Tag: History
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The near and the far
The near and the far The Temple of Athena at Priene was built in the Ionic order, which is clearly recognisable by the shape of the capitals with their two volutes (curls). Over time, the entire temple had collapsed or been destroyed. All the columns lay on the ground and their discs were scattered about.…
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The past and the present
The past and the present In the foreground are the columns of the Temple of Athena in the ancient Greek city of Priene, in Turkey. In the background lie the neatly laid-out fields of the plain below. Archaic Priene had a seaport, but the mouth of the River Meander silted up over time, during the…
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Gerasa-Jerash
Gerasa-Jerash Only a stone’s throw away: Walk down the South Decumanus road of Roman Gerasa into present day Jerash – or vice versa – and you bridge a time span of two thousand years in just a few minutes. Actually this switching in time is nothing extraordinary. It happens with every visit to historical monuments…
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A ray of sunshine …
A ray of sunshine … … just enough for the museum guard to bask for a moment in its warmth. A quiet, peaceful scene, for a considerable part due to the inventive architectural design of Daniel Libeskind, with its sober interplay of lines, light and colours. We are in the Jewish Museum in Berlin, where…
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Musers
Musers The musings of the stone figures are focussed on the child at their feet that goes its own way. The large head in the back is looking in the same direction but seems engrossed in his own thoughts. This musing in unison is contagious, I feel like joining them. Photo of the week: Berlin,…
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He who laughs last, laughs best
He who laughs last, laughs best “There was a time when the staging of skeletons of the saints, installed in astonishing postures, was intended to defy death and to show victorious martyrs, therefore to vivify the faith of believers. Each parish had to have a recumbent figure, or at least relics of saints, often taken…
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Sainte Quintienne
Sainte Quintienne The nuns of Montorge didn’t make only wax heads of angels (see last week’s post), also of saints, preferably saints that had come to a violent end while defending their Faith. The nuns would meticulously carve and paint the wounds on the pale faces of the martyrs, showing the suffering they had gone…
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Wax twosome
Wax twosome Two women’s wax heads waiting to be completed with a wealth of hair and a long dress. And then to become flying angels or maybe even the Virgin Mary. But that was in the 18th or 19th century when they were fabricated by the nuns of Montorge. With their wry mouths, I wouldn’t…
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Not to forget
Not to forget At the beginning of the 2nd World War there were 17.000 Jewish residents in the part of Amsterdam where I live. During the war 13.000 of them were deported and murdered in the concentration camps. When I walk through my neighbourhood I can ‘stumble’ sometimes upon little brass plates in the pavement.…
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Anne Frank
Anne Frank There she stands, Anne Frank, on Merwedeplein in Amsterdam where she lived 9 years of her short life till 1942. On 6 July of that year she went with her family into hiding on the Prinsengracht in what now is known as the Anne Frank House. Sculptor Jet Schepp has portrayed her all…
καιρός remembered 