PinGGG!......................
Much like people....................
And you posted this mess as news?
I’ve often wanted to hear a stonemason’s or bricklayer’s opinion on some of the stonework down in Peru. They are made out of huge blocks of granite or something equally hard, no two blocks the same shape, some up to 12 sides, several feet thick, and fit with almost perfect precision. I mean where do you even start a course?? It’s really crazy.
A lot of the stuff in Egypt shows clear evidence of circular saw marks, and core drills, neither of which they were supposed to have. One of the famous 19th century Archeologists, Flinders Petrie (jes’ a good ole boy, you can tell) who discovered some cores estimated the core drills had a feed rate of approximately 1mm per revolution into rose granite. This is impressive by any measure. The large square granite boxes and such weighing from 30 to 100 to tons, many cut from a single piece of stone, with inside 90° cuts and very precise angles when measured modern carpenter tools.
One thing is for sure, they didn’t make all that stuff with coller chisels. The problem is, since modern archaeologists don’t have answers, they don’t talk about it.
Since they don’t talk about it, all the nutjobs do. So there’s really only two competing narratives. Illiterate peasants with copper chisels, or, it was done by outer space aliens from Retucula Zenorh or whatever.
There’s a theory that the Andian Indians used slag from processing copper to get those tight joints that their famous for.
Not those joints.
Seems reasonable. Plants and animals were the source for most chemicals until relatively recently.
CUZCO TALES by Richard Nisbet.
Exerpt...
B.1 EXPLORATION FAWCETT I
“Talking of birds, all through the Peruvian and Bolivian Montaña is to be found a small bird like a kingfisher, which makes its nest in neat round holes in the rocky escarpments above the river. These holes can plainly be seen, but are not usually accessible, and strangely enough they are found only where the birds are present. I once expressed surprise that they were lucky enough to find nesting-holes conveniently placed for them, and so neatly hollowed out as though with a drill.
‘They make the holes themselves.’
The words were spoken by a man who had spent a quarter of a century in the forests. ‘I’ve seen how they do it, many a time. I’ve watched, I have, and seen the birds come to the cliff with leaves of some sort in their beaks, and cling to the rock like woodpeckers to a tree while they rubbed the leaves in a circular motion over the surface. Then they would fly off, and come back with more leaves, and carry on with the rubbing process. After three or four repetitions they dropped the leaves and started pecking at the place with their sharp beaks, and–here’s the marvelous part–they would soon open out a round hole in the stone. Then off they’d go again, and go through the rubbing process with leaves several times before continuing to peck. It took several days, but finally they had opened out holes deep enough to contain their nests. I’ve climbed up and taken a look at them, and, believe me, a man couldn’t drill a neater hole ! ‘
‘Do you mean to say that the bird’s beak can penetrate solid rock?’
‘A woodpecker’s beak penetrates solid wood, doesn’t it?.. No, I don’t think the bird can get through solid rock. I believe, as everyone who has watched them believes, that those birds know of a leaf with juice that can soften up rock till it’s like wet clay.”
I put this down as a tall tale–and then, after I had heard similar accounts from others all over the country, as a popular tradition. Some time later an Englishman, whose reliability I cannot doubt, told me a story that may throw some light on it.
’ My nephew was down in the Chuncho country on the Pyrene River in Peru, and his horse going lame one day he left it at a neighbouring chacra, about five miles away from his own, and walked home. Next day he walked over to get his horse, and took a short cut through a strip of forest he had never before penetrated. He was wearing riding breeches, top boots, and big spurs–not the little English kind, but the great Mexican spurs four inches long, with rowels bigger than a half-crown piece–and these spurs were almost new. When he got to the chacra after a hot and difficult walk through thick bush he was amazed to find that his beautiful spurs were gone–eaten away somehow, till they were no more than black spikes projecting an eighth of an inch. He couldn’t understand it, till the owner of the chacra asked him if by any chance he had walked through a certain plant about a foot high, with dark reddish leaves. My nephew at once remembered that he came through a wide area where the ground was thickly covered with such a plant. ‘That’s it!’ said the chacarero. That’s what’s eaten your spurs away! That’s the stuff the Incas used for shaping stones. The juice will soften rock up till it’s like paste. You must show me where you found the plants.’ When they came to look for the place they couldn’t find it. It’s not easy to retrace your steps in jungle where no trails exist.’ “
http://www.spirasolaris.ca/waterstone.html
As both a physical chemist and an Archaeological Steward for the State of Texas (THC), I must say that the imbecile (or charlatan) who wrote this article most obviously never even took a high school course in chemistry -- or, if they did, they smoked pot during class!
Obviously, they never heard of the fact that, when one etches a line in an isotropic material, the line grows as much in width as it does in depth. A career in microelectronics convinces me that is always the case.
And, hard, tough (non-single-crystal natural stone is anisotropic. Controlled, precision etching of isotropic materials is challenging to control; etching anisotropic materials is basically uncontrollable. (Or, if it is single-crystal, is controlled by the crystal structure, itself.
Most of the harder, tougher natural stones are inhomogenous, polycrystalline agglomerations. To see what a "polished surface" attacking one with an acid would provide, they need only look at their first illustration -- or spill battery acid on concrete...
And, obviously they don't understand that HF is treacherous and dangerous stuff. If it gets on your skin, it diffuses inward and selectively attacks the calcium compounds in your bones -- while leaving little evidence on the skin's surface. Even IF primitive folk managed to form HF (certainly NOT from plants!), how long does anyone here think they would have survived handling it, trying to do what they could do better by bashing on the rock with another rock? (I'm also a lithic technologist and flintknapper; I've bashed a lot of rock...)
This article is high school "F" chemistry student BS!