1.
Ionian obol
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The obol was the currency of the United States of the Ionian Islands between 1819 and 1863. Until 1834,1 obol =4 lepta, after which 1 obol =5 lepta, throughout its existence, the obol was equal to a British half penny. The obol replaced a series of countermarked coins denominated in Turkish paras, the obol was issued by the British and was replaced by the Greek drachma when the Ionian Islands were given to Greece, at a rate of 1 drachma =20 oboli. The strangest denomination was the silver 30 Lepta coin, online Coin Club / Coins from Ionian Islands
2.
Halfpenny (British pre-decimal coin)
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The British pre-decimal halfpenny coin, usually simply known as a halfpenny, was a unit of currency that equalled half of a penny or 1/480th of a pound sterling. Originally the halfpenny was minted in copper, but after 1860 it was minted in bronze and it ceased to be legal tender in 1969, in the run-up to decimalisation. The halfpenny featured two different designs on its reverse during its years in circulation, from 1672 until 1936 the image of Britannia appeared on the reverse, and from 1937 onwards the image of the Golden Hind appeared. Like all British coinage, it bore the portrait of the monarch on the obverse, halfpenny was colloquially written ha’penny, and 1½d was spoken as a penny ha’penny /əˈpɛniˈheɪpni/ or three hapence /θriːˈheɪpəns/. Before Decimal Day in 1971 there were 240 pence in one pound sterling, twelve pence made a shilling, and twenty shillings made a pound. Values of less than a shilling were simply written in pence, the original reverse of the bronze version of the coin, designed by Leonard Charles Wyon, is a seated Britannia, holding a trident, with the words HALF PENNY to either side. Issues before 1895 also feature a lighthouse to Britannias left and a ship to her right, various minor adjustments to the level of the sea depicted around Britannia, and the angle of her trident were also made over the years. Some issues feature toothed edges, while others feature beading, over the years, various different obverses were used. Edward VII, George V, George VI and Elizabeth II each had a single obverse for halfpennies produced during their respective reigns. Over the long reign of Queen Victoria two different obverses were used, but the reign of Edward VIII meant no halfpennies bearing his likeness were ever issued. During Victoria’s reign, the halfpenny was first issued with the so-called ‘bun head’, the inscription around the bust read VICTORIA D G BRITT REG F D. This was replaced in 1895 by the ‘old head’, or ‘veiled bust’, the inscription on these coins read VICTORIA DEI GRA BRITT REGINA FID DEF IND IMP. Coins issued during the reign of Edward VII feature his likeness, similarly, those issued during the reign of George V feature his likeness and bear the inscription GEORGIVS V DEI GRA BRITT OMN REX FID DEF IND IMP. The obverse shows a portrait of the king, the inscription on the obverse is EDWARDVS VIII D G BR OMN REX F D IND IMP. The pattern coin of Edward VIII and regular issue halfpennies of George VI, George VI issue coins feature the inscription GEORGIVS VI D G BR OMN REX F D IND IMP before 1949, and GEORGIVS VI D G BR OMN REX FIDEI DEF thereafter. Wikt, haporth, Northern British English, from British English half-penny’s worth, British Coins – information about British coins Collection of copper & bronze pennies of Great Britain
3.
Obelus
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An obelus is a symbol consisting of a short horizontal line with a dot above and below, and in other uses it is a symbol resembling a small dagger. In mathematics it is used to represent the mathematical operation of division. It is therefore called the division sign. Division may also be indicated by a line or a slash. In ISO 80000-2-9.6 it says, The symbol ÷ should not be used. In editing texts an obelus takes the form of a mark and is used as a reference mark, or to indicate that a person is deceased. In mathematics, the symbol has also been used to represent subtraction in Northern Europe. The word obelus comes from ὀβελός, the Ancient Greek word for a stick, spit. This is the root as that of the word obelisk. Originally this sign was used in ancient manuscripts to mark passages that were suspected of being corrupted or spurious, the dagger symbol, also called an obelisk, is derived from the obelus and continues to be used for this purpose. The incident of the Bloody Sweat in Gethsemane and the saying Father forgive them, although previously used for subtraction, the obelus was first used as a symbol for division in 1659 in the algebra book Teutsche Algebra by Johann Rahn. Some think that John Pell, who edited the book, may have been responsible for use of the symbol. The usage of the obelus to represent subtraction continued in parts of Europe. Other symbols for division include the slash or solidus, and the fraction bar, in Microsoft Windows, the obelus is produced with Alt+0247 on the number pad or by pressing Alt Gr+⇧ Shift++ when an appropriate keyboard layout is in use. In classic Mac OS and macOS, it is produced with ⌥ Option+/, on UNIX-based systems using Screen or X with a Compose key enabled, it can be produced by composing, and -, though this is locale- and setting-dependent. It may also be input by Unicode code-point on GTK-based applications by pressing Control+⇧ Shift+U, followed by the codepoint in hexadecimal, in the Unicode character set, the obelus is known as the division sign and has the code point U+00F7. In HTML, it can be encoded as ÷, or ÷, in LaTeX, the obelus is obtained by \div. Commercial minus sign, ⁒, which resembles a tilted obelus Jeff Miller, Earliest Uses of Various Mathematical Symbols Michael Quinion
4.
Argos
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Argos is a city in Argolis, Peloponnese, Greece and one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. It is also a bishopric and present Latin Catholic titular see. It is the biggest town in Argolis and a center for the area. Since the 2011 local government reform it has been part of the municipality of Argos-Mykines, the municipal unit has an area of 138.138 km2. It is 11 kilometres from Nafplion, which was its historic harbour, a settlement of great antiquity, Argos has been continuously inhabited as at least a substantial village for the past 7,000 years. The city is a member of the Most Ancient European Towns Network, a resident of the city of Argos is known as an Argive. However, this term is used to refer to those ancient Greeks generally who assaulted the city of Troy during the Trojan War. Numerous ancient monuments can be found in the city today, the most famous of which is the Heraion of Argos, agriculture is the mainstay of the local economy. The name of the city is ancient and several etymological theories have been proposed as an explanation to its meaning. The most popular one maintains that the name of the city is a remainder from the Pelasgian language, i. e. the one used by the people who first settled in the area, in which Argos meant plain. Alternatively, the name is associated with Argos, the king of the city in ancient times. It is also believed that Argos is linked to the word αργός, which meant white, possibly, according to Strabo, the name could have even originated from the word αγρός by antimetathesis of the consonants. As a strategic location on the plain of Argolis, Argos was a major stronghold during the Mycenaean era. There is evidence of settlement in the area starting with a village about 7000 years ago in the late Neolithic. It was colonized in prehistoric times by the Pelasgian Greeks, since that time, Argos has been continually inhabited at the same geographical location. Its creation is attributed to Phoroneus, with its first name having been Phoronicon Asty, the city is located at a rather propitious area, among Nemea, Corinth and Arcadia. It also benefitted from its proximity to lake Lerna, which, during the Dorian invasion, c.1100 BC, Argos was divided into four neighbourhoods, each of them inhabited by a different phyle. Argos experienced its greatest period of expansion and power under the energetic 7th century BC ruler King Pheidon, under Pheidon, Argos regained sway over the cities of the Argolid and challenged Sparta’s dominance of the Peloponnese
5.
Greek drachma
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Three modern Greek currencies, the first introduced in 1832 and the last replaced by the euro in 2001. The euro did not begin circulating until 2002 but the rate was fixed on 19 June 2000. It was also a unit of weight. The name drachma is derived from the verb δράσσομαι and it is believed that the same word with the meaning of handful or handle is found in Linear B tablets of the Mycenean Pylos. Initially a drachma was a fistful of six oboloí or obeloí used as a form of currency as early as 1100 BC and being a form of bullion, bronze, copper, a hoard of over 150 rod-shaped obeloi was uncovered at Heraion of Argos in Peloponnese. Six of them are displayed at the Numismatic Museum of Athens and it was the standard unit of silver coinage at most ancient Greek mints, and the name obol was used to describe a coin that was one-sixth of a drachma. Similar information about Pheidons obeloi was also recorded at the Parian Chronicle, ancient Greek coins normally had distinctive names in daily use. The Athenian tetradrachm was called owl, the Aeginetic stater was called chelone, the exact exchange value of each was determined by the quantity and quality of the metal, which reflected on the reputation of each mint. The 5th century BC Athenian tetradrachm coin was perhaps the most widely used coin in the Greek world prior to the time of Alexander the Great and it featured the helmeted profile bust of Athena on the obverse and an owl on the reverse. In daily use they were called γλαῦκες glaukes, hence the proverb Γλαῦκ’ Ἀθήναζε, the reverse is featured on the national side of the modern Greek 1 euro coin. Drachmae were minted on different weight standards at different Greek mints, the standard that came to be most commonly used was the Athenian or Attic one, which weighed a little over 4.3 grams. The Armenian dram also derives its name from the drachma. S, modern commentators derived from Xenophon that half a drachma per day would provide a comfortable subsistence for the poor citizens. Earlier in 422 BC, we see in Aristophanes that the daily half-drachma of a juror is just enough for the daily subsistence of a family of three. Fractions and multiples of the drachma were minted by many states, most notably in Ptolemaic Egypt, notable Ptolemaic coins included the gold pentadrachm and octadrachm, and silver tetradrachm, decadrachm and pentakaidecadrachm. This was especially noteworthy as it would not be until the introduction of the Guldengroschen in 1486 that coins of substantial size would be minted in significant quantities, for the Roman successors of the drachma, see Roman provincial coins. The weight of the drachma was approximately 4.3 grams or 0.15 ounces. It was divided into six obols of 0.72 grams, the New Testament mentions both didrachma and, by implication, tetradrachma in context of the Temple tax. Lukes Gospel includes a parable told by Jesus of a woman with 10 drachmae, the drachma was reintroduced in May 1832, shortly before the establishment of the modern state of Greece
6.
Charon's obol
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Charons obol is an allusive term for the coin placed in or on the mouth of a dead person before burial. Archaeological examples of coins, of various denominations in practice, have been called the most famous grave goods from antiquity. The custom is associated with the ancient Greeks and Romans. Although archaeology shows that the myth reflects an actual custom, the placement of coins with the dead was neither pervasive nor confined to a coin in the deceaseds mouth. In many burials, inscribed metal-leaf tablets or exonumia take the place of the coin, the presence of coins or a coin-hoard in Germanic ship-burials suggests an analogous concept. The coin for Charon is conventionally referred to in Greek literature as an obolos, one of the denominations of ancient Greek coinage. Among the Greeks, coins in actual burials are also a danakē or other relatively small-denomination gold, silver. In Roman literary sources the coin is usually bronze or copper, the word naulon is defined by the Christian-era lexicographer Hesychius of Alexandria as the coin put into the mouth of the dead, one of the meanings of danakē is given as the obol for the dead. In Latin, Charon’s obol is sometimes called a viaticum, which in everyday usage means provision for a journey, encompassing food, money and other supplies. The same word can refer to the allowance granted to those stripped of their property and condemned to exile. The earliest literary evidence of this Christian usage for viaticum appears in Paulinus’s account of the death of Saint Ambrose in 397 AD, thomas Aquinas explained the term as a prefiguration of the fruit of God, which will be in the promised land. Greek epigrams that were literary versions of epitaphs refer to the obol that pays the passage of the departed, the satirist Lucian has Charon himself, in a dialogue of the same name, declare that he collects an obol from everyone who makes the downward journey. In an elegy of consolation spoken in the person of the dead woman, several other authors mention the fee. Humor, as in Aristophanes’s comic catabasis The Frogs, makes the journey to Hades less frightening by articulating it explicitly and trivializing it. Aristophanes makes jokes about the fee, and a character complains that Theseus must have introduced it, the use of coins as grave goods shows a variety of practice that casts doubt on the accuracy of the term Charon’s obol as an interpretational category. The phrase continues to be used, however, to suggest the ritual or religious significance of coinage in a funerary context. Among the ancient Greeks, only about 5 to 10 percent of known burials contain any coins at all, in some Roman cremation cemeteries, however, many if not most of these occurrences conform to the myth of Charon’s obol in neither the number of coins nor their positioning. Variety of placement and number, including but not limited to a coin in the mouth, is characteristic of all periods
7.
Greco-Bactrian
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The Greco-Bactrian Kingdom was – along with the Indo-Greek Kingdom – the easternmost part of the Hellenistic world, covering Bactria and Sogdiana in Central Asia from 250 to 125 BC. It was centered on the north of present-day Afghanistan, the expansion of the Greco-Bactrians into present-day eastern Afghanistan and Pakistan from 180 BC established the Indo-Greek Kingdom, which was to last until around 10 AD. Diodotus, the satrap of Bactria founded the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom when he seceded from the Seleucid Empire around 250 BC, the preserved ancient sources are somewhat contradictory, and the exact date of Bactrian independence has not been settled. Somewhat simplified, there is a chronology and a low chronology for Diodotos’ secession. The high chronology has the advantage of explaining why the Seleucid king Antiochus II issued very few coins in Bactria, as Diodotos would have become independent there early in Antiochus reign. On the other hand, the low chronology, from the mid-240s BC, has the advantage of connecting the secession of Diodotus I with the Third Syrian War, a catastrophic conflict for the Seleucid Empire. Diodotus, the governor of the cities of Bactria, defected and proclaimed himself king, all the other people of the Orient followed his example. Their cities were Bactra, and Darapsa, and several others, among these was Eucratidia, which was named after its ruler. In 247 BC, the Ptolemaic empire captured the Seleucid capital, in the resulting power vacuum, the satrap of Parthia proclaimed independence from the Seleucids, declaring himself king. A decade later, he was defeated and killed by Arsaces of Parthia and this cut Bactria off from contact with the Greek world. Overland trade continued at a rate, while sea trade between Greek Egypt and Bactria developed. Euthydemus, a Magnesian Greek according to Polybius and possibly satrap of Sogdiana, overthrew the dynasty of Diodotus I around 230-220 BC, and the Iaxartes forms also the boundary between the Sogdians and the nomads. Euthydemus was attacked by the Seleucid ruler Antiochus III around 210 BC, although he commanded 10,000 horsemen, Euthydemus initially lost a battle on the Arius and had to retreat. Following the departure of the Seleucid army, the Bactrian kingdom seems to have expanded, in the west, areas in north-eastern Iran may have been absorbed, possibly as far as into Parthia, whose ruler had been defeated by Antiochus the Great. These territories possibly are identical with the Bactrian satrapies of Tapuria, the Greek historian Strabo too writes that, they extended their empire even as far as the Seres and the Phryni. Several statuettes and representations of Greek soldiers have been north of the Tien Shan, on the doorstep to China. Greek influences on Chinese art have also been suggested, designs with rosette flowers, geometric lines, and glass inlays, suggestive of Hellenistic influences, can be found on some early Han dynasty bronze mirrors. The practice of exporting Chinese metals, in iron, for trade is attested around that period
8.
Demetrius I of Bactria
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Demetrius I was a Greek king of Gandhara. He was never defeated in battle and was qualified as the Invincible on the pedigree coins of his successor Agathocles. Demetrius I may have been the initiator of the Yavana era, starting in 186-185 BC, Demetrius was the name of at least two and probably three Greek kings of Bactria. The much debated Demetrius II was a relative, whereas Demetrius III, is known only from numismatic evidence. Demetrius I was also known as the second Alexander, the father of Demetrius, Euthydemus, was attacked by the Seleucid ruler Antiochus III around 210 BC. Although he commanded 10,000 horsemen, Euthydemus initially lost a battle on the Arius and had to retreat and he then successfully resisted a three-year siege in the fortified city of Bactra, before Antiochus finally decided to recognize the new ruler. The final negotiations were made between Antiochus III and Demetrius, polybius 11.34 The term used for young prince is neaniskos, suggesting an age around 16, which in turn gives a birth date for Demetrius around 222 BC. Demetrius started the invasion of northwestern India in 180 BC, following the destruction of the Mauryan dynasty by the general Pushyamitra Shunga, the Mauryans had diplomatic alliances with the Greeks, and they may have been considered as allies by the Greco-Bactrians. The Greco-Bactrians may also have invaded India in order to protect Greek populations in the subcontinent, in his Parthian stations, Isidorus of Charax mentions a colony named Demetrias, supposedly founded by Demetrius himself, Beyond is Arachosia. As far as this place the land is under the rule of the Parthians and it is generally considered that Demetrius ruled in Taxila. The Indian records also describes Greek attacks on Saketa, Panchala, however, the campaigns to Pataliputra are generally attested to the later king Menander I and Demetrius I probably only invaded areas in Pakistan. Other kings may have expanded the territory as well, by c.175 BC, the Indo-Greeks ruled parts of northwestern India, while the Shungas remained in the Gangetic, Central, and Eastern India. The Hathigumpha inscription of the Kalinga king Kharavela mentions that fearing him, the name of the Yavana king is not clear, but it contains three letters, and the middle letter can be read as ma or mi. Some historians, such as R. D. Banerji and K. P, jayaswal reconstructed the name of the Yavana king as Dimita, and identified him with Demetrius. However, several historians, such as Ramaprasad Chanda, Sailendra Nath Sen. At the same time coinage technology also evolved, as double-die coins started to appear, the archaeological excavations of coins have shown that these coins, as well as the new double die coins, were contemporary with those of the Indo-Greeks. According to Osmund Bopearachchi these coins, and particularly those depicting the goddess Lakshmi, were minted by Demetrius I following his invasion of Gandhara. Demetrius I died of unknown reasons, and the date 180 BC is merely a suggestion aimed to allow suitable regnal periods for subsequent kings, even if some of them were co-regents, civil wars and temporary divisions of the empire are most likely
9.
United States of the Ionian Islands
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The United States of the Ionian Islands was a state and amical protectorate of the United Kingdom between 1815 and 1864. It was the state of the Septinsular Republic. It covered the territory of the Ionian Islands, in modern Greece, before the French Revolutionary Wars, the Ionian Islands had been part of the Republic of Venice. When the 1797 Treaty of Campo Formio dissolved the Republic of Venice, between 1798 and 1799, the French were driven out by a joint Russo-Ottoman force. The occupying forces founded the Septinsular Republic, which enjoyed relative independence under nominal Ottoman suzerainty, the Ionian Islands were then occupied by the French after the treaty of Tilsit. In 1809, the United Kingdom defeated the French fleet off Zakynthos island on 2 October, and captured Kefalonia, Kythira, the British took Lefkada in 1810. The island of Corfu remained occupied by the French until 1814, the Congress of Vienna agreed to place the Ionian Islands under the exclusive amical protection of the United Kingdom. Despite British military administration, the Austrian Empire was guaranteed commercial status equal to the UK, thus, on 28 May, by proclamation of the Lord High Commissioner, the Ionian Islands were united with Greece. According to the constitution of the republic, Greek was the primary official language. Italian was still in use, though, mainly for official purposes since the Venetian Republic, the only island in which Italian had a wider spread was Cephalonia, where a great number of people had adopted Venetian Italian as their first language. The United States of the Ionian Islands was a federation and it included seven island states, The government was organised under the direction of a Lord High Commissioner, appointed by the British monarch on the advice of the British government. In total, ten men served in capacity, including William Gladstone as a Lord High Commissioner Extraordinary. The Ionian Islands had a legislature, titled the Parliament of the United States of the Ionian Islands and composed of a Legislative Assembly. List of Lord High Commissioners of the Ionian Islands Ionian Islands under Venetian rule Septinsular Republic List of Greek countries, the Constitution in Italian Territories of the British Empire, History of the Ionian Islands
10.
Greek language
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Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, native to Greece and other parts of the Eastern Mediterranean. It has the longest documented history of any living language, spanning 34 centuries of written records and its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the major part of its history, other systems, such as Linear B and the Cypriot syllabary, were used previously. The alphabet arose from the Phoenician script and was in turn the basis of the Latin, Cyrillic, Armenian, Coptic, Gothic and many other writing systems. Together with the Latin texts and traditions of the Roman world, during antiquity, Greek was a widely spoken lingua franca in the Mediterranean world and many places beyond. It would eventually become the official parlance of the Byzantine Empire, the language is spoken by at least 13.2 million people today in Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Albania, Turkey, and the Greek diaspora. Greek roots are used to coin new words for other languages, Greek. Greek has been spoken in the Balkan peninsula since around the 3rd millennium BC, the earliest written evidence is a Linear B clay tablet found in Messenia that dates to between 1450 and 1350 BC, making Greek the worlds oldest recorded living language. Among the Indo-European languages, its date of earliest written attestation is matched only by the now extinct Anatolian languages, the Greek language is conventionally divided into the following periods, Proto-Greek, the unrecorded but assumed last ancestor of all known varieties of Greek. The unity of Proto-Greek would have ended as Hellenic migrants entered the Greek peninsula sometime in the Neolithic era or the Bronze Age, Mycenaean Greek, the language of the Mycenaean civilisation. It is recorded in the Linear B script on tablets dating from the 15th century BC onwards, Ancient Greek, in its various dialects, the language of the Archaic and Classical periods of the ancient Greek civilisation. It was widely known throughout the Roman Empire, after the Roman conquest of Greece, an unofficial bilingualism of Greek and Latin was established in the city of Rome and Koine Greek became a first or second language in the Roman Empire. The origin of Christianity can also be traced through Koine Greek, Medieval Greek, also known as Byzantine Greek, the continuation of Koine Greek in Byzantine Greece, up to the demise of the Byzantine Empire in the 15th century. Much of the written Greek that was used as the language of the Byzantine Empire was an eclectic middle-ground variety based on the tradition of written Koine. Modern Greek, Stemming from Medieval Greek, Modern Greek usages can be traced in the Byzantine period and it is the language used by the modern Greeks, and, apart from Standard Modern Greek, there are several dialects of it. In the modern era, the Greek language entered a state of diglossia, the historical unity and continuing identity between the various stages of the Greek language is often emphasised. Greek speakers today still tend to regard literary works of ancient Greek as part of their own rather than a foreign language and it is also often stated that the historical changes have been relatively slight compared with some other languages. According to one estimation, Homeric Greek is probably closer to demotic than 12-century Middle English is to modern spoken English, Greek is spoken by about 13 million people, mainly in Greece, Albania and Cyprus, but also worldwide by the large Greek diaspora. Greek is the language of Greece, where it is spoken by almost the entire population
11.
Plutarch
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Plutarch was a Greek biographer and essayist, known primarily for his Parallel Lives and Moralia. He is classified as a Middle Platonist, Plutarchs surviving works were written in Greek, but intended for both Greek and Roman readers. Plutarch was born to a prominent family in the town of Chaeronea, about 80 km east of Delphi. The name of Plutarchs father has not been preserved, but based on the common Greek custom of repeating a name in alternate generations, the name of Plutarchs grandfather was Lamprias, as he attested in Moralia and in his Life of Antony. His brothers, Timon and Lamprias, are mentioned in his essays and dialogues. Rualdus, in his 1624 work Life of Plutarchus, recovered the name of Plutarchs wife, Timoxena, from internal evidence afforded by his writings. A letter is still extant, addressed by Plutarch to his wife, bidding her not to grieve too much at the death of their two-year-old daughter, interestingly, he hinted at a belief in reincarnation in that letter of consolation. The exact number of his sons is not certain, although two of them, Autobulus and the second Plutarch, are often mentioned. Plutarchs treatise De animae procreatione in Timaeo is dedicated to them, another person, Soklarus, is spoken of in terms which seem to imply that he was Plutarchs son, but this is nowhere definitely stated. Plutarch studied mathematics and philosophy at the Academy of Athens under Ammonius from 66 to 67, at some point, Plutarch took Roman citizenship. He lived most of his life at Chaeronea, and was initiated into the mysteries of the Greek god Apollo. For many years Plutarch served as one of the two priests at the temple of Apollo at Delphi, the site of the famous Delphic Oracle, twenty miles from his home. By his writings and lectures Plutarch became a celebrity in the Roman Empire, yet he continued to reside where he was born, at his country estate, guests from all over the empire congregated for serious conversation, presided over by Plutarch in his marble chair. Many of these dialogues were recorded and published, and the 78 essays, Plutarch held the office of archon in his native municipality, probably only an annual one which he likely served more than once. He busied himself with all the matters of the town. The Suda, a medieval Greek encyclopedia, states that Emperor Trajan made Plutarch procurator of Illyria, however, most historians consider this unlikely, since Illyria was not a procuratorial province, and Plutarch probably did not speak Illyrian. Plutarch spent the last thirty years of his serving as a priest in Delphi. He thus connected part of his work with the sanctuary of Apollo, the processes of oracle-giving
12.
Copper
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Copper is a chemical element with symbol Cu and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of copper has a reddish-orange color. Copper is one of the few metals that occur in nature in directly usable metallic form as opposed to needing extraction from an ore and this led to very early human use, from c.8000 BC. Copper used in buildings, usually for roofing, oxidizes to form a green verdigris, Copper is sometimes used in decorative art, both in its elemental metal form and in compounds as pigments. Copper compounds are used as agents, fungicides, and wood preservatives. Copper is essential to all living organisms as a trace dietary mineral because it is a key constituent of the enzyme complex cytochrome c oxidase. In molluscs and crustaceans, copper is a constituent of the blood pigment hemocyanin, replaced by the hemoglobin in fish. In humans, copper is found mainly in the liver, muscle, the adult body contains between 1.4 and 2.1 mg of copper per kilogram of body weight. The filled d-shells in these elements contribute little to interatomic interactions, unlike metals with incomplete d-shells, metallic bonds in copper are lacking a covalent character and are relatively weak. This observation explains the low hardness and high ductility of single crystals of copper, at the macroscopic scale, introduction of extended defects to the crystal lattice, such as grain boundaries, hinders flow of the material under applied stress, thereby increasing its hardness. For this reason, copper is supplied in a fine-grained polycrystalline form. The softness of copper partly explains its high conductivity and high thermal conductivity. The maximum permissible current density of copper in open air is approximately 3. 1×106 A/m2 of cross-sectional area, Copper is one of a few metallic elements with a natural color other than gray or silver. Pure copper is orange-red and acquires a reddish tarnish when exposed to air, as with other metals, if copper is put in contact with another metal, galvanic corrosion will occur. A green layer of verdigris can often be seen on old structures, such as the roofing of many older buildings. Copper tarnishes when exposed to sulfur compounds, with which it reacts to form various copper sulfides. There are 29 isotopes of copper, 63Cu and 65Cu are stable, with 63Cu comprising approximately 69% of naturally occurring copper, both have a spin of 3⁄2
13.
Bronze
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These additions produce a range of alloys that may be harder than copper alone, or have other useful properties, such as stiffness, ductility, or machinability. The archeological period where bronze was the hardest metal in use is known as the Bronze Age. In the ancient Near East this began with the rise of Sumer in the 4th millennium BC, with India and China starting to use bronze around the same time, everywhere it gradually spread across regions. The Bronze Age was followed by the Iron Age starting from about 1300 BC and reaching most of Eurasia by about 500 BC, the discovery of bronze enabled people to create metal objects which were harder and more durable than previously possible. Bronze tools, weapons, armor, and building such as decorative tiles were harder and more durable than their stone. It was only later that tin was used, becoming the major ingredient of bronze in the late 3rd millennium BC. Tin bronze was superior to arsenic bronze in that the process could be more easily controlled. Also, unlike arsenic, metallic tin and fumes from tin refining are not toxic, the earliest tin-alloy bronze dates to 4500 BCE in a Vinča culture site in Pločnik. Other early examples date to the late 4th millennium BC in Africa, Susa and some ancient sites in China, Luristan, ores of copper and the far rarer tin are not often found together, so serious bronze work has always involved trade. Tin sources and trade in ancient times had a influence on the development of cultures. In Europe, a source of tin was the British deposits of ore in Cornwall. In many parts of the world, large hoards of bronze artefacts are found, suggesting that bronze also represented a store of value, in Europe, large hoards of bronze tools, typically socketed axes, are found, which mostly show no signs of wear. With Chinese ritual bronzes, which are documented in the inscriptions they carry and from other sources and these were made in enormous quantities for elite burials, and also used by the living for ritual offerings. Pure iron is soft, and the process of beating and folding sponge iron to wrought iron removes from the metal carbon. Careful control of the alloying and tempering eventually allowed for wrought iron with properties comparable to modern steel, Bronze was still used during the Iron Age, and has continued in use for many purposes to the modern day. Among other advantages, it does not rust, the weaker wrought iron was found to be sufficiently strong for many uses. Archaeologists suspect that a disruption of the tin trade precipitated the transition. The population migrations around 1200–1100 BC reduced the shipping of tin around the Mediterranean, limiting supplies, there are many different bronze alloys, but typically modern bronze is 88% copper and 12% tin
14.
Numismatic Museum of Athens
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The Numismatic Museum in Athens is one of the most important museums of Greece and houses one of the greatest collections of coins, ancient and modern, in the world. The museum itself is housed in the mansion of the archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann, the first tries of coins collecting by the state began shortly after the independence of Greece in Aegina. The collection was enriched after excavations, purchases and donations, the museum was founded in 1838, around the same era with the National Archaeological Museum but it was not until many years after and several decrees that became an independent organization. In 1946, the collection was moved at the National Archaeological Museum, the organization of the museum became twice independent, in 1893 and 1965. The Iliou Melathron was granted in order to house the collection in 1984, the Numismatic Museum is housed at the Iliou Melathron, a three-storey building on Panepistimiou Street. It was built between 1878-1880 for Heinrich Schliemann and the architect was the then famous Ernst Ziller, at the time of its completion, it was considered to be the most magnificent private residence of Athens. Its design was inspired by the Renaissance Revival movement as well as Neoclassicism, as a result, the rooms are decorated with mosaics and murals depicting either themes from the Trojan War or Greek mottos. In 1927, the widow of Heinrich Schliemann, Sophia, sold the building to the Greek State and it was used as the seat of the Council of State. The use of the building as a courthouse caused much damage, after the building was chosen to house the Numismatic Museum, it underwent a major renovation under which the floor mosaics and the murals were restored. Finally, the collection was inaugurated in the partly restored building in 1998 while the whole collection became viewable in 2007. The collection of the museum contains 600,000 objects, mainly coins but also medals, standard masses, dies, stamps and others, the collection is arranged in such a way so as to follow the history of coinage. The museum holds an important collection of coins from the 6th century BC until the 5th century CE like those from the Greek Poleis. There also major Byzantine and Medieval collections from Western Europe, the East, a large portion of the collection is constituted by coins that were found in hoards while the rest comes from the initial collection of Aegina, recent excavations in mainland Greece and donations. The museum houses a library of 12,000 books specialized in the study of coinage, there is also a perfectly equipped conservation laboratory. The Numismatic Museum is on 12 Panepistimiou Street near Syntagma Square and it is served by the Syntagma metro station. There is a shop and a coffeehouse in the garden. List of museums in Greece List of museums with major numismatic collections Ancient Greek coinage Byzantine coinage Ioannis Svoronos Great Greek Encyclopedia, XVIII, Athens,1932 Numismatic Museum official site Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Tourism www. athensinfoguide. com
15.
Geometric art
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Geometric art is a phase of Greek art, characterized largely by geometric motifs in vase painting, that flourished towards the end of the Greek Dark Ages, circa 900 BC –700 BC. Its centre was in Athens, and from there the style spread amongst the cities of the Aegean. In the Early Geometric period, the height of the vessels had been increased, the remaining surface is covered by a thin layer of clay, which during the cooking takes a dark, shiny, metallic color. That was the period when the theme of the meander was added to the pottery design. One of the examples of the Late Geometric style is an oldest surviving signed work of a Greek potter Aristonothos. The vase was found at Cerveteri in Italy and illustrates the blinding of Polyphemus by Odysseus, – that led to the Orientalizing Period style, in which the pottery style of Corinth distinguished. Vases in the Geometric style are characterized by horizontal bands about the circumference covering the entire vase. Between these lines the geometric artist used a number of decorative motifs such as the zigzag, the triangle, the meander. Besides abstract elements, painters of this era introduced stylized depictions of humans, linear designs were the principal motif used in this period. The meander pattern was often placed in bands and used to frame the now larger panels of decoration, the first human figures appeared around 770 BC on the handles of vases. The male was depicted with a torso, an ovoid head with a blob for a nose and long cylindrical thighs. Their long hair was depicted as a series of lines, as were their breasts, new York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Geometric Art in Ancient Greece Greek Geometric period
16.
Sparta
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Sparta was a prominent city-state in ancient Greece. In antiquity the city-state was known as Lacedaemon, while the name Sparta referred to its settlement on the banks of the Eurotas River in Laconia. Around 650 BC, it rose to become the dominant military land-power in ancient Greece, given its military pre-eminence, Sparta was recognized as the overall leader of the combined Greek forces during the Greco-Persian Wars. Between 431 and 404 BC, Sparta was the enemy of Athens during the Peloponnesian War, from which it emerged victorious. Spartas defeat by Thebes in the Battle of Leuctra in 371 BC ended Spartas prominent role in Greece, however, it maintained its political independence until the Roman conquest of Greece in 146 BC. It then underwent a period of decline, especially in the Middle Ages. Modern Sparta is the capital of the Greek regional unit of Laconia, Sparta was unique in ancient Greece for its social system and constitution, which completely focused on military training and excellence. Its inhabitants were classified as Spartiates, mothakes, perioikoi, Spartiates underwent the rigorous agoge training and education regimen, and Spartan phalanges were widely considered to be among the best in battle. Spartan women enjoyed more rights and equality to men than elsewhere in the classical world. Sparta was the subject of fascination in its own day, as well as in the West following the revival of classical learning and this love or admiration of Sparta is known as Laconism or Laconophilia. At its peak around 500 BC the size of the city would have been some 20,000 –35,000 free residents, plus numerous helots, olliers theory of the Spartan mirage has been widely accepted by scholars. The ancient Greeks used one of three words to refer to the location of the Spartans. The first refers primarily to the cluster of settlements in the valley of the Eurotas River. The second word was Lacedaemon, this was used sometimes as an adjective and is the name commonly used in the works of Homer. Herodotus seems to denote by it the Mycenaean Greek citadel at Therapne and it could be used synonymously with Sparta, but typically it was not. It denoted the terrain on which Sparta was situated, in Homer it is typically combined with epithets of the countryside, wide, lovely, shining and most often hollow and broken. The hollow suggests the Eurotas Valley, Sparta on the other hand is the country of lovely women, a people epithet. The name of the population was used for the state of Lacedaemon
17.
Athens
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Athens is the capital and largest city of Greece. In modern times, Athens is a cosmopolitan metropolis and central to economic, financial, industrial, maritime. In 2015, Athens was ranked the worlds 29th richest city by purchasing power, Athens is recognised as a global city because of its location and its importance in shipping, finance, commerce, media, entertainment, arts, international trade, culture, education and tourism. It is one of the biggest economic centres in southeastern Europe, with a financial sector. The municipality of Athens had a population of 664,046 within its limits. The urban area of Athens extends beyond its administrative city limits. According to Eurostat in 2011, the Functional urban areas of Athens was the 9th most populous FUA in the European Union, Athens is also the southernmost capital on the European mainland. The city also retains Roman and Byzantine monuments, as well as a number of Ottoman monuments. Athens is home to two UNESCO World Heritage Sites, the Acropolis of Athens and the medieval Daphni Monastery, Athens was the host city of the first modern-day Olympic Games in 1896, and 108 years later it welcomed home the 2004 Summer Olympics. In Ancient Greek, the name of the city was Ἀθῆναι a plural, in earlier Greek, such as Homeric Greek, the name had been current in the singular form though, as Ἀθήνη. It was possibly rendered in the later on, like those of Θῆβαι and Μυκῆναι. During the medieval period the name of the city was rendered once again in the singular as Ἀθήνα, an etiological myth explaining how Athens has acquired its name was well known among ancient Athenians and even became the theme of the sculpture on the West pediment of the Parthenon. The goddess of wisdom, Athena, and the god of the seas, Poseidon had many disagreements, in an attempt to compel the people, Poseidon created a salt water spring by striking the ground with his trident, symbolizing naval power. However, when Athena created the tree, symbolizing peace and prosperity. Different etymologies, now rejected, were proposed during the 19th century. Christian Lobeck proposed as the root of the name the word ἄθος or ἄνθος meaning flower, ludwig von Döderlein proposed the stem of the verb θάω, stem θη- to denote Athens as having fertile soil. In classical literature, the city was referred to as the City of the Violet Crown, first documented in Pindars ἰοστέφανοι Ἀθᾶναι. In medieval texts, variant names include Setines, Satine, and Astines, today the caption η πρωτεύουσα, the capital, has become somewhat common
18.
Silver
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Silver is a metallic element with symbol Ag and atomic number 47. The symbol Ag stems from Latin argentum, derived from the Greek ὰργὀς, a soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it exhibits the highest electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity, and reflectivity of any metal. The metal is found in the Earths crust in the pure, free form, as an alloy with gold and other metals. Most silver is produced as a byproduct of copper, gold, lead, Silver is more abundant than gold, but it is much less abundant as a native metal. Its purity is measured on a per mille basis, a 94%-pure alloy is described as 0.940 fine. As one of the seven metals of antiquity, silver has had a role in most human cultures. Silver has long valued as a precious metal. Silver metal is used in many premodern monetary systems in bullion coins, Silver is used in numerous applications other than currency, such as solar panels, water filtration, jewelry, ornaments, high-value tableware and utensils, and as an investment medium. Silver is used industrially in electrical contacts and conductors, in specialized mirrors, window coatings, Silver compounds are used in photographic film and X-rays. Dilute silver nitrate solutions and other compounds are used as disinfectants and microbiocides, added to bandages and wound-dressings, catheters. Silver is similar in its physical and chemical properties to its two neighbours in group 11 of the periodic table, copper and gold. This distinctive electron configuration, with an electron in the highest occupied s subshell over a filled d subshell. Silver is a soft, ductile and malleable transition metal. Silver crystallizes in a cubic lattice with bulk coordination number 12. Unlike metals with incomplete d-shells, metallic bonds in silver are lacking a covalent character and are relatively weak and this observation explains the low hardness and high ductility of single crystals of silver. Silver has a brilliant white metallic luster that can take a polish. Protected silver has greater optical reflectivity than aluminium at all wavelengths longer than ~450 nm, at wavelengths shorter than 450 nm, silvers reflectivity is inferior to that of aluminium and drops to zero near 310 nm. The electrical conductivity of silver is the greatest of all metals, greater even than copper, during World War II in the US,13540 tons of silver were used in electromagnets for enriching uranium, mainly because of the wartime shortage of copper
19.
Coin
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A coin is a small, flat, round piece of metal or plastic used primarily as a medium of exchange or legal tender. They are standardized in weight, and produced in quantities at a mint in order to facilitate trade. They are most often issued by a government, Coins are usually metal or alloy, or sometimes made of synthetic materials. Coins made of metal are stored in large quantities as bullion coins. Other coins are used as money in transactions, circulating alongside banknotes. Usually the highest value coin in circulation is less than the lowest-value note. In the last hundred years, the value of circulation coins has occasionally been lower than the value of the metal they contain. Exceptions to the rule of face value being higher than content value also occur for some bullion coins made of copper, silver, or gold, while the Eagle, Maple Leaf, and Sovereign coins have nominal face values, the Krugerrand does not. The first coins were developed independently in Iron Age Anatolia and Archaic Greece, India, Coins spread rapidly in the 6th and 5th centuries BCE, throughout Greece and Persia, and further to the Balkans. Standardized Roman currency was used throughout the Roman Empire, important Roman gold and silver coins were continued into the Middle Ages. Fiat money first arose in medieval China, with the paper money. Early paper money was introduced in Europe in the later Middle Ages, the penny was minted as a silver coin until the 17th century. The first circulating United States coins were cents, produced in 1793, Coins were an evolution of currency systems of the Late Bronze Age, where standard-sized ingots, and tokens such as knife money, were used to store and transfer value. In the late Chinese Bronze Age, standardized cast tokens were made and these were replicas in bronze of earlier Chinese currency, cowrie shells, so they were named Bronze Shell. According to Aristotle and Pollux, the first issuer of coins was Hermodike of Kyme The earliest coins are associated with Iron Age Anatolia. Early electrum coins were not standardized in weight, and in their earliest stage may have been ritual objects, such as badges or medals, issued by priests. The first Lydian coins were made of electrum, a naturally occurring alloy of silver, most of the early Lydian coins include no writing, only an image of a symbolic animal. Anatolian Artemis was the Πὀτνια Θηρῶν, whose symbol was the stag, a small percentage of early Lydian/Greek coins have a legend
20.
Kantharos
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A kantharos or cantharus is a type of ancient Greek cup used for drinking. Although almost all surviving examples are in Greek pottery, the shape, like many Greek vessel types, in its iconic Type A form, it is characterized by its deep bowl, tall pedestal foot, and pair of high-swung handles which extend above the lip of the pot. The Greek words kotylos and kotyle are other ancient names for this same shape, the kantharos is a cup used to hold wine, possibly for drinking or for ritual use or offerings. The kantharos seems to be an attribute of Dionysos, the god of wine, kylix Rhyton Ancient Greek vase painting Pottery of ancient Greece Gina Hander. CU Classics, Greek Vase Exhibit, Kantharos
21.
Pint
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The pint /ˈpaɪnt/ is a unit of volume or capacity in both the imperial and United States customary measurement systems. In both of those systems it is traditionally one-eighth of a gallon, Imperial or U. S. although measuring a different amount of liquid, the British pint is thus about 20% larger than the American pint. Almost all other countries have standardized on the metric system, the size of what may be called a pint varies depending on local custom. The imperial pint is used in the United Kingdom and Ireland, in the United States, two pints are used, a liquid pint and a less-common dry pint. Each of these pints is one-eighth of its respective gallon, but the gallons differ, the imperial pint consists of 20 imperial fluid ounces and the US liquid pint is 16 US fluid ounces, making the imperial fluid ounce about 4% smaller than the US fluid ounce. In the United Kingdom, the pint is still the primary unit for draught beer and cider. Historically, units called a pint were used much of Europe. Within continental Europe, the pint was replaced with the system during the 19th century. The imperial pint is equal to one-eighth of an imperial gallon, the United States liquid pint is equal to one-eighth of a United States liquid gallon. It is used commonly in the United States, the United States dry pint is equal to one-eighth of a United States dry gallon. It is used in the United States, but is not as common as the liquid pint, a now-obsolete unit of measurement in Scotland known as the Scottish pint or joug equals three imperial pints. It remained in use until the 19th century, surviving significantly longer than most of the old Scottish measurements, the French word pinte is etymologically related, but historically described a larger unit. The Royal pint was 48 French cubic inches and this is one of numerous false friends which exist between English and French. They are not the same although they have the same linguistic origin - the French Canadian pinte is actually equivalent to the English quart. If you want to order an English pint of beer in Canadian French, the Imperial system of measurement is no longer taught in Canadian schools, so servers may be unclear on how big a pint or pinte is regardless of language. In Flanders, the word pintje, meaning little pint, refers only to a 250 mL glass of lager, some West- and East-Flemish dialects use it as a word for beaker. The equivalent word in German, Pintchen, refers to a glass of a third of a litre in Cologne, one US fluid pint of water weighs about a pound, resulting in the popular saying, The pints a pound, the world around. A different saying for the pint is a pint of pure water weighs a pound
22.
Litre
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The litre or liter is an SI accepted metric system unit of volume equal to 1 cubic decimetre,1,000 cubic centimetres or 1/1,000 cubic metre. A cubic decimetre occupies a volume of 10×10×10 centimetres and is equal to one-thousandth of a cubic metre. The original French metric system used the litre as a base unit. The word litre is derived from an older French unit, the litron, whose name came from Greek — where it was a unit of weight, not volume — via Latin, and which equalled approximately 0.831 litres. The litre was also used in subsequent versions of the metric system and is accepted for use with the SI. The spelling used by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures is litre, the less common spelling of liter is more predominantly used in American English. One litre of water has a mass of almost exactly one kilogram. Subsequent redefinitions of the metre and kilogram mean that this relationship is no longer exact, a litre is defined as a special name for a cubic decimetre or 10 centimetres ×10 centimetres ×10 centimetres. Hence 1 L ≡0.001 m3 ≡1000 cm3, from 1901 to 1964, the litre was defined as the volume of one kilogram of pure water at maximum density and standard pressure. The kilogram was in turn specified as the mass of a platinum/iridium cylinder held at Sèvres in France and was intended to be of the mass as the 1 litre of water referred to above. It was subsequently discovered that the cylinder was around 28 parts per million too large and thus, during this time, additionally, the mass-volume relationship of water depends on temperature, pressure, purity and isotopic uniformity. In 1964, the definition relating the litre to mass was abandoned in favour of the current one, although the litre is not an official SI unit, it is accepted by the CGPM for use with the SI. CGPM defines the litre and its acceptable symbols, a litre is equal in volume to the millistere, an obsolete non-SI metric unit customarily used for dry measure. The litre is often used in some calculated measurements, such as density. One litre of water has a mass of almost exactly one kilogram when measured at its maximal density, similarly,1 millilitre of water has a mass of about 1 g,1,000 litres of water has a mass of about 1,000 kg. It is now known that density of water depends on the isotopic ratios of the oxygen and hydrogen atoms in a particular sample. The litre, though not an official SI unit, may be used with SI prefixes, the most commonly used derived unit is the millilitre, defined as one-thousandth of a litre, and also often referred to by the SI derived unit name cubic centimetre. It is a commonly used measure, especially in medicine and cooking, Other units may be found in the table below, where the more often used terms are in bold
23.
Greek wine
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Greece is one of the oldest wine-producing regions in the world and the first wine-producing territory in Europe. The earliest evidence of Greek wine has been dated to 6,500 years ago where wine was produced on a household or communal basis. In ancient times, as trade in wine became extensive, it was transported from end to end of the Mediterranean, in the medieval period, wines exported from Crete, Monemvasia and other Greek ports fetched high prices in northern Europe. The spread of Greek civilization and their worship of Dionysus, the god of wine, hippocrates used wine for medicinal purposes and readily prescribed it. Greek wines and their varieties were known and traded throughout the Mediterranean. The Ancient Greeks introduced vines such as Vitis vinifera and made wine in their numerous colonies in Italy, Sicily, southern France, the Vitis vinifera grape which thrives in temperate climates near coastal areas with mild winters and dry summers adapted well and flourished in the Northern Mediterranean areas. The most reputable wines of ancient Greece were Chian, Coan, Corcyraean, Cretan, Euboean, Lesbian, Leucadian, Mendaean, Peparethan wine, Wine was also important for ancient Macedonia. Two other names may or may not be regional, Bibline wine and Pramnian wine are named in the earliest Greek poetry, in 1937, a Wine Institute was established by the Ministry of Agriculture. During the 1960s, retsina suddenly became the national beverage, with rapidly growing tourism, retsina became associated worldwide with Greece and Greek wine. Greece’s first Cabernet Sauvignon vineyard was planted in 1963, in 1971 and 1972, legislation established appellation laws. A system of appellations was implemented to assure consumers the origins of their wine purchases and its sensory attributes are similar to Beaujolais Nouveau but, unlike its French counterpart, the St. George ages well for about 5 years. Xinomavro is the predominant grape variety in Macedonia, centered on the town of Naousa and this variety has great aging potential with a palate reminiscent of tomatoes and olives, and a rich tannic character. It is often compared to Nebbiolo, Limnio, or Kalambaki is an important red grape variety that is indigenous to the Aegean island of Lemnos and has been used in red wine production for more than 2000 years. As a varietal wine Limnio is full-bodied, high in alcohol and very herbaceous, Mandilaria, also known as amorgiano, is mainly cultivated on the islands of Rhodes and Crete. Wine from this grape is very tannic and frequently blended with other grapes to soften the mouthfeel. Mavrodaphne, or black laurel, is a variety that grows in the Peloponnese and it is blended with the Black Corinth currant grape to produce a prized fortified dessert wine made in the Solera style. Kotsifali is a variety grown on Crete. It is blended with Mandilaria or Syrah to enhance its color, Vertzami Vertzami is a thick, dark-skinned grape variety grown
24.
Hades
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Hades was the ancient Greek chthonic god of the underworld, which eventually took his name. In Greek mythology, Hades was regarded as the oldest son of Cronus and Rhea and he and his brothers Zeus and Poseidon defeated their fathers generation of gods, the Titans, and claimed rulership over the cosmos. Hades received the underworld, Zeus the sky, and Poseidon the sea, Hades was often portrayed with his three-headed guard dog Cerberus. The Etruscan god Aita and Roman gods Dis Pater and Orcus were eventually taken as equivalent to the Greek Hades and merged as Pluto, the origin of Hades name is uncertain, but has generally been seen as meaning The Unseen One since antiquity. Modern linguists have proposed the Proto-Greek form *Awides, the earliest attested form is Aḯdēs, which lacks the proposed digamma. West argues instead for a meaning of the one who presides over meeting up from the universality of death. In Homeric and Ionic Greek, he was known as Áïdēs, other poetic variations of the name include Aïdōneús and the inflected forms Áïdos, Áïdi, and Áïda, whose reconstructed nominative case *Áïs is, however, not attested. The name as it came to be known in classical times was Háidēs, later the iota became silent, then a subscript marking, and finally omitted entirely. Perhaps from fear of pronouncing his name, around the 5th century BC, Plouton became the Roman god who both rules the underworld and distributed riches from below. This deity was a mixture of the Greek god Hades and the Eleusinian icon Ploutos, and from this he received a priestess. More elaborate names of the genre were Ploutodótēs or Ploutodotḗr meaning giver of wealth. Epithets of Hades include Agesander and Agesilaos, both from ágō and anḗr or laos, describing Hades as the god who carries away all. He was also referred to as Zeus Katachthonios, meaning the Zeus of the Underworld, by avoiding his actual name. In Greek mythology, Hades the god of the underworld, was a son of the Titans Cronus and he had three sisters, Demeter, Hestia, and Hera, as well as two brothers, Zeus, the youngest of the three, and Poseidon. Upon reaching adulthood, Zeus managed to force his father to disgorge his siblings, after their release, the six younger gods, along with allies they managed to gather, challenged the elder gods for power in the Titanomachy, a divine war. The war lasted for ten years and ended with the victory of the younger gods, following their victory, according to a single famous passage in the Iliad, Hades and his two brothers, Poseidon and Zeus, drew lots for realms to rule. Some myths suggest that Hades was dissatisfied with his turnout, but had no choice, Hades obtained his wife and queen, Persephone, through abduction at the behest of Zeus. Despite modern connotations of death as evil, Hades was actually more altruistically inclined in mythology, Hades was often portrayed as passive rather than evil, his role was often maintaining relative balance
25.
Charon (mythology)
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A coin to pay Charon for passage, usually an obolus or danake, was sometimes placed in or on the mouth of a dead person. Some authors say that those who could not pay the fee, Charon is the son of Nyx and Erebus. Nyx and Erebus were brother and sister and he was also the brother of Thanatos and Hypnos. The word may be a euphemism for death, flashing eyes may indicate the anger or irascibility of Charon as he is often characterized in literature, but the etymology is not certain. The ancient historian Diodorus Siculus thought that the ferryman and his name had been imported from Egypt, Charon is depicted frequently in the art of ancient Greece. Attic funerary vases of the 5th and 4th centuries BC are often decorated with scenes of the dead boarding Charon’s boat. On the earlier such vases, he looks like a rough, unkempt Athenian seaman dressed in reddish-brown, holding his ferrymans pole in his right hand, hermes sometimes stands by in his role as psychopomp. On later vases, Charon is given a more “kindly and refined” demeanor, when the boatman tells Hercules to halt, the Greek hero uses his strength to gain passage, overpowering Charon with the boatmans own pole. In the second century, Lucian employed Charon as a figure in his Dialogues of the Dead, in the 14th century, Dante Alighieri described Charon in his Divine Comedy, drawing from Virgils depiction in Aeneid 6. Charon is the first named mythological character Dante meets in the underworld, Dante depicts him as having eyes of fire. In modern times, he is depicted as a living skeleton in a cowl. The French artist, Gustave Dore, depicted Charon in two of his illustrations for Dantes Divine Comedy, the Flemish painter, Joachim Patinir, depicted Charon in his Crossing the River Styx. And the Spanish painter, Jose Benlliure y Gil, portrayed Charon in his La Barca de Caronte, most accounts, including Pausanias and later Dantes Inferno, associate Charon with the swamps of the river Acheron. Ancient Greek literary sources – such as Pindar, Aeschylus, Euripides, Plato, roman poets, including Propertius, Ovid, and Statius, name the river as the Styx, perhaps following the geography of Virgil’s underworld in the Aeneid, where Charon is associated with both rivers. Charon, the dwarf planet of the Pluto-Charon system, is named after him. Haros is the modern Greek equivalent of Charon, and usage includes the curse you will be eaten by Haros, during the Korean War, the Greek Expeditionary Force defended an outpost called Outpost Harry. The Greek soldiers referred to it as Outpost Haros, Charon Media related to Charon at Wikimedia Commons The Theoi Project, KHARON Images of Charon in the Warburg Institute Iconographic Database
26.
Acheron
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The Acheron is a river located in the Epirus region of northwest Greece. Its source is near the village Zotiko, in the part of the Ioannina regional unit it flows into the Ionian Sea in Ammoudia. In ancient Greek mythology, Acheron was known as the river of woe, in the Homeric poems the Acheron was described as a river of Hades, into which Cocytus and Phlegethon both flowed. The Roman poet Virgil called it the river of Tartarus, from which the Styx. The newly dead would be ferried across the Acheron by Charon in order to enter the Underworld, the Suda describes the river as a place of healing, not a place of punishment, cleansing and purging the sins of humans. By this myth, Acheron is also the father of Ascalaphus by either Orphne or Gorgyra, the river called Acheron with the nearby ruins of the Necromanteion is found near Parga on the mainland opposite Corfu. Another branch of Acheron was believed to surface at the Acherusian cape and was seen by the Argonauts according to Apollonius of Rhodes, greeks who settled in Italy identified the Acherusian lake into which Acheron flowed with Lake Avernus. Plato in his Phaedo identified Acheron as the second greatest river in the world and he claimed that Acheron flowed in the opposite direction from Oceanus beneath the earth under desert places. The word is occasionally used as a synecdoche for Hades itself. Virgil mentions Acheron with the other rivers in his description of the underworld in Book VI of the Aeneid. In Book VII, line 312 he gives to Juno the famous saying, flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo, If I cannot bend the will of Heaven, I shall move Hell. The same words were used by Sigmund Freud as the motto for his seminal book The Interpretation of Dreams. The Acheron was sometimes referred to as a lake or swamp in Greek literature, as in Aristophanes The Frogs, in Dantes Inferno, the Acheron river forms the border of Hell. Following Greek mythology, Charon ferries souls across this river to Hell and those who were neutral in life sit on the banks. Theoi Project - Potamos Akheron LAchéron, Viol Consort
27.
Styx
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In Greek mythology, Styx is a deity and a river that forms the boundary between Earth and the Underworld. The rivers Styx, Phlegethon, Acheron, Lethe, and Cocytus all converge at the center of the underworld on a great marsh, according to Herodotus, the river Styx originates near Feneos. Styx is also a goddess with roots in Greek mythology as a daughter of Tethys, after whom the river is named. The deities of the Greek pantheon swore all their oaths upon the river Styx because, according to mythology, during the Titan war, Styx. After the war, Zeus declared that every oath must be sworn upon her, Zeus swore to give Semele whatever she wanted and was then obliged to follow through when he realized to his horror that her request would lead to her death. Helios similarly promised his son Phaëton whatever he desired, also resulting in the boys death, myths related to such early deities did not survive long enough to be included in historic records, but tantalizing references exist among those that have been discovered. According to some versions, Styx had miraculous powers and could make someone invulnerable, according to one tradition, Achilles was dipped in the waters of the river by his mother during his childhood, acquiring invulnerability, with exception of his heel, by which his mother held him. The only spot where Achilles was vulnerable was his heel, where he was struck and this is the source of the expression Achilles heel, a metaphor for a vulnerable spot. Styx was primarily a feature in the afterworld of classical Greek mythology, similar to the Christian area of Hell in texts such as The Divine Comedy and Paradise Lost. In ancient times believed that placing a coin in the mouth of the deceased would pay the toll for the ferry to cross the Acheron River. If someone could not pay the fee it was said that they would never be able to cross the river and this ritual was performed by the relatives. The variant spelling Stix was sometimes used in translations of Classical Greek before the twentieth century, by metonymy, the adjective stygian came to refer to anything dark, dismal, and murky. Styx was the name of the daughter of Tethys and Oceanus, in classical myths, her husband was Pallas and she gave birth to Zelus, Nike, Kratos, and Bia. In those myths, Styx supported Zeus in the Titanomachy, where she was said to be the first to rush to his aid, for this reason, her name was given the honor of being a binding oath for the deities. Knowledge of whether this was the reason for the tradition did not survive into historical records following the religious transition that led to the pantheon of the classical era. As of 2 July 2013, Styx officially became the name of one of Plutos moons, the other moons also have names from Greco-Roman mythology related to the underworld. Kormet Rasā Sanzu River Burial jar depicting a boatman with passenger Chisholm, Hugh, ed. Styx
28.
Greek units
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Ancient Greek units of measurement varied according to location and epoch. Systems of ancient weights and measures evolved as needs changed, Solon, some units of measurement were found to be convenient for trade within the Mediterranean region and these units became increasingly common to different city states. The calibration and use of measuring devices became more sophisticated, by about 500 BC, Athens had a central depository of official weights and measures, the Tholos, where merchants were required to test their measuring devices against official standards. Some Greek measures of length were named after parts of the body, such as the δάκτυλος or finger, a common unit in both measures throughout historic Greece was the cotyle or cotyla whose absolute value varied from one place to another between 210 ml and 330 ml. The basic unit for both solid and liquid measures was the κύαθος, thus for example the English pound has been both a unit of weight and a unit of currency. Greek weights similarly bear a resemblance to Greek currency yet the origin of the Greek standards of weights is often disputed. The Attic/Euboean standard was based on the barley corn, of which there were supposedly twelve to one obol. However, weights that have been retrieved by historians and archeologists show considerable variations from theoretical standards, a table of standards derived from theory is as follows, Athenians measured the day by sundials and unit fractions. Periods during night or day were measured by a clock that dripped at a steady rate. Whereas the day in the Gregorian calendar commences after midnight, the Greek day began after sunset, Athenians named each year after the Archon Eponymos for that year, and in Hellenistic times years were reckoned in quadrennial epochs according to the Olympiad. In archaic and early classical Greece, months followed the cycle of the Moon which made them not fit exactly into the length of the solar year, thus, if not corrected, the same month would migrate slowly into different seasons of the year. The Athenian year was divided into 12 months, with one month being inserted between the sixth and seventh months every second year. Even with this intercalary month, the Athenian or Attic calendar was still fairly inaccurate, Greek and Roman Weights, Measures and Currency. Archived from the original on 6 August 2007, online Conversion of Ancient Greek Units
29.
Ancient Roman units of measurement
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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
30.
Apothecaries' system
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The English version of the system is closely related with the English troy system of weights, the pound and grain being exactly the same in both. It divides a pound into 12 ounces, an ounce into 8 drachms, and this exact form of the system was used in the United Kingdom, in some of its former colonies it survived well into the 20th century. The apothecaries system of measures is a system of volume units based on the fluid ounce. For a long time, medical recipes were written in Latin, often using special symbols to denote weights, the use of different measure and weight systems depending on the purpose was an almost universal phenomenon in Europe between the decline of the Roman Empire and metrication. In the 19th century, most European countries or cities still had at least a commercial or civil system for trading. The system for precious metals was usually divided in a different way from the commercial system, more significantly, it was often based on different weight standards. The apothecaries system often used the same ounces as the precious metals system, the apothecaries pound was divided into its own special units, which were inherited from the general-purpose weight system of the Romans. In old merchants handbooks the former system is referred to as the pharmaceutical system. The traditional English apothecaries system of weights is as shown in the table, in the United Kingdom, a reform in 1826 made the troy pound the primary weight unit, but this had no effect on apothecaries weights. However, the Medicinals Act of 1858 completely abolished the system in favour of the standard Avoirdupois system. The confusing variety of definitions and conversions for pounds and ounces is covered elsewhere in a table of pound definitions, in the United States, the apothecaries system remained official until it was abolished in 1971 in favour of the metric system. Similar systems were used all over Europe, but with local variation described below under Variants. The English-speaking countries also used a system of units of measure, or in modern terminology volume units. A volume of liquid that was approximately that of an ounce of water was called a fluid ounce. The analogue of the grain was called a minim, the imperial and US systems differ in the size of the basic unit, and in the number of fluid ounces per pint. Apothecaries systems for volumes were much less common than those for weights. Before introduction of the units in the UK, all apothecaries measures were based on the wine gallon. The wine gallon was abolished in Britain in 1826, and this system was replaced by a new one based on the newly introduced imperial gallon
31.
Weight
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In science and engineering, the weight of an object is usually taken to be the force on the object due to gravity. Weight is a vector whose magnitude, often denoted by an italic letter W, is the product of the m of the object. The unit of measurement for weight is that of force, which in the International System of Units is the newton. For example, an object with a mass of one kilogram has a weight of about 9.8 newtons on the surface of the Earth, in this sense of weight, a body can be weightless only if it is far away from any other mass. Although weight and mass are scientifically distinct quantities, the terms are often confused with other in everyday use. There is also a tradition within Newtonian physics and engineering which sees weight as that which is measured when one uses scales. There the weight is a measure of the magnitude of the force exerted on a body. Typically, in measuring an objects weight, the object is placed on scales at rest with respect to the earth, thus, in a state of free fall, the weight would be zero. In this second sense of weight, terrestrial objects can be weightless, ignoring air resistance, the famous apple falling from the tree, on its way to meet the ground near Isaac Newton, is weightless. Further complications in elucidating the various concepts of weight have to do with the theory of relativity according to gravity is modelled as a consequence of the curvature of spacetime. In the teaching community, a debate has existed for over half a century on how to define weight for their students. The current situation is that a set of concepts co-exist. Discussion of the concepts of heaviness and lightness date back to the ancient Greek philosophers and these were typically viewed as inherent properties of objects. Plato described weight as the tendency of objects to seek their kin. To Aristotle weight and levity represented the tendency to restore the order of the basic elements, air, earth, fire. He ascribed absolute weight to earth and absolute levity to fire, archimedes saw weight as a quality opposed to buoyancy, with the conflict between the two determining if an object sinks or floats. The first operational definition of weight was given by Euclid, who defined weight as, weight is the heaviness or lightness of one thing, compared to another, operational balances had, however, been around much longer. According to Aristotle, weight was the cause of the falling motion of an object
32.
Uncia (coin)
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The uncia was a Roman currency worth 1/12 of an as. By derivation, it was also the name of a coin valued at one-twelfth of an as produced during the Roman Republic. Obverse types of the include a knucklebone, a barleycorn. In imperial times the uncia was briefly revived under Trajan and Hadrian and this coin was about 11–14 mm in diameter and weighed about 0. 8–1.2 grams. It featured the bust of the emperor on the obverse with no inscription, if this issue belonged to the imperial system, meaning it was not a provincial piece, it would be an uncia. This issue may have made only for circulation in the East. Duella Roman currency Roman Republican coinage
33.
Jorge Luis Borges
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Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo KBE was an Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator, and a key figure in Spanish-language literature. Borges works have contributed to literature and the fantasy genre. However, some critics consider Borges to be a predecessor and not actually a magical realist and his late poems dialogue with such cultural figures as Spinoza, Camões, and Virgil. In 1914, Borges family moved to Switzerland, where he studied at the Collège de Genève, the family travelled widely in Europe, including Spain. On his return to Argentina in 1921, Borges began publishing his poems and he also worked as a librarian and public lecturer. In 1955, he was appointed director of the National Public Library and he became completely blind by the age of 55, as he never learned braille, he became unable to read. Scholars have suggested that his progressive blindness helped him to create innovative literary symbols through imagination, in 1961, he came to international attention when he received the first Formentor prize, which he shared with Samuel Beckett. In 1971, he won the Jerusalem Prize and his work was translated and published widely in the United States and Europe. Borges himself was fluent in several languages and he dedicated his final work, The Conspirators, to the city of Geneva, Switzerland. Writer and essayist J. M. Coetzee said of him, He, more than anyone, renovated the language of fiction, Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo was born into an educated middle-class family on 24 August 1899. They were in comfortable circumstances but not wealthy enough to live in downtown Buenos Aires so the family resided in Palermo, Borgess mother, Leonor Acevedo Suárez, came from a traditional Uruguayan family of criollo origin. Her family had been involved in the European settling of South America and the Argentine War of Independence. His 1929 book, Cuaderno San Martín, includes the poem Isidoro Acevedo, commemorating his grandfather, Isidoro de Acevedo Laprida, a soldier of the Buenos Aires Army. A descendant of the Argentine lawyer and politician Francisco Narciso de Laprida, de Acevedo Laprida fought in the battles of Cepeda in 1859, Pavón in 1861, de Acevedo Laprida died of pulmonary congestion in the house where his grandson Jorge Luis Borges was born. Borgess own father, Jorge Guillermo Borges Haslam was a lawyer, Borges Haslam was born in Entre Rios of Spanish, Portuguese, and English descent, the son of Francisco Borges Lafinur, a colonel, and Frances Ann Haslam, an Englishwoman. Borges Haslam grew up speaking English at home, the family frequently traveled to Europe. Borges Haslam wed Leonor Acevedo Suarez and was father of the painter Norah Borges. At age nine, Jorge Luis Borges translated Oscar Wildes The Happy Prince into Spanish and it was published in a local journal, but his friends thought the real author was his father
34.
Greek lepton
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The lepton, plural lepta is the name of various fractional units of currency used in the Greek-speaking world from antiquity until today. The word means small or thin, and during Classical and Hellenistic times a lepton was always a small value coin, in the Hasmonean Kingdom the lepton was first minted under Alexander Jannaeus prior to 76 B. C. E. In modern Greece, lepton is the name of the 1/100 denomination of all the currencies of the Greek state, the phoenix, the drachma. Its unofficial currency sign is Λ, since the late 1870s, and until the introduction of the euro in 2001, no Greek coin had been minted with a denomination lower than 5 lepta
35.
Obelisk
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An obelisk is a tall, four-sided, narrow tapering monument which ends in a pyramid-like shape or pyramidion at the top. These were originally called tekhenu by their builders, the Ancient Egyptians, the Greeks who saw them used the Greek obeliskos to describe them, and this word passed into Latin and ultimately English. Ancient obelisks are monolithic, that is, they consist of a single stone, though this technological capacity exists today, most modern obelisks are made of several stones, some, like the Washington Monument, are buildings. The term stele is used for other monumental, upright. Obelisks were prominent in the architecture of the ancient Egyptians, who placed them in pairs at the entrance of temples. The word obelisk as used in English today is of Greek rather than Egyptian origin because Herodotus, a number of ancient Egyptian obelisks are known to have survived, plus the Unfinished Obelisk found partly hewn from its quarry at Aswan. These obelisks are now dispersed around the world, and fewer than half of them remain in Egypt, the earliest temple obelisk still in its original position is the 68-foot 120-metric-ton red granite Obelisk of Senusret I of the XIIth Dynasty at Al-Matariyyah in modern Heliopolis. The obelisk symbolized the sun god Ra, and during the religious reformation of Akhenaten was said to be a petrified ray of the Aten. It was also thought that the god existed within the structure, Benben was the mound that arose from the primordial waters Nu upon which the creator god Atum settled in the creation story of the Heliopolitan creation myth form of Ancient Egyptian religion. The Benben stone is the top stone of the Egyptian pyramid and it is also related to the Obelisk. The pyramid and obelisk might have inspired by previously overlooked astronomical phenomena connected with sunrise and sunset. The Ancient Romans were strongly influenced by the form, to the extent that there are now more than twice as many obelisks standing in Rome as remain in Egypt. All fell after the Roman period except for the Vatican obelisk and were re-erected in different locations. The largest standing and tallest Egyptian obelisk is the Lateran Obelisk in the square at the west side of the Lateran Basilica in Rome at 105.6 feet tall, not all the Egyptian obelisks in the Roman Empire were set up at Rome. Herod the Great imitated his Roman patrons and set up a red granite Egyptian obelisk in the hippodrome of his new city Caesarea in northern Judea and this one is about 40 feet tall and weighs about 100 metric tons. It was discovered by archaeologists and has been re-erected at its former site and this one stood 95 feet tall and weighing 380 metric tons. Its lower half reputedly also once stood in Istanbul but is now lost, the Istanbul obelisk is 65 feet tall. Rome is the capital of the world
36.
Henry Liddell
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Lewis Carroll wrote Alices Adventures in Wonderland for Henry Liddells daughter Alice. Liddell received his education at Charterhouse and Christ Church, Oxford and he gained a double first degree in 1833, then became a college tutor, and was ordained in 1838. Liddell was Headmaster of Westminster School from 1846 to 1855, meanwhile, his life work, the great lexicon, which he and Robert Scott began as early as 1834, had made good progress, and the first edition of Liddell and Scotts Lexicon appeared in 1843. It immediately became the standard Greek–English dictionary, with the 8th edition published in 1897, as Headmaster of Westminster Liddell enjoyed a period of great success, followed by trouble due to the outbreak of fever and cholera in the school. In 1855 he accepted the deanery of Christ Church, Oxford, in the same year he brought out his History of Ancient Rome and took a very active part in the first Oxford University Commission. His tall figure, fine presence and aristocratic mien were for years associated with all that was characteristic of Oxford life. In 1859 Liddell welcomed the then Prince of Wales when he matriculated at Christ Church, while he was Dean of Christ Church, he arranged for the building of a new choir school and classrooms for the staff and pupils of Christ Church Cathedral School on its present site. Before then the school was housed within Christ Church itself, in July 1846, Liddell married Miss Lorina Reeve, with whom he had several children, including Alice Liddell of Lewis Carroll fame. In conjunction with Sir Henry Acland, Liddell did much to encourage the study of art at Oxford, in 1891, owing to advancing years, he resigned the deanery. The last years of his life were spent at Ascot, where he died on 18 January 1898, Two roads in Ascot, Liddell Way and Carroll Crescent honour the relationship between Henry Liddell and Lewis Carroll. Liddell was an Oxford character in later years and he figures in contemporary undergraduate doggerel, I am the Dean, this Mrs Liddell. She plays first, I, second fiddle and she is the Broad, I am the High – We are the University. The Victorian journalist, George W. E and his father was Henry Liddell, Rector of Easington, the younger son of Sir Henry Liddell, 5th Baronet and the former Elizabeth Steele. His fathers elder brother, Sir Thomas Liddell, 6th Baronet, was raised to the Peerage as Baron Ravensworth in 1821 and his mother was the former Charlotte Lyon, a daughter of Thomas Lyon and the former Mary Wren. On 2 July 1846, Henry married Lorina Reeve and they were parents of ten children, Edward Harry Liddell. Alice Pleasance Liddell, for whom the story of the childrens classic Alices Adventures in Wonderland was originally told, rhoda Caroline Anne Liddell, she was invested as an Officer, Order of the British Empire in 1920. Albert Edward Arthur Liddell, he died in infancy, violet Constance Liddell, she was invested as a Member, Order of the British Empire in 1920. Sir Frederick Francis Liddell, First Parliamentary Counsel and Ecclesiastical Commissioner, lionel Charles Liddell, he was British Consul to Lyons and Copenhagen
37.
International Standard Book Number
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The International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an e-book, a paperback and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, the method of assigning an ISBN is nation-based and varies from country to country, often depending on how large the publishing industry is within a country. The initial ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering created in 1966, the 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108. Occasionally, a book may appear without a printed ISBN if it is printed privately or the author does not follow the usual ISBN procedure, however, this can be rectified later. Another identifier, the International Standard Serial Number, identifies periodical publications such as magazines, the ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 in the United Kingdom by David Whitaker and in 1968 in the US by Emery Koltay. The 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108, the United Kingdom continued to use the 9-digit SBN code until 1974. The ISO on-line facility only refers back to 1978, an SBN may be converted to an ISBN by prefixing the digit 0. For example, the edition of Mr. J. G. Reeder Returns, published by Hodder in 1965, has SBN340013818 -340 indicating the publisher,01381 their serial number. This can be converted to ISBN 0-340-01381-8, the check digit does not need to be re-calculated, since 1 January 2007, ISBNs have contained 13 digits, a format that is compatible with Bookland European Article Number EAN-13s. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an ebook, a paperback, and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, a 13-digit ISBN can be separated into its parts, and when this is done it is customary to separate the parts with hyphens or spaces. Separating the parts of a 10-digit ISBN is also done with either hyphens or spaces, figuring out how to correctly separate a given ISBN number is complicated, because most of the parts do not use a fixed number of digits. ISBN issuance is country-specific, in that ISBNs are issued by the ISBN registration agency that is responsible for country or territory regardless of the publication language. Some ISBN registration agencies are based in national libraries or within ministries of culture, in other cases, the ISBN registration service is provided by organisations such as bibliographic data providers that are not government funded. In Canada, ISBNs are issued at no cost with the purpose of encouraging Canadian culture. In the United Kingdom, United States, and some countries, where the service is provided by non-government-funded organisations. Australia, ISBNs are issued by the library services agency Thorpe-Bowker
38.
Wayback Machine
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The Internet Archive launched the Wayback Machine in October 2001. It was set up by Brewster Kahle and Bruce Gilliat, and is maintained with content from Alexa Internet, the service enables users to see archived versions of web pages across time, which the archive calls a three dimensional index. Since 1996, the Wayback Machine has been archiving cached pages of websites onto its large cluster of Linux nodes and it revisits sites every few weeks or months and archives a new version. Sites can also be captured on the fly by visitors who enter the sites URL into a search box, the intent is to capture and archive content that otherwise would be lost whenever a site is changed or closed down. The overall vision of the machines creators is to archive the entire Internet, the name Wayback Machine was chosen as a reference to the WABAC machine, a time-traveling device used by the characters Mr. Peabody and Sherman in The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, an animated cartoon. These crawlers also respect the robots exclusion standard for websites whose owners opt for them not to appear in search results or be cached, to overcome inconsistencies in partially cached websites, Archive-It. Information had been kept on digital tape for five years, with Kahle occasionally allowing researchers, when the archive reached its fifth anniversary, it was unveiled and opened to the public in a ceremony at the University of California, Berkeley. Snapshots usually become more than six months after they are archived or, in some cases, even later. The frequency of snapshots is variable, so not all tracked website updates are recorded, Sometimes there are intervals of several weeks or years between snapshots. After August 2008 sites had to be listed on the Open Directory in order to be included. As of 2009, the Wayback Machine contained approximately three petabytes of data and was growing at a rate of 100 terabytes each month, the growth rate reported in 2003 was 12 terabytes/month, the data is stored on PetaBox rack systems manufactured by Capricorn Technologies. In 2009, the Internet Archive migrated its customized storage architecture to Sun Open Storage, in 2011 a new, improved version of the Wayback Machine, with an updated interface and fresher index of archived content, was made available for public testing. The index driving the classic Wayback Machine only has a bit of material past 2008. In January 2013, the company announced a ground-breaking milestone of 240 billion URLs, in October 2013, the company announced the Save a Page feature which allows any Internet user to archive the contents of a URL. This became a threat of abuse by the service for hosting malicious binaries, as of December 2014, the Wayback Machine contained almost nine petabytes of data and was growing at a rate of about 20 terabytes each week. Between October 2013 and March 2015 the websites global Alexa rank changed from 162 to 208, in a 2009 case, Netbula, LLC v. Chordiant Software Inc. defendant Chordiant filed a motion to compel Netbula to disable the robots. Netbula objected to the motion on the ground that defendants were asking to alter Netbulas website, in an October 2004 case, Telewizja Polska USA, Inc. v. Echostar Satellite, No.02 C3293,65 Fed. 673, a litigant attempted to use the Wayback Machine archives as a source of admissible evidence, Telewizja Polska is the provider of TVP Polonia and EchoStar operates the Dish Network
39.
Labyrinths
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Labyrinths is a collection of short stories and essays by Jorge Luis Borges translated into the English-language. It includes Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius, The Garden of Forking Paths, many of the stories are from the collections Ficciones and El Aleph. The English edition was edited by Donald A. Yates and James E. Irby, bibliography of Jorge Luis Borges Borges and other 20th century writers. Archived from the original on 2013-5-9
40.
Ancient Greek coinage
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The history of Ancient Greek coinage can be divided into four periods, the Archaic, the Classical, the Hellenistic and the Roman. The Archaic period extends from the introduction of coinage to the Greek world during the 7th century BC until the Persian Wars in about 480 BC, the Greek cities continued to produce their own coins for several more centuries under Roman rule. The coins produced during this period are called Roman provincial coins or Greek Imperial Coins, the word drachm means a handful, literally a grasp. Drachmae were divided into six obols, and six spits made a handful and this suggests that before coinage came to be used in Greece, spits in prehistoric times were used as measures in daily transactions. Because of this aspect, Spartan legislation famously forbade issuance of Spartan coin, and enforced the continued use of iron spits so as to discourage avarice. In addition to its meaning, the word obol was retained as a Greek word for coins of small value. The obol was further subdivided into tetartemorioi which represented 1/4 of an obol and this coin is mentioned by Aristotle as the smallest silver coin. Various multiples of this denomination were also struck, including the trihemitetartemorion valued at 3/8 of an obol and these coins were made of electrum, an alloy of gold and silver that was highly prized and abundant in that area. By the middle of the 6th century BC, technology had advanced, making the production of pure gold, accordingly, King Croesus introduced a bi-metallic standard that allowed for coins of pure gold and pure silver to be struck and traded in the marketplace. The Greek world was divided more than two thousand self-governing city-states, and more than half of them issued their own coins. As such coins circulated widely, other cities began to mint coins to this Aeginetan weight standard of. Athenian coins, however, were struck on the Attic standard, over time, Athens plentiful supply of silver from the mines at Laurion and its increasing dominance in trade made this the pre-eminent standard. These coins, known as owls because of their central design feature, were minted to an extremely tight standard of purity. This contributed to their success as the premier trade coin of their era, tetradrachms on this weight standard continued to be a widely used coin through the classical period. By the time of Alexander the Great and his Hellenistic successors, the Classical period saw Greek coinage reach a high level of technical and aesthetic quality. Larger cities now produced a range of silver and gold coins, most bearing a portrait of their patron god or goddess or a legendary hero on one side. Some coins employed a visual pun, some coins from Rhodes featured a rose, the use of inscriptions on coins also began, usually the name of the issuing city. The wealthy cities of Sicily produced some especially fine coins, the large silver decadrachm coin from Syracuse is regarded by many collectors as the finest coin produced in the ancient world, perhaps ever
