Hey, why not make this one of *those* topics?
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Posted on 02/24/2015 2:16:11 AM PST by SunkenCiv
A team of archaeologists at a 2,000-year-old limestone quarry in Lebanon’s Bekka Valley recently excavated around a megalith weighing approximately 1,000 tons and dubbed Hajjar al-Hibla, or “stone of the pregnant woman.” It was intended for the Temple of Jupiter, which sits on three limestone blocks of similar size at the nearby site of Baalbek. To the team’s shock, they unearthed yet another block, this one weighing an estimated 1,650 tons, making it the largest known megalith. The German Archaeological Institute’s Margarete van Esse says excavation was suspended when the trench became dangerously deep. “Hopefully in a following campaign we can dig down to the bottom of the block,” she adds. The team wants to find clues there that will show how the megaliths were transported.
(Excerpt) Read more at archaeology.org ...
I’m not saying it was Ancient Alien technology, but...
Speaking of “why do it” mysteries, why would any sentient Westerner travel to the Bekaa Valley in these times?
Apparently it Bekaans them. Or they are under the control of extraterrestrials.
I liked the idea of the multiple capstans and block and tackles as mechanical aids to the movement of megaliths.
If proved out, it would remove the idiocy of the theories of thousands of pullers hauling on a couple of straight ropes.
I’ve never seen anything that would prove up the theory however. Did the Germans come up with something concrete or are they just theorizing?
I dug out the book and looked it up
I remembered other large blocks being noted but they were the three noted in the article upon which the temple of Jupiter at Baalbeck is constructed.
Haliburton indicates the weight as 1,200 tons and the size being 68’ x 14’ x14’ or 13328 cubic feet at 150 pcf = 999.9 tons. so I guess he used a density of 180 pcf
There are three at Baalbek, they have been known throughout historical times, so there’s no surprise that Halliburton knew about those. As the article states, another stone that had been left at or near the quarry site and never made it to the temple site, “dubbed Hajjar al-Hibla, or ‘stone of the pregnant woman’” would have made four, and the newly discovered stone would have made five. It was that one that has been estimated at 1,650 tons.
Interestingly enough, the heaviest known megalith was cut out in China, weighs something like 30,000 tons, but was never moved after it was cut out. One has to speculate that it was carved out already standing, beginning with the bottom cut, continuing with the sides, and finally the back to free it from the bedrock, but it’s difficult to say. Let’s see how my recollection is, we’ll ask someone who told me about it...
the good part about all this is that I got to take the Book of Marvels from the shelf where I hoped my grandson will find it..... and then reread a lot of it. :)
:’)
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Maybe that’s it! Thanks FN!
FROM YOUR LINK:
SOLOMON’S BAALBEK
Local tradition, which may be traced to the early Middle Ages, points to a definite period in the past when Baalbek was built: the time of Solomon.
Ildrisi, the Arab traveler and geographer (1099-1154), wrote: “The great (temple-city) of astonishing appearance was built in the time of Solomon.” 36 Gazwini (d. 1823 or 4) explained the origin of the edifices and the name of the place by connecting it with Balkis, the legendary Queen of the South, and with Solomon.37
The traveler Benjamin of Tudela wrote in the year 1160 of his visit to Baalbek: “This is the city which is mentioned in Scripture as Baalath in the vicinity of the Lebanon, which Solomon built for the daughter of Pharaoh. The place is constructed with stones of enormous size.” 38
Robert Wood, who stayed at Baalbek in the 1750’s, and who published an unsurpassed monograph on its ruins, wrote: “The inhabitants of this country, Mohomedans, Jews and Christians, all confidently believe that Solomon built both, Palmyra and Baalbek.” 39 Another traveler who visited Syria in the eighties of the eighteenth century recorded: ‘The inhabitants of Baalbek assert that this edifice was constructed by Djenoun, or genies in the service of King Solomon.” 40
hmmm...and didn’t Pharaoh have a ‘magic worm’ which cut through stone? Did Solomon inherit the technology?
wiki has it:
Referenced throughout the Talmud and the Midrashim, the Shamir was reputed to have existed in the time of Moses. Moses reputedly used the Shamir to engrave the Hoshen (Priestly breastplate) stones that were inserted into the breastplate.[2] King Solomon, aware of the existence of the Shamir, but unaware of its location, commissioned a search that turned up a “grain of Shamir the size of a barley-corn”.
Solomon’s artisans reputedly used the Shamir in the construction of Solomon’s Temple. The material to be worked, whether stone, wood or metal, was affected by being “shown to the Shamir.” Following this line of logic (anything that can be ‘shown’ something must have eyes to see), early Rabbinical scholars described the Shamir almost as a living being. Other early sources, however, describe it as a green stone. For storage, the Shamir was meant to have been always wrapped in wool and stored in a container made of lead; any other vessel would burst and disintegrate under the Shamir’s gaze. The Shamir was said to have been either lost or had lost its potency (along with the “dripping of the honeycomb”) by the time of the destruction of the First Temple[3] at the hands of Nebuchadnezzar in 586 B.C.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomon%27s_shamir
That description is puzzling at best. :’) I’m more inclined to believe that the Baalbek megalithic stones were cut and set in place in pre-Conquest (and even prehistoric) times, then repurposed by the Danites, but I’m flexible in this regard. :’)
The information found in ancient sources—that Shamir was a greenish mineral, that it was as large as a barley-corn; that it could damage anything, even metals and other minerals, save lead, and the only protection could be found by placing Shamir in a leaden box; that it had a “glance” which disintegrated things without leaving filings or dust; that it became inactive after a period of four hundred years—all reveal the true nature of Shamir.
http://www.varchive.org/ce/shamir/shamir.html
It’s wiki, here’s what Velikovsky had to say at your link:
http://www.varchive.org/ce/baalbek/baalbek.htm
It is even probable that the wall of the acropolis did not originate in one epoch. Among the stones of which it is built there are three of an unusual size—almost twenty meters long. Each of them weighs about one thousand tons. These huge monoliths are incased in the wall. The question arises whether they are not the survivals of the original cyclopean structure—that which carried the name Rehob, or Beth-Rehob, and which served as a landmark for the scouts dispatched by Moses in their survey of Canaan, and for the emissaries of the tribe of Dan in their search for the territory in the north. Like Stonehenge in Great Britain, or Tiahuanaco in the Andes, it may have originated in an early time—not necessarily neolithic, since it appears that these stones are subjected to hewing by metal tools.
In the quarry a mile away is found another stone of comparable size, cut out of the rock from all but one side; it appears that this stone of more perfect cut was quarried in a later time, possibly in the days of Jeroboam, or even later; but, for probably mechanical considerations, the work was not finished and the stone not removed, and the emulation of the early builders not completed.59
The unfinished obelisk is the largest known ancient obelisk and is located in the northern region of the stone quarries of ancient Egypt in Aswan (Assuan), Egypt. Archaeologists claim the pharaoh known as Hatshepsut sanctioned its construction. It is nearly one third larger than any ancient Egyptian obelisk ever erected. If finished it would have measured around 42 m long (approximately 137 feet), 2.5–4.4 m wide and would have weighed nearly 1,200 tons (1,066,621 kilograms).
Perhaps Hatshepsut and Solomon shared the same (ancient by then)technology?
From a flickr photostream, an artefact at Baalbeck. If that’s a script, what might we be looking at?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/38765532@N08/8730775107
That’s a great aerial shot!
Appears to be Arabic, but I wouldn’t know that for sure, probably some FReeper will though. :’)
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