1.
Bertel Thorvaldsen
–
Bertel Thorvaldsen was a Danish/Icelandic sculptor of international fame, who spent most of his life in Italy. Thorvaldsen was born in Copenhagen into a Danish/Icelandic family of humble means, working part-time with his father, who was a wood carver, Thorvaldsen won many honors and medals at the academy. He was awarded a stipend to travel to Rome and continue his education, in Rome, Thorvaldsen quickly made a name for himself as a sculptor. Maintaining a large workshop in the city, he worked in a heroic neo-classicist style and his patrons resided all over Europe. Upon his return to Denmark in 1838, Thorvaldsen was received as a national hero, the Thorvaldsen Museum was erected to house his works next to Christiansborg Palace. Thorvaldsen is buried within the courtyard of the museum, in his time, he was seen as the successor of master sculptor Antonio Canova. His strict adherence to classical norms has tended to estrange modern audiences, Thorvaldsen was born in Copenhagen in 1770, the son of Gottskálk Þorvaldsson, an Icelander who had settled in Denmark. Thorvaldsens mother was Karen Dagnes, a Jutlandic peasant girl and his birth certificate and baptismal records have never been found, and the only record is of his confirmation in 1787. Thorvaldsen had claimed descent from Snorri Thorfinnsson, the first European born in America, Thorvaldsens childhood in Copenhagen was humble. His father had a habit that slowed his career. Nothing is known of Thorvaldsens early schooling, and he may have been schooled entirely at home and he never became good at writing, and he never acquired much of the knowledge of fine culture that was expected from an artist. In 1781, by the help of friends, eleven-year-old Thorvaldsen was admitted to Copenhagens Royal Danish Academy of Art first as a draftsman. At night he would help his father in the wood carving, among his professors were Nicolai Abildgaard and Johannes Wiedewelt, who are both likely influences for his later neo-classicist style. At the Academy he was praised for his works and won all the prizes from the small Silver Medal to the large Gold Medal for a relief of St. Peter healing the crippled beggar in 1793. As a consequence, he was granted a Royal stipend, enabling him to complete his studies in Rome. Leaving Copenhagen on August 30 on the frigate Thetis, he landed in Palermo in January 1797 traveled to Naples where he studied for a month before making his entry to Rome on 8 March 1797. Since the date of his birth had never recorded, he celebrated this day as his Roman birthday for the rest of his life. In Rome he lived at Via Sistina in front of the Spanish Steps and had his workshop in the stables of the Palazzo Barberini and he was taken under the wing of Georg Zoëga a Danish archeologist and numismatist living in Rome
Bertel Thorvaldsen
–
Portrait by
Carl Joseph Begas, ca. 1820.
Bertel Thorvaldsen
–
Selfportrait by Thorvaldsen while he was a student at the Royal Academy of Arts
Bertel Thorvaldsen
–
A portrait of Thorvaldsen, by
Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg
Bertel Thorvaldsen
–
Contemporary painting by Fritz Westphal of Thorvaldsen's reception as a national hero on his return to Denmark in 1838.
2.
Muses
–
The Muses are the inspirational goddesses of literature, science, and the arts in Greek mythology. They were considered the source of the knowledge embodied in the poetry, lyric songs and they were later adopted by the Romans as a part of their pantheon. In current English usage, muse can refer in general to a person who inspires an artist, writer, the earliest known records of the Nine Muses are from Boeotia, the homeland of Hesiod. Some ancient authorities thought that the Nine Muses were of Thracian origin, there, a tradition persisted that the Muses had once been three in number. They were again called Melete or Practice, Mneme or Memory, three ancient Muses were also reported in Plutarchs Quaestiones Convivales. According to Pausanias in the second century AD, there were three original Muses, worshiped on Mount Helicon in Boeotia, Aoidḗ, Melétē, and Mnḗmē. Together, these three form the picture of the preconditions of poetic art in cult practice. In Delphi three Muses were worshiped as well, but with other names, Nḗtē, Mésē, and Hýpatē, alternatively they later were called Kēphisṓ, Apollōnís, and Borysthenís, which names characterize them as daughters of Apollo. In later tradition, a set of four Muses were recognized, Thelxinóē, Aoidḗ Archē, one of the people frequently associated with the Muses was Pierus. By some he was called the father of a total of seven Muses, called Neilṓ, Tritṓnē, Asōpṓ, Heptápora, Achelōís, Tipoplṓ, and Rhodía. According to Hesiods Theogony, they were daughters of Zeus, the second king of the gods. For Alcman and Mimnermus, they were even more primordial, springing from the deities, Uranus. Sometimes the Muses are referred to as water nymphs, associated with the springs of Helicon and it was said that the winged horse Pegasus touched his hooves to the ground on Helicon, causing four sacred springs to burst forth, from which the muses were born. Athena later tamed the horse and presented him to the muses, classical writers set Apollo as their leader, Apollon Mousagetēs. In one myth, the Muses judged a contest between Apollo and Marsyas and they also gathered the pieces of the dead body of Orpheus, son of Calliope, and buried them. In a later myth, Thamyris challenged them to a singing contest and they won and punished Thamyris by blinding him and robbing him of his singing ability. He thus challenged the Muses to a match, resulting in his daughters, Pausanias records a tradition of two generations of Muses, the first are the daughters of Uranus and Gaia, the second of Zeus and Mnemosyne. Another, rarer genealogy is that they are daughters of Harmonia, some Greek writers give the names of the nine Muses as Kallichore, Helike, Eunike, Thelxinoë, Terpsichore, Euterpe, Eukelade, Dia, and Enope
Muses
–
The nine muses —
Clio,
Thalia,
Erato,
Euterpe,
Polyhymnia,
Calliope,
Terpsichore,
Urania, and
Melpomene — on a Roman
sarcophagus (2nd century AD, from the
Louvre)
Muses
–
Muse reading a scroll, perhaps
Clio (Attic red-figure
lekythos, Boeotia c. 435–425 BC)
Muses
–
Gustave Moreau, Hesiod and the Muse (1891)—
Musée d'Orsay, Paris
Muses
–
Polyhymnia, the Muse of sacred
poetry, sacred
hymn and
eloquence as well as agriculture and
pantomime.
3.
Greek language
–
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, native to Greece and other parts of the Eastern Mediterranean. It has the longest documented history of any living language, spanning 34 centuries of written records and its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the major part of its history, other systems, such as Linear B and the Cypriot syllabary, were used previously. The alphabet arose from the Phoenician script and was in turn the basis of the Latin, Cyrillic, Armenian, Coptic, Gothic and many other writing systems. Together with the Latin texts and traditions of the Roman world, during antiquity, Greek was a widely spoken lingua franca in the Mediterranean world and many places beyond. It would eventually become the official parlance of the Byzantine Empire, the language is spoken by at least 13.2 million people today in Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Albania, Turkey, and the Greek diaspora. Greek roots are used to coin new words for other languages, Greek. Greek has been spoken in the Balkan peninsula since around the 3rd millennium BC, the earliest written evidence is a Linear B clay tablet found in Messenia that dates to between 1450 and 1350 BC, making Greek the worlds oldest recorded living language. Among the Indo-European languages, its date of earliest written attestation is matched only by the now extinct Anatolian languages, the Greek language is conventionally divided into the following periods, Proto-Greek, the unrecorded but assumed last ancestor of all known varieties of Greek. The unity of Proto-Greek would have ended as Hellenic migrants entered the Greek peninsula sometime in the Neolithic era or the Bronze Age, Mycenaean Greek, the language of the Mycenaean civilisation. It is recorded in the Linear B script on tablets dating from the 15th century BC onwards, Ancient Greek, in its various dialects, the language of the Archaic and Classical periods of the ancient Greek civilisation. It was widely known throughout the Roman Empire, after the Roman conquest of Greece, an unofficial bilingualism of Greek and Latin was established in the city of Rome and Koine Greek became a first or second language in the Roman Empire. The origin of Christianity can also be traced through Koine Greek, Medieval Greek, also known as Byzantine Greek, the continuation of Koine Greek in Byzantine Greece, up to the demise of the Byzantine Empire in the 15th century. Much of the written Greek that was used as the language of the Byzantine Empire was an eclectic middle-ground variety based on the tradition of written Koine. Modern Greek, Stemming from Medieval Greek, Modern Greek usages can be traced in the Byzantine period and it is the language used by the modern Greeks, and, apart from Standard Modern Greek, there are several dialects of it. In the modern era, the Greek language entered a state of diglossia, the historical unity and continuing identity between the various stages of the Greek language is often emphasised. Greek speakers today still tend to regard literary works of ancient Greek as part of their own rather than a foreign language and it is also often stated that the historical changes have been relatively slight compared with some other languages. According to one estimation, Homeric Greek is probably closer to demotic than 12-century Middle English is to modern spoken English, Greek is spoken by about 13 million people, mainly in Greece, Albania and Cyprus, but also worldwide by the large Greek diaspora. Greek is the language of Greece, where it is spoken by almost the entire population
Greek language
–
Idealized portrayal of
Homer
Greek language
–
regions where Greek is the official language
Greek language
–
Greek language road sign, A27 Motorway, Greece
4.
Greeks
–
The Greeks or Hellenes are an ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus, southern Albania, Turkey, Sicily, Egypt and, to a lesser extent, other countries surrounding the Mediterranean Sea. They also form a significant diaspora, with Greek communities established around the world, many of these regions coincided to a large extent with the borders of the Byzantine Empire of the late 11th century and the Eastern Mediterranean areas of ancient Greek colonization. The cultural centers of the Greeks have included Athens, Thessalonica, Alexandria, Smyrna, most ethnic Greeks live nowadays within the borders of the modern Greek state and Cyprus. The Greek genocide and population exchange between Greece and Turkey nearly ended the three millennia-old Greek presence in Asia Minor, other longstanding Greek populations can be found from southern Italy to the Caucasus and southern Russia and Ukraine and in the Greek diaspora communities in a number of other countries. Today, most Greeks are officially registered as members of the Greek Orthodox Church, the Greeks speak the Greek language, which forms its own unique branch within the Indo-European family of languages, the Hellenic. They are part of a group of ethnicities, described by Anthony D. Smith as an archetypal diaspora people. Both migrations occur at incisive periods, the Mycenaean at the transition to the Late Bronze Age, the Mycenaeans quickly penetrated the Aegean Sea and, by the 15th century BC, had reached Rhodes, Crete, Cyprus and the shores of Asia Minor. Around 1200 BC, the Dorians, another Greek-speaking people, followed from Epirus, the Dorian invasion was followed by a poorly attested period of migrations, appropriately called the Greek Dark Ages, but by 800 BC the landscape of Archaic and Classical Greece was discernible. The Greeks of classical antiquity idealized their Mycenaean ancestors and the Mycenaean period as an era of heroes, closeness of the gods. The Homeric Epics were especially and generally accepted as part of the Greek past, as part of the Mycenaean heritage that survived, the names of the gods and goddesses of Mycenaean Greece became major figures of the Olympian Pantheon of later antiquity. The ethnogenesis of the Greek nation is linked to the development of Pan-Hellenism in the 8th century BC, the works of Homer and Hesiod were written in the 8th century BC, becoming the basis of the national religion, ethos, history and mythology. The Oracle of Apollo at Delphi was established in this period, the classical period of Greek civilization covers a time spanning from the early 5th century BC to the death of Alexander the Great, in 323 BC. It is so named because it set the standards by which Greek civilization would be judged in later eras, the Peloponnesian War, the large scale civil war between the two most powerful Greek city-states Athens and Sparta and their allies, left both greatly weakened. Many Greeks settled in Hellenistic cities like Alexandria, Antioch and Seleucia, two thousand years later, there are still communities in Pakistan and Afghanistan, like the Kalash, who claim to be descended from Greek settlers. The Hellenistic civilization was the period of Greek civilization, the beginnings of which are usually placed at Alexanders death. This Hellenistic age, so called because it saw the partial Hellenization of many non-Greek cultures and this age saw the Greeks move towards larger cities and a reduction in the importance of the city-state. These larger cities were parts of the still larger Kingdoms of the Diadochi, Greeks, however, remained aware of their past, chiefly through the study of the works of Homer and the classical authors. An important factor in maintaining Greek identity was contact with barbarian peoples and this led to a strong desire among Greeks to organize the transmission of the Hellenic paideia to the next generation
Greeks
–
Hoplites fighting. Detail from an Attic black-figure
hydria, ca. 560 BC–550 BC.
Louvre,
Paris.
Greeks
–
A reconstruction of the 3rd millennium BC "Proto-Greek area", according to Bulgarian linguist
Vladimir Georgiev.
Greeks
–
Bust of
Cleopatra VII.
Altes Museum,
Berlin.
Greeks
–
Statues of
Saints Cyril and Methodius, missionaries of
Christianity among the
Slavic peoples, on the
Holy Trinity Column in Olomouc,
Czech Republic.
5.
Homer
–
Homer is the name ascribed by the ancient Greeks to the semi-legendary author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, two epic poems which are the central works of Greek literature. The Odyssey focuses on the home of Odysseus, king of Ithaca. Many accounts of Homers life circulated in classical antiquity, the most widespread being that he was a bard from Ionia. The modern scholarly consensus is that these traditions do not have any historical value, the Homeric question - by whom, when, where and under what circumstances were the Iliad and Odyssey composed - continues to be debated. Broadly speaking, modern scholarly opinion on the authorship question falls into two camps, one group holds that most of the Iliad and the Odyssey is the work of a single poet of genius. The other considers the Homeric poems to be the crystallization of a process of working and re-working by many contributors and it is generally accepted that the poems were composed at some point around the late eighth or early seventh century B. C. Most researchers believe that the poems were transmitted orally. The Homeric epics were the greatest influence on ancient Greek culture and education, to Plato, the chronological period of Homer depends on the meaning to be assigned to the word Homer. Was Homer a single person, an imaginary person representing a group of poets and this information is often called the world of Homer. The Homeric period would in that cover a number of historical periods, especially the Mycenaean Age. Considered word-for-word, the texts as we know them are the product of the scholars of the last three centuries. Each edition of the Iliad or Odyssey is a different, as the editors rely on different manuscripts and fragments. The term accuracy reveals a belief in an original uniform text. The manuscripts of the work currently available date to no earlier than the 10th century. These are at the end of a missing thousand-year chain of copies made as each generation of manuscripts disintegrated or were lost or destroyed and these numerous manuscripts are so similar that a single original can be postulated. The time gap in the chain is bridged by the scholia, or notes, on the existing manuscripts, librarian of the Library of Alexandria, he had noticed a wide divergence in the works attributed to Homer, and was trying to restore a more authentic copy. He had collected several manuscripts, which he named, the Sinopic, the one he selected for correction was the koine, which Murray translates as the Vulgate. Aristarchus was known for his selection of material
Homer
–
Idealized portrayal of Homer dating to the
Hellenistic period.
British Museum.
Homer
–
Part of an 11th-century manuscript, "the Townley Homer". The writing on the top and right side are
scholia.
Homer
–
Homer and His Guide, by
William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825–1905), portraying Homer on
Mount Ida, beset by dogs and guided by the goatherder Glaucus (as told in
Pseudo-Herodotus)
Homer
–
Raphael 's inspired Homer on
Mount Parnassus.
6.
Greek mythology
–
It was a part of the religion in ancient Greece. Greek mythology is explicitly embodied in a collection of narratives. Greek myth attempts to explain the origins of the world, and details the lives and adventures of a variety of gods, goddesses, heroes, heroines. These accounts initially were disseminated in a tradition, today the Greek myths are known primarily from ancient Greek literature. The oldest known Greek literary sources, Homers epic poems Iliad and Odyssey, focus on the Trojan War, archaeological findings provide a principal source of detail about Greek mythology, with gods and heroes featured prominently in the decoration of many artifacts. Geometric designs on pottery of the eighth century BC depict scenes from the Trojan cycle as well as the adventures of Heracles, in the succeeding Archaic, Classical, and Hellenistic periods, Homeric and various other mythological scenes appear, supplementing the existing literary evidence. Greek mythology has had an influence on the culture, arts. Poets and artists from ancient times to the present have derived inspiration from Greek mythology and have discovered contemporary significance and relevance in the themes, Greek mythology is known today primarily from Greek literature and representations on visual media dating from the Geometric period from c. Mythical narration plays an important role in every genre of Greek literature. Nevertheless, the only general mythographical handbook to survive from Greek antiquity was the Library of Pseudo-Apollodorus and this work attempts to reconcile the contradictory tales of the poets and provides a grand summary of traditional Greek mythology and heroic legends. Apollodorus of Athens lived from c, 180–125 BC and wrote on many of these topics. His writings may have formed the basis for the collection, however the Library discusses events that occurred long after his death, among the earliest literary sources are Homers two epic poems, the Iliad and the Odyssey. Other poets completed the cycle, but these later and lesser poems now are lost almost entirely. Despite their traditional name, the Homeric Hymns have no connection with Homer. They are choral hymns from the part of the so-called Lyric age. Hesiods Works and Days, a poem about farming life, also includes the myths of Prometheus, Pandora. The poet gives advice on the best way to succeed in a dangerous world, lyrical poets often took their subjects from myth, but their treatment became gradually less narrative and more allusive. Greek lyric poets, including Pindar, Bacchylides and Simonides, and bucolic poets such as Theocritus and Bion, additionally, myth was central to classical Athenian drama
Greek mythology
–
Bust of
Zeus,
Otricoli (Sala Rotonda,
Museo Pio-Clementino,
Vatican).
Greek mythology
–
Greek Mythology
Greek mythology
–
Prometheus (1868 by
Gustave Moreau). The myth of Prometheus first was attested by
Hesiod and then constituted the basis for a tragic trilogy of plays, possibly by Aeschylus, consisting of
Prometheus Bound,
Prometheus Unbound, and
Prometheus Pyrphoros.
Greek mythology
–
The Roman poet
Virgil, here depicted in the fifth-century manuscript, the
Vergilius Romanus, preserved details of Greek mythology in many of his writings.
7.
Farming
–
A farm is an area of land that is devoted primarily to agricultural processes with the primary objective of producing food and other crops, it is the basic facility in food production. It includes ranches, feedlots, orchards, plantations and estates, smallholdings and hobby farms, in modern times the term has been extended so as to include such industrial operations as wind farms and fish farms, both of which can operate on land or sea. Farming originated independently in different parts of the world, as hunter gatherer societies transitioned to food production rather than, food capture. It may have started about 12,000 years ago with the domestication of livestock in the Fertile Crescent in western Asia, modern farms in developed countries are highly mechanized. In Europe, traditional farms are giving way to larger production units. In Australia, some farms are large because the land is unable to support a high stocking density of livestock because of climatic conditions. In less developed countries, small farms are the norm, the word is from the medieval Latin noun firma, also the source of the French word ferme, meaning a fixed agreement, contract, from the classical Latin adjective firmus meaning strong, stout, firm. Farming has been innovated at multiple different points and places in human history and it was the worlds first historically verifiable revolution in agriculture. Subsequent step-changes in human farming practices were provoked by the British Agricultural Revolution in the 18th century, farming spread from the Middle East to Europe and by 4,000 BC people that lived in the central part of Europe were using oxen to pull plows and wagons. A farm may operate under a system or with a variety of cereal or arable crops. Specialist farms are often denoted as such, thus a dairy farm, fish farm, some farms may not use the word at all, hence vineyard, orchard, market garden or truck farm. Some farms may be denoted by their location, such as a hill farm. Many other terms are used to describe farms to denote their methods of production, as in collective, corporate, intensive, organic or vertical. There are many breeds of cattle that can be milked some of the best producing ones include Holstein, Norwegian Red, Kostroma, Brown Swiss, in most Western countries, a centralized dairy facility processes milk and dairy products, such as cream, butter, and cheese. In the United States, these dairies are usually local companies, dairy farms generally sell male calves for veal meat, as dairy breeds are not normally satisfactory for commercial beef production. Many dairy farms also grow their own feed, typically including corn, alfalfa and this is fed directly to the cows, or stored as silage for use during the winter season. Additional dietary supplements are added to the feed to milk production. Poultry farms are devoted to raising chickens, turkeys, ducks, a pig farm is one that specializes in raising pigs or hogs for bacon, ham and other pork products and may be free range, intensive, or both
Farming
–
Farmland in the USA. The round fields are due to the use of
center pivot irrigation
Farming
–
Typical plan of a mediaeval English manor, showing the use of field strips
Farming
–
A
farmer harvesting crops with mule-drawn wagon, 1920s,
Iowa, USA
Farming
–
A
milking machine in action
8.
Economics
–
Economics is a social science concerned chiefly with description and analysis of the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interactions of economic agents and how economies work, consistent with this focus, textbooks often distinguish between microeconomics and macroeconomics. Microeconomics examines the behaviour of elements in the economy, including individual agents and markets, their interactions. Individual agents may include, for example, households, firms, buyers, macroeconomics analyzes the entire economy and issues affecting it, including unemployment of resources, inflation, economic growth, and the public policies that address these issues. Economic analysis can be applied throughout society, as in business, finance, health care, Economic analyses may also be applied to such diverse subjects as crime, education, the family, law, politics, religion, social institutions, war, science, and the environment. At the turn of the 21st century, the domain of economics in the social sciences has been described as economic imperialism. The ultimate goal of economics is to improve the conditions of people in their everyday life. There are a variety of definitions of economics. Some of the differences may reflect evolving views of the subject or different views among economists, to supply the state or commonwealth with a revenue for the publick services. Say, distinguishing the subject from its uses, defines it as the science of production, distribution. On the satirical side, Thomas Carlyle coined the dismal science as an epithet for classical economics, in this context and it enquires how he gets his income and how he uses it. Thus, it is on the one side, the study of wealth and on the other and more important side, a part of the study of man. He affirmed that previous economists have usually centred their studies on the analysis of wealth, how wealth is created, distributed, and consumed, but he said that economics can be used to study other things, such as war, that are outside its usual focus. This is because war has as the goal winning it, generates both cost and benefits, and, resources are used to attain the goal. If the war is not winnable or if the costs outweigh the benefits. Some subsequent comments criticized the definition as overly broad in failing to limit its subject matter to analysis of markets, there are other criticisms as well, such as in scarcity not accounting for the macroeconomics of high unemployment. The same source reviews a range of included in principles of economics textbooks. Among economists more generally, it argues that a particular definition presented may reflect the direction toward which the author believes economics is evolving, microeconomics examines how entities, forming a market structure, interact within a market to create a market system
Economics
–
Economists study trade, production and consumption decisions, such as those that occur in a traditional
marketplace.
Economics
–
World GDP (PPP) per capita by country (2014)
Economics
–
In
Virtual Markets, buyer and seller are not present and trade via intermediates and electronic information. Pictured:
São Paulo Stock Exchange, Brazil.
Economics
–
A map showing the main
trade routes for goods within
late medieval Europe.
9.
Astronomy
–
Astronomy is a natural science that studies celestial objects and phenomena. It applies mathematics, physics, and chemistry, in an effort to explain the origin of those objects and phenomena and their evolution. Objects of interest include planets, moons, stars, galaxies, and comets, while the phenomena include supernovae explosions, gamma ray bursts, more generally, all astronomical phenomena that originate outside Earths atmosphere are within the purview of astronomy. A related but distinct subject, physical cosmology, is concerned with the study of the Universe as a whole, Astronomy is the oldest of the natural sciences. The early civilizations in recorded history, such as the Babylonians, Greeks, Indians, Egyptians, Nubians, Iranians, Chinese, during the 20th century, the field of professional astronomy split into observational and theoretical branches. Observational astronomy is focused on acquiring data from observations of astronomical objects, theoretical astronomy is oriented toward the development of computer or analytical models to describe astronomical objects and phenomena. The two fields complement each other, with theoretical astronomy seeking to explain the results and observations being used to confirm theoretical results. Astronomy is one of the few sciences where amateurs can play an active role, especially in the discovery. Amateur astronomers have made and contributed to many important astronomical discoveries, Astronomy means law of the stars. Astronomy should not be confused with astrology, the system which claims that human affairs are correlated with the positions of celestial objects. Although the two share a common origin, they are now entirely distinct. Generally, either the term astronomy or astrophysics may be used to refer to this subject, however, since most modern astronomical research deals with subjects related to physics, modern astronomy could actually be called astrophysics. Few fields, such as astrometry, are purely astronomy rather than also astrophysics, some titles of the leading scientific journals in this field includeThe Astronomical Journal, The Astrophysical Journal and Astronomy and Astrophysics. In early times, astronomy only comprised the observation and predictions of the motions of objects visible to the naked eye, in some locations, early cultures assembled massive artifacts that possibly had some astronomical purpose. Before tools such as the telescope were invented, early study of the stars was conducted using the naked eye, most of early astronomy actually consisted of mapping the positions of the stars and planets, a science now referred to as astrometry. From these observations, early ideas about the motions of the planets were formed, and the nature of the Sun, Moon, the Earth was believed to be the center of the Universe with the Sun, the Moon and the stars rotating around it. This is known as the model of the Universe, or the Ptolemaic system. The Babylonians discovered that lunar eclipses recurred in a cycle known as a saros
Astronomy
–
A
star -forming region in the
Large Magellanic Cloud, an
irregular galaxy.
Astronomy
–
A giant
Hubble mosaic of the
Crab Nebula, a
supernova remnant
Astronomy
–
19th century
Sydney Observatory,
Australia (1873)
Astronomy
–
19th century
Quito Astronomical Observatory is located 12 minutes south of the
Equator in
Quito,
Ecuador.
10.
History of timekeeping devices
–
For thousands of years, devices have been used to measure and keep track of time. The current sexagesimal system of time measurement dates to approximately 2000 BC from the Sumerians, the Ancient Egyptians divided the day into two 12-hour periods, and used large obelisks to track the movement of the sun. The Zhou dynasty is believed to have used the water clock around the same time. The sundial, another clock, relies on shadows to provide a good estimate of the hour on a sunny day. It is not so useful in weather or at night. The pendulum clock remained the most accurate timekeeper until the 1930s, many ancient civilizations observed astronomical bodies, often the Sun and Moon, to determine times, dates, and seasons. The first calendars may have been created during the last glacial period, by hunter-gatherers who employed tools such as sticks, as those megalithic civilizations left no recorded history, little is known of their calendars or timekeeping methods. Methods of sexagesimal timekeeping, now common in both Western and Eastern societies, are first attested nearly 4,000 years ago in Mesopotamia, mesoamericans similarly modified their usual vigesimal counting system when dealing with calendars to produce a 360-day year. The oldest known sundial is from Egypt, it dates back to around 1500 BC, sundials have their origin in shadow clocks, which were the first devices used for measuring the parts of a day. Ancient Egyptian obelisks, constructed about 3500 BC, are also among the earliest shadow clocks, Egyptian shadow clocks divided daytime into 12 parts with each part further divided into more precise parts. One type of shadow clock consisted of a stem with five variable marks. It was positioned eastward in the morning, and was turned west at noon, obelisks functioned in much the same manner, the shadow cast on the markers around it allowed the Egyptians to calculate the time. The obelisk also indicated whether it was morning or afternoon, as well as the summer and winter solstices, a third shadow clock, developed c.1500 BC, was similar in shape to a bent T-square. It measured the passage of time by the shadow cast by its crossbar on a non-linear rule, the T was oriented eastward in the mornings, and turned around at noon, so that it could cast its shadow in the opposite direction. Although accurate, shadow clocks relied on the sun, and so were useless at night, the Egyptians therefore developed a number of alternative timekeeping instruments, including water clocks, and a system for tracking star movements. The oldest description of a clock is from the tomb inscription of the 16th-century BC Egyptian court official Amenemhet. There were several types of clocks, some more elaborate than others. The oldest-known waterclock was found in the tomb of pharaoh Amenhotep I, another Egyptian method of determining the time during the night was using plumb-lines called merkhets
History of timekeeping devices
–
An
hourglass keeping track of elapsed time. The hourglass was one of the earlier timekeeping devices and has become a symbol of the concept of time.
History of timekeeping devices
–
The sun rising over
Stonehenge on the
June solstice
History of timekeeping devices
–
Ancient Egyptian sundial (c. 1500 BC) from the Valley of the Kings. Daytime divided into 12 parts.
History of timekeeping devices
–
The
Luxor Obelisk in
Place de la Concorde,
Paris, France
11.
Hesiod
–
Hesiod was a Greek poet generally thought by scholars to have been active between 750 and 650 BC, around the same time as Homer. He is generally regarded as the first written poet in the Western tradition to regard himself as a persona with an active role to play in his subject. Ancient authors credited Hesiod and Homer with establishing Greek religious customs, modern scholars refer to him as a major source on Greek mythology, farming techniques, early economic thought, archaic Greek astronomy and ancient time-keeping. The dating of his life is an issue in scholarly circles. Epic narrative allowed poets like Homer no opportunity for personal revelations, however, Hesiods extant work comprises didactic poems in which he went out of his way to let his audience in on a few details of his life. There are three references in Works and Days, as well as some passages in his Theogony that support inferences made by scholars. Some scholars have seen Perses as a creation, a foil for the moralizing that Hesiod develops in Works and Days. Gregory Nagy, on the hand, sees both Persēs and Hēsiodos as fictitious names for poetical personae. The family association with Cyme might explain his familiarity with eastern myths, evident in his poems, however, while his poetry features some Aeolisms there are no words that are certainly Boeotian—he composed in the main literary dialect of the time, Ionian. Pausanias asserted that Boeotians showed him an old tablet made of lead on which the Works were engraved. If he did write or dictate, it was perhaps as an aid to memory or because he lacked confidence in his ability to produce poems extempore and it certainly wasnt in a quest for immortal fame since poets in his era had no such notions. However, some suspect the presence of large-scale changes in the text. Possibly he composed his verses during idle times on the farm and he was in fact a misogynist of the same calibre as the later poet, Semonides. He resembles Solon in his preoccupation with issues of good versus evil and how a just and he resembles Aristophanes in his rejection of the idealised hero of epic literature in favour of an idealised view of the farmer. Yet the fact that he could eulogise kings in Theogony and denounce them as corrupt in Works, two different—yet early—traditions record the site of Hesiods grave. This tradition follows a familiar ironic convention, the oracle that predicts accurately after all, the other tradition, first mentioned in an epigram by Chersias of Orchomenus written in the 7th century BC claims that Hesiod lies buried at Orchomenus, a town in Boeotia. Eventually they came to regard Hesiod too as their hearth-founder, later writers attempted to harmonize these two accounts. Greeks in the fifth and early 4th centuries BC considered their oldest poets to be Orpheus, Musaeus, Hesiod
Hesiod
–
The Dance of the Muses at Mount Helicon by
Bertel Thorvaldsen (1807). Hesiod cites inspiration from the
Muses while on Mount Helicon.
Hesiod
–
Hesiod and the
Muse, by
Gustave Moreau. Here he is presented with a
lyre, which contradicts the account given by Hesiod himself, in which the gift was a laurel staff.
Hesiod
–
Modern Mount Helicon—Hesiod once described his nearby hometown,
Ascra, as "cruel in winter, hard in summer, never pleasant."
Hesiod
–
16th-century manuscript of Theogony
12.
Epic poetry
–
An epic poem, epic, epos, or epopee is a lengthy narrative poem, ordinarily concerning a serious subject containing details of heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation. Milman Parry and Albert Lord have argued that the Homeric epics and these works form the basis of the epic genre in Western literature. Nearly all Western epic self-consciously presents itself as a continuation of the tradition begun by these poems, classical epic employs dactylic hexameter and recounts a journey, either physical or mental or both. Epics also tend to highlight cultural norms and to define or call into question cultural values, another type of epic poetry is epyllion, which is a brief narrative poem with a romantic or mythological theme. The term, which means little epic, came into use in the nineteenth century, the most famous example of classical epyllion is perhaps Catullus 64. The first epics were products of preliterate societies and oral history poetic traditions, in these traditions, poetry is transmitted to the audience and from performer to performer by purely oral means. Early twentieth-century study of living oral traditions in the Balkans by Milman Parry. What they demonstrated was that oral epics tend to be constructed in short episodes, each of equal status, interest and this facilitates memorization, as the poet is recalling each episode in turn and using the completed episodes to recreate the entire epic as he performs it. Parry and Lord also contend that the most likely source for written texts of the epics of Homer was dictation from an oral performance, poets in literate societies have sometimes copied the epic format. The earliest surviving European examples are the Argonautica of Apollonius of Rhodes and Virgils Aeneid, other obvious examples are Nonnus Dionysiaca, Tulsidas Sri Ramacharit Manas. In his work Poetics, Aristotle defines an epic as one of the forms of poetry, contrasted with lyric poetry, an attempt to delineate ten main characteristics of an epic, Begins in medias res. The setting is vast, covering many nations, the world or the universe, Begins with an invocation to a muse. Begins with a statement of the theme, contains long lists, called an epic catalogue. Shows divine intervention on human affairs, features heroes that embody the values of the civilization. Often features the tragic heros descent into the Underworld or hell, the hero generally participates in a cyclical journey or quest, faces adversaries that try to defeat him in his journey and returns home significantly transformed by his journey. The epic hero illustrates traits, performs deeds, and exemplifies certain morals that are valued by the society the epic originates from, many epic heroes are recurring characters in the legends of their native culture. Conventions of epics, Preposition, Opens by stating the theme or cause of the epic and this may take the form of a purpose, of a question, or of a situation. Invocation, Writer invokes a Muse, one of the nine daughters of Zeus, the poet prays to the Muses to provide him with divine inspiration to tell the story of a great hero
Epic poetry
–
Tablet containing a fragment of the
Epic of Gilgamesh
Epic poetry
–
The first page of the
Beowulf manuscript, 8th to 10th century.
Epic poetry
–
Statue of Iranian poet
Ferdowsi in Rome, Italy. Ferdowsi's national epic
Shahnameh played an important role in revival of Iranian
patriotism and the
Persian language after both were systematically suppressed by the Arab occupation of Iran
Epic poetry
–
The Knight in the Panther's Skin by
Shota Rustaveli, one of the greatest Georgian poets.
13.
Works and Days
–
The Works and Days is a didactic poem of some 800 lines written by the ancient Greek poet Hesiod around 700 BCE. At its center, the Works and Days is an almanac in which Hesiod instructs his brother Perses in the agricultural arts. Scholars have seen this work against a background of agrarian crisis in mainland Greece, in the poem Hesiod also offers his brother extensive moralizing advice on how he should live his life. In the Works and Days, Hesiod describes himself as the heir of a farm bequeathed to him, however, Perses apparently squandered his wealth and came back for what is owned by Hesiod. Perses went to law and bribed the lords to judge in his favour, the poem contains a sharp attack against unjust judges like those who decided in favour of Perses, they are depicted as pocketing bribes as they render their unfair verdicts. Like the Theogony, the Works and Days begins with an invocation to the Muses, albeit much shorter. The poet invokes the Pierian Muses to sing of their father Zeus, Hesiod then appeals to Zeus to guide his undertaking, Hearken, seeing and hearing, and through justice put straight the laws, and may I speak the truth to Perses. Hesiod begins the poem proper by directly engaging with the content of the Theogony, family business follows, as Hesiod implores his brother to join him in sorting out their fraternal discord through the justice of Zeus. It comes out that they had divided their patrimony. The first lesson is why the immortals keep an easy livelihood hidden from mankind, in the Works and Days Hesiod proceeds directly to the theft of fire and punishment. Zeus instructed the gods to build an evil for mankind, that is, Pandora, whom Prometheus brother Epimetheus accepted from Hermes despite his brothers warnings never to accept gifts from the gods. Before Pandoras arrival, man had lived free from evils, toil and illness, but she had given a jar which contained all these curses. The Myth of the Ages follows, in the Hesiodic scheme there were five ages of mankind, the Golden Age, Silver Age, Bronze Age, Heroic Age and the present age, that of Iron. Race of gold man lived in the time of Cronus, an age of plenty and peace, for the earth gave for all their needs of its own accord, Golden Age man never aged, and when they died they went as though to sleep. When this age came to an end, its population became guardians of mankind, protecting them from evils, the Silver Age was much worse than the Golden, both in stature and temperament. They lived as children with their mothers for a hundred years, once they came of age, they lived but a brief time, suffering because of their foolishness. They fought with one another and did not mind the gods, angry at their impiety, Zeus destroyed the race, still, they are granted the honor of being called chthonic blessed mortals. The Bronze Race was fearsome and warlike and their weapons were bronze, they lived in bronze houses and worked in bronze, black iron did not exist yet
Works and Days
–
An image from a 1539 printing of Works and Days
14.
Cyme (Aeolis)
–
Cyme was an Aeolian city in Aeolis close to the kingdom of Lydia. The Aeolians regarded Cyme as the largest and most important of their twelve cities, as a result of their direct access to the sea, unlike most non-landlocked settlements of the ancient world, trade is believed to have prospered. Archaeological finds such as coins give reference also to a river, little is known about the foundation of the city to supplement the traditional founding legend. The Cymeans were later ridiculed as a people who had for three hundred years lived on the coast and not once exacted harbor taxes on ships making port, hesiod’s father is said to have started his journey across the Aegean from Cyme. By the 5th century BC, Cyme was one of the 12 established Ionian colonies in Aeolis, Herodotus mentions that one of the esteemed voters deciding whether or not to support Militiades the Athenian in his plan to liberate the Ionian Coast from Persian rule in was Aristagoras of Cyme. Cyme eventually came under the control of the Persian Empire following the collapse of the Lydian Kingdom at the hands of Cyrus the Great. Herodotus is the source for this period in Greek history and has paid a great deal of attention to events taking place in Ionia. When Pactyes, the Lydian general, sought refuge in Cyme from the Persians the citizens were between a rock and a hard place, as Herodotus records, they consulted the Greek god Apollo, who said after much confusion through an oracle that he should be handed over. The messengers returned home to report, and the citizens of Cyme were prepared in consequence to give up the wanted man, after the Persian naval defeat at Salamis, Xerxes moored the surviving ships at Cyme. Before 480 BC, Cyme had been the naval base for the Royal Fleet. Later accounts of Cymes involvement in the Ionian Revolt which triggered the Persian Wars confirm their allegiance to the Ionian Greek cause. During this time, Herodotus states that due to the size of the Persian army, the third army which he sent north to take Sardis was under the command of his son-in-law Otanes who promptly captured Cyme and Clazomenae in the process. However, later reveal how Sandoces, the supposed Ionian governor of Cyme helped draft a fleet of fifteen ships for Xerxes I great expedition against mainland Greece c.480 BC. As a result, Cyme, like most Ionian cities at the time was a maritime power, once Aristagoras of Miletus roused the Ionians to rebel against Darius, Cyme joined the insurrection. However, the revolts at Cyme were quelled once the city was recovered by the Persians, Sandoces, the governor of Cyme at the time of Xerxes, commanded fifteen ships in the Persian military expedition against Greece. Herodotus believes that Sandoces may have been a Greek, after the Battle of Salamis, the remnants of Xerxess fleet wintered at Cyme. Thucydides does not provide any significant mention of place is more than mentioned in the history of Thucydides. Polybius records that Cyme obtained freedom from taxation following the defeat of Antiochus III, during the reign of Tiberius, the city suffered from a great earthquake, common in the Aegean
Cyme (Aeolis)
–
Silver
tetradrachm of Cyme, 165–140 BC
Cyme (Aeolis)
–
Map of Asia Minor showing the location of Kyme
Cyme (Aeolis)
–
Map of Aegean c.200 BC showing the location of Kyme.
Cyme (Aeolis)
–
Aeolis, Larissa Phrikonis. ca 4th Century BC. Æ 11mm. Horned (?), three-quarter facing female head, turned slightly right, in necklace / LA, bull's head right.
15.
Aeolis
–
Aeolis or Aeolia was an area that comprised the west and northwestern region of Asia Minor, mostly along the coast, and also several offshore islands, where the Aeolian Greek city-states were located. Aeolis incorporated the southern parts of Mysia which bounded it to the north, Ionia to the south, Aeolis was an ancient district on the western coast of Asia Minor. It extended along the Aegean Sea from the entrance of the Hellespont south to the Hermus River and it was named for the Aeolians, some of whom migrated there from Greece before 1000 BC. Aeolis was, however, an ethnological and linguistic enclave rather than a geographical unit, the district often was considered part of the larger northwest region of Mysia. According to Homers description, Odysseus, after his stay with the Cyclopes, reached the island of Aeolia, the most celebrated of the cities was Smyrna, but in 699 BC, Smyrna became part of an Ionian confederacy. The remaining cities were conquered by Croesus, king of Lydia, later they were held successively by the Persians, Macedonians, Seleucids, and Pergamenes. Attalus III, the last king of Pergamum, bequeathed Aeolis to Rome in 133 BC, shortly afterward, it was made part of the Roman province of Asia. At the partition of the Roman Empire, Aeolis was assigned to the East Roman empire and remained under Byzantine rule until the early 15th century, autolycus of Pitane Andriscus Elias Venezis Pierluigi Bonanno, Aiolis. Storia e archeologia di una regione dell’Asia Minore alla fine del II millennio a. C
Aeolis
–
Ancient Region of Anatolia Aeolis (Αἰολίς)
16.
Asia Minor
–
Anatolia, in geography known as Asia Minor, Asian Turkey, Anatolian peninsula, or Anatolian plateau, is the westernmost protrusion of Asia, which makes up the majority of modern-day Turkey. The region is bounded by the Black Sea to the north, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, the Sea of Marmara forms a connection between the Black and Aegean Seas through the Bosphorus and Dardanelles straits and separates Anatolia from Thrace on the European mainland. Traditionally, Anatolia is considered to extend in the east to a line between the Gulf of Alexandretta and the Black Sea to the Armenian Highlands, thus, traditionally Anatolia is the territory that comprises approximately the western two-thirds of the Asian part of Turkey. The Turkification of Anatolia began under the Seljuk Empire in the late 11th century, however, various non-Turkic languages continue to be spoken by minorities in Anatolia today, including Kurdish, Assyrian, Armenian, Arabic, Laz, Georgian, and Greek. Traditionally, Anatolia is considered to extend in the east to a line running from the Gulf of Alexandretta to the Black Sea. This traditional geographical definition is used, for example, in the latest edition of Merriam-Websters Geographical Dictionary, under this definition, Anatolia is bounded to the east by the Armenian Highlands, and the Euphrates before that river bends to the southeast to enter Mesopotamia. To the southeast, it is bounded by the ranges that separate it from the Orontes valley in Syria, the first name the Greeks used for the Anatolian peninsula was Ἀσία, presumably after the name of the Assuwa league in western Anatolia. As the name of Asia came to be extended to areas east of the Mediterranean. The name Anatolia derives from the Greek ἀνατολή meaning “the East” or more literally “sunrise”, the precise reference of this term has varied over time, perhaps originally referring to the Aeolian, Ionian and Dorian colonies on the west coast of Asia Minor. In the Byzantine Empire, the Anatolic Theme was a theme covering the western, the modern Turkish form of Anatolia is Anadolu, which again derives from the Greek name Aνατολή. The Russian male name Anatoly and the French Anatole share the same linguistic origin, in English the name of Turkey for ancient Anatolia first appeared c. It is derived from the Medieval Latin Turchia, which was used by the Europeans to define the Seljuk controlled parts of Anatolia after the Battle of Manzikert. Human habitation in Anatolia dates back to the Paleolithic, neolithic Anatolia has been proposed as the homeland of the Indo-European language family, although linguists tend to favour a later origin in the steppes north of the Black Sea. However, it is clear that the Anatolian languages, the oldest branch of Indo-European, have spoken in Anatolia since at least the 19th century BC. The earliest historical records of Anatolia stem from the southeast of the region and are from the Mesopotamian-based Akkadian Empire during the reign of Sargon of Akkad in the 24th century BC, scholars generally believe the earliest indigenous populations of Anatolia were the Hattians and Hurrians. The region was famous for exporting raw materials, and areas of Hattian-, one of the numerous cuneiform records dated circa 20th century BC, found in Anatolia at the Assyrian colony of Kanesh, uses an advanced system of trading computations and credit lines. They were speakers of an Indo-European language, the Hittite language, originating from Nesa, they conquered Hattusa in the 18th century BC, imposing themselves over Hattian- and Hurrian-speaking populations. According to the most widely accepted Kurgan theory on the Proto-Indo-European homeland, however, the Hittites adopted the cuneiform script, invented in Mesopotamia
Asia Minor
–
The traditional definition of Anatolia within modern Turkey
Asia Minor
–
The location of
Turkey (within the rectangle) in reference to the
European continent. Anatolia roughly corresponds to the
Asian part of Turkey, except the eastern parts historically known as the
Armenian Highlands
Asia Minor
–
1907 map of Asia Minor, showing the local ancient kingdoms
Asia Minor
–
Mural of
aurochs, a
deer, and humans in
Çatalhöyük, which is the largest and best-preserved Neolithic site found to date. It was registered as a
UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2012.
17.
Thespiae
–
Thespiae was an ancient Greek city in Boeotia. It stood on level ground commanded by the low range of hills which run eastward from the foot of Mount Helicon to Thebes, in the history of ancient Greece, Thespiae was one of the cities of the federal league known as the Boeotian League. Other traditions suggest that they were of Mycenean origin, in the Archaic Period the Thespian nobility was heavily dependent on Thebes. This possibly reflected that land ownership was concentrated in the hands of a number of nobles. Thespiae therefore decided to become an ally of Thebes. The Thespians destroyed Ascra at some point between 700 and 650, and later settled Eutresis between 600 and 550, Thespiae also took control over Creusis, Siphae, Thisbe and Chorisae, probably some time in the late sixth century. The Thessalians invaded Boeotia as far as Thespiae, more than 200 years before Leuctra, c.571 BC, but elsewhere Plutarch gives a date for the Thessalian invasion as shortly preceding the Second Persian War. Herodotus suggests that Thespiae had been a member of the league as long as Thebes had been, following the Persian Wars, Thespiae provided two Boeotarchs to the league, rather than one, perhaps one for the city and one for the districts under its control. During the Persian invasion of 480 BC Thespiaes ability to field a force of hoplites had changed. In 1997, the Greek government dedicated a monument to the Thespians who fell alongside that of the Spartans, after the city was burned down by Xerxes, the remaining inhabitants furnished a force of 1800 men for the confederate Greek army that fought at Plataea. During the Athenian invasion of Boeotia in 424 BC, the Thespian contingent of the Boeotian army sustained heavy losses at the Battle of Delium. In the next year the Thebans dismantled the walls of Thespiae on the charge that the Thespians were pro-Athenian, in 414 the Thebans aided the Thespians in suppressing a democratic revolution. In the Corinthian War, Thespiae was initially part of the anti-Spartan alliance, at the Battle of Nemea in 394 BC, the Thespian contingent fought the Pellenes to a standstill while the rest of the Spartan allies were defeated by the Boeotians. After Nemea, Thespiae became an ally to Sparta and served as staging point for Spartan campaigns in Boeotia throughout the Corinthian War, the city became autonomous as stipulated in the Kings Peace of 386 which resolved the Corinthian War, and maintained autonomy until 373. In 373 Thespiae was subdued by the Thebans, the Thespians were exiled from Boeotia, but they still sent a contingent to fight against the Spartans at the Battle of Leuctra in 371. The Boeotarch Epameinondas allowed the Thespians to withdraw before the battle, not long after the battle Thespiae was razed by Thebes and its inhabitants expelled. At some point later the city was restored, in 335 BC, the Thespians joined in an alliance with Alexander the Great in destroying Thebes. The famous hetaera Phryne was born at Thespiae in the 4th century BC, during the Hellenistic Period Thespiae sought the friendship of the Roman Republic in the war against Mithridates VI
Thespiae
–
Silver
Obol from Thespiae, 431-424 BC. Obverse: Boeotian shield Reverse: crescent, ΘΕΣ(ΠΙΕΩΝ) of Thespians.
Thespiae
–
A
kantharos from Thespiae (450–425 BC) inscribed in the
Boeotian alphabet
Thespiae
–
The
Venus of Arles, modeled after the Aphrodite of Thespiae by Praxiteles
18.
Boeotia
–
Boeotia, sometimes alternatively Latinised as Beotia, is one of the regional units of Greece. It is part of the region of Central Greece and it was also a region of ancient Greece. Its capital is Livadeia, and its largest city is Thebes, Boeotia lies to the north of the eastern part of the Gulf of Corinth. It also has a coastline on the Gulf of Euboea. It bordered on Megaris in the south, Attica in the southeast, Euboea in the northeast, Opuntian Locris in the north and Phocis in the west. The main mountain ranges of Boeotia are Mount Parnassus in the west, Mount Helicon in the southwest, Cithaeron in the south and its longest river, the Cephissus, flows in the central part, where most of the low-lying areas of Boeotia are found. Lake Copais was a lake in the center of Boeotia. It was drained in the 19th century, lake Yliki is a large lake near Thebes. The earliest inhabitants of Boeotia, associated with the city of Orchomenus, were called Minyans, pausanias mentions that Minyans established the maritime Ionian city of Teos, and occupied the islands of Lemnos and Thera. The Argonauts were sometimes referred to as Minyans, also, according to legend the citizens of Thebes paid an annual tribute to their king Erginus. The early wealth and power of Boeotia is shown by the reputation and visible Mycenean remains of several of its cities, especially Orchomenus, the origin of the name Boeotians may lie in the mountain Boeon in Epirus. Some toponyms and the common Aeolic dialect indicate that the Boeotians were related to the Thessalians and they moved south and settled in another rich plain, while others filtered across the Aegean and settled on Lesbos and in Aeolis in Asia Minor. Others are said to have stayed in Thessaly, withdrawing into the hill country, many ancient Greek legends originated or are set in this region. The older myths took their form during the Mycenean age when the Mycenean Greeks established themselves in Boeotia. Many of them are related to the myths of Argos, and others indicate connections with Phoenicia, Boeotia was also notable for the ancient oracular shrine of Trophonius at Lebadea. Graea, an ancient city in Boeotia, is thought to be the origin of the Latin word Graecus, from which English derives the words Greece. The major poets Hesiod and Pindar were Boeotians, on the other hand, the lack of good harbours hindered its maritime development. The importance of the legendary Minyae has been confirmed by archaeological remains, the Boeotian population entered the land from the north possibly before the Dorian invasion
Boeotia
–
Mount Helicon
Boeotia
–
Municipalities of Boeotia
Boeotia
–
18th century map of ancient Boeotia.
Boeotia
–
Ruins of the Cadmeia, the central fortress of ancient
Thebes.
19.
Mount Helicon
–
Mount Helicon is a mountain in the region of Thespiai in Boeotia, Greece, celebrated in Greek mythology. With an elevation of 1,749 metres, it is located approximately 10 kilometres from the north coast of the Gulf of Corinth. In Greek mythology, two springs sacred to the Muses were located here, the Aganippe and the Hippocrene, both of which bear horse in their names. In a related myth, the Hippocrene spring was created when the winged horse Pegasus aimed his hoof at a rock, on Mt. Helicon too was the spring where Narcissus was inspired by his own beauty. In his Aitia, Callimachus recounts his dream in which he was once more. There had been an built on Helicon in their honor which contained statues of these Muses. The Hippocrene spring was considered to be a source of poetic inspiration, there the Muses inspired him and he began to sing of the origins of the gods. Thus Helicon became an emblem of poetical inspiration, Callimachus explicitly follows in the footsteps of Hesiod and he placed on Helicon the episode in which Tiresias stumbles upon Athena bathing and is blinded but given the art of prophecy. He explored the sacred grove by the spring Aganippe thoroughly and left a description as it then was. He saw images of Eupheme, nurse of the Muses, in the temenos were statues, some by famous masters, of Apollo and Dionysus and famed poets. The poetical image of Helicon established by the Roman poets became once more an emblem of inspiration with the Renaissance and is often referred to in poetry. Helicon was the inspiration for the balls held by the Hungarian composer Leó Festetics at his castle near Keszthely, Festetics also named the library he founded Helikon Library, promoting literacy and culture in his home city. A band in Manitowoc, Wisconsin named Heliconian River plays a blend of folk, rock, and bluegrass. The Scottish band Mogwai recorded two tracks as part of their Government Commissions, BBC Sessions 1996–2003 album entitled New Paths to Helicon, Pt.1 and New Paths to Helicon, Pt.2. Irish author Seamus Heaney wrote a poem entitled “Personal Helicon”, which references the story of Narcissus, the mountain as home of muses inspired the name of Helicon West, an open-mic/featured reader series in Logan, Utah, United States which began in 2005. Richard Hunter, The Shadow of Callimachus, Studies in the Reception of Hellenistic Poetry at Rome 2006, 16ff De Monte Sororum, In the Grove
Mount Helicon
–
Ascent on Mountain Helikon
20.
Chalcis
–
Chalcis or Chalkida is the chief town of the island of Euboea in Greece, situated on the Euripus Strait at its narrowest point. The name is preserved from antiquity and is derived from the Greek χαλκός, in the late Middle Ages, it was known as Negropont, a name that was applied to the entire island of Euboea as well. The earliest recorded mention of Chalcis is in the Iliad, where it is mentioned in the line as its rival Eretria. It is also documented that the set for the Trojan War gathered at Aulis. Chamber tombs at Trypa and Vromousa dated to the Mycenaean period were excavated by Papavasiliou in 1910. In the 8th and 7th centuries BC, colonists from Chalcis founded thirty townships on the peninsula of Chalcidice and several important cities in Magna Graecia, such as Naxos, Rhegion and Cumae. Its mineral produce, metal-work, purple and pottery not only found markets among these settlements, early in the 6th century BC, its prosperity was broken by a disastrous war with the Athenians, who expelled the ruling aristocracy and settled a cleruchy on the site. Chalcis subsequently became a member of both the Delian Leagues, in the Hellenistic period, it gained importance as a fortress by which the Macedonian rulers controlled central Greece. It was used by kings Antiochus III of Syria and Mithradates VI of Pontus as a base for invading Greece, under Roman rule, Chalcis retained a measure of commercial prosperity. The city is recorded as a city in the 6th-century Synecdemus and mentioned by the contemporary historian Procopius of Caesarea, the town survived an Arab naval raid in the 880s and its bishop is attested in the 869–70 Church council held at Constantinople. By the 12th century, the featured a Venetian trading station, being attacked by the Venetian fleet in 1171 and eventually seized by Venice in 1209. For Westerners, its name was Negropont or Negroponte. The town was a condominium between Venice and the Veronese barons of the rest of Euboea, known as the triarchs, who resided there. Chalcis or Negroponte became a Latin Church diocese, the first bishop being Theodorus, the Greek bishop of the see, a large hoard of late medieval jewellery dating from Venetian times was found in Chalcis Castle in the nineteenth century and is now in the British Museum. The synagogue dated to around 1400 and that siege is the subject of the Rossini opera Maometto II. The Ottomans made it the seat of the Admiral of the Archipelago, in 1688, it was successfully held by the Ottomans against a strong Venetian attack. The modern town received an impetus in its trade from the establishment of railway connection with Athens. The old town, called the Castro, was surrounded by a circuit of defense walls until they were completely razed for urban development around the start of the 20th century
Chalcis
–
Chalcis' seafront
Chalcis
–
Exhibits in the archaeological museum of Chalcis.
Chalcis
–
View of the Roman aqueduct.
Chalcis
–
Venetian map of Chalcis (Negroponte) (1597).
21.
Tripod
–
A tripod is a portable three-legged frame, used as a platform for supporting the weight and maintaining the stability of some other object. A tripod provides stability against downward forces and horizontal forces and movements about horizontal axes, the positioning of the three legs away from the vertical centre allows the tripod better leverage for resisting lateral forces. The earliest attested form of the word is the Mycenaean Greek
Tripod
–
Young
George Washington using a
surveyor's tripod
Tripod
–
A ding from late
Xia Dynasty.
Tripod
–
Seabees train with the
M240B mounted on the
M122 tripod.
Tripod
–
A tripod used to support a
rooftop television antenna
22.
Laurus nobilis
–
Laurus nobilis is an aromatic evergreen tree or large shrub with green, glabrous leaves, in the flowering plant family Lauraceae. It is native to the Mediterranean region and is used as bay leaf for seasoning in cooking and its common names include bay laurel, sweet bay, bay, true laurel, Grecian laurel, laurel tree or simply laurel. Laurus nobilis figures prominently in classical Greek, Roman, and Biblical culture, the laurel is an evergreen shrub or small tree, variable in size and sometimes reaching 7–18 metres tall. The genus Laurus includes four accepted species, whose diagnostic key characters often overlap, the bay laurel is dioecious, with male and female flowers on separate plants. Each flower is pale yellow-green, about 1 cm diameter, the leaves are glabrous, 6–12 cm long and 2–4 cm broad, with an entire margin. On some leaves the margin undulates, the fruit is a small, shiny black berry-like drupe about 1 cm long that contains one seed. A recent study found considerable genetic diversity within L. nobilis, Laurus nobilis is a widespread relic of the laurel forests that originally covered much of the Mediterranean Basin when the climate of the region was more humid. With the drying of the Mediterranean during the Pliocene era, the forests gradually retreated. The most abundant component found in essential oil is 1, 8-cineole. Both essential and fatty oils are present in the fruit, the fruit is pressed and water-extracted to obtain these products. The fruit contains up to 30% fatty oils and about 1% essential oils, the plant is the source of several popular herbs and one spice used in a wide variety of recipes, particularly among Mediterranean cuisines. Most commonly, the leaves are added whole to Italian pasta sauces. They are typically removed from dishes before serving, unless used as a simple garnish, whole bay leaves have a long shelf life of about one year, under normal temperature and humidity. Whole bay leaves are used almost exclusively as flavor agents during the preparation stage. Ground bay leaves, however, can be ingested safely and are used in soups and stocks. Dried laurel berries and pressed leaf oil can both be used as robust spices, and the wood can be burnt for strong smoke flavoring, aqueous extracts of bay laurel can also be used as astringents and even as a reasonable salve for open wounds. In massage therapy, the oil of bay laurel is reputed to alleviate arthritis and rheumatism, while in aromatherapy, it is used to treat earaches. A traditional folk remedy for rashes caused by poison ivy, poison oak, the chemical compound lauroside B isolated from Laurus nobilis is an inhibitor of human melanoma cell proliferation at high concentrations in-vitro
Laurus nobilis
–
Bay laurel
Laurus nobilis
–
A laurel shrub
Laurus nobilis
–
Laurus nobilis in pot
23.
Lyre
–
The lyre is a string instrument known for its use in Greek classical antiquity and later periods. The lyre is similar in appearance to a small harp but with distinct differences, the word comes via Latin from the Greek, the earliest reference to the word is the Mycenaean Greek ru-ra-ta-e, meaning lyrists and written in the Linear B script. The lyres of Ur, excavated in ancient Mesopotamia, date to 2500 BC, the earliest picture of a lyre with seven strings appears in the famous sarcophagus of Hagia Triada. The sarcophagus was used during the Mycenaean occupation of Crete, the recitations of the Ancient Greeks were accompanied by lyre playing. The lyre of classical antiquity was ordinarily played by being strummed with a plectrum, the fingers of the free hand silenced the unwanted strings in the chord. However, later lyres were played with a bow in Europe, one example from Wales that has been resurrected recently is the crwth. In organology, lyres are defined as yoke lutes, being lutes in which the strings are attached to a yoke which lies in the plane as the sound-table. A classical lyre has a body or sound-chest, which. Extending from this sound-chest are two raised arms, which are hollow, and are curved both outward and forward. They are connected near the top by a crossbar or yoke, an additional crossbar, fixed to the sound-chest, makes the bridge which transmits the vibrations of the strings. They were stretched between the yoke and bridge, or to a tailpiece below the bridge, according to ancient Greek mythology, the young god Hermes stole a herd of sacred cows from Apollo. In order not to be followed, he made shoes for the cows which forced them to walk backwards, Apollo, following the trails, could not follow where the cows were going. Along the way, Hermes slaughtered one of the cows and offered all, from the entrails and a tortoise/turtle shell, he created the Lyre. Apollo, figuring out it was Hermes who had his cows, Apollo was furious, but after hearing the sound of the lyre, his anger faded. Apollo offered to trade the herd of cattle for the lyre, hence, the creation of the lyre is attributed to Hermes. Other sources credit it to Apollo himself, locales in southern Europe, western Asia, or north Africa have been proposed as the historic birthplace of the genus. The instrument is played in north-eastern parts of Africa. Some of the cultures using and developing the lyre were the Aeolian and Ionian Greek colonies on the coasts of Asia bordering the Lydian empire, some mythic masters like Musaeus, and Thamyris were believed to have been born in Thrace, another place of extensive Greek colonization
Lyre
–
Greek vase with muse playing the
phorminx, a type of lyre
Lyre
–
Lyre with tortoiseshell body (
rhyton, 480–470 BC)
Lyre
–
The Hagia Triada
Mycenaean sarcophagus, 14th century BCE, depicting the earliest lyre with seven strings, held by a man with long robe, third from the left.
Lyre
–
Pothos (Desire), restored as
Apollo Citharoedus during the Roman era (1st or 2nd century AD, based on a Greek work ca. 300 BC); the cithara strings are not extant
24.
Gustave Moreau
–
Gustave Moreau was a major figure in French Symbolist painting whose main emphasis was the illustration of biblical and mythological figures. As a painter, Moreau appealed to the imaginations of some Symbolist writers and he is recognized for his works that are influenced by the Italian Renaissance and exoticism. His art work was preserved in Paris at the Musée Gustave Moreau and he was born in Paris, France, at 6 Rue des Saints-Peres. He came from a middle class family and his father, Louis Jean Marie Moreau, was an architect for the city of Paris and his mother, nee Adele Pauline Desmoutier, was an accomplished musician. Gustave Moreau lived a sheltered life growing up, having visited Italy at age 15 he began his love for art. At age 18 he was to art at Ecole des Beaux-Arts under the guidance of François-Édouard Picot. He then began to study art under his new mentor Théodore Chassériau, Moreau participated in the Salon for the first time in 1852. Moreau had a 25-year personal, possibly romantic relationship, with Adelaide-Alexandrine Dureux and his first painting was a Pietà which is now located in the cathedral at Angoulême. He showed A Scene from the Song of Songs and The Death of Darius in the Salon of 1853, in 1853, he contributed Athenians with the Minotaur and Moses Putting Off his Sandals within Sight of the Promised Land to the Great Exhibition. Oedipus and the Sphinx, one of his first symbolist paintings, was exhibited at the Salon of 1864, Moreau quickly gained a reputation for eccentricity. One commentator said Moreaus work was like a pastiche of Mantegna created by a German student who relaxes from his painting by reading Schopenhauer, the painting currently resides in the permanent collection at the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art. On March 28,1890, Alexandrine Dureux died and her death affected Moreau greatly, and his work after this point contained a more melancholic edge. She was buried at the cemetery that Moreau himself would be laid to rest. Moreau became a professor at Paris École des Beaux-Arts in October 1891, among his many students were fauvist painters Henri Matisse and Georges Rouault. Jules Flandrin, Theodor Pallady and Léon Printemps also studied with Moreau, Moreau died of stomach cancer and was buried at the Cimetière de Montmartre in Paris in his parents tomb. During his lifetime, Moreau produced more than 8,000 paintings, watercolors and drawings, the museum is in his former workshop, and began operation in 1903. André Breton famously used to haunt the museum and regarded Moreau as a precursor of Surrealism and his work influenced the next generation of Symbolists, particularly Odilon Redon and Jean Delville, a leading figure in Belgian Symbolism in the early part of the twentieth century. The death of Chasseriau in 1856 caused Moreau to enter a state of gloominess and he stopped painting and withdrew himself from the public
Gustave Moreau
–
Self-portrait of Gustave Moreau, 1850
Gustave Moreau
–
Oedipus and the Sphinx (1864)
Gustave Moreau
–
Jason and Medea, (1865)
Gustave Moreau
–
Orpheus (1865)
25.
Persona
–
A persona, in the words everyday usage, is a social role or a character played by an actor. The word is derived from Latin, where it referred to a theatrical mask. The Latin word probably derived from the Etruscan word phersu, with the meaning. The same individuals as actors could play different roles, each with its own attributes, sometimes even in the same court appearance. In the context of the web, users create virtual persona which are also termed internet or online identities. In literature the term refers to a character established by an author. Poets such as Robert Browning, Ezra Pound, and T. S. Eliot are strongly associated with such narrative voices and these writers understood the term slightly differently and derived its use and meaning from different traditions. Examples of Eliots personae were Prufrock and Sweeney, Pound developed such characters as Cino, Bertran de Born, Propertius, and Mauberley in response to figures in Browning’s dramatic monologues. Whereas Eliot used masks to distance himself from aspects of life which he found degrading and repulsive, Pounds personae were often poets. For Pound, the personae were a way of working through a specific poetic problem, in this sense, the persona is a transparent mask, wearing the traits of two poets and responding to two situations, old and new, which are similar and overlapping. In literary analysis, any narrative voice that speaks in the first person and it is contrasted with a third-person narrative voice, generally taken to be more objective and impersonal. Usually the performers assume a role that matches the music they sing on stage, many performers make use of a persona. Some artists create various characters, especially if their career is long, for example, David Bowie initially adopted a role as an alien Ziggy Stardust, and later as The Thin White Duke. More than just artistic pseudonyms, the personae are independent characters used in the artists shows, however, in music, a persona does not always mean a change. Some authors have noted that Bob Dylans charisma is due largely to his almost stereotyped image, always with a harmonica, guitar, and with his hair, nasal voice. The persona also serves to claim a right or to draw attention to a certain subject and that is the case of Marilyn Manson and his interest in death and morbidity, and Madonna and her interest in sexuality. The concept of persona in music was introduced by Edward T, cone in his The Composers Voice, that dealt with the relation between the lyrical self of a songs lyrics and its composer. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band by The Beatles, presents a group persona, artists such as Lady Gaga, Nicki Minaj, and Beyoncé popularized the use of personae in the performance of pop music
Persona
–
In Latin, persona originally meant "
mask ".
Persona
–
David Bowie as
The Thin White Duke at Maple Leaf Gardens,
Toronto 1976
26.
Cumae
–
Cumae was an ancient city of Magna Graecia on the coast of the Tyrrhenian Sea. Founded by settlers from Euboea in the 8th century BC, Cumae was the first Greek colony on the mainland of Italy, the ruins of the city lie near the modern village of Cuma, a frazione of the comune Bacoli in the Province of Naples, Campania, Italy. Cumae is perhaps most famous as the seat of the Cumaean Sibyl and her sanctuary is now open to the public. In Roman mythology, there is an entrance to the underworld located at Avernus, a lake near Cumae. They were already established at Pithecusae, they were led by the paired oecists Megasthenes of Chalcis and its name refers to the peninsula of Cyme in Euboea. It spread its influence throughout the area over the 7th and 6th centuries BC, gaining sway over Puteoli and Misenum and, thereafter, all these facts were recalled long afterwards, Cumaes first brief contemporary mention in written history is in Thucydides. The growing power of the Cumaean Greeks led many indigenous tribes of the region to organize against them, notably the Dauni, contact between the Romans and the Cumaeans is recorded during the reign of Aristodemus. Livy states that prior to the war between Rome and Clusium, the Roman senate sent agents to Cumae to purchase grain in anticipation of a siege of Rome. Also Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, the last legendary King of Rome, lived his life in exile with Aristodemus at Cumae after the Battle of Lake Regillus, also during the reign of Aristodemus, the Cumaean army assisted the Latin city of Aricia to defeat the Etruscan forces of Clusium. The combined fleets of Cumae and Syracuse defeated the Etruscans at the Battle of Cumae in 474 BC, the Greek period at Cumae came to an end in 421 BC, when the Oscans broke down the walls and took the city, ravaging the countryside. Cumae came under Roman rule with Capua and in 338 was granted partial citizenship, in the Second Punic War, in spite of temptations to revolt from Roman authority, Cumae withstood Hannibals siege, under the leadership of Tib. At the end of the 4th century, the temple of Zeus at Cumae was transformed into a Christian basilica, the first historically documented bishop of Cumae was Adeodatus, a member of a synod convoked by Pope Hilarius in Rome in 465. Misenus was excommunicated on his return but was rehabilitated and took part as bishop of Cumae in two synods of Pope Symmachus. Pope Gregory the Great entrusted the administration of the diocese of Cumae to the bishop of Misenum, later, both Misenum and Cumae ceased to be residential sees and the territory of Cumae became part of the diocese of Aversa after the destruction of Cumae in 1207. Accordingly, Cumae is today listed by the Catholic Church as a titular see, in 1207, forces from Naples, acting for the boy-King of Sicily, destroyed the city and its walls, as the stronghold of a nest of bandits. The seaward side of the rise on which Cumae was built was used as a bunker. Not to be confused with the namesake Cuma in Asia Minor A bishopric was established around 450 AD, in 700 it gained territory from the suppressed Diocese of Miseno. In 1207 it was suppressed itself, its territory being divided and merged into the Roman Catholic Diocese of Aversa, saint Massenzio Rainaldo Giovanni Gregorio Leone In 1970, the diocese was nominally restored as a Latin titular see
Cumae
–
The
acropolis of Cumae seen from the lower city.
Cumae
–
The lower city of Cumae seen from the acropolis
Cumae
–
Entrance to the Cave of the
Sibyl
Cumae
–
The Temple of
Zeus at Cumae was converted into a paleochristian
basilica. The
baptismal font can still be seen in the back of the building.
27.
Campania
–
Campania is a region in Southern Italy. Located on the Italian Peninsula, with the Mediterranean Sea to the west, it includes the small Phlegraean Islands, Campania was colonised by Ancient Greeks and was part of Magna Græcia. During the Roman era, the area maintained a Greco-Roman culture, the capital city of Campania is Naples. Campania is rich in culture, especially in regard to gastronomy, music, architecture, archeological and ancient sites such as Pompeii, Herculaneum, Paestum and Velia. The name of Campania itself is derived from Latin, as the Romans knew the region as Campania felix, the rich natural sights of Campania make it highly important in the tourism industry, especially along the Amalfi Coast, Mount Vesuvius and the island of Capri. During the 8th century BC, people from Euboea in Greece, known as Cumaeans, another Oscan tribe, the Samnites, moved down from central Italy into Campania. The Roman consul Quintus Publilius Filo recaptured Neapolis by 326 BC, the Second Samnite War ended with the Romans controlling southern Campania and additional regions further to the south. Campania was a part of the Roman Republic by the end of the 4th century BC, valued for its pastures. Its Greek language and customs made it a centre of Hellenistic civilization, during the Pyrrhic War the battle took place in Campania at Maleventum in which the Romans, led by consul Curius Dentatus, were victorious. They renamed the city Beneventum, which grew in stature until it was only to Capua in southern Italy. During the Second Punic War in 216 BC, Capua, in a bid for equality with Rome, the rebellious Capuans were isolated from the rest of Campania, which remained allies of Rome. Naples resisted Hannibal due to the imposing walls, Capua was eventually starved into submission in the Roman retaking of 211 BC, and the Romans were victorious. The rest of Campania, with the exception of Naples, adopted the Latin language as official and was Romanised. As part of the Roman Empire, Campania, with Latium, Roman Emperors chose Campania as a holiday destination, among them Claudius and Tiberius, the latter of whom is infamously linked to the island of Capri. It was also during this period that Christianity came to Campania, Two of the apostles, St. Peter and St. Paul, are said to have preached in the city of Naples, and there were also several martyrs during this time. Unfortunately, the period of calm was violently interrupted by the epic eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 which buried the cities of Pompeii. The area had many duchies and principalities during the Middle Ages, in the hands of the Byzantine Empire, under the Normans, the smaller independent states were brought together as part of the Kingdom of Sicily, before the mainland broke away to form the Kingdom of Naples. It was during this period elements of Spanish, French
Campania
–
Temple of Hera,
Paestum, built 550 BC
Campania
–
Campania
Campania
–
The Last Day of Pompeii –
Karl Briullov
Campania
–
Early kings ruled from
Castel Nuovo
