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Karkadann
The Karkadann (Arabic كركدن ''karkadann'' or ''karkaddan'' from ''Kargadan'', Persian language, Persian: كرگدن) is a mythical creature said to have lived on the grassy plains of India and Iran, Persia. The word ''kargadan'' also means rhinoceros in Persian and Arabic. Depictions of ''karkadann'' are found also in North Indian art. Like the unicorn, it can be subdued by virgins and acts ferociously toward other animals. Originally based on the Indian rhinoceros (one of the meanings of the word) and first described in the 10th/11th century, it evolved in the works of later writers to a mythical animal "with a shadowy rhinocerine ancestor" endowed with strange qualities, such as a Horn (anatomy), horn endowed with medicinal qualities. Evolution of descriptions An early description of the karkadann comes from the 10/11th century Persian scholar Abū Rayḥān al-Bīrūnī (Al-Biruni, 973–1048). He describes an animal which has "the build of a buffalo...a black, scaly s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Unicorn
The unicorn is a legendary creature that has been described since antiquity as a beast with a single large, pointed, spiraling horn projecting from its forehead. In European literature and art, the unicorn has for the last thousand years or so been depicted as a white horse-like or goat-like animal with a long straight horn with spiralling grooves, cloven hooves, and sometimes a goat's beard. In the Middle Ages and Renaissance, it was commonly described as an extremely wild woodland creature, a symbol of purity and grace, which could be captured only by a virgin. In encyclopedias, its horn was described as having the power to render poisoned water potable and to heal sickness. In medieval and Renaissance times, the tusk of the narwhal was sometimes sold as a unicorn horn. A bovine type of unicorn is thought by some scholars to have been depicted in seals of the Bronze Age Indus Valley civilization, the interpretation remaining controversial. An equine form of the unico ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Unicorn
The unicorn is a legendary creature that has been described since antiquity as a beast with a single large, pointed, spiraling horn projecting from its forehead. In European literature and art, the unicorn has for the last thousand years or so been depicted as a white horse-like or goat-like animal with a long straight horn with spiralling grooves, cloven hooves, and sometimes a goat's beard. In the Middle Ages and Renaissance, it was commonly described as an extremely wild woodland creature, a symbol of purity and grace, which could be captured only by a virgin. In encyclopedias, its horn was described as having the power to render poisoned water potable and to heal sickness. In medieval and Renaissance times, the tusk of the narwhal was sometimes sold as a unicorn horn. A bovine type of unicorn is thought by some scholars to have been depicted in seals of the Bronze Age Indus Valley civilization, the interpretation remaining controversial. An equine form of the unico ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Legendary Creature
A legendary creature (also mythical or mythological creature) is a type of fictional entity, typically a hybrid, that has not been proven and that is described in folklore (including myths and legends), but may be featured in historical accounts before modernity. In the classical era, monstrous creatures such as the Cyclops and the Minotaur appear in heroic tales for the protagonist to destroy. Other creatures, such as the unicorn, were claimed in accounts of natural history by various scholars of antiquity. Some legendary creatures have their origin in traditional mythology and were believed to be real creatures, for example dragons, griffins, and unicorns. Others were based on real encounters, originating in garbled accounts of travellers' tales, such as the Vegetable Lamb of Tartary, which supposedly grew tethered to the earth. Creatures A variety of mythical animals appear in the art and stories of the classical era. For example, in the ''Odyssey'', monstrous cre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fritz Hommel
Fritz Hommel (31 July 1854 – 17 April 1936) was a German Orientalist. Biography Hommel was born in Ansbach. He studied in Leipzig and was habilitated in 1877 in Munich, where in 1885, he became an extraordinary professor of Semitic languages. He became a full professor in 1892, and after his retirement in 1925, continued to give lectures at the University of Munich.Hommel, Fritz @ NDB/ADB Deutsche Biographie He was the doctoral supervisor of , who wrote the thesis under his supervisi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late Bronze Age. Sanskrit is the sacred language of Hinduism, the language of classical Hindu philosophy, and of historical texts of Buddhism and Jainism. It was a link language in ancient and medieval South Asia, and upon transmission of Hindu and Buddhist culture to Southeast Asia, East Asia and Central Asia in the early medieval era, it became a language of religion and high culture, and of the political elites in some of these regions. As a result, Sanskrit had a lasting impact on the languages of South Asia, Southeast Asia and East Asia, especially in their formal and learned vocabularies. Sanskrit generally connotes several Old Indo-Aryan language varieties. The most archaic of these is the Vedic Sanskrit found in the Rig Veda, a colle ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alexipharmic
An antidote is a substance that can counteract a form of poisoning. The term ultimately derives from the Greek term φάρμακον ἀντίδοτον ''(pharmakon) antidoton'', "(medicine) given as a remedy". Antidotes for anticoagulants are sometimes referred to as reversal agents. The antidotes for some particular toxins are manufactured by injecting the toxin into an animal in small doses and extracting the resulting antibodies from the host animals' blood. This results in an antivenom that can be used to counteract venom produced by certain species of snakes, spiders, and other venomous animals. Some animal venoms, especially those produced by arthropods (such as certain spiders, scorpions, and bees) are only potentially lethal when they provoke allergic reactions and induce anaphylactic shock; as such, there is no "antidote" for these venoms; however anaphylactic shock can be treated (e.g. with epinephrine). Some other toxins have no known antidote. For example, the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Khutu
''Khutu'' was the name given to a material used by medieval Islamic cutlers for knife handles. The ultimate source of the material has been a matter of conjecture for more than a thousand years; Islamic polymath al-Biruni was among the first to investigate it and debate about the material—especially its source—continues to this day. The hypothesized sources for the material have included narwhal, walrus, and mammoth ivory, the frontal bones of bulls, goats, and birds, the teeth of snakes, fish, and hippopotamuses, and the root of a tree. The most recent investigation, by natural historian Chris Lavers, has pointed to the frontal boss of the horns of the muskox. Khutu has been ascribed properties other than those of a work material. It was, for example, described as an alexipharmic—a property that eventually was attached to alicorn, the supposed horn of the unicorn. Medieval scholarship Abu Rayhan Biruni Islamic polymath al-Biruni (973–1048) was among the first to in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bestiary
A bestiary (from ''bestiarum vocabulum'') is a compendium of beasts. Originating in the ancient world, bestiaries were made popular in the Middle Ages in illustrated volumes that described various animals and even rocks. The natural history and illustration of each beast was usually accompanied by a moral lesson. This reflected the belief that the world itself was the Word of God and that every living thing had its own special meaning. For example, the pelican, which was believed to tear open its breast to bring its young to life with its own blood, was a living representation of Jesus. Thus the bestiary is also a reference to the symbolic language of animals in Western Christian art and literature. History The bestiary — the medieval book of beasts — was among the most popular illuminated texts in northern Europe during the Middle Ages (about 500–1500). Medieval Christians understood every element of the world as a manifestation of God, and bestiaries largely focus ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sindbad The Seaman
Sinbad the Sailor (; ar, سندباد البحري, Sindibādu al-Bahriyy; fa, سُنباد بحری, Sonbād-e Bahri or Sindbad) is a fictional mariner and the hero of a story-cycle of Persian origin. He is described as hailing from Baghdad during the early Abbasid Caliphate (8th and 9th centuries A.D.). In the course of seven voyages throughout the seas east of Africa and south of Asia, he has fantastic adventures in magical realms, encountering monsters and witnessing supernatural phenomena. Origins and sources The tales of Sinbad are a relatively late addition to the '' One Thousand and One Nights'' – they do not feature in the earliest 14th-century manuscript, and they appear as an independent cycle in 18th- and 19th-century collections. The tale reflects the trend within the Abbasid realm of Arab and Muslim sailors exploring the world. The stories display the folk and themes present in works of that time. The Abbasid reign was known as a period of great economic and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
One Thousand And One Nights
''One Thousand and One Nights'' ( ar, أَلْفُ لَيْلَةٍ وَلَيْلَةٌ, italic=yes, ) is a collection of Middle Eastern folk tales compiled in Arabic during the Islamic Golden Age. It is often known in English as the ''Arabian Nights'', from the first English-language edition (), which rendered the title as ''The Arabian Nights' Entertainment''. The work was collected over many centuries by various authors, translators, and scholars across West, Central and South Asia, and North Africa. Some tales trace their roots back to ancient and medieval Arabic, Egyptian, Sanskrit, Persian, and Mesopotamian literature. Many tales were originally folk stories from the Abbasid and Mamluk eras, while others, especially the frame story, are most probably drawn from the Pahlavi Persian work ( fa, هزار افسان, lit. ''A Thousand Tales''), which in turn relied partly on Indian elements. Common to all the editions of the ''Nights'' is the framing device of the stor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Territory (animal)
In ethology, territory is the sociographical area that an animal consistently defends against conspecific competition (or, occasionally, against animals of other species) using agonistic behaviors or (less commonly) real physical aggression. Animals that actively defend territories in this way are referred to as being territorial or displaying territorialism. Territoriality is only shown by a minority of species. More commonly, an individual or a group of animals occupies an area that it habitually uses but does not necessarily defend; this is called its home range. The home ranges of different groups of animals often overlap, and in these overlap areas the groups tend to avoid each other rather than seeking to confront and expel each other. Within the home range there may be a ''core area'' that no other individual group uses, but, again, this is as a result of avoidance. Function The ultimate function of animals inhabiting and defending a territory is to increase the indi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ibn Battuta
Abu Abdullah Muhammad ibn Battutah (, ; 24 February 13041368/1369),; fully: ; Arabic: commonly known as Ibn Battuta, was a Berber Maghrebi scholar and explorer who travelled extensively in the lands of Afro-Eurasia, largely in the Muslim world. He travelled more than any other explorer in pre-modern history, totalling around , surpassing Zheng He with about and Marco Polo with . Over a period of thirty years, Ibn Battuta visited most of southern Eurasia, including Central Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, China, and the Iberian Peninsula. Near the end of his life, he dictated an account of his journeys, titled ''A Gift to Those Who Contemplate the Wonders of Cities and the Marvels of Travelling'', but commonly known as ''The Rihla''. Name Ibn Battuta is a patronymic literally meaning "son of the duckling". His most common full name is given as Abu Abdullah Muhammad ibn Battuta. In his travelogue, '' the Rihla'', he gives his full name as Shams al-Din Abu’Abdallah ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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