Should we repair Stonehenge / Great Pyramid's etc?

[Netherspark]

nope, keep them in good condition, maintain them and make sure they are not lost. but rebuilding, you will probably ruin the look of the place, and its less impressive to say "these ruins are 1000s of years old!" than it is to say "there were some old ruins here, but these ones were rebuilt in 2015!"

Are the ruins more significant than the monument itself?

Repairing these monuments wouldn't change what they are. They're still thousands of years old, they're still draped in history. All I suggest is fixing them, making them look like they were intended to be.

What makes Stonehenge important isn't the stones, it's the place itself. Whether left in rubble or completely rebuilt, Stonehenge would still be 5000 years old. The Pyramids would still be as they are now, just with their facade repaired. I couldn't imagine them losing any significance. To me they'd be more significant.

[Issalice]

I think we should do what we can to preserve them.

[Kujako]

Who is "we" and why do "we" think we get a say?

[PBitt]

No, and doing so would indeed ruin what they are. They are both monuments that have stood for thousands of years, the pyramid in particular is in remarkable shape, considering. "Repairing' them to 'what they used to be' is not only millions and millions of dollars, but we really *don't* fully understand either monument completely to rightfully do so correctly, even if we wanted to, and historians could never agree on such a project as they all see things a little differently. It also diminished the value of them: I'm sorry, but they are both extremely impressive as they are, and they would not be very impressive if 'fixed' with modern technology. Preserving them is one thing, but no, let them be. Unlike most monuments of the ancient world, they are both very much intact...to mess with that is just sinful.

[Deleted]

As far as Stonehenge is concerned, I don't believe we should restore it. However, I don't believe maintaining the monument as it is for us and future generations to enjoy would disturb history. To be honest, I think the same should be applied to the Great Pyramid's too.

[Jester Joe]

Eh, recreate them if anything somewhere else, otherwise leave them alone in my opinion.

I would love to see Stonehenge one day though.

[Denkou]

Nah. They might screw up and mess it up even more in the process. Let them stay as they are; they're still beautiful and full of history.

[Yosef1015]

the thing that makes them special is their age. what you are proposing would ruin that.

Its incredible that people at that time were able to build such monuments at the time they were built. Nowadays it would be very easy and not so special.

Dont mess with them

- - - Updated - - -

Are the ruins more significant than the monument itself?

Repairing these monuments wouldn't change what they are. They're still thousands of years old, they're still draped in history. All I suggest is fixing them, making them look like they were intended to be.

What makes Stonehenge important isn't the stones, it's the place itself. Whether left in rubble or completely rebuilt, Stonehenge would still be 5000 years old. The Pyramids would still be as they are now, just with their facade repaired. I couldn't imagine them losing any significance. To me they'd be more significant.

When you "fix" them and make them look like they "should be", they lose all their historical significance. They become something that used to be there instead of something that is still standing after all these years

[THE Bigzoman]

The world is full of fantastic ancient monuments which are sadly crumbling ruins today. What were once great feats of engineering and spiritual significance are worn, collapsed, broken and half-forgotten shadows of their former selves.

Many people would say we should leave them be, that disturbing or repairing them would damage their historical significance or disrespect them. But I think we should restore them to their original glory. Wouldn't they be so much more special if they were restored to their prime?

Lets turn this pile of rubble at Stonehenge back into the great temple it used to be. Lets make the pyramids shine again (they really did used to shine). If we really want to respect these old monuments, how can we leave them in ruins? To me that sounds the least respectful thing to do.

Here's a general idea of what they used to look like (there are better pictures out there than these):

Stonehenge was a full circle surrounded by a raised bank, additional rings of stone, and various other shrines:


The Great Pyramids were once white with a gold cap, and their sides were perfectly smooth. They would shine and gleam across the land for miles around. But over the millenia parts have crumbled away and others have been dismantled or stolen by locals.



So what do you think, should we restore these old monuments? (bear in mind Stonehenge has already been partly repaired, 50 years ago. Before then nearly all the stones had collapsed)

A bunch of stones in a circle and a burial ground for narcissists.

Ohhhhhhhhh /s

[apepi]

No don't rebuild them. How about we build new materpieces?

[Kaleredar]

Only if you're silly enough to believe in ruin value. I'd much rather they rebuilt the Parthenon than maintain it as a bombed out husk.

It's the history behind the place.

Any attempt made at "rebuilding it" would just sully the history of the site. You wouldn't be seeing ancient marble... you'd be seeing marble just recently quarried and chiseled to look like what the parthenon looked like a long time ago. So instead of seeing what the parthenon looks like now... you'd be seeing, in essence, a giant model of what the parthenon looked like.

Oh, and by the way, the REAL parthenon was painted red and blue in antiquity... it was quite garrish. I prefer the classic greco white incurred by the ages, personally.

[Afrospinach]

Hehe, the restored image always reminds me of Wes Borland from limp bizkit.

For the love of christ(no pun intended) leave the pyramids as they are. Once you have jacked up their work it is essentially gone forever.

very few repairs work out for ancient structures, If done carefully by someone who knows what they doing it could work out.
But then you gotta realize that alot of these ancient places aren't in stable environments.
Remember those Buddhas of Bamiyan.(realy wanted to see those)

I was watching a restoration of some church on discovery, I think it may still be ongoing but it was pretty spectacular. The washed out and brought back the marble(because marble is porous and absorbs all these wonderful things we like to put in the air in cities). So it can be done but the aforementioned point still remains.

[Spiral Mage]

Definitely restore or rebuild them if that's what it takes to preserve them. Once they fell apart, that'd be it. Gone forever.

[Slant]

If anything, we should try to explore them fully without disturbing them. Seems impossible, I known. But I heard recently that they found caverns under Stonehenge? Does nobody else want to know what's down there?

I'd have a laughing fit if there was some sort of "Manual to using Stonehenge". All this time we speculated and the rulebook would've been right under our feet. Haha.

[therealbowser]

We should preserve, not rebuild. There might be some exceptions to this rule, but Stonehenge and the Pyramids are not among them.

[Deleted]

Nah, we should build our own though for each president. The more important the president, the bigger the monument. We should also leave epic poems in their burial chambers, for example how Obama single handedly defeated defeated the evil terrorists and how they fell to hes divine radiance along with the size of hes domain and the number of hes subjects adored with appropriate pictographs.

Otherwise what do we leave to the future archeologists? A pile of rubble and some houses? Nah.. build big or dont build at all

[Deleted]

No, for three reasons.

First is the "This axe is a family heirloom passed down from my great grandfather. The blade has been replaced twice and the handle replaced three times!" - Well, it's not the same axe any more. The same goes with this. If you replace missing parts of stonehenge, and then over time more bits decay and need replaced, and so on and so on, eventually none of the stones left standing are the original ones, what is the point.

Second is that while old time-y wonders are amazing, I feel like they should eventually be allowed to fade away, to be replaced with other things. Not on the same spot, and I don't mean like rebuilding them, but like... In a few hundred / thousand years, things like the statue of liberty, the eiffel tower, burj khalifa are going to take their place as the decaying relics of an ancient world, and I think that's okay, and really cool. If we can preserve things like stonehenge and the pyramids reasonably for a bit longer, that's great, and I'm not saying just let the earth reclaim them as it sees fit, but... Do we really want these things to be there forever and ever? Is it not interesting to think of what someone in 5000 years may think, after having unearthed evidence that there was once a statue of liberty by reading ancient articles about it, and then archeologists discover its site, find a head buried in the earth, half a mile down or whatever?

Thirdly, if we are going to keep things like that restored and so on, why are we letting modern day "wonders" like the statue of liberty decay, too? Shit needs some brasso, clean off all the oxidation? Because the fact that it is how it is, all green and oxidised, is iconic. It's part of what the statue of liberty is. Don't get me wrong, a cleaned up SoL would be cool, and so would a rebuilt stonehenge, but for different reasons. And you can't have both in existance at the same time. You can't just build a second stonehenge or a second statue of liberty and say "we'll keep this one all shiney and new, but let that one decay" because they are different sites, you can't clone the history of them like that. And what of things that are famous only because they are "broken". Leaning tower of pisa? Should we get a giant pivot and stand it up straight so it can be returned to its former glory? No of course not, the only reason it is interesting is because it's all kinds of fucked.

[Dezerte]

For lack of better option I voted "Yes", and although I'm not that opposed to restoring them I was thinking replicating them (at a another site, be it a museum or land) could be an option.

It would be really cool to be able to walk through a replication of say e.g. old Rome (though costly as fuck)

[Arkenaw]

Tear them down in my opinion and build new, better things. The past is in the past.

[Reeve]

No. If we want repaired versions, we can construct new ones. The originals are impressive because they're original.