ITT, ancient RUINS, ruined cities, oh look on my works, ye mighty and despair!

I should probably know the difference between a dolmen

http://www.lookaroundireland.com/armagh/images/Ballykeel_Dolmen.JPG

and an QUOIT

http://www.historic-cornwall.org.uk/a2m/neolithic/chambered_tomb/trethevy_quoit/trethevy_quoit_gcs11689.jpg

Is Quoit just one of those weird Cornish or Southwestern words that they decided to call something which everyone else calls a Dolmen in the rest of the world?

the Agora at Miletus, Anatolia (SW Turkey)

http://img72.imageshack.us/img72/7113/turkeymiletusmiletossun.jpg

Can I just say that as a Scrabble player, I'm very happy that quoits exist.

http://i56.tinypic.com/2lo3jio.jpg

erected by the 2012 Mayan Death Cult Dan Brown Templar NSDAP Atlantean Freemasonic Extraterrestrial Illuminati, according to the History Channel

http://i55.tinypic.com/6pqm4n.jpg

"The Secretary"

http://www.students.sbc.edu/drahman08/images/8.800px-Knossos_bull.jpg

Knossos

Wow, so I get to be first with Baalbek?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/e/ee/Baalbek-Jupiter.jpg/449px-Baalbek-Jupiter.jpg

And Tyre:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/71/TyreAlMina.jpg/800px-TyreAlMina.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a5/Tyre_Triumphal_Arch.jpg

Rose MaCauley got there before ILE did:

http://img1.fantasticfiction.co.uk/images/x2/x11546.jpg

A stand in the Hippodrome at Tyre:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2180/2560203957_2ec62fe301.jpg
Terraces at Tyre by gordontour, on Flickr

I'M IN UR ZIGGURAT, DOIN' ZIGGA-ZIGG-AAAH!

http://www.atlastours.net/iraq/ur_ziggurat.jpg

That one doesn't look very ruined -- looks ready to move right in!

Fairly certain it's been extensively restored. It spent much of its history looking more like...

http://www.odysseyadventures.ca/articles/ur%20of%20the%20chaldees/ur02_ziggurat02.jpg

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_d8lD9vT0YjY/SaxHbtq5D1I/AAAAAAAAACc/SGJaho02q0E/s320/gobeklitepe_nov08_4.jpg
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_d8lD9vT0YjY/SaxHbtq5D1I/AAAAAAAAACc/SGJaho02q0E/s320/gobeklitepe_nov08_4.jpg

some more gobelki tepe as seen upthread. gosh, this thing truly is fascinating and in the sense of speculation on it's age & origin, surely it's the worlds O.G ruin.
We've tended to chronologise civilisation with agriculturally catalysed systems as base, taking as tidy fact that settlement = more time & energy to practise capabilities not immediately essential towards survival. that type of environmental automation didn't suddenly make people smart, it only offered an alternative system.
as far as it's been explained to me, sedentism didnt directly succeed nomadism, and in some cases i'm sure offered a more productive existence than some early attempts at the ol' settle & build. these guys were nomadic hunters, but their landscape was far more domesticated & systemised than we may be able to project. the acceleration of knowledge & technology has been going since we formed a skeleton, so no doubt when the ecological going was good in the fertile crescent, people learned some v. important business about how things work.
these were clusters of people living off the earth learning of the conditions of things. time, seasons, ecology and how things were ordered.
one thing i love thinking about are the nature of the images. beasts, animals, creatures- things that move and that also, most importantly, die. they're being eternalised with stone, attaching the ephemeral to the eternal. at the height of my obsession with this stuff the phrase 'establishing permanence' kept going round my head, which could be applied towards the c. 11th century norman/benedictine structures itt, such as tintern, where invading powers saught to make a very visible ploy towards 'societal ordinance'. nobody since the romans had used stone in such a way to establish a presence in the landscape that says "uh get used to it. i am literally a part of this place now"
tldr more cool pictures pls

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_d8lD9vT0YjY/Sawhu1VrX9I/AAAAAAAAACM/K_IMVbuhsgQ/s320/gobeklitepe_nov08_520.jpg
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_d8lD9vT0YjY/SawVGWfTDzI/AAAAAAAAAB8/c80pjRywWSw/s320/gobeklitepe_nov08_2.jpg

T-DOORS!!!!!! Those are in Anasazi buildings too!

ugh Ive been to all those native american ruins elvis posted before the thread break.. thanks dad for all those awesome summer vacations

Man, if you want some ruin pr0n in your life, I highly recommend "RUIN LUST" currently at the Tate Britain:

http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/exhibition/ruin-lust

Pretty much starts with some epic John Martin ruins, your usual Tintern Abbey and mouldering Coliseum paintings and works its way through RUINED ANTICKUITIES and Soane's ruin of the Bank of England all the way up to Savage Messiah and the Wilson Twins' WWII bunkers.

(My favourite bit, though, to be honest, was reading all the Savage Messiah and Owen Hatherley stuff on the reading table outside.)

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ed/Aerial_cutaway_view_of_Soane

That's a broken link?

ITT, ancient LINKS, ruined LINKS, oh look on my works, ye mighty and despair!

(but tbf the pic is showing up on my screen)

http://i.imgur.com/g2TyCMs.jpg

Stelae field in Axum, Ethiopia. And underneath...

http://i.imgur.com/6Af7NAK.jpg

Ethiopia must be one the countries w/ the richest scope for archaeology & Axum in particular is incredible.

http://i.imgur.com/ByXPPWY.jpg

Tomb of Negus/King Kaleb, Axum

https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4091/5171866714_fa7cbde310_z.jpg

Palace near Dongar/Dungur, outside of Axum, claimed locally to be the palace of Makeda aka the Queen of Sheba

https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4149/5171266865_e6c0605b90_z.jpg

Nearby stelae field named after notorious scourge of Ethiopian history, Queen Gudit, who laid waste to Axum & led to the capital being moved to Lalibela.

http://www.yukiba.com/upl/server/uploads/1272562563-gondar-Ethiopia-Africa-Gondar.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/4PYFtpM.jpg

Palace grounds at Gondar

http://nomadatelier.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/abandoned-town.jpg

http://cdn.roughguides.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/42-28094525-1680x1050.jpg

Djado, Niger

http://static.panoramio.com/photos/large/52461989.jpg

Kerma, Sudan

http://www.thisotherworld.co.uk/sudan415.JPG

Suakin, Sudan

http://cdn.c.photoshelter.com/img-get2/I0000pA9Pd8Z0pfQ/fit=1000x750/LFR1318.jpg

Old Ottoman building in Suakin

http://media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/b3/96/88/b3968886991de7f1cfdda8900e29957c.jpg

Naqa, Sudan

http://static.panoramio.com/photos/large/970139.jpg

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7128/7075874373_0afc83919b.jpg

http://www.keyafrica.com/images/userimages/4bcc4dcd-a14f-40c9-bb25-b6de984382d4.jpg

Kilwa Kisiwani, Tanzania

http://www.ondaverde.it/images/paestum.jpg

Paestum, Μεγάλη Ἑλλάς

Damn, Ethiopian ruins are some fine ruins, but that ruined town of Djado is like something out of a dream! There's something almost alive about those tiny jumbled dead windows watching you.

Some fine contributions to the thread, ogmor.

Ty Branwell.

http://www.innovativeethnographies.net/sites/default/files/kaoleruins.JPG

http://www.traveladventures.org/countries/tanzania/images/kaole-ruins11.jpg

Kaole, Tanzania

http://www.orexca.com/images/fotogallery/img_full/1326442327_9763.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/78/Bibi-Khanym_Mosque_%281905-1915%29.jpg/691px-Bibi-Khanym_Mosque_%281905-1915%29.jpg

Bibi-Khanym Mosque, Samarkand, before it got restored. The latter photo is one of Prokudin-Gorsky's early colour photos from 1907

http://madventure.travel/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Cappadocian-cave-dwellings-Turkey.jpg

http://thelongestwayhome.zenfolio.com/img/v2/p606862019.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/78/View_of_Cappadocia_edit.jpg/800px-View_of_Cappadocia_edit.jpg

Not all ruined, but the Cappadocian cave dwellings are v fantastical, something of Gaudi about them.

OMG! The Cappadocian Fairy Chimney houses are some of my favourite things in the world, ever! Not even ruins, but still have that "is this a real place? did this simply grow from the rocks?" feeling about them.

How can you not want to live in these things?

http://travelastounder.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/fairy-chimneys-3.jpg

http://photos.travellerspoint.com/227302/large_Some_fairy.._Turkey.jpg

But, also, LOL:

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Travel/Pix/pictures/2009/7/2/1246552996440/Turkey-Cappadocia-Love-Va-001.jpg

Huh, didn't realise Ledge went to St Andrews, which is my home (and one of my Alma Maters).

http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6014/5999724919_dd73259534_o.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/35/20110419_Monastery_of_Hripsimian_Virgins_Ani_Turkey.jpg

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_-zOrAL1V5Jg/TShk2x7kWJI/AAAAAAAAJBc/mv5Iswh1T1o/s640/ani+turkey+armenia+turkish+armenian+city+2.jpg

Ani, abandoned Armenian city just inside modern Turkey

there are so many gorgeous rock-hewn buildings or settlements built into the rock (dogon villages in mali, guyaju ruins in beijing, lalibela in ethiopia, elvis posted mesa verde &c. upthread), feel like a lot of ruin lust comes from a troglodyte love of stone

Troglodyte love of stones vs atavistic love of treehouses: FITE!

http://cdn.roughguides.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/12.thebes-C87Y6M-1680x1050.jpg

thebes

http://d1vmp8zzttzftq.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Passageway-in-the-Great-Enclosure-in-Great-Zimbabwe-Africa.jpg

great zimbabwe

Awesome. Feel like this thread could do with a lot more Egyptian ruins, TBH.

Ur-ruins and ruins of Ur. (Wait actually Ur is nowhere near Egypt, was it? Euphrates more like.)

the pre-columbian americas own this thread, that's just me though.

saqsayhuaman near cusco, peru:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a8/Walls_at_Sacsayhuaman.jpg

another:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1d/Sacsahuaman_wall3.jpg

ollantaytambo, another inca site. these monoliths are about 12 feet tall. the spanish tried to destroy them but they were too big:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/10/Ollantaytambo_Monolithen.jpg

and machu picchu, which everyone knows the majesty of:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7e/Machu_Picchu_early_morning.JPG
most amazing place i've ever been

teotihuacan about an hour outside of mexico city - these pyramids are basically about the size of the more famous egyptian pyramids:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/06/View_from_Pyramide_de_la_luna.jpg

another:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/db/Pyramid_of_the_sun_teotihuacan_with_crowd.jpg

incan stonework is amazing

http://landlopers.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/IMG_1272.jpg

chichen itza equinox snake

This one is like...

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1d/Sacsahuaman_wall3.jpg

How did they DO that? Is that dry stonewalling? The shapes of those blocks, in that immense size? Truly awe inspiring!

(Love those pyramids; I did a comic last summer with them as background)

iirc it is all dry stone walling done w/ amazing carving and a plumb bob

yea it's remarkable.

this is a wall in cuzco, peru. there are TWELVE (12!) angles on this large stone:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6e/Mur_Inca_Cuzco.jpg

also when i said the pyramids of teotihuacan were as large as the egyptian pyramids, i obviously meant the two big ones, not the smaller ones that decorate the avenue