The Lost Secrets of Maya Technology
Page 12
While visiting Antigua, Guatemala, he had a breakthrough experience that accelerated his quest for knowledge of Maya tools. Philippe was visiting the jadeite carving shop owned by Jay and Mary Lou Ridinger. An unusual tool was displayed in a glass case. The tool was a dark green jadeite gouge of ancient provenance. It matched the size and style of modern steel gouges that Philippe used for sculpting wood and stone. This was a moment of truth that opened a new world of opportunity. The tool was a compass that gave Philippe directions of where to look for the tools of the Maya.
Philippe did not miss this opportunity to pursue the secrets of Maya tool-making, and he has spent decades exploring the methodologies used by Maya sculptors to carve stone and wood. Over the years he searched newly opened ruins of Maya sites where he could observe and photograph the sculpture and stonework found in these ancient cities. He carried out close examination of the surface of carved stone that showed visible tool marks that remained on the craved works. The search for actual samples of Maya jadeite tools led him to museums and private collections. The jadeite artifacts were called “Celts” from the Latin, celtis, which means “chisel,” but these artifacts were not conceived as tools by archaeologists. As his investigation continued he was able to search out all the types of tools that were needed to cut and carve examples of wood and stone that Philippe had seen in ancient ruins and in modern museums.
Philippe has been a sculptor for decades. He has worked with Maya tools for thousands of hours and has come to appreciate the efficiency and exquisite beauty of Maya jadeite tools. It has long been known by archaeologists that jadeite chisels were used in carving Maya stele. Eric Thompson noted that thousands of jadeite tools were encountered at archaeological sites. He reported that the artifacts he encountered were of many shapes and sizes, and were in various stages of wear. However, the investigation of the nature of these unique tools was never pursued. Philippe’s studies into the character and materials used for Maya tools gave him an educated start to his ability to replicate ancient Maya methods of sculpture and of tool fabrication.
In the Montagua River Valley of Guatemala, Philippe found the appropriate materials to work jadeite into shaped tools. Jadeite is found as a water-worn stone cobble along the banks of the river and in situ in outcroppings. Quartz and quartzite are common in the area can be used for hammer stones and drill bits. The maguey plant grows bountifully throughout the area, the fibers of this plant have a very high tensile strength, and cords made of this fiber are excellent for saw-cutting of jadeite using quartz or garnet sand as an abrasive.
After replicating some of the jadeite chisels (using jadeite courtesy of Mary Lou Ridinger of Jades, S.A.), he was able to use these tools to carve wood and limestone. The process of working material with jadeite tools was a sculptor’s dream; the tool was efficient and carved the materials with ease.
On each trip to Guatemala, Philippe searched for examples of jadeite tools. To assist in identifying the tools, he drew outlines and displayed photos of the tools to potential sources. He visited native markets, museums, and private collections. Over the years, his research into the type and variety of Maya tools paid off and yielded a wide range of shapes and sizes of tools. He has collected or created what can be described as the basic toolkit of a Maya sculptor.
He has classified the tools into a system of nomenclature that varies with the type of tool, its method of being held while being utilized, and the method of percussion used to apply pressure of the edge of the tool to the object being carved. To illustrate the wide variety of shapes and purposes, the method of holding these tools, and the types of percussion used with each, Philippe assembled the tools into groups and photographed the collection for an overview of their characteristics. Philippe has used the finger-held tools and instruments for carving and believes that they were custom-fitted for the fingers of each sculptor. In using finger-held tools, he began to appreciate the value of jadeite as a tool material and the advantages jadeite held over modern tools. Their advantage lies in the ways they perfectly fit in the fingers of the working hand. It appears that handheld tools were custom-made for the individual. The merging of the handle and blade into a single instrument provides a great advantage over modern tools.
Figure 5-1: Maya tools, handheld, hafted, and finger-held. Photo by Miguel Alvarez, courtesy of Philippe Klinefelter.
Figure 5-2: Various Maya jadeite tools with 1-foot scale shown for size.
Photo by Miguel Alvarez, courtesy of Philippe Klinefelter.
Figure 5-1 indicates three rows of jadeite chisels. They are grouped by the method of holding the tool while working with the tool. The top row is of larger tools to be held in the hand, the middle row is of finger-held tools, and the bottom row consists of tools that are hafted. The wooden haft would be attached to the jadeite with Maya rubber or latex cement.
Figure 5-2 is an array of two types of chisels. The top row is of smaller tools and is to be hafted with a wooden handle. The larger chisels on the bottom row are held in the hand. Figure C-23 shows an array of finely made gouges. The top row represents hafted gouges, the middle three are finger-held gouges and the larger gouges on the bottom row are handheld.
In his work as a sculptor, Philippe works with handheld, finger-held, and hafted tools. In Figure C-24, Philippe demonstrates the carving of limestone using a handheld chisel and in Figure C-25, he demonstrates the use of a hafted fine chisel while carving a limestone block. Philippe has replicated Maya methodologies for drilling limestone. He is able to develop open holes in stone using a solid drill bit or closed shapes using a hollow reed and abrasive quartz or garnet sand. His bow drilling equipment is shown in Figure C-26.
Philippe has mastered the use of the total range of Maya tools and feels he has learned the techniques used by the ancient Maya master builders and carvers. It is possible that Philippe can bring these ancient tools and his Maya carving techniques back to the Yucatán and develop young Maya sculptors that can learn to replicate the exotic styles of their forbearers.
THE LOST SECRETS OF MAYA TECHNOLOGY
Credit: Digitized Sky Survey, ESA/ESO/NASA FITS Liberator.
Author: Davide De Martin (www.skyfactory.org)
C-1: Orion’s Belt. Maya obsession with the cosmos and time helped their technology evolve.
C-2: The grand cathedral in Mérida was constructed from stone taken from Maya buildings. If you look closely, you can still see the evidence.
C-3: The facade of dragon mouth architecture exhibits the talents of the Maya sculptors at Chicanná.
C-4: Masks of Choc carved in stone create an intricate facade at Kabah.
C-5: Interior view of room in Xtampak palace with Maya vault. Plaster covers the wall, and 1,400-year-old timber thrust beams and lintels survive.
C-6 (above): Carved facade at the triumphant, long-span arch at Kabah.
C-7 (right): The grand portal arch that marked the entrance to the sacbe from Labná to Uxmal.
C-8: Five-story Edzná palace with stepped structural arch configuration.
C-9 (above left): Edzná vault stair bridge. Maya arched vault supports stairs over interior passageway at multistory palace at Edzná.
C-10 (above right): Edzná beam stair bridge. Concrete beams span stairs over passageway.
C-11: Elegant circular astronomical observatory at Chichen Itza.
C-12: The astrological observatory at Mayapán is a circular building.
C-13: Elegant three-story palace at Xtampak. Columns created a veranda on the exterior set of rooms on each level.
C-14: The astrological observatory at Cobá is a solid, cone-shaped building unlike other observatories.
C-15: Maya pyramid at Mayapán in the Yucatán, Mexico.
C-16: El Castillo pyramid at Chichen Itza, constructed in various stages through time.
C-17: Recently discovered walls at Chichen Itza, dated to 100 years earlier than the pyramid.
C-18: Natural wells, or cenotes, formed by the impact of Chicxulub Me
teor in the Yucatán.
C-19: View into a working chultune at Xtampak, showing cut stone walls.
C-20: The Cobá terminus of the Cobá-Yaxuná sacbe.
C-21 (inset): Aerial view of the Cobá-Yaxuná sacbe, flying to the west toward Yaxuná.
C-22: Computer rendering of Maya suspension bridge across the Usumacinta River.
Photos by Miquel Alvarez, courtesy of Phillipe Kleinfelter
C-23 (above): Maya tools and gouges made from jadeite.
C-24 (below): A hand working Maya chisel made from jadeite.
C-25: Hafted Maya jadeite chisel.
C-26: Handheld bow drill using jadeite drill bit.
C-27 (left): Images of ancient Maya royalty look much like the Maya of today
(above, C-28), who still respect their customs, beliefs, and native dress.
6
Maya Cement: Holding the Civilization Together
During the Classic Period the population of the Maya urban power centers expanded, as their wealth, prestige, commercial, and religious power flourished. The city-states, with their towering pyramids, multistory palaces, monumental buildings, and infrastructure projects enjoyed a continuous construction program of building, rebuilding, and expanding their urban matrix. The height and span of massive buildings owed their strength and structural capacities to advanced Maya building technologies. These monumental buildings were constructed of cast-in-place concrete set into a facing of well-cut limestone. The cast-in-place concrete, a strong and durable structural material, was made with Maya cement, which was also used as stucco coating, mortar, paving, and other building applications. Fabrication of cement was developed by Maya technicians before 250 BC using an innovative fabrication process that was in use until the 20th century.
It is easy to imagine how these monumental structures, testaments to brilliant Maya technology, would have disappeared if the structures had not been constructed of strong and durable building materials. If the Maya construction materials had consisted of timber, bricks, or stone masonry alone, they would have almost totally degraded by the constant attack of the forces of the natural environment. The prying roots of the jungle, earthquakes, and hurricanes during the past 1,200 years would have caused the total disintegration of less durable materials. However, Maya engineers constructed the cities of structural materials that survived the millennia. Explorers encountering the ancient cities found their structures to be principally intact. The durable cast-in-place concrete construction of the monumental structures and their survival is a testimony to Maya building technology.
Archaeo-engineering investigation reveals that Maya technicians were producing cement and constructing cast-in-place concrete structures before 250 BC. The process of fabricating cement by Maya technicians is similar to the process used in modern cement production. The raw materials, including limestone, are elevated to high temperatures in order to induce the chemical process that converts the raw materials to cement.
The Maya developed true hydraulic cement; this is cement that reacts with water to form silicate hydrate crystals. These crystals grow and interlock to create the bond between various components making up the concrete mix and produce the hard, durable construction material known as concrete. The cement paste in the mix glues together the aggregate, fills the voids, and allows the mix to flow more easily. The compressive strength of concrete initiates with the stiffening and increases with further consolidation, called “setting,” after which the strengthening process begins. Maya cement had a chemical makeup similar to modern Portland cement; both are materials that have valuable characteristic of “setting up,” gaining strength and durability when placed and permitted to harden under water.
The History of Cement in Construction
The history of construction using cement harks back to construction during the building of the Roman Empire. Romans used cement-based concrete on a large scale. Roman cement was not a fabricated material but was based on a natural volcanic material called pozzolana ash. This natural cement was exploited from the earth near the town of Pozzuoli in Italy. Roman engineers combined the pozzolana ash with additional materials, including crushed brick. It has been determined that Roman engineers discovered the method of using this natural cement to formulate concrete in approximately 200 BC.
Roman concrete, opus caementicium, was made from pozzolanic ash, crushed aggregate, and quicklime. The use of concrete enabled Roman engineering to depart from low strength masonry and rectilinear structures, and permitted them to develop designs using the compressive strength of concrete for new structural mechanics of diverse geometry and greater dimensions. These Roman structures included arches, vaults, and domes. Roman concrete lacked the strength of modern Portland cement, but its strength was sufficient to construct the dramatic structures built for the Roman Empire. The average compressive strength Roman cement is 2750 psi (200kg/cm2) after 2,000 years of curing. The initial strength of the Roman concrete was closer to 1,500 psi (120kg/cm2) when placed in the original construction. The Romans added other materials to their concrete mix to improve performance. Horsehair was added to reduce cracking, and the addition of animal blood to the mix enhanced the concrete to be resistant to freezing. In lieu of wood forms, Roman engineers often used brick as formwork, placing cast-in-place concrete in the interior between the rows of brickwork to develop structural elements.
After the collapse of the Roman Empire in AD 476, the secret of cement for the production of concrete was lost in Europe for 1,400 years, with the exception of 1547, when the brilliant Michelangelo Buonarroti executed the design of a thin shell of Roman concrete for the dome of Saint Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City in Rome. The history of the production of cement fast-forwards to 1824. The invention of the process for fabricating modern Portland cement was patented by Joseph Asplin, a British stonemason from Leeds. Asplin developed the process for producing cement by heating finely powdered limestone. He then ground the resulting “clinkers” into powder, producing hydraulic cement. Asplin named his product “Portland cement” because its color resembled the stone quarried on the Isle of Portland, a peninsula off the English coast.
In 1848, Joseph Asplin’s son William developed an improved version of the cement that produced true hydraulic cement. The process of producing Portland cement involves the elevation of raw materials to their melting point, inducing the chemical reaction for conversion to cement. The improved version required a higher temperature to induce the chemical reaction for the process. This process produced the building material known as modern Portland cement. Joseph Asplin’s invention has enabled concrete to be the most popular building material in the world, with more than 1.75 billion tons produced each year.
Calcium is the essential chemical component in cement production. Calcium can be derived from a variety of raw materials, the most common raw material being limestone. The mixture of limestone and other constituent materials are heated to temperatures of 1450–1600 degrees Celsius in the sintering process. These temperature levels are capable of melting limestone and inducing a chemical reaction to form calcium silicate (3 CaO.SiO2). The product then assumes the form of globules known as “clinkers.” When cooled and ground into powder, the product becomes Portland cement.
The parallel between modern concrete–based structures and structures produced using Maya cement is apparent. However, Maya technicians developed their process independently. Maya engineers developed cast-in-place concrete structures to build their high rise cities and sophisticated infrastructure. Maya technicians produced the same chemical process for fabricating hydraulic cement as that used by modern technology, but the Maya technical achievement was more than 2,100 years in advance of modern technology.
The Maya Process for Producing Cement
The geologic composition of the Yucatán Peninsula is well suited for the exploitation of raw materials for construction. The Yucatán is a limestone platform that juts out into the waters of the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea. The
limestone strata extend down more than 2,500 meters in depth from the surface to the basement layer of sedimentary rock formed 540 to 245 million years ago during the Paleozoic Era. The geologic layers resting upon the basement include a 100-meter-thick stratum from the Mesozoic Era and are made up of materials that include sandstone, gypsum, salt, and silt formed 245,000,000 to 144,000,000 years ago. The third stratum is a layer of limestone, with a thickness of 1,300 meters, formed during the Cretaceous Period, 136,000,000 to 65,000,000 years ago. The upper stratum is a 1,000-meter thick stratum of limestone that rests upon the Cretaceous layer. This layer of Tertiary Period material was deposited 65, 000,000 years ago.
A 15-meter-layer of Oligocene to Pliocene epoch limestone, approximately 90 meters below the surface, was formed 38,000,000 to 5,000,000 years ago. The surface layers consist of Quaternary Epoch limestone, some 60 to 80 meters thick, formed 2,000,000 to 10,000 years ago, and a 10-meter-thick surface layer of Holocene Epoch limestone formed less than 10,000 years ago. The geologic composition of the Yucatán shelf provided the Maya with an unlimited supply of raw materials for the production of strong and durable building materials.
The basic principles required to produce hydraulic cement consist of two major efforts: the mining of limestone, the raw material (Figure 6-1), and the ability to elevate the temperature of the limestone to a temperature level that will melt the raw materials and induce the chemical conversion into cement clinkers. In modern cement fabrication, the raw materials are very similar to those that were available to Maya technicians. However, the Maya natural environment did not offer fuels that burn at high temperatures, such as coal or natural gas. The only major fuel source available to the Maya was the timber, which grew abundantly in the forest. The use of timber alone, as a fuel source, cannot achieve the 1,450 degrees Celsius temperature required to melt limestone. Wood burns at 300 to 500 degrees Celsius, much lower than the threshold for melting limestone. A physical mechanism was required to enhance the thermodynamic process for the combustion of wood fuel and elevate the combustion to the required high temperatures for a specific time period in order to achieve the desired chemical conversion to melt limestone.