Markings: Aerial Views of Sacred Landscapes and the Quest to Uncover Their Origins

Marilyn Christine Bridges (born 1948) is an American photographer noted for her fine art black and white aerial photographs of extraordinary ancient and modern landscapes. She has photographed sacred and secular sites in over 20 countries, including Peru, Mexico, France, Britain, Egypt, Greece, Turkey, Australia, Namibia, Indonesia and India.[1] Bridges is a licensed pilot and a Fellow of the Explorers Club. She lives in New York.

Critchlow uses ancient manuals on temple building from Indian Vedic sources, for example, and applies them to British sites, with fascinating results. He examines Chinese pictographs for evidence of sighting instruments and scientific tools. And, perhaps most significantly, he offers evidence that carved stone spheres having regular mathematical symmetries in Scotland predate Plato's writings on geometric figures by more than a thousand years. The findings contained in this remarkable and groundbreaking book will awaken a renewed sense of wonder for our ancient human past. What people are saying - Write a reviewWe haven't found any reviews in the usual places.Other editions - View allTime Stands Still: New Light on Megalithic ScienceKeith CritchlowSnippet view - 1979(function () )();About the author (2007)Professor Keith Critchlow is a well-known lecturer and author. He is a founder member of RILKO (Research Into Lost Knowledge Organisation), a founder member and Director of Studies of Kairos and a founder member and President of the Temenos Academy. He has been a senior lecturer at the Architectural Association in London and has taught Islamic Art at the Royal College of Art; he now lectures worldwide on architecture and sacred geometry. His many previous books include Order in Space, Islamic Patterns: An Analytical and Cosmological Approach, Markings: Aerial Views of Sacred Landscapes, and Soul as Sphere and Androgyne.

Markings: Aerial Views of Sacred Landscapes

Download Zip

The sacred sites and areas located in Google Earth inform the Sacred States of America map, which charts the remains of sacred infrastructures that exist in the distant future with implications for reformed territories. Supplementing the Google Earth file is a printable pilgrimage map and corresponding social media campaign that directs tourists to the Sacred States of America to initiate the process of transforming and developing meaning in those landscapes.

A corpus of standard-setting documents, including charters and recommendations, exists on the subject of monuments and sites. A number of research studies and analyses of religious heritage and sacred sites were carried out by the Advisory Bodies - ICCROM, ICOMOS and IUCN. There were a number of conclusions and recommendations drawn from previous meetings and activities on religious and sacred heritage, such as the ICCROM 2003 Forum on the conservation of Living Religious Heritage, the 2005 ICOMOS General Assembly resolution calling for the "establishment of an International Thematic Programme for Religious Heritage", and 2011 ICOMOS General Assembly Resolution on Protection and enhancement of sacred heritage sites, buildings and landscapes, as well as the UNESCO MAB/IUCN Guidelines for the Conservation and Management of Sacred Natural Sites.

The term "Religious property", as used in the ICOMOS study "Filling the Gaps - an Action Plan for the Future", defines "any form of property with religious or spiritual associations: churches, monasteries, shrines, sanctuaries, mosques, synagogues, temples, sacred landscapes, sacred groves, and other landscape features, etc.".

Further to the consultation process between the World Heritage Centre and the Advisory Bodies, the elaboration of the thematic paper will be ensured in three phases: (i) preparatory and fund-raising activities; (ii) research, global thematic survey and data analysis; (iii) consultation/production of thematic paper. The World Heritage Centre and the Advisory Bodies recommended the establishment of a Group, which will be in charge of this activity, comprising representatives of UNESCO and the Advisory Bodies, and in particular experts of the IUCN Specialist Group on Cultural and Spiritual Values of Protected Areas, of the ICCROM Programme on Living Heritage and ICOMOS group of experts specialized in protection and enhancement of sacred heritage sites, buildings and landscapes. Extract from the working document WHC-12/36.COM/5A.1

Albert Decaris is one artist whose work attracts collectors with interests other than the fine arts. Over a fifty year period, beginning in 1935, the French Printmaker designed and engraved over 600 postage stamps for France, its former colonies, and other Francophone states, depicting everything from the French national symbol of the Cockerel and the Ocean Liner Normandie to aerial views of Paris and portraits of Benjamin Franklin and St. Teresa of Avila.

This second Yourambulla Caves site, another beautiful overhang, sits up on the hill, allowing aerial views of animal migrations. These two sites are weathered but seem to be holding up because the rock shelves protect the paintings from the elements, even in in this difficult climate. Perhaps the binders used for the pigments, such as emu fat and tree orchid sap are tough to break down, (unlike our van, but I'm getting ahead of myself). There is a constant drone of flies and Andy is swatting them away so I can write. The markings here are also caged. Sweat flows freely, and it is difficult to see the paintings through both the metal screens and the pouring perspiration. In an interesting (at least to us) twist, it appears as if the animals drawn on the cave walls are behind bars like animals in zoos.

In his authoritative reference work Views and Viewmakers of Urban America (University of Missouri Press, 1984), John Reps documented aerial views of the following Indiana communities: Anderson, Attica, Auburn, Cambridge City, Columbus, Crawfordsville, Delphi, Elkhart, Evansville, Fort Wayne, Frankfort, Greencastle, Greensburg, Indianapolis, Kokomo, LaPorte, Lafayette, Logansport, Madison, Michigan City, Mishawaka, Muncie, New Albany, New Castle, New Harmony, Peru, Richmond, Seymour, Shelbyville, South Bend, and Terre Haute. Some of these aerial views are in the digital map collection of the Library of Congress, and at Indiana Memory, while others may be found in the collections of local libraries and historical societies. 2ff7e9595c