Nan Madol, the stone city on water
A "Venice of the Pacific" stacked from basalt logs
Off the coast of Pohnpei, nearly a hundred artificial islets are linked by a web of canals. Their walls are stacked log-cabin style from hexagonal basalt columns, some weighing several tons. By various estimates major construction began around 1180–1200, when this was the capital of the Saudeleur dynasty that ruled the whole island. How the columns were moved without metal or pulleys is still debated.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 12th century
Meanwhile around the world (±25 years)
Europe
- 1163–1345 Notre-Dame de Paris begun — 17 years earlier
- 1202 Fibonacci's Liber Abaci — 22 years later
- 1204 Sack of Constantinople — 24 years later
Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1185 Prince Igor's campaign — 5 years later
Asia
- 1192–1333 First shogunate in Japan — 12 years later
Alive at the time
- Saladin (aged 43)
- Genghis Khan (aged 18)
- Averroes (Ibn Rushd) (aged 54)
- Henry II (aged 47)
- Minamoto no Yoritomo (aged 33)
- Vsevolod the Big Nest (aged 26)
- Richard the Lionheart (aged 23)
- Philip II Augustus (aged 15)
- John Lackland (aged 14)
- Louis VII the Young (aged 60)