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Set on a turquoise curve of prime coastal real estate, the Unesco-listed Punic settlement of Kerkouane is the world’s best-preserved example of a Carthaginian city. Abandoned during the First Punic War, the town was never reoccupied by the invading Romans, so its chequer-board network of streets, houses and workshops remains as it was around 250 BC. Kerkouane's houses are best known for their pink-red baths where residents soaked in private, a major difference to the opulent Roman public baths found elsewhere around Tunisia.
Standing hippopotamus
Blue Faience
Middle Kingdom
Text: The Cairo Museum - Egypt
(Middle Kingdom c.2055 BC – c. 1650 BC)
Stone Buddha head embedded and entwined in a tangle of tree roots in the ancient Siamese capital city of Ayutthaya, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The site of Palmyra is an oasis in the Syrian desert, north-east of Damascus, it contains the monumental ruins of a great city that was one of the most important cultural centres of the ancient world, Palmyra mixed Graeco-Roman techniques with local traditions and Persian influences, it was listed UNESCO World Heritage in 1980
© Eric Lafforgue www.ericlafforgue.com
El Jem, the third largest Roman amphitheatre in the world, after Rome's Coloseum and the one in Naples. This is also a Unesco World Heritage Site.
The amphitheatre was built around 238 AD in Thysdrus, located in the Roman province of Africa Proconsularis in present-day El Djem, Tunisia. It is one of the best preserved Roman stone ruins in the world, and is unique in Africa. As other amphitheatres in the Roman Empire, it was built for spectator events with an estimated capacity is 35,000.
Close-up of the main Prang at 15th-century Wat Ratchaburana Buddhist Temple, Ayutthaya, showing original stucco work featuring Garuda swooping down on Nāga.
Artemis was the Greek goddess, the virginal huntress and twin of Apollo, who supplanted the Titan Selene as Goddess of the Moon. Of the Olympian goddesses who inherited aspects of the Great Goddess of Crete, Athene was more honored than Artemis at Athens. At Ephesus, a goddess whom the Greeks associated with Artemis was passionately venerated in an archaic, certainly pre-Hellenic cult image that was carved of wood, and kept decorated with jewelry. Robert Fleischer identified as decorations of the primitive xoanon the changeable features that since Minucius Felix and Jerome's Christian attacks on pagan popular religion had been read as many breasts or "eggs"—denoting her fertility. Most similar to Near-Eastern and Egyptian deities, and least similar to Greek ones, her body and legs are enclosed within a tapering pillar-like term, from which her feet protrude. On the coins minted at Ephesus, the apparently many-breasted Goddess wears a mural crown (like a city's walls), an attribute of Cybele (see polos). On the coins she rests either arm on a staff formed of entwined serpents or of a stack of ouroboroi, the eternal serpent with its tail in its mouth. As was Cybele, the goddess at Ephesus was served by hereditary hierodules called megabyzae, and by (korai).
Modern scholars are likely to be more concerned with origins of the Lady of Ephesus and her iconology than her adherents were at any point in time, and are also prone to creating a synthetic account of the Lady of Ephesus by drawing together documentation that ranges over more than a millennium in its origins, creating a falsified, unitary picture, as of an unchanging icon.[2]
The Lady of Ephesus, 1st century CE (Museum of Ephesus), Efes, TurkeyThe "eggs" of the Lady of Ephesus, it now appears, must be the iconographic descendents of the amber gourd-shaped drops, elliptical in cross-section and drilled for hanging, that were rediscovered in 1987-88; they remained in situ where the ancient wooden cult figure of the Lady of Ephesus had been caught by an eighth-century flood (see History below). This form of breast-jewelry, then, had already been developed by the Geometric Period. A hypothesis offered by Gerard Seiterle, that the objects in Classical representations represented bulls' scrotal sacs[3] cannot be maintained (Fleischer, "Neues zur kleinasiatischen Kultstatue" Archäologischer Anzeiger 98 1983:81-93; Bammer 1990:153).
A votive inscription mentioned by Florence Mary Bennett,[4] which dates probably from about the third century BCE, associates Ephesian Artemis with Crete: "To the Healer of diseases, to Apollo, Giver of Light to mortals, Eutyches has set up in votive offering (a statue of) the Cretan Lady of Ephesus, the Light-Bearer."
The Greek habits of syncretism assimilated all foreign gods under some form of the Olympian pantheon familiar to them, and it is clear that at Ephesus, the identification that the Ionian settlers made of the "Lady of Ephesus" with Artemis was slender.
The Christians stood out from all contemporaries in their unique approach to gods that were not theirs. A Christian inscription at Ephesus[5] suggests why so little remains at the site:
Destroying the delusive image of the demon Artemis, Demeas has erected this symbol of Truth, the God that drives away idols, and the Cross of priests, deathless and victorious sign of Christ.
The assertion that the Ephesians thought their cult image had fallen from the sky, though it was a familiar origin-myth at other sites, is only known at Ephesus from an uncorroborated Christian source, Acts 19:35.
An artist’s impression of Babylon as it existed anciently. Whether or not the artist’s concept is accurate, it nevertheless conveys the imposing nature of the city and its immensity. It was a prize indeed to any ruler capable of taking it in battle.
O caldeu Nabucodonossor II fez da cidade de Babilônia a capital do seu império e a cidade mais próspera de todo o mundo antigo. Ela se encontrava na Mesopotâmia às margens do rio Eufrates (sul do Iraque atual). O período de existência dos jardins foi marcado pelo esplendor da cidade e do governo de Nabucodonossor. Suas medidas são supostas por interpretações e relatos encontrados por parte de viajantes e alguns historiadores como Heródoto que viveu em 450 a.C. e teria contemplado sua edificação.
Segundo ele: "...além do tamanho, a cidade de Babilônia ultrapassava em esplendor qualquer cidade do mundo conhecido". Acredita-se que tivesse algo entre 25 a 100 metros de altura (dados menos críveis atestam que tivessem centenas de metros de altura). os jardins eram apoiados em seis montanhas artificiais e estruturada em maciços erigidos em tijolos de barro cozido ordenados em terraços superpostos, não haviam pedras suficientes para tal obra na região e era uma prática constante nas edificações da região o uso de tijolos confeccionados em uma massa de barro misturado à palha cortada e assados ao Sol.
As montanhas artificiais eram em forma de cone e preenchidas por terra sendo vedadas por betume para evitar a infiltração da água irrigada. Nos terraços foram plantadas árvores e diversas culturas frutíferas e flores.
Atingia-se os terraços por uma escada de mármore e contemplava-se as folhagens por mesas e fontes artificiais. Segundo a versão que atribui a Nabucodonossor, a edificação teria sido realizada em homenagem à sua esposa Amytis, filha do rei Medes, que tinha saudades das montanhas verdejantes de sua terra natal, não sendo a única edificação do rei, mas a maior de uma série que incluiu templos, ruas, palácios e muralhas em um número infindável.
O casamento com Amytis estabeleceu uma aliança importante entre os dois povos. Mas Amytis ficou deprimida ao chegar à Babilônia saindo de uma terra cheia de pastagens, montanhosa, cheia de riachos e cachoeiras para residir em uma região inóspita, arenosa e plana. Seu esposo decidiu então recriar a paisagem desejada por Amytis construindo uma montanha artificial e um jardim na sua área superior.
A denominação de jardins suspensos é portanto parcialmente equivocada porque não diz respeito à jardins devidamente suspensos por cabos ou correntes, mas sim proveniente de uma tradução incorreta da palavra grega Kremastos ou do latim Pensilis que possuem outro significado, o de superpostos.
Strabo, um geógrafo da Grécia antiga tratou os jardins da seguinte forma: "Eles consistem de terraços superpostos, erguidos sobre pilares em forma de cubo. Estes pilares são ocos e preenchidos com terra para que ali sejam plantadas as árvores de maior porte. Os pilares e terraços são construídos de tijolos cozidos e asfalto. A subida até o andar mais elevado era feita por escadas, e na lateral, estavam os motores de água, que sem cessar levavam a água do rio Eufrates até os Jardins”.
Como característica climática temos uma abordagem interessante porque o local não é favorecido por atividades pluviométricas consideráveis, é mais comum a escassez e para a sobrevivência das condições implantadas no local, eram necessários os sistemas de irrigação inexistentes e que foram adaptados para estimular a permanência da flora nos jardins. Com isso foi preparado um sistema que colhia parte das águas do rio Eufrates por meio de baldes fixados à uma corda que era acionada por duas roldanas.
Com o uso das roldanas, os baldes desciam ao nível do rio, sendo preenchidos por água que era elevada para uma piscina imensa posicionada acima do nível dos jardins. De lá, as águas eram irrigadas para os jardins de maneira suscessiva, ou seja, da mais elevada para a mais inferior de maneira que a que estivesse acima destinava parte de sua água para a outra imediatamente abaixo e assim por diante.
O sistema de bombeamento pode ter sido por meio de ação manual (escravos) que faziam girar as roldanas para fazer ascender os baldes para a piscina superior dos jardins. À excessão do que foi levantado por Heródoto, outro historiador grego Diodorus Siculus (Diodoro da Sicília), afirmou que os jardins possuíam cerca de 400 pés de comprimento (121,92 metros) por 400 pés de largura e mais de 80 pés de altura (24,38 metros). Mas outros relatos atestavam que a altura dos jardins era equivalente à altura da cidade em relação à planície de sua região, ou seja, 320 pés (97,53 metros).
Para atestar a veracidade destas informações, Robert Koldewey no ano de 1899 localizou a cidada de Babilônia no centro do Iraque atual. Escavou por 14 anos descobrindo sob toneladas de areia as muralhas exteriores e interiores, a fundação da torre sagrada, conhecido como zigurate de Babel, os palácios de Nabucodonossor e a avenida principal com o famoso portal de Inana/Ishtar, que dá acesso ao complexo de templos e palácios da Babilônia. Escavando a cidadela ao sul, Koldewey encontrou uma área de subsolo com quatorze salas de tamanho expressivo e com tetos em abóbada. Os registros antigos indicam que apenas duas localidades da cidade fazim uso de pedras, as muralhas da Cidadela do Norte e os Jardins Suspensos. A muralha da cidadela do Norte já havia sido encontrada e continha pedras, portanto o que foi encontrado por Koldewey não é outro senão o subsolo dos Jardins Suspensos de Babilônia.
Highlights from the wonderful exhibition of Tutankhamun's Gold Treasures at Saatchi Gallery London UK 30 Nov 2019.
© Amberinsea Photography 2019
Babylon was one of a number of cities built by a succession of peoples that lived on the plain starting around 5,500 years ago. There developed a tradition in each city of building a temple in the shape of a stepped pyramid. These temples, or ziggurats, most likely honored a particular god. The people of Mesopotamia believed in many gods and often a city might have several ziggurats. Over time Babylon became the most influential city on the plain and its ziggurat, honoring the god Marduk, was built, destroyed and rebuilt until it was the tallest tower.
The Tower of Babel (Heb.Bãbhel, from Assyro-Babylonian bãb-ili, "gate of God"), was, according to the Old Testament (see Gen. 11:1-9), a tower erected on the plain of Shinar in Babylonia by descendants of Noah. Nimrod's name is from the verb "let us revolt." He is said to be a mighty hunter (gibbor tsayidh) in the sight of the Lord, but the language has a dark meaning. He becomes a tyrant or despot leading an organized rebellion against the rule of Yahweh. He hunts not animals, but rather the souls of men. The builders intended the tower to reach to heaven; their presumption, however, angered Jehovah, who interrupted construction by causing among them a previously unknown confusion of languages. He then scattered these people, speaking different languages, over the face of the earth.
The story possibly was inspired by the fall of the famous temple-tower of Etemenanki, later restored by King Nabopolassar (r. 626-605 BC) and his son Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylonia. The Genesis account appears to play on the Babylonian word bã b-ili ("gate of God") and on the Hebrew words Bã bhel ("Babylon") and bã lãl ("to confuse"). The English words babel and babble are derived from the story.
The ruins of an immense Babylonian ziggurat, or stepped pyramid, have been found near this fabled location and the romantic notion is that these remains are all that is left of the Tower Of Babel. Archaeologists examining the remains of the city of Babylon have found what appears to be the foundation of the tower: a square of earthen embankments some 300 feet on each side. The tower's most splendid incarnation was probably under King Nebuchadnezzar II who lived from 605-562 BC. The King rebuilt the tower to stand 295 feet high. According to an inscription made by the King the tower was constructed of "baked brick enameled in brilliant blue." The terraces of the tower may have also been planted with flowers and trees.
Constructing ziggurats on the Mesopotamian plain was not easy. The area lacks the stone deposits the Egyptians used effectively for their timeless monuments. The wood available is mostly palm, not the best for construction, so the people used what they had in abundance: mud and straw. The bulk of the towers were constructed of crude bricks made by mixing chopped straw with clay and pouring the results into molds. After the bricks were allowed to bake in the sun they were joined in construction by using bitumen, a slimy material imported from the Iranian plateau.
Artist Jose Mertz
Jose Mertz is an artist / image maker based in Miami, Fl.
His creative area of interest range from traditional drawing and painting to graphic & product design. He focuses on pushing an experimental original style with inspirations coming from Ancient Civilizations, Science Fiction, Eastern Philosophy, Dreams, Myth & the Super Natural. Embracing multimedia, his work has also been incorporated in graphic teeshirts, prints, stickers, installations & several other platforms that mend well with his personal imagery.
For more info: josemertz.com
Reminds me of Erich von Däniken ~ Chariots of the Gods?
Happy Friday. May you all have a great Friday and a wonderful weekend. Take care.
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This famous Buddhist temple, dating from the 8th and 9th centuries, is located in central Java.
It was built in three tiers: a pyramidal base with five concentric square terraces, the trunk of a cone with three circular platforms and, at the top, a monumental stupa.
The walls and balustrades are decorated with fine low reliefs, covering a total surface area of 2,500 m2. Around the circular platforms are 72 openwork stupas, each containing a statue of the Buddha.
Source :
whc.unesco.org/en/list/592
Egypt doesn’t have the monopoly on pyramids. The Sudan has many of them, and discovers new ones regularly. The most beautiful and impressive pyramids form the Meroe necropolis. After a few hours on a brand new road (the same trip required two days on trails last year), we arrive at an unimaginably beautiful site: an alignment of small pyramids in the desert, bathed in the hot red sun on orange sand. No busses on the car park, no tourist shops. It’s almost like being the French explorer Fréderic Caillaud, who discovered the site in 1821! We understand immediately why UNESCO classified it as a World Heritage Site in 2011.
The pyramids were built between 4BC and 3AD. The site contains over two hundred of them, whereas Egypt has only a hundred in total! Forty kings and queens are buried here.
We notice immediately that the summits of all the pyramids have been blown off with dynamite. This is the work of the Italian explorer Giuseppe Ferlini, who in 1834 came and pillaged the site, taking away priceless treasures.
© Eric Lafforgue
Highlights from the wonderful exhibition of Tutankhamun's Gold Treasures at Saatchi Gallery London UK 30 Nov 2019.
© Amberinsea Photography 2019
Yemen, Sanaa, young adult on street with camel standing by door outside building
(c) Art in All of Us /Anthony Asael (a Corbis photographer)
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Highlights from the wonderful exhibition of Tutankhamun's Gold Treasures at Saatchi Gallery London UK 30 Nov 2019.
© Amberinsea Photography 2019
257 AD, House of the Vestals, Forum Romanum, Rome.
Fl(aviae) Publiciae v(irgini) V(estali) max(imae) / sanctissimae ac religiosis/simae quae per omnes gradus / sacerdotii aput(!) divina altaria / omnium deorum et ad aeternos ignes / diebus noctibusque pia mente rite / deserviens merito ad hunc / locum cum aetate pervenit / Bareius Zoticus cum Flavia / Verecunda sua ob eximiam eius / erga se benevolentiam praestantiamq(ue)
The Pharos of Alexandria was a lighthouse built in the 3rd century BC on the island of Pharos in Alexandria, Egypt to serve as that port's landmark, and later, a lighthouse.
History
Pharos was a small island just off the coast of Alexandria. It was linked to the mainland by a man-made connection named the Heptastadion, which thus formed one side of the city's harbour. As the Egyptian coast is very flat and lacking in the kind of landmark used at the time for navigation, a marker of some sort at the mouth of the harbour was deemed necessary - a function the Pharos was initially designed to serve. Use of the building as a lighthouse, with a fire and reflective mirrors at the top, is thought to date to around the 1st Century AD, during the Roman period. Prior to that time the Pharos served solely as a navigational landmark.
The building was designed by Sostratus of Cnidus (Greel Sostratos of Knidos or the Cnidian) in the 3rd century BC, after having been initiated by Satrap (governor) Ptolemy I of Egypt, Egypt's first Hellenistic ruler and a general of Alexander the Great.
After Alexander died unexpectedly at age 33, Ptolemy Soter (Saviour, named so by the inhabitants of Rhodes) made himself king in 305 BC and ordered the construction of the Pharos shortly thereafter.
The building was finished during the reign of his son, Ptolemy II Philadelphos.
According to popular legend, Sostratus was forbidden by Ptolemy from putting his name on his work. But the architect left the following inscription on the base's walls nonetheless: Sostratus, the son of Dexiphanes, the Cnidian, dedicated (or erected) this to the Saviour Gods, on behalf of those who sail the seas.
Inscription written in Greek translates - Sostratos of Dexiphanes [meaning: son of Dexiphanes] the Cnidian to Saviour Gods on behalf of the sea-faring.
These words were hidden under a layer of plaster, on top of which was chiselled another inscription honouring Ptolemy the king as builder of the Pharos. After centuries the plaster wore away, revealing the name of Sostratus.
The Pharos' walls were strengthened in order to withstand the pounding of the waves through the use of molten lead to hold its masonry together, and possibly as a result the building survived the longest of the Seven Wonders - with the sole exception of the Great Pyramid of Giza. It was still standing when the Muslim traveller Ibn Jubayr visited the city in 1183.
He said of it that: "Description of it falls short, the eyes fail to comprehend it, and words are inadequate, so vast is the spectacle." It appears that in his time there was a mosque located on the top.
It was severely damaged by two earthquakes in 1303 and 1323, to the point that the Arab traveller Ibn Battuta reported not being able to enter the ruin.
Even the stubby remnant disappeared in 1480, when the then-Sultan of Egypt, Qaitbay, built a medieval fort on the former location of the building, using some of the fallen stone. The remnants of the Pharos that were incorporated into the walls of Fort Qaitbey are clearly visible due to their excessive size in comparison to surrounding masonry.
With a height variously estimated at between 115 and 135 metres (383 - 440 ft) it was among the tallest man-made structures on Earth for many centuries, and was identified as one of the Seven Wonders of the World by Antipater of Sidon.
It ceased operating and was largely destroyed as a result of two earthquakes in the 14th century AD; some of its remains were found on the floor of Alexandria's Eastern Harbour by divers in 1994.
More of the remains have subsequently been revealed by satellite imaging.
Constructed from large blocks of light-colored stone, the tower was made up of three stages: a lower square section with a central core, a middle octagonal section, and, at the top, a circular section.
At its apex was positioned a mirror which reflected sunlight during the day; a fire was lit at night. Extant Roman coins struck by the Alexandrian mint show that a statue of a triton was positioned on each of the building's 4 corners. A statue of Poseidon stood atop the tower during the Roman period.
The design of minarets in many early Islamic mosques many centuries later followed a similar three-stage design to that of the Pharos, attesting to the building's broader architectural influence.
Legends tell of the light from the Pharos being used to burn enemy ships before they could reach shore, however this is highly unlikely due to the relatively poor quality of optics and reflective technology in the time period in which the building existed.
Only slightly less impressive - and probably more accurate - is the claim that the light from the lighthouse could be seen up to 35 miles (56 km) from shore.
Pharos later became the etymological origin of the word 'lighthouse' in many Romance languages, such as French (phare), Italian (faro), Portuguese (farol), Spanish (faro) and Romanian (far).
Chichen Itza, one of the largest Mayan temples, is located in the municipality of Tinum, in the Mexican state of Yucatan. Chichen Itza name means "At the mouth of the well of the Itza people" and refers to a large cenote (well) located near the temple. for more information: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chichen_Itza
See light box view!