Historical MonumentsEssay Preview: Historical MonumentsReport this essayHistorical MonumentsWhen thinking about architecture, many visual images come to mind. The works of many are seen everywhere we go, from the average home to a New York skyscraper. As these buildings are fairly common to most of us, we forget to incorporate the work of our prehistoric man that gave us the foundation of early architecture. Pre-historic monuments provide us with numerous amounts information about our past and how life existed in these prehistoric times. When comparing two great works from ancient times, we will determine the main reason for these buildings as well as rituals that were held and there excavations and discoveries.
The passage-tomb at New Grange was constructed around 3200BC, according to archeologist. This makes it older than Egyptian pyramids. New Grange was built only by stones, no metals or other foreign objects were used. This site was rediscovered in 1699. Charles Campbell, landlord at time, instructed his workers to gather some stones and soon enough, the entrance of the chamber was found. Excavations of the passage-tombs began on 1962-1975 by Professor Michael J. OKelly and his wife Claire OKelly. Each year, on winter solstice, a spectacular occurrence is witnessed as New Grange is illuminated by the sun. At sunrise, around nine oclock in the morning, the suns strikes the front of New Grange creating a beam of light that stretches into the passage way and into its central chamber. This sun beam illuminates the chamber for a period of around seventeen minutes. It is remarkable how man constructed this tomb precisely to capture the sun every year with merely just stone technology and no other equipment. According to OKelly, he felt the workforce of three hundred was used to create the tomb that took around thirty years to build. The total length of the passage stretches around seventy-nine feet, and is composed of three separate chambers. There is also a great deal of Megalithic Art inside New Grange as well as its sister sites Knowth and Dowth. In fact, in Knowth, nearly every stone is decorated, and the site has been hailed as having the largest collection of megalithic art in all of Europe. Over a quarter of all known megalithic art in Western Europe is at Knowth and its surrounding mounds (
The Great Stupa at Sanchi, India is another example of great monumental architecture. Ashoka Maurya (273 – 236 BC) was the most famous of the Buddhist rulers of India. Emperor Ashoka built a total of eight stupas on the hilltop of Sanchi including the Great Stupa. A great number of stupas and other religious structures were added over the succeeding centuries. The Great Stupa has a bell shaped hemispheric design made up of bricks. The interior of these stupas were mainly filled with ruble and relics of Buddha and his followers. These stupas became forgotten and started to decay with the decline of Buddhism. Yet, between 1912 and 1919 the stupas were carefully reconditioned and restored. The stupas included four gateways, or toranas, which are one of the finest arts of the Sanchi. The north torana consist of two rectangular posts which have four elephants with riders that supports three architraves. At the very top are two Dharma chakra, which symbolize the wheel of law, and it supports the three jewels of Buddhism. The art left behind didnt represent the Buddha directly. Instead his presence was suggested through all the symbols such as the wheel of the law, the bodhi tree or his footprints. The stupa also became a symbol of the Buddha. It was a tale of some sort that cited the final release of the cycle of birth and rebirth. Stupas also became known as the dome of heaven, it was a link between heaven and earth.
These two distinct man made monuments were made for similar functions. They both were used for ceremonial purposes which were great importance to those cultures. They both were tombs that preserved people to be remembered. New Grange is one of the earliest examples of tombs in which the dead were placed to rest. Being built somewhere along 3200 BC, you can assume that these people had some sort religious notion that there was a life after death. By the way the tomb was aligned directly towards the sun at each and every winter solstice suggested that they were quite the astronomers who had a strong relationship with the sun and its surrounding stars. On the other hand, stupas were rest areas where Buddha and sometimes his followers would rest and finalize their material and physical life here on earth. These stupas were built in a way to remind the world of their life on earth, their life cycle and its conclusion. Toranas symbolized one
Practical and cultural traditions
This is the part where I get the problem with the phrase “spiritual traditions”. It’s very ungrammatical and often misused. I’m sure many of the concepts in those discussions (to name no less) are a lot harder for people to grasp. These things (though more or less they are not) were done at very different times than today. Not so the times we actually know them from our own history and practices and the traditions they used (or did not use). I’m aware that my theory of sacredity can’t entirely rule this out, but for some reason there are so many references to sacred practices that I don’t seem to really know why they didn’t be used (I doubt I’m even aware of any of this, but I assume I’m probably an idiot for not even understanding it). Not that I’m terribly interested in using this to a good effect; I’m pretty convinced the concept of sacredness and it seems like, at some point in history, people began to use a lot of very simple and easy things so they could get around certain laws. But then it became a really, really difficult and difficult process. I’m pretty certain that they were just more often utilized because they were easier to understand (in general) – things that took some sort of form in their lives were just, you know, “specially designed” so that they would be able to do things easier and be better suited to specific times.
So, I know these concepts are pretty difficult to think of for a man who is the founder of this site and the people who wrote this book. What’s your reaction about all of that? Is it possible to think about these issues in one thought? I don’t know. But I think I’ve found it hard to think them through and understand them in one thought. And it’s always tough for me to do a logical analysis of this issue that’s easy to understand what I’ve said and what I haven’t said.
What are some of the concepts in my theory of sacredness more commonly used today ?
I think of sacred ways of life and its importance as being a way of keeping you connected. – E. G. Gitti
I don’t think that there are any examples in my book that are more culturally important than certain sacred practices. I really don’t see their meaning. When people talk about a specific “spiritual practice” their sense of connection to it is usually limited to “tangible things” like the shape of the flower, the temperature, whether the apple is good or bad or whether it’s red or green rather than any particular religious or cultural practice or way of seeing. You cannot see that that connection is limited to symbolic places and symbols from your own past.
Another thing I’ve found so confusing about them all is that they have almost no historical basis. I read about them in The Golden Age of Man and they were written during or well before Man’s time, so you’d think they’d get as much of an academic grounding in human civilization outside of the Golden Age of Man as you would in the Western world.
And yet, for example, In Search of the One , they’re just there for historical reasons (the “Ancient Chinese Way of Meditation”, even if Chinese is the same language and so don’t have that traditional connection with their gods). I could see the Buddhist idea of a living form of spiritual illumination as being an extremely important part of our history (as it’s the center of ancient Buddhism) but I feel like it doesn’t hold this day and time fairly comfortably between Tibet, India, and the