1.
Jupiter (mythology)
–
Jupiter, also Jove, is the god of sky and thunder and king of the gods in Ancient Roman religion and mythology. Jupiter was the deity of Roman state religion throughout the Republican and Imperial eras. In Roman mythology, he negotiates with Numa Pompilius, the king of Rome, to establish principles of Roman religion such as offering. Jupiter is usually thought to have originated as a sky god, the two emblems were often combined to represent the god in the form of an eagle holding in its claws a thunderbolt, frequently seen on Greek and Roman coins. As the sky-god, he was a witness to oaths. Many of his functions were focused on the Capitoline Hill, where the citadel was located and he was the chief deity of the early Capitoline Triad with Mars and Quirinus. In the later Capitoline Triad, he was the guardian of the state with Juno. His sacred tree was the oak, the Romans regarded Jupiter as the equivalent of the Greek Zeus, and in Latin literature and Roman art, the myths and iconography of Zeus are adapted under the name Iuppiter. In the Greek-influenced tradition, Jupiter was the brother of Neptune, each presided over one of the three realms of the universe, sky, the waters, and the underworld. The Italic Diespiter was also a sky god who manifested himself in the daylight, usually, Tinia is usually regarded as his Etruscan counterpart. The Romans believed that Jupiter granted them supremacy because they had honoured him more than any other people had, Jupiter was the fount of the auspices upon which the relationship of the city with the gods rested. He personified the divine authority of Romes highest offices, internal organization and his image in the Republican and Imperial Capitol bore regalia associated with Romes ancient kings and the highest consular and Imperial honours. The consuls swore their oath of office in Jupiters name, to thank him for his help, they offered him a white ox with gilded horns. A similar offering was made by generals, who surrendered the tokens of their victory at the feet of Jupiters statue in the Capitol. Some scholars have viewed the triumphator as embodying Jupiter in the triumphal procession, Jupiters association with kingship and sovereignty was reinterpreted as Romes form of government changed. Originally, Rome was ruled by kings, after the monarchy was abolished and the Republic established, religious prerogatives were transferred to the patres, nostalgia for the kingship was considered treasonous. Those suspected of harbouring monarchical ambitions were punished, regardless of their service to the state, in the 5th century BC, the triumphator Camillus was sent into exile after he drove a chariot with a team of four white horses —an honour reserved for Jupiter himself. His house on the Capitoline Hill was razed, and it was decreed that no patrician should ever be allowed to live there, during the Conflict of the Orders, Romes plebeians demanded the right to hold political and religious office
Jupiter (mythology)
–
A marble statue of Jupiter from c. 200 AD
Jupiter (mythology)
–
Marcus Aurelius (
head covered) sacrificing at the Temple of Jupiter
Jupiter (mythology)
–
Triumphator in his four-horse chariot, from the
Arch of Titus
Jupiter (mythology)
–
Detail of
relief from the
Augustan Altar of Peace, showing flamens wearing the pointed
apex
2.
Haute-Marne
–
Haute-Marne is a department in the northeast of France named after the Marne River. Haute-Marne is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on March 4,1790 and it was created from parts of the former provinces of Champagne, Burgundy, Lorraine and Franche-Comté. In March 1814 the departmental prefecture, Chaumont, was the witness to the end of the First Empire. On 1 March, Prussia, Russia, the United Kingdom and Austria signed an accord forbidding any individual peace deal with Napoleon I, during World War II, Haute-Marne was partitioned under German occupation. The canal which runs from the Marne to the Saône served as a border, the east was a reserved zone, intended for the creation of a new German state, whereas to the west would be the traditional occupied zone. Haute-Marne was finally liberated by the Allies, in the form of the division of General Leclerc, Haute-Marne is part of the region of Grand Est and is surrounded by the departments of Meuse, Vosges, Haute-Saône, Côte-dOr, Aube, and Marne. The nearest big cities are Paris, Nancy, Strasbourg, Basel, the highest mountain is Haut-du-Sac, in the Langres Plateau, in the southwest of the department, which rises to a height of 516 m. The lowest points at 117m are found on the plains of Perthois, the department is named after the Marne River, whose source is near Langres. This river covers 120 kilometres within the department, the department is to the east of the Parisian basin, and is characterised by a concentric sequence of cliff faces of varying geological origin, oriented northeast/southwest. The Haute-Marne department is not a department but this peaceful territory has numerous interesting places to present. Indeed, the department was one of the most powerful in French history thanks to metallurgy economy and was a land of confrontations along history, thus, among other examples, the French Wars of Religion began with the Massacre of Vassy in the north of the Haute-Marne department. Following this event, open military conflicts across France Kingdom began, the Edict of Nantes is the consequence of this period
Haute-Marne
–
Prefecture building of the Haute-Marne department, in Chaumont
Haute-Marne
–
View from the walls of
Langres
Haute-Marne
–
Charles de Gaulle 's private residence in
Colombey-les-Deux-Églises
Haute-Marne
–
Joinville
3.
Celtic mythology
–
Celtic mythology is the mythology of Celtic polytheism, the religion of the Iron Age Celts. Like other Iron Age Europeans, the early Celts maintained a polytheistic mythology and it is mostly through contemporary Roman and Christian sources that their mythology has been preserved. The Celtic peoples who maintained either their political or linguistic identities left vestigial remnants of their ancestral mythologies, however, from what has survived of Celtic mythology, it is possible to discern commonalities which hint at a more unified pantheon than is often given credit. Indeed, many Gaelic myths were first recorded by Christian monks, the oldest body of myths stemming from the Heroic Age is found only from the early medieval period of Ireland. As Christianity began to take over, the gods and goddesses were slowly eliminated as such from the culture, the Tuatha Dé represent the functions of human society such as kingship, crafts and war, while the Fomorians represent chaos and wild nature. The leader of the gods for the Irish pantheon appears to have been the Dagda, the Dagda was the figure on which male humans and other gods were based because he embodied ideal Irish traits. Celtic gods were considered to be a clan due to their lack of specialization. Irish tales depict the Dagda as a figure of power, armed with a club, in Dorset there is a famous outline of an ithyphallic giant known as the Cerne Abbas Giant with a club cut into the chalky soil. While this was produced in relatively modern times, it was long thought to be a representation of the Dagda. In Gaul, it is speculated that the Dagda is associated with Sucellus, the Morrígan was a tripartite battle goddess of the Celts of Ancient Ireland. She was known as the Morrígan, but the different sections she was divided into were also referred to as Nemain, Macha and she is most commonly known for her involvement in the Táin Bó Cúailnge. The god appearing most frequently in the tales is Lugh, the most famous of these are the cities of Lugdunum, Lugdunum Batavorum and Lucus Augusti. Lug is described in the Celtic myths as the last to be added to the list of deities, in Ireland a festival called the Lughnasadh was held in his honour. Other important goddesses include Brigid, the Dagdas daughter, Aibell, Áine, Macha, notable is Epona, the horse goddess, celebrated with horse races at the summer festival. Significant Irish gods include Nuada Airgetlám, the first king of the Tuatha Dé Danann, Goibniu, the smith and brewer, Dian Cecht, the patron of healing, less is known about the pre-Christian mythologies of Britain than those of Ireland. Important reflexes of British mythology appear in the Four Branches of the Mabinogi, especially in the names of characters, such as Rhiannon, Teyrnon. The children of Llŷr in the Second and Third Branches, and the children of Dôn in the Fourth Branch are major figures, indeed, though there is much in common with Irish myth, there may have been no unified British mythological tradition per se. Whatever its ultimate origins, the material has been put to good use in the service of literary masterpieces that address the cultural concerns of Wales in the early
Celtic mythology
–
The Celtic god
Sucellus
Celtic mythology
Celtic mythology
–
Votive Celtic wheels thought to correspond to the cult of
Taranis. Thousands such wheels have been found in sanctuaries in
Gallia Belgica, dating from 50 BCE to 50 CE.
National Archaeological Museum, France
Celtic mythology
–
Cuchulainn carries Ferdiad across the river
4.
Thunder
–
Thunder is the sound caused by lightning. Depending on the distance and nature of the lightning, thunder can range from a sharp, loud crack to a long, the sudden increase in pressure and temperature from lightning produces rapid expansion of the air surrounding and within a bolt of lightning. In turn, this expansion of air creates a shock wave, similar to a sonic boom. The cause of thunder has been the subject of centuries of speculation, the first recorded theory is attributed to the Greek philosopher Aristotle in the fourth century BC, and an early speculation was that it was caused by the collision of clouds. Subsequently, numerous theories were proposed. By the mid-19th century, the theory was that lightning produced a vacuum. In the 20th century a consensus evolved that thunder must begin with a wave in the air due to the sudden thermal expansion of the plasma in the lightning channel. The average is about 20,400 K and this heating causes a rapid outward expansion, impacting the surrounding cooler air at a speed faster than sound would otherwise travel. The resultant outward-moving pulse is a wave, similar in principle to the shock wave formed by an explosion. Experimental studies of simulated lightning have produced results consistent with this model. Other causes have also proposed, relying on electrodynamic effects of the massive current acting on the plasma in the bolt of lightning. The shockwave in thunder is sufficient to cause injury, such as internal contusion, inversion thunder results when lightning strikes between cloud and ground occur during a temperature inversion. In such an inversion, the air near the ground is cooler than the higher air, the sound energy is prevented from dispersing vertically as it would in a non-inversion and is thus concentrated in the near-ground layer. Inversions often occur when warm moist air passes above a cold front, the d in Modern English thunder is epenthetic, and is now found as well in Modern Dutch donder. In Latin the term was tonare to thunder, the name of the Germanic god Thor comes from the Old Norse word for thunder. The shared Proto-Indo-European root is *tón-r̥ or *tar-, also found Gaulish Taranis, a flash of lightning, followed after some time by a rumble of thunder, illustrates the fact that sound travels significantly slower than light. Using this difference, one can estimate how far away the bolt of lightning is by timing the interval between seeing the flash and hearing thunder, the speed of sound in dry air is approximately 343 m/s or 1,127 ft/s or 768 mph at 20 °C. This translates to approximately 5 seconds per mile, the speed of light is high enough that it can be taken as infinite in this calculation because of the relatively small distance involved
Thunder
–
Cumulonimbus clouds often form
thunderstorms.
Thunder
–
Thunder is the sound produced by
lightning.
5.
Gaul
–
It covered an area of 190,800 sq mi. According to the testimony of Julius Caesar, Gaul was divided into three parts, Gallia Celtica, Belgica and Aquitania, during the 2nd and 1st centuries BC, Gaul fell under Roman rule, Gallia Cisalpina was conquered in 203 BC and Gallia Narbonensis in 123 BC. Gaul was invaded after 120 BC by the Cimbri and the Teutons, Gallia remains a name of France in modern Greek and modern Latin. The Greek and Latin names Galatia, and Gallia are ultimately derived from a Celtic ethnic term or clan Gal-to-. Galli of Gallia Celtica were reported to refer to themselves as Celtae by Caesar. Hellenistic folk etymology connected the name of the Galatians to the supposedly milk-white skin of the Gauls, modern researchers say it is related to Welsh gallu, Cornish galloes, capacity, power, thus meaning powerful people. The English Gaul is from French Gaule and is unrelated to Latin Gallia, as adjectives, English has the two variants, Gaulish and Gallic. The two adjectives are used synonymously, as pertaining to Gaul or the Gauls, although the Celtic language or languages spoken in Gaul is predominantly known as Gaulish. The Germanic w- is regularly rendered as gu- / g- in French, also unrelated in spite of superficial similarity is the name Gael. The Irish word gall did originally mean a Gaul, i. e. an inhabitant of Gaul, but its meaning was later widened to foreigner, to describe the Vikings, and later still the Normans. The dichotomic words gael and gall are sometimes used together for contrast, by 500 BC, there is strong Hallstatt influence throughout most of France. By the late 5th century BC, La Tène influence spreads rapidly across the territory of Gaul. The La Tène culture developed and flourished during the late Iron Age in France, Switzerland, Italy, Austria, southwest Germany, Bohemia, Moravia, Slovakia, farther north extended the contemporary pre-Roman Iron Age culture of northern Germany and Scandinavia. By the 2nd century BC, the Romans described Gallia Transalpina as distinct from Gallia Cisalpina, while some scholars believe the Belgae south of the Somme were a mixture of Celtic and Germanic elements, their ethnic affiliations have not been definitively resolved. One of the reasons is political interference upon the French historical interpretation during the 19th century, in addition to the Gauls, there were other peoples living in Gaul, such as the Greeks and Phoenicians who had established outposts such as Massilia along the Mediterranean coast. Also, along the southeastern Mediterranean coast, the Ligures had merged with the Celts to form a Celto-Ligurian culture, the prosperity of Mediterranean Gaul encouraged Rome to respond to pleas for assistance from the inhabitants of Massilia, who were under attack by a coalition of Ligures and Gauls. The Romans intervened in Gaul in 154 BC and again in 125 BC, whereas on the first occasion they came and went, on the second they stayed. Massilia was allowed to keep its lands, but Rome added to its territories the lands of the conquered tribes. The direct result of conquests was that by now, Rome controlled an area extending from the Pyrenees to the lower Rhône river
Gaul
–
Map of Roman Gaul (Droysens Allgemeiner historischer Handatlas, 1886)
Gaul
–
Gaul on the eve of the Gallic Wars.
Roman ethnography divides Gaul into five parts:
Gallia Belgica,
Gallia Celtica (largely corresponding to the later province
Gallia Lugdunensis),
Gallia Cisalpina,
Gallia Narbonensis and
Gallia Aquitania.
Gaul
–
Gauls in Rome
Gaul
–
Soldiers of Gaul, as imagined by a late 19th-century illustrator for the
Larousse dictionary, 1898
6.
British Isles
–
The British Isles are a group of islands off the north-western coast of continental Europe that consist of the islands of Great Britain, Ireland and over six thousand smaller isles. Situated in the North Atlantic, the islands have an area of approximately 315,159 km2. Two sovereign states are located on the islands, Ireland and the United Kingdom of Great Britain, the oldest rocks in the group are in the north west of Scotland, Ireland and North Wales and are 2,700 million years old. During the Silurian period the north-western regions collided with the south-east, the topography of the islands is modest in scale by global standards. Ben Nevis rises to an elevation of only 1,344 metres, and Lough Neagh, the climate is temperate marine, with mild winters and warm summers. The North Atlantic Drift brings significant moisture and raises temperatures 11 °C above the average for the latitude. This led to a landscape which was dominated by temperate rainforest. The region was re-inhabited after the last glacial period of Quaternary glaciation, Ireland, which became an island by 12,000 BC, was not inhabited until after 8000 BC. Great Britain became an island by 5600 BC, Hiberni, Pictish and Britons tribes, all speaking Insular Celtic, inhabited the islands at the beginning of the 1st millennium AD. Much of Brittonic-controlled Britain was conquered by the Roman Empire from AD43, the first Anglo-Saxons arrived as Roman power waned in the 5th century and eventually dominated the bulk of what is now England. Viking invasions began in the 9th century, followed by permanent settlements. Most of Ireland seceded from the United Kingdom after the Irish War of Independence, the term British Isles is controversial in Ireland, where there are objections to its usage due to the association of the word British with Ireland. The Government of Ireland does not recognise or use the term, as a result, Britain and Ireland is used as an alternative description, and Atlantic Archipelago has had limited use among a minority in academia, while British Isles is still commonly employed. Within them, they are sometimes referred to as these islands. The earliest known references to the islands as a group appeared in the writings of sea-farers from the ancient Greek colony of Massalia. The original records have been lost, however, later writings, e. g. Avienuss Ora maritima, in the 1st century BC, Diodorus Siculus has Prettanikē nēsos, the British Island, and Prettanoi, the Britons. Strabo used Βρεττανική, and Marcian of Heraclea, in his Periplus maris exteri, historians today, though not in absolute agreement, largely agree that these Greek and Latin names were probably drawn from native Celtic-language names for the archipelago. Along these lines, the inhabitants of the islands were called the Πρεττανοί, the shift from the P of Pretannia to the B of Britannia by the Romans occurred during the time of Julius Caesar
British Isles
–
Satellite image of the British Isles, excluding
Shetland and the
Channel Islands (out of frame)
British Isles
–
Some female red deer in
Killarney National Park, Ireland.
British Isles
–
The Alfred Jewel (9th century)
British Isles
–
James VI of Scotland (James I of England)
7.
Rhineland
–
The Rhineland is the name used for a loosely defined area of Western Germany along the Rhine River, chiefly its middle section. In the High Middle Ages, numerous Imperial States along the river emerged from the stem duchy of Lotharingia. The term covered the whole occupied zone west of the Rhine including the bridge-heads on the eastern banks, after the collapse of the French dominated West Bank in the early 19th century, the regions of Lower Rhine and Jülich-Cleves-Berg were annexed to the Kingdom of Prussia. In 1822 the Prussian administration reorganized the territory as the Rhine Province, following the First World War, the western part of Rhineland was occupied by Entente forces, then demilitarized under the 1919 Treaty of Versailles. German forces remilitarized the territory in 1936, as part of a diplomatic test of will, stretching down to the North Palatine Uplands in the south, this area, except for the Saarland, more or less corresponds with the modern use of the term. The southern and eastern parts are mainly hill country, cut by valleys, principally the Middle Rhine up to Bingen and its Ahr, Moselle. The border of the North German plain is marked by the lower Ruhr, in the south, the river cuts the Rhenish Massif. The area encompasses the western part of the Ruhr industrial region, toponyms as well as local family names often trace back to the Frankish heritage. The lands on the shore of the Rhine are strongly characterised by Roman influence. In the core territories, large parts of the population are members of the Catholic Church. On the right bank of the Rhine, between the Main and the Lahn, were the settlements of the Mattiaci, a branch of the Germanic Chatti, while farther to the north were the Usipetes and Tencteri. Julius Caesar conquered the tribes on the left bank, and Augustus established numerous fortified posts on the Rhine. The Frankish conquerors of the Rhenish districts were singularly little affected by the culture of the Roman provincials they subdued, by the 8th century the Frankish dominion was firmly established in western Germania and northern Gaul. On the division of the Carolingian Empire at the Treaty of Verdun the part the province to the east of the fell to East Francia. As the central power of the Holy Roman Emperor weakened, the Rhineland split up into small independent principalities, each with its separate vicissitudes. After the Imperial Reform of 1500/12, the territory was part of the Lower Rhenish–Westphalian, Upper Rhenish, aachen was the place of coronation of the German emperors, and the ecclesiastical principalities of the Rhine played a large role in German history. At the Peace of Basel in 1795, the whole of the bank of the Rhine was taken by France. The population was about 1.6 million in small states
Rhineland
–
Deutsches Eck, Koblenz
Rhineland
–
Coat of arms of the Rhineland
8.
Danube
–
The Danube is Europes second-longest river, after the Volga River, and also the longest river in the European Union region. It is located in Central and Eastern Europe, the Danube was once a long-standing frontier of the Roman Empire, and today flows through 10 countries, more than any other river in the world. Its drainage basin extends into nine more countries, the Latin name Dānuvius is one of a number of Old European river names derived from a Proto-Indo-European *dānu. Other river names from the root include the Dunajec, Dzvina/Daugava, Don, Donets, Dnieper, Dniestr. In Rigvedic Sanskrit, dānu means fluid, drop, in Avestan, in the Rigveda, Dānu once appears as the mother of Vrtra. Known to the ancient Greeks as the Istros a borrowing from a Daco-Thracian name meaning strong, in Latin, the Danube was variously known as Danubius, Danuvius or as Ister. The Dacian/Thracian name was Donaris for the upper Danube and Istros for the lower Danube, the Thraco-Phrygian name was Matoas, the bringer of luck. The Latin name is masculine, as are all its Slavic names, the German Donau is feminine, as it has been re-interpreted as containing the suffix -ouwe wetland. Classified as a waterway, it originates in the town of Donaueschingen, in the Black Forest of Germany, at the confluence of the rivers Brigach. The Danube then flows southeast for about 2,800 km, passing through four capital cities before emptying into the Black Sea via the Danube Delta in Romania and its drainage basin extends into nine more. The highest point of the basin is the summit of Piz Bernina at the Italy–Switzerland border. The land drained by the Danube extends into other countries. Many Danubian tributaries are important rivers in their own right, navigable by barges, from its source to its outlet into the Black Sea, its main tributaries are, The Danube flows through many cities, including four national capitals, more than any other river in the world. Danube remains a mountain river until Passau, with average bottom gradient 0. 0012%. Middle Section, From Devín Gate to Iron Gate, at the border of Serbia and Romania, the riverbed widens and the average bottom gradient becomes only 0. 00006%. Lower Section, From Iron Gate to Sulina, with average gradient as little as 0. 00003%, about 60 of its tributaries are also navigable. In 1994 the Danube was declared one of ten Pan-European transport corridors, routes in Central, the amount of goods transported on the Danube increased to about 100 million tons in 1987. In 1999, transport on the river was difficult by the NATO bombing of three bridges in Serbia during the Kosovo War
Danube
–
Danube in
Vienna
Danube
–
The Danube discharges into the
Black Sea.
Danube
–
Where the Danube Meets the
Black Sea (
NASA Goddard image).
Danube
–
The confluence of the
Sava into the Danube at
Belgrade. Pictured from
Belgrade Fortress,
Serbia
9.
Esus
–
Esus, Hesus, or Aisus was a Gaulish god known from two monumental statues and a line in Lucans Bellum civile. The two sculptures where Esus appears are the Pillar of the Boatmen from among the Parisii, on which Esus is identified by name, in both of these, Esus is portrayed cutting branches from trees with his axe. Esus is accompanied, on different panels of the Pillar of the Boatmen, by Tarvos Trigaranus, Jupiter, Vulcan, a well-known section in Lucans Bellum civile refers to gory sacrifices offered to a triad of Celtic deities, Teutates, Hesus, and Taranis. Variant spellings, or readings, of the name Esus in the mansucripts of Lucan include Hesus, Aesus, among a pair of later commentators on Lucans work, one identifies Teutates with Mercury and Esus with Mars. According to the Berne Commentary on Lucan, human victims were sacrificed to Esus by being tied to a tree, the work contains a magico-medical charm decipherable as Gaulish which appears to invoke the aid of Esus in curing throat trouble. It is possible that the Esuvii of Gaul, in the area of present-day Normandy, took their name from this deity. T. F. ORahilly derives the name Esus, as well as Aoibheall, Éibhleann, Aoife, and other names, from the Indo-European root *eis-, which he glosses as well-being, energy, passion. Jan de Vries finds grounds of comparison between Esus and Odin, both being patrons of sailors sometimes associated with Mercury to whom human victims were said to be sacrificed by hanging. Miranda Green suggests that the willow-tree that Esus hews may symbolize the Tree of Life with its associations of destruction and death in winter and she further suggests that the cranes might represent the flight of the soul. The 18th century Druidic revivalist Iolo Morgannwg identified Esus with Jesus on the strength of the similarity of their names and he also linked them both with Hu Gadarn, writing, This identification is still made in certain Neo-Druidic circles. Modern scholars consider the resemblance between the names Esus and Jesus to be coincidental, lugus Esus, including photographs and a capitulation of primary and secondary source material. A contemporary Dutch-language story of struggle between Esus and Tarvos Trigaranus
Esus
–
Image of Esus on the
Pillar of the Boatmen.
Esus
–
Supra-regional
Esus
10.
Toutatis
–
Toutatis or Teutates was a Celtic god worshipped in ancient Gaul and Britain. On the basis of his names etymology, he has been interpreted to be a tribal protector. Today, he is best known under the name Toutatis through the Gaulish oath/catchphrase By Toutatis, invented for the Asterix comics by Goscinny and Uderzo. The spelling Toutatis, however, is authentic and attested by about ten ancient inscriptions, under the spelling Teutates, the god is also known from a passage in Lucan. The name Teutates is derived from the stem teutā-, meaning people or tribe, Teutates was one of three Celtic gods mentioned by the Roman poet Lucan in the 1st century AD, the other two being Esus and Taranis. According to later commentators, victims sacrificed to Teutates were killed by being plunged headfirst into a vat filled with an unspecified liquid, present-day scholars frequently speak of the toutates as plural, referring respectively to the patrons of the several tribes. Of two later commentators on Lucans text, one identifies Teutates with Mercury, the other with Mars, Toutatis was worshipped especially in Gaul and in Roman Britain. Inscriptions to him have been recovered in the United Kingdom, for example that at Cumberland Quarries, dedicated to Jupiter Optimus Maximus, two dedications have also been found in Noricum and Rome. As noted above, among a pair of later scholiasts on Lucans work, one identifies Teutates with Mercury, at times the Gaulish “Mercury may have the characteristic of a warrior, while the Gaulish “Mars may act as a god of protection or healing. The distribution of these rings closely matches the territory of the Corieltauvi tribe, in 2005 a silver ring inscribed DEO TOTA and FELIX was discovered at Hockliffe, Bedfordshire. This inscription confirmed that the inscription TOT did indeed refer to the god Toutatis, in 2012 a silver ring inscribed TOT was found in the area where the Hallaton Treasure had been discovered twelve years earlier. Adam Daubney, an expert on this type of ring, suggests that Hallaton may have been a site of worship of the god Toutatis, interpretatio Romana Germanic Mercury 4179 Toutatis The dictionary definition of Toutatis at Wiktionary
Toutatis
–
Romano-British silver ring inscribed "TOT"
Toutatis
–
Toutatis ring from
Eboracum, now in the
Yorkshire Museum
Toutatis
–
Supra-regional
Toutatis
11.
Triple deity
–
A triple deity is three deities that are worshipped as one. Such deities are common throughout world mythology, the three has a long history of mythical associations. Carl Jung considered the arrangement of deities into triplets an archetype in the history of religion, in religious iconography or mythological art, three separate beings may represent either a triad who always appear as a group or a single deity known from literary sources as having three aspects. In the case of the Irish Brigid it can be ambiguous whether she is a goddess or three sisters, all named Brigid. The Morrígan also appears sometimes as one being, and at times as three sisters, as do the three Irish goddesses of sovereignty, Ériu, Fódla and Banba. The Matres or Matronae are usually represented as a group of three but sometimes with as many as 27 inscriptions and they were associated with motherhood and fertility. Triads or triple beings are ubiquitous in the Welsh and Irish mythic imagery, the religious iconographic repertoire of Gaul and Britain during the Roman period includes a wide range of triple forms, the most common triadic depiction is that of the triple mother goddess. Peter H. Goodrich interprets the figure of Morgan le Fay as a manifestation of a British triple goddess in the medieval romance Sir Gawain. A modern idea of a Triple Goddess is central to the new movement of Wicca. Georges Dumézils trifunctional hypothesis proposed that ancient Indo-European society conceived itself as structured around three activities, worship, war, and toil, in later times, when slave labor became common, the three functions came to be seen as separate classes, represented each by its own god. Dumézil understood this mythology as reflecting and validating social structures in its content, such a class system is found in ancient Indian, Iranian, Greek. But according to the linguist M. L, at her sacred grove at Aricia, on the shores of Lake Nemi a triplefold Diana was venerated from the late sixth century BCE as Diana Nemorensis. Andreas Alföldi interpreted a late Republican numismatic image as the Latin Diana conceived as a unity of the divine huntress, the Moon goddess. This coin shows that the goddess cult image still stood in the lucus of Nemi in 43 BCE. The Lake of Nemi was Triviae lacus for Virgil, while Horace called Diana montium custos nemoremque virgo, Diana is commonly addressed as Trivia by Virgil and Catullus. Spells and hymns in Greek magical papyri refer to the goddess as triple-sounding, in the mythology of the Sámi, a triad of goddesses are responsible for childbirth and protecting children. Sáhráhkka, who lives in the fireplace, is responsible for pregnancy, juksáhkká, who lives in the area of the back doors, is responsible for turning some children into boys while they are in the womb. Uksáhkká guards the doors, and is responsible for protecting all young children
Triple deity
–
The Greek goddess
Hecate portrayed in triplicate.
Triple deity
–
Terracotta relief of the Matres, from
Bibracte, city of the
Aedui in
Gaul.
Triple deity
–
This part of a 12th-century Swedish tapestry has been interpreted to show, from left to right, the one-eyed
Odin, the hammer-wielding
Thor and
Freyr holding up an ear of corn.
Triple deity
–
Brahma,
Vishnu and
Shiva seated on lotuses with their consorts:
Saraswati,
Lakshmi, and
Paravati respectively. ca 1770.
12.
Lucan (poet)
–
Marcus Annaeus Lucanus, better known in English as Lucan, was a Roman poet, born in Corduba, in the Hispania Baetica. Despite his short life, he is regarded as one of the figures of the Imperial Latin period. His youth and speed of composition set him apart from other poets, Lucan was the son of Marcus Annaeus Mela and grandson of Seneca the Elder, he grew up under the tutelage of his uncle Seneca the Younger. Born into a family, he studied rhetoric at Athens and was probably provided with a philosophical. He found success under Nero, became one of the close friends and was rewarded with a quaestorship in advance of the legal age. In 60 AD, he won a prize for extemporizing Orpheus and Laudes Neronis at the quinquennial Neronia, during this time he circulated the first three books of his epic poem, Pharsalia, which told the story of the civil war between Julius Caesar and Pompey. At some point, a feud began between Nero and Lucan, two very different accounts of the events have survived that both trivialize the feud. According to Tacitus, Nero became jealous of Lucan and forbade him to publish his poems, according to Suetonius, Nero lost interest in Lucan and Lucan responded by writing insulting poems about Nero that Nero continued to ignore. Other works, though, point to a serious basis to the feud. Works by the grammarian Vacca and the poet Statius may support the claim that Lucan wrote insulting poems about Nero, Vacca mentions that one of Lucans works was entitled De Incendio Urbis. Statiuss ode to Lucan mentions that Lucan described how the flames of the criminal tyrant roamed the heights of Remus. Additionally, the books of Pharsalia are anti-Imperial and pro-Republic. This criticism of Nero and office of the Emperor may have been the cause of the ban. Lucan later joined the 65 AD conspiracy of Gaius Calpurnius Piso against Nero. His treason discovered, he was obliged, at the age of 25, to suicide by opening a vein. According to Tacitus, as Lucan bled to death, recalled some poetry he had composed in which he had told the story of a soldier dying a similar kind of death. His father was involved in the proscription but his mother escaped, statiuss poem about Lucan was addressed to his widow, Polla Argentaria, upon the occasion of his birthday during the reign of Domitian. Cornell Studies in Classical Philology 39, ideology in Cold Blood, A Reading of Lucans Civil War
Lucan (poet)
–
Bust of the Roman poet Lucan,
Córdoba,
Spain.
Lucan (poet)
–
Engraved title page of a French edition of Lucan's Pharsalia, 1657
13.
Pharsalia
–
The poems title is a reference to the Battle of Pharsalus, which occurred in 48 BC, near Pharsalus, Thessaly, in northern Greece. Caesar decisively defeated Pompey in this battle, which all of the epics seventh book. The poem was begun around 61 AD and several books were in circulation before the Emperor Nero, a total of ten books were written and all survive, the tenth book breaks off abruptly with Caesar in Egypt. Despite an urgent plea from the Spirit of Rome to lay down his arms, Caesar crosses the Rubicon, rallies his troops and marches south to Rome, the book closes with panic in the city, terrible portents and visions of the disaster to come. Book 2, In a city overcome by despair, an old veteran presents a lengthy interlude regarding the civil war that pitted Marius against Sulla. Cato is introduced as a man of principle, as abhorrent as civil war is. After siding with Pompey—the lesser of two evils—he remarries his ex-wife and heads to the field, Caesar continues south through Italy and is delayed by Domitius brave resistance. He attempts a blockade of Pompey at Brundisium, but the general makes an escape to Greece. Book 3, As his ships sail, Pompey is visited in a dream by Julia, his dead wife, Caesar returns to Rome and plunders the city, while Pompey reviews potential foreign allies. Caesar then heads for Spain, but his troops are detained at the siege of Massilia. The city ultimately falls in a naval battle. Book 4, The first half of book is occupied with Caesars victorious campaign in Spain against Afranius and Petreius. Switching scenes to Pompey, his forces intercept a raft carrying Caesarians, the book concludes with Curio launching an African campaign on Caesars behalf, where he is defeated and slain by the African King Juba. Book 5, The Senate in exile confirms Pompey the true leader of Rome, appius consults the Delphic oracle to learn of his fate in the war, and leaves with a misleading prophecy. In Italy, after defusing a mutiny, Caesar marches to Brundisium, only a portion of Caesars troops complete the crossing when a storm prevents further transit, he tries to personally send a message back but is himself nearly drowned. Finally, the storm subsides, and the face each other at full strength. With battle at hand, Pompey sends his wife to the island of Lesbos, Book 6, Pompeys troops force Caesars armies – featuring the heroic centurion Scaeva – to fall back to Thessaly. Lucan describes the wild Thessalian terrain as the wait for battle the next day
Pharsalia
–
The Pharsalia was especially popular in times of civil wars and similar troubles; for example the editor of this 1592 edition, Theodor Pulmann, explains Lucan’s relevance by the
French Wars of Religion (1562–98).
14.
Cyclops
–
A cyclops, in Greek mythology and later Roman mythology, was a member of a primordial race of giants, each with a single eye in the center of his forehead. The word cyclops literally means round-eyed or circle-eyed, other accounts were written by the playwright Euripides, poet Theocritus and Roman epic poet Virgil. In Hesiods Theogony, Zeus releases three cyclopes from the pit of Tartarus. They provide Zeus thunderbolt, Hades helmet of invisibility, and Poseidons trident, in a famous episode of Homers Odyssey, the hero Odysseus encounters the cyclops Polyphemus, the son of Poseidon and Thoosa, who lives with his fellow cyclopes in a distant country. The connection between the two groups has been debated in antiquity and by modern scholars and it is upon Homers account that Euripides and Virgil based their accounts of the mythical creatures. Strabo describes another group of seven Lycian cyclopes, also known as Bellyhands because they earned from their handicraft and they had built the walls of Tiryns and perhaps the caverns and the labyrinths near Nauplia, which are called cyclopean. All the other sources of literature about the cyclopes describe the cyclops Polyphemus, various ancient Greek and Roman authors wrote about cyclopes. Hesiod described them as three brothers who were primordial giants. ”However others suggest that Homer’s Polyphemus may have had two eyes and it is pointed out that in the Odyssey when the actual blinding occurs there is a reference to plural brows and lids. It is also noted that the first artistic or graphic depiction of the episode appears on an amphora that was created by the Polyphemos Painter c. 680-650 B. C. and the artist shows the blinding stake has two prongs, as two eyes are being targeted. In the Theogony by Hesiod, the cyclopes – Brontes, Steropes and the bright Arges – were the sons of Uranus and Gaia and brothers of the Hekatonkheires. As such, they were blood-related to the Titan and Olympian gods and they were giants with a single eye in the middle of their forehead and a foul disposition. According to Hesiod, they were strong and stubborn, collectively they eventually became synonyms for brute strength and power, and their name was invoked in connection with massive masonry. They were often pictured at their forge, Uranus, fearing their strength, locked them in Tartarus. Cronus, another son of Uranus and Gaia, later freed the cyclopes, along with the Hekatonkhires, Cronus then placed them back in Tartarus, where they remained, guarded by the female monster Campe, until freed by Zeus. They fashioned thunderbolts for Zeus to use as weapons, and helped him overthrow Cronus, the lightning bolts, which became Zeus main weapons, were forged by all three cyclopes, in that Arges added brightness, Brontes added thunder, and Steropes added lightning. According to a hymn of Callimachus, they were Hephaestus helpers at the forge, the cyclopes were said to have built the cyclopean fortifications at Tiryns and Mycenae in the Peloponnese. The noises proceeding from the heart of volcanoes were attributed to their operations, Euripides only extant comedy is his play Cyclops, which takes place on the island of Sicily near the volcano Mount Etna
Cyclops
–
The Cyclops, gouache and oil by
Odilon Redon, undated (
Kröller-Müller Museum)
Cyclops
–
Polyphemus, by
Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein, 1802 (Landesmuseum Oldenburg)
Cyclops
–
Statue of a Cyclops at the Natural History Museum in London
Cyclops
–
Syracuse,
Italy, -
Museo archeologico regionale Paolo Orsi - Elephas Falconeri
15.
Greek mythology
–
It was a part of the religion in ancient Greece. Greek mythology is explicitly embodied in a collection of narratives. Greek myth attempts to explain the origins of the world, and details the lives and adventures of a variety of gods, goddesses, heroes, heroines. These accounts initially were disseminated in a tradition, today the Greek myths are known primarily from ancient Greek literature. The oldest known Greek literary sources, Homers epic poems Iliad and Odyssey, focus on the Trojan War, archaeological findings provide a principal source of detail about Greek mythology, with gods and heroes featured prominently in the decoration of many artifacts. Geometric designs on pottery of the eighth century BC depict scenes from the Trojan cycle as well as the adventures of Heracles, in the succeeding Archaic, Classical, and Hellenistic periods, Homeric and various other mythological scenes appear, supplementing the existing literary evidence. Greek mythology has had an influence on the culture, arts. Poets and artists from ancient times to the present have derived inspiration from Greek mythology and have discovered contemporary significance and relevance in the themes, Greek mythology is known today primarily from Greek literature and representations on visual media dating from the Geometric period from c. Mythical narration plays an important role in every genre of Greek literature. Nevertheless, the only general mythographical handbook to survive from Greek antiquity was the Library of Pseudo-Apollodorus and this work attempts to reconcile the contradictory tales of the poets and provides a grand summary of traditional Greek mythology and heroic legends. Apollodorus of Athens lived from c, 180–125 BC and wrote on many of these topics. His writings may have formed the basis for the collection, however the Library discusses events that occurred long after his death, among the earliest literary sources are Homers two epic poems, the Iliad and the Odyssey. Other poets completed the cycle, but these later and lesser poems now are lost almost entirely. Despite their traditional name, the Homeric Hymns have no connection with Homer. They are choral hymns from the part of the so-called Lyric age. Hesiods Works and Days, a poem about farming life, also includes the myths of Prometheus, Pandora. The poet gives advice on the best way to succeed in a dangerous world, lyrical poets often took their subjects from myth, but their treatment became gradually less narrative and more allusive. Greek lyric poets, including Pindar, Bacchylides and Simonides, and bucolic poets such as Theocritus and Bion, additionally, myth was central to classical Athenian drama
Greek mythology
–
Bust of
Zeus,
Otricoli (Sala Rotonda,
Museo Pio-Clementino,
Vatican).
Greek mythology
–
Greek Mythology
Greek mythology
–
Prometheus (1868 by
Gustave Moreau). The myth of Prometheus first was attested by
Hesiod and then constituted the basis for a tragic trilogy of plays, possibly by Aeschylus, consisting of
Prometheus Bound,
Prometheus Unbound, and
Prometheus Pyrphoros.
Greek mythology
–
The Roman poet
Virgil, here depicted in the fifth-century manuscript, the
Vergilius Romanus, preserved details of Greek mythology in many of his writings.
16.
Gundestrup cauldron
–
The Gundestrup cauldron is a richly decorated silver vessel, thought to date from between 200 BC and 300 AD, or more narrowly between 150 BC and 1 BC. This places it within the late La Tène period or early Roman Iron Age, the cauldron is the largest known example of European Iron Age silver work. It was found, dismantled with the other pieces stacked inside the base, in 1891 in a bog near the hamlet of Gundestrup in the Aars parish of Himmerland. It is now usually on display in the National Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen, with replicas at other museums, in 2015-16 it is in exhibitions in London and then Edinburgh on The Celts. The base plate is mostly smooth and undecorated inside and out, all the other plates are heavily decorated with repoussé work, hammered from beneath to push out the silver. Other techniques were used to add detail, and there is extensive gilding, other pieces of fittings were found. Altogether the weight is just under 9 kilograms, despite the fact that the vessel was found in Denmark, it was probably not made there or nearby, it includes elements of Gaulish and Thracian origin in the workmanship, metallurgy, and imagery. Other aspects of the iconography derive from the Near East, the Gundestrup cauldron was discovered by peat cutters in a small peat bog called Rævemose on 28 May 1891. The Danish government paid a reward to the finders, who subsequently quarreled bitterly amongst themselves over its division. Palaeobotanical investigations of the bog at the time of the discovery showed that the land had been dry when the cauldron was deposited. The manner of stacking suggested an attempt to make the cauldron inconspicuous, another investigation of Rævemose was undertaken in 2002, concluding that the peat bog may have existed when the cauldron was buried. The cauldron was found in a state with five long rectangular plates, seven short plates, one round plate. In addition, there is a piece of iron from a ring placed inside the silver tubes along the rim of the cauldron. It is assumed there is a missing eighth plate because the circumference of the seven outer plates is smaller than the circumference of the five inner plates. A set of careful full-size replicas have been made, one is in the National Museum of Ireland in Dublin, and several are in France, including the Musée gallo-romain de Fourvière at Lyon and the Musée darchéologie nationale at Saint-Germain-en-Laye. Since the cauldron was found in pieces, it had to be reconstructed, the traditional order of the plates was determined by Sophus Müller, the first of many to analyze the cauldron. His logic uses the positions of the trace solder located at the rim of the bowl, in two cases, a puncture mark penetrating the inner and outer plates also helps to establish the order. In its final form, the plates are arranged in an alternation of female-male depictions, not all analysts agree with Müllers ordering, however
Gundestrup cauldron
–
The Gundestrup Cauldron
Gundestrup cauldron
–
Another view
Gundestrup cauldron
–
Inside panel with the famous horned figure
Gundestrup cauldron
–
Exterior plate f
17.
Irish mythology
–
The mythology of pre-Christian Ireland did not entirely survive the conversion to Christianity. However, much of it was preserved in medieval Irish literature and this literature represents the most extensive and best preserved of all the branches of Celtic mythology. There are also a number of extant mythological texts that do not fit any of the cycles. Additionally, there are a number of recorded folk tales that, while not strictly mythological. Despite the dates of these sources, most of the material they contain predates their composition, the earliest of the prose can be dated on linguistic grounds to the 8th century, and some of the verse may be as old as the 6th century. The first of these part of the earliest known version of the Táin Bó Cúailnge and is housed in Trinity College. The other three are in the Royal Academy, when using these sources, it is, as always, important to question the impact of the circumstances in which they were produced. There was also a tendency to rework Irish genealogies to fit into the known schema of Greek or Biblical genealogy and it was once unquestioned that medieval Irish literature preserved truly ancient traditions in a form virtually unchanged through centuries of oral tradition back to the ancient Celts of Europe. A consensus has emerged which encourages the critical reading of the material, the Mythological Cycle, comprising stories of the former gods and origins of the Irish, is the least well preserved of the four cycles. The most important sources are the Metrical Dindshenchas or Lore of Places, Other manuscripts preserve such mythological tales as The Dream of Aengus, The Wooing Of Étain and Cath Maige Tuireadh, The Battle of Magh Tuireadh. One of the best known of all Irish stories, Oidheadh Clainne Lir, Lebor Gabála Érenn is a pseudo-history of Ireland, tracing the ancestry of the Irish back to before Noah. They faced opposition from their enemies, the Fomorians, led by Balor of the Evil Eye, Balor was eventually slain by Lug Lámfada at the second battle of Magh Tuireadh. With the arrival of the Gaels, the Tuatha Dé Danann retired underground to become the people of later myth. The Metrical Dindshenchas is the great work of early Ireland. It includes a lot of important information on Mythological Cycle figures and stories, including the Battle of Tailtiu, in which the Tuatha Dé Danann were defeated by the Milesians. It is important to note that by the Middle Ages the Tuatha Dé Danann were not viewed so much as gods as the shape-shifting magician population of an earlier Golden Age Ireland. Texts such as Lebor Gabála Érenn and Cath Maige Tuireadh present them as kings and heroes of the distant past, however, there is considerable evidence, both in the texts and from the wider Celtic world, that they were once considered deities. Even after they are displaced as the rulers of Ireland, characters such as Lug, a poem in the Book of Leinster lists many of the Tuatha Dé, but ends Although enumerates them, he does not worship them
Irish mythology
–
Bunworth
Banshee
Irish mythology
Irish mythology
–
Lugh's Magic Spear; illustration by H. R. Millar
Irish mythology
–
Cuchulainn Carries Ferdiad Across the River
18.
Thor
–
In Norse mythology, Thor is a hammer-wielding god associated with thunder, lightning, storms, oak trees, strength, the protection of mankind, and also hallowing and fertility. The cognate deity in wider Germanic mythology and paganism was known in Old English as Þunor and in Old High German as Donar, into the modern period, Thor continued to be acknowledged in rural folklore throughout Germanic regions. Thor is frequently referred to in place names, the day of the week Thursday bears his name, in Norse mythology, largely recorded in Iceland from traditional material stemming from Scandinavia, numerous tales and information about Thor are provided. With Sif, Thor fathered the goddess Þrúðr, with Járnsaxa, he fathered Magni, with a mother whose name is not recorded, he fathered Móði, and he is the stepfather of the god Ullr. The same sources list Thor as the son of the god Odin and the earth, Jörð. Thor has two servants, Þjálfi and Röskva, rides in a cart or chariot pulled by two goats, Tanngrisnir and Tanngnjóstr, and is ascribed three dwellings. Thor wields the mountain-crushing hammer, Mjölnir, wears the belt Megingjörð and the iron gloves Járngreipr, Thor has inspired numerous works of art and references to Thor appear in modern popular culture. Like other Germanic deities, veneration of Thor is revived in the period in Heathenry. The name of the god is the origin of the weekday name Thursday, by employing a practice known as interpretatio germanica during the Roman Empire period, the Germanic peoples adopted the Roman weekly calendar, and replaced the names of Roman gods with their own. Latin dies Iovis was converted into Proto-Germanic *Þonares dagaz, from which stems modern English Thursday, beginning in the Viking Age, personal names containing the theonym Thórr are recorded with great frequency. Prior to the Viking Age, no examples are recorded, thórr-based names may have flourished during the Viking Age as a defiant response to attempts at Christianization, similar to the wide scale Viking Age practice of wearing Thors hammer pendants. They regard it as a duty to offer to him, on fixed days. Hercules and Mars they appease by animal offerings of the permitted kind, in this instance, Tacitus refers to the god Odin as Mercury, Thor as Hercules, and the god Týr as Mars, and the identity of the Isis of the Suebi has been debated. In Thors case, the identification with the god Hercules is likely at least in part due to similarities between Thors hammer and Hercules club. In his Annals, Tacitus again refers to the veneration of Hercules by the Germanic peoples, Donar, the southern Germanic form of the gods name. According to an account, the Christian missionary Saint Boniface felled an oak tree dedicated to Jove in the 8th century. Around the second half of the 8th century, Old English mentions of a figure named Thunor are recorded, gabriel Turville-Petre saw this as an invented origin for the placename demonstrating loss of memory that Thunor had been a gods name. Adam details that Thor, they reckon, rules the sky, he governs thunder and lightning, winds and storms, fine weather and fertility and that Thor, with his mace, looks like Jupiter
Thor
–
Thor's Battle Against the
Jötnar (1872) by
Mårten Eskil Winge
Thor
–
The
Teutoburg Forest in northwestern Germany
Thor
–
Boniface bears his crucifix after felling Thor's Oak in Bonifacius (1905) by
Emil Doepler
Thor
–
16th-century depiction of Norse gods by
Olaus Magnus; from left to right,
Frigg, Thor, and Odin
19.
Anglo-Saxon polytheism
–
A variant of the Germanic paganism found across much of north-western Europe, it encompassed a heterogeneous variety of disparate beliefs and cultic practices, with much regional variation. Anglo-Saxon paganism was a belief system, focused around a belief in deities known as the ése. The most prominent of these deities was probably Woden, other prominent gods included Thunor, there was also a belief in a variety of other supernatural entities which inhabited the landscape, including elves, nicor, and dragons. There is some evidence for the existence of temples, although other cultic spaces might have been open-air. The belief system also included ideas about magic and witchcraft. The deities of this provided the basis for the names of the days of the week in the English language. What is known about the religion and its accompanying mythology have since influenced both literature and Modern Paganism, the word pagan is a Latin term that was used by Christians in Anglo-Saxon England to describe non-Christians. These pagan belief systems would have been inseparable from other aspects of daily life and they also suggested that early Anglo-Saxon Christianity had a similar structure, although acknowledged that this would be a controversial notion. As a phenomenon, it appeared to lack any rules or consistency, also exhibiting regional variation, thus, the archaeologist Aleks Pluskowski suggested that it is possible to talk of multiple Anglo-Saxon paganisms. Also adopting the categories of Gustav Mensching, she described Anglo-Saxon paganism as a religion, in that they concentrated on survival. Using the expressions paganism or heathenism when discussing pre-Christian belief systems in Anglo-Saxon England is problematic, historically, many early scholars of the Anglo-Saxon period used the terms to describe the religious beliefs in England before its conversion to Christianity in the 7th century. Several later scholars criticised the use of the term in this context, the term pre-Christian religion avoids the judgemental connotations of paganism and heathenism but is not always chronologically accurate. The pre-Christian society of Anglo-Saxon England was non-literate, thus there is no contemporary written evidence of the Anglo-Saxon practice of paganism. Far fewer textual records discuss Anglo-Saxon paganism than the belief systems found in nearby Ireland, Francia. There is no neat, formalised account of Anglo-Saxon pagan beliefs as there is for instance for Classical mythology, although many scholars have used Norse mythology as a guide to understanding the beliefs of pre-Christian Anglo-Saxon England, caution has been expressed as to the utility of this approach. As Stenton noted, the connection between Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian paganism occurred in a past which was already remote at the time of the Anglo-Saxon migration to Britain. Moreover, there was clear diversity among the pre-Christian belief systems of Scandinavia itself, Old English place-names also provide some insight into the pre-Christian beliefs and practices of Anglo-Saxon England. Some of these place-names reference the names of deities, while others use terms that refer to cultic practices that took place there
Anglo-Saxon polytheism
–
The right half of the front panel of the seventh century
Franks Casket, depicting the pan-Germanic legend of
Weyland Smith also Weyland The Smith, which was apparently also a part of Anglo-Saxon pagan mythology.
Anglo-Saxon polytheism
–
A 1908 depiction of
Beowulf fighting the dragon, by J. R. Skelton.
Anglo-Saxon polytheism
–
One of the burial mounds at Sutton Hoo
20.
Sami people
–
The Sami people are an indigenous Finno-Ugric people inhabiting the Arctic area of Sápmi, which today encompasses parts of far northern Norway, Sweden, Finland, and the Kola Peninsula of Russia. The Sami are the indigenous people of Scandinavia recognized and protected under the international conventions of indigenous peoples. Sami ancestral lands are not well-defined and their traditional languages are the Sami languages and are classified as a branch of the Uralic language family. Traditionally, the Sami have pursued a variety of livelihoods, including fishing, fur trapping. Their best-known means of livelihood is semi-nomadic reindeer herding, currently about 10% of the Sami are connected to reindeer herding, providing them with meat, fur, and transportation. 2,800 Sami people are involved in herding on a full-time basis. For traditional, environmental, cultural, and political reasons, reindeer herding is legally reserved only for Sami people in regions of the Nordic countries. The Sámi are often known in other languages by the exonyms Lap, Lapp, some Sami regard these as pejorative terms, while others do not. Finn was the originally used by Norse speakers to refer to the Sami, as attested in the Icelandic Eddas. As Old Norse gradually developed into the separate Scandinavian languages, Swedes apparently took to using Finn exclusively to refer to inhabitants of Finland, Finnish immigrants to Northern Norway in the 18th and 19th centuries were referred to as Kvens to distinguish them from the Sami Finns. Ethnic Finns are a group from Sami. In fact, Saxo never explicitly connects the Sami with the two Laplands, there is another suggestion that it originally meant wilds. In Finland and Sweden, Lapp is common in names, such as Lappi, Lappeenranta and Lapinlahti in Finland. As already mentioned, Finn is an element in Norwegian place names. In the North Sámi language, láhppon olmmoš means a person who is lost, Sámi refer to themselves as Sámit or Sápmelaš, the word Sámi being inflected into various grammatical forms. It has been proposed that Sámi, Häme, and perhaps Suomi are of the origin and ultimately borrowed from the Baltic word *žēmē. The Baltic word is cognate with Slavic земля, which means land. The Sámi institutions—notably the parliaments, radio and TV stations, theatres, etc. —all use the term Sámi, including when addressing outsiders in Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish, or English
Sami people
–
A Sami family in
Norway around 1900
Sami people
–
Sámi flag
Sami people
–
A Sami man and child in Finnmark, Norway, circa 1900
Sami people
–
Sami people, in Norway, 1928
21.
Horagalles
–
In Sami shamanism, Horagalles, also written Hora Galles and Thora Galles and often equated with Tiermes or Aijeke, is the thunder god. He is depicted as a figure with a nail in the head and with a hammer, or occasionally on shaman drums. It has been suggested that name is derived from that of the Norse god Thor, idols of Horagalles are made of wood and have a nail or spike and a piece of flint in the head. He has a hammer called Wetschera, Aijeke Wetschera, or Ajeke veċċera, Horagalles is the god of the sky, thunder and lightning, the rainbow, weather, oceans, and lakes and rules over human life, health and wellbeing. He punishes hurtful demons or evil spirits who frequent the rocks and mountains, he destroys them with his lightning, shoots them with his bow, the rainbow is his bow, Aijeke dauge. On Sami shaman drums Horagalles was occasionally depicted with a sledgehammer in one hand and he made thunder and lightning with one hammer and withdrew them with the other to prevent damage. The name Horagalles does not occur in older dictionaries of Sami languages and he is often equated with Tiermes, in 1673 Johannes Scheffer, who did not use the name Horagalles, wrote that when Aijeke thundered, he was called Tiermes. There is considerable variation in the names, Horagalles is characteristically southern Sami. Early scholars noted the similarities between Horagalles and the Norse thunder-god Thor and that some Sami called him Thoron or simply Thor, and were unsure which had influenced which. But the name Horagalles is now interpreted as a loanword from the Old Norse Þórr Karl, the Old Man Thor, Thor, the Elder, or Thor fellow, Thor Karl, or Swedish Torsmannen, the thunder man. Horagalles consort is called Ravdna, and the red berries of the tree are sacred to her. It has therefore been theorized that the Norse goddess Sif, Thors wife, was conceived of in the form of a rowan to which Thor clung. Tiermes is a Sami god of thunder and rain, also called Aijeke or Ajeke, Tiermes is god of the sky and thunder and lightning, the rainbow, weather, oceans, and lakes and rules over human life, health, and well-being. He protects people and their animals from hurtful demons and evil spirits and he is also called Aijeke, grandfather or great-grandfather, in 1673 Johannes Scheffer wrote that when Aijeke thundered, he was called Tiermes. Tordenguden og hans dreng i lappernes myteverden
Horagalles
–
Sami people worshipping Horagalles or Tiermes. Copper engraving by
Bernard Picart from Cérémonies et coutumes religieuses de tous les peuples du monde (1723–43)
Horagalles
–
Depiction of Horagalles from a Sami shaman drum found in Norway. The drum symbols were copied by the Christian priest Thomas von Westen in the 18th century.
Horagalles
–
The two hammers of the thunder god depicted as a blue cross on a late 18th-century shaman drum from
Porsanger, Western
Finnmark, Norway, described by the Christian missionary Knud Leem.
22.
Interpretatio romana
–
It is thus a comparative methodology that looks for equivalencies and shared characteristics. Interpretatio romana is comparative discourse in reference to ancient Roman religion and myth, both the Romans and the Gauls reinterpreted Gallic religious traditions in relation to Roman models, particularly Imperial cult. …The meaning of a deity is his or her character as it unfolded in myths, hymns, rites. This character makes a deity comparable to other deities with similar traits, the similarity of gods makes their names mutually translatable. … The practice of translating the names of the created a concept of similarity. Pliny the Elder expressed the translatability of deities as different names to different peoples and this capacity made possible the religious syncretism of the Hellenistic era and the pre-Christian Roman Empire. Herodotus was one of the earliest authors to engage in this form of interpretation, in his observations regarding the Egyptians, he establishes Greco-Egyptian equivalents that endured into the Hellenistic era, including Amon/Zeus, Osiris/Dionysus, and Ptah/Hephaestus. Some pairs of Greek and Roman gods, such as Zeus and Jupiter, are thought to derive from a common Indo-European archetype, some deities dating to Romes oldest religious stratum, such as Janus and Terminus, had no Greek equivalent. Other Greek divine figures, most notably Apollo, were adopted directly into Roman culture, the phrase interpretatio romana was first used by the Imperial-era historian Tacitus in the Germania. Tacitus reports that in a grove of the Nahanarvali, a priest adorned as a woman presides. Elsewhere, he identifies the god of the Germans as Mercury. Some information about the deities of the ancient Gauls, who left no written literature other than inscriptions, is preserved by Greco-Roman sources under the names of Greek, a large number of Gaulish theonyms or cult titles are preserved, for instance, in association with Mars. As with some Greek and Roman divine counterparts, the similarities between a Gallic and a Roman or Greek deity may reflect a common Indo-European origin. Lugh was identified with Mercury, Nodens with Mars as healer and protector, in some cases, however, a Gallic deity is given an interpretatio romana by means of more than one god, varying among literary texts or inscriptions. These tendencies extended to cross-cultural identifications, in the Eastern empire, the Anatolian storm god with his double-headed axe became Jupiter Dolichenus, a favorite cult figure among soldiers. Roman scholars such as Varro interpreted the monotheistic god of the Jews into Roman terms as Caelus or Jupiter Optimus Maximus, some Greco-Roman authors seem to have understood the Jewish invocation of Yahweh Sabaoth as Sabazius. Interpretatio germanica is the practice by the Germanic peoples of identifying Roman gods with the names of Germanic deities, according to Rudolf Simek, this occurred around the 1st century of the common era, when both cultures came into closer contact. This is also the case with Saturn in some West Germanic languages, such as the English Saturday, the West Frisian Saterdei, the Low German Saterdag and the Dutch zaterdag all meaning Saturns day
Interpretatio romana
–
The goddess
Isis (seated right) welcoming the
Greek heroine Io into Egypt, as depicted in a Roman wall painting from
Pompeii
Interpretatio romana
–
Gilt bronze head from the cult statue of Sulis Minerva from the
Temple at Bath
Interpretatio romana
–
Jupiter Ammon (terracotta of Hellenistic style, 1st century AD)
Interpretatio romana
–
Worshipper before Zeus-Serapis-
Ohrmazd (Bactria, 3rd century AD)
23.
Proto-Indo-European religion
–
The hypothesized reconstructions below are based on linguistic evidence using the comparative method. Archaeological evidence is difficult to match to any specific culture in the period of early Indo-European culture in the Chalcolithic, other approaches to Indo-European mythology are possible, such as the trifunctional hypothesis of Georges Dumézil. Linguists are able to reconstruct the names of deities in the Proto-Indo-European language from many types of sources. Some of the proposed deity names are more accepted among scholars than others. The term for a god was *deiwos, reflected in Hittite, sius, Latin, deus, divus, Sanskrit, deva, Avestan, daeva, Welsh, duw, Irish, dia, Old Norse, tívurr, Lithuanian, Dievas, Latvian, Dievs. The supreme ruler of the Proto-Indo-European pantheon was the god *Dyḗus Pḥɑtḗr and he is believed to have been worshipped as the god of the daylit skies. He is, by far, the most well-attested of all the Proto-Indo-European deities, the Greek god Zeus, the Roman god Jupiter, and the Illyrian god Dei-Pátrous all appear as the head gods of their respective pantheons. The Norse god Týr, however, seems to have been demoted to the role of a minor war-deity, *Dyḗus Pḥɑtḗr is also attested in the Rigveda as Dyáus Pitā, a minor ancestor figure mentioned in only a few hymns. The names of the Latvian god Dievs and the Hittite god Attas Isanus do not preserve the exact translation of the name *Dyḗus Pḥɑtḗr. *Hɑéusōs has been reconstructed as the Proto-Indo-European goddess of the dawn, derivatives of her found throughout various Indo-European mythologies include the Greek goddess Eos, the Roman goddess Aurōra, the Vedic goddess Uṣás, and the Lithuanian goddess Auštrine. The form Arap Ushas appears in Albanian folklore, but as a name for the Moon, an extension of the name may have been *H2eustro, but see also the form *as-t-r, with intrusive -t- in northern dialects. *Seh2ul and *Meh1not are reconstructed as the Proto-Indo-European goddess of the Sun, *Meh1not is reconstructed based off the Norse god Máni, the Hittite god Myesyats, and the Lithuanian god *Meno, or Mėnuo. They are often seen as the children of various deities. The usual scheme is one of these celestial deities is male. The original Indo-European lunar deity appears to have masculine, with feminine lunar deities like Selene, Minerva. Even in these traditions, remnants of male deities, like Menelaus. The word *prihxeha-, meaning wife has been reconstructed based off the Sanskrit word priyā, meaning wife, the Old Norse word frī, meaning beloved, and the Old English word frēo, meaning woman. The name of the Norse goddess Frigg is derived from this root, Analysis of different Indo-European tales indicate the Proto-Indo-Europeans believed there were two progenitors of mankind, *Manu- and *Yemo-, his twin brother
Proto-Indo-European religion
–
Trundholm sun chariot pictured,
Nordic Bronze Age, c. 1600 BCE
24.
Hittites
–
The Hittites were an Ancient Anatolian people who established an empire centered on Hattusa in north-central Anatolia around 1600 BC. Between the 15th and 13th centuries BC the Hittite Empire came into conflict with the Egyptian Empire, Middle Assyrian Empire, the Assyrians eventually emerged as the dominant power and annexed much of the Hittite empire, while the remainder was sacked by Phrygian newcomers to the region. They referred to their land as Hatti. The conventional name Hittites is due to their identification with the Biblical Hittites in 19th century archaeology. Before the discoveries, the source of information about Hittites had been the Old Testament. Francis William Newman expressed the view, common in the early 19th century. Uriah was a captain in King Davids army and counted among one of his mighty men in 1 Chronicles 11, french scholar Félix Marie Charles Texier discovered the first Hittite ruins in 1834, but did not identify them as Hittite. The first archaeological evidence for the Hittites appeared in tablets found at the Assyrian colony of Kültepe, some names in the tablets were neither Hattic nor Assyrian, but clearly Indo-European. The script on a monument at Boğazköy by a People of Hattusas discovered by William Wright in 1884 was found to match peculiar hieroglyphic scripts from Aleppo, in 1887, excavations at Tell El-Amarna in Egypt uncovered the diplomatic correspondence of Pharaoh Amenhotep III and his son Akhenaton. Shortly after this, Archibald Sayce proposed that Hatti or Khatti in Anatolia was identical with the kingdom of Kheta mentioned in these Egyptian texts, as well as with the biblical Hittites. Others, such as Max Müller, agreed that Khatti was probably Kheta, sayces identification came to be widely accepted over the course of the early 20th century, and the name Hittite has become attached to the civilization uncovered at Boğazköy. He also proved that the ruins at Boğazköy were the remains of the capital of an empire that, at one point, under the direction of the German Archaeological Institute, excavations at Hattusa have been under way since 1907, with interruptions during the world wars. Kültepe was successfully excavated by Professor Tahsin Özgüç from 1948 until his death in 2005, the Hittites used Mesopotamian Cuneiform script. The Museum of Anatolian Civilizations in Ankara, Turkey houses the richest collection of Hittite, the Hittite kingdom was centred on the lands surrounding Hattusa and Neša, known as the land Hatti. For example, the reward for the capture of a slave after he managed to flee beyond the Halys is higher than that for a slave caught before he could reach the river. To the west and south of the core territory lay the region known as Luwiya in the earliest Hittite texts and this terminology was replaced by the names Arzawa and Kizzuwatna with the rise of those kingdoms. Nevertheless, the Hittites continued to refer to the language originated in these areas as Luwian. Prior to the rise of Kizzuwatna, the heart of territory in Cilicia was first referred to by the Hittites as Adaniya
Hittites
–
Bronze religious standard from a pre-Hittite tomb at
Alacahöyük, dating to the third millennium B.C., from the
Museum of Anatolian Civilizations,
Ankara.
Hittites
–
The Hittite Empire, ca. 1300 BC (shown in Blue).
Hittites
–
Jewelry from
Museum of Anatolian Civilizations.
Hittites
–
Hittite chariot, from an Egyptian relief
25.
Teshub
–
Teshub was the Hurrian god of sky and storm. Taru was the name of a similar Hattic Storm God, whose mythology and worship as a primary deity continued and evolved through descendant Luwian and Hittite cultures. In these two, Taru was known as Tarhun / Tarhunt- / Tarhuwant- / Tarhunta, names derived from the Anatolian root *tarh to defeat, conquer. Teshub reappears in the post-Hurrian cultural successor kingdom of Urartu as Tesheba, one of their chief gods, teshub is depicted holding a triple thunderbolt and a weapon, usually an axe or mace. The sacred bull common throughout Anatolia was his signature animal, represented by his horned crown or by his steeds Seri and Hurri, Teshubs brothers are Aranzah, Ullikummi and Tashmishu. His son was called Sarruma, the mountain god, according to Hittite myths, one of Teshubs greatest acts was the slaying of the dragon Illuyanka. Myths also exist of his conflict with the sea creature Hedammu, tarḫunna Tarḫunz Perkūnas Indra Taranis Tarchon Thor Ninurta Amarna letter EA19
Teshub
–
Teshub (left) being worshipped by king
Warpalawas of
Tyana
Teshub
–
The Hittite weather-god wielding a thunderbolt and an axe. Bas-relief at Ivriz
26.
Thracian language
–
The Thracian language was the Indo-European language spoken in ancient times in Southeast Europe by the Thracians, the northern neighbors of the Ancient Greeks. The Thracian language exhibits satemization, it belonged to the satem group of Indo-European languages or it was strongly influenced by satem languages. The language was still in use at least until the sixth century AD, the place where the monasteries were founded was called Cutila, which may be a Thracian name. The further fate of the Thracian language is a matter of dispute, some authors like Harvey Mayer group Thracian and Dacian into a southern Baltic linguistic family. The Thracian language was spoken in what is now Bulgaria, eastern Republic of Macedonia, Northern Greece, European Turkey, eastern Serbia is usually considered by paleolinguists to have been a Daco-Moesian language area. Some of the longer inscriptions may indeed be Thracian in origin but they may not reflect actual Thracian language sentences, but rather jumbles of names or magical formulas. Enough Thracian lexical items have survived to show that Thracian was a member of the Indo-European language family, other ancient Greek lexical items were not specifically identified as Thracian by the ancient Greeks but are hypothesized by paleolinguists as being or probably being of Thracian origin. Other lexical items are hypothesized on the basis of local anthroponyms, toponyms, hydronyms, oronyms, below is a table showing both words cited as being Thracian in classical sources, and lexical elements that have been extracted by paleolinguists from Thracian anthroponyms, toponyms, etc. See also the List of reconstructed Dacian words, significant cognates from any Indo-European language are listed. However, not all items in Thracian are assumed to be from the Proto-Indo-European language. They include the element in Parthenon, balios, bounos, hill. The Thracian horseman hero was an important figure in Thracian religion, mythology, depictions of the Thracian Horseman are found in numerous archaeological remains and artifacts from Thracian regions. From the Duvanli ring and from cognates in numerous Indo-European languages, mezēna is seen to be a Thracian word for horse, deriving from PIE *mend-. Ut- based on the PIE root word ud- and based on several Thracic items, would have meant upon, up, and Utaspios is theorized to have meant On horse, parallel to ancient Greek epi-hippos. The early Indo-European languages had more than one word for horse, for example Latin had equus from PIE *ekwo- and mannus from another IE root, in many cases in current Thracology, there is more than one etymology for a Thracian lexical item. For example, Thracian Diana Germetitha has two different proposed etymologies, Diana of the bosom or Diana of the warm radiance. In other cases, etymologies for the Thracian lexical items may be sound, only four Thracian inscriptions of any length have been found. The first is a ring found in 1912 in the town of Ezerovo, Bulgaria
Thracian language
–
Limits of the (southern) Thracian linguistic territory according to Ivan Duridanov,1985
27.
Wheel of the Year
–
The Wheel of the Year is an annual cycle of seasonal festivals, observed by many modern Pagans. The festivals celebrated by differing sects of modern Paganism can vary considerably in name, observing the cycle of the seasons has been important to many people, both ancient and modern, and many contemporary Pagan festivals are based to varying degrees on folk traditions. The contemporary Wheel of the Year is somewhat of a modern innovation, many historical pagan traditions celebrated various equinoxes, solstices, and the days approximately midway between them for their seasonal and agricultural significances. But none were known to have all eight above all other annual. The modern understanding of the Wheel is a result of the awareness that began developing by the time of Modern Europe. Mid-20th century British Paganism had a influence on early adoption of an eightfold Wheel. By the late 1950s, the Wiccan Bricket Wood Coven and Order of Bards, Ovates and this also had the benefit of more closely aligning celebration between the two influential Pagan orders. These festivals are not, however, as distributed throughout the year as in Wicca. In many traditions of modern Pagan cosmology, all things are considered to be cyclical, with time as a cycle of growth. This cycle is also viewed as a micro- and macrocosm of other cycles in an immeasurable series of cycles composing the Universe. The days that fall on the landmarks of the yearly cycle traditionally mark the beginnings and they are regarded with significance and host to major communal festivals. These eight festivals are the most common times for community celebrations, in Wiccan and Wicca-influenced traditions, the festivals, being tied to solar movements, have generally been steeped in solar mythology and symbolism, centred around the life cycles of the sun. Similarly, the Wiccan esbats are traditionally tied to the lunar cycles, together, they represent the most common celebrations in Wiccan-influenced forms of Neopaganism, especially in contemporary Witchcraft groups. Midwinter has been recognized as a significant turning point in the cycle since the late Stone Age. The ancient megalithic sites of Newgrange and Stonehenge, carefully aligned with the sunrise and sunset. The reversal of the Suns ebbing presence in the sky symbolizes the rebirth of the solar god, from Germanic to Roman tradition, this is the most important time of celebration. Practices vary, but sacrifices, feasting, and gift giving are common elements of Midwinter festivities, bringing sprigs and wreaths of evergreenery into the home and tree decorating are also common during this time. In Germanic traditions, this liminal festival marks the last month of the old year, in Roman traditions additional festivities take place during the six days leading up to Midwinter
Wheel of the Year
–
Neopagans honoring the dead as part of a Samhain ritual
Wheel of the Year
–
The Wheel of the Year in the
Northern Hemisphere. Pagans in the
Southern Hemisphere advance these dates six months to coincide with their own seasons.
Wheel of the Year
–
Kołomir – the
Slavic example of Wheel of the Year indicating seasons of the year. Four-point and eight-point
swastika -shaped wheels were more common.
Wheel of the Year
–
Painted Wheel of the Year from the
Museum of Witchcraft, Boscastle.
28.
Belgic Gaul
–
Gallia Belgica was a province of the Roman empire located in Belgium, in the northern and eastern parts of Roman Gaul. It began as one of the three provinces of Gaul described by its Roman conqueror Julius Caesar. An official Roman province was created by emperor Augustus in 22 BC. The province is named for the Belgae as the largest tribal confederation in the area, the southern border of Belgica, formed by the Marne and Seine rivers, was reported by Caesar as the original cultural boundary between the Belgae and the Gauls who he distinguished as Celts. The province was re-organized several times, first increased and later decreased in size, the capital of Belgica Prima, Trier, became an important late western Roman capital. In 57 BC, Julius Caesar led the conquest of northern Gaul and this definition became the basis of the later Roman province of Belgica. Indeed, the Belgian tribes closest to the Rhine he distinguished as the Germani cisrhenani, apart from the southern Remi, all the Belgic tribes allied against the Romans, angry at the Roman decision to garrison legions in their territory during the winter. At the beginning of the conflict, Caesar reported the combined strength at 288,000, led by the Suessione king. Due to the Belgic coalitions size and reputation for uncommon bravery, instead, he used cavalry to skirmish with smaller contingents of tribesmen. Only when Caesar managed to isolate one of the tribes did he risk conventional battle, the tribes fell in a piecemeal fashion and Caesar claimed to offer lenient terms to the defeated, including Roman protection from the threat of surrounding tribes. Most tribes agreed to the conditions, a series of uprisings followed the 57 BC conquest. The largest revolt was led by the Bellovaci in 52 BC, during this rebellion, it was the Belgae who avoided direct conflict. They harassed the Roman legions, led personally by Caesar, with cavalry detachments, the rebellion was put down after a Bellovaci ambush of the Romans failed. Following a census of the region in 27 BC, Augustus ordered a restructuring of the provinces in Gaul, the capital of this territory was Reims, according to the geographer Strabo, though later the capital moved to modern day Trier. The date of this move is uncertain, successive Roman emperors struck a balance between Romanizing the people of Gallia Belgica and allowing pre-existing culture to survive. The Romans allowed local governments to survive, typically in the form of cantons, Roman government was run by Concilia in Reims or Trier. Additionally, local notables from Gallia Belgica were required to participate in a festival in Lugdunum which typically celebrated or worshiped the emperor’s genius, the gradual adoption of Romanized names by local elites and the Romanization of laws under local authority demonstrate the effectiveness of this concilium Galliarum. With that said, the concept and community of Gallia Belgica did not predate the Roman province, during the 1st century AD, the provinces of Gaul were restructured
Belgic Gaul
–
Map of Roman Gaul with Belgica in orange. (Droysens Allgemeiner historischer Handatlas, 1886)
Belgic Gaul
Belgic Gaul
–
'Belgica Foederata' was the Latin name the
Dutch Republic
29.
Chariot
–
A chariot is a type of carriage driven by a charioteer using primarily horses to provide rapid motive power. Chariots were used by armies as transport or mobile platforms, for hunting or for racing. The word chariot comes from the Latin carrus, itself a loanword from Gaulish, a chariot of war or one used in military parades was called a car. In ancient Rome and some other ancient Mediterranean civilizations, a required two horses, a triga three, and a quadriga four. The critical invention that allowed the construction of light, horse-drawn chariots was the spoked wheel, the earliest spoke-wheeled chariots date to ca.2000 BCE. The use of chariots peaked around 1300 BCE, Chariots had lost their military importance by the 1st century CE, but chariot races continued to be popular in Constantinople until the 6th century. The domestication of the horse was an important step toward civilization, an increasing amount of evidence supports the hypothesis that horses were domesticated in the Eurasian Steppes approximately 4000-3500 BCE. The invention of the used in transportation most likely took place in Europe. Evidence of wheeled vehicles appears from the mid 4th millennium BCE near-simultaneously in the Northern Caucasus, the earliest vehicles may have been ox carts. Starokorsunskaya kurgan in the Kuban region of Russia contains a grave of the Maikop Culture. The two solid wooden wheels from this kurgan have been dated to the half of the fourth millennium. Soon thereafter the number of burials in this Northern Caucasus region multiplied. As David Anthony writes in his book The Horse, the Wheel and Language, in Eastern Europe and it is a clay pot excavated in a Funnelbeaker settlement in Swietokrzyskie Voivodeship in Poland. The oldest securely dated real wheel-axle combination in Eastern Europe is the Ljubljana Marshes Wheel, horses were introduced to Transcaucasia at the time of the Kura-Araxes culture, beginning about 3300 BCE. Prior to that, horse bones were not found, during the Kura-Araxes period, horses seem to become rather widespread, with signs of domestication. It is widely believed that wheeled transport was invented in Mesopotamia, nevertheless, recent archaeological evidence seems to indicate otherwise, pointing to Neolithic Europe. At the same time, in Mesopotamia, some intriguing early pictograms of a sled that rests on wooden rollers or wheels have been found and they date from about the same time as the early wheel discoveries in Europe and may indicate knowledge of the wheel. The earliest depiction of vehicles in the context of warfare is on the Standard of Ur in southern Mesopotamia, the hybrids were used by the Eblaite, early Sumerian, Akkadian and Ur III armies
Chariot
–
A chariot drawn by horses
Chariot
–
Relief of early
war wagons on the
Standard of Ur, c. 2500 BC
Chariot
–
Hittite chariot (drawing of an
Egyptian relief)
Chariot
–
Ramses II fighting from a chariot at the
Battle of Kadesh with two archers, one with the reins tied around the waist to free both hands (relief from
Abu Simbel)
30.
Spoke
–
A spoke is one of some number of rods radiating from the center of a wheel, connecting the hub with the round traction surface. The term originally referred to portions of a log that had split lengthwise into four or six sections. The radial members of a wagon wheel were made by carving a spoke into their finished shape, a spokeshave is a tool originally developed for this purpose. Eventually, the spoke was more commonly applied to the finished product of the wheelwrights work. The spoked wheel was invented to allow the construction of lighter and swifter vehicles, the earliest known examples are in the context of the Sintashta culture, dating to ca.2000 BC. Soon after this, horse cultures of the Caucasus region used horse-drawn spoked-wheel war chariots for the part of three centuries. Celtic chariots introduced an iron rim around the wheel in the 1st millennium BC, the spoked wheel was in continued use without major modification until the 1870s, when wire wheels and rubber tires were invented. Spokes can be made of wood, metal, or synthetic fiber depending on whether they will be in tension or compression, the original type of spoked wheel with wooden spokes was used for horse-drawn carriages and wagons. In early motor cars, wooden spoked wheels of the type were normally used. In a simple wooden wheel, a load on the hub causes the wheel rim to flatten slightly against the ground as the lowermost wooden spoke shortens, the other wooden spokes show no significant change. They are also dished, usually to the outside of the vehicle, also, the dishing allows the wheel to compensate for expansion of the spokes due to absorbed moisture by dishing more. For use in bicycles, heavy wooden-spoked wheels were replaced by wheels with spokes made of tensioned, adjustable metal wires. These are also used in wheelchairs, motorcycles, and automobiles, some types of wheels have removable spokes that can be replaced individually if they break or bend. These include bicycle and wheelchair wheels, high quality bicycles with conventional wheels use spokes of stainless steel, while cheaper bicycles may use galvanized or chrome plated spokes. While a good quality spoke is capable of supporting about 225 kgf of tension, since bicycle and wheelchair wheel spokes are only in tension, flexible and strong materials such as synthetic fibers, are also occasionally used. Metal spokes can also be ovalized or bladed to reduce aerodynamic drag, a variation on the wire-spoked wheel was Tiogas Tension Disk, which appeared superficially to be a solid disk but was in fact constructed using the same principles as a normal tension-spoked wheel. Instead of individual spokes, a continuous thread of Kevlar was used to lace the hub to the rim under high tension. The threads were encased in a translucent disk for protection and some aerodynamic benefit, Wire spokes can be radial to the hub but are more often mounted tangentially to the hub
Spoke
–
A spoked wheel on display at The
National Museum of Iran, in
Tehran. The wheel is dated to the late 2nd millennium BC and was excavated at
Choqa Zanbil.
Spoke
–
The remains of a pair of
cartwheels with metal axle assembly.
Spoke
–
An
Ox-wagon in
Aliwal North,
South Africa. Note the three missing spokes and the metal tyre.
Spoke
–
Wooden spoke wheel with metal rim from antique truck on display in
Underground Atlanta.
31.
Celtic polytheism
–
Celtic polytheism was one of a larger group of Iron Age polytheistic religions of the Indo-European family. The Celtic pantheon consists of numerous recorded theonyms, both from Greco-Roman ethnography and from epigraphy, among the most prominent ones are Teutatis, Taranis and Lugus. Figures from medieval Irish mythology have also been adduced by comparative mythology, the most salient feature of Celtic religion as reflected in Roman historiography is their extensive practice of human sacrifice. In the later 5th and the 6th centuries, the Celtic region was Christianized, comparatively little is known about Celtic polytheism because the evidence for it is fragmentary, due largely to the fact that the Celts who practiced it wrote nothing down about their religion. Therefore, all we have to study their religion from is the literature from the early Christian period, commentaries from classical Greek and Roman scholars, the archaeologist Barry Cunliffe summarised the sources for Celtic religion as fertile chaos, borrowing the term from the Irish scholar Proinsias MacCana. Cunliffe went on to note there is more, varied. The only problem is to assemble it in a form which does not too greatly oversimplify the intricate texture of its detail. The archaeological evidence does not contain the bias inherent in the literary sources, nonetheless, the interpretation of this evidence can be colored by the 21st century mindset. Various archaeological discoveries have aided understanding of the religion of the Celts and these include the coins of the Roman provinces in the Celtic lands of Gaul, Raetia, Noricum, and Britannia, and another is the sculptures, monuments, and inscriptions associated with the Celts. The evidence from Ireland has been recognised as better than that from Wales, because they were written in a very Christian context, these sources must be scrutinised with even more rigor than the classical sources in assessing their validity as evidence for Celtic religion. Various Greek and Roman writers of the ancient world commented on the Celts, however, the key problem with the use of these sources is that they were often biased against the Celts, whom the classical peoples viewed as barbarians. The names of two hundred of these deities have survived to us today, although it is possible that some of these names were different titles or epithets used for the same deity. Some Celtic theonyms can be established as Pan-Celtic by comparing Continental with Insular Celtic evidence, an example of this is Gaulish Lugus, whose name is cognate with Irish Lugh and Welsh Lleu. Another example is Gaulish Brigantia, cognate with Irish Brigid and this latter theonym can even be reconstructed as a Proto-Indo-European epithet of the dawn goddess, as *bhr̥ghntī the one on high. He declared that the most widely venerated god in Gaul was Mercury, the Roman god of trade, several of these deities, including Lugus and Matrones, were triple deities. Brighid, probably were indeed once regarded as divine, the warriors who are the main protagonists of the stories have the same status as those in the Greek myths, standing between the human and divine orders. To regard characters such as Cú Chulainn, Fergus Mac Roich or Conall Cernach as former gods turned into humans by a storyteller is to misunderstand their literary. Cú Chulainn is no more a god than Superman is
Celtic polytheism
–
Three Celtic goddesses, as depicted at Coventina's well.
Celtic polytheism
–
Image of a
"horned" (actually antlered) figure on the
Gundestrup cauldron, interpreted by many archaeologists as being cognate to the god
Cernunnos.
Celtic polytheism
–
A reconstructed Celtic burial mound located near Hochdorf an der Enz in Germany. Such burials were reserved for the influential and wealthy in Celtic society.
Celtic polytheism
–
An 18th century illustration of a
wicker man, a form of human sacrifice that Caesar alleged the Druids, or Celtic priesthood, performed, though no archaeological evidence has been uncovered to support this.
32.
Lucan
–
Marcus Annaeus Lucanus, better known in English as Lucan, was a Roman poet, born in Corduba, in the Hispania Baetica. Despite his short life, he is regarded as one of the figures of the Imperial Latin period. His youth and speed of composition set him apart from other poets, Lucan was the son of Marcus Annaeus Mela and grandson of Seneca the Elder, he grew up under the tutelage of his uncle Seneca the Younger. Born into a family, he studied rhetoric at Athens and was probably provided with a philosophical. He found success under Nero, became one of the close friends and was rewarded with a quaestorship in advance of the legal age. In 60 AD, he won a prize for extemporizing Orpheus and Laudes Neronis at the quinquennial Neronia, during this time he circulated the first three books of his epic poem, Pharsalia, which told the story of the civil war between Julius Caesar and Pompey. At some point, a feud began between Nero and Lucan, two very different accounts of the events have survived that both trivialize the feud. According to Tacitus, Nero became jealous of Lucan and forbade him to publish his poems, according to Suetonius, Nero lost interest in Lucan and Lucan responded by writing insulting poems about Nero that Nero continued to ignore. Other works, though, point to a serious basis to the feud. Works by the grammarian Vacca and the poet Statius may support the claim that Lucan wrote insulting poems about Nero, Vacca mentions that one of Lucans works was entitled De Incendio Urbis. Statiuss ode to Lucan mentions that Lucan described how the flames of the criminal tyrant roamed the heights of Remus. Additionally, the books of Pharsalia are anti-Imperial and pro-Republic. This criticism of Nero and office of the Emperor may have been the cause of the ban. Lucan later joined the 65 AD conspiracy of Gaius Calpurnius Piso against Nero. His treason discovered, he was obliged, at the age of 25, to suicide by opening a vein. According to Tacitus, as Lucan bled to death, recalled some poetry he had composed in which he had told the story of a soldier dying a similar kind of death. His father was involved in the proscription but his mother escaped, statiuss poem about Lucan was addressed to his widow, Polla Argentaria, upon the occasion of his birthday during the reign of Domitian. Cornell Studies in Classical Philology 39, ideology in Cold Blood, A Reading of Lucans Civil War
Lucan
–
Bust of the Roman poet Lucan,
Córdoba,
Spain.
Lucan
–
Engraved title page of a French edition of Lucan's Pharsalia, 1657
33.
Bronze Age Europe
–
The European Bronze Age is characterized by bronze artifacts and the use of bronze implements. The regional Bronze Age succeeds the Neolithic and it starts with the Aegean Bronze Age in 3200 BC, and spans the entire 2nd millennium BC in Northern Europe, lasting until c.600 BC. The Aegean Bronze Age begins around 3200 BC when civilizations first established a trade network. This network imported tin and charcoal to Cyprus, where copper was mined and alloyed with the tin to produce bronze, Bronze objects were then exported far and wide, and supported the trade. Isotopic analysis of the tin in some Mediterranean bronze objects indicates it came from as far away as Great Britain, the Minoan civilization based from Knossos, Crete, appears to have coordinated and defended its Bronze Age trade. One crucial lack in this period was that modern methods of accounting were not available, the eruption of Thera, which according to archaeological data occurred in c.1500 BC, resulted in the decline of the Minoan. This turn of events gave the opportunity to the Mycenaeans to spread their influence throughout the Aegean, around c.1450 BC, they were in control of Crete itself and colonized several other Aegean islands, reaching as far as Rhodes. Thus the Mycenaeans became the dominant power of the region, marking the beginning of the Mycenaean Koine era, a highly uniform culture that spread in mainland Greece and the Aegean. Their syllabic script, the Linear B, offers the first written records of the Greek language, Mycenaean Greece was dominated by a warrior elite society and consisted of a network of palace states that developed rigid hierarchical, political, social and economic systems. At the head of this societies was the king, known as wanax, the Maykop culture was the major early Bronze Age culture in the North Caucasus. Some scholars date arsenical bronze artifacts in the region as far back as the mid-4th millennium BC, the Yamna culture was a late copper age/early Bronze Age culture dating to the 36th–23rd centuries BC. The culture was nomadic, with some agriculture practiced near rivers. Parallels with the Afanasevo culture, including provoked cranial deformations, provide a link to the East and it was preceded by the Yamna culture and succeeded by the western Corded Ware culture. The Catacomb culture in the Pontic steppe was succeeded by the Srubna culture from c. the 17th century BC. Some very rich burials, such as the one located at Leubingen with grave gifts crafted from gold, all in all, cemeteries of this period are rare and of small size. The Unetice culture is followed by the middle Bronze Age Tumulus culture, in the eastern Hungarian Körös tributaries, the early Bronze Age first saw the introduction of the Makó culture, followed by the Otomani and Gyulavarsánd cultures. The late Bronze Age Urnfield culture is characterized by cremation burials and it includes the Lusatian culture in eastern Germany and Poland that continues into the Iron Age. The Central European Bronze Age is followed by the Iron Age Hallstatt culture, in northern Germany, Denmark, Sweden and Norway, Bronze Age cultures manufactured many distinctive and artistic artifacts
Bronze Age Europe
–
A display of Late Bronze Age vessels and tools from various Romanian locations, at the
National Museum of the Union,
Alba Iulia
Bronze Age Europe
–
Apa type
swords (Romania), 17th century BCE.
Bronze Age Europe
–
Bronze Age copper
Oxhide ingot found in
Crete.
Bronze Age Europe
–
The
Nebra sky disk (c. 1600 BCE) (Saxony-Anhalt, Germany)
34.
Sun
–
The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is a perfect sphere of hot plasma, with internal convective motion that generates a magnetic field via a dynamo process. It is by far the most important source of energy for life on Earth. Its diameter is about 109 times that of Earth, and its mass is about 330,000 times that of Earth, accounting for about 99. 86% of the total mass of the Solar System. About three quarters of the Suns mass consists of hydrogen, the rest is mostly helium, with smaller quantities of heavier elements, including oxygen, carbon, neon. The Sun is a G-type main-sequence star based on its spectral class and it formed approximately 4.6 billion years ago from the gravitational collapse of matter within a region of a large molecular cloud. Most of this matter gathered in the center, whereas the rest flattened into a disk that became the Solar System. The central mass became so hot and dense that it eventually initiated nuclear fusion in its core and it is thought that almost all stars form by this process. The Sun is roughly middle-aged, it has not changed dramatically for more than four billion years and it is calculated that the Sun will become sufficiently large enough to engulf the current orbits of Mercury, Venus, and probably Earth. The enormous effect of the Sun on Earth has been recognized since prehistoric times, the synodic rotation of Earth and its orbit around the Sun are the basis of the solar calendar, which is the predominant calendar in use today. The English proper name Sun developed from Old English sunne and may be related to south, all Germanic terms for the Sun stem from Proto-Germanic *sunnōn. The English weekday name Sunday stems from Old English and is ultimately a result of a Germanic interpretation of Latin dies solis, the Latin name for the Sun, Sol, is not common in general English language use, the adjectival form is the related word solar. The term sol is used by planetary astronomers to refer to the duration of a solar day on another planet. A mean Earth solar day is approximately 24 hours, whereas a mean Martian sol is 24 hours,39 minutes, and 35.244 seconds. From at least the 4th Dynasty of Ancient Egypt, the Sun was worshipped as the god Ra, portrayed as a falcon-headed divinity surmounted by the solar disk, and surrounded by a serpent. In the New Empire period, the Sun became identified with the dung beetle, in the form of the Sun disc Aten, the Sun had a brief resurgence during the Amarna Period when it again became the preeminent, if not only, divinity for the Pharaoh Akhenaton. The Sun is viewed as a goddess in Germanic paganism, Sól/Sunna, in ancient Roman culture, Sunday was the day of the Sun god. It was adopted as the Sabbath day by Christians who did not have a Jewish background, the symbol of light was a pagan device adopted by Christians, and perhaps the most important one that did not come from Jewish traditions
Sun
–
The Sun in visible wavelength with filtered white light on 8 July 2014. Characteristic
limb darkening and numerous
sunspots are visible.
Sun
–
During a total
solar eclipse, the solar
corona can be seen with the naked eye, during the brief period of totality.
Sun
–
Taken by
Hinode 's Solar Optical Telescope on 12 January 2007, this image of the Sun reveals the filamentary nature of the plasma connecting regions of different magnetic polarity.
Sun
–
Visible light photograph of sunspot, 13 December 2006
35.
Alesia (city)
–
Alesia was the capital of the Mandubii, one of the Gallic tribes allied with the Aedui. The Celtic oppidum was conquered by Julius Caesar during the Gallic Wars and its location was controversial for a long time. It is today considered to have located on Mont-Auxois, near Alise-Sainte-Reine in Burgundy. Alesia is best known for being the site of the decisive Battle of Alesia in 52 BC that marked the defeat of the Gauls under Vercingetorix by the Romans under Julius Caesar, Caesar described the battle in detail in his Commentarii de Bello Gallico. The battles outcome determined the fate of all of Gaul, in winning the battle, after being conquered by Caesar, Alesia became a Gallo-Roman town. It featured a centre with monumental buildings such as temples. For a long time after the abandonment of the Roman town, in the 19th century, Emperor Napoleon III developed an interest in the location of this crucial battle in pre-French history. He was writing a biography of Caesar and saw the command of Vercingetorix over all Gaulish armies as a symbol of the French nation, at the same time he realized that the future French nation was heavily influenced by the Roman victory and centuries of rule over Gaul. In 1838, a find with the inscription, IN ALISIIA, had discovered near Alise-Sainte-Reine in the department Côte-dOr near Dijon. Napoleon ordered an excavation by Eugène Stoffel around Mont-Auxois. These excavations in 1861–65 concentrated on the vast Roman siege lines, the oppidum was located on a plateau of c.97 hectares, around 200 metres above the valley floor, surrounded by steep cliffs in every direction except at the eastern and western extremities. Later archaeological analysis at Alise-Sainte-Reine has corroborated the described siege in detail, the remains of siege rings said to match Caesar’s descriptions have been identified by archaeologists using aerial photography. Franco-German excavations led by Michel Reddé and Siegmar von Schnurbein in 1991–97 confirmed these findings, there have been other theories about Alesias location that claimed it was in Franche-Comté or around Salins-les-Bains in Jura. In total, around 40 towns and other locations have claimed to be the site of Alesia, no one knows where Alesia is. Part of the area has become the MuséoParc Alésia, not much of the Gallic oppidum is visible today, except for some remains of a rampart. Most of the date to the town’s Roman period. A large copper statue of Vercingetorix, made in 1865 by Aimé Millet stands at the end of the plateau. Museumpark at Alesia The Siege of Alesia
Alesia (city)
–
Vercingetorix Memorial in Alesia
36.
Seine
–
The Seine is a 777-kilometre-long river and an important commercial waterway within the Paris Basin in the north of France. It rises at Source-Seine,30 kilometres northwest of Dijon in northeastern France in the Langres plateau, flowing through Paris and it is navigable by ocean-going vessels as far as Rouen,120 kilometres from the sea. There are 37 bridges within Paris and dozens more spanning the river outside the city, examples in Paris include the Pont Alexandre III and Pont Neuf, the latter of which dates back to 1607. Outside the city, examples include the Pont de Normandie, one of the longest cable-stayed bridges in the world, the Seine rises in the commune of Source-Seine, about 30 kilometres northwest of Dijon. The source has been owned by the city of Paris since 1864, a number of closely associated small ditches or depressions provide the source waters, with an artificial grotto laid out to highlight and contain a deemed main source. The grotto includes a statue of a nymph, on the same site are the buried remains of a Gallo-Roman temple. Small statues of the dea Sequana Seine goddess and other ex voti found at the place are now exhibited in the Dijon archeological museum. The Seine is dredged and oceangoing vessels can dock at Rouen,120 kilometres from the sea, commercial riverboats can use the river from Bar-sur-Seine,560 kilometres to its mouth. At Paris, there are 37 bridges, the river is only 24 metres above sea level 446 kilometres from its mouth, making it slow flowing and thus easily navigable. The Seine Maritime,105.7 kilometres from the English Channel at Le Havre to Rouen, is the portion of the Seine used by ocean-going craft. The tidal section of the Seine Maritime is followed by a section with four large multiple locks until the mouth of the Oise at Conflans-Sainte-Honorine. Multiple locks at Bougival / Chatou and at Suresnes lift the vessels to the level of the river in Paris, upstream from Paris seven locks ensure navigation to Saint Mammès, where the Loing mouth is situated. Through an eighth lock the river Yonne is reached at Montereau-Fault-Yonne, from the mouth of the Yonne, larger ships can continue upstream to Nogent-sur-Seine. From there on, the river is only by small craft. All navigation ends abruptly at Marcilly-sur-Seine, where the ancient Canal de la Haute-Seine used to allow vessels to continue all the way to Troyes and this canal has been abandoned for many years. The average depth of the Seine today at Paris is about 9.5 metres. Until locks were installed to raise the level in the 1800s, the river was much shallower within the city most of the time, today the depth is tightly controlled and the entire width of the river between the built-up banks on either side is normally filled with water. The average flow of the river is low, only a few cubic metres per second
Seine
–
The Seine in Paris
Seine
–
Seine source
Seine
–
The
Pont de Normandie over the Seine, between
Le Havre and
Honfleur, on the
Normandy coast
Seine
–
The Seine and Eiffel Tower
37.
Amulets
–
An amulet is an object whose most important characteristic is the power ascribed to it to protect its owner from danger or harm. Amulets are different from talismans as a talisman is believed to bring luck or some other benefit, Amulets are often confused with pendants—charms that hang from necklaces—any given pendant may indeed be an amulet, but so may any other charm which purports to protect its owner from danger. The word amulet comes from the Latin amulētum, the earliest extant use of the term is in Plinys Natural History, Amulets were particularly prevalent in ancient Roman society, being the inheritor of the ancient Greek tradition, and inextricably linked to Roman religion and magic. Amulets are worn to imbue the wearer with the powers of the gods rather than for any reasons of piety. The intrinsic power of the amulet is also evident from others bearing inscriptions, in China, Taoist experts called fulu developed a special style of calligraphy that they said would be able to protect against evil spirits. The equivalent type of amulet in Japan is called an ofuda, in antiquity and the Middle Ages, most Jews, Christians and Muslims in the Orient believed in the protective and healing power of amulets or blessed objects. This third category can be divided into external and internal talismans. For example, an external amulet can be placed in a bath, Jews, Christians, and Muslims have also at times used their holy books in a talisman-like manner in grave situations. For example, a bed-ridden and seriously ill person would have a book placed under part of the bed or cushion. Amulets are plentiful in the Jewish tradition, with examples of Solomon-era amulets existing in many museums, due to proscription of idols, Jewish amulets emphasize text and names — the shape, material or color of an amulet makes no difference. Examples of textual amulets include the Silver Scroll, circa 630 BCE, a counter-example, however, is the Hand of Miriam, an outline of a human hand. Another non-textual amulet is the Seal of Solomon, also known as the hexagram or Star of David and it consists of two intertwined equilateral triangles, and in this form it is commonly worn suspended around the neck to this day. Another common amulet in contemporary use is the Chai —, which is worn around the neck. Other similar amulets still in use consist of one of the names of God, such as ה, יה, or שדי, inscribed on a piece of parchment or metal, usually silver. During the Middle Ages, Maimonides and Sherira Gaon opposed the use of amulets, other rabbis, however, approved the use of amulets. Rabbi and famous kabbalist Naphtali ben Isaac Katz was said to be an expert in the use of amulets. Lay Catholics are not permitted to perform solemn exorcisms but they can use water, blessed salt. The crucifix, and the sign of the cross, is one of the key sacramentals used by Catholics to ward off evil since the time of the Early Church Fathers
Amulets
–
Iranian amulet to ward off the
Evil eye
Amulets
–
An
omamori, a Japanese amulet
Amulets
–
The Silver Scroll on display at the
Israel Museum
Amulets
–
Examples of Hand of Miriam in contemporary
Israel
38.
Middle Bronze Age
–
The Bronze Age is a historical period characterized by the use of bronze, proto-writing, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the principal period of the three-age Stone-Bronze-Iron system, as proposed in modern times by Christian Jürgensen Thomsen. An ancient civilization is defined to be in the Bronze Age either by smelting its own copper and alloying with tin, arsenic, or other metals, or by trading for bronze from production areas elsewhere. Copper-tin ores are rare, as reflected in the fact there were no tin bronzes in Western Asia before trading in bronze began in the third millennium BC. Worldwide, the Bronze Age generally followed the Neolithic period, with the Chalcolithic serving as a transition, although the Iron Age generally followed the Bronze Age, in some areas, the Iron Age intruded directly on the Neolithic. Bronze Age cultures differed in their development of the first writing, according to archaeological evidence, cultures in Mesopotamia and Egypt developed the earliest viable writing systems. The overall period is characterized by use of bronze, though the place and time of the introduction. Human-made tin bronze technology requires set production techniques, tin must be mined and smelted separately, then added to molten copper to make bronze alloy. The Bronze Age was a time of use of metals. The dating of the foil has been disputed, the Bronze Age in the ancient Near East began with the rise of Sumer in the 4th millennium BC. Societies in the region laid the foundations for astronomy and mathematics, the usual tripartite division into an Early, Middle and Late Bronze Age is not used. Instead, a division based on art-historical and historical characteristics is more common. The cities of the Ancient Near East housed several tens of thousands of people, ur in the Middle Bronze Age and Babylon in the Late Bronze Age similarly had large populations. The earliest mention of Babylonia appears on a tablet from the reign of Sargon of Akkad in the 23rd century BC, the Amorite dynasty established the city-state of Babylon in the 19th century BC. Over 100 years later, it took over the other city-states. Babylonia adopted the written Semitic Akkadian language for official use, by that time, the Sumerian language was no longer spoken, but was still in religious use. Elam was an ancient civilization located to the east of Mesopotamia, in the Old Elamite period, Elam consisted of kingdoms on the Iranian plateau, centered in Anshan, and from the mid-2nd millennium BC, it was centered in Susa in the Khuzestan lowlands. Its culture played a role in the Gutian Empire and especially during the Achaemenid dynasty that succeeded it
Middle Bronze Age
–
Chalcolithic copper mine in
Timna Valley,
Negev Desert,
Israel.
Middle Bronze Age
–
Diffusion of metallurgy in
Europe and
Asia Minor. The darkest areas are the oldest.
Middle Bronze Age
–
A
Shang Dynasty two-handled bronze gefuding gui (1600–1046 BC).
Middle Bronze Age
–
Spring and Autumn Period pu bronze vessel with interlaced
dragon design (722–481 BC)
39.
Sun cross
–
A sun cross is the term for a symbol consisting of an equilateral cross inside a circle when considered as a solar symbol. The design is found in the symbolism of prehistoric cultures. The symbols ubiquity and apparent importance in prehistoric religion have given rise to its interpretation as a solar symbol, the same symbol is in use as a modern astronomical symbol representing the Earth rather than the Sun. The symbol can be depicted using Unicode as U+1F728, U+2295 or as U+2A01, the interpretation of the simple equilateral cross as a solar symbol in Bronze Age religion was widespread in 19th-century scholarship. The cross-in-a-circle was interpreted as a solar symbol derived from the interpretation of the disc of the Sun as the wheel of the chariot of the Sun god. Wieseler postulated an Gothic rune hvel representing the deity by the wheel symbol of a cross-in-a-circle. The English term Sun-Cross, on the hand, is comparatively recent, apparently loaned from German Sonnenkreuz. The German term Sonnenkreuz was used in 19th-century scholarly literature of any cross symbol interpreted as a solar symbol, Sonnenkreuz was used of the flag design of the Paneuropean Union in the 1920s. In the 1930s, a version of the symbol with broken arms was popular as a link between Christianity and Germanic paganism in the völkisch German Faith Movement. Popular legend in Ireland says that the Celtic Christian cross was introduced by Saint Patrick or possibly Saint Declan and it has often been claimed that Patrick combined the symbol of Christianity with the sun cross to give pagan followers an idea of the importance of the cross. By linking it with the idea of the properties of the sun. Other interpretations claim that placing the cross on top of the circle represents Christs supremacy over the pagan sun, the original Coptic cross often includes a circle that is derived from the ankh, as the circles represent the sun god, Ra. Early Gnostic sects also used a circle cross, the Bronze Age symbol has also been connected with the spoked chariot wheel, which at the time was four-spoked. In the context of a culture that celebrated the Sun chariot, the same symbol represents the Earth in astronomical symbols, while the Sun is represented by a circle with a center point. The Native Americans and other indigenous peoples using the solar cross on their symbolic. In modern music tablature, the solar cross denotes a change of a guitar tone distortion. The Sassanian Empire in Persia used a similar solar cross on their banner, the Norwegian party Nasjonal Samling used a golden sun cross on a red background as an official symbol from 1933 to 1945. The cross with the circle was attached to Olaf II of Norway, patron saint of Norway, several neo-Nazi groups use the solar cross to represent white supremacy
Sun cross
–
Wheel pendants dating to the second half of the 2nd millennium BC, found in
Zürich, are held at the
Swiss National Museum. Variants include a six-spoked wheel, a central empty circle, and a second circle with twelve spokes surrounding one of four spokes.
Sun cross
–
Sun cross
Sun cross
–
Ornamental pins, found in
Switzerland, date to the first half of the 2nd millennium BC; their circular heads are incised with crosses.
40.
Zierscheibe
–
Zierscheibe in archaeology is the term for a kind of metal jewellery dating to the European Iron Age. They are found in graves and are thought to have been worn as pendants attached to the tunica. Early examples date to the Late Bronze Age and they develop into characteristic designs notably attested from Alamannic graves from the migration period
Zierscheibe
–
Alemannic Zierscheibe from
Herbrechtingen (6th century)
Zierscheibe
–
Zierscheiben, the left one dated to ca. AD 400.
41.
Sun chariot
–
A solar deity is a sky deity who represents the Sun, or an aspect of it, usually by its perceived power and strength. Solar deities and sun worship can be found throughout most of recorded history in various forms, the Sun is sometimes referred to by its Latin name Sol or by its Greek name Helios. The English word sun stems from Proto-Germanic *sunnǭ, the Neolithic concept of a solar barge is found in the later myths of ancient Egypt, with Ra and Horus. Predynasty Egyptian beliefs attribute Atum as the sun-god and Horus as a god of the sky, as the Old Kingdom theocracy gained power, early beliefs were incorporated with the expanding popularity of Ra and the Osiris-Horus mythology. Atum became Ra-Atum, the rays of the setting sun, Osiris became the divine heir to Atums power on Earth and passes his divine authority to his son Horus. Early Egyptian myths imply the sun is within the lioness, Sekhmet, at night and is reflected in her eyes, or that it is within the cow, Hathor, during the night, being reborn each morning as her son. Mesopotamian Shamash plays an important role during the Bronze Age, similarly, South American cultures have a tradition of Sun worship, as with the Incan Inti. Proto-Indo-European religion has a chariot, the sun as traversing the sky in a chariot. In Germanic mythology this is Sol, in Vedic Surya, and in Greek Helios, svarog is the Slavic solar deity, represented as a spirit of fire. During the Roman Empire, a festival of the birth of the Unconquered Sun was celebrated on the winter solstice—the rebirth of the sun—which occurred on December 25 of the Julian calendar. In late antiquity, the centrality of the sun in some Imperial religious systems suggest a form of a solar monotheism. The religious commemorations on December 25 were replaced under Christian domination of the Empire with the birthday of Christ, the Tiv people consider the Sun to be the son of the supreme being Awondo and the Moon Awondos daughter. The Barotse tribe believes that the Sun is inhabited by the sky god Nyambi, some Sara people also worship the sun. Even where the sun god is equated with the supreme being, the Ancient Egyptian god of creation, Amun is also believed to reside inside the sun. So is the Akan creator deity, Nyame and the Dogon deity of creation, also in Egypt, there was a religion that worshiped the sun directly, and was among the first monotheistic religions, Atenism. Sun worship was prevalent in ancient Egyptian religion, the earliest deities associated with the sun are all goddesses, Wadjet, Sekhmet, Hathor, Nut, Bast, Bat, and Menhit. First Hathor, and then Isis, give birth to and nurse Horus, Hathor the horned-cow is one of the 12 daughters of Ra, gifted with joy and is a wet-nurse to Horus. From at least the 4th Dynasty of Ancient Egypt, the sun was worshipped as the deity Re, and portrayed as a falcon headed god surmounted by the solar disk, and surrounded by a serpent
Sun chariot
–
The
Trundholm sun chariot
Sun chariot
–
Statue of
Hathor – Luxor Museum
Sun chariot
–
A solar representation on an anthropomorphic stele dated from the time period between the
Copper Age and the
Early Bronze Age, discovered during an archaeological excavation on the Rocher des Doms,
Avignon.
Sun chariot
–
Taiyang Shen, the Chinese solar deity
42.
Galicia (Spain)
–
Galicia is an autonomous community of Spain and historic nationality under Spanish law. It had a population of 2,718,525 in 2016 and has an area of 29,574 km2. Galicia has over 1,660 km of coastline, including its islands and islets, among them Cíes Islands, Ons, Sálvora, Cortegada. Galicia was incorporated into the Roman Empire at the end of the Cantabrian Wars in 19 BC, in 410, the Germanic Suebi established a kingdom with its capital in Braga, this kingdom was incorporated into that of the Visigoths in 585. The Governor also presided the Real Audiencia do Reino de Galicia, from the 16th century, the representation and voice of the kingdom was held by an assembly of deputies and representatives of the cities of the kingdom, the Cortes or Junta of the Kingdom of Galicia. This institution was forcibly discontinued in 1833 when the kingdom was divided into four provinces with no legal mutual links. During the 19th and 20th centuries, demand grew for self-government and this resulted in the Statute of Autonomy of 1936, soon frustrated by Francos coup detat and subsequent long dictatorship. After democracy was restored the legislature passed the Statute of Autonomy of 1981, approved in referendum and currently in force, the interior of Galicia is characterized by a hilly landscape, mountain ranges rise to 2,000 m in the east and south. The coastal areas are mostly a series of rías and cliffs. The climate of Galicia is usually temperate and rainy, with drier summers. Its topographic and climatic conditions have made animal husbandry and farming the primary source of Galicias wealth for most of its history, allowing for a relative high density of population. With the exception of shipbuilding and food processing, Galicia was based on a farming and fishing economy until after the mid-20th century, in 2012, the gross domestic product at purchasing power parity was €56,000 million, with a nominal GDP per capita of €20,700. There are smaller populations around the cities of Lugo and Ourense. The political capital is Santiago de Compostela, in the province of A Coruña, Vigo, in the province of Pontevedra, is the most populous municipality, with 292,817, while A Coruña is the most populous city, with 215,227. 56% of the Galician population speak Galician as their first language and these Callaeci were the first tribe in the area to help the Lusitanians against the invading Romans. The Romans applied their name to all the tribes in the northwest who spoke the same language. In any case, Galicia, being per se a derivation of the ethnic name Kallaikói, the name evolved during the Middle Ages from Gallaecia, sometimes written Galletia, to Gallicia. This coincides with the spelling of the Castilian Spanish name, the historical denomination Galiza became popular again during the end of the 19th and the first three-quarters of the 20th century, and is still used with some frequency today
Galicia (Spain)
–
A satellite view of Galicia
Galicia (Spain)
–
Flag
Galicia (Spain)
–
Bronze Age gold helmet from Leiro,
Rianxo
Galicia (Spain)
–
Palloza houses in eastern Galicia, an evolved form of the
Iron Age local
roundhouses
43.
BAE Systems Taranis
–
The BAE Systems Taranis is a British demonstrator programme for unmanned combat aerial vehicle technology, under development primarily by the defence contractor BAE Systems Military Air & Information. The aircraft, which is named after the Celtic god of thunder Taranis, a semi-autonomous unmanned warplane, the Taranis is designed to fly intercontinental missions, and will carry a variety of weapons, enabling it to attack both aerial and ground targets. It will utilise stealth technology, giving it a low radar profile, an operational derivative of the Taranis, the proposed Future Combat Air System is expected to enter military service after 2030. The Strategic Unmanned Air Vehicles Integrated Project Team, or SUAV IPT, was given responsibility for auditing and overseeing the Taranis project, the Taranis project is led by BAE Systems, and also involves Rolls-Royce, GE Aviation Systems, QinetiQ and the Ministry of Defence. BAE Systems and QinetiQ collaborated on all aspects relating to the autonomy of the system, GE Aviation Systems is responsible for providing Taranis fuel-gauging and electrical power systems. Rolls-Royce is responsible for the UCAVs propulsion system, having a 5% workshare in the project and it follows the completion of risk-reduction activities to ensure the mix of technologies, materials and systems used are robust enough for the next logical step. These risk-reduction activities included several earlier BAE stealth aircraft and UAV programmes, such as Replica, Nightjar I, Nightjar II, Kestrel, Corax, Raven, the first steel for the Taranis prototype was cut in September 2007, and assembly began in February 2008. On 9 January 2009, the Ministry of Defence denied that the Taranis had been flying near the site of a wind turbine. The prototype, which had a development cost of £143 million, was unveiled by BAE Systems at Warton Aerodrome, Lancashire. Ground tests of the began in 2010, and flight trials were initially expected to begin in 2011. However, the aircrafts first flight was delayed to 2012, then delayed further. The prototype has a takeoff weight of about 8,000 kg. It has two weapons bays, and is intended to incorporate full autonomy, allowing it to operate without human control for a large part of its mission. On 25 October 2013, the UK Ministry of Defence revealed that initial flight tests had taken place. Ground tests were conducted in 2010 and flight trials occurred in 2013, the MoD did not officially comment on the Taranis until the initial trials programme had been completed. On 5 February 2014, BAE revealed information on the Taranis flight tests, the UCAVs first flight occurred on 10 August 2013 at Woomera Test Range in South Australia. This flight lasted for approximately 15 minutes, a second sortie was launched on 17 August, and subsequent flights surpassed expectations for the airframe, flying at various speeds and heights for as long as one hour. By 2014, the Taranis development costs had reached £185 million, the Taranis is planned to be operational post 2030 and used in concert with manned aircraft
BAE Systems Taranis
–
Model of BAE Taranis UAV on display at
Farnborough Airshow in 2008.
44.
Indra
–
Indra is a Vedic deity in Hinduism, a guardian deity in Buddhism, and the king of first heaven called Saudharmakalpa in Jainism. His mythologies and powers are similar, though not identical to those of the Indo-European deities such as Zeus, Jupiter, Perun, Thor, in the Vedas, Indra is the king of Svarga and the Devas. He is the god of lightning, thunder, storms, rains, Indra is the most referred to deity in the Rigveda. He is celebrated for his powers, and the one who kills the great symbolic evil named Vritra who obstructs human prosperity, Indra destroys Vritra and his deceiving forces, and thereby brings rains and the sunshine as the friend of mankind. In Buddhism, Indra has been a popular deity, referred by many names and he is featured in Buddhism somewhat differently than Hinduism, such as being shown as less war oriented and one paying homage to the Buddha. Indra rules over the much sought Devas realm of rebirth within the Samsara doctrine of Buddhist traditions, however, like the Hindu texts, Indra also is a subject of ridicule and reduced to a figurehead status in Buddhist texts, shown as a god that suffers rebirth and redeath. In the Jainism traditions, like Buddhism and Hinduism, Indra is the king of gods, Indras iconography shows him wielding a lightning thunderbolt known as Vajra, riding on a white elephant known as Airavata. In Buddhist iconography the elephant sometimes features three heads, while Jaina icons sometimes show the elephant with five heads, sometimes a single elephant is shown with four symbolic tusks. Indras heavenly home is on or near Mount Meru, the etymological roots of Indra are unclear, has been a contested topic among scholars since the 19th-century, one with many proposals. The significant proposals have been, root ind-u, or rain drop, based on the Vedic mythology that he conquered rain, root ind, or equipped with great power. Root idh or kindle, and ina or strong, root indha, or igniter, for his ability to bring light and power that ignites the vital forces of life. This is based on Shatapatha Brahmana, root idam-dra, or It seeing which is a reference to the one who first perceived the self-sufficient metaphysical Brahman. This is based on Aitareya Upanishad, roots in ancient Indo-European, Indo-Aryan deities. Later scholarship has linked Vedic Indra to the European Aynar, Abaza, Ubykh, colarusso suggests a Pontic origin and that both the phonology and the context of Indra in Indian religions is best explained from Indo-Aryan roots and a Circassian etymology. Indra is also called Śakra frequently in the Vedas and in Buddhism, Indra has many epithets in the Indian religions, notably Śakra, Vṛṣan, Vṛtrahan, Meghavāhana, Devarāja, Devendra, Surendra, Svargapati, Vajrapāṇī and Vāsava. Indra is of ancient but unclear origin, the similarities between Indra of Hindu mythologies and of Thor of Nordic and Germanic mythologies are significant states Max Muller. Michael Janda suggests that Indra has origins in the Indo-European *trigw-welumos smasher of the enclosure, brave and heroic Innara or Inra, which sounds like Indra, is mentioned among the gods of the Mitanni, a Hurrian-speaking people of Hittite region. Indra as a deity had a presence in northeastern Asia minor and this tablet mentions a treaty, but its significance is in four names it includes reverentially as Mi-it-ra, U-ru-w-na, In-da-ra and Na-sa-at-ti-ia
Indra
–
Indra on his mount Airavata
Indra
–
Indra as depicted in
Yakshagana, popular folk art of
Karnataka
Indra
–
Detail of the Phra Prang, the central tower of the
Wat Arun ("Temple of Dawn") in
Bangkok,
Thailand - showing Indra on his three-headed elephant Erawan (
Airavata).
Indra
–
Krishna holding
Govardhan hill from
Smithsonian Institution ’s collections
45.
Perun
–
In Slavic mythology, Perun is the highest god of the pantheon and the god of thunder and lightning. His other attributes were fire, mountains, wind, the oak, iris, eagle, firmament, horses and carts, weapons and he was first associated with weapons made of stone and later with those of metal. Of all historic records describing Slavic gods, those mentioning Perun are the most numerous, as early as the 6th century, he was mentioned in De Bello Gothico, a historical source written by the Eastern Roman historian Procopius. While the name of the god is not mentioned explicitly, 20th century research has established beyond doubt that the god of thunder. To this day the word perun in a number of Slavic languages means thunder and we find the same form of confirmation of a peace treaty by prince Igor in 945. In 980, when prince Vladimir the Great came to the throne of Kiev, Perun was chief among these, represented with a silver head and a golden moustache. Vladimirs uncle Dobrinja also had a shrine of Perun established in his city of Novgorod, after the Christianization of Kievan Rus, this place became a monastery, which, quite remarkably, continued to bear the name of Perun. This could be a reference to Perun, but since he is not named, nor any of his attributes mentioned. Moreover, the name of Perun is also found in Southern Slavic toponymy. The Bulgarian and Macedonian people believe that the name of the Bulgarian mountain Pirin, there are also places called, Perun, Perunac, Perunovac, Perunika, Perunička Glava, Peruni Vrh, Perunja Ves, Peruna Dubrava, Perunuša, Perušice, Perudina and Perutovac. It must be noted that the word Pero means feather and the names of mountains and these names today mostly represent mountain tops, but in medieval times, large oaks, sacred groves and even entire villages or citadels were named Perun. Also, as mentioned already, in Ukrainian perun and in Polish piorun means thunderbolt, among South Slavs, a mountain plant Iris germanica is known in folklore as perunika and sometimes also as bogisha, and was believed to grow from ground that had been struck by lightning. Also the Serbian surname Peruničić and the Macedonian Перуновски are derived from Perun, the root *perkwu originally probably meant oak, but in Proto-Slavic this evolved into per- meaning to strike, to slay. The Lithuanian word Perkūnas has two meanings, thunder and the name of the god of thunder and lightning, artifacts, traditions and toponyms show the presence of the cult of Perun among all Slavic, Baltic and Ugro-Finnic peoples. The cult of Perun in this territory, populated since the 5th century by Slavs, Perun pursued Veles around the earth, attacking him with his lightning bolts from the sky. In the end, Perun managed to kill Veles, or to him back down into his watery underworld. The supreme god thus reestablished order in the world, which had been disrupted by his chaotic enemy and he then returned to the top of the World tree and proudly informed his opponent down in the roots Well, there is your place, remain there. This line came from a Belarusian folk tale, the earliest supreme god was probably Rod, it is unclear precisely how and why his worship as the head of the pantheon evolved into the worship of Perun
Perun
–
Presumably here
Veles is defeated by Perun,
Žrnovnica,
Croatia, probably 8th century
Perun
–
Wooden statue of Perun in
Kyiv,
Ukraine, erected in 2009, destroyed in 2012 by unknowns.
Perun
–
Drawings of Slavic axe amulets based on archaeological findings dating between the 11th and 12th century.
Perun
–
M. Presnyakov (1998). Perun.
46.
Marcus Annaeus Lucanus
–
Marcus Annaeus Lucanus, better known in English as Lucan, was a Roman poet, born in Corduba, in the Hispania Baetica. Despite his short life, he is regarded as one of the figures of the Imperial Latin period. His youth and speed of composition set him apart from other poets, Lucan was the son of Marcus Annaeus Mela and grandson of Seneca the Elder, he grew up under the tutelage of his uncle Seneca the Younger. Born into a family, he studied rhetoric at Athens and was probably provided with a philosophical. He found success under Nero, became one of the close friends and was rewarded with a quaestorship in advance of the legal age. In 60 AD, he won a prize for extemporizing Orpheus and Laudes Neronis at the quinquennial Neronia, during this time he circulated the first three books of his epic poem, Pharsalia, which told the story of the civil war between Julius Caesar and Pompey. At some point, a feud began between Nero and Lucan, two very different accounts of the events have survived that both trivialize the feud. According to Tacitus, Nero became jealous of Lucan and forbade him to publish his poems, according to Suetonius, Nero lost interest in Lucan and Lucan responded by writing insulting poems about Nero that Nero continued to ignore. Other works, though, point to a serious basis to the feud. Works by the grammarian Vacca and the poet Statius may support the claim that Lucan wrote insulting poems about Nero, Vacca mentions that one of Lucans works was entitled De Incendio Urbis. Statiuss ode to Lucan mentions that Lucan described how the flames of the criminal tyrant roamed the heights of Remus. Additionally, the books of Pharsalia are anti-Imperial and pro-Republic. This criticism of Nero and office of the Emperor may have been the cause of the ban. Lucan later joined the 65 AD conspiracy of Gaius Calpurnius Piso against Nero. His treason discovered, he was obliged, at the age of 25, to suicide by opening a vein. According to Tacitus, as Lucan bled to death, recalled some poetry he had composed in which he had told the story of a soldier dying a similar kind of death. His father was involved in the proscription but his mother escaped, statiuss poem about Lucan was addressed to his widow, Polla Argentaria, upon the occasion of his birthday during the reign of Domitian. Cornell Studies in Classical Philology 39, ideology in Cold Blood, A Reading of Lucans Civil War
Marcus Annaeus Lucanus
–
Bust of the Roman poet Lucan,
Córdoba,
Spain.
Marcus Annaeus Lucanus
–
Engraved title page of a French edition of Lucan's Pharsalia, 1657
47.
Jacob Grimm
–
Jacob Ludwig Carl Grimm was a German philologist, jurist, and mythologist. Jacob Grimm was born in Hanau, in Hesse-Kassel and his father, Philipp Grimm, was a lawyer, but he died while Jacob was a child, and his mother was left with very small means. His mothers sister was lady of the chamber to the Landgravine of Hesse, Jacob was sent to the public school at Kassel in 1798 with his younger brother Wilhelm. In 1802, he proceeded to the University of Marburg where he studied law and his brother joined him at Marburg a year later, having just recovered from a long and severe illness, and likewise began the study of law. Up to this time, Jacob Grimm had been driven only by a general thirst for knowledge, savignys lectures also awakened in him a love for historical and antiquarian investigation, which forms the structure of all his work. In the beginning of 1805, he received an invitation from Savigny, Grimm passed a very happy time in Paris, strengthening his taste for the literatures of the Middle Ages by his studies in the Paris libraries. Towards the close of the year, he returned to Kassel, where his mother and Wilhelm had settled, the next year, he obtained a position in the war office with the very small salary of 100 thalers. One of his grievances was that he had to exchange his stylish Paris suit for a stiff uniform, but he had full leisure for the pursuit of his studies. In 1808, soon after the death of his mother, he was appointed superintendent of the library of Jérôme Bonaparte, King of Westphalia. Bonaparte appointed him an auditor to the council, while Grimm retained his superintendent post. His salary was increased in a period of time from 2000 to 4000 francs. After the expulsion of Bonaparte and the reinstatement of an elector, Grimm was appointed Secretary of Legation in 1813, accompanying the Hessian minister to the headquarters of the allied army. In 1814, he was sent to Paris to demand restitution of books carried off by the French, upon his return from Vienna, he was sent to Paris a second time to secure book restitutions. Meanwhile, Wilhelm had received an appointment to the Kassel library, consequently, they moved the following year to Göttingen, where Jacob received the appointment of professor and librarian, and Wilhelm that of under-librarian. Jacob Grimm lectured on legal antiquities, historical grammar, literary history, and diplomatics, explained Old German poems, during this period, he is described as small and lively in figure, with a harsh voice, speaking a broad Hessian dialect. Grimm joined other academics who signed a protest against the King of Hanovers abrogation of the constitution which had established some years before. As a result, he was dismissed from his professorship and banished from the Kingdom of Hanover in 1837 and he returned to Kassel with his brother, who had also signed the protest. Jacob was not under any obligation to lecture and he seldom did so, during their time in Kassel, Jacob regularly attended the meetings of the academy, where he read papers on widely varied subjects
Jacob Grimm
–
Jacob Grimm
48.
Germanic paganism
–
Germanic paganism refers to the theology and religious practices of the Germanic peoples from the Iron Age until their Christianization during the Medieval period. Germanic paganism took various forms in different areas of the Germanic world, the best documented version was that of 10th and 11th century Norse religion, although other information can be found from Anglo-Saxon and Continental Germanic sources. Scattered references are found in the earliest writings of other Germanic peoples. The information can be supplemented with archaeological finds and remnants of pre-Christian beliefs in later folklore, Germanic paganism was polytheistic, with similarities to other Indo-European religions. The Common Germanic period begins with the European Iron Age, contemporary to the Celtic La Tene culture to the south, early Germanic history remains in the prehistoric period until the earliest descriptions in Roman ethnography in the 1st century BC. The earliest forms of the Germanic religion can only be speculated on based on archaeological evidence, the first written description is in Julius Caesars Commentarii de Bello Gallico. He contrasts the religious custom of the Gauls with the simpler Germanic traditions. A much more detailed description of Germanic religion is Tacituss Germania, Tacitus describes both animal and human sacrifice. He identifies the chief Germanic god with the Roman Mercury, who on certain days receives human sacrifices, while gods identified by Tacitus with Hercules and Mars receive animal sacrifice. The largest Germanic tribe, Suebians, also sacrifices, allegedly of captured Roman soldiers. Nerthus is revered by Reudignians, Aviones, Angles, Varinians, Nerthus is believed to directly interpose in human affairs. Her sanctuary is on an island, specifically in a wood called Castum, a chariot covered with a curtain is dedicated to the goddess, and only the high priest may touch it. The priest is capable of seeing the goddess enter the chariot, drawn by cows, the chariot travels through the countryside, and wherever the goddess visits, a great feast is held. During the travel of the goddess, the Germanic tribes cease all hostilities, when the priest declares that the goddess is tired of conversation with mortals, the chariot returns and is washed, together with the curtains, in a secret lake. The slaves who administer this purification are afterwards thrown into the lake, according to Tacitus, the Germanic tribes think of temples as unsuitable habitations for gods, and they do not represent them as idols in human shape. Instead of temples, they consecrate woods or groves to individual gods, divination and augury was very popular, To the use of lots and auguries, they are addicted beyond all other nations. Their method of divining by lots is exceedingly simple, from a tree which bears fruit they cut a twig, and divide it into two small pieces. These they distinguish by so many several marks, and throw them at random and without order upon a white garment
Germanic paganism
–
A
Migration Period Germanic gold
bracteate featuring a depiction of a bird, horse, and stylized head wearing a
Suebian knot sometimes theorized to represent Germanic god
Wōden and what would later become
Sleipnir and
Hugin or Munin in
Germanic mythology, later attested in the form of
Norse mythology. The
runic inscription includes the religious term
alu.
Germanic paganism
–
Idunn and the apples of youth.
