PETRA THE GREAT TEMPLE,JORDON

KHAZNA
The site of Petra has been inhabited since very ancient times. Remains from the Paleolithic and the Neolithic periods have been discovered at Petra, and the biblical Edomites (Genesis 14:6, 36:20-30; Deut. 2:12) occupied the area about 1200 BC.

PETRA MAP

Petra may be the city of Sela (which, like Petra, means "Rock") mentioned in the Old Testament (Judges 1:36; Isaiah 16:1, 42:11; Obad. 3; 2 Kings 14:7; 2 Chr. 25:12), but this is not certain.

Petra achieved its greatest importance under the Nabataeans, an ancient people whose original homeland was in northeastern Arabia. They migrated westward in the 6th century BC and eventually settled at Petra. Little is known about the Nabateans' history before 312 BC, when Petra was unsuccessfully attacked by Seleucid forces. The High Place of Sacrifice was probably built during this time.


DEIR,THE WINDOW PICTURE
As the Seleucid kingdom weakened in the 2nd century BC, the Nabataean kingdom increased in strength. The chief source of the Nabataeans' prosperity and power was their monopoly on the caravan spice trade that involved such distant places as China, Egypt, Greece, and India and passed from the Arabian interior to the coast.

By the 1st century BC the rich and powerful Nabataean kingdom that extended from Damascus in the north to the Red Sea in the south, and Petra was home to as many as 30,000 people. It was during this period that the most impressive structures of Petra were built, including the Treasury, the Great Temple and the Qasr el-Bint el-Faroun.


THEATER
A significant key to the city's success was the Nabataeans' ability to control and conserve water. Conduits and the remains of terracotta piping can be seen along the walls of the Outer Siq, which was part of an elaborate system for channelling water around the city.

Upon the Roman general Pompey's entry into Palestine (63 BC), the Nabataean King Aretas III became a Roman vassal, but he retained Damascus and his other conquests. Damascus was later annexed by the Roman emperor Nero (reigned AD 54–68).

In 105-106 AD the Roman emperor Trajan annexed the Nabatean kingdom as part of a major military campaign on Rome's eastern frontiers. The former Nabataean kingdom became the Roman province of Arabia Petraea. Bostra (Bozrah), east of the Jordan River, was chosen by the Romans as the provincial capital instead of Petra.

The final period of Nabataean history was one of peaceful prosperity as allies of Rome. Although after Roman annexation the Nabateans ceased to be an identifiable political group, Petra continued to thrive culturally. Hellenistic and Roman influences may be traced in the royal coinage, temple art, and rock-cut architecture at Petra.

In the 1st century AD the Siq was paved and the impressive classical theater was constructed. After annexation, Roman touches were added to Petra such as the colonnaded cardo (main street). A Nabataean-style tomb was built in Petra for the Roman governor of Arabia Sextius Florentius (127 AD), and a high-ranking Roman soldier was buried in another tomb. The Urn Tomb also dates from this period (2nd-3rd century).


ALTER IN CHURCH

Christianity arrived in the 4th century, and a Byzantine church, whose ruins can still be seen at Petra, was built around 450-500 AD. Various tombs and temples at Petra were also used as churches, including the Monastery (a cross carved in the wall gave the structure its popular name) and the Urn Tomb (turned into a church in 447).

But changing trade routes in the 2nd and 3rd centuires had already cause Petra's gradual commercial decline, and in 511, an especially bad earthquake (there were many) sealed the city's fate. Significant habitation of Petra seems to have ceased not long after this point, although there is evidence for a remodeling of the Petra Church around 600 AD.

Islam arrived in the Arab invasion of the 7th century. Aaron's tomb, on a mountain near Petra, is an important Muslim shrine (holy also to Jews and Christians) and dates from the 14th century.

A Crusader outpost was built in Petra in the 12th century. After the Crusades, Petra became a "lost city," known only to local Arabs. It would lie hidden from the Western world for more than 500 years.

Petra was rediscovered by Johann Ludwig Burckhardt in 1812. The Swiss explorer was a brilliant student with a thirst for adventure, and in 1809 he was contracted by a London-based association to explore the "interior parts of Africa." Three years later, after intense study of Islam and Arabic, Burckhardt disguised himself as a Muslim scholar, took the name Ibrahim ibn Abdullah, and set out for Egypt. On his way, however, he was lured by local tales of a lost city in the mountains. Using the pretence that he wanted to offer a sacrifice to the Prophet Aaron, he convinced a guide to take him there, and in 1812 he became the first modern Westerner to see Petra.

After Burckhardt's discvoery, almost 50 visitors between 1818 and 1898, followed in his footsteps and published their impressions of the site throughout the 19th century. But until the 1920s, Petra was an inaccessible and inhospitable city where strangers were not particularly welcome.

In World War I, the British hero T.E. Lawrence ("Lawrence of Arabia") famously assisted Arab tribes revolting against Turkish rule. Beginning in 1916, he led many Arab guerilla operations in the desert, some launched from Wadi Rum near Petra. In one such operation, he trapped Turkish soldiers in the Siq in Petra.

Excavations from 1958 on behalf of the British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem and, later, the American Center of Oriental Research added greatly to knowledge of Petra. Further excavations begun in 1993 revealed several more temples and monuments that provide insight into the political, social, and religious traditions of the ancient city.

In 1985 Petra was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

CONNECTING LINKS
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petra
EXCAVATION OF PETRA
http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Anthropology/Petra/temple/temple.html
DETAILED ABOUT PETRA
http://nabataea.net/petra.html

Christ the Redeemer (statue)Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

The idea for crecting a large statue atop Corcovado had been around since the mid 1850s, when Catholic priest Pedro Maria Boss requested financing from Princess Isabel to build a large religious monument. Princess Isabel did not think much of the idea, which was completely dismissed in 1889, when Brazil became a Republic, with laws mandating the separation of church and state.




The second proposal for a large landmark statue on the mountain was made in 1921 by the Archdiocese of Rio de Janeiro. The archdiocese organized an event called Semana do Monumento ("Monument Week") to attract donations, which came mostly from Brazilian Catholics. The designs considered for the "Statue of the Christ" included a representation of the Christian cross, a statue of Jesus with a globe in his hands, and a pedestal symbolizing the world.[citation needed] Eventually the statue of Christ the Redeemer with open arms was chosen.




Local engineer Heitor da Silva Costa was chosen to oversee the construction of the new monument, to be designed by French monumental sculptor Paul Landowski. A group of engineers and technicians studied Landowski's submissions and the decision was made to build the structure out of reinforced concrete instead of steel, more suitable for the cross-shaped statue. Costa and Landowsky decided to make the outer layers of the statue out of Soapstone, because of its malleability and good resistance to extreme weather. The Corcovado Rack Railway proved essential to the building effort, as it was the only way to get the large pieces of the statue to the top of the mountain.[citation needed] The stone for the monument was taken from Limhamn, in Malmö, Sweden.




The monument was inaugurated on October 12, 1931, by president Getúlio Vargas in a large, lavish ceremony. One of the highlights of the ceremony would be the lighting system, which was supposed to be switched on by Italian radio pioneer Guglielmo Marconi, from his yacht in Naples. Poor weather, however, affected the signal strength and the lighting had to be switched on manually by workers at Corcovado.


Picture during construction

In October 2006, on the occasion of the statue's 75th anniversary, Archbishop of Rio Cardinal Eusebio Oscar Scheid consecrated a chapel (named for the patron saint of Brazil - Nossa Senhora Aparecida) under the statue. This allows Catholics to hold baptisms and weddings there.



ENJOY THE VIRTUAL TOUR HERE
http://www.corcovado.com.br/

THE CHRCH OF REDEEMER

HERE THE SITE MAP
http://maps.google.com/
maps?f=q&hl=en&q=&ie=UTF8&ll=-22.951567,-43.21057&spn=0.003379,0.005032&t=h&om=1


3D Christ Redeemer FROM GOOGLE EARTH
http://www.gearthhacks.com/downloads/map.php?file=9979

Angkor Wat, Cambodia

There are two great complexes of ancient temples in Southeast Asia, one at Bagan in Burma, the other at Angkor in Cambodia. The temples of Angkor, built by the Khmer civilization between 802 and 1220 AD, represent one of humankind's most astonishing and enduring architectural achievements. From Angkor the Khmer kings ruled over a vast domain that reached from Vietnam to China to the Bay of Bengal. The structures one sees at Angkor today, more than 100 stone temples in all, are the surviving remains of a grand religious, social and administrative metropolis whose other buildings - palaces, public buildings, and houses - were built of wood and are long since decayed and gone.

Conventional theories presume the lands where Angkor stands were chosen as a settlement site because of their strategic military position and agricultural potential. Alternative scholars, however, believe the geographical location of the Angkor complex and the arrangement of its temples was based on a planet-spanning sacred geography from archaic times. Using computer simulations it has been shown that the ground plan of the Angkor complex – the terrestrial placement of its principal temples - mirrors the stars in the constellation of Draco at the time of spring equinox in 10,500 BC. While the date of this astronomical alignment is far earlier than any known construction at Angkor, it appears that its purpose was to architecturally mirror the heavens in order to assist in the harmonization of the earth and the stars. Both the layout of the Angkor temples and iconographic nature of much its sculpture, particularly the asuras (‘demons’) and devas (‘deities’) are also intended to indicate the celestial phenomenon of the precession of the equinoxes and the slow transition from one astrological age to another.



At the temple of Phnom Bakheng there are 108 surrounding towers. The number 108, considered sacred in both Hindu and Buddhist cosmologies, is the sum of 72 plus 36 (36 being ½ of 72). The number 72 is a primary number in the sequence of numbers linked to the earth’s axial precession, which causes the apparent alteration in the position of the constellations over the period of 25,920 years, or one degree every 72 years. Another mysterious fact about the Angkor complex is its location 72 degrees of longitude east of the Pyramids of Giza. The temples of Bakong, Prah Ko and Prei Monli at Roluos, south of the main Angkor complex, are situated in relation to each other in such a way that they mirror the three stars in the Corona Borealis as they appeared at dawn on the spring equinox in 10,500 BC. It is interesting to note that the Corona Borealis would not have been visible from these temples during the 10th and 11th centuries when they were constructed.



Angkor Wat, built during the early years of the 12th century by Suryavaram II, honors the Hindu god Vishnu and is a symbolic representation of Hindu cosmology. Consisting of an enormous temple symbolizing the mythic Mt. Meru, its five inter-nested rectangular walls and moats represent chains of mountains and the cosmic ocean. The short dimensions of the vast compound are precisely aligned along a north-south axis, while the east-west axis has been deliberately diverted 0.75 degrees south of east and north of west, seemingly in order to give observers a three day anticipation of the spring equinox.

Unlike other temples at Angkor, Ta Prohm has been left as it was found, preserved as an example of what a tropical forest will do to an architectural monument when the protective hands of humans are withdrawn. Ta Prohm's walls, roofs, chambers and courtyards have been sufficiently repaired to stop further deterioration, and the inner sanctuary has been cleared of bushes and thick undergrowth, but the temple has been left in the stranglehold of trees. Having planted themselves centuries ago, the tree's serpentine roots pry apart the ancient stones and their immense trunks straddle the once bustling Buddhist temple. Built in the later part of the 12th century by Jayavarman VII, Ta Prohm is the terrestrial counterpart of the star Eta Draconis the Draco constellation.

During half-millennia of Khmer occupation, the city of Angkor became a pilgrimage destination of importance throughout Southeastern Asia. Sacked by the Thais in 1431 and abandoned in 1432, Angkor was forgotten for a few centuries. Wandering Buddhist monks, passing through the dense jungles, occasionally came upon the awesome ruins. Recognizing the sacred nature of the temples but ignorant of their origins, they invented fables about the mysterious sanctuaries, saying they had been built by the gods in a far ancient time. Centuries passed, these fables became legends, and pilgrims from the distant reaches of Asia sought out the mystic city of the gods. A few adventurous European travelers knew of the ruins and stories circulated in antiquarian circles of a strange city lost in the jungles. Most people believed the stories to be nothing more than legend however, until the French explorer Henri Mouhot brought Angkor to the world's attention in 1860. The French people were enchanted with the ancient city and beginning in 1908 funded and superbly managed an extensive restoration project. The restoration has continued to the present day, excepting periods in the 70's and 80's when military fighting prevented archaeologists from living near the ruins.

Orthodox archaeologists sometimes interpret the temples of the Angkor complex as tombs of megalomaniacal kings yet in reality those kings designed and constructed the temples as a form of service to both god and their own subjects. The temples were places not for the worship of the kings but rather for the worship of god. Precisely aligned with the stars, constructed as vast three dimensional yantras and adorned with stunningly beautiful religious art, the Angkor temples were instruments for assisting humans in their realization of the divine.

Jayavaram VII, spoke of his intentions in erecting temples as being:

“full of deep sympathy for the good of the world, so as to bestow on men the ambrosia of remedies to win them immortality….By virtue of these good works would that I might rescue all those who are struggling in the ocean of existence.”



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angkor#_ref-2


http://www.theangkorguide.com/introduction.htm

http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/1848/angkor.html