Professional paper
https://doi.org/10.47960/2232-9080.2023.26.13.76
GIANT STONE BUILDINGS (III) - CYCLOPEAN AND OTHER BUILDINGS OF MORE DEVELOPED ARCHITECTURE
Krešimir Šaravanja
; HNC Ministry of Construction and Physical Planning and Faculty of Civil Engineering, Architecture and Geodesy, University of Mostar
*
Frano Oreč
; Association "Sound of Stone" Posušje
*
Valerija Kopilaš
; University of Mostar, Faculty of Civil Engineering
* Corresponding author.
Abstract
Megalithic architecture is related to a series of ancient stone monuments of giant dimensions, which were constructed using almost untreated individual stones or stones grouped into certain structures, but also to numerous buildings of more recent cultures and civilizations, the so-called "more developed architecture", which are built entirely or partly from large stone blocks, most often of regular geometric shape, in the drystone wall technique, weighing tons, tens of tons, even hundreds of tons, whose enormous mass raises the question of their transport and installation. The first part of the paper presents the megalithic buildings of the Mycenaean civilization, called Cyclopean because the ancient Greeks believed that only the Cyclops could build with such large stone blocks. So, a Cyclopean building is megalithic, but not every megalithic building is Cyclopean, so it is better to use the general term megalithic for buildings that have nothing to do with Mycenaean Greece, like in the case of the megalithic defensive wall of the old Hellenistic city of Daorson near Stolac. The second part of the paper presents some famous buildings in South America, but also in Baalbek, Lebanon, where three carved giant megalithic blocks called triliths (trilithons), probably the largest stone blocks made and erected by man, weighing about 800 t, are built into the southwestern wall, as well as the drystone walls of megalithic buildings in Peru, which, due to their flexibility and the double interlocking wall technique, have survived in areas where earthquakes are not a rare phenomenon.
Keywords
Megalith; megalithic; architecture/building; Cyclopean; Mycenaean; Daorson; Baalbek; trilithon; Peru
Hrčak ID:
312540
URI
Publication date:
21.12.2023.
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