>Some Maya cities were established hundreds of years before the founding of Rome, and they included significantly larger architecture that still stands.

The Pantheon is qualitatively different than the massive pyramids the Maya built.

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aorloff 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I've been to the Pantheon and I've been to Saqsaywaman (Inca)

The pantheon is amazing and I can see how humans built it

Saqsaywaman is amazing and I have no idea how the hell it was done, even with today's machinery you don't see stones joined like that

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nkrisc 29 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

> I have no idea how the hell it was done, even with today's machinery you don't see stones joined like that

Skilled tradesmen with lots of time. It’s impressive, but it’s nothing magical.

	▲	roughly 19 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		I think it was Teller who said the secret to a good magic trick was to put in so much effort that no reasonable person would assume that’s what you’d done.

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jxnsbdbd an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

Joining stones in that way is very common in highway construction

Sure it was much more expensive back then to find matching stones than now with laser measuring and computer predication

But it's basically the same process

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Joker_vD 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Every time I hear an argument "The Egyptian pyramids are still standing to this day", I'm taken aback. Like, what can a pyramid even crumble into, a pile of stones? It already is a pile of stones! Literally!

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maxbond 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Some of the earlier pyramids did crumble. They made mistakes and learned from them and innovated over time. The pyramids aren't still standing (just) because of the materials, there's real structural engineering at work.

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MikeNotThePope 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Erosion.

	▲	8bitsrule 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Quarrying (human erosion), as in 1303 Egypt, and with what the Spaniards did to Cuzco/Sacsayhuamán.

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joshmoody24 an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

The old world had thousands of years of head start in the urbanization department FWIW