Used Excavators

Posts Tagged ‘unesco world heritage’

Any tour to Italy in search of art and culture must take in the unforgettable and ancient ruins of Pompeii, only a few hours from Italy’s capital city Rome. Follow in the footsteps of the British gentility on Grand Tour with a trip to the Gulf of Naples where you can find a culture that was captured forever in the towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD79.

Pompeii, once a popular tourist destination for the ancient Romans, is now one of the most popular tourist sites in Italy and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. When Mount Vesuvius erupted in AD79, devastating the towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum, these ancient cities were buried, preserved and lost under thick layers of ash. This natural event that devastated the towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum now offer tourists the opportunity to see how people lived, and died, two thousand years ago.

Pompeii is now an outdoor museum and an excavation site that provides an exciting archaeological journey into Roman life in the 1st century. The Roman settlement, once lost under almost 60 feet of ash and pumice, was rediscovered in 1748. Since then numerous excavations have unearthed many rare discoveries including well-preserved frescoes showing what everyday life was like for its doomed inhabitants.

Even if you’re not interested in history the Pompeii site is a fascinating find. Providing a time capsule of Roman life and architecture, the excavated town includes cobbles streets, grand houses, villas, baths and a brothel. The baths contain stuccoed vaults with preserved images of nymphs and cupids while the Forum shows where the civic, commercial, political and religious heart of the town was located.

From the ruling class down to slaves, no one in the city was spared after Vesuvius erupted. As ash and soot covered the city, people and animals were frozen in time. Giuseppe Fiorelli, the director of one of Pompeii’s many excavations instructed workers to pour liquid plaster into cavities left in the ashes by decomposed bodies. These plaster casts show incredible detail of the people of Pompeii in their last moments.

If you wish to visit Pompeii, then it often proves a good idea to take one of the many tours offered once you arrive from your flights to Rome. From Rome’s Leonardo Da Vinci (Fiumicino) airport, take either a taxi or the train to Rome’s Termini Station and then the Eurostar to Naples.

The Circumvesuviana is one of Naples’ suburban rail services which runs around the base of Mount Vesuvius and connects its nearby cities. The ancient site of Pompeii is just 100 metres from the Pompei Scavi train which can be found half-way along the Circumvesuviana line.

The information contained within this article is the opinion of the author and is intended purely for information and interest purposes only. It should not be used to make any decisions or take any actions. Any links are included for information purposes only.

Mohenjo-daro

Mohenjo-daro was a city of the Indus Valley Civilization, 20 km from Larkana and some 80 km southwest of modern Sukkur, Sindh, Pakistan. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and better preserved than Harappa. However, due to rain the upper part of tomb is now destroyed despite steps to further save this world historical place.

Ancient city on the bank of the Indus River, in present-day southern Pakistan

The site of Mohenjo-Daro (also Moenjo-daro, latitude 27 degrees, 25 minutes north, longitude 67 degrees 35 minutes east), in Larkana District, Sindh, Pakistan, is the largest and most extensively excavated Indus city in Pakistan.

This city would have dominated the major trade routes and agricultural potential of the southern Indus plain, from around 2600-1900 BCE.
Mohenjo-Daro is located in District Larkana at a distance of about 28 km from Larakana and 107 km from sukkur.
Mohenjo-Daro was a city located in the south of Modern Pakistan in the Sind Province, on the right bank of the Indus River. It was built between four and five thousand years ago, and lasted until 3,700 BP. It was part of the Harrapan Civilization, and the city had at least 35,000 residents. Mohenjo-Daro means “mound of the dead”.

The city was approximately one square mile in size. In 1922-1927 large scale excavations at Mohenjo-daro were carried out by R. D. Banarjee and continued by M. S. Vats and K. N. Dikshit under the direction of Sir John Marshall. E. J. H. MacKay carried out further excavations from 1927 to1931. Sir Mortimer Wheeler made small excavations in1950.

As a result of this extensive work almost one-third of the area of the old city was exposed, revealing for the first time the remains of one of the most ancient civilizations in the Indus Valley. Typical of most large and planned cities, Mohenjo-daro had planned city streets and buildings. The settlement was thought to house roughly 5,000 people, and had houses, a granary, baths, assembly halls and towers.

Mohenjo-Daro – largest city of the Indus Civilization

The site of Mohenjo-Daro (also Moenjo-daro, latitude 27 degrees, 25 minutes north, longitude 67 degrees 35 minutes east), in Larkana District, Sindh, Pakistan, is the largest and most extensively excavated Indus city in Pakistan.

Mohenjo-Daro – It was built around 2600 BC, and was abandoned around 1700 BC, probably due to a change of course of the river which supported the civilization.

Mohenjo-Daro – The high western mound is generally referred to as the “citadel” mound, but it is subdivided into several sectors.
The city was divided into two parts, the Citadel included an elaborate tank or bath created with fine quality brickwork and drains; this was surrounded by a verandah. Also located here was a giant granary, a large residential structure, and at least two aisled assembly halls. To the east of the citadel was the lower city, laid out in a grid pattern. The streets were straight, and were drained to keep the area sanitary. The people of the city used very little stone in their construction. They used two types of bricks- mud bricks, and wood bricks, which were created by burning wood.

They used timber to create the flat roofs of their buildings; there are brick stairways leading to the roofs of many houses. Some houses were small, and others were larger with interior courtyards. Most had small bathrooms. Potter’s kilns, dyer’s vats, as well as metalworking, bead making, and shell-working shops have all been discovered. The people were good at irrigation and flood control. However, when the Indus River changed its course around 3700 years ago, the civilization died.

All Indus valley sites including Mohenjo-daro and Harappa, were built according to a grid pattern plan. Each city had broad parallel streets which crossed each other to divide the city into compact rectangular blocks, and had an advanced and extensive drainage system. In addition to it’s numerous other achievements Mohenjo-daro and other Indus sites made extensive use of baked brick (unlike the sun-dried brick typical of Mesopotamian civilization), which gave greater durability to all of its buildings.