Stonehenge

[Deja Q]

Has it yet been figured out how people 2000 years ago could raise all of those big funky rocks? (like multi-tier platforms and lots of healthy juicy slaves?)

[Dogmudgeon]

1. I changed my mind

Too much hatin' goin' on ...

--p!

[Deja Q]

2. I don't understand the hate...

What did I do?

:cry:

[Dogmudgeon]

3. You? You did nothing.

Last time I posted anything like I deleted, I got about 50 incredibly angry replies, and my blood pressure is already too high as it is.

No, it wasn't even about the Pope, pedophiles, or the DLC.

--p!

[Deja Q]

7. Wow! Especially re: the DLC!

:-) :hi: Glad you're still around, though!

[supernova]

4. No I don't think anyone has definitilvey

figured it out just how they did it.

[DrZeeLit]

5. I'm going this summer, so I'll get the latest scoop.

I think they had bulldozers and caterpillars and then a meteor struck and... you know the rest of the sad story.

[billyskank]

6. Loads of amphetamine

You can do anything on that stuff.

[Deja Q]

8. I was on adderall (an amphetamine)... didn't do much for me.

:cry:

[mcscajun]

9. Figured out? No. Posited? Yes.

These simplest tools are the basic for all mechanical development:
lever, pulley, inclined plane, wedge, screw, wheel and axle.

With enough time and manpower behind them, its possible to do incredible things with massive objects. Of course, nobody's saying that nobody got hurt or killed in the process, either. They didn't have OSHA. :)

Archimedes is credited with inventing the compound pulley and the water screw in the second century BC; he also was the first to describe the lever, but the lever probably predates him substantially according to some archaeological evidence.

[freethought]

12. In this day and age

of Diesel powered excavating equipment it is easy to loose site of what can be done with human muscle and pure will.

[China_cat]

10. Merlin sang them into place.

[freethought]

11. It has been figured out

Sorry to take the mystery out of it but I did see and excellent documentry on the building of Stonehenge.
To make a long story short it took alot of homemade rope, piles of dirt,
lots of round logs, plenty of coordinated manpower, and lots of time. In the documentry some archeologists and engineers joined forces and brainstormed to build a replica of one of Stonehenge's components, I believe it was called a 'trilithon'. Two tall stones set slightly apart but next to each other and topped with a third stone that bridged the distance between them. They used concrete formed substitutes to test their theories.

If there is any accuracy to what the engineers and archeologists thought up, and I believe there is, one would have to give credit to the builders for ingenuity and cleverness. In addition if the builders were using only human muscle power, Stonehenge may have taken years to complete.

Sometimes it is hard to step out of a 21st century mindset. Some of the solutions that the team came up with were so obvious that you just don't see them. When you do see them your react with hitting yourself and saying "How come we didn't think of that before!".

[TreasonousBastard]

13. Pretty easily, actually...

with enough manpower. Much easier than the pyramids, obelisks, ziggurats and other stuff the ancients built. Or the Parthenon, Cologne cathedral, Vatican...

I didn't see the documentary the other poster mentioned, but I did read Aku-Aku by Thor Heyerdahl where he witnessed one of the huge Easter Island monoliths being carved and raised.

They used some huge levers to raise the thing an inch or two, then shoveled rocks under it. Continue this until it's at a high enough angle to slide into a shallow pit dug at its feet. The topknot was raised in a similar way.

Stonehenge could have been built the same way.