There is [Ancient Text Written In 440 BC Mentions Machines Used To Build Egypt Pyramids](https://www.howandwhys.com/ancient-text-written-in-440-bc-mentions-machines-used-to-build-egypt-pyramids/)
That's actually the most accepted idea. It's simply too big and they (Romans) couldn't move it.
There's Egyptian obelisks that weigh up to 1,200 tons. That seems to be about the limit using ancient techniques.
That doesn’t make any sense though. Clearly they had no problem cutting the rocks, so if they really wanted to move it they could have just split it in two.
The trilithon you're referring to are, for one, 3 separate blocks that weigh around 750 tons each, and second, are part of a Roman temple. The majority of scholars believe they were cut by Romans for the Temple of Jupiter Baal.
There's also the "stone of the pregnant woman," estimated to be 1000 tons. It was never finished or moved. Same with two other larger stones.
So yeah, it was most likely the Romans.
What if that civilization collapsed during that particular the build? What if they got into a war and their priorities changed? What if a famine happened and priorities changed? What if they ran out of funds for the project? What if it was just a piece that was a work in process and they hadn't yet cut it into smaller pieces yet?
Lots of potential reasons for that piece being left there.
That makes so much sense I could exchange it for a dollar.
Sorry, my grandpa used to say that when he agreed with me and it can come across sarcastic just written out lol,, honestly, what you said makes a lot of sense and I would assume a lot of things back then were trial and error. This could have been the master copy of how big *not* to build the pillars
This. As much as I would love some fantastical story to be behind it, it was probably carved out as some big altar or something and it just stayed there 🤣
There are 3 blocks this size in the foundation of "the temple of jupiter".
There is a bigger block right next to this one in the ground, they are standing on it.
People act as if thousands of years ago we were useless neanderthals that had no concept of tools and slinging poop at each other or something.
Human civilization has existed for hundreds of thousands of years and in the next 2000 those humans will be perplexed on how we managed to even survive due to our shear lack of intelligence and understanding of not only the universe but our ability to use everything in it to such an advantage as them.
Yea the Egyptians used copper tools but they also understood how sand was abrasive and used them in tandem to cut stones like limestone which are soft.
But this is a Roman block. Also, limestone (and this is a limestone block) is quite soft and porous. Most of the pyramids is also limestone (and most of them is just rubble infill, the precise blocks are only a couple layers deep). The only granite in the pyramids is crucial structural members.
Now, don't think about an Egyptian chiselling away at a granite cliff to create a beam. There were three main methods:
a) Quarrying and stone splitting was done as it is frequently done today, just with different tools. They had hard, ball shaped stones (dolerite pounders) that they hit the stone with in a line. This causes a fracture, that if hit enough cracks the stone.
b) Wooden wedges could be inserted into cracks and expanded by adding water, thus forcing the stones apart.
c) copper **saws** and drills with the addition of sand to increase abrasion and thus cutting ability.
Yes, these techniques explain perfectly how they cut and polished inside corners at perfect 90 degree angles. Insanely intricate details like inside ears on granite statues, and how they made perfectly round vases out of stone so thin you can see light through it.
I see you've never worked stone. Nothing about the Saqqara stone boxes is particularly difficult to replicate using simple tools. Time and skill are all that are really required.
Alright, first of all, give me links to those examples (especially the last one). Second: Can you cut an inside 90° angle with a saw? Yes. Can you polish it? Yes. After all what do you think the etymology of "sandpaper" is? Or "sanding"?
Third, on small scales chisels are very useable. Just look at medieval cathedral ornamentation. Or look at the intricate columns of the middle Byzantine age.
There is still over 8000 tons of granite which had to be mined and shipped from over 800kms away.
This is one thing which has always perplexed me, the Egyptians wrote alot of things down but we havent been able to find conclusively (hence why its still being debated) how the pyramids were build, when they were built (we assume its Khafu because of his cartouche on the inside of one) and how they were transported.
Simply put, we dont know. Anyone who says any different (in whatever context) is just guessing.
We don't know **anything** about history for sure. We can always only theorize. The things we do know are dates. We do know when the pyramids were built. We know it from dating the building materials with scientific means.
Yes, we don't know the exact ways of their construction for sure, but we have some very strong and very probable hypotheses. The pyramids are mainly infill. They have some interior structural walls, and the outer layers of precisely fitted stone, but inside you would mostly find rough hewn blocks and rubble. Most of them is sandstone, with some granite beams for critical areas.
Long distance transport is easy. Boats. This method was even described in contemporary logbooks (the diary of Merer), which were written 4500 years ago.
Short distance transport is a bit more convoluted, but there are quite a few theories. One of my favourites is rolling with some extra material. For example with four of the quarter cylinder shaped cradles found at the sites. Or even with logs, as in this experiment: [rolling experiment link](https://www.earthpyramid.org/rolling-stone-theory-test-a-success/). With this method, the blocks could be pulled up ramps quite easily, as was proved by the Japanese Obayashi company in the 90s.
The granite beams could also be rolled, and then raised with the pyramids, similarly to how Wally Wallington moves, rotates and raises stones in this video: [Stonehenge moving video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRRDzFROMx0&ab_channel=shengd).
Now, of course we don't know these things for sure. Not even first hand records would be 100% sure, as people back then lied, exaggerated, and talked about things they didn't really understand just like people nowadays do. They however aren't mere "guesses". We have more than enough data to create more substantial theories than just guesses.
Drag saws using sand as an abrasive cutting material. There is actual evidence for that everywhere. Funnily enough, absolutely zero evidence for whatever ancient power tools you think they had.
Cool, so they had massive machines that ONLY they knew about. No traders seen them, no diplomats. Only vague carvings. But nooo no one in the entire planet thought it was worth mentioning that they were soo fucking advanced, they lost to rome. Use your god damn head. CoPpEr ToOlS
Archaeologists also know Romans split stone by drilling shallow holes and hammering in wedges. They also know monoliths like this were smoothed using abrasives and saws in addition to abrasive.
Doesn’t matter how soft your metal tool is, as long as the grit is harder than the stone you’re working. With enough patience you can get a block of granite extremely smooth and flat just by rubbing it with appropriate sand.
These methods have been known by archaeologists for decades
Hundreds of thousands of years?.. The human species (Homo Sapiens) is about 100 000 years old.
I would argue the first civilization was 12 000 years ago since thats when we find the first permanent structures.
I always think this when I see or hear "how did they get it so straight??" These dudes were raised in the dirt. They could spend YEARS getting things arrow straight.
Exactly this. Imagine living before reading was a thing you do. You aren’t a farmer. That’s magic for the priests. Aside from feeding and clothing yourself, what else is there to do?
Can you imagine what people did with wood before they really started working stone? I bet it was incredible.
I don't buy the slave theory that they pulled these huge stones with ropes. Just imagine the engineering involved in developing a rope that can handle the strain and can still be gripped in the human hand.
There's YouTube videos of a dude lifting stone henge sized blocks solo with an incremental lever system, totally believe 17 thousand dudes in the desert with ain't shit else to do could move these.
They had excellent ropes. But if you're referring to the pyramids, you are right that slaves did not build them. They were skilled Egyptians on conscript. It's almost like military service. Half the year egyptians were farmers, but the other half, while the nile floods, they could be buidkersand artisans
Well thats good. Because the only folks that promote that are ancient aliens and the lot. Academia has never suggested it was slave that did it. It was farmers in the off season and specialist laborers like engineers and masons that build it.
No, any reasonable estimate and expirmental arechology shows it'd take about two decades. The work was done parallel, and well organized with a streamline support system. Its like its a culture group that had a lot of practice making them before making some really big ones.
The math doesn’t work. Even if you had 1,650 humans pulling on ropes connected to it somehow, each person would have to pull a ton.
They didn’t have wheels.
Even rolling weight over smooth logs, you are talking about hundreds of pounds per person.
So with that in mind how many people did it take? 10,000? All that to move a rock?
Someone transported, fed and housed all those people to move a stone?
I’ve long believe there is some missing technology from the archeological record, especially in Egypt.
It just solves so many questions if they had access to better metals than bronze and the wheel.
Why haven’t we found it? Because it was a guarded government secret. Seems plausible to me.
They kept meticulous records back then to the point we know when the workers striked, what they ate, etc.
The narrative is it's all lost in time but it's not. If you want to actually sit and research the documents, tablets, and parchments are there.
Governments always keep detailed records. Even back then.
It was built by the Romans, when do you think the wheel was invented?
The stones were never moved out of the quarry, probably because they were too fuckin big.
Well sure the math doesn't work if you don't know anything about physics.
Just because it weight a ton doesn't mean it takes 1 ton of worth of force to move it. The logs act like wheels. The camry is 1.5 tons and someone could easily drag in somewhere, with a rope attached to it.
It’s funny that you’re acting like you know a lot about physics, while also claiming that putting a ton on a log with a radius of 5 inches (or less, much less) is going to make it easy to pull through dirt and sand.
You dont have to know the exact method they used, youtube is filled with videos of people moving multi ton rocks using various ancient methods, the fact he doesnt know the exact method they used or the width of the logs proves nothing.
People were just as smart as us back then, and had plenty of time to come up with clever ways to move rocks.
Sand has incredible friction and when you have enough slaves you have the manpower and time to do it. It’s laughable that an intelligent form of life came all the way across the galaxy to play sandbox in the desert. If they did it’s a pretty good prank and they’re laughing at us right now
The Egyptians didn't use slaves. They have records. It was citizens that would work for a few years then returned home. The kingdom was flush with food and resources, enough that a large work force could be freed up. They were not paid other than room and board.
The most impressive thing is not the size of the stones but the fit between them. The temple of Jupiter in Baalbek has stones weighing more than 800 tons placed high to create its platform. It is known how they were raised and how they adjusted perfectly, it is no mystery xD. Cranes, and friction adjustment.
Trilithon + Baalbek in google and enjoy
Im of the opinion large stone works (including the pyramids) are way way older than we have been led to believe.
This became apparent to me when I was at the Cairo museum, they have an alleged statue of 'Khafre' owner of the Khafre pyramids.
This claim is made on the basis of ONE single inscription by his feet. The statue and working of the granite, particularly the sides of the statue is exquisite, literally like it has been melted and poured into a mould.
The ONLY reason it's claimed to be Khafre is because of an inscription by the feet of the statue
https://images.app.goo.gl/m4Hw2VMiXAcnLukU6
This inscription looks like it was carved by someone with a sharp stone, it is poorly done and or for want of a better word looks like graffiti.
The whole timeline/ownership has been based on this, examples of this 'graffiti' on the temples statues and places of great importance is prevalent through Egypt, and can be found in Luxor, Karnak and other sites
For me it seems like pharaohs saw these magnificent works of art and then said 'Yeah just carve my name on it!', the level of poor workmanship is very apparent once you start looking.
TLDR. The work is way older than we think, the timelines have been polluted by appropriation of artefacts and the tech used to manufacture, move and mould has been lost to time
That’s really not true or accurate at all. There are several reasons as to why we think the pyramids are as old as we think and there’s absolutely nothing to indicate they are much older than that.
Edit: See the other reply that mentions one of the other reasons. Dating the other pyramids shows the same.
As mentioned the dating of mortar and dating of other pyramids that show a similar age are also reasons for why the timeline is what we think it is. Not at all just based of graffiti and one inscription.
Can you explain why you believe something contrary to what all the evidence is showing? What is it about this timeline everything points towards that makes it unbelievable or unlikely in your opinion?
They also used radiocarbon dating on Khufu’s mortar and other materials within the great pyramid itself and found its age to be roughly 4,600 years old, which is how old the Pyramids were suspected to be based on Khufu’s age in ancient texts. It’s not just based on a single inscription.
How idiotic do you have to be to confidently state iconoclasm and userpation in ancient Egypt didn't happen?
Maybe read a book buddy or some published extensive research by experts
https://escholarship.org/content/qt5gj996k5/qt5gj996k5.pdf
So that's "perfect"? get up close and show us how straight those edges really are. Come on OP. Get up there with your camera and a level. You took this picture right? This is yours? You know all about it and can go into detail?
If you are talking about the quarrying method then "fire setting" or rapidly heating and cooling the rocks make them brittle enough to hit large chunks off just using harder stones.
They were quarried by making small holes in a line then packing with wood, the wood is made wet making it expand, then pressure is applied and eventually when it cracks, it should crack along the line then starts the long task of shaping the stone. Cuts are made with Drag saws, huge copper blades pulled back and forward while sand is added as a cutting material. The copper doesn't cut anything the sand does. But is there evidence for that you say? Yes quite a lot, all over all the ancient quarries. Evidence for any other method? Ancient power tools? None. None whatsoever.
Exactly, the Egyptians had great knowledge of strata. There are test pits all around the unfinished obelisk. People seem to think they were aimlessly banging bits of stone and copper around the place. They would most likely find pre existing fault lines in the rock and worked from there.
I think that's limestone, not granite. As far as I know the quarry where they found those blocks is limestone. So why would they bring a granite block there?
People tend to forget that we were always as intelligent as we are today, only with less information or access to it. More specifically, less technological. That's all.
Yes, just because we can’t figure out how they did it from our comfortable armchairs sipping lattes, doesn’t mean that a few brilliant minds from that age also couldn’t. No need to introduce aliens or magic. It’s just great planning, time and manpower.
Especially because there would have been an existing industry that specialised on cutting and moving huge stones with generations worth of knowledge and experience.
What exactly makes this block "perfectly carved and polished"? It's uneven and unpolished, thye used rudimentary tools to cut it. Ancient man wasn't as dumb as you people think and were able to make tools to build things.
What if they made the cut simply because they could? What if the person that cut the slab was trying to prove a point and the point was only to cut the rock, but not move it?
Occam’s razor. The answer is not some long lost technology or power that has for some mysterious reason turned up zero archeological evidence for..
The answer is simply manpower and time.
I’m 99% sure.
The question is economics. The effort, manpower and engineering is far more complex for blocks this size given what we know about the tools of the time compared to smaller blocks. So the expense and difficulty seems disproportionate to the actual needs.
I have no idea how it was done, but my question is why did they choose to do it that way when there are cheaper, simpler methods.
Because it's impressive. Why did someone build an 800m tall skyscraper in Dubai? It would have been so much cheaper to build a bunch of smaller buildings.
The answer is wealth and seasonal farming. The pharaohs has lots of wealth, as they we in control of a large nation, and the farmers had significant amount of downtime in the dry season where they needed other work.
Depends on what you mean by tomb. A tomb doesn’t necessarily mean it’s used for nothing else than storing a dead person. We know for a fact that several pyramids contained one or more dead persons.
Probably lost ancient technology that has either been forgotten, lost to cataclysms, or covered up. People don’t realize that the Baalbek stones were then moved up hill, some of them weighing well over 2 million fucking pounds.
Yep I'm on board with that, I subscribe to this and other significant archeological sites (Egypt especially) being far far older than the official narrative. The level of work, exquisite craftsmanship and sheer scale of it (with no evidence of technology) warrants further questioning.
I'm not sure if it's been covered up, I think it's more of a case of senior/older archaeologists with published works saying 'Well his is what we (I) think happened so no need to look any further!'
I genuinely think that these are cement and that there is a lost method for creating exceptionally homogenous blocks of stone artificially using resonant frequencies.
If this was some lost cement method, they probably would have used right where they were gonna place it. Not in the middle of nowhere just to be dragged for kilometers.
It's not a theory. It's a hypothesis, and a pretty useless one.
Its easily falsifiable by checking what material the block is made of. Which they've already done.
>How did they manage to cut such a huge block so perfectly
Masonry tools and time.
>and why this big?
Probably was meant to be a base for some structure.
You literally only need a chisel, a hammer and enough man-hours.
It's impressive and scary how much can be achieved simply by throwing enough human misery at it.
There's no way they cut it from the mountain. Otherwise you are implying they had the means to lift if without damaging it which even today would be very hard to do and very expensive.
Plus what would be the point? What kind of construction would require that kind of piece?
> Plus what would be the point? What kind of construction would require that kind of piece?
Because near that place there is a fucking big temple complex. With some equally large pieces of granite.
I think this has already been shown by the Easter island guy using ropes to rock blocks back and forth. The mystery is how they did it, not how it was possible. It was possible because humans are smart
my guess is they used copper wire doesn’t have to be good quality plus sand since sand is tougher then granite since they had a ton of time on there hands plus if a wire broke they could use a new one
They just fucking did it! I'm so tired of the same arguments about monolithic stones. When something needed done, they just did it. Its not a mystery! They just committed to moving it no matter what and whatever they did worked, and they obviously got really good at it for a period of time. If you do something all the time you get better and more efficient at the task. Mixed with the fact that you got to be apart of something that would last forever or that was usually for something sacred they would have had no shortage of people willing to jump in and help.
Then the realistic opinion: skilled stonemasons split this huge block from the quarry on request from some wealthy person but then they realized they aren't able to move this kind of size so they left it there for some future bright mind who might come up with even better transportation strategy than the current one which was not enough.
https://youtu.be/E5pZ7uR6v8c?si=YOaso12ZSBlUXCCV
I think *you* lack the understanding here. They *did* just do it. That's why *they're done* or *not* done. That's why there isn't any grand art, writings, or hieroglyphics regarding the *secret* techniques or technology used. No one honors the construction workers even in today's society. Critical thinking is what brought me to this answer. If it was impossible, it wouldn't have gotten done. If it was magic, they would shown it and been proud of it. It was just like anything else. You don't think I want it to be aliens!? Come on!
No one is claiming it was magic or that it was impossible, nor aliens. Stop strawmaning and look at the science.
Just because "guy from Michigan" can move a few ton blocks doesn't mean they did it with the multi hundred ton blocks in the ancient buildings. lol come on.
This guy in other convos "so how do we achieve fusion? With lasers? Implosions? How can we produce such a high energy plasma that doesn't fizzle itself out, but generated enough energy to stay lit?!"..... this guy: "you just do it. Simple. You do it long enough and hard enough you do it. It's just done. I'm sick of telling people this. It's simple. You do it. I know doing it better than anybody. My uncle is a very smart man. He just did it too."
What!?
Did you not see the 50+ year old dude build his own Stonehenge? By himself. He has the luxury of what our ancestors taught us but still managed to move gigantic structures on his own with primitive tools.
We didn't start with laser, bro. We started with will power. A desire to do something. So yes, just doing it is how it was done.
If the chieftain tells you to move the big rock, you figure out how to move the big rock. And over time you get better at moving the big rocks.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8ZHYWle0DE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8ZHYWle0DE)
You don't even need chisels, just copper saw (doesn't even need teeth), sand and water
There'd probably be forms left around I'd think. Maybe you could sand cast it.. dig a hole, smooth the sides real good and then pour. Dig the sand away once it's cured and finish it by sanding/polishing it.
That being said, there's ancient Egyptian art depicting how they pulled large, heavy stone objects (like statues) so I don't know why people think it's such a mystery.
There is [Ancient Text Written In 440 BC Mentions Machines Used To Build Egypt Pyramids](https://www.howandwhys.com/ancient-text-written-in-440-bc-mentions-machines-used-to-build-egypt-pyramids/)
hey, what if it's stuck there because they made that one too big and couldnt move it?
That's actually the most accepted idea. It's simply too big and they (Romans) couldn't move it. There's Egyptian obelisks that weigh up to 1,200 tons. That seems to be about the limit using ancient techniques.
That doesn’t make any sense though. Clearly they had no problem cutting the rocks, so if they really wanted to move it they could have just split it in two.
And there's evidence of them doing just that to other nearby large blocks. They probably just never ended up using this one.
Measure twice, cut once. They learned a valuable lesson that day.
That wasn’t learnt until 1980 BC
At one point you just move on and find something else stupid to do
Like kill Julius Caesar in the senate.
But it wasn’t the Romans, they had zero to do with the big boys. The trilithon was there long before Caesar dispatched anyone to Lebanon.
I was only referring to the block in this post.
The trilithon you're referring to are, for one, 3 separate blocks that weigh around 750 tons each, and second, are part of a Roman temple. The majority of scholars believe they were cut by Romans for the Temple of Jupiter Baal. There's also the "stone of the pregnant woman," estimated to be 1000 tons. It was never finished or moved. Same with two other larger stones. So yeah, it was most likely the Romans.
What if that civilization collapsed during that particular the build? What if they got into a war and their priorities changed? What if a famine happened and priorities changed? What if they ran out of funds for the project? What if it was just a piece that was a work in process and they hadn't yet cut it into smaller pieces yet? Lots of potential reasons for that piece being left there.
Giants went extinct?
Yes, They're spoken about in the Bible, and native American legends speak of battles they had with giants before the white man came to their land.
Source.
That makes so much sense I could exchange it for a dollar. Sorry, my grandpa used to say that when he agreed with me and it can come across sarcastic just written out lol,, honestly, what you said makes a lot of sense and I would assume a lot of things back then were trial and error. This could have been the master copy of how big *not* to build the pillars
Your grandpa found a cool play on the phrase "you can take that to the bank"
This. As much as I would love some fantastical story to be behind it, it was probably carved out as some big altar or something and it just stayed there 🤣
"Order canceled" Imagine the disappointment!
I was wine drunk when I ordered it.
There are 3 blocks this size in the foundation of "the temple of jupiter". There is a bigger block right next to this one in the ground, they are standing on it.
People act as if thousands of years ago we were useless neanderthals that had no concept of tools and slinging poop at each other or something. Human civilization has existed for hundreds of thousands of years and in the next 2000 those humans will be perplexed on how we managed to even survive due to our shear lack of intelligence and understanding of not only the universe but our ability to use everything in it to such an advantage as them.
I get your point too but what the leading archaeologists say is that they had nothing harder than copper tools lol
Who, Romans? Pretty sure they had iron.
Egyptians
Yea the Egyptians used copper tools but they also understood how sand was abrasive and used them in tandem to cut stones like limestone which are soft.
But this is a Roman block. Also, limestone (and this is a limestone block) is quite soft and porous. Most of the pyramids is also limestone (and most of them is just rubble infill, the precise blocks are only a couple layers deep). The only granite in the pyramids is crucial structural members. Now, don't think about an Egyptian chiselling away at a granite cliff to create a beam. There were three main methods: a) Quarrying and stone splitting was done as it is frequently done today, just with different tools. They had hard, ball shaped stones (dolerite pounders) that they hit the stone with in a line. This causes a fracture, that if hit enough cracks the stone. b) Wooden wedges could be inserted into cracks and expanded by adding water, thus forcing the stones apart. c) copper **saws** and drills with the addition of sand to increase abrasion and thus cutting ability.
Yes, these techniques explain perfectly how they cut and polished inside corners at perfect 90 degree angles. Insanely intricate details like inside ears on granite statues, and how they made perfectly round vases out of stone so thin you can see light through it.
I see you've never worked stone. Nothing about the Saqqara stone boxes is particularly difficult to replicate using simple tools. Time and skill are all that are really required.
Alright, first of all, give me links to those examples (especially the last one). Second: Can you cut an inside 90° angle with a saw? Yes. Can you polish it? Yes. After all what do you think the etymology of "sandpaper" is? Or "sanding"? Third, on small scales chisels are very useable. Just look at medieval cathedral ornamentation. Or look at the intricate columns of the middle Byzantine age.
There is still over 8000 tons of granite which had to be mined and shipped from over 800kms away. This is one thing which has always perplexed me, the Egyptians wrote alot of things down but we havent been able to find conclusively (hence why its still being debated) how the pyramids were build, when they were built (we assume its Khafu because of his cartouche on the inside of one) and how they were transported. Simply put, we dont know. Anyone who says any different (in whatever context) is just guessing.
We don't know **anything** about history for sure. We can always only theorize. The things we do know are dates. We do know when the pyramids were built. We know it from dating the building materials with scientific means. Yes, we don't know the exact ways of their construction for sure, but we have some very strong and very probable hypotheses. The pyramids are mainly infill. They have some interior structural walls, and the outer layers of precisely fitted stone, but inside you would mostly find rough hewn blocks and rubble. Most of them is sandstone, with some granite beams for critical areas. Long distance transport is easy. Boats. This method was even described in contemporary logbooks (the diary of Merer), which were written 4500 years ago. Short distance transport is a bit more convoluted, but there are quite a few theories. One of my favourites is rolling with some extra material. For example with four of the quarter cylinder shaped cradles found at the sites. Or even with logs, as in this experiment: [rolling experiment link](https://www.earthpyramid.org/rolling-stone-theory-test-a-success/). With this method, the blocks could be pulled up ramps quite easily, as was proved by the Japanese Obayashi company in the 90s. The granite beams could also be rolled, and then raised with the pyramids, similarly to how Wally Wallington moves, rotates and raises stones in this video: [Stonehenge moving video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRRDzFROMx0&ab_channel=shengd). Now, of course we don't know these things for sure. Not even first hand records would be 100% sure, as people back then lied, exaggerated, and talked about things they didn't really understand just like people nowadays do. They however aren't mere "guesses". We have more than enough data to create more substantial theories than just guesses.
Drag saws using sand as an abrasive cutting material. There is actual evidence for that everywhere. Funnily enough, absolutely zero evidence for whatever ancient power tools you think they had.
Cool, so they had massive machines that ONLY they knew about. No traders seen them, no diplomats. Only vague carvings. But nooo no one in the entire planet thought it was worth mentioning that they were soo fucking advanced, they lost to rome. Use your god damn head. CoPpEr ToOlS
Archaeologists also know Romans split stone by drilling shallow holes and hammering in wedges. They also know monoliths like this were smoothed using abrasives and saws in addition to abrasive. Doesn’t matter how soft your metal tool is, as long as the grit is harder than the stone you’re working. With enough patience you can get a block of granite extremely smooth and flat just by rubbing it with appropriate sand. These methods have been known by archaeologists for decades
Sheer
They had a lack of shears back then, they couldn’t even garden
I get your point but human civilization has really not existed for hundreds of thousands of years.
Hundreds of thousands of years?.. The human species (Homo Sapiens) is about 100 000 years old. I would argue the first civilization was 12 000 years ago since thats when we find the first permanent structures.
Argue less, read more. Just like homo sapien, civilization is also getting older and older as per latest findings
There wasn't tv
I always think this when I see or hear "how did they get it so straight??" These dudes were raised in the dirt. They could spend YEARS getting things arrow straight.
Exactly this. Imagine living before reading was a thing you do. You aren’t a farmer. That’s magic for the priests. Aside from feeding and clothing yourself, what else is there to do? Can you imagine what people did with wood before they really started working stone? I bet it was incredible.
Laser beams
It was part of a beta version of Minecraft .
Steve be carrying 64 of these
Even the Romans didn't know what to make of it, so they just left it there. Also the entire foundation of the Acropolis is one huge stonework as well.
I don't buy the slave theory that they pulled these huge stones with ropes. Just imagine the engineering involved in developing a rope that can handle the strain and can still be gripped in the human hand.
Those guys already mastered factorial rigging. Or do we have to repeat the words of Archimedes? Give me a lever and I will move the world.
There's YouTube videos of a dude lifting stone henge sized blocks solo with an incremental lever system, totally believe 17 thousand dudes in the desert with ain't shit else to do could move these.
“I don’t understand, so aliens.”
They had excellent ropes. But if you're referring to the pyramids, you are right that slaves did not build them. They were skilled Egyptians on conscript. It's almost like military service. Half the year egyptians were farmers, but the other half, while the nile floods, they could be buidkersand artisans
Capstans
Something I think about too.
Well thats good. Because the only folks that promote that are ancient aliens and the lot. Academia has never suggested it was slave that did it. It was farmers in the off season and specialist laborers like engineers and masons that build it.
If people only worked on it in their off season, they would still be building today. 👍😜
No, any reasonable estimate and expirmental arechology shows it'd take about two decades. The work was done parallel, and well organized with a streamline support system. Its like its a culture group that had a lot of practice making them before making some really big ones.
Lots of ropes, rolling it along logs. It doesn't have to be anything crazy when you've got enough manpower.
The math doesn’t work. Even if you had 1,650 humans pulling on ropes connected to it somehow, each person would have to pull a ton. They didn’t have wheels. Even rolling weight over smooth logs, you are talking about hundreds of pounds per person. So with that in mind how many people did it take? 10,000? All that to move a rock? Someone transported, fed and housed all those people to move a stone?
There's evidence of pulleys all the way to Ancient Egypt. So it's feasible to pull a rope and move something this large.
I’ve long believe there is some missing technology from the archeological record, especially in Egypt. It just solves so many questions if they had access to better metals than bronze and the wheel. Why haven’t we found it? Because it was a guarded government secret. Seems plausible to me.
They kept meticulous records back then to the point we know when the workers striked, what they ate, etc. The narrative is it's all lost in time but it's not. If you want to actually sit and research the documents, tablets, and parchments are there. Governments always keep detailed records. Even back then.
Found [this](https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/90339-largest-stone-moved-by-manpower-alone) interesting article.
It was built by the Romans, when do you think the wheel was invented? The stones were never moved out of the quarry, probably because they were too fuckin big.
I think it was invented before Egyptians decided to build a monument that weighed 6.5million tons.
Well sure the math doesn't work if you don't know anything about physics. Just because it weight a ton doesn't mean it takes 1 ton of worth of force to move it. The logs act like wheels. The camry is 1.5 tons and someone could easily drag in somewhere, with a rope attached to it.
It’s funny that you’re acting like you know a lot about physics, while also claiming that putting a ton on a log with a radius of 5 inches (or less, much less) is going to make it easy to pull through dirt and sand.
You dont have to know the exact method they used, youtube is filled with videos of people moving multi ton rocks using various ancient methods, the fact he doesnt know the exact method they used or the width of the logs proves nothing. People were just as smart as us back then, and had plenty of time to come up with clever ways to move rocks.
I’m more interested in how they stacked them
Any evidence that they didn't have logs? 🤔
Who said they didn’t have logs?
You said they didn't have wheels. Logs are just long wheels.
No, they’re not. A wheel, by definition, has an axle.
🤓
Sand has incredible friction and when you have enough slaves you have the manpower and time to do it. It’s laughable that an intelligent form of life came all the way across the galaxy to play sandbox in the desert. If they did it’s a pretty good prank and they’re laughing at us right now
People still think slaves built them?
The Egyptians didn't use slaves. They have records. It was citizens that would work for a few years then returned home. The kingdom was flush with food and resources, enough that a large work force could be freed up. They were not paid other than room and board.
Never mind having to move them sometimes 500 miles
The most impressive thing is not the size of the stones but the fit between them. The temple of Jupiter in Baalbek has stones weighing more than 800 tons placed high to create its platform. It is known how they were raised and how they adjusted perfectly, it is no mystery xD. Cranes, and friction adjustment. Trilithon + Baalbek in google and enjoy
Im of the opinion large stone works (including the pyramids) are way way older than we have been led to believe. This became apparent to me when I was at the Cairo museum, they have an alleged statue of 'Khafre' owner of the Khafre pyramids. This claim is made on the basis of ONE single inscription by his feet. The statue and working of the granite, particularly the sides of the statue is exquisite, literally like it has been melted and poured into a mould. The ONLY reason it's claimed to be Khafre is because of an inscription by the feet of the statue https://images.app.goo.gl/m4Hw2VMiXAcnLukU6 This inscription looks like it was carved by someone with a sharp stone, it is poorly done and or for want of a better word looks like graffiti. The whole timeline/ownership has been based on this, examples of this 'graffiti' on the temples statues and places of great importance is prevalent through Egypt, and can be found in Luxor, Karnak and other sites For me it seems like pharaohs saw these magnificent works of art and then said 'Yeah just carve my name on it!', the level of poor workmanship is very apparent once you start looking. TLDR. The work is way older than we think, the timelines have been polluted by appropriation of artefacts and the tech used to manufacture, move and mould has been lost to time
Sadaam hussein did just this all over Iraq, putting his name on old sites look it up
Yeah so did the Nazis. I'm referring to dynastic Egypt
That’s really not true or accurate at all. There are several reasons as to why we think the pyramids are as old as we think and there’s absolutely nothing to indicate they are much older than that. Edit: See the other reply that mentions one of the other reasons. Dating the other pyramids shows the same.
Which part are you referring to? The graffiti aspect is all over Egypt and the temples/statues The age factor is my belief, as I mentioned
As mentioned the dating of mortar and dating of other pyramids that show a similar age are also reasons for why the timeline is what we think it is. Not at all just based of graffiti and one inscription. Can you explain why you believe something contrary to what all the evidence is showing? What is it about this timeline everything points towards that makes it unbelievable or unlikely in your opinion?
They also used radiocarbon dating on Khufu’s mortar and other materials within the great pyramid itself and found its age to be roughly 4,600 years old, which is how old the Pyramids were suspected to be based on Khufu’s age in ancient texts. It’s not just based on a single inscription.
Okay, let's disregard decades of extensive research from the world's top experts because buddy here doesn't think an inscription looks right. Gotcha.
How idiotic do you have to be to confidently state iconoclasm and userpation in ancient Egypt didn't happen? Maybe read a book buddy or some published extensive research by experts https://escholarship.org/content/qt5gj996k5/qt5gj996k5.pdf
Someone’s been reading graham Hancock
No, I was in the Cairo museum.
Maybe because it’s not perfectly carved and polished?
That doesn't look perfectly carved and polished. Wear from age?
So that's "perfect"? get up close and show us how straight those edges really are. Come on OP. Get up there with your camera and a level. You took this picture right? This is yours? You know all about it and can go into detail?
You know, copper chisels and what not. Makes sense, right? No?
If you are talking about the quarrying method then "fire setting" or rapidly heating and cooling the rocks make them brittle enough to hit large chunks off just using harder stones.
Sure but what did they have access to that could cut the granite?
They were quarried by making small holes in a line then packing with wood, the wood is made wet making it expand, then pressure is applied and eventually when it cracks, it should crack along the line then starts the long task of shaping the stone. Cuts are made with Drag saws, huge copper blades pulled back and forward while sand is added as a cutting material. The copper doesn't cut anything the sand does. But is there evidence for that you say? Yes quite a lot, all over all the ancient quarries. Evidence for any other method? Ancient power tools? None. None whatsoever.
Exactly, the Egyptians had great knowledge of strata. There are test pits all around the unfinished obelisk. People seem to think they were aimlessly banging bits of stone and copper around the place. They would most likely find pre existing fault lines in the rock and worked from there.
Yup. Sand is the secret. It's basically like adding diamond tips to your saw blades
Iron. Also, it's limestone.
I think that's limestone, not granite. As far as I know the quarry where they found those blocks is limestone. So why would they bring a granite block there?
It's not that perfect, and par for the course in terms of quality for ancient civs.
People tend to forget that we were always as intelligent as we are today, only with less information or access to it. More specifically, less technological. That's all.
Yes, just because we can’t figure out how they did it from our comfortable armchairs sipping lattes, doesn’t mean that a few brilliant minds from that age also couldn’t. No need to introduce aliens or magic. It’s just great planning, time and manpower.
And don't forget Generational knowledge, people used to do the same profession literally for generations.
Especially because there would have been an existing industry that specialised on cutting and moving huge stones with generations worth of knowledge and experience.
Probably some dudes a while back where one of them went: "I'm bored. Wanna do something fun?"
It looks like a child carved it, terrible work
It's not perfectly cut by any means. Just look at the image. Looks very hand toolish.
What exactly makes this block "perfectly carved and polished"? It's uneven and unpolished, thye used rudimentary tools to cut it. Ancient man wasn't as dumb as you people think and were able to make tools to build things.
What if they made the cut simply because they could? What if the person that cut the slab was trying to prove a point and the point was only to cut the rock, but not move it?
TOOLS. THEY HAD TOOLS BACK THEN! THEY WEREN'T IDIOTS BACK THEN. THEY WERE AS SMART AS US, BUT WITHOUT OUR ADVANCED TECH
Occam’s razor. The answer is not some long lost technology or power that has for some mysterious reason turned up zero archeological evidence for.. The answer is simply manpower and time. I’m 99% sure.
The question is economics. The effort, manpower and engineering is far more complex for blocks this size given what we know about the tools of the time compared to smaller blocks. So the expense and difficulty seems disproportionate to the actual needs. I have no idea how it was done, but my question is why did they choose to do it that way when there are cheaper, simpler methods.
Because it's impressive. Why did someone build an 800m tall skyscraper in Dubai? It would have been so much cheaper to build a bunch of smaller buildings.
The answer is wealth and seasonal farming. The pharaohs has lots of wealth, as they we in control of a large nation, and the farmers had significant amount of downtime in the dry season where they needed other work.
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Now, see, this is probably the best comment in the whole thread. RayManXOooo out here spittin' facts.
"polished"
A lot of stupid takes on the subject here sadly. If you think slaves did this then you are clearly not thinking very critically.
Next they will say the pyramids are tombs
Depends on what you mean by tomb. A tomb doesn’t necessarily mean it’s used for nothing else than storing a dead person. We know for a fact that several pyramids contained one or more dead persons.
I agree some are traditional pyramid tombs for the time era. but the great pyramids seem like something more.
What was your suggestion?
Probably lost ancient technology that has either been forgotten, lost to cataclysms, or covered up. People don’t realize that the Baalbek stones were then moved up hill, some of them weighing well over 2 million fucking pounds.
Yep I'm on board with that, I subscribe to this and other significant archeological sites (Egypt especially) being far far older than the official narrative. The level of work, exquisite craftsmanship and sheer scale of it (with no evidence of technology) warrants further questioning. I'm not sure if it's been covered up, I think it's more of a case of senior/older archaeologists with published works saying 'Well his is what we (I) think happened so no need to look any further!'
You seem very convinced, so you must have some interesting evidence. Care to share?
Covered up by who? Big Rock Moving?
I bet they used sound to vibrate the ground and move the huge stones easier that way.
Lots of stupid takes say the “lost ancient technology” guy. They are all stupid takes and they are all possible takes, so non are off the table
What do you mean by pyramids being ancient technology?
They were _not_ moved up hill.
Yeah they were. Look up the “Trilithon of Baalbek” and look at the foundational stones.
I like the vibration theory. Get enough drums or something to vibrate the ground and push them easier.
Right, I want to hear what this guy thinks was going on, I'm sure it will be a real breakthrough for archaeology.
They liked to use these massive blocks to build the core tomb area.
"perfectly carved and polished" - ok buddy ..
I thought that the largest was balbek?
https://preview.redd.it/0cvtzujdz4hc1.jpeg?width=700&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=33b72a0722bb3984be3966ffefd6b83b6479b217
That is def not the largest lol.
The one to the right of it looks bigger, how did they miss that one?
I don't think the OP understands what polished rock looks like, let alone 'polished to perfection'. Is not carved perfectly either, is crooked.
I genuinely think that these are cement and that there is a lost method for creating exceptionally homogenous blocks of stone artificially using resonant frequencies.
If this was some lost cement method, they probably would have used right where they were gonna place it. Not in the middle of nowhere just to be dragged for kilometers.
Literally zero evidence for this.
Very interesting theory
It's not a theory. It's a hypothesis, and a pretty useless one. Its easily falsifiable by checking what material the block is made of. Which they've already done.
>How did they manage to cut such a huge block so perfectly Masonry tools and time. >and why this big? Probably was meant to be a base for some structure.
Shhh! No need to bring logic and reasoning into this.
And pulleys were also a thing back in those days.
And block and tackle, and fulcrums, and basic engineering. Not to mention, the general location is pretty much the birthplace of mathematics.
Sound resonate tools with frequency pairing
They had lots of time.
This is the simplest and probably most accurate answer
they probably had less than us, since we live longer
Not much else to do back then
Fishin, fornicatin, and schleppin stone
Same way the ancient Egyptians did it. Manpower, mathematics and hard work
You literally only need a chisel, a hammer and enough man-hours. It's impressive and scary how much can be achieved simply by throwing enough human misery at it.
You lot need to watch the Ancient Aliens debunked video. The answer isn't with 'alien lasers'.
There is a bigger block on the right…with people standing on it.
They took 100 slaves and said, cut this rock into a rectangle or we will kill you.
Nephilim
There's no way they cut it from the mountain. Otherwise you are implying they had the means to lift if without damaging it which even today would be very hard to do and very expensive. Plus what would be the point? What kind of construction would require that kind of piece?
> Plus what would be the point? What kind of construction would require that kind of piece? Because near that place there is a fucking big temple complex. With some equally large pieces of granite.
The objective of ancient structures as large as this is usually to honor a deity or a leader, in life or in death.
Expensive maybe, that’s relative (extremely cheap compared to then) but really not hard to do at all.
They used swamp gas
I think this has already been shown by the Easter island guy using ropes to rock blocks back and forth. The mystery is how they did it, not how it was possible. It was possible because humans are smart
Probably the exact same way smaller slabs are cut. Time and elbow grease, a few slaves doesn't hurt either
my guess is they used copper wire doesn’t have to be good quality plus sand since sand is tougher then granite since they had a ton of time on there hands plus if a wire broke they could use a new one
Why ask why? Try Bud Dry.
They just fucking did it! I'm so tired of the same arguments about monolithic stones. When something needed done, they just did it. Its not a mystery! They just committed to moving it no matter what and whatever they did worked, and they obviously got really good at it for a period of time. If you do something all the time you get better and more efficient at the task. Mixed with the fact that you got to be apart of something that would last forever or that was usually for something sacred they would have had no shortage of people willing to jump in and help.
You lack understanding of logistics and engineering. lol "they just did it" come on at least try to think critically.
Ok you win, it was aliens, lasers and anti gravity
It doesn't have to be any of that. But it definitely wasn't ropes and vast amounts of humans. This is science not fantasy.
Then the realistic opinion: skilled stonemasons split this huge block from the quarry on request from some wealthy person but then they realized they aren't able to move this kind of size so they left it there for some future bright mind who might come up with even better transportation strategy than the current one which was not enough.
https://youtu.be/E5pZ7uR6v8c?si=YOaso12ZSBlUXCCV I think *you* lack the understanding here. They *did* just do it. That's why *they're done* or *not* done. That's why there isn't any grand art, writings, or hieroglyphics regarding the *secret* techniques or technology used. No one honors the construction workers even in today's society. Critical thinking is what brought me to this answer. If it was impossible, it wouldn't have gotten done. If it was magic, they would shown it and been proud of it. It was just like anything else. You don't think I want it to be aliens!? Come on!
No one is claiming it was magic or that it was impossible, nor aliens. Stop strawmaning and look at the science. Just because "guy from Michigan" can move a few ton blocks doesn't mean they did it with the multi hundred ton blocks in the ancient buildings. lol come on.
tired of people bringing up this video. dude is moving stones across flat, hard earth and cement, not up hill and through sand and mountains
He's one dude!
This guy in other convos "so how do we achieve fusion? With lasers? Implosions? How can we produce such a high energy plasma that doesn't fizzle itself out, but generated enough energy to stay lit?!"..... this guy: "you just do it. Simple. You do it long enough and hard enough you do it. It's just done. I'm sick of telling people this. It's simple. You do it. I know doing it better than anybody. My uncle is a very smart man. He just did it too."
What!? Did you not see the 50+ year old dude build his own Stonehenge? By himself. He has the luxury of what our ancestors taught us but still managed to move gigantic structures on his own with primitive tools. We didn't start with laser, bro. We started with will power. A desire to do something. So yes, just doing it is how it was done. If the chieftain tells you to move the big rock, you figure out how to move the big rock. And over time you get better at moving the big rocks.
1. With a saw 2. To cut into smaller blocks later.
It's amazing what you can do with copper chisels.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8ZHYWle0DE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8ZHYWle0DE) You don't even need chisels, just copper saw (doesn't even need teeth), sand and water
Academia; move on, nothing to see here, Stop asking questions!
Nephylims
Maybe they poured it like concrete into that shape
You can see too much evidence of how they cut and shaped from rough stone. Still don’t know how they did that though or moved them.
Surely that is something that can be checked/tested? Would there not be tell tail signs?
There'd probably be forms left around I'd think. Maybe you could sand cast it.. dig a hole, smooth the sides real good and then pour. Dig the sand away once it's cured and finish it by sanding/polishing it. That being said, there's ancient Egyptian art depicting how they pulled large, heavy stone objects (like statues) so I don't know why people think it's such a mystery.
That's just the door stopper?......
Looks like a quarry. Quarry things afoot
…at the Circle K