How did ancient civilizations get the engineering knowledge required to build impressive structures?
In: Engineering
Trial and error, mostly, at first. However, once they had a good base of construction knowledge, rules of thumb were able to be passed down to the next generation of architects and builders. They obviously did not have some of the advanced mathematical or computing tools that we have, but it turns out that you can make do with basic tools and techniques.
For example, when building something like arches, there would be specific ratios to follow for the height, radius, and thickness of the material used. Once a bunch of these basic techniques are established, you can start building more complex buildings.
For more information, the Engineer Guy on youtube has a great video on [construction techniques without the use of mathematics.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ivqWN4L3zU)
From the Anunnaki. The Twelfth Planet, author Zecharia Sitchin claimed that the Anunnaki were actually an advanced humanoid extraterrestrial species from the undiscovered planet Nibiru, who came to Earth around 500,000 years ago and constructed a base of operations in order to mine gold after discovering that the planet was rich in the precious metal.[69][70][72] According to Sitchin, the Anunnaki hybridized their species and Homo erectus via in vitro fertilization in order to create humans as a slave species of miners.[69][70][72] Sitchin claimed that the Anunnaki were forced to temporarily leave Earth’s surface and orbit the planet when Antarctic glaciers melted, causing the Great Flood,[73] which also destroyed the Anunnaki’s bases on Earth.[73] These had to be rebuilt, and the Anunnaki, needing more humans to help in this massive effort, taught mankind agriculture. According to Sitchin, “the Annunaki built the pyramids and all the other monumental structures from around the ancient world that ancient astronaut theorists consider so impossible to build without highly advanced technologies.
The same way we do today. They built the knowledge, through experience, communication and mathematics. They draw diagrams and teach others how to read and draw those diagrams. Within a generation or two most structures can be designed.
Where I come from, such knowledge was passed down through songs and hymns.
I think this is the beauty of knowledge, it’s so simple to gather from reality.
Fuck around and find out is the answer to basically any question regarding “how did humans do X thing” or “how did humans figure X thing out”
They kept trying shit till it worked, and what didn’t work likely killed the people who tried it so other people learned to not to that
The answer is in the question: engineering. The engineering design process is highly iterative. So it’s nothing more than trial and error over and over and over again. Changing small things to see what happens. We still use the exact same principles in all fields of engineering today.
It’s not hard to build a bridge that stands.
It’s hard to build a bridge that barely stands.
I use to do design engineering.
Most early engineering was done by building a thing, watching it fall down, and building it back a different way. After you find a way to build it that stays up, you can copy that design and build the next one that way. Then somebody might think they have a better idea and try that. If it works better, people would start copying that.
Eventually we go to the point where we could figure out the properties of materials and design new things with math instead of trial and error. It’s still hard to beat the basic designs of triangles and arches, though.
Trial and error. Knowledge was passed down, but it either was unreliable, as in oral traditions, or reserved for the elite class who may or may not be qualified to implement it and may have biases or political concerns acting against them. We frequently had to relearn things or learn things independently across multiple time periods and civilizations. We are also looking at the finished projects and the ones that survived, creation some confirmation bias. As well, some projects spanned multiple generations abd were expanded or upgraded over time.
Basically, we were just as smart back then, but resources and knowledge were in limited supply and created constraints.
Overengineering. Brute force. There are just a few basic principles to follow, such as arches being stable, and then they just threw a lot of materials and labor at it. The trick with modern engineering/architecture is doing more with less, making the building safe in case of fire or earthquakes, keeping moisture out, keeping it warm/cool, etc, etc.
The really old impressive structures like pyramids are kind of a no-brainer in terms of engineering. The challenge there is just getting the materials to the site.
And don’t underestimate the knowledge ancient people had. It just wasn’t usually written down. They passed the knowledge along directly from teachers to students.
How do current civilizations get the engineering knowledge to build the stuff we build now? Experimentation, knowledge of materials, practice and learning from mistakes.
We obviously have more knowledge now and easier ways of storing, sharing and teaching it, but there is no reason to believe ancient civilizations would not be able to do the same.
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