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Comment by duxup | Hacker News Reader

I always like some good full restorations / recreations. Traveling in Europe right or wrong I got the impression that there were few of those than in the US (but that might just be anecdotal random chance).

Granted, I did enjoy going to a concert at the theater at Orange https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Theatre_of_Orange

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The Roman Theatre of Mérida (15 BC) is another example, where an annual classic festival has been held since 1933: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Theatre_(M%C3%A9rida)

Skara Brae, which is 5000 years old, does have buildings and even furniture in a remarkable state of preservation:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skara_Brae

I've visited it and found it very worthwhile, but one needs to remember that at the same time they were building the pyramids in Egypt.

Skara Brae was occupied as early as 3180 BC. Egyptians didn't finish the first pyramids until ~2600 BC.

It is truly a wonder - especially given the different circumstances than a fertile river valley.

Of course 2600 BCE is about half way between the early Pre-dynastic period and the end of the Ptolemeic period. And only about a third of the way to present day.

Egypt is mind bogglingly long lived.

I don't think you really need to compare / remember that... we're talking history here, not some sort of building scorecard.

Different kinds of buildings though - I've been into one of the pyramids at Ghiza (Khafre's) and it actually doesn't look that interesting. I find the buildings at Skara Brae interesting because they are more human scale (beds and other furniture) and were where people actually lived for many hundreds of years - quite a bit before the pyramids at Giza at least.

Perhaps I can share a different perspective. I like unrestored ruins. I perceive a restoration as admixture of modern techniques and fresh touch onto an old and genuine core, and a recreation as a modern construction made to look old. When I explore those without having noticed or been forewarned about their true origins I feel cheated. When I do notice or someone tells me they really are new, I still feel they are inauthentic.

I suppose I expect to see not just how people lived in the past, but also to see the effect that time has had on what they made. I like looking at a fragment of a wall and contemplate the amount of time that separates me from the folks who put it up. Knowledge that the wall was built in my lifetime just completely ruins it for me (no pun intended).

That said, I did see some great recreations and I learnt much more about the past from them than I had from ruins. Some folks do impressive amount of research about what life used to be like and recreations are probably the best way for them to share what they learnt.

Agreed. The 'reconstruction' at Knossos on Crete[1] is a tragedy. Reinforced concrete everywhere, truncated walls capped with cement and an entirely invented upper storey.

The reconstructed fascia on the Neolithic burial mound at Newgrange in Ireland[2] is almost as bad: "a bit brutal, a bit overdone, kind of like Stalin does the Stone Age".

In contrast, the slowly-eroding, uninterpreted mud-brick Khorezm fortressess in the Karakalpakstan region of Uzbekistan are highly evocative. The scale of the defensive fortresses tell you so much about the wealth and organization of the clans who built them. They stand magnificently alone in the desert. There's no interpretive centre, no gift shop. You'll have an entire fortress to yourself, where you can spend hours picking through millions of ancient potsherds.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knossos_(modern_history)

[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newgrange

[3] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khorezm_fortresses

Sometimes you don't need much restoration at all:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aqueduct_of_Segovia

Edit: or this one:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Escorial

but certainly I would love some furniture was added to some:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alhambra

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