The Tallest, Biggest, Oldest and Most Incredible What is the biggest structure on the planet. I guess we would all have to agree it is the Great Wall of China. The wall was begun in the Qin Dynasty which reigned from 221 to 2017 B.C. One would think some type of mortar or cement was used to hold the stones and bricks together but that was not the case. Rice flour was used at that time. I have heard many times the great wall of China can be seen from space. This is not exactly true, it can be seen from space if a telescope or maybe binoculars are used and the people are close enough. A better way of saying what can and cannot be seen from space would be the height above the earth something can still be seen from. The wall had many different materials used in its construction over time. The Great Wall of China has another name it is called by and that is the biggest cemetery in the world. The reason for this is many people who died building the wall have been found under it by archaeologists. By some estimates the amount of bodies totals about a million people. I guess some of them could have also been people who died attacking the wall. The parts of the wall which are the most famous today are those which were built under the Ming Dynasty. That is probably because it is the newest part and when people walk on the wall they see many tall watch towers and such and this is because that was a building touch by that dynasty. When we talk about the length of the wall most people who are associated with the history of the wall will tell you the length is about 5,500 miles, but this does not take into account all the sections which were built. If we count those sections the length becomes an incredible 13,170 miles. The Great Wall lost a lot of its material during the Cultural Revolution. Bricks were taken out of the wall and used to build homes and other things. Some sections have been restored. Perhaps there will never be another project on this planet which not only lasts so long but used so many people and in which so many died while building it. In 2004 construction started on the world’s tallest structure. It took six years to complete. The structure is a building known as the Burj Khalifa and is in the United Arab Emirates. The building stands at a dazzling height of 2,716.5 feet. It is not only the tallest building in the world it is also the tallest free-standing structure, after all it is about a half-mile high. Being the tallest building means in this case having the most stories. If you occupy the top floor in this building you have the highest floor in the world. I guess this could be a feather in the cap for some companies and a swell talking point. Because you have the tallest building means you probably have the longest traveled elevators and this is true. The Grand Hyatt in San Francisco is 35 stories high and yet it sways and creeks on a windy day. When the Burj Khalifa was designed the wind had to be taken into consideration. Some buildings which are very tall use a giant pendulum which counteracts the wind. This building was rotated 120 degrees to reduce the load on it from the wind. Being the tallest building doesn’t mean you have the biggest building. Take the Burj Khalifa for example. It is the tallest building but the Boeing Everett Factory in the United States is the biggest building. This building has 472 million cubic feet and 4,280,000 square feet of floor space. The Burj Khalifa has 3.3 million square feet of total space. The factory is located in Everett, Washington and is an airplane assembly building owned by Boeing. I guess Boeing needed a building like this since this is where the large Boeing passenger planes like the 747s, 767s, 777s and 787s were and are assembled. I may not agree with the so-called authorities who claim to know the age of the world’s structures because they are completely disregarding tests which show the dates of the Bosnian Pyramids and others but here is what they say. They claim the world’s oldest structures are probably those on Malta. They are Megalithic temples. They claim some date back to 3,500 B.C. These are stone temples which are said to be older than Stonehenge and the Egyptian Pyramids. They have been restored by 19th century archaeologists. It is said the most important temple complex is a two temple one at Ggantija. There is also two buildings in Scotland which are said to have been built around the same time which was believed to have been a farm. It is called the Knap of Howar and located on the island of Papa Westray. The two buildings were constructed with thick stone walls and low doorways and face the ocean. Looking at the construction it is hard to believe the estimated age since the ruins’ quality of workmanship seem to be much later, but I am not an archaeologist. There is a structure in Ireland which is giving both the sites mentioned a run for their money. There is an incredible building there which is said to be at least 5,000 years old. The building is called Newgrange. It is thought to be a temple of sorts but not much is really known about it. There is also a structure in Denmark which is in the same age category. It is called Hulbjerg Jaettestue and when this building was discovered there were forty corpses inside. One of the corpses had dental work performed upon him, ouch! Coming close to this age is a structure in Italy named Monte d’Accoddi. It is located in Sardinia and some archaeologists guess it was built around 2,700 B.C. It is thought to be incomplete because experts think it may have had an altar, temple or step pyramid. It is important to note none of the ages of these structures are exact and can be off by quite a bit and that is why I included a few of them which were claimed to be a little newer. The most incredible ancient structures ever built, should not have been able to be built and least not with the precision they were. An example of this is the ancient Roman Aqueducts which were first built around 300 B.C. and transported water throughout the Roman Empire. The precision of their construction even leaves engineers today scratching their collective heads. Another incredible structure was the Marib Dam which was built around 8th century B.C. in Yemen. People in those days were not supposed to have the technology for a project of this type. It is considered one of the greatest feats of ancient engineering. It stood for over 1,000 years, far longer than our dams are expected to last. There are other incredible places like ancient underground cities and such which puzzle archaeologists and all this proves the ancients were a heck of a lot smarter than most of us give them credit for.
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