then somehow (???) smoothed and shaped with a precision practically unheard of in even modern construction.
Check out the Easter Island statues. They were apparently built, and quarried, by hand. It just takes something like 10 years to wear the stone down.
I know it's boring, but my theory here is that people back then realized that they had nothing better to do with their lives than seeking perfection of craft. That's it. Because of that, they'll spend an entire week making a single stone perfectly fit it's alotted space, rather than churning out 100 "good enough" blocks and having to mortar them all to hide the faults.
None of us think that way today. No one here would spend ten years kicking rocks into shape because, surely, that time could be better spent learning, or arguing, or making money, or sitting around. But, if you believed in something greater than yourself, really believed, you could build something like this.
Check out the Easter Island statues. They were apparently built, and quarried, by hand. It just takes something like 10 years to wear the stone down.
I know it's boring, but my theory here is that people back then realized that they had nothing better to do with their lives than seeking perfection of craft. That's it. Because of that, they'll spend an entire week making a single stone perfectly fit it's alotted space, rather than churning out 100 "good enough" blocks and having to mortar them all to hide the faults.
None of us think that way today. No one here would spend ten years kicking rocks into shape because, surely, that time could be better spent learning, or arguing, or making money, or sitting around. But, if you believed in something greater than yourself, really believed, you could build something like this.