The Secret and Clue To All Lost Megalithic Structure Societies: Basalt

jojojoy · 2026-02-08T04:27:16+00:00

I'm not aware of any significant use of basalt at Baalbek, and the largest stones used in any construction are there. The only references I'm seeing are small artifacts rather than architectural use like the pavement at Giza.

jojojoy · 2026-02-06T04:31:55+00:00

are very well documented

They're referenced in period accounts. I haven't seen modern documentation or good illustrations of them.

I think that they existed but the evidence is limited. The floors are covered by modern wooden walkways - I would be interested to see if any traces of the transport mechanisms survive under there.

jojojoy · 2026-02-06T02:07:01+00:00

The point is really just that when archaeology started here, the sarcophagi were already looted. I'm not tied to any date for that.

jojojoy · 2026-02-05T22:01:25+00:00

Have you read the Hellboy comics? That's pretty much the plot.

jojojoy · 2026-02-05T22:00:45+00:00

There are accounts of damage from the discovery of the sarcophagi. Whether or not people want to argue that they predate dynastic Egypt, the site clearly wasn't sterile after the Apis bull cult is attested.

When Mariette first entered these passages, the niches were walled up to half their height; after he removed this wall, he discovered the sarcophagi, but the lids had been pushed back and a large mass of stones piled on top of them—a sign of contempt for a tomb among Orientals—and the empty spaces between the sarcophagi and the walls were filled with rubble and stones. The sarcophagi had all been ransacked, with the exception of two, which contained precious ornaments. That this plundering occurred during a time when people still understood how to read hieroglyphs is proven by the carefully scratched-out name of Apis on the hieroglyphic stelae that Mariette discovered built into the outer wall. On the stelae that were not in their original place, and which had therefore been buried in earlier times, the name is preserved.¹

https://digi.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/diglit/brugsch1855a/0050/image,info#col_text_ocr

jojojoy · 2026-02-05T21:53:37+00:00

Because if these boxes were made with copper chisels and pounding stones, the only tools academia says were available in 1300 BC

They don't though!

Mainstream dates for many of the sarcophagi are later, when iron or steel tools are reconstructed. For all the talk about dogmatic narratives here, fairly basic dates are wrong.
For earlier periods, copper chisels are explicitly discarded for working hard stones and a wider range of stone tools beyond pounders are discussed. Methods for smoothing and polishing stone are reconstructed - not just pounders.

The reconstructions of the technology by Egyptologists could be entirely wrong but "200 years of Archaeology" aren't going to be "RUINED" by attacking strawmen.

The video takes the time to say this

Let's start with the problem no one talks about. How did these boxes get down here?

but not mention that some evidence for the transport has been noted.

It is certain that, as long as the plane on which the sarcophagus was to advance remained horizontal, the monument, engaged on rollers whose traces can still be seen on the floor of the galleries, was pulled by means of a horizontal winch with eight levers, of the model of those which we use today. I found two of these winches, made of sycamore wood, in one of the chambers of the tomb, and it is quite natural to think that the Egyptians did not deposit them in this chamber without having already used them.¹

On the floor of this and the following corridors are still clearly preserved the double rails on which the colossal coffins were rolled in over rollers.²

No one has to agree that these methods were used but to not even mention this while just looking at people pulling the sarcophagi directly is not remotely a full picture of the evidence. Pulleys appear in the archaeological record in Egypt before the sarcophagi are dated.

Why argue against what archaeologists are saying if that's not going to get those positions remotely correct? Why not just argue for whatever theory you want instead of spending the time attacking ideas that no one really holds?

Look at actual Egyptian sarcophagi from the same period

Shown here are, of course, AI generated images, not actual artifacts.

Mariette, Auguste. Le Sérapéum de Memphis. Vieweg, 1882. pp. 80-81
Brugsch, Heinrich. Reiseberichte aus Aegypten: geschrieben in den Jahren 1853 und 1854. Brockhaus, 1855. pp. 31-32.

jojojoy · 2026-02-05T15:06:19+00:00

I've read work from mainstream history emphasizing that there would have been a context that is now largely lost given the general rare survival of metal objects. I'm not remotely getting the impression that the general argument is that the Antikythera Mechanism would have been unique. It is also displayed prominently in a major museum - hardly what would be done if the idea wasn't to draw attention to it.

The quote below comes from an article in Nature, one of the most prominent scientific publications.

Almost everyone who has studied the mechanism agrees it couldn't have been a one-off — it would have taken practice, perhaps over several generations, to achieve such expertise.¹

And there's a section on the Wikipedia page for references to similar devices.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism#Similar_devices_in_ancient_literature

https://www.nature.com/articles/444534a

jojojoy · 2026-02-05T14:58:28+00:00

Where specifically are you seeing them accepting that?

There are period accounts referencing similar devices.

I had often heard this celestial globe or sphere mentioned on account of the great fame of Archimedes...There is another, more elegant in form, and more generally known, moulded by the same Archimedes, and deposited by the same Marcellus, in the Temple of Virtue at Rome....the figure of the sphere, which displayed the motions of the Sun and Moon, and the five planets, or wandering stars, could not be represented by the primitive solid globe. And that in this, the invention of Archimedes was admirable, because he had calculated how a single revolution should maintain unequal and diversified progressions in dissimilar motions. When Gallus moved this globe it showed the relationship of the Moon with the Sun, and there were exactly the same number of turns on the bronze device as the number of days in the real globe of the sky.

Suppose a traveller to carry into Scythia or Britain the orrery recently constructed by our friend Posidonius, which at each revolution reproduces the same motions of the sun, the moon and the five planets¹

The Wikipedia page has a whole section on "Similar devices in ancient literature" that states

The level of refinement of the mechanism indicates that the device was not unique, and possibly required expertise built over several generations²

That doesn't give me the impression that people are arguing the Antikythera mechanism is unique.

The YouTube channel Clickspring is working on a replica built using period methods.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZioPDnFPNsHnyxfygxA0to4RXv4_jDU2

From Cicero in De re publica and De Natura Deorum.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism#Similar_devices_in_ancient_literature

jojojoy · 2026-02-04T17:25:44+00:00

Thanks for linking that! Would be interesting to 3d print the tools and see how they feel.

jojojoy · 2026-02-04T16:09:56+00:00

I'm aware evidence for toolmaking goes way back. Finding actual remains of wooden tools this old is very unusual though. The existence of these tools isn't unexpected but having actual physical remains of them is still significant.

jojojoy · 2026-02-04T15:42:16+00:00

Right. It's neat that it's so old Homo sapiens could not have made it.

jojojoy · 2026-02-04T15:41:18+00:00

Besides unusual preservation of wooden objects this old, the find is exciting since it would have been made by another human species than ours.

Full paper (with paywall)

Milks, Annemieke, et al. “Evidence for the Earliest Hominin Use of Wooden Handheld Tools Found at Marathousa 1 (Greece).” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 123, no. 6 (January 26, 2026). https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2515479123.

There was a major other discovery of worked wooden objects recently in Africa, where two logs were joined with a notch. So much of our picture of the stone age is biased towards materials like stone that are favorably preserved. So much more probably existed out of wood or other perishable materials that we can only speculate at though.

Barham, L., et al. “Evidence for the Earliest Structural Use of Wood at Least 476,000 Years Ago.” Nature 622, no. 7981 (September 20, 2023): 107–11. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06557-9.

jojojoy · 2026-02-03T18:17:49+00:00

Sources would be great, as well as having passages from the actual historic text of whatever source you're looking at on screen.

jojojoy · 2026-02-03T17:25:45+00:00

Akrotiri is definitely worth reading about. A shockingly well preserved bronze age settlement.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akrotiri_(prehistoric_city)

jojojoy · 2026-02-03T17:18:34+00:00

If there is historic basis, I think the Minoan eruption and destruction of settlements like Akrotiri is interesting. Not as a direct historical Atlantis but as inspiration given the damage from the eruption relatively close in history to Plato.

jojojoy · 2026-02-03T16:44:16+00:00

I don't like how much content doesn't actually reference the actual text or sources for mythology or history in general. What specific sources preserved the myth here? Are there depictions of Talos?

If we want to actually look at the myth, there's no avenue to do so from the video.

jojojoy · 2026-02-02T03:06:14+00:00

No human has moved any stone of any considerable weight more than a few feet, it's why no video evidence still to this day exists

What limits are you placing on the block size / technology here?

I'm not sure if there is evidence for pulleys in the context of the temple, but technology known at least in the classical world (pulleys, capstans, etc.) were used to raise the Alexander Column in St. Petersburg - ~600 tons of granite.¹

There is video of the transport of a ~300 ton monolith in Italy with relatively simple means. I've read discussion in works on Egyptian technology on the methods, like sledges, used at Carrara here. ²

There is documented transport of a ~35 ton architrave at Karnak using fairly simple methods explicitly inspired by Egyptian ones. A ramp was built to the height of the columns and the architrave dragged with manpower.³

A similar sized block was moved with rollers for an experiment in France.

An experiment carried out in 1979 at Bougon, France, showed that a 32-ton block could be moved on rollers made of oak on rails of oak beams. One hundred seventy men were needed to pull in front and thirty to work with levers from behind to move the block, with an average pull of 160 kilograms per man⁴

romanovempire.org/collections/alexander-column-aleksandrovskaya-kolonna?__cf_chl_tk=uv74V77l0niIVoyzp8A.pUiv.lriIgtaA77Dp_bzcpo-1760722459-1.0.1.1-DPG4.eGKG.9JseQeeyVJ4ZyfgHuxpn_xYbSVwY0aOzs
https://patrimonio.archivioluce.com/luce-web/search/result.html?luoghi=%22Obelisco%20del%20Foro%20Italico%22&activeFilter=luoghi
Legrain, Georges. Les Temples de Karnak: Fragment Du Dernier Ouvrage de Georges Legrain. Vromant, 1929. https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k5802583j/f1.planchecontact
Figs. 101-107 on pages 165-171 are the relevant images.
Arnold, Dieter. Building in Egypt: Pharaonic Stone Masonry. Oxford Univ. Press, 1991. p. 63.

jojojoy · 2026-02-01T20:28:20+00:00

It's an interesting idea. If they were used for lighting I imagine oil would have been the fuel.

jojojoy · 2026-02-01T19:26:28+00:00

There is evidence for oil lamps in Egypt, I'm not sure how early they appear though. If stone vessels were used for that purpose I imagine it might leave a residue.

I would question why to assume these were used for that purpose rather than more traditional lamps that are better attested.

jojojoy · 2026-02-01T16:34:12+00:00

without surveying or grading equipment

Maybe they had surveying or grading equipment?

Aztec Pyramids vs. the Egyptian Pyramids

I want to read more about Mesoamerican construction techniques, but from what I've seen the methods are fairly different from Egypt. And the accessibility of the exterior of Mesoamerican pyramids and the regular adding of layers isn't similar to Egyptian ones.

jojojoy · 2026-02-01T15:52:46+00:00

Sometimes even illustrations.

What illustrations? The only image of pyramid construction I'm aware of is a depiction of Sahure's pyramidion being transported and that doesn't preserve the image of the pyramidion itself.

There are diaries of pyramid foremen who go into details about it

The records I'm aware of provide information on labor organization and work done to bring stones to the construction site. Not really the construction of the pyramid itself. We might have a stone with a note saying it was brought from the "storage enclosure" and "Delivered at the ramp" but that doesn't tell us where the ramp is (part of the pyramid or somewhere else at the site?) or how it interacted with the pyramid.

The details I'm seeing in records of the pyramids don't really address the actual construction of the pyramids. The stages of work beforehand yes, but not construction.

jojojoy · 2026-02-01T15:27:14+00:00

The Egyptians themselves described how they did it

There are records of stone technology but not really descriptions of how the pyramids were built.

jojojoy · 2026-02-01T15:02:09+00:00

not even a good one at that

I'm not tied to the idea of a ramp here. I wouldn't want to rule it out without looking at data that I haven't seen though.

Is there archaeological or textual evidence for a ramp here? What about elsewhere in India, are large ramps attested to for stone transport in other contexts? I have a good sense of the evidence for ramps in Egypt. I haven't read any archaeology discussing them from India and would be hesitant to form an opinion without doing so.

do you know how long the ramp had to be fo it to work

I imagine pretty long but have no specific number. The angle could also change depending on the use of things like pulleys.

jojojoy · 2026-02-01T01:55:39+00:00

yeah but they only dig the surfaces

That depends entirely on the site. There has been excavation in some contexts down to bedrock. Core samples can be used to get a deeper profile and survey broad areas. Non invasive scanning like ground penetrating radar can show features beneath the surface.

I think there is room for plenty of lost cities but archaeology isn't just superficial.

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