Page 333 - Fingerprints of the Gods by Graham Hancock

Graham Hancock – FINGERPRINTS OF THE GODS

At present there are only two land-based cranes in the world that could
lift weights of this magnitude. At the very frontiers of construction
technology, these are both vast, industrialized machines, with booms
reaching more than 220 feet into the air, which require on-board
counterweights of 160 tons to prevent them from tipping over. The
preparation-time for a single lift is around six weeks and calls for the
skills of specialized teams of up to 20 men.
13
In other words, modern builders with all the advantages of high-tech
engineering at their disposal, can barely hoist weights of 200 tons. Was it
not, therefore, somewhat surprising that the builders at Giza had hoisted
such weights on an almost routine basis?
Moving closer to the Temple’s looming southern wall I observed
something else about the huge limestone blocks: not only were they
ridiculously large but, as though to complicate still further an almost
impossible task, they had been cut and fitted into multi-angled jigsaw-
puzzle patterns similar to those employed in the cyclopean stone
structures at Sacsayhuaman and Machu Picchu in Peru (see Part II).
Another point I noticed was that the Temple walls appeared to have
been constructed in two stages. The first stage, most of which was intact
(though deeply eroded), consisted of the strong and heavy core of 200-
ton limestone blocks. On to both sides of these had been grafted a
façade of dressed granite which (as we shall see) was largely intact in the
interior of the building but had mainly fallen away on the outside. A
closer look at some of the remaining exterior facing blocks where they
had become detached from the core revealed a curious fact. When they
had been placed here in antiquity the backs of these blocks had been cut
to fit into and around the deep coves and scallops of existing weathering
patterns on the limestone core. The presence of those patterns seemed
to imply that the core blocks must have stood here, exposed to the
elements, for an immense span of time before they had been faced with
granite.

13 Personal communication from John Anthony West. See also Mystery of the Sphinx,
NBC-TV.

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