Layers of History

Eglise Notre Dame de la Major

As with the previous post, this scene is interesting to me because in one image we can see nearly 2000 years of history, layered from bottom to top, situated on rock that has prevailed from the times before human existence. The city wall contains a record of Roman and later Medieval additions and maintenance. On top of the wall we see the church, Eglise Notre Dame de la Major, built on the ruins of an old Roman temple. The conflation of all these parts forms a unified whole, that has character. It speaks to the incrementalism of human activity, and human culture, of both continuity and resilience. A process of dead-reckoning that somehow leads to something coherent. Its age lends to a sense of its authenticity.

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