architecture – Page 4

Great Zimbabwe

January 25, 2016October 15, 2022Erik

Great Zimbabwe is a ruined city in Zimbabwe (and in fact has given the modern country its name). Built over centuries beginning in the 9th century, the site was a center of power for the medieval Shona (or Kalanga) kingdom and part of the trade networks that spanned the Indian Ocean. It was abandoned in the 15th century and stands in ruins today, but even in its ruined state it is impressive.

Wall of the great enclosure. Photograph by Jens Klinzing. — Wall of the great enclosure, photograph by Jens Klinzing via Wikimedia

The remains of numerous stone enclosures spread over hundreds of hectares. At its height, Great Zimbabwe may have housed between 15,000 and 20,000 people. The surviving walls reach heights of five meters and are built of stone blocks assembled without mortar. Several different complexes occupy different positions ranging from hills to near the river. The significance of these different complexes remains unclear, but it may indicate that the center of settlement gradually moved over time, away from the more defensible hill sites to the more accessible valley sites, perhaps to better engage with the oceanic trade networks. Ivory and gold were Great Zimbabwe’s major international exports and trade goods from the Arabian peninsula and China have been found at the site.

Interior walkway showing the quality of the stonework. Uploaded by Vinz. — Interior walkway showing the quality of the stonework via Wikimedia

One noteworthy feature of the enclosures is their shape: neither rectangular nor circular but irregular curved shapes adapted to the forms of the landscape on which they sit.

In the colonial period, popular theories held that the site must have been built by ancient European or Asian colonizers. The biblical Queen of Sheba was often mentioned in connection with the site. Although archaeologists realized as early as the early twentieth century that Great Zimbabwe had been built by Africans, the colonial administration in what was then Rhodesia suppressed any such claim. The assertion that Africans were incapable of building such a complex site and needed European guidance to achieve any level of civilization was key to the justification of imperial domination. Colonial authorities could not tolerate any evidence that Africans were capable of creating sophisticated works of art and architecture on their own.

Part of the hill complex seen from the valley below. Photograph by Macvivo. — Part of the hill complex seen from the valley below, photograph by Macvivo via Wikimedia

Thoughts for writers

I have two reasons for sharing a little bit of Great Zimbabwe.

First, it is another example of architecture that does not depend on European examples. When doing our worldbuilding as writers, it is easy to fall back on the things that are familiar: European castles, Egyptian pyramids, Greek temples, and the other things we’ve seen before. Let yourself be inspired by the other amazing things people have built. I’d love to see a city inspired by Great Zimbabwe at its height turn up in a fantasy story, even one not set in an explicitly African-inspired world.

Second, this is another example of how politics can screw up good historical scholarship and so why you need to read broadly and get outside familiar frames of reference. Even today, while the Queen of Sheba is generally left out of it, claims that Great Zimbabwe was built by Arabs or Phoenicians still occasionally creep into popular histories.

History for Writers is a weekly feature which looks at how history can be a fiction writer’s most useful tool. From worldbuilding to dialogue, history helps you write. Check out the introduction to History for Writers here.

Serpent Mound

November 23, 2015March 9, 2016Erik

Serpent Mound, located in Ohio in the United States, is an enormous earthwork built on a grassy plateau above Ohio Brush Creek. It is one of many large earthworks in North America, but it is unusual in representing an image when seen from above. This image has been interpreted as a snake swallowing an egg.

151123Serpent — Serpent Mound, photograph by Eric Ewing via Wikimedia

The date of construction is uncertain, but recent research suggests that Serpent Mound was created in the last few centuries CE when the river valleys west of the central Appalachian Mountains were occupied by a people known to modern archaeologists as the Adena culture. We have no way of knowing what they called themselves. The Adena were a sophisticated culture at the center of a trade network stretching north beyond the Great Lakes south to the Gulf of Mexico. One of the distinctive features of their culture was the construction of large earthworks, many of which served funerary purposes, but may also have marked ceremonial centers or areas for gathering and trade.

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I Want an Iwan

September 21, 2015March 2, 2016Erik

Well, no I don’t actually want one. I don’t have room for one to begin with, and I don’t live in the right climate anyway. That doesn’t change the fact that iwans are cool. Literally.

An iwan is a large room with a vaulted ceiling that has walls on three sides and the fourth side open to the air. They were built in the heat of Mesopotamia to create large shady spaces that were still open to light and air. The earliest iwans are thought to have been constructed under the Parthian empire in the first or second centuries CE. One of the earliest examples to survive into modern times was at Ctesiphon on the Tigris River, built by the Sasanian empire in the sixth century CE. Unfortunately, the building fell into poor repair over time and was destroyed by wars in the twentieth century, but in these old photographs you can still see enormous vaulted space.

Photograph of a Sasanian iwan at Ctesiphon, photograph 1864, Wonders of the Past vol. 2 — Sasanian iwan, from Wonders of the Past vol. 2 via Wikimedia (photograph 1864). Note the people standing on top of the roof vault for a sense of scale.

Photograph of the same iwan from half a century later showing ongoing decay, currently San Diego Air and Space Museum — Photograph of the same iwan from half a century later showing ongoing decay via Wikimedia (photograph currently San Diego Air and Space Museum)

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Dún Aonghasa

August 31, 2015March 1, 2016Erik

While doing some research on northern European hillforts recently, I found myself looking at some pictures of Dún Aonghasa (also known as Dun Aengus). It’s an impressive site. The fort is a series of concentric half-rings backing up onto 100-meter cliffs on the island on Inishmore off the western coast of Ireland. The earliest construction on the site has been dated to around 1100 BCE. Later additions were made around 500 BCE. It is one of the largest well-preserved examples of a type of structure that was built throughout northern and western Europe, from Spain to Sweden, in the prehistoric era.

The "cheveaux de frise," a barrier of jagged stones set up to slow down attackers. Photograph by Herbert Ortner — The “cheveaux de frise,” a barrier of jagged stones set up to slow down attackers, photograph by Herbert Ortner via Wikimedia

There has been disagreement in the scholarship about the function of Dún Aonghasa and similar forts. While often identified as fortified settlements, some have suggested that they were actually sites of religious ritual. It has to be said that if Dún Aonghasa and sites like it were religious sanctuaries, they were amazingly well-defended ones. I think it is more likely that sites that were originally built for defense were centuries later repurposed as ceremonial sites, much like how medieval castles built for defense have centuries later become museums and tourist attractions.

The walls of Dún Aonghasa and the cliffs of Inishmore. Photograph by Jal74 — The walls of Dún Aonghasa and the cliffs of Inishmore, photograph by Jal74 via Wikimedia

It may be hard to believe that such an enormous fortification was built in so remote a place, but forts like Dún Aonghasa were once fairly common across western and northern Europe. Most, however, have been lost to decay, erosion, and the reuse of stones. It is only in remote places like Inishmore that they still survive.

Thoughts for writers

Just a simple thought today: the world is full of interesting possibilities. Fortresses don’t have to look like medieval castles. Religious sites don’t have to look like cathedrals or Greek temples. History is huge and there are amazing things out there to inspire your imagination.

The Billion-Dollar Pyramid

August 17, 2015February 27, 2016Erik4 Comments

We all know that the pyramids of Egypt were tombs for the pharaohs. (Yes, yes, and landing pads for Goa’uld spaceships; you can put your hands down now.) Thinking about what it took to build them, though, gives us an idea of what else they were.

The construction of the pyramids is a perpetual favorite subject of cranks and crackpots (Lost technologies of Atlantis! Sound waves!). Even among the more reality-bound, there is no end of theories ranging from the mundane (ramps and sledges) to the reasonably plausible (pulleys and levers) to the unlikely but not impossible (poured concrete). No matter what technique we imagine, however, one thing was definitely required: massive amounts of labor.

What most armchair pyramidologists miss about the problem of megalithic construction is that the physics of moving large stones are very simple. Apply enough force to a mass and it will move. Some things can make the application of force easier: ramps, pulleys, rollers, whatever you’ve got, but in the end it’s just a matter of force versus inertia. No matter how you go about building a pyramid, what you need in the end is the same: muscle power and time. With enough muscle power and time you can build pretty much anything, but labor is expensive. The real problem that would-be pyramid builders have to solve isn’t technological, it’s economic. The real question isn’t “How did they build the pyramids?” but “How did they afford the pyramids?”

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