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The Luxor Obelisk (French: Obélisque de Louxor) is a 23 metres (75 ft) high Egyptian obelisk standing at the center of the Place de la Concorde in Paris, France. It was originally located at the entrance to Luxor Temple, in Egypt.
Two 3,300-year-old twin obelisks once marked the entrance to the Luxor Temple.
Muhammad Ali Pasha, the Wāli and self-proclaimed Khedive of Egypt, offered the two obelisks to France as a gift in 1829.
The first obelisk arrived in Paris on December 21, 1833. Three years later, on October 25, 1836, King Louis-Philippe of France had it placed in the center of Place de la Concorde.
The other obelisk remained on location in Egypt. In the 1990s, President François Mitterrand, as a symbolic gesture, officially renounced this second obelisk back to the Egyptians.
The obelisk, a red granite column, rises 23 metres (75 ft) high, including the base, and weighs over 250 metric tons (280 short tons). It is decorated with hieroglyphics exalting the reign of the pharaoh Ramses II.
Given the technical limitations of the day, transporting it was no easy feat: on the pedestal are drawn diagrams explaining the complex machinery that were used for the transportation. The obelisk is flanked on both sides by fountains constructed at the time of its erection on the Place.
Missing its original pyramidion (believed stolen in the 6th century BCE), the government of France added a gold-leafed pyramid cap to the top of the obelisk in 1998.
Early morning on December 1, 1993, the French AIDS fighting society Act Up Paris carried out a fast and unwarned commando-style operation. A giant pink condom was unrolled over the whole monument.
Without warning, in 1998 and 2000 French urban climber Alain "Spiderman" Robert, using only his bare hands and climbing shoes on his feet and with no safety devices, scaled the obelisk all the way to the top.
The Arc de Triomphe (Arc de Triomphe de l'Étoile) can be seen in the distance on the right side.
From Wikipedia
The Royal Crescent is a residential road of 30 houses, laid out in a crescent, in the city of Bath, England. Designed by the architect John Wood the Younger and built between 1767 and 1774, it is among the greatest examples of Georgian architecture to be found in the United Kingdom and is a grade I listed building. The houses have been home to various notable people for over 200 years. Changes have been made to the interiors, however the facade remains much as it was when it was built.
The Royal Crescent now include a hotel and museum with some of the houses being converted into flats and offices. The buildings have been used as a location for several films and television programs.
It was originally called just The Crescent and the adjective Royal was added at the end of the 18th century after Prince Frederick, Duke of York and Albany had lived at numbers 1 and 16. Wood designed the great curved façade of what appears to be about 30 three storey houses with Ionic columns on a rusticated ground floor. The columns are 30 inches (76 cm) in diameter reaching 47 feet (14.3 m) and there are 114 in total, each with an entablature 5 feet (1.5 m) deep. The central house has two sets of coupled columns.
Each purchaser bought a certain length of the façade, and then employed their own architect to build a house to their own specifications behind it; hence what appears to be two houses is sometimes one. This system of town planning is betrayed at the rear of the crescent: while the front is completely uniform and symmetrical, the rear is a mixture of differing roof heights, juxtapositions and fenestration. This "Queen Anne fronts and Mary-Anne backs" architecture occurs repeatedly in Bath.
Together with his father John Wood, the Elder, John Wood the Younger was interested in occult and masonic symbolism; perhaps their creation of largest scale was their joint design of the Royal Crescent and the nearby Circus (originally called "the King's Circus"), which from the air can be observed to be a giant circle and crescent, symbolising the soleil-lune, the sun and moon. The Circus, along with Gay Street and Queen Square, forms a key shape which is also a masonic symbol.
In front of the Royal Crescent is a Ha-ha, a trench on which the inner side of which is vertical and faced with stone, with the outer face sloped and turfed, making the trench, in effect, a sunken fence or retaining wall. The ha-ha is designed not to interrupt the view from Royal Victoria Park, and to be invisible until seen from close by. It is not known whether it was contemporary with the building of the Royal Crescent, however it is known that when it was first built it was deeper than it is at present. (Excerpted from Wikipedia)
Se trata del principal edificio histórico de la universidad de Alcalá de Henares, institución fundada por el cardenal Cisneros en 1499.
La fachada principal es una de las mejores obras del renacimiento en España, obra de Rodrigo Gil de Hontañón entre 1537 y 1553. Posee además tres patios de los siglos XVI y XVII, la capilla de San Ildefonso y el Paraninfo.
AWIB-ISAW: Columns at Cardo Maxima at Apamea, Syria
Side view of Cardo Maxima (main colonnaded street.) by Erik Hermans (2008)
copyright: 2008 Erik Hermans (used with permission)
photographed place: Apamea [http://pleiades.stoa.org/places/668335/]
Published by the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World as part of the Ancient World Image Bank (AWIB). Further information: [http://www.nyu.edu/isaw/awib.htm].
Took a look at this and decided to go in and touch it up.
The Challenge Factory Winner:
*Challenge You* Winner:
Salamis (Ancient Greek: Σαλαμίς, Greek: Σαλαμίνα) is an ancient Greek city-state on the east coast of Cyprus, at the mouth of the river Pedieos, 6 km north of modern Famagusta. According to tradition, the founder of Salamis was Teucer, son of Telamon, who could not return home after the Trojan war because he had failed to avenge his brother Ajax.
Contents
1History
1.1Early history
1.2In the Greek period
1.3Resistance to Persian rule
1.4Alexander the Great and the Roman Empire
1.5In the Roman and Byzantine periods
1.6Christianity
2Excavations
3Notes
4References
5External links
History
Early history
The earliest archaeological finds go back to the eleventh century BC (Late Bronze Age III). The copper ores of Cyprus made the island an essential node in the earliest trade networks, and Cyprus was a source of the orientalizing cultural traits of mainland Greece at the end of the Greek Dark Ages, hypothesized by Walter Burkert in 1992. Children's burials in Canaanite jars indicate a Phoenician presence. A harbour and a cemetery from this period have been excavated. The town is mentioned in Assyrian inscriptions as one of the kingdoms of Iadnana (Cyprus).[1] In 877 BC, an Assyrian army reached the Mediterranean shores for the first time. In 708 BC, the city-kings of Cyprus paid homage to Sargon II of Assyria (Burkert). The first coins were minted in the 6th century BC, following Persian prototypes.
The theatre in Salamis
Cyprus was under the control of the Assyrians at this time but the city-states of the island enjoyed a relative independence as long as they paid their tribute to the Assyrian king. This allowed the kings of the various cities to accumulate wealth and power. Certain burial customs observed in the "royal tombs" of Salamis relate directly to Homeric rites, such as the sacrifice of horses in honor of the dead and the offering of jars of olive oil. Some scholars have interpreted this phenomenon as the result of influence of the Homeric Epics in Cyprus. Most of the grave goods come from the Levant or Egypt.
According to the foundation myth, the founder of Salamis is said to be Teucer, son of Telamon, who could not return home after the Trojan war because he had failed to avenge his brother Ajax. There is however some evidence that the area had been occupied long before the alleged arrival of Mycenaeans (at Enkomi) and the town of Salamis was developed as a replacement when Engkomi was isolated from the sea. There is otherwise little direct evidence to support the foundation myth.
In the Greek period
In the 11th century BC, the town was confined to a rather small area around the harbour but soon expanded westwards to occupy the area, which today is covered by forest. The cemetery of Salamis covers a large area from the western limits of the forest to the Monastery of St. Barnabas to the west, to the outskirts of the village of Ayios Serghios to the north, and to the outskirts of Enkomi village to the south. It contains tombs dating from the 9th century BC down to the Early Christian period. The earlier tombs are within the forest area, near the boundary of the early town.
Though Salamis maintained direct links with the Near East during the 8th and 7th centuries BC, there were bonds with the Aegean as well. One royal tomb contained a large amount of Greek Geometric pottery and this has been explained as the dowry of a Greek princess who married into the royal family of Salamis. Greek pottery was also found in tombs of ordinary citizens. At this time the Greeks were embarking on an eastward expansion by founding colonies in Asia Minor and Syria; Salamis must have served as an intermediate station; it has even been suggested that Cypriots helped the Greeks in their venture.
Resistance to Persian rule
In 450 BC, Salamis was the site of a simultaneous land and sea battle between Athens and the Persians. (This is not to be confused with the earlier Battle of Salamis in 480 BC between the Greeks and the Persians at Salamis in Attica.)
The history of Salamis during the early Archaic and Classical periods is reflected in the narrations of the Greek historian Herodotus and the much later speeches of the Greek orator Isocrates. Salamis was afterwards besieged and conquered by Artaxerxes III. Under King Evagoras (411-374 BC) Greek culture and art flourished in the city and it would be interesting one day when the spade of the archaeologist uncovers public buildings of this period. A monument, which illustrates the end of the Classical period in Salamis, is the tumulus, which covered the cenotaph of Nicocreon, one of the last kings of Salamis, who perished in 311 BC. On its monumental platform were found several clay heads, some of which are portraits, perhaps of members of the royal family who were honoured after their death on the pyre.
Marguerite Yon (archaeologist) claims that "Literary texts and inscriptions suggest that by the Classical period, Kition [in present-day Larnaca] was one of the principal local powers, along with its neighbor Salamis."[2]
Alexander the Great and the Roman Empire
Map showing the ten ancient city Kingdoms of Cyprus
After Alexander the Great conquered the Persian Empire, Ptolemy I of Egypt ruled the island of Cyprus. He forced Nicocreon, who had been the Ptolemaic governor of the island, to commit suicide in 311 BC, because he did not trust him any more. In his place came king Menelaus, who was the brother of the first Ptolemy. Nicocreon is supposed to be buried in one of the big tumuli near Enkomi. Salamis remained the seat of the governor.
In 306 BC, Salamis was the site of a naval battle between the fleets of Demetrius I of Macedon and Ptolemy I of Egypt. Demetrius won the battle and captured the island.
In Roman times, Salamis was part of the Roman province of Cilicia. The seat of the governor was relocated to Paphos. The town suffered heavily during the Jewish rising of AD 116–117. Although Salamis ceased to be the capital of Cyprus from the Hellenistic period onwards when it was replaced by Paphos, its wealth and importance did not diminish. The city was particularly favoured by the Roman emperors Trajan and Hadrian, who restored and established its public buildings.
In the Roman and Byzantine periods
Columns of the gymnasium
The "cultural centre" of Salamis during the Roman period was situated at the northernmost part of the city, where a gymnasium, theatre, amphitheatre, stadium and public baths have been revealed. There are baths, public latrines (for 44 users), various little bits of mosaic, a harbour wall, a Hellenistic and Roman agora and a temple of Zeus that had the right to grant asylum. Byzantine remains include the basilica of Bishop Epiphanos (AD 367–403). It served as the metropolitan church of Salamis. St. Epiphanios is buried at the southern apse. The church contains a baptistry heated by hypocausts. The church was destroyed in the 7th century and replaced by a smaller building to the south.
There are very extensive ruins. The theatre, and the gymnasium have been extensively restored. Numerous statues are displayed in the central court of the gymnasium most of which are headless. While a statue of Augustus originally belonged here, some columns and statues originally adorned the theatre and were only brought here after an earthquake in the 4th century. The theatre is of Augustean date. It could house up to 15.000 spectators but was destroyed in the 4th century.
The town was supplied with water by an aquaeduct from Kyhrea, destroyed in the 7th century. The water was collected in a large cistern near the Agora. The necropolis of Salamis covers ca. 7 km² to the west of the town. It contains a museum showing some of the finds. Burials date from the geometric to the Hellenistic period. The best known burials are the so-called Royal-Tombs, containing chariots and extremely rich grave gifts, including imports from Egypt and Syria. A tomb excavated in 1965 by the French Mission of the University of Lyon brought to light an extraordinary wealth of tomb-gifts, which also attest trade relations with the Near East.
Christianity
In what is known as the "First Missionary Journey", Paul the apostle and the Cypriot-born Barnabas made Salamis their first destination, landing there after heading out from Antioch of Syria. There they proclaimed Christ in the Jewish synagogues before proceeding through the rest of the island (Acts 13:1-5). Tradition says that Barnabas preached in Alexandria and Rome, and was stoned to death at Salamis in about 61 CE. He is considered the founder of the Church of Cyprus. His bones are believed to be located in the nearby monastery named after him.
Several earthquakes led to the destruction of Salamis at the beginning of the 4th century. The town was rebuilt under the name of Constantia by Constantius II (337–361) and became an Episcopal seat, the most famous occupant of which was Saint Epiphanius. Emperor Constantius II helped the Salaminians not only for the reconstruction of their city but also he helped them by relieving them from paying taxes for a short period and thus the new city, rebuilt on a smaller scale, was named Constantia. The silting of the harbour led to a gradual decline of the town. Salamis was finally abandoned during the Arab invasions of the 7th century after destructions by Muawiyah I ( reigned 661-680 ). The inhabitants moved to Arsinoë (Famagusta).
Excavations
Archaeological excavations at the site began in the late nineteenth century under the auspices of the Cyprus Exploration Fund.[3] Many of these finds are now in the British Museum in London.[4]
Excavations at Salamis started again in 1952 and were in progress until 1974. Before the Turkish invasion there was much archaeological activity there; one French Mission was excavating at Enkomi, another at Salamis and the Department of Antiquities was busy almost throughout the year with repairs and restorations of monuments and was engaged in excavations at Salamis. After the Turkish invasion the international embargo has prevented the continuation of the excavations. The site and the museums are maintained by the antiquities service. Important archaeological collections are kept in the St. Barnabas monastery. In the District Archaeological Museum there are marble statues from the gymnasium and the theatre of Salamis, Mycenaean pottery and jewellery from Enkomi and other objects representative of the rich archaeological heritage of the whole district. Several of the statues and sculptures from antiquity are disfigured, headless or mutilated, likely by Christian zealots in late antiquity [5] during the persecution of pagans in the late Roman Empire.
The public buildings uncovered at the city site of Salamis date to the post-Classical period. The Temple of Zeus Salaminios, whose cult was established, according to tradition, by Teucer himself, must have existed since the foundation of the city; the extant remains date to the late Hellenistic period. Early excavators discovered in the esplanade of the Temple of Zeus an enormous marble capital carved on each side with a caryatid figure standing between the foreparts of winged bulls. Now in the British Museum's collection,[6] the function of the capital remains unclear, although it does indicate influence from Achaemenid art and is consequently dated to between 300 and 250 BC.
Kodak black and white film --- black and white print chemistry - alternative process print ("lith print") produced this color on Foma chamois paper.
Column Fragments from the south collonnade of the Artemis / Diana Temple,
This forlorn site near the foot of Ayasuluk Hill in Selcuk is tragically all that survives of one of the most famous and beautiful buildings of Antiquity, the great Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, one of the Seven Ancient Wonders of the World.
This was once one of the largest temples anywhere (still evident from the surviving fragments) and magnificently adorned with relief sculpture and housing the exotically bizarre cult statue of Artemis / Diana of the Ephesians.
It earned it's status as one of the Seven Wonders after 356 BC when it was magnificently rebuilt following the destruction of it's predesscor by fire (an act of arson perpetrated by a man called Herostratus, simply to perpetuate his own name!)
The Temple later suffered from earthquakes and the invading Goths in the 3rd century AD before being finally abanoned in the Byzantine period, after which it was almost completely quarried away for the construction of other buildings nearby (such as the Basilica of St John) though some material went much further afield to Constantinople.
The site disappeared from view under several metres of silt (which covered the nearby former harbour) for centuries until British archeologist John Turtle Wood rediscovered it after a lengthy search in 1869,
The most important sculpted remains were from the square plinths and round column bases adorned with reliefs, one almost complete but mostly fragmentary, all of which went to the British Museum in London soon afterwards.
The site itself has a few scattered column drums, some re-erected iinto a column in 1980, and other indistinct bits but suffers from seasonal flooding, a sad epilogue to one of the greatest buildings of Antiquity.
Having visited the site's of 6 of the 7 ancient wonders one grows accustomed to the tragic artistic cultural losses associated with these once famous sites, but the completeness of the destruction is still a melancholy thing to behold.
Of the other wonders only the Pyramids of Egypt survive in anything like their original form, the other Turkish wonder, the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus is in a similarly obliterated state to this one (again with it's best surviving sculptures in London), the Lighthouse of Alexandria has been replaced with a medieval fort (pieces of it's masonry have been found, fallen into the sea), the Statue of Zeus at Olympia has long vanished (though the ruins of the temple that housed it survive) whilst the Colossus of Rhodes had disappeared without trace and not even it's former location is clear. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon (the only one I've not visited!) is sometimes identified from indistinct masses of mud-brick ruins at the site in modern Iraq.
Bearing the weight of history, this column at the converted Carriageworks retains its industrial origins.
A World Heritage site.. built in 330 AD & located about 2 minutes from my hotel. The Key point about this Roman Column which was burnt by an earthquake and fire in 1779 is (From Wikipedia) "At the foot of the column was a sanctuary which contained relics allegedly from the crosses of the two thieves who were crucified with Jesus Christ at Calvary, the baskets from the loaves and fishes miracle, an alabaster ointment jar belonging to Mary Magdalene and used by her for anointing the head and feet of Jesus,the palladium of ancient Rome a wooden statue of Pallas Athena from Troy." That base is now 2 meters below the surface according to the entry.. so despite it being "just another column" among many sitting along a busy 21st century boulevard there is quite an amazing back story that goes with it.
Six columns illustrate the principle of the "vanishing point" in this photo from the hypostyle hall in the Temple of Horus at Edfu.
Edfu, Egypt.
Brisbane Town Hall
#9, December 2024, Brisbane to Adelaide to celebrate our 25th Wedding anniversary.
Ionic Columns at the Low Memorial Library of Columbia University, New York City.
Olympus Pen E-p1 with a Zuiko 17mm f2.8mm lens.
Trafalgar Square, London.
Taken with my iPhone through the car window as we drove round Trafalgar Square on our way home having delivered a wedding cake to a London venue a couple of weeks ago. The National Gallery is in the background.
It was one of the hottest days of the year that day ...... and then a couple of nights ago we had the coldest August night on record ! If there's one thing about the British weather, it's never boring !!! ;o)) LOL