author:Fiorella Coto

Easter Island has long been the subject of curiosity and speculation. How and why did its inhabitants carve and transport the massive statues which surround the island? What remains of this culture today, and what lessons can we learn from their legacy?  This page is a resource for information on the Internet about Easter Island, also known as “Rapa Nui” and “Isla de Pascua”.

“Easter Island is over 2,000 miles from the nearest population center, (Tahiti and Chile), making it one of the most isolated places on Earth. There has been much controversy and confusion concerning the origins of the Easter Islanders. Thor Heyerdahl proposed that the people who built the statues were of Peruvian descent, due to a similarity between Rapa Nui and Incan stonework. Some have suggested that Easter Island is the remnant of a lost continent, or the result of an extra-terrestrial influence . Archaeological evidence, however, indicates discovery of the island by Polynesians at about 400 AD – led, according to legend, by Hotu Matua. Upon their arrival, an impressive and enigmatic culture began to develop. In addition to the statues, the islanders possessed the Rongorongo script; the only written language in Oceania. The island is also home to many petroglyphs (rock carvings), as well as traditional wood carvings, tapa (barkcloth) crafts, tattooing, string figures, dance and music.”

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Hagia Sophia at sunset. Photo made by Helen Betts

“The mystical city Istanbul hosted many civilizations since centuries, of which Byzantium and Ottoman Empires were both the most famous ones. The city today carries the characteristics of these two different cultures and surely Hagia Sophia is a perfect synthesis where one can observe both Ottoman and Byzantium effects under one great dome.

If there is one work that realizes the ‘ideal’ Byzantine model, it is the astonishing church of Hagia Sophia built as the new Cathedral of Constantinople by the Emperor Justinian…He intended it as the keystone of his vast architectural campaign…”

Hagia Sophia was built in the amazingly short time of five years…The daring of the design, and perhaps the speed of the construction, made the structure unstable. Its first dome fell after an earthquake, and its replacement had to be repaired after partial collapses in the ninth and fourteenth centuries.

Mosaic over the imperial entrance to the interior. Photo made by Helen Betts

The choice of plan was…decided and imposed by Justinian himself. “Santa Sophia does not have the basilical plan generally adopted for large buildings, but is on the centralized pattern… The architectural form of Santa Sophia is concealed by the richness of decoration. The walls, from the ground up, are covered in identical manner. Plaques of red, yellow and green marble blend with the mosaics, and these are further embellished by the capitals, imposts, architraves and friezes”.

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made by Michael Nelson

 ”Located in Australia’s Kata Tjuta National Park, Uluru, also called Ayers rock, is the world’s largest monolith, and one of Australia’s most famous natural wonders. Ayers rock Uluru has long been a sacred site for Aboriginal peoples, and is one of the most stunning natural sites travelers will see when coming to the North Territory.

Not only is the breathtaking rock incredibly impressive due to its size, but also due to the strange colors it reflects back from the sun at different times during the day. Shadows on the rock face are also constantly changing with the movement of the sun, altering the look of the rock from moment to moment”.

 Uluru is considered once of the great wonders of the world.It is one of Australia’s most recognisable natural icons.It is located on a major planetary grid point much like the Great Pyramid in Egypt.

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Lascaux cave painting. Public domain.

Shortly after World War II ended, the entrance to the cave was enlarged and the floor was lowered to enable easier access for visitors. Nearly 1,200 tourists visited the cave every day.

By 1955, it became apparent that the cave’s popularity had begun to cause significant damage. A study showed that the primary cause was the high levels of carbon dioxide from the visitors’ breath.

A system was implemented to monitor carbon dioxide levels, but soon patches of green algae on the walls and other damage began to appear. To protect the ancient site from further damage, the Ministry of Cultural Affairs closed the Lascaux cave to the public on April 20, 1963. The original climatic conditions were recreated, and the site is now in the state in which it was discovered in 1940.

The  Lascaux caves a cave complex in southwestern France, contain some of the most remarkable paleolithic cave paintings in the world. Known as “the prehistoric Sistine Chapel” the Lascaux paintings are at least 15,000 years old.”

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Author:George Stoev

“In 1889, Gustave Eiffel began to fit the peak of the tower as an observation station to measure the speed of wind. He also encouraged several scientific experiments including Foucault‘s giant pendulum, a mercury barometer and the first experiment of radio transmission. In 1898, Eugene Ducretet at the Pantheon, received signals from the tower.The tower was almost torn down in 1909, but was saved because of its antenna used both for military and other purposes, and the city let it stand after the permit expired. When the tower played an important role in capturing the infamous spy Mata Hari during World War I, it gained such importance to the French people that there was no more thought of demolishing it.- used for telegraphy at that time.From 1910 and on the Eiffel Tower became part of the International Time Service. French radio (since 1918), and French television (since 1957) have also made use of its stature.At 300 meters (320.75 m including antenna), and 7,000 tons, it was the world’s tallest building until 1930.”

During its lifetime, the Eiffel Tower has also witnessed a few strange scenes, including being scaled by a mountaineer in 1954, and parachuted off of in 1984 by two Englishmen. For many (including me) the tower is sign of love and adoration

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Photograph by Zahara Amet

The Sahara, with a size of 8.6 million km², is the world’s largest desert, covering large parts of North Africa. Around 4 million people live here.
Sahara has a subtropical climate in its northern parts, and a tropical one in the south. Winters in the north are cold to cool; in the south, mild. Summers are hot all over the desert. The highest temperature every recorded is 58ºC in Aziziyah, Libya.
About a quarter of Sahara consists of mountains. The highest peak reaches 3415, being Emi Koussi in Chad. Some mountain peaks may even have snow in the winter.Sand sheets and dunes represent about 25% of the Sahara; the other parts are mountains steppes and oases.

Metallic minerals are very important to most Saharan countries. Algeria and Mauritania have several major deposits of iron ore, copper is found in Mauritania and manganese in Algeria. Small deposits of uranium are widely distributed in the Sahara, while Niger has the largest deposits. Oil is mainly found in Algeria, and is of great importance to the economy of the entire country.
Of the Sahara’s around 4 million people, most live in Mauritania, Western Sahara, Algeria, Libya and Egypt. Dominant groups of people are Sahrawis, Tuareg and Negroids. The largest city is Nouakchott, Mauritania’s capital.
Only 200,000 km² of Sahara are fertile oasises. Animal life is limited to gazelles, antelopes, jackals, foxes, badgers and hyena.The bird life counts more than 300 species.

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source:www.sacredsites.com

History                                                            

“The city of Angkor was the capital of the Khmer Empire from the 9th to the 15th centuries. The Khmer empire was one of the most prosperous and sophisticated kingdoms in the history of Southeast Asia, and its prosperity was expressed through a wide range of architecture.
The city of Angkor was founded on political and religious ideas adapted from India, and the temples of Angkor were intended as a place of worship for the king and a way for him to ensure his immortality through identification with the Hindu gods.

 Angkor Wat was built by King Suryavarman II in the 12th century as a vast funerary temple that would hold his remains, symbolically confirming his permanent identity with Vishnu.
 Many of the bas-reliefs in the temple depict scenes from the Ramayana and Mahabharata, Hindu sacred texts that recount the adventures of two major incarnations of Vishnu.

During its six centuries as imperial capital, Angkor went through many changes in architectural styles and in religion. The city of Angkor transferred its from the Hindu god Shiva to the Hindu god Vishnu, and finally to the Mahayana Buddhist deity Avalokitesvara.
By the late 13th century, the once frenzied pace of Angkor’s architectural pursuits had begun to die down, and a more restrained type of religion was on the rise under the growing influence of Theravada Buddhism.
At the same time, Angkor and the Khmer Empire were increasingly threatened and attacked by invading armies. By the 16th century, the golden age of Angkor was over and many of the great temples began to recede into the jungle.
From the 15th to 19th centuries, Theravada Buddhist monks cared for Angkor Wat, and it is thanks to them that the temple remains mostly intact. Angkor Wat became one of the most important pilgrimage sites in Southeast Asia.”

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source:national geographic

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source:www.sacredsites.com

“One of Machu Picchu’s primary functions was that of astronomical observatory. The Intihuatana stone (meaning ‘Hitching Post of the Sun’) has been shown to be a precise indicator of the date of the two equinoxes and other significant celestial periods. The Intihuatana (also called the Saywa or Sukhanka stone) is designed to hitch the sun at the two equinoxes, not at the solstice (as is stated in some tourist literature and new-age books). At midday on March 21st and September 21st, the sun stands almost directly above the pillar, creating no shadow at all. At this precise moment the sun “sits with all his might upon the pillar” and is for a moment “tied” to the rock. At these periods, the Incas held ceremonies at the stone in which they “tied the sun” to halt its northward movement in the sky. There is also an Intihuatana alignment with the December solstice (the summer solstice of the southern hemisphere), when at sunset the sun sinks behind Pumasillo (the Puma’s claw), the most sacred mountain of the western Vilcabamba range, but the shrine itself is primarily equinoctial.”

“Shamanic legends say that when sensitive persons touch their foreheads to the stone, the Intihuatana opens one’s vision to the spirit world (the author had such an experience, which is described in detail in Chapter one of Places of Peace and Power, on the web site, www.sacredsites.com). Intihuatana stones were the supremely sacred objects of the Inca people and were systematically searched for and destroyed by the Spaniards. When the Intihuatana stone was broken at an Inca shrine, the Inca believed that the deities of the place died or departed. The Spaniards never found Machu Picchu, even though they suspected its existence, thus the Intihuatana stone and its resident spirits remain in their original position. The mountain top sanctuary fell into disuse and was abandoned some forty years after the Spanish took Cuzco in 1533. Supply lines linking the many Inca social centers were disrupted and the great empire came to an end. The photograph shows the ruins of Machu Picchu in the foreground with the sacred peak of Wayna Picchu towering behind. Partway down the northern side of Wayna Picchu is the so-called “Temple of the Moon” inside a cavern. As with the ruins of Machu Picchu, there is no archaeological or iconographical evidence to substantiate the ‘new-age’ assumption that this cave was a goddess site”.

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