Monday, November 11, 2019

Nestor's Palace near Pylos

The Palace of Nestor is the best preserved Mycenaean Greek palace discovered. It was an important centre in Mycenaean times and dates from 1300 BC. It features in Homer's Odyssey and Iliad as Nestor's kingdom of "sandy Pylos".
The palace featured in the story of the Trojan War, as Homer tells us that Telemachus:
went to Pylos and to Nestor, the shepherd of the people, and he received me in his lofty house and gave me kindly welcome, as a father might his own son who after a long time had newly come from afar: even so kindly he tended me with his glorious sons.[3]
The palace was a two-storey building with store rooms, workshops, baths, light wells, reception rooms and a sewage system.
This is how it looked then according to artists.


 

And some lovely decorations......




The palace complex was destroyed by fire around 1200 BC. And this is what it looks like today.


Below is bathtub that was used by the queen!

Friday, November 8, 2019

Santa Pudenziana Rome

Santa Pudenziana is a church of Rome, a basilica built in the 4th-century, that is dedicated to Saint Pudentiana, sister of Saint Praxedis and daughter of Saint Pudens.












Basilica of Saint Praxedes (Santa Prassede)

This church is one of the oldest Rome. It dates back to 780 . It houses the relics of martyrs Saint Praxedes and Saint Pudentiana the daughters of Saint Pudens, traditionally St. Peter's first Christian convert in Rome. 


Pope Paschal, who reigned 817-824  commissioned lots of mosaics.




These mosaics below are from the n the Chapel of Saint Zeno, a funerary chapel which Pope Paschal built for his mother, Theodora,[






Venice light 1







Venice Light 2




Venice light 3