Biggest ancient block confirmed, It's a Monster.

Biggest ancient block of stone is discovered

Archaeologists studying an ancient quarry that is home to a famously gigantic stone block have now found an even bigger stone block at the site, reports io9.

This monster, which dates back to 27 BC, is 64 feet long and 19.6 feet wide. Though it is still mostly buried, researchers estimate that it's 18 feet high and weighs somewhere around 1,650 tons, thus making it the biggest stone block from antiquity, reports the Archaeology News Network.

German archaeologists uncovered it in the quarry at Baalbek in what is now Lebanon. It is next to a fully exposed stone block of similar, but smaller, dimensions, known as Hajjar-al-Hibla, or Stone of the Pregnant Woman.

Site update. It was reported here at ATS earlier last Oct about the site giving up yet more blocks but this seems to be confirmation of the previous guesstimated size and weight of this ancient monster.

It is a monster, Another great example of what the ancient were capable of doing, Expanding our knowledge of known achievements is always a good thing.

Image Source

a reply to: SLAYER69

Wondering if the ancients (some of my best friends...) planned on moving these blocks to some project site. Then, when they tried to pick them up, they found out that the stonecutters had transposed a number or two. But seriously, what was the purpose of cutting such large blocks and leaving them there? Kind of like an open house? Sales promotion? Thanks for the thread, this stuff is the bees knees (and the ants pajamas).

a reply to: Aleister
I can see the supervisor showing up in the morning, his jaw dropping.
"Can you not read a drawing!? It's supposed to be 64 x 19.6 inches! How the hell are we supposed to move this!?"

I guess it was a trend sometime back in forgotten human history, to precisely cut, move and build with colossal megaliths all around the world!
www.bibliotecapleyades.net...

a reply to: SLAYER69

How the hell did they get the sides to be uniformly flat/on a plain?

Mind blowing.

a reply to: and14263

quite easily, place a powdered cord from one end to another and nib out the high spots marked by the power

originally posted by: suicideeddie
a reply to: and14263

quite easily, place a powdered cord from one end to another and nib out the high spots marked by the power

And that would create (what looks from the photo) an incredibly flat surface relative to all other parts of the surface?

Wouldn't this take years due to the cord being thin and the block huge?

Not disputing just digging.

Forgotten history / NOT. History destroyed by wars and religion. So much knowledge would be here today if it were not for that.

There's an earlier ATS thread on this:

NEW Excavation (2014) at BAALBEK Reveals GIGANTIC New Block (October 2014)

originally posted by: suicideeddie
a reply to: and14263

quite easily, place a powdered cord from one end to another and nib out the high spots marked by the power

What about deflection in the cord? Would that method not lead to a slight convex surface?

a reply to: SLAYER69

I always wonder if they didn't do this because they would need multiple blocks of the same size, and that eventually it would be sectioned off into smaller stones before transporting it. In doing so, they would know that the width/height would be perfect, and they'd only have to worry about getting the depth of each sectioned block to be correct. Seems like a faster, more efficient way to keep multiple "smaller" block (which would still be huge) congruent with each other.

I know there are examples of huge stones similar to this one being used as is in construction (Baalbek and Jerusalem come to mind), but that doesn't mean that all of them were meant to be moved and used at its full size from the quarry.

a reply to: caterpillage

just cause it looks flat from 50 feet away hardly means it is exact

Not just how, but why? What was the motivation for employing such massive resources and energy on a gargantuan scale? It certainly wasn't necessary. The pyramid was built using much smaller blocks, and is still standing. The Mayan pyramids even smaller, and still standing. There has to have been a driving force behind endeavors of this scale. And I'm not buying that it was all religious. I think there's more to it than that. Like distant memories of a cataclysm, and the desire to leave a legacy if it happened again.

Then again, I have to wonder if they had the same disease we do. We think we should, just because we can.

a reply to: SLAYER69

I would not like to drop that on my toes.

The ancients were an ingenious bunch, carving such a monolith would have been an effort in itself, let alone transporting it. Heaving a fridge up two flights of stairs pales in comparison to this.

It makes you think what could've been, this one pylon alone hints at what could have been on the drawing boards.

That is just amazing.
All that work on a massive stone that never made it into any projects.

Makes one wonder if they would pre make units of stone like this to keep the slaves busy then break off pieces as needed to fill orders. The Romans were efficient.

originally posted by: DrakeINFERNO
a reply to: caterpillage

just cause it looks flat from 50 feet away hardly means it is exact

Right. But exceptionally easy to verify, correct?

I would suggest that at first when contemplating the building of the retaining wall for the temple of Jupiter they went with these large stones, reconsidered and cut new smaller ones (the famous trilithons) OR they set in the trilithons and for some reason considered replacing them with larger ones, and decided against it or as I read in one source long ago that there three massive stones were to be part of archaic altar but the project was never completed.

Those blocks are mind blowing massive, we have to be missing something here...giants, super tech, demi gods. I can't fathom how humans with primitive tools could be working with such large blocks, it seems to me to be counter productive, counter intuitive, counter everything. Crazy!

Just to throw a wrench into the gears, its a ballast stone for really huge airships. (well, why not?)

originally posted by: jaws1975
Those blocks are mind blowing massive, we have to be missing something here...giants, super tech, demi gods. I can't fathom how humans with primitive tools could be working with such large blocks, it seems to me to be counter productive, counter intuitive, counter everything. Crazy!

They key is while they could cut them they declined to move them, they would have been the largest stones moved in the ancient world. Very few really large stones were ever moved in the ancient world - probably because it was very hard to do!

As for carving the stones, lots of work but nothing beyond the masons of the time.