The megalith mystery

[Blueguardian]

is it possible that the egyptians didnt just build things in egypt, maybe some crossed the seas or something, im not sure its possible, though probably not right i am unsure of the time period they were built in.

[questionmark]

Go for it!

Since we are speculating, Did you know the same unit of measure is found a Giza, Stonehenge and Teotihuacan?

Yep, and if you are wondering if it was some green men from Mars you should read some of the works of anthropologists about the conception of measurement units (I could write a whole treaty about it right now but you wouldn't believe me). Just this much, the same measurement units (give or take a few fractions of a percent) are also used by tribes in Africa, Australia and Borneo ... and they did not build any Stonehenges. Cause they did not need a Stonehenge or a Pyramid.

Edited June 30, 2007 by questionmark

[Oxymoron]

This is what you said in your previous post to me re Russia:

"You are wrong about the Russians, before WW2 began Russia had more advanced tanks then the Germans, and more of them, Russians were already develpoing the T34 before the Germans invaded. The Russians were already designing next generation bombers and fighters under Tupolev and MIkayan. The Russians did come together to fight for their Mother land but with out the vast resources and man power and technology the Germans would of crushed the Russians."

You then totally contradict yourself by saying in the next post:

"but with out the infarstructure of Factories and technology Stalin that was ready by the begining of WW2 he could not have used superior numbers and technology to bare upon the Germans at Stalingrad. "

Then you say:

"The Pyramid was not nessacary for survival."

Which of course is wrong again...the Pyramid was essential to the continuance of the dynastic line into the after life and the continuance of the Egyptian culture was dependent upon this (according to their philosophy), so every Egyptian was induced into the idea that the furtherance of their own lives depended upon the furtherance of the pharaoh's into the afterlife.

How I am contradicting my self?? Stalin had bette technology and infarstructure then Hitler before WW2 even began that is why Russia survived the suprise attack and the loss of huge numbers of man. Not beccause of some coming together of people.

Second your theories on the Pyramid are your opinion, how is a piece of stone help feed people, how does it help fight wars??? That is the two main reasons for Civilazation in the first place. Building huge super expensive monuments at the time when civilazations came and went is rediculous.

[Harte]

Since we are speculating, Did you know the same unit of measure is found a Giza, Stonehenge and Teotihuacan?

Yep, and if you are wondering if it was some green men from Mars you should read some of the works of anthropologists about the conception of measurement units (I could write a whole treaty about it right now but you wouldn't believe me). Just this much, the same measurement units (give or take a few fractions of a percent) are also used by tribes in Africa, Australia and Borneo ... and they did not build any Stonehenges. Cause they did not need a Stonehenge or a Pyramid.

Simply not the truth. Why would you busy yourselves with the dissemination of blatant falsehoods?

Harte

[questionmark]

Simply not the truth. Why would you busy yourselves with the dissemination of blatant falsehoods?

Harte

You mean to say that primitive measuring units are not finger, hand, lower arm, foot and step? You must have been reading other social anthropology books than I did. And within a few percent these measures are pretty universal.

[DougWeller]

I am coming in late to this. I've been looking for this alleged report by Merle Booker, and the only source I can find for it is Richard Noone and he isn't a trustworthy source so far as I'm concerned. There was a real report in Civil Engineering Magazine which estimated 10 years.

http://web.archive.org/web/20070608101037/...e/0699feat.html

There are of course inscriptions inside the Great Pyramid. According to Graham Hancock and others, these are placed in areas accessible only during construction and include Khufu's name.

Doug

[The_Spartan]

i wonder why you folks are discussing Pyramids in a Megalith topic??

A Pyramid is not a Megalith.

A Pyramid is a construct, like a house made of bricks!

[DougWeller]

i wonder why you folks are discussing Pyramids in a Megalith topic??

A Pyramid is not a Megalith.

A Pyramid is a construct, like a house made of bricks!

Good point, I hadn't noticed what forum this was in!

Doug

[zimbob]

One person can move huge/immense stones without any assistance or machines, all that is needed are Fulcrums, levers and time.

Mark the cutting outline with a piece of string with soot on it, twang the sooty string against the rock what leaves a straight line, then roughly hewn the rock/stone from the quarry or cut it pretty much perfectly from the rock face, IMO the Master Stone Mason would more than likely cut the Megalith out roughly and then have overseen the finishing touches made when the stone arrived at its destination where teams of slaves would have been used to polish and trim the megalith until it fitted perfectly.

But how do you get the fulcrum underneath the megalith in exactly the right place?

Bind the relevant counterbalance weight to one end of your megalith and tip the Megalith on its end, secure the Fulcrum in the ground approximately where you want it to sit under the Megalith when its lowered and wedge a few blocks of wood to the side of the stone (between the fulcrum and megalith), when everything is secure remove some ballast from the counter balance and gently ease the megalith onto the wooden blocks, now remove some of the blocks of wood and adjust the counter balance weight so the megalith is gently lowered and you are eventually left with about 75% of the megalith over hanging on one side of the fulcrum and its balanced horizontally (off-set centre of gravity), spin the block 180 degrees in the direction you wish to move it (laterally) and now put a fulcrum under the other end and move the counter balance across (shifting the centre of gravity), now add weight to the counterbalance until the Megalith starts to tilt and then spin it through another 180 degrees, do this until you reach your destination.

The fulcrums were probably big stone balls/spheres that were rolled ahead and dropped into holes that were dug along the planned route, these stone spheres would have been made by hand by a Master Stone Mason, the benefit of doing the task in this way is that you can have several relatively small teams each moving there individual stones simultaneously so they all arrive say 5 years after starting the journey, I should imagine they got quite good at this technique and after the first couple of years were able to increase the distance they could travel in a day.

Back then a master Stone mason was worth his weight in Gold, they could literally build you a kingdom

[Sardukar]

Second your theories on the Pyramid are your opinion, how is a piece of stone help feed people, how does it help fight wars??? That is the two main reasons for Civilazation in the first place. Building huge super expensive monuments at the time when civilazations came and went is rediculous.

Building something like the pyramid is a major construction in which all of society contributes. You could compare it to the space race. Lots of benefits including science, organzation, prestige, keeping the population busy etc.

[Apteryx]

Well, I have researched much of the data online, watched many YouTubes, read books, discussed topics, etc. for many years. I have finally come to what I believe is my truth for all Ancient sites.

I realised the answer when I listened to a conversation recorded in a YouTube involving Elon Musk. His focus on Space Flight is to enable Humanity to finally escape the most significant risk to Mankind at this point in our development, Asteroid Hits(Or similar). Any sizeable Asteroid would cause a catastrophic Global Event that "resets" Mans development as the need to survive outweighs any technological development (Such as an Ice Age, Mass Destruction, Heat(Fast Flood)).

Man is great at survival although, reproducing to a civilisation sized population just takes time, technology and development, which we have done many times before, to varying degrees, between Global Level Events as they naturally happen.

There may even be technologically superior cycles Man has been in, historically. For instance, should UFOs be real, there might be a good chance, using this theory, that they are our Human cousins.

It has been discovered by papyrus that the Egyptians did build the pyramids and the details of that process. Humans have the capacity to do incredible things, given the right stimulus and at the correct technical levels. The true level of success is if we get into space and become immune to a Global Level Event. Then we will see extra-long periods of development and technology as we have unlimited time to do so.

This adequately explains (To me) that the ancient sites are just constructions from different cycles to ours. They are Human made, with differing (sometimes, seemingly unexplainable) differences in technological difficulty factors. By cataloguing what we know of Global Catastrophes in the past, we may get an insight into the technological levels that might be reached in intervening periods. A case in point, maybe the very ancient ruins in Peru were made/modelled  from Sandstone using tooling of the time, but they are so old and have been exposed to various extreme events, that they are now Quartzite!

That would also fit into our VERY long history as Human beings.

Thoughts from all welcome.

 

[jaylemurph]

48 minutes ago, Apteryx said:

Well, I have researched much of the data online, watched many YouTubes, read books, discussed topics, etc. for many years. I have finally come to what I believe is my truth for all Ancient sites.

I realised the answer when I listened to a conversation recorded in a YouTube involving Elon Musk. His focus on Space Flight is to enable Humanity to finally escape the most significant risk to Mankind at this point in our development, Asteroid Hits(Or similar). Any sizeable Asteroid would cause a catastrophic Global Event that "resets" Mans development as the need to survive outweighs any technological development (Such as an Ice Age, Mass Destruction, Heat(Fast Flood)).

This is probably why we don't let car manufacturers teach history.

Any advanced technology would leave technological detritus of the sort that cannot be destroyed except through the passing of time -- one example is Mt. Rushmore; it's not going anywhere for tens of thousands of years. Pollution -- fossil fuel, nucelar, whatever -- is another. There is no record of a civilisation that did not alter its environment with some kind of trash.

That's besides the fact that no civilisation on Earth, ever, has disappeared without a single trace: that being the case, your entire starting hypothesis (inasmuch as it is "yours", even though it's been floating around for centuries and you've just globbed on recently) is a fallacy. Or taking in consideration that the entire concept of technological progress is a thoroughly modern, thoroughly Western concept which is inappropriate to ascribe to any non-Western, non-modern society, particularly non-Western, non-modern societies for which there is no actual evidence of.

--Jaylemurph

 

Edited November 10, 2018 by jaylemurph

[Harte]

11 hours ago, Apteryx said:

 A case in point, maybe the very ancient ruins in Peru were made/modelled  from Sandstone using tooling of the time, but they are so old and have been exposed to various extreme events, that they are now Quartzite!

That would also fit into our VERY long history as Human beings.

Thoughts from all welcome.

Age does not make quartzite out of sandstone. Temperature and/or pressure and temperature makes quartzite out of sandstone.

Unless you can posit some event that caused the sandstone to reach over 3600 degrees F, and hold that temperature long enough for the quartz in ALL the sandstone to melt, and then hold it at around 1,400 to 1,500 degrees F for recrystallization, then I'm afraid what you're thinking is quite loony.

Harte

[Piney]

22 hours ago, Apteryx said:

Well, I have researched much of the data online, watched many YouTubes, read books, discussed topics, etc. for many years. I have finally come to what I believe is my truth for all Ancient sites.

No field experience whatsoever of course. 

 

22 hours ago, Apteryx said:

Any sizeable Asteroid would cause a catastrophic Global Event that "resets" Mans development as the need to survive outweighs any technological development (Such as an Ice Age, Mass Destruction, Heat(Fast Flood)).

You need to actually go out and dig to prove impacts. I went out to prove one and then helped disproved it. 

[Piney]

11 hours ago, Harte said:

Age does not make quartzite out of sandstone. Temperature and/or pressure and temperature makes quartzite out of sandstone.

Salem Cuesta, a form of sandstone, was once a Triassic beach and even though you temper it in a extremely hot bonfire for a week so it can be reduced and worked ( in a lithic sense). It's still sandstone.  

[Tatetopa]

On 6/28/2007 at 3:05 PM, fantazum said:

What puzzles me is why? why would those ancient builders want to cut and carve such gigantic stones when it would have been far easier to cut and carve stones of a ton or so in weight and would have made no difference to the integrity of the structure.

A show of power.  If your people could organize  to cut move and assemble stones like that  you get a lot of respect from the  neighbors.

In addition, doing something that mighty is a tribute to the gods you worship and might get you favor.  

[Tatetopa]

On 11/9/2018 at 4:57 PM, Apteryx said:

I realised the answer when I listened to a conversation recorded in a YouTube involving Elon Musk. His focus on Space Flight is to enable Humanity to finally escape the most significant risk to Mankind at this point in our development, Asteroid Hits(Or similar).

The most significant risk to mankind is mankind.  We would take it with us.    We can't escape ourselves.

[Tatetopa]

On 11/9/2018 at 4:57 PM, Apteryx said:

Well, I have researched much of the data online, watched many YouTubes, read books, discussed topics, etc. for many years. I have finally come to what I believe is my truth for all Ancient sites.

And by the way, anybody can put anything online.  Youtube does not guarantee truth.    There is no easy path or shortcut to knowledge.  Once in a while, you have to get out of your chair, turn off your computer, go out and look for it.

[Harte]

18 minutes ago, Tatetopa said:

A show of power.  If your people could organize  to cut move and assemble stones like that  you get a lot of respect from the  neighbors.

I'd add that dressing stone takes longer than placing stone, and a large stone takes less time to dress than 5 or 10 smaller ones that combine for the same volume.

Harte

[kmt_sesh]

I was wondering why someone would necropost something that went dormant in 2008—ten years ago. I really hate necroposting. I was about to lock the thread but there have been quite a few posts since Apteryx dug this thing up from its cold, moldy grave. Against my better judgement I'm inclined to give it some breathing room. For the time being.

Still, a reminder to all posters: don't necropost! If you review the thread, you'll see that very few of the posters are even active at UM anymore. Better to start a new thread if you like the subect.

[Tatetopa]

3 hours ago, Harte said:

I'd add that dressing stone takes longer than placing stone, and a large stone takes less time to dress than 5 or 10 smaller ones that combine for the same volume.

Excellent point!

You might have some comment on the Romans.  I was suspecting that one reason the emperors did not build pyramids was that the power of the government was more spread out and a large concentration of labor like that would be opposed  by the state. as wasteful.  Can you shed any light?

1 hour ago, kmt_sesh said:

I was wondering why someone would necropost something that went dormant in 2008—ten years ago.

Is it slightly ironic that a mummy overlord is not a fan of necroposting?  

[Harte]

7 hours ago, Tatetopa said:

Excellent point!

You might have some comment on the Romans.  I was suspecting that one reason the emperors did not build pyramids was that the power of the government was more spread out and a large concentration of labor like that would be opposed  by the state. as wasteful.  Can you shed any light?

The Romans built far more complex structures. Probably they considered pyramids to be quite low-tech.

Besides, Egyptian pyramids are tombs - actually designed to help the Pharaoh resurrect. Romans had different belief systems.

Harte

[Windowpane]

9 hours ago, Tatetopa said:

 

You might have some comment on the Romans.  I was suspecting that one reason the emperors did not build pyramids ...

Admittedly, the monument wasn't actually commissioned by an emperor ...

There was also apparently another larger one called the "pyramid of Romulus", dismantled in the 1500s.

[Apteryx]

Perhaps you are right. It's just an idea - and perhaps a silly one now I think  more. I found it easier than thinking people were able to shape Granite with primitive tools. Any thoughts on this? Also the amazing engineering of Rocks into finely fitting walls and shaping large edifices in solid granite in Peru and so forth?

[kmt_sesh]

14 hours ago, Tatetopa said:

Excellent point!

You might have some comment on the Romans.  I was suspecting that one reason the emperors did not build pyramids was that the power of the government was more spread out and a large concentration of labor like that would be opposed  by the state. as wasteful.  Can you shed any light?

Is it slightly ironic that a mummy overlord is not a fan of necroposting?  

In Egypt the pyramids were built by and for the state—as royal tombs. As such, when a king's pyramid was being built, the entire state was focused on it. The Romans were significantly wealthier and more powerful than the Egyptians, so if an emperor was keen on building a pyramid, it would've happened. Rome's was a slave-based economy, so the emperor would've had all the slaves he could want. All those wondrous, colossal things the Romans built, were built largely by slaves. And like Harte said, the pyramids wouldn't have been consistent with Roman culture and belief...although they sure loved stealing those obelisks.

And maybe I don't like necroposting because I want to be the only old thing in play around here.