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en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohenjo-daro
Mohenjo-daro (lit. Mound of the Dead, Sindhi: موئن جو دڙو, pronounced [muˑənⁱ dʑoˑ d̪əɽoˑ] ), situated in the province of Sindh, Pakistan, was one of the largest city-settlements of the Indus Valley Civilization. Built around 2600 BCE, it was one of the early urban settlements in the world, existing at the same time as the civilizations of ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Crete. The archaeological ruins of the city are designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is sometimes referred to as "an ancient Indus valley metropolis"
Rediscovery and excavation
Mohenjo-daro was built around 2600 BCE and abandoned around 1500 BCE. It was rediscovered in 1922 by Rakhaldas Bandyopadhyay,[2] an officer of the Archaeological Survey of India. He was led to the mound by a Buddhist monk, who believed it to be a stupa. In the 1930s, massive excavations were conducted under the leadership of John Marshall, K. N. Dikshit, Ernest Mackay, and others.[3] John Marshall's car, which was used by the site directors, is still in the Mohenjo-daro museum, showing their struggle and dedication to Mohenjo-daro. Further excavations were carried out in 1945 by Ahmad Hasan Dani and Mortimer Wheeler.
The last major excavations were conducted in 1964-65 by Dr. George F. Dales. After this date, excavations were banned due to damage done to the exposed structures by weathering. Since 1965, the only projects allowed at the site have been salvage excavation, surface surveys and conservation projects. Despite the ban on major archaeological projects, in the 1980s, teams of German and Italian survey groups, led by Dr. Michael Jansen and Dr. Maurizio Tosi, combined techniques such as architectural documentation, surface surveys, surface scraping and probing, to determine further clues about the ancient civilization.
Location
Mohenjo-daro is located in Sindh, Pakistan on a Pleistocene ridge in the middle of the flood plain of the Indus River Valley. The ridge is now buried by the flooding of the plains, but was prominent during the time of the Indus Valley Civilization. The ridge allowed the city to stand above the surrounding plain. The site occupies a central position between the Indus River valley on the west and the Ghaggar-Hakra river on the east. The Indus still flows to the east of the site, but the Ghaggar-Hakra riverbed is now dry.[4]
Anthropogenic construction over the years was precipitated by the need for more room. The ridge was expanded via giant mud brick platforms. Ultimately, the settlement grew to such proportions that some buildings reached 12 meters above the level of the modern plain, and therefore much higher than this above the ancient plain.
Historical significance
Mohenjo-daro in ancient times was most likely one of the largest cities of the ancient Indus Valley Civilization. [5] It was the most developed and advanced city in South Asia, during its peak. The planning and engineering showed the importance of the city to the people of the Indus valley.[6]
The Indus Valley Civilization (c. 3300–1700 BCE, flowered 2600–1900 BCE), abbreviated IVC, was an ancient riverine civilization that flourished in the Indus river valley (now Pakistan and northwest India). Another name for this civilization is the "Harappan Civilization" (Harappa is another important IVC site to the north of Mohenjo-daro in Punjab).
The Indus culture blossomed over the centuries and gave rise to the Indus Valley Civilization around 3000 BCE. The civilization spanned much of what is now Pakistan and North India, but suddenly went into decline around 1900 BCE. Indus Civilization settlements spread as far west as the Iranian border, with an outpost in Bactria, as far south as the Arabian Sea coast of western India in Gujarat. Among the settlements were the major urban centers of Harappa and Mohenjo-daro, as well as Lothal.
Architecture and urban infrastructure
Mohenjo-daro has a planned layout based on a street-grid of rectilinear buildings. Most are of fired and mortared brick; some incorporate sun dried mud-brick and wooden superstructures. The sheer size of the city, and its provision of public buildings and facilities, suggests high levels of social organisation. At its peak of development, Mohenjo-Daro could have housed around 35,000 residents.
The city had a central marketplace, with a large central well. Individual households or groups of households obtained their water from smaller wells. Waste water was channeled to covered drains that lined the major streets. Some houses, presumably those of wealthier inhabitants, include rooms that appear to have been set aside for bathing, and one building had an underground furnace (hypocaust), possibly for heated bathing. Most house have inner courtyards, with doors that opened onto side-lanes. Some buildings were two-storeyed.
In 1950, Sir Mortimer Wheeler designated one large, probably public facility as a "Great Granary". Certain wall-divisions in its massive wooden superstructure appeared to be grain storage-bays, complete with air-ducts to dry the grain. According to Wheeler, carts would have brought grain from the countryside and unloaded them directly into the bays. However, Jonathan Mark Kenoyer note the complete lack of evidence for grain at "granary", which might therefore be better termed a "Great Hall" of uncertain function.[7]
Close to the "Great Granary" is a large and elaborate public bath, sometimes called the Great Bath. From a colonnaded courtyard, steps lead down to the brick-built pool, which was waterproofed by a lining of bitumen. The pool is large – 12m long, 7m wide and 2.4m deep. It may have been used for religious purification. Other large buildings include a "Pillared Hall", thought to be an assembly hall of some kind. Near the Great Bath is the so-called "College Hall", a complex of buildings comprising 78 rooms and thought to have been a priestly residence.
Mohenjo-daro had no circuit of city walls but was otherwise well fortified, with towers to the west of the main settlement, and defensive fortifications to the south. Considering these fortifications and the structure of other major Indus valley cities like Harappa, lead to the question of whether Mohenjo-daro was an administrative center. Both Harappa and Mohenjo-daro share relatively the same architectural layout, and were generally not heavily fortified like other Indus Valley sites. It is obvious from the identical city layouts of all Indus sites, that there was some kind of political or administrative centrality, however the extent and functioning of an administrative center remains unclear.
Mohenjo-daro was successively destroyed and rebuilt at least seven times. Each time, the new cities were built directly on top of the old ones. Flooding by the Indus is thought to have been the cause of destruction.
The city is divided into two parts, the so-called Citadel and the Lower City. Most of the Lower City is yet to be uncovered, but the Citadel is known to have the public bath, a large residential structure designed to house 5,000 citizens and two large assembly halls.
Mohenjo-daro, Harappa and their civilization vanished from history until rediscovered in the 1920s. It was extensively excavated in the 1920s, but no in-depth excavations have been carried out since the 1960s.
Artifacts
A bronze "Dancing girl" statuette, 10.8 cm high and some 4,500 years old, was found in Mohenjo-daro in 1926. In 1973, British archaeologist Mortimer Wheeler described her as his favorite statuette:
"There is her little Balochi-style face with pouting lips and insolent look in the eyes. She's about fifteen years old I should think, not more, but she stands there with bangles all the way up her arm and nothing else on. A girl perfectly, for the moment, perfectly confident of herself and the world. There's nothing like her, I think, in the world."
John Marshall, one of the excavators at Mohenjo-daro, described her as a young ... girl, her hand on her hip in a half-impudent posture, and legs slightly forward as she beats time to the music with her legs and feet.[8]
The archaeologist Gregory Possehl says, "We may not be certain that she was a dancer, but she was good at what she did and she knew it". The statue could well be of some queen or other important woman of the Indus Valley Civilization judging from the authority the figure commands.
In 1927 a seated male figure, 17.5 cm tall, was found in a building with unusually ornamental brickwork and a wall-niche. Though there is no evidence that priests or monarchs ruled the city, archeologists dubbed this dignified figure a "Priest King"; like the Dancing Girl, it has become symbolic of the Indus valley civilization.
This bearded sculpture wears a fillet around the head, an armband, and a cloak decorated with trefoil patterns that were originally filled with red pigment.
The two ends of the fillet fall along the back and though the hair is carefully combed towards the back of the head, no bun is present. The flat back of the head may have held a separately carved bun as is traditional on the other seated figures, or it could have held a more elaborate horn and plumed headdress.
Two holes beneath the highly stylized ears suggest that a necklace or other head ornament was attached to the sculpture. The left shoulder is covered with a cloak decorated with trefoil, double circle and single circle designs that were originally filled with red pigment. Drill holes in the center of each circle indicate they were made with a specialized drill and then touched up with a chisel. Eyes are deeply incised and may have held inlay. The upper lip is shaved and a short combed beard frames the face. The large crack in the face is the result of weathering or it may be due to original firing of this object.
Current UNESCO status
Preservation work for Mohenjo-daro was suspended in December 1996 after funding from the government and international organizations stopped. Site conservation work resumed in April 1997, utilizing monies provided by the U. N. Educational, Scientific, and Culture Organization (UNESCO). The funding provides $10 million over two decades to protect the standing structures and the site from flooding.
The contrasting scales of Antwerp’s cathedral towers are emphasised in this view. When cathedral was consecrated in 1521, construction was still under way. But a combination of unfortunate events (fire, civil strife, funding shortfalls, et al) prevented the architects’ intentions from being fulfilled, and attempts to complete the right-hand tower to match the already completed tower at the left were abandoned.
October 1993
Rollei 35 camera
Kodak Ektachrome 100 film.
Drottningholm Palace is Sweden's best preserved royal palace constructed in the seventeenth century, the permanent residence of the royal family and one of Stockholm's three World Heritage Sites.
The palace was constructed according to a French prototype by the architect Nicodemus Tessin the Elder, by commission of Queen Hedvig Eleonora.
www.visitstockholm.com/en/To-Do/Attractions/drottningholm...
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Monte Albán is a UNESCO World Site we were fortunate to visit today. It dates back as far as 500 bc. thru 850 ad. One theory as to why this site was abandoned, was due to several years of drought. Whatever the reason as to why these different tribes lived here. I find the workmanship into these ruins amazing.
It was day 4 of the rifugio to rifugio hike in the Dolomites. I ducked and crawled through a rocky tunnel high up in the heart of the rocky mountains. Through the small openings, I could garner glimpses of craggy peaks reaching for the clouds, and of forested valleys reaching down to lush green meadows.
I pressed on. I had been promised a vista of epic proportions as I neared the location of the famed Rifugio Lagazuoi. I had learnt about a number of tunnels that were dug through the Dolomites during the peak of World War I as the Italians fought the Austrians in rather difficult terrain. These tunnels, and other structures, kept changing as the line of battle shifted through the war. But now, during times of peace, these edifices were places to study the history, and to admire the beauty of the harsh terrain all around.
Eventually, the views opened up. One such window provided a grand view of the tumultuous landscape all around: ridges of endless peaks reaching for the sky, rockfalls and avalanches pockmarking the landscape criss-crossed by innumerable trails switch-backing to the high mountain passes, and puffy white clouds making their way across and over the spine of the continent
Lagazuoi
Cortina Italy
Trullo houses in the town of Alberobello, a UNESCO World Heritage site, in Metropolitan City of Bari, Apulia region, southern Italy. A trullo (plural, trulli) is a traditional Apulian dry stone hut with a conical roof.
© All rights reserved. You may not use this photo in website, blog or any other media without my explicit permission.
Peterhof Palace Gardens.
Peterhof (Петерго́ф) - St Petersburg - Russia
Video "Peterhof Palace": youtu.be/5D-tFILfHqU
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The white building below the Campanile is the Zecca (Mint) flanked by the shorter Library of St Mark's, both by Sansovino and built in the 1500s. Palladio called the library "the most magnificent and ornate structure built since ancient times."
High angle view of the boardwalk between the lakes Gavanovac and Kaluđerovac, in Plitvice Lakes National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, in the mountainous karst area of central Croatia.
© All rights reserved. You may not use this photo in website, blog or any other media without my explicit permission.
The Tower of London was built my the Normans and dates back to 1066 with the White Tower being built in 1078. The castle is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
#vernazza #vernazzacinqueterre #cinqueterre #cinqueterreitaly #unesco #unescoworldheritagesite #unescoworldheritage #italy #italytravel #travelphotography #travel #smugmug #flickr #lonelyplanet #natgeotravel #shotoniphone #traveldeeper #traveldestination #twilight
Tourist walking by the shore of Lake Braies (Italian: Lago di Braies), situated at the foot of Seekofel (2,810m), part of the Prague Dolomites, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, in South Tyrol, northern Italy.
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Aerial view of St. James Cathedral, a UNESCO World Heritage Site built entirely from stone, in Šibenik, one of the oldest Croatian towns on the eastern shores of the Adriatic, in Šibenik-Knin County, Croatia.
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Aerial view of Naples, the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, located by the coast of Tyrrhenian Sea.
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During our time in Morocco we visited the infamous tanneries of Fes, surely its smelliest traditional crafts! The visitor must contend with a wide variety of pungent aromas, namely: pigeon poo, cow urine, fish oils, animal fats and brains, chromium salts and sulphuric acids, which all contribute to the marvellous array of colours of leather which are produced in the tanneries.
Little has changed in centuries. Skins are still carried by donkey and scores of men continue to tread, scrape and stretch the smelly skins. Although in this picture, which was taken on a Friday, most of the workers had the day off.
In case this visit puts you off, be reassured, they will provide you with a handful of fresh mint sprigs (to hold under your nose) before you climb to the terrace for the panoramic view... ;-)
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That's the Minaret of Hassan II Mosque that we see in the background.
#CST all lit up for #Diwali
Shot with Nikon D3X @ EX Sigma 12-24mm F4.5-5.6 DG @ ƒ/22.0 @ shutter 30 sec @ single raw file tonemapped in photomatix
My travels around the UK with my son. June/July 2019 England.
Our last day in London.. On a visit to Greenwich.
Greenwich Park is a former hunting park in Greenwich and one of the largest single green spaces in south-east London. One of the Royal Parks of London, and the first to be enclosed, it covers 74 hectares, and is part of the Greenwich World Heritage Site.
For More Info: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenwich_Park
A Tibetan pilgrim is silhouetted against a white stupa with a glittering golden spire as he passes by the shrine at Swayambhunath - an ancient and sacred Buddhist pilgrimage site situated on top of a hill outside Kathmandu, Kingdom of Nepal (now the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal).
The ubiquitous eyes of Buddha oversee the Kathmandu Valley from all four sides of the shrine. Hindus also worship here along with Vajrayana Buddhists from northern Nepal and Tibet and Newari Buddhists from central and southern Nepal.
Noritsu Koki slide scan, shot in the winter of 1973 with an Asahi Pentax SP Spotmatic (SMC Pentax Zoom 45~125mm f/4).
“The mountains were his masters. They rimmed in life. They were the cup of reality, beyond growth, beyond struggle and death. They were his absolute unity in the midst of eternal change.”
― Thomas Wolfe, Look Homeward, Angel
UNESCO World Heritage Site, Northeastern Italy
Sony DSC-HX90V
Believed to be the longest herbaceous borders in the country – and possibly in the world – our Great Broad Walk Borders stretch out in a rainbow of colour.
At more than 320 metres, the borders offer an adventure for the senses – with fresh fragrances, dazzling flower beds and feathery grasses in a joyful display that evolves with the seasons.
Originally designed as an impressive promenade to the Palm House, the borders were replanted in 2016. Arranged in themes across eight large circular beds, they showcase a spectacular range of plant families – ideal inspiration for your own garden.
The Panama registered 92,400 GRT cruise vessel MSC Musica at anchor in Geiranger during her Norwegian fjord cruise.
HUANGSHAN, Anhui province, China — Silhouette of Huangshan pine trees up the Yellow Mountain slopes against a beautifully colored sunrise sky.
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©2018 Germán Vogel - All rights reserved - No usage allowed in any form without the written consent of the photographer.
Status UNESCO World Heritage Site 2014.
The Great Maitreya Buddha, similar to the HUGE Buddhas of Bamiyan, Afghanistan which I was privileged to visit in 1976.
The Bingling Temple is a series of grottoes filled with Buddhist sculpture carved into natural caves and caverns in a canyon along the Yellow River. It lies just north of where the Yellow River empties into the Liujiaxia Reservoir.
At Bingling, the sculptures, carvings, and frescoes that remain are outstanding examples of Buddhist artwork and draw visitors from around the world. The site is extremely remote and can only be reached during summer and autumn by boat via the Liujiaxia Reservoir. The rest of the year, the site is inaccessible, as there are no roads in the area.
***EXPLORE PHOTO Highest position: 268 on Friday, January 1, 2010***
I went to Woodstock for a walk in Blenheim Park, the weather forecast wasn't too promising and I didn't expect to take any photos, however, when I got there I found a great winter light from a low sun combined with a really dramatic sky. So out came the camera! A passer by saw me and said 'you won't get many photos today', but I think I got a lot of very good ones!
You can see more photos from this collection on my own site at
View of St. James Cathedral, a UNESCO World Heritage Site built entirely from stone, in Šibenik, one of the oldest Croatian towns on the eastern shores of the Adriatic, in Šibenik-Knin County, Croatia.
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Interesting design of chimney caps on the roof top, in the medieval town of Dubrovnik, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the most prominent tourist destinations in the Mediterranean Sea, in southern Croatia.
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Morning clouds over Langkofel/Sassolungo (3,181m), the highest mountain of the Langkofel Group, part of the Dolomites, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, situated within the Puez-Odle Nature Park, near the town of Selva di Val Gardena, in South Tyrol, northern Italy.
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The clouds lapped above me, carried by the cool yet constant breeze sweeping over the valleys and mountaintops. With the clouds came the dynamic interplay of shadow and light, constantly changing over the canvas that was the rugged landscape all around - dozens of canyons, hundreds of peaks, and an endless moving panorama of breathtaking alpine scenery.
I could spend an eternity at top of this rifugio, but I had to move on to the next amazing destination in the heart of the Italian Dolomites
Cortina d'Ampezzo
Italy
Cat in the old town of Baku, the capital city of Azerbaijan.
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High angle view of the cityscape in split, Croatia's second-largest city and the largest city in the Dalmatia region, in Split-Dalmatia County, southern Croatia.
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Summer scenery on the Seceda mountain (2519m), in the Odle (needles) group, part of the Dolomites, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, situated within the Puez-Odle Nature Park, South Tyrol, northern Italy.
© All rights reserved. You may not use this photo in website, blog or any other media without my explicit permission.
Interior view of Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, Italy's oldest active shopping gallery, named after Victor Emmanuel II, the first king of the Kingdom of Italy, in Milan, the capital city of Lombardy region, in northern Italy.
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Drottningholm Palace is Sweden's best preserved royal palace constructed in the seventeenth century, the permanent residence of the royal family and one of Stockholm's three World Heritage Sites.
The palace was constructed according to a French prototype by the architect Nicodemus Tessin the Elder, by commission of Queen Hedvig Eleonora.
www.visitstockholm.com/en/To-Do/Attractions/drottningholm...
The largest known cave system in the world, the Mammoth-Flint Ridge Cave System, as of 2022, has 426 miles of documented passages, and sits beneath the ground in Mammoth Cave National Park, established in 1941, and was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1981, the only designation in the state of Kentucky. The park is also an International Biosphere Reserve, designated in 1990, and an International Dark Sky Park, designated in 2021. The Mammoth-Flint Ridge Cave System formed in Mississippian Limestone rock underneath a Big Clifty Sandstone cap, which has formed several stable arched passages of varying sizes from the intrusion of water into the rock layers, with the less porous sandstone cap preventing water intrusion at most locations, which have kept the caverns beneath intact and stable for eons. The water that passes through the cave system drains into the adjacent Green River, and has continuously eroded deeper into the rock along with the river. The cave is home to endemic species of organisms that have adapted to the dark conditions within the cave system. The cave system was known to indigenous people, whom mined gypsum from the walls of the caves and explored the caves, with human remains, signs of human activity, and artifacts from their presence in the cave. The cave became known to European settlers in the 1790s, and it started being mined by Valentine Simon for saltpeter to create gunpowder in 1798, with the mining activities intensifying around the time of the War of 1812, and becoming an industrial-scale operation under the ownership of Charles Wilkins and Hyman Gratz, whom used slave labor to exploit the cave’s resources. In 1838, with the decline in value of saltpeter, the cave was sold to Franklin Gorin, whom operated the cave as a tourist attraction, but was sold to Doctor John Croghan the following year. Under Gorin and Croghan, Black slaves served as tour guides for visitors, with Stephen Bishop being the most notable of these guides. Bishop made many maps of the caves during the 1840s and 1850s, and was the first known person to cross Bottomless Pit and discover the River Styx and Mammoth Dome on the other side. Croghan attempted to run a Tuberculosis Hospital within the cave in 1842-1843, believing the stable temperatures and air would assist patients, but this was short lived. In 1886, the Mammoth Cave Railroad was built between Park City and the historic Mammoth Cave Hotel, which operated until 1931. The caves were mapped more accurately by German visitor Max Kämper in 1908, whom mapped the surface topography and used instruments to document the cave, allowing for the opening of new entrances to the caverns from the surface and being the most accurate maps of the caves until the 1960s. Sadly, this was not appreciated by the Croghan family, whose historic cavern entrance was threatened in status by these maps, and Kämper returned to Germany, where he died as a soldier during World War I’s Battle of the Somme in 1916. Starting in the 1920s, the land around the caves was purchased by the private Mammoth Cave National Park Association, with the park being officially authorized in 1926. Between 1933 and 1942, the park’s landscape was reforested and infrastructure was constructed by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), part of the New Deal. Between 1954 and 1972, the cave system was further explored, culminating in the connection between the longer Flint Ridge System and wider Mammoth Cave being found, making it the longest known cave system in the world. Today, the park sees about half a million visitors annually, and contains the majority of the Mammoth-Flint Ridge Cave system, with some portions of the system extending east of the park’s boundaries under privately-owned land.
The shrine housing the statue of Kadalekalu Ganesha is situated on the slope of the Hemakuta Hill in Hampi. It presents a mesmerizing view of the surroundings.
The temple of Kadalekalu Ganesha is a beautiful stone structure. The temple hall is decorated with tall and slender granite pillars standing in the hall. The pillars are decorated with various mythological characters and themes carved out on them.
The cubical pillars are constructed in the typical Vijayanagara style of architecture. The open hall of the temple leads to the inner sanctum where the tall statue resides.
Winter atmosphere surrounds Saint Barbara Church. Saint Barbara Church in Kutná Hora (Bohemia) is one of the most famous Gothic churches in central Europe and it is a UNESCO world heritage site. St Barbara is the patron saint of miners, which was highly appropriate for a town whose wealth was based entirely upon its silver mines.
Note the helicopter to the right of the brink of Stirling Falls which fall 480 feet (151 meters) over a near vertical face along the fjord. It is one of the two year-round waterfalls along Milford Sound (which is over 1200 feet deep at the base of the falls).
Other Fjordland images can be found in my album at www.flickr.com/photos/36791099@N08/sets/72157633278423373/