Archaeology & People
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Maple species grow wild in Japanese mountains but often planted in gardens for its autumn colour. Early December is the best time for viewing in Tokyo.
Kouraku'en seems to have special emphasis on this plant.
Tokugawa Mitsukuni (徳川光圀 1628-1701), who completed the construction of Kouraku'en in 17th century, is a popular figure known as Mito Koumon (水戸黄門) who travelled around Japan after retirement and punished corrupted officials encountered while on the road. It is a fiction created in late years, but TV series of travelling Mito Koumon is still popular in Japan.
Although he did not travelled around Japan, he was a curious man. He liked wine and cheese, introduced knit products from Europe to Japan, sent expeditions to Hokkaido that is now part of Japan, and experimented archaeological excavation of ancient burial mounds.
He is also known as the first person who cooked ramen in Japan by getting recipe and foodstuff from China through his Confucian connections.
I was photographing a pair of chickadees and was wondering why they were staying at a single tree for such a long amount of time. When the female flew into a cavity in this red alder, it all started to make sense. The female chickadee was considering this as a potential nesting site!
Chickadees are cavity nesters. They may excavate their own nests or use cavities previously excavated by woodpeckers. Nevertheless, it is habitual for them to remove wood shavings, even if the "cavity" is already complete (as in nest boxes). This female chickadee is doing just that.
I really hope this pair will settle down in this nesting. However, when I returned to the site later that evening, the chickadees were nowhere in sight. Perhaps they will return later after considering other nesting sites. Wherever they are, I hope they will raise a successful brood.
Entering the Basilica we can see the mosaic floor belonging to the Theodorian South Hall, one of the three main rooms constituting the bishop's seat during the empire of Constantine. Theodore, whom the inscription on the floor in the Fishing Scene refers to, had built a complex of worship perfectly corresponding to the liturgical needs of that time. He bought an urban area, demolished the warehouses situated in it and built a complex with the shape of a horseshoe. Two rectangular parallel halls (South and North Hall), connected by a rectangular transversal hall. Between the two parallel halls to the east of the transversal hall there were the baptistery, some ancillary rooms and the entrance to the whole complex. Of this first complex are visible today: in the Basilica. the mosaic of the South Hall, part of the cocciopesto floor of the transversal hall, part of the mosaic floor of the entry; in the Crypt of Excavations, remains of the mosaics of the North Hall, remains of the cocciopesto of the transversal room and the floors of the ancillary rooms; the remains of the old baptistery with circular baptismal font are not visible instead. According to some scholars the South Hall was used by catechumens preparing for baptism, while the North Hall was used for the Holy Mass. Other scholars instead are convinced of the contrary. The connecting room was used both as a dressing room before the baptism following the rite of immersion and for the celebration of the Confirmation. The mosaic floor is divided into panels bordered by vegetal motives (acanthus shoots). There are ten "carpets", each representing different highly symbolical scenes, some of which are considered particularly important.
This week's theme and story is about a tree that I like to call the "Condo Tree." I've watched it over the last couple of years and many birds desire the location. In fact, there is usually a lot of bickering that goes on before the final who gets what nest is decided. This week I'll show some of the potential tenants. First up is this red-naped sapsucker. He was the first bird I saw trying to make it a home. In this image he was doing the excavations. But it wasn't long before others tried to take over...
The sapsucker flew off for a few minutes and in came a pair of tree swallows. Mr. Swallow immediately began to make preparations and even had the missus check it out. After that there was some squabbling as she didn't seem to be "in love with the place." Who's up next?For a sneak peak at the whole story and bonus pics, see my Instagram at www.instagram.com/p/CdoNOdepudq/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
Excerpt from www.roemisch-germanisches-museum.de/THE-ROMAN-CITY-WALL:
THE ROMAN CITY WALL
The Roman city wall was almost four kilometres long and had at least nine gates and 19 round towers. Remains of this wall can still be seen in various parts of the city. Recent excavations have proved that the city wall was erected at the end of the 1st century AD.
In front of the western entrance to Cologne Cathedral is an arch from the former northern gateway into CCAA. The foundations of the gate and part of the defensive wall can be seen in the underground garage beneath the open area beside the cathedral and in the excavation area under the cathedral. Of significance, further to the north, are a 32-metre-long section of the wall with the so-called 'Lysolph Tower' and a 90-metre-long section of the curtain wall near the Prussian guardhouse next to the Cologne City Museum. The so-called 'Roman Tower', probably the best-known structure in the ancient defences of the city, marks the northwest corner of CCAA.
The city wall continues on the western side of CCAA. A few metres away from the 'Roman Tower' is the 'Helena Tower' in St-Apern-Strasse. Its height of 10 metres gives a good impression of the defensive strength of these ancient towers, although only the lower portion and the foundations are original.
A 160-metre-long section of the city wall with the remains of a round tower can be seen in the open area between Alexianer-Strasse and Mauritiussteinweg. This leads to the southwest corner of the city wall at Griechenpforte.
The city wall then followed the course of a former river, the Duffesbach, down to the Rhine. Another section, 78 metres long and over 6 metres high, is visible on the level of Mühlenbach.
The most important gate facing the Rhine was the Mars Gate (Marspforte), which was demolished in 1545 and is remembered in the street name Obenmarspforten and an inscription on the house located at Marsplatz 3-5. The name of the gate derives from its medieval name 'Markttor' (Market Gate). At Kurt-Hackenberg-Platz an underground visitors-centre will soon be opened, in which a 12-metre-long section with the remains of the harbour gate and a sewer can be seen.
From December, 2008; four years before I joined Flickr.
This one is for Jason Hendricks, with thanks.
If you look hard enough you may find one, too.
SEVENTY-SIX
“No one who, like me, conjures up the most evil of those half-tamed demons that inhabit the human beast, and seeks to wrestle with them, can expect to come through the struggle unscathed.”
Sigmund Freud
11 days to Halloween!
Sand flying from the hole as this sand martin digs into the cliff at Happisburgh, Norfolk. D500_83416.NEF
This Red-headed Woodpecker is busy excavating a nest site. Likely the male, since they do most of the excavation. Our beautiful world, pass it on.
Carew Castle, taken with my new phone a OnePlus 13
The castle stands on a limestone bluff overlooking the Carew inlet, part of the tidal estuary that makes up the Milford Haven Waterway. The site must have been recognised as strategically useful from the earliest times, and recent excavations in the outer ward have discovered multiple defensive walls of an Iron Age fort.
The Norman castle has its origins in a stone keep built by Gerald de Windsor around the year 1100. Gerald was made castellan of Pembroke Castle by Arnulf of Montgomery in the first Norman invasion of Pembrokeshire. He married Nest, princess of Deheubarth around 1095. Nest brought the manor of Carew as part of her dowry, and Gerald cleared the existing fort to build his own castle on Norman lines. The original outer walls were timber, and only the keep was of stone. This still exists in the later structure as the "Old Tower".
Located in the shadow of Mount Vesuvius, Herculaneum (Italian: Ercolano) was an ancient Roman town destroyed by volcanic pyroclastic flows in 79 AD. Its ruins are located in the comune of Ercolano, Campania, Italy.
As a UNESCO World Heritage Site, it is famous as one of the few ancient cities that can now be seen in much of its original splendour, as well as for having been lost, along with Pompeii, Stabiae, Oplontis and Boscoreale, in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79 that buried it. Unlike Pompeii, the deep pyroclastic material which covered it preserved wooden and other organic-based objects such as roofs, beds, doors, food and even some 300 skeletons which were discovered in recent years along the seashore. It had been thought until then that the town had been evacuated by the inhabitants.
Herculaneum was a wealthier town than Pompeii, possessing an extraordinary density of fine houses with, for example, far more lavish use of coloured marble cladding.
After the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD, the town of Herculaneum was buried under approximately 20 metres (50–60 feet) of ash. It lay hidden and largely intact until discoveries from wells and underground tunnels became gradually more widely known, and notably following the Prince d'Elbeuf's explorations in the early 18th century.[2] Excavations continued sporadically up to the present and today many streets and buildings are visible, although over 75% of the town remains buried. Today, the Italian towns of Ercolano and Portici lie on the approximate site of Herculaneum. Until 1969 the town of Ercolano was called Resina. It changed its name to Ercolano, the Italian modernization of the ancient name in honour of the old city.
The inhabitants worshipped above all Hercules, who was believed to be the founder of both the town and Mount Vesuvius.
The catastrophic eruption of Mt. Vesuvius occurred on the afternoon of 24 August AD 79. Because Vesuvius had been dormant for approximately 800 years, it was no longer even recognized as a volcano.
Recent multidisciplinary research on the lethal effects of the pyroclastic surges in the Vesuvius area showed that in the vicinity of Pompeii and Herculaneum, heat was the main cause of the death of people who had previously been thought to have died by ash suffocation. This study shows that exposure to the surges, measuring at least 250 °C (482 °F) even at a distance of 10 kilometres from the vent, was sufficient to cause the instant death of all residents, even if they were sheltered within buildings.