1.
Herma
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A herma, commonly in English herm, is a sculpture with a head, and perhaps a torso, above a plain, usually squared lower section, on which male genitals may also be carved at the appropriate height. The form originated in Ancient Greece, and was adopted by the Romans, in the earliest times Greek divinities were worshiped in the form of a heap of stones or a shapeless column of stone or wood. In many parts of Greece there were piles of stones by the sides of roads, especially at their crossings, and on the boundaries of lands. The religious respect paid to such heaps of stones, especially at the meeting of roads, is shown by the custom of each passer-by throwing a stone on to the heap or anointing it with oil. Later there was the addition of a head and phallus to the column, before his role as protector of merchants and travelers, Hermes was a phallic god, associated with fertility, luck, roads and borders. The surmounting heads were not, however, confined to those of Hermes, those of gods and heroes. In this case a compound was formed, Hermathena, Hermares, Hermaphroditus, Hermanubis, Hermalcibiades, in Athens, where the hermai were most numerous and most venerated, they were placed outside houses as apotropes for good luck. They would be rubbed or anointed with oil and adorned with garlands or wreaths. This superstition persists, for example the Porcellino bronze boar of Florence, in Roman and Renaissance versions, the body was often shown from the waist up. The form was used for portrait busts of famous public figures, especially writers like Socrates. Sappho appears on Ancient Greek herms, and anonymous female figures were used from the Renaissance on. In 415 BC, on a night shortly before the Athenian fleet was about to set sail for Syracuse during the Peloponnesian War and this was a horribly impious act and many people believed it threatened the success of the expedition. Though it was never proven, the Athenians at the time believed it was the work of saboteurs, either from Syracuse or Spartan sympathizers from Athens itself, one suspect was the writer Xenophon. The J. Paul Getty museum in Los Angeles has a collection of Roman Herma boundary marker stones in its stored collection. An Aesops fable makes fun of statue of Hermes, when a pious dog offers to anoint it, the god hastily assures his worshipper that this is not necessary
2.
Greek terracotta figurines
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Terracotta figurines are a mode of artistic and religious expression frequently found in ancient Greece. These figurines abound and provide a testimony to the everyday life. Modelling is the most common and simplest technique and it is also used for the realization of bronzes, the prototypes are made out of raw clay. The small sizes are directly worked with the hand, for the larger models, the coroplath presses the clay pellets or wads against a wooden restraint. The mould is obtained by application of a bed of clay or plaster on the prototype, simple moulds, used by the Greeks of the continent until the 4th century BC, are simply dried. When the piece becomes complicated, with important projections, the craftsman can cut out the mould in smaller parts, the second phase consists of applying a layer of raw clay inside the mould, which can be incised beforehand in order to obtain effects of relief. The thinness of the layer varies according to the type of object to be realized, the faces of the mould are joined together, the object is then unmoulded, and the craftsman can proceed to the final improvements, typically smoothing the junction. The craftsman also creates an opening, a vent hole that allows steam to escape during the firing. The vent can also be used for assembly, allowing intervention inside the piece, the limbs are then joined to the body either by pasting them with slip, clay mixed with water, or by mortice and tenon joint. The piece is fired in the kiln, with the temperature ranging from 600 to 800 °C. Once the figurine is fired, slip can be applied, the slip is sometimes itself fired at low temperature. In the beginning, the range of colours available was limited, red, yellow, black. From the Hellenistic era on, orange, pink mauve, the pigments are natural mineral dyes, ochre for yellow and red, coal for black, malachite for green, etc. Due to their low cost, the figurines made ideal religious offerings and that is indeed their primary purpose, the decorative aspect coming only later. This explains why the ancient Greek temples host abundant quantities of votive or funerary figurines and these figurines can present identification issues. These attributes make it possible to recognize a particular god in an unquestionable way, moreover, certain types of statuettes correspond to a precise form of worship related to a specific divinity. Sometimes, however, visiting gods complicate matters, these are dedicated to a god who is not of that sanctuary. In addition, the majority of the figurines simply represent a woman upright
3.
Roman Empire
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Civil wars and executions continued, culminating in the victory of Octavian, Caesars adopted son, over Mark Antony and Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC and the annexation of Egypt. Octavians power was then unassailable and in 27 BC the Roman Senate formally granted him overarching power, the imperial period of Rome lasted approximately 1,500 years compared to the 500 years of the Republican era. The first two centuries of the empires existence were a period of unprecedented political stability and prosperity known as the Pax Romana, following Octavians victory, the size of the empire was dramatically increased. After the assassination of Caligula in 41, the senate briefly considered restoring the republic, under Claudius, the empire invaded Britannia, its first major expansion since Augustus. Vespasian emerged triumphant in 69, establishing the Flavian dynasty, before being succeeded by his son Titus and his short reign was followed by the long reign of his brother Domitian, who was eventually assassinated. The senate then appointed the first of the Five Good Emperors, the empire reached its greatest extent under Trajan, the second in this line. A period of increasing trouble and decline began with the reign of Commodus, Commodus assassination in 192 triggered the Year of the Five Emperors, of which Septimius Severus emerged victorious. The assassination of Alexander Severus in 235 led to the Crisis of the Third Century in which 26 men were declared emperor by the Roman Senate over a time span. It was not until the reign of Diocletian that the empire was fully stabilized with the introduction of the Tetrarchy, which saw four emperors rule the empire at once. This arrangement was unsuccessful, leading to a civil war that was finally ended by Constantine I. Constantine subsequently shifted the capital to Byzantium, which was renamed Constantinople in his honour and it remained the capital of the east until its demise. Constantine also adopted Christianity which later became the state religion of the empire. However, Augustulus was never recognized by his Eastern colleague, and separate rule in the Western part of the empire ceased to exist upon the death of Julius Nepos. The Eastern Roman Empire endured for another millennium, eventually falling to the Ottoman Turks in 1453, the Roman Empire was among the most powerful economic, cultural, political and military forces in the world of its time. It was one of the largest empires in world history, at its height under Trajan, it covered 5 million square kilometres. It held sway over an estimated 70 million people, at that time 21% of the entire population. Throughout the European medieval period, attempts were made to establish successors to the Roman Empire, including the Empire of Romania, a Crusader state. Rome had begun expanding shortly after the founding of the republic in the 6th century BC, then, it was an empire long before it had an emperor
4.
British Museum
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The British Museum is dedicated to human history, art and culture, and is located in the Bloomsbury area of London. The British Museum was established in 1753, largely based on the collections of the physician, the museum first opened to the public on 15 January 1759, in Montagu House, on the site of the current building. Although today principally a museum of art objects and antiquities. Its foundations lie in the will of the Irish-born British physician, on 7 June 1753, King George II gave his formal assent to the Act of Parliament which established the British Museum. They were joined in 1757 by the Old Royal Library, now the Royal manuscripts, together these four foundation collections included many of the most treasured books now in the British Library including the Lindisfarne Gospels and the sole surviving copy of Beowulf. The British Museum was the first of a new kind of museum – national, belonging to neither church nor king, freely open to the public, sloanes collection, while including a vast miscellany of objects, tended to reflect his scientific interests. The addition of the Cotton and Harley manuscripts introduced a literary, the body of trustees decided on a converted 17th-century mansion, Montagu House, as a location for the museum, which it bought from the Montagu family for £20,000. The Trustees rejected Buckingham House, on the now occupied by Buckingham Palace, on the grounds of cost. With the acquisition of Montagu House the first exhibition galleries and reading room for scholars opened on 15 January 1759. During the few years after its foundation the British Museum received several gifts, including the Thomason Collection of Civil War Tracts. A list of donations to the Museum, dated 31 January 1784, in the early 19th century the foundations for the extensive collection of sculpture began to be laid and Greek, Roman and Egyptian artefacts dominated the antiquities displays. Gifts and purchases from Henry Salt, British consul general in Egypt, beginning with the Colossal bust of Ramesses II in 1818, many Greek sculptures followed, notably the first purpose-built exhibition space, the Charles Towneley collection, much of it Roman Sculpture, in 1805. In 1816 these masterpieces of art, were acquired by The British Museum by Act of Parliament. The collections were supplemented by the Bassae frieze from Phigaleia, Greece in 1815, the Ancient Near Eastern collection also had its beginnings in 1825 with the purchase of Assyrian and Babylonian antiquities from the widow of Claudius James Rich. The neoclassical architect, Sir Robert Smirke, was asked to draw up plans for an extension to the Museum. For the reception of the Royal Library, and a Picture Gallery over it, and put forward plans for todays quadrangular building, much of which can be seen today. The dilapidated Old Montagu House was demolished and work on the Kings Library Gallery began in 1823, the extension, the East Wing, was completed by 1831. The Museum became a site as Sir Robert Smirkes grand neo-classical building gradually arose
5.
Aphrodite
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Aphrodite is the Greek goddess of love, beauty, pleasure, and procreation. She is identified with the planet Venus, and her Roman equivalent is the goddess Venus, as with many ancient Greek deities, there is more than one story about her origins. According to Hesiods Theogony, she was born when Cronus cut off Uranuss genitals and threw them into the sea, according to Homers Iliad, she is the daughter of Zeus and Dione. In Plato, these two origins are said to be of hitherto separate entities, Aphrodite Ourania and Aphrodite Pandemos, Aphrodite had many lovers—both gods, such as Ares, and men, such as Anchises. She played a role in the Eros and Psyche legend, and was lover and surrogate mother of Adonis. Many lesser beings were said to be children of Aphrodite, Aphrodite is also known as Cytherea and Cypris after the two cult sites, Cythera and Cyprus, which claimed to be her place of birth. Myrtle, roses, doves, sparrows and swans were sacred to her, the ancient Greeks identified her with the Ancient Egyptian goddess Hathor. Aphrodite had many names such as Acidalia and Cerigo, each used by a different local cult of the goddess in Greece. The Greeks recognized all of these names as referring to the single goddess Aphrodite, despite the differences in what these local cults believed the goddess demanded of them. The Attic philosophers of the 4th century, however, drew a distinction between a celestial Aphrodite of transcendent principles, and a separate, common Aphrodite who was the goddess of the people, hesiod derives Aphrodite from aphrós sea-foam, interpreting the name as risen from the foam. Michael Janda, accepting this as genuine, claims the birth myth as an Indo-European mytheme. Likewise, Witczak proposes an Indo-European compound *abʰor- very and *dʰei- to shine and it has been argued that etymologies based on comparison with Eos are unlikely since Aphrodites attributes are entirely different from those of Eos or the Vedic deity Ushas. A number of improbable non-Greek etymologies have suggested in scholarship. One Semitic etymology compares Aphrodite to the Assyrian barīrītu, the name of a demon that appears in Middle Babylonian. Hammarström looks to Etruscan, comparing prϑni lord, an Etruscan honorific loaned into Greek as πρύτανις and this would make the theonym in origin an honorific, the lady. Hjalmar Frisk and Robert Beekes reject this etymology as implausible, especially since Aphrodite actually appears in Etruscan in the borrowed form Apru, the medieval Etymologicum Magnum offers a highly contrived etymology, deriving Aphrodite from the compound habrodíaitos, she who lives delicately, from habrós and díaita. The alteration from b to ph is explained as a characteristic of Greek obvious from the Macedonians. Aphrodite is usually said to have been born near her chief center of worship, Paphos, on the island of Cyprus, however, other versions of her myth have her born near the island of Cythera, hence another of her names, Cytherea
6.
Amathus
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Its ancient cult of Aphrodite was the most important, after Paphos, in Cyprus, her homeland, though the ruins of Amathus are less well-preserved than neighboring Kourion. The pre-history of Amathus mixes myth and archaeology, though there was no Bronze Age city on the site, archaeology has detected human activity that is evident from the earliest Iron Age, c.1100 BC. The citys legendary founder was Cinyras, linked with the birth of Adonis, according to a version of the Ariadne legend noted by Plutarch, Theseus abandoned Ariadne at Amathousa, where she died giving birth to her child and was buried in a sacred tomb. According to Plutarchs source, Amathousians called the grove where her shrine was situated the Wood of Aphrodite Ariadne. More purely Hellenic myth would have Amathus settled instead by one of the sons of Heracles and it was said in antiquity that the people of Amathus were autochthonous, or Pelasgian. Amathus was built on the cliffs with a natural harbor and flourished at an early date. Greeks from Euboea left their pottery at Amathus from the 10th century BC, during the post-Phoenician era of the 8th century BC, a palace was erected and a port was also constructed, which served the trade with the Greeks and the Levantines. A special burial ground for infants, a tophet served the culture of the Phoenicians, the excavators discovered the final stage of the Temple of Aphrodite, also known as Aphrodisias, which dates approximately to the 1st century BC. The earliest remains hitherto found on the site are tombs of the early Iron Age period of Graeco-Phoenician influences, Amathus is identified with Kartihadasti in the Cypriote tribute-list of Esarhaddon of Assyria. Herodotus reports Because he had besieged them, the Amathusians cut off Onesilos’ head and brought it to Amathous, as it hung there empty, a swarm of bees entered it and filled it with honeycomb. The Amathusians did as they were told and still perform these rites in my day and its political importance now ended, but its temple of Adonis and Aphrodite Amathusia remained famous in Roman times. The epithet Amathusia in Roman poetry often means more than Cypriote. The wealth of Amathus was derived partly from its grain partly from its sheep and copper mines, Amathus was a rich and densely populated kingdom with a flourishing agriculture and mines situated very close to the northeast Kalavasos. In the Roman era it became the capital of one of the four regions of Cyprus. Later, in the 4th century AD, Amasus became the see of a Christian bishop, of its bishops, Heliodorus was at the Council of Chalcedon in 451 and Alexander at the Second Council of Nicaea in 787. In the late 6th century, Saint Ioannis Eleimonas, protector of the Knights of St. John, was born in Amathus and after 614 sent Theodorus, bishop of Amathus, anastasius Sinaita, the famous 7th-century prolific monk of Saint Catherines Monastery, was born here. It is thought that he left Cyprus after the 649 Arab conquest of the island, setting out for the Holy Land, anathus declined and was already almost deserted when Richard Plantagenet won Cyprus by a victory there over Isaac Comnenus in 1191. The tombs were plundered and the stones from the beautiful edifices were brought to Limassol to be used for new constructions, much later, in 1869, a great number of blocks of stone from Amathus were used for the construction of the Suez Canal
7.
Cyprus
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Cyprus, officially the Republic of Cyprus, is an island country in the Eastern Mediterranean and the third largest and third most populous island in the Mediterranean. It is located south of Turkey, west of Syria and Lebanon, northwest of Israel and Palestine, north of Egypt, the earliest known human activity on the island dates to around the 10th millennium BC. Archaeological remains from this include the well-preserved Neolithic village of Khirokitia. Cyprus was settled by Mycenaean Greeks in two waves in the 2nd millennium BC, Cyprus was placed under British administration based on Cyprus Convention in 1878 and formally annexed by Britain in 1914. While Turkish Cypriots made up 18% of the population, the partition of Cyprus and creation of a Turkish state in the north became a policy of Turkish Cypriot leaders, following nationalist violence in the 1950s, Cyprus was granted independence in 1960. On 15 July 1974, a coup détat was staged by Greek Cypriot nationalists and elements of the Greek military junta in an attempt at enosis and these events and the resulting political situation are matters of a continuing dispute. The Cyprus Republic has de jure sovereignty over the island of Cyprus, as well as its territorial sea and exclusive economic area, another nearly 4% of the islands area is covered by the UN buffer zone. The international community considers the part of the island as territory of the Republic of Cyprus occupied by Turkish forces. The occupation is viewed as illegal under law, amounting to illegal occupation of EU territory since Cyprus became a member of the European Union. Cyprus is a major tourist destination in the Mediterranean, on 1 January 2008, the Republic of Cyprus joined the eurozone. The earliest attested reference to Cyprus is the 15th century BC Mycenaean Greek
8.
Transvestism
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Transvestism is the practice of dressing and acting in a style or manner traditionally associated with the opposite sex. Though coined as late as the 1910s, the phenomenon is not new and it was referred to in the Hebrew Bible. The word has several changes of meaning since it was first coined and is still used in a variety of senses. Today, the term transvestite is commonly considered outdated and derogatory, Magnus Hirschfeld coined the word transvestite in 1910 to refer to the sexual interest in cross-dressing. He used it to persons who habitually and voluntarily wore clothes of the opposite sex. Hirschfelds group of transvestites consisted of males and females, with heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, and asexual orientations. Hirschfeld himself was not happy with the term, He believed that clothing was only a symbol chosen on the basis of various internal psychological situations. In fact, Hirschfeld helped people to achieve the very first name changes, hirschfelds transvestites therefore were, in todays terms, not only transvestites, but a variety of people from the transgender spectrum. Hirschfeld also noticed that sexual arousal was often associated with transvestism, in more recent terminology, this is sometimes called transvestic fetishism. Hirschfeld also clearly distinguished between transvestism as an expression of a persons contra-sexual feelings and fetishistic behavior, even if the latter involved wearing clothes of the other sex. After all the changes took place during the 1970s, a large group was left without a word to describe themselves. This group was not particularly happy with the term transvestism, in some cultures, transvestism is practiced for religious, traditional or ceremonial reasons. For example, in India some male devotees of the Hindu god Krishna, especially in Mathura and Vrindavan, dress in attire to pose as his consort. In Italy, the Neapolitan femminielli wear wedding dresses, called the matrimonio dei femminielli, a procession takes place through the streets, cogender Drag I Am My Own Wife List of transgender-related topics Transgender Transsexualism Travesti Dual-role transvestism Ackroyd, Peter. Dressing up, transvestism and drag, the history of an obsession, a Brighter Shade of Pink, Magnus Hirschfeld. Transvestism, Transsexualism in the Psychoanalytic Dimension, cherry Single, A Transvestite Comes of Age Alchemist/Light Publishing,1997, ISBN 0-9600650-5-9 Thanem Torkild, Wallenberg Louise. Transvestism and the power of underdoing gender in everyday life and work, the dictionary definition of transvestite at Wiktionary Transvestism at Britannica Online Encyclopædia
9.
Phallus
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A phallus is a penis, especially when erect, an object that resembles a penis, or a mimetic image of an erect penis. Any object that symbolically—or, more precisely, iconically—resembles a penis may also be referred to as a phallus, however, such symbols often represent fertility and cultural implications that are associated with the male sexual organ, as well as the male orgasm. The term is a loanword from Latin phallus, itself borrowed from Greek φαλλός, compare with Old Norse boli bull, Old English bulluc bullock, Greek φαλλή whale. The Hohle phallus, a 28, 000-year-old siltstone phallus discovered in the Hohle Fels cave, in traditional Greek mythology, Hermes, god of boundaries and exchange is considered to be a phallic deity by association with representations of him on herms featuring a phallus. There is no consensus on this depiction and it would be speculation to consider Hermes a type of fertility god. Pan, son of Hermes, was depicted as having an exaggerated erect phallus. Priapus is a Greek god of fertility whose symbol was an exaggerated phallus, the son of Aphrodite and either Dionysus or Adonis, according to different forms of the original myth, he is the protector of livestock, fruit plants, gardens, and male genitalia. His name is the origin of the medical term priapism, the city of Tyrnavos in Greece holds an annual Phallus festival, a traditional phallophoric event on the first days of Lent. The phallus was ubiquitous in ancient Roman culture, particularly in the form of the fascinum, the ruins of Pompeii produced bronze wind chimes that featured the phallus, often in multiples, to ward off the evil eye and other malevolent influences. Statues of Priapus similarly guarded gardens, Roman boys wore the bulla, an amulet that contained a phallic charm, until they formally came of age. According to Augustine of Hippo, the cult of Father Liber, the phallic deity Mutunus Tutunus promoted marital sex. A sacred phallus was among the objects considered vital to the security of the Roman state which were in the keeping of the Vestal Virgins, sexuality in ancient Rome has sometimes been characterized as phallocentric. Evidence of phallic worship in India dates back to prehistoric times, stone Lingams with several varieties of stylized heads, or the glans, are found to this date in many of the old temples, and in museums in India and abroad. The almost naturalistic giant lingam is distinguished by its prominent, bulbous glans, linguistic evidence indicates that the post-Vedic Hindus not only adopted the tradition/ cult of the linga from the pre-Vedic non-Aryans, but even the term itself is of Austric origin. Chakravarti further says that when two words entered Sanskrit, they, along with another word langula were derivations of the same root syllable lang or lng. Stone lingams have been found in several Indus Civilization sites, varying in size from 3 feet in length to very small pieces and these are found to be of steatite, sandstone and burnt clay. Some among these are unmistakably naturalistic in their rendition, Phallic worship was prevalent in India from the Chalcolithic period itself, and it was closely associated with magical rites based religion of that time. The phallus played a role in the cult of Osiris in ancient Egyptian religion, supposedly, Isis made a wooden replacement
10.
Macrobius
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Only in later manuscripts were his names reversed as Ambrosius Theodosius Macrobius, which James Willis then adopted for his edition of the Commentary. Little is known for certain about Macrobius, but there are many theories and he states at the beginning of his Saturnalia that he was born under a foreign sky, and both of his major works are dedicated to his son, Eustachius. His major works have led experts to assume that he was a pagan, which foreign sky Macrobius was born under has been the subject of much speculation. Terrot Glover considers Macrobius either an ethnic Greek, or born in one of the Greek-speaking parts of the Roman Empire, such as Egypt, J. E. Sandys went further and argued that Macrobius was born in one of the Greek provinces. Scholars have attempted to identify him with a Macrobius who is mentioned in the Codex Theodosianus as a prefect of Spain. The Codex Theodosianus also records a praepositus named Macrobius in 422, a number of older authorities go so far as to identify Macrobius the author with the first, and date his floruit to 399–410. Further, Cameron points out that during his lifetime Macrobius was referred to as Theodosius and it is significant that the only surviving law addressed to this Theodosius sanctions a privilege for Africa Proconsularis on the basis of information received concerning Byzacena, Cameron notes. Macrobiuss most influential one of the most widely cited books of the Middle Ages—was a commentary in two books on the Dream of Scipio narrated by Cicero at the end of his Republic. In astronomy, this work is noted for giving the diameter of the Sun as twice the diameter of the Earth. Of a third work On the Differences and Similarities of the Greek and Latin Verb, we possess an abstract by a certain Johannes. See editions by Ludwig von Jan, Franz Eyssenhardt, James Willis, the grammatical treatise will be found in Jans edition and Heinrich Keils Grammatici latini, see also Georg Friedrich Schömann, Commentatio macrobiana. Macrobiuss Saturnalia consists of an account of the held at the house of Vettius Agorius Praetextatus during the holiday of the Saturnalia. It contains a variety of curious historical, mythological, critical, antiquarian. The work takes the form of a series of dialogues among learned men at a fictional banquet. The latter part of the book is taken up with a dissertation upon luxury and the sumptuary laws intended to check it. The seventh book consists largely of the discussion of various physiological questions, the primary value of the work lies in the facts and opinions quoted from earlier writers. Cambridge, MA/ London, Harvard University Press,2011, percival Vaughan Davies, Macrobius, The Saturnalia. New York, Columbia University Press,1969, william Harris Stahl, Macrobius, Commentary on the Dream of Scipio
11.
Moon
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The Moon is an astronomical body that orbits planet Earth, being Earths only permanent natural satellite. It is the fifth-largest natural satellite in the Solar System, following Jupiters satellite Io, the Moon is second-densest satellite among those whose densities are known. The average distance of the Moon from the Earth is 384,400 km, the Moon is thought to have formed about 4.51 billion years ago, not long after Earth. It is the second-brightest regularly visible celestial object in Earths sky, after the Sun and its surface is actually dark, although compared to the night sky it appears very bright, with a reflectance just slightly higher than that of worn asphalt. Its prominence in the sky and its cycle of phases have made the Moon an important cultural influence since ancient times on language, calendars, art. The Moons gravitational influence produces the ocean tides, body tides, and this matching of apparent visual size will not continue in the far future. The Moons linear distance from Earth is currently increasing at a rate of 3.82 ±0.07 centimetres per year, since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972, the Moon has been visited only by uncrewed spacecraft. The usual English proper name for Earths natural satellite is the Moon, the noun moon is derived from moone, which developed from mone, which is derived from Old English mōna, which ultimately stems from Proto-Germanic *mǣnōn, like all Germanic language cognates. Occasionally, the name Luna is used, in literature, especially science fiction, Luna is used to distinguish it from other moons, while in poetry, the name has been used to denote personification of our moon. The principal modern English adjective pertaining to the Moon is lunar, a less common adjective is selenic, derived from the Ancient Greek Selene, from which is derived the prefix seleno-. Both the Greek Selene and the Roman goddess Diana were alternatively called Cynthia, the names Luna, Cynthia, and Selene are reflected in terminology for lunar orbits in words such as apolune, pericynthion, and selenocentric. The name Diana is connected to dies meaning day, several mechanisms have been proposed for the Moons formation 4.51 billion years ago, and some 60 million years after the origin of the Solar System. These hypotheses also cannot account for the angular momentum of the Earth–Moon system. This hypothesis, although not perfect, perhaps best explains the evidence, eighteen months prior to an October 1984 conference on lunar origins, Bill Hartmann, Roger Phillips, and Jeff Taylor challenged fellow lunar scientists, You have eighteen months. Go back to your Apollo data, go back to computer, do whatever you have to. Dont come to our conference unless you have something to say about the Moons birth, at the 1984 conference at Kona, Hawaii, the giant impact hypothesis emerged as the most popular. Afterward there were only two groups, the giant impact camp and the agnostics. Giant impacts are thought to have been common in the early Solar System, computer simulations of a giant impact have produced results that are consistent with the mass of the lunar core and the present angular momentum of the Earth–Moon system
12.
Sacrifice
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Sacrifice is the offering of food, objects or the lives of animals to a higher purpose, in particular divine beings, as an act of propitiation or worship. While sacrifice often implies the ritual killing of an animal, the term offering can be used for bloodless sacrifices of food or artifacts, for offerings of liquids by pouring, the term libation is used. The Latin term sacrificium derived from Latin sacrificus, which combined the concepts sacra, the Latin word sacrificium came to apply to the Christian eucharist in particular, sometimes named a bloodless sacrifice to distinguish it from blood sacrifices. In individual non-Christian ethnic religions, terms translated as sacrifice include the Indic yajna, the Greek thusia, the Germanic blōtan, the term usually implies doing without something or giving something up. But the word also occurs in metaphorical use to describe doing good for others or taking a short-term loss in return for a greater power gain. Scholars such as René Girard have theorized that scapegoating may account for the origins of sacrifice, animal sacrifice is the ritual killing of an animal as part of a religion. It is practiced by adherents of religions as a means of appeasing a god or gods or changing the course of nature. It also served a social or economic function in those cultures where the portions of the animal were distributed among those attending the sacrifice for consumption. Animal sacrifice has turned up in almost all cultures, from the Hebrews to the Greeks and Romans, Ancient Egyptians and it is against their religion for Egyptians to sacrifice animals, except for sheep, bulls, calves, male calves and geese. Animal sacrifice is practiced today by the followers of Santería and other lineages of Orisa as a means of curing the sick. However, in Santeria, such animal offerings constitute a small portion of what are termed ebos—ritual activities that include offerings, prayer. Christians from some villages in Greece also sacrifice animals to Orthodox saints in a known as kourbània. The practice, while publicly condemned, is often tolerated, according to Walter Burkert, a scholar of sacrifice, Greek sacrifices derived from hunting practices. Hunters, feeling guilty for having killed another living being so they could eat and survive, the primary evidence used to suggest this theory is the Dipolieia, which is an Athenian festival, in limited circulation, during which an ox was sacrificed. The protagonist of the ritual was an ox, which it had, at one point. According to his theory, the killer of the ox eased his conscience by suggesting that everybody should participate in the killing of the sacrificial victim. In the expansion of the Athenian state, numerous oxen were needed to feed the people at the banquets and were accompanied by state festivals, the hecatomb became the general designation for the great sacrifices offered by the state. These sacrificial processions of hundreds of oxen remove the original ties, Human sacrifice was practiced by many ancient cultures
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Freese, John Henry (1911). "Aphrodite". In Chisholm, Hugh. Encyclopædia Britannica. 2 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 166.
Freese, John Henry (1911). "
The dictionary definition of Aphroditus at Wiktionary