Megalithic Structures From Ancient Civilizations

[jeremyb]

There are quite a few things on this earth that I just can't wrap my small head around, one of them is how ancient civilizations created such great structures, some of these dated many many thousands of years old.

 

A few vague examples:

 

Stones weighing well over 10 tons moved from miles away.

Stones so hard that today we would need diamond to cut them.

Heavy stones moved up mountain sides and even cliffs.

The precision used by some of these ancient cultures, baffles the mind. (there is one fairly large Egyptian sculpture, each side of the face is a mirror image of the other, exact to todays machine perfection)

Stones that leave evidence that they were once molten rock put into place to harden to form certain structures.

Megalithic "very ancient" structures hidden beneath the sea all over the world. (question is not why they are under the sea, the question is how old they are given the timeline of human civilization and the tools we had to work with during those periods of time.)

 

How is it such large structures can be built with such great precision without the use of modern machinery?

 

I ask these questions because I can't understand where these ancient peoples got this intelligence from. Never any blueprints left behind, never any plans (that I have heard of). It seems to me that creating such structures and sculptures would need a plan that was not only written (on stone or paper), but also copied. Where did they get the mathematics from to create such things, and a better question for that is, is there any evidence of any advanced mathematics being used other than the structures they left behind. Some of these civilizations are so old, the timeline puts them right out of "gathering" mode.

 

These questions also lead me to another question I have been dying to ask:

 

Many of the sites that these structures are built on, also reflect to the skies above, most notably is the Orion Belt. My question here is, how did these ancient civilizations get their knowledge of the skies in such great detail with the naked eye (well before the telescope), the best example I can think of on this subject is the Mayan Calendar.

 

Looking forward to seeing your responses and theory's.

[Knothead]

This is a subject that I find fascinating as well. Ancient Aliens is one of my favorite shows. I am not smart enough to come up with reasons to debunk their premise that these ancient structures were constructed by or with the help of visitors/gods from other planets and that we as humans may be the result of their visits.

 

I look forward to reading the responses from the members here.

[pamela]

And lets not forget old Edward Leedskalnin and his coral castle- makes ya wonder

Leedskalnin was a student of the universe. Within his castle walls, built of coral blocks weighing approximately 15 tons each, he had a 22-ton obelisk, a 22-ton moon block, a 23-ton Jupiter block, a Saturn block, a 9-ton gate, a rocking chair that weighed 3-tons, and numerous puzzles. A huge 30-ton block, which he considered to be his major achievement, he crowned with a gable shaped rock. These personal accomplishments have astounded and surprised many engineers and technologists, who compare them with those achieved by workers handling similar weights in industry today.

 

read the full story here

awesome

[belovelife]

i heard about that,

 

 

 

on the subject, i heard there was pyramid shaped objects on the floor of the gulf of mexico, also looks like 2 rectangular rocks laid next to eachother, pointing directly to egypt

 

 

 

while i am not sure, i think the globes in costa rica were used to move stones long distances

 

 

these subjects always inspire me

 

i have a good friend from china, he says that china has 15,000 years of written history

 

that means , IF, the flood happened 10,500 years ago, or bc, whichever, china has written stories of it,

 

it would be amazing to look at such records

 

then again, it would be amazing to look at the records of the mayan people too :censored:

 

from what i know alot of what is told is lies, so interpriting things is difficult,:artgallery: :blahblahblah:

[Qfwfq]

awesome

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coral_Castle#Claims

[Moontanman]

not quite so amazing really

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coral_Castle#Claims

 

The structure is considered mysterious by some who have claimed that Leedskalnin constructed the castle using some unknown form of science, however, these claims have not been rigorously analyzed by either engineers or scientists, and [15] such theories seem to be discounted by evidence, such as photographs showing Leedskalnin working, apparently using traditional methods like block and tackle.[16] [3]

The Coral Castle site states that "if anyone ever questioned Ed about how he moved the blocks of coral, Ed would only reply that he understood the laws of weight and leverage well." [5] He also stated that he had "discovered the secrets of the pyramids",[15] which of course could be interpreted in either esoteric or engineering terms.

[Turtle]

There are quite a few things on this earth that I just can't wrap my small head around, one of them is how ancient civilizations created such great structures, some of these dated many many thousands of years old.

...

I ask these questions because I can't understand where these ancient peoples got this intelligence from. Never any blueprints left behind, never any plans (that I have heard of). It seems to me that creating such structures and sculptures would need a plan that was not only written (on stone or paper), but also copied. Where did they get the mathematics from to create such things, and a better question for that is, is there any evidence of any advanced mathematics being used other than the structures they left behind. Some of these civilizations are so old, the timeline puts them right out of "gathering" mode.

 

...

 

Looking forward to seeing your responses and theory's.

 

these "ancient" people were every bit as human as you or i. how do we currently get the intelligence to create our great structures? how many of our plans are lost, destroyed, or kept secret? it is not true that there is no record of all ancient structures, and some structures, like machu picchu for example, neither had nor required elaborate blueprints or plans. blocks were found, rough shaped, hauled, and custom shaped to fit one at a time. the "record" is evidenced by geography, tool marks, and other forensic clues.

 

> How Did the Incas Build Machu Picchu?

 

neither is there any great mystery about motivation or means. get enough people together by hook or by crook and start building. while we may not have all historical details, there is nothing in any of them to suggest recourse to mystical elements for explanations.

[Eclogite]

I agree that the achievements of our ancestors were impressive. However, in four thousand years time can you imagine our descendants expressing serious doubt that primitive 20th century technology could possibly landed men on the moon. Stonehenge and the pyramids were the ancient equivalent of the moon landings, in terms of their significance to the society and their demand upon the resources of the state.

 

Stones weighing well over 10 tons moved from miles away.

This is not a major task using sleds or rollers and muscle power, either animal or human. Egyptian tomb paintings dsiplay such methods, with sleds being lubricated by oil.

 

Stones so hard that today we would need diamond to cut them.

I know of no stones that require diamond to cut them. I know of many stones that can be cut more effciently by diamond, but that is a different matter. Do you have any serious documentation that demonstrates the truth of your statement?

 

Heavy stones moved up mountain sides and even cliffs.

Can you provide examples of this? Reasonable slopes could be tackled with sleds or rollers.

 

(there is one fairly large Egyptian sculpture, each side of the face is a mirror image of the other, exact to todays machine perfection).

I do question this statement on four grounds.

1. Today's machines are not capable of perfection. That is the language of rhetoric, not science.

2. Some machines cut to a quite imprecise degree. What is the comparison with? More exactly, how close 'to perfectio' is this statue?

3. What is the source of this statement? I suspect it does not come from a peer reviewed paper.

4. Impressive, if true, but these guys were just as smart as you and I, and the smarter ones were a great deal smarter than me. I can readily envisage they could work out a means for achieving such results.

 

Stones that leave evidence that they were once molten rock put into place to harden to form certain structures.

Please provide a citation for this. Some investigators have proposed that the Giza pyramid blocks were formed in the manner of concrete. (It's plausible, but not consistent with what I have observed on site.) But that is quite different from molten rock. I know of no example of this.

 

How is it such large structures can be built with such great precision without the use of modern machinery?

Quite easily. Star alignments, reflecting surfaces, water channels for levels, etc. You don't need hi-tech. Airline pilots used to use sextants to figure out their position. Hell, on a long drive through Western Siberia I once figured out our latitude by eyeballing the sun's altitude and taking into account time of day and time of year (to allow for axial tilt). The hi-tech stuff helps,but it isn't essential.

 

 

I ask these questions because I can't understand where these ancient peoples got this intelligence from. Never any blueprints left behind, never any plans (that I have heard of). It seems to me that creating such structures and sculptures would need a plan that was not only written (on stone or paper), but also copied. Where did they get the mathematics from to create such things, and a better question for that is, is there any evidence of any advanced mathematics being used other than the structures they left behind. Some of these civilizations are so old, the timeline puts them right out of "gathering" mode.

They were, as already noted, every bit as intelligent as us. The pyramids evolved over a few hundred years - with some disasters along the way - to the magnificence of the Giza trio.

No remaining plans? You know we couldn't build a Saturn V moon rocket today - we destroyed all the dies, all the plans, once the project was over. Can you locate the orignal plans for the Chrysler building? I would suspect you could. Could you do so in 5,420?

 

I don't know what you mean by 'gathering mode'. Could you elaborate?

 

Many of the sites that these structures are built on, also reflect to the skies above, most notably is the Orion Belt. My question here is, how did these ancient civilizations get their knowledge of the skies in such great detail with the naked eye (well before the telescope), the best example I can think of on this subject is the Mayan Calendar.

The association of the Great Pyramid with Orion is not proven. At any rate the Sumerians were making very detailed observations of the heavens around the same time as the construction of the pyramids. This is impressive, but not mysterious.

[Qfwfq]

Some investigators have proposed that the Giza pyramid blocks were formed in the manner of concrete. (It's plausible, but not consistent with what I have observed on site.)

Davidovits doesn't propose all the blocks being so casted, I remember reading there are some in particular that would be the hardest to account for by sculpting and haulage. I think it is highly plausible, considering the use of lime had been known already for quite a few millennia.

 

Hell, on a long drive through Western Siberia I once figured out our latitude by eyeballing the sun's altitude and taking into account time of day and time of year (to allow for axial tilt).

You were risking your retina? You could have employed a method similar to that of a Moroccan guide in the Sahara near Marakkesh; it was so hi-tech that the old pal who told me about it hadn't figured it out, despite he too was a physics student. :hihi: Here is how he described it:

 

"He was amazing, he used no compass to know which way to go! He just held a finger up to feel the breeze, looked down at the desert sand and then at his watch..."

Of course, in principle at least, that guide could have even done without his watch, for the latitude of his area, knowing the season and whether it was before ar after noon. Would have taken much more practice and been less precise around noon I guess.

[jeremyb]

Hi again, been at school the last week or so.

 

Thanks for all the replies thus far, I will comment on one thing that has popped up many times in this thread: "they were as human as we are today"

 

My comment about this is:

 

Yes they were as smart and curious as we are today, but they did not have the resources that we do, let me explain.

 

The average adult today would probably be considered a genius even as early as 200 years ago. Is he actually smarter than a person from 200 years ago? probably not, and if so not by much, his/her brain power is still roughly identical. The reason I am bringing this up is how we go about our daily lives, learning new things each day without even knowing it. For example, I (a very under educated person) can build my own personal computer with the parts that I purchase from an electronics store, I gained this knowledge by reading a simple "how to" guide. 20-30 years ago, there was much much fewer people that knew how to build their own computer, and those that did know how, were most likely very educated people. My point here is, as the years pass, things become easier because the blue print is already laid out for us, all we have to do is have access the information.

 

Sure there were failures in the earlier Pyramids, and they perfected them as the years went by, but my argument is not about the pyramids alone. In some parts of the world, it seems as though peoples that were just out of the stone age were building great things, with limited tools. When you have nothing to go by, trial and error takes much longer than it does when you have something that you can use to use an example.

 

Human evolution is a fascinating subject when it comes to our technology, and it is always moving forward at an ever increasing pace. But I still question just how capable we were many thousands of years ago.

 

I cant link you to each example that I questioned in my OP, I will try to at least get that statue listed once I go back and find out what the name of it was. I will continue my comments on a later date, I am medicated at the moment (thanks to an infection) and probably not thinking with a clear head.

[Turtle]

Hi again, been at school the last week or so.

 

Thanks for all the replies thus far, I will comment on one thing that has popped up many times in this thread: "they were as human as we are today"

 

My comment about this is:

 

...

Human evolution is a fascinating subject when it comes to our technology, and it is always moving forward at an ever increasing pace. But I still question just how capable we were many thousands of years ago.

I cant link you to each example that I questioned in my OP, I will try to at least get that statue listed once I go back and find out what the name of it was. I will continue my comments on a later date, I am medicated at the moment (thanks to an infection) and probably not thinking with a clear head.

 

no hurry no worry. in what way do you question just how capable we were? can you clarify that a bit?

[LaurieAG]

Human evolution is a fascinating subject when it comes to our technology, and it is always moving forward at an ever increasing pace. But I still question just how capable we were many thousands of years ago.

 

The second link is a picture of the Broken Obeleisk at Asswan. The depressions left by slaves continually pounding the granite with harder and denser balls of rock can be clearly seen. There's a documentary around where the guy actually gets into the ditch around the obelisk and starts banging one of the pounding stones found on the site for 5 minutes or so to show how slow the process was.

http://egipto.com/obeliscos/histo2.html

http://egipto.com/obeliscos/603.html

 

The obelisks originated from the granite quarries of Aswan. In this place an unextracted obelisk still remains within the layer of rock. To 1.200 tons., it would have been the tallest, 41,70 meters, but was abandoned for the workman due to the appearance of fissures in the stone. It may have been the match for the Lateranense obelisk, a possible reason why there is only one in Karnak.

 

What's really interesting is that slavery had to go (and only relatively recently compared with ancient egypt) before modern technological advancement became economically worthwhile.