Skyscrapers of antiquity

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

The architecture of ancient buildings is striking in its harmony, sophistication of the facade elements, and the thoughtfulness of the project as a whole. And sometimes the volumes and masses of building elements - up to hundreds of tons. But few people know that if we were in antiquity in some cities, we could be struck by another factor - the multi-storey buildings, up to the height of modern buildings.

Let's look at this first:

and then to this:

TEPL KHAZNA. Syria

Many foundations, foundations dug out during excavations become clear. It happens that it is not clear where the entrance, the passage is. It turns out that there was a dense multi-storey building. You can find more examples of such foundations.

Gonur-Tepe (Turkmenistan). The word "Tepe" means "mound, burial mound."

Why do archaeologists excavate only the foundations or half of the first floors? Can't everything collapse so smoothly? Strange too! The answer suggests itself - it was cut off by a flood, the debris was carried away, filling it with clay.

Finds in clay, sandy loam

Male and female images of the ancient inhabitants of Gonur, recreated from skulls from tombs using Gerasimov's method. The author of the reconstructions is the Ufa anthropologist Alexei Nechvaloda. More details about it

But I digress…. Don't you think that the buildings here could be the same high-rise as in the Yemeni Shibam?

Shibam, Yemen. 500 high-rise buildings. Link to map

The houses of the city are built of adobe bricks and reach a height of 26 meters (9 floors). This construction method was used to protect the inhabitants from the attacks of the Bedouins.

Although the history of the ancient state of Shibam is about 2,000 years old, most of the houses were built in the 16th century.

The town is still surrounded by a wall. If we cut off the buildings at the base, we get a picture of excavations from almost any corner of Central Asia.

Perhaps the survivors of the cataclysm, the flood, remembered what their cities looked like in the past. Recreated them in this.

The ancient city of Shibam with a population of about 13 thousand people is located in Yemen. Shibam is often called "the city of the world's oldest skyscrapers" or "desolate Manhattan."

The concept of "apartment" does not exist in Shibam. The entire floor is occupied by one family, and the first floors are usually dedicated to livestock and grain storage. By the way, there are also hotels: they are located on the middle floors of ancient buildings.

It’s surprising that all of this does not collapse … Without cement, on unfired brick … Fantastic!

By the way, the city itself is located at the bottom of such a canyon. Maybe a career? Maybe they washed gold here, and in order to save money, they built such high-rises for the workers. In our country, to save money, heat and urban space - the same principle. Most of us live in such "comfortable high-rise cages."

Maybe here in ancient times they washed gold with water monitors?

Although, are they not, if you look at it from a height:

Everything resembles a huge ravine in area

Those. it is either an ancient surface eroded by the flood. Or mudflows, washed out by the outgoing streams of flood waters. And subsequently petrified. Although, geologists will say that for millions of years it was washed away by water erosion of ancient rivers and streams.

Spoiler (click to open)

These are not the only ancient skyscrapers. Next example:

Bologna towers

Bologna Towers - a complex of medieval buildings in Bologna, the most famous of which today are the so-called Two Towers. Between the 12th and 13th centuries, the number of towers in the city was very large - about 180. However, the reason for their construction remains unclear until the end.

Now there are only a few of them. Today, less than 20 old buildings have survived: the Altabella (61 meters), Coronata (60 meters), Scappi (39 meters), Uguzzoni (32 meters), Guidozagni, Galuzzi and the famous Two Towers - Asinelli (97 meters) and Garisenda (48 meters)).

It can be seen that the city was very densely built up with giant stone towers, in height and proportion

more like modern skyscrapers than the usual fortress towers of the period.

Building layout

There are high towers in Ireland, in the Caucasus. Versions for them are for casting shot (pouring from above and falling lead, forming a shot) and as viewing. But why are there so many lookouts in the city? One, two is enough.

Spoiler (click to open)

Next place: walled houses of Diaolou in China

Diaolou are multi-storey fortified houses, of which there are a lot in the Chinese district of Kaiping in Guangdong province. Most of these towers were built in the 1920s, but the oldest date back to the first half of the 17th century.

The construction of diaolou reached a special heyday in the 20-30s of the last century. They were very fond of building by the Chinese who got rich overseas and returned home. These fortress houses were already built according to completely modern technologies from concrete and bricks, and in their architectural appearance traditional Chinese motives, Italian Renaissance and medieval European Gothic were bizarrely mixed. More than 3000 diaolou were built at that time. These houses served both the role of a fortress and the role of an ordinary residential building.

I do not exclude that these expensive buildings for those times were built by the Jesuits who wrote the history of China. Hence the European style. Or those who started the opium wars in China.

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