|
Blemmyes (legendary Creatures)
Various species of mythical headless men were rumoured, in antiquity and later, to inhabit remote parts of the world. They are variously known as ''akephaloi'' (Greek ἀκέφαλοι 'headless ones') or Blemmyes (; ) and described as lacking a head, with their facial features on their chest. These were at first described as inhabitants of ancient Libya or the Nile system (Aethiopia). Later traditions confined their habitat to a particular island in the Brisone River, or shifted it to India. Blemmyes are said to occur in two types: with eyes on the chest or with the eyes on the shoulders. Etymology Various etymologies had been proposed for the origins of the name "Blemmyes", and the question is considered unsettled. In antiquity, the actual tribe known as the Blemmyes were said to be named eponymously after King Blemys (Βλέμυς), according to Nonnus's 5th century epic ''Dionysiaca'', but no lore about headlessness is attached to the people in this work. Samuel Bochart o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Beja People
The Beja people (, , ) are a Cushitic-speaking peoples, Cushitic Ethnicity, ethnic group native to the Eastern Desert, inhabiting a coastal area from southeastern Egypt through eastern Sudan and into northwestern Eritrea. They are descended from peoples who have inhabited the area since 4000 BC or earlier, although they were Arabization, Arabized by Arabs who settled in the region. They are nomadic and live primarily in the Eastern Desert. The Beja number around 1,900,000 to 2,759,000. Some of the Beja speak a Cushitic languages, Cushitic language called Beja language, Beja and some speak Tigre language, Tigre, a Semitic languages, Semitic language; most speak Arabic. In Eritrea and southeastern Sudan, many members of the Beni-Amer people, Beni-Amer grouping speak Tigre. Originally, the Beja did not speak Arabic, but the migration of the numerous Arabs, Arab tribes of Juhaynah, Mudar, Rabi'a ibn Nizar, Rabi'a, and many more to the Beja areas contributed to the Arabization and Is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Eastern Desert
The Eastern Desert (known archaically as Arabia or the Arabian Desert) is the part of the Sahara Desert that is located east of the Nile River. It spans of northeastern Africa and is bordered by the Gulf of Suez and the Red Sea to the east, and the Nile River to the west. It extends through Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, and the Sudan. The Eastern Desert consists of a mountain range which runs parallel to the coast (known as the Red Sea Hills), wide sedimentary plateaus extending from either side of the mountains and the Red Sea coast. The rainfall, climate, vegetation and animal life sustained in the desert varies between these different regions. The Eastern Desert has been a mining site for building materials, as well as precious and semi-precious metals, throughout history. It has historically contained many trade routes leading to and from the Red Sea, including the Suez Canal. Geography Historical formation Between 100 and 35 million years ago the area that is now the Eas ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Nubia
Nubia (, Nobiin language, Nobiin: , ) is a region along the Nile river encompassing the area between the confluence of the Blue Nile, Blue and White Nile, White Niles (in Khartoum in central Sudan), and the Cataracts of the Nile, first cataract of the Nile (south of Aswan in southern Egypt) or more strictly, Al Dabbah, Sudan, Al Dabbah. It was the seat of one of the earliest civilizations of ancient Africa, the Kerma culture, which lasted from around 2500 BC until its conquest by the New Kingdom of Egypt under Pharaoh Thutmose I around 1500 BC, whose heirs ruled most of Nubia for the next 400 years. Nubia was home to several African empires, empires, most prominently the Kingdom of Kush, which conquered Egypt in the eighth century BC during the reign of Piye and ruled the country as its Twenty-fifth Dynasty of Egypt, 25th Dynasty. From the 3rd century BC to 3rd century AD, northern Nubia was invaded and annexed to Egypt, ruled by the Ptolemaic Kingdom, Greeks and Roman Empire, R ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Blemmyae
The Blemmyes ( or Βλέμυες, ''Blémues'' , Latin: ''Blemmyae'') were an Eastern Desert people who appeared in written sources from the 7th century BC until the 8th century AD. By the late 4th century, they had occupied Lower Nubia and established a kingdom. From inscriptions in the temple of Isis at Philae, a considerable amount is known about the structure of the Blemmyan state. The Blemmyes are usually identified as one of the components of the archaeological X-Group culture that flourished in Late Antiquity. Their identification with the Beja people who have inhabited the same region since the Middle Ages is generally accepted.. Origins Around 1000 BC a group of people, referred to by archeologists as C-group, migrated from Lower Nubia (the area between present-day Aswan and Wadi Halfa) and settled in Upper Nubia (the Nile Valley north of Dongola in Sudan), where they developed the kingdom of Napata from about 750 BC. For some time this kingdom controlled Egypt too, sup ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Natural History (Pliny)
The ''Natural History'' () is a Latin work by Pliny the Elder. The largest single work to have survived from the Roman Empire to the modern day, the ''Natural History'' compiles information gleaned from other ancient authors. Despite the work's title, its subject area is not limited to what is today understood by natural history; Pliny himself defines his scope as "the natural world, or life". It is encyclopedic in scope, but its structure is not like that of a modern encyclopedia. It is the only work by Pliny to have survived, and the last that he published. He published the first 10 books in AD 77, but had not made a final revision of the remainder at the time of Pliny the Elder#Death, his death during the Eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD, AD 79 eruption of Vesuvius. The rest was published posthumously by Pliny's nephew, Pliny the Younger. The work is divided into 37 books, organised into 10 volumes. These cover topics including astronomy, mathematics, geography, ethn ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Pliny The Elder
Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23/24 79), known in English as Pliny the Elder ( ), was a Roman Empire, Roman author, Natural history, naturalist, and naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend of the Roman emperor, emperor Vespasian. He wrote the encyclopedic (''Natural History''), a comprehensive thirty-seven-volume work covering a vast array of topics on human knowledge and the natural world, which became an editorial model for encyclopedias. He spent most of his spare time studying, writing, and investigating natural and geographic phenomena in the field. Among Pliny's greatest works was the twenty-volume ''Bella Germaniae'' ("The History of the German Wars"), which is Lost literary work, no longer extant. ''Bella Germaniae'', which began where Aufidius Bassus' ''Libri Belli Germanici'' ("The War with the Germans") left off, was used as a source by other prominent Roman historians, including Plutarch, Tacitus, and Suetonius. Tacitus may have used ''Bella Ger ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Pomponius Mela
Pomponius Mela, who wrote around AD 43, was the earliest known Roman geographer. He was born at the end of the 1st century BC in Tingentera (now Algeciras) and died AD 45. His short work (''De situ orbis libri III.'') remained in use nearly to the year 1500. It occupies less than one hundred pages of ordinary print, and is described by the ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' (1911) as "dry in style and deficient in method, but of pure Latinity, and occasionally relieved by pleasing word-pictures." Except for the geographical parts of Pliny the Elder, Pliny's ''Historia naturalis'' (where Mela is cited as an important authority), the ''De situ orbis'' is the only formal treatise on the subject in Classical Latin. Biography Little is known of Pomponius except his name and birthplace—the small town of Tingentera or Cingentera (identified as Iulia Traducta) in southern Spain, on Algeciras Bay (Mela ii. 6, § 96; but the text is here corrupt). The date of his writing may be appr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Aeschylus
Aeschylus (, ; ; /524 – /455 BC) was an ancient Greece, ancient Greek Greek tragedy, tragedian often described as the father of tragedy. Academic knowledge of the genre begins with his work, and understanding of earlier Greek tragedy is largely based on inferences made from reading his surviving plays. According to Aristotle, he expanded the number of characters in the theatre and allowed conflict among them. Formerly, characters interacted only with the Greek chorus, chorus.The remnant of a commemorative inscription, dated to the 3rd century BC, lists four, possibly eight, dramatic poets (probably including Choerilus, Phrynichus, and Pratinas) who had won Dionysia#Known winners of the City Dionysia, tragic victories at the Dionysia before Aeschylus had. Thespis was traditionally regarded the inventor of tragedy. According to another tradition, tragedy was established in Athens in the late 530s BC, but that may simply reflect an absence of records. Major innovations in dramatic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Strabo
Strabo''Strabo'' (meaning "squinty", as in strabismus) was a term employed by the Romans for anyone whose eyes were distorted or deformed. The father of Pompey was called "Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo, Pompeius Strabo". A native of Sicily so clear-sighted that he could see things at great distance as if they were nearby was also called "Strabo". (; ''Strábōn''; 64 or 63 BC) was an ancient Greece, ancient Greek geographer who lived in Anatolia, Asia Minor during the transitional period of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire. He is best known for his work ''Geographica'', which presented a descriptive history of people and places from different regions of the world known during his lifetime. Additionally, Strabo authored historical works, but only fragments and quotations of these survive in the writings of other authors. Early life Strabo was born to an affluent family from Amasya, Amaseia in Kingdom of Pontus, Pontus in around 64BC. His family had been involved in politics s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Ancient Libya
During the Iron Age and Classical antiquity, ''Libya'' (from Greek :wikt:Λιβύη, Λιβύη: ''Libyē'', which came from Berber language, Berber: ''Libu'') referred to the area of North Africa directly west of the Nile, Nile river (Modern day Libya, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco), not to be confused with the modern country of Libya, which only represents the eastern part of the territory at the time. Ancient Libya was one of the three parts of the world of the ancients (Libya, Asia, Europa). The territory also had part of the Mediterranean Sea named after it called the Libyan Sea or ''Mare Libycum'' which was the part of the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean south of Crete, between Cyrene, Libya, Cyrene and Alexandria. Ancient Greece, Greek and Roman people, Roman geographers placed the dividing line between Libya and Asia at the Nile because the entire region south of the Mediterranean and west of the Nile was homogeneous linguistically, and the Berber language was used all acr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Wild Men
The wild man, wild man of the woods, woodwose or wodewose is a mythical figure and motif that appears in the art and literature of medieval Europe, comparable to the satyr or faun type in classical mythology and to '' Silvanus'', the Roman god of the woodlands. The defining characteristic of the figure is its "wildness"; from the 12th century, it was consistently depicted as being covered with hair. Images of wild men appear in the carved and painted roof bosses where intersecting ogee vaults meet in Canterbury Cathedral, in positions where one is also likely to encounter the vegetal Green Man. The image of the wild man survived to appear as supporter for heraldic coats-of-arms, especially in Germany, well into the 16th century. Renaissance engravers in Germany and Italy were particularly fond of wild men, wild women, and wild families, with examples from Martin Schongauer (died 1491) and Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528) among others. Terminology The normal Middle English term, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
