Ancient ruins in South America, dated back to 12000 BC.

[Vindekarr]

Because the same factors that make Diorite as user friendly as riding a crocodile, also make it absolutely perfect for fortifications. It's hard to break apart, that's the point: perfect naturaly occuring armour for large buildings, also, it lasts a phenomainaly long time and is totaly waterproof due to density.

 

It's bullet proof, sword proof, resists softer rocks, eg what a Trebuchet(a large siege machine, in engineering terms, they're poetry in motion, raw physics in action.)throws. But it's also very long lasting, and incredibly resilient.

 

I suspect they either wanted this place to last, which it would have, or expected to be fending off attacks from within it, in whcih case no natural substance is likely a better choice.

[Surenas]

So why did they use diorite if it's so hard to work? I would imagine they were building these as a place to live, they would likely want their pottery some time during their life span. Why not just make it out of clay like everyone else?

 

It's due to the "horizon of the gods" - the eternity, manifested and hailed in everlasting polished stone to impress the eye of the beholder and to lift up the divine owner for many generations and not for just a few months as it would be the case if cardboard boxes as grave goods were ever used. The understanding of time has fundamentally changed over the ages and thus of the time of existence of a product that belongs to the upper class as well.

You and me, we'd have used fragile clay in those days, for sure, because we don't stay in the divine limelight, miles above the masses. Our horizon, the "horizon of the simple ones" covers just a few years and everything we hold today will hardly survive our grandchildren cos we're made from clay and not from diorite.

 

Regarding the ancient techniques to sculpture diorite the scholarly opinions differ, though not widely. Core drilling hmt.prj and grinding hmwt materials play a role in ancient Egypt - and time as the function of both quality and final product prize, and the latter is quite decisive today but not for an ancient royal house or the ruling priest class.

Moreover, to keep power over the people the ancient kept their special knowledge secret, handed over only to the chosen ones, the adepts, merely randomly under torture to the conquerer. A howto build a pyramid we'd thus never dig out.

 

NB

The invulnerable fortress wasn't yet built, it's just a myth to calm down the fears of the folks on the eve of the siege.

[ub3rman123]

So whatd they live in while this very hard to build structure was created? Surely they didn't just shiver in the rain. Otherwise they''d all be dead before it was done.

[Surenas]

Similar to most of us when we have a new house built they lived in the old residence or temple, usually in a different place within range. Gotta live in the construction area like the ancient builders wouldn't be divine or lifted up but dirty, thus less impressive for the people and even lesser safe for an elite that was out of touch with any manual labor that has no relation to the exercise of the cult or to warfare.

[Ghogiel]

You're missing the point: that aint sand stone.

 

Ghogiel, reread some of page #2. This is granite, and diorite.

If we are talking about pumapunku, then yeah, apparently they did primarily use sandstone for the building. there are smaller blocks of a type of diorite. used as decoration or wall facings. these are apparently of a small size that would make transport from that quarry 70km feasible.

[Surenas]

The interesting theme has inspired me to order the following contemporary works from amazon:

 

_ Inca Garcilaso de la Vega - The Royal Commentaries of the Incas and the General History of Peru, Lisbon 1609 / Univ of Texas 1987

_ Pedro de Cieza de Leon - The Discovery and Conquest of Peru (Chronicles of the New World Encounter), Sevilla 1550 / Duke Univ Press 1998

 

Hope they're worth the money :unsure:

 

NB

The pre-Columbian Tiwanaku ("stone in the center"?) and Puma Punku ("gate of the puma"/cougar) are located at the Bolivian border to today Peru. The empire of Tiwanaku has once covered larger parts of today Chile, Bolivia and Peru. It collapsed around 1100 CE, some 400 years before the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire

Edited October 3, 2010 by Surenas

[TheCalliton]

I always wonder why ancient peoples built their stone structures so far from any quarry. For challenge or something? Would make sense for it to be right beside it. Maybe they exhaust a quarry that's right beside it and it can't be seen today...

the quarry isnt always the best place for a town, the quarry could be 100 miles away from the nearest water at the time. location is everything

[Surenas]

The ancient built their cities always at strategic points. They are strategic because they are the points at which the ancient were able to perform some action like trading and warfare with a highest possible degree of assurance of success. The quarry offers just a guarantee for stones - it's a resource like woods, grass-or farmland.

A not that bad virtual introduction into the theme is provided by Microsoft's Age of the Empires (1997 and sequels).

I remember that in the beginning I've always settled my people at the most ridiculous points...

[Harbringe]

You're missing the point: that aint sand stone.

 

Ghogiel, reread some of page #2. This is granite, and diorite.

If we are talking about pumapunku, then yeah, apparently they did primarily use sandstone for the building. there are smaller blocks of a type of diorite. used as decoration or wall facings. these are apparently of a small size that would make transport from that quarry 70km feasible.

 

That doesn't make sense ,you don't decorate your walls with stones that weigh as much as 200 tons ,and that's whats left after the Bolivian army took the largest stones back in the early 20th century to use as bedrock for the railroads.To use stones of that magnitude as decoration is like someone today putting a painting on their wall that weighs as much as the wall itself.Besides stones that large are more than capable to be load bearing stones of a very large structure.

[Ghogiel]

You're missing the point: that aint sand stone.

 

Ghogiel, reread some of page #2. This is granite, and diorite.

If we are talking about pumapunku, then yeah, apparently they did primarily use sandstone for the building. there are smaller blocks of a type of diorite. used as decoration or wall facings. these are apparently of a small size that would make transport from that quarry 70km feasible.

 

That doesn't make sense ,you don't decorate your walls with stones that weigh as much as 200 tons ,and that's whats left after the Bolivian army took the largest stones back in the early 20th century to use as bedrock for the railroads.To use stones of that magnitude as decoration is like someone today putting a painting on their wall that weighs as much as the wall itself.Besides stones that large are more than capable to be load bearing stones of a very large structure.

apparently none of the stones at the site weigh 200 tons. diorite or otherwise

 

the largest stone there is estimated to weigh 131 tons. And that one made from sandstone. I did not find any weight analysis for any of the harder stones. All I found was a vague reference that there is a type of diorite found at the site, and that they are cut much smaller in comparison to these large sandstone blocks.

 

I have no doubt everyone would go straight for the sandstone for railroad ballast, and giving the diorite a very wide birth. so presumably it's the sandstone that would have first been pillaged if it was for that use only.