Re: OT: Wheels (Was: Clockwise without clocks)

On Mon, 18 Apr 2005 09:02, Roger Mills wrote:
> Rodlox wrote:
> > >From: Wesley Parish <wes.parish@...>
> > >
> > > >   to be fair, it takes a lot of wood to prepare the limestone needed
> > > > to
> > > > build Mayan pyramids.
> > > >
> > > > (different type or quality of wood?)
> > >
> > >Fill me in on the details?
> >
> > I'll do my best.
> >
> > >  How is limestone prepared?  In what way?  I
> > >thought it was anaturally-occuring stone, and all necessary was to
> > >hammer/carve it into shape.
> >
> > from what I understand - from teh documentary I'd watched - wood was
> > burned
> > under a pot where the limestone was held...when it was pastey (or
> > something), the limestone was placed atop and on the sides of the large
> > stones used for construction...and then another large stone was placed
> > atop
> > that.
> >
> > I think it was a glue of sorts.  I think.
>
> Unless I'm mistaken, that sounds like the primitive way of obtaining lime
> for mortar. Were the Mayan pyramids mortared??? I'd be surprised if they
> were. (In pre-industrial Indonesia they burned coral to produce lime, but
> small quantities. And isn't burning limestone basically the way cement is
> made even today? Cement factories certainly produce a ton of smoke....)
That certainly sounds like mortar, of sorts.
>
> > >To build the ramps needed to get the stone up to the top, that would
> > >require a
> > >fair amount of wood - and forethought.
>
> I wonder. Certainly the tropics don't lack for wood, but it seems to me
> that wooden ramps/scaffolding mightn't be strong enough to support the
> weight of the building stones being dragged up...  In Egypt, good wood
> would have been in short supply, no? So I suspect their ramps must have
> been built of stone, and when the pyramid was finished, the stones could be
> used for some other project. Just guessing, however. (But as we all know,
> they had Alien technology to hoist those stones...:-)))))
From the stuff I've read, I always assumed it was more an earthworking
project . you built the ramps out of sand, tamped it down with water from the
Nile, then dragged tons upon tons of stones up.  The wood would've been  used
for rollers.
>
> OTOH I do recall old photos of skyscraper projects in the 50s/60s in
> China/Hong Kong that were using scaffolding apparently made of bamboo; not
> anymore, I'm sure
Yes, I've heard about that.  But bamboo is both lightweight and strong.  It
can stand the sort of compression that the looser fibres of ordinary wood
will just buckle under.


Wesley Parish
--
Clinersterton beademung, with all of love - RIP James Blish
-----
Mau e ki, he aha te mea nui?
You ask, what is the most important thing?
Maku e ki, he tangata, he tangata, he tangata.
I reply, it is people, it is people, it is people.