An incredible testament to ancient engineering techniques can be found in the Roman ruins located in modern-day Baalbek, Lebanon, which was known as Heliopolis during Roman times (not to be mistaken with Heliopolis in Egypt).
"In the base of the ruins of the Jupiter Baal Temple [in Baalbek] lie three hewn stones known together as the 'trilithon.' Each is estimated to weigh over 750 tons. [Emphasis added] Construction on the massive Roman temple of Jupiter began roughly 27 years before the birth of Jesus, and while most scholars agree the blocks were cut by the Romans, there is some evidence that the trilithon may predate their presence in the Middle East. In fact, the stones may predate even Alexander the Great, who founded Heliopolis in 334 BCE." Source: Atlas Obscura.
Comment: The Romans were expert engineers, but considering how many huge temples and megaliths have been discovered around the globe, the techniques required to move extremely heavy stones must have been fairly widespread in the ancient world.
"The site of Abu Simbel is one of the most recognizable ancient sites in Egypt. For 3,000 years, it sat on the west bank of the Nile River, between the first and second cataracts of the Nile. However, in a remarkable feat of engineering, the temple complex was dismantled and rebuilt on a higher hill to make way for the Aswan High Dam in the 1960s." Source: Live Science.
"Tiberias Municipality contractors were baffled, as all the concrete they poured into the 20-meter (65 feet) deep foundation holes they had drilled before building a new neighborhood disappeared. Suddenly, as a mechanical digger exposed a cave entrance, they found their missing concrete — and a unique 2,000-year-old burial cave." Source: Archaeology News Network.
Stokesay in Shropshire is "the finest and best-preserved fortified manor house in England," according to English Heritage. "Stokesay Castle was constructed at the end of the 13th century by Laurence of Ludlow, who at the time was one of the richest men in England. It remains a treasure by-passed by time, one of the best places to visit in England to experience what medieval life was like."
"Stokesay Castle was built in the 1280s and 1290s in the village of Stokesay by Laurence of Ludlow, a very wealthy wool merchant." (Wikipedia) According to English Heritage, "[t]he life and times of Laurence of Ludlow offer an early example of one of the oldest tales of English aspiration: the rich tradesman redefining himself as a country squire."
"But his story, and that of Stokesay Castle, Shropshire, built with the fortune he made from wool, is above all about the medieval wool trade: its unique status; the extraordinary prizes it created for its savviest merchants; and the perils of late 13th-century international travel."
Some believe that Stokesay Castle is haunted and the area is surrounded with old legends. For instance, the "fortified manor house is supposedly the hiding place of a treasure chest full of gold, which was hidden by two giants," according to Mysterious Britain.
"Many many years ago, when the world was a more enchanted place, and the thresholds between fact and fantasy were much thinner, two giants owned much of the countryside around Stokesay in Shropshire. One giant lived on View Edge and the other at Norton Camp. Although no one knows for sure, it is said that they were brothers, for they shared the rich land between them, and also a vast amount of money they had collected. This money was kept in a huge strong oak chest, deep within the dark vaults of Stokesay Castle." -- "The Giants of Stokesay Castle," Mysterious Britain.
The Roman circus at Colchester is apparently the only known circus in Britain. It first came to light in 2000 when the Colchester Archaeological Trust "observed three parts of one or two Roman foundations in the sides of a narrow trench which was dug for electric cables to provide new lighting" around a football pitch. More remains were uncovered over the following years and the discovery was confirmed in 2004.
Background: Colchester was occupied by the Romans after they conquered Britain under Claudius in a gradual process that began around 43 AD. People were living in the town as far back as the Stone Age and I'm not sure what it was called before the Romans took over and named it Camulodunum.
According to the Oxford Classical Dictionary (3rd ed. revised), the Romans built a fortress for Legio XX Valeria beside the town and founded a colony on the site in 49 AD. "This became the first provincial capital, with the temple of Divus [Deified] Claudius and a theater with an adjacent forum."(The legionary fortress was decommissioned when the Romans turned the town into a colony).
Camulodunum was sacked and burned during the relatively short-lived Boudican Revolt in 60/61 AD, a revolt which was triggered in large part by a heavy-handed Roman tax-collector. The brilliant Roman governor, Gaius Suetonius Paulinus, crushed the revolt that same year and Camulodunum was rebuilt.
Around 70-85 AD, a "defensive town wall [was] built around the town" and the Roman circus was constructed outside the wall," according to the Colchester Archaeological Trust. The circus was in use until the "end of the 3rd century" when it "went out of use and deteriorated. During the following centuries, [it] was demolished and people removed its materials for re-use in other buildings, even digging trenches to 'rob' the stone of its foundations below ground."
Note: "Dinnington is a village and civil parish [Pop. 65] in [the] English county of Somerset, according to Wikipedia. This villa "was excavated by the archaeological television programme Time Team in 2002 and 2006. The Romano British site has been the site of surface finds of tesserae, roofing slates and pottery. A number of coins have been found and also a small bronze dog."
Modern York began as a Roman fortress city called Eboracum. "The legionary fortress lay on the east bank [of the Ouse river]; founded during the campaigns of Petillius Cerialis in AD 71-4, it was rebuilt by Agricola [Tacitus's father-in-law] c.79 and under Trajan, 107/8. Legio IX Hispana replaced VI Victrix perhaps in the 120s." Source: Oxford Classical Dictionary (3rd ed. revised).
"In the Middle Ages, York was home to great wealth and great squalor," according to History of York. "It was noisy and crowded: the city was filled with narrow lanes crammed with houses. Some had yards where they kept pigs and other animals. But there were also gardens and orchards within the city, and the open country and farmland was never far away."
Next video shows the medieval walls of York. Audio's sketchy, but turn up the volume.
Before the Roman invasion, Eboracum "was a stronghold of the Brigantes, the largest tribe in Britain," according to A Guide To The Ancient World, by Michael Grant. The next video is part one of a longer walking tour of this fantastic old city.
Part two here. Let's hope that the idiots in York don't end up flooding this historical treasure with Muslim "refugees".
"Mosfellsbær is a small town situated in southwestern Iceland, very close to the country’s capital city, Reykjavík. In the proximity of Mosfellsbær there is a well preserved Norse longhouse that dates back to the Viking Age. This architectural structure proved worthy of research that ultimately determined several aspects of the Norse settlement in early medieval Iceland." Source: The Dockyards (2016).
"This longhouse was mentioned in several Icelandic sagas and from 1995 to 2012 an international archaeology project was conducted by Jesse L. Byock, professor of Old Norse and Medieval Scandinavian Studies from the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at the University of California in Los Angeles."
This is a primitive house, to say the least, but the location's spectacular and I can definitely think of worse places to live.
Grettir Ásmundarson, aka Grettir the Strong, was a "bellicose Icelandic outlaw" in the Sagas of the Icelanders, according to Wikipedia. Blamed for "setting fire to a hall [and] killing many men," Grettir was "condemned to outlawry. This means that anyone can kill him without legal penalty and that people are forbidden to help him in any way; many infamous attempts are made on his life." He went on to become "the longest-surviving outlaw in Icelandic history."
Related: "Hurstwic, a group revolving around the combat and history of the Vikings from the 790s through roughly 1066 ... brings enthusiasts together to learn the ancient methods of combat used as well as study the history, origins and stories of the Vikings," according to Worcester Magazine (2016).
According to the Oxford Classical Dictionary (OCD, 3rd ed. revised), "[m]ost of the country is high and rocky, supporting sheep and producing a little wine; corn and olives grew on the coast, in the Mulucha valley, and on the plains of Volubilis and [Sala Colonia]. The chief exports were wine, ebony, precious woods, and purple dyes."
Next video shows the ruins of Chellah, a fortified medieval Muslim necropolis built on the site of Sala Colonia. Views of the Roman ruins begin at around 2:10.
Berber Mauretania was in touch with Spain "from early days, binding Europe and Africa by piracy and colonization," according to the OCD. "The bulk of the population belonged to the Moorish branch (1) of the Berber race, while a string of Phoenician trading stations was established on the Mediterranean and Atlantic coasts during the 8th and 7th cents. BC."
(1) Technically, "Moor" doesn't have any racial connotations. According to Wikipedia, "medieval and early modern Europeans variously applied the name to Arabs, Berber North Africans and Muslim Europeans." The Berbers were apparently a mixed Semitic and North African ethnic group and they don't appear to have been sub-Saharan in origin.
Mauretania had a complex and chaotic history which included the rise of various kingdoms which became involved in the Roman Jugurthine War (112-106 BC). An excellent account of this war can be found in The Jugurthine War by the Roman historian Sallust. In 25 BC, Octavian handed over the rule of Mauretania to the king of Numidia, Juba II, "whose capitals were at Iol (Caesarea) [modern Cherchell] and probably Volubius," according to the OCD.
The murder of Juba's son in Rome led to disturbances in Mauretania, which was then pacified by the Romans. "In or about 44 [AD], Claudius constituted two Mauretanian provinces, ruled by procurators, with capitals at Tingis and Caesarea." (OCD) The provinces were Mauretania Tingitana and Mauretania Caesariensis.
The structures at Volubilis were built over a period of many years. The city walls -- 1.5 miles long with eight gates, were added in the 160s (AD). According to the OCD, "The forum is probably Neronian (AD 54-68), the two sets of baths are both Flavian in origin, and two street grids with different orientations in the north and north-eastern quarters are both now known to date from before the end of the 1st century." The city and surrounding farms were abandoned around 255 AD after a reorganization by Diocletian.
"The city fell to local tribes around 285 and was never retaken by Rome because of its remoteness and indefensibility on the south-western border of the Roman Empire. It continued to be inhabited for at least another 700 years, first as a Latinised Christian community, then as an early Islamic settlement. In the late 8th century it became the seat of Idris ibn Abdallah, the founder of the Idrisid dynasty and the state of Morocco."
