1.
Governorates of Saudi Arabia
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Governorates are the second level of regional administration within Saudi Arabia. Each of Saudi Arabias 13 regions is sub-divided into governorates, governorates are further sub-divided into sub-governorates, though some sub-governorates report directly to the provincial capital rather than to one of the governorates. Regional capitals themselves are not included within any governorate but are governed by municipalities. Governorates in Saudi Arabia can be either Category A or Category B, depending on population size
2.
Regions of Saudi Arabia
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Saudi Arabia is divided into 13 regions. Each region is divided into governorates and the capital, which has the status of municipality headed by mayors. The governorates are subdivided into subgovernorates. Around 1980, the Northern Province was created from the Western and Central
3.
Al-Qassim Region
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Al-Qassim Region, also spelled Qassim, Al-Qaseem, Al-Qasim, or Gassim internationally, is one of the thirteen administrative regions of Saudi Arabia. Located at the heart of the country, and almost in the center of the Arabian Peninsula, it has a population of 1,370,727 and it is known to be the alimental basket of the country, for its agricultural assets. Al-Qassim is the richest region per capita in Saudi Arabia and it is the seventh most populated region in the country after Jizan and the fifth most densely populated. It has more than 400 cities, towns, villages, and Bedouin settlements and its capital city is Buraydah, which is inhabited by approximately 49% of the regions total population. The governor of the province from 1992 to 29 January 2015 was Prince Faisal bin Bandar, Al Qassim is derived from the word Qassimah, a reference to قصائم الغضا, meaning the regions sand dunes from which the white saxaul trees grow. The region is known to contain a group of Calligonum plants such as comosum. The province is located in the center of Saudi Arabia approximately 400 km northwest of Riyadh and it is bordered by Riyadh Region to the south and east, by Hail Region to the north, and by Al Madinah Region to the west. The region is connected to almost every part of Saudi Arabia by a complicated network of highways. The regional airport, Prince Nayef bin Abdulaziz Regional Airport, connects Al Qassim to the provinces of the country. There is not much known about Al Qassim the province in the times of Pre-Islamic Arabia. Unaizah was repeatedly mentioned as a watering hole in the poems of Imru Al Qais. Moreover, AlJiwa, which is about 60 km north of Unzaizah, was mentioned by the heroic Absi poet Antarah bin Shaddad, Al Qassim Province had some important foyers on the road of pilgrims and traders coming from the east in the era of the Abbasid Empire. The Zubeida road was a long road that started from the city of Kufa in Iraq. The road was constructed in the reign of Harun Al Rashid and was named after his wife Zubeida and it had pilgrims foyers in many of the regions cities including Unaizah. The Al Abu Olayan - dynasty from the Banu Tamim tribe established the emirate of Buraydah in the late 16th century by its leader and he built Buraydah and made it the provinces capital. However, Unaizah was ruled by Al Sulaim dynasty, the emirate was later captured by Muhanna Salih Abalkhail, the leader of the Abalkhail dynasty. In 1890, the Rashidi dynasty based in Hail annexed the province, in 1904, the Abalkhail recaptured the province. In 1907, the province was integrated under the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the province is Saudi Arabias most conservative region
4.
Arabia Standard Time
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UTC+03,00 is an identifier for a time offset from UTC of +03. In areas using this time offset, the time is three hours later than the Coordinated Universal Time, following the ISO8601 standard, a time with this offset would be written as, for example, 2017-04-05T17,46, 23+03,00. Some areas in the world use UTC+03,00 all year, most of European Russia, including Moscow, St. Petersburg, Rostov on Don, Novaya Zemlya, Franz Josef Land. From October 26,2014 Moscow and most other parts of European Russia started using UTC+3 again, also on September 7,2016, Turkey and Northern Cyprus started using UTC+3 all year round. Besides the names mentioned above, the name Eastern Europe Forward Time is sometimes used, belarus Russia - Moscow Time all railroad time in Russia, including railroad in Kaliningrad Oblast. As this time zone is predominantly in the region, there is no significant change in day length throughout the year. Between 1982 and 2007, Iraq observed Arabia Daylight Time but the government abolished DST on March 2008. The easternmost point at which UTC+03 with no DST is applied is the easternmost point of Saudi Arabia, in the Eastern Province, at the border with Oman and this is the largest discrepancy overall for UTC+03 even if UTC+03 with no DST is included. The easternmost point at which UTC+03 with DST is applied is Cape Zhelaniya, Severny Island, Novaya Zemlya, on February 8,2011, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev issued a decree cancelling DST in Russia. After strong criticism from the media, on 18 October 2011 the Ukrainian parliament cancelled its previous decision
5.
Arabic
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Arabic is a Central Semitic language that was first spoken in Iron Age northwestern Arabia and is now the lingua franca of the Arab world. Arabic is also the language of 1.7 billion Muslims. It is one of six languages of the United Nations. The modern written language is derived from the language of the Quran and it is widely taught in schools and universities, and is used to varying degrees in workplaces, government, and the media. The two formal varieties are grouped together as Literary Arabic, which is the language of 26 states. Modern Standard Arabic largely follows the standards of Quranic Arabic. Much of the new vocabulary is used to denote concepts that have arisen in the post-Quranic era, Arabic has influenced many languages around the globe throughout its history. During the Middle Ages, Literary Arabic was a vehicle of culture in Europe, especially in science, mathematics. As a result, many European languages have borrowed many words from it. Many words of Arabic origin are found in ancient languages like Latin. Balkan languages, including Greek, have acquired a significant number of Arabic words through contact with Ottoman Turkish. Arabic has also borrowed words from languages including Greek and Persian in medieval times. Arabic is a Central Semitic language, closely related to the Northwest Semitic languages, the Ancient South Arabian languages, the Semitic languages changed a great deal between Proto-Semitic and the establishment of the Central Semitic languages, particularly in grammar. Innovations of the Central Semitic languages—all maintained in Arabic—include, The conversion of the suffix-conjugated stative formation into a past tense, the conversion of the prefix-conjugated preterite-tense formation into a present tense. The elimination of other prefix-conjugated mood/aspect forms in favor of new moods formed by endings attached to the prefix-conjugation forms, the development of an internal passive. These features are evidence of descent from a hypothetical ancestor. In the southwest, various Central Semitic languages both belonging to and outside of the Ancient South Arabian family were spoken and it is also believed that the ancestors of the Modern South Arabian languages were also spoken in southern Arabia at this time. To the north, in the oases of northern Hijaz, Dadanitic and Taymanitic held some prestige as inscriptional languages, in Najd and parts of western Arabia, a language known to scholars as Thamudic C is attested
6.
Saudi Arabia
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Saudi Arabia is bordered by Jordan and Iraq to the north, Kuwait to the northeast, Qatar, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates to the east, Oman to the southeast and Yemen to the south. It is separated from Israel and Egypt by the Gulf of Aqaba and it is the only nation with both a Red Sea coast and a Persian Gulf coast and most of its terrain consists of arid desert and mountains. The area of modern-day Saudi Arabia formerly consisted of four regions, Hejaz, Najd and parts of Eastern Arabia. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was founded in 1932 by Ibn Saud and he united the four regions into a single state through a series of conquests beginning in 1902 with the capture of Riyadh, the ancestral home of his family, the House of Saud. Saudi Arabia has since been a monarchy, effectively a hereditary dictatorship governed along Islamic lines. The ultraconservative Wahhabi religious movement within Sunni Islam has been called the predominant feature of Saudi culture, with its global spread largely financed by the oil and gas trade. Saudi Arabia is sometimes called the Land of the Two Holy Mosques in reference to Al-Masjid al-Haram and Al-Masjid an-Nabawi, the state has a total population of 28.7 million, of which 20 million are Saudi nationals and 8 million are foreigners. The states official language is Arabic, petroleum was discovered on 3 March 1938 and followed up by several other finds in the Eastern Province. Saudi Arabia has since become the worlds largest oil producer and exporter, controlling the second largest oil reserves. The kingdom is categorized as a World Bank high-income economy with a high Human Development Index and is the only Arab country to be part of the G-20 major economies. However, the economy of Saudi Arabia is the least diversified in the Gulf Cooperation Council, the state has attracted criticism for its treatment of women and use of capital punishment. Saudi Arabia is an autocracy, has the fourth highest military expenditure in the world. Saudi Arabia is considered a regional and middle power, in addition to the GCC, it is an active member of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation and OPEC. Following the unification of the Hejaz and Nejd kingdoms, the new state was named al-Mamlakah al-ʻArabīyah as-Suʻūdīyah by royal decree on 23 September 1932 by its founder, Abdulaziz Al Saud. Although this is translated as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in English it literally means the Saudi Arab kingdom. Its inclusion expresses the view that the country is the possession of the royal family. Al Saud is an Arabic name formed by adding the word Al, meaning family of or House of, in the case of the Al Saud, this is the father of the dynastys 18th century founder, Muhammad bin Saud. There is evidence that human habitation in the Arabian Peninsula dates back to about 125,000 years ago
7.
Prehistory
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Prehistory means literally before history, from the Latin word for before, præ, and Greek ιστορία. Neighbouring civilisations were the first to follow, most other civilisations reached the end of prehistory during the Iron Age. The period when a culture is written about by others, but has not developed its own writing is known as the protohistory of the culture. By definition, there are no records from human prehistory. Clear techniques for dating were not well-developed until the 19th century and this article is concerned with human prehistory as defined here above. There are separate articles for the history of the Earth. However, for the race as a whole, prehistory ends when recorded history begins with the accounts of the ancient world around the 4th millennium BC. For example, in Egypt it is accepted that prehistory ended around 3200 BC, whereas in New Guinea the end of the prehistoric era is set much more recently. The three-age system is the periodization of prehistory into three consecutive time periods, named for their respective predominant tool-making technologies, Stone Age Bronze Age Iron Age. The notion of prehistory began to surface during the Enlightenment in the work of antiquarians who used the word primitive to describe societies that existed before written records, the first use of the word prehistory in English, however, occurred in the Foreign Quarterly Review in 1836. The main source for prehistory is archaeology, but some scholars are beginning to more use of evidence from the natural and social sciences. This view has been articulated by advocates of deep history, human population geneticists and historical linguists are also providing valuable insight for these questions. Human prehistory differs from history not only in terms of its chronology, restricted to material processes, remains and artifacts rather than written records, prehistory is anonymous. Because of this, reference terms that use, such as Neanderthal or Iron Age are modern labels with definitions sometimes subject to debate. Palaeolithic means Old Stone Age, and begins with the first use of stone tools, the Paleolithic is the earliest period of the Stone Age. The early part of the Palaeolithic is called the Lower Palaeolithic, evidence of control of fire by early humans during the Lower Palaeolithic Era is uncertain and has at best limited scholarly support. The most widely accepted claim is that H. erectus or H. ergaster made fires between 790,000 and 690,000 BP in a site at Bnot Yaakov Bridge, Israel. The use of fire enabled early humans to cook food, provide warmth, Early Homo sapiens originated some 200,000 years ago, ushering in the Middle Palaeolithic
8.
Knight
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A knight is a person granted an honorary title of knighthood by a monarch or other political leader for service to the monarch or country, especially in a military capacity. Historically, in Europe, knighthood was conferred upon mounted warriors, during the High Middle Ages, knighthood was considered a class of lower nobility. By the Late Middle Ages, the rank had become associated with the ideals of chivalry, often, a knight was a vassal who served as a fighter for a lord, with payment in the form of land holdings. The lords trusted the knights, who were skilled in battle on horseback, since the early modern period, the title of knight is purely honorific, usually bestowed by a monarch, as in the British honours system, often for non-military service to the country. The modern female equivalent in the United Kingdom is Dame, furthermore, Geoffroi de Charnys Book of Chivalry expounded upon the importance of Christian faith in every area of a knights life. This novel explored the ideals of knighthood and their incongruity with the reality of Cervantes world, in the late medieval period, new methods of warfare began to render classical knights in armour obsolete, but the titles remained in many nations. Some orders of knighthood, such as the Knights Templar, have become the subject of legend, each of these orders has its own criteria for eligibility, but knighthood is generally granted by a head of state or monarch to selected persons to recognise some meritorious achievement. This linkage is reflected in the etymology of chivalry, cavalier, the special prestige accorded to mounted warriors finds a parallel in the furusiyya in the Muslim world, and the Greek hippeus and Roman eques of classical antiquity. The word knight, from Old English cniht, is a cognate of the German word Knecht and this meaning, of unknown origin, is common among West Germanic languages. Middle High German had the phrase guoter kneht, which also meant knight, the Anglo-Saxon cniht had no connection to horsemanship, the word referred to any servant. A rādcniht, riding-servant, was a servant delivering messages or patrolling coastlines on horseback, a narrowing of the generic meaning servant to military follower of a king or other superior is visible by 1100. The specific military sense of a knight as a warrior in the heavy cavalry emerges only in the Hundred Years War. The verb to knight appears around 1300, and, from the same time, an Equestrian was a member of the second highest social class in the Roman Republic and early Roman Empire. This class is often translated as knight, the medieval knight, both Greek ἳππος and Latin equus are derived from the Proto-Indo-European word root ekwo-, horse. In the later Roman Empire, the classical Latin word for horse, equus, was replaced in common parlance by the vulgar Latin caballus, sometimes thought to derive from Gaulish caballos. From caballus arose terms in the various Romance languages cognate with the English cavalier, Italian cavaliere, Spanish caballero, French chevalier, Portuguese cavaleiro, the Germanic languages have terms cognate with the English rider, German Ritter, and Dutch and Scandinavian ridder. These words are derived from Germanic rīdan, to ride, in turn derived from the Proto-Indo-European root reidh-, in ancient Rome there was a knightly class Ordo Equestris from which European knighthood may have been derived. Some portions of the armies of Germanic peoples who occupied Europe from the 3rd century AD onward had been mounted, in the Early Medieval period any well-equipped horseman could be described as a knight, or miles in Latin
9.
Antarah ibn Shaddad
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Antarah ibn Shaddad, also known as ʿAntar, was a pre-Islamic Arab knight and poet, famous for both his poetry and his adventurous life. His chief poem forms part of the Muallaqat, the collection of seven hanging odes legendarily said to have been suspended in the Kaaba, the account of his life forms the basis of a long and extravagant romance. ʿAntarah was born in Najd in Arabia and his father was Shaddād al-ʿAbsī, a respected warrior of the Banu Abs under their chief Zuhayr. His mother was an Ethiopian woman named Zabūba and she was a princess taken as captive by his father as a slave during one of the tribes raids against Axum. Described as an Arab crow owing to his complexion, ʿAntarah grew up a slave as well. He fell in love with his cousin ʿAblah, but could not hope to marry her owing to his position and he also gained the enmity of his fathers wife Shammeah. He gained attention and respect for himself by his personal qualities and courage in battle, excelling as an accomplished poet. He earned his freedom after another tribe invaded the lands of the Banu ʿAbs. When his father said to him, ʿAntarah, fight with the warriors, he replied that the slave doesnt know how to invade or how to defend and his father answered him, Defend your tribe, O ʿAntar, and you are free. After defeating the invaders, he sought to gain permission to marry his cousin, to secure allowance to marry, Antarah had to face challenges including getting a special kind of camel from the northern Arab kingdom of the Lakhmids, then under Al-Numan III ibn al-Mundhir. ʿAntarah took part in the war between the related tribes of ʿAbs and Dhubyān, which began over a contest of horses. ʿAntarahs poetry is well preserved and often talks of chivalrous values, courage and it was immortalized when one of his poems was included in the Muallaqat, the collection of poems legendarily said to have been suspended in the Kaaba. His poetrys historical and cultural importance stems from its detailed descriptions of battles, armour, weapons, horses, desert, the story of ʿAntar and ʿAbla was embroidered into a poetic saga traditionally credited to al-Asmaʿi, a poet in the court of Hārūn al-Rashīd. It is still recited by traditional story-tellers in Arab coffee houses and its importance has been compared with English literatures Arthurian romances. His house and his stable were particularly legendary, one of the seven clans of Bethlehem is called the Anatreh, named after ʿAntarah. It formerly acted as the guardians of the Church of the Nativity, the Russian composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov wrote his Symphony No.2 based on the legend of ʿAntar. In 1898 the French painter Étienne Dinet published his translation of a 13th-century epic Arab poem Antar which brought Antar bin Shaddad to European notice. It has been followed by a number of works such as Diana Richmonds Antar
10.
Thamud
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The Thamūd is the name of an ancient civilization in the Hejaz known from the 1st millennium BC to near the time of Muhammad. The Thamud civilization was located in the north of the peninsula, although they are thought to have originated in Southern Arabia, Arabic tradition has them moving north to settle on the slopes of Mount Athlab near Madain Saleh. Numerous Thamudic rock writings and pictures have found on Mount Ath-lab. The oldest known reference to Thamud is a 715 BC inscription of the Assyrian king Sargon II and they were living here much earlier, well before Abraham when we compare the family tree of Prophets, as their Ancestors were Iram and Ars. They are referred to as ‘Tamudaei’ in the writings of Aristo of Chios, Ptolemy, like the ʿĀd, the Qur’an mentions the Thamud in Surah Al-Araf in the context of several prophets who warned their people of coming judgment. The verses advise Thamud to take warning from the destruction of ʿĀd, to the Thamud people their brother Salih. Worship Allah, you have no deity other than Him. There has come to you clear evidence from your Lord and this is the she-camel of God sent to you as a Sign. So leave her to eat within Gods land, and do not touch her with harm, and remember when He made you successors after ʿAd and settled you in the land, and you take for yourselves palaces from its plains and carve from the mountains, homes. Then remember the favors of God and do not commit abuse on the earth, spreading corruption. ”This verse suggests some kind of relationship between ʿĀd and Thamud, and ʿĀd may even have been a part of Thamuds history and culture. Just as Nuhs people were seen as the ancestors of ʿĀd, the ʿĀad were a people living in southern Arabia. Some remains of the Thamud were found in the region where the ʿĀd had lived, especially around the region where capital city of the Hadramites, the descendants of ʿĀd, stood. ”So the earthquake seized them, and they became within their home fallen prone. In Surah Al-Qamar it says “Indeed, we sent upon them one shriek and this can be illustrated by what happened among the nations. When the royal authority of ʿĀd was wiped out, their brethren and they were succeeded, in turn, by their brethren, the Amalekites. The Amalekites were succeeded by their brethren, the Himyar, the Himyar were succeeded by their brethren, the Tubbas, who belonged to the Himyar. They, likewise, were succeeded, by the Adhwa.130 Then, the Yemen, al-Bahrayn, ‘Oman, and the Jazirah have long been in Arab possession, but for thousands of years, the rule of these areas has belonged to different nations in succession. They also founded cities and towns and promoted the development of sedentary culture, among such nations were the ‘Ad and the Thamud, the Amalekites and the Himyar after them, the Tubba‘s, and the other South Arabian rulers. There was a period of royal authority and sedentary culture
11.
Petroglyph
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Petroglyphs are images created by removing part of a rock surface by incising, picking, carving, or abrading, as a form of rock art. Outside North America, scholars often use such as carving, engraving. Petroglyphs are found world-wide, and are associated with prehistoric peoples. The word comes from the Greek word petro-, theme of the word meaning stone, and glyphein meaning to carve. The term petroglyph should not be confused with petrograph, which is an image drawn or painted on a rock face, both types of image belong to the wider and more general category of rock art or parietal art. Petroforms, or patterns and shapes made by large rocks. Inukshuks are also unique, and found only in the Arctic and they are a category of rock art, and sometimes found in conjunction with rock-cut architecture. However, they tend to be omitted in most works on rock art, a few such works exploit the natural contours of the rock and use them to define an image, but they do not amount to man-made reliefs. Rock reliefs have been made in many cultures, and were important in the art of the Ancient Near East. Rock reliefs are generally large, as they need to be to make an impact in the open air. Most have figures that are over life-size, and in many the figures are multiples of life-size, the vertical relief is most common, but reliefs on essentially horizontal surfaces are also found. The term typically excludes relief carvings inside caves, whether natural or themselves man-made, natural rock formations made into statues or other sculpture in the round, most famously at the Great Sphinx of Giza, are also usually excluded. Reliefs on large boulders left in their location, like the Hittite İmamkullu relief, are likely to be included. Some petroglyphs are dated to approximately the Neolithic and late Upper Paleolithic boundary, about 10,000 to 12,000 years ago, if not earlier. Sites in Australia have petroglyphs that are estimated to be as much as 27,000 years old, around 7,000 to 9,000 years ago, other precursors of writing systems, such as pictographs and ideograms, began to appear. Petroglyphs were still common though, and some cultures continued using them much longer, petroglyphs have been found in all parts of the globe except Antarctica with highest concentrations in parts of Africa, Scandinavia, Siberia, southwestern North America and Australia. There are many theories to explain their purpose, depending on their location, age, some petroglyphs are thought to be astronomical markers, maps, and other forms of symbolic communication, including a form of pre-writing. Petroglyph maps may show trails, symbols communicating time and distances traveled, as well as the terrain in the form of rivers, landforms
12.
Arabic poetry
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Arabic poetry is the earliest form of Arabic literature. Present knowledge of poetry in Arabic dates from the 6th century, Arabic poetry is categorized into two main types, rhymed or measured, and prose, with the former greatly preceding the latter. The rhymed poetry falls within fifteen different meters collected and explained by al-Farahidi in The Science of ‘Arud, al-Akhfash, a student of al-Farahidi, later added one more meter to make them sixteen. The meters of the poetry are known in Arabic as seas. The measuring unit of seas is known as taf‘īlah, and every sea contains a number of tafilas which the poet has to observe in every verse of the poem. The measuring procedure of a poem is very rigorous, sometimes adding or removing a consonant or a vowel can shift the bayt from one meter to another. Also, in rhymed poetry, every bayt has to end with the same throughout the poem. Researchers and critics of Arabic poetry usually classify it in two categories, classical and modern poetry, Classical poetry was written before the Arabic renaissance. Thus, all poetry that was written in the style is called classical or traditional poetry since it follows the traditional style. It is also known as horizontal poetry in reference to its horizontal parallel structure, modern poetry, on the other hand, deviated from classical poetry in its content, style, structure, rhyme and topics. The first major poet in the era is Imru al-Qais. Although most of the poetry of that era was not preserved, Poetry held an important position in pre-Islamic society with the poet or shair filling the role of historian, soothsayer and propagandist. Words in praise of the tribe and lampoons denigrating other tribes seem to have some of the most popular forms of early poetry. The shair represented an individual tribes prestige and importance in the Arabian peninsula, ukaz, a market town not far from Mecca, would play host to a regular poetry festival where the craft of the shairs would be exhibited. Alongside the shair, and often as his apprentice, was the rawi or reciter. The job of the rawi was to learn the poems by heart and to them with explanations. This tradition allowed the transmission of these works and the practice was later adopted by the huffaz for their memorisation of the Quran. At some periods there have been unbroken chains of illustrious poets, each one training a rawi as a bard to promote his verse, and then to take over from them and continue the poetic tradition
13.
Rock art
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In archaeology, rock art is human-made markings placed on natural stone, it is largely synonymous with parietal art. A global phenomenon, rock art is found in many diverse regions of the world. It has been produced in many contexts throughout history, although the majority of rock art that has been ethnographically recorded has been produced as a part of ritual. Such artworks are often divided into three forms, petroglyphs, which are carved into the surface, pictographs, which are painted onto the surface. The oldest known rock art dates from the Upper Palaeolithic period, having found in Europe, Australia, Asia. Archaeologists studying these artworks believe that they likely had magico-religious significance, Rock art continues to be of importance to indigenous peoples in various parts of the world, who view them as both sacred items and significant components of their cultural patrimony. Such archaeological sites are significant sources of cultural tourism, and have been utilised in popular culture for their aesthetic qualities. Normally found in cultures, a rock relief or rock-cut relief is a relief sculpture carved on solid or living rock such as a cliff. They are a category of art, and sometimes found in conjunction with rock-cut architecture. However, they tend to be omitted in most works on rock art, a few such works exploit the natural contours of the rock and use them to define an image, but they do not amount to man-made reliefs. Rock reliefs have been made in many cultures, and were important in the art of the Ancient Near East. Rock reliefs are generally large, as they need to be to make an impact in the open air. Most have figures that are over life-size, and in many the figures are multiples of life-size, the vertical relief is most common, but reliefs on essentially horizontal surfaces are also found. The term typically excludes relief carvings inside caves, whether natural or themselves man-made, natural rock formations made into statues or other sculpture in the round, most famously at the Great Sphinx of Giza, are also usually excluded. Reliefs on large boulders left in their location, like the Hittite İmamkullu relief, are likely to be included. The term rock art appears in the literature as early as the 1940s. It has also described as rock carvings, rock drawings, rock engravings, rock inscriptions, rock paintings, rock pictures. The defining characteristic of rock art is that it is placed on natural rock surfaces, as such, rock art is a form of landscape art, and includes designs that have been placed on boulder and cliff faces, cave walls and ceilings, and on the ground surface
14.
Balancing rock
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Some formations known by this name only appear to be balancing, but are in fact firmly connected to a base rock by a pedestal or stem. It usually has a different lithology from the rocks around it. Not all glacial erractics are balancing rocks, some are firmly seated on the ground, a good example of a rocking stone is the Logan Rock in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom, another is the Trembling Rock in Brittany, France. Some perched blocks were not produced by action, but were the aftermath of a rock fall, landslide. An erosional remnant is a rock formation that remains after extensive wind, water. To the untrained eye, it may appear to be visually like a glacial erratic, many good examples of erosional remnants are seen in Karlu Karlu/Devils Marbles Conservation Reserve in the Northern Territory of Australia. A pedestal rock, also known as a pedestal or mushroom rock, is not a true balancing rock. Some of these formations are called balancing rocks because of their appearance, some pedestal rocks sitting on taller spire formations are known as hoodoos. Zimbabwe The Balancing Rocks are a geological formation found in the township of Epworth, southeast of Harare and it is a formation of rocks perfectly balanced without other supports. The Mother and Child balancing rocks are a feature in Matobo National Park. India Krishna’s butterball is a balancing rock located in Mahabalipuram. A balancing rock is located near Madan Mahal fort in Jabalpur city of Madhya Pradesh, Australia Karlu Karlu / Devils Marbles Conservation Reserve is a vast field of erosional remnants. Myanmar The boulder, which gleams golden and popularly known as the Golden Rock on which the small Kyaiktiyo Pagoda has been built, is about 25 ft in height and has a circumference of 50 ft. The boulder sits on a rock platform that appears to have been naturally formed to act as the base to build the pagoda. England The Brimham Rocks are a group of outstanding pedestal rock formations in North Yorkshire, finland Kummakivi is a balancing rock located at 61°2936.4596 N, 28°2545.5016 E in Ruokolahti and is protected. Poland Chybotek – granite balancing rock in Giant Mountains Chybotek – granite balancing rock in Jizera Mountains, galicia Pedra de abalar – granite balancing rock in Muxía Canada Nova Scotia A tall basalt stack appears to balance precariously above the water near Digby, Nova Scotia. British Columbia Located near Bear Beach on the Juan De Fuca Trail, california A large balancing rock may be easily seen at D. L. Bliss State Park on the west shore of Lake Tahoe, Colorado A huge sandstone boulder hangs precariously near the roadway in Garden of the Gods park near Colorado Springs
15.
Rock formation
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A rock formation is an isolated, scenic, or spectacular surface rock outcrop. Rock formations are usually the result of weathering and erosion sculpting the existing rock, the term rock formation can also refer to specific sedimentary strata or other rock unit in stratigraphic and petrologic studies. Erosion later exposes them in their current form, an example is Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah. Metamorphic rocks are created by rocks that have transformed into another kind of rock, usually by some combination of heat, pressure. An example are the Seneca Rocks in West Virginia, igneous rocks are created when molten rock cools and solidifies, with or without crystallization. They may be either plutonic bodies or volcanic extrusives, again, erosive forces sculpt their current forms. An example is Half Dome in Yosemite National Park, geologists have created a number of terms to describe different rock structures in the landscape that can be formed by natural processes, Inselberg or monadnock is a residual relief feature. It can be a hill, a knob, ridge or small mountain that rises abruptly, like an island. Inselberg is a German word that means island mountain, uluru/Ayers Rock in Australia is a noted example. Peak Stack Mesa Butte Escarpment Gorge Sea cliff River cliff Stone run Crag Tor Promontory is a prominent mass of land which overlooks lower lying land or a body of water, here is a list of rock formations by continent
16.
Legend
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Legend, for its active and passive participants, includes no happenings that are outside the realm of possibility, but may include miracles. Legends may be transformed over time, in order to keep fresh and vital. Many legends operate within the realm of uncertainty, never being believed by the participants. The Brothers Grimm defined legend as folktale historically grounded, a modern folklorists professional definition of legend was proposed by Timothy R. Legend is a loanword from Old French that entered English usage circa 1340. The Old French noun legende derives from the Medieval Latin legenda, in its early English-language usage, the word indicated a narrative of an event. The word legendary was originally a noun meaning a collection or corpus of legends and this word changed to legendry, and legendary became the adjectival form. By 1613, English-speaking Protestants began to use the word when they wished to imply that an event was fictitious, thus, legend gained its modern connotations of undocumented and spurious, which distinguish it from the meaning of chronicle. In 1866, Jacob Grimm described the tale as poetic. Questions of categorising legends, in hopes of compiling a series of categories on the line of the Aarne–Thompson folktale index. Compared to the highly structured folktale, legend is comparatively amorphous, in Einleitung in der Geschichtswissenschaft, Ernst Bernheim asserted that a legend is simply a longstanding rumour. Gordon Allport credited the staying-power of some rumours to the persistent cultural state-of-mind that they embody and capsulise, in the narrow Christian sense, legenda were hagiographical accounts, often collected in a legendary. Hippolyte Delehaye distinguished legend from myth, The legend, on the hand, has, of necessity. It refers imaginary events to some real personage, or it localizes romantic stories in some definite spot, stories that exceed the boundaries of realism are called fables. For example, the talking animal formula of Aesop identifies his brief stories as fables, the parable of the Prodigal Son would be a legend if it were told as having actually happened to a specific son of a historical father. If it included a donkey that gave sage advice to the Prodigal Son it would be a fable, Legend may be transmitted orally, passed on person-to-person, or, in the original sense, through written text. Jacob de Voragines Legenda Aurea or The Golden Legend comprises a series of vitae or instructive biographical narratives and they are presented as lives of the saints, but the profusion of miraculous happenings and above all their uncritical context are characteristics of hagiography. The Legenda was intended to inspire extemporized homilies and sermons appropriate to the saint of the day, the vanishing hitchhiker is the best-known urban legend in America, traceable as far back as 1870, but it is found around the world including in Korea and Russia. In the legend, a girl in a white dress picked up alongside of the road by a passerby
17.
Watchtower
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A watchtower, or watch tower, is a type of fortification used in many parts of the world. It differs from a tower in that its primary use is military. Its main purpose is to provide a high, safe place from which a sentinel or guard may observe the surrounding area, in some cases, non-military towers, such as religious pagodas, may also be used as watchtowers. The Romans built numerous towers as part of a system of communications, in medieval Europe, many castles and manor houses, or similar fortified buildings, were equipped with watchtowers. In some of the houses of western France, the watchtower equipped with arrow or gun loopholes was one of the principal means of defense. A feudal lord could keep watch over his domain from the top of his tower, in southern Saudi Arabia and Yemen, small stone and mud towers called qasaba were constructed as either watchtowers or keeps in the Asir mountains. Furthermore, in Najd, a watchtower, called Margab, was used to watch for approaching enemies far in distance and shout calling warnings from atop. Scotland saw the construction of Peel towers that combined the function of watchtower with that of a keep or tower house served as the residence for a local notable family. Later many were restored or built against the Barbary pirates, some notable examples of military Mediterranean watchtowers include the towers that the Knights of Malta had constructed on the coasts of Malta. These towers ranged in size from small watchtowers to large structures armed with numerous cannons and they include the Wignacourt, de Redin, and Lascaris towers, named for the Grand Master, such as Martin de Redin, that commissioned each series. In the Channel Islands, the Jersey Round Towers and the Guernsey loophole towers date from the late 18th Century and they were erected to give warning of attacks by the French. One of the last Martello towers to be built was Fort Denison in Sydney harbour, the most recent descendants of the Martello Towers are the flak towers that the various combatants erected in World War II as mounts for anti-aircraft artillery. An example of nonmilitary watchtower in history is the one of Jerusalem, though the Hebrews used it to keep a watch for approaching armies, the religious authorities forbade the taking of weapons up into the tower as this would require bringing weapons through the temple. Rebuilt by King Herod, that watchtower was renamed after Mark Antony, his friend who battled against Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus, fire lookout tower Observation towers are similar constructions being usually outside of fortifications. A similar use have also Control towers on airports or harbours, diaolou Watchtower Media related to Watch towers at Wikimedia Commons
18.
Banu Hilal
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The Banu Hilal was a confederation of tribes of Arabia from the Hejaz and Najd regions of the Arabian Peninsula that emigrated to North Africa in the 11th century. With the revolutionary movement of the Qarmatians in Bahrain and Oman, when the latter became masters of Egypt and the founders of Cairo in 969, they hastened to confine the unruly Bedouin in the south before sending them to the Maghreb. According to Ibn Khaldun, the Banu Hilal were accompanied by their wives and they settled in North Africa after repeatedly winning battles against the Berbers, eventually going on to cohabitate with them. Ibn Khaldun described their genealogy, which consisted of two tribes, themselves and the Banu Sulaym. They lived on the Ghazwan near Taif while the Banu Sulaym attended nearby Medina, at the time of their migration, Banu Hilal comprised six families, Athbadj, Riyah, Jochem, Addi, Zughba, and Rbia. Today, it is almost impossible to trace a purely Arab lineage due to intermarriage between Arabs and Berbers, though historians have attempted to do so. From the Arabian Peninsula, they first migrated to the south of Egypt before heading to the Maghreb, abu Zayd al-Hilali led one million Arabs into North Africa, who assimilated and intermarried with the indigenous peoples. The Fatimids used the tribe, who began their journey as allies and vassals, to punish the particularly difficult to control the Zirids after the conquest of Egypt and the founding of Cairo. As the tribe became increasingly independent and abandoned Shia Islam, they defeated the Zirids and deeply weakened the neighboring Hammadid dynasty. Their influx was a factor in the linguistic, cultural. Ibn Khaldun noted that the lands ravaged by Banu Hilal invaders had become completely arid desert, the Hilaleen fell under the orders of various subsequent Berber dynasties, including the Almohad Caliphate, Hafsid dynasty, and Marinid dynasty. Finding their continued presence intolerable, the Almohad Caliphate defeated the Banu Hilal and forced many of them to leave Tunisia, upon the arrival of the Turks, the Hilaleen rose against the Ottoman Empire alongside Berbers in the Aurès region and south of Algeria. Originally, the Banu Hilal embraced a lifestyle, rearing cattle. Despite several tribes living in arid and desert areas, they became experts in the field of agriculture, the Hilaleen do not embrace any specific ideology and are not very conservative, though the majority of the population does embrace Islam. Initially Shia, after the conquest of the Maghreb many Banu Hilal converted to the Maliki school of Sunni Islam, other tribes Arabized the Berbers to a considerable extent in Algeria, where intermarriage occurred frequently during their shared history. The tale is divided into three main cycles, the first two bring together unfolding events in Arabia and other countries of the east, while the third, called Taghriba, recounts the migration of the Banu Hilal to North Africa
19.
Okra
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Okra or okro, known in many English-speaking countries as ladies fingers, ochro or gumbo, is a flowering plant in the mallow family. It is valued for its edible green seed pods, the geographical origin of okra is disputed, with supporters of West African, Ethiopian, and South Asian origins. The plant is cultivated in tropical, subtropical and warm regions around the world. The name okra is most often used in the UK, United States, the word okra is from the Igbo ọ́kụ̀rụ̀. The plant and its seed pods are known as ladys fingers. In various Bantu languages, okra is called ngombo or a variant, and this is possibly the origin of the name gumbo, used in parts of the United States, okra is an allopolyploid of uncertain parentage. Truly wild populations are not known with certainty and the species may be a cultigen, the geographical origin of okra is disputed, with supporters of South Asian, Ethiopian and West African origins. Supporters of a South Asian origin point to the presence of its parents in that region. Supporters of a West African origin point to the diversity of okra in that region. The plant may have entered southwest Asia across the Red Sea or the Bab-el-Mandeb straight to the Arabian Peninsula, rather than north across the Sahara, or from India. One of the earliest accounts is by a Spanish Moor who visited Egypt in 1216 and described the plant under cultivation by the locals who ate the tender, from Arabia, the plant spread around the shores of the Mediterranean Sea and eastward. The plant was introduced to the Americas by ships plying the Atlantic slave trade by 1658 and it was further documented in Suriname in 1686. Okra may have introduced to southeastern North America from Africa in the early 18th century. By 1748, it was being grown as far north as Philadelphia, thomas Jefferson noted it was well established in Virginia by 1781. It was commonplace throughout the Southern United States by 1800, the species is a perennial, often cultivated as an annual in temperate climates, and often grows to around 2 metres tall. It is related to species as cotton, cocoa. The leaves are 10–20 centimetres long and broad, palmately lobed with 5–7 lobes, the flowers are 4–8 centimetres in diameter, with five white to yellow petals, often with a red or purple spot at the base of each petal. The fruit is a capsule up to 18 centimetres long with pentagonal cross-section, abelmoschus esculentus is cultivated throughout the tropical and warm temperate regions of the world for its fibrous fruits or pods containing round, white seeds
20.
Leek
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The leek is a vegetable, a cultivar of Allium ampeloprasum, the broadleaf wild leek. The edible part of the plant is a bundle of leaf sheaths that is sometimes called a stem or stalk. Historically, many names were used for leeks, but they are now all treated as cultivars of A. ampeloprasum. The name leek developed from the Anglo-Saxon word leac, two closely related vegetables, elephant garlic and kurrat, are also cultivars of A. ampeloprasum, although different in their uses as food. The onion and garlic are also related, being other species of the genus Allium, rather than forming a tight bulb like the onion, the leek produces a long cylinder of bundled leaf sheaths that are generally blanched by pushing soil around them. They are often sold as small seedlings in flats that are started off early in greenhouses, once established in the garden, leeks are hardy, many varieties can be left in the ground during the winter to be harvested as needed. Leek cultivars may be treated as a cultivar group, e. g. as A. ampeloprasum Leek Group. Summer leek types are smaller than overwintering types, overwintering types are generally more strongly flavored. Cultivars include King Richard and Tadorna Blue, leeks are easy to grow from seed and tolerate standing in the field for an extended harvest, which takes place up to 6 months from planting. The soil in which it is grown has to be loose and drained well, leeks usually reach maturity in the autumn months. The thrips species Thrips tabaci is considered a leek pest and leeks can also get leek rust. Leeks can be bunched and harvested early when they are about the size of a finger or pencil, hilling leeks can produce better specimens. Leeks have a mild, onion-like taste, in its raw state, the vegetable is crunchy and firm. The edible portions of the leek are the base of the leaves, the light green parts. One of the most popular uses is for adding flavor to stock, the dark green portion is usually discarded because it has a tough texture, but it can be sautéed or added to stock. A few leaves are sometimes tied with twine and other herbs to form a bouquet garni, leeks are typically chopped into slices 5–10 mm thick. The slices have a tendency to fall apart, due to the structure of the leek. The different ways of preparing the vegetable are, Boiling turns it soft, frying leaves it crunchier and preserves the taste
21.
Flea market
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A flea market is a type of bazaar that rents or provides space to people who want to sell or barter merchandise. Used goods, cheap items, collectibles, and antiques are commonly sold, many markets offer fresh produce or baked goods, plants from local farms and vintage clothes. Renters of the flea market tables are called vendors and it may be indoors, as in a warehouse or school gymnasium, or outdoors, as in a field or parking lot or under a tent. Flea markets can be annually or semiannually, others may be conducted monthly, on weekends. Flea market vending is distinguished from street vending in that the market itself, many flea markets have food vendors who sell snacks and drinks to the patrons. Some flea market vendors have been targeted by law enforcement efforts to halt the sale of bootleg movies and music or knockoff brand clothing, toys, electrical goods, accessories, different English-speaking countries use various names for flea markets. In Australian English, they are also called trash and treasure markets, in Philippine English, the word is tianggê from the Nahuatl tianguis via Mexican Spanish, supplanting the indigenous term talipapâ. In India it is known as gurjari or shrukawadi bazaar or even as juna bazaar, in the United Kingdom they are known as car boot sales if the event takes place in a field or car park, as the vendors will sell goods from the boot of their car. If the event is held indoors, such as a school or church hall, then it is known as either a jumble sale, or a bring. In Quebec and France, they are often called Marché aux puces, while in French-speaking areas of Belgium, the name Brocante or vide-grenier is normally used. In Switzerland the Swiss German language term Flomärt, for example for the well-known Bürkliplatz-Flomärt is used, being a variation of the Allemanic word of Flohmarkt, in the predominantly Cuban/Hispanic areas of South Florida, they are called pulgero from pulga, the Spanish word for fleas. While the concept existed in such as what are now India, Bangladesh, and China for millennia. According to one theory, the Fly Market in 18th-century New York City began the association, the Dutch word vlaie was located at Maiden Lane near the East River in Manhattan. The land on which the market stood was originally a marsh with a brook. Another theory maintains that flea market is a common English calque from the French marché aux puces, the first reference to this term appeared in two conflicting stories about a location in Paris in the 1860s which was known as the marché aux puces. The traditional and most-publicised story is in the article What Is a Flea Market
22.
Arecaceae
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The Arecaceae are a botanical family of perennial climbers, shrubs, acaules and trees commonly known as palm trees. They are flowering plants, a family in the monocot order Arecales, currently 181 genera with around 2600 species are known, most of them restricted to tropical, subtropical, and warm temperate climates. Most palms are distinguished by their large, compound, evergreen leaves, known as fronds, however, palms exhibit an enormous diversity in physical characteristics and inhabit nearly every type of habitat within their range, from rainforests to deserts. Palms are among the best known and most extensively cultivated plant families and they have been important to humans throughout much of history. Many common products and foods are derived from palms, and palms are widely used in landscaping, making them one of the most economically important plants. In many historical cultures, palms were symbols for such ideas as victory, peace, for inhabitants of cooler climates today, palms symbolize the tropics and vacations. Whether as shrubs, trees, or vines, palms have two methods of growth, solitary or clustered, the common representation is that of a solitary shoot ending in a crown of leaves. This monopodial character may be exhibited by prostrate, trunkless, some common palms restricted to solitary growth include Washingtonia and Roystonea. Palms may instead grow in sparse though dense clusters, the trunk develops an axillary bud at a leaf node, usually near the base, from which a new shoot emerges. The new shoot, in turn, produces an axillary bud, exclusively sympodial genera include many of the rattans, Guihaia, and Rhapis. Several palm genera have both solitary and clustering members, Palms which are usually solitary may grow in clusters, and vice versa. These aberrations suggest the habit operates on a single gene, Palms have large, evergreen leaves that are either palmately or pinnately compound and spirally arranged at the top of the stem. The leaves have a sheath at the base that usually splits open on one side at maturity. The inflorescence is a spadix or spike surrounded by one or more bracts or spathes that become woody at maturity, the flowers are generally small and white, radially symmetric, and can be either uni- or bisexual. The sepals and petals usually number three each, and may be distinct or joined at the base, the stamens generally number six, with filaments that may be separate, attached to each other, or attached to the pistil at the base. The fruit is usually a single-seeded drupe but some genera may contain two or more seeds in each fruit, like all monocots, palms do not have the ability to increase the width of a stem via the same kind of vascular cambium found in non-monocot woody plants. This explains the shape of the trunk that is often seen in palms. The Arecaceae are notable among monocots for their height and for the size of their seeds, leaves, Ceroxylon quindiuense, Colombias national tree, is the tallest monocot in the world, reaching up to 60 m tall
23.
Quran
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The Quran is the central religious text of Islam, which Muslims believe to be a revelation from God. It is widely regarded as the finest work in classical Arabic literature, the Quran is divided into chapters, which are then divided into verses. The word Quran occurs some 70 times in the text of the Quran, although different names, according to the traditional narrative, several companions of Muhammad served as scribes and were responsible for writing down the revelations. Shortly after Muhammads death, the Quran was compiled by his companions who wrote down and these codices had differences that motivated the Caliph Uthman to establish a standard version now known as Uthmans codex, which is generally considered the archetype of the Quran known today. There are, however, variant readings, with minor differences in meaning. The Quran assumes familiarity with major narratives recounted in the Biblical scriptures and it summarizes some, dwells at length on others and, in some cases, presents alternative accounts and interpretations of events. The Quran describes itself as a book of guidance and it sometimes offers detailed accounts of specific historical events, and it often emphasizes the moral significance of an event over its narrative sequence. The Quran is used along with the hadith to interpret sharia law, during prayers, the Quran is recited only in Arabic. Someone who has memorized the entire Quran is called a hafiz, some Muslims read Quranic ayah with elocution, which is often called tajwid. During the month of Ramadan, Muslims typically complete the recitation of the whole Quran during tarawih prayers, in order to extrapolate the meaning of a particular Quranic verse, most Muslims rely on the tafsir. The word qurʼān appears about 70 times in the Quran itself and it is a verbal noun of the Arabic verb qaraʼa, meaning he read or he recited. The Syriac equivalent is qeryānā, which refers to reading or lesson. While some Western scholars consider the word to be derived from the Syriac, regardless, it had become an Arabic term by Muhammads lifetime. An important meaning of the word is the act of reciting, as reflected in an early Quranic passage, It is for Us to collect it, in other verses, the word refers to an individual passage recited. Its liturgical context is seen in a number of passages, for example, So when al-qurʼān is recited, listen to it, the word may also assume the meaning of a codified scripture when mentioned with other scriptures such as the Torah and Gospel. The term also has closely related synonyms that are employed throughout the Quran, each synonym possesses its own distinct meaning, but its use may converge with that of qurʼān in certain contexts. Such terms include kitāb, āyah, and sūrah, the latter two terms also denote units of revelation. In the large majority of contexts, usually with an article, the word is referred to as the revelation
