LOrigine The Origin (Avventure Stellari Vol. 1) (Italian Edition)

Measurements made in the latter part of the s decade and based also on observation of infrared spectral lines, have suggested that sunspot activity may again be disappearing, possibly leading to a new minimum. In , the Sun was spot-free 73 percent of the time, extreme even for a solar minimum. Only was more pronounced, with 85 percent of that year clear.

The Sun continued to languish through mid-December , when the largest group of sunspots to emerge for several years appeared. Even then, sunspot levels remained well below normal. Instead, the sunspot cycle in was still at its minimum, where it should have been near its maximum, which shows the Sun's current unusual low activity. Due to a missing jet stream, fading spots, and slower activity near the poles, independent scientists of the National Solar Observatory NSO and the Air Force Research Laboratory AFRL now predict that the next year solar sunspot cycle, Cycle 25, will be greatly reduced or may not happen at all.

Cycle 24 is now well underway as of March ; measurements indicate that the minimum occurred around December and that the next maximum will reach a sunspot number of 90 around May Although the details of sunspot generation are still a matter of research, it appears that sunspots are the visible counterparts of magnetic flux tubes in the Sun's convective zone that get "wound up" by differential rotation.

If the stress on the tubes reaches a certain limit, they curl up like a rubber band and puncture the Sun's surface. Convection is inhibited at the puncture points; the energy flux from the Sun's interior decreases; and with it surface temperature. The Wilson effect tells us that sunspots are actually depressions on the Sun's surface.

Observations using the Zeeman effect show that prototypical sunspots come in pairs with opposite magnetic polarity. Sunspots usually appear in groups. The central umbra, which is the darkest part, where the magnetic field is approximately vertical normal to the Sun's surface. Magnetic pressure should tend to remove field concentrations, causing the sunspots to disperse, but sunspot lifetimes are measured in days or even weeks. In , observations from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory SOHO using sound waves traveling below the Sun's photosphere local helioseismology were used to develop a three-dimensional image of the internal structure below sunspots; these observations show that there is a powerful downdraft underneath each sunspot, forming a rotating vortex that concentrates the magnetic field.

Sunspot activity cycles about every eleven years. The point of highest sunspot activity during this cycle is known as Solar Maximum, and the point of lowest activity is Solar Minimum. Early in the cycle, sunspots appear in the higher latitudes and then move towards the equator as the cycle approaches maximum: Wolf number sunspot index displays various periods, the most prominent of which is at about 11 years in the mean.

This period is also observed in most other expressions of solar activity and is deeply linked to a variation in the solar magnetic field that changes polarity with this period, too. The modern understanding of sunspots starts with George Ellery Hale, who first linked magnetic fields and sunspots in Babcock later proposed a qualitative model for the dynamics of the solar outer layers. Sunspot populations quickly rise and more slowly fall on an irregular cycle of 11 years, although significant variations in the number of sunspots attending the year period are known over longer spans of time.

For example, from to the s, the solar maxima trend of sunspot count has been upward; from the s to the present, it has diminished somewhat. The number of sunspots correlates with the intensity of solar radiation over the period since , when satellite measurements of absolute radiative flux became available. Since sunspots are darker than the surrounding photosphere it might be expected that more sunspots would lead to less solar radiation and a decreased solar constant.

However, the surrounding margins of sunspots are brighter than the average, and so are hotter; overall, more sunspots increase the Sun's solar constant or brightness. The variation caused by the sunspot cycle to solar output is relatively small, on the order of 0. Sunspots are observed with land-based and Earth-orbiting solar telescopes. These telescopes use filtration and projection techniques for direct observation, in addition to various types of filtered cameras.

Specialized tools such as spectroscopes and spectrohelioscopes are used to examine sunspots and sunspot areas. Artificial eclipses allow viewing of the circumference of the Sun as sunspots rotate through the horizon. Since looking directly at the Sun with the naked eye permanently damages vision, amateur observation of sunspots is generally conducted indirectly using projected images, or directly through protective filters. Small sections of very dark filter glass, such as a 14 welder's glass are effective. A telescope eyepiece can project the image, without filtration, onto a white screen where it can be viewed indirectly, and even traced, to follow sunspot evolution.

Special purpose hydrogen-alpha narrow bandpass filters as well as aluminum coated glass attenuation filters which have the appearance of mirrors due to their extremely high optical density on the front of a telescope provide safe observation through the eyepiece. Due to its link to other kinds of solar activity, sunspot occurrence can be used to help predict space weather, the state of the ionosphere, and hence the conditions of short-wave radio propagation or satellite communications. Solar activity and the sunspot cycle are frequently discussed in the context of global warming; Jack Eddy noted the apparent correlation between the Maunder Minimum of sunspot occurrence and the Little Ice Age in European climate.

On longer time scales, such as the solar cycle, other magnetic phenomena faculae and the chromospheric network do correlate with sunspot occurrence. It is these other features that make the solar constant increase slightly at sunspot maxima, when naively one might expect that sunspots would make it decrease. British economist William Stanley Jevons suggested in the s that there is a relationship between sunspots and business cycle crises.

Jevons reasoned that sunspots affect Earth's weather, which, in turn, influences crops and, therefore, the economy. Kron proposed that starspots were the reason for periodic changes in brightness on red dwarfs. Alcuni anni or sono alcune migliaia di persone firmarono una lettera al Presidente Prodi con la quale chiedevano che il Governo italiano non comprasse F Ma sicuramente vi contribuimmo in modo significativo.

Te ne mando una copia e mi auguro che anche questa volta vorrai aggiungere la tua firma a quelle di tante e tanti ci auguriamo altri. Ma ti chiediamo non solo la tua firma ma di farti parte diligente presso i tuoi famigliari, i tuoi amici, i tuoi colleghi di lavoro per chiedere di fare altrettanto. Costo della operazione Spendere quella enorme somma per acquistare F 35 significherebbe andare nella direzione opposta.

Significherebbe non lavorare per uscire dalla crisi ma aggravarla ulteriormente. Non certo se utilizzati per acquistare F La superficie modifica la propria forma per compensare le deformazioni indotte dal peso proprio e dalle variazioni di pressione e temperatura dell'aria; tali deformazioni non possono superare i 3 decimi di mm. Esse vengono misurate utilizzando tre diverse metodologie: Il corretto allineamento dello specchio secondario viene verificato tramite un sistema di controllo laser.

Il radiotelescopio viene orientato verso il punto desiderato tramite dodici motori, quattro dei quali eseguono il movimento in elevazione e otto il movimento in azimut. Con gli stessi orologi si ottiene anche il riferimento di tempo e frequenza necessario per il funzionamento dei ricevitori[. Le tecniche di interferometria consentono agli studiosi di radioastronomia di disporre di strumenti virtuali di dimensioni paragonabili alla distanza alla quale si trovano i radiotelescopi reali. Nel caso della rete VLBI italiana, con i tre radiotelescopi di Medicina, Noto e San Basilio si ottiene un radiotelescopio virtuale di dimensioni equivalenti a quelle dell'Italia.

Le caratteristiche del Sardinia Radio Telescope consentono di utilizzarlo anche come componente di terra di ricerche di radioastronomia condotte dallo spazio, nelle quali la base della rete interferometrica assume dimensioni di centinaia di migliaia di km. Vietata la riproduzione, anche parziale, con qualsiasi mezzo. Tutti i diritti sono Riservati. Mi preme ringraziare per la fattiva collaborazione e la stesura dei testi tutti coloro che hanno contribuito, ad ogni livello e a vario titolo, alla realizzazione del volume; un impegno durato un anno.

I colori diventano espressione dei sentimenti: La macchina fotografica diventa mezzo e fonte di espressione. Tutti i contenuti del progetto "Amando Cattolica" sono protetti dalle leggi sul Copyrigth e sono un'esclusiva diwww. P, Associazione per l'assistenza e l'accoglienza dei bambini affetti da patologie leucemiche e tumorali. Si ringrazia la Fondazione Guglielmo Marconi per i testi e il materiali forniti.

ricerca scientifica photos on Flickr | Flickr

Excerpt of photographs taken in. A photographic journey to discover the infinite wonders of our city. The location of the photo book continues with unprecedented images of our area including the Italian Emilia-Romagna, Marche, Tuscany, Lazio, Lombardy.. With images including the cities of the Cattolica, St. Glad to pay homage to the city of Bruxelles, London, Paris. Un nuovo viaggio fotografico, tra cui immagini che rendono omaggio al grande inventore italiano Guglielmo Marconi, padre della radio e Premio Nobel per la fisica nel Su quella stessa spiaggia dove lui ha passeggiato e guardato il mare immerso nei suoi pensieri e nei suoi esperimenti.

Raccolta di materiali audiovisivi, bibliografici e iconografici sulle danze, le musiche e le tradizioni popolari italiane. Fino a circa trenta anni fa il concetto di danza tradizionale italiana risultava essere per l'opinione pubblica un insieme di luoghi comuni, spesso generici o inesatti: Le radicali trasformazioni socio-culturali seguite alla seconda guerra mondiale hanno portato all'abbandono della maggior parte dei vecchi balli locali, alcuni dei quali erano rimasti in vita per diversi secoli antecedenti.

Nel disinteresse generale delle istituzioni politiche, amministrative ed accademiche un grande patrimonio culturale stava perdendosi. L'interesse per il ballo rurale si ferma spesso all'imitazione esteriore di moduli e strutture coreografiche e attinge dalla tradizione una certa funzione ludica del ballo popolare, ma non ha prodotto un adeguato numero di valide esperienze di ricerca sul campo e di studi.

E' mancata sinora da parte delle istituzioni una scelta culturale forte: Il "documento" come filosofia culturale: L'etnocoreologia italiana ha seguito sinora questa seconda strada: Niente, Berlusconi aveva detto: Era un regalino che ogni tanto la Fininvest mandava alla mafia, quindi che Berlusconi abbia sempre pagato e corrotto tutti, persino la mafia lui e le sue aziende lo sapevamo. Non ho niente contro il Dott. Bolca is a village in the Veneto, on the southern margin of the Italian Alps.

It is a frazione of the comune of Vestenanova, in the province of Verona. It was one of the first fossil sites with high quality preservation known to Europeans, and is still an important source of fossils from the Eocene. Bolca lies in the Lessini Alps. Monte Bolca was originally at the bottom of the Tethys Ocean before being uplifted from the ocean floor during the formation of the Alps. This happened in two stages, one 24 million years ago and one between 30 and 50 million years ago. The fossils at Monte Bolca have been known since at least the 16th century, and were studied intensively in the 19th century once it was definitively proven that fossils were the remnants of dead animals.

FossilsStrictly speaking, the Monte Bolca site is one specific spot near the village, known as the Pesciara "The Fishbowl" due to its many marine fossils. However, there are several other related outcroppings in the general vicinity that also carry fossils, such as Monte Postale and Monte Vegroni. The term Monte Bolca is used interchangeably to refer to the original site, or to all the sites collectively. The entire formation consists of 19 metres of limestone, all of which contain fossils, but interspersed in which are the lagerstatten layers that contain the highly preserved specimens.

Within these layers, the fish and other specimens are so highly preserved that their organs are often completely preserved in fossil form, and even the skin colour can sometimes be determined. The normal rearrangement of the specimens caused by mud-dwelling organisms in the layer before it turned to stone has been avoided -- it is assumed that the mud in question was low in oxygen, preventing both decay and the action of scavengers.

Tra i vari fossili si possono ricordare alcuni crostacei, dei rettili, qualche piuma d'uccello, varie specie di insetti, ma soprattutto numerosi pesci, oltre specie, tra cui anche squali, che conservano oltre al tessuto osseo anche parte dei tessuti organici, proprio per il particolarissimo processo di fossilizzazione verificatosi in questa zona costiera nel corso di circa 50 milioni di anni.

Il Monte Purga m , a forma di cono, si trova a nord di Bolca. Qui sono stati trovati nei sedimenti delle ligniti dei crostacei d'acqua dolce, dei cheloni e dei dei coccodrilli, mentre sul versante occidentale, si sono rinvenuti dei molluschi terrestri. Nei livelli vulcanici sono stati trovati palmizi del genere Latanites. Frequenti sono infatti i denti di squalo, piccoli frammenti dello scheletro di Crinoidi gigli di mare caratterizzati da una simmetria pentagonale. La caduta di tale blocco avvenne nell'Eocene quando l'area di Bolca e della Lessinia era ancora occupata dalle lagune tropicali, con un fondale basso di pochi metri.

Le ripide scarpate del Graben causarono il crollo di blocchi calcarei che si erano formati nella laguna tropicale della Pesciara, assieme a sedimenti e a filoni provenienti da eruzioni vulcaniche. Nei calcari lastriformi della Pesciara sono contenuti numerosi pesci alternati a strati sterili, in cinque livelli, per uno spessore complessivo di 19 metri: Si divide in tre sale: Si inizia il percorso nella prima sala al Ingresso al Museo dei Fossili piano terra dove in una vetrina sospesa sono esposti i "gioielli di BoIca": Sulla parete di destra di trovano una serie di cartine: Proseguendo la visita si trova la tavola stratigrafica con l'analisi delle rocce che costituiscono i giacimenti della pesciara e del Monte Postale.

Alcuni pezzi di roccia ci danno l'idea dei due tipi di strati che si ripetono: Come mai si trovano questi due tipi di strati? La prima sala si chiude con la spiegazione attraverso foto e didascalie di come si preparano i fossili: L'estrazione procede per gradi: Per comprendere meglio come sono fatte le lastre basti pensare ad un libro chiuso nel quale le pagine sono gli strati. A questo punto il fossile viene studiato e confrontato, anche con l'aiuto di fotografie, con le attuali specie viventi.

La galleria degli studiosi, dove una serie di fotografie ritrae i principali scienziati che studiarono il fenomeno di Bolca, ci conduce alla seconda sala cosiddetta "dell'acquario". Al centro della sala trova posto un acquario con un ambiente marino tropicale, simile a quello che poteva esserci a Bolca 50 milioni di anni fa, ma attualissimo nel nostro Oceano Pacifico. I pesci sono animali vertebrati che si dividono in due classi: In senso antiorario troviamo tra i cartilaginei lo squalo, la razza, la torpedine, tutti di notevoli dimensioni; tra i pesci ossei troviamo invece le anguille, le puche, i lates e le numerose specie della barriera corallina.

Da notare l'ultimo esemplare di "Pasaichthys pleuronectiformis" un pesce primitivo, raro, di 50 milioni di anni fa. Chiudono la sala un bell'esemplare di pesce angelo e un barracuda. La sala superiore ha un'esposizione di tipo ambientale: Si prosegue con la vetrina dedicata al coccodrillo, qui esposto in calco, dal momento che l'originale di trova al Museo di Scienze Naturali di Verona. Un secondo esemplare di coccodrillo custodito a Vicenza fu distrutto durante la seconda guerra mondiale. Nell'ultima vetrina sono esposti vegetali fra i quali foglie di vario tipo da notare la perfetta conservazione delle nervature , alghe, insetti, piume di uccello, noci di cocco e per finire ancora due palme.

Chiude la sala un pannello con rappresentato un paesaggio molto simile a quello che doveva essere Bolca 50 milioni di anni fa ma anche molto simile all'attuale barriera corallina dell'Oceano Pacifico. Ma il termine non indica solo fortuna: I have been to Jerusalem in May for the purpose of a scientific historical research that was devoted to international politics in the Middle East. After spending a month in Jerusalem, visiting archives and a library, historical places and strolling along the streets, I got acquainted with the unique atmosphere of this ancient city.

THE TRANSLATION OF CULTURAL REFERENCES IN THE

Jerusalem is a city of three world religions, a city where everything seems familiar and native, it is very cozy and benevolent. For those who are familiar with biblical stories, the city seems to be an animated historical book, the city of kings and prophets, a city that has gone through history and conquered time itself. Jerusalem is situated on the hills, in the beginning of May the weather turned out to be quite cool, a strong spring wind blew from the desert, but then the hot Middle Eastern weather was established.

The heat in Jerusalem is not like one in the plains or on the coast of the country, here it gets dark very early, which is unusual for the summer months in Russia. I lived in a small hotel in the center of the city and got the opportunity to go for a walk on the historical center and the Old City. The streets of the city are full of visitors and tourists from all over the world, many languages are heard here. Quiet and benevolent atmosphere. This city has a special soul. This is exactly the impression that Jerusalem made on me.

The videos of my journey also in english and italian on my youtube channel: Sono stato a Gerusalemme nel maggio per lo scopo di una ricerca storica scientifica dedicata alla politica internazionale in Medio Oriente. Atmosfera tranquilla e benevola. I video del mio viaggio in inglese e italiano in my youtube channel: Ammonites are an extinct group of marine invertebrate animals in the subclass Ammonoidea of the class Cephalopoda. These molluscs are more closely related to living coleoids i. Ammonites are excellent index fossils, and it is often possible to link the rock layer in which they are found to specific geological time periods.

Their fossil shells usually take the form of planispirals, although there were some helically-spiraled and non-spiraled forms known as heteromorphs. The name ammonite, from which the scientific term is derived, was inspired by the spiral shape of their fossilized shells, which somewhat resemble tightly-coiled rams' horns. Pliny the Elder d. Si tratta di animali di ambiente marino, caratterizzati da una conchiglia esterna composta prevalentemente di carbonato di calcio, sotto forma di aragonite, e in parte di una sostanza organica di natura proteica conchiolina [1].

La conchiglia era suddivisa internamente da setti in diverse camere, di cui il mollusco occupava solo l'ultima camera d'abitazione. Le altre, che componevano il fragmocono parte concamerata della conchiglia , erano utilizzate come "camere d'aria" analogamente all'attuale Nautilus , riempite di gas e liquido camerale per controllare il galleggiamento dell'organismo. La pressione dei fluidi camerali era controllata da una sottile struttura organica tubolare riccamente vascolarizzata, in parte mineralizzata il sifone , che attraversava tutti i setti e permetteva lo scambio di fluidi dal sangue e dai tessuti molli dell'animale alle camere tramite un processo di osmosi.

Verosimilmente le ammoniti, come tutti i cefalopodi conosciuti, erano organismi carnivori, e svilupparono un grande numero di adattamenti diversi, dalla predazione attiva di animali marini, alla microfagia predazione di microorganismi , alla necrofagia consumo di carne di organismi morti , e persino al cannibalismo predazione di altre ammoniti, anche conspecifiche. L'aspetto di questi animali, infatti, ricorda vagamente quello di un corno arrotolato, come quello di un montone il dio egizio Amon era comunemente raffigurato come un uomo con corna di montone. Pleuroceras che etimologicamente significa corno con le coste.

Le ammoniti sono considerate i fossili per eccellenza, tanto da essere spesso utilizzati come simbolo grafico della paleontologia. Per la loro straordinaria diffusione nei sedimenti marini di tutto il mondo e la loro rapida evoluzione, con variazioni nette nella morfologia e nell'ornamentazione della conchiglia, le ammoniti sono fossili guida di eccezionale valore. Sono utilizzati in stratigrafia per la datazione delle rocce sedimentarie, soprattutto dal Paleozoico Superiore a tutto il Mesozoico.

L'Orto botanico di Roma ha attualmente un'estensione di 12 ettari, in posizione riparata sul pendio del Gianicolo volto a nordest e assolata nella parte pianeggiante. L'irrigazione e alcuni ruscelli dotati di colture acquatiche sono alimentati dal soprastante acquedotto dell'Acqua Paola. L'Orto citiamo dal sito ha funzione didattiche, di educazione ambientale e di ricerca scientifica.

Il giardino ospita attualmente oltre specie vegetali. Si danno qui solo alcuni cenni sull'organizzazione di massima delle zone espositive. It is open Tuesday through Saturday, but closed entirely in August; an admission fee is charged. The garden was established on this site in , although it is the successor to the Papal Botanical Gardens going back to the Renaissance.

It is sited on the slopes of the Janiculum overlooking the seventeenth-century Palazzo Corsini, which was from the residence of Queen Christina of Sweden, now the headquarters of the Accademia dei Lincei. Today the garden contains more than 3, species, with a Japanese garden, bamboo groves, and a Giardino dei Semplici over species of medicinal plants.

Noteworthy specimens include Cedrus deodara, Dasylirion glaucophyllum and Dasylirion acrotrichum, Erythrina crista-galli, and Liquidambar orientalis. Greenhouses contain bonsai, carnivorous plants, and tropical plants including euphorbia and orchids. Ricordo la maestra dei primi anni, una ex suora di nome Teresa Alboni. Donna assai materna e imponente, sobria e vestita di scuro che mi era molto affezionata essendo io, all'epoca, un ragazzino esile e fin troppo ben educato in condotta.

Mai avrei ammazzato una mosca, non tanto in virtu' di idee pacifiste ma per semplice mancanza di forza d'urto! Il voto su ogni paginetta era quasi sempre accompagnato dalla lode scritta con calligrafia elegante e ascendente, direbbero i calligrafi.. Dato che quei disegni semplici d'infanzia non erano, ovviamente, capolavori come tutto cio' che riempiva quegli spazi cartacei vuoti e ansiogeni, oggi posso supporre che la ex suora mi trattasse con un occhio di riguardo.. Ogni tanto poteva capitare che non fossi totalmente allineato con la retorica scolastica e, magari, in un componimento di poche righe sulle stagioni, potevo scrivere frasi del tipo " in autunno cadono le foglie, ma qualcuna resta sempre sull'albero "..

In presenza di un simile sussulto infantile di polemica provocatoria e destabilizzante era certo che la maestra mi avrebbe punito, simbolicamente, abbassando il punteggio di poco e togliendomi la lode.. Il bimbo deve avere cognizioni schematiche e deve sapere che d'autunno tutte le foglie cadono dall'albero, nessuna esclusa! Sulle stagioni non si discuteva, come anche sulla bandiera italica, sulla religione, sulla morale, sull'etica della guerra santa di affrancamento dall'Austria-Ungheria, sul Risorgimento dei buoni contro i cattivi etc..

Ho preso a pretesto questo appunto scolastico, per un cenno al concetto di perdita di senso della cultura umanistica oggigiorno.. E' una riflessione ispirata da un lungo e bell' articolo sul quotidiano "la Repubblica" di ieri sul quale si denuncia, senza troppo rammarico, la disaffezione degli scolari moderni nei confronti di qualsiasi insegnamento propinato in materia di storia, fiilosofia antica, arte antica, letteratura antica..

E' vero che il giornalista tratta con tristezza del fenomeno ed esprime una malinconica nostalgia per il passato prossimo della cutura italica in via di archiviazione repentina.. Perche' contribuisce molto a minare il senso critico dei giovani, incanalandoli verso il pensiero unico di un progresso "disumano"..

Insomma la scuola non deve forgiare solo bravi tecnici ossequienti al potere, utili ingranaggi del "sistema economico". La scuola puo' e deve fare molto di piu'.. Per questo motivo io credo che anche le accademie e gli atenei debbano essere poco dipendenti dai finanziamenti privati. Gli sponsor privati tirano l'acqua al loro mulino, non si preoccupano della formazione del cittadino di domani e anche della ricerca scientifica pura svincolata da impieghi diretti, la sola che porta avanti il progresso. Non credo che i giovani siano colpevoli di indirizzare la cultura scolastica verso le discipline tecnologiche, rendendo insegnanti e programmi tradizionali obsoleti e inutili.

E' il carisma dell'insegnante ad affascinare l'allievo su qualsiasi argomento.. He will make his first creations using the concept of narrative comic strips from , initially to a few fanzines, and in various magazines. In , a great Italian restaurant in Paris on " Raffaelo ", commissioned the making of copies of pastel paintings of the Renaissance Raffael , maybe then it will taste for the great masters of academic painting.

In preparing the entrance of Decorative Arts in Paris he discovered the work of the painter Delacroix, and that he will his passion for watercolor. This technique will give a great freedom of expression. But his way of approaching watercolor is not common, in fact, his record, unlike the traditional watercolors, a force emerges in unusual colors and lights. Its purpose is to evoke a " impressionism " of dawn or dusk depending on the themes, all supported by a drawing of a high accuracy.

All these criteria give aquarelles Thierry Duval evocative power, a realism uncommon in the usual expression of watercolor. East and Paris are to important sources of inspiration: For the East, it draws, as Delacroix in his books trips to Morocco, multiple subjects: His watercolors are similar Orientalistes also part of the realism of the scenes, the painter Majorelle.

Regarding the theme of his work on Paris, he enjoys photographing the Seine in the early morning, he likes to filter light below decks, roofs gleaming in the rain, the silhouettes of majestic monuments that arose at the turn of an alley, the sounds of Paris, barges, markets, cafes.

He likes to observe these lonely passers on the Pont des Arts , he likes to soak up the fall in Paris. This photographic work, nourishes and inspires him in his painting: This leads to the realism of a Paris dreamlike, poetic, nostalgic and timeless. The singularity of his work rests on this dichotomy between a high tech modernism, due to digital technology and its various applications , and conversely, a pictorial record which references s'impreignent rather large watercolorists classics of the last century.

Worthy heir of the great British tradition of watercolor as William Turner , Thomas Shotter Boys, William Callow, James Holland, but also the work of Thierry Duval is a clever mix of hyperrealism, poetry and refinement. Thierry Duval is a sensitive and accurate observer of nature and the city, pay attention to the slightest variations of light. His watercolors of urban scenes recreate the beauty of historic Paris, but also the unusual and mysterious side.

Since he exhibited in the United States in California in Palo Alto, and recently participated in numerous exhibitions in France and abroad. In addition, he was also accepted as the signature member in NWS in the same year. The watercolor works of Chien Chung-Wei appear to embrace the spirits and temperament of the Western watercolor masters over the last two centuries.

By age 32, his works tended to be delicate and classic and were reminiscent of the works of William Henry Hunt and Myles Birket Foster. After that, he gradually focused on the expression of the essence of watercolors. In the meantime, he also broke the boundary between watercolors and oil paints. He created a series of works using watercolors and gouache and looked like the Romantic oil paintings in the 19th century. Those works totally changed the conventional impression of watercolors.

His works are temperant and classic in colors with masterful brushstrokes, which endow every character with a rich fullness. In the trend of the contemporary art, Chien Chung-Wei enjoys the popularity in recent years. This seems to let us reconsider the pictorial value of the classic spirit in painting. Opens the second solo exhibition and publishes The Intrigue of Form. Is invited by the World Watermedia Exposition Thailand for group exhibition and painting on site.

1. .
2. .
3. ?
4. .
5. ;
6. Le papesse (eNewton Saggistica) (Italian Edition).

Is invited by Zhongshan International Watercolor Exhibition for the group exhibition and painting on site. Is featured in the 17th issue of Watercolor Express Magazine: Is featured in the 17th issue of The Art of Watercolour Magazine: Le opere ad acquerello di Chien Chung-Wei sembrano abbracciare gli spiriti e il temperamento dei maestri di acquerello occidentali nel corso degli ultimi due secoli.

Inizialmente le sue opere tendevano a essere delicate e classiche ricordando le opere di William Henry Hunt e Myles Birket Foster. Nel frattempo, rompe il confine tra acquerelli e colori ad olio e crea una serie di opere con acquerelli e gouache che asomigliano a dipinti ad olio romantici nel XIX secolo. Le sue opere sono impressioniste e classiche sia nei colori che nelle magistrali pennellate, conferendo ad ogni personaggio una pienezza caratteriale. After successful avant-garde exhibitions, he founded the influential Munich group Der Blaue Reiter " The Blue Rider"; and began completely abstract painting.

His forms evolved from fluid and organic to geometric and, finally, to pictographic e. His family was genteel, well-to-do, and fond of travel; while still a child he became familiar with Venice, Rome, Florence, the Caucasus, and the Crimean Peninsula. At Odessa, where his parents settled in , he completed his secondary schooling and became an amateur performer on the piano and the cello. He also became an amateur painter, and he later recalled, as a sort of first impulse toward abstraction, an adolescent conviction that each colour had a mysterious life of its own.

In the university sent him on an ethnographic mission to the province of Vologda, in the forested north, and he returned with a lasting interest in the often garish, nonrealistic styles of Russian folk painting. During that same year he discovered the Rembrandts in the Hermitage at St. Petersburg, and he furthered his visual education with a trip to Paris.

He pursued his academic career and in was granted the degree equivalent of a doctorate. By this time, according to his reminiscences, he had lost much of his early enthusiasm for the social sciences. He felt, however, that art was " a luxury forbidden to a Russian ". Eventually, after a period of teaching at the university, he accepted a post as the director of the photographic section of a Moscow printing establishment. In , when he was approaching his 30th birthday, he was forced to choose among his possible futures, for he was offered a professorship in jurisprudence at the University of Dorpat later called Tartu , in Estonia, which was then undergoing Russification.

In what he called a " now or never " mood, he turned down the offer and took the train for Germany with the intention of becoming a painter. Munich period He already had the air of authority that would contribute to his success as a teacher in later years. He was tall, large-framed, impeccably dressed, and equipped with pince-nez glasses; he had a habit of holding his head high and seeming to look down at the universe.

He resembled, according to acquaintances, a mixture of diplomat, scientist and Mongol prince. Kandinsky emerged from the academy with a diploma in and, during the next few years, achieved moderate success as a competent professional artist in touch with modern trends. Starting from a base in 19th-century realism, he was influenced by Impressionism , by the whiplash lines and decorative effects of Art Nouveau called Jugendstil in Germany , by the dot technique of Neo-Impressionism or Pointillism , and by the strong, unrealistic colour of central European Expressionism and French Fauvism.

Often he revealed that he had not forgotten the icons of Moscow and the folk art of Vologda; sometimes he indulged in patterns of violent hues that would have delighted his Asian ancestors. In in Moscow he had his first one-man show, followed the next year by two others in Poland. Working part of the time in Murnau and part of the time in Munich, he began the process that led to the emergence of his first strikingly personal style and finally to the historic breakthrough into purely abstract painting. Gradually, the many influences he had undergone coalesced. His impulse to eliminate subject matter altogether was not, it should be noted, due merely or even primarily to strictly aesthetic considerations.

In addition, he was not the sort of born painter who could enjoy the physical properties of oil and pigment without caring what they meant. He wanted a kind of painting in which colours, lines, and shapes, freed from the distracting business of depicting recognizable objects, might evolve into a visual " language " capable-as was, for him, the abstract " language " of music-of expressing general ideas and evoking deep emotions.

The project was not, of course, entirely new. Analogies between painting and music had long been common; many thinkers had attempted to codify the supposed expressiveness of colours, lines, and shapes; and more than one fairly ancient sketch might compete for the honour of being called the first abstract picture.

Moreover, in these years just before World War I, Kandinsky was by no means alone in his attack on figurative art. By the Cubists were turning out intellectualized and fragmented visions of reality that baffled the ordinary viewer. Between and the list of pioneer abstract artists included many fine painters. A strict examination of works and dates can show, therefore, that Kandinsky does not quite deserve to be called, as he often is, the " founder " of nonfigurative painting; at least he cannot be called the only founder.

But, when this historical point is conceded, he remains a pioneer of the first importance. In Blue Mountain the evolution toward nonrepresentation is already clearly under way; the forms are schematic, the colours nonnaturalistic, and the general effect that of a dream landscape. In Landscape with Steeple similar tendencies are evident, together with the beginning of what might be called an explosion in the composition. By Improvisation XIV is already, as its somewhat musical title suggests, practically abstract; with the Encircled, there has definitely developed a kind of painting that, though not just decoration, has no discernible point of departure in the depiction of recognizable objects.

An early marriage to a cousin had been dissolved in after a long period of separation, and in he married a Moscow woman, Nina Andreevskaya, whom he had met the previous year. Although he was past 50 and his bride was many years younger, the marriage turned out to be extremely successful, and he settled down in Moscow with the intention of reintegrating himself into Russian life. His intention was encouraged by the new Soviet government, which at first showed itself eager to win the favour and services of avant-garde artists. In he created the Institute of Artistic Culture, became director of the Moscow Museum for Pictorial Culture, and helped to organize 22 museums across the Soviet Union.

In he was made a professor at the University of Moscow and was honoured with a one-man show organized by the state. In he founded the Russian Academy of Artistic Sciences. But by then the Soviet government was veering from avant-garde art to Social Realism, and so, at the end of the year, he and his wife left Moscow for Berlin. In spite of the war, the Russian Revolution, and official duties, he had found time to paint during this Russian interlude and even to begin a quite drastic transformation of his art.

Whereas in his Munich work as late as one can still find occasional allusions to landscape, the canvases and watercolours of his Moscow years show a determination to be completely abstract. They also show a growing tendency to abandon the earlier spontaneous, lyrical, organic style in favour of a more deliberate, rational, and constructional approach. The change is evident in such pictures as White Line and Blue Segment.

Bauhaus period By this time Kandinsky had an international reputation as a painter. He had always, however, been interested in teaching, first as a lecturer in law and economics just after getting his university degree, then as the master of a painting school he had organized in Munich, and more recently as a professor at the University of Moscow. He seems not to have hesitated, therefore, when early in he was offered a teaching post at Weimar in the already famous Bauhaus school of architecture and applied art.

At first his duties were a little remote from his personal activity, for the Bauhaus was not concerned with the formation of " painters " in the traditional sense of the word. He lectured on the elements of form, gave a course in colour, and directed the mural workshop. Not until , when the school moved from Weimar to Dessau, did he have a class in " free ", nonapplied painting.

In spite of the somewhat routine nature of his work, however, he appears to have found life at the Bauhaus rewarding and pleasant. The climate was one of research and craftsmanship combined with a certain amount of aesthetic puritanism; it was classical, to use the term rather loosely, by comparison with the warm romanticism of his pre days in Munich.

Kandinsky responded to this climate by continuing to evolve in the general direction of geometric abstraction, but with a dynamism and a taste for detail-crowded pictorial space that recall his earlier sweeping-gesture technique. In his first treatise, Concerning the Spiritual in Art, he had emphasized in particular the supposed expressiveness of colours, comparing yellow, for example, to the aggressive, allegedly earthly sound of a trumpet and comparing blue to the allegedly heavenly sound of the pipe organ.

Now, in the same spirit, he analyzed the supposed effects of the abstract elements of drawing, interpreting a horizontal line, for example, as cold and a vertical line as hot. Paris period Although he had been a German citizen since , he immigrated to Paris when, in , the Nazis forced the Bauhaus to close. The last, and one of the finest, of his German pictures is the sober Development in Brown; its title probably alludes to the Nazi brown-shirted storm troopers, who regarded his abstract art as " degenerate.

During this final period his painting, which he began to prefer to call " concrete " rather than " abstract ", became to some extent a synthesis of the organic manner of the Munich period and the geometric manner of the Bauhaus period. The visual language that he had been aiming at since at least turned into collections of signs that look like almost-decipherable messages written in pictographs and hieroglyphs; many of the signs resemble aquatic larvae, and now and then there is a figurative hand or a lunar human face. The production of such works was accompanied by the writing of essays in which the artist stressed the alleged failure of modern scientific positivism and the need to perceive what he termed " the symbolic character of physical substances ".

Kandinsky died in His influence on 20th-century art, often filtered through the work of more accessible painters, was profound. Dopo gli studi di giurisprudenza, decide di dedicarsi alla pittura. Dal fa parte del gruppo artistico " Phalanx ". Negli anni successivi effettua viaggi e periodi di soggiorno all'estero, tra cui un anno a Parigi. Il primo numero dell'almanacco esce nel , e reca in copertina la riproduzione di un acquarello di Kandinsky.

Nello stesso periodo per l'artista comincia l'evoluzione verso l'astrattismo, che culmina con la realizzazione del Primo acquerello astratto Negli anni Kandinsky realizza molte delle prime composizioni e delle improvvisazioni. Nel , allo scoppio della prima guerra mondiale, Kandinsky torna in Russia.

Qui viene nominato professore dei Laboratori artistici di Stato, Nel fa ritorno in Germania con la seconda moglie Nina. Gli anni sono fondamentali nella vita e nell'evoluzione artistica di Wassily Kandinsky. Tra il lavora come insegnante al Bauhaus, prima a Weimar, e poi, dopo il trasferimento della scuola, a Dessau.

Nel a Monaco viene realizzata la celebre mostra sull' Arte Degenerata , con cui Adolf Hitler si propone di condannare le nuove avanguardie artistiche. Nella mostra compaiono circa 50 opere di Kandinskij, poi vendute a basso costo all'asta ad acquirenti stranieri. In seguito, realizza soltanto opere di piccolo formato su cartone catramato.

Personale alla Galerie Jeanne Bucher di Parigi. Muore nel nell'abitazione di Parigi dove ha vissuto negli ultimi dieci anni della sua vita. S alvatore Alessi was born in Sicily. After the Art school, he graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Palermo, specializing in scenography. Then he started working as a scenographer: At the same time pursuing his passion for painting and also deals with film. He starts working as an assistant designer for several films.

At the beginning of he was a finalist in the " Premio Arte " Award , in had his first solo-exhibition in and in had finished among the finalists of Lissone Award. Has been reported to the fifty-fourth Venice bien. In participates in the exhibition dedicated to St. Francis of Assisi, entitled " St. Francis and the places of his journey ", which took place in Assisi at the Gallery " Le Logge ", the same exhibition was held in Orvieto and in Naples. In the year , he has a solo exhibition at the Museo diocesano in Piazza Armerina and join at contemporary art festival " Locus Animae " that every year takes place in the city of Jesolo.

In at the prestigious Palazzo Incontro in Rome and at the Studio Gallery MOCA of Rome, he participated in the exhibition entitled " Dark Green-Bright Green " environmental theme and focused primarily on the beauty of a balanced relationship between man and the environment and nature. With the Gallery " Forni " in Bologna participates in " Art Factory ", established contemporary art fair in the national and international scene that takes place every year at the trade fair " Le Ciminiere " in Catania.

Participates in the exhibition of figurative art " years Italian boxing " organized by Coni and the Italian Boxing Federation at Palagio di Parte Guelfa in Florence with planned stops in the most important Italian cities, landing finally in the Olympic Games in Rio De Janeiro in S alvatore Alessi nasce a San Cataldo in Sicilia nel Successivamente comincia a lavorare come scenografo: Nello stesso tempo continua a perseguire la sua passione per la pittura e per il cinema e inizia a lavorare come assistente dei progetti di alcuni film. Ha mostrato le sue opere in numerose nazionali e internazionali esposizioni come: Nel presso il prestigioso Palazzo Incontro di Roma e presso la Galleria Studio MOCA di Roma, partecipa alla mostra dal titolo " Dark Green-Bright Green " incentrata sul tema ambientale e soprattutto sulla bellezza di un rapporto equilibrato tra uomo, ambiente e natura.

A ncient Egypt was a civilization of ancient Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. It is one of six civilizations to arise independently. Egyptian civilization followed prehistoric Egypt and coalesced around BC according to conventional Egyptian chronology with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh Narmer commonly referred to as Menes.

Egypt reached the pinnacle of its power in the New Kingdom, during the Ramesside period, where it rivalled the Hittite Empire, Assyrian Empire and Mitanni Empire, after which it entered a period of slow decline. In the aftermath of Alexander the Great's death, one of his generals, Ptolemy Soter, established himself as the new ruler of Egypt.

The success of ancient Egyptian civilization came partly from its ability to adapt to the conditions of the Nile River valley for agriculture. The predictable flooding and controlled irrigation of the fertile valley produced surplus crops, which supported a more dense population, and social development and culture. With resources to spare, the administration sponsored mineral exploitation of the valley and surrounding desert regions, the early development of an independent writing system, the organization of collective construction and agricultural projects, trade with surrounding regions, and a military intended to defeat foreign enemies and assert Egyptian dominance.

Motivating and organizing these activities was a bureaucracy of elite scribes, religious leaders, and administrators under the control of a pharaoh, who ensured the cooperation and unity of the Egyptian people in the context of an elaborate system of religious beliefs. The many achievements of the ancient Egyptians include the quarrying, surveying and construction techniques that supported the building of monumental pyramids, temples, and obelisks; a system of mathematics, a practical and effective system of medicine, irrigation systems and agricultural production techniques, the first known planked boats, Egyptian faience and glass technology, new forms of literature, and the earliest known peace treaty, made with the Hittites.

Egypt left a lasting legacy. Its art and architecture were widely copied, and its antiquities carried off to far corners of the world. Its monumental ruins have inspired the imaginations of travelers and writers for centuries. A new-found respect for antiquities and excavations in the early modern period by Europeans and Egyptians led to the scientific investigation of Egyptian civilization and a greater appreciation of its cultural legacy. History The Nile has been the lifeline of its region for much of human history. The fertile floodplain of the Nile gave humans the opportunity to develop a settled agricultural economy and a more sophisticated, centralized society that became a cornerstone in the history of human civilization.

VIDEO SINOSSI DELL'UOMO KOSMICO

Nomadic modern human hunter-gatherers began living in the Nile valley through the end of the Middle Pleistocene some , years ago. By the late Paleolithic period, the arid climate of Northern Africa became increasingly hot and dry, forcing the populations of the area to concentrate along the river region. Predynastic period In Predynastic and Early Dynastic times, the Egyptian climate was much less arid than it is today.

Large regions of Egypt were covered in treed savanna and traversed by herds of grazing ungulates. Foliage and fauna were far more prolific in all environs and the Nile region supported large populations of waterfowl. Hunting would have been common for Egyptians, and this is also the period when many animals were first domesticated.

By about BC, small tribes living in the Nile valley had developed into a series of cultures demonstrating firm control of agriculture and animal husbandry, and identifiable by their pottery and personal items, such as combs, bracelets, and beads. The largest of these early cultures in upper Southern Egypt was the Badari, which probably originated in the Western Desert; it was known for its high quality ceramics, stone tools, and its use of copper. As early as the Naqada I Period, predynastic Egyptians imported obsidian from Ethiopia, used to shape blades and other objects from flakes.

Over a period of about 1, years, the Naqada culture developed from a few small farming communities into a powerful civilization whose leaders were in complete control of the people and resources of the Nile valley. They also traded with Nubia to the south, the oases of the western desert to the west, and the cultures of the eastern Mediterranean and Near East to the east.

Royal Nubian burials at Qustul produced artifacts bearing the oldest-known examples of Egyptian dynastic symbols, such as the white crown of Egypt and falcon. The Naqada culture manufactured a diverse selection of material goods, reflective of the increasing power and wealth of the elite, as well as societal personal-use items, which included combs, small statuary, painted pottery, high quality decorative stone vases, cosmetic palettes, and jewelry made of gold, lapis, and ivory.

They also developed a ceramic glaze known as faience, which was used well into the Roman Period to decorate cups, amulets, and figurines. During the last predynastic phase, the Naqada culture began using written symbols that eventually were developed into a full system of hieroglyphs for writing the ancient Egyptian language.

Early Dynastic Period c. The third-century BC Egyptian priest Manetho grouped the long line of pharaohs from Menes to his own time into 30 dynasties, a system still used today. He chose to begin his official history with the king named " Meni " or Menes in Greek who was believed to have united the two kingdoms of Upper and Lower Egypt around BC. The transition to a unified state happened more gradually than ancient Egyptian writers represented, and there is no contemporary record of Menes.

Some scholars now believe, however, that the mythical Menes may have been the pharaoh Narmer, who is depicted wearing royal regalia on the ceremonial Narmer Palette, in a symbolic act of unification. In the Early Dynastic Period about BC, the first of the Dynastic pharaohs solidified control over lower Egypt by establishing a capital at Memphis, from which he could control the labour force and agriculture of the fertile delta region, as well as the lucrative and critical trade routes to the Levant. The increasing power and wealth of the pharaohs during the early dynastic period was reflected in their elaborate mastaba tombs and mortuary cult structures at Abydos, which were used to celebrate the deified pharaoh after his death.

The strong institution of kingship developed by the pharaohs served to legitimize state control over the land, labour, and resources that were essential to the survival and growth of ancient Egyptian civilization. Old Kingdom BC Major advances in architecture, art, and technology were made during the Old Kingdom, fueled by the increased agricultural productivity and resulting population, made possible by a well-developed central administration.

Some of ancient Egypt's crowning achievements, the Giza pyramids and Great Sphinx, were constructed during the Old Kingdom. Under the direction of the vizier, state officials collected taxes, coordinated irrigation projects to improve crop yield, drafted peasants to work on construction projects, and established a justice system to maintain peace and order.

Along with the rising importance of a central administration arose a new class of educated scribes and officials who were granted estates by the pharaoh in payment for their services. Pharaohs also made land grants to their mortuary cults and local temples, to ensure that these institutions had the resources to worship the pharaoh after his death. Scholars believe that five centuries of these practices slowly eroded the economic power of the pharaoh, and that the economy could no longer afford to support a large centralized administration.

As the power of the pharaoh diminished, regional governors called nomarchs began to challenge the supremacy of the pharaoh. This, coupled with severe droughts between and BC, is assumed to have caused the country to enter the year period of famine and strife known as the First Intermediate Period. First Intermediate Period BC After Egypt's central government collapsed at the end of the Old Kingdom, the administration could no longer support or stabilize the country's economy.

Regional governors could not rely on the king for help in times of crisis, and the ensuing food shortages and political disputes escalated into famines and small-scale civil wars. Yet despite difficult problems, local leaders, owing no tribute to the pharaoh, used their new-found independence to establish a thriving culture in the provinces.

Once in control of their own resources, the provinces became economically richer-which was demonstrated by larger and better burials among all social classes. In bursts of creativity, provincial artisans adopted and adapted cultural motifs formerly restricted to the royalty of the Old Kingdom, and scribes developed literary styles that expressed the optimism and originality of the period.

Free from their loyalties to the pharaoh, local rulers began competing with each other for territorial control and political power. By BC, rulers in Herakleopolis controlled Lower Egypt in the north, while a rival clan based in Thebes, the Intef family, took control of Upper Egypt in the south. As the Intefs grew in power and expanded their control northward, a clash between the two rival dynasties became inevitable. They inaugurated a period of economic and cultural renaissance known as the Middle Kingdom.

Middle Kingdom BC The pharaohs of the Middle Kingdom restored the country's prosperity and stability, thereby stimulating a resurgence of art, literature, and monumental building projects. Mentuhotep II and his Eleventh Dynasty successors ruled from Thebes, but the vizier Amenemhat I, upon assuming kingship at the beginning of the Twelfth Dynasty around BC, shifted the nation's capital to the city of Itjtawy, located in Faiyum. From Itjtawy, the pharaohs of the Twelfth Dynasty undertook a far-sighted land reclamation and irrigation scheme to increase agricultural output in the region.

Moreover, the military reconquered territory in Nubia that was rich in quarries and gold mines, while laborers built a defensive structure in the Eastern Delta, called the " Walls-of-the-Ruler ", to defend against foreign attack. With the pharaohs' having secured military and political security and vast agricultural and mineral wealth, the nation's population, arts, and religion flourished. In contrast to elitist Old Kingdom attitudes towards the gods, the Middle Kingdom experienced an increase in expressions of personal piety and what could be called a democratization of the afterlife, in which all people possessed a soul and could be welcomed into the company of the gods after death.

Middle Kingdom literature featured sophisticated themes and characters written in a confident, eloquent style. The relief and portrait sculpture of the period captured subtle, individual details that reached new heights of technical perfection. The last great ruler of the Middle Kingdom, Amenemhat III, allowed Semitic-speaking Canaanite settlers from the Near East into the delta region to provide a sufficient labour force for his especially active mining and building campaigns.

These ambitious building and mining activities, however, combined with severe Nile floods later in his reign, strained the economy and precipitated the slow decline into the Second Intermediate Period during the later Thirteenth and Fourteenth dynasties. During this decline, the Canaanite settlers began to seize control of the delta region, eventually coming to power in Egypt as the Hyksos.

The pharaoh was treated as a vassal and expected to pay tribute. The Hyksos " foreign rulers " retained Egyptian models of government and identified as pharaohs, thus integrating Egyptian elements into their culture. They and other invaders introduced new tools of warfare into Egypt, most notably the composite bow and the horse-drawn chariot. After their retreat, the native Theban kings found themselves trapped between the Canaanite Hyksos ruling the north and the Hyksos' Nubian allies, the Kushites, to the south of Egypt.

After years of vassalage, Thebes gathered enough strength to challenge the Hyksos in a conflict that lasted more than 30 years, until BC. That task fell to Kamose's successor, Ahmose I, who successfully waged a series of campaigns that permanently eradicated the Hyksos' presence in Egypt. He established a new dynasty. In the New Kingdom that followed, the military became a central priority for the pharaohs seeking to expand Egypt's borders and attempting to gain mastery of the Near East. New Kingdom BC The New Kingdom pharaohs established a period of unprecedented prosperity by securing their borders and strengthening diplomatic ties with their neighbours, including the Mitanni Empire, Assyria, and Canaan.

Military campaigns waged under Tuthmosis I and his grandson Tuthmosis III extended the influence of the pharaohs to the largest empire Egypt had ever seen. Between their reigns, Hatshepsut generally promoted peace and restored trade routes lost during the Hyksos occupation, as well as expanding to new regions. When Tuthmosis III died in BC, Egypt had an empire extending from Niya in north west Syria to the fourth waterfall of the Nile in Nubia, cementing loyalties and opening access to critical imports such as bronze and wood.

The New Kingdom pharaohs began a large-scale building campaign to promote the god Amun, whose growing cult was based in Karnak. They also constructed monuments to glorify their own achievements, both real and imagined. The Karnak temple is the largest Egyptian temple ever built. The pharaoh Hatshepsut used such hyperbole and grandeur during her reign of almost twenty-two years. Her reign was very successful, marked by an extended period of peace and wealth-building, trading expeditions to Punt, restoration of foreign trade networks, and great building projects, including an elegant mortuary temple that rivaled the Greek architecture of a thousand years later, a colossal pair of obelisks, and a chapel at Karnak.

Despite her achievements, Amenhotep II, the heir to Hatshepsut's nephew-stepson Tuthmosis III, sought to erase her legacy near the end of his father's reign and throughout his, touting many of her accomplishments as his. He also tried to change many established traditions that had developed over the centuries, which some suggest was a futile attempt to prevent other women from becoming pharaoh and to curb their influence in the kingdom.

Around BC, the stability of the New Kingdom seemed threatened further when Amenhotep IV ascended the throne and instituted a series of radical and chaotic reforms. Changing his name to Akhenaten, he touted the previously obscure sun deity Aten as the supreme deity, suppressed the worship of most other deities, and attacked the power of the temple that had become dominated by the priests of Amun in Thebes, whom he saw as corrupt.

Moving the capital to the new city of Akhetaten modern-day Amarna , Akhenaten turned a deaf ear to events in the Near East where the Hittites, Mitanni, and Assyrians were vying for control. He was devoted to his new religion and artistic style. After his death, the cult of the Aten was quickly abandoned, the priests of Amun soon regained power and returned the capital to Thebes.

Under their influence the subsequent pharaohs Tutankhamun, Ay, and Horemheb worked to erase all mention of Akhenaten's heresy, now known as the Amarna Period. Around BC, Ramesses II, also known as Ramesses the Great, ascended the throne, and went on to build more temples, erect more statues and obelisks, and sire more children than any other pharaoh in history.

A bold military leader, Ramesses II led his army against the Hittites in the Battle of Kadesh in modern Syria and, after fighting to a stalemate, finally agreed to the first recorded peace treaty, around BC. With both the Egyptians and Hittite Empire proving unable to gain the upper hand over one another, and both powers also fearful of the expanding Middle Assyrian Empire, Egypt withdrew from much of the Near East. The Hittites were thus left to compete unsuccessfully with the powerful Assyrians and the newly arrived Phrygians.

Egypt's wealth, however, made it a tempting target for invasion, particularly by the Libyan Berbers to the west, and the Sea Peoples, a conjectured confederation of seafarers from the Aegean Sea. Initially, the military was able to repel these invasions, but Egypt eventually lost control of its remaining territories in southern Caanan, much of it falling to the Assyrians.

The effects of external threats were exacerbated by internal problems such as corruption, tomb robbery, and civil unrest. After regaining their power, the high priests at the temple of Amun in Thebes accumulated vast tracts of land and wealth, and their expanded power splintered the country during the Third Intermediate Period. The south was effectively controlled by the High Priests of Amun at Thebes, who recognized Smendes in name only. During this time, Berber tribes from what was later to be called Libya had been settling in the western delta, and the chieftains of these settlers began increasing their autonomy.

Libyan princes took control of the delta under Shoshenq I in BC, founding the Libyan Berber, or Bubastite, dynasty that ruled for some years. Shoshenq also gained control of southern Egypt by placing his family members in important priestly positions. In the mid-ninth century BC, Egypt made a failed attempt to once more gain a foothold in Western Asia.

IL RISVEGLIO DEL CADUCEO DORMIENTE: la vera genesi dell'Homo sapiens

However, this coalition of powers failed and the Neo Assyrian Empire continued to dominate Western Asia. Libyan Berber control began to erode as a rival native dynasty in the delta arose under Leontopolis. Also, the Nubians of the Kushites threatened Egypt from the lands to the south. Drawing on millennia of interaction trade, acculturation, occupation, assimilation, and war with Egypt, the Kushite king Piye left his Nubian capital of Napata and invaded Egypt around BC.

Piye easily seized control of Thebes and eventually the Nile Delta. He recorded the episode on his stela of victory. Piye set the stage for subsequent Twenty-fifth dynasty pharaohs, such as Taharqa, to reunite the " Two lands " of Northern and Southern Egypt. The Nile valley empire was as large as it had been since the New Kingdom. The Twenty-fifth dynasty ushered in a renaissance period for ancient Egypt. Religion, the arts, and architecture were restored to their glorious Old, Middle, and New Kingdom forms.

Pharaohs, such as Taharqa, built or restored temples and monuments throughout the Nile valley, including at Memphis, Karnak, Kawa, Jebel Barkal, etc. It was during the Twenty-fifth dynasty that there was the first widespread construction of pyramids many in modern Sudan in the Nile Valley since the Middle Kingdom. Piye made various unsuccessful attempts to extend Egyptian influence in the Near East, then controlled by Assyria. In BC, he sent an army in support of a rebellion against Assyria, which was taking place in Philistia and Gaza. However, Piye was defeated by Sargon II and the rebellion failed.

Subsequently, Piye was forced from the Near East. From the 10th century BC onwards, Assyria fought for control of the southern Levant. Frequently, cities and kingdoms of the southern Levant appealed to Egypt for aid in their struggles against the powerful Assyrian army. Taharqa enjoyed some initial success in his attempts to regain a foothold in the Near East. Scholars disagree on the primary reason for Assyria's abandonment of their siege on Jerusalem. Some argue that disease was the primary reason for failing to actually take the city; however, Senacherib's annals claim Judah was forced into tribute regardless.

Sennacherib had been murdered by his own sons for destroying the rebellious city of Babylon, a city sacred to all Mesopotamians, the Assyrians included. In BC Esarhaddon launched a preliminary incursion into Egypt; however, this attempt was repelled by Taharqa. However, in BC, Esarhaddon launched a full-scale invasion. Part of his army stayed behind to deal with rebellions in Phoenicia, and Israel.

The remainder went south to Rapihu, then crossed the Sinai, and entered Egypt. Esarhaddon decisively defeated Taharqa, took Memphis, Thebes and all the major cities of Egypt, and Taharqa was chased back to his Nubian homeland. Esarhaddon now called himself " king of Egypt, Patros, and Kush ", and returned with rich booty from the cities of the delta; he erected a victory stele at this time, and paraded the captive Prince Ushankhuru, the son of Taharqa in Nineveh.

He installed native Egyptian princes throughout the land to rule on his behalf. The conquest by Esarhaddon effectively marked the end of the short lived Kushite Empire. However, the native Egyptian rulers installed by Esarhaddon were unable to retain full control of the whole country for long. Two years later, Taharqa returned from Nubia and seized control of a section of southern Egypt as far north as Memphis.

Esarhaddon prepared to return to Egypt and once more eject Taharqa; however, he fell ill and died in his capital, Nineveh, before he left Assyria. His successor, Ashurbanipal, sent an Assyrian general named Sha-Nabu-shu with a small, but well trained army, which conclusively defeated Taharqa at Memphis and once more drove him from Egypt. Taharqa died in Nubia two years later. His successor, Tanutamun, also made a failed attempt to regain Egypt for Nubia. He successfully defeated Necho, the native Egyptian puppet ruler installed by Ashurbanipal, taking Thebes in the process.

The Assyrians then sent a large army southwards. Tantamani Tanutamun was heavily routed and fled back to Nubia. The Assyrian army sacked Thebes to such an extent it never truly recovered. A native ruler, Psammetichus I was placed on the throne, as a vassal of Ashurbanipal, and the Nubians were never again to pose a threat to either Assyria or Egypt.

Late Period BC With no permanent plans for conquest, the Assyrians left control of Egypt to a series of vassals who became known as the Saite kings of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty. By BC, the Saite king Psamtik I taking advantage of the fact that Assyria was involved in a fierce war conquering Elam and that few Assyrian troops were stationed in Egypt was able to free Egypt relatively peacefully from Assyrian vassalage with the help of Lydian and Greek mercenaries, the latter of whom were recruited to form Egypt's first navy.

Psamtik and his successors however were careful to maintain peaceful relations with Assyria. Greek influence expanded greatly as the city of Naukratis became the home of Greeks in the delta. In BC Necho II went to war with Babylonia, the Chaldeans, the Medians and the Scythians in an attempt to save Assyria, which after a brutal civil war was being overrun by this coalition of powers. However, the attempt to save Egypt's former masters failed. The Egyptians delayed intervening too long, and Nineveh had already fallen and King Sin-shar-ishkun was dead by the time Necho II sent his armies northwards.

The Egyptians remained in the area for some decades, struggling with the Babylonian kings Nabopolassar and Nebuchadnezzar II for control of portions of the former Assyrian Empire in The Levant. The Saite kings based in the new capital of Sais witnessed a brief but spirited resurgence in the economy and culture, but in BC, the powerful Persians, led by Cambyses II, began their conquest of Egypt, eventually capturing the pharaoh Psamtik III at the battle of Pelusium.

Cambyses II then assumed the formal title of pharaoh, but ruled Egypt from his home of Susa in Persia modern Iran , leaving Egypt under the control of a satrapy. A few temporarily successful revolts against the Persians marked the fifth century BC, but Egypt was never able to permanently overthrow the Persians.

This first period of Persian rule over Egypt, also known as the Twenty-seventh dynasty, ended after more than one-hundred years in BC, and from to BC the Thirtieth Dynasty ruled as the last native royal house of dynastic Egypt, which ended with the kingship of Nectanebo II. The administration established by Alexander's successors, the Macedonian Ptolemaic Kingdom, was based on an Egyptian model and based in the new capital city of Alexandria. The city showcased the power and prestige of Hellenistic rule, and became a seat of learning and culture, centered at the famous Library of Alexandria.

The Lighthouse of Alexandria lit the way for the many ships that kept trade flowing through the city-as the Ptolemies made commerce and revenue-generating enterprises, such as papyrus manufacturing, their top priority. Hellenistic culture did not supplant native Egyptian culture, as the Ptolemies supported time-honored traditions in an effort to secure the loyalty of the populace. They built new temples in Egyptian style, supported traditional cults, and portrayed themselves as pharaohs. Some traditions merged, as Greek and Egyptian gods were syncretized into composite deities, such as Serapis, and classical Greek forms of sculpture influenced traditional Egyptian motifs.

Despite their efforts to appease the Egyptians, the Ptolemies were challenged by native rebellion, bitter family rivalries, and the powerful mob of Alexandria that formed after the death of Ptolemy IV. In addition, as Rome relied more heavily on imports of grain from Egypt, the Romans took great interest in the political situation in the country.

Continued Egyptian revolts, ambitious politicians, and powerful Syriac opponents from the Near East made this situation unstable, leading Rome to send forces to secure the country as a province of its empire. The Romans relied heavily on grain shipments from Egypt, and the Roman army, under the control of a prefect appointed by the Emperor, quelled rebellions, strictly enforced the collection of heavy taxes, and prevented attacks by bandits, which had become a notorious problem during the period.

Alexandria became an increasingly important center on the trade route with the orient, as exotic luxuries were in high demand in Rome. Although the Romans had a more hostile attitude than the Greeks towards the Egyptians, some traditions such as mummification and worship of the traditional gods continued. The art of mummy portraiture flourished, and some Roman emperors had themselves depicted as pharaohs, though not to the extent that the Ptolemies had. The former lived outside Egypt and did not perform the ceremonial functions of Egyptian kingship.

Local administration became Roman in style and closed to native Egyptians. From the mid-first century AD, Christianity took root in Egypt and it was originally seen as another cult that could be accepted. However, it was an uncompromising religion that sought to win converts from Egyptian Religion and Greco-Roman religion and threatened popular religious traditions.

This led to the persecution of converts to Christianity, culminating in the great purges of Diocletian starting in , but eventually Christianity won out. In the Christian Emperor Theodosius introduced legislation that banned pagan rites and closed temples. Alexandria became the scene of great anti-pagan riots with public and private religious imagery destroyed.

• .
• Good Vibrations.
• .
• Sermon Outlines for Busy Pastors: Volume 2;
• Crash - Cherub tome 9 (ROMANS POCHE) (French Edition).

As a consequence, Egypt's native religious culture was continually in decline. While the native population certainly continued to speak their language, the ability to read hieroglyphic writing slowly disappeared as the role of the Egyptian temple priests and priestesses diminished. The temples themselves were sometimes converted to churches or abandoned to the desert. Government and economy Administration and commerce The pharaoh was the absolute monarch of the country and, at least in theory, wielded complete control of the land and its resources. The king was the supreme military commander and head of the government, who relied on a bureaucracy of officials to manage his affairs.

In charge of the administration was his second in command, the vizier, who acted as the king's representative and coordinated land surveys, the treasury, building projects, the legal system, and the archives. At a regional level, the country was divided into as many as 42 administrative regions called nomes each governed by a nomarch, who was accountable to the vizier for his jurisdiction.

The temples formed the backbone of the economy. Not only were they houses of worship, but were also responsible for collecting and storing the nation's wealth in a system of granaries and treasuries administered by overseers, who redistributed grain and goods. Much of the economy was centrally organized and strictly controlled. Although the ancient Egyptians did not use coinage until the Late period, they did use a type of money-barter system, with standard sacks of grain and the deben, a weight of roughly 91 grams 3 oz of copper or silver, forming a common denominator.

Prices were fixed across the country and recorded in lists to facilitate trading; for example a shirt cost five copper deben, while a cow cost deben. Grain could be traded for other goods, according to the fixed price list. During the fifth century BC coined money was introduced into Egypt from abroad. At first the coins were used as standardized pieces of precious metal rather than true money, but in the following centuries international traders came to rely on coinage. Social status Egyptian society was highly stratified, and social status was expressly displayed.

Farmers made up the bulk of the population, but agricultural produce was owned directly by the state, temple, or noble family that owned the land. Artists and craftsmen were of higher status than farmers, but they were also under state control, working in the shops attached to the temples and paid directly from the state treasury. Scribes and officials formed the upper class in ancient Egypt, known as the " white kilt class " in reference to the bleached linen garments that served as a mark of their rank.

The upper class prominently displayed their social status in art and literature. Below the nobility were the priests, physicians, and engineers with specialized training in their field. Slavery was known in ancient Egypt, but the extent and prevalence of its practice are unclear. The ancient Egyptians viewed men and women, including people from all social classes except slaves, as essentially equal under the law, and even the lowliest peasant was entitled to petition the vizier and his court for redress.

Although, slaves were mostly used as indentured servants. They were able to buy and sell, or work their way to freedom or nobility, and usually were treated by doctors in the workplace. Both men and women had the right to own and sell property, make contracts, marry and divorce, receive inheritance, and pursue legal disputes in court. Married couples could own property jointly and protect themselves from divorce by agreeing to marriage contracts, which stipulated the financial obligations of the husband to his wife and children should the marriage end.

Compared with their counterparts in ancient Greece, Rome, and even more modern places around the world, ancient Egyptian women had a greater range of personal choices and opportunities for achievement. Despite these freedoms, ancient Egyptian women did not often take part in official roles in the administration, served only secondary roles in the temples, and were not as likely to be as educated as men. Legal system The head of the legal system was officially the pharaoh, who was responsible for enacting laws, delivering justice, and maintaining law and order, a concept the ancient Egyptians referred to as Ma'at.

Although no legal codes from ancient Egypt survive, court documents show that Egyptian law was based on a common-sense view of right and wrong that emphasized reaching agreements and resolving conflicts rather than strictly adhering to a complicated set of statutes. Local councils of elders, known as Kenbet in the New Kingdom, were responsible for ruling in court cases involving small claims and minor disputes.

More serious cases involving murder, major land transactions, and tomb robbery were referred to the Great Kenbet, over which the vizier or pharaoh presided. Plaintiffs and defendants were expected to represent themselves and were required to swear an oath that they had told the truth.

In some cases, the state took on both the role of prosecutor and judge, and it could torture the accused with beatings to obtain a confession and the names of any co-conspirators. Whether the charges were trivial or serious, court scribes documented the complaint, testimony, and verdict of the case for future reference. Punishment for minor crimes involved either imposition of fines, beatings, facial mutilation, or exile, depending on the severity of the offense. Serious crimes such as murder and tomb robbery were punished by execution, carried out by decapitation, drowning, or impaling the criminal on a stake.

Punishment could also be extended to the criminal's family. Beginning in the New Kingdom, oracles played a major role in the legal system, dispensing justice in both civil and criminal cases. The procedure was to ask the god a " yes " or " no " question concerning the right or wrong of an issue. The god, carried by a number of priests, rendered judgment by choosing one or the other, moving forward or backward, or pointing to one of the answers written on a piece of papyrus or an ostracon. Agriculture A combination of favorable geographical features contributed to the success of ancient Egyptian culture, the most important of which was the rich fertile soil resulting from annual inundations of the Nile River.

The ancient Egyptians were thus able to produce an abundance of food, allowing the population to devote more time and resources to cultural, technological, and artistic pursuits. Land management was crucial in ancient Egypt because taxes were assessed based on the amount of land a person owned. Farming in Egypt was dependent on the cycle of the Nile River. The Egyptians recognized three seasons: Akhet flooding , Peret planting , and Shemu harvesting.

The flooding season lasted from June to September, depositing on the river's banks a layer of mineral-rich silt ideal for growing crops. After the floodwaters had receded, the growing season lasted from October to February. Farmers plowed and planted seeds in the fields, which were irrigated with ditches and canals.

Egypt received little rainfall, so farmers relied on the Nile to water their crops. From March to May, farmers used sickles to harvest their crops, which were then threshed with a flail to separate the straw from the grain. Winnowing removed the chaff from the grain, and the grain was then ground into flour, brewed to make beer, or stored for later use.

The ancient Egyptians cultivated emmer and barley, and several other cereal grains, all of which were used to make the two main food staples of bread and beer. Flax plants, uprooted before they started flowering, were grown for the fibers of their stems. These fibers were split along their length and spun into thread, which was used to weave sheets of linen and to make clothing. Papyrus growing on the banks of the Nile River was used to make paper. Vegetables and fruits were grown in garden plots, close to habitations and on higher ground, and had to be watered by hand.

Vegetables included leeks, garlic, melons, squashes, pulses, lettuce, and other crops, in addition to grapes that were made into wine.