How did ancient peoples know "so much"?

[altonhare]

Find a straight stick and ram it into the ground in a relatively flat area (one with a clear view of the horizon).

I thought there weren't any straight lines in nature...

I've never made this assertion, you're confusing me with JL. Check your sources again.

In any event, this debate is irrelevant to the incident argument. The incident argument is that an ancient people could have learned a great deal, including the length of the Great Year, by using essentially zero technology and no math beyond algebra and geometry. Depending on where you draw the line between alg/geom and trig you might say they needed some trig too.

how do they get their neck diameter/ radius, sounds yucky

give them enough rope theory and they'll hang themselves

Like this:

Take a stick, put it next to your neck, and break it off so that its ends are flush with the sides of your neck. Put that piece of stick on a string and mark the ends on the string. Wrap the string around your neck and mark where the end of the string meets itself again. You'll find this is a little more than three times as long as the first mark on the string. Do this carefully enough and you can get pi to a few digits.

You can do even better if you tie a string to a stick, ram the stick into the ground, and trace a path on the ground with the end of the string. Then take a stick and place it within the circle you traced as if you were inscribing a polygon. Count how many sides (sticks) it takes to inscribe a polygon within this circle. Break the stick in half and do it again. Break it in half and do it again etc. You'll find that it takes ~22 sticks to inscribe a good polygon. Now take your little broken stick and lay it across the circle you traced, counting how many sticks it takes. You'll find that it takes about 7. This yields the well known ratio 22/7, which is more than accurate enough for routine calculations.

[bboyer]

Hi Arc,
I've come across the concrete theory before and find it intriguing. I wouldn't put it past the Egyptians. It doesn't address the granite issue though. Which brings us to cymatics. Cymatics or something similar would be my guess for the heavy blocks.
One can stick 'em on sleighs and tug away at ropes but at the end of the day the block has to be raised and fitted into postion. Once the block is approximately in position, one can only get so many bodies around it to get it into its final position.
One also wonders how one fares with sleighs and ropes in the Andes, across soggy British countryside or through Central American jungle.

Yeah. Apparently requests were made to allow access and analysis of the granite beams or other granite blocks and permission was denied by Antiquities. I certainly understand the need to protect such structures from what undoubtedly are the many demands for ... unusual ... access requests and whatnot but I have to question the motives in some of the cases I've heard about over the years.

Seems like I recall reading about gorgeous and perfectly formed cast granite and diorite vases and ornamentals etc. Kind of frustrating when it seems simple microscopic-level analysis such as done with the limestone samples that they were allowed access to could pretty much close the lid on the issue.

....
4. Davidovits and Morris have not proved that the huge granite blocks in the King's Chamber of the Great Pyramid are fabricated rock. They have not so far been allowed to analyse this material or other examples of Old Kingdom granite, so their research in this area is still in progress, although they do present evidence for several other types of fabricated ancient stone artifacts. However, unless this element can be addressed, there is still the need for elaborate lifting apparatus in terms of ramp or hoists - unless, of course, we bring the sonic levitation theory back into play.
....

http://www.ianlawton.com/pc5.htm

The simpler (simpler-sounding to me anyways) casting hypothesis is just more appealing to me than the more exotic proposals. IF the granite could be shown to be cast geopolymer as well then there's a lot less requirement of lifting and pulling when beams and blocks can be cast in situ. The technology was apparently known to the Sumerians as well, though their methodology is reported to have required heat treatment for the agglomeration whereas the Egyptian method did not.

[junglelord]

There are no straight lines in nature.
That is a fact.
Good to know, good to know.
Alton suggested that Fuller Synergetics, being Spheres, destroyed any hope of Platonic Solids which he assumed could only be derived via straight lines in his smug know it all way. And he calls me the pope? Pope on a Rope is more like his title.


Little did he know that Fuller showed how with Vibration and Harmonic Resonance that Spheres vibrated Platonic Solids as curved lines on a sphere....there are no straight in lines in nature. Charge geometry is well known from Coloumbs Constant. It is a Sphere or a Toroid. Magnetic Fields are a dual vortex, Meyl says the electron is dual vortex, Thomson says its a Sphere surrounded by a Torous. So where are the so called straight lines? Seems to me Alton called me the Wizard of Oz as well. I do love gold....come on down the yellow brick road, no straight lines all the way to Oz.


I have seen no straight lines when investigating Charge or Magnetic Fields. Since all matter is actually non material charge, well I fail to see the Newtonian Logic that is your guide and your blinders to Quantum Physics. Of course Newtonian theoretical limits mean nothing to Quantum Physics. As a chemical engineer, you should know that.

Ancient people did know that. They understood aether and the nature of spin and sacred geometry. A hell of alot smarter then the average joe today thinks he is. Mayan's new the spin domains by spin ratios that are present for all to see in the garden that surrounds you, Fibonacci, knew it well. Welcome to PHI< Pi, e.

[Grey Cloud]

Hi Nick,
Just for the record, I am not denying that the Egyptians or ancients generally knew about ropes, pulleys, blocks and tackle etc.
A few points regarding the description by the academic.
Firstly, and this is a typical academic trick, it doesn't actually give any evidence for the hauling of this statue the whole way from quarry to final resting place. Instead it provides several 'facts' such that the reader joins his own dots. There is nothing in that text which
proves that the Egyptians used this method all the way from the quarry. I'm not saying they didn't, I'm just saying the academic doesn't prove it.
The author states:

That the ancient Egyptians were well acquainted with practical mechanics, is evident from the vast masses of stone which they managed to transport to distances of hundreds of miles from quarries. Thus the obelisks of Thebes and Heliopolis, measuring from 70 to 93 feet long,
were dragged the whole way from Aswan on sledges by forced labour, in the manner shown in the illustration. The largest of these which stands at Karnak, weighs 300 tons, and traversed a distance of 138 miles; [...]

The text following the [...] mentions a distance of 800 miles! See my comments in the above post about various landscapes.
Accepting the author is correct about moving obelisks and statues which would be relatively easy regardless of the size. What about the huge number of stones involved in the three main pyramids? I know there are about 2.5 million stones/bricks in the Great Pyramid alone. I accept that they are not all huge blocks but they are not house-brick size either.
The illustration gives no clue as to whether they are dragging this thing across the country-side or whether they are just manoeuvring the thing into its final resting place. The Assyrian stautue a couple of pages further on looks as if it is moving through a town or city.
The author mentions tracks but gives no explanation of how these tracks were constructed or of what they were constructed. It would have to be something good for a bucket of grease to work on a statue of that size and weight. Maybe it was magic grease?

I have no problem with the Egyptians using steel implements. It is the experts who have the problems.
The text you highlighted 'Experts conclude that it was left in the joint during the building of the pyramid and couldn't have been inserted afterwards', when subjected to Grey Cloud's Iron Law (Always assume the opposite to what an expert states) proves that the piece of iron WAS inserted afterwards.

I agree with you about the anomolies. These are what I want the experts to explain.

[junglelord]

So called Egyptologist experts no nothing of why the ancients did what they did.
I do, Sacred Geometry.

[nick c]

Hello GC,

There is nothing in that text which
proves that the Egyptians used this method all the way from the quarry. I'm not saying they didn't, I'm just saying the academic doesn't prove it.

That is true, and I don't think that they did haul it in that manner for extreme distances if water was available for transport. Most likely, barges were used. The quarried stone or statue, hauled to the Nile, put on a barge and sailed close to and then dragged to the site. The point is that the Egyptians (and Assyrians) left us with pictures of how they moved such large objects. Opinions aside, the picture speaks for itself.
Well that being said, take a look at the "[url2=http://www.goldenageproject.org.uk/474.html]Unfinished Obelisk[/url2]" at the Aswan quarries weighing in at from 1170 to 1250 tons. No concrete, at least in this case, as it is in situ at the quarry.

nick c

[junglelord]

Here is an interesting blog I read on what the ancients may have known.
The knowledge of precession is more then local observation, it is about universal harmonics.

Tuesday, October 7, 2008
2012, and the Mayan Calendar
Greetings.

I trust that Life finds you Well.


Lol, I seem to have found myself speaking with many friends and acquaintances concerning 2012 and the Mayan Prophecies during recent months.

It sure seems to be an area which is causing a great deal of interest in the world at this time!
I shall share for you here an excerpt of my reply to my friend, from the aforementioned conversation:

I hope that it assists you in some way with your questions.

If it is part of your path (which you chose before agreeing to come into this lifetime), these words will find 'resonance' with you. If not, you can just dismiss them as the senile ramblings of a strange old man, and forget all about it.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Ok, 2012.
Or, more accurately, 13.0.0.0.0 (Mayan Long-Count Notation).

The End...and The Beginning.

Firstly, let's talk about "Time".

The "Gregorian" method of tracking, is not only wildly inaccurate,
it is a complete fabrication!

I want to speak with you, about Natural Time.

As I'm sure you're aware, the true nature of time, is not linear....
but cyclical.

The Universe revolves around Cyclical "Time"
and at present, we are nearing the End of a 26,000 year Cosmic-Life-Cycle.

When this Life-Cycle Ends,
"All things will pass away....
and All things will be made new".

This grand cycle of evolution will culminate, with winter solstice, December 21, 2012 AD.

And, we're only seven years away, at the time of writing (2005).

This time we are now in has been called "The Time of Trials" "Judgment Day," "The Time of Great Purification,"....
"The End of this Creation," "The Quickening," "The End of Time as We Know It," "The Shift of the Ages," and "The Great Tribulation", amongst other things.

It is foretold that the completion of the Precession, brings the Regeneration of Earth, offering Awakening to all open, willing hearts.

Many peoples spoke of these last days of the Great Cycle, including the Maya, Hopi, Egyptians, Kabbalists, Essenes, Qero elders of Peru, Aborigines, and the Navajo, Cherokee, and Apache Native Tribes.

All of these Ancient and Insightful Civilizations, most of whom enjoyed contact with their Brothers and Sisters "Off World", are not "wrong" in their understanding.
It is the Gregorian method, which is "Wrong". Not to mention extremely misleading to humanity!

The Maya use an astrological cycle we call the "Precession of the equinoxes".
This is a 26,000 year cycle in which Earth transits through each of the 12 signs of the zodiac for about 2,152 years each.
Each of these astrological ages represents one month of the grand, Cosmic Year.
The Mayans, Egyptians, Tibetans, Sumerians, Cherokees, and Hopi, All refer to this same 26,000 year cycle in their belief systems and each have developed calendars based on this great cycle.

Lol, yet, the cycle widens.

This "Mayan" cycle also corresponds to a 26,000 year relationship of the Sun orbiting Alcyone, the central star of our 7 Sisters Pleiades constellation.

The Mayans hold, that the End of this Cycle, heralds literally, a New World Age, and a New Creation.
Collectively, Humanity right now, is growing, and developing, into the Beings we have long been encoded to be.
As with any labor, it is not the mother, or the baby, who is in charge...
it is the Primal process of Birth itself unfolding it's own destiny.

So, December 21, 2012 AD.....
is not the day where all of the sudden the lights go out, and everything will suddenly change.....
rather, we are NOW in the process of this transition......
from one World Age to the next.
The changes are underway and will continue steadily accelerating as we head towards the culminating date.

The 26,000 year cycle is composed of 5 lesser cycles.....
each of which are 5,125 years in duration.
Each of these 5 cycles is considered its own World Age or Creation Cycle.

Our present great cycle (3113 B.C. - 2012 A.D.)
is called the Age of the Fifth Sun.

This fifth age is the synthesis of the previous four.
It is known as "Caban" in the Mayan language and "Ollin" in Aztec, and it has has several meanings.....
including: movement, shift, evolution, earthquake, navigation, synchronicity, clue tracking, and turtle (see Mayan Calendar for reference).
In the Mayan language, the word "ol" of ollin means consciousness.

The initial date that Earth entered the Fifth World, was August 13, 3113 BC, written in Mayan long count notation as 13.0.0.0.0.

To help you understand this Notation:

13=Baktuns, 0=Katuns, the 2nd 0=Tuns, 3rd 0=Uinals, 4th 0=Kin


These are the Mayan words for periods of time:

Day = Kin (pronounced: keen)
Month of 20 days/Kin = Uinal (wee nal)
Year of 360 days/Kin = Tun (toon)
20 Tuns/years = K'atun (k'ah toon)
20 K'atuns = Baktun (bock toon)
a Baktun is 5,125 years

The Mayan Calendar has Five days at the end of the 360 day year, known as "Five Days Out of Time". Although in modern translations from the current Mayan Elders, the Lunar Cycle has been incorporated into their calculations, and they have updated to include the 13 Moon Year.

13 moons of 28 days....
equals a year of 364 days, and One Day Out of Time.
A calendar that I myself operate by.

It has none of the odd numbers of days of the Gregorian Fake.
30 days here, 31 there, 28 here, or 29 instead sometimes (lol!), and you don't need to go: "30 days has September"etc, in order to remember!
With the 13 moon calendar, you always know where you are.


13.0.0.0.0.


Every day from that point is reckoned by the number of days passed since the event of this cosmic beginning point.

Within the 5,125 year cycle lies 13 smaller cycles, known as the "13 Baktun Count," or the "long count."

Each baktun cycle lasts for 394 years, or 144,000 days.

Each baktun was its own Historical Age, within the Great Creation Cycle, with a specific destiny for the evolution of those who incarnated in each baktun.

For example, almost all of the Mayan inscriptions were placed during Baktun 9 (435-830 AD).

This era is known as the time of the Classic Maya.

After this point, around 830 A.D., the great Mayan centers were abandoned and their thriving culture "mysteriously" disappeared.

Well, only "Mysteriously" if you don't happen to know the story.

The Mayans were well aware of coming earth changes in their own time and left earth with their sister race who had made their home on the planet Erra, in the Pleiades constellation. This race, who are indeed very 'human' in appearance, are far advanced than we (modern earthbound society) currently understand, in terms of technology. Well, the government know what they have, but then, they don't even admit publicly that there even are other races known to them 'off planet', lol, let alone in active communication even at this point in time.

But, the Mayans made sure to leave behind enough evidence of their civilization for their ancestors and fellow Beings of the Ages to follow them, as a means of guidance, to point the way to what is to come.

Planet Earth and her inhabitants....
are currently traveling through the 13th baktun cycle....
the final period of 1618-2012 AD.

This cycle is known both as "the triumph of materialism", and "the transformation of matter."

The Maya predicted this final baktun would be a time of great forgetting, in which we drift very far from our sense of Oneness with Nature, and experience a kind of collective amnesia.

Like a memory virus in which we begin to believe the limited reality of appearances and become de-sensitized to the Spiritual essence which fuels this world.

We entered this baktun cycle right after establishing the world wide coordination of Pope Gregory 13th's 12 month calendar system (1582), as well as the introduction of 12 hour 60-minute mechanical clock (1600).

These are neither small, nor irrelevant matters my friend.

According to Valum Votan, (a Mayan Prophet),
these 2 instruments are what manifested humanity's "error in time", which is the following of artificial instruments of time that served to separate Humanity from the rest of nature; operating by our own false timing frequency, to the ultimate detriment of our natural world.

The Gregorian calendar is not based on logic, science, or nature.
It denies and covers up the True annual human biological cycle, which is conserved in the body of a woman.

It is the current standard world time model, because of the forceful implementation of this system upon conquered (indigenous) peoples, who lost their land, as well as their freedom and right to self determination.

The presence of the clock gave birth to the notion that time lies outside our bodies; that it can be tracked by a machine,
and that we can sit and watch it "fly" by...tick-tock...tick-tock....

as if it is something linear, containable, and separate, from the organic, flowing process of life!

Our adherence to the clock for our sense of time and timing, is one of the greatest obstacles to allowing the full telepathic abilities of Human Beings to truly Blossom!
In simple terms, we're operating on the wrong "wavelength".

And so, here we are....
currently living the last 7 years of both a 5,125 year Creation Cycle....
and the last 7 years of a 26,000 Grand Cycle, the Precession of the Equinoxes!

The coming end date of December 21, 2012....
13.0.0.0.0. in the Mayan long count notation, is written just like the beginning date!

On 13.0.0.0.0, the December solstice sun will be found in the band of the Milky Way, directly in the position of the "Dark Rift" in the Galaxy, forming an alignment between the Galactic Plane and the Solstice Meridian!

We are about to enter into a Literal Alignment of the Cosmic, Galactic, Solar, and Lunar Planes!!!

This is an event that has slowly converged, over a period of thousands of years...
and is caused by the precession of the equinoxes.
Kind of like a "turning" of the Universal Gears.

On the winter solstice of 2012....
the noonday Sun exactly conjuncts the crossing point of the Sun's Ecliptic with the Galactic Plane, while also, aligning precisely, to the exact center of the Galaxy!

The Synchronic Order of Natural Time, governs the unfolding of our lives.

Time's cycles are found within our bodies....
and within Nature's daily rhythms and cyclic seasons.

We have forgotten this, thinking that time is the clock, or the relentless progression of work weeks and weekends.

Time, is the ever-changing, unfolding Now, as it synchronistically coordinates the Whole living Universe!

I trust that in someway goes toward answering your questions, of "why 2012" my friend.

Take it easy.

My Love and Peace Be with you.
http://thehumanlifeexperience.blogspot.com/

[Grey Cloud]

Note: there are two different 'Mayan' here. One is the Mesoamerican people and one is the name of an (Indian) individual who is credited as the originator of this architectural style.

The moment Sthapati approached an ancient Incan residential building at Machu Picchu on March 15th, he pointed at the wall and said, "That is a thickness of one kishku hasta"-33 inches, a standard measure in South India first promulgated by Mayan. He proceeded to measure the buildings in detail and discovered each was indeed built on a module-based plan, following the system of Mayan's eight-by-eight squares. The module method was followed within small fractions of an inch, according to Thamby Kumaran, who was taking the measurements. The buildings were oriented toward certain points of the compass, also a principle of Mayan, rather than randomly placed. Also the lengths of buildings were never more than twice their width, as Mayan stipulated.

From Machu Picchu the three adventurers traveled to Saqsayhuman, an Incan site dated from 400 bce to 1400 ce. Here are the famous stone walls made of rocks weighing up to 160 tons and fitted together so expertly that a knife blade cannot be put in any joint. "Nobody knows
how these stones were put in place," offered their guide when they first arrived on the site. Sthapati politely differed, and pointed out the insets chiseled into the base of many stones, as well as small knobs left on their faces. "These are for the use of levers, the exact same system we continue to use in India to move large stones. Thirty to forty men can move these very large rocks with this method," he explained to the guide's astonishment. He could see other details of the stone working were identical to what is practiced in India, such as the method of quarrying stones by splitting off slabs. So too was the jointing and fitting of stones, the use of lime mortar, leveling with a plumb line and triangle, and the corbeling for the roofs. Corbeling is the method by which stones are drawn in layer by layer until they meet or nearly meet to allow a roof slab to be placed on top. Sthapati considers the similarity of this technology to that used in India to be very significant. The use of the horizontal lintel and the absence of the arch are additional noteworthy points of correspondence between the two traditions.

...From the high Andes the threesome flew to Mexico's Yucatan peninsula. They and forty-five thousand other Mayan aficionados arrived at Chichén Itzá in time for the summer equinox on March 21st. At the moment of sunset on the equinox, a shadow is cast by the steps of the
Pyramid of the Castle upon the side of the staircase to the top. The shadow creates the image of a serpent's body which joins a stone carving of a serpent's head at the bottom of the stair case. It is a stunning demonstration of Mayan astronomical and architectural precision.

Archeologists, tourists and New Agers all gathered for the event, each with their own agenda. Since the publication of The Mayan Factor-A Path Beyond Technology by José Arguëlles, the Mayans and their advanced calendar, astronomy, philosophy and architecture have enjoyed a wide following in the West. Sthapati too has found much of interest in Arguëlles' book.
Standard academia archeologists consider the New Age interest as bordering on superstition and refuse to even talk to anyone partial to Mayan mysticism. A recent book, Copan and Tikal, the Secrets of Two Cities, by Honduran author Ricardo Agurcia Fasquelle and archaeologist Juan Antonio Valdes of Guatemala, claim that the Mayan pyramids were
actually castles for the wealthy and that what were once thought to be monuments to the Gods were in fact tributes to the dynasties of various kings. Not likely.

Native Mayan teachers such as Hunbatz Men, whom Sthapati met while in the Yucatan, are taking advantage of the interest to spark a revival of the original Mayan religion among the Mayans themselves. Since their brutal conquest and forced conversion to Catholicism by the Spaniards in the 16th century, Mayans have lived an oppressed and impoverished existence.
Amidst the crowds, Sthapati, Deva and Thamby again unsheathed their tape measures and closely examined the Pyramid of the Castle. It too conformed to the Vastu Vedic principles of
Mayan. The temple structure at the top was exactly 1/4th of the base. And the stepped pyramid design derived from a three-dimensional extension of the basic eight-by-eight grid system. The temple room at the top was also modular in design, with the wall thickness determining the size of doorways, location of columns, thickness of columns and the width and length of the structure.

Most interesting was the name of this structure-chilambalam, meaning a sacred space. It is Sthapati's theory that the Mayans worshiped the very concept of space, specifically a space made according to the modular system. This same idea is found in Hinduism in the sacred room in the center of the Chidambaram Siva Temple in South India, where space or akasha is worshiped-there is no idol. Chidambaram, Sthapati finds suspiciously like chilambalam, means "hall of consciousness." The concept of sacred space is at the center of the mystical shilpi tradition of India.

See also:
Ganapati Sthapati http://www.vastuved.com/aboutvaastu.html

Note the mention of the 8x8 squares near the top of the quote - just like a chess board or the trigrams of the I Ching.
These ancient chaps seem to have gone to a lot of trouble just to know when to plant their crops.
Related link:
http://www.hindupedia.com/en/Mathematic ... vilization

[kevin]

Re: How did ancient peoples KNOW so much?



Because they were clever so and so's.

Oh..... no they were not.
Oh..... Yes they were.
Just a bit of English pantomine.

All the best to Y'all, especially our colonial friends down under.

Kevin

[Grey Cloud]

Re: How did ancient peoples KNOW so much?

Because they were clever so and so's.

Oh..... no they were not.
Oh..... Yes they were.
Just a bit of English pantomine.

All the best to Y'all, especially our colonial friends down under.

Kevin

Been at the sherry, old boy?

[Rockstander]

How did ancient peoples know "so much"?
by altonhare on Sun Dec 21, 2008 8:06 pm


So it's no wonder that ancient peoples were able to build monuments such as Stonehenge where several of the stones in concentric circles align precisely with sunrise on the summer solstice. Other stones align precisely with the extreme rising and setting points of the moon. Construction took about half a millennium. With 500 years to build it, regardless of how far they chose to drag their bricks, did they really need extraterrestrial intervention?

The point here is that the astronomy embodied in Stonehenge and practically all other ancient astronomical constructs is not fundamentally deeper than what can be discovered with a stick. All that is required is some basic math, patience, and an inquisitive mind.
altonhare

Posts: 587
Joined: Sun Oct 12, 2008 9:54 am
Location: Baltimore

There is a retired carpenter in Michigan, named W.T Wallington, that is building an exact replica of Stonehenge using cast concrete blocks and hand tools using only his own labor. I assume he buys Delivered Concrete.

He easily moves and lifts 20 ton blocks by hand and ingenuity.

He has also estimated the Power he can generate and using the Geometry of the Great Pyramid estimated the construction time and manpower required for different completion Goals. As an experiment he put three of his husky in laws to work pulling weights to estimate thier output. He is I believe at least 70 and while strong is probably past his prime.

See: <http://www.theforgottentechnology.com/>

The video on his site tells most of the story and his one hour $15 Video is impressive.

Rockstander

[Julian Braggins]

No-one seems to have mentioned that it was the usual method to cut stone in quarries until the 20th Century by using soft metal saws, abrasive dust, and water as a lubricant. Holes can be cut in glass with a bit of copper, tubular or solid, the same way. In rock the holes can be lined up, dry wooden wedges driven in then watered, capillary action will split the rock . Even diamonds were faceted with soft metal discs and diamond dust.

Segmental pieces have been used through the ages, strapped to odd shaped artifacts to make them rollable, I think a lot of basic mechanics is being left out of education these days. Ask anyone these days to offload a heavy piece of machinery from a truck when there isn't a crane within a hundred miles and chances are you'd be met with a blank stare.

[altonhare]

Rockstander:

Although this thread is more about how one can gain knowledge and correlate celestial positions using technology monkeys use, it's also important to figure out how they built the monuments which demonstrate their knowledge. Does anyone have any commentary on the method I proposed for determining the Great Year?

Thanks for the site, I read his section describing the physics of pulleys, levers, etc. While I learned about these in school it was always purely mathematical, just crunching numbers. I never really understood the practical applications, although it seems a bit "duh" obvious now. I've never been faced with the task of moving tons of material, so I guess I never had a reason to think about how I'd do it.

It makes sense, even a 100 ton block is easy to rotate if it is balanced on a small point. Levers make immense weights mobile, just lengthen the lever. These techniques require a great deal of patience, something most younger people (like me) have in short supply these days. We're used to machines and technology delivering for us, right now, and with cheese of course.

Julian:

Thank you too! I don't know anything about mining/quarrying. If I were faced with moving tons of material or with cutting massive blocks out of a bed of stone I'd be stopped in my tracks, at least temporarily.

I'm really glad you two know a thing or two, from what you two say and the site posted it looks like the same qualities that allowed ancient cultures to calculate celestial positions and motion so well are also what allowed them to build such fantastic monuments: planning, ingenuity, and above all patience.

[junglelord]

I knew the bolder on a pebble trick when I was ten.

[altonhare]

I knew the bolder on a pebble trick when I was ten.

Here's a cookie.