ABSTRACT
Historically, one of the oldest architectural structures dates to 2700 BC when the step pyramid for Pharaoh Djoser was built by Imhotep, who is considered the first architect and engineer in history known by name. Pyramids were the most common major architectural structures built by ancient civilizations because the structural form of a pyramid is inherently stable and can almost be infinitely scaled linearly in size and proportion to increased loads. There is no record of any scientific or engineering knowledge employed in the construction of pyramids during that era. The physical laws that underpin structural engineering began in the third century BC, when Archimedes published his work, On the Equilibrium of Planes, in two volumes. He used the principles derived to calculate the areas and centers of gravity of various geometric figures, including triangles, parabolas, and half-circles. Together with Euclidean geometry, Archimedes’s work on this and on calculus and geometry established much of the mathematics and scientific foundation of modern structural engineering (W. Addis, 1992; B. Addis, 2007).
