Wat Na Tang Nok (Thai: วัดหน้าต่างนอก, also spelled Wat Natang Nok or Wat Na Tang Nork) is a historic Buddhist temple affiliated with the Mahanikay sect, located in Bang Sai District, Phra Nakhon Si Ayutthaya Province, Thailand. It’s situated in the rural area near Ban Na Mai, surrounded by fields and canals, giving it a peaceful, traditional atmosphere away from the main tourist crowds in central Ayutthaya.
The temple is best known for its association with Luang Pho Jong (Phra Athikan Jong Buddhāsaro), a highly revered monk who served as abbot here. Born in 1872 AD and passing in 1965 AD, Luang Pho Jong was one of Ayutthaya’s most respected masters during the early to mid-20th century. He was renowned for his meditative prowess, protective amulets (especially during the Indochina War era), and sacred objects like wealth-attracting fish motifs. Collectors still seek his amulets today for blessings of protection, wealth, and charisma.
The temple itself features ...
The ancient Greek colony of Byzantium stood at the crossroads of Europe and Asia until 330 AD, when Emperor Constantine the Great refounded it as Constantinople, the new capital of the Roman Empire and a deliberately Christian “Nova Roma.”
For more than a thousand years the city served as the heart of the Eastern Roman, or Byzantine, Empire, its emperors raising churches, forums, cisterns and palaces while defending Roman law and culture. That long continuity ended on 29 May 1453, when Ottoman forces under Mehmed II captured the city and brought the Byzantine Empire to a close.
Near the sea walls stands Little Hagia Sophia, originally the Church of Saints Sergius and Bacchus. Built under Justinian and Theodora in the early sixth century, its octagonal core and ribbed dome already experiment with the spatial ideas later perfected in the great Hagia Sophia.
A short distance inland the Hippodrome once staged the chariot races and public spectacles that defined civic life. Three monuments still...
The Egypt spice market in Istanbul is known as the Spice Bazaar or, in Turkish, Mısır Çarşısı, which translates as the Egyptian Bazaar. It stands in the Eminönü quarter of the Fatih district, immediately adjacent to the New Mosque (Yeni Cami) and close to the Galata Bridge and the shores of the Golden Horn.
After the Grand Bazaar it ranks as the city’s second-largest covered market and has long been celebrated as one of the world’s most important historic centers of the spice trade.
Its origins form part of the larger New Mosque complex, or külliye, a typical Ottoman ensemble in which commercial buildings generated revenue to support a mosque and its charitable institutions.
Construction of the mosque itself began in 1597 under the patronage of Safiye Sultan, the mother of Sultan Mehmed III, but the project stalled after her son’s death in 1603 amid palace politics. The Great Fire of 1660, which devastated large sections of Istanbul, created both the necessity and the opportunity for ...
Wat Pradu Songtham (also rendered as Wat Pradu Songram or earlier forms such as Wat Pradu Rongtham) stands east of the former Ayutthaya city island in the area historically known as Ayothaya or Ayodhaya, adjacent to the sites of Wat Kudi Dao and Wat Chakrawan. The surrounding district shows evidence of settlement long predating King U Thong’s foundation of Ayutthaya in 1351, with Khmer occupation under Suryavarman I of Angkor in the early eleventh century establishing a stronghold linked to Lopburi and naming the place after the sacred Indian city of Ayodhya.
The earliest firm historical references place the monastery firmly within the Ayutthaya kingdom under royal patronage from the reign of King Songtham (1610–1628). The Royal Chronicles of Ayutthaya record that Japanese merchants, angered by the king’s treatment of their community and by the execution of one of their leaders, formed a force of roughly five hundred men and, in alliance with the official Phra Phimon, marched on the palace ...
