Wealthy collectors descended on Geneva, Switzerland, for the sale of the Henry Graves Supercomplication (pictured)
The 'Holy Grail' of watches sold at auction today to a mystery buyer - for a world record £15.1million.
Wealthy collectors descended on Geneva, Switzerland, for the sale of the Henry Graves Supercomplication.
Made by Patek Philippe, it is the most complex watch ever assembled entirely by hand and was offered with an estimate of £10million.
A bidding frenzy soon broke out in the Sotheby's auction room after an opening offer of 9m Swiss francs (£5.85m).
There were tense moments in the auction house and bids became drawn out around the 18m mark (£11.7m).
The hammer eventually went down at a staggering 20.6million (£13.4m) - a new world record with the auction house - sparking a round of applause.
With auction costs, the final price paid by the 'man in a red tie' was £15.1 million.
Patek Philippe was commissioned by New York banker Henry Graves to make the watch in 1925.
It took Swiss horologists three years to research and a further five to make, completing it in 1933.
The watch has a gold openface minute repeating chronograph clockwatch with Westminster chimes.
It also features a perpetual calendar, moon phases, sidereal time, power reserve, and indications for time of sunset and sunrise and the night sky of New York City.
In total, there are 24 horological complications and 'The Graves' held the title of the world's most complicated watch for 56 years.
The masterpiece has only been surpassed by technicians working with the aid of computers. It was last wound in 1969 and is still in working order.
La Dirección General de Impacto y Riesgo Ambiental de la Secretaría de Medio Ambiente y Recursos Naturales informa que ha recibido la documentación de la firma promovente Más Energía, para el proyecto de la Subestación eléctrica de maniobras Magdalena I (Parque Solar Magdalena I).
El proyecto consiste en la construcción, operación y mantenimiento de una subestación eléctrica de maniobras, dos accesos, y una línea eléctrica de entronque de 400 Kv que se interconectará a una línea de transmisión eléctrica existente de 400 Kv propiedad de la Comisión Federal de Electricidad para desahogar la energía eléctrica que se genera en la planta fotovoltaica parque solar Magdalena I al Sistema Eléctrico Nacional.
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6 Schematic representation of a cyclotron. The distance between the pole pieces of the magnet is shown larger than reality to allow seeing what is inside
Estructura detallada de los precolisionadores, colisionadores y aceleradores del LHC
El Gran Colisionador de Hadrones (LHC; en inglés: Large Hadron Collider) es el acelerador de partículas más grande y de mayor energía que existe y la máquina más grande construida por el ser humano en el mundo.12 Fue construido por la Organización Europea para la Investigación Nuclear (CERN) entre 1989 y 2001 en colaboración con más de 10 000 científicos y cientos de universidades y laboratorios, así como más de 100 países de todo el Mundo.3 Se encuentra en un túnel de 27 kilómetros de circunferencia y a una profundidad máxima de 175 metros bajo tierra, debajo de la frontera entre Francia y Suiza, cerca de Ginebra.
Las primeras colisiones se lograron en 2010 a una energía de 3,5 teraelectronvoltios (TeV) por haz, aproximadamente cuatro veces el récord mundial anterior, alcanzados en el Tevatron.45 Después de las correspondientes actualizaciones, alcanzó 6,5 TeV por haz (13 TeV de energía de colisión total, el récord mundial actual).6789 A finales de 2018, entró en un período de parada de dos años, que finalmente se ha prolongado hasta 2022, con el fin de realizar nuevas actualizaciones, con lo cual se espera posteriormente alcanzar energías de colisión aún mayores.
El colisionador tiene cuatro puntos de cruce, alrededor de los cuales se colocan siete detectores, cada uno diseñado para ciertos tipos de experimentos en investigación. El LHC hace colisionar protones, pero también puede utilizar haces de iones pesados (por ejemplo de plomo) realizándose colisiones de átomos de plomo normalmente durante un mes al año. El objetivo de los detectores del LHC es permitir a los físicos probar las predicciones de las diferentes teorías de la física de partículas, incluida la medición de las propiedades del bosón de Higgs10 y la búsqueda de una larga serie de nuevas partículas predicha por las teorías de la supersimetría,11 así como también otros problemas no resueltos en la larga lista de elementos en la física de partículas.
Túnel del Gran Colisionador de Hadrones (LHC) de la Organización Europea para la Investigación Nuclear (CERN) con todos los imanes e instrumentos. La parte del túnel que se muestra se encuentra debajo del LHC P8, cerca del LHCb.
Un "colisionador" es un tipo de acelerador de partículas con dos haces enfrentados de partículas que chocan entre sí. En la física de partículas, los colisionadores se utilizan como herramientas de investigación: aceleran las partículas a energías cinéticas muy altas que les permiten impactar con otras partículas.1 El análisis de los subproductos de estas colisiones, captados por los sensores, brinda a los científicos una buena evidencia de la estructura del mundo subatómico y de las leyes de la naturaleza que los gobiernan. Muchos de estos subproductos se producen sólo mediante colisiones de alta energía y se descomponen después de períodos de tiempo muy breves. Por lo tanto, muchos de ellos son difíciles o casi imposibles de detectar de otra manera.14
A blog dedicated to discussion of exploration of North America before Columbus
Welcome
I've created this blog to share and exchange ideas relating to the research contained in my novel, Cabal of the Westford Knight: Templars at the Newport Tower. The story itself is fiction, but its premise rests on firm ground: Numerous artifacts and sites in and around New England (see attached images) clearly evidence a history of pre-Columbian discovery and exploration of North America. Specifically, the evidence points to a group of Northern Europeans island-hopping across the North Atlantic in the late 1300s. Who were they, and why did they come? Well, that's where the fun begins. If you come to this site with an open mind, you are welcome to participate in what I hope is a lively discussion.
A Review of CABAL OF THE WESTFORD KNIGHT by the Ohio Record-Courier
I am a graduate of Tufts University and Georgetown Law School. CABAL OF THE WESTFORD KNIGHT is my fourth novel. (Click on "My Books" link above for more info.) I am a former Director of New England Antiquities Research Association (NEARA). I live in Westford, MA with my wife and our two daughters. In my spare time I coach youth sports and Special Olympics and also play on adult ice hockey and softball teams.
Medieval stone tower ... in Rhode Island. Does it look like any other Colonial structure you've seen? Recent carbon dating of the mortar indicates 1400s construction date (see post below).
The Westford Knight Sword
Medieval Battle Sword ... in Westford, Massachusetts. Can anyone deny the pommel, hilt and blade punch-marked into the bedrock?
The Spirit Pond Rune Stone
Medieval Inscription ... in Maine, near Popham Beach. Long passed off as a hoax, but how many people know the Runic language? And how is it that some of the Runic characters match rare runes on inscriptions found in Minnesota and Rhode Island? Carbon-dating of floorboards at nearby long house date to 1405.
The Narragansett Rune Stone
Medieval Inscription ... in Rhode Island's Narragansett Bay. This Runic inscription is only visible for twenty minutes a day at low tide--is this also the work of a modern-day, Runic-speaking hoaxster?
The Westford Boat Stone
Medieval Ship Carving ... in Westford, MA. Found near the Westford Knight site. Weathering patterns of carving are consistent with that of 600-year-old artifact. And why would a Colonial trail-marker depict a knorr, a 14th-century ship?
The Kensington Rune Stone
Medieval Inscription... in Minnesota. Forensic geology confirms the carvings predate European settlement of Minnesota--so did Runic-speaking Native Americans carve it?
The Hooked X Rune
Medieval Runic Character ... on inscriptions found in Maine, Minnesota and Rhode Island. But this rare rune was only recently found in Europe. This conclusively disproves any hoax theory while also linking these three artifacts together.
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2018
Columbus and the Templars
Was Columbus using old Templar maps when he crossed the Atlantic? At first blush, the navigator and the fighting monks seem like odd bedfellows. But once I began ferreting around in this dusty corner of history, I found some fascinating connections. Enough, in fact, to trigger the plot of my latest novel, The Swagger Sword.
To begin with, most history buffs know there are some obvious connections between Columbus and the Knights Templar. Most prominently, the sails on Columbus’ ships featured the unique splayed Templar cross known as the cross pattée (pictured here is the Santa Maria):
Additionally, in his later years Columbus featured a so-called “Hooked X” in his signature, a mark believed by researchers such as Scott Wolter to be a secret code used by remnants of the outlawed Templars (see two large X letters with barbs on upper right staves pictured below):
Other connections between Columbus and the Templars are less well-known. For example, Columbus grew up in Genoa, bordering the principality of Seborga, the location of the Templars’ original headquarters and the repository of many of the documents and maps brought by the Templars to Europe from the Middle East. Could Columbus have been privy to these maps? Later in life, Columbus married into a prominent Templar family. His father-in-law, Bartolomeu Perestrello (a nobleman and accomplished navigator in his own right), was a member of the Knights of Christ (the Portuguese successor order to the Templars). Perestrello was known to possess a rare and wide-ranging collection of maritime logs, maps and charts; it has been written that Columbus was given a key to Perestrello’s library as part of the marriage dowry. After marrying, Columbus moved to the remote Madeira Islands, where a fellow resident, John Drummond, had also married into the Perestrello family. Drummond was a grandson of Scottish explorer Prince Henry Sinclair, believed to have sailed to North America in 1398. It is, accordingly, likely that Columbus had access to extensive Templar maps and charts through his familial connections to both Perestrello and Drummond.
Another little-known incident in Columbus’ life sheds further light on the navigator’s possible ties to the Templars. In 1477, Columbus sailed to Galway, on the west coast of Ireland, from where the legendary Brendan the Navigator supposedly set sale in the 6th century on his journey to North America. While there, Columbus prayed at St. Nicholas’ Church, a structure built over an original Templar chapel dating back to around the year 1300. St. Nicholas’ Church has been compared by some historians to Scotland’s famous Roslyn Chapel, complete with Templar tomb, Apprentice Pillar, and hidden Templar crosses. (Recall that Roslyn Chapel was built by another grandson—not Drummond—of the aforementioned Prince Henry Sinclair.) According to his diary, Columbus also famously observed “Chinese” bodies floating into Galway harbor on driftwood, which may have been what first prompted him to turn his eyes westward. A granite monument along the Galway waterfront, topped by a dove (Columbus meaning ‘dove’ in Latin), commemorates this sighting, the marker reading: On these shores around 1477 the Genoese sailor Christoforo Colombo found sure signs of land beyond the Atlantic.
In fact, as the monument text hints, Columbus may have turned more than just his eyes westward. A growing body of evidence indicates he actually crossed the north Atlantic in 1477. Columbus wrote in a letter to his son: “In the year 1477, in the month of February, I navigated 100 leagues beyond Thule [to an] island which is as large as England. When I was there the sea was not frozen over, and the tide was so great as to rise and fall 26 braccias.” We will turn later to the mystery as to why any sailor would venture into the north Atlantic in February. First, let’s examine Columbus’ statement. Historically, ‘Thule’ is the name given to the westernmost edge of the known world. In 1477, that would have been the western settlements of Greenland (though abandoned by then, they were still known). A league is about three miles, so 100 leagues is approximately 300 miles. If we think of the word “beyond” as meaning “further than” rather than merely “from,” we then need to look for an island the size of England with massive tides (26 braccias equaling approximately 50 feet) located along a longitudinal line 300 miles west of the west coast of Greenland and far enough south so that the harbors were not frozen over. Nova Scotia, with its famous Bay of Fundy tides, matches the description almost perfectly. But, again, why would Columbus brave the north Atlantic in mid-winter? The answer comes from researcher Anne Molander, who in her book, The Horizons of Christopher Columbus, places Columbus in Nova Scotia on February 13, 1477. His motivation? To view and take measurements during a solar eclipse. Ms. Molander theorizes that the navigator, who was known to track celestial events such as eclipses, used the rare opportunity to view the eclipse elevation angle in order calculate the exact longitude of the eastern coastline of North America. Recall that, during this time period, trained navigators were adept at calculating latitude, but reliable methods for measuring longitude had not yet been invented. Columbus, apparently, was using the rare 1477 eclipse to gather date for future western exploration. Curiously, Ms. Molander places Columbus specifically in Nova Scotia’s Clark’s Bay, less than a day’s sail from the famous Oak Island, legendary repository of the Knights Templar missing treasure.
The Columbus-Templar connections detailed above were intriguing, but it wasn’t until I studied the names of the three ships which Columbus sailed to America that I became convinced the link was a reality. Before examining these ship names, let’s delve a bit deeper into some of the history referred to earlier in this analysis. I made a reference to Prince Henry Sinclair and his journey to North American in 1398. The Da Vinci Code made the Sinclair/St. Clair family famous by identifying it as the family most likely to be carrying the Jesus bloodline. As mentioned earlier, this is the same family which in the mid-1400s built Roslyn Chapel, an edifice some historians believe holds the key—through its elaborate and esoteric carvings and decorations—to locating the Holy Grail. Other historians believe the chapel houses (or housed) the hidden Knights Templar treasure. Whatever the case, the Sinclair/St. Clair family has a long and intimate historical connection to the Knights Templar. In fact, a growing number of researchers believe that the purpose of Prince Henry Sinclair’s 1398 expedition to North America was to hide the Templar treasure (whether it be a monetary treasure or something more esoteric such as religious artifacts or secret documents revealing the true teachings of the early Church). Researcher Scott Wolter, in studying the Hooked X mark found on many ancient artifacts in North American as well as on Columbus’ signature, makes a compelling argument that the Hooked X is in fact a secret symbol used by those who believed that Jesus and Mary Magdalene married and produced children. (See The Hooked X, by Scott F. Wolter.) These believers adhered to a version of Christianity which recognized the importance of the female in both society and in religion, putting them at odds with the patriarchal Church. In this belief, they had returned to the ancient pre-Old Testament ways, where the female form was worshiped and deified as the primary giver of life.
It is through the prism of this Jesus and Mary Magdalene marriage, and the Sinclair/St. Clair family connection to both the Jesus bloodline and Columbus, that we now, finally, turn to the names of Columbus’ three ships. Importantly, he renamed all three ships before his 1492 expedition. The largest vessel’s name, the Santa Maria, is the easiest to analyze: Saint Mary, the Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus. The Pinta is more of a mystery. In Spanish, the word means ‘the painted one.’ During the time of Columbus, this was a name attributed to prostitutes, who “painted” their faces with makeup. Also during this period, the Church had marginalized Mary Magdalene by referring to her as ‘the prostitute,’ even though there is nothing in the New Testament identifying her as such. So the Pinta could very well be a reference to Mary Magdalene. Last is the Nina, Spanish for ‘the girl.’ Could this be the daughter of Mary Magdalene, the carrier of the Jesus bloodline? If so, it would complete the set of women in Jesus’ life—his mother, his wife, his daughter—and be a nod to those who opposed the patriarchy of the medieval Church. It was only when I researched further that I realized I was on the right track: The name of the Pinta before Columbus changed it was the Santa Clara, Portuguese for ‘Saint Clair.’
So, to put a bow on it, Columbus named his three ships after the Virgin Mary, Mary Magdalene, and the carrier of their bloodline, the St. Clair girl. These namings occurred during the height of the Inquisition, when one needed to be extremely careful about doing anything which could be interpreted as heretical. But even given the danger, I find it hard to chalk these names up to coincidence, especially in light of all the other Columbus connections to the Templars. Columbus was intent on paying homage to the Templars and their beliefs, and found a subtle way of renaming his ships to do so.
Given all this, I have to wonder: Was Columbus using Templar maps when he made his Atlantic crossing? Is this why he stayed south, because the maps showed no passage to the north? If so, and especially in light of his 1477 journey to an area so close to Oak Island, what services had Columbus provided the Templars in exchange for these priceless charts?
It is this research, and these questions, which triggered my novel, The Swagger Sword. If you appreciate a good historical mystery as much as I, I think you’ll enjoy the story.
Loys de Cheseaux was born on 4 May 1718 in Lausanne, Vaud, to Paul-Etienne Loys de Cheseaux, a banneret, and Estienne-Judith de Crousaz.[1] His brother was Charles-Louis Loys de Cheseaux.[1] He was educated by his maternal grandfather, the mathematician and philosopher Jean-Pierre de Crousaz, and wrote his first essays, under the title Essais de Physique, in 1735, aged 17.[1]
In 1736, Loys de Cheseaux installed an observatory in his father's lands in Cheseaux-sur-Lausanne.[1][2] He acquired a reputation in Europe as an astronomer with the publication of his Traité de la Comète,[1] in 1744, a treatise on his observations of the comet C/1743 X1 in which he also became one of the first to state, in its modern form, what would later be known as Olbers' paradox (that, if the universe is infinite, the night sky should be bright).[2]
From 1747, Loys de Cheseaux was a corresponding member of the science academies of Göttingen, St. Petersburg, Stockholm, as well as the Academy of Sciences of Paris and the Royal Society of London.[1][2] He was offered the post of director of the St. Petersburg observatory, but declined the invitation.[2] In 1751, Loys de Cheseaux travalled to Paris and was presented to the Academy of Sciences.[2] There he died, after a short illness, on 30 November 1751, aged 33.[2]
1893 Queen Isabella Commemorative Quarter. (Image via me)
A few things I’ve picked up from researching early commemorative coins:
The people behind them always hope they can raise a ton of money for a pet project or monument or expo. They rarely do.
The designs usually get denigrated by the numismatic press – oftentimes with a venom critics reserve for Limp Bizkit albums or Michael Bay movies.
The mint melts down the excess/unsold coins. As a result, the ones that did sell end up becoming valuable decades later – screwing over collectors on a budget like yours truly.
Those issues were all in play for the 1893 Isabella Quarter.
The Queen Isabella commemorative quarter traces its beginnings to the World’s Fair: Columbian Exposition, held in Chicago in 1893. Congress had already authorized the minting of a commemorative half dollar featuring Christopher Columbus, but a group of women, led by Bertha Palmer, whose husband, Potter, owned the famed Palmer House hotel in Chicago, thought they could do better.
Spearheaded by renowned women’s rights activist, and future $1 coin subject, Susan B. Anthony, the Board of Lady Managers had been awarded $10,000 in federal funds to help manage the Columbian Expo. In early 1893, the Board went before the House Appropriations Committee to ask that the $10,000 could be paid to them in the form of 40,000 specially designed commemorative quarters, which they could then sell at a profit. Congress obliged and the Board set about becoming “the authors of the first really beautiful and artistic coin that has ever been issued by the government of the United States.”
Obviously, the Board wanted a female on the obverse and decided on Queen Isabella I of Castile, who had provided vital financial support for Columbus’s voyages. Putting a foreign monarch on U.S. currency was unprecedented (indeed, there had a been a revolution over it), but according to Coin Week, the main source of conflict was over design.
Caroline Peddle, a former student of famed artist and coin designer Augustus Saint-Gaudens, was hired by the Board to design the coin. However, her sketches, which included a seated Isabella on the obverse and the inscription “Commemorative coin issued for the Board of Lady Managers of the World’s Columbian Exposition by Act of Congress, 1492–1892” on the reverse, were deemed to look too token-like and rejected. Rather than be allowed to redesign the coin, the Mint took away the reverse side and gave it to one of their in-house artists, Charles Barber, to design.
After some more back-and-forth and additional restrictions imposed by the Mint, Peddle resigned. The Mint then cobbled together some portraits of Isabella and ultimately produced an image of a young Isabella wearing a crown on her head for the obverse. On the reverse, the Mint went with an image of a woman kneeling while holding a distaff and spindle- symbolizing her industry. The Board had suggested an image of the Woman’s Building at the Expo, and Palmer later stated that the Board disliked the Mint’s reverse image because “we did not consider [it] typical of the woman of the present day.” However, the Mint made the final decision and approved the coin design.
To say that the reception for the commemorative quarter was not warm is a bit like saying that the American public didn’t embrace Apple’s Newton. The American Journal of Numsimatics was particularly brutal:
[W]e do not know who designed it, but in this instance, as in the half dollar, the contrast between examples of the numismatic art of the nation, as displayed on the Columbian coins, on the one hand, and the spirited and admirable work of the architects of the buildings, for instance, on the other, is painful. If these coins really represent the highest achievements of our medalist and our mints, under the inspiration of an opportunity without restrictions, the like of which has never been presented hitherto in the history of our national coinage, we might as well despair of its future…
The American Journal of Numismatics in October 1893, quoted by PCGS.
The Journal also drew a “mournful” comparison between the reverse design of the kneeling woman holding the distaff and spindle and the well-known “Am I Not a Woman and a Sister?” anti-slavery Hard Times Token. Surely, the Board felt vindicated by that line – although there’s no evidence Palmer or anyone else affiliated with them ever wrote to the Mint to say: “See? I told you we should gone with the building on the reverse.”
1838 HT-81 “Am I Not A Woman & A Sister?” (Image via me)
Sales figures, meanwhile, were disappointing. Of the 40,000 coins minted, a little more than half (21,180) ended up selling. According to NGC, the quarter’s sales were cannibalized by the Columbian Expo half dollar, which sold for the same price and was more widely available at the fair (5 million Columbian Expo half dollars were minted – 125 times as many compared to the Isabella quarter). While it didn’t come close to selling out, Coin Week points out that the quarters, which sold for $1 each, ended up being profitable for the Board. A $20,000-plus stream of revenue may not have been much, but it was double the original federal appropriation awarded to the Board. Of the remaining 19,000-plus quarters, approximately 15,000 went back to the Mint for melting.
1893 Columbian Expo Half Dollar. (Image via me)
In recent years, the coin’s reputation has been rehabilitated and has become a highly sought-after collector’s item. Contemporary reviewers have praised its quaint design and its uniqueness among U.S. commemorative coins (until the modern commemoratives came around, it held the distinction as the only commemorative quarter in U.S. history – as well as the only one to depict a foreign monarch). Even the reverse of the coin has been somewhat vindicated. Art historian Cornelius Vermeule argued that the design wasn’t necessarily evocative of the anti-slavery token and even traced elements of it back to antiquities. “[S]ome details of drapery to a servant girl from the East Pediment of the Temple of Zeus at Olympia, work of about 460 B.C. with additions and revisions in the first or second centuries A.D.,” he wrote.
I love the design and how it distinguishes this coin from other early commemoratives. Too many coins from that era have a generic male bust on the obverse and either an eagle or state symbol on the reverse. Because of the relative scarcity of this coin, buying one wasn’t cheap (this one had been cleaned, which lowered its value, but it still ended up costing over $100). The price tag was worth it, as this has become one of my favorite coins.
So I guess the lesson here is that I should buy more modern commemoratives – even those that I think are ugly. After all, maybe they’ll skyrocket in value in 100 years…
"The current Knights Templar Headquarters are in Geneva. This country befits and holds similar many of the most common and closely guarded values of the original Knights Templar.
The oldest abbey established in Switzerland is Sion, in the Valais Canton. There is a twin peaks overlooking the town, meaning new Jerusalem or holy place in the Alps. The twin mountains house the cathedral of Sion and the Castle Tourbillion. These date back to the beginning times of Swiss Confederation formation around 1291. A time when the Templars were known to be looking to establish a European mainland stronghold outside of the Holy Land as they were being pushed out of the Levant by the Muslims and the Christians had lost their stomach to fight on any longer.
These are suggestions that certain historians and conspiracists alike deem to be true that suggest that the Knights Templar did in fact form Switzerland. The evidence and likelihood seem pretty plausible to me. The county of Valais in the city of Sion has a particular Templar tie in the founding history. Rumors have always floated that this is where the Templars originally set up shop after their flight from France.
In the history of the first Swiss Cantons there are tales of white coated knights mysteriously appearing and helping the locals to gain their independence against foreign domination.
The founding of the early Switzerland pinpoints exactly to the period when the Templars were being persecuted in France by King Philip IV of France.
Switzerland is directly to the east of France and would have been particularly easy for fleeing Templar brothers from the whole region of France to get to.
The Templars were one of the earliest known banking systems in early day Europe. King Phillip in fact was deeply in debt to the Templars.
Not only were the Templars big into banking, but also in farming, engineering, and clock making (of an early type). These same aspects can be seen as importance to the commencement and gradual forming of the separate states that would eventually be Switzerland.
The Swiss don’t really know the ins and outs of their earliest history (or suggest that they don’t.)
They are famous for being secretive and independent as were the Templars.
The famous Templar Cross is incorporated into the flags of many of the Swiss Cantons. As are other emblems, such as keys and lambs, that were particularly important to the Knights Templar.
The Swiss were and are famous for their religious tolerance – and so were the Templars"
Are you ready to discover the history and geography of Sion in Switzerland? This city, founded several centuries ago, is a place rich in history that has influenced Swiss and European cultures. Embark on an exciting adventure in the Valais region.
On your journey through these cultural wonders, you’ll explore the castles of Valère and Tourbillon, one of the town’s historic gems. You will also learn all about the emergence of the canton’s most important city and its evolution.
History of Sion in Switzerland
Sion is a town in the canton of Valais, Switzerland, and is the administrative capital of the canton. It was founded at the turn of the century and is considered an important place for historical and geographical research.
The first written mention of Sion as a town dates back to the year 1160, and in 1189 the county became the episcopal principality of Sion. By this time, the town had already prospered to become a politically important and strategic site.
Over the centuries, through destruction, fire and regional power struggles, its population gradually grew and it experienced several periods of development.
Integrated into the Germanic Holy Roman Empire at the beginning of the 11th century, the principality of Sion was at the centre of conflicts between Switzerland and Savoy, between counts, episcopates and local communities, until the creation of the Republic of the Seven Tithings*.
In 1798, the Upper Valais, including Sion, united with the Lower Valais to create a single canton and join the Helvetic Republic.
The construction of the Valère and Tourbillon castles between the 11th and 13th centuries also played a major role in the history of the town and its establishment as the central place of the region.
Origins and development of the town
Sion is an ancient Roman city built around the Castrum Sedunum by Roman legionaries around the year 40. The Latin name is said to have originated with the Seduni a Celtic people who had settled in the Valais since the 1st century BC.
Until the seat of the episcopate was moved to Sion in the 5th century, the town remained in the shadow of the present-day towns of Martigny and Massongex, both of which were located on the axis of the Great St Bernard Pass, a passageway between the Valais and the Aosta Valley since the Neolithic period.
Development and expansion of the town
The arrival of the train in the Rhone Valley from the Lake Geneva port of Bouveret in the 19th century stimulated the development of the town, as it did for Martigny and the other towns on the railway axis. A provisional station was built in 1860 and the final version was completed in 1873.
The establishment and gradual improvement of rail and road links between neighbouring towns and in the valley from Geneva facilitated trade and travel throughout the region.
Since then, Sion has steadily developed its tertiary sector and its tourist capacities, to the detriment of the agricultural sector and in particular the dairy industry, which has seen its importance decline for several decades. Only the wine industry has been able to survive this agricultural decline.
Geography and heritage of Sion in Switzerland
Sion is located in the heart of the Valais, in the southwest of Switzerland. The town is situated at an altitude of 512 metres on the right bank of the river Rhône, for the historic centre, and shares the two banks over the whole of the commune.
Geographical location and climate
Nestled in the valley of the nascent Rhone and protected from the influences of the high peaks of the Alps, the climate is generally temperate throughout the year, with average temperatures varying between 6°C in winter and 19°C in summer.
Location map of the city of Sion in the Swiss Valais:
Physical and natural characteristics
The surrounding landscape is mostly composed of mountains covered by alpine forest, offering an unimaginable variety to admire: impressive rocks and peaks, limpid bodies of water with turquoise reflections, magical valleys invaded by daffodils and thousand-year-old glaciers like the Aletsch.
Important places and monuments
The most visible and most important site of the town is located on the heights of the town, with the castle of Tourbillon and the fortified basilica of Valère.
The castle, dating from the 13th century, is built on the ramparts of the lower town and its magnificent towers dominate the town.
The basilica dates from the 12th century and has been undergoing a complete restoration since 1987.
The Tourbillon and Valère castles, the Sorcerers’ Tower, Notre-Dame de Sion Cathedral with the old town, the Town Hall and the Rue du Grand-Pont, are the places not to be missed during a visit to the town’s heritage.
Culture in Sion, Switzerland
Spoken languages and dialects
The spoken language is French and the regional language, Valaisan, is used. German and Romansh are also spoken in a minority.
Cuisine and gastronomy
Sion offers a wide variety of culinary delights from all over the Valais and Switzerland. Local specialities include rösti potatoes, tartiflettes, fondue of course, but also game (rabbit, venison, etc.), dried meat or Valais rye bread.
As the most important wine-producing region in Switzerland, it is difficult to escape from one of the 60 grape varieties that the Valais has to offer and which the Sion region has been able to take advantage of, for example with the wine tour of the region starting from the city.
Arts, music and entertainment
The artistic culture is very present in Sion. The town has several museums to discover, such as the Valais Art Museum, the History Museum, the Nature Museum and the Fellini Foundation.
The music scene has also developed rapidly in recent years, with numerous concerts and festivals throughout the year, from classical music at PALP to Opéra Viva under the stars.
Discovering the city is an enriching experience thanks to its prolific past and its current dynamics: passing through Sion on a journey along the Rhône River will delight travellers, whether for a short time or for a longer stay.
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1838 HT-81 “Am I Not A Woman & A Sister?” (Image via me)
1893 Columbian Expo Half Dollar. (Image via me)
