Ancient history
Ancient history as a term refers to the aggregate of past events from the beginning of writing and recorded human history and extending as far as the post-classical history. The phrase may be used either to refer to the period of the academic discipline; the span of recorded history is 5,000 years, beginning with Sumerian Cuneiform script. Ancient History covers all continents inhabited by humans in the 3,000 BC – 500 AD period; the broad term Ancient History is not to be confused with Classical Antiquity. The term classical antiquity is used to refer to Western History in the Ancient Mediterranean from the beginning of recorded Greek history in 776 BC; this coincides with the traditional date of the Founding of Rome in 753 BC, the beginning of the history of ancient Rome, the beginning of the Archaic period in Ancient Greece. The academic term "history" is not to be confused with colloquial references to times past. History is fundamentally the study of the past through documents, can be either scientific or humanistic.
Although the ending date of ancient history is disputed, some Western scholars use the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 AD, the closure of the Platonic Academy in 529 AD, the death of the emperor Justinian I in 565 AD, the coming of Islam or the rise of Charlemagne as the end of ancient and Classical European history. Outside of Europe the 450-500 time frame for the end of ancient times has had difficulty as a transition date from Ancient to Post-Classical times. During the time period of'Ancient History', starting from 3000 BC world population was exponentially increasing due to the Neolithic Revolution, in full progress. According to HYDE estimates from the Netherlands world population increased exponentially in this period. In 10,000 BC in Prehistory world population had stood at 2 million, rising to 45 million by 3,000 BC. By the rise of the Iron Age in 1,000 BC that population had risen to 72 million. By the end of the period in 500 AD world population stood at 209 million. In 3,500 years, world population increased by 100 times.
Historians have two major avenues which they take to better understand the ancient world: archaeology and the study of source texts. Primary sources are those sources closest to the origin of the idea under study. Primary sources have been distinguished from secondary sources, which cite, comment on, or build upon primary sources. Archaeology is the excavation and study of artifacts in an effort to interpret and reconstruct past human behavior. Archaeologists excavate the ruins of ancient cities looking for clues as to how the people of the time period lived; some important discoveries by archaeologists studying ancient history include: The Egyptian pyramids: giant tombs built by the ancient Egyptians beginning about 2600 BC as the final resting places of their royalty. The study of the ancient cities of Harappa, Mohenjo-daro, Lothal in India; the city of Pompeii: an ancient Roman city preserved by the eruption of a volcano in AD 79. Its state of preservation is so great that it is a valuable window into Roman culture and provided insight into the cultures of the Etruscans and the Samnites.
The Terracotta Army: the mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor in ancient China. The discovery of Knossos by Minos Kalokairinos and Sir Arthur Evans; the discovery of Troy by Heinrich Schliemann. Most of what is known of the ancient world comes from the accounts of antiquity's own historians. Although it is important to take into account the bias of each ancient author, their accounts are the basis for our understanding of the ancient past; some of the more notable ancient writers include Herodotus, Arrian, Polybius, Sima Qian, Livy, Josephus and Tacitus. A fundamental difficulty of studying ancient history is that recorded histories cannot document the entirety of human events, only a fraction of those documents have survived into the present day. Furthermore, the reliability of the information obtained from these surviving records must be considered. Few people were capable of writing histories, as literacy was not widespread in any culture until long after the end of ancient history; the earliest known systematic historical thought emerged in ancient Greece, beginning with Herodotus of Halicarnassus.
Thucydides eliminated divine causality in his account of the war between Athens and Sparta, establishing a rationalistic element which set a precedent for subsequent Western historical writings. He was the first to distinguish between cause and immediate origins of an event; the Roman Empire was an ancient culture with a high literacy rate, but many works by its most read historians are lost. For example, Livy, a Roman historian who lived in the 1st century BC, wrote a history of Rome called Ab Urbe Condita in 144 volumes. Indeed, only a minority of the work of any major Roman historian has survived. Click the above link to find a listed timeline that provides an overview for Ancient History, its context ranges from 3200 BC to 400 AD. Prehistory is the period before written history; the early human migrations in the Lower Paleolithic saw Homo erectus spread across Eurasia 1.8 million years ago. The controlled use of fire occurred 800,000 years ago in the Middle Paleolithic. 250,000 years ago, Homo sapiens emerged in Africa.
60–70,000 years ago, Homo sapiens migrated out of Africa along a coastal route to South and So
Hilt
The hilt of a sword is its handle, consisting of a guard and pommel. The guard may contain quillons. A ricasso may be present, but this is the case. A tassel or sword knot may be attached to the pommel; the pommel is an enlarged fitting at the top of the handle. They were developed to prevent the sword slipping from the hand. From around the 11th century in Europe they became heavy enough to be a counterweight to the blade; this gave the sword a point of balance not too far from the hilt allowing a more fluid fighting style. Depending on sword design and swordsmanship style, the pommel may be used to strike the opponent. Pommels have appeared in a wide variety of shapes, including oblate spheroids, disks and animal or bird heads, they are engraved or inlayed with various designs and gilt and mounted with jewels. Ewart Oakeshott introduced a system of classification of medieval pommel forms in his The Sword in the Age of Chivalry to stand alongside his blade typology. Oakeshott pommel types are enumerated with capital letters A–Z, with subtypes indicated by numerals.
The grip is the handle of the sword. It was of wood or metal, covered with shagreen. Shark skin proved to be the most durable in temperate climates but deteriorated in hot climates, rubber became popular in the latter half of the 19th century. Alternatively, many sword types opt for ray skin instead, referred to in katana construction as the "same". Whatever material covered the grip, it was both glued on and held on with wire wrapped around it in a helix, it is a common misconception that the cross-guard protects the user's entire hand from the opponent's sword. Only with the abandonment of the shield and the armoured gauntlet did a full hand guard become necessary; the crossguard still protected the user from a blade, deliberately slid down the length of the blade to cut off or injure the hand. Early swords do not have true guards but a form of stop to prevent the hand slipping up the blade when thrusting as they were invariably used in conjunction with a shield. From the 11th century, European sword guards took the form of a straight crossbar perpendicular to the blade.
Beginning in the 16th century in Europe, guards became more and more elaborate, with additional loops and curved bars or branches to protect the hand. A single curved piece alongside the fingers was referred to as a knuckle-bow; the bars could be supplemented or replaced with metal plates that could be ornamentally pierced. The term "basket hilt" came into vogue to describe such designs, there are a variety of basket-hilted swords. Emphasis upon the thrust attack with rapiers and smallswords revealed a vulnerability to thrusting. By the 17th century, guards were developed that incorporated a solid shield that surrounded the blade out to a diameter of up to two inches or more. Older forms of this guard retained the quillons or a single quillon, but forms eliminated the quillons, altogether being referred to as a cup-hilt; this latter form is the basis of the guards of modern épées. The ricasso is a blunt section of blade just below the guard. On developed hilts it is protected by an extension of the guard.
On two-handed swords, the ricasso provided a third hand position, permitting the user's hands to be further apart for better leverage. The sword knot or sword strap, sometimes called a tassel, is a lanyard—usually of leather but sometimes of woven gold or silver bullion, or more metallic lace—looped around the hand to prevent the sword being lost if it is dropped. Although they have a practical function, sword knots had a decorative design. For example, the British Army adopted a white leather strap with a large acorn knot made out of gold wire for infantry officers at the end of the 19th century; such acorn forms of tassels were called'boxed', the way of securing the fringe of the tassel along its bottom line such that the strands could not separate and become entangled or lost. Many sword knots were made of silk with a fine, ornamental alloy gold or silver metal wire woven into it in a specified pattern; the art and history of tassels are known by its French name, passementerie, or Posamenten as it was called in German.
The military output of the artisans called passementiers is evident in catalogs of various military uniform and regalia makers of centuries past. The broader art form of passementerie, with its divisions of Decor and Nobility, Upholstery and Livery, Military, is covered in a few books on that subject, none of which are in English. Indian swords had the tassel attached through an eyelet at the end of the pommel. Chinese swords, both jian and dao have lanyards or tassels attached; as with Western sword knots, these serve both decorative and practical functions, the manipulation of the tassel is a part of some jian performances. The hilt ring is an optional item used for decoration
World War I
World War I known as the First World War or the Great War, was a global war originating in Europe that lasted from 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918. Contemporaneously described as "the war to end all wars", it led to the mobilisation of more than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, making it one of the largest wars in history, it is one of the deadliest conflicts in history, with an estimated nine million combatants and seven million civilian deaths as a direct result of the war, while resulting genocides and the 1918 influenza pandemic caused another 50 to 100 million deaths worldwide. On 28 June 1914, Gavrilo Princip, a Bosnian Serb Yugoslav nationalist, assassinated the Austro-Hungarian heir Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, leading to the July Crisis. In response, on 23 July Austria-Hungary issued an ultimatum to Serbia. Serbia's reply failed to satisfy the Austrians, the two moved to a war footing. A network of interlocking alliances enlarged the crisis from a bilateral issue in the Balkans to one involving most of Europe.
By July 1914, the great powers of Europe were divided into two coalitions: the Triple Entente—consisting of France and Britain—and the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy. Russia felt it necessary to back Serbia and, after Austria-Hungary shelled the Serbian capital of Belgrade on the 28th, partial mobilisation was approved. General Russian mobilisation was announced on the evening of 30 July; when Russia failed to comply, Germany declared war on 1 August in support of Austria-Hungary, with Austria-Hungary following suit on 6th. German strategy for a war on two fronts against France and Russia was to concentrate the bulk of its army in the West to defeat France within four weeks shift forces to the East before Russia could mobilise. On 2 August, Germany demanded free passage through Belgium, an essential element in achieving a quick victory over France; when this was refused, German forces invaded Belgium on 3 August and declared war on France the same day. On 12 August and France declared war on Austria-Hungary.
In November 1914, the Ottoman Empire entered the war on the side of the Alliance, opening fronts in the Caucasus and the Sinai Peninsula. The war was fought in and drew upon each power's colonial empire as well, spreading the conflict to Africa and across the globe; the Entente and its allies would become known as the Allied Powers, while the grouping of Austria-Hungary and their allies would become known as the Central Powers. The German advance into France was halted at the Battle of the Marne and by the end of 1914, the Western Front settled into a battle of attrition, marked by a long series of trench lines that changed little until 1917. In 1915, Italy opened a front in the Alps. Bulgaria joined the Central Powers in 1915 and Greece joined the Allies in 1917, expanding the war in the Balkans; the United States remained neutral, although by doing nothing to prevent the Allies from procuring American supplies whilst the Allied blockade prevented the Germans from doing the same the U. S. became an important supplier of war material to the Allies.
After the sinking of American merchant ships by German submarines, the revelation that the Germans were trying to incite Mexico to make war on the United States, the U. S. declared war on Germany on 6 April 1917. Trained American forces would not begin arriving at the front in large numbers until mid-1918, but the American Expeditionary Force would reach some two million troops. Though Serbia was defeated in 1915, Romania joined the Allied Powers in 1916 only to be defeated in 1917, none of the great powers were knocked out of the war until 1918; the 1917 February Revolution in Russia replaced the Tsarist autocracy with the Provisional Government, but continuing discontent at the cost of the war led to the October Revolution, the creation of the Soviet Socialist Republic, the signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk by the new government in March 1918, ending Russia's involvement in the war. This allowed the transfer of large numbers of German troops from the East to the Western Front, resulting in the German March 1918 Offensive.
This offensive was successful, but the Allies rallied and drove the Germans back in their Hundred Days Offensive. Bulgaria was the first Central Power to sign an armistice—the Armistice of Salonica on 29 September 1918. On 30 October, the Ottoman Empire capitulated. On 4 November, the Austro-Hungarian empire agreed to the Armistice of Villa Giusti after being decisively defeated by Italy in the Battle of Vittorio Veneto. With its allies defeated, revolution at home, the military no longer willing to fight, Kaiser Wilhelm abdicated on 9 November and Germany signed an armistice on 11 November 1918. World War I was a significant turning point in the political, cultural and social climate of the world; the war and its immediate aftermath sparked numerous uprisings. The Big Four (Britain, the United States, It
1st King's Dragoon Guards
The 1st King's Dragoon Guards was a cavalry regiment in the British Army. The regiment was raised by Sir John Lanier in 1685 as the 2nd Queen's Regiment of Horse, named in honour of Queen Mary, consort of King James II, it was renamed the 2nd King's Own Regiment of Horse in 1714 in honour of George I. The regiment attained the title 1st King's Dragoon Guards in 1751; the regiment served as horse cavalry until 1937. The regiment became part of the Royal Armoured Corps in 1939. After service in the First World War and the Second World War, the regiment amalgamated with the 2nd Dragoon Guards in 1959 to form the 1st The Queen's Dragoon Guards; the regiment was raised by Sir John Lanier in 1685 as Lanier's Regiment of Horse or the 2nd Queen's Regiment of Horse, named in honour of Queen Mary, consort of King James II, as part of the response to the Monmouth Rebellion. The regiment saw action at the Battle of the Boyne in July 1690 and the Battle of Aughrim in July 1691 during the Williamite War in Ireland.
It fought at the Battle of Blenheim in August 1704, the Battle of Ramillies in May 1706, the Battle of Oudenarde in July 1708 and the Battle of Malplaquet in September 1709 during the War of the Spanish Succession. The regiment was renamed the 2nd King's Own Regiment of Horse in 1714 in honour of George I, it saw action again at the Battle of Dettingen in June 1743 during the War of the Austrian Succession. The regiment was renamed the 1st King's Dragoon Guards in 1751; the regiment made a desperate charge which saved the army at the Battle of Corbach in July 1760 and made another famous charge at the Battle of Warburg that month during the Seven Years' War. The regiment charged again with devastating effect at the Battle of Waterloo in June 1815 during the Napoleonic Wars; the regiment took part in the response to the Indian Rebellion in 1857 as well as the Battle of Taku Forts in August 1860 and the capture of Peking during the Second Opium War. A detachment of the regiment was responsible for the capture of King Cetshwayo at the Battle of Ulundi in July 1879 during the Anglo-Zulu War and the regiment saw action again at the Battle of Laing's Nek in January 1881 during the First Boer War.
In March 1896 Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria became Colonel-in-Chief of the regiment. At the same time the double-headed Austrian eagle became the cap-badge of the regiment, it adopted Radetzky March as its regimental march. On the occasion of his Diamond Jubilee on 2 December 1908, the Emperor instituted the Inhaber-Jubiläums-Medaille für Ausländer to celebrate his 60 years on the throne; some of the 40 golden, 635 silver and 2000 bronze medals were awarded to officers and private soldiers in the regiment. The ceremonial helmet with the badge of the 1st King's Dragoon Guards, given to Emperor Franz Joseph I on his appointment as colonel-in-chief is now on display at the Museum of Military History, Vienna; the regiment was employed chasing the elusive General Christiaan de Wet in spring 1901 during the Second Boer War. The regiment, was stationed at Lucknow in India at the start of the war, landed at Marseille as part of the 8th Cavalry Brigade in the 1st Indian Cavalry Division in November 1914 for service on the Western Front.
The regiment saw action at the Battle of Festubert in May 1915, the Second Battle of Ypres in May 1915 and the Battle of Morval in September 1916 but returned to India in October 1917. The regiment remained in garrison at Meerut until October 1918 when it exchanged stations with 21st Lancers and moved to Risalpur. On 2 May 1919 Afghan troops seized control of wells on the Indian side of the border; the Afghan Amir Amanullah was warned to withdraw, but his answer was to send more troops to reinforce those at the wells and to move other Afghan units to various points on the frontier. The regiment was mobilised on 6 May and formed part of the British Indian Army's 1st Cavalry Brigade, it saw action at the Khyber Pass. At Dakka – a village in Afghan territory, north west of the Khyber Pass – on 16 May, the regiment made one of the last recorded charge by a British horsed cavalry regiment as it was apparent the old world would be giving way to mechanisation; the regiment took part in all the major battles of the North African Campaign including the Relief of Tobruk in November 1941.
The regiment serving as the armoured car reconnaissance regiment of Lieutenant General Richard McCreery's X Corps, landed at Salerno during the Allied invasion of Italy in September 1943 against concentrated enemy opposition and were the first Allied unit into the city of Naples in early October 1943. The Welsh writer Norman Lewis, in his celebrated account of life in Naples claimed that the King's Dragoon Guards was the first British unit to reach Naples in 1943, that many of its officers went on a looting spree, cutting paintings from their frames in the prince's palace; the regiment took part in the Battle for Monte la Difensa in December 1943 and the advance to the Gothic Line in late 1944. The regiment was posted to Palestine in September 1945 and to Libya in January 1947 before being deployed on home duties at Omagh, Northern Ireland in February 1948; the regiment moved to Adams Barracks in Rahlstedt in November 1951 and to Mcleod Barracks in Neumünster in April 1953. In 1956 the regiment was sent on active service in Malaya during the Emergency: during this time the regiment took part in counter-insurgency operations in both mounted operations and on foot in the dense jungles operating from a base at Johor Bahru.
The regiment merged with the Queen's Bays in 1959 to form the 1st The Queen's Dr
Spindle (textiles)
A spindle is a straight spike made from wood used for spinning, twisting fibers such as wool, hemp, cotton into yarn. It is weighted at either the bottom, middle, or top by a disc or spherical object called a whorl, but many spindles exist that are not weighted by a whorl, but by thickening their shape towards the bottom, such as Orenburg and French spindles; the spindle may have a hook, groove, or notch at the top to guide the yarn. Spindles come in many different sizes and weights depending on the thickness of the yarn one desires to spin; the origin of the first wooden spindle is lost to history. Whorl-weighted spindles date back at least to Neolithic times. A spindle is part of traditional spinning wheels where it is horizontal, such as the Indian charkha and the great or walking wheel. In industrial yarn production, spindles are used as well; the wood traditionally favoured for making spindles was that of Euonymus europaeus, from which derives the traditional English name spindle bush. Modern hand spindles fall into three basic categories: suspended spindles, supported spindles and grasped spindles.
Supported and suspended spindles are held vertically, grasped spindles may be held vertically, horizontally or at an angle depending on the tradition. Suspended spindles are so named because they are suspended to swing from the yarn after rotation has been started. Drop Spindles are a popular type of suspended spindle and get their name because the spindle is allowed to drop down while the thread is formed, allowing for a greater length of yarn to be spun before winding on. Suspended spindles permit the spinner to move around while spinning, going about their day. However, there are practical limits to their size/weight. Most supported spindles continue to rest with the tip on one's thigh, on the ground, on a table, or in a small bowl while rotating. Supported spindles come in a great variety of sizes, such as the large, ~30" Navajo spindle, the small fast, metal takli for spinning cotton, the tiniest Orenburg spindles for spinning gossamer lace yarns. Grasped spindles are known as hand spindles, in the hand spindles, in hand spindles and twiddled spindles.
Grasped spindles remain held in the hand using wrist movements to turn the spindle. French spindles are "twiddled" between the fingers of one hand while some types of Romanian spindles are grasped in the fist and turned through rotation of the wrist. While spindle types are divided into these three main categories, some traditional spinning styles employ multiple or blended techniques. For example the Akha spindle, a short spindle with a large centre-whorl disc, is supported by the hand of the spinner during drafting of cotton fibre, but during the adding of extra twist to stabilize the yarn, the spindle is dropped to rest on the yarn. A familiar sight from history books is a spindle used in conjunction with a distaff, an upright stick with a large quantity of loose fibre wound around it, to be accessed. There are many other methods for controlling the pre-spun fibre, such as coiling it around one's lower arm, or through a bracelet, or wrapping it loosely around a yarn braid hanging from one's wrist.
Another way spindles are categorised. The whorl, where present, may be located near the bottom or centre of the spindle. For example a top-whorl drop spindle will have the whorl located near the top of the shaft underneath a hook that allows the spindle to suspend as it is being spun; the newly spun yarn is wound below the whorl and forms a ‘cop’. Depending on the location of the whorl and style of the spindle, the cop can be conical, football or ball shaped and it can be wound above, below or over the whorl. Spindles can be used for plying: intertwining two or more single strands of yarn together in order to create a stronger, more balanced, more durable yarn. While hand spindles vary, there are some similarities in the parts. Spindle shafts can be made out of a variety of materials such as wood, bone or plastic, they may have little shaping or be shaped enough to form part of the whorl. Shafts may be decorated with painting or carving; the shaft is how the spinner inserts twist through turning it between the fingers or rolling it between the hand and another part of their anatomy, such as their thigh.
The thickness of the shaft affects how fast the spindles spins with narrower shafts contributing to a faster spinning spindle. Many spindles will have a point at the top of the shaft to fix the thread to. Options include a simple length of shaft to tie the thread around, a shaped notch or bulb, or a hook. A whorl is a weight, added to many types of spindles and can be made out of a large variety of materials including wood, glass, stone, clay or bone. Whorls may be decorated or left plain, they may be affixed permanently to the shaft or they may be removable. Whorl shapes vary and can include ball-shaped, disk-shaped and cross shaped whorls; the shape and mass distribution of the whorl affects the momentum it gives to the spindle while it is spinning. For example a centre weighted whorl will spin fast and short, while a rim-weighte
Gladius
Gladius was one Latin word for sword, is used to represent the primary sword of Ancient Roman foot soldiers. Early ancient Roman swords were similar to those of the Greeks, called xiphos. From the 3rd century BC, the Romans adopted swords similar to those used by the Celtiberians and others during the early part of the conquest of Hispania; this sword was known as the gladius hispaniensis, or "Hispanic sword". A equipped Roman legionary after the reforms of Gaius Marius was armed with a shield, one or two javelins, a sword a dagger, in the empire period, darts. Conventionally, soldiers threw pilae to disable the enemy's shields and disrupt enemy formations before engaging in close combat, for which they drew the gladius. A soldier led with the shield and thrust with the sword. Gladius is a Latin masculine second declension noun, its plural is gladiī. However, gladius in Latin refers to any sword, not the modern definition of a gladius; the word appears in literature as early as the plays of Plautus.
Gladius is believed to be a Celtic loan in Latin, derived from ancient Celtic *kladios or *kladimos "sword". Modern English words derived from gladius include gladiator and gladiolus, a flowering plant with sword-shaped leaves. According to Livy and Polybius, Celtiberian mercenaries for Hannibal at the Battle of Cannae wielded short swords that excelled at both slashing and thrusting. Roman military would have adopted this design before the end of the war, calling it gladius hispaniensis in Latin and iberiké machaira in Greek; this weapon replaced the previous Roman sword. It is believed Scipio Africanus was the promoter of the change after the Battle of Cartagena in 209 BC, after which he set the inhabitants to produce weapons for the Roman army. Livy relates the story of Titus Manlius Torquatus accepting a challenge to a single combat by a large Gallic soldier at a bridge over the Anio river, where the Gauls and the Romans were encamped on opposite sides. Manlius strapped on the "Hispanic sword".
During the combat he thrust twice with it under the shield of the Gaul, dealing fatal blows to the abdomen. He removed the Gaul's torc and placed it around his own neck, hence the name, torquatus; the combat occurred during the consulships of C. Sulpicius Peticus and C. Licinius Stolo—i.e. About 361 BC, long during the frontier wars with the Gauls. One theory proposes the borrowing of the word gladius from *kladi- during this period, relying on the principle that K became G in Latin. Ennius attests the word. Gladius may have replaced ensis, which in the literary periods was used by poets; the exact origin of the gladius Hispanus is disputed. While it is that it descended from Celtic swords of the La Tene and Hallstat periods, no one knows if it came to the Romans through Celtiberian troops of the Punic Wars, or through Gallic troops of the Gallic Wars. Arguments for the Celtiberian source of the weapon have been reinforced in recent decades by discovery of early Roman gladii that seem to highlight that they were copies of Celtiberian models.
The weapon developed in Iberia after La Tène I models, which were adapted to traditional Celtiberian techniques during the late 4th and early 3rd centuries BC. These weapons are quite original in their design. By the time of the Roman Republic, which flourished during the Iron Age, the classical world was well-acquainted with steel and the steel-making process. Pure iron is soft, but pure iron is never found in nature. Natural iron ore contains various impurities in solid solution, which harden the reduced metal by producing irregular-shaped metallic crystals; the gladius was made out of steel. In Roman times, workers reduced ore in a bloomery furnace; the resulting pieces were called blooms, which they further worked to remove slag inclusions from the porous surface. A recent metallurgical study of two Etrurian swords, one in the form of a Greek kopis from 7th century BC Vetulonia, the other in the form of a gladius Hispaniensis from 4th century BC Chiusa, gives insight concerning the manufacture of Roman swords.
The Chiusa sword comes from Romanized etruria. The Vetulonian sword was crafted by the pattern welding process from five blooms reduced at a temperature of 1163 °C. Five strips of varying carbon content were created. A central core of the sword contained the highest: 0.15–0.25% carbon. On its edges were placed four strips of low-carbon steel, 0.05–0.07%, the whole thing was welded together by forging on the pattern of hammer blows. A blow increased the temperature sufficiently to produce a friction weld at that spot. Forging continued; the sword was 58 cm long. The Chiusian sword was created from a single bloom by forging from a temperature of 1237 °C; the carbon content increased from 0.05–0.08% at the back side of the sword to 0.35–0.4% on the blade, from which the authors de
Hamburg
Hamburg is the second-largest city in Germany with a population of over 1.8 million. One of Germany's 16 federal states, it is surrounded by Schleswig-Holstein to the north and Lower Saxony to the south; the city's metropolitan region is home to more than five million people. Hamburg lies on two of its tributaries, the River Alster and the River Bille; the official name reflects Hamburg's history as a member of the medieval Hanseatic League and a free imperial city of the Holy Roman Empire. Before the 1871 Unification of Germany, it was a sovereign city state, before 1919 formed a civic republic headed constitutionally by a class of hereditary grand burghers or Hanseaten. Beset by disasters such as the Great Fire of Hamburg, north Sea flood of 1962 and military conflicts including World War II bombing raids, the city has managed to recover and emerge wealthier after each catastrophe. Hamburg is Europe's third-largest port. Major regional broadcasting firm NDR, the printing and publishing firm Gruner + Jahr and the newspapers Der Spiegel and Die Zeit are based in the city.
Hamburg is the seat of Germany's oldest stock exchange and the world's oldest merchant bank, Berenberg Bank. Media, commercial and industrial firms with significant locations in the city include multinationals Airbus, Blohm + Voss, Aurubis and Unilever; the city hosts specialists in world economics and international law, including consular and diplomatic missions as the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, the EU-LAC Foundation, the UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning, multipartite international political conferences and summits such as Europe and China and the G20. Both the former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt and Angela Merkel, German chancellor since 2005, come from Hamburg; the city is a major domestic tourist destination. It ranked 18th in the world for livability in 2016; the Speicherstadt and Kontorhausviertel were declared World Heritage Sites by UNESCO in 2015. Hamburg is a major European science and education hub, with several universities and institutions. Among its most notable cultural venues are the Laeiszhalle concert halls.
It paved the way for bands including The Beatles. Hamburg is known for several theatres and a variety of musical shows. St. Pauli's Reeperbahn is among the best-known European entertainment districts. Hamburg is at a sheltered natural harbour on the southern fanning-out of the Jutland Peninsula, between Continental Europe to the south and Scandinavia to the north, with the North Sea to the west and the Baltic Sea to the northeast, it is on the River Elbe at its confluence with the Bille. The city centre is around the Binnenalster and Außenalster, both formed by damming the River Alster to create lakes; the islands of Neuwerk, Scharhörn, Nigehörn, 100 kilometres away in the Hamburg Wadden Sea National Park, are part of the city of Hamburg. The neighborhoods of Neuenfelde, Cranz and Finkenwerder are part of the Altes Land region, the largest contiguous fruit-producing region in Central Europe. Neugraben-Fischbek has Hamburg's highest elevation, the Hasselbrack at 116.2 metres AMSL. Hamburg borders the states of Lower Saxony.
Hamburg has an oceanic climate, influenced by its proximity to the coast and marine air masses that originate over the Atlantic Ocean. The location north of Germany provides extremes greater than marine climates, but in the category due to the mastery of the western standards. Nearby wetlands enjoy a maritime temperate climate; the amount of snowfall has differed a lot during the past decades: while in the late 1970s and early 1980s, at times heavy snowfall occurred, the winters of recent years have been less cold, with snowfall only on a few days per year. The warmest months are June and August, with high temperatures of 20.1 to 22.5 °C. The coldest are December and February, with low temperatures of −0.3 to 1.0 °C. Claudius Ptolemy reported the first name for the vicinity as Treva; the name Hamburg comes from the first permanent building on the site, a castle which the Emperor Charlemagne ordered constructed in AD 808. It rose on rocky terrain in a marsh between the River Alster and the River Elbe as a defence against Slavic incursion, acquired the name Hammaburg, burg meaning castle or fort.
The origin of the Hamma term remains uncertain. In 834, Hamburg was designated as the seat of a bishopric; the first bishop, became known as the Apostle of the North. Two years Hamburg was united with Bremen as the Bishopric of Hamburg-Bremen. Hamburg occupied several times. In 845, 600 Viking ships sailed up the River Elbe and destroyed Hamburg, at that time a town of around 500 inhabitants. In 1030, King Mieszko II Lambert of Poland burned down the city. Valdemar II of Denmark raided and occupied Hamburg in 1201 and in 1214; the Black Death killed at least 60% of the population in 1350. Hamburg experienced several great fires in the medieval period. In 1189, by imperial charter, Frederick I "Barbarossa" granted Hamburg the status of a Free Imperial City and tax-free access up the Lower Elbe into the North Sea. In 1265, an forged letter was presented to or by the Rath of Hamburg; this charter, along with Hamburg's proximity to the main trade routes of the North Sea and Baltic Sea made it a
