Did the ANCIENT BUILDERS Know How to SOFTEN SOLID STONE?

a reply to: JamesTB

Incredible finds, JamesTBl

Only compromised archeologists would be convinced these shapes were made through traditional stone-carvings.

originally posted by: Echtelion
a reply to: JamesTB

Incredible finds, JamesTBl

Only compromised archeologists would be convinced these shapes were made through traditional stone-carvings.

Or someone who thinks they were smart enough to make a template...

a reply to: Jarocal

Painful isn't it. Get used to it

originally posted by: pauljs75
Other than typical stone working methods and such, it could be possible to pre-treat a hard rock surface with an acid. Get something like salicyclic acid (from plants) dissolved in an alcohol or sap such as pine tar, and prep the stone you're going to remove by coating it with the stuff. It should leach in after being left on for a day or so. Then just grind or pound the heck out of the partially acid-dissolved parts with rocks of the same hardness. Not making the rock "soft" as in being malleable like clay, but rather making the rock soft as in being able to remove a lot of material easier and without it shattering. A treated rock should be more crumbly like a softer sandstone if I'm thinking rignt in how it should work. Still would be a stone-work process though, and it would take some trial and error to know how long to leave the paste on to soften it to a certain depth.

If you have enough plain ol' aspirin, you could probably grind it to a powder and dissolve it in turpentine or denatured alcohol. (It also dissolves in water, but not as good.) It's also the same stuff in wart remover or skin exfoliant, so you don't want to get it on yourself either as it'll eventually make your skin peel - wear some gloves if trying to dissolve rocks with it.

What you are suggesting makes a lot of sense.. the best so far in my opinion. And again.. the most least "theory" to my ears is shaping these rocks with boulders and 'soft' chisels.

a reply to: Lunica

Furthermore my guess is that what looks softened actually is , but by wind and time not man just a thought

This has been something I've always thought was happening whenever ancient stone buildings are investigated....which looking at the evidence.....brings up a 1000 more questions if this was indeed the technology they used.

Temperatures of most magmas are in the range 700 °C to 1300 °C (or 1300 °F to 2400 °F)

Wiki

IF this was the tech they used...what substance did they use to press / form the rocks themselves...obviously it would have to have a higher melting point than that of the rock....right?

a reply to: zatara

It does make sense in an abstract way or a 'common sense' way.

But if we look at how absorbent limestone, basalt or granite are, it becomes less realistic.

Alkali liquids have been available for centuries and don't make hard rock malleable or easier to carve. Likewise, we see the attrition rates of acids on urban limestone and it doesn't make it any more malleable or workable than alkalis.

They might cause superficial erosion over decades, but they don't 'soften' rock.

originally posted by: Kandinsky
a reply to: zatara

It does make sense in an abstract way or a 'common sense' way.

But if we look at how absorbent limestone, basalt or granite are, it becomes less realistic.

Alkali liquids have been available for centuries and don't make hard rock malleable or easier to carve. Likewise, we see the attrition rates of acids on urban limestone and it doesn't make it any more malleable or workable than alkalis.

They might cause superficial erosion over decades, but they don't 'soften' rock.

The idea of using an acidic or alkaline substance to make tthe rock easier to chip away is not as outlandish a notion as the ancients dissolved the rock into a cement then poured it into various and sundry molds. Weakening and/or dissolving the rock is far more plausible to me than getting it to harden again to it's original state in a mold.

a reply to: Jarocal

Davidovits (sp?) iirc was the guy who promoted the idea of Ancient Egyptians using some method to breakdown limestone into a pourable cement mix. The idea was disproved and hasn't been (afaik) suggested for the Peruvian stonework.

Are you suggesting some similar process was used on the surface planes of ancient blockwork? If so, it would still require quarrying to create the blocks prior to them being dressed. That would just add further complexity to avoid the more probable explanation that stones were quarried and dressed by hard labour.

Variations of alkali/acid saturation of rock surfaces to enable easier carving and/or moulding would be in use today if it was that simple.

I'm no expert and just thinking out loud.

originally posted by: Kandinsky
a reply to: Jarocal

Davidovits (sp?) iirc was the guy who promoted the idea of Ancient Egyptians using some method to breakdown limestone into a pourable cement mix. The idea was disproved and hasn't been (afaik) suggested for the Peruvian stonework.

Are you suggesting some similar process was used on the surface planes of ancient blockwork? If so, it would still require quarrying to create the blocks prior to them being dressed. That would just add further complexity to avoid the more probable explanation that stones were quarried and dressed by hard labour.

Variations of alkali/acid saturation of rock surfaces to enable easier carving and/or moulding would be in use today if it was that simple.

I'm no expert and just thinking out loud.

No I do not asthink the stones were poured like concrete. I was saying that I find the idea ancient people may have used a compound to make the stone more workable less improbable. I have no issue with it not being in use today if the knowledge was lost over time. Using animal brains to tan hides was common a few hundred years ago but it is a skill slowly being learned again today after a long time of using industrial chemicals to do the same thing.

Here's a thought from left field here. What if the natural laws on how things worked changed in the first century AD? There are ancient stories of people with "unusual powers". What if something changed and those powers stopped working? Consider the story of Jesus Christ. He could heal the sick, raise the dead, and other things. Also he claimed that with a little faith the average person could uproot mountains and toss them into the sea.

And now here's the thing. Here's is what I think turned off those powers. And that they were given to people by the gods, angels, and possibly demons.

In the bible here is what the book of Malachi states in it's last 2 verses.
5 Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD:
6 And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.

But Matthew 17 states this.
10 And his disciples asked him, saying, Why then say the scribes that Elias must first come?
11 And Jesus answered and said unto them, Elias truly shall first come, and restore all things.
12 But I say unto you, That Elias is come already, and they knew him not, but have done unto him whatsoever they listed. Likewise shall also the Son of man suffer of them.
13 Then the disciples understood that he spake unto them of John the Baptist.

Do you understand what Jesus Christ was telling the disciples here now? The first century Jews managed to trigger that curse. So is it possible as part of this curse was a change in how things worked? And these powers were blocked? The Bible does speak of a "restrainer" that is holding back the the man of lawlessness. What if this curse is the restrainer? And these "powers" is what is being restrained?

Questions for the 'ancient people had 'x' technology to work stone' believers:

Interesting to me is that all the ancient civilizations could work hard stone, Egypt, Sumer, Harappa, Han, etc and thousands of years later so could the people of the Americas. However based on the 'x' theory at some point they lost this ability.

Based on this premise at what point did the ancient civilizations lose this ability and when did they switch over to using iron tools? I mean they would have had to switch over so can you tell us when this happened and how it happened?

Be precise please.

Also how did the Spanish miss seeing this high technology when they took over those civilizations in the Americas, additionally why did the natives of those regions not use said technologies against the Spanish?

Additionally since the natives; the Aztecs and Maya didn't have Iron but were making granite statutes at the time the Spanish arrived - how were they doing that?

a reply to: ntech

Are you suggesting, while using quotations from scripture (and i assume as a believer in Christianity), that real pagan gods gave ancient people mysterious powers to build these monuments?

Does this mean you believe both in "God" and the power of the very different gods that the builders worshipped?

Isn't a hammerstone, skill and effort more likely? Remember we have found the hammerstones, chisels, and in many cases pictures and/or accounts of it being done in this manner.

originally posted by: Jarocal

originally posted by: Kandinsky
a reply to: Jarocal

Davidovits (sp?) iirc was the guy who promoted the idea of Ancient Egyptians using some method to breakdown limestone into a pourable cement mix. The idea was disproved and hasn't been (afaik) suggested for the Peruvian stonework.

Are you suggesting some similar process was used on the surface planes of ancient blockwork? If so, it would still require quarrying to create the blocks prior to them being dressed. That would just add further complexity to avoid the more probable explanation that stones were quarried and dressed by hard labour.

Variations of alkali/acid saturation of rock surfaces to enable easier carving and/or moulding would be in use today if it was that simple.

I'm no expert and just thinking out loud.

No I do not asthink the stones were poured like concrete. I was saying that I find the idea ancient people may have used a compound to make the stone more workable less improbable. I have no issue with it not being in use today if the knowledge was lost over time. Using animal brains to tan hides was common a few hundred years ago but it is a skill slowly being learned again today after a long time of using industrial chemicals to do the same thing.

Animal brains, eggs, emusified fats, bark/tannins and so forth have been used worldwide for tanning since prehistoric times to the modern day, it's just that the process is industrialised with chemicals etc, in certain places - the old method was never lost and has been used continuously in rural areas and less developed/industrial parts of the world

a reply to: ntech

Gods before JC also had said 'powers'.

Some of them pics reminds of the form of the clay I use to play around with at school, particularly the pictures with what looks like poke holes on the rock surface. The person running his finger in that groove where ity looks like someone at time did the same thing. If you look closely next to his finger in that picture you see fine veritical and horizontal lines like you see on some concrete surfaces a seem line. The grooves remind me of fork running through soft clay.

Definitely appears there is something going on which is outside the conventional explanation.

originally posted by: Hanslune
Questions for the 'ancient people had 'x' technology to work stone' believers:

Interesting to me is that all the ancient civilizations could work hard stone, Egypt, Sumer, Harappa, Han, etc and thousands of years later so could the people of the Americas. However based on the 'x' theory at some point they lost this ability.

Based on this premise at what point did the ancient civilizations lose this ability and when did they switch over to using iron tools? I mean they would have had to switch over so can you tell us when this happened and how it happened?

Be precise please.

Also how did the Spanish miss seeing this high technology when they took over those civilizations in the Americas, additionally why did the natives of those regions not use said technologies against the Spanish?

Additionally since the natives; the Aztecs and Maya didn't have Iron but were making granite statutes at the time the Spanish arrived - how were they doing that?

Define " x technology". Do yyou mean antigravity machines and lasers or more mundane technologies like levers and fulcrums? I have no difficulty believing what would be considered simple technologies like flint knapping have been lost over titime and only recently been rediscovered. That just leads me to believe there are others out there For us to puzzle out again. That dies nnot mean I think the ancient cultures had a technology which magically floated large stone blocks from the quarry to the building site.

originally posted by: skalla

originally posted by: Jarocal

originally posted by: Kandinsky
a reply to: Jarocal

Davidovits (sp?) iirc was the guy who promoted the idea of Ancient Egyptians using some method to breakdown limestone into a pourable cement mix. The idea was disproved and hasn't been (afaik) suggested for the Peruvian stonework.

Are you suggesting some similar process was used on the surface planes of ancient blockwork? If so, it would still require quarrying to create the blocks prior to them being dressed. That would just add further complexity to avoid the more probable explanation that stones were quarried and dressed by hard labour.

Variations of alkali/acid saturation of rock surfaces to enable easier carving and/or moulding would be in use today if it was that simple.

I'm no expert and just thinking out loud.

No I do not asthink the stones were poured like concrete. I was saying that I find the idea ancient people may have used a compound to make the stone more workable less improbable. I have no issue with it not being in use today if the knowledge was lost over time. Using animal brains to tan hides was common a few hundred years ago but it is a skill slowly being learned again today after a long time of using industrial chemicals to do the same thing.

Animal brains, eggs, emusified fats, bark/tannins and so forth have been used worldwide for tanning since prehistoric times to the modern day, it's just that the process is industrialised with chemicals etc, in certain places - the old method was never lost and has been used continuously in rural areas and less developed/industrial parts of the world

Yet these methods are largely lost, forgotten with the advent of industrial chemicals. And that is for a practice that was common as recent as recent as 200 years ago well within recorded history. Look at the academic debate puzzling out medieval texts and what they describe. Factor in that we have less understanding of many older cultures and it is not inconceivable they could have used a technology (Human and earth based) which was common then and lost over time.

a reply to: Jarocal

I would argue that they were only lost by townies and city folk. Trappers and countryfolk throughout the west, and most peeps elsewhere would have used brains, eggs, oak bark etc just like thousands of years ago.

Sure there is a thriving primitive skills community "re-learning" this stuff, but they never had to experiment or rely on an Ishi in the manner of the relearning of blade knapping (as opposed to gun flints etc, still expertly made in Brandon fairly recently etc), tanning is a feature of many old books.




ETA: cool discussion, but i'm wandering way off topic here

originally posted by: Jarocal

Define " x technology". Do yyou mean antigravity machines and lasers or more mundane technologies like levers and fulcrums? I have no difficulty believing what would be considered simple technologies like flint knapping have been lost over titime and only recently been rediscovered. That just leads me to believe there are others out there For us to puzzle out again. That dies nnot mean I think the ancient cultures had a technology which magically floated large stone blocks from the quarry to the building site.

Anything (and much has been suggested in the thread alone) other than the conventional hammer stone, chisels and abrasive saws and drills.