istoryworld
Its influence
This 10th-century Bukhara tomb holds the germ of the future. Here the dome - as in the Dome of the Rock - is the main exterior feature of the building. In subsequent centuries domes of this kind become steadily more prominent in the Muslim tradition, attracting the viewer's attention by a variety of means - by size or swelling shape, by delicate fluting or white marble or a bright skin of ceramic tiles. Notable examples in the 14th century are a Mongol tomb at Soltaniyeh ...
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Salisbury, Chamberlain and empire
The imperial conference held at the time of the queen's Diamond Jubilee, in 1897, is a much more weighty affair than its predecessor ten years earlier. This time the prime ministers of the colonies have made the long journey to attend the festivities in person. And the colonial secretary, Joseph Chamberlain (appointed to this office in 1895), is a man with a passionate commitment to strengthening the commercial and political ties between the increasingly self-governing colonies.His prime minister, Lord Salisbury, is a less ardent imperialist. ...
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Palmyra
The other great staging post on the route to Antioch is also an important site, and today a much more visible one. It is Palmyra, famous as one of the great ruined classical cities. From Doura-Europus, on the Euphrates, the caravans strike west through the desert to the Mediterranean coast. Palmyra is an oasis half way across this difficult terrain. Its wealth derives from its position on the east-west axis from Persia to the coast, in addition to being on the older routes up from ...
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Caesar's heir
Gaius Octavius, known to history first as Octavian and then as Augustus Caesar, is born in 63 BC in a relatively obscure patrician family. His only evident advantage in life is that his grandmother is Julia, sister of Julius Caesar. His great-uncle sees talent in the boy and encourages him. Octavian is an 18-year-old student at Apollonia (in what is now Albania) when news comes in 44 BC that his uncle has been assassinated in Rome. Soon there is further information. In his will Caesar ...
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Jubilee Years
Senior representatives of the colonies are naturally in London for the Jubilee, and the opportunity is taken to hold an assembly which can now be seen as the first in a long line of Imperial and Commonwealth conferences. Ten years later, for the Diamond Jubilee of 1897, the mood is even more ecstatic. 2500 beacons are lit on the nation's hills, four times as many as in 1887.The queen, driven in an open carriage through six miles of London streets, notes in her diary: 'The ...
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A new Rome
Constantine, now in firm command of the entire Roman empire (the first man for a long while to be in that position), is planning another initiative as significant as his adoption of Christianity. Immediately after the defeat of Licinius he sets about rebuilding Byzantium as a Christian capital city - one in which pagan sacrifice, the central rite of imperial Rome until this time, is specifically forbidden. The city is ready by AD 330 for a ceremony of inauguration. Byzantium acquires two new names - ...
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The Arabic script
A stele, or inscribed column, is set up at Tema in northwest Arabia. Dating from the 5th century BC, its inscription is the earliest known example of the writing which evolves a millennium later into the Arabic script. The script is developed from the 1st century BC by the Nabataeans, a people speaking a Semitic language whose stronghold at Petra, on a main caravan route, brings them prosperity and the need for records. Writing is not much needed by the nomads of Arabia, but when ...
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The sculptures of Chartres
The figures in the north porch of Chartres are added half a century later, from about 1195 to 1220. Recognizably in the same style, they are still unusually tall and thin. But instead of being ethereal figures, they are beginning to stir themselves as human beings. Their predecessors in the west porch are aligned with their pillars, as if pinned to them like rare butterflies. The new figures stand more naturally between the pillars. And they look about. They make gestures. Their creators are beginning ...
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From tents to round houses
Once human beings settle down to the business of agriculture, instead of hunting and gathering, permanent settlements become a factor of life. The story of architecture can begin. The tent-like structures of earlier times evolve now into round houses. Jericho is usually quoted as the earliest known town. A small settlement here evolves in about 8000 BC into a town covering 10 acres. And the builders of Jericho have a new technology - bricks, shaped from mud and baked hard in the sun. In keeping ...
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War in the west
At first the thrust of the German armies through Belgium and south into France seems to fulfil the Schlieffen Plan. 'Victory by Christmas' does indeed seem possible (though the German high command is not alone in making this promise to its citizens - all the other combatants are professing equal optimism).The Belgian army puts up a heroic resistance but is unable to prevent the Germans from taking Liège on August 16, Brusssels on the 20th and Namur on the 23rd. Meanwhile a small British Expeditionary ...
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Sack of Constantinople
The crusaders camp outside Constantinople while Alexius, as emperor, tries to raise his debt to the Venetians by taxing the citizens and confiscating church property. For nine months growing resentment within the city is matched by increasing impatience outside. In April the Venetians persuade the crusaders to storm Constantinople and place a Latin emperor on the throne. For the second time they succeed in breaching the walls. The doge of Venice and the leading crusaders instal themselves in the royal palace. The army is granted ...
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The architecture of empire
As well as setting in place the administrative structure of the empire (and adopting Zoroastrianism as the state religion), Darius proves himself the greatest builder of the Achaemenid dynasty. In 521 he moves his capital to Susa, building there an audience hall and a palace. An inscription found at Susa reveals his pride in his far-flung empire of craftsmen. In 518 he moves them all - stone cutters, masons, carpenters, sculptors - some 250 miles (400 km) to the southeast, to start work on an ...
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Hub of the Mediterranean
Sicily, a large fertile island at a pivotal point in the Mediterranean, is one of the world's most desirable patches of land. Colonized by Phoenicians and Greeks, and fought over between Greeks, Carthaginians and Romans in the Punic Wars, its architectural and artistic remains bear witness to its past grandeur - in the great series of Greek temples, or the Roman mosaics at Piazza Armerina. In medieval times the island achieves a different creative blend, of three later cultures - Byzantine Christianity, Islam and Roman ...
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Rialto and St Mark's
Legend rapidly provides exciting details of how the bones were secured. It is said that two Venetian merchants stole them from the saint's shrine in Alexandria and then smuggled them out of Egypt in a barrel of pork - an unclean meat to Muslims and therefore unlikely to be inspected. Whatever the actual means (theft of relics is common in the Middle Ages, but purchase is equally possible), the arrival of the bones is the occasion for the building of the first St Mark's in ...
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China's Grand Canal
The Chinese (the greatest early builders of canals) undertake several major projects from the 3rd century BC onwards. These waterways combine the functions of irrigation and transport. Over the centuries more and more such canals are constructed. Finally, in the Sui dynasty (7th century AD), vast armies of labourers are marshalled for the task of joining many existing waterways into the famous Grand Canal. Barges can now travel all the way from the Yangtze to the Yellow River, and then on up the Wei to ...
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Isfahan
The new centre of the city is a vast rectangular space, the Maidan-i-Shah (Royal Parade), designed for parades and polo. At its southern end there rises the most magnificent of Isfahan's swelling blue domes, on the Masjid-i-Shah (Royal Mosque). The tiles are shaped where necessary to fit the curve of the dome, as are those which clad the mosque's circular minarets. The dome is reflected in a great pool in the courtyard. On the east of the Maidan-i-Shah is a smaller blue dome, on the ...
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The vaulted stone roof
Romanesque in the north tends to be more massive in style than the delicate arches of Vézelay. A good example is the interior of Durham cathedral - the glory of English Romanesque (often given the alternative name of Norman architecture). The chunky pillars of Durham, many of them decorated with deeply incised patterns, support a vaulted stone roof over the nave - a significant Romanesque innovation of this period. The construction of Durham begins in 1093, a few decades before the nave of Vézelay.
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Inca architecture
The Incas share with another much earlier civilization, that of Mycenaean Greece, a habit of building with massive blocks of masonry. But the precision of the Peruvian masons puts all others to shame. In their capital at Cuzco, or in subject cities where they wish to emphasize their presence, the Incas leave their trade mark in great slabs of stone, often of eccentric shape, fitting together with an uncanny and beautiful precision. The modern city of Cuzco has grown upon and around its Inca origins. ...
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Straight walls with windows
One of the best preserved neolithic towns is Catal Huyuk, covering some 32 acres in southern Turkey. Here the houses are rectangular, with windows but no doors. They adjoin each other, like cells in a honeycomb, and the entrance to each is through the roof. The windows are a happy accident, made possible by the sloping site. Each house projects a little above its neighbour, providing space for the window. Not surprisingly, an idea as excellent as this catches on elsewhere and brings with it ...
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Trial and execution of Charles I
Charles refuses to recognize the court and merely reiterates the doctrine of the divine right of kings. His accusers respond with arguments based upon the sovereignty of parliament. Thus the entire issue of the civil war is restated, with unflinching intransigence on each side, within the narrow confines of this historic hall.On January 27 the tribunal finds the king guilty of treason. A high scaffold is constructed in Whitehall. Three days later the king steps on to it from one of the large windows of ...
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