1,300-year-old structure could be a fortress, summer palace, monastery, or even an astronomical observatory. Picture: gdehorosho.ru
Posted on 11/15/2014 4:35:03 PM PST by SunkenCiv
Outer walls standing 10 metres tall and 12 metres wide formed a rectangular shape... Walls on the inside were smaller, at about one metre-tall, forming the outline of buildings, with a large building in the centre of the site. Some of the walls and panels were covered with lime plaster painted with horizontal red striped...
'The building was most likely of the post-and-beam construction characteristic of Chinese architecture from the T’ang Dynasty,' wrote head archaeologist Irina Arzhantseva in a report published in The European Archaeologist in 2011.
'Finds of burnt timber fragments point to the use of the typical Chinese technique of interlocking wooden brackets, called dou-gung. Ramps led down to the two flanking galleries which were roofed, open spaces looking onto the access to the main pavilion.'
While debate continues about the use of Por-Bajin, there is growing evidence it was a community or palace complex centred around a Buddhist monastery. Certainly, there is an argument that its layout is typical of the palaces of the Buddhist Paradises as depicted in T’ang paintings...
What puzzles the experts, however, is the lack of rudimentary heating systems, particularly given that Por-Bajin sits at 2,300 metres above sea level and endures harsh Siberian weather...
'Archaeological and geomorphological fieldwork revealed traces of at least two earthquakes which had accelerated the natural process of deterioration. The first of these seems to have happened already during the construction of the ‘fortress’ in the 8th century.
'It is not yet quite clear how long the buildings survived after the abandonment of the site in the 9th century, but some time after the abandonment there was another catastrophic earthquake which led to fires and to the collapse of the southern and eastern enclosure walls, and destroyed the north-western corner bastion.'
(Excerpt) Read more at siberiantimes.com ...
1,300-year-old structure could be a fortress, summer palace, monastery, or even an astronomical observatory. Picture: gdehorosho.ru
The Kildar...
We’ll probably learn more about this site, now that Russia is getting back in business in defending its allies. The days of bombing Serbian kindergartens and civilian bridges, without pushback, are about over for us.
Actually, the shoe is on the other foot. Ukraine deployed troops to both Iraq and Afghanistan. And yet the Russians are bombing Ukrainian kindergartens and civilian bridges without pushback from us. One for me, one for you...
Who are calling us?
The earliest known KOA.
Based on some of the pictures at the link...maybe it wasn’t a fortress, but a prison or exile location.
Tang ...... did they find any tang ?
The astronauts found Tang on the moon
No fashion mall?
So be it ......:o)
They found it out the yinyang.
Thats gotta be a crappy flavor ....
Playing with the numbers we come up with 86-87 acres which makes it a tad larger than Fort Courage.
I can't think of a reason that earthquakes would lead to fires in an abandoned structure.
That figure 8 structure repeats in almost every room. Those must be of some significance. I would suspect that investigating what is left in the bottom of the inside of the 8s would give a pretty clear picture of what was going on there.
You’re posting a lot of neat stuff. Thanks!
My pleasure, and there’s more to come. The better stuff tends to come around after the digging season is over, and of course that happens at different times in different latitudes. :’) There’s been a real run of stories out of the neoSoviet empire as part of their peace offensive, a PR campaign to patch up relations with the world without actually making things right. This article ends with praise for Putin, and I edited it out, and then cleaned the drops of puke off my screen. This Buddhist site is has no discernable source of heat, imagine that, Buddhists must have worked only a few weeks a year for years on end just to build the thing so they could use it for a few weeks a year. /s After a few more years we may see better conclusions from this.
Prolly a duck blind?
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