There was a time when giant cranes did not decorate city skylines, and bulldozers, excavators, and diggers did not yet exist. But even before these seemingly important technologies were invented, we had palaces, temples, churches, and pyramids, all built by human ingenuity.
But how were these ancient giants built? Let’s take a closer look.
1. The Great Sphinx of the Reporter
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The Great Sphinx of Giza is one of the most iconic sculptures in the world. It probably dates back to the reign of Khafre between 2558 and 2532 BC and was built on-site from large limestone blocks, requiring no equipment to be removed from other locations.
It is said to be a protruding piece of limestone bedrock using basic technology of the time. Josef WegnerHe is an Egyptologist, archaeologist, and professor of Egyptology at the University of Pennsylvania.
“The Egyptians were masters of limestone masonry, and their sculptors could easily create sculptures of this scale,” Wegner says.
They probably carved directly from the bedrock that was there, so no additional skill was needed to cut the rock in place. After the sculpture was completed, the headdress was probably painted with alternating yellow and blue stripes, as was common with most statues of the time, and a gold mask was painted. However, the paint has long since faded after centuries of exposure to wind and rain.
Read more: 7 Groundbreaking Ancient Civilizations That Influence Us Today
2. Petra
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Built along an ancient Arabian trade route 2,000 years ago, Petra was once home to a community of more than a million people. 10,000 nomads Great success has been achieved in constructing this engineering marvel.
Workers built the carved city by building massive steps into the sandstone, which served two purposes: to ensure that the rock was of good quality to withstand the harsh desert sun, and to allow the sculptors and masons to work without falling, without ropes.
Read more: The Nabataeans and the Lost City of Petra
3. The Great Pyramid of the Reporter
(Source: Mustafa Y Ibrahim/Shutterstock)
There are a few things we don’t know about the pyramid construction because we don’t have original sources. Researchers have to look at what’s there and make inferences about such engineering feats. Aidan DawsonEgyptologist and historian at the University of Bristol.
“Aside from a few papyri discussing the geometry of ramps, no instructions for building pyramids have survived,” says Dodson.
We know more about logistics than engineering. For example, we have logs of the boats used to transport high-quality casing limestone to the construction site, says Dodson. Again, as with the Great Sphinx, most of the lower-quality limestone (what we might call filler) was available on site and did not have to be quarried elsewhere.
The engineering of the pyramids is a further mystery, and researchers must look to the unfinished pyramids to deduce how the more complete ones were built. Ramps left at the unfinished site show that they were likely used to place one stone on top of another to build these massive structures that have stood the test of time.
Read more: The oldest ancient wonders still stand today, 4,500 years later.
4. Parthenon
(Credit: Huseyin Eren Obuz/Shutterstock)
The Parthenon was built in honor of the goddess Athena in Athens, Greece, between 447 and 438 BC, and still stands today. This massive project Pericles, the Athenian politician The architects Ictinus and Callicrates designed the building. The sculptures were designed and supervised by the great sculptor Phidias.
The marble was transported by wagon from a nearby quarry, and each block was carved right on the construction site. Although it is not known for certain, it is thought that a system of pulleys, ropes, and wooden cranes were used to move the heavy marble blocks to the top of the hill where the Parthenon stands today.
Either way, moving such heavy stones was an engineering feat, and unlike the pyramids, the building materials had to be transported to the construction site.
Read more: Humans shaped ancient history across three eras.
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Sarah Novak is a science journalist based in South Carolina. In addition to writing for Discover, her work has appeared in Scientific American, Popular Science, New Scientist, Sierra Magazine, Astronomy Magazine, and elsewhere. She holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Georgia’s Grady School of Journalism. She is also pursuing a master’s degree in science writing from Johns Hopkins University (expected to graduate in 2023).
