Speaker 1: Welcome. This is Marsha for Radio I, and today I
Speaker 1: will be reading National Geographic Magazine dated July twenty twenty five,
Speaker 1: which is donated by the publisher as a reminder. RADIOI
Speaker 1: is a reading service intended for people who are blind
Speaker 1: or have other disabilities that make it difficult to read
Speaker 1: printed material. Please join me now for the continuation of
Speaker 1: the article I began last time, entitled What New York
Speaker 1: City Loses when Languages Vanish by Ross Perlin. Just as
Speaker 1: exceptional are the artistic, musical, and culinary possibilities as worldwide
Speaker 1: from around the globe come together and share a space.
Speaker 1: Irwin Sanchez, a chef and poet in Queen's who speaks
Speaker 1: Nahuatl once the language of the Aztec, makes tacos, moles
Speaker 1: and tamalays with the words original meeting in mind. Whos
Speaker 1: Nika Kuja Maryova, a speaker of Waki from Tajikistan, creates
Speaker 1: some of the very first children's books for speakers of
Speaker 1: six Pamiri languages, all now represented along Brooklyn's own Silk Road.
Speaker 1: Ibrahama Tararor, who made it from Guinea to the Lower
Speaker 1: East Side, teaches NiCoT, a pioneering West African writing system
Speaker 1: and pushes for its use in every new technology. For
Speaker 1: a Sandler, a Yiddish speaking writer born in Moldova, contributes
Speaker 1: in his own way, novel after novel to the miraculous
Speaker 1: rebirth of Yiddish in New York. Lenape, the original language
Speaker 1: of the land the city is built on, is also
Speaker 1: being revived, against all the odds, from its last stronghold
Speaker 1: in rural Ontario, where there is just a single native speaker.
Speaker 1: A new generation of activists is bringing the language to
Speaker 1: a wider audience. One of them was Kiaren Moscow, who,
Speaker 1: before she passed away, would come down once a month
Speaker 1: to teach the language in Manhattan, the place where we
Speaker 1: get bows in Lenape. And then there's rasmena Ung, the
Speaker 1: young Secis speaker. For seven years, she has been documenting
Speaker 1: the language in both Nepal and New York, with dozens
Speaker 1: of hours of recordings, many transcribed and translated, as well
Speaker 1: as a growing dictionary. But now elders are passing away
Speaker 1: and taking the language with them. Questions about immigration and
Speaker 1: asylum hang over the community's future. Housing is increasingly challenging,
Speaker 1: and their village like cohesion may not last. Over the
Speaker 1: past decades. By chance, Boring's Brooklyn neighborhood has become a
Speaker 1: place where people from around the world establish hometown associations,
Speaker 1: religious institutions, restaurants, and a range of other businesses and spaces,
Speaker 1: forming radically different worlds that now dwell side by side.
Speaker 1: Just minutes from the second vertical village, you can hear
Speaker 1: Ghanaian churchgoers speaking twee Azerbaijani barber's speaking Jehuri, and uber
Speaker 1: drivers gathering over kabab's and whisky and chatting in Uzbek
Speaker 1: otto by shops in formal commuter or dollar vans, mosques
Speaker 1: and bars ring with the sounds of African, Asian, European, Caribbean,
Speaker 1: and Latin American languages. For all the unrealized potential babble,
Speaker 1: not the biblical myth, but the contemporary reality, has been
Speaker 1: working in cities like New York to an extraordinary degree.
Speaker 1: Now is the moment to understand, appreciate, and defend it
Speaker 1: the global origins of New York's at risk languages, some
Speaker 1: of the world's most endangered languages are spoken in the
Speaker 1: city where a subway ride can take you around the world.
Speaker 1: Hoarding New York City's subway system, one of the world's
Speaker 1: oldest and most extensive, is like embarking on a journey
Speaker 1: across the globe for the price of a single fear.
Speaker 1: It connects writers to roughly one thousand places where myriad
Speaker 1: languages have taken root. Each destination is its own linguistic universe.
Speaker 1: Next to the hidden talents of nature's unloved animals. By A. J. Jacobs,
Speaker 1: whether it's their bold appearance, their unsavory hygiene habits, or
Speaker 1: their unexpected behavior, certain animals suffer from an image problem.
Speaker 1: Of course, their standout attribute can also be their superpowers.
Speaker 1: The vulture has to be one of the most reviled
Speaker 1: creatures on Earth. The very word vulture is an insult,
Speaker 1: a synonym for a greedy exploiter. In a way, vulture's
Speaker 1: bad reputation is understandable for starters. They are neither cute
Speaker 1: nor cuddly, what with their stooped posture, bare heads, and
Speaker 1: beady eyes. They spend their days eating dead animals, and
Speaker 1: they do it in a stomach churning way by entering
Speaker 1: the corpse at its soft parts, such as the mouth, nose,
Speaker 1: or anus. Vultures definitely have an image problems, as national
Speaker 1: geographic explorer Darcy Ogata, Africa program director at the conservation
Speaker 1: nonprofit Peregrine Fund, who point out that a bald bird
Speaker 1: sticking its beak up the rear end of a wildebeest
Speaker 1: wouldn't make for the most appealing magazine cover. The bird's
Speaker 1: pr problem has real world consequences. It causes us to
Speaker 1: overlook the vulture's fascinating behavior and vital role in our ecosystem.
Speaker 1: Without vultures, bad things happen. These birds act as nature's cleaners, hovering,
Speaker 1: hoovering up rotting carcasses, and preventing the spread of disease.
Speaker 1: Consider the drastic situation in India. Starting three decades ago,
Speaker 1: vultures nearly disappeared after millions of them were accidentally poisoned
Speaker 1: by medicine used on cows, which turned out to be
Speaker 1: toxic to vultures. As a result, the countryside became littered
Speaker 1: with rotting, germ filled animal corpses that infected the rivers
Speaker 1: in drinking water and also boosted the population of rabies
Speaker 1: carrying theiral dogs. According to a recent study in the
Speaker 1: American Economic Review, the decline in vultures correlated with more
Speaker 1: than half a million excess human deaths in a population
Speaker 1: sample in India between two thousand and two thousand and five.
Speaker 1: In an ideal world, the disappearing vulture population would be
Speaker 1: a conservation priority, but it isn't. The vast majority of
Speaker 1: global conservation money goes to a few top species, usually
Speaker 1: large animals such as rhinos, elephants, and gorillas. The rest
Speaker 1: of conservation gets the scraps. O Goddess says. The animals
Speaker 1: fighting over those crumbs are what you might call the
Speaker 1: d list species. The outcasts. We're talking about the vultures,
Speaker 1: the naked mole rats, and the probiscous monkeys with their
Speaker 1: pendulous blobby schnazes. They're not pretty, they're not colorful. They
Speaker 1: often do gross things, such as eating feces, a habit
Speaker 1: of the naked mole rat. They are the popular opposite,
Speaker 1: polar opposites of the conservation icons, the lions, pandas, penguins
Speaker 1: and giraffes that star in nature documentaries, appear on our
Speaker 1: cereal boxes, and get the lead rolls in animated movies.
Speaker 1: Conservationists call the a Lister's charismatic megafauna or flagship species.
Speaker 1: Several studies show that they get a lopsided share of donations.
Speaker 1: As one study puts it, animal charisma trumps endangered status.
Speaker 1: Just one example, amphibians account for about twenty five percent
Speaker 1: of threatened vertebrate species, but only about two point five
Speaker 1: percent of funding. No one wants to kiss or donate
Speaker 1: to a slimy frog. What does it take to be
Speaker 1: a very important animal? It helps if you're cute, furry,
Speaker 1: jumbo size, and or adorned with attention grabbing outer wear.
Speaker 1: Think the interesting patterns of leopards and zebras. Cuteness is
Speaker 1: an especially powerful draw thanks to our brains programming, what
Speaker 1: we find is cute in animals is often the same
Speaker 1: thing we find cute in human babies, such as big,
Speaker 1: forward facing eyes, says Gabby Salazar, an environmental social scientists
Speaker 1: and National Geographic Explorer. We are genetically designed to love
Speaker 1: and nurture babies and bibyish animals such as the panda,
Speaker 1: which appears on the WWF logo reap. The benefits being
Speaker 1: on the A list comes with yet another benefit, what
Speaker 1: psychologists call the halo effect. This means that we mistakenly
Speaker 1: imbue attractive people and animals with additional positive characteristics, such
Speaker 1: as moral goodness. It's why so many movie heroes are
Speaker 1: equipped with gleaming teeth and chiseled jaws, and so many
Speaker 1: villains have scars. But in reality, both with humans and animals,
Speaker 1: prettiness doesn't equal benevolence or courage, and neither does ugliness
Speaker 1: equal nastiness or cowardice. Just look at the two can
Speaker 1: I love tuocans. But they don't just use that beak
Speaker 1: to eat fruit, says Salazar. They also use that beak
Speaker 1: to scoop up baby birds from other birds. Now us
Speaker 1: not something you'd see too, can sam from fruit loops
Speaker 1: doing so, how do we fix this pr problem? How
Speaker 1: do we get the animal kingdom's outcasts more attention than
Speaker 1: the conservation dollars they deserve, Salazar says. One key is
Speaker 1: to tell better stories. For starters. We can highlight the
Speaker 1: benefits some of these animals provide, such as the vulture's
Speaker 1: role in garbage disposal. This is actually a century's old strategy.
Speaker 1: In a tongue in cheek letter to his daughter, Ben
Speaker 1: Franklin questioned the candidacy of the bald eagle as a
Speaker 1: national emblem. He argued that dumpy turkey was respectable and
Speaker 1: a bird of courage that defended its home turf just
Speaker 1: as the American colonists defended theirs. He contrasted this with
Speaker 1: the bald eagle, which Franklin called a bird of bad
Speaker 1: moral character and accused of stealing fish from other birds,
Speaker 1: which it does. Another strategy is to reframe these animals
Speaker 1: supposedly bad characteristics. For instance, the vultures unpleasant looking bald
Speaker 1: head is in fact a clever way to help keep
Speaker 1: the bird from collecting germs in its feathers when it's
Speaker 1: eating carcasses. The sloth's alleged laziness is really a brilliant
Speaker 1: evolutionary adaptation. Its slowness is a super efficient way to
Speaker 1: survive on a low energy leaf filled diet. The naked
Speaker 1: mole rat may look like a wrinkly bucktoothed hot dog,
Speaker 1: but this quirky creature has evolved to survive without oxygen
Speaker 1: for eighteen minutes. One other idea is to lean into
Speaker 1: these animals freakiness. Salazar says there's some new research on
Speaker 1: what are being called ugly cute animals. Ugly cute animals
Speaker 1: are animals that are so weird or not stereotypically cute
Speaker 1: that they actually end up being fun and make us
Speaker 1: smile and laugh. She says, some species are wacky enough
Speaker 1: that they can benefit from this ugly cute phenomenon. Exhibit
Speaker 1: A is the blob fish, an Internet star with its
Speaker 1: ugly mug featured next to captions such as how I
Speaker 1: Feel on Mondays, sell is our sites. A recent study
Speaker 1: on probiscous monkeys and how internet memes correlated with an
Speaker 1: increase in donations to protect these Southeast Asian primates. In
Speaker 1: this attention economy, there's some novelty and humor we could
Speaker 1: capitalize on, she says, So let's get the revolution started.
Speaker 1: It's time to embrace the outcasts here as to hoping
Speaker 1: that one day we see cartoon naked mole rats on
Speaker 1: cereal boxes, college football teams named the Vultures, and a
Speaker 1: blobfish getting its own Pixar movie. For now, across these pages,
Speaker 1: we celebrate the bizarrely brilliant traits and behaviors of these
Speaker 1: d list creatures. Three toed sloth. Early depictions of sloths
Speaker 1: show why the slow moving animals native to Central and
Speaker 1: South America got a bad rap from the get go.
Speaker 1: One nineteenth century account labeled them imperfect monsters of creation,
Speaker 1: adding equally remarkable for their disgusting appearance and helpless condition.
Speaker 1: Sloths can't help that several species of algae grow in
Speaker 1: the grooves of their coarse, matted fur, giving it a
Speaker 1: strange green sheen, But this adaptation is a secret weapon.
Speaker 1: The algae help camouflage the canopy dwelling dwelling creatures. All
Speaker 1: sloth species, which mostly eat leaves, have long claws that
Speaker 1: help them grasp tree branches in the canopy. The claws
Speaker 1: are made from bone encased in keratin, the same protein
Speaker 1: that forms human hair and nails. Sloth fur supports robust
Speaker 1: communities of insects such as beetles, cockroaches, and moths. Several
Speaker 1: moth species spend almost their entire lives nestled in sloth's coats.
Speaker 1: They lay eggs in the sloth's dung and provide nutrients
Speaker 1: thought to nourish the algae that grow in sloths fur.
Speaker 1: Sloths have the slowest metabolic raate of any non hibernating animal,
Speaker 1: allowing them to conserve the energy they get from their
Speaker 1: restricted diet. These sedate creatures descend to the forest floor
Speaker 1: to defecate as rarely as once a week prubiscus monkey.
Speaker 1: Male probiscus monkeys are adorned with an oversized, fleshy snout
Speaker 1: that drapes across their face. The protusion may seem comical
Speaker 1: and impractical to humans, but it has an important purpose.
Speaker 1: These caramel colored primates, native to the lush jungles of
Speaker 1: Borneo in Southeast Asia, live in large communities broken down
Speaker 1: into smaller robing groups of males and then harems, or
Speaker 1: groups of females and their offspring that are dominated by
Speaker 1: a single male. Competition for female attention, which earns one
Speaker 1: a larger harem can be fierce among males. Female probiscous
Speaker 1: monkeys gravitate toward males with the largest sniffer. African bullfrog,
Speaker 1: often overlooked slimy amphibians like frogs and salamanders, are the
Speaker 1: focus of meager conservation funding considering how many species are
Speaker 1: threatened or endangered. The bulbous African bullfrog is the world's
Speaker 1: second largest frog species. Males can be ten inches long
Speaker 1: and weigh as much as four pounds, and they can
Speaker 1: look even bigger. When the frogs feel threatened, they puff
Speaker 1: up their lumpy bodies to intimidate predators. Frog sliva changes
Speaker 1: consistency when force is applies to it. While bullfrogs rest,
Speaker 1: their spit is thick, sticky, and gloopy, but when the
Speaker 1: tongue shoots out and latches onto prey, the spit transforms
Speaker 1: into a watery substance that coats the target. During the
Speaker 1: dry season, African bullfrogs can go dormant and grow a
Speaker 1: paper like shell made of layers of dead skin that
Speaker 1: helps to trap moisture. When the rain comes, the cocoon
Speaker 1: washes away. Honey badger found throughout sub Sahari in Africa,
Speaker 1: as well as in the Middle East and Western Asia.
Speaker 1: These scrappy predators have a fearsome reputation thanks to a
Speaker 1: set of impressive adaptations. For one, honey badgers have developed
Speaker 1: a resistance to venomous snakes, neurotoxins, and approximately a quarter
Speaker 1: of their diet consists of snakes. But a love of
Speaker 1: honey also compels these aptly named animals to raid beehives. Fortunately,
Speaker 1: their thick skin safeguards them against the hundreds of ensuing stings.
Speaker 1: The honey badger's hunting prowess pays off even for other
Speaker 1: species jackals and gashocks. In search of a tasty morsel
Speaker 1: may follow a honey badger as it looks for a meal.
Speaker 1: Adaptations in the honey badger's nervous system block the effects
Speaker 1: of neural toxins delivered by snakes like the cape cobra
Speaker 1: and black mamba that the animals snack on. Honey badger's
Speaker 1: claws more than an inch long, can rip open beehives,
Speaker 1: dead animals, and prey such as lizards. The creatures also
Speaker 1: use their keratin talons to dig dens and carve out
Speaker 1: space in abandoned burrows. The formidable mammals release a mustard
Speaker 1: like substance from their anal glands, which can be used
Speaker 1: in self defense and to mark their home range beneath
Speaker 1: their fur. Honey badger's skin is thick and loose, able
Speaker 1: to withstand snake bites and beastings, and difficult for predators
Speaker 1: like African wild dogs and hyenas to hang on to.
Speaker 1: Tongan scrub fowl. The gargantuan feet of birds in the
Speaker 1: megapode family, like the Tongan scrub fowl may look clumsy,
Speaker 1: but they are actually a superpower. These stocky, chicken sized
Speaker 1: birds found throughout Australia. Australasia typically roost in forests, unsun
Speaker 1: drenched beaches, or near geothermal areas, and they use their
Speaker 1: feet to build sandy burrows or mound nests from rotting
Speaker 1: vegetation after they hatch. Tonguan scrub fowl chicks use their
Speaker 1: feet to claw themselves from their burrows, which can reach
Speaker 1: depths of five and a half feet megapode literally translate
Speaker 1: to large foot. The birds have evolved sharp claws to
Speaker 1: help them dig through mud and vegetation. III Madagascar has
Speaker 1: its share of charismatic primates like the rambunctious ring tailed lever,
Speaker 1: but the island's most captivating characters may be the eerie
Speaker 1: I E Eyes. The scraggly animals, including this sixteen year
Speaker 1: old baby, have piercing eyes, a long tail, and coarse fur.
Speaker 1: Iis Earth's largest nocturnal primates. Are so visually off putting
Speaker 1: that some people consider them bad luck and kill them
Speaker 1: on site, which is put the animal's population in jeopardy. Fortunately,
Speaker 1: efforts to rehabilitate their image are underway, with conservationists and
Speaker 1: farmers helping local communities recognize that iiyes are effective predators
Speaker 1: of leaf minor larvae that are ravaging clove trees along
Speaker 1: the East coast. Iiys slender middle fingers are equipped with
Speaker 1: a unique ball and socket joint for increased range of motion.
Speaker 1: They tap these fingers on tree trunks to locate insect
Speaker 1: tunnels and scoop out beetle larvae, a method called percussive foraging.
Speaker 1: Unlike other nocturnal primates, iies are genetically adapted to see
Speaker 1: a wider spectrum of the color blue, which helps them
Speaker 1: spot appetizing blue flowers in twilight conditions. Hairy ironfish the
Speaker 1: witching lure, an appendage on the head, twitches and twirls
Speaker 1: like a worm or small fish in the water to
Speaker 1: draw in unsuspecting prey, a behavior known as aggressive mimicry.
Speaker 1: Frogfish are clumsy swimmers and often clamor over rocks and
Speaker 1: coral using their bulky fins, which consist of specialized muscle arrangements.
Speaker 1: This behavior caused some early naturalists to misclassify the animals
Speaker 1: as amphibians. Since the late sixteen hundreds, when a Dutch
Speaker 1: sea captain and his crew discovered a frogfish among a
Speaker 1: shipwrecked debris, the vaguely toad like creatures have earned their
Speaker 1: place among the ocean's oddities when nineteenth century naturalists described
Speaker 1: them as the most grotesque of all fishes. Found in
Speaker 1: tropical and subtropical waters around the world, most frogfish are
Speaker 1: covered in a web of stink, stringy spinules that help
Speaker 1: them blend in among algae coated rocks and coral while
Speaker 1: hunting prey. What may seem like a quick bite to
Speaker 1: the frogfish can be a wind for the ecosystem. In
Speaker 1: the Caribbean, they eat lions fish introduced to species whose
Speaker 1: ravenous appetites threaten the health of economically important ecosystems like
Speaker 1: coral reefs. Indian flying fox bats can thank author Bram
Speaker 1: Stoker and various tales of vampire folklore for their reputation
Speaker 1: as blood sucking monsters. The Indian flying foxes intimidating size.
Speaker 1: They're one of the biggest bat species. Dark eyes, sharp teeth,
Speaker 1: and propensity to congregate in large numbers don't help their image.
Speaker 1: Found in forests and marshes throughout South Asia extending into Mayanmar,
Speaker 1: these bats roost in huge colonies, some exceeding a thousand individuals,
Speaker 1: with a diet of mostly fruits and nectar. They're also
Speaker 1: one of the world's largest natural pollinators. Fully spread, the
Speaker 1: wings of Indian flying foxes can stretch over five feet.
Speaker 1: By comparison, common vampire bats in Central and South America
Speaker 1: have a wingspand that can reach fifteen inches. As fruit eaters,
Speaker 1: these bats rely on sight and smell sharpened over years
Speaker 1: of evolution, rather than echo location, which tends to be
Speaker 1: used by insectivors. The next article from National Geographic History magazine.
Speaker 1: Temple of hat Shepsut rock of ages Nestled in an
Speaker 1: alcove of rock. Pharaoh hot Shepsut's temple had many functions.
Speaker 1: It has survived the ravages of time and hot Shepsut's
Speaker 1: successor's attempts to erase her name from history. By David
Speaker 1: Rahul Ribaut. Chepsut ruled Egypt, first as co regent and
Speaker 1: then as pharaoh for a total of twenty one years.
Speaker 1: She was one of the few women in Egyptian history
Speaker 1: to retain power for so long. She reigned during one
Speaker 1: of Egypt's ancient Egypt's Golden Ages, when Egypt was awash
Speaker 1: with wealth. Hapshetsud built monumental works all over the nation,
Speaker 1: a myriad of temples and shrines for giant obelism at
Speaker 1: the Temple of Amun at Karnak, and countless artworks celebrating
Speaker 1: her accomplishments and immortalizing her prayers, but many of these
Speaker 1: works were defaced and destroyed after her death. In fourteen
Speaker 1: fifty eight BC, Hodschepsitt's successor, Tutmost the Third, one of
Speaker 1: Egypt's greatest pharaohs, led the charge to erase her name
Speaker 1: from history. Her likeness was chiseled away from monuments, and
Speaker 1: her statues and works destroyed noneth Nevertheless, following a major
Speaker 1: twentieth century reconstruction, Hodschepsit's massive temple at Diirel dir el
Speaker 1: Bahari Arabic for Northern Monastery still stands today, sheltered beneath
Speaker 1: the red rocks of a cliff face. This architectural wonder
Speaker 1: captivated the ancient world with its beauty and is a
Speaker 1: testament to Hutchepsut's glory and her devotion to the gods.
Speaker 1: Hotchepsitt was born around fifteen o seven b C to
Speaker 1: Tutmost the First and his great royal worfy wife, Queen
Speaker 1: ah Fosa. A. Chepsuit would marry her half brother and
Speaker 1: heir to the throne Tutmos the second, becoming his great
Speaker 1: royal wife. Tutmos the Second died young, leaving behind a
Speaker 1: two year old son born to a secondary wife as
Speaker 1: his heir. The child was too young to rule, so
Speaker 1: hot Sheepsit, the boy's aunt and stepmother, ruled for him.
Speaker 1: Hutchepsut gradually transformed her role from queen regent to outright pharoh.
Speaker 1: When Tutmos the third was older, he became her second
Speaker 1: in command, but he would not rule outright as pharaoh
Speaker 1: until after her death around fourteen fifty eight p c.
Speaker 1: His reign would be glorious, filled with triumphs all his own,
Speaker 1: but while he ruled, a systematic campaign attempted to erase
Speaker 1: Pharaoh hut Shepsu. Millennia later, archaeologists would put the pieces
Speaker 1: back together to restore hut Shepsut's place in history. In
Speaker 1: the New Kingdom period, hut Shepsuit was one of the
Speaker 1: first pharaohs who built the so called Tep of millions
Speaker 1: of years on the western bank of the Nile, opposite
Speaker 1: the city of Thebes modern day Luxor. Five centuries earlier
Speaker 1: in Middle Kingdom times, Pharaoh Menuhotep the second had erected
Speaker 1: the first mortuary temple here. Perhaps inspired by men to Hotep,
Speaker 1: hot Chepsut installed her massive complex at the foot of
Speaker 1: a cliff, a site now known as Deir el Bahri.
Speaker 1: This sacred location had been consecrated to the goddess hathor
Speaker 1: protector of the dead, and an important funerary deity in Thebes.
Speaker 1: In these temples, pharaohs would be worshiped after the deaths,
Speaker 1: their mummies meanwhile rested elsewhere, entombed in private underground chambers
Speaker 1: in the Valley of the Kings. As well as being
Speaker 1: used for royal funerals, the temples of millions of years
Speaker 1: were the focus for other rituals, some related to royalty,
Speaker 1: others to deities, including the Theban god Amun and the sun
Speaker 1: god Ray. Of all the mortuary temples, Hut Shepsits would
Speaker 1: become the main cult structure of the Theban complex. Construction
Speaker 1: lasted some fifteen years and was carried out under the
Speaker 1: supervision of Sinenmut, a high official and favorite of the pharaoh.
Speaker 1: The imposing building incorporated ramps and courtyards like the nearby
Speaker 1: Mantuhotep temple, but Senenmut introduced a number of innovations to
Speaker 1: create a building of unequaled magnificence. It came to be
Speaker 1: known as zaser Zasuro Holy of Holies. Most New Kingdom
Speaker 1: commemorative temples featured chambers separated by monumental gateways pylons, like
Speaker 1: those that could be seen at Luxor and Karnak. Hotchepsit's temple,
Speaker 1: on the other hand, was a ranged around a central
Speaker 1: ramp or causeway, spread along this causeway at different heights
Speaker 1: or three large courtyards. Today, the walls and courtyards of
Speaker 1: Hotchepsits Temple might look somewhat plain. In her time, they
Speaker 1: would have been filled with vibrant color, surrounded by lush
Speaker 1: gardens and pools, and richly decorated with sculpture and reliefs.
Speaker 1: Each decorative element conveyed a religious or political message in
Speaker 1: keeping with the ceremonial use of the building. The layout
Speaker 1: of Hutshepsut's temple was carefully designed. Most obviously, it was
Speaker 1: positioned to align perfectly with the temple of amun At
Speaker 1: Karnak on the opposite bank of the Nile. In addition,
Speaker 1: the precise east west alignment of its central causeway mirrored
Speaker 1: the daily paiath of the Sun or according to the
Speaker 1: beliefs of the day, the path of the god ray.
Speaker 1: The temple was also aligned with the Valley of the Kings,
Speaker 1: which lies to the west. This royal necropolis had been
Speaker 1: inaugurated by Hutshepsut's father, Tutmost, the first in fact toomb
Speaker 1: k V twenty, the burial place of Hutshepsut and Tutmost.
Speaker 1: The first lies in a straight line from the Sanctuary
Speaker 1: of Amun, the innermost chamber of huts Sheepsu's temple. Some
Speaker 1: experts have suggested that the original plan was to connect
Speaker 1: kV twenty with the Sanctuary of Amun via a tunnel
Speaker 1: through the interposing cliff, but the poor quality of the
Speaker 1: rock prevented it. Stone balustrades flanked the central ramp, guarded
Speaker 1: by imposing stone lions. A colonnade separates the first and
Speaker 1: second courtyards to highlight Hutschepsut's piety and devotion, reliefs depict
Speaker 1: two massive obelisks on their way to the temple of
Speaker 1: almun Et Karnak. Around the second courtyard are famous reliefs
Speaker 1: showing a trading expedition that Htshepsut sent to the land
Speaker 1: of Punt believed to be located on the Horn of Africa.
Speaker 1: Mr trees were brought back from this expedition and planted
Speaker 1: in the temple complex. Their resin would later be used
Speaker 1: in temple rituals. Other reliefs represent the divine birth of
Speaker 1: huts Sheepsu, who, according tradition, had been begotten by the
Speaker 1: god amun Rey. This concludes readings from National Geographic Magazine
Speaker 1: for to Day. Your reader, husband Marsha, thank you for listening.
Speaker 1: Keep on listening and have a great day.