Civil engineering is much older than formal modeling. Mechanical engineering is younger than the civil one, but still older than modeling. In fact, when the modeling fad came from the study of the sky into everyday stuff, there was even process engineering happening on the wild.

The only reasonable definition of "engineering" that I know of is on the lines of "the art of building stuff". Writing software fits that definition perfectly well, it's just what people call "software engineering" that doesn't.