Hello good people,
A question if I may, I’m curious as to whether what, if any, other buildings could outlast the three great pyramids at Giza?
I’m working that stone is a more durable substance than a steel plus stone combination and for the sake of simplicity that we freeze climate change to 2014.
I remember various governments introducing commissions to investigate how to landmark nuclear waste depositories for future generations but am unaware as to there findings.
Peter
What are the rocks harder than limestone ? Sandstone ? Ankor Wat is sandstone, but being in the tropics it has laterite, a soft porous rock. (Maybe they had to … because sand or crushed sandstone may become concreted and thus block the drainage system…)
Apart from the columns of the Pantheon and at Baalbek, Lebanon, its rare to find buildings made of large granite blocks.
(no large basalt blocks ? )
Other use of granite or basalt are in small brick size blocked… which is weak due to the mortar… or just weak
Baalbek used granite extensively … Baalbek - Wikipedia
Göbekli Tepe has already done it.
The pyramids also benefit from very low rainfall (note the sand) and a lack of freeze-thaw cycle. The step pyramid at Sakkara predates the great pyramds by a few hundred years, but quite a few pyramids around there are just piles of rubble due to shoddy construction (and some are still standing and older than the great pyramids). Also note that a lot of the fabulous Egyptian temples still standing benefit from being buried under the sands for centuries or millennia, so the painted reliefs still retain some of their paint. Also note a lot of the decorations are reliefs in plaster, not carved into the rock itself as it would seem from pictures.
Rock construction would survive “internally” as evidenced by burial mounds in Ireland and Turkey and elsewhere, but active climate on top will deposit debris which then will start growing plant cover, etc. until the whole effect is the structure is buried.
Also, every rock structure is subject to thievery - everything from dead English monasteries to Egyptian temples have suffered from “recycling” since it’s a lot easier to borrow pre-cut rocks form an unguarded old building than to cut them from scratch in a quarry. Building away from other settlements helps preserve the construct.
The Pantheon in Rome is a cement dome from (IIRC) about 100AD, still standing and still intact 2000 years later. It does not even have rebar reinforcing.