Wednesday, November 16, 2016

Trivia

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The oft distributed pic of the face at Machu Picchu, shown in the next 2 photographs, is an enhanced, photoshopped image:



This is the real version:


This shows the photoshopping:

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There are, however, real “face mountains”, as shown by the following examples:

Girnar Hil, located in Junagadh in Gujarat, India. 

McClellan Mountain, Colorado, USA

Reminds me Thing from the Fantastic Four:


Apache Head in the Rocks, Ebihens, France.
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Not all face mountains are natural, as is the case with the rock sculpture of Decebalus on an outcrop of the River Danube at the Iron Gates, the border between Romania and Serbia:




Decebalus was the last king of Dacia, who fought against the Roman emperors Domitian and Trajan to preserve the independence of his country, which corresponded to modern Romania. 

The sculpture was made between 1994 and 2004, on a rocky outcrop on the river Danube, at the Iron Gates, which form the border between Romania and Serbia. It is located near the city of Orșova in Romania and it is the tallest rock sculpture in Europe.

The sculpture was commissioned by Romanian businessman Iosif Constantin Drăgan and it took 10 years, from 1994 to 2004, for twelve sculptors to finish it. According to Drăgan's website, he purchased the rock in 1993 and work began the next year, taking six years involved to dynamite the rock into the basic shape, and the remaining four years complete the detail.

Under the face of Decebalus there is a Latin inscription which reads "DECEBALUS REX—DRAGAN FECIT" ("King Decebalus—Made by Drăgan"). T

Drăgan wanted the Serbs to carve a giant head of a Roman Emperor, as if confronting Decebalus on the opposite side of the river, but the Serbs refused.

I personally think it's a blight on a pretty area but then again I suppose Mt Rushmore is open to the same comment.
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Whilst looking at colossal sculptures, here is the Lion Monument in Luzern, Switzerland. The giant sculpture is 6 m [20 ft] high and 10 m [33 ft] long. The upright wall of rock is the remains of a quarry used over centuries to build the town.



The sculpture was created in 1820–21 by Lukas Ahorn and commemorates the Swiss Guards who were massacred in 1792 during the French Revolution, when revolutionaries stormed the Tuileries Palace in Paris, France where Louis XVI and his fami;y were residing. The Swiss Guards were the traditional protectors of the king. Of the Swiss Guards defending the Tuileries, more than six hundred were killed during the fighting or massacred after surrender.

The sculpture depicts a mortally wounded lion. The dying lion is portrayed impaled by a spear, covering a shield bearing the fleur-de-lis of the French monarchy; beside him is another shield bearing the coat of arms of Switzerland. The inscription below the sculpture lists the names of the officers and gives the approximate numbers of soldiers who died (760), and survived (350).


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