Ruins of Ani, Great Website

[Queequeg]

Heyo.

Thought this was a very cool link.  Lots of neat pictures, and a lot about the Turkish "reconstruction" of the area, and how many churches have collapsed/been destroyed over the last 70 years.  Some of it is really sad, but the pictures/drawings are still amazing.  Examples:


Drawing of a statue, including a hypothetical model of the Church that was in his hands, of King Gagik, greatest king of Ani.  His title is Shahanshah, he's Christian, his Church looks kind of Romanesque, but he's dressed like an Arab. 


This is from when there was a Museum there, and most of the Churches were whole, and the Mosque was in good repair as well.  In 1910. 

[The Brain]

Ani rock.

[garbon]

Difranco

[Queequeg]

From Van Cathedral.  Looks really Gothic to me.

[Neil]

Is it really sad though?  Older cultures fade away and are lost, that is their nature.

[Queequeg]

Is it really sad though?  Older cultures fade away and are lost, that is their nature.

This site was well preserved by the Tsars.  I'm sorry, but when I can say this place was way better off under the Tsars than under a modern, European-style liberal democracy, something is wrong. 

[Neil]

Is it really sad though?  Older cultures fade away and are lost, that is their nature.

This site was well preserved by the Tsars.  I'm sorry, but when I can say this place was way better off under the Tsars than under a modern, European-style liberal democracy, something is wrong.

Why?  Liberal democracies are more rational in their doings than autocracies.  If anything, they can be more prone to abandon the past.

[Queequeg]

Selective abandonment of the past based upon the fact that you don't like the ethnicity is different from turning away form the past.

[Neil]

Selective abandonment of the past based upon the fact that you don't like the ethnicity is different from turning away form the past.

Not really.  Groups always tend to downplay those who occupied their land before them.

[Queequeg]

Not really.  There's a ton of interest in the Americans in native stuff. 

[Neil]

Not really.  There's a ton of interest in the Americans in native stuff.

Sort of.  For some people.  As a hobby.

Of course, the minute that natives try to use that interest as an ethnic weapon, most people tune out or get angry.