[masraum]

Originally Posted by Hugh R

Its awful, I've filmed there a few times, Wonderful old architecture, sadly now in ruins, Fantastic history that is unbelievable to most Americans, a 1,000 year old history.

What's amazing is how much of the old architecture had lasted for so long.

I know that in some cases, the folks back in the day knew how to build for certain natural phenomenon like earthquakes, or in some cases, maybe just got lucky. I think that often a lot of the more modern stuff doesn't fare as well. I'm guessing that time finally caught up with the old architecture though. Not everything is built out of Roman self healing concrete.

And you hear about really old Japanese temples that are built out of wood. What you don't necessarily hear about when hearing/reading about a 500 year old temple is the fact that it may have been rebuilt a time or two during that time such that very little of the original structure remains other than the design. Yes, the new one is made of the same materials and in exactly the same way as the old one, but the wood isn't necessarily 500 years old.