Most of the original Seven Wonders of the World are best known for their incredible construction techniques by inspired architects whose names have justly gone down in the annals of ancient history for their achievements. The Temple of Artemis (also known less precisely as Temple of Diana) has the unfortunate legacy of being most famous for its pointless destruction, at the hands of history’s original attention seeker. Built – in its most famous phase – around 550 BC at Ephesus (near modern day Selçuk, in Turkey) the shrine to the Ephesian goddess of fertility Artemis was a masterpiece of its…
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South of Corso Still on the trail of some of the lesser-known Roman sites, at the weekend I found myself wandering around a quiet area south of via del Corso. Testaccio is still very much a people’s neighbourhood. Old men gather on benches in shady piazzas, constantly gabbling away about who-knows-what (hotly debating the government’s latest PR disaster or contesting who won the last game of boules, it’s difficult to tell in their Romanaccio dialect), while children play with the pigeons. There aren’t many tourists to be seen, even though the area holds a couple of attractions. I stop short…
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Iraq has had – shall we say – a colourful recent history. Wars with Iran, Kuwait, the US and the US again; insurrections, intifadas, genocide and rebellion have left a land which, while rich in natural resources, is one of the most shattered civilizations on the planet. Most would blame Saddam Hussein and his egotistical bigotry for Iraq’s current plight; others point the finger at the remnants of the Cold War, which left Iraq fighting an impossible proxy conflict with their Iranian neighbours – arming Saddam’s bloodthirsty Ba’athists in the process. Yet whatever your stance on the country’s twisted fate…
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Key Dates The earliest record of Nineveh is around 1800 BC. It was captured by the Assyrians in the 14th century BC. It was sacked and razed in 612 BC. The Arab conquest of 637 AD meant Mosul effectively became Nineveh incarnate. Key People King Ninus, the semi-mythological Persian king on whose name Nineveh is based. Sennacherib, the Assyrian king who built most of Nineveh’s legendary landmarks – including its palace. Nineveh has come to be something of a legend of the Near East; a symbol of the ancient civilization of Assyria and the marauding tribes of Mesopotamia. Located in…
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Where and when? The term Neolithic refers to the period in ancient European history when characteristic Neolithic technology became prevalent – certain types of farming implements, tools, pottery and weapons. Encyclopedia Britannica describes the Neolithic period as a whole as the “final stage of technological development or cultural evolution among prehistoric humans.” The Neolithic era originated in South East Asian villages such as the famous Banpo in China, circa 9000 BC, artefacts from which are displayed in Xi’an‘s Banpo Museum. It then gradually spread west. It lasted from approximately 7000 BC (around the time of the first farming societies in…
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Chinese archaeologists started the third of a series of excavations at the famous terracotta army site on Saturday, hoping to find more clay figures and unravel some of the mysteries left behind by the “First Emperor“. Archaeologists hope they might find a clay figure that appeared to be “in command” of the huge underground army, said Liu Zhancheng, head of the archeological team under the terracotta museum in Xi’an, capital of Shaanxi Province. Liu and his colleagues are also hoping to ascertain the success of decades of preservation efforts to keep the undiscovered terracotta figures intact and retain their original…
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Think of Stonehenge and it immediately conjures up a number of strong visual images the huge, iconic sarsen stone trilithons, naked hippies at summer solstice, weird druid guys with big hoods and a legendary scene from This Is Spinal Tap. But what did it actually look like in its day? Its widely assumed that Stonehenge once stood as a magnificent ‘complete’ monument, but we need to bear in mind that this cant actually be proved about half of the stones that should be present are missing, and many of the assumed stone sockets have never actually been recorded through excavation.…
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A Flint Michigan ex-construction worker with too much time on his hands has solved a 5,000 year old conundrum by proving how it was possible for Neolithic man to erect with nowt but his bare hands, gravity and a lot of patience Stonehenge. Well, sort of. The appropriately named Wally Wallington, who apparently has a passion for moving heavy items, is presently building his very own replica of the legendary standing stones in his back yard. Hes doing it using a variety of elementary techniques that he believes prove Stonehenge could have been built in far less time than modern…
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Lord Elgin isn’t the only Brit taking the blame for removing some of ancient Greece’s greatest marble treasures – and the Parthenon is far from the only place raided by a zealous Brit in a bid to bring the ancient world to the smoggy streets of London. During an extensive dig carried out between 1857-59, Newton and his merry band of hacks travelled to the Ottoman – now Turkish – peninsula of Datca, where they began excavating the famous merchant city of Knidos – a picturesque Monte Carlo of the ancient Greek world, famous for its wealth, opulence and magnificent…
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The Domus Aurea, also known as the Golden House, was the emperor Nero‘s grand palace, with more than 150 rooms gilded, frescoed and clad in marble. Spanning an area of eight hectares, it was built over the Oppio, Celio, Palatine and Esquiline hills in Rome in 65 AD, following the great fire that destroyed 10 of the city’s 14 neighbourhoods. When Nero killed himself just three years after its construction, the Domus Aurea was opened as a public park. Some of it was destroyed immediately and the giant lake, known as the Stagnis Neronis, was filled so that the foundations…