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This appeared on 'Ancient Origins' , it's rather interesting: " I have years and years of experience as a stone mason, in particular my experience working on a huge project ($1million of cut slate floors, quartzite wall panels, and granite boulder retaining walls) with just 2 other people gives me some valuable insite to offer here: we made retaining wals that started at the end of the driveway flanking it on either side, proceeding uphill around the driveway and around the property perimiter, roughly 50m by 50m plus a curving 30m x30m driveway kind of like the two symbols here: ❏﹆. we used granite boulders from slightly less than 1ton up to 7 ton for the perimiter retaining walls, and fit the boulders so tight that you could not even slide a playing card between them. they were all irregular shaped and sized and showed no signs of being cut, shaped, or altered once set in place. the bigger the boulder, the more primitive the tools was how we worked. using 1kg sledge hammers, chissels, and hammer stones, we could make the necesary cuts, and fit the boulders next to and ontop of eachother without the need for mortar as there were no joints visible. we made it look as if each boulder miraculously fit like a puzzle piece, perfectly and seemlessly in place with the surrounding stones. it could take 2 to 3 people up to 3 days to set the largest boulders which were about 3m x 1.5m x1m and over 7000kg (15.4k lbs). of course it would have been more efficient and cost effective to use 15” diamond blade masonery saws/grinders, or rotor-hammers instead of hand tools, but the ability to make such perfect cuts, legitimately mind blowing impossibly tight fitting joints on giant granite boulders was only possible doing it by hand and the slow way. we spent years on this project, but it was 2 sometimes 3 people working in the sierra nevada mountains of lake tahoe in inclement weather, and unfavorable conditions a lot of the time. but we produced a work of art where one would otherwise typically expect an unimpressive mundane granite stone wall. we did it simply to make a statement, wheter or not anyone would evemn appreciate it or notice it, given it would be covered with snow for 7-8 months of the year, and the client only intended to use the home as an occasional ski retreat a couple times a year at best. one of the reasons i guess was simply because we wanted to show what we could do with these boulders and make a statement and make people literally ask if that was real, or were they faccades, or was it custom pre-fab kit, or how was that even possible. it was for nothing more than to relish in hearing someone say, how did you do that? thats impossible, thats not real granite is it? next, we laid 6500’ square of cut slate floors with no straight lines (every endge of the slate stones had to be scrolled, not cut straight, and every joint between the stones had to be exactly 1 cm, no more no less, and no 4 way joints (like a ‘X’ where 4 stones shared a corner joint) they could only be 3 way joints or of course double and single. for the slate we used 5” diamond blades on electric handheld grinders, as that is the easiest and fastest way to do such a ridiculous and monumental task for the 2 or 3 of us working. and agin, we made a metamorphic/sedimintary rock with naturally straight edges, crqcks, and layers into something that resembled a jigsaw puzzle instead of a stone floor. we did things that took impossible patience, time, effort, and costly amounts of materials just to prove a point; that anything is possible, no matter what people say. so when i hear people say that these giant blocks in ancient polygonal masonry walls could only have been set inplace after somehow being ‘softened’ with some alchemical, occult, esoteric or otherwise lost ‘high technology’ or chemical process, etc., because even with cnc, water jet, or CAD assisted modern cutting, we couldnt replicate the precision and the tight fit and impossibly small joints, i cant help but say that everyone is all wrong. with nothing more than hand tools, time, experience, trial and success, and determination, it is absolutely possible to fit giant, hard, igneous blocks, boulders, monolithic polygonal masonry together so perfectly that not even a dollar bill can fit between them, if you just put your mind to it. and there does not have to be a functional or purposeful reason behind doing it. simmply wanting to make your work look impossible or better than anything anyone has ever seen before is well worth it today and i surmise it was worth is in antiquity as well. prestige in power. just my personal take on why it is not necesaary to explain precise fitting masonary through alchemical stone softening, geopolymer manufacturing, etc. and further to that " My son was a stone mason and actually showed me some examples of working stone of different grain and hardnesses. Sometimes the finished stone was amazingly fitted so tightly I thought it comparable to monumental stonework I had seen elsewhere. His primary tools were a set of differnt hammers of varing weight and shape, along with stones used to grind the finish into the stone,w hich the usage was guided by the product type of stone and the required finish. "