Tomb of Cyrus: The World’s Oldest Earthquake Resistant Structure

Natural calamites like floods, hurricanes, and earthquakes have always been considered “acts of god”, yet for centuries our ancestors have refused to bow down to the wrath of the higher beings. Dikes were used to protect homes from floods, and shelters themselves were an act of defiance against the natural elements. Historical and archeological research have revealed that ancient civilizations also had sound knowledge of building earthquake-resistant structures. The tomb of Cyrus the Great, the founder of the Persian Empire, is believed to be the first structure equipped with base-isolation technology to resist earthquakes. Photo credit: Aleksandar Todorovic/Shutterstock.com In ancient Crete, for example , many buildings were made of stone blocks connected by wooden elements to introduce flexibility to an otherwise rigid structure, which were prone to cracks when the ground shook. Buildings were also built on top of sand or loose gravel which absorbed vibrations during earthquakes. The Temple of Athena in Troy (1500 BC) rests on a thick foundation of sand, as well as the Doric temples of Paestum (273 BC). In ancient Greece and Persia, a new technique developed where a different material, like ceramic and clay, was injected between the ground and the foundation so that when the ground shook one layer slid over the other and this minimized damage caused by the shaking. This is known as base isolation, and it is one of the most powerful means of protecting a structure against earthquakes today. In modern buildings, structural engineers use rubber bearings, ball bearings, and spring systems to isolate the structure from the shaking ground. One of the earliest examples of base isolation can be found in the Tomb of Cyrus in Pasargadae, the capital of the Achaemenid Empire under Cyrus the Great (559–530 BC) in modern-day Iran.