Great Wonders

The Apadana Palace creates a free Monument in every city and causes your workers to build improvements faster. It also increases the chance of generating a Great Engineer.

    Apadana is a large hypostyle hall, best said the great audience hall and portico at Persepolis and the palace of Susa. The Persepolis Apadana belongs to the oldest building phase of the city of Persepolis, the first half of the 6th century BC, as part of the original design by Darius the Great. Its construction completed by Xerxes I. Modern scholarships "demonstrates the metaphorical nature of the Apadana reliefs as idealised social orders".

    The Apadana was the largest building on the Terrace at Persepolis and was excavated by the German archaeologist Ernst Herzfeld and his assistant Friedrich Krefter, and Erich Schmidt, between 1931 and 1939. Important material relevant to the excavations are today housed in the archives of the Freer Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. It was most likely the main hall of the kings. The columns reached 20m high and had complex capitals in the shape of bulls or lions. Here, the great king received the tribute from all the nations in the Achaemenid Empire, and gave presents in return. Access to the hall is given by two monumental stairways, on the north and on the east. These are decorated by reliefs, showing delegates of the 23 subject nations of the Persian Empire paying tribute to Darius I, who is represented seated centrally. The various delegates are shown in great detail, giving insight into the costume and equipment of the various peoples of Persia in the 5th century BC. There are inscriptions in Old Persian and Elamite.

Dujiangyan adds extra food to all river tiles worked by its city. It also increases its city's odds of generating a Great Statesman.

    The Dujiangyan is an ancient irrigation system in Dujiangyan City, Sichuan, China. Originally constructed around 256 BC by the State of Qin as an irrigation and flood control project, it is still in use today. The system's infrastructure develops on the Min River (Minjiang), the longest tributary of the Yangtze. The area is in the west part of the Chengdu Plain, between the Sichuan basin and the Tibetan plateau. Originally, the Min would rush down from the Min Mountains and slow down abruptly after reaching the Chengdu Plain, filling the watercourse with silt, thus making the nearby areas extremely prone to floods. Li Bing, then governor of Shu for the state of Qin, and his son headed the construction of the Dujiangyan, which harnessed the river using a new method of channeling and dividing the water rather than simply damming it. The water management scheme is still in use today to irrigate over 5,300 square kilometres (2,000 sq mi) of land in the region. The Dujiangyan, the Zhengguo Canal in Shaanxi and the Lingqu Canal in Guangxi are collectively known as the "three great hydraulic engineering projects of the Qin."

The Great Cothon add a bonus production to every water tile worked by its city. It increases its city's odds of generating a Great Merchant.

    The cothon at Carthage was divided into a rectangular merchant harbor followed by an inner protected harbor reserved for military use only. This inner harbor was circular and surrounded by an outer ring of structures divided into a series of docking bays for ship maintenance, along with an island structure at its center that also housed navy ships. Each individual docking bay featured a raised slipway. Above the raised docking bays was a second level consisting of warehouses where oars and rigging were kept along with supplies such as wood and canvas. On the island structure there existed a raised 'cabin' where the admiral in command could observe the whole harbor along with the surrounding sea. Altogether the inner docking complex could house up to 220 ships. The entire harbor was protected by an outer wall and the main entrance could be closed off with iron chains.

The Great Sphinx provides additional happiness with Dye, Gold, and Incense. It increases its city's odds of generating a Great Prophet.

    The Great Sphinx of Giza, commonly referred to as the Sphinx, is a limestone statue of a reclining or couchant sphinx (a mythical creature with a lion's body and a human head) that stands on the Giza Plateau on the west bank of the Nile in Giza, Egypt.
    It is the largest monolith statue in the world, standing 73.5 metres (241 ft) long, 19.3 metres (63 ft) wide, and 20.22 m (66.34 ft) high. It is the oldest known monumental sculpture, and is commonly believed to have been built by ancient Egyptians of the Old Kingdom during the reign of the pharaoh Khafra (c. 2558–2532 BC).

The Great Wall reduces enemy speed within your borders and also damages barbarians within your borders. It also increases the chance of generating a Great Engineer.

    The Great Wall of China is one of the largest and most famous man-made constructions in the entire world. Chinese rulers built the Great Wall to ward off attack from nomadic tribesmen living in modern Manchuria and Mongolia. Interestingly, the Great Wall was not designed to keep the nomads out - the Chinese knew it was all but impossible to defend such a long border - it was designed to make it difficult for the raiders to carry off loot, thus making raids far less profitable and thus less worth the risks involved.
    There have actually been five different "Great Walls" built by different Chinese dynasties. The first four were constructed of earth and have since all but disappeared. The current wall was built almost entirely by the Ming Dynasty between 1368 and 1640 AD. This wall was constructed on a grander scale, using more permanent materials (like stone). The Ming wall stretches for 3,948 miles from Shanhai Pass on the Bohai Gulf in the east to Lop Nur in the southeast portion of Xinjiang's Uygur Autonomous Region in the west. This was the region where the Silk Road first entered China, and a series of watchtowers which could communicate via smoke signals were intended to pass messages rapidly along the vast length.
    In pure military terms, the Great Wall turned out to be something of a failure. The Manchus were able to bribe a Chinese general to let them pass through the wall, so it turned out to be of little value in stopping a major barbarian attack. After the Manchus conquered China, the borders of the country extended far to the north, rendering the wall irrelevant. The sheer cost of the wall was also staggering, and the cost in human lives is said to have exceeded over one million souls (the Great Wall is sometimes nicknamed "the long graveyard").
    Today much of the Great Wall is in a state of disrepair - though the tourist regions are well-preserved, much of the rest of the structure is crumbling, and perhaps only 20% of the wall is in good condition. Despite its decay, the Great Wall remains one of China's most popular tourist attractions and a true wonder of the world.

The Hanging Gardens removes the unhealthiness of all Flood Plains in all cities. It increases the odds of its city generating a Great Engineer.

    The Hanging Gardens were a distinctive feature of ancient Babylon. They were a great source of pride to the people, and were often described in accounts written by visitors to the city. Possibly built by King Nebuchadnezzar II in 600 BC, the gardens are believed to have been a remarkable feat of engineering: an ascending series of tiered gardens containing all manner of trees, shrubs, and vines. The gardens were said to have looked like a large green mountain constructed of mud bricks, rising from the center of the city.

The Ishtar Gate allows you to hire one specialist of each type. It also increases the chance of generating a Great Artist.

    The Ishtar Gate was the eighth gate to the inner city of Babylon. It was constructed in about 575 BC by order of King Nebuchadnezzar II on the north side of the city.
    Dedicated to the Babylonian goddess Ishtar, the gate was constructed of blue glazed tiles with alternating rows of bas-relief sirrush (dragons) and aurochs.
    The roof and doors of the gate were of cedar, according to the dedication plaque. Through the gate ran the Processional Way, which was lined with walls covered in lions on glazed bricks (about 120 of them).
    Statues of the deities were paraded through the gate and down the Processional Way each year during the New Year's celebration.
    Originally the gate, being part of the Walls of Babylon, was considered one of the Seven Wonders of the world until, in the 6th century AD, it was replaced by the Lighthouse of Alexandria.
    A reconstruction of the Ishtar Gate and Processional Way was built at the Pergamon Museum in Berlin out of material excavated by Robert Koldewey and finished in the 1930s. It includes the inscription plaque. It stands 47 feet high and 100 feet wide (14 meters by 30 meters). The excavation ran from 1902-1914, and, during that time, 45 feet of the foundation of the gate was uncovered.
    The gate was in fact a double gate. The part that is shown in the Pergamon Museum today is only the smaller, frontal part, while the larger, back part was considered too large to fit into the constraints of the structure of the museum. It is in storage.
    Parts of the gate and lions from the Processional Way are in various other museums around the world. Only three museums acquired dragons, while lions went to several museums. The Istanbul Archaeology Museum has lions, dragons, and bulls. The Detroit Institute of Arts houses a dragon. The Röhsska Museum in Gothenburg, Sweden, has one dragon and one lion; the Louvre, the State Museum of Egyptian Art in Munich, the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology in Philadelphia, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Oriental Institute in Chicago, the Rhode Island School of Design Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and the Yale University Art Gallery in New Haven, Connecticut, each have lions.

The Oracle gives two free technologies of your current or previous era. It also increases the odds of its city generating a Great Prophet.

    In ancient Greek religion, an oracle was a priest or priestess through whom the gods spoke in response to questions. The oracle interpreted dreams, the actions of entranced persons, and physical signs found in the entrails of sacrificed animals. The most famous oracle resided in the shrine of Apollo at Delphi, located on the slopes of Mount Parnassus. Greeks, Romans, and others consulted this oracle for centuries about public policy and private matters. A priestess called the Pythia would, for a fee, make public predictions for the future. These ecstatic pronouncements became infamous for their ambiguity.

The Pyramids centers the world map and produces additional great people points from happiness resources. They also increase their city's chances of generating a Great Engineer.

    Built by the fourth dynasty of Egyptian rulers, the Pyramids represent the pinnacle of ancient Egyptian cultural achievement. Constructed on the Giza plateau outside modern-day Cairo, these structures were burial tombs and monuments for the Pharaohs, and may have taken generations and tens of thousands of workers to complete. The Pyramids are the only one of the generally accepted man-made wonders of the ancient world that remains in existence today.

The Terracotta Army removes the limit of experience gained from barbarians and allows barbarians to contribute to Great General birth. It also increases its city's production when creating military units and increases the chance of generating a Great Artist.

    The Terracotta Army is a collection of terracotta sculptures depicting the armies of Qin Shi Huang, the first Emperor of China. It is a form of funerary art buried with the emperor in 210-209 BC and whose purpose was to help guard his empire in his afterlife.
    The figures, dating from 3rd century BC, were discovered in 1974 by some local farmers in Lintong District, Xi'an, Shaanxi province, near the Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor.
    The figures vary in height, according to their roles, with the tallest being the generals. The figures include warriors, chariots, horses, officials, acrobats, strongmen and musicians. Current estimates are that in the three pits containing the Terracotta Army there were over 8,000 soldiers, 130 chariots with 520 horses and 150 cavalry horses, the majority of which are still buried in the pits.
    The Terracotta Army was discovered in the spring of 1974 to the east of Xi'an in Shaanxi Province by a group of farmers when they were digging a water well 1.5 miles (2.4 km) north of Mount Li (Lishan), a region riddled with underground springs and watercourses. For centuries, there were reports of pieces of terracotta figures and fragments of the Qin necropolis - roofing tiles, bricks, and chunks of masonry - having been occasionally dug up in the area. This most recent discovery prompted archaeologists to investigate, and they unearthed the largest pottery figurine group ever found in China. In 195 B.C., Liu Bang - the first emperor of the dynasty that followed the Qin - had ordered that 'twenty households' should move to the site of the mausoleum of the First Emperor of Qin (Shi Huangdi, "Shi Huangdi" means the first emperor) to watch over the tomb. To this day, twenty villages sit in the immediate vicinity of the mausoleum, one of them the hamlet where those who made the discovery lived.
    In addition to the warriors, an entire man-made necropolis for the emperor has also been found. Qin Shi Huangdi's necropolis complex was constructed as a microcosm of his imperial palace or compound. It consists of several offices, halls, stables and other structures placed around the tomb mound which is surrounded by two solidly built rammed earth walls with gateway entrances. Up to 5 meters (16 feet) of reddish, sandy soil had accumulated over the site in the centuries following its construction, but archaeologists found evidence of earlier disturbances at the site. During the digs at Mount Li, archaeologists found several graves dating from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, where diggers had apparently struck terracotta fragments which were then discarded as worthless back into the back-filled soil.
    According to historian Sima Qian (145-90 BC), work on this mausoleum began in 246 BC soon after Emperor Qin ascended the throne (then aged 13), and the full construction later involved 700,000 workers. Geographer Li Daoyuan, six centuries after the death of the First Emperor, recorded in Shui Jing Zhu that Mount Li was a favoured location due to its auspicious geology: "... famed for its jade mines, its northen side was rich in gold, and its southern side rich in beautiful jade; the First Emperor, envious of its fine reputation, therefore chose to be buried there". Sima Qian, in his most famous work, Shiji, completed a century after the mausoleum completion, wrote that the First Emperor was buried with palaces, towers, officials, valuable artefacts and wonderful objects. According to this account, there were 100 rivers simulated with flowing mercury, and above them the ceiling was decorated with heavenly bodies below which were the features of the land. Some translations of this passage refer to "models" or "imitations," those words however weren't used in the original text.
    Recent scientific work at the site has found high levels of mercury in the soil of the tomb mound, giving some credence to Sima Qian 's account of the emperor's tomb. The tomb mound is located at the foot of Mount Li as an earthen pyramid, and the tomb of Shi Huangdi appears to be a hermetically sealed space that is as big as a football pitch and located underneath the pyramid. The tomb remains unopened, one possible reason may be concerns about the preservation of valuable artifacts once the tomb is opened. For example, the painted surface of the terracotta army began to flake and fade once they have been excavated. Later historical accounts suggested that the tomb had been looted by Xiang Yu, a contender for the throne, five years after the death of the emperor, however there are indications that the tomb may not have been plundered.
    Only a portion of the site is presently excavated, and photos and video recordings are prohibited in some viewing areas. Only a few foreign dignitaries, such as Queen Elizabeth II, have been permitted to walk through the pits to observe the army at close quarters.

Al Khazneh provides a free trade route in all cities. It also increases the chance of generating a Great Merchant.

    Constructed sometime around 1000 BC, the site of Petra in Jordan is among the most famous examples of rock-cut architecture in the world. Numerous intricately carved structures were cut into the sandstone walls of the desert canyons surrounding the area, as Petra came to serve as the capital city for the once-nomadic Nabataen people. The most famous of these structures, the Al Khazneh or "The Treasury," has been featured in numerous major motion pictures, notably a prominent role in "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" when the Al Khazneh was used to represent the location of the Holy Grail.

The Aqua Appia provides additional food based on the culture level of its city. It increases the odds of its city generating a Great Engineer.

    As Frontinus explains: "for four hundred and forty-one years from the foundation of the City, the Romans were satisfied with the use of such waters as they drew from the Tiber, from wells, or from springs...But there now run into the City: the Appian aqueduct, Old Anio, Marcia, Tepula, Julia, Virgo, Alsietina, which is also called Augusta, Claudia, New Anio". Rome's first aqueduct was in response to the growing city and population which may have suffered a prolonged drought and major sanitary issues which affected their existing water supplies.

    The Aqua Appia was the first test of Roman engineering of its type and is quite unsophisticated in comparison to Rome's ten other aqueducts. Raffaelo Fabretti, one of the first to excavate the Appia, characterises it as "The first fruits of Rome's Foresight and greatness". Nevertheless, the Appia was kept in use into the era of Augustus Caesar through regular maintenance, renovations and even an expansion. Little of the original material remains today and much of information on the aqueduct comes from Frontinus who was appointed as water commissioner and recorded the technical, and some historical, details of the Appia about one hundred years after its completion.

    Although there were no formal Roman predecessors for the Aqua Appia, there were plenty of examples that existed in the Greek and Etruscan world. Greek influence came from their use of terracota pipes that were laid along the bottom of a channel or a large tunnel. This technique relates to the Roman technique in that it uses a water channel within a larger tunnel. The difference between the two is the fact that the Romans began to favour masonry conduits rather than the terracotta pipes which were generally used by the Greeks throughout the history of their aqueducts. A. Trevor Hodge, in his book "Roman Aqueducts and Water Supply", mentions the possibility that the Romans could indirectly have been influenced by the Iranian qanat which is a tunnel driven into a hillside to tap an aquiferous stratum deep inside it. It is believed that the Etruscan water channel system, the cuniculi is a form of the qanat and Hodge asserts that since the Romans had contact with the Etruscans and openly adopted other aspects of their culture they could have been implementing techniques and skills that were originally of Eastern descent. Etruscan water channels are also generally believed to have a great amount of influence on the Roman Aqua Appia. Their expertise in underground tunnelling served the function of draining water rather than supplying water. Nevertheless, undoubtedly the Romans gained much practical knowledge in underground water channelling from the Etruscans. "After all, the earliest aqueduct at Rome, The Aqua Appia, was itself entirely underground and in engineering if not in purpose of function, can have differed little from an Etruscan cuniculis.

Borobudur allows you to hire three Priest specialists and adds additional production to all of your Priest specialists. It also increases the odds of its city generating a Great Prophet.

    Borobudur is an 8th-century Mahayana Buddhist monument near Magelang, Central Java, Indonesia. The monument comprises six square platforms topped by three circular platforms, and is decorated with 2,672 relief panels and 504 Buddha statues. A main dome, located at the center of the top platform, is surrounded by 72 Buddha statues seated inside perforated stupa.
    The monument is both a shrine to the Lord Buddha and a place for Buddhist pilgrimage. The journey for pilgrims begins at the base of the monument and follows a path circumambulating the monument while ascending to the top through the three levels of Buddhist cosmology, namely Kamadhatu (the world of desire), Rupadhatu (the world of forms) and Arupadhatu (the world of formlessness). During the journey, the monument guides the pilgrims through a system of stairways and corridors with 1,460 narrative relief panels on the walls and the balustrades.
    Evidence suggests Borobudur was abandoned following the 14th-century decline of Buddhist and Hindu kingdoms in Java, and the Javanese conversion to Islam. Worldwide knowledge of its existence was sparked in 1814 by Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles, then the British ruler of Java, who was advised of its location by native Indonesians. Borobudur has since been preserved through several restorations. The largest restoration project was undertaken between 1975 and 1982 by the Indonesian government and UNESCO, following which the monument was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Borobudur is still used for pilgrimage; once a year Buddhists in Indonesia celebrate Vesak at the monument, and Borobudur is Indonesia's single most visited tourist attraction.

Cheomseongdae increases its city's happiness output from using the science slider. It also increases the chance of generating a Great Scientist.

    Cheomseongdae is an astronomical observatory in Gyeongju, South Korea. Cheomseongdae means star-gazing tower in Korean. Cheomseongdae is one of the oldest surviving observatories in East Asia, and one of the oldest scientific installations on Earth. It dates to the 7th century to the time of kingdom of Silla, which had its capital in Gyeongju.

The Colossus adds extra commerce to all water tiles in its city. It also increases its city's odds of generating a Great Merchant.

    The Colossus of Rhodes was a bronze statue of Helios, the Greek God of the Sun, erected near the mouth of the city harbor. It stood over 100 feet high, about two-thirds the height of the Statue of Liberty. Unfortunately, an earthquake toppled it only 56 years after its construction. Taking the counsel of an oracle, the city elected to leave the statue where it lay. For over 900 years, people from all over the ancient world came to Rhodes to see the Colossus. It remained where it was until 654 AD when the Muslims who plundered the city sold the statue for scrap.

The Flavian Amphitheatre increases its city's production when creating military units and grants experience points to units built in this city. It also increases its city's chances of generating a Great Engineer.

    The Colosseum or Coliseum, situated in Rome and originally known as the Flavian Amphitheatre (Latin: Amphitheatrum Flavium), is the largest amphitheatre built in the Roman Empire. Originally capable of seating 50,000 spectators, it was used for gladiatorial combat. Construction of the Flavian Amphitheatre began under the rule of Emperor Vespasian in 72 AD. It was completed by his son, Titus, in 80 AD, with later improvements by Domitian.

The Floating Gardens give a large food bonus as well as increasing its city's odds of generating a Great Merchant.

    Floating Gardens were a method of ancient Mesoamerican agriculture which used small, rectangle-shaped areas of fertile arable land to grow crops on the shallow lake beds in the Valley of Mexico. Also referred to as "Chinampa", Floating Gardens were artificial islands that usually measured roughly 30 × 2.5 m (98 × 8.2 ft), although they were sometimes longer. They were created by staking out the shallow lake bed and then fencing in the rectangle with wattle. The fenced-off area was then layered with mud, lake sediment, and decaying vegetation, eventually bringing it above the level of the lake. Often trees were planted at the corners to secure the Floating Gardens. Floating Gardens were separated by channels wide enough for a canoe to pass.

Gondeshapur gives all eligible units built in this city the Medic I promotion and adds additional food to all of your Scientist specialists. It also increases the chance of generating a Great Scientist.

    Gondeshapur was the intellectual center of the Sassanid empire and the home of the Academy of Gondeshapur. Founded in 271 CE by the Sassanid king Shapur I, Gondeshapur was home to the world's oldest known teaching hospital, and also comprised a library and a university. It was located in the present-day province of Khuzestan, in the southwest of Iran, not far from the Karun river. The Manichean prophet Mani's imprisonment and death are also said to have taken place in Gondeshapur.

    Gondeshapur was one of the major cities in Khuzestan province of the Persian empire. The name Gondeshapur (Pahlavi Gund-i Shapur) comes from the compound term Gund-Dez-i Shapur "Citadel of Shapur". Most scholars believe Shapur I, son of Ardeshir (Artaxexes), to have founded the city after defeating a Roman army led by Emperor Valerian. Shapur II made Gondeshapur his capital. However, a few scholars believe that there may have been a city at this location under the Parthian dynasty of what is now Iran proper and Khvarvaran province what is today known as Iraq.

    In 489 CE, the Nestorian established scientific center in Edessa, was transferred to Vansibin, also known as "Nisibin, then under Persian rule with its secular faculties at Gondeshapur, Khuzestan. Here, scholars, together with Pagan philosophers banished by Justinian from Athens carried out important r esearch in Medicine, Astronomy, and Mathematics". (Hill, p.4) However, it was under the rule of the Sassanid monarch Khusraw (531-579 CE), called Anushiravan "The Blessed" and known to the Greeks and Romans as Chosroes, that Gondeshapur became known for medicine and erudition. Khusraw I gave refuge to various Greek philosophers, Syriac-speaking Christians and Nestorians fleeing religious persecution by the Byzantine empire. The Sassanids had long battled the Romans and Byzantines for control of present day Iraq and Syria and were naturally disposed to welcome the refugees. It offered training in medicine, philosophy, theology and science. The faculty were versed not only in the Zoroastrian and Persian traditions, but in Greek and Indian learning as well. According to The Cambridge History of Iran, it was the most important medical center of the ancient world (defined as Europe, the Mediterranean, and the Near East) during the 6th and 7th centuries. Anushiravan also turned towards the east, and sent the famous physician Borzouye to invite Indian and Chinese scholars to Gondeshapur. These visitors translated Indian texts on astronomy, astrology, mathematics and medicine and Chinese texts on herbal medicine and religion. Borzouye is said to have himself translated the Pañcatantra from Sanskrit into Persian as Kelile væ Demne.

    According to Cyril Elgood in A Medical History of Persia, "to a very large extent, the credit for the whole hospital system must be given to Persia". In addition to systemizing medical treatment and knowledge, the scholars of the academy also transformed medical education; rather than apprenticing with just one physician, medical students were required to work in the hospital under the supervision of the whole medical faculty. There is even evidence that graduates had to pass exams in order to practice as accredited Gondeshapur physicians (as recorded in an Arabic text, the Tarikhu l-Hikama). George Ghevarghese Joseph, in his Crest of the Peacock claims that Gondeshapur also had a pivotal role in the history of mathematics.

    The Sassanid dynasty fell to Muslim Arab armies in 638 CE. The academy survived the change of rulers and persisted for several centuries as a Muslim institute of higher learning. It was later rivaled by an institute established at the Abbasid capital of Baghdad. In 832 CE, Caliph al-Ma'mun founded the famous Baytu l-Hikma, the House of Wisdom. There the methods of Gondeshapur were emulated; indeed, the House of Wisdom was staffed with graduates of the older Academy of Gondeshapur. It is believed that the House of Wisdom was disbanded under Al-Mutawakkil, Al-Ma'mun's successor. However, by that time the intellectual center of the Abbasid Caliphate had definitively shifted to Baghdad, as henceforth there are few references in contemporary literature to universities or hospitals at Gondeshapur. The significance of the center gradually declined. According to LeStrange's 1905 compendium of Arab geographers, The Lands of the Eastern Caliphate, the 10th century writer Muqaddasi described Gondeshapur as falling into ruins.

The Great Library gives its city two free Scientist specialists. It increases its city's odds of generating a Great Scientist.

    The Great Library of Alexandria was one of the two most important libraries of the ancient world. Ptolemy I founded it around 300 BC, and was enhanced and expanded by his successors. The library attempted to obtain copies of all scrolls of any consequence, and eventually contained over 700,000 volumes. Religious fanatics destroyed the library in 391 AD, after nearly 700 years of operation. During this period, Alexandria served as the cultural center of the Hellenistic world. Today, only part of the catalog remains, providing us with a mere hint of what treasures the library contained.

The Great Lighthouse creates a free Lighthouse in every coastal city and provides two free trade routes in its city. It also increases the chance of generating a Great Merchant.

    The Pharos was a marble watchtower and lighthouse built in 280 BC on an island in the harbor of Alexandria, Egypt. Estimated to have been 300 feet high, the primary function of the lighthouse was to guide approaching ships to the harbor on an otherwise unmarked coast. Historians debate whether fires were burned on the top of the tower, or whether mirrors were used to reflect sunlight. Since ships rarely sailed along coasts at night, there was probably little need for the lighthouse after dark. The Pharos was destroyed in the 14th century, after having been damaged by several earthquakes.

The Great Mausoleum increases the length of your Golden Ages by fifty percent. It also increases the odds of its city generating a Great Artist.

    Maussollos died in 349 BC. King of Caria during his lifetime, Maussollos wished to leave a reminder of himself for future generations in the form of a great tomb. In addition to hiring hundreds of laborers, Maussollos commissioned five of the finest artisans in the Hellenic world to design the hundreds of statues that were to line the peripheries of his white marble resting place.
    Over 130 feet tall upon completion, the Mausoleum of Maussollos stood by the harbor of Halicarnassus until 1522, when the Knights Hospitaller tore it down in order to use the stones to build defenses against the approaching Turks.

The Hagia Sophia adds additional espionage to all buildings of your state religion. It also increases its city's chances of generating a Great Engineer.

    The Hagia Sophia, or "Church of the Holy Wisdom," was constructed in 530 AD as a Greek Orthodox church. Standing in Istanbul (originally Constantinople), Turkey, it is a beautiful and ornate structure, built of stone and marble, and topped by a golden dome measuring over 100 feet in diameter. An extremely difficult engineering challenge for the time, the dome has collapsed several times during its existence. Four graceful towers stand at the corners of the building.
    The interior of the Hagia Sophia is a marvelous space of columns and arches extending up to the dome, which appears almost to float atop the building. The interior was sheathed in colored marble and golden mosaics depicting biblical scenes and images of Christian saints.
    In 1453 Constantinople was captured by the Ottoman Turks, and the Hagia Sophia was converted into a mosque. Human images are not welcome in mosques, and many of the mosaics were covered with plaster.
    In 1934, Turkish President Kemal Ataturk turned the building into a museum. In recent years some restoration work has been done on the Hagia Sophia, and a few of the mosaics have been uncovered. Despite the ravages of time, the Hagia Sophia remains universally acknowledged as one of the most beautiful buildings in the world.

The Iron Pillar creates a free Forge in every city. It also increases the chance of generating a Great Engineer.

    The Iron pillar of Delhi is 23 feet 8 inches high (7.2 metres) with 16 inches diameter structure, was constructed by a "King Chandra", probably Chandragupta II, and is currently standing in the Qutb complex at Mehrauli in Delhi, India.It is famous for the rust-resistant composition of the metals used in its construction.

    The pillar has attracted the attention of archaeologists and materials scientists because of its high resistance to corrosion and has been called a "testimony to the high level of skill achieved by the ancient Indian iron smiths in the extraction and processing of iron". The corrosion resistance results from an even layer of crystalline iron hydrogen phosphate hydrate forming on the high-phosphorus-content iron, which serves to protect it from the effects of the Delhi climate.

    The pillar weighs over 6,000 kg (13,000 lb) and is thought to have been erected in what is now Udayagiri and reused by one of the Gupta monarchs in approximately 402 CE, though the precise date and location are a matter of dispute.

The Jetavanaramaya adds additional food to all of your Artist specialists. It also increases the chance of generating a Great Artist.

    The Jetavanaramaya is a stupa, or Buddhist reliquary monument, located in the ruins of Jetavana monastery in the world heritage city of Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka. At 122 metres (400 ft) it was the world's tallest stupa and the third tallest structure in the world when it was built by King Mahasena of Anuradhapura (273-301). He initiated the construction of the stupa following the destruction of the Mahavihara. His son Maghavanna I completed the construction of the stupa. A part of a sash or belt tied by the Buddha is believed to be the relic that is enshrined here.

    The structure is significant in the island's history as it represents the tensions within the Theravada and Mahayana sects of Buddhism; it is also significant in recorded history as one of the tallest structures in the ancient world; and the second tallest non-pyramidal buildings after Pharos (lighthouse) of Alexandria; the height of the stupa was 400 feet (122 m), making it the tallest stupa in the ancient world. With the destruction and abandonment of Anuradhapura kingdom in the 11th century, the stupa with others was covered by jungle. King Parakramabahu in 12th century tried to renovate this stupa and it was rebuilt to the current height, a reduction from the original height. Today it stands at 232 feet (71 meters).

    The structure is no longer the tallest, but it is still the largest, with a base-area of 233,000 m2 (2,508,000 sq ft). Approximately 93.3 million baked bricks were used in its construction; the engineering ingenuity behind the construction of the structure is a significant development in the history of the island. The sectarian differences between the Buddhist monks also are represented by the stupa as it was built on the premises of the destroyed mahavihara, which led to a rebellion by a minister of King Mahasena.

    This stupa belongs to the Sagalika sect. The compound covers approximately 5.6 hectares and is estimated to have housed 10,000 Buddhist monks. One side of the stupa is 576 ft (176 m) long, and the flights of stairs at each of the four sides of it are 28 ft (9 m) wide. The doorpost to the shrine, which is situated in the courtyard, is 27 ft (8 m) high. The stupa has a 8.5 m (28 ft) deep foundation, and sits on bedrock. Stone inscriptions in the courtyard give the names of people who donated to the building effort.

Machu Picchu provides 2 gold for every Peak in the city radius. It also increases the chance of generating a Great Prophet.

    Machu Picchu (Quechua: Machu Pikchu "Old Peak") is a pre-Columbian Inca city located at 2,430 m altitude on a mountain ridge above the Urubamba Valley in Peru, about 70 km northwest of Cusco. Machu Picchu is probably the most familiar symbol of the Inca Empire. It is often referred to as "The Lost City of the Incas". The site was designated as a World Heritage Site in 1983 when it was described as "an absolute masterpiece of architecture and a unique testimony to the Inca civilization".

The Moai Statues add bonus production to all Fishing Boats, High Sea Fishing Boats and Whaling Boats in your civilization. It also increases the chance of generating a Great Prophet.

    The Moai Statues are the most recognizable feature of Easter Island. Nine-hundred of these massive stone heads populate the island, most weighing up to 14 tons, with some reaching 82 tons and stretching forty feet into the sky.
    Theory holds that the Moai Statues were erected by the denizens of Easter Island around 1000 AD, the workers carving them at the Rano Raraku Quarry and transporting them to every corner of the island. The statues were dedicated to the various ancestors of the Easter Island natives. They also stood as symbols of status, showing that the commissioner had the power and wealth to hire the workers necessary to have one made and transported. While the Statues could be moved at a quick pace with less than twenty people, it took nearly three hundred more workers to feed and create tools for those transporting the enormous stone structures.

Mount Athos doubles the Great People Points from all buildings. It also increases its city's chance of generating a Great Prophet.

    Mount Athos is a mountain and peninsula in northeastern Greece and an important centre of Eastern Orthodox monasticism. It is governed as an autonomous polity within the Greek Republic. Mount Athos is home to 20 monasteries under the direct jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople.

    Mount Athos is commonly referred to in Greek as the "Holy Mountain" and the entity as the "Athonite State". Other languages of Orthodox tradition also use names translating to "Holy Mountain". In the classical era, while the mountain was called Athos, the peninsula was known as Acté or Akté.

    Mount Athos has been inhabited since ancient times and is known for its nearly 1,800-year continuous Christian presence and its long historical monastic traditions, which date back to at least 800 A.D. and the Byzantine era. Today, over 2,000 monks from Greece and many other countries, including Eastern Orthodox countries such as Romania, Moldova, Georgia, Bulgaria, Serbia and Russia, live an ascetic life in Athos, isolated from the rest of the world. The Athonite monasteries feature a rich collection of well-preserved artifacts, rare books, ancient documents, and artworks of immense historical value, and Mount Athos has been listed as a World Heritage site since 1988.

    Although Mount Athos is legally part of the European Union like the rest of Greece, the Monastic State of the Holy Mountain and the Athonite institutions have a special jurisdiction which was reaffirmed during the admission of Greece to the European Community (precursor to the EU). This empowers the Monastic State's authorities to regulate the free movement of people and goods in its territory; in particular, only males are allowed to enter.

Nalanda University adds additional science to all buildings of your state religion. It also increases its city's chances of generating a Great Scientist.

    Nalanda was a Mahavihara, a large and revered Buddhist monastery, in the ancient kingdom of Magadha (modern-day Bihar) in India. The site is located about 95 kilometres (59 mi) southeast of Patna near the city of Bihar Sharif, and was a centre of learning from the fifth century CE to c. 1200 CE. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

    The highly formalized methods of Jain and Buddhist learning helped inspire the establishment of large teaching institutions such as Taxila, Nalanda, and Vikramashila which are often characterised as India's early universities. Nalanda flourished under the patronage of the Gupta Empire in the 5th and 6th centuries and later under Harsha, the emperor of Kannauj. The liberal cultural traditions inherited from the Gupta age resulted in a period of growth and prosperity until the ninth century. The subsequent centuries were a time of gradual decline, a period during which the tantric developments of Buddhism became most pronounced in eastern India under the Pala Empire.

    At its peak, the school attracted scholars and students from near and far with some travelling from Tibet, China, Korea, and Central Asia. Archaeological evidence also notes contact with the Shailendra dynasty of Indonesia, one of whose kings built a monastery in the complex.

    Much of our knowledge of Nalanda comes from the writings of pilgrim monks from Asia such as Xuanzang and Yijing who travelled to the Mahavihara in the 7th century. Vincent Smith remarked that "a detailed history of Nalanda would be a history of Mahayanist Buddhism". Many of the names listed by Xuanzang in his travelogue as products of Nalanda are the names of those who developed the philosophy of Mahayana. All students at Nalanda studied Mahayana as well as the texts of the eighteen (Hinayana) sects of Buddhism. Their curriculum also included other subjects such as the Vedas, logic, Sanskrit grammar, medicine and Samkhya.

    Nalanda was very likely ransacked and destroyed by an army of the Mamluk Dynasty of the Delhi Sultanate under Bakhtiyar Khalji in c. 1200 CE. While some sources note that the Mahavihara continued to function in a makeshift fashion for a while longer, it was eventually abandoned and forgotten until the 19th century when the site was surveyed and preliminary excavations were conducted by the Archaeological Survey of India. Systematic excavations commenced in 1915 which unearthed eleven monasteries and six brick temples neatly arranged on grounds 12 hectares (30 acres) in area. A trove of sculptures, coins, seals, and inscriptions have also been discovered in the ruins many of which are on display in the Nalanda Archaeological Museum situated nearby. Nalanda is now a notable tourist destination and a part of the Buddhist tourism circuit.

    On 25 November 2010, the Indian government, through an Act of Parliament, resurrected the ancient university through the Nalanda University Bill, and subsequently Nalanda University was established. It has been designated as an "international university of national importance."

The Pantheon provides additional gold for each Pagan Temple, grants gold when a Pagan Temple is removed from a city, and allows converting from a pagan religion to a major religion without anarchy. It also increases the chances of generating a Great Engineer.

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The Parthenon increases the rate at which your civilization generates Great People. It also increases the odds of its city generating a Great Artist.

    The Parthenon was constructed in 433 BC, in Athens, Greece, in honor of Athens' patron goddess, Athena. Measuring 100 feet by 225 feet, the Parthenon is constructed almost totally of marble. The exterior of the Parthenon is ringed with Doric-style columns more than 30 feet in height, and the center part of the temple, called the "cella," is a large open space which once held a statue of Athena. Much of the temple was decorated with beautiful marble statues and friezes celebrating Athena and the glories of Athens.
    The Parthenon has suffered much from the ravages of time. In the 5th century a Roman Emperor stole the statue of Athena and moved it to Constantinople, where it was subsequently destroyed. In the 13th century the Parthenon was converted to a Catholic church, which involved altering the internal structure and removing (and probably destroying) many statues dedicated to the old gods. In the 15th century Athens was captured by the Ottomans, and the temple was turned into a mosque. In the 17th century the Parthenon was partially destroyed during a war between the Ottomans and Venetians. Finally, in the 19th century, the British ambassador to Greece looted all of the surviving marble friezes from the building, which he subsequently sold to the British museum.
    Despite the centuries of neglect, mutilation and pillaging, the Parthenon still stands - a remarkably powerful and beautiful symbol of the glories of ancient Greece.

Prambanan generates additional production from happiness resources. It also increases its city's chance of generating a Great Prophet.

    The Prambanan temple is the largest Hindu temple of ancient Java, and the first building was completed in the mid-9th century. It was likely started by Rakai Pikatan as the Hindu Sanjaya Dynasty's answer to the Buddhist Sailendra Dynasty's Borobudur and Sewu temples nearby. Historians suggest that the construction of Prambanan probably was meant to mark the return of the Hindu Sanjaya Dynasty to power in Central Java after almost a century of Buddhist Sailendra Dynasty domination. The construction of this massive Hindu temple signifies that the Medang court had shifted its patronage from Mahayana Buddhism to Shivaite Hinduism.

    A temple was first built at the site around 850 CE by Rakai Pikatan and expanded extensively by King Lokapala and Balitung Maha Sambu the Sanjaya king of the Mataram Kingdom. According to the Shivagrha inscription of 856 CE, the temple was built to honor Lord Shiva, and its original name was Shiva-grha (the House of Shiva) or Shiva-laya (the Realm of Shiva). According to the Shivagrha inscription, a public water project to change the course of a river near Shivagrha temple was undertaken during the construction of the temple. The river, identified as the Opak River, now runs north to south on the western side of the Prambanan temple compound. Historians suggest that originally the river was curved further to east and was deemed too near to the main temple. The project was done by cutting the river along a north to south axis along the outer wall of the Shivagrha Temple compound. The former river course was filled in and made level to create a wider space for the temple expansion, the space for rows of pervara (complementary) temples.

    Some archaeologists propose that the statue of Shiva in the garbhagriha (central chamber) of the main temple was modelled after King Balitung, serving as a depiction of his deified self after death.

    The temple compound was expanded by successive Mataram kings, such as Daksa and Tulodong, with the addition of hundreds of perwara temples around the chief temple. Prambanan served as the royal temple of the Kingdom of Mataram, with most of the state's religious ceremonies and sacrifices being conducted there. At the height of the kingdom, scholars estimate that hundreds of brahmins with their disciples lived within the outer wall of the temple compound. The urban center and the court of Mataram were located nearby, somewhere in the Prambanan Plain.

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The Salsal Buddha increases the commerce from Corporations in all cities. It also increases its city's chance of generating a Great Merchant.

    The Buddhas of Bamyan were two 6th century monumental statues of standing buddhas carved into the side of a cliff in the Bamyan valley in the Hazarajat region of central Afghanistan, situated 230 km (143 miles) northwest of Kabul at an altitude of 2500 meters (8,202 ft). Built in 507, the larger in 554, the statues represented the classic blended style of Gandhara art.

    The main bodies were hewn directly from the sandstone cliffs, but details were modeled in mud mixed with straw, coated with stucco. This coating, practically all of which was worn away long ago, was painted to enhance the expressions of the faces, hands and folds of the robes; the larger one was painted carmine red and the smaller one was painted multiple colors.

    The lower parts of the statues' arms were constructed from the same mud-straw mix while supported on wooden armatures. It is believed that the upper parts of their faces were made from great wooden masks or casts. The rows of holes that can be seen in photographs were spaces that held wooden pegs which served to stabilize the outer stucco.

    They were intentionally dynamited and destroyed in 2001 by the Taliban, on orders from leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, after the Taliban government declared that they were "idols" (which are forbidden under Sharia law). International opinion strongly condemned the destruction of the Buddhas, which was viewed as an example of the intolerance of the Taliban and of Islamism. Japan and Switzerland, among others, have pledged support for the rebuilding of the statues.

The Shwedagon Paya increases your great people birth rate by your current gold rate. It also increases the chance of generating a Great Prophet.

    The Shwedagon Paya is one of the most sacred complexes in all of Buddhism. The story of the Shwedagon Paya is said to have begun with the Buddha himself, Siddhartha Gautama. Gautama gifted eight of his hairs to two young Burmese merchants, who carried them back to their homeland and presented them to the Burmese King, Okkalapa. When King Okkalapa opened the chest containing the hairs, trees blossomed, gems fell from the sky and beams of light shot from the hairs. These hairs were immediately enshrined and the resulting "stupa" - a Buddhist monument built for relics - would become the beginning of the Shwedagon Paya.
    The Shwedagon Paya of legend was further expanded by Burmese royalty over centuries; archeologists date the current shape of the complex to the eleventh century. Covering over 14 acres within the Burmese capital of Yangon, the centerpiece of the Shwedagon Paya is the massive central stupa. Reaching over 300 feet into the air and covered with gold and gems, the central stupa has been an important pilgrimage destination for Buddhists for hundreds of years.

The Statue of Zeus removes city resistance on conquest. It increases its city's chances of generating a Great Artist.

    Many monuments were created to honor Zeus, King of the Greek Gods, yet none could be as impressive as the Statue of Zeus at Olympia. Over forty feet tall, the Statue filled the temple in which it was constructed from floor to ceiling. Created by the master artisan Phidias between 438 and 446BC, the whole statue rested on a wooden frame built upon a cedarwood throne of appropriate size for a forty-foot deity. The frame was then draped in ivory and gold (ivory for skin, gold for clothing) and covered from head to toe in jewels. Before Zeus' feet, a shallow lake of olive oil reflected light into the temple, illuminating the otherwise closed building. Every four years, when the Olympic Games would be held in the town, Olympic competitors would approach the statue and make sacrifices to the King of the Gods with the hope of assuring their victory.

The Temple of Artemis increases its city's trade route income and gives a free Priest. It increases its city's chances of generating a Great Merchant.

    The Temple of Artemis was located in the city of Ephesus in modern Turkey, and it was considered to be one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. At its grandest the building contained more than 100 marble columns (each 50 feet or more in length) and covered an area larger than the Acropolis in Athens. The first temple built on the site was finished around 600 BC, but was burned down and destroyed some 50 years later. The temple was rebuilt starting circa 550 BC, and its new incarnation was even larger and more magnificent than before. Its construction was sponsored by the Lydian king Croesus and it was designed by the Greek architect Chersiphron. The temple was decorated with bronze sculptures made by the finest artists of the era, including Phidias, Polycleitus, Kresilas, and Phradmon. It served as both a marketplace and a religious institution, drawing tourists from far and wide across Greece and the Near East.
    Unfortunately, the Temple of Artemis was destroyed again in 356 BC by a man named Herostratus, who deliberately committed arson in an attempt to immortalize his name (in which he obviously succeeded). Legend has it that the temple burned to the ground on the same night as Alexander the Great was born, and that Artemis was too busy attending his birth to save her temple. After Alexander's death, the Temple of Artemis was rebuilt once more, achieving its largest and most impressive size yet. Aside from its roof, the new temple was made entirely out of marble, with steps leading up to a huge terrace that measured 260 by 430 feet in size. The temple was re-adorned with statues, paintings, and other fine artwork, and over time regained its position of glory.
    When St. Paul visited Ephesus in the first century AD, the Temple of Artemis was still standing and its priests had no intention of renouncing their goddess. Unfortunately, the building was burned down by the Goths during a raid in 262 AD. The Ephesians vowed to rebuild it, but interest in the Hellenic gods and goddesses was beginning to wane by that point. By 400 AD, most of the people of Ephesus had converted to Christianity, and the remnants of the temple were torn down by St. John Chrysostom. The marble from the temple was salvaged for use in other building projects, and almost nothing remains of the Temple of Artemis today.

The Temple of Kukulkan grants additional happiness to cities working plantations. It also increases its city's odds of generating a Great Prophet.

    The Temple of Kukulkan (also known as El Castillo or the Temple of Quetzalcoatl) is one of the best-known Mayan buildings in Chichen Itza. The structure itself is a typical four-sided step temple, but at its base rests stone pillars carved with feathered serpents (revealing the strong Toltec/Aztec influence). Many archeologists believe that its design is based upon the Mayan calendar, since each stairway has 90 steps. Add the total steps to the number of stairways plus the top platform, and you reach the number of 365 (the number of days in [our] typical calendar year).

The Theodosian Walls increase a city's defenses against pre-gunpowder units. It also increases their city's chances of generating a Great Engineer.

    The original walls of Constantinople were built in the 8th century BC when Byzantium was founded by Greek colonists from Megara. At the time the city consisted of an acropolis and little more. The colony was relatively unimportant by the Roman period, but Septimius Severus built a new set of walls during his reign, bringing more land into the city. When Constantine moved the capital of the empire to Byzantium, which he renamed Constantinople, he greatly expanded the walls of the city, incorporating even more territory.
    In 412 the Roman emperor Theodosius II surrounded Constantinople with a wall that stretched 6.5 kilometers between the Sea of Marmara and the Golden Horn. Although named after Theodosius, they were actually constructed under the direction of Anthemius, Praetorian prefect of the Eastern Empire.
    The walls were built of stone and brick in two lines of defense which adjoined a ditch 20 meters wide and 10 meters deep. The inner wall had was 5 meters thick and 12 meters high. It was strengthened with 96 unapproachable towers 18-20 meters tall. The thickness of the external wall was 2 meters, and its height was 8.5 meters. The wall contained the Belgrad, Silivrikapi, Mevlevihane, Topkapi, Edirnekapi, Egrikapi and Yedikule gates. Yedikule Gate was also known as the "Porta Aurea" or "Golden Gate", and was the most magnificent, consisting of three archways. As the state entrance into the capital, the Golden Gate was architecturally splendid, and was built of large square blocks of polished marble fitted together without cement, and flanked by two great towers of the same material. Upon the gates were placed sculpted elephants.
    The inner walls had massive square or hexagonal towers. The southern end of the walls, at the Sea of Marmara, was the location of the Marble Tower. There were ten gates, the four major ones being the Golden Gate at the southern end, the Selymbria Gate leading to the Forum of Constantine and Hagia Sophia, the Adrianople Gate connecting Constantinople's Mese (the main street) with the city of Adrianople and the Via Egnatia, and the Blachernae Gate in the north.
    In 439 the first sea walls were built. In 447 the wall was damaged by an earthquake, but was quickly restored in time to stop Attila's army. In the northwestern corner of the city, in the suburb of Blachernae, the Theodosian walls were relatively weaker, but were expanded by Leo I. The northern coast of the city, along the Golden Horn, also had a separate set of walls.
    These walls were almost inpenetrable, saving the city during sieges from the Bulgars, Arabs, and Rus', among others. The first attackers to break through the walls were the knights of the Fourth Crusade, who managed to scale the lower sea walls and also break the Wall of Leo in the northwestern Blachernae section of the city.
    The second and final time the walls were breached was during the Siege of Constantinople in 1453, by the Ottomans; however, they did not break through by force, but entered through the Kerkoporta Gate, which happened to be open, apparently accidentally but possibly through treachery. A large plaque today marks the spot where the Ottomans entered. Mehmed had the walls repaired in short order among other massive public works projects. Within a few years, due to the renewed importance of the city as the new Ottoman capital, the population started to soar again.
    Under the Ottomans, the Golden Gate, known to them as Yedikule ("the Seven Towers"), was used as a prison. Many parts of the walls are still standing today and are a testament to the extraordinary longevity of the empire. They have been damaged by recent earthquakes, but many sections have also been restored. The wall runs through the suburbs of modern Istanbul, with a belt of parkland flanking their course. The walls are pierced at intervals by modern roads leading westwards out of the city.

The University of Sankore adds extra commerce to all desert tiles for all cities. It also increases its city's odds of generating a Great Scientist.

    The University of Sankore was located in the city of Timbuktu during the height of the Empire of Mali. Founded in the late tenth century AD, the main building was located in Sankore Mosque, a spectacular pyramid-shaped work of architecture. During the sixteenth century AD, the University of Sankore stood at the heart of a great Islamic center of learning. Scholars traveled across the Islamic world from as far away as India and Persia to visit the famed school.
    The organization of the University of Sankore was very different from that of medieval European universities. It had no central administration, student registers, or prescribed courses of study: instead, it was composed of many entirely independent colleges, each run by a single "imam" (scholar). Students associated themselves with an imam (rather than with a subject or department) and instruction was often carried out on an individual basis. Anyone could establish a college if he so wished; not surprisingly, the quality of the different schools was said to be very uneven.
    Courses took place in the open courtyards of mosques or in private homes. The primary focus of the university was study of the Qur'an, although some imams gave lessons in history, astronomy, and logic. Scholars were encouraged to write their own books because it was profitable to do so - in the Islamic world at that time, books commanded a much higher price than gold or slaves. Among the most famous scholars at the University of Sankore was Ahmed Baba, a highly-distinguished historian quoted often in Islamic scholarship.
    Unfortunately, the best scholars left the school during the Moroccan invasion of Mali in the 1590s and did not return later. Sankore was never able to recover its former glory.

Alamut Fortress grants a lot of experience to Espionage Units. It also increases the chance of generating a Great Statesman.

    The origins of the Hashshashin, or Assassins, trace back to just before the First Crusade around 1080. It is difficult to find out much information about the origins of the Hashshashin because most early sources are either written by enemies of the cult or based on legends. Most sources dealing with the order's inner working were destroyed with the capture of Alamut, the Assassin's headquarters. However, it's possible to trace the beginnings of the cult back to its first Grandmaster, Hasan-i Sabbah.

    A passionate believer in the Isma'ili beliefs, Hasan-i-Sabbah was well liked throughout Cairo, Syria, and most of the Middle East by other Isam'ili, which led to a number of people becoming his followers. Using his fame and popularity, Sabbah founded the Order of the Assassins. While his motives for founding this order are ultimately unknown, it has been speculated that it was for his own political and personal gain and to also exact vengeance on his enemies. His motivation for political power probably came through what he thought to be dealings with other Muslims in the Middle East, particularly Sunnis, but because of the unrest in the holy land caused by the calling of the Crusades, Hasan-i-Sabbah found himself not only fighting for power with other Muslims, but also with the invading Christian forces.

    After creating the Order, Sabbah searched for a location that would be fit for a sturdy headquarters and decided on the fortress at Alamut in what is now North-western Iran. It is still disputed whether Sabbah built the fortress himself or if it was already built at the time of his arrival . Whether he created it himself or not, Sabbah adapted the fortress to suit his needs of not only defense from hostile forces, but also indoctrination of his followers. After laying claim to the fortress at Alamut, Sabbah began expanding his influence outward to nearby towns and districts, using his agents to gain political favour and intimidate the local populations.

    Spending most of his days at Alamut working on religious works and doctrines for his Order, Sabbah was never to leave his fortress again in his lifetime. He had established a secret society of deadly assassins, one which was built in a hierarchical format. Below Sabbah, the Grand Headmaster of the Order, was those known as "Greater Propagandists", followed by the normal "Propagandists", the Rafiqs ("Companions"), and the Lasiqs ("Adherents"). It was the Lasiqs which were trained to become some of the most feared assassins, or as they were called, "Fida'i" (self-sacrificing agent), in the known world.

The Dome of the Rock provides one free Priest specialist and doubles the Shrine gold limit from 20 to 40. It increases its city's chances of generating a Great Prophet.

    The Dome of the Rock is located at the visual center of an ancient man-made platform known as the Temple Mount, which Muslims refer to as the "Noble Sanctuary". The platform, greatly enlarged under the rule of Herod the Great, is the site of the Second Jewish Temple which was destroyed during the Roman Siege of Jerusalem in 70 AD. In 637 AD, Jerusalem was conquered by the Rashidun Caliphate army during the Islamic invasion of the Byzantine Empire.
    The Dome of the Rock was erected between 685 and 691 AD. The names of the two engineers in charge of the project are given as: Yazid Ibn Salam from Jerusalem and Raja Ibn Haywah from Baysan. Umayyad Caliph Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan who initiated construction of the Dome, hoped that it would "house the Muslims from cold and heat" and intended the building to serve as a shrine for pilgrims and not as a mosque for public worship. Historians contend that the Caliph wished to create a structure which would compete with the existing buildings of other religions in the city. al-Maqdisi writes that he "Sought to build for the Muslims a masjid that should be unique and a wonder to the world. And in like manner, is it not evident that Caliph Abd al-Malik, seeing the greatness of the martyrium of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and its magnificence was moved lest it should dazzle the minds of Muslims and hence erected above the Rock the dome which is now seen there."
    During the Crusades the Dome of the Rock was given to the Augustinians, who turned it into a church, and the Al-Aqsa Mosque became the royal palace of Baldwin I of Jerusalem in 1104. The Knights Templar, who believed the Dome of the Rock was the site of the Temple of Solomon, set up their headquarters in the Al-Aqsa Mosque adjacent to the Dome for much of the 12th century. The "Templum Domini," as they called it, was featured on the official seals of the Order's Grand Masters, and it became the architectural model for Templar churches across Europe.
    Jerusalem was recaptured by Saladin on Friday, 2 October 1187 and the Haram was reconsecrated as a Muslim sanctuary. The cross on top of the Dome of the Rock was replaced by a golden crescent and a wooden screen was placed around the rock below. Salah al-Din's nephew al-Malik al-Mu'azzam Isa (615-24/1218-27) carried out other restorations within the Haram and added the porch to the Aqsa mosque.
    Large-scale renovation was undertaken during the reign of Mahmud II in 1817. Adjacent to the Dome of the Rock, the Ottomans built the free-standing Dome of the Prophet in 1620.
    The Dome of the Rock was badly shaken during an earthquake in Palestine on Monday, 11 July 1927 rendering useless many of the repairs that had taken place over previous years.
    Under Jordanian rule of Jerusalem, Jews were forbidden from entering the Old City. Israel took control of the Dome of the Rock during its victory in the Six-Day War in 1967. A few hours after the Israeli flag was hoisted over the Dome of the Rock in 1967, at the conclusion of the Six-Day War, Israelis lowered it on the orders of General Moshe Dayan, and invested the Muslim Waqf (religious trust) with the authority to manage the Temple Mount-Haram al-Sharif in order to "keep the peace".
    The Dome of the Rock, being among a complex of buildings on the Temple Mount, (the other principal building being the Al-Aqsa Mosque) is one of the holiest sites in Islam, following Mecca, Medina, and, for shia Muslims, the Imam Ali Mosque. Its significance stems from the religious beliefs regarding the rock at its heart. According to Islamic tradition, the rock is the spot from where Muhammad ascended to Heaven accompanied by the angel Gabriel.
    The stone over which the Muslim shrine, the Dome of Rock, was built is the holiest site in Judaism. Jews have traditionally regarded the location of the stone as the holiest spot on Earth, the site of the Holy of Holies during the Temple Period. In former times, some Jewish scholars thought that the location of the Holy of Holies was not known for certain. Today this is a minority opinion.
    Just as Muslims pray towards the Kaaba at Mecca, the holiest site in Islam, Jews pray towards the site of the ancient Holy of Holies, the Foundation Stone, the holiest site in Judaism.
    In Christianity it is believed that during the time of the Byzantine Empire, nearby the spot where the Dome was later constructed was where Constantine's mother built a small church, calling it the Church of St. Cyrus and St. John, later on enlarged and called the Church of the Holy Wisdom. On the walls of the Dome of the Rock is an inscription in a mosaic frieze that includes the following words:
    "Bless your envoy and your servant Jesus son of Mary and peace upon him on the day of birth and on the day of death and on the day he is raised up again. It is a word of truth in which they doubt. It is not for God to take a son. Glory be to him when he decrees a thing he only says be, and it is."

The Grand Canal adds extra commerce to all river tiles worked by its city. It also increases the chance of generating a Great Engineer.

    The Grand Canal in China, also known as the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal is the longest canal or artificial river in the world. Starting at Beijing, it passes through Tianjin and the provinces of Hebei, Shandong, Jiangsu and Zhejiang to the city of Hangzhou. The oldest parts of the canal date back to the 5th century BC, although the various sections were finally combined during the Sui Dynasty (581-618 AD).
    The total length of the Grand Canal is 1,776 km (1,103 miles). Its greatest height is reached in the mountains of Shandong, at a summit of 42 m (138 ft). Ships in Chinese canals did not have trouble reaching higher elevations after the pound lock was invented in the 10th century, during the Song Dynasty (960-1279), by the government official and engineer Qiao Weiyo. The canal's size and grandeur won it the admiration of many throughout history, including the Japanese monk Ennin (794-864), the Persian historian Rashid al-Din (1247-1318), the Korean official Choe Bu (1454-1504) and the Italian missionary Matteo Ricci (1552-1610).
    Historically, periodic flooding of the adjacent Yellow River threatened the safety and functioning of the canal. During wartime the high dikes of the Yellow River were sometimes deliberately broken in order to flood advancing enemy troops. This caused disaster and prolonged economic hardships. Despite temporary periods of desolation and disuse, the Grand Canal furthered an indigenous and growing economic market in China's urban centers through all the ages since the Sui period.

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The Gur-e-Amir provides great people points in its city when conquering cities. It also increases its city's chance of generating a Great Artist.

    Gur-e Amir is Persian for "Tomb of the King". This architectural complex with its azure dome contains the tombs of Tamerlane, his sons Shah Rukh and Miran Shah and grandsons Ulugh Beg and Muhammad Sultan. Also honoured with a place in the tomb is Timur's teacher Sayyid Baraka.

    The earliest part of the complex was built at the end of the 14th century by the orders of Muhammad Sultan. Now only the foundations of the madrasah and khanaka, the entrance portal and a part of one of four minarets remains.

    The construction of the mausoleum itself began in 1403 after the sudden death of Muhammad Sultan, Tamerlane's heir apparent and his beloved grandson, for whom it was intended. Timur had built himself a smaller tomb in Shahrisabz near his Ak-Saray palace. However, when Timur died in 1405 on campaign on his military expedition to China, the passes to Shahrisabz were snowed in, so he was buried here instead. Ulugh Beg, another grandson of Tamerlane, completed the work. During his reign the mausoleum became the family crypt of the Timurid Dynasty.

The Himeji Castle makes city defence increases culture output in all cities and makes all fully fortified units in its provide +1 culture per level. It also increases the chance of generating a Great Statesman.

    Himeji Castle is a hilltop Japanese castle complex located in Himeji in Hyogo Prefecture. The castle is regarded as the finest surviving example of prototypical Japanese castle architecture, comprising a network of 83 buildings with advanced defensive systems from the feudal period. The castle is frequently known as Hakurojou or Shirasagijou ("White Heron Castle") because of its brilliant white exterior and supposed resemblance to a bird taking flight.
    Himeji Castle dates to 1333, when Akamatsu Norimura built a fort on top of Himeyama hill. The fort was dismantled and rebuilt as Himeyama Castle in 1346, and then remodeled into Himeji Castle two centuries later. Himeji Castle was then significantly remodeled in 1581 by Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who added a three-story castle keep. In 1600, Tokugawa Ieyasu awarded the castle to Ikeda Terumasa for his help in the Battle of Sekigahara, and Ikeda completely rebuilt the castle from 1601 to 1609, expanding it into a large castle complex. Several buildings were later added to the castle complex by Honda Tadamasa from 1617 to 1618. For over 400 years, Himeji Castle has remained intact, even throughout the extensive bombing of Himeji in World War II, and natural disasters such as the 1995 Great Hanshin earthquake.
    Himeji Castle is the largest and most visited castle in Japan, and it was registered in 1993 as one of the first UNESCO World Heritage Sites in the country. The area within the middle moat of the castle complex is a designated Special Historic Site and five structures of the castle are also designated National Treasures. Along with Matsumoto Castle and Kumamoto Castle, Himeji Castle is considered one of Japan's three premier castles. In order to preserve the castle buildings, it is currently undergoing restoration work that is expected to continue for several years.

The House of Wisdom allows Great People to also grant free technologies when settled as a specialist. It also increases the chance of generating a Great Scientist.

    The Abbasid dynasty had a strong Persian bent, and adopted many practices from the Sassanid empire - among those, that of translating foreign works, except that now works were being translated into Arabic. For this purpose, al-Mansur founded a palace library, modelled after the Sassanid Imperial Library.
    The House of Wisdom was originally concerned with translating and preserving Persian works, first from Pahlavi (Middle Persian), then from Syriac and eventually Greek. Works on astrology, mathematics, agriculture, medicine, and philosophy were thus translated.

Khajuraho adds an additional population point in all cities and adds additional food to all of your Priest specialists. It increases the odds of its city generating a Great Prophet.

    The Khajuraho Group of Monuments in Khajuraho, a town in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, located in Chhatarpur District, about 620 kilometres (385 mi) southeast of New Delhi, is one of the most popular tourist destinations in India. Khajuraho has the largest group of medieval Hindu and Jain temples, famous for their erotic sculptures.
    The name Khajuraho, ancient "Kharjuravahaka", is derived from the Sanskrit words kharjura = date palm and vahaka = "one who carries". In the 19th century, British engineer T.S. Burt arrived in the area, followed by General Alexander Cunningham. Cunningham put Khajuraho on the world map when he explored the site on behalf of the Archaeological Survey of India and described what he found in glowing terms. The Khajuraho Group of Monuments has been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and is considered to be one of the "seven wonders" of India.

The Krak des Chevaliers creates a free Castle in every city and moves defeated city defenders to your capital. It also increases the chance of generating a Great Engineer.

    Krak des Chevaliers ("fortress of the knights" in a mixture of Arabic and French) was the headquarters of the Knights Hospitaller in Syria during the Crusades. The castle is located east of Tripoli in the Homs Gap, atop a 650-meter high hill along the only route from Antioch to Beirut and the Mediterranean Sea. It is one of many fortresses part of a defensive network along the border of the old Crusader states.

    The original fortress had been built in 1031 for the emir of Aleppo. It was captured by Raymond IV of Toulouse early in 1099, during the First Crusade, but was abandoned when the Crusaders continued their march to Jerusalem. It was reoccupied again by Tancred, Prince of Galilee, in 1110. Raymond II, count of Tripoli, gave it to the Hospitallers in 1144. The Hospitallers rebuilt it and expanded it into the largest Crusader fortress in the Holy Land, adding an outer wall 3 meters thick with seven guard towers 8-10 meters thick, to create a concentric castle. One of these towers was occupied by the Grand Master of the Hospitallers. In the 12th century there was a moat covered by a drawbridge leading to postern gates.

    In 1163, the fortress was unsuccessfully besieged by Nur ad-Din. After their victory the Hospitallers became an essentially independent force on the Tripolitanian frontier. By 1170, the Hospitallers' modifications were complete, but parts of the fortress were rebuilt after numerous earthquakes in the late 12th century and early 13th century. It is estimated that the castle fortress could hold 50-60 Hospitallers and up to 2,000 foot soldiers. Aside from the control of the road to the Mediterranean, the Hospitallers also exerted some influence over Lake Homs to the east, where they could control the fishing industry and watch for Muslim armies gathering in Syria.

    Another failed siege was made by Saladin in 1188, during which the castle general was captured. He was taken by Saladin's men to the castle gates where he was told to order the gates opened. He first told his men in Arabic to surrender the castle, then in French told them to hold the castle to the last man.

The Kremlin increases all cities' defenses by 25% and grants the Morale promotion to all civilian units. It improves the odds of its city generating a Great Statesman.

    "Kremlin" is a Russian word which denotes a fortified complex of buildings in the center of a city. It is most often used to refer to the Kremlin in the city of Moscow, a remarkable set of buildings which hold much of the Russian government. The Kremlin sits on a hill overlooking the Moskva River. In one form or the other, fortified structures have been in that location for almost 1000 years. The site was named "Kremlin" in the 14th century.

    The Kremlin is within a triangular, walled area about 68 acres in extent. The walls are of red brick, with pencil-like towers at the corners and entrances. Many of the buildings are painted white with yellow trim and green roofs that look quite cheerful from a distance. The Cathedral of the Dormition, constructed in the 1470s, is the oldest building in the complex. Two other cathedrals lie within its walls, as do a surprising number of palaces, the Kremlin Palace being the largest.

    The Kremlin has seen many great figures rise and fall within its walls. Ivan the Terrible built the Palace of Facets in the Kremlin. In the Great Patriotic War (WWII), Josef Stalin drove the German invaders from the gates of Moscow - perhaps the greatest service that any Russian ruler has ever performed for his country. (It was also here that Stalin planned the systematic extermination of millions of his own people.) It was here that Mikhail Gorbachev oversaw the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Today, the Kremlin holds the government of the Russian Federation.

    To whatever use it might be put in the future, the Kremlin will always stand as a mighty monument to Russia's past - for it has seen the best and the worst of that great nation.

La Mezquita gives 2 free specialists. It also increases the chance of generating a Great Scientist.

    La Mezquita (Spanish for "The Mosque") of Córdoba or Cordova is a Roman Catholic cathedral originally built as a mosque in the Andalusian city of Córdoba, Spain. It is regarded as perhaps the most accomplished monument of the Umayyad dynasty of Córdoba. After the Spanish Reconquista, it was turned into a church, with a Gothic cathedral inserted into the center of the large Moorish building. Today the entire building is used to house the Cathedral of the diocese of Córdoba in Spain.
    The building was begun in approximately 600 A.D. as the Christian Visigothic church of St. Vincent. The first Muslim Emir Abd ar-Rahman I bought the church and reworked it over two centuries to refashion it as a mosque, starting in 784 A.D. Additionally, Abd ar-Rahman I used the mosque (originally called Aljama Mosque) as an adjunct to his palace and named it to honor his wife. According to some authors the church of St. Vincent was demolished after it was bought from the local Christian community.
    Several explanations have been proposed to explain the mosque's unorthodox orientation. Some have suggested the mihrab faces south because the foundations of the mosque were taken from the old Roman and Visigoth constructions. Others contend that Abd ar-Rahman oriented the mihrab southward as if he were still in the Ummayyad capital of Damascus and not in exile.
    The mosque underwent numerous subsequent changes: Abd ar-Rahman III ordered a new minaret; Al-Hakam II, in 961, enlarged the building and enriched the mihrab. The last of the reforms was carried out by Al-Mansur Ibn Abi Aamir in 987.
    It was the most magnificent of the more than 1,000 mosques in the city and was at one time the second largest mosque in the Muslim world. It was connected to the Caliph's palace by a raised walk-way, mosques within the palaces being the tradition for the Islamic rulers of all times.
    The city in which it was built was subject to frequent invasion and each conquering wave added their own mark to the architecture. The building is most notable for its giant arches, with over 1,000 columns of jasper, onyx, marble, and granite. These were made from pieces of the Roman temple which had occupied the site previously, as well as other destroyed Roman buildings. The double arches, pictured above, were a new introduction to architecture, and helped support the tremendous weight of the higher ceilings. The double arches consist of a lower horseshoe arch and an upper semi-circular arch. The Mezquita also features richly gilded prayer niches. A centrally located honey-combed dome has beautiful blue tiles decorated with stars. The mihrab is a masterpiece of architectural art, with geometric and flowing designs of plants. La Mezquita reached its current dimensions in 987 A.D. with the completion of the outer naves and orange tree courtyard.
    In 1236, Córdoba was recaptured from the Muslim army by King Ferdinand III of Castile and the mosque was reconsecrated as a Christian church. Alfonso X oversaw the construction of the Villaviciosa Chapel and the Royal Chapel within the mosque. The kings who followed added further Christian features: Enrique II rebuilt the chapel in the 14th century.
    The most significant alteration was building a Renaissance cathedral nave in the middle of the structure. It was constructed by permission of Charles V, king of united Spain. Its reversion to a Christian church (officially the Cathedral of the Assumption of the Virgin) may have helped to preserve it when the Spanish Inquisition was most active.
    Artisans and architects continued to add to the existing structure until the late 18th century.

The Monolithic Church adds additional commerce to all of your Priest specialists. It also increases the chance of generating a Great Prophet.

    The Church of Saint George was carved downwards from a type of volcanic tuff. This is the sole architectural material that was used in the structure. It has been dated to the late 12th or early 13th century AD, and thought to have been constructed during the reign of King Gebre Mesqel Lalibela, of the late Zagwe dynasty. It is among the best known and last built of the eleven churches in the Lalibela area, and has been referred to as the "Eighth Wonder of the World". Lalibela, King of Ethiopia, sought to recreate Jerusalem, and structured the churches' landscape and religious sites in such a way as to achieve such a feat. The churches at Lalibela are clustered in two major groups, one representing the earthly Jerusalem, and the other representing the heavenly Jerusalem. Located directly between them is a trench representing the River Jordan. The dimensions of the trench are 25 meters by 25 meters by 30 meters, and there is a small baptismal pool outside the church, which stands in an artificial trench.

    According to Ethiopian cultural history, Bete Giyorgis was built after King Gebre Mesqel Lalibela of the Zagwe dynasty had a vision in which he was instructed to construct the church; Saint George and God have both been referred to as the one who gave him the instructions.

Notre Dame increases the rate at which cities with state religion construct buildings by 25%. It also increases its city's chance of generating a Great Artist.

    Notre Dame is a mighty cathedral standing on the "Ile de la Citie," an island in the Seine River in Paris, France. Built on the site of an older church, which was in turn built on the site of a Roman temple to Jupiter, Notre Dame is a magnificent example of gothic architecture and one of the greatest buildings standing. Construction of Notre Dame began in 1163 and took almost two centuries to complete.
    Notre Dame is a massive stone building of square towers, flying buttresses, and tall spires. The exterior of the building is decorated with delicate ribbons of arches and statues of saints and kings. The roofline of the building is festooned with gargoyles. The interior of the cathedral is a long, narrow space with columns lining each side, supporting two beautiful raised galleries. Brilliant stained glass windows shine gently down on the main altar, which contains a beautiful statue of the Virgin Mary, the cathedral's patron, holding the body of Jesus.
    The cathedral has suffered many periods of neglect over the years. During the French Revolution, many of Notre Dame's treasures were stolen and the building was used as a warehouse. In the early 1800s, the cathedral was in such a state of disrepair that the city planners contemplated tearing it down. In fact, Victor Hugo wrote "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" in part to raise awareness of the cathedral's plight. In 1871, during the short-lived Paris Commune, Notre Dame was almost set on fire.
    Fortunately the cathedral survived it all, and has now been largely restored to its original grandeur.

The Old Synagogue adds additional gold to all Jewish buildings in your cities. It also increases its city's chances of generating a Great Merchant.

    Old Synagogue is an Orthodox Jewish synagogue in the Kazimierz district of Kraków, Poland, in Yiddish it was referred to as the Alta Shul. It is the oldest synagogue building still standing in Poland, and one of the most precious landmarks of Jewish architecture in Europe. Until the German invasion of Poland in 1939, it was one of the most important synagogues in the city as well as the main religious, social, and organizational centre of the Kraków Jewish community. In 1794 General Tadeusz Kociuszko spoke from the synagogue to gain the Jewish support in the struggle for Polish independence. A plaque in the entrance hall commemorates this event:

    The Synagogue was built in 1407 or 1492; the date of building varies with several sources. The original building was rebuilt in 1570 under the watchful eye of an Italian architect Mateo Gucci. The rebuilding included the attic wall with loopholes, windows placed far above ground level, and thick, masonry walls with heavy buttressing to withstand siege, all features borrowed from military architecture. There was further reconstruction work in 1904 and in 1913The Old synagogue is a rare, surviving example of a Polish Fortress synagogue.

    The synagogue was completely devastated and ransacked by the Germans during World War II. Its artwork and Jewish relics, looted. During the occupation, the synagogue was used as a magazine. In 1943, 30 Polish hostages were executed at its wall. The Old Synagogue was renovated from 1956 to 1959 and currently operates as a museum. It is a Division of the Historical Museum of Kraków, with particular focus on Kraków's Jews. The exhibits are divided into themes dealing with birth, prayer rituals, diet, divorce and death. "The beautiful women's prayer room, which dates from the 17th century, is often used to hold temporary exhibitions."

The Porcelain Tower adds additional food to all of your Statesman specialists and removes the open border requirement for trade routes. It also increases the chance of generating a Great Merchant.

    The Porcelain Tower also known as the Porcelain Pagoda is a historical site located on the south bank of the Yangtze in Nanjing, China. It was a pagoda constructed in the 15th century during the Ming Dynasty, but was mostly destroyed in the 19th century during the course of the Taiping Rebellion. There is purportedly a movement underway to reconstruct the tower. As of 2010, reconstruction of the tower and temple grounds went underway. The projected completion date of the first phase of reconstruction is 2014.
    The original blocks of the Nanjing Tower's arched door, now pieced back together and on display at the Nanjing Museum
    The Porcelain Tower of Nanjing was designed during reign of the Yongle Emperor (r. 1402-1424) shortly before its construction, in the early 15th century. It was first discovered by the Western world when European travelers like Johan Nieuhof visited it, sometimes listing it as one of the Seven Wonders of the World. After this exposure to the outside world, the tower was seen as a national treasure to both locals and other cultures around the world.
    In 1801, the tower was struck by lightning and the top three stories were knocked off, but it was soon restored. The 1843 book The Closing Events of the Campaign in China by Granville Gower Loch contains a detailed description of the tower as it existed in the early 1840s. In the 1850s, the area surrounding the tower erupted in civil war as the Taiping Rebellion reached Nanjing and the Taiping Rebels took over the city. They smashed the Buddhist images and destroyed the inner staircase to deny the Qing enemy an observation platform. American sailors reached the city in May 1854 and visited the hollowed tower. In 1856, the Taiping destroyed the tower in order to prevent a hostile faction from using it to observe and shell the city. After this point, the tower's remnants were forgotten and it lay dormant until a recent surge to try to rebuild the landmark.
    The original blocks of the Nanjing Tower's arched door, now pieced back together and on display at the Nanjing Museum
    The tower was octagonal with a base of about 97 feet (30 m) in diameter. When it was built, the tower was one of the largest buildings in China, rising up to a height of 260 feet (79 m) with nine stories and a staircase in the middle of the pagoda, which spiraled upwards for 184 steps. The top of the roof was marked by a golden pineapple. There were originally plans to add more stories, according to an American missionary who in 1852 visited Nanjing. There are only a few Chinese pagodas that surpass its height, such as the still existent 275-foot-tall (84 m) 11th-century Liaodi Pagoda in Hebei or the no longer existent 330-foot-tall (100 m) 7th-century wooden pagoda of Chang'an.
    The tower was built with white porcelain bricks that were said to reflect the sun's rays during the day, and at night as many as 140 lamps were hung from the building to illuminate the tower. Glazes and stoneware were worked into the porcelain and created a mixture of green, yellow, brown and white designs on the sides of the tower, including animals, flowers and landscapes. The tower was also decorated with numerous Buddhist images.

Saint Sophia's Cathedral grants a free Skirmish promotion for Melee, Skirmish, and Skirmish units. It also increases the chance of generating a Great Statesman.

    Saint Sophia Cathedral in Kiev is an outstanding architectural monument of Kievan Rus'. Today, it is one of the city's best known landmarks and the first Ukrainian patrimony to be inscribed on the World Heritage List.

    The cathedral's name comes from the 6th-century Hagia Sophia cathedral in Constantinople (meaning Holy Wisdom, and dedicated to the Holy Wisdom of God rather than a specific saint named Sophia). According to a less popular theory, its model was the 13-domed oaken Saint Sophia Cathedral in Novgorod (ca. 989), which Yaroslav I the Wise determined to imitate in stone as a sign of gratitude to the citizens of Novgorod who had helped him secure the Kievan throne in 1019.

    The first foundations were laid in 1037, but the cathedral took two decades to complete. The structure has 5 naves, 5 apses, and (quite surprisingly for Byzantine architecture) 13 cupolas. It is surrounded by two-tier galleries from three sides. Measuring 37 to 55 m (121 to 180 ft), the exterior used to be faced with plinths. On the inside, it retains mosaics and frescos from the eleventh century, including a dilapidated representation of Yaroslav's family, and the Virgin Orans.

    Originally the cathedral was a burial place of the Kievan rulers including Vladimir Monomakh, Vsevolod Yaroslavich and of course the cathedral's founder Yaroslav I the Wise, although only the latter's grave survived to our days.

    After the pillaging of Kiev by Andrei Bogolyubsky of Vladimir-Suzdal in 1169, followed by Mongolian Tatars in 1240, the cathedral fell into disrepair. Following the 1595-96 Union of Brest, the cathedral of Saint Sophia belonged to the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church until it was claimed by the Moldavian Orthodox metropolitan Peter Mogila (Mohyla) in 1633. Mogila commissioned the repair work and the upper part of the building was thoroughly rebuilt, modeled by the Italian architect Octaviano Mancini in the distinct Ukrainian Baroque style, while preserving the Byzantine interior, keeping its splendor intact. The work continued under the Cossack Hetman Ivan Mazepa, and in 1740 the Cathedral was completed to its present form.

    After the Russian Revolution of 1917 and during the Soviet antireligious campaign of the 1920s, the government plan called for the cathedral's destruction and transformation of the grounds into a park "Heroes of Perekop" (after a Red Army victory in the Russian Civil War in Crimea). The cathedral was saved from destruction primarily with the effort of many scientists and historians. Nevertheless, in 1934, Soviet authorities confiscated the structure from the church, including the surrounding seventeenth-eighteenth century architectural complex and designated it as an architectural and historical museum.

    Since the late 1980s Soviet, and later Ukrainian, politicians promised to return the building to the Orthodox Church. Due to various schisms and factions within the Church the return was postponed as all Orthodox and the Greek-Catholic Churches lay claim to it. Although all of the Orthodox churches have been allowed to conduct services at different dates, other times they are denied access. Most memorable was the funeral of Patriarch Volodymyr of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church - Kiev Patriarchy, when riot police were forced to prevent the burial on the premises of the museum and a bloody clash took place. After events such as those no religious body has yet been given the rights for regular services. The complex now remains a museum of Ukraine's Christianity, with most of its visitors being tourists.

    The complex of the Cathedral is the main component the National Sanctuary "Sophia of Kiev" the state institution responsible for the preservation of the Cathedral complex along with several other historic landmarks of the city.

Saint Thomas Church increases the happiness of all of your cities. It increases its city's chances of generating a Great Artist.

    There has been a church at the current site of the Thomaskirche at least since the 12th century. Foundations of a Romanesque building have been discovered in the choir and crossing of the current church. Between 1212 and 1222 the earlier structure became the church of the new St. Thomas Monastery (Stift) of the Augustinian order founded by Markgraf Dietrich von Meissen. This monastery later became the core of the University of Leipzig (founded in 1409). In 1217, The Minnesinger, or troubadour, Heinrich von Morungen bequeathed to the church a relic of St. Thomas as he entered the order of canons after a trip to India. In 1355, the Romanesque choir was changed to Gothic style. Following an inflow of wealth into Leipzig from the discovery of silver in the Erzgebirge, the Romanesque nave was demolished and replaced in 1482-96 by the current late-Gothic hall church. The current building was consecrated by Thilo of Trotha, the Bishop of Merseburg, on 10 April 1496. The reformer Martin Luther preached here on Pentecost Sunday in 1539. The monastic buildings were demolished in 1541 following the monastery's dissolution. The current church tower was first built in 1537 and rebuilt in 1702. Chapels added in the 17th century and an ante-building along the northern front of the nave with two stairways were removed at the end of the 19th century.

    The composer Johann Sebastian Bach was choir director at St. Thomas Church from 1723 until his death in 1750 and taught at its affiliated school. A statue of Johann Sebastian Bach by the Leipzig sculptor Carl Seffner that stands next to the church was dedicated in 1908. On 12 May 1789, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart played the organ here. In 1806, the church served as a munitions depot for the French army. During the Battle of Leipzig, the Thomaskirche was used as a military hospital. Richard Wagner was baptized here on 16 August 1813. In 1828, he studied piano and counterpoint with the then Thomaskantor, Christian Th. Weinlig. Most of the Baroque internal trappings of the church known to Bach were removed in a Gothic revival renovation of 1884-9. Also from this period date the pulpit and the main portal in the west facade.

    On 4 December 1943, the tower was damaged in an Allied bombing raid on Leipzig, requiring repair. The authorities demolished the Johanneskirche, also damaged by bombs in 1943, in 1949 and the remains of Johann Sebastian Bach were moved from there to the Thomaskirche in 1950. In the 20th century, sulfur emitted from nearby coal mines, and other pollutants in the atmospheric air caused the deterioration of exterior stonework and statuary, and even of interior Gothic paintings. In addition, the roof structure suffered from damage due to insects and moisture. For these reasons, the church was listed in the 2000 World Monuments Watch by the World Monuments Fund. Repairs were swiftly undertaken with financial support from the Fund and from American Express. Repairs on the church in 1961 to 1964 also attempted to emphasize the Gothic hall church character of the building. Another renovation followed in 1991. From 1993 to 2014, a 15th-century Gothic altar (originally in the Paulinerkirche, the church of the University of Leipzig, destroyed in 1968 by the Communist authorities) was located in the Thomaskirche. It was moved to the new St. Pauli church (2014) and replaced in 2016 with a Gothic-revival altar by Constantin Lipsius made in 1888, which had been removed in 1964.

    A statue of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, who lived in Leipzig from 1835 until his death in 1847, was dedicated on 18 October 2008, when it was re-erected opposite the St. Thomas Church on the occasion of the year of his 200th birthday. The 6-meter (20 ft) statue depicts the former Gewandhaus Orchestra director and composer in bronze. Celebratory speeches were given by Kurt Masur, also a former Gewandhaus Orchestra director, and Burkhard Jung, mayor of Leipzig. The original statue designed by Werner Stein was first dedicated on 26 May 1892. It had been located on the east side of the Gewandhaus until 9 November 1936, when it was taken down by the Nazis because of the composer’s Jewish background.

San Marco Basilica adds additional gold to all of your specialists. It also increases its city's odds of generating a Great Merchant.

    San Marco Basilica, the cathedral church of Venice, is the most famous of the cities churches and one of the best known examples of Byzantine architecture. It lies on Piazza San Marco adjacent and connected to the Doge's Palace. Originally it was the "chapel" of the Venetian rulers, and not the cities cathedral. Since 1807 it has been the seat of the Patriarch of Venice, archbishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Venice. For its opulent design, gilded Byzantine mosaics, and its status as a symbol of Venetian wealth and power, from the 11th century on the building was known by the nickname Chiesa d'Oro (Church of gold).
    The first San Marco's was a temporary building in the Doge's Palace, constructed in 828, when Venetian merchants stole the supposed relics of San Marco the Evangelist from Alexandria. This was replaced by a new church on its present site in 832; from the same century dates the first San Marco's Campanile (bell tower). The new church was burned in a rebellion in 976, rebuilt in 978 and again to form the basis of the present basilica since 1063. The basilica was consecrated in 1094, the same year in which the body of San Marco was supposedly rediscovered in a pillar by Vitale Faliero, doge at the time. The building also incorporates a low tower (now housing San Marco's Treasure), believed by some to have been part of the original Doge's Palace. Within the first half of the 13th century the narthex and the new façade were constructed, most of the mosaics were completed and the domes were covered with higher wooden, lead-covered domes in order to blend in with the Gothic architecture of the redesigned Doge's Palace.

Santa Maria del Fiore increases the rate of its city Great People points. It also increases its city's chance of generating a Great Artist.

    Santa Maria del Fiore was built on the site of Florence's second cathedral dedicated to Saint Reparata; the first was the Basilica di San Lorenzo di Firenze whose first building was consecrated as a church in 393 by St. Ambrose of Milan. The ancient structure, founded in the early 5th century and having undergone many repairs, was crumbling with age, according to the 14th-century Nuova Cronica of Giovanni Villani, and was no longer large enough to serve the growing population of the city. Other major Tuscan cities had undertaken ambitious reconstructions of their cathedrals during the Late Medieval period, such as Pisa and particularly Siena where the enormous proposed extensions were never completed.

    The new church was designed by Arnolfo di Cambio and approved by city council in 1294. Di Cambio was also architect of the church of Santa Croce and the Palazzo Vecchio. He designed three wide naves ending under the octagonal dome, with the middle nave covering the area of Santa Reparata. The first stone was laid on 9 September 1296, by Cardinal Valeriana, the first papal legate ever sent to Florence. The building of this vast project was to last 140 years; Arnolfo's plan for the eastern end, although maintained in concept, was greatly expanded in size.

    After Arnolfo died in 1310, work on the cathedral slowed for thirty years. When the relics of Saint Zenobius were discovered in 1330 in Santa Reparata, the project gained a new impetus. In 1331, the Arte della Lana, the guild of wool merchants, took over patronage for the construction of the cathedral and in 1334 appointed Giotto to oversee the work. Assisted by Andrea Pisano, Giotto continued di Cambio's design. His major accomplishment was the building of the campanile. When Giotto died on 8 January 1337, Andrea Pisano continued the building until work was halted due to the Black Death in 1348.

    In 1349, work resumed on the cathedral under a series of architects, starting with Francesco Talenti, who finished the campanile and enlarged the overall project to include the apse and the side chapels. In 1359, Talenti was succeeded by Giovanni di Lapo Ghini (1360-1369) who divided the center nave in four square bays. Other architects were Alberto Arnoldi, Giovanni d'Ambrogio, Neri di Fioravante and Andrea Orcagna. By 1375, the old church Santa Reparata was pulled down. The nave was finished by 1380, and by 1418, only the dome remained incomplete.

    On 18 August 1418, the Arte della Lana announced an architectural design competition for erecting Neri's dome. The two main competitors were two master goldsmiths, Lorenzo Ghiberti and Filippo Brunelleschi, the latter of whom was supported by Cosimo de Medici. Ghiberti had been the winner of a competition for a pair of bronze doors for the Baptistery in 1401 and lifelong competition between the two remained sharp. Brunelleschi won and received the commission.

    Ghiberti, appointed coadjutator, drew a salary equal to Brunelleschi's and, though neither was awarded the announced prize of 200 florins, was promised equal credit, although he spent most of his time on other projects. When Brunelleschi became ill, or feigned illness, the project was briefly in the hands of Ghiberti. But Ghiberti soon had to admit that the whole project was beyond him. In 1423, Brunelleschi was back in charge and took over sole responsibility.

    Work started on the dome in 1420 and was completed in 1436. The cathedral was consecrated by Pope Eugene IV on 25 March 1436, (the first day of the year according to the Florentine calendar). It was the first 'octagonal' dome in history to be built without a temporary wooden supporting frame. It was one of the most impressive projects of the Renaissance. During the consecration in 1436, Guillaume Dufay's motet Nuper rosarum flores was performed. The structure of this motet was strongly influenced by the structure of the dome.

    The decoration of the exterior of the cathedral, begun in the 14th century, was not completed until 1887, when the polychrome marble façade was completed with the design of Emilio De Fabris. The floor of the church was relaid in marble tiles in the 16th century.

    The exterior walls are faced in alternate vertical and horizontal bands of polychrome marble from Carrara (white), Prato (green), Siena (red), Lavenza and a few other places. These marble bands had to repeat the already existing bands on the walls of the earlier adjacent baptistery the Battistero di San Giovanni and Giotto's Bell Tower. There are two side doors: the Doors of the Canonici (south side) and the Door of the Mandorla (north side) with sculptures by Nanni di Banco, Donatello, and Jacopo della Quercia. The six side windows, notable for their delicate tracery and ornaments, are separated by pilasters. Only the four windows closest to the transept admit light; the other two are merely ornamental. The clerestory windows are round, a common feature in Italian Gothic.

    During its long history, this cathedral has been the seat of the Council of Florence (1439), heard the preachings of Girolamo Savonarola and witnessed the murder of Giuliano di Piero de' Medici on Sunday, 26 April 1478 (with Lorenzo Il Magnifico barely escaping death), in the Pazzi conspiracy.

The Silver Tree Fountain creates a free Great Person when a Great General is born. It also increases the chance of generating a Great Statesman.

    Under Ögedei and his successors, Karakorum became a major site for world politics. Möngke Khan had the palace enlarged, and the great stupa temple completed. They had the Parisian goldsmith, Guillaume Bouchier, design the Silver Tree of Karakorum for the city centre. A large tree sculpted of silver and other precious metals rose up from the middle of the courtyard and loomed over the palace, with the branches of the tree extended into the building. Silver fruit hung from the limbs and it had four golden serpents braided around the trunk, while within the top of the tree was placed a trumpet angel, all as automata performing for the emperor's pleasure. When the khan wanted to summon the drinks for his guests, the mechanical angel raised the trumpet to his lips and sounded the horn, whereupon the mouths of the serpents began to gush out a fountain of alcoholic beverages into the large silver basin arranged at the base of the tree.

The Sistine Chapel causes each specialist in every city to generate culture and increases the culture bonus provided by buildings of your state religion. It increases its city's odds of generating a Great Artist.

    The beauty of Rome's Sistine Chapel has long served as a testament to the mixture of strong religious beliefs and the love of art shared by the people of Renaissance Europe. Michelangelo devoted four years to painting the mural that adorns the ceiling, a work depicting events in the book of Genesis and other Biblical stories. Few visitors to the Sistine Chapel have failed to be moved by the artist's dedication to his subject, or his feeling for the nature of human struggle, suffering, and spiritual triumph.

The Spiral Minaret gives all buildings of your state religion a gold bonus. It increases its city's chances of generating a Great Prophet.

    The Spiral Minaret is a massive brick and clay structure adjacent to the Mosque of al-Mutawakkil in Samarra, Iraq. The mosque was constructed in 852 AD, and at the time was the largest mosque in the world.
    A remarkable triumph of ancient engineering, the minaret is a circular tower 170 feet in height. A spiral exterior staircase extends up the tower to the platform where the "muezzin" called the people to prayer. It is said that the caliph al-Mutawakkil once rode up the stairs on a white Egyptian donkey.
    An imposing yet magnificent building, the Spiral Minaret still stands today, calling the people of Samarra to prayer at the Mosque of al-Mutawakkil. The more courageous visitors can climb the staircase to the top of the minaret, which appears to lack an outside guardrail.

The Topkapi Palace grants extra initial production in the conquered city. It also increase their city's chances of generating a Great Statesman.

    The Topkapi Palace is a palace in Istanbul, Turkey, which was the official and primary residence in the city of the Ottoman Sultans, from 1465 to 1853. The palace was a setting for state occasions and royal entertainments and is a major tourist attraction today. The name directly translates as "Cannongate Palace", from the palace being named after a nearby, now lost gate.
    The initial construction started in 1459, ordered by Sultan Mehmed II, the conqueror of Byzantine Constantinople. The palace is a complex made up of four main courtyards and many smaller buildings. At the height of its existence as a royal residence, the palace was home to as many as 4,000 people, formerly covering a larger area with a long shoreline. The complex has been expanded over the centuries, with many renovations such as after the 1509 earthquake and 1665 fire.
    Topkapi Palace gradually lost its importance at the end of the 17th century, as the Sultans preferred to spend more time in their new palaces along the Bosporus. In 1853, Sultan Abdül Mecid I decided to move the court to the newly built Dolmabahçe Palace, the first European-style palace in the city. Some functions, such as the imperial treasury, the library, mosque and mint, were retained though.
    After the end of the Ottoman Empire in 1921, Topkapi Palace was transformed by government decree on April 3, 1924 into a museum of the imperial era. The Topkapi Palace Museum is under the administration of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. The palace complex has hundreds of rooms and chambers, but only the most important are accessible to the public today. The complex is guarded by officials of the ministry as well as armed guards of the Turkish military. The palace is full of examples of Ottoman architecture and also contains large collections of porcelain, robes, weapons, shields, armor, Ottoman miniatures, Islamic calligraphic manuscripts and murals, as well as a display of Ottoman treasure and jewelry.
    Topkapi Palace is among those monuments belonging to the "Historic Areas of Istanbul", which became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1985, and is described in Criterion iv as "the best example(s) of ensembles of palaces of the Ottoman period."

The Vijaya Stambha gives all eligible units built in this city the City Garrison I promotion and increases Great General emergence. It also increases the chance of generating a Great Engineer.

    Vijay Stambha, or "Tower of Victory", is an imposing structure located in Chittorgarh fort in India .

    This tower is the piece-de-resistance of chittaurgarh. It was constructed by Mewar king Rana Kumbha between 1442 AD and 1449 AD to commemorate his victory over the combined armies of Malwa and Gujarat led by Mahmud Khilji .

    Dedicated to Vishnu,this 37.19 m high 9 storied tower is one of the most remarkable in India . It is built partly of red sand stone and partly of white marble and is enriched by numerous images of Hindu gods and goddesses with inscriptions at bottom of each. It is believed that the tower took 10 years to be completed. This exemplary piece of architecture stands on a pedestal 10 feet high.

    Each of the nine stories are distinctly marked with openings and balconies at every face of each story. The interior staircase winds alternately through the central chamber and surrounding gallery.

    The inscribed slabs in the uppermost story contains genealogy of the rulers of Chittaur from Hamir to Rana Kumbha. The entire tower is covered with architectural ornaments and inscribed images of gods and goddesses, seasons, weapons, musical instruments etc. Its inscribed sculpture are a veritable text-book of Hindu iconography.

    The portraits of the architect of this tower Jaita and his 3 sons, Napa, Puja and Poma are carved on the fifth floor of the tower.

    There are around 157 narrow steps leading to the terrace from where one can have a beautiful view of Chittorgarh town and the fort. The uppermost floor has been sealed off and is no longer accessible to visitor.

Wat Preah Pisnulok adds additional food to all buildings of your state religion. It also increases its city's chances of generating a Great Prophet.

    Wat Preah Pisnulok also referred to as "Angkor Wat" is a temple in Angkor, Cambodia. Wat Preah Pisnulok was constructed in the 12th century by King Suryavaman II to serve as the royal palace and state temple, Hinduism being the state religion. Two or three centuries later Wat Preah Pisnulok was converted to Buddhist use. Wat Preah Pisnulok is a complex of buildings surrounded by a wall and then moat. The enclosed area measures 3000 feet by 2600 feet.
    Wat Preah Pisnulok is constructed primarily of sandstone blocks. The complex is laid out in a rectangular pattern somewhat resembling that of an ancient fortress; the inner buildings are separated from the outer walls by a courtyard similar to a bailey one might find in a castle.
    At one time the courtyard was filled with wooden buildings, but these have all since perished. The inner structure is split into three galleries built on raised platforms. The outer galleys once contained libraries, while the inner was a shrine to Vishnu (and has since been converted to a shrine to Buddha). The galleries are topped with towers that resemble stylized beehives, the tallest reaching about 140 feet in height. The buildings' walls are covered with ornate and beautiful bas relief sculptures depicting scenes from Hindu mythology.
    Though largely neglected in the latter half of the 20th century, serious efforts are now being made to preserve and restore this wonderful and unique place of worship, and pilgrims and tourists are visiting it in ever-greater numbers each year.

The Amber Room increases the willingness of other civilizations to enter into defensive pact and shares golden ages with defensive pact partners. It also increases the chance of generating a Great Artist.

    The Amber Room is a reconstructed chamber decorated in amber panels backed with gold leaf and mirrors, located in the Catherine Palace of Tsarskoye Selo near Saint Petersburg. Constructed in the 18th century in Prussia, the original Amber Room was dismantled and eventually disappeared during World War II. Before its loss, it was considered an "Eighth Wonder of the World". A reconstruction was installed in the Catherine Palace between 1979 and 2003.

    The Amber Room was intended in 1701 for the Charlottenburg Palace, in Berlin, Prussia, but was eventually installed at the Berlin City Palace. It was designed by German baroque sculptor Andreas Schlüter and Danish amber craftsman Gottfried Wolfram. Schlüter and Wolfram worked on the room until 1707, when work was continued by amber masters Gottfried Turau and Ernst Schacht from Danzig. It remained in Berlin until 1716, when it was given by the Prussian King Frederick William I to his then ally, Tsar Peter the Great of the Russian Empire. In Russia, the room was expanded, and after several renovations, it covered more than 55 square metres (590 sq ft) and contained over 6 tonnes (13,000 lb) of amber.

    The Amber Room was looted during World War II by the Army Group North of Nazi Germany, and brought to Königsberg for reconstruction and display. Its current whereabouts remain a mystery. In 1979, efforts were undertaken to rebuild the Amber Room at Tsarskoye Selo. In 2003, after decades of work by Russian craftsmen and donations from Germany, the reconstructed Amber Room was inaugurated at the Catherine Palace.

The Blue Mosque limits the unhappiness from temporary effects. It also increases its city's chance of generating a Great Artist.

    The Sultan Ahmed Mosque is a historical mosque in Istanbul, the largest city in Turkey and the capital of the Ottoman Empire from 1453 to 1923. The mosque is popularly known as the Blue Mosque for the blue tiles adorning the walls of its interior. It was built between 1609 and 1616, during the rule of Ahmed I. Like many other mosques, it also comprises a tomb of the founder, a madrasah and a hospice.
    The design of the Sultan Ahmed Mosque is the culmination of two centuries of both Ottoman mosque and Byzantine church development. It incorporates some Byzantine elements of the neighboring Hagia Sophia with traditional Islamic architecture and is considered to be the last great mosque of the classical period. The architect has ably synthesized the ideas of his master Sinan, aiming for overwhelming size, majesty and splendour.

The Bourse gives its city two free Merchant specialists. It also increases its city's chance of generating a Great Merchant.

    In the 17th and 18th centuries, the Dutch pioneered several financial innovations that helped lay the foundations of the modern financial system. While the Italian city-states produced the first transferable government bonds, they did not develop the other ingredient necessary to produce a fully fledged capital market: the stock market. In the early 1600s the Dutch East India Company (VOC) became the first company in history to issue bonds and shares of stock to the general public. As Edward Stringham (2015) notes, "companies with transferable shares date back to classical Rome, but these were usually not enduring endeavors and no considerable secondary market existed (Neal, 1997, p. 61)." The Dutch East India Company (founded in the year of 1602) was also the first joint-stock company to get a fixed capital stock and as a result, continuous trade in company stock occurred on the Amsterdam Exchange. Soon thereafter, a lively trade in various derivatives, among which options and repos, emerged on the Amsterdam market. Dutch traders also pioneered short selling - a practice which was banned by the Dutch authorities as early as 1610. Amsterdam-based businessman Joseph de la Vega's Confusion de Confusiones (1688) was the earliest known book about stock trading and first book on the inner workings of the stock market (including the stock exchange).