The dome of the Pantheon
Still the largest unreinforced concrete dome after 1,900 years
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The Pantheon, completed under Hadrian, is crowned by a 43-metre concrete dome with an open oculus at the top; its height to the oculus equals its diameter. Almost two thousand years on, it is still the world's largest unreinforced concrete dome.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 2nd century
Did you know
Roman concrete can heal its own cracks. A 2023 study found that lime lumps in the mortar, long dismissed as sloppy mixing, react with seeping water and seal cracks with fresh calcium carbonate crystals. Share →
Meanwhile around the world (±25 years)
Africa
- c. 150 Ptolemy's Almagest — 24 years later
Asia
- 105 Cai Lun and the invention of paper — 21 years earlier
- 132 Zhang Heng's seismoscope — 6 years later
Alive at the time
- Marcus Aurelius (aged 5)
- Claudius Ptolemy (aged 26)
- Zhang Heng (aged 48)