I am increasingly becoming intrigued my the wonders of the ancient world. Its the engineering mainly. The astrology equally is impressive. Just how we're these people able to map the heavens so precisely? But the did. Without gigantic telescopes and satellites their precision was equal. Its incredible. It M makes me think that what they lacked by modern day standards of technology they more than made up for with inventiveness utilising the bare raw materials they had at hand. Its fascinating.
I posted some years ago about how some people were outraged that renovation work on Bothwell Castle involved modern rectangular red bricks looking totally out of place. Was there a lack of understanding there on how to build it as people did 500 years ago? The photo above is from an old wall over 100 years old I think. I love these. They have character and in contrast to modern walks no two are the same.
But they are nothing compared to the walls at Saqsaywaman in South America. These are incredible. I cannot get my head around how this was done so long ago. Could we do this today using only ancient tools. I doubt it. There are many other examples. It makes me think we have lost something over the years and our push to build a technology that does everything for us could well be to our detriment longer term.
2 comments:
I often wonder at the skills of earlier generations. Things like Stonehenge, the Pyramids and the Mayan civilisations are amazing feats - probably using slave labour but nonetheless jaw-dropping. If our generation were wiped oput by a nuclear bomb and had to rely on old skills, I doubt we'd even be able to re-invent the wheel.
Yes. Going right back to "Tomorrow's world" many advancements have tended to lean towards making life easier. I'm appalled at how foreign it feels to write in a notepad and when typing I tend not to care too much about spelling allowing the checker to pick most things up. Some of the ancient buildings and structures dotted over the world are truly incredible.
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