Pre-Biblical Archaeology

[Minimalist]

I agree but there is another factor. Most flint tools are fairly small. Before you carve on the front of the stelae you have to cut the stelae out of the rock.

That seems unlikely.

[stan]

So how do you think they did it?

(By the way, they had plenty of time, I imagine.)

[stan]

I did an experiment somewhat like yours, Mini.
Several years agoI tried to drill a hole in a heavy clamshell with an electric drill,
and I couldn't do it. The reason I tried it is because I understood that wampum beads were cylinders cut from clamshells and then bored out, and I just wondered how much labor was involved inmaking thousands of beads.
It is still a mystery to me.
But I think it is significant that folks back then had more patience than we do.

[Minimalist]

Damn good point, Stan, but consider this. Did they have sufficient leisure time to put that patience to use?

One speculates that daylight hours would have been taken up with basic subsistence issues. Given that they had no television or X-boxes to distract them at night they would have had time to indulge in arts and crafts but they had no electric lights which means all of this work would have been done by candle or fireplace lighting. I'm sure it can be done but, as you say, by what mechanism.

BTW, Hancock in Fingerprints of the Gods, has a section dealing with the so-called sarcophagus in the Great Pyramid and the fact that experts feel it was "drilled" out rather than carved. How? The sarcophagus is granite and, pun intended, hard as a rock.

[stan]

So do the carvings at Urfa fall into the category of "mystery" for you, like the big stones of Baalbek and the construction of the pyramids?

i can dig it.

[Minimalist]

I don't know. The fact that someone "could" have scraped away the sandstone with a piece of flint leads me to say 'no.' However, they sure as hell did not carve the whole stelae with a piece of flint. The fact that we do not know how they did it does not change the fact that it was done.

Still....they would have needed some better tools.

[Beagle]

It's hard to find a good recent study on Baalbek. It doesn't appear that archaeologists are really willing to propose a reasonable theory.

[Minimalist]

Because even they know that sleds and ropes are not going to explain that one.

[Minimalist]

It's hard to find a good recent study on Baalbek. It doesn't appear that archaeologists are really willing to propose a reasonable theory.

Anyway, here's someone else who agrees.

http://www.southcoast.net/gregb/baalbek.html

[Beagle]

That's the feeling I'm stuck with. It's too bad that there isn't an effective way to date these megalithic structures. Dating broken pottery found near it doesn't convince me of anything.

[Beagle]

I'll read that in depth soon. But I saw Sitchins' name and got a rash. I'll get some Benadryl lotion in a little bit and read more.

[Minimalist]

Start with this one. It's amazing.

http://www.world-mysteries.com/mpl_5.htm


With no evidence or logic at all, they attribute the single stone to the Romans.

At the southern entrance of Baalbeck is a quarry where the stones used in the temples were cut. A huge block, considered the largest hewn stone in the world, still sits where it was cut almost 2,000 years ago

And then attributes the original building to the Phoenecians!

The Podium is built with some of the largest stone blocks ever hewn. On the west side of the podium is the "Trilithon", a celebrated group of three enormous stones weighing about 800 tons each.
It was decided to furnish the temple with a monumental extension of the podium which, according to Phoenician tradition, had to consist of no more than three layers of stone. The fact remains that this decision initiated the cutting, transporting and lifting of the largest and heaviest stones of all times. Not only had a wall of 13 meters in height to be composed of three ranges of stones, but in the interest of appearance the middle blocks were made of a length four times their height. Adding to this a depth equal to the height of the stones, they had to be of a volume of up to 400 cubic meters per block, corresponding to a weight of almost 1000 tons. Technically, the builders of Baalbeck proved that they could do it, since three such blocks of the middle layer are in place, but in terms of time they did not succeed - the podium remained incomplete. Nevertheless, so awe-inspiring were those blocks to all beholders ever after, that Baalbeck was known for a long time primarily as the site of the three stones, the trilithon.

[Minimalist]

Well, Beags...you and Stan have got me going on this now so we may as well go all the way. Consider this from Tiahuanaco in Bolivia.


http://www.world-mysteries.com/mpl_6.htm

This is another 'temple area' with many finely cut stones some weighing over 100 tonnes. Its position to the south of the Akapana may have been important because it gave a good view to a sacred mountain far to the east. Of course there is no certainty that this was the reason as the ancient builders left no written records.
All the legends have been handed down through the generations.


Puma Punku, truly startles the imagination. It seems to be the remains of a great wharf (for Lake Titicaca long ago lapped upon the shores of Tiahuanaco) and a massive, four-part, now collapsed building. One of the construction blocks from which the pier was fashioned weighs an estimated 440 tons (equal to nearly 600 full-size cars) and several other blocks laying about are between 100 and 150 tons. The quarry for these giant blocks was on the western shore of Titicaca, some ten miles away. There is no known technology in all the ancient world that could have transported stones of such massive weight and size. The Andean people of 500 AD, with their simple reed boats, could certainly not have moved them. Even today, with all the modern advances in engineering and mathematics, we could not fashion such a structure.

Carved stone block at Puma Punku. This precision-made 6 mm wide
groove contains equidistant, drilled holes. It seems impossible that this
cuts were made with use of stone or copper tools.

[Beagle]

Baalbek - I don't know when it got its current name but that makes me think that it would have been a temple to Baal, who was a deity worshipped not only in the middle east , but all the way to the Carthaginians. The Trilithon was probably used by people for many things but I don't think anyone knows what culture moved those stones. I guess we have to wait for technology to improve.

Tiahuanaco - I've been endlessly fascinated with it since I was a teenager. It evidently was built during the "new world" copper age though, since the staples that were used in the stone walls were copper. But that is almost another subject since copper was not nearly as readily available there as it was in the Mediteranean civilizations.

[Beagle]

I spent yesterday evening googling around and there is very little information about ancient copper use in South America. What info I saw answered few questions.

Tiahuanaco had copper staples in the stones. The copper would have had to come from Peru or the Andes (no problem). But when was the "copper age" in the Americas? It was certainly molded for various uses but not for weapons.

I'll look a little harder this pm.