3 ms·
The Guildhall in London is one of the old political centres of the city. If you go down into the basement there's the remains of a Roman ampitheatre! Tucked aw
by dcminter 1y ago
The Guildhall in London is one of the old political centres of the city. If you go down into the basement there's the remains of a Roman ampitheatre!
Tucked away in an alcove on Cannon Street is an old block of stone. This is the famous London Stone. So old that nobody knows what it is originally famous for...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guildhall,_London https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guildhall,_London
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Stone https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Stone
That sort of oddity and connection with history is one of the fun parts when living in an "old" city (London isn't even that old by global standards).
That ampitheatre shows that street level in ancient times and now might be quite different, so the historical feet might not really have been walking in the same place. London Stone does suggest that you could reasonably invest a lot of effort into the history of a single slab though!
- normie3000 1y ago> That ampitheatre shows that street level in ancient times Why do street levels change like this? There seem to be a lot of "buried streets" in old cities.
- dcminter 1y ago2000(ish) years of dust and leaf litter adds up!
- lexicality 1y agoold cities are typically built on the flood planes of large rivers since you get easy access to clean(ish) water and flat ground. Large rivers tend to engage in sedimentation so everything around them either needs to slowly and constantly build upwards to avoid being underwater or will be razed and the ground raised by the next flood with its associated payload of mud.
- ZiiS 1y agoLack of JCBs.
- wcoenen 1y agoHumans tend to accumulate building material in cities faster than it is lost to erosion. It can add up to many meters over the millennia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tell_(archaeology) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tell_(archaeology)
- cortesoft 1y agoI noticed this street level thing a ton when I visited Athens. You would be walking down the street, and suddenly there would be a very old cathedral of some kind 20 feet or so lower than the surrounding street. I found it fascinating.