Saturday, April 26, 2008

Ancient Persia

I searched around on the internet and I can't found any website, so I found this this webpage and looked through it:
http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/cultural/oldworld/middle_east/ancientpersia.html
It talks about before the Neolithic Period, the first communities in ancient Persia. The Persians domesticated animals and planted crops, like wheat and barely. There are many hand painted pottery of artifacts that found in many ancient Persian archeological sites. Persians was a really big and powerful empire, it ruled many other empires. Like Mesopotamia, Egypt, Syria, and some parts of Asia Minor and India. Around 520B.C., Darius I became the king of Persia, he made Persepolis the ceremonial capital of the Achaemenian Empire. Persepolis was developed more by other kings, and most of the credit was given to Darius I. Darius I also developed a government, including a tax collecting system, allowed locals to keep their own customs and religions and had its own system of roads. Furthermore, the new government also appointed the Persian Empire with two official capitals, one at Susa and one at Persepolis. Unfortunately, Alexander the Great conquered Persia in 331 BC, and the great palace of Persepolis was burnt to the ground.

I found another webpage:


It talks about the Persian Empire was founded in around 550 BC by Cyrus II, called Cyrus the Great. Cyrus founded the empire by conquering the Median kingdom, bringing together two powerful ancient peoples: the Medes and the Persians. He built capital cities at Pasargadae and Persepolis, and continued conquering new territory until his death in 530 B.C.

His empire lasted for 200 years, encompassing diverse peoples and reaching its greatest extent under Darius I. defeated King Croesus of Lydia, in modern Turkey, in 546 BC and capturing Babylon in modern Iraq in 539 BC.
I also found a picture in this website. It is the tomb of Cyrus at Pasargadae. It is rather big, and in the cuture of many ancient countries, the tombs of kings are huge. I think it consume much manpower, although it isn't bigger than pyramids in Egypt.

Saturday, April 05, 2008

Babylon

I searched around on the internet, but I can't found any website. Therefore, I found this webpage: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylon It talks about the Babylon. Babylon was a city of ancient Mesopotamia, and we can find the ruins of it in Al Hillah, Babil Province, Iraq, and about 85 kilometers south of Baghdad. Babylon was in the beginning a small town that had sprung up in about 3000 B.C, and it flourished and attained prominence and political repute with the rise of the first Babylonian dynasty. The town was the "holy city" of Babylonia by approximately 2300 BC, and the seat of the Neo-Babylonian Empire from 612 B.C. And there is a famous building--The Hanging Gardens of Babylon were one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

And I found another webpage : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanging_Gardens_of_Babylon This webpage is about The Hanging Gardens of Babylon. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon are one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, they were built by Nebuchadnezzar II around 600 B.C. He built the gardens to please his wife, Amytis of Media, who want the trees and fragrant plants of her homeland. The gardens were destroyed by several earthquakes after the 2nd century B.C. The Hanging Gardens were extensived documented by Greek historians such as Strabo and Diodorus Siculus. Through the ages, the place of them may have been confused with gardens that existed at Nineveh, since tablets from there clearly show gardens. Writings on these tablets describe the possible use of something similar to an Archimedes' screw as a process of raising the water to the required height. Moreover, I found this picture :

This is the ancient depiction of the Hanging Gardens. Irrigation on a man-made slope. It is the picture of The Hanging Gardens of Babylon, there are abundant of beautiful trees, plants and river beside the gorgeous building. It might waste a lot of money and manpower to build these huge and resplendent gardens.

Wednesday, April 02, 2008

Israel Current Events

I looked around on the internet and found this webpage : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Israel-Lebanon_conflict
This webpage is about the Lebanon War in 2006. The war stated on July 12th of 2006, and formally ended on September 8th of 2006. It was a 33-day military conflict in Lebanon and northern Israel. The conflict began when Hezbollah soldiers fired rockets at Israeli border towns as a diversion for an anti-tank missile attack on two armored Humvees patrolling the Israeli side of the border fence. Of the seven Israeli soldiers in the two jeeps, two were wounded, three were killed, and two were captured and taken to Lebanon. Five more were killed in a failed Israeli rescue attempt. Then Israel fight back with abundant of airstrikes and artillery fire on targets in Lebanon and damaged Lebanese civilian infrastructure. Hezbollah then launched more rockets into northern Israel and engaged the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in guerrilla warfare from hardened positions. There are a thousand and more people died in Lebanon War, and most of them were Lebanese civilians. Moreover, there was a severely damage of Lebanese infrastructure, and displaced 974,184 Lebanese and 300,000-500,000 Israelis. After the ceasefire, some parts of Southern Lebanon remained uninhabitable due to unexploded cluster bomblets. On 11 August 2006, the United Nations Security Council unanimously approved UN Resolution 1701 in an effort to end the hostilities. The resolution was approved by both Lebanese and Israeli governments the following days, called for disarmament of Hezbollah. It was for withdrawal of Israel from Lebanon, and for the deployment of Lebanese soldiers and an enlarged United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) force in southern Lebanon. The Lebanese army began deploying in southern Lebanon on 17 August 2006. The blockade was lifted on 8 September 2006. On 1 October 2006, most Israeli troops withdrew from Lebanon, though the last of the troops continued to occupy the border-straddling village of Ghajar. In the time since the enactment of UNSCR 1701 both the Lebanese government and UNIFIL have stated that they will not disarm Hezbollah.

I think that we must stop wars, because it could kill many people, break many families, waste a lot of resources, contaminate the Earth and even a lot more problems......etc. Furthermore, the science is developed forward a lot, and the nuclear weapons would make a lot more damage and contamination in the world. Therefore, I think we should stop the wars and live peaceful. Not only for our own selves, but also for everyone in the world.