1000 Monuments of Genius. Christopher E.M. Pearson
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Название: 1000 Monuments of Genius
Автор: Christopher E.M. Pearson
Издательство: Parkstone International Publishing
Жанр: Энциклопедии
Серия: The Book
isbn: 978-1-78310-941-8, 978-1-78310-415-4
isbn:
32. Ummayad Mosque, Damascus, 706–715 (Syria)
33. Mosque of Al Mutawakkil (Great Mosque of Samarra), Samarra, 847–851 (Iraq)
34. Al Azhar Mosque, Cairo, 970–972 (Egypt)
35. Mosque of Uqba, Kairouan, 670 (Tunisia)
36. Al Hakim Mosque, Cairo, 990–1013 (Egypt)
37. Kutubiya Mosque, Marrakesh, 1158 and later (Morocco)
38. Friday Mosque, Isfahan, rebuilt after 1121–1122 (Iran)
39. Al-Aqsa Mosque, Jerusalem, rebuilt 1033 (Israel)
40. Krak des chevaliers, Qalaat al Hosn, c. 1100–1200 (Syria)
Greatest of the Crusader fortresses in the Holy Land, Krak des chevaliers, or the “fortress of the knights,” served as the headquarters of the Knights Hospitaller. T. E. Lawrence found it to be “perhaps the best preserved and most wholly admirable castle in the world.” One of several such strongholds that formed a huge defensive ring around the territory that had been conquered and controlled by the Crusaders, Krak des chevaliers was erected on top of an older Muslim fortress on a hill overlooking the main route to the Mediterranean. The Hospitallers greatly expanded the original fortress to reflect the latest French ideas on fortification. The main building, surrounded by two ranks of thick walls with twenty towers, had extensive storage facilities, stables, a chapel and a meeting hall. Water cisterns allowed it to withstand long sieges, perhaps up to five years. At its height, the castle housed a garrison of some 2000 men. After a series of unsuccessful sieges through the 12th century, it was eventually taken by Sultan Baibars in 1271, forcing the Knights to depart for Rhodes. The interior features rare frescoes from the Crusader period. It is now owned by the Syrian government and was made a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2006.
41. Citadel of Saladin, Cairo, 1183 and later (Egypt)
42. Bahla Fort, Oasis of Bahla, 12th-15th century (Oman)
43. Great Mosque, Djenné, 13th century (rebuilt in 1907) (Mali)
Djenné, which was converted to Islam in 1240, was a major city in the Mali and Songhai Empires. Built on the site of an earlier palace, this huge religious complex eloquently reflects the incursion of Islam into West Africa. The mosque is constructed largely of bricks of sun-dried mud coated with mud plaster, and as such is the largest adobe building in the world. The rounded appearance of its envelope reminds many people of a giant sand castle. As with all such structures, its thick walls serve to regulate the temperature, protecting the interiors from heat during the daytime and radiating stored warmth at night. Ostrich eggs, symbols of purity and abundance, provide a covering for its towers and spires. The prayer hall is supported by 90 wooden columns. Because of regular flooding the mosque is built on a raised platform. The present structure dates from a rebuilding of 1907. Its custodians have resisted any modernisation, allowing only the installation of a loudspeaker system. The mosque is kept in good condition by means of an annual festival, in the course of which any damage is repaired. It was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1988.
44. Citadel of Aleppo, Aleppo, 1230 (Syria)
45. Stelae and capitol of Aksum, Aksum, 0–1250 (Ethiopia)
46. Ruins of Kilwa Kisiwani, Kilwa, 13th-16th century (Tanzania)
47. The Great Enclosure and other stone ruins at Great Zimbabwe, c. 1200–1440 (Zimbabwe)
The mysterious stone ruins at Great Zimbabwe are some of the oldest and most impressive monuments of southern Africa. Great Zimbabwe, or the “house of stone,” is an extensive area containing hundreds of such structures. Archaeology has shown this to have been an important trading centre, with a network of contacts stretching across the continent. The Enclosure may have held as many as 18,000 inhabitants at its height. The ruins are notable for their eschewal of rectilinearity: their walls form a series of fluent and elegant curves. Most impressive of all the sites is the Great Enclosure, whose walls extend for some 250 metres and reach 11 metres in height. The first Europeans to see the ruins were Portuguese traders in the 16th century. During the subsequent imperialist era, the notion that the structures were the work of Africans was widely discredited for racial and political reasons, but excavations have since proved that they were indeed an indigenous production, probably built by a people belonging to the Bantu linguistic family. It is unclear why the settlements were abandoned, but drought, disease or a decline in trade are current theories. The modern-day nation of Zimbabwe is named for the ruins.
48. Madrasa Al-Firdaws, Aleppo, mid-13th century (Syria)
49. The Alhambra, Granada, 13th-14th century (Spain)
The royal citadel of the Alhambra was the centre of Muslim power in southern Spain. It was begun in the 13th century by Muhammad I Ibn al-Ahmar and added to piecemeal over a number of decades. The Alhambra comprises both a great fortress with 23 towers as well as a cool and luxurious retreat for the Caliphs, with many spacious rooms, courtyards and gardens. A variety of media, including stucco, colourful mosaic tiles, marbles and bas-relief sculpture, was used to ornament its walls. In many of the Alhambra’s interior spaces we find muqarnas vaulting, a decorative ceiling treatment in carved plaster that has a purely visual rather than a structural function. The most famous of the Alhambra’s outdoor spaces is the gracefully arcaded Lion Court: with its central fountain and four sunken water channels it is said to represent an earthly manifestation of paradise. Some of the complex was destroyed and built over when the Christians retook the region in 1492, but much remains. The Alhambra’s name means “red ” in Arabic, referring to the colour of the bricks of its outer defensive walls.
50. The Church of St. George, Lalibela, c. 1250 (Ethiopia)
51. Great Mosque of Divrigi, Divrigi, c. 1299 (Turkey)
52. Sultan СКАЧАТЬ