1.
Dining room
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A dining room is a room for consuming food. In modern times it is adjacent to the kitchen for convenience in serving. In the Middle Ages, upper class Britons and other European nobility in castles or large manor houses dined in the great hall and this was a large multi-function room capable of seating the bulk of the population of the house. The family would sit at the table on a raised dais. Tables in the hall would tend to be long trestle tables with benches. The sheer number of people in a Great Hall meant it would probably have had a busy, suggestions that it would also have been quite smelly and smoky are probably, by the standards of the time, unfounded. These rooms had large chimneys and high ceilings and there would have been a flow of air through the numerous door. In the first instance, the Black Death that ravaged Europe in the 14th Century caused a shortage of labour, also the religious persecutions following the dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII made it unwise to talk freely in front of large numbers of people. Over time, the nobility took more of their meals in the parlour, and the parlour became, functionally and it also migrated farther from the Great Hall, often accessed via grand ceremonial staircases from the dais in the Great Hall. Eventually dining in the Great Hall became something that was primarily on special occasions. Toward the beginning of the 18th Century, a pattern emerged where the ladies of the house would withdraw after dinner from the room to the drawing room. The gentlemen would remain in the room having drinks. The dining room tended to take on a more masculine tenor as a result, a typical North American dining room will contain a table with chairs arranged along the sides and ends of the table, as well as other pieces of furniture, as space permits. Often tables in modern dining rooms will have a leaf to allow for the larger number of people present on those special occasions without taking up extra space when not in use. Although the typical family dining experience is at a table or some sort of kitchen area. In modern American and Canadian homes, the room is typically adjacent to the living room. Smaller houses and condos may have a breakfast bar instead, often of a different height than the kitchen counter. If a home lacks a dinette, breakfast nook, or breakfast bar and this was traditionally the case in Britain, where the dining room would for many families be used only on Sundays, other meals being eaten in the kitchen
2.
Ancient Rome
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In its many centuries of existence, the Roman state evolved from a monarchy to a classical republic and then to an increasingly autocratic empire. Through conquest and assimilation, it came to dominate the Mediterranean region and then Western Europe, Asia Minor, North Africa and it is often grouped into classical antiquity together with ancient Greece, and their similar cultures and societies are known as the Greco-Roman world. Ancient Roman civilisation has contributed to modern government, law, politics, engineering, art, literature, architecture, technology, warfare, religion, language and society. Rome professionalised and expanded its military and created a system of government called res publica, the inspiration for modern republics such as the United States and France. By the end of the Republic, Rome had conquered the lands around the Mediterranean and beyond, its domain extended from the Atlantic to Arabia, the Roman Empire emerged with the end of the Republic and the dictatorship of Augustus Caesar. 721 years of Roman-Persian Wars started in 92 BC with their first war against Parthia and it would become the longest conflict in human history, and have major lasting effects and consequences for both empires. Under Trajan, the Empire reached its territorial peak, Republican mores and traditions started to decline during the imperial period, with civil wars becoming a prelude common to the rise of a new emperor. Splinter states, such as the Palmyrene Empire, would divide the Empire during the crisis of the 3rd century. Plagued by internal instability and attacked by various migrating peoples, the part of the empire broke up into independent kingdoms in the 5th century. This splintering is a landmark historians use to divide the ancient period of history from the pre-medieval Dark Ages of Europe. King Numitor was deposed from his throne by his brother, Amulius, while Numitors daughter, Rhea Silvia, because Rhea Silvia was raped and impregnated by Mars, the Roman god of war, the twins were considered half-divine. The new king, Amulius, feared Romulus and Remus would take back the throne, a she-wolf saved and raised them, and when they were old enough, they returned the throne of Alba Longa to Numitor. Romulus became the source of the citys name, in order to attract people to the city, Rome became a sanctuary for the indigent, exiled, and unwanted. This caused a problem for Rome, which had a large workforce but was bereft of women, Romulus traveled to the neighboring towns and tribes and attempted to secure marriage rights, but as Rome was so full of undesirables they all refused. Legend says that the Latins invited the Sabines to a festival and stole their unmarried maidens, leading to the integration of the Latins, after a long time in rough seas, they landed at the banks of the Tiber River. Not long after they landed, the men wanted to take to the sea again, one woman, named Roma, suggested that the women burn the ships out at sea to prevent them from leaving. At first, the men were angry with Roma, but they realized that they were in the ideal place to settle. They named the settlement after the woman who torched their ships, the Roman poet Virgil recounted this legend in his classical epic poem the Aeneid
3.
Greek language
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Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, native to Greece and other parts of the Eastern Mediterranean. It has the longest documented history of any living language, spanning 34 centuries of written records and its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the major part of its history, other systems, such as Linear B and the Cypriot syllabary, were used previously. The alphabet arose from the Phoenician script and was in turn the basis of the Latin, Cyrillic, Armenian, Coptic, Gothic and many other writing systems. Together with the Latin texts and traditions of the Roman world, during antiquity, Greek was a widely spoken lingua franca in the Mediterranean world and many places beyond. It would eventually become the official parlance of the Byzantine Empire, the language is spoken by at least 13.2 million people today in Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Albania, Turkey, and the Greek diaspora. Greek roots are used to coin new words for other languages, Greek. Greek has been spoken in the Balkan peninsula since around the 3rd millennium BC, the earliest written evidence is a Linear B clay tablet found in Messenia that dates to between 1450 and 1350 BC, making Greek the worlds oldest recorded living language. Among the Indo-European languages, its date of earliest written attestation is matched only by the now extinct Anatolian languages, the Greek language is conventionally divided into the following periods, Proto-Greek, the unrecorded but assumed last ancestor of all known varieties of Greek. The unity of Proto-Greek would have ended as Hellenic migrants entered the Greek peninsula sometime in the Neolithic era or the Bronze Age, Mycenaean Greek, the language of the Mycenaean civilisation. It is recorded in the Linear B script on tablets dating from the 15th century BC onwards, Ancient Greek, in its various dialects, the language of the Archaic and Classical periods of the ancient Greek civilisation. It was widely known throughout the Roman Empire, after the Roman conquest of Greece, an unofficial bilingualism of Greek and Latin was established in the city of Rome and Koine Greek became a first or second language in the Roman Empire. The origin of Christianity can also be traced through Koine Greek, Medieval Greek, also known as Byzantine Greek, the continuation of Koine Greek in Byzantine Greece, up to the demise of the Byzantine Empire in the 15th century. Much of the written Greek that was used as the language of the Byzantine Empire was an eclectic middle-ground variety based on the tradition of written Koine. Modern Greek, Stemming from Medieval Greek, Modern Greek usages can be traced in the Byzantine period and it is the language used by the modern Greeks, and, apart from Standard Modern Greek, there are several dialects of it. In the modern era, the Greek language entered a state of diglossia, the historical unity and continuing identity between the various stages of the Greek language is often emphasised. Greek speakers today still tend to regard literary works of ancient Greek as part of their own rather than a foreign language and it is also often stated that the historical changes have been relatively slight compared with some other languages. According to one estimation, Homeric Greek is probably closer to demotic than 12-century Middle English is to modern spoken English, Greek is spoken by about 13 million people, mainly in Greece, Albania and Cyprus, but also worldwide by the large Greek diaspora. Greek is the language of Greece, where it is spoken by almost the entire population
4.
Couch
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Although a couch is used primarily for seating, it may be used for sleeping. In homes, couches are normally found in the room, living room, den. They are sometimes found in nonresidential settings such as hotels, lobbies of commercial offices, waiting rooms. The term couch is used in North America, South Africa, the word originated in Middle English from the Old French noun couche, which derived from the verb meaning to lie down. It originally denoted an item of furniture for lying or sleeping on, somewhat like a chaise longue, other terms which can be synonymous with the above definition are chesterfield, divan, davenport, lounge, and canapé. The word sofa is from Turkish derived from the Arabic word suffa for wool, the word settee comes from the Old English word, setl, which was used to describe long benches with high backs and arms, but is now generally used to describe upholstered seating. The most common types of couches are the loveseat, designed for seating two persons, and the sofa, with two or more cushion seats, other variants include the divan, the fainting couch and the canapé. To conserve space, some sofas double as beds in the form of sofa beds, daybeds, in the United Kingdom and Ireland, the term couch is rarely used, the terms sofa or settee being more common. A furniture set consisting of a sofa with two matching chairs, is known as a chesterfield suite or living room suite. Also in the UK, the word chesterfield meant any couch in the 1900s, the first leather chesterfield sofa, with its distinctive deep buttoned, quilted leather upholstery and lower seat base, was commissioned by Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield. A couch consists of the frame, the padding and the covering, the frame is usually made of wood but can also be made of steel, plastic or laminated boards. The wood used under the upholstery is made from kiln-dried maple wood that is free of knots, the show wood of the legs, arms and back can be maple, mahogany, walnut or fruitwoods. Sofa padding is made from foam, down, feathers, fabric or a combination thereof, sofa coverings are usually made out of soft leather, corduroy or linen fabric coverings. The Grove Encyclopedia of Decorative Arts
5.
Chaise longue
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A chaise longue is an upholstered sofa in the shape of a chair that is long enough to support the legs. In modern French the term chaise longue can refer to any long reclining chair such as a deckchair, a literal translation in English is long chair. In the United States the term lounge chair is used to refer to any long reclining chair. The chaise longue has traditionally been associated with psychoanalysis and many continue to keep chaises longues in their offices for use in psychotherapy. It is thought that the first blend of a chair and daybed originated in Egypt, the earliest known models were made from palm sticks lashed together with pieces of cord or rawhide. Later, Egyptian bed-makers introduced mortise-and-tenon construction and wood bed frames veneered with ivory or ebony, ancient Greek art depicts gods and goddesses lounging in this type of chair. The modern Greek word symposion comes from sympinein, which means to drink together, in ancient Greece this word conveyed the idea of a party with music and conversation. The principal item of furniture for a symposium is the kline, the Greeks changed from the normal practice of sitting at a table to the practice of reclining on couches as early as the 8th century BC. The Romans also used a daybed for reclining in the daytime, developed from the Greek prototype, the Roman daybed was designed with legs carved in wood or cast bronze. The Romans also adapted a chaise longue style chair for the accubatio, at Roman banquets, the usual number of persons occupying each bed was three, with three daybeds forming three sides of a small square, so that the triclinium allowed for a party of nine. The Romans did not practice upholstery, so the couches were made comfortable with pillows, loose covers, for the Victorians, the chaise longue was thought of as being particularly dear to expecting wives. As birth control information improved and became widespread, the chaise longue became less fashionable. The origin of the name is unknown, Récamier, a récamier has two raised ends, and nothing on the long sides. It is sometimes associated with French Empire style, it’s named after French society hostess Madame Récamier, who posed elegantly on a couch of this kind for a portrait, painted in 1800. The shape of the récamier is similar to a traditional lit bateau but made for the drawing room, méridienne, a méridienne has a high head-rest, and a lower foot-rest, joined by a sloping piece. Whether or not they have anything at the end, méridiennes are asymmetrical day-beds. They were popular in the houses of France in the early 19th century. Its name is from its use, rest in the middle of the day
6.
Slavery in ancient Rome
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Slavery in ancient Rome played an important role in society and the economy. Besides manual labour, slaves performed many services, and might be employed at highly skilled jobs. Accountants and physicians were often slaves, Greek slaves in particular might be highly educated. Unskilled slaves, or those sentenced to slavery as punishment, worked on farms, in mines and their living conditions were brutal, and their lives short. Slaves were considered property under Roman law and had no legal personhood, unlike Roman citizens, they could be subjected to corporal punishment, sexual exploitation, torture, and summary execution. Over time, however, slaves gained increased legal protection, including the right to file complaints against their masters, attitudes changed in part because of the influence among the educated elite of the Stoics, whose egalitarian views of humanity extended to slaves. Roman slaves could hold property which, despite the fact that it belonged to their masters, skilled or educated slaves were allowed to earn their own money, and might hope to save enough to buy their freedom. Such slaves were freed by the terms of their masters will. A notable example of a slave was Tiro, the secretary of Cicero. Tiro was freed before his masters death, and was enough to retire on his own country estate. However, the master could arrange that slaves would only have enough money to buy their freedom when they were too old to work. They could then use the money to buy a new young slave while the old slave, unable to work, Rome differed from Greek city-states in allowing freed slaves to become citizens. After manumission, a slave who had belonged to a Roman citizen enjoyed not only passive freedom from ownership. A slave who had acquired libertas was thus a libertus in relation to his former master, as a social class, freed slaves were libertini, though later writers used the terms libertus and libertinus interchangeably. Libertini were not entitled to public office or state priesthoods. During the early Empire, however, freedmen held key positions in the government bureaucracy, any future children of a freedman would be born free, with full rights of citizenship. Vernae were slaves born within a household or on a farm or agricultural estate. There was a social obligation to care for vernae, whose epitaphs sometimes identify them as such
7.
Kitchen
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A kitchen is a room or part of a room used for cooking and food preparation in a dwelling or in a commercial establishment. Many households have an oven, a dishwasher and other electric appliances. The main function of a kitchen is serving as a location for storing, cooking and preparing food, commercial kitchens are found in restaurants, cafeterias, hotels, hospitals, educational and workplace facilities, army barracks, and similar establishments. These kitchens are generally larger and equipped with bigger and more heavy-duty equipment than a residential kitchen, for example, a large restaurant may have a huge walk-in refrigerator and a large commercial dishwasher machine. Commercial kitchens are generally subject to public health laws and they are inspected periodically by public-health officials, and forced to close if they do not meet hygienic requirements mandated by law. The evolution of the kitchen is linked to the invention of the range or stove. Food was cooked over an open fire, technical advances in heating food in the 18th and 19th centuries changed the architecture of the kitchen. Before the advent of modern pipes, water was brought from a source such as wells. The houses in Ancient Greece were commonly of the atrium-type, the rooms were arranged around a courtyard for women. In many such homes, a covered but otherwise open patio served as the kitchen, homes of the wealthy had the kitchen as a separate room, usually next to a bathroom, both rooms being accessible from the court. In such houses, there was often a small storage room in the back of the kitchen used for storing food. In the Roman Empire, common folk in cities often had no kitchen of their own, some had small mobile bronze stoves, on which a fire could be lit for cooking. Wealthy Romans had relatively well-equipped kitchens, the fireplace was typically on the floor, placed at a wall—sometimes raised a little bit—such that one had to kneel to cook. Early medieval European longhouses had a fire under the highest point of the building. The kitchen area was between the entrance and the fireplace, in wealthy homes there was typically more than one kitchen. In some homes there were upwards of three kitchens, the kitchens were divided based on the types of food prepared in them. In place of a chimney, these buildings had a hole in the roof through which some of the smoke could escape. Besides cooking, the fire served as a source of heat
8.
Eating
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Eating is the ingestion of food, typically to provide a heterotrophic organism with energy and to allow for growth. Fungi digest organic matter outside of their bodies as opposed to animals that digest their food inside their bodies, for humans, eating is an activity of daily living. Some individuals may limit their amount of nutritional intake and this may be a result of a lifestyle choice, due to hunger or famine, as part of a diet or as religious fasting. Many homes have an eating room or outside kitchen area devoted to preparation of meals and food. Some trains have a dining car, most societies also have restaurants, food courts, and food vendors so that people may eat when away from home, when lacking time to prepare food, or as a social occasion. At their highest level of sophistication, these places become theatrical spectacles of global cosmopolitanism, at picnics, potlucks, and food festivals, eating is in fact the primary purpose of a social gathering. At many social events, food and beverages are available to attendees. Dishware, silverware, drinkware, and cookware come in an array of forms. People usually have two or three meals a day regularly, snacks of smaller amounts may be consumed between meals. Some propose not snacking, instead advocating three meals a day with four to six hours between, having three well-balanced meals will then account to some 1800–2000 kcal, which is the average requirement for a regular person. The issue of healthy eating has long been an important concern to individuals, among other practices, fasting, dieting, and vegetarianism are all techniques employed by individuals and encouraged by societies to increase longevity and health. Some religions promote vegetarianism, considering it wrong to consume animals, Eating can also be a way of making money. In jurisdictions under sharia law, it may be proscribed for Muslim adults during the hours of Ramadan. Newborn babies do not eat adult foods and they survive solely on breast milk or formula. Small amounts of pureed food are sometimes fed to infants as young as two or three months old, but most infants do not eat adult food until they are between six and eight months old. Young babies eat pureed baby foods because they have few teeth, between 8 and 12 months of age, the digestive system improves, and many babies begin eating finger foods. Their diet is limited, however, because most babies lack molars or canines at this age. By 18 months, babies often have teeth and a sufficiently mature digestive system to eat the same foods as adults
9.
Archaeology
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Archaeology, or archeology, is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, Archaeology can be considered both a social science and a branch of the humanities. In North America, archaeology is considered a sub-field of anthropology, archaeologists study human prehistory and history, from the development of the first stone tools at Lomekwi in East Africa 3.3 million years ago up until recent decades. Archaeology as a field is distinct from the discipline of palaeontology, Archaeology is particularly important for learning about prehistoric societies, for whom there may be no written records to study. Prehistory includes over 99% of the human past, from the Paleolithic until the advent of literacy in societies across the world, Archaeology has various goals, which range from understanding culture history to reconstructing past lifeways to documenting and explaining changes in human societies through time. The discipline involves surveying, excavation and eventually analysis of data collected to learn more about the past, in broad scope, archaeology relies on cross-disciplinary research. Archaeology developed out of antiquarianism in Europe during the 19th century, Archaeology has been used by nation-states to create particular visions of the past. Nonetheless, today, archaeologists face many problems, such as dealing with pseudoarchaeology, the looting of artifacts, a lack of public interest, the science of archaeology grew out of the older multi-disciplinary study known as antiquarianism. Antiquarians studied history with attention to ancient artifacts and manuscripts. Tentative steps towards the systematization of archaeology as a science took place during the Enlightenment era in Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries, in Europe, philosophical interest in the remains of Greco-Roman civilization and the rediscovery of classical culture began in the late Middle Age. Antiquarians, including John Leland and William Camden, conducted surveys of the English countryside, one of the first sites to undergo archaeological excavation was Stonehenge and other megalithic monuments in England. John Aubrey was a pioneer archaeologist who recorded numerous megalithic and other monuments in southern England. He was also ahead of his time in the analysis of his findings and he attempted to chart the chronological stylistic evolution of handwriting, medieval architecture, costume, and shield-shapes. Excavations were also carried out in the ancient towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum and these excavations began in 1748 in Pompeii, while in Herculaneum they began in 1738. The discovery of entire towns, complete with utensils and even human shapes, however, prior to the development of modern techniques, excavations tended to be haphazard, the importance of concepts such as stratification and context were overlooked. The father of archaeological excavation was William Cunnington and he undertook excavations in Wiltshire from around 1798, funded by Sir Richard Colt Hoare. Cunnington made meticulous recordings of neolithic and Bronze Age barrows, one of the major achievements of 19th century archaeology was the development of stratigraphy. The idea of overlapping strata tracing back to successive periods was borrowed from the new geological and paleontological work of scholars like William Smith, James Hutton, the application of stratigraphy to archaeology first took place with the excavations of prehistorical and Bronze Age sites
