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Random Facts about Ancient Structures
Babel, now called Birs Nimroud, built at Babylon by Belus,
was used as an observatory and as a temple of the Sun. It
was composed of 8 square towers, one over the other, in all
670 feet high, and the same dimensions on each side on the
ground. The Coliseum at Rome, built
by Vespasian for 100,000 spectators, was in its longest
diameter 615-5 feet, and in the shortest 510, embraced 5-1/2
acres, and was 120 feet high. Eight aqueducts supplied
ancient Rome with water, delivering 40 millions of cubit
feet daily. That of Claudia was 47 miles long and 100 feet
high, so as to furnish the hills. Martia was 41 miles, of
which 37 were on 7,000 acres 70 feet high. These vast
erections would never have been built had the Romans known
that water always rises to its own level.
The Temple of Diana, at Ephesus, was
425 feet long and 225 feet broad, with 127 columns, 60 feet
high, to support the roof. It was 220 years in building.
Solomon's Temple, built B.C. 1014, was
60 cubits or 107 feet in length, the breadth 20 cubits or 36
feet, and the height 30 cubits or 54 feet. The porch was 36
feet long and 18 feet wide.
The largest one of the Egyptian
pyramids is 543 feet high, 693 feet on the sides, and its
base covers 11 acres. The layers of stones are 208 in
number. Many stones are over 30 feet long, 4 broad and 3
thick.
The Temple of Ypsambul, in Nubia, is
enormously massive and cut out of the solid rock. Belzoni
found in it 4 immense figures, 65 feet high, 25 feet over
the shoulders, with a face of 7 feet and the ears over 3
feet.
Sesostris erected in the temple in
Memphis immense statues of himself and his wife, 50 feet
high, and of his children, 28 feet.
In the Temple of the Sun, at Baalbec,
are stones more than 60 feet long, 24 feet thick and 16
broad, each embracing 23,000 cubic feet, cut, squared,
sculptured, and transported from neighboring quarries. Six
enormous columns are each 72 feet high, composed of 3 stones
7 feet in diameter. Sesostris is credited with having
transported from the mountains of Arabia a rock 32 feet wide
and 240 feet long.
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