The oldest building in the world. The oldest still residential buildings in the world

How many years can a house last? History gives very unexpected answers to this question - there are cases when people live in separate houses for centuries and even millennia! It all depends on the material environment and attention of a person to his home.

So, let's try to determine the oldest residential building in the world.

wooden house

The oldest of the wooden residential buildings, which has not only survived to this day, but continues to serve faithfully for its intended purpose, is considered the so-called "King's Farm" in the Faroe Islands (which are part of Denmark as an autonomy). It was supposedly built in the 11th century.

At first, the residence of the local bishop and the seminary were located in this house. But after in 1538 all real estate catholic church in the Faroe Islands became the property of the King of Denmark, the "mansion" got its classic name. The ancient Danish family of Patersson, who has been living here since the middle of the 16th century, only rents land and housing from the Danish crown.

stone house

Perhaps this very original house, either three or four floors, located in Aveyron, France, can be called the oldest of the stone residential buildings still inhabited. Its history dates back to the 13th century.

Such an unusual design, expanding upward, speaks of the frugality of its former owners. The fact is that in medieval France all residential buildings were taxed on the amount square meters, and only the first floor was taken into account.

If hotels can be attributed to residential buildings, then the “champion” in this category is undoubtedly the Hyoshi Hotel. Built in the suburbs of the Japanese city of Komatsu, it received its first guests back in 717.

Almost 50 generations of owners have changed since that memorable year, but the hotel still hospitably opens its doors to guests who are ready to pay 300 euros per day for comfort, modern amenities and SPA treatments in healing springs, but most importantly - for the unique aroma of antiquity .

They can argue!

Other objects in which people live to this day could well intervene in the dispute about who and what is ancient, if not for one “but” - with all the conventions, it is difficult to call a traditional house ... a cave. But still.

About 170 families live in the village of Kandovan (Iran) today. They organized their life in bizarre grottoes that arose in volcanic rocks. People have settled here for over 800 years.

But in the Italian town of Matera, literally carved into the picturesque rocks, people stubbornly remain faithful to the unusual dwellings of their ancestors. If scientists do not “embellish” their age, then the first catacombs were cut down here already 9 thousand years ago!

Probably, there are many other places and buildings that would argue with our small rating. But regardless of which of the structures - mentioned or still unnamed - is ancient, they all equally arouse admiration for their "longevity" and the imperishable memory of the human hands that built them.

• "Most an old house in the world” was found by the French archaeologist J. Covin in Syria. A student of Professor A. Leroy-Gourhan, 45-year-old J. Covin is known for his research in the Middle East.

Since 1971, he has been excavating on the banks of the Euphrates, 80 km southeast of Alep, near the village. Tel Mureybet. Especially interesting results were brought to him by excavations in August 1973, which discovered three new villages of the Stone Age. The foundations of the houses are made of stone slabs and are very reminiscent of the foundations in modern Syrian villages. But as a result of painstaking stratigraphic surveys (Koven uncovered and revealed more than 60 successive cultural layers), the age of the first foundations was determined at 110 centuries, i.e., they are almost 20 centuries older than the houses of the early Neolithic settlement in Chatal-Guyuk (Turkey), which until still considered the oldest in the world. By the way, on possible cultural ties with Ancient Turkey indicates the presence in Tel Mureybet of Turkish obsidian for the manufacture of tools, delivered here more than 300 km away. How did the first monuments of housing construction appear? This question cannot be answered by ignoring the history and technique of building dwellings in the ancient Stone Age, when mammoth tusks and bones, reindeer horns, and animal skulls served as the main building material. The honor of discovering Paleolithic dwellings belongs to Soviet archaeologists. In the very first residential complexes of the Paleolithic discovered on the territory of the USSR (near the village of Gagarino on the Don, near the village of Malta on the Angara, etc.), archaeologists came across a new material for that time - massive stone slabs with undoubted signs of their constructive use in the construction of dwellings .

About the last find of this kind in the Amagalon multi-layered site in the basin of the river. Onon was reported by the head of the Chita archaeological detachment, Candidate of Historical Sciences I. I. Kirillov, at the All-Union Conference on the Problems of the Ethnogenesis of the Peoples of Siberia and the Far East (December 1973). A large accumulation of stones with signs of artificial masonry, on the one hand, and a monolithic rock, on the other, limit here the remains of a residential complex with an area of ​​​​about 30 square meters. m. The stones were stacked tightly, and some were placed on edge by the hands of Paleolithic hunters who settled in the Amagalon Pad.

Apparently, the change in building materials and construction techniques was dictated not only by natural conditions, although they had importance. Thus, in the evolution of ancient Syrian housing construction, Coven noted the traditions of using wood species, then laying walls from dry stone tiles, laying with plaster building material clay. In the VIII millennium BC. e. the layout of the house is being improved: a special clay wall is being erected, dividing, like a corridor, the circle of the dwelling into two halves (maybe male and female).

Coven rightly connects the gradual weighting of the house structures with the transition from light dwellings of semi-nomadic hunters to stable settlements of settled farmers. The sudden change from the VIII millennium of the round shape of dwellings to a rectangular one appears especially mysterious to archaeologists in Tel Mureybet.

Archaeologists were pleased with the finds in the houses of six figurines (four female and two male) - they turned out to be two millennia older than similar female figurines from Chatal-Guyuk, which are considered the first sculptural reproductions of "Cybella of Anatolia", the goddess of fertility among farmers in the Middle East.

Science and humanity. 1975. Collection - M.: Knowledge, 1974.

Original taken from d_popovskiy in 25 ancient wooden buildings of the world

I already wrote about the surviving wooden buildings in Manhattan. Today I propose to look at the old wooden buildings from different corners peace. Many of them have already been mentioned by me on Facebook. I did not have a special method for selecting buildings for the post, everything that accidentally fell into the field while surfing the Internet and seemed interesting to me was immediately sent to my wall. The only restriction is that the buildings had to be built no later than 1700, i.e. the end of the 17th century. Thus, in the post collected 25 buildings representing 10 centuries wooden architecture. Not being able to actively travel the world and shoot all these objects myself, I had to resort to the help of Wikipedia and Flickr.

VII CENTURY

1. Pagoda and condo in Horyu-ji
Ikaruga, Nara, Japan

The temple was founded by Prince Shotoku in 607. In 670, due to a lightning strike, the complex completely burned down and was rebuilt by 700. Several times the temple was repaired and rebuilt. The work took place at the beginning of the XII century, in 1374 and 1603. Despite this, it is believed that 15-20% of Kondo's buildings retained the original temple materials when reconstructed. This makes the Horyu-ji (pagoda and condo) the oldest surviving wooden buildings in the world.

XI CENTURY

2. Kirkjubøargarur
Faroe islands

Kirkjubøargarður is one of the oldest inhabited wooden houses in the world, dates back to around the 11th century. In 1100, it housed an episcopal residence and a seminary. After the Reformation that took place in the Faroe Islands in 1538, all the property of the Catholic Church was seized by the King of Denmark. Today this land is owned by the government of the Faroe Islands. The Patursson family has been renting the land since 1550. The house is a museum, but the 17th generation of Patursson still lives in it.

3. Grinstead Church (St Andrew's Church)
Grinstead, Essex, UK

Grinstead Church is the oldest surviving stave church in the world and one of the oldest stave buildings in Europe. Initially, it was believed that the church was built in 845, but recent dendrochronological studies have rejuvenated the building by two hundred years. The brick extension appeared in the 1500s, and the white tower in the 17th century.

The church is an example of the traditional Saxon way of building.

4. Shakyamuni Pagoda at Fogong Temple
Shanxi, China

The Shakyamuni Pagoda at Fogong Temple is the oldest wooden pagoda in China. It was built in 1056-1195. It is alleged that during its 900-year history, the pagoda has survived at least 7 major earthquakes, and one of them almost completely destroyed the main temple complex. Until the 20th century, the building underwent 10 minor repairs.

XII CENTURY

5. Stave Church in Urnes
Urnes, Luster, Norway

Stave church is the most common type of wooden medieval temples in Scandinavia. From the 11th to the 16th centuries about 1,700 stave churches were built in Norway. Most of the buildings were demolished in the 17th century. In 1800, there were 95 such temples, and only 28 buildings have survived to this day. In Norway, the attitude of the people to the stave churches and the replication of their image is twofold. On the one hand, the government is pursuing an active protectionist policy in relation to cultural heritage, the majority of the population reveres them as shrines. On the other hand, militant representatives of youth subcultures, pagans and Satanists are methodically destroying these ancient architectural monuments. The only thing the Norwegian government can do to prevent arson is to install expensive tracking and fire extinguishing systems.

The stave church in Urnes is the oldest surviving stave church in Norway, built around 1130, a monument world heritage UNESCO.

Ornament on one of the walls of the Urnes Stave Church:

6. Stave Church Hopperstad
Vikoyri, Norway

The Stave Church was built in 1140.

Interior:

XIII CENTURY

7. Stave Church in Heddal
Heddal, Notodden, Telemark, Norway

The Stave Church in Heddal is the largest surviving frame church. The exact year of construction is unknown, the building dates from the beginning of the 13th century. The church was repeatedly rebuilt and reconstructed.

The last major reconstruction, carried out in the 1950s, returned the appearance of the stave church as close as possible to the original. The church building still contains about a third of the wood used in construction in the 13th century.

XIV CENTURY

8. Kapellbrücke Bridge
Lucerne, Switzerland

The Kapellbrücke Bridge was built in 1365 and is the oldest wooden covered bridge in Europe. Under the ridge of the roof along the entire bridge there are 111 triangular paintings that tell about the most important points in the history of Switzerland. In 1993, Kapelbrücke was badly damaged in a fire believed to have been started by a cigarette not extinguished. 78 out of 111 paintings were destroyed. The bridge and part of the paintings were restored according to the preserved inventory list.

9. Church of the Ascension of the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Michael the Archangel in Haczuv
Haczow, Poland

The Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Michael the Archangel is a Gothic wooden church in the village of Chaczów, which, along with other wooden churches in southern Lesser Poland and Podkarpattya, is included in the UNESCO World Heritage List. The church was built in the XIV century, presumably in 1388. In 2006, work began on updating the shingle. The cost of the work is more than 100 thousand euros.

The interior of the church is also valuable, including: the baroque main altar of the end of the 17th century, vessels of the 17th-18th centuries, Gothic sculptures of the 15th century, a stone font of the 16th century, Gothic portals. In addition, the interior is decorated with a unique polychrome of 1494. It is probably the oldest polychrome of its kind in Europe.

10. Church of the Resurrection of Lazarus
Kizhi, Russia

The exact date of construction of the church is unknown, but it is believed that it was built before 1391. The building was erected by the Monk Lazar, who lived 105 years and died in 1391. The church became the first building of the future Murom Monastery. After the revolution, on the site of the Murom Holy Assumption Monastery, the authorities organized an agricultural commune named after. Trotsky, after 1945 - a home for the disabled, and in the 1960s the place was deserted. In 1959, the Church of the Resurrection of Lazarus was dismantled and transported to Kizhi, where it was restored in 1960.

The iconostasis has been preserved in the church, consisting of 17 icons of the 16th-18th centuries and representing the oldest type of two-tiered iconostasis.

XV CENTURY

11. Het Houten Huys
Amsterdam, Netherlands

Apart from the suburbs that entered the city boundaries later, two wooden buildings survived in Amsterdam. The oldest of them is Het Houten Huys built in 1425.

12. Church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker in Kolodnoye
Kolodnoe, Transcarpathia, Ukraine

The church was built in 1470. This is the oldest wooden temple in Ukraine and one of the oldest monuments of wooden architecture in Europe. In 2007-2008, restoration work was carried out, as a result of which the roof was replaced, the arcade on the bell tower was closed with a bird net, the doors were repaired, all holes and cracks in the log cabins were plugged with wooden stakes.

13. Church of the Deposition of the Robe from the village of Borodava
Kirillov, Russia

The Church of the Deposition of the Robe is the oldest precisely dated preserved monument of wooden architecture in Russia. The building was built in 1485 in the village of Borodava, located near the famous Feropontov Monastery. In 1957 the church was moved to the city of Kirillov. Currently, it is located on the territory of the New City of the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery.

14. Rothenburgerhaus
Lucerne, Switzerland

Rotenburgerhaus was built around 1500 and is the oldest residential wooden building in Switzerland.

15. Huis van Jan Brouckaerd (House of Jan Brouckaerd)
Ghent, Netherlands

Medieval houses with wooden facades have been preserved in the Netherlands. One of them is Huis van Jan Brouckaerd built in the 16th century.

16. De Waag and De Steur
Mechelen, Belgium

The buildings De Waag and De Steur were built on the Salt Wharf in the first half of the 16th century. They can be seen on an old postcard in the center of the frame.

The buildings were restored in 1927.

17. Church of St. Catherine
Ostrava, Czech Republic

The building was the oldest wooden church in Central Europe. The original church was built in 1543. However, in 2002, a misfortune happened - from a short circuit in the electrical wiring, the church flared up and burned down in a few minutes. So Ostrava lost one of its oldest buildings.

Residents of the Ostrava region are considered people who are indifferent to religion. Nevertheless, more than two million Czech crowns were collected for the restoration of the temple. There were also donations from entrepreneurs, parishioners from other cities of the country, and even from Polish believers. Rector Jiří Strnište says that an old woman from Ivano-Frankivsk came to visit him, who came to visit her daughter, who works at a construction site in Ostrava, and donated two hundred crowns for the restoration of the church.

The construction took about two years. During the restoration of the church, an old tree that survived the fire was used so that the church of St. Catherine was not deleted from the list of architectural monuments. According to the abbot, they had to "literally on sticks, pieces of wood and planks, almost crawling on their knees, to collect pieces of unburned wood." The temple was restored using traditional methods construction of wooden buildings. The grand opening took place on October 30, 2004.

18. De Duiveltjes
Mechelen, Belgium

The house was built in 1545-1550 and restored in 1867.

The building has a unique wooden facade, decorated with carved monsters - satyrs and devils, which gave the house its nickname.

19. Oude Huis
Amsterdam, Netherlands

As mentioned above, only two wooden buildings have survived in Amsterdam. One of them is Het Houten Huys, and the second is Oude Huis, located at Zeedijk 1. The building was built in the 1550s.

XVII CENTURY

20. Pitstone Windmill
Pitstone, Buckinghamshire, UK

The mill was built presumably in 1627 and is considered the oldest windmill in England. In 1902, the building was seriously damaged by a monstrous storm. In 1922, the destroyed mill was bought by a farmer whose land was located nearby. In 1937 he donated the building to the National Trust, but it was not until 1963 that the repair work. Moreover, they were carried out by volunteers at their own expense. The mill is currently open to the public on Sundays in the summer.

Flickr

The house has been rebuilt over the centuries, the central part of the building being the oldest.

24. Wurlezer House
Staten Island, New York, USA

The Dutch word "voorlezer" (reader) was applied among the Dutch colonists to active people who took on semi-official duties associated with active participation in local legislation, education and religious life. After the capture of the Dutch colonies by the British, the wurlezers continued to keep records and documentation. The last person to be given such a title retired in 1789. His successor already held the rank of clerk.
The building, located on Staten Island, was built around 1695 and is the oldest wooden school building in the United States. On the ground floor there was a living room and a large hall for church services. The second floor was occupied by a bedroom and another large hall, which, it is believed, was intended for school classes.

25. Spaso-Zashiverskaya Church
Baryshevsky village council, Novosibirsk region, Russia

10 most ancient buildings in the world:
10) Royal Grave, Sweden.

This unusual tomb was built in the Bronze Age, over 3,000 years ago.

9) Naveta des Tudons, Spain.


This burial site was discovered in 1975. It contains the remains of more than a hundred people, and their valuables are bronze bracelets and ceramic buttons. The tomb was built over 3,200 years ago.

8) Treasury of Atreus, Greece.


This tomb was built in the Bronze Age, over 3250 years ago. For more than a thousand years, it has been the owner of the highest and widest dome in the world. But that was before the construction of the Pantheon.

7) Caral, Peru.


This is a large ancient settlement in Peru, built over 4600 years ago. Currently, Caral is considered the oldest city in South America.

6) Pyramid of Djoser, Egypt.


The pyramid was built as the tomb of Pharaoh Djoser over 4700 years ago. The tomb is the oldest stone building in the world.

5) Hulbjerg Jættestue, Denmark.

The tomb was built 5000 years ago. It contains the remains of 400 people, one of which served as an example of early dental work.

4) Ireland.


A prehistoric monument, as well as the oldest building in Ireland, built about 5,100 years ago.

3) Monte d'Accoddi, Italy.


Built somewhere between 5,200-4,800 years ago. This amazingly preserved building was either a temple or an altar.

2) Knap of Howar, Scotland.


It was originally part of the estate. Today, this building is considered the oldest stone house in Europe. Built about 5500 years ago.

1) Megalithic Temples of Malta.


These buildings have been used as religious temples and are the oldest of their kind in the world. They were built over 5500 years ago.

Going to almost any country, you can see architectural buildings that are more than 5,000 thousand years old. There are quite a few places like this on the planet. The buildings that have survived on our land are sometimes simply amazing. They do not look like buildings of modern architecture; people do not live there. Historians wonder which of them is the oldest building in the world? To this day, they cannot give a definite answer to this question. However, there are a couple of cities that should be visited by any traveler, because they contain the history of mankind since the birth of great civilizations. They will be discussed in this article.

The oldest buildings in the world

In India, the oldest building is considered Taj Mahal Palace . The temple was built of white marble by the padishah Shah Jahan in the name of love and devotion to the wife of the amazing beauty Mumtaz - Mahal. Erected in 1631, it combines several styles. A bright element of the palace is a white marble dome. The mausoleum occupies the main place in the palace. Inside it is a huge number of halls, decorated with mosaics. In one of the rooms there is the coffin of the ruler, who, after his death, wished that the body be buried near his beloved.

In the list "The oldest buildings preserved in modern world» historians includedTemple of Queen Hatshepsut in Egypt . It is named after the woman who was the only recognized pharaoh. Construction went on from 1482 to 1473 BC. The building turned out to be of magnificent beauty, but, unfortunately, over time it has undergone severe destruction. Some of them occurred due to natural causes - the building is located near a steep cliff. Also, damage to the ancient building was caused at the direction of Thutmose III, whom the queen removed from rule for as much as 15 years. Recovery started with 1961 Today, Polish restorers are assembling the sanctuary bit by bit. The object is located at a considerable distance from the buildings of other kings erected in the Theban necropolis. On the walls are pictures of reliefs that reflect the lifestyle of the inhabitants of the country, the pyramids of that time. The main plot of the reliefs is the story of the birth of the queen. In front of the entrance to the upper terrace there are statues of the queen with a false golden beard - an attribute of male power. In terms of religion ancient egypt, a woman could not take the place of a ruler, because the pharaoh was considered the incarnation of the god Horus, and he is a man. Therefore, the ruler is depicted in this form.

Pyramid of Djoser at Saqqara - the oldest of the surviving architectural buildings on earth. architectural masterpiece It was created by the ancient Egyptian architect and supreme dignitary of the pharaoh - Imhotep around 2650 BC as a funeral structure for the pharaoh's family.

preserved in Rome Mamertine Dungeon 578 BC, where the offenders were. According to legend, the apostles Peter and Paul spent their last days there.

Also the oldest mysterious building in the world - Stonehenge in England . Years of construction - from 1100 to 3500 BC. Approximately 80 stones different breeds, weighing up to 50 tons used for building: dolerite, volcanic tuff. For a long time, no historian could unravel the reason for its appearance. D. Hawkins published a book about this in the 60s. In it, he described how the stone ring, built of stones, was used as an observatory, allowing the British to make astronomical observations and calculations.

The oldest building in Russia

There are many buildings in the Russian Federation that witnessed historical events. Assumption Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin , erected from 1475-1479, was rebuilt by workers under the control of the city planner Aristotle Fioravanti. The building has been well preserved to our times. To this day, services are held here.

Can't be ignoredChurch of John the Baptist in Kerch , which dates back to the 8th century AD. Located in the very center of the city, the oldest known building in Russia today is the St. Sophia Temple, built by Prince Vladimir in 1050. The monastery of the princess in Vladimir, of the thirteenth century, which was rebuilt many times, experienced ruin, but survived. Walking along the streets of the city of Pereyaslavl-Zalessky, you can see the church built by Yuri Dolgoruky.

The oldest building in Moscow

Today, the oldest building in the Russian capital is recognized Spassky Church of the Spaso-Andronikov Monastery . According to the legend, the first wooden building was erected in 1357. The oldest known building in Moscow burned down in a fire in 1368. A new one has been built on the site God's Temple from stone. In this form, he has reached our days. Scientists managed to conduct a thorough study that proves the historical and cultural significance of the building.