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Excavations made from 1922 by Swedish archaeologists found the acropolis of ancient Asine surrounded by a Cyclopean wall and a Mycenaean era necropolis with many Mycenaean chamber tombs containing skeletal remains and grave goods.
This image was captured recently in the early hours of a freezing January morning in Wiltshire.
The image depicts one of many icons of the night sky, Orion's Belt (The Three Kings, along with a few others) and just beneath an ancient bronze age barrow.
This image was captured on my second night at the location. Both nights my aim was to capture some deep space images of Orion's Belt, which I am yet to begin to edit.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Roman Theatre of Aspendos
View of the Roman Theatre of Aspendos in 2011
Roman Theatre of Aspendos is located in TurkeyRoman Theatre of Aspendos
Shown within Turkey
LocationAspendos, Turkey
Coordinates36°56′20″N 31°10′20″E
TypeRoman theatre
Width96 metres (315 ft)
History
BuilderZenon
Founded161 a.D - 180 a.D
AbandonedNo
PeriodsAncient Rome
CulturesRoman
Site notes
ConditionAlmost intact
Public accessYes
The Roman theater of Aspendos is a Roman theater in the ancient city of Aspendos in Turkey. It was built in the 2nd century and is one of the best preserved ancient theaters of the Greco-Roman world.[1]
Description
With a diameter of 96 metres (315 ft), the theatre provided seating for 7,000/13,000 people. The theatre was built in 155 AD by the Greek architect Zenon, a native of the city, during the rule of Marcus Aurelius. It was periodically repaired by the Seljuks, who used it as a caravansary, and in the 13th century the stage building was converted into a palace by the Seljuks of Rum. Technically the structure is a theatre not an amphitheatre, the latter being fully round or oval shaped.
History
The theater was built during the reign of Marcus Aurelius (161-180). An inscription lists the brothers Curtius Crispinus and Curtius Auspicatus as commissioners and Zenon as architect. The cavea is partly built against the slope of the hill, which provides a natural foundation. The rest of the stand rests on stone arcades. The cavea has 41 rows of benches, providing seating for 12,000 spectators. The stage wall is completely intact, only the original eight-meter-deep wooden ceiling has disappeared. Around the theater, 58 holes have been found where there used to be poles, which could be used to stretch a large velarium over the grandstand to protect the spectators from the sun.[2]
In the 13th century, the stage building was converted into a palace for the Seljuks.
In modern times, the theater has been restored to its original state. It is an important tourist attraction for the region. In spring and summer, opera and ballet performances are held there.
Trees have long thoughts, long-breathing and restful, just as they have longer lives than ours. They are wiser than we are, as long as we do not listen to them. But when we have learned how to listen to trees, then the brevity and the quickness and the childlike hastiness of our thoughts achieve an incomparable joy. Whoever has learned how to listen to trees no longer wants to be a tree. He wants to be nothing except what he is. That is home. That is happiness.
— Hermann Hesse
An ancient tree in another world... ツ ツ ツ
* Pentax K20D DSLR and Pentax 18-55mm Lens
My work is for sale via Getty Images and at Redbubble and 500px
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Excavations made from 1922 by Swedish archaeologists found the acropolis of ancient Asine surrounded by a Cyclopean wall and a Mycenaean era necropolis with many Mycenaean chamber tombs containing skeletal remains and grave goods.
Young bull bison enjoying a full body scratch in South Dakota's Badlands National Park (see photos in comment section).
"There is little in the way of hiking in the Badlands National Park. Instead, a decent gravel road makes it way up and over the small mountains on the edge of the prairie. I suspect the reason for this is because the Park doesn't want backcountry hikers stumbling into the herd and getting trampled by a 1500 to 2000 pound wild animal. Bison are not enlarged horses!
Unlike Yellowstone National Park, where it seems someone each year gets trampled by an angry bison because the person got too close, the Badlands has avoided this problem by keeping all visitors in their cars. However, in the event you ignore their rules and end up face to face with a Buffalo (like me... I had pulled off the road to stretch my legs), here's how to determine their mood.....
A bison's tail is often a handy warning flag. When it hangs down and is switching naturally, the animal usually is unperturbed. If it extends out straight and droops at the end he/she is becoming mildly agitated. If the tail is sticking straight up, they are ready to charge and you should be somewhere else....but do not run... jump back into your Jeep, turn the engine on, leave the car in park, and start clicking away." (some from the National Bison Range website)
...
Nikon D700
AF-S Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8G ED VR II
Nikon 2X teleconverter
Texture and frame, FX Photo Studio
© nyc dreamer - all rights reserved
Ancient Sagalassos....is an active archaeological site in southwest Turkey which contains mostly Hellenistic and Ancient Roman historic ruins, some of them very well preserved. In particular, the Fountain of Antoninler at Sagalassos still has its pretty facade. There are also the remains of a 9,000 seat theatre, a council hall (bouleuterion), a library, rock carved tombs, temples and baths. Part of the Phrygian kingdom from the ninth century BC and then part of the Lydian kingdom, Sagalassos became more urbanized under the Persian Empire from 546BC, becoming a focal point in the region of Pisidia over the course of two centuries. In 334BC, Alexander the Great arrived in the region and attacked Sagalassos, eventually succeeding in destroying it, although its citizens did put up a good fight. Over the coming centuries, the Pisidia region - including Sagalassos - changed hands several times, finally coming under Roman rule in 129BC. The prosperity of Sagalassos fluctuated over the end of the first century BC, but slowly it became more successful, particularly because of the fertility of its land and the production of a material called Sagalassos Red Slip Ware, a type of tableware. Much of this affluence translated into the construction of buildings and monuments, especially during the second century AD, under Hadrian, and up to the third century. Sagalassos began to fall into decline in around 500AD and this was accelerated by a devastating earthquake in 590AD. Although abandoned for a long period of time, the area was further inhabited from the tenth century AD.
Babylon was the capital city of Babylonia in Mesopotamia (in contemporary Iraq, about 70 miles south of Baghdad). The name is the Greek form of Babel, which is derived in turn from the Semitic form Babilu, meaning "The Gate of God". This Semitic word is a translation of the Sumerian Kadmirra.
History
The earliest mention of Babylon is in a dated tablet of the reign of Sargon of Akkad (24th century BC short chr.), who made it the capital of his empire. Over the years it fell back afterwards into the position of a mere provincial town and remained so for centuries, until it became the capital of Hammurabi's empire (18th century BC) From this time onward it continued to be the capital of Babylonia.
The city itself was built upon the Euphrates, divided in equal parts among its left and right banks with steep embankments built to contain the river’s seasonal floods. Babylon gradually grew in extent and grandeur, but in process of time it became subject to Assyria. It rebelled against the Assyrian rule under Mushezib-Marduk and again under Shamash-shum-ukin but was besieged and taken over by Sennacherib and Assurbanipal (Kandalanu) again.
Early turmoil
During the reign of Sennacherib, Babylon underwent a constant state of revolt, which was only suppressed by the complete destruction of the capital. In 689 BC its walls, temples and palaces were razed to the ground and the rubbish thrown into the Arakhtu, the canal which bordered the earlier Babylon on the south. This act shocked the religious conscience of Mesopotamia; the subsequent murder of Sennacherib was held to be an expiation of it, and his successor Esarhaddon hastened to rebuild the old city, to receive there his crown, and make it his residence during part of the year. On his death Babylonia was left to his elder son Shamash-shum-ukin, who eventually headed a revolt against his brother Assur-bani-pal of Assyria.
Once again Babylon was besieged by the Assyrians and starved into surrender. Assur-bani-pal (or Assurbanipal) purified the city and celebrated a "service of reconciliation", but did not venture to "take the hands" of Bel. In the subsequent overthrow of the Assyrian empire the Babylonians saw another example of divine vengeance.
On the fall of Nineveh (612 BC) Babylon had thrown off the Assyrian yoke, and became the capital of the growing Babylonian empire.
With the recovery of Babylonian independence under Nabopolassar a new era of architectural activity set in, and his son Nebuchadnezzar made Babylon one of the wonders of the ancient world.
It was under the rule of king Nebuchadnezzar (605 BC-562 BC) that Babylon had become one of the most splendid cities of the ancient world. Nebuchadnezzar ordered the complete reconstruction of the imperial grounds, including rebuilding the Etemenanki and the construction of the Ishtar Gate, the most spectacular of eight that ringed the perimiter of Babylon. The Ishtar Gate survives today in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin. Nebuchadnezzar is also credited with the construction of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon (one of the seven wonders of the ancient world) which he is said to have had built for his homesick wife Amyitis. Whether the gardens did exist is a matter of dispute. Although excavations by German archaeologist Robert Koldewey are thought to reveal its foundations, many historians disagree about the location, and some believe it may have been confused with gardens in Niniveh.
Babylon under the Persians
After passing through various vicissitudes the city was occupied in 538 BC by Cyrus the Great, king of Persia, who issued a decree permitting the Jews to return to their own land (Ezra 1). Under Cyrus, and his heir Darius I, Babylon became a center of learning and scientific advancement. Babylonian scholars completed maps of constellations, and created the foundations of modern astronomy and mathematics. However, under the reign of Darius III, Babylon began to stagnate.
Invasion by Alexander the Great
In 331 BC The Persian king Darius III was defeated by the forces of the Macedonian ruler Alexander the Great at the battle of Gaugamela, and in October Babylon saw its invasion and occupation. A native accounting of this invasion notes a ruling by Alexander not to enter the homes of its inhabitants.
Under Alexander, Babylon again flourished as a center of learning and commerce. But, after Alexander’s mysterious death in 323 BC in the palace of Nebuchadrezzar, his empire was divided amongst the generals, and decades of fighting soon began, with Babylon once again caught in the middle.
The constant turmoil virtually emptied the city of Babylon. A tablet dated 275 BC states that the inhabitants of Babylon were transported to Seleucia, where a palace was built as well as a temple to which the ancient name of E-Saggila was given. With this event the history of Babylon comes practically to an end, though more than a century later it was found that sacrifices were still performed in its old sanctuary. By 141 BC, when the Parthian Empire took over the region, Babylon was in complete desolation and obscurity.
Archaeology of Babylon
Historical knowledge of Babylon's topography is derived from the classical writers, the inscriptions of Nebuchadnezzar, and the excavations of the Deutsche Orientgesellschaft, which were begun in 1899. The topography is necessarily that of the Babylon of Nebuchadrezzar; the older Babylon which was destroyed by Sennacherib having left few, if any, traces behind.
Most of the existing remains lie on the east bank of the Euphrates, the principal being three vast mounds, the Babil to the north, the Qasr or "Palace" (also known as the Mujelliba) in the centre, and the Ishgn "Amran ibn" All, with the outlying spur of the Jumjuma, to the south. Eastward of these come the Ishgn el-Aswador "Black Mound" and three lines of rampart, one of which encloses the Babil mound on the N. and E. sides, while a third forms a triangle with the S.E. angle of the other two. W. of the Euphrates are other ramparts and the remains of the ancient Borsippa. We learn from Herodotus and Ctesias that the city was built on both sides of the river in the form of a square, and enclosed within a double row of lofty walls to which Ctesias adds a third. Ctesias makes the outermost wall 360 stades (42 miles/68 km) in circumference, while according to Herodotus it measured 480 stades (56 miles/90 km), which would include an area of about 520 km² (approx. 200 square miles).
The estimate of Ctesias is essentially the same as that of Q. Curtius (v. I. 26), 368 stades, and Clitarchus (ap. Diod. Sic. ii. 7), 365 stades; Strabo (xvi. 1. 5) makes it 385 stades. But even the estimate of Ctesias, assuming the stade to be its usual length, would imply an area of about 260 km² (100 square miles). According to Herodotus the width of the walls was 24 m (80 ft).
Saddam Hussein installed a huge portrait of himself and Nebuchadnezzar at the entrance to the ruins. He also had part of the ruins rebuilt, to the dismay of archaeologists, with his name inscribed in an imitation of Nebuchadnezzar, on many bricks used. One frequent inscription reads, "This was built by Saddam Hussein, son of Nebuchadnezzar, to glorify Iraq." The bricks became sought after collectors' items after the fall of Saddam, and the ruins are being restored to their original state.
dictionary.laborlawtalk.com/Babylon#Invasion_by_Alexander...
Invoking the spirit of Hieronimus Bosch - perhaps in his days the concept of a steam airship may have existed. Not so sure about fighter airplanes around it.
Variation of a text-prompt generation in AI Deep Dream. The text contained the words STEAMPUNK - AIRSHIP - HIERONIMUS BOSCH.
The option of Text Prompt is a new feature on Deep Dream.