/lounge/ - Lounge

>How do you think these walls in Peru were built?
to build these walls, my theory is it took centuries and centuries to find the right technique to build these kind of walls

maybe giants?

>>314246
Yes legends of ancients often mention giants existing. It's even brought up in the bible.

From what I've heard, it's some kind of illusion. Only the outer face fits nicely against the other stones; inside the wall itself, there is a lot of empty space between stones, and they filled that with smaller rocks and rubble (see pic related).
So I guess to place a new stone, they make sure it has at least one edge that fits with the stone below, then they place it down and smooth the rough bits on the outer face. And then if another stone is added later, they can work on the top of the previous stone to create a new fitting edge with the next stone, add some rubble to make the placement easier, smooth the outer face, and keep going like this.

>>314278
Not sure about that, there are places where the blocks are broken or removed and it looks flat all the way through.

>>314279

you know how you can make a hole into a stone when you just let drops of water drip on the same spot for a long time? maybe this principle can be used to cubify stones.

maybe they used water to perfectly cut the stones into shape over the span of years or decades.

fascinating thread, very much appreciate a lively debate about this fun mystery.

>>314318
it would take too much time…or rain droped inbetween the blocks who already were shaped to be puzzling and the rain made them smooth form over years and years. what do you think of my theory?

I wonder how intentional it was that these structures lasted so long. In reality these people probably had tons of other advanced structures like steel and glass buildings but the stone structures just happened to be the only ones that survived the ages.
After the fall of their civilization, all the steel structures would have been immediately scavenged, melted down, and used as tools such as knives and spears.

>>314318
I like the idea that some kind of process like water erosion is involved. The softness and roundness of the stone seems like the kind of rock you'd see at a river.

>>314322
>In reality these people probably had tons of other advanced structures like steel and glass buildings but the stone structures just happened to be the only ones that survived the ages.
Very unlikely. That's part of the reason they used this stone building technique to begin with. It's a primitive technique called dry stone masonry used by cultures that don't have enough metals and strong tools to reliably cut stones into regular blocks that would be assembled with mortar. It's not unique to Peru and the incans. You can find similar stuff in Egypt (pic related) and elsewhere.

It's not totally impossible to imagine a civilization that would purposely use this very cumbersome and time consuming technique despite having much better means, but personally I find it very unlikely.
Especially because it's not just one isolated structure, but several.

But anyway, another way it might have been done is by rubbing these stones together, with water and some abrasive agent like sand between them. Seems like most of them are rather soft stones like limestone, so if you do that eventually you can get two big stones whose rubbed surfaces kinda fit perfectly.

The same way as nuraghic cultures built huge castles in Sardinia without any kind or cement or fillers.

Incredibly talented stonemasonry as a profession.

Ancient people were very dexterous, motivated, skilled and took obvious pride in their work.

>>314319
>or rain droped inbetween the blocks who already were shaped to be puzzling and the rain made them smooth form over years

yeah something like that may have been used. they had bamboo in south america, maybe the used it to redirect the rain or nearby streams to precisely cut it.

it may have took years to just gather big stones and transport them, they might have stumbled upon a way to make those first stones that they brought to the site of the future building be cut by rain.

should not be too difficult to find out how much time it takes for water drips to cut through stone.

>>314335
>with water and some abrasive agent like sand between them.

how do you rub a big stone though? maybe by cutting a big hole in it and then using long logs of wood to have longest possible leverage and continuously turn them on sand?

maybe they made sand paper and rubbed and rubbed and rubbed.

maybe they made gigantic hand-cranked belt sanders.

they could have taken ropes, drenched them in glue and 'bread' them in sand to create sandy belts to crank around two spinning wheels and use a waterwheel to power.

pic related is my tiny battery powered belt sander, which i like but it is very loud. hearing protection required unfortunately.

maybe the quarry was high on a mountain and they dragged the stones downhill on a sandy path, which naturally sanded them. probably not enough to achieve this result.

I was thinking about why they don't build things like this anymore. People say it's because it's too hard and it's too expensive. That's true.
But it's also because everything in our current culture is so disposable. Nothing's intended to actually last. Except maybe plastic garbage, but that's more out of incompetence.
There's zero drive among anyone to make anything that will stick around because our culture is such shit and not something we would want to pass on.

It feels like people back then actually cared about their existence. They had something to say, something they wanted to pass on. Beliefs that were important.

>>314349
Speaking of belt sanders, in Egypt they have stones similar to Peru, but the Egyptians had some way of flattening the stones that almost looks like it was sanded down.

Also many of the stones have the same "nubs" that you see on the Peruvian stones implying they were using similar techniques for making walls.

>>314385
The sandstone in Egypt is a synthetic casting from a mold. It was shaped easily before being tempered by fire.

>>314380
>But it's also because everything in our current culture is so disposable.
That's sorta true for things like consumer products and appliances, because the companies selling them want to create a sustainable need and market.

>There's zero drive among anyone to make anything that will stick around because our culture is such shit and not something we would want to pass on.
There are things we want to last.
For example, a city stadium. They don't build it thinking "oh in 30 years we'll tear it down because our culture sucks", they try to make the best decision when it comes to cost, maintenance and durability.
If it gets destroyed, it's not because it wasn't built to last, it's likely because the people don't want it anymore, for whatever reasons, and they might build something else there instead.
We are passing on our culture, but our culture changes, so future people want different things.

The main reason we still have ancient ruins today isn't because they wanted things to last, it's mostly because stone structures are way, way sturdier and durable than they need to be.
Some structures have been built with the added goal of being long lasting, like religious buildings or tombs, but for things like Roman aqueducts, if they had our materials technology back then, which is much easier, faster and cheaper to work with, they definitely would have used that instead. None of it would still exist today though.

>f it gets destroyed, it's not because it wasn't built to last, it's likely because the people don't want it anymore, for whatever reasons, and they might build something else there instead.

It gets destroyed because our culture is disposable. People only care about money. If anything doesn't serve that purpose then it needs to be destroyed and replaced with something that does maximize profit.


In the case of ancient cultures I wonder how often they demolished things compared to our culture which is constantly demolishing and rebuilding things.

There are some people who try to promote the idea that the dynastic Egyptians didn't build the pyramids because the earliest pyramids were
the most advanced and the later ones were more simple. The older pyramids used really hard materials like granite and had very defined shapes. While later pyramids were more simple and used mud bricks and natural hills. The theory is that the Egyptians inherited the early pyramids from an even more ancient global civilization and later on tried to recreate them with more primitive methods.

But if you compare it to our culture, we are constantly demolishing old structures to build new ones in their place. If our society was to fall, most of our oldest structures would be our best ones, and people would build more and more simple structures as society deteriorated.

>>314380
>There's zero drive among anyone to make anything that will stick around because our culture is such shit and not something we would want to pass on.

i can respect the ambition to build something monumental that is supposed to last a long time as well as planting trees i will never be able to enjoy the shade of as a present to future generations.

but i also feel responsibility towards the reality of how short a human life is and how much tradition can be dead people's garbage weighing the current generation down.

personally i like to build things that are fast to construct AND equally fast to deconstruct so that i can replace them with something i would rather have once i no longer need the thing i have built. to me that is also a form of wise forethought. it reminds me of treating objects like objects and not personify them. i prefer '100% function 0% aesthetic' and to my surprise i end up liking how the stuff looks.

building something that is supposed to last this long into the future i consider slightly arrogant. it implies that current generations know best what future generations want and need while at the same time being tortured by the idiotic anti-human administrative stupidity of the past generations.

also what if you build somethig nice and then comes some evil empire that wants to steal your oil and just conquers the beautiful thing you built and puts a fast food restaurant inside as an insult.

does strike me as odd though that there are such incredible heavy building machines and the ease of industrial productions that would make building something monumental so achievable. it is a surprise to me that billionaires don't do that more. building big ass buildings would be a way better past time then wasting their life trying to influence elections that are mostly theater anyways…

>>314385
maybe they put up gigantic sails that funneled the naturally occuring sand storms so that the sand falls onto the stones in a certain angle. or maybe they put up stones against the sand storms that naturally smoothed, with the sandy wind acting as the sandpaper.

>>314395
>People only care about money

i guess this is the root of it. if other economic models would be implemented and the entire shadow of the money would to collapse and with it the shackles it holds humanity bondage in, culture might be more durable.

i'd still want my stuff to be biodegradable though so that it just melts back into the planet after a few decades. i wanted to build stuff for me, not giving a fuck what was before me, future people wanna build stuff they need themselves based on their dreams. i wouldn't want my old garbage to inhibit what little creativity that wasn't beaten out of future generations, it would feel selfish to me.

if i wanted to have a nice place to skate to spend my life and there was a big area unused because it was some ancient theater that the vain people of today want to keep around even though the bones of the last people who went there have already decomposed, i'd feel disrespected. i am more important then the dead people.

I was looking at some tourist videos of Egypt. The Red Pyramid in Dashur looks really nice to visit.
The Giza plateau is where the Great Pyramid is, but it's insanely crowded, tons of plastic trash on the ground everywhere, and tons of people trying to sell stuff to tourists.
However in this video showing the Red Pyramid it looks very chill and cozy by comparison. It actually kind of looks like an ancient, deserted place.