Britannica Illustrated Science Library: Rocks and Minerals by Encyclopedia Britannica

Author:Encyclopedia Britannica [Britannica, Encyclopedia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-10-29T23:50:42+00:00

58 FORMATION AND TRANSFORMATION OF ROCKS

ROCKS AND MINERALS 59

Divine and Worshiped

Beliefs

Uluru

Each crack, protuberance, or

Sacred place for Australian Aborigines for thousands of years, F ormed millions of years ago, some rocks enjoy the privilege of being considered deities. Pagans, Christians, Muslims, and Aborigines of Australia base part of their beliefs on the myths, properties, or legends of a rock. Among the best known are groove of a rock has meaning to

Uluru (Ayers Rock) is four miles (9.5 km) in circumference and Uluru (Ayers Rock), the Black Stone located in the cube-shaped sepulcher of the Kàbah, Aborigines. For example, a rock's

rises 1,100 feet (340 m) above the Australian desert. Uluru was orifices symbolize the eyes of a

discovered by Caucasians in 1872 and renamed Ayers Rock in honor and the rocks of Externsteine, a destination of Christian pilgrimages and a sacred site dead enemy.

of the Australian Prime Minister Henry Ayers. In this enormous for many ancient pagan religions. Their origins are described and studied in theology as sandstone mass, dozens of dream paths traversed by the Aborigines and the paths already traveled by their ancestors in the past well as in geology. Resistant to the passing of time, they are transformed into myths converge through a series of myths. In this manner, all the sacred that remain to the present.

places are connected. On the rock are forms such as Kuniya women and the wounded head of the Liru warrior, among others.

ULURU-KATA TJUTA

NATIONAL PARK,

Australia

Latitude

25° S

Longitude 131° E

The great reddish rock of Uluru was

created during the Alice Springs orogeny,

400 million years ago. The sandstone and

conglomerates that formed the ancient

alluvial fans folded and fractured

deeply, turning horizontal layers

on their ends.

CAVE PAINTINGS

Uluru contains some of the most representative features of the ancestral history of the Aborigines. The caves surrounding the base of the rock have some Aboriginal paintings illustrating the paths and limits of the Dream Time. Many carvings in the caves are considered to be of divine origin.

The Black Stone

Externsteine

of the Kàbah

Made of oddly twisted limestone rocks,

Located in one corner of the Kàbah, the Black Stone MUSLIM TRADITION

Externsteine is located in the Teutoburg

is the most sacred treasure of the Islamic world. The Forest north of the Rhine River in Rhineland,

Muslims who have the necessary

Ka’bah is a cubic building located in Mecca, toward which 100 feet

means are expected to go to

Germany. It was the place of heroic myths and

Muslims face as they pray five times a day. The stone's Mecca at least once in their lives.

German legends. It is also related to the

exposed surface is 6 x 8 inches (16 x 20 cm), and its pieces (30 m)

Scandinavian Eddas and, during Nazism, to the

are held together by a frame with a silver band. Muslims Aryan myth. According to popular belief, the

relate its origin to Adam and say that Abraham and his son the height of the Externsteine

stones were placed there at night by giants; they Ishmael built the Kàbah, but it was the Prophet Muhammad formation. It consists of five

limestone pillars, riddled with caves,

were then burned by the

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