Tea at Trianon: The Temple of Riddles

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

Sunday, March 14, 2021

The Temple of Riddles

From Medium:

The excavations at the site revealed major findings — findings that could change everything known about human history. Prior to Gobeklitepe, it was thought that social constructs began only after the discovery of agriculture. This notion was common because it was believed that hunter-gatherer “societies” had very little room for building a social order as they needed to use their time and resources to find food and shelter to survive. So, they lived on a daily basis — they only cared about making it through the day.
The findings of Gobeklitepe changed this notion drastically because this place was a temple built thousands of years before settled life had even began. Moreover, it showed signs of social layers among those who built it.
Gobeklitepe consists of twelve T-shaped obelisks forming a chamber of approximately thirty metres (~ ninety-eight ft). There are two obelisks facing each other at the centre of the chamber. The distinctive feature of this structure is that each obelisk is bound to each other by stone walls. There are depictions of a variety of wild animals on the obelisks and almost no human depictions. One curious thing about these depictions is that there are embossings and engravings of human arms and hands in some obelisks, which leads to the thought that the obelisks may actually represent humans. (Read more.)