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Four Great Ancient Civilizations
In Japanese and Chinese historiography, the () were Egypt, Mesopotamia, India, and China, which are identified as the cradles of civilization. The concept is popularly used in Japan and China—for example in history textbooks—but not generally known in the western world. Origin The origins of the phrase are unclear. According to one theory, it originated with Japanese archaeologist ; his colleague Masaaki Sugiyama recalled that Egami used to say that he coined the phrase. The first known occurrence of the phrase "four great civilizations" can be traced to a textbook titled , published by in 1952 by the Yamakawa Publishing Company, where Egami worked. Another theory is that the term originates with Liang Qichao, a Chinese intellectual that lived during the late Qing dynasty. Specifically, in his 1900 poem (), he wrote "there are four motherlands of ancient civilizations on earth: China, India, Egypt, and Asia Minor" (). This view of civilization was also influenced by Japa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Japanese Historiography
The historiography of Japan ( ') is the study of methods and hypotheses formulated in the study and literature of the history of Japan. The earliest work of Japanese history is attributed to Prince Shōtoku, who is said to have written the ''Tennōki'' and the '' Kokki'' in 620CE. The earliest extant work is the of 712. The ''Nihon Shoki'' followed by 720. These two works formed the base of a history of the nation based in great part on Japanese mythology, in particular that of the Shinto religion. The works were inspired by Chinese historiography and were compiled with the support of the Japanese state. Five more works between 797 and 901 completed what had begun with the ''Nihon Shoki''; the six are known as the ''Rikkokushi'' ("six national histories"). An abandonment of Chinese inspiration and state support marks the historiographical writings of the period from the 9th to 16th centuries. A great number of historical tales called '' rekishi monogatari'' and war tales c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sohu
Sohu, Inc. () is a Chinese Internet company headquartered in the Sohu Internet Plaza in Haidian District, Beijing. Sohu and its subsidiaries offer advertising, a search engine (Sogou.com), on-line multiplayer gaming (ChangYou.com) and other services. History Sohu was founded as Internet Technologies China (ITC) in 1996 by Charles Zhang after he completed his PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and received venture capital funding from colleagues he met there. The following year, Zhang changed the name of ITC to Sohoo in homage to Yahoo! after meeting its cofounder, Jerry Yang; the name was soon after changed to Sohu to differentiate it from the American company. Sohu has been listed on NASDAQ since 2000 through a variable interest entity (VIE) based in Delaware. Sohu's Sogou.com search engine was in talks to be sold in July 2013 to Qihoo for around $1.4 billion. On September 17, 2013, it was announced that Tencent has invested $448 million for a minority sh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Literature
Literature is any collection of Writing, written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially novels, Play (theatre), plays, and poetry, poems. It includes both print and Electronic literature, digital writing. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to include oral literature, much of which has been transcribed.; see also Homer. Literature is a method of recording, preserving, and transmitting knowledge and entertainment. It can also have a social, psychological, spiritual, or political role. Literary criticism is one of the oldest academic disciplines, and is concerned with the literary merit or intellectual significance of specific texts. The study of books and other texts as artifacts or traditions is instead encompassed by textual criticism or the history of the book. "Literature", as an art form, is sometimes used synonymously with literary fiction, fiction written with the goal of artistic merit, but ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Science
Science is a systematic discipline that builds and organises knowledge in the form of testable hypotheses and predictions about the universe. Modern science is typically divided into twoor threemajor branches: the natural sciences, which study the physical world, and the social sciences, which study individuals and societies. While referred to as the formal sciences, the study of logic, mathematics, and theoretical computer science are typically regarded as separate because they rely on deductive reasoning instead of the scientific method as their main methodology. Meanwhile, applied sciences are disciplines that use scientific knowledge for practical purposes, such as engineering and medicine. The history of science spans the majority of the historical record, with the earliest identifiable predecessors to modern science dating to the Bronze Age in Ancient Egypt, Egypt and Mesopotamia (). Their contributions to mathematics, astronomy, and medicine entered and shaped the Gree ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Philosophy
Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational and critical inquiry that reflects on its methods and assumptions. Historically, many of the individual sciences, such as physics and psychology, formed part of philosophy. However, they are considered separate academic disciplines in the modern sense of the term. Influential traditions in the history of philosophy include Western philosophy, Western, Islamic philosophy, Arabic–Persian, Indian philosophy, Indian, and Chinese philosophy. Western philosophy originated in Ancient Greece and covers a wide area of philosophical subfields. A central topic in Arabic–Persian philosophy is the relation between reason and revelation. Indian philosophy combines the Spirituality, spiritual problem of how to reach Enlightenment in Buddhism, enlighten ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Metal Ages
The three-age system is the periodization of human prehistory (with some overlap into the historical periods in a few regions) into three time-periods: the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, and the Iron Age, although the concept may also refer to other tripartite divisions of historic time periods. In some periodizations, a fourth Copper Age is added as between the Stone Age and Bronze Age. The Copper, Bronze, and Iron Ages are also known collectively as the Metal Ages. In history, archaeology and physical anthropology, the three-age system is a methodological concept adopted during the 19th century according to which artefacts and events of late prehistory and early history could be broadly ordered into a recognizable chronology. C. J. Thomsen initially developed this categorization in the period 1816 to 1825, as a result of classifying the collection of an archaeological exhibition chronologically – there resulted broad sequences with artefacts made successively of stone, bronz ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Neolithic Age
The Neolithic or New Stone Age (from Greek 'new' and 'stone') is an archaeological period, the final division of the Stone Age in Mesopotamia, Asia, Europe and Africa (c. 10,000 BCE to c. 2,000 BCE). It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several parts of the world. This "Neolithic package" included the introduction of farming, domestication of animals, and change from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to one of settlement. The term 'Neolithic' was coined by Sir John Lubbock in 1865 as a refinement of the three-age system. The Neolithic began about 12,000 years ago, when farming appeared in the Epipalaeolithic Near East and Mesopotamia, and later in other parts of the world. It lasted in the Near East until the transitional period of the Chalcolithic (Copper Age) from about 6,500 years ago (4500 BCE), marked by the development of metallurgy, leading up to the Bronze Age and Iron Age. In other places, th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bronze Age
The Bronze Age () was a historical period characterised principally by the use of bronze tools and the development of complex urban societies, as well as the adoption of writing in some areas. The Bronze Age is the middle principal period of the three-age system, following the Stone Age and preceding the Iron Age. Conceived as a global era, the Bronze Age follows the Neolithic, with a transition period between the two known as the Chalcolithic. The final decades of the Bronze Age in the Mediterranean basin are often characterised as a period of widespread societal collapse known as the Late Bronze Age collapse (), although its severity and scope are debated among scholars. An ancient civilisation is deemed to be part of the Bronze Age if it either produced bronze by smelting its own copper and alloying it with tin, arsenic, or other metals, or traded other items for bronze from producing areas elsewhere. Bronze Age cultures were the first to History of writing, develop writin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yangtze River
The Yangtze or Yangzi ( or ) is the longest river in Eurasia and the third-longest in the world. It rises at Jari Hill in the Tanggula Mountains of the Tibetan Plateau and flows including Dam Qu River the longest source of the Yangtze, in a generally easterly direction to the East China Sea. It is the fifth-largest primary river by discharge volume in the world. Its drainage basin comprises one-fifth of the land area of China, and is home to nearly one-third of the country's population. The Yangtze has played a major role in the history, culture, and economy of China. For thousands of years, the river has been used for water, irrigation, sanitation, transportation, industry, boundary-marking, and war. The Yangtze Delta generates as much as 20% of China's GDP, and the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze is the largest hydro-electric power station in the world. In mid-2014, the Chinese government announced it was building a multi-tier transport network, comprising railways, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yellow River
The Yellow River, also known as Huanghe, is the second-longest river in China and the List of rivers by length, sixth-longest river system on Earth, with an estimated length of and a Drainage basin, watershed of . Beginning in the Bayan Har Mountains, the river flows generally eastwards before entering the long Ordos Loop, which runs northeast at Gansu through the Ordos Plateau and turns east in Inner Mongolia. The river then turns sharply southwards to form the border between Shanxi and Shaanxi, turns eastwards at its confluence with the Wei River, and flows across the North China Plain before emptying into the Bohai Sea. The river is named for the yellow color of its water, which comes from the large amount of sediment discharged into the water as the river flows through the Loess Plateau. The Yellow River basin was the birthplace of Yellow River civilization, ancient Chinese civilization. According to traditional Chinese historiography, the Xia dynasty originated on it ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ganges
The Ganges ( ; in India: Ganga, ; in Bangladesh: Padma, ). "The Ganges Basin, known in India as the Ganga and in Bangladesh as the Padma, is an international which goes through India, Bangladesh, Nepal and China." is a trans-boundary river of Asia which flows through India and Bangladesh. The river rises in the western Himalayas in the States and union territories of India, Indian state of Uttarakhand. It flows south and east through the Gangetic Plain, Gangetic plain of North India, receiving the right-bank tributary, the Yamuna, which also rises in the western Indian Himalayas, and several left-bank tributaries from Nepal that account for the bulk of its flow. In West Bengal state, India, a feeder canal taking off from its right bank diverts 50% of its flow southwards, artificially connecting it to the Hooghly River. The Ganges continues into Bangladesh, its name changing to the Padma River, Padma. It is then joined by the Jamuna River (Bangladesh), Jamuna, the lower str ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Indus
The Indus ( ) is a transboundary river of Asia and a trans- Himalayan river of South and Central Asia. The river rises in mountain springs northeast of Mount Kailash in the Western Tibet region of China, flows northwest through the disputed Kashmir region, first through the Indian-administered Ladakh, and then the Pakistani administered Gilgit Baltistan, Quote: "Kashmir, region of the northwestern Indian subcontinent. It is bounded by the Uygur Autonomous Region of Xinjiang to the northeast and the Tibet Autonomous Region to the east (both parts of China), by the Indian states of Himachal Pradesh and Punjab to the south, by Pakistan to the west, and by Afghanistan to the northwest. The northern and western portions are administered by Pakistan and comprise three areas: Azad Kashmir, Gilgit, and Baltistan, ... The southern and southeastern portions constitute the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. The Indian- and Pakistani-administered portions are divided by a "line of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
