17
EXHIBITION
E X H I B I T I O N
With only muscle strength as driving
force, Man soon became aware of his limitations
when attempting to transport any object of considerable weight.
About the exhibiton .............................................................................................4
Aquilino Raimundo: Ingenuity and art ................................................................5
Contents:
Introduction: Simple Machines ...............................................................6
Block content 1: Touching the sky at the Stone Age. Diorama .................7
Block content 2: Force Machine ...................................................................8
Block content 3: Showing the power at the Roman Era. Diorama ............9
Block content 4: Pile-driver machines ........................................................ 10
Block content 5: Excavating machines .......................................................11
Block content 6: Lifting machines ...............................................................11
Block content 7: Technology and skill. Diorama ....................................... 12
Block content 8: Showing the power of Imperial Russia. Diorama ........ 13
Block content 9: Learning how to move great stones .............................. 14
Block content 10: Ropes and knots: humble companions ......................... 15
Basic data ............................................................................................................ 16
Contact info ......................................................................................................... 17
INDEX
ABOUT THE EXHIBITION
MECHANE – Men, Machines and Great Stones reveals to us the ingeniousness and cunning used by Man since the Neolithic to the pre-industrial era, to overcome the challenges posed by the transportation and assembly of large stones used in his constructions.
In an environment dominated by gravity and by friction, having available only materials possessing limited resistance, fascinated by the idea of erecting constructions whose greatness could awake the respect of their peers and the benevolence of the gods, strangely excited before the challenge of transporting and displaying Great Stones, Man has found in technique, itself synonymous of cunning and ingeniousness, the answer to the problems that he was facing.
The exhibition unveils the simple principles hidden behind the transport and erection of the Great Stones used on the construction of buildings or to impress other communities.
The use of force-multiplying mechanical devices that were able to assist Man in carrying out his tasks revealed to the world the use of the machine, first in its simplest forms of inclined plane and lever, and then in an increase of complexity resulting from the combination of these two basic forms.
The greek “techné”, the roman “ars”, or later the “ingenia” - the arts and techniques emerged as expressions of
Man’s will at different times, to surpass the limits of his own strength, through his ingeniousness.
The Great Stones were thus collected from the landscape or extracted from quarries, trimmed into the intended shape, transported to the chosen places, erected there and finally appreciated by successive generations of people, who often disbelieved how it could have been possible to perform such feats.
Some Assyrian and Egyptian representations that survived to this day show the transportation of colossal statues, mounted on sledges dragged over wooden rollers or directly on the ground, the driving force being provided by the muscular strength of veritable armies of string pullers, helped only by simple equipments, such as levers, folders, lubricants, rollers, ramps, ropes and sleds.
The dolmens, the menhirs, the cromlechs and other megalithic constructions attributed to Neolithic societies scattered all over the planet are also a good example of the human ability to perform this type of transportation.
The Egyptian obelisks were one of the Great Stones, perhaps the most famous of them all, that since the first time they were extracted from quarries about 4500 years ago in Ancient Egypt, never ceased to be transported from one place to another by different societies in different times, crossing seas and oceans, with some of them still being displayed in the center of famous squares in Rome, Paris or other cities, such is the symbolic value of this stone column vertically arranged and topped by
a pyramid, which once was an important element of the Egyptian solar cult.
Devoid of armies of string pullers, the Greeks would have driven the creation of mechanical devices of force multiplication, with the use of winches attributed to them.
To the Romans, inheritors of the Greek world and possessors of a practical spirit, is attributed the widespread use of cranes equipped with driving wheels, pulleys and differentials, among others.
After the Roman Empire’s fall and until the 13th century, we witnessed a slowdown of the rhythm of mechanical creations applied to the construction tasks. From the 16th century onwards, it is possible to identify an arsenal of mechanical equipment, including more complex cranes which were harbingers of the true mechanical revolution that would change the world.
In any of these cases, it is evident that the accomplishment of such gigantic achievements presupposes a social organization capable of managing hundreds or even thousands of men, keeping them disciplined in the execution of different tasks.
In most cases, once the Great Stones had been transported to the places that Man had chosen for them, the detailed records of the performed tasks and of the auxiliary equipment used in these tasks were lost. Today, it is up to us to imagine how those men did it at the time.
AQUILINO RAIMUNDO. INGENUITY AND ART
How did Man erect this construction?
While working as an engineer dedicated to building processes, I’ve been, by imperative of this profession, obligated to imagine repeatedly, day after day, simple and economical ways of erecting different constructions.
Imagining and establishing a beginning, middle and end to put up any construction, having the concern of doing it by the simplest form, e.g., choosing the shortest path, is a fascinating task that places today’s builders facing the same basic challenges that others did in the past.
Observing the achievements of ancient times, in particular those that used Great Stones in their construction, some exceeding 1000 tons of weight, and trying to answer this key question - How did Man erect this construction? - I internalized the fact that the human ability to carry Great Stones has been revealed from very remote times, the various examples found in different places on the planet being testimony of this.
Some Assyrian and Egyptian representations that survived to this day show the transportation of colossal statues, mounted on sledges dragged over wooden rollers or directly on the ground, the driving force being provided by the muscular strength of veritable armies of string pullers, helped only by simple equipments, such as levers, folders, lubricants, rollers, ramps, ropes and sleds.
The dolmens, the menhirs, the cromlechs and other megalithic constructions attributed to Neolithic societies scattered all over the planet are also a good example of the human ability to perform this type of transportation.
The Egyptian obelisks were one of the Great Stones, perhaps the most famous of them all, that since the first time they were extracted from quarries about 4500 years ago in Ancient Egypt, never ceased to be transported from one place to another by different societies in different times, crossing seas and oceans, with some of them still being displayed in the center of famous squares in Rome, Paris or other cities, such is the symbolic value of this stone column vertically arranged and topped by a pyramid, which once was an important element of the Egyptian solar cult.
Devoid of armies of string pullers, the Greeks would have driven the creation of mechanical devices of force multiplication, with the use of winches attributed to them.
To the Romans, inheritors of the Greek world and possessors of a practical spirit, is attributed the widespread use of cranes equipped with driving wheels, pulleys and differentials, among others.
After the Roman Empire’s fall and until the 13th century, we witnessed a slowdown of the rhythm of mechanical creations applied to the construction tasks. From the 16th century onwards, it is possible to identify an arsenal of
mechanical equipment, including more complex cranes which were harbingers of the true mechanical revolution that would change the world.
In any of these cases, it is evident that the accomplishment of such gigantic achievements presupposes a social organization capable of managing hundreds or even thousands of men, keeping them disciplined in the execution of different tasks.
In most cases, once the Great Stones had been transported to the places that Man had chosen for them, the detailed records of the performed tasks and of the auxiliary equipment used in these tasks were lost. Today, it is up to us to imagine how those men did it at the time.
The simple machines, called lever and inclined plane, have been used by Man since immemorial times as force multiplying devices assisting him in moving large loads.
The exhibition presents the basic models of levers, pulleys, wheel and shaft, inclined plane, wedge and screw, accompanied by explanations and graphs that reveal their operation and mechanical advantages that Man finds when he makes use of them.
These devices act as extensions of the human body, itself also ruled by the same physical laws.
INTRODUCTION: SIMPLE MACHINES
For any one of us, the idea that it is much more difficult to carry an object the greater its weight, is certain.
The current scientific theories allow us to understand how our ancestors transported and erected the great menhirs and constructions in the remote antiquity.
In this section, we present two examples of great monuments of the Neolithic: The Great Menhir of Carnac and the Great Dolmen of Zambujeiro.
The Great Menhir of Carnac (France) is one of the largest menhirs, erected about 6000 years ago. It’s a huge block of stone about 20 meters tall and weighing over 300 tons.
The diorama shows us the most plausible hypothesis about how this stone was moved and raised, but the discussion is still open and this is a good opportunity to discuss other theories.
The Great Dolmen of Zambujeiro (Portugal) is the most important Portuguese megalithic funerary monument and one of the most important examples of its kind in the world’s architecture.
TOUCHING THE SKY IN THE STONE AGE. DIORAMA
The diorama shows the construction of this monument, considered as the “Cathedral of the Neolithic” with its impressive seven stones, each weighing about 10 tons, forming a covered gallery with a giant rock with more than 15 tons.
One of the most interesting aspects of these constructions, which the dioramas show us, is the coordination, the command, the organization, the design, the tools ... in short, the impressive social structure indispensable to ensure the transportation and construction work of these monuments.
A small lifting force applied to one end of the rope can withstand a much greater force on the other end. This is the principle by which the winch or capstan operate.
Men and animals could thus apply all their strength to the winch levers by rotating the drum, and taking full advantage of the force multiplying effect that the winch gave them, without worrying about the unfolding of the rope on the drum.
The relationship between the forces at the two ends of the rope varies exponentially with the coefficient of friction between the rope and the drum and the number of turns the rope is wound around it, i.e. small increases in friction as well as small increases in the number of turns, extremely increase the load that a man can support on the rope by holding the other end.
This is the reason why old images show the rope usually wound only four or five times around the drum of the winch, as a small force is sufficient to prevent the rope from slipping around the drum.
FORCE MACHINES
In this section there are 5 life-sized machines, ranging from the simplest models to a complex example as the one used by Brunelleschi in the construction of the dome of Florence Cathedral.
• Winch with horizontal drum• Light winch with horizontal drum• Winch with vertical drum• Winch with vertical drum and support rollers• Domenico Fontana’s winch, from 1586• Filippo Brunelleschi’s light winch
A perfectly organized society, like ancient Rome, made possible the building and maintenance of a vast empire. No better example than the construction of large monuments like Trajan’s Column in Rome or the walls of the Temple of Jupiter in Baalbek.
The dioramas provide the perfect way to visualize the technology used to move and place blocks of stone with the precision that these monuments demanded.
Blocks 19 meters long with a weight of 750 tons were used in the walls of Baalbek, marble pieces were lifted up to 38 meters as part of Trajan’s Column. These are examples of how the use of simple machines, combined with an army of construction workers, made possible building feats that still today fascinate us.
It is easy to imagine the technical difficulties to overcome these challenges, but we also like to show the logistics capacity that would be required to tend to so many workers in the heavily populated centre of Rome.
• Trajan’s column large scale diorama includes description about the construction techniques available in the 2nd century, along with descriptions of its symbolism.
• Baalbek diorama depicts the final stage of the construction platform for the Great Temple of Jupiter in Heliopolis, in the 3rd century AD.
SHOWING POWER IN ROMAN TIMES. DIORAMAS
The use of wooden stakes driven into the ground by the action of hitting the top with a weight is a technique used by humans since the Neolithic.
Examples of this technique are many Roman bridges, over which people and vehicles still pass. More recently, cases such as downtown Lisbon or Amsterdam, built on an area almost at sea level, document the extensive use of wooden stakes driven into the ground to withstand the weight of the constructions.
The weights lifted by pile-drivers equipped with winches usually weighed between 300 and 500 kilograms, but could reach about 1500 kilograms. When the weight was lifted without the use of winches, about 30 men could be needed to lift weights up to 75 kilograms.
• Pile-driver equipped with winch• Pile-driver equipped with clutch• Pile-driver with adjustable mast• Stake extractor
ABOUT THE PILE-DRIVER MACHINES
Excavating. To meet the needs of building, for example, the pillars of a bridge, first stakes were driven into the ground, close together to get an enclosure. Then began the task of emptying the water and land within this precinct. The machine designed by Bernard Forest de Bélidor in the 18th century covered that need by using the force of one or two people and could dredge up to nearly seven meters deep from the surface.
• Bélidor’s mechanical shovel.
Lifting. The basic challenge is to lift any construction loads to the required height. To accomplish this task, all kinds of machines were devised throughout history. The ones presented here all have one thing in common: they were designed to solve a specific problem, whether it was raising the load to achieve the required height or to place it in a precise manner within a particular project. From the simple Vitruvian machine to the sophisticated ones used, for example, in the construction of the Pantheon in Paris.
• Vitruvian Tripod Crane • Filippo Brunelleschi’s “Castello” machine• Tower, or French type, crane• Machine to assembler small obelisks• Rondelet’s crane
EXCAVATING MACHINES
LIFTING MACHINES
TECHNOLOGY AND SKILL. DIORAMA
BUILDING WITH LARGE STONES IN THE 18TH CENTURY.
The east façade of the Louvre, currently considered the main masterpiece of French classicist architecture, included the challenge of transporting and placing stones on the façade with approximate dimensions of 16 meters long, 2.5 meters thick and weighing about 50 tons.
The diorama accurately shows the complexity of the machine used to transport the stones for a distance of 10 kilometers, where you can see the system to suspend the fragile stones inside the machine.
• Transport of the stones for the pediment of the east façade of the Louvre.
The transportation of a stone weighing 1800 tons, the largest rock ever transported in the history of mankind, for the construction of the monument of Tsar Peter I, is without a doubt a clear demonstration of power.
The Thunder Stone is the popular name given to the stone from which the sculptor Falconet carved the statue of Peter I, under the orders of Empress Catherine. The challenges they faced in order to transport it are difficult to imagine, but machinery designed by Carburi was prepared to carry the stone in one piece and solved the main problems - the crossing of wetlands, changes in direction on the path to the pier, transfer to the barge and its journey by sea and river to the Senate Square in St. Petersburg.
• The Thunder Stone
SHOWING THE POWER IN IMPERIAL RUSSIA. DIORAMA
Explaining in a panel how simple machines like the lever or pulleys definitely help in the task of moving loads is commonplace in any textbook, but it is not so common to find an easy way to prove it in practice.
Within the exhibition, there are three machines which can be manipulated by the public, where you can test the usefulness of the underlying principles of the machines exhibited.
These manipulable models are designed for visitors, without the help of monitors and in an intuitive way, to experience the power of their muscle strength when assisted by machines. Establishing the relationship between what was studied in school and the monumental achievements showcased in the exhibition is the ultimate educational goal that helps to understand that humans were able to erect monuments that thousands of years later still marvel us.
LEARNING HOW TO MOVE GREAT STONES
ROPES AND KNOTS: HUMBLE COMPANIONS
The power of well-used machines is spectacular, as can be seen in the monuments shown, but in all cases there is a common element that usually goes unnoticed: the rope.
Ropes and knots are humble but crucial partners in a large amount of machines.
In the exhibition, tribute to their importance is paid through a module in which visitors can not only check the source of the most frequently used ropes since remote antiquity, but can also learn to do some basic knots that present a challenge despite their apparent simplicity.
Mechane – Men, Machines and Great Stones Exhibitions includes 15 state-of-the-art large scale recreations of machines, reaching up to 2.5 meters, along with 8 dioramas depicting work scenes in different times of history, from the Neolithic to the 18th century, on the verge of the Industrial Revolution.
To help understand the power of all those machines, a set of 4 interactive stools about the power of ropes, levers and pulleys are placed along the exhibition, for the visitors to experience how these simple tools made it possible for ancient humans to raise those magnificent constructions we still admire.
BiDi codes provide access to animations, allowing visitors to explore the machines in movement, giving human scale size of them all and showing particular mechanisms that make them fascinating and admirable in the solutions they provide for the purposes they were used.
Two complementary touch screens show these animations onsite when Internet access is not guaranteed.
The exhibition, with a flexible organization, occupies an area up to 500 sq. meters. Solutions for smaller rooms can be set up.
BASIC DATA
mechane-expo.com
culturaentretenida.com
+34914440348
CONTACT INFORMATION
