[aorloff]

I've been to the Pantheon and I've been to Saqsaywaman (Inca)

The pantheon is amazing and I can see how humans built it

Saqsaywaman is amazing and I have no idea how the hell it was done, even with today's machinery you don't see stones joined like that

[gus_massa]

There is an article that was posted recently https://www.earthasweknowit.com/pages/inca_construction (HN discussion https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46342950 | 172 points | 55 days ago | 46 comments) The most important bit is in the middle https://www.earthasweknowit.com/photo/peru_cusco_masonry_con... The stones were concave, so the match perfectly only outside and have some kind of mortar inside the wall.

[nkrisc]

> I have no idea how the hell it was done, even with today's machinery you don't see stones joined like that

Skilled tradesmen with lots of time. It’s impressive, but it’s nothing magical.

[roughly]

I think it was Teller who said the secret to a good magic trick was to put in so much effort that no reasonable person would assume that’s what you’d done.

[aorloff]

If you wanted to join a bunch of stones so well that there were no seams, using manual labor, would you pick shapes like these to confuse the hell out of future humans who would wonder how you did it with manual labor ?

https://www.earthasweknowit.com/photo/peru_cusco_hatunrumiyo...

Because if its all just a giant magic trick to amaze us future humans, it worked.

[roughly]

Humans have been artists and show offs as long as we’ve been human. I don’t know if the craftsman who cut that thought people a millennium later would still be impressed by it, but I’m sure they’d be happy as hell that we are.

[aorloff]

Check it out for yourself. Its magical

[jxnsbdbd]

Joining stones in that way is very common in highway construction

Sure it was much more expensive back then to find matching stones than now with laser measuring and computer predication

But it's basically the same process