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Wazzin
Wazzin ( ar, وازن ') is a town in the western Tripolitania region at the western boundary of Libya. It serves as a Libya–Tunisia border, border crossing to Tunisia. The town is located south-inland from the Mediterranean Sea coast, and is west of Tripoli, Libya, Tripoli. Wazzin is in the desert near the western end of the Nafusa Mountains range, in the Nalut District. History Old town The town is the seat of Gasr Wazzin, which was built in 1482 CE (860 Hijri year, AH ''anno hegirae''). The Gasr has 360 rooms on 4 floors. The building has a rectangular shape, with a cistern for storing water in its center. It was used as a fortress and granary. The Gasr Wazzin is surrounded by the old town district of present-day Wazzin, whose buildings are mainly gypsum based masonry. A network of tunnels is below this historic portion, and is reserved for women traveling around the old town, without encountering non-familial men. 2011 Libyan civil war On 21 April 2011, during the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wazzin Town Center 2
Wazzin ( ar, وازن ') is a town in the western Tripolitania region at the western boundary of Libya. It serves as a Libya–Tunisia border, border crossing to Tunisia. The town is located south-inland from the Mediterranean Sea coast, and is west of Tripoli, Libya, Tripoli. Wazzin is in the desert near the western end of the Nafusa Mountains range, in the Nalut District. History Old town The town is the seat of Gasr Wazzin, which was built in 1482 CE (860 Hijri year, AH ''anno hegirae''). The Gasr has 360 rooms on 4 floors. The building has a rectangular shape, with a cistern for storing water in its center. It was used as a fortress and granary. The Gasr Wazzin is surrounded by the old town district of present-day Wazzin, whose buildings are mainly gypsum based masonry. A network of tunnels is below this historic portion, and is reserved for women traveling around the old town, without encountering non-familial men. 2011 Libyan civil war On 21 April 2011, during the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Battle Of Wazzin
The Battle of Wazzin was a conflict during the Libyan Civil War for the Libyan-Tunisian border town of Wazzin. Rebel forces made an initial victory, but it was short-lived as Gaddafi's men re-occupied the town, only to lose it again to the rebels. The battle spilled over into Tunisian territory on several occasions, prompting clashes with the Tunisian military (which had not explicitly taken a side in the battle). The fighting turned Wazzin into something of a ghost town, valuable only as a strategic location. Background In the early days of the war, towns in the Nafusa Mountains quickly joined the uprising against Muammar Gaddafi, but soon came under heavy attack by loyalist forces. Wazzin was initially taken by rebels, but soon fell under the control of loyalists, cutting off this supply line to the rebel-held mountain towns. To relieve the military and humanitarian pressure on their besieged towns, the rebels fought to retake the crossing. Battle On 21 April, rebel forces ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
2011 Nafusa Mountains Campaign
The Nafusa Mountains campaign was a series of battles in the Libyan Civil War, fought between loyalist pro-Gaddafi forces and rebel anti-Gaddafi forces in the Nafusa Mountains and, at a later period, in the surrounding plains of western Libya. The mountain range is of strategic importance due to its close proximity to the capital of Tripoli. Along with the city of Misrata, the Nafusa Mountains region was one of the major rebel strongholds in Tripolitania. Background The Nafusa mountains are heavily populated by ethnic Berbers, a group which suffered intense persecution under Gaddafi's rule. Gaddafi imposed bans on the teaching of the Berber language and on the use of traditional Berber names. In a 2008 diplomatic cable leaked by WikiLeaks, Gaddafi warned Berber leaders "You can call yourselves whatever you want inside your homes – Berbers, Children of Satan, whatever – but you are only Libyans when you leave your homes." One of the first cities to stage protests against G ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Libya–Tunisia Border
The Libya–Tunisia border is 461 km (286 mi) in length and runs from the Mediterranean Sea in the north to the tripoint with Algeria in the south. Description The border starts in the north on the Mediterranean coast at Ras Agedir/Adjir, proceeding overland southwards and then south-westwards via a series of irregular lines down to the tripoint with Algeria. History For most of the 19th century both Tunisia and the coastal regions of modern Libya (organised as the Vilayet of Tripolitania were part of the Ottoman Empire, though with a large degree of de facto autonomy. France occupied Tunisia in 1881 and created a protectorate. France and the Ottomans established a border on the coast between Tunisia and Tripolitania in 1886, which was then extended southwards down to the vicinity of Ghadames in 1892. A treaty of 19 May 1910 then delimited the border in greater detail and was then demarcated on the ground with pillars in 1910–11. In September 1911 Italy invaded Tripolitani ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nafusa Mountains
The Nafusa Mountains ( Berber: ''Adrar n Infusen'' (Nafusa Mountain), ar, جبل نفوسة (Western mountain)) are a mountain range in the western Tripolitania region of northwestern Libya. It also includes their regions around the escarpment formed where the northern end of the Tripolitanian Plateau meets the Mediterranean coastal plain or the ''Jefara''. History The area was a major population and cultural center of the Libu, who repeatedly expanded west. The Nafusa Mountains shelters most of Libya's Berber-speaking population, who speak Nafusi Berber. Ibadi imamate In the aftermath of the great Berber Revolt of the 8th century, Ibadi missionaries that had fled from the Umayyad Caliphate took refuge in the Nafusa Mountains. Preachers converted and organized the native Nafusa people into a fighting force. Under the leadership of Imam Abu al-Khattab al-Ma'afari, the Nafusa descended from the mountains and proceeded to conquer all of the crumbling Fihrid emirate of Ifriqiya ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
2011 Libyan Civil War
The First Libyan Civil War was an armed conflict in 2011 in the North African country of Libya that was fought between forces loyal to Colonel Muammar Gaddafi and rebel groups that were seeking to oust his government. It erupted with the Libyan Revolution, also known as the 17 February Revolution. The war was preceded by protests in Zawiya on 8 August 2009 and finally ignited by protests in Benghazi beginning on Tuesday, 15 February 2011, which led to clashes with security forces who fired on the crowd. The protests escalated into a rebellion that spread across the country, with the forces opposing Gaddafi establishing an interim governing body, the National Transitional Council. The United Nations Security Council passed an initial resolution on 26 February, freezing the assets of Gaddafi and his inner circle and restricting their travel, and referred the matter to the International Criminal Court for investigation. In early March, Gaddafi's forces rallied, pushed eastward ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cistern
A cistern (Middle English ', from Latin ', from ', "box", from Greek ', "basket") is a waterproof receptacle for holding liquids, usually water. Cisterns are often built to catch and store rainwater. Cisterns are distinguished from wells by their waterproof linings. Modern cisterns range in capacity from a few litres to thousands of cubic metres, effectively forming covered reservoirs. Origins Early domestic and agricultural use Waterproof lime plaster cisterns in the floors of houses are features of Neolithic village sites of the Levant at, for instance, Ramad and Lebwe, and by the late fourth millennium BC, as at Jawa in northeastern Lebanon, cisterns are essential elements of emerging water management techniques in dry-land farming communities. The Ancient Roman impluvium, a standard feature of the domus house, generally had a cistern underneath. The impluvium and associated structures collected, filtered, cooled, and stored the water, and also cooled and ventilated ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Masonry
Masonry is the building of structures from individual units, which are often laid in and bound together by mortar; the term ''masonry'' can also refer to the units themselves. The common materials of masonry construction are bricks, building stone such as marble, granite, and limestone, cast stone, concrete blocks, glass blocks, and adobe. Masonry is generally a highly durable form of construction. However, the materials used, the quality of the mortar and workmanship, and the pattern in which the units are assembled can substantially affect the durability of the overall masonry construction. A person who constructs masonry is called a mason or bricklayer. These are both classified as construction trades. Applications Masonry is commonly used for walls and buildings. Brick and concrete block are the most common types of masonry in use in industrialized nations and may be either load-bearing or non-load-bearing. Concrete blocks, especially those with hollow cores, offer va ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gypsum
Gypsum is a soft sulfate mineral composed of calcium sulfate dihydrate, with the chemical formula . It is widely mined and is used as a fertilizer and as the main constituent in many forms of plaster, blackboard or sidewalk chalk, and drywall. Alabaster, a fine-grained white or lightly tinted variety of gypsum, has been used for sculpture by many cultures including Ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Ancient Rome, the Byzantine Empire, and the Nottingham alabasters of Medieval England. Gypsum also crystallizes as translucent crystals of selenite. It forms as an evaporite mineral and as a hydration product of anhydrite. The Mohs scale of mineral hardness defines gypsum as hardness value 2 based on scratch hardness comparison. Etymology and history The word ''gypsum'' is derived from the Greek word (), "plaster". Because the quarries of the Montmartre district of Paris have long furnished burnt gypsum (calcined gypsum) used for various purposes, this dehydrated gypsum became known ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Granary
A granary is a storehouse or room in a barn for threshed grain or animal feed. Ancient or primitive granaries are most often made of pottery. Granaries are often built above the ground to keep the stored food away from mice and other animals and from floods. Early origins From ancient times grain has been stored in bulk. The oldest granaries yet found date back to 9500 BC and are located in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A settlements in the Jordan Valley. The first were located in places between other buildings. However beginning around 8500 BC, they were moved inside houses, and by 7500 BC storage occurred in special rooms. The first granaries measured 3 x 3 m on the outside and had suspended floors that protected the grain from rodents and insects and provided air circulation. These granaries are followed by those in Mehrgarh in the Indus Valley from 6000 BC. The ancient Egyptians made a practice of preserving grain in years of plenty against years of scarcity. The clima ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fortress
A fortification is a military construction or building designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is also used to establish rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from Latin ''fortis'' ("strong") and ''facere'' ("to make"). From very early history to modern times, defensive walls have often been necessary for cities to survive in an ever-changing world of invasion and conquest. Some settlements in the Indus Valley civilization were the first small cities to be fortified. In ancient Greece, large stone walls had been built in Mycenaean Greece, such as the ancient site of Mycenae (famous for the huge stone blocks of its 'cyclopean' walls). A Greek ''Towns of ancient Greece#Military settlements, phrourion'' was a fortified collection of buildings used as a military garrison, and is the equivalent of the ancient Roman, Roman castellum or English language, English fortress. These constructions mainly served the purpose of a watch tower, to guard certa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
