Introducing an incredible and elegant link from the past—a global link as integral to our journey today as it was thousands of years ago! This is a link through an ancient unit of measurement, used at sacred sites to unify within ourselves Heaven and Earth, along with time and space. And it is a symbolic message of meaning and hope that has been left for all of us.

This book presents critical studies of modern reconfigurations of conceptions of the past, of the 'classical', and of national heritage. Its scope is global (China, India, Egypt, Iran, Judaism, the Greco-Roman world) and inter-disciplinary (textual philology, history of art and architecture, philosophy, gardening). Its emphasis is on the complexity of the modernization process and of reactions to it: ideas and technologies travelled from India to Iran and from Japan to China, while reactions show tensions between museumization and the recreation of 'presence'. It challenges readers to rethink the assumptions of the disciplines in which they were trained