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Draa River
:''Dra is also the abbreviation for the constellation Draco.'' The Draa ( ber, Asif en Dra, ⴰⵙⵉⴼ ⴻⵏ ⴷⵔⴰ, ary, واد درعة, wad dərʿa; also spelled Dra or Drâa, in older sources mostly Darha or Dara) is Morocco's longest river, at . It is formed by the confluence of the Dadès River and Imini River. It flows from the High Atlas mountains, initially south-eastward to Tagounite, and from Tagounite mostly westwards to its mouth in the Atlantic Ocean somewhat north of Tan-Tan. In 1971, the (El) Mansour Eddahabi dam was constructed to service the regional capital of Ouarzazate and to regulate the flow of the Draa. Most of the year the part of the Draa after Tagounite falls dry. The water from the Draa is used to irrigate palm groves and small farms along the river. The inhabitants of the Draa are called in Arabic ''Drawa'', in Shilha ''Idrawiyn'', the most famous Drawi (singular of Drawa) undoubtedly being Sultan Mohammed ash-Sheikh (1490–1557). Outside ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
French Language
French ( or ) is a Romance languages, Romance language of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European family. It descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire, as did all Romance languages. French evolved from Gallo-Romance, the Latin spoken in Gaul, and more specifically in Northern Gaul. Its closest relatives are the other langues d'oïl—languages historically spoken in northern France and in southern Belgium, which French (Francien) largely supplanted. French was also substratum, influenced by native Celtic languages of Northern Roman Gaul like Gallia Belgica and by the (Germanic languages, Germanic) Frankish language of the post-Roman Franks, Frankish invaders. Today, owing to France's French colonial empire, past overseas expansion, there are numerous French-based creole languages, most notably Haitian Creole language, Haitian Creole. A French-speaking person or nation may be referred to as Francophone in both English and French. French is an official language in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Agdz
Agdz, also spelled Agdez ( ber, ⴰⴳⴷⵣ, ar, أگدز) is a Moroccan town in the Drâa-Tafilalet region, in the Atlas Mountains with a population of about 10,000. It is located at around . Agdz lies at the feet of Djebel Kissane and along the shores of the Draa River. Geography Agdz is located about 65 kilometers south of Ouarzazate, 92 kilometers north of Zagora. Agdz, which means "resting place," is located along the old caravan route linking Marrakech to Timbuktu, and played an important role in the exchange of goods across the Sahara. In geographic terms, the most predominant feature of Agdz is Jebel Kissane which is in the middle of the Draa Valley to the east of Agdz. Kissane means "glasses" in Arabic and the jebel is so named because it looks like glasses of tea behind a tea pot. History The years of 1970 and 1980 were hard on the agricultural sector due to droughts. Local institutions The weekly outdoor market (souk) is held on Thursdays across the bridge from ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Petroglyph
A petroglyph is an image 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 terms such as "carving", "engraving", or other descriptions of the technique to refer to such images. Petroglyphs are found worldwide, and are often associated with prehistoric peoples. The word comes from the Greek prefix , from meaning "stone", and meaning "carve", and was originally coined in French as . Another form of petroglyph, normally found in literate cultures, a rock relief or rock-cut relief is a relief sculpture carved on "living rock" such as a cliff, rather than a detached piece of stone. While these relief carvings are a category of rock art, sometimes found in conjunction with rock-cut architecture, they tend to be omitted in most works on rock art, which concentrate on engravings and paintings by prehistoric or nonliterate cultures. Some of these reliefs exploit the rock' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rock Art
In archaeology, rock art is human-made markings placed on natural surfaces, typically vertical stone surfaces. A high proportion of surviving historic and prehistoric rock art is found in caves or partly enclosed rock shelters; this type also may be called cave art or parietal art. A global phenomenon, rock art is found in many culturally diverse regions of the world. It has been produced in many contexts throughout human history. In terms of technique, the four main groups are: * cave paintings, * petroglyphs, which are carved or scratched into the rock surface, * sculpted rock reliefs, and * geoglyphs, which are formed on the ground. The oldest known rock art dates from the Upper Palaeolithic period, having been found in Europe, Australia, Asia, and Africa. Anthropologists studying these artworks believe that they likely had magico-religious significance. The archaeological sub-discipline of rock art studies first developed in the late-19th century among Francophone scholars s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
BBC Online
BBC Online, formerly known as BBCi, is the BBC's online service. It is a large network of websites including such high-profile sites as BBC News and BBC Sport, Sport, the on-demand video and radio services branded BBC iPlayer and BBC Sounds, the children's sites CBBC (TV channel), CBBC and CBeebies, and learning services such as Bitesize and BBC Own It, Own It. The BBC has had an online presence supporting its TV and radio programmes and web-only initiatives since April 1994, but did not launch officially until 28 April 1997, following government approval to fund it by Television licensing in the United Kingdom, TV licence fee revenue as a service in its own right. Throughout its history, the online plans of the BBC have been subject to competition and complaint from its commercial rivals, which has resulted in various public consultations and government reviews to investigate their claims that its large presence and public funding distorts the UK market. The website has gone t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cambrian
The Cambrian Period ( ; sometimes symbolized Ꞓ) was the first geological period of the Paleozoic Era, and of the Phanerozoic Eon. The Cambrian lasted 53.4 million years from the end of the preceding Ediacaran Period 538.8 million years ago (mya) to the beginning of the Ordovician Period mya. Its subdivisions, and its base, are somewhat in flux. The period was established as "Cambrian series" by Adam Sedgwick, who named it after Cambria, the Latin name for 'Cymru' (Wales), where Britain's Cambrian rocks are best exposed. Sedgwick identified the layer as part of his task, along with Roderick Murchison, to subdivide the large "Transition Series", although the two geologists disagreed for a while on the appropriate categorization. The Cambrian is unique in its unusually high proportion of sedimentary deposits, sites of exceptional preservation where "soft" parts of organisms are preserved as well as their more resistant shells. As a result, our understanding of the Cambrian ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fauna
Fauna is all of the animal life present in a particular region or time. The corresponding term for plants is ''flora'', and for fungi, it is ''funga''. Flora, fauna, funga and other forms of life are collectively referred to as ''Biota (ecology), biota''. Zoologists and paleontologists use ''fauna'' to refer to a typical collection of animals found in a specific time or place, e.g. the "Sonoran Desert fauna" or the "Burgess Shale fauna". Paleontology, Paleontologists sometimes refer to a sequence of faunal stages, which is a series of rocks all containing similar fossils. The study of animals of a particular region is called faunistics. Etymology ''Fauna of Madagascar, Fauna'' comes from the name Fauna (deity), Fauna, a Roman goddess of earth and fertility, the Roman god Faunus, and the related forest spirits called Fauns. All three words are cognates of the name of the Greek god Pan (god), Pan, and ''panis'' is the Greek language, Greek equivalent of fauna. ''Fauna'' is also ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Burgess Shale-type Preservation
The Burgess Shale of British Columbia is famous for its exceptional preservation of mid-Cambrian organisms. Around 69 other sites have been discovered of a similar age, with soft tissues preserved in a similar, though not identical, fashion. Additional sites with a similar form of preservation are known from the Ediacaran and Ordovician periods. These various shales are of great importance in the reconstruction of the ecosystems immediately after the Cambrian explosion. The taphonomic regime results in soft tissue being preserved, which means that organisms without hard parts that could be conventionally fossilised can be seen; also, we gain an insight into the organs of more familiar organisms such as the trilobites. The most famous localities preserving organisms in this fashion are the Canadian Burgess Shale, the Chinese Chengjiang fauna, and the more remote Sirius Passet in north Greenland. However, a number of other localities also exist. Distribution Burgess Shale-type biot ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ordovician
The Ordovician ( ) is a geologic period and system, the second of six periods of the Paleozoic Era. The Ordovician spans 41.6 million years from the end of the Cambrian Period million years ago (Mya) to the start of the Silurian Period Mya. The Ordovician, named after the Welsh tribe of the Ordovices, was defined by Charles Lapworth in 1879 to resolve a dispute between followers of Adam Sedgwick and Roderick Murchison, who were placing the same rock beds in North Wales in the Cambrian and Silurian systems, respectively. Lapworth recognized that the fossil fauna in the disputed strata were different from those of either the Cambrian or the Silurian systems, and placed them in a system of their own. The Ordovician received international approval in 1960 (forty years after Lapworth's death), when it was adopted as an official period of the Paleozoic Era by the International Geological Congress. Life continued to flourish during the Ordovician as it did in the earlier Cambrian P ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Burgess Shale Type Preservation
The Burgess Shale of British Columbia is famous for its exceptional preservation of mid-Cambrian organisms. Around 69 other sites have been discovered of a similar age, with soft tissues preserved in a similar, though not identical, fashion. Additional sites with a similar form of preservation are known from the Ediacaran and Ordovician periods. These various shales are of great importance in the reconstruction of the ecosystems immediately after the Cambrian explosion. The taphonomic regime results in soft tissue being preserved, which means that organisms without hard parts that could be conventionally fossilised can be seen; also, we gain an insight into the organs of more familiar organisms such as the trilobites. The most famous localities preserving organisms in this fashion are the Canadian Burgess Shale, the Chinese Chengjiang fauna, and the more remote Sirius Passet in north Greenland. However, a number of other localities also exist. Distribution Burgess Shale-type biot ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
