Notes

Stoned, For All Eternity
A great deal has been written about and made much of in alternative archaeology books about how and why our technologically primitive ancestors could actually carve out, transport and erect massive multi-ton stone blocks into megalithic monuments of well, monumental size. The implication is that while there is no doubting the existence of the structures, our ancestors must of in fact possessed an advanced technology or had the help of those who did (i.e. - 'ancient astronauts'). That runs unlike the standard style of scholarly archaeology. However the questions remain.

Perhaps I'd better say why by massive multi-ton stone blocks. I mean stones that are at the very least several tons in weight, around the biggest known carved (but nonetheless in-situ and unused) stone block weighing in at roughly 1250 tons. That's not the record however for there's, apparently, a stele base in China that weighs about 16,250 tons. I mean these are stones that are not trivial to toss around, right now. And while not all major continents and countries have megalithic stone monuments, like THE UNITED STATES (USA & Canada) or Australia (including New Zealand) that still leaves lots of places, and popular places, that do.

How and why these megaliths were constructed is no trivial matter. For our ancestors to go to such lengths and expend such efforts, well these stone monuments were obviously essential to them, and it's really important to us to determine how and why they achieved it. Using large stone blocks instead of wood or even small stone blocks or bricks will need to have served a purpose regardless of the greater hardships involved. So, why did our ancient ancestors need large stones; and how did they handle them?

As to the why, presumably, to begin with, if you opt to use stone, then it is important enough a material serving a purpose(s) that necessitates lasting for all practical purposes an 'eternity'. If you build something to last, at least back then, you use stone, the larger the better. But also for what purpose did the ancients need such megalithic giants?

Issues Arising: Purpose

These ancient societies or cultures spent an awful lot of resources to create items that were relatively peripheral to their basic needs. The Easter Islanders could survive without those Moai statues; ancient Egypt would still have been a 'superpower' even without those pyramids, the Giza Sphinx, massive statues of some New Kingdom pharaohs (like Ramesses II - often called Ramesses the fantastic), stele and obelisks. The Parthenon in Athens was just a shrine to one of the Greek deities (Athena), and similar observations could possibly be extended to the a large number of other monumental megalithic temples and monuments around the globe which were mainly ceremonial in function.

It's difficult to figure out how Stonehenge contributed to the essential survival needs of the local population - you don't need to construct something of that magnitude just to tell you what season it really is! If you want to mark, say the summertime Solstice, all you need have is really a traditionally and permanently well marked and easily identified Point A, where you could observe some fixed structure like a rock coming, that's Point B, and when the Sun arises directly over Point B, that's the longest day of the entire year. There's no need to engage in any kind of backbreaking toil or construction whatever.

If a society are able to spend effort and time and money on secondary projects, say like in modern society various public art works in comparison to primary projects like roads (transport), schools (education) and hospitals (healthcare), then you need to conclude that that society was well off simply because they could divert basic resources from primary projects to undertake projects of a secondary nature. Either that, or whatever looks to us as relatively trivial or unimportant like Stonehenge or Carnac (Brittany, France) or those Easter Island statues or the Sphinx actually held a primary function incomprehensible to us but which rivalled in importance housing and insuring adequate food supplies and similar things vital to their day-to-day survival.

Issues Arising: Logistics

There's also the logistics problem. You need a large workforce that had to be fed and clothed and housed and looked after, especially fed. There wasn't exactly a nearby supermarket where endless supplies could be purchased. Further, while employed on these quarrying, transporting and construction projects the workers couldn't be gainfully employed elsewhere to supply basics like hunting and gathering for food or even tending to domesticated livestock and agricultural crops. The workers couldn't have already been used for serving in the army, or any useful and necessary task. All of this carving, transporting and construction were not just busy work made to keep the rabble off the streets and out of trouble, and slave labour wasn't usually in vogue either, contrary to many popular Hollywood images. Needless to say regarding the Giza Sphinx, it had been carved, but wasn't transported, nor constructed per say. Still, the logistics in caving that massive stone statue from a rock outcrop could have been enormous, and the reason why(s) for doing this of vast importance to the powers-that-be.

Issues Arising: Ways and Means: The How!

Though our focus and interest is often on the construction phase, as in how was that done, that's usually just one-third of the hard yards. Take those 2.3 million blocks that define the Great Pyramid at Giza. Phase One: each block had to be carved to size. You just didn't hack out rocks at random and put them set up. That carving alone is hard yakka and helped continue circumstances of full employment. Hard yakka Phase Two was transporting those carved blocks from the many quarries - some local, some not - to action city, the Giza Plateau. More full employment. The how in Phase One and Two isn't usually all that mysterious - just bloody hard backbreaking work. Anyway, back to the construction - Phase Three.

If you ask me the major mystery is not so much the way you get something from the horizontal to the vertical, like an obelisk, (that has been demonstrated on the NOVA TV series "Secrets of Lost Empires"), but the method that you get a massive multi-ton stone block raised straight up, say 20 to 30 to 40 or more feet to act as a lintel, like those at Stonehenge or on those Greco-Roman and Egyptian temples, like say the Parthenon. You can always conceive of creating sand or dirt ramps to haul massive lintels upwards into place, hence removing the sand or dirt after-the-fact, but if you think about it, such infrastructure is a far more labour intensive and an all-round major project in its right. For instance, constructing a sand ramp to haul those multi-ton stone blocks for the Giza pyramids would need a greater level of material to be placed into place (not to mention later removed) than that of the quantity of material required to build the pyramid in question in the first place. Needless to say if the project is that important, and if there is just no other way - well almost always there is those hard options.

To illustrate as an example of just how bad our understanding of our remote ancient ancestors is really, here is a trilogy of extracts from classical scholar Nigel Rodgers in his text "The ANCIENT GREEK LANGUAGE World: People and Places" (2010):

"[T]he Greeks relied on the intellectual powers and their remarkably skilled craftsmanship to erect their buildings. Few details survive of these actual building techniques, however."

"Cranes were almost certainly used to help improve the masonry up to the temples during construction, although no traces of such machinery have already been found."

"How the Athenians assembled these temples, and indeed housed and fed the large, highly skilled workforce necessary to build them, so efficiently is unknown."

So, now let's look at alternatives as offered in some alt-archaeological texts.

One theory sometimes observed in alt-archaeological tomes is these massive blocks didn't start out as massive blocks, as being a brick doesn't begin as a brick, but instead these were poured into place, in a mould, like concrete or cement. Sorry, but modern petrologists' could easily detect such. Often actually the quarry from where in fact the stone originated could be precisely identified, though that often raises the question then of transport, because the distances twixt quarry site and construction site can be a huge selection of miles. That's a concern that pertains to Stonehenge and also some of the stonework for the Giza pyramids.

If you actually want to go far-out, star-scout, let's try antigravity! Anti-gravity is only available in one form, dark energy. Dark energy is that mysterious antigravity force that's causing the expanding Universe to keep on expanding at ever faster and faster rates, in defiance of gravity which should slow the expansion rate down. Alas, dark energy, which while dominant on the scale of the entire Universe, is trivial locally in accordance with Earth's intense gravity field.

Alt-archaeology texts are filled with references to sound energy that levitates (negates gravity) and therefore massive blocks of stone could be floated around and placed into place despite having just the oomph of a child, just by making the correct sound at the appropriate level.. Sound of course can be focused. We all know and appreciate the science of acoustics in theatres. Sound can shatter objects, well at least relatively fragile objects like wine glasses when subjected to the professional projections of the trained human voice (or equivalent). However, in the event that you crunch the numbers, the power necessary to negate gravity is way beyond your realm of which sound energy can muster. Taking into consideration the cacophony of sounds the human race produces daily, you'd think that all the relevant elements would come together somewhere, sometime and 'just so' concerning produce levitation in something, levitation observed and photographed for the record. Alas, not so.

Jigsaw Puzzles

In some constructions, it isn't just a matter of manipulating massive but irregular stone blocks but fitting them together like a jigsaw puzzle, results which are immediately apparent at sites around the world, like those from the Incan Empire. Precision carving in stone only using other stone or copper tools isn't easy by any stretch of the imagination. It's not simple; it's extremely exhausting and time consuming work. Double that when all of your blocks aren't a standard square block decoration.

What Do Our Ancestors Say?

Pity that even though ancients left all manner of images behind of their daily lives and culture, I find it amazing that despite all of those multi-thousands of images from ancient Greece, Rome, Egypt, the Americas, etc. not just one shows a genuine half-finished or partly constructed monument, such as a pyramid, or perhaps a temple like the Parthenon that's under construction, or whatever. That's highly anomalous IMHO, though there are images of ancient Egyptians transporting massive stone blocks.

However, even some of those ancient cultures were puzzled concerning how their a lot more ancient ancestors achieved these megalithic 'missions impossible'.

There's something very odd when the natural descendents of 'primitive' natives resort to tales comparable to sci-fi or science-fantasy to account for how their ancestors constructed, transported and erected massive stone monoliths.

Easter Islanders say that their Moai statues walked by themselves from quarry with their final resting (actually standing) place. Who am I to argue with first hand or on-the-spot observations, except Thor Heyerdahl's "Aku-Aku" team accomplished exactly the same with less elegant but with pure grunt power. Walking stone statues are just a touch too far into the "Twilight Zone" for comfort. Actually for some reason Easter Islanders at some time downed their stone tools and abandoned their statue constructions for reasons not entirely clear other than priorities altered. The abandoned unfinished statues can still be seen today, lying set up, now long neglected.

Also in the Pacific region, Nan Modal is an ancient city of about 0.75 square kilometres off the coast of the island of Pohnpei in what's today termed Micronesia. The city is made up of artificial islands criss-crossed by canals, and therefore also known as the Venice of the Pacific. Those 'islands' however are built up of massive megalithic stone walls around 25 feet high. How so? Well the stones were continued site on the backs of dragons apparently. To be honest, that makes as much sense as other things.

I noted above that allegedly sound could levitate massive stone blocks. That theory or observation is found in both South America and ancient Egypt - massive stones are somehow lifted and transported by sound. Discover more here think that's highly suspect and I believe scientists would need an actual modern-day demonstration. I know I would.

Tentative Conclusions

As I noted above, it isn't the caving or the transport that is the real issue, nor going from the horizontal to the vertical that is clearly a real problem, rather the issue is lifting massive stones straight up that I especially puzzle over.

The puzzlement relates to our own usage of stones in building projects. We could I guess, if we wished to, build our buildings out of mega-ton blocks of stone. But we don't. Your home, if it includes building stones at all, are stones which are probably comparable to weights of just a few pounds, maybe a large number of pounds; hardly tons.

So do we have a major mystery here? Well yes, especially when compared to society as noted immediately above. Inside our modern high-tech age, when we do use stone as a construction material, it's in manageable bits and pieces. We don't build our homes or office buildings or ballparks or monuments out of multi-ton to multi-hundred ton stone blocks because the ancients did. However when duty called, like when Abu Simbel had to be relocated to a higher elevation when the Aswan High Dam was constructed giving rise to Lake Nasser and the flooding of the historical site, even using modern tools it was still a significant and massive effort.

A Possible Solution

Perhaps we can kill two anomalous birds with one hypothetical stone.

Universal One: Once we note, from the Americas (Mesoamerica and SOUTH USA at the very least); throughout Europe and the Near and Middle East, Egypt along with other parts of Africa, even unto Asia and the Pacific region, there are ancient megalithic constructions using stone blocks in the multi mega-ton range. How did the ancients carve, transport, raise and position such massive stone blocks?

Universal Two: Also around the globe, there is a universal theme of giants, from the Cyclopes in Greco-Roman cultures, to Biblical giants to - you name the culture and I'll guarantee they have giants as a core element in their mythologies. For samplers, here's just a partial list of giants. Well there's Angrboda (Norse), Argos (Greek), Balor (Irish), Biloko (Zaire), Bungisngis (Philippines), the Cyclopes (Greek), Geryon (Greek), the Gigantes (Greek), Goliath (Biblical), Grendel (Anglo-Saxon), the Hecatonchires (Greek), Hrungnir (Norse), Humbaba (Mesopotamia), the Nephilim (Biblical), Skrymir (Norse), Suttung (Norse), Talos (Greek), the Titans (Greek), and Ymir (Norse). Further, you have all manner of giant trolls and ogres (Scandinavian), various giant apemen like the Yeti and Bigfoot/Sasquatch and numerous others, in addition to the Giants of Cornwall (led by Gogmagog).

Well, what's 'mission: impossible' for a kid, is possible for a grown-up; what's 'mission: impossible' for adult humans may be possible for a huge(s). A giant twice as large as a typical human could have eight times the muscle power, since muscles are 3-D, doubling long, width and height; and thusly 2 x 2 x 2 = 8.

What Do Our Ancestors Say Revisited?

Ancient Greeks often attributed various massive stone constructions to the Cyclopes, for example. Such massive structures are termed the Cyclopean walls because the Cyclopes and only the Cyclopes could have built these structures. Perseus had them in charge of building the walls of Mycenae, including the Lion Gate; Proitos attributed them building the walls of Tiryns. The medieval Danish historian Saxo Grammaticus cited the Roman ruins as evidence that giants must once have walked the Earth. And who built the Giant's Causeway on the Northern Irish Coast?

Is this too much out? I'm available to other suggestions, but at least it generally does not require high-tech alien assistance, until those worldwide mythological giants, just like the Cyclopes, were aliens!

Appendix: A few notable megalithic monuments.

1) Some unfinished in-situ megaliths.

*Baalbek (Lebanon) has two unfinished stones weighing in at 1000 to 1250 tons apiece.

*There's an unfinished Egyptian obelisk at Assuan that's all up comes to roughly 1100 tons.

2) Some finished and transported megaliths.

Europe

*Stonehenge: some stones are around 40 tons.

*The Avebury stone circle, England, has as its largest stone one over 40 tons.

*The famous fortress of Mycenae, Greece has stones close to 100 tons in weight.

*The Parthenon in Athens, Greece has a few of its largest stones weighing in at 10 tons.

Pacific Region

*Those Easter Island (Rapa Nui to the locals) Moai can weigh up to 70, even one up to 86 tons.

Ancient Egypt

*The Colossi of Memnon are two Egyptian statues of Pharaoh Amenhotep III coming in at 700 tons each.

*Ramesses II (Ramesses the Great) had not been shy about erecting statues to honour himself. One of is own numerous a large number of monumental statues commissioned to image self (at Luxor) - 100 tons worth of stone. But that's featherweight class.

*Ramesses II was only just getting warmed up. There's a statue at Thebes, Egypt, area of the Ramessum, the mortuary temple of the pharaoh involved, of 1000 tons. Now that's heavyweight status.

*Egyptian obelisks weren't minuscule. There's one at 227 tons (Luxor); one at 328 tons (Karnak).

*Great Pyramid at Giza, Egypt is well known as overkill with regards to constructing a tomb. Though the average weight of each stone block is 'only' 2.5 tons, the largest slabs comprising the burial chamber, can be found in at 80 tons.

*Apart from the fantastic Pyramid, other Egyptian pyramids, actually most, if not all the, Egyptian pyramids have some monolithic blocks of over 20 tons, including monolithic roof slabs, plugs and burial vaults, a few of which weigh in at over 100 tons.

South and Central America


*Those popular but mysterious Olmec heads in Mesoamerica aren't trivial works when carved right down to some 50 tons all up.

*The Inca city of Machu Picchu, Peru has large stones part and parcel of its construction weighing in from 20 to 50 tons apeice.

*There's an extremely famous Aztec calendar stone at Tenochtitlan, Mexico that weighs considerably more than the wall calendar you hang up in the home. Weight, 24 tons.

*Palenque, Mexico is really a famous Mayan site, especially thanks to Erich Von Daniken. The biggest stones on site weigh 12 to 15 tons.

Further suggested readings

Childress, David Hatcher; Technology of the Gods: The Incredible Sciences of the Ancients; Adventures Unlimited Press, Kempton, Illinois; 2000:

De Camp, L. Sprague; The Ancient Engineers; Ballantine Books, New York; 1974:

De Camp, L. Sprague & De Camp; Catherine C; Citadels of Mystery; Fontana/Collins, London; 1972:

Hancock, Graham; Fingerprints of the Gods: A Quest for the Beginning and the End; Mandarin, London; 1996:

Hancock, Graham & Faiia, Santha; Heaven's Mirror: Quest for the Lost Civilization; Penguin Books, London; 1999:

National Geographic Society; Mysteries of Mankind: Earth's Unexplained Landmarks; National Geographic Society, Washington, D.C.; 1992:

National Geographic Society; Mysteries of the Ancient World; National Geographic Society, Washington, D.C.; 1979:

Von Daniken, Erich; Chariots of the Gods?; Souvenir Press, London; 1969:

Von Daniken, Erich; Gods from Outer Space; Souvenir Press, London; 1970:

Further viewings:

NOVA; Secrets of Lost Empires; PBS/WGBH, Boston; 2006:

NOVA; Secrets of Lost Empires II; PBS/WGBH, Boston; 2008:

There's also been dozens of books/videos written/produced specifically concerning the archaeological mysteries of Stonehenge, ancient Egyptian monuments like the pyramids, Easter Island, the ruins of Mesoamerica and SOUTH USA, etc. Consult your local library.

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