Radar imaging reveals ancient Egyptian underground city

The underground city of Avaris. From Guardian.co.com

From Guardian.co.uk. June 21, 2010. (Associated Press in Cairo)

An Austrian archaeological team has used radar imaging to determine the extent of the ruins of the 3,500-year-old one-time capital of Egypt's foreign occupiers, according to the country's antiquities department.

Egypt was ruled for a century from 1664-1569 BC by the Hyksos, a group of warriors from Asia – possibly Semitic in origin – whose summer capital, Avaris, was in the northern Delta area.

Irene Müller, the head of the Austrian team, said the main purpose of the project was to determine how far the underground city extends. The radar imaging showed the outlines of streets, houses and temples underneath the green farm fields and modern town of Tel al-Dabaa.

Dr Zahi Hawass, secretary general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, said the computer-generated images of the city, which is still buried under the ground, show a very detailed layout of ancient Avaris. Several architectural features including houses, temples, streets, cemeteries and palaces can be seen.

The team has also been able to make out the arrangement of neighbourhoods and living quarters.

"Using such a special scientific survey to locate such a city is the only way to gain a better understanding of such a large area at one time," Hawass said.

The team has succeeded in identifying a collection of houses and a possible harbour area. A series of pits of different sizes are also visible but their function has not yet been determined.

The Austrian team of archaeologists have been working on the site since 1975. Egypt's Nile Delta is densely populated and heavily farmed, making extensive excavation difficult, unlike in southern Egypt with its more famous desert tombs and temples.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jun/21/radar-imaging-egyptian-underground-city

Read more

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/middle_east/10367930.stm

Old patterns of suburban growth and urban decline are now being reversed

Maps of foreclosures in Chicago region. See the difference between 1998 and 2008. Scary....From New Urban News

I´ve been reading an article at New Urban News, about professor William H. Lucy, who has examined America’s foreclosure epidemic in great detail and has arrived at this conclusion: Decades-old patterns of suburban growth and urban decline are now being reversed. 

This is pretty obvious and you don´t need a complete analysis, though I really appreciate all the investigation.

What was left, the empty neighborhoods, ¨zombie¨ developments, are located mostly in suburban areas, in rural areas where beautiful houses were sold a couple o years ago, much bigger and cheaper than the ones in the cities. Those homeowners could enjoy lakes, landscapes, but now, it´s  very difficult for any body to afford the expenses related to far away neighborhoods, beginning with access to supermarkets, long travels to work –if they were not fired-, more than one car as everybody has  to drive to populated cities.  Now, people look for job openings in urban areas, as always, they can find more opportunities.

And where do foreclosure former homeowners go? To rent, anywhere, obviously rental apartments are not in suburban or rural areas. Or even they relocated in another states, with their families.

This is the real city I see everyday, what is not shown in the books, properties in crowded neighborhoods, with illegal constructions ready to be rented. If somebody buys a property with illegal rooms, he can ask for a price reduction. Then, he should take care of it, demolish or legalize. But, people keep on renting them until an inspector from the City shows up. This is another attraction from cities………

Illegal construction for rent, in Los Angeles. Picture by Myriam Mahiques

People also rents motor homes in the city. What cannot be seen from the street....Picture by Myriam Mahiques 

This is an excerpt from the article  at New Urban News:
“The years leading up to the 2008-2009 crises may be seen in retrospect as the last hurrah of the exurban extreme of the American dream,” says Lucy, a professor of urban and environmental planning at the University of Virginia. Increasingly, people with choices and financial resources want to live in cities. 
The residential foreclosures that spiked in the past three years have been highly concentrated. Sixty-two percent of foreclosures in 2008 occurred in just four of the 50 states: California, Florida, Nevada, and Arizona. Forty percent clustered in 16 counties within 10 metropolitan areas, nearly all of them in the Sunbelt, which have more than their share of semi-abandoned tracts — referred to by Lucy as “zombie subdivisions.”
The foreclosure crisis has taken most of its toll on metropolitan areas’ edges — places that in many instances depended heavily on real estate activity for their economic well-being, according to Lucy. His findings appear in Foreclosing the Dream: How America’s Housing Crisis Is Reshaping Our Cities and Suburbs, a 208-page paperback from the American Planning Association’s Planners Press 

Lucy attributes much of the foreclosure crisis to these factors:
• Federal policy aimed at increasing the homeownership rate above the 64 to 66 percent range where it had stayed from the 1960s to the 1990s. President Bill Clinton boosted the rate to 67.7 percent. President George W. Bush’s goal of getting 5.5 million more Americans to own homes — pushing the rate to 71.4 percent —resulted in a further easing of financial standards. 
• A long-term decline in the incomes of most Americans and an increase in the gap between the rich and the rest of the population. Many who were enticed to buy houses couldn’t afford them. 
• Credit that started out cheap but jumped to a higher rate within a few years.
• The recession. “The foreclosure crisis was triggered in those states where house prices to income ratios widened the most,” led by California and Nevada and then Arizona and Florida, Lucy says.

Back to the city
Unaffordable houses and a severe recession weren’t the only influences, Lucy says. “Something else was also afoot. … The whole pattern of metropolitan development was quietly moving in reverse.” 
Through a detailed examination of census records, Lucy shows that the condition of quite a few cities stabilized by 1990 and then improved. “During the 1990s, something remarkable began to happen,” Lucy says. “Cities were attracting people with money.” In the 40 central cities of the 35 metropolitan areas ranked as America’s largest in 1980, the decline in average per capita income halted. 
Why the change?
“The revival of interest in cities on the part of middle-class whites had a lot to do with a fondness for older homes,” particularly their craftsmanship and character, Lucy maintains. By 2000, neighborhoods with housing built before 1940 were no longer the poorest in their metropolitan areas. They were attracting inhabitants with greater means. 
At the same time, neighborhoods made up of housing that had been built between 1950 and 1970 started to lose their privileged status. Areas developed from 1950 to 1970 were “most likely to be dominated by small houses [whose appeal was waning], far from shops and other needs.”
In other words, both the nature of the houses and their construction and their closeness to, or distance from, everyday needs and services precipitated a profound shift. Urban living gained in popularity. 

Keep on reading

http://www.newurbannews.com/15.4/foreclosures.html

Fractal spheres

Sphere 2C. By Myriam Mahiques

Sphere 3. By Myriam Mahiques

London. By William Blake (1757-1827)

Image from http://viewfinder.english-heritage.org.uk/

London street. From www.flickr.com/photos/ronaldhanko/3281662345/

I wander through each chartered street,
Near where the chartered Thames does flow,
And mark in every face I meet 
Marks of wakness, marks of woe.


In every cry of every man,
In every infant´s cry of fear,
In every voice, in every ban,
The mind-forged manacles I hear:


How the chimney-sweeper´s cry
Every blackening church appalls,
And the hapless solider´s sigh
Runs in blood down palace walls.


But most, through midnight streets I hear
How the youthful harlot´s curse
Blasts the new-born infant´s tear,
And blights with plagues the marriage hearse.

Paolo Soleri´s amphitheater in New Mexico may be demolished

Picture from the Architect´s Newspaper blog

From The Architect´s Newspaper blog:

An earth-formed concrete amphitheater designed by Paolo Soleri may be demolished later this summer. One of only a handful of structures built by Soleri, the open-air theater (known as the “Paolo”) is on the campus of the Santa Fe Indian School, in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The school commissioned Soleri to design the theater in 1964, and though it has been used for graduations and concerts since that time, the school now believes that it costs too much to maintain, and says it brings drunken crowds onto the campus during events.

Built using student labor from the school, the structure was designed to “frame the sun and the moon,” and operate like an Elizabethan theater with bridges and ramps that allow performers to access various levels above, below, and behind the stage. A dramatically arched form over the stage covers the principal performance area, and according to Soleri was created of “trenched earth that captures the shape and consistency of the earth itself.”

On June 11, New Mexico’s Cultural Properties Review Committee urged the school to rethink its plans to raze the structure, and the Santa Fe City Council has also called for the theater’s salvation. Soleri, who will turn 91 on June 21, has been rallying admirers of the earthen structure, noting in a statement, “I am willing to do anything to support the preservation of the theater.” His Cosanti Foundation is working with a variety of organizations to prevent its demolition, as well as raising funds to help the theater continue to serve the Santa Fe Indian School students and the broader Santa Fe community.

http://blog.archpaper.com/wordpress/archives/7966

Behind the stage. From the Architect´s Newspaper blog

From adobeairstream.com:

Soleri, whose best-known vision is the project Arcosanti in the Arizona desert, drew upon the past to design the future in the Ampitheater, planning it for the Indian School theater department as an interpretation of the Elizabethan stage.  "We were hoping actors would not just use the stage, but also the area above it, and that's why we designed the bridge and other platforms ....with action taking place on different levels...,"  was how Soleri described the design process in a Cosanti Foundation press release made public last week.

http://www.adobeairstream.com/component/zine/article/399-why-the-paolo-soleri-must-stay-standing.html

Hallan en Roma los íconos más antiguos de cuatro apóstoles

Foto de Reuters

Artículo de Elisabetta Piqué, corresponsal en Roma, para La Nación:

ROMA.- Gracias a la tecnología láser, los primeros y más antiguos íconos de los apóstoles Pablo, Pedro, Andrés y Juan -imágenes del siglo IV después de Cristo- volvieron a salir a la luz en una catacumba de la periferia de la Ciudad Eterna. El hallazgo tuvo lugar cerca de la famosa basílica de San Pablo Extramuros, en una transitadísima zona de clase media jamás pisada por turistas.

Los antiquísimos íconos, según anunció ayer el Vaticano, fueron descubiertos a cuatro metros de profundidad debajo de un edificio de oficinas de ocho pisos construido en los años 50, cuyos pilares lograron conservar milagrosamente la catacumba, una de las 40 que existen debajo del suelo de Roma, bautizada Santa Tecla.

En verdad la catacumba era conocida desde 1720, pero una sólida capa de material calcáreo había tapado los frescos salidos a la luz ahora. Fue el láser el que logró desvelar este impactante tesoro arqueológico, que fue presentado ayer por monseñor Gianfranco Ravasi, presidente de la Pontificia Comisión de Arqueología Sagrada, junto con expertos y restauradores.

Fabrizio Bisconti profesor italiano muestra una pintura dentro de la catacumba de Santa Tecla en el centro de Roma . Foto Reuters

Todo comenzó hace un año, cuando en un rincón de la misma bóveda los arqueólogos descubrieron el rostro de San Pablo. Entonces, los estudiosos intuyeron que en la misma galería subterránea -que había sido la tumba de una noble romana-, podían ocultarse otros íconos.

"Después de varios intentos fallidos, el láser logró su cometido. Luego de tirar abajo la capa de material calcáreo, descubrimos en los tres ángulos de la bóveda los otros tres apóstoles (Pedro, Andrés y Juan) y, al centro, la imagen del Buen Pastor, Cristo", anunció Fabrizio Bisconti, director arqueológico de las catacumbas, que detalló que se trata de las primeras representaciones de los apóstoles como íconos.

l hallazgo demuestra cómo se había difundido el culto de los apóstoles en los orígenes del cristianismo, destacaron los expertos. Y que los aristócratas fueron los últimos romanos en convertirse a esta religión, visto que los íconos hallados formaban parte de la decoración de la tumba de una noble mujer romana.

En la bóveda también pueden verse imágenes de una matrona romana. "Al final del siglo IV vivió en Roma San Girolamo, que dio vida a una suerte de ascetismo casi monacal e involucró a varias matronas de la ciudad. La mujer sepultada en la bóveda podría ser una de estas aristócratas que, convertida al cristianismo, viajó a Tierra Santa y, a su regreso, ordenó reproducir imágenes de los apóstoles en la tumba", indicó Bisconti.

Los cuatro apóstoles se encuentran pintados en el cielo raso, dentro de círculos con bordes dorados y sobre un fondo color ocre. Barbara Mazzei, responsable de los trabajos de restauración, explicó que existen imágenes más antiguas de Pedro y Pablo, pero pintadas dentro de cuadros narrativos. Las halladas ahora, con sus rostros aislados, enmarcados en oro y colocados en los cuatro rincones del techo, representan en cambio una forma de devoción hacia los apóstoles única, la primera y más antigua.

Si bien la mayoría de las catacumbas romanas se encuentran abiertas al público, por ahora la de Santa Tecla será casi imposible de ver. Para proteger los impactantes íconos sólo podrán ser visitadas, mediante un permiso especial, por grupos pequeñísimos de personas.

http://www.lanacion.com.ar/nota.asp?nota_id=1277651&origen=NLCult

Summer solstice at Stonehenge

Picture by Matt Cardy. Getty Images

From msnbc.com, by John Roach: At sunrise on the Northern Hemisphere’s longest day of the year –the summer solstice- thousands of modern-day druids, pagans and partiers gather in the countryside near Salisbury, England, to cheer as the first rays of light stream over a circular arrangemente of stones called Stonehenge.

The original purpose of the ancient monument remains a source of academic debate. The large stones erected about 4000 years ago are aligned with the summer solstice sunrise, leading scholars to suggest a link to an ancient sun-worshipping culture.

The Fourth Form of Error. From the Stones of Venice

Front porch of Bourges Cathedral. From http://image03.webshots.com/

Side elevation of Bourges Cathedral. From http://image14.webshots.com/

¨The fourth form of error is when the men of design envy facts; that is to say, when the temptation of closely imitating nature leads them to forget their own proper ornamental function, and when they lose the power of composition for the sake of graphic truth; as, for instance, in the hawthorn moulding so often spoken of round the porch of Bourges Cathedral, which though very lovely, might perhaps, as we saw above, have been better, if the old buider, in his excessive desire to make it look like hawthorn, had not painted it in green.

It is, however, carefully to be noted, that the two morbid conditions to which the men of design are liable. The morbid state of men of design injures themselves only; that of the men of facts injures the whole world. The Chinese porcelain painter is, indeed, not so great a man as he might be, but he does not want to break everything that is not porcelain: but the modern English fact-hunter, despising design, wants to destroy everything that does not agree with his own notions of truth, and becomes the most dangerous and despicable of iconoclasts, exited by egotism instead of religion. Again: the Bourges sculptor, painting his hawthorns green, did not prevent any one from loving hawthorn: but Sir George Beaumont, trying to make Constable paint grass brown instead of green, was setting himself between Constable and nature, blinding the painter, and blaspheming the work of God.¨

Landscape with Hagar and the Angel. By George Beaumont. From wikipedia.org

The Haywain, 1821. By John Constable. From http://thomas-stubblefield.com/

From the Stones of Venice, by John Ruskin. In The Literature of England.p. 785. USA, 1966

(Bourges Cathedral is in central France. George Beaumont was a landscape painter and patron of art 1753-1827. John Constable was an English landscape painter 1776-1837)