ORIGINS OF CIVIL ENGINEERING
Civil engineering has evolved
tremendously in aspects relating to
building, designing and maintaining the
world’s built and natural environments. It is only recently that
engineers whose duties were civil and
non- military were categorized as civil
engineers to differentiate them from
military engineers. In
ancient times the bridge, waterways,
fortifications and machin
es of war were all
projects also projects undertaken by the
military engineer. Kings, Queens,
Emperors or Pharaohs required these
military building services from their
engineers in order to build massive
structures that created a powerful and
imposing image of themselves. This was
the ultimate form of self-promotion. The
reason the ‘civil’ and ‘military’ engineers
were grouped as one, was because the
techniques of designing these projects
were similar and one who worked on
military construction projects also worked
on civil projects. Also the structures such
as roads, dams, buildings and bridges
facilitated for the military agendas of
certain rulers. Definitely, before the term
civil engineer was coined, civil engineers
were in existence. Millennia ago when the
pyramids of the Mayan and Egyptian
empires were building pyramids, the
people designing and supervising the
construction of the pyramids must have
been an engineer. Certainly, those
endowed with the responsibility of
devising ways to solve the day to day
problems of construction, transportation,
water irrigation, city planning were
engineers. The engineers of the past often
worked on technical problems of their day
by using mechanics, available materials
and technicians of the day and often
worked in areas that ranged from
mechanical, military inventions to
architecture, which involved the design of
aesthetic structure and the overall shape
and form of structures.
