(N.Morgan) I have always been fascinated by architecture and the history behind the craft. The who, what, and why, a building or structure was erected or if it is one of Nature’s wonders.. Today, I found some really amazing ancient places, that are still standing today. The artisans of yesterday had such primitive tools and very limited technology, yet, they managed to create some of the most astounding pieces of history, that have stood the test of time.

 

Pumapunku

 

Pumapunku or Puma Punku (Aymara and Quechua puma cougar, puma, punku door, hispanicized Puma Puncu) is part of a large temple complex or monument group that is part of the Tiwanaku Site near Tiwanaku, Bolivia.

Tiwanaku is significant in Inca traditions because it is believed to be the site where the world was created. In Aymara, Puma Punku’s name means “The Door of the Puma”. The Pumapunku complex consists of an unwalled western court, a central unwalled esplanade, a terraced platform mound that is faced with megalithic stone, and a walled eastern court. (Image)

 

Methoni’s Castle

 

Nowadays the walls of the fortress, even though in ruins, continue to be impressive. The castle of Methoni occupies the whole area of the cape and the southwestern coast to the small islet that has also been fortified with an octagonal tower and is protected by the sea on its three sides. Its north part, the one that looks to land, is covered by a heavily fortified acropolis. A deep moat separates the castle from the land and communication was achieved by a wooden bridge. The Venetians built on the ancient battlements and added on and repaired it during both periods that they occupied the castle. (Image)

 

Saint Catherine’s Monastery

 

 

Saint Catherine’s Monastery (Greek: Μονὴ τῆς Ἁγίας Αἰκατερίνης, Monì tìs Agìas Ekaterìnis), in Arabic دير القدّيسة كاترينا commonly known as Santa Katarina, its official name being Sacred Monastery of the God-Trodden Mount Sinai (Greek: Ιερά Μονή Θεοβαδίστου Όρους Σινά, Ierà Monì Theovadìstou Òrous Sinà), lies on the Sinai Peninsula, at the mouth of a gorge at the foot of Mount Sinai, in the city of Saint Catherine in Egypt’s South Sinai Governorate. The monastery is Orthodox and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Built between 548 and 565, the monastery is one of the oldest working Christian monasteries in the world, according to UNESCO report 60100 ha / Ref: 954. In the area around the monastery, a small town has grown, with hotels and swimming pools, called Saint Katherine City. (Image)

 

Petra

 

 

Petra (Arabic: البتراء, Al-Batrāʾ, Ancient Greek Πέτρα) is a historical and archaeological city in the southern Jordanian governorate of Ma’an, that is famous for its rock-cut architecture and water conduit system. Another name for Petra is the Rose City due to the color of the stone out of which it is carved.

Established possibly as early as 312 BCE as the capital city of the Nabataeans, it is a symbol of Jordan, as well as its most-visited tourist attraction. It lies on the slope of Jebel al-Madhbah (identified by some as the biblical Mount Hor) in a basin among the mountains which form the eastern flank of Arabah (Wadi Araba), the large valley running from the Dead Sea to the Gulf of Aqaba. Petra has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1985.

The site remained unknown to the Western world until 1812, when it was introduced by Swiss explorer Johann Ludwig Burckhardt. It was described as “a rose-red city half as old as time” in a Newdigate Prize-winning poem by John William Burgon. UNESCO has described it as “one of the most precious cultural properties of man’s cultural heritage”. See: UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage Lists. Petra was chosen by the Smithsonian Magazine as one of the “28 Places to See Before You Die.” (Image)

 

Columbia River Gorge

 

 

The Columbia River Gorge is a canyon of the Columbia River in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. Up to 4,000 feet (1,200 m) deep, the canyon stretches for over 80 miles (130 km) as the river winds westward through the Cascade Range forming the boundary between the State of Washington to the north and Oregon to the south. Extending roughly from the confluence of the Columbia with the Deschutes River down to eastern reaches of the Portland metropolitan area, the gorge furnishes the only navigable route through the Cascades and the only water connection between the Columbia River Plateau and the Pacific Ocean. (Image)

 

St. Stephen’s Basilica

 

 

St. Stephen’s Basilica (Hungarian: Szent István-bazilika) is a Roman Catholic basilica in Budapest, Hungary. It is named in honour of Stephen, the first King of Hungary (c 975–1038), whose right hand is housed in the reliquary. It was the sixth largest church building in Hungary before 1920. Today, it is the third largest church building in present-day Hungary.    (Image)

 

 

Colosseum

 

 

The Colosseum or Coliseum, also known as the Flavian Amphitheatre (Latin: Amphitheatrum Flavium; Italian: Anfiteatro Flavio or Colosseo) is an elliptical amphitheatre in the centre of the city of Rome, Italy. Built of concrete and stone, it was the largest amphitheatre of the Roman Empire, and is considered one of the greatest works of Roman architecture and engineering. It is the largest amphitheatre in the world.  (Image)

 

 

Kiva

 

 

A kiva is a room used by modern Puebloans for religious rituals, many of them associated with the kachina belief system. Among the modern Hopi and most other Pueblo peoples, kivas are square-walled and underground, and are used for spiritual ceremonies.

Similar subterranean rooms are found among ruins in the American southwest, indicating ritual or cultural use by the ancient peoples of the region including the Ancient Pueblo Peoples, the Mogollon and the Hohokam. Those used by the ancient Pueblos of the Pueblo I Era and following, designated by the Pecos Classification system developed by archaeologists, were usually round, and generally believed to have been used for religious and other communal purposes. (Image)

 

 

Hunan

 

 

Hunan (Chinese: 湖南; pinyin: Húnán) is a province of the People’s Republic of China, located in the south-central part of the country to the south of the middle reaches of the Yangtze River and south of Lake Dongting (hence the name Hunan, which means “south of the lake”). Hunan is sometimes called and officially abbreviated as “湘” (pinyin: Xiāng) for short, after the Xiang River which runs through the province. (Image)

 

Machu Picchu

 

 

Machu Picchu (in hispanicized spelling, Spanish pronunciation: [ˈmatʃu ˈpiktʃu]) or Machu Pikchu (Quechua machu old, old person, pikchu pyramid; mountain or prominence with a broad base which ends in sharp peaks,”old peak”, pronunciation [ˈmɑtʃu ˈpixtʃu]) is a 15th-century Inca site located 2,430 metres (7,970 ft) above sea level.It is located in the Cusco Region, Urubamba Province, Machupicchu District in Peru. It is situated on a mountain ridge above the Sacred Valley which is 80 kilometres (50 mi) northwest of Cusco and through which the Urubamba River flows. Most archaeologists believe that Machu Picchu was built as an estate for the Inca emperor Pachacuti (1438–1472). Often referred to as the “Lost City of the Incas”, it is perhaps the most familiar icon of Inca civilization.  (Image)

 

Derry

 

 

Derry, officially Londonderry, is the second-largest city in Northern Ireland^[ and the fourth-largest city on the island of Ireland. The name Derry is an anglicisation of the Irish name Daire or Doire meaning “oak grove”. In 1613, the city was granted a Royal Charter by King James I and the “London” prefix was added, changing the name of the city to Londonderry. While the city is more usually known as Derry, Londonderry is also used and remains the legal name.  (Image)

 

Hampi

 

Hampi (Kannada: ಹಂಪೆ Hampe) is a village in northern Karnataka state, India. It is located within the ruins of Vijayanagara, the former capital of the Vijayanagara Empire. Predating the city of Vijayanagara, it continues to be an important religious centre, housing the Virupaksha Temple, as well as several other monuments belonging to the old city. The ruins are a UNESCO World Heritage Site, listed as the Group of Monuments at Hampi.  (Image)

 

Stari Bar

 

Stari Bar (meaning Old Bar) is a small town in Montenegro. In Italian and some English sources it is known as Antivari, and was called Antibarium in Latin. It is located inland, a few miles from the new city of Bar, resting on Londša hill, at the foot of Mount Rumija. According to the 2003 census, the town has a population of 1,864 people.

In the early Middle Ages Bar remained a subject of the Byzantine Empire. But Michael I incorporated it about 1054 into his kingdom of Duklja, from which it passed to the Serbian Kingdom and then Empire under the Nemanjić dynasty. During the 300 years of Serbian rule, Bar periodically asserted its independence and towards the beginning of the thirteenth century it was briefly in union with the Republic of Venice, but a strong Serbia asserted its suzerainty.

About 1360, the Balšić princes of Zeta gained control of Bar as the Serbian Empire crumbled, but they didn’t hold it long as Louis I of Hungary took it briefly before it returned to Venice in 1443. Bar remained under the rule of the Venetian Republic until it was taken by the Ottoman Empire in 1571 as part of the Ottoman expansion into Europe.  (Image)

 

St. John the Baptist’s Church, Burringham

 

St John the Baptist’s Church, Burringham, is a redundant Anglican church in the village of Burringham, Lincolnshire, England. It is designated by English Heritage as a Grade II listed building, and is under the care of the Churches Conservation Trust.The church stands at the south end of the village, on the east bank of the River Trent.The church was built in 1856–57 to a design by S. S. Teulon. It closed in 1983, and was declared redundant the following year. (Image)

 

Library of Celsus

 

 

The library of Celsus is an ancient Roman building in Ephesus, Anatolia, now part of Selçuk, Turkey. It was built in honor of the Roman Senator Tiberius Julius Celsus Polemaeanus (completed in 135 AD) by Celsus’ son, Gaius Julius Aquila (consul, 110 AD). Celsus had been consul in 92 AD, governor of Asia in 115 AD, and a wealthy and popular local citizen. He was a native of nearby Sardis and amongst the earliest men of purely Greek origin to become a consul in the Roman Empire and is honored both as a Greek and a Roman on the library itself. Celsus paid for the construction of the library with his own personal wealth.

The library was built to store 12,000 scrolls and to serve as a monumental tomb for Celsus. Celsus is buried in a sarcophagus beneath the library, in the main entrance which is both a crypt contain his sarcophagus and a sepulchral monument to him. It was unusual to be buried within a library or even within city limits, so this was a special honor for Celsus. (Image)

 

Delphi

 

Delphi is both an archaeological site and a modern town in Greece on the south-western spur of Mount Parnassus in the valley of Phocis. The site of Delphi was believed to be determined by Zeus when he sought to find the centre of Grandmother Earth (or Gaia). He sent two eagles flying from the eastern and western extremities, and the path of the eagles crossed over Delphi where the omphalos, or navel of Gaia was found.  (Image)

 

Mont Saint-Michel

 

Mont Saint-Michel  is an island commune in Normandy, France. It is located approximately one kilometre (0.6 miles) off the country’s northwestern coast, at the mouth of the Couesnon River near Avranches. 247 acres (100 ha) in size, the island has a population of 44 (2009).

The island has held strategic fortifications since ancient times, and since the eighth century AD has been the seat of the monastery from which it draws its name. The structural composition of the town exemplifies the feudal society that constructed it. On top God, the abbey and monastery, below this the Great halls, then stores and housing, and at the bottom, outside the walls, fishermen and farmers’ housing.  (Image)

 

Roman Aqueduct

 

The Romans constructed numerous aqueducts to bring water from distant sources into their cities and towns, supplying public baths, latrines, fountains and private households. Waste water was removed by complex sewage systems and released into nearby bodies of water, keeping the towns clean and free from effluent. Some aqueducts also provided water for mining operations and the milling of grain.  (Image)

 

Mesa Verde National Park

 

Mesa Verde National Park is a U.S. National Park and UNESCO World Heritage Site located in Montezuma County, Colorado, United States. It is the largest archaeological preserve in the United States.The park was created in 1906 by President Theodore Roosevelt to protect some of the best-preserved cliff dwellings in the world, or as he said, “preserve the works of man”. It is the only cultural National Park set aside by the National Park System. It occupies 81.4 square miles (211 km2) near the Four Corners and features numerous ruins of homes and villages built by the Ancestral Puebloan people, sometimes called the Anasazi. There are over four thousand archaeological sites and over six hundred cliff dwellings of the Pueblo people at the site.  (Image)

 

Basilica Cistern

 

The Basilica Cistern (Turkish: Yerebatan Sarayı – “Sunken Palace”, or Yerebatan Sarnıcı – “Sunken Cistern”), is the largest of several hundred ancient cisterns that lie beneath the city of Istanbul (formerly Constantinople), Turkey. The cistern, located 500 feet (150 m) southwest of the Hagia Sophia on the historical peninsula of Sarayburnu, was built in the 6th century during the reign of Byzantine Emperor Justinian I.  (Image)

 

Lud’s Church

 

Lud’s Church (sometimes written as Ludchurch) is a deep chasm penetrating the Millstone Grit bedrock created by a massive landslip on the hillside above Gradbach, Staffordshire, England. It is located in a wood known as Back Forest, in the White Peak, towards the southwest fringe of the Peak District National Park about 4 kilometres (2.5 mi) west of the A53 between Leek and Buxton. Over 100 metres (328.1 ft) long and 18 metres (59.1 ft) deep, it is mossy and overgrown, wet and cool even on the hottest of days.  (Image)

 

Bagan

 

Bagan (formerly Pagan) is an ancient city located in the Mandalay Region of Burma (Myanmar). From the 9th to 13th centuries, the city was the capital of the Kingdom of Pagan, the first kingdom to unify the regions that would later constitute modern Myanmar. During the kingdom’s height between the 11th and 13th centuries, over 10,000 Buddhist temples, pagodas and monasteries were constructed in the Bagan plains alone, of which the remains of over 2200 temples and pagodas still survive to the present day.

The Bagan Archaeological Zone is a main draw for the country’s nascent tourism industry. It is seen by many as equal in attraction to Angkor Wat in Cambodia.  (Image)

 

Dún Aonghasa

 

Dún Aonghasa (anglicized Dun Aengus)is the most famous of several prehistoric forts on the Aran Islands of County Galway, Ireland. It is on Inishmore, at the edge of an 100 metre high cliff.

A popular tourist attraction, Dún Aonghasa is an important archaeological site that also offers a spectacular view. It is not known when Dún Aonghasa was built, though it is now thought to date from the Iron Age. T. F. O’Rahilly surmised that it was built in the 2nd century BCE by the Builg following the Laginian conquest of Connacht.

Today we know that the first construction goes back to 1100 BCE, when the first enclosure was erected by piling rubble against large upright stones. Around 500 BCE, the triple wall defences were probably built along the western side of fort.  (Image)

 

Cappadocia

 

Cappadocia is a historical region in Central Anatolia, largely in Nevşehir Province, in Turkey.

In the time of Herodotus, the Cappadocians were reported as occupying the whole region from Mount Taurus to the vicinity of the Euxine (Black Sea). Cappadocia, in this sense, was bounded in the south by the chain of the Taurus Mountains that separate it from Cilicia, to the east by the upper Euphrates and the Armenian Highland, to the north by Pontus, and to the west by Lycaonia and eastern Galatia.

The name was traditionally used in Christian sources throughout history and is still widely used as an international tourism concept to define a region of exceptional natural wonders, in particular characterized by fairy chimneys and a unique historical and cultural heritage.

 

 

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