Category Archives: name that country quiz

NAME THAT COUNTRY

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This is Baracoa Bay, with the flat top El Yunque mountain in the background.
Christopher Columbus landed at Baracoa in 1492 and in 1511 the settlement there became the first Spanish capital of our mystery country. Baracoa is on the eastern tip of the country’s north coast. Surrounded by mountains, it’s very remote and was accessible only by sea until a road was built through the mountains in the 1960s.
The nearby Alejandro de Humboldt National Park is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

 

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In the north of our mystery country, the Greco-Roman Decapolis city of Pella was built on a site that had already been inhabited for thousands of years. (Hellenistic Greeks named the city after the Macedonian birthplace of Alexander the Great.) Archaeologists have discovered a substantial fortification wall from the early Bronze Age and a Canaanite temple, as well as remains from Greek, Roman, Byzantine and Umayyad periods; and there’s still a great deal to be excavated. Pella does not attract as many visitors as the better known and more flashy Decapolis city of Jerash, but most who do visit are impressed by its subtle, evocative quality and beautiful setting.

 

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This is Kasbah Taourirt in Ouarzazate, a Sahara Desert gateway town in the center-south of our mystery country. Taourirt was built in the 19th century by the Glaoui, a ruling clan of the south. UNESCO has restored the palace section of the kasbah and it is open to tourists. The Kasbah was a small fortified village, with multiple single-family dwellings inside, as well as the palace, and several families still live there.

 

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The Western Wall, built around 19BCE, is among the world’s most holy places, but much of it is hidden behind unrelated structures built up against it over the centuries. The section commonly known as the Western Wall is only about 200 feet of a total length of 1600 feet . Fifty years ago tunnel excavations began to reveal the full length of the wall, as well as the lower 17 courses below modern street level. One of many interesting things uncovered in 20 years of digging is the wall’s largest stone, which is 45 feet long, 10 feet tall and weighs 570 tons!

 

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This is the Great Hypostyle Hall of Karnak Temple. It consists of 134 columns in an area of over 50,000 square feet. Most of the columns are 50 feet tall, but two rows of 6 columns flanking the central aisle are 80 feet tall and 30 feet in circumference. (!)
The hall was built around the 13th century BCE, an addition to the existing temple. Originally, a roof covered the hall, but it is long since open to the sky. (In architectural terms, a hypostyle indicates a space covered by a roof supported by columns.)

 

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This is the Lions Gate at Mycenae on the Peloponnese peninsula. Mycenae was a major center of power and cultural influence in the eastern Mediterranean from about 1600-1100BCE. Mycenean civilization was the first advanced civilization on the mainland of our mystery country. In Homer’s Iliad, Mycenae was among the city states that fought in the Trojan War over the abduction of Helen, wife of the King of Sparta (Menelaus) , who was the brother of the King of Mycenae (Agamemnon).

 

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For about 400 years, from the mid-15th century, Topkapi Palace was the residence and administrative center of the Ottoman Empire. The sprawling complex occupies the end of a peninsula bordered by 3 bodies of water – the Marmara Sea, the Bosphorus Straight and the Golden Horn. In 1924, the palace became a museum open to the public and is among the most visited sites in our mystery country.

 

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This is Sur, on the northern coast of our mystery country, about 90 miles northeast of the capital city, Muscat. Sur has been a regional center of ship building for centuries. Visitors can tour the ship yards and observe craftsmen building the traditional vessels in the same way they have done for many generations. The ship pictured is the Fatah Al Khair, a type of Al Ghanjah ship, built in 1951. The semicircular keel is one of the signature features of Sur ship builders.

 

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The Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque pictured above is named for the founder and first president of our mystery country. The country, composed of seven united principalities boarding the Arabian Gulf, is known for its oil wealth and shiny modern cities. Sheikh Zayed, who died in 2004, is locally revered and widely respected for wise stewardship of the considerable natural resources within his borders.

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When Jesus was 30 years old, he left Nazareth and settled in the village of Capernaum, about 30 miles away. The village sits on the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee, which is actually a fresh water lake, known locally as Lake Kinneret. Several of Jesus’ disciples lived in Capernaum and fished in the lake for a living. The synagogue pictured above post-dates Jesus but is built on remains of a synagogue where he certainly preached.

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