Building Services
1. History of road
By about 30.000 BC convenient routes were being well used by human travelers. The first human pathways would have developed for very specific purposes leading to campsites, food, water, ford across streams, passes trough mountains and routes through swamps and past dangerous area. The first record is of a cobblestone paving in Assyria in about 4000 BC.
The oldest extant road was constructed trough the mountains of Crete, from Knossus to Leben in about 2000 BC. It could have been man’s first effort at major road building as it was no mean structure with elaborate longitudinal drains, a 200 mm basecourse of sandstone in a clay-gypsum mortar, and a 4m longitudinal surface of basalt blocks.
The first major arterial road was probably 2.5Km route built by Assyria from its capital Susa in eastern Iran, via Nineveh to the Mediterranean ports of western Turkey. The importance of the route was that it linked Assyria with the trading activities which had, by 2000 BC, begun to develop around the Mediterranean.
A number of other roads were also to radiate out from Assyrian administrative and trading hub in the Persian Gulf. Perhaps the most famous was the Silk Road, a caravan route bringing both jade and silk from China. Again for trade purposes, by at least 500 BC another caravan road linked north-west India to Assyrian hub. Indian road building, incidentally, was quiet advanced by 1000 BC, with wide use of brick paved roads and subsurface drainage, and the suggestion that paving began there in 3000 BC.
The first recorded road builders were the engineer-pioneer corps (ummani) of the Assyrian kings. Their work in 1100 BC in constructing a weel-aligned mountain road for the king was well documented for postery.
Roadmaking using bricks was common in Mesopotamia. Excavation at Khafaje dated about 2000 BC uncovered pavements that used layers of brick bound by a bituminous mortar. An Assyrian temple in Assur contains a one kilometer processionalroad made
By about 30.000 BC convenient routes were being well used by human travelers. The first human pathways would have developed for very specific purposes leading to campsites, food, water, ford across streams, passes trough mountains and routes through swamps and past dangerous area. The first record is of a cobblestone paving in Assyria in about 4000 BC.
The oldest extant road was constructed trough the mountains of Crete, from Knossus to Leben in about 2000 BC. It could have been man’s first effort at major road building as it was no mean structure with elaborate longitudinal drains, a 200 mm basecourse of sandstone in a clay-gypsum mortar, and a 4m longitudinal surface of basalt blocks.
The first major arterial road was probably 2.5Km route built by Assyria from its capital Susa in eastern Iran, via Nineveh to the Mediterranean ports of western Turkey. The importance of the route was that it linked Assyria with the trading activities which had, by 2000 BC, begun to develop around the Mediterranean.
A number of other roads were also to radiate out from Assyrian administrative and trading hub in the Persian Gulf. Perhaps the most famous was the Silk Road, a caravan route bringing both jade and silk from China. Again for trade purposes, by at least 500 BC another caravan road linked north-west India to Assyrian hub. Indian road building, incidentally, was quiet advanced by 1000 BC, with wide use of brick paved roads and subsurface drainage, and the suggestion that paving began there in 3000 BC.
The first recorded road builders were the engineer-pioneer corps (ummani) of the Assyrian kings. Their work in 1100 BC in constructing a weel-aligned mountain road for the king was well documented for postery.
Roadmaking using bricks was common in Mesopotamia. Excavation at Khafaje dated about 2000 BC uncovered pavements that used layers of brick bound by a bituminous mortar. An Assyrian temple in Assur contains a one kilometer processionalroad made