Hidden History: Lost Civilizations, Secret Knowledge, and Ancient Mysteries, Brian Haughton [books you need to read .TXT] 📗

back to the front as they progressed. Most of the buildings and walls at the site were constructed of granite blocks, and possibly cut with bronze or stone tools, and finally smoothed off with sand.

The actual function of Machu Picchu has been much debated. Was it a great Inca city with a large, thriving population? Probably not. It has been estimated that only about 1,000 people lived in and around Machu Picchu at any one time, which, along with its isolated position, indicates that it cannot really have been a conventional city. Hiram Bingham's excavations in the early 20th century revealed 135 mummified corpses, 109 of which Bingham identified as female. From the predominantly female burials Bingham deduced that the site functioned mainly as a refuge of the Acllas, the Inca Virgins of the Sun. However, more recent analysis of the skeletons has indicated that the skeletons were in fact evenly divided between males and females. The current theory is that the complex was a ceremonial city, which also functioned as a royal estate and religious retreat or sanctuary for Inca royalty, priests, and priestesses.

Machu Picchu's sudden abandonment is shrouded in mystery. During the time of the Spanish Conquest the sacred city lay undiscovered, which suggests that it had long been deserted and forgotten. Theories for the unexplained abandonment are legion and include the city running dry in an extended period of drought, a disastrous fire, or because of evacuation during the time of Inca resistance to the Spanish. Probably the most viable theory points to the fact that, prior to the Spanish Conquest, smallpox had been introduced to Peru from Europe; it soon reached epidemic proportions and spread through the country. By 1527, half of the population had fallen victim to the disease, the government began to collapse, and civil war erupted. A lack of social order and a drastically reduced population would explain a relatively swift desertion.

Today, this amazing mountain-top complex of temples, cyclopean walls, fields, and terraces is a Historic National Sanctuary, protected by the Peruvian Government, and since 1983, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The lost city of the Incas is no longer lost; it attracts around 500,000 foreign visitors per year and is by far the most visited tourist attraction in Peru. Although the Peruvian government maintains that there are no problems resulting from such a vast amount of

tourists tramping all over the site, UNESCO has expressed fears about the possible damage caused by this volume of tourism, and in 1998 added Machu Picchu to its list of endangered World Heritage sites. Unfortunately, over the last few years Machu Picchu has become involved in unwanted controversy. During the filming of a beer commercial in September 2000, at the Intihuatana, where Inca priests and priestesses once worshipped the sun, a 1000 pound crane toppled over, breaking off a sizeable piece of the sundial, resulting in criminal charges being filed against the production company by Gustavo Manrique of the National Institute of Culture. In 2005, the same year that Machu Picchu became twinned with the ancient town of Petra in Jordan, Peru began a legal battle for the return of the thousands of artifacts removed from the site by Hiram Bingham 90 years previously.

The Library of Alexandria

©Ahmed Dokmak (GNU Free Documentation License)

Modern Alexandria from one of the windows of Qaitbay's Citadel, to the west of the city.

Once the largest library in the world-and containing works by the greatest thinkers and writers of antiquity, including Homer, Plato, Socrates, and many more-the Library of Alexandria is popularly believed to have been destroyed in a huge fire 2,000 years ago and its collection lost. Since its destruction, this wonder of the ancient world has haunted the imagination of poets, historians, travelers, and scholars, who have lamented the tragic

loss of knowledge and literature. Today, the idea of a universal library situated in a city celebrated as the center of learning in the ancient world has attained mythical status. The mystery has been perpetuated by the fact that no architectural remains or archaeological finds that can definitely be attributed to the library have ever been recovered, which is surprising for such a supposedly renowned and imposing structure. This lack of physical proof has even persuaded some to wonder if the fabulous library actually existed at all in the form popularly imagined.

Home to the massive Pharos lighthouse, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, the Mediterranean seaport of Alexandria was founded by Alexander the Great in 330 B.C., and as with many other cities, took its name from him. After his death in 323 B.C., Alexander's empire was left in the hands of his generals, with Ptolemy I Soter taking Egypt and making Alexandria his capital in 320 B.C. Formerly a small fishing village on the Nile delta, Alexandria became the seat of the Ptolemaic rulers of Egypt and developed into a great intellectual and cultural center. It was perhaps the greatest city in the ancient world. The story of the founding of the Library of Alexandria is obscure. It is believed that around 295 B.C. the scholar and orator Demetrius of Phalerum, an exiled governor of Athens, convinced Ptolemy I Soter to establish a library. Demetrius envisioned a library that would house a copy of every book in the world, an institution to rival Athens itself. Subsequently, under the patronage of Ptolemy I, Demetrius organized the construction of the Temple of the Muses or the Musaeum, from which our word museum is derived. This structure was a shrine complex modeled on the Lyceum of Aristotle in Athens, a center for intellectual and philosophical lectures and discussion.

The Temple of the Muses was to be the first part of the library complex at Alexandria, and was located within the grounds of the royal palace, in an area known as the Bruchion or palace

quarter, in the northeastern, Greek district of the city. The museum was a cult center with shrines for each of the nine muses, but also