1.
Italian language
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By most measures, Italian, together with Sardinian, is the closest to Latin of the Romance languages. Italian is a language in Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City. Italian is spoken by minorities in places such as France, Montenegro, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Crimea and Tunisia and by large expatriate communities in the Americas. Many speakers are native bilinguals of both standardized Italian and other regional languages, Italian is the fourth most studied language in the world. Italian is a major European language, being one of the languages of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe. It is the third most widely spoken first language in the European Union with 65 million native speakers, including Italian speakers in non-EU European countries and on other continents, the total number of speakers is around 85 million. Italian is the working language of the Holy See, serving as the lingua franca in the Roman Catholic hierarchy as well as the official language of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta. Italian is known as the language of music because of its use in musical terminology and its influence is also widespread in the arts and in the luxury goods market. Italian has been reported as the fourth or fifth most frequently taught foreign language in the world, Italian was adopted by the state after the Unification of Italy, having previously been a literary language based on Tuscan as spoken mostly by the upper class of Florentine society. Its development was influenced by other Italian languages and to some minor extent. Its vowels are the second-closest to Latin after Sardinian, unlike most other Romance languages, Italian retains Latins contrast between short and long consonants. As in most Romance languages, stress is distinctive, however, Italian as a language used in Italy and some surrounding regions has a longer history. What would come to be thought of as Italian was first formalized in the early 14th century through the works of Tuscan writer Dante Alighieri, written in his native Florentine. Dante is still credited with standardizing the Italian language, and thus the dialect of Florence became the basis for what would become the language of Italy. Italian was also one of the recognised languages in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Italy has always had a dialect for each city, because the cities. Those dialects now have considerable variety, as Tuscan-derived Italian came to be used throughout Italy, features of local speech were naturally adopted, producing various versions of Regional Italian. Even in the case of Northern Italian languages, however, scholars are not to overstate the effects of outsiders on the natural indigenous developments of the languages
2.
Etruscan civilization
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The Etruscan civilization is the modern name given to a powerful and wealthy civilization of ancient Italy in the area corresponding roughly to Tuscany, western Umbria, and northern Lazio. Culture that is identifiably Etruscan developed in Italy after about 800 BC, the latter gave way in the 7th century BC to a culture that was influenced by ancient Greece, Magna Graecia, and Phoenicia. The decline was gradual, but by 500 BC the political destiny of Italy had passed out of Etruscan hands, the last Etruscan cities were formally absorbed by Rome around 100 BC. Politics were based on the city, and probably the family unit. In their heyday, the Etruscan elite grew very rich through trade with the Celtic world to the north and the Greeks to the south, archaic Greece had a huge influence on their art and architecture, and Greek mythology was evidently very familiar to them. The study also excluded recent Anatolian connection, the ancient Romans referred to the Etruscans as the Tuscī or Etruscī. Their Roman name is the origin of the terms Tuscany, which refers to their heartland, and Etruria, which can refer to their wider region. In Attic Greek, the Etruscans were known as Tyrrhenians, from which the Romans derived the names Tyrrhēnī, Tyrrhēnia, the word may also be related to the Hittite Taruisa. The Etruscans called themselves Rasenna, which was syncopated to Rasna or Raśna, the origins of the Etruscans are mostly lost in prehistory, although Greek historians as early as the 5th century BC, repeatedly associated the Tyrrhenians with Pelasgians. Strabo as well as the Homeric Hymn to Dionysus make mention of the Tyrrhenians as pirates, pliny the Elder put the Etruscans in the context of the Rhaetian people to the north and wrote in his Natural History, Adjoining these the Noricans are the Raeti and Vindelici. All are divided into a number of states, the Raeti are believed to be people of Tuscan race driven out by the Gauls, their leader was named Raetus. Historians have no literature and no original Etruscan texts of religion or philosophy, therefore, much of what is known about this civilization is derived from grave goods, another source of genetic data on Etruscan origins is from four ancient breeds of cattle. Analyzing the mitochondrial DNA of these and seven other breeds of Italian cattle, the other Italian breeds were linked to northern Europe. Etruscan expansion was focused both to the north beyond the Apennine Mountains and into Campania, some small towns in the sixth century BC disappeared during this time, ostensibly consumed by greater, more powerful neighbours. However, it is certain that the structure of the Etruscan culture was similar to, albeit more aristocratic than. The mining and commerce of metal, especially copper and iron, led to an enrichment of the Etruscans and to the expansion of their influence in the Italian peninsula and the western Mediterranean Sea. Here, their interests collided with those of the Greeks, especially in the sixth century BC and this led the Etruscans to ally themselves with Carthage, whose interests also collided with the Greeks. Around 540 BC, the Battle of Alalia led to a new distribution of power in the western Mediterranean, from the first half of the 5th century BC, the new political situation meant the beginning of the Etruscan decline after losing their southern provinces
3.
Confronted animals
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The anti-confronted animals is the opposing motif, with the animals back to back. Bilateral symmetry is a dominant aspect of our world and strong representation of it with matching figures often creates a balance that is appealing in artwork, a related motif in ancient art is known as the Mistress of Animals. The column is thought to represent a goddess, abstracted to avoid tabooed direct representation, the motif called the Tree of Life, where two confronted animals graze on a shrub or tree, is also very ancient. The reverse side of the Gebel el-Arak Knife handle, displayed at the top of the article, shows two powerful confronted lions, separated by a figure who is grasping them. Of note, the knob on the shows the top end of the hole for a cord or rope, on the suspension lug. Examples of confronted animals exist on Cylinder seals from Mesopotamia, deities, or heroes grasping lionesses, cattle, griffins, or other imaginary creatures are sometimes found. Many cylinder seals involving confronted goats surrounding a central Tree of life on a cone or mountain platform share one common theme, others may be thought of as deities holding the animals under their control. Because cylinder seals are numerous and also come from pre-historical periods, back to the fourth or fifth millenniums, confronted snakes are frequent images in many cultures from ancient times to historical periods. A chlorite vessel from the area of contemporary Baghdad, Iraq is displayed at this link and it depicts three pairs of confronted animals. Two confronted snakes are being held in the hands of the figure, below the snake-pair are a pair of anti-confronted-lionesses. The third similar pair of animals on this item are two anti-confronted bovines with a human or deity between also, two tumbling lions and other animals are depicted to the right. The Narmer Palette, used to mix cosmetics in the receptacle on one side, has two confronted felines, sometimes called serpopards forming the receptacle, close examination of the animals with the exaggerated, long necks supports identification as lionesses. The entire theme of the Narmer Palette, is about the pharaoh of the newly unified Ancient Egypt represented in two scenes, on one side the pharaoh wears the crown of Upper Egypt and on the other, the pharaoh wears the crown of Lower Egypt. Thus, it is thought that the lionesses with their necks are representing two kingdoms, once separate, but now unified under one pharaoh. The lioness Bast had been the deity of one kingdom. Respectively, they were the protectors of the pharaoh in each kingdom. Eventually their roles diverged, however, with one becoming less of the protector and warrior deity, typically, many similar deities in the two kingdoms soon were merged, so the retention of both is thought to be the result of the long and strong tradition of each. Examples of other confronted animals exist on many cosmetic palettes of Ancient Egypt that have been discovered, one palette has confronted-hippopotamuses, others include giraffes, geese, and other animals familiar to the Egyptians
4.
Leopard
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The leopard /ˈlɛpərd/ is one of the five big cats in the genus Panthera. It is a member of the family Felidae with a range in sub-Saharan Africa. Fossil records suggest that in the Late Pleistocene it occurred in Europe, compared to other members of Felidae, the leopard has relatively short legs and a long body with a large skull. It is similar in appearance to the jaguar, but has a smaller, lighter physique. Its fur is marked with similar to those of the jaguar, but the leopards rosettes are smaller and more densely packed. Both leopards and jaguars that are melanistic are known as black panthers, the leopard is listed as vulnerable on the IUCN Red List because leopard populations are threatened by habitat loss and fragmentation, and are declining in large parts of the global range. In Hong Kong, Singapore, Kuwait, Syria, Libya, Tunisia and most likely in Morocco, leopards are hunted illegally, and their body parts are smuggled in the wildlife trade for medicinal practices and decoration. The common name leopard /ˈlɛ. pərd/ is a Greek compound of λέων leōn, the name reflects the fact that in antiquity, a leopard was believed to be a hybrid of a lion and a panther. The Greek word is related to Sanskrit पृदाकु pṛdāku, and probably derives from a Mediterranean language, the name was first used in the 13th century. Other vernacular names for the leopard include graupanther, panther and several names such as tendwa in India. The term black panther refers to leopards with melanistic genes, the scientific name of the leopard is Panthera pardus. The generic name Panthera derives from Latin via Greek πάνθηρ, the term panther, whose first recorded use dates back to the 13th century AD, generally refers to the leopard, and less often to the cougar and the jaguar. Alternative origins suggested for Panthera include an Indo-Iranian word meaning white-yellow or pale, in Sanskrit, this could have been derived from पाण्डर pāṇḍara, which in turn comes from पुण्डरीक puṇḍárīka. The specific name pardus is derived from the Greek πάρδος, the leopard is one of the five extant species of the genus Panthera, which also includes the jaguar, the lion, the snow leopard and the tiger. This genus, along with the genus Neofelis - which consists of the clouded leopard, the leopard was first described by Swedish zoologist Carl Linnaeus in the 10th edition of Systema Naturae. Linnaeus named the leopard as Felis pardus, placing it in the genus Felis along with the cat, the jaguar, the Eurasian lynx, the lion, the ocelot. In the 18th and 19th centuries, most naturalists and taxonomists followed his example, in 1816, Lorenz Oken proposed a definition of the genus Panthera, with a subgenus Panthera using F. pardus as a type species. Okens classification, however, was not widely accepted, and until the early 20th century continued using Felis or Leopardus when describing leopard subspecies, in 1916, British zoologist Reginald Innes Pocock accorded Panthera generic rank defining Panthera pardus as species
5.
Symposium
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In ancient Greece, the symposium was a drinking party. Symposia are depicted in Greek and Etruscan art that shows similar scenes, the equivalent in Roman society is the Latin convivium. In modern usage it has come to mean an academic conference or meeting such as a scientific conference, the Greek symposium was a key Hellenic social institution. It was a forum for men of respected families to debate, plot, boast and they were frequently held to celebrate the introduction of young men into aristocratic society. Symposia were also held by aristocrats to celebrate special occasions. They were a source of pride for them, symposia were usually held in the andrōn, the mens quarters of the household. The participants, or symposiasts, would recline on pillowed couches arrayed against the three walls of the room away from the door, due to space limitations the couches would number between seven and nine, limiting the total number of participants to somewhere between fourteen and twenty seven. If any young men took part they did not recline but sat up, however, in Macedonian symposia the focus was not only on drinking but hunting, and young men were allowed to recline only after they had killed their first wild boar. Entertainment was provided, and depending on the occasion could include games, songs, flute-girls or boys, slaves performing various acts, symposia often were held for specific occasions. The most famous symposium of all, described in Platos dialogue of that name was hosted by the poet Agathon on the occasion of his first victory at the theater contest of the 416 BC Dionysia. The men at the symposium would discuss a multitude of philosophical, such as love. A symposium would be overseen by a symposiarch who would decide how strong the wine for the evening would be, the Greeks and Romans customarily served their wine mixed with water, as the drinking of pure wine was considered a habit of uncivilized peoples. However, there were differences between the Roman and Greek symposiums. A Roman symposium served wine before, with and after food, in a Greek symposium, wine was only drunk after dinner, and women were not allowed to attend. The wine was drawn from a krater, a large jar designed to be carried by two men, and served from pitchers. Certain formalities were observed, most important among which were libations, in a fragment from his c. After the third one is drained, wise men go home, symposiums are often featured on Attic pottery and Richard Neer has argued that the chief function of Attic pottery was for use in the symposium. Poetry and music were central to the pleasures of the symposium, although free women of status did not attend symposia, high-class female prostitutes and entertainers were hired to perform, consort, and converse with the guests
6.
Monterozzi necropolis
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The Monterozzi necropolis is an Etruscan necropolis on a hill east of Tarquinia in Lazio, Italy. The necropolis has about 6,000 graves, the oldest of which dates to the 7th century BC, about 200 of the gravestones are decorated with frescos. The burial ground dates from the Iron Age, or Villanovan period, from the Villanovan period simple round tombs carved from rock for cremation burials can be seen at the site. Towards the end of the 8th c, BC, the first funerary chambers appeared as family tombs due to the rise to power of an aristocracy. These appeared on the surface as tumuli, sometimes assuming impressive proportions to enhance the power and prestige of the nobles, as can be seen especially in the so-called King, there were about 600 tumuli still visible in the 19th century, following which many were razed after excavation. The tumuli usually covered subterranean chambers carved into the rock, containing sarcophagi and personal possessions of the deceased, the earliest sarcophagi are carved with the image of the deceased supine on the lid. During the second half of the 4th century BC sculpted and painted sarcophagi of nenfro, marble and they were deposited on rock-carved benches or against the walls in the now very large underground chambers. Sarcophagi were also decorated with reliefs of symbolic or mythological content, sarcophagi of this type, which continue until the second century, are found in such numbers at Tarquinia that they must have been manufactured locally. It is one of the rare Etruscan tombs which have erotic frescoes the Tomb of the Whipping and it is also one of the rare Etruscan tombs which have erotic frescoes
7.
Tarquinia
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In 1922 it was renamed after the ancient city of Tarquinii or Tarchna. Although little is visible of the great wealth and extent of the ancient city. The Etruscan and Roman city is situated on the plateau of La Civita to the north of the current town. The ancient burial grounds, dating from the Iron Age to Roman times, were on the adjacent promontories including that of todays Tarquinia and it is said to have been already a flourishing city when Demaratus of Corinth brought in Greek workmen. Descendants of Demaratus, Lucius Tarquinius Priscus and Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, from Tarchuna many of the religious rites and ceremonies of Rome are said to have been derived, and even in imperial times a collegium of sixty haruspices continued to exist there. In 509 BC after the overthrow of the Roman monarchy the family of Tarquinius Superbus went into exile in Caere and he sought to regain the throne at first by the Tarquinian conspiracy and, when that failed, by force of arms. He convinced the cities of Tarchuna and Veii to support him, although the Roman army was victorious it is recorded by Livy that the forces of Tarchuna fought well on the right wing, initially pushing back the Roman left wing. After the battle the forces of Tarchuna returned home, the Spurinnas tomb, known as the Tomba dellOrco, is decorated with fine frescoes of a banquet uniting the famous members of the family who are identified by inscriptions. The Spurinna family was prominent in Tarquinii up to the 1st Century AD, recently two fragmented slabs were found known as the Elogia Tarquiniensis. During this period, Tarchuna overtook Caere and other Etruscan cities in terms of power and it was about this period that colossal walls were built around the city in response to threats from the Celts and from Rome. Tarchuna, not affected by Celtic invasions, finally colonised all its previously held territories in about 385 BC and this new flourishing state allowed a rapid recovery of all activities. However, during the fourth century BC when Tarchunas expansion was at its peak, a bitter struggle with Rome took place. In 358 BC, the citizens of Tarchuna captured and put to death 307 Roman soldiers, a bishop of Tarquinii is mentioned in 456AD. The last historic references to Tarquinii are from around 1250, while the name of Corneto was changed to Tarquinia in 1922, reversion to historical place names, was a frequent phenomenon under the Fascist Government of Italy as part of the nationalist campaign to evoke past glories. The painted scenes are of a quality virtually unrivalled elsewhere in the Etruscan world and they show banquets with dances and music, sporting events, occasional erotic and mythical scenes. Famous tombs include the Tomb of the Bulls, Tomb of the Augurs, during the second half of the 4th century sculpted and painted sarcophagi of nenfro, marble and alabaster came into use. They were deposited on rock-carved benches or against the walls in the by then very large underground chambers, sarcophagi continued until the second century and are found in such numbers at Tarquinia that they must have been manufactured locally. The city towered above the Marta valley and was about 6 km from the sea, La Civita is made up of two adjoining plateaux, the pian di Civita and the pian della Regina, joined by a narrow saddle
8.
Ancient Near East
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The ancient Near East is studied in the fields of Near Eastern archaeology and ancient history. The ancient Near East is considered one of the cradles of civilization and it also saw the creation of the first writing system and law codes, early advances that laid the foundations of astronomy and mathematics, and the invention of the wheel. During the period, states became increasingly large, until by the end the region was controlled by military empires who had conquered a number of different cultures. The phrase ancient Near East utilizes the 19th-century distinction between Near East and Far East as global regions of interest to the British Empire, the distinction began during the Crimean War. The two theatres were described by the statesmen and advisors of the British Empire as the Near East, shortly, they were to share the stage with Middle East, which came to prevail in the 20th century and continues in modern times. Meanwhile, ancient Near East had become distinct, the Near East ruled by the Ottoman Empire ranged from Vienna to the north to the tip of the Arabian Peninsula to the south, from Egypt in the west to the borders of Iraq in the east. The 19th-century archaeologists added Iran to their definition, which was never under the Ottomans, but they excluded all of Europe and, generally, Egypt, which had parts in the empire. Ancient Near East periodization is the attempt to categorize or divide time into discrete named blocks, or eras, the result is a descriptive abstraction that provides a useful handle on Near East periods of time with relatively stable characteristics. Named after the Sumerian city of Uruk, this saw the emergence of urban life in Mesopotamia. It was followed by the Sumerian civilization, the late Uruk period saw the gradual emergence of the cuneiform script and corresponds to the Early Bronze Age. Sumer, located in southern Mesopotamia, is the earliest known civilization in the world, the Akkadian Empire, founded by Sargon the Great, lasted from the 24th to the 21st century BC, and was regarded by many as the worlds first Empire. The Akkadians eventually fragmented into Assyria and Babylonia, Ancient Elam lay to the east of Sumer and Akkad, in the far west and southwest of modern-day Iran, stretching from the lowlands of Khuzestan and Ilam Province. In the Old Elamite period, c.3200 BC, it consisted of kingdoms on the Iranian plateau, centered on Anshan, and from the mid-2nd millennium BC, it was centered on Susa in the Khuzestan lowlands. Elam was absorbed into the Assyrian Empire in the 9th to 7th centuries BC, however, the Proto-Elamite civilization existed from c.3200 BC to 2700 BC, when Susa, the later capital of the Elamites, began to receive influence from the cultures of the Iranian plateau. In archaeological terms, this corresponds to the late Banesh period and this civilization is recognized as the oldest in Iran and was largely contemporary with its neighbour, the Sumerian civilization. The Proto-Elamite script is an Early Bronze Age writing system briefly in use for the ancient Elamite language before the introduction of Elamite Cuneiform, the Amorites were a nomadic Semitic people who occupied the country west of the Euphrates from the second half of the 3rd millennium BC. In the earliest Sumerian sources, beginning about 2400 BC, the land of the Amorites is associated with the West, including Syria and Canaan and they ultimately settled in Mesopotamia, ruling Isin, Larsa, and later Babylon. Assyria, after enduring a period of Mitanni domination, emerged as a great power from the accession of Ashur-uballit I in 1365 BC to the death of Tiglath-Pileser I in 1076 BC
9.
Art of ancient Egypt
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Ancient Egyptian art is the painting, sculpture, architecture and other arts produced by the civilization of ancient Egypt in the lower Nile Valley from about 3000 BC to 30 AD. Ancient Egyptian art reached a level in painting and sculpture. It was famously conservative, and Egyptian styles changed remarkably little over more than three thousand years, much of the surviving art comes from tombs and monuments and thus there is an emphasis on life after death and the preservation of knowledge of the past. Ancient Egyptian art included paintings, sculpture in wood, stone and ceramics, drawings on papyrus, faience, jewelry, ivories and it displays an extraordinarily vivid representation of the ancient Egyptians socioeconomic status and belief systems. This appears as early as the Narmer Palette from Dynasty I, other conventions make statues of males darker than females ones. Egyptian art uses hierarchical proportion, where the size of figures indicates their relative importance, symbolism can be observed throughout Egyptian art and played an important role in establishing a sense of order. The pharaohs regalia, for example, represented his power to maintain order, animals were also highly symbolic figures in Egyptian art. Not all Egyptian reliefs were painted, and less prestigious works in tombs, Stone surfaces were prepared by whitewash, or if rough, a layer of coarse mud plaster, with a smoother gesso layer above, some finer limestones could take paint directly. Pigments were mostly mineral, chosen to withstand sunlight without fading. The binding medium used in painting remains unclear, egg tempera and various gums and it is clear that true fresco, painted into a thin layer of wet plaster, was not used. Instead the paint was applied to dried plaster, in what is called fresco a secco in Italian, small objects including wooden statuettes were often painted using similar techniques. Many ancient Egyptian paintings have survived in tombs, and sometimes temples, the paintings were often made with the intent of making a pleasant afterlife for the deceased. The themes included journey through the afterworld or protective deities introducing the deceased to the gods of the underworld, some tomb paintings show activities that the deceased were involved in when they were alive and wished to carry on doing for eternity. In the New Kingdom and later, the Book of the Dead was buried with the entombed person and it was considered important for an introduction to the afterlife. Egyptian paintings are painted in such a way to show a profile view, for example, the painting to the right shows the head from a profile view and the body from a frontal view. Their main colors were red, blue, green, gold, black, the monumental sculpture of ancient Egypts temples and tombs is world-famous, but refined and delicate small works exist in much greater numbers. The Egyptians used the technique of sunk relief, which is well suited to very bright sunlight. The distinctive pose of standing statues facing forward with one foot in front of the other was helpful for the balance and it was adopted very early and remained unchanged until the arrival of the Greeks
