Ruins of Machu Picchu

    The ruins of Machu Picchu, rediscovered in 1911 by Yale archaeologist Hiram Bingham, are one of the most beautiful and enigmatic ancient sites in the world. While the Inca people certainly used the Andean mountain top (9060 feet elevation), erecting many hundreds of stone structures from the early 1400’s, legends and myths indicate that Machu Picchu (meaning ‘Old Peak’ in the Quechua language) was revered as a sacred place from a far earlier time. Whatever its origins, the Inca turned the site into a small (5 square miles) but extraordinary city. Invisible from below and completely self-contained, surrounded by agricultural terraces sufficient to feed the population, and watered by natural springs, Machu Picchu seems to have been utilized by the Inca as a secret ceremonial city. Two thousand feet above the rumbling Urubamba river, the cloud shrouded ruins have palaces, baths, temples, storage rooms and some 150 houses, all in a remarkable state of preservation. These structures, carved from the gray granite of the mountain top are wonders of both architectural and aesthetic genius. Many of the building blocks weigh 50 tons or more yet are so precisely sculpted and fitted together with such exactitude that the mortarless joints will not permit the insertion of even a thin knife blade. Little is known of the social or religious use of the site during Inca times. The skeletal remains of ten females to one male had led to the casual assumption that the site may have been a sanctuary for the training of priestesses and /or brides for the Inca nobility. However, subsequent osteological examination of the bones revealed an equal number of male bones, thereby indicating that Machu Picchu was not exclusively a temple or dwelling place of women.
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Candi Belahan, on the eastern slope of Mt Penanggungan, is traditionally believed to be a memorial to King Airlangga. Seen above, statues of the goddesses Sri and Lakshmi are still at the site. Originally they flanked the central image of Wisnu on Garuda, now on display at the Trowulan Museum.

The famous ‘Calcutta Stone’, dating from A.D. 1041, describes a terrible calamity which befell the East Javanese kingdom of Isana in the early years of the 11th century. A rebellion incited by a jealous vassal king resulted in the destruction of the capital of Watugaluh. The reigning king, Dharmawangsa, successor to Sri Makutawangsawardhana, was murdered along with his entire family. Only the young Airlangga, who was aged about 16 at the time, managed to escape unharmed.
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    The archaeological sites of Majapahit consist, for the most part, of the remains of religious foundations, or candi, built usually from stone or brick. From the two most important and informative literary sources dealing with the history of Majapahit, the Nagarakertagama and Pararaton, we learn that a large number of sacred buildings were constructed as memorial shrines to deceased rulers and their families. The death of a king or queen saw the beginning of a series of funeral rites designed to guide the departed soul back to the source from which it had originated. These rites culminated in the shraddha ceremony, held 12 years after death, upon completion of which it was believed that final liberation was ensured. In memory of the deceased,a stone image of a god or goddess, with whom the ruler had been identified in life, was fashioned as an ‘ideal portrait’ and placed within a shrine. The Nagarakertagama gives a very complete description of the sbraddha ceremony conducted on behalf of the Rajapatni, grandmother of King Hayam Wuruk, in the year 1362.

Prambanan temple is extraordinarily beautiful building constructed in the tenth century during the reigns of two kings namely Rakai Pikatan and Rakai Balitung. Soaring up to 47 meters (5 meters higher than Borobudur temple), the foundation of this temple has fulfilled the desire of the founder to show Hindu triumph in Java Island. This temple is located 17 kilometers from the city center, among an area that now functions as beautiful park.

There is a legend that Javanese people always tell about this temple. As the story tells, there was a man named Bandung Bondowoso who loved Roro Jonggrang. To refuse his love, Jonggrang asked Bondowoso to make her a temple with 1,000 statues only in one-night time. The request was nearly fulfilled when Jonggrang asked the villagers to pound rice and to set a fire in order to look like morning had broken. Feeling to be cheated, Bondowoso who only completed 999 statues cursed Jonggrang to be the thousandth statue.

Plaosan Temple constructed by Rakai Pikatan for her wife, Pramudyawardani. The architect of the temple that is located in Bugisan village of Prambanan sub-district is combination of Hindu and Buddha.

Plaosan complex is divided into 2 groups, namely the North Plaosan Temple and the South Plaosan Temple. Both of the temples have square terrace that is encircled by wall, a pillbox for meditation at the west part and dome on other side. Because of that similarity, the appearance of both temples are the same when they are seen from distant so that Plaosan temple is also called the twin temples.

The North Plaosan Temple has middle courtyard encircled by wall with the entrance at the west side. In the middle of the courtyard, there is a hall as wide as 21.62 m x 19 m. At the eastern part of the hall, there are 3 altars, namely north, east and south altars. The pictures of Amitbha, Ratnasambhava, Vairochana, and Aksobya are at the east altar. Samantabadhara statue and Ksitigarba figure is at the north altar, while Manjusri picture is at the west alter.

Imperial Palaces of the Ming and Qing Dynasties in Beijing and Shenyang (a)

UNESCO World Heritage Site The Hall of Supreme Harmony at the centre of the Forbidden City

State Party         China
Type                  Cultural
Criteria                i, ii, iii, iv
Identification       #439
Region (b)           Asia-Pacific

Inscription History
Formal Inscription:     1987
                             11th Session
Extension/s               2004

(a) Name as officially inscribed on the WH List
(b) As classified officially by UNESCO

The Forbidden City was the Chinese imperial palace from the mid-Ming Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dynasty. It is located in the middle of Beijing, China. It now houses the Palace Museum.

The complex consists of 800 buildings with 8,886 rooms. Its extensive grounds cover 720,000 square metres. The Forbidden City was declared a World Heritage Site in 1987 as the "Imperial Palace of the Ming and Qing Dynasties",[1] and is listed by UNESCO as the largest collection of preserved ancient wooden structures in the world. (more…)

In 1870, agricultural land improvement outside Dorchester-on-Thames involved levelling the ramparts of the Iron Age oppidum at Dyke Hills. Colonel Lane-Fox, later the first Inspector of Ancient Monuments, wrote to the Saturday Review of 2nd July describing damage to the site: Hitherto the neighbouring ground has been grazed, and the harmless sheep is no foe to history; but it has lately occurred to the owner of the ground that a few shillings more of yearly profit might be gained by turning pasture land into arable; and to such a sordid motive as this, these precious antiquities are at this very moment being sacrificed.
Despite 120 years of heritage legislation, Dyke Hills, Oxfordshire is still under the plough. Photograph English Heritage.

This was one of the high profile cases that contributed to Sir John Lubbock’s National Monuments Preservation Bill in 1873, which eventually reached the statute book in 1882 as the first Ancient Monuments Act. Sadly, despite 120 years of increasingly effective ancient monument legislation in the UK, archaeological damage caused by cultivation remains a largely unresolved problem. In England, many thousands of archaeological sites – including nearly 3000 scheduled monuments – are still being ploughed. It is particularly ironic that Dyke Hills should remain one of these. This lack of progress stands in stark contrast to the immense gains of the 1980s and 1990s in mitigating damage by development, road-building and aggregate extraction.