Tag Archives: Archaeology

This LEGO temple to the Minotaur is no bull

While this Minoan temple may seem simple at first glance, there is quite a lot going on in this scene by BrickiboT. Inspired by the architecture of archaeological sites like the Minoan palace at Knossos on Crete, the angled pattern along the roof is made from carefully arranged sideways plates and brackets. A small noodle bowl acts as the perfect accent. The plates and rounded plates in two colors, along with a variety of textured bricks gives the front of the temple a weathered look.

Rogue Odyssey-Minoan Temple

The rocky landscape, dotted with plants and vines is a good blend of straight and curved slopes, and even the small beach is filled with details, like the group of hermit crabs, and the head of an elephant disguised as a rock. The angled sides of the small boat are attached with handlebars fit into the undersides of rounded plates with holes. Well done!

Read on to see more details

LEGO bust of Nefertiti captures ageless beauty

Although Koen Zwanengburg may not be as prolific as some builders, he makes up for it in sheer quality and talent, winning TBB’s LEGO Creation of the Year award for 2020 with his 16,000 LEGO brick mask of King Tut, for example. Koen follows up that Egyptian-themed LEGO creation with a depiction of the woman most modern scholars believe was Tutankhamen’s mother, Queen Nefertiti, the wife of the “heretic king” Akhenaten.

Nefertiti

Koen has recreated the famous bust of Nefertiti sculpted by Thutmose, discovered in the artist’s ancient workshop in Amarna by German archaeologists in 1912 (and controversially still housed in the Egyptian Museum of Berlin rather than in its home country of Egypt).

See more details of this amazing LEGO sculpture of Nefertiti

Rocco Buttliere builds 1st-century Jerusalem in microscale from 114,000 LEGO bricks

Master LEGO architect Rocco Buttliere is no stranger to recreating massive landmarks in LEGO form. In the past he’s built Mount Rushmore, Vatican City, and even ancient Rome. But now he’s managed to top himself with what may be his largest project to date, a 1:650 scale city of Jerusalem as it appeared in the first century. Consisting of 114,000 pieces, this massive LEGO build is the result of over 500 hours of design time and 400 hours of build time.

First Century Jerusalem - ירושלים של המאה הראשונה - (Second Temple period circa 70 CE)

This is a work you could truly get lost in, so let’s dive right into the details, starting with the Second Temple on Temple Mount in the center of the city.

Click through for a guided tour of some of the city’s highlights

LEGO mask of Tutankhamun is a life-size wonder built from 16,000 bricks

Despite a lifelong fascination with archaeology and ancient history — and even a trip through Sinai, Cairo, and Karnak at age 19 — I must admit that Egyptology has never been particularly interesting to me, obsessed as its public portrayal is with glittering treasures and kingship. Nevertheless, I’m reading the excellent The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt by Toby Wilkinson right now, in which I find the chaotic Intermediate periods especially fascinating. Koen Zwanenburg is also fascinated with ancient history, and has built this amazing life-sized version of the boy king Tutankhamun’s mask from 16,000 LEGO bricks.

Tutankhamun

See more of this life-size ancient Egyptian wonder!

Just another pyramid scheme to leave you ruined

There’s a definite art to building ruins out of LEGO bricks. They aren’t the best medium for it, quite frankly, since the plastic is usually (unless they’re old and much loved) bright and shiny, the edges crisp and square. And ruins are usually dull, dirty, and broken apart. There’s a tendency to try to over-do it and add studs everywhere, or round elements, or a bunch of different colors, and the shape often gets lost in the busy clutter that the build ends up being. But in the hands of an eminently talented builder like Josiah Durand (a.k.a W. Navarre), ruins can be a glorious thing, awe-inspiring just like the real thing in the jungles of the Yucatan. This one is not any one in particular, but the Mayan ruins at Tikal and the Aztec ones at Tenochtitlan served as inspirations.

Reino De Sombras

The steps are excellent with their grille-brick texture, and the mix of smooth surfaces and studs is just right. There are many colors, but the muted earth tones all work together, and even match the printing next to the steps. The skulls give it the grim ambiance associated with the human sacrifices performed at many such sites, and the tiny statuettes give it some scale. And the lighting is perfect on this one, with slightly overcast South American sky giving it a real-world vibe. It looks almost like the real thing! Now that is the mark of some good LEGO ruin building. Take notes, aspiring builders!

The treasure is knowledge

Of the two similar structures in the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Petra in southern Jordan, Al Khazneh and El Deir, the iconic “Treasury” featured in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade is much more famous than the larger (and arguably more spectacular) “Monastery” deeper in the Nabatean archaeological site. So it’s no surprise that we’ve seen Al Khazneh depicted in LEGO many times over the years, with nary a Monastery in sight (or brick). Nevertheless, I appreciate each new LEGO Petra, like this one by Inthert built only from tan pieces.

Monochome Petra

What’s especially notable about this build is less its monochrome color scheme than the variety of interesting “illegal” techniques Inthert uses to achieve shapes and angles at this scale. LEGO’s internal design team follows a strict set of guidelines to ensure that official LEGO sets are study in the hands of grubby little hands, while adult builders and other LEGO fans have no such restrictions (so it’s rather amusing when commenters decry the use of such techniques in fan-built models — stop it). Specifically, many plates and tiles are half-attached to studs or wedged in with friction, while a number of the Technic pins used as columns are connected using the gaps that allow the pins to flex for clipping into place. But my favorite detail is the Technic gear atop the “roof” of the central section.

Be sure to click through to the full-size photo and expand it to take in all the interesting details and techniques.

Tlachtli: The Mesoamerican ballgame

The Mesoamerican ballgame is an ancient sport played throughout Central America starting more than three thousand years ago. While some games may have been played purely for exercise or entertainment, there is strong archaeological and historical evidence for highly ritualized games that could even end in human sacrifice for some or all of the losers. W. Navarre has captured the action of a ballgame from the Aztec era, when ballcourts included rings through which players tried to bounce the rubber ball. The builder uses forced perspective to achieve a backdrop with a stepped pyramid temple — even the blazing blue sky is built with bricks.

Tlachtli; The Aztec Games

The microscale pyramid includes decorative elements made from cut stickers — only official LEGO stickers, of course! The cheese slopes work wonderfully for the pyramid’s steps.

Tlachtli; The Aztec Games

A forgotten Aztec temple emerges from a Mesoamerican jungle...

The Summer Joust contest is generating some amazing LEGO builds in a variety of categories. Talented multi-theme builder David Zambito‘s entry in the “Mesoamerican Setting” category depicts an Aztec-style temple overgrown with foliage. While the well-built temple is the center of the scene, the landscaping also deserves your attention. The plants are built not just from actual LEGO foliage pieces like bushes, bamboo, and flowers, but also from the plastic sprues that three-leaf plants come in, as well as street sweeper brushes.

If you like this Aztec-style pyramid, you might also like the Maya-style LEGO pyramid we featured previously.

A 4×4 fit for an adventurer...and a puppy

Johnny Thunder would be proud of this epic ride from iamkritch. Named the Black Crow 4×4 (thanks to its special hood ornament), this off-road vehicle has just about everything you might need in traveling through the desert to an archaeological dig-site. The roof is covered in crates filled with useful tools, and there is even a fold-out awning to beat the heat on sunny summer days.

The Black Crow 4x4 02

See more of this off-roader packed with fun details

Mayan pyramid of El Castillo at Chichen Itza built from thousands of LEGO bricks

In the ancient Mayan city of Chichen Itza, there’s one temple that rises above the rest as a focal point. The temple is called El Castillo, which means “The Castle,” and it was built to honor a Mayan diety called Kukulkan, or “Feathered Serpent.” Today it’s a major tourist attraction in Mexico and the subject of many pieces of art. This build by 1soko can be placed next to the others as a beautiful rendition of the temple.

The lines on the creation are incredibly impressive. If you’ve ever built something with slopes, you know just how hard it can be to get them right. (And this has slopes on slopes!) It almost looks like it could be superimposed on a picture of the real temple! The only thing that could be more detailed would be the serpent heads at the base of the stairs, but it’s understandable at this scale. Actually, it would need to be many times larger to be the scale of the minifigure standing next to it. Of course, the builder was probably using the character as a size comparison. In any case, this creation is simply outstanding!

Mystery awaits in a rediscovered Mayan temple

Even though this ruined Mesoamerican temple by Jonas Wilde doesn’t depict any particular site, it’s clear Jonas was inspired by the amazing Mayan structures of the Classic Maya era (250-900 AD). Jungle foliage drapes itself over the building, while palm trees sprout from the platform. The composition of this LEGO build is stunning, with the scene built on a platform that includes cutaway views of earth and stone, and a variety of heights that accentuate the detailed flora.

Temple in the Jungles of Celestia

See more of this fantastic archaeological treasure

Machu Picchu in microscale

In 1983, UNESCO designated the legendary Peruvian citadel of Machu Picchu as a World Heritage Site. Located in the Sacred Valley, 50 miles northwest of Cusco, the city was constructed around 1450 at the height of the Inca empire and was abandoned just over 100 years later. At time of writing, the LEGO Architecture theme has yet to feature a South American structure or building. This omission prompted Diego Baca to build his own microscale version of this historic site.

Machu Picchu

Diego has captured all the key features including Huayna Picchu as the mountainous backdrop, the blue of the Urubamba River glistening on the left, and la piedra sagrada [tr. the sacred rock] represented by a single 1×1 round plate sitting on high. Also note the wandering llama in the middle of the site!

Diego has kindly created PDF instructions for this model in the same style as the official LEGO Architecture instructions, with a few pages of photographs, historical information, and step-by-step building plans.