1.
Elderflower
–
Sambucus is a genus of flowering plants in the family Adoxaceae. The various species are commonly called elder or elderberry, the genus was formerly placed in the honeysuckle family, Caprifoliaceae, but was reclassified due to genetic and morphological comparisons to Adoxa. In Sambucus, there are between 5 and 30 species of shrubs, small trees and herbaceous perennial plants. The genus occurs in temperate to subtropical regions of the world, more widespread in the Northern Hemisphere, its Southern Hemisphere occurrence is restricted to parts of Australasia and South America. Many species are cultivated for their ornamental leaves, flowers. The leaves are pinnate with 5–9 leaflets, each leaf is 5–30 cm long, and the leaflets have serrated margins. They bear large clusters of white or cream-colored flowers in late spring. Sambucus australis Sambucus canadensis Sambucus cerulea, western North America, dark blue-black berries with glaucous bloom on surface, Sambucus javanica Sambucus nigra This is the species most often used medicinally. The flowers are in rounded panicles, but the berries are black, it is a small shrub, some botanists include it in the red-berried elder group. The flowers are in rounded panicles, and the berries are red, they are smaller shrubs. The flowers are in rounded panicles, and the white or yellow. Sambucus adnata Sambucus ebulus Other species, Sambucus melanocarpa Gray Sambucus neomexicana Wooton Sambucus velutina Dur, ornamental varieties of Sambucus are grown in gardens for their showy flowers, fruits and lacy foliage. Native species of elderberry are often planted by people wishing to support native butterfly, elderberry fruit or flowers are used as dietary supplements for minor diseases such as flu, colds, constipation, and other conditions, often served as a tea, extract, or in a capsule. There is insufficient research to know its effectiveness for such uses or its safety profile, raw elderberries are 80% water, 18% carbohydrates, and less than 1% each of protein and fat. In a 100 gram amount, elderberries supply 73 calories and are a source of vitamin C. Elderberries also have moderate contents of vitamin B6 and iron, with no other nutrients in significant content, the French, Austrians and Central Europeans produce elderflower syrup, commonly made from an extract of elderflower blossoms, which is added to Palatschinken filling instead of blueberries. People throughout much of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe use a method to make a syrup which is diluted with water. In Germany, yoghurt desserts are made both the berries and the flowers
Elderflower
–
Sambucus
Elderflower
–
Sambucus berries
Elderflower
–
Sambucus canadensis showing the complex branching of the inflorescence
Elderflower
–
Sambucus canadensis showing the inflorescence
2.
Old English
–
Old English or Anglo-Saxon is the earliest historical form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers probably in the mid 5th century, Old English developed from a set of Anglo-Frisian or North Sea Germanic dialects originally spoken by Germanic tribes traditionally known as the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes. As the Anglo-Saxons became dominant in England, their language replaced the languages of Roman Britain, Common Brittonic, a Celtic language, Old English had four main dialects, associated with particular Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, Mercian, Northumbrian, Kentish and West Saxon. It was West Saxon that formed the basis for the standard of the later Old English period, although the dominant forms of Middle. The speech of eastern and northern parts of England was subject to strong Old Norse influence due to Scandinavian rule, Old English is one of the West Germanic languages, and its closest relatives are Old Frisian and Old Saxon. Like other old Germanic languages, it is different from Modern English. Old English grammar is similar to that of modern German, nouns, adjectives, pronouns, and verbs have many inflectional endings and forms. The oldest Old English inscriptions were using a runic system. Old English was not static, and its usage covered a period of 700 years, from the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain in the 5th century to the late 11th century, some time after the Norman invasion. While indicating that the establishment of dates is a process, Albert Baugh dates Old English from 450 to 1150, a period of full inflections. Perhaps around 85 per cent of Old English words are no longer in use, Old English is a West Germanic language, developing out of Ingvaeonic dialects from the 5th century. It came to be spoken over most of the territory of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms which became the Kingdom of England and this included most of present-day England, as well as part of what is now southeastern Scotland, which for several centuries belonged to the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria. Other parts of the island – Wales and most of Scotland – continued to use Celtic languages, Norse was also widely spoken in the parts of England which fell under Danish law. Anglo-Saxon literacy developed after Christianisation in the late 7th century, the oldest surviving text of Old English literature is Cædmons Hymn, composed between 658 and 680. There is a corpus of runic inscriptions from the 5th to 7th centuries. The Old English Latin alphabet was introduced around the 9th century, with the unification of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms by Alfred the Great in the later 9th century, the language of government and literature became standardised around the West Saxon dialect. In Old English, typical of the development of literature, poetry arose before prose, a later literary standard, dating from the later 10th century, arose under the influence of Bishop Æthelwold of Winchester, and was followed by such writers as the prolific Ælfric of Eynsham. This form of the language is known as the Winchester standard and it is considered to represent the classical form of Old English
Old English
–
A detail of the first page of the
Beowulf manuscript, showing the words "ofer hron rade", i.e. "over the whale's road (=sea)". It is an example of an Old English stylistic device, the
kenning.
Old English
–
North Germanic
Old English
–
"Her swutelað seo gecwydrædnes ðe" Old English inscription over the arch of the south porticus in the 10th-century
St Mary's parish church, Breamore, Hampshire
Old English
–
The first page of the
Beowulf manuscript with its opening Hƿæt ƿē Gārde/na ingēar dagum þēod cyninga / þrym ge frunon... "Listen! We of the Spear-Danes from days of yore have heard of the glory of the folk-kings..."
3.
Alcoholic beverage
–
Long-term use can lead to alcohol abuse, physical dependence, and alcoholism. Drinking alcohol plays an important social role in many cultures, most countries have laws regulating their production, sale, and consumption, some countries ban such activities entirely. However, alcoholic drinks are legal in most parts of the world, the global alcoholic drink industry exceeded $1 trillion in 2014. Alcohol is one of the most widely used drugs in the world. For instance, in 2015, among Americans, 89% of adults had consumed alcohol at point, 70% had drunk it in the last year. Alcoholic drinks are divided into three classes—beers, wines, and spirits—and typically contain between 3% and 40% alcohol by volume. Discovery of late Stone Age jugs suggest that intentionally fermented drinks existed at least as early as the Neolithic period, wine is a fermented beverage produced from grapes. Wine involves a longer process than beer and also a long aging process. Sparkling wine can be made by means of a secondary fermentation, fruit wines are made from fruits other than grapes, such as plums, cherries, or apples. Sake is an example of rice wine. Beer is a beverage fermented from grain mash and it is made from barley or a blend of several grains. If the fermented mash is distilled, then the drink is a spirit, beer is the most consumed alcoholic beverage in the world. Cider or cyder is an alcoholic drink made from any fruit juice, apple juice, peaches. Cider alcohol content varies from 1. 2% ABV to 8. 5% or more in traditional English ciders, in some regions, cider may be called apple wine. Mead is a drink created by fermenting honey with water, sometimes with various fruits, spices, grains. The alcoholic content of mead may range from about 8% ABV to more than 20%, the defining characteristic of mead is that the majority of the drinks fermentable sugar is derived from honey. A distilled drink or liquor is a drink produced by distilling ethanol produced by means of fermenting grain, fruit. Unsweetened, distilled, alcoholic drinks that have a content of at least 20% ABV are called spirits
Alcoholic beverage
–
A selection of alcoholic beverages.
Alcoholic beverage
–
A
liquor store in the United States. The global alcoholic beverages industry has exceeded $1
trillion in 2014.
Alcoholic beverage
–
These
flaming cocktails illustrate that
high-proof alcohol will readily catch fire and burn.
Alcoholic beverage
–
Both alcoholic and non-alcoholic red
wine may boost heart health.
4.
Ethanol fermentation
–
Because yeasts perform this conversion in the absence of oxygen, alcoholic fermentation is considered an anaerobic process. It also takes place in some species of fish where it provides energy when oxygen is scarce, ethanol fermentation has many uses, including the production of alcoholic beverages, the production of ethanol fuel, and bread baking. The chemical equations below summarize the fermentation of sucrose into ethanol, alcoholic fermentation converts one mole of glucose into two moles of ethanol and two moles of carbon dioxide, producing two moles of ATP in the process. The overall chemical formula for alcoholic fermentation is, C6H12O6 →2 C2H5OH +2 CO2 Sucrose is a dimer of glucose and fructose molecules, in the first step of alcoholic fermentation, the enzyme invertase cleaves the glycosidic linkage between the glucose and fructose molecules. C12H22O11 + H2O + invertase →2 C6H12O6 Next, each molecule is broken down into two pyruvate molecules in a process known as glycolysis. Glycolysis is summarized by the equation, C6H12O6 +2 ADP +2 Pi +2 NAD+ →2 CH3COCOO− +2 ATP +2 NADH +2 H2O +2 H+ The chemical formula of pyruvate is CH3COCOO−, Pi stands for the inorganic phosphate. Finally, pyruvate is converted to ethanol and CO2 in two steps, regenerating oxidized NAD+ needed for glycolysis,1, CH3COCOO− + H+ → CH3CHO + CO2 catalyzed by pyruvate decarboxylase 2. CH3CHO + NADH+H+ → C2H5OH + NAD+ This reaction is catalyzed by alcohol dehydrogenase, as shown by the reaction equation, glycolysis causes the reduction of two molecules of NAD+ to NADH. Two ADP molecules are converted to two ATP and two water molecules via substrate-level phosphorylation. Other microorganisms can produce ethanol from sugars by fermentation but often only as a side product, however, many yeasts such as the commonly used bakers yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, or fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe, prefer fermentation to respiration. These yeasts will produce ethanol even under conditions, if they are provided with the right kind of nutrition. Several potential causes for the decline in activity have been investigated. Viability remained at or above 90%, internal pH remained near neutrality, none of these factors appears to be causally related to the fall in fermentative activity during batch fermentation. Ethanol fermentation causes bread dough to rise, yeast organisms consume sugars in the dough and produce ethanol and carbon dioxide as waste products. The carbon dioxide forms bubbles in the dough, expanding it into something of a foam, less than 2% ethanol remains after baking. All ethanol contained in alcoholic beverages is produced by means of fermentation induced by yeast, brandy and eaux de vie are produced by distillation of these fruit-fermented beverages. Mead is produced by fermentation of the sugars present in honey. Beer, whiskey, and vodka are produced by fermentation of grain starches that have converted to sugar by the enzyme amylase
Ethanol fermentation
–
Grapes fermenting during wine production.
Ethanol fermentation
–
In ethanol fermentation, one glucose molecule breaks down into two pyruvates (1). The energy from this exothermic reaction is used to bind inorganic phosphates to ADP and convert NAD+ to NADH. The two pyruvates are then broken down into two acetaldehydes and give off two CO2 as a waste product (2). The two acetaldehydes are then converted to two ethanol by using the H- ions from NADH; converting NADH back into NAD+ (3).
Ethanol fermentation
–
The formation of carbon dioxide — a byproduct of ethanol fermentation — causes bread to rise.
Ethanol fermentation
–
Primary fermentation cellar, Budweiser Brewery,
Fort Collins, Colorado
5.
Honey
–
Honey /ˈhʌni/ is a sugary food substance produced and stored by certain social hymenopteran insects. It is produced from the secretions of plants or insects, such as floral nectar or aphid honeydew, through regurgitation, enzymatic activity. The variety of honey produced by bees is the most well-known, due to its worldwide commercial production. Honey gets its sweetness from the monosaccharides fructose and glucose, and has about the relative sweetness as granulated sugar. It has attractive properties for baking and a distinctive flavor that leads some people to prefer it to sugar. Most microorganisms do not grow in honey, so sealed honey does not spoil, however, honey sometimes contains dormant endospores of the bacterium Clostridium botulinum, which can be dangerous to babies, as it may result in botulism. People who have an immune system should not eat honey because of the risk of bacterial or fungal infection. Although some evidence indicates honey may be effective in treating diseases and other conditions, such as wounds and burns. Providing 64 calories in a serving of one tablespoon equivalent to 1272 kj per 100 g. Honey is generally safe, but may have various, potential adverse effects or interactions with excessive consumption, existing disease conditions, or drugs. Honey use and production have a long and varied history as an ancient activity, depicted in Valencia, in cold weather or when other food sources are scarce, adult and larval bees use stored honey as food. By contriving for bee swarms to nest in man-made hives, people have been able to semidomesticate the insects, Bee digestive enzymes - invertase, amylase, and diastase - and gastric acid hydrolyze sucrose to a mixture of glucose and fructose. The bees work together as a group with the regurgitation and digestion for as long as 20 minutes until the product reaches storage quality. It is then placed in honeycomb cells left unsealed while still high in content and natural yeasts. The bees then cap the cells with wax to seal them, as removed from the hive by a beekeeper, honey has a long shelf life and will not ferment if properly sealed. Another source of honey is from a number of species, such as the wasps Brachygastra lecheguana and Brachygastra mellifica. These species are known to feed on nectar and produce honey, Honey is collected from wild bee colonies, or from domesticated beehives. The honey is stored in honeycombs, wild bee nests are sometimes located by following a honeyguide bird
Honey
–
A jar of honey with a honey dipper and an
American biscuit
Honey
–
Honey in honeycomb
Honey
–
A
honey bee on
calyx of
goldenrod
Honey
–
Crystallized honey. The inset shows a close-up of the honey, showing the individual glucose grains in the fructose mixture.
6.
Fruit
–
In botany, a fruit is the seed-bearing structure in flowering plants formed from the ovary after flowering. Fruits are the means by which angiosperms disseminate seeds, accordingly, fruits account for a substantial fraction of the worlds agricultural output, and some have acquired extensive cultural and symbolic meanings. On the other hand, in usage, fruit includes many structures that are not commonly called fruits, such as bean pods, corn kernels, tomatoes. The section of a fungus that produces spores is called a fruiting body. Many common terms for seeds and fruit do not correspond to the botanical classifications, however, in botany, a fruit is the ripened ovary or carpel that contains seeds, a nut is a type of fruit and not a seed, and a seed is a ripened ovule. Examples of culinary vegetables and nuts that are botanically fruit include corn, cucurbits, eggplant, legumes, sweet pepper, in addition, some spices, such as allspice and chili pepper, are fruits, botanically speaking. g. Botanically, a grain, such as corn, rice, or wheat, is also a kind of fruit. However, the wall is very thin and is fused to the seed coat. The outer, often edible layer, is the pericarp, formed from the ovary and surrounding the seeds, the pericarp may be described in three layers from outer to inner, the epicarp, mesocarp and endocarp. Fruit that bears a prominent pointed terminal projection is said to be beaked, a fruit results from maturation of one or more flowers, and the gynoecium of the flower forms all or part of the fruit. Inside the ovary/ovaries are one or more ovules where the megagametophyte contains the egg cell, after double fertilization, these ovules will become seeds. The ovules are fertilized in a process starts with pollination. After pollination, a tube grows from the pollen through the stigma into the ovary to the ovule, later the zygote will give rise to the embryo of the seed, and the endosperm mother cell will give rise to endosperm, a nutritive tissue used by the embryo. As the ovules develop into seeds, the ovary begins to ripen and the ovary wall, in some multiseeded fruits, the extent to which the flesh develops is proportional to the number of fertilized ovules. The pericarp is often differentiated into two or three distinct layers called the exocarp, mesocarp, and endocarp, in some fruits, especially simple fruits derived from an inferior ovary, other parts of the flower, fuse with the ovary and ripen with it. In other cases, the sepals, petals and/or stamens and style of the fall off. When such other floral parts are a significant part of the fruit, it is called an accessory fruit, since other parts of the flower may contribute to the structure of the fruit, it is important to study flower structure to understand how a particular fruit forms. There are three modes of fruit development, Apocarpous fruits develop from a single flower having one or more separate carpels
Fruit
–
Culinary fruits
Fruit
–
Several
culinary fruits
Fruit
–
Mixed fruit
Fruit
–
Fruit shop in
Naggar,
Himachal Pradesh,
India
7.
Spice
–
A spice is a seed, fruit, root, bark, or other plant substance primarily used for flavoring, coloring or preserving food. Spices are distinguished from herbs, which are the leaves, flowers, sometimes, spices may be ground into a powder for convenience. Spices are sometimes used in medicine, religious rituals, cosmetics or perfume production, the spice trade developed throughout South Asia and Middle East by at least 2000 BCE with cinnamon and black pepper, and in East Asia with herbs and pepper. The Egyptians used herbs for mummification and their demand for exotic spices and herbs helped stimulate world trade. The word spice comes from the Old French word espice, which became epice, and which came from the Latin root spec, by 1000 BCE, medical systems based upon herbs could be found in China, Korea, and India. Early uses were connected with magic, medicine, religion, tradition, archaeological excavations have uncovered clove burnt onto the floor of a kitchen, dated to 1700 BCE, at the Mesopotamian site of Terqa, in modern-day Syria. The ancient Indian epic Ramayana mentions cloves, the Romans had cloves in the 1st century CE, as Pliny the Elder wrote about them. In the story of Genesis, Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers to spice merchants, in the biblical poem Song of Solomon, the male speaker compares his beloved to many forms of spices. The earliest written records of spices come from ancient Egyptian, Chinese, the Ebers Papyrus from Early Egyptians that dates from 1550 B. C. E. Describes some eight hundred different medicinal remedies and numerous medicinal procedures, historians believe that nutmeg, which originates from the Banda Islands in Southeast Asia, was introduced to Europe in the 6th century BCE. Indonesian merchants traveled around China, India, the Middle East, Arab merchants facilitated the routes through the Middle East and India. This resulted in the Egyptian port city of Alexandria being the trading center for spices. The most important discovery prior to the European spice trade were the monsoon winds, sailing from Eastern spice cultivators to Western European consumers gradually replaced the land-locked spice routes once facilitated by the Middle East Arab caravans. Spices were among the most demanded and expensive available in Europe in the Middle Ages. Given medieval medicines main theory of humorism, spices and herbs were indispensable to balance humors in food, in addition to being desired by those using medieval medicine, the European elite also craved spices in the Middle Ages. An example of the European aristocracys demand for spice comes from the King of Aragon and he was specifically looking for spices to put in wine, and was not alone among European monarchs at the time to have such a desire for spice. Spices were all imported from plantations in Asia and Africa, which made them expensive, from the 8th until the 15th century, the Republic of Venice had the monopoly on spice trade with the Middle East, and along with it the neighboring Italian city-states. The trade made the region rich and it has been estimated that around 1,000 tons of pepper and 1,000 tons of the other common spices were imported into Western Europe each year during the Late Middle Ages
Spice
–
A spice shop selling a variety of spices in Iran
Spice
–
A group of
Indian spices and herbs in bowls
Spice
–
An assortment of spices used in
Indian cuisine
Spice
–
Spice market,
Marakesh
8.
Grain
–
Grains are small, hard, dry seeds, with or without attached hulls or fruit layers, harvested for human or animal consumption. Agronomists also call the plants producing such seeds grain crops, the two main types of commercial grain crops are cereals such as wheat and rye, and legumes such as beans and soybeans. Because of the ubiquity of grain as a source, the term grain is often used to describe something small. After being harvested, dry grains are more durable than other foods, such as starchy fruits. Thus, major global commodity markets exist for canola, maize, rice, soybeans, wheat, in botany, grains and cereals are synonymous with caryopses, the fruits of the grass family. In agronomy and commerce, seeds or fruits from other plant families are called if they resemble caryopses. For example, amaranth is sold as grain amaranth, and amaranth products may be described as whole grains, the pre-Hispanic civilizations of the Andes had grain-based food systems but, at the higher elevations, none of the grains was a cereal. All three grains native to the Andes are broad-leafed plants rather than such as corn, rice. All cereal crops are members of the grass family, cereal grains contain a substantial amount of starch, a carbohydrate that provides dietary energy. As is the case all other whole plant foods, pulses also contain carbohydrate. Vegetable oils provide dietary energy and some essential fatty acids and they are also used as fuel or lubricants. Those who handle grain at grain facilities may encounter numerous occupational hazards, risks include grain entrapment, where workers are submerged in the grain and unable to remove themselves, explosions caused by fine particles of grain dust, and falls
Grain
–
Food grains at a weekly market
Grain
–
Cereal grain seeds from left to right:
wheat,
spelt,
barley,
oat.
Grain
–
Barley
Grain
–
Rye grains.
9.
Hops
–
Hops are the flowers of the hop plant Humulus lupulus. The hop plant is a vigorous, climbing, herbaceous perennial, usually trained to grow up strings in a called a hopfield, hop garden. Many different varieties of hops are grown by farmers around the world, the first documented use of hops in beer is from the 9th century, though Hildegard of Bingen,300 years later, is often cited as the earliest documented source. Before this period, brewers used gruit, composed of a variety of bitter herbs and flowers, including dandelion, burdock root, marigold, horehound, ground ivy. Early documents include mention of a hop garden in the will of Charlemagnes father, historically, traditional herb combinations for beers were believed to have been abandoned when beers made with hops were noticed to be less prone to spoilage. The first documented hop cultivation was in 736, in the Hallertau region of present-day Germany, however, in a will of Pepin the Short, the father of Charlemagne,768 hop gardens were left to the Cloister of Saint-Denis. Not until the 13th century did hops begin to start threatening the use of gruit for flavoring, gruit was used when taxes were levied by the nobility on hops. Whichever was taxed made the then quickly switch to the other. In Britain, hopped beer was first imported from Holland around 1400, yet hops were condemned as late as 1519 as a wicked, in 1471, Norwich, England, banned use of the plant in the brewing of ale. In Germany, using hops was also a religious and political choice in the early 16th century, there was no tax on hops to be paid on the Catholic church, unlike on gruit, for which the Protestant preferred hopped beer. Therefore, in the hop industry there are words which originally were Dutch words. Hops were then grown as far north as Aberdeen, near breweries for infrastructure convenience, in England there were many complaints over the quality of imported hops, the sacks of which were often contaminated by stalks, sand or straw to increase their weight. Hop cultivation was begun in the present-day United States in 1629 by English, before national alcohol prohibition, cultivation was mainly centered around New York, California, Oregon, and Washington. Problems with powdery mildew and downy mildew devastated New Yorks production by the 1920s, Hops production is concentrated in moist temperate climates, with much of the worlds production occurring near the 48th parallel north. Historically, hops were not grown in Ireland, but were imported from England, in 1752 more than 500 tons of English hops were imported through Dublin alone. Important production centers today are the Hallertau in Germany, the Yakima and Willamette valleys, the principal production centers in the UK are in Kent which produces Kent Goldings hops, Herefordshire and Worcestershire. Essentially all of the hops are used in beer making. Although hops are grown in most of the continental United States and Canada, as hops are a climbing plant, they are trained to grow up trellises made from strings or wires that support the plants and allow them significantly greater growth with the same sunlight profile
Hops
–
Hop flower in a hop yard in the
Hallertau, Germany
Hops
–
Early season hop growth in a hop yard in the
Yakima River Valley of
Washington with
Mount Adams in the distance
Hops
–
A superstructure of overhead wires supports strings that in turn support
bines.
Hops
–
Hops harvest in
Skåne,
Sweden in 1937.
10.
Alcohol by volume
–
Alcohol by volume is a standard measure of how much alcohol is contained in a given volume of an alcoholic beverage. It is defined as the number of millilitres of pure ethanol present in 100 millilitres of solution at 20 °C, the number of millilitres of pure ethanol is the mass of the ethanol divided by its density at 20 °C, which is 0.78924 g/ml. The ABV standard is used worldwide, the International Organization of Legal Metrology has tables of density of water–ethanol mixtures at different concentrations and temperatures. In some countries, such as the U. K and France, alcohol by volume is referred to as degrees Gay-Lussac and this results in the slight difference in marked % noted later in this article. Mixing two solutions of alcohol of different strengths usually causes a change in volume, mixing pure water with a solution less than 24% by mass causes a slight increase in total volume, whereas the mixing of two solutions above 24% causes a decrease in volume. The phenomenon of volume due to mixing dissimilar solutions is called partial molar volume. Details about typical amounts of alcohol contained in various beverages can be found in the articles about them. Another way of specifying the amount of alcohol is alcohol proof, for example, 40% abv is 80 proof in the US and 70 proof in the UK. However, since 1980, alcohol proof in the UK has been replaced by abv as a measure of alcohol content, in the United States, a few states regulate and tax alcoholic beverages according to alcohol by weight, expressed as a percentage of total mass. Some brewers print the ABW on beer containers, particularly on low-point versions of domestic beer brands. However, because of the miscibility of alcohol and water, the factor is not constant. 100% ABW, of course, is equivalent to 100% ABV, during the production of wine and beer, yeast is added to a sugary solution. During fermentation, the yeasts consume the sugars and produce alcohol, the density of sugar in water is greater than the density of alcohol in water. A hydrometer is used to measure the change in gravity of the solution before. The volume of alcohol in the solution can then be estimated, there are a number of empirical formulae which brewers and winemakers use to estimate the alcohol content of the liquor made. The simplest method for wine has been described by English author C. J. J, the number 0.7936 is the specific gravity of a 100% ethanol solution. The difference between the starting SG and the final SG measures the specific gravity lost to CO2 release
Alcohol by volume
–
The alcohol by volume shown on a bottle of
absinthe.
11.
Norse mythology
–
The cosmos in Norse mythology consists of Nine Worlds that flank a central cosmological tree, Yggdrasil. Units of time and elements of the cosmology are personified as deities or beings, various forms of a creation myth are recounted, where the world is created from the flesh of the primordial being Ymir, and the first two humans are Ask and Embla. These worlds are foretold to be reborn after the events of Ragnarök, there the surviving gods will meet, and the land will be fertile and green, and two humans will repopulate the world. Norse mythology has been the subject of scholarly discourse since the 17th century, by way of comparative mythology and historical linguistics, scholars have identified elements of Germanic mythology reaching as far back as Proto-Indo-European mythology. In the modern period, the Romanticist Viking revival re-awoke an interest in the subject matter, the myths have further been revived in a religious context among adherents of Germanic Neopaganism. The majority of these Old Norse texts were created in Iceland and this occurred primarily in the 13th century. The Prose Edda was composed as a manual for producing skaldic poetry—traditional Old Norse poetry composed by skalds. Originally composed and transmitted orally, skaldic poetry utilizes alliterative verse, kennings, the Prose Edda presents numerous examples of works by various skalds from before and after the Christianization process and also frequently refers back to the poems found in the Poetic Edda. The Poetic Edda consists almost entirely of poems, with some prose narrative added, in comparison to skaldic poetry, Eddic poetry is relatively unadorned. Numerous further texts, such as the sagas, provide further information, the saga corpus consists of thousands of tales recorded in Old Norse ranging from Icelandic family histories to Migration period tales mentioning historic figures such as Attila the Hun. By way of historical linguistics and comparative mythology, comparisons to other attested branches of Germanic mythology may also lend insight, wider comparisons to the mythology of other Indo-European peoples by scholars has resulted in the potential reconstruction of far earlier myths. Of the mythical tales and poems that are presumed to have existed during the Middle Ages, Viking Age, Migration Period, numerous gods are mentioned in the source texts. In the mythology, Thor lays waste to numerous jötnar who are foes to the gods or humanity, the god Odin is also frequently mentioned in surviving texts. One-eyed, wolf and raven-flanked, and spear in hand, Odin pursues knowledge throughout the worlds, Odin has a strong association with death, Odin is portrayed as the ruler of Valhalla, where valkyries carry half of those slain in battle. Odins wife is the powerful goddess Frigg who can see the future but tells no one, and together they have a beloved son, Baldr. After a series of dreams had by Baldr of his death, his death is engineered by Loki, and Baldr thereafter resides in Hel. Odin must share half of his share of the dead with a powerful goddess and she is beautiful, sensual, wears a feathered cloak, and practices seiðr. She rides to battle to choose among the slain, and brings her chosen to her afterlife field Fólkvangr, Freyja weeps for her missing husband Óðr, and seeks after him in far away lands
Norse mythology
–
An undead
völva, a Scandinavian seeress, tells the spear-wielding god Odin of what has been and what will be in Odin and the Völva by Lorenz Frølich (1895)
Norse mythology
–
The
Rök Runestone (
Ög 136), located in
Rök, Sweden features a
Younger Futhark runic inscription that makes various references to Norse mythology
Norse mythology
–
The god Thor wades through a river while the
Æsir ride across the bridge
Bifröst in an illustration by
Lorenz Frølich (1895)
Norse mythology
–
The cosmological, central tree
Yggdrasil is depicted in "The Ash Yggdrasil" by
Friedrich Wilhelm Heine (1886)
12.
Mead of Poetry
–
This myth was reported by Snorri Sturluson. The drink is a metaphor for poetic inspiration, often associated with Odin the god of possession via berserker rage or poetic inspiration. After the Æsir-Vanir War, the gods sealed the truce they had just concluded by spitting in a vat, to keep a symbol of this truce, they created from their spittle a man named Kvasir. He was so wise that there were no questions he could not answer and he travelled around the world to give knowledge to mankind. One day, he visited the dwarves Fjalar and Galar and they killed him and poured his blood into two vats and a pot called Boðn, Són and Óðrerir. They mixed his blood with honey, thus creating a mead which made anybody who drank it a poet or scholar, the dwarves explained to the gods that Kvasir had suffocated in intelligence. Fjallar and Gallar invited a giant, Gilling, and his wife and they took him to sea and capsized their boat and the giant drowned. The dwarves then came home and broke the news to Gillings wife. Fjallar proposed showing her the place where her husband had drowned but Gallar got tired of her weeping, went before her and dropped a millstone on her head when she crossed the threshold. When Gillings son, Suttungr, learned what had happened, he went to the dwarves, the dwarves implored him and offered him the mead in compensation for his fathers death. When he came home, he stored the mead in a place called Hnitbjörg where his daughter. Odin met nine slaves who were scything hay and offered to sharpen their scythes and his whetstone worked so well that they all wanted to buy it. Odin threw it up in the air and the slaves struggled for it to death, then he spent the night at Baugis place. He complained that business did not go well since his slaves had killed each other, Odin, who said his name was Bölverk, proposed to do their work in exchange for a draught of Suttungs mead. Baugi agreed, saying that he would try to persuade his brother, during summer, Bölverk did the work as agreed and, in winter, asked Baugi for his owing. They both went to Suttungs, who refused to give a single drop of the beverage, Bölverk then suggested Baugi use a trick. He gave him the drill Rati and asked him to dig into Hnitbjörg mountain, after Baugi tried to deceive him, a hole was actually dug and Bölverk slipped into it, having taken the form of a snake. Baugi tried in vain to hit him with the drill and he arrived by Gunnlöd, with whom he spent three nights
Mead of Poetry
–
Chased by
Suttungr,
Odin spits the mead of poetry into several
vessels. Some of it accidentally goes out the other end. Illustration by
Jakob Sigurðsson, an 18th-century Icelandic artist.
Mead of Poetry
–
Suttungr threatens the
dwarves with drowning
Mead of Poetry
–
The
Gotlandic image stone Stora Hammars III is believed to depict Odin in the form of an eagle (note the eagle's beard),
Gunnlöð holding the mead of poetry, and Suttungr.
13.
Kvasir
–
In Norse mythology, Kvasir was a being born of the saliva of the Æsir and the Vanir, two groups of gods. Extremely wise, Kvasir traveled far and wide, teaching and spreading knowledge and this continued until the dwarfs Fjalar and Galar killed Kvasir and drained him of his blood. Kvasir is attested in the Prose Edda and Heimskringla, both written by Snorri Sturluson in the 13th century, and in the poetry of skalds, in the Prose Edda, Kvasir appears in the books Gylfaginning and Skáldskaparmál. In the chapter, High says that while Loki was hiding from the gods, he took the form of a salmon during the day. Loki noticed that the gods were not far away from him, Loki sat before a fire, and when he noticed the gods were coming near him, he threw the net into the fire and jumped up and slipped into the river. The gods reached Loki’s house, and the first to enter was Kvasir, Kvasir saw the shape of the net in the ash of the fire, and so realized its purpose, to catch fish. And so Kvasir told the gods about it, the gods used the shape found in the ash as their model, and with it flushed Loki out of the river, resulting in his binding. In Skáldskaparmál, Kvasir is mentioned several times, in chapter 57 of the book, Ægir asks the skaldic god Bragi where the craft of poetry originates. Bragi says that the Æsir once wrangled with the Vanir but eventually came together to make peace, the two groups decided to form a truce by way of both sides spitting into a vat. After they left, the gods kept the vat as a symbol of their truce, “and decided not to let it be wasted, the man was named Kvasir, and he was extremely wise, he knew the answer to any question posed to him. Kvasir traveled far and wide throughout the world teaching mankind and spreading his vast knowledge, in time, two dwarfs, Fjalar and Galar, invited Kvasir to their home for a private talk. Upon Kvasir’s arrival, the two dwarfs killed him, and drained his blood into three objects, two of the objects were vats, called Són and Boðn, and the third was a pot called Óðrerir. Fjalar and Galar mixed the blood with honey and the mixture became mead, the two dwarfs explained to the Æsir that Kvasir died by way of “suffocat in intelligence”, as there were none among them who were so well educated as to be able to pose him questions. Bragi then tells how the Mead of Poetry, by way of the god Odin, in chapter 3 Skáldskaparmál, poetic ways of referring to poetry are provided, including Kvasir’s blood. In reference, part of Vellekla by the 10th century Icelandic skald Einarr skálaglamm is provided, further, in chapter 3, a prose narrative mentions that the Kvasir’s blood was made into the Mead of Poetry. Kvasir is mentioned in an account of the origin of the gods in chapter 4 of Ynglinga saga. The chapter narrative explains that Odin waged war on the Vanir, yet the Vanir could not be defeated, Kvasir, here a member of the Vanir and described as the cleverest among them, is included among the hostages. The etymology of the name is uncertain, the root kvas- in Kvas-ir likely stems from the Proto-Germanic base *kvass-, meaning to “to squeeze, squash, crush, bruise”
Kvasir
–
Honey combs; upon his death, Kvasir's blood was drained and mixed with honey, which became the
Mead of Poetry
14.
Beaker culture
–
The term was coined by John Abercromby, based on the cultures distinctive pottery drinking beakers. The Bell Beaker period marks a period of contact in Atlantic and Western Europe on a scale not seen previously. It has been suggested that the beakers were designed for the consumption of alcohol, beer and mead content have been identified from certain examples. However, not all Beakers were drinking cups, some were used as reduction pots to smelt copper ores, others have some organic residues associated with food, and still others were employed as funerary urns. They were used as status display amongst disparate elites, there have been numerous proposals by archaeologists as to the origins of the Bell Beaker culture, and debates continued on for decades. Several regions of origin have been postulated, notably the Iberian peninsula, similarly, scholars have postulated various mechanisms of spread, including migrations of populations, smaller warrior groups, individuals, or a diffusion of ideas and object exchange. Recent analyses have made significant inroads to understanding the Beaker phenomenon and they have concluded that the Bell Beaker phenomenon was a synthesis of elements, representing “an idea and style uniting different regions with different cultural traditions and background. An overview of all sources from southern Germany concluded that Bell Beaker was a new and independent culture in that area. The inspiration for the Maritime Bell Beaker is argued to have been the small and earlier Copoz beakers that have impressed decoration and which are found widely around the Tagus estuary in Portugal. Turek sees late Neolithic precursors in northern Africa, arguing the Maritime style emerged as a result of contacts between Iberia and Morocco in the first half of the third millennium BC. AOO and AOC Beakers appear to have evolved continually from a period in the lower Rhine and North Sea regions, at least for Northern. Furthermore, the ritual which typified Bell Beaker sites was intrusive into Western Europe. Such an arrangement is rather derivative of Corded Ware traditions although, instead of battle-axes, the initial moves from the Tagus estuary were maritime. A northern move incorporated the southern coast of Armorica, the enclave established in southern Brittany was linked closely to the riverine and landward route, via the Loire, and across the Gâtinais valley to the Seine valley, and thence to the lower Rhine. This was a long-established route reflected in early stone axe distributions, another pulse had brought Bell Beaker to Csepel Island in Hungary by about 2500 BC. But in contrast to the early Bell Beaker preference for the dagger and bow, here Bell Beaker people assimilated local pottery forms such as the polypod cup. These common ware types of pottery then spread in association with the bell beaker. From the Carpathian Basin Bell Beaker spread down the Rhine and eastwards into what is now Germany, by this time the Rhine was on the western edge of the vast Corded Ware zone
Beaker culture
–
The distinctive Bell Beaker pottery drinking vessels shaped like an inverted bell
Beaker culture
–
3,500 years old, 40 cm (16 in) high "Giant Beaker of Pavenstädt",
Gütersloh town museum, Germany
Beaker culture
–
Vessel from
Ciempozuelos (Spain) dated from the Bronze Age (
National Archaeological Museum of Spain,
Madrid)
Beaker culture
–
Reconstruction of a Beaker burial, (
M.A.N.,
Madrid)
15.
Rigveda
–
The Rigveda is an ancient Indian collection of Vedic Sanskrit hymns. It is one of the four sacred texts of Hinduism known as the Vedas. The text is a collection of 1,028 hymns and 10,600 verses, a good deal of the language is still obscure and many hymns as a consequence seem unintelligible. The hymns are dedicated to Rigvedic deities, for each deity series the hymns progress from longer to shorter ones, and the number of hymns per book increases. In the eight books that were composed the earliest, the hymns predominantly discuss cosmology, Rigveda is one of the oldest extant texts in any Indo-European language. 1700–1100 BC has also been given, some of its verses continue to be recited during Hindu rites of passage celebrations such as weddings and religious prayers, making it probably the worlds oldest religious text in continued use. This redaction also included some additions and orthoepic changes to the Vedic Sanskrit such as the regularization of sandhi, the Padapatha and the Pratisakhya anchor the texts fidelity and meaning, and the fixed text was preserved with unparalleled fidelity for more than a millennium by oral tradition alone. In order to achieve this the oral tradition prescribed very structured enunciation, involving breaking down the Sanskrit compounds into stems and inflections and this interplay with sounds gave rise to a scholarly tradition of morphology and phonetics. The Rigveda was probably not written down until the Gupta period, the oral tradition still continued into recent times. The text is organized in 10 books, known as Mandalas, of varying age, the family books, mandalas 2–7, are the oldest part of the Rigveda and the shortest books, they are arranged by length and account for 38% of the text. Within each book, the hymns are arranged in collections each dealing with a deity, Agni comes first, Indra comes second. They are attributed and dedicated to a rishi and his family of students, within each collection, the hymns are arranged in descending order of the number of stanzas per hymn. If two hymns in the collection have equal numbers of stanzas then they are arranged so that the number of syllables in the metre are in descending order. The second to seventh mandalas have a uniform format, the eighth and ninth mandalas, comprising hymns of mixed age, account for 15% and 9%, respectively. The first and the tenth mandalas are the youngest, they are also the longest books, of 191 suktas each, however, adds Witzel, some hymns in Mandala 8,1 and 10 may be as old as the earlier Mandalas. The first mandala has an arrangement not found in the other nine mandalas. The ninth mandala is arranged by both its structure and hymn length, while the first eighty four hymns of the tenth mandala have a structure different than the remaining hymns in it. Each mandala consists of hymns called sūkta intended for various rituals, the sūktas in turn consist of individual stanzas called ṛc, which are further analysed into units of verse called pada
Rigveda
–
Rigveda (
padapatha) manuscript in
Devanagari, early 19th century. After a scribal benediction ("śrīgaṇéśāyanamaḥ;; Aum(3);;"), the first line has the opening words of RV.1.1.1 (agniṃ; iḷe; puraḥ-hitaṃ; yajñasya; devaṃ; ṛtvijaṃ). The
Vedic accent is marked by underscores and vertical overscores in red.
16.
Historical Vedic religion
–
The religion of the Vedic period was the religion of the Indo-Aryans of northern India. It is a predecessor of modern Hinduism, though significantly different from it. The Vedic liturgy is conserved in the portion of the four Vedas. The religious practices centered on a clergy administering rites, the complex Vedic rituals of Śrauta continue in coastal Andhra. The commonly proposed period of earlier Vedic age is dated back to 2nd millennium BCE, the Vedic religion was the religion of the Indo-Aryans, and existed in northern India from c.1750 to 500 BCE. The Indo-Aryans were a branch of the Indo-European language family, which originated in the Kurgan culture of the Central Asian steppes, the Vedic beliefs and practices of the pre-classical era were closely related to the hypothesised Proto-Indo-European religion, and the Indo-Iranian religion. According to Anthony, the Old Indic religion probably emerged among Indo-European immigrants in the zone between the Zeravshan River and Iran. It was a mixture of old Central Asian and new Indo-European elements. At least 383 non-Indo-European words were borrowed from this culture, including the god Indra, Indra was the subject of 250 hymns, a quarter of the Rig Veda. He was associated more than any other deity with Soma, a stimulant drug probably borrowed from the BMAC religion and his rise to prominence was a peculiar trait of the Old Indic speakers. The oldest inscriptions in Old Indic, the language of the Rig Veda, are not in northwestern India and Pakistan, but in northern Syria. The Mitanni kings took Old Indic throne names, and Old Indic technical terms were used for horse-riding and chariot-driving, the Old Indic term rta, meaning cosmic order and truth, the central concept of the Rig Veda, was also employed in the Mitanni kingdom. Old Indic gods, including Indra, were known in the Mitanni kingdom. David Gordon White cites three other scholars who have emphatically demonstrated that Vedic religion is partially derived from the Indus Valley Civilizations. Texts dating to the Vedic period, composed in Vedic Sanskrit, are mainly the four Vedic Samhitas, the Vedas record the liturgy connected with the rituals and sacrifices performed by the 16 or 17 Śrauta priests and the purohitas. According to traditional views, the hymns of the Rigveda and other Vedic hymns were divinely revealed to the rishis, in addition the Vedas are said to be apauraṣaya, a Sanskrit word meaning uncreated by man and which further reveals their eternal non-changing status. The mode of worship was worship of the elements like fire and rivers, worship of gods like Indra, chanting of hymns. The priests performed the rituals for the noblemen and wealthy commoners Vaishyas
Historical Vedic religion
–
Indo-European migrations
Historical Vedic religion
–
Map of
North India in the late Vedic period. The location of
shakhas is labeled in green; the
Thar Desert is dark yellow.
Historical Vedic religion
–
A
Śrauta yajna being performed in South India.
17.
Hinduism
–
Hinduism is a religion, or a way of life, found most notably in India and Nepal. Hinduism has been called the oldest religion in the world, and some practitioners and scholars refer to it as Sanātana Dharma, scholars regard Hinduism as a fusion or synthesis of various Indian cultures and traditions, with diverse roots and no founder. This Hindu synthesis started to develop between 500 BCE and 300 CE following the Vedic period, although Hinduism contains a broad range of philosophies, it is linked by shared concepts, recognisable rituals, cosmology, shared textual resources, and pilgrimage to sacred sites. Hindu texts are classified into Shruti and Smriti and these texts discuss theology, philosophy, mythology, Vedic yajna, Yoga, agamic rituals, and temple building, among other topics. Major scriptures include the Vedas and Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, prominent themes in Hindu beliefs include the four Puruṣārthas, the proper goals or aims of human life, namely Dharma, Artha, Kama and Moksha, karma, samsara, and the various Yogas. Hindu practices include such as puja and recitations, meditation, family-oriented rites of passage, annual festivals. Some Hindus leave their world and material possessions, then engage in lifelong Sannyasa to achieve Moksha. Hinduism prescribes the eternal duties, such as honesty, refraining from injuring living beings, patience, forbearance, self-restraint, Hinduism is the worlds third largest religion, with over one billion followers or 15% of the global population, known as Hindus. The majority of Hindus reside in India, Nepal, Mauritius, the Caribbean, the word Hindu is derived from the Indo-Aryan/Sanskrit word Sindhu, the Indo-Aryan name for the Indus River in the northwestern part of the Indian subcontinent. The term Hindu in these ancient records is a geographical term, the Arabic term al-Hind referred to the people who live across the River Indus. This Arabic term was taken from the pre-Islamic Persian term Hindū. By the 13th century, Hindustan emerged as an alternative name of India. It was only towards the end of the 18th century that European merchants and colonists began to refer to the followers of Indian religions collectively as Hindus. The term Hinduism, then spelled Hindooism, was introduced into the English language in the 18th-century to denote the religious, philosophical, because of the wide range of traditions and ideas covered by the term Hinduism, arriving at a comprehensive definition is difficult. The religion defies our desire to define and categorize it, Hinduism has been variously defined as a religion, a religious tradition, a set of religious beliefs, and a way of life. From a Western lexical standpoint, Hinduism like other faiths is appropriately referred to as a religion, in India the term dharma is preferred, which is broader than the western term religion. Hindu traditionalists prefer to call it Sanatana Dharma, the study of India and its cultures and religions, and the definition of Hinduism, has been shaped by the interests of colonialism and by Western notions of religion. Since the 1990s, those influences and its outcomes have been the topic of debate among scholars of Hinduism, Hinduism as it is commonly known can be subdivided into a number of major currents
Hinduism
–
Swami Vivekananda was a key figure in introducing
Vedanta and
Yoga in Europe and USA, raising interfaith awareness and making Hinduism a world religion.
Hinduism
–
Temple wall panel relief sculpture at the
Hoysaleswara temple in
Halebidu, representing the
Trimurti:
Brahma,
Shiva and
Vishnu.
Hinduism
–
The
Rigveda is the first and most important Veda and is one of the oldest
religious texts. This Rigveda
manuscript is in
Devanagari.
Hinduism
–
A wedding is the most extensive personal ritual an adult Hindu undertakes in his or her life. A typical
Hindu wedding is solemnized before Vedic
fire ritual (shown).
18.
Golden Age
–
By definition, one is never in the Golden Age. By extension Golden Age denotes a period of peace, harmony, stability. During this age peace and harmony prevailed, people did not have to work to feed themselves and they lived to a very old age with a youthful appearance, eventually dying peacefully, with spirits living on as guardians. Plato in Cratylus recounts the golden race of humans who came first and he clarifies that Hesiod did not mean literally made of gold, but good and noble. There are analogous concepts in the religious and philosophical traditions of the South Asian subcontinent, for example, the Vedic or ancient Hindu culture saw history as cyclical, composed of yugas with alternating Dark and Golden Ages. The Kali yuga, Dwapara yuga, Treta yuga and Satya yuga correspond to the four Greek ages, similar beliefs occur in the ancient Middle East and throughout the ancient world, as well. In classical Greek mythology the Golden Age was presided over by the leading Titan Cronus, in some version of the myth Astraea also ruled. The earliest attested reference to the European myth of the Ages of Man 500 BC-350 BC appears in the late 6th century BC works of the Greek poet Hesiods Works and Days. Hesiod, a deteriorationist, identifies the Golden Age, the Silver Age, the Bronze Age, the Heroic Age, with the exception of the Heroic Age, each succeeding age was worse than the one that went before. When they died, it was as though they were overcome with sleep and they dwelt in ease and peace. Plato in his Cratylus referred to an age of men and also expounded at some length on Ages of Man from Hesiods Works. The Roman poet Ovid simplified the concept by reducing the number of Ages to four, Gold, Bronze, Silver, in Hesiods version, the Golden Age ended when the Titan Prometheus conferred on mankind the gift of fire and all the other arts. For this, Zeus punished Prometheus by chaining him to a rock in the Caucasus, the gods sent the beautiful maiden Pandora to Prometheuss brother Epimetheus. The Orphic school, a cult that originated in Thrace and spread to Greece in the 5th century BCE, held similar beliefs about the early days of man. In common with the other mystery cults prevalent in the Graeco-Roman world. Initiation into its secret rites, together with ascetic practices, was supposed to guarantee the individuals soul eventual release from the circle of mortality. Orphics sometimes identified the Golden Age with the era of the god Phanes, in classical mythology however, the Golden Age was associated with the reign of Saturn. However, in the 3rd century BCE, the Greek poet, Theocritus, writing in Alexandria, set his poetry in on the lushly fertile island of Sicily
Golden Age
–
The Golden Age by
Pietro da Cortona.
Golden Age
–
The Golden Age by
Lucas Cranach the Elder.
Golden Age
–
Sculpture of
Pan teaching
Daphnis to play the pipes; c. 100 BCE Found in Pompeii.
19.
Ancient Greece
–
Ancient Greece was a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th-9th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and this was followed by the period of Classical Greece, an era that began with the Greco-Persian Wars, lasting from the 5th to 4th centuries BC. Due to the conquests by Alexander the Great of Macedonia, Hellenistic civilization flourished from Central Asia to the end of the Mediterranean Sea. Classical Greek culture, especially philosophy, had a influence on ancient Rome. For this reason Classical Greece is generally considered to be the culture which provided the foundation of modern Western culture and is considered the cradle of Western civilization. Classical Antiquity in the Mediterranean region is considered to have begun in the 8th century BC. Classical Antiquity in Greece is preceded by the Greek Dark Ages and this period is succeeded, around the 8th century BC, by the Orientalizing Period during which a strong influence of Syro-Hittite, Jewish, Assyrian, Phoenician and Egyptian cultures becomes apparent. The end of the Dark Ages is also dated to 776 BC. The Archaic period gives way to the Classical period around 500 BC, Ancient Periods Astronomical year numbering Dates are approximate, consult particular article for details The history of Greece during Classical Antiquity may be subdivided into five major periods. The earliest of these is the Archaic period, in which artists made larger free-standing sculptures in stiff, the Archaic period is often taken to end with the overthrow of the last tyrant of Athens and the start of Athenian Democracy in 508 BC. It was followed by the Classical period, characterized by a style which was considered by observers to be exemplary, i. e. classical, as shown in the Parthenon. This period saw the Greco-Persian Wars and the Rise of Macedon, following the Classical period was the Hellenistic period, during which Greek culture and power expanded into the Near and Middle East. This period begins with the death of Alexander and ends with the Roman conquest, Herodotus is widely known as the father of history, his Histories are eponymous of the entire field. Herodotus was succeeded by authors such as Thucydides, Xenophon, Demosthenes, Plato, most of these authors were either Athenian or pro-Athenian, which is why far more is known about the history and politics of Athens than those of many other cities. Their scope is limited by a focus on political, military and diplomatic history, ignoring economic. In the 8th century BC, Greece began to emerge from the Dark Ages which followed the fall of the Mycenaean civilization, literacy had been lost and Mycenaean script forgotten, but the Greeks adopted the Phoenician alphabet, modifying it to create the Greek alphabet. The Lelantine War is the earliest documented war of the ancient Greek period and it was fought between the important poleis of Chalcis and Eretria over the fertile Lelantine plain of Euboea. Both cities seem to have suffered a decline as result of the long war, a mercantile class arose in the first half of the 7th century BC, shown by the introduction of coinage in about 680 BC
Ancient Greece
–
The
Parthenon, a temple dedicated to
Athena, located on the
Acropolis in
Athens, is one of the most representative symbols of the culture and sophistication of the ancient Greeks.
Ancient Greece
–
Dipylon Vase of the late Geometric period, or the beginning of the Archaic period,
c. 750 BC.
Ancient Greece
–
Political geography of ancient Greece in the Archaic and Classical periods
20.
Aristotle
–
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
Aristotle
–
Roman copy in marble of a Greek bronze bust of Aristotle by
Lysippus,
c. 330 BC. The
alabaster mantle is modern.
Aristotle
–
Aristotelianism
Aristotle
–
School of Aristotle in
Mieza,
Macedonia, Greece
Aristotle
–
"Aristotle" by
Francesco Hayez (1791–1882)
21.
Meteorology (Aristotle)
–
Meteorology is a treatise by Aristotle. The text discusses what Aristotle believed to have all the affections common to air and water, and the kinds and parts of the earth. It includes early accounts of water evaporation, earthquakes, and other weather phenomena and this is a reference to the unmoved movers, a teleological explanation. four bodies are fire, air, water, earth. Fire occupies the highest place among all, earth the lowest. Fire, air, water, earth, we assert, originate from one another, all terrestrial matter consists of these four elements. Various ratios of the combine to create the diverse materials found in nature. Some of the vapour that is formed by day does not rise high because the ratio of the fire that is raising it to the water that is being raised is small, both dew and hoar-frost are found when the sky is clear and there is no wind. When there is a quantity of exhalation and it is rare and is squeezed out in the cloud itself we get a thunderbolt. It moves things by its wind in the direction in which it is blowing in a straight line, Aristotle describes the properties of tornadoes and lightning. And this will be true of all other rivers. But if rivers come into existence and perish and the parts of the earth were not always moist. The whole of the Mediterranean does actually flow, the direction of this flow is determined by the depth of the basins and by the number of rivers. Maeotis flows into Pontus and Pontus into the Aegean, after that the flow of the remaining seas is not so easy to observe. The earth is surrounded by water, just as that is by the sphere of air, Aristotle is describing a spherical lithosphere, hydrosphere and atmosphere
Meteorology (Aristotle)
–
Meteorologica
22.
Pliny the Elder
–
In the latter number will be my uncle, by virtue of his own and of your compositions. Pliny is referring to the fact that Tacitus relied on his uncles now missing work on the History of the German Wars. The wind caused by the sixth and largest pyroclastic surge of the eruption would not allow his ship to leave the shore, and Pliny probably died during this event. Plinys dates are pinned to the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD79 and a statement of his nephew that he died in his 56th year, Pliny was the son of an equestrian, Gaius Plinius Celer, and his wife, Marcella. Neither the younger nor the elder Pliny mention the names and their ultimate source is a fragmentary inscription found in a field in Verona and recorded by the 16th century Augustinian monk Onofrio Panvinio at Verona. The reading of the inscription depends on the reconstruction, but in all cases the names come through, whether he was an augur and whether she was named Grania Marcella are less certain. Jean Hardouin presents a statement from a source that he claims was ancient, that Pliny was from Verona. Hardouin also cites the conterraneity of Catullus, additional efforts to connect Celer and Marcella with other gentes are highly speculative. Hardouin is the scholar to use his unknown source. He kept statues of his ancestors there, a statue of Pliny on the facade of the Duomo of Como celebrates him as a native son. He had a sister, Plinia, who married into the Caecilii and was the mother of his nephew, Pliny the Younger, whose letters describe his work and study regimen in detail. In one of his letters to Tacitus, Pliny the Younger details how his uncles breakfasts would be light and simple following the customs of our forefathers. This shows that Pliny the Younger wanted it to be conveyed that Pliny the Elder was a good Roman and this statement would have pleased Tacitus. Two inscriptions identifying the hometown of Pliny the Younger as Como take precedence over the Verona theory, one commemorates the youngers career as imperial magistrate and details his considerable charitable and municipal expenses on behalf of the people of Como. Another identifies his father Lucius village as Fecchio near Como and it is likely therefore that Plinia was a local girl and Pliny the Elder, her brother, was from Como. Gaius was a member of the Plinii gens and he did not take his fathers cognomen, Celer, but assumed his own, Secundus. As his adopted son took the same cognomen, Pliny founded a branch, no earlier instances of the Plinii are known. In 59 BC, only about 82 years before Plinys birth, Julius Caesar founded Novum Comum as a colonia to secure the region against the Alpine tribes, whom he had been unable to defeat
Pliny the Elder
–
One of the
Xanten Horse-Phalerae located in the
British Museum, measuring 10.5 cm (4.1 in). It bears an inscription formed from punched dots: PLINIO PRAEF EQ; i.e., Plinio praefecto equitum, "Pliny prefect of cavalry". It was perhaps issued to every man in Pliny's unit. The figure is the bust of the emperor.
Pliny the Elder
–
Pliny the Elder, as imagined by a 19th-century artist. No contemporary depiction of Pliny is known to survive.
Pliny the Elder
–
City and Lake of
Como, painted by
Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, 1834.
Pliny the Elder
–
The temple of
Castor and Pollux in Rome
23.
Natural History (Pliny)
–
The Natural History is an early encyclopedia in Latin by Pliny the Elder, a Roman author and naval commander who died in 79 AD. It is one of the largest single works to have survived from the Roman Empire to the modern day, the works subject area is thus not limited to what is today understood by natural history, Pliny himself defines his scope as the natural world, or life. The work is divided into 37 books, organised into ten volumes, the Natural History became a model for later encyclopedias and scholarly works as a result of its breadth of subject matter, its referencing of original authors, and its index. The work is dedicated to the emperor Titus, son of Plinys close friend and it is the only work by Pliny to have survived and the last that he published. He began it in 77, and had not made a revision at the time of his death during the AD79 eruption of Vesuvius. Plinys Natural History was written alongside other substantial works, Pliny combined his scholarly activities with a busy career as an imperial administrator for the emperor Vespasian. Pliny claims to be the only Roman ever to have such a work, in his prayer for the blessing of the universal mother, Hail to thee, Nature. And do thou deign to show thy favour unto me, who, alone of all the citizens of Rome, have, in thy every department, the Natural History is encyclopaedic in scope, but its format is unlike a modern encyclopaedia. However, it does have structure, Pliny uses Aristotles division of nature to recreate the world in literary form. The work is unified but varied, My subject is the world of nature, or in other words, life, he tells Titus. Nature for Pliny was divine, a concept inspired by the Stoic philosophy which underlies much of his thought. But the deity in question was a goddess whose main purpose was to serve the human race, nature, that is life is human life in a natural landscape. After an initial survey of cosmology and geography, Pliny starts his treatment of animals with the human race and this teleological view of nature was common in antiquity and is crucial to the understanding of the Natural History. The components of nature are not just described in and for themselves, Pliny devotes a number of the books to plants, with a focus on their medicinal value, the books on minerals include descriptions of their uses in architecture, sculpture, painting and jewellery. Plinys premise is distinct from modern ecological theories, reflecting the sentiment of his time. Pliny repeated Aristotles maxim that Africa was always producing something new, natures variety and versatility were claimed to be infinite, When I have observed nature she has always induced me to deem no statement about her incredible. This led Pliny to recount rumours of strange peoples on the edges of the world and these monstrous races – the Cynocephali or Dog-Heads, the Sciapodae, whose single foot could act as a sunshade, the mouthless Astomi, who lived on scents – were not strictly new. They had been mentioned by the Greek historian Herodotus in the 5th century BC, Pliny had gone to investigate the strange cloud – shaped like an umbrella pine, according to his nephew – rising from the mountain
Natural History (Pliny)
–
Naturalis Historia, 1669 edition, title page. The title at the top reads: "Volume I of the Natural History of Gaius Plinius Secundus"; the ending -ae is a genitive ("of...").
Natural History (Pliny)
–
Naturalis Historia, work printed by Johannes Alvisius in 1499 in
Venice, Italy
Natural History (Pliny)
–
A
cynocephalus, or dog-head, as described by Pliny in his Natural History. From the
Nuremberg Chronicle (1493).
Natural History (Pliny)
–
A
sciapod, described by Pliny in his Natural History. From the
Nuremberg Chronicle (1493).
24.
Columella
–
Lucius Junius Moderatus Columella was the most important writer on agriculture of the Roman empire. Little is known of his life and he was probably born in Gades, Hispania Baetica, possibly of Roman parents. After a career in the army, he took up farming, a smaller book on trees, De arboribus, is usually attributed to him. Columella used many sources no longer extant, to which he is one of the few references, these include Aulus Cornelius Celsus, the Carthaginian writer Mago, Tremellius Scrofa, and many Greek sources. Columella owned farms in Italy, he refers specifically to estates at Ardea, Carseoli, and Alba, in 1794 the Spanish botanists Jose Antonio Pavón y Jimenez and Hipólito Ruiz López named a genus of Peruvian asterid Columellia in his honour. The book is presented as advice to a certain Publius Silvinus and it may initially have been intended to be the concluding volume, books 11 and 12 being perhaps an addition to the original scheme. A complete but anonymous translation into English was published by Millar in 1745, excerpts had previously been translated by Bradley. The short work De arboribus, On Trees, is in manuscripts, however it is clear from the opening sentences that it is part of a separate work. As the anonymous translator of the Millar edition notes, there is in De arboribus no mention of the Publius Silvinus to whom the Res rustica is addressed. A recent critical edition of the Latin text of the Res Rustica of Columella includes it, cassiodorus mentions sixteen books of Columella, which has led to the suggestion that De arboribus formed part of a work in four volumes. The earliest editions of Columella group his works with those on agriculture of Marcus Priscus Cato, Marcus Terentius Varro, some modern library catalogues follow Brunet in listing these under Rei rusticae scriptores or Scriptores rei rusticae. Iunii Moderati Columellae hortulus Georgius Merula, Franciscus Colucia De re rustica Opera et impensa Nicolai Ienson, lucii Iunii Moderati Columellae de Cultu hortorum Liber. xi. D S, Opera Agricolationum, Columellæ, Varronis, Catonisque, nec non Palladii, Philippi Beroaldi, & commentariis quæ in aliis impressionibus non extāt. Parisiis, Venundantur parisiis in aedibus Radulphi Laliseau, Columella, Lucius Iunius Moderatus Columella De cultu ortorum, impressum Bononiae, a Hieronymo de Benedictis bibliopola et calcographo,1520 mense Augusto Libri De Re Rustica. Additis Nuper Commentariis Iunii Pompo. Fortunati in Librum De Cultu Hortorum, Cum Adnotationibus Philippi Beroaldi, florence, Filippo Giunta,1521 De re rustica libri XII. Euisdem de Arboris liber, separatus ab aliis, lyon, Sébastien Gryphe,1541 Columella, Lucius Iunius Moderatus De lagricoltura libri XII. / Lutio Giunio Moderato Columella. Trattato de gli alberi, tradotto nuouamente di latino in lingua italiana per Pietro Lauro Modonese In Venetia,1544 Les Douze livres des choses rustiques, traduicts de Latin en François, par feu maistre Claude Cotereau Chanoine de Paris. Des choses rustiques, tr. par C, la tr. corrigée & illustrée de doctes annotations par J. Thiery de Beauoisis Paris,1555 Columella, Lucius Iunius Moderatus Lutio Giunio Moderato Columella De lagricoltura libri XII
Columella
–
Portrait of Lucius Junius Moderatus Columella from
Jean de Tournes, Insignium aliquot virorum icones,
Lyon, 1559
Columella
–
Statue of Columella, holding a
sickle and an
ox-yoke, in the Plaza de las Flores,
Cádiz
25.
De re rustica
–
Lucius Junius Moderatus Columella was the most important writer on agriculture of the Roman empire. Little is known of his life and he was probably born in Gades, Hispania Baetica, possibly of Roman parents. After a career in the army, he took up farming, a smaller book on trees, De arboribus, is usually attributed to him. Columella used many sources no longer extant, to which he is one of the few references, these include Aulus Cornelius Celsus, the Carthaginian writer Mago, Tremellius Scrofa, and many Greek sources. Columella owned farms in Italy, he refers specifically to estates at Ardea, Carseoli, and Alba, in 1794 the Spanish botanists Jose Antonio Pavón y Jimenez and Hipólito Ruiz López named a genus of Peruvian asterid Columellia in his honour. The book is presented as advice to a certain Publius Silvinus and it may initially have been intended to be the concluding volume, books 11 and 12 being perhaps an addition to the original scheme. A complete but anonymous translation into English was published by Millar in 1745, excerpts had previously been translated by Bradley. The short work De arboribus, On Trees, is in manuscripts, however it is clear from the opening sentences that it is part of a separate work. As the anonymous translator of the Millar edition notes, there is in De arboribus no mention of the Publius Silvinus to whom the Res rustica is addressed. A recent critical edition of the Latin text of the Res Rustica of Columella includes it, cassiodorus mentions sixteen books of Columella, which has led to the suggestion that De arboribus formed part of a work in four volumes. The earliest editions of Columella group his works with those on agriculture of Marcus Priscus Cato, Marcus Terentius Varro, some modern library catalogues follow Brunet in listing these under Rei rusticae scriptores or Scriptores rei rusticae. Iunii Moderati Columellae hortulus Georgius Merula, Franciscus Colucia De re rustica Opera et impensa Nicolai Ienson, lucii Iunii Moderati Columellae de Cultu hortorum Liber. xi. D S, Opera Agricolationum, Columellæ, Varronis, Catonisque, nec non Palladii, Philippi Beroaldi, & commentariis quæ in aliis impressionibus non extāt. Parisiis, Venundantur parisiis in aedibus Radulphi Laliseau, Columella, Lucius Iunius Moderatus Columella De cultu ortorum, impressum Bononiae, a Hieronymo de Benedictis bibliopola et calcographo,1520 mense Augusto Libri De Re Rustica. Additis Nuper Commentariis Iunii Pompo. Fortunati in Librum De Cultu Hortorum, Cum Adnotationibus Philippi Beroaldi, florence, Filippo Giunta,1521 De re rustica libri XII. Euisdem de Arboris liber, separatus ab aliis, lyon, Sébastien Gryphe,1541 Columella, Lucius Iunius Moderatus De lagricoltura libri XII. / Lutio Giunio Moderato Columella. Trattato de gli alberi, tradotto nuouamente di latino in lingua italiana per Pietro Lauro Modonese In Venetia,1544 Les Douze livres des choses rustiques, traduicts de Latin en François, par feu maistre Claude Cotereau Chanoine de Paris. Des choses rustiques, tr. par C, la tr. corrigée & illustrée de doctes annotations par J. Thiery de Beauoisis Paris,1555 Columella, Lucius Iunius Moderatus Lutio Giunio Moderato Columella De lagricoltura libri XII
De re rustica
–
Portrait of Lucius Junius Moderatus Columella from
Jean de Tournes, Insignium aliquot virorum icones,
Lyon, 1559
De re rustica
–
Statue of Columella, holding a
sickle and an
ox-yoke, in the Plaza de las Flores,
Cádiz
26.
Ancient Roman units of measurement
–
The ancient Roman units of measurement were largely built on the Hellenic system, which in turn was built upon Egyptian and Mesopotamian influences. The Roman units were comparatively consistent and well documented, the basic unit of Roman linear measurement was the pes or Roman foot. Investigation of its relation to the English foot goes back at least to 1647, an accepted modern value is 296 mm. The Roman foot was sub-divided either like the Greek pous into 16 digiti or fingers, frontinus writes in the 1st century AD that the digitus was used in Campania and most parts of Italy. Columella also gives uncial divisions of the jugerum, tabulated by the translator of the 1745 Millar edition as follows, Both liquid. As no two surviving examples are identical, scholarly opinion ranges from 530 ml to 580 ml. Cardarelli gives a value 549.28 ml. A1952 estimate for its value in Pliny the Elders Natural History estimated it as 500 ml.3 ml, which falls comfortably within the accepted range. The core volume units are, amphora quadrantal – one cubic pes congius – a half-pes cube sextarius – literally 1⁄6, of a congius The units of weight or mass were mostly based on factors of 12. Several of the names were also the names of coins during the Roman Republic and had the same fractional value of a larger base unit, libra for weight. Modern estimates of the range from 322 to 329 g with 5076 grains or 328.9 g an accepted figure. The as was reduced from 12 ounces to 2 after the First Punic War, to 1 during the Second Punic War, the divisions of the libra were, The subdivisions of the uncia were, The complicated Roman calendar was replaced by the Julian calendar in 45 BC. In the Julian calendar, a year is 365 days long. Between 45 BC and AD1, leap years occurred at irregular intervals, starting in AD4, leap years occurred regularly every four years. Year numbers were used, rather, the year was specified by naming the Roman consuls for that year. When a year number was required, the Greek Olympiads were used, or the count of years since the founding of Rome, in the middle ages, the year numbering was changed to the Anno Domini count. The Romans grouped days into a cycle called a nundina. Each astrological day was reckoned to begin at sunrise, the Jews also used a seven-day week, which began Saturday evening. The seventh day of the week they called Sabbath, the days they numbered rather than named, except for Friday
Ancient Roman units of measurement
–
Bronze modius measure (4th century AD) with inscription acknowledging Imperial regulation of weights and measures
27.
Brythonic Languages
–
The Brittonic, Brythonic or British Celtic languages form one of the two branches of the Insular Celtic language family, the other is Goidelic. The name Brythonic was derived by Welsh Celticist John Rhys from the Welsh word Brython, the name Brittonic derives ultimately from the name Prettanike, recorded by Greek authors for the British Isles. Some authors reserve the term Brittonic for the modified later Brittonic languages after about AD600, the Brittonic languages derive from the Common Brittonic language, spoken throughout Great Britain south of the Firth of Forth during the Iron Age and Roman period. In addition, North of the Forth, the Pictish language is considered to be related, it is possible it was a Brittonic language, in the 5th and 6th centuries emigrating Britons also took Brittonic speech to the continent, most significantly in Brittany and Britonia. During the next few centuries the language began to split into several dialects, eventually evolving into Welsh, Cornish, Breton, Welsh and Breton continue to be spoken as native languages, while a revival in Cornish has led to an increase in speakers of that language. Cumbric is extinct, having been replaced by Goidelic and English speech, the Isle of Man and Orkney may also have originally spoken a Brittonic language, later replaced with a Goidelic one. Due to emigration, there are communities of Brittonic language speakers in England, France. Both were created in the 19th century to avoid the ambiguity of earlier terms such as British, Brythonic was coined in 1879 by the Celticist John Rhys from the Welsh word Brython. Brittonic, derived from Briton and also earlier spelled Britonic and Britonnic and it became more prominent through the 20th century, and was used in Kenneth H. Jacksons highly influential 1953 work on the topic, Language and History in Early Britain. Jackson noted that by that time Brythonic had become a term. Today, Brittonic often replaces Brythonic in the literature, rudolf Thurneysen used Britannic in his influential A Grammar of Old Irish, though this never became popular among subsequent scholars. Comparable historical terms include the Medieval Latin lingua Britannica and sermo Britannicus, some writers use British for the language and its descendants, though due to the risk of confusion, others avoid it or use it only in a restricted sense. Jackson, and later John T. Koch, use British only for the phase of the Common Brittonic language. However, subsequent writers have tended to follow Jacksons scheme, rendering this use obsolete, knowledge of the Brittonic languages comes from a variety of sources. For the early information is obtained from coins, inscriptions and comments by classical writers as well as place names. For later languages there is information from medieval writers and modern native speakers, the names recorded in the Roman period are given in Rivet and Smith. The Brittonic branch is referred to as P-Celtic because linguistic reconstruction of the Brittonic reflex of the Proto-Indo-European phoneme *kʷ is p as opposed to Goidelic c. Other major characteristics include, The retention of the Proto-Celtic sequences am and an, Proto-Celtic *wassos servant, young man became Welsh, Cornish and Breton gwas
Brythonic Languages
–
Mainly Brittonic areas.
28.
Bard
–
For example, William Shakespeare, and Rabindranth Tagore, are known as the Bard of Avon and the Bard of Bengal respectively. The word is a Celtic loan word from Scottish Gaelic bàrd, Irish bard, in 16th-century Scotland, it was a derogatory term for an itinerant musician, but it was later romanticised by Sir Walter Scott. The equivalent Cornish bardh was retained in English in the form of the drollteller, in medieval Gaelic and Welsh society, a bard or bardd was a professional poet, employed to compose eulogies for his lord. If the employer failed to pay the amount, the bard would then compose a satire. In other Indo-European societies, the function was fulfilled by skalds, rhapsodes, minstrels and scops. A hereditary caste of professional poets in Proto-Indo-European society has been reconstructed by comparison of the position of poets in medieval Ireland and in ancient India in particular. Bards were those who sang the songs recalling the tribal warriors deeds of bravery as well as the genealogies, the pre-Christian Celtic peoples recorded no written histories, however, Celtic peoples did maintain an intricate oral history committed to memory and transmitted by bards and filid. Bards facilitated the memorisation of such materials by the use of metre, rhyme, in medieval Ireland, bards were one of two distinct groups of poets, the other being the fili. According to the Early Irish law text on status, Uraicecht Becc, bards were a class of poets. However, it has also argued that the distinction between filid and bards was a creation of Christian Ireland, and that the filid were more associated with the church. By the Early Modern Period, these came to be used interchangeably. Irish bards formed a professional caste of highly trained, learned poets. As officials of the court of king or chieftain, they performed a number of official roles and they were chroniclers and satirists whose job it was to praise their employers and damn those who crossed them. It was believed that a well-aimed bardic satire, glam dicenn, the bardic system lasted until the mid-17th century in Ireland and the early 18th century in Scotland. In Ireland, their fortunes had always linked to the Gaelic aristocracy. The early history of the bards can be known indirectly through mythological stories. The first mention of the profession in Ireland is found in the The Book of Invasions, in a story about the Irish colony of Tuatha De Danann. They became the aos sí, comparable to Norse alfr and British fairy, during the tenth year of the reign of the last Belgic monarch, the people of the colony of Tuatha De Danann, as the Irish called it, invaded and settled in Ireland
Bard
–
The Bard (ca. 1817), by
John Martin
Bard
Bard
–
William Blake's hand painted engraving of his poem "
The Voice of the Ancient Bard " in the
Songs of Innocence and of Experience
29.
Taliesin
–
Taliesin was an early Brythonic poet of Sub-Roman Britain whose work has possibly survived in a Middle Welsh manuscript, the Book of Taliesin. Taliesin was a bard who is believed to have sung at the courts of at least three Brythonic kings. Ifor Williams identified eleven of the poems ascribed to Taliesin as possibly originating as early as the sixth century. Some of the events to which the poems refer, such as the Battle of Arfderydd, are referred to in other sources, in legend and medieval Welsh poetry, he is often referred to as Taliesin Ben Beirdd. Taliesin was highly regarded in the century as the supposed author of a great number of romantic legends. According to legend Taliesin was adopted as a child by Elffin, the son of Gwyddno Garanhir, in later stories he became a mythic hero, companion of Bran the Blessed and King Arthur. His legendary biography is found in several late renderings, the earliest surviving narrative being found in a chronicle of world history written by Elis Gruffydd in the 16th century. Details of Taliesins life are sparse, the first mention of him occurs in the Saxon genealogies appended to four manuscripts of the Historia Brittonum. The writer names five poets, among them Taliesin, who lived in the time of Ida of Bernicia and a British chieftain, Dutigirn. Taliesins authorship of several praise-poems to Urien Rheged is commonly accepted, and these poems mention The Eden Valley and these poems refer to victories of Urien at the battles of Argoed Llwyfain, The Ford of Clyde and Gwen Ystrad. Taliesin also sang in praise of Cynan Garwyn, king of Powys, Wales, according to the Welsh Triads Taliesin had a son, Afaon, who was accounted a great warrior who suffered a violent death, probably in Lothian. More detailed traditions of Taliesins biography arose from about the 11th century, in the mid-16th century Elis Gruffydd recorded a legendary account of Taliesin that resembles the story of the boyhood of the Irish hero Fionn mac Cumhail and the salmon of wisdom in some respects. The tale was recorded in a slightly different version by John Jones of Gellilyfdy. This story agrees in respects with fragmentary accounts in The Book of Taliesin. According to the Hanes Taliesin, he was known as Gwion Bach ap Gwreang. He was a servent of Cerridwen and was made to stir the Cauldron of Inspiration for one year to allow for Cerridwen to complete her potion of inspiration, upon completion of this potion, three drops sprang out and landed upon Gwion Bachs thumb. Gwion then placed his thumb in his mouth to soothe his burns resulting in Gwions enlightenment, out of fear of what Cerridwen would do to him, Gwion fled and eventually transformed into a piece of grain before being consumed by Cerridwen. Gwion was then reborn and given the name Taliesin, according to these texts Taliesin was the foster-son of Elffin ap Gwyddno, who gave him the name Taliesin, meaning radiant brow, and who later became a king in Ceredigion, Wales
Taliesin
–
The
Eden Valley between Appleby and Penrith, an area referred to affectionately as the heartland of
Rheged in the praise poems of Taliesin.
30.
Mead hall
–
In ancient Scandinavia and Germanic Europe a mead hall or feasting hall was initially simply a large building with a single room. From the fifth century to early medieval times such a building was the residence of a lord, the mead hall was generally the great hall of the king. The old name of such halls may have been sal/salr and thus be present in old names such as Uppsala. In Old English, sele and sæl were used and these words are etymologically related to the modern English words salon and saloon. From around the year 500 up until the Christianization of Scandinavia and they were later superseded by medieval banquet halls. Examples that have been excavated include, Southwest of Lejre, Denmark, remains of a Viking hall complex were uncovered in 1986–88 by Tom Christensen of the Roskilde Museum. Wood from the foundation was radiocarbon-dated to circa 880 and it was later found that this hall was built over an older hall which was itself dated to 680. In 2004–05, Christensen excavated a third hall located just north of the other two and this hall was built in the mid-6th century, exactly the time period of Beowulf. All three halls were about 50 meters long, two similar halls were excavated in 1993. Of the so-called Gudme Kongehal only the post holes were found, the larger of the two was 47 meters long and 8 meters wide. Gold items found near the site have been dated between 200 and 550, the Iron Age graveyards of Møllegårdsmarken and Brudager are close by. The halls may have part of a regional religious and political center serving as royal feasting places with Lundeborg serving as harbor. The mead hall developed from European longhouses, The unrelated Neolithic long house was introduced with the first farmers of central, later longhouses did not come into use until more than a thousand years after the neolithic version ceased to be used. Germanic cattle-farmer longhouses emerged along the southwestern North Sea coast in the third or fourth century BC and are the predecessors of the German, the older Swedish king, on the other hand, had to stay in the old feasting hall. The Swedish king was so humiliated that he killed Áki, the construction of new feasting halls could also be the preparation for treacherous murders of royalty. From at least the tenth century onwards in Norse mythology, there are examples of halls where the dead may arrive. The best known example is Valhalla, the hall where Odin receives half of the dead lost in battle, freyja, in turn, receives the other half at Sessrúmnir. The story of Beowulf includes a Mead-Hall called Heorot that was so big and had so much attendant laughter that the monster Grendel broke in, in fiction, mead halls usually appear in works that take place during the Middle Ages
Mead hall
–
A reconstructed Viking Age
longhouse (28.5 metres long).
Mead hall
–
Ingjald using his new feasting hall as he intended.
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. PMID 15590771. doi:10.1073/pnas.0407921102.
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