[Sca-cooks] Circles

[James Prescott]

At 03:13 -0600 2004-11-28, Stefan li Rous wrote:
>   WdG proposed:
>>  I have long had a (completely) unsubstantiated theory that the Standing
>>  Stones in many Neolithic
>>  or pre-historic sites were dragged/leveraged into place, and then
>>  shaped/carved over the following
>>  decades. Stonehenge *may* be one of the foils for this theory, but,
>>  like I said, it's wholly unsubstantiated.
>
>  Why not carve them to shape where you first dig them up? Then you 
> have less weight to haul. This is what the Egyptians did for their 
> pyramids. The quarries still exist and I believe there are may be 
> pictures of the stones being hauled.
>
>  It's easier to carve the stone while it is on the ground then after 
> it has been tilted vertically.


The moai (statues) on Rapa Nui (Easter Island) were also carved to
shape in the quarry.  They were carved lying on their backs.  You
can visit statues in various stages of completion in the quarry
and see exactly how they did it.  Except for a bit of weathering,
they are just as they were abandoned when the civil wars ended the
carving.


Thorvald