The Pont du Gard is an aqueduct in southern France. Built by the Romans in the 1st C AD, it carried an estimated 44,000,000 gallons of water a day to the citizens of Nimes. Serious flooding over the years has washed away other bridges of more recent construction in the area, but the Pont du Gard still stands two thousand years later.
Nearby is an olive tree …
and beside the olive tree is a plaque with the inscription: “I was born in 908 AD in Spain and was planted by the Pont du Gard in 1988 – 1080 years later.”
Still in France, this is from an old slide taken over 40 years ago on my first visit to Europe –
The ancient Greek statue, Venus de Milo – believed to have been created sometime between 130 and 100 BC. That is a much younger me to the right of the statue.
The marble quarries of Carrara in Italy are said to be the oldest continuously used industrial site in the world, going back to at least the 2nd C BC. Michelangelo is said to have valued the blue-grey marble of Carrara above all others. His David is carved from marble from these quarries. The Pantheon in Rome, Marble Arch in London and the Oslo Opera house all contain marble from Carrara.
Mayan ruins at Coba in Mexico. The site already had a sizeable population by the 1st C AD but much of the construction dates to between 6th and 10th C.
It’s hard to even conceive of the age of these.
The texture of the tree trunk is just amazing.
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Yes, olive trees are always so old and gnarled and twisted – great subjects.
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Wow! Quite a wonderful gallery of ancient images!
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Thank you TRS 🙂
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I just love that olive tree 😀
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I wouldn’t wanted to have had the responsibility of digging up and transplanting it 😉
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And the olive is wonderful ♡
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😉
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2000 years, they certainly knew how to build back then!
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Really! And HOW did they do it, without all the power and machinery of today?
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Some good choices here, Lynne. The good old PDG will be one, maybe the only one, of mine… Remember when I first saw it, blown away by the sight.
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It is amazing to think it has stood there so long.
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Certainly is, an incredible structure! Have you been across the top of it?
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No – I’m not one for going to the top of anything – not the Eiffel Tower, not the Tower of Pisa … you?
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Haha…wait for my post
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Great choice, Lynne! The Pont du Gard is amazing, we visited there 10 years ago.
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Perhaps we saw you there 😉 It’s been 10 years for me too – gosh I can’t believe that …
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The tree trunk looks so cool, With the way it twists. Now, that aqueduct though, wow that’s a testament to true passion in construction, making it last this long 🙂
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I don’t expect there is much that we have created today that will still be standing 2,000 yeas from now.
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What’s that saying? They don’t make them like they used to? :S
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Nice choices.
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Thanks, Rosemarie.
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