(go to 55:33 in the video). (see footnotes below)
We will look at the Incan megalithic sites like Machu Pichu all in one segment because Incan stonemasonry was all done more or less the same way.
In regard to Incan building, Ancient Aliens focuses most of its attention on the curved or beveled edges of the stones. They say that it looks like the edges of these stones were melted. Notice as we listen to them build the case for this that the reason they believe this is true, is based entirely on the way the stones look.
Ancient Aliens: “There are signs in many of these stones that show very large amounts of thermal heat have been applied to mould the stones in such a way that they apply perfectly, so it really does raise a lot of questions.”
AA: “If you look at the style the Saxoman Wall was built, the blocks look as if they’ve been molded into putty. If you can mould stone into place then all of a sudden, as crazy as [it] sounds it makes more sense.”
Now melting granite or any other stone and reshaping it would leave unmistakable evidence in and on the stones themselves. In other words, if the rocks were melted, it would be easily provable, it would not be a matter of what the stones look like, it would be a simple yes or no question.
Ancient Aliens skips this step of proving or disproving their theory, instead they assume that the rocks were melted based on the look of the stones and move to the step of trying to figure out who would have had the technology to melt stones.
AA: “I have a stone
torch that I use for sometimes shaping stone granite and it generates a temperature in excess of 3,000 degrees. That’s a lot.”
AA: “When we look back at the ancients and we see a technology that they couldn’t possibly know, there’s only two possibilities: either God did it, which we don’t think happened, or some high-tech civilization from another planet came and showed them how to do it, then took their materials and tools and went back home.”
I think there is at least one more possibility that Mr. Dunn may have missed.
Every shaped stone at any Incan site has what archeologists call “pit marks” or “pit scars”. They occur when stone hammers are used to quarry and shape the stone.[1]
In addition archeologist have found a huge amount of Incan stone hammers at the quarries[2], and almost uniquely to the Incans, they are found at the building sites too, because the Incans only rough cut the stones at the quarries they did the finish work on site so the stones would perfectly fit with the stones around it.[3]
Well how did the Incans accomplish these beveled edges? They used a smaller gauge stone hammer for the outer section.[4] The evidence for this can be seen on every single stone that has these edges.[5]
You can see that the pit scars are much more numerous and smaller on the edges, showing that more blows with a smaller stone was used to achieve the detail work.[6]
Another reason this is no mystery to archeologists is because there are a large number of stones in various stages of construction in the ancient Incan quarries. These stones reveal that indeed the Incan stone masons were using some of the most basic tools, even for their time.[7]
If you want to learn more about the details I will link you to some peer reviewed papers that can tell you more than you’d ever want to know. Including details of experiments done. For example a single scientist in 90 minutes accomplished similar cuts with similar tools.[8]
All this makes what Mike Dunn says here one of the most off the wall things ever said in the Ancient Aliens series:
AA: “I can’t help but think that whoever was behind this thought the process through from beginning to end. They didn’t quarry the rock and then decide how the heck [they] were going to transport [it]. They knew, from beginning to end, what needed to be done with whatever techniques and technology they were going to use. In industry today there is kind of an adage: ‘keep it simple, stupid.’”
AA: “Based on his experience, Mike Dunn believes the simplest way to build the great walls of Machu Pichu would have been to transport small rocks to the site then melt them and use molds to fashion the exact size and shapes needed.”
So he says it’s simpler to melt the rocks – something so complicated that we don’t know how to do it. Is that really the simplest solution he could come up with?
And then to say that they poured the melted rocks into a mold? I mean look at these walls! Can anyone look at this and say “yeah that looks like they were made from the same mold?” These are not exactly bricks of the same size and shape. Unless he wants to say that they made a new mold for every block, in which case we would go well out of the range of this being the simplest solution.
As far as how the Incans moved the stones into place, they left us a lot of evidence behind in the form of ramps. There are Incan ramps all over the place still in existence today, in the quarries and at the building sites.[9]
The Incans had one of the most massive work forces in the all the ancient world. They were like the Roman empire of the west, and they had an absolutely huge labor force at the ready for these types of projects.
So we know these rocks were not melted and put in molds as Ancient Aliens tells us. We actually know exactly how they made these rounded edges, because of the pit marks left behind as well as the huge number of stone hammers found in the quarries. There are no mysteries that require Alien input with Incan stone work.
[1] Jean Pierre Protzen, “Inca Quarrying and Stone Cutting,” The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Vol. 44, No. 2 (May, 1985), pp. 161-182
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Ibid.
[9] Ibid.