1.
Myrina (Aeolis)
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Myrina was one of the Aeolian cities on the western coast of Mysia, about 40 stadia to the southwest of Gryneion. The former bishopric is now a Latin Catholic titular see and its site is believed to be occupied by the modern Sandarlik at the mouth of the Koca Çay, near the town of Aliağa in Izmir Province, in the Aegean Region of Turkey, near Kalavasi. It is said to have founded by one Myrinus before the other Aeolian cities. Artaxerxes gave Gryneium and Myrina to Gongylus, an Eretrian, who had banished from his native city for favoring the interests of Persia. Myrina was a strong place, though not very large. Pliny the Elder mentions the fame of its oysters and that it bore the surname of Sebastopolis, while, according to Syncellus, an inscription tells us that Myrina formed part of the Kingdom of Pergamon in the 3rd century BC. For some time Myrina was occupied by Philip V of Macedon, but the Romans compelled him to evacuate it, under Roman rule, Myrina was part of the Roman province of Asia Prima. The town was restored each time, and continued to exist until a late period and it was the birthplace of Agathias, a Byzantine poet and historian of the 6th century. Myrina minted coins in Antiquity, some of which survive, the site of Myrina was discovered at the mouth of the river that was the ancient Pythicos, whose alluvia have covered what was the citys harbour. Most of these may be today in the Museum of the Louvre. Under Roman rule, Myrina was part of the Roman province of Asia Prima, the names of some of its bishops are known, Dorotheus,431 AD, Proterius,451, John,553, Cosmas,787. It still existed as a see in the 14th century. It is now included in the Catholic Churchs list of titular bishoprics, nominally restored in the 18th century. M. Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography, asiaminorcoins. com, Ancient coins of Myrina Gigacatholic with titular incumbent biography links
2.
Louvre
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The Louvre or the Louvre Museum is the worlds largest museum and a historic monument in Paris, France. A central landmark of the city, it is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the citys 1st arrondissement, approximately 38,000 objects from prehistory to the 21st century are exhibited over an area of 72,735 square metres. The Louvre is the second most visited museum after the Palace Museum in China. The museum is housed in the Louvre Palace, originally built as a fortress in the late 12th century under Philip II, remnants of the fortress are visible in the basement of the museum. Due to the expansion of the city, the fortress eventually lost its defensive function and. The building was extended many times to form the present Louvre Palace, in 1692, the building was occupied by the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres and the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture, which in 1699 held the first of a series of salons. The Académie remained at the Louvre for 100 years, during the French Revolution, the National Assembly decreed that the Louvre should be used as a museum to display the nations masterpieces. The museum opened on 10 August 1793 with an exhibition of 537 paintings, because of structural problems with the building, the museum was closed in 1796 until 1801. The collection was increased under Napoleon and the museum renamed Musée Napoléon, the collection was further increased during the reigns of Louis XVIII and Charles X, and during the Second French Empire the museum gained 20,000 pieces. Holdings have grown steadily through donations and bequests since the Third Republic, whether this was the first building on that spot is not known, it is possible that Philip modified an existing tower. According to the authoritative Grand Larousse encyclopédique, the name derives from an association with wolf hunting den, in the 7th century, St. Fare, an abbess in Meaux, left part of her Villa called Luvra situated in the region of Paris to a monastery. This territory probably did not correspond exactly to the modern site, the Louvre Palace was altered frequently throughout the Middle Ages. In the 14th century, Charles V converted the building into a residence and in 1546, Francis acquired what would become the nucleus of the Louvres holdings, his acquisitions including Leonardo da Vincis Mona Lisa. After Louis XIV chose Versailles as his residence in 1682, constructions slowed, however, on 14 October 1750, Louis XV agreed and sanctioned a display of 96 pieces from the royal collection, mounted in the Galerie royale de peinture of the Luxembourg Palace. Under Louis XVI, the museum idea became policy. The comte dAngiviller broadened the collection and in 1776 proposed conversion of the Grande Galerie of the Louvre – which contained maps – into the French Museum, many proposals were offered for the Louvres renovation into a museum, however, none was agreed on. Hence the museum remained incomplete until the French Revolution, during the French Revolution the Louvre was transformed into a public museum. In May 1791, the Assembly declared that the Louvre would be a place for bringing together monuments of all the sciences, on 10 August 1792, Louis XVI was imprisoned and the royal collection in the Louvre became national property
3.
Taranto
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Taranto is a coastal city in Apulia, Southern Italy. It is the capital of the Province of Taranto and is an important commercial port as well as the main Italian naval base and it is the third-largest continental city of Southern Italy, according to 2011 population census, it has a population of 200,154. Taranto is an important commercial and military port and it has well-developed steel and iron foundries, oil refineries, chemical works, some shipyards for building warships, and food-processing factories. In ancient times around 500 BC the city was one of the largest in the world with population estimates up to 300,000 people, Tarantos pre-history dates back to 706 BC when it was founded as a Greek colony, established by the Spartans. The islets of S. Pietro and S. Paolo, collectively known as Cheradi Islands, protect the bay, called Mar Grande, another bay, called Mar Piccolo, is formed by the peninsula of the old city, and has flourishing fishing. Mar Piccolo is a port with strategic importance. At the end of the 19th century, a channel was excavated to allow ships to enter the Mar Piccolo harbour. In addition, the islets and the coast are strongly fortified, because of the presence of these two bays, Taranto is also called the city of the two seas. The Greek colonists from Sparta called the city Taras, after the mythical hero Taras, while the Romans, the natural harbor at Taranto made it a logical home port for the Italian naval fleet before and during the First World War. During World War II, Taranto became famous as a consequence of the November 1940 British air attack on the Regia Marina naval base stationed here, which today is called the Battle of Taranto. Taranto is also the origin of the name of the Tarantula spider family, Theraphosidae. In ancient times, residents of the town of Taranto, upon being bitten by the large local Wolf Spider, Lycosa tarentula and this was done in order to sweat the venom out of their pores, even though the spiders venom was not fatal to humans. The frenetic dance became known as the Tarantella, in geology, Taranto gives its name to the Tarantian Age of the Pleistocene Epoch. It is 14.5 metres above sea level and it was built on a plain running north/north-west–southeast, and surrounded by the Murgia plateau from the north-west to the east. Its territory extends for 209.64 square kilometres and is mostly underwater and it is characterised by three natural peninsulas and a man-made island, formed by digging a ditch during the construction of Aragon Castle. The Big Sea is frequently known as the Big Sea bay as that is where ships harbour and it is separated from the Little Sea by a cape which closes the gulf, leading to the artificial island. This island formed the heart of the city and it is connected to the mainland by the Ponte di Porta Napoli. The latter form an archipelago which closes off the arc creating the natural Big Sea bay
4.
Dance
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Dance is a performance art form consisting of purposefully selected sequences of human movement. This movement has aesthetic and symbolic value, and is acknowledged as dance by performers and observers within a particular culture, Dance can be categorized and described by its choreography, by its repertoire of movements, or by its historical period or place of origin. Other forms of movement are sometimes said to have a dance-like quality, including martial arts, gymnastics, figure skating, synchronized swimming. Theatrical dance, also called performance or concert dance, is intended primarily as a spectacle and it often tells a story, perhaps using mime, costume and scenery, or else it may simply interpret the musical accompaniment, which is often specially composed. Examples are western ballet and modern dance, Classical Indian dance and Chinese and Japanese song, most classical forms are centred upon dance alone, but performance dance may also appear in opera and other forms of musical theatre. Such dance seldom has any narrative, a group dance and a corps de ballet, a social partner dance and a pas de deux, differ profoundly. Even a solo dance may be solely for the satisfaction of the dancer. On the other hand, some cultures lay down strict rules as to the dances in which, for example. Archeological evidence for early dance includes 9, 000-year-old paintings in India at the Rock Shelters of Bhimbetka and it has been proposed that before the invention of written languages, dance was an important part of the oral and performance methods of passing stories down from generation to generation. The use of dance in trance states and healing rituals is thought to have been another early factor in the social development of dance. References to dance can be found in very early recorded history, Greek dance is referred to by Plato, Aristotle, Plutarch, the Bible and Talmud refer to many events related to dance, and contain over 30 different dance terms. In Chinese pottery as early as the Neolithic period, groups of people are depicted dancing in a line holding hands, Dance is further described in the Lüshi Chunqiu. Primitive dance in ancient China was associated with sorcery and shamanic rituals, during the first millennium BCE in India, many texts were composed which attempted to codify aspects of daily life. Bharata Munis Natyashastra is one of the earlier texts and it mainly deals with drama, in which dance plays an important part in Indian culture. It categorizes dance into four types - secular, ritual, abstract, the text elaborates various hand-gestures and classifies movements of the various limbs, steps and so on. A strong continuous tradition of dance has since continued in India, through to modern times, where it continues to play a role in culture, ritual, and, notably, the Bollywood entertainment industry. Many other contemporary dance forms can likewise be traced back to historical, traditional, ceremonial, Dance is generally, though not exclusively, performed with the accompaniment of music and may or may not be performed in time to such music. Some dance may provide its own audible accompaniment in place of music, many early forms of music and dance were created for each other and are frequently performed together
5.
Stone tool
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A stone tool is, in the most general sense, any tool made either partially or entirely out of stone. Although stone tool-dependent societies and cultures still exist today, most stone tools are associated with prehistoric, archaeologists often study such prehistoric societies, and refer to the study of stone tools as lithic analysis. Ethnoarchaeology has been a research field in order to further the understanding and cultural implications of stone tool use. Stone has been used to make a variety of different tools throughout history, including arrow heads, spearpoints. Stone tools may be made of ground stone or chipped stone. Chipped stone tools are made from materials such as chert or flint, radiolarite, chalcedony, obsidian, basalt. One simple form of reduction is to strike stone flakes from a nucleus of material using a hammerstone or similar hard hammer fabricator, if the goal of the reduction strategy is to produce flakes, the remnant lithic core may be discarded once it has become too small to use. In some strategies, however, a flintknapper reduces the core to a rough unifacial or bifacial preform, more complex forms of reduction include the production of highly standardized blades, which can then be fashioned into a variety of tools such as scrapers, knives, sickles and microliths. Archaeologists classify stone tools into industries that share distinctive technological or morphological characteristics and he assigned to them relative dates, Modes 1 and 2 to the Lower Palaeolithic,3 to the Middle Palaeolithic,4 to the Advanced and 5 to the Mesolithic. They were not to be conceived, however, as either universal—that is, they did not account for all lithic technology, Mode 1, for example, was in use in Europe long after it had been replaced by Mode 2 in Africa. Clarkes scheme was adopted enthusiastically by the archaeological community, one of its advantages was the simplicity of terminology, for example, the Mode 1 / Mode 2 Transition. The transitions are currently of greatest interest, Kenya Stone tools found from 2011 to 2014 at Lake Turkana in Kenya, are dated to be 3.3 million years old, and predate the genus Homo by half million years. The oldest known Homo fossil is 2.8 million years old compared to the 3.3 million year old stone tools. Dating of the tools was by dating volcanic ash layers in which the tools were found, Oldowan tools were characterised by their simple construction, predominantly using core forms. The blunt end is the surface, the sharp, the distal. Grasping the proximal surface, the hominid brought the surface down hard on an object he wished to detach or shatter. The earliest known Oldowan tools yet found date from 2.6 million years ago, during the Lower Palaeolithic period, and have been uncovered at Gona in Ethiopia. Homo habilis was the hominin who used the tools for most of the Oldowan in Africa, eventually, more complex, Mode 2 tools began to be developed through the Acheulean Industry, named after the site of Saint-Acheul in France
6.
Cave painting
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Cave paintings are painted drawings on cave walls or ceilings, mainly of prehistoric origin, to some 40,000 years ago in Eurasia. The exact purpose of the Paleolithic cave paintings is not known, evidence suggests that they were not merely decorations of living areas since the caves in which they have been found do not have signs of ongoing habitation. They are also located in areas of caves that are not easily accessible. Some theories hold that cave paintings may have been a way of communicating with others, the paintings are remarkably similar around the world, with animals being common subjects that give the most impressive images. Humans mainly appear as images of hands, mostly hand stencils made by blowing pigment on a hand held to the wall. The earliest known cave paintings/drawings of animals are at least 35,000 years old and are found in Pettakere cave on the island of Sulawesi in Indonesia, previously it was believed that the earliest paintings were in Europe. The earliest non-figurative rock art dates back to approximately 40,000 years ago, nearly 340 caves have now been discovered in France and Spain that contain art from prehistoric times. But subsequent technology has made it possible to date the paintings by sampling the pigment itself, the choice of subject matter can also indicate chronology. For instance, the reindeer depicted in the Spanish cave of Cueva de las Monedas places the drawings in the last Ice Age. The oldest date given to a cave painting is now a pig that has a minimum age of 35,400 years old at Pettakere cave in Sulawesi. Indonesian and Australian scientists have dated other non-figurative paintings on the walls to be approximately 40,000 years old, the method they used to confirm this was dating the age of the stalactites that formed over the top of the paintings. The art is similar in style and method to that of the Indonesian caves as there were also hand stencils and this date coincides with the earliest known evidence for Homo sapiens in Europe. Because of the cave arts age, some scientists have conjectured that the paintings may have made by Neanderthals. The earliest known European figurative cave paintings are those of Chauvet Cave in France and these paintings date to earlier than 30,000 BCE according to radiocarbon dating. Some researchers believe the drawings are too advanced for this era, the radiocarbon dates from these samples show that there were two periods of creation in Chauvet,35,000 years ago and 30,000 years ago. In 2009, cavers discovered drawings in Coliboaia Cave in Romania, an initial dating puts the age of an image in the same range as Chauvet, about 32,000 years old. Some caves probably continued to be painted over a period of thousands of years. This was created roughly between 10,000 and 5,500 years ago, and painted in rock shelters under cliffs or shallow caves, though individual figures are less naturalistic, they are grouped in coherent grouped compositions to a much greater degree
7.
Culture
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Culture can be defined in numerous ways. In the words of anthropologist E. B, Tylor, it is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society. The Cambridge English Dictionary states that culture is the way of life, especially the customs and beliefs. As a defining aspect of what it means to be human, culture is a concept in anthropology. The word is used in a sense as the evolved ability to categorize and represent experiences with symbols. The level of cultural sophistication has also sometimes seen to distinguish civilizations from less complex societies. Mass culture refers to the mass-produced and mass mediated forms of culture that emerged in the 20th century. When used as a count noun, a culture is the set of customs, traditions, in this sense, multiculturalism is a concept that values the peaceful coexistence and mutual respect between different cultures inhabiting the same planet. Sometimes culture is used to describe specific practices within a subgroup of a society. Samuel Pufendorf took over this metaphor in a context, meaning something similar. His use, and that of many writers after him, refers to all the ways in which human beings overcome their original barbarism, and through artifice, become fully human. To be cultural, to have a culture, is to inhabit a place sufficiently intensive to cultivate it—to be responsible for it, to respond to it, thus a contrast between culture and civilization is usually implied in these authors, even when not expressed as such. Cultural invention has come to any innovation that is new and found to be useful to a group of people and expressed in their behavior. Humanity is in a global accelerating culture change period, driven by the expansion of commerce, the mass media, and above all. Culture repositioning means the reconstruction of the concept of a society. Cultures are internally affected by both forces encouraging change and forces resisting change, Social conflict and the development of technologies can produce changes within a society by altering social dynamics and promoting new cultural models, and spurring or enabling generative action. These social shifts may accompany ideological shifts and other types of cultural change, for example, the U. S. feminist movement involved new practices that produced a shift in gender relations, altering both gender and economic structures. Environmental conditions may also enter as factors, Cultures are externally affected via contact between societies, which may also produce—or inhibit—social shifts and changes in cultural practices
8.
Ceremony
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A ceremony is an event of ritual significance, performed on a special occasion. The word may be of Etruscan origin, via the Latin caerimonia, ceremonies may have a physical display or theatrical component, dance, a procession, the laying on of hands. A declaratory verbal pronouncement may explain or cap the occasion, for instance, I now pronounce you husband, I swear to serve and defend the nation. I declare open the games of, both physical and verbal components of a ceremony may become part of a liturgy
9.
Ritual
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A ritual is a sequence of activities involving gestures, words, and objects, performed in a sequestered place, and performed according to set sequence. Rituals may be prescribed by the traditions of a community, including a religious community, Rituals are characterized but not defined by formalism, traditionalism, invariance, rule-governance, sacral symbolism, and performance. Rituals are a feature of all human societies. Even common actions like hand-shaking and saying hello may be termed rituals, the field of ritual studies has seen a number of conflicting definitions of the term. One given by Kyriakidis is that a ritual is an outsiders or etic category for a set activity that, to the outsider, seems irrational, non-contiguous, or illogical. The term can be used also by the insider or emic performer as an acknowledgement that this activity can be seen as such by the uninitiated onlooker, the English word ritual derives from the Latin ritualis, that which pertains to rite. In Roman juridical and religious usage, ritus was the way of doing something, or correct performance. The word ritual is first recorded in English in 1570, there are hardly any limits to the kind of actions that may be incorporated into a ritual. Catherine Bell argues that rituals can be characterized by formalism, traditionalism, invariance, rule-governance, sacral symbolism, Ritual utilizes a limited and rigidly organized set of expressions which anthropologists call a restricted code. Maurice Bloch argues that ritual obliges participants to use this formal oratorical style, which is limited in intonation, syntax, vocabulary, loudness, in adopting this style, ritual leaders speech becomes more style than content. Because this formal speech limits what can be said, it induces acceptance, compliance, Bloch argues that this form of ritual communication makes rebellion impossible and revolution the only feasible alternative. Ritual tends to support forms of social hierarchy and authority. Rituals appeal to tradition and are concerned to repeat historical precedents accurately. Traditionalism varies from formalism in that the ritual may not be yet still makes an appeal to historical. An example is the American Thanksgiving dinner, which may not be formal, thus, the appeal to history is important rather than accurate historical transmission. Catherine Bell states that ritual is also invariant, implying careful choreography and this is less an appeal to traditionalism than a striving for timeless repetition. The key to invariance is bodily discipline, as in prayer and meditation meant to mold dispositions. This bodily discipline is frequently performed in unison, by groups, Rituals tend to be governed by rules, a feature somewhat like formalism
10.
Party
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A party is a gathering of people who have been invited by a host for the purposes of socializing, conversation, recreation, or as part of a festival or other commemoration of a special occasion. A party will typically feature food and beverages, and often music, in many Western countries, parties for teens and adults are associated with drinking alcohol such as beer, wine or distilled spirits. Some parties are held in honor of a person, day, or event, such as a birthday party. Parties of this kind are often called celebrations, a party is not necessarily a private occasion. Public parties are held in restaurants, pubs, beer gardens, nightclubs or bars. Large parties in public streets may celebrate events such as Mardi Gras or the signing of a treaty ending a long war. A birthday party is a celebration of the anniversary of the birth of the person who is being honored, the tradition started in the mid-nineteenth century but did not become popular until the mid-twentieth century. Birthday parties are now a feature of many cultures, in Western cultures, birthday parties include a number of common rituals. The guests may be asked to bring a gift for the honored person, party locations are often decorated with colorful decorations, such as balloons and streamers. A birthday cake is served with lit candles that are to be blown out after a birthday wish has been made. The person being honored will be given the first piece of cake, while the birthday cake is being brought to the table, the song Happy Birthday to You or some other birthday song is sung by the guests. At parties for children, time is taken for the gift opening wherein the individual whose birthday is celebrated opens each of the gifts brought. It is also common at childrens parties for the host to give parting gifts to the attendees in the form of goodie bags, children and even adults sometimes wear colorful cone-shaped party hats. Birthday parties are often larger and more extravagant if they celebrate someone who has reached what is regarded in the culture as a milestone age, examples of traditional coming of age celebrations include the North American sweet sixteen party and the Latin American quinceañera. A surprise party is a party that is not made known beforehand to the person in whose honor it is being held, Birthday surprise parties are the most common kind of surprise party. At most such parties, the guests arrive a hour or so before the honored person arrives. Often, a friend in on the surprise will lead the honored person to the location of the party without letting on anything, the guests might even conceal themselves from view, and when the honored person enters the room, they leap from hiding and all shout, Surprise. For some surprise birthday parties, it is considered to be a tactic to shock the honored person
11.
Civilization
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Historically, a civilization was a so-called advanced culture in contrast to more supposedly primitive cultures. As an uncountable noun, civilization also refers to the process of a society developing into a centralized, urbanized, stratified structure, Civilization concentrates power, extending human control over the rest of nature, including over other human beings. The earlier neolithic technology and lifestyle was established first in the Middle East, and later in the Yangtze and Yellow River basins in China, similar pre-civilized neolithic revolutions also began independently from 7,000 BCE in such places as northwestern South America and Mesoamerica. These were among the six civilizations worldwide that arose independently, Mesopotamia is the site of the earliest developments of the Neolithic Revolution from around 10,000 BCE, with civilizations developing from 6,500 years ago. Towards the end of the Neolithic period, various elitist Chalcolithic civilizations began to rise in various cradles from around 3300 BCE. Chalcolithic civilizations, as defined above, also developed in Pre-Columbian Americas and, despite an early start in Egypt, Axum and Kush, the English word civilization comes from the 16th-century French civilisé, from Latin civilis, related to civis and civitas. The fundamental treatise is Norbert Eliass The Civilizing Process, which traces social mores from medieval courtly society to the Early Modern period, in The Philosophy of Civilization, Albert Schweitzer outlines two opinions, one purely material and the other material and ethical. Adjectives like civility developed in the mid-16th century, the abstract noun civilization, meaning civilized condition, came in the 1760s, again from French. The word was therefore opposed to barbarism or rudeness, in the pursuit of progress characteristic of the Age of Enlightenment. In the late 1700s and early 1800s, during the French revolution, civilization was used in the singular, never in the plural and this is still the case in French. The use of civilizations as a noun was in occasional use in the 19th century. Only in this sense does it become possible to speak of a medieval civilization. Already in the 18th century, civilization was not always seen as an improvement, one historically important distinction between culture and civilization is from the writings of Rousseau, particularly his work about education, Emile. From this, a new approach was developed, especially in Germany, first by Johann Gottfried Herder and this sees cultures as natural organisms, not defined by conscious, rational, deliberative acts, but a kind of pre-rational folk spirit. Civilization, in contrast, though more rational and more successful in material progress, is unnatural and leads to vices of social life such as guile, hypocrisy, envy and avarice. In World War II, Leo Strauss, having fled Germany, argued in New York that this opinion of civilization was behind Nazism, Social scientists such as V. Gordon Childe have named a number of traits that distinguish a civilization from other kinds of society. Andrew Nikiforuk argues that civilizations relied on shackled human muscle and it took the energy of slaves to plant crops, clothe emperors, and build cities and considers slavery to be a common feature of pre-modern civilizations. All civilizations have depended on agriculture for subsistence, grain farms can result in accumulated storage and a surplus of food, particularly when people use intensive agricultural techniques such as artificial fertilization, irrigation and crop rotation
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Archaeology
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Archaeology, or archeology, is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, Archaeology can be considered both a social science and a branch of the humanities. In North America, archaeology is considered a sub-field of anthropology, archaeologists study human prehistory and history, from the development of the first stone tools at Lomekwi in East Africa 3.3 million years ago up until recent decades. Archaeology as a field is distinct from the discipline of palaeontology, Archaeology is particularly important for learning about prehistoric societies, for whom there may be no written records to study. Prehistory includes over 99% of the human past, from the Paleolithic until the advent of literacy in societies across the world, Archaeology has various goals, which range from understanding culture history to reconstructing past lifeways to documenting and explaining changes in human societies through time. The discipline involves surveying, excavation and eventually analysis of data collected to learn more about the past, in broad scope, archaeology relies on cross-disciplinary research. Archaeology developed out of antiquarianism in Europe during the 19th century, Archaeology has been used by nation-states to create particular visions of the past. Nonetheless, today, archaeologists face many problems, such as dealing with pseudoarchaeology, the looting of artifacts, a lack of public interest, the science of archaeology grew out of the older multi-disciplinary study known as antiquarianism. Antiquarians studied history with attention to ancient artifacts and manuscripts. Tentative steps towards the systematization of archaeology as a science took place during the Enlightenment era in Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries, in Europe, philosophical interest in the remains of Greco-Roman civilization and the rediscovery of classical culture began in the late Middle Age. Antiquarians, including John Leland and William Camden, conducted surveys of the English countryside, one of the first sites to undergo archaeological excavation was Stonehenge and other megalithic monuments in England. John Aubrey was a pioneer archaeologist who recorded numerous megalithic and other monuments in southern England. He was also ahead of his time in the analysis of his findings and he attempted to chart the chronological stylistic evolution of handwriting, medieval architecture, costume, and shield-shapes. Excavations were also carried out in the ancient towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum and these excavations began in 1748 in Pompeii, while in Herculaneum they began in 1738. The discovery of entire towns, complete with utensils and even human shapes, however, prior to the development of modern techniques, excavations tended to be haphazard, the importance of concepts such as stratification and context were overlooked. The father of archaeological excavation was William Cunnington and he undertook excavations in Wiltshire from around 1798, funded by Sir Richard Colt Hoare. Cunnington made meticulous recordings of neolithic and Bronze Age barrows, one of the major achievements of 19th century archaeology was the development of stratigraphy. The idea of overlapping strata tracing back to successive periods was borrowed from the new geological and paleontological work of scholars like William Smith, James Hutton, the application of stratigraphy to archaeology first took place with the excavations of prehistorical and Bronze Age sites
13.
Prehistory
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Prehistory means literally before history, from the Latin word for before, præ, and Greek ιστορία. Neighbouring civilisations were the first to follow, most other civilisations reached the end of prehistory during the Iron Age. The period when a culture is written about by others, but has not developed its own writing is known as the protohistory of the culture. By definition, there are no records from human prehistory. Clear techniques for dating were not well-developed until the 19th century and this article is concerned with human prehistory as defined here above. There are separate articles for the history of the Earth. However, for the race as a whole, prehistory ends when recorded history begins with the accounts of the ancient world around the 4th millennium BC. For example, in Egypt it is accepted that prehistory ended around 3200 BC, whereas in New Guinea the end of the prehistoric era is set much more recently. The three-age system is the periodization of prehistory into three consecutive time periods, named for their respective predominant tool-making technologies, Stone Age Bronze Age Iron Age. The notion of prehistory began to surface during the Enlightenment in the work of antiquarians who used the word primitive to describe societies that existed before written records, the first use of the word prehistory in English, however, occurred in the Foreign Quarterly Review in 1836. The main source for prehistory is archaeology, but some scholars are beginning to more use of evidence from the natural and social sciences. This view has been articulated by advocates of deep history, human population geneticists and historical linguists are also providing valuable insight for these questions. Human prehistory differs from history not only in terms of its chronology, restricted to material processes, remains and artifacts rather than written records, prehistory is anonymous. Because of this, reference terms that use, such as Neanderthal or Iron Age are modern labels with definitions sometimes subject to debate. Palaeolithic means Old Stone Age, and begins with the first use of stone tools, the Paleolithic is the earliest period of the Stone Age. The early part of the Palaeolithic is called the Lower Palaeolithic, evidence of control of fire by early humans during the Lower Palaeolithic Era is uncertain and has at best limited scholarly support. The most widely accepted claim is that H. erectus or H. ergaster made fires between 790,000 and 690,000 BP in a site at Bnot Yaakov Bridge, Israel. The use of fire enabled early humans to cook food, provide warmth, Early Homo sapiens originated some 200,000 years ago, ushering in the Middle Palaeolithic
14.
Bhimbetka rock shelters
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The Bhimbetka rock shelters are an archaeological site of the Paleolithic, exhibiting the earliest traces of human life on the Indian Subcontinent, and thus the beginning of the Indian Stone Age. It is located in the Raisen District in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, near Abdullaganj town, at least some of the shelters were inhabited by Homo erectus over 100,000 years ago. Some of the Stone Age rock paintings found among the Bhimbetka rock shelters are some 30,000 years old, the caves also deliver early evidence of dance. They were declared a World Heritage Site in 2003, the name Bhimbetka is associated with Bhima, a hero-deity of the epic Mahabharata. The word Bhimbetka is said to derive from Bhimbaithka, meaning sitting place of Bhima, the Rock Shelters of Bhimbetaka lies 9 km from Obedullaganj city in the Raisen District of Madhya Pradesh and 45 kilometers south of Bhopal at the southern edge of the Vindhya hills. South of these shelters are successive ranges of the Satpura hills. Later V. S. Wakankar, while travelling by train to Bhopal, saw some rock formations similar to those he had seen in Spain and he visited the area with a team of archaeologists and discovered several prehistoric rock shelters in 1957. Since then more than 750 such shelters have been identified, of which 243 are in the Bhimbetka group and 178 in the Lakha Juar group, Archaeological studies revealed a continuous sequence of Stone Age cultures, as well as the world’s oldest stone walls and floors. Barkheda has been identified as the source of the raw materials used in some of the monoliths discovered at Bhimbetka, the rock shelters and caves of Bhimbetka have a large number of paintings. The oldest paintings are considered to be 30,000 years old, the colors used are vegetable colors which have endured through time because the drawings were generally made deep inside a niche or on inner walls. The drawings and paintings can be classified under seven different periods, period I -, These are linear representations, in green and dark red, of huge figures of animals such as bison, tigers and rhinoceroses. Period II -, Comparatively small in size the stylised figures in this group show linear decorations on the body. In addition to there are human figures and hunting scenes, giving a clear picture of the weapons they used, barbed spears, pointed sticks. The depiction of communal dances, birds, musical instruments, mothers and children, pregnant women, men carrying dead animals, drinking and burials appear in rhythmic movement. Period IV & V -, The figures of this group have a schematic and decorative style and are painted mainly in red, white, the association is of riders, depiction of religious symbols, tunic-like dresses and the existence of scripts of different periods. The religious beliefs are represented by figures of yakshas, tree gods, period VI & VII -, These paintings are geometric linear and more schematic, but they show degeneration and crudeness in their artistic style. The colors used by the dwellers were prepared by combining manganese, hematite. One rock, popularly referred to as “Zoo Rock”, depicts elephants, Barasingha, bison, Paintings on another rock show a peacock, a snake, a deer and the sun
15.
India
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India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and it is bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the southwest, and the Bay of Bengal on the southeast. It shares land borders with Pakistan to the west, China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the northeast, in the Indian Ocean, India is in the vicinity of Sri Lanka and the Maldives. Indias Andaman and Nicobar Islands share a border with Thailand. The Indian subcontinent was home to the urban Indus Valley Civilisation of the 3rd millennium BCE, in the following millennium, the oldest scriptures associated with Hinduism began to be composed. Social stratification, based on caste, emerged in the first millennium BCE, early political consolidations took place under the Maurya and Gupta empires, the later peninsular Middle Kingdoms influenced cultures as far as southeast Asia. In the medieval era, Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Christianity, and Islam arrived, much of the north fell to the Delhi sultanate, the south was united under the Vijayanagara Empire. The economy expanded in the 17th century in the Mughal empire, in the mid-18th century, the subcontinent came under British East India Company rule, and in the mid-19th under British crown rule. A nationalist movement emerged in the late 19th century, which later, under Mahatma Gandhi, was noted for nonviolent resistance, in 2015, the Indian economy was the worlds seventh largest by nominal GDP and third largest by purchasing power parity. Following market-based economic reforms in 1991, India became one of the major economies and is considered a newly industrialised country. However, it continues to face the challenges of poverty, corruption, malnutrition, a nuclear weapons state and regional power, it has the third largest standing army in the world and ranks sixth in military expenditure among nations. India is a constitutional republic governed under a parliamentary system. It is a pluralistic, multilingual and multi-ethnic society and is home to a diversity of wildlife in a variety of protected habitats. The name India is derived from Indus, which originates from the Old Persian word Hindu, the latter term stems from the Sanskrit word Sindhu, which was the historical local appellation for the Indus River. The ancient Greeks referred to the Indians as Indoi, which translates as The people of the Indus, the geographical term Bharat, which is recognised by the Constitution of India as an official name for the country, is used by many Indian languages in its variations. Scholars believe it to be named after the Vedic tribe of Bharatas in the second millennium B. C. E and it is also traditionally associated with the rule of the legendary emperor Bharata. Gaṇarājya is the Sanskrit/Hindi term for republic dating back to the ancient times, hindustan is a Persian name for India dating back to the 3rd century B. C. E. It was introduced into India by the Mughals and widely used since then and its meaning varied, referring to a region that encompassed northern India and Pakistan or India in its entirety
16.
Ancient Egypt
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Ancient Egypt was a civilization of ancient Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. It is one of six civilizations to arise independently, Egyptian civilization followed prehistoric Egypt and coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh Narmer. In the aftermath of Alexander the Greats death, one of his generals, Ptolemy Soter and this Greek Ptolemaic Kingdom ruled Egypt until 30 BC, when, under Cleopatra, it fell to the Roman Empire and became a Roman province. The success of ancient Egyptian civilization came partly from its ability to adapt to the conditions of the Nile River valley for agriculture, the predictable flooding and controlled irrigation of the fertile valley produced surplus crops, which supported a more dense population, and social development and culture. Its art and architecture were widely copied, and its antiquities carried off to far corners of the world and its monumental ruins have inspired the imaginations of travelers and writers for centuries. The Nile has been the lifeline of its region for much of human history, nomadic modern human hunter-gatherers began living in the Nile valley through the end of the Middle Pleistocene some 120,000 years ago. By the late Paleolithic period, the climate of Northern Africa became increasingly hot and dry. In Predynastic and Early Dynastic times, the Egyptian climate was less arid than it is today. Large regions of Egypt were covered in treed savanna and traversed by herds of grazing ungulates, foliage and fauna were far more prolific in all environs and the Nile region supported large populations of waterfowl. Hunting would have been common for Egyptians, and this is also the period when many animals were first domesticated. The largest of these cultures in upper Egypt was the Badari, which probably originated in the Western Desert, it was known for its high quality ceramics, stone tools. The Badari was followed by the Amratian and Gerzeh cultures, which brought a number of technological improvements, as early as the Naqada I Period, predynastic Egyptians imported obsidian from Ethiopia, used to shape blades and other objects from flakes. In Naqada II times, early evidence exists of contact with the Near East, particularly Canaan, establishing a power center at Hierakonpolis, and later at Abydos, Naqada III leaders expanded their control of Egypt northwards along the Nile. They also traded with Nubia to the south, the oases of the desert to the west. Royal Nubian burials at Qustul produced artifacts bearing the oldest-known examples of Egyptian dynastic symbols, such as the crown of Egypt. They also developed a ceramic glaze known as faience, which was used well into the Roman Period to decorate cups, amulets, and figurines. During the last predynastic phase, the Naqada culture began using written symbols that eventually were developed into a system of hieroglyphs for writing the ancient Egyptian language. The Early Dynastic Period was approximately contemporary to the early Sumerian-Akkadian civilisation of Mesopotamia, the third-century BC Egyptian priest Manetho grouped the long line of pharaohs from Menes to his own time into 30 dynasties, a system still used today
17.
Contemporary dance
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Although originally informed by and borrowing from classical, modern, and jazz styles, it has since come to incorporate elements from many styles of dance. Due to its similarities, it is often perceived to be closely related to modern dance, ballet. Unpredictable changes in rhythm, speed, and direction are often used and it sometimes also incorporates elements of non-western dance cultures such as elements from African dance including bent knees, or movements from the Japanese contemporary dance Butoh. Contemporary dance draws on classical ballet and modern dance, whereas postmodern dance was a direct and opposite response to modern dance. Merce Cunningham is considered to be the first choreographer to develop an independent attitude towards modern dance and defy the ideas that were established by it. In 1944 Cunningham accompanied his dance music by John Cage. As in abstract painting, it is assumed that an element is in and of itself expressive, denis, Doris Humphrey, Mary Wigman, Francois Delsarte, Émile Jaques-Dalcroze, Paul Taylor, Rudolph von Laban, Loie Fuller, Jose Limon and Marie Rambert. There is usually a choreographer who makes the creative decisions, he/she chooses whether the piece is an abstract or a narrative one. Dancers are selected based on their skill and training, the choreography is determined based on its relation to the music or sounds that is danced to. The role of music in dance is different from in other genres because it can serve as a backdrop to the piece. The choreographer has control over the costumes and their value for the overall composition of the performance. Some well-known choreographers and creators of contemporary dance created schools and techniques of their own, Paul Taylor developed a dance technique called Taylor technique, which is now taught at modern dance schools like The Ailey School in New York City. Modern dance Contemporary ballet Tanztheater Contemporary-dance. org website
18.
Historical dance
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Historical dance is a term covering a wide variety of Western European-based dance types from the past as they are danced in the present. Historical dances are danced as performance, for pleasure at themed balls or dance clubs, as historical reenactment, dances from the early 20th century can be recreated precisely, being within living memory and after the advent of film and video recording. Earlier dance types, however, must be reconstructed from less reliable evidence such as surviving notations, for performance dancing, see the history of dance article. Very little evidence survives about medieval dance except what can be gleaned from paintings, some names of the dances which we know existed during the Middle Ages include Carole, Ductia, Estampie, Saltarello, and the Trotto. The farandole is also presented as a medieval dance, based on surviving iconography. The earliest surviving dance manuals come from the Renaissance period, including examples by Italian dance master and composer Fabritio Caroso, thus we are able to reconstruct the dances with a greater degree of certainty. The large number of dances with Spanish origin reflect the influence of the dominating power of the age. Apart from country dances, the most well-documented baroque dance style was that which was developed at the French court during the 17th century, the term baroque dance is often used to refer specifically to this style, reflecting the dominating power of the era. Clothing tended to be light and unrestrictive, encouraging dances with lots of skipping and jumping, such as the English Country Dance, Regency dance, Polonaise, Quadrille, starting with the great international polka craze of 1844 anyone who was anyone was dancing. Women were in hoop skirts, and turning dances helped to keep out of the way. Dances popular during this period included the polka, schottische, two-step, the dances popular in mid-century were still being done at the end of the century, but by fewer people. Dance masters, in attempts to maintain their place in society and in the economy. During this period, the replaced the hoop, which necessitated a few changes in dancing. At the same time, ragtime music began to gain mainstream respectibility, some examples of dances popular during this period include the cakewalk, Krakowiak, mazurka, racket, redowa, and the waltz. Vernon and Irene Castle brought an air of respectability to couples dancing, but by the end of World War I, these were considered old fashioned, and included the foxtrot, maxixe, one-step, tango, and waltz. During the roaring twenties, for the first time, there was a class of children who did not have to work to support the family. This was an era of highly energetic dances done by the generation, represented by the Black Bottom, Charleston, foxtrot, shag. In the peak of the Swing era, more exotic dance styles became more popular among younger generations in America
19.
Rainmaking (ritual)
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Rainmaking is a weather modification ritual that attempts to invoke rain. Among the best known examples of weather modification rituals are North American rain dances, historically performed by many Native American tribes, some of these weather modification rituals are still implemented today. Julia M. Buttree describes the dance of the Zuni, along with other Native American dances. Feathers and turquoise, or other items, are worn during the ceremony to symbolize wind. Details on how best to perform the Rain Dance have been passed down by oral tradition and this is best documented among the Osage and Quapaw Indian tribes of Missouri and Arkansas. Wu Shamans in ancient China performed sacrificial rain dance ceremonies in times of drought, wu anciently served as intermediaries with nature spirits believed to control rainfall and flooding. Shamans had to carry out an exhausting dance within a ring of fire until, sweating profusely, Rain is important for agriculturists, since they want water for growing plants. When the rain fall in a season, people use traditional means of making rain to solve the problem of the lack of rainfall. In Thailand, there is a called the “Cat Parade”. The “Cat Parade” is a ritual of Thai farmers in both the central and eastern parts of the country and it is performed when close to the rainy season, if the rain hasn’t come. Farmers will often join the Cat Parade, the ancients believed that the cat is an animal which is afraid of rain and water. If it rained, the cat would cry, the ancients considered that if the cat cries it means that rain is going to fall. Some people believe that the cat represents drought, if the cat is wet, the drought will be driven away. Others believed that the cat has the power to make rain, to perform a “Cat Parade”, you must bring a female cat that has grey or black fur. The cats are then to be placed in baskets, only one cat should be put in a basket and you must then walk around in the village. When the “Cat Parade” goes through someones house, that needs to splash water on the cats. It is believed that rain would fall after three to seven days. Caloian, Dodola and Perperuna / Paparuda, among other terms, refer to a family of Slavic and Romanian rainmaking rituals, dragon Festival for rainmaking in Nio, Japan NHK
20.
Rasa lila
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The Indian classical dance of Kathak evolved from the Raslila of Braj and Manipuri Classical Dance also known as Natwari Nritya, which was revived in 1960s by Kathak dancer, Uma Sharma. In the Krishna Bhakti traditions, the rasa-lila is considered to be one of the highest and most esoteric of Krishnas pastimes, in the Bhagavata Purana it is stated that whoever faithfully hears or describes the Rasa lila attains Krishnas pure loving devotion. Just as a child plays at its own will with its reflection in a mirror, even so with the help of His Yogamāyā Bhagavān Śrī Kṛṣṇa sported with the Gopīs and it is often freely rendered as the dance of love. Rasa lila has been a theme in Kathak, Bharatanatyam, Odissi, Meitei. Raas Leela is also observed as one of the State Festivals of Assam which usually is celebrated during Late November or Early December, during Raas Mahotsava, several thousand devotees visit the holy temples and Xatras of Assam every year. The Raas Mahotsav of Majuli, Nalbari and Of Howly deserve a mention in this regard. This form of dance was started by Bhagya Chandra in 1779, according to different traditions, the rasa-lila is performed either by boys and girls, or by girls only. The dance is performed holding dandi and is accompanied with folk songs. The Traditional Rasa Lila performances in Vrindavan are famous throughout the Vaisnava world as an experience of the spiritual world, Rasa Lila performance was started by Swami Sri Uddhavaghamanda Devacharya in the early 15th Century CE at Vamshivata in Vrindavan, Mathura. He was a prominent saint of the Nimbarka Sampradaya, and disciple of the world-renowned Swami Sri Harivyasa Devacarya and these songs describe the eternal spiritual abode of Shri Radha Krishna, the Sakhis and Nitya Vrindavana Dham - or Nikunja Dham. Many were sceptical of this, and attempted to thwart the first enactment, Shri Radha and Krsna shall be known as Shri Radha Rasavihari. Since then, the form has remained that actors who are young Brahmacharis will join a group led by the Swami of that group. Recently, many people have changed the music to popular music. Yet there are a few who seek to preserve the traditional form of devotional art known as Rasa Lila. Music in traditional Indian theatre, special reference to Raas Leela, Dance of Divine Love, The Rasa Lila of Krishna from the Bhagavata Purana, Indias classic sacred love story, by Graham M. Schweig. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ,2005, Rasa - Love Relationships in Transcendence, by Swami B. V
21.
Indian classical dance
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The number of recognized classical dances range from eight to more, depending on the source and scholar. The Sangeet Natak Akademi recognizes eight – Bharatanatyam, Kathak, Kuchipudi, Odissi, Kathakali, Sattriya, Manipuri, scholars such as Drid Williams add Chhau, Yaksagana and Bhagavata Mela to the list. The Culture Ministry of the Government of India includes Chhau in its classical list and these dances have been regional, all of them include music and recitation in local language or Sanskrit, and they represent a unity of core ideas in a diversity of styles, costumes and expression. The Natya Shastra is the treatise for classical dances of India. Its first complete compilation is dated to between 200 BCE and 200 CE, but estimates vary between 500 BCE and 500 CE, the most studied version of the Natya Shastra text consists of about 6000 verses structured into 36 chapters. Dance and performance arts, states this ancient text, are a form of expression of ideas, virtues. The term classical denotes the Natya Shastra-based performing arts, as a religious art, they are either performed inside the sanctum of a Hindu temple, or near it. The Natya Shastra mentions four Pravrittis of ancient dance-drama in vogue when it was composed – Avanti, Dakshinatya, Panchali, sources differ in their list of Indian classical dance forms. The Sangeet Natak Akademi has given recognition to eight Indian dances, the Indian governments Ministry of Culture includes eleven dance forms. Scholars such as Drid Williams and others include Chhau, Yaksagana and these are Nritta, Nritya and Natya, The Nritta performance is abstract, fast and rhythmic aspect of the dance. The viewer is presented with pure movement, wherein the emphasis is the beauty in motion, form, speed, range and this part of the repertoire has no interpretative aspect, no telling of story. It is a performance, and aims to engage the senses of the audience. The Nritya is slower and expressive aspect of the dance that attempts to communicate feelings, in a nritya, the dance-acting expands to include silent expression of words through gestures and body motion set to musical notes. The actor articulates a legend or a spiritual message and this part of the repertoire is more than sensory enjoyment, it aims to engage the emotions and mind of the viewer. A Natya incorporates the elements of a Nritya, all classical dances of India used similar symbolism and rules of gestures in abhinaya. The roots of abhinaya are found in the Natyashastra text which defines drama in verse 6, drama in this ancient Sanskrit text, thus is an art to engage every aspect of life, in order to glorify and gift a state of joyful consciousness. The communication through symbols is in the form of expressive gestures, the gestures and facial expressions convey the ras and bhava of the underlying story. In Hindu classical dances, the artist successfully expresses the ideas by paying attention to four aspects of a performance, Angika, Vachika, Aharya
22.
Cham dance
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The cham dance, is a lively masked and costumed dance associated with some sects of Tibetan Buddhism and Buddhist festivals. The dance is accompanied by music played by using traditional Tibetan instruments. The dances often offer moral instruction relating to compassion for sentient beings and are held to bring merit to all who perceive them, Cham dances are considered a form of meditation and an offering to the gods. The leader of the cham is typically a musician, keeping time using some percussion instrument like cymbals, the one exception being Dramyin Cham, chams often depict incidents from the life of Padmasambhava, the 9th century Nyingmapa teacher, and other saints. In Bhutan, the dances are performed during a religious festival known as Tshechu. The Cham are performed by monks, nuns, and villagers, the Royal Academy of Performing Arts are the main body which emphasize on preservation of culture of Cham and dances. Tibetans usually perform the dance to large audiences during the Monlam Prayer Festival. Dances are performed in Sikkim, Dharamsala and Ladakh during cultural, chöd Nechung Oracle Trance Forman, Werner & Rintschen, Bjamba Lamaistische Tanzmasken, der Erlik-Tsam in der Mongolei. Leipzig, Koehler & Amelang,1967 Examples of Cham Dance
23.
Rainforest
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The monsoon trough, alternatively known as the intertropical convergence zone, plays a significant role in creating the climatic conditions necessary for the Earths tropical rainforests. Around 40% to 75% of all species are indigenous to the rainforests. It has been estimated there may be many millions of species of plants, insects. Tropical rainforests have been called the jewels of the Earth and the worlds largest pharmacy, the undergrowth in some areas of a rainforest can be restricted by poor penetration of sunlight to ground level. If the leaf canopy is destroyed or thinned, the ground beneath is soon colonized by a dense, tangled growth of vines, shrubs and small trees, the term jungle is also sometimes applied to tropical rainforests generally. Tropical rainforests are characterized by a warm and wet climate with no dry season. Mean monthly temperatures exceed 18 °C during all months of the year, average annual rainfall is no less than 168 cm and can exceed 1,000 cm although it typically lies between 175 cm and 200 cm. Many of the tropical forests are associated with the location of the monsoon trough. The broader category of tropical moist forests are located in the zone between the Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn. Tropical forests have been called the Earths lungs, although it is now known that rainforests contribute little net oxygen addition to the atmosphere through photosynthesis, Tropical forests cover a large part of the globe, but temperate rainforests only occur in few regions around the world. Temperate rainforests are rainforests in temperate regions and they occur in North America, in Europe, in East Asia, in South America and also in Australia and New Zealand. A tropical rainforest typically has a number of layers, each with different plants, examples include the emergent, canopy, understorey and forest floor layers. They need to be able to withstand the hot temperatures and strong winds that occur above the canopy in some areas, eagles, butterflies, bats and certain monkeys inhabit this layer. The canopy layer contains the majority of the largest trees, typically 30 metres to 45 metres tall, the densest areas of biodiversity are found in the forest canopy, a more or less continuous cover of foliage formed by adjacent treetops. The canopy, by some estimates, is home to 50 percent of all plant species, epiphytic plants attach to trunks and branches, and obtain water and minerals from rain and debris that collects on the supporting plants. The fauna is similar to found in the emergent layer. A quarter of all species are believed to exist in the rainforest canopy. Scientists have long suspected the richness of the canopy as a habitat, true exploration of this habitat only began in the 1980s, when scientists developed methods to reach the canopy, such as firing ropes into the trees using crossbows
24.
Kalahari Desert
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The Kalahari Desert is a large semi-arid sandy savannah in Southern Africa extending 900,000 square kilometres, covering much of Botswana, parts of Namibia, and regions of South Africa. Derived from the Tswana word Kgala, meaning the great thirst, or Kgalagadi, meaning a waterless place, drainage is by dry valleys, seasonally inundated pans, and the large salt pans of the Makgadikgadi Pan in Botswana and Etosha Pan in Namibia. The only permanent river, the Okavango, flows into a delta in the northwest, ancient dry riverbeds—called omuramba—traverse the central northern reaches of the Kalahari and provide standing pools of water during the rainy season. A semi-desert, with tracts of excellent grazing after good rains. There are small amounts of rainfall and the temperature is very high. The driest areas usually receive 110–200 millimetres of rain per year, the surrounding Kalahari Basin covers over 2,500,000 square kilometres extending further into Botswana, Namibia and South Africa, and encroaching into parts of Angola, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The Kalahari is home to migratory birds and animals. The area is now heavily grazed and cattle fences restrict the movement of wildlife, among deserts of the Southern Hemisphere, the Kalahari most closely resembles some Australian deserts in its latitude and its mode of formation. The Kalahari Desert came into existence approximately sixty years ago along with the formation of the African continent. North and east, approximately where the dry forests, savannahs and salt lakes prevail, South and west, where the vegetation is predominantly xeric savanna or even a semi-desert, the climate is Kalaharian semi-arid. The Kalaharian climate is subtropical, and is semi-arid with the dry season during the cold season and it is the southern tropical equivalent of the Sahelian climate. For example, winter frost is common from June to August, as in the Sahel, the wet season in the Kalahari is during the six coldest months of the year. The dry season lasts eight months or more, and the wet season typically from less than one month to four months, the southwestern Kalahari is the driest area, in particular a small region located towards the west-southwest of Tsaraxaibis. The average annual rainfall ranging from around 110 mm to more than 500 mm in areas of the north. In the driest and sunniest parts of the Kalahari, over 4,000 hours of sunshine are recorded annually on average. There are huge subterranean water reserves beneath parts of the Kalahari, such reserves may be in part the residues of ancient lakes, the Kalahari Desert was once a much wetter place. The ancient Lake Makgadikgadi dominated the area, covering the Makgadikgadi Pan and surrounding areas and it may have once covered as much as 120,000 square kilometres. The Kalahari has had a complex climatic history over the past million or so years, changes in the last 250,000 years have been reconstructed form various data sources, and provide evidence of both former extensive lakes and periods drier than now
25.
Danse Macabre
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Dance of Death, also called Danse Macabre, is an artistic genre of late-medieval allegory on the universality of death, no matter ones station in life, the Dance of Death unites all. The Danse Macabre consists of the dead or personified Death summoning representatives from all walks of life to dance along to the grave, typically with a pope, emperor, king, child, and labourer. They were produced as mementos mori, to people of the fragility of their lives. Its origins are postulated from illustrated sermon texts, the earliest recorded visual scheme was a now-lost mural in the Saints Innocents Cemetery in Paris dating from 1424 to 1425, the earliest recorded visual example is from the cemetery of the Church of the Holy Innocents in Paris. Marija na Škrilinama in the Istrian town of Beram, painted by Vincent of Kastav, there was also a Dance of Death painted in the 1540s on the walls of the cloister of St Pauls Cathedral, London with texts by John Lydgate, which was destroyed in 1549. The deathly horrors of the 14th century—such as recurring famines, the Hundred Years War in France, and, most of all, the Black Death—were culturally assimilated throughout Europe. Short verse dialogues between Death and each of its victims, which could have performed as plays, can be found in the direct aftermath of the Black Death in Germany. The French term danse macabre may derive from the Latin Chorea Machabæorum, in 2 Maccabees, a deuterocanonical book of the Bible, the grim martyrdom of a mother and her seven sons is described, and was a well-known mediaeval subject. An alternative explanation is that the term entered France via Spain, both the dialogues and the evolving paintings were ostensive penitential lessons that even illiterate people could understand. Numerous mural versions of that legend from the 13th century onwards have survived, since they showed pictorial sequences of men and corpses covered with shrouds, those paintings are sometimes regarded as cultural precursors of the new genre. A danse macabre painting may show a round dance headed by Death or a chain of alternating dead, from the highest ranks of the mediaeval hierarchy descending to its lowest, each mortals hand is taken by a skeleton or an extremely decayed body. The apparent class distinction in almost all of these paintings is completely neutralized by Death as the ultimate equalizer, the Totentanz of Metnitz, for example, shows how a pope crowned with his mitre is being led into Hell by the dancing Death. Usually, a dialogue is attached to each victim, in which Death is summoning him to dance. Who the beggar or the Emperor, ob arm, ob reich, im Tode gleich. Whether rich or poor, equal in death, the famous designs by Hans Holbein the Younger for his Dance of Death series were drawn in 1526 while he was in Basel. They were cut in wood by the accomplished Formschneider Hans Lützelburger and these woodcuts soon appeared in proofs with titles in German. The first book edition, containing forty-one woodcuts, was published at Lyons by the Treschsel brothers in 1538, ten further designs were added in later editions. The Dance of Death refashions the late-medieval allegory of the danse macabre as a reformist satire, most importantly, it was The pictures and the Bible quotations above them were the main attractions
26.
Kandyan dance
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Kandyan dance encompasses various dance forms native to the area called Kandy of the central hills region in Sri Lanka. But today it has been widespread to other parts of the country, according to the legend, the origins of the dance lies in dance ritual known as the Kohomba kankariya, which is also known as Kohomba yak kankariya or simply kankariya. Traditional dance masters believe that originally the king of a referred to as Malaya Rata. Some believe that this Malaya Rata was located in India, according to legend, the three shamans came to the island as a result of a trick of the god Śakra in order to cure the king, Panduwasdev, who was suffering from a mysterious illness. The king was said to be suffering from a dream in which a leopard was directing its tongue towards the king, believed to be as a black magic of Kuweni. After the performance of the Kohomba kankariya the illness vanished, and it was originally performed by dancers who were identified as a separate caste under the Kandyan feudal system. They were aligned to the Temple of the Tooth and had a significant role to play in the dalada perahera held each year by the temple, the dance waned in popularity as the support for the dancers from the Kandyan kings ended during the British period. It has now revived and adapted for the stage, and is Sri Lankas primary cultural export. Ves dance, the most popular, originated from an ancient purification ritual, the dance was propitiatory, never secular, and performed only by males. The elaborate ves costume, particularly the headgear, is considered sacred and is believed to belong to the deity Kohomba, only toward the end of the 19th century were ves dancers first invited to perform outside the precincts of the Kankariya Temple at the annual Kandy Perahera festival. Today the elaborately costumed ves dancer epitomizes Kandyan dance, which highlights Sri Lankas culture, Dancers in Naiyandi costume perform during the initial preparations of the Kohomba Kankariya festival, during the lighting of the lamps and the preparation of foods for the demons. The dancer wears a cloth and white turban, beadwork decorations on his chest, a waistband, rows of beads around his neck, silver chains, brass shoulder plates, anklets. This is a dance, also performed in Maha Visnu. The uddekki dance is a very prestigious performance and its name comes from the uddekki, a small lacquered hand drum in the shape of an hourglass, about 7.5 inches high, believed to have been given to people by the gods. It is a very difficult instruments to play, the dancer sings as he plays, tightening the strings to obtain variations of pitch. The pantheruwa is an instrument dedicated to the goddess Pattini and it resembles a tambourine and has small cymbals attached at intervals around its circumference. The dance is said to have originated in the days of Prince Siddhartha, the gods were believed to use this instrument to celebrate victories in war, and Sinhala kings employed pantheru dancers to celebrate victories in the battlefield. The costume is similar to that of the dancer, but the pantheru dancer wears no beaded jacket
27.
Homer
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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
28.
Iliad
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The Iliad is an ancient Greek epic poem in dactylic hexameter, traditionally attributed to Homer. Then the epic narrative takes up events prophesied for the future, such as Achilles imminent death and the fall of Troy, although the narrative ends before these events take place. However, as events are prefigured and alluded to more and more vividly. The Iliad is paired with something of a sequel, the Odyssey, along with the Odyssey, the Iliad is among the oldest extant works of Western literature, and its written version is usually dated to around the 8th century BC. Recent statistical modelling based on language evolution gives a date of 760–710 BC, in the modern vulgate, the Iliad contains 15,693 lines, it is written in Homeric Greek, a literary amalgam of Ionic Greek and other dialects. Note, Book numbers are in parentheses and come before the synopsis of the book, after an invocation to the Muses, the story launches in medias res towards the end of the Trojan War between the Trojans and the besieging Greeks. Chryses, a Trojan priest of Apollo, offers the Greeks wealth for the return of his daughter Chryseis, held captive of Agamemnon, although most of the Greek army is in favour of the offer, Agamemnon refuses. Chryses prays for Apollos help, and Apollo causes a plague to afflict the Greek army, after nine days of plague, Achilles, the leader of the Myrmidon contingent, calls an assembly to deal with the problem. Under pressure, Agamemnon agrees to return Chryseis to her father, angered, Achilles declares that he and his men will no longer fight for Agamemnon but will go home. Odysseus takes a ship and returns Chryseis to her father, whereupon Apollo ends the plague, in the meantime, Agamemnons messengers take Briseis away. Achilles becomes very upset, sits by the seashore, and prays to his mother, Achilles asks his mother to ask Zeus to bring the Greeks to the breaking point by the Trojans, so Agamemnon will realize how much the Greeks need Achilles. Thetis does so, and Zeus agrees, Zeus sends a dream to Agamemnon, urging him to attack Troy. Agamemnon heeds the dream but decides to first test the Greek armys morale, the plan backfires, and only the intervention of Odysseus, inspired by Athena, stops a rout. Odysseus confronts and beats Thersites, a soldier who voices discontent about fighting Agamemnons war. After a meal, the Greeks deploy in companies upon the Trojan plain, the poet takes the opportunity to describe the provenance of each Greek contingent. When news of the Greek deployment reaches King Priam, the Trojans too sortie upon the plain, in a list similar to that for the Greeks, the poet describes the Trojans and their allies. The armies approach each other, but before they meet, Paris offers to end the war by fighting a duel with Menelaus, urged by his brother and head of the Trojan army, Hector. While Helen tells Priam about the Greek commanders from the walls of Troy, Paris is beaten, but Aphrodite rescues him and leads him to bed with Helen before Menelaus can kill him
29.
Greece
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Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, historically also known as Hellas, is a country in southeastern Europe, with a population of approximately 11 million as of 2015. Athens is the capital and largest city, followed by Thessaloniki. Greece is strategically located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, situated on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, the Republic of Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to the northeast. Greece consists of nine regions, Macedonia, Central Greece, the Peloponnese, Thessaly, Epirus, the Aegean Islands, Thrace, Crete. The Aegean Sea lies to the east of the mainland, the Ionian Sea to the west, the Cretan Sea and the Mediterranean Sea to the south. Greece has the longest coastline on the Mediterranean Basin and the 11th longest coastline in the world at 13,676 km in length, featuring a vast number of islands, eighty percent of Greece is mountainous, with Mount Olympus being the highest peak at 2,918 metres. From the eighth century BC, the Greeks were organised into various independent city-states, known as polis, which spanned the entire Mediterranean region and the Black Sea. Greece was annexed by Rome in the second century BC, becoming a part of the Roman Empire and its successor. The Greek Orthodox Church also shaped modern Greek identity and transmitted Greek traditions to the wider Orthodox World, falling under Ottoman dominion in the mid-15th century, the modern nation state of Greece emerged in 1830 following a war of independence. Greeces rich historical legacy is reflected by its 18 UNESCO World Heritage Sites, among the most in Europe, Greece is a democratic and developed country with an advanced high-income economy, a high quality of life, and a very high standard of living. A founding member of the United Nations, Greece was the member to join the European Communities and has been part of the Eurozone since 2001. Greeces unique cultural heritage, large industry, prominent shipping sector. It is the largest economy in the Balkans, where it is an important regional investor, the names for the nation of Greece and the Greek people differ from the names used in other languages, locations and cultures. The earliest evidence of the presence of human ancestors in the southern Balkans, dated to 270,000 BC, is to be found in the Petralona cave, all three stages of the stone age are represented in Greece, for example in the Franchthi Cave. Neolithic settlements in Greece, dating from the 7th millennium BC, are the oldest in Europe by several centuries and these civilizations possessed writing, the Minoans writing in an undeciphered script known as Linear A, and the Mycenaeans in Linear B, an early form of Greek. The Mycenaeans gradually absorbed the Minoans, but collapsed violently around 1200 BC and this ushered in a period known as the Greek Dark Ages, from which written records are absent. The end of the Dark Ages is traditionally dated to 776 BC, the Iliad and the Odyssey, the foundational texts of Western literature, are believed to have been composed by Homer in the 7th or 8th centuries BC. With the end of the Dark Ages, there emerged various kingdoms and city-states across the Greek peninsula, in 508 BC, Cleisthenes instituted the worlds first democratic system of government in Athens
30.
Erinyes
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In Greek mythology the Erinyes, also known as the Furies, were female chthonic deities of vengeance, they were sometimes referred to as infernal goddesses. A formulaic oath in the Iliad invokes them as the Erinyes, walter Burkert suggests they are an embodiment of the act of self-cursing contained in the oath. They correspond to the Dirae in Roman mythology, the Roman writer Maurus Servius Honoratus wrote that they are called Eumenides in hell, Furiae on earth, and Dirae in heaven. According to variant accounts, they emerged from a more primordial level—from Nyx. Their number is usually left indeterminate, Virgil, probably working from an Alexandrian source, recognized three, Alecto or Alekto, Megaera, and Tisiphone or Tilphousia, all of whom appear in the Aeneid. Dante Alighieri followed Virgil in depicting the same three-character triptych of Erinyes, the word Erinys in the singular and as a theonym is first attested in Mycenaean Greek, written in Linear B, in the following forms,
31.
Aristotle
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Aristotle was an ancient Greek philosopher and scientist born in the city of Stagira, Chalkidice, on the northern periphery of Classical Greece. His father, Nicomachus, died when Aristotle was a child, at seventeen or eighteen years of age, he joined Platos Academy in Athens and remained there until the age of thirty-seven. Shortly after Plato died, Aristotle left Athens and, at the request of Philip II of Macedon, teaching Alexander the Great gave Aristotle many opportunities and an abundance of supplies. He established a library in the Lyceum which aided in the production of many of his hundreds of books and he believed all peoples concepts and all of their knowledge was ultimately based on perception. Aristotles views on natural sciences represent the groundwork underlying many of his works, Aristotles views on physical science profoundly shaped medieval scholarship. Their influence extended from Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages into the Renaissance, some of Aristotles zoological observations, such as on the hectocotyl arm of the octopus, were not confirmed or refuted until the 19th century. His works contain the earliest known study of logic, which was incorporated in the late 19th century into modern formal logic. Aristotle was well known among medieval Muslim intellectuals and revered as The First Teacher and his ethics, though always influential, gained renewed interest with the modern advent of virtue ethics. All aspects of Aristotles philosophy continue to be the object of academic study today. Though Aristotle wrote many elegant treatises and dialogues – Cicero described his style as a river of gold – it is thought that only around a third of his original output has survived. Aristotle, whose means the best purpose, was born in 384 BC in Stagira, Chalcidice. His father Nicomachus was the physician to King Amyntas of Macedon. Aristotle was orphaned at a young age, although there is little information on Aristotles childhood, he probably spent some time within the Macedonian palace, making his first connections with the Macedonian monarchy. At the age of seventeen or eighteen, Aristotle moved to Athens to continue his education at Platos Academy and he remained there for nearly twenty years before leaving Athens in 348/47 BC. Aristotle then accompanied Xenocrates to the court of his friend Hermias of Atarneus in Asia Minor, there, he traveled with Theophrastus to the island of Lesbos, where together they researched the botany and zoology of the island. Aristotle married Pythias, either Hermiass adoptive daughter or niece and she bore him a daughter, whom they also named Pythias. Soon after Hermias death, Aristotle was invited by Philip II of Macedon to become the tutor to his son Alexander in 343 BC, Aristotle was appointed as the head of the royal academy of Macedon. During that time he gave not only to Alexander
32.
Poetry
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Poetry has a long history, dating back to the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh. Early poems evolved from folk songs such as the Chinese Shijing, or from a need to retell oral epics, as with the Sanskrit Vedas, Zoroastrian Gathas, and the Homeric epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey. Ancient attempts to define poetry, such as Aristotles Poetics, focused on the uses of speech in rhetoric, drama, song and comedy. Later attempts concentrated on such as repetition, verse form and rhyme. From the mid-20th century, poetry has sometimes been more generally regarded as a creative act employing language. Poetry uses forms and conventions to suggest differential interpretation to words, devices such as assonance, alliteration, onomatopoeia and rhythm are sometimes used to achieve musical or incantatory effects. The use of ambiguity, symbolism, irony and other elements of poetic diction often leaves a poem open to multiple interpretations. Similarly figures of such as metaphor, simile and metonymy create a resonance between otherwise disparate images—a layering of meanings, forming connections previously not perceived. Kindred forms of resonance may exist, between verses, in their patterns of rhyme or rhythm. Some poetry types are specific to cultures and genres and respond to characteristics of the language in which the poet writes. Much modern poetry reflects a critique of poetic tradition, playing with and testing, among other things, in todays increasingly globalized world, poets often adapt forms, styles and techniques from diverse cultures and languages. Some scholars believe that the art of poetry may predate literacy, others, however, suggest that poetry did not necessarily predate writing. The oldest surviving poem, the Epic of Gilgamesh, comes from the 3rd millennium BCE in Sumer. An example of Egyptian epic poetry is The Story of Sinuhe, other forms of poetry developed directly from folk songs. The earliest entries in the oldest extant collection of Chinese poetry, the efforts of ancient thinkers to determine what makes poetry distinctive as a form, and what distinguishes good poetry from bad, resulted in poetics—the study of the aesthetics of poetry. Some ancient societies, such as Chinas through her Shijing, developed canons of poetic works that had ritual as well as aesthetic importance, Classical thinkers employed classification as a way to define and assess the quality of poetry. Later aestheticians identified three major genres, epic poetry, lyric poetry, and dramatic poetry, treating comedy and tragedy as subgenres of dramatic poetry, Aristotles work was influential throughout the Middle East during the Islamic Golden Age, as well as in Europe during the Renaissance. English Romantic poet John Keats termed this escape from logic Negative Capability and this romantic approach views form as a key element of successful poetry because form is abstract and distinct from the underlying notional logic
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Attitude (art)
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Attitude as a term of fine art refers to the posture or gesture given to a figure by a painter or sculptor. It applies to the body and not to a mental state, in 20th- and 21st-century art history, attitude is used most often to label one of these conventional postures, another example is the orans pose. It must, besides, have such a turn as, without departing from probability, or from the character of the figure and it is allowed that the choice of fine attitudes constitutes the greatest part of the beauties of grouping. Attitude Mimoplastic art Body language Composition
34.
Nataraja
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Nataraja, is a depiction of the Hindu god Shiva as the cosmic ecstatic dancer. His dance is called Tandavam or Nadanta, depending on the context of the dance, the pose and artwork is described in many Hindu texts such as the Anshumadbhed agama and Uttarakamika agama, the dance relief or idol featured in all major Hindu temples of Shaivism. The classical form of the depiction appears in reliefs, as at the Ellora Caves. Around the 10th century, it emerged in Tamil Nadu in its mature and best-known expression in Chola bronzes, of various heights typically less than four feet, some over. The Nataraja reliefs have been identified in historic artwork from many parts of South Asia, in southeast Asia such as in Bali and Cambodia, and in central Asia. The sculpture is symbolic of Shiva as the lord of dance and dramatic arts, with its style and his body, fingers, ankles, neck, face, head, ear lobes and dress are shown decorated with symbolic items, which vary with historic period and region. He is surrounded by a ring of flames, standing on a pedestal, lifting his left leg. The dynamism of the dance is depicted with the whirling hair which spread out in thin strands as a fan behind his head. The details in the Nataraja artwork has been interpreted by Indian scholars since the 12th-century for its symbolic meaning. Nataraja is a well known symbol in India and popularly used as a symbol of Indian culture. The Sanskrit word Naṭarāja is variously translated as Lord of dance or King of dancers, according to Ananda Coomaraswamy, the name is related to Shivas fame as the Lord of Dancers or King of Actors. Nataraja is sometimes referred to as Nateshvara. Koothan is derived from the Tamil word Koothu, which means dance or performance, a male dancer is termed Koothan. Also known as Natarajan in Tamil, meaning Naatiyathin Raajan, naatiyam is another word for dance in Tamil. The dance of Shiva in Tillai, the name for Chidambaram. He is also known as Sabesan which splits as Sabayil aadum eesan in Tamil which means The Lord who dances on the dais and this form is present in most Shiva temples in South India, and is the prime deity in the famous Thillai Nataraja Temple at Chidambaram. In essence, the Lasya and the Tandava are just two aspects of Shivas nature, for he destroys in order to create, tearing down to build again. As the Lord of Dance, Nataraja, Shiva performs the Ananda Tandava, the dance in which the universe is created, maintained, the fire also represents the evils, dangers, heat, warmth, light and joys of daily life
35.
Dance in India
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Dance in India comprises numerous styles of dances, generally classified as classical or folk. Sangeet Natak Akademi, the academy for performing arts in India, recognizes eight traditional dances as Indian classical dances, while other sources. These have roots in the Sanskrit text Natya Shastra, and the performance arts of Hinduism. Folk dances are numerous in number and style and vary according to the tradition of the respective state. Contemporary dances include refined and experimental fusions of classical, folk, Dancing traditions of India have influence not only over the dances in the whole of South Asia, but on the dancing forms of South East Asia as well. Dances in Indian films are noted for their idiosyncrasies. Indian dances are classified as classical and folk, sometimes semiclassical and tribal as well. A classical dance is one theory, training, means and rationale for expressive practice is documented and traceable to ancient classical texts. A semi-classical Indian dance is one that contains a classical imprint but has become a folk dance, a tribal dance is a more local form of folk dance, typically found in one tribal population, typically tribal dances evolve into folk dances over a historic period. The origins of dance in India go back into the ancient times, the Sanskrit verses in chapter 13.2 of Shatapatha Brahmana, for example, are written in the form of a play between two actors. The Vedic sacrifice is presented as a kind of fight, with its actors, its dialogues, its portion to be set to music, its interludes, and its climaxes. The evidence of earliest dance related texts are in Natasutras, which are mentioned in the text of Panini, the sage who wrote the classic on Sanskrit grammar, and who is dated to about 500 BCE. Richmond et al estimate the Natasutras to have been composed around 600 BCE, the classic text of dance and performance arts that has survived is the Hindu text Natya Shastra, attributed to sage Bharata. The first complete compilation of Natya Shastra is dated to between 200 BCE and 200 CE, but estimates vary between 500 BCE and 500 CE, the most studied version of the Natya Shastra text consists of about 6000 verses structured into 36 chapters. The classical dances are rooted in Natya Shastra, India has a number of classical Indian dance forms, each of which can be traced to different parts of the country. Classical and folk dance forms also emerged from Indian traditions, epics, Classical dance in India has developed a type of dance-drama that is a form of a total theater. The dancer acts out a story almost exclusively through gestures, most of the classical dances of India enact stories from Hindu mythology. Each form represents the culture and ethos of a region or a group of people
36.
Dances of Sri Lanka
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The origin of the dances of Sri Lanka lies with the indigenous people of Sri Lanka, the Wanniyala-Aetto and yakkas. Kandyan dance takes its name from Kandy, the last royal capital of Sri Lanka and this genre is today considered the classical dance of Sri Lanka. In Sanskrit terminology it is considered pure dance, it features a developed system of tala. There are five types, the ves, naiyandi, uddekki, pantheru. The main distinguishing feature between Kandyan and Sabaragamu dancing, and Ruhunu dancing, is that Ruhunu dancers wear masks, ves dance, the most popular, originated from an ancient purification ritual, the Kohomba Yakuma or Kohomba Kankariya. The dance was propitiatory, never secular, and performed only by males, the elaborate ves costume, particularly the headgear, is considered sacred and is believed to belong to the deity Kohomba. Only toward the end of the 19th century were ves dancers first invited to perform outside the precincts of the Kankariya Temple at the annual Kandy Perahera festival, today the elaborately costumed ves dancer epitomizes Kandyan dance. Dancers in Naiyandi costume perform during the preparations of the Kohomba Kankariya festival, during the lighting of the lamps. The dancer wears a cloth and white turban, beadwork decorations on his chest, a waistband, rows of beads around his neck, silver chains, brass shoulder plates, anklets. This is a dance, also performed in Maha Visnu. Uddekki is a prestigious dance. Its name comes from the uddekki, a small lacquered hand drum in the shape of an hourglass, about seven and half inches high and it is a very difficult instruments to play. The dancer sings as he plays, tightening the strings to obtain variations of pitch, the pantheruwa is an instrument dedicated to the goddess Pattini. It resembles a tambourine and has small cymbals attached at intervals around its circumference, the dance is said to have originated in the days of Prince Siddhartha, who became Buddha. The gods were believed to use instrument to celebrate victories in war. The costume is similar to that of the dancer, but the pantheru dancer wears no beaded jacket. Vana The word vannam comes from the Sinhala word varnana, ancient Sinhala texts refer to a considerable number of vannams that were only sung, later they were adapted to solo dances, each expressing a dominant idea. History reveals that the Kandyan king Sri Weeraparakrama Narendrasinghe gave considerable encouragement to dance, in this Kavikara Maduwa there were song and poetry contests
37.
Natya Shastra
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The Nāṭya Śāstra is a Sanskrit Hindu text on the performing arts. The text is attributed to sage Bharata Muni, and its first complete compilation is dated to between 200 BCE and 200 CE, but estimates vary between 500 BCE and 500 CE, the text consists of 36 chapters with a cumulative total of 6000 poetic verses describing performance arts. The Nāṭya Śāstra is notable as an ancient encyclopedic treatise on the arts, one which has influenced dance, music, the text has inspired secondary literature such as Sanskrit bhasya such as by the 10th century Abhinavagupta. The title of the text is composed of two words, Nāṭya and Śāstra, the root of the Sanskrit word Natya is Nat which means act, represent. The word Shastra means precept, rules, manual, compendium, book or treatise, the composition date of Natyashastra is unknown, estimates vary between 500 BCE to 500 CE. The Natya Shastra is traditionally alleged to be linked to a 36,000 verse Vedic composition called Adibharata, the text has survived into the modern age in several manuscript versions, wherein the title of the chapters vary and in some cases the content of the few chapters differ. Some recensions show significant interpolations and corruption of the text, along with internal contradictions, the author of the text is unknown, and the Hindu tradition attributes it to the Rishi Bharata. It may be the work of authors, but scholars disagree. Bharat Gupt states that the text stylistically shows characteristics of a compiler in the existing version. The Natyashastra is the oldest surviving ancient Indian work on performance arts, the roots of the text extend at least as far back as the Natasutras, dated to around the mid 1st millennium BCE. The Natasutras are mentioned in the text of Panini, the sage who wrote the classic on Sanskrit grammar, Richmond et al estimate the Natasutras to have been composed around 600 BCE. The Gandharva subgenre also implied celestial, divine associations, while the Gana was free form art, the Vedanga texts such as verse 1.4.29 of Panini Sutras mention these as well. The roots of the Natyashastra thus likely trace to the ancient vedic traditions of integrating ritual recitation, dialogue. The Sanskrit verses in chapter 13.2 of Shatapatha Brahmana, the Vedic sacrifice is presented as a kind of drama, with its actors, its dialogues, its portion to be set to music, its interludes, and its climaxes. The most studied version of the text, consisting of about 6000 poetic verses, is structured into 36 chapters, the tradition believes that the text originally had 12,000 verses. Somewhat different versions of the manuscripts exist, and these contain 37 or 38 chapters. Predominant number of its verses are in precise Anustubh meter, some verses are in Arya meter, the structure of the text harmoniously compiles aspects of the theatrical arts into separate chapters. The text opens with the genesis and history of drama, mentions the role of different Hindu deities in various aspects of the arts
38.
Bharatanatyam
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Bharatanatyam or Bharathanatiyam is a major genre of Indian classical dance that originated in Tamil Nadu. Bharatanatyam is quite possibly the oldest classical dance tradition of India, the dance is accompanied by music and a singer, and typically her guru is present as the director and conductor of the performance. The dance has traditionally been a form of a narration of mythical legends. The performance repertoire of Bharatanatyam, like other classical dances, includes nrita, modern stage productions of Bharatanatyam have incorporated technical performances, pure dance based on non-religious ideas and fusion themes. The term Bharatanatyam is a compound of two words, Bharata and Natyam, the term Bharata in Bharatanaytam, in the Hindu tradition, is not named after the famous performance art sage to whom the ancient Natya Shastra is attributed. The tradition states that the word Bharata is a mnemonic, consisting of bha–ra–ta, the bha stands for bhava, ra stands for raga, and ta stands for tala. The term Natyam is a Sanskrit word for dance, the compound word Bharatanatyam thus connotes a dance which harmoniously expresses bhava, raga and tala. In its history, Bharatanatyam has also been called Sadir, the theoretical foundations of Bharatanatyam are found in Natya Shastra, the ancient Hindu text of performance arts. Natya Shastra is attributed to the ancient scholar Bharata Muni, the most studied version of the Natya Shastra text consists of about 6000 verses structured into 36 chapters. Dance and performance arts, states this ancient text, are a form of expression of ideas, virtues. More direct historical references to Bharatnatyam is found in the Tamil epics Silappatikaram, the ancient text Silappatikaram, includes a story of a dancing girl named Madhavi, it describes the dance training regimen called Arangatrau Kathai of Madhavi in verses 113 through 159. The carvings in Kanchipurams Shiva temple that have dated to 6th to 9th century CE suggest Bharatanatyam was a well developed performance art by about the mid 1st millennium CE. Many of the ancient Shiva sculptures in Hindu temples are same as the Bharata Natyam dance poses, for example, the Cave 1 of Badami cave temples, dated to 7th-century, portrays the Tandava-dancing Shiva as Nataraja. The image,5 feet tall, has 18 arms in a form that expresses the dance positions arranged in a geometric pattern, the arms of Shiva express mudras, that are found in Bharatanatyam. Bharatanatyam, state Allen Noble and Ashok Dutt, has been a source of inspiration to the musicians, poets. Some colonial Indologists and modern authors have stated Bharatanatyam is a descendant of an ancient Devadasi culture, modern scholarship has questioned this theory for lack of any direct textual or archeological evidence. According to James Lochtefeld, Bharatanatyam remained exclusive to Hindu temples through the 19th century, the anti-dance camp accused the dance form as a front for prostitution, while revivalists questioned the constructed histories by the colonial writers. In 1910, the Madras Presidency of the British Empire altogether banned temple dancing, the 1910 ban triggered powerful protests against the stereotyping and dehumanization of temple dancers
39.
Mughal Empire
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The dynasty, though ethnically Turco-Mongol, was Persianate in terms of culture. The Mughal empire extended over parts of the Indian subcontinent. The beginning of the empire is conventionally dated to the victory by its founder Babur over Ibrahim Lodi, the Mughal emperors were Central Asian Turco-Mongols belonging to the Timurid dynasty, who claimed direct descent from both Genghis Khan and Timur. During the reign of Humayun, the successor of Babur, the empire was briefly interrupted by the Sur Empire, the classic period of the Mughal Empire started in 1556 with the ascension of Akbar the Great to the throne. Under the rule of Akbar and his son Jahangir, the region enjoyed economic progress as well as harmony. Akbar was a warrior who also forged alliances with several Hindu Rajput kingdoms. Some Rajput kingdoms continued to pose a significant threat to the Mughal dominance of northwestern India, the reign of Shah Jahan, the fifth emperor, between 1628 and 1658 was the golden age of Mughal architecture. He erected several monuments, the best known of which is the Taj Mahal at Agra, as well as the Moti Masjid, Agra, the Red Fort, the Jama Masjid, Delhi. By the mid-18th century, the Marathas had routed Mughal armies, during the following century Mughal power had become severely limited, and the last emperor, Bahadur Shah II, had authority over only the city of Shahjahanabad. He issued a firman supporting the Indian Rebellion of 1857 and following the defeat was therefore tried by the British East India Company for treason, imprisoned and exiled to Rangoon. Contemporaries referred to the empire founded by Babur as the Timurid empire, which reflected the heritage of his dynasty, another name was Hindustan, which was documented in the Ain-i-Akbari, and which has been described as the closest to an official name for the empire. In the west, the term Mughal was used for the emperor, and by extension, the use of Mughal derived from the Arabic and Persian corruption of Mongol, and it emphasised the Mongol origins of the Timurid dynasty. The term gained currency during the 19th century, but remains disputed by Indologists, similar terms had been used to refer to the empire, including Mogul and Moghul. Nevertheless, Baburs ancestors were sharply distinguished from the classical Mongols insofar as they were oriented towards Persian rather than Turco-Mongol culture, ousted from his ancestral domains in Central Asia, Babur turned to India to satisfy his ambitions. He established himself in Kabul and then pushed steadily southward into India from Afghanistan through the Khyber Pass, Baburs forces occupied much of northern India after his victory at Panipat in 1526. The preoccupation with wars and military campaigns, however, did not allow the new emperor to consolidate the gains he had made in India, the instability of the empire became evident under his son, Humayun, who was driven out of India and into Persia by rebels. Humayuns exile in Persia established diplomatic ties between the Safavid and Mughal Courts, and led to increasing Persian cultural influence in the Mughal Empire, the restoration of Mughal rule began after Humayuns triumphant return from Persia in 1555, but he died from a fatal accident shortly afterwards. Humayuns son, Akbar, succeeded to the throne under a regent, Bairam Khan, through warfare and diplomacy, Akbar was able to extend the empire in all directions and controlled almost the entire Indian subcontinent north of the Godavari River
40.
Nawab
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Nawab or nawaab is an honorific title ratified and bestowed by the reigning Mughal emperor to semi-autonomous Muslim rulers of princely states in South Asia. Nawab usually refers to males, the equivalent is begum or nawab begum. The primary duty of a nawab was to uphold the sovereignty of the Mughal emperor along with the administration of a certain province, in some cases, these titles were also accompanied by jagir grants, either in cash revenues and allowances or land-holdings. During the British Raj, some of the chiefs or Sardars of large or important tribes were given the title. The term nawab was originally used for the subahdar or viceroy of a subah or region of the Mughal empire. It is a Hindustani term, used in Urdu, Hindi, Bengali and many other North-Indian languages, borrowed via Persian from the Arabic, being the plural of naib. In some areas, especially Bengal, the term is pronounced nobab and this later variation has also entered English and other foreign languages. The term nawbab is often used to refer to any Muslim ruler in north or south India while the term nizam is preferred for a senior official—it literally means governor of region. The Nizam of Hyderabad had several nawabs under him, Nawabs of Cuddapah, Sira, Rajahmundry, Kurnool, Chicacole, Nizam was his personal title, awarded by the Mughal Government and based on the term Nazim as meaning senior officer. Nazim is still used for a collector in many parts of India. The term nawab is still technically imprecise, as the title was awarded to Hindus and Sikhs, as well. With the decline of empire, the title, and the powers that went with it. Other former rulers bearing the title, such as the nawabs of Bengal, some princes became Nawab by promotion, e. g. the ruler of Palanpur was diwan until 1910, then nawab sahib. Other nawabs were promoted are restyled to another style, or to and back. The style for a queen is begum. Most of the dynasties were male primogenitures, although several ruling Begums of Bhopal were a notable exception. Before the incorporation of the Subcontinent into the British Empire, nawabs ruled the kingdoms of Awadh, Bengal, Arcot and Bhopal. The title nawab was also awarded as a distinction by the paramount power, similarly to a British peerage, to persons
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Oudh
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The Oudh State or Kingdom of Oudh was a princely state in the Awadh region during the British Raj until 1856. Oudh, the now obsolete but once official English-language name of the state, also written in British historical texts as Oude, the capital of Oudh State was in Faizabad, but the British Agents, officially known as residents, had their seat in Lucknow. The Nawab of Oudh, one of the richest princes, paid for, Oudh joined other Indian states in an upheaval against British rule in 1858 during one of the last series of actions in the Indian rebellion of 1857. In the course of this uprising a few detachments of the British Indian Army from the Bombay Presidency overcame the disunited collection of Indian states in a rapid campaign. Even so, determined rebels continued to wage sporadic guerrilla clashes until the spring of 1859 and this ill-fated rebellion is also historically known as the Oudh campaign. After the British annexation of Oudh, the North Western Provinces became the North Western Provinces, in 1732, under Mughal sovereignty, a senior official of the Mughal Empire established a hereditary polity in Oudh. As the power of the Mughals waned, with the rise of the Maratha Empire, since the state was located in a prosperous region, the British East India Company soon took notice of the affluence in which the Nawabs of Oudh lived. The result would be direct British interference in the state matters of Oudh. Three years later, in 1819, the ruler of Oudh took the style of Padshah, after Oudhs territory was merged with the North Western Provinces, it formed the larger province of North Western Provinces and Oudh. Between 5 July 1857 and 3 March 1858 there was an upheaval by the son of the deposed king joining the Indian Rebellion of 1857. But the dynasty also belonged from the line to the Kara Koyunlu through Qara Yusuf. They were renowned for their secularism and broad outlook, all rulers used the title of Nawab. Scott 1799 –1804 John Ulrich Collins 1804 –1807 John Baillie 1807 –1815 Richard Charles Strachey 1815 –1817 J. R
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Nautch
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In North India, Nautch is one of several styles of popular dance, performed by girls known as Nautch girls. The word Nautch is a version of नाच, a word found in Hindi and Urdu. A simple and literal translation of Nautch is dance or dancing, the culture of the performing art of Nautch rose to prominence during the later period of Mughal Empire, and the British East India Company Rule. Some references use the terms Nautch and Nautch girls to describe Devadasis who used to perform ritual, however, there is not much similarity between the Devadasis and the Nautch girls. In 1917, attributing the adjective to a woman in India would suggest her entrancing skill, tempting style, dance bar Devadasi Helen Indian folk dances Tawaif The Nautch Girl Nautch Girls of India, Dancers, Singers, Playmates by Pran Nevile Media related to Nautch at Wikimedia Commons
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Sri Lanka
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Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an island country in South Asia near south-east India. Sri Lanka has maritime borders with India to the northwest and the Maldives to the southwest, Sri Lankas documented history spans 3,000 years, with evidence of pre-historic human settlements dating back to at least 125,000 years. Its geographic location and deep harbours made it of strategic importance from the time of the ancient Silk Road through to World War II. Sri Lanka was known from the beginning of British colonial rule until 1972 as Ceylon, Sri Lankas recent history has been marred by a thirty-year civil war which decisively ended when the Sri Lankan military defeated the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in 2009. A diverse and multicultural country, Sri Lanka is home to many religions, ethnic groups, in addition to the majority Sinhalese, it is home to large groups of Sri Lankan and Indian Tamils, Moors, Burghers, Malays, Kaffirs and the aboriginal Vedda. Sri Lanka has a rich Buddhist heritage, and the first known Buddhist writings of Sri Lanka, Sri Lanka is a republic and a unitary state governed by a semi-presidential system. The legislative capital, Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte, is a suburb of the capital and largest city. Along with the Maldives, Sri Lanka is one of the two countries in South Asia that are rated among high human development on the Human Development Index. In antiquity, Sri Lanka was known to travellers by a variety of names, according to the Mahavamsa, the legendary Prince Vijaya named the land Tambapanni, because his followers hands were reddened by the red soil of the area. In Hindu mythology, such as the Mahabharata, the island was referred to as Lankā, in Tamil, the island is referred to as Eelam. Ancient Greek geographers called it Taprobanā or Taprobanē from the word Tambapanni, as a British crown colony, the island was known as Ceylon, it achieved independence as the Dominion of Ceylon in 1948. The country is known in Sinhalese as Śrī Laṃkā and in Tamil as Ilaṅkai, in 1972, its formal name was changed to Free, Sovereign and Independent Republic of Sri Lanka. Later in 1978 it was changed to the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, as the name Ceylon still appears in the names of a number of organisations, the Sri Lankan government announced in 2011 a plan to rename all those over which it has authority. The pre-history of Sri Lanka goes back 125,000 years, the era spans the Palaeolithic, Mesolithic and early Iron Ages. Among the Paleolithic human settlements discovered in Sri Lanka, Pahiyangala and it is said that Kubera was overthrown by his demon stepbrother Ravana, the powerful emperor who built a mythical flying machine named Dandu Monara. The modern city of Wariyapola is described as Ravanas airport, early inhabitants of Sri Lanka were probably ancestors of the Vedda people, an indigenous people numbering approximately 2,500 living in modern-day Sri Lanka. According to the Mahāvamsa, a written in Pāḷi, the original inhabitants of Sri Lanka are the Yakshas and Nagas. Ancient cemeteries that were used before 600BC and other signs of advanced civilization has also discovered in Sri Lanka
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Sinhalese people
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The Sinhalese are an Indo-Aryan ethnic group native to the island of Sri Lanka. They constitute 75% of the Sri Lankan population and a greater than 15 million. The Sinhalese identity is based on language, historical heritage and religion, the Sinhalese people speak the Sinhalese language, an Indo-Aryan language, and are predominantly Theravada Buddhists, although a small percentage of Sinhalese follow branches of Christianity. The Sinhalese are mostly found in North central, Central, South, from the Sanskrit word Simhala, meaning literally of lions. Other Sanskrit meaning is Sinha + la, the Mahavamsa records the origin of the Sinhalese people and related historical events. It traces the origin of the Sinhalese people back to the first king of Sri Lanka, Vijaya, who is the grandson of Sinhabahu (Sanskrit meaning Sinha + bahu. King Vijaya, lineage of Sinhabahu, according to the Mahavamsa and other sources, arrived to the island of Tambapanni. The story of the arrival of Prince Vijaya to Sri Lanka, the folklore of the Sinhalese people also speaks of many royal dynasties prior to the Sinhala royal dynasties, Manu, Tharaka, Ravana Mahabalietc. Early recorded history of the Sinhalese is chronicled in two documents, the Mahavamsa, written in Pāli around the 4th century CE, and the much later Culavamsa. These are ancient sources which cover the histories of the powerful ancient Sinhalese kingdoms of Anuradhapura, the Mahavamsa describes the existence of fields of rice and reservoirs, indicating a well-developed agrarian society. Prince Vijaya and his 700 followers left Suppāraka, landed on the island at a site believed to be in the district of Chilaw, near modern-day Mannar and it is recorded the Vijaya made his landing on the day of Buddhas death. Vijaya claimed Tambapanni his capital and soon the whole island come under this name, Tambapanni was originally inhabited and governed by Yakkhas, having their capital at Sirīsavatthu and their queen Kuveni. According to the Samyutta Commentary, Tambapanni was one hundred leagues in extent, after landing in Tambapanni Vijaya met Kuveni the queen of the Yakkhas, who was disguised as a beautiful woman but was really a yakkini named Sesapathi. At the end of his reign, Vijaya, having trouble choosing a successor, sent a letter to the city of his ancestors, Sinhapura, in order to invite his brother Sumitta to take over the throne. After his coronation, which was held in the Kingdom of Tambapanni, he left it, building another one, while he was king, Upatissa established the new capital Upatissa, in which the kingdom was moved to from the Kingdom of Tambapanni. When Vijayas letter arrived, Sumitta had already succeeded his father as king of his country, Upatissa Nuwara was seven or eight miles further north of the Kingdom of Tambapanni. It was named after the regent king Upatissa, who was the minister of Vijaya, and was founded in 505 BC after the death of Vijaya. In 377 BC, King Pandukabhaya moved the capital to Anuradhapura, Anuradhapura was named after the minister who first established the village and after a grandfather of Pandukabhaya who lived there
