Russian Engineer Reveals Evidence for Advanced Ancient Civilisation

a reply to: username74

no one in pre history would be daft enough to quarry rocks like that. takes a modern academic to come up with something that far from reality and reason. they werent cutting down trees with wood were they

a reply to: aorAki
hi geologist, what i think is granite found in horizontal beds, between which lie thin sheets of sinter or quartz. This bed has to be split all the way down to the next sheet and it has a tendency to rend with comparative readiness and regularity along a plane at right angles to the cleavage. The stone splits along those original bedding planes and very clean and regular stone blocks can be produced (just assuming that there are iron wedges), this is basically correct isnt it?

" originally posted by: username74
a reply to: username74

i would also like to point out that sawing rock in not and never was a quarrying technique. splitting is.in fact if you split granite correctly you get a surface thats very flat and only needs to be polished and burnished. what was going on in those quarries? theres lot of things you would expect to see and then there are areas that make no sense to my eye."


"Yet we see the "scalloping" left by the pounders at Aswan.

Harte"

There are some fascinating ideas being thrown around here, but I can't help notice a pretty big logical flaw in these "great pyramid was a giant stone levitating machine" theories. Namely, was it used to build itself? Or was it built using smaller structures that had the same function? If the smaller ones provide sufficient ability to construct the most giant pyramid of all, then why go to the trouble of building it in the first place? Because the stone levitation machine conveniently converts into a power plant after it's built? Anything is theoretically possible, but these theories honestly get less and less likely the more convoluted and complex that they get.

I can't help but think the most likely explanation for the apparent ease at which the Egyptians wielded megalithic limestone blocks lies in an unknown technique of geopolymer concrete, largely based on the natural resources in abundance in the area (e.g. sand and water). Medieval alchemists professed to be on a quest to rediscover secrets mastered by the Ancient Egyptians, and then forgotten. I believe the Philosopher's Stone was literally the "stone" used to build ancient Egypt.

a reply to: NDMagoo
well, to be honest i am not trying to prove any "advanced" stuff was used because there is no primary evidence to support this. however there are alot of things lying around with interesting signatures. as i have just contended i think most of these are just the result of misinterpretation, see above, an geopolymer is a posh term for any kind of lithic glue i.e. cement
alot of which is attributed to stuff that really seems advanced could be "soft tech" or a different perspective on natural principals (which were observed over massive stretches of time on a scale we no longer , in the modern world, have a chance to witness) and were scaled up to a point where they could be used to jump start another process. tenuous, i know but with a solid knowledge of chemistry, physics and hydrology then you might have a good chance of creating analogues with what we regard as civilisation
and i regard what i have written as speculative, but not highly so. i think it could be significant that there is so much debate about this broad subject. i would note also that tha current orthodoxy need not be revised , just added to . like a prequel. obviously we have to bin some hypothesis's regarding manufacturing techniques but for revised techniques. obviously we may have to revise the timescales but this creates no sentinent or evolutionary issues or conflicts, merely a change of our perspectives.

originally posted by: aorAki
a reply to: Harte

Surely, though, large blocks of granite would require more than pounders to detach them from the quarry walls?
I'm not sold on this.
Pounders may work AFTER detachment, but given the qualities of granite, to detach blocks would involve more than pounders???

Actually, to detach blocks cohesively would require so0mething other than pounders, from my observations as a humble geologist...

C'mon, I'm usually on your side, but this makes no sense. There's obviously more than pounders at play in the quarrying of these rocks.

Wedges anyone?

When you look at the unfinished obelisk, you see the marks left by the pounders even up underneath the bottom edges.
There are several theories about how they did the final detachment. But it wasn't pounding, obviously.

Harte

originally posted by: username74
a reply to: Harte

welll.. i would hate to try and think of a different source for those marks, i ll give you that. what i mean is someone has smoothed down the sides with a dolly boulder.who knows why especially if it was done later, but if you try and dig into bed rock , especially granite you will break it your rock. your boulder, will work on rough surface because the little bits of rock are exposed on two to four sides and the top which means it can be crushed. because thats all these rocks do to softer rock as well. and furthermore i only see these marks in egypt and the andes. you cant be suggesting they were quarrying like this. if so why nowhere else. apart from the obvious reason its an insane thing to do. so to follow if nowhere else what were they doing in these select areas in two seperate continents.
the dolerite quarries for stonehenge. they were suprised there was no mauls.
another point, maybe its not a factor but this suggested labour would destroy a human body, very very quickly.
under examination the remains of carpenters from the first settlers to the u s showed that by the age of 30 these guys were finished. and i mean shot to peices. i cant imagine you would last three months under the repeated impact. this is one of the less considered reasons why tools have handles. to soak up the shock. disabled in three months i reckon. massive tendon damage and so much more. imagine the toothache

No reason to presume no handles on the balls.
Pounding with the dolerite balls crushes the surface crystals in the granite. The matrix of the granite they're in is not particularly hard.
The next pound in the same spot crushes the next layer of crystals.
It's not like they scooped the granite out with a stone ladle.
It was a very slow process, and looks like they had it down to a science, judging by all the scalloping at Aswan.

I'd point out that the same scalloping is found in Peru at Andesite quarries.

Harte

a reply to: Harte

hmm. ok so

No reason to presume no handles on the balls. - byrd said this is in fact the case, and i dont doubt it, but not for that job. on that granite. in that trench. why have a handle when you havent got room to swing. no.
i think the boulders and and the marks they leave are definitely as was proposed . they were were used by hand( in this instance) relying largely on the mass of the rock and a little downward force producing the scalloping effect (accurate description)
but not all the mass can be removed like that.
and we havent really touched on these

dolerite contains Pyroxene a hard silicate mineral with a hardness of 5 to 6.5 on the Moh scale. Slightly less hard than quartz and granite at 7 on the scale

as you pointed its the smashing of the crystalline structure that erodes (more appropriate than removes) the granite. this will be the feldspar (think thats around 5 on mohs scale) and the other constituents are quartz and mica. red quartzite , for example kills dolerite.

and what do we reckon the volume of the removed rock is? about the same? 1 000 000 kg of finely powdered granite. broken out of its dense structure so maybe twice three times its original volume. and then what, the same or more of dolerite. where is all the slag.
mortar. i reckon they were making fine dust for a geopolymer like cement. bets that why the marks are on the quarry wall. and the obelisk would be a perfect site for that, collects in the bottom.

so i know that boulders work to a small degree, i am going to have to find the book again to give you a figure of the volume removed, but i reckon granite/dolerite dust mixed with crushed burned then powdered limestone would make exellent fine mortar, however having said all this i am not sure if they used mortar

originally posted by: username74
a reply to: Harte

hmm. ok so

No reason to presume no handles on the balls. - byrd said this is in fact the case, and i dont doubt it, but not for that job. on that granite. in that trench. why have a handle when you havent got room to swing. no.
i think the boulders and and the marks they leave are definitely as was proposed . they were were used by hand( in this instance) relying largely on the mass of the rock and a little downward force producing the scalloping effect (accurate description)
but not all the mass can be removed like that.
and we havent really touched on these

dolerite contains Pyroxene a hard silicate mineral with a hardness of 5 to 6.5 on the Moh scale. Slightly less hard than quartz and granite at 7 on the scale

as you pointed its the smashing of the crystalline structure that erodes (more appropriate than removes) the granite. this will be the feldspar (think thats around 5 on mohs scale) and the other constituents are quartz and mica. red quartzite , for example kills dolerite.

and what do we reckon the volume of the removed rock is? about the same? 1 000 000 kg of finely powdered granite. broken out of its dense structure so maybe twice three times its original volume. and then what, the same or more of dolerite. where is all the slag.
mortar. i reckon they were making fine dust for a geopolymer like cement. bets that why the marks are on the quarry wall. and the obelisk would be a perfect site for that, collects in the bottom.

so i know that boulders work to a small degree, i am going to have to find the book again to give you a figure of the volume removed, but i reckon granite/dolerite dust mixed with crushed burned then powdered limestone would make exellent fine mortar, however having said all this i am not sure if they used mortar

Moh's scale isn't the way to compare, since it measures hardness, and both diolerite and granite are mixes of minerals of different hardness.
What you want is what's called "toughness," not hardness.
I mean, for example, limestone has the same hardness as sandstone, yet sandstone is far easier to carve than limestone.

The "slag" from these operations could be swept out by other workers as the work was being done. Not that they would need to do it constantly.

Rock dust tends to disappear into the desert on it's own, see.

Harte

a reply to: Harte
"I mean, for example, limestone has the same hardness as sandstone, yet sandstone is far easier to carve than limestone."
and neither of them are granite
did they use mortar?
what about the other 150 questions ive asked you in the past week?
"The "slag" from these operations could be swept out by other workers as the work was being done"
seriously?

originally posted by: username74
a reply to: Harte
"I mean, for example, limestone has the same hardness as sandstone, yet sandstone is far easier to carve than limestone."
and neither of them are granite
did they use mortar?
what about the other 150 questions ive asked you in the past week?
"The "slag" from these operations could be swept out by other workers as the work was being done"
seriously?

Rock dust is now unsweepable?
When did this happen?
As to your other questions ... what other questions?

Harte

a reply to: Harte

ah, there you are, harte
i was thinking about copying and pasting them into a post but then i thought that was maybe a little cheap and scrappy so i was thinking that i should reorganise because as you can probably tell some of this conjecture came off the cuff such as what happens to all the removed mass (the vision came unbidden, of the walrus and the carpenter, at the mention of the sweepers but i was only really imagining more men in the hole)
i ll copy and paste the scraps for now and i will get back to it more coherently
you know how it is when you start getting amongst something
this site keeps me from my bed at times

originally posted by: username74
a reply to: Harte

ah, there you are, harte
i was thinking about copying and pasting them into a post but then i thought that was maybe a little cheap and scrappy so i was thinking that i should reorganise because as you can probably tell some of this conjecture came off the cuff such as what happens to all the removed mass (the vision came unbidden, of the walrus and the carpenter, at the mention of the sweepers but i was only really imagining more men in the hole)
i ll copy and paste the scraps for now and i will get back to it more coherently
you know how it is when you start getting amongst something
this site keeps me from my bed at times

Fine. But understand - your cheap shot at my example of the toughness difference between limestone and sandstone - two stones with the same hardness - did not go unobserved.
See, when someone says "for example," they're usually giving an example of what they mean by their words.

Personally, when I found out (long ago) that sandstone has the same hardness as limestone, I was surprised. It sticks in my head because of this and it is a good example of the difference between toughness and hardness, subjects I have some academic and professional experience with, but with metals only and not stone.

Moh's is a decent scale for metals, and can be useful for minerals as well, but not for stones that are coarse fusions of various other minerals, like sandstone, limestone and granite (among many others - but I'm no geologist.)

Harte

a reply to: Harte

theres some initial contentions as well as questions so i ll chuck those in too and revise it later

did they use mortar?

dolerite contains Pyroxene a hard silicate mineral with a hardness of 5 to 6.5 on the Moh scale. Slightly less hard than quartz and granite at 7 on the scale


and what do we reckon the volume of the removed rock is? about the same? 1 000 000 kg of finely powdered granite. broken out of its dense structure so maybe twice three times its original volume. and then what, the same or more of dolerite

as you pointed its the smashing of the crystalline structure that erodes (more appropriate than removes) the granite. this will be the feldspar (think thats around 5 on mohs scale) and the other constituents are quartz and mica. red quartzite , for example kills dolerite.

i reckon they were making fine dust for a geopolymer like cement. bets that why the marks are on the quarry wall
( for glue not mass like concrete) (see first question)


When you look at the unfinished obelisk, you see the marks left by the pounders even up underneath the bottom edges.
There are several theories about how they did the final detachment. But it wasn't pounding, obviously.

Rock dust tends to disappear into the desert on it's own, see.

sawing rock in not and never was a quarrying technique. splitting is

no one in pre history would be daft enough to quarry rocks like that. takes a modern academic to come up with something that far from reality and reason. they werent cutting down trees with wood were they

what was going on in those quarries? theres lot of things you would expect to see and then there are areas that make no sense

Fires directly over the area to be removed/pounded out will not harm the rest of the stone.
But you do have to control it.
It's possible that this is what cracked the unfinished obelisk.

the dolerite quarries for stonehenge. they were suprised there was no mauls.

maybe its not a factor but this suggested labour would destroy a human body, very very quickly.
under examination the remains of carpenters from the first settlers to the u s showed that by the age of 30 these guys were finished. and i mean shot to peices. i cant imagine you would last three months under the repeated impact. this is one of the less considered reasons why tools have handles. to soak up the shock. disabled in three months i reckon. massive tendon damage and so much more. imagine the toothache

i only see these marks in egypt and the andes

. if so why nowhere else. apart from the obvious reason its an insane thing to do. so to follow if nowhere else what were they doing in these select areas in two seperate continents.

a reply to: Harte


Fine. But understand - your cheap shot at my example of the toughness difference between limestone and sandstone - two stones with the same hardness - did not go unobserved.

aye,fine, you old hammer!

i ll be back. but i must dash for now

originally posted by: username74
a reply to: Harte

theres some initial contentions as well as questions so i ll chuck those in too and revise it later

did they use mortar?

The AEs used mortar profusely, if that's what you mean.

originally posted by: username74dolerite contains Pyroxene a hard silicate mineral with a hardness of 5 to 6.5 on the Moh scale. Slightly less hard than quartz and granite at 7 on the scale

Back to Moh's?

I already tried to point out it's not a good indicator.

Try the "Curly" scale - Curly was tougher than Moh. You can tell because of all the eye pokes he could take.

originally posted by: username74and what do we reckon the volume of the removed rock is? about the same? 1 000 000 kg of finely powdered granite. broken out of its dense structure so maybe twice three times its original volume. and then what, the same or more of dolerite.

I don't see the problem with rock dust you seem to have. It's not like they had bushels of it all at once. The method would only remove a little at a time (along with maybe some flakes and chunks, if the granite was heat-treated first.)

originally posted by: username74as you pointed its the smashing of the crystalline structure that erodes (more appropriate than removes) the granite. this will be the feldspar (think thats around 5 on mohs scale) and the other constituents are quartz and mica. red quartzite , for example kills dolerite.

i reckon they were making fine dust for a geopolymer like cement. bets that why the marks are on the quarry wall
( for glue not mass like concrete) (see first question)

Geopolymer stones is a dead end. There was no reason for them, no two stones were of the same size. In construction, the stones would have had to be poured, cured and then moved into place (if poured in place, there wouldn't be any mortar-filled gaps between them.) Why not just move them into place whole? Why all the extra work?
If you're talking about granite - that can't be re-assembled from rock dust and still look like (and have the properties of) granite so, no.

originally posted by: username74When you look at the unfinished obelisk, you see the marks left by the pounders even up underneath the bottom edges.
There are several theories about how they did the final detachment. But it wasn't pounding, obviously.

Rock dust tends to disappear into the desert on it's own, see.

sawing rock in not and never was a quarrying technique. splitting is

no one in pre history would be daft enough to quarry rocks like that. takes a modern academic to come up with something that far from reality and reason. they werent cutting down trees with wood were they

what was going on in those quarries? theres lot of things you would expect to see and then there are areas that make no sense

Is this supposed to be a question?
Scalloped stone surfaces comparable to marks that would be left using the very same pounding stones found in the same quarry is what led to the pounding hypothesis. In what way does this not make sense to you?

originally posted by: username74Fires directly over the area to be removed/pounded out will not harm the rest of the stone.
But you do have to control it.
It's possible that this is what cracked the unfinished obelisk.

the dolerite quarries for stonehenge. they were suprised there was no mauls.

Why did you put this in your post?

originally posted by: username74maybe its not a factor but this suggested labour would destroy a human body, very very quickly.
under examination the remains of carpenters from the first settlers to the u s showed that by the age of 30 these guys were finished. and i mean shot to peices. i cant imagine you would last three months under the repeated impact. this is one of the less considered reasons why tools have handles. to soak up the shock. disabled in three months i reckon. massive tendon damage and so much more. imagine the toothache

i only see these marks in egypt and the andes

. if so why nowhere else. apart from the obvious reason its an insane thing to do. so to follow if nowhere else what were they doing in these select areas in two seperate continents.

I don't know. Maybe they are found in other places too.
I've never looked for them, I've simply found them associated with Tiahuanaco when I was looking into Tiahuanaco.

Hanslune has posted many links to sites concerning ancient quarries, but I've only read the parts pertinent to the discussion at the time. I don't know how many such links to ancient quarries I've read, and the ones I ended up downloading (pdfs) are the ones you mention.
I have others saved as pdfs, but for some reason my browser's no longer opening pdfs automatically from links. Adobe still works, but I can only open the ones I've saved in a folder on my computer.
Probably the dang windows 10.

I suggest you find out for yourself through google. Start with cultures that definitely quarried stones like granite, dolerite (diabase) andesite or diorite.

Or PM hans.

Sumer comes to mind.

Harte

a reply to: Harte

The AEs used mortar profusely, if that's what you mean.

genuine question, i have a bit of a backlog to my reading list since i started this posting game

a reply to: Harte

I don't see the problem with rock dust you seem to have

yeah, i know how it looks, what i said. what i meant to imply was thats a useful resource in itself to the point where production may be neccesary, incidently or directly on new or existing rock areas

originally posted by: username74
a reply to: Harte

The AEs used mortar profusely, if that's what you mean.

genuine question, i have a bit of a backlog to my reading list since i started this posting game

I have uploaded some picks of the mortar in place, but the site won't let me post them because I'm using an adblocker.
I wouldn't use the adblocker if ATS didn't take so long to load without it.

Anyway, here's a link to a pic showing part of the small hill the Great Pyramid was constructed over.
link

It shows how that part of the hill was carved and shaped to take the now-missing exterior white limestone casing.
But, look at the stones above that, in the background.
Look how much mortar was used there.

Harte

a reply to: Harte

Back to Moh's?

(sounds like the simpsons [mo's, name of the local bar])
no, again you make a valid point but i would rather leave that for the moh (see what i did there)
and come back to that in more detail cos it ties into some other stuff (structure cleavage etc)
and as you correctly point out different standards apply to different things i e compression , scratch

a reply to: Harte

Geopolymer stones

no, please , never said concrete, no interest in that. actually i am probably half qualified to comment on the materials but i dont see it much in antiquity