THE BASILICA OF BOM JESUS

THE BASILICA OF BOM JESUS : 

                                 
       

         The Basilica of Bom Jesus or Borea Jezuchi Bajilika is located in Old Goa, India, and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, was built on 1698.  The tomb of St. Francis Xavier has three parts, namely, the altar, the Florentine mausoleum and the silver casket.
     The basilica holds the mortal remains of St. Francis Xavier  on the third floor of the residential wing, where kept into a silver casket on December 2, 1637. This casket was made by Goan silversmiths between 1636-37. There are 32 silver plates on all four sides of the casket depicting different episodes from the life of the Saint. The silver casket is lowered for public viewing only during the public exposition which occurs for a duration of 6 weeks every 10 years.      

The Francis was appointed by Pope as His Nuncio, for the East. He heeds for India on 7th April 1541 and arrived in Goa on 6th May 1542. He visited the Bishop, who was highly pleased with Francis. But  Francis chose to be in the Royal Hospital and spent rest of his life in nursing the sick and teaching Christian doctrine. In 1542 Francis was requested to hold the rectorship of the newly established institute named College of St. Paul, for the priestly formation of local candidates.

Xavier organized missionary work on the southern tip of India with full dedication. During this time, he was able to visit the tomb of St. Thomas the Apostle in Mylapore, (Chennai) then in Portuguese India.

      In April 1552 he traveled to Sancian (Shangchuan) Island, near Canton, but died on the island on December 3rd 1552, at the age of 46 where he was alone with two companions.

Before his final resting place in the Basilica of Bom Jesus in 1624, his body was buried in three different countries. St Francis was regarded as a saint during his lifetime, and was canonized in 1662. The body, having resisted extensive decay, is now in the Basilica of Bom Jesus in Goa, 

For the first time the Body of St. Francis Xavier was exposed for public veneration in the Church of S. Paulo in an open coffin, on March 16 to 18 of 1554 soon after it was brought to Goa. On the fourth day the body was buried near the main altar. It was exhumed again after 6 years and never buried again. In 1665 the relics was taken to the Chapel, where it is present now.


                                     

HEADLESS ROMANS

MYSTERY OF HEADLESS ROMANS :-

           In between 2004 and 2005 in the northern city of York, the 80 skeletons were found buried in a burial ground which were used by the Romans throughout the 2nd and 3rd centuries A.D. Most of them were males, and more than half of them had been decapitated, although many were buried with their detached heads.
York at that time period referred as Eboracum—was the Roman Empire's northernmost provincial capital during the time.
 Gundula Müldner of the University of Reading in the U.K. says that the "headless Romans" probably  came from Eastern Europe, and evidence of combat scars in the skeletal remains also suggest that the men led violent lives. According to Müldner , The headless Romans had  different physic than the other native peoples of York. They came from all over the places, while some of them were quite exotic.
Headless Romans Had Foreign Diets
Müldner's team analyzed the bones . Based on the geology and climate of where a person grew up, their bones hold telltale traces of isotopes absorbed from the local food and water.
Oxygen and strontium isotopes in the bones of the headless Romans indicate that only 5 out of 18 individuals tested came from the York area, later it was  published in the Journal of Archaeological Science. While the rest of the men came from elsewhere in England or mainland Europe, possibly from France, Germany, the Balkans, or the Mediterranean.
Traces of carbon and nitrogen show that five of the headless Romans ate very different foods from York's local population. And two individuals had carbon  from a group of food plants like sorghum, sugarcane, and maize , which were not known to have been cultivated in England at that time. Millet was the only food plant from this group that was being grown in mainland Europe at that period of time.
 According to Müldner's team, the headless millet-eaters migrated from colder climates, perhaps parts of Eastern Europe that were beyond the borders of the Roman Empire.
As for what the men were doing in York, previous theories had suggested theheadless Romans were soldiers, imported gladiators, executed citizens, or ritually killed victims of a religious cult.
Other recent research suggested the headless Romans were gladiators brought to the distant capital for entertainment.

MOHENJODARO ARCHITECTURAL FACTS

MOHENJODARO ARCHITECTURE  FACTS :-

    The 'Mohenjodaro' literally means, the   'mound of the dead' , while 'Mo-henjo' means 'of the dead' in sindhi. The Harappan site lies in the Larkhan district of Sindh, present Pakistan. The town planning is one of the most striking features. Some of the important architectural features of Mohenjodaro town planning are as follows:-

            * On the west of the site presents a citadel with fortified walls while on the eastern side lies the lower city ,laid out in grid pattern , with main streets nearly 10 m wide almost cutting each other in right angles. The houses always opened on the side alleys or streets.

           * Construction works were done by kiln-burnt bricks  but they generally used Sun dried bricks to construct houses, raise platforms etc. The mud mortar were used to keep the bricks in place.The bricks were laid in. 'English bond', mud pluster usually covered the inner walls.

            * There was advancement in drainage and water supply system. In Mohenjodaro most of the houses had their own private bathrooms, supplied with proper drainage system as well as drains to dispose wastes. Bathroom floors paved with burnt bricks. The street channels opened into bigger Cornel-vaulted sewers that emptied into the river. Each house had a tube well , along with public well in a community .

             * The houses were of different sizes. Some were spacious while smaller ones had only a partition. Houses had a courtyard where all the doors and windows opening into the courtyard. The houses main entrance opened only to the side lanes and never to the main road. The thickness of the outer walls measured nearly  90 cms. The houses had brick floors.

              *The citadel has a great bathroom. A complex of varandahs and rooms ranged around the sides of a rectangular pool measuring almost 12*7 m , and depth of 2.44 m, all laid on a north-south axis. The steps were furnished with bitumen. The tank was made of bricks and gypsum mortar to make it waterproof , further covered with 2 cm thickness layer of bitumen. The water to the tank was supplied from a well in a room to the east has an entrance from outside. A pillared verandah surrounded all the four sides of the pool. On the south 2 entrances led ta a paved vestibule,  with a drain at the eastern extremity. At either end this vestibule terminated into two small apartments of unknown function. A series of rooms extend on the eastern side. On the north the arrangement of the rooms is not clear.

               *To the northern side of the great bath lie two rows of bathrooms on either side of the lane containing drains .

               * To the west of great bath , a structure which was identified as granary by Sir Mortimer wheeler. It consists of high podium of massive walls and a crisscross arrangement of passages inside , probably serving as air-ducts.