Babylonian Symbols of the Fertile Crescent

While there are many symbols relating to the Babylon here are some of the most prominent. 

The Lion was the symbol of royal power.

Lions; Museum of London, London

The dragon was associated with the supreme god, Marduk who was the patron deity of the city of Babylon. 

Black and white crop of full plate scan, from Austen Henry Layard's 'Monuments of Nineveh, Second Series' plate 19/83, London, J. Murray, 1853

Babylonian scholars developed a numbering system based on 60, which lead to our 60 min hour and our 360 degrees circles. 

The most prominant image of Babylon is it's hanging gardens. Babylon's hanging gardens became synonymous with the ancient Judaeo-Christian image of eden, it was also one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. 

The Goddess Ishtar in the Fertile Crescent

Ishtar is the moon goddess in Ancient Mesopotamia. She is also known as Inanna, Astarte, Ashtar, and later as Isis in ancient Egypt. 

Statue of the Goddess Ishtar in the Louvre, Paris

Ishtar holds the power that can create and destroy and like the moon is always changing in form. 

Ishtar is also the goddess of fertility and war. She is often depicted with standing on a lion or with the talons and wings of an owl. Commonly she is also shown wearing a three-tiered crown of stars, blue lapis lazuli stones, and a rainbow necklace which symbolizes her connection with the sky. 

In Mesopotamian legend she is seen as queen of the heavens; each night riding across the sky in a chariot drawn by lions or goats. 

The constellations of the zodiac (or zodiacal belt) , then known as the Houses of the Moon, was known as the "girdle of Ishtar", a term that referded to the acient moon calander. 

Ziggurats in the Fertile Crescent

Ziggurats evolved from early temple complexes in the fertile crescent. Some of these pyramid-like structure reach as high as 300 ft. 

The White Temple of Uruk (Erech in the old testament), dedicated to the Sumerian God An, lord of the heavens, is one of the earliest exaples and dates back to the late 3000s BCE

Mesopotamian ziggurats were built in series of three, five, or seven. They had narrow terraces with steps for climbing to the next levels. The seven terraces were said to correspond to the seven planetary heavens. 

The first level, according to Sumerian tradition, is linked with Saturn and was painted black. The second level was linked with with Jupiter and was painted white; the third was red and was linked with Mercury. The forth blue level was associated with Venus; the fifth is level of the ziggurats is lost to time; the sixth is Mars and yellow, and the seventh and final level was silver and was thought to represent the moon. 

Sacrifices were usually held at the top level of a ziggurat because they were seen as representation of the cosmic mountain at the center of the world. Ziggurats were seen as ladders between heaven and earth creating a passage way for mortals to ascend and gods to descend. 

On the subject of Bananas

Banana - noun. An edible fruit; typically yellow,green, or brown; grown on herbaceous plants.

Banana Dog - noun. A dog made from the edible yellow fruit, banana.

Banana House - noun. A house made from a banana

Bananas have many functions, they can be used as works of art, in construction of plastics, and even skin care.

Bananas have been the main focused of songs....

and bananas can be turned into just about anything!

But did you know that bananas are on their way to becoming extinct? 

This great and versatile fruit is becoming extinct for being so great, claims researcher Dan Koeppel, in his book Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World. 

The common yellow banana that people know in the US, Canada, and Europe, called the Cavendish, is the most eaten fruit in the United States because it is nutritious, convenient, and affordable. Over 100 billion Cavendish Bananas are consumed annually worldwide. These bananas are perfect from a genetic standpoint; every banana is a genetic twin to the first one found in Southeast Asia which was brought to a Caribbean botanic garden in the early 20th century. 

The banana has become too perfect after fifteen thousand years of human cultivation. Bananas lacked genetic diversity which led it to be virus prone. A fungus that infects a plantation of bananas could infect them all. Imagine a world without bananas.

No more banana phones...

No more bananas at parties...

Could anyone imagine a world without this wonderful yellow fruit?

SAVE BANANAS!!!

The Art of Gift Giving

Christmas is the time of the year where you remember the little things in life and slow down for a bit. 

You remember silly things and floods of memories are at the front of your mind. You remember gifts you've given and gifts you've received, and even memories so precious they were gifts in themselves. 

Many people ask what you would like for a gift, but isn't that a little bit strange?

Asking what a person what they may want takes the excitement out of giving and receiving a gift. It makes gift giving feel like an obligatory tradition that that is inconveniencing the gift giver and putting the person who may receive a gift on the spot. 

Gift giving should be about the person, about what they like, and how they make you feel or your interactions with that person. You don't even need to know the person very long just to know something about them. 

Gift giving is about watching someone's face light up with excitement. 

You don't need to go over the top....

The person who receives the gift just needs to know that you put some thought into giving them a gift that is just for them. 

If someone likes reading, there are a number things that relate to reading that can be great gifts.

Like a first edition of their favorite book, or a leather version of their favorite book with their initials on it.

If you have been to someone's house, what do they have out? What do they collect? What do they like and cherish and keep out for everyone to see?

How did you meet? Did you meet at a fair or because of something?

Or have you known them forever? And know exactly what they would like?

Gifts don't have to be bought either, they can be made. Making a gift is more than just making an object to give to them. The gift should be in honor of the person you are giving it to; if they like cars then give them something car related. 

Gifts are so many things, they don't even have to be an object. They can be a moment that you created just for a person to see or experience. The magic of a single moment can last a lifetime while an object may get lost or corrode away. 

A gift can be so many things from the simplest of gestures to things you plan out specially for someone you love. Any gift can be the most wonderful thing to someone, if you put a little bit of thought into it. 

The Importance of Eating Breakfast

           Breakfast is the first meal of the day as it helps everyone start the day off on the right foot. Eating breakfast not only fills one up in the morning, but it also improves concentration and memory, and keeps people healthier. Eating breakfast also reduces the risk of having diabetes and or having a heart attack, and helps to maintain a healthy weight.

            According to an article in the scientific journal Physiology & Behavior, an experiment by Loughborough University(¹) showed that eating breakfast improves concentration. Students who ate nutritional balanced breakfasts reported better concentration and more positive reactions to difficult tasks in the morning and throughout the day. Those students (who ate breakfast) showed twice as much concentration as the students who did not eat breakfast. They also had a faster memory recall that was about 75% faster than students who did not eat breakfast, showing that eating breakfast improved more positive reactions and faster memory recall. 

            Web MD(3) and the American Journal of Epidemiology(4) suggests that eating breakfast keeps people healthier over all. Having food in one’s stomach helps every system in the body function properly. It stops the body from hoarding food and gaining excess weight. Eating breakfast allows the body to regulate its system not just in the morning but also throughout the day. 

            BBC News' Dr. Mark Pereira(2) showed that breakfast, in addition to keeping up general health, also reduces the risk of having diabetes and or having a heart attack. Eating breakfast helps to balance the body’s systems, which is what the body needs to maintain good health. Overall good health puts less stress on the body allowing it to produce all of the insulin it needs to function properly.

            Eating breakfast helps the body in so many beneficial ways that it would be hard to imagine skipping it. The positive feedback our bodies give us in return for eating a healthy breakfast turns the foods we choose into a breakfast of champions.

Citations

1. Simon B. Cooper, Stephan Bandelow, and Mary E. Nevill “Breakfast consumption and cognitive function in adolescent schoolchildren” Physiology & Behavior Volume 103, Issue 5, 6 July 2011 <http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0031938411001375>
2. "Breakfast is the most important meal" <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/2824987.stm>
3. "The many benefits of breakfast" Kathleen M. Zelman, MPH, RD, LD, <http://www.webmd.com/diet/features/many-benefits-breakfast>
4. <http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/content/158/1/85.full>

Introducing Linguistics - A Graphic Guide - Quiz

I have returned to the wonderful fairy tale world that is our library. Among the many books I have at my disposal, I decided to start with "A Graphic Guide to Linguistics" - because I love comics and this is a graphic guide, but also what better subject with which to start then the study of words and language.

These little books are jam-packed with information, so here comes one of the first of the quizzes I will make for the book. 

1. Who took the first step in European Linguistics?
2. Who was the first to classify between nouns, verbs, articles, pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions, adverbs, and participles?
3. What other language used the Greek analysis to order their language accordingly?
4. Which 17th century scholars put together a remarkably original "universal" grammar of French?
5. Saussure said that "A linguistic sign is not a link between a thing and a name but between a _____ and a ______".
6. While Saussure died without publishing his ideas, how were his ideas spread?
7. What is the difference between synchronic and diachronic structures?
8. Who was the first to make the connection between culture and language?
9. Post-Bloomfield Structuralists were the first to?
10. Generative Grammar was invented by whom?

1. Answer on Page 6 (Aristotle) 2. Answer on Page 7 (Thrax) 3. Answer on Page 8 (Latin) 4. Answer on Page 11 (Port-Royal Circle) 5. Answer on Page 16 (Concept, Sound Pattern) 6. Answer on Page 17 (His students pooled and edited their leture notes and had it published in 1916) 7. Answer on Page 22 (Diachronic looks at language over time, while synchronic looks at langauge at a particular moment in time.) 8. Answer on Page 29 (Sapir) 9. Answer on Page 36 (Look at langauge in a scientific manner, by collecting empirical data.) 10. Answer on Page 38 (Noam Chomsky)

Religious Life of the Fertile Crescent

The flooding of the Tigris and the Euphrates was violent and unpredictable: from one day to the next, life-giving rain could change into an agent of devastation.

It was believed the gods controlled these powerful forces, with humans little more than slaves subject to the whims of fate.

This put religion firmly at the center of daily life, with a temple dedicated to one of the major gods at the heart of each town or city.

Initially these were fairly simple mud-brick constructions, decorated with cone geometrical mosaics and frescos with human and animal figures.

A rectangular shrine, known as a "cella", had a brick altar or offering table in front of a rituals, food sacrifices and libations took place on a daily basis, as well as monthly feasts and annual celebrations of the New Year.

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Record Keeping of the Fertile Crescent

The ancient civilization of Sumer had thrived in agriculture, trade and industry.

It was one of the first civilizations to develop a system of writing. 

Initially pictographs or icons were used, with one of the earliest dictionaries containing about 2,000 graphic symbols, each one meant to resemble that which it represented. 

However, as society developed and the need to record complex matters increased, the limitations of pictorial representation became apparent. 

Gradually people realized that written signs could be used to represent sounds rather than things. 

So pictures were replaced by cuneiform script, a written code based on a series of wedge-shaped characters, usually inscribed on to a soft surface, such as clay. 

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