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( Miquel Ramis )
Una vez visitadas las páginas de las pirámides,
veamos ahora lo que nos cuenta Vitrubio a proposito
del transporte de grandes piedras talladas desde la
cantera hasta su emplazamiento definitivo:
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| Una de las teorias sobre el modo en que los antíguos
egipcios subieron sus piedras a las pirámides
es precisamente el método de Ctesifonte. |
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Los canteros mallorquines habían llegado
a la misma conclusión, rodeando los mareses
con haces de leña.
Ver página correspondiente.
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Notas:
La historia es importante pues vemos que siempre podemos
equivocarnos al modificar un método probado sin
haber comprobado antes las ventajas de nuestra innovación.
Por otra parte, al final de la historia se relata
que Paconio ( Peonio en otras traducciones), al equivocarse
en sus cálculos, se arruinó. Esto se debe
a que la costumbre antígua en Grecia y Roma,
que se extiende hasta casi el siglo XIX, es de que el
Maestro de Obra es tambien responsable económico
de la dirección de obra. Es decir, que si se
pasaba del presupuesto, corria a su cargo, por lo que
procuraban afinar y conocer muy de cerca todos los procesos
que intervenian en la obra, pues de ello dependia que
el presupuesto se ajustara a los gastos y dificultades
reales.
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Rolling Irregular Shaped and Larger Stones
It is pertinent to ask if the method could have been
used for rolling stones not having a square cross section,
and for stones of much larger size than the average
2.5 tonne stones making up the Great Pyramid. Stones
with a regular rectangular cross section present no
problem, as equal size filler pieces could be used at
each end of the cradles on the longer faces, and full
scale tests of this type were carried out in Tokyo.
Less regular shapes could be fitted with cradles by
using variable size filler pieces, but extremely irregular
shapes would be difficult to accommodate.
Many ancient civilisations proved themselves capable
of transporting huge megaliths commonly up to 40 or
50 tonnes, and there are stones of this size at Stonehenge,
Mycenae, various Inca structures such as those at Sacshuaman
and Ollantaytambo and in many Egyptian structures, not
least in the roofing over the King's Chamber in the
Great Pyramid. Although speed of transport would not
have been a factor in moving these megaliths it would
still have been advantageous to have moved them by rolling
if possible. A 17th C Jesuit priest recorded having
seen blocks rolled up earthen ramps used in the construction
of Cuzco cathedral, built using traditional Inca methods.
Vitruvius describes the efforts of one Paconius to
do just this in attempting to transport a 40 tonne plinth
for a statue of Apollo. According to Vitruvius, Paconius
encapsulated the ends of the stone block in wooden "wheels"
15 feet in diameter, then linked these with 2 inch crossbars
at intervals around the rims to form a slatted cylinder.
He then coiled a rope around the bars and, as anticipated,
when pulled by oxen the rope uncoiled and moved the
stone, but it proved unmanageable and swerved from side
to side. This probably occurred because he used only
a single rope and, worse, it was probably the rope and
not the crossbars which contacted the road surface.
This problem did not occur in the Tokyo tests. It is
possible that this method of transporting large stones
was common in the ancient world and Paconius had heard
of it, but simply failed to apply it successfully.
A method known as parbuckling
has traditionally been used, perhaps for hundreds of
years, to lower beer barrels down ramps into beer cellars,
and it has been suggested that this method could have
been used to raise heavy stones up ramps. It was proposed,
for example, by Thomson 1954 as the method by which
the lintels at Stonehenge could have been drawn up earthen
ramps to rest on the uprights, In order to raise a stone
by this method, two haul ropes fixed at the top would
be run down the ramp, looped around the stone, and the
stone rolled up the slope by hauling on the free ends,
http://www.atse.org.au/index.php?sectionid=376
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Miguel de Cervantes
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