>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.
The Pantheon is qualitatively different than the massive pyramids the Maya built.
That last is particularly noteworthy as the Nile famously floods on an annual basis, and that itself is the basis for Egyptian civilisation as those floods created what is still one of the most fantastically productive breadbaskets of the world. Ancient Rome relied on Egypt for grain, and even today demographics data and more vividly night-time satellite light-pollution imagery reveal the Nile as a highly-populated ribbon within a sea of darkness and desolation.
The pyramids have withstood multiple risks for many thousands of years. Despite their simple and rugged overall architecture, that remains impressive.
Cost cutting is ancient.
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...
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
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
Skilled tradesmen with lots of time. It’s impressive, but it’s nothing magical.
https://www.earthasweknowit.com/photo/peru_cusco_hatunrumiyo...
Because if its all just a giant magic trick to amaze us future humans, it worked.