Putting Structures In Odd Places Sometimes things are built in the strangest of places. The structures which are built are sometimes themselves strange. One very strange one is Kyaiktiyo Pagoda. The structure is built upon what is known as the Golden Rock. This rock is poised precariously on the edge of a cliff and it seems to be impossible it is not falling over. It is located in the country of Myanmar and has many visitors every year. The back of the rock has a space between it and the ground which just increases the mystery of why it hasn’t fallen. If we are talking about strange structures, we can’t leave out the Great Pyramid. Think about this, why would an ancient Egyptian pharaoh who had no machines decide to build something so huge on a desert plateau which he knew no one before could have done? He must have known it was a Herculean task with a good chance of not succeeding. It is so huge it was the biggest thing ever built for 3,800 years. It was truly a structure which was hand made. There is a complex which was built on top of a Greek mountain. It is named the Meteora. It is near the town of Kalabaka. Interestingly the name itself means elevated. It contains a monastery which has become somewhat famous for its location. If one looks at the mountain it seems impossible to get to the top, which does make one wonder why anything would have been built there. Perhaps it was for protection from raiders. It could have been to keep the monks away from the general population for religious reasons. At any rate, it must have been very hard to get the building materials up to the top of the mountain or perhaps they used what was available up there. There is a peak in France which is so pointed it seems impossible to get to the top without climbing gear, yet on the top of that peak is the chapel of Saint Michel d’Aiguilhe. It is located in France near the Le Puy-en-Velay. The builders decided to carve 286 steps into the side of the peak to make the chapel accessible. It seems like an awful lot of work when they could have built the chapel on the ground around the peak. The chapel has been there for over 1,000 years. Maybe the builders wanted to get closer to heaven. There is a building which is not on a mountain but on flat ground. It isn’t the location of the building which makes it strange, but the building itself. The building is a temple located north of Bangkok, Thailand. What makes it so special and unusual is the fact it was built to resemble a UFO. It is not ancient but modern, and it is huge. The name of the temple is Wat Phra Dhammakaya. It is a Buddhist temple. The upper level is said to hold 150,000 people and the lower level is for parking but can accommodate another 150,000 people if necessary. There has been a few different estimates on how many people the structure can hold and one claimed over 1,000,000. Why it was made to look like a flying saucer is up for debate. The builders said it was in that shape was to denote world peace. Did they believe UFOs were also signs of peace? Being built on the top of a mountain is one thing, but being built hanging on the side of a mountain seems to me to be even worse. There is a complex of buildings in China known as the Hanging Temple. It was actually built on the side of a cliff. If we just look at it from the point of innovation, it is quite remarkable. Looking at it from the point of practicality, that is a whole other thing. Amazingly, it is still there after being built in 491 A.D. It is under an overhang which protected it somewhat. It is incredible engineering. It consists of multiple buildings. You have to wonder who thought it was a good idea to build an entire town in Corsica on the very edge of a cliff? The town is named Bonifacio. The town has become a tourist attraction. The town is sitting on only a one mile long piece of limestone. One might think it should have been eroded by now since limestone is so soft. The old part of town dates back to the 9th century and is still standing. One of the strangest structures is a house named Casa do Penedo in Portugal. It is said to be prehistoric style, but was built in 1972. What makes it so strange is the fact it is connected to two huge boulders. One each is connected to the both ends of the stone home. There is a roof which spans over the home and boulders. It is said the builder wanted the house to be integrated into the landscape, and he certainly accomplished that. If it wasn’t for the chimney made from metal and the modern roof, the structure could be mistaken for something from the Middle Ages or older. We don’t have to go to another country to see an amazing construction which seems impossible. We could go to Florida and visit the Coral Castle. Since the castle is built from coral the blocks weigh many tons. It is said he had no help in the construction. The builder was Edward Leedskalhin. He built the castle in about 28 years and started construction in 1923 and finished in 1951. He was only five feet tall and weighed only about 100 pounds. Leedskalhin claimed he knew the secrets used to built the Great Pyramid and amazingly, no one ever saw him performing construction tasks. He had claimed he only used a block and tackle to move stones weighing over 5 tons. It is also claimed by some he actually moved the entire castle in one night using an old truck. I believe he managed to create an even bigger construction mystery than the building of the pyramids which took tens of thousands of people to complete. Over the centuries there has been all sorts of seemingly impossible constructions, yet there they are. So many races built on top of mountains, on cliffs and other precarious places, and even though they are gone now, their labors remain. In many cases large rocks had to be hauled to the top of places and sometimes these rocks weighed tons. We just have to think why? Was there some religious reason, could it have been to show how clever they were to others, or was it for protection? We may never know how they did this or why in some cases.
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