The history of stairs. The Ancient World

Stairs are hardly much younger than permanent human dwellings. As soon as a man left the mountains and went out into the Great Steppe, where he built his dugouts, he also had a ladder, at least in the form of a pair of stones placed on top of each other.

And in the East, in the Two Rivers, or Mesopotamia, cities were already rising, squeezed by a belt of adobe walls. Arkaim in the Urals, Mohenjo-Daro in India, Ugarit, Babylon, and you never know how many of them grew up in the valleys of fertile rivers, in a fertile climate.

The city grew, but the walls held back its expansion, and soon enough, multi-storey buildings with two or even four floors appeared. It was possible to get into one's home only by using the stairs, and if measures were taken to drag the stairs there, it turned out to be quite a convincing demonstration of safety, so much so that the custom of sleeping on a flat adobe roof in hot climates was instilled.

And of course there were stairs everywhere.

Here a merchant from neighboring countries comes to Babylon, five-legged bulls, the guards of Ishtar's gate, are walking towards him, and another miracle awaits him ahead.

Towering over a flat plain stands a man-made mountain. Seven ledges, each significantly taller than a human, each covered with tiles of its own sacred color, and the topmost, seventh, glows in the Sun with pure gold.

"Prostrate stranger, you see the abode of the gods!"

And the amazed foreigner sees that on each side of the man-made, square mountain, each side of which is oriented to the cardinal directions, a staircase leading directly to the sky descends, a magnificent procession rises up the stairs, shining in the Sun with all the colors of the rainbow.

This is the Great Queen marching to the chambers of the Gods, so that god would visit her there and give the city a descendant of the gods, whose power would be unquestionable.

And on the other side of the Earth, in the country of the Aztecs, there is also a man-made mountain, only made of stone. Sinister figures of leopards and feathered snakes guard its base, and a staircase is also visible on each side of the pyramid, only it is a strange staircase.

Each step is as high as an adult man's thigh.

Two warriors are holding a prisoner by his bound elbows. All three jump synchronously from step to step. The prisoner knows that a few more steps and he will see a sinister altar covered with dried blood, an altar on which his trembling heart will be laid in a few moments, and his body will be thrown into a well, where it will be picked up by the younger priests for their disgusting meal.

What's the deal? After all, he will be sacrificed to the gods and reborn to a new, blissful life. Here the prisoner goes, lies down on the altar himself and watches fearlessly as the priest raises a knife made of polished obsidian over him...

But let's leave the priests with their "flower wars", which aim solely to recruit more prisoners to appease the cruel gods.

But the first written mention of stairs is found in the greatest Book, which is simply called the Bible Book.

Jacob's Ladder, stretching from Earth to heaven, along which the Angels of the Lord descend to Earth, establishes a sacred connection between the earthly and the heavenly. And it's not for nothing that the Bible points to the land of Babylon as the earthly embodiment of the ladder between heaven and Earth, but the Lord "mixed tongues" and the proud plan remained unfulfilled. Perhaps this image is inspired by the Babylonian ziggurats. And throughout the East, the road to many shrines consists of stairs of one length or another. Ladders have a sacred meaning as an intermediary between heaven and Earth. As Robert Louis Stevenson wrote, "you can stay on the same level of good, but no one has managed to stay on the same level of evil." So the ladder is a virtual opportunity, and when we talk about the "career ladder" we are not always aware of its true meaning. Withdrawals at 1xBet become available after successful verification. The process is fast, although large transactions (over 240,000 BDT) may take more time to complete. According to the official payout policy, the maximum processing time is up to 7 business days. However, most users report that withdrawals take less than 12 hours. There are no issues with payouts at 1xBet. The 1xbet promo code free is a series of numbers and letters that you enter into a specified voucher box to get a good deal. The 1xbet app is the perfect alternative to the website.