Vatican Museums

The Vatican Museums originated as a group of sculptures collected by Pope Julius II (1503-1513) and placed in what today is the “Cortile Ottagono” within the museum complex. The popes were among the first sovereigns who opened the art collections of their palaces to the public thus promoting knowledge of art history and culture. As seen today, the Vatican Museums are a complex of different pontifical museums and galleries that began under the patronage of the popes Clement XIV (1769-1774) and Pius VI (1775-1799). In fact, the Pio-Clementine Museum was named after these two popes, who set up this first major curatorial section. Later, Pius VII (1800-1823) considerably expanded the collections of Classical Antiquities, to which he added the Chiaromonti Museum and the “Braccio Nuovo” gallery. He also enriched the Epigraphic Collection, which was conserved in the Lapidary Gallery.

Gregory XVI (1831-1846) founded the Etruscan Museum (1837) with archaeological finds discovered during excavations carried out from 1828 onwards in southern Etruria. Later, he established the Egyptian Museum (1839), which houses ancient artifacts from explorations in Egypt, together with other pieces already conserved in the Vatican and in the Museo Capitolino, and the Lateran Profane Museum (1844), with statues, bas-relief sculptures and mosaics of the Roman era, which could not be adequately placed in the Vatican Palace. The Lateran Profane Museum was expanded in 1854 under Pius IX (1846-1878) with the addition of the Pio Christian Museum. This museum is comprised of ancient sculptures (especially sarcophagi) and inscriptions with ancient Christian content. In 1910, under the pontificate of Saint Pius X (1903-1914), the Hebrew Lapidary was established. This section of the museum contains 137 inscriptions from ancient Hebrew cemeteries in Rome mostly from via Portuense and donated by the Marquisate Pellegrini-Quarantotti. These last collections (Gregorian Profane Museum, Pio Christian Museum and the Hebrew Lapidary) were transferred, under the pontificate of Pope John XXIII (1958-1963), from the Lateran Palace to their present building within the Vatican and inaugurated in 1970.

The Museums also include the Gallery of Tapestries, a collection of various 15th and 17th century tapestries; the Gallery of Maps, decorated under the pontificate of Gregory XIII (1572-1585) and restored by Urban VIII (1623-1644); the Sobieski Room and the Room of the Immaculate Conception; the Raphael Stanze and the Loggia, which were decorated by order of Julius II and Leo X (1513-1521); the Chapel of Nicholas V (1447-1455), painted by Fra Angelico; the Sistine Chapel, which takes the name of its founder, Pope Sixtus IV; the Borgia Apartment, where Pope Alexander VI lived until his death (1492-1503); the Vatican Pinacoteca, created under Pius XI (1922-1932) in a special building near the new entrance to the Museums; the Missionary-Ethnological Museum which was founded by Pius XI in 1926, arranged on the upper floors of the Lateran Palace and later transferred, under Pope John XXIII, to the Vatican where it has been opened again to the public in the same building which housed the former Lateran collections. In 1973 the Collection of Modern and Contemporary Religious Art was added and inaugurated by Pope Paul VI (1963-1978) in the Borgia Apartment. The Vatican Historical Museum, founded in 1973 and transferred in 1987 to the Papal Apartment in the Lateran Palace, houses a series of papal portraits along with objects of the past Pontifical Military Corps and of the Pontifical Chapel and Family and historic ceremonial objects no longer in use. The Carriage and Automobile Museum is a section of the Vatican Historical Museum. In the year 2000, the Vatican Museums opened a new large entrance that provides visitor information and other services; on display are many new artworks, two of which were specially created for this grand entrance hall.

Sahara Desert

The other side of the world could be closer than you think. Little pieces of Earth, particles of dust, can travel halfway around the globe and alter air quality, affecting animals, plants and weather. Summer storms from the planet's deserts kick up literally millions of tons of dust, and winds send it flying to far-flung destinations where it clogs our lungs, changes soil chemistry, deposits minerals in bodies of water and reflects the Sun's rays back into space.

In July 2000 alone, nearly 8 million tons of dust from Africa's Sahara desert reached as far west as Puerto Rico. "If you figure that a pickup truck weighs 1 metric ton, that dust weighed as much as 8 million pickups," says NASA aerosol researcher Dr. Peter Colarco. Colarco works to create computer simulations that forecast the movement of dust given current weather conditions. NASA and its partner agencies want to know what drives the movement of this dust and how exactly the dust changes our environment, not only so scientists can better understand the health of our planet, but also so they can predict where dust will imminently affect people.

Take the case of Africa. Winds blow twenty percent of dust from a Saharan storm out over the Atlantic Ocean, and twenty percent of that, or four percent of a single storm's dust, reaches all the way to the west side of the Atlantic. The remainder settles out into the ocean or washes out of the air with rainfall. Scientists think that the July 2000 measurements, made in Puerto Rico, equaled about one-fifth of the total year's dust deposits. If these estimates hold true over the long term, then the entire state of Florida receives about three feet of dust every million years.

Machu Picchu

The ruins of Machu Picchu, rediscovered in 1911 by Hiram Bingham, are one of the most beautiful and enigmatic ancient sites in the world. While the Inca people utilized the Andean mountain top (2800 m elevation), erecting massive stone structures from the early 1400's, legends and myths indicate that Machu Picchu (meaning 'Old Peak' in the Quechua language) was revered as a sacred place from a far earlier time. The Inca turned the site into a small (12 square kilometers) but extraordinary city. Invisible from the Urubamba River valley below and completely self-contained, surrounded by agricultural terraces sufficient to feed the population, and watered by natural springs, Machu Picchu seems to have been utilized by the Inca as a secret ceremonial city. The Spaniards never found Machu Picchu, even though they suspected its existence. The mountain top sanctuary fell into disuse and was abandoned some forty years after the Spanish took Cuzco in 1533. Supply lines linking the many Inca social centers were disrupted and the great empire came to an end. This simulated natural color ASTER image covers 12 x 15 km, was acquired on June 25, 2001, and is located at 13.1 degrees south latitude and 72.5 degrees west longitude.

Sizou City

Sizhou City was founded in North Zhou Dynasty (AD557-581), and during Sui Dynasty it was rebuilt in Tang Dynasty. In Song Dynasty, a new city was built opposite to the Bian River beside the Sizhou City and gradually its scope exceeded the old city zone. In Ming Dynasty the city wall between these two cities was taken apart and over the Bian River built a wide scaffold bridge, which made the two cities combined. To prevent the flood, outside the city gate was built 6 semi-circular enclosures and 5 enclosure gates; there was one enclosure outside the gate and only there were two outside the south gate as double sluice gates. When there was flood outside the city, the enclosure gate should be firstly stopped up and people could get out on the causeway of the enclosure gate. The old city of this pattern is especially unique in our country. In Ming Dynasty, large hydraulic projects were put into practice in order to protect Sizhou City and imperial ancestor mausoleum, and construct Hongze Lake to maintain water transportation. In 19th year of Kangxi Time in Qing Dynasty (in 1680), Yellow River and Huaihe River were all flooded and Sizhou district was suffered with 70 days' rainstorm constantly and then the city was submerged; nevertheless it was not located in the main riverway of Huaihe River, so it was not destroyed by turbulent flood but submerged by soil and sand until the 35th year of Kangxi Time (in 1696).

Sizhou City is a remarkable treasure of many ages. It has been under the water for over 300 years but thereby keeps a wonder of a almost complete ancient city. The value of the Sizhou City comes to its original historic feature and special precious travel resource. Compared with Pompeii City in Italy submerged by volcano, the underwater Sizhou City has the same result through different approach and therefore the underwater Sizhou City is called "Chinese Pompeii City" by the archaeologist.

Stonehenge

Stonehenge is a prehistoric gravestone located in the English county of Wiltshire, about 3.2 kilometres (2.0 mi) west of Amesbury and 13 kilometres (8.1 mi) north of Salisbury. One of the most celebrated primeval sites in the world, Stonehenge is unruffled of earthworks surrounding a circular setting of large standing stones. Archaeologists suppose that the standing stones were erected around 2200 BC and the surrounding circular earth bank and trench, which represent the earliest phase of the memorial, have been dated to about 3100 BC. The site and its surroundings were added to the UNESCO's list of World legacy Sites in 1986 in a co-listing with Avebury henge tombstone, and it is also a officially protected Scheduled Ancient Monument. Stonehenge itself is owned by the Crown and managed by English Heritage while the surrounding ground is owned by the National Trust.

Sahara Desert

The boundaries of the Sahara are the Atlantic Ocean on the west, the Atlas Mountains and the Mediterranean Sea on the north, the Red Sea and Egypt on the east, and the Sudan and the vale of the Niger River on the south. The Sahara is separated into western Sahara, the central Ahaggar Mountains, the Tibesti Mountains, the Aïr Mountains, Tenere desert and the Libyan desert (the most arid region). The highest crest in the Sahara is Emi Koussi (3415 m) in the Tibesti Mountains in northern Chad.

The Sahara divides the continent of Africa into North and Sub-Saharan Africa. The southern border of the Sahara is patent by a band of semiarid savanna called the Sahel; south of the Sahel lies the lusher Sudan and the Congo River Basin. Most of the Sahara consists of gravel hamada; ergs form only a minor part.

The Sahara has one of the harshest climates in the world. The existing north-easterly wind often causes the smooth to form sand storms and dust devils. Precipitation, while rare, is not unknown. Half of the Sahara receives less than 2 cm of rain a year, with the rest receiving up to 10 cm a year. The rainfall happens very infrequently, but when it does it is usually heavy when it occurs after long dry periods, which can last for years.

Potala Palace

The Potala Palace is situated in Lhasa, Tibet independent Region of the People's Republic of China. It was named after Mount Potala, the habitat of Chenresig or Avalokitesvara. The Potala Palace was the chief residence of the Dalai Lama until the 14th Dalai Lama fled to Dharamsala, India after an incursion and failed uprising in 1959. Today the Potala Palace has been changed into a museum by the Chinese.

The building measures 400 metres east-west and 350 metres north-south, with sloping stone walls averaging 3 m. thick, and 5 m. (more than 16 ft) thick at the base, and with copper poured into the foundations to help testimony it against earthquakes. Thirteen stories of buildings containing over 1,000 rooms, 10,000 shrines and about 200,000 statues, soar 117 metres (384 ft) on top of Marpo Ri, the "Red Hill", rising more than 300 m (about 1,000 ft) in total above the valley floor. Ritual has it that the three main hills of Lhasa symbolize the "Three Protectors of Tibet." Chokpori, just to the south of the Potala, is the soul-mountain (bla-ri) of Vajrapani, Pongwari that of Manjushri, and Marpori, the hill on which the Potala stands, represents Chenresig or Avalokiteshvara