Seven Ancient Wonders

View of Machu Picchu

2008-04-12T20:59:00.000-07:00


16-JUN-2004

Fisheye Sunrise, Machu Picchu, Peru


16-JUN-2004

Machu Picchu Ruins as Seen from Huaynapicchu, Peru


16-JUN-2004

Machu Picchu Ruins and Huaynapicchu, Peru


15-JUN-2004

Perfect Machu Picchu, Peru


15-JUN-2004

Temple of the Sun, Machu Picchu, Peru


16-JUN-2004

Water Collecters at Machu Picchu, Peru


16-JUN-2004

Machu Picchu from the Summit of Huaynapicchu, Peru

http://www.pbase.com/mreichel/andes&page=all

The Eternal Mystery

2008-04-12T20:52:00.000-07:00

Machu Picchu:
The Eternal Mystery

Since it was discovered on the 24 of July, 1911 by the North American Hiram Bingham, Machu Picchu has been considered, by its astonishing magnificence and harmonious construction, as one of the most important architectural and archeological monuments of the planet.

Located 2400 meters above sea level in the province of Urubamba, district of Cusco, Machu Picchu (which means Greater Summit) is surprising for the form in which the constructions in rock are revealed over a narrow and uneven small hillock, in which borders has a cliff that is 400 meters deep- that forms the canyon that arrives to the Urubamba River.

Citadel surrounded by mystery, because until now archeologists have not been able to decipher the history and the function of this stony city that is almost a kilometer in extension, erected by the Incas in a magic geographical zone, where the Andean and the Amazonian come together.

The tourists that visit this natural relic are convinced that perhaps the mystery will never be absolutely revealed because until now, hypotheses and conjectures only exist. For some, it was a post to advance in the Incan expansive projections; others believe that it was a monastery, where the girls (acllas) formed to serve the Inca and Willac Uno (High priest). This is presumed because of the 135 bodies found in the investigations, 109 were of women.

The surprising perfection and beauty of the walls of Machu Picchu -constructed uniting stone on stone, without cement neither sticking them together- have raised myths about its construction.

The oral tradition counts with a bird called Kak`aqllu, which knew the formula to soften the stones, but by order perhaps from the old Incan gods, they tore off its tongue. Also it is said that there exists a magical plant that dissolved the stone and could compact it.

But beyond the myths, the true charm of Machu Picchu (declared Cultural Patrimony of Humanity by Unesco in 1983) is in its plazas, in its aqueducts and vigilance towers, in its observatories and in its Solar Clock, evidence of the knowledge and techniques of the Andean constructors.

Nevertheless, in these last years they have insisted that the visitors be careful while visiting this place, in fact, the majority of the tour guides agree that precautionary measures that take place are strategies to avoid the early collapse of the zone.

The concern is also shared with environmentalist and anthropologist of Cusco National University, alarmed at the excess of visitors that provoke movements in the stones of the sacred city, hardly discovered in 1911

It is necessary to know that in the year 2000, almost 100 thousand people visited this archeological complex of 32 thousand hectares that is, in addition, the possessor of an extraordinary biodiversity, this is because Machu Picchu and all of the Cusco zone are found on the geological plate of Tambomachay.

The entire park has an extension of 325,92 square kilometers and is located 112 kilometers form the Cusco-Quillabamba railroad; the train station is known as the "Ruins Bridge" and is 2 thousand meters high in altitude. This is the area from where the majority of the buses leave to realize tours to this Archeological Center.

The climate of this sector has some characteristics there are only two well defined and distinguished seasons: the rainy season between September and April and the dry season from May to August.

In spite of, Machu Picchu, it is found in the brow of the Amazonian forest, and the rains are latent in any month of the year. On the hottest days it is possible for temperatures to reach approximately 26° Celsius, the coldest mornings are en June and July where the temperature can drop to -2° C. The annual average temperature is 16°C. You can clearly differentiate two seasons in the year: the rainy period (from November to March), recommending the visitors to travel with appropriate clothing during the strong sunny period (from April to October), with a notable increase in the temperature.

There is an average of rainfall that fluctuates between one thousand five hundred and two thousand eight hundred cubic meter, this is the reason why the monthly relative humidity is in direct relation with the rains, by which the average humidity is 77% during the dry months and 91% in the rainy months.

One of the more relevant architectural characteristics is that Machu Picchu is found on a grand orogenic structure of baptized granite like the "Vilcapampa".

This is because the white-gray granite is an igneous stone mainly composed of an average of 60% feldspar and 30% quartz, and 10% mica; that has given it a unique resistance for six centuries to this construction.
From the Incan language it is translated to Machu Picchu like "Old Mountain" in all of its Andean entirety, although it highlights the famous mountain that is seen in front of photographs, and appears in the majority of classic views of the site it is called Waynapicchu (Young Mountain).

A bit of history

It turns out relative to indicate the time of the first settlement of these territories, because we can't talk about foundations but occupations. Many explorers before Hiram Binghman tried to discover this Historic Sanctuary, since they had heard of it; nevertheless, men like Antonio Raymondi the Sartiges Count and Charles Wiener never reached the success that the North American did. It is known that the Santander brothers had been at the base of the Temple of the Sun in July 1909, due to inscription that appears in this place.

The 14 of July 1911, Hiram Binghman arrived with specialists from Yale University in topography, biography, geology, engineering and osteology. They were lead to the place by Melchor Arteaga, an inhabitant of the zone that gave them methods or means of how to arrive, until today it is considered the Eighth Wonder of the World.

Later, in 1914, Binghman returns to Machu Picchu with economic and logistic support from the proper university and the Geographic Society of United States in front of a specialized team and with a publication that was already circulating around the world: "The Lost City of the Incas".

In the original plan, Binghman divided Machu Picchu into sectors according to the cardinal orientation. Some names conserve there originality, but after various decades of discovery, the scientific studies fulfilled by the patronage of archaeology of the National Institute of Culture have reached valuable conclusions about the use and the functions of the buildings on the basis of excavations and architectural relation with similar buildings from the ample Incan state.

Routes and attractions

There are three known ways to arrive to Machu Picchu that exist. The first of them is the traditional (or on train), with a three hour duration; the second is for those that like adventure tourism there is the "Camino del Inca" route, hiking that requires a great effort during 4 days. And the newest way of arriving to the Aguas Calientes town is by helicopter. All of these tours can be contracted in Cusco and have an average value of 60 dollars.

When traveling by train, it is necessary to know that 112 kilometers of distance between the city of Cusco and the Puente Ruinas (Ruins Bridge) station or Machu Picchu exist, by railroad; the trip initiates in the San Pedro station in Cusco, crossing the Picchu mountain, by the zigzagging route until reaching the highest pinnacle named "El Arco" (the arc) in the northeastern part of the city.

Continuing, you will descend through towns like Pory, Cachimatyo and Izcuchaca until the Pampa de Anta, ample livestock ranching zone and an undisputed geographic pulchritude. Roaming through the narrow Pomatales Gorge, one creeps through the Sacred Valley of the Incas through the Pachar station. Crossing the Urubamba River to the left margin to arrive at the Ollantaytambo station and then proceeding to Puente Ruinas, final destination.

Those who have crossed the Sacred Valley by highway and do not desire to waste time returning to Cusco, can also take the train to Machu Picchu in the Ollantaytambo station.

Two services exist: a tourism train and train ferry, which leave on the first hour and return in the afternoon.

Those who find themselves in good physical state can take the Camino del Inca route to Machu Picchu that is known as the most famous trekking route in South America by the conjunction of different elements that are offered to the visitors. One begins 88 kilometers from the railway line to the Convention Valley in the place named Q'oriwayrachina, featuring a total distance of 39.6 kilometers towards the sanctuary.

In order to initiate the long walk you cross the Kusichaca bridge, that was constructed in the Incan epoch, in a suspension bridge manner, with steel cables over the Urubamba River. After crossing a eucalyptus forest, almost immediately after you will have contact with the archaeological groups of Q'ente, Pulpituyoc, Kusichaca and Patallaca, when we arrive after various hours of walking to Wayllabamba, where camping is recommended.

The second day is more difficult because you have to climb to 4200 meters above sea level until lowering down to the valley of the Pakamayu River, where you should say overnight.

While we continue with the long hike, on the third day observe impressive archeological remains like Runkuraqay, the Yanacocha and Phuyupatamarca Lagoons, very close to the visitors’ center of Wiñayhuayna, where you can camp.

The fourth and final day of the adventure, it is recommended to depart at 8 am in the morning, to arrive at Machu Picchu after three hours of crossing the brow of the forest and bordering precipices.

During the days of trekking you will witness and impressive flora and fauna that includes animals in extinction like the spectacled bear, pumas, Andean foxes, river nutrias, mountain cats and others.

We recommend you take a sleeping bag, backpack, multiuse knife, and tablets against motion sickness and antiofidic polyvalent serum.

In the case of taking the route by helicopter, there is solely one company that offers a daily flight at 8:45 a.m. from the Cusco, airport, "Velasco Astete", the flight lasts 25 minutes until the Aguas Calientes town. A few meters away you take the bus to the citadel arriving in 30 minutes. In total the journey from Cusco is completed in 55 minutes. From high up you can appreciate the impressive panoramic view of Cusco city and the Sacred Valley, but you do not approach the archaeological zones, for this reason we recommend you take the ground routes to get to know the zone better.

Surroundings with grace

Although visits to the area where prohibited in the final decade of the 90's, The Temple of the Sun can now be visited once again. This semi-circular construction is seated on a massive rock. In this building you will find two trapezoidal windows and according to the chroniclers, in the epoch that it was inhabited, it had incrustations of precious stone and gold.

Another attraction included in the tours is the Intihuatana. It is located on a hill conformed by various terraces and platforms, where you arrive after climbing 78 staircases finely carved. The Intihuatana served two functions: measuring time (solstice and equinoctial) by the effect of light and shade and as a rock altar.

Also there is Huayna Picchu, which as we explained at the beginning of the report, is located in the top of the young mountain with a difficult route and with small temples. This is the point where you can obtain the best vista of the citadel. Other attractions are the Group of the Sacred Rock, The Doorways, The Fountains and the Mausoleum or Tomb.

In addition, only 800 meters from the town of Aguas Calientes, in the eastern direction, fountains of thermal sulfur waters exist in different degrees of temperature that emerge from the rocky subsoil. The dregs or conditioned pools in this place present the basic infrastructure for it use as thermal baths. The average temperature of these waters is between 38 and 46 degrees Celsius. Vestibules, hygienic services and a small snack bar exist.

Basic recommendations

As much in the territory as in the companies that organize the tours recommends that everyone that enters the Historical Sanctuary of Machu Picchu and makes use of the authorized routes for trekking should avoid environmental contamination and should have basic norms for the preservation of the zone by not throwing away waste, igniting bonfires, depredation, and acquisition of any species of flora or fauna of the area.

In fact you can only camp in indicated places for camping in specific form.

Gotolatin.com
Foto: Gentileza Condor Travel
Copyright (c) 2002 Gotolatin

Photo of Machu Pichu, Peru

2008-04-12T20:50:00.000-07:00

Machu Pichu, Peru

http://travel.webshots.com

Photos Petra City by © 1997-2000 Anthony Jones

2008-04-11T07:13:00.000-07:00

Ruins and Wildflowers, Jerash, Jordan
Image ©1998 Anthony Jones

Forum and the Cardo, The South Theatre, Jerash, Jordan
Image ©1998 Anthony Jones

The Agora , Jerash, Jordan
Image ©1998 Anthony Jones

Wildflowers , Jerash, Jordan
Image ©1998 Anthony Jones

Roman sign , Jerash, Jordan
Image ©1998 Anthony Jones

Reading at the Dead Sea , Suweimeh, Jordan
Image ©1998 Anthony Jones

In the Siq, Petra, Jordan
Image ©1998 Anthony Jones

First glimpse of the Treasury, Petra, Jordan
Image ©1998 Anthony Jones

Me on the steps of the Treasury, Petra, Jordan
Image ©1998 Anthony Jones

Textured ruin wall, Petra, Jordan
Image ©1998 Anthony Jones

Urn Tomb, Petra, Jordan
Image ©1998 Anthony Jones

Me in doorway of Lions Tomb, Petra, Jordan
Image ©1998 Anthony Jones

The Monastery, Petra, Jordan
Image ©1998 Anthony Jones

The Monastery, near top, Petra, Jordan
Image ©1998 Anthony Jones

Looking down from top, The Monastery, Petra, Jordan
Image ©1998 Anthony Jones

Me at the top, The Monastery, Petra, Jordan
Image ©1998 Anthony Jones

Me on top, The Monastery, Petra, Jordan
Image ©1998 Anthony Jones

Snake!, Trail down from the High Place of Sacrafice, Petra, Jordan
Image ©1998 Anthony Jones

Colors in rock, Trail down from the High Place of Sacrafice, Petra, Jordan
Image ©1998 Anthony Jones

Lion fountain, Trail down from the High Place of Sacrafice, Petra, Jordan
Image ©1998 Anthony Jones

Me in unnamed tomb, Petra, Jordan
Image ©1998 Anthony Jones

Colors in rock, Petra, Jordan
Image ©1998 Anthony Jones

Looking down at the Theatre, Urn Tomb, Petra, Jordan
Image ©1998 Anthony Jones

Me in erosion hole, Near the Royal Tombs, Petra, Jordan
Image ©1998 Anthony Jones

Mystery staircase, half way up valley, Petra, Jordan
Image ©1998 Anthony Jones

Looking down at Treasury?, Mystery high spot, Petra, Jordan
Image ©1998 Anthony Jones

Rock formations, Lawerence Spring, Wadi Rum, Jordan
Image ©1998 Anthony Jones

Canyon and pools, Canyon Kazali Siq, Wadi Rum, Jordan
Image ©1998 Anthony Jones

Me, Maradeth, and Karen on arch, Small arch, Wadi Rum, Jordan
Image ©1998 Anthony Jones

High Bridge, Wadi Rum, Jordan
Image ©1998 Anthony Jone

Desert vista, Lawerence house, Wadi Rum, Jordan
Image ©1998 Anthony Jones

Gang and truck, Wadi Rum, Jordan
Image ©1998 Anthony Jones

Petroglyphs on cliff wall, Wadi Rum, Jordan
Image ©1998 Anthony Jones

Pre-sunset, Wadi Rum, Jordan
Image ©1998 Anthony Jones

The Siq, Petra, Jordan
Image ©2000 Anthony Jones

Doors / windows of the Necropolis, Petra, Jordan
Image ©2000 Anthony Jones

Amy and the colored rock, Petra, Jordan
Image ©2000 Anthony Jones

The Royal Tombs, Petra, Jordan
Image ©2000 Anthony Jones

Leaves and rock, Petra, Jordan
Image ©2000 Anthony Jones

At prayer, Petra, Jordan
Image ©2000 Anthony Jones

Colors in rock, Royal Tombs, Petra, Jordan
Image ©2000 Anthony Jones

Khazneh (The Treasury), Petra, Jordan
Image ©2000 Anthony Jones

Camel, Petra, Jordan
Image ©2000 Anthony Jones

Ad-Deir (The Monastery), Petra, Jordan
Image ©2000 Anthony Jones

Our shadows on Ad-Deir (The Monastery), Petra, Jordan
Image ©2000 Anthony Jones

Ad-Deir (The Monastery) from half way up, Petra, Jordan
Image ©2000 Anthony Jones

Ad-Deir (The Monastery), Petra, Jordan
Image ©2000 Anthony Jones

View of Royal Tombs from the High Place of Sacrifice, Petra, Jordan
Image ©2000 Anthony Jones

Tomb with arched door, Petra, Jordan

2008-04-11T07:03:00.000-07:00

Petra Capital City of Nabataea Part II

2008-04-11T06:37:00.000-07:00

The Mystery of the Treasury Monument
copyright 2004 CanBooks

In 1812 the Swiss geographer and scholar, Johannes L. Burckhardt discovered Petra and stood amazed at the magnificence of the Treasury Monument. Since that time thousands of tourists have stood amazed before this monument While it's facade is very impressive the purpose of this monument has been a puzzle to all those who would seek to understand its use and function.

the Old Testament.-Wikipedia-

Since my first visit to Petra in 1979 I too have puzzled over this monument. Since that date I have passed this monument hundreds of times, and almost every time I pause to reflect. While some would propose that the Treasury Monument was a tomb, no tomb inscriptions or grave crypts have been discovered. Others have proposed that it was what the Arabs call it, a 'Treasury' or tax house for passing camel caravans, but archeologists and historians now doubt that many camel caravans came into Petra, as most of the caravans passed the city, traveling on the King's Highway a good number of miles away.

One thing that is certain, the Treasury Monument was built to impress. It is the first monument that visitors see when they exited the siq, and it is also one of the finest monuments in all of Petra. It is located in such a way that it grabs the attention of every visitor that enters the city, and excites everyone who glimpses it for the first time. Few other monuments in the ancient world were situated in such a way as to inspire and awe with their majesty and mystery.

And so most visitors are caught up with the majesty of the facade. Many are disappointed when they enter the Treasury and discover a simple huge cubical cut out of solid rock, with three small ante-chambers. The ornate facade starkly contrasts the bare walls of the interior. And yet it is here that we must start, for it is here that we will discover the clues that may lead us to unraveling the Mystery of the Monument.

The layout of the Treasury Monument is quite simple. As the diagram below illustrates, there are three main chambers: one very large central one, and two smaller ones right and left of the porch.The main central chamber had a rear-back chamber plus two side niches. The chamber to the right of the portch also has a large back niche.

Above: Floor plan of the Treasury Moneument. Right: The Main Chamber

It is also important to note that the Treasury Monument was placed high on the side of a cliff. Below it are a number of small monuments and rooms, and before it was a courtyard complete with fountains. This high dominating position added to the impressive nature of the monument. Today the plaza in front of the treasury is filled with flood debris, and tourists can walk directly to the front of the Treasury building. When the Jordanian Ministry of Antiquities removes all of this debris, visitors will once again be able to stand on the plaza floor and look up at the monument, towering above them.

The Notches
There are a number of puzzling elements about the Treasury monument that should be mentioned here. First, on the front of the monument are a series of notches carved to the right and left of the facade. Over the years archeologists and tour guides have suggested a myriad number of uses for these notches. Some have thought that these notches held scaffolding into place, or allowed the original builders to scale the monument. However , when one considers the two 'unfinished' monuments in Petra, it is clear that construction workers started at the top of the monument and carved their way downward to the base. This method would provide the builders a continuous platform to stand on as they worked their way downwards.

Another suggestion has been that these notches may have been used to 'hold' a finishing plaster onto the face of the monument. While this seems reasonable, it is interesting to note that this feature is not found on other plastered buildings, such as the Great Temple (Royal Courts).

Once the visitor enters the Treasury Monument, another series of notches is evident on the interior. These are placed irregularly around the room, and usually at quite a high altitude. No pattern has been discerned to date. Some have suggested that perhaps there was a second story built around part of the main room in the Treasury, or at least a second story in part of the room. But this is only a guess and nothing concrete is known.

And so it seems that the Treasury Monument refuses to give up its secrets, and its use seems to have been long forgotten.

Other Clues
As I considered the Treasury Monument over the last twenty years, I've often wondered about the layout of the rooms in the Treasury. These rooms are unlike any others in the city.

Many of the ancient monuments were used as tombs. Graves, tomb inscriptions, dinning halls, and other evidence give little doubt to their use. This monument, however is very different. In the following sections of this paper, I would like to propose that the Treasury building was actually a library, housing scrolls and parchments. I belive that the central room of the Treasury was the 'reading room' and that the side rooms were where the niches where scrolls were kept. First, however, let me cover some background material.

Scrolls
As far back as 3000 BC the Egyptians had learned to manufacture a form of paper known as papyrus. By 1100 BC they began exporting this paper to the Levant and a few centuries later to the Greek world. They exported even more when the Roman Empire was at its height.

Papyrus is relatively simple to produce, and any visitor to Egypt should stop by the Papyrus Museum in Cairo to see it being produced. Thin strips of papyrus stalks as laid side by side and then overlaid with a second layer running the other direction. These are then put into a press, and the adhesive quality of the natural juice of the papyrus plants cements the two lays together to form a sheet of paper. These were commonly 30 - 40 cm long and 11 to 24 cm wide, with 16-18 cm being the normal width. These sheets were then pasted together, often with a four paste, and formed into long rolls. The standard practice was to join twenty sheets together and then to roll them so that they formed scrolls.

If a person wished to write a letter, he simply snipped off a piece of papyrus about the size he desired. If a person wished to write a book, or a longer work, he would need one or more rolls. Long works were often divided up into sections called "books" and labeled.

By the 4th century BC the selling of books had become a flourishing industry. Socrates, in the speech he gave at his trial in 399, remarked that the works of Anaxagoras could be bought for a drachma at the main square in Athens.

The Library of Alexandria
In other papers here on Nabataea.net, researchers have pointed out the close connection that existed between the city of Alexandria and the Nabataean merchants. During the founding of the Nabataean Empire in southern Jordan, Alexandria was at its height. One of the unique features of Alexandria was its museum and its library.

The Library of Alexandria was founded by Ptolemy I, and by the time of Ptolemy III there were two libraries, the major one, and a daughter library located in the sanctuary of the temple to the god Serapis. These were not 'lending' libraries as we known them in today, but rather, places where scrolls could be stored and where people could come to study them. Thus, these libraries consisted of large central rooms where scholars could read, and smaller ante-rooms, or even niches where the scrolls were kept.

The scrolls for the library were obtained in a variety of ways. First scrolls were obtained from throughout Egypt. Second, agents flush with money scoured other countries, attempting to buy all the books they could. Older books were preferred on the grounds that they had undergone less copying, and thus would have fewer errors. Soon the industry of forging 'old' copies began. The Ptolemies also confiscated any books found on ships unloading in Alexandria, and the owners were given a copy of their book in return. Ptolemy III also went a step farther, and "borrowed" books from Greece. He laid out an enormous amount of money in order to borrow the scrolls. He then had copies made of them, and he sent those back instead of the originals. The Athenians could do nothing but keep the money put up for the original books.

As I considered this fact, I realized that the Nabataeans, ever astute merchants, would have realized the value of books, and they would have been sure to include these books among their items of trade. The Ptolemies were paying out large funds and the Nabataeans must have been eager to provide them with literature.

In the end, the Library in Alexander came to hold 490,000 scrolls, and the daughter library had 42,800 scrolls. The Chief Librarian, Zenodotus devised an alphabetical system of organizing the books, and clerks kept the library in order.

The Libraries of Alexandria existed for several hundred years. While some of the scrolls were burned when Julius Caesar created a diversionary fire on the docks of Alexandria in order to escape a mob, most of the books survived this fire. Didymus, the prolific writer and commentator that used the library for his reference did so in the years after the 48 BC fire. Antony, in the years leading up to the Battle of Actium in 31 BC was rumored to have given 200,000 books to the library of Pergamum. There is also a record of an imperial Roman appointment of a director to the library, and Claudius (AD 41-54) built an addition to it. Later Ptolemies gave the directorship of the library out as a political favor to those they wished to honor. Tiberius Claudius Balbillus served as a director of the library in the middle of the first century AD. The library probably ceased to exist in 270 AD when the emperor Aurelian engaged in bitter fighting in Alexandria, and leveled most of the palace area including, presumably the libraries.

Why have I mentioned this? Because libraries, books, and scrolls would have been of great interest to the Nabataeans, who traveled widely and dealt in all kinds of trading material. Later, when they began to build their own city to impress the surrounding nations with the greatness of their civilization, a library would have been a key building. By placing such a building at the very entrance of the city, visitors from other civilizations would have been duly impressed with the culture of the Nabataeans, and less likely to think of them as barbarians from the desert.

The Growth of Libraries around the Mediterranean
With the coming of the Roman Empire, more libraries came into existence. First, even before the Romans arrived, a library was in service in Antioch, during the height of Antiochus III (222-187 BC). Euphorion, a well known scholar and poet accepted to be its director. Little else is known about this library.

Second, the city of Pergamum contained a library. Percomum was a small village in the north-west corner of Turkey, and Lysimachus, one of Alexander's generals amassed a small fortune in his stronghold there. When Attalus I (241 - 197 BC) became the ruler he decided to raise the standards of the city by becoming a patron of the arts. Using the riches gathered by Lysimachus, he put together one of the first major art collections of the ancient world. Eumenes II (197 - 160) continued and turned Pergamum into a center of literature and learning by building a library that rivaled Alexandria's. This library was housed in the temple of Athena, goddess of wisdom.

Eventually rivalry developed between the library in Alexandria and the one in Pergamum. The Ptolemies in Egypt eventually stopped the export of papyrus to Pergamum in order to hinder their development. It is said that the Pergamenes then started writing on skins and leather, and eventually the Roman word for this new writing skin became pergamena (paper) or pergamum, from where we get our word parchment.

Slowly other libraries grew in cities around the Mediterranean. We catch glimpses of them from various artifacts. For instance on the island of Cos, off the western coast of Asia Minor there is an inscription, dating to the beginning of the second century BC that lists men who pledged contributions to their library. There are similar inscription in Athens, Rhodes, and elsewhere. A number of these libraries were house in the same building as the gymnasium, or sports center.

As the Roman Empire spread, the number of libraries around the Mediterranean increased. As the Roman Empire spread by force, libraries were looted and scrolls were brought to Rome. Aemillius Paulis established the first library in Rome in this way. He was followed by Sulla and Lucullus who each also established their own library. Sulla's library was said to include Aristotle's great collection. Plutarch tells us that Lucullus collected many well-written books and opened his libraries to everyone to come and read. The historian Cicero recorded how libraries functioned, and how the scrolls were catalogued and stored.

The scrolls were stacked, usually no more than 3 or four high, and each had a tag on the end. (above) One of these tags is clearly illustrated on a wall painting from Pompeii, showing a boy holding a roll. The tag reads "Homerus." (below)

Roman libraries were quite standard in their structure. A library was unearthed at Herculaneum, which was buried when the volcano Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD. Excavation was begun in the eighteenth century and several years later the excavators came across the city library. It was about 3 m by 3 meters, with walls lined with wooden shelves to above eye level. In the center was a free standing wooden bookcase 1.8 meters tall and fitted with shelves on both sides. Every shelf was piled high with papyrus rolls, (around 1,800 in all). This particular library was quite specialized and contained a great number of the works of Philodemus, who lived from 75 to 40 BC. Historians believe that small libraries such as this existed in many Roman towns.

A short time before his assassination in 44 BC, Julius Caesar wanted to enhance Rome's cultural status, and so he made the decision to build a large public library. Some years later, Asinius Pollio created this library and it became the standard for Roman libraries afterwards.

In 28 BC Augustus repaired a number of public buildings, and among them was the temple of Apollo on the Palatine Hill. Adjoining the temple he erected Rome's second library, "The Library of the Temple of Apollo" or "The Palatine Library." This library was divided into large rooms, one for Greek literature and the other for Latin scrolls.

Above: The plan of the Palatine Library with its twin chambers

Within this library were niches in the wall measuring 3.8 m in height, 1.8 meters wide and .6 meters in depth. The scrolls were placed in these niches as well as in book cases in the center of the room. The niches were located high on the wall, and historians have surmised that a portable set of steps must have been used.

Another Roman library was the twin libraries of the Forum of Trajan in Rome. In the center was a forum or plaza where readers could take the scrolls outside into sunlight. The chambers were 27 meters by 20 meters, and two stories high, covered by a vaulted roof. On either side were upper and lower levels of niches for bookcases, two per level. A staircase at the back of the building provided access to the gallery. The niches were 1.6 meters wide and .6 meters deep. The capacity of this library has been estimated at over 10,000 scrolls. The important feature of this library was the large central room where books could be studied.

Left: Plan of the Tarajan Library, with one library to the top and one to the bottom.

Right: Inside the Library, the central room was used for study, while the books were kept in niches in the walls.

It is interesting to notice that Greek libraries contained stacks of scrolls in close quarters. Roman libraries were designed for readers. They had spacious handsome surroundings, courtyards, and a large central room. The scrolls were nearby, but out of the way. Similar libraries were built at the Baths of Trajan and the Baths of Caracalla in Rome.

Outside of Rome, cities that wanted to enhance their cultural status began to built libraries. In Athens the Library of Hadrian was constructed, with a large courtyard complete with gardens. (below)

Carthage in Tunisia and Timgad (Thamugadi) in Algeria also boasted libraries. The plan of the Library at Timgard (3rd century AD) is shown below.

The Library in Ephesus
The city of Ephesus in Asia Minor was also home to a library. Archeologists have been able to reconstruct this building almost in its entirety, and visitors today can see a nearly intact Roman library. This is the library that we want to draw our attention to next as it has several features that parallel the Treasury Monument in Petra.

First, the library in Ephesus was built around a central room 16.7 meters wide and 11 meters deep. Along the sides were niches for books, and balconies set on pillars. The builder of this library was Tiberius Julius Aquila Polemaeanus, who died before the library was completed. Tiberius was then buried in a monumental sarcophagus in an underground chamber.

Ground plan of Ephesus Library

The outstanding feature of the library in Ephesus is its facade adorned with columns, prominent aedicula and a number of statues. When looking at this facade, one wonders if the builders of the Treasury Monument had not visited this site before embarking on the design of the Treasury.

The Treasury Monument in Petra
As is mentioned in other papers on this website, it seems that almost every Nabataean could read and write. Nabataean graffiti has been found all over Nabataea, with inscriptions being left by many kinds of people, including soldiers, farmers, hunters, and shepherds. There is no doubt in the minds of most historians that the Nabataeans were an unusually literate society. Yet, archeologists have not yet been able to find their libraries or collections of their writtings.

Floor Design of the Main Hall
The Treasury Monument contains one large central room 12 meters x 12 meters with 3 very small side rooms According to the Roman style of libraries the central room of the Petra Library would have contained tables and couches where scrolls could be read. The morning sun shines directly onto the Library, and with the doors wide open, the central room would have been quite well lit. There may also have been bookcases along some walls, as the notches in the walls indicate.

But where are the niches that contained the scrolls?

I believe that the Nabataeans combined features of the Greek libraries as well as the Roman ones. Thus the three small side rooms would have been used for the storage of the scrolls or books. These rooms would have been more air-tight and would have preserved the books better than if they were exposed to the elements in the central room. In front of the Petra Library would have been a courtyard or plaza where readers could browse scrolls in the sunlight.

The Treasury Monument was outfitted with huge doors. These doors are very tall and seemed to be designed to let sunlight into the main room. The standard business hours in the Greek and Roman world were from sunrise to about midday. An inscription found in the library of Pantainos reads "Open from the first hour to the sixth" Interestingly enough, it is during this time period that the sun shines onto the Treasury Monument, illuminating the central chamber.

To the right and left of the main doors were two small rooms, each appearing to be some sort of storage room, perhaps for more scrolls.

Over time, the Library was destroyed either by looting, or by the occupants taking their scrolls elsewhere.

Also, it is interesting to compare the type of facade that was used on the Ephesus library with the facade used on the Treasury Monument. One can easily imagine that the designers of the Petra Library had the Ephesus Library in mind when they designed the Treasry Facade.

Left: The Ephesus Library Right: The Treasury Monument
Images of the library in Ephesus above copyrighted by Historylink101.com & found at Greek Picture Gallery.

Why a Library?
As we have mentioned in this paper, libraries were often built to enhance and demonstrate the cultural achievements of a city. As the Nabataeans sought to impress on others the honor that their society should have, it should not surprise us that they built one or more libraries along side of their temples and theater. (See Honor and Shame in a Middle Eastern Setting, and The Price of Honor)

The presence of a library would help us understand how Petra would be mentioned as a place of thinking, and later as a center for the operation of the church. The church writer Eusebius spoke out against the theologians of Petra, and later in the mid-4th century, Bishop Asterius of Petra was named as one of the participants who would debate the Arian controversy. Likewise, the theologian Nestorius, (one of the promoters of the Nestorian heresy, which was condemned at the Council of Ephesus in 431) used Petra as his base of operation, and a place where he wrote from. All of this points to Petra as being a center of thought and theology, and thus a good candidate for housing a library.

Conclusion
And so I would like to propose that the Treasury building may have been a library, housing scrolls and parchments. The central room of the Treasury would have been the 'reading room' after the Roman style of library architecture. The three small side rooms would have been the niches where scrolls were kept, after the Greek style of library architecture. As I pointed out there are many other elements of the Treasury Monument that are similar to other libraries that were in existence at the time. Along with this, the presence of a library in the city would have increased it's cultural status and would have helped (perhaps was necessary) in order for the city to gain the title 'metropolis' under Emperor Trajan. Was the Treasury Monument really the Library of Petra? Unfortunately we may never know. However, as the Jordanian Ministry of Antiquities excavates the plaza in front of the Treasury, new light may soon be shed on it's use.

Bibliography

Bickerman, E., Chronology of the Ancient World, Ithaca, 1980

Birt, T., Die Buchrolle in der Kunst, Leipzig, 1907

Blum, R., Kallimachos: The Alexandrian Library and the Beginnings of Bibliography, Trans, H. Wellisch, Madison, 1991

Browning, Iain, Petra, Chatto & Windus, London, 1985

Builetin de Correspondance Hellenique, 59, pages 421 - 425, 1935

Callmer, c., Antiken Bibliotheken, Skrifter utgivna av Svenska Institutet I Rom 10, Opuscula Archaeologica 3, Lund, 1944

Casson, Lionel, Libraries in the Ancient World, Yale University Press, 2001

Deiss, J., Herculaneum: Italy's Buried Treasure, New York, 1966

Fraser, P., Ptolemaic Alexandria, Oxford, 1972

Gibson, Dan, The Nabataeans, Builders of Petra, Xlibris, Philadelphia, 2004

Harris, W., Ancient Literacy, Cambridge, 1989

Lewis, N, Papyrus in Classical Antiquity: A Supplement, Papyrologica Bruxellensia 23, Brussels, 1989

Lewis, N, Greeks in Ptolemaic Egypt, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1986

Marrou, H., (Trans. G. Lamb) A History of Education in Antiquity, London, 1956

Mau, A., (Trans F. Kelsey) Pompeii: Its Life and Art, New York, 1899

Nash, E., Pictorial Dictionary of Ancient Rome, New York, 1968

Packer, James, The Forum of Trajan in Rome, Berkley, 1997

Pfeiffer, H., Library at Timgad, Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome, 9, 1931

Pfeiffer, R., The History of Classical Scholarship, Oxford, 1968

Pliny the Elder, Historia Naturalis, various sections

Rostovtzeff, M., The Social and Economic History of the Hellenistic World, Oxford, 1941

Strabo, various sections

Starr, R., Book Trade in Imperial Times, in Clasical Quarterly, 37 (1987)

Syme, R., The Roman Revolution, Oxford, 1939

Tarn, W., and Griffith, G., Hellenistic Civilization, London, 1952

Wycherley, R., Agora,, Princeton, 1957

http://nabataea.net

Petra Capital City of Nabataea Part I

2008-04-11T06:19:00.000-07:00

PETRA: The Treasury Plaza

The Treasury Monument in Petra has always been a mystery. No one was sure when the monument was built, nor what its purpose was. Secondly, since the bottom monument was damaged by repeated flooding in the last millennium, the plaza in front of the Treasury has been covered with tons of debris. Some of us have often wondered what was below all that material. Well, that's what the mystery is all about to end, as the Jordanian Ministry of Antiquites start their excavation of the Plaza area in front of the Treasury Monument. The excavation is being carried out by two archeologists, Suleiman Farajat and Sami Al-Nawafleh. In December 2004 they presented a paper on their dig at the "Second International Conference on Science and Technology in Archaeology and Conservation". Their paper will be published in the May to December 2004 Annual of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan.

Above: When standing on the Treasury Steps you can look back at the siq and see how high you are above everyone. You can also see how level the plaza area is. This is all an illusion, as the Plaza floor is really several meters below ground level.	When you see the Treasury, it looks like it is at ground level. You can walk right up to it. Upon closer inspection you can see that the front of the Treasury was damaged and that it has been repaired sometime back in history. If the plaza is far below the surface then the Treasury would have been high up on the side of the cliff.
The best way to estimate the level of the plaza floor, is to look at the tombs that are on your right as you exit the siq. At this point, most people are looking at the Treasury, and they fail to look right. Right beside them is the 'top' of a djinn rock, and just behind it is the 'top' of a tomb peeking out of the ground. This tomb has recently been excavated, and now tourists can clamber down some stairs to see inside. Right: Ground penetrating radar has been conducted and doorways 'underneath the Treasury' and a fountain in the middle of the plaza were discoverd. The excavations in front of the Treasury have uncovered one of these doors, as seen to the right!
Later in 2004 we hope to publish a report by Suleiman Farajat and Sami Al-Nawafleh about their 2003 excavation of the Treasury Plaza. Special thanks to Andrew Johnson for these four great pictures taken on October 18, 2003. The pictures to the right show us the steps and a doorway that are part of the excavation. Below you can see some of the excavations that are now under a protective grating.

When Petra was first discovered by Johannes L. Burckhardt in 1812, there was a stream running through the siq and in front of the Treasury monument. This stream can be seen in many old paintings. The dam in front of the siq was repaired in the 1960's so that the water flowed through an ancient tunnel and away from the center of Petra. The area in front of the Treasury was leveled to make it easier for tourists. During the last couple of years there has been an ongoing effort to clean up the siq and restore some of the Roman road as well as other sites within the siq.

The Treasure of Troy

2008-04-10T08:52:00.001-07:00

The "Mask of Agamemnon"

The Treasure of Troy

Heinrich Schliemann was not the most famous archaeologist of his day, though he was famous. Neither was he the most skilled. He rarely followed good archaeological procedures at his excavations and was roundly criticized by later archaeologists. He wasn't even the most scrupulous of those in his profession, something confirmed by his illegal smuggling of a priceless historic treasure out of the country of Turkey.

He was, however, perhaps the luckiest archaeologist of all time. His life was a rags-to-riches story capped by the discovery of not one, but two treasures and a lost city that most reputable archaeologists of his day thought was only a myth.

Heinrich was born in 1822 in Beubuckow, Germany, the son of a Protestant pastor. His father scorned the usual children's fairy tales and instead told little Heinrich the classics of literature which he translated into simple language. One of the boy's favorite stories was Homer's Iliad: the story of Paris of the City of Troy who kidnaped the beautiful Helen from her Greek husband, King Menelaus, and the resulting war between the Greeks and the Trojans to get her back. A war that ended, according to Homer, when the Greeks used a wooden horse filled with soldiers to capture the city.

Little Heinrich decided that when he grew up he would go and look for the city of Troy and its treasure. None of his playmates shared his enthusiasm for this project except Minna Meincke, daughter of a farmer that lived nearby. Schliemann later wrote, "Minna entered into all my vast plans for the future. Thus a warm attachment grew up between us. In our childish simplicity we exchanged vows of eternal love."

The Iliad

The Iliad is considered one of the landmark works of western literature. Composed over 2,700 years ago supposedly by the blind poet Homer, it depicts the war of the Greeks against the Trojans. The war was precipitated by the beautiful Helen who was married to the Greek King Menelaus.

Paris, son of Piram king of Troy, was called upon to judge a beauty contest between the Olympian goddesses, Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite. Aphrodite, goddess of love, bribed Paris by promising him the beautiful Helen for his wife, even though she was already married. Paris accepted the bribe, stole Helen, and took her back to Troy.

This earned him the wrath of all the Greek kings was well as that of Hera and Athena. Menelaus called on his brother, Agamemnon, a king himself and overlord to many Greek states, to assist him in conquering Troy and getting his wife back. Agamemnon, in turn, brought other Greek kings into the war which lasted ten years.

Homer's poem told three stories: The suffering of the Trojan people, the heroics among the attacking Greeks, and the jealously and in-fighting between the gods.

Many warriors were killed during the war on both sides, including the famous Achilles (who was only vulnerable to injury on his heel, hence the phrase "Achilles heel" which means someone's weak spot) and the brave Trojan, Hector.

The image most associated with the Trojan War, the wooden horse, does not actually appear in the Iliad, but Homer's sequel to it called The Odyssey. The Odyssey is the story of Odysseus and his ten-year wanderings on his way home from the Trojan War. At the end of the war the Greeks offended the gods, and the gods decided they would make it difficult for the Greek kings to return home. Odysseus took the longest to make the journey. At one point in his travels he dines with a king. At dinner, a blind poet tells the story of the end of the Trojan War:

The war was not going well for the Greeks. Achilles, one of their strongest warriors, had been killed. Odysseus proposes to pretend to give up and sail away, leaving a statue of a giant horse on the beach. The horse looks like an offering to the goddess Athena, but it is secretly filled with the bravest of the Greek soldiers. The Trojans, jubilant at the end of the war and their victory, break down the city wall to bring the horse inside. The Greek ships return quietly at night. The soldiers in the horse are let out and kill the guards, which let troops pour through the gap in the wall. The city is looted and burned. Helen is taken back to Greece.

At age nine they made plans. They would marry when grown, excavate the nearby castle that supposedly had belonged to the famous robber baron, Henning Von Holstein, find his hidden treasure and then use the treasure to sail to Asia Minor and excavate the treasure of Troy.

Alas, it was not to be. Pastor Schliemann's family had a falling out with the rest of the community and Heinrick was forbidden to see his young friend. "I have undergone many troubles in different parts of the world, but none of them ever caused me a thousandth part of the grief I felt at the age of nine years for my separation from my little bride," wrote Schliemann later.

At fourteen Schliemann was apprenticed to a local grocer. When he hurt his back and could no longer lift heavy weights, he moved to Hamburg. Unable to hold a job there because of his injury, he signed on as a cabin boy on a ship. The ship went down during a bad storm off the coast of Holland. Finding his way to Amsterdam he got a poorly-paying job.

Schliemann might have stayed in that position for life if he hadn't discovered his knack of learning languages. He taught himself English, Dutch and French. Later he learned Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian. The knowledge of these languages enabled him to find a good position in an import/export firm. He learned Russian and moved to the company's branch office in St. Petersburg in 1846. While there he increased this employer's business while making a small fortune for himself trading in indigo dye.

Now on his way to success ,Schliemann wrote to a friend in Germany and had him pass on a marriage proposal to his childhood sweetheart. He was broken-hearted upon learning she had married someone else a month earlier.

Heinrich Schliemann.

Schliemann (right) traveled to California to inherit a fortune made by his brother in the 1849 gold rush. When he arrived there he discovered the money was gone, but Schliemann managed to double his own funds through the gold dust trade. Schliemann became a naturalized U.S. citizen, but returned to Russian in 1852. He married there, but it didn't work out.

Business was still good, though, and in 1863, at age forty-one, Schliemann retired a millionaire. This permitted him to travel, and he visited the island of Ithaca and Mycenae, the homes of Odysseus and Agamemnon, two of the kings who had fought in the Trojan war. Then he crossed the sea to Turkey to look for the city of Troy itself.

Most historians and archaeologists of the time believed that there never had been a real city of Troy. Of the few that did, most pointed to a hill named Bunarbashi located a few miles inland from the Aegean sea as the location.

Schliemann visited Bunarbashi, but it did not seem right to him. The Iliad mentioned that Mount Ida was visible from the walls of Troy. From Bunarbashi the mountain could not be seen. The Iliad also mentioned that the Greek warrior Achilles chased the Trojan Hector around the walls of the city three times. Bunarbashi had a steep drop on one side that made that impossible. The distance from the sea also seemed wrong. It was eight miles where Schliemann approximated from the text that it should not be more than four.

Using geographic clues from his copy of the Iliad, Schliemann discovered another hill near the village of Hissarlik that seemed to fit the bill. The distance from the sea was right, Mount Ida was visible, and the ground around the outcropping was flat so someone could run around the walls. Schliemann did some checking and found that a couple of other people had come to the same conclusion. In 1822 Charles Maclaren of Scotland published a book claiming Hissarlik as Troy. Frank Calvert, an Englishman living in Turkey, also believed the same thing. Calvert had acquired about half of the hill.

The German was excited, but before he started digging he went to Paris for two years to study archaeology, write a book on Troy and got his Ph.D. from Rostock University in Germany. Before setting out on his dig, Schliemann decided to divorce his current wife and marry another. He wrote to a friend in Greece asking him to locate him a Greek wife. Schliemann wrote that she needed to be young, an orphan, and most importantly a fan of Homer and the Iliad. The friend found seventeen-year-old Sophia Engastromenos. When they met, Schiemann quizzed her on her Homer and she passed. The two were married in Athens. Schiemann had found his own Helen.

A firman, or agreement, was obtained from the Turkish government that would allow Schliemann to dig at Hissarlik. The agreement stated that any treasure found must be divided with the government. Excavations started in 1871 with seventy local workers. Schliemann sunk shafts and trenches into the hillside. What he discovered was not the ruin of a city, but the remains of eleven cities, each one built on the ruins of the earlier settlements.

The dig at Hissarlik.

The bottom-most city, which is referred to as Tory I, Schliemann thought must have been destroyed by an earthquake because of the cracks in the foundations. Since the Greeks had destroyed the city with fire according to Homer, this could not be the remains of the city mentioned in the Iliad. Troy II, the next layer up, had been burned. Schliemann decided that this must be the Troy of Homer's tale. The next season he hired 160 men to dig down to this layer of the hill. Scientific archaeology had not really come of age yet and unfortunately this work destroyed much of the later history of the city (right).

The main objective of Schliemann's work was to find what he called "Priam's treasure." According to Homer, Priam ruled the city of Troy during the war. Schliemann felt sure that the King must have hidden his treasure somewhere in the city to avoid its capture by the Greeks should they win the battle.

In May or June of 1873, Schliemann and Sophia were out at the site watching the digging when Schliemann's eye caught site of a glint of copper coming from the side of one of the shafts. Climbing down, he realized he was looking at a copper jug embedded in the wall. There was a hole in the jug and he could see gold inside. Telling his wife to send the workers on a break, Schliemann used his knife to dig in the wall and free the jug. Sophia soon joined him and they both shared in the discovery.

"While the men were resting and eating," he later wrote, "I cut out the Treasure with a large knife. This required great exertion and involved great risk, since the wall of the fortification beneath which I had to dig threatened every moment to fall on me. But the sight of so many objects, every one of which is of inestimable value to archaeology, made me reckless. I never thought of any danger."

The golden earrings and necklaces fournd in Troy worn by Sophia Schliemann.

The treasure included golden earrings, necklaces, pots of silver and gold and other items. The most impressive of these were two gold diadems that might have been worn by a queen or princess. The treasure was smuggled back to Schliemann's home and then out of the country.

The Turkish government was not amused and sued Schliemann. They won a $5,000 judgment. Schliemann at first refused to pay, but then relented and gave the Turkish government five times the actual value of the fine. The Turks decided to allow Schliemann to again dig at Troy, but this time they would watch him like a hawk.

Schliemann decided to start another dig at Mycenae in Greece which had been the home of Agamemnon, leader of the Greeks that had attacked Troy. The city had lay in ruins since 468 B.C.. Unlike Troy, the location was well-known. Schliemann cleared the gate of the city and then started digging within a strange circle of stones inside the entrance. He found 19 graves and a treasure of grave goods worth more than the cache at Troy. One of them was a golden death mask (see top of page). Thinking he had found the grave of the king Schliemann said, "I have gazed on the face of Agamemnon!"

Despite all his luck at finding treasure, Schliemann was consistently wrong on his facts. Later archaeologists would date the treasure at Mycenae as being two hundred years before the time of Agamemnon and the treasure of Troy over a thousand years before Homer's Trojan War. In 1878 Schliemann returned to Troy and discovered two additional small treasure troves. In 1879 he took on an assistant, Wilhelm Dorpfeld. Dorpfeld would continue the work on Troy after Schliemann died, deciding that Troy VI was really the city of Homer's poem.

Dorpfeld would later change his mind when Carl Blegan examined the site in 1932. Blegan unearthed convincing evidence that Troy VII-a was the Homeric city. Dorpfeld, in his eighties by that time, came to agree with him.

In 1880 Schliemann, who was growing old by then, decided he needed to find a permanent home for the Treasure of Troy. He donated it to a museum in Berlin, Germany. It disappeared during WWII seized by Russian soldiers, and now resides in the Pushkin Museum in Russia.

Yes, Schliemann was very lucky. Recently some historians are asking if perhaps he was too lucky. Several incidents Schliemann wrote about in his life have turned out to be fabrications. This has made some archaeologists wonder if some of the treasure he found were actually modern forgeries planted to enhance his own reputation. Even the wonderful, but incorrectly named, "Mask of Agamemnon" has come under scrutiny. Did Schliemann fake it? Or at least alter it to appear more dramatic? For the time being the nobody has proved these things a fake and despite some falsehoods in his writings his claim that he found the city of Troy still stands.

As for Troy itself, many archaeological mysteries remain. Studies show that the people who built the first Troy were not the same people who later lived there during the Trojan War. Who were these early people and what became of them? Homer's poem suggests that the war was over the kidnaping of a Greek king's wife. It's hard to believe that the Greeks fought a ten-year war over one woman. What was the real reason for the hostilities? Legend has it that Troy fell when the Greeks built a wooden horse, filled it with soldiers and the unsuspecting Trojan's rolled it into the city. Is this true?

These questions remain as challenges to future archaeologists that would dig for treasures at the ancient city of Troy.

Lost Cities

2008-04-10T08:50:00.000-07:00

The secret city of Machu Picchu.

There isn't anything quite as chilling as a city bereft of its inhabitants. A silent array of towers, walls and houses, without voices or the hubbub of everyday life. A place solely constructed to shelter people, that now has no purpose. Abandoned cities can be found around the world. Sometimes they were killed by war, while others starved in famine. In the case of the most ancient cities, the mystery of their deaths may never be solved.

The Secret City on the Mountain Top

In 1911 Professor Hiram Bingham, of Yale University, mounted an expedition to Peru to examine Inca ruins (The Inca Empire ruled Peru from 1200 A.D. to 1532). Questioning the local inhabitants, he heard about a city on a mountain top.

Hiring a guide, Bingham set off in a cold drizzle through a forest and up a long slope. In the steepest sections logs with notches cut in them served as ladders. Any fall would have been fatal.

After a two hour climb, Bingham finally was led to a fantastic sight: perched between two peaks was a city. Bingham was able to find the ruins of many houses, a staircase, fountains, and a temple with an altar for the Sun God.

The city is now known as Machu Picchu. At first Bingham supposed this had been built as a hideout from the Spanish that invaded Inca territories in 1532. Archaeological investigations, though, have established the city was built before the Spanish arrived. The first signs of human habitation date back to 1300 A.D. The city was fortified and probably used for religious ceremonies. The Spanish invaders never found this sacred place and the Incas secret was safe on top of the mountain.

The Mayans Move Out

Few peoples in history are as mysterious as the ancient Mayans of Central America. Though socially isolated in the jungles early in their history, they developed knowledge never obtained by other comparable civilizations. For instance, their number system could express sums in the millions and they developed a calender accurate for 400 million years. They could predict the rising and the setting of the sun, the transits of Venus and eclipse of the sun and moon down to the second. They measured the length of the year to 365.2420 days, only a small fraction off from the actual value of 365.2422. They had a highly sophisticated set of numerical notations and understood the concept of the quantity of zero a thousand years before anyone else did.

Despite this, the Mayans never seemed to move beyond the stone age. They never employed the wheel for any practical purpose, nor developed a phonetic alphabet. Despite amazing feats of architecture, including a suspension bridge 600 feet in length, they never figured out how to build a "true" arch.

This paradox, the Mayan's genius in the theoretical, with little practical application, has led some to suggest their knowledge came as the result of visits from ancient alien astronauts. Others think that the Mayans may have had an unprecedented genius in their history who single-handedly moved their science forward in a great leap.

The Mayans also built wonderful cities with large pyramids, terraces and temples made of stone. From 300 to 800 A.D. these city-states thrived and many vast complexes of public buildings were erected. These dozen or so metropolises became bustling centers of commerce and culture. None had walls or fortifications. The Mayans, isolated from the outside world, lived with themselves in perfect peace.

Then suddenly the Mayans abandoned their cities and migrated to the edge of their empire traveling north to the Yucatan. Their great cities, left to the forest, soon crumbled and vanished only to be discovered by the Spanish hundreds of years later. Why did the Mayans abandon their great metropolises? Did it just become too hard to farm in the jungle? Did centuries of burning and planting exhaust the soil? Or did the common people rebel against a harsh ruling class sending them to live at the outskirts of civilization only to discover the lower classes were incapable of maintaining the cities alone? Why move north when that brought them into contact with other nations which led to war? We may never know. Mayan books that may have contained this secret were burned by the Spanish who feared them as "works of the Devil."

The Cliff Palace at Mesa Verde.

The Palace in the Cliff

The year was 1888 and the month was December. Two cowboys, Charlie Mason and Richard Wetherill, rode through the falling snow of southwest Colorado looking for stray cattle. They soon came to the edge of a rocky canyon. Looking down into it they made an amazing discovery. On the other side of the canyon was an immense cave cut into the cliff wall, and inside that cave was what looked like a palace. It was the lost city of Mesa Verde we now call Cliff Palace.

Mesa Verde means "Green Table" in Spanish and it is an appropriate name. This part of Colorado is a flat tableland some 20 miles long and 18 miles wide. The top is some 2,000 feet higher than the surrounding land. To the south the Mesa is cut by some 20 canyons which contain over 500 hundred Indian ruins, of which Cliff Palace is the largest.

Archaeologists estimate that the native Americans who built Cliff Palace arrived in Mesa Verde as early as 1 A.D. They apparently lived a quiet and peaceful life on the Mesa tops until about 1200 A.D. when suddenly they abandoned their towns and built new ones in caves on the cliff faces. Why? Probably for security. The caves were large (the cave at Cliff Palace is one-hundred feet deep and three-hundred feet wide) and gave protection from the sun, rain, snow and human enemies.

Cliff Palace has over two-hundred rooms and some parts are three stories high. It probably housed around 400 people. Though the residents lived in the cave, they commuted to the Mesa top to work their agricultural fields.

Around 1280, though, the Indians suddenly abandoned their cliff dwellings and moved away. There is no sign that they were forced out by war, so what could have made the residents leave their new cities barely 80 years after they had been built?

In this case scientists think they have found the answer in the trees of the Mesa. When a tree is cut down, the cross section shows a series of concentric rings. One new ring is laid down each year. By counting the rings it is possible to tell the age of the tree. By looking at the width of the ring it is possible to tell how much a tree grew in any particular year.

By examining trees, scientists have been able to determine that a severe drought hit the Mesa around 1276 and lasted 24 years. This affected the residents food supply and they were forced to move. They apparently went south and mixed with the Pueblo Indians that live there even to this day. Many items were still in the rooms at Cliff Palace and it is likely that the residents intended to return at the end of the drought. They never came back, though, and all that is left of their culture is the silent cities in the Mesa Verde cliffs.

The City of the White Men

There isn't much left of the city of Tiahuanaco in Bolivia, South America. In the 1500's, the Spanish systematically destroyed the buildings. Later, many of the stone blocks were looted for houses in a nearby village. Most recently more stone was taken to lay a railroad right-of-way.

Despite this, what is left is still a sight to see. Tiahuanaco is old. It was already in ruins when the Incas took over the area in 1200 A.D.. It is situated on a mountain at an altitude of 12,500 feet and boasts a pyramid 700 feet long, 500 feet wide and 50 feet tall. There is also a temple 440 feet long topped with columns up to 14 feet high that may have once supported a roof.

The most impressive thing about Tiahuanaco isn't its architecture, though. It's the legend about who built it. According to traditions the city was constructed by a group of white skinned-strangers with beards. The leader was named Viracocha. According to an early European explorer ,it was said that Viracocha, "gave rules to men how they should live, and he spoke lovingly to them with much kindness, admonishing them they should be kind to each other..."

There are similar stories about visits by a bearded white man among the Aztec and Mayans. He was called Quetzalcoatl by the Aztecs and Kukulcan by the Mayans. How did white men arrive in Peru long before the Spanish did? Archaeologists estimate the city was founded around 200 A.D. If the legends are true, who are these people? Some have suggested that the Egyptians, Cretans, Greeks, Phoenicians or even Irish monks may have crossed the Atlantic to visit South America. The explorer Thor Heyerdahl even built a boat of reeds and sailed it across the ocean to prove the Egyptians could have made such a voyage.

There is no solid evidence to prove any of these theories, so who these white men were and why they built Tiahuanaco may remain a mystery that may never be solved.

The Lost City of Petra

2008-04-10T08:49:00.000-07:00

The Lost City of Petra

The Khazneh, or Treasury, is one of Petra's best preserved structures. According to legend, the giant urn on the second level is filled with riches. (Photo by Gary Jones - Released under the GNU Free Documentation License & Wikimedia Commons)

Johann Ludwig Burckhardt decided he wanted to be an explorer. Born in Switzerland in 1784, he was twenty years old when he managed to get himself hired by the Association for Promoting the Discovery of the Interior Parts of Africa. As part of his preparation to explore the western parts of that continent, the Association decided to have him spend two years in Syria preparing for the trip by learning the Arabic language. Burckhardt hoped that if he could master the language and customs there, he might be able to pass himself off as an Arab and avoid the suspicions and mistrust that western visitors to that region often encountered.

By 1812 he felt ready to take a three-month journey to Cairo in Egypt, traveling in disguise. While wandering through Jordan, he heard of a wondrous set of ruins only a day's travel off his path and decided to visit it. Knowing that admitting to want to see the location out of mere curiosity would raise the suspicions of his guide that he was not an Arab, he told the guide that he had made a vow to sacrifice at the tomb of Haroun which was situated at the far end of the same valley as the ruins. He planned to see whatever there was to see as he passed by them on the way to do the sacrifice, being careful not to give away his interest by paying too much attention to them.

As Burckhardt and his guide approached the ruins the rock walls along the path closed in to form a tiny, twisting canyon at some points only 15 feet wide and hundreds of feet deep. As they continued forward, the end of the gorge appeared and Burckhardt was suddenly confronted with one of the most amazing sights in the world: Embedded in the cliff face in front of him was the intricate and immense façade of a temple carved of the same red rock as the cliffs. The sight was so startling that Burckhardt forgot his part as an Arab pilgrim and entered the strange building, even taking the time to sketch a layout of the interior. As they went along, he saw several more fantastic buildings and entered those as well. It didn't take long for his guide to figure out Burckhardt was no ordinary pilgrim. "I see clearly now that you are an infidel, " the guide told him, "who has some particular business amongst the ruins of your forefathers; but depend on it that we shall not suffer you to take out a single coin of all the treasures hidden therein!"

One can hardly blame Burckhardt for forgetting himself. He was seeing something that no European had set eyes on since ancient times and would continue to amaze countless visitors in the centuries to come: the famed lost city of Petra.

A line of tombs along the cliff wall dwarfs modern visitors.(Photo by David Bjorgen - Released under the GNU Free Documentation License & Wikimedia Commons)

Founding of the City

The story of Petra starts with a nomadic people called the Nabataeans who settled the area in the 4th century BC. The land there was mountainous with many valleys and deep canyons. Today, the site of Petra seems to be a foolish place to build a city: it is dry and arid with limited space for farming and houses. In ancient times, however, the area was the crossroads of several important trade routes. Only here could the caravans carrying valuable goods make their way through the high mountain ridges to reach the Red Sea and the Mediterranean. The Nabataeans enforced a toll and provided safe passage for travelers as well as access to water. Soon Petra became their most important city.

Commercial traffic to and from Petra increased steadily as caravans (sometimes with as many as a thousand camels) fed the demand for incense, textiles, spices, ivory and precious metals in Rome, Greece and Egypt. During this time the city evolved into a bustling hub of international commerce and culture. Located deep in the mountains, it was easily defensible from surrounding hostile desert raiders that might attack. "This place is exceedingly strong but unwalled…," wrote the Greek historian Diodorus when he visited it.

The Nabataean architects cleverly constructed a series of dams, cisterns and pipes to provide the city with much-needed water from a set of natural springs. As the wealth of the area grew, elaborately carved-public buildings were constructed along with gardens and monuments. Along the mountain walls that surrounded the city, impressive tombs were built for the richest families. At the height of its power around 50 AD, 20,000 residents dwelt in the city. A crossroads of trade also meant a crossroads of culture, so that architectural elements found in Petra's buildings showed influence from the Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Greek and Roman civilizations.

The theater at Petra was greatly enlarged during Roman Rule. (Photo by David Bjorgen - Released under the GNU Free Documentation License & Wikimedia Commons)

Roman Takeover

The Nabataean Kingdom was strong but it could not resist forever the ancient superpower that was Rome. In 106 AD, the Romans took control of Petra, adding it to their vast empire. Petra continued to prosper under Roman rule for a time, but as new trade routes opened up, activity at Petra declined. Some of the caravans started moving through Bostra, a city about 165 miles north of Petra in present-day Syria and the Romans eventually made that city the colonial capital. In the 4th century AD, Constantine I became Rome's first Christian emperor. This brought change all across the Roman Empire as the pagan gods were displaced by Christianity. By 350 AD, Petra had its own Christain bishop. Some of the tombs were remodeled as churches and a new cathedral, which boosted colorful mosaics on the walls, floor and ceilings, was built.

Petra was located near the boundary of the Arabian tectonic plate and was subject to frequent earthquakes. On May 19th, 363 AD, a very destructive quake hit the area damaging half the city, including the vital water distribution system. Though Petra continued to be inhabited through the next several centuries, the earthquake seems to have hastened its end as an important center of trade and government.

Petra's final years remain somewhat of a mystery. The last written records about the city were made by its bishop around 600 AD. When was it abandoned? Some of the records that were found in the cathedral suggest the city still had significant wealth even into the 6th century AD. If that's true, why did people finally leave?

Visitors enter Petra through the "Siq" - a long, narrow canyon - to glimpse the Khazneh at the other end. (Photo by David Bjorgen - Released under the GNU Free Documentation License & Wikimedia Commons)

Petra Today

Petra has a reputation as a "lost city" but was never really missing to the Bedouin who lived in the area, though they did not refer to it by that name. Today one can visit the city, which is located in Jordan about 90 miles south of Amman, entering it through the same route Burckhardt took in 1812. Visitors walk through the narrow canyon, known as the Siq, to gain entrance to the ancient city. A stream once flowed through this narrow corridor, but the Nabataeans blocked the water with a dam and channeled it through a tunnel, a testament to their hydraulic engineering skills.

As the visitor approaches the end of the Siq, he beholds what is probably the most striking structure in Petra, the Khazneh. The name, which means "treasury," comes from a local legend that it hides riches. The story is told that Bedouins at one time believed that the giant urn on the second level of the facade was filled with treasures and they would fire their rifles at it, hoping to break it open. The facade of the building is carved into the rock face and stands over 120 feet high. The building is made even more impressive because of the high cliff walls surrounding the area in front of the building, making it difficult to look at the ancient towering structure from any distance. The way the fascade has been recessed into the cliff has protected the detailed ornamentation on it from much erosion, making the Khazneh one of Petra's best-preserved buildings.

Film buffs will recognize the Khazneh as the temple used in the final scenes of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Though in the film the intrepid archeologist searches for the Holy Grail hidden deep inside the temple, the Khazneh and Petra have, in reality, no connection with that legend. The inside of the building is also quite unlike the extensive hollywood sets used in the film. The interior is simply a square room with two small connecting rooms and very little ornamentation. This is typical of most of Petra's tombs: ostentatious on the exterior, much plainer on the inside.

After coming out of the Khazneh, visitors can make a left turn and follow the canyon as it widens out into a bowl-shaped area surrounded by high cliffs. This was the center of the ancient city. In its heyday, buildings would have covered the entire basin, but now almost none of the city's freestanding buildings survive. As the canyon opens up the remains of the theatre (probably built in the first century, but enlarged during Roman rule) are on the left. There is also a path here that leads up to the "High Place of Sacrifice" located on a tall ridge which overlooks much of the city. It is here that it is thought that the priests sacrificed animals to the pagan gods before Christianity took hold of Petra. A platform 45 feet wide and 20 feet long, and was said to be originally to be entirely covered with gold, crowns the area, while a sandstone block, carved with channels to carry away the blood, seems to have acted as an alter.

The tomb known as Ed-Deir, more commonly referred to as "The Monastery." (Photo by Gary Jones - Released under the GNU Free Documentation License & Wikimedia Commons)

From the high place the visitor can observe below the many elaborate tombs for which the city is so famous: the Palace Tomb, the Urn Tomb, Ed-Deir (known also as "the Monastery") and others. Petra has been referred to as "the rose-red city" but from here the visitor can more accurately see that the sandstone of which the city is made ranges from white through salmon pink to brown and deep red.

The city remains the focus of much archeological research as scientists attempt to learn more about the ancient Nabataeans who created this unique place. Vandalism and natural erosion have become a recent concern at this ancient wonder and The Petra National Trust is working to preserve this historic treasure for future generation to enjoy. Hopefully with their work, Petra will remain for the next millennia as it has for the last: a beautiful, haunting and mysterious site, reminding us of what life was once like in this ancient land.

A Partial Bibliography

Petra: Lost City of Stone, American Museum of Natural History, http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/petra/

Petra Rediscovered: The Lost City of the Nabataean Kingdom by Glenn Markoe, Harry N Abrams, 2003.

Petra by Jane Taylor, Aurum Press, 2005.

Khufu's Great Pyramid

2008-04-10T08:47:00.002-07:00

Khufu's Great Pyramid

Workers finish one of the smaller pyramids at the Great Pyramid complex at Giza. (Copyright Lee Krystek, 1999.)

It's 756 feet long on each side, 450 high and is composed of 2,300,000 blocks of stone, each averaging 2 1/2 tons in weight. Despite the makers' limited surveying tools no side is more than 8 inches different in length than another, and the whole structure is perfectly oriented to the points of the compass. Until the 19th century it was the tallest building in the world and, at the age of 4,500 years, it is the only one of the famous "Seven Wonders of the Ancient World" that still stands. It is the Great Pyramid of Khufu, at Giza, Egypt.

Some of the earliest history of the Pyramid comes from a Greek traveler named Herodotus of Halicanassus. He visited Egypt around 450 BC and included a description of the Great Pyramid in a history book he wrote. Herodotus was told by his Egyptian guides that it took twenty-years for a force of 100,000 oppressed slaves to build the pyramid. Stones were lifted into position by the use of immense machines. The purpose of the structure, according to Herodotus's sources, was as a tomb for the Pharaoh Khufu (whom the Greeks referred to as Cheops).

Most of what Herodotus tells us is probably false. Scientists calculate that fewer men and less years were needed than Herodotus suggests. It also seems unlikely that slaves or complicated machines were needed for the pyramid construction. It isn't surprising that the Greek historian got it wrong. By the time he visited the site the great pyramid was already 20 centuries old, and much of the truth about it was shrouded in the mists of history.

Certainly the idea that it was a tomb for a Pharaoh, though, seems in line with Egyptian practices. For many centuries before and after the construction of the Great Pyramid the Egyptians had interned their dead Pharaoh-Kings, whom they believed to be living Gods, in intricate tombs. Some were above ground structures, like the pyramid, others were cut in the rock below mountains. All the dead leaders, though, were outfitted with the many things it was believed they would need in the after-life to come. Many were buried with untold treasures.

Even in ancient times thieves, breaking into the sacred burial places, were a major problem and Egyptian architects became adept at designing passageways that could be plugged with impassable granite blocks, creating secret, hidden rooms and making decoy chambers. No matter how clever the designers became, though, robbers seemed to be smarter and with almost no exceptions each of the great tombs of the Egyptian Kings were plundered.

In 820 A.D. the Arab Caliph Abdullah Al Manum decided to search for the treasure of Khufu. He gathered a gang of workmen and, unable to find the location of a reputed secret door, started burrowing into the side of the monument. After a hundred feet of hard going they were about to give up when they heard a heavy thud echo through the interior of the pyramid. Digging in the direction of the sound they soon came upon a passageway that descended into the heart of the structure. On the floor lay a large block that had fallen from the ceiling, apparently causing the noise they had heard. Back at the beginning of the corridor they found the secret hinged door to the outside they had missed.

Working their way down the passage they soon found themselves deep in the natural stone below the pyramid. The corridor stopped descending and went horizontal for about 50 feet, then ended in a blank wall. A pit extended downward from there for about 30 feet, but it was empty.

When the workmen examined the fallen block they noticed a large granite plug above it. Cutting through the softer stone around it they found another passageway that extended up into the heart of the pyramid. As they followed this corridor upward they found several more granite blocks closing off the tunnel. In each case they cut around them by burrowing through the softer limestone of the walls. Finally they found themselves in a low, horizontal passage that lead to a small, square, empty room. This became known as the "Queen's Chamber," though it seems unlikely that it ever served that function.

Back at the junction of the ascending and descending passageways, the workers noticed an open space in the ceiling. Climbing up they found themselves in a high-roofed, ascending passageway. This became known as the "Grand Gallery." At the top of the gallery was a low horizontal passage that led to a large room, some 34 feet long, 17 feet wide, and 19 feet high, the "King's Chamber." In the center was a huge granite sarcophagus without a lid. Otherwise the room was completely empty.

The pyramids at Giza. The far pyramid is the "Great Pyramid." The middle one looks larger, but only because it is built on higher ground.

The Arabs, as if in revenge for the missing treasure, stripped the pyramid of it's fine white limestone casing and used it for building in Cairo. They even attempted to disassemble the great pyramid itself, but after removing the top 30 feet of stone, they gave up on this impossible task.

So what happened to the treasure of King Khufu? Conventional wisdom says that, like so many other royal tombs, the pyramid was the victim of robbers in ancient times. If we believe the accounts of Manum's men, though, the granite plugs that blocked the passageways were still in place when they entered the tomb. How did the thieves get in and out?

In 1638 a English mathematician, John Greaves, visited the pyramid. He discovered a narrow shaft, hidden in the wall, that connected the Grand Gallery with the descending passage. Both ends were tightly sealed and the bottom was blocked with debris. Some archaeologists suggested this route was used by the last of the Pharaoh's men to exit the tomb, after the granite plugs had been put in place, and by the thieves to get inside. Given the small size of the passageway and the amount of debris it seems unlikely that the massive amount of treasure, including the huge missing sarcophagus lid, could have been removed this way.

Some have suggested that the pyramid was never meant as a tomb, but as an astronomical observatory. The Roman author Proclus, in fact, states that before the pyramid was completed it did serve in this function. We can't put two much weight on Proclus words, though, remembering that when he advanced his theory the pyramid was already over 2000 years old.

Richard Proctor, an astronomer, did observe that the descending passage could have been used to observe the transits of certain stars. He also suggested that the grand gallery, when open at the top, during construction, could have been used for mapping the sky.

Many strange, and some silly, theories have arisen over the years to explain the pyramid and it's passageways. Most archaeologists, though, accept the theory that the great pyramid was just the largest of a tradition of tombs used for the Pharaohs of Egypt.

So what happened to Khufu's mummy and treasure? Nobody knows. Extensive explorations have found no other chambers or passageways. Still one must wonder if, perhaps in this one case, the King and his architects out smarted both the ancient thieves and modern archaeologists and that somewhere in, or below, the last wonder of the ancient world, rests Khufu and his sacred gold.

A cross-section of the Great Pyramid showing the passageways. (Copyright Lee Krystek 1997)

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The Riddle of the Sphinx

2008-04-10T08:47:00.001-07:00

The Riddle of the Sphinx

The Sphinx's face is thought to have been modeled after Pharaoh Chephren.

Your fearful form is the work of the deathless gods. To spare the flat and fertile lands they placed you in your depression. A rocky island from which they banished the sand. They placed you as a neighbor to the pyramids...Who vigilantly watches the blessed Osiris... -Inscription from the second century A.D.

After 25 centuries the history of the great Sphinx at Giza was so forgotten that many believed it had been placed in its position, as guardian of the pyramids, by the Gods. Indeed, the Sphinx is such an impressive work one, even today, might easily believe it must have been created by supernatural means. The statue, with a man's head and a lion's body, stands 66 feet high and 240 feet long. The head measures 19 feet from forehead to chin. Each paw extends 56 feet forward of the body. The face is over 6 yards wide.

The lion was a powerful symbol in ancient Egypt as it represented strength and courage. The great cat was also considered the supreme guardian and tamed lions sometimes accompanied kings into battle. Not just as a mascot, but as the physical presence of a god meant to protect troops. The Sphinx was the combination of two symbols, a lion god, and the king pharaoh/god, into one icon. In fact, the Great Sphinx at Giza probably bears the face of the ruling pharaoh at the time of construction: Chephren.

The symbol wasn't limited to Egypt, but was also found in ancient Phoenician, Syrian, and Greek societies. In Greek legend, the Sphinx devoured all travelers who could not answer the riddle it posed: "What is the creature that walks on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon and three in the evening?" The hero Oedipus gave the answer, "Man," causing the Sphinx's death.

The Sphinx: Older Than We Think?

Conventional science has held that the Sphinx was carved out of an outcropping during the reign of King Khafre around 2500 B.C.. In 1979, though, an amateur archaeologist named John Anthony West wrote a book entitled Serpent in the Sky. In the book West suggested that the Sphinx was far older than the pyramids and its severe erosion was the result of rain, not blowing sand. Therefore, concluded West, the Sphinx must have been built thousand of years earlier when the land was much wetter.

Nobody gave West's theory much attention until West brought in a trained geologist from Boston University named Robert Schoch. Schoch examined the Sphinx and thinks some of the fissures in the rock were indeed created by running water or rain. His conclusion is that the front and side of the Sphinx dated from 5000 to 7000 BC and was remodeled during Khafre's era to give the likeness of the pharaoh. Other Egyptologists argue that the original estimate is still right and that the fissures found by Schoch were the result of wet sand being blown up from the Nile river, not rain.

The Great Sphinx at Giza started as a natural outcropping of rock. The ancient Egyptians carved the giant statue into the stone around 2500 B.C.. To make it even taller than the height of the outcrop they chipped out a depression around the base of the statue. The paws were constructed from stone blocks. The entire statue was painted in ancient times: red for the face and body, yellow with blue stripes on the headress. Finally, a temple was built in front of the statue as a place visitors could offer gifts to the "living image" of the creature the Egyptians sometimes referred to as "Horus-in-the-Horizon."

As time passed the statue was given less attention and, after a few centuries, desert sands covered the Great Sphinx up to its neck. Legends claim that visitors would press their ear to the statue's lips seeking wisdom. Around 1400 B.C. a Egyptian prince, on a hunt, came to rest in the shadow of the Sphinx. While napping he heard the Sphinx tell him it would make him ruler of Egypt ahead of his older brothers if he promised to clear the sand away. On waking the prince vowed to keep the bargain. Sure enough, as the story goes, he ascended the throne as Pharaoh Thutmose IV and quickly had the statue uncovered.

Historians beleive that Thutmose IV concocted the dream to cover up murder. Thutmose had his brother killed so that he could gain the crown. While the Egyptian people might not have been able to forgive Thutmose the slaying for personal gain, they could overlook it if it seemed like it was the will of the gods.

By the 19th century, when European archaeologists started taking a close look at Egyptian monuments, the statue was again covered up to it's neck in sand. Efforts to uncover and repair the statue were undertaken early in the 20th century. Preservation work continues even today.

There have been rumors of passageways and secret chambers surrounding the Sphinx and during recent restoration work several tunnels have been re-discovered. One, near the rear of the statue extends down into it for about nine yards. Another, behind the head, is a short dead-end shaft. The third, located mid-way between the tail and the paws, was apparently opened during restoration work in the 1920's, then resealed. It is unknown whether these tunnels were constructed by the original Egyptian designers, or were cut into the statue at a later date. Many scientists speculate they are the result of ancient treasure hunting efforts.

Several attempts have been made to use non-invasive exploration techniques to ascertain if there are other hidden chambers or tunnels about the Sphinx. These include electromagnetic sounding, seismic refraction, seismic reflection, refraction tomography, electrical resistivity and acoustical survey tests.

Studies made by Florida State University, Waseda University (Japan), and Boston University, have found "anomalies" around the Sphinx. These could be interpreted as chambers or passageways, but they could also be such natural features as faults or changes in the density of the rock. Egyptian archaeologists, charged with preserving the statue, are concerned about the danger of digging or drilling into the natural rock near the Sphinx to find out if cavities really exist.

Are these "anomalies" secret chambers? And is it worth risking damage to such a work as the Sphinx in order to find out? That's the modern riddle of the Sphinx the Egyptian authorities must solve.

Many times in history the desert wind has blown sand around the Sphinx sometimes covering it up to its neck.

Stonehenge and the Rings of Rock

2008-04-10T08:46:00.001-07:00

Stonehenge and the Rings of Rock

Stonehenge: Mystery on the Salisbury Plain.

Stonehenge maybe, in many peoples' minds, the most mysterious place in the world. This set of concentric rings and horseshoe shapes on the empty Salisbury Plain, is, at the age of 4,000 years, one of the oldest, and certainly best preserved, megalithic (that means large, often ancient, stone) structures on Earth. It is a fantastic construction with many of the larger stones involved weighing 25 tons and quarried from a location 18 miles away. The rings and horseshoes of Sarsen (a type of sandstone) also carry massive lintels connecting them so that when they were all in place there was a ring of stone in the sky as well as on the ground.

We know almost nothing about who built Stonehenge and why. A popular theory advanced in the 19th century was that the Druids, a people that existed in Britain before the Roman conquest, had built it as a temple. Modern archaeological techniques, though, have dated Stonehenge and we now know that it was completed at least a 1,000 years before the Druids came to power. If Druids used Stonehenge for their ceremonies they got the site secondhand. Despite this, modern Druids have laid claim to Stonehenge and an annual ceremony takes place at Stonehenge during Summer solstice, one of the ring's astronomical alignments.

There is evidence there was activity on the Stonehenge site as far back as 11,000 years ago. It wasn't until about 3100 BC, though, that a circular bank, following the current Stonehenge layout, appeared. At the same time pine posts were put into place. Around 2100 BC stones started being erected. First bluestones from Wales, then the larger Sarsens stones. During this period some stones were erected, then later dismantled.

Why did the builders create, dismantle and rebuild this isolated site? It's hard to say. They apparently didn't have a written language and left no records. We can say one thing about Stonehenge based on archaeological digs at the location. There is almost no "trash." A number of pieces of flint, antler picks or axes have been found, but very few items that one would expect to see discarded at a human habitation (Trash pits turn out to be some of the best sources of material for archaeologists to examine). This leads some archaeologists to conclude that Stonehenge was "sacred ground," like a church. As one scientist put it Stonehenge was a "clearly special place were you didn't drop litter."

Stonehenge at about 1500 BC consisted of a circular ditch, with a raised bank on the inside. Within the bank was a circle of 30 Sarsen stones with lintels creating a raised circle. Today only 17 of those stones still stand and few of the lintels are still in position. Within the ring were five "trilithons" (two massive upright stones supporting a lintel) arranged in a horseshoe. On the open side of the horseshoe, outside the ditch, was the heel stone, some 120 feet from the ring. Once a year, on summer solstice (the longest day of the year), the sun will rise in alignment with the heel stone as seen from the center of the ring.

In addition to the Sarsen stones there was a less elaborate set of blue stones. Some set in a ring outside the trilithons, and the others in a horseshoe within the thrilithon horseshoe. There are also four "station stones" set in a rectangle outside the ring. The station stones may have been used to predict the movement of the moon.

Stonehenge from the air.

Perhaps what is strangest about the Stonehenge ring of stones is that it is far from being unique. Though Stonehenge is the most intact and elaborate, there are known to be over a thousand remains of stone rings through out the British Isles and Northern France. Some of them were small, like Keel Cross in County Cork which is just 9 feet in diameter. The largest, Avebury, covers over 28 acres and encircles what is now a whole village. Some of the stones at Avebury weighed 60 tons.

How did the makers move these massive rocks many miles? Probably by dragging them on wooden sledges. Before the first one could be moved, though, a road had to be cleared from, what was then, a thick forest. Not an easy job in itself. Especially for a people who probably spent most of their time and energy just fighting for survival. The construction of both Avebury and Stonehenge must have been the work of many generations.

Archaeologist Clive Waddington has suggested that the earliest henges, simple ditches with surrounding mounds, my have been stock enclosures for cattle. Remains of fence and gates found at the Coupland Henge, which is more than 800 years older than Stonehenge, support his idea. Waddington thinks when cattle were moved into the enclosure during certain seasons, rituals were performed. As time went on the circles functional aspect faded away and they became purely religious structures.

Most of the rings were smaller than Avebury and simpler than Stonehenge. While some of them had astronomical alignments built into their design, many did not. This suggests that their use as observatories may have been a secondary function. Perhaps, for some, Waddington's corrals were the primary function, though, we may never be able to say for sure. As Professor Richard Atkinson, of University College, Cardiff, a researcher at Stonehenge, once said, "You have to settle for the fact that there are large areas of the past we cannot find out about..."

Virtual Cyclorama: Stonehenge 1500BC

Stone Pages

The Tower of Babel

2008-04-10T08:45:00.000-07:00

The Tower of Babel

Now the whole earth had one language and few words. And as men migrated from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. And they said to one another, "Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly." And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar. Then they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth."

And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the sons of men had built. And the Lord said, "Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; and nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. Come, let us go down, and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another's speech."

So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of the earth, and they left off building the city. Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth; and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of the earth. - Genesis 11.

The story of the tower of Babel found in the Bible is familiar to many. Is there evidence that such a tower really existed? There are archaeological indications that it did, indeed.

In the fertile Mesopotamian plain between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, in what is now modern Iraq, is a mound, or tell, of broken mud-brick buildings and debris. This is all that remains of the ancient famed city of Babylon.

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 ziggurates, most likely honored a particular god. The people of Mesopotamia believed in many gods and often a city might have several ziggurates. 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.

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 three-hundred 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 slimey material imported from the Iranian plateau. Bitumen was used widely as a binding and coating material throughout the Mesopotamian plain.

The tower, referred to by the Babylonians as Etemenanki, was only one of the marvels of the city. Down the street was the Hanging Gardens, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Nebuchadnezzar also had two impressive palaces inside the city. The final beginning of the end of the tower of Babel probably began around 478 BC. The city had been taken over by the Persian King Xerxes who crushed a rebellion there that year. The tower was neglected and crumbled .

Because of the use of mud-baked bricks, ziggurats needed constant maintenance. Often they had elaborate internal drainage systems to channel rain water away so that the bricks would not be eroded. If the pipes on a ziggurat were not cleaned regularly and allowed to jam the tower would slowly crumble. Ziggurats were also highly susceptible to earthquake damage. Their height amplified the effect of quake forces while the rigid, unreinforced-brick construction did not allow the structures to flex with the shaking.

Although the Tower of Babel now gone, a few lessor ziggurats still exist. The largest surviving, (although damaged) temple is now found in western Iran, in what was once the ancient land of Elam. It is located about 18 miles from the capital of Elam, a city named Susa. Built in 1250 BC by the King Untash-Napirisha it once had five levels and stood 170 feet in height.

What we know about the Tower of Babel today comes only from the little archaeological evidence found and a few ancient writings. Nebuchadnezzar described how "gold, silver and precious stones from the mountain and from the sea were liberally set into the foundations" and how to rebuild it he called on "various peoples of the Empire, from north and south, from mountains and the coasts" to help with the construction.

Even in 460 BC, after the tower had been crumbling for many years, the Greek historian Herodotus visited the tower and was very impressed. "It has a solid central tower, one furlong square, with a second erected on top of it and then a third, and so on up to eight. All eight towers can be climbed by a spiral way running around the outside, and about halfway up there are seats for those who make the journey to rest on."

Though the tower has been gone for many years, its biblical story has continued to inspire artists. It was a favorite subject during the 14th century when several well-known paintings were done. As archaeological and historical research has shown most were not truly representative of the actual building.