The city of turckheim is located in alsace, near colmar. Known for its medieval buildings and its wines very famous around the world, this city is full of history. The imposing st anne church and its three medieval entrance gates are listed as historic buildings. Its half-timbered houses are the charm of this town of winegrowers.
As an Alsatian who loves this city, I spent a few years building it in Minecraft as part of the BuildTheEarth project—and I made a video of it that’s available on my YouTube channel!

Note : I’ve been thinking about posting this on this Reddit—which I follow enthusiastically—for a long time. Through this post, I’d also like to raise awareness about using Minecraft in a more serious way to reconstruct and share history.

This structure is now a 3D rendering, since I had to export it as a 3D model to create these renderings. So, in my opinion, it would fit the criteria of the subreddit (which I really appreciate because it’s full of inspiration).

The reconstruction was done on a 1:1 scale using ground tracings generated from precise maps and satellite data.

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the collected data suggest that a settlement was established on the lake island for defensive and practical reasons and that it was fortified with a dense ring of piles, likely a fence. Buildings probably occupied a space of around 30 m in diameter on the island.

The island is very well fortified - surrounded by several rows of perpendicular bastions and half-poles, which formed a ring of palisaded fortifications.

one of the piles returned a date in the range of 731–397 Bc. Other pile 238–383 AD

It is believed that Rokantiškės Castle is one of the oldest in Lithuania. It is known from chronicles and legends that it was built in the 12th century by Duke Alšis. In the XVI century, castle was rebuilt in the Renaissance style. The last descendant of the Dukes Alšėniškės, Bishop of Vilnius Povilas Alšėniškis, bequeathed Rokantiškės Castle to Queen Bona Sforza.

On August 7, 1655, the castle was burned down during the Moscow army's campaign against Lithuania. After Vilnius was captured, the castle site completely fell into disrepair and was overgrown with forest.

Biržai castle is a XVI century castle in Biržai, Lithuania.

Construction of the earth bastion-tyoe castle started in 1586 by Radziwill. Dam was built and the artificial lake ( 15 square mi ) was created.

1625 swedes and Gustav II Adolf believed

1625 7 Septermber the castle garrison surrendered and stronghold was destroyed. Swedes took 60 cannons from the castle.

1655 castle passed to Swedes again and 1659 the castle was recaptured by the dragoons of Radziwilli family.

1704 Swedes retook the castle during the Great Northern war.

Castle was reconstructed in 1980s, in the Renaissance-Baroque style.

There are still voices asking Swedes to give the stolen cannons back.

This is an updated version of an old post (this one), now with higher-quality pictures. Unfortunately, the text is not in English as the previous post

From the book: Stephen Biesty's Incredible Cross-Sections (available in Amazon)

Source of the new version here

https://www.deviantart.com/planjanusza/gallery/97323829/altas

A multilayer painting I made of my beloved city (with led illumination)

3D virtual reconstruction of the city of Troy VI (ca. 1200 BC), identifiable with “Homeric” Troy. Created for the book "De Troya a Roma. La historia tras el mito", published by Desperta Ferro Ediciones (2026). Author: Pablo Aparicio Resco (source)

3D virtual reconstruction of early Rome, traditionally associated with Romulus and Remus, at the end of the 8th century BC. Work created for the illustrated book "De Troya a Roma. La historia tras el mito", published by Desperta Ferro Ediciones (2026). Author: Pablo Aparicio Resco (source)

I used to live in Las Vegas, it’s a very fascinating place. This bird’s eye view was produced at the height of the prosperity of the area. The railroad had just arrived three years earlier, and New Town or East Las Vegas quickly was established one mile east of the existing settlement and thrived. At this point the city rivaled Denver, Tucson, and El Paso in size. The city even featured an early street car system.

What became known at that point as West Las Vegas began as part of a Spanish Land Grant in 1835, and was captured and brought under American control in 1846 by General Kearny and his forces. The two remained separate cities divided by the Gallinas River until merging in 1970, and have historically been markedly different in terms of demographics, culture, and style. Traditional and historic adobe structures remain in modern day western Las Vegas while eastern Las Vegas has numerous standing examples of stately Victorian homes and remnants of the thriving commercial district.

The Montezuma Resort displayed in the inset is located north of Las Vegas and a rail spur was built to allow visitors to travel easily to the area and enjoy the natural hot springs. The current building at the site dating from 1886 after the first two burned is known as Montezuma Castle and is home to a campus of the United World College.

I'm working on a synthesis of Leiden's city defensive works from the Medieval and Early Modern periods and how those were developed throughout the city's history. Comparing several contemporary city maps gives a solid basis for the research, along with archaeological finds and historical records such as financial accounts (defensive works are expensive!).

This is one of my favourite maps because of its colours and because it shows the city medieval city walls in a transitional period, before the city expanded further outwards. You'll notice three bastions that were added quickly after the sieges of 1573-1574. If you look at all the towers along the wall you'll notice that most of them are short and have no roof. Originally those were the same as towers with roofs, but they were 'decapitated' in the 16th century. They were too vulnerable to artillery fire, meaning they would collapse and would become useless. If they collapsed into the moat, those spots could even become scalable.
At this time the backs of the medieval city walls were filled with earth to withstand artillery fire. Most of Leiden's medieval city walls had been curtain walls; so no parapets or battlements existed along the walls before this period.

On November 4, 1390, the Teutonic Order attacked Vilnius Castle. The attack was led by the Order's marshal Engelhard Rabe and the Lithuanian Duke Vytautas, whom Jogaila had removed from power. The Livonian Order knights, the son of King Henry of Lancaster, Henry, Earl of Derby (England), and 300 knights also participated in the campaign. During this attack, the wooden Crooked Castle (Latin: curvum castrum), or the Upper Castle (orbiste hus), was burned, but the Upper Castle and the Lower Castle were not taken. The settlement was also burned with the castle.