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| March 2009 |
| Billie Silvey |
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| Ajanta Caves, India The 29 Ajanta Caves of Maharashtra, India are a series of rock-cut cave temples and monuments dating from the second century B.C. and covered with Buddhist paintings and sculptures. The caves, excavated in 1956, are a UNESCO World Heritage Site. |
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| Angkor Wat, Cambodia Begun by a 12th century king and dedicated to the god Vishnu, work on the temple complex ended with his death. The site was sacked by enemies and neglected since the 16th century. Restoration, begun in the 20th century with the removal of earth and jungle vegetation, was interrupted by civil war and the Khmer Rouge during the 70s and 80s. |
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| Qin Shi Huang's Mausoleum, China Begun in 246 B. C. by the first emperor of China, the mausoleum was completed for his burial in 210. The tyrant who built the Great Wall feared death and sought immortality. It took 700,000 workers to construct the tomb, which archeologists only began exploring 40 years ago. 600 people were buried with the emperor, together with a terra cotta army of 6,000 soldiers and horses. |
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| Chichen Itza, Mexico |
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| Easter Island, Chile |
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| Giza, Egypt |
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| Lascaux, France |
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| Machu Picchu, Peru |
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| Mesa Verde, USA |
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| Palmyra, Syria Palmyra, Syria, 150 miles northeast of Damascus, has been a settlement since Neolithic times. Named for the palms which grew around the oasis there, it was a caravan town for Assyrians until it became an important outpost of the Greek Empire. Then, in 217, under Rome, it grew wealthy by taxing caravans. In 266, it was ruled by the warrior Queen Zenobia. |
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| Persepolis, Iran |
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| Petra, Jordan |
| \Sites and Finds Around the World |
| Asia |
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| Middle East |
| Petra, Jordan, on the slope of Mount Hor, is renowned for its rock-cut architecture. The Nabataeans, gifted engineers at controlling water, created an artificial oasis, controlled floods with dams and stored water for droughts at Petra. Petra was unknown by the West until 1812, when it was discovered by the Swiss explorer John William Bergh, who described it as "a rose-red city half as old as time." The World Heritage Site is approached from the east down a dark, narrow gorge called the Siq. |
| Persepolis was the ceremonial capital of the Persian Empire during the Achaemedid dynasty. Cyrus the Great chose the site, but Darius built the terrace and palaces, which were completed by Xerxes I. The ruins were discovered by Antonio de Gouvein of Portugal in 1602, but not excavated until 1934 by the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. The site includes military quarters, treasury, reception halls, and houses for the king, built of gray limestone with underground sewage tunnels cut through the rock. |
| Perhaps the best-known site in the world are the pyarmids of Giza, a complex of three Old Kingdom pyramids. The largest ws built between 2589 and 2466 B.C., covers three acres, and was perfectly oriented to the points of the compass. Before erosion, it stood 481 feet tall. Other features of the Giza complex include the pyramids of Khafre and Menkaure and the Sphinx. |
| Africa |
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| Valley of the Kings, Egypt |
| The Valley of the Kings, on the west bank of the Nile opposite Thebes, was the burial place of kings and powerful nobles in Egypt from the 16th-11th centuries B.C. Sixty-two pharaohs were buried there, including the longest-reigning woman to serve as pharaoh, Hatshepsut. The favorite daughter of a powerful pharaoh as well as a strong and charismatic woman in her own right, she took control, even to wearing the traditional clothing and false beard of male pharaohs. Her tomb is on the left. |
| Karnak, Egypt |
| A vast complex of temples, chapels, pylons and other buildings near Luxor, Karnak is the largest ancient religious site in the world, second only to the pyramids as the most visited site in Egypt. The Hypostyle Hall at the temple of Karnak includes 134 massive columns carved with hieroglyphics. Construction on the complex began in the 16th century B.C., with some 30 pharaohs contributing to the building. First described by a Venetian traveler in 1668, it was studied by the scientists with Napoleon in 1798. |
| Europe |
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| Americas |
| Greece |
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| Forum, Rome |
| Located between the Palatine and Capitoline hills in Rome, the Forum includes some of the oldest and most important structures in the city, including the royal residence, the Temple of the Vestal Virgins and the Comitium, where the senate met. The Forum was falling apart by the 8th century and mostly buried by the Middle Ages. It wasn't fully excavated until the earlly 20th century. |
| Ishtar Gate, Babylonia, Iraq |
| The Ishtar Gate was constructed in 575 B.C. under King Nebuchadnezzar II and dedicated to the Babylonian goddess Ishtar. The gate is made of blue glazed tiles alternating with bas-reliefs of dragons and bulls. The Processional Way ran through the gate and was lined with walls covered with lions on glazed bricks. The gate was reconstructed at Pergamon Museum in Berlin from material excavated by Robert Koldewey and was completed in the 1930s. |
| Lascaux is a complex of caves with painted walls three times older than the Pyramids. The art includes 2,000 figures, including 900 animals as well as geometric figures. Estimated to be 16,000 years old, the caves were discovered in 1940 by four teenagers. Access was improved after World War II, but the caves were closed in 1963 because carbon dioxide from 1,200 visitors a day were damaging the paintings. Replicas of two of the caves' halls, the Great Hall of Bulls and the Painted Gallery, were opened in 1982. |
| A funeral mask, first thought to be the mask of Agamemnon, was excavated in 1876 by the German archeologist Heinrich Schliemann. Schliemann searched for the sites of Greek classics at Mycenae and Troy. The mask was one of five found over the faces of bodies in shaft tombs. Modern research suggests a date of 1550-1500 B.C., earlier than the traditional date for Agamemnon. |
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| Easter Island is a Polynesian island in the southeastern Pacific located off the coast of Chile. The island is famous for its monumental statues called moai, created by the Rapanui people. Now a World Heritage site protected in the Rapa Nui National Park, it was only excavated in the 1990s, though it was settled 300-400 A.D., though some date it 500 years earlier. |
| Located 8,000 feet above sea level, the ruins of Machu Picchu were rediscovered in 1911 by Yale archeologist Hiram Bingham. In the early 1400s, the Inca erected hundreds of stone structures--palaces, baths, temples, storage rooms and 150 houses--to form a five-square-mile city, invisible from below but completely self-contained. The people were fed by crops grown on surrounding agricultural terraces, and watered by natural springs. |
| A pre-columbian architectural site built by Mayans in the northern center of the Yucatan Penninsula in Mexico. Built on natural sink holes which provide plentiful water, Chichen Itza reached its height in 600 A.D., becoming a regional capital. In 987, it became the capital of the Toltec king Quatzalcoatl from Central Mexico. The site includes the Temple of a Thousand Warriors and a pyramid. |
| Located in the lower southwestern corner of Colorado near the Four Corners, the 81.4 square mile site features numerous ruins of houses and villages built by the Anasazi people in the 1200s. It is best known for spectacular cliff dwellings, including the Cliff Palace, the largest cliff dwelling in North America. The prospector John Moss led a photographer to the ruins in 1874. He photographed and published his finds before ranchers despoiled much of the treasures. |