23 May

These columns on the Pantheon weigh 60 tonnes each. They were quarried in Egypt, more than 2000km away. They were then dragged across desert, and put onto barges, to float them to Rome, along rivers and across the Mediterranean. This is all centuries before there were engines to help. Imagine carving one of these, transporting it and then standing it up like this, wonders of engineering. Now the Chinese do most of the world’s engineering, and we hate them for it. We just drink coffee and travel. They think we’re Philistines.