Engineering and Archaeology

Engineering and Archaeology

Meagan Young'12 merging history and engineering at 
the Hackerman Hall Whiteboard 

After a tedious browse through the net, I had come across an interesting analysis where a classical theory of ancient history was proved wrong by an honours student in John Hopkins University by the application of engineering technology. Meagan Young'12 is an honours student of archaeology who has a double major in civil engineering. She utilised her engineering skills to find the truth about the destruction of an ancient temple in the Panhellenic sanctuary of Nemea in Greece.


Previously it was believed that this temple was destroyed by the Spartans as a casualty of war because through dating, it was found that it's desecration coincides with the Peloponnesian War, which was a war that was fought between the two rivalling city-states of Athens and Sparta. After digging and examining the sit e of the temple, archaeologists found a heavy deposits of carbon which suggested that there was a big fire. It was ultimately concluded that this temple was desecrated due to the Spartan invasion and hence was a casualty of battle.

Temple of Nemea in Greece

Meagan Young'12 decided to look into this theory using a completely different approach. She gathered historically and archaeological records of the Peloponnesian War and even went through Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War. She realised that there was no real records of the desecration for the temple. Obviously an attack of such magnitude that could bring down a temple would have been recorded somewhere in history. She utilised modern earthquake intensity scale and a bit of structural engineering technology to uncover the truth about what really happened to the temple. She proposed in her honors thesis that the cause of the destruction of the temple was an earthquake followed by an accidental but deadly fire. The earthquake might have caused the fire which ultimately lead to the temple's demise. This was even supported by Thucydides records where he noted that the Spartan troops felt an earthquake in 415-414 BCE.

Students of Archaeological science working in isotope laboratory
in the University of Cambridge

This theory makes fare more sense as compared to it's preceding one mainly because it has scientific backing. This proves that science and archaeology should work together for the better understanding of our history. There is now a subject which is taught in many world reputed universities where scientific techniques are applied to study and analyse archaeological materials. Archaeological science or archaeometry is considered to be it's own scientific field. Interestingly enough, it is taught in the School of Science of most colleges. This new approach on analysing the past has helped us answer many unanswered questions in archaeology and in the upcoming future we all hope to see a greater dialogue between science and archaeology for a better understanding of our past.