Hey guys, today I am going to show you this statue in an ancient temple. This is a giant statue, more
than 7 feet tall, but do you see what the problem is? Look carefully, is anything out of place?
There are tiny ridges, curves all over the face and the body of the statue.
Look carefully, they are not straight lines, they are not circles, they are smooth,
shallow curves, all over him. At least on his face, there is only one center point
for these curves, but look at his chest. On his left side, it curves in one direction,
on the right side, it is curving in another way, and the abdomen has a different set of curves.
And you may ask, is it really hard to do these curves? It is not hard, it’s impossible, unless
we use computerized machines like CNC machines. Let me explain. To cut or carve anything, I have
to use a tool harder than the Object that needs to be cut. This should be easy to understand,
why I am able to cut butter with a plastic knife or fork, but I can’t cut metal with a plastic
knife. Simply because Butter is less hard, plastic is harder, and metal is even harder. There is a
scale called Moh’s Hardness Scale where materials are categorized according to their hardness.
Now, this ape statue is made of granite, which is one of the hardest rocks,
and it is very hard to cut and carve, because you have to use a tool that is harder than granite.
So how did ancient builders cut granite? In India they just used metal tools, harder than granite,
may be even diamond tipped tools were used. But the real issue is these curves.
I can use a metal chisel and use brute force to cut granite, but I can only make deep, rough cuts.
I cannot make shallow, smooth curves like this, it is impossible to do this manually,
using brute force. Now, It is also impossible to create this using a lathe machine, because these
are not even circles, so you cannot achieve this, even if you use a rotating mechanism.
I have shown you circular marks in many ancient sites, and you can even argue that they were
rotating the rocks manually like a potter’s wheel, somehow managing a high speed rotation. But
how do we explain these curves? I have spoken to a couple of engineers and stone masons about this,
and they are absolutely baffled at this statue. One guy did not even believe that this is ancient,
he thought this was a new statue. But archeologists confirm that this statue
is ancient, this is found in the temple of Kudumiyaanmalai, which is at least 1300 years old.
Now, according to reports, several dynasties have renovated this temple, but nobody has
touched this temple in the last 400 years. So even by conservative estimates, it must be at least 400
years old, but it could even be 1300 years old. So, how did they make these curves?
One possibility is that, they could have used very advanced technology, like today’s CNC machines,
this is the only way we can do this today. We have to program these curves in a computer,
and the computer will control these smooth curves. I cannot think of any other way to do this today.
But in India, there is a strange anecdote. It is said that the ancient builders, were
able to soften stone, they were able to make the stone really soft, like butter. And you may ask,
how does that solve the problem? Once you make granite soft like butter, just take a simple tool
like this fork, and you can make these smooth curves, this is a very interesting theory. But
is it possible to soften stone? Of course, many people in India, think ancient people
used certain herbs or plants and would grind them in a specific combination,
and when they applied this concoction to granite, the stone became very soft and pliable like
butter. I am not sure if this is just a myth, or if there is some truth to it. On one hand, we can
think like how can these plants soften granite? On the other hand, we do know plants produce
a variety of acids, and plants themselves are notorious for taking over not just one or two
granite blocks, but in some cases, entire temples have been devoured by these so called harmless plants.
I don’t doubt that there may be natural acids or compounds that can soften stone, but I do doubt
if ancient builders really concocted these compounds and softened stone. There is some
evidence of this stone softening technology when we examine this temple further.
Here you can see how a stone block has solidified while dripping down, like how water solidifies into ice
while dripping. But how could that happen to granite, unless granite was liquefied? I couldn’t
get a better picture because of poor light, so I can’t explain this further. In other areas too,
you can see granite blocks peeling away, like the skin of an orange. How is that possible?
We don’t exactly know what kind of technology ancient builders were using.
May be they were softening the stone, or may be they were using machines like CNC,
but one thing is very clear. This, is not possible unless they used very advanced
technology. I hope you liked this video, I am Praveen Mohan, thanks a lot for watching,
don’t forget to subscribe and I will talk to you soon. Bye!