From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Fri May 07 1999 - 08:43:32 MDT
Dwayne <dwayne@pobox.com> writes:
> Anders Sandberg wrote:
>
> > Dwayne <dwayne@pobox.com> writes:
> >
> > > The lower courses of the Temple of Jupiter at Baalbeck are,
> > > according to the quotes I have seen, too massive to be moved using
> > > currently available technology. Now, these may be quotes from
> > > engineers who have vested interests, or they might be correct.
> >
> > A quick look at the some websites mentions a 1000 ton carved stone in
> > the quarry, and the Trilithon of three 800 ton stones. This is
> > definitely in the range of modern technology (the "turtle" they move
> > the space shuttle on can carry much more).
>
> Sue, it can carry it, but do we have the technology to lift such objects?
>
> The quote I saw said that modern engineers could not transport such an
> object, I'm assuming that means lift and move.
Let's see what AltaVista and the web brings up. On
http://www.bayltd.com/assng1.html they move around stuff weighing
several hundred tons and obviously need to get it on and off the
crawlers. Mobile tower cranes can lift at least 300 tons, combine four
and you can lift even the quarry stone. Hydraulic cranes can
apparently lift up to 500 tons.
Aha, here is an interesting piece:
http://www.jmuller.com/engineer/pubs\enr\nsc\nsc1296.htm
They mention the Svanen, a Danish crane system for bridge building
that can lift 8,200 tonnes. That is eight Trilithons (if the measures
are not confused; why can't everybody use SI! :-). They use it in this
case to move precast concrete spans a 7,500 tonnes, which are also
moved overland from a casting years to the building area.
> > BTW, what would the vested interests of the engineers have been?
>
> What makes you think they had one?
You wrote so in your original mail: "Now, these may be quotes from
engineers who have vested interests"
> > Maybe the claim is simply a misunderstanding: the engineer was
> > referring to a disbelief in how the ancients could have done it, and
> > then it was repeated too much to become a claim about current
> > inability. It fits into the "lost golden age"-meme receptors fairly
> > well.
>
> Maybe we lack the technology to move 1,000 ton blocks of stone great
> distances?
As seen above, clearly not.
> Your reply fits into the "modern man can do anything the ancients could,
> and better!"-meme receptors fairly well :-)
Sure. But what I was thinking of was the spreadability of a meme:
something that fits in with the schemas many people have (and the
golden age idea is *very* firmly entrenched in western civilization)
will spread much further than something that doesn't - regardless of
the validity. Actually the "modernity is better than the past" meme is
fairly weak compared to the golden age meme when it comes to popular
views, so two equivalent statements about the engineers of the past
("they could do it, we can", "they could do it, we can't") would
spread at different rates. My guess is that the claim the ancients had
wonderful stuff we have lost would spread much further without being
true, simply because it fits with cultural schemata, gives a certain
thrill ("wow! I wonder *how* they did it?") and it suits some other
meme systems well.
-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension! asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/ GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y
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