Innovation in Historic Monuments
Past civilizations lacked the benefit of modern tech. But human innovation and labor have produced stupendously grand, sometimes precarious monuments that seem a tough ask to replicate, even today.
The Great Hypostyle Hall at Thebes
About 4,000 years ago, the ancient Egyptians built a magnificent Earthly home for their most prominent deity, the Sun god Amun-Re. Over the next 2,000 years, successive pharaohs would expand Karnak Temple, making it antiquity’s largest religious site.
The temple’s most humbling feature might be the 3,300-year-old Great Hypostyle Hall, pictured above. It encompasses an acre, contains thousands of year’s worth of mysterious inscriptions, and is forested by 134 monolithic, 65-foot-tall sandstone columns that comically dwarf all visitors.
Image Source: Wikimedia
Like Egypt’s other famed achievements, the massive hall’s construction relied on an ingeniously simple process. After setting the foundation, workers buried it with sand to more easily drag the upper pieces into place.
Cappadocia’s subterranean cities
The Derinkuyu underground city is a subterranean refuge hidden beneath the town of Derinkuyu in Turkey. One of more than 200 underground habitations in the region, the Derinkuyu complex descends 250 feet into Cappadocia’s volcanic rock. Approximately 600 entrances are hidden in the town above, some of which lead to massive, rolling stone doors.
The Phrygians likely excavated Derinkuyu around the 8th century BCE, and various persecuted peoples expanded it over the following centuries. The 18-story structure housed early Christians evading Roman authorities, protected its inhabitants during the Arab-Byzantine wars that raged between 780 and 1180 CE, and staved off Mongolian marauders in the 14th century CE.
By Christian Paul from Vancouver, Canada - derinkuyu mapUploaded by stegop, CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia
Image Source: Wikimedia
By Ahmet KAYNARPUNAR, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia
It included everything its hopeful inhabitants (up to 20,000 of them) needed: thousands of vents and shafts for air and water, a school, churches, even a winery (pictured below) and cellars to safeguard the city’s liquid treasure.
More images at: Wikimedia
India’s Ellora Caves
The Ellora Caves is a UNESCO World Heritage site located near the village of Ellora in India. It comprises 34 stone-cut temples built to immortalize and integrate some of the region’s most practiced religions: Buddhism, Hinduism, and Jainism.
By N M Kowlagi - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia
By N M Kowlagi - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia
The collection of shrines stretches across 1.2 miles. It includes 12 Buddhist temples dating back to 200 BCE, 17 Hindu holy places dating back to 500 CE, and 5 Jain sanctuaries dating back to 800 CE. This journey through time and culture highlights the aesthetics favored by each religion, from ornate Hindu designs to the simple Buddhist motifs.
The most lauded structure is the Hindu-built Kailasa Temple, named after the Himalayan peak where the god Shiva resides. Commissioned by Krishna I in the 8th century CE to commemorate a military victory, the 100-feet-tall temple was cut vertically from the basaltic cliffside, displacing more than 200,000 tons of rock.
By G41rn8 - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia
By Kunal Mukherjee from Cambridge, US - Kailash Temple, Ellora, CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia
More Ellora Caves and Kailash Temple images: Ellora Caves , Kailash Temple
Ireland’s Fastnet Lighthouse
Fastnet Lighthouse rises defiantly from the Atlantic atop a jagged isle.
By Richard Webb, CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia
More Images: Wikimedia
So in 1904 a new, 177-foot-tall lighthouse was built, composed of 2,074 dovetailed granite blocks, some weighing up to 3 tons. Celebrating a blend of old and new technology, this most southerly point of Ireland now shines with the brilliance of more than 2 million candles.
The almost-impossibly placed lighthouse is also known as Ireland’s Teardrop; it was the last piece of Ireland that America-bound immigrants would glimpse.
The first lighthouse went up in 1854 to prevent future disasters like that of the packet ship Stephen Whitney, which struck West Calf Island: a catastrophe that claimed 92 lives. But the cast iron-clad lighthouse proved no match for the elements.
By Anthony Patterson from Cork, Ireland - Fastnet, CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia
Bhutan’s Paro Taktsang Monastery
By Prabina Karki - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia
Paro Taktsang Monastery is Bhutan’s most iconic site and one of the world’s most vertiginous buildings, dangling from a cliff more than 3,000 feet above the Paro Valley.
It’s said that in the 8th century, a tigress brought Guru Padmasambhava (the founder of Buddhism in Bhutan) to this place, where he meditated for 3 years, 3 months, 3 weeks, 3 days, and 3 hours in a cave. To commemorate the event, devotees built the monastery here in 1692.
More Images: Wikimedia
Today’s constructs inspire awe, but they lack the timeless monumentality achieved by builders of the past millennia, who prove that the “primitive” past often isn’t.