Tag: History
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Cross on stilts
Cross on stilts I.I climbed up to an elevated cemeteryand saw a cross on stilts.Raised for a still better view?For the pursuit of heaven?Or just for fun? II.I descended the steps into a pitch-dark tomb. Groped for my camera, managed to put on the flash and took a picture. The photo shows what I couldn’t…
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Necropolis
Necropolis Buried in the earth, flat, seated, wrapped in cloth, put in a coffin, embalmed, thrown in a river, fed to the vultures, burned,… Of all animals human beings are the only ones that do something special about the dead. Trying to do justice to their deceased loved ones and to their own feelings of…
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Le Lavoir
Le Lavoir When in last week’s post I declared my love for the old villages in the south of France, with “Vers-Pont-du-Gard” as example, I didn’t mention the old communal washing-places. Before the invention of the washing-machine you could find them all over, not just in France. In many towns and villages they have been…
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Vers-Pont-du-Gard
Vers-Pont-du-Gard The ‘Pont du Gard’ is probably the best preserved aqueduct of the Roman Empire and for sure a major tourist attraction in the south of France. In the photo you see it on a photo on a wall in the nearby village ‘Vers-Pont-du-Gard’. An appropriate name for a village at a stone’s throw from…
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Mani stones
Mani stones You find them near temples and monasteries, along paths and mountain passes, in the middle of nowhere. Piled up by pilgrims they form mounts or long walls that mark the landscape of the Tibetan cultural region. Texts are skillfully cut in relief on the stones. Often it’s the mantra « om mani padme…
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Little Tibet
Little Tibet The robust architecture is in harmony with the severe landscape. We imagine ourselves to be in Tibet but we are in Ladakh, the western corner of the Tibetan cultural region that became part of India in the 19th century. Neighbouring Tibet is now, much to its chagrin, part of China. A ‘Line of…
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Moonscape
Moonscape Hiking in the rarified atmosphere of the deserted mountain scenery of Ladakh, a sporadic cairn may remind you that you are not walking on the moon but on earth. Or else the mirage of a distant buddhist monastery can enlighten you. Photo of the week: Temisgam, seen from Meptak La, 3845m, Trek from Himis…
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Selinunte
Selinunte This photo tells a similar story as the one of last week, through its subject as well as its composition. Here we are in an ancient Greek city, not in western Turkey but on the south coast of Sicily, Italy. And the temple in the distance on the left is not of Ionic but…
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Priene
Priene The temple of Athena in Priene was built in the Ionic order, clearly recognizable from the shape of the capitals with two volutes (scrolls). In the course of time the whole temple had collapsed or was destroyed. All the pillars were down and their drums were spread around. Only in the sixties of the…
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Drum field
Drum field After last week’s Gerasa-Jerash, another example of past and present next to each other, 24 centuries apart. In the foreground, drums of pillars of the temple of Athena in the ancient Greek city of Priene, Turkey. In the background, the neatly organized agricultural fields of the plain below. Archaic Priene had a sea…
καιρός remembered 