SearchResearch Challenge (6/12/24): Timeline of megalithic monuments?

[Dan Russell]

Wednesday, June 12, 2024

SearchResearch Challenge (6/12/24): Timeline of megalithic monuments?

Big blocks of stone shaped into monuments fascinate me... 

Chichén Itzá  P/C by Wikimedia (courtesy Daniel Schwen)

... and I've always been impressed by the various megalithic monuments that people have built around the world.  In the image above, a pyramid was built by the Mayan peoples around 600 AD.  Also in Mexico is Monte Albán, a city in stone near Oaxaca.  

But there are massive stone monuments all around the world--the pyramids of Egypt, Stonehenge, Göbekli Tepe in Turkey, the moai of Easter Island, the Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor (in Xian), and the Serpent Mound in Ohio.  It's fairly easy to find these monuments, but harder to understand how they relate to each other in time.  

Back in 2015, we answered this question (how to make timelines), but it's been 9 years, and one of our favorite solutions (Google Fusion Tables) is long gone.  So.. how would one do this now?  Things have changed!  Is it easier, or harder to do this now?  

1.  What is the current best solution for creating a visual timeline of various historic events?  Can you create a timeline that shows each of these monuments over time?  The list: Chichén Itzá, Monte Albán, Stonehenge, Göbekli Tepe, the moai of Easter Island, the Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor, and the Serpent Mound in Ohio.  

As always, let us know how you found your timeline tool and created your particular timeline.  

And if you would, please post your timeline into this shared doc.  

Keep searching! 

P.S.  Just an interesting side-by-side of the images from last week and this week...  some design ideas never get old... 

--

Daniel M. Russell 

Check out my new book:  The Joy of Search (MIT Press, Winter, 2019) 

Available in fine bookstores (and online) everywhere.