FYI: Links for fun!

• Rum and Monkey: The Merovingian Name Generator
• Make Your Own Bayeux Tapestry Kit!
• Music: Hildegard von Bingen's "O frondens virga"

FYI: Early Medieval Links

• Carolingian Gospel Book
• St. Gall Monastery Plan

FYI: Feudalism, Manorialism and the Agricultural Revolution

• Feudalism & Manorialism helps!
• Illustration of "Scratch Plow"

UPDATED - FYI: Islam

UPDATED: The Adhan: Islam's Call to Prayer, Mecca, Medina -- Beliefnet.com

• IslamiCity.com - The Five Pillars of Islam
• Video: Conditions for the Hajj
• Video: Whirling Dervishes

FYI: The "Ara Pacis Augustae", plus the Imperial Image in Late Antiquity

• Ara Pacis: "Indeed, the altar was real and was used as a site for sacrificing animals, large and small alike. There were drainholes for the sacrificial blood to flow out from the structure." (See at right, from ARA PACIS TOUR)
  
• Late Antiquity: Imperial Image

FYI: Early Christianity & Saint Peter's Basilica

• The Spread of Christianity
• "Old" Saint Peter's: On the left of the road was a circus begun by Caligula, and finished by Nero; on the right a line of tombs built against the clay cliffs of the Vatican. The circus was the scene of the first sufferings of the Christians, described by Tacitus in the well-known passage of the "Annals," xv.45. Some of the Christians were covered with the skins of wild beasts so that savage dogs might tear them to pieces; others were besmeared with tar and tallow, and burnt at the stake; others were crucified (crucibus adfixi), while Nero in the attire of a vulgar aurigaº ran his races around the goals. This took place in A.D. 65. Two years later the leader of the Christians shared the same fate in the same place. He was affixed to a cross like the others, and we know exactly where. A tradition current in Rome from time immemorial says that S. Peter was executed inter duas metas (between the two metae), that is, in the spina or middle line of Nero's circus, at an equal distance from the two end goals; in other words, he was executed at the foot of the obelisk which now towers in front of his great church. For many centuries after the peace of Constantine, the exact spot of S. Peter's execution was marked by a chapel called the chapel of the "Crucifixion."
• 360 Degree Tour of St. Peter's Square
• Virtual Reality Tour of Ravenna! (Gorgeous early Christian art & architecture!!)
• Pictures of Jesus - ReligionFacts
• Christ as Roman Soldier Mosaic

FYI: On the "Deeds of the Divine Augustus"

Wikipedia on the "Res Gestae Divi Augusti" (pictured at right)

FYI: Some terms in the "Res Gestae"

• "Propraetor"
• "Curule Chair"
• "Ovation"
• "Fetial"
• "Lustrum"
• "Saliar Hymn"

FYI: Seven Hills of Rome

The Seven Hills of Rome

FYI: Ancient Greece through Fun & Games!

"Presented with a physical relief map of Greece and its many islands,visitors to the homepage of this site will then be treated to a range of material objects, ranging from masks, urns, and stone tablets. All of these items are part of the British Museum’s vast holdings of materials from ancient Greece, and brought together, they constitute the online website titled 'Ancient Greece'. Previous online collections have presented material from other civilizations, and this assemblage is divided into traditionalsections that include geography, time, war, and Athens. While many of the sections follow traditional online collection conventions, there are a number of splendid Flash-enabled features that present a day in the life of the city of Athens, and of course, Plato’s immortal cave."

(from The Internet Scout Report, Oct. 13 2006)

Some highlights:

• Build your own Greek temple!
• Take a tour of Ancient Athens!
• Get Athenians to vote!
• Play the House Challenge to see if you can 'set the scene' correctly in a Greek home!
• Can you survive the Spartan education program?
• Can you command a Greek trireme?

BTW, Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt get the same "fun & games" treatment, too!

FYI: Papyrus

From this week's "Internet Scout Report'...

Advanced Papyrological Information System: "Writing from the ancient world frequently appears on papyrological materials such as papyri and wood tablets, and many of these important artifacts are in far-flung locations that may be difficult for researchers to access. The Advanced Papyrological System (APIS) has stepped in to provide a virtual location to house digitized images of many of these materials, along with English translations. The funding for the project has come from a variety of sources, including the National Endowment for the Humanities andparticipating institutions, such as the University of Chicago, Duke University, and the University of Toronto. Visitors can perform any number of elaborate searches using keywords, collection, date, and so on. For the more casual user, there is also the option of just browsing by subject word,writing material, or language."

FYI: "Maps of War"

Who has controlled the Middle East? Pretty much everybody... Take a look at 5000 years of history over a few seconds in Maps of War.

FYI: Make your own Trajan's Column "trailer"

Just for fun... Make your own Trajan's Column "trailer"!

FYI: Indo-European Language Tree

Lynch, Indo-European Language Family Tree

FYI: Assyrians in Maine!

Collections: Ancient Art

FYI: Drought, Water, Society & Civilization in the News (UPDATED!)

Sample questions to consider:

1. How does the availability (or lack thereof) affect the development of societies?
2. Are we immune to such effects in our "developed" societies of the early twenty-first century?
3. Can ancient societies teach us anything specific about water use and conservation, do you think?

(Again... if you want to comment here, your analytical comments don't have to be on all these readings, and aren't limited to addressing these questions only!)

• Ancient biblical waterworks found in Israel - Yahoo! News
• "A Good Idea!": One Billion People Still Drink Unsafe Water - UN
• "A Good Idea!": Safe Water for the Entire World... It's Not a "Pipe" Dream!
• Ice Age gives clues to global warming: study - Yahoo! News
• Seed Magazine: "A Hostile Climate: Did global warming cause a resource war in Darfur?"
• Rich and poor countries alike face water crisis - Yahoo! News
• Food, biofuels could worsen water shortages: report - Yahoo! News
• Fixing leaks better than building dams: expert. 22/08/2006. ABC News Online
• "Glass Half Full: Map of the Coming Water Wars"
• Global water crisis looms larger - Linkfilter
• Reconstruction - Studies in Contemporary Culture: "Water: Resources & Discourses"

UPDATED, 9/12:

• Plumbing in History
• Was Agriculture a Mistake?

FYI: Human Evolution in the News... (UPDATED)

Sample questions to consider:

1. Why does the theory of evolution trouble many people even in the early twenty-first century?
2. Why doesn't the Catholic Church oppose the theory of evolution, do you think?

(Note: if you want to comment here, your analytical comments don't have to be on all these readings, and aren't limited to addressing these questions only!)

• "Instant Expert: Human Evolution" - 24 August 2006 - New Scientist
• Pope and former students ponder evolution, not "ID" - Yahoo! News
• Most Americans Agree with Evolution: Angus Reid Consultants
• ScienceDaily: Newly Discovered Gene May Hold Clues To Evolution Of Human Brain Capacity
• Mental Leap: What apes can teach us about the human mind - Science News Online, Sept. 2, 2006
• Dolphin Intelligence : MetaFilter
• Artefacts support theory man came from Africa - Mirabilis.ca
• Ancient humans "followed rains" - Mirabilis.ca
• Some Ancient Caves Designed for Comfort- Discovery Channel News

How about a little evolutionary fun? Try "Name That Skull"! :-)

UPDATED 9/8: Here's another interesting link... Monkey see, monkey do!

UPDATED 9/9: And another... ScienceDaily: Modern Humans, Not Neandertals, May Be Evolution's 'Odd Man Out'!

UPDATED 9/12:

• Arizona State University's Institute for Human Origins reviews four million years of human evolution in this interactive documentary.
• BBC - Science & Nature - Human beginnings