In Japan, ancient quarry sites still preserve fascinating traces of how people once cut and shaped massive stones. At many of these sites, you’ll notice neat rows of small square holes carved into the rock—these are wedge sockets, the result of a technique where workers drove wooden or metal wedges into the stone to split it along a straight line. It was a smart and straightforward method that let them carefully control the break and create smooth, uniform blocks.
There’s also evidence that an even older method might have been used. In this technique, dry wooden wedges were inserted into cracks, then soaked with water. As the wood expanded, it slowly forced the rock apart. This approach was also seen in ancient Egypt and other civilizations.
What’s especially intriguing is that Japan has many of these prehistoric stone-working sites, even though its written history only dates back about 1,600 years. This points to a much older and largely unknown tradition of stone craftsmanship. Some of the remaining stone foundations suggest that impressive structures once stood there—now lost to time, earthquakes, or both
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