" These great monoliths were quarried in Upper Egypt, were floated in barges down the Nile, were towed across the Mediterranean to Byblos or Tripolis and thence were hauled, by oxen, mules and men, uphill to Homs, and from Homs southward to Baalbek, or east, across the desert, to Palmyra.
What a labour of giants! And, from the utilitarian point of view, how marvellously pointless! "

― Aldous Huxley , Heaven and Hell