Diolkos

I didn't know that this was unique to Greece, I always thought that it would have happened in other similar parts of the world. fun fact (that I NEVER expected to explain in english! ): there is an expression in Greek which says "pussy can pull boats". Obviously there were prostitute services along the "diodos" as is commonly found in harbors and the "joke" behind this expression was that sailors preferred the hard work of pulling the boat on land…

Engineering in the ancient world has quite a few examples of "megaprojects" like this one. Besides the well-known Egyptian Pyramids and Roman aqueducts, one interesting one I've recently learned about was about the columns in the Roman Pantheon were built: They were carved from single blocks of granite and then imported all the way from Egypt[0]: "The grey granite columns that were actually used in the Pantheon's pronaos were quarried in Egypt at Mons Claudianus in the eastern mountains. Each…

That's fascinating, and there seem to be so many sources to confirm this, I wonder if there are any areas in the world where a system like this would be viable.