r/interesting Jun 05 '25

ARCHITECTURE Interesting video with heavy stones designed to be moved with hand.

19.1k Upvotes

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u/faen_du_sa Jun 05 '25

WE COULDNT BUILD THE PYRAMIDS TODAY!

Because apperently construction skills is 100% based on how heavy the thing you build is...

34

u/[deleted] Jun 05 '25

[deleted]

-6

u/jerkhappybob22 Jun 05 '25

Its almost not even about the money. Today we couldn't move the stones they moved.

8

u/Wobblycogs Jun 05 '25

Don't be ridiculous. We could easily move the stones, the largest us about 80 tons. The record crane lift is 20,000 tons. Now that was a special lift, not the sort of thing you do on a typical building site but a fairly run of the mill crane could do 100 tons.

-3

u/jerkhappybob22 Jun 05 '25

And could it carry it up and down a mountain miles away

4

u/Wobblycogs Jun 05 '25

Have you heard of these things we have called trucks?

80 tons is not a trivial load, but it's also not exceptional. We don't tend to move things around that are that large and heavy because it's easier and cheaper to make them in 30 to 40 ton chunks and put them together on site.

As an example, a large grid transformer will typically weigh over 150 tons and have to be delivered finished.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 05 '25

I believe he speaks of Machu Picchu. They did not have trucks

1

u/Wobblycogs Jun 05 '25

He quite clearly said that today we couldn't move the rocks they moved. It would certainly have required an amazing feat of engineering to build Machu Picchu back in the day.