7 Impressive Ancient Structures/Statues To Behold

The following structures are truly astonishing, and interesting. Some of these are unexplained and have made people ponder if they were built by ancient aliens. What are your thoughts, were these built by ancient aliens?

You most likely heard of some of these before, but there is a good chance there is some you haven't.

I'll try and keep each description as brief as possible, as I know today's generation has a short attention span.

1. Derinkuyu Underground City(Nevşehir Province of Turkey)

upload.wikimedia.org

This massive underground tunneling network was discovered in 1963, by a man doing some home renovations.

After further investigation it was confirmed to extend down about 200 feet and had 5 different levels with each level being able to be closed off by big round stones.

It is believed to have been made between 8th–7th centuries B.C.

Some say that because the area and surrounding landscape is mostly soft volcanic rock that these rooms and tunnels were all carved out by humans. I'm not so sure.

Tourist map of Derinkuyu Underground City

By © Nevit Dilmen, CC BY-SA 3.0, commons.wikimedia.org

flickr.com

2. The Pyramids of Giza(Cairo, Egypt)

By Ricardo Liberato - All Gizah Pyramids, CC BY-SA 2.0, commons.wikimedia.org

No list of impressive ancient structures is complete without the Great Pyramids. It's so impressive that it is one of the seven wonders of the world. Not to mention it is the only wonder out of the original seven that is still standing.

It's been long debated on how they were built. What do you think? Were the Egyptians way ahead of their time, or were they assisted by extraterrestrial? We may never know.

By Maison Bonfils (Beirut, Lebanon), photographers : Félix (1831-1885), his wife, Lydie (1837-1918) and his son, Adrien (1861-1929). Most possible done by Félix. - Library of Congress[1]. Cf. Remembrances of the near east : the photographs of Bonfils, 186

While we are in Cairo, Egypt. We might as well give an honorable mention to the Great Sphinx.

3. Stonehenge (Wiltshire, England)

By Diego Delso, CC BY-SA 4.0, commons.wikimedia.org

Just like the Great Pyramids no list is complete without Stonehenge.

But what makes it so impressive? To the average person it may just look like a bunch of rocks circled together.

Well for starters, Stonehenge is made from two specific types of rocks(sarsen stones and bluestones). Both of these stones are not found anywhere near the construction site. The sarsen stones on average weighed 25 tons, and the closest place near by where these stones are found is 20 miles away. The bluestones only weighed on average 2-5 tons, but are believed to have been moved over 150 miles.

How were these stones moved and then stood upright? There are many theories, but no one truly knows.

The purpose of and reason behind Stonehenge is also widely debated.

4. Coral Castle (Leisure City, Florida)

By Christina Rutz - Flickr: paparutzi CC BY 2.0, commons.wikimedia.org

This one may come to a surprise to some of you, and maybe you haven't even heard of this. The legends surrounding Coral Castle are what make this structure unique.

Although this structure is not "ancient"(was built in 1923, and took over 20 years to complete), it is nevertheless just as impressive.

Not only were these structures built by only one man, but they were also all moved over 10 miles.

At first it was believed that the structure(s) were made of coral, hence the name Coral Castle. But actually it is a form of limestone, known as oolite. Each structure of oolite weighed several tones.

Where this story gets interesting is, Leedskalnin(the builder) would only work on it at night by dim candle light, so nobody ever really saw him "working" on it. There's also rumors that he somehow figured out how to manipulate the earth's magnetic field to somehow levitate and move these large pieces of stone into place.

Other rumors speculate that he used his knowledge of magnets to somehow build an electric generator that may have some how been used with a winch of some sort to move and place the limestone.

By Christina Rutz - Flickr: paparutzi CC BY 2.0, commons.wikimedia.org

How did one man single handily get these several ton stones in place?

5. The Mayan Pyramids

By Daniel Schwen (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (creativecommons.org], via Wikimedia Commons

Actually the Maya were only one of many cultures that made these pyramids(temples)

throughout Mexico and Central America. But the Mayans are probably the ones' with the most recognizable structures. These structures were used mostly for ceremonial purposes.

Aside from the Maya, other cultures that built these temples were the Aztecs, Olmecs, and Toltecs. They are over a hundred different temples throughout the Mesoamerica region.

I don't want this to turn into a history lesson, but the Maya were responsible for the majority of these pyramids.

The Maya were very advanced in mathematics, farming, astronomy, writing(hieroglyphs), and even established their own calendar.

The real debate when it comes to the Mayans is that nobody seems to know what happened to them. So, with a civilization so advanced for the time period, where did they go?

By Sirmrmatt at the English language Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, commons.wikimedia.org By Sirmrmatt at the English language Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, commons.wikimedia.org By Paralogical

6. Easter Island(Moai Statues)

By Aurbina - Own work, Public Domain, commons.wikimedia.org

Easter Island is unique in the fact there are 887 statues(called Moai) on the island.

It is believed that these statues were outlined and carved in the side of rock walls, at the Rano Raraku quarry.

These statues would range in height, and weight. Average height was about 13 feet, with a weight of about 14 tons. However, some were over 30 ft. tall, and weighed 80+ tons.

What's interesting about Easter Island is not only did they carve these impressive statues in size with only basic tools, but they also managed to move over half of them to the island's perimeter where they face inland.

Though there is several theories on how these massive statues where moved, nobody knows for sure.

Map - By Eric Gaba (Sting), translated by Bamse - Own workShorelines, ponds, roads, trails and airport drawn using Landsat 7 ETM+ imagery (public domain);Topography: NASA Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM3v2) (public domain);Main references used for

7. Leshan Buddha (China)

By Ariel Steiner - Own work, CC BY-SA 2.5, commons.wikimedia.org

This statue is impressive to say the least. This Buddha statue measures in at 233 ft. Take into consideration that this statue began construction in 713 and took over 70 years to complete. The Leshan Giant Buddha is the largest statue in the pre-modern area, quite an astonishing feat.

By Keirn - Leshan, Sichuan Feb07 (58), CC BY-SA 2.0, commons.wikimedia.org

Closing Thoughts

I hope at least someone gets something out of this piece. Originally, the article was going to contain more structures, and statues but I'm already invested a lot of time and effort into this(and I don't even know if it will get featured, let alone posted).

I am aware that some impressive structures were not included, but will be included in Part 2.

If this article is rather well received, I will gladly create more articles like this one.

God Bless.