View Full Version : The Big Ancient Monument debate
Forget any bias in which country they are. :roll:
But which ancient monument impresses you the most? Callanish or Stonehenge?
Stone Henge is massive, has the impressive setting, Callanish is smaller but the stone is impressive with the striations in the rocks and is much prettier and has an equally impressive setting.
secrets in symmetry
21-Jun-13, 21:26
As a patriotic Scot, I am proud of Callanish - but I've never seen it in the flesh.
Stonehenge is fantastic.
Do we have to make a choice?
I'm more impressed with Stonehenge because of the primitive engineering involved in raising the stones to a great height.
The Ring of Brodgar and The Stennish Stones that stand in an amazing ancient landscape.
Green_not_greed
22-Jun-13, 00:38
Stonehenge, Callanish, Brogar, Stenness and Maes Howe are all pretty brilliant - seen them all. But the Mayan pyramids were more impressive - to me at least. Maes Howe the next best. Not much from the outside,. but inside fantastic - especially at midsummer!
More at home, the Hill O'Many Stanes is worth seeing - tiny compared to Brogar or Stenness, but very interesting to try and get your head round !
Speaking as a time traveler from 2000 Years into your future I have to say that the Windfarm of Spittal Hill is the most impressive of ancient wonders.
secrets in symmetry
22-Jun-13, 22:17
I saw the Ring of Brodgar on TV shortly after I posted in this thread. Spooky!
There is a burial chamber just outside Finstown on the back road to Kirkwall which is free to enter but has all the charm of Maes Howe. It is intact with its original roof as well.
oh did we forget the duke of Sutherland monument/statue overlooking golspie :roll:
There is one place I would love to see and Visit and that is
Machu Picchu in Peru
http://i.imgur.com/sSuXE0x.jpg
secrets in symmetry
23-Jun-13, 13:13
There is one place I would love to see and Visit and that is
Machu Picchu in Peru
Me too.
I'd also like to visit Easter Island and the Great Wall of China.
I've been to Maeshowe, but it was closed - I'd like to go back there some day.
Of course the worlds truly great monuments were nothing to do with human endeavour at all. Everyone knows the Gt Pyramid and other similar artifacts could not possibly have been built by the populations of their time. ;)
In the British Isles I would say either Silbury Hill (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silbury_Hill), or Newgrange (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newgrange). Worldwide Angkor Wat (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angkor_Wat) is pretty stunning.
Mystical Potato Head
23-Jun-13, 18:28
I think that The Ness of Brodgar could turn out to be the most important site yet.Stonehenge was thought to be the centre of Neolithic culture but the Orkney temple site
with over 100 buildings has been found to be 800 years older than Stonehenge.The first Henges and grooved pottery were made here as well as Britains earliest wall drawings.
George Brims
24-Jun-13, 19:13
Everyone knows the Gt Pyramid and other similar artifacts could not possibly have been built by the populations of their time. ;)
Was that tongue-in-cheek? Because they have worked out the effort involved and the number of people working on it, and it's all perfectly feasible.
Was that tongue-in-cheek? Because they have worked out the effort involved and the number of people working on it, and it's all perfectly feasible.
No it isn't. There are a number of great works of ancient architecture that we could not replicate now with modern computer design and the heaviest of heavy machinery.
There are structures in South America, made from 1000s of isometric 20 ton stones that fit together so well it is not possible, today, to find a measurable gap. These were supposedly built by people who had no roads and to which the concept of the wheel had never occured.
Can you explain?
Oh and just to make it easier, the particular type of Granit the stones are, is impossible to cut with anything other than Diamond.
As a patriotic Scot, I am proud of Callanish - but I've never seen it in the flesh.
Stonehenge is fantastic.
Do we have to make a choice?
No. They were both built by the same people. At the time there was no Scotland or England.
I'm ambivalent about statues and monuments, they look nice and sometimes provide a link to history but at the same time too much gets invested in their artifice as opposed to what they're suppose to represent...
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away
Ozymandias - Percy Bysshe Shelley
George Brims
25-Jun-13, 17:37
No it isn't. There are a number of great works of ancient architecture that we could not replicate now with modern computer design and the heaviest of heavy machinery.
Estimates of the workforce required to build the Great Pyramid vary between 14,000 and 40,000, with a core of 4,000 craftsmen, and a construction time of ten years. These estimates are a combination of studies of the effort involved and the remains of the living accommodation (and the workers!) nearby.
There are structures in South America, made from 1000s of isometric 20 ton stones that fit together so well it is not possible, today, to find a measurable gap. These were supposedly built by people who had no roads and to which the concept of the wheel had never occured.
Can you explain?
Oh and just to make it easier, the particular type of Granit the stones are, is impossible to cut with anything other than Diamond.
Well you can cut granite with sand and a piece of string if you have enough patience (and a lot of string). I have no explanation for the fabulous fit between those granite pieces. What's yours?
Estimates of the workforce required to build the Great Pyramid vary between 14,000 and 40,000, with a core of 4,000 craftsmen, and a construction time of ten years. These estimates are a combination of studies of the effort involved and the remains of the living accommodation (and the workers!) nearby.
As the Great pyramid consists of 2.3 million blocks of stone, there would have to be a dressed stone going on the project every 2.3 minutes?
As the Great pyramid consists of 2.3 million blocks of stone, there would have to be a dressed stone going on the project every 2.3 minutes?
with 4000 craftsmen that is only one dressed stone per 6 days, 9 hours, 20 mins each to get your 2.3 mins. (if my maths is correct)
As the Great pyramid consists of 2.3 million blocks of stone, there would have to be a dressed stone going on the project every 2.3 minutes?
If they only put one stone on at a time.
Estimates of the workforce required to build the Great Pyramid vary between 14,000 and 40,000, with a core of 4,000 craftsmen, and a construction time of ten years. These estimates are a combination of studies of the effort involved and the remains of the living accommodation (and the workers!) nearby.
Well you can cut granite with sand and a piece of string if you have enough patience (and a lot of string). I have no explanation for the fabulous fit between those granite pieces. What's yours?
An estimate of between 14,000 and 40,000 isn't an estimate it is a wild guess. An no, you can't cut this type of Granite with sand. Also the stones don't fit together along straight planes so a cutting disc of any size is out of the question and remember they didn't have the wheel so rotating machinary is out anyway. Would you like to suggest how 20 ton stones (and bigger) could be maybe ground together with sufficient vigor to mate them together highly accuratly that didn't take several thousand years. It takes about five years to grind an accurate telescope lense today.
I have no explanation. I just think history is too dim to show what really happened so far in the past so historians just make stuff up.
George Brims
25-Jun-13, 22:18
As the Great pyramid consists of 2.3 million blocks of stone, there would have to be a dressed stone going on the project every 2.3 minutes?
Only the stones on the outside were fully dressed. They put a lot of fill material in between the others. And they weren't all that well dressed even on the outside, which is one reason the outside is no longer the beautiful thing it was when built.
George Brims
25-Jun-13, 22:30
An estimate of between 14,000 and 40,000 isn't an estimate it is a wild guess.
No, it's an estimate, using physical evidence.
An no, you can't cut this type of Granite with sand.
You can cut it with water if you have enough time. You can also hone it with more granite. But as I said I have NO IDEA how they did that. it's a fascinating puzzle.
It takes about five years to grind an accurate telescope lens today.
Today telescopes don't use lenses - big mirrors are the thing. And we make them in sections too, so five years is no longer the time scale. Here's one of the biggest (the wee figure in the middle is me). It's Keck I, 10 metres diameter.
19790
No, it's an estimate, using physical evidence.
You can cut it with water if you have enough time. You can also hone it with more granite. But as I said I have NO IDEA how they did that. it's a fascinating puzzle.
Today telescopes don't use lenses - big mirrors are the thing. And we make them in sections too, so five years is no longer the time scale. Here's one of the biggest (the wee figure in the middle is me). It's Keck I, 10 metres diameter.
19790
Wow! How did you get in there? :lol:
You have to admit, it is a bit of a tall order to expect us to believe that (supposedly primitive) people built the structures in question.
I like the ancient aliens theories. I don't believe them, I just like them.
oh did we forget the duke of Sutherland monument/statue overlooking golspie :roll: Don't think the Duke's monument is classed as ancient! :)
Talking of ancient monuments, the road closest to Stonehenge is at last being removed:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-wiltshire-23029036
George Brims
26-Jun-13, 18:51
Wow! How did you get in there? :lol:
Work! Google "MOSFIRE" and you'll see the thingy we were installing.
You have to admit, it is a bit of a tall order to expect us to believe that (supposedly primitive) people built the structures in question.
To believe it you have to abandon the idea that "primitive" people were not as smart as us. Jared Diamond (author of "Guns, Germs, and Steel" and "Collapse") reckons the people from the tribes he visited in the jungles of Borneo are the smartest he's ever met. Take a minute to think, if you were dumped in a Caithness moor with nothing but the clothes on your back, how would you survive? Yet our ancestors did, and had enough time on their hands to built the Camster Cairns.
I like the ancient aliens theories. I don't believe them, I just like them.
I neither believe nor like them!
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