Replies

Thanks TXnMA for the ping, and good point about Baalbek. I think only one is 1000 tons, the other two being a mere 800+ tons each. The largest single piece moved in Egypt was (if memory serves) around 600 tons, and that took place during the New Kingdom; Baalbek's three biggies were placed (apparently) prior to 3500 years ago, and no one knows by whom, so they could (possibly) be prehistoric.

To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list. Thanks.

Please FREEPMAIL me if you want on or off the
"Gods, Graves, Glyphs" PING list or GGG weekly digest
-- Archaeology/Anthropology/Ancient Cultures/Artifacts/Antiquities, etc.
Gods, Graves, Glyphs (alpha order)

Curiously, much of the online info re Baalbek on the WWW is a single article, copied (without attribution) on many different sites. It lists the "Trilithon" stones at 1,000 tons weight, and the larger stone remaining in the quarry as 1,200 tons.

(The WWW is truly a strange place: there is even a site listing "the top 50 cut stones"...)

glorgau, I'll see if I can find that "can move anything" guy's site again; he is quite amazing in what he does and how he does it. OTOH, you will note that he always creates a perfectly flat, smooth, and level slab upon which he rests his dual fulcrums under the stones. At Baalbek, OTOH,

" The route to the site of Baalbek, however, is up hill, over rough and winding terrain, and there is no evidence whatsoever of a flat hauling surface having been created in ancient times.
Next there is the problem of how the mammoth blocks, once they were brought to the site, were lifted and precisely placed in position. It has been theorized that the stones were raised using a complex array of scaffolding, ramps and pulleys which was powered by large numbers of humans and animals working in unison. An historical example of this method has been suggested as the solution for the Baalbek enigma. The Renaissance architect Domenico Fontana, when erecting a 327-ton Egyptian obelisk in front of St Peter's Basilica in Rome, used 40 huge pulleys, which necessitated a combined force of 800 men and 140 horses. The area where this obelisk was erected, however, was a great open space that could easily accommodate all the lifting apparatus and the men and horses pulling on the ropes. No such space is available in the spatial context of how the Baalbek stones were placed. Hills slope away from where lifting apparatus would need to have been placed and no evidence has been found of a flat and structurally firm surface having been constructed (and then mysteriously removed after the lifting was done). Furthermore, not just one obelisk was erected but rather a series of giant stones were precisely put in place side-by-side. Due to the positioning of these stones, there is simply no conceivable place where a huge pulley apparatus could have been stationed."

Structures like the Sydney Opera House and the Statue of Liberty hold no wondrous mystery for me. The megaliths at Baalbek, OTOH, definitely do...


GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother & Ernest_at_the_Beach	join list or digest view topics view or post blog bookmark post a topic subscribe

Just updating the GGG information, not sending a general distribution. To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list.