Cool Historical Buildings

These are the best examples of Merovingian architecture:



The crypt of Jouarre Abbey

The abbey was founded about 635 by Adon on private family lands. Adon was an officer in the court of Dagobert. The crypt served as a family burial site for the founders.






See more at http://perso.orange.fr/abbayejouarre/Pages_simples/Table_des_matieres.htm








The Saint Jean Baptistery in Poitiers

It is the oldest Christian monument of France still in use.
The central part was built arround 360. A baptismal bath was added in 6th century and a trandept in 6-7th century.







See more: http://home.eckerd.edu/~oberhot/visitor-aquitaine.htm

The Aurelian's Walls of Rome

The Aurelian Walls were city walls built between 270 and 273 in Rome during the reign of the Roman Emperor Aurelian. The 12.5-mile-long wall was intended to defend the city from barbarian attacks. At the time, the city had been grown well beyond the old Servian Wall, built during the late 4th century BC, and had been relatively safe during the centuries of Roman expansion and consolidation. However, by the 3rd century, the menace of barbarian tribes flooding through the Germanic frontier could not be easily stopped by the Roman Army, with the empire in a heavy crisis.

More at http://www.geocities.com/mp_pollett/aurelinx.htm

Originally posted by Menumorut   Hotin, on the Dniestr river (today in Ukraina) was built in the present form in 1400 by Moldavian prince Aleander the Kind. Read more: Khotyn

Edited by ataman - 01-Mar-2007 at 06:45

More photos from Orheiul Vechi, Republic of Moldova:





The archeological complex

Old Orhei is situated in the valley of a right tributary of Dniestr � Raut River, between the villages Trebujeni and Butuceni, district of Orhei, 60 km North East from Chisinau. It is located in a well marked historic-geographical zone, famous and known among natives since ancient times as �Codrii Orheiului� or �Tara Orheiului� (Orhei land)- once forming a distinct territorial administrative body component of one of the many medieval Romanian countries in the immense Carpathian � Danubian space.



As a result of archeological researches it was concluded that within the archeological complex of Old Orhei cultural layers from all known historic eras on the territory between the Dniestr and the Prut Rivers are clearly identified. These are: the Stone Age (30-20 thousand years BC), the Stone and Copper Age (iv-III millenium BC), the Bronze Age (II millenium BC) the transition to the Iron Age (XII-X centuries BC), the Early Iron Age (VIII-I centuries D), the late Ancient Period (III- IV centuries AD), the early Middle Ages (V-XIII centuries), and late Middle Ages (XIV-VXII centuries). Among these archeological vestiges could be mentioned at least 8 unfortified settlements (30-20 thousands years BC, IV-III mil. BC, II millenium BC, XII-X centuries BC, VIII-VI centuries BC, II-I centuries BC, III-IV centuries AD, V-XIII centuries AD); 5 necropolises (II-I centuries BC, X-XI centuries AD, XIV century, XV century, XVI century), 6 distinct fortified ground wall systems (IV-II centuries BC, and XIV-XVI centuries), a round and wood citadel (VI-III centuries BC), a ground citadel (XII-XIV centuries), a stone citadel (XIV-XVI centuries), and 2 old cities (Sehr al-Jedid, XIV century and Old Orhei XV-XVI centuries ). Also, 4 stone and ground fortresses should be mentioned on the adjacent promontories from the IV-III centuries BC (Trebujeni-Potarca, Trebujeni-Scoc, Trebujeni-Selitra, and Mascauti-Cetatuie). All of these together form the so-called archeological complex of Old Orhei.



Monumental Buildings

The Getic fortress

The oldest fortified construction at the Old Orhei is the Getic fortress on the Butuceni promontory.

The archeological excavations showed that there were people living on the top of the Butuceni hill starting with the VIII-VII centuries BC. In the V century BC the inhabitants fortified the establishment, later on brought changes to the defensive system. Traces of some fortifications found after the archeological excavations show us that at first the whole territory form the Raut�s curve had been fortified. In the narrowest point of the of the river�s curve the inhabitants made many ditches and ground walls next to them, beginning by the edge of the rock in the northern part and finishing at the Raut�s bank on the bed. The people from the fortress changed the highest part of the hill in a citadel protected from the north by the Raut�s rock, and from the other parts being surrounded by a beam, stone and ground palisade. The passage into the citadel was through a special gate in the eastern end of the citadel. Not to far from the gate, outside the citadel specialists have uncovered the ruins of a wall made of big blocks of local limestone. This wall originates from a huge gate built under the influence of the Greek fortresses on the Black Sea. The discovery of the traces of a religious building on the highest point of the citadel, in its center, next to the rocky bank of the Raut river is of great interest.

The religious place at Butuceni was of round form and consists of a stone hearth surrounded by three rows of pillars. In the first circle of pylons there are holes, in the second - six, and in the third one � twelve. The archeological materials found on the sanctuary place are from the IV-III centuries BC. It is presumed that this building had the signification of a calendar.

The Butuceni fortress was left at the end of the III century BD � beginning of the II century as a result of German and Baestarnae tribes� invasions. The inhabitants continued to activate within an unfortified settlement on the riverbank.

Medieval Fortress

At the beginning of the XIV century the Tatar-Mongolians had occupied the space between the Carpathians and the Dniestr. On the headland between the Trebujeni and Butuceni villages from the valley of the river, was built a new city � Sehr-al-Djedid (meaning New City) in the place of an old native settlement called Orhei (meaning fortification, reinforcement). Experts in all fields of urban household from the Crimea and other occupied centers were brought to the new establishment, with the main goal to redo the conquered �city� into a Oriental like center. At this point a grand building begun. The existing small ground and wood fortress was destroyed, and a new stone fortress was built in its place.

The engineers and architects, involved in the building of the citadel, had to position it in the space between the rock and the central entrance road in the city. It also had to be squares, its entrance to the south. In the end, the fortress got a trapezoidal form with its sides of 127 meters, 121.9 meters, 107 meters and 92.5 meters. The citadel had a decorative bastion at each corner and two semicolons on the exterior side of the walls, forming the southwestern corner of the building.

A great building annexed to the north wall was in the interior of the citadel. Having its entrance in the south, the building as the fortress had an irregular form and a winding plan.
The building had 2 different sized rooms. In the center it had a spacious room with a underground burial vault. Some materials point out that the central room of the building was a mosque, with a basement and four lateral compartments located at each cardinal point. The other rooms were congregated around the mosque. The basement of the mosque was arranged as a tomb, in which an important person was buried. The tomb was lined with big stone blocks taken from another building�s wall. Some blocks had fashioned sides and decorated. A stone plate had an inscription with Arab ornament. The majority of the stone blocks came probably from a city mosque and from the gates of the courts of a nearby khan.

After the city was freed of the Golden Horde occupation, the building inside the citadel became the residence of the magistrate of Orhei district. The entrance in the building was provided with a patio, it got the aspect of local Moldovan houses. The tomb was transformed in cellar, where food supplies were kept.


Feredeu - The bathing rooms

Federeu (baile publice)The archeologist Gheorghe Smirnov, the chief of the work site, and his colleagues after researches concluded that the discovered foundations on the riverbank, by the ford belong to a public bathing place in oriental style.

The form of the building was a rectangular. The length was 40 meters and the width 23 meters. The walls were made form a craggy, little processed stone. Better processed were the door blocks. The bath had two sections, probably one for women, and another for men. The bathing rooms were of different sizes. All the rooms had aqueducts from clay pipes passing through the wall.



The Khan

The khan is a terrain of rectangular form with the dimensions of57.7x51.5 meters, and a surface of 1 861.55 square meters. A stone wall with a width of 1.3 meters surrounds it. The khan�s court is oriented from the north to south. The entrance is on the northern side.



The church

In 1950s Gheorghe Smirnov begun researching the churches foundations but the excavation reports were not preserved.

The archeologists have pointed out the remnants of a church nearby the stone citadel. The church was made out of wood and it had burned. Very interesting is the fact that in this saint place between the years 1480-1484 pan Vlaicu Gales was buried. He was a cousin of Moldavia�s great king Stefan the Great and brother of the chief magistrate of Orhei district. Since the tombstone from the deceased Vlaicu was preserved, and experts decoded the inscription from it, it was possible to determine when the church was founded and who was its henefactor.



Cave monasteries

In the first centuries of the Christian era in the Carpahian-Dniestrian space the first Christian appeared. Among them were the acolytes of the Audias bishop, which in the IV century were expulsed by the Roman Emperor in Schitya Minor (nowadays Dobrogea). They went north from the Danube, where they founded many monasteries. Within these, according to Epifanios saying �the monastery rule flourished�.

At the beginning of the Christ�s era on the cliff banks of Raut should had been many smaller and bigger caves, cut deep in the calcareous rocks by the natives (Gaeto-Dacians, Old Thracians or other pre-historic tribes). Looking for more efficient protection means in dangerous times, edifying a more perfect spirituality they penetrated �inside the rocks� in order to �become a rock� and to be closer to the divinity. The Christians from the 300-400 AD probably had used the existent at that point caves in Raut�s valley as those from other similar regions of the Middle Dniestre basin (Saharna, Tipova, Japca, Socola, etc.) working hardly to build new religious places.



More info

Edited by Menumorut - 23-Mar-2007 at 19:50