San Millan

Our class went to the Monastary of San Millan, where the first written Spanish was found. Unfortunately the first written spanish is no longer there, it is in Madrid. We did get to see a few neat things though. For instance this is a thousand year old box that is holding some saints' remains. The little stone carvings are beautifully intriquite, and tell a story of the saints life. Basically the 10th century version of a comic strip.

This is a copy of the first written spanish. Not as cool as the real thing, but still pretty neat.

This is one of the chapels inside of the Monastary. I was blown away by the incredible artwork and sculptures. I loved how it was white as well. Most chapels are very dark.

This is kind of hard to see, but it is a picture overlooking the monastary from up a little higher on the mountain. It was really quite a beautiful place.

This is fuzzy because they wouldn't let us use a flash inside. Those tall book looking things behind me are a bunch of tall books. They are each about three feet tall, and are made out of animal skins. Usually lamb or goat, but occasionally they used dog as well. It takes one skin to make a page. The pages are very ellaborate and have quite a lot of color on them. Good job monks.