Old monuments and objects has given rise to myths on technology.  Some individuals can’t imagine how they could have been built or made without the technology of industrial societies.  Either the technology would have existed in the society which made it.  Or it is claimed to have been made by an earlier having it.  Individuals claiming this seems to have poor problem solving ability.  At least they are not used to problems being possible to solve in several ways.

Deficient in experience with rocks may matter in this context.  The very most of the rocks I came into contact with as a child was granite.  Of cause I noted it could have different colours.  But it did not occur to me they could have different hardness.  Instead I was taught at school that some rock types can be cracked by banging on them.  I don’t know how Stone Age humans did to polish stone tools.  However, this does not make me deny they would have done it.  No others could have done it for them!

A colonialist thinking seem to exist in this context.  Angkor Wat and Notre Dame are built with comparable technology.  But if any of them are going to be mystified it is Angkor Wat.  It is like saying that since the French defeated the Khmers they have to be intrinsically superior.  As such Medieval Khmers could not have built it.  In reality there is no such a thing as a master race.  France’ conquest of the land of the Khmers was made possible by an economic lead.  One which did not arise until several hundred years later.

Among historical colonialists denial could reach absurd levels.  When the Britons conquered the Benin Kingdom many works of art were taken as war trophies from the royal palace.  Foremost, they are sculptures and reliefs casted in bronze.  The colonialists denied the locals could have made them.  This means they did not even try to find out how they were made.  Comparable works of art were made there by the locals at the point of time.  In fact such are made in the area even today!  It has turn out they were made by the lost-wax method.  It is thousands of years old.

Individuals promoting the myths don’t see archaeological contexts.  For each famous monument there are a thousand remains of buildings.  It is what one finds there which reveal what technology a society had.  Broken and lost tools show what they looked like.  Unfinished and failed artefacts gives clues too.  Contemporary depictions in art can tell a great deal.  Together all these finds determine how things were made.  It is not determined by certain individuals not being able to imagine how.  Then one makes their personal limitations into the limitations of all humans.

I want to point out that mental abilities follow a normal distribution.  The majority might have been stupid due to unnatural upbringing conditions.  Even if it was so, everyone was not equally stupid.  There will always be individuals noticeably smarter than others.  Same applies to creativity.  Is there a solution with existing technology it would sooner or later be found by such a person.  Is no solution possible it will not be done.  For examples the pyramids of Egypt are not hollow buildings.  They are solid monuments with just a small number of ducts.

Moreover the technology of an industrial society can’t exist without infrastructure.  The Roman Empire left one in the form of roads, bridges and harbours.  In connection with some cities and towns are plumbing.  I would think something comparable applies to Han China.  We are talking about agrarian state societies with tens of millions of inhabitants.  An industrial society would leave so enormously much more.  Having more complicated technology simply requires more infrastructure.  Neither does all of this infrastructure disappear.  Iron and steel of cause rust away.  There are building materials which break down relatively quickly too.  However, stone and brick don’t and neither does copper and copper alloys.

All can’t be missed by archaeologists either.  It is commonplace for archaeological finds to be discovered by accident.  I mean things are found when people are anyway digging into the ground.  In some cases structures are even visible on the surface.  A geologist can spot a terminal moraine from the train.  Then an archaeologist ought to be able to spot an earthwork from the plane.  Interestingly, this I precisely how the Amazon’s state societies were discovered.  Deforestation lead to the earthworks these state societies built being seen by the unaided eye.

There were no industrial society thousands or tens of thousands of years ago.  Had there been one its infrastructure would have been found.  But no industrial society is needed to explain monuments and objects.  Much can be made with muscle power.  Both scientists and handcrafters are occupied finding out how.  For sure this requires very much more effort.  Water-wheels was invented in Antiquity and wind-wheels in the Middle Ages.  The first useful motors were first built in the 18th century.  Practical use of electricity did not come until the 19th century.  Motors and electricity have replaced earlier technology.  They have made the making of things so enormously more efficient.  Same applies to the building of modern monuments.  Certain individuals have apparently got stuck in the thought of minimizing effort with the help of present-day technology.  This prevent them from grasping how it was made before this existed.

Uploaded on the 13th of November 2024.