John the Baptist
John the Baptist was a Jewish itinerant preacher in the early first century AD. Other titles for John include John the Forerunner in Eastern Christianity and "the prophet John" in Islam. To clarify the meaning of "Baptist", he is sometimes alternatively called John the Baptizer. John the Baptist is mentioned by the Jewish historian Josephus and revered as a major religious figure in Christianity, the Bahá'í Faith, Mandaeism, he is called a prophet by all of these faiths, is honored as a saint in many Christian traditions. According to the New Testament, John anticipated a messianic figure greater than himself and Christians refer to John as the precursor or forerunner of Jesus, since John announces Jesus' coming. John is identified as the spiritual successor of the prophet Elijah. According to the New Testament John the Baptist was Jesus Christ's cousin; some scholars maintain that John was influenced by the semi-ascetic Essenes, who expected an apocalypse and practiced rituals corresponding with baptism, although no direct evidence substantiates this.
John used baptism as the central sacrament of his messianic movement. Most scholars agree that John baptized Jesus and some scholars believe Jesus was a follower or disciple of John; the New Testament texts in which John is mentioned portray him as rejecting this idea, although several New Testament accounts report that some of Jesus' early followers had been followers of John. John was sentenced to death and subsequently beheaded by Herod Antipas sometime between 28 and 36 AD after John rebuked him for divorcing his wife and unlawfully taking Herodias, the wife of his brother Herod Philip I. John the Baptist is mentioned in all four canonical Gospels and the non-canonical Gospel of the Nazarenes; the Synoptic Gospels describe John baptising Jesus. The Gospel of Mark introduces John as a fulfilment of a prophecy from the Book of Isaiah about a messenger being sent ahead, a voice crying out in the wilderness. John is described as living on locusts and wild honey. John proclaims baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sin, says another will come after him who will not baptize with water, but with the Holy Spirit.
Jesus comes to John, is baptized by him in the river Jordan. The account describes how. A voice from heaven says, "You are my Son, the Beloved. In the gospel there is an account of John's death, it is introduced by an incident where the Tetrarch Herod Antipas, hearing stories about Jesus, imagines that this is John the Baptist raised from the dead. It explains that John had rebuked Herod for marrying Herodias, the ex-wife of his brother. Herodias demands his execution, but Herod, who'liked to listen' to John, is reluctant to do so because he fears him, knowing he is a'righteous and holy man'; the account describes how Herod's daughter Herodias dances before Herod, pleased and offers her anything she asks for in return. When the girl asks her mother what she should request, she is told to demand the head of John the Baptist. Reluctantly, Herod orders the beheading of John, his head is delivered to her, at her request, on a plate. John's disciples bury it in a tomb. There are a number of difficulties with this passage.
The Gospel refers to Antipas as'King' and the ex-husband of Herodias is named as Philip, but he is known to have been called Herod. Although the wording implies the girl was the daughter of Herodias, many texts describe her as "Herod's daughter, Herodias". Since these texts are early and significant and the reading is'difficult', many scholars see this as the original version, corrected in versions and in Matthew and Luke. Josephus says. Scholars have speculated about the origins of the story. Since it shows signs of having been composed in Aramaic, which Mark did not speak, he is to have got it from a Palestinian source. There are a variety of opinions about how much actual historical material it contains given the alleged factual errors. Many scholars have seen the story of John arrested and buried in a tomb as a conscious foreshadowing of the fate of Jesus; the Gospel of Matthew account begins with the same modified quotation from Isaiah, moving the Malachi and Exodus material to in the text, where it is quoted by Jesus.
The description of John is taken directly from Mark, along with the proclamation that one was coming who would baptise with the Holy Spirit "and fire". Unlike Mark, Matthew describes John as critical of Pharisees and Sadducees and as preaching "the kingdom of heaven is at hand" and a "coming judgment". Matthew shortens the account of the beheading of John, adds two elements: that Herod Antipas wants John dead, that the death is reported to Jesus by his disciples. Matthew's approach is to shift the focus away onto John as a prototype of Jesus. Where Mark has Herod killing John reluctantly and at Herodias' insistence, Matthew describes him
Tilia
Tilia is a genus of about 30 species of trees, or bushes, native throughout most of the temperate Northern Hemisphere. In the British Isles they are called lime trees, or lime bushes, although they are not related to the tree that produces the lime fruit. Other names include linden for the European species, basswood for North American species; the genus occurs in Europe and eastern North America, but the greatest species diversity is found in Asia. Under the Cronquist classification system, this genus was placed in the family Tiliaceae, but genetic research summarised by the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group has resulted in the incorporation of this genus, of most of the previous family, into the Malvaceae. Tilia species are large, deciduous trees, reaching 20 to 40 metres tall, with oblique-cordate leaves 6 to 20 centimetres across; as with elms, the exact number of species is uncertain, as many if not most of the species will hybridise both in the wild and in cultivation. Limes are hermaphroditic, having perfect flowers with both male and female parts, pollinated by insects.
The genus is called lime or linden in Britain and linden, lime, or basswood in North America."Lime" is an altered form of Middle English lind, in the 16th century line, from Old English feminine lind or linde, Proto-Germanic *lendā, cognate to Latin lentus "flexible" and Sanskrit latā "liana". Within Germanic languages, English "lithe", German lind "lenient, yielding" are from the same root. "Linden" was the adjective, "made from linwood or lime-wood". Neither the name nor the tree is related to the citrus fruit called "lime". Another common name used in North America is basswood, derived from bast, the name for the inner bark. Teil is an old name for the lime tree. Latin tilia is cognate to Greek πτελέᾱ, ptelea, "elm tree", τιλίαι, tiliai, "black poplar" from a Proto-Indo-European word *ptel-ei̯ā with a meaning of "broad"; the Tilia's sturdy trunk stands like a pillar and the branches divide and subdivide into numerous ramifications on which the twigs are fine and thick. In summer, these are profusely clothed with large leaves and the result is a dense head of abundant foliage.
The leaves of all the Tilia species are heart-shaped and most are asymmetrical, the tiny fruit, looking like peas, always hang attached to a ribbon-like, greenish-yellow bract, whose use seems to be to launch the ripened seed-clusters just a little beyond the parent tree. The flowers of the European and American Tilia species are similar, except the American bears a petal-like scale among its stamens and the European varieties are devoid of these appendages. All of the Tilia species may be propagated by cuttings and grafting, as well as by seed, they grow in rich soil, but are subject to the attack of many insects. Tilia is notoriously difficult to propagate from seed. If allowed to dry, the seeds will take 18 months to germinate. In particular, aphids are attracted by the rich supply of sap, are in turn "farmed" by ants for the production of the sap which the ants collect for their own use, the result can be a dripping of excess sap onto the lower branches and leaves, anything else below. Cars left under the trees can become coated with a film of the syrup thus dropped from higher up.
The ant/aphid "farming" process does not appear to cause any serious damage to the trees. In Europe, some linden trees reached considerable ages. A coppice of T. cordata in Westonbirt Arboretum in Gloucestershire is estimated to be 2,000 years old. In the courtyard of the Imperial Castle at Nuremberg is a Tilia which, by tradition recounted in 1900, was planted by the Empress Cunigunde, the wife of Henry II of Germany circa 1000; the Tilia of Neuenstadt am Kocher in Baden-Württemberg, was estimated at 1000 years old when it fell. The Alte Linde tree of Naters, Switzerland, is mentioned in a document in 1357 and described by the writer at that time as magnam. A plaque at its foot mentions that in 1155 a linden tree was on this spot; the Najevnik linden tree, a 700-year-old T. cordata, is the thickest tree in Slovenia. The excellence of the honey of the far-famed Hyblaean Mountains was due to the linden trees that covered its sides and crowned its summit. Lime fossils have been found in the Tertiary formations of Grinnell Land, Canada, at 82° N latitude, in Svalbard, Norway.
Sapporta believed he had found there the common ancestor of the Tilia species of America. The linden is recommended as an ornamental tree when a mass of a deep shade is desired; the tree produces fragrant and nectar-producing flowers, the medicinal herb lime blossom. They are important honey plants for beekeepers, producing a pale but richly flavoured monofloral honey; the flowers are used for herbal teas and tinctures. Linden trees produce soft and worked timber, which has little grain and a density of 560 kg per cubic metre, it was used by Germanic tribes for constructing shields. It is a popular wood for intricate carving. In Germany, it was the classic wood for sculpture from the Middle Ages onwards and is the material for the elaborate altarpieces of Veit Stoss, Tilman Riemenschnei
Melampyrum
Melampyrum is a genus of about 20 species of herbaceous flowering plants in the family Orobanchaceae known as cow wheat. They are native to temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere, they are hemiparasites on other plants, obtaining water and nutrients from host plants, though they are able to survive on their own without parasitising other plants. Melampyrum species are used as food plants by the larvae of some Lepidoptera species, including the mouse moth; the phylogeny of the genera of Rhinantheae has been explored using molecular characters. Melampyrum appears as a distant relative of other genera of Rhinantheae, it is the sister group of two clades: Rhynchocorys and Rhinanthus. Melampyrum arvense. Europe. Melampyrum cristatum. Europe. Melampyrum klebelsbergianum. Asia. Melampyrum koreanum. Asia. Melampyrum laxum. Asia. Melampyrum lineare. North America. Melampyrum nemorosum. Europe. Melampyrum pratense. Europe. Melampyrum roseum. Asia. Melampyrum sylvaticum. Europe
Ziemassvētki
Ziemassvētki Ziemsvētki is an annual festival in Latvia which observes the winter solstice and birth of Jesus Christ. Latvians around the world celebrate it from 24 to 26 December. 24 December is Ziemassvētki Eve, 25 December is The First Ziemassvētki, while 26 December is the Second Ziemassvētki. Christianity traditionally celebrates the birthday of Jesus Christ on 25 December, according to the Julian calendar, but Orthodox churches follow the Eastern Orthodox liturgical calendar and, as a result, the majority of Orthodox churches celebrate Ziemassvētki on 6, 7 and 8 January. Ziemassvētki is celebrated by people whose religious belief is not Christianity. Nowadays the customary Ziemassvētki traditions are decorating the Ziemassvētki fir, Ziemassvētku vecītis, baking gingerbread and mandarin scent. Ziemassvētki fir decorating custom was known in Livonia before the 16th century; the Blackheads Guild provided the information in 1510 about winter traditions in Riga and referred to earlier such events in 1476, the former executive of Riga's House of the Blackheads and historian Ojārs Spārītis considers the historical information on the tradition of decorating a "Ziemassvētki tree" in Riga to originate in 1476.
The Blackheads Guild indicates that the tree was a bouquet, taking into account the customs of the Middle Ages, it can be concluded that such bouquets could only be decorated with ribbons, dried flowers, straw weaved dolls and fruits. This "tree", which could not be a spruce, but an "installation" made only out of wooden sticks, along with songs and dances were brought forth outside the celebrating house, where it had been located for the entire Ziemassvētki period and was burned on a spot in Town Hall Square around 6 January; the Brotherhood of Blackheads guild showed a similar tradition in Tallinn in 1514. It is that, from here, the tradition spread all over the world. For Yule Eve or Dance Eve impacted on the Blackhead's traditions, which turned log burning into a fir tree burning, as evidenced by these quotations: Paul Einhorn on Latvian Ziemassvētki traditions from Duchy of Courland's work "Reformatio gentis leticcae in ducatu Curlandiae": "From how many of their idol deities residues can be understood, that they shamelessly feasted by eating, dancing and shouting while walking around, in addition their Christ Eve in the middle times was not called as Dance Eve for nothing, because they spent this evening and all night with dancing and jumping.
That same evening is called as Yule Eve, because back they pulled around a log with great shouting, burned and was shown for your enjoyment." Russow Chronicle on Ziemassvētki traditions in Livonia before 16th century.: "On Winter holidays and before the beginning of Lent, guild houses had no less fun life. After good drinking the merchant youth installed a large fir tree in Market Square, decorated with roses. In the evening, a large herd with wives and virgins came to the fir tree with games. With good reconciliation, the fir tree is lighted. While clasping hands, new merchants hopped around the fir tree. Rocket was placed. Although pastors preached against such dance, comparing it with a dance around the golden calf, no one deemed them worthy of attention, it neither measured, nor ended roundabout amusements and night, wife and virgin society, despite all the pastors sermons." Alongside Ziemassvētki, an ancient Latvian tradition is preserved in the so-called Yule Eve, reminiscent of ancient ritual activities - log pulling, mimicking solar progress.
In some countries, Solstice Eve is called Ķūķu Eve, suggesting an ancient ritual holiday meal choice, which promoted the prosperity and welfare. It was made from shelled wheat grains, which were boiled with a half of a pig head. Another known Ziemassvētki tradition was ķekatas walking or gypsies walking. Mummers, dressed in various masks, went from one village to another, to bring them blessing and to drive away various evil spirits. Therefore, mummers everywhere were gladly treated. Budēļi leader - father budēļi or elder budēļi, who had all mummers serve to a regimental leader, always carried along a ferule, used to whip all the people in the house; this was Father Budēļi's ferule of life, to which Latvian tradition attributed a magical power of health and carried a moral status, in tune with the Europe wide distributed habit of expecting winter solstice with scalded branches, they took it along for marches and, touched with it people and beasts, transferring to them a life force, that dwells in these branches.
In Courland and Semigallia regions, ķekatas or ķiņķēziņus were called budēļi or dancing children, Vidzeme region calls them vecīši, maskās, skutelnieki, nūjinieki, preiļi, kurciemi. Latgale region mummers were called talderi; the idea of masking is based on ancient fertility rites. Maskās tried to portray themselves as spirits, who wanted to either placate or impress. One of the best known ancient mummers masks was a bear mask, because it was believed a bear with his growl was able to frighten off all evil spirits. Buki's masks were made under the sheet by affixing a flexible card arcing downward, covered with a sheet and attached to it horns and a beard, as for cranes - they inverted the fur coat to the other side and in one sleeve put an ax with a head, with spoo
Barley
Barley, a member of the grass family, is a major cereal grain grown in temperate climates globally. It was one of the first cultivated grains in Eurasia as early as 10,000 years ago. Barley has been used as animal fodder, as a source of fermentable material for beer and certain distilled beverages, as a component of various health foods, it is used in soups and stews, in barley bread of various cultures. Barley grains are made into malt in a traditional and ancient method of preparation. In 2016, barley was ranked fourth among grains in quantity produced behind maize and wheat; the Old English word for'barley' was bære, which traces back to Proto-Indo-European and is cognate to the Latin word farina "flour". The direct ancestor of modern English "barley" in Old English was the derived adjective bærlic, meaning "of barley"; the first citation of the form bærlic in the Oxford English Dictionary dates to around 966 CE, in the compound word bærlic-croft. The underived word bære survives in the north of Scotland as bere, refers to a specific strain of six-row barley grown there.
The word barn, which meant "barley-house", is rooted in these words. Barley is a member of the grass family, it is a diploid species with 14 chromosomes. The wild ancestor of domesticated barley, Hordeum vulgare subsp. Spontaneum, is abundant in grasslands and woodlands throughout the Fertile Crescent area of Western Asia and northeast Africa, is abundant in disturbed habitats and orchards. Outside this region, the wild barley is less common and is found in disturbed habitats. However, in a study of genome-wide diversity markers, Tibet was found to be an additional center of domestication of cultivated barley. Wild barley is the ancestor of domestic barley. Over the course of domestication, barley grain morphology changed moving from an elongated shape to a more rounded spherical one. Additionally, wild barley has distinctive genes and regulators with potential for resistance to abiotic or biotic stresses to cultivated barley and adaptation to climatic changes. Wild barley has a brittle spike. Domesticated barley has nonshattering spikes.
The nonshattering condition is caused by a mutation in one of two linked genes known as Bt1 and Bt2. The nonshattering condition is recessive, so varieties of barley that exhibit this condition are homozygous for the mutant allele; each plant gets a set of genes from both parents, so two copies of each gene are in every plant. If one gene copy is a nonworking mutant, but the other gene copy works, the mutation has no effect. Only when the plant is homozygous with both copies of the gene as nonworking mutants does the mutation show its effect by exhibiting the nonshattering condition. Domestication in barley is followed by the change of key phenotypic traits at the genetic level. Little is known about the genetic variation among domesticated and wild genes in the chromosomal regions. Spikelets are arranged in triplets. In wild barley, only the central spikelet is fertile; this condition is retained in certain cultivars known as two-row barleys. A pair of mutations result in fertile lateral spikelets to produce six-row barleys.
Recent genetic studies have revealed that a mutation in one gene, vrs1, is responsible for the transition from two-row to six-row barley. Two-row barley has a lower protein content than six-row barley, thus a more fermentable sugar content. High-protein barley is best suited for animal feed. Malting barley is lower protein which shows more uniform germination, needs shorter steeping, has less protein in the extract that can make beer cloudy. Two-row barley is traditionally used in English ale-style beers, with two-row malted summer barley being preferred for traditional German beers. Six-row barley is common in some American lager-style beers when adjuncts such as corn and rice are used. Hulless or "naked" barley is a form of domesticated barley with an easier-to-remove hull. Naked barley is an ancient food crop, but a new industry has developed around uses of selected hulless barley to increase the digestible energy of the grain for swine and poultry. Hulless barley has been investigated for several potential new applications as whole grain, for its value-added products.
These include flour for multiple food applications. In traditional classifications of barley, these morphological differences have led to different forms of barley being classified as different species. Under these classifications, two-row barley with shattering spikes is classified as Hordeum spontaneum K. Koch. Two-row barley with nonshattering spikes is classified as H. distichum L. six-row barley with nonshattering spikes as H. vulgare L. and six-row with shattering spikes as H. agriocrithon Åberg. Because these differences were driven by single-gene mutations, coupled with cytological and molecular evidence, most recent classifications treat these forms as a single species, H. vulgare L. VocabularyDON: Acronym for deoxynivalenol, a toxic byproduct of Fusarium head blight known as vomitoxin Heading date: A parameter in barley cultivation Lodging: The bending over of the stems near ground level Nutans: A designation for a variety with a lax ear, as opposed to'erectum' (with an erect ea
Cornwall
Cornwall is a county in South West England in the United Kingdom. The county is bordered to the north and west by the Celtic Sea, to the south by the English Channel, to the east by the county of Devon, over the River Tamar which forms most of the border between them. Cornwall forms the westernmost part of the South West Peninsula of the island of Great Britain; the furthest southwestern point of Great Britain is Land's End. Cornwall has a population of 563,600 and covers an area of 3,563 km2; the county has been administered since 2009 by Cornwall Council. The ceremonial county of Cornwall includes the Isles of Scilly, which are administered separately; the administrative centre of Cornwall, its only city, is Truro. Cornwall is the homeland of the Cornish people and the cultural and ethnic origin of the Cornish diaspora, it retains a distinct cultural identity that reflects its history, is recognised as one of the Celtic nations. It was a Brythonic kingdom and subsequently a royal duchy; the Cornish nationalist movement contests the present constitutional status of Cornwall and seeks greater autonomy within the United Kingdom in the form of a devolved legislative Cornish Assembly with powers similar to those in Wales and Scotland.
In 2014, Cornish people were granted minority status under the European Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, giving them recognition as a distinct ethnic group. First inhabited in the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic periods, Cornwall continued to be occupied by Neolithic and Bronze Age peoples, by Brythons with strong ethnic, linguistic and cultural links to Wales and Brittany the latter of, settled by Britons from the region. Mining in Cornwall and Devon in the south-west of England began in the early Bronze Age. Few Roman remains have been found in Cornwall, there is little evidence that the Romans settled or had much military presence there. After the collapse of the Roman Empire, Cornwall was a part of the Brittonic kingdom of Dumnonia, ruled by chieftains of the Cornovii who may have included figures regarded as semi-historical or legendary, such as King Mark of Cornwall and King Arthur, evidenced by folklore traditions derived from the Historia Regum Britanniae.
The Cornovii division of the Dumnonii tribe were separated from their fellow Brythons of Wales after the Battle of Deorham in 577 AD, came into conflict with the expanding English kingdom of Wessex. The regions of Dumnonia outside of Cornwall had been annexed by the English by 838 AD. King Athelstan in 936 AD set the boundary between the English and Cornish at the high water mark of the eastern bank of the River Tamar. From the early Middle Ages and culture were shared by Brythons trading across both sides of the Channel, resulting in the corresponding high medieval Breton kingdoms of Domnonée and Cornouaille and the Celtic Christianity common to both areas. Tin mining was important in the Cornish economy. In the mid-19th century, the tin and copper mines entered a period of decline. Subsequently, china clay extraction became more important, metal mining had ended by the 1990s. Traditionally and agriculture were the other important sectors of the economy. Railways led to a growth of tourism in the 20th century.
Cornwall is noted for coastal scenery. A large part of the Cornubian batholith is within Cornwall; the north coast has many cliffs. The area is noted for its wild moorland landscapes, its long and varied coastline, its attractive villages, its many place-names derived from the Cornish language, its mild climate. Extensive stretches of Cornwall's coastline, Bodmin Moor, are protected as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty; the modern English name Cornwall is a compound of two ancient demonyms coming from two different language groups: Corn- originates from the Brythonic tribe, the Cornovii. The Celtic word "kernou" is cognate with the English word "horn". -wall derives from the Old English exonym walh, meaning "foreigner" or "Roman". In the Cornish language, Cornwall is known as Kernow which stems from a similar linguistic background; the present human history of Cornwall begins with the reoccupation of Britain after the last Ice Age. The area now known as Cornwall was first inhabited in the Mesolithic periods.
It continued to be occupied by Neolithic and Bronze Age people. According to John T. Koch and others, Cornwall in the Late Bronze Age was part of a maritime trading-networked culture called the Atlantic Bronze Age, in modern-day Ireland, Wales, France and Portugal. During the British Iron Age, like all of Britain, was inhabited by a Celtic people known as the Britons with distinctive cultural relations to neighbouring Brittany; the Common Brittonic spoken at the time developed into several distinct tongues, including Cornish, Breton and Pictish. The first account of Cornwall comes from the 1st-century BC Sicilian Greek historian Diodorus Siculus quoting or paraphrasing the 4th-century BCE geographer P
Pārdaugava
Pārdaugava is an area of Riga, composed of several neighbourhoods on the west bank of Daugava River. The name is translated as'over Daugava'
