American Monuments

Archaeology in the Americas

Archaeology in the Americas is the study of archaeology in North America, Central America, South America and the Caribbean. This includes the study of prehistoric and before the discovery of the Americas by Christopher Columbus and the history of Native American peoples.

Granite is one natural stone that is used for several purposes from dimension stone to counter-tops to sculptures. The use of granite for building the temples and monuments was initiated millions years ago by the Egyptians although their architectural techniques were experimental but they have given a true sense of architecture to the world.

Granite belongs to the class of intrusive igneous rocks that contains medium to coarse grained structure. Feldspar, quartz, mica, silica are some of the basic chemical compounds that are found in granite. Each of these chemical compounds exhibit one or other qualities of granite stone for instance Quartz is responsible for its hardness and Alkali Feldspar gives different colors to granite stone. This chemical composition of granite makes it robust and durable stone that can withstand any temperature or weather condition.

We walked from the Capital building to the Washington Monument. One detail that is not mentioned much is that there can never be a building of greater height than that Monument. There is an aluminum cap that tops it and appearing on the cap are two words: Laus Deo. Most visitors to the monument are unaware that the words are even there unless they have read about it somewhere. I didn't know about it until this visit No one can see the words, which have been there for many years,and are 555 feet, 5.125 inches high and are perched on top of the monument facing skyward to the Father of our nation and overlooking the 69 square miles which make up the District of Columbia, capital of the United States of America.