1.
Edwin Lord Weeks
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Edwin Lord Weeks was an American artist. Weeks was born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1849 and his parents were affluent spice and tea merchants from Newton, a suburb of Boston, and as such they were able to finance their sons youthful interest in painting and travelling. As a young man Weeks visited the Florida Keys to draw, in 1872 Weeks relocated to Paris, becoming a pupil of Léon Bonnat and Jean-Léon Gérôme. After his studies in Paris, Weeks emerged as one of Americas major painters of Orientalist subjects, throughout his adult life he was an inveterate traveler and journeyed to South America, Egypt and Persia, Morocco, and India. In 1895 Weeks wrote and illustrated a book of travels, From the Black Sea through Persia and India, Weeks died in Paris in November 1903. He was a member of the Légion dhonneur, France, an officer of the Order of St. Michael, Germany, Weeks exhibited his work in nearly every annual Salon. He earned a Medal of Honor in 1884, then a Third Class Medal in 1889, followed by a Gold Medal at the 1889 International Exhibition, and finally the Legion of Honor in 1896. Attribution This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh, ed. Weeks. Edwin Lord Weeks, Hindoo and Moslem, Harpers New Monthly Magazine, Vol.91, comprehensive site with biography, images by the artist, and more. Weeks Gallery at MuseumSyndicate Weeks at the Art Renewal Center Few paintings at a persian website shahrefarang. com
2.
Gulf of Aqaba
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The Gulf of Aqaba or Gulf of Eilat is a large gulf at the northern tip of the Red Sea, east of the Sinai Peninsula and west of the Arabian mainland. Its coastline is divided between four countries, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia, the gulf is east of the Sinai Peninsula and west of the Arabian Peninsula. With the Gulf of Suez to the west, it extends from the portion of the Red Sea. It reaches a depth of 1,850 m in its central area. The gulf measures 24 kilometres at its widest point and stretches some 160 kilometres north from the Straits of Tiran to where Israel meets Egypt, like the coastal waters of the Red Sea, the gulf is one of the worlds premier sites for diving. At this northern end of the gulf are three important cities, Taba in Egypt, Eilat in Israel, and Aqaba in Jordan and they are strategically important commercial ports and popular resorts for tourists seeking to enjoy the warm climate. Further south, Haql is the largest Saudi Arabian city on the gulf, on Sinai, Sharm el-Sheikh and Dahab are the major centers. The largest population center is Aqaba, with a population of 108,000, followed by Eilat with a population of 48,000. The gulf is one of two created by the Sinai Peninsulas bifurcation of the northern Red Sea, the Gulf of Suez lying to the west of the peninsula. Geologically, the forms the southern end of the Dead Sea Transform. It contains three small pull-apart basins, the Elat Deep, Aragonese Deep and Dakar Deep, formed between four left lateral strike-slip fault segments, movement on one of these faults caused the 1995 Gulf of Aqaba earthquake. Trade across the Red Sea between Thebes port of Elim and Elat at the head of the gulf is documented as early as the Fourth Dynasty of Egypt, egyptian settlements near Timna at the head of the gulf date to the Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt. At the northern edge, the ancient city of Ayla was a hub for the Nabateans. The Romans built the Via Traiana Nova, which joined the Kings Highway at Aqaba and connected Africa to Asia, Aqaba was a major Ottoman port, connected to Damascus and Medina by the Hejaz railway. During World War I, the Battle of Aqaba was the key battle that ended a 500-year Ottoman rule over Greater Syria, the gulf is one of the most popular diving destinations in the world. About 250,000 dives are performed annually in Eilats 11 km coastline, the Landscape of Wadi Rum to the east of the northern edge of the gulf is a popular destination. Other destinations are the ruins of the civilization of Ayla in the city of Aqaba. Whales, orcas, dolphins, dugongs, and whale sharks live in the gulf as well
3.
Louis Haghe
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Louis Haghe was a lithographer and watercolour artist. His father and grandfather had practised as architects, training in his teens in watercolour painting, he found work in the relatively new art of lithography when the first press was set up in Tournai. He visited England to find work, and settled permanently in 1823. Together with William Day, around 1830 he formed the partnership Day & Haghe, Day and Haghe created and printed lithographs dealing with a wide range of subjects, such as hunting scenes, architecture, topographical views and genre depictions. They pioneered the new techniques for chromolithography as well as hand-tinted lithographs, after Williams death in 1845, the firm became known as Day & Son. They were pioneers in developing the medium of the printed in colours. In 1838, Day and Haghe were appointed Lithographers to the Queen, possibly his most ambitious project was providing 250 images for David Roberts The Holy Land, Syria, Idumea, Arabia, Egypt & Nubia printed between 1842–9. Roberts praised his skill and artistry, although John Ruskin called it forced and he also painted in oils, which were exhibited at the British Institution. He became president of the New Society of Painters in Water Colours from 1873 to 1884, haghes artistic works were achieved in spite of a deformity in his right hand since birth. He died at Stockwell Road on 9 March 1885 and was buried at West Norwood Cemetery and his younger brother Charles Haghe was employed as an assistant at Day and Haghe, and remained there after Louis left. Michael Twyman, Haghe, Louis, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press,2004 accessed 16 Nov 2007 Catalogue A new map of Texas Works by or about Louis Haghe in libraries
4.
David Roberts (painter)
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David Roberts RA was a Scottish painter. He is especially known for a series of detailed lithograph prints of Egypt. These and his oil paintings of similar subjects made him a prominent Orientalist painter. He was elected as a Royal Academician in 1841, David Roberts was born at Duncans Land, Stockbridge near Edinburgh, the son of John Roberts, a shoemaker, and Christian Richie. At the age of 10, he was apprenticed for seven years to a painter and decorator named Gavin Beugo, his fellow apprentice being David Ramsay Hay. During this time he studied art in the evenings, after his apprenticeship was complete, Robertss first paid job came in the summer 1815, when he moved to Perth to serve as foreman for the redecoration of Scone Palace. Roberts returned in the spring of 1816 and lived with his parents while looking for work and his next job was to paint scenery for James Bannisters circus on North College Street. This was the beginning of his career as a painter and designer of stage scenery, Bannister liked Robertss set designs and on 10 April 1816 engaged him at a salary of 25 shillings per week to travel with the circus on a tour or England. Roberts departed Edinburgh with the later the same month and travelled to Carlisle, Newcastle, Hull and York. During his time with the circus, Roberts was called on to several minor stage roles as a foil for the clowns skits. For the first few months of 1817, Roberts worked as the stage designers assistant at the Pantheon Theatre, Edinburgh, however the Pantheon was a financial failure and closed in May 1817, putting Roberts out of work. He reluctantly returned to painting, working on the mansion house of Abercairny, near Perth. Although he was working from 5 a. m. to 7 p. m. he took the opportunity to sketch in the woods around the mansion in the evening. He followed this up with a stint painting imitation wood and marble at a mansion at Condie, near Bridge of Earn, at the urging of his parents, Roberts returned to Edinburgh in January 1818, where he took employment with John Jackson, a decorative painter. Working for Jackson during 1818, Roberts decorated Lord Lauderdales Dunbar House and then the library of Craigcrook Castle for Lord Jeffrey, in 1818, the Pantheon Theatre reopened in Edinburgh. Initially, a company from London with their own scene painters was in residence, while Corri offered Roberts the position on 25 July 1818, he was already committed to house-painting work for Jackson and was unable to start at the Pantheon until the winter season. As there was no separate painting room, Roberts had to paint sets directly on the stage, therefore, Roberts generally began work after the evening production had finished, working through the night. Robertss work was noticed by the stage-manager, Mr. Monro, after the Pantheon closed, Monro moved on to the Theatre Royal, Glasgow, where he arranged for Roberts to be hired as a principal scene-painter
5.
Persian language
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Persian, also known by its endonym Farsi, is one of the Western Iranian languages within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan and it is mostly written in the Persian alphabet, a modified variant of the Arabic script. Its grammar is similar to that of many contemporary European languages, Persian gets its name from its origin at the capital of the Achaemenid Empire, Persis, hence the name Persian. A Persian-speaking person may be referred to as Persophone, there are approximately 110 million Persian speakers worldwide, with the language holding official status in Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan. For centuries, Persian has also been a cultural language in other regions of Western Asia, Central Asia. It also exerted influence on Arabic, particularly Bahrani Arabic. Persian is one of the Western Iranian languages within the Indo-European family, other Western Iranian languages are the Kurdish languages, Gilaki, Mazanderani, Talysh, and Balochi. Persian is classified as a member of the Southwestern subgroup within Western Iranian along with Lari, Kumzari, in Persian, the language is known by several names, Western Persian, Parsi or Farsi has been the name used by all native speakers until the 20th century. Since the latter decades of the 20th century, for reasons, in English. Tajiki is the variety of Persian spoken in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan by the Tajiks, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, the term Persian as a language name is first attested in English in the mid-16th century. Native Iranian Persian speakers call it Fārsi, Farsi is the Arabicized form of Pārsi, subsequent to Muslim conquest of Persia, due to a lack of the phoneme /p/ in Standard Arabic. The origin of the name Farsi and the place of origin of the language which is Fars Province is the Arabicized form of Pārs, in English, this language has historically been known as Persian, though Farsi has also gained some currency. Farsi is encountered in some literature as a name for the language. In modern English the word Farsi refers to the language while Parsi describes Zoroastrians, some Persian language scholars such as Ehsan Yarshater, editor of Encyclopædia Iranica, and University of Arizona professor Kamran Talattof, have also rejected the usage of Farsi in their articles. The international language-encoding standard ISO 639-1 uses the code fa, as its system is mostly based on the local names. The more detailed standard ISO 639-3 uses the name Persian for the dialect continuum spoken across Iran and Afghanistan and this consists of the individual languages Dari and Iranian Persian. Currently, Voice of America, BBC World Service, Deutsche Welle, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty also includes a Tajik service and an Afghan service. This is also the case for the American Association of Teachers of Persian, The Centre for Promotion of Persian Language and Literature, Persian is an Iranian language belonging to the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European family of languages
6.
Silk Road
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While the term is of modern coinage, the Silk Road derives its name from the lucrative trade in silk carried out along its length, beginning during the Han dynasty. The Han dynasty expanded Central Asian sections of the routes around 114 BCE, largely through missions and explorations of the Chinese imperial envoy. The Chinese took great interest in the safety of their trade products, though silk was certainly the major trade item exported from China, many other goods were traded, as well as religions, syncretic philosophies, and various technologies. Diseases, most notably plague, also spread along the Silk Routes, in addition to economic trade, the Silk Road was a route for cultural trade among the civilizations along its network. The main traders during antiquity included the Chinese, Arabs, Turkmens, Indians, Persians, Somalis, Greeks, Syrians, Romans, Georgians, Armenians, Bactrians, in June 2014, UNESCO designated the Changan-Tianshan corridor of the Silk Road as a World Heritage Site. The Silk Road derives its name from the lucrative Eurasian silk and horse trade, the German terms Seidenstraße and Seidenstraßen were coined by Ferdinand von Richthofen, who made seven expeditions to China from 1868 to 1872. The term Silk Route is also used, although the term was coined in the 19th century, it did not gain widespread acceptance in academia or popularity among the public until the 20th century. The first book entitled The Silk Road was by Swedish geographer Sven Hedin in 1938, the fall of the Soviet Union and Iron Curtain in 1989 led to a surge of public and academic interest in Silk Road sites and studies in the former Soviet republics of Central Asia. Use of the term Silk Road is not without its detractors and he notes that traditional authors discussing East-West trade such as Marco Polo and Edward Gibbon never labelled any route as a silk one in particular. From the 2nd millennium BCE, nephrite jade was being traded from mines in the region of Yarkand, some remnants of what was probably Chinese silk dating from 1070 BCE have been found in Ancient Egypt. The Great Oasis cities of Central Asia played a role in the effective functioning of the Silk Road trade. This style is reflected in the rectangular belt plaques made of gold and bronze, with other versions in jade. The tomb of a Scythian prince near Stuttgart, Germany, dated to the 6th century BCE, was excavated and found to have not only Greek bronzes but also Chinese silks. Scythians accompanied the Assyrian Esarhaddon on his invasion of Egypt, soghdian Scythian merchants played a vital role in later periods in the development of the Silk Road. By the time of Herodotus, the Royal Road of the Persian Empire ran some 2,857 km from the city of Susa on the Karun to the port of Smyrna on the Aegean Sea. It was maintained and protected by the Achaemenid Empire and had postal stations, by having fresh horses and riders ready at each relay, royal couriers could carry messages the entire distance in nine days, while normal travellers took about three months. The next major step in the development of the Silk Road was the expansion of the Greek empire of Alexander the Great into Central Asia and this later became a major staging point on the northern Silk Route. They continued to expand eastward, especially during the reign of Euthydemus, there are indications that he may have led expeditions as far as Kashgar in Chinese Turkestan, leading to the first known contacts between [China and the West around 200 BCE
7.
Economies of scale
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Often operational efficiency is also greater with increasing scale, leading to lower variable cost as well. Economies of scale apply to a variety of organizational and business situations and at levels, such as a business or manufacturing unit. Some economies of scale, such as capital cost of manufacturing facilities and friction loss of transportation, the economic concept dates back to Adam Smith and the idea of obtaining larger production returns through the use of division of labor. Diseconomies of scale are the opposite, Economies of scale often have limits, such as passing the optimum design point where costs per additional unit begin to increase. Common limits include exceeding the nearby raw material supply, such as wood in the lumber, pulp, a common limit for low cost per unit weight commodities is saturating the regional market, thus having to ship product uneconomical distances. Other limits include using energy less efficiently or having a defect rate. Large producers are usually efficient at long runs of a product grade and they will therefore avoid specialty grades even though they have higher margins. Often smaller manufacturing facilities remain viable by changing from commodity grade production to specialty products, the simple meaning of economies of scale is doing things more efficiently with increasing size or speed of operation. Economies of scale often originate with fixed capital, which is lowered per unit of production as design capacity increases, in wholesale and retail distribution, increasing the speed of operations, such as order fulfillment, lowers the cost of both fixed and working capital. Other common sources of economies of scale are purchasing, managerial, financial, marketing, each of these factors reduces the long run average costs of production by shifting the short-run average total cost curve down and to the right. Economies of the scale is a concept that may explain real world phenomena such as patterns of international trade or the number of firms in a market. The exploitation of economies of scale helps explain why companies grow large in some industries, a lone car maker may be profitable, but even more so if they exported cars to global markets in addition to selling to the local market. Economies of scale play a role in a natural monopoly. There is a distinction between two types of economies of scale, internal and external, conversely, an industry exhibits an external economy of scale when costs drop due to the introduction of more firms, thus allowing for more efficient use of specialized services and machinery. Instead, he believes that economies will come from improving the flow of a service, in trying to manage and reduce unit costs, firms often raise total costs by creating failure demand. This law has an effect on the capital cost of such things as buildings, factories, pipelines, ships. In structural engineering, the strength of beams increases with the cube of the thickness, drag loss of vehicles like aircraft or ships generally increases less than proportional with increasing cargo volume, although the physical details can be quite complicated. Therefore, making them larger usually results in fuel consumption per ton of cargo at a given speed
8.
East Asia
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East Asia is the eastern subregion of the Asian continent, which can be defined in either geographical or ethno-cultural terms. Geographically and geopolitically, it includes China, Taiwan, Mongolia, Korea and Japan, it covers about 12,000,000 km2, or about 28% of the Asian continent, the East Asian people comprise more than 1.5 billion people. About 38% of the population of Asia and 22%, or over one fifth, the overall population density of the region is 133 inhabitants per square kilometre, about three times the world average of 45/km2. Historically, societies in East Asia have been part of the Chinese cultural sphere, major religions include Buddhism, Confucianism or Neo-Confucianism, Taoism, Chinese folk religion in China and Taiwan, Shinto in Japan, Korean shamanism in Korea. Shamanism is also prevalent among Mongolians and other populations of northern East Asia. The Chinese calendar is the root from which many other East Asian calendars are derived, Chinese Dynasties dominated the region in matters of culture, trade, and exploration as well as militarily for a very long time. There are records of tributes sent overseas from the kingdoms of Korea. There were also considerable levels of cultural and religious exchange between the Chinese and other regional Dynasties and Kingdoms, as connections began to strengthen with the Western world, Chinas power began to diminish. Around the same time, Japan solidified itself as a nation state, throughout World War II, Korea, Taiwan, much of eastern China, Hong Kong, and Vietnam all fell under Japanese control. Culturally, China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and Vietnam are commonly seen as being encompassed by cultural East Asia, there are mixed debates around the world whether these countries or regions should be considered in East Asia or not. Vietnam Siberia in Russia Sovereignty issues exist over some territories in the South China Sea, however, in this context, the term Far East is often more appropriate which covers ASEAN countries and the countries in East Asia. However, being a Eurocentric term, Far East describes the geographical position in relation to Europe rather than its location within Asia. Alternatively, the term Asia Pacific Region is often used in describing East Asia and this usage, which is seen in economic and diplomatic discussions, is at odds with the historical meanings of both East Asia and Northeast Asia. The Council on Foreign Relations defines Northeast Asia as Japan and Korea, the military and economic superpower of China became the largest economy in the world in 2014, surpassing the United States of America. Currently in East Asia, trading systems are open, and zero or low duties on imports of consumer and capital goods etc. have considerably helped stimulate cost-efficiency. Free and flexible labor and other markets are important factors making for high levels of business-economic performance. East Asian populations have demonstrated highly positive work ethics, there are relatively large and fast-growing markets for consumer goods and services of all kinds. The culture of East Asia has been influenced by the civilisation of China, East Asia, as well as Vietnam, share a Confucian ethical philosophy, Buddhism, political and legal structures, and historically a common writing system
9.
Europe
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Europe is a continent that comprises the westernmost part of Eurasia. Europe is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, yet the non-oceanic borders of Europe—a concept dating back to classical antiquity—are arbitrary. Europe covers about 10,180,000 square kilometres, or 2% of the Earths surface, politically, Europe is divided into about fifty sovereign states of which the Russian Federation is the largest and most populous, spanning 39% of the continent and comprising 15% of its population. Europe had a population of about 740 million as of 2015. Further from the sea, seasonal differences are more noticeable than close to the coast, Europe, in particular ancient Greece, was the birthplace of Western civilization. The fall of the Western Roman Empire, during the period, marked the end of ancient history. Renaissance humanism, exploration, art, and science led to the modern era, from the Age of Discovery onwards, Europe played a predominant role in global affairs. Between the 16th and 20th centuries, European powers controlled at times the Americas, most of Africa, Oceania. The Industrial Revolution, which began in Great Britain at the end of the 18th century, gave rise to economic, cultural, and social change in Western Europe. During the Cold War, Europe was divided along the Iron Curtain between NATO in the west and the Warsaw Pact in the east, until the revolutions of 1989 and fall of the Berlin Wall. In 1955, the Council of Europe was formed following a speech by Sir Winston Churchill and it includes all states except for Belarus, Kazakhstan and Vatican City. Further European integration by some states led to the formation of the European Union, the EU originated in Western Europe but has been expanding eastward since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. The European Anthem is Ode to Joy and states celebrate peace, in classical Greek mythology, Europa is the name of either a Phoenician princess or of a queen of Crete. The name contains the elements εὐρύς, wide, broad and ὤψ eye, broad has been an epithet of Earth herself in the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European religion and the poetry devoted to it. For the second part also the divine attributes of grey-eyed Athena or ox-eyed Hera. The same naming motive according to cartographic convention appears in Greek Ανατολή, Martin Litchfield West stated that phonologically, the match between Europas name and any form of the Semitic word is very poor. Next to these there is also a Proto-Indo-European root *h1regʷos, meaning darkness. Most major world languages use words derived from Eurṓpē or Europa to refer to the continent, in some Turkic languages the originally Persian name Frangistan is used casually in referring to much of Europe, besides official names such as Avrupa or Evropa
10.
Spice trade
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The spice trade refers to the trade between historical civilizations in Asia, Northeast Africa and Europe. Spices such as cinnamon, cassia, cardamom, ginger, pepper and these spices found their way into the Middle East before the beginning of the Christian era, where the true sources of these spices were withheld by the traders and associated with fantastic tales. Kerala, referred to as the land of spices or as the Spice Garden of India, was the place traders and explorers wanted to reach, including Christopher Columbus, Vasco da Gama, the Greco-Roman world followed by trading along the Incense route and the Roman-India routes. During the first millennium, the sea routes to India and Sri Lanka were controlled by the Indians and Ethiopians that became the trading power of the Red Sea. The Kingdom of Axum had pioneered the Red Sea route before the 1st century AD, by mid-7th century AD after the rise of Islam, Arab traders started dominating the maritime routes. Arab traders eventually took over conveying goods via the Levant and Venetian merchants to Europe until the rise of the Ottoman Turks cut the route again by 1453, overland routes helped the spice trade initially, but maritime trade routes led to tremendous growth in commercial activities. The trade was changed by the European Age of Discovery, during which the trade, particularly in black pepper. The Cape Route from Europe to the Indian Ocean via the Cape of Good Hope was pioneered by the Portuguese explorer navigator Vasco da Gama in 1498, there were many different ways that spices were used in antiquity. This trade — driving the economy from the end of the Middle Ages well into the modern times — ushered in an age of European domination in the East. Channels, such as the Bay of Bengal, served as bridges for cultural and commercial exchanges between diverse cultures as nations struggled to control of the trade along the many spice routes. European dominance was slow to develop, the Portuguese trade routes were mainly restricted and limited by the use of ancient routes, ports, and nations that were difficult to dominate. The Dutch were later able to bypass many of these problems by pioneering a direct route from the Cape of Good Hope to the Sunda Strait in Indonesia. The Egyptians had traded in the Red Sea, spices from the Land of Punt, luxury goods traded along the Incense Route included Indian spices, ebony, silk and fine textiles. The spice trade was associated with overland routes early on but maritime routes proved to be the factor which helped the trade grow, the Ptolemaic dynasty had developed trade with India using the Red Sea ports. People from the Neolithic period traded in spices, obsidian, sea shells, precious stones, the first to mention the trade in historical periods are the Egyptians. In the 3rd millennium BC, they traded with the Land of Punt, which is believed to have been situated in an area encompassing northern Somalia, Djibouti, Eritrea, the sea trade was in the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. The sea route in the Red Sea was from Bab-el-Mandeb to Berenike and from there by land to the Nile, the land trade was in deserts of Western Arabia using camels. The Indonesians were trading in spices with East Africa using Catamaran boats, in the second half of the first millennium BC the Arab tribes of South and West Arabia took control over the land trade of spices from South Arabia to the Mediterranean Sea
Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Caravan". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "
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