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Engineering in the ancient world has quite a few examples of "megaprojects" like this one. Besides the well-known Egyptian Pyramids and Roman aqueducts, one in
by stygiansonic 10y ago
Engineering in the ancient world has quite a few examples of "megaprojects" like this one.
Besides the well-known Egyptian Pyramids and Roman aqueducts, one interesting one I've recently learned about was about the columns in the Roman Pantheon were built: They were carved from single blocks of granite and then imported all the way from Egypt[0]:
"The grey granite columns that were actually used in the Pantheon's pronaos were quarried in Egypt at Mons Claudianus in the eastern mountains. Each was 39 feet (11.9 m) tall, 5 feet (1.5 m) in diameter, and 60 tons in weight.[43] These were dragged more than 100 km (62 miles) from the quarry to the river on wooden sledges. They were floated by barge down the Nile River when the water level was high during the spring floods, and then transferred to vessels to cross the Mediterranean Sea to the Roman port of Ostia. There, they were transferred back onto barges and pulled up the Tiber River to Rome.[44] After being unloaded near the Mausoleum of Augustus, the site of the Pantheon was still about 700 meters away.[45] Thus, it was necessary to either drag them or to move them on rollers to the construction site."
0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantheon,_Rome#Portico https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantheon,_Rome#Portico
- Amezarak 10y agoThe Romans also had a passion for importing ancient Egyptian obelisks, which could be a hundred feet tall and weigh 450 tons. They were also made from single blocks. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lateran_Obelisk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lateran_Obelisk
- contingencies 10y agoSome Chinese projects: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dujiangyan_irrigation_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dujiangyan_irrigation_system + https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Canal_(China) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Canal_(China)
- bane 10y agoIn some of the ancient Chinese theories, Rome was sometimes seen as an opposite of China, a Yin to the Middle Kingdom's Yang.
- wil421 10y agoSaw the Pantheon in May and it is very impressive the columns are massive. The inside is equally impressive. It's one of the only, if not the only Roman temple where the interior survived. So much of the Ancient world impresses me the more I learn. Seeing it amazes me more. It's sad a lot of Ancient buildings or knowledge was destroyed as the next ruling party or ideology came to power.
- wlesieutre 10y agoThe interior didn't survive unscathed. The design of the upper walls was "fixed" during the renaissance, with one small section now restored to something more like its original design (based on paintings of the original, see top right of photo): https://userscontent2.emaze.com/images/9fd064fa-8fb9-409b-acbf-590b16c8adcb/33570d86-ed8e-4a7c-a67c-89f8b4306f0e.jpg https://userscontent2.emaze.com/images/9fd064fa-8fb9-409b-ac... Additionally, Pope Urban VIII had the bronze ceiling of the portico melted down to make cannons in the 1600's. On the left side of the portico, you'll also notice that some of the columns don't match. If I'm remembering right, these were taken from a nearby Roman bath complex to repair earthquake damage to the portico. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/35/Pantheon,_portico_01.JPG https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/35/Pantheon... All that said, it's still in remarkably good condition for being close to 2000 years old.
- wil421 10y agoOf course nothing survived unscathed but if I recall correctly the Pantheon's marble interior/floor is still mostly original. The Catholic Popes melted down anything they could find to create Christian things.
- wlesieutre 10y agoAs the saying goes, "What the barbarians did not do the Barberinis did" (in reference to Pope Urban VIII's family name, Barberini)
- tdgs 10y agoJust, saying, the Parthenon is not a Roman temple :)
- bane 10y agoOstia itself was an amazing ancient megaproject. How to bring the bounty of the empire to the opulent capital city? http://www.ostia-antica.org/ http://www.ostia-antica.org/
- ravingraven 10y ago...and someone probably got the order wrong as the columns are too short. In the following picture we can see how tall the portico roof was expected to be and where it ended up: https://c2.staticflickr.com/4/3496/3213951635_d21d3e5556_z.jpg?zz=1 https://c2.staticflickr.com/4/3496/3213951635_d21d3e5556_z.j...
- JoeAltmaier 10y agoProbably some metric conversion error
- eternalban 10y agoAncient Perisans had a few mega projects as well. Persepolis is fairly well known, the Qanat water system [1] that conveyed water from the Alborz mountain range [2] to nearly the edge of Persian Gult is a bit better known. But the first attempt at a Suez Canal [3] is even news to most Iranians. [1]: http://patentpending.blogs.com/patent_pending_blog/2005/02/ancient_persias.html http://patentpending.blogs.com/patent_pending_blog/2005/02/a... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alborz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alborz [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canal_of_the_Pharaohs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canal_of_the_Pharaohs