this post was submitted on 17 May 2025
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Illustrations of history

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This magazine is for sharing artwork of historical events, places, personages, etc. Scale models and the like also welcome!

Generally speaking, actual photos of a historical item should go to [email protected]

Photos of ruins should go to [email protected]

Photos of the past should go to [email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 37 points 2 weeks ago (6 children)

That's just way too simplistic. There's no lock, there's no block and tackle, there's no apparent way to get the stone to the wall once it's lifted. Dude spends a day's calories to hoist that cut stone 30 feet in the air and then what? It just dangles there while he's not allowed to go have a pee break?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Oh I see it. The guy with the hook is on a wall, and you can see lower down the even smaller guy. Guy with the hook pulls it toward him and the wall.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

There's a gentleman over there with a dry boat hook, to pull the block stage left. As far as a lock, perhaps there's a slot and a peg going into the floor beneath the wheel?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago

Ah, I saw it wrong. I thought that was dude on the ground but this block is already 50ft in the air. Thanks.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (2 children)

Dude spends a day’s calories to hoist that cut stone 30 feet in the air

Hum... 4000kcal is ~16MJ, what would lift about 160 thousand kg by those 10m.

But yeah, it's missing all the components. Also, isn't the wheel supposed to be on the ground? What lifts the wheel into the top of the wall?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 weeks ago

They would just build it there. Same way that nobody would lug siege weapons all the way from home - engineers build them onsite.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

OK yeah, hyperbole about the work required but can you imagine stepping a 500 pound stone into the air with no mechanical advantage? I'm not sure that a human can even exert that force with their weight.

They would just haul the lumber up and build the machine at the top of the wall

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

He's walking in a big wheel with a rope wrapping around a small wheel on his axle. That's the mechanical advantage.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Ah, yeah.

So would that work? Can that dude treadmill stones to the top of the apparently 50-60ft wall with that mechanical advantage all day?

Would it help if I whipped him while he did it?

[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Also with no ratcheting preventing backspin every once in a while that poor sap in the wheel would miss a step or something and then go for one hell of a ride.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Isn't a ratcheting mechanism sort of implied with it being labeled as a winch though?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 weeks ago

No. Ratcheting stops are one form of winch break (and definitely the most common in modern winches) but it’s not a mandatory inclusion. A winch is just a rope around a drum.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

And where's the donut dangling in front of the guy in the hamster wheel? Horrible representation...

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 weeks ago

The dangling donut was actually an innovation of the Dutch (who invented the donut); before that, hamster wheels had to make do with only 12% the efficiency of later hamster wheels.