Masjid al-Nabawi

Mosques in Medina, Saudi Arabia

The Prophet's Mosque has a flat paved roof topped with 24 domes on square bases. Holes pierced into the base of each dome illuminate the interior. The roof is also used for prayer during peak times, when the 24 domes slide out on metal tracks to shade areas of the roof, creating light wells for the prayer hall. At these times, the courtyard of the Ottoman mosque is also shaded with umbrellas affixed to freestanding columns. The roof is accessed by stairs and escalators. The paved area around the mosque is also used for prayer, equipped with umbrella tents.

The north façade has three evenly spaced porticos, while the east, west and south façades have two. The walls are composed of a series of windows topped by pointed arches with black and white voussoirs. There are six peripheral minarets attached to the new extension, and four others frame the Ottoman structure. The mosque is lavishly decorated with polychrome marble and stones. The columns are of white marble with brass capitals supporting slightly pointed arches, built of black and white stones. The column pedestals have ventilation grills that regulate the temperature inside the prayer hall.

Masjid al-Haram

Mosques in Mecca, Saudi Arabia

The prayer space is built on a five-meter grid. Its arcade is roofed with square coffers decorated with plaster molding. The columns are clad with marble panels, whereas the arches are covered with artificial stone and plaster moldings. Along the axis linking the Fahd Gate to the Ka'ba, three grid modules are covered with domes decorated with muqarnas squinches molded with plaster, that carry drums perforated by thirty-two arched windows. The dome space is illuminated with colored glass chandeliers and a backlit stained glass panel at the apex. The interior walls of the prayer hall are clad with a marble dado of 2.5 meters high. This decorative element was used to conceal loud speakers and electrical wiring.

The rooftop of the new extension is linked to the roof of the entire complex, which is designed to accommodate overflow. The prayer area also extends also to numerous plazas outside the mosque. The outdoor plaza at the southeast corner outside of Fahd Gate slopes slightly downward, emphasizing the direction of prayer. Parallel to the northeastern and the southwestern walls of the new extension, two rectangular projections were built to conceal the escalators connecting the basements and parking facilities below ground to the public plaza and the prayer halls above.

The second Saudi extension of the Masjid al-Haram took into consideration the architectural unity of the complex. The façade of the new praying space built by King Fahd blends in with the previous constructions, with its gray marble facing from the nearby Fatimah Mountains, inlaid with carved white marble bands and window frames. The monumental King Fahd Gate, which gives access to the new extension, consists of three arches with black and white voussoirs and carved white marble decoration. The gate is flanked by two minarets matching the older ones. The window modules along the façade of the prayer hall are covered with brass mashrabiyya and framed with carved bands of white marble. The minor gates have green tiled sloped canopies.

Delphi

Archaeological Sites in Central Region, Greece

Nestled in the forests of sacred Mt. Parnassus are the ruins of Delphi, the supreme oracle site of the ancient Mediterranean. Archaic legends mention a holy place of the earth goddess Gaia, whose shrine was guarded by her daughter, the serpent Python. Killing the serpent, Apollo erected an oracular temple on the site of the earlier shrine. Orienting its axis to align with the solstices, he placed an omphalos stone in the inner sanctum of temple, at the exact place where he had speared the serpent. The 'spearing' of the serpent may be interpreted as the marking of an area of energetic power and the omphalos was used to gather, concentrate and emanate those energies.

Women, considered more sensitive than men to these energies, would sit near the omphalos stone, enter a visionary trance and pronounce oracles. Plutarch, a Greek philosopher, spoke of sweet smelling geologic fumes, known as pneuma, which inspired divine frenzies. Until recently this matter was considered to be a fabrication from post-Delphic times. During the late 1990’s however, scientists proved the ancient legends to be accurate. The oracular temple is situated at the intersection of two geological faults, from which issue methane, ethane and ethylene fumes. Ethylene, a psycho-active gas, produces feelings of euphoria and visionary insight. Further adding to the intrigue of Delphi is its location along that remarkable alignment of sacred sites stretching 2500 miles from Skellig Michael to Mt. Carmel.

Archaeologically little is known about the beginnings of Delphi. Excavations have revealed a Mycenean village from 1500 BC, with an oracular cult of the Earth Goddess. Around 1000 BC the worship of Apollo became dominant, the use of the site was continued by politically astute priests, and Delphi achieved Pan-Hellenic fame by the 7th century BC. Exercising political and social influence for a thousand years, the Delphic oracle was in decline by the 1st century AD and its last recorded oracle was in 362 AD.

Temple of the Inscriptions

Archaeological Sites in Mexico

Vast, mysterious and enchanting, the ruined city of Palenque is considered to be the most beautifully conceived of the Mayan city-states and one of the loveliest archaeological sites in the world. Its geographic setting is splendid beyond words. Nestled amidst steep and thickly forested hills, the ruins are frequently shrouded in lacy mists. A rushing brook meanders through the city center and from the temple summits there are stupendous views over an immense coastal plain. Here and there, piercing the dark green forests, soar great pyramids, towers and sprawling temple complexes. In its period of cultural florescence Palenque was even more beautiful, for then its limestone buildings were coated with white plaster and painted in a rainbow of pastel hues. Hidden deeply in the jungles, the ruin's existence was unknown until 1773. Even then, Palenque was rediscovered and lost several times until 1841 when the explorers John Lloyd Stephens and Frederick Catherwood, with their evocative writings and splendid drawings, introduced this jewel of Mayan architecture to the world.

Scattered pottery shards show that the site was occupied from as early as 300 BC, but most of the buildings were constructed between the 7th and 10th centuries AD. Then, mysteriously, the great city was abandoned and reclaimed by the inexorable claws of the jungle. Even the Mayan name of the city was lost, and the ruins received their current name from the nearby village of Santo Domingo de Palenque. While the ruins have received some of the most extensive excavation and reconstruction efforts of any of the Mayan sites, only 34 structures have been opened of an estimated 500 that are scattered around the area. As one wanders through the ruins or gazes from atop the tall buildings, small hills are seen everywhere about the site. These are not hills however, but Mayan structures long overgrown with jungle.

Omayyad Mosque

Mosques in Damascus, Syria

Located in the heart of the teeming city of Damascus, the Great Mosque is known to be the oldest existing monumental architecture in the Islamic world. For millennia before the birth of Islam however, the city of Damascus was a sacred site of other cultures. The recognized history of the temple site is known to go back to at least 1000 BC when the Aramaens built shrines for Hadad, the god of storms and lightening, and the goddess Atargites (Venus). Upon the foundations of these Aramaen sanctuaries the Romans built a temenos, or sacred enclosure, with a temple of the god Jupiter in the 1st century AD.

Christianity took possession of the Roman temple platform in the 4th century and a church of St. John the Baptist was built in the exact place where the Jupiter temple stood. This church, an important pilgrimage site of early Byzantine Christianity, continued to function even after the Islamic conquest of Damascus in 636. Following their occupation of the ancient city, the Muslims shared the great Roman temple platform with the Christians, the Christians retaining possession of their church and the Muslims using the southern part of the Roman temenos for their prayers. In 706 an Umayyad caliph demolished the church and constructed an enormous mosque upon the same site. Using thousands of craftsmen of Coptic, Persian, Indian and Greek origin, the construction took ten years to complete and included a prayer hall, a large courtyard and rooms for visiting pilgrims.

Inside the mosque is a small shrine of John the Baptist (Prophet Yahia to the Muslims) where tradition holds that the head of John is buried. This head is believed to possess magical powers and continues to be the focus of the Mandaeans’ annual pilgrimage, when they press their foreheads against the metal grill of the shrine and reportedly experience prophetic visions. Adjacent to the prayer hall, along the eastern wall of the courtyard, is the entrance to another shrine chamber. According to legend this shrine holds the head of Zechariah, the father of St. John the Baptist, or the head of Hussein, the son of Imam Ali, who was the son in law of Muhammad and the forth of the ‘Rightly Guided Caliphs’. There are several other pilgrimage sites in the Damascus area including the Shrine of Ibn Arabi, the Cave of the Seven Sleepers on Mount Qaysun, and the shrine of Lady Zeinab at the Sayyida Zeinab Mosque. The granddaughter of the Prophet Muhammad, through Fatima, Lady Zeinab was the sister of Imam Hussein and Imam Hasan.