This book is a critical study of the role played by architecture and texts in promoting political and religious ideologies in the ancient world. It explains a palace as an element in royal propaganda seeking to influence social concepts about kingship, and a text about a temple as influencing social concepts about the relationship between God and human beings. Applying the methods of analysis developed in built environment studies, the author interprets the palace and temple building programs of Sennacherib, King of Assyria, and Solomon, King of Israel. The physical evidence for the palace and the verbal evidence for the temple are explained as presenting communicative icons intended to influence contemporary political and religious concepts. The volume concludes with innovative interpretations of the contributions of architectural and verbal icons to religious and political reform.

Solomon's Temple also known as the First Temple and royal palace from the Hebrew Bible have been a riddle for millennia. Biblical descriptions of these structures have proven difficult to interpret. Yet authors Yosef Garfinkel and Madeleine Mumcuoglu believe they have unlocked the meaning of these enigmatic Biblical passages, thanks to the discovery of a small stone Temple model at Khirbet Qeiyafa. In their book, 'Solomon s Temple and Palace: New Archaeological Discoveries', Garfinkel and Mumcuoglu provide a new understanding of the Biblical descriptions, allowing a new representation of Solomon's Temple and palace.

The Author Furnishes Evidences To Prove That Taj Mahal Existed Years Before The Death Of Mumtaz Mahal. According To The Author It Was A Temple Palace And The Records Were Falsified To Show It As A Grave.

Note: This is the Large Print Edition of Solomon's Memory Palace. "Test every fellow of the craft and every apprentice on the art of memory and science thereof." The Second William Schaw Statutes (1599) Freemasons have unique memorization needs. Long passages must be remembered verbatim, yet there are strict restrictions on writing, recording, or even speaking certain esoteric portions outside of the lodge, making unsuitable many of the memorization techniques used by the general public. Fortunately, the craft is not without its working tools. Solomon's Memory Palace provides step-by-step instructions on how to construct the rare memoria verborum memory palace and discusses the curious ties between the art of memory and Speculative Freemasonry.

Lisbeth S. Fried’s insightful study investigates the impact of Achaemenid rule on the political power of local priesthoods during the 6th–4th centuries B.C.E. Scholars typically assume that, as long as tribute was sent to Susa, the capital of the Achaemenid Empire, subject peoples remained autonomous. Fried’s work challenges this assumption. She examines the inscriptions, coins, temple archives, and literary texts from Babylon, Egypt, Asia Minor, and Judah and concludes that there was no local autonomy. The only people with power in the Empire were Persians and their appointees. This was true for Judah as well. The High Priest had no real power; there was no theocracy. The wars that periodically engulfed the Levant in the fourth century temporarily pulled the ruling governors and satraps away from Judah, and during these times, the Judean priesthood may have capitalized on the brief absence of Persian officials to mint coins, but they achieved their longed-for independence only much later, under the Maccabees. Liz added this explanatory note in an e-mail to the Biblical Studies e-mail list on December 2, 2005: “There’s a confusion in reader’s minds about my methodology, which I’d like to set straight if I may. “The book is a rewrite of my dissertation. My dissertation was entitled The Rise to Power of the Judean Priesthood: The Impact of the Achaemenid Empire. I assumed at the outset that because the Achaemenid Empire was non-directive, and cared only that tribute would be sent regularly, the priesthood was able to fill the resulting power vacuum and achieve secular power. My goal was to chronicle the process. In addition I thought to look at Eisenstadt’s model which predicted the opposite result—that local elites, like priests, could not rise to power in an imperial system. Since there was no real data from Judah, I looked at temple-palace relations in Babylon, Egypt, and Asia Minor as well as Judah. “It was only during my research that I came to the conclusion that local priesthoods did not achieve secular power anywhere in the Achaemenid Empire and certainly not in Judah. In fact their power diminished during those 200 years. I also concluded, not that Eisenstadt was correct, but only that my data were insufficient to reject his model. However, my data were sufficient to reject the model of an Achaemenid Empire that was non-directive as well as the model of Persian authorization of local norms (Frei and Koch).”

A completely revised guide to this exquisite complex of buildings.

"Die Entschlüsselung der Mayaschrift und die Übersetzungen der noch erhaltenen Maya-Texte sind ein Beitrag zur Rekonstruktion der Maya-Kultur. Genauso ist die Erfassung und Dokumentation von Maya Architektur ein Versuch, der indigenen Bevölkerung heute nach den gewaltigen Kulturverlusten vor 500 Jahren durch die Rekonstruktionen ihrer faszinierenden Architektur einen weiteren wichtigen Teil ihrer Kultur zurückzugeben. Der Palast von Santa Rosa Xtampak in Campeche, Mexiko, ist eines der eindrucksvollsten Bauwerke der Maya-Architektur. Er steht nahe der höchsten Erhebung der Maya Stadtanlage aus den 8. Jh. n. Chr."--