h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Shows what I know, I would have guessed India.

It sounds to me like somewhere in the lake district. Or possibly Cornwall. Bodrum Town Hall sounds like a plausible real world location to me.

Bodrum is in Turkey and is the site of one of the Seven Wonders of the World - the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus. Apparently Bodrum Cadtle is built from the stones of the mausoleum.

Redmoss

It's great the respect we show for the ancient wonders of the world isn't it?

I know where Batman is.

So do I.

<>

well we did blow up the giant stone buddah....no!...wait!....that was the muslim taliban!!!

we destroyed samarkand....no!....the hordes of gengis khan did that

sphinx rhinoplasty....the french

collosus of rhodes dropped into the sea.......no

hanging gardens of babylon/ninivah.....the persians i think???

machu pichu.....?spain?

stone henge, thats ours shame about the fire, only the support stones left......???what????.......its supposed to be like that???

which wonders did we screw up

sophia hagga???......no thats muslims again

temple mount in jerusalem.....romans and more muslims

chinas garden fence???? no its still there

pointy piles of rock????

the temple at karnak......no that was muslims moving it then flooding the valley

ooohhh got it acropolypse and london bridge???

Why do you think 'we' does not mean the Muslims?

According to http://www.napoleon-series.org/faq/c_sphinx.html it wasn't Napoleon's troops who shot off the Sphinx's nose.

Anyway we all know the real story: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_CVfJw2PF6xc/RsSqEU2gKYI/AAAAAAAAAAc/9UhDgVuEELI/s400/sfinx_obelix.jpg

The Serpentine Column in Istanbul is all that is left of the Plataean Tripod.

After the battle of Plataea, the victorious Greeks collected the weapons of their defeated enemies, the Persians, and melted them together to make a monument - the Plataean Tripod. This had three intertwined snakes, holding up some sort of a device on top.

Constantine when he was building the giant chariot racing stadium, the Hippodrome, in Constantinople, brought the Plataean Tripod and set it up in the middle of the racetrack on the central spine. It was a sign of how great the Roman Empire was that it had conquered the Greeks. He also had a couple of Egyptian obelisks set up there.

By the 19th Century, the race track was long abandoned and the level of the ground had risen. The only thing remaining of the central monuments were the two obelisks and the tripod. Although the top of it was gone, the three intertwined snakes were still there, two of them headless, but one of them still with his head.

A drunken Polish officer coming home from a party broke the remaining head off. It's now in the museum nearby.

we: current/recent humans on earth. The ones who are looking back.
They: Ancestors. The ones we look back at.

What has race/country/religion got to do with how people treat ancient artifacts?

"What has race/country/religion got to do with how people treat ancient artifacts?"

Quite often, it'll decide whether they get to exist any more or not.

Turkey.

Just in case anyone was still wondering

>>"What has race/country/religion got to do with how people treat ancient artifacts?"

Quite often, it'll decide whether they get to exist any more or not.<<

My apologies. I meant that in the context of 'Oh, it wasn't US who did that, it was Them over There'. I'm aware of cultural changes and politics meaning that things often get destroyed. I just dont really understand why it was being shown that we westerners dont break things. We damn well do. You should see the mess plenty of western explorers and archaeologists have made of historical sites in the past. Moving things without properly recording where they were in the search for treasures etc.

As I understand it many of the ruined Catholic monasteries and
churches found throughout the UK are the work of Protestants on
orders from Henry VIII.


~jwf~

There's the scattering of Tutankhamun's treasure too.

If the Native Americans ever had any such wonders, we know nothing of them because the entire race was practically wiped out!

See?

Seemed a bit churlsh to blame all the destruction on everyone except westerners. That was all.

Yes, I kind of had the idea that's what you meant Robyn, I was being facetious.

The British Empire really has no place criticising anyone at all about destruction / mishandling of archeological sites / digs, and probably the longest history of nicking bits that look good, while damaging or destroying the rest. For just 1 recent example, look at the furore over "G for George" - the last of the Dambuster Lancasters.

Oh no, what've we done now?

Wasn't there a bit of a fuss about the last Lancaster doing a re-enactment of the Dambusters raid? IIRC Holland granted overflight rights quite willingly but the Germans weren't too keen on the idea for some reason.