Landon rallied today, overcame a stomach virus and made it out to see Paris. I didn't want him to miss all the necessary sights, so while Jolene and Grayson headed out on their own to see a few new places, I took Landon back around to see the places he had missed.
Arc de Triomphe.
Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
The Louvre.
Palace du Carrousel courtyard.
Winged Victory of Samothrace - from 200 BC, commemorating a Greek Naval victory at Rhodes.
The Mona Lisa
Emperor Napoleon III's apartment and harp.
Eshmunazar II, a Phoenician King, from 500 BC, with Canaanite writing on the sarcophagus warning that anyone who takes part in removing him from his resting place will be cursed:
"May they not have any funeral couch with the shades (the Rephaïm), may they not be buried in a grave, and may there not be a son or offspring to succeed to them, and may the sacred gods abandon them to a mighty ruler who (might) rule them, in order to exterminate that royal race or man who will open this resting-place or who will take away this coffin, and also the offspring of this royal race, or of that ordinary man. There shall be to them no root below, nor fruit above, nor living form under the sun....Whoever you are, of royal race or ordinary man, may he not open it and may he not uncover me and may he not carry me away from this resting-place. Otherwise, the sacred gods shall abandon them and exterminate this royal race and this ordinary man and their offspring for ever."
Alrighty then.
A fine work of art.
Venus de Milo. I think Landon's mind was still on those three ladies in the previous statue.
Medieval foundation
Hammurabi's Code of Law, inscribed into a basalt stele in ~1800 BC (nearly ~4,000 years ago) in the Akkadian language using cuneiform script. The stele is in the shape of a finger, with figures carved into the 'fingernail'.
The cuneiform script can be seen clearly covering the front and back of the stele.
The code covers a variety of situations: sales, justice, divorce, trade, slander, etc.
So glad we don't have to hunt big game while naked with only knife - wouldn't work out well during our Fall/Winter moose hunts in Alaska.
Ebih-II, carved in the 25th century BC (4,500 years ago!) in present day Syria.
Landon outside Notre-Dame.
Joan of Arc
Model of the cathedral
More details of the outside of the cathedral of Notre-Dame.
Gargoyles on the top.
The birds seemed to like Landon. I don't think the feeling was mutual.
Although he was warming up to them before long...maybe.
Landon visits the Pantheon.
The Foucault Clock. In 1851, Leon Foulcault demonstrated the rotation of the Earth inside the Pantheon by use of a 67m pendulum hanging from the dome, which accurately inscribes a line along the current time of day as the pendulum weight swings back and forth.
(And to think nearly 200 yrs later, we still have to spend enough effort to roll our eyes at current-day flat-Earth theorists.)
Victor Hugo's resting place.
Disappointed that the Paris Catacombs are closed due to workers on strike in France. Through this door are the human remains of 6 million previously buried unnamed individuals, forming the walls and structures of the catacombs. Paris had a lack-of-space problem due to the cemeteries filling up, so the solution was to remove the remains and store them here. Space was still limited so the bones were stacked into walls. But we won't be seeing it, unfortunately, due to the strike.
The Paris copy of the Lion of Belfort, just outside the entrance to the catacombs.
No comments:
Post a Comment