|
|
|
|
HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
 Posted - 08/19/2009 : 00:47:32
|
This beautifully laid-out city, which was once an imperial capital, has been abandoned to the elements, the scholars, and the tourists. Its conqueror's troops burned the city, possibly by accident.
1. What's its name?
2. Who conquered and burned it?
(Notes: This is a composite image made from three Google Earth screen captures. The top of the images is the north.)
Click for full-sized version
|
“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
Edited by - HalfMooner on 08/20/2009 13:57:40
|
|
|
Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
|
|
HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 08/19/2009 : 13:09:12 [Permalink]
|
Originally posted by Dave W.
1. Persepolis, Iran.
2. Alexander the Great and/or his drunken troops. Or maybe not.
Edited to add that my Google keywords were imperial, capital, ancient, city and burned, and it wasn't until the ninth result that I hit on the correct name.
|
Correct and correct, Dave! Congratulations.
|
“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
 |
|
|
Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 08/20/2009 : 18:06:37 [Permalink]
|
Can you imagine...
Troop: Ummm hey, boss...
Alexander: Yeah? What?
Troop: Well, um, we were partying after taking that city yesterday, and um....
Alexander: Spit it out already!
Troop: Well, um, it's sort of on fire.
Alexander: <blink> On fire.... what, how?
Troop: Well, um, it was an accident!
Alexander: <facepalm>
Sort of puts things in perspective for us common folk. Never have I partied so hard that a city caught on fire around me unintentionally.
And if it was on purpose, then I can only say that human stupidity is obviously not new to the world.
|
Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
|
|
|
|
HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 08/21/2009 : 00:00:23 [Permalink]
|
| Never have I partied so hard that a city caught on fire around me unintentionally. |
Then have you intentionally seen a city burn down around you after hard partying?
|
“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
|
|
|
Simon
SFN Regular
USA
1992 Posts |
Posted - 08/21/2009 : 08:11:45 [Permalink]
|
| It was more of a big town really... |
Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
Carl Sagan - 1996 |
|
|
|
Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 08/24/2009 : 01:29:59 [Permalink]
|
Originally posted by HalfMooner
| Never have I partied so hard that a city caught on fire around me unintentionally. |
Then have you intentionally seen a city burn down around you after hard partying?
|
No, never intentionally either. Thought about it once... realized I'd probably regret it in the morning.
|
Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
What on Earth: Abandoned City
