Pompeii: a construction site frozen in time

3:37because a recent excavation in Pompei has actually led us to figure out how they made that Roman concrete. And it's been elusive to even material scientists in the modern day how the Romans made that and how they could build such buildings that last 2,000 years and are still used today. Okay. It's pretty incredible. I think I think I heard about that on one of the tours or oh the concrete is >> Yeah. Yeah. I mean it's really it's like really quite something if you think about it. So there there was this thing called the Roman architectural revolution. Okay. It's this widespread use of Roman architecture.

4:17Previously unused forms of architecture. They used to have arches, vaults, domes. Before the Romans, the Greeks never made this kind of stuff. Okay. But because of concrete we can actually do it. This is the pont dug guard in France. What we just saw was the semic-ircular arches that were in the theater of Marcelus. These this is all by Augustus, the emperor Augustus, who is um >> yeah, he's the guy who took over right after Caesar got stabbed. Right. >> Right. Um >> A2 Brutus. >> Um yeah, A2 Brutus was August uh was Caesar. And then um Augustus said uh you know uh friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears. But Caesar but Brutus is an honorable man. Right. [laughter]

4:58Great. Great. One of my favorite Shakespeare plays. So, they're they're building all this crazy crazy stuff, right? 40 AD. This is the time of Jesus. The crown jewel is really the Pantheon, which was built by Emperor Hadrien in 126 AD. That building is still intact and people can go inside and like there's like no damage to it. It's pretty insane. 2,000 years after it's built, the Pantheon's dome is still the largest unreinforced concrete dome in the world. >> That's today. >> Today, that's actually pretty incredible, especially given the scale of architecture projects that are happening. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's It's pretty

5:39insane. I think the Super Dome was like coming close, but then like Hurricane Katrina happened. But this is a single dome. It's a concrete dome with a hole on on the top, right? It's massive >> and it's just still around entirely made out of concrete. We have our next photo where it shows you can see it from the Roman skyline. That's the concrete dome, right? And it's still it's that's 2,000 years old. >> That's so crazy. >> Yeah, that dome is 2,000 years old and it's still alive to this day. And all of this has to do with the fact that the Romans invented Roman concrete. Okay.