Tea at Trianon: The Mont’e Prama Giants: A Massive Archaeological Mystery

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Saturday, March 14, 2020

The Mont’e Prama Giants: A Massive Archaeological Mystery

From Ancient Origins:

1974, Sinis region, Sardinia (Oristano): the plow of a farmer being blocked by a piece of stone marked the beginning of a series of excavations in the area of Mont'e Prama, near the village of Cabras. Unable to continue plowing, the man got off the tractor and perplexedly examined an outcropping of stone. Digging with his hands, he pulled a huge head out of the ground. It had double-carved eyes, something he had never seen before and which no one else had laid eyes on for many centuries. Thus began the mystery of the Mont’e Prama Giants.

What came to light immediately held considerable importance: in the approximately 50 meters (164 ft.) that initially delimited the burial ground, there were numerous stone slabs that covered many tombs with large statues originally placed above them. The dating, at the time not completely certain, assigned the construction to the 9th century BC and was attributed to the families of local aristocrats. It was obviously a sacred complex of great importance. Never before had such an imposing and pronounced complex been found, with a form of statuary so unusual and older than the Greeks. (Read more.)