I know some of you are going to hate me for this, but I beg you: Do not fall victim to the same sickness that constrained the minds of the archeological community these past centuries.
Consider the possibility that the technology used to move, place and shape the great foundation stones of megalithic sites around the world, and seamlessly so, may in fact be nothing more than child's play.
Here's how it works:
If you've ever made rock candy as a kid, the lights may already be turning on inside your head. Rock candy can be made by heating a container of water, adding a ton of sugar until no more crystals will dissolve, suspending a string in the center of the supersaturated fluid with a small weight tied to the end, and then closing and insulating the container, so that it will cool slowly. In time, crystals of rock candy form. The slower the solution cools, the more impressive the crystals.
What if all those massive, perfectly placed and precisely-fitted stones are just another kind of rock candy?
No super-future heating and/or levitating technology from the past required. Just pulverize the proper stone, leach out the powdered crystalline, add a catalyst to further break down the remaining crystals and force solution, supersaturate the solution, mix the supersaturated fluid back into the pulverized stone (which was likely heated prior to mixing), and then pour the mixture (which likely had the consistency of bread dough) into an "earthen" form.
This is not concrete, by the way. I'm talking straight-up rock, reformed.
Consider the practical genius of it:
1) again, no super-future long-lost stone-heating tech required
2) no levitation require either
3) requires only manpower (to quarry, pulverize, convey, mix, pour, form, fire, cure)
4) and, outside of needing specific stone types with which to work, resources are generally readily available
What's more, the rock candy hypothesis makes sense of many of the structural idiosyncrasies of some megalithic sites. For example, the bulging of the placed megalithic stones at some sites makes more sense if the stones were actually poured into earthen molds. Whether placed or poured, stone is heavy. But only poured stone would press outward, deforming the dug-out spaces into which the supersaturated mix was poured.
A supersaturated mix being poured into earthen molds on top of previously-poured mostly-solidified stones also explains the seamless irregularity of the contact points of megalithic stones. If you take a bunch of heavy water balloons of various sizes and place them all in a narrow, glass box, so that they stack, you'll notice that, wherever the balloons touch, a perfectly flat surface between the balloons forms.
If these were warm, semi-solidified (albeit enormous) blobs of stone mix, prematurely removing the glass walls of the box (the earthen forms) would preserve the perfect seams but allow the "stones" to bulge some, until fully solidified.
This allows for some interesting speculations:
First, lets talk about the type (both impressed and extruded) and number of "prop marks" on the sides of some stones at various megalithic sites around the world.
You might expect such features on stones that were not fully solidified when the earthen forms were removed. And, so, as the stones were either still very warm (perhaps too warm to touch) or to some extent globulous (as mentioned), the bulging sides of the stones needed to be supported in some fashion until they could fully cure. Why there are so few prop marks on some stones may be due to the fact that the surface of such stone would be, in a sense, somewhat non-Newtonian, requiring only minimal propping, because a small amount of surface area goes a long way with such materials.
As to what appears like the "extruding" of prop contact points, this could be explained by, again, premature action (similar to the premature removing of the earthen forms). Inept or otherwise inexperienced craftsman (and this is key) may have removed props too soon, pulling at the surface of the stones, due to adhesion, creating the extrusions.
This also makes me think that the prop contacts, at least, may have been stone as well.
Cement-like substances sticks to stone, not wood.
Why else not wood? Well, consider the firing process of early pottery. Although rudimentary kilns may have been in use at the time of megalithic construction, there were almost certainly no kilns of scale other than that used in the earliest pottery firing techniques. The earliest techniques of firing pottery included simply burying shaped clay items, and lighting a fire on top of the buried wears. Though dirt is an excellent insulator and could easily have slowed the cooling of the stone mix, fires on either side of the earthen forms would have prolonged the cooling of the mix even further, improving results. But, when the dirt was removed, the stones would still have been warm or even too hot to touch, even for wood props. And so, stone "plates" with wood props attached are the most likely solution.
But I digress. And it doesn't really matter. The apparent technical shortfalls of the builders (i.e., the reasons why they had to employ such solutions) are what really interest me, and here's why:
1) We may be able to approximate from where in the world the ancient global culture emanated, based on the methodological shortfalls of the builders of, what we might deem, far-flung megalithic sites around the world.
2) Because such shortfalls exist, it may be that a 'voyager from the sea' did not arrive to reboot culture after what increasingly seems to have been a global catastrophe.
To my second item, when Rome fell, there "were" still Romans throughout the Empire, however far-flung certain cities and settlements may have been from the center of Western Roman culture. If any of these "voyagers" had any recollection of what Roman buildings in the West looked like and only an inkling of what went into them (Roman concrete, a recipe lost to history until rediscovered in modern times), that voyager could have, essentially, "rebooted" civilization.
Forgiving the weak analogy (given Rome in the East persisted long after the West fell, and well into the Middle Ages), how might have people from far-flung cities and settlements referred to such voyagers?
As a "Roman", of course.
But, as truth became history, and history became legend, and legend became lore, the people of such far-flung places may simply have referred to them, even contemporarily, as a person from the other side of this or that mountain, steppe, plain, or, even, from across the sea. . .
In short, those that rebooted civilization were likely already there at the time of calamity and counted themselves among the survivors. Then, either themselves or their descendants and disciples used their knowledge, however incomplete in some cases, to make their new normal a little less horrible.
Finally, to my first item: The farther you get from a cultural center, the less cultural fidelity one finds. This fact could also explain why there are apparent shortfalls in building techniques in some "far-flung" megalithic sites, and why other sites are, in a sense, perfect examples of megalithic construction technology. The more perfect examples are, by and large, "closer" to the cultural heart of the civilization that produced them.
We see a fine parallel of this in the accounts of ancient Greek historian Herodotus, wherein the farther away from Athens a given account originated, the more extreme and exaggerated the story.
But, in its own right, this can't be the whole story of the reboot. The truth is likely a blending of the two items noted, as it is possible that some far-flung cities and settlements may have played host to a famed ancient architect or engineer on holiday . . ., lol.
Luckily, given the amazing LIDAR discoveries in the Amazon recently, combined with the fact that a massive Tunguska-type event vaporized much of the glaciated northern hemisphere, flooding the continent and supersaturating the atmosphere, thus warming the planet, melting more ice, and subsequently submerging a lost ancient civilization of global reach, many newly-openminded members of the now-enlightened archeological community just might know exactly where to look. . .
400 feet down, along the ancient coastlines every across the much higher, far-flung seas.
P.S.
A simple bore sample of the largest stones at less advanced sites should suffice to prove the hypothesis one way or the other. (This is especially true at sites where the sides of stones bulge outward.) If the stones were quarried, pulverized, leached, catalyzed, mixed, formed, and fired as I suspect, the crystalline structures at the center of the largest stones should differ from their outmost depths, given that the center of the largest stones would have stayed warmer longer then their outermost depths.
Contrarily, if the stones were quarried and not pulverized and so processed, the crystalline structures of bore samples should be fairly uniform from the center of the stones to their outermost depths.
Consider the possibility that the technology used to move, place and shape the great foundation stones of megalithic sites around the world, and seamlessly so, may in fact be nothing more than child's play.
Here's how it works:
If you've ever made rock candy as a kid, the lights may already be turning on inside your head. Rock candy can be made by heating a container of water, adding a ton of sugar until no more crystals will dissolve, suspending a string in the center of the supersaturated fluid with a small weight tied to the end, and then closing and insulating the container, so that it will cool slowly. In time, crystals of rock candy form. The slower the solution cools, the more impressive the crystals.
What if all those massive, perfectly placed and precisely-fitted stones are just another kind of rock candy?
No super-future heating and/or levitating technology from the past required. Just pulverize the proper stone, leach out the powdered crystalline, add a catalyst to further break down the remaining crystals and force solution, supersaturate the solution, mix the supersaturated fluid back into the pulverized stone (which was likely heated prior to mixing), and then pour the mixture (which likely had the consistency of bread dough) into an "earthen" form.
This is not concrete, by the way. I'm talking straight-up rock, reformed.
Consider the practical genius of it:
1) again, no super-future long-lost stone-heating tech required
2) no levitation require either
3) requires only manpower (to quarry, pulverize, convey, mix, pour, form, fire, cure)
4) and, outside of needing specific stone types with which to work, resources are generally readily available
What's more, the rock candy hypothesis makes sense of many of the structural idiosyncrasies of some megalithic sites. For example, the bulging of the placed megalithic stones at some sites makes more sense if the stones were actually poured into earthen molds. Whether placed or poured, stone is heavy. But only poured stone would press outward, deforming the dug-out spaces into which the supersaturated mix was poured.
A supersaturated mix being poured into earthen molds on top of previously-poured mostly-solidified stones also explains the seamless irregularity of the contact points of megalithic stones. If you take a bunch of heavy water balloons of various sizes and place them all in a narrow, glass box, so that they stack, you'll notice that, wherever the balloons touch, a perfectly flat surface between the balloons forms.
If these were warm, semi-solidified (albeit enormous) blobs of stone mix, prematurely removing the glass walls of the box (the earthen forms) would preserve the perfect seams but allow the "stones" to bulge some, until fully solidified.
This allows for some interesting speculations:
First, lets talk about the type (both impressed and extruded) and number of "prop marks" on the sides of some stones at various megalithic sites around the world.
You might expect such features on stones that were not fully solidified when the earthen forms were removed. And, so, as the stones were either still very warm (perhaps too warm to touch) or to some extent globulous (as mentioned), the bulging sides of the stones needed to be supported in some fashion until they could fully cure. Why there are so few prop marks on some stones may be due to the fact that the surface of such stone would be, in a sense, somewhat non-Newtonian, requiring only minimal propping, because a small amount of surface area goes a long way with such materials.
As to what appears like the "extruding" of prop contact points, this could be explained by, again, premature action (similar to the premature removing of the earthen forms). Inept or otherwise inexperienced craftsman (and this is key) may have removed props too soon, pulling at the surface of the stones, due to adhesion, creating the extrusions.
This also makes me think that the prop contacts, at least, may have been stone as well.
Cement-like substances sticks to stone, not wood.
Why else not wood? Well, consider the firing process of early pottery. Although rudimentary kilns may have been in use at the time of megalithic construction, there were almost certainly no kilns of scale other than that used in the earliest pottery firing techniques. The earliest techniques of firing pottery included simply burying shaped clay items, and lighting a fire on top of the buried wears. Though dirt is an excellent insulator and could easily have slowed the cooling of the stone mix, fires on either side of the earthen forms would have prolonged the cooling of the mix even further, improving results. But, when the dirt was removed, the stones would still have been warm or even too hot to touch, even for wood props. And so, stone "plates" with wood props attached are the most likely solution.
But I digress. And it doesn't really matter. The apparent technical shortfalls of the builders (i.e., the reasons why they had to employ such solutions) are what really interest me, and here's why:
1) We may be able to approximate from where in the world the ancient global culture emanated, based on the methodological shortfalls of the builders of, what we might deem, far-flung megalithic sites around the world.
2) Because such shortfalls exist, it may be that a 'voyager from the sea' did not arrive to reboot culture after what increasingly seems to have been a global catastrophe.
To my second item, when Rome fell, there "were" still Romans throughout the Empire, however far-flung certain cities and settlements may have been from the center of Western Roman culture. If any of these "voyagers" had any recollection of what Roman buildings in the West looked like and only an inkling of what went into them (Roman concrete, a recipe lost to history until rediscovered in modern times), that voyager could have, essentially, "rebooted" civilization.
Forgiving the weak analogy (given Rome in the East persisted long after the West fell, and well into the Middle Ages), how might have people from far-flung cities and settlements referred to such voyagers?
As a "Roman", of course.
But, as truth became history, and history became legend, and legend became lore, the people of such far-flung places may simply have referred to them, even contemporarily, as a person from the other side of this or that mountain, steppe, plain, or, even, from across the sea. . .
In short, those that rebooted civilization were likely already there at the time of calamity and counted themselves among the survivors. Then, either themselves or their descendants and disciples used their knowledge, however incomplete in some cases, to make their new normal a little less horrible.
Finally, to my first item: The farther you get from a cultural center, the less cultural fidelity one finds. This fact could also explain why there are apparent shortfalls in building techniques in some "far-flung" megalithic sites, and why other sites are, in a sense, perfect examples of megalithic construction technology. The more perfect examples are, by and large, "closer" to the cultural heart of the civilization that produced them.
We see a fine parallel of this in the accounts of ancient Greek historian Herodotus, wherein the farther away from Athens a given account originated, the more extreme and exaggerated the story.
But, in its own right, this can't be the whole story of the reboot. The truth is likely a blending of the two items noted, as it is possible that some far-flung cities and settlements may have played host to a famed ancient architect or engineer on holiday . . ., lol.
Luckily, given the amazing LIDAR discoveries in the Amazon recently, combined with the fact that a massive Tunguska-type event vaporized much of the glaciated northern hemisphere, flooding the continent and supersaturating the atmosphere, thus warming the planet, melting more ice, and subsequently submerging a lost ancient civilization of global reach, many newly-openminded members of the now-enlightened archeological community just might know exactly where to look. . .
400 feet down, along the ancient coastlines every across the much higher, far-flung seas.
P.S.
A simple bore sample of the largest stones at less advanced sites should suffice to prove the hypothesis one way or the other. (This is especially true at sites where the sides of stones bulge outward.) If the stones were quarried, pulverized, leached, catalyzed, mixed, formed, and fired as I suspect, the crystalline structures at the center of the largest stones should differ from their outmost depths, given that the center of the largest stones would have stayed warmer longer then their outermost depths.
Contrarily, if the stones were quarried and not pulverized and so processed, the crystalline structures of bore samples should be fairly uniform from the center of the stones to their outermost depths.