From Wiki -

"Theories about the Trilithon and other megaliths

Roger Hopkins and Vince Lee both theorized about how the megalithic sones were moved. They were both consulted about various megalithic moves around the world.

Roger Hopkins is a stone mason and sculptor, he was consulted to do experiments in Egypt (with Mark Lehrner) and other location to move megaliths. He theorized that the trilithon stones and 300 ton blocks were all moved with wooden rollers. He demonstrated this by using steel rollers and levers to move a five to six thousand pound stone on a concrete platform by himself. He also participated in other experiments with larger stones including some that may have been over 10 tons. These experiments required much more people. For 2 ton stones he was able to tow them with as few as 10 people at times and for faster results upto 20 people. Most experiments have been done by Roger Hopkins and others to move stones 10 tons or more required well over 100 people. [3]

Vince Lee is an architech explorer and author. He theorized that these stones were moved by flipping them with levers. According to this theory a row of people would use 20 levers to pry up the trilithon blocks a little at a time. Each time they pried it up someone would put additional shims under the megalithic stones. After this was repeated enough times the stone would flip over on the next side. There would be a log on the other side that the stone would fall onto so that one side would already be lifted off the ground each time making it easier for the next flip. This would require over 1,000 flips for each of the trilithon stones and even more for the smaller 300 ton stones to cover the 3 mile distance from the quarry. Roger Hopkins and Mark Lehner also experimented with this technique on a smaller scale in Egypt during a NOVA pyramid building experiment. They found that they could flip stones upto about 3/4 of a ton with only 4 or 5 men and they successfuly flipped stones at least 2 and a 1/2 tons with more men however they found this was to slow to explain how the pyramids were built in so short a time.[4]

Both Roger Hopkins and Vince Lee agreed that an earthen ramp would have been used to get the megaliths up the hill to the temple. They also agreed that the final placement would have involved flipping the megaliths and lowering it slowly by using sand to cushion the fall. The sand would have been placed where the trilithon stones were to be set and when the stones were flipped into place the sand would be slowly removed."

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Flipping a 800 ton slab of rock? I'm not an engineer but that just seems absurd.

I can't remember the book or the name of the author (he is an ATS member)but one theory was that Baalbeck was an ancient landing site for Alien craft.

Peace

Originally posted by Anonymous ATS

Why not consider this possibility. Could the stones not have been CAST as in the same way or similar to our current brick manufacturing is done. Think about it, cast them in place. Sand some agg and a binder. Remove the cast and you have a stone that fits perfectly into place cause it was CAST that way.

Just my 2c

Funny, that is the first thing I thought of. Cast them using an ancient Cement mixture!

Ah Baalbek yet again

The stone are large because the Romans were building a traditional temple and the site selected was on a slope. The one wall is on the down hill side. Ever wondered why there is only ONE side with big stones?

Fringe theory never seems to consider why aliens or advanced humans would build a single retaining wall in the middle of nowhere....

As it was a traditional temple concrete couldn't be used so they solved the retaining wall stability problem by using big frikken rocks. It worked despite numerous earthquakes the wall is still stable and doing it job as designed.

The quarry is UPHILL by 15+ meters from the temple site and a little over half km away.

In the 1904 site report ( Theodore Weigands landmark 1925 report Jabrbuch Kunstwisseschaft 1924-25) the Germans took the temple remains down to the bedrock, they found typical Roman 'honey comb' construction, ie large stones on the outside, brick interior walls and the spaces inbetween filled with rubble. There is some evidence that there was a bronze a culture site here prior to the Romans.

The large stones (a second one was I believe found buried in rubble by the last German expedition which finished its work in the late 1990) these stone (they needed three) to complete a tradtional altar. These were never finished and never moved.

Somebody mentions cranes - I suspect you read the Sitchin stuff which is complete bollocks, cranes can lift 5,000 tons with ease. The Romans moved stuff using windlass....very very slowly!

Baalbek is a wonderful site but there is no evidence of anyone else there except for a small bronze age site. The construction is Roman with later damage done by earthquake and rebuilding done for fortifications. The stone look different because different layers of limestone were used. Limestone comes in different textures and density depending on when and how it was laid down.

The fringe world has created endless nonsense and disinformation about the site, the grand daddy of all of this came from ("Voyage autour de la mer morte") by Felicien ce Saulcy written in 1864-before any investigation was done, later Sitchin made up some more stuff about it.

The largest cut stone that was moved was the Statue of Ramesses, best known as the inspiration for the Ozy poem and coming in at 1,000 tons. The largest stone ever moved prior to mechanization was by the Russians who moved a 1,600 ton stone.

I think the thing that amuses me most about the alternative theories is that they make some assumptions:

* they figure that humans of those times didn't know anything beyond banging rocks together
* they figure that the only way people moved stuff was by dragging it around.
* they have no idea where the stones came from (and whether the quarry was uphill or not.
* they tend to think that the landscape around monuments looks the same today as it did back then (instead of it being a rubble-filled field, overgrown with bushes now and back then it was a landscape that they'd smoothed and picked free of rocks so they could move stuff.)
* they tend to think that "can't stick a knife blade between" means a microfine joint that you could barely see (you could, however, stick a piece of paper between the rocks in some places.)

The earliest domestic cattle were found in the same area of the Mediterranean about 6,000 BC where they were not only a food animal but a plough and draft animal. Two oxen can pull a considerable amount of weight... far more than two men can.

People who come from a culture that's 6,000 years before ours; a culture that doesn't have computers weren't stupid or helpless. They knew how to build smooth ramps and smooth out land surfaces to make roads. Some of them had wheels and rollers and many of them had draft animals of some sort to pull loads (and sledges and wagons.)

And they certainly knew that moving stuff over a muddy/wet surface was easier than dragging it over a dry surface.

Those who don't bother to read up on the cultures and the archaeology of the areas are generally those who feel that somehow the people building stonework monuments were moving rock by forming long lines of people and passing stones from one to another by hand or dragged along by millions of slaves like some bad movie about the building of the pyramids.

Given a nice, flat, muddy slope and a site downhill from a quarry and several teams of oxen, you could move a surprising amount of weight.

Let's see, Egypt: check. Lebanon: check. Israel: nope.

If Israel is the land of "God's chosen people," why are there no megalithic structures there? What better representation of the Highest Power on Earth is there than that which can cut and move stones in a way no one can come close to matching today?

Yeah I do not know how the ancients used think back then, but to build those structures (and that is regardless of whatever purpose they might serve) using current technology would obviously be HIGHLY impractical, UNLESS, we had the means to efficiently and cost-effectively execute such undertakings. But does that "means" point to a more advanced kind of technology, or merely a crude ancient technique that we've never heard before? Either way, why not just quarry smaller chunks of stone that will be easier to transport and construct?? Observe the first image showing a wall with varying stone block sizes. For what other reason did the ancients have as to utilize 870-ton blocks when they could have just used way smaller, more uniform sizes? Is there a significant reason for that? Structural, building efficiency-wise or even symbolically?

It's either there has to be a VERY significant and practical reason for engaging in such an undertaking, OR they could casually manipulate megalithic stone like that of a boy playing with Lego blocks. I am more inclined to believe that there is a more advanced (alternative and unconventional) technology involved, rather than a crude ancient technique that we're not aware of. I think logic and practicality gives away a big chunk of the clue. A matured civilization "advanced" enough to build those megalithic structures should be able to possess a generous amount of that. 870-ton stone blocks doesn't exactly complement logic and practicality. Otherwise, if it were such a practical and advantageous building practice, shouldn't we be be seeing more of those things by now???

[edit on 22-2-2009 by smirnoffsky]

When I studied Architecture Baalbek was one of the topics that generated intense interest and debate among the professors. It's been recognized the Romans had little to do with Baalbek's massive foundations stones, other than to use it as a platform for their temple built to Jupiter. One can imagine ancient Roman statesmen and architects finding those massive blocks and wondering what beings could have placed them. So it's little wonder they would use that impressive foundation as a basis for a temple dedicated to their mightiest god (of course Baal has always been the deity linked to Zeus, and the Romans could have been acting on that impulse).

I do have one question, regarding the ability of moving stones of this magnitude using pivot points as demonstrated by Wally Wallington. Once you surpass a certain scale the weight becomes so great that any pivot point is pulverized beneath the stone begin moved. Wally was able to move moderately heavy blocks (by our standards) using a pivot because the pivot was placed on a hard substrate, namely another stone block. Place that pivot over soft ground then try pivoting something weighing multiple tons, all you will do is drive your pivot block into the earth. Another factor to consider is that stone is not a perfectly homogeneous material. It has faults and fractures and different densities. A block of the stone the magnitude of Baalbek's foundations could split if placed over a single pivot point. Finally you would still have to lift these over the pivot, and how is that accomplished if modern machinery couldn't lift them? Watch Wally's video and see how large the lever arm is in relation to the size of the stone block he is moving, now scale that up to the size of the Baalbek stones, I think you will realize that a lever arm that big itself becomes a difficult engineering feat. What would it be made of? A single ceder timber (like those found in Lebanon) would hardly extend far enough beyond the width of the stone being moved to provide adequate leverage. Without modern fasteners (nails, screws, steel plates) how would you construct such a lever that wouldn't distort or twist apart? Rope perhaps, but it seems the engineering behind one component of moving the block becomes as monumental as the block itself.

The argument that earthen ramps were used to move dolmens of this size isn't any more valid here than it was in Egypt. The earthen ramp itself becomes a gargantuan work that would still be in evidence today. Where is the scarred earth where such a ramp existed outside the face of the Giza pyramids or Baalbak? Where is the massive pit where the earth used for the ramp was taken from? Do you construct something as laborious and massive as a pyramid by constructing an even more massive and laborious earthen ramp? The pyramids, for all their might, still don't employ a single solid stone the size of these at Baalbek. I for one, would like to see a ramp handle 800 to 1,200 tons and not collapse into the soil underneath it. One last thing to consider about using a ramp to haul such a weight is that the traction required to pull it. Oxen or horse or sheer human muscle grunting at the ends of ropes would still need something solid for traction. A built ramp would have to be made very solid indeed, not of earth but of stone, to provide such traction, and such a ramp would leave an archeological record of its existence. But none such exist at either the pyramid of Baal sites, nor between these sites and their respective quarries. Further, Baalbeks builders had to contend with fording a river. No pivot would accomplish that. Modern engineers would have dammed the river with a massive earthen work able to support such a load and driven the stones across in the same fashion as used on land. Yet such a dam would have left evidence behind of its existence. And as with any possible massive ramps, at what point does the engineering and effort into such a construction outpace that consumed by the original intent, namely the temple platform at Baalbek?

I believe it was Zecharia Sitchen who writes in one of his Earth Chronicles on the consistency of the matter of the stones, how their consistency is not like any stones or granite found in nature (molecules are aligned in some fashion). He offers the theory that sound waves were used in their shaping (as well as the stone works at Machu Picchu, which bear a strong resemblance in their fitting to the Baalbak platform). Whether this was the technology of a higher intelligence or a flight of fancy on Sithchin's part still doesn't diminish the wonder of these incredible stone works.

Finally I'd like to say this about engineering. When we deal with simple lever arms we assume that the arms themselves don't effect the math involved. That is to say the arms are considered "weightless". This is true in any physics book a student engineer will study from. But once you begin to study advanced physics, you start taking into consideration the physics taking place within the lever arm. Modulus of elasticity, deformation, these sort of internal stresses can defeat the efforts to use simple levers or pivots when dealing with objects of massive weight. All this effort into moving these blocks which still leaves modern scholars perplexed. And no one has tackled the feat of joinery of these blocks with such precision. Considering the technology level of its ancient builder, somewhere between the stone age and the bronze age, really has to be one of the most mysterious feats of ancient man.