A lyric from Neil Young’s superb, if historically inaccurate, Cortez the Killer. Got me wondering; in the event that FBI space aliens attack us with anti-monument lasers, are there any structures that the human race simply could not rebuild? Assume that everyone is behind constructing a perfect facsimile so that cost is not a hindrance. Are there engineering feats from the past now totally lost to us?
Yeah, well, that song also says of one of the most blood-thirsty civilizations in all history, one whose wars had so alienated its adjoining tribes so much that they gladly teamed up with Cortez, that:
Musically great, you betcha. Lyrically idiotic.
Oh, and the answer to your question is a flat no. We may not understand the small details of how individual things were done were done in the past, but we can build anything they did a million times over had we the will.
At most, there are some things that folks aren’t entirely sure how they were done the first time, but the second time they could certainly be done with backhoes and cranes.
Not an engineering feat, and anecdotal to boot, but according to the tour guide that led my middle school class around the Minnesota State Capitol, the building contains more of the unique Minnesota pipestone in its various facades than actually remains in the quarry. If the building was vaporized, there wouldn’t be enough pipestone left to rebuild it exactly the same, even ignoring the cost and the fact that the quarry is a national monument.
But, as I’m sure people have said by now, there’s no engineering feat the ancients could have done that can’t be reproduced by modern technology.
We could emulate the construction, but we could never duplicate the human emotions that drove people to construct some of those things to begin with; they are parts of lost religions, lost beliefs, lost perspectives. Anything we would construct today would be a Las Vegas mega-stage prop. Part of the mystique of the Pyramids, say, is that we wonder what was in the minds and hearts of the people who envisioned them and had them built. Can’t say the same for the re-constructions built in modern times.
Well likely we could eventually duplicate almost anything, but we have lost a lot of technology. Also, experience. What ever great monument was ever built, chances are a lesser one was built as a learning experience.
Thor Heyerdahl has done some superb reverse engineering of ancient things.
Originally there was supposed to be a black taj mahal symmetrically facing the white one on the opposite bank of the river. I’d like to nominate the black taj mahal as something that could not be built. The level of detail and craftsmanship in the original white one is astonishing and the empower cut off the fingers of the craftsmen when the original was finished so they could never create an equal work.
Could we produce an EXACT copy of the taj mahal in black marble? I suspect not.
The Amber Room has never been rebuilt.
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Originally there was supposed to be a black taj mahal symmetrically facing the white one on the opposite bank of the river. I’d like to nominate the black taj mahal as something that could not be built. The level of detail and craftsmanship in the original white one is astonishing and the empower cut off the fingers of the craftsmen when the original was finished so they could never create an equal work.
Could we produce an EXACT copy of the taj mahal in black marble? I suspect not.
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With the entire human race behind the project and unlimited funding? You can argue that we couldn’t recreate every detail of every mural, but that’s not an engineering problem, that’s a record-keeping problem.
Yes, you can’t create history. It’s there because it is.
I have a similar sentiment about, for example Germany. I love visiting Europe for the old buildings and monuments, but so much of Germany was simply flattened during WWII and rebuilding it in the same style, or even an attempt at slavish reproduction, is not the same as having the original.
But, that’s also what gives something historical its value. SO much was destroyed over time that what survives is so much more valued.
But as far as construction - we have the technology to do anything we have already done, provided the materials are there. Von Daniken wannabees to the cotrary, there is no such thing as “woven cloth far finer than what we could make today” and there’s certainly no irreproducible construction either. Even if we stipulate, use the same tech - the only question is whether we still bother to know that particular material science. Whether we know how to do somethng or not, given time we can figure it out.
Also, one question is time. Building the Great Wall took centuries; it was started as valley walls in BC, one wall was built about 600AD and it was improved about 1400AD. Each time, it was an effort of tens or hundreds of years. To build a wall up a near-vertical hill, with goats hauling up one brick at a time, will take take a while. The cost to pay for a workforce to do such work is the issue. It helps to be the unquestioned absolute ruler of a significant proportion of the earth’s population.
I stand corrected.
Very true. I sometimes get downright angry when I think of all of the human effort that was squandered on elaborate tombs and trinkets to fill them. Countless man-hours that could have been applied to building things that would have improved people’s prosperity (roads, irrigation works, ships) were buried instead.
In terms of scale, something like the Great Wall of China would be difficult to replicate. But if it truly was the number one priority of every nation on Earth, I suspect we could build it on the moon. My guess is that there is almost nothing which could be done 100+ years ago which could not be done today. For sure, we’ve lost technologies, but the ones we’ve replaced them with are cheaper, more efficient and more accurate by orders of magnitude.
Could we actually design things like the great cathedrals or palaces of old again? That’s a different question. My intuition says yes, but our tastes have changed. We don’t tend to go in for intricate detail so much anymore. We design buildings more mathematically, using interlocking geometric shapes and working out in advance what is permitted by the forces acting on a structure with incredible precision. Often creating apparently gravity-defying buildings unimaginable to our ancestors. We play to our strengths.
You only have to look at some of the architecture in film, computer games or comic book art though to see that these design skills haven’t been entirely lost and again, if it was a global effort, I think we could create new buildings which would make the palace of Versailles look like a garden shed.
There is a myth along those lines about the Mathematical Bridge at the University of Cambridge. The fable goes that Isaac Newton built the bridge originally so that its interlocking beams made it completely self-supporting. Various students and professors who were fascinated by the bridge attempted to take it apart and put it back together again, but none of them could replicate it and they all had to use bolts to rebuild it, which is “why” it has bolts in it today. (Apparently Newton died a couple decades before the bridge was first built - and it always used bolts, they were just hidden originally - but it’s a good story.)
Perhaps Stradivarius violins.
A part of the enjoyment of history is to look at the old and the ancient constructions and wonder - “How the heck did they do that with just humans and horsepower?”
Yes, the pyramids are relatively soft limestone blocks, but there are 3 together that are as tall as 2 or 3 modern apartment buildings. How much manpower to chip that out of the Mokkatam Hills? (To be fair, later when money got tight and they tried to cut corners, there are pyramids like the one at Dashur where all that’s left is the central tower, and the much cheaper mud brick is now just a lower pile of crud around it.)
There’s the huge dome of the pantheon, trivial by today’s standards, but built of concrete 2000 years ago and still standing, still good as new, but without modern rebar reinforcement.
That’s another question to add to the OP - do we want to rebuild with the same permanence as the original builders, or just long enough to get through the Olympics, World Fair or other event?
What about Mount Rushmore? It’s not that it couldn’t be replicated so much as it couldn’t be replicated perfectly. There’s artwork in engineering.
Art, in general, is a sad thing to lose.
It sounds like EPA permits were just as difficult to come by then as now!:smack:
Which brings up another point. It would likely be illegal to rebuild a lot of those structures now. “Yes, I need a building permit for a pyramid made entirely of stone please. What do you mean it doesn’t meet the hurricane code?” Just because the will of the entire species is behind something it doesn’t mean bureaucratic inertia can be overcome.