Architectural wonders of the ancient world

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Most of the historical sites on our planet are besieged by millions of tourists every year. However, aside from the well-trodden paths, there are ancient monuments that deserve the closest attention.

The wonders of architecture that we inherited from antiquity are not, of course, limited to the list of objects of mass tourist pilgrimage like Petra, Angkor Wat and the Colosseum.

To learn more about monuments that lie off the beaten track, we turned to Quora, an online Q&A platform, where users exchange opinions about their favorite places.

What was included in their list? Here, for example, are some of the top sites: the artificial archipelago of Nan Madol in Micronesia; the cave city of Derinkuyu in Turkish Cappadocia; giant Phoenician megalith on the territory of modern Lebanon.

Derinkuyu, Turkey

Near the Turkish city of Derinkuyu, 750 kilometers from Istanbul, in the Cappadocian province of Nevsehir, another city with the same name lies underground. The underground Derinkuyu is a system of hand-built cave dwellings - the largest in the world.

The wonder of ancient Anatolia, the underground Derinkuyu, was large enough to accommodate up to 20 thousand inhabitants

This cave city had the infrastructure of a well-developed municipal center, including facilities such as schools, stables, and prayer houses. However, all of its structures do not stretch upward from the ground, but are hidden underground at a depth of 60-85 meters, hollowed out in soft volcanic rock.

The underground complex was built between the 7th and 8th centuries BC to protect the locals from the raids of marauding nomads.

According to the plan, it was supposed to provide the inhabitants of the upper city with a temporary refuge, but the infrastructure here is extremely developed and includes, among other things, 600 ground doors leading into the interior, 15 thousand ventilation shafts, many wine cellars, as well as a complex network of passages, tunnels and corridors …

Lower Derinkuyu "was large enough to accommodate about 20,000 people, along with livestock and food," notes Trishla Prasad.

For its age, the cave city is perfectly preserved; nowadays it is accessible for visiting and is included in numerous tourist programs.

Travelers planning to visit this attraction, however, must be warned that during the excursion they will have to overcome a large number of steps.

Nan Madol, Micronesia

This mysterious city was built in 1200 on an artificial archipelago of basalt islands connected by a network of canals.

Thousands of kilometers of ocean separate the floating city of Nan Madol in Micronesia from the nearest state

It still remains a little-known landmark, which is not surprising given its geographical position - in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, more than 3600 km east of the Philippines.

"[Nan Madol] apparently served as a residential complex for the [Micronesian] elite; each islet here fulfilled some specific function (for example, building boats, preparing food, caring for the sick) and was probably covered with a canopy of palm leaves and wood, "says Terry Neumann, who has twice visited the man-made archipelago.

"It can be considered a crude, primitive version of Angkor Wat, overgrown with a tropical forest. However, it will blow your roof off anyway," Neumann is convinced. in sight ".

Baalbek, Lebanon

Located in the Bekaa Valley, in eastern Lebanon, the well-preserved ancient city of Baalbek was inhabited about 9 thousand years ago and subsequently attracted representatives of various peoples of antiquity, including the Phoenicians, Greeks and Romans.

Temple of Bacchus - a monumental building in the ancient city of Baalbek on the territory of modern Lebanon

It is known primarily as a complex of giant religious buildings dedicated to the ancient gods - Bacchus, Venus and Jupiter.

“The Temple of Bacchus alone is larger than the Greek Parthenon,” comments Quora user Ella Rayyan. “And the adjacent Temple of Jupiter has only five of the 54 Corinthian columns preserved, but their monumentality is amazing - each 22 meters high and two meters in girth; they say they are the largest columns in the world."

The three slabs in the masonry terrace on which the Temple of Jupiter stands are known as the trilithon and represent the largest building block in existence.

It is still unclear how this trilithon got here; according to one version, it was delivered using an ancient Roman crane (a device that consisted of a lever, a lifting block and a rope).

Newgrange, County Meath, Ireland

The massive, rounded dome of Newgrange rises like a grassy UFO over the emerald fields of County Meath, Ireland.

This massive dome was built over 5 thousand years ago.

This structure appeared more than 5 thousand years ago, in 3200 BC, in the Neolithic era. It is part of Irish folklore and is considered one of the most important examples of megalithic architecture in Europe.

The megalithic structure, inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List, is a huge 12-meter mound overgrown with grass on top, filled with alternating layers of earth and stone on an area of 4,500 square meters.

It is surrounded by a row of curbstones faced with white quartz, installed already during the restoration in the 70s of the XX century.

Inside, a suite of rooms stretches for 19 meters, culminating in three small rooms that are believed to have served as burial chambers.

The secret behind this structure is that it acts like a remarkably accurate chronograph, user El Land writes in a comment.

Newgrange is geometrically aligned for sunrise, and its rooms are bathed in sunlight during the Northern Hemisphere Winter Solstice (December 21).

"As the sun rises, the sun creates an amazing play of light in the room," says Land. "Surely it was the intention of the builders to celebrate the beginning of the New Year [through natural illumination]."

Ellora and Ajanta cave temples, Maharashtra state, India

The complex of cave temples in Ellora, located 30 km northwest of the Indian city of Aurangabad, is considered the pinnacle of cave architecture in India.

The Kailasanatha temple in the Ellora caves was carved by ancient craftsmen from a rocky monolith

Thirty-four caves were carved into the stone end of the Charanandri Hill between the 6th and 9th centuries.

These temple caves are especially prized for their ancient paintings and sculptures, considered masterpieces of Buddhist art that gave rise to classical Indian art.

The Archaeological Administration of India (a department of the Ministry of Culture) calls them "the finest surviving examples of Indian art, especially painting."

The complex of cave temples in Ellora includes the Kailasanatha temple, carved out of a stone monolith.

"Its scale and architectural grace will impress anyone," notes user Hamid Shah.

British historian William Dalrymple named the cave temples of Ajanta as one of the great wonders of the ancient world

About a hundred kilometers to the northeast is the Ajanta cave complex, named one of the great wonders of the ancient world by the British historian William Dalrymple.

Stunning man-made caves were carved into the rock between the 2nd and 7th centuries, with the intention of building Buddhist temples, shrines, prayer halls and dormitories inside.

"Most of the wall paintings in the cave have crumbled from old age and from carelessness, but you can get an idea of their former glory from the examples that have survived," Shah notes. "Despite being 1,500 years old, their beauty has not faded to this day." …

A masterpiece of Buddhist art - a stupa at the Ajanta cave complex in the Indian state of Maharashtra