Monthly Archives: April 2014
269.WHAT ARE THE CATACOMBS?
The catacombs were underground tombs near Rome where the early Christians were buried. These tombs were cut in soft rock in a sacred area surrounding the city of Rome.
When Emperor Nero began his persecutions of the Christians, they gathered in the tombs to worship. This was because every citizen was safe from attack in the burial grounds. Later, in the middle of the third century, even the burial grounds were not safe. The Christians then blocked up the regular entrances and made secret ones. They extended for miles in the underground galleries. It is said that the catacombs would be longer than the peninsula of Italy if the passages were in a straight line!
268.HOW WERE THE EGYPTIAN PYRAMIDS BUILT?
No one knows exactly how old the pyramids are. A thousand years before Christ, they were already old and mysterious. The Great Pyramid at Giza has been attributed to King Cheops of the fourth dynasty(about 2900 B.C.).
The pyramids are tombs. The ancient Egyptian kings believed that their future lives depended upon the perfect preservation of their bodies. The dead were therefore embalmed, and the mummies were hidden below the level of the ground in the interior of these great masses of stone. Even the inner passages were blocked and concealed from possible robbers. Food and other necessities were put in the tombs for the kings to eat in their future lives.
267.HOW DID FAIRY TALES BEGIN?
When you read a fairy tale that you enjoy very much, you may imagine that the author of the book made it up. If the book was written in modern times, this may be so. But did you know that long ago people did not invent fairy tales?
The great storytellers used to simply report what they had heard, for the stones had existed for thousands of years. According to some people, many fairy tales are based on a memory of something that really happened. But, of course, one has to look beyond the mere incidents of the stories to find out what it was.
