>Some Maya cities were established hundreds of years before the founding of Rome, and they included significantly larger architecture that still stands.
The Pantheon is qualitatively different than the massive pyramids the Maya built.
Every time I hear an argument "The Egyptian pyramids are still standing to this day", I'm taken aback. Like, what can a pyramid even crumble into, a pile of stones? It already is a pile of stones! Literally!
Some of the earlier pyramids did crumble. They made mistakes and learned from them and innovated over time. The pyramids aren't still standing (just) because of the materials, there's real structural engineering at work.
It's a pile of rocks in the same way an apartment building is a pile of concrete blocks. It is a building. It could crumble in on itself. The interior rooms could be destroyed.
It's a tomb. The Pharoah was buried in the very middle of it. There's an ascending gallery [1] and a burial chamber, along with access shafts. The burial chamber [2] is a large structure in the approximate middle. [3]
It hasn't settled or shifted enough to deviate or crush this significantly. But such shifting was a recurring problem in early Pyramids though. The foundation work must have been an incredible undertaking.
> [The King's Chamber] is faced entirely with granite and measures 20 cubits (10.5 m; 34.4 ft) east-west by 10 cubits (5.2 m; 17.2 ft) north-south. Its flat ceiling is about 11 cubits and 5 digits (5.8 m;19.0 ft) above the floor, formed by nine slabs of stone weighing in total about 400 tons. All the roof beams show cracks due to the chamber having settled 2.5–5 cm (0.98–1.97 in).
One day it'll give way and it'll just be a pile of stones. But for now it is still an engineered structure working as designed.
Joker_vD|16 days ago
maxbond|16 days ago
retrac|16 days ago
It's a tomb. The Pharoah was buried in the very middle of it. There's an ascending gallery [1] and a burial chamber, along with access shafts. The burial chamber [2] is a large structure in the approximate middle. [3]
It hasn't settled or shifted enough to deviate or crush this significantly. But such shifting was a recurring problem in early Pyramids though. The foundation work must have been an incredible undertaking.
> [The King's Chamber] is faced entirely with granite and measures 20 cubits (10.5 m; 34.4 ft) east-west by 10 cubits (5.2 m; 17.2 ft) north-south. Its flat ceiling is about 11 cubits and 5 digits (5.8 m;19.0 ft) above the floor, formed by nine slabs of stone weighing in total about 400 tons. All the roof beams show cracks due to the chamber having settled 2.5–5 cm (0.98–1.97 in).
One day it'll give way and it'll just be a pile of stones. But for now it is still an engineered structure working as designed.
[1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/59/Grande-g...
[2] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/88/Kheops-c...
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_shaft#/media/File:Great_P...
MikeNotThePope|16 days ago
aorloff|16 days ago
The pantheon is amazing and I can see how humans built it
Saqsaywaman is amazing and I have no idea how the hell it was done, even with today's machinery you don't see stones joined like that
gus_massa|16 days ago
nkrisc|16 days ago
Skilled tradesmen with lots of time. It’s impressive, but it’s nothing magical.
jxnsbdbd|16 days ago
Sure it was much more expensive back then to find matching stones than now with laser measuring and computer predication
But it's basically the same process
joshmoody24|16 days ago