Why Have We Forgotten Our Roots? The Secrets of Ancient Structures

There are images that sear into the soul. Black-and-white photographs faded snapshots over a century old: streets lined with towering facades adorned with ornaments, arches, columns, and turrets, built with a precision bordering on mathematical poetry and a devotion that feels almost religious. So let's look deeper into the Secrets of Ancient Structures.

These structures, often nameless, hail from a time without digital planning, 3D software, or the machines we take for granted today. Yet they radiate a grandeur that leaves us speechless. What should truly take our breath away, however, is not their beauty but the question they raise: Who built these?

The answer is sobering: Not us. Not we who erect sleek steel-and-glass boxes, stack drywall walls, and clad facades like disposable products. Not we who believe everything must be efficient, cheap, and standardized to endure. Our architecture mirrors our era: functional but soulless, practical but devoid of depth.

We build to use, not to immortalize. Yet those ancient structures, cathedrals, town halls, theaters, temples were more than mere constructions. They were manifestations of a culture that knew something we had forgotten, expressions of a worldview that saw humanity not as mere consumers but as part of a greater whole.

Why can we no longer create such works? It’s not a lack of technology. Our machines are more powerful, our tools more precise than ever. But something essential is missing: the people who could and would build such structures.

We lack the soul, the will, the understanding that architecture is more than project management with fire safety regulations. Architecture was once the language of culture, a dialogue between humanity and eternity. Today, it is a means to an end, a product optimized and standardized until its original meaning is stripped away.

How did it come to this? How could a civilization that walks through schools, universities, and history-laden cities forget it was once capable of crafting wonders in stone?

This forgetting was no accident but a gradual process, a disconnection from our own history. We were taught that beauty is subjective, that ornaments are superfluous, even wasteful. We were convinced that utility is the highest ideal, while every trace of what was once self-evident was erased: the connection between form and meaning.

Instead, we got functionality. Exposed concrete. Aluminum windows. Desolation. Our cities became backdrops that celebrate efficiency but suffocate the soul.

We wander through shopping malls that resemble spaceships and call it progress. We applaud minimalist boxes as “modern” and feel uneasy in spaces steeped in history because they remind us of something we can no longer grasp. This unease is no coincidence. It is the echo of a loss we feel but cannot name.

Why do so many defend their soulless surroundings? Why do they celebrate the aesthetics of shopping centers and concrete facades while dismissing the splendor of ancient structures as “outdated”? Because they have been conditioned to overlook the obvious.

True depth overwhelms us today. Dignity is exhausting. Beauty demands responsibility, the responsibility to create something greater than ourselves. And admitting that we no longer know what we once knew triggers a pain that is hard to bear.

This controlled blindness is no accident. It is the result of a culture that has taught us to romanticize the past without understanding it and to accept the present without questioning it. We were trained not to notice the loss neither the loss of architectural mastery nor the ideals that made it possible.

We were led to believe that progress means leaving the past behind rather than using it as a foundation.

And yet, there are moments when the past breaks through. Who hasn’t felt it, that sensation of standing before an ancient structure that doesn’t just impress but draw you in? It’s more than aesthetics; it’s presence. Something in these buildings calls to us. We pause, fall silent, and a part of us remember, wordlessly but profoundly.

Old churches, temples, abandoned theaters, libraries, they exert a pull we cannot explain. Even if we are not religious, even if we don’t know the building, we feel it: These places are more than stone. They are bearers of something we have lost.

Some say it’s the hidden geometries, the sacred proportions woven into these structures. Others believe it’s the memory of past civilizations, their bones resting beneath these sites. Perhaps these buildings were erected on energetic ley lines, or perhaps they are guardians of knowledge we have forgotten.

But why do official historical narratives on platforms like Wikipedia or in textbooks so often claim these magnificent stone structures were destroyed by fire or extensively “renovated”? Is it mere coincidence that fires, often with scant evidence, are cited as the reason for the loss of their original splendor?

Or does this narrative serve to obscure the true history of these buildings, their meaning, their origin, perhaps even their purpose? Why are these reconstructions framed as mere “repairs” when they often seem like complete reinterpretations of the original form? Could it be that these stories of fires and renovations were deliberately crafted to divert us from the trail of knowledge that could bring us closer to the truth about our past?

The questions pile up the deeper we dig. How could people in “primitive conditions” create Gothic cathedrals, perfectly symmetrical temples, or entire city complexes while we today deem even a simple municipal theater “unaffordable”?

How could they, with bare hands, simple tools, and a mathematical understanding we scarcely credit them with, construct buildings that have endured for centuries? Were they truly as “primitive” as our history books claim? Or have we overlooked something like a civilization, a knowledge, a technology erased from the annals of history?

Some speculations go further. What if these structures were not merely cultural expressions but something greater? What if they were portals, not literally but in a spiritual or energetic sense places that connected humanity to the cosmos? What if the ornaments we dismiss as “decorative” were, in fact, codifications, knowledge carved in stone that we can no longer decipher?

The precision of the pyramids, the symmetry of the temples, and the alignment of the cathedrals all suggests these structures were more than mere architecture. They were messages, perhaps even tools, forging a connection to something we no longer understand.

When we open official history books, we encounter explanations that border on the absurd. We are told that these marvels of stone Gothic cathedrals, grand town halls, temples of incredible precision were often built in a single year. A few years later, they allegedly fell victim to a mysterious fire, only to be rebuilt in equally short order, sometimes within another year. These projects were supposedly overseen by architects who simultaneously managed dozens of buildings across Europe or America, in an era when the population of many cities numbered only a few tens of thousands.

Subtract the children, the elderly, and the infirm, and you’re left with a handful of people who must have done nothing but build and been geniuses of their time.

But how was this possible? How were tons of marble transported from Italy or other distant regions without modern infrastructure? How did they manage the logistics in an age governed by weather, seasons, and plagues like the Black Death? Without electric light, workers could labor only a few hours a day, and supplying workers and draft animals, mostly horses, would have required a logistical miracle unimaginable even today. By pure logic, these explanations seem impossible. And then there are the underground cities, discovered by chance today twelve stories deep, with vast halls, ventilation shafts, and tunnel networks connecting entire regions.

Who lived down there? Why build so deep into the earth? Were they fleeing something, a catastrophe, an enemy, an unknown threat? And why, once discovered, are these sites often sealed off from the public, allowing us to see only tiny fragments? What lies in those depths, and why is access denied? These questions make the official narratives crumble like a house of cards, hinting at a truth far beyond what we’ve been taught.

Even if humanity has forgotten much, this forgetting is not universal. There are places, documents, artifacts that could provide answers, yet they remain out of reach. Why are certain sites, like areas in the Grand Canyon, Antarctica, or remote regions of Asia, Africa, and South America, closed to the public?

Why are they labeled “militarily protected” or “scientifically reserved” without ever offering a clear explanation? Why are questions about them neither asked nor answered? It’s as if access to something is deliberately withheld not just to physical places but to knowledge that could fill the gaps in our history.

If this forgetting were an accident, we could mourn it and move on. But it feels orchestrated. There are forces be they institutions, governments, or other actors controlling access to these sites and their knowledge. Why? What could be so dangerous, so significant, that entire regions are sealed off?

Is it conceivable that what we’ve lost was not merely neglected but actively erased from our consciousness? To seek the truth, we must first recognize that something is missing. But how can we search for something we barely suspect exists when access is systematically blocked?

This barrier to access is the key. It forces us not only to lament the forgetting but to question who or what prevents us from remembering. Without this awareness, every search for answers remains a groping in the dark. We must ask: Who benefits from our inability to understand the language of the stones? And what do we lose if we don’t dare to breach this barrier?

When we stand before these structures and feel their presence, we’re not just scratching the surface, we’re touching a nerve. Deep within, we know: This was bigger than stone. What we’ve lost is not just a style but a memory, a meaning, a connection. Perhaps even access to what? Finding out is the first step back.

The past is not just history but an echo. Those willing to listen will eventually hear what has never truly fallen silent. The stones still speak, if we learn their language. They urge us to ask questions we’re afraid to pose: What have we forgotten? Who were we really? Why were we taught not to see it? And who prevents us from finding the truth?

This loss, this violent severing from our history, is why we feel so adrift. We ask: Why are we here? What is the purpose of my life? These questions are no accident. They spring from an emptiness that affects not just our memory but our roots.

We’ve been robbed of more than knowledge or skills; we’ve been stripped of the connection to our origins that once filled us with meaning and purpose. Without these roots, we drift like leaves in the wind, searching but not knowing for what. The stones around us are not mere relics of a forgotten time, they are a silent cry for our identity, for what makes us whole.

The way back begins with a glance upward, to the facades that tower over us, a step inward, to the questions that won’t let us go, and the courage to challenge the barriers that separate us from the truth. For in these questions lies not only the memory of what was but also the possibility of rediscovering what we’ve lost and with it, our roots, our purpose, our home in the cosmos.

Euphemia van Dame

The awe-inspiring arches of the New Cathedral of Salamanca, Spain, stand as a testament to an ancient architectural mastery that continues to puzzle us today.