Easter Island discovery sends archaeologists back to drawing board

University of Manchester ^ | May 12, 2010 | Unknown

[Telepathic Intruder]

The so-called 'experts' don't have a freaking clue

I think I know what you're trying to say: "The so-called 'experts' don't have a &%#^*+!$ clue"

[frithguild]

Sandrine Holt

[Puckster]

“making me believe the heavy objects pushed down the road made the road concave.”

The friction to overcome would be enormous........

[count-your-change]

Tractor beams, magnetic sky hooks, mass displacement projectors, pychkokinetic thought regeneration, Vicks Vspo-Rub. Not too sure about the traactor beams, though.

[Paladin2]

Ball bearings with a cage.

[Puckster]

http://z.about.com/d/atheism/1/0/n/y/2/BaalbekQuarryMegalith.jpg

This particular stone is in Lebanon....approximately 1300 tons........or, 2.6 million lbs.

The biggest mobile cranes in the world can't come close to this.....ropes? An exercise in just how far will they stretch before snapping.

Like the other guy asks....what am I talking about....have no freaking idea.....levitation might fit Occam's Razor.

[oremites]

Couldn't the roads have been used to moved the statues and be ceremonial roads? I'm not sure why one excludes the other.

[Puckster]

Stone bearings????????????

2 parts to a (circular) cage? One leapfrogging the other.

A circular cage would be stable in a concave road, depending on just how concave.

[Puckster]

Stone bearings????????????

2 parts to a (circular) cage? One leapfrogging the other.

A circular cage would be stable in a concave road, depending on just how concave.

[Puckster]

Due to the concave nature, the old tried and true theory of logs laid dow to roll the statues along would work, you’d be snapping then in two.

[Puckster]

Correction: wouldn’t work

[ottbmare]

I saw this documentary where a team of archeologists tried to raise a small Egyptian-type obelisk using only contemporary equipment. When that failed, they used modern pulleys. When that failed, they had to admit their theories were wrong. What am I saying? I don’t know.

And I saw a documentary where some eccentric guy tried to raise a Stonehenge-like megalith (downsized a little but still large and extremely heavy and dangerous). He just used some levers and timbers and sticks. His son helped him. It took a few days to get it upright. But this was just two guys and they were able to handle this multi-ton awkwardly-shaped stone. Shows it's possible to chuck these things around if you're not impeded by modern machinery and engineering degrees. But I don't know what I'm saying either.

[MrNeutron1962]

A simple machine for which we have lost the concept?

Personally, I blame Doctor Who.

[Beowulf9]

What if it was pulled? Wonder if they used water like a sluice?

[Telepathic Intruder]

Well, megaliths are a little different than obelisks, a point I remember from this particular documentary. Mainly, obelisks will break easily due to the mass distribution, unless standing upright. But your point reminds me of something else: would ancient Brits really build something like Stonehenge just to use as some sort of calender, to know when to start planting crops? It seems there would be easier ways. But, who knows what they were thinking?

[PapaBear3625]

And I saw a documentary where some eccentric guy tried to raise a Stonehenge-like megalith (downsized a little but still large and extremely heavy and dangerous). He just used some levers and timbers and sticks. His son helped him.

Here he is on youtube

[ottbmare]

Someday the archaeologists from another civilization will be excavating and deliberating about our culture. And some of them will say, “These ‘Americans,’ as they called themselves—surely they did not build these massive hundred-story structures of glass and steel just to pursue commercial activities. They must have had some religious purpose.” Then they’ll write b.s. doctoral dissertations theorizing about the purposes of our skyscrapers and imagining our religions. Especially the sacred, mysterious rites of the religion called “football.” That’ll really perplex them.

[PapaBear3625]

Better copy of the video on building stonehenge.

It suggests that what was used on the concave road was not logs, but round stones used like ball bearings.

[Telepathic Intruder]

the sacred, mysterious rites of the religion called “football.” That’ll really perplex them.



Point taken. Those robot archaeologists from the future will certainly find our present civilization confusing.

[JoeFromSidney]

then of course there's the story, I believe it was by Robert Heinlein, that the statues were election campaign material, to be levitated by a magician, who got drunk and botched the job.