1.
Gozo
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Gozo is an island of the Maltese archipelago in the Mediterranean Sea. The island is part of Malta, after the island of Malta itself, it is the second-largest island in the archipelago. Compared to its neighbour, Gozo is more rural and known for its scenic hills. The island of Gozo has long associated with Ogygia, the island home of the nymph Calypso in Homers Odyssey. In that story, Calypso, possessed of supernatural powers. As of March 2015, the island has a population of around 37,342 and it is rich in historic locations such as the Ġgantija temples, which, along with the other Megalithic Temples of Malta, are among the worlds oldest free-standing structures. The island is rural in character and, compared to the main island Malta and it was known for the Azure Window, a natural limestone arch that was a remarkable geological feature, until its collapse in 2017. The island has other notable features, including the Inland Sea. There are many beaches on the island, as well as seaside resorts that are popular with locals and tourists, the most popular being Marsalforn and Xlendi. Gozo is considered one of the top diving destinations in the Mediterranean, Gozo has been inhabited since 5000 BC, when farmers from nearby Sicily crossed the sea to the island. They are thought to have first lived in caves on the outskirts of what is now known as San Lawrenz, the temples name is Maltese for belonging to the giants, because legend in Maltese and Gozitan folklore says the temples were built by giants. Another important Maltese archaeological site in Gozo, which dates back to the period, is the Xagħra Stone Circle. Also, native tradition and certain ancient Greek historians maintain that Gozo is the island Homer described as Ogygia, the island of Gozo was repopulated between 1565 and 1580 by people from mainland Malta, undertaken by the Knights of Malta. The law authorised the Council to raise taxes, although it never made use of this power. In 1971 the Malta Labour Party was voted into office, in the Gozo Civic Council referendum,1973, the overwhelming majority of voters voted for the abolition of the Gozo Civic Council. In the mid-1980s attempts were made to set up a Gozo committee, chaired by the Prime Minister, however, it was only in 1987 that the Ministry of Gozo was set up. Local government in the Gozitan localities was restored with the introduction of Local councils in 1993 with Gozo having 14 councils, the island has its own Latin bishopric, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Gozo, the only suffragan of the Metropolitan Archbishop of Malta. Gozo contains a number of Catholic churches
2.
Malta
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Malta, officially known as the Republic of Malta, is a Southern European island country consisting of an archipelago in the Mediterranean Sea. It lies 80 km south of Italy,284 km east of Tunisia, the country covers just over 316 km2, with a population of just under 450,000, making it one of the worlds smallest and most densely populated countries. The capital of Malta is Valletta, which at 0.8 km2, is the smallest national capital in the European Union, Malta has one national language, which is Maltese, and English as an official language. John, French and British, have ruled the islands, King George VI of the United Kingdom awarded the George Cross to Malta in 1942 for the countrys bravery in the Second World War. The George Cross continues to appear on Maltas national flag, the country became a republic in 1974, and although no longer a Commonwealth realm, remains a member state of the Commonwealth of Nations. Malta was admitted to the United Nations in 1964 and to the European Union in 2004, in 2008, Catholicism is the official religion in Malta. The origin of the term Malta is uncertain, and the modern-day variation derives from the Maltese language, the most common etymology is that the word Malta derives from the Greek word μέλι, meli, honey. The ancient Greeks called the island Μελίτη meaning honey-sweet, possibly due to Maltas unique production of honey, an endemic species of bee lives on the island. The Romans went on to call the island Melita, which can be considered either as a latinisation of the Greek Μελίτη or the adaptation of the Doric Greek pronunciation of the same word Μελίτα. Another conjecture suggests that the word Malta comes from the Phoenician word Maleth a haven or port in reference to Maltas many bays, few other etymological mentions appear in classical literature, with the term Malta appearing in its present form in the Antonine Itinerary. The extinction of the hippos and dwarf elephants has been linked to the earliest arrival of humans on Malta. Prehistoric farming settlements dating to the Early Neolithic period were discovered in areas and also in caves. The Sicani were the tribe known to have inhabited the island at this time and are generally regarded as being closely related to the Iberians. Pottery from the Għar Dalam phase is similar to found in Agrigento. A culture of megalithis temple builders then either supplanted or arose from this early period, the temples have distinctive architecture, typically a complex trefoil design, and were used from 4000 to 2500 BCE. Animal bones and a knife found behind an altar stone suggest that temple rituals included animal sacrifice. Tentative information suggests that the sacrifices were made to the goddess of fertility, the culture apparently disappeared from the Maltese Islands around 2500 BC. Archaeologists speculate that the builders fell victim to famine or disease
3.
Limestone
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Limestone is a sedimentary rock, composed mainly of skeletal fragments of marine organisms such as coral, forams and molluscs. Its major materials are the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of calcium carbonate, about 10% of sedimentary rocks are limestones. The solubility of limestone in water and weak acid solutions leads to karst landscapes, most cave systems are through limestone bedrock. The first geologist to distinguish limestone from dolomite was Belsazar Hacquet in 1778, like most other sedimentary rocks, most limestone is composed of grains. Most grains in limestone are skeletal fragments of organisms such as coral or foraminifera. Other carbonate grains comprising limestones are ooids, peloids, intraclasts and these organisms secrete shells made of aragonite or calcite, and leave these shells behind when they die. Limestone often contains variable amounts of silica in the form of chert or siliceous skeletal fragment, some limestones do not consist of grains at all, and are formed completely by the chemical precipitation of calcite or aragonite, i. e. travertine. Secondary calcite may be deposited by supersaturated meteoric waters and this produces speleothems, such as stalagmites and stalactites. Another form taken by calcite is oolitic limestone, which can be recognized by its granular appearance, the primary source of the calcite in limestone is most commonly marine organisms. Some of these organisms can construct mounds of rock known as reefs, below about 3,000 meters, water pressure and temperature conditions cause the dissolution of calcite to increase nonlinearly, so limestone typically does not form in deeper waters. Limestones may also form in lacustrine and evaporite depositional environments, calcite can be dissolved or precipitated by groundwater, depending on several factors, including the water temperature, pH, and dissolved ion concentrations. Calcite exhibits a characteristic called retrograde solubility, in which it becomes less soluble in water as the temperature increases. Impurities will cause limestones to exhibit different colors, especially with weathered surfaces, Limestone may be crystalline, clastic, granular, or massive, depending on the method of formation. Crystals of calcite, quartz, dolomite or barite may line small cavities in the rock, when conditions are right for precipitation, calcite forms mineral coatings that cement the existing rock grains together, or it can fill fractures. Travertine is a banded, compact variety of limestone formed along streams, particularly there are waterfalls. Calcium carbonate is deposited where evaporation of the leaves a solution supersaturated with the chemical constituents of calcite. Tufa, a porous or cellular variety of travertine, is found near waterfalls, coquina is a poorly consolidated limestone composed of pieces of coral or shells. During regional metamorphism that occurs during the building process, limestone recrystallizes into marble
4.
Megalithic Temples of Malta
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They have been claimed as the oldest free-standing structures on Earth, although the largely buried Göbekli Tepe complex is far older. Archaeologists believe that these complexes are the result of local innovations in a process of cultural evolution. This led to the building of temples of the Ġgantija phase, culminating in the large Tarxien temple complex. After this date, the building culture disappeared. The Ġgantija temples were listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1980, in 1992, the UNESCO Committee further extended the existing listing to include five other megalithic temple sites. These are Ħaġar Qim, Mnajdra, Ta Ħaġrat Temples, Skorba Temples, nowadays, the sites are managed by Heritage Malta, while ownership of the surrounding lands varies from site to site. Apart from these, there are other temples in Malta which are not included in the UNESCO World Heritage list. Many of the used to refer to the different sites carry a link with the stones used for their building. The Maltese word for boulders, ħaġar, is common to Ta’ Ħaġrat, Maltese folklore describes giants as having built the temples, which led to the name Ġgantija, meaning Giants’ tower. The Tarxien temples owe their name to the locality where they were found, the dating and understanding of the various phases of activity in the temples is not easy. The main problem found is that the sites themselves are evolutionary in nature, sir Temi Żammit, an eminent Maltese archaeologist of the late nineteenth century, had dated the Neolithic temples to 2800 BC and the Tarxien Bronze Age culture to 2000 BC. These dates were considered too high by scholars, who proposed a reduction of half a millennium each. However, radiocarbon testing favoured Żammit’s dating, a theory that the temple art was connected with an Aegean-derived culture collapsed with this proof of the temples elder origins. The development of the phases, based on recalibrated radiocarbon dating, has split the period up to the Bronze Age in Malta into a number of phases. The first evidence of habitation in the Neolithic occurred in the Għar Dalam phase. The Temple period, from c.4100 BC to roughly 2500 BC and this period is split into five phases, however the first two of these left mostly pottery shards. The next three phases, starting from the phase, begins in c.3600 BC, and the last. The Ġgantija phase is named after the site in Gozo
5.
Megalith
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A megalith is a large stone that has been used to construct a structure or monument, either alone or together with other stones. The word megalithic describes structures made of large stones without the use of mortar or concrete. For later periods, the monolith, with an overlapping meaning, is more likely to be used. The word megalith comes from the Ancient Greek μέγας and λίθος, megalith also denotes an item consisting of rock hewn in definite shapes for special purposes. It has been used to describe buildings built by people from parts of the world living in many different periods. A variety of stones are seen as megaliths, with the most widely known megaliths not being sepulchral. The construction of these took place mainly in the Neolithic and continued into the Chalcolithic. At a number of sites in eastern Turkey, large ceremonial complexes from the 9th millennium BC have been discovered and they belong to the incipient phases of agriculture and animal husbandry. Large circular structures involving carved megalithic orthostats are a feature, e. g. at Nevalı Çori. Although these structures are the most ancient megalithic structures known so far, at Göbekli Tepe, four stone circles have been excavated from an estimated 20. Some measure up to 30 metres across, as well as human figures, the stones carry a variety of carved reliefs depicting boars, foxes, lions, birds, snakes and scorpions. Dolmens and standing stones have been found in areas of the Middle East starting at the Turkish border in the north of Syria close to Aleppo. They can be encountered in Lebanon, Syria, Iran, Israel, Jordan, the largest concentration can be found in southern Syria and along the Jordan Rift Valley, however they are being threatened with destruction. They date from the late Chalcolithic/Early Bronze Age, megaliths have also been found on Kharg Island and pirazmian in Iran, at Barda Balka in Iraq, and at Jaintapur in Bangladesh. A semicircular arrangement of megaliths was found in Israel at Atlit Yam and it is a very early example, dating from the 7th millennium BC. The most concentrated occurrence of dolmens in particular is in an area on both sides of the Jordan Rift Valley, with greater predominance on the eastern side. They occur first and foremost on the Golan Heights, the Hauran, and in Jordan, in Saudi Arabia, only very few dolmen have been identified so far in the Hejaz. They seem, however, to re-emerge in Yemen in small numbers, the standing stone has a very ancient tradition in the Middle East, dating back from Mesopotamian times
6.
Neolithic
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It ended when metal tools became widespread. The Neolithic is a progression of behavioral and cultural characteristics and changes, including the use of wild and domestic crops, the beginning of the Neolithic culture is considered to be in the Levant about 10, 200–8800 BC. It developed directly from the Epipaleolithic Natufian culture in the region, whose people pioneered the use of wild cereals, which then evolved into true farming. The Natufian period was between 12,000 and 10,200 BC, and the so-called proto-Neolithic is now included in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic between 10,200 and 8800 BC. By 10, 200–8800 BC, farming communities arose in the Levant and spread to Asia Minor, North Africa, Mesopotamia is the site of the earliest developments of the Neolithic Revolution from around 10,000 BC. Early Neolithic farming was limited to a range of plants, both wild and domesticated, which included einkorn wheat, millet and spelt, and the keeping of dogs, sheep. By about 6900–6400 BC, it included domesticated cattle and pigs, the establishment of permanently or seasonally inhabited settlements, not all of these cultural elements characteristic of the Neolithic appeared everywhere in the same order, the earliest farming societies in the Near East did not use pottery. Early Japanese societies and other East Asian cultures used pottery before developing agriculture, unlike the Paleolithic, when more than one human species existed, only one human species reached the Neolithic. The term Neolithic derives from the Greek νέος néos, new and λίθος líthos, stone, the term was invented by Sir John Lubbock in 1865 as a refinement of the three-age system. In the Middle East, cultures identified as Neolithic began appearing in the 10th millennium BC, early development occurred in the Levant and from there spread eastwards and westwards. Neolithic cultures are attested in southeastern Anatolia and northern Mesopotamia by around 8000 BC. The total excavated area is more than 1,200 square yards, the Neolithic 1 period began roughly 10,000 years ago in the Levant. A temple area in southeastern Turkey at Göbekli Tepe dated around 9500 BC may be regarded as the beginning of the period. This site was developed by nomadic tribes, evidenced by the lack of permanent housing in the vicinity. At least seven stone circles, covering 25 acres, contain limestone pillars carved with animals, insects, Stone tools were used by perhaps as many as hundreds of people to create the pillars, which might have supported roofs. Other early PPNA sites dating to around 9500–9000 BC have been found in Jericho, Israel, Gilgal in the Jordan Valley, the start of Neolithic 1 overlaps the Tahunian and Heavy Neolithic periods to some degree. The major advance of Neolithic 1 was true farming, in the proto-Neolithic Natufian cultures, wild cereals were harvested, and perhaps early seed selection and re-seeding occurred. The grain was ground into flour, emmer wheat was domesticated, and animals were herded and domesticated
7.
Religion
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Religions have sacred histories and narratives, which may be preserved in sacred scriptures, and symbols and holy places, that aim mostly to give a meaning to life. Religions may contain symbolic stories, which are said by followers to be true, that have the side purpose of explaining the origin of life. Traditionally, faith, in addition to reason, has considered a source of religious beliefs. There are an estimated 10,000 distinct religions worldwide, about 84% of the worlds population is affiliated with one of the five largest religions, namely Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism or forms of folk religion. With the onset of the modernisation of and the revolution in the western world. The religiously unaffiliated demographic include those who do not identify with any religion, atheists. While the religiously unaffiliated have grown globally, many of the religiously unaffiliated still have various religious beliefs, about 16% of the worlds population is religiously unaffiliated. The study of religion encompasses a variety of academic disciplines, including theology, comparative religion. Theories of religion offer various explanations for the origins and workings of religion, Religion is derived from the Latin religiō, the ultimate origins of which are obscure. One possible interpretation traced to Cicero, connects lego read, i. e. re with lego in the sense of choose, go over again or consider carefully. The medieval usage alternates with order in designating bonded communities like those of monastic orders, we hear of the religion of the Golden Fleece, of a knight of the religion of Avys. In the ancient and medieval world, the etymological Latin root religio was understood as a virtue of worship, never as doctrine, practice. In the Quran, the Arabic word din is often translated as religion in modern translations and it was in the 19th century that the terms Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, and Confucianism first emerged. Max Müller characterized many other cultures around the world, including Egypt, Persia, what is called ancient religion today, they would have only called law. Some languages have words that can be translated as religion, but they may use them in a different way. For example, the Sanskrit word dharma, sometimes translated as religion, throughout classical South Asia, the study of law consisted of concepts such as penance through piety and ceremonial as well as practical traditions. Medieval Japan at first had a union between imperial law and universal or Buddha law, but these later became independent sources of power. There is no equivalent of religion in Hebrew, and Judaism does not distinguish clearly between religious, national, racial, or ethnic identities
8.
Folklore
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Folklore is the body of expressive culture shared by a particular group of people, it encompasses the traditions common to that culture, subculture or group. These include oral traditions such as tales, proverbs and jokes and they include material culture, ranging from traditional building styles to handmade toys common to the group. Folklore also includes customary lore, the forms and rituals of celebrations like Christmas and weddings, folk dances, each one of these, either singly or in combination, is considered a folklore artifact. Just as essential as the form, folklore also encompasses the transmission of these artifacts from one region to another or from one generation to the next, for folklore is not taught in a formal school curriculum or studied in the fine arts. Instead these traditions are passed along informally from one individual to another either through verbal instruction or demonstration, the academic study of folklore is called folkloristics. To fully understand folklore, it is helpful to clarify its component parts and it is well-documented that the term was coined in 1846 by the Englishman William Thoms. He fabricated it to replace the contemporary terminology of popular antiquities or popular literature, the second half of the compound word, lore, proves easier to define as its meaning has stayed relatively stable over the last two centuries. Coming from Old English lār instruction, and with German and Dutch cognates, it is the knowledge and traditions of a particular group, the concept of folk proves somewhat more elusive. When Thoms first created this term, folk applied only to rural, frequently poor, a more modern definition of folk is a social group which includes two or more persons with common traits, who express their shared identity through distinctive traditions. Folk is a concept which can refer to a nation as in American folklore or to a single family. This expanded social definition of folk supports a view of the material, i. e. the lore. These now include all things people make with words, things they make with their hands, Folklore is no longer circumscribed as being chronologically old or obsolete. The folklorist studies the traditional artifacts of a group and how they are transmitted. Transmission is a part of the folklore process. Without communicating these beliefs and customs within the group over space and time, for folklore is also a verb. These folk artifacts continue to be passed along informally, as a rule anonymously, the folk group is not individualistic, it is community-based and nurtures its lore in community. As new groups emerge, new folklore is created… surfers, motorcyclists, in direct contrast to high culture, where any single work of a named artist is protected by copyright law, folklore is a function of shared identity within the social group. Having identified folk artifacts, the professional folklorist strives to understand the significance of these beliefs, customs, for these cultural units would not be passed along unless they had some continued relevance within the group
9.
Vicia faba
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The origin of this legume is obscure, but it had been cultivated in the Middle East for 8,000 years before it spread to Western Europe. Fava beans have been found in the earliest human settlements and they probably originated in the Near East during the Neolithic Age and by the Bronze Age had spread to Northern Italy. They have been found in settlements in Switzerland and in Britain at Glastonbury. Remains are reported to have found in Egyptian tombs. In Egypt, the beans were considered food and were shunned by the upper classes. Fava beans were cultivated by the Egyptians, Greeks and Romans, in ancient Rome, they were used in funeral rites. This once forbidden bean is also related to favism, a genetic deficiency most commonly affecting people of Mediterranean origins, the term fava bean is used in other English-speaking countries such as the United States. Broad bean is the most common name in the United Kingdom, Australia, Vicia faba is a stiffly erect plant 0. 5–1.8 m tall, with stout stems of a square cross-section. The leaves are 10–25 cm long, pinnate with 2–7 leaflets, unlike most other vetches, the leaves do not have tendrils for climbing over other vegetation. The flowers are 1–2.5 cm long, with five petals, the standard petal white, the wing white with a black spot. Crimson-flowered broad beans also exist, which were saved from extinction. The flowers have a strong and sweet scent which is attractive to bees and other pollinators, particularly bumble bees. Each pod contains 3–8 seeds, round to oval and 5–10 mm diameter in the plant, usually flattened and up to 20–25 mm long,15 mm broad. Vicia faba has a chromosome number of 12. Five pairs are acrocentric chromosomes and one pair is metacentric, various agricultural books state that Vicia faba is not a true bean, the sense of the word bean that they implicitly reference is the narrow one restricted solely to the genus Phaseolus. However, the definitions of bean in most general dictionaries include several senses, narrow and wider, Broad beans have a long tradition of cultivation in Old World agriculture, being among the most ancient plants in cultivation and also among the easiest to grow. Along with lentils, peas, and chickpeas, they are believed to have part of the eastern Mediterranean diet around 6000 BC or earlier. They are still often grown as a crop to prevent erosion, because they can overwinter and because as a legume
10.
Apse
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In architecture, an apse is a semicircular recess covered with a hemispherical vault or semi-dome, also known as an Exedra. Smaller apses may also be in other locations, especially shrines, an apse is a semicircular recess covered with a hemispherical vault. Commonly, the apse of a church, cathedral or basilica is the semicircular or polygonal termination to the choir or sanctuary, in relation to church architecture it is generally the name given to where the altar is placed or where the clergy are seated. An apse is occasionally found in a synagogue, e. g. Maoz Haim Synagogue, the apse is separated from the main part of the church by the transept. Smaller apses are sometimes built in other than the east end. The domed apse became a part of the church plan in the early Christian era. In the Eastern Orthodox tradition, the apse is known as diaconicon. Various ecclesiastical features of which the apse may form part are drawn here, The chancel, directly to the east beyond the choir contains the High Altar. This area is reserved for the clergy, and was formerly called the presbytery. Hemi-cyclic choirs, first developed in the East, came to use in France in 470, famous northern French examples of chevets are in the Gothic cathedrals of Amiens, Beauvais and Reims. The word ambulatory refers to an aisle in the apse that passes behind the altar and choir. An ambulatory may refer to the passages that enclose a cloister in a monastery, or to other types of aisles round the edge of a church building
11.
Archaeology
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Archaeology, or archeology, is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, Archaeology can be considered both a social science and a branch of the humanities. In North America, archaeology is considered a sub-field of anthropology, archaeologists study human prehistory and history, from the development of the first stone tools at Lomekwi in East Africa 3.3 million years ago up until recent decades. Archaeology as a field is distinct from the discipline of palaeontology, Archaeology is particularly important for learning about prehistoric societies, for whom there may be no written records to study. Prehistory includes over 99% of the human past, from the Paleolithic until the advent of literacy in societies across the world, Archaeology has various goals, which range from understanding culture history to reconstructing past lifeways to documenting and explaining changes in human societies through time. The discipline involves surveying, excavation and eventually analysis of data collected to learn more about the past, in broad scope, archaeology relies on cross-disciplinary research. Archaeology developed out of antiquarianism in Europe during the 19th century, Archaeology has been used by nation-states to create particular visions of the past. Nonetheless, today, archaeologists face many problems, such as dealing with pseudoarchaeology, the looting of artifacts, a lack of public interest, the science of archaeology grew out of the older multi-disciplinary study known as antiquarianism. Antiquarians studied history with attention to ancient artifacts and manuscripts. Tentative steps towards the systematization of archaeology as a science took place during the Enlightenment era in Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries, in Europe, philosophical interest in the remains of Greco-Roman civilization and the rediscovery of classical culture began in the late Middle Age. Antiquarians, including John Leland and William Camden, conducted surveys of the English countryside, one of the first sites to undergo archaeological excavation was Stonehenge and other megalithic monuments in England. John Aubrey was a pioneer archaeologist who recorded numerous megalithic and other monuments in southern England. He was also ahead of his time in the analysis of his findings and he attempted to chart the chronological stylistic evolution of handwriting, medieval architecture, costume, and shield-shapes. Excavations were also carried out in the ancient towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum and these excavations began in 1748 in Pompeii, while in Herculaneum they began in 1738. The discovery of entire towns, complete with utensils and even human shapes, however, prior to the development of modern techniques, excavations tended to be haphazard, the importance of concepts such as stratification and context were overlooked. The father of archaeological excavation was William Cunnington and he undertook excavations in Wiltshire from around 1798, funded by Sir Richard Colt Hoare. Cunnington made meticulous recordings of neolithic and Bronze Age barrows, one of the major achievements of 19th century archaeology was the development of stratigraphy. The idea of overlapping strata tracing back to successive periods was borrowed from the new geological and paleontological work of scholars like William Smith, James Hutton, the application of stratigraphy to archaeology first took place with the excavations of prehistorical and Bronze Age sites
12.
Wheel
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A wheel is a circular component that is intended to rotate on an axle bearing. The wheel is one of the components of the wheel. Wheels, in conjunction with axles, allow heavy objects to be moved easily facilitating movement or transportation while supporting a load, wheels are also used for other purposes, such as a ships wheel, steering wheel, potters wheel and flywheel. Common examples are found in transport applications, a wheel greatly reduces friction by facilitating motion by rolling together with the use of axles. In order for wheels to rotate, a moment needs to be applied to the wheel about its axis, cognates within Indo-European include Icelandic hjól wheel, tyre, Greek κύκλος kúklos, and Sanskrit chakra, the latter both meaning circle or wheel. The invention of the falls into the late Neolithic. Note that this implies the passage of several wheel-less millennia even after the invention of agriculture and of pottery, precursors of wheels, known as tournettes or slow wheels, were known in the Middle East by the 5th millennium BCE. These were made of stone or clay and secured to the ground with a peg in the center, but required effort to turn. True potters wheels were apparently in use in Mesopotamia by 3500 BCE and possibly as early as 4000 BCE, and the oldest surviving example, which was found in Ur, dates to approximately 3100 BCE. The earliest well-dated depiction of a vehicle is on the Bronocice pot. The oldest securely dated real wheel-axle combination, that from Stare Gmajne near Ljubljana in Slovenia is now dated in 2σ-limits to 3340–3030 BCE, the axle to 3360–3045 BCE. Two types of early Neolithic European wheel and axle are known, a type of wagon construction. They both are dated to c, in China, the wheel was certainly present with the adoption of the chariot in c.1200 BCE, although Barbieri-Low argues for earlier Chinese wheeled vehicles, c.2000 BC. In Britain, a wooden wheel, measuring about 1 m in diameter, was uncovered at the Must Farm site in East Anglia in 2016. The specimen, dating from 1, 100–800 years BCE, represents the most complete, the wheels hub is also present. A horses spine found nearby suggests the wheel may have part of a horse-drawn cart. The wheel was found in a settlement built on stilts over wetland and it is thought that the primary obstacle to large-scale development of the wheel in the Americas was the absence of domesticated large animals which could be used to pull wheeled carriages. The only large animal that was domesticated in the Western hemisphere, Nubians from after about 400 BCE used wheels for spinning pottery and as water wheels
