Mysterious Structures of the Ancient World
The Incredible Architecture, Purposes and Technologies Behind Earth's Most Puzzling Buildings and Monuments
Discover the engineering, purpose and enduring puzzles behind humanity’s most extraordinary ancient monuments, temples, stoneworks and sacred landscapes.
About this book
From Göbekli Tepe and Stonehenge to the Great Pyramid and rock-cut monuments, ancient builders created structures whose scale, precision and purpose still inspire wonder.
Mysterious Structures of the Ancient World examines the engineering problems behind these sites: quarrying, transport, alignment, construction sequence, landscape design and the technologies archaeologists use to investigate spaces that cannot safely be opened. It also tests popular claims about lost technology and impossible construction against what the physical evidence shows.
This is a journey through monumental architecture for readers who want to understand not only what survives, but how human beings without modern machinery could organize, design and build on an astonishing scale.