[lurk2]

> Can you point to an engineering feat in modern times which is still functional after hundreds of years of neglect?

Off the top of my head:

1. Various aqueduct systems constructed by the Roman Empire are still in use today.

2. Persian qalats.

3. The Grand Canal in China.

4. Roman Roads

5. Hawaiian aquaculture systems

6. Aboriginal Australian fish traps

Monumental architecture (e.g. the Pyramids) would make the list substantially longer.

> Even if academia is swinging to a "too respectful" position

The issue isn’t that they are attributing accomplishments to these civilizations, but instead that they are attributing these accomplishments to a way of knowing that is purportedly superior to that of the Europeans, which is just farcical when you consider that every modern technology has either been invented or scaled based on European models of thinking (e.g. the scientific method, mass production, free market capitalism, etc.)

Like I said, this is mostly just a product of Mexican and American humanities departments being populated by people with an axe to grind; there aren’t any STEM graduates in South America concerned with the mystical knowledge that their ancestors are purported to have possessed.

[AStonesThrow]

I am not sure of their operational status today, but in Medieval Western Europe, it was Carmelite communities who built aqueducts; even as they struggled to reform themselves during the Counterreformation, religious communities were undertaking large-scale engineering projects, because they controlled enough labor workforce, as well as technology and supply chains, to make that happen.

I would be unsurprised if the Carmelite Orders likewise invested significant maintenance in the old Roman construction, and learned from it as well.