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Kon (Pre-Incan Mythology)
In Pre-Incan mythology, Kón (Con) was the god of rain and wind that came from the North. He is thought to be a deity to the Paracas Civilization, who was later adopted into Nazca and Incan mythology through different names. He was a son of Inti (the sun god) and Mama Killa ("mother moon"). Legend of Kón According to the legend of Kón, he arrived from the North in the beginning of time. Kón was described as a being in the shape of a human, but had no joints or bones. In some legends, he is said to have flown in with the mask of a bird over his face. He came bearing fruit, feline masks, and a staff. He had large eyes, leading to many calling him the ''"Dios Oculado",'' meaning "eyed god". He is the son of Inti, sometimes referred to as “the son of the sun”. Because of this, as he wandered the earth, he raised mountains and created valleys at his will. He is said to be the creator of humans, to whom he gave plentiful fruit and bread to survive. Whenever he appeared, he broug ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rain
Rain is water droplets that have condensed from atmospheric water vapor and then fall under gravity. Rain is a major component of the water cycle and is responsible for depositing most of the fresh water on the Earth. It provides water for hydroelectric power plants, crop irrigation, and suitable conditions for many types of ecosystems. The major cause of rain production is moisture moving along three-dimensional zones of temperature and moisture contrasts known as weather fronts. If enough moisture and upward motion is present, precipitation falls from convective clouds (those with strong upward vertical motion) such as cumulonimbus (thunder clouds) which can organize into narrow rainbands. In mountainous areas, heavy precipitation is possible where upslope flow is maximized within windward sides of the terrain at elevation which forces moist air to condense and fall out as rainfall along the sides of mountains. On the leeward side of mountains, desert climates can exi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tawantinsuyu (orthographic Projection)
The Inca Empire (also known as the Incan Empire and the Inka Empire), called ''Tawantinsuyu'' by its subjects, (Quechua for the "Realm of the Four Parts", "four parts together" ) was the largest empire in pre-Columbian America. The administrative, political and military center of the empire was in the city of Cusco. The Inca civilization arose from the Peruvian highlands sometime in the early 13th century. The Spanish began the conquest of the Inca Empire in 1532 and by 1572, the last Inca state was fully conquered. From 1438 to 1533, the Incas incorporated a large portion of western South America, centered on the Andean Mountains, using conquest and peaceful assimilation, among other methods. At its largest, the empire joined modern-day Peru, what are now western Ecuador, western and south central Bolivia, northwest Argentina, the southwesternmost tip of Colombia and a large portion of modern-day Chile, and into a state comparable to the historical empires of Eurasia ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ceres (dwarf Planet)
Ceres (; minor-planet designation: 1 Ceres) is a dwarf planet in the asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. It was the first asteroid discovered, on 1 January 1801, by Giuseppe Piazzi at Palermo Astronomical Observatory in Sicily and announced as a new planet. Ceres was later classified as an asteroid and then a dwarf planetthe only one always inside Neptune's orbit. Ceres's small size means that even at its brightest, it is too dim to be seen by the naked eye, except under extremely dark skies. Its apparent magnitude ranges from 6.7 to 9.3, peaking at opposition (when it is closest to Earth) once every 15- to 16-month synodic period. As a result, its surface features are barely visible even with the most powerful telescopes, and little was known about it until the robotic NASA spacecraft ''Dawn'' approached Ceres for its orbital mission in 2015. ''Dawn'' found Ceres's surface to be a mixture of water ice, and hydrated minerals such as carbonates and clay. Gra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rhea (moon)
Rhea () is the second-largest moon of Saturn and the ninth-largest moon in the Solar System. It is the smallest body in the Solar System for which precise measurements have confirmed a shape consistent with hydrostatic equilibrium. It was discovered in 1672 by Giovanni Domenico Cassini. Discovery Rhea was discovered by Giovanni Domenico Cassini on 23 December 1672. It was the second moon of Saturn that Cassini discovered, and the third moon discovered around Saturn overall. Name Rhea is named after the Titan Rhea of Greek mythology, the "mother of the gods" and wife of Kronos, the Greek counterpart of the god Saturn. It is also designated Saturn V (being the fifth major moon going outward from the planet, after Mimas, Enceladus, Tethys, and Dione). Cassini named the four moons he discovered (Tethys, Dione, Rhea, and Iapetus) ''Sidera Lodoicea'' (the stars of Louis) to honor King Louis XIV. Astronomers fell into the habit of referring to them and Titan as '' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kon-Tiki Expedition
The ''Kon-Tiki'' expedition was a 1947 journey by raft across the Pacific Ocean from South America to the Polynesian islands, led by Norwegian explorer and writer Thor Heyerdahl. The raft was named ''Kon-Tiki'' after the Inca god Viracocha, for whom "Kon-Tiki" was said to be an old name. ''Kon-Tiki'' is also the name of Heyerdahl's book, the Academy Award–winning 1950 documentary film chronicling his adventures, and the 2012 dramatized feature film nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Heyerdahl believed that people from South America could have reached Polynesia during pre-Columbian times. His aim in mounting the ''Kon-Tiki'' expedition was to show, by using only the materials and technologies available to those people at the time, that there were no technical reasons to prevent them from having done so. Although the expedition carried some modern equipment, such as a radio, watches, charts, sextant, and metal knives, Heyerdahl argued they were inc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thor Heyerdahl
Thor Heyerdahl KStJ (; 6 October 1914 – 18 April 2002) was a Norwegian adventurer and ethnographer with a background in zoology, botany and geography. Heyerdahl is notable for his ''Kon-Tiki'' expedition in 1947, in which he sailed 8,000 km (5,000 mi) across the Pacific Ocean in a hand-built raft from South America to the Tuamotu Islands. The expedition was designed to demonstrate that ancient people could have made long sea voyages, creating contacts between societies. This was linked to a diffusionist model of cultural development. Heyerdahl made other voyages to demonstrate the possibility of contact between widely separated ancient peoples, notably the ''Ra II'' expedition of 1970, when he sailed from the west coast of Africa to Barbados in a papyrus reed boat. He was appointed a government scholar in 1984. He died on 18 April 2002 in Colla Micheri, Italy, while visiting close family members. The Norwegian government gave him a state funeral in Oslo Cathedr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lake Titicaca
Lake Titicaca (; es, Lago Titicaca ; qu, Titiqaqa Qucha) is a large freshwater lake in the Andes mountains on the border of Bolivia and Peru. It is often called the highest navigable lake in the world. By volume of water and by surface area, it is also the largest lake in South America.Grove, M. J., P. A. Baker, S. L. Cross, C. A. Rigsby and G. O. Seltzer 2003 Application of Strontium Isotopes to Understanding the Hydrology and Paleohydrology of the Altiplano, Bolivia-Peru. ''Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology'' 194:281-297. Lake Titicaca has a surface elevation of . The "highest lake" claim is generally considered to refer to commercial craft. Numerous smaller bodies of water (that are not considered lakes) around the world are at higher elevations. For many years, the largest vessel afloat on the lake was the 2,200-ton (2,425 U.S. tons), SS ''Ollanta''. Today, the largest vessel is most likely the similarly sized train barge/float ''Manco Capac'', operated ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Viracocha
Viracocha is the great creator deity in the pre-Inca and Inca mythology in the Andes region of South America. Full name and some spelling alternatives are Wiracocha, Apu Qun Tiqsi Wiraqutra, and Con-Tici (also spelled Kon-Tiki, the source of the name of Thor Heyerdahl's raft). Viracocha was one of the most important deities in the Inca pantheon and seen as the creator of all things, or the substance from which all things are created, and intimately associated with the sea.:56 Viracocha created the universe, sun, moon, and stars, time (by commanding the sun to move over the sky) and civilization itself. Viracocha was worshipped as god of the sun and of storms. He was represented as wearing the sun for a crown, with thunderbolts in his hands, and tears descending from his eyes as rain. In accord with the Inca cosmogony, Viracocha may be assimilated to Saturn, the "old god", the maker of time or "deus faber" (god maker), corresponding to the visible planet with the longest revolu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Inca Empire
The Inca Empire (also known as the Incan Empire and the Inka Empire), called ''Tawantinsuyu'' by its subjects, (Quechua for the "Realm of the Four Parts", "four parts together" ) was the largest empire in pre-Columbian America. The administrative, political and military center of the empire was in the city of Cusco. The Inca civilization arose from the Peruvian highlands sometime in the early 13th century. The Spanish began the conquest of the Inca Empire in 1532 and by 1572, the last Inca state was fully conquered. From 1438 to 1533, the Incas incorporated a large portion of western South America, centered on the Andean Mountains, using conquest and peaceful assimilation, among other methods. At its largest, the empire joined modern-day Peru, what are now western Ecuador, western and south central Bolivia, northwest Argentina, the southwesternmost tip of Colombia and a large portion of modern-day Chile, and into a state comparable to the historical empires of Eurasia ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Geoglyph
A geoglyph is a large design or motif (generally longer than 4 metres) produced on the ground by durable elements of the landscape, such as stones, stone fragments, gravel, or earth. A positive geoglyph is formed by the arrangement and alignment of materials on the ground in a manner akin to petroforms, while a negative geoglyph is formed by removing part of the natural ground surface to create differently coloured or textured ground in a manner akin to petroglyphs. Geoglyphs are generally a type of land art, and sometimes rock art. A hill figure is created on a slope, so that it can be seen from a distance. Ancient Perhaps the most famous geoglyphs are the Nazca lines in Peru. The cultural significance of these geoglyphs for their creators remains unclear, despite many hypotheses. The "Works of the Old Men" in Arabia, "stone-built structures that are far more numerous than (the) Nazca Lines, far more extensive in the area that they cover, and far older," have been descr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nazca Lines
The Nazca Lines are a group of geoglyphs made in the soil of the Nazca Desert in southern Peru. They were created between 500 BCE and 500 CE by people making depressions or shallow incisions in the desert floor, removing pebbles and leaving differently colored dirt exposed. There are two major phases of the Nazca lines, Paracas phase, from 400 to 200 BCE, and Nazca phase, from 200 BCE to 500 CE. In the years leading up to 2020, between 80 and 100 new figures had been found with the use of drones, and archaeologists believe that there are more to be found. Most lines run straight across the landscape, but there are also figurative designs of animals and plants. The individual figurative geoglyph designs measure between across. The combined length of all the lines is more than , and the group covers an area of about . The lines are typically deep. They were made by removing the top layer of reddish-brown iron oxide-coated pebbles to reveal a yellow-grey subsoil. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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