La Mancha
La Mancha includes portions of the modern provinces of Cuenca and Albacete, and most of the Ciudad Real province. La Mancha historical comarca constitutes the portion of Castilla–La Mancha autonomous community. The name La Mancha is probably derived from the Arab word المنشا al-mansha, the name of the city of Almansa in Albacete has the same origin. The word mancha in Spanish literally means spot, stain, or patch, the largest plain in Spain, La Mancha is made up of a plateau averaging 500 to 600 metres in altitude, centering on the province of Ciudad Real. The region is watered by the Guadiana, Jabalón, Záncara, Cigüela, the climate is cold semi-arid, with strong fluctuations. Farming and cattle raising are the economic activities, but they are severely restricted by the harsh environmental conditions. La Mancha has always been an important agricultural zone, viticulture is important in Tomelloso, Socuéllamos, Valdepeñas and Manzanares, in Ciudad Real and Villarrobledo in Albacete. Other crops include cereals and saffron, sheep are raised and bred, providing the famous Manchego cheese, as are goats, including the La Mancha goat, one of the assumed progenitors of the American La Mancha goat.
La Mancha includes two National Parks, Las Tablas de Daimiel and Cabañeros, and one Natural Park, Las Lagunas de Ruidera, miguel de Cervantes described La Mancha and its windmills in his novel Don Quixote de La Mancha. Cervantes was making fun of the region, using a pun, a mancha was a stain, as on ones honor, several film versions of Don Quixote have actually been filmed largely in La Mancha. However, including the 1957 Russian film version, the 1957 film was shot in Crimea, while Man of La Mancha was filmed in Italy. Pabsts 1933 version of Cervantess novel was shot in Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, the 2000 made-for-TV Don Quixote, starring John Lithgow as Don Quixote and Bob Hoskins as Sancho Panza, was shot on several locations in Spain, but not in La Mancha
Megalith
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 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 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, lions, birds 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, Iran, 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 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
Soil
Soil is a mixture of minerals, organic matter, gases and countless organisms that together support life on Earth. Soil is called the Skin of the Earth and interfaces with the lithosphere, the hydrosphere, the atmosphere, the term pedolith, used commonly to refer to the soil, literally translates ground stone. Soil consists of a phase of minerals and organic matter, as well as a porous phase that holds gases. Accordingly, soils are often treated as a system of solids, liquids. Soil is a product of the influence of climate, organisms, Soil continually undergoes development by way of numerous physical and biological processes, which include weathering with associated erosion. Given its complexity and strong internal connectedness soil has been considered as an ecosystem by soil ecologists. Most soils have a dry bulk density between 1.1 and 1.6 g/cm3, while the particle density is much higher. Little of the soil of planet Earth is older than the Pleistocene and none is older than the Cenozoic, Soil science has two basic branches of study and pedology.
Edaphology is concerned with the influence of soils on living things, pedology is focused on the formation and classification of soils in their natural environment. In engineering terms, soil is referred to as regolith, or loose material that lies above the solid geology. Soil is commonly referred to as earth or dirt, technically, as soil resources serve as a basis for food security, the international community advocates its sustainable and responsible use through different types of soil governance. Soil is a component of the Earths ecosystem. The worlds ecosystems are impacted in far-reaching ways by the carried out in the soil, from ozone depletion and global warming, to rainforest destruction. Following the atmosphere, the soil is the next largest carbon reservoir on Earth, as the planet warms, soils will add carbon dioxide to the atmosphere due to its increased biological activity at higher temperatures. Thus, soil carbon losses likely have a positive feedback response to global warming.
Since soil has a range of available niches and habitats. A gram of soil can contain billions of organisms, belonging to thousands of species, mostly microbial, Soil has a mean prokaryotic density of roughly 108 organisms per gram, whereas the ocean has no more than 107 procaryotic organisms per milliliter of seawater. Since plant roots need oxygen, ventilation is an important characteristic of soil and this ventilation can be accomplished via networks of interconnected soil pores, which absorb and hold rainwater making it readily available for plant uptake
Nuraghe
The nuraghe is the main type of ancient megalithic edifice found in Sardinia, developed during the Nuragic Age between 1900 and 730 BCE. Today it has come to be the symbol of Sardinia and its distinctive culture, more than 7000 nuraghi have been found, though archeologists believe that originally there were not fewer than 10,000. A connection with the Semitic base of Arabic nūr light, the Latin word murus may be related to it, as the old Italian word mora, as used by Dante in his Comedy. However, the derivation, murus–*muraghe–nuraghe is debated, another possible explanation is that Nuraghe came from the name of mythological hero Norax, and the root *nur would be an adaptation of the Indo-European root *nor. Some nuraghes are about 20 meters in height, the tallest one known, Nuraghe Arrubiu, the entrance leads into a corridor, on whose sides are often open niches, that leads to the round chamber. A spiral stone stair, leading to upper floors and/or to a terrace, was built within the thick walls, there are fewer than 7,000 nuraghes still existing in Sardinia, although their number was originally larger.
Nuraghes are most prevalent in the northwest and south-central parts of the island, some of the nuraghes are, located in strategic places – such as hills– from which important passages could be easily controlled. They might have something between a status symbol and a passive defence building, meant to be a deterrent for possible enemies. Nuraghes could have been the symbol of the Nuragic peoples. Small-scale models of nuraghe have often been excavated at religious sites, nuraghes may have just connoted wealth or power, or they may have been an indication that a site had its owners. In 2002, Juan Belmonte and Mauro Zedda measured the entrance orientations of 272 simple nuraghes, the data revealed clear peaks corresponding to orientations pointing to the sunrise at winter solstice and to the Moon at its southernmost rising position. These alignments remained constant throughout the history of nuraghe, the most common declinations revealed were of around −43° for the earlier nuraghes, shifting to just −45½° for the later.
Zedda has suggested that the target is likely a star, quite possibly Alpha Centauri and this type is distinguished by the restorations made in times, supposedly due to a change of the Protonuraghi design, or for other needs. Its the Nuraghe par excellence and represent the most diffused typology, the single tower, of a truncated conical shape, accommodates within itself one or more superimposed chambers, covered by a Tholoi. In addition to the circular rooms, in their inside can be found other smaller environments such as niches. Also called Nuragic royal palaces, the polylobed Nuraghi are the least frequent typology, very elaborate and often designed in a unified manner, constituted veritable fortress with several towers linked by high ramparts, whose function was to protect the central tower. These Megalithic castles were surrounded by walls, sometimes provided with towers. Nuraghes are inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage Site list, other famous nuraghi are near Alghero, Abbasanta, Orroli and Villanovaforru
Iberian Peninsula
The Iberian Peninsula /aɪˈbɪəriən pəˈnɪnsjᵿlə/, known as Iberia /aɪˈbɪəriə/, is located in the southwest corner of Europe. The peninsula is divided between Portugal and Spain, comprising most of their territory. With an area of approximately 582,000 km2, it is the second largest European peninsula, at that time, the name did not describe a single political entity or a distinct population of people. Strabos Iberia was delineated from Keltikē by the Pyrenees and included the land mass southwest of there. The ancient Greeks reached the Iberian Peninsula, of which they had heard from the Phoenicians, hecataeus of Miletus was the first known to use the term Iberia, which he wrote about circa 500 BC. Herodotus of Halicarnassus says of the Phocaeans that it was they who made the Greeks acquainted with. According to Strabo, prior historians used Iberia to mean the country side of the Ἶβηρος as far north as the river Rhône in France. Polybius respects that limit, but identifies Iberia as the Mediterranean side as far south as Gibraltar, elsewhere he says that Saguntum is on the seaward foot of the range of hills connecting Iberia and Celtiberia.
Strabo refers to the Carretanians as people of the Iberian stock living in the Pyrenees, according to Charles Ebel, the ancient sources in both Latin and Greek use Hispania and Hiberia as synonyms. The confusion of the words was because of an overlapping in political, the Latin word Hiberia, similar to the Greek Iberia, literally translates to land of the Hiberians. This word was derived from the river Ebro, which the Romans called Hiberus, hiber was thus used as a term for peoples living near the river Ebro. The first mention in Roman literature was by the annalist poet Ennius in 200 BC. Virgil refers to the Ipacatos Hiberos in his Georgics, the Roman geographers and other prose writers from the time of the late Roman Republic called the entire peninsula Hispania. As they became interested in the former Carthaginian territories, the Romans began to use the names Hispania Citerior. At the time Hispania was made up of three Roman provinces, Hispania Baetica, Hispania Tarraconensis, and Lusitania, Strabo says that the Romans use Hispania and Iberia synonymously, distinguishing between the near northern and the far southern provinces.
Whatever language may generally have been spoken on the peninsula soon gave way to Latin, except for that of the Vascones, the Iberian Peninsula has always been associated with the Ebro, Ibēros in ancient Greek and Ibērus or Hibērus in Latin. The association was so known it was hardly necessary to state, for example. Pliny goes so far as to assert that the Greeks had called the whole of Spain Hiberia because of the Hiberus River, the river appears in the Ebro Treaty of 226 BC between Rome and Carthage, setting the limit of Carthaginian interest at the Ebro. The fullest description of the treaty, stated in Appian, uses Ibērus, with reference to this border, Polybius states that the native name is Ibēr, apparently the original word, stripped of its Greek or Latin -os or -us termination
Marathon, Greece
Marathon is a town in Greece, the site of the battle of Marathon in 490 BC, in which the heavily outnumbered Athenian army defeated the Persians. The tumulus or burial mound of the 192 Athenian dead, called the Soros, the Tymbos is now marked by a marble memorial stele and surrounded by a small park. The name Marathon comes from the herb fennel, called marathon or marathos in Ancient Greek and it is believed that the town was originally named so because of an abundance of fennel plants in the area. After Miltiades defeated Darius Persian forces, the Persians decided to sail from Marathon to Athens in order to sack the unprotected city. Miltiades ordered all his forces to march double time back to Athens. Although the name Marathon had a resonance in Europe in the nineteenth century, for some time that was sullied by the Dilessi murders. The sophist and magnate Herodes Atticus was born in Marathon, in 1926, the American company ULEN began construction on the Marathon Dam in a valley above Marathon, in order to ensure water supply for Athens.
About 10 km² of forested land were flooded to form Lake Marathon, the beach of Schinias is located southeast of the town and it is a popular windsurfing spot and the Olympic Rowing Center for the 2004 Summer Olympics is located there. At the 1896 and 2004 Summer Olympics, Marathon was the point of the marathon races. The area is susceptible to flooding, because of forest fires having denuded parts of the eastern slopes of Mount Penteli especially in 2006.747 km2. The other settlements in the unit are Agios Panteleimonas, Kato Souli, Avra, Ano Souli. Kato Souli Naval Transmission Facility with its 250-metre tall radio mast, the tallest structure in Greece. e-marathon. gr
Dome
A dome is an architectural element that resembles the hollow upper half of a sphere. The precise definition has been a matter of controversy, there are a wide variety of forms and specialized terms to describe them. A dome can rest upon a rotunda or drum, and can be supported by columns or piers that transition to the dome through squinches or pendentives, a lantern may cover an oculus and may itself have another dome. Domes have a long architectural lineage that extends back into prehistory and they have been constructed from mud, stone, brick, metal and plastic over the centuries. The symbolism associated with domes includes mortuary and governmental traditions that have developed over time. Domes have been found from early Mesopotamia, which may explain the forms spread and they are found in Persian, Hellenistic and Chinese architecture in the Ancient world, as well as among a number of contemporary indigenous building traditions. They were popular in Byzantine and medieval Islamic architecture, and there are examples from Western Europe in the Middle Ages.
The Renaissance style spread from Italy in the Early modern period, advancements in mathematics and production techniques since that time resulted in new dome types. The domes of the world can be found over religious buildings, legislative chambers, sports stadiums. The English word dome ultimately derives from the Latin domus —which, up through the Renaissance, labeled a revered house, such as a Domus Dei, or House of God, the French word dosme came to acquire the meaning of a cupola vault, specifically, by 1660. A dome is a rounded vault made of either curved segments or a shell of revolution, sometimes called false domes, corbel domes achieve their shape by extending each horizontal layer of stones inward slightly farther than the lower one until they meet at the top. A false dome may refer to a wooden dome, true domes are said to be those whose structure is in a state of compression, with constituent elements of wedge-shaped voussoirs, the joints of which align with a central point. The validity of this is unclear, as domes built underground with corbelled stone layers are in compression from the surrounding earth, as with arches, the springing of a dome is the level from which the dome rises.
The top of a dome is the crown, the inner side of a dome is called the intrados and the outer side is called the extrados. The haunch is the part of an arch that lies halfway between the base and the top. The word cupola is another word for dome, and is used for a small dome upon a roof or turret. Cupola has used to describe the inner side of a dome. Drums, called tholobates, are cylindrical or polygonal walls with or without windows that support a dome, a tambour or lantern is the equivalent structure over a domes oculus, supporting a cupola
Beehive
A beehive is an enclosed structure in which some honey bee species of the subgenus Apis live and raise their young. Though the word beehive is commonly used to describe the nest of any bee colony, nest is used to discuss colonies which house themselves in natural or artificial cavities or are hanging and exposed. Hive is used to structures used by humans to house a honey bee nest. Several species of Apis live in colonies, but only the honey bee. A bees nest is comparable to a birds nest built with a purpose to protect the dweller, the beehives internal structure is a densely packed group of hexagonal prismatic cells made of beeswax, called a honeycomb. The bees use the cells to store food and to house the brood, Beehives serve several purposes, production of honey, pollination of nearby crops, housing supply bees for apitherapy treatment, and to try to mitigate the effects of colony collapse disorder. In America, hives are commonly transported so that bees can pollinate crops in other areas, a number of patents have been issued for beehive designs.
Honey bees use caves, rock cavities and hollow trees as nesting sites. In warmer climates they may occasionally build exposed hanging nests as pictured, members of other subgenera have exposed aerial combs. The nest is composed of multiple honeycombs, parallel to each other and it usually has a single entrance. Western honey bees prefer nest cavities approximately 45 litres in volume, bees usually occupy nests for several years. The bees often smooth the bark surrounding the nest entrance, honeycombs are attached to the walls along the cavity tops and sides, but small passageways are left along the comb edges. The peanut-shaped queen cells are built at the lower edge of the comb. Bees were kept in hives in Egypt in antiquity. The walls of the Egyptian sun temple of Nyuserre Ini from the 5th Dynasty, dated earlier than 2422 BC, inscriptions detailing the production of honey are found on the tomb of Pabasa from the 26th Dynasty, and describe honey stored in jars, and cylindrical hives. The archaeologist Amihai Mazar cites 30 intact hives that were discovered in the ruins of the city of Rehov and this is evidence that an advanced honey industry existed in Israel, approximately 4,000 years ago.
The beehives, made of straw and unbaked clay, were found in rows, with a total of 150 hives. Ezra Marcus from the University of Haifa said the discovery provided a glimpse of ancient beekeeping seen in texts, an altar decorated with fertility figurines was found alongside the hives and may indicate religious practices associated with beekeeping
Tomb
A tomb is a repository for the remains of the dead. It is generally any structurally enclosed interment space or burial chamber and its central feature is a single, prominent pillar or column, often made of stone. Sarcophagus – a stone container for a body or coffin, often decorated and perhaps part of a monument, sepulchre – a cavernous rock-cut space for interment, generally in the Jewish or Christian faiths. Tumuli are known as barrows, burial mounds, Hügelgräber or kurgans, a cairn, might be originally a tumulus. A long barrow is a tumulus, usually for numbers of burials. As indicated, tombs are located in or under religious buildings, such as churches. However, they may be found in catacombs, on land or, in the case of early or pre-historic tombs. The tomb of Emperor Nintoku is the largest in the world by area, the Pyramid of Khufu in Egypt is the largest by volume
Looting
The term is used in a broader sense to describe egregious instances of theft and embezzlement, such as the plundering of private or public assets by governments. The proceeds of all these activities can be described as booty, plunder, looting by a victorious army during war has been common practice throughout recorded history. For foot soldiers, it was viewed as a way to supplement their meagre income and was part of the celebration of victory. To rob them of their wealth, in other pre-modern societies, objects made of precious metals were the preferred target of war looting, largely because of their easy portability. In many cases looting was an opportunity to obtain treasures that otherwise would not have been obtainable, since the 18th century, works of art have increasingly become a popular target. In the 1930s and even more so during World War II, Nazi Germany engaged in large scale and organized looting of art, combined with poor military discipline, has occasionally been an armys downfall.
In other cases, for example the Wahhabi sack of Karbala, not all looters in wartime are conquerors, the looting of Vistula Land by its retreating defenders in 1915 was among the factors sapping the loyalty of Poland in World War I. Local civilians can take advantage of a breakdown of order to loot public and private property, the novel War and Peace describes widespread looting by Moscows citizens before Napoleons troops enter the town, and looting by French troops elsewhere. Looting can refer to antiquities formerly removed from countries by outsiders, other examples include the obelisks of Pharaoh Amenhotep II, in the, Pharaoh Ptolemy IX. In the aftermath of the Second World War Soviet forces systematically plundered the Soviet occupation zone of Germany and they sent valuable industrial equipment and whole factories to the Soviet Union. Especially during natural disasters, some find themselves forced to take what is not theirs in order to survive. How to respond to this, and where the line between unnecessary looting and necessary scavenging lies, is often a dilemma for governments, in other cases, looting may be tolerated or even encouraged by governments for political or other reasons.
The Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 explicitly prohibits the looting of property during wartime. The Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 obliges military forces not only to avoid destruction of enemy property, theoretically, to prevent such looting, unclaimed property is moved to the custody of the Custodian of Enemy Property, to be handled until the return to its owner. Around the same time of the Hyksos invasion and occupation of Egypt, in Genesis 15,14, the despoliation is an act of justifiable vengeance upon the oppressors of Israel. Yet in Exodus, God uses the plagues as an act of mercy to bring a knowledge of himself to Israel, the Egyptians, and to the ends of the earth. See Hyksos Iconoclasm and Genesis 13,2 and Genesis 15,14 and Exodus 12,36 Following the death of Valentinian III in 455, in 870 AD, the Byzantine city of Melite was captured by the Aghlabids under Sawāda Ibn Muḥammad. The city was destroyed, its churches looted and its population massacred, marble from the citys churches was used to build the castle of Sousse
Mycenae
Mycenae is an archaeological site in Greece, located about 90 kilometres southwest of Athens, in the north-eastern Peloponnese. Argos is 11 kilometres to the south, Corinth,48 kilometres to the north, from the hill on which the palace was located, one can see across the Argolid to the Saronic Gulf. In the second millennium BC, Mycenae was one of the centres of Greek civilization. The period of Greek history from about 1600 BC to about 1100 BC is called Mycenaean in reference to Mycenae, at its peak in 1350 BC, the citadel and lower town had a population of 30,000 and an area of 32 hectares. Although the citadel was built by Greeks, the name Mukanai is thought not to be Greek, legend has it that the name was connected to the Greek word mycēs. Thus, Pausanias ascribes the name to the legendary founder Perseus, the earliest written form of the name is Mykēnē, which is found in Homer. The reconstructed Mycenaean Greek name of the site is Mukānai, which has the form of a plural like Athānai, the change of ā to ē in more recent versions of the name is the result of a well-known sound change in Attic-Ionic.
An EH–MH settlement was discovered near a well on top of the Kalkani hill southwest of the acropolis. The first burials in pits or cist graves manifest in the MH period on the west slope of the acropolis, during the Bronze Age, the pattern of settlement at Mycenae was a fortified hill surrounded by hamlets and estates, in contrast to the dense urbanity on the coast. Richer grave goods mark the burials as possibly regal, mounds over the top contained broken drinking vessels and bones from a repast, testifying to a more than ordinary farewell. A walled enclosure, Grave Circle A, included six more shaft graves, with nine female, eight male, Grave goods were more costly than in Circle B. The presence of engraved and inlaid swords and daggers, with points and arrowheads, leave little doubt that warrior chieftains. Some art objects obtained from the graves are the Silver Siege Rhyton, the Mask of Agamemnon, the Cup of Nestor, Alan Wace divided the nine tholos tombs of Mycenae into three groups of three, each based on architecture.
His earliest – the Cyclopean Tomb, Epano Phournos, and the Tomb of Aegisthus – are dated to LHIIA, burial in tholoi is seen as replacing burial in shaft graves. The care taken to preserve the shaft graves testifies that they were by part of the royal heritage, being more visible, the tholoi all had been plundered either in antiquity, or in historic times. Within these walls, much of which can still be seen, the final palace, remains of which are currently visible on the acropolis of Mycenae, dates to the start of LHIIIA,2. Earlier palaces must have existed, but they had cleared away or built over. The construction of palaces at that time with an architecture was general throughout southern Greece
Troezen
Troezen is a small town and a former municipality in the northeastern Peloponnese, Greece on the Argolid Peninsula. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Troizinia-Methana and it is part of the Islands regional unit. Troezen is located southwest of Athens, across the Saronic Gulf, the seat of the former municipality was in Galatas. Before 2011, Troizina was part of the former Piraeus Prefecture, the municipality had a land area of 190.697 km². Its largest towns and villages are Galatás, Kalloní, Troizína, Taktikoúpoli, Karatzás, Dryópi, Ágios Geórgios, Troezen was where Aethra, daughter of Pittheus, slept with both Aegeus and Poseidon on the same night and fell pregnant with the great Greek hero Theseus. Troezen is the setting of Euripides tragedy Hippolytus, which recounts the story of the son of Theseus who becomes the subject of the love of his stepmother. While fleeing the city, Hippolytus is killed when his chariot is attacked by a bull rising from the sea, other plays on the same subject have been written by Seneca and Jean Racine, which are set in Troezen.
The ancient city possessed a spring that was formed where the winged horse Pegasus once came to ground. A cult built up in the ancient city around the legend of Hippolytus, Troezen girls traditionally dedicated a lock of their hair to him before their marriage. Sybaris in Magna Graecia was a Troezenian colony, before the Battle of Salamis, Athenian women and children were sent to Troezen for safety on the instructions of the Athenian statesman Themistocles. In 1959, a stele was found in a house in Troezen, depicting the Decree of Themistocles. The stele has since been dated to some 200 years after the Battle of Salamis, the temple of Isis was built by the Halicarnassians in Troezen because it was their mother-l city, but the image of Isis was dedicated by the people of Troezen. In the Middle Ages, it was known as Damala and was the seat of a barony of the Principality of Achaea
