Pacal the Great ruled from 615 to 683. He left one of the most magnificent tomb-works of ancient Mesoamerica, beneath the Temple of Inscriptions. This is a grand temple atop a step pyramid dedicated in 692; inside is an elaborate, long hieroglyphic text carved in stone detailing the city's ruling dynasty and the exploits of Pacal the Great.
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Ancient Mayan Civilzation
The ancient Mayan people were preoccupied with time. They also devised an elaborate way of specifying dates, which allowed them to keep track of events that had happened not only in the past, but those that were currently taking place and those that would happen in the future. They had a standard way of expressing numbers as well as a method that was not so standard: Since they associated some of their deities with certain numbers, the symbols of these deities came to represent numbers.
Tomb Raider News
Over three years in development, Tomb Raider: "Legend" marked the return of the world's most famous heroine in video gaming. After "Legend" came Tomb Raider: "Anniversary". But what does Crystal Dynamics have in store for Lady Croft's next adventure? It's called "Tomb Raider: Underworld" and is expected to be released in North America on November 18th, 2008.
Given Tomb Raider Legend's cliffhanger ending, we have learned that Tomb Raider: "Underworld" will essentially pick up where "Legend" left off. Eidos Interactive, LTD filed a trademark request for Tomb Raider: Underworld on November 26th of 2007.
The domain name www.tombraiderunderworld.com has been registered to Eidos. Tomb Raider Underworld is believed to be based around the Mayan Calendar. During five nameless and dangerous days at the end of the calendar (called Wayeb'), portals between the mortal realm and the Underworld dissolve, thereby allowing ill-intending deities to cause disaster and mayhem.
Alsion Carroll is the new model for international video game heroine, Lara Croft. Her first appearances will be made promoting the latest installment to the gaming franchise, Tomb Raider: Underworld.
Archaeological News
Mystery of Stonehenge solved?
May, 2008
Many legends abound concerning the origins of the ancient structure known as Stonehenge (at Salisbury Plain). After five long years of research, Mike Parker Pearson, the head of the Stonehenge Riverside Archaeological Project and an archaeology professor at the University of Sheffield in England, now offers a much simpler solution. He refuted the popular theory that Stonehenge was built as an astronomical observatory.
Pearson said that there was no reason to erect a bulky stone structure to determine the summer solstice when a woodhenge would do. Instead, he discovered that Stonehenge was the burial site for Britain's first royal dynasty!
Team member Andrew Chamberlain suggested that that the cremation burials represented the natural deaths of a single elite family and its descendants, perhaps a ruling dynasty. A clue to this, he said, was the small number of burials in Stonehenge's earliest phase, a number that grows larger in subsequent centuries, as offspring would have multiplied. Parker Pearson added: "I don't think it was the common people getting buried at Stonehenge .... it was clearly a special place at that time."
Pearson's efforts to solve the mystery of Stonehenge began after he stumbled upon ancient constructions at Durrington Walls, just three kilometers to the northeast of Stonehenge. Radiocarbon dating showed that these had been erected at approximately the same time as Stonehenge ..... around 4,500 years ago. This discovery caught Pearson's attention and he decided to spend a few years excavating the area.
His digs uncovered a thriving settlement on the British isles during that time period. Previously, scholars had doubted the existence of such large ancient settlements on the British Isles. Shortly thereafter, Pearson and his team discovered yet another sensation at Durrington Walls .... the remains of a woodhenge nearly identical to Stonehenge. Radiocarbon dating showed that the two were built around the same time.
During the mid-20th Century, the UK Archeological Society discovered the cremated remains of three burials in ditches near Stonehenge. The remains were preserved at the Salisbury Museum for fifty years. Researchers previously believed that people had been buried in the area for no more than one hundred years ..... from about 2700 to 2600 B.C. Pearson wasn't satisfied with their conclusions. He re-examined the remains excavated in the 1950s and found the site was used for burials for at least 500 years ...... between 2570 and 2340 B.C.
Pearson's team later uncovered the remains of one hundred and fifty to two hundred and forty men, women and children while excavating Stonehenge. Radiocarbon dating showed that the burials took place from the year 3000 B.C. until after Stonehenge was erected around 2500 B.C.
He believes Britains' first royal line may have been buried at the monument. Stonehenge, he said, symbolized the "Domain of the Dead," while the woodhenge represented the "Domain of the Living."
Pearson believes that the celebrations at Stonehenge and Durrington honored the life cycle. The Durrington henge was used to celebrate life. Meanwhile, Stonehenge was a memorial to the dead. The monument also boasts an avenue of its own discovered in the 18th Century. The Stonehenge avenue aligns with the midsummer solstice sunrise and the Durrington avenue with midsummer solstice sunset. Furthermore, the Durrington henge aligns with the midwinter solstice sunrise and Stonehenge with the midwinter solstice sunset.
"What we suspect is that the river is the conduit between the two realms, of the living and the dead," Pearson added. "It was the prehistoric version of the River Styx."
Thousands of people may have come to Stonehenge from all over Britain twice a year for celebrations dedicated to the life and seasonal cycle. In the summer they thanked their descendants for continuing the life cycle and bringing fertility to the soil. In the winter, they buried their dead. According to Parker Pearson's team, this is the first time any of the cremation burials from Stonehenge have been radiocarbon dated.
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Lara Croft (from "Legend")
Planet Tomb Raider Update
Check out the latest Tomb Raider: "Underworld" wallpapers, as well as our walkthroughs for the Tomb Raider video game series. More wallpapers and links have been added. Whether you're a long-time Tomb Raider fan or a complete novice, I hope you'll find what you need here. It contains general news, information, tools and other media regarding Tomb Raider, .... as well as links to several other Tomb Raider-related sites. We have saved games (for the PC, plus links to Mac-related sites) here.
You'll find some of the best Tomb Raider desktop wallpapers and prints on the net, here at Planet Tomb Raider. They consist of Tomb Raider-related images, movie, game, Lara Croft models, comic and fan art. There is also a gallery of Angelina Jolie wallpapers.
Walkthroughs, cheats, demos, save game editors, custom levels (thanks to trle.net), screenshots, tech support (via Eidos Interactive), Tomb Raider Forum links and more can be found here.
Any submissions that you would like to make to this web page (news, fan art, etc.)? Please e-mail us (contact link is in the main menu). I created some Tomb Raider icons for use on your computer (see the main menu). If you don't have a program to open the file, you can always get a Zip program at Software Downloads. If you're having trouble finding a zip program, you can always download a free trial at many different links on the web (just type in "Winzip - free trial" in your favorite search engine).
You'll need the Tomb Raider Level Editor to run the custom levels (there is a Level Editor with the Tomb Raider: Chronicles game). These levels are built by other tomb raider fans with the Level Editor (I highly recommend "Neon God" and "Jade Empire").
If you don't already have a TR Level Editor, you can download one via the link to tombraiderchronicles.com on this page. Stuck in a custom level? Click on the link to "trle-community.net" to find answers to Level Editing questions, or simply chat about a new level.
The Search for Lara Croft
Angelina Jolie once said that she would never again play the character of Lara Croft. If she doesn't, could Nicky Whelan be another "Lara Croft" possibility? Nicky is an Australian actress and model who was born in 1983. She is best known for her role as Pepper Steiger in the Australian television series "Neighbours". Before Neighbours, Whelan hosted a number of shows including "Coxy's Big Break", Seven Network, "Beyond the Boundary", Ten Network, "Melbourne Woman", Ten Network, and played the fictional celebrity Chrissie Grant on Russell Coight's "Celebrity Challenge", a spin-off of All Aussie Adventures. Whelan is also known as the face of the rural Victorian city, "Shepparton".
Whelan worked as a model for a number of Australian magazines, including Ralph and Inside Sport. She was the first model to be on the cover of the Pumped Up Down Under calendar two years running. She was voted sports model of the year 2004 and 2005.
Early in 2007, Nicky appeared on "The Show Biz Show" with David Spade on Comedy Central in the U.S.A. In November 2007, Nicky made a special appearance in Harrow, London to promote sustainable transport and initiatives that benefit the environment. At the event, she confirmed that after "Neighbours" she has been in discussions over feature films.
Maya Archaeologists
About a mile from the mural room, Mónica Pellecer Alecio’s team of archaeologists excavated beneath a small pyramid and found a vaulted tomb under heavy capstones, likely the burial place of one of the early Maya kings.
The tomb contained a burial complex. The first part housed five ceramic vessels; the second, some human bones and six ceramic vessels; the third, the bones of a man, with a jade plaque — the symbol of Maya royalty — on his chest, plus a large, green stone figurine and seven vessels, including a delicate frog-shaped bowl and a vase bearing an effigy of the rain god Chac.
Time is Fleeting
The time keeping system of the Mayans was a combination of several cycles that meshed together, marking the movement of the Sun, Moon and Venus. Their sacred calendar, the "Tzolkin", is based on the cycles of the Pleiades, encompassing 26,000 years. This is reflected in the "Tzolkin" by 260 days, pairing the numbers from one through thirteen with a sequence of twenty day-names. The image comprises several points regarding the Maya culture at its classic stage, and at least, two "tzolkin". It is basically The temple of Inscriptions (Palenque, Chiapas, MX) seen from behind a classical mayan "arch", or "false arch".
Mayan temples are on top of pyramids. Usually, all the stairs of the building -and every space on it- are somehow related to the Sun, Moon, or Venus. These temples have (or used to have) an "estela" on top, as the link to the heavens, the highest point to reach the stars. From this standpoint and to the right, there is one "tzolkin" - or a representation of.
The first column represents day-names. Remaining columns are symbols in 13 frequencies, repeating themselves to reach 260 days. In front, the "tzolkin" represented with two wheels, one inside the other. They are not the same as aztec's calendar, which is based on mayans'. Passing the arch, there is a sphere surrounded by circles, supported by a cone, (there had to be a handy reminder of time somewhere, being so important).
In a culture capable of developing the most complex language, and the most accurate calculation system including the zero -the "discovery" of America -and the proof that the earth was indeed rounded - would have been a great joke, had they been around by the time of the last discovery. But they were not. Mayan vanished before conquerors ever arrived. Their language has only been partially decoded, .... just enough to know that their long count ends on December 21, 2012. So, take heed!
Temple of Apollo at Delphi
Central among the number of imposing ruins that are interspersed on the Southern slopes of Parnassos mountain is the temple of Apollo. It is an imposing temple of the Doric order whose existence was woven through the turbulent history of the site, and endured numerous incarnations before it settled to the ruinous state we find it today, and which dates back to the 4th century B.C.
The temple of Apollo was first built around the 7th century B.C. by the two legendary architects Trophonios and Agamedes. It was rebuilt after a fire in the 6th century B.C.. and was named the "Temple of Alcmeonidae" in tribute to the noble Athenian family that oversaw its construction with funds form all over Greece and foreign emperors. This temple was also of the Doric order and had 6 columns at the front, and 15 columns at the flanks.
This temple was destroyed in 373 B.C. by an earthquake and was rebuilt for the third time in 330 B.C. Spintharos, Xenodoros, and Agathon, architects from Corinth. The sculptures that adorned its pediment were the creation of Athenian sculptors Praxias and Androsthenes. It was built to similar proportions and size as the Alcmeonidae version of the temple, with a peristasis of 6 and 15 columns along the short and long edges.
The History of Hieroglyphic writing
It took several years to learn how to read (and write) ancient Egyptian. Hieroglyphic writing first began around 5,000 years ago. Egyptians wrote in hieroglyphs up to about the year 400 AD. After that, they wrote in a short-hand cursive style called "demotic". Eventually, everyone forgot how to write in hieroglyphs.
We are able to decipher hieroglyphs now thanks to a special piece of rock and a determined Egyptologist. In 1799, a soldier digging a fort in Rosetta, Egypt found a large black stone with three different types of writing on it. The writing was a message about Ptolemy V, ... who was ruling Egypt at the time. Because the message was written during the time when the Greeks ruled Egypt, one of the three languages was Greek. The other two were demotic and hieroglyphic.
People realized that the three languages on "The Rosetta Stone" said the same thing. And even though people could read Greek, they couldn't figure out how to match the Greek words with hieroglyphic words. For years no one was able to understand how the hieroglyphic message corresponded to the Greek one.
Finally, in 1822, a French Egyptologist named Jean François Champollion figured out how to decipher hieroglyphic writing. He realized that the hieroglyphs that spelled "Ptolemy" were enclosed in a cartouche, so he was able to match it up to the Greek spelling. This discovery enabled him to equate the unfamiliar hieroglyphs with familiar Greek words and to translate the entire message.
Angelina Jolie once said that she would never again play the character of Lara Croft. If she doesn't, could Nicky Whelan be another "Lara Croft" possibility? Nicky is an Australian actress and model who was born in 1983. She is best known for her role as Pepper Steiger in the Australian television series "Neighbours". Before Neighbours, Whelan hosted a number of shows including "Coxy's Big Break", Seven Network, "Beyond the Boundary", Ten Network, "Melbourne Woman", Ten Network, and played the fictional celebrity Chrissie Grant on Russell Coight's "Celebrity Challenge", a spin-off of All Aussie Adventures. Whelan is also known as the face of the rural Victorian city, "Shepparton".
Whelan worked as a model for a number of Australian magazines, including Ralph and Inside Sport. She was the first model to be on the cover of the Pumped Up Down Under calendar two years running. She was voted sports model of the year 2004 and 2005.
Early in 2007, Nicky appeared on "The Show Biz Show" with David Spade on Comedy Central in the U.S.A. In November 2007, Nicky made a special appearance in Harrow, London to promote sustainable transport and initiatives that benefit the environment. At the event, she confirmed that after "Neighbours" she has been in discussions over feature films. 
