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Palaestra Scene Louvre G7
A palaestra ( or ; also (chiefly British) palestra; grc-gre, παλαίστρα) was any site of an ancient Greek wrestling school. Events requiring little space, such as boxing and wrestling, took place there. Palaestrae functioned both independently and as a part of public gymnasia; a palaestra could exist without a gymnasium, but no gymnasium existed without a palaestra. Etymology Compare Ancient Greek ''palaiein'' - "to wrestle" and ''palē'' - "wrestling". Palaestrophylax or palaistrophylax ( el, παλαιστροφύλαξ), meaning “palaestra guard”, was the guardian or the director of a Palaestra. Architecture Greek The architecture of the palaestra, although allowing for some variation, followed a distinct, standard plan. The palaestra essentially consisted of a rectangular court surrounded by colonnades with adjoining rooms. These rooms might house a variety of functions: bathing, ball playing, undressing and storage of clothes, seating for socializing, o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ephebes
''Ephebos'' (ἔφηβος) (often in the plural ''epheboi''), also anglicised as ''ephebe'' (plural: ''ephebes'') or archaically ''ephebus'' (plural: ''ephebi''), is a Greek term for a male adolescent, or for a social status reserved for that age, in Antiquity. History Greece Though the word ''ephebos'' can simply refer to the adolescent age of young men of training age, its main use is for the members, exclusively from that age group, of an official institution (''ephebeia'') that saw to building them into citizens, but especially to training them as soldiers, sometimes already sent into the field; the Greek city states ( ''poleis'') mainly depended (like the Roman republic before Gaius Marius' reforms of 107 BC) on its militia of citizens for defense. In the time of Aristotle (384–322 BC), Athens engraved the names of the enrolled ephebi on a bronze pillar (formerly on wooden tablets) in front of the council-chamber. After admission to the college, the ephebus ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Palaestra At Olympia
The palaestra at Olympia (Greek παλαίστρ-α, -αι, "wrestling ground or grounds," Latin palaestr-a, -ae, with Greek ἐν Όλυμπία, Latin in Olympia) is the ground or grounds in ancient Olympia where πάλη, Doric πάλα, "wrestling," was taught and performed for training purposes; i.e., "wrestling-school." Two other martial arts were taught there: Greek πυγμή (pygme), Latin pugnus, "fist, boxing," and Greek παγκράτιον, Latin pancration or pancratium, "any method," which was free-style, or hand-to-hand, including grappling, kicking, punching, or any unarmed method whatever, no holds barred. The latter was sometimes deadly, or disfiguring (with permission), which indicates that the arts were ephebic, or "soldier" training for prospective citizens of the city-state sponsoring the school, such as Elis, but here combined with prospective candidacy for contention in the games. Be that as it may, none of the games were conducted without rules, umpires, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hammam
A hammam ( ar, حمّام, translit=ḥammām, tr, hamam) or Turkish bath is a type of steam bath or a place of public bathing associated with the Islamic world. It is a prominent feature in the culture of the Muslim world and was inherited from the model of the Roman ''thermae.'' Muslim bathhouses or hammams were historically found across the Middle East, North Africa, al-Andalus (Islamic Spain and Portugal), Central Asia, the Indian subcontinent, and in Southeastern Europe under Ottoman rule. A variation on the Muslim bathhouse, the Victorian Turkish bath, became popular as a form of therapy, a method of cleansing, and a place for relaxation during the Victorian era, rapidly spreading through the British Empire, the United States of America, and Western Europe. In Islamic cultures the significance of the hammam was both religious and civic: it provided for the needs of ritual ablutions but also provided for general hygiene in an era before private plumbing and served other ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Turkic Migration
The Turkic migrations were the spread of Turkic tribes and Turkic languages across Eurasia and between the 6th and 11th centuries. In the 6th century, the Göktürks overthrew the Rouran Khaganate in what is now Mongolia and expanded in all directions, spreading Turkic culture throughout the Eurasian steppes. Although Göktürk empires came to an end in the 8th century, they were succeeded by numerous Turkic empires such as the Uyghur Khaganate, Kara-Khanid Khanate, Khazars, and the Cumans. Some Turks eventually settled down into sedentary societies such as the Qocho and Ganzhou Uyghurs. The Seljuq dynasty settled in Anatolia starting in the 11th century, resulting in permanent Turkic settlement and presence there. Modern nations with large Turkic populations include Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, and Turkic populations also exist within other nations, such as Chuvashia, Bashkortostan, Tatarstan, the Crimean Tatars, the Kazakhs in Mongolia, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arab Conquest
The spread of Islam spans about 1,400 years. Muslim conquests following Muhammad's death led to the creation of the caliphates, occupying a vast geographical area; conversion to Islam was boosted by Arab Muslim forces conquering vast territories and building imperial structures over time. Most of the significant expansion occurred during the reign of the Rashidun from 632 to 661 CE, which was the reign of the first four successors of Muhammad. These early caliphates, coupled with Muslim economics and trading, the Islamic Golden Age, and the age of the Islamic gunpowder empires, resulted in Islam's spread outwards from Mecca towards the Indian, Atlantic, and Pacific Oceans and the creation of the Muslim world. Trade played an important role in the spread of Islam in several parts of the world, especially Indian traders in Southeast Asia.Berkey, pg. 101-102 Muslim dynasties were soon established and subsequent empires such as those of the Umayyads, Abbasids, Mamluks, Seljukids, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Roman Baths
In ancient Rome, (from Greek , "hot") and (from Greek ) were facilities for bathing. usually refers to the large imperial bath complexes, while were smaller-scale facilities, public or private, that existed in great numbers throughout Rome. Most Roman cities had at least one – if not many – such buildings, which were centers not only for bathing, but socializing and reading as well. Bathhouses were also provided for wealthy private villas, town houses, and forts. They were supplied with water from an adjacent river or stream, or within cities by aqueduct. The water would be heated by fire then channelled into the caldarium (hot bathing room). The design of baths is discussed by Vitruvius in ''De architectura'(V.10) Terminology '','' '','' '','' and may all be translated as 'bath' or 'baths', though Latin sources distinguish among these terms. or , derived from the Greek signifies, in its primary sense, a bath or bathing-vessel, such as most persons of any ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Roman Imperial Period
The Roman imperial period is the expansion of political and cultural influence of the Roman Empire. The period begins with the reign of Augustus (), and it is taken to end variously between the late 3rd and the late 4th century, with the beginning of Late Antiquity. Despite the end of the "Roman imperial period", the Roman Empire continued to exist under the rule of the Roman emperors into Late Antiquity and beyond, except in the Western Empire, over which the Romans' political and military control was lost in the course of the 5th-century fall of the Western Roman Empire. Periodization In historiography, the "imperial period" is by convention taken to last from 27 BCE to CE 284. In archaeology, on the other hand, the term is usually taken to cover the period of c. CE 1 to 375 (the latter being a conventional date for the onset of the Migration Period). This follows (1955), who used a periodization of "early imperial period" () B1 to B2 and "late imperial period" () C1 to C3, re ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Xystus (architectural Term)
Xystus was the Greek architectural term for the covered portico of the gymnasium, in which the exercises took place during the winter or in rainy weather. The Romans applied the term to the garden walk in front of the porticoes, which was divided into flower beds with borders of box, and to a promenade between rows of large trees. The term ''xystus'' derives from the Greek word ''xustos'', meaning "smooth", due to the polished floor of the xystus. "Xystus" was used, by extension, to refer to the whole building containing the gymnasium and portico, as in the xysti of Jerusalem and Elis. ''Xyst'' is an alternative spelling for ''xystus'', and xystarch as the term for a superintendent of a xystus. In Latin, ''xystum'' is the accusative case of the nominative ''xystus''; in modern architecture, xystum has a different meaning from xystus. Notable xysti *The Xystus of Jerusalem was a famous building erected in the Judaeo-Hellenistic period probably under Herodian rule. *The Xystus of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Caldarium
230px, Caldarium from the Roman Baths at Bath, England. The floor has been removed to reveal the empty space where the hot air flowed through to heat the floor. A caldarium (also called a calidarium, cella caldaria or cella coctilium) was a room with a hot plunge bath, used in a Roman bath complex. This was a very hot and steamy room heated by a hypocaust, an underfloor heating system using tunnels with hot air, heated by a furnace tended by slaves. This was the hottest room in the regular sequence of bathing rooms; after the caldarium, bathers would progress back through the warm bathroom to the cold water room. In the caldarium, there would be a bath (alveus, piscina calida or solium) of hot water sunk into the floor and there was sometimes even a laconicum—a hot, dry area for inducing sweating. The bath's patrons would use olive oil to cleanse themselves by applying it to their bodies and using a strigil to remove the excess. This was sometimes left on the floor for the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Laconicum
The ''laconicum'' (i.e. Spartan, ''sc.'' ''balneum'', bath). Cf. Greek ''pyriaterion to lakonikon'' "the Laconian vapour-bath"; , . was the dry sweating room of the Roman ''thermae'', contiguous to the ''caldarium'' or hot room. The name was given to it as being the only form of warm bath that the Spartans admitted. The ''laconicum'' was usually a circular room with niches in the axes of the diagonals and was covered by a conical roof with a circular opening at the top, according to Vitruvius (v. 10), from which a brazen shield is suspended by chains, capable of being so lowered and raised as to regulate the temperature. It is similar to a sudatorium, or steam bath, where water is added to produce steam. Sometimes, as in the old baths at Pompeii, the ''laconicum'' was provided in an apse at one end of the ''caldarium'', but as a rule it was a separate room raised to a higher temperature and had no bath in it. In addition to the hypocaust under the floor, the wall was lined with ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frigidarium
A frigidarium is one of the three main bath chambers of a Roman bath or ''thermae'', namely the cold room. It often contains a swimming pool. The succession of bathing activities in the ''thermae'' is not known with certainty, but it is thought that the bather would first go through the apodyterium, where he would undress and store his clothes, and then enter the ''elaeothesium'' or ''unctuarium'' to be anointed with oil. After exercising in a special room or court, he would enjoy the hot room, known as ''calidarium'' or ''caldarium'', then the steam room (a moist ''sudatorium'' or a dry ''laconicum''), where he would most likely scrape the by now grimy oil with the help of a curved metal ''strigil'' off his skin, before finally moving to the ''frigidarium'' with its small pool of cold water or sometimes with a large swimming pool (though this, differently from the ''Baptisterium, piscina natatoria'', was usually covered). The water could be also kept cold by using snow. The bathe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
