Sunday, December 27, 2009

Unesco gift

A few days ago i've received an envelope from Germany with these cards. I couldn't believe when i realized that all of these cards were new unesco cards and from places not so easy to get. This was a great Christmas present. The generous postcrosser was Claus, "elbe" a trully Santa Claus :D Vielen Danke.

" Uxmal is a large pre-Columbian ruined city of the Maya civilization in the state of Yucatán, Mexico.
While much work has been done at the popular tourist destination of Uxmal to consolidate and restore buildings, little in the way of serious archeological excavation and research has been done; therefore, the city's dates of occupation are unknown and the estimated population (about 25,000 people) is at present only a very rough guess subject to change upon better data. Most of the architecture visible today was built between about 700 and 1100.
Maya chronicles say that Uxmal was founded about 500 A.D. by Hun Uitzil Chac Tutul Xiu. For generations Uxmal was ruled over by the Xiu family, was the most powerful site in western Yucatan, and for a while in alliance with Chichen Itza dominated all of the northern Maya area. Sometime after about 1200 no new major construction seems to have been made at Uxmal, possibly related to the fall of Uxmal's ally Chichen Itza and the shift of power in Yucatan to Mayapan. The Xiu moved their capital to Maní, and the population of Uxmal declined. After the Spanish conquest of Yucatán (in which the Xiu allied themselves with the Spanish), early colonial documents suggest that Uxmal was still an inhabited place of some importance into the 1550s, but no Spanish town was built here and Uxmal was soon after largely abandoned." - in: wikipedia

" Tucked away amid the modern urban area of Cairo lies one of the world's oldest Islamic cities, with its famous mosques, madrasas, hammams and fountains. Founded in the 10th century, it became the new centre of the Islamic world, reaching its golden age in the 14th century." - in: http://www.unesco.org/

"The austere, grandiose site of Hampi, India, was the last capital of the last great Hindu Kingdom of Vijayanagar. Its fabulously rich princes built Dravidian temples and palaces which won the admiration of travellers between the 14th and 16th centuries. Conquered by the Deccan Muslim confederacy in 1565, the city was pillaged over a period of six months before being abandoned." - in: http://www.unesco.org/

Cheomseongdae Observatory in South Korea is one of the oldest structures in Korea. 'Ch'eomseongdae' means 'Star Gazing Tower'. Designated as National Treasure 31, it was built during the reign of Queen Seonduk of the Old Silla kingdom in 634. Cheomseongdae Observatory is the oldest existing observatory in the Far East and one of the oldest scientific installations on earth.
Cheomseongdae is part of the Gyeongju Historic Areas, an Unesco whs since 2000.

No comments: