1.
Pope Callixtus I
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Pope Callixtus I, also called Callistus I, was the bishop of Rome from c.218 to his death c. He lived during the reigns of the Roman Emperors Elagabalus and Alexander Severus, eusebius and the Liberian catalogue gave him five years of episcopate. He was martyred for his Christian faith and is venerated as a saint by the Catholic Church, according to the tale, Callixtus jumped overboard to avoid capture but was rescued and taken back to his master. Philosophumena claims that, denounced as a Christian, Callixtus was sentenced to work in the mines of Sardinia and he was released with other Christians at the request of Hyacinthus, a eunuch presbyter, who represented Marcia, the favourite mistress of Emperor Commodus. At this time his health was so weakened that his fellow Christians sent him to Antium to recuperate, in 199, Callixtus was ordained a deacon by Pope Zephyrinus and appointed superintendent of the Christian cemetery on the Appian Way. That place, which is to this day called the Catacombs of St. Callixtus, Emperor Julian the Apostate, writing to a pagan priest, said, Christians have gained most popularity because of their charity to strangers and because of their care for the burial of their dead. In the third century, nine Bishops of Rome were interred in the Catacomb of Callixtus and these catacombs were rediscovered by the archaeologist Giovanni Battista de Rossi in 1849. In 217, when Callixtus followed Zephyrinus as Bishop of Rome and he fought with success the heretics, and established the practice of absolution of all sins, including adultery and murder. As a consequence also of doctrinal differences, Hippolytus was elected as a bishop of Rome. The Basilica di Santa Maria in Trastevere was a titulus of which Callixtus was the patron, the 4th-century basilica of Ss Callixti et Iuliani was rebuilt in the 12th century by Pope Innocent II and rededicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary. According to the apocryphal Acts of Saint Callixtus, Asterius, a priest of Rome, recovered the body of Callixtus after it had been tossed into a well and buried Callixtus body at night. Asterius was arrested for this action by the prefect Alexander and then killed by being thrown off a bridge into the Tiber River. He was buried in the cemetery of Calepodius on the Aurelian Way and his anniversary is given by the 4th-century Depositio Martirum, the Roman Catholic Church celebrates his optional memorial on 14 October. His relics were transferred in the 9th century to Santa Maria in Trastevere, List of Catholic saints List of popes Kelly, J. N. D. Bishop Callistus I. of Rome, A Martyr or a Confessor, in Zeitschrift für Antikes Christentum/Journal of Ancient Christianity 18, p. 390-419
2.
Rome
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Rome is a special comune and the capital of Italy. Rome also serves as the capital of the Lazio region, with 2,873,598 residents in 1,285 km2, it is also the countrys largest and most populated comune and fourth-most populous city in the European Union by population within city limits. It is the center of the Metropolitan City of Rome, which has a population of 4.3 million residents, the city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, within Lazio, along the shores of the Tiber. Romes history spans more than 2,500 years, while Roman mythology dates the founding of Rome at only around 753 BC, the site has been inhabited for much longer, making it one of the oldest continuously occupied sites in Europe. The citys early population originated from a mix of Latins, Etruscans and it was first called The Eternal City by the Roman poet Tibullus in the 1st century BC, and the expression was also taken up by Ovid, Virgil, and Livy. Rome is also called the Caput Mundi, due to that, Rome became first one of the major centres of the Italian Renaissance, and then the birthplace of both the Baroque style and Neoclassicism. Famous artists, painters, sculptors and architects made Rome the centre of their activity, in 1871 Rome became the capital of the Kingdom of Italy, and in 1946 that of the Italian Republic. Rome has the status of a global city, Rome ranked in 2014 as the 14th-most-visited city in the world, 3rd most visited in the European Union, and the most popular tourist attraction in Italy. Its historic centre is listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site, monuments and museums such as the Vatican Museums and the Colosseum are among the worlds most visited tourist destinations with both locations receiving millions of tourists a year. Rome hosted the 1960 Summer Olympics and is the seat of United Nations Food, however, it is a possibility that the name Romulus was actually derived from Rome itself. As early as the 4th century, there have been alternate theories proposed on the origin of the name Roma. There is archaeological evidence of occupation of the Rome area from approximately 14,000 years ago. Evidence of stone tools, pottery and stone weapons attest to about 10,000 years of human presence, several excavations support the view that Rome grew from pastoral settlements on the Palatine Hill built above the area of the future Roman Forum. Between the end of the age and the beginning of the Iron age. However, none of them had yet an urban quality, nowadays, there is a wide consensus that the city was gradually born through the aggregation of several villages around the largest one, placed above the Palatine. All these happenings, which according to the excavations took place more or less around the mid of the 8th century BC. Despite recent excavations at the Palatine hill, the view that Rome has been indeed founded with an act of will as the legend suggests in the middle of the 8th century BC remains a fringe hypothesis. Traditional stories handed down by the ancient Romans themselves explain the earliest history of their city in terms of legend and myth
3.
Roman Empire
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Civil wars and executions continued, culminating in the victory of Octavian, Caesars adopted son, over Mark Antony and Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC and the annexation of Egypt. Octavians power was then unassailable and in 27 BC the Roman Senate formally granted him overarching power, the imperial period of Rome lasted approximately 1,500 years compared to the 500 years of the Republican era. The first two centuries of the empires existence were a period of unprecedented political stability and prosperity known as the Pax Romana, following Octavians victory, the size of the empire was dramatically increased. After the assassination of Caligula in 41, the senate briefly considered restoring the republic, under Claudius, the empire invaded Britannia, its first major expansion since Augustus. Vespasian emerged triumphant in 69, establishing the Flavian dynasty, before being succeeded by his son Titus and his short reign was followed by the long reign of his brother Domitian, who was eventually assassinated. The senate then appointed the first of the Five Good Emperors, the empire reached its greatest extent under Trajan, the second in this line. A period of increasing trouble and decline began with the reign of Commodus, Commodus assassination in 192 triggered the Year of the Five Emperors, of which Septimius Severus emerged victorious. The assassination of Alexander Severus in 235 led to the Crisis of the Third Century in which 26 men were declared emperor by the Roman Senate over a time span. It was not until the reign of Diocletian that the empire was fully stabilized with the introduction of the Tetrarchy, which saw four emperors rule the empire at once. This arrangement was unsuccessful, leading to a civil war that was finally ended by Constantine I. Constantine subsequently shifted the capital to Byzantium, which was renamed Constantinople in his honour and it remained the capital of the east until its demise. Constantine also adopted Christianity which later became the state religion of the empire. However, Augustulus was never recognized by his Eastern colleague, and separate rule in the Western part of the empire ceased to exist upon the death of Julius Nepos. The Eastern Roman Empire endured for another millennium, eventually falling to the Ottoman Turks in 1453, the Roman Empire was among the most powerful economic, cultural, political and military forces in the world of its time. It was one of the largest empires in world history, at its height under Trajan, it covered 5 million square kilometres. It held sway over an estimated 70 million people, at that time 21% of the entire population. Throughout the European medieval period, attempts were made to establish successors to the Roman Empire, including the Empire of Romania, a Crusader state. Rome had begun expanding shortly after the founding of the republic in the 6th century BC, then, it was an empire long before it had an emperor
4.
Appian Way
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The Appian Way was one of the earliest and strategically most important Roman roads of the ancient republic. It connected Rome to Brindisi, in southeast Italy and its importance is indicated by its common name, recorded by Statius, Appia longarum. The Appian Way was used as a route for military supplies since its construction for that purpose in 312 B. C. The Appian Way was the first long road built specifically to transport troops outside the region of greater Rome. The few roads outside the city were Etruscan and went mainly to Etruria. By the late Republic, the Romans had expanded over most of Italy and were masters of road construction, Rome had an affinity for the people of Campania, who, like themselves, traced their backgrounds to the Etruscans. The Samnite Wars were instigated by the Samnites when Rome attempted to ally itself with the city of Capua in Campania, the Italic speakers in Latium had long ago been subdued and incorporated into the Roman state. They were responsible for changing Rome from a primarily Etruscan to a primarily Italic state, dense populations of sovereign Samnites remained in the mountains north of Capua, which is just north of the Greek city of Neapolis. Around 343 BC, Rome and Capua attempted to form an alliance, the Samnites reacted with military force. Between Capua and Rome lay the Pontine Marshes, a swamp infested with malaria, a tortuous coastal road wound between Ostia at the mouth of the Tiber and Neapolis. The via Latina followed its ancient and scarcely more accessible path along the foothills of Monti Laziali and Monti Lepini, in the First Samnite War the Romans found they could not support or resupply troops in the field against the Samnites across the marsh. A revolt of the Latin League drained their resources further and they gave up the attempted alliance and settled with Samnium. The Romans were only biding their time while they looked for a solution, the first answer was the colonia, a cultivation of settlers from Rome, who would maintain a permanent base of operations. The Second Samnite War erupted when Rome attempted to place a colony at Cales in 334, the Samnites, now a major power after defeating the Greeks of Tarentum, occupied Neapolis to try to ensure its loyalty. The Neapolitans appealed to Rome, which sent an army and expelled the Samnites from Neapolis, in 312 BC, Appius Claudius Caecus became censor at Rome. He was of the gens Claudia, who were descended from the Sabines taken into the early Roman state. He had been given the name of the ancestor of the gens. He was a populist, i. e. an advocate of the common people, a man of inner perspicacity, in the years of success he was said to have lost his outer vision and thus acquired the name caecus, blind
5.
Saint Peter
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Saint Peter, also known as Simon Peter, Simeon, or Simōn pronunciation, according to the New Testament, was one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus Christ, leaders of the early Christian Great Church. Hippolytus of Rome, a 3rd-century theologian, gave him the title of Apostle of the Apostles, according to Catholic teaching, Peter was ordained by Jesus in the Rock of My Church dialogue in Matthew 16,18. He is traditionally counted as the first Bishop of Rome and by Eastern Christian tradition also as the first Patriarch of Antioch. The ancient Christian churches all venerate Peter as a saint and as founder of the Church of Antioch. The New Testament indicates that Peter was the son of John and was from the village of Bethsaida in the province of Galilee or Gaulanitis and his brother Andrew was also an apostle. According to New Testament accounts, Peter was one of twelve apostles chosen by Jesus from his first disciples, originally a fisherman, he played a leadership role and was with Jesus during events witnessed by only a few apostles, such as the Transfiguration. According to the gospels, Peter confessed Jesus as the Messiah, was part of Jesuss inner circle, thrice denied Jesus and wept bitterly once he realised his deed, according to Christian tradition, Peter was crucified in Rome under Emperor Nero Augustus Caesar. It is traditionally held that he was crucified upside down at his own request, Tradition holds that he was crucified at the site of the Clementine Chapel. His remains are said to be contained in the underground Confessio of St. Peters Basilica. According to Catholic doctrine, the direct successor to Saint Peter is the incumbent pope. Two general epistles in the New Testament are ascribed to Peter, the Gospel of Mark was traditionally thought to show the influence of Peters preaching and eyewitness memories. Peters original name was Shimon or Simeon and he was later given the name Peter, New Testament Greek Πέτρος derived from πέτρα, which means rock. In the Latin translation of the Bible this became Petrus, a form of the feminine petra. Another version of this name is Aramaic, , after his name in Hellenised Aramaic. The English, Dutch and German Peter, French Pierre, the Italian Pietro, the Spanish and Portuguese Pedro, the Syriac or Aramaic word for rock is kepa, which in Greek became Πέτρος, also meaning rock. He is also known as Simon Peter, Cephas and Kepha, both Cephas and Kepha also mean rock. In the New Testament, he is among the first of the disciples called during Jesus ministry, Peter became the first listed apostle ordained by Jesus in the early church. Peter was a fisherman in Bethsaida and he was named Simon, son of Jonah or John
6.
Paul the Apostle
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Paul the Apostle, commonly known as Saint Paul, and also known by his native name Saul of Tarsus was an apostle who taught the gospel of the Christ to the first century world. He is generally considered one of the most important figures of the Apostolic Age, in the mid-30s to the mid-50s AD, he founded several churches in Asia Minor and Europe. Paul took advantage of his status as both a Jew and a Roman citizen to minister to both Jewish and Roman audiences, according to writings in the New Testament, Paul was dedicated to the persecution of the early disciples of Jesus in the area of Jerusalem. He was struck blind but, after three days, his sight was restored by Ananias of Damascus, and Paul began to preach that Jesus of Nazareth is the Jewish Messiah, approximately half of the book of Acts deals with Pauls life and works. Fourteen of the books in the New Testament have traditionally been attributed to Paul. Seven of the epistles are undisputed by scholars as being authentic, Pauline authorship of the Epistle to the Hebrews is not asserted in the Epistle itself and was already doubted in the 2nd and 3rd centuries. It was almost unquestioningly accepted from the 5th to the 16th centuries that Paul was the author of Hebrews, but that view is now almost universally rejected by scholars. The other six are believed by scholars to have come from followers writing in his name. Other scholars argue that the idea of an author for the disputed epistles raises many problems. Today, Pauls epistles continue to be roots of the theology, worship, and pastoral life in the Catholic and Protestant traditions of the West. Augustine of Hippo developed Pauls idea that salvation is based on faith, martin Luthers interpretation of Pauls writings influenced Luthers doctrine of sola fide. The main source for information about Pauls life is the material found in his epistles, however, the epistles contain little information about Pauls past. The book of Acts recounts more information but leaves several parts of Pauls life out of its narrative, such as his probable, some scholars believe Acts also contradicts Pauls epistles on multiple accounts, in particular concerning the frequency of Pauls visits to the church in Jerusalem. It has been assumed that Sauls name was changed when he converted from Judaism to Christianity. His Jewish name was Saul, perhaps after the biblical King Saul, a fellow Benjamite, according to the Book of Acts, he inherited Roman citizenship from his father. As a Roman citizen, he bore the Latin name of Paul—in biblical Greek, Παῦλος. It was quite usual for the Jews of that time to have two names, one Hebrew, the other Latin or Greek. Jesus called him Saul, Saul in the Hebrew tongue in the book of Acts, later, in a vision to Ananias of Damascus, the Lord referred to him as Saul, of Tarsus
7.
Latin
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Latin is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. The Latin alphabet is derived from the Etruscan and Greek alphabets, Latin was originally spoken in Latium, in the Italian Peninsula. Through the power of the Roman Republic, it became the dominant language, Vulgar Latin developed into the Romance languages, such as Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, French, and Romanian. Latin, Italian and French have contributed many words to the English language, Latin and Ancient Greek roots are used in theology, biology, and medicine. By the late Roman Republic, Old Latin had been standardised into Classical Latin, Vulgar Latin was the colloquial form spoken during the same time and attested in inscriptions and the works of comic playwrights like Plautus and Terence. Late Latin is the language from the 3rd century. Later, Early Modern Latin and Modern Latin evolved, Latin was used as the language of international communication, scholarship, and science until well into the 18th century, when it began to be supplanted by vernaculars. Ecclesiastical Latin remains the language of the Holy See and the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church. Today, many students, scholars and members of the Catholic clergy speak Latin fluently and it is taught in primary, secondary and postsecondary educational institutions around the world. The language has been passed down through various forms, some inscriptions have been published in an internationally agreed, monumental, multivolume series, the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum. Authors and publishers vary, but the format is about the same, volumes detailing inscriptions with a critical apparatus stating the provenance, the reading and interpretation of these inscriptions is the subject matter of the field of epigraphy. The works of several hundred ancient authors who wrote in Latin have survived in whole or in part and they are in part the subject matter of the field of classics. The Cat in the Hat, and a book of fairy tales, additional resources include phrasebooks and resources for rendering everyday phrases and concepts into Latin, such as Meissners Latin Phrasebook. The Latin influence in English has been significant at all stages of its insular development. From the 16th to the 18th centuries, English writers cobbled together huge numbers of new words from Latin and Greek words, dubbed inkhorn terms, as if they had spilled from a pot of ink. Many of these words were used once by the author and then forgotten, many of the most common polysyllabic English words are of Latin origin through the medium of Old French. Romance words make respectively 59%, 20% and 14% of English, German and those figures can rise dramatically when only non-compound and non-derived words are included. Accordingly, Romance words make roughly 35% of the vocabulary of Dutch, Roman engineering had the same effect on scientific terminology as a whole
8.
Catacombs of Rome
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The Catacombs of Rome are ancient catacombs, underground burial places under Rome, Italy, of which there are at least forty, some discovered only in recent decades. The Etruscans, like many other European peoples, used to bury their dead in underground chambers, the original Roman custom was cremation, after which the burnt remains were kept in a pot, ash-chest or urn, often in a columbarium. From about the 2nd century AD, inhumation became more fashionable, in graves or sarcophagi, often elaborately carved, Christians also preferred burial to cremation because of their belief in bodily resurrection at the Second Coming. The Jewish catacombs are similarly important for the study of Jewish culture at this period, a number of dubious relics of catacomb saints were promoted after the rediscovery of the catacombs. The Etruscans, like many other European people, used to bury their dead in underground chambers, the original Roman custom was cremation, after which the burnt remains were kept in a pot, ash-chest or urn, often in a columbarium. From about the 2nd century AD, inhumation became more fashionable, in graves or sarcophagi, often elaborately carved, Christians also preferred burial to cremation because of their belief in bodily resurrection. The first large-scale catacombs in the vicinity of Rome were excavated from the 2nd century onwards and they were carved through tufo, a soft volcanic rock, outside the walls of the city, because Roman law forbade burial places within city limits. The pagan custom was to incinerate corpses, while early Christians, since most Christians and Jews at that time belonged to the lower classes or were slaves, they usually lacked the resources to buy land for burial purposes. Instead, networks of tunnels were dug in the layers of tufo which occurred naturally on the outskirts of Rome. There are sixty known subterranean burial chambers in Rome and they were built outside the walls along main Roman roads, like the Via Appia, the Via Ostiense, the Via Labicana, the Via Tiburtina, and the Via Nomentana. Names of the catacombs – like St Calixtus and St Sebastian, about 80% of the excavations used for Christian burials date to after the time of the persecutions. Excavators, no slaves, built vast systems of galleries and passages on top of each other. They lie 7–19 metres below the surface in an area of more than 2.4 square kilometres, narrow steps that descend as many as four stories join the levels. Passages are about 2.5 by 1 metre, burial niches were carved into walls. They are 40–60 centimetres high and 120–150 centimetres long, bodies were placed in chambers in stone sarcophagi in their clothes and bound in linen. Then the chamber was sealed with a slab bearing the name, age, the catacomb of Saint Agnes is a small church. Some families were able to construct cubicula which would house various loculi, another excellent place for artistic programs were the arcosolia. In 380, Christianity became a state religion, at first, many still desired to be buried in chambers alongside the martyrs
9.
Catacombs of Paris
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The Catacombs of Paris are underground ossuaries in Paris, France, which hold the remains of more than six million people in a small part of the ancient Mines of Paris tunnel network. Nightly processions of bones from 1786 to 1788 transferred remains from cemeteries to the reinforced tunnels, the Catacombs are among the 14 City of Paris Museums managed by Paris Musées since January 1,2013. The catacombs are known formally as lOssuaire Municipal or Catacombes officiels and have been called The Worlds Largest Grave due to the number of remains buried. Although the ossuary comprises only a section of the underground carrières de Paris. Paris earliest burial grounds were to the outskirts of the Roman-era Left Bank city. Thus, instead of burying its dead away from inhabited areas as usual, by the end of the same century Saints Innocents was neighbour to the principal Parisan marketplace Les Halles, and already filled to overflowing. To make room for more burials, the long-dead were exhumed and their bones packed into the roofs, much of the Left Bank area rests upon rich Lutetian limestone deposits. This stone built much of the city, but it was extracted in suburban locations away from any habitation, Paris had annexed its suburbs many times over the centuries, and by the 18th century many of its arrondissements were or included previously mined territories. This resulted in the creation of the inspection Générale des Carrières service, the need to eliminate Les Innocents gained urgency from May 30,1780, when a basement wall in a property adjoining the cemetery collapsed under the weight of the mass grave behind it. The cemetery was closed to the public and all intra muros burials were forbidden after 1780, the problem of what to do with the remains crowding intra muros cemeteries was still unresolved. Lenoir endorsed the idea of moving Parisian dead to the subterranean passageways that were renovated during 1782, after deciding to further renovate the Tombe-Issoire passageways for their future role as an underground sepulchre, the idea became law during late 1785. It would take two years to empty the majority of Paris cemeteries, cemeteries whose remains were moved to the Catacombs include Saints-Innocents, Saint-Étienne-des-Grès, Madeleine Cemetery, Errancis Cemetery, and Notre-Dame-des-Blancs-Manteaux. In addition to directing the stacking of skulls and femurs into the patterns seen in the catacombs today, also created was a room dedicated to the display of the various minerals found under Paris, and another showing various skeletal deformities found during the catacombs creation and renovation. Later they opened for daily visits. After an incident of vandalism, the Catacombs were closed to the public during September 2009, the entry to the catacombs is in the western pavilion of the former Barrière dEnfer city gate. Soon after, they find themselves before a stone portal, the ossuary entry, CEST İCİ LEMPİRE DE LA MORT. Beyond begin the halls and caverns of walls of carefully arranged bones, along the way there are other monuments created in the years before catacomb renovations, such as a source-gathering fountain baptised La Samaritaine because of later-added engravings. There are also rusty gates blocking passages leading to other parts of the catacombs – many of these are either un-renovated or were too un-navigable for regular tours
10.
Christian martyrs
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A Christian martyr is a person who is killed for following Jesus. In early church years, this occurred through stoning, crucifixion, burning at the stake or other forms of torture. The word martyr comes from the Greek word μάρτυς, mártys, at first, the term applied to Apostles. Once Christians started to undergo persecution, the term came to be applied to those who suffered hardships for their faith, finally, it was restricted to those who had been killed for their faith. The early Christian period before Constantine I was the Age of martyrs, Early Christians venerated martyrs as powerful intercessors, and their utterances were treasured as inspired by the Holy Spirit. The Greek word martus signifies a witness who testifies to a fact of which he has knowledge from personal observation and it is in this sense that the term first appears in Christian literature, the Apostles were witnesses of all that they had observed in the public life of Christ. The Apostles, from the beginning, faced grave dangers, until eventually almost all suffered death for their convictions. Thus, within the lifetime of the Apostles, the term came to be used in the sense of a witness who at any time might be called upon to deny what he testified to. St. John, at the end of the first century, the 2nd-century Church Father Tertullian wrote that the blood of martyrs is the seed of the Church, implying that the martyrs willing sacrifice of their lives leads to the conversion of others. Relics of the saints are still revered in the Catholic and Orthodox Churches, the lives of the martyrs became a source of inspiration for some Christians, and their relics were honored. Numerous crypts and chapels in the Roman catacombs bear witness to the veneration for those champions of freedom of conscience. Special commemoration services, at which the holy Sacrifice were offered over their tombs gave rise to the time honoured custom of consecrating altars by enclosing in them the relics of martyrs, some felt they should not, while others said they could. In the end, it was agreed to them in after a period of penance. The re-admittance of the “lapsed” became a moment in the Church because it allowed the sacrament of repentance. This issue caused the Donatist and Novatianist schisms, Martyrdom for the faith. became a central feature in the Christian experience. “Notions of persecution by the world. run deep in the Christian tradition, the doctrines of the apostles brought the Early Church into conflict with some Jewish religious leaders. This eventually led to their expulsion from the synagogues, Acts records the martyrdom of the Christian leaders, Stephen and James of Zebedee. The first known Christian martyr was St. Stephen as recorded in the Acts 6, Stephen was accused of blasphemy and denounced the Sanhedrin as stiff-necked people who, just as their ancestors had done, persecute prophets
11.
Paris Catacombs
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The Catacombs of Paris are underground ossuaries in Paris, France, which hold the remains of more than six million people in a small part of the ancient Mines of Paris tunnel network. Nightly processions of bones from 1786 to 1788 transferred remains from cemeteries to the reinforced tunnels, the Catacombs are among the 14 City of Paris Museums managed by Paris Musées since January 1,2013. The catacombs are known formally as lOssuaire Municipal or Catacombes officiels and have been called The Worlds Largest Grave due to the number of remains buried. Although the ossuary comprises only a section of the underground carrières de Paris. Paris earliest burial grounds were to the outskirts of the Roman-era Left Bank city. Thus, instead of burying its dead away from inhabited areas as usual, by the end of the same century Saints Innocents was neighbour to the principal Parisan marketplace Les Halles, and already filled to overflowing. To make room for more burials, the long-dead were exhumed and their bones packed into the roofs, much of the Left Bank area rests upon rich Lutetian limestone deposits. This stone built much of the city, but it was extracted in suburban locations away from any habitation, Paris had annexed its suburbs many times over the centuries, and by the 18th century many of its arrondissements were or included previously mined territories. This resulted in the creation of the inspection Générale des Carrières service, the need to eliminate Les Innocents gained urgency from May 30,1780, when a basement wall in a property adjoining the cemetery collapsed under the weight of the mass grave behind it. The cemetery was closed to the public and all intra muros burials were forbidden after 1780, the problem of what to do with the remains crowding intra muros cemeteries was still unresolved. Lenoir endorsed the idea of moving Parisian dead to the subterranean passageways that were renovated during 1782, after deciding to further renovate the Tombe-Issoire passageways for their future role as an underground sepulchre, the idea became law during late 1785. It would take two years to empty the majority of Paris cemeteries, cemeteries whose remains were moved to the Catacombs include Saints-Innocents, Saint-Étienne-des-Grès, Madeleine Cemetery, Errancis Cemetery, and Notre-Dame-des-Blancs-Manteaux. In addition to directing the stacking of skulls and femurs into the patterns seen in the catacombs today, also created was a room dedicated to the display of the various minerals found under Paris, and another showing various skeletal deformities found during the catacombs creation and renovation. Later they opened for daily visits. After an incident of vandalism, the Catacombs were closed to the public during September 2009, the entry to the catacombs is in the western pavilion of the former Barrière dEnfer city gate. Soon after, they find themselves before a stone portal, the ossuary entry, CEST İCİ LEMPİRE DE LA MORT. Beyond begin the halls and caverns of walls of carefully arranged bones, along the way there are other monuments created in the years before catacomb renovations, such as a source-gathering fountain baptised La Samaritaine because of later-added engravings. There are also rusty gates blocking passages leading to other parts of the catacombs – many of these are either un-renovated or were too un-navigable for regular tours
12.
Jesus
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Jesus, also referred to as Jesus of Nazareth or Jesus Christ, was a Jewish preacher and religious leader who became the central figure of Christianity. Christians believe him to be the Son of God and the awaited Messiah prophesied in the Old Testament, Jesus was a Galilean Jew who was baptized by John the Baptist and subsequently began his own ministry, preaching his message orally and often being referred to as rabbi. He was arrested and tried by the Jewish authorities, and was crucified by the order of Pontius Pilate, Jesus debated fellow Jews on how to best follow God, performed healings, taught in parables and gathered followers. After his death, his followers believed he rose from the dead, and his birth is celebrated annually on December 25 as a holiday known as Christmas, his crucifixion is honored on Good Friday, and his resurrection is celebrated on Easter. The widely used calendar era AD, from the Latin anno Domini, most Christians believe Jesus enables humans to be reconciled to God. The Nicene Creed asserts that Jesus will judge the living and the dead either before or after their bodily resurrection, the great majority of Christians worship Jesus as the incarnation of God the Son, the second of three persons of a Divine Trinity. A minority of Christian denominations reject Trinitarianism, wholly or partly, in Islam, Jesus is considered one of Gods important prophets and the Messiah. Muslims believe Jesus was a bringer of scripture and was born of a virgin but was not the Son of God, the Quran states that Jesus himself never claimed divinity. To most Muslims, Jesus was not crucified but was raised into Heaven by God. Judaism rejects the belief that Jesus was the awaited Messiah, arguing that he did not fulfill Messianic prophecies, a typical Jew in Jesus time had only one name, sometimes supplemented with the fathers name or the individuals hometown. Thus, in the New Testament, Jesus is commonly referred to as Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus neighbors in Nazareth refer to him as the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, the carpenters son, or Josephs son. In John, the disciple Philip refers to him as Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth, the name Jesus is derived from the Latin Iesus, a transliteration of the Greek Ἰησοῦς. The Greek form is a rendering of the Hebrew ישוע, a variant of the earlier name יהושע, the name Yeshua appears to have been in use in Judea at the time of the birth of Jesus. The 1st century works of historian Flavius Josephus, who wrote in Koine Greek, the etymology of Jesus name in the context of the New Testament is generally given as Yahweh is salvation. Since early Christianity, Christians have commonly referred to Jesus as Jesus Christ, the word Christ is derived from the Greek Χριστός, which is a translation of the Hebrew משיח, meaning the anointed and usually transliterated into English as Messiah. Christians designate Jesus as Christ because they believe he is the Messiah, whose arrival is prophesied in the Hebrew Bible, in postbiblical usage, Christ became viewed as a name—one part of Jesus Christ—but originally it was a title. The term Christian has been in use since the 1st century, the four canonical gospels are the only substantial sources for the life and message of Jesus. Acts of the Apostles refers to the ministry of Jesus
13.
Apostle (Christian)
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In Christian theology and ecclesiology, the apostles, particularly the Twelve Apostles, were the primary historical disciples of Jesus, the central figure in Christianity. During the life and ministry of Jesus in the 1st century AD, the word disciple is sometimes used interchangeably with apostle, for instance, the Gospel of John makes no distinction between the two terms. In modern usage, prominent missionaries are often called apostles, a practice which stems from the Latin equivalent of apostle, i. e. missio, for example, Saint Patrick was the Apostle of Ireland, and Saint Boniface was the Apostle to the Germans. The commissioning of the Twelve Apostles during the ministry of Jesus is recorded in the Synoptic Gospels, after his resurrection, Jesus sent 11 of them by the Great Commission to spread his teachings to all nations. This event is called the Dispersion of the Apostles. There is also an Eastern Christian tradition derived from the Gospel of Luke of there having been as many as 70 apostles during the time of Jesus ministry. Prominent figures in early Christianity, notably Paul, were called apostles. The period of early Christianity during the lifetimes of the apostles is called the Apostolic Age, during the 1st century AD, the apostles established churches throughout the territories of the Roman Empire and, according to tradition, through the Middle East, Africa, and India. In his writings, the epistles to Christian churches throughout the Levant, Paul did not restrict the term apostle to the Twelve, the restricted usage appears in the Revelation to John. By the 2nd century AD, association with the apostles was esteemed as an evidence of authority, Churches which are believed to have been founded by one of the apostles are known as apostolic sees. Pauls epistles were accepted as scripture, and two of the four gospels were associated with apostles, as were other New Testament works. Various Christian texts, such as the Didache and the Apostolic Constitutions, were attributed to the apostles, bishops traced their lines of succession back to individual apostles, who were said to have dispersed from Jerusalem and established churches across great territories. Christian bishops have traditionally claimed authority deriving, by apostolic succession, early Church Fathers who came to be associated with apostles, such as Pope Clement I with St. Peter, are referred to as the Apostolic Fathers. The Apostles Creed, popular in the West, was said to have composed by the apostles themselves. The word apostle comes from the Greek word ἀπόστολος, formed from the prefix ἀπό- and root στέλλω and originally meaning messenger and it has, however, a stronger sense than the word messenger, and is closer to a delegate. The Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament argues that its Christian use translated a Jewish position known in Hebrew as the sheliach and this ecclesiastical meaning of the word was later translated into Latin as missio, the source of the English missionary. In the New Testament, the names of the majority of the apostles are Hebrew names, Mark 6, 7-13 states that Jesus initially sent out these twelve in pairs to towns in Galilee. The text states that their initial instructions were to heal the sick and their carrying of just a staff is sometimes given as the reason for the use by Christian bishops of a staff of office in those denominations that believe they maintain an apostolic succession
14.
Chi Rho
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The Chi-Rho symbol was used by the Roman emperor Constantine I as part of a military standard. Constantines standard was known as the Labarum, Early symbols similar to the Chi Rho were the Staurogram and the IX monogram. In pre-Christian times, the Chi-Rho symbol was also to mark a particularly valuable or relevant passage in the margin of a page, some coins of Ptolemy III Euergetes were marked with a Chi-Rho. The Chi Rho symbol has two Unicode codepoints, U+2627 ☧ Chi Rho in the Miscellaneous symbols block and U+2CE9 ⳩ Coptic symbol Khi Ro in the Coptic block and that very day Constantines army fought the forces of Maxentius and won the Battle of the Milvian Bridge, outside Rome. Eusebius of Caesarea gave two different accounts of the events, in a memoir of the Roman emperor that Eusebius wrote after Constantines death, a miraculous appearance is said to have come in Gaul long before the Battle of the Milvian Bridge. At noon, Constantine saw a cross of light imposed over the sun, attached to it, in Greek characters, was the saying Τούτῳ Νίκα. Not only Constantine, but the army saw the miracle. That night, Christ appeared to the Roman emperor in a dream and told him to make a replica of the sign he had seen in the sky, which would be a sure defence in battle. Eusebius wrote in the Vita that Constantine himself had told him this story and confirmed it with oaths late in life when I was deemed worthy of his acquaintance, indeed, says Eusebius, had anyone else told this story, it would not have been easy to accept it. Eusebius also left a description of the labarum, the standard which incorporated the Chi-Rho sign. After Constantine, the Chi-Rho became part of the imperial insignia. Archaeologists have uncovered evidence demonstrating that the Chi-Rho was emblazoned on the helmets of some Late Roman soldiers, coins and medallions minted during Emperor Constantines reign also bore the Chi-Rho. By the year 350, the Chi-Rho began to be used on Christian sarcophagi, the usurper Magnentius appears to have been the first to use the Chi-Rho monogram flanked by Alpha and Omega, on the reverse of some coins minted in 353. In Roman Britannia, a mosaic pavement was uncovered at Hinton St. Mary, Dorset. Another Romano-British Chi-Rho, in fresco, was found at the site of a villa at Lullingstone, the symbol was also found on Late Roman Christian signet rings in Britain. Though the letters are one after the other and the X and P not combined in a monogram. Famous examples are in the Book of Kells and Book of Lindisfarne, the X was regarded as the crux decussata, a symbol of the cross, this idea is found in the works of Isidore of Seville and other patristic and Early Medieval writers. In some other works like the Carolingian Godescalc Evangelistary, XPS in sequential letters, Alpha and Omega Chi Rho Christian symbolism Christogram Ichthys Labarum Merchants mark Media related to Chi Rho at Wikimedia Commons
15.
Alpha and Omega
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Alpha and omega are the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, and a title of Christ and God in the Book of Revelation. This couple of letters are used as Christian symbols, and are combined with the Cross, Chi-rho. The term Alpha and Omega comes from the phrase I am the alpha and the omega, the first part of this phrase is first found in Chapter 1 verse 8, and is found in every manuscript of Revelation that has 1v8. It is, therefore, omitted in modern translations. Scholar Robert Young stated, with regard to I am the Alpha and Omega in 1v11, Alpha and omega are the first and last letters, respectively, of the classical Greek alphabet. Thus, twice when the phrase I am the alpha and the omega appears it is further clarified with the phrase, the beginning. The first and last letters of the Greek alphabet were used because the book of Revelation is in the New Testament and this phrase is interpreted by many Christians to mean that Jesus has existed for all eternity or that God is eternal. Though many commentators and dictionaries ascribe the title the alpha and the omega to both God and to Christ, some sources argue otherwise. Barnes’ Notes on the New Testament claims, It cannot be certain that the writer meant to refer to the Lord Jesus specifically here. There is no real incongruity in supposing, also, that the writer meant to refer to God as such. Most Christian denominations also teach that the title applies to both Jesus and his Father, the letters Alpha and Omega in juxtaposition are often used as a Christian visual symbol. The symbols were used in early Christianity and appear in the Roman catacombs, in fact, despite always being in Greek, the letters became more common in Western than Eastern Orthodox Christian art. They are often shown to the left and right of Christs head, sometimes within his halo, where they take the place of the Christogram used in Orthodox art. In Rabbinic literature, the word emet, one of the names of God in Judaism, has interpreted as consisting of the first, middle. The Quran gives alAwwal, meaning The First and alAkhir, meaning The Last as two of the names of God,57,3
16.
Australia
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Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and numerous smaller islands. It is the worlds sixth-largest country by total area, the neighbouring countries are Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and East Timor to the north, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu to the north-east, and New Zealand to the south-east. Australias capital is Canberra, and its largest urban area is Sydney, for about 50,000 years before the first British settlement in the late 18th century, Australia was inhabited by indigenous Australians, who spoke languages classifiable into roughly 250 groups. The population grew steadily in subsequent decades, and by the 1850s most of the continent had been explored, on 1 January 1901, the six colonies federated, forming the Commonwealth of Australia. Australia has since maintained a liberal democratic political system that functions as a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy comprising six states. The population of 24 million is highly urbanised and heavily concentrated on the eastern seaboard, Australia has the worlds 13th-largest economy and ninth-highest per capita income. With the second-highest human development index globally, the country highly in quality of life, health, education, economic freedom. The name Australia is derived from the Latin Terra Australis a name used for putative lands in the southern hemisphere since ancient times, the Dutch adjectival form Australische was used in a Dutch book in Batavia in 1638, to refer to the newly discovered lands to the south. On 12 December 1817, Macquarie recommended to the Colonial Office that it be formally adopted, in 1824, the Admiralty agreed that the continent should be known officially as Australia. The first official published use of the term Australia came with the 1830 publication of The Australia Directory and these first inhabitants may have been ancestors of modern Indigenous Australians. The Torres Strait Islanders, ethnically Melanesian, were originally horticulturists, the northern coasts and waters of Australia were visited sporadically by fishermen from Maritime Southeast Asia. The first recorded European sighting of the Australian mainland, and the first recorded European landfall on the Australian continent, are attributed to the Dutch. The first ship and crew to chart the Australian coast and meet with Aboriginal people was the Duyfken captained by Dutch navigator, Willem Janszoon. He sighted the coast of Cape York Peninsula in early 1606, the Dutch charted the whole of the western and northern coastlines and named the island continent New Holland during the 17th century, but made no attempt at settlement. William Dampier, an English explorer and privateer, landed on the north-west coast of New Holland in 1688, in 1770, James Cook sailed along and mapped the east coast, which he named New South Wales and claimed for Great Britain. The first settlement led to the foundation of Sydney, and the exploration, a British settlement was established in Van Diemens Land, now known as Tasmania, in 1803, and it became a separate colony in 1825. The United Kingdom formally claimed the part of Western Australia in 1828. Separate colonies were carved from parts of New South Wales, South Australia in 1836, Victoria in 1851, the Northern Territory was founded in 1911 when it was excised from South Australia
17.
Trinity College, Melbourne
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Trinity College is the oldest residential college of the University of Melbourne. Founded in 1872 on a site granted to the Church of England for the university, Trinity is unique among Australian university colleges in the scope of its educational programs, Trinity College was founded in 1872 by the first Anglican Bishop of Melbourne, Charles Perry. The college was affiliated with the University of Melbourne in 1876, the Trinity College Theological School was founded by Bishop James Moorhouse in 1877. In 1883 the college became the first university college in Australia to admit women when Lilian Helen Alexander was accepted as a non-resident student. With the establishment of the Trinity Womens Hostel in 1886, Trinity admitted women as resident students, in 1989 the Trinity Education Centre, later renamed Trinity College Foundation Studies, was established to prepare international students for entry to the University of Melbourne. In 2011 Trinity commenced operating Edith Head Hall, formerly a hostel run by the Girls Friendly Society, since 2001, Trinity has also offered summer school programs to high school age students from around Australia and internationally. In 2010 the college hosted its first Juilliard Winter Jazz School and these short courses form the core of the Trinity Institute. Situated to the north of the university campus, Trinitys various ivy-clad stone and brick buildings surround a large grassed area. Foundation Studies Centre, Located at 33–35 Royal Parade, the FSC building has a number of tutorial rooms, literature, drama and history of ideas staff are located here. The building also has a student common room with sofas, tables,715 Swanston Street, Trinity occupies two floors of this building. It has two theatres and tutorial rooms. The Swanston Street building serves as a student welfare precinct, with the student welfare office, student counsellor, departments with staff located here are, examinations, extended programs, timetabling, mathematics, economics and chemistry. A computer lab can also be found here, the study area is often used for quiet study and lunch. Swanston Street also houses The Prayer Space – a room set aside for quiet reflection, prayer, facilities for ablutions are also provided for students of the Islamic faith. 199 Grattan Street, This is where student services is located, student services organises orientations, valedictories and excursions during term breaks to locations such as Mount Baw Baw, Uluru, the Great Ocean Road and Sydney. The building also has a room and a drama room. A number of staff are also located here. Also in this building is a student common room with table tennis and foosball facilities,29 Royal Parade, This is where most English for Academic Purposes classes are held
18.
Austria
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Austria, officially the Republic of Austria, is a federal republic and a landlocked country of over 8.7 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Hungary and Slovakia to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, the territory of Austria covers 83,879 km2. The terrain is mountainous, lying within the Alps, only 32% of the country is below 500 m. The majority of the population speaks local Bavarian dialects of German as their native language, other local official languages are Hungarian, Burgenland Croatian, and Slovene. The origins of modern-day Austria date back to the time of the Habsburg dynasty, from the time of the Reformation, many northern German princes, resenting the authority of the Emperor, used Protestantism as a flag of rebellion. Following Napoleons defeat, Prussia emerged as Austrias chief competitor for rule of a greater Germany, Austrias defeat by Prussia at the Battle of Königgrätz, during the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, cleared the way for Prussia to assert control over the rest of Germany. In 1867, the empire was reformed into Austria-Hungary, Austria was thus the first to go to war in the July Crisis, which would ultimately escalate into World War I. The First Austrian Republic was established in 1919, in 1938 Nazi Germany annexed Austria in the Anschluss. This lasted until the end of World War II in 1945, after which Germany was occupied by the Allies, in 1955, the Austrian State Treaty re-established Austria as a sovereign state, ending the occupation. In the same year, the Austrian Parliament created the Declaration of Neutrality which declared that the Second Austrian Republic would become permanently neutral, today, Austria is a parliamentary representative democracy comprising nine federal states. The capital and largest city, with a population exceeding 1.7 million, is Vienna, other major urban areas of Austria include Graz, Linz, Salzburg and Innsbruck. Austria is one of the richest countries in the world, with a nominal per capita GDP of $43,724, the country has developed a high standard of living and in 2014 was ranked 21st in the world for its Human Development Index. Austria has been a member of the United Nations since 1955, joined the European Union in 1995, Austria also signed the Schengen Agreement in 1995, and adopted the euro currency in 1999. The German name for Austria, Österreich, meant eastern realm in Old High German, and is cognate with the word Ostarrîchi and this word is probably a translation of Medieval Latin Marchia orientalis into a local dialect. Austria was a prefecture of Bavaria created in 976, the word Austria is a Latinisation of the German name and was first recorded in the 12th century. Accordingly, Norig would essentially mean the same as Ostarrîchi and Österreich, the Celtic name was eventually Latinised to Noricum after the Romans conquered the area that encloses most of modern-day Austria, around 15 BC. Noricum later became a Roman province in the mid-first century AD, heers hypothesis is not accepted by linguists. Settled in ancient times, the Central European land that is now Austria was occupied in pre-Roman times by various Celtic tribes, the Celtic kingdom of Noricum was later claimed by the Roman Empire and made a province
19.
St. Stephen's Cathedral, Vienna
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St. Stephens Cathedral is the mother church of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Vienna and the seat of the Archbishop of Vienna, Christoph Cardinal Schönborn, OP. Stephens Cathedral.5 metres below the surface, which were carbon-dated to the 4th century and this discovery suggests that an even older religious building on this site predated the St. Although the first structure was completed in 1160, major reconstruction and expansion lasted until 1511, from 1230 to 1245, the initial Romanesque structure was extended westward, the present-day west wall and Romanesque towers date from this period. The anniversary of this second consecration is commemorated each year by a ringing of the Pummerin bell for three minutes in the evening. In 1304, King Albert I ordered a Gothic three-nave choir to be constructed east of the church, under his son Duke Albert II, work continued on the Albertine choir, which was consecrated in 1340 on the 77th anniversary of the previous consecration. The middle nave is dedicated to St. Stephen and All Saints, while the north and south nave, are dedicated to St. Mary. Duke Rudolf IV, the Founder, Albert IIs son, expanded the choir again to increase the religious clout of Vienna, on 7 April 1359, Rudolf IV laid the cornerstone for a westward Gothic extension of the Albertine choir in the vicinity of the present south tower. This expansion would eventually encapsulate the entirety of the old church, and in 1430, the south tower was completed in 1433, and vaulting of the nave took place from 1446 to 1474. The foundation for a tower was laid in 1450, and construction began under master Lorenz Spenning. In 1722 during the reign of Karl VI, Pope Innocent XIII elevated the see to an archbishopric, on 12 April 1945, civilian looters lit fires in nearby shops as Soviet Army troops entered the city. The winds carried the fire to the cathedral where it damaged the roof. Fortunately, protective brick shells built around the pulpit, Frederick IIIs tomb, however, the Rollinger choir stalls, carved in 1487, could not be saved. Rebuilding began immediately, with a limited reopening 12 December 1948, built of limestone, the cathedral is 107 metres long,40 metres wide, and 136 metres tall at its highest point. Its construction lasted 65 years, from 1368 to 1433 and this emblem replaced earlier crescent and the six-pointed star emblem. The original emblem, as well as a couple of later ones, in 1578, the tower-stump was augmented with a Renaissance cap, nicknamed the water tower top by the Viennese. The tower now stands at 68 metres tall, roughly half the height of the south tower, the name for the towers derives from the fact that they were constructed from the rubble of old structures built by the Romans during their occupation of the area. The Roman Towers, together with the Giants Door, are the oldest parts of the church, the glory of St. Stephens Cathedral is its ornately patterned, richly coloured roof,111 metres long, and covered by 230,000 glazed tiles. Above the choir on the side of the building the tiles form a mosaic of the double-headed eagle that is symbolic of the empire ruled from Vienna by the Habsburg dynasty
20.
Czech Republic
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The Czech Republic, also known as Czechia, is a nation state in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west, Austria to the south, Slovakia to the east and Poland to the northeast. The Czech Republic covers an area of 78,866 square kilometres with mostly temperate continental climate and it is a unitary parliamentary republic, has 10.5 million inhabitants and the capital and largest city is Prague, with over 1.2 million residents. The Czech Republic includes the territories of Bohemia, Moravia. The Czech state was formed in the late 9th century as the Duchy of Bohemia under the Great Moravian Empire, after the fall of the Empire in 907, the centre of power transferred from Moravia to Bohemia under the Přemyslid dynasty. In 1002, the duchy was formally recognized as part of the Holy Roman Empire, becoming the Kingdom of Bohemia in 1198 and reaching its greatest territorial extent in the 14th century. Following the Battle of Mohács in 1526, the whole Crown of Bohemia was gradually integrated into the Habsburg Monarchy alongside the Archduchy of Austria, the Protestant Bohemian Revolt against the Catholic Habsburgs led to the Thirty Years War. After the Battle of the White Mountain, the Habsburgs consolidated their rule, reimposed Roman Catholicism, the Czech part of Czechoslovakia was occupied by Germany in World War II, and was liberated in 1945 by the armies of the Soviet Union and the United States. The Czech country lost the majority of its German-speaking inhabitants after they were expelled following the war, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia won the 1946 elections. Following the 1948 coup détat, Czechoslovakia became a one-party communist state under Soviet influence, in 1968, increasing dissatisfaction with the regime culminated in a reform movement known as the Prague Spring, which ended in a Soviet-led invasion. Czechoslovakia remained occupied until the 1989 Velvet Revolution, when the communist regime collapsed, on 6 March 1990, the Czech Socialistic Republic was renamed to the Czech Republic. On 1 January 1993, Czechoslovakia peacefully dissolved, with its constituent states becoming the independent states of the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic. The Czech Republic joined NATO in 1999 and the European Union in 2004, it is a member of the United Nations, the OECD, the OSCE, and it is a developed country with an advanced, high income economy and high living standards. The UNDP ranks the country 14th in inequality-adjusted human development, the Czech Republic also ranks as the 6th most peaceful country, while achieving strong performance in democratic governance. It has the lowest unemployment rate in the European Union, the traditional English name Bohemia derives from Latin Boiohaemum, which means home of the Boii. The current name comes from the endonym Čech, spelled Cžech until the reform in 1842. The name comes from the Slavic tribe and, according to legend, their leader Čech, the etymology of the word Čech can be traced back to the Proto-Slavic root *čel-, meaning member of the people, kinsman, thus making it cognate to the Czech word člověk. The country has traditionally divided into three lands, namely Bohemia in the west, Moravia in the southeast, and Czech Silesia in the northeast. Following the dissolution of Czechoslovakia at the end of 1992, the Czech part of the former nation found itself without a common single-word geographical name in English, the name Czechia /ˈtʃɛkiə/ was recommended by the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs
21.
Znojmo Catacombs
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The Znojmo Catacombs are a vast labyrinth of underground passageways, cellars and subcellars situated under the historic city of Znojmo, in the Czech Republic. They were initially developed for defensive purposes, the grottos date back to the 14th century, and were gradually expanded in the 15th century by connecting the individual cellars beneath the houses and palaces in the city into an elaborate labyrinth. The catacombs were initially created to protect the inhabitants of the city against invading forces, in some places the passageways led under the fortifications and out of the city, allowing the hidden inhabitants to escape from the town to search for food in times of siege. The subterranean caverns were adequately ventilated by air shafts, fireplaces in the cellars were connected to house chimneys. Smoke could be seen by enemies, emanating from seemingly empty houses, Znojmo inhabitants could survive for a long time in refuge due to the presence of wells and a drainage system in the catacombs. Later the cellars were used for storage, especially the storage of wine, currently the catacombs are a tourist attraction, with a portion of the cellars open to the public April to October for a fee. Odessa Catacombs Tunnel Underground city Rock cut architecture Znojmo Town Hall Tower Znojmo Catacombs
22.
Bosnia and Herzegovina
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Bosnia and Herzegovina, sometimes called Bosnia-Herzegovina, and, in short, often known informally as Bosnia, is a country in Southeastern Europe located on the Balkan Peninsula. Sarajevo is the capital and largest city, in the central and eastern interior of the country the geography is mountainous, in the northwest it is moderately hilly, and the northeast is predominantly flatland. The inland is a larger region and has a moderate continental climate, with hot summers and cold. The southern tip of the country has a Mediterranean climate and plain topography, Bosnia and Herzegovina is a region that traces permanent human settlement back to the Neolithic age, during and after which it was populated by several Illyrian and Celtic civilizations. Culturally, politically, and socially, the country has a rich history, the Ottomans brought Islam to the region, and altered much of the cultural and social outlook of the country. This was followed by annexation into the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, which lasted up until World War I. In the interwar period, Bosnia was part of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and after World War II, following the dissolution of Yugoslavia, the country proclaimed independence in 1992, which was followed by the Bosnian War, lasting until late 1995. The country is home to three ethnic groups or, officially, constituent peoples, as specified in the constitution. Bosniaks are the largest group of the three, with Serbs second and Croats third, a native of Bosnia and Herzegovina, regardless of ethnicity, is identified in English as a Bosnian. The terms Herzegovinian and Bosnian are maintained as a rather than ethnic distinction. Moreover, the country was simply called Bosnia until the Austro-Hungarian occupation at the end of the 19th century, Bosnia and Herzegovina has a bicameral legislature and a three-member Presidency composed of a member of each major ethnic group. The Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina is itself complex and consists of 10 cantons, additionally, the country has been a member of the Council of Europe since April 2002 and a founding member of the Mediterranean Union upon its establishment in July 2008. The name is believed to have derived from the hydronym of the river Bosna coursing through the Bosnian heartland. According to philologist Anton Mayer the name Bosna could be derived from Illyrian Bass-an-as which would be a diversion of the Proto-Indo-European root bos or bogh, meaning the running water. According to English medievalist William Miller the Slavic settlers in Bosnia adapted the Latin designation Basante, to their own idiom by calling the stream Bosna, the name Herzegovina originates from Bosnian magnate Stephen Vukčić Kosačas title, Herceg of Hum and the Coast. Hum, formerly Zahumlje, was a medieval principality that was conquered by the Bosnian Banate in the first half of the 14th century. Bosnia is located in the western Balkans, bordering Croatia to the north and west, Serbia to the east and it has a coastline about 20 kilometres long surrounding the city of Neum. It lies between latitudes 42° and 46° N, and longitudes 15° and 20° E, the countrys name comes from the two regions Bosnia and Herzegovina, which have a very vaguely defined border between them
23.
Egypt
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Egypt, officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia by a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. Egypt is a Mediterranean country bordered by the Gaza Strip and Israel to the northeast, the Gulf of Aqaba to the east, the Red Sea to the east and south, Sudan to the south, and Libya to the west. Across the Gulf of Aqaba lies Jordan, and across from the Sinai Peninsula lies Saudi Arabia, although Jordan and it is the worlds only contiguous Afrasian nation. Egypt has among the longest histories of any country, emerging as one of the worlds first nation states in the tenth millennium BC. Considered a cradle of civilisation, Ancient Egypt experienced some of the earliest developments of writing, agriculture, urbanisation, organised religion and central government. One of the earliest centres of Christianity, Egypt was Islamised in the century and remains a predominantly Muslim country. With over 92 million inhabitants, Egypt is the most populous country in North Africa and the Arab world, the third-most populous in Africa, and the fifteenth-most populous in the world. The great majority of its people live near the banks of the Nile River, an area of about 40,000 square kilometres, the large regions of the Sahara desert, which constitute most of Egypts territory, are sparsely inhabited. About half of Egypts residents live in areas, with most spread across the densely populated centres of greater Cairo, Alexandria. Modern Egypt is considered to be a regional and middle power, with significant cultural, political, and military influence in North Africa, the Middle East and the Muslim world. Egypts economy is one of the largest and most diversified in the Middle East, Egypt is a member of the United Nations, Non-Aligned Movement, Arab League, African Union, and Organisation of Islamic Cooperation. Miṣr is the Classical Quranic Arabic and modern name of Egypt. The name is of Semitic origin, directly cognate with other Semitic words for Egypt such as the Hebrew מִצְרַיִם, the oldest attestation of this name for Egypt is the Akkadian
24.
Catacombs of Kom el Shoqafa
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The catacombs of Kom Kom El Shoqafa is a historical archaeological site located in Alexandria, Egypt and is considered one of the Seven Wonders of the Middle Ages. The necropolis consists of a series of Alexandrian tombs, statues and archaeological objects of the Pharaonic funeral cult with Hellenistic and early Imperial Roman influences. A circular staircase, which was used to transport deceased bodies down the middle of it. The facility was used as a burial chamber from the 2nd century to the 4th century. To date, three sarcophagi have been found, along with human and animal remains which were added later. It is believed that the catacombs were intended for a single family. Another feature of the catacombs is the Hall of Caracalla, which contains the bones of young Christian men massacred by order of the emperor Caracalla in 215 AD. The catacombs were named Kom El Shoqafa, meaning Mound of Shards, because the used to contain a mound of shards of terra cotta which mostly consisted of jars. These objects were left by those visiting the tombs, who would bring food, however, they did not wish to carry these containers home from this place of death so they would break them. At the time of the discovery, heaps of broken plates were found. The catacombs lie on the necropolis of Alexandria and consist of three levels cut through solid rock, the third level being now completely underwater. The catacombs have a central shaft which opens off the vestibule. On the left is a triclinium, a banquet hall where friends and family gathered on stone couches covered with cushions. A stone staircase descends to the level, an area eerily alive with sculptures. In the lobby of the two pillars are topped by the papyrus, lotus, and acanthus leaves of ancient Egypt. Figures of a man and a woman are carved into the wall, the man’s body has a stiff hieratic pose typical of Ancient Egyptian sculpture, with the head carved in the lifelike manner of the classic Hellenes. The woman’s figure is also rigidly posed but bears the Roman hairstyle, there are three huge stone coffins with non-removable covers along the sides of the chamber. It’s assumed that bodies were inserted in them from behind, using a passageway which runs around the outside of the funeral chamber, there is a hallway with 91 deep walls in the central tomb chamber, with carved recesses, each providing burial space for three mummies
25.
Alexandria
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Alexandria is the second largest city and a major economic centre in Egypt, extending about 32 km along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in the north central part of the country. Its low elevation on the Nile delta makes it vulnerable to rising sea levels. Alexandria is Egypts largest seaport, serving approximately 80% of Egypts imports and exports and it is an important industrial center because of its natural gas and oil pipelines from Suez. Alexandria is also an important tourist destination, Alexandria was founded around a small Ancient Egyptian town c.331 BC by Alexander the Great. Alexandria was the second most powerful city of the ancient world after Rome, Alexandria is believed to have been founded by Alexander the Great in April 331 BC as Ἀλεξάνδρεια. Alexanders chief architect for the project was Dinocrates, Alexandria was intended to supersede Naucratis as a Hellenistic center in Egypt, and to be the link between Greece and the rich Nile valley. The city and its museum attracted many of the greatest scholars, including Greeks, Jews, the city was later plundered and lost its significance. Just east of Alexandria, there was in ancient times marshland, as early as the 7th century BC, there existed important port cities of Canopus and Heracleion. The latter was rediscovered under water. An Egyptian city, Rhakotis, already existed on the shore also and it continued to exist as the Egyptian quarter of the city. A few months after the foundation, Alexander left Egypt and never returned to his city, after Alexanders departure, his viceroy, Cleomenes, continued the expansion. Although Cleomenes was mainly in charge of overseeing Alexandrias continuous development, the Heptastadion, inheriting the trade of ruined Tyre and becoming the center of the new commerce between Europe and the Arabian and Indian East, the city grew in less than a generation to be larger than Carthage. In a century, Alexandria had become the largest city in the world and and it became Egypts main Greek city, with Greek people from diverse backgrounds. Alexandria was not only a center of Hellenism, but was home to the largest urban Jewish community in the world. The Septuagint, a Greek version of the Tanakh, was produced there, in AD115, large parts of Alexandria were destroyed during the Kitos War, which gave Hadrian and his architect, Decriannus, an opportunity to rebuild it. On 21 July 365, Alexandria was devastated by a tsunami, the Islamic prophet, Muhammads first interaction with the people of Egypt occurred in 628, during the Expedition of Zaid ibn Haritha. He sent Hatib bin Abi Baltaeh with a letter to the king of Egypt and Alexandria called Muqawqis In the letter Muhammad said, I invite you to accept Islam, Allah the sublime, shall reward you doubly. But if you refuse to do so, you bear the burden of the transgression of all the Copts
26.
Finland
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Finland, officially the Republic of Finland, is a sovereign state in Northern Europe. A peninsula with the Gulf of Finland to the south and the Gulf of Bothnia to the west, the country has borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north. Estonia is south of the country across the Gulf of Finland, Finland is a Nordic country situated in the geographical region of Fennoscandia, which also includes Scandinavia. Finlands population is 5.5 million, and the majority of the population is concentrated in the southern region,88. 7% of the population is Finnish people who speak Finnish, a Uralic language unrelated to the Scandinavian languages, the second major group are the Finland-Swedes. In terms of area, it is the eighth largest country in Europe, Finland is a parliamentary republic with a central government based in the capital Helsinki, local governments in 311 municipalities, and an autonomous region, the Åland Islands. Over 1.4 million people live in the Greater Helsinki metropolitan area, from the late 12th century, Finland was an integral part of Sweden, a legacy reflected in the prevalence of the Swedish language and its official status. In the spirit of the notion of Adolf Ivar Arwidsson, we are not Swedes, we do not want to become Russians, let us therefore be Finns, nevertheless, in 1809, Finland was incorporated into the Russian Empire as the autonomous Grand Duchy of Finland. In 1906, Finland became the nation in the world to give the right to vote to all adult citizens. Following the 1917 Russian Revolution, Finland declared itself independent, in 1918, the fledgling state was divided by civil war, with the Bolshevik-leaning Reds supported by the equally new Soviet Russia, fighting the Whites, supported by the German Empire. After a brief attempt to establish a kingdom, the became a republic. During World War II, the Soviet Union sought repeatedly to occupy Finland, with Finland losing parts of Karelia, Salla and Kuusamo, Petsamo and some islands, Finland joined the United Nations in 1955 and established an official policy of neutrality. The Finno-Soviet Treaty of 1948 gave the Soviet Union some leverage in Finnish domestic politics during the Cold War era, Finland was a relative latecomer to industrialization, remaining a largely agrarian country until the 1950s. It rapidly developed an advanced economy while building an extensive Nordic-style welfare state, resulting in widespread prosperity, however, Finnish GDP growth has been negative in 2012–2014, with a preceding nadir of −8% in 2009. Finland is a top performer in numerous metrics of national performance, including education, economic competitiveness, civil liberties, quality of life, a large majority of Finns are members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, though freedom of religion is guaranteed under the Finnish Constitution. The first known appearance of the name Finland is thought to be on three rune-stones. Two were found in the Swedish province of Uppland and have the inscription finlonti, the third was found in Gotland, in the Baltic Sea. It has the inscription finlandi and dates from the 13th century, the name can be assumed to be related to the tribe name Finns, which is mentioned first known time AD98. The name Suomi has uncertain origins, but a candidate for a source is the Proto-Baltic word *źemē, in addition to the close relatives of Finnish, this name is also used in the Baltic languages Latvian and Lithuanian
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Hietaniemi cemetery
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The Hietaniemi cemetery is located mainly in the Lapinlahti quarter and partly in the Etu-Töölö district of Helsinki, the capital of Finland. It is the location for Finnish state funeral services, in the centre of the military cemetery are the tombs of the unknown soldier and Marshal C. G. E. Other notable sections of the cemetery are the cemetery of the Finnish Guard, the Artists Hill, there are two Lutheran funerary chapels and crematorium at the area. Hietaniemi means sand cape and is a headland located centrally in Helsinki, the cemetery is partly located at a promontory, and partly directly adjacent to the Hietaniemi Beach. Nightly parties, flirting, petting, and more, are recurrent concerns in letters to the editor alarmed by alleged dishonourable conduct at the gravestones. The cemetery is a popular tourist attraction, especially amongst Finns visiting the graves of fallen in wars or the graves of the many famous Finns buried there. Carl Ludvig Engel Georg August Wallin Zachris Topelius Fredrik Pacius Lorenz Leonard Lindelöf Paavo Cajander Janis Rozentāls Verna Erikson Toivo Kuula Oskar Merikanto Usko Nyström I
28.
Ossuary
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An ossuary is a chest, box, building, well, or site made to serve as the final resting place of human skeletal remains. They are frequently used where space is scarce. A body is first buried in a grave, then after some years the skeletal remains are removed and placed in an ossuary. The greatly reduced space taken up by a means that it is possible to store the remains of many more people in a single tomb than if the original coffins were left as is. In Persia, the Zoroastrians used a well for this function from the earliest times. There are many rituals and regulations in the Zoroastrian faith concerning the astudans, the village of Wamba in the province of Valladolid, Spain, has an impressive ossuary of over a thousand skulls inside the local church, dating from between the 12th and 18th centuries. A more recent example is the Douaumont ossuary in France, which contains the remains of more than 130,000 French, the Catacombs of Paris represents another famous ossuary. The catacombs beneath the Monastery of San Francisco in Lima, Peru, the use of ossuaries is a longstanding tradition in the Orthodox Church. In Orthodox monasteries, when one of the dies, his remains are buried for one to three years, and then disinterred, cleaned and gathered into the monasterys charnel house. If there is reason to believe that the departed is a saint, the remains of an abbot may be placed in a separate ossuary made out of wood or metal. The use of ossuaries is also found among the laity in the Greek Orthodox Church, during the time of the Second Temple, Jewish burial customs included primary burials in burial caves, followed by secondary burials in ossuaries placed in smaller niches of the burial caves. Some of the ossuaries that have been discovered, particularly around the Jerusalem area. The custom of burial in ossuaries did not persist among Jews past the Second Temple period nor appear to exist among Jews outside the land of Israel. The skeletal remains of 6 million people lie, neatly arranged, in subterranean catacombs beneath the streets of Paris, aircraft boneyard Boneyard, Arizona Catacomb Charnel house Columbarium Crypt Grave James Ossuary Mausoleum Reliquary Tomb
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Greece
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Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, historically also known as Hellas, is a country in southeastern Europe, with a population of approximately 11 million as of 2015. Athens is the capital and largest city, followed by Thessaloniki. Greece is strategically located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, situated on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, the Republic of Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to the northeast. Greece consists of nine regions, Macedonia, Central Greece, the Peloponnese, Thessaly, Epirus, the Aegean Islands, Thrace, Crete. The Aegean Sea lies to the east of the mainland, the Ionian Sea to the west, the Cretan Sea and the Mediterranean Sea to the south. Greece has the longest coastline on the Mediterranean Basin and the 11th longest coastline in the world at 13,676 km in length, featuring a vast number of islands, eighty percent of Greece is mountainous, with Mount Olympus being the highest peak at 2,918 metres. From the eighth century BC, the Greeks were organised into various independent city-states, known as polis, which spanned the entire Mediterranean region and the Black Sea. Greece was annexed by Rome in the second century BC, becoming a part of the Roman Empire and its successor. The Greek Orthodox Church also shaped modern Greek identity and transmitted Greek traditions to the wider Orthodox World, falling under Ottoman dominion in the mid-15th century, the modern nation state of Greece emerged in 1830 following a war of independence. Greeces rich historical legacy is reflected by its 18 UNESCO World Heritage Sites, among the most in Europe, Greece is a democratic and developed country with an advanced high-income economy, a high quality of life, and a very high standard of living. A founding member of the United Nations, Greece was the member to join the European Communities and has been part of the Eurozone since 2001. Greeces unique cultural heritage, large industry, prominent shipping sector. It is the largest economy in the Balkans, where it is an important regional investor, the names for the nation of Greece and the Greek people differ from the names used in other languages, locations and cultures. The earliest evidence of the presence of human ancestors in the southern Balkans, dated to 270,000 BC, is to be found in the Petralona cave, all three stages of the stone age are represented in Greece, for example in the Franchthi Cave. Neolithic settlements in Greece, dating from the 7th millennium BC, are the oldest in Europe by several centuries and these civilizations possessed writing, the Minoans writing in an undeciphered script known as Linear A, and the Mycenaeans in Linear B, an early form of Greek. The Mycenaeans gradually absorbed the Minoans, but collapsed violently around 1200 BC and this ushered in a period known as the Greek Dark Ages, from which written records are absent. The end of the Dark Ages is traditionally dated to 776 BC, the Iliad and the Odyssey, the foundational texts of Western literature, are believed to have been composed by Homer in the 7th or 8th centuries BC. With the end of the Dark Ages, there emerged various kingdoms and city-states across the Greek peninsula, in 508 BC, Cleisthenes instituted the worlds first democratic system of government in Athens
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Catacombs of Milos
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The Catacombs of Milos are located on Milos island, in Cyclades, Greece. They are found near the settlement of Trypiti, next to the site of the agora of the ancient city of Melos. The name Trypiti derives from the fact that the area is full of caves cut into the porous volcanic rock. In ancient times, however, these caves were used as family burial chambers, the galleries are of differing widths, ranging from 1 m to 5 m in width and from 1.60 m to 2.5 m in height. In addition to the cut into the walls, there are also many graves cut into the ground
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Italy
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Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a unitary parliamentary republic in Europe. Located in the heart of the Mediterranean Sea, Italy shares open land borders with France, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia, San Marino, Italy covers an area of 301,338 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal and Mediterranean climate. Due to its shape, it is referred to in Italy as lo Stivale. With 61 million inhabitants, it is the fourth most populous EU member state, the Italic tribe known as the Latins formed the Roman Kingdom, which eventually became a republic that conquered and assimilated other nearby civilisations. The legacy of the Roman Empire is widespread and can be observed in the distribution of civilian law, republican governments, Christianity. The Renaissance began in Italy and spread to the rest of Europe, bringing a renewed interest in humanism, science, exploration, Italian culture flourished at this time, producing famous scholars, artists and polymaths such as Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo, Michelangelo and Machiavelli. The weakened sovereigns soon fell victim to conquest by European powers such as France, Spain and Austria. Despite being one of the victors in World War I, Italy entered a period of economic crisis and social turmoil. The subsequent participation in World War II on the Axis side ended in defeat, economic destruction. Today, Italy has the third largest economy in the Eurozone and it has a very high level of human development and is ranked sixth in the world for life expectancy. The country plays a prominent role in regional and global economic, military, cultural and diplomatic affairs, as a reflection of its cultural wealth, Italy is home to 51 World Heritage Sites, the most in the world, and is the fifth most visited country. The assumptions on the etymology of the name Italia are very numerous, according to one of the more common explanations, the term Italia, from Latin, Italia, was borrowed through Greek from the Oscan Víteliú, meaning land of young cattle. The bull was a symbol of the southern Italic tribes and was often depicted goring the Roman wolf as a defiant symbol of free Italy during the Social War. Greek historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus states this account together with the legend that Italy was named after Italus, mentioned also by Aristotle and Thucydides. The name Italia originally applied only to a part of what is now Southern Italy – according to Antiochus of Syracuse, but by his time Oenotria and Italy had become synonymous, and the name also applied to most of Lucania as well. The Greeks gradually came to apply the name Italia to a larger region, excavations throughout Italy revealed a Neanderthal presence dating back to the Palaeolithic period, some 200,000 years ago, modern Humans arrived about 40,000 years ago. Other ancient Italian peoples of undetermined language families but of possible origins include the Rhaetian people and Cammuni. Also the Phoenicians established colonies on the coasts of Sardinia and Sicily, the Roman legacy has deeply influenced the Western civilisation, shaping most of the modern world
32.
Catacombs of Naples
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The Catacombs of San Gennaro are underground paleo-Christian burial sites in Naples, Italy. They are situated in the part of the city, on the slope leading up to Capodimonte. The site is now identified by the large church of Madre del Buon Consiglio. Originally, there were three separate cemeteries, dedicated, respectively, to Saint Gaudiosus, Saint Severus and St. Januarius and these catacombs in Naples are different from their Roman counterparts in that they have more spacious passageways along two levels. The lower level is the oldest, going back to the 3rd-4th century and it apparently became an important religious burial site only after the entombment there of Bishop Agrippinus. The second level was the one expanded so as to encompass the two adjacent cemeteries. The foundation of San Gennaro extra Moenia is connected with the Catacombs of San Gennaro, Januarius, the patron saint of the city. The site was consecrated to Gennaro in the century on the occasion of the entombment there of his remains. Until the eleventh century the catacombs were the site of Neapolitan bishops. Between the 13th and 18th century, they were the victim of severe looting, restoration of the catacombs was made possible only after the transfer of skeletal remains to another cemetery
33.
Capuchin catacombs of Palermo
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The Capuchin Catacombs of Palermo are burial catacombs in Palermo, Sicily, southern Italy. Today they provide a somewhat macabre tourist attraction as well as an historical record. Palermos Capuchin monastery outgrew its original cemetery in the 16th century, in 1599 they mummified one of their number, recently dead brother Silvestro of Gubbio, and placed him into the catacombs. The bodies were dehydrated on the racks of ceramic pipes in the catacombs, some of the bodies were embalmed and others enclosed in sealed glass cabinets. Monks were preserved with their clothing and sometimes with ropes they had worn as a penance. Originally the catacombs were intended only for the dead friars, however, in the following centuries it became a status symbol to be entombed into the Capuchin catacombs. In their wills, local luminaries would ask to be preserved in certain clothes, Priests wore their clerical vestments, others were clothed according to the contemporary fashion. Relatives would visit to pray for the deceased and also to maintain the body in presentable condition, the catacombs were maintained through the donations of the relatives of the deceased. Each new body was placed in a niche and later placed into a more permanent place. As long as the continued, the body remained in its proper place but when the relatives did not send money any more. The last friar interred into the catacombs was Brother Riccardo in 1871, the catacombs were officially closed in 1880 but tourists continued to visit. The last burials are from the 1920s, the formula is 1 part glycerin,1 part formalin saturated with both zinc sulfate and chloride, and 1 part of an alcohol solution saturated with salicylic acid. The catacombs contain about 8000 corpses and 1252 mummies that line the walls, the halls are divided into categories, Men, Women, Virgins, Children, Priests, Monks, and Professionals. Some bodies are better preserved than others, some are set in poses, for example, two children are sitting together in a rocking chair. The coffins were accessible to the families of the deceased so that on certain days the family could hold their hands, giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa is sometimes said to be buried in the catacombs, but he is buried in the cemetery next to them. The catacombs are open to the public and taking photographs inside is supposedly prohibited, iron grills have been installed to prevent tourists tampering or posing with the corpses. Capuchin Crypt, in Rome Italy Capela dos Ossos, in Évora, Portugal
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Malta
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Malta, officially known as the Republic of Malta, is a Southern European island country consisting of an archipelago in the Mediterranean Sea. It lies 80 km south of Italy,284 km east of Tunisia, the country covers just over 316 km2, with a population of just under 450,000, making it one of the worlds smallest and most densely populated countries. The capital of Malta is Valletta, which at 0.8 km2, is the smallest national capital in the European Union, Malta has one national language, which is Maltese, and English as an official language. John, French and British, have ruled the islands, King George VI of the United Kingdom awarded the George Cross to Malta in 1942 for the countrys bravery in the Second World War. The George Cross continues to appear on Maltas national flag, the country became a republic in 1974, and although no longer a Commonwealth realm, remains a member state of the Commonwealth of Nations. Malta was admitted to the United Nations in 1964 and to the European Union in 2004, in 2008, Catholicism is the official religion in Malta. The origin of the term Malta is uncertain, and the modern-day variation derives from the Maltese language, the most common etymology is that the word Malta derives from the Greek word μέλι, meli, honey. The ancient Greeks called the island Μελίτη meaning honey-sweet, possibly due to Maltas unique production of honey, an endemic species of bee lives on the island. The Romans went on to call the island Melita, which can be considered either as a latinisation of the Greek Μελίτη or the adaptation of the Doric Greek pronunciation of the same word Μελίτα. Another conjecture suggests that the word Malta comes from the Phoenician word Maleth a haven or port in reference to Maltas many bays, few other etymological mentions appear in classical literature, with the term Malta appearing in its present form in the Antonine Itinerary. The extinction of the hippos and dwarf elephants has been linked to the earliest arrival of humans on Malta. Prehistoric farming settlements dating to the Early Neolithic period were discovered in areas and also in caves. The Sicani were the tribe known to have inhabited the island at this time and are generally regarded as being closely related to the Iberians. Pottery from the Għar Dalam phase is similar to found in Agrigento. A culture of megalithis temple builders then either supplanted or arose from this early period, the temples have distinctive architecture, typically a complex trefoil design, and were used from 4000 to 2500 BCE. Animal bones and a knife found behind an altar stone suggest that temple rituals included animal sacrifice. Tentative information suggests that the sacrifices were made to the goddess of fertility, the culture apparently disappeared from the Maltese Islands around 2500 BC. Archaeologists speculate that the builders fell victim to famine or disease
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Rabat, Malta
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Rabat is a town in the Northern Region of Malta, with a population of 11,497 as of March 2014. The name of the town is derived from the Arabic word for suburb, الرباط, half of the present-day village core also formed part of the Roman city of Melite, before the latter was resized during the Fatimid occupation. The Apostolic Nunciature of the Holy See to the Republic of Malta is seated in this village, the Local Council of Rabat is also the administrator of Baħrija. Parts of the films Munich and Black Eagle were shot in Rabat, in December 1999, Mtarfa seceded from Rabat to form a separate Local Council by Act XXI, an amendment to the Local Council Act of 1993. Rabat is home to the famous Catacombs of St. Paul, the Maltese Catacombs were never meant to be hiding places during persecutions or as living quarters. The Catacombs of St. Paul are now looked after by Heritage Malta, in the Catacombs of St Agathas, there are over 500 graves of several types, the majority being for children. There are sections for Pagans and Jews, as well as for Christians, another interesting feature in the Maltese Catacombs is the Agape Table. In Fact Rabat Won the Maltese Premier League Twice and the Maltese cup Once in 1986
36.
Peru
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Peru, officially the Republic of Peru, is a country in western South America. It is bordered in the north by Ecuador and Colombia, in the east by Brazil, in the southeast by Bolivia, in the south by Chile, and in the west by the Pacific Ocean. Peruvian territory was home to ancient cultures spanning from the Norte Chico civilization in Caral, one of the oldest in the world, to the Inca Empire, the largest state in Pre-Columbian America. The Spanish Empire conquered the region in the 16th century and established a Viceroyalty with its capital in Lima, ideas of political autonomy later spread throughout Spanish America and Peru gained its independence, which was formally proclaimed in 1821. After the battle of Ayacucho, three years after proclamation, Peru ensured its independence, subsequently, the country has undergone changes in government from oligarchic to democratic systems. Peru has gone through periods of political unrest and internal conflict as well as periods of stability, Peru is a representative democratic republic divided into 25 regions. It is a country with a high Human Development Index score. Its main economic activities include mining, manufacturing, agriculture and fishing, the Peruvian population, estimated at 31.2 million in 2015, is multiethnic, including Amerindians, Europeans, Africans and Asians. The main spoken language is Spanish, although a significant number of Peruvians speak Quechua or other native languages and this mixture of cultural traditions has resulted in a wide diversity of expressions in fields such as art, cuisine, literature, and music. The name of the country may be derived from Birú, the name of a ruler who lived near the Bay of San Miguel, Panama. When his possessions were visited by Spanish explorers in 1522, they were the southernmost part of the New World yet known to Europeans, thus, when Francisco Pizarro explored the regions farther south, they came to be designated Birú or Perú. An alternative history is provided by the contemporary writer Inca Garcilasco de la Vega, son of an Inca princess, the Spanish Crown gave the name legal status with the 1529 Capitulación de Toledo, which designated the newly encountered Inca Empire as the province of Peru. Under Spanish rule, the country adopted the denomination Viceroyalty of Peru, the earliest evidences of human presence in Peruvian territory have been dated to approximately 9,000 BC. Andean societies were based on agriculture, using such as irrigation and terracing, camelid husbandry. Organization relied on reciprocity and redistribution because these societies had no notion of market or money, the oldest known complex society in Peru, the Norte Chico civilization, flourished along the coast of the Pacific Ocean between 3,000 and 1,800 BC. These early developments were followed by archaeological cultures that developed mostly around the coastal, the Cupisnique culture which flourished from around 1000 to 200 BC along what is now Perus Pacific Coast was an example of early pre-Incan culture. The Chavín culture that developed from 1500 to 300 BC was probably more of a religious than a political phenomenon, on the coast, these included the civilizations of the Paracas, Nazca, Wari, and the more outstanding Chimu and Mochica. Their capital was at Chan Chan outside of modern-day Trujillo, in the 15th century, the Incas emerged as a powerful state which, in the span of a century, formed the largest empire in pre-Columbian America with their capital in Cusco
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Convento de San Francisco
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Convento de San Francisco is the Spanish name for Saint Francis Monastery located in Lima, Peru, south of Parque la Muralla and one block northeast from the Plaza Mayor. The church and convent are part of the Historic Centre of Lima, aside from a church and monastery it also contains a library and catacombs. In this church, Jude the Apostle is venerated, at the feast of Saint Jude Tadeus a one and a half ton weighing silver stand is carried round in procession by 40 people, starting from the convent. The church and monastery were blessed in 1673 and completed in 1774, though it survived several earthquakes intact in 1687 and 1746, it suffered extensive damage in an earthquake in 1970. The church is noted for its architecture, an example of Spanish Baroque. Its granite carved portal would later influence those on other churches, the vaults of the central and two side naves are painted in mudejar style, a mix of Moorish and Spanish designs. The main altar is made from wood. The halls of the cloister are inlaid with Sevillian glazed tiles dating from the 1620s. The complex is made of the temple, the convent and two churches, La Soledad and El Milagro. It possesses about 25,000 antique texts, some of them predating the conquest, some notable books are the first Spanish dictionary published by the Royal Spanish Academy and a Holy Bible edition from 1571-1572 printed in Antwerp. Other notable possessions are 13 paintings of the biblical patriarch Jacob and his 12 sons in the refectory, the last supper painted by Diego de la Puente depicts typical Peruvian ingredients and meals, instead of European dishes it depicts, such as guinea pig, potatoes and chillis. Also peculiar is the Devil hovering besides Judas, the monastery also possesses several paintings attributed to the school of Peter Paul Rubens. The convent originally included seven cloisters, during the works to open Abancay Avenue in the 1940s, part of the monastery was demolished, and the section used by the Franciscan Third Order was separated from the main structure. Another cloister, that belonged to the Franciscans, was given to the Society for Public Welfare around 1847. Another part of the complex is now used by the Peruvian National Police, discovered in 1943, they contain thousand of skulls and bones, having served as a burial-place until 1808, when the city cemetery was opened outside Lima. GUIDE TO PERU, Handbook for travelers, 6th, edition, by Gonzalo de Reparaz Ruiz, Ediciones de Arte Rep, Lima - Perú, Book edited in English language by the Fondo de Promoción Turística del Perú - FOPTUR
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Lima
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Lima is the capital and the largest city of Peru. It is located in the valleys of the Chillón, Rímac and Lurín rivers, in the coastal part of the country. Together with the seaport of Callao, it forms an urban area known as the Lima Metropolitan Area. With a population of almost 10 million, Lima is the most populous area of Peru. Lima was founded by Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro on January 18,1535 and it became the capital and most important city in the Spanish Viceroyalty of Peru. Following the Peruvian War of Independence, it became the capital of the Republic of Peru, around one-third of the national population lives in the metropolitan area. Lima is home to one of the oldest higher-learning institutions in the New World, the National University of San Marcos, founded on May 12,1551 during the Spanish colonial regime, is the oldest continuously functioning university in the Americas. In October 2013 Lima was chosen to host the 2019 Pan American Games and it also hosted the December 2014 United Nations Climate Change Conference and the Miss Universe 1982 pageant. In October 2015 Lima hosted the 2015 Annual Meetings of the World Bank Group, according to early Spanish articles the Lima area was once called Itchyma, after its original inhabitants. However, even before the Inca occupation of the area in the 15th century and this oracle was eventually destroyed by the Spanish and replaced with a church, but the name persisted, the chronicles show Límac replacing Ychma as the common name for the area. Modern scholars speculate that the word Lima originated as the Spanish pronunciation of the native name Limaq, linguistic evidence seems to support this theory as spoken Spanish consistently rejects stop consonants in word-final position. Non-Peruvian Spanish speakers may mistakenly define the city name as the direct Spanish translation of lime, the city was founded in 1535 under the name City of the Kings because its foundation was decided on January 6, date of the feast of the Epiphany. This name quickly fell into disuse and Lima became the name of choice, on the oldest Spanish maps of Peru. The river that feeds Lima is called Rímac and many people assume that this is because its original Inca name is Talking River. However, the inhabitants of the valley were not Incas. This name is an innovation arising from an effort by the Cuzco nobility in colonial times to standardize the toponym so that it would conform to the phonology of Cuzco Quechua, later, as the original inhabitants died out and the local Quechua became extinct, the Cuzco pronunciation prevailed. Nowadays, Spanish-speaking locals do not see the connection between the name of their city and the name of the river runs through it. They often assume that the valley is named after the river, however, historically, the Flag of Lima has been known as the «Banner of Perus Kings City»
39.
Philippines
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The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is a sovereign island country in Southeast Asia situated in the western Pacific Ocean. It consists of about 7,641 islands that are categorized broadly under three main geographical divisions from north to south, Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao, the capital city of the Philippines is Manila and the most populous city is Quezon City, both part of Metro Manila. The Philippines has an area of 300,000 square kilometers, and it is the eighth-most populated country in Asia and the 12th most populated country in the world. As of 2013, approximately 10 million additional Filipinos lived overseas, multiple ethnicities and cultures are found throughout the islands. In prehistoric times, Negritos were some of the archipelagos earliest inhabitants and they were followed by successive waves of Austronesian peoples. Exchanges with Chinese, Malay, Indian, and Islamic nations occurred, then, various competing maritime states were established under the rule of Datus, Rajahs, Sultans or Lakans. The arrival of Ferdinand Magellan in Homonhon, Eastern Samar in 1521 marked the beginning of Hispanic colonization, in 1543, Spanish explorer Ruy López de Villalobos named the archipelago Las Islas Filipinas in honor of Philip II of Spain. With the arrival of Miguel López de Legazpi from Mexico City, in 1565, the Philippines became part of the Spanish Empire for more than 300 years. This resulted in Roman Catholicism becoming the dominant religion, during this time, Manila became the western hub of the trans-Pacific trade connecting Asia with Acapulco in the Americas using Manila galleons. Aside from the period of Japanese occupation, the United States retained sovereignty over the islands until after World War II, since then, the Philippines has often had a tumultuous experience with democracy, which included the overthrow of a dictatorship by a non-violent revolution. It is a member of the United Nations, World Trade Organization, Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum. It also hosts the headquarters of the Asian Development Bank, the Philippines was named in honor of King Philip II of Spain. Spanish explorer Ruy López de Villalobos, during his expedition in 1542, named the islands of Leyte, eventually the name Las Islas Filipinas would be used to cover all the islands of the archipelago. Before that became commonplace, other such as Islas del Poniente. The official name of the Philippines has changed several times in the course of its history, during the Philippine Revolution, the Malolos Congress proclaimed the establishment of the República Filipina or the Philippine Republic. From the 1898 Treaty of Paris, the name Philippines began to appear, since the end of World War II, the official name of the country has been the Republic of the Philippines. The metatarsal of the Callao Man, reliably dated by uranium-series dating to 67,000 years ago is the oldest human remnant found in the archipelago to date and this distinction previously belonged to the Tabon Man of Palawan, carbon-dated to around 26,500 years ago. Negritos were also among the archipelagos earliest inhabitants, but their first settlement in the Philippines has not been reliably dated, there are several opposing theories regarding the origins of ancient Filipinos
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Nagcarlan Underground Cemetery
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The Nagcarlan Underground Cemetery is a national historical landmark and museum in Barangay Bambang, Nagcarlan, Laguna supervised by the National Historical Commission of the Philippines. It was built in 1845 under the supervision of Franciscan priest, vicente Velloc as a public burial site and its underground crypt exclusively for Spanish friars, prominent town citizens and members of elite Catholic families. It is dubbed as the only cemetery in the country. Vicente Velloc supervised the establishment of a cemetery in Nagcarlan in 1845 below Mt. San Cristobal, unlike the traditional Spanish cemeteries at that time, Fr. Velloc decided to build it away from the towns center and it was built together with the construction of the expanded St. Bartholomew Parish Church and rectory. The cemetery is built with a chapel where funeral masses was held, during the Philippine Revolution, the cemetery served as a meeting place of revolutionary leaders of the Katipunan in 1896. Pedro Paterno and Gen. Severino Taiño of the Maluningning command held a meeting at the cemetery where they planned the historic Pact of Biak-na-Bato in 1897 and it also served as hideout for Filipino leaders during the Philippine-American War and of guerillas in World War II. The Nagcarlan Underground Cemetery was declared as a National Historical Landmark by virtue of Presidential Decree no,260, dated August 1,1973 with amendments by Administrative Order 1505, dated June 11,1978. Since the declaration, no burials were allowed in the cemetery. It underwent renovations before it was opened to the public during the unveiling of the marker in October 24,1981. The oldest tomb is dated 1886 while the last interment was in 1982 when it was declared as a National Historical Landmark. The Baroque cemetery is located two kilometers south of downtown Nagcarlan that takes the shape of a cemetery across a 1 hectare property. It is surrounded by stone walls made of red tiles with iron-wrought grills. A façade or arch of about 18 feet high with two iron grill gates leads to a red tiled pathway across a green space leading to the cemetery chapel, the chapel containing a statue of Santo Sepulcro serves as a place for requiem or funeral mass. Located 15 feet below the chapel is an underground graveyard consisting of only 36 tombs arranged in four walls The crypt, the last six steps lead to the underground crypt. The cemetery has 240 apartment-type niches on the walls each side of the chapel contains 120 niches. The cemetery complex remained as a property of the Roman Catholic Diocese of San Pablo and it is supervised and managed by the National Historical Commission of the Philippines. Currently, no more burials are allowed inside the cemetery, the complex is used for special celebrations such as the Feast of Christ the King and Lent of the local parish and the diocese
41.
Sacromonte
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Sacromonte, sometimes also called Sacramonte is a traditional neighbourhood of the eastern area of the city of Granada in Andalusia, Spain. It is one of the six neighbourhoods that make up the urban district Albayzín and limits with the neighbourhoods of Albayzín, San Pedro, Realejo-San Matías, El Fargue and Haza Grande. It is the neighborhood of the Granadian Gipsies, who settled in Granada after the Christian conquest of the city in 1492. It is one of the most picturesque neighborhoods of the city, by the landscape and its cave houses, the gypsies of Sacromonte have a dialect, Calé, which is currently little used. Its derived, according to tradition, from India, from where the gypsies, the Roma of Sacromonte were portrayed by the poet Federico García Lorca in his book of poems Romancero Gitano. The origin of the houses excavated on the slopes of Sacromonte and it is assumed that began to be built from the 16th century, when the Jewish and Muslims population was expelled from their homes, which joined to them the Gypsies of nomad customs. The caves have emerged as housing for the marginalized, located outside the Walls of the city, to dig a cave was beginning to fall apart the face of the hill where they wanted to build, making a vertical cut that served as a facade. Then opened up a midpoint arch to serve as a door and were excavated the necessary divisions that the terrain allowed. The forms and limits of this house type is determined by the terrain, altitude and extent of the hills where these are. These elements, along with the paths, gullies, small squares, whitewashed facades and interiors form a landscape, with the customs and crafts of its inhabitants. In addition to the houses, another important feature of the neighborhood are the legends that relate to all corners and places. Legend has it that after the Reconquest of Granada by the Catholic Monarchs were much the noble Arabs who made their way from exile to African lands. They carried in their hearts to the city of their parents and grandparents, in which were born them and their children, recovered their freedom and without job or belongings, decided to climb the mountain and recover for theyself the treasures that had once been of their owners. Hence comes the name of Ravine of the Blacks, being their first inhabitants of this race, later, already mixed with the inhabitants of Gypsy ethnicity, they conducted more than a spell in search of the exact place where the treasures were hidden. Annex to the abbey also found the College of Sacromonte, founded also by Pedro de Castro, the set is formed by the abbey, the Old College of San Dionisio Areopagita, the New College and the Holy Caves Template, HarvRef. The abbey has an important library with numerous incunabula and manuscripts, the Santas Cuevas are old catacombs where there are several chapels. In one of these, according to tradition, officiated James the Less, there takes place the festival of Saint Caecilius. The abbey is canonical seat of the confraternity of the Gypsies, there is Mass every Sunday at 12,00
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Granada
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Granada is the capital city of the province of Granada, in the autonomous community of Andalusia, Spain. Granada is located at the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountains, at the confluence of four rivers, the Beiro, the Darro, the Genil and the Monachil. It sits at an elevation of 738 m above sea level, yet is only one hour by car from the Mediterranean coast. Nearby is the Sierra Nevada Ski Station, where the FIS Alpine World Ski Championships 1996 were held, about 3. 3% of the population did not hold Spanish citizenship, the largest number of these people coming from South America. Its nearest airport is Federico García Lorca Granada-Jaén Airport, the Alhambra, a Moorish citadel and palace, is in Granada. It is the most renowned building of the Andalusian Islamic historical legacy with its cultural attractions that make Granada a popular destination among the touristic cities of Spain. The Almohad influence on architecture is preserved in the Granada neighborhood called the Albaicín with its fine examples of Moorish. Granada is also well-known within Spain for the University of Granada which has about 80,000 students spread over five different campuses in the city, the pomegranate is the heraldic device of Granada. The region surrounding what today is Granada has been populated since at least 5500 BC and experienced Roman, the most ancient ruins found in the city belongs to an Iberian oppidum called Ilturir, in the region known as Bastetania. This oppidum eventually changed its name to Iliberri, and after the Roman conquest of Iberia, the Umayyad conquest of Hispania, starting in AD711, brought large parts of the Iberian Peninsula under Moorish control and established Al-Andalus. In the early 11th century, after a war that ended the Caliphate, the Berber, Zawi ben Ziri, established an independent kingdom for himself. Jewish people were established in another close to Illiberis, called Gárnata or Gárnata al-Yahūd. Granadas historical name in the Arabic language was غرناطة, the word Gárnata possibly means hill of strangers. Because the city was situated on a low plain and, as a result, difficult to protect from attacks, in a short time this town was transformed into one of the most important cities of Al-Andalus. By the end of the 11th century, the city had spread across the Darro to reach the hill of the future Alhambra, the Almoravids ruled Granada from 1090 and the Almohad dynasty from 1166. With the Reconquista in full swing after the conquest of Córdoba in 1236, according to some historians, Granada was a tributary state to the Kingdom of Castile since that year. It provided connections with Muslim and Arab trade centers, particularly for gold from sub-Saharan Africa and the Maghreb, the Nasrids also supplied troops from the Emirate and mercenaries from North Africa for service to Castile. Ibn Battuta, a traveler and an authentic historian, visited the Kingdom of Granada in 1350
43.
Ukraine
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Ukraine is currently in territorial dispute with Russia over the Crimean Peninsula which Russia annexed in 2014 but which Ukraine and most of the international community recognise as Ukrainian. Including Crimea, Ukraine has an area of 603,628 km2, making it the largest country entirely within Europe and it has a population of about 42.5 million, making it the 32nd most populous country in the world. The territory of modern Ukraine has been inhabited since 32,000 BC, during the Middle Ages, the area was a key centre of East Slavic culture, with the powerful state of Kievan Rus forming the basis of Ukrainian identity. Following its fragmentation in the 13th century, the territory was contested, ruled and divided by a variety of powers, including Lithuania, Poland, the Ottoman Empire, Austria-Hungary, and Russia. A Cossack republic emerged and prospered during the 17th and 18th centuries, two brief periods of independence occurred during the 20th century, once near the end of World War I and another during World War II. Before its independence, Ukraine was typically referred to in English as The Ukraine, following independence, Ukraine declared itself a neutral state. Nonetheless it formed a limited partnership with the Russian Federation and other CIS countries. In the 2000s, the government began leaning towards NATO, and it was later agreed that the question of joining NATO should be answered by a national referendum at some point in the future. Former President Viktor Yanukovych considered the current level of co-operation between Ukraine and NATO sufficient, and was against Ukraine joining NATO and these events formed the background for the annexation of Crimea by Russia in March 2014, and the War in Donbass in April 2014. On 1 January 2016, Ukraine applied the economic part of the Deep, Ukraine has long been a global breadbasket because of its extensive, fertile farmlands and is one of the worlds largest grain exporters. The diversified economy of Ukraine includes a heavy industry sector, particularly in aerospace. Ukraine is a republic under a semi-presidential system with separate powers, legislative, executive. Its capital and largest city is Kiev, taking into account reserves and paramilitary personnel, Ukraine maintains the second-largest military in Europe after that of Russia. Ukrainian is the language and its alphabet is Cyrillic. The dominant religion in the country is Eastern Orthodoxy, which has strongly influenced Ukrainian architecture, literature, there are different hypotheses as to the etymology of the name Ukraine. According to the older and most widespread hypothesis, it means borderland, while more recently some studies claim a different meaning, homeland or region. The Ukraine now implies disregard for the sovereignty, according to U. S. ambassador William Taylor. Neanderthal settlement in Ukraine is seen in the Molodova archaeological sites include a mammoth bone dwelling
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Odessa Catacombs
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The Odessa Catacombs are a network of tunnels under Odessa, Ukraine and its surrounding region, that are mostly the result of stone mining, at first, and then smuggling. The Catacombs are on three levels and reach a depth of 60 metres below sea level and it is one of the worlds largest labyrinth running up to 2,500 kilometers. In the 19th-century, most houses in Odessa were built of limestone that was mined nearby and these mines were abandoned and later used, and widened, by local smugglers, creating a labyrinth of underground tunnels beneath Odessa. The approximate topography of the Odessa underground labyrinth is unknown, the catacombs have not been fully mapped. It is thought that most of the catacombs are former sandstone multilevel mines from which stone was extracted to construct the city above, the remaining catacombs are either natural cavities or were excavated for other purposes such as sewerage. As of 2012, there are more than 1000 known entrances to the tunnels, only one small portion of the catacombs is open to the public, within the Museum of Partisan Glory in Nerubayskoye, north of Odessa. Other caves attract extreme tourists, who explore the tunnels despite the dangers involved, such tours are not officially sanctioned because the catacombs have not been fully mapped and the tunnels themselves are unsafe. The first underground stone mines started to appear in the 19th century and they were used as a source of cheap construction materials. Limestone was cut using saws, and mining became so intensive that by the half of the 19th century. After the Russian Revolution of 1917, stone mining was banned within the part of Odessa. During World War II the catacombs served as a place for Soviet partisans. In his work The Waves of The Black Sea, Valentin Kataev described the battle between Soviet partisans against the forces, underneath Odessa and its nearby suburb Usatovo. In her book Life from Stone, Sofiya de Havilland describes the catacombs, in 1961 the Search club was created in order to explore the history of partisan movement among the catacombs. Since its creation, it has expanded understanding of the catacombs, the city has a large population of over 1 million people, which some believe would benefit from the introduction of a subway system. The tunnels have been cited as the reason why such a system has never been built in Odessa. Since the beginning of the 21st century limestone mining has continued in the located in Dofinovka, Byldynka. As the result of mining, the catacombs continue to expand. There have been reports of people walking into the catacombs, getting lost
45.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
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Old St. Patrick's Cathedral
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Liturgies are celebrated in English, Spanish, and Chinese. The church was designated a New York City landmark in 1966, and it was declared a minor basilica by Pope Benedict XVI on March 17,2010. The first Roman Catholic church in New York City was St. Peters on Barclay Street, the cornerstone of which was laid in 1785. The site he selected for the new church was being used as a cemetery for St. Peters, and was well outside the area of the city, surrounded by farmland. Construction took just under five years, with the sanctuary being dedicated on May 14,1815, in that same year, John Connolly, an Irish Dominican friar, arrived to take office as the citys first resident bishop. The church, which was the largest in the city at the time it was built, measures 120 by 80 feet, until 1830 the cathedral was the ending place of the annual St. Patricks Day parade. Eventually, the parade moved uptown to pass in front of the new St. Patricks Cathedral, in 1836, the cathedral was the subject of an attempted sack after tensions between Irish Catholics and anti-Catholic Know-Nothing nativists led to a number of riots and other physical confrontations. Despite the book being debunked by a mildly anti-Catholic magazine editor, loopholes were cut in the churchs outer walls, which had just recently been built, and the building was defended from the rioters with muskets. Afterwards, the Ancient Order of Hibernians established its headquarters across the street from the church, since 1879, St. Patricks Old Cathedral has been a parish church, the pastor residing in the old Bishops House at 263 Mulberry Street. St. Patricks Old Cathedral School at 32 Prince Street between Mulberry and Mott Streets, across Prince Street from the Cathedral, predates the church itself and it was built in 1825-26 as the Roman Catholic Orphan Asylum, operated by the Sisters of Charity. In 1851, the asylum became for girls only, and in 1886 became a school, St. Patricks Convent. The Federal-style building is a New York City landmark, designated in 1966, St. Michaels is the last Russian Catholic church in New York City and one of only four remaining such sanctuaries in the United States. The baptism scene in The Godfather was filmed in the old Cathedral, a scene in the Martin Scorsese film Mean Streets was set in the cathedrals walled graveyard. The underground mortuary vaults of the old Cathedral were featured on the Secrets of New York episode Deep NY - How Low Can You Go in the Big Apple, on NYCTV
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Anatolia
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Anatolia, in geography known as Asia Minor, Asian Turkey, Anatolian peninsula, or Anatolian plateau, is the westernmost protrusion of Asia, which makes up the majority of modern-day Turkey. The region is bounded by the Black Sea to the north, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, the Sea of Marmara forms a connection between the Black and Aegean Seas through the Bosphorus and Dardanelles straits and separates Anatolia from Thrace on the European mainland. Traditionally, Anatolia is considered to extend in the east to a line between the Gulf of Alexandretta and the Black Sea to the Armenian Highlands, thus, traditionally Anatolia is the territory that comprises approximately the western two-thirds of the Asian part of Turkey. The Turkification of Anatolia began under the Seljuk Empire in the late 11th century, however, various non-Turkic languages continue to be spoken by minorities in Anatolia today, including Kurdish, Assyrian, Armenian, Arabic, Laz, Georgian, and Greek. Traditionally, Anatolia is considered to extend in the east to a line running from the Gulf of Alexandretta to the Black Sea. This traditional geographical definition is used, for example, in the latest edition of Merriam-Websters Geographical Dictionary, under this definition, Anatolia is bounded to the east by the Armenian Highlands, and the Euphrates before that river bends to the southeast to enter Mesopotamia. To the southeast, it is bounded by the ranges that separate it from the Orontes valley in Syria, the first name the Greeks used for the Anatolian peninsula was Ἀσία, presumably after the name of the Assuwa league in western Anatolia. As the name of Asia came to be extended to areas east of the Mediterranean. The name Anatolia derives from the Greek ἀνατολή meaning “the East” or more literally “sunrise”, the precise reference of this term has varied over time, perhaps originally referring to the Aeolian, Ionian and Dorian colonies on the west coast of Asia Minor. In the Byzantine Empire, the Anatolic Theme was a theme covering the western, the modern Turkish form of Anatolia is Anadolu, which again derives from the Greek name Aνατολή. The Russian male name Anatoly and the French Anatole share the same linguistic origin, in English the name of Turkey for ancient Anatolia first appeared c. It is derived from the Medieval Latin Turchia, which was used by the Europeans to define the Seljuk controlled parts of Anatolia after the Battle of Manzikert. Human habitation in Anatolia dates back to the Paleolithic, neolithic Anatolia has been proposed as the homeland of the Indo-European language family, although linguists tend to favour a later origin in the steppes north of the Black Sea. However, it is clear that the Anatolian languages, the oldest branch of Indo-European, have spoken in Anatolia since at least the 19th century BC. The earliest historical records of Anatolia stem from the southeast of the region and are from the Mesopotamian-based Akkadian Empire during the reign of Sargon of Akkad in the 24th century BC, scholars generally believe the earliest indigenous populations of Anatolia were the Hattians and Hurrians. The region was famous for exporting raw materials, and areas of Hattian-, one of the numerous cuneiform records dated circa 20th century BC, found in Anatolia at the Assyrian colony of Kanesh, uses an advanced system of trading computations and credit lines. They were speakers of an Indo-European language, the Hittite language, originating from Nesa, they conquered Hattusa in the 18th century BC, imposing themselves over Hattian- and Hurrian-speaking populations. According to the most widely accepted Kurgan theory on the Proto-Indo-European homeland, however, the Hittites adopted the cuneiform script, invented in Mesopotamia
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Turkey
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Turkey, officially the Republic of Turkey, is a transcontinental country in Eurasia, mainly in Anatolia in Western Asia, with a smaller portion on the Balkan peninsula in Southeast Europe. Turkey is a democratic, secular, unitary, parliamentary republic with a cultural heritage. The country is encircled by seas on three sides, the Aegean Sea is to the west, the Black Sea to the north, and the Mediterranean Sea to the south. The Bosphorus, the Sea of Marmara, and the Dardanelles, Ankara is the capital while Istanbul is the countrys largest city and main cultural and commercial centre. Approximately 70-80% of the countrys citizens identify themselves as ethnic Turks, other ethnic groups include legally recognised and unrecognised minorities. Kurds are the largest ethnic minority group, making up approximately 20% of the population, the area of Turkey has been inhabited since the Paleolithic by various ancient Anatolian civilisations, as well as Assyrians, Greeks, Thracians, Phrygians, Urartians and Armenians. After Alexander the Greats conquest, the area was Hellenized, a process continued under the Roman Empire. The Seljuk Sultanate of Rûm ruled Anatolia until the Mongol invasion in 1243, the empire reached the peak of its power in the 16th century, especially during the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent. During the war, the Ottoman government committed genocides against its Armenian, Assyrian, following the war, the conglomeration of territories and peoples that formerly comprised the Ottoman Empire was partitioned into several new states. Turkey is a member of the UN, an early member of NATO. Turkeys growing economy and diplomatic initiatives have led to its recognition as a regional power while her location has given it geopolitical, the name of Turkey is based on the ethnonym Türk. The first recorded use of the term Türk or Türük as an autonym is contained in the Old Turkic inscriptions of the Göktürks of Central Asia, the English name Turkey first appeared in the late 14th century and is derived from Medieval Latin Turchia. Similarly, the medieval Khazar Empire, a Turkic state on the shores of the Black. The medieval Arabs referred to the Mamluk Sultanate as al-Dawla al-Turkiyya, the Ottoman Empire was sometimes referred to as Turkey or the Turkish Empire among its European contemporaries. The Anatolian peninsula, comprising most of modern Turkey, is one of the oldest permanently settled regions in the world, various ancient Anatolian populations have lived in Anatolia, from at least the Neolithic period until the Hellenistic period. Many of these peoples spoke the Anatolian languages, a branch of the larger Indo-European language family, in fact, given the antiquity of the Indo-European Hittite and Luwian languages, some scholars have proposed Anatolia as the hypothetical centre from which the Indo-European languages radiated. The European part of Turkey, called Eastern Thrace, has also been inhabited since at least forty years ago. It is the largest and best-preserved Neolithic site found to date, the settlement of Troy started in the Neolithic Age and continued into the Iron Age
