Posted on 08/21/2010 11:41:07 PM PDT by smokingfrog
Spectacular 2,000-year-old Hellenistic-style wall paintings have been revealed at the world heritage site of Petra through the expertise of British conservation specialists. The paintings, in a cave complex, had been obscured by centuries of black soot, smoke and greasy substances, as well as graffiti.
Experts from the Courtauld Institute in London have now removed the black grime, uncovering paintings whose "exceptional" artistic quality and sheer beauty are said to be superior even to some of the better Roman paintings at Herculaneum that were inspired by Hellenistic art.
Virtually no Hellenistic paintings survive today, and fragments only hint at antiquity's lost masterpieces, while revealing little about their colours and composition, so the revelation of these wall paintings in Jordan is all the more significant. They were created by the Nabataeans, who traded extensively with the Greek, Roman and Egyptian empires and whose dominion once stretched from Damascus to the Red Sea, and from Sinai to the Arabian desert.
Such is the naturalistic intricacy of these paintings that the actual species of flowers, birds and insects bursting with life can be identified. They were probably painted in the first century, but may go back further. Professor David Park, an eminent wall paintings expert at the Courtauld, said that the paintings "should make jaws drop".
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
Ping.
Nice! Looks like you hadn’t gotten target lock yet...
When I see a UFO I just take another big swig off that bottle...
Whenever I take UFO pictures my wife deletes them later...
Guess it all depends on where you went to college.
To say nothing of the 10x zoom feature.
Now I know where all my pics of ETs have gone. I thought they had some mind control thingee where I’d delete them myself.
Thanks for the ping. Excellent discovery.
I really like this idea: “The Nabataeans are a sensible people, and are so much inclined to acquire possessions that they publicly fine anyone who has diminished his possessions.”
lol I know the feeling.
Petra is a world Heritage site and world class tourist attraction. Jordan is fiercely proud of Petra and the Nabetean heritage it represents.
To make the assumption you made is ludicrous.
Funny, last summer when the great whites were eating the seals in Chatham Harbor, my wife was inspired to drive the 100 odd miles out there and see the seals. (Great whites are more elusive.) We get to harbor, find a position on a viewing platform about 15 feet above the water and I’m peering through my 7 x 50 straining at distant objects half a mile out in the harbor, which were in fact seals, and trying to line up a shot (with a camera). When I look down at my feet, there were half a dozen seals swimming right underneath! Doo!
maybe she’s working for “them”
Nah, she just thinks I’m a perv... (Just kidding) :-)))
You're right.
The Muzzies would never deface a world class tourist attraction that contains religious imagery that might be interpreted by some as idolatrous.
They learned their lesson real good when they destroyed thousands of churches and their associated mosaics, statues, stained glass windows and relics throughout the Middle East. They also learned their lesson when they plastered over the walls of cathedrals such as Santa Sofia. And they learned it when they destroyed Buddhist statutes in Afghanistan and India. And again when they wiped out Hindu temples in India. And again when they looted all of these places of their gold and silver.
Now they have done all that damage to the other treasures, it is safe to assume the adherents of the Religion of Peace would never, ever do another foolish act of violence to another priceless work of art.
And I freely admit it is ludicrous for me to assume otherwise. Don't know what came over me when I made the original comment. Sorry.
What's not to like?
Interesting that you mentioned that. I was thinking recently about what the long term effects of the Islamification of Europe would result in? (I had just finished watching a video on “Eurabia.” If the destruction of the ancient Buddhist statues in Afghanistan is any indication, I would expect that the Islamo-nazis will knock down Stonehenge once they take over Britain. Likewise, the paintings of Christ by Rembrandt will be destroyed in Holland.
:’) Cetacean some pictures, that’s the important thing.
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