Another reason is we are practical. Why build such a huge monuement when the actual interior is so small? It's not practical.

 

I'm more interested in "how" they did it, rather than "why" they did it.

For example, how the hell did they make the Nazca plains so perfectly flat? How did they make the huge aerial drawings without getting a view from higher point?

How the hell did they do this with stones that weigh several hundred tons and fit them so perfectly in Peru?

 

People back then didn't have TV, video games, phones or the internet, so they had a lot more time on their hands  

 

Interesting thread.

I've seen bits and pieces of this show. My mother is rather fascinated with it. I think there are some peculiar things that they do point out in our history, but don't necessarily subscribe to the theories, which usually boil down to "I don't know how this happen, therefore aliens did it."

It makes for good scifi though. Which Transformers has been incorporating into the fiction for awhile now. Just look at Beast wars. Most of that series revolved around an ancient alien plot.

That's kind of the theory I base a lot of this on as well. Sure, it still doesn't explain how they did it. But I find the idea that ancient man may not have been quite as primitive as we think a lot more probable then aliens doing everything for us.

 

The plains themselves are flat naturally. They're part of a high, arid (nearly desert) region with very little wind and a stable climate, which means the landscape doesn't shift much. Sadly, due to deforestation and pollution the region where the lines have sad for centuries is now experiencing greater erosion and preserving the lines may be a lot more difficult.

Nazca Lines - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This also makes them pretty much a perfect canvas for stuff like this, since the only thing that makes the surface for kilometers around anything other than flat is the curvature of the earth itself. The layered nature of the soil also helps the lines (which are only a few inches deep) stand out, as the rocks on the very surface of the desert are a different color than the soil below.

There's a scientist from the University of Kentucky named Joe Nickell who managed to recreate the Nazca lines using technology available at the time to the Nazca, and there's a great article about here:

The Mysterious Nazca Lines

I, personally, would have just taken two lengths of rope with grommets to put stakes through at both ends and in the middle. I'd stake one rope down in the direction I wanted, then take the other and connect it at the centre of the other rope and pull it taut over top of the first rope and staked it down. Then I'd trace the straight line the two (or more accurately, one and a half) lengths of rope made, unstake the first rope, bring it to the middle of the second rope, and repeat the process. With that and a blueprint, I figure I could make a pretty good approximation of the Nazca lines. And I'd make round edges by using the taut rope like a geometric compass. That seems to be pretty much the method Nickell used.

As for Machu Picchu, you're right, it has some of the most amazing stonecraft in history, period. Oddly enough, the Inca had a lot in common with the Ancient Egyptians. They were a major power in the region, culturally and politically, they were wealthy and had access to a wide range of resources through tribute and trade, and they had a good understanding of mathematics, geometry, and astronomy. Unlike the Egyptians, the Inca weren't the only civilization in the area who were good at those things, there were also the nearby Aztecs, who they may have learned from, and who in turn may have learned from the earlier Mayan civilization. It's important to remember that Machu Picchu was built around 1400AD, almost 4000 years AFTER the Pyramids of Giza, and when pretty much every major region of the world had already built some pretty amazing stuff, so it's not like that level of construction is wildly ahead of it's time. Which leads into why the Inca were a much shorter-lived empire than the Egyptians: The Spanish arrived, and they had guns (and carried smallpox).

But anyway, as to the rocks. They fit together almost flawlessly without mortar, to the point they can be used as aquefers, they look polished and new hundreds of years later, etc. Well, one of the reasons they look so new is the climate, which, as I said, is pretty stable, and there isn't quite the level of erosion that blowing sand causes in Egypt or creeping jungle causes in Central America. There's still moss all over the place, and you can see for yourself that the site is just as much in ruins in a lot of places, and as preserved in others as European castles, churches, etc. from the same timeframe.

How'd they get them there? How'd they fit them together? How'd they get away without using mortar? It's actually pretty interesting. The Inca were masters of a type of masonry called Ashlar (which, oddly enough, the Egyptians were as well):

Ashlar - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Inca empire was stable in terms of climate, but highly seismically active. The people in the area discovered that, if they used mortar, during an earthquake it would crack and the structure would collapse, whereas cut and fitted stones were able to shake, shift, and settle during the quake without falling over. They also discovered that stones fit together certain ways (L-shapes, trapezoids, rounded and curved corners, etc) held up much better during earthquakes, and while they probably looked normal to the Incas, they look almost otherworldly and aesthetically pleasing to us today. So for buildings they wanted to last and that were important (such as Machu Picchu), they had to go the extra mile and fit the stones together. So naturally, over time, they got really good at it. One of the best ways to fit stones together is to "rough" them at the quarry, to chisel, wedge, break, and carve them out in roughly the shape you want, but larger, and then to do fine stonework at the worksite, usually with extensive sanding and polishing. The upside of all that sanding and polishing to get stuff that fits together like granite-tetris is that you can do stuff to the rock you couldn't normally do, like have loops in it or knobs coming off it or ridges that you later break off and sand down. Some of these knobs are still there on the rocks of Machu Picchu, actually. These knobs and holes and such were probably used to attach ropes or other modes of transport, such as sledges (The Incas didn't use wheels because they didn't have draft animals and the landscape can get pretty perilous) to move the rocks, most likely using ramps or other rocks for bearings or as a smooth sliding surface. A lot of the rock is local, and the quarry is apparently quite close, and the rocks aren't nearly as big as the Pyramid stones.

The Construction of Machu Picchu: How Did the Incas Build Machu Picchu? Construction Techniques, Materials, Purpose...

So they'd carve them up, take them where they needed them, then sand and polish them until they looked fantastic and fit the space like a glove.



Check out the NOVA documentary "Ghosts of Machu Picchu" if you can, it's full of great info on the subject and it's absolutely beautiful.

 

Damn Aernoroth, you and your giant head-bobbing parrot brain are too godly for this thread.  

 

Aernaroth, Ultrawave - You guys are the reason this thread is worthwhile  

 

And it took four pages to make that reference. I am dissapointed.

 

ownz

I demand the Fallen as the druids from Spinal Tap.

 

I've seen it, pretty cool show actually. And I do see how the movies are similar to the theory.

 

The 'ancient aliens' theory makes a good plot device in fiction. Where it comes to real-life matters, though? Well, let's just say I don't believe in widespread alien influence over the mysteries and marvels of antiquity, but think that there might have been just a little, here and there. The 'anti-ancient aliens' crowd's stance is quite secure when alien involvement cannot be proven, such as in the case of the pyramids; however, I feel things get a little more problematic when the ancient people themselves make claims that they received extraterrestrial assistance - see the legends of the West African Dogon people, which state that their oddly accurate astronomical knowledge was imparted by interstellar visitors.

I like to think that you are  

Also, the macros in this thread are laugh-out-loud hilarious.