Sacsayhuamán: lost art of stone softening?

reply to post by FormerSkeptic


How do you know they are made from limestone. The great pyramid was once though to be made from limestone. It is infact a cement composite. Could not the same apply here..

Originally posted by purplemer
reply to post by FormerSkeptic

 

How do you know they are made from limestone. The great pyramid was once though to be made from limestone. It is infact a cement composite. Could not the same apply here..

No, it's limestone. The quarries are right there to the west and immediately south, next to the sphinx.

Harte

not according to this thread
www.abovetopsecret.com...

reply to post by Harte


Hello Harte

My understanding is that recent tests done by scientists has confirmed that it is made from poured concrete. Looks like maybe we where both half right reconstituted limestone was used in the process..

A year and a half later, after extensive scanning electron microscope observations and other testing, Barsoum and his research group finally began to draw some conclusions about the pyramids. They found that the tiniest structures within the inner and outer casing stones were indeed consistent with a reconstituted limestone. The cement binding the limestone aggregate was either silicon dioxide (the building block of quartz) or a calcium and magnesium-rich silicate mineral.

The stones also had a high water content — unusual for the normally dry, natural limestone found on the Giza plateau — and the cementing phases, in both the inner and outer casing stones, were amorphous, in other words, their atoms were not arranged in a regular and periodic array. Sedimentary rocks such as limestone are seldom, if ever, amorphous.

Have a little read here if you are interested..

www.livescience.com...

A liquid aggregate like concrete cannot be poured into a mold and hardened without setting to the block beneath.

Yet wherever we look in the GP, we find a crack between stones, with mortar in between.

So, how'd the make this crack? Do you believe they poured three ton concrete blocks, then somehow got the form out from underneath after it hardened? That's the only way these cracks (spaces) could possibly be there.

Otherwise, they make the blocks, let them dry, drag them up a ramp, and slide them into place over the mortar. Tell us, how does this differ from quarrying the blocks (which we know they did,) dragging them up a ramp, and sliding them into place over the mortar?

Harte

Originally posted by Chazam
People didn't live longer lives in ancient times. You basically were old when you reached your early 40's. People lived harder lives back then, as they do in many (non developed) countries today. That is a pure fact and not a theory. The Bible contains myths and legends, not scientific facts, that is very important to remember.

Many societies back then had little or no regard for workers (or slaves) health and because of it they used up a lot of lives building the many fantastic structures that still stand today.

They probably didn't have some long lost knowledge that helped them build monoliths, temples and Pyramids. It wasn't 1 or 2 worker grinding each stone with acid or with the help of aliens. Each of these marvelous stones as an example were probably carved by hundreds of workers or slaves, until their arms fell of. Then in with a new crew. Mass graves is not rarely to be found near these kind of structures. Or under and in them as in the case with the Great Wall of China.

Some structures is a bit mysterious and you sometimes wonder how they were made, sure Very interesting indeed, I agree. But maybe we don't have to play the ancient alien card every time we don't understand something from our own history.

I just have a hard time believing that unskilled slaves were able to bulid intricate structures like the pyramids to such perfection. The great pyramid is 8 sided and is built to perfection both from the outside and inside. I just can't see thousands of slaves coming together and building something like this while being sustaining lashing to the back. Also, pyramids built hundreds of years after the 3 great pyramids are much much smaller and lack any ingenuity that their much larger counterparts had (even though the Egyptian still had slaves). You'd think that with time the Egyptians would have been able to improve on the sophistication of the originals and continue building even more pyramids that boggled the mind.

Again, most of us are not giving credit to aliens, but a lot of us are beginnig to believe that a previous civilization did exist and we are now seeing some of it's remnants. The Egyptians, Incas, Mayans, etc. all probably came after the fact and used these much older sites as their own.

Originally posted by skybolt

I just have a hard time believing that unskilled slaves were able to bulid intricate structures like the pyramids to such perfection.

I think the current school of thought is that they were skilled contractors, not unskilled slaves.

Originally posted by draknoir2

Originally posted by skybolt

I just have a hard time believing that unskilled slaves were able to bulid intricate structures like the pyramids to such perfection.

I think the current school of thought is that they were skilled contractors, not unskilled slaves.

Which would make sense. My biggest point of contention is how did the Egyptians start out building such impressive structures, but wound up constructing much smaller structures that lacked the ingenuity of their predecessors several hundred years later? It's not like they abandoned the idea of pyramids and started building equally impressive skyscrapers instead? Their construction technology dropped very dramatically, which doesn't make sense!

Originally posted by skybolt

Originally posted by draknoir2

Originally posted by skybolt

I just have a hard time believing that unskilled slaves were able to bulid intricate structures like the pyramids to such perfection.

I think the current school of thought is that they were skilled contractors, not unskilled slaves.

Which would make sense. My biggest point of contention is how did the Egyptians start out building such impressive structures, but wound up constructing much smaller structures that lacked the ingenuity of their predecessors several hundred years later? It's not like they abandoned the idea of pyramids and started building equally impressive skyscrapers instead? Their construction technology dropped very dramatically, which doesn't make sense!

It was a progression through trial and error, as evidenced by the step pyramid, bent pyramid, and then great pyramid. And if I'm not mistaken the Nubians had control for a while, and their designs were smaller and steeper [excessive steepness on a larger scale is what resulted in the mid-build design change of the bent pyramid].

Originally posted by draknoir2

Originally posted by skybolt

Originally posted by draknoir2

Originally posted by skybolt

I just have a hard time believing that unskilled slaves were able to bulid intricate structures like the pyramids to such perfection.

I think the current school of thought is that they were skilled contractors, not unskilled slaves.

Which would make sense. My biggest point of contention is how did the Egyptians start out building such impressive structures, but wound up constructing much smaller structures that lacked the ingenuity of their predecessors several hundred years later? It's not like they abandoned the idea of pyramids and started building equally impressive skyscrapers instead? Their construction technology dropped very dramatically, which doesn't make sense!

It was a progression through trial and error, as evidenced by the step pyramid, bent pyramid, and then great pyramid. And if I'm not mistaken the Nubians had control for a while, and their designs were smaller and steeper [excessive steepness on a larger scale is what resulted in the mid-build design change of the bent pyramid].

edit on 22-4-2013 by draknoir2 because: (no reason given)

But that's based on the assumption that the great Pyramids were built approximately 4,500 years ago. A lot of us believe they are much older, which would mean that the step and bent pyramids were also an attempt at recreating these structures. Again, the complexity factor between the great pyramids and every other pyramid built is like night and day. It's like going from horse carriages to sports cars and saying that was the logical next progression.

There is a recorded history of the Pharoahs and their lineage, as well as the pyramids constructed under their reign, so it's not really a mystery.