Innholdsfortegnelse for No. 7 i Explore History

Excavations at the site of the Gate of Ramesses (also known as Ramses Gate) have led to the discovery of a previously unknown uprising that took place in Jaffa, Israel. The evidence, uncovered by The Jaffa Cultural Heritage Project led by Professor Aaron Burke of the University of California, includes further remains of a fortress around the gate itself, as well as burnt mud bricks and bent arrowheads, which hint at the destruction that archaeologists have suggested took place there. These items were discovered under the remains of a collapsed tower, along with a number of ceramic vessels underneath a collapsed passageway. The theory put forward by Professor Burke and colleagues to explain these artefacts is that the Canaanites were violently opposed to Jaffa’s Egyptian rulers, and that this extreme…

Essential information Hampton Court is conveniently situated close to London. Trains run every half an hour from London Waterloo station and take approximately 35 minutes. You can also take a train to nearby Kingston-upon-Thames and catch a bus (numbers 111, 216 or 411). Hampton Court has a small pay and display car park. Further parking can be found at nearby Hampton Court Green or Hampton Court station. Tickets are £21 ($25) for adults, £17.10 ($20) for concessions, £10.50 ($12) for children and £37-£51.70 ($62) for family tickets (depending on family size). Children under five free. Tickets are cheaper if purchased online at www.hrp.org.uk/ hampton-court-palace. When to visit The palace opens all year round, with spring and summer the best time for the gardens. Time zone UTC Currency British Pounds Where…

MEET THE CURATOR Guislaine Lemay is the curator of ethnology and archaeology and interim curator of decorative arts at the McCord Museum in Montreal. She has been working at the McCord Museum for more than 25 years. She curated the Wearing Our Identity exhibition at the museum, which opened in 2013. Eeyou woman’s leggings LOCATION: First Peoples Gallery, level one Guislane told us: “There is a very subtle difference between Eeyou men’s and women’s leggings, which can be seen in the shape of the bottom tab. This distinctive detail helps the caribou to recognise the male hunter in order to give itself up to him.” First Nations and Metis men and women routinely wore leggings to protect their legs from cuts and scrapes as they travelled through bushland. Later, beautifully…

Today, this temple and palace stand with the Potala as Lhasas’s three greatest historic buildings. But their origins are separated by 1,000 years. The Jokhang dates from the 7th century, when King Songtsen Gampo acquired two of his six wives from abroad. If traditions are to be believed (which many scholars doubt), the first, Bhrikuti, was Nepalese. The other, Wencheng, was Chinese. As part of their dowries, both brought Buddhist statues and images with them, among them two statues, which are the oldest in Tibet. To house these treasures, the king built the Jokhang, a complex of 20 halls with a mass of gold-painted roofs. Though much rebuilt and added to, its blend of local, Chinese, Nepalese and Indian elements makes it classic Tibetan architecture. Wencheng has a mixed reputation.…

The first time Sir Winston Churchill saw Chartwell he was captivated. It was the view that particularly captured his heart, a glorious panorama of the Weald of Kent that seemed to stretch forever. He loved the place so much that he bought it in 1922 without even telling his wife Clementine. Today, despite the havoc wreaked by the Great Storm of 1987, that view is much the same – a heart-lifting swathe of woods and fields, pierced every so often by the spire of a church or the tip of an oast house. It was the land of his dreams – the land for which he fought so doggedly. This was the view that helped to win the war. Chartwell was the great statesman’s family home – a rural retreat…

Churchill was a great animal lover and extremely fond of cats. A painting of him and Clementine taking breakfast in the 1930s depicts their marmalade cat, Tango, sitting on the table. In 1962, Sir John ‘Jock’ Colville, one of his private secretaries, presented him with a ginger cat for his 88th birthday. He promptly named him Jock and became so fond of him that he often took him to meetings, taking him to London on occasion. Photographs of his grandson’s wedding show Jock perched on Sir Winston’s knee. Their bond was so close that Jock spent hours just sitting by Churchill’s bed during his final days. Jock lived on at Chartwell until 1974 and is buried in the pet cemetery. The family requested that there should always be a marmalade…

Listen to: The World Of Fauré Fauré was among composers, including Ravel and Debussy, who were popular at the time of the Belle Époque, and continue to be widely appreciated today. This compilation of his music evokes the spirit of the era. Read: The Paris Of Toulouse-Lautrec A sumptuous book from New York’s Museum of Modern Art featuring more than 100 of the artist’s prints and posters, and a pull-out poster of one of his depictions of can-can dancers. Watch: Le Fabuleux Destin d’Amélie Poulain Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s 2001 comedy, starring Audrey Tautou. It is set in Montmartre, albeit in modern times, but it still evokes all the fun and quirkiness of the Belle Époque’s best-known Parisian district.…

Monument to 1300 Years of Bulgaria Visible from 35 kilometres away, this colossal cubist structure dwarfs travellers who venture along its concrete staircase. The Shumen monument is truly breathtaking for its sheer scale, with enormous concrete kings and heroes glowering down on the thousands of travellers who visit every year. EXPLORER’S ESSENTIALS ✵ bulgariatravel.org/en/ Mon-Sun: 8am-5pm Adults: 3 BGN (£2/$2) The Pantheon of National Revival Heroes 39 famous Bulgarians are laid to rest in the ossuary beneath the Pantheon of National Revival Heroes in Ruse, including writers, revolutionaries and politicians. An eternal flame burns beneath the ornate gold dome, while hundreds of names adorn the interior walls. ✵ Sun-Thurs 9am-5.30pm Adults: 2 BGN (£1/$1) Concessions available The Buzludzha Monument The Buzludzha Monument was opened in 1981 to honour the founders…

The Torch of Peace This monumental Neuville-Saint-Vaast sculpture stands of the site of one of the most brutal conflicts of World War I. Set in the grounds of the Neuville Home for Disabled Veterans, the Torch of Peace literally rises from rubble of the decimated village that once stood here in honour of the brave soldiers who died. The road is lined with ash trees in commemoration of the dead. EXPLORER’S ESSENTIALS ✵Mon-Sun: 24 hours Free admission La Targette War museum is just over the crossroads Portuguese National Cemetery The thousands of Portuguese soldiers who fell in World War I are memorialised in Richebourg. The Portuguese National Ceremony contains a tranquil chapel, while a monument is decorated with allegorical friezes honouring the dead and telling the story of the republic’s…

There is a place where the living and the dead meet, where human remains and man-made architecture collide to create one of the most breathtaking sights the unsuspecting traveller might ever stumble upon. This is the Sedlec Ossuary, the Church of Bones. The Sedlec Ossuary is located beneath the Cemetery Church of All Saints, an unassuming Medieval chapel in the Czech Republic city of Kutna Hora. Step inside, however, and you will be transported to another world, one where more than 60,000 human skeletons have been painstakingly picked apart and refashioned into an ornate Gothic interior. The bones form coats of arms, laurel wreathes and vast, sweeping archways that have come a long way since the 15th century, when they were dug out of mass graves during the construction of…

Asam Church, Munich, Germany This Baroque chur ch interior was the creation of Egid Quirin Asam, a stuc coist and sculpt or in 18th-century Munich. The chur ch was completed in 1746, dedicated to Saint John Nepomuk, a monk who had been c anonised aft er he drowned in the D anube. A bomb attack damaged the chur ch in 1944, but restoration efforts from 1975-83 returned it t o its former glory . Kilchurn Castle, Argyll, Scotland This romantic Highland ruin be gan life in the mid-1400s , when the first Lord of Glenorchy, Sir Colin Campbell, built it as the base o f power for the Campbell clan. I t sits on the nor thern part of Loch Awe, and was in use un til the 18th c…

The first exhibition in Britain to focus on Islamic art and the supernatural has opened at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. Running from 20 October 2016 to 15 January 2017, the exhibition includes art dating from the 12th to the 20th century and spans countries from Morocco in the west to China in the east. The exhibition, called Power and Protection, seeks to de-mystify some of what it really means to be Muslim, by examining the many objects that show different traditions of supernatural practice. Whether this is shown through Qu’rans used for bibliomancy – the act of using the random page a book is opened at to predict the outcome of an event – or the reverence for amulets and talismans, held close to the body for protection, it is…

“Little did they know they were pitching their tents right on the boundary between two tectonic plates” Iceland is a country born of the Viking Age. For millennia it remained uninhabited by humans, a little volcanic island in the middle of the North Atlantic hanging just below the Arctic Circle. It was only at the end of the 9th century that the first ships began to arrive, containing Norse settlers looking for a new life. By then, the Viking Age was well and truly under way: the Great Heathen Army was sweeping its way through Anglo-Saxon England and Alfred the Great was battling Scandinavian invaders led by – according to later tradition – the sons of Ragnar ‘Hairy-Breeches’. But the story that was unfolding in Iceland was rather less bloody.…

In northern Iceland, during the 19th century, a Viking Age board game was found in a grave near Baldursheimur. It included 25 game pieces made from either whale or walrus ivory: 12 red pawns, 12 white pawns, and a king gripping his forked beard. The game is called Hnefatafl, which is a bit like chess but with one king at the centre trying to escape the pawns. Hnefatafl-playing prowess was definitely something worth bragging about. Jarl Rognvald, the ruler of Orkney, composed a verse boasting of his nine greatest talents, the first of which was Hnefatafl (the others were carving runes, reading, writing, skiing, shooting, rowing, music and poetry). Board games were very popular in the Norse world, and the pieces could be made from all sorts of material, from…

Catherine Parr secretly married Thomas Seymour soon after Henry VIII’s death, earning the fury of Edward VI’s Lord Protector – and Thomas’s brother. Alienated from her stepson and the court, she retreated to her dower properties at Chelsea and Hanworth, before moving to Sudeley Castle in Gloucestershire. She died there on 5 September 1548, after giving birth to her only child, a daughter. Catherine rarely visited Hampton Court after being widowed, but it continued to be used as a royal residence long after Henry’s death. The joint monarchs, William III and Mary II, were particularly fond of the rural setting. They visited regularly, although were less impressed with its old-fashioned buildings. The couple commissioned Sir Christopher Wren to produce a new design for the palace, intending to demolish the entire…

Archaeologists excavating at Blick Mead, less than three kilometres from Stonehenge, think that Mesolithic hunter-gatherers lived in the area, pushing back the known timescale that this area has been inhabited by thousands of years. Finds have been identified that indicate that Blick Mead was in continual use between 7550 and 4700 BCE. Animal remains suggest that the inhabitants ate salmon, trout, hazelnuts and aurochs – extinct cow-like creatures that were the size of bison. Most excitingly, the landscape in which Stonehenge was built may have had some kind of ritual or religious importance in the Mesolithic too. In summer 2016, archaeologists uncovered the tooth of an Alsatian-type dog thought to be a pet of a hunter. Scientists radiocarbon dated the tooth and found that the dog died 7,000 years ago.…

“Unquestionably one of the architectural wonders of the world. After Everest, it is Tibet’s most famous landmark” The Potala Palace, looming above Lhasa like a breaking wave in stone, is an astonishing sight. “Unquestionably one of the architectural wonders of the world,” as historian Alexander Norman puts it in Holder Of The White Lotus: Lives Of The Dalai Lama, “After Everest, it is Tibet’s most famous landmark.’” Initiated in 1645 by the fifth Dalai Lama, Lobsang Gyatso, this cross between palace and fortress remained the main residence of Tibet’s Buddhist rulers until the 14th (and present) Dalai Lama fled to India in 1959. However, it was much more than a residence. It had a symbolic significance reaching back 1,000 years. The story of the Dalai Lamas that would build the…

Essential information Chartwell House is open Feb-Oct: Mon-Sun, 11:30am-5pm. However, closures have been regular recently, so do check the website for daily updates. The garden is open all year, 10am-dusk. By car, leave M25 at junction five or six to join A25. Just south of Westerham, fork onto the B2026. By train, Sevenoaks station has a fast service from London and a taxi rank where you can pick up a cab to Chartwell. Entry to house by timed tickets only. Adult: £13.40 ($16), Child: £6.70 ($8), Family: £33.50 ($40). Free for trust members. When to visit The grounds look particularly lovely in the autumn, when the leaves create a colourful display and apples hang from the trees in the orchard. Time zone UTC Currency British Pounds Where to stay Luxury…

Anne of Cleves House In the rural lanes of Lewes, you will find the home that was given to Anne of Cleves when she was divorced from King Henry VIII. Within the Tudor building, there is a restored Elizabethan kitchen and a programme of events dedicated to bringing this legendary era back to life. EXPLORER’S ESSENTIALS ✵ sussexpast.co.uk Mon-Sun: 10am-4pm Admission: £5.60 ($8), £3.10 ($4) Fishbourne Roman Palace and Gardens Excavated in 1960, this Chichester museum offers visitors a chance to see how the wealthiest Romans in Britain lived, with breathtaking mosaics and stunningly restored gardens. Offering demonstrations of Roman crafts, schooling and farming, this is not to be missed. ✵ sussexpast.co.uk Mon-Sun: 10am-4pm Adult: £9 ($12), Child: £5 ($6) Weald and Downland Open Air Museum At Weald and Downland,…

Hardley Windmill After being left derelict for decades, Hardley Mill is now fully restored and working once more. Visitors are welcome to look around the windmill and learn more about its remarkable history in the visitor centre or even moor on its pontoon overnight. EXPLORER’S ESSENTIALS ✵ www.hardley-windmill.org.uk The mill is open when the sails are turning Adults: £3 ($4), Child: Free Saint Benet’s Abbey Mill After Saint Benet’s Abbey fell victim to the dissolution of the monasteries, locals built a windmill and wind pump inside the remains of the abbey gatehouse. Now a Grade II-listed building, the mill allows visitors a unique opportunity to see how these two different eras existed side by side. ✵ stbenetsabbey.org/index.php Mon-Sun: 24 hours Free admission Bircham Windmill Little has changed over a century;…

Ben Youssef Madrasa Tony Kitchener “Visiting the Ben Youssef Madrasa in Marrakech was a brilliant way to see the city’s Islamic art. There are so many beautiful patterns to find.” Sandsfoot Castle Harry Thompson “This ruined castle in Weymouth is quite unassuming but holds some fascinating Tudor history, as it was built by Henry VIII.” Almudena Cathedral Tim Knowles “The view of Madrid’s cathedral through the doors of the royal palace is just stunning. Two beautiful buildings standing opposite each other.” Spanish Synagogue Charlie Hanson “Prague is a city full of history and beautiful architecture, but the Spanish Synagogue was my favourite place to visit. The colours are exquisite.” Send your photos of incredible places to Tweet @ExploreHistory_ or Head to our Facebook page…

News that A-level courses in archaeology are set to be scrapped has caused uproar among professional archaeologists, academics and historians. It began with the announcement that art history was no longer to be offered as an A-level course option. Now AQA, the only exam board previously offering this course to students, is set to withdraw archaeology from its program. The decision comes as part of government-led changes to A-levels available following Ofqual reports, which sought to assess the content and examination of various subjects. The investigation found that, as a specialist subject, it was difficult to find qualified markers and examiners to set the assessments. The decision was met with uproar among professionals. As part of the resistance, Dan Boatright, an archaeology teacher at Worcester Sixth Form College, started a…

According to the 12th-century Landnámabók (‘Book of Settlement’), the first permanent settler of Iceland was Ingólfr Arnarson, who built his homestead at Reykjavík. Today, Iceland is home to around 330,000 inhabitants, most of whom can trace their ancestry all the way back to the country’s first settlers. In fact, because of this fairly limited gene pool, there’s now a smartphone app that allows Icelanders see how closely related they are before they decide to get intimately acquainted (‘bump the app before you bump in bed’). Appropriately enough, the app is called Íslendingabók (‘Book of Icelanders’) after the text written by Ari the Wise, because both the app and its Medieval namesake provide information about the early settlers of Iceland. However, if you want a more conventional way of learning about…

Essential information Where There are frequent flights to Iceland from most major UK and European airports. It’s also possible to get the ferry from Harwich, but the journey takes three days and the ferry docks in Seyðisfjörður, which is an eight-hour drive from Reykjavík. Flights from London to Iceland are approximately three hours, but bear in mind that the international airport is at Keflavík, 50 kilometres outside Reykjavík. From there, you can buy tickets for the Flybus, which takes passengers to Reykjavík. On the way, many tourists stop off at the Blue Lagoon, the country’s most popular geothermal baths. To get to northern Iceland you can hire a car and drive there via Route 1. It’s about a five-hour drive from Reykjavík to Akureyri, the main city in the north.…

For most of the time, the massive stones stand quiet and alone, roped off from the eyes of the public. But twice a year, during the summer and winter solstices, Stonehenge takes on a life of its own. At midsummer, the sun rises close to the Heel Stone, a prominent marker that juts into the ball of flame, while the first rays of light fall between the massive grey sarsen stones. At midwinter, the sun sets in the gap between the two uprights of the largest trilithon, the day slowly dying as the Sun slumps into darkening rock. A lively crowd of revellers gathers to watch the awe-inspiring conjunctions of Sun and stone. For them, Stonehenge is a place of worship and the solstices are a religious festival. “It is…

Sometime around 4000 BCE, the new innovation of agriculture reached Britain. The change from being hunter-gatherers to farmers was a seismic shift, one known as the Neolithic Revolution. Neolithic farmers settled in areas that were most favourable for farming, including the easily drained chalk hills of the south west. They lived in stable communities, cleared land, planted wheat and barley and raised herds of domesticated animals. Every so often the group would move on after the land had been farmed so that it would no longer support crops. In a few generations, they would return to the original settlement after the land had lain fallow long enough to regenerate. These communities, although relatively small, were able to embark on large engineering projects requiring group participation, of which henges and stone…

Essential information Stonehenge is open daily from 9.30am-5pm in winter and 9.30am-7pm in summer. To avoid the crowds, arrive early or late (although last entry is two hours before closing). Even better, try to find a special access ticket that allows you right up to the stones – these operate before and after usual opening hours, although they are limited and more expensive. The visitor centre, opened in December 2013, includes replica Neolithic houses and impressive audio-visual displays to help prepare you for your first sight of the stones. A shuttle bus transports you the two kilometres to the monument. When to visit Any time of year is good, but arrive early or late to avoid the crowds. Time zone UTC Currency British Pound Where to stay Basic Cholderton Hostel…

Songtsen Gamp, founder of the Tibetan Empire, is at the heart of a charming legend which tells how his Chinese bride was chosen in the 7th century. Songtsen Gampo sent his chief minister, Gar Tongtsen, to obtain the hand in marriage of the Tang princess, Wencheng. Gar brought wonderful gifts – seven gold coins, a magic suit of armour – but was dismayed to discover that he had rivals from India, Persia, and Uighur lands. His gifts won him the right to enter a contest for the princess, in which he was given four tasks: 1. To match 100 mares with their foals, which were in a separate pen. His solution: to make a hole in the wall, through which the mares and foals identified each other. 2. To find…

Essential information Visits to the palace are by timed tours. To get a reservation ticket, visitors must queue at the palace the day before –arrive early and take your passport. This reservation ticket gives you an allotted time to visit. You must buy your tickets during this time and you will need to arrive at the site one hour before your allotted time. No liquids are allowed and you will be searched. The nearest airport is Gonggar Lhasa airport, from which transport links will take you to the palace or your hotel. When to visit Between May-September. Be prepared for rain and dust storms. Time zone UTC›06:00 Currency Chinese RMB (Yuan) Where to stay Luxury Shangri-La Hotel Lhasa Standard rooms at this five-star hotel are available from about £90 ($109)…

Established in 1872, Les Folies Bergère was in its heyday from the 1890s. Music hall as we know it today was born there. At first, the entertainment revolved around operettas, popular songs, gymnastics and circus routines, but the owner, Edouard Marchand, realised how popular troops of female dancers were and began to include them more and more. The concept was something in between the café-concerts from areas like Montmartre and proper theatre. Audiences created a noisy, exuberant atmosphere and people were free to wander about, smoke, buy drinks and join in with popular songs. They called out their appreciation for the dancing girls, known as ‘les cocottes’, their extravagant costumes and their energetic dance routines. Les Folies Bergère was immortalised in the 1881 painting by Edouard Manet of a girl…

Essential information Where Paris is the easiest of all the European capitals to reach from the UK. Up to 15 Eurostar trains a day will whisk you from London Saint Pancras to the Gare du Nord in two hours and 15 minutes and from there you can get straight onto the Paris metro system. If you prefer to travel from Ebbsfleet or Ahford, you can park a few minutes’ walk from the station. Flights are available from most UK airports. At both Charles de Gaulle and Orly airports, there are bus and RER links into the centre. From Beauvais-Tillé, which is further out, there is a shuttle bus service. When to visit Paris in the springtime is legendary, of course, but every season has its attractions. The weather is usually…

Dodona Dodona was once a famed oracle, second only to Delphi, and is now an important archaeological site. Travellers must be sure not to miss the Hellenistic Theatre, which was one of the largest in Greece and has been recently restored. EXPLORER’S ESSENTIALS ✵Mon-Sun: 8.30am-3pm Adult: €2 (£2/$3), Child: €1 (£1/$2) Visit early in the day as there is little shade from the Sun and temperatures can get quite hot Knossos The oldest city in Europe is also Crete’s most impressive Bronze Age site. Once a centre of civilisation, the vibrantly painted Knossos Palace is now in complete ruins, but travellers to the city can still get a sense of the magnificent scale of the palace that was once the home of the legendary King Minos. ✵Mon-Sun: 8am-8pm Adult: €6…