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Why Marble?


chimera

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Maybe its just me,but isn't it more likely that marble was used in ancient rome because it looks good and has the right properties? Is that not the reason we still use it today? Because it conveys wealth and good taste?

 

Oh, sure, I would agree with you that that is a large part of it. In saying that the Greeks made Greek marble fashionable, I was just looking for an added explanation for the fact that a large quantity of marble was shipped from Greece to Italy -- a fairly expensive item to transport -- when there's a lot of good building stone, marble and other, in Italy already.

 

In Europe generally, the great majority of pre-modern building uses local materials. It's only for the really showy places that people went in for long distance transport of big blocks of stone. And, of course, that particular fashion was first set not by the Greeks but by the makers of Stonehenge!

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Carrara (I'm not sure of the spelling) marble is reputed to be the best and its Italian.

 

I love marble. The huge marble columns in Durham Cathedral have fossils in them! And several different colours and shades of marble are used within this wonderful building.

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Did someone say Stonehenge? (The Romans who went there said something..). Newgrange in Ireland, where Romans probably did not go, but from where some Irish probably contacted Gaul, has white walls. The evidence is that these quartz walls as rebuilt are the original appearance of Newgrange. (My grammar sounds funny).

Norman-French "merlo" means the corner-towers of castle-battlements, and "murla" is armour ("wall"?), as in L."murus" and "mur" in w. Europe languages. The tower-steeple and 4 corner-towers of Gothic marble cathedrals are a form of "merlo", the shape of Meru as built in Sanskrit-Brahmin Cambodia. Newgrange Tara is a central kingdom amid 4-square kingdoms, and Newgrange and Maeshowe have 4 non-structural pillars at the corners of the chamber. Put into a pot and stir and what have you got?

chimera

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Did someone say Stonehenge? (The Romans who went there said something..). Newgrange in Ireland, where Romans probably did not go, but from where some Irish probably contacted Gaul, has white walls. The evidence is that these quartz walls as rebuilt are the original appearance of Newgrange. (My grammar sounds funny).

Norman-French "merlo" means the corner-towers of castle-battlements, and "murla" is armour ("wall"?), as in L."murus" and "mur" in w. Europe languages. The tower-steeple and 4 corner-towers of Gothic marble cathedrals are a form of "merlo", the shape of Meru as built in Sanskrit-Brahmin Cambodia. Newgrange Tara is a central kingdom amid 4-square kingdoms, and Newgrange and Maeshowe have 4 non-structural pillars at the corners of the chamber. Put into a pot and stir and what have you got?

chimera

Yes, exactly. You've got a chimera. Or a mirage. Forgive me, but I don't believe in the links you're making. Especially since we're talking about stone building, which survives so well archaeologically. If some far-off people, ancestral to all the ones you mention, made stone buildings on this pattern, where are they?

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Maeshowe and Newgrange at 4000BP are fairly ancestral and predate the white limestone-faced pyramids.

Brahmins of Russian steppes and Afghanistan apparently developed teachings 3500-2500BP and IE language dialects from that region diffused/migrated into Europe. Coastal megaliths suggest that boats connected Asia Minor with the North sea , and boats obviously reached Eire etc. Brahmins perceived the north pole /pole star as cosmic mount Meru,and the mythic Meru is said to be in the Pamirs Afghanistan. Cambodia's Meru is built to represent that.

The Meru shape of central tower and 4 corner towers (Norman French "merlo"= L. "murus"?) is seen in the square layout and central peak of Celtic temple at Gournay-sur-Aronde, and in the Pershore incense-burner made as a miniature Celtic temple in square shape with a central peak. The Taj Mahal may be in this tradition, also seen in Mother Temple in Armenia with 4 outlying towers, each having 4 gable-doors as seen in Pershore. Moscow State Uni. was designed to represent the ideal temple of learning, having a central tower and side-towers. This is the shape of the real Mt Kalaisa in Tibet of Hindu devotees.

Rome's central Forum and the mountain Acropolis in Athens with their marble may recall these ancestral ideas in abstract. The concept applied to major sites of governance rather than general buildings.

chimera

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What does BP mean?

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BP Before Present, to avoid a Euro-Christian chauvinism in dating (and allow atheist Euros to be consistent).

The Capitol DC building suggests a semi-religious tradition in honouring classical building styles of 2000BP.

In turn, that indicates that Rome would also honour ancient values, perhaps the IE concept of mount Meru.

The natural attraction that marble has shows how humans think and why the idea of a mountain of gold and jewels would be influential and accepted in early theory of governance. And that is why the barbarian hordes still pour into Newgrange (by lottery-ticket entry!) with its gleaming white facade, Acropolis and Giza, etc.

Washingto DC was built to impress and it surely does.

John

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BP Before Present, to avoid a Euro-Christian chauvinism in dating (and allow atheist Euros to be consistent).

 

Many simply use BCE and CE as its becoming routinely accepted and easily understood as a replacement for the Christian nomenclature. (Though personally, despite my religious views, the BC/AD thing doesn't bother me much).

 

Being an oil hungry American, I immediately thought British Petroleum :D

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We should add a century to our calendars and have BC (Before Caesar)

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I think history it's a complex and fascianting study even when you stick to proven reality.

A building with 4 towers in the conrners it's a mosque with minarets. The Ankor Wat was build according to the theories of muslims from neighbouring Champa region of Mekong Delta.

Also the buidings you mention in the british islands are build under the guidance of fenician and carthaginian wisemen of semitic stock.

In fact the Moscow University building you mention, afectionally called Lomonosov, was build by a visionary dervish from Central Asia of post-tocharian origins, a sufi muslim in his hart and a top comsomolist in his NKVD file.

The truth is that all this has no IE (indo european or Internet Explorer)connection but a semitic protomuslim one that you in your imperialistic europocentrism try to hide.

The true origins of the word marble came not from IE but from the ancient word "mellon". And no, it is not about that big watery vegetable but from the elvish word for friend. What, you did not knew that elves are criptomuslims?

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I think history it's a complex and fascianting study even when you stick to proven reality.

A building with 4 towers in the conrners it's a mosque with minarets. The Ankor Wat was build according to the theories of muslims from neighbouring Champa region of Mekong Delta.

Also the buidings you mention in the british islands are build under the guidance of fenician and carthaginian wisemen of semitic stock.

In fact the Moscow University building you mention, afectionally called Lomonosov, was build by a visionary dervish from Central Asia of post-tocharian origins, a sufi muslim in his hart and a top comsomolist in his NKVD file.

The truth is that all this has no IE (indo european or Internet Explorer)connection but a semitic protomuslim one that you in your imperialistic europocentrism try to hide.

The true origins of the word marble came not from IE but from the ancient word "mellon". And no, it is not about that big watery vegetable but from the elvish word for friend. What, you did not knew that elves are criptomuslims?

The stone gates have swung open, and only Bill the donkey refuses to continue. Lead on! I'm with you all the way, Kosmo!

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Parts of Durham Cathedral are thought to have been built using Saracen and Moorish experts caught/contacted during one of the crusades.

 

Dan Cruikshank did an excellent documentary exploring the theological geometry of the architecture and actually showed some of the arabic writing on hidden parts of the interior walls.

 

ALSO what does BCE/CE stand for?

Maybe we should have all joined POL POT and reverted to Year Zero with the Cambodians?

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Before Christian Era (what was BC, or Before Christ)

Christian Era (what was AD, or Anno Domani)

 

I think it's Anno Domini :rolleyes:

 

P.S: Hi to everyone, this is my first post here.I've been reading this forum for a long time and finally I registered :unsure:.It's really good

Edited by Traianus
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