Tea at Trianon: Unexplained Monoliths

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

Tuesday, January 19, 2021

Unexplained Monoliths

From The Conversation:

The monoliths of highland Bolivia served as the focal point of public religious rituals as far back as 800 BCE and have remained a source of fascination ever since. When Inca armies conquered this area in the 15th century, they saw them as leftovers from the world’s creation.

In the 16th century, the next set of invaders — Spanish conquistadors — were told that they were the work of giants. Over the next centuries, they were dynamited to build railroads, stolen by foreign collectors and even used as target practice by the Bolivian army.

Since the early 20th century, however, a number of new monoliths have come to light during excavations by Bolivian and foreign archeologists, and by local residents during the course of everyday activities such as farming fields and building houses. Many dating to over 2,000 years ago, some quite elaborately carved, have been found throughout the region. (Read more.)