Historically, "cyclopean" referred to a building technique that superimposed large stone blocks together without any mortar. This allowed for a diverse array of structures across various civilizations, including defensive walls, talayots, navetas, nuraghes, temples, tombs, and forts. Nowadays, the term applies to any ancient structure consisting of large stones superimposed to form a polygonal shape.
Nowadays, cyclopean concrete, also known as cyclopean cement, is the hybridization of these ancient techniques with modern building resources. The key difference between cyclopean concrete and simple concrete is the size of the rocks added to the mixture. Simple concrete uses smaller rocks in the mixture while cyclopean includes larger rocks like boulders. In simple concrete, coarser additives have size limits based on the space in the framework or the necessary durability and can typically measure no more than an inch.
