The past is not static, or ever truly complete; as we age we see from new positions, shifting angles. A therapist friend of mine likes to use the metaphor of the kind of spiral stair that winds up inside a lighthouse. As one moves up that stair, the core at the center doesn’t change, but one continually sees it from another vantage point; if the past is a core of who we are, then our movement in time always brings us into a new relation to that core.

—Mark Doty.

The Atlas Obscura serves as this age's compendium age's wonders, curiosities, and esoterica. But what about previous ages?

Recently I talked to Atlas founder Dylan Thuras at length about the word "wonder," and we both ended up wondering what sort of Atlas-esque entries writers from, say, ancient Rome or Medieval Persia might have created. With a different mindset, a different understanding of science and the natural world, and different codes of aesthetics and ethics, how would earlier aficionados of obscurities and off-the-beaten-trail sites of pilgrimage have engaged with wonder? What did they feel, when looking up at an impossible structure or out onto a bizarre natural landscape? What did they find wonder-inspiring, exactly, and why?

With these questions in mind, I've set out to describe just some of the wonders of the past, both familiar (the Great Pyramids, where kings went to chillax eternally) and esoteric (the artificial oyster lakes of Rome, the most oyster-obsessed city in the world).

The first site I'd like to visit is this series' eponym ("name-thang") — the lighthouse, or the Lighthouse, to be more reverent.

The Pharos, the great lighthouse at Alexandria, was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, in that world's most crowded, second-richest city. At an estimated 400-feet, it was taller than every structure on earth during its life except the two largest pyramids, and it needed to be: It guided ships into the busiest and most important port in the West, second to none, not even Rome - which was richer only thanks to war-loot.

Today the Pharos, named after the island on which it stood, is fallen: In fact, its parts were used to build a little citadel on the spot where it once stood, Fort Qaitbey, in the 1400s. But for hundreds of years, the lighthouse was more than an important cog in the commerce of the Hellenistic and Roman worlds. The Pharos was a symbol. It inspired something in those who beheld it. For one, it was taaall. Moreover, it was beautiful — an elegant, symmetric, four-sided, phallic temple to Poseidon and his son Triton, the gods of the sea, whose blessings every sailor desired as they set out on shallow-keeled, single-masted ships to haul tons of cargo, back when shipping was rolling the dice, playing Russian roulette with the storms. If you had to get the attention of a god, the Pharos definitely seemed like a good way to go about it.

But it didn't have to serve a specific religious purpose to inspire. To the average Egyptian—whether he was Greek, Roman, or Kemet (native Egyptian)—the Pharos was larger than life. It had no rival in consciousness. There were no mountains in Lower Egypt, and no large buildings other than sprawling but squat temples and warehouses. Even for those notables who'd visited, say, Antioch, the Pharos put its potential challengers to shame. Other lighthouses were tall, but the dimensions of the monstrous Pharos were simply on a different, Olympian scale.

The lighthouse recreated in Chagsha, China at the "Window of the World" Cultural Park

After Caesar ended the Greek rule of Egypt, the Romans improved on the Pharos, adding a mirror to reflect a lamp and bring sailors home at night, as the sheer blazing white bulk of the Pharos did during the day, standing against the sky like Alexandria's middle finger to the rest of the commercial ports of the Iron Age Mediterranean.

But what made this wondrous and not merely functional? Phallic imagery and quasi-religious significance aside, it may be hard for us postmodern lazyboneses to grasp just how truly wondrous a very, very functional thing like the Pharos — or the aqueducts, or the Great Wall — could prove. Think about it. There is no electricity. There is no natural gas, little animal oil. At night, in the teeming city, the second-most populous in the world, there are few lights.

As a sailor, in a crappy bark, coming home at night, you know well that the harbors end in sand. It's Egypt, after all. You really need to find your way, and you're bringing back countless luxuries from beyond the breadbasket of North Africa. You're carrying, say, fragile and useful ceramics from Greece, rare work-shopped metal goods from Asia (Turkey), soft Celtic wool, and very much in demand Roman wine. You're an investor. If the ship goes down, even if you survive, your life could be over. You could be sold into slavery. Slaves were not people of another ethnic group, after all; they were just very poor Romans. Repeat: If you don't see where to park your boat, you become a slave.

Suddenly, you blink and it's there: The sole yellow light, mirrored out into the lonely sea by huge polished metal discs (the ancients didn't have the mica mirrors we do now). Your life and livelihood are safe. You are free. You can drop anchor, unload your wares, fill up with grain in the morning, and set out again, for home.

Much more after the Jump...

Nearly every ancient civilization has studied the night sky, whether it was for navigation, measuring time, or spiritual purposes.  The Plains Indians of North America were no exception.  Dotting the high hills of the northern plains are hundreds of Native American stone constructions, called medicine wheels, that some scientists and historians believe to be aligned with the stars. In the past few decades, the field of archaeoastronomy, which aims to uncover how past civilizations understood celestial phenomena, has turned to medicine wheels to demonstrate the Native Americans' grasp of the heavens.

Photo by weasel-on-wheels

The archaeologist John Brumley has developed an official definition for the medicine wheel.  According to Brumley, a medicine wheel contains at least two of the following three criteria:

1)a central stone cairn

2)one or more concentric stone circles, and/or

3)two or more stone lines radiating outward from a central point.

Using this definition, the number of remaining medicine wheels is estimated to be between 100 and 200, each of which has a completely unique form. A vast majority of these wheels are found in Alberta and Saskatchewan, but some are located in North Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, and Colorado.Some even consider the wheels endangered because like tipi rings, the stone structures are threatened by theft, vandalism, and agriculture.

Even with a clear-cut definition such as Brumley's, medicine wheels, or "sacred hoops" as some prefer, are curious constructions. They have been used by generations of Native Americans, but there is no clear consensus of their origin or purpose. Rather, the wheels serve a multitude of uses to various different tribes. Even within a certain group, the specific rituals and ceremonies performed at the sacred wheels have been known to change over time. To add to the confusion, medicine wheels have been appropriated by New Age spiritualists, Wiccans, and Pagans. Gradually, these spiritual groups have attached their own syncretic meanings to the ancient constructions.

One far out explanation offered by the Swiss author Erich von Däniken suggests that medicine wheels represent a link between the Native Americans and pre-historic alien astronauts. Most scientists, however, tend to favor a more earthly interpretation. One popular, but controversial, theory is that medicine wheels are ancient observatories of sorts. This explanation, put forth by the astronomer John "Jack" Eddy in the 1970s, rests upon the fact that medicine wheel geometries can often reflect various celestial alignments. Three medicine wheels in particular have been important in advancement of this theory: Bighorn Medicine Wheel in Wyoming, Majorville Medicine Wheel in Alberta, and Moose Mountain Medicine Wheel in Saskatchewan.

Bighorn Medicine Wheel, Medicine Mountain, Wyoming, USA

Photo by Planet Quest

The Bighorn Medicine Wheel is perhaps the most famous of all medicine wheels.  At an altitude of nearly 10,000 feet, the wheel at Bighorn is only accessible during the summer months. For the rest of the year, the stones are covered by heavy snows.The geometry of the structure is described by a central cairn, large enough to contain a sitting person, surrounded by 28 spokes emanating outward and six other cairns placed along the outer circumference of the wheel.

Much more after the jump...

Editors Note: Among our excellent crack team at the Atlas, is one Ryan "Genki" Matsunaga a lover of all things media: gaming, film, music, comics and generally a brilliant fellow. Getting his degree in Digital Arts, Ryan loves video games, but as an Atlas Obscurian is also a devotee of real world awesomeness.

In a stroke of genius Ryan decided to pull the two together and find the places where they overlap. This the first in a series of "Shadows" posts where Ryan will be comparing environments from fiction (movies, video games, ect.) to their real world counterparts. Without further ado, Shadows of Chernobyl: Pripyat in the Gaming World.

Pripyat was the closest town to Chernobyl's No. 4 reactor, and was devastated by the reactor meltdown. Over two decades after the meltdown, this ghost town is still a freeze frame of the Soviet Union in 1986, with toys strewn about a schoolhouse where they were last dropped by children who are now fully grown (or dead). All clocks are frozen at 11:55, the moment the electricity was cut. It is this strange, creepy environment, that makes it a favorite local among game makers. Here are some of the games in which the town of Pripyat makes a notable appearance...

Half-Life 2

You might be saying to yourself, Half-Life 2? But that’s a science fiction title set in a fictional city years in the future! Very true, but a good look at the design of City 17, the setting of the game, reveals some of the inspirations behind the architecture.

It is clearly an Eastern European city, with definite Soviet Union-era inspirations. However, its ties to Pripyat are actually more direct. During the commentary track of the game’s second episode, the developers reveal that the hospital section of the game were in fact directly based on photos of the haunting Prypiat Hospital.

One look at some of these eerie photos will make Half-Life 2’s zombies seem strangely appropriate.

Much more, (including Call of Duty 4 and STALKER) after the jump...

Join Us Around the World on Saturday, March 20, 2010

Clear your calender for Obscura Day, and join us as we celebrate curious places all around the world.

We're getting access to private collections, exploring hidden treasures, and leading expeditions to places that aren't normally open to visitors. In Philadelphia, we'll get a special back-room tour of the Mutter Museum. In Tokyo, we'll be exploring the world's largest underground drainage system. In London, we'll be taking a walking tour of the lost River Fleet. Outside of Los Angeles, Geoff Manaugh of BLDGBLOG will be leading an expedition to investigate a vast, unbuilt suburb in the Mojave desert. Near Chicago, Jim Onan will be guiding us through his eccentric six-story gold-plated pyramid house.

READ THE REST. .>

Sarah "little" Brumble reporting on the loss of Portland's weirdness.

With over 18,000 bumper stickers instructing residents to “Keep Portland Weird!” it’s debatable what even constitutes ‘weird’ when everyone’s in agreement. However, removing this nebulous gray area, there’s little doubt that my fair-ish city has a stranger side to it than most of its comparably sized metropolitan peers.

It saddens me to report that my fair city seems to be ceding some of its most noteworthy eccentricities the face of an ever-increasing population and associated consequences. For instance,

1. The Woodstock Mystery Hole has recently closed to the public, though the Barron continues his commitment to the Universal Church of Fun. Interested parties may contact him through his website.

2.The 24 Hour Church of Elvis has become a shadow of its former self. It’s undeniable that the display at its current location pales in comparison to the tour-able collection of miscellanea in which I had the good fortune to receive a 24-hour marriage certificate at age 17.

3.And now, we have the Velveteria, which will be closing as of this coming Sunday, January 26th, “opening in parts unknown, but warmer climes.”

As one commenter pointed out not too long ago with regards to the Ware Hall House (a house whose owner moved it by hand in order to save it from being demolished in the name of modern development), “Well, it is a by-pass, and you do have to build by-passes.”

It’s true: progress will be made, and inevitably treasures will be lost. Part of what I love most about the Atlas is its ability to define a place for us to immortalize the fortunate exceptions, and provide a forum to host a proper send-off for those lost in the fray.

In this new year, I hope to do a better job of taking this celebration into the real world. I’d like to begin by extending an invitation to fellow obsuraphiles to join me in visiting the Velveteria while there’s still time.

On Saturday afternoon (of Jan 25th with a flower in my hair, the code phrase will be "Black velvet looks best at night") you can find me roaming the Velveteria, and would love to be joined by fellow obscuraphiles in the Pacific Northwest! I’m thinking a proper wake for the Velveteria also may be in order… Just down the street there’s an establishment with delicious eats, skeeball machine, and Portland’s finest microbrews.

And hey at least Portland seems to be managing that other worthwhile goal...

---

the end. by sarah brumble.

We at the Atlas Obscura were lucky enough to be contacted by an intrepid explorer by the name of Michael John Grist.Located in Japan, Grist explores and photographs the ruins of Japan, known as ‘haikyo’, including abandoned theme parks, military installations, and ghost towns. Over a period of 6 years he has visited over 60 ruins locations throughout Japan and documented them in the Ruins Gallery.

So with out further ado we are proud to present Michael John Grist with five ruins of the Japanese Sex Industry.

'Haikyo' is a Japanese term that means 'ruin.'

To 'go on a haikyo' involves heading out to an abandoned building and exploring the heck out of it, documenting it with photographs, and quite possibly posting the results in a book or magazine.

In Japan haikyo are more popular than ever, with something like two new books of haikyo photography released each month. These typically feature a broad swathe of ruins types- theme parks, ghost towns, haunted hospitals, resort hotels, and ruins of the sex industry, places abandoned after the 80's economic bubble burst and neglected for the lost decade of the 90's.

Now let's look at some of those places in ruin.

1. The Akasaka Love Hotel

Love Hotels' are a lot like roadside motels, designed with the express purpose of facilitating 'relations' between Japanese couples who still live at home, and have no access to a bedroom away from their parents. They are often cheap, and come in a variety of wacky 'flavors', decorated in garish hues, with flashing lights, hot tubs, and handy vending machines stocking contraceptives and other toys. You can take a 'REST' at a love hotel - one hour, cheap rate - or enjoy a full STAY - up to eight hours and more expensive.

The Akasaka Love Hotel Haikyo in Tokyo reminds us of the importance of that old adage: ‘location location location’. Situated at the far end of a strip of Love Hotels on the Lake Tama ring road, it’s clear this place suffered for lack of passing traffic. Now its forecourt and parking lot are bouldered with rotten 80’s styled furniture, burnt-out cars, and avalanches of mounded pillows. Inside, its gaudy rooms still sing of forbidden pleasures, the walls plastered with bright helios, lurking cheetahs, and naked Bathsheba’s, though I doubt any lusty couples have joined in their bawdy chorus for some time.

More about the Akasaka Love Hotel Haikyo on the Atlas and on my site michaeljohngrist.com

2. The Queen Chateau Soapland

'Soaplands' are descended from Turkish water brothels, places where the hard-working Japanese salaryman can go to get himself soaped down by a young and nimble nymph. After protestations from the Russian Embassy the name was changed to Soapland. The legality of these places is much in question, with a wider range of deeds considered legal than you might expect. Due to this semi-legality, the places are often run by ;'yakuza'- Japanese gangsters, situated in red-light districts.

The Queen Chateau Soapland Haikyo in Ibaraki is at once a grand but squalid folly. A bath-based brothel rising 5 fairy-tale stories into the sky, cornered with towers and capped with bright red tile, it represents an era gone mad with indulgence, audacity, and hopefulness. Now it lies in crippled ruin, its bright colors fading, its halycon days of glamor and glitz surplanted by ghost-like hangings in its dim and dusty bars. Its grand playing-card Queen still stands aloft emblazoned across the front of the building, but her stare is now more that of the toothless Ozymandius than a haughty mademoiselle.

More about the Queen Chateau Soapland on the Atlas and on my site michaeljohngrist.com

3. The Akeno Gekijo Hostess/Strip Bar

'Hostess Bars' are bars where men pay to be flirted with. Attractive women sit by them, pour them drinks, stroke their thighs, pay them compliments, and can make a fortune from big-spenders seeking to impress the girls with the most expensive champagne and caviar.

The Akeno Gekijo haikyo in Ibaraki is something of an oddity in Japan, as one of only a few actual strip clubs. Of course there are similar venues; hostess bars, soaplands, love hotels, but they each cater to a slightly different crowd and provide a slightly different flavor of tawdry service. To find a straight-up strip club complete with central podium, viewing seats, and dancing poles seems a feat beyond expectation. But there it is, on a small back-road in a quiet rural area surrounded by bamboo, half-burnt to the ground and buzzing with mosquitoes.

More about the Akeno Gekijo Hostess/Strip Bar on the Atlas and on my site michaeljohngrist.com

4. The Hotel Royal

The Hotel Royal haikyo in Kanagawa is the grand-daddy of all love hotels, streaking 7 empty stories up into the big blue sky, a giant vermillion flag on the banks of Sagamiko Lake calling out to all and sundry in a mega-watt alto - ‘Need some discreet time alone with your loved one? Come on down!’

The ruined hotel has 7 floors with around 35 rooms of varying sizes was presumably targeted at married men and women on surreptitious affairs, looking for an out of the way place where they wouldn't be seen conducting their illicit liaisons. Obviously not enough of these wayward husbands and wives came to this love hotel as it now stands in ruins.

More about the Akeno Gekijo Hostess/Strip Bar on the Atlas and on my site michaeljohngrist.com

5. The Pearl Love Hotel

The Pearl Love Hotel Haikyo in Tochigi is a wreck in camouflage, deeply nested underneath a blanket of scraggy brown vines. Rooms lie in embers, grown through with ferns; once-bohemian beds, chaise longues and chandeliers lie scrapped, dropped, and despoiled with the nests of birds, spiders, and the homeless. The grand two-story executive suite still maintains some of its sordid gravitas, its sultry red round-bedded apex room as faux-regal as ever, now overlooking a graveyard of spent passion inveigled by nature’s rapacious tendrils.

More about the Pearl Love Hotel on the Atlas and on my site michaeljohngrist.com

Editor's Note: That's it for now, keep your eye out for more Haikyo from Michael John Grist coming up on the Atlas soon! - Dylan

Bio: Michael John Grist has contributed haikyo articles and photography to the guidebook ‘To Japan With Love‘, the online men’s magazine asylum.com and the print magazine outdoorjapan.com

An interview with him about haikyo will appear in the British print magazine Kindred Spirit early 2010. His photography/guidebook Ruins / Haikyo – Exploring Japan’s Abandonment's is currently seeking publication. You can see all of MJG's haikyo explorations in the ruins/haikyo gallery on his website.

If you live in the northern hemisphere, chances are the weather's not as pleasant as it was six months ago. In the upper Midwest of the United States, winter is pretty brutal right about now. How brutal? As I type it is -2 degrees Fahrenheit with a windchill of -16 (that's -19C and -27C, respectively). Yes, it could be worse, and may be in the near future. But when this is daily reality for a significant portion of the US, millions of people are left with only two options: hibernate for the winter, or get on with gettin' on.

I like to think that this is the mentality that spawned ice fishing, a sport which first lodged itself in my brain at the impressionable age of 18. About a week before leaving my Oregon home to attend college in Minnesota, my family happened to tune into Michael Feldman's "Whad'ya Know" on public radio. One of the questions asked what ratio of Minnesotans go ice fishing. The answer: "One in five, which is only 700,000 fishermen." I thought he was kidding, but no. Each year 700,000 Minnesotans trudge out into the cold and go sit on frozen lake in a little shack and stare at a hole in the ice...for hours. But there is more than just fishermen on those lakes, and more is getting wrangled than just fish and beer. I give you: THE ART SHANTY PROJECT!

I recently visited the Art Shanty Projects on Medicine Lake. Located just a short drive west of the Twin Cities, the shanties are now entering their seventh year of playfully skewering the state's notorious pastime. Establishing a temporary installation every year from late January to early February, the rotating cadre of artists make the most of their circumstances to unite friends and families in outdoor whimsy during winter's doldrums.

Despite a set of installments that changes each year, past favorites like The Snapshot Shanty are regular features, as are the daily BIcicle Races [sic] held at noon each day on, yes, an ice track encircling the shanties. Between perusing installations such as the doodle shack (Make and hang your own paper snowflake! Write on the walls! Challenge your friend to a portrait joust outside!), sweating it out in the sauna shanty, and twisting till your legs are jelly in the dance shanty, the options are endless.

In yet another grand eff-you to the weather, an outdoor barbecue can often be found providing sustenance to visitors in the form of traditional summer fare.

The 2010 exhibit will be open to the public each weekend, January 16th through February 7th. Admission and parking are free, but donations to the are gladly accepted. A complete list of this year's shanties and scheduled events can be found at the Art Shanty Project's website. Already love the shanties as much as I do? Become a fan on Facebook!

Notes for visitors: While we here at the Atlas are in no position to condone or prohibit public intoxication, we'd like to make our life lessons public fodder so others may learn from our mistakes. For instance, I would like to personally recommend restricting one's bloody mary intake at brunch beforehand to that perfect level where one is bolstered against the wind thanks to a warm belly... but not too primed that participating in creations such as the robot shanty, which rocked visitors back and forth like a carnival ride, becomes a test of one's iron stomach. You never know what you'll encounter in the Art Shanties!

Also, keep in mind that you'll be walking across an icy (read: slippery), exposed lake. Shod and dress appropriately... but don't forget your bathing suit for the sauna, should it be around again this year!

Thanks to everyone that has helped us get off to an amazing start this year - we could not have done it without you. We are hatching plans and looking forward to lots of exciting new things this year for the Atlas and beyond.

To close out the old year and welcome the new, here's a rundown of our most popular places added to the Atlas in 2009:

From Atlas writer Kalia Kuligowski a field report from Bangkok's Siriraj Medical Museum. Not for the faint of heart or stomach!

As a fan of the Mutter Museum in Philadelphia, I was really looking forward to checking out the Siriraj Medical Museum once I got to Bangkok. So brothers in tow, we hopped in a taxi and headed off.

Once at the hospital we followed the green signs to the museum, located in one of the hospital's many buildings. After signing in, we made our way upstairs to the museum's desk and paid our 40 baht (a little more than a dollar) and braced ourselves for what lay ahead.

We were greeted by a wall full of graphic photographs of different dead bodies. "Man stabbed in chest" and "Man with tire marks" were some of the most memorable ones. After two minutes I couldn't take it anymore and went to find something else.

To the left was a big display on the tsunamis. "Natural disasters," I thought, "now that's something I can stomach." Boy was I wrong. It was actually a display on how forensic scientists went about identifying bodies after the deadly tsunami in 2005. Severed, injured body parts floated in their cases of formaldehyde in some macabre attempt to be educational. A life-size diorama showed forensic scientists/relief workers around the bloated corpse of a woman with nearby bodies already wrapped up. Fun...

Fleeing all things tsunami, I headed out to a main room where mummies stood at attention in what appeared to be white phone booths. Little did I realize what I was in for...

Read more about the museum after the jump

It is really hard to do history on television well. Things tend to generally end up either too dry, or way too ridiculous.

On the one hand you have the Ken Burns camp, which while wonderfully researched and very interesting... tends to get a little soporific at times. On the other side you have something like "Secret Masonic Nazi UFO's" which, though entertaining, should probably be on the "Fun Ideas I Had In The Bath" channel.

James Burke's Connections, and the "Ascent of Man" were always my gold standards for history, as Cosmos was for science television. But I recently caught Terry Jones' Medieval Lives (streaming on Netflix) and was blown away.

Below is a section from the episode about Knights which covers the Atlas' favorite mercenary John Hawkwood.

I am late to the party seeing as these came out in 2004, and already won a BBC Emmy, but what a party! Jones does a terrific job of reexamining of some of the preconceived notions about the middle ages, and while some of the jokes are a bit corny, and the production level isn't always stellar, the writing and history presented really is! I particularly like the episode on Alchemists which goes a long way to defend the oft hated on middle age scientists, and dispelling the notion that the Church oppressed the sciences.

I hope you enjoyed them as much as I did, much more can be seen on Netflix, and on Youtube.