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The Modern Antiquarian Forum » Gobekli Tepe...Turkey |
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tiompan 5758 posts |
Dec 23, 2012, 17:56
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Sanctuary wrote: Littlestone wrote: BuckyE wrote: Littlestone wrote: Over twelve and a half thousand years old (and there are lots still there). Jeeze... And the most amazing thing about its age is its (yet to be found) predecessors' (implied) ages. The carving and architecture of the four large structures are obviously the result of a multi-generational trial and training effort. So the beginnings of this megalithic culture have to be much older than GT. Jeeze... yes, hadn’t thought of that. Reliefs with that sort of sophistication must have needed centuries to evolve - though not necessarily evolve in stone. The prototypes may have been carved in wood. We talk about the carving in stone. If that wasn't hard enough 12,500+ years ago imagine what it was like in wood with no 'tools' as such! I completed my apprenticeship as a joiner in a workshop with no electical tools and I can tell you it was damn hard work for a lad, and that was with decent hand tools, not lumps of flint or rocks! Timber may be soft compared to rock but it's no easy material to work with without highly sharpened tools. It's one thing cutting down a tree with a flint axe but just try carving some to a good standard with the same equipment. Feel free to try it any time :-) The few representational wood carvings that have survived eg. http://nms.scran.ac.uk/database/record.php?usi=000-190-001-098-C http://www.devonheritage.org/Places/Kingsteignton/TheKingsteigntonIdolbyRichardHarris.htm are pretty rough .
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tiompan 5758 posts |
Dec 23, 2012, 18:00
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Littlestone wrote: Sanctuary wrote: We talk about the carving in stone. If that wasn't hard enough 12,500+ years ago imagine what it was like in wood with no 'tools' as such! I completed my apprenticeship as a joiner in a workshop with no electical tools and I can tell you it was damn hard work for a lad, and that was with decent hand tools, not lumps of flint or rocks! Timber may be soft compared to rock but it's no easy material to work with without highly sharpened tools. It's one thing cutting down a tree with a flint axe but just try carving some to a good standard with the same equipment. Feel free to try it any time :-) Interesting point, and in may ways (some) stone might actually be easier to work with than wood. Not talking about something like sarsen, but with a soft sandstone (or limestone re tiompan’s link above) they would have been able (quite easily I’d have thought) to created intricate reliefs to that standard (do you know what stone was used there Bucky ?). So maybe there was no 'transition' from wood to stone at all... The pillars at G.T. are limestone .
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Sanctuary 4670 posts |
Dec 23, 2012, 18:14
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tiompan wrote: Littlestone wrote: Sanctuary wrote: We talk about the carving in stone. If that wasn't hard enough 12,500+ years ago imagine what it was like in wood with no 'tools' as such! I completed my apprenticeship as a joiner in a workshop with no electical tools and I can tell you it was damn hard work for a lad, and that was with decent hand tools, not lumps of flint or rocks! Timber may be soft compared to rock but it's no easy material to work with without highly sharpened tools. It's one thing cutting down a tree with a flint axe but just try carving some to a good standard with the same equipment. Feel free to try it any time :-) Interesting point, and in may ways (some) stone might actually be easier to work with than wood. Not talking about something like sarsen, but with a soft sandstone (or limestone re tiompan’s link above) they would have been able (quite easily I’d have thought) to created intricate reliefs to that standard (do you know what stone was used there Bucky ?). So maybe there was no 'transition' from wood to stone at all... The pillars at G.T. are limestone . Yes far far easier to carve than timber. You can't scratch out across grain and leave a smooth finish 'easily' like you can in limestone as it tears up. You then have to set about smoothing it which would have been no easy task. On saying all of that, IF time was of no importance then given enough I suppose there's not much you can't do! You'd need the patience of Job mind you!
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Harryshill 510 posts |
Dec 23, 2012, 18:32
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Off hand, what would you say was the easiest wood to carve
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Sanctuary 4670 posts |
Dec 23, 2012, 19:13
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Harryshill wrote: Off hand, what would you say was the easiest wood to carve Check this out HH as it explains a lot and collectively accurate. http://www.bushcraftuk.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-6319.html For me it all depends on what I am carving, which is very little these days. As a joiner during my time it was mainly housenames/numbers often with scrolls surrounding them. We would carve panels to affix to the side of staircase strings if not on the stringers themselves. If you want to practise carving on a decent hardwood then use green oak as it doesn't rip up the grain like it can when seasoned. Then you need high speed cutters preferably. Holly is my favourite if I make a stick with a horned handle as the grain is so tight it pares beautifully. The secret though is SHARP TOOLS coupled with a close grain. It's pretty poinless using softwood from a timber merchant as in the main it is forced grown and open grained which tears up easily and never gives you a decent finish unless a high speed tool is used.
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Littlestone 5386 posts |
Dec 23, 2012, 19:44
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Very interesting Mr S. Actually, and going off at a tangent, the ball and socket joints at Stonehenge are ball and socket joints because of the material (stone) that needed ‘jointing’. Put another way, it would be pointless (and far more time consuming) to attempt creating the angular mortise and tenon joints found in the woodworking tradition. Ditto trying to carve ball and socket joints into wood – it would be both pointless and difficult because the different materials of wood and stone lend themselves to different jointing solutions. Which brings us to the important point that the ball and socket joints at Stonehenge might not have evolved from an earlier (wood-based) mortise and tenon tradition at all but were there right from the beginning – perhaps even preceding the (wood) mortise and tenon tradition itself?
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Harryshill 510 posts |
Dec 23, 2012, 19:46
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Would it be fair to say that it's likely that erecting a wooden post, is easier than erection a standing stone. And carving soft stone is easier than carving wood?
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Sanctuary 4670 posts |
Dec 23, 2012, 19:54
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Harryshill wrote: Would it be fair to say that it's likely that erecting a wooden post, is easier than erection a standing stone. And carving soft stone is easier than carving wood? Well both involve digging a hole of course so I suppose it would only be the transportation of the stone or timber and the size hole required for either that would answer your first question. Given that the tool available 12,000+ years ago used would probably be flint or quartz, then yes I guess the soft stone. Tiompan has carved stone but I haven't so it would only be my opinion based on my knowledge of timber amd limited knowledge of working with stone.
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GodfatherND 3 posts |
Dec 24, 2012, 04:42
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Indeed, this bas-relief carving skill was used thousands of years before Gobekli Tepe was built. In southern France and northern Spain, there is more to the caves than just cave paintings from 17,000 ago and older. In the Lascaux Cave, for example, there are bas-relief carvings. As for the T-shaped pillars carved from limestone, a precedent hasn't been found yet.
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GodfatherND 3 posts |
Edited Dec 24, 2012, 04:55
Dec 24, 2012, 04:49
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The lintels (the top stones) at Stonehenge were joined together using another woodworking style: tongue and groove. As an aside, it is interesting that you bring Stonehenege into a discussion of Gobekli Tepe. According to a recent book called Turkish Stonehenge, Gobekli Tepe and Stonehenge are very much related. A study by a University in England (U. of Leicester, I believe) focused on DNA and found that 80% of the white males in England can trace their heritage to the Anatolians who migrated there thousands of years before Stonehenge was built. These farmers won favor from the women of the hunter/gatherers, and their genes have been passed from father to son. The idea is that the decendants of the builders of GT built the stone circles in Europe.
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