BYZANTINE

The Byzantine Empire and Eastern Roman Empire are conventional names used to describe the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages, centered on its capital of Constantinople.

It was referred to by its inhabitants and neighboring nations simply as the Roman Empire (in Greek Βασιλεία Ῥωμαίων, Basileia Rōmaiōn), Empire of the Romans or Romania (Ῥωμανία, Rōmaniā). Its emperorsRoman Emperors, preserving Greco-Roman legal and cultural traditions. continued the unbroken succession of

To the Islamic world it was known primarily as روم‎ (Rûm "Rome"). Due to the linguistic, cultural, and demographic dominance of medieval Greek it was known to many of its western European contemporaries as Imperium Graecorum, the Empire of the Greeks (see also the etymology section).

The definition of this empire as a distinct entity in itself constitutes an implicit or explicit rejection of its emperors and people's claim to be Romans and succesors of the Roman Empire - a rejection based on the assumption that only an empire using Latin as its official language and based in Italy can be considered truly "Roman", and that geographical move into hellenistic territory and linguistic-cultural adoption of Greek constituted a transformation into an inherently different identity.^{[citation needed]}

The Eastern Roman Empire's evolution into a different culture from the ancient Roman Empire can be seen as a process beginning when the Emperor Constantine transferred the capital from Nicomedia in Anatolia to Byzantium, which was renamed New Rome or Constantinople, on the Bosphorus.

By the 7th century, under the reign of Emperor Heraclius, whose reforms changed the nature of the Empire's military and recognized Greek as the official language, the Empire had taken on a distinct new character.

During its thousand-year existence the Empire suffered numerous setbacks and losses of territory but remained one of the most powerful economic, cultural and military forces in Europe. The empire's influence also spread into North Africa and the near East for much of the Middle Ages.

After a final recovery under the Komnenian dynasty in the 12th century the Empire slipped into a long decline culminating in the capture of Constantinople and the remaining territories by the Ottoman Turks in the 15th century.

The Empire, a bastion of Christianity and one of the prime trade centers in the world, helped to shield Western Europe from early Muslim expansion, provided a stable gold currency for the Mediterranean region, influenced the laws, political systems, and customs of much of Europe and the Middle East, and preserved much of the literary works and scientific knowledge of ancient Greece, Rome, and many other cultures.

THE CLASSICAL GREECE

Architecture

(building executed to an aesthetically considered design) was extinct in Greece from the end of the Mycenaean period (about 1200 BC) until the 7th century, when urban life and prosperity recovered to a point where public building could be undertaken. But since most Greek buildings in the Archaic and Early Classical periods were made of wood or mud-brick, nothing remains of them except a few ground-plans, and there are almost no written sources on early architecture or descriptions of buildings. Most of our knowledge of Greek architecture comes from the few surviving buildings of the Classical, Hellenistic and Roman periods (since Roman architecture heavily copied Greek), and from late written sources such as Vitruvius (1st century AD). This means that there is a strong bias towards temples, the only buildings which survive in any number.

The standard format of Greek public buildings is well known from surviving examples such as the Parthenon, and even more so from Roman buildings built partly on the Greek model, such as the Pantheon in Rome. The building was usually either a cube or a rectangle made from limestone, of which Greece has an abundance, and which was cut into large blocks and dressed. Marble was an expensive building material in Greece: high quality marble came only from Mt Pentelus in Attica and from a few islands such as Paros, and its transportation in large blocks was difficult. It was used mainly for sculptural decoration, not structurally, except in the very grandest buildings of the Classical period such as the Parthenon.

There were two main styles (or "orders") of Greek architecture, the Doric and the Ionic. These names were used by the Greeks themselves, and reflected their belief that the styles descended from the Dorian and Ionian Greeks of the Dark Ages, but this is unlikely to be true. The Doric style was used in mainland Greece and spread from there to the Greek colonies in Italy. The Ionic style was used in the cities of Ionia (now the west coast of Turkey) and some of the Aegean islands. The Doric style was more formal and austere, the Ionic more relaxed and decorative. The more ornate Corinthian style was a later development of the Ionic. These styles are best known through the three orders of column capitals, but there are differences in most points of design and decoration between the orders. See the separate article on Classical orders.

Most of the best known surviving Greek buildings, such as the Parthenon and the Temple of Hephaestus in Athens, are Doric. The Erechtheum, next to the Parthenon, however, is Ionic. The Ionic order became dominant in the Hellenistic period, since its more decorative style suited the aesthetic of the period better than the more restrained Doric. Some of the best surviving Hellenistic buildings, such as the Library of Celsus, can be seen in Turkey, at cities such as Ephesus and Pergamum. But in the greatest of Hellenistic cities, Alexandria in Egypt, almost nothing survives.

Early minion

Minion architecture 2600-2000

The Minoan cities were connected with stone-paved roads formed from blocks cut with bronze saws. Streets were drained and water and ssewer facilities were available to the upper class, throughc lay pipes.

Minoan buildings often had flat tiled roofs; plaster wood,or flagstone floors, and stood two to three storieshigh. Typically the lower walls were constructed of stone and rubble, and the upper walls of mudbrick. Ceiling timbers held up the roofs.

The materials used in constructing the villas and palaces varied, and could include sandstone, gypsum, or limestone. Equally, building techniques could also vary between different constructions; some palaces employed the use of ashlar masonry whilst others used roughly hewn

The first palaces were constructed at the end of the Early Minoan period in the third millennium BC (Malia). While it was formerly believed that the foundation of the first palaces was synchronous and dated to the Middle Minoan at around 2000 BC (the date of the first palace at Knossos), scholars now think that palaces were built over a longer period of time in different locations, in response to local developments. The main older palaces are Knossos, Malia, and Phaistos. Some of the elements recorded in the Middle Minoan 'palaces' (Knossos, Phaistos and Mallia, for example) have precedents in earlier styles of construction in the Early Minoan period. These include the indented western court, and the special treatment given to the western façade. An example of this is seen at the "House on the Hill" at Vasiliki, dated to the Early Minoan II period.

The palaces fulfilled a plethora of functions: they served as centres of goverment, administrative offices, shrines, workshops, and storage spaces (e.g., for grain). These distinctions might have seemed artificial to Minoans.

From Egypt To post modenism

Known as dynasty ur at that time 2600-2450 Before century.location at southern mesopotamia...Among the most important remains of the first dynasty, which has revealed a luxurious material culture, are the royal cemetery, where the standard of Ur was found, and the Temple of Ninhursag at Ubaid, bearing the inscriptions of the kings of the first dynasty. Ur was captured c.2340 by Sargon, and this era, called the Akkadian period, marks an important step in the blending of Sumerian and Semitic cultures. After this dynasty came a long period of which practically nothing is known except that a second dynasty rose and fell. The third dynasty was established c.2060 BC under King Ur-nammu , who built the great ziggurat that has stood, although crumbled and covered with sand, throughout the centuries. An inscription in the Museum of the Ancient Orient in Istanbul was identified (1952) as a fragment of the code of Ur-Nammu. It predates the code of hammurabi by 300 years and is the oldest known law code yet discovered. The third dynasty of Ur fell (c.1950 BC) to the Elamites and later to Babylon. The city was destroyed and rebuilt throughout the years by various kings and conquerors, including nebuchadnezzar and Nabonidus in the 6th cent. About the middle of the 6th cent., Ur went into a decline from which it never recovered. A record dated 324 BC mentions it as being inhabited by Arabs, but by that time its existence as a great city was forgotten. The change in the course of the Euphrates, which had been the source of the city's wealth, probably contributed to the final decline of Ur.

malacca view....

From parameswara untill now malacca still be a nice state to visit.About food,architecture,beach and others still the best....now it became world herritage..from the 1st state announce independent day by Tunku...A lot experience can we get from this place...

Stonehenge

Stonehenge is a prehistoric monument located in the English county of Wiltshire, about 3.2 kilometres (2.0 mi) west of Amesbury and 13 kilometres (8.1 mi) north of Salisbury. One of the most famous prehistoric sites in the world, Stonehenge is composed of earthworks surrounding a circular setting of large standing stones. Archaeologists believe that the iconic stone monument was erected around 2500 BC, however this was not the first stone structure on the site. The surrounding circular earth bank and ditch, which constitute the earliest phase of the monument, have been dated to about 3100 BC. The site and its surroundings were added to the UNESCO's list of World Heritage Sites in 1986 in a co-listing with Avebury henge monument, and it is also a legally protected Scheduled Ancient Monument. Stonehenge itself is owned by the Crown and managed by English Heritage while the surrounding land is owned by the National Trust.

New archaeological evidence found by the Stonehenge Riverside Project indicates that Stonehenge served as a burial ground from its earliest beginnings. The dating of cremated remains found that burials took place as early as 3000 B.C, when the first ditches were being built around the monument. Burials continued at Stonehenge for at least another 500 years when the giant stones which mark the landmark were put up. According to Professor Mike Parker Pearson, head of Stonehenge Riverside Project...

Stonehenge was a place of burial from its beginning to its zenith in the mid third millennium B.C. The cremation burial dating to Stonehenge's sarsen stones phase is likely just one of many from this later period of the monument's use and demonstrates that it was still very much a domain of the dead....

The City at the Center of the Ancient World

huh..it is catal huyuk Ancient cities, as we find them today, are not impressive sights. All that remains of Catal Huyuk (Chat-al Hoo-yook), the first city, is a gullied, pitted mound, floating in a rolling plain of wheatfields. Little is left to show that this place was a primary source of Western civilization, a nexus of trade and ideas for two thousand years, the first organized cosmopolitan city-state, and arguably the source of the Great Mother Goddess religion -- the universal faith of Europe, the Near East, and the Far East before the great empires of the Fertile Crescent arose. Sadly, most of the research on this unique neolithic site has been abandoned, and thousands of pages of analysis remain unpublished. Only one acre of the thirty-two acre mound has been systematically excavated, recorded, and reported. Those excavations reveal an almost fairy-tale city of shrines and temples, of philosophy, luxury, and wealth. This was Catal Huyuk, the ancestress of all other cities, a unique Temple City that was the religious center of the first great prehistoric civilization.
Twelve successive layers of building, representing distinct stages of the city and reflecting different eras of its history, have been found. The top layers of the mound, containing the most recent buildings, are dated at 5,600 B.C. The city was mysteriously abandoned at about this time, and a new city, labeled Catal Huyuk West, was founded several miles away across the Carsamba Cay river. While Catal Huyuk West has barely been investigated, the site appears to have been occupied for another 700 years until it, too, was abandoned. After 4.900 B.C. the entire area was forsaken -- there are no traces of any later buildings or further occupation after neolithic times. Thus, the full duration of this early civilization looks as though it should be measured from approximately 7,000 B.C. to 4,900 B.C., some 2,100 years, give or take a century, "The neolithic civilization revealed at Catal Huyuk shines like a supernova among the rather dim galaxy of contemprary peasant cultures...................