How the Pantheon, which was built over 2000 years ago, is still standing when buildings made 150 years ago are about to crumble.

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Edit- After reading most of the comments the general consensus is listed below:

1. The unique composite matrix of the concrete used gives it a self-healing property. When cracks form in the concrete, it will naturally seal them.
2. The Pantheon was a very significant structure which led to meticulous maintenance and restorations
3. The Romans didn’t have modern engineering. So they didn’t know exactly how strong they’d have to build the Pantheon to make it last. Their solution was to overbuild the hell out of it.
4. Survivorship bias. There were thousands of buildings constructed by the Romans but very few remain which are the ones we marvel at.

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Anonymous 0 Comments

Meticulous mixing, adding of volcanic ash, limestone pieces, and heated when mixed.

There was a paper recently published that talked about it in much better detail. Aparently the limestone pieces in the mix would cause cracks to form there and with the later addition of water would cause a reaction to seal up the cracks.

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