What did it take to construct the world ancient iconic structures? How were these buildings created without technology and equipment we have today? What would these structures cost to build today and would it even be possible to do it again?
Concept
CONCEPT
TIMELINE
Göbekli Tepe
9130-7370 BC
Location : Turkey
Göbekli Tepe (Turkish for “Potbelly Hill”) is an archaeological site in the Southeastern Anatolia Region of Turkey that contains the world’s oldest known temple, approximately 7 mi northeast of the city of Şanlıurfa. The tell has a height of 49 ft and is about 980m ft in diameter. It is approximately 2,490 ft above sea level.
The tell includes two phases of use, believed to be of a social or ritual nature by site discoverer and excavator Klaus Schmidt, dating back to the 10th-8th millennium BCE. During the first phase, belonging to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA), circles of massive T-shaped stone pillars were erected – the world’s oldest known megaliths.
The details of the structure’s function remain a mystery. It was partially excavated by a German archaeological team under the direction of Schmidt from 1996 until his death in 2014. In 2018, the site was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Çatalhöyük
7500-5700 BC
Location : Turkey
Çatalhöyük (from Turkish çatal “fork” + höyük “tumulus”) was a very large Neolithic and Chalcolithic proto-city settlement in southern Anatolia, which existed from approximately 7500 BC to 5700 BC, and flourished around 7000 BC. In July 2012, it was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Çatalhöyük is located overlooking the Konya Plain, southeast of the present-day city of Konya (ancient Iconium) in Turkey, approximately 87 mi from the twin-coned volcano of Mount Hasan. The eastern settlement forms a mound which would have risen about 66 ft above the plain at the time of the latest Neolithic occupation. There is also a smaller settlement mound to the west and a Byzantine settlement a few hundred meters to the east. The prehistoric mound settlements were abandoned before the Bronze Age. A channel of the Çarşamba River once flowed between the two mounds, and the settlement was built on alluvial clay which may have been favorable for early agriculture.
Monte d'Accoddi
4000-3650 BC
Location : Italy
Monte d’Accoddi is a Neolithic archaeological site in northern Sardinia, located in the territory of Sassari near Porto Torres. The site consists of a massive raised stone platform thought to have been an altar. It was constructed by the Ozieri culture or earlier, with the oldest parts dated to around c. 4,000-3,650 BCE.
Ġgantija
3600-2500 BC
Location : Malta
Ġgantija (“Giantess”) is a megalithic temple complex from the Neolithic on the Mediterranean island of Gozo. The Ġgantija temples are the earliest of the Megalithic Temples of Malta. The Ġgantija temples are older than the pyramids of Egypt. Their makers erected the two Ġgantija temples during the Neolithic (c. 3600–2500 BC), which makes these temples more than 5500 years old and the world’s second oldest existing manmade religious structures after Göbekli Tepe in present-day Turkey. Together with other similar structures, these have been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Megalithic Temples of Malta.
The temples are elements of a ceremonial site in a fertility rite. Researchers have found that the numerous figurines and statues found on site are associated with that cult. According to local Gozitan folklore, a giantess who ate nothing but broad beans and honey bore a child from a man of the common people. With the child hanging from her shoulder, she built these temples and used them as places of worship.
Sechin Bajo
3500-1300 BC
Location : Peru
Sechin Bajo is a large archaeological site with ruins dating from 3500 BCE to 1300 BCE, making it one of the oldest centers of civilization in the Western Hemisphere. Sechin Bajo is located in the valley of the Sechin River, about 7.5 mi from the Pacific Ocean and about 210 mi northwest of Lima, Peru. Sechin Bajo is one ruin among many located in close proximity to each other in the valleys of the Casma and Sechin Rivers.
In 2008, a German and Peruvian archaeological team, headed by Peter Fuchs, announced that a circular plaza, 11–13 yd in diameter and constructed of rocks and rectangular adobe bricks had been found at Sechin Bajo. Radiocarbon dating indicated that plaza was constructed in 3500 BCE. A nearby 2 yards-tall frieze was dated at 3600 BCE. The plaza and the frieze are the two oldest examples of monumental architecture discovered thus far in the Americas. Sechin Bajo may contend with sites of Norte Chico as the oldest urban settlement of the Americas.
Tarxien Temples
3250-2800 BC
Location : Malta
The Tarxien Temples are an archaeological complex in Tarxien, Malta. They date to approximately 3150 BC. The site was accepted as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1992 along with the other Megalithic temples on the island of Malta.
Newgrange
3200 BC
Location : Ireland
Newgrange is a prehistoric monument in County Meath, Ireland, located 5 mi west of Drogheda on the north side of the River Boyne. It is an exceptionally grand passage tomb built during the Neolithic period, around 3200 BC, making it older than Stonehenge and the Egyptian pyramids.
The site consists of a large circular mound with an inner stone passageway and chambers. Human bones and possible grave goods or votive offerings were found in these chambers. The mound has a retaining wall at the front, made mostly of white quartz cobblestones, and it is ringed by engraved kerbstones. Many of the larger stones of Newgrange are covered in megalithic art. The mound is also ringed by a stone circle. Some of the material that makes up the monument came from as far away as the Mournes and Wicklow Mountains. There is no agreement about what the site was used for, but it is
believed that it had religious significance. Its entrance is aligned with the rising sun on the winter solstice, when sunlight shines through a ‘roofbox’ and floods the inner chamber.
Pyramid of Djoser
2667-2648 BC
Location : Egypt
The Pyramid of Djoser (or Djeser and Zoser), or Step Pyramid is an archeological remain in the Saqqara necropolis, Egypt, northwest of the city of Memphis. The 7-level/4-sided structure is the earliest colossal stone building in Egypt, it was built in the 27th century BC during the Third Dynasty for the burial of Pharaoh Djoser by his vizier, Imhotep. The pyramid is the central feature of a vast mortuary complex in an enormous courtyard surrounded by ceremonial structures and decoration.
The pyramid went though several revisions and redevelopments of the original plan. The pyramid originally stood 205 ft tall, with a base of 358 ft × 397 ft and was clad in polished white limestone. The step pyramid (or proto-pyramid) is considered to be the earliest large-scale cut stone construction, although the nearby enclosure of Gisr el-Mudir predates the complex, and the South American pyramids at Caral are contemporary.
Mohenjo-daro
2600 BC
Mohenjo-daro (meaning ‘Mound of the Dead Men’) is an archaeological site in the province of Sindh, Pakistan. Built around 2500 BCE, it was one of the largest settlements of the ancient Indus Valley Civilisation, and one of the world’s earliest major cities, contemporaneous with the civilizations of ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Minoan Crete, and Norte Chico. Mohenjo-daro was abandoned in the 19th century BCE as the Indus Valley Civilization declined, and the site was not rediscovered until the 1920s. Significant excavation has since been conducted at the site of the city, which was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1980. The site is currently threatened by erosion and improper restoration.
Harappa
2600 BC
Location : Pakistan
Harappa is an archaeological site in Punjab, Pakistan, about 15 mi west of Sahiwal. The site takes its name from a modern village located near the former course of the Ravi River which now runs 5 mi in north. The current village of Harappa is less than 0.62 mi from the
ancient site. Although modern Harappa has a legacy railway station from the period of the British Raj, it is a small crossroads town of 15,000 people today.
The site of the ancient city contains the ruins of a Bronze Age fortified city, which was part of the Indus Valley Civilization centered in Sindh and the Punjab, and then the Cemetery H culture. The city is believed to have had as many as 23,500 residents and occupied about 370 acres with clay brick houses at its greatest extent during the Mature Harappan phase (2600 BC – 1900 BC), which is considered large for its time. Per archaeological convention of naming a previously unknown civilization by its first excavated site, the Indus Valley Civilization is also called the Harappan Civilization.