Architectural Geology of Mycenae, Part 12: A Meditation on Ruins, Peloponnese, Greece
Taken in much the same spot as the preceding photo in this series, but now rotated a little to the left (and northwest toward the Argos Graben).
Any competent Bronze Age specialist is welcome to shoot it full of holes, but by my crude calculation, the ruins seen here existed as the walls and doorways of functional buildings for considerably less than ten percent of their entire existence. Indeed, they had already been wrecked and roofless for well over a thousand years by the time the Roman Republic turned itself into the Roman Empire.
So it's clear that this cyclopean masonry's highest mission always was to be ruins, albeit scenic ruins, educational ruins, inspirational ruins. Of course, the ancient Mycenaeans had no way to comprehend this. They had no way to know they'd piled up all these chunks of Mesozoic limestone not for their own convenience or glory, but to impress non-Myceneans of later eras who've paid Mycenae a visit expressly because it is a ruin.
In fact, it may be that humankind's greatest achievement is not create vibrant cities or enduring systems of thought and commerce, but to create ruins. We certainly have been good at this so far. And it could be argued that we're better at this than anything else.
This might seem a dark view of things, at least until one realizes what ruins are not. They are not nonexistent. In fact, as noted above, they often exist a lot longer than the cities they came from. One could even regard them in a geological light, as the stable end-state of cities and civilizations. The most civilized world would be that with the largest inventory of ruins.
In the process of becoming ruins, much of the information contained in their original cities has been lost. But so what? That's the way things work on this planet generally. (If you don't believe me, just ask a paleontologist.)
From the rocks on display here, students of Earth science can eluct certain hypotheses and even some facts about the Upper Triassic and Lower Jurassic periods. And archaeologists can uncover all sorts of aspects of Mycenaean architecture and lifeways. Still, more has been lost about the past than we could possibly ever understand.
The amazing thing to discover at some later station in your life is that losing parts of the past is actually okay. It allows new imagined pasts to emerge. It turns out we've been blessed to understand things only partially—even if we arrogantly think we're more conscious than we really are.
To see the other photos and descriptions of this series, visit my
Architectural Geology of Mycenae album.
Architectural Geology of Mycenae, Part 12: A Meditation on Ruins, Peloponnese, Greece
Taken in much the same spot as the preceding photo in this series, but now rotated a little to the left (and northwest toward the Argos Graben).
Any competent Bronze Age specialist is welcome to shoot it full of holes, but by my crude calculation, the ruins seen here existed as the walls and doorways of functional buildings for considerably less than ten percent of their entire existence. Indeed, they had already been wrecked and roofless for well over a thousand years by the time the Roman Republic turned itself into the Roman Empire.
So it's clear that this cyclopean masonry's highest mission always was to be ruins, albeit scenic ruins, educational ruins, inspirational ruins. Of course, the ancient Mycenaeans had no way to comprehend this. They had no way to know they'd piled up all these chunks of Mesozoic limestone not for their own convenience or glory, but to impress non-Myceneans of later eras who've paid Mycenae a visit expressly because it is a ruin.
In fact, it may be that humankind's greatest achievement is not create vibrant cities or enduring systems of thought and commerce, but to create ruins. We certainly have been good at this so far. And it could be argued that we're better at this than anything else.
This might seem a dark view of things, at least until one realizes what ruins are not. They are not nonexistent. In fact, as noted above, they often exist a lot longer than the cities they came from. One could even regard them in a geological light, as the stable end-state of cities and civilizations. The most civilized world would be that with the largest inventory of ruins.
In the process of becoming ruins, much of the information contained in their original cities has been lost. But so what? That's the way things work on this planet generally. (If you don't believe me, just ask a paleontologist.)
From the rocks on display here, students of Earth science can eluct certain hypotheses and even some facts about the Upper Triassic and Lower Jurassic periods. And archaeologists can uncover all sorts of aspects of Mycenaean architecture and lifeways. Still, more has been lost about the past than we could possibly ever understand.
The amazing thing to discover at some later station in your life is that losing parts of the past is actually okay. It allows new imagined pasts to emerge. It turns out we've been blessed to understand things only partially—even if we arrogantly think we're more conscious than we really are.
To see the other photos and descriptions of this series, visit my
Architectural Geology of Mycenae album.