Ruin
Ruins are the remains of human-made architecture: structures that were once complete, as time went by, have fallen into a state of partial or complete disrepair, due to lack of maintenance or deliberate acts of destruction. Natural disaster, war and depopulation are the most common root causes, with many structures becoming progressively derelict over time due to long-term weathering and scavenging.
There are famous ruins all over the world, from ancient sites in China, the Indus valley and Judea to Zimbabwe in Africa, ancient Greek, Egyptian and Roman sites in the Mediterranean basin, and Incan and Mayan sites in the Americas. Ruins are of great importance to historians, archaeologists and anthropologists, whether they were once individual fortifications, places of worship, houses and utility buildings, or entire villages, towns and cities. Many ruins have become UNESCO World Heritage Sites in recent years, to identify and preserve them as areas of outstanding value to humanity.
Read more about Ruin: Cities, Deliberate Destruction, Relics of Steel and Wooden Towers, Aesthetics, See Also
Famous quotes containing the word ruin:
“For such will be our ruin if you, in the immensity of your public abstractions, forget the private figure, or if we in the intensity of our private emotions forget the public world. Both houses will be ruined, the public and the private, the material and the spiritual, for they are inseparably connected.”
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)
“A grimy fly can soil the entire wall and a small, dirty little act can ruin the entire proceedings.”
—Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904)
“I am much afraid that we shall have very greatly hastened the decline and ruin of the New World by our contagion, and that we will have sold it our opinions and our arts very dear.”
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)