By Ted Twietmeyer
1-1-8
1-1-8
Who could have wielded a 64 pound hammer?
John Burke's "Connections" explores how one invention can lead to another, which leads to another, etc However, although this process of researching is how I came about finding some fascinating new and old information, Mr. Burke wasn't involved with this particular discovery.
There is an ancient copper mine near the coastal town of Llandudno in North Wales. This area rises 220 meters above the Irish Sea, and it is known as the location of the Great Orme Copper Mine. It dates to the Bronze Age, about 3500 years ago. More than 2500 hammers at the mine have been recovered at the mine.
It is believed that the mine stretches for many kilometers, with six kilometers already surveyed. It is known to have nine levels within it, and over 1700 tons of copper are known to have been removed from the mine. This is quite a staggering accomplishment for a society of that era without the use power tools, or at least as we know power tools today.
Great Orme Copper Mine
The largest typical sledge hammer used today weighs 20 pounds, though sledge hammers in the 10 pound class are more commonplace. A grown man (without back trouble) can wield a 20 pound hammer, but only for limited amounts of time. That is, unless smashing masonry and demolition is his livelihood. In which case, he might do it for several hours at a time. This author owns a 10 pound sledge, and the only words to describe using it are misery, sweat and pain. And not necessarily in that order! It's very hard to imagine using one of these for mining, day in and day out.
Fig. 1 - Modern 20 pound sledge hammer.
Head on hammer is about the size of a standard house brick.
Standing up, the handle is about 3 feet long. [1]
Fig. 2 Scaled-up 20 pound hammer shown in Fig. 1 (300%) to the size of a 60 pound sledge hammer (which is not currently manufactured.) The handle would be 9 feet long, with the metal head about the size of a cement block. An even bigger 64 pound sledge hammer was found at the copper mine by archeologists. To lift this 60 pound hammer using only the far end of a 9 foot long handle would be beyond the strength of any man. To swing it with force would be virtually impossible.
So who or what could have wielded one of these back-breakers? If we scale the up the size of the ancient people so they could use this tool, the giants at the copper mine may have been perhaps 12 to 18 feet tall, or about 3 times taller than an average human being of today. To put this in perspective, the height of the wall in an average home in the United States built within the last 50 years in any given room is just 8 feet.
Perhaps these are the people of referred to in the Bible in Genesis, where it says there were giants in [on?] the Earth in those days. What the Bible doesn't tell us in any great detail is precisely where those giants actually came from. Could it be the race of giants came from the stars, or perhaps from another planet in our solar system? There is some Biblical evidence that they are the fallen ones, known as the Nephilim.
In Sumerian text and images we see evidence of a giant race, such as depicted in the following tablet:
Perhaps these are the people of referred to in the Bible in Genesis, where it says there were giants in [on?] the Earth in those days. What the Bible doesn't tell us in any great detail is precisely where those giants actually came from. Could it be the race of giants came from the stars, or perhaps from another planet in our solar system? There is some Biblical evidence that they are the fallen ones, known as the Nephilim.
In Sumerian text and images we see evidence of a giant race, such as depicted in the following tablet:
Fig. 3 Sumerian tablet with seated giant king. How tall might this king be if he stood up? The more you study this image the more symbolism you'll find. Note the great detail in the king's attire and cuneiform writing in the clay.
Fig. 4 - Sumerian giant with six fingers
A large portion of the brain is dedicated to controlling the hand. If another finger on each hand were present in a human, this would require a larger brain area to control the additional two fingers. There are numerous accounts that the giants possessed six fingers on each hand. If the brain for these giants is in proportion to the size of their body like most mammals, it could indicate they had a very high intelligence. Elephants are the largest known land mammals, and are also known to have a high degree of intelligence.
Could it also be that megalithic monuments such as some of those in Egypt, Stonehenge, Easter Island, the Orcadian stones (see image below) and others were constructed by an ancient race of giants? To our race as human beings, these stones appear incredibly massive, and they are. It is universally accepted that these massive stones and blocks require some type of mechanical advantage to handle and erect them. As large as these stones are, most seem to average about the same height everywhere they are found on Earth. These stones may not have been any taller than the giants who mined, handled and erected them.
All things are relative, whether it is the year 2008 or the year 5000BC. Some precepts are universal in nature. If you stood 20 feet tall and were handling a stone 18 feet long, it may not be any more difficult to erect it in the ground than it is for an adult human to put in a concrete mailbox post along the road. This may be over- simplifying things a bit, but you get the concept here.
Fig. 4 Orcadian stones on Orkney Island
The issue of giants on Earth no longer appears to be within the realm of speculation. Megalithic monuments found around Earth which are constructed of massive stones appear to support this concept. It may have been giants that simply picked up the massive blocks to construct the pyramids and simply set them in place. I'm sure archeologists will take a dim view of my idea. Depending on the size of these beings that walked the Earth many millennia ago, handling the blocks used in the construction of many of the monuments such as the pyramids might be the functional equivalent of an ordinary human being picking up cement block. But the mystery still remains why did they go to so much trouble to built so many of these monuments?
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