Secret cities of the Indus

A civilization that has disappeared even from legend

Even in ruins, the ancient cities of Indus Valley (now in Pakistan) look better planned than most modern cities in the Indian sub-continent. Indeed, they recall the symmetry of modern American towns, with regular grids of streets, brick buildings and sewers for sanitation.

The archaeologists who uncovered the Indus Valley ruins early in 1900s realized they had stumbled on an original culture, contemporary with ancient Sumer and Egypt (around 2400 BC). But in some ways (such as in its plumbing and town planning) it was more advanced than either. It had its own system of writing - so far undeciphered - and trade links with ancient Mesopotamia, as well as outposts near modern Bombay (now Mumbai), more than 1000 km (600 miles) distant.

Where did the creators of this civilization come from? What language did they speak? Did the same rulers govern all its remarkably similar cities - more than 100 built on the same pattern have been discovered, stretching over an area larger than Egypt or Sumer? And why did the civilization collapse around 1700 BC? These mysteries all remain unsolved.

Town planners

The major cities, which include Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro, had citadels with huge walls, with towers at regular intervals, set on mounds about 12 m (40 ft) high. Archaeologists have also found remains of gigantic granaries and of huge public baths.

It had been suggested that the idea of building cities came from Mesopotamia, along the trade routes. Trade links with Sumer became so close that there were official Sumerian translators of the Indus language. But the few surviving examples of Indus writing are too fragmented to give us any real clues as to what that language was like.

Why did this culture collapse so completely? Possibly the River Indus altered its course, condemning the cities to either flodding or desert; possibly the desert was man-made, caused by excessive tree-felling to provide fuel for baking bricks; perhaps epidemics and famines played a part.

Grisly clue

The end, however, may have come more violently. At Mohenjo-Daro, archaeologists found 13 skeletons, some with axe or sword blows to the head. These may have been inflicted by the invading Aryans - ancestors of the modern Hindus - who dominated India after the Indus civilization.

Except in Hindu myths like the Rigveda, which speaks of a dark-skinned, wealthy people overcome by the Aryan invaders, and in the worship of Siva, a Hindu deity who in his aspect as Lord of the Beasts is strikingly like the god of the Indus religion, this short-lived, mysterious culture has vanished almost without trace.

The vanished race

About 15000 Indians from all over the USA live in New York City. But where now are the people whose ancestors were the city's first inhabitants?

Two surviving groups of Indians do have a connection with Manhattan. They are the Delaware, who now live, after enforced migration, over 2000 km (1250 miles) away in Oklahoma, Wisconsin and Ontario; and the Ramapough, a community living on the order of New York and New Jersey, direct descendants of Manhattan's original inhabitants. When the Dutch first settled the island, two groups of Indians, the Canarsee and Wickquaasgeek, came seasonally to settlements in the south and north respectively, to hunt, fish and grow crops.

By the 1740s, disease, the spread of European settlers and warfare had emptied the island of its first Indians. Yet Indians and New York's most famous modern feature are indelibly associated. As the skycrapers began to rise over Manhattan, descendants of New York State's Iroquois Indians became renowned as supremely skilled steel-workers in the construction industry.

Get out of town!

The citizens - that is the free men of ancient Athens - were proud of their equality, so what happened when some citizens threatened to become more equal than others?

Democracy was frequently jeopardized by the development of factions and vendettas in the Assembly. Professional politicians (called 'orators' or 'demagogues') were charismatic men who often inspired great personal loyalty. It followed that there were sometimes bitter arguments between rival supporters. If feuds were allowed to become too bitter or an unpopular politician became too strong, the business of government would be disrupted - and that would endanger Athenian democracy. So a system called 'ostracism' was invented.

Banishing acts

Any prominent citizen who had become unpopular could be 'ostracized' by his fellow citizens - banished from the city for a period of ten years. The system worked like this: without specifying anyone's name, any citizen could propose that an ostracism be held. If the Assembly agreed to the proposal, the Agora - the market place that also acted as a civic center - was fenced off. Each of the ten tribes of Athens had its own gate through which the members would pass to vote. Each citizen voted by writing the name of the person he wished to see exiled on a fragment of pottery called an ostracon.

At least 6000 'votes' had to be cast before a citizen - the one with the highest score - could be banished. But when his ten-year exile was over, he could return and resume his life as if nothing had happened - without any dishonour or loss of rights or property.

How a mummy was prepared

Investigation of mummies over the years has shown that techniques and the level of skill changed during the period mummification was practiced - from about 2800 BC until the Arab invasion of about AD 640. The technique was at its most successful around 1000 BC, when the High Priests of Amon (king of the gods) were all-powerful - at the time Solomon and David were on the throne of Israel.

The process took 70 days, as described by Herodotus, the Greek historian, writing about 450 BC. There were, he says, three qualities and three prices. In the most expensive, the brain was extracted through the nostrils, and the contents of the trunk, usually with the exception of the heart, were removed through an incision made in the side with a flint knife. Then the body was dried out. In the less expensive method, the internal organs were not removed, instead cedar oil was injected into the body before drying. In the cheapest method the body was just dried.

Herodotus was writing at a time when the skill was on the decline. In earlier periods, in general, the internal organs and brain were removed and the body was packed with material that included sawdust, linen and mud. At the peak of the technique, packing was also inserted under the skin through small incisions.

Drying out took about 40 days, the body being covered with dry natron - a naturally occurring salt compound similar to washing soda. The remaining time was used for anointing with oil, adornment, bandaging and religious rites. The outer bandages were impregnated with beeswax and glued with gelatin.

The internal organs were also dried out in natron before being stored in four sealed vases, the canopic jars, near the body. But at one period, the organs were parceled up and used as part of the body packing.

The wrapped mummy was given a face and chest mask made of cartonage which consisted of linen and plaster. This might be gilded and have inlaid eyes and eyebrows. It was sometimes placed in a wooden case shaped to the body, then in a rectangular wooden coffin, and finally in an outer coffin, or sarcophagus, frequently made of stone. Decoration on the coffins included ritual verses to guard the spirit on its journey.


Stumble It!

Archeologists in Peru unearth ancient city

Researchers digging at the Cerro Patapo archeological site in northern Peru have discovered the ruins of an entire city, which may provide the "missing link" between two ancient cultures, investigators said yesterday.

Scientists say the find, located 14 miles from the Pacific coast city of Chiclayo, likely dates to the Wari culture, which existed in what is now Peru between about 600 AD and 1100 AD.

If initial assumptions prove correct, the discovery would connect the ancient Wari civilization to the Moche culture, which flourished from about 100 AD to 600 AD.

Researchers say the buried city includes ceramics, bits of clothing and the well-preserved remains of a young woman.

The sprawling site, which stretches over 3 miles, also shows evidence of human sacrifice, with special spots designated for the purpose and a heap of bones at the bottom of a nearby cliff.

"It provides the missing link because it explains how the Wari people allowed for the continuation of culture after the Moche," Cesar Soriano, chief archeologist on the project, told Reuters.

He said the discovery provides the first evidence of Wari culture, which expanded from the country's south, at the northern site.

The Wari people made their capital near modern-day Ayacucho, in the Andes, but travelled widely and are known for their extensive network of roads. Earlier this year, archeologists at the Huaca Pucllana ruins in Lima, located some 500 miles south of Chiclayo, discovered a mummy that is also thought to be Wari.

Peru is a country rich in archeological treasures. It has hundreds of sites that date back thousands of years and span dozens of cultures, including the Incan empire that was in power when Spanish explorers arrived in the early 1500s.

World's stingiest woman - Hetty Green

Back in the late 1800s, the world's richest woman was also the world's stingiest. Though she had millions in the bank, she dressed like a street hag and lived like a pauper.
As a child, Hetty Robinson learned to read from the financial pages, which she would recite to her wealthy Father. At age 30 she inherited one million dollars and, over the course of the next 50 years, she shrewdly manipulated stocks and bonds until her fortune grew to nearly $100 million.
Her financial wizardry and infamous stock manipulations confounded such formidable tycoons as Jay Gould and J. P. Morgan and earned her the ignominious title "The Witch of Wall Street." But though she was a genius at making money, when developed an unparalleled hatred of spending it.
When she turned 33, she married Edward Green, another millionaire, but made him sign a prenuptial agreement not to claim any of her money. When he went broke speculating on stocks, they separated, and Hetty, though she had vast wealth, raised her two children under dingy conditions, moving from one cheap hotel to another to avoid paying personal property taxes.
To save money on clothes and laundry soap, she wore the same black dress every day and washed only the bottom portion that touched the ground. Hetty's reluctance to spend money reached horrifying proportions shen her son, Ned, injured his knee. She took him to a charity ward to be treated. Unfortunately for Ned, a doctor recognized his millionaire mother and demanded payment. She refused to pay and treated the boy's injury herself. After two years, his leg had to be amputated.
She was far too cheap to pay rent for an office. Instead she conducted her financial dealings from the bank where she kept her fortune, threatening to withdraw it if the bank officers refused to let her use an available desk. When she was feeling particularly unhappy, she would sometimes sit on the marble floor of the bank's vault and admire her notes and securities, which she filed in the specially make pockets of her petticoat. For her meals she would warm up a bowl of oatmeal on the radiator or take out a ham sandwich, unwrapped, from one of her voluminous pockets.
Hetty's lifelong stinginess even played a role in her death in 1916 at the age of 81. She suffered a stroke while arguing over the price of milk. Her son Ned hired nurses to care for her before she died, but had them dress in street clothes for fear that Hetty's condition would worsen if she realized money was being spent to pay nursing bills.
As a final irony, Ned, who inherited much of his mother's vast fortune, became an extravagant spender. He threw his millions away on lavish parties, expensive jewelry, yachts, even diamond studded chamber pots.

Dousing the flames

To fight fires more effectively the Greek inventor Ctesibius, who lived in Alexandria in the 3rd century BC, devised a pump to replace buckets of water, This was bettered four centuries later by the inventor Hero whose hand powered pistons forced water through a pipe and a nozzle. Emperor Augustus created the world's first fire brigade in Rome in AD6, with 7000 vigiles.

Coordinated fire-fighting was rare in Roman and medieval Britain. But from the 13th century some towns required householders to own equipment - after 1574 the inhabitants of Winchester had to bring their buckets of water to quench fires. The Great Fire of London 1666, which left more than 100 000 homeless, showed the need for a more effective system.

The City of London council made provision for men to patrol the city looking for blazes, but did not see the need to organise fire-fighting. That was left to insurance companies, who established private fire brigades. The first, set up by the Phoenix Fire Office in 1684, was probably staffed by watermen.

A lever-operated pump mounted on a carriage was built in Germany in 1518, and by 1632 there was a fire engine in use in London. In 1712 John Grey and Nicholas Mandell patented a pump fitted with an air vessel, which produced a continuous jet. Long hoses, used from 1672 in Holland, were introduced into England in 1688.

John Braithwaite and John Ericsson increased the force of the jet with their 1829 steam fire engine. It was cumbersome and slow, and manual pumps continued to be used until motorised fire engines were invented in 1910.

Dig Begins at Stonehenge Site

Some of England's most sacred soil was disturbed for the first time in more than four decades as archaeologists worked to solve the enduring riddle of Stonehenge: When and why was the prehistoric monument built?

The excavation project, which started Monday and is set to last until April 11, is designed to unearth materials that can be used to establish a firm date for when the first mysterious set of bluestones was put in place at Stonehenge, one of Britain's best known and least understood landmarks.

The World Heritage site, a favorite with visitors the world over, has become popular with Druids, neo-Pagans and New Agers who attach mystical significance to the strangely shaped circle of stones, but there remains great debate about the actual purpose of the structure.

The dig will be led by Timothy Darvill, a leading Stonehenge scholar from Bournemouth University, and Geoffrey Wainwright, president of the Society of Antiquaries. Both experts have worked to pinpoint the site in the Preseli Mountains in south Wales where the bluestones -- the earliest of the large rocks erected at the site -- came from. They will be able to compare the samples found in Wales to those at Stonehenge on the Salisbury Plain.

"The excavation will date the arrival of the bluestones following their 153-mile journey from Preseli to Salisbury Plain and contribute to our definition of the society which undertook such an ambitious project," Wainright said. "We will be able to say not only why, but when the first stone monument was built."

Scientists believe the bluestones were first put in place about 2600 B.C., but they concede the date is only an approximation at best. The original bluestones were removed about 200 years later and scientists hope to find bits of them embedded in the earth.

Darvill said the excavation marks the first opportunity to bring the power of modern scientific archaeology to bear on a problem that has taxed the minds of so many experts since medieval times: Why were the bluestones so important to have warranted bringing them from so far away?

The excavation goal is to find remnants of the original bluestones, or related materials, that can be subjected to modern radiocarbon dating techniques to establish a more precise timeline for the construction of Stonehenge, said Dave Batchelor, an archaeologist with English Heritage, which oversees the Stonehenge site.

"We have to find the material that will give us a good date," he said. "That's where the luck comes in. We could get an absolute blank or we could get something magnificent or we could get something in between."

He said bluestones have an "inky, bluey, black" appearance and come from the Preseli Mountains in South Wales. About 6 feet tall, they are the smaller stones that make up part of the monument, alongside the larger sarsen stones, which are about twice as tall and were added later.

Source : Discovery News

Giants of the hills

Great figures are incised into the turf of chalk hillsides in many parts of Britain. Some, such as the Uffington Horse [374 feet (110 m)] in Oxon formerly Berks (above), were probably created by Celts around 1000 BC. The horse may represent a god or be the badge of a tribe that worshipped horses.

The male figure at Cerne Abbas in Dorset, long associated with fertility, is thought to be some 1500 years old. According to local lore it is the outline of a giant who terrorised the area, stealing sheep, until the people killed him while he slept, preserving his shape by cutting a line around his body.

Journey to Mecca

Every year, at the start of the last month - called Zil-Hijjah in Arabic - of the Muslim calendar, almost 2.5 million people journey to the east coast of Saudi Arabia for the hadj (al-Hajj in Arabic), the holy pilgrimage to Mecca which all devout Muslims should, if they can, perform once in their lifetime. This host of visitors comes from every corner of the globe where Islam is practised, an astonishing mixture of nationalities.

The city of Mecca was the birthplace of the prophet Muhammad, founder of Islam, in AD 570, and it was he who decreed it should a site of Muslim pilgrimage. The focus of the pilgrimage is the sanctuary of the Kaaba, a cube-shaped building in Mecca which, according to Muslim tradition, was built by Abraham. (It is towards the Kaaba that all Muslims, no matter where in the world they are, turn to pray five times - Fajr, Zohr, Asr, Mughrib and Esha - every day.) Especially holy is the sacred black stone - Hajr-e-Aswad - set into one wall of the building by Muhammad. As the first and last acts of their pilgrimage, all Muslims visit the Kaaba and walk around it seven times; those who can get close enough to the black stone kiss or touch it as they pass by, but because of the crowds most have to be content with waving in its direction. The principal days of ceremony, prayer and meditation are those between the 7th and 10th of the month - and for much of this period, all the pilgrims must be in the same place at the same time.

The annual hadj is an extraordinary feat of organisation. The sheer numbers of people involved pose enormous problems of health, transport and policing. A vast air-conditioned tent city is erected to house the visitors, who outnumber the ordinary inhabitants of Mecca by three to one.

Yet despite the problems, the pilgrimage is becoming ever more popular. The pilgrim (Hadji) returns to his own country with new honour, having fulfilled one of the most sacred obligations of his faith.

Sick of the sea

Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson - British admiral famous for his participation in the Napoleonic Wars, most notably in the Battle of Trafalgar - paid a heavy price for his courage and determination. He lost an eye, an arm and ultimately his life while serving his country. But, perhaps surprisingly for Britain's greatest sailor, he suffered throughout life from seasickness.

He endured five months of seasickness on his very first voyage. And as late as 1801 - 30 years after his first voyage - he wrote of 'a heavy sea, sick to death . . .. I shall never get over [it].' Yet he was not deterred from a naval career.

Seamen were constantly exposed to deprivation, malnutrition and disease. And Nelson was as prone to them as the next sailor. During a voyage to the Caribbean in 1780. Nelson and 87 of his crew came down with yellow fever, fewer than ten survived.

Among other ailments, Nelson suffered from recurrent malaria, scurvy, temporary paralysis and possibly tuberculosis. He also frequently suffered from depression - hardly surprisingly, considering his medical history.

...so that Taj Mahal get its gleam back

Archaeologists have started giving a facelift to the centuries-old Taj Mahal by applying a mud pack to the marble exteriors of the country's most famous monument. The procedure, expected to cost Rs 28 lacs (70,000 USD), will restore the gleam to the 17th-century architectural wonder, says Vijay Upadhyay

Known as poetry in white marble, the Taj Mahal has been the centre of environmental debates for decades, which have been focused on the apparent 'yellowing' of the monument's white surface. This is due to the reaction of pollutants with marble that have caused a yellow tinge on the monument.

Though the Archaeological Survey of India has refuted the claims of a 'Yellowing Taj', the effect of the polluted air combined with dust-laden winds from Rajasthan blowing over the monument, has actually drilled microscopic 'pits' in the smooth marble surface, which renders a yellow tinge to the Taj Mahal apparent from a distance.

But this yellow tinge is about to get washed away, as for the second time in the past six years, the Taj is undergoing a monumental beauty treatment that includes an 'exfoliating facewash' after the application of a multani (mooltani) mitti (Fullers' Earth) mud pack, an Ayurvedic beautification recipe known to women in India for ages.

Recently, archaeologists in Agra embarked on a six-month project to clean up every nook and corner of the Taj Mahal's pristine white surface, mixing huge quantities of Fullers' Earth in water to make a thick paste that was then painstakingly applied to a part of the western wall of the monument, to be covered immediately with sheets of paper to allow it to dry completely.

Explaining the reason behind the application of a traditional cleaning method when there were a number of chemical cleaning agents available for such purpose, SK Samadhia, chief chemist (archaeology), Agra said: "The quality of marble used in the Taj Mahal is one of the best stones in the world and it has withstood the rigors of over 300 years without a even a blemish on its surface. But on studying the effect of different chemical cleaning agents, the ASI found that such chemical agents had a long-term degrading effect on the structure of marble. The surface may appear clean, it could become brittle over time."

Samadhia said that contrary to popular belief, the Taj, or any form of white marble, could not become yellow with age unless exposed to strong chemicals or left to collect grime and dirt over time. The Taj was also experiencing an identical condition.

Since it's located on the Rajasthan border, Agra is susceptible to strong dust-storms with tons of yellow silica dust during summer, which accumulated on the surface of the monument, only to be washed away by rain, highlighting the need for a specialised cleaning process for the monument.
But here, another factor came into play. Air pollution around Agra caused occasional acid rains over the city which reacted with the marble causing the formation of microscopic pits into the surface of the monument and some of the dust particles raining on the Taj got stuck in these 'pits', ultimately making it appear yellow due to the accumulation of millions of such sand particles on the marble surface.

When applied evenly in the form of a thick slurry, the Fullers' Earth, which is a form of lime-rich clay, seeps into these pits and adheres to the accumulated sand particles. Left overnight, this 'mud pack' is peeled off before it dries completely, resulting in a complete exfoliation of the monument's surface under the pack.

According to Samadhia, there had been doubts raised by some environmentalists that the application of a mud pack could result in uneven white patches on the Taj's surface. But the mud pack is only being applied in select vertical portions of the monument which remained unaffected by rain, being vertical. At any time, only a small part of the monument will be undergoing the treatment, as unobtrusively to the tourists as possible.

Regarding the effect of the Fullers' Earth, which is a natural bleaching agent, on the marble, he said that it was only after elaborate tests conducted by the chemical branch of the ASI, that the decision to apply the mud pack on the monument had been taken. He claimed that this was not the first time when the monument was undergoing a beauty treatment.

In fact, he said, the first trial of a mud pack was six years back on a small portion of the Taj after which, it was observed for three years. The success of this experiment spurred the ASI into applying the mud pack on the entire monument and this is the second time it is being done.
He said that this work, expected to cost Rs 28 lakh, would continue until late March and resume in January next year for another three months, as the mud pack was best effective in the winter months, whereas in summers, it became completely useless, drying too quickly to enable it to adhere to the sand particles clinging to the marble surface.

Interestingly, the restoration of the Taj had been first suggested by Lord Curzon, British Viceroy of India in the early 20th century, which ultimately laid the foundation of the Archaeological Survey of India, but the real efforts towards restoration of the monument's beauty have only begun in the past decade with the Supreme Court of India ordering a shutdown of polluting industries in the region and also placing a number of restrictions on the automobile traffic in Agra, a move which has resulted in a considerable improvement in the quality of air around the Taj.

The maid of Zaragoza

In the struggle between Spain and Napoleon's armies the city of Zaragoza lay under siege, continuously bombarded by enemy fire. As demoralised soldiers started to leave their posts, a young Spanish girl, 22-year-old Augustina Domonech, took over a cannon and began to return fire at the French, vowing never to leave the gun as long as she remained alive.

Augustina's heroic action brought the Spanish soldiers back to their posts, and the battle raged on. Eight months later, in February 1809, Zaragoza finally fell, overwhelmed by the might and persistence of the French. Augustina, however, escaped the ruined city to continue fighting for Spain.

Lord Byron celebrated the maid of Zaragoza in his poem Childe Harold, and her bravery earned the love and respect of all who met her.

Augustina's exploits continued during the guerrilla war against the French. Attacked in 1813 by three bandits, she left two dead, escaped with a wound to the cheek. In her words, it was only 'a severe scuffle'.

Augustina received three meals and a soldier's salary for her courageous acts.

Dear skins

One hundred years before the birth of Christ, China was ruled by the Han Emperor Wu Ti. To his embarrassment, WuTi found himself desperately short of cash and sought some ingenious device to milk his noblemen of their excess wealth.
It was his wily Prime Minister who devised the cunning plan that saved the imperial finances. As a first step, the emperor appropriated all the white deer in his domain, enclosing them in the royal park. Then he decreed that all princes and courtiers wishing to enter the imperial presence must, as an essential point of protocol, wear a white deerskin mask. The deerskin could, of course, be bought - at an extortionate price - only from the emperor himself.
In an attempt to avoid impoverishment by the emperor's new decree, a nobleman who had bought one of the expensive skins would offer to pass it on to a colleague, in return for goods or services. And in this way, the deer skins became established as a form of currency, one of the world's best-attested example of leather money.

Skulls that prove we all came from Africa

The human population arose from a single migration out of Africa 55,000 years ago, which replaced all other humans in Europe and Asia, a study shows.
Scientists have confirmed the "out-of-Africa" model of human origins with a study that combines genetic evidence with physical data from more than 6,000 skulls around the world.
The twin approach has delivered what may turn out to be the killer blow to the rival theory that humans evolved in several regions of the world, said Andrea Manica of the University of Cambridge, who led the study, published in the journal Nature.
"We are convinced of the out-of-Africa hypothesis because the way we did this study gives us an edge we didn't have before," Dr Manica said. "We looked at the genetics and we looked at the skulls and I cannot see what other arguments you can come up with to explain what we have observed."
Studies of DNA and the physical differences between skulls show that human variation diminishes the greater the distance from Africa. This confirms the view that after originating in Africa about 200,000 years ago, anatomically modern Homo sapiens lived on the continent for about 150,000 years before beginning the long trek to Asia, Australia, Europe and finally the Americas.
Other species of humans, such as Homo erectus and Neanderthal man, had already migrated from Africa much earlier in history, but they all became extinct after modern humans arrived in their areas.
The study appears to confirm that interbreeding between modern Homo sapiens and other human species did not occur, or, if it did, it was not on a scale that resulted in any living descendants.
The study also strongly suggests the cradle of modern humanity lies in central or southern Africa, where Homo sapiens arose and spent three-quarters of its history before migrating to the four corners of the globe.
"The origin of anatomically modern humans has been the focus of much heated debate," Dr Manica said. "Our research shows the further modern humans have migrated from Africa, the more genetic diversity has been lost within a population. Some have used skull data to argue that modern humans originated in multiple spots around the world. We have combined our genetic data with new measurements of a large sample of skulls to show definitively that modern humans originated from a single area in sub-Saharan Africa."
Indigenous people living in Australia and South America show the lowest amount of genetic variation as well as differences between the shapes and sizes of their skulls. Meanwhile, the genetic and physical variation between people living in Africa is the greatest anywhere in the world.

The raising of Lady Liberty

The Statue of Liberty towers more than 305 ft (93 m) above the waters of New York Harbour, where, in the words of her creator, 'people get their first view of the New World'. It is the largest metal statue in the world, and took more than 15 years to build at a Paris workshop before being transported across the Atlantic to America.

The graceful folds of Lady Liberty's robes give no clue to the huge, pylon-like supporting structure beneath. You can climb the 171 steps that spiral through her body to an observation platform concealed in the rim of her crown, for a spectacular, statue's-eye view of the vast sweep of city and sea.

Each of Liberty's eyes is the length of a man's arm, her nose is 4.5 ft (1.4 m) long, and her index finger 8 ft (2.4 m). She stands an imposing 151ft (46m) tall, on a pedestal and base of about the same height again, and has a 35ft (10.5m) waist.
To create a statue on such a massive scale more than 100 years ago, took the artistic vision of an inspired young sculptor and the innovative engineering skills of the man who later built the Eiffel Tower.

The sculptor Frederic Auguste Bartholdi was dining at the home of a distinguished French historian in the summer of 1865 when the idea of a gift from the people of France to the Americans was born. A statue of 'Liberty Enlightening the World' (her official title) would mark the centenary of American Independence which the men and arms of France had helped to win, and would be a lasting symbol of friendship and share ideals between the two nations.

Inspired by the legendary Colossus of Rhodes - a gigantic bronze statue of the Greek sun god Helios, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, that stood at the harbour entrance at Rhodes in the 3rd century BC - Bartholdi designed and built a 36ft (11m) high plaster model. His finished statue would be more than four times taller and need to be strong enough to withstand the ravages of time and weather, yet light enough to ship to America.

The solution was to make Liberty hollow, with an outer shell on an inner framework - the same technique that was used for the Colossus of Rhodes. But whereas the Colossus had an outer shell of cast bronze, Bartholdi decided to use thin sheets of copper, a light and relatively flexible metal. Instead of casting the copper, he proposed to use a method of shaping called repousse, meaning 'pushed back', beating the metal into shape over sculpted wooden moulds. This copper outer skin would 'hang' on an inner, tower-like framework of iron.

Bartholdi cut his master model into sections, and made thousands of meticulous measurements before scaling up each section into a full-sized plaster replica. Wooden moulds were then carved to exactly match each of the enlarged sections. The finished 'skin' was made by hammering 300 thin copper sheets into the moulds from the inside.

Meanwhile, Alexandre Gustave Eiffel, an engineer renowned for his brilliant bridge-building, was working on the interior framework, which was to be the tallest iron support structure attempted up to that time. His design anticipated that of modern skyscrapers; like them, Liberty's outer shell is non-loadbearing, and 'floats' on its frame.

A framework of iron ribs radiates horizontally from a central backbone of four vertical girders that reach from Liberty's base to the nape of her neck. Attached to this is the armature, made of spring-like iron bars that curve and twist to follow the shape of the statue, like the framework of a dressmaker's dummy. To minimise the direct and potentially corrosive contact of copper and iron, the sections of copper skin are hung on this interior skeleton with copper brackets covered with an insulating material to keep the two metals apart.

The statue cost the people of France $400,000, but the flow of funds was sporadic, and work progressed fitfully. The mighty arm that bears the torch of liberty was finished in time for America's 100th birthday in 1876, but it was not until June 1884 - nearly 20 years after she had first been thought of - that Liberty was finally completed. She towered triumphantly above the streets of Paris, and was formally presented to the American minister to France on Independence Day , July 4.

Six months later, the statue was completely dismantled, and packed, numbered section by numbered section into more than 200 enormous crates, to be carried to America in the French naval transport ship Isere.

Speed of light

The long rivalry between Queen Elizabeth I of England and King Philip II of Spain came to a head in 1588 when Philip sent 130 ships towards England with orders to invade. The feared Armada was on its way.

The English had known since 1586 of the likelihood of a Spanish invasion and were well prepared. Yet the Spaniards could attack anywhere along the south coast, and it was clearly impossible to deploy defence forces everywhere. In the event of an attack, everything would depend on the speed with which information could be transmitted and defences mobilised.

Tried and tested

The usual method of communication - messengers on horseback - was far too slow. So an older, quicker way, which had often served England well in times of threat, was pressed into service: a network of beacons, on headlands and hills, stretching all over the country.

On July 29, when the Armada was spotted making its way up the English Channel, the first beacon, on the Cornish coast, leapt into flame. Immediately the flames were seen, the next beacon was lit. Beacon answered beacon as the signal flashed northwards and eastwards; these in turn were a signal for the ringing of church bells. By the next morning, the message that the Spaniards had arrived was known as far away as Durham, some 450 km (280 miles) from the south coast, and local militias were out in force. As it happened, the Armada was defeated at sea, and Spanish soldiers did not set foot on English soil.

In July 1981, beacons were lit on many of the same sites for a happier reason, to celebrate the marriage of Charles, Prince of Wales, to Lady Diana Spencer.

Why was Christopher Wren's plan for rebuilding London rejected?

'If you seek his monument, look around you,' reads the translation of Sir Christopher Wren's epitaph in St. Paul's Cathedral in London. In the wake of the Great Fire of 1666, Wren had built a new cathedral, along with 51 of the 84 churches that the fire had destroyed. However, this was but minor repair work compared to what Wren had wanted to do - to recreate London from scratch. On September 11, 1666, just nine days after the fire started, Wren had presented King Charles II with his plan for a new metropolis.


Lost opportunity


The plan was rejected but, over 200 years later, when there was an outbreak of cholera in London, health experts claimed that had the king adopted Wren's scheme, thereby doing away with the maze of cramped and over-crowded alleyways, the mortality rate might have been as much as a third lower. After Wren's death in 1723, his son lamented that the opportunity had been lost for making the city 'the most magnificent, as well as commodious for health and trade of any upon Earth'.


Wren's plan was nothing if not expansive. All new streets would conform to one of three widths: 27, 18, or 9 m (90, 60 or 30 ft). Narrow alleys, one of the great characteristics of the old London, would vanish. A big, open, public quay would grace the riverside, between the Tower and Temple.


Its sheer scope, as much as anything, made the plan an impossibility. Such a scheme would have been colossally expensive. At a time when families were homeless and when many were struggling simply to survive, rapid reconstruction of the city was vital.


Forgotten dreams


King Charles had alternative plans to choose from. John Evelyn presented the monarch with a scheme not unlike Wren's, but on a smaller scale, and with more concern to preserve London's traditional character. Dr Robert Hooke came up with a stern scheme for making London's streets into gridiron patterns. Valentine Knight had an idea for an arc-shaped canal that would run from Billingsgate to Fleet River. The king accepted none of these plans.


But in 1675, the rebuilding of St. Paul's to Wren's design, began. More than 86 000 tonnes of building stone, 500 tonnes of rubble, a lot of marble, bricks, and 750 000 Pounds and 35 years later it was complete. If not an entire city, this magnificent building is a monument indeed to Wren's genius.

Grim Foundations

When the men repairing Edo Castle after the earthquake of 1923 lifted one of the foundation stones, they found a group of human skeletons crushed beneath it. The skeletons were lying with their hands in an attitude of prayer, and gold coins were scattered over their heads and shoulders.


The skeletons were those of servants of the Tokugawa shoguns, the most powerful family in Japan. When the castle was built (it was finished in 1640) the servants had volunteered to be buried alive in the belief that a building constructed on living flesh would be impregnable.


A Frenchman, Francois Caron, reported in the 17th century that: 'They go with joy to the designated place and, lying down there, allow the foundation stones to be laid upon them.' Many similar stones may still be seen today by the castle's Hirakawa Gate. But nobody knows how many bodies lie beneath them or beneath Japan's other castles and temples.

Great Pyramid built inside out

A FRENCH architect says he has cracked the 4500-year-old mystery surrounding Egypt's Great Pyramid - it was built from the inside out.

Previous theories have suggested Pharaoh Khufu's tomb, the last surviving example of the seven great wonders of antiquity, was built using either a vast frontal ramp or a ramp in a corkscrew shape around the exterior to haul up the stonework.

But flouting previous wisdom, Jean-Pierre Houdin said advanced 3-D technology had shown the main ramp which was used to haul the massive stones to the apex was contained 10 to 15 metres beneath the outer skin, tracing a pyramid within a pyramid.

"This is better than the other theories, because it is the only theory that works," he said after unveiling his hypothesis in a lavish ceremony using 3-D computer simulation.
Mr Houdin, 56, also brushed aside concerns about the popular curse that is supposed to punish those who penetrate the secrets of the pyramids, dating back to the opening of the Tutankhamen tomb.

"Why should I be worried? I'm just explaining that the people of the time were architects of genius and that Khufu was a genius to order the pyramid's construction. What could happen to me, except that Khufu would thank me?"

Mr Houdin teamed up with a French company that builds 3-D models for auto and aircraft design, Dassault Systemes, which put 14 engineers for two years on the project, to prove his theory.

An international team is being assembled to probe the pyramid using radars and heat detecting cameras supplied by a French defence firm, as long as Egyptian authorities agree.

"This goes against both main existing theories," Egyptologist and senior research fellow at Long Island University, Bob Brier, said at the unveiling.
"I've been teaching them myself for 20 years but deep down I know they're wrong. Houdin's vision is credible, but right now this is just a theory. Everybody thinks it has got to be taken seriously."

Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities was not immediately available for comment.
Dassault said Mr Brier and other Egyptologists attending the ceremony were supporters of Mr Houdin's theory but had no financial links to him or the firm.

Mr Houdin began working full-time on the riddle eight years ago after a flash of intuition passed to him by his engineer father, and five years before actually visiting the site.
He found that a frontal 1.5-kilometre-long ramp would have used up as much stone as the pyramid, while being too steep near the top.

He believes an external ramp was used only to supply the base. An external corkscrew ramp would have blocked the sight lines needed to build an accurate pyramid and would have been difficult to fix to the surface, while leaving little room to work.

"What characterised the Egyptians was their sense of perfection and economy," Mr Houdin said.
He also claimed to have shed light on a second enigma surrounding the purpose of a "grand gallery" inside the pyramid. He believes its tall, narrow shape suggests it accommodated a giant counterweight to help haul five 60-tonne granite beams to their position above the King's Chamber.

He thinks that no more than 4000 people could have built the pyramid using these techniques rather than the 100,000 or so assigned by past historians.

Source : Sydney Morning Herald