Puma Punku & Ancient Aliens
I was watching Discovery Channel tonight and saw a piece about Puma Punku.
How did they carve those stones? Ancient aliens? Other theories.
I don't at all believe those ancient races did that kind of carving with stone age tools.
Discuss.
Original Post by cherry_lips:
Are you suggesting that this ancient technology somehow modified the rocks to resist dulling over time? That's the only way that the fact that the rocks are still sharp is relevant. I'm guessing that it would be pretty quickly discovered also. You can create sharp edges by sanding/grinding. It's exactly how knives are sharpened.
As for fitting together, it's not like they're fitting together complex curves and joints. They look to be pretty simple, flat edges/angles.
I'm saying you can't hand sand multi-ton stones with different workers over dozens of years and then get them to fit together with precision in the thousands of an inch.
I'm also saying you can't hand sand a multi-ton stone to a point where an edge is sharp after a couple thousand years.
Original Post by dnrothx:
Original Post by moonikins:The only 2 real possibilities for creating these megaliths are aliens or superior technology to what we have today that has been lost.
You watch more X-Files than I do.
I probably did. I love that kind of stuff. I love the mystery of these megaliths. I find it absolutely fascinating.
Here's on for you. Sanding with the right grade can polish rock (especially granite) which would actually make it resist degradation and fit better.
I know that, now go do that on a multi-ton piece of granite using thousands of workers over dozens of years and see how flat and precise each piece is.
Each one of those ancient pieces is perfectly level. Perfectly straight.
I prefer to think of these monoliths as technologies lost, far more interesting to me than space aliens descending upon earth to give us the ability to make big perfect rock structures.
You would think a visiting alien would have more intriguing things than masonry skills to impart.
Original Post by dnrothx:
Original Post by randomv3:
Original Post by bagga:
Do you know how old Puma Punku is?
I highly doubt any concrete dam (or remnants of such) left abandoned would last a fraction of that.
I agree, running water is a very fast erosional mechanism. Think about the grand canyon. If parts of the dam are in the way, the water will take care of it quite quickly.
I'm thinking of how long it has taken the Grand Canyon to be carved.
I think your sense of "quickly" is different than most people's. :D
That's what comes with being a geoscientist.
It really can be quite fast though, even on a finer time scale. The New Madrid seismic zone caused large faulting in the early 1800s and created 2-3 meter waterfalls in the Mississippi River that then eroded away in a matter of MONTHS.
The grand canyon is almost 300 miles long, a mile deep and more than 5 miles across in most places. How long it has been eroding is somewhat controversial, so I guess it wasn't a good example. That is still a lot of material to move in 5-15 million years though.
The Egyptians moved two 700+ ton rocks more than 400 miles overland, 2000 years before Pumapunku was built, and then carved them into the Colossi of Memnon.
Many, many examples exist of ancient structures built from 50+-ton stones that were quarried far away from the final structure, transported long distances, and carved into square blocks with straight edges.
Not only was it possible, it was relatively common.
Original Post by rjfetter:
The Egyptians moved two 700+ ton rocks more than 400 miles overland, 2000 years before Pumapunku was built, and then carved them into the Colossi of Memnon.
Many, many examples exist of ancient structures built from 50+-ton stones that were quarried far away from the final structure, transported long distances, and carved into square blocks with straight edges.
Not only was it possible, it was relatively common.
Experts say the transport could be done with rope and inclined planes.
