Reading path · 8 stops

The Great Builders

Rulers who built their worlds in stone, law and cities.

Some rulers are remembered for what they destroyed; these are remembered for what they raised. This path crosses four millennia of builders, of codes and canals, libraries and basilicas, mosques, palaces and whole capitals, and asks what building meant to power.

Suits the Builder · the Chronicler

  1. 1 · Encyclopedia · Person · r. c. 1792–1750 BCEHammurabiThe Babylonian king whose law code, carved in stone, is among the oldest surviving statements of justice.
  2. 2 · Encyclopedia · Person · r. 669–627 BCEAshurbanipalAssyria's last great king, whose library at Nineveh preserved Mesopotamia's literature for us to find.
  3. 3 · Encyclopedia · PersonJustinian IThe emperor of Hagia Sophia and the Corpus Juris, Rome's law given its final form.
  4. 4 · Encyclopedia · PersonCharlemagneThe Frankish king whose schools and scripts carried learning through Europe's leanest centuries.
  5. 5 · Encyclopedia · Person · r. 1312–1337Mansa MusaMali's pilgrim emperor, whose gold built Timbuktu's mosques and reputation.
  6. 6 · Encyclopedia · Person · 1592–1666Shah JahanThe Mughal of the Taj Mahal, grief made architecture.
  7. 7 · Encyclopedia · PersonLouis XIVVersailles as a machine of rule: the builder-king who domesticated an aristocracy.
  8. 8 · Encyclopedia · PersonPeter the GreatThe tsar who built a capital on a swamp to force Russia's face towards Europe.

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