1.
Pantheon, Rome
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The Pantheon is a former Roman temple, now a church, in Rome, Italy, on the site of an earlier temple commissioned by Marcus Agrippa during the reign of Augustus. The present building was completed by the emperor Hadrian and probably dedicated about 126 AD and he retained Agrippas original inscription, which has confused its date of construction as the original Pantheon burnt down so it is not certain when the present one was built. The building is circular with a portico of large granite Corinthian columns under a pediment, a rectangular vestibule links the porch to the rotunda, which is under a coffered concrete dome, with a central opening to the sky. Almost two thousand years after it was built, the Pantheons dome is still the worlds largest unreinforced concrete dome, the height to the oculus and the diameter of the interior circle are the same,43.3 metres. Mary and the Martyrs but informally known as Santa Maria Rotonda, the square in front of the Pantheon is called Piazza della Rotonda. The Pantheon is a property, ruled by Italys Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism through the Polo Museale del Lazio. The Pantheons large circular domed cella, with a temple portico front, is unique in Roman architecture. Nevertheless, it became a standard exemplar when classical styles were revived, Pantheon is derived from the Ancient Greek Pantheion meaning of, relating to, or common to all the gods. His uncertainty strongly suggests that Pantheon was merely a nickname, not the name of the building. In fact, the concept of a dedicated to all the gods is questionable. The only definite pantheon recorded earlier than Agrippas was at Antioch in Syria and it seems highly significant that Dio does not quote the simplest explanation for the name—that the Pantheon was dedicated to all the gods. Godfrey and Hemsoll maintain that the word Pantheon need not denote a group of gods, or, indeed, even all the gods. Certainly the word pantheus or pantheos, could be applicable to individual deities…, bearing in mind also that the Greek word θεῖος need not mean of a god but could mean superhuman, or even excellent. It seems likely that the Pantheon and the Basilica of Neptune were Agrippas sacra privata and this less solemn designation would help explain how the building could have so easily lost its original name and purpose in such a relatively short period of time. However, archaeological excavations have shown that the Pantheon of Agrippa had been destroyed except for the façade. Lise Hetland argues that the present construction began in 114, under Trajan and her argument is particularly interesting in light of Heilmeyers argument that, based on stylistic evidence, Apollodorus of Damascus, Trajans architect, was the obvious architect. The form of Agrippas Pantheon is debated and this description was widely accepted until the late 20th century. The only passages referring to the decoration of the Agrippan Pantheon written by an eyewitness are in Plinys Natural History, from him we know that the capitals, too, of the pillars, which were placed by M
2.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
3.
Temple
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A temple is a structure reserved for religious or spiritual rituals and activities such as prayer and sacrifice. It is typically used for such buildings belonging to all faiths where a specific term such as church. These include Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism among religions with many modern followers, the form and function of temples is thus very variable, though they are often considered by believers to be in some sense the house of one or more deities. Typically offerings of some sort are made to the deity, and other rituals enacted, the degree to which the whole population of believers can access the building varies significantly, often parts or even the whole main building can only be accessed by the clergy. Temples typically have a building and a larger precinct, which may contain many other buildings. The word comes from Ancient Rome, where a templum constituted a sacred precinct as defined by a priest and it has the same root as the word template, a plan in preparation of the building that was marked out on the ground by the augur. Templa also became associated with the places of a god or gods. Hindu temples are large and magnificent with a rich history, there is evidence of use of sacred ground as far back as the Bronze Age and later the Indus Valley Civilization. Hindu temples have been built in countries around the world, including Cambodia, Nepal, Mauritius, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Great Britain. They include the structures called stupa, wat and pagoda in different regions, Temples in Buddhism represent the pure land or pure environment of a Buddha. Traditional Buddhist temples are designed to inspire inner and outer peace, a Jain temple is the place of worship for Jains, the followers of Jainism. Some famous Jain temples are Shikharji, Palitana Jain Temples, Ranakpur Jain Temple, Shravan Belgola, Dilwara Temples, Jain temples are built with various architectural designs. Jain temples in North India are completely different from the Jain temples in South India, additionally, a Manastambha is a pillar that is often constructed in front of Jain temples. The temple of Mesopotamia derived from the cult of gods and deities in the Mesopotamian religion and it spanned several civilizations, from Sumerian, Akkadian, Assyrian, and Babylonian. Ancient Egyptian temples were meant as places for the deities to reside on earth, indeed, the term the Egyptians most commonly used to describe the temple building, ḥwt-nṯr, means mansion of a god. A gods presence in the temple linked the human and divine realms and these rituals, it was believed, sustained the god and allowed it to continue to play its proper role in nature. They were therefore a key part of the maintenance of maat, maintaining maat was the entire purpose of Egyptian religion, and thus it was the purpose of a temple as well. Ancient Egyptian temples were also of significance to Egyptian society
4.
Classical architecture
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Different styles of classical architecture have arguably existed since the Carolingian Renaissance, and prominently since the Italian Renaissance. Although classical styles of architecture can vary greatly, they can in all be said to draw on a common vocabulary of decorative and constructive elements. The term classical architecture also applies to any mode of architecture that has evolved to a highly refined state, such as classical Chinese architecture and it can also refer to any architecture that employs classical aesthetic philosophy. The term might be used differently from traditional or vernacular architecture, for contemporary buildings following authentic classical principles, the term New Classical Architecture may be used. Classical architecture is derived from the architecture of ancient Greece and ancient Rome, with the collapse of the western part of the Roman empire, the architectural traditions of the Roman empire ceased to be practised in large parts of western Europe. In the Byzantine Empire, the ancient ways of building lived on, the first conscious efforts to bring back the disused language of form of classical antiquity into Western architecture can be traced to the Carolingian Renaissance of the late 8th and 9th centuries. In general, therefore, they are not considered classical architectural styles in a strict sense, nonetheless, the classical architecture of the Renaissance from the outset represents a highly specific interpretation of the classical ideas. Most of the styles originating in post-renaissance Europe can be described as classical architecture and this broad use of the term is employed by Sir John Summerson in The Classical Language of Architecture. The elements of architecture have been applied in radically different architectural contexts than those for which they were developed. For example, Baroque or Rococo architecture are styles which, although classical at root, during these periods, architectural theory still referred to classical ideas but rather less sincerely than during the Renaissance. Neoclassical architecture held a strong position on the architectural scene c. With the advent of Modernism during the early 20th century, classical architecture arguably almost completely ceased to be practised, as noted above, classical styles of architecture dominated Western architecture for a very long time, roughly from the Renaissance until the advent of Modernism. That is to say, that classical antiquity at least in theory was considered the source of inspiration for architectural endeavours in the West for much of Modern history. Furthermore, it can even be argued that styles of architecture not typically considered classical, like Gothic, therefore, a simple delineation of the scope of classical architecture is difficult to make. The more or less defining characteristic can still be said to be a reference to ancient Greek or Roman architecture, and the architectural rules or theories that derived from that architecture. In the grammar of architecture, the word petrification is often used when discussing the development of sacred structures, such as temples, during the Archaic and early Classical periods, the architectural forms of the earliest temples had solidified and the Doric emerged as the predominant element. And not everyone within the reach of Mediterranean civilization made this transition. Nor was it the lack of knowledge of working on their part that prevented them from making the transition from timber to dressed stone
5.
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
6.
Cella
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A cella or naos is the inner chamber of a temple in classical architecture, or a shop facing the street in domestic Roman architecture, such as a domus. Its enclosure within walls has given rise to extended meanings, of a hermits or monks cell, in Ancient Greek and Roman temples the cella is a room at the centre of the building, usually containing a cult image or statue representing the particular deity venerated in the temple. In addition the cella may contain a table or plinth to receive votive offerings such as statues, precious and semi-precious stones, helmets, spear and arrow heads, swords. The accumulated offerings made Greek and Roman temples virtual treasuries, the cella is typically a simple, windowless, rectangular room with a door or open entrance at the front behind a colonnaded portico facade. In larger temples, the cella was divided by two colonnades into a central nave flanked by two aisles. A cella may contain an adyton, an inner area restricted to access by the priests—in religions that had a consecrated priesthood—or by the temple guard. With very few exceptions Greek buildings were of a design that placed the cella in the center of the plan, such as the Parthenon. The Romans favoured pseudoperipteral buildings with a portico offsetting the cella to the rear, the pseudoperipteral plan uses engaged columns embedded along the side and rear walls of the cella. The Temple of Venus and Roma built by Hadrian in Rome had two cellae arranged back-to-back enclosed by a single outer peristyle, according to Vitruvius, the Etruscan type of temples had three cellae, side by side, conjoined by a double row of columns on the facade. The cella, also called the naos, holds many box-like shrines, the Greek word naos has been extended by archaeologists to describe the central room of the pyramids. Towards the end of the Old Kingdom, naos construction went from being subterranean to being directly into the pyramid. The naos was surrounded by different paths and rooms, many used to confuse and divert thieves. In early Christian and Byzantine architecture, the cella or naos is an area at the centre of the reserved for performing the liturgy. In later periods a small chapel or monks cell was also called a cella, list of Greco-Roman roofs This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh, ed. Cella. Trachtenberg and Hyman, Architecture, From Prehistory to Post Modernity Vitruvius, De architectura, Book IV. ch 7, translation, plans and reconstructions of Tuscan cellae
7.
Phidias
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Phidias or Pheidias was a Greek sculptor, painter, and architect. His statue of Zeus at Olympia was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, Phidias was the son of Charmides of Athens. The ancients believed that his masters were Hegias and Ageladas, Phidias is often credited as the main instigator of the Classical Greek sculptural design. Today, most critics and historians consider him one of the greatest of all ancient Greek sculptors, although no original works exist that can be attributed to Phidias with certainty, numerous Roman copies of varying degrees of fidelity are known to exist. Almost all classical Greek paintings and sculptures have been destroyed, and only Roman copies or notes of them exist, the ancient Romans frequently copied and further developed Greek art. In antiquity Phidias was celebrated for his statues in bronze and his chryselephantine works, in the Hippias Major, Plato claims that Phidias seldom, if ever, executed works in marble, though many of the sculptures of his times were executed in marble. Plutarch tells us that he superintended the works ordered by Pericles on the Acropolis. Ancient critics take a high view of the merits of Phidias. What they especially praise is the ethos or permanent moral level of his works as compared with those of the later so called pathetic school, demetrius calls his statues sublime, and at the same time precise. Of his life we know little apart from his works and his first commission created a group of national heroes with Miltiades as a central figure. Pericles used some of the money from the maritime League of Delos, to rebuild, inscriptions prove that the marble blocks intended for the pedimental statues of the Parthenon were not brought to Athens until 434 BC, which was probably after the death of Phidias. It is therefore possible that most of sculptural decoration of the Parthenon was the work of Phidias workshop including pupils of Phidias, such as Alcamenes, the Golden Ratio has been represented by the Greek letter φ, after Phidias, who is said to have employed it. The Golden Ratio is an irrational number approximating 1.6180 which has special mathematical properties, the golden spiral is also said to hold aesthetic values. The earliest of the works of Phidias were dedications in memory of Marathon, at Delphi he created a great group in bronze including the figures of Greek gods Apollo and Athena, several Attic heroes, and General Miltiades the Younger. On the Acropolis of Athens Phidias constructed a bronze statue of Athena, the Athena Promachos. Athena was the goddess of wisdom and warriors and the protector of Athens, at Pellene in Achaea, and at Plataea Phidias made two other statues of Athena, as well as a statue of the goddess Aphrodite in ivory and gold for the people of Elis. Both sculptures belong to about the middle of the 5th century BC, a number of replicas and works inspired by it, both ancient and modern, have been made. Phidias left Athens in about 438 BC, on completion of the Athena Parthenos, accused by a fellow worker of embezzlement, and unable to account for the amount of gold used in separate parts of the statue, he voluntarily underwent exile rather than face public humiliation
8.
Leo von Klenze
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Leo von Klenze was a German neoclassicist architect, painter and writer. Court architect of Bavarian King Ludwig I, Leo von Klenze was one of the most prominent representatives of Greek revival style. Von Klenze studied architecture and public building finance under Friedrich Gilly in Berlin, between 1808 and 1813 he was a court architect of Jérôme Bonaparte, King of Westphalia. Later he moved to Bavaria and in 1816 began to work as architect of Ludwig I. The Kings passion for Hellenism shaped the style of von Klenze. He built many buildings in Munich, including the Ruhmeshalle. On Königsplatz he designed probably the best known modern Hellenistic architectural ensemble, near Regensburg he built the Walhalla temple, named after Valhalla, the home of gods in Norse mythology. When Greece won its independence, Ludwig Is son Otto became the countrys first king, von Klenze was invited to Athens to submit plans of city reconstruction in the style of Ancient Greece. Von Klenze was not only an architect, but also an accomplished painter, in many of his paintings ancient buildings were depicted. Those served as models for his own architectural projects, Klenze studied ancient architecture during his travels to Italy and Greece. He also participated in excavations of ancient buildings in Athens and submitted projects for the restoration of the Acropolis, Klenze collected works of important contemporary German painters. He sold his collection, including 58 landscapes and genre paintings and these paintings form the core of the Neue Pinakothek museums collection. Von Klenze married Maria Felicitas Blangini a beauty at the court of Ludwig I and their granddaughter Irene Athenais von Klenze became Countess Courten. Von Klenze died in 1864 and was buried in the Alter Südfriedhof in Munich, Walhalla temple near Regensburg Neues Schloss at Pappenheim New Hermitage in Saint Petersburg, Russia Catholic church of St. 162–166
9.
Ancient Greek
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Ancient Greek includes the forms of Greek used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around the 9th century BC to the 6th century AD. It is often divided into the Archaic period, Classical period. It is antedated in the second millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek, the language of the Hellenistic phase is known as Koine. Koine is regarded as a historical stage of its own, although in its earliest form it closely resembled Attic Greek. Prior to the Koine period, Greek of the classic and earlier periods included several regional dialects, Ancient Greek was the language of Homer and of fifth-century Athenian historians, playwrights, and philosophers. It has contributed many words to English vocabulary and has been a subject of study in educational institutions of the Western world since the Renaissance. This article primarily contains information about the Epic and Classical phases of the language, Ancient Greek was a pluricentric language, divided into many dialects. The main dialect groups are Attic and Ionic, Aeolic, Arcadocypriot, some dialects are found in standardized literary forms used in literature, while others are attested only in inscriptions. There are also several historical forms, homeric Greek is a literary form of Archaic Greek used in the epic poems, the Iliad and Odyssey, and in later poems by other authors. Homeric Greek had significant differences in grammar and pronunciation from Classical Attic, the origins, early form and development of the Hellenic language family are not well understood because of a lack of contemporaneous evidence. Several theories exist about what Hellenic dialect groups may have existed between the divergence of early Greek-like speech from the common Proto-Indo-European language and the Classical period and they have the same general outline, but differ in some of the detail. The invasion would not be Dorian unless the invaders had some relationship to the historical Dorians. The invasion is known to have displaced population to the later Attic-Ionic regions, the Greeks of this period believed there were three major divisions of all Greek people—Dorians, Aeolians, and Ionians, each with their own defining and distinctive dialects. Often non-west is called East Greek, Arcadocypriot apparently descended more closely from the Mycenaean Greek of the Bronze Age. Boeotian had come under a strong Northwest Greek influence, and can in some respects be considered a transitional dialect, thessalian likewise had come under Northwest Greek influence, though to a lesser degree. Most of the dialect sub-groups listed above had further subdivisions, generally equivalent to a city-state and its surrounding territory, Doric notably had several intermediate divisions as well, into Island Doric, Southern Peloponnesus Doric, and Northern Peloponnesus Doric. The Lesbian dialect was Aeolic Greek and this dialect slowly replaced most of the older dialects, although Doric dialect has survived in the Tsakonian language, which is spoken in the region of modern Sparta. Doric has also passed down its aorist terminations into most verbs of Demotic Greek, by about the 6th century AD, the Koine had slowly metamorphosized into Medieval Greek
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.
Ancient Greek temple
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Greek temples (Ancient Greek, Ναός, Naós dwelling, semantically distinct from Latin templum were structures built to house deity statues within Greek sanctuaries in ancient Greek religion. The temple interiors did not serve as meeting places, since the sacrifices, temples were frequently used to store votive offerings. They are the most important and most widespread building type in Greek architecture, in the Hellenistic kingdoms of Southwest Asia and of North Africa, buildings erected to fulfill the functions of a temple often continued to follow the local traditions. Even where a Greek influence is visible, such structures are not normally considered as Greek temples and this applies, for example, to the Graeco-Parthian and Bactrian temples, or to the Ptolemaic examples, which follow Egyptian tradition. Most Greek temples were oriented astronomically, stylistically, they were governed by the regionally specific architectural orders. Whereas the distinction was originally between the Doric and Ionic orders, an alternative arose in late 3rd century BC with the Corinthian order. A multitude of different ground plans were developed, each of which could be combined with the superstructure in the different orders. From the 3rd century BC onwards, the construction of temples became less common, after a short 2nd century BC flourish. Thereafter, only structures were newly begun, while older temples continued to be renovated or brought to completion if in an unfinished state. Greek temples were designed and constructed according to set proportions, mostly determined by the diameter of the columns or by the dimensions of the foundation levels. The nearly mathematical strictness of the basic designs thus reached was lightened by optical refinements, in spite of the still widespread idealised image, Greek temples were painted, so that bright reds and blues contrasted with the white of the building stones or of stucco. The more elaborate temples were equipped with rich figural decoration in the form of reliefs. The construction of temples was usually organised and financed by cities or by the administrations of sanctuaries, private individuals, especially Hellenistic rulers, could also sponsor such buildings. New temples now belonged to the tradition of Roman architecture, which, in spite of the Greek influence on it, aimed for different goals and followed different aesthetic principles. The Mycenaean Megaron was the precursor for later Archaic and Classical Greek temples, the basic principles for the development of Greek temple architecture have their roots between the 10th century BC and the 7th century BC. In its simplest form as a naos, the temple was a rectangular shrine with protruding side walls. Until the 8th century BC, there were also apsidal structures with more or less semi-circular back walls, by adding columns to this small basic structure, the Greeks triggered the development and variety of their temple architecture. The columns and superstructure were wooden, door openings and antae were protected with wooden planks, the mud brick walls were often reinforced by wooden posts, in a type of half-timbered technique
12.
Acropolis of Athens
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The word acropolis comes from the Greek words ἄκρον and πόλις. Although there are many other acropoleis in Greece, the significance of the Acropolis of Athens is such that it is known as The Acropolis without qualification. The Acropolis is located on a rock that rises 150 m above sea level in the city of Athens. It was also known as Cecropia, after the legendary serpent-man, Cecrops, while the earliest artifacts date to the Middle Neolithic era, there have been documented habitations in Attica from the Early Neolithic. There is little doubt that a Mycenaean megaron stood upon the hill during the late Bronze Age, nothing of this megaron survives except, probably, a single limestone column-base and pieces of several sandstone steps. Soon after the palace was constructed, a Cyclopean massive circuit wall was built,760 meters long, up to 10 meters high and this wall would serve as the main defense for the acropolis until the 5th century. The wall consisted of two built with large stone blocks and cemented with an earth mortar called emplekton. There were two lesser approaches up the hill on its side, consisting of steep, narrow flights of steps cut in the rock. Homer is assumed to refer to this fortification when he mentions the strong-built House of Erechtheus, at some point before the 13th century BC, an earthquake caused a fissure near the northeastern edge of the Acropolis. This fissure extended some 35 meters to a bed of marl in which a well was dug. An elaborate set of stairs was built and the served as an invaluable. There is no evidence for the existence of a Mycenean palace on top of the Athenian Acropolis. However, if there was such a palace, it seems to have been supplanted by later building activity, not a lot is known about the architectural appearance of the Acropolis until the Archaic era. In the 7th and the 6th centuries BC, the site was taken over by Kylon during the failed Kylonian revolt, nevertheless, it seems that a nine-gate wall, the Enneapylon, had been built around the biggest water spring, the Clepsydra, at the northwestern foot. A temple to Athena Polias, the deity of the city, was erected around 570–550 BC. Whether this temple replaced an older one, or just a sacred precinct or altar, is not known, probably, the Hekatompedon was built where the Parthenon now stands. Between 529–520 BC yet another temple was built by the Peisistratids and this temple of Athena Polias was built upon the Doerpfeld foundations, between the Erechtheion and the still-standing Parthenon. Arkhaios Neōs was destroyed by the Persian invasion in 480 BC, however, the temple may have been burnt down in 406/405 BC as Xenophon mentions that the old temple of Athena was set on fire
13.
Greece
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Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, historically also known as Hellas, is a country in southeastern Europe, with a population of approximately 11 million as of 2015. Athens is the capital and largest city, followed by Thessaloniki. Greece is strategically located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, situated on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, the Republic of Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to the northeast. Greece consists of nine regions, Macedonia, Central Greece, the Peloponnese, Thessaly, Epirus, the Aegean Islands, Thrace, Crete. The Aegean Sea lies to the east of the mainland, the Ionian Sea to the west, the Cretan Sea and the Mediterranean Sea to the south. Greece has the longest coastline on the Mediterranean Basin and the 11th longest coastline in the world at 13,676 km in length, featuring a vast number of islands, eighty percent of Greece is mountainous, with Mount Olympus being the highest peak at 2,918 metres. From the eighth century BC, the Greeks were organised into various independent city-states, known as polis, which spanned the entire Mediterranean region and the Black Sea. Greece was annexed by Rome in the second century BC, becoming a part of the Roman Empire and its successor. The Greek Orthodox Church also shaped modern Greek identity and transmitted Greek traditions to the wider Orthodox World, falling under Ottoman dominion in the mid-15th century, the modern nation state of Greece emerged in 1830 following a war of independence. Greeces rich historical legacy is reflected by its 18 UNESCO World Heritage Sites, among the most in Europe, Greece is a democratic and developed country with an advanced high-income economy, a high quality of life, and a very high standard of living. A founding member of the United Nations, Greece was the member to join the European Communities and has been part of the Eurozone since 2001. Greeces unique cultural heritage, large industry, prominent shipping sector. It is the largest economy in the Balkans, where it is an important regional investor, the names for the nation of Greece and the Greek people differ from the names used in other languages, locations and cultures. The earliest evidence of the presence of human ancestors in the southern Balkans, dated to 270,000 BC, is to be found in the Petralona cave, all three stages of the stone age are represented in Greece, for example in the Franchthi Cave. Neolithic settlements in Greece, dating from the 7th millennium BC, are the oldest in Europe by several centuries and these civilizations possessed writing, the Minoans writing in an undeciphered script known as Linear A, and the Mycenaeans in Linear B, an early form of Greek. The Mycenaeans gradually absorbed the Minoans, but collapsed violently around 1200 BC and this ushered in a period known as the Greek Dark Ages, from which written records are absent. The end of the Dark Ages is traditionally dated to 776 BC, the Iliad and the Odyssey, the foundational texts of Western literature, are believed to have been composed by Homer in the 7th or 8th centuries BC. With the end of the Dark Ages, there emerged various kingdoms and city-states across the Greek peninsula, in 508 BC, Cleisthenes instituted the worlds first democratic system of government in Athens
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Greek gods
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The following is a list of gods, goddesses and many other divine and semi-divine figures from Ancient Greek mythology and Ancient Greek religion. The Greeks created images of their deities for many purposes, a temple would house the statue of a god or goddess, or multiple deities, and might be decorated with relief scenes depicting myths. Divine images were common on coins, drinking cups and other vessels were painted with scenes from Greek myths. The Titans and Titanesses are depicted in Greek art less commonly than the Olympians
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Athena
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Athena or Athene, often given the epithet Pallas, is the goddess of wisdom, craft, and war in ancient Greek religion and mythology. Minerva is the Roman goddess identified with Athena, Athena is known for her calm temperament, as she moves slowly to anger. She is noted to have fought for just reasons. Athena is portrayed as a companion of heroes and is the patron goddess of heroic endeavour. She is the patroness of Athens. The Athenians founded the Parthenon on the Acropolis of her city, Athens. Veneration of Athena was so persistent that archaic myths about her were recast to adapt to cultural changes, in her role as a protector of the city, many people throughout the Greek world worshipped Athena as Athena Polias. While the city of Athens and the goddess Athena essentially bear the same name, Athena is associated with Athens, a plural name, because it was the place where she presided over her sisterhood, the Athenai, in earliest times. Mycenae was the city where the Goddess was called Mykene, at Thebes she was called Thebe, and the city again a plural, Thebae. Similarly, at Athens she was called Athena, and the city Athenae, Athena had a special relationship with Athens, as is shown by the etymological connection of the names of the goddess and the city. According to mythical lore, she competed with Poseidon and she won by creating the olive tree, the Athenians would accept her gift and name the city after her. In history, the citizens of Athens built a statue of Athena as a temple to the goddess, which had piercing eyes, a helmet on her head, attired with an aegis or cuirass, and an extremely long spear. It also had a shield with the head of the Gorgon on it. A large snake accompanied her and she held Nike, the goddess of victory, therefore, Mylonas believes that Athena was a Mycenaean creation. On the other hand, Nilsson claims that she was the goddess of the palace who protected the king, a-ta-no-dju-wa-ja is also found in Linear A Minoan, the final part being regarded as the Linear A Minoan equivalent of the Linear B Mycenaean di-u-ja or di-wi-ja. Divine Athena also was a weaver and the deity of crafts, whether her name is attested in Eteocretan or not will have to wait for decipherment of Linear A. Perhaps, however, the name Theonoe may mean she who knows divine things better than others. Thus for Plato her name was to be derived from Greek Ἀθεονόα, Plato also noted that the citizens of Sais in Egypt worshipped a goddess whose Egyptian name was Neith, and which was identified with Athena. Neith was the war goddess and huntress deity of the Egyptians since the ancient Pre-Dynastic period, in addition, ancient Greek myths reported that Athena had visited many mythological places such as Libyas Triton River in North Africa and the Phlegraean plain
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Delian League
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Shortly after its inception, Athens began to use the Leagues navy for its own purposes. This behavior frequently led to conflict between Athens and the powerful members of the League. The Greco-Persian Wars had their roots in the conquest of the Greek cities of Asia Minor, the Persians found the Ionians difficult to rule, eventually settling for sponsoring a tyrant in each Ionian city. While Greek states had in the past often been ruled by tyrants, by 500 BC, Ionia appears to have been ripe for rebellion against these Persian clients. The simmering tension finally broke into open revolt due to the actions of the tyrant of Miletus, attempting to save himself after a disastrous Persian-sponsored expedition in 499 BC, Aristagoras chose to declare Miletus a democracy. This triggered similar revolutions across Ionia, extending to Doris and Aeolis, after this, the Ionian revolt carried on for a further five years, until it was finally completely crushed by the Persians. The Ionian revolt had severely threatened the stability of Dariuss empire, Darius thus began to contemplate the complete conquest of Greece, beginning with the destruction of Athens and Eretria. In the next two decades there would be two Persian invasions of Greece, occasioning, thanks to Greek historians, some of the most famous battles in history. During the first invasion, Thrace, Macedon and the Aegean Islands were added to the Persian Empire, however, the invasion ended in 490 BC with the decisive Athenian victory at the Battle of Marathon. Between the two invasions, Darius died, and responsibility for the war passed to his son Xerxes I, Xerxes then personally led a second Persian invasion of Greece in 480 BC, taking an enormous army and navy to Greece. Those Greeks who chose to resist were defeated in the simultaneous battles of Thermopylae on land. The following year,479 BC, the Allies assembled the largest Greek army yet seen and defeated the Persian invasion force at the Battle of Plataea, ending the invasion and the threat to Greece. The Allied fleet defeated the remnants of the Persian fleet in the Battle of Mycale near the islands of Salamis—on the same day as Plataea and this action marks the end of the Persian invasion, and the beginning of the next phase in the Greco-Persian wars, the Greek counterattack. After Mycale, the Greek cities of Asia Minor again revolted, the Allied fleet then sailed to the Thracian Chersonese, still held by the Persians, and besieged and captured the town of Sestos. The following year,478 BC, the Allies sent a force to capture the city of Byzantion, the siege was successful, but the behaviour of the Spartan general Pausanias alienated many of the Allies, and resulted in Pausaniass recall. After Byzantion, Sparta was eager to end its involvement in the war, the Spartans were of the view that, with the liberation of mainland Greece, and the Greek cities of Asia Minor, the wars purpose had already been reached. There was also perhaps a feeling that establishing long-term security for the Asian Greeks would prove impossible, in the aftermath of Mycale, the Spartan king Leotychides had proposed transplanting all the Greeks from Asia Minor to Europe as the only method of permanently freeing them from Persian dominion. Xanthippus, the Athenian commander at Mycale, had rejected this, the Ionian cities had been Athenian colonies
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Classical Greece
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Classical Greece was a period of around 200 years in Greek culture. This Classical period saw the annexation of much of modern-day Greece by the Persian Empire, Classical Greece had a powerful influence on the Roman Empire and on the foundations of western civilization. Much of modern Western politics, artistic thought, scientific thought, theatre, literature, in the context of the art, architecture, and culture of Ancient Greece, the Classical period, sometimes called the Hellenic period, corresponds to most of the 5th and 4th centuries BC. The Classical period in this sense follows the Archaic period and is in turn succeeded by the Hellenistic period and this century is essentially studied from the Athenian outlook because Athens has left us more narratives, plays, and other written works than the other ancient Greek states. From the perspective of Athenian culture in Classical Greece, the period referred to as the 5th century BC extends slightly into the 4th century BC. In this context, one might consider that the first significant event of this occurs in 508 BC, with the fall of the last Athenian tyrant. However, a view of the whole Greek world might place its beginning at the Ionian Revolt of 500 BC. The Persians were defeated in 490 BC, the Delian League then formed, under Athenian hegemony and as Athens instrument. Athens excesses caused several revolts among the cities, all of which were put down by force. After both forces were spent, a brief peace came about, then the war resumed to Spartas advantage, Athens was definitively defeated in 404 BC, and internal Athenian agitations mark the end of the 5th century BC in Greece. Since its beginning, Sparta had been ruled by a diarchy and this meant that Sparta had two kings ruling concurrently throughout its entire history. The two kingships were both hereditary, vested in the Agiad dynasty and the Eurypontid dynasty, according to legend, the respective hereditary lines of these two dynasties sprang from Eurysthenes and Procles, twin descendants of Hercules. They were said to have conquered Sparta two generations after the Trojan War, in 510 BC, Spartan troops helped the Athenians overthrow their king, the tyrant Hippias, son of Peisistratos. Cleomenes I, king of Sparta, put in place a pro-Spartan oligarchy headed by Isagoras, but his rival Cleisthenes, with the support of the middle class and aided by democrats, took over. Cleomenes intervened in 508 and 506 BC, but could not stop Cleisthenes, through his reforms, the people endowed their city with isonomic institutions — i. e. with equal rights for all —and established ostracism. The isonomic and isegoric democracy was first organized into about 130 demes, the 10,000 citizens exercised their power as members of the assembly, headed by a council of 500 citizens chosen at random. The territory of the city was divided into thirty trittyes as follows, ten trittyes in the coastal region ten trittyes in the ἄστυ. A tribe consisted of three trittyes, selected at random, one each of the three groups
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Doric order
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The Doric order was one of the three orders of ancient Greek and later Roman architecture, the other two canonical orders were the Ionic and the Corinthian. The Doric is most easily recognised by the simple circular capitals at the top of columns and it was the earliest and in its essence the simplest of the orders, though still with complex details in the entablature above. The Greek Doric column was fluted or smooth-surfaced, and had no base, the capital was a simple circular form, with some mouldings, under a square cushion that is very wide in early versions, but later more restrained. In stone they are purely ornamental, the relatively uncommon Roman and Renaissance Doric retained these, and often introduced thin layers of moulding or further ornament, as well as often using plain columns. The Doric order was used in Greek Revival architecture from the 18th century onwards, often earlier Greek versions were used, with wider columns. Since at least Vitruvius it has been customary for writers to associate the Doric with masculine virtues and it is also normally the cheapest of the orders to use. In their original Greek version, Doric columns stood directly on the pavement of a temple without a base. The Parthenon has the Doric design columns and it was most popular in the Archaic Period in mainland Greece, and also found in Magna Graecia, as in the three temples at Paestum. These are in the Archaic Doric, where the capitals spread wide from the column compared to later Classical forms, pronounced features of both Greek and Roman versions of the Doric order are the alternating triglyphs and metopes. The triglyphs are decoratively grooved with two vertical grooves and represent the original wooden end-beams, which rest on the plain architrave that occupies the half of the entablature. Under each triglyph are peglike stagons or guttae that appear as if they were hammered in from below to stabilize the post-and-beam construction and they also served to organize rainwater runoff from above. The spaces between the triglyphs are the metopes and they may be left plain, or they may be carved in low relief. The spacing of the triglyphs caused problems which some time to resolve. The architecture followed rules of harmony, since the original design probably came from wooden temples and the triglyphs were real heads of wooden beams, every column had to bear a beam which lay across the centre of the column. Triglyphs were arranged regularly, the last triglyph was centred upon the last column and this was regarded as the ideal solution which had to be reached. Changing to stone instead of wooden beams required full support of the architrave load at the last column. At the first temples the final triglyph was moved, still terminating the sequence, even worse, the last triglyph was not centered with the corresponding column. That “archaic” manner was not regarded as a harmonious design, the resulting problem is called the doric corner conflict
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Ancient Greek art
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The rate of stylistic development between about 750 and 300 BC was remarkable by ancient standards, and in surviving works is best seen in sculpture. There were important innovations in painting, which have to be reconstructed due to the lack of original survivals of quality. The art of ancient Greece is usually divided stylistically into four periods, the Geometric, Archaic, Classical, and Hellenistic. The Geometric age is dated from about 1000 BC, although in reality little is known about art in Greece during the preceding 200 years. The 7th century BC witnessed the development of the Archaic style as exemplified by the black-figure style of vase painting. From some point in the 1st century BC onwards Greco-Roman is used, in reality, there was no sharp transition from one period to another. Forms of art developed at different speeds in different parts of the Greek world, strong local traditions, and the requirements of local cults, enable historians to locate the origins even of works of art found far from their place of origin. Greek art of various kinds was widely exported, the whole period saw a generally steady increase in prosperity and trading links within the Greek world and with neighbouring cultures. The survival rate of Greek art differs starkly between media and we have huge quantities of pottery and coins, much stone sculpture, though even more Roman copies, and a few large bronze sculptures. Almost entirely missing are painting, fine metal vessels, and anything in perishable materials including wood, the stone shell of a number of temples and theatres has survived, but little of their extensive decoration. By convention, finely painted vessels of all sorts are called vases, sculptural or architectural pottery, also very often painted, are referred to as terracottas, and also survive in large quantities. In much of the literature, pottery means only painted vessels, pottery was the main form of grave goods deposited in tombs, often as funerary urns containing the cremated ashes, and was widely exported. Other colours were limited, normally to small areas of white. Within the restrictions of these techniques and other conventions, vase-painters achieved remarkable results, combining refinement. White ground technique allowed more freedom in depiction, but did not wear well and was made for burial. Conventionally, the ancient Greeks are said to have made most pottery vessels for everyday use, not for display. Most surviving pottery consists of vessels for storing, serving or drinking liquids such as amphorae, kraters, hydria, libation bowls, oil and perfume bottles for the toilet, jugs, painted vessels for serving and eating food are much less common. Painted pottery was affordable even by people, and a piece decently decorated with about five or six figures cost about two or three days wages
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Ancient Greece
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Ancient Greece was a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th-9th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and this was followed by the period of Classical Greece, an era that began with the Greco-Persian Wars, lasting from the 5th to 4th centuries BC. Due to the conquests by Alexander the Great of Macedonia, Hellenistic civilization flourished from Central Asia to the end of the Mediterranean Sea. Classical Greek culture, especially philosophy, had a influence on ancient Rome. For this reason Classical Greece is generally considered to be the culture which provided the foundation of modern Western culture and is considered the cradle of Western civilization. Classical Antiquity in the Mediterranean region is considered to have begun in the 8th century BC. Classical Antiquity in Greece is preceded by the Greek Dark Ages and this period is succeeded, around the 8th century BC, by the Orientalizing Period during which a strong influence of Syro-Hittite, Jewish, Assyrian, Phoenician and Egyptian cultures becomes apparent. The end of the Dark Ages is also dated to 776 BC. The Archaic period gives way to the Classical period around 500 BC, Ancient Periods Astronomical year numbering Dates are approximate, consult particular article for details The history of Greece during Classical Antiquity may be subdivided into five major periods. The earliest of these is the Archaic period, in which artists made larger free-standing sculptures in stiff, the Archaic period is often taken to end with the overthrow of the last tyrant of Athens and the start of Athenian Democracy in 508 BC. It was followed by the Classical period, characterized by a style which was considered by observers to be exemplary, i. e. classical, as shown in the Parthenon. This period saw the Greco-Persian Wars and the Rise of Macedon, following the Classical period was the Hellenistic period, during which Greek culture and power expanded into the Near and Middle East. This period begins with the death of Alexander and ends with the Roman conquest, Herodotus is widely known as the father of history, his Histories are eponymous of the entire field. Herodotus was succeeded by authors such as Thucydides, Xenophon, Demosthenes, Plato, most of these authors were either Athenian or pro-Athenian, which is why far more is known about the history and politics of Athens than those of many other cities. Their scope is limited by a focus on political, military and diplomatic history, ignoring economic. In the 8th century BC, Greece began to emerge from the Dark Ages which followed the fall of the Mycenaean civilization, literacy had been lost and Mycenaean script forgotten, but the Greeks adopted the Phoenician alphabet, modifying it to create the Greek alphabet. The Lelantine War is the earliest documented war of the ancient Greek period and it was fought between the important poleis of Chalcis and Eretria over the fertile Lelantine plain of Euboea. Both cities seem to have suffered a decline as result of the long war, a mercantile class arose in the first half of the 7th century BC, shown by the introduction of coinage in about 680 BC
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Athenian democracy
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Other Greek cities set up democracies, most following the Athenian model, but none are as well documented as Athens. It was a system of democracy, in which participating citizens voted directly on legislation. The longest-lasting democratic leader was Pericles, after his death, Athenian democracy was twice briefly interrupted by oligarchic revolutions towards the end of the Peloponnesian War. It was modified somewhat after it was restored under Eucleides, the most detailed accounts of the system are of this fourth-century modification rather than the Periclean system, Democracy was suppressed by the Macedonians in 322 BC. The Athenian institutions were revived, but how close they were to a real democracy is debatable. Solon, Cleisthenes, and Ephialtes contributed to the development of Athenian democracy and he broke up the power of the nobility by organizing citizens into ten groups based on where they lived rather than on their wealth. The word democracy combines the elements dêmos and krátos, and thus means literally people power, in the words monarchy and oligarchy, the second element comes from archē, meaning beginning, and hence also first place or power, sovereignty. One might expect the term demarchy to have adopted, by analogy. However, the word demarchy had already taken and meant mayoralty. We are not certain that the democracy was extant when systems that came to be called democratic were first instituted. The word is attested in Herodotus, who some of the earliest surviving Greek prose. Around 460 BC an individual is known with the name of Democrates, a name possibly coined as a gesture of democratic loyalty, Athens was not the only polis in Ancient Greece that instituted a democratic regime. Aristotle cites many other cities as well, yet, it is only with reference to Athens that we can attempt to trace some of specific sixth century events that led to the institution of democracy at the end of the century. Before the first attempt at government, Athens was ruled by a series of archons or chief magistrates. The members of these institutions were generally aristocrats, who ruled the polis for their own advantage, in 621 BC Draco codified a set of notoriously harsh laws that were a clear expression of the power of the aristocracy over everybody else. This did not stop the aristocratic families feuding amongst themselves to obtain as much power as possible, however, the enfranchisement of the local laboring classes was succeeded by the development of chattel slavery, the enslavement of, in large part, foreigners. Solon, the mediator, reshaped the city by absorbing the traditional aristocracy in a definition of citizenship which allotted a political function to every resident of Attica. Athenians were not slaves but citizens, with the right, at the very least, under these reforms, the position of archon was opened to all with certain property qualifications, and a Boule, a rival council of 400, was set up
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Western culture
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The term also applies beyond Europe, to countries and cultures whose histories are strongly connected to Europe by immigration, colonization, or influence. For example, Western Culture includes countries in the Americas and Australasia, whose language, before the Cold War era, the traditional Western viewpoint identified Western Civilization with the Western Christian countries and culture. Ancient Greece is considered the birthplace of Western culture, with the worlds first democratic system of government and major advances in philosophy, science, Greece was followed by Rome, which made key contributions in law, government, engineering and political organization. European culture developed with a range of philosophy, medieval scholasticism, and mysticism. Rational thinking developed through an age of change and formation, with the experiments of the Enlightenment. More often an ideology is what will be used to categorize it as a Western society. There is some disagreement about what nations should or should not be included in the category, many parts of the Eastern Roman Empire are considered Western today but were Eastern in the past. Since the context is highly biased and context-dependent, there is no agreed definition what the West is and it is difficult to determine which individuals fit into which category and the East–West contrast is sometimes criticized as relativistic and arbitrary. Globalism has spread Western ideas so widely that almost all cultures are, to some extent. Stereotyped views of the West have been labeled Occidentalism, paralleling Orientalism—the term for the 19th-century stereotyped views of the East, as Europe discovered the wider world, old concepts adapted. The area that had formerly considered the Orient became the Near East, as the interests of the European powers interfered with Meiji Japan and Qing China for the first time. Thus, the Sino-Japanese War in 1894–1895 occurred in the Far East, the Greeks contrasted themselves to their Eastern neighbors, such as the Trojans in Iliad, setting an example for later contrasts between east and west. In the Middle Ages, the Near East provided a contrast to the West, concepts of what is the West arose out of legacies of the Western Roman Empire and the Eastern Roman Empire. Later, ideas of the west were formed by the concepts of Latin Christendom, Western culture is neither homogeneous nor unchanging. As with all cultures, it has evolved and gradually changed over time. Nevertheless, it is possible to follow the evolution and history of the West, and appreciate its similarities and differences, its borrowings from, and contributions to, other cultures of humanity. Nevertheless, the Greeks felt they were the most civilized and saw themselves as something between the wild barbarians of most of Europe and the soft, slavish Middle-Easterners. In the meantime, however, Greece, under Alexander, had become a capital of the East, the Celts also created some significant literature in the ancient world whenever they were given the opportunity
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Ministry of Culture and Sports (Greece)
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The incumbent Minister is Aristides Baltas. The Deputy Minister of Sports is Stavros Kontonis and this ministry was established in 1971 as the Ministry of Culture and Science and it was renamed the Ministry of Culture on 26 July 1985. On 7 October 2009, it was merged with the Ministry of Touristic Development to form the Ministry of Culture, the Ministry of Culture and Sport was re-established on 25 June 2013. On 27 January 2015 its area of responsibility was assigned to the Ministry of Culture, Education, on 23 September 2015 the Ministry was reintroduced. Ministry of Culture and Sports English language version Lars website
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Older Parthenon
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It was begun shortly after the battle of Marathon upon a massive limestone foundation that extended and leveled the southern part of the Acropolis summit. This building replaced a hekatompedon and would have stood beside the temple dedicated to Athena Polias. The Old Parthenon was still under construction when the Persians sacked the city in 480 BC, the existence of the proto‐Parthenon and its destruction was known from Herodotus and the drums of its columns were plainly visible built into the curtain wall north of the Erechtheum. Further material evidence of this structure was revealed with the excavations of Panagiotis Kavvadias of 1885-1890 and this platform was smaller and slightly to the north of the final Parthenon, indicating that it was built for a wholly different building, now wholly covered over. If the original Parthenon was indeed destroyed in 480 BC, it invites the question of why the site was left a ruin for 33 years, the mundane fact of the cost of reconstructing Athens after the Persian sack is at least as likely a cause. However the excavations of Bert Hodge Hill led him propose the existence of a second Parthenon begun in the period of Kimon after 468 BC. 51x66. 888m. An attempt to make sense of the potsherds found on the acropolis came with the study by Graef. This inspired American archaeologist William Bell Dinsmoor to attempt to supply limiting dates for the temple platform, Dinsmoor concluded that the latest possible date for Parthenon I was no earlier 495 BCE, contradicting the early date given by Dörpfeld. Further Dinsmoor denied that there were two proto‐Parthenons, and that the only pre‐Periclean temple was what Dörpfeld referred to as Parthenon II, Dinsmoor and Dörpfeld exchanged views in the American Journal of Archaeology in 1935. Hekatompedon temple Old Temple of Athena Parthenon
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Greco-Persian Wars
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The Greco-Persian Wars were a series of conflicts between the Achaemenid Empire of Persia and Greek city-states that started in 499 BC and lasted until 449 BC. The collision between the political world of the Greeks and the enormous empire of the Persians began when Cyrus the Great conquered the Greek-inhabited region of Ionia in 547 BC. Struggling to rule the cities of Ionia, the Persians appointed tyrants to rule each of them. This would prove to be the source of trouble for the Greeks. This was the beginning of the Ionian Revolt, which would last until 493 BC, Aristagoras secured military support from Athens and Eretria, and in 498 BC these forces helped to capture and burn the Persian regional capital of Sardis. The Persian king Darius the Great vowed to have revenge on Athens, the revolt continued, with the two sides effectively stalemated throughout 497–495 BC. In 494 BC, the Persians regrouped, and attacked the epicentre of the revolt in Miletus, at the Battle of Lade, the Ionians suffered a decisive defeat, and the rebellion collapsed, with the final members being stamped out the following year. In 490 BC a second force was sent to Greece, this time across the Aegean Sea, under the command of Datis and this expedition subjugated the Cyclades, before besieging, capturing and razing Eretria. However, while en route to attack Athens, the Persian force was defeated by the Athenians at the Battle of Marathon. Darius then began to plan to completely conquer Greece, but died in 486 BC, in 480 BC, Xerxes personally led the second Persian invasion of Greece with one of the largest ancient armies ever assembled. Victory over the allied Greek states at the famous Battle of Thermopylae allowed the Persians to torch an evacuated Athens, however, while seeking to destroy the combined Greek fleet, the Persians suffered a severe defeat at the Battle of Salamis. The following year, the confederated Greeks went on the offensive, defeating the Persian army at the Battle of Plataea, the allied Greeks followed up their success by destroying the rest of the Persian fleet at the Battle of Mycale, before expelling Persian garrisons from Sestos and Byzantium. The Delian League continued to campaign against Persia for the three decades, beginning with the expulsion of the remaining Persian garrisons from Europe. At the Battle of the Eurymedon in 466 BC, the League won a victory that finally secured freedom for the cities of Ionia. However, the Leagues involvement in an Egyptian revolt resulted in a disastrous defeat, a Greek fleet was sent to Cyprus in 451 BC, but achieved little, and when it withdrew the Greco-Persian Wars drew to a quiet end. Some historical sources suggest the end of hostilities was marked by a treaty between Athens and Persia, the Peace of Callias. Almost all the sources for the Greco-Persian Wars are Greek. By some distance, the source for the Greco-Persian Wars is the Greek historian Herodotus
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Archaeoastronomy
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Archaeoastronomy is the study of how people in the past have understood the phenomena in the sky, how they used these phenomena and what role the sky played in their cultures. It is often twinned with ethnoastronomy, the study of skywatching in contemporary societies. Archaeoastronomy uses a variety of methods to uncover evidence of past practices including archaeology, anthropology, astronomy, statistics and probability, because these methods are diverse and use data from such different sources, integrating them into a coherent argument has been a long-term difficulty for archaeoastronomers. Archaeoastronomy fills complementary niches in landscape archaeology and cognitive archaeology, other examples which have brought together ideas of cognition and landscape include studies of the cosmic order embedded in the roads of settlements. Archaeoastronomy can be applied to all cultures and all time periods, the meanings of the sky vary from culture to culture, nevertheless there are scientific methods which can be applied across cultures when examining ancient beliefs. It is perhaps the need to balance the social and scientific aspects of archaeoastronomy which led Clive Ruggles to describe it as, field with academic work of high quality at one end but uncontrolled speculation bordering on lunacy at the other. Nearly two decades later, we can ask the question, Is archaeoastronomy still waiting at the gates of orthodoxy or has it gotten inside the gates. Two hundred years before Michell wrote the above, there were no archaeoastronomers and there were no professional archaeologists, late in the nineteenth century astronomers such as Richard Proctor and Charles Piazzi Smyth investigated the astronomical orientations of the pyramids. The term archaeoastronomy was first used by Elizabeth Chesley Baity in 1973, Clive Ruggles says that Heinrich Nissen, working in the mid-nineteenth century was arguably the first archaeoastronomer. Rolf Sinclair says that Norman Lockyer, working in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, could be called the father of archaeoastronomy. Euan MacKie would place the origin even later, stating. the genesis, MacKie therefore broadly accepted Thoms conclusions and published new prehistories of Britain. In contrast a re-evaluation of Thoms fieldwork by Clive Ruggles argued that Thoms claims of high accuracy astronomy were not fully supported by the evidence and his influence endures and practice of statistical testing of data remains one of the methods of archaeoastronomy. The approach in the New World, where began to consider more fully the role of astronomy in Amerindian civilizations, was markedly different. They had access to sources that the prehistory of Europe lacks such as ethnographies, following the pioneering example of Anthony Aveni, this allowed New World archaeoastronomers to make claims for motives which in the Old World would have been mere speculation. The concentration on historical data led to claims of high accuracy that were comparatively weak when compared to the statistically led investigations in Europe. This came to a head at a meeting sponsored by the International Astronomical Union in Oxford in 1981, the methodologies and research questions of the participants were considered so different that the conference proceedings were published as two volumes. Archaeoastronomy has long seen as an interdisciplinary field that uses written and unwritten evidence to study the astronomies of other cultures. As such, it can be seen as connecting other disciplinary approaches for investigating ancient astronomy, astroarchaeology, history of astronomy, reflecting Archaeoastronomys development as an interdisciplinary subject, research in the field is conducted by investigators trained in a wide range of disciplines
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Hyades (star cluster)
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The Hyades is the nearest open cluster to the Solar System and one of the best-studied star clusters. The Hipparcos satellite, the Hubble Space Telescope, and infrared color–magnitude diagram fitting have been used to establish a distance of ~153 ly to the cluster center, the distances established by these three independent methods agree, thereby making the Hyades an important rung on the cosmic distance ladder. The cluster consists of a roughly spherical group of hundreds of stars sharing the same age, place of origin, chemical content, and motion through space. From the perspective of observers on Earth, the Hyades Cluster appears in the constellation Taurus, however, Aldebaran is unrelated to the Hyades, as it is located much closer to Earth and merely happens to lie along the same line of sight. The five brightest member stars of the Hyades have all evolved away from the Main Sequence, four of these stars, with Bayer designations Gamma, Delta 1, Epsilon, and Theta Tauri, form an asterism that is traditionally identified as the head of Taurus the Bull. The fifth of these stars is Theta-1 Tauri, a tight naked-eye companion to the brighter Theta-2 Tauri, Epsilon Tauri, known as Ain, has a gas giant exoplanet candidate, the first planet to be found in any open cluster. The age of the Hyades is estimated to be about 625 million years, the cluster core, where stars are most densely packed, has a radius of 2.7 parsecs, and the clusters tidal radius is 10 parsecs. The stars of the Hyades are more enriched in heavier elements than our Sun and other stars in the Solar neighborhood. The Hyades Cluster is related to other groups in the Suns vicinity. Another associate is the Hyades Stream, a collection of scattered stars that also share a similar trajectory with the Hyades Cluster. Recent results have found that at least 15% of stars in the Hyades stream share the same chemical fingerprint as the Hyades cluster stars. Among the remaining members of the Hyades Stream, the exoplanet host star Iota Horologii has recently proposed as an escaped member of the primordial Hyades Cluster. The Hyades are unrelated to two other nearby groups, the Pleiades and the Ursa Major Stream, which are easily visible to the naked eye under clear dark skies. In Greek mythology, the Hyades were the five daughters of Atlas, after the death of their brother, Hyas, the weeping sisters were transformed into a cluster of stars that was afterwards associated with rain. As a naked-eye object, the Hyades cluster has been known since prehistoric times and it is mentioned by numerous Classical authors from Homer to Ovid. In Book 18 of the Iliad the stars of the Hyades appear along with the Pleiades, Ursa Major, in England the cluster was known as the April Rainers from an association with April showers, as recorded in the folk song Green Grow the Rushes, O. The cluster was probably first catalogued by Giovanni Batista Hodierna in 1654, however, Charles Messier did not include the Hyades in his 1781 catalog of deep sky objects. It therefore lacks a Messier number, unlike other, more distant open clusters – e. g. M44, M45
28.
Treasury
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A treasury is either A government department related to finance and taxation. A place or Schatzkammer where currency or precious items like gold, the head of a treasury is typically known as a treasurer. This position may not necessarily have the control over the actions of the treasury. The adjective for a treasury is normally treasurial, the adjective tresorial can also be used, but this normally means pertaining to a treasurer. As of the definition of a treasury from thêsaurus and in the context of the treasure obtained from war efforts the first recorded booty in history is a stele taken during 1160 BC. The sovereigns treasury within the palace in ancient Jerusalem, is considered to be similar in nature to the temple treasury, the temple treasury of the settlement had appointed officials and functioned akin to a bank. In fact, practically in every city there are banking places for the holy money, in excavations of Persopolis a text containing information pertaining to the activities of a temple treasury were discovered dated to the fifth century BC. In the United Kingdom, Her Majestys Treasury is overseen by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the traditional honorary title of First Lord of the Treasury is held by the Prime Minister. Her Majestys Revenue and Customs administers the taxation system, in the United States, the Treasurer reports to an executive-appointed Secretary of the Treasury. The IRS is the agency of the US Department of the Treasury. In many other countries, the treasury is called the ministry of finance, examples include Bangladesh, Belgium, Spain, Italy, New Zealand, Ghana, Canada, Malaysia, Singapore, India, Japan, the Netherlands, and Pakistan, Zimbabwe. In some other countries, a Treasury will exist alongside a separate Ministry of Finance, the government of Poland includes the Ministry of Finance as well as the Ministry of State Treasury, as does the government of Ukraine. It was the same in Italy before the creation of the united Ministry of Economy, in the Australian federal government a treasurer and a finance minister co-exist. The Department of the Treasury is responsible for drafting the government budget, economic policy, some market regulation, the Finance Minister, who manages the Department of Finance and Deregulation, is responsible for budget management, government expenditure and market deregulation. In a text known as the bible, dated somewhat uncertainly to centuries about the 4th BC
29.
History of Christianity
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The history of Christianity concerns the Christian religion, Christendom, and the Church with its various denominations, from the 1st century to the present. Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Christianity spread to all of Europe in the Middle Ages, Christianity expanded throughout the world during Europes Age of Exploration from the Renaissance onwards, becoming the worlds largest religion. Today there are more than two billion Christians worldwide, during its early history, Christianity grew from a 1st-century Jewish following to a religion that existed across the entire Greco-Roman world and beyond. The Roman persecution of Christians ended in AD313 when Constantine the Great decreed tolerance for the religion and he then called the First Council of Nicaea in AD325, beginning of the period of the First seven Ecumenical Councils. The Apostolic Church was the community led by the apostles, and to some degree, in his Great Commission, the resurrected Jesus commanded that his teachings be spread to all the world. While the historical reliability of the Acts of the Apostles is disputed by critics, Acts gives a history of the Church from this commission in 1, 3–11 to the spread of the religion among the Gentiles and the eastern Mediterranean by Paul and others. The first Christians were essentially all ethnically Jewish or Jewish proselytes, in other words, Jesus preached to the Jewish people and called from them his first disciples, see for example Matthew 10. Circumcision in particular was considered repulsive by Greeks and Hellenists while circumcision advocates were labelled Judaisers, related issues are still debated today. The doctrines of the apostles brought the Early Church into conflict with some Jewish religious authorities and this eventually led to their expulsion from the synagogues, according to one theory of the Council of Jamnia. Acts records the martyrdom of the Christian leaders, Stephen and James of Zebedee, the name Christian was first applied to the disciples in Antioch, as recorded in Acts 11,26. Some contend that the term Christian was first coined as a term, meaning little Christs, and was meant as a mockery. The sources for the beliefs of the community include the Gospels. According to a recorded by Eusebius and Epiphanius, the Jerusalem church fled to Pella at the outbreak of the First Jewish–Roman War. The post-apostolic period concerns the time after the death of the apostles until persecutions ended with the legalisation of Christian worship under Emperors Constantine the Great, according to the New Testament, Christians were subject to various persecutions from the beginning. This involved even death for Christians such as Stephen and James, according to Church tradition, it was under Neros persecution that Peter and Paul were each martyred in Rome. Similarly, several of the New Testament writings mention persecutions and stress endurance through them, the last and most severe persecution organised by the imperial authorities was the Diocletianic Persecution,303 -311. In spite of these sometimes intense persecutions, the Christian religion continued its spread throughout the Mediterranean Basin, There is no agreement on how Christianity managed to spread so successfully prior to the Edict of Milan and the establishment of Christianity as the state religion of the Roman Empire. In The Rise of Christianity, Rodney Stark argues that Christianity triumphed over paganism chiefly because it improved the lives of its adherents in various ways
30.
Mary, mother of Jesus
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Mary, also known by various titles, styles and honorifics, was a 1st-century Galilean Jewish woman of Nazareth and the mother of Jesus, according to the New Testament and the Quran. The gospels of Matthew and Luke in the New Testament and the Quran describe Mary as a virgin, the miraculous birth took place when she was already betrothed to Joseph and was awaiting the concluding rite of marriage, the formal home-taking ceremony. She married Joseph and accompanied him to Bethlehem, where Jesus was born, the Gospel of Luke begins its account of Marys life with the Annunciation, when the angel Gabriel appeared to her and announced her divine selection to be the mother of Jesus. According to canonical gospel accounts, Mary was present at the crucifixion and is depicted as a member of the early Christian community in Jerusalem. According to the Catholic and Orthodox teaching, at the end of her life her body was assumed directly into Heaven. Mary has been venerated since Early Christianity, and is considered by millions to be the most meritorious saint of the religion and she is claimed to have miraculously appeared to believers many times over the centuries. The Eastern and Oriental Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Anglican, and Lutheran churches believe that Mary, there is significant diversity in the Marian beliefs and devotional practices of major Christian traditions. The Roman Catholic Church holds distinctive Marian dogmas, namely her status as the Mother of God, her Immaculate Conception, her perpetual virginity, many Protestants minimize Marys role within Christianity, based on the argued brevity of biblical references. Mary also has a position in Islam, where one of the longer chapters of the Quran is devoted to her. Marys name in the manuscripts of the New Testament was based on her original Aramaic name ܡܪܝܡ. The English name Mary comes from the Greek Μαρία, which is a form of Μαριάμ. Both Μαρία and Μαριάμ appear in the New Testament, in Christianity, Mary is commonly referred to as the Virgin Mary, in accordance with the belief that she conceived Jesus miraculously through the Holy Spirit without her husbands involvement. The three main titles for Mary used by the Orthodox are Theotokos, Aeiparthenos as confirmed in the Second Council of Constantinople in 553, Catholics use a wide variety of titles for Mary, and these titles have in turn given rise to many artistic depictions. For example, the title Our Lady of Sorrows has inspired such masterpieces as Michelangelos Pietà, the title Theotokos was recognized at the Council of Ephesus in 431. However, this phrase in Greek, in the abbreviated form ΜΡ ΘΥ, is an indication commonly attached to her image in Byzantine icons. The Council stated that the Church Fathers did not hesitate to speak of the holy Virgin as the Mother of God, some Marian titles have a direct scriptural basis. For instance, the title Queen Mother has been given to Mary since she was the mother of Jesus, the scriptural basis for the term Queen can be seen in Luke 1,32 and the Isaiah 9,6. Queen Mother can be found in 1 Kings 2, 19-20 and Jeremiah 13, other titles have arisen from reported miracles, special appeals or occasions for calling on Mary
31.
Ottoman Greece
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Most of the areas which today are within modern Greeces borders were at some point in the past a part of the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman advance into Greece was preceded by victory over the Serbs to its north, first, the Ottomans won the Battle of Maritsa in 1371. The Serb forces were led by the King Vukasin Mrnjavcevic, the father of Prince Marko. This was followed by another Ottoman victory in the 1389 Battle of Kosovo, with no further threat by the Serbs and the subsequent Byzantine civil wars, the Ottomans besieged and took Constantinople in 1453 and then advanced southwards into Greece, capturing Athens in 1458. The mountains of Greece were largely untouched, and were a refuge for Greeks who desired to flee Ottoman rule, the Cyclades islands, in the middle of the Aegean, were officially annexed by the Ottomans in 1579, although they were under vassal status since the 1530s. Cyprus fell in 1571, and the Venetians retained Crete until 1669, the Ionian Islands were never ruled by the Ottomans, with the exception of Kefalonia, and remained under the rule of the Republic of Venice. It was in the Ionian Islands where modern Greek statehood was born, Ottoman Greece was a multiethnic society as apart from Greeks and Turks, there were many Jews, Italians, Armenians, Serbs, Albanians, Roma, Bulgarians etc. However, the modern Western notion of multiculturalism, although at first glance appears to correspond to the system of millets, is considered to be incompatible with the Ottoman system, despite losing their political independence, the Greeks remained dominant in the fields of commerce and business. After the Ottoman defeat at the Battle of Lepanto however, Greek ships often became the target of attacks by Catholic pirates. This period of Ottoman rule had an impact in Greek society. The Greek land-owning aristocracy that dominated the Byzantine Empire suffered a tragic fate. The new leading class in Ottoman Greece were the prokritoi called kocabaşis by the Ottomans, the prokritoi were essentially bureaucrats and tax collectors, and gained a negative reputation for corruption and nepotism. After the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans in 1453, the Despotate of the Morea was the last remnant of the Byzantine Empire to hold out against the Ottomans, however, this, too, fell to the Ottomans in 1460, completing the Ottoman conquest of mainland Greece. The only part of the Greek-speaking world that escaped Ottoman rule was the Ionian Islands, corfu withstood three major sieges in 1537,1571 and 1716 all of which resulted in the repulsion of the Ottomans. The consolidation of Ottoman rule was followed by two distinct trends of Greek migration and this trend had also effect on the creation of the modern Greek diaspora. The Sultan sat at the apex of the government of the Ottoman Empire, although he had the trappings of an absolute ruler, he was actually bound by tradition and convention. These restrictions imposed by tradition were mainly of a religious nature, indeed, the Quran was the main restriction on absolute rule by the sultan and in this way, the Quran served as a constitution. Ottoman rule of the provinces was characterized by two main functions, the local administrators within the provinces were to maintain a military establishment and to collect taxes
32.
Mosque
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A mosque is a place of worship for followers of Islam. There are strict and detailed requirements in Sunni jurisprudence for a place of worship to be considered a mosque, many mosques have elaborate domes, minarets, and prayer halls, in varying styles of architecture. Mosques originated on the Arabian Peninsula, but are now found in all inhabited continents, the mosque serves as a place where Muslims can come together for salat as well as a center for information, education, social welfare, and dispute settlement. The imam leads the congregation in prayer, the first mosque in the world is often considered to be the area around the Kaaba in Mecca now known as the Masjid al-Haram. Others regard the first mosque in history to be the Quba Mosque in present-day Medina since it was the first structure built by Muhammad upon his emigration from Mecca in 622. The Islamic Prophet Muhammad went on to another mosque in Medina. Built on the site of his home, Muhammad participated in the construction of the mosque himself and helped pioneer the concept of the mosque as the focal point of the Islamic city. The Masjid al-Nabawi introduced some of the still common in todays mosques, including the niche at the front of the prayer space known as the mihrab. The Masjid al-Nabawi was also constructed with a courtyard, a motif common among mosques built since then. Mosques had been built in Iraq and North Africa by the end of the 7th century, the Imam Husayn Shrine in Karbala is reportedly one of the oldest mosques in Iraq, although its present form – typical of Persian architecture – only goes back to the 11th century. The shrine, while operating as a mosque, remains one of the holiest sites for Shia Muslims, as it honors the death of the third Shia imam. The Mosque of Amr ibn al-As was reportedly the first mosque in Egypt, serving as a religious, like the Imam Husayn Shrine, though, nothing of its original structure remains. With the later Shia Fatimid Caliphate, mosques throughout Egypt evolved to include schools, hospitals and it was the first to incorporate a square minaret and includes naves akin to a basilica. Those features can also be found in Andalusian mosques, including the Grand Mosque of Cordoba, still, some elements of Visigothic architecture, like horseshoe arches, were infused into the mosque architecture of Spain and the Maghreb. The first mosque in East Asia was reportedly established in the 8th century in Xian, however, the Great Mosque of Xian, whose current building dates from the 18th century, does not replicate the features often associated with mosques elsewhere. Indeed, minarets were initially prohibited by the state, mosques in western China were more likely to incorporate elements, like domes and minarets, traditionally seen in mosques elsewhere. In turn, the Javanese style influenced the styles of mosques in Indonesias Austronesian neighbors—Malaysia, Brunei, Muslim empires were instrumental in the evolution and spread of mosques. Although mosques were first established in India during the 7th century, reflecting their Timurid origins, Mughal-style mosques included onion domes, pointed arches, and elaborate circular minarets, features common in the Persian and Central Asian styles
33.
Republic of Venice
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It was based in the lagoon communities of the historically prosperous city of Venice. It was a leading European economic and trading power during the Middle Ages, the Venetian city state was founded as a safe haven for people escaping persecution in mainland Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire. In its early years, it prospered on the salt trade, in subsequent centuries, the city state established a thalassocracy. It dominated trade on the Mediterranean Sea, including commerce between Asia, Europe and North Africa, the Venetian navy was used in the Crusades. Venice achieved territorial conquests along the Adriatic Sea, the city became home to an extremely wealthy merchant class, who patronized renowned art and architecture along the citys lagoons. Venetian merchants were influential financiers in Europe, the city was also the birthplace of great European explorers, including Marco Polo, as well as the classical music composer Vivaldi. The republic was ruled by the Doge, who was elected by members of the Great Council of Venice, the ruling class was an oligarchy of merchants and aristocrats. Venice and other Italian maritime republics played a key role in fostering capitalism, Venetian citizens generally supported the system of governance. The city-state enforced strict laws and employed ruthless tactics in its prisons, the opening of new trade routes to the Americas and the East Indies via the Atlantic Ocean marked the beginning of Venices decline as a maritime republic. The city state suffered defeats from the navy of the Ottoman Empire, in 1797, the country was colonized by Austria and France, following an invasion by Napoleon Bonaparte. Venice became a part of a unified Italy in the 19th century and it was formally known as the Most Serene Republic of Venice and is often referred to as La Serenissima, in reference to its title as one of the Most Serene Republics. He was the first historical Doge of Venice, whichever the case, the first doges had their power base in Heraclea. Ursuss successor, Deusdedit, moved his seat from Heraclea to Malamocco in the 740s and he was the son of Ursus and represented the attempt of his father to establish a dynasty. Such attempts were more commonplace among the doges of the first few centuries of Venetian history. They desired to remain well-connected to the Empire, another faction, republican in nature, believed in continuing along a course towards practical independence. The other main faction was pro-Frankish, supported mostly by clergy, they looked towards the new Carolingian king of the Franks, Pepin the Short, as the best provider of defence against the Lombards. A minor, pro-Lombard faction was opposed to close ties with any of these further-off powers, the successors of Obelerio inherited a united Venice. By the Pax Nicephori, the two emperors had recognised that Venice belonged to the Byzantine sphere of influence, many centuries later, the Venetians claimed that the treaty had recognised Venetian de facto independence, but the truth of this claim is doubted by modern scholars
34.
Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin
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Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin and 11th Earl of Kincardine was a Scottish nobleman and diplomat, known primarily for the removal of marble sculptures from the Parthenon in Athens. Elgin was born in Broomhall, Fife, the son of Charles Bruce, 5th Earl of Elgin. He succeeded his older brother William Robert, the 6th Earl and he entered the army as an ensign in the 3rd Guards. He was elected as a Scottish Representative Peer in 1790, remaining one until 1807, in 1791, he was sent as a temporary envoy-extraordinary to Austria, while Sir Robert Keith was ill. He was then sent as envoy-extraordinary in Brussels until the conquest of the Austrian Netherlands by France, after spending time in Britain, he was sent as envoy-extraordinary to Prussia in 1795. Elgin was appointed as ambassador to The Porte in December 1798 and he departed Turkey at last on 16 January 1803. Acting on the advice of Sir William Hamilton, he procured the services of the Neapolitan painter, Lusieri, due to the loss of the original firman, it isnt sure that the translation is correct. The actual removal of ancient marbles from Athens formed no part of Elgins first plan, part of the Elgin collection was prepared for embarkation for England in 1803, considerable difficulties having to be encountered at every stage of its transit. Additions continued to be made to the Elgin collections, and as late as 1812 and he used these antiquities to decorate his mansion in Scotland and then later sold them to the British Museum in an attempt to repay his escalating debt. Elgin, who had detained in France after the rupture of the peace of Amiens. Finding that he could not get the British Museum to pay what he was asking for the marbles and he divorced Mary, for adultery, by legal actions in 1807 and 1808 in the English and Scottish courts—and by act of parliament—which caused much public scandal. Then, on 21 September 1810, he married Elizabeth, youngest daughter of James Townsend Oswald of Dunnikier, Elgin moved to the European continent. Mary, married on 28 January 1828, Robert Dundas Matilda-Harrie, married on 14 October 1839, John Maxwell son of Sir John Maxwell, 7th Baronet Lucy, married on 14 March 1828, John Grant of Kilgraston. After their marriage ended in divorce Mary later married Robert Ferguson of Raith who had been cited in the divorce, Elgin, on 21 September 1810, married Elizabeth, youngest daughter of James Townsend Oswald of Dunnikier. They had four sons and three daughters, including, James Bruce, who became governor-in-chief of British North America and viceroy of India, Robert Bruce, who became a Lieutenant-Colonel in the Grenadier Guards, married Katherine-Mary, 2nd daughter of Sir Michael Shaw-Stewart, 6th Baronet. Elgin died, on 4 November 1841, aged 75, in Paris, a genealogical and heraldic dictionary of the peerage and baronetage of the British Empire. The Letters of Alfred Lord Tennyson, 1851-1870, urban, Sylvanus, ed. Obituary, Lord Bruce. Bruce, Thomas, seventh earl of Elgin and eleventh earl of Kincardine, attribution This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, Wroth, Warwick William
35.
Ottoman Empire
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After 1354, the Ottomans crossed into Europe, and with the conquest of the Balkans the Ottoman Beylik was transformed into a transcontinental empire. The Ottomans ended the Byzantine Empire with the 1453 conquest of Constantinople by Mehmed the Conqueror, at the beginning of the 17th century the empire contained 32 provinces and numerous vassal states. Some of these were later absorbed into the Ottoman Empire, while others were granted various types of autonomy during the course of centuries. With Constantinople as its capital and control of lands around the Mediterranean basin, while the empire was once thought to have entered a period of decline following the death of Suleiman the Magnificent, this view is no longer supported by the majority of academic historians. The empire continued to maintain a flexible and strong economy, society, however, during a long period of peace from 1740 to 1768, the Ottoman military system fell behind that of their European rivals, the Habsburg and Russian Empires. While the Empire was able to hold its own during the conflict, it was struggling with internal dissent. Starting before World War I, but growing increasingly common and violent during it, major atrocities were committed by the Ottoman government against the Armenians, Assyrians and Pontic Greeks. The word Ottoman is an anglicisation of the name of Osman I. Osmans name in turn was the Turkish form of the Arabic name ʿUthmān, in Ottoman Turkish, the empire was referred to as Devlet-i ʿAlīye-yi ʿOsmānīye, or alternatively ʿOsmānlı Devleti. In Modern Turkish, it is known as Osmanlı İmparatorluğu or Osmanlı Devleti, the Turkish word for Ottoman originally referred to the tribal followers of Osman in the fourteenth century, and subsequently came to be used to refer to the empires military-administrative elite. In contrast, the term Turk was used to refer to the Anatolian peasant and tribal population, the term Rūmī was also used to refer to Turkish-speakers by the other Muslim peoples of the empire and beyond. In Western Europe, the two names Ottoman Empire and Turkey were often used interchangeably, with Turkey being increasingly favored both in formal and informal situations and this dichotomy was officially ended in 1920–23, when the newly established Ankara-based Turkish government chose Turkey as the sole official name. Most scholarly historians avoid the terms Turkey, Turks, and Turkish when referring to the Ottomans, as the power of the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum declined in the 13th century, Anatolia was divided into a patchwork of independent Turkish principalities known as the Anatolian Beyliks. One of these beyliks, in the region of Bithynia on the frontier of the Byzantine Empire, was led by the Turkish tribal leader Osman, osmans early followers consisted both of Turkish tribal groups and Byzantine renegades, many but not all converts to Islam. Osman extended the control of his principality by conquering Byzantine towns along the Sakarya River and it is not well understood how the early Ottomans came to dominate their neighbours, due to the scarcity of the sources which survive from this period. One school of thought which was popular during the twentieth century argued that the Ottomans achieved success by rallying religious warriors to fight for them in the name of Islam, in the century after the death of Osman I, Ottoman rule began to extend over Anatolia and the Balkans. Osmans son, Orhan, captured the northwestern Anatolian city of Bursa in 1326 and this conquest meant the loss of Byzantine control over northwestern Anatolia. The important city of Thessaloniki was captured from the Venetians in 1387, the Ottoman victory at Kosovo in 1389 effectively marked the end of Serbian power in the region, paving the way for Ottoman expansion into Europe
36.
Elgin Marbles
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They were originally part of the temple of the Parthenon and other buildings on the Acropolis of Athens. In 1801, Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin obtained a permit from the Sublime Porte, from 1801 to 1812, Elgins agents removed about half of the surviving sculptures of the Parthenon, as well as sculptures from the Propylaea and Erechtheum. The Marbles were transported by sea to Britain, in Britain, the acquisition of the collection was supported by some, while others, such as Lord Byron, likened Elgins actions to vandalism or looting. Greece disputes the subsequent purchase of the Marbles by the British Government, in November 1798 the Earl of Elgin was appointed as Ambassador Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of His Britannic Majesty to the Sublime Porte of Selim III, Sultan of Turkey. According to Lord Elgin, the answer of the Government, Lord Elgin decided to carry out the work and employed artists to take casts and drawings under the supervision of the Neapolitan court painter Giovani Lusieri. According to a Turkish local, marble sculptures that fell were being burned to obtain lime for building, although the original intention was only to document the sculptures, in 1801 Lord Elgin began to remove material from the Parthenon and its surrounding structures under the supervision of Lusieri. Pieces were also removed from the Acropolis, the Erechtheion, the Propylaia, the excavation and removal was completed in 1812 at a personal cost of around £70,000. Elgin intended to use the marbles to decorate his house in Scotland. He sold the Parthenon Marbles to the British government for less than the cost to them, declining higher offers from other potential buyers. As such, they represent more than half of what now remains of the sculptural decoration of the Parthenon. As the Acropolis was still an Ottoman military fort, Elgin required special permission to enter the site, including the Parthenon and he stated that he had obtained from the Sultan a firman to allow his artists access to the site, but was unable to produce the original documentation. However, a document claimed to be an English translation of an Italian copy made at the time was presented by Elgin in its stead, and its authenticity has been questioned, as it lacked the formalities characterising edicts from the sultan. The document was recorded in an appendix of an 1816 parliamentary committee report, the committee permission had convened to examine a request by Elgin asking the British government to purchase the marbles. The report said that the document in the appendix was a translation in English of an Ottoman firman dated July 1801. In Elgins view it amounted to an Ottoman authorisation to remove the marbles, the committee was told that the original document was given to Ottoman officials in Athens in 1801. Researchers have so far failed to locate it despite the fact that the Ottoman archives in Istanbul still hold a number of documents dating from the same period. The parliamentary record shows that the Italian copy of the firman was not presented to the committee by Elgin himself but by one of his associates, the clergyman Rev. Philip Hunt. Hunt, who at the time resided in Bedford, was the last witness to appear before the committee and he went on to explain that he had not brought the document, because, upon leaving Bedford, he was not aware that he was to testify as a witness
37.
British Museum
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The British Museum is dedicated to human history, art and culture, and is located in the Bloomsbury area of London. The British Museum was established in 1753, largely based on the collections of the physician, the museum first opened to the public on 15 January 1759, in Montagu House, on the site of the current building. Although today principally a museum of art objects and antiquities. Its foundations lie in the will of the Irish-born British physician, on 7 June 1753, King George II gave his formal assent to the Act of Parliament which established the British Museum. They were joined in 1757 by the Old Royal Library, now the Royal manuscripts, together these four foundation collections included many of the most treasured books now in the British Library including the Lindisfarne Gospels and the sole surviving copy of Beowulf. The British Museum was the first of a new kind of museum – national, belonging to neither church nor king, freely open to the public, sloanes collection, while including a vast miscellany of objects, tended to reflect his scientific interests. The addition of the Cotton and Harley manuscripts introduced a literary, the body of trustees decided on a converted 17th-century mansion, Montagu House, as a location for the museum, which it bought from the Montagu family for £20,000. The Trustees rejected Buckingham House, on the now occupied by Buckingham Palace, on the grounds of cost. With the acquisition of Montagu House the first exhibition galleries and reading room for scholars opened on 15 January 1759. During the few years after its foundation the British Museum received several gifts, including the Thomason Collection of Civil War Tracts. A list of donations to the Museum, dated 31 January 1784, in the early 19th century the foundations for the extensive collection of sculpture began to be laid and Greek, Roman and Egyptian artefacts dominated the antiquities displays. Gifts and purchases from Henry Salt, British consul general in Egypt, beginning with the Colossal bust of Ramesses II in 1818, many Greek sculptures followed, notably the first purpose-built exhibition space, the Charles Towneley collection, much of it Roman Sculpture, in 1805. In 1816 these masterpieces of art, were acquired by The British Museum by Act of Parliament. The collections were supplemented by the Bassae frieze from Phigaleia, Greece in 1815, the Ancient Near Eastern collection also had its beginnings in 1825 with the purchase of Assyrian and Babylonian antiquities from the widow of Claudius James Rich. The neoclassical architect, Sir Robert Smirke, was asked to draw up plans for an extension to the Museum. For the reception of the Royal Library, and a Picture Gallery over it, and put forward plans for todays quadrangular building, much of which can be seen today. The dilapidated Old Montagu House was demolished and work on the Kings Library Gallery began in 1823, the extension, the East Wing, was completed by 1831. The Museum became a site as Sir Robert Smirkes grand neo-classical building gradually arose
38.
London
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London /ˈlʌndən/ is the capital and most populous city of England and the United Kingdom. Standing on the River Thames in the south east of the island of Great Britain and it was founded by the Romans, who named it Londinium. Londons ancient core, the City of London, largely retains its 1. 12-square-mile medieval boundaries. London is a global city in the arts, commerce, education, entertainment, fashion, finance, healthcare, media, professional services, research and development, tourism. It is crowned as the worlds largest financial centre and has the fifth- or sixth-largest metropolitan area GDP in the world, London is a world cultural capital. It is the worlds most-visited city as measured by international arrivals and has the worlds largest city airport system measured by passenger traffic, London is the worlds leading investment destination, hosting more international retailers and ultra high-net-worth individuals than any other city. Londons universities form the largest concentration of education institutes in Europe. In 2012, London became the first city to have hosted the modern Summer Olympic Games three times, London has a diverse range of people and cultures, and more than 300 languages are spoken in the region. Its estimated mid-2015 municipal population was 8,673,713, the largest of any city in the European Union, Londons urban area is the second most populous in the EU, after Paris, with 9,787,426 inhabitants at the 2011 census. The citys metropolitan area is the most populous in the EU with 13,879,757 inhabitants, the city-region therefore has a similar land area and population to that of the New York metropolitan area. London was the worlds most populous city from around 1831 to 1925, Other famous landmarks include Buckingham Palace, the London Eye, Piccadilly Circus, St Pauls Cathedral, Tower Bridge, Trafalgar Square, and The Shard. The London Underground is the oldest underground railway network in the world, the etymology of London is uncertain. It is an ancient name, found in sources from the 2nd century and it is recorded c.121 as Londinium, which points to Romano-British origin, and hand-written Roman tablets recovered in the city originating from AD 65/70-80 include the word Londinio. The earliest attempted explanation, now disregarded, is attributed to Geoffrey of Monmouth in Historia Regum Britanniae and this had it that the name originated from a supposed King Lud, who had allegedly taken over the city and named it Kaerlud. From 1898, it was accepted that the name was of Celtic origin and meant place belonging to a man called *Londinos. The ultimate difficulty lies in reconciling the Latin form Londinium with the modern Welsh Llundain, which should demand a form *lōndinion, from earlier *loundiniom. The possibility cannot be ruled out that the Welsh name was borrowed back in from English at a later date, and thus cannot be used as a basis from which to reconstruct the original name. Until 1889, the name London officially applied only to the City of London, two recent discoveries indicate probable very early settlements near the Thames in the London area
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Melina Mercouri
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Maria Amalia Mercouri, known professionally as Melina Mercouri, was a Greek actress, singer and politician. Mercouri was born to a cavalry officer and member of the Greek parliament, Stamatis Mercouris. When she completed her education, she attended the National Theatres Drama School. Mercouris first husband was a landowner, Panos Harokopos. As an actress, Mercouri made her debut in Stella and met international success with her performances in Never on Sunday, Phaedra, Topkapi. She won the award for Best Actress at the 1960 Cannes Film Festival and she was nominated for an Academy Award, a Tony Award, three Golden Globe Awards, and two BAFTA Awards. A political activist during the Greek military junta of 1967–1974, Mercouri became a member of the Hellenic Parliament in 1977, in 1983, Mercouri proposed the programme of the European Capital of Culture, which was established by the European Union in 1985. Mercouri was an advocate for the return to Athens of the Parthenon Marbles, which were removed from the Parthenon. After her graduation, Mercouri joined the National Theatre of Greece, in 1949, she had her first major success in the theatre playing Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire, written by Tennessee Williams and staged by Karolos Kouns Art Theatre. Until 1950, she worked in the same theatre in other plays by Aldous Huxley, Arthur Miller. In 1953, Mercouri received the Marika Kotopouli Prize, Mercouri returned to Greece in 1955. At the Kotopouli-Rex Theatre, Mercouri starred in Macbeth by William Shakespeare, Mercouris first movie was the Greek language film Stella, directed by Zorba the Greek director Michael Cacoyannis. The film received praise at the 1956 Cannes Film Festival. Their first professional pairing was 1957s He Who Must Die, other films by Dassin and featuring Mercouri followed, such as The Law. Mercouri became well-known to international audiences when she starred in Never on Sunday, in which Dassin was the director and co-star. For this film, she earned the Best Actress Award at the 1960 Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress and the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role. Mercouri worked with directors as Joseph Losey, Vittorio De Sica, Ronald Neame, Carl Foreman, Norman Jewison. Mercouri continued her career in the Greek production of Tennessee Williamss Sweet Bird of Youth
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Peplos
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A peplos is a body-length garment established as typical attire for women in ancient Greece by 500 BC. It was a long, tubular cloth with the top folded down about halfway, so that what was the top of the tube was now draped below the waist. The garment was gathered about the waist and the folded top edge pinned over the shoulders. The folded-down top of the tube provided the appearance of a piece of clothing. The peplos was draped and open on one side of the body and it should not be confused with the Ionic chiton, which was a piece of fabric folded over and sewn together along the longer side to form a tube. The Classical garment is represented in Greek vase painting from the 5th century BC, spartan women continued to wear the peplos much later in history than other Greek cultures, causing other Greeks to call them phainomērídes the thigh-showers. They had to weave a theme of Athenas defeat of Enkelados, the peplos of the statue was changed each year during the Plynteria. The peplos played a role in the Athenian festival of the Great Panathenaea, nine months before the festival, at the arts and crafts festival titled Chalkeia, a special peplos would begin to be woven by young women. This peplos was placed on the statue of Athena during the festival procession, the peplos had myths and stories woven into its material and usually consisted of purple and saffron yellow cloth. Chiton Clothing in ancient Greece Clothing in the ancient world Peplos Greek Dress Peplum dresses
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Panathenaic Games
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The Panathenaic Games were held every four years in Athens in Ancient Greece since 566 BC. They continued into the 3rd century AD and these Games incorporated religious festival, ceremony, athletic competitions, and cultural events hosted within a stadium. The competitions for which this came to be known were only part of a much larger religious occasion. These ritual observances consisted of numerous sacrifices to Athena as well as Poseidon, a sister-event to the Great Panathenaea was held every year - the Lesser Panathenaea, which was 3–4 days shorter in celebration. The competitions were the most prestigious games for the citizens of Athens, the first Great Panathenaea was held during the rule of Peisistratos in 566 BC, and was modelled on the Olympic Games. Peisistratos also added music and poetry competitions, which were part of the Pythian Games, the games were divided into games for Athenians only, and games for Athenians and any other Greeks who wanted to participate. These games in only the Athenians were allowed to participate were somewhat different. These included a race from the Piraeus to the Acropolis, mock infantry and cavalry battles, a javelin throw on horseback, the apobatai, the pyrriche. The prestigious event was a four-horse chariot race and the received a prize larger than for any of the athletic contests. In later years there was also a rowing competition, the procession to the Parthenon was more important than the games themselves. During the Great Panathenaia, a robe was made by the women of Athens for the statue of Athena. There was also a large sacrifice made to Athena, the hekatombe and the meat from the animals was used in an enormous banquet on the final night of the festival. Many scholars believe that this procession is the theme of the inner Ionic Parthenon Frieze, award ceremonies included the giving of Panathenaic amphora which were the large ceramic vessels that contained the oil given as prizes. The winner of the race received as a prize one-hundred. The Panathenaea also included poetic and musical competitions, prizes were awarded for rhapsodic recitation of Homeric poetry, for instrumental music on the aulus and cithara, and for singing to the accompaniment of the aulus and cithara. In addition, the Games included a reading of both the Odyssey and the Iliad, the athletic events were staged at the Panathenaic Stadium, which is still in use today. The Panathenaic stadium has hosted modern Olympic Games in 1870,1875,1896,1906 and 2004, the Panathenaic Games held contests in a number of musical, athletic, and equestrian events. Due to the fact there were so many contests held
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Artemis
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Artemis was one of the most widely venerated of the Ancient Greek deities. Some scholars believe that the name, and indeed the goddess herself, was originally pre-Greek, Homer refers to her as Artemis Agrotera, Potnia Theron, Artemis of the wildland, Mistress of Animals. The Arcadians believed she was the daughter of Demeter, in the classical period of Greek mythology, Artemis was often described as the daughter of Zeus and Leto, and the twin sister of Apollo. The deer and the cypress were sacred to her, in later Hellenistic times, she even assumed the ancient role of Eileithyia in aiding childbirth. The name Artemis is of unknown or uncertain origin and etymology although various ones have been proposed, for example, according to J. T. Jablonski, the name is also Phrygian and could be compared with the royal appellation Artemas of Xenophon. Anton Goebel suggests the root στρατ or ῥατ, to shake, babiniotis, while accepting that the etymology is unknown, states that the name is already attested in Mycenean Greek and is possibly of pre-Hellenic origin. It is believed that a precursor of Artemis was worshiped in Minoan Crete as the goddess of mountains and hunting, R. S. P. Beekes suggested that the e/i interchange points to a Pre-Greek origin. Artemis was venerated in Lydia as Artimus, various conflicting accounts are given in Classical Greek mythology of the birth of Artemis and her twin brother, Apollo. All accounts agree, however, that she was the daughter of Zeus and Leto, an account by Callimachus has it that Hera forbade Leto to give birth on either terra firma or on an island. Hera was angry with Zeus, her husband, because he had impregnated Leto, but the island of Delos disobeyed Hera, and Leto gave birth there. In ancient Cretan history Leto was worshipped at Phaistos and in Cretan mythology Leto gave birth to Apollo, a scholium of Servius on Aeneid iii. The myths also differ as to whether Artemis was born first, most stories depict Artemis as born first, becoming her mothers mid-wife upon the birth of her brother Apollo. The childhood of Artemis is not fully related in any surviving myth, the Iliad reduced the figure of the dread goddess to that of a girl, who, having been thrashed by Hera, climbs weeping into the lap of Zeus. She wished for no city dedicated to her, but to rule the mountains, Artemis believed that she had been chosen by the Fates to be a midwife, particularly since she had assisted her mother in the delivery of her twin brother, Apollo. All of her companions remained virgins, and Artemis closely guarded her own chastity and her symbols included the golden bow and arrow, the hunting dog, the stag, and the moon. Okeanus daughters were filled with fear, but the young Artemis bravely approached and asked for bow, Callimachus then tells how Artemis visited Pan, the god of the forest, who gave her seven bitches and six dogs. She then captured six golden-horned deer to pull her chariot, Artemis practiced with her bow first by shooting at trees and then at wild beasts. As a virgin, Artemis had interested many gods and men, Orion was accidentally killed either by Artemis or by Gaia
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Goddess
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A goddess is a female deity in polytheistic religions. Goddesses most often have characteristics that are apotheosize in their pure form. However, in some cases goddesses may embody neutral forms personifying both male and female characteristics, or they may even exhibit traits that are associated with the male gender. In some faiths, a female figure holds a central place in religious prayer. For example, Shaktism, the worship of the force that animates the world, is one of the three major sects of Hinduism. Polytheist religions, including Polytheistic reconstructionists, honour multiple goddesses and gods and these deities may be part of a pantheon, or different regions may have tutelary deities. The reconstructionists, like their ancient forebears, honour the deities particular to their country of origin, the noun goddess is a secondary formation, combining the Germanic god with the Latinate -ess suffix. It first appeared in Middle English, from about 1350, the English word follows the linguistic precedent of a number of languages—including Egyptian, Classical Greek, and several Semitic languages—that add a feminine ending to the languages word for god. Joseph Campbell in The Power of Myth, a 1988 interview with Bill Moyers, links the image of the Earth or Mother Goddess to symbols of fertility and reproduction. For example, Campbell states that, There have been systems of religion where the mother is the prime parent, and in Egypt you have the Mother Heavens, the Goddess Nut, who is represented as the whole heavenly sphere. Joseph Campbell, Well that was associated primarily with agriculture and the agricultural societies and it has to do with the earth. The human woman gives birth just as the earth gives birth to the plants. so woman magic, and the personification of the energy that gives birth to forms and nourishes forms is properly female. It is in the world of ancient Mesopotamia, the Egyptian Nile. Campbell also argues that the image of the Virgin Mary was derived from the image of Isis and her child Horus, other Mesopotamian goddesses include Ninhursag, Ninlil, Antu, Gaga Goddesses of the Canaanite religion, Baalat Gebal, Astarte, Anat. Cybele, Her Hittite name was Kubaba, but her name changed to Cybele in Phrygian and Roman culture and her effect can be also seen on Artemis as the Lady of Ephesus. Hebat, Mother Goddess of the Hittite pantheon and wife of the sky god. She was the origin of the Hurrian cult, arinniti, Hittite Goddess of the sun. She became patron of the Hittite Empire and monarchy, leto, A mother Goddess figure in Lykia
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Demosthenes
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Demosthenes was a Greek statesman and orator of ancient Athens. His orations constitute a significant expression of contemporary Athenian intellectual prowess and provide an insight into the politics, Demosthenes learned rhetoric by studying the speeches of previous great orators. He delivered his first judicial speeches at the age of 20, for a time, Demosthenes made his living as a professional speech-writer and a lawyer, writing speeches for use in private legal suits. Demosthenes grew interested in politics during his time as a logographer and he went on to devote his most productive years to opposing Macedons expansion. He idealized his city and strove throughout his life to restore Athens supremacy, after Philips death, Demosthenes played a leading part in his citys uprising against the new king of Macedonia, Alexander the Great. However, his efforts failed and the revolt was met with a harsh Macedonian reaction, to prevent a similar revolt against his own rule, Alexanders successor in this region, Antipater, sent his men to track Demosthenes down. Demosthenes took his own life, in order to avoid being arrested by Archias, the Alexandrian Canon compiled by Aristophanes of Byzantium and Aristarchus of Samothrace recognised Demosthenes as one of the ten greatest Attic orators and logographers. Longinus likened Demosthenes to a thunderbolt, and argued that he perfected to the utmost the tone of lofty speech, living passions, copiousness, readiness. Quintilian extolled him as lex orandi, and Cicero said about him that inter omnis unus excellat, Demosthenes was born in 384 BC, during the last year of the 98th Olympiad or the first year of the 99th Olympiad. His father—also named Demosthenes—who belonged to the tribe, Pandionis. Aeschines, Demosthenes greatest political rival, maintained that his mother Kleoboule was a Scythian by blood—an allegation disputed by modern scholars. Demosthenes was orphaned at the age of seven, although his father provided well for him, his legal guardians, Aphobus, Demophon and Therippides, mishandled his inheritance. As soon as Demosthenes came of age in 366 BC, he demanded they render an account of their management, according to Demosthenes, the account revealed the misappropriation of his property. Although his father left an estate of nearly fourteen talents, Demosthenes asserted his guardians had left nothing except the house, and fourteen slaves and thirty silver minae. At the age of 20 Demosthenes sued his trustees in order to recover his patrimony and delivered five orations, the courts fixed Demosthenes damages at ten talents. When all the trials came to an end, he succeeded in retrieving a portion of his inheritance. According to Pseudo-Plutarch, Demosthenes was married once, the only information about his wife, whose name is unknown, is that she was the daughter of Heliodorus, a prominent citizen. Demosthenes also had a daughter, the one who ever called him father
Sculpture from the Parthenon's East Pediment, Smarthistory[114]
