Linear A
Linear A is a writing system used by the Minoans from 1800 to 1450 BC. Along with Cretan hieroglyphic, it is one of two undeciphered writing systems used by ancient Minoan and peripheral peoples. Linear A was the primary script used in palace and religious writings of the Minoan civilization, it was discovered by archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans. It is related to the Linear B script, which succeeded the Linear A and was used by the Mycenaean civilization. In the 1950s, Linear B was deciphered and found to encode an early form of Greek. Although the two systems share many symbols, this did not lead to a subsequent decipherment of Linear A. Using the values associated with Linear B in Linear A produces unintelligible words. If Linear A uses the same or similar syllabic values as Linear B its associated language, dubbed "Minoan", appears unrelated to any known language. Linear A has hundreds of signs, believed to represent syllabic and semantic values in a manner similar to Linear B. While many of those assumed to be syllabic signs are similar to ones in Linear B 80% of Linear A's logograms are unique.
It appears in the left-to-right direction, but appears as a right-to-left or boustrophedon script. An interesting feature is that of; the highest number, recorded is 3000, but there are special symbols to indicate fractions and weights. Linear A has been unearthed chiefly on Crete, but at other sites in Greece, as well as Turkey and Israel; the extant corpus, comprising some 1,427 specimens totalling 7,362 to 7,396 signs, if scaled to standard type, would fit on two sheets of paper. According to Ilse Schoep, the main discoveries of Linear A tablets have been at three sites on Crete: Haghia Triadha in the Mesara with 147 tablets. Discoveries have been made at the following locations on Crete: Until 1973, only one Linear A tablet was known to have been found outside Crete. Since other locations have yielded inscriptions. According to Margalit Finkelberg, most—if not all—inscriptions found outside Crete were made locally; this is indicated by such factors as the composition of the material on which the inscriptions were made.
Close analysis of the inscriptions found outside Crete indicates the use of a script, somewhere in between Linear A and Linear B, combining elements from both. Kea Kythera Melos Samothrace Thera Mycenae Tiryns Hagios Stephanos, Laconia Linear A became eminent during the Middle Minoan Period from 1625–1450 BC, it was a contemporary and possible child of Cretan hieroglyphs and the ancestor of Linear B. The sequence and the geographical spread of Cretan hieroglyphs, Linear A and Linear B, the three overlapping, but distinct writing systems on Bronze Age Crete and the Greek mainland can be summarized as follows: Archaeologist Arthur Evans named the script "Linear" because its characters consisted of lines inscribed in clay, in contrast to the more pictographic characters in Cretan hieroglyphs that were used during the same period. Several tablets inscribed in signs similar to Linear A were found in the Troad in northwestern Anatolia. While their status is disputed, they may be imports, as there is no evidence of Minoan presence in the Troad.
Classification of these signs as a unique Trojan script is not accepted by other linguists. It is difficult to evaluate a given analysis of Linear A as there is little point of reference for reading its inscriptions; the simplest approach to decipherment may be to presume that the values of Linear A match more or less the values given to the deciphered Linear B script, used for Mycenaean Greek. In 1957, Bulgarian scholar Vladimir I. Georgiev published his Le déchiffrement des inscriptions crétoises en linéaire A stating that Linear A contains Greek linguistic elements. Georgiev published another work in 1963, titled Les deux langues des inscriptions crétoises en linéaire A, suggesting that the language of the Hagia Triada tablets was Greek but that the rest of the Linear A corpus was in Hittite-Luwian. In December 1963, Gregory Nagy of Harvard University developed a list of Linear A and Linear B terms based on the assumption "that signs of identical or similar shape in the two scripts will represent similar or identical phonetic values".
Since the late 1950s, some scholars have suggested that the Linear A language could be an Anatolian language. Palmer put forward a theory, based on Linear B phonetic values, suggesting that Linear A language could be related to Luwian; the theory, failed to gain universal support for the following reasons: There is no remarkable resemblance between Minoan and Hitto-Luwian morphology. None of the existing theories of the origin of Hitto-Luwian peoples and their migration to Anatolia are related to Crete. There was a lack of direct contact between Minoan Crete. Small states located along the western coast of ancient Asia Minor were natural barriers between Hitto-Luwians and Minoan Crete. Obvious anthropological differences between Hitto-Luwians and the Minoans may be considered as another indirect testimony against this hypothesis. There are recent works focused on the
Henan
Henan is a province of the People's Republic of China, located in the central part of the country. Henan is referred to as Zhongyuan or Zhongzhou which means "central plain land" or "midland", although the name is applied to the entirety of China proper. Henan is the birthplace of Chinese civilization with over 3,000 years of recorded history, remained China's cultural and political center until 1,000 years ago. Henan province is a home to a large number of heritage sites which have been left behind including the ruins of Shang dynasty capital city Yin and the Shaolin Temple. Four of the Eight Great Ancient Capitals of China, Anyang and Zhengzhou are located in Henan; the practice of Tai Chi began in Chen Jia Gou Village, as did the Yang and Wu styles. Although the name of the province means "south of the river" a quarter of the province lies north of the Yellow River known as the Huang He. With an area of 167,000 km2, Henan covers a large part of the fertile and densely populated North China Plain.
Its neighbouring provinces are Shaanxi, Hebei, Shandong and Hubei. Henan is China's third most populous province with a population of over 94 million. If it were a country by itself, Henan would be the 14th most populous country in the world, ahead of Egypt and Vietnam. Henan is the largest among inland provinces. However, per capita GDP is low compared to other central provinces. Henan is considered to be one of the less developed areas in China; the economy continues to grow based on aluminum and coal prices, as well as agriculture, heavy industry and retail. High-tech industries and service sector is underdeveloped and is concentrated around Zhengzhou and Luoyang. Regarded as the Cradle of Chinese civilization along with Shanxi and Shaanxi provinces, Henan is known for its historical prosperity and periodic downturns; the economic prosperity resulted from its extensive fertile plains and its location at the heart of the country. However, its strategic location means that it has suffered from nearly all of the major wars in China.
In addition, the numerous floods of the Yellow River have caused significant damage from time to time. Kaifeng, in particular, has been buried by the Yellow River's silt seven times due to flooding. Archaeological sites reveal that prehistoric cultures such as the Yangshao Culture and Longshan Culture were active in what is now northern Henan since the Neolithic Era; the more recent Erlitou culture has been controversially identified with the Xia dynasty, the first and legendary Chinese dynasty, established in the 21st century BC. The entire kingdom existed within what is now north and central Henan; the Xia dynasty collapsed around the 16th century BC following the invasion of Shang, a neighboring vassal state centered around today's Shangqiu in eastern Henan. The Shang dynasty was the first literate dynasty of China, its many capitals are located at the modern cities of Shangqiu and Zhengzhou. Their last and most important capital, located in modern Anyang, is where the first Chinese writing was created.
In the 11th century BC, the Zhou dynasty of Shaanxi arrived from the west and overthrew the Shang dynasty. The capital was moved to Chang'an, the political and economical center was moved away from Henan for the first time. In 722 BC, when Chang'an was devastated by Xionites invasions, the capital was moved back east to Luoyang; this Autumn period, a period of warfare and rivalry. What is now Henan and all of China was divided into a variety of small, independent states at war for control of the central plain. Although regarded formally as the ruler of China, the control that Zhou king in Luoyang exerted over the feudal kingdoms had disappeared. Despite the prolonged period of instability, prominent philosophers such as Confucius emerged in this era and offered their ideas on how a state should be run. Laozi, the founder of Taoism, was born in part of modern-day Henan. On, these states were replaced by seven large and powerful states during the Warring States period, Henan was divided into three states, the Wei to the north, the Chu to the south, the Han in the middle.
In 221 BC, state of Qin forces from Shaanxi conquered all of the other six states, ending 800 years of warfare. Ying Zheng, the leader of Qin, crowned himself as the First Emperor, he abolished the feudal system and centralized all powers, establishing the Qin dynasty and unifying the core of the Han Chinese homeland for the first time. The empire collapsed after the death of Ying Zheng and was replaced by the Han dynasty in 206 BC, with its capital at Chang'an. Thus, a golden age of Chinese culture and military power began; the capital moved east to Luoyang in 25 AD, in response to a coup in Chang'an that created the short-lived Xin dynasty. Luoyang regained control of China, the Eastern Han dynasty began, extending the golden age for another two centuries; the late Eastern Han dynasty saw rivalry between regional warlords. Xuchang in central Henan was the power base of Cao Cao, who succeeded in unifying all of northern China under the Kingdom of Wei. Wei moved its capital to Luoyang, which remained the capital after the unification of China by the Western Jin dynasty.
During this period Luoyang became one of the largest and most prosperous cities in the world, despite being damaged by warfare. With the fall of the Western Jin dynasty in the 4th and 5th centuries, nomadic peoples f
Kish tablet
The Kish tablet is a limestone tablet found at Tell al-Uhaymir, Babil Governorate, Iraq – the site of the ancient Sumerian city of Kish. A plaster-cast of the artifact is today in the collection of the Ashmolean Museum; the Kish tablet is inscribed with proto-cuneiform signs. It has been dated to ca. 3500 BC, although some scholars believe it may be from somewhat – Uruk IV period. Several thousands of proto-cuneiform documents dating to Uruk IV and III periods have been found in Uruk; the writing is still purely pictographic, represents a transitional stage between proto-writing and the emergence of the syllabic writing of the cuneiform script proper. The "proto-literate period" of Egypt and Mesopotamia is taken to span about 3500 to 2900 BC; the administrative texts of the Jemdet Nasr period, found among other places at Jemdet Nasr and Tell Uqair represent a further stage in the development from proto-cuneiform to cuneiform, but can still not be identified with certainty as being written in Sumerian, although it is likely.
Uruk period History of writing Narmer Palette Warka Vase Tărtăria tablets A. C. Moorhouse, The Triumph of the Alphabet: A History of Writing Langdon, Pictographic Inscriptions from Jemdet Nasr Peter N. Stearns, The Encyclopedia of World History, ISBN 978-0-395-65237-4
Inca Empire
The Inca Empire known as the Incan Empire and the Inka Empire, was the largest empire in pre-Columbian America. Its political and administrative structure is considered by most scholars to have been the most developed in the Americas before Columbus' arrival; the administrative and military center of the empire was located in the city of Cusco. The Inca civilization arose from the Peruvian highlands sometime in the early 13th century, its last stronghold was conquered by the Spanish in 1572. From 1438 to 1533, the Incas incorporated a large portion of western South America, centered on the Andean Mountains, using conquest and peaceful assimilation, among other methods. At its largest, the empire joined Peru, southwest Ecuador and south central Bolivia, northwest Argentina, northern Chile and a small part of southwest Colombia into a state comparable to the historical empires of Eurasia, its official language was Quechua. Many local forms of worship persisted in the empire, most of them concerning local sacred Huacas, but the Inca leadership encouraged the sun worship of Inti – their sun god – and imposed its sovereignty above other cults such as that of Pachamama.
The Incas considered their king, the Sapa Inca, to be the "son of the sun."The Inca Empire was unique in that it lacked many features associated with civilization in the Old World. In the words of one scholar, The Incas lacked the use of wheeled vehicles, they lacked animals to ride and draft animals that could pull wagons and plows... lacked the knowledge of iron and steel... Above all, they lacked a system of writing... Despite these supposed handicaps, the Incas were still able to construct one of the greatest imperial states in human history. Notable features of the Inca Empire include its monumental architecture stonework, extensive road network reaching all corners of the empire, finely-woven textiles, use of knotted strings for record keeping and communication, agricultural innovations in a difficult environment, the organization and management fostered or imposed on its people and their labor; the Incan economy has been described in contradictory ways by scholars:... feudal, socialist The Inca empire functioned without money and without markets.
Instead, exchange of goods and services was based on reciprocity between individuals and among individuals and Inca rulers. "Taxes" consisted of a labour obligation of a person to the Empire. The Inca rulers reciprocated by granting access to land and goods and providing food and drink in celebratory feasts for their subjects; the Inca referred to their empire as Tawantinsuyu, "the four suyu". In Quechua, tawa is four and -ntin is a suffix naming a group, so that a tawantin is a quartet, a group of four things taken together, in this case representing the four suyu whose corners met at the capital; the four suyu were: Chinchaysuyu, Antisuyu and Kuntisuyu. The name Tawantinsuyu was, therefore, a descriptive term indicating a union of provinces; the Spanish transliterated the name as Tahuatinsuyu. The term Inka means "ruler" or "lord" in Quechua and was used to refer to the ruling class or the ruling family; the Incas were a small percentage of the total population of the empire numbering only 15,000 to 40,000, but ruling a population of around 10 million people.
The Spanish adopted the term as an ethnic term referring to all subjects of the empire rather than the ruling class. As such, the name Imperio inca referred to the nation that they encountered and subsequently conquered; the Inca Empire was the last chapter of thousands of years of Andean civilizations. The Andean civilization was one of five civilizations in the world deemed by scholars to be "pristine", indigenous and not derivative from other civilizations; the Inca Empire was preceded by two large-scale empires in the Andes: the Tiwanaku, based around Lake Titicaca and the Wari or Huari centered near the city of Ayacucho. The Wari occupied the Cuzco area for about 400 years. Thus, many of the characteristics of the Inca Empire derived from earlier multi-ethnic and expansive Andean cultures. Carl Troll has argued that the development of the Inca state in the central Andes was aided by conditions that allows for the elaboration of the staple food chuño. Chuño, which can be stored for long periods, is made of potato dried at the freezing temperatures that are common at nighttime in the southern Peruvian highlands.
Such link between the Inca state and chuño may be questioned as potatoes and other crops such as maize can be dried with only sunlight. Troll did argue that llamas, the Inca's pack animal, can be found in its largest numbers in this same region, it is worth considering the maximum extent of the Inca Empire coincided with the greatest distribution of llamas and alpacas in Pre-Hispanic America. The link between the Andean biomes of puna and páramo and the Inca state is a matter of research; as a third point Troll pointed out irrigation technology as advantageous to the Inca state-building. While Troll theorized environmental influences on the Inca Empire he opposed environmental determinism arguing that culture lay at the core of the Inca civilization; the Inca people were a pastoral tribe in the Cusco area around the 12th century. Incan oral history tells an origin story of three caves; the center cave at Tampu T'uqu was named Qhapaq T'uqu. The other
Linear B
Linear B is a syllabic script, used for writing Mycenaean Greek, the earliest attested form of Greek. The script predates the Greek alphabet by several centuries; the oldest Mycenaean writing dates to about 1450 BC. It is descended from the older Linear A, an undeciphered earlier script used for writing the Minoan language, as is the Cypriot syllabary, which recorded Greek. Linear B, found in the palace archives at Knossos, Pylos and Mycenae, disappeared with the fall of Mycenaean civilization during the Late Bronze Age collapse; the succeeding period, known as the Greek Dark Ages, provides no evidence of the use of writing. It is the only one of the Bronze Age Aegean scripts to have been deciphered, by English architect and self-taught linguist Michael Ventris. Linear B consists of over 100 ideographic signs; these ideograms or "signifying" signs symbolize commodities. They are never used as word signs in writing a sentence; the application of Linear B appears to have been confined to administrative contexts.
In all the thousands of clay tablets, a small number of different "hands" have been detected: 45 in Pylos and 66 in Knossos. It is possible that the script was used only by a guild of professional scribes who served the central palaces. Once the palaces were destroyed, the script disappeared. Linear B has 200 signs, divided into syllabic signs with phonetic values and ideograms with semantic values; the representations and naming of these signs have been standardized by a series of international colloquia starting with the first in Paris in 1956. After the third meeting in 1961 at the Wingspread Conference Center in Racine, Wisconsin, a standard proposed by Emmett L. Bennett, Jr. became known as the Wingspread Convention, adopted by a new organization, the Comité International Permanent des Études Mycéniennes, affiliated in 1970 by the fifth colloquium with UNESCO. Colloquia continue: the 13th occurred in 2010 in Paris. Many of the signs are identical or similar to those in Linear A; the grid developed during decipherment by Michael Ventris and John Chadwick of phonetic values for syllabic signs is shown below.
Initial consonants are in the leftmost column. The transcription of the syllable is listed next to the sign along with Bennett's identifying number for the sign preceded by an asterisk. In cases where the transcription of the sign remains in doubt, Bennett's number serves to identify the sign; the signs on the tablets and sealings show considerable variation from each other and from the representations below. Discovery of the reasons for the variation and possible semantic differences is a topic of ongoing debate in Mycenaean studies. In addition to the grid, the first edition of Documents in Mycenaean Greek contained a number of other signs termed "homophones" because they appeared at that time to resemble the sounds of other syllables and were transcribed accordingly: pa2 and pa3 were presumed homophonous to pa. Many of these are shown in the "special values" below; the second edition relates: "It may be taken as axiomatic that there are no true homophones." The unconfirmed identifications of *34 and *35 as ai2 and ai3 were removed.
Pa2 became qa. Other values remain unknown because of scarcity of evidence concerning them. Note that *34 and *35 are mirror images of each other but whether this graphic relationship indicates a phonetic one remains unconfirmed. In recent times, CIPEM inherited the former authority of Bennett and the Wingspread Convention in deciding what signs are "confirmed" and how to represent the various sign categories. In editions of Mycenaean texts, the signs whose values have not been confirmed by CIPEM are always transcribed as numbers preceded by an asterisk. CIPEM allocates the numerical identifiers, until such allocation, new signs are transcribed as a bullet-point enclosed in square brackets:; the signs are approximations―each may be used to represent a variety of about 70 distinct combinations of sounds, within rules and conventions. The grid presents a system of monosyllabic signs of the type V/CV. Clarification of the 14 or so special values tested the limits of the grid model, but Chadwick in the end concluded that with the ramifications, the syllabic signs can unexceptionally be considered monosyllabic.
Possible exceptions, Chadwick goes on to explain, include the two diphthongs, and, as in, ai-ku-pi-ti-jo, for Aiguptios and, au-ke-wa, for Augewās. However, a diphthong is by definition two vowels united into a single sound and therefore might be typed as just V. Thus, as in, e-rai-wo, for elaiwon, is of the type CV. Diphthongs are otherwise treated as two monosyllables:, a-ro-u-ra, for arourans, of the types CV and V. Lengths of vowels and accents are not marked, and the more doubtful and may be regarded as beginning with labialized consonants, rather than two consonants though they may alternate with a two-sign form: o-da-twe-ta and o-da-tu-we-ta for Odatwenta. And begin with palatalized consonants rather than two consonants: -ti-ri-ja for -trja (-τρι
