For decades, descendants of the people who built Great Zimbabwe were told by colonial archaeologists that they couldn't possibly have built it.
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@alx @oscarfalcon Sadly, this is very true and again, while I can only talk specifically about drystone (as that is my main experience), it seems clear that the institutions at the front of these crafts have so much to answer for.
Let's hope someday soon, they do.
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@oscarfalcon No, I haven't ever been asked. I think others in the community don't appreciate my views and my dislike of the institutions and their attitudes. I also don't present the comforting view of traditional crafts that people like to have.
I appreciate what you do, truly.
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I appreciate what you do, truly.
@oscarfalcon This is very kind. Thank you! I love that people are engaging with this ancient craft and my thoughts on it.
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@oscarfalcon This is very kind. Thank you! I love that people are engaging with this ancient craft and my thoughts on it.
I do, we do...
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@alx @oscarfalcon Sadly, this is very true and again, while I can only talk specifically about drystone (as that is my main experience), it seems clear that the institutions at the front of these crafts have so much to answer for.
True, but this different evaluation of crafts has very deep roots in history, and it's been only exacerbated with the modern concept of "crafts" that emerged from the industrial revolution - especially in the colonial powers that industrialised first (the UK being the first). There is a countercurrent movement from large institutions, but I find more than often that - to value them - non-European crafts are hyper-romanticised, which isn't good either.
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True, but this different evaluation of crafts has very deep roots in history, and it's been only exacerbated with the modern concept of "crafts" that emerged from the industrial revolution - especially in the colonial powers that industrialised first (the UK being the first). There is a countercurrent movement from large institutions, but I find more than often that - to value them - non-European crafts are hyper-romanticised, which isn't good either.
Good Point.
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For decades, descendants of the people who built Great Zimbabwe were told by colonial archaeologists that they couldn't possibly have built it. This despite all the evidence & Zimbabwe meaning 'houses of stone' in the Shona language.
The ancient aliens industry applies the same logic to Sacsayhuamán in Peru.
Yet nobody questions who built the impressive structures in Rome or Greece.
Sunday's Drystone Diary will explore Whose History Is Worth Keeping?
@kristiedegaris was the last line meant to be a link?
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Good Point.
@oscarfalcon @alx I find the same about crafts in Europe tbh. This trend in UK publishing right now to romanticise crafts as purely meditative makes me so angry. The craft is in the body, the making unmakes the maker. That's ignored in favour of a pretty picture.
I think European insitutions that head up crafts have a responsibility to speak honestly and openly about this history and redress the balance where possible. I never see it happening.
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@kristiedegaris was the last line meant to be a link?
@afewbugs Hello, no, it will come out on Sunday so doesn't exist yet. Thank you for checking though!
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@afewbugs Hello, no, it will come out on Sunday so doesn't exist yet. Thank you for checking though!
@kristiedegaris thanks, look forward to it!
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For decades, descendants of the people who built Great Zimbabwe were told by colonial archaeologists that they couldn't possibly have built it. This despite all the evidence & Zimbabwe meaning 'houses of stone' in the Shona language.
The ancient aliens industry applies the same logic to Sacsayhuamán in Peru.
Yet nobody questions who built the impressive structures in Rome or Greece.
Sunday's Drystone Diary will explore Whose History Is Worth Keeping?
You can read the first installment of Drystone Diary here
https://kristiedegaris.substack.com/p/drystone-diary-what-is-drystone
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@oscarfalcon @alx I find the same about crafts in Europe tbh. This trend in UK publishing right now to romanticise crafts as purely meditative makes me so angry. The craft is in the body, the making unmakes the maker. That's ignored in favour of a pretty picture.
I think European insitutions that head up crafts have a responsibility to speak honestly and openly about this history and redress the balance where possible. I never see it happening.
@kristiedegaris oh, totally agree and share your frustration. In my PhD I argue that this is a result of the displacement of craft from a proper economic activity (where economic=the management of the home/habitat/resources) vital for the communal life to an "artistic" (for lack of better terms) endeavour, having its primary role been taken over by industrial manufacturing. So someone can pursue only for "meaning" and/or "wellbeing". These institutions are built on this premise.
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For decades, descendants of the people who built Great Zimbabwe were told by colonial archaeologists that they couldn't possibly have built it. This despite all the evidence & Zimbabwe meaning 'houses of stone' in the Shona language.
The ancient aliens industry applies the same logic to Sacsayhuamán in Peru.
Yet nobody questions who built the impressive structures in Rome or Greece.
Sunday's Drystone Diary will explore Whose History Is Worth Keeping?
@kristiedegaris politics determines who the world is for, nothing more.
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@kristiedegaris oh, totally agree and share your frustration. In my PhD I argue that this is a result of the displacement of craft from a proper economic activity (where economic=the management of the home/habitat/resources) vital for the communal life to an "artistic" (for lack of better terms) endeavour, having its primary role been taken over by industrial manufacturing. So someone can pursue only for "meaning" and/or "wellbeing". These institutions are built on this premise.
@alx @oscarfalcon Is your thesis online? I would love to read more. What you are saying makes so much sense. Also so glad to meet you, in my world very few other people are thinking the same way that I am about this.
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@alx @oscarfalcon Is your thesis online? I would love to read more. What you are saying makes so much sense. Also so glad to meet you, in my world very few other people are thinking the same way that I am about this.
@kristiedegaris my thesis is in the making, due in January, but I'll make a note on sending a copy to you once it's finished
The pleasure is mutual: I've been following you for some time now, I find your stories on drywall very inspiring.
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@kristiedegaris my thesis is in the making, due in January, but I'll make a note on sending a copy to you once it's finished
The pleasure is mutual: I've been following you for some time now, I find your stories on drywall very inspiring.
@alx @oscarfalcon I would absolutely love to read it. Thank you so much! And good luck with the final push.
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@alx @oscarfalcon I would absolutely love to read it. Thank you so much! And good luck with the final push.
@kristiedegaris Thank you!
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@oscarfalcon This is very kind. Thank you! I love that people are engaging with this ancient craft and my thoughts on it.
Ooh you'll get a kick out of this: a few years ago I did a "garden sculpture" for a house I designed and built and although it's not a wall, it is in the drystone technique... There are two standing stones and two shorter ones in the middle representing the four family members of this household.
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Ooh you'll get a kick out of this: a few years ago I did a "garden sculpture" for a house I designed and built and although it's not a wall, it is in the drystone technique... There are two standing stones and two shorter ones in the middle representing the four family members of this household.
@oscarfalcon I love this!! Once we have a bigger garden we are very keen to get some standing stones too.
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For decades, descendants of the people who built Great Zimbabwe were told by colonial archaeologists that they couldn't possibly have built it. This despite all the evidence & Zimbabwe meaning 'houses of stone' in the Shona language.
The ancient aliens industry applies the same logic to Sacsayhuamán in Peru.
Yet nobody questions who built the impressive structures in Rome or Greece.
Sunday's Drystone Diary will explore Whose History Is Worth Keeping?
@kristiedegaris
> Yet nobody questions who built the impressive structures in Rome or Greece.
BS. that claim is essentially false.
It is not true that “nobody questions who built the impressive structures in Rome or Greece,” and it is not true that we know nothing about it.
The more accurate answer is this: we usually do not know the names of the individual laborers who carried stones, mixed mortar, cut blocks, or raised walls. But we do know quite a lot about the categories of people involved, the institutions behind the works, the funding, the contracts, the workshops, the architects, the craftsmen, and sometimes even the names of builders, contractors, slaves, freedmen, or professional associations.
For Rome and Greece, we have several kinds of evidence.
We have building inscriptions. Many ancient monuments explicitly state who commissioned them, who paid for them, who restored them, or who dedicated them. In Rome this was extremely common: emperors, magistrates, wealthy citizens, cities, provinces, and associations all left inscriptions on buildings. A famous example is the Pantheon, which still carries the inscription of Agrippa, even though the building we see today is mostly from Hadrian’s period.
We also have ancient literary sources. Writers such as Vitruvius, Pliny, Pausanias, Strabo, Livy, Cassius Dio, and others discuss buildings, techniques, patrons, artists, architects, and major public works. They are not always as precise as a modern archive, but we are not in the dark.
We have administrative and financial records. In the Greek world, especially for temples and sanctuaries, some accounts were carved into stone: payments, materials, suppliers, wages, and work stages. In places such as Athens and Delos, these records give us direct evidence of how public and religious construction projects were organized.
We also have material evidence, such as brick stamps in the Roman world. These can indicate workshops, kiln owners, dates, administrators, and sometimes elite or imperial ownership. They do not tell us “this exact worker placed this exact brick,” but they do allow historians and archaeologists to reconstruct supply chains, chronology, and production systems.
And then there is archaeology itself: quarries, ramps, scaffolding traces, tools, construction marks, repairs, unfinished blocks, mistakes, changes of plan, and workers’ graffiti. Even when no text survives, the construction process often leaves physical evidence.
In some cases, we even know the names of architects or designers. For the Parthenon, for example, ancient tradition names Ictinus and Callicrates as architects, with Phidias supervising the artistic and sculptural program. In Rome, we know figures such as Apollodorus of Damascus, associated with major imperial projects.
So no, these buildings are not “mysterious” in your pseudohistorical sense.
They were built by societies perfectly capable of organizing large-scale labor: slaves, free wage workers, specialized craftsmen, engineers, architects, contractors, quarrymen, transport crews, public officials, religious authorities, and political patrons.
What we often lack is the name of the individual worker who carved one block or laid one stone. But that is very different from saying that we do not know who built them. Ancient societies usually recorded the patron, the funder, the magistrate, the emperor, the temple, or the architect — not every anonymous laborer on the site.
So the correct version would be:
“We usually do not know the names of the individual workers who built Greek and Roman monuments, but we have substantial evidence about their patrons, designers, construction techniques, labor organization, materials, suppliers, workshops, and building processes.”
That is very different from “we know nothing.”
If you have the same records and the same evidences about this stone walls, no issue to say they are built by locals. Otherwise, it was someone else.
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Uriel Fanelli
Using Aktor: https://git.keinpfusch.net/loweel/Aktor-2
XMPP: uriel@keinpfusch.net
blog: https://blog.keinpfusch.net
