Have you ever wondered how a gladiator might have felt waiting in the wings of the Colosseum, ready for his turn to fight? Or what it might have been like to live in a Roman apartment block, with its claustrophobic corridors, precarious steps and cool marble floors? Visitors come to Rome with all sorts of expectations but it’s hard to get a feel for life 2,000 years ago when you’re competing for camera space with hoards of fellow tourists. Of course many visitors to Italy’s capital have got different ideas of what makes a good trip. Last week 67,000 football…
-
-
Stonehenge‘s cult status as a centre for pagan worship could be in doubt, thanks to a bloody minded Utah farmer and three old bangers. Rhett Davis, of Hooper, engineered the mechanical megalith to keep prying eyes away from his property – and to show his nosey neighbours he wasn’t afraid to make a mess of the landscape in the small, conservative community. Rhett’s eureka moment came after neighbours refused to pay half the cost of a fence around his land, which would have shielded their eyes from the ‘horrors’ of flies and dust he kicked up at harvest time. So…
-
There may be well-known pyramids in Egypt, Mexico and even Bosnia – and ancient wonders across the globe – but not many know about the ancient architecture located right on their doorstep in London. Step forward Nicholas Hawksmoor: architect, freemason and all-round ancient religion nut. Born to a poor family in the British Midlands, Hawksmoor became one of the most revered architects of his time. And his London churches are some of the capital’s strangest landmarks, stepping wildly away from the Baroque time in which they were conceived. Hawksmoor had already built, and helped build with his mentor Sir Christopher…
-
When reading books, and especially when browsing ‘the interwebz’, one comes across the most hilarious, flabbergasting and ‘OMG, the pills you are taking, are those legal?!‘ pyramid theories. Sadly enough, the thrill is soon gone, as all those ‘pyramidiot’1 stories fall back on the same basic protagonists aliens and the inhabitants of Atlantis and the same story lines ‘way older’, special vibrations, immortality with an occasional twist freemasonry, numerology and Supreme Council of Egyptian Antiquities conspiracy theories. Composing a Pyramidiot Theory Hence the challenge, write up your very best Pyramidiot Theory without using any of the stereotypes mentioned below. As…
-
Stonehenge‘s use may have been debated for millennia – but one expert now thinks the Neolithic site was the venue for some of prehistory’s wildest raves. Professor Rupert Till, an expert in acoustics and music technology at Huddersfield University, insists the megalithic structure would have worked perfectly to resonate sound – creating trance-like music which would have aided rituals and worship at the site. To prove his theories, Dr Till used a computer model to simulate the acoustics of Stonehenge when it was in perfect shape (many of the huge stones have fallen down over time). The expert also visited…
-
Most likely it was not (just) supreme architectural skills and good fortune that made the Trajan Forum last for almost 20 centuries, but volcanic ashes in the mortar used by the ancient Roman builders. X-ray analysis of a wall sample from the Trajan’s Market ruins in Rome showed that the mortars used by ancient Romans contained stratlingite, a mineral known to strengthen modern cements. The cement used by Apollodorus of Damuscus’ builders to construct the huge ancient roman complex contained sandy ash of a volcano that erupted 456,000 years ago. To find the ash they turned to the material erupted…
-
The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford have a campaign entitled My Ashmolean My Museum to raise the final part of its 61 million modernisation and expansion. Award-winning architect Rick Mather has designed a new building to replace all but the Grade I listed Cockerell building. His design will double the existing gallery space, allow environmental control, and create a dedicated Education Centre and conservation facilities. Working in partnership with designers Metaphor, the Ashmolean’s curatorial staff are planning a number of innovative new approaches to the display of the Museum’s objects. Rick Mather has been the creative force behind a number of…
-
Stonehenge may have a history spanning almost 5,000 years, but the last century has been one of its most poignant and fascinating, seeing it restored from its former dilapidated state into one of Britain’s officially most loved tourist sites. An Auspicious Start Before 1901 Stonehenge was in a bad way. Many of the huge stones had sunk out of position; some had fallen over; and much of the land around the monument had been excavated beyond recognition. Seemingly every scholar who wanted to make a name for himself would visit Stonehenge for some reason or another. Even Charles Darwin commented…
-
Saqqara, located 40km south of Cairo, was a vast, 6km-long necropolis for the ancient capital of Memphis during the 1st and 2nd dynasties. It is most famously recognised for its step pyramid, built for the 3rd Dynasty pharaoh Djoser (2635 – 2610 BC) – but houses thousands of ancient burial sites, with many more submerged beneath the unerring depths of the desert. It stands as not only a memoriam to the time in which it was developed, but also as a yardstick against which all future Egyptian funerary ceremony would be placed. The City of the Dead Saqqara was originally…
-
Challenging the University of Virginia’s Ancient Rome in 3D, the UCLA’s Digital Karnak is a three-dimensional virtual-reality model that runs in real time and allows users to navigate 2,000 years of history at the ancient Egyptian religious site Karnak, one of the largest temple complexes ever constructed. Today, the Karnak site — where generations of pharaohs constructed temples, obelisks, sphinxes and other sacred structures beginning in the 20th century B.C. — is a popular tourist destination near modern-day Luxor. Developed by UCLA’s Experiential Technologies Center, the Digital Karnak model and a host of additional digital resources are now available for…