Monuments to Civilization

The Great Pyramids of Giza were constructed around 2,500 BCE, making them the oldest monuments to civilization in the world still intact. They were also the tallest structures in the world until the Eiffel Tower was built in 1889. They are a structural and architectural wonder, so miraculous that some have speculated that they had to have been designed by more advanced civilizations from other planets.

Speculation notwithstanding, the Egyptians formed a civilization that was remarkably advanced in ancient times with an understanding of mathematics, medicine and animal husbandry.

The geometrically precise pyramids were constructed as tombs to ancient pharaohs and are exactly aligned to the poles of the earth. They are constructed of smooth, tightly fitted limestone blocks with sides that were once sheathed in gold.

The largest pyramids, which are the largest solid structures ever erected, were built for Khufu (Cheops) and his son, Khafre. They are 481 feet tall and each consists of more than two million stone blocks, each weighing about 3,000 pounds. The exact method the Egyptians used to move these giant blocks is still a mystery.

The crowning achievement at Giza is the Great Sphinx that lies at the edge of Giza plateau. Its Arabic name is Abu al-Hawl, or "Father of Terror." After the construction of the Great Pyramids of Giza, the Egyptians constructed other great landmarks and pyramids, but none the matched the colossal magnitude of the Great Pyramids.

Construction on the ancient "City of the Persians," or Persepolis, began around 518 B.C.E. on a site chosen by Darius I from lands conquered by Cyrus the Great. It took over 100 years to build and was one of the most magnificent cities in the ancient world. Persepolis is located 70 km northeast of the modern city of Shiraz in the Fars Province of present day Iran.

The main buildings were supported by hundreds of elaborate yet graceful pillars with ornate capitals. Scenes of court life are depicted in bas-relief throughout the Apadana Palace. Another part of the city is a remarkable 125,000 square meter terrace that is partially cut out of a mountainside. There is a dual Persepolitan stairway that was designed as the main entrance to the terrace. It had 111 steps that are about 22.5 feet wide with treads of about 1 foot and shallow rises of about 4 inches that allowed dignitaries to maintain a regal posture while ascending the stairs. The city was surrounded by a series of three walls with ramparts, however we only know about them through the writings of the ancient Greek historian, Diodorus Siculus. He wrote that one wall was 23 feet tall, another, 26 feet, and the third, which surrounded the city on all four sides, was a spectacular 88.5 feet high. No remnants of the walls remain today.

Alexander the Great burned the city to the ground in 330 B.C.E.. Persepolis was later abandoned and over time, disappeared from sight. An archeological expedition uncovered the ruins in 1931, revealing a treasure-trove of cultural artifacts, including hundreds of remarkably well-preserved clay tablets that depicted the daily life of the city's people. Ironically, the fire that destroyed the city was the very agent that preserved the tablets.

The Parthenon was built on the site of the ancient Acropolis, the fortified sanctuary of Athens that had existed for over a thousand years before being destroyed in a war with Persia in 480 B.C.E. It was the ancient leader, Pericles who ordered the construction of the Parthenon as part of an elaborate civic complex, which was designed by the architects Iktinons and Kallikrates. The sculptor, Phidias carved the elaborate marble edifice.

Even in its day, the Parthenon's architectural achievements were legendary. The horizontal lines of the structure are subtly arched to follow the curvature of the earth and its proportions are delicately tuned to the optics of the human eye, a system never again attempted, although its style is one of the most emulated in the world.

One of the many impressive features of the Parthenon is its long bas-relief frieze of more than 360 Athenian citizens depicting the Greater Panathenaic Festival, a procession that took place every four years to honor the Goddess Athena.

The Parthenon has survived through the millennia as a symbol of mankind's first democracy, a government that rules by the consent of the governed; a civilization that provided the foundation of Western philosophy.

One of the most amazing wonders of the ancient world was not even discovered until 1974. It all started when a Chinese farmer set out to dig a well and uncovered a portion of a 2,000-year-old figure made of clay. That led to an excavation that unearthed a massive underground mausoleum complex of a life-sized clay army that was sculpted for the purpose of serving the first Qin Emperor, Shih Huang-Ti in the afterworld.

Shih Huang-Ti, who ruled from 247 to 221 B.C.E., consolidated the various kingdoms of China, accomplishing the miraculous feet of establishing a common written language and a uniform code of laws. He instituted massive civic construction projects that included canal systems, roads, and the first of many Great Walls that protected China from barbarian invasions. The empire created by Shih Huang-Ti survived until 1911, despite the toppling of numerous dynasties.

Very few of China's earliest architectural landmarks have survived. This is due largely to the fact that they were made of wood. However, around the contemporary city of Xi'an, there are monumental pyramids that still remain. They once towered above the horizon, but are now covered with earth and grass.

Excavations are still on-going, but there have been 600 life-sized horses and 10,000 chrome-plated bronze weapons that have currently been uncovered. It is estimated that there could be as many as 7,000 soldiers at the site once the site has been fully excavated.

The mausoleum itself is a structure that originally stood 375 feet high and consisted of a massive underground city with gateways and towers that has -- even today -- yet to be fully explored.

Petra's most famous surviving structure is Khazneh al-Faroun, a tomb that stands 130 feet in height at the entrance to the city. The structure is carved out of the side of a sheer cliff, containing six columns, ornate friezes and figures, and an urn-shaped roof.

Petra id surrounded by towering hills of sandstone, which provided natural protection against invaders, however the Roman Emperor, Trajan annexed the Nabataean Kingdom in 106 C.E. as part of the province of Arabia. The Arabs conquered the city in 636. Petra suffered many earthquakes which had an impact on the slow decline of the city. When the Crusaders constructed a fort there in the 12th century, Petra regained some of its ancient splendor, but when they withdrew, Petra returned to being known only to the local inhabitants. This changed in the early 19th century, when it was visited by the Swiss explorer Burckhardt. It is now a major archeological site listed on the UNESCO World Heritage List and visited by thousands of tourists annually.

The pyramids of Teotihuacan were similar in design to the Great Pyramids of Giza, but they are less than half as tall. There are three pyramids in Teotihuacan: the Pyramid of the Sun, the Pyramid of the Moon and the Temple of the Feathered Serpent. The Pyramid of the Sun was originally about 705 feet square at the base and is about 206 feet in height, but it was enlarged in two later periods until it reached a final size of 738 feet on each of its sides at its base.

The pyramids are arranged on a central axis, the Avenue of the Dead, which is divided into two sections. Palaces, homes, courtyards, temples and plazas were arranged in a geometric checkerboard pattern on different sized rectangles. The Ciudadela is an enormous enclosed structure at the geographic center of the city measuring almost 525,000 square feet, enough to hold 100,000 people without crowding. It is speculated that the Ciudadela was used for ritual performances.

According to UNESCO, Teotihuacan "represents a unique achievement as much for the enormous size as for the strictness of a layout based on cosmic harmony." The site was first surveyed in 1864 and the first excavations began in 1884.

After the death of Siddhartha Gautama, known as the Buddha, in 483 B.C.E., the practice of Buddhism in India began to decline temporarily and many monuments to the Buddha were constructed in isolated areas, carved into the sides of mountains, or painted inside caves. These could be very elaborate and ornate monuments, covered with intricately detailed carvings. It is estimated that there are over a thousand such enclaves in India and the Ajanta Caves is one such example.

Hagia Sophia, from the Greek for "Holy Wisdom," was constructed during the time of Justinian the Great, in 537 C.E. as the foremost capital of Europe during the Middle Ages. Constantinople, as the city was then called, was the crucial center that connected Asia Minor and held the enormous strategic positioning for the Silk Road trade. In spite of being periodically besieged from all directions over a thousand years, its fortifications were seldom breeched - and they remain intact even today. In this magnificent ancient city, the Hagia Sophia dominates the landscape.

For a thousand years, the Hagia Sophia was the tallest cathedral dome in the world. While not as wide as the dome of the Pantheon, it is 43 feet higher. Its design changed the history of architecture with its perilous and previously untried engineering.

It is perched on a series of arches, half-domes and colonnades that creates a billowing sense of space and gives the structure the appearance of weightlessness. There are 91 windows in the thick masonry walls and 40 around the base of the dome.

In 1453, the Ottoman Turks captured the city of Constantinople and under the Sultan Mehmed II, Hagia Sophia was converted into a mosque. The bells, altar, iconostasis, and sacrificial vessels were removed while Islamic elements, such as the mihrab, minbar and minarets, were added. Many of the mosaics were covered with plaster. It remained a mosque until 1931. At that time, it was closed to the public for four years, re-opening in 1935 as a museum by the Republic of Turkey.

Angkor is a masterpiece of artistic achievement that lay deep in the tropical forests of Cambodia. It is all that remains of the Khmer Kingdom of Southeast Asia. No record survives of the culture, why they settled here or why they left.

The name "Angkor," is derived from the Sanskrit "nagara," meaning "city." And what a city it was! It is believed that more than one million people lived here during its height, which extended from the ninth to the fifteenth centuries. The ruins consist of huge masonry temple complexes, some of the largest religious buildings ever constructed anywhere in the world. These temples were built on progressively higher terraces. In 2007, satellite photographs revealed the true scope of the city and showed that Angkor was the largest preindustrial city in the world, with an elaborate infrastructure connecting over 621 square miles. Most of the city's population, as well as its artistic masterpieces, were concentrated in an area extending about 15 miles east to west and about 5 miles north to south.

The Forbidden City is the last of the great Chinese imperial palaces. It was designed in the 15th century according to 2,000-year-old rules that governed how imperial capitals had to look and its 7,800,000 square feet took over a million craftsmen 20 years to build. The city of Beijing is laid out on a huge rectangular grid protected by walls within walls. Every residence, temple and institution was surrounded with a wall, as were the sections of the city and whole metropolis was also encircled with a wall fortified with bulwarks followed by a giant moat.

The Forbidden City is located at the very center of Beijing. It was designed with particular attention paid to numerology. The number nine is said to have the most yang, or positive energy; this is the reason that there are 999 buildings with 9,999 interior halls.

The Forbidden City served as the residence of the emperor from the Ming Dynasty to the end of the Quing Dynasty, with palaces for family members, temples and ceremonial buildings of state. In addition, it contained theaters, libraries, kitchens, schoolhouses, workshops, an apothecary, a print shop, the barracks for the imperial guard, stables and even residences for concubines. There were also halls specifically for composing poetry, a plaza for reciting poetry and countless courtyards and gardens.

The edifices are primarily comprised of precious Phoebe zhennan wood in post-and-beam construction and painted in bright red lacquer. All buildings feature the traditional Chinese upturned roofs made of gold-colored tile. Windows and door are all carved in intricate geometric designs.
In 1912, the last Emperor of China, Puyi, abdicated and with that, the Forbidden City ceased being the political center of China. Puyi was permitted to remain living in the Inner Court of the Forbidden City while the Outter Court was given over for public use. However, Puyi was evicted in 1924 after a coup. The following year, the Palace Museum was established.

The permanent collection of the museum today includes more than a million rare paintings, bronzes, ceramics, porcelain, timepieces, jade and other artifacts including archaeological discoveries.

Between two sharp peaks, almost 8,000 feet high up in the Andes Mountains, the breathtaking Machu Picchu is perched on an airy ridge. It was once one of the country estates belonging to the great Incan ruler Pachacuti, before he abandoned it at the fall of his empire during the Spanish Conquest in 1533. Fortunately, the existence of the estate was not known by the Spanish conquerors, so it remained intact and undisturbed for almost 400 years until a Yale University professor, Hiram Bingham, having heard legends of the magnificent ruins, undertook an expedition to the near-inaccessible region.

A local guide took him up the mountain, skirting sheer cliffs and often crawling on hands and knees through dense jungle vegetation and through cloud forests. In the days of Pachacuti, the path to Machu Picchu took three days. The mile-long paved Incan road was reinforced with retaining walls, stone treads and risers and had resting terraces with fountains along the way. This led to a drawbridge that spanned a deep chasm.

Machu Picchu's elaborate construction appears to be delicately balanced on top of the cliff. The estate covers over 80,000 acres and was designed to accommodate 100 members of the nobility with 650 servants and farmers. It had 150 masonry residences, 30 religious structures, six large storehouses, a central plaza, a feast hall and six residential fountains. The surrounding valleys have been continuously cultivated for over a thousand years. Agricultural terracing produced surplus crops of maize and other staples.

Machu Picchu is on the UNESCO World Heritage List and is likely to be put on its List of World Heritage in Danger due to the number of tourists who visit it each year. It is important to note that when Hiram Bingham excavated Machu Picchu, he carried many artifacts back to Yale for further study, ostensibly for a period of 18 months. They remained on display at Yale's Peabody Museum for decades. The wife of Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo, Eliane Karp, who herself is an anthropologist, accused Yale of trying to claim title to thousands of pieces of Peruvian artifacts and demanded their return. On November 21, 2010, after years of dispute, Yale University agreed in principle that Peru had the right to the artifacts and said that it would return them to their original home.