/tomb of the god king they were associated with yet for some reason the majority still choose to be buried near G1. Why?  

[Thanos5150]

3 hours ago, Kenemet said:

Late to the party, but a "unified theory" isn't possible or desirable.

You can have a "unified theory" if conditions are provably the same -- same exact type of stone, same exact environment, same exact level of technology, same exact access to metals, same exact tools.

There's no such thing.  The variables are all over the place; different technologies, different stone, different wood, different tools, even different draft animals (if they had any.)

....

If you read the OP and subsequent posts the idea of a "unified theory" is to suggest that common outcomes must have been governed by a set of common principles applicable to all regardless of the nuances of the tools and materials used. To that end it is "possible" and yes quite "desirable" because to figure out how one group accomplished these tasks will help us understand how the others did the same exact things as it is very likely they all did it in the same or very similar way as there are only so many ways, like moving 100 ton blocks, that it could have been done. This is common sense not ideology. 

Edited August 21, 2022 by Thanos5150

[Thanos5150]

On 8/19/2022 at 8:55 AM, Thanos5150 said:

There are ways of knowing these things....They were hunters who were also agricultural. There is no evidence of domesticated grains, but rather that they were prolific harvesters of wild grains and plants, importantly most likely einkorn, a kind of wild wheat, one of the "founder crops", that lead to domestication and agriculture as we know it. Evidence suggests wild einkorn was used to make bread at a site in Jordan barely 20 miles from Gobekli Tepe and 2,000yrs older. 

Brain fart. Strike that. 

[Kenemet]

1 hour ago, Thanos5150 said:

....

If you read the OP and subsequent posts the idea of a "unified theory" is to suggest that common outcomes must have been governed by a set of common principles applicable to all regardless of the nuances of the tools and materials used. To that end it is "possible" and yes quite "desirable" because to figure out how one group accomplished these tasks will help us understand how the others did the same exact things as it is very likely they all did it in the same or very similar way as there are only so many ways, like moving 100 ton blocks, that it could have been done. This is common sense not ideology. 

Actually, it doesn't.  They were developed at different stages of cultures and with different materials and technology.  So beyond "harder thing chops rock/whatever" you don't have any common ground.

Egyptians poured water on sand to make heavy stones move better on sledges.  The Beaker Culture didn't do this; if they had, the rocks for Stonehenge would have gotten stuck in the mud and never made it away from their source.

[Thanos5150]

On 8/19/2022 at 10:05 AM, Oniomancer said:

Are either of them here making their own assertions? No? Then to whom, pray tell, should I be directing my replies?

This is senseless. It is your "assertion" they used mounds to erect these dolmens. This source provides archeological evidence this was largely not the case if at all. You continue to ignore it pretending that this is just my "assertion" belief" as well but clearly this is not the case. Kind of why we use sources in the first place.       

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Obvious to you perhaps. A single ramp however has the limitation of only being able to manipulate the stone in one direction, and only as far as the ramp reaches.

It should be obvious to anyone. There would be no reason to go through the effort of covering the uprights completely in a large mound when only ramps are required which should be obvious as well this ramp would extend to both sides ergo there would be no "limitation" as to how far it reached.  

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Nonsense. Rammed earth is perfectly capable of supporting it's own weight without collapse. A shallow mound would also tend lay at it's natural angle of repose.

Good grief. It has nothing to do with being "perfectly capable to support its own weight without collapse" but rather to be able to support the weight dragged across it. You know like some of those 100 ton capstones. And regardless, commonly accepted thought, and practice, of how such ramps that carry heavy loads needed to be constructed so I am not sure what it is you think you are arguing against.    

Quote

Egg-xactly, something a single narrow ramp would be incapable of doing, whereas with a encompassing mound, the lintels can be manipulated in all directions.

Who said anything about a "single narrow ramp" when I literally just said the opposite? For your convenience:

"It has to be wide and long enough on both sides of the apex to support rollers and sled to physically move the stone not to mention the dozens of workers (and beast of burden if available) required."

How could this possibly go into your eyeballs and out of your fingers as a "single narrow ramp"? 

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Mayhaps like the missing mummies of Egypt, of which much has been made by many.

....? "Mayhaps" what now? 

Quote

Since this is being presented as a numbers game though, perhaps it would be interesting to compare the number of exposed dolmens to the number of various intact megalithic burial mounds in the same regions. But again, I don't deny the possibility that said dolmens may have been erected without external structures, I merely disagree with the assertion that the absence of said material is conclusive proof of it's non-existence.

No one is presenting this as a "numbers game" other than you. There is little to no evidence any were constructed using mounds in the first place and again, something you keep ignoring, is that this idea was only offered in the 18th/19th centuries to explain how they "might" have been made because of the fact some were later covered in mounds which is evidence of nothing related to how they were made.  And the archeology done, not just antiquarian reckoning, clearly suggests otherwise. 

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Yes, but in those cases where a completed mound is present, it most logically follows that said mound must've been put in place after the enclosed stones, does it not?

Which is it then? They built a mound to make the structure or it is "most logical" they added the mound after the fact? I agree with the latter. 

[Thanos5150]

45 minutes ago, Kenemet said:

Actually, it doesn't. 

Actually it does. You just saying otherwise means nothing to me. 

Quote

They were developed at different stages of cultures and with different materials and technology.  So beyond "harder thing chops rock/whatever" you don't have any common ground.

This is senseless. Maybe you do not understand what is being said. The "common ground" is the end product which there are only so many ways it can be done therefore it is likely they used common methods. 

Quote

Egyptians poured water on sand to make heavy stones move better on sledges. 

There is no evidence they did this if in the words of the Egyptians themselves only to the contrary. You are repeating this as if it were fact though I doubt you understand where it even comes from and why.  This comes from the relief of the moving of the statue of Djehutyhotep:

Which based of this, several years ago scientists made very small models of flat bottomed metal sleds and found by putting water on the sand reduced friction. Which turns into this and people like you repeating it as fact:

Solved! How Ancient Egyptians Moved Massive Pyramid Stones

All this from a depiction of one guy with a very small jug pouring a liquid in front of the sledge which otherwise Egyptologists, and rightly so with the same depicted of a priest pouring water by jug in the same manner at the feet of the actual Djehutyhotep in the same relief program,

a common ritual which the statue is an embodiment of the person, have always taken this to be ceremonial. But when we read the inscriptions memorializing the moving of the statue depicted in this very relief the Egyptians tell us: 

Quote

Following a statue of 13 cubits of stone of Hatnub. Behold, the way upon which it came, was very difficult, beyond anything. Behold, the dragging of the great things upon it was difficult for the heart of the people, because of the difficult stone of the ground, being hard stone.

So right off the bat they tell us the difficulty is not moving it across the sand, but rather that "hard stone of the ground". 

They continue:

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I caused the youth, the young men of the recruits to come, in order to make for it (the statue) a road, together with shifts of necropolis-miners and of quarrymen, the foremen and the wise.

Whazzatt? A road? Where did all that sand go? 

 So what was this now about the "fact" "Egyptians poured water on sand to make heavy stones move better on sledges. "? 

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The Beaker Culture didn't do this; if they had, the rocks for Stonehenge would have gotten stuck in the mud and never made it away from their source.

So regardless of the nuances of the process, something I have made quite clear would have existed, the common method between both then would be among other things we are not yet aware that they pulled these blocks on sledges? Regardless, in the words of the Egyptians themselves, they did not pour water on sand, they built a road and pulled the sledge across the "hard stone of the ground" so your point would be what?  

Edited August 21, 2022 by Thanos5150

[Abramelin]

10 hours ago, Kenemet said:

Late to the party, but a "unified theory" isn't possible or desirable.

You can have a "unified theory" if conditions are provably the same -- same exact type of stone, same exact environment, same exact level of technology, same exact access to metals, same exact tools.

There's no such thing.  The variables are all over the place; different technologies, different stone, different wood, different tools, even different draft animals (if they had any.)

I thought I'd add the next video. It has been posted a dozen times during a decade I think, but here it is again:

Wally Wallington

 

[WVK]

On 8/13/2022 at 9:20 AM, WVK said:

Maybe the pyramid builders used mechanical advantage to haul the blocks up the side, slope of the side and this:

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1012572205556776

Mounted vertically this device concept (windlass) could be be used to drill granite:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjN5hLuVtH0

According to this,  bow saw depictions  are for wood @ 5:10

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeS5lrmyD74

 

 

[Kenemet]

10 hours ago, Thanos5150 said:

This is senseless. Maybe you do not understand what is being said. The "common ground" is the end product which there are only so many ways it can be done therefore it is likely they used common methods. 

I understand what's being said.  I also understand that the examples you give are from many different cultures who didn't have access to the same material.  

One common "idea" I see is constructing a round cradle around a stone so that it can be rolled... which wouldn't be possible for the Egyptians, who had very little wood and of relatively poor quality (palm wood, small trees.)  I see windlasses and a lot of other un-evidenced ideas promoted as well.

However, in places with trees you have a lot of other options including making some fairly simple cranes (as the Romans had) for lifting large weights.  I've seen (modern) depictions of very large shadoufs (simple crane levers) in Egypt used to move very heavy weights from ships to shore.  

Now... I don't doubt that they used ramps in many places.  I've seen the remains of mud brick ramps in situ that the Egyptians were using to bring carved stones and workers to upper stories of a temple.  But  I am reluctant to say that they did this in every single case across the world because I haven't studied all the sites and I'm not ruling out using other methods that might have been faster given access to what they had.

Like... I dunno... waiting till it snows and doing all the work on the snowy surface instead of dealing with grass and mud.

[Oniomancer]

16 hours ago, Thanos5150 said:

This is senseless. It is your "assertion" they used mounds to erect these dolmens. This source provides archeological evidence this was largely not the case if at all. You continue to ignore it pretending that this is just my "assertion" belief" as well but clearly this is not the case. Kind of why we use sources in the first place. 

Their opinions do not exist in a vacuum, any more than either of ours do. Somebody keep quoting them in your posts though, so unless your computer is infested with magic quote goblins...

16 hours ago, Thanos5150 said:

Good grief. It has nothing to do with being "perfectly capable to support its own weight without collapse" but rather to be able to support the weight dragged across it.

*Sigh* Their own weight plus the weight of the stone then. Now who's dwelling on minutia?

16 hours ago, Thanos5150 said:

Who said anything about a "single narrow ramp" when I literally just said the opposite?

You said a ramp, singular. In order to draw the lintels over the top of the uprights though, unless they finish pulling from the ground, without something on the sides they're eventually going to run out of ramp. If said ramp is on both sides of the uprights, it ceases being one ramp.and starts to look a lot like a mound.

16 hours ago, Thanos5150 said:

..? "Mayhaps" what now? 

Mummies, you know like the ones that've been found intact in every pyramid clearly identifying them as tombs? Oh wait...

16 hours ago, Thanos5150 said:

No one is presenting this as a "numbers game" other than you. There is little to no evidence any were constructed using mounds in the first place

.And again to put it explicitly, absence of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absence. Viewed in context with other structures, the presence of and similarities with these other structures are not insignificant, however inconvenient one may find them.

16 hours ago, Thanos5150 said:

Which is it then? They built a mound to make the structure or it is "most logical" they added the mound after the fact? I agree with the latter. 

As worded, the two are not mutually exclusive.

If one really wanted to speculate, for all we know, the dolmens could've been erected on their own and abandoned before enclosure with a mound for any number of reasons. Imagine what a Motel Of The Mysteries-style investigator would make of the numerous present-day housing developments abandoned in various stages of completion that dot the landscape.

[cladking]

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I understand what's being said.  I also understand that the examples you give are from many different cultures who didn't have access to the same material. 

I believe Thanos5150 is entirely correct in this concept.  No pun intended but the unifying concept of all megalithic sites are rope and water.  If you thought the way they did this would be apparent.   Water has numerous properties including its great weight and ease of transport so harnessing it to work happened all over the world when rope became sufficiently strong along its entire length.   Water could ease the way, float the material, or even pull it.  "The mountains are quarried by the flooding of the Nile".   

Every megalithic site on earth was created by nothing but rope and water.  

[Thanos5150]

13 hours ago, Kenemet said:

I understand what's being said.  I also understand that the examples you give are from many different cultures who didn't have access to the same material.  

One common "idea" I see is constructing a round cradle around a stone so that it can be rolled... which wouldn't be possible for the Egyptians, who had very little wood and of relatively poor quality (palm wood, small trees.)  I see windlasses and a lot of other un-evidenced ideas promoted as well.

What I am supposed to say to you when this very post was in response to you making this same comment about the scarcity of DE wood: HERE. These are the facts of the matter. Why would you say this kind of thing again despite the fact now you know better?  If the DE wanted wood it was not a problem which whatever they could not source from local trees, again much more than we think, they were easily able to import it. In the 1st Dynasty many of the serekh mastabas were roofed with large wooden beams by the dozens not much different than these found in the BP:

http://isida-project.org/egypt_2012/dashur_bent/chamber_2/_dsc4726.jpg

http://isida-project.org/egypt_2012/dashur_bent/chamber_2/p1160907.jpg

Also found at Medium which Lehner argues that G1 at least orginally had this kind of chamber form work which was removed after construction. Wooden scaffolding, trusses, formwork, which we can no doubt add rollers, you can't do this work without it. 

Maybe a better reason the DE did not use these cradles despite no evidence of it is because like the Neolithic megalithic builders they supposedly did not even have the wheel. 

This idea for several reasons has no merit regardless of how much wood the culture had access to or not. 

But no comment about the pouring water on sand thing I take it? Come on now. 

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However, in places with trees you have a lot of other options including making some fairly simple cranes (as the Romans had) for lifting large weights.  I've seen (modern) depictions of very large shadoufs (simple crane levers) in Egypt used to move very heavy weights from ships to shore.  

They DE had no limitations for making these same kinds of simple cranes out of wood and for me no doubt did. 

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Now... I don't doubt that they used ramps in many places.  I've seen the remains of mud brick ramps in situ that the Egyptians were using to bring carved stones and workers to upper stories of a temple. 

What I'm sure you have seen is the remnants of one mud brick ramp left in situ assumed to have been used to build the first pylon at Karnak:

What was the state in which it was first excavated? Who said it was a ramp used in construction and what is the evidence to support this? Is it even contemporary with the pylon? The north tower (pictured) is today 71ft, the south 103ft-if this was their purpose it is hard to imagine what a 100ft high mud brick ramp would have looked like in it's completed form not to mention how it was actually used to build these structures. 

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But  I am reluctant to say that they did this in every single case across the world because I haven't studied all the sites and I'm not ruling out using other methods that might have been faster given access to what they had.

I am not sure if this is really what it was used for, it "may" have been, though this model quickly breaks down when building the columned temples with their 70 ton architraves among many other examples if not the pylons themselves.   

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Like... I dunno... waiting till it snows and doing all the work on the snowy surface instead of dealing with grass and mud.

....Why make something up just to avoid the most likely answer no matter how inconvenient it may be? 
I don't think some of you who have suggested such a thing have thought this through on several levels the least of which you know that there are going to be dozens if not hundreds of workers that have to pull this block right in front of it on this very same "snowy surface" or "ice" from the quarry across hill and dale? What happens to all the snow and ice when these people are trampling on it right in front of the thing you are pulling? And in Neolithic times during snow winters like this do you really think they had the resources to mobilize large segments of the population to support the workers and haul dozens of megaton blocks sometimes miles in the dead of winter? On and on. This is nonsense and for what-just to avoid the most common sense answers because of this weird taboo some have about the notion of ancient cross cultural contact and/or generational transmission of information? It is the strangest thing because from the 3rd millennium onward, even more so with each passing century, this interconnectedness is the very fabric of our history yet any suggestion this was happening before this time, or god forbid related to Old Kingdom Egypt n anyway, despite the evidence of just common sense that clearly suggest otherwise - some people just lose their minds.

Why? We're all just after the truth, right? 

Edited August 22, 2022 by Thanos5150

[WVK]

On 8/21/2022 at 9:53 AM, WVK said:

Mounted vertically this device concept (windlass) could be be used to drill granite:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjN5hLuVtH0

According to this,  bow saw depictions  are for wood @ 5:10

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeS5lrmyD74

 

 

For what it’s worth, an article about the possible use of circular saws:
“Interestingly, this block shows a clear curved cut and striations which are more reminiscent of marks left by huge circular saws than bronze chisels or anything else that ancient Egyptians are said to have had. Upon closer inspection, the outer cut (incl. the striations, click here for a close up) seems to have been created using a disc-shaped tool with a diameter of 30-40 foot. “
Per Petrie:
No. 6, a slice of diorite bearing equidistant and regular grooves of circular arcs, parallel to one another; these grooves have been nearly polished out by crossed grinding, but still are visible. The only feasible explanation of this piece is that it was produced by a circular saw.

https://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread1165156/pg1