HUMAN 1A Chapter 1-4, 13-16, 19: Volney Ruins Notes
21 Mar 2019
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Document Summary
The narrator was travelling in the ottoman empire to study the happiness of mankind in a social state . To his demise, what he found were miserable states of being: Robbery and devastation, tyranny and wretchedness as well as abandoned/ruined territory. This all led him to think about ruins and their beauty. Some ruins he saw were intact, and some had only fragments. He visited monuments daily along with the valley of sepulchres. Sunset, calm and serene air, silence, no motion, jackal howls, bird songs at night at intervals, increasing darkness: these details led him to think about religious pensiveness . The ruins, which were once an opulent city the seat of a powerful empire , where religion was practiced and industry was most dominant, are now nothing more than a. Syria only contained traces of empire but why?! The only time they were truly happy was when they were conquered and subject to obey authority figures or gods.
