shahbanu97

Plaisir d'amour en Iran (Short) | Agnès Varda | 1976

Immigrants from the Ottoman Empire in Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1902. During the late 19th and early 20th century, Argentina was an attractive destination for immigrants from Europe and the Middle East, attracting people much as the United States and Canada did during the same period. Though the largest groups of immigrants came from southern Europe, over 100,000 people migrated to Argentina from the Ottoman Empire between 1900-1920.

Also called “The Chicago of the Desert.”

Guess when those high-rises were built?

If you guessed the 1970s, you guessed wrong.

Way wrong.

Shibam is an estimated 1,700 years old.

Shibam, which is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is known for its distinct architecture. The houses of Shibam are all made out of mud brick, and about 500 of them are tower blocks, which rise 5 to 11 stories high, with each floor having one or two rooms. While Shibam has been in existence for an estimated 1,700 years, most of the city’s houses originate from the 16th century. Many, though, have been rebuilt numerous times in the last few centuries.

In his travels Marco Polo vividly described the cold province of Badakhshan, a prosperous land where horses that descended from Alexander’s horse Bucephalus were once bred and where priceless rubies and the finest lapis lazuli were found.

Since ancient times lapis lazuli has been sourced in this remote region, north-east of modern Afghanistan, and exported over vast distances. Its mines on the steep Hindu Kush Mountains, above the Valley of the Kokcha River, can only be reached through a tortuous and dangerous route. 

Lapis lazuli consists of a large number of minerals, including the blue mineral lazurite, the white mineral calcite and golden specks of iron pyrites.

A laborious process transforms this composite mineral into the pigment ultramarine; various grades of ultramarine can be obtained, from the purest extremely expensive deep blue, composed mostly of lazurite particles to the pale grey so-called ultramarine ash.

A Sea Nymph