M.J. Rose

With murals of tomes as far as the eye can see, this new library is a marvel.

From Bored Panda,

China Opens World’s Coolest Library With 1.2 Million Books, And Its Interior Will Take Your Breath Away

by James Gould-Bourn

“Nobody likes to be watched while they’re trying to read a book, but we’re willing to make an exception if it means getting to visit this stunning new library in China, because as you can see below, the incredible structure has a giant spherical auditorium in the middle that looks just like a giant eye.

Located in the Binhai Cultural District In Tianjin, the five-story library, which was designed by Dutch design firm MVRDV in collaboration with the Tianjin Urban Planning and Design Institute (TUPDI) and has since been dubbed “The Eye of Binhai”, covers 34,000 square metres and can hold up to 1.2 million books. Taking just three years to complete, the library features a reading area on the ground floor, lounge areas in the middle sections and offices, meeting spaces, and computer/audio rooms at the top. We’re not sure how much studying we’d get done though – we’d be far too busy marveling at the awesome architecture!”

More info: MVRDV

For more pictures, click here.

Each one of these wonderments defies belief. And as far as the first one on the list goes, not only are the black boxes of the Serapeum amazingly advanced looking, but how on earth did they get them in there? 70 tons along with a lid of 30 tons!

From Megalithic Marvels,

12 Photographs Mainstream Archaeology Does Not Want You to See

“Conventional archaeology propagates the notion that the further we look back into history, the more archaic the civilizations we see and the more inferior their methods of construction. Yet all over the world are ancient anomalies and megalithic marvels constructed with a lost high technology that confound today’s experts, defy our greatest modern engineering and tell us a different version of history.

1. The Black Boxes of the Serapeum

Located in the area known as Saqqara, the Serapeum is one of the most enigmatic ancient sites in all of Egypt. Lost under the sands of time, this labyrinth was discovered in 1850 which hides 25 granite black boxes crafted with laser like precision. Each box weighs approximately 70 tons along with a lid of 30 tons cut from the same piece of stone. Each box was found empty and thus their purpose remains a mystery. It is estimated that these 100 ton stone boxes would need at least 2000 men to transport them. However, with the tunnels being only 2 feet wider than the boxes themselves, there would not have been nearly enough space inside for such a vast army to lower and transport these boxes to their resting places. 1 The Egyptians would have had to use torches to see inside the pitch black tunnels, yet there is no evidence of smoke markings from flame light on the low tunnel ceilings. The stone was quarried in Aswan about 1000 kilometers away. The official statement from Egyptologists is that these boxes were made during the late dynastic period as burial places for sacred bulls, but it would have been impossible for the dynastic Egyptians to do so with softer bronze tools. The very crude hieroglyphic carvings on the outside of 3 of the boxes were most likely made thousands of years later by the Egyptians who found them in SITU (Notice how advanced the much older box appears compared with its enclosure)…”

For the other 11, click here.

If only we could have seen this!

From The Guardian,

An illustration of ‘the Sepulchral Chamber’ at Sir John Soane’s house, viewed from the head of the sarcophagus, 8 September 1825. Photograph: 1996-98 AccuSoft Inc./Soane Museum

Sir John Soane’s museum recreates architect’s vision of pharaoh’s tomb

by Maev Kennedy

“When the architect Sir John Soane finally managed to install his greatest treasure in his extraordinary combined home, studio and museum in London, he threw a three-day party to celebrate.

The sarcophagus of the pharaoh Seti I, carved from a single vast block of translucent alabaster, cost Soane £2,000 after the British Museum turned it down as too expensive. Getting in the 3,000-year-old relic, the size of a small boat and weighing several tonnes, involved knocking down a sizeable chunk of his back wall, and demolishing his unfortunate housekeeper’s sitting room.

Over three days and nights, almost 900 people trooped through his rooms and into the basement renamed “the Sepulchral Chamber”, where the sarcophagus glowed eerily, lit by candles placed inside. The museum recently recreated the experiment, and deputy director Helen Dorey recalled the extraordinary effect when the whole block lit up like a lantern, and the thousands of tiny human figure hieroglyphics carved into every inch of stone seemed to flicker and move. “It was a truly shiver down the spine moment,” she said…”

For the rest, and some great pictures, click here.