Mysterious Places......

Mysterious Places......

* Angkor Wat The forest of Cambodia are thick, dark and mysterious.for 400 years, the encroaching jungle hid a secret from the eyes of man. It was Angkor, the capital city of the ancient Khmer Civilization of Cambodia.
  Henri Mouhot, French naturalist stumbled upon Angkor while he was out searching for rare birds and insects in the late 19th century. He was awestruck to see a magnificent city of hundreds of towers, vast artificial waterways, broad highways and one of the biggest temples ever built, called Angkor Vat - all overgrown by huge banyan and silk cotton trees.  
      
    Everywhere one looked there was sculpture - some colossal, some in low relief. The location and existence of Angkor was always known to the local people of the region. Henri Mouhot did, however, popularized the majestic Angkor in the west.
  Angkor Wat is one of the most awesome structures anyone can visit, and is dedicated to the Hindu god Vishnu. it is so huge that all the known wonders of the world, including St. Peter's Cathedral of Rome, and Indonesian Borobudur could find a place on the grounds in front of the main temple. The temple is a representation of Mount meru, the home of gods. Its central tower is 214 feet and the five towers symbolize the five peaks of the mountain, while the walls and moat represent the surrounding mountain ranges and ocean. The End of Angkor began when it was sacked and looted by invaders from Thailand . The invaderstook as much loot as they could carry, and when they returned a year later for more, they found that the city had been abandoned! Knows why this happened, though earth-quakes, floods or drastic climate change have been suggested as possible reasons.
  



* Teotihuacan in Mexico was the sixth largest city in the world and about 200,000 people lived there. just 150 years later, Teotihuacan was almost deserted, and plants had begun to grow over the city's huge pyramids. Yet in spite of its splendour, Tenochtitlan was a scary place too. This is because the Spanish adventurers who discovered it  saw temple walls covered with dried blood, and racks containing  human sukll - there were actually arround 136000 on one rack! it was a horrifying sight, and it is believed that these were the ramain of people who had been sacrificed  to please the gods. sawNobody knows why Teotihuacan was abandoned, but it may have been devastated by a huge fire in AD 650.




* The Stonehenge is a circle of 17 upright stones called sarsens which stand on Salisbury Plain in southwest England. The stones weigh up to 50 tonnes and have other stones, called lintels, laid across the top. There is also an inner circle of smaller bluestones weighing up to four tonnes each.
  Stonehenge is the only stone circle in the world with lintels across the top of the stones, and experts think it was completed in about 1500 BC. They believe that the sarsen stone were transported from 32Km away and the bluestones came from an incredible 250Km away. At least 600 men would have been needed to move each sarsen stone on some of the steepest parts of the journey. Nobody knows exactly why Stonehenge was built, but it may have been a druids' temple or even a kind of astronomical calender.



* The Bermuda Triangle is an area of Atlantic ocean off the coast of Florida. It is famous for being the supposed site of many unexplained disappearances. The three points of the triangle are Miami, Bermuda and San Juan in Puerto Rico. In the 15th century, Christopher Columbus claimed to have seen a "great flame of fire" falling into the ocean in the area. The mystery of the Bermuda Triangle firs began to attract attention in 1945, when flight 19, a training mission of five US bombers, vanished off the Florida coast. The plane that was sent to find them also disappeared, and around 100 boats and aircrafts have also been lost there. Explanations include magnetic fields, sea monsters and abduction by aliens, but most experts agree the disappearance are caused by bad navigation and/or extreme weather conditions.

* The City of Troy One of the most famous epics of all time is the Iliad. This great poem tells the story of how the prince of troy stole the beautiful wife of a Greek king. This led to a great war between Greece and Troy. The Greeks finally entered Troy hidden in wooden horse that the people of troy thought it was a gift to them! Once inside the city, the Greeks burnt Troy, and won the battle easily.
   Today it is believed that it was a real city indeed, for in the 19th century, German archaeologist uncovered the ruins of the city in Turkey that could very well have been the Troy of  Iliad. In fact there is proof that the city had been destroyed and rebuilt again and again so we can say that there was not just one Troy but many, through the ages!





 * The Giant Stone Balls  of Costa Rica are mysterious ancient balls that are so perfectly round, they could not have been carved by hand. Nobody knows where they came from, or how they were made. these strange stones are scattered all over the Cost Rican countryside. No one knows exactly how old the balls are either. They could have been carved anywhere between A.D. 200 to 1500, with most estimated in the range of A.D. 800 to 1200. However, their existence remained unknown to the outside world until the 1930's when the dense vegitation on Costa Rica was cut away to make room for banana plantations.
      Most of the ball are made of hard, volcanic stone called granodiorite, though a few are composed of a type of limestone. Some of them are small, but some are huge, and weigh more than 16 tonnes. There are over a thousand of them, and till now no one knows why so many of these extraordinary sculptures were created, or whether they were created by man or Mother nature.



* The Racetrack Playa  is a dry lake found within Death Valley National Park, California. It is famous for a very mysterious geological phenomenon that takes place here. The Racetrack Playa is a place where stones move by themselves, with no animal or human intervention! Hundreds and hundreds of rocks, scattered about the surface of this have left trails behind them where they've moved across the surface. The stone vary from pebble size to half tonne boulders, and vary in size and shape too. Their tracks also vary in length and go everyway from zigzags to loops and sometimes they double back on themselves. Some travel only a few feet; others go for hundreds of meters.
    The Racetrack Playa is a seasonally dry lake, meaning that in times of heavy rains water fills the lake and under the heat of hot sun, it dries back. In winter and early spring, it can also freeze leading to the first of many possible theories that the rocks move because of the newly - formed ice sheets after the playa is flooded. Another explanation is that the rocks are moved by high winds, on rare occasions when Playa is wet enough to be extremely slippery, and conditions are just right. Nobody has ever seen a rock move and the best part is that no scientist is able to come up with a satisfying reason for this mystery till now, despite all the explanations given!! 

 


* Tower of Babel  Babylon was one of the most splendid cities of ancient times. Built on the fertile land between the rivers Euphrates and Tigris, it was the home of the world's first great civilization. Amongst the many wonders of Babylon were the dazzling blue Ishtar Gate and the Hanging Gardens. 
         
        The Bible tells us how people of Babylon tried to build a tower high enough to reach heaven - the Tower of Babel. It was ziggurat or pyramid like tower, which consisted of a series of platforms that grew smaller and smaller as they rose higher and higher. There were many such magnificent ziggurats in Babylon, but the most remarkable of them all was the tower of Babel.
        No one knows whether the ziggurats were royal tombs, or temples. Some believe that they were built as stepping stones for the gods to descend to Earth - or for man to reach the heavens. According to the Biblical story, the tower to Babel was built not for the worship and praise of God, but for the glory of man. The people wanted to show that they could make a tower high enough to reach the heavens. 
  
       But, at the end of the story, God punished them for their arrogance by making each builder speak in a different language, and so created the world's languages!
      
      Today, all that remains of the tower of Babel are its foundations - an earth embankment that is overgrown with vegetation, but the mystery of why it was actually built sitll remains.


 * Pyramids of Egypt  The pyramids of ancient Egypt are among the wonders of the world, and one of its greatest mysteries too. Why were they built? Most people believe the they were built as tombs for the kings of Egypt, but was this their only purpose? Some Arab scholars have declared that all the knowledge of ancient Egypt was inscribed inside the pyramids. Some European scholars, on the other hand, say that the pyramids were in fact, expression of religious faith. It is also thought that the pyramids served to emphasize the superiority of the god - like pharaohs over the commam man, and that each pharaoh wanted his pyramid to reflect his status.
       Whatever the reason for building the pyramids, another mystery is how the Egyptians could build such massive structure when they had not invented the wheel. who designed their complex structure? How were the huge stones moved and lifted? What was the technology used? The questions continue, even as the pyramids continue to enthral and fascinate mankind to this day.



* Riddle of the SPHINX  Carved from the bedrock of Giza plateau, the Great Sphinx of Giza (above) is truly a mysterious marvel from the days of ancient Egypt. With the body of lion and the head of a King or god, the sphinx has come to symbolize strength and wisdom as it stands guard over the desert stands. Because of the changing desert terrain, the body of the sphinx has been buried several times over the past several thousand years.
     One of the greatest  riddles about the Sphinx is its age. Some researchers believe that it was built before 2550 B.C. and that the Sphnix's face is the face of the Pharaoh himself. There is still another opinion that this mighty colossus was built in several stages between 7000 and 5000 B.C. But regardless of when it was built or who built it the Great Sphinx of Giza is a symbol that has represented the essence of Egypt for thousands of years.
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Mysterious Places......

* Angkor Wat The forest of Cambodia are thick, dark and mysterious.for 400 years, the encroaching jungle hid a secret from the eyes of man. It was Angkor, the capital city of the ancient Khmer Civilization of Cambodia.
  Henri Mouhot, French naturalist stumbled upon Angkor while he was out searching for rare birds and insects in the late 19th century. He was awestruck to see a magnificent city of hundreds of towers, vast artificial waterways, broad highways and one of the biggest temples ever built, called Angkor Vat - all overgrown by huge banyan and silk cotton trees.  
      
    Everywhere one looked there was sculpture - some colossal, some in low relief. The location and existence of Angkor was always known to the local people of the region. Henri Mouhot did, however, popularized the majestic Angkor in the west.
  Angkor Wat is one of the most awesome structures anyone can visit, and is dedicated to the Hindu god Vishnu. it is so huge that all the known wonders of the world, including St. Peter's Cathedral of Rome, and Indonesian Borobudur could find a place on the grounds in front of the main temple. The temple is a representation of Mount meru, the home of gods. Its central tower is 214 feet and the five towers symbolize the five peaks of the mountain, while the walls and moat represent the surrounding mountain ranges and ocean. The End of Angkor began when it was sacked and looted by invaders from Thailand . The invaderstook as much loot as they could carry, and when they returned a year later for more, they found that the city had been abandoned! Knows why this happened, though earth-quakes, floods or drastic climate change have been suggested as possible reasons.
  



* Teotihuacan in Mexico was the sixth largest city in the world and about 200,000 people lived there. just 150 years later, Teotihuacan was almost deserted, and plants had begun to grow over the city's huge pyramids. Yet in spite of its splendour, Tenochtitlan was a scary place too. This is because the Spanish adventurers who discovered it  saw temple walls covered with dried blood, and racks containing  human sukll - there were actually arround 136000 on one rack! it was a horrifying sight, and it is believed that these were the ramain of people who had been sacrificed  to please the gods. sawNobody knows why Teotihuacan was abandoned, but it may have been devastated by a huge fire in AD 650.




* The Stonehenge is a circle of 17 upright stones called sarsens which stand on Salisbury Plain in southwest England. The stones weigh up to 50 tonnes and have other stones, called lintels, laid across the top. There is also an inner circle of smaller bluestones weighing up to four tonnes each.
  Stonehenge is the only stone circle in the world with lintels across the top of the stones, and experts think it was completed in about 1500 BC. They believe that the sarsen stone were transported from 32Km away and the bluestones came from an incredible 250Km away. At least 600 men would have been needed to move each sarsen stone on some of the steepest parts of the journey. Nobody knows exactly why Stonehenge was built, but it may have been a druids' temple or even a kind of astronomical calender.



* The Bermuda Triangle is an area of Atlantic ocean off the coast of Florida. It is famous for being the supposed site of many unexplained disappearances. The three points of the triangle are Miami, Bermuda and San Juan in Puerto Rico. In the 15th century, Christopher Columbus claimed to have seen a "great flame of fire" falling into the ocean in the area. The mystery of the Bermuda Triangle firs began to attract attention in 1945, when flight 19, a training mission of five US bombers, vanished off the Florida coast. The plane that was sent to find them also disappeared, and around 100 boats and aircrafts have also been lost there. Explanations include magnetic fields, sea monsters and abduction by aliens, but most experts agree the disappearance are caused by bad navigation and/or extreme weather conditions.

* The City of Troy One of the most famous epics of all time is the Iliad. This great poem tells the story of how the prince of troy stole the beautiful wife of a Greek king. This led to a great war between Greece and Troy. The Greeks finally entered Troy hidden in wooden horse that the people of troy thought it was a gift to them! Once inside the city, the Greeks burnt Troy, and won the battle easily.
   Today it is believed that it was a real city indeed, for in the 19th century, German archaeologist uncovered the ruins of the city in Turkey that could very well have been the Troy of  Iliad. In fact there is proof that the city had been destroyed and rebuilt again and again so we can say that there was not just one Troy but many, through the ages!





 * The Giant Stone Balls  of Costa Rica are mysterious ancient balls that are so perfectly round, they could not have been carved by hand. Nobody knows where they came from, or how they were made. these strange stones are scattered all over the Cost Rican countryside. No one knows exactly how old the balls are either. They could have been carved anywhere between A.D. 200 to 1500, with most estimated in the range of A.D. 800 to 1200. However, their existence remained unknown to the outside world until the 1930's when the dense vegitation on Costa Rica was cut away to make room for banana plantations.
      Most of the ball are made of hard, volcanic stone called granodiorite, though a few are composed of a type of limestone. Some of them are small, but some are huge, and weigh more than 16 tonnes. There are over a thousand of them, and till now no one knows why so many of these extraordinary sculptures were created, or whether they were created by man or Mother nature.



* The Racetrack Playa  is a dry lake found within Death Valley National Park, California. It is famous for a very mysterious geological phenomenon that takes place here. The Racetrack Playa is a place where stones move by themselves, with no animal or human intervention! Hundreds and hundreds of rocks, scattered about the surface of this have left trails behind them where they've moved across the surface. The stone vary from pebble size to half tonne boulders, and vary in size and shape too. Their tracks also vary in length and go everyway from zigzags to loops and sometimes they double back on themselves. Some travel only a few feet; others go for hundreds of meters.
    The Racetrack Playa is a seasonally dry lake, meaning that in times of heavy rains water fills the lake and under the heat of hot sun, it dries back. In winter and early spring, it can also freeze leading to the first of many possible theories that the rocks move because of the newly - formed ice sheets after the playa is flooded. Another explanation is that the rocks are moved by high winds, on rare occasions when Playa is wet enough to be extremely slippery, and conditions are just right. Nobody has ever seen a rock move and the best part is that no scientist is able to come up with a satisfying reason for this mystery till now, despite all the explanations given!! 

 


* Tower of Babel  Babylon was one of the most splendid cities of ancient times. Built on the fertile land between the rivers Euphrates and Tigris, it was the home of the world's first great civilization. Amongst the many wonders of Babylon were the dazzling blue Ishtar Gate and the Hanging Gardens. 
         
        The Bible tells us how people of Babylon tried to build a tower high enough to reach heaven - the Tower of Babel. It was ziggurat or pyramid like tower, which consisted of a series of platforms that grew smaller and smaller as they rose higher and higher. There were many such magnificent ziggurats in Babylon, but the most remarkable of them all was the tower of Babel.
        No one knows whether the ziggurats were royal tombs, or temples. Some believe that they were built as stepping stones for the gods to descend to Earth - or for man to reach the heavens. According to the Biblical story, the tower to Babel was built not for the worship and praise of God, but for the glory of man. The people wanted to show that they could make a tower high enough to reach the heavens. 
  
       But, at the end of the story, God punished them for their arrogance by making each builder speak in a different language, and so created the world's languages!
      
      Today, all that remains of the tower of Babel are its foundations - an earth embankment that is overgrown with vegetation, but the mystery of why it was actually built sitll remains.


 * Pyramids of Egypt  The pyramids of ancient Egypt are among the wonders of the world, and one of its greatest mysteries too. Why were they built? Most people believe the they were built as tombs for the kings of Egypt, but was this their only purpose? Some Arab scholars have declared that all the knowledge of ancient Egypt was inscribed inside the pyramids. Some European scholars, on the other hand, say that the pyramids were in fact, expression of religious faith. It is also thought that the pyramids served to emphasize the superiority of the god - like pharaohs over the commam man, and that each pharaoh wanted his pyramid to reflect his status.
       Whatever the reason for building the pyramids, another mystery is how the Egyptians could build such massive structure when they had not invented the wheel. who designed their complex structure? How were the huge stones moved and lifted? What was the technology used? The questions continue, even as the pyramids continue to enthral and fascinate mankind to this day.



* Riddle of the SPHINX  Carved from the bedrock of Giza plateau, the Great Sphinx of Giza (above) is truly a mysterious marvel from the days of ancient Egypt. With the body of lion and the head of a King or god, the sphinx has come to symbolize strength and wisdom as it stands guard over the desert stands. Because of the changing desert terrain, the body of the sphinx has been buried several times over the past several thousand years.
     One of the greatest  riddles about the Sphinx is its age. Some researchers believe that it was built before 2550 B.C. and that the Sphnix's face is the face of the Pharaoh himself. There is still another opinion that this mighty colossus was built in several stages between 7000 and 5000 B.C. But regardless of when it was built or who built it the Great Sphinx of Giza is a symbol that has represented the essence of Egypt for thousands of years.
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