Read here: Ethnoarchaeology of Ironsmelting, a comparison of several (sub-Saharan) African ethnographical cases of ironsmelting with the 10th - 8th century BC iron smelting remains from Tell Hammeh az-Zarqa in Jordan here. The description of each case can be read in a separate screen, by clicking on the name of the 'tribe' under the "the cases" header
This is the name of the journal which contains papers presented at the annual meetings of Dyes in History and Archaeology, formerly known as the Association of Researchers into Dyes in History and Archaeology
Ancient Greeks struggled to understand the nature of matter
Empedocles (around 490 to 444 BC) thought there were four original elements: Earth, Air, Fire, Water. He thought everything else came about through their combination and/or separation by the two opposite principles of Love and Strife.
Leucippus (around 460 to 420 BC) and Democritus (around 460 to 370 BC), supposedly a pupil of Leucippus, are considered the founders of atomism. Leucippus regarded atoms as imperceptible, individual particles that differ only in shape and position.
Plato (about 427 to 347 BC) in his work, the Timaeus, proposes a mathematical construction of the elements - earth, air, fire, water. Each of these elements is said to consist of particles or primary bodies. Each particle is a regular geometrical solid- the cube, tetrahedron, octahedron and icosahedron. Each of these particles is composed of simple right triangles. The particles are like the molecules of the theory; the triangles are its atoms.
Plato's beliefs as regards the universe were that the stars, planets, Sun and Moon move round the Earth in crystalline spheres. The sphere of the Moon was closest to the Earth, then the sphere of the Sun, then Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and furthest away was the sphere of the stars. He believed that the Moon shines by reflected sunlight.
Hindu cosmological time cycles, as well as common units of measuring time and angles, are generated from the concept that the Sun has three distinct mean motions which work together like the hour, minute and second hands of a clock. The exact sidereal solar year of 365.2563795 mean solar days, constant of precession of 50".4 and week of precessional years of 180,000 sidereal solar years used in the construction of the cycles may be inferred from their infrastructure. With the astronomical quantities known, the kaliyuga epoch of February 18, 3102 B.C. of the Julian calendar establishes the summer solstice as the initial tropical point of the cycles, 147108 B.C. as the beginning of the current week of precessional years and closely approximates the fixed initial point of the sidereal sphere given in the SuryaSiddhanta commentary.
Prehistoric astronomical activity is represented by a Stonehengelike megalithic circle and "Observatory" at Rujm-el-Hiri, near Yonathan in the Golan, the Westernmost sector of the historical Bashan plateau [1] dating from the IIIrd Millenium BC. Star worship is mentioned in the Old Testament [2] as beeing common among the Canaanites*, but the Bashan inhabitants who built that Golan megalithic circle antedate the Canaanites. Very little is known about them and the presumably religous role of their edifice. To the IIIth Century BC Israelitis, they appeared as the work of giants (Refa'im, also Anakim, Emim, Zuzim), and this is probably the source of the legends about races of giants that had lived in Eretz-Israel prior to the Israelite conquest - including the characterization "a remnant of the giants" for Og, King of Bashan, in Deuteronomy and Joshua [3]. Indeed, the Rujm-el-Hiri circle is just one among many megalithic remains in the Bashan, probably at the origin in Greece and England (the "Giant's Dance" = Stonehenge).
Since the earliest times, humans could view stars at night whenever it happened not to be cloudy. As in prehistoric times, there was barely no light polution in most regions of Earth, our ancestors could view stars of very faint light, and thus some of those objects we now summarize as Deep Sky Objects. This way, some of these objects are known as long as anything is known.
The Era of Biological Energy Sources: 9000 BC to AD 600
Between 9000 BC and 6000: Plants and animals are domesticated.
6000 BC: Copper artifacts are common in the Middle East.
4000 BC: Light wooden plows are used in Mesopotamia.
3500 BC: Kiln-fired bricks and pots are made in Mesopotamia.
3500 BC: Irrigation is developed in Mesopotamia.
Euclid (Alexandria) In his Optica he noted that light travels in straight lines and described the law of reflection. He believed that vision involves rays going from the eyes to the object seen and he studied the relationship between the apparent sizes of objects and the angles that they subtend at the eye
Namaste! (I welcome you with my head bowed down in respect)
This site is dedicated to our ancestors in India that is Bharat. We are thankful to them as they told us-
Aatmanh Praticoolani Paresham na samacharet |
Meaning: "Do not do any thing to others which you do not want to be done with yourself." So if you want to be forgiven, forgive others. If you want to be cared, care others. If you do not want to be harmed, do not harm others........
Anaxagoras [Hanover Historical Texts Project)
Anaximander [Hanover Historical Texts Project)
Anaximenes [Hanover Historical Texts Project)
Empedocles [Hanover Historical Texts Project)
Heraclitus (WSU) Melissos [Hanover Historical Texts Project)
Parmenides [Hanover Historical Texts Project)
Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans [Hanover Historical Texts Project)
Thales [Hanover Historical Texts Project)
Xenophanes [Hanover Historical Texts Project)
Zeno [Hanover Historical Texts Project)
