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Normal-Sized People Can Move Big Rocks: The Example of Sumba

3/10/2015

5 Comments

 
PictureRelatively small megalithic structure in Sumba, Indonesia (photo from here: http://www.hpgrumpe.de/reisebilder/index.html)
Adding to the accounts and video of the Naga moving and placing multi-ton menhirs with ropes, sleds, rollers, and a lot of people, I present the case of the megalithic tombs of Sumba, Indonesia.  Much of the information in this post comes from the scholarly work of Ron L. Adams, currently with Simon Fraser University and AINW. 

Adams has written several papers based on his ethnoarchaeological fieldwork among the peoples of West Sumba in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Some of those papers discuss the ongoing practice and contexts of the construction of megalithic tombs.  This is great information for understanding why people might build megalithic structures.  As in the Naga examples, large stones are are quarried, moved, and placed in an environment of competition and prestige-building.  Bigger is better: the grander the structure, the larger the stones, the more it "costs" in terms of human capital and the resources to support that capital.  Building a megalithic tomb is a way to display wealth and influence.

The West Sumba data also provide another example of how people move big rocks.  Spoiler alert: It doesn't involve giants, supernatural levitation, or alien technology.  It involves, rather, lots of people armed with ropes, wooden skids, and rollers (pretty similar to the example from India).  In his paper "Transforming Stone: Ethnoarchaeological Perspectives on Megalith Form in Eastern Indonesia," Adams describes how it's done:

"The traditional method for transporting megalithic stones in Sumba is to haul them atop wooden sledges (tena watu) (Fig. 9.3).  A sledge with its attached stone is pulled using vine ropes, requiring between 100 and 1000 people for the large capstones or standing kado watu stones, while lesser numbers are needed to move the stones for the tomb walls (50-100 people).  It can take from one day to nearly one month to transport the largest stones in this manner from a quarry to the tomb owner's village, depending on the size of the stone and the distance to be travelled.  Each day the stone is moved, several pigs, and at times water buffaloes, are slaughtered to feed the stone haulers and the spectators who are invited to view the proceedings. The labour for this endeavour typically comes from the tomb owner's clan as well as from other allied clans" (page 85).

It took a while, but I finally found some videos online (the key was figuring out that a name for the stone-pulling ceremony was tarik batu).  This video shows a really large group of people preparing and pulling a pretty big stone.  Rather than a long, sustained pull, they get the stone moving rapidly in short bursts.
This one also shows the removal of the stone from the quarry. 

I also found a few other things of interest.  This video shows a crew working to remove a stone from a quarry.  This video shows a funeral, and (about 3:00 in) some stills of a stone on a sled.  This video shows a funeral which (at about 22:00 in) includes using long poles as levers to lift the capstone of a megalithic tomb so the body can be interred.  

PictureMegalithic tomb at Gallubakul, with vacationers shown for scale. It is the horizontal stone that is reported to weigh 70 tonnes.
As in the Naga case, these are not small rocks being moved.  In this 2010 paper, Adams (page 280) states that the combined weight of the stones making up the largest tombs (which are table-like with legs or sides that support a capstone) can be over 30 tonnes.  Based on what little I could find online, the largest stone on the island seems to be one from a tomb in Anakalang (in the village of Gallubakul).  The stone (the horizonal slab of the tomb pictured to the right) is estimated to weigh 70 tonnes and measure  5m x 4m x 1m.  The story that is repeated online is that it took thousands of men three months to move it.  I'm not sure how official that is -- I just found the same story repeated in several places (e.g., The Lonely Planet Indonesia, this website).

Whatever the particulars, it is clear that some very big stones were quarried and moved by hand during construction of Sumba's megalithic tombs.  Some of the Sumba stones are larger than the largest stones moved to build Stonehenge (about 50 tonnes), larger than the Olmec heads, and larger than many of the Easter Island Moai.  The Sumba stones come nowhere close in weight to the largest stones moved by Neolithic societies (The Broken Menhir of El Grah reportedly weighed about 280 tonnes when it wasn't broken).  What the Sumba case demonstrates, like the Naga case, is that with access to enough human capital (i.e., the means to support that capital while it is being utilized), only very simple technologies are required to move some pretty big stones. 

Again, it should go without saying but it won't, so I'll say it:  no giants were involved in building the megalithic structures of Sumba.

5 Comments
Greg Little
3/11/2015 12:40:26 am

Some years ago I wrote several books and articles supporting Maureen Clemmons' theory about wind power being utilized in building pyramids, moving megaliths, and raising obelisks. About 10 years ago I spent quite a bit of time with her and have since corresponded quite a bit with her. There have been several documentaries made about it, including some where a 14 ton obelisk was raised in seconds. Since then she has built a pyramid in the Mohave and in Mexico. I got interested in her ideas because Cayce (I know, he's a bad "word") claimed that the huge stones of the pyramids were "floated" into place using natural forces. Some have interpreted the term "floated" as meaning levitation, but nothing that Cayce said supported levitation. In any event, Clemmons and her Cal-Tech team have shown that the Egyptians did have special kites, made a special linen for them, had the necessary ropes, and used metal ankhs as controlling devices. She eventually duplicated what was depicted on various images in Egyptian tombs. The main History Channel documentary showing a lot of her work isn't online, but there are bits and pieces on YouTube. In any event, not all "alternative theorists" support the "aliens" or "giants" ideas with respect to moving massive megaliths.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8uT0eef4rI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnvlQzLjYDY
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Pyramids,_Soaring_Stones

Reply
Andy White
3/11/2015 01:40:39 am

Hi Greg,

Thanks for the comment. Those are some interesting ideas and demonstrations in the links you provided.

I'm not proposing that simple manual labor explains all stone-moving, but rather that ethnography demonstrates that manual labor alone CAN explain the moving of some pretty big stones. It shows us quite directly that you don't need giants, aliens, or fancy technologies to move megaliths like those Stonehenge, Easter Island, the Olmec region, etc.

It is really interesting that it is actually the scale of the use of manual labor (and the expenditures of food resources necessary to support that labor) that actually gives the stones meaning. Moving a bigger stone is a signal of having greater wealth and prestige. In these ethnographic (non-state) megalithic cultures that is the very point of moving big rocks.

States and empires may move big stones both for somewhat different reasons and using somewhat different mixtures of human labor and technology. The massive stones at Baalbek were placed as part of a retaining wall, for example, rather than to build prestige. The Thunder Stone - largest stone ever moved as far as I know - was moved by human labor with ropes and capstans.

So what I am saying is not that human labor alone explains everything, but it's a pretty darn good explanation in many cases and one that we can demonstrate is feasible for rocks comparable in size to many of those moved by prehistoric, non-state societies.

Reply
Greg Little
3/11/2015 05:20:06 am

I like what you are doing with all of this. And I think that your comment is the most important piece to this:

"It is really interesting that it is actually the scale of the use of manual labor (and the expenditures of food resources necessary to support that labor) that actually gives the stones meaning. Moving a bigger stone is a signal of having greater wealth and prestige. In these ethnographic (non-state) megalithic cultures that is the very point of moving big rocks."

It is a quite deep idea with a lot of key implications. And I like the fact that you relate this material in such a way that it can have an impact on [some] alternative writers, without alienating or directly attacking. There is a lesson in it, one that I need to take to heart. Again, good job.

Reply
Andy White
3/11/2015 06:55:16 am

Thanks Greg. The idea that people amass wealth in order to spend them on things (like feasting) that can enhance their status is not a new one, and I'm certainly not the first person to think of Neolithic megalithic architecture in that way. It's great to have ethnographic examples where you can see the process in operation, though. Some of these stone-movings require slaughter of hundreds of animals (provided by the person having the stone moved) to feed the workers. It's a display of wealth that can't be faked: if a rock is so big it requires 500 people to move it and you have to have the resources to feed those 500 people while they move it, the rock becomes a visible and enduring representation of your wealth. And it becomes something your ancestors can tell stories about.

Mattt
5/13/2017 04:14:10 am

This seems like a very possible explanation as to how they were moved. Its not too hard to thathum.There is still an even bigger question left to be answered tho. How were megalithic stones cut, keyed, grooved, decorated, raised, and placed (some astronomically). These are the things that are mind boggling, and need explanation. Decoding these techniques are extremly important if we ever want to truely understand our past.

Reply



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