This past weekend I helped my Mom around her house and we took on the project of finding away to cover an exposed pipe sticking out in the garage. (pictured below)

Her idea was to get some wood and build a structure around it so it could be protected from any cars or people that might accidentally hit it.

This took us hours to do — figuring out what the shape of the wood would be, measuring how it would fit on the wall, going to Home Depot to cut the wood, putting the wood together, etc.

But we did it. We built the structure from scratch and put it on the wall (yeah it might need some more tightening though). And it was hands on, rewarding, manual WORK. (pictured below)

Looks pretty simple right?

The amount of time and effort it took to build something like this from scratch, made me think about the Roman Empire and other great ancient civilizations.

They built huge cathedrals, temples, and massive structures like the aqueducts. (ancient construction pictured below)

These projects could involve building single pillars that weighed up to 53 tons (that’s more than 7 full grown African Elephants), mixing their own building material, and elaborate planning of these projects that could take years to figure out just how in the world these things were going to be built.

But they did it.

With no electronic drills, cement trucks, big machine cranes, fancy machinery… or Home Depot. And over a thousand and a half years later, many of the structures are still standing today. That’s crazy to think about. They have my respect.