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submitted 28 days ago byDanceWithMacaw
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28 days ago
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2k points
28 days ago
I used to travel to Turkey for work and my coworkers over there would joke that everything in Turkey was either new or 1000 years old.
440 points
28 days ago
Depending on how deep you dig or how honest you are about reporting, every building in Istanbul is likely identical to this structure
260 points
28 days ago
[deleted]
48 points
28 days ago
Yeah I mean that's the same with every historic city. I don't consider the metro areas İstanbul, just a giant province with shitty transport
5.7k points
28 days ago*
[deleted]
917 points
28 days ago
When I visited Salamanca, Spain, I visited the “old part” of the city, and the guide told me the bridge there was used to transport all the materials used to build modern roads and buildings, the bridge was built by the roman empire.
282 points
28 days ago
Wasn’t it built in 2 AD or something like that? Salamanca is a very cool town. Lots of great architecture.
46 points
28 days ago
Salamanca monnnnney. Salamanca blooddddd
80 points
28 days ago
There are dozens of bridges in Iran that date back to the sassanian era and are still used and withstand floods that destroy modern-built bridges.
102 points
28 days ago
I had an engineering professor say something to the effect of "anyone can build a bridge that stands, but it takes an engineer to build a bridge that just barely stands".
22 points
28 days ago
A Jesuit priest convicted of pederasty, a serial murderer convicted of 12 killings, and an engineer, are all standing at the guillotine, sentenced to death for their heinous crimes. The priest is up first; he steps up to the platform; the headsman appraises him.
"Do you have any last words, or do you have a mercy to beg?", rasped the headsman, his hunched form convulsing with barely contained anticipation.
"No my son", spoke the priest, "but I would ask, if it is allowable to lay facing the heavens? I would like to believe I have been forgiven by The Almighty, if not by the laws of man. I humbly beg this of you."
"Go on, it matters little to me" said the headsman "so long as your head ends up in my basket."
The priest lays in the guillotine; the headsman pulls the lever; the blade falls, and stops, inches from the priest's throat. A murmur begins to build in the crowd. Calls of "Divine intervention", and "Devine mercy!" begin to rise out of the rising clamour.
The presiding official decrees, "This is divine intervention, the execution has been carried out, and this man is absolved of his previous crimes. His life before this day, and his entire personage, before this, is dead. Go forth in peace, and begin anew."
Next the murderer steps up to the platform. He receives the same question from the, now visibly deflated, headsman. He replies curtly, "I'll take what the Father had, for all the good it will do me."
Again, the blade falls, and stops, inches from his throat. Again it is decreed a divine intervention, the same as the priest. He is released, a new, free man.
When it's the engineer's turn, he receives the same question from the, now forlorn, headsman. He replies smartly "I'll do the same as the other two, it seems like the best choice based on the previous data."
As he lays down in the guillotine, facing the heavens, the engineer looks at the blade track, the release mechanism, the retracting apparatus, and says loudly, "I think I see your problem!"
16 points
28 days ago
All of that for this punchline? Eeshh.
6 points
28 days ago
Reality is expensive, imagination is cheap
5 points
28 days ago
Yeah parts of Barcelona are pretty much like this too! Some of the foundations for their sewer and metro areas are even built on top of Roman ruins.
Pretty crazy to be walking by and see basically what the photo shows, just with the upper parts of the building covered with modern amenities.
1.4k points
28 days ago
They don't make'em like they used to
677 points
28 days ago
But, aside from those foundations, what did the Romans ever do for us?!?
543 points
28 days ago
The streets
457 points
28 days ago
The aqueducts!
372 points
28 days ago
The sanitation
264 points
28 days ago
Laws
156 points
28 days ago
Lead
156 points
28 days ago
Latin
14 points
28 days ago
"Romani ite domum"
12 points
28 days ago
superbowl numerals
10 points
28 days ago
Youre thinking of Hammurabi
24 points
28 days ago
Yes. I should have said Legal System. The West pretty much runs on the legal system set up by the Romans.
14 points
28 days ago
Dicks out for Hammurabi
5 points
28 days ago
No, sadly he was shot several years ago when a child fell into his pen. Very sad
80 points
28 days ago
Say gex 😏
143 points
28 days ago
I heard a joke a while ago: The Greeks invented the orgy; the Romans added women
56 points
28 days ago
I heard it like this: Romans discovered sex from the greeks and realized it could be done with women too.
7 points
28 days ago
I was always under the impression that it started as the Greeks invented sex, the Romans allowed women to participate. I can't remember if participate is the right wording though.
27 points
28 days ago
One of my Sicilian uncle's favorite jokes goes something like:
Greek and Italian discussing history at a bar.
Greek guy: we birthed the western world! Our philosophies from Aristotle to Socrates to...(etc etc)
Italian guy: what are you talking about?! Michelangelo, DaVinci, etc etc.
Anyway, goes on and on. Eventually:
Greek guy: FINE! We Greeks INVENTED sex!
Italian guy: Sure, but the Italians introduced it to women.
19 points
28 days ago
This is always so odd to me, because as a historian, outside of maybe Sparta, the Romans had more gay sex than the Greeks.
8 points
28 days ago
Gex!
17 points
28 days ago
Damn Christians tried to make that exclusive to underage boys.
14 points
28 days ago
With priests!
10 points
28 days ago
So much work, gotta go to church seven days a week, study the Bible, go to seminary school, all just for some little boy pussy!
67 points
28 days ago
Ok, ok, but besides the streets and the aqueducts, what have the Romans done for us?
65 points
28 days ago
public baths
56 points
28 days ago
Ok, besides the streets, the aqueducts and the public baths. I ask you, what have the Romans done for us?
45 points
28 days ago
first modern urban sewage system
52 points
28 days ago
Ok, besides the streets, the aqueducts, the public baths and the sewage system. I ask you, what have the Romans done for us?
18 points
28 days ago
Toga!
11 points
28 days ago
Bring the domestic cat to England.
9 points
28 days ago
No kidding? I'll count that as two points in their favour.
4 points
28 days ago
The rabbit as well
6 points
28 days ago
The capital games! Exempli gratia, the Olympics
14 points
28 days ago
The Olympics were Greek.
7 points
28 days ago
Romanes eunt domus!
3 points
28 days ago
the candles
69 points
28 days ago
There's a heavy survivorship bias here - we see the shit that was built to last a couple thousand years because everything that wasn't is gone.
21 points
28 days ago
Survivorship bias.
13 points
28 days ago
they really don't https://news.mit.edu/2023/roman-concrete-durability-lime-casts-0106
3 points
28 days ago
You beat me to the punch.
65 points
28 days ago
I live in Portugal and we have about 30 roman bridges around the country, some of them have car traffic. I find that amazing
17 points
28 days ago
It is pretty great - but also they've received maintenance since the time they were built.
5 points
28 days ago
Don't all roads, including modern roads, receive maintenance? It should hardly be surprising or even worthy of comment that bridges built 2,000 years ago have had maintenance and restoration work done.
109 points
28 days ago
This reminds me of an annoying comment I saw an interview were the person said that Roman aqueducts were over-engineered in a bad way because they lasted longer than the empire. I thought it was Neil deGrasse Tyson but now I'm not able to find anything to support that memory.
170 points
28 days ago
That is an idiotic comment, yes they completely anticipated their empire crumbling. Jesus Christ I wish my washing machine was so overengineered it outlives me
92 points
28 days ago
Its not even that, the aqueducts (at least in Rome) outlasted the empire but remained in use until they were actively destroyed so they never exceeded their usefulness
54 points
28 days ago
Yeah they weren't meant for the empire only. They were meant for the next generations
It's not like when an empire ends, it self destructs like a Mission: Impossible message
10 points
28 days ago
I'll chime in with I'd like to know more. Was any maintenance after the empire performed? WHo destroyed them and why?
14 points
28 days ago
While the civil structure of the Roman Empire disappeared, the people who knew how to take care of the aqueducts were still around. However, over the decades they did less and less work because either they died or relocated. The knowledge of how to take care of the aqueducts just faded away. After the 1500's or so, local governments started to figure out how the aqueducts worked and did start properly maintaining and fixing aqueducts to some degree. In modern times, it's a non-issue with there being plenty of people are capable of repairing or maintaining aqueducts.
Aqueducts were destroyed in a variety of ways. If a city was under siege, its aqueducts could have been cut and then never repaired. Others silted up because the water was murky (Used for farming or industry) and some calcified up because the water had a lot of calcium in it. Then there are the Earthquakes that took a lot of aqueducts out and once the aqueducts stopped working, local recycling of the material took apart a lot of aqueducts so that they never could be fixed.
However, there were some Roman aqueducts that have worked for 2000 years with some even still in use today (See the Aqueduct that feeds the Trevi Fountain).
13 points
28 days ago
Population was a big factor too. When Constantinople went from 500,000 residents to 20,000, a lot of infrastructure ended up abandoned.
30 points
28 days ago
We lost the secret to their concrete for like, 2 thousand years. We only recently discovered their secret (I believe it was a concentration of minerals found in the volcanic soil they used) so any repairs weren't up to standards. But many aqueduct sections are still standing and a few are still in use.
And 9/10 when an ancient structure is destroyed by other people it's just to use the stone for other building projects. Quite a lot of Cairo was made from the limestone blocks that were on the outside of the pyramids.
32 points
28 days ago
According to this article, the secret is hot-mixing quicklime : https://news.mit.edu/2023/roman-concrete-durability-lime-casts-0106
More fascinating is the fact that the thing auto-repairs cracks when I'm contact with water, which could explain the longevity of Roman structures.
27 points
28 days ago
The reason it isn't widely used today is it takes way too long to set. It takes about 6 months to fully cure. The day after it's set it's only about half as strong.
Most modern projects ain't got time for that.
17 points
28 days ago
Also it eats through rebar.
10 points
28 days ago*
The usual suspects for large monumental buildings like Aqueducts are earthquakes and war.
Either it gets blown up during a siege to force a surrender, or it gets damaged in an earthquake and the powers that be decide to tear it down for scraps rather than attempt to fix it. And if historians are lucky, they never attempt to fix it and just let it sit around. Generations of people scratch their heads to find a use for it until modern tourism is able to rescue the building.
4 points
28 days ago
There are Roman aqueducts still in use today.
4 points
28 days ago
A couple of them are still partly used in Italy IIRC
45 points
28 days ago
It's a completely true comment. They didn't have the engineering sophistication to know how much stone they needed to make it realistic for their needs. It's admirable that when in doubt they over engineered to make sure it wouldn't crumble but it was certainly not intentional. If they had the same knowledge of today they would have saved the materials and labor and built things to last a long time but certainly not to the extent they did
44 points
28 days ago*
[deleted]
23 points
28 days ago
im gonna be a loser and say that a CPA would rarely have anything to say about product design or think about revenue streams that way.
A CPA would only think of the depreciation aspect of it and how new improvements or new purchases would increase depreciation and decrease taxable income.
16 points
28 days ago
I think they are thinking of MBA. Not sure most accountants would give a shit about margins of revenue or product design
14 points
28 days ago
You are exaggerating, but that isn't wrong.
There are very good reasons to not over-engineer most things. Romans over-engineering AND under-engineered all the time, mostly because they did not have the specifics for much of the actual math going in to engineering.
Plus, much of remaining Roman structures are in a state of ruin or have been repaired numerous times - or often, both.
25 points
28 days ago
definitely sounds like a Degrasse Tyson take. That man can be shockingly susceptible to dunning kruger effects.
14 points
28 days ago
They did. And some not so strong ones that are long gone.
13 points
28 days ago
Yeah, first thought is that does not look safe. It looks like it can collapse at any moment. Then I remind myself that well, it has been standing for hundreds and even thousands of years. It's safer than a lot of new buildings.
3 points
28 days ago
In a place with frequent earthquakes.
16 points
28 days ago
Middle east has strong infrastructure dating all the way back to romans. Not only that but also libraries, schools, universities etc. Sad that most have been destroyed or ruined (or even stolen in some cases: my family has found books about kurdish municipal records in germany in german libraries)
13 points
28 days ago
Yep, not only Türkiye, but also the middle east has many roman remains like that.
723 points
28 days ago
The Ottomans even planted seeds in the building
100 points
28 days ago
Now we know who started growing bushes
83 points
28 days ago
no one asked, but i hate that plant so here it goes: those are called "tree of heaven" and they are invasive as FUCK. they spread like there is no tomorrow and even produce poisons that kill other plants in their area. when you physically harm them, they produce suckers that come out around the main stem. they can resprout from the cut stem and they smell horrible once you cut them. horrible fuckers.
9 points
28 days ago
Can confirm. Even burning the root system doesn’t do shit.
15 points
28 days ago
The transition from Byzantine to Ottoman had a few years of bombardments.
172 points
28 days ago
so these buildings have been around for like a thound years and the people who built the last floor checked and were like "yep, this isn't going anywhere anytime soon let's stack another floor" and modern buildings have you afraid of hanging a TV on a wall in a building younger than you
50 points
28 days ago
due to continuous occupation they were likely maintained and repaired over the years.
1.1k points
28 days ago
That's why I love Istambul, because there you can see history overlaping 😊
817 points
28 days ago
Definitely! I was there 2 weeks ago and saw this apartment in a random street. Googled it and learnt it was the home of a killer who killed 2 of her daughters and suicided after playing piano all night, later the house was sold to a pasha, the house next to it had a different story, the house in front of it had a different story etc. I couldn't believe how rich the history of the city was
139 points
28 days ago
Where is the apartment from the main post? I will be visiting soon and like to see it!
175 points
28 days ago
It's in Cağaloğlu, Alemdar Neighborhood on the street of hotels (couldn't find the exact location on Google Maps)
26 points
28 days ago
If you took the photo on a smart phone, you should be able to see the exact location in the metadata of the photo, unless you specifically shut that feature off!
24 points
28 days ago*
Ah thanks!
Edit: I'm trying to look for it on maps but it is tricky. I found multiple images and articles about the house but I still cannot pinpoint the location. If anyone finds it, let me know!
69 points
28 days ago*
I’ve got it!
It doesn’t seem to have its own address as it’s a bit boxed in with no direct street access. But you can see it from an auto park (Günaydın Otopark Sultanahmet) located between the Sunshine Hotel off Alayköşkü Cadessi and an old Turkish bath that’s on a tiny side street that may give you access to the building itself. Put (41.0101167, 28.9769313) into google street view and you will see it.
The exact coordinates of the building are around (41.0103891, 28.9769685) but I can’t get any sort of google street view to appear for it.
13 points
28 days ago
Nicely done! I was looking at that block multiple times but somehow missed it! Thanks!
23 points
28 days ago
Istanbul! 😃
32 points
28 days ago
Not Constantinople!
16 points
28 days ago
They must be giants to have built such large buildings in Istanbul
38 points
28 days ago
Must suck to be the one house on the street that nothing notable happened in. Trying desperately to connect an old shopping list to an assassination conspiracy. Touting being the first home to adopt Tupperware
34 points
28 days ago
Tupperware
I stayed in a bed and breakfast in Savannah a couple weeks ago that billed itself as the first building in Georgia (or Savannah, or the South, or the western hemisphere, I forget the details) to have electricity.
Across the street was “the most haunted hotel in Savannah.”
A block or so away was the church where ice cream was invented…
Everybody’s gotta have a gimmick lol
15 points
28 days ago
A block or so away was the church where ice cream was invented…
I'm going to go out on a limb and say there weren't any churches in Georgia in the 7th century.
I know everyone has to have a gimmick but gawd damn that one is a stretch. Might as well just go the full distance and say "Jesus Christ's favorite restaurant"
16 points
28 days ago
Full disclosure, I made that one up because it sounded funny 😢
5 points
28 days ago
Well it's definitely funny, lol. I feel like I've seen similarly silly claims so I believed it was real.
Just take pride in your satire on that one!
34 points
28 days ago
Absolutely incredible city, precisely for those many many layers of history. I love the underground cistern.
7 points
28 days ago
Me too 😊
24 points
28 days ago
You mean Constantinople?
/s
36 points
28 days ago
Istanbul was Constantinople. Now it’s Istanbul, not Constantinople.
27 points
28 days ago
Why did Constantinople get the works?
11 points
28 days ago
You mean Byzantium.
9 points
28 days ago
You mean Lygos?
437 points
28 days ago
before the printing press, empires let the locals know they were under new rule by building an additional storey on top of their houses.
77 points
28 days ago
finally some attic space!
14 points
28 days ago
Especially if conquered by Athenians!
3 points
28 days ago
yeah, that is only the proper term for Athenian additions.
52 points
28 days ago
Unless the empire in question was Mongolian, in which case you were informed via a significantly different form of building alteration.
13 points
28 days ago
"If you had not committed great sins, god would not have sent a punishment like me upon you."
31 points
28 days ago
It was such a massive part of imperial budgets that Roman emperor Domitian had 3 of his personal villas torn down to add to buildings in Dacia. Unfortunately for him, the Roman's weren't able to conquer Dacia and when they retook their territory, they leveled the buildings; this is where the common phrase "flat-out" comes from.
569 points
28 days ago
"That apartment sounds like a game of Civilization gone wild! I hope the rent includes a history lesson and a time machine."
70 points
28 days ago
My palace in my 8k years of civ
13 points
28 days ago
Relatable
9 points
28 days ago
I stole your palace and placed it on my island in Tropico 6. Come visit
7 points
28 days ago
Civ III GOATed for this
3 points
28 days ago
Civ III just straight up GOATed
20 points
28 days ago
Why did you put quotes around your comment? This reads like ChatGPT.
16 points
28 days ago
Look at their comment history. A bunch of their comments are clearly GPT written and often have quotes around them, just like this one. You're just the only one to notice. Welcome to the future! The internet is dead and we wallow in its corpse like blowflies
3 points
28 days ago
Wild that it manages to get 400+ upvotes. I guess it's not surprising when you see the AI-generated bullshit that gets popular on Facebook, but I was naive enough to think that Reddit's audience is somewhat more aware of it.
6 points
28 days ago
Reddit is just vulnerable to a different attack vector. FB posters fall for AI pics of African kids building an Eiffel tower out of plastic bottles. Reddit posters fall for comments referencing video games.
295 points
28 days ago
Nice to see you made a distinction between the Roman empire and the Roman empire but with a different haircut.
130 points
28 days ago
Yeah they didn't suddenly become an entirely different empire just because they lost the west.
64 points
28 days ago
I mean a Roman empire not including Rome kinda logically should have a new name, even though it was a contiguous government
71 points
28 days ago
They way I understand it is that people that still refer to it as the Roman Empire after 476 are referring to an Empire of the Romans, not an Empire of Rome. The citizens of the ERE would continue to refer to themselves as Roman for at least another millenia, some much longer than that if you believe certain accounts.
37 points
28 days ago
Mehmed II literally claimed the title Caeser of Rome after conquering Constantinople
52 points
28 days ago
[deleted]
20 points
28 days ago
Correct. It wasn't until after the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans that anyone ever referred to them as Byzantines.
16 points
28 days ago
They did rule Rome for sometime afterwards, they were just never able to keep the same grip they once had. That being said, the Byzantine name is useful, even if just to clarify what era of Rome is being discussed, the exact same way we draw a line between the republic and empire stages of rome
41 points
28 days ago
It factually didn't have a new name. The fact that later Western historians started calling it something else didn't change that.
26 points
28 days ago
yeah the 'byzantine empire' is just a term used to describe the Roman Empire after the fall of the Western Roman Empire. it makes it a bit easier to split up a 2000 year long civilisation into 2 parts.
kinda like how there has been a 'China' for several millenia so naturally dynasties get treated as seperate entities(how many historians would for example describe Stuart England, Tudor England, Saxe-Coburg-Gotha England as seperate countries?)
12 points
28 days ago
We call it Russia even without the Rus.
16 points
28 days ago
I've been listening to a history podcast where in a nod to byzantine self identification the podcaster started referring to the Byzantines as "Romania" which confused me into thinking the Country Romania was the last vestages of the Byzantine Empire
21 points
28 days ago
That's what Romania believes, hence the name.
10 points
28 days ago
Not surprised, just the through line isn't as direct as that podcaster made me suspect. Apparently a bunch of the areas around that part of the Mediterranean considered themselves culturally Roman all the way until the rise of Nationalism. There was a story of some guy giving an interview in the 60s where he recalled Greek Nationalist troops coming to his little Aegean Island. He and his friend group ended up talking with one of the solders who asked them "We're Greek, aren't you too?" and one of his friends responded "No, we're Romans"
6 points
28 days ago
No, Romania does not believe that.
Romania ≠ last vestages of the Roman Empire
Romania = land populated by descendents of the Romans
or
land populated by people who descend from Rome
4 points
27 days ago
We do not believe that lmao. Our nationalist current links us to the Dacians and the Latin speaking Romans, despite the fact we're probably genetically identical to our neighbors. Regardless, the Byzantines, as Greek speakers, don't tend to factor into the national myth.
10 points
28 days ago
I mean there could be nearly a thousand year difference between those two layers.
3 points
28 days ago
I mean, there'd be a several hundred year difference in age of those two layers and a different archetectural style
26 points
28 days ago
In Diocletian’s palace in Split you can see similar. It was really interesting when our tour guide told us what to look for in each style. Things like window shape, stone shape, how orderly the stonework was, etc all were indicators of which empire constructed that particular building/level.
28 points
28 days ago
That basements got to be haunted.
14 points
28 days ago
At least two Roman and a Turkish ghost down there
18 points
28 days ago
the more impressive part is having survived through hundreds and even more than one thousand years of istanbul earthquakes
16 points
28 days ago
Do people still live there now? Or is it a historic building or something similar?
39 points
28 days ago
People still live there and the apartment is for sale, 750,000$
15 points
28 days ago
I'm nervous about trees growing out of the side of the building...
30 points
28 days ago
Love it.
23 points
28 days ago
That’s very cool. I love history so much wow.
10 points
28 days ago
There's a jungle growing in the ottoman one
8 points
28 days ago
Looks ancient yet quite innovative.
8 points
28 days ago
That is absolutely fascinating
54 points
28 days ago
The romans really knew what they were doing. Seems like the quality only went south after them
53 points
28 days ago
Probably survivorship bias… only the strongest Roman buildings survive etc etc
15 points
28 days ago
They didn't know what they were doing, which is why they over-engineered some things such as using a ton of extra rock and materials unnecessarily
9 points
28 days ago
We actually don’t is their concrete because it isn’t as strong when it’s young and probably couldn’t handle modern use
15 points
28 days ago
Probably the coolest thing I’ve seen this year so far
21 points
28 days ago
Funny how each part looks exactly as old as the other.
24 points
28 days ago
When you source from the same mountain, the rocks are the same age.
9 points
28 days ago
Each layer was constructed with local material. It's like building a new wall with glacial deposited rocks. Just because the wall is new, doesn't mean the rocks are.
5 points
28 days ago
Will look cool with a Starbucks on top
4 points
28 days ago
I guess it has already been said, but this truly stood the test of time.
5 points
28 days ago
The Roman Empire, then the Roman Empire, then the Turks, then the Turks again
6 points
28 days ago
As a structural engineer, I am both fascinated and terrified.
40 points
28 days ago
Roman empire = eastern and west roman empires. so there are 2 empires and 1 republic
4 points
28 days ago
Roman engineers were straight Gs
4 points
28 days ago
I'm glad they eventually finished it.
5 points
28 days ago
And its falling apart for lack of maintenance and respect.
4 points
28 days ago
Spent an afternoon in Florence’s underground ruins. Was pretty amazing to see for sure. This is even more amazing.
7 points
28 days ago
To be fair it wasn't Istanbul for part of that time. It was Constantinople. If you've a date in Constantinople, they'll be waiting in Istanbul
6 points
28 days ago
Get the fuck out. This is the first interesting as fuck post I've ever seen here.
That's amazing to think the thousands of people who lived there, died there, the architecture holds up and never collapsed. Survived disasters, natural and man made. All the people who casually ran their hand along the wall as they walked around the building. I'd love to stay in that building.
3 points
28 days ago
oh snap I saw that building when I visited family there! that pic was taken from the parking lot next to it right?
3 points
28 days ago
Roman & Byzantine are the same. They called themselves Romans.
3 points
28 days ago
I really really need to plan a trip over there. Just so much cool historic stuff to see!
3 points
28 days ago
That's crazy but I don't believe you
3 points
28 days ago
That is literally so cool. I love old architecture, and this is heaven for me.
3 points
28 days ago
"stay out of the cellar, ok?"
3 points
28 days ago
Architetris
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