It is interesting to me that ancient builders in many parts of the world 1) decided to make such huge structures to honor their Gods, 2) did everything by hand with such precision that you can't put a slip of paper between the building stones, and 3) carved such elaborate designs with the tools they had. I have carved rocks with an electric drill and metal bit and it took hours to make a light impression! These people were masters of their work!
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One thing for sure anytime I go to the ancient building , how could they do that at that time? How creative and strong they were? What made them so tough and obedient? Maybe they lived a simple life when money and instant technology hadn't existed?
Or perhaps.. they only focussed on something they understand and known according to their status in community? So many questions and assumptions. From your information about carving the rocks, it's a crazy things that They completed all the temples in 24 years😲
Yes, many questions like yours go through my mind when I see buildings like this! 24 years to build all those temples! I know some English cathedrals took twice that long, some took over 100 - 200 years to build!
And you know it took many, many men to do it. And all of them knew how to do the work! Where did that knowledge go? Today it could be done faster with modern equipment. Yes, but I think much longer if they had only the ancient tools and methods!
That's why.. some people around create a legend folk story that only genies or evils who has the ability to built all the temples in short time. And for the Prambanan Temple also known as Lara Jonggrang Temple, the people has their own version of the making of the temples... 1000 temples built by the geenies that taking orders from the king to be builtin one night for the queen to be, but since the king is the murderer of her belated king, her father.. she tried to cancel the proceeding by scared away the geenies with the sound of trafitional rice mills as the sign of the sunrise and geenies afraid of the sun ☺ ...and the king who order the geenies so angry when he kbew that lara jonggrang deceived him, he cursed her to be a stone statue .. which also known as Durga Goddes, the wife of Shiva.
I believe that not so many people lives at that time😊 even though we can reach the other temple in 15 minutes by car now, it must be not less than 2 weeks at that time to reach 15 miles from the site.
That is a wonderful, and sad, story!
1000 temples to be built in one night! Yes, that would take a lot of genies for sure!
I think it was better for her to become a statue than be married to such an evil man!
It sounds like the people who created that story were many generations away from the people who did the building. They didn't know how it was done, so it had to be magic!
Yes... before the dutchman found the site in 17th century, after the destructive earthquakes that destroyed the temples in 16th century, I think people start to create the story and its getting better through time till the temple has rebuilt. The expert spent more than 30 years to rebuilt the biggest one, Shiva temple 47 meters height (1918-1953) while the ancients engineervbuilt the whole 224 temples from 820-856 😨 I didn't include the story about how people lived in harmony even though there's 2 dynastys in old java kingdom, one was Hindu Dynasty and the other was Buddhist Dynasty.
So the temples were destroyed by earthquakes! But the people living there did not rebuild them. Didn't worship there anymore? Had moved away? Like Mayan temples in Mexico that were abandoned by the people who moved away and then were covered by vines so no one knew they were even there!
Now I am thinking about how history is taught here. We learn about the history of the state we live in, and about the history of our country. That would include a little about English history because we were originally their colony so how we claimed independence is part of the story. This gives us a very narrow idea of history but I guess the schools think that's enough for us to get by on.
I am thinking that for two dynasties to live in harmony they must have had very strong leaders who agreed to keep it that way? They must have chosen peace over invading or controlling the other? How they did that should be taught to all nations!