If we had technologies in the past that we have forgotten, then it is curious that this loss of knowledge has sometimes been slow as is evident at Göbekli Tepe, and sometimes rapid as is evident from Baalbek Quarry. Why would something as simple as cutting stone and putting them on top of each other be sometimes slowly forgotten, and at other times forgotten practically over night?
The alternative to a loss of technology would be a change in the environment in which three things happened:
- Everything became heavier over time
- Silicon compounds became harder and stronger
- Carbon compounds became softer and weaker
To explain the sudden change in environment evident at the Baalbek Quarry, the three changes would have had to happen simultaneously, presumably due to a single unifying cause. My favorite candidate is the mass condensation hypothesis proposed by Halton Arp. However, there might be better candidates. The precise mechanism is not important for this blog post.
What is important to note is that every single architectural wonder of the ancient world becomes far less mysterious once the above three points are accepted. Read any article, or watch any video, on the mysteries of ancient architecture with the above list in mind, and everything becomes readily understood.
Case in point is this article in which the author highlights some very interesting observations regarding the way quarries were worked in ancient times. Evidence suggests that rock was scooped out of quarries with spoon like tools, the size of present day spades. Such marks can be seen in ancient quarries all over the world.
Notice that the argument for a lost technology is that the rock is too hard and strong for bronze or wood tools. However, some rocks may have changed radically in their strength over time. The favorite rocks of ancient builders may have been relatively soft in their time.
The actual digging appears to be manual. There was nothing high tech about the way the work was done. The only puzzle is the size of the rocks and their apparent softness, so why not suggest that the stones were both lighter and softer in the past? The spades may have been made of wood and the rock was simply dug out in much the same way we dig out clay today.
Looking at the rocks that were put together by the Incas to create their earthquake resistant buildings, it is almost as if the rocks were still in a soft state when they were put into place. A lump of clay-like rock was put into place on top of other lumps that had hardened in the sun and the wind. Once hardened, another lump of clay-like rock was put next to it.
If this was how things were done in the ancient past, then there must have been an abundance of malleable rocks just beneath the hard crust of mountains. Once the hard crust was cracked, the rest was pretty straight forward digging.
I'm not proposing that all rocks were soft as clay in ancient times, but all rocks were softer than they are today, and some rocks were in this clay-like condition. The farther back we go in time, the softer and more malleable were the rocks.
An interesting thing to note regarding this hypothesis is that the expansion of our planet appears to have been by stretching rather than cracking during the first 140 million years. Earth appears to have expanded by a very large percent without cracking. Only 60 million years ago, when the dinosaurs finally went extinct did the crust of our planet crack.
This is evident by studying maps of Earth's seafloor. The oldest seafloors, close to continents and away from the ridges, are clearly created by a plastic expansion. Under the hard crust lay an elastic layer. This is particularly evident for Micronesia, east of Asia, and for Madagascar east of Africa.
The relatively recent mid ocean ridges, which are cracks in the crust of our planet, have been attributed to the fact that the expansion appears to be accelerating. However, it could just as well be due to the fact that our planet has become harder and more rigid so that the stretching that was possible in the distant past is no longer possible.
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| Earth expansion seen from the south pole |
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