There are mentions from ancient sources that Incas were able to "make the stone soft". I suspect that the lost technology is more likely a form of concrete, not super-precise curved stone cutting. (The Roman Pantheon dome is likely the largest concrete structure of the ancient world, and it predates Incas by several centuries.)

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mikewarot 3 days ago | parent [-]

I've seen rumors on the internet that you can dissolve (or at least soften) granite and other otherwise tough materials with molten natron.

Here's a rabbit hole if this sounds like fun to you - https://natrontheory.com/index.html

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kragen 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

That's how we mass-produce sodium silicate today, for example for foundry cores and waterproofing concrete. You have to get the quartz (from granite or otherwise) pretty hot for this to work. Pottery kiln temperatures.

Normally you purify the quartz first, but here we're discussing what molten washing soda would or wouldn't do to granite. The quartz in granite normally forms a continuous phase, so as long as the quartz remains solid, the granite will remain solid.

Granite melts at a lower temperature than pure quartz, and I'm not entirely sure it wouldn't just melt before the washing soda had an effect.

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andrewflnr 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

That website looks like the narrow end of a wedge designed to open you up to some crazy pseudo-history. Props for above-average graphic design for a conspiracy theory site, though.

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jacobgkau 3 days ago | parent [-]

> Props for above-average graphic design for a conspiracy theory site, though.

The focus and color in those graphics makes them look like AI-generated graphics to me.

	▲	andrewflnr 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		Eh, maybe. The papyrus one in particular looks quite fake, now that you mention it. I was mainly thinking of the layout anyway. But going to the bother of generating vaguely striking images to fill out that layout is still more than a lot of these people do. For better or worse. I stopped at the blatantly manipulative CTA, so I don't know how bad the whole thing is.