16 Insane Architectural Feats From The Ancient World
I don't care for his ratings on who is number 1 or number 16 but each one is fascinating building feats in their own right. The article has links, photos and statements on each one, I just highlighted the ones
I was not real familiar with
1Pantheon, Rome
2. Saksaywaman, Peru
3.. Chand Baori, India This one I didn't know about
You might recognize it as a location from The Dark Knight Rises, but this 10th century marvel is the largest stepwell in the world, with 3,500 steps carved Escher-like into the ground.
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4. Chogha Zanbil, Iran
The best preserved ziggurat, or Mesopotamian temple tower, in the world, it dates back to 1250 C.E. It’s a massive complex, complete with walls for the town and tombs for the kings.
5. Gobleki Tepe, Turkey.... this is my number 1
6. Leshan Giant Buddha
Standing (sitting) at 233 feet tall, this statue is the tallest premodern statue in the world. It depicts the Maitreya Buddha with his hands resting on his knees, and if you need to take a seat yourself, just settle down on his big toe.
7. Marib Dam, Yemen.... this one I haven't read much about
Keeping a thirsty desert kingdom hydrated isn’t easy. This incredible feat of ancient engineering, the oldest known dam in the world, was completed sometime in the 8th century B.C.E, though construction began around 2000 B.C.E. The Kingdom of Saba’ and the subsequent rulers used it for 1000 years, only 950 years longer than a modern dam.
8. Rock Churches of Lalibela, Ethiopia
9. Hypogeum of Hal-Saflieni, Malta
10. The Underground City Of Derinkuyu, Turkey
11. Pumapunku, Bolivia
12. Petra, Jordan
13. Newgrange, Ireland
14. The Nazca Lines, Peru
15. Stone Spheres of Costa Rica
16. The Trilithon at Baalbeck, Lebanon
http://chicagopost.net/entertainment/16-insane-architectural-feats-from-the-ancient-world/
= new reply since forum marked as read
The oldest large scale dam in the world...
About forty kilometres south of Cairo, close to the town of Helwan, lie the ruins of the Sadd-el-Kafara ( = “dam of the Pagans”), an embankment dam of great size built around 2700-2600 BC, discovered over 100 years ago in the old, deep and dry Garawi ravine. The masonry-faced earthen dam originally measured 14 m height and 113 m length along the crest and is considered today the oldest dam of such size known in the world.
The primal aim of the dam was to retain the water from rare but violent floods. It could also ensure water to workers and animals working in exploration of stone and marble in the nearby quarries, for the construction of the pyramids and the temples. Never completed, the dam had been under construction for 10-12 years before being destroyed by a flood. It was rediscovered by Georg Schweinfurth in 1885.
Its great size indicates the dam engineers were not doing experimental work, but they built it in a very systematic way. Its construction took place in the era when the Egyptian kings built their pyramids on the other bank of River Nile. There exist similarities between the stone walls of the pyramids and the dam. And still there are many questions that revolve around Garawi valley Dam.
