Teotihuacan, the Pyramid of the Moon and the Street of the Dead September 28, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Destination, Egypt, Geographic, Guatemala, Hotels, Map, Mexico, Museum, Round The World, San Juan, Tickets, Tour, Travelling Bag, Trip , 3commentsThis great and urban and religious centre, 30 miles (48km) northeast of modern Mexico City, was given its present name by the
Aztecs who encountered its awesome ruins. In Nahuatl, the language the Aztecs spoke, Teotihuacan means ‘place of the gods’, or, ‘the place of the creation of the gods’. This great site, dominated by two pyramids, was ‘regarded by the Aztec as the original source of civilization and government, and the place where cosmic order was established.” In Aztec myth, Teotihuacan was where Nanahuatzin, a dying god, jumped into a ceremonial fire which the four creator gods (representing the Four Directions) were too fearful to enter. (more…)
Avebury Village & Related Megalithic Sites: Remarkable Monument, Ceremonial Landscape part 2 August 12, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Destination, Europe, London, Memorial, Rail Pass, Sightseeing, Tickets, Tour, Travelling Bag, United Kingdom , 2commentsThe whole was covered with soil, each step of the chalk cone being filled and smoothed into the overall profile of the hill except the top one, which was left as a terrace or ledge running about 17 feet (5m) below the flat summit. Today this terrace is clearly visible on the eastern side of the mound, although the western part of the circuit is less distinct. Whether this was deliberate, or due to erosion by the prevailing southwest winds, is unclear. But the segment of the hill between terrace and summit is significant, as we shall see. (more…)
Avebury Village & Related Megalithic Sites: Remarkable Monument, Ceremonial Landscape August 12, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Accommodation, Airlines, Destination, Europe, Hotels, Memorial, Sightseeing, Tickets, Tour, Trails, Trip, United Kingdom , 3commentsThe two great henge mountains of Stonehenge and Avebury are only about 20 miles (32km) apart in Wiltshire, yet each has its own surrounding ceremonial landscape containing many other monuments. All are entered as site number 96 on the World Heritage List, but here we will describe each of these major monuments and landscapes in turn. (more…)
Secret and Scared Ancient Greece Places: World Heritage Epidaurus continue… August 5, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Greece, Hotels, Istanbul , 3commentsSouthwest of the temple are the remains of a curious rotunda-like building known as the Tholos, also described on the stele. This was built very shortly after the temple, perhaps in 360. It stood on a platform three steps high, had 26 Doric columns around its outer side and 14 beautiful marble columns forming an interior colonnade. The foundations of three inner walls seem to have formed a labyrinth, above which was a chequered pavement arranged in a spiral. The purpose of the building is unknown, but reasonable suggestions have been made that it housed a sacred well or snake pit. (more…)
Historic Areas of Istanbul August 5, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Accommodation, Air Tickets, Cairo, Cars, Istanbul, Museum, Rail Pass, Sightseeing, Tickets, Tour, Trip, Turkey , 3commentsLittle modern research seems to have been done (or, at least, published) with regard to the ancient geomancy of the Islamic world. We note the occurrence of mosques on a much older alignment in ancient Thebes, and a dramatic alignment of mosques and tombs in medieval Cairo has been recorded,’ but greater contemporary appraisal of Middle Eastern geomantic patterns needs to be carried out. The alignment in Istanbul described here was initiated as a result of preliminary observations made by architect Patrick Horsbrugh,2 and it is presented merely in the spirit of experimental research, to bring previously unconsidered material to the reader’s attention. (more…)
Indian Tour; as a Traveler, I went Across Indian Crazy Kumbh, it could happen only in India July 3, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Air Tickets, Airlines, Beach Resorts, Cars, Destination, Europe, Flight Schedule, Hotels, India, Motel , 4commentsIt is the largest gathering of people in the world, it happens every twelve years and it could happen only in India. They come by train, they come by bus, they come on foot. But they come. They come to bathe in the Holy Mother Ganga. This year four million come to be in one place at one time. The place is Hardwar, the time is eight minutes past two on the morning of April 14th. It is unbelievable. It is unique. It is the great Kumbh Mela.
The Hindus love a good legend and the mythological beginnings of this unparalleled religious spectacle are no exception. Many moons ago, the son of Indra, king of the Gods, managed to retrieve (not unlike some sort of celestial “Repo Man”) a kumbh (pitcher) filled with the elixir of immortality that some demons had stolen from the bottom of the ocean. (more…)
The Amalienborg: A group of four lovely palaces around an octagonal piazza April 24, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Accommodation, Europe, Italy, Library, Memorial, Museum, Paris, Travel Clinic , add a commentThe Royal Residence in Copenhagen is generally known as Amalienborg. The castle is not one great palatial structure but consists of four palaces each standing alone round an octagonal courtyard. This is the Amalienborg Plads (` Place‘ or ‘ Square ‘), so called after the old castle Sofie Amalienborg, which was built in 1667 by King Frederik III’s queen Sofie Amalie, practically in the space occupied by the Amalienborg Plads. Sofie Amalienborg was burnt down as early as 1689. The great garden of the castle, however, did survive. At the back of the garden, and in line with it, was a military parade-ground which was rather larger than the garden. When the whole of this area was built over in the eighteenth century, in the centre of it a square was laid’ out which was given the name Amalienborg Plads. (more…)
The Royal Archaeologists of Ancient Egypt April 9, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Egypt , add a commentAll we have said so far applies to Egypt as well as to any other culture. We have seen, for instance, how the development of the Karnak complex was due mainly to a series of pharaonic interventions determined by changes in the general course of both religious affairs and the relationship between royalty and clergy. The Middle Kingdom sanctuary declined and finally disappeared altogether, and the chapels of Sesostris I and Amenemes I became the filling for the third pylon.
There is another remarkable and significant case of political “exploitation” of a famous Egyptian monument. Between the front paws of the Great Sphinx of Giza, there is a granite stele that bears a hieroglyphic inscription. In this text, King Tuthmosis IV of the Eighteenth Dynasty relates how, when still a young prince, he went hunting and grew tired, and then slept in the shade of the statue. (more…)
