The Baalbek foundation stones.

Originally posted by karl 12

Why these stones are such an enigma to contemporary scientists, both engineers and archaeologists alike, is that their method of quarrying, transportation and precision placement is beyond the technological ability of any known ancient or modern builders.

UNTRUE

How to move 7,000 ton blocks of stone...

The Theory… Manna that fed the Jews in the Wilderness and moved the Mooai into place is not food nor a magical force…

Manna are Zeppelins and Zeppelins could easily have moved the Baalbeck stones into place. Indeed, if using a Zeppelins, since stability would be crucial, the bigger the stone lifted the better. Likewise, i would have been safer to build Baalbeck and other such structures high up on a mountain of hil rather that in a valley where a primative Zeppelin would have had to contend with the risk of hitting a mountain side.

To hold it in place, any normal tree would be uprooted, so a stone tether would have been needed, namely an obelisk and obelisks are always found around the world wherever such a major important stone monument exists. As a result of roping up the Zeppelin, where the ropes cut in during stormy times would have caused the chipping at the corners high up on the obelisks.

Wood-framed and filled with Hydrogen, a Zeppelin of 0.6 miles (the length of the street down the centre of Copan) would have a lift capacity of approximately 7,000 tons.

To construct, wooden beams would have been bolted together to run laterally from one step level of a temple across to the other side to allow a semi-circular frame to be built. Once a sequence of semi-circles had been made, half of these could have been inverted and bolted onto the top of the other to produce a sequence of frames twice the height of the temples.

Once a chain of these is made, fabric is stretched over it and filled with hydrogen. There is clear evidence of hydrogen production in the Great Pyramid of Egypt and has an exit point, high up, in the “roof” of the pyramid – prefect for pumping hydrogen into a Zeppelin above, however, hydrogen could also be generated from stone circles. Most stone circles are strangely magnetic and by turning a block with woven copper wire wound around it using horses, an electric current could be generated to pass through salt water to create hydrogen. It is interesting to note that stone circles only occur where horses do and in Ancient Britain, the horse was a supreme God.

And where no obelisk preexisted, a glider could have been launched to allow those onboard have ground crew to fix an obelisk into the ground at an intended new landing place.

With a Zeppelin, those on board would never have had to fear attackers on the ground, hence Moses could have been resupplied in the desert by ferrying food from elsewhere.

And why have theorists not thought of this before? Because many of the images thought to be cigar-shaped UFO’s on ancient texts and carvings are actually the “Manna” or Zeppelins.

Originally posted by UMayBRite!
Wally Wallington did it...
Here
If a retired carpenter can move a 10,000 lb + machine with just a 2x4 maybe its not so hard!

My favorite notion (completely unprovable) is that moving those large blocks somehow involved using ICE. Good old frozen water. It has a lot of properties that make shaping and moving big heavy things a lot easier.

reply to post by Blue Shift


THE MATHEMATICS....

The original Hindenburg had a total lift of 242.2 tons, but the superstructure (weighing 130.1 tons) reduced the GROSS LIFT to just 112.1 tons.

However, the Hindenburg was constructed of iron and steel and had comprehensive passenger decks. If these are removed and it was made of expensive heavy hard wood, such as that from South America, it would still reduce the superstructure weight by at least 50%, and would have reduced the superstructure weight to 65.05 tons. This would then have given it a GROSS LIFT of 195.15 tons.

The main avenue at Copan is 0.6 miles long. This compares with a lerνgth of the Hindenburg of 803 feet. So, if Copan was used to construct a 0.5 mile long wood-framed airship, the vehicle would have been 2640/803.8 bigger in each direction to stay in aerodynamically the same proportion. This would give it 35.43 times the gorss lift.

The GROSS LIFT of such a machine would then be 6,914 tons per trip.

The Greeks record that it took 20 years to build the pyramids.

The stone from the pyramids mainly came from a quarry 500 miles away.

Driven by turboprop engines, at 85miles per hour, this would have taken the Hindenburg 6 days to get there one way.

Assuming that it took one day to unload and one to load, this would create a seven day working week (sound familiar) and each round trip would have taken 14 days to complete.

The computes as 522 trips per machine.

522 trips of 6,914 tons is 3,602,252 tons over 20 years.

As the total weight of stone in the pyramids is about 5.9 million ton, the Ancient Egyptians would have needed just TWO such machines, working in team with one loading stone at the quarry as the other unloads at the pyramids

One stone delivery by a Zeppelin a week.

Howdy Blackmarketeer

Originally posted by Blackmarketeer


Here are some relevant sources indicating the podium base is pre-Roman.

I just want to take a minute to apologize for the attitude directed toward you in some of my posts in this thread, I think we were getting hung up on some minor issues but we obviously both agree Aliens, Atlanteans, or Djinn had nothing to do with Baalbek, outside of fantasy and mythology. I do have a lot of respect for your posts and knowledge.

I too apology for any roughness of tone during our lively debate too. I havecome to value your knowledge and abilities. As I remembered we were halted at our inability to obtain material from DAI which had completed a century long series of excavation. It would seem you have found some of these, well done.

They had been online at: Archeologia.beniculturali.it, you'll have to use the search function from there. If I can't find them online I'll upload a copy.

I was unable to find the documents you were referring to here - I get a broken link that redirects. If you could put in a direct link it would be appreciated

Not having seen the full documents I'll tentatively accept that the DAI has found evidence (as we suspected earlier from the hints about the 'T' shaped base) that the base was of Phoenician construction (or other unidentified culture from that era and area) as it has some characteristics with other Phoenician style bottom heavy structures. Of course this then shifts the question to what techniques the Phoenicians might have used to move the stones. I believe the Roman could have done so but we know much less about the engineering prowess of this older culture.

reply to post by ballisticmousse


Your posts are exact copies of posts you made in another thread - nor did you even attempt to adapt them to OP - which is Baalbek.

I would suggest in the future you adapt them so they apply to the thread or just link to them.

reply to post by Hanslune


I downloaded those back in 2008/2009 from that link, so that's probably why the links are working anymore (the same link is given within the PDFs).

I put them on Mediafire so you can download them from there;

Giant Strides towards Monumentality - The architecture of the Jupiter Sanctuary in Baalbek/Heliopolis (PDF) (Mediafire.com)

Drafting and Design. Roman Architectural Drawings and their meanings for the Construction of Heliopolis/Baalbek, Lebanon (PDF) (Mediafire.com)

The book Sinai and Palestine: in connection with their history is online at Google Books.

Originally posted by Blackmarketeer
reply to post by Hanslune

 

I downloaded those back in 2008/2009 from that link, so that's probably why the links are working anymore (the same link is given within the PDFs).

I put them on Mediafire so you can download them from there;

Giant Strides towards Monumentality - The architecture of the Jupiter Sanctuary in Baalbek/Heliopolis (PDF) (Mediafire.com)

Drafting and Design. Roman Architectural Drawings and their meanings for the Construction of Heliopolis/Baalbek, Lebanon (PDF) (Mediafire.com)

The book Sinai and Palestine: in connection with their history is online at Google Books.

Nice work, Blackmarketeer!

Finally, some decent information on this.

Harte

reply to post by Harte

The unfinished pre-Roman sanctuary construction was incorporated into a master plan of monumentalisation. Apparently challenged by the already huge pre-Roman construction, the early imperial Jupiter sanctuary shows both an architectural megalomaniac design and construction technique in the first half of the first century AD.

The most famous example may be the trilithon forming the middle layer of the western temple podium by three blocks of 4 by 4 by 20 meters size.

The podium can be considered as an attempt to hide the older, inconveniently shaped temple terrace behind a podium in fashionable Roman manner8, consisting only of three layers of masonry at the height of twelve meters.

Just in front of it, the new sanctuary design created a partly two storey platform of about 100 x 120 meters, embraced by two low walled courtyards to the east and west.

My reading of the above leads me to believe that the DAI and Lohmann consider the Tril to be Roman made and built to hide the pre-Roman construction behind it; Harte, Blackmarketeer how do you read that?

The '8' after manner in the quote above refers to a cite from; HOFFMANN 1998, 291–294 which I unfortunately cannot find.

The page numbering of the download is out of whack showing the pages to be 28-29 twice

I re-read that 3 times and it's still ambiguous, he mentions the pre-Roman podium in the 1st passage and is he still referring to the trillithons as part of that monumental pre-Roman podium or is he stating this was a Roman extension of that base? Most of the Roman effort consisted of extending the podium to the east including the hexagonal court. I'm sure the pre-Roman podium must have been in need of repair and redressing, after clearing it of the Hellenic temple ruins (assuming anything of that was left to clear), the Romans must have investigated it for suitability, ensuring it reached bedrock, was stable, no fractures or shifting or voids had left it weakened, etc., but what is slightly confusing is why they would leave the most visible edge like the southern wall (between it and the Temple of Bacchus) or northern wall as the original pre-Roman stonework (the 1st photo in my earlier post), and redressing the least visible edge (the western) with massive blocks like the trillithons. It's always possible the western pre-Roman podium edge, being on the downward slope, had failed and was in need of shoring up, hence the use of the blocks of that scale, which is atypical of Roman building - and also why that size of block was only used along a portion of that edge.

I emailed the good Dr. Lohamann from his Web site (luckily he included those in the presentation pdfs), and asked him point blank, Roman or not? From his bio he is pretty young, he did this report as a student thesis in conjunction with the DAI in 2006-2006 and a research fellowship with the DAI 2006-2009.

reply to post by Blackmarketeer


Thanks for sending the email it may also be a translation problem from German to English although I would suspect he speaks better English than myself.

Let us know if you get a reply

Yes I saw a map of the site and it showed the western edge to be in need of a retaining wall. If the pre-Roman materials were in distress huge blocks might have been the answer and the Roman's responded.....I wonder too if the two massive blocks were cut - couldn't be moved, and they cut the smaller ones instead??

It could well be the size of those blocks were needed since any expansion (or repair) in that direction would not be able to tie into the existing pre-Roman base, and lacking steel to ensure the new wall was physically tied to the older structure, the Roman response was to utilize massive blocks that would ensure stability of the western edge. They must have known how vulnerable that area would be to earthquakes, even a shifting or outward lean of that new wall would spell doom to the temple.

I've sent the Dr. a follow-up email asking if has a longitudinal section of the temple and podium base to complement the cross-section he provided in his thesis, something like that would show the trillithons.

reply to post by Blackmarketeer


Well we shall see. one reason there may be little information for a subject that is interesting to us is that the previous consensus in archaeology was that they were Roman; if he was just reconfirming that then there would have been little need to talk about it. If he had come to the conclusion that it wasn't Roman there would have been a whole lot more material to support that conclusion.


Another possibility; the Trils were cut and placed by the Phoenicians and later re-used and moved by the Roman's to re-establish the retaining wall - many possibilities!.....once on use net someone suggested the Trils were abandoned ballast from alien space ships......

There is a long-standing tradition in areas associated with horse worship connecting horses to the God of the Sea.

- Greek and Roman Mythology has Poseidon as God of the Sea AND HORSES
- Norse Mythology has Loki as both the God of the Sea AND CAN SHAPESHIFT INTO BEING A HORSE
- Hindu Rigveda (the Indian Vedic hymn) has the God Trita which is God of the Sea AND HORSES

Furthermore, areas associated with horse worship are, pretty much, always associated with stone circles. Indeed, the more stone circles an area has, the more intense the worship of horses.

Furthermore, French archaeologist Patrice Menial has demonstrated from bones excavated that the lack of horse bones shows that ancient man in these areas NEVER ate horses… but just about everything else.at that time. In Uffington, a giant horse is cut into the landscape dating from the bronze age.

WHY?

Were stone circles giant dynamos built by ET’s with armatures pulled by horses?

Primative men who might have seen aliens using horses to turn the armature might have concluded that not only the aliens but also the horses were gods. Furthermore, could this electricity have been used to generate hydrogen for the purposes of creating lifting vehicles like balloons or Zeppelins, capable of moving the vast stones for assembly of Baalbek etc found elsewhere in the world? Consider the violence of water being electrolysed – the voltage causes turbulently raging, might have given rise to the belief that horses were gods who had powers over water, the seas and the oceans.

It is also worth considering that not only are the stones in stone circles invariably magnetic, but the circles are ALWAYS only found near plentiful sources of horses and water, particularly salt water.

Originally posted by Hanslune
My reading of the above leads me to believe that the DAI and Lohmann consider the Tril to be Roman made and built to hide the pre-Roman construction behind it; Harte, Blackmarketeer how do you read that?

Looks to me like he's saying the trilithon is Roman.

Harte

Originally posted by Harte

Originally posted by Hanslune
My reading of the above leads me to believe that the DAI and Lohmann consider the Tril to be Roman made and built to hide the pre-Roman construction behind it; Harte, Blackmarketeer how do you read that?

Looks to me like he's saying the trilithon is Roman.

Harte

Yep with the qualifier that the Romans may have reused previous stones from an earlier construction

I received a reply from Dr. Lohmann, who was gracious enough to answer several questions as well as provide a link to his latest article, which goes into much greater depth than the two previous ones.

Regarding the trilithons, the conclusion is: 100% ROMAN.

Dr. Lohmann states the trilithons belong to the scheme of the corinthian temple, built around the middle of the 1st cent. AD.

He's also provided a link to his most recent article: Kropp and Lohmann: Construction Techniques at Heliopolis and Jerusalem - he states the article is free for now, as it was recently published, so grab it while you can. (He has another article pending which he writes will explore the pre-Roman podium in more depth.)

He gives several views of both the pre-Roman podium, which he attributes to Herod, and the Roman podium (including the trilithons). I think his article also reveals to a degree why some of the earlier writings were contradictory as to the source of the 'pre-Roman' phase, and just how extensive it was - in fact this phase had been labeled "Hellenistic", but that was due mainly to the peristasis of the design (a peristasis or peristyle is an architectural style used in Greek temples.) This phase is anything but Hellenistic. Lohmann writes the source for the first monumental podium is Herodian, which is much closer to the Roman time-frame. The Herodian phase was also halted until it was resumed under the Romans, at which point a large expansion of the podium was undertaken, in particular to the west, which is referred to as "Podium 2", of which the trilithons are a part of. Lohmann goes into a great deal of depth in the comparisons between Herod's great temple in Jerusalem and here at Baalbek. (something myself and the sources I listed incorrectly associated with Solomon). Some sources had also attributed the 'pre-Roman' phase to the Seleucids (and their connection to Solomon) as well, repeated by Ragette in 1980. The Weigand map I viewed also seemed to indicate 'Podium 2' with a dashed line indicating pre-Roman, but I think now, based on information from Lohmann, this is due to the extension of the foundations of the Herodian podium which at least in part, were used by the Romans for the construction of their extension. Viewed in plan on the DAI's earliest map it's not clear where when one begins and the other ends, although Dr. Lohmann in his research has given this much greater attention.




Dark grey = pre-Roman (Herodian)
Light grey = Roman



Image source: Kropp and Lohmann: Construction Techniques at Heliopolis and Jerusalem
These low-res images don't do the source article justice, Dr. Lohmann goes into great detail of the 'pre-Roman' (Herodian) podium and the Roman podium.

Slightly off topic:
Another interesting facet of this site I learned dealt with the etymology of the name, Bal Bekaa, as given by Stanley in Sinai and Palestine, in connection with their history, p.409;

"Bekka" is the same word as "Mecca" the m and b being interchanged, as in the name of Baalbek itself - pronounced sometimes Maalbek. Bek is to press, as in a crowd; Mek to suck out clean, as a young camel the milk from the udder.

One can also look at the shared history between the two sites - Bekka (as transliterated from Bekaa/Beqaa) and Mecca, both having an object falling to earth (meteorite?) becoming a center of worship. Although it's not stated as such at Baalbek, other than this is the place where god cast Satan down to earth, or angels of heaven fell to earth here. Meteorites played a big role back then, another one is mentioned in the Bible in Acts 19:23. Is it possible a meteorite fell here and became the object/site of veneration as far back as the neolithic, carried all the way through the Canaan era, becoming incorporated in the Abrahamic religions of Herod's era as well and the later Islamic phase?

Once again, my apologies Hans, Harte, after this I don't think there is any question whatsoever about who quarried and placed the trilithons, it's absolutely the Romans, even the 'pre-Roman' podium is well within the time-frame of the Roman era, while some of the workers may have been of the local indigenous population, there were no Phoenician or Canaan construction (other than the 'tell', which isn't really a construction, and the various altars dating back to 7,200 BC). I had been working along the lines that Solomon was responsible for the earliest phase of monumental construction at this site, but after reading Lohmann's presentation, it's obvious Herod was responsible for it and even he operated under the aegis of the Romans, who finished what he may have started.

Originally posted by Blackmarketeer
Once again, my apologies Hans, Harte, after this I don't think there is any question whatsoever about who quarried and placed the trilithons, it's absolutely the Romans, even the 'pre-Roman' podium is well within the time-frame of the Roman era, while some of the workers may have been of the local indigenous population, there were no Phoenician or Canaan construction (other than the 'tell', which isn't really a construction, and the various altars dating back to 7,200 BC). I had been working along the lines that Solomon was responsible for the earliest phase of monumental construction at this site, but after reading Lohmann's presentation, it's obvious Herod was responsible for it and even he operated under the aegis of the Romans, who finished what he may have started.

No need to apologize. Though Hans and I argued forcefully for the Roman construction viewpoint, we could have been wrong as easily as you.

You found out for us. I don't see how anyone could ask for more from any poster here.

Thanks for the info once again. It is this sort of thing that originally brought me to ATS, and continues to bring me back.

Harte

reply to post by Blackmarketeer


Absolutely brilliant work Blackmarketeer. Well as of now it seems its Roman - I was holding out for some Phoenician influence somewhere (I think their tradition of oversized foundation stones swayed me) but until some new information comes along - we'll go Roman.

Ditto to what Harte said too

It will be interesting to see how long this takes to move into and be taken up by osmosis into Archaeology and Pseudo-Archaeology

Originally posted by Hanslune
It will be interesting to see how long this takes to move into and be taken up by osmosis into Archaeology and Pseudo-Archaeology

I'd be willing to bet that it will never enter the consciousness of the fringe.

Harte

Certainly isn't surprising it is Roman given the time frame. This period was also when Herod Agrippa was undertaking mass construction work all over the province (for example the port at Caesaria).

Herod was also a child hood friend of Claudius and it is interesting to note that he also undertook massive public works all over the empire - perhaps a legacy of shared childhood dreams?

When you look at the levels of technology and construction ability of the Romans, it always surprises me when people are surprised by the Romans!