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Would be pretty stupid to spend all this energy erecting stones just for the view of it. Like, it obviously had SOME purpose.
by stephbook 1mo ago
Would be pretty stupid to spend all this energy erecting stones just for the view of it.
Like, it obviously had SOME purpose.
- malfist 1mo agoYeah, why did they go through all that effort to build the Eiffel tower?
- billynomates 1mo agoIt honored the 100th anniversary of the French Revolution. And it demonstrated French industrial prowess, iron craftsmanship advanced engineering capabilities..
- ralfd 1mo agoFurthermore: The Eiffel Tower was planned to be temporary, it only still stands because it was used as a radio tower.
- whythismatters 1mo ago>planned to be temporary Same for the Atomium in Brussels, Belgium.
- anon48293 29d agoThen they probably shouldn’t have used a stable atom..
- uniq7 1mo agoI wonder if Stonehenge was only for demonstrating some tribe's engineering capabilities too
- jimnotgym 29d agoYet if an archaeologist excavated it with no knowledge of that, like everything that is not clearly a house, it would be chalked down as a 'ritual site'
- Gravityloss 1mo agoSelfie geolocation
- irishcoffee 1mo agoI realize that was tongue in cheek, but what I found more interesting is that is was only to stand for 20 years and was initially set to be demolished in 1909. So your question is even more amusing as the thing was only supposed to be temporary.
- ButlerianJihad 1mo agoSince it was part of a World's Fair, it is unsurprising today that the Eiffel Tower was slated for demolition. I grew up very near to Balboa Park, and it was rather late in life that I learned that all those buildings were sort of hastily erected for the Panama–California Exposition, 110 years ago, and they were expected to be demolished quickly, or decay, because they were never intended for permanent habitation. And so the intervening years have been a saga of very industrious preservation and restoration, as most all of the buildings have been deemed to be architectural marvels and very much worth keeping around.
- irishcoffee 1mo agoWas it unsurprising at the planning stages?
- DarmokTanagra 1mo agoThe eiffel tower will be gone long before stonehenge.
- Levitating 1mo agoTo serve as the centrepiece of the 1889 World's Fair exposition.[1] [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exposition_Universelle_(1889) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exposition_Universelle_(1889)
- cogman10 1mo agoWhat's interesting is that it may have had multiple changing purposes during construction. It took 1500 years to be established in its current form. It's pretty likely (to me at least) that the purpose of the year 1 work was different from year 1500.
- dilawar 1mo agoOr someone told them that folks in Egypt made a huge building out of stones. They started and gave up after a while. As good a story as any?
- bazoom42 1mo agoStonehenge is older than the pyramids though.
- alephnerd 1mo ago> Would be pretty stupid to spend all this energy erecting stones just for the view of it I think the same way looking at medieval cathedrals or Roman and Greek era theatres, collesiums, and agoras... At least the Ottomans used the Parthenon as an arms depot, giving those stones some meaning. (This is sarcasm)
- theodric 1mo agoIt wasn't "for the view," it was, in no particular order, and non-exhaustively: * To provide work * To serve as a reminder of the power and authority of the church * To glorify God * To make sure all the other nearby kingdoms were aware of how much cooler you are than them
- alephnerd 1mo agosarcasm (noun) - the use of words that mean the opposite of what one intends to say especially in order to insult, to show irritation, or to be funny : a mode of satirical wit depending for its effect on ironic and usually bitter and caustic language often directed against an individual or idea.
- IAmBroom 1mo ago> * To provide work Cite required. Work in a pre-industrial agrarian society is ever-present, unless there's a drought. (Although in that case the coffin builders may need extra hands.)
- theodric 1mo agoThat's a simplistic, reductive, and uninformed expression of history which completely disregards the roles of the artisan, merchant, innkeeper, or any of the numerous other trades which kept early economies moving. Not everyone was a hand-to-mouth peasant farmer, either in medieval Europe, or in earlier points in history. The building of a cathedral provided generations of employment for stonemasons, men involved in felling and shipping timber, men involved in cutting and shipping stone, as well as people responsible for feeding the workers, making and repairing their tools, etc.; and once built, the cathedral would be a draw for pilgrims, who would need places to stay, food to eat, and so on. A cathedral provides work.
- spicyusername 1mo agoMy favorite theory is that nomadic civilizations during that period were known to congregate together temporarily throughout the year. Stonehenge was one of the places they would do this. Makes sense to make the meeting spot nice.
- bux93 1mo agoIt was probably a tribe that later emigrated to Australia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_things_(Australia) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_things_(Australia)
- repelsteeltje 1mo agoSounds like the question Ylvis posed [1], years ago. :-) [1] https://youtu.be/mbyzgeee2mg https://youtu.be/mbyzgeee2mg
- jaapz 1mo ago"Why not" is a perfectly good reason to do things, and we do things like that all the time
- jimnotgym 29d agoThey even make the front page of hackernews all the time. Like spending 6 months making Doom run on a calculator