Table of Contents
DeDunking looks at the small knobs left on megalithic blocks that are otherwise finished. Rope handles fail, he says, because the knobs do not share one position, so one net could not grab every stone the same way. A second idea has the blocks poured soft and then hardened when current ran through the knobs. He says that fights how rock and current behave. A third idea makes the knobs a private code. Hidden marks are possible, and still a stretch. What the walls show, on his view, is heavy planning in polygonal work. His own account comes from sculpture. Roman and later Renaissance carvers mapped a model with a rigid stand and moved the points onto a fresh block. He thinks the knobs seated a frame of that kind. Workers would lay out the wall, leave two knobs on a block, and clamp a stable cage to them so the cage landed the same way each time they checked the cut. That, he says, is the tight fit people now treat as a mystery.
Key points
- Rope handles fail, in his view, because the knobs are not placed alike from block to block.
- He rejects the suggestion that the knobs were contacts for hardening a poured mix with current.
- A secret knob code is possible in principle and, he thinks, unlikely.
- The walls that carry these knobs show heavy planning and tightly fitted polygonal work.
- Renaissance carvers used a rigid pointing frame to transfer points from a model onto a new piece.
- On his account, two knobs locked a measuring cage to each block so the cage could be lifted and replaced without shifting.
Short quotes
they had a way to liquefy the stone and then they used electricity to harden the stone after pouring it into molds
DeDunking, Megalith stone nubs as measuring seats
He is laying out a cast-stone idea in which current is supposed to set the blocks. Watch at 1:39
this technique was perfected in the Renaissance with a machine that's known as the pointing machine
DeDunking, Megalith stone nubs as measuring seats
The tool he compares it with is a Renaissance copier that moves points off a model. Watch at 5:22
they've got two Nubs and a flattened surface they build a frame around those two Nubs
DeDunking, Megalith stone nubs as measuring seats
His own account is that those knobs lock a measuring cage so it can be lifted and set back exactly. Watch at 9:27
Video by DeDunking. Watch on YouTube.