HC's Ancient Aliens last episode "The Mystery of Puma Punku" DEVASTATED the show haters.

Originally posted by bottleslingguy
ice can split rocks so what?

Ice? Who said anything about ice?

seriously, I get it, I know rocks can be split in various ways.

I was only pointing that that method does not exploit a natural crack in the rock, as you said.

That doesn't explain something like the one in Baalbek where it is still attached at the base something like five meters down in a trench that is less than three feet wide on both sides. Or the dovetail joints and inset precision cuts repeated symmetrically over and over at PP.

No, it does not, and nobody was saying that it does.

You guys aren't gaining nearly as much traction as you think and even stupid wikipedia says nobody really knows how they did half this stuff

Nobody really knows, but that doesn't mean that it was impossible.

Someone's ignorance about the way some thing is done doesn't mean that that thing cannot be done.

PS: I never tried to cut stone with stone, but I have used stones to polish the marble coping on my balcony's parapets. It's easy.

Originally posted by bottleslingguy

that's exploiting a natural crack and basically comparing apples to atom smashers

MY bad on that for it was from MP and not PP. But no...it is not exploiting a natural crack.... it's just like scratching a piece of glass to cut it right where it is scratched. Been done that way for 1000s of years and still done today...

BTW we still haven't ruled out sawing since the rock there has a hardness of 6.... Sawing is another tool that has been used once again for 1000s of years...

I enjoyed the premiss of this show, however it seems to me that the history channel executive have invented a packaging technique to frame all manner of otherwise boring historical topics. I feel that by wrapping up history in "what if were ancient aliens" is counter productive and muddies the water tremendously.

The one aspect of this series that I find fascinating is the stone working. I do believe that certain masonry techniques have been lost, but in researching this, would not wax lyrical on only one hypothesis over and over.

reply to post by ArMaP


when the guy in the video is using the jackhammer he is opening up a hole in a natural crack in which to put the steel wedges that's why the rock splits into several pieces.

have you ever used a jackhammer or a hardened steel wedge/sledgehammer? You guys are living in a fantasy world.

reply to post by Xtrozero


ok fine you're right that's how it was done. thanks for the contribution

Originally posted by bottleslingguy
when the guy in the video is using the jackhammer he is opening up a hole in a natural crack in which to put the steel wedges that's why the rock splits into several pieces.

The whole idea is to create an artificial crack, there's no need of a natural crack to use this method.

have you ever used a jackhammer or a hardened steel wedge/sledgehammer?

Yes, why?

You guys are living in a fantasy world.

No fantasy here.
The was stones break depends on the type of stone, a soft stone like limestone is easy to break, even without making the holes, as you can see on the videos below.




The Romans used the same method to split marble, I saw once a stone from which several slabs were cut.

Granite is a harder type of stone than limestone or marble, but it has the same type of structure, small (although much bigger than limestone or marble) crystals, so it can break in any direction (when using a homogeneous stone). When we change its homogeneity by making holes in a line and making those holes going deeper inside the stone, we are creating a path for the stone to break.

Originally posted by bottleslingguy
reply to post by Xtrozero

 

ok fine you're right that's how it was done. thanks for the contribution

The reason why I said we have it that way for 1000s of years is because we have 1000s of years of physical proof.

Looking at PP, I know this picture is used a lot, but it does show splitting using spikes, and cutting a small grove to create the spot where they wanted the rock to split.




They also had metal since we took samples of the lock points in many corners of the rocks.

The evidence from Tiwanaku culture expansion sites for the given period it has to be said are entirely unconvincing that those inhabiting Tiwanaku had the capacity to construct in the manner of Puma Punku.


For example,

Between AD 600 and AD1000, Tiwanaku settlers colonized the Moquegua Valley in southern Peru. The Tiwanaku colonists settled primarily at four large site groups in Moquegua. I have directed survey and excavation projects at the three largest of these: Omo, Chen Chen, and Rio Muerto.

These within-site studies support the Tiwanaku affiliation of these diasporic enclaves. Excavations of domestic contexts at Omo, Chen Chen, and Rio Muerto found Tiwanaku colonial homes built of organic materials, utilizing either a tent-like skeletal structure of thin posts or "quincha" structures with wattle and daub walls built of river cane

Tiwanaku Sites of the Moquegua Valley


So the colonial masters from mighty Tiwanaku chose to live in mud huts.


The satellite sites of Tiwanaku expansion seem fairly rudimentary with adobe brick constructions of the sunken court architecture as their focus, an exception being that of the Omo Temple which has a single layer of perfectly cut multi faceted ashlars on it's upper layer, which possibily were salvaged from elsewhere or all that remained of a previous structure, the rest of the wall above and overall structure completed in mud brick,.














This is not good, rather like Greek or Roman colonists only managing to produce one decent building course on their provincial Temple with the governer living close by in a mud hut...hmmm...but anyway those images are from this highly informative paper on the greater Tiwanaku culture such as it was, or wasn't.



Tiwanaku Temples and Expansion



It's rather like that basic scientific principle, repeatability, if they could build Puma Punku why construct the supposed subsequent and imitative outlying temple sites of mud and straw...?

reply to post by ArMaP

the guy in that video was exploiting an existing crack just sayin and your other videos aren't even close to describing what we see at PP. there are many different ways to do all kinds of stuff to rocks, we get that. So far nothing anybody has presented so far even comes close to describing the entirety of the subject.

reply to post by Ixtab


I agree with you the show is extremely annoying even to those that accept part of the things they say as valid, because they put all paranormal and mysteries into the general alien bag. It is all aliens in the program, to a point that is becomes a farce...

The major issue I have is that they fail to keep it at balanced, speculation is fun but it should be made distinct that speculation is not scientific theory...

Heck the Apolo program was done by aliens since we can not replicate the technology today

Originally posted by Xtrozero

Originally posted by bottleslingguy
reply to post by Xtrozero

 

ok fine you're right that's how it was done. thanks for the contribution

The reason why I said we have it that way for 1000s of years is because we have 1000s of years of physical proof.

Looking at PP, I know this picture is used a lot, but it does show splitting using spikes, and cutting a small grove to create the spot where they wanted the rock to split.

They also had metal since we took samples of the lock points in many corners of the rocks.

edit on 1-4-2012 by Xtrozero because: (no reason given)

are those stones at the quarry? how deep are the holes? how the hell did they make a drill bit that small out of antler? I mean what the hell, they're gonna stick toothpicks in them and then soak them in water? Well I guess up there they'd be able to freeze them, so ok maybe... as long as that antler drill is sharp and deep I'll go along with the ice idea. So now that they've split all those dovetail joints with this icy toothpick method they now have surfaces covered with ridges and they have to soften them with tea leaves before they can bash them flat with round stones and then polish the surfaces with finer and finer grits of quartz sandpaper which would take like a thousand years by hand so that would give them just enough time to erect it just before the Spanish came and knocked it down with horses and pulleys. thanks that's a great piece of evidence to support rock splitting at PP.

reply to post by Kantzveldt

they lost their determination and ingenuity... oh and the technology went along with the gods

Originally posted by Kantzveldt
It's rather like that basic scientific principle, repeatability, if they could build Puma Punku why construct the supposed subsequent and imitative outlying temple sites of mud and straw...?

I'm not going to assume that local villagers also build PP, and I'm not going to assume they needed aliens or some hidden advance race of man either. I do assume that man had the capabilities to build as man has shown for 1000s of years though, but I do think it is a great mystery on which culture around there actually built it.

It does look like there was a decline in knowledge after PP was built, we also know that the population was about 400k and it is a popular theory there was a massive and long term drought that basically devastated the culture...maybe that is why they lost their knowledge...but who knows...

Originally posted by bottleslingguy

are those stones at the quarry? how deep are the holes? how the hell did they make a drill bit that small out of antler? I mean what the hell, they're gonna stick toothpicks in them and then soak them in water?

All you do is question, and never answer or try and answer your own question. You have Google right? lol

They can put metal spikes like in this picture and then just tap them until the rock breaks nicely along their grove...lol look it up for once, it's like you have no internet but ATS.




Then the stone splits right where they want it to split...





Here is some stone cuts from Egypt 1000 plus years older than PP...not bad huh?




Here is a drill from Egypt that is also much older than PP. The Egyptians did amazing drill work, so why could they not do the same at PP?



One of the biggest lies put forth by the AA community is the stone at PP is so hard they would have needed diamonds to cut or drill it. You see they needed to say this to support their crazy theory since there is a crap load of cutting, drilling, splitting, building examples all over the world at sites much older than PP. So back to the basic question is if they could do this all over the world then why not at PP too, hence the stone needs diamonds to cut... and in comes the aliens to cut it for them....

But....with just a little hunt, we find the stone there is actually 6 to 6.5 on the Mohs scale which opens up a huge list of material that can cut, drill or whatever to the stones there.

The bottom line, and what is quite simple, is if you can find a harder material then you can cut or drill...peroid.

Originally posted by bottleslingguy
the guy in that video was exploiting an existing crack just sayin

Oh, you were talking about just that video. OK.

and your other videos aren't even close to describing what we see at PP.

Off course not, the videos show how they could have cut the main blocks, not how they could have done the whole work.
The stone blocks used by Michaelangelo were probably cut by the same method, but the videos do not show how he made his statues.

So far nothing anybody has presented so far even comes close to describing the entirety of the subject.

True.
Too bad I don't have enough free time and some blocks of stone, working with stone (and metal) is something I like, although I have only cut some marble slabs and a boulder, both with a hammer.

Now, a question, if you don't mind: do you think that the fact that nobody presented a convincing way of working the stone as we see in Puma Punku mean that they needed some kind of extraterrestrial help to do it?

Originally posted by bottleslingguy
So now that they've split all those dovetail joints with this icy toothpick method they now have surfaces covered with ridges and they have to soften them with tea leaves before they can bash them flat with round stones and then polish the surfaces with finer and finer grits of quartz sandpaper which would take like a thousand years by hand so that would give them just enough time to erect it just before the Spanish came and knocked it down with horses and pulleys. thanks that's a great piece of evidence to support rock splitting at PP.

No need for tea leaves (nobody said they used tea leaves) to soften the rock so they could remove the ridges, that kind of work has been done since the stone age.
Polishing the surfaces is easy, it can be done with the same type of stone (both the piece being worked on and the one used as a tool will become polished, as they have the same hardness and structure) or with quartz or a whetstone (I use both to polish the marble coping of my balcony's parapet).

What remains to be explained, to me, is how they made those square "pits" in the middle of the stones, because even if they used some kind of drill to make those small holes that would help break the stone, that method works when we can move the two halves in opposite directions, but when doing that in the centre of a stone we cannot make the rock break only in the centre without breaking the whole stone.

Originally posted by Xtrozero

Originally posted by bottleslingguy

are those stones at the quarry? how deep are the holes? how the hell did they make a drill bit that small out of antler? I mean what the hell, they're gonna stick toothpicks in them and then soak them in water?

All you do is question, and never answer or try and answer your own question. You have Google right? lol

People have been losing touch with reality lately. They are underestimating our ancient past and their methods.

Understand that very little is 'known' about our past. To assume that it was outerspace alienoid creatures rather than intelligent man only 6-15000 b.c ago perfecting their ways of stone masonry is quite insane but understandable.

Originally posted by Shadow Herder


People have been losing touch with reality lately. They are underestimating our ancient past and their methods.

Understand that very little is 'known' about our past. To assume that it was outerspace alienoid creatures rather than intelligent man only 6-15000 b.c ago perfecting their ways of stone masonry is quite insane but understandable.

I agree, and I do understand that there are more questions than answers when dealing with our past. I think a big part of it was we were almost wiped out around the middle of the ice age. It was estimated (by how close our DNA is to each other) that there was as little as 10,000 humans left on the planet.

Going back to figure out how we evolved is not easy either. I also read that all the skeletal evidence of man that we have past like 50k to 100k in years would all fit in the back of a pickup truck.

So yes there are many questions to be asked and answered, but what surprises me is the AA crowd has so many questions for everyone else, and not a single question for themselves to answer when they have zero, and I mean ZERO, evidence of any of it.

Originally posted by ArMaP

What remains to be explained, to me, is how they made those square "pits" in the middle of the stones, because even if they used some kind of drill to make those small holes that would help break the stone, that method works when we can move the two halves in opposite directions, but when doing that in the centre of a stone we cannot make the rock break only in the centre without breaking the whole stone.

I will in the next few years go to PP, and if anything, all these posts (even the AA posts) has forced me to study this part of our past more and more. When I get there I will be very interested in going to the actual quarries and study the raw rocks there. I would also be very interested in extreme close up pictures of the bore holes and groves. Also I am very interested in the actual makeup of the rock and extremely interested in the makeup of the "square" styles you talk about. Honestly to me from the crappy pictures we have they look almost like a cement type mixture and not the normal raw rock used.

reply to post by thesearchfortruth


I think you really hit it on the head. In that ancient peoples could have and for my money did utterly amazing things and that knowledge was lost seems just given world wide evidence. The Puma Punku site is amazing for no other reason its so high up above sea level ! I can't recall exactly but I " think" I heard it was something like 16,000 feet altitude above sea level? Anyone who has other facts as to how high the place is, I will stand corrected.

At that altitude your way above the tree line and that makes for the little problem of not having access to wood as a basic resource. Yeah, they could have "imported" it from lower altitudes but gosh, we think it costs bocu bucks just to get a rocket payload into orbit? Well it does but this would represent a similar cost/value ratio for each chuck of wood, and on the surface doesn't look very practical.

That leads me to think that if they did or did not import wood, or much else, they had political, social, theological (often wrapped up in one messy bundle) and yes even scientific motivations that were so important to a society that money or its equivalent was no object. Not the primary concern anyway. Our more current societies prove this in spades.

Perhaps in the future a paleological-historical sociologist will be so puzzled as to why we spent the $$ we did on weapons, that they would have known by having access to our conversations of this era WE KNEW and were well aware so many of them, like nukes we could never rationally use. If our voices, literature and colloquial point-of-view survives. If. Remember, all the long dead civilizations all had the same myopic illusion. They thought they were immortal, as do we. If we learn nothing from the lost cultures of antiquity, its s*** happens.

Its just a feeling but I think in the future the concepts of nuclear deterrents when removed from the socio-political moments they were born into and survived will be as puzzling to them as so many ancient customs strike us as unfathomable, insane, or just disgusting. How about the Moab heads of Easter Island? They appear to have made them to the exclusion of everything else. They appeared to starve, eating each other is often a clue when not also a ritual, that they couldn't call for take out. In time, to late the futility hit them and they damaged and left several unfinished. Curious. And we in this epoch are also very likely to be viewed with as much puzzlement. I am certain of that.

Cannibalism has often been as vulgar to others as to us. Hence its often wrapped-up in some so called sacred rite. Maybe makes you feel less guilty, or takes the execution of the act off your shoulders, and you now can feel "less responsible" if its a religiously connected act (excuse) for eating your sister.

While I don't dismiss or discount the possible ancient astronaut theories, I am much more confident we had many now long vanished cultures right here that have had their treasures lost to us. But I also feel we easily underestimate what we could have done as a species long ago. To illustrate, when the great Christian (all Catholic back then) cathedrals were built from roughly 1100ad on, we know how, at least we have detail accounting records who paid who for what, etc. Though many of the early guilds were involved they began more as a father-to-son or extended family apprentice relationship.

That was the "conspiracy" called co-operative behavior. And to keep certain skills, etc in the family and later an association of like minded people defined by skills and monetary interests, well that was logical because what THEY could do was worth a lot of money, which begets power, so the "secrets" were what we today call a job skill set. Not so diabolical when seen in that light and was guarded as trade secrets are today. Its all about the money, always was and is.

My point is they lifted and carved massive stones, did amazing work with simple and ingenious tools. We have the records of this. The church was if nothing anal record book keepers. The fact such detail records on the pyramids or most ancient sites are lost does not mean they must have been some alien school science project. Perhaps, but more likely us.

If some group would have prevented the anti-technologicalists and anti-philososophers, from just stopping one act of cultural murder that allowed to go up in smoke the greatest library of the ancient Earth, in Alexandria, I have no way to verbalize such a loss to all who came later. One of my definitions of "barbarian" is one who fears and instills hate in others about things they don't understand, and don't want to.

The late Carl Sagan said we will never know if the ancient world, the west in particular did not descend into being cringing frightened infants for 800 or so years, by now we could very likely have starships and much more.