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Diogo Veloso
Diogo Veloso, or Diego Belloso in the Spanish historical accounts, (1558, Amarante, Portugal – 1599, Cambodia) was a Portuguese adventurer active in Southeast Asia in the last quarter of 16th century, acting sometimes in the service of the Spanish Governor of the Spanish East Indies (within the Cambodian–Spanish War) and sometimes as a freelancer. He and Spanish Blas Ruiz were the first Europeans to ever set foot in Laos. Veloso's journey to Laos started in Cambodia. In Cambodia, Veloso met and befriended King Satha of Lovek and Ruiz of Spain. When Lovek was invaded by Ayutthaya, Satha was overthrown by his son and other nobles who allowed Ayutthaya to take control, forcing Veloso to flee to Portuguese Malacca, the place where he began his adventure in Southeast Asia. Eventually Veloso returned with Ruiz, who had fled to Spanish Philippines, to Lovek. When they arrived they learned Satha had fled to Lan Xang, an empire centered in modern-day Laos and consisting of Isan, S ...
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Amarante, Portugal
Amarante () is a municipality and municipal seat in the Tâmega e Sousa subregion in northern Portugal. The population in 2011 was 56,264, in an area of . The city itself had a population of 11,261 in 2001. The city has been part of the UNESCO Creative Cities Network under the category of City of Music since 2017. History Amarante's origin dates to the primitive peoples that hunted and gathered in the ''Serra da Aboboreira'', sometime during the Stone Age, and extended during the Bronze Age and later the Romanization of the Iberian peninsula. The first prominent building erected during the area of Amarante was likely the ''Albergaria do Covelo do Tâmega'' sometime in the 12th century, by order of Queen D. Mafalda, wife of D. Afonso Henriques. These types of shelter were constructed in small settlements and were used by travellers, especially the poor who transited the territory. Permanent settles fixed themselves around the local churches, such as the Church of São Verí ...
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Lan Xang
existed as a unified kingdom from 1353 to 1707. For three and a half centuries, Lan Xang was one of the largest kingdoms in Southeast Asia. The meaning of the kingdom's name alludes to the power of the kingship and formidable war machine of the early kingdom. The kingdom is the precursor for the country of Laos and the basis for its national historic and cultural identity. Historical overview Origins The geography Lan Xang would occupy had been originally settled by indigenous Austroasiatic-speaking tribes, such as Khmuic peoples and Vietic peoples which gave rise to the Bronze Age cultures in Ban Chiang (today part of Isan, Thailand) and the Đông Sơn culture as well as Iron Age peoples near Xiangkhoang Plateau on the Plain of Jars, Funan, and Chenla (near Vat Phou in Champasak Province). The Han dynasty's chronicles of the southward expansion of the Han dynasty provide the first written accounts of Tai–Kadai speaking peoples or ''Ai Lao'' who inhabited the areas o ...
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Music Of Laos
The music of Laos includes the music of the Lao people, a Tai ethnic group, and other ethnic groups living in Laos. The traditional music of Laos has similarities with the traditional music of Thailand and Cambodia, including the names of the instruments and influences and developments. To categorize Lao music, it seems helpful to distinguish between the nonclassical folk traditions (which are presented through the ensembles and instruments used within), the classical music traditions and its basic ensembles, and vocal traditions. The most popular form of music in Laos is the indigenous mor lam. Classical music The Lao term ເພງລາວເດີມ "peng Lao deum" (traditional Lao songs) describes the royal court music of Laos. Historical records indicate that an indigenous classical tradition existed, which was mainly influenced by ancient Khmer traditions and mountainous ethnic groups. King Fa Ngum was raised and educated in Angkor Wat, so the Khmer traditions were the fi ...
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Relic
In religion, a relic is an object or article of religious significance from the past. It usually consists of the physical remains of a saint or the personal effects of the saint or venerated person preserved for purposes of veneration as a tangible memorial. Relics are an important aspect of some forms of Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, shamanism, and many other religions. ''Relic'' derives from the Latin ''reliquiae'', meaning "remains", and a form of the Latin verb ''relinquere'', to "leave behind, or abandon". A reliquary is a shrine that houses one or more religious relics. In classical antiquity In ancient Greece, a polis, city or Greek temple, sanctuary might claim to possess, without necessarily displaying, the remains of a venerated hero as a part of a Greek hero cult, hero cult. Other venerable objects associated with the hero were more likely to be on display in sanctuaries, such as spears, shields, or other weaponry; chariots, ships or Figurehead (object), figureheads ...
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Buddhist
Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and gradually spread throughout much of Asia via the Silk Road. It is the world's fourth-largest religion, with over 520 million followers (Buddhists) who comprise seven percent of the global population. The Buddha taught the Middle Way, a path of spiritual development that avoids both extreme asceticism and hedonism. It aims at liberation from clinging and craving to things which are impermanent (), incapable of satisfying ('), and without a lasting essence (), ending the cycle of death and rebirth (). A summary of this path is expressed in the Noble Eightfold Path, a training of the mind with observance of Buddhist ethics and meditation. Other widely observed practices include: monasticism; " taking refuge" in the Buddha, the , and th ...
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Snake
Snakes are elongated, Limbless vertebrate, limbless, carnivore, carnivorous reptiles of the suborder Serpentes . Like all other Squamata, squamates, snakes are ectothermic, amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping Scale (zoology), scales. Many species of snakes have skulls with several more joints than their lizard ancestors, enabling them to swallow prey much larger than their heads (cranial kinesis). To accommodate their narrow bodies, snakes' paired organs (such as kidneys) appear one in front of the other instead of side by side, and most have only one functional lung. Some species retain a pelvic girdle with a pair of vestigial claws on either side of the cloaca. Lizards have evolved elongate bodies without limbs or with greatly reduced limbs about twenty-five times independently via convergent evolution, leading to many lineages of legless lizards. These resemble snakes, but several common groups of legless lizards have eyelids and external ears, which snakes lack, altho ...
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Silk
Silk is a natural protein fiber, some forms of which can be woven into textiles. The protein fiber of silk is composed mainly of fibroin and is produced by certain insect larvae to form cocoons. The best-known silk is obtained from the cocoons of the larvae of the mulberry silkworm ''Bombyx mori'' reared in captivity (sericulture). The shimmering appearance of silk is due to the triangular prism-like structure of the silk fibre, which allows silk cloth to refract incoming light at different angles, thus producing different colors. Silk is produced by several insects; but, generally, only the silk of moth caterpillars has been used for textile manufacturing. There has been some research into other types of silk, which differ at the molecular level. Silk is mainly produced by the larvae of insects undergoing complete metamorphosis, but some insects, such as webspinners and raspy crickets, produce silk throughout their lives. Silk production also occurs in hymenoptera ( bee ...
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Gemstone
A gemstone (also called a fine gem, jewel, precious stone, or semiprecious stone) is a piece of mineral crystal which, in cut and polished form, is used to make jewelry or other adornments. However, certain rocks (such as lapis lazuli, opal, and obsidian) and occasionally organic materials that are not minerals (such as amber, jet, and pearl) are also used for jewelry and are therefore often considered to be gemstones as well. Most gemstones are hard, but some soft minerals are used in jewelry because of their luster or other physical properties that have aesthetic value. Rarity and notoriety are other characteristics that lend value to gemstones. Apart from jewelry, from earliest antiquity engraved gems and hardstone carvings, such as cups, were major luxury art forms. A gem expert is a gemologist, a gem maker is called a lapidarist or gemcutter; a diamond cutter is called a diamantaire. Characteristics and classification The traditional classification in the West, wh ...
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Gold
Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile metal in a pure form. Chemically, gold is a transition metal and a group 11 element. It is one of the least reactive chemical elements and is solid under standard conditions. Gold often occurs in free elemental ( native state), as nuggets or grains, in rocks, veins, and alluvial deposits. It occurs in a solid solution series with the native element silver (as electrum), naturally alloyed with other metals like copper and palladium, and mineral inclusions such as within pyrite. Less commonly, it occurs in minerals as gold compounds, often with tellurium (gold tellurides). Gold is resistant to most acids, though it does dissolve in aqua regia (a mixture of nitric acid and hydrochloric acid), forming a soluble tetrachloroaurate anion. Gold is ...
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Asian Elephant
The Asian elephant (''Elephas maximus''), also known as the Asiatic elephant, is the only living species of the genus ''Elephas'' and is distributed throughout the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia, from India in the west, Nepal in the north, Sumatra in the south, and to Borneo in the east. Three subspecies are recognised—'' E. m. maximus'' from Sri Lanka, ''E. m. indicus'' from mainland Asia and '' E. m. sumatranus'' from the island of Sumatra. Formerly, there was also the Syrian elephant or Western Asiatic elephant (''Elephas maximus asurus'') which was the westernmost population of the Asian elephant (''Elephas maximus''). This subspecies became extinct in ancient times. Skeletal remains of ''E. m. asurus'' have been recorded from the Middle East: Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey from periods dating between at least 1800 BC and likely 700 BC. It is one of only three living species of elephants or elephantids anywhere in the world, the others being the African bus ...
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Vientiane
Vientiane ( , ; lo, ວຽງຈັນ, ''Viangchan'', ) is the capital and largest city of Laos. Vientiane is divided administratively into 9 cities with a total area of only approx. 3,920 square kilometres and is located on the banks of the Mekong, close to the Thai border. Vientiane was the administrative capital during French rule and, due to economic growth in recent times, is now the economic center of Laos. The city had a population of 948,477 as of the 2020 Census. Vientiane is noted as the home of the most significant national monuments in Laos – That Luang – which is a known symbol of Laos and an icon of Buddhism in Laos. Other significant Buddhist temples in Laos can be found there as well, such as Haw Phra Kaew, which formerly housed the Emerald Buddha. The city hosted the 25th Southeast Asian Games in December 2009, celebrating 50 years of the Southeast Asian Games. Etymology 'Vientiane' is the French name derived from the Lao ''Viangchan'' . The name wa ...
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Vietnam
Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making it the world's sixteenth-most populous country. Vietnam borders China to the north, and Laos and Cambodia to the west. It shares maritime borders with Thailand through the Gulf of Thailand, and the Philippines, Indonesia, and Malaysia through the South China Sea. Its capital is Hanoi and its largest city is Ho Chi Minh City (commonly known as Saigon). Vietnam was inhabited by the Paleolithic age, with states established in the first millennium BC on the Red River Delta in modern-day northern Vietnam. The Han dynasty annexed Northern and Central Vietnam under Chinese rule from 111 BC, until the first dynasty emerged in 939. Successive monarchical dynasties absorbed Chinese influences through Confucianism and Buddhism, and expanded ...
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