[Aztlan] moving big stones

[Archaeology Institute]

"Diehl, Richard" <rdiehl at as.ua.edu> on Tuesday, December 05, 2006 at 11:45 AM -0800 wrote:
>Hola Listeros,
>
>I need help with a problem that has nagged me for a long time. How DID the Olmecs move big stones from workshops like the llano el Jícaro site at the foot of the Tuxtla mountains to San Lorenzo and La Venta? The two most obvious ways are by land or
>by water. Both were tested a few years back in a segment of the BBC/Nova TV series Secrets of the Ancients. The producers sent a team to southern Mexico to replicate carving and moving of a Colossal head. I served as an advisor to the production
>and Ann Cyphers and Ponciano Ortiz served as on-site consultants. It was a valiant effort that failed but did manage to highlight some of the practical difficulties the Olmecs must have faced. I was left with the feeling that the Olmecs probably
>used water transport, perhaps a very large raft of the sort made famous in the national Geographic water-color painting about 13 years ago, whenever possible, and land transport when they had no other option. Those are simply guesses on my part. Do!
>  any of you have any ideas? At the moment I am focusing on moving large pieces of stone, not carving. Consider the limitations: no metals for tools, cables, or pulleys, no large domesticated animals, and no wheels. They presumably had sufficient
>people-power to no only move the stone long distances over swamps, open water, rough, broken terrain littered with either tress or tree stumps, and so forth, but also alternate crews during rest periods, feed the entire party and motivate everyone.
>We do know the Olmec depicted what I assume were ropes in their monumental art. Ropes seem to appear in the head gear of some Colossal Heads, and two rectangular stone blocks are surrounded by apparent ropes and surmounted by fragmentary remains of
>sculpted humans seated on the tops, as though they were the bosses of the job.
>
>I am especially puzzled about the mechanics of moving these large blocks up-river by water. Any ideas?
>
>Thanks,
>
>Dick Diehl

Dear Dr. Diehl,

	You may wish to review the Nova/PBS video "This Old Pyramid"...in which a variety of techniques are replicated and tested to determine just how it was that the ancient Egyptians both crafted and then transported large blocks of stone. 
Interestingly, after several failed attempts to move the stones, it was determined that the only feasible way was to construct a roadbed consisting of crushed rock, gravels, and clays within which were embedded hewn beams of wood spaced at about
three foot intervals.  After first attempting a "dry" run that failed, a small amount of water was then splashed across those timbers laid into the roadbed...and the stones seemingly came to life and were moved relatively quickly and efficiently
across said roadbed.  It should be noted that the road beds were such that they would not likely leave a significant archaeological signature on the landscape...beyond that pertaining to any foreign materials that may have been procured for the
roadbed itself.  I would suspect that if such roadbeds were in fact used they would have consisted of tezontle gravels or crushed volcanic pumice and locally available clays...which would have filtered back into the surrounding soils matrix.  In an
article that I published some years ago in the Encyclopaedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures ("Road Networks in Ancient Native America," Kluwer, 1997), and another prepared for the Oxford Encyclopedia of
Mesoamerican Cultures ("Transportation," Volume 3, Oxford, 2001), I provide a typology of known road systems (both formal and informal).  It is clear to me that Mesoamerican peoples have been constructing such road networks and transport systems
from the earliest of times...and I suspect that given the presence of both formal and informal causeways and elevated platforms among such groups as the Preclassic Olmec and Maya, utility roads and roadbeds are not out of the question.  PS: While I
understand that the paucity of evidence for pulleys, the aforementioned documentary did make clear that fulcrums, vertical posts used as "improvised pulley" systems or counterweights are particularly effective in lieu of pulleys per se.

Best Regards,

Ruben G. Mendoza, Ph.D., Director
Institute for Archaeological Science, Technology and Visualization
Social and Behavioral Sciences
California State University Monterey Bay
100 Campus Center
Seaside, California 93955-8001

Email: archaeology.csumb at gmail.edu
Voice: 831-582-3760; Fax: 831-582-3566
http://archaeology.csumb.edu; http://archaeology.csumb.edu/wireless/


"Science progresses at the rate of one funeral at a time."

-Albert Einstein


"If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?"

-Albert Einstein


"He who argues with a fool proves that there are two."  
-Anonymous


Confidentiality Notice:  The information contained in this e-mail message is sender-privileged and confidential information.  It is intended only for the use of the individual or entity named above.  If you are not the intended recipient, you are
notified that any disclosure, copying, distribution, electronic storage or use of this communication is prohibited.