Sion, Switzerland

Sion (French pronunciation: [sjɔ̃]; German: Sitten pronounced [zɪtən]; Italian: Seduno; Latin Sedunum) is the capital of the Swiss canton of Valais. As of December 2014 it had a population of 33,296. On 17 January 1968 the former municipality of Bramois merged into the municipality of Sion. On 1 January 2013 the former municipality of Salins merged into the municipality of Sion.

Landmarks include the Basilique de Valère and Château de Tourbillon. Sion has an airfield for civilian and military use which serves as a base for countless life-saving air rescue missions.

History

Prehistoric settlement

Sion is one of the most important pre-historic sites in Europe. The alluvial fan of Sionne, the rocky slopes above the river and, to a lesser extent, Valeria and Tourbillon hills have been settled nearly continuously since antiquity. The oldest trace of human settlement comes from 6200 BC during the late Mesolithic. Around 5800 BC early Neolithic farmers from the Mediterranean settled in Sion. The settlements remained small until about 4500 BC, during the middle Neolithic, when the number of settlements increased sharply. To support the population increase, farming and grazing spread throughout the valley. They also began burying their dead in Chablandes-type stone burial cists with engraved anthropomorphic stelae. The individual graves changed at the beginning of the third Millennium BC in large, dry stone wall communal tombs (such as the Dolmen of Le Petit-Chasseur). During the Beaker culture period in the second half of the third Millennium, dolmens were built once again, but they were smaller and had no podium. Stelae continued to be carved, though these were rich with geometric patterns and sometimes built out of old dolmen. At the beginning of the Early Bronze Age (around 2300 BC) the last stelae were erected.

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PLAYLIST TIME:

The King

by: Cydonia

The story tells of the king of the sky,
Creator of dreams
On a big book he used to write,
The destiny of all galaxies
Lost in darkness, in his castle, far in the universe
He knew when the world began,
why life ended up
And the reason why events took place
One flies away on the rainbow or inside life
And one's heart's alive...to run...
When the night falls, he'll dominate
And from his throne, magic he'll spread
Present and future have no difference
For the immortal ones
Prisoner of an impossible task
Of life be knew nothing at all
All that's real, the oceans and stars
Are a fruit of his mind
Every soul is important and dreaming he creates
New lives to lose or win
One flies away on the rainbow or inside life
And one's heart's alive...to run...
When the night falls, he'll dominate
And from his throne, magic he'll spread
A race, as an end, the face, that is aging
Where's the mystery behind the dream
The space, I need to open a door, to know if
Heaven will have my replies
One flies away on the rainbow or inside life
And one's heart's alive...to run...
When the night falls, he'll dominate




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