The Ruined Mayans City of Chichen Itza September 22, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Central America, Europe, Guatemala, Honduras, Map, Mexico, Rail Pass, Science, Sightseeing, Tour, Travel Gear, Travelling Bag, Trip , 5commentsThe ruined ceremonial city of Chichen Itza lies about 75 miles (120km) southeast of Merida in the north of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula. ‘Old Chichen’ was built by the Mayans in what archaeologists call the Late Classic Period (AD 600-830) on an earlier site, only traces of which have been found. Buildings in this area include what have become dubbed the Church, the Nunnery, the House of the Three Lintels and the Caracol — a Mayan observatory. (more…)
Malta GGANTIJA Myth Temples August 3, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Beach Resorts, Sightseeing, Tour, Trails, Trip , 3commentsWORLD HERITAGE LIST NUMBER 185 ARCHAEOLOGY, EVOLVED, GEOMANCY
The GGANTIJA temples are situated near Xaghra on Gozo, a Mediterranean islanda few miles northwest of its larger neighbour, Malta. Although the combined surface area of these two islands adds up to merely 125 square miles (320 square km), the importance of the megalithic architecture which has survived there is ‘out of all proportion to the islands‘ size’.’ (more…)
The Ptolemies Rule Egypt April 11, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Africa, Egypt, Greece, The Nile , add a commentDuring the many centuries that followed the end of the New Kingdom, Egypt was weakened by both internal rivalries and external pressures, often being literally invaded and ruled by foreigners, including Assyrians and Persians. By the time Alexander the Great conquered Egypt in 332 B.C., the world had already changed profoundly. The Mediterranean basin had become the center of all political and economic life. The sea was dominated by Greece and Carthage; the power of Rome was beginning to take shape. Alexander’s general, Ptolemy, ruled Egypt after Alexander’s death in 323 B.C., and his successors, Macedonian-Greeks known as the Ptolemies, continued to rule Egypt for almost three centuries.
Ptolemaic Egypt was but one of the monarchies into which Alexander’s empire had been divided. This is not the place to discuss the profound changes made in the ancient world’s political system by these states; suffice it to say that each of these monarchies followed a policy of trying to make itself the leading country, each according to the particular social situation. (more…)
BAROQUE April 4, 2008
Posted by dodo in : England, Europe, France, Greece, Hungary, London, Poland, Russia , add a commentWhile Europe celebrated the dawn of the 17th century with a new Baroque architecture that was to survive for 200 years, Jones followed his mentors, Alberti and Palladio, to Rome, where he studied neoclassical buildings in the company of his patron, the Earl of Arundel. His return to England led to an extraordinary paradox. While Europe had moved from the austerity of Bramante’s classicism, through the French “Fontainebleau style“, to the decorated sensuality of Baroque architecture, England emerged from a stone, timber and brickwork craft tradition to embrace an apparently revolutionary style, which, under Jones’s hand, returned the Renaissance to the rigour and scholarship of the early period.
From 1618 until his death in 1652, Inigo Jones dominated architecture, and he left to the Stuart period of English history a new tradition of classicism or Palladianism, which challenged the Dutch-influenced brick and stone style and established a platform on which Sir Christopher Wren (1632-1723) continued to build. After a distinguished career at Oxford University as Professor of Astronomy, Wren was appointed surveyor- general of the King’s Works. He was influenced by the French Baroque, a style that is evident in many of his great buildings, especially those designed after the devastations of the Great Fire of London in 1666. (more…)
Medieval Europe March 30, 2008
Posted by flyman in : China, England, Europe, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Lodges, Spain , 5commentsAfter the chaos of the Dark Ages that followed the fall of the Roman Empire, states and nations began to evolve. At the same time science, letters, arts and culture were developed by the monastic civilization that exercised a Christian order over an emerging feudal system, in the same way as the Samurai developed almost total military power over an identical system in Japan. But whereas the Japanese declined to lose its scholars to China and Korea by reverting to a complete and deliberate isolation that mummified any architectural development, the nations that were emerging in western Europe were becoming powerful enough to set aside the rule of the Holy Roman Empire, and they no longer stood in awe of the architectural remains that memorialized the genius of Roman architecture. Thus, Romanesque was born from the ruins of ancient buildings and developed as a prologue to the great European period of Gothic architecture. Romanesque was a compound of many influences, including Roman, Byzantine, Carolingian and Ottonian, Viking Celtic and Saracenic, but it was universally influenced by the monastic churches of St Bernard and St Benedict, where an eclectic style was homogenized by the development of the Roman vault. (more…)
Ancient Greece, the Link Between Greece and Egypt March 28, 2008
Posted by flyman in : Africa, Cairo, Egypt, Italy , 1 comment so farThe links between Greece and Egypt developed first through Grecian military interventions during the 26th Dynasty (664-525Bc) to rescue Egypt from the Assyrian yoke, and second by trade. Greek craftsmen and artists helped to restore, albeit for a relatively short time, the architectural characteristics of the Old Kingdom, until, in 525Bc, Egypt fell under Persian rule for the first of two occasions during which a succession of pharaohs failed to establish the type of cultural, religious and political stability that enabled the great building works of earlier Dynasties to be undertaken. The last native pharaoh was Nectanebus II, but Egypt was effectively under Persian control until the arrival in 332Bc of Alexander the Great, whose capital Alexandria became the intellectual heart of Greek scholars and artists. From the stepping stone of Crete in the Mediterranean to the Aegean Sea builders, artists, architects and craftsmen travelled by sea or through Asia Minor and Troy to play a part in one of the most important turning points in architecture.
Although the Greeks followed their predecessors in Egypt, Mesopotamia and Anatolia in establishing their principal architectural works in the service of religion, the revolutionary aspect was rooted in the belief that beauty must be considered as a subject in its own right and that the philosophical search for all things beautiful will naturally lead to the perfect temple. However, the Greeks, like many other early civilizations, were subject to invasions, warring and catastrophes before they settled to build the great monuments that mark the Hellenic and Hellenistic periods (650-30Bc). (more…)
