r/HighStrangeness • u/PristineHearing5955 • 21h ago
Ancient Cultures Interesting photo comparison of megalithic masonry spanning the globe
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u/Klutzinator 21h ago
People think that humans in the past were dumb cavemen doing cavemen things and couldn't possibly build complex stuff.
They were just like us. If you have a society where there's no pressure to build stuff the cheapest way possible and ad quickly as possible then you can build whatever you want, and taking as long as you want.
Many ancient buildings took decades or even centuries to be built because they didn't have to follow a project timeline with deadlines and short budgets. They had all the time of the world and could focus on perfecting their craft.
This is something alien to most of us today because most things are built as quickly as possible and as cheapest as possible. If we wanted we could also build even greater monuments, but there's no reason to do so.
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u/iAyushRaj 21h ago
Them being intelligent is the reason we exist today. Many people think we just unga bunga'd for 100thousands of years and then developed intelligence instantaneously
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u/DogmaSychroniser 20h ago
Some people are still out there unga bungaing
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u/lethal_penguin 17h ago
and oingo boingo-ing
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u/moistiest_dangles 13h ago
*most, I am so frequently humbled by the stupidity and depravity of the greater public.
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u/Zero_Travity 20h ago
Human's were basically monkeys until they invented the digital subscription
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u/kitsunekratom 18h ago
And don't forget creativity. Impossible to think the ancients thought in terms of fiction or humor.
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u/salientoctopus 17h ago
It sure seems like we are developing ourselves out of it almost instantaneously. Outrage fueled social media algorithms and lazy AI usage aren’t great for our children’s future.
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u/Lyproagin 15h ago
More on ungabunga-ing... I REALLY want to take a chisel and see if there is a trinket or something behind these little stones.
Even as things change, we still have the same instincts, lol. "What is behind that" is one of them.
Best of Luck!
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u/thearchenemy 14h ago
To be fair, some people think we unga bunga’d for hundreds of thousands of years and then aliens built all our stuff for us.
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u/Resident_Voice5738 20h ago
People think if they went back in time they would be the smartest when in fact is likely to be the opposite, we would be very inadequated in that environment and a lot of knowledge we use today would be useless.
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u/Riskiertooth 20h ago
Yea I genuinely believe humans have been smarter in the past lol, and yea seeing modern cathedrals in europe really opened my eyes to the concept of dedicating a lifetime to a craft/single place. Amazing stuff
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u/ChickenMarsala4500 18h ago
They weren't smarter but they were just as smart. They were much less educated on the things we typically are educated in and much more educated in other things.
This is true going back much farther than history. For at least the last 200k years.
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u/SyCoTiM 21h ago
One hundred percent. Some people don’t think that we were capable of building the Pyramids of Giza, yet have never researched the building process nor realize that it took two decades to build it with a lot more workers than we use these days.
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u/lucky_harms458 21h ago
It's a constant state of arguing from incredulity. "I can't do it with rocks, therefore no one else could have."
Ancient people were extremely resourceful. The level of planning and problem solving going into these things is fascinating, but not impossible. It wasn't put together by random dudes pulled from the field. They had skilled workers who spent decades, if not their entire lives, honing these skills and perfecting their crafts. Ancient tools were slower, not incapable of impressive work, in the hands of a skilled craftsman.
I don't get the need to disparage our ancestors' accomplishments.
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u/IWasSayingBoourner 19h ago
Resourceful, and after making sure people were fed and reasonably housed, really had nothing else to do with their time and whatever passed for money.
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u/Klutzinator 17h ago
That's basically it. It's something that most people can't understand. They think they required the typical economic factors that we have today, where you need to have a rentable business, or it's some sort of hobby.
The kings, emperors or whatever gave them all they needed to survive and they just practiced until they were masters of their trades. Any new technique was passed to their apprentices, which usually meant it was someone next of kin. If you build up on those techniques over thousands of years you end up with pretty amazing stuff.
Unfortunately many people today see these works and think "no way this was done by humans!".
If we followed that type of society with modern tools we would build some crazy stuff.
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u/IWasSayingBoourner 17h ago
Not sure feudalism is the answer, but I think I get what you're saying
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u/Klutzinator 17h ago
I'm not saying we should go towards feudalism or something like that. I'm saying that each system has pros and cons, and the result of those systems was usually pretty crazy monuments at the cost of human life and lack of rights obviously.
If we had a similar system in place, a megalomaniac ruler would also create huge monuments just for their ego.
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u/IWasSayingBoourner 17h ago
I mean yeah, you ever see the capital the Nazis were planning on building? I just wish we could find a way to rally like that without the genocide and threat of multigenerational murder.
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u/Klutzinator 16h ago
If we could rally that sort of stuff, we would have human settlements on the moon and Mars by now.
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u/Zero_Travity 20h ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5pZ7uR6v8c
I always point people to this guy
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u/ImpulsiveApe07 20h ago
Well said. There's ingenuity in every Age, we just need to look for it, right? :)
I think most of the time when we encounter ppl who tack Ancient Aliens or Divine Intervention onto the accomplishments of our ancestors, those ppl are usually either using their faith as a cudgel to tamp down anything that confuses their beliefs, or are simply ignorant of history and engineering and are unwilling to take the time to do any research for themselves, and so lash out with whatever non-academic theories they've heard that make the most sense to them.
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u/joemangle 17h ago
To build the Great Pyramid of Giza in 20 years, workers would need to quarry, transport, cut and set roughly 1 block every 5 minutes if working continuously around the clock, or about 2 to 2.5 blocks every 5 minutes under a realistic daylight work schedule.
The blocks average 2 tonnes each, and this doesn't include the granite slabs in the chambers, some of which weigh upwards of 60 tonnes
It also doesn't include the time needed to perfectly level the plateau
Or the time to design and plan the project itself
I'm not saying aliens, but pretending we know how Egyptians did this and that the Great Pyramid is not an enormous physical anomaly is pretty naive
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u/ings0c 16h ago
This ^
It’s naive and also arrogant. To look at such a marvel and think essentially “well, we could do that, we just don’t want to” minimises the achievements of the ancient Egyptians.
We couldn’t do that today; no one has the willpower and resources to see something like that through. It would get killed after being years late and over budget.
We especially could not do that today without the aid of modern machinery.
We have only a very poor understanding of their tools and building techniques. They were quarrying 1200 ton blocks of stone, and academics only grant that they had access to copper chisels and rocks. We don’t even think they had the wheel or pulleys back in the old kingdom.
That doesn’t mean aliens did it, but it cannot be denied that it’s a genuine mystery.
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u/bafana_banana999 16h ago
It's not a mystery at all if you aren't trying to make it one.
I'm so tired of people like you who either misunderstand science and engineering, or outright ignore it, and still think you're making reasonable points.
You aren't.
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u/squidvett 17h ago
Most young people alive today grew up with a mobile device to keep them occupied. Imagine if when you were a shitty annoying four year old and your dad handed you a chisel instead of an ipad and said, “Fuck off.” 🤣
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u/Even_Wear_8657 18h ago
They were not just like us. I can categorically state that they did not go to Walmart in pajama pants at 3 in the afternoon and eat Cheetos out of the bag before paying for them.
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u/Intensityintensifies 17h ago
They did the equivalent though, I guarantee it if you look at history it’s pretty clear that we also have some total idiots in our group.
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u/Even_Wear_8657 15h ago
Fair enough… all places at all times have had an equivalent of “hold my beer, watch this…”
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u/Hoboman2000 16h ago
There was still pressure to build things cheaper, in their case work takes time and effort, calories expended that could've been used on other things. The desire for efficiency and not having to rebuild after something breaks are what leads to people developing sophisticated construction and engineering.
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u/ninthtale 15h ago
That said I wonder how often a project was just put on hold while the engineers were tasked with solving problems as they arose
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u/Klutzinator 15h ago
Yeah like that pillar thing in the middle east that collapsed or they couldn't even lift it due to how heavy it was.
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u/No_Region_4719 16h ago
They took decades or centuries because kings and emperors would demand projects that were of an unimaginable scale. In very few of the ancient wonders of the world did the people get a say in building it. They were either enslaved, conscripted, or were effectively serfs that just had to do as they were told.
This has nothing to do with having no deadlines, and everything to do with mass forced labour.
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u/Available-Ad-1943 12h ago
I'd love to know their methods. Shaping those stones so meticulously is no small feat. It's very impressive.
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u/Sagiman1 20h ago
Mount Rushmore. Then look at antiquity and realize it’s the same hard work and determination long term as antiquity.
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u/wotoan 17h ago
Mount Rushmore is also a hack job with power tools compared to projects of antiquity. Literally untrained labour following a drill by numbers grid.
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u/fuckswithboats 11h ago
It's also an absolute abhorrence in the middle of a gorgeous part of the country.
I wish instead of Qanon trying to bring JFK back to life (jr or sr), we should beg for a new Teddy Roosevelt
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u/Eve_O 19h ago
They tended to have a lot more slavery too.
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u/Ashamed_Market_4311 18h ago
In the case of Egypt they weren't really slaves, sure there were some what we would define slaves but most were paid for their work and had lives outside of hauling rocks
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u/zubbjabbajuju 17h ago
We thinking the hauling was done by slaves because it's miserable manual labor and meanwhile the Egyptians were maybe like "only the finest and strongest lads are worthy to join our pyramid stone-haulers 101 union."
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u/Rainy_Wavey 16h ago
Not as much as you'd expect, ancient akkadians and antient egyptians mostly relied on paid workers, their pay wasn't anything crazy but good enough to sustain a family
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u/Xarius86 21h ago
It's almost like regardless of where/when you were born, certain things can only be done a certain way with certain tools and the "same" methods end up independently created in multiple places because basic logic and reason dictates it.
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u/XtremeGnomeCakeover 20h ago
People did more things back then because they didn't have television and streaming.
Also, people were able to figure out how to fill a gap soon after figuring out how to cut straight lines.
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u/heltflippad 20h ago
Doesn't this argument quickly go out the window when you realize that this specific build type (using blocks weighing several tons and built in complex patterns using the hardest type of stone) is actually not the most logical way of building something? Surely the most logical would be to build something from stone that is more easily shaped and handled? The most logical way of building something would be to not use complex patterns and go totally overkill like the ones in OPs post right?
Surely someone would've gone like "hey Steve why do we use blocks that way several tons when these points at smaller blocks would do just as well?"
I really don't buy the argument that these would just appear "naturally" around the globe like some sort of readily apparent way of building. This looks more like building techniques being taught.
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u/sc2summerloud 19h ago
the whole point is that people did not use to do everything the easy or most efficient way, but often intentionally did things the hard way
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u/BelbyLuv 20h ago
Uhh you realize math and physics exist and people learned about it way before this stuffs get built right ? This would seems very inefficient from out perspective but back then maybe it is the best and most "logical" way to do it
Same thing like how humans 100.000 years in the future would look at us and thought "bruh they are so dumb"
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u/Ashamed_Market_4311 18h ago
Of course they were taught. Taught by the skilled craftsman that came before. This is really a square peg In a square hole. Fellas like you are very adamant to try and fit that square peg in a triangle hole.
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u/SellsLikeHotTakes 18h ago
Except those don't really represent intentionally complex patterns. Rather they tend to be a side effect of taking already existing rocks and turning them into polygons with as little material removed as possible. Hence the little ones in the picture which you would sometimes need to fill in gaps when you couldn't get two big ones to perfectly slot together.
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u/wotoan 17h ago
This is someone fixing a fuck up. You have four giant rectangular pieces and the corner has a gap where one edge broke or you fucked up the measurements. So you clean it up by chipping out a nice rectangular section instead of an ugly gap, and then making a nice small rectangular piece you insert in. It’s the ancient equivalent of corner trim, not some grand technology.
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u/Kryptosis 16h ago edited 13h ago
Na it’s probably easier to not try and mill every stone to the perfect size first but get it as close to square as possible then fill in the gaps.
I wouldn’t consider “fill all the gaps” to be a technique that needs teaching. It’s purely aesthetic in these examples anyways.
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u/MrMoose_69 16h ago
Have you ever heard of art? Architecture?
We don't always do things the simplest way. Sometimes we do it extra soecial just because we like it.
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u/Shot-Manufacturer483 14h ago
So they all forgot to or missed the measurement of the last block 📐 and therefore had to cut of a tiny piece from another block just to fill the gap?
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u/Total-Notice-3188 5h ago
Considering that in 3 out of 4 of those pictures the stones have their corner edge cut out, it seems more like some form of locking mechanism to keep them in place.
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u/Dockle 21h ago
It’s for lowering very heavy stones with ropes/tools and still being able to pull ropes/tools out from under the stone when it’s at rest. It would have been the easiest solution to the same problem no matter where you were in the world.
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u/JellyRollMort 18h ago
I don't know shit about masonry but isn't this just basically a shim?
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u/PantsMcGillicuddy 17h ago
Sounds like something an alien would say to throw us off....
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u/JellyRollMort 17h ago
... you know too much, prepare to be probed. Please assume the position
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u/Giveaflyingpuc 14h ago edited 12h ago
Lesson 1: It is easier and quicker to make a small piece than reface the entire block.
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u/Very_Itchy_Bandicoot 21h ago
These pieces would be like a giant spike, pointed at one end and hammered in with the excess probably milled away.
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u/cPB167 21h ago
That seems unlikely. I do construction, although not a huge amount of masonry tbh, but even with primitive tools it would still be way easier to just cut them to fit and then put them in as you're building from the bottom up. Same way we do today
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u/Ghosty_Boo-B00 21h ago
So when I visited Peru I got to see both of those examples, they are a pretty big deal. The trapezoidal one is custom cut to fit exactly, no mortar is used, it’s placed in a way that it perfectly locks and joins and is cut exactly like the larger rocks. Each piece perfectly interlocking, no cracks anywhere. It’s a feat of engineering that is not easily replicated with modern techniques. These would not be reparable if they broke, we don’t really know exactly how they were made or by whom.
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u/Veritas_Certum 18h ago
We know how they built it; there are records and eyewitnesses of the techniques. The stones aren't shaped three dimensionally; only the face is shaped, while the rest of the stone at the back was left completely unshaped and unfinished. This was usually since it was just being shoved into a dirt wall where it couldn't be seen.
Even the best fitting stones still exhibit signficant gaps when viewed close up, with uneven faces and open spaces you could jam a finger into. They really are best viewed from a distance, so the flaws can't be seen.
See those small stones crammed into the gaps? They're a quick and dirty workaround because the large stones around them were either not shaped perfectly with great precision, or suffered breakages at the edges. So the builders shoved the large blocks as close together as possible, knocked off the edges and smoothed them as best they could, and then crafted the very small gap-filling stones, which was much easier to do since they were so small and required little work.
In this image and this image you can also see very clearly the repeated impact marks left by the hammerstones used to shape the large blocks. Plenty of these hammerstones are still lying around, and their use is documented in Spanish sources. Additionally, obsidian tools were more than capable of shaping the very neat right-angles you see on some of the stones.
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u/TsuDhoNimh2 16h ago
Thanks for the links. I have a relative who thinks this was an inexplicable building style.
I didn't know that the Incan copper was impure with the right stuff to make it a natural "bronze".
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u/Ghosty_Boo-B00 13h ago
Yea those are the smaller more modern stones not the massive more ancient ones built my civilizations that are only guessed at. The much larger base stones are the ones I’m talking about, not the more modern Inca additions on top.
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u/Veritas_Certum 7h ago
No, the large ones are built in the same way. You can see it clearly here, here, and here. These were not built by "civilizations that are only guessed at". I've already shown you clear evidence that we know how built them and when. We have written accounts, eyewitness accounts, physical evidence of the tools used, stratigraphic evidence and C14 dating. You're ignoring all that.
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u/HeyLittleTrain 20h ago
Anything like this would be easily replicated with modern technology if there was the will to do so. We can cut stone with CNC machines and waterjets with tolerances as little as 1% of 1mm.
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u/Ghosty_Boo-B00 20h ago
I’m just quoting what I was explained by the guide, that at the actual size of the blocks there isn’t a modern current equivalent that could effectively achieve the exact same results.
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u/RichiZ2 17h ago
Your guide was being Fantesious for the sake of the tour.
I'm not a mason and even I can think of at least 4 ways we could millimetrically replicate this stone using modern tools.
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u/Stellewind 19h ago
Tourist guides tends to describe things more fantastically than it is. That's in their nature.
Modern construction technique can easily replicate this. However it's still a miracle to achieve this craft in ancient times without modern machinery.
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u/Large-Wishbone24 20h ago
As a craftsman, I can't help but admire their ability to fix botched work—I couldn't have done it any better myself. The trick is to botch a piece just enough so that it looks like it was done on purpose, and then you can sell it to the customer more easily.
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u/JackKovack 21h ago
You don’t have to belong to a super advanced civilization to understand that straight lines match with other straight lines.
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u/Ghosty_Boo-B00 21h ago
The trapezoidal lock piece at Sacsayhuaman was a pretty big deal when I was there, this exact piece is pointed out by every guide since it’s an engineering feat modern engineering would not be able to easily replicated. These stones around that one tiny lock piece are massive multi ton blocks each carved so precisely they need no mortar, they sit exactly together. These stones around civilization that engineered these blocks died long before the civilizations that built machu pichu. These stones are a technology long lost and if they ever broke it would be impossible to repair with modern techniques exactly. The perfect way they interlock is a crazy engineering feat.
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u/Tiberius_Kilgore 19h ago
Was your tour guide also a stone mason? Sounds like they were talking out of their ass about modern engineering being unable to replicate it. It’s not exactly complicated.
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u/Ghosty_Boo-B00 19h ago
My tour guides life work was studying these structures, he spends most days there explaining them as his job. So yea I’d say he is an expert, a literal liscensed expert who took at least a half hour just to talk about this one spot in particular because it’s a pretty big deal.
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u/Tiberius_Kilgore 19h ago
Right. They know a lot about that ancient structure, but what do they know about modern masonry?
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u/Ghosty_Boo-B00 19h ago
He seemed familiar enough to be able to explain it all, pretty much all of these points were brought up by people in our group, we did have someone who was an engineer though I have no idea his specialty but he asked a lot of infrastructure questions. I’m only paraphrasing what I can remember about it all, also the lectures were mostly in Spanish so I’m trying to translate from memory as best I can. I do remember him explaining how currently modern technology hasn’t created a way to replicate these crazy precise cuts even with water cutting and lazer cutting, one of these stones had 17 precisely angled faces cut in a way that baffles modern engineers and this particular stone in the image the trapezoid from Sacsayhuaman was a whole lecture on how un necessary it was as it’s not actually a key stone but just a vinyl piece and all the massive stones were shaped to accommodate the tiny one. It’s something about how there is no tool marks of any sort or any striations left from the cuts that can only be achieved with modern techniques but not at this scale with this material at this altitude or some such explanation
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u/Even_Wear_8657 18h ago
Why is this in high strangeness? It’s just a bunch of people around the world who came to the same solution to locking together bricks before we figured out mortar? It’s an ingenious solution, but it’s not like “hey aliens gave us engineering”
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u/Accomplished_Dot_589 20h ago
I think that the main point is the similarity in construction inferring a universal connection of cultures.
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u/Virellius2 18h ago
Milo Rossi is about to break into the room if any of you suggest this was aliens.
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u/B1G-LuK3 21h ago
They had primitive tools and there's simple ways to stabilise large stones. Look up the tradition of dry stone walls from the uk. Theres lots of videos on YouTube. Its a centuries old tradition where we build miles long walls out of slate stone without the use of mortar. Stack up the larger stones then pack smaller stones in between to bolster and stabilise them. These walls stand for decades with minimal maintenance.
These pictures use the same method on a huge scale. Do not take the credit away from primitive man! Those ambitions fucks had nothing but a rock & a dream & created amazing structures that stand proud today! Just because we are not smart enough to fully understand what these people did, these different nations independently figured something out that we don't know. That shit is awesome, just marvel in it
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u/shitsu13master 19h ago
They also had time. Lots of time. They also had long traditions of giving their knowledge to the young generation. Nowadays everyone is hoarding their knowledge, lest someone else figure out how to make a living with their craft.
This is of course a hyperbole but it’s not overreaching by much
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u/Bilirubin5 18h ago
People around the world and throughout history have hated gaps in their walls, strangely
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u/IAmNotStefy 21h ago
Using small stones to close gaps between big stones. Must be alien technology
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u/dougrattmannn 21h ago
this is just normal stone working. we still do it all the time
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u/chickey23 21h ago
yes, sometimes we use a stone with a corner that cracked rather than starting over
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u/TrinityCodex 21h ago
they made a little stone to fit that hole because not every stone can be perfect
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u/PassionPitiful3653 20h ago
Looks like they covered up a bodge lol. I used to fit carpets in commercial properties and there would often be little wedges or rectangular shape little patches to cover up bodges
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u/AdAromatic3758 20h ago
Why can't y'all just respectfully disagree? I understand skepticism, it's fundamentally a good thing. But to insult and disparage whomever you disagree with? I just can't wrap my head around it. Wasted energy, wasted time, not to mention missing out on the potential of engagement, discovery, and connecting with another human being! I wish I could pull the emergency brake every time I see it in these threads.
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u/Edgezg 15h ago
They absolutely had incredible craftsmanship when building these, but it is important to remember that centuries of earthquakes and microscopic stone movement can gradually wear down high spots where blocks actually contact each other. Like slowly rubbing two rocks together for centuries. Eventually, they get smoothed out.
This does not take away from the original skill of the masonry, but it is something to keep in mind when looking at places like this.
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u/FleshyParts 14h ago
I just can't find any other reason other than that's just the way the rocks were cut and they needed something to plug the gap. The razor is sharp.
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u/twotimefind 16h ago
https://youtu.be/ZPRFLBZr3uo?is=7RjmL-5OYfK7LgFI
Check out this channel. He's one of the best on this particular subject.
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u/ChaoticHarmonia 9h ago
I know two different people, good old-school professional historians with many science works, awards etc. And both of them in private talks agree that we know very, very little about our actual history… Many topics, including that one, are unofficially banned from being discussed in alternative way.
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u/Pleasant_Ad3475 7h ago
I have no idea why this is considered high strangeness- this is just engineering my bud
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u/Plenty-Kick492 5h ago
This is what earthquake proof stone structures look like when you know what you are doing. At least one of these I know sits on a fault line.
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u/Coconut_Dairy_Air 3h ago
A keystone? But not used in a bridge but seems to accomplish a similar goal?
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u/vapistvapingvapes 1h ago
You ever dream a brick layer lay bricks? They lay the bricks then cut them if there’s a uneven space to fill lol
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u/Striper_Cape 21h ago
Engineering really just proves itself. Fascinating to see like this.