Valley Of The Temples

Valley Of The Temples is an artistic celebration of ancient spiritual sites created for personal meditative use and to raise awareness of those sites being intentionally destroyed. 25 ancient sites are in the composition, can you name them all? (To view in 360, click the top right arrows on the image. Click the play button in the header to hear ambient music created for the piece).

Notable among these destroyed sites are the colossal Buddhas of Bamiyan, (dynamited in 2001 - one of which you see left of the giant faces of Angkor Wat), and Syria’s Palmyra site which has been badly damaged and is still under imminent threat of complete destruction.

The monuments and temples are not to scale and morph into other sites in some areas. This is intentional, partly to balance perspective and composition, but also to represent, like the rock bridge motif, that we are all connected spiritually as human beings regardless of our mortal incarnation while here on Earth.

The quotes in the sky champion the elevation of the spirit, responsibility of self, and rejection of our base instincts, written by some of the great poets and philosophers. The Buddha said that the way to be free of suffering is to develop ourselves in 3 areas: morality, concentration and wisdom. Through self-discipline we can discover our true reason for being, and we can bring forth our light into existence rather than increase the darkness of the world.

Ancient sites beginning at the giant faces of Angkor Wat and moving right:
01. Giant Stone Faces, Angkor Wat, Cambodia
02. Longmen Grottoes, Luoyang, Henan Province, China
03. Pyramid Of The Magician, Uxmal, Mexico
04. Bagan Temples, Mandalay, Myanmar
05. Stonehenge, Wiltshire, England
06. Kumbhalargh Fort, Rajsamand District, India
07. Siddhachal Caves, Gwalior Fort, Pradesh, India
08. Lindisfarne Castle, Holy Island, England
09. Temple Ruins, Myra, Turkey
10. Fairy Chimney Rock Formations, Cappadocia, Turkey
11. Moai Statues, Easter Island, Chile
12. The Acropolis, Athens, Greece
13. Griffin Statue, Persepolis, Iran
14. Sacre di San Michele, Piedmont, Italy
15. Naqsh e-Rustam Necropolis, Fars Province, Iran
16. Colossi Of Memnon (1 of 2), Theban Necropolis, Egypt
17. The Great Pyramids, Giza, Egypt
18. Palmyra, Syria
19. Colossal Buddha, Bihar, India
20. Bronze Head from Valle Dei Templi, Agrigento, Sicily
21. Angkor Wat (Partial), Cambodia
22. Petra, The Rose City, Jordan
23. Madain Saleh Necropolis, Saudi Arabia
24. Mehrangarh Fort, Rajasthan, India
25. Colossal Buddha, Bamiyan, Afghanistan (1 of 2)

*This is a 10K matte painting available as a print or on swag and for event projection. Inquire in the Bio page for licensing.