Ancient monument

“ To denote the state of art among the aboriginal race, it is necessary closely to examine such monuments of it, as exist. The word “monument” is used to denote any remains of art. Such are their relics in the form of worked shells and amulets, pottery, carved implements and utensils of stone, and other antiquarian remains found in their mounds, graves, fortifications, and other places of ancient occupancy in our latitudes. ”

“ The ancient monuments to be described in the work are mounds and earthworks, shell-heaps, cave and cliff dwellings, masonry, sculptured slabs or carved images, inscriptions, and rock paintings, graves and cemeteries, aboriginal quarries, and salt-works, caches or deposits of objects in large quantities, workshops or places of ancient aboriginal industry, ancient roads or trails, reservoirs and aqueducts. ”

“ The monument speaks for itself— simple in form, admirable in proportions, composed of enduring marble and granite, resting upon foundations broad and deep, it rises into the skies higher than any work of human art. ”

“ On either side, as one walks down the middle of the passage, are monuments, tombs, and sculptured figures that are exquisitely wrought and are full of grace and beauty. They are new and snowy; every outline is perfect, every feature guiltless of mutilation, flaw, or blemish; and therefore, to us these far-reaching ranks of bewitching forms are a hundred fold more lovely than the damaged and dingy statuary they have saved from the wreck of ancient art and set up in the galleries of Paris for the worship of the world. ”

“ History shows that temples and palaces, mausoleums and monuments built at enormous cost and during years of toil to perpetuate the memory or preserve the ashes of ancient kings, have perished, and left not even a trace of their existence. ”

“ But we have reached another of those ancient landmarks, which stand wide apart along the shores of History, the grey monuments which overlook that still sea of death, where nameless millions have for ages been buried. ”

“ The temple and the statues, the theatre, the columns and the marble porch, have disappeared: but the valleys and the mountains, and some, not frequent, fragments, of more value than all the costly monuments of barbaric labour,—these still remain, and remind the traveller, that he treads the ground once trod by the heroes and sages of antiquity. ”

“ At frequent intervals along the roadside, up rises the ruin of an ancient tomb. As they stand now, these structures are immensely high, and broken mounds of conglomerated brick, stone, pebbles, and earth, all molten by time into a mass as solid and indestructible as if each tomb were composed of a single boulder of granite. When first erected, they were cased externally, no doubt, with slabs of polished marble, artfully wrought, bas-reliefs, and all such suitable adornments, and were rendered majestically beautiful by grand architectural designs. ”

“ Monuments and ruins have been disinterred in the ancient seats of human power, in the oriental world, and inscriptions deciphered, which give vitality to ancient history. Ethnology has arisen to hold up the light of her resplendent lamp, amid these ruins, to guide the footsteps of letters, science and piety. ”

“ For this city of mute and closed churches, where imperishable mosaics glisten in the awful damp, and beautiful pillars of most precious marbles gleam through a humid mist, of mausoleums empty but indestructible, of tottering campanili, of sumptuous splendour and incredible decay, is the sepulchre of the great civilisation which Christianity failed to save alive, but to which we owe everything and out of which we are come; the only monument that remains to us of those confused and half barbaric centuries which lie between Antiquity and the Middle Age. ”

“ Around the monument, which has been destroyed, were niches containing marble statues of the twelve peers of France; to the right, the lay peers in royal robes and with crowns upon their heads, bearing the insignia of royalty; to the left, the ecclesiastical peers with the sacred symbols.
We have already stated that, to prevent the churches from being overcrowded with tombs, stone or marble tablets—they were of painted wood sometimes—were fixed upon the wall just above, or not far from, the grave, with an epitaph and sculptural ornaments. ”

“ The magnitude and beauty will accord with the skill of the times. Hence arise sources of determining the relative antiquity of monuments, and the circumstances of the age. Under almost every privation of means, and in all countries, 'heaped earth' would present a durable and an accessible material. Hence the universality of this species of monument throughout the globe. This primitive accumulation of efforts—for an earthen mound can be considered as nothing more—seems to have given origin to the most gigantic labours of human architecture. ”

“ How steeped now in the stillness of moonlight are all those pale, pillared Churches, Courts and Cloisters, Shrines and Altars, with here and there a Statue standing in the shade, or Monument sacred to the memory of the pious—the immortal dead. ”

“ Never, perhaps, were such permanent and forcible memorials of the past as the Arch of Titus in Rome, the Pont du Gard in the south of France, and the Porta Nigra of Trèves, visited and gazed upon with warmer interest or a deeper sense of their value. We all feel the power that is exerted over us by the ruins of great Castles and great Abbeys. ”

“ This subject is therefore in a progressive state of inquiries, and future ages will yet add thereto: although a number of Ruins and Monuments crumble or disappear under the plough or the leveling energy of men, little respecting these structures of antiquity, enough of unexplored sites will be discovered and surveyed: some of our rudest monuments appear indestructible, the lofty mounds of earth have withstood like the heavy pyramids of Egypt, the lapse of countless ages, some even appear now covered with a dress of new soil, or even diluvial coat, as if they were antediluvian! ”

“ Therefore the mistakes of monuments last forever. That is what the modern world does not understand about the ancient dignity of marble or of stone. If I make a mistake in writing an article, I can cross it out. ”

“ Whole cities of the dead are there, and others where the new civilization rises above or by the side of the old. Temples, palaces, fortifications, ancient statues, mummies, and pottery may be cursorily admired or profoundly studied, and search may still be made for undiscovered monuments of a prehistoric past. ”

“ When we cannot walk without seeing, besides the more perfect monuments, gigantic masses of ancient wall on every side,—when we stumble at every step on fragments of marble columns or on richly adorned tombs,—we are apt to think that they must have perished in some special havoc unknown in other places. ”

“ And, except possibly a flint axe-head or a rude ornament found deep in some ancient gravel-bed, these megalithic monuments are amongst the most convincing evidence we have of the wide diffusion of the human race in prehistoric times. ”

“ There is stone upon stone, tomb upon tomb, monument upon monument, and between them wherever you turn your eye, syringa-trees and bushes. From among broken rocks, from dark corners of tombs and sarcophagi, from the hollows of decayed stones, stems, sometimes winding like serpents, make their way out into space and spread into thick bushy crowns, which form a wealth of green and shady arcades of branches descending from above to the rotten tombstones, and to the damp clay of the ground which is overgrown by a monotonous sickly yellowish green. ”

“ As the number of persons who take a lively interest in ancient National Monuments increases, the monuments themselves gradually disappear, either by decay of time, wanton destruction, or injuries inflicted, without ill intention, by those who are ignorant of their value. ”

“ Part of this superb structure was burned in 1190, and since that period has, from century to century, undergone some change.
I explored its interior, and was struck with awe on beholding innumerable tombs, bearing dates as far back as the eighteenth century. Under the galleries of the cloister I observed an obscure monument, a bas-relief of the fourteenth century, and tried, in vain, to guess the enigma. On one side are two men in chains, wildness in their looks, and despair in their attitudes; on the other, an emperor, accompanied by a bishop, and surrounded by a number of people, triumphing. ”

“ We have many a monument of past ages: we have the palaces and pyramids, the temples of the Greek and the cathedrals of Christendom. In them is exemplified the power of men, the greatness of nations, the love of art and religious devotion. ”

“ There are about two dozen in tolerable preservation, and the remains of perhaps forty may be traced altogether.... The mountain must have been considered sacred; all the ruins are of the Christian epoch, and, with the exception of a huge palace, every building is a church. ”

“ He has there "a monument more lasting than brass, and more sublime than the regal elevation of pyramids, which neither the wasting shower, the unavailing north wind, nor an innumerable succession of years, and the flight of seasons shall be able to demolish." ”

“ Researches the most extended and the most profound, have failed to penetrate the obscurity in which the mists of ages have enveloped the origin of the primeval monuments of all nations, and of the people who founded them. Something may have been contributed towards the solution of the difficulties surrounding the subject, if we have been able to connect existing monuments with a rude race of extraordinary strength, the supposed giant-builders of those ancient structures. ”

“ Well cared for by the new administration, swept and cleansed of weeds, the ruins have lost their romantic wildness and assumed an aspect of bare and mournful grandeur. However, flashes of living sunlight often gild the ancient walls, penetrate by their breaches into the black halls, and animate with their dazzlement the mute melancholy of all this dead splendour now exhumed from the earth in which it slumbered for centuries. Over the old ruddy masonry, stripped of its pompous marble covering, is the purple mantle of the sunlight, draping the whole with imperial glory once more. ”

“ More extensive excavations on the north side expose the immense substructions on which the temple rested, rising in a flight of steep steps, at the top of which several of the ancient columns form each a considerable tumulus of its own ruins. We can with difficulty discover some filleting, and perhaps a curved moulding, forming a sort of base. ”

“ The marble of the monument, the sculpture, and decorations of the crypt, chapel, &c., cost one million eight hundred thousand dollars in gold—a costly mausoleum.
The interior of the Invalides is circular, with arms of a cross extended north, south, east, and west. The great dome is a splendid piece of architecture, the summit of which is over three hundred feet from the pavement; and high up in the cupola we see a splendid picture representing our Saviour surrounded by saints and angels, which must be colossal in size to appear as they do of life-size from below. ”

“ Amid these objects and scenes, rural and ordinary, rise the three temples, like the mausoleums of the ruined city, dark, silent, and majestic117.
“Majestic fanes of deities unknown! Ages have roll’d since here ye stood—alone;— Since your walls echoed to the sacred choir, Or blazed your altars sacrificial fire. And now—the wandering classic pilgrim sees The wild bird nestling in the sculptured frieze; Each fluted shaft by desert weeds embraced, Triglyphs, obscured entablatures defaced; Sees ill-timed verdure clothe each awful pile, While Nature lends her melancholy smile ”

“ The monument being a plain one, and making no palpable appeal to vulgar admiration, was disregarded by these people; for it is in death as in life, if you would excite the notice of the multitude, you must in the grave have a splendid mausoleum, or in walking the streets you must wear fine clothes. ”

“ The ruins of their ancient cities, palaces and temples, proclaim in the ears of all living that once there dwelt on this hemisphere a great and powerful people, who were civilized and understood the art of constructing beautiful and substantial buildings. ”

“ Time is modelling now, instead of art. Miles of ancient pottery and tiles, hardly allowing the blades of corn to grow among the ruins; sheep-tracks among the massive foundations; asses loaded with brush-wood, from shrubs growing in the courts of ancient palaces and temples; shepherds with their flocks, the bells of the goats heard from among the rocks; tombs and sarcophagi of ancient heroes, covered with moss, some broken and some entire; fragments, and ornaments, [Pg 167] and stones containing mutilated inscriptions;—these are the objects, which Platæa now presents. ”

“ These old-time names, with quaint and queer epitaphs, on less pretentious monuments than the costly ones now erected, make an interesting study, for the ancient dates and names show that the cemetery has a history from the earliest settlement. The ancestral bones from the Mayflower down to the present have been saved. It is true that the great Western cities now have costly, beautiful, and often magnificent monuments for the dead, for the modern cemetery is becoming aristocratic. ”

“ No ruins are visible, the mounds of the old city being for the most part hidden under modern buildings; but the slopes of the limestone hills behind it are pierced with an infinity of rock-cut tombs, some of which were large and decorated with sculptures, paintings and long inscriptions. ”

“ Hundreds of people have cut their names in the stone work, and the monument, which ought to be preserved in perpetuity, looks so disreputable that little regret would be caused were the entire fragment to be swept away by some unusually heavy gust of wind. ”