History of construction of twelve historical buildings

History Of Construction 26 Buildings

History of the Construction of 12 Buildings

Construction of the Ziggurat

According to Gwendolyn Leick, an expert in Mesopotamian archaeology, "No ziggurats have survived enough to reconstruct either access or the high temple with any certainty" (Leick 108). Despite this lack of material specificity about what was on top of the ziggurat, ancient ziggurat remains give important clues about their material structure, their building process, and their purpose.

Research consensus indicates that the finished ziggurat was an artificial mountain of successive platforms whose size diminished upward. Its masonry was mud brick and rubble mortared together and faced with burnt brick. Kostof writes, "The core was of mud-brick, and the thick facing of baked brick was set in bitumen mortar" (Kostof 57). The structures were solid and unsophisticated, without rooms inside them as appears later with the pyramid chambers. Nonetheless, they were carefully measured out and laid over the established walls of pre-existing dilapidated structures (Leick 13-14).

Scholars have a good idea that the ziggurat was constructed in graduated steps of distinct stages. Frankfort describes them as "staged towers with the shrine placed upon superimposed blocks of masonry, each smaller than the one below" (Frankfort 22). The reason for the staging is partially the material. Nuttgens says, "The short life of mud brick meant that constant rebuilding was required, but since the god owned the temple area in perpetuity, each successive rebuilding took place on an accumulative platform made from the debris of previous temples" (Nuttgens 24). In other words, the effect of height was achieved by subsuming the previous building, making it the new platform. Kostof describes the process this way: "The ziggurat had swelled to grandiose proportions in stages by absorbing the frames of earlier temples, which in accordance with local practice would be filled solid after serving their time, to be used as terraces for the replacement structure" (Kostof 56). The walls of the ziggurat were sloped and striped with diagonal fluting. Most ziggurats had a monumental ramp or staircase for top access. These ramps and stairs were both lateral and perpendicular to the facing of the ziggurat, and were richly carved with fierce images. Frankfort has shown, however, that some later Assyrian ziggurats did not have stair or access ramps, and access to the top may have been through sky bridges from nearby gatehouses (Frankfort 139).

According to Nuttgens, the roof was "finished off with plaited reeds or corbelling" (Nuttgens 25). He also thinks that the high priest's grave could have been embedded in the built over platform. With little doubt, the top of a ziggurat supported a temple where priestly duties were carried out. Because of the solid core, the functional activity of the ziggurat was confined to its top platform and whatever temple structure sat on it. As Leick says, "Only the highest level was used for ritual purposes, an elevated platform where the 'high temple' . . . was placed" (Leick 108). It may have had hanging gardens and trees on the upper terrace as well. The temple was considered the dwelling of a god. Herodotus describes the top-most platform as containing the bed-chambers of the gods. From this vantage point, the god could approach earth from heaven and rule over the fields and city from its landmark. Temple precincts could incorporate free-standing ziggurats.

What is impressive about the ziggurat in the history of architecture is the height it achieved. While the technology used to build ziggurats is still a mystery, it must have involved intensive human labor involving the use of ramps to build upward. Kostof discuses a stele from Ur that shows a process of sweeping soil away from the site on native rock and filling the foundation trenches with purified earth. The stele also depicts the king carrying a measuring rod and line, as well as builder's tools such as picks, compasses, and mortar baskets. This gives some indication of how the building was constructed and how it was commissioned by a king. Kostof believes that ziggurats were first built by Sumerian mountain people who came down to the flat alluvial plains to recreate atavistically their original homeland.

The ziggurat was built on a spiritual model. Its "mountain" was the communicatory stage where pilgrims or officiating priests could ascend a natural ladder into the sphere of the deities (what Kostof describes as "reverential climbing"), and the gods could likewise descend. In the building, sky and earth were linked, corresponding to Mesopotamian notions of a layered universe. Leick writes, "The names of some of the stepped pyramids, known as ziggurats, also reflect their function as a cosmic feature; the one in Babylon was called e.temen.an.ki 'House (of) the foundation of Heaven and Earth'" (Leick 108). In other words, the ziggurat reflected in its structure a cosmic geography common in the religion of the times.

Construction of Great Ziggurat of Ur (ca 2100 BC)

The Great Ziggurat of Ur is the best preserved of the thirty odd Mesopotamian tower-shrines. Its dimensions are 200 by 150 feet, and its height is estimated at 70 feet (not including the temple shrine at the top which no longer exists). McIntosh writes, "The Ur III ziggurats, epitomized by the well-preserved example at Ur itself, consisted of three staged tiers, sloping inward, with a platform at each stage, accessed by a triple stair on one side; later examples, such as that at Dur Sharrukin, might alternatively be approached via a spiral ramp" (McIntosh 201-02). Unlike the Egyptian pyramids, there has been much less study done on this ziggurat and the records are much more scant for imagining its original construction. However, there are some things scholars know.

Like other ziggurats, it was built of bricks of two kinds. Klein and Klein write, "Simple sun-dried bricks, forming the inner core of the tower, were surrounded by a thick jacket of fired or burnt bricks, eight feet thick" (Klein and Klein 34). This construction made it strong, durable, and time-resistant, which is why the building still stands (although now there is an American military base encroaching on its precinct). As with other ziggurats, it was probably built by intensive labor gangs of peasants and slaves, the same who built roads, temples, and the extensive network of irrigation canals (McIntosh 83). It served people who were once hunters now turned farmers. All the abundant groves of wheat, barley, dates, figs, grapes, as well as pastures, were thought to flow to the temple (religion) or the palace (ruler). It was the people's tithes and taxes, which were closely supervised, that paid for its construction. On top was a priestly shrine, now gone, that was likely 100 feet above ground. The shrine was dedicated to the worship of the moon god Nanna-Sin, and was likely considered a portal for the gods to descend to earth.

Who built the Great Ziggurat of Ur? Scholars are unanimous in believing it was Ur-Nammu, the monarch of the third Ur (Chaldean) dynasty whose reign was ca. 2114-2096 BCE. This is supported by inscriptions from a later date (during the time of Nabonidus), which indicate that a great ziggurat was built, but not finished during Ur-Nammu's life. Based on this inscription, Klein and Klein write, "Then Dungi, son of Ur-Nammu, came to the throne and completed the tower, known usually as the Ziggurat of Ur" (Klein and Klein 36). That Ur-Nammu built it is consistent with what we know of Ur-Nammu's building program. The founder of the third Babylonian dynasty, according to McIntosh, undertook extensive restoration and building program in religious centers, including royal mausoleums, palaces, treasuries, as well as the ziggurat of Ur (McIntosh 82-83). Foster and Foster give further evidence:

At Ur, the capital city of the new dynasty, Ur-Nammu undertook numerous building projects, some of which were shown within traditional registers on a stele depicting busy construction scenes, with workers on ladders and the king himself carrying tools. . . . At its center, he built the first ziggurat, a massive three-stage structure of solid brick, both sun-dried and baked, its corners oriented to the cardinal points, with three steep staircases joining and leading to a sanctary at the top. (Foster and Foster 62)

The great ziggurat became a model for other ziggurats at Eridu, Uruk, and Nippur. Stiebing writes, "Under Ur-Nammu, the temple-platform attained its classic form as a ziggurat, a monumental stepped pyramid-like structure with several stages or levels" (Stiebing 76).

Besides the building's immense size, it is important architecturally for its ingenious drainage system. The Chaldeans knew that bricks swell in rain or floods and could burst the walls of the ziggurat. Therefore, they employed a useful prevention technique. They pierced the walls with drainage ducts ("weeper holes") through which interior moisture could pass out. This innovation worked in conjunction with bitumen from pitch or crude petroleum used as mortar to waterproof buildings. McIntosh explains: "Courses of reed matting and layers of bitumen were interspersed between those of brick in the construction of ziggurats to counteract rising damp from the foundations, and weepholes also assisted drainage and prevented damp decay" (McIntosh 237). In other words, at every seven courses of stone, a layer of reed matting was laid and weep-holes and drainage shafts were placed, thus preserving the ziggurat from water damage.

Eventually the building fell into disrepair. Later, King Nabonidus restored the Ur ziggurat, along with other temples. Stiebing believes this was because he revered his mother's gods (285). Nabonidus claims in the clay cuneiform tablets found in the tower to have rebuilt it on the same foundations and using the same mortar and bricks. Ultimately it must have deteriorated after the Persian defeat by Cyrus in 539 BC.

Construction of Tower of Babylon (ca 600 BC)

While the biblical account of this great structure in Genesis 11 is perhaps legendary, scholars have come to view the "Tower of Babel" mentioned in the text as the ziggurat of the temple of Marduk in Babylon (known as Etemenanki). Expressing the scholarly consensus, Foster and Foster write, "In the Bible, the ziggurat of the temple of Marduk at Babylon was transmuted into the Tower of Babel, emblematic of the vain desire of the human race to rival God" (Foster and Foster 64). It was probably the most magnificent ziggurat of all, eclipsing its far earlier model at Ur. It is not unlikely that, since Babylon is only 700-800 miles from Jerusalem, travelers could have brought news of this building to the Jewish center. "Babel" apparently meant "the gates of Heaven" in Babylonian, which explains the Hebrew use of the word.

Scholars are uncertain who built the Esagila (temple of Marduk), but they are certain that Esarhaddon and Asshurbanipal refurbished it repeatedly, along with its ziggurat, Etemenanki. Any notion that the Tower is an example of the failure of project management by communication breakdowns stems from the biblical text. There is evidence that the structure was finished, but this idea of project mismanagement is important in signaling the length the project took to come to fruition (over the reign of many kings), its constant rebuilding and renovation, and the labor force used to build it, which would have consisted largely of conquered slaves from various lands who would have spoken different languages. Thus, the project would have been difficult in terms of the project managers' ability to communicate with those who did not speak Babylonian but were the actual labor force. Confusion on the work site is imaginable.

It was not until around 600 BC that this ziggurat received its definitive and most impressive expression -- growing to either seven or eight tiers with a base and a height of 300 square feet -- under the building program of Nebuchadrezzar. This powerful ruler sponsored a total architectural overhaul of the city's main structures, rebuilding the shrine and ziggurat of Marduk, constructing palaces, creating the Ishtar Gate and Processional Way, and placed immense defensive walls around the city (McIntosh 109). According to McIntosh, "The Etemenanki, the precinct containing the 'Tower of Babel,' was also fortified" (McIntosh 109). Thus appears the notion of building defended religious structures. During this full-scale renovation project around 600 BCE, the tower of Babel received the form that made it a world wonder. Stiebing writes, "Nebuchadnezzar embellished the eight-tiered ziggurat (whose name means 'House of the Foundation Platform of Heaven and Earth') with decorations and covered the temple at its top with blue glazed bricks" (Stiebing 283). This is consistent with McIntosh's finding that the Ziggurat of Marduk, or the Tower of Babel, was probably painted. She writes, "Ziggurats were apparently painted; the traditional colors for seven-tiered examples like those at Babylon and Dur-Sharrukin were, from the bottom up, white, black, red, blue, orange, silver, and gold" (McIntosh 202).

McIntosh briefly summarizes the history of its modern rediscovery:

Between 1899 and 1914, Koldewey surveyed the whole city of Babylon, establishing its plan, and excavated most of its principal buildings, including palaces, the massive walls surrounding the whole city, and the sacred precinct of the city's patron deity, Marduk. Here he located the ziggurat that was probably the Tower of Babel; unfortunately, after the departure of the German team the local people totally destroyed it, using its bricks for construction. (McIntosh 33)

Obviously this loss was one reason why the structure is less amenable to study. Nonetheless, the Babylonians were defeated eventually by the Assyrians, their great fortified city sacked, their leaders executed, and their people enslaved. Nothing is known of what happened to the Tower of Babylon until the interest of Hellenistic Greeks in ancient Mesopotamian relics. Apparently enamored with the ziggurat of Marduk, Alexander the Great initiated its reconstruction but work ceased when he died.

Construction of Hanging Gardens of Babylon (ca 600 BC)

As legendary as the Tower of Babylon, the Hanging Gardens have never been satisfactorily located. Koldewey thought he had located them, but most dispute his claim since the place he designated was too far from a river source. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon were reputed to have been built by Nebuchadrezzar for his Median queen, Amyitis. The earliest surviving mention of this is around 270 BCE in a Babylonian author named Berossus. According to McIntosh, "He wrote of a palace built by Nebuchadrezzar II in just fifteen days, in which a 'hanging garden' was constructed to please the king's Median queen, an edifice resembling a mountain with stone terraces planted with trees" (McIntosh 311). A further royal inscription described his palace as a high stone mountain, but no garden is mentioned. Later Greek descriptions fill out some details, indicating that the gardens were a tiered structure built on stone foundations with brickwork above and layers of reeds and bitumen. All these were standard features of Mesopotamian architecture, as in the ziggurats. If accurate, this points to a building with thick lower walls, foundations, and vaulted chambers to support a tiered superstructure. In addition, it would have to be close to a water source (the Euphrates River) from which water was raised. If Snell's analysis of the social conditions of Babylonian society is correct, then like the ziggurats the labor on the hanging gardens would have been done by peasants and slaves (Snell chapters 3-4). As with all ancient buildings, the designers are unknown, unless the king himself functioned in this capacity.

What makes the Hanging Gardens significant is in their use of irrigation to create an artificial environment that mimicked natural habitat. Nebuchadrezzar was not the first to make artificial pleasure gardens in a palace precinct that were stocked with exotic plants and animals (like a modern botanical garden). Foster and Foster attribute the founding of this tradition to Sennacherib. They write, "Many rulers of ancient Iraq and elsewhere had kept foreign plants and animals, but Sennacherib may have been the first to construct authentic habitats for them" (Foster and Foster 121). Construction of this type depended on a technology for capturing, raising, and distributing water.

How was this possible architecturally? Greek descriptions mention a secret architectural mechanism embedded in the gardens for providing water to all the plants. McIntosh writes, "A hidden mechanism fed the terraces with water to support the trees, and there were pavilions among the vegetation" (McIntosh 311). Foster and Foster mention that the Assyrian king Sennacherib "seems to have invented the water-raising machine we call the Archimedes screw" (Foster and Foster 121). This device is described in an inscription that dates well before Archimedes. For irrigation, they already used a device called a shaduf, which lifted water from canals for irrigation or into reservoirs. In the Hanging Gardens, water was not supplied by gardeners, since as McIntosh reasons, "To supply the hanging gardens with water in this way would have required an army of gardeners and, more importantly, would have been visible" (McIntosh 311). While the exact mechanism for supplying water to the gardens is inexactly known, the builders utilized some system of water-raising that was ingeniously hidden. It is known that Mesopotamian architects were experts in irrigation, having founded the first agrarian-based societies (Snell 36). The engineering technology was developed out of their expertise in irrigation systems. The tiered Hanging Gardens is the first known building that was constructed with such an engineered system for water-lifting.

Some have suggested they were a roof garden on top of a royal palace. Foster and Foster educe two recent studies that suggest other versions of what the Hanging Gardens may have looked like. The first vision, based on a garden relief from the Nineveh palace of Assurbanipal (668-627 B.C.E.), describes the structure as cascading from elaborate colonnades and terraces along the Khosr River banks. The second indicates a garden that is viewed from above. They write, "The other proposes that these were the world's first carpet gardens, intended to be admired from above, so that the flowers and shrubs appear wondrously suspended, a living, dazzling display of color and pattern" (Foster and Foster 122).

This shows the recent scholarly shift in understanding the origin and location of the gardens from Babylon to Nineveh. McIntosh gives the following evidence (McIntosh 312). The fact that Herodotus, who may have visited Babylon in the 5th century BCE, failed to mention them, combined with their hard to identify location has pointed scholars in the direction of Nineveh. The palace walls at Nineveh depict gardens. Ashurbanipal and queen picnic among lush verdure. Other reliefs show terraced treed slopes and pavilions. Sennacherib knew hydraulic engineering and was interested in artificial landscapes like natural reserves with swamp for water management with birds and animals. Aqueducts and dams brought water to Nineveh from Zagros and watered whole city and orchards and parks and gardens and spice trees in it, including a royal park. The weight of this evidence suggests that the Hanging Gardens are better placed in Nineveh, where later the story of their magnificence was transferred to Babylon.

Construction of the Giza Pyramid

Pyramids are principally royal tombs, not temple structures like the ziggurats. They exhibit different properties as a result. Their slope is more extreme, they have no platforms, and at the top they taper to a point. Any ritual would have been performed inside, not outside in open space due to the lack of upper shrine or architectural climax. Furthermore, they were not equipped with stairs or ramps for climbing as were the ziggurats.

The land was first surveyed with measuring ropes of palm or flax fiber, and then leveled. The walls, piers, and roofs of the Giza pyramid are made of Aswan red granite and its passages and outer casing of polished Turah limestone. In a microgravimetric study of the pyramid's density, two French companies found that "the pyramid's macrostructure consists of 34 major 'blocks' with a low-density block near the top, and blocks of heterogeneous density below" (Lehner 67). Lehner writes, "The Great Pyramid contains about 2,300,000 blocks of stone, often said to weigh on average c. 2.5 tons" (Lehner 108). It is uncertain whether the inner core is well-cut or uniform, and the stones get smaller towards for increased precision. At the base, some casing stones weigh 15 tons, while the granite beams above the stress-relieved King's Chamber weight 50 to 80 tons. An innovative arrangement was used above this chamber to distribute weight and stress by means of cantilevered stones forming a pent roof. According to Lehner, "Large quantities of gypsum mortar were poured into the often wide interstices between the core stones" (Lehner 109).

Built over three generations, there are no extant Egyptian records giving the methods used. It is still unclear whether the core was erected first with the use of earth ramps, or whether the casing stones were placed and beveled to the incline angle and then the frame filled with core blocks (Kostof 77). The stones were apparently quarried elsewhere with intensive labor that did not involve iron tools. Nuttgens writes, "They never learned to harden copper, so, although they had both saws and drills of copper, the tough granite of Aswan had to be split from the rock face, first by hammering vertical trenches into the rock with balls or hammers of a hard rock called dolorite and then by driving in wedges either of metal or of wood that was soaked in water until it expanded" (Nuttgens 33). Lehner adds to this: "With only tools of stone, wood or copper at their disposal, the ancient quarrymen had to use large wooden levers to detach blocks, and needed considerably more room to manoeuvre" (Lehner 206). To cut the granite, they probably used copper saws to guide gypsum and sand which had an abrasive effect (Lehner 215). Then they smoothed the casing with chisels and pounded out blocks with deep channels.

The stones were loaded onto barges for transport down the Nile, sometimes hundreds of miles. "R. Engelbach proposed that Hatshepsut's great granite obelisks were loaded and unloaded from the large barges . . . By means of an earthen embankment, which would have been built up around the barge as high as the deck" (Lehner 202). Alternatively, the barge was brought into a narrow canal and cedar beams were placed beneath the load between supports as the barge slipped out, leaving the stones. How were the stones transported over land? Scholars believe it was through the manual pulling of sledges (by humans or cattle) across timber-baulked hauling tracks lubricated with mud or water. This process is depicted on tomb scenes (Lehner 203).

The greatest mystery is how such a massive structure was constructed without the use of cranes and pulleys. How did they move and life such huge stones? Nuttgens says, "But the Egyptians did not have cranes -- possibly they did not even know the principle of the pulley, although they certainly used the lever" (Nuttgens 33). Lehner's NOVA experiments show that levering and tumbling with wooden poles was possible, but only for side movements, final adjustments, and setting uppermost stones. He says that the most likely method was "some system involving a ramp or ramps" (Lehner 209). The ramps could have been either straight on, perpendicular, spiral at corners, or zigzag up one face. There is no scholarly consensus on the matter. Nuttgens believes they laid the stones level and worked from the earth of mud-brick ramps, building them up as they proceeded (Nuttgens 34). But the challenge is almost incomprehensible due to the steep gradient of the slope that would make building a ramp itself an incredible feat. The fact that the outside face was often staggered rather than flush, compounded by the reduced working space, suggests that for high levels the outer slope was cut into the blocks before they were laid (Lehner 123).

What is certain is the huge labor force needed. The Pharoahs employed a regular workforce of skilled masons and craftsmen that was "undoubtedly occupied full-time during the span of construction," probably augmented with peasant labor when flooding prevented farming from May to September (Kostof 77). Kostof says "we should refrain from seeing the pyramids as the repressive fruit of slave labor" (Kostof 77). Lehner estimates a workforce of 25,000 of stone haulers and setters on shift every three months (Lehner 224). The workshops would have used massive amounts of fuel from the countryside for forging copper tools, slaking gypsum to make mortar, and baking bread for workers.

As to the idea behind the construction, the pyramid was a tomb for the king's transport to the otherworld. Entrances were concealed and interior mazes built to protect royal wealth and ensure safe translation into immortality. There is an obvious cosmological focus as well. The shafts in the king's tomb were aligned with the three stars of Orion. The geometry was precise, with perfect squares and sides of equilateral triangles. The abstractions had much to do with sun worship

Construction of the Parthenon (490-432 BCE)

The Parthenon sits elevated on the acropolis, which was the spiritual heart of classical Athens. "Because of its height and steeply sloped sides, this naturally fortified area had been the residence of early rulers and had always been home to the chief gods of the Athenians" (Pomeroy 169). The blended Doric-Ionic temple was made of Pentelic marble quarried 16 km outside the city, and the marble roof tiles were supported by cypress timbers that spanned the cella and were placed in gable sockets (Belozerskaya and Lapatin 72). Its design, which did not involve inventive departure from classical orders, was by a 9:4 geometrical ratio. Its cost was paid through the state treasury.

Carpenter has convinced scholarship that the Parthenon was built by two architects. In its final form, it was an incorporation and enlargement of a prior partially completed temple that was supposed to be a monument to the Marathon victory. He bases his argument on structural anomalies and history. Pointing to embedded column drums and the foundation, he believes the first temple was initiated in or shortly after 490 BC, after the Athenian defeat of the Persians, only to be interrupted again when Persians stormed it in 480 BC (Carpenter 28). Next, between 468 and 465 BC under Kimon, the builder Kallikrates supervised the start of the old building. Internal political strife halted construction for about twenty years. When Pericles initiated the present Parthenon in 447 BC, it was already underway at least 20 years. Pericles replaced Kallikrates with the architect Iktinos in 450 BC and the project grew more ambitious. The later version took only five years to build. Without the rubble of the former building, this would have been impossible (Carpenter 37). The later Parthenon was built on the model of the earlier. Rhodes says, "Its location and much of its plan were determined by its predecessor; it even used columns and perhaps metopes originally prepared for the Older Parthenon" (Rhodes 41). It is, however, longer by a column and wider by two columns -- there are eight on the front and seventeen on the sides (Nuttgens 96). This enlarged the cella and gave more focus to the temple's interior -- needed, according to Rhodes, for the installation of the huge Pheidian statue of Athena (Rhodes 81-82). It was the first building constructed on the Acropolis after the elimination of the Persian threat. The Parthenon was structurally complete in 438 BC with only the fine details of pediment sculptures to complete by 432 BC (Carpenter 67). This timetable is generally accepted.

Plutarch's Life of Pericles lists the vast materials and human resources engaged in the project:

The materials to be employed were marble, bronze, ivory, gold, ebony, and cypress wood; while the craftsmen to work and utilize these were carpenters, moulders, bronze-casters, masons, dyers, goldsmiths and workers of ivory, painters, broiders, embossers, not to mention the furnishers and transporters of the materials, among which were dealers and sailors and steersmen by sea and wheelwrights and waggoners and breeders of yoke animals by land. Also there were rope-makers, weavers, leather-workers, road-builders, and miners. And since each craft and occupation had its own company of slave and free under its orders, one might say that every age and every capacity were marshaled into service.

There was no strict adherence to measurable ratios, but rather "the builders of the Parthenon worked empirically, trimming and fitting together the component marble blocks of the exterior and interior Orders, of the tapering walls and coffered ceilings, quite as much by eye and by immediate need as by previous theoretical calculation" (Carpenter 13-14). Carpenter does not see the irregular spacing of the exterior columns or imprecision in the cornice block widths as evidence of careless workmanship but rather as an intentional aesthetic deviation to bring life and elasticity to the building (Carpenter 15). Nuttgens adds, "The design of the Parthenon called for meticulous measurement; precision in calculation; mastery in masonry; and a unique fineness of perception and response" (Nuttgens 97).

Remarkable also is the Parthenon's entasis, a swelling or convexity at the midpoints of the columns. The columns were thicker and closer together in the middle, tilt inwardly at the top, and are tapered upward harmonically. This curvature was a refinement of the temple platform, the stylobate, and the entablature. Rhodes interprets it aesthetically: "Convex curvature of the stylobate first appeared in Doric architecture a hundred years earlier, where it almost certainly represented a practical solution to the drainage of the temple platform; but in the Parthenon it has evolved beyond the useful and into the realm of decorative canon" (Rhodes 76). The meticulous carving and planing of stone gave an illusion of sagging horizontals or exaggerated perspective whose impracticality was not justified by solely drainage.

The pediments are what distinguished the Parthenon as unique and superior to other similar temples. These were designed by Pheidias, but carved by skilled workmen, including slaves (Belozerskaya and Lapatin 74). According to Palagia, marble was quarried from Mt. Pentelicon for the pediments. This involved "building roads and rolling the blocks down, then carting them to Athens and hoisting them up to sculpture workshops on the Acropolis" (Palagia 7). She cites building accounts as evidence that "the sculptures were carved on the Acropolis, distributed among a number of workshops, and that quarrying and carving went on simultaneously" (Palagia 7). In her view, "As there is no evidence in the building accounts that one pediment was finished before the other and both contain 'early' and 'late' pieces, we assume that the pediments were carved simultaneously" (Palagia 7-8). They were chiseled from single blocks or pieced together. Occasionally stonemasons trimmed the statues after they were hoisted. Individual carving methods can be discerned but mostly it is uniform. Moreover, the pediments illustrate important foundation myths, such as the contest of Athena and Poseidon, and important battles such as the wars against the Amazons and Centaurs. The frieze as well gives evidence of Pericles intention to make the Parthenon a lasting monument to Athenaic power and the reinvigoration of a historical attachment to its ancestry. It incorporates scenes from the panathenaic festival.

Construction of the Roman Colosseum (75-81 CE)

The Colosseum in Rome, which is the largest of the Roman amphitheaters, is situated on the site of the former lake of Nero's Golden Palace. According to Bonde, Maines, and Richards, its foundation is a twelve meter deep ring of concrete and stone blocks (Bonde, Maines, and Richards 29). It is 188 meters long by 156 meters wide. It has eighty arches around it with two annular corridors at ground level and three storeys of stairs to different levels of seats. Encompassed in it are numerous subterranean chambers and passages. Concerning its material, Ward-Perkins says, "The main load-bearing skeleton was of dressed stone masonry throughout, travertine externally and tufa internally; concrete was limited to the vaults and upper internal walls and, to minimize the thrust of the uppermost tier of seating against the unsupported outer wall of the attic, the seating was of timber" (Ward-Perkins 94). The joining surfaces of stone were cut and mortared. In lieu of mortar, iron cramps and dowels were used to fasten blocks together. The original structure was covered with a veneer of travertine, and its perimeter wall was made of marble ashlar with brick facings of pozzolan concrete-filled (Bond, Mark and Robison 82).

There is little, if any, controversy over the dating of the construction. The Colosseum was begun by Vespasian in 75 CE and virtually completed by Titus in 81 CE, by which time five levels had been finished. The second concentric passageway allowed the additional banks of seats above, in turn making a third order of arches necessary in the outer wall. Bonde, Mark, and Robison say, "Domitian added a fourth story in A.D. 81-82, but all trace of the upper seats has been lost, suggesting that they were constructed of wood" (Bonde, Mark, and Robison 82). These authors mention a canvas awning that was stretched over the roof and attached to stone corbels.

There are different views as to how the work proceeded. Scholars have tried to understand how quickly the building was erected. Ward-Perkins thinks the work place was divided for simultaneous construction. He writes, "To speed construction the work was broken down into four quadrants, each further subdivided by materials into what must have been a very carefully scheduled working program" (Ward-Perkins 94). Bonde, Mark, and Robison are likewise certain of unconventional methods and make this proposal:

Rather, it appears that construction began with the raising of the outer travertine walls up to the top of the first order, together with the two concentric walls behind them. Piers were then constructed up to the point of the vaults, leaving only a concealed springing for the alter vault construction. Finally, brick arches were built to support the sloping barrel vaults, which in turn supported the banks of seats. Virtually the entire skeleton of the Colosseum could in this way have been erected in a short time, permitting large gangs of skilled and unskilled workers to fill in the spaces between the piers later on. (Bonde, Mark, and Robison 82)