Around 130,000 years ago a group of men and women settled on the island of Crete. This group of people would later become known as the Minoans (named in modern times for their king, Minos). They were one of the first known humans on the planet that did not wander but used agriculture and stayed, for the most part, in one spot – and who wouldn’t want to stay in such a beautiful land! This culture lasted thousands and thousands of years and during that time they built incredible palatial palaces, buildings and homes.
Because these structures were more permanent, they needed more permanent roads. To connect these towns and structures, they used segmented stones on top of a bed of sand for roads and pathways, and these are some of the very earliest pavers in known history. This technique is very much the same idea of how paver bricks and stones are laid today!
The Greeks continued to use pavers to create pools, walkways, roads, and to turn unusable, uneven land into usable durable long lasting walkways, paths, social gathering areas, streets, etc. This helped to make Greece’s architecture admired and copied by nearly every civilization in the world, even today! Because of Greece’s proximity to Italy, we find direct influence into the Roman culture from everything from religion and philosophy, to art and architecture.
The Romans took on this program of paving their streets from the Greeks and took it even a step further when they built over 50,000 miles of paved roads that were built so well, many roads like the Appian Way, built in 312 BC by Caesar’s Legions; are still in use today! Those are some serious paver pros that we’ve ever heard! Who would have thought that this idea of using paver stones and brick would come all the way down from history, right into our homes in New Jersey, thousands and thousands of years later.
Paver History Part 3 continued in our blog
