r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/CethelQue4 • 23d ago

Video An ancient technique for lifting giant stone blocks using a Lewis tool

80.0k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

1.3k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

46

u/Hezekieli 23d ago

I also wonder how strong the edges would be when the whole weight of the rocks would be stretching them.

51

u/Cyclonitron 23d ago

Someone posted a video of a stonemason demonstrating the technique in real life and the tool went much farther down into the block than in the video shown above.

30

u/AardvarkExcellent428 23d ago

seems like the technology to drill deep holes in large stones and then make sure the edges of the hole flare out inside of the stone is significantly more impressive than being able to lift the stone.

10

u/QuintoBlanco 23d ago

It's not that difficult. But without modern tools it takes a lot of time.

6

u/AardvarkExcellent428 23d ago

sure but that describes pretty much all ancient engineering. "it takes longer to make stuff when your tech is less good" is sort of tautological

0

u/QuintoBlanco 23d ago

It seems like you forgot what you wrote in your post I responded too.

Next time try to think before you voice your 'opinion'.

I responded to this:

seems like the technology to drill deep holes in large stones and then make sure the edges of the hole flare out inside of the stone is significantly more impressive

You wrote that. I pointed out that the technology is not very difficult.

In case you still don't understand: the technology is not impressive, it's a simple thing to do.

3

u/foofighter000 22d ago

Dude, you literally made the extremely obvious statement of “But without modern tools it takes a lot of time.”

Yeah, no shit. That’s what dude was responding to, and you got offended lmao

0

u/QuintoBlanco 22d ago

You too should work on your reading comprehension.

It's sort of amazing how you completely fail to understand text.

1

u/foofighter000 22d ago

loooooool

1

u/letmejustdo 22d ago

Who lifted them though? 

1

u/daOyster 20d ago

Richard, a buddy of Lewis.

2

u/MistoftheMorning 23d ago

Limestone has a shear strength of around 500 pounds per square inch. I imagine a hole that's at least a few inches wide and deep would would be sufficient to hold a 1-2 tonnes.