Saw a documentary on the construction technique a while back. It’s not as hard as it seams, but it is a shit ton of work. I’m not sure who worked harder, the guy chiseling on a rock all day every day, or the people feeding that guy that just chisels on a rock all damn day.
A lot of things are possible when you have a population that is deeply socialized to believe completely in the cause, and/or has few viable economic options, and/or is literally compelled to do the work. We also have a lot of survivorship bias as the we only see the stuff that was done so well as to stand the test of time. In the early days of Egyptology for example, they would sometimes realize (or learn from the locals because the locals knew best) that the big heap of rubble over there in the desert was actually a pyramid where somebody half-assed it with mud bricks instead of the giant limestone slabs from Giza.
One theory is that the final step was that they mixed acid mine drainage with mud and applied that before setting the rock in place. This “dissolved” the minute bumps resulting in a perfect fit.
Saw a documentary on the construction technique a while back. It’s not as hard as it seams, but it is a shit ton of work. I’m not sure who worked harder, the guy chiseling on a rock all day every day, or the people feeding that guy that just chisels on a rock all damn day.
I see what you did there.
A lot of things are possible when you have a population that is deeply socialized to believe completely in the cause, and/or has few viable economic options, and/or is literally compelled to do the work. We also have a lot of survivorship bias as the we only see the stuff that was done so well as to stand the test of time. In the early days of Egyptology for example, they would sometimes realize (or learn from the locals because the locals knew best) that the big heap of rubble over there in the desert was actually a pyramid where somebody half-assed it with mud bricks instead of the giant limestone slabs from Giza.
One theory is that the final step was that they mixed acid mine drainage with mud and applied that before setting the rock in place. This “dissolved” the minute bumps resulting in a perfect fit.