Professor Schomer's Historic Builds
The Professor's UserPage | The Professor's Historic Builds | Ostia Antica
As many of you will know, and doubtless have seen taking up precious space in the Sandbox, I have been working on assorted historic builds of late. This page is intended to give you a bit more information about each and why I decided to recreate them using SL (the primary reason being boredom).
I don't pretend to be an expert on these sites, and the information I can give come from the internet and a historical encyclopaedia i have at home. If you want to find out even more, I suggest you do some research yourself (I'll even give you some helpful hyperlinks- aren't I nice?).
They are in the order I made them in, and I intend to add to this page later if I make some more.
By the way, do feel free to add or edit any information to this page (it is a wiki, after all...)
Contents
Mediterranean
The first historic build I attempted was The Great Lighthouse of Alexandria, or Pharos. Hapno seemed to like it enough to put it in the natural harbour in SPii, but if you don't like it, feel free to say so.
Pharos
One of the original 'Seven Wonders of the World' as compiled by the ancient Greek poet Antipater of Sidon, The Great Lighthouse of Alexandria, built on the island of Pharos was an impressive structure. Completed around 280BC, after Alexander the Great's conquest of Egypt, it was first used as a landmark to guide ships into the harbour, becoming a lighthouse some time later. It was said that the lighthouse had both a vast bronze mirror to reflect sunlight and a signal fire, so that it's light could be seen day and night, up to 50km away. It was far more ornately decorated than my version, and had a statue of the Greek sea god Poseidon on top, which the SPii version is still waiting for.
It lasted over 1500 years, but was destroyed by a series of earthquakes in the 1300s. It lives on, however, in language- the Spanish and French words for 'lighthouse', faro and phare are derived from the name of the island on which it once stood.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lighthouse_of_Alexandria
http://travel.guardian.co.uk/flash/page/0,,2018905,00.html - an interactive map of all the wonders of the world, and some alternatives as suggested by The Guardian.
Mausoleum of Maussollos
The Mausoleum of Maussollos at Halicarnassus, Anatolia (near modern Bodrom in Turkey) was built to encase the remains of King Maussolus, a satrap of the Persian Empire who ruled the region of Caria, and his wife (and sister) Artemesia, who commissioned the building. Completed around 351BC, it stood around 45m in height and was covered with a number of sculptures (which my version is still awaiting!). The finished result was so grand that Antipater of Sidon made it one of the Seven Wonders of the World, along with the Pharos of Alexandria (see above). On top was a bronze sculpture of a chariot with the king and queen in, pulled by four horses.
The marble tomb was situated on the top of a stone tower, under a 24-stepped pyramid roof supported by 36 columns (mine has less steps on the roof, but the same number of pillars- count them!).
It was eventually destroyed after 17 centuries by a series of earthquakes between the 11th and 15th centuries. The stone was used in the 15th century by the Knights of St. John to construct a castle at Halicarnassus to protect the capturd city from invading Turks.
From the name of Maussollos we get the word mausoleum.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mausoleum_of_Maussollos
http://travel.guardian.co.uk/flash/page/0,,2018905,00.html
Americas
This all started with Señor Xtapolapocetl (who of course came from The Simpsons). I felt the volcano, in particular the Sumo arena, required some tribal decorations. So I made Xtapy (as he isn't known) and some totems amde of smaller copies of his head. One thing led to another, and soon I had built some Tipis and Northern Native American totems.
Señor Xtapolapocetl
The semi-famous Señor Xtapolapocetl, rather than being based on an actual historic example, is based on a fictional stone head on The Simpsons, based on a style of Stone Head made by the Toltec and Olmec tribes that lived in Mexico . Their heads didn't breathe fire, as far as I know, nor did they put them in calderas. But as I said, this was decoration for the Volcano, and we'd hate for it to be unoriginal wouldn't we?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olmec - you can see how much better they were at making heads than I am...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toltec
Tipis
Often confused with wigwams, which are rounded wooden domes, tipis (or teepees) were used as homes in a number of American tribes living on the Great Plains, notably the Lakota (better know as the Sioux, meaning snake in the grass (Topper Schomer) of which they are one tribe, others being the Dakota and Nakota) They were also used by the indigenous peoples of the subarctic regions of North America. They are traditionally made of animal skin draped over wooden poles. Unlike my version, tipis have a hole in the roof for smoke to exit through, as tipis have fires inside them for cooking and warmth. They are also supported by more wooden poles, but in the sake of prim-conservation and as there doesn't have to be gravity in SL, I cut that down a bit.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tipi
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wigwam
Sorry for adding some stuff in there prof but just some litle nuggets from my mind Topper Schomer
- No problem, Topper- I should have said to begin with: anyone can feel free to edit or add to the information here. Professor Schomer 12:28, 11 July 2007 (BST)
Totem Pole
The word totem applies to an entity that watches over the tribe. They are usually in the form of animals, believed to be the ancestors of a particular tribe. The Jaguar was a totem for the Aztec people, and North American tribes ahd various animals as their mythical ancestors, including bears, birds and lizards. The one I chose for my totem was a bird. Compared to some real Totems, mine is fairly basic- the only detail being the bird at the top. Many traditional totems had faces funning up the height of the pole and were often brightly painted. They are traditionally carved out of a single tree trunk, usually a redwood.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Totem_pole
El Castillo
Chichén Itzá, recently named as one of the 'new seven wonders of the world' was a Mayan City on the Yucatán peninsula of modern Mexico. It was a religious and governmental centre and features a complex of great temples. El Castillo is perhaps the greatest of these, built between the 11th and 13th centuries AD. It is the temple of Kukulcan (the Mayan name for the chief god Quetzalcoatl) and the temple itself sits atop a nine-stepped pyramid. It features a 'Well of Sacrifice' in which unfortunate humans were thrown. The architecture combines both Mayan and Toltec designs.
As the name suggests, it was used as a fortress by Spanish Conquistadores in the 16th century, when a cannon was mounted on the top.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chichen_itza
Polynesia
The Moai Statues on Easter Island are probably more famous than the other builds I mentioned before. They were also more challenging to build.
Moai Statues
These mysterious statues (of which there are no less than 887, of different shapes and sizes) stand all over Easter Island, and are known as the Moai. These monoliths (i.e. carved from a single rock) were carved out of compressed volcanic ash between 1000 and 1600AD. The largest completed statue, 'Paro' is almost 10m high, and an unfinished statue, 'El Gigante' would have been almost 20m in height. It is still unknown for what purpose they were created.
