House of the Virgin Mary in Turkey

History has always fascinated me. Here's a bit of history that could be fascinating to you as well. It's the house that the Virgin Mary, mother of Jesus Christ, used to live after His crucifixion in Calvary.

WHEN Jesus was on the cross at Calvary, he turned to his youngest Apostle and asked him to look after his mother Mary, the Bible says. But the book remains largely silent about what happened to her after that.

It is believed, however, that John the Evangelist, as the Apostle came to be known, quietly spirited her away to what is modern-day Turkey.

High on a hill slope outside the town of Ephesus he built her a simple stone house where she stayed secretly. Those were dangerous times for Christians. The Romans held Ephesus and they were responsible for crucifying Jesus.

Visitors light candles and place them in glass-shielded stands.

The wishing wall full of wishes on paper

The outdoor area where mass is held every Sunday

Continue reading House of the Virgin Mary in Turkey.. The Star

All images are borrowed from The Star

Ancient site, Mes Aynak, needs saving not destroying

Just like the Bamiyan Buddha statues that were dynamited and destroyed in March 2001 by the Taliban in Afghanistan, another Buddhist site in Afghanistan, is slated for destruction end of this year. The site is Mes Aynak, a 2,600-year-old Buddhist site in Logar province, Afghanistan. All of the temples, monasteries, statues as well as the Bronze age material will be destroyed.

What would take 30-35 years to salvage, archaeologists have been given just three months to salvage whatever Buddhist artefacts they can find before the site is converted to a massive open-pit style copper mine by a Chinese government-owned company called China Metallurgical Group Corporation (MCC). Six villages and the mountain range will also be destroyed in the process.

Brent Huffman, filmmaker and professor, is doing whatever he can to save the destruction of this historical site he believes is the missing link showing Afghanistan's historic role in Asia. He says destroying Mes Aynak is equivalent to wiping Machu Picchu off the map.

More on CNN - Ancient site needs saving not destroying

CNN Editor's note on the writer, Brent Huffman, of the above article:
Brent Huffman is a documentary filmmaker and assistant professor at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. He started making a film about the Mes Aynak site in the summer of 2011 thinking he would be documenting the site before it was demolished and recording the process of rescue archeology. Now he hopes he can use his film to raise awareness to actually save Mes Aynak.

Watch a video on YouTube..

Google doodle honours Howard Carter

Google honours Howard Carter today with a doodle for his 138th birthday.

Who is Howard Carter? Howard Carter (9 May 1874 – 2 March 1939) was an English archaeologist and Egyptologist, noted as a primary discoverer of the tomb of Tutankhamun.

On 4 November 1922, Carter's excavation group found the steps leading to Tutankhamun's tomb (subsequently designated KV62), by far the best preserved and most intact pharaonic tomb ever found in the Valley of the Kings. After several months of cataloging the contents of the antechamber, on 16 February 1923, Carter opened the sealed doorway, and found that it did indeed lead to a burial chamber, and he got his first glimpse of the sarcophagus of Tutankhamun. More on Wikipedia..

Painted walls in the burial chamber KV62 (Tutankhamun's tomb)
Valley of the Kings, Egypt

The tomb directly facing the camera is that of Rameses VI. In front of it and to the right, half-hidden by the shoulder of the central mountain, is the tomb of Tutankhamun.


Source: Wikipedia