Secret underground temple seized by police

From the Daily Mail article:
200711231010

"...the 'Temples of Damanhur' are not the great legacy of some long-lost civilisation, they are the work of a 57-year-old former insurance broker from northern Italy who, inspired by a childhood vision, began digging into the rock.
The first time the police came it was over alleged tax evasion and still the temples lay undiscovered. But a year later the police swooped on the community demanding: "Show us these temples or we will dynamite the entire hillside."
Stunned by what they had found, the authorities decided to seize the temples on behalf of the government."

Link

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

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schÃ¶nberger

“siezed”?
PhiCancri

Gazoontite.
frankiez

WOW! I’m italian and never heard of these pagan masterpieces!
marcuspierce

Is this real? It smells like a hoax.
Craig Sheldon

The Temples were seized in 1992 according to Wikipedia

Here’s their official site and a site for The Temples
neuromonkey

Right. As the article states, by “seized”, they mean construction had to stop until proper planning permission was given. And it has been.
Scixual

The willingness to dedicate oneself to work that is inspiring, fun or satisfying but ultimately impractical is the source of all great art. And humanity just can’t help doing it.
Wareq

Where’s Umberto Eco when you need him?
nosida

I love it! Who wants to build one in the US?
Al Billings

The “seizing” part was current news about 15 or so years ago…

I’ve written a blog post about this but the media basically rediscovers Damanhur about every two or three years and then forgets about them again.
billy

change that misleading headline please
Al Billings

Marcuspierce, go to Amazon.com and search on “Damanhur”. They list at least five books in relation to this group, including a book just on the Temples of Humankind and their construction. This isn’t a hoax but is old news.
jphilby

“good lord, the person responsible for interior decorating at that place ought to be shot.”

I agree, but it would fit right in with the US tourist mecca known as the Black Hills … and is *way* prettier than the (in)famous “Wall Drug” … http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wall_Drug … visited by thousands of culture-starved midwesterners for decades.
tp1024

Just proves the saying, that it is easier to seek forgiveness than to ask for permission …
the Other michael

Hey — old news that we never heard about (like, you know, vintage ads, in-car record players, and the like) is a wonderful thing!

Ever breathlessly tell somebody about a book you just read, over to have their eyes glaze over when they heard it was published more than two weeks ago?

“Sorry, old news.”
RyanH

The way I see it, this is a directory of wonderful things, and this is a wonderful thing no matter how recent or not.
squib

Yep, amazing but gaudy. You can tell a bloke chose the colours
Al Billings

The Other Michael, two weeks versus 15 or 16 years? Hyperbole much? I was an undergraduate in college when this place was busted. I’m in my mid-30s now with a nearly 10 year old daughter.

I do agree it is an interesting place. I was, personally, more objecting to the title focusing on the “seizing” of the site since that happened when kids currently in high school were being born.
romwell

Wonderful thing indeed, even though the title is misleading. From TFA:

Retrospective permission was eventually granted and today the ‘Damanhurians’ even have their own university, schools, organic supermarkets, vineyards, farms, bakeries and award-winning eco homes.

Still, I didn’t know that this thing exists. When it all was ‘real news’, I was a 4-year-old living in the Perestroika-era USSR falling apart, so I kinda missed out on these news. Thanks to BoingBoing, I am amazed by the story now.
Jesse M.

There’s a long story on this community from “What Is Enlightenment” magazine here:

Atlantis in the Mountains of Italy
Steven

good lord, the person responsible for interior decorating at that place ought to be shot.
mralistair

what’s the most worrying thing is the number of posts on this blog linking to the daily mail. it’s a pretty hideous right wing no-brain-required ‘send them all home’ pile of nonsense, i know this is a pretty innocuous story but i expect better from boing boing. if they linked to the national inquirer you’d at least expect a disclaimer, i’m worried the american reader might think this a a reasonable and erudite news source other than just dirge.
License Farm

Reminds me of Alex Grey’s Chapel of the Sacred Mirrors in NYC, though that’s a more modest endeavor. (Which, if you’ve ever seen it, is probably the last term you’d use to describe it.)
woolie

My own favorite self-built temple:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justo_Gallego_MartÃnez
http://www.citynoise.org/article/732
http://www.citynoise.org/article/831
DeWynken

JUST IN! ATLANTIS SINKS TO THE BOTTOM OF THE OCEAN!
Al Billings

Yeah, because Boing Boing could never link to the Daily Mail. That’s a horrible endorsement of some obscure British politics or something…
the Other michael

Jeez, Al — 15,16 years ago is no longer wonderful?

Remind me not to talk to you about 27-line mechanical television recordings from 1920s.
iburl

#17, you need a beer. I think that whole place is really cool.
stovis

He likes to go by the name Falco? I remember his hit song, Der Kommissar. I wonder if he wrote that in the temple?
billdonovan

I do not care if this is old news, I think this is an amazing story, and I like that the man Falco mentions something inspirational at the end of the the story in the link to the British newspaper.

I love it when adults have the courage and intelligence to mantain their ability to be creative in the way that children are creative, and by that I mean through profound secret games that carry meaning like dreams carry meaning.
Tubman

@#22, The Other Michael: You’re missing the point. It would patently be frivolous to claim that this isn’t worthwhile merely because it could have been written 16 years ago.

However, the fact that there’s no mention of this combined with a headline describing a state of affairs that hasn’t been true for well over a decade indicate that Mark didn’t even accurately represent the most salient facts contained in the piece he linked to. I’d say that’s certainly worthy of criticism.
The Mad Hatter

Given the amount of articles Mark and all the other editors grab a day (and the amount we are all used to), I’d give them a break over this kind of thing, it isn’t a hoax and it doesn’t advance any sort of agenda. And even if it is old news, I think it will manage to amuse most BB readers. Err, yeah
Muppet

Please do yourselves a favour and ignore the Daily Filth!
Muppet

Actually the article is fine, it’s just the title on this BB post that is misleading.
Anonymous

I’ve been here — the Damanhurians run a hotel and restaurant, and they’ll tour you all around the underground temple complex and the art studios. It’s incredibly worth an overnight visit.
Gutlocker

“Show us these temples or we will dynamite the entire hillside.”

Sorry, but THAT is hilarious.