Tea at Trianon: The Ceremonial Centre of the Nazca

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, September 21, 2021

The Ceremonial Centre of the Nazca

From Heritage Daily:

Cahuachi is a large ceremonial complex built by the Nazca, located in the basin of the Rio Grande in the Central Andes of Peru. The Nazca emerged as a distinct archaeological culture around 100 BC from the preceding Paracas culture, having settled in the valley of the Rio Grande de Nazca drainage, and the Ica Valley. The culture is characterised by its pre-fire slip polychrome pottery, that demonstrates a shift from the Paracas post-fire resin method. The Nazca are most widely known today for the Nazca lines, a series of giant linear features and geoglyphs, and the construction of large underground aqueducts called “puquios” to provide water in the arid environment. (Read more.)