Quote:
Originally Posted by Antonmb
Machu Pichu was built in roughly the middle of the Renaissance, when some of the greatest cathedrals were being built in Europe. The Inca were a significant empire, why is it hard to imagine them being capable of building something like this in the same period that Europeans were building great cathedrals, and the Ming Dynasty was adding stretches to a wall that had already been under construction for more than a thousand years?
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Tony, looking at the cathedrals raises no questions as we do know what was used to construct them.
With Machu Picchu----
The Incas used dry stone technique to build the city. No mortar was used, the stone bricks were simply put together without any material to stick them together.
All rocks used were split perfectly and the bricks were put together like a huge puzzle. Some of the bricks are so tightly put together that one cannot even put a knife between them.
The rocks were probably cut with the so-called wooden wedge technique: holes were drilled into the rocks and wet wooden wedges were inserted into them. After that the constructors waited until the wet wooden wedges froze.
The ice having bigger volume than water, forces the rock and creates fissures.
But the wooden wedge technique cannot explain the smoothness and perfect straightness of the bricks.
We do not know how the Incas made measurements, calculations. The did not write, but they managed to construct such complex cities.
It is also interesting to mention that the the Incas did not know the wheel!
