Monoliths, A Moving Subject

stonehenge-wallpaper-1Aside from the well known Stonehenge in Wiltshire England there are literally hundreds of monolithic sites the world over.  From the Great Pyramid at Giza to the city of pyramids at Teotihuacan, some consist of multiple stones that are moderate in size, but others are simply gargantuan monoliths.  How were such huge stones worked and moved about in an age before the advent of modern technology?

The largest quarried monolith (but not moved) is in Nanjing China, it is the Stele Base(of the Ming Dynasty) in the Yangshan Quarry and it comes in at a whopping 16,250 tons (or 32,500,000 pounds).  Though since it was never moved, it’s ranking at the top of the list is a little misleading.  The largest stone monolith ever moved is the Thunder Stone at St Petersburg Russia. It is 1500 tons (or three million pounds), it was moved 6 kilometres over land in 1770 for the Russian Empire.

The Trilothon at Baalbek Lebanon
The Trilithon at Baalbek Lebanon

At second place is the Ramesseum or memorial temple of Pharaoh Ramesses II, located in the Theban Necropolis in Upper Egypt.  A syenite statue of Ramesses, weighing approximately 1000 tons (or two million pounds), only fragments of which still exist, was allegedly transported 170 miles over land.  This is the largest remaining colossal statue in the world.

Coming in at a close third is the trilithon at Baalbek, Lebanon.  A group of three horizontal giant stones, 800 tons each, which make up the podium base for the Roman Jupiter temple.

These and other sites around the world have huge stones used in their construction, though modern science is largely at a loss to explain how such stones were moved and erected.  Aside from it’s hard-to-pronounce name, Ollantaytambo in Peru is a good example, several stones 100 tons or more have been precisely set as walls and other structures with an almost inconceivable level of accuracy.  How were these stones moved, let alone placed with such exacting standards?

Monolithic stone at Ollantaytambo in Peru

Modern science tells us stories of wooden rollers and counterbalanced primitive cranes, but to some these answers are inadequate.  Ancient alien theorists loudly contend that the sheer size of these stones makes it improbable that archaic technology had any part in the operation.  Of course, the alternative offered by these theorists is that aliens provided advanced technology and methods to our ancient ancestors.

Ancient alien theorists, such as Georgio Tsoukalos and David Childress (as seen on the History channel’s Ancient Aliens, The Series) suggest that various advanced technologies were used to move these stones, such as anti-gravity technology, and even acoustic levitation.  Anti-gravity is a misnomer, in that there is no way to cancel gravity.  There are ways to counteract gravity’s effect on an object, whether through electromagnetic force or aerodynamic lift, but this is not true anti-gravity per se.  Ancient alien theorists contend however,  that aliens who visited Earth in the distant past possessed some heretofore unknown technical ability in anti-gravity which they passed on to our ancestors, and that this knowledge has been forgotten over the years.

The "Inca Door" at Ollantaytambo, Peru
The “Inca Door” at Ollantaytambo, Peru

Acoustic levitation is, on the other hand, technologically feasible. Scientists have used acoustic levitation techniques to cause ping pong balls to dance around inside acoustic chambers.  The technology uses sound waves, vibrating at a resonant frequency to almost magically levitate an object. But while it is theoretically possible, it is doubtful that anyone could use this technique to levitate something as large as these stones.  Nonetheless, these ancient alien theorists are confident in their assertion that this technology was used in our ancient past.

As mentioned above, modern science suggests that wooden rollers, levers and fulcrums, and the use of many, many men were the true method, and it seems to diminish the accomplishment when these ancient alien theorists insinuate that our ancestors were incapable of erecting these monuments on their own.  One thing remains certain, the stones were moved and manipulated, somehow.  We may never know how exactly, but we can be reasonably sure it wasn’t by alien intervention.

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