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University of Aberdeen
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The University of Aberdeen is a public research university in Aberdeen, Scotland. The university as it is today was formed in 1860 by a merger between Kings College and Marischal College, a university founded in 1593 as a Protestant alternative to the former. Today, Aberdeen is consistently ranked among the top 200 universities in the world and is one of two universities in the city, the other being the Robert Gordon University. The universitys iconic buildings act as symbols of wider Aberdeen, particularly Marischal College in the city centre, there are two campuses, the predominantly utilised Kings College campus dominates the section of the city known as Old Aberdeen, which is approximately two miles north of the city centre. Although the original site of the foundation, most academic buildings were constructed in the 20th century during a period of significant expansion. The universitys Foresterhill campus is next to Aberdeen Royal Infirmary and houses the School of Medicine, Aberdeen has approximately 13,500 students from undergraduate to doctoral level, including many international students. An abundant range of disciplines are taught at the university, with 650 undergraduate degree offered in the 2012-13 academic year. Five Nobel laureates have since associated with Aberdeen. The first principal was Hector Boece, graduate and professor of the University of Paris, despite this founding date, teaching did not start for another ten years, and the University of Aberdeen celebrated 500 years of teaching and learning in 2005. Following the Scottish Reformation in 1560, Kings College was purged of its Roman Catholic staff, George Keith, the fifth Earl Marischal was a moderniser within the college and supportive of the reforming ideas of Peter Ramus. In April 1593 he founded a university in the city. It is also possible the founding of another college in nearby Fraserburgh by Sir Alexander Fraser, Aberdeen was highly unusual at this time for having two universities in one city, as 20th-century University prospectuses observed, Aberdeen had the same number as existed in England at the time. In addition, a university was set up to the north of Aberdeen in Fraserburgh from 1595. Initially, Marischal College offered the Principal of Kings College a role in selecting its academics, Marischal College, in the commercial heart of the city, was quite different in nature and outlook. For example, it was integrated into the life of the city. The two rival colleges often clashed, sometimes in court, but also in brawls between students on the streets of Aberdeen, as the institutions put aside their differences, a process of attempted mergers began in the 17th century. During this time, both colleges made notable contributions to the Scottish Enlightenment. Both colleges supported the Jacobite rebellion and following the defeat of the 1715 rising were largely purged by the authorities of their academics and officials
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England
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England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west, the Irish Sea lies northwest of England and the Celtic Sea lies to the southwest. England is separated from continental Europe by the North Sea to the east, the country covers five-eighths of the island of Great Britain in its centre and south, and includes over 100 smaller islands such as the Isles of Scilly, and the Isle of Wight. England became a state in the 10th century, and since the Age of Discovery. The Industrial Revolution began in 18th-century England, transforming its society into the worlds first industrialised nation, Englands terrain mostly comprises low hills and plains, especially in central and southern England. However, there are uplands in the north and in the southwest, the capital is London, which is the largest metropolitan area in both the United Kingdom and the European Union. In 1801, Great Britain was united with the Kingdom of Ireland through another Act of Union to become the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. In 1922 the Irish Free State seceded from the United Kingdom, leading to the latter being renamed the United Kingdom of Great Britain, the name England is derived from the Old English name Englaland, which means land of the Angles. The Angles were one of the Germanic tribes that settled in Great Britain during the Early Middle Ages, the Angles came from the Angeln peninsula in the Bay of Kiel area of the Baltic Sea. The earliest recorded use of the term, as Engla londe, is in the ninth century translation into Old English of Bedes Ecclesiastical History of the English People. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, its spelling was first used in 1538. The earliest attested reference to the Angles occurs in the 1st-century work by Tacitus, Germania, the etymology of the tribal name itself is disputed by scholars, it has been suggested that it derives from the shape of the Angeln peninsula, an angular shape. An alternative name for England is Albion, the name Albion originally referred to the entire island of Great Britain. The nominally earliest record of the name appears in the Aristotelian Corpus, specifically the 4th century BC De Mundo, in it are two very large islands called Britannia, these are Albion and Ierne. But modern scholarly consensus ascribes De Mundo not to Aristotle but to Pseudo-Aristotle, the word Albion or insula Albionum has two possible origins. Albion is now applied to England in a poetic capacity. Another romantic name for England is Loegria, related to the Welsh word for England, Lloegr, the earliest known evidence of human presence in the area now known as England was that of Homo antecessor, dating to approximately 780,000 years ago. The oldest proto-human bones discovered in England date from 500,000 years ago, Modern humans are known to have inhabited the area during the Upper Paleolithic period, though permanent settlements were only established within the last 6,000 years
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Illuminated manuscript
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An illuminated manuscript is a manuscript in which the text is supplemented with such decoration as initials, borders and miniature illustrations. Comparable Far Eastern and Mesoamerican works are described as painted, islamic manuscripts may be referred to as illuminated, illustrated or painted, though using essentially the same techniques as Western works. This article covers the technical, social and economic history of the subject, for an art-historical account, the earliest surviving substantive illuminated manuscripts are from the period 400 to 600, produced in the Kingdom of the Ostrogoths and the Eastern Roman Empire. The significance of these works lies not only in their inherent artistic and historical value, had it not been for the monastic scribes of Late Antiquity, most literature of Greece and Rome would have perished in Europe. As it was, the patterns of textual survivals were shaped by their usefulness to the severely constricted literate group of Christians, the majority of surviving manuscripts are from the Middle Ages, although many survive from the Renaissance, along with a very limited number from Late Antiquity. The majority of manuscripts are of a religious nature. However, especially from the 13th century onward, a number of secular texts were illuminated. Most illuminated manuscripts were created as codices, which had superseded scrolls, a very few illuminated manuscript fragments survive on papyrus, which does not last nearly as long as vellum or parchment. Most medieval manuscripts, illuminated or not, were written on parchment, beginning in the late Middle Ages manuscripts began to be produced on paper. Illuminated manuscripts continued to be produced in the early 16th century, Manuscripts are among the most common items to survive from the Middle Ages, many thousands survive. They are also the best surviving specimens of medieval painting, indeed, for many areas and time periods, they are the only surviving examples of painting. There are a few examples from later periods, the type of book that was most often heavily and richly illuminated, sometimes known as a display book, varied between periods. In the first millennium, these were most likely to be Gospel Books, such as the Lindisfarne Gospels, the Romanesque period saw the creation of many huge illuminated complete Bibles – one in Sweden requires three librarians to lift it. Many Psalters were also illuminated in both this and the Gothic period. Finally, the Book of Hours, very commonly the personal book of a wealthy layperson, was often richly illuminated in the Gothic period. Other books, both liturgical and not, continued to be illuminated at all periods, the Byzantine world also continued to produce manuscripts in its own style, versions of which spread to other Orthodox and Eastern Christian areas. See Medieval art for other regions, periods and types, reusing parchments by scraping the surface and reusing them was a common practice, the traces often left behind of the original text are known as palimpsests. The Gothic period, which saw an increase in the production of these beautiful artifacts, also saw more secular works such as chronicles
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Bestiary
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A bestiary, or bestiarum vocabulum, is a compendium of beasts. Originating in the Ancient world, bestiaries were made popular in the Middle Ages in illustrated volumes that described various animals, the natural history and illustration of each beast was usually accompanied by a moral lesson. This reflected the belief that the world itself was the Word of God, for example, the pelican, which was believed to tear open its breast to bring its young to life with its own blood, was a living representation of Jesus. The bestiary, then, is also a reference to the language of animals in Western Christian art. Following the Physiologus, Saint Isidore of Seville and Saint Ambrose expanded the religious message with reference to passages from the Bible and they and other authors freely expanded or modified pre-existing models, constantly refining the moral content without interest or access to much more detail regarding the factual content. Nevertheless, the often fanciful accounts of these beasts were widely read, a few observations found in bestiaries, such as the migration of birds, were discounted by the natural philosophers of later centuries, only to be rediscovered in the modern scientific era. Mediaeval bestiaries are remarkably similar in sequence of the animals of which they treat, bestiaries were particularly popular in England and France around the 12th century and were mainly compilations of earlier texts. The Aberdeen Bestiary is one of the best known of over 50 manuscript bestiaries surviving today, bestiaries influenced early heraldry in the Middle Ages, giving ideas for charges and also for the artistic form. Bestiaries continue to give inspiration to coats of arms created in our time, two illuminated Psalters, the Queen Mary Psalter and the Isabella Psalter, contain full Bestiary cycles. The bestiary in the Queen Mary Psalter is found in the decorations that occupy about the bottom quarter of the page. In fact the bestiary has been expanded beyond the source in the Norman bestiary of Guillaume le Clerc to ninety animals, some are placed in the text to make correspondences with the psalm they are illustrating. The Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci also made his own bestiary, a volucrary is a similar collection of the symbols of birds that is sometimes found in conjunction with bestiaries. The most widely known volucrary in the Renaissance was Johannes de Cubas Gart der Gesundheit which describes 122 birds, Medieval bestiaries often contained detailed descriptions and illustrations of species native to Western Europe, exotic animals and what in modern times are considered to be imaginary animals. The description was then followed with an artistic illustration of the animal as described in the bestiary. Bestiaries were organized in different ways based upon the text, the descriptions could be organized by animal groupings, such as terrestrial and marine creatures, or presented in an alphabetical manner. However, the texts gave no distinction between existing and imaginary animals, descriptions of creatures such as dragons, unicorns, basilisk, griffin and caladrius were common in such works and found intermingled amongst accounts of bears, boars, deer, lions, and elephants. This lack of separation has often been associated with the assumption that people during this time believed in what the modern period classifies as nonexistent or imaginary creatures, however, this assumption is currently under debate, with various explanations being offered. To state that the animal in question didnt exist was to defy the truth of the word of the Church, the contents of Medieval bestiaries were often obtained and created from combining older textual sources and accounts of animals, such as the Physiologus, with newer observations and writings
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Royal manuscripts, British Library
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They are still catalogued with call numbers using the prefix Royal in the style Royal MS2. As a collection, the Royal manuscripts date back to Edward IV, the collection was expanded under Henry VIII by confiscations in the Dissolution of the Monasteries and after the falls of Henrys ministers Cardinal Wolsey and Thomas Cromwell. The date and means of entry into the collection can only be guessed at in many if not most cases, now the collection is closed in the sense that no new items have been added to it since it was donated to the nation. Fortunately the collection escaped relatively lightly in the fire of 1731 at Ashburnham House, the Cotton Library was one of the founding collections of the British Museum in 1753, and four years later the Royal collection was formally donated to the new institution by the king. It moved to the new British Library when this was established in 1973, the 9,000 printed books that formed the majority of the Old Royal Library were not kept as a distinct collection in the way the manuscripts were, and are dispersed among the librarys holdings. A few Anglo-Saxon manuscripts owned by royalty have survived after being presented to the church, among them a Gospel Book, VII, given to Christ Church, Canterbury by King Athelstan in the 920s, which probably rejoined the collection at the Dissolution of the Monasteries. However these works are scattered among a variety of libraries, by the late Middle Ages luxury manuscripts would generally include the heraldry of the commissioner, especially in the case of royalty, which is an important means of identifying the original owner. The careful inventories of the French royal library have no English equivalent until a list compiled at Richmond Palace in 1535, by 1340 there were only 18 books left, although this probably did not include Edwards personal books. The wills of Henrys son, Henry V refer to a Biblia Magna, E. IX, with fine historiated initials illuminated in London by several artists from the school of Herman Scheerre of Cologne. A considerable number of texts were left to family members, staff. Two of Henry Vs younger brothers were notable collectors and he also used the dominant English position in France to buy the French royal library of the Louvre, from which a few examples remain in the Royal manuscripts. About fifty of the Royal manuscripts were acquired by Edward IV and he was not a scholarly man, and had to fight his way to the throne after inheriting the Yorkist claim to the throne at the age of eighteen after his father and elder brother died in battle. He reigned from 1461 until 1470, when machinations among the nobles forced a six-month period of exile in Burgundy. He stayed for some of this period in Bruges at the house of Louis de Gruuthuse, a nobleman in the intimate circle of Philip the Good. Philip had the largest and finest library of illuminated manuscripts in Europe, with perhaps 600, in 1470 his library was in its early stages, but must already have been very impressive for Edward. As well as numbers of miniatures, the borders were decorated in increasingly inventive and elaborate fashion. Many of Edwards manuscripts reflected this taste, like that of Philip, his court displayed an increase in ceremonial formality, and interest in chivalry. Most of his books are popular works in French, with several modern and ancient histories
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Palace of Westminster
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The Palace of Westminster is the meeting place of the House of Commons and the House of Lords, the two houses of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Commonly known as the Houses of Parliament after its occupants, the Palace lies on the bank of the River Thames in the City of Westminster. The palace is owned by the monarch in right of the Crown and for ceremonial purposes, the building is managed by committees appointed by both houses, which report to the Speaker of the House of Commons and the Lord Speaker. The first royal palace was built on the site in the 11th century, part of the New Palaces area of 3.24 hectares was reclaimed from the Thames, which is the setting of its nearly 300-metre long façade, called the River Front. Barry was assisted by Augustus Pugin, an authority on Gothic architecture and style. The Palace is one of the centres of political life in the United Kingdom, Westminster has become a metonym for the UK Parliament, the Palace of Westminster has been a Grade I listed building since 1970 and part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1987. The Palace of Westminster site was important during the Middle Ages. Known in medieval times as Thorney Island, the site may have been first-used for a residence by Canute the Great during his reign from 1016 to 1035. St Edward the Confessor, the penultimate Anglo-Saxon monarch of England, Thorney Island and the surrounding area soon became known as Westminster. Neither the buildings used by the Anglo-Saxons nor those used by William I survive, the oldest existing part of the Palace dates from the reign of William Is successor, King William II. The Palace of Westminster was the principal residence in the late Medieval period. The predecessor of Parliament, the Curia Regis, met in Westminster Hall, simon de Montforts parliament, the first to include representatives of the major towns, met at the Palace in 1265. The Model Parliament, the first official Parliament of England, met there in 1295, in 1512, during the early years of the reign of King Henry VIII, fire destroyed the royal residential area of the palace. In 1534, Henry VIII acquired York Place from Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, renaming it the Palace of Whitehall, Henry used it as his principal residence. Although Westminster officially remained a royal palace, it was used by the two Houses of Parliament and by the various law courts. Because it was originally a residence, the Palace included no purpose-built chambers for the two Houses. Important state ceremonies were held in the Painted Chamber which had originally built in the 13th century as the main bedchamber for King Henry III. The House of Commons, which did not have a chamber of its own, the Commons acquired a permanent home at the Palace in St Stephens Chapel, the former chapel of the royal palace, during the reign of Edward VI
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Middle Ages
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In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or Medieval Period lasted from the 5th to the 15th century. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and merged into the Renaissance, the Middle Ages is the middle period of the three traditional divisions of Western history, classical antiquity, the medieval period, and the modern period. The medieval period is subdivided into the Early, High. Population decline, counterurbanisation, invasion, and movement of peoples, the large-scale movements of the Migration Period, including various Germanic peoples, formed new kingdoms in what remained of the Western Roman Empire. In the seventh century, North Africa and the Middle East—once part of the Byzantine Empire—came under the rule of the Umayyad Caliphate, although there were substantial changes in society and political structures, the break with classical antiquity was not complete. The still-sizeable Byzantine Empire survived in the east and remained a major power, the empires law code, the Corpus Juris Civilis or Code of Justinian, was rediscovered in Northern Italy in 1070 and became widely admired later in the Middle Ages. In the West, most kingdoms incorporated the few extant Roman institutions, monasteries were founded as campaigns to Christianise pagan Europe continued. The Franks, under the Carolingian dynasty, briefly established the Carolingian Empire during the later 8th, the Crusades, first preached in 1095, were military attempts by Western European Christians to regain control of the Holy Land from Muslims. Kings became the heads of centralised nation states, reducing crime and violence, intellectual life was marked by scholasticism, a philosophy that emphasised joining faith to reason, and by the founding of universities. Controversy, heresy, and the Western Schism within the Catholic Church paralleled the conflict, civil strife. Cultural and technological developments transformed European society, concluding the Late Middle Ages, the Middle Ages is one of the three major periods in the most enduring scheme for analysing European history, classical civilisation, or Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Modern Period. Medieval writers divided history into periods such as the Six Ages or the Four Empires, when referring to their own times, they spoke of them as being modern. In the 1330s, the humanist and poet Petrarch referred to pre-Christian times as antiqua, leonardo Bruni was the first historian to use tripartite periodisation in his History of the Florentine People. Bruni and later argued that Italy had recovered since Petrarchs time. The Middle Ages first appears in Latin in 1469 as media tempestas or middle season, in early usage, there were many variants, including medium aevum, or middle age, first recorded in 1604, and media saecula, or middle ages, first recorded in 1625. The alternative term medieval derives from medium aevum, tripartite periodisation became standard after the German 17th-century historian Christoph Cellarius divided history into three periods, Ancient, Medieval, and Modern. The most commonly given starting point for the Middle Ages is 476, for Europe as a whole,1500 is often considered to be the end of the Middle Ages, but there is no universally agreed upon end date. English historians often use the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485 to mark the end of the period
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Adam
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Adam is a figure from the Book of Genesis who is also mentioned in the New Testament, the deuterocanonical books, the Quran, the Book of Mormon, and the Book of Iqan. According to the myth of the Abrahamic religions, he was the first human. In the Genesis creation narratives, he was created by God, Christian churches differ on how they view Adams subsequent behavior of disobeying God, and to the consequences that those actions had on the rest of humanity. Christian and Jewish teachings sometimes hold Adam and Eve to a different level of responsibility for the Fall, in addition, Islam holds that Adam was eventually forgiven, while Christianity holds that redemption occurred only later through the sacrifice of Jesus. The Baháí Faith, Islam and some Christian denominations consider Adam to be the first prophet, Adam as a proper name, predates its generic use in Semitic languages. Its earliest known use as a name in historicity is Adamu. Its use as a word in the Hebrew language is ׳āḏām. Coupled with the article, it becomes the human. Its root is not attributed to the Semitic root for man --sh, rather, ׳āḏām is linked to its triliteral root אָדָם, meaning red, fair, handsome. As a masculine noun, adam means man, mankind usually in a context as in humankind. The noun adam is also the form of the word adamah which means ground or earth. It is related to the words, adom, admoni, according to a number of observers, the word Adam derives from Sanskrit word Adima, meaning progenitor, first, primitive in Sanskrit. In the Book of Genesis, the Hebrew word ׳āḏām is often rendered mankind in the most generic sense, the use of mankind in Genesis, gives the reflection that Adam was the ancestor of all men. Kabbalistic works indicate that Adam also comes from the Hebrew word Adame, in the first five chapters of Genesis the word אָדָם is used in all of its senses, collectively, individually, gender nonspecific, and male. According to the Jewish Encyclopedia, its use in Genesis 1 is generic, while in Genesis 2 and Genesis 3 the generic and personal usages are mixed. In Genesis 1,27 adam is used in the sense, whereby not only the individual Adam. Genesis 2,7 is the first verse where Adam takes on the sense of an individual man, the gender distinction of adam is then reiterated in Genesis 5, 1–2 by defining male and female. A recurring literary motif that occurs, is the bond between Adam and the earth, Gods cursing of Adam also results in the ground being cursed, causing him to have to labour for food, and Adam returns to the earth from which he was taken
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Animal
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Animals are multicellular, eukaryotic organisms of the kingdom Animalia. The animal kingdom emerged as a clade within Apoikozoa as the group to the choanoflagellates. Animals are motile, meaning they can move spontaneously and independently at some point in their lives and their body plan eventually becomes fixed as they develop, although some undergo a process of metamorphosis later in their lives. All animals are heterotrophs, they must ingest other organisms or their products for sustenance, most known animal phyla appeared in the fossil record as marine species during the Cambrian explosion, about 542 million years ago. Animals can be divided broadly into vertebrates and invertebrates, vertebrates have a backbone or spine, and amount to less than five percent of all described animal species. They include fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals, the remaining animals are the invertebrates, which lack a backbone. These include molluscs, arthropods, annelids, nematodes, flatworms, cnidarians, ctenophores, the study of animals is called zoology. The word animal comes from the Latin animalis, meaning having breath, the biological definition of the word refers to all members of the kingdom Animalia, encompassing creatures as diverse as sponges, jellyfish, insects, and humans. Aristotle divided the world between animals and plants, and this was followed by Carl Linnaeus, in the first hierarchical classification. In Linnaeuss original scheme, the animals were one of three kingdoms, divided into the classes of Vermes, Insecta, Pisces, Amphibia, Aves, and Mammalia. Since then the last four have all been subsumed into a single phylum, in 1874, Ernst Haeckel divided the animal kingdom into two subkingdoms, Metazoa and Protozoa. The protozoa were later moved to the kingdom Protista, leaving only the metazoa, thus Metazoa is now considered a synonym of Animalia. Animals have several characteristics that set apart from other living things. Animals are eukaryotic and multicellular, which separates them from bacteria and they are heterotrophic, generally digesting food in an internal chamber, which separates them from plants and algae. They are also distinguished from plants, algae, and fungi by lacking cell walls. All animals are motile, if only at life stages. In most animals, embryos pass through a stage, which is a characteristic exclusive to animals. With a few exceptions, most notably the sponges and Placozoa and these include muscles, which are able to contract and control locomotion, and nerve tissues, which send and process signals
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Tiger
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The tiger is the largest cat species, most recognisable for their pattern of dark vertical stripes on reddish-orange fur with a lighter underside. The species is classified in the genus Panthera with the lion, leopard, jaguar, Tigers are apex predators, primarily preying on ungulates such as deer and bovids. They are territorial and generally solitary but social animals, often requiring large contiguous areas of habitat that support their prey requirements and this, coupled with the fact that they are indigenous to some of the more densely populated places on Earth, has caused significant conflicts with humans. Tigers once ranged widely across eastern Eurasia, from the Black Sea in the west, to the Indian Ocean in the south, today, they range from the Siberian taiga to open grasslands and tropical mangrove swamps. The remaining six tiger subspecies have been classified as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, a 2016 global census estimated the population of wild tigers at approximately 3,890 individuals. Major reasons for decline include habitat destruction, habitat fragmentation. The extent of area occupied by tigers is estimated at less than 1,184,911 km2, in 2016, wildlife conservation group at WWF declared that worlds count of wild tigers has risen for the first time in a century. Tigers are among the most recognisable and popular of the charismatic megafauna. They have featured prominently in ancient mythology and folklore, and continue to be depicted in modern films and they appear on many flags, coats of arms, and as mascots for sporting teams. The tiger is the animal of Bangladesh, India, Malaysia. In 1758, Linnaeus described the tiger in his work Systema Naturae, in 1929, the British taxonomist Reginald Innes Pocock subordinated the species under the genus Panthera using the scientific name Panthera tigris. The derivation from Greek pan- and ther may be folk etymology, the specific epithet, tigris, as well as the common name, tiger, come from the Middle English tigre and the Old English tigras, both used for the animal. These derive from the Old French tigre, itself a derivative of the Latin word tigris and the Greek word tigris. The original source may have been the Persian tigra meaning pointed or sharp, the tigers closest living relatives were previously thought to be the lion, leopard and jaguar, all of which are classified under the genus Panthera. The oldest remains of an extinct relative, called Panthera zdanskyi or the Longdan tiger, have been found in the Gansu province of northwestern China. This species is considered to be a taxon to the extant tiger and lived about 2 million years ago. It was smaller than the tiger, being the size of a jaguar. Despite being considered more primitive, the Longdan tiger was functionally and possibly ecologically similar to its modern cousin, as Panthera zdanskyi lived in northwestern China, that may have been where the tiger lineage originated
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Hyena
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Hyenas or hyaenas are any feliform carnivoran mammals of the family Hyaenidae /haɪˈɛnᵻdiː/. With only four extant species, it is the fifth-smallest biological family in the Carnivora, despite their low diversity, hyenas are unique and vital components of most African ecosystems. Both eat food quickly and may store it, and their feet with large, blunt. However, the grooming, scent marking, defecating habits, mating. Spotted hyenas may kill as many as 95% of the animals they eat, generally, hyenas are known to drive off larger predators, like lions, from their kills, despite having a reputation in popular culture for being cowardly. Hyenas are primarily nocturnal animals, but sometimes venture from their lairs in the early-morning hours, with the exception of the highly social spotted hyena, hyenas are generally not gregarious animals, though they may live in family groups and congregate at kills. Hyenas first arose in Eurasia during the Miocene period from viverrid-like ancestors, Although the dog-like hyenas thrived 15 million years ago, they became extinct after a change in climate along with the arrival of canids into Eurasia. Of the dog-like hyena lineage, only the insectivorous aardwolf survived, while the bone-crushing hyenas became the undisputed top scavengers of Eurasia, Hyenas feature prominently in the folklore and mythology of human cultures with which they are sympatric. Hyenas are commonly viewed as frightening and worthy of contempt, and are associated with witchcraft, in some cultures, hyenas are thought to influence people’s spirits, rob graves, and steal livestock and children. Hyenas originated in the jungles of Miocene Eurasia 22 million years ago, the lineage of Plioviverrops prospered, and gave rise to descendants with longer legs and more pointed jaws, a direction similar to that taken by canids in North America. The descendants of Plioviverrops reached their peak 15 million years ago, the doglike hyenas were very numerous, in some Miocene fossil sites, the remains of Ictitherium and other doglike hyenas outnumber those of all other carnivores combined. The decline of the doglike hyenas began 5–7 million years ago during a period of climate change, one species, Chasmaporthetes ossifragus, managed to cross the land bridge into North America, being the only hyena to do so. Chasmopothertes managed to survive for some time in North America by deviating from the cursorial and bone-crushing niches monopolised by canids, most of the doglike hyenas had died off by 1.5 million years ago. By 10–12 million years ago, the family had split into two distinct groups, dog-like hyenas and bone-crushing hyenas. The arrival of the ancestral bone-crushing hyenas coincided with the decline of the similarly built, by 5 million years ago, the bone-crushing hyenas had become the dominant scavengers of Eurasia, primarily feeding on large herbivore carcasses felled by sabre-toothed cats. One genus, Pachycrocuta, was a 200 kg mega-scavenger that could splinter the bones of elephants, with the decline of large herbivores by the late ice age, Pachycrocuta was replaced by the smaller Crocuta. The aardwolf can trace its lineage back to Plioviverrops 15 million years ago. Its success is attributed to its insectivorous diet, for which it faced no competition from canids crossing from North America
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Satyr
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In Greek mythology, a satyr is one of a troop of ithyphallic male companions of Dionysus with goat-like features and often permanent erection. Early artistic representations sometimes include horse-like legs, but in 6th-century BC black-figure pottery human legs are the most common, in Roman Mythology there is a concept similar to satyrs, with goat-like features, the faun, being half-man, half-goat, who roamed the woods and mountains. In myths they are associated with pipe-playing. Greek-speaking Romans often used the Greek term saturos when referring to the Latin faunus, the satyrs chief was Silenus, a minor deity associated with fertility. These characters can be found in the complete remaining satyr play, Cyclops, by Euripides. The satyr play was a short, lighthearted tailpiece performed after each trilogy of tragedies in Athenian festivals honoring Dionysus, there is not enough evidence to determine whether the satyr play regularly drew on the same myths as those dramatized in the tragedies that preceded. The groundbreaking tragic playwright Aeschylus is said to have especially loved for his satyr plays. Mature satyrs are depicted in Roman art with goats horns. As Dionysiac creatures they are lovers of wine and women, because of their love of wine, they are often represented holding wine cups, and they appear often in the decorations on wine cups. Attic painted vases depict mature satyrs as being built with flat noses, large pointed ears, long curly hair. Satyrs often carry the thyrsus, the rod of Dionysus tipped with a pine cone, in earlier Greek art, Silenos appear as old and ugly, but in later art, especially in Hellenistic art, he is softened into a more youthful and graceful aspect. This transformation or humanization of the Satyr appears throughout late Greek art, another example of this shift occurs in the portrayal of Medusa and in that of the Amazon, characters who are traditionally depicted as barbaric and uncivilized. A humanized Satyr is depicted in a work of Praxiteles known as the Resting Satyr, Praxiteles gives a new direction to the satyr in art. Although not mentioned by Homer, in a fragment of Hesiods works satyrs are called brothers of the nymphs and Kuretes. In the Dionysus cult, male followers are known as satyrs, in Attica there was a species of drama dealing with the legends of gods and heroes, and the chorus was composed of satyrs and sileni. In the Athenian satyr plays of the 5th century BC, the chorus commented on the action and this satyric drama burlesqued the serious events of the mythic past with lewd pantomime and subversive mockery. One complete satyr play from the 5th century survives, the Cyclops of Euripides, the Satyr and the Traveller, one of Aesops Fables, features the satyr as the benevolent host for a traveler in the forest in winter. The satyr is bewildered by the claim to be able to blow hot and cold with the same breath, first to warm his hands, then to cool his porridge
