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The Source (novel)
''The Source'' is a historical novel by James A. Michener published in 1965. It is a survey of the history of the Jewish people and the land of Israel from pre-monotheistic days through the birth of the modern State of Israel and up until 1964. ''The Source'' uses, for its central device, a fictional '' tell'' (mound/hill) in northern Israel called "Makor" (, "source"). Prosaically, the name comes from a freshwater well just north of Makor, but symbolically it stands for much more, historically and spiritually. Unlike most Michener novels, this book is not in strict chronological order. A parallel frame story set in Israel in the 1960s supports the historical timeline. Archaeologists digging at the ''tell'' at Makor uncover artifacts from each layer, which then serve as the basis for a chapter exploring the lives of the people involved with that artifact. The book follows the story of the Family of Ur from a Stone Age family whose wife begins to believe that there is a superna ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
WikiProject Novels
A WikiProject, or Wikiproject, is an affinity group for contributors with shared goals within the Wikimedia movement. WikiProjects are prevalent within the largest wiki, Wikipedia, and exist to varying degrees within Wikimedia project, sibling projects such as Wiktionary, Wikiquote, Wikidata, and Wikisource. They also exist in different languages, and translation of articles is a form of their collaboration. During the COVID-19 pandemic, CBS News noted the role of Wikipedia's WikiProject Medicine in maintaining the accuracy of articles related to the disease. Another WikiProject that has drawn attention is WikiProject Women Scientists, which was profiled by ''Smithsonian Magazine, Smithsonian'' for its efforts to improve coverage of women scientists which the profile noted had "helped increase the number of female scientists on Wikipedia from around 1,600 to over 5,000". On Wikipedia Some Wikipedia WikiProjects are substantial enough to engage in cooperative activities with outsi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stone Age
The Stone Age was a broad prehistory, prehistoric period during which Rock (geology), stone was widely used to make stone tools with an edge, a point, or a percussion surface. The period lasted for roughly 3.4 million years and ended between 4000 Anno Domini, BC and 2000 BC, with the advent of metalworking. It therefore represents nearly 99.3% of human history. Though some simple metalworking of malleable metals, particularly the use of Goldsmith, gold and Coppersmith, copper for purposes of ornamentation, was known in the Stone Age, it is the melting and smelting of copper that marks the end of the Stone Age. In Western Asia, this occurred by about 3000 BC, when bronze became widespread. The term Bronze Age is used to describe the period that followed the Stone Age, as well as to describe cultures that had developed techniques and technologies for working copper alloys (bronze: originally copper and arsenic, later copper and tin) into tools, supplanting ston ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hoopoe
Hoopoes () are colourful birds found across Africa, Asia, and Europe, notable for their distinctive "Crest (feathers), crown" of feathers which can be raised or lowered at will. Two living and one extinct species are recognized, though for many years both extant species were lumped as a single species—''Upupa epops''. In fact, some taxonomists still consider the species to be Biological_specificity#Conspecific, conspecific. Some authorities also keep the African and Eurasian hoopoe together but split the Madagascar hoopoe. The Eurasian hoopoe is common in its range and has a large population, so it is evaluated as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. However, their numbers are declining in Western Europe. Conversely, the hoopoe has been increasing in numbers at the tip of the South Sinai, Sharm el-Sheikh. There are dozens of nesting pairs that remain resident all year round. Taxonomy The genus ''Upupa'' was introduced in 1758 by the Swedish naturalist Carl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
El Shaddai
El Shaddai (; ) or just Shaddai is one of the names of God in Judaism. ''El Shaddai'' is conventionally translated into English as ''God Almighty'', as ''Deus Omnipotens'' in Latin, and in . '' El'' means "God" in the Ugaritic and the Canaanite languages. The literal meaning of Shaddai, however, is the subject of debate. Some scholars have argued that it came from Akkadian ''shadû'' ("mountain") or from the Hebrew verb ''shaddad'' שדד meaning "Destroyer". Shaddai may have also come from ''shad'' שד meaning mammary; ''shaddai'' is a typical Biblical Hebrew word (שדי). The plural (''Shaddayim'' -- שדיים) is the typical Modern Hebrew word for human breasts in dual grammatical number. The Deir Alla Inscription contains ''shaddayin'' as well as ''elohin'' rather than ''elohim''. Scholars translate this as "shadday-gods," taken to mean unspecified fertility, mountain or wilderness gods. The form of the phrase ''El Shaddai'' fits the pattern of the divine names in the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Canaan
CanaanThe current scholarly edition of the Septuagint, Greek Old Testament spells the word without any accents, cf. Septuaginta : id est Vetus Testamentum graece iuxta LXX interprets. 2. ed. / recogn. et emendavit Robert Hanhart. Stuttgart : Dt. Bibelges., 2006 . However, in modern Greek, the accentuation is , while the Novum Testamentum Graece, current (28th) scholarly edition of the New Testament has . was an Ancient Semitic-speaking peoples, ancient Semitic-speaking civilization and region of the Southern Levant during the late 2nd millennium BC. Canaan had significant geopolitical importance in the Late Bronze Age Amarna Period (14th century BC) as the area where the sphere of influence, spheres of interest of the Egyptian Empire, Egyptian, Hittites, Hittite, Mitanni, and Assyrian Empires converged or overlapped. Much of present-day knowledge about Canaan stems from Excavation (archaeology), archaeological excavation in this area at sites such as Tel Hazor, Tel Megiddo, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bronze Age Levant
The Levant is the area in Southwest Asia, south of the Taurus Mountains, bounded by the Mediterranean Sea in the west, the Arabian Desert in the south, and Mesopotamia in the east. It stretches roughly north to south, from the Taurus Mountains to the Sinai Peninsula and Syrian Desert, and east to west between the Mediterranean Sea and the Khabur river. The term is often used to refer to the following regions or modern states: Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, and Jordan. In addition to Sinai(Egypt), Cyprus and Cilicia( southeastern Anatolia). The Levant is one of the earliest centers of sedentism and agriculture throughout history, and some of the earliest agrarian cultures, Pre-Pottery Neolithic, developed in the region. Material was copied from this source, which is available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License Previously regarded as a peripheral region in the ancient Near East, modern academia largely considers the Levant as a center of civilization o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
El (deity)
El is a Northwest Semitic word meaning 'god' or 'deity', or referring (as a proper name) to any one of multiple major ancient Near Eastern deities. A rarer form, ''ila'', represents the predicate form in the Old Akkadian and Amorite languages. The word is derived from the Proto-Semitic *ʔil-. Originally a Canaanite deity known as ''El'', ''Al'' or ''Il'' the supreme god of the ancient Canaanite religion and the supreme god of East Semitic speakers in Early Dynastic Period of Mesopotamia. Among the Hittites, El was known as Elkunirša ( ). Although El gained different appearances and meanings in different languages over time, it continues to exist as ''El-'', ''-il'' or ''-el'' in compound proper noun phrases such as Elizabeth, Ishmael, Israel, Samuel, Daniel, Michael, Gabriel (Arabic: Jibra'il), and Bethel. Linguistic forms and meanings Cognate forms of El are found throughout the Semitic languages. They include Ugaritic , pl. ; Phoenician pl. ; Hebrew , pl. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
History Of The Levant
The Levant is the area in Southwest Asia, south of the Taurus Mountains, bounded by the Mediterranean Sea in the west, the Arabian Desert in the south, and Mesopotamia in the east. It stretches roughly north to south, from the Taurus Mountains to the Sinai Peninsula and Syrian Desert, and east to west between the Mediterranean Sea and the Khabur river. The term is often used to refer to the following regions or modern states: Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, and Jordan. In addition to Sinai(Egypt), Cyprus and Cilicia( southeastern Anatolia). The Levant is one of the earliest centers of sedentism and agriculture throughout history, and some of the earliest agrarian cultures, Pre-Pottery Neolithic, developed in the region. Material was copied from this source, which is available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License Previously regarded as a peripheral region in the ancient Near East, modern academia largely considers the Levant as a center of civilization o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bee Eater
The bee-eaters are a group of birds in the family Meropidae, containing three genera and thirty-one species. Most species are found in Africa and Asia, with a few in southern Europe, Australia, and New Guinea. They are characterised by richly coloured plumage, slender bodies, and usually elongated central tail feathers. All have long down-turned bills and medium to long wings, which may be pointed or round. Male and female plumages are usually similar. As their name suggests, bee-eaters predominantly eat flying insects, especially bees and wasps, which are caught on the wing from an open perch. The insect's stinger is removed by repeatedly hitting and rubbing the insect on a hard surface. During this process, pressure is applied to the insect's body, thereby discharging most of the venom. Most bee-eaters are gregarious. They form colonies, nesting in burrows tunnelled into vertical sandy banks, often at the side of a river or in flat ground. As they mostly live in colonies, la ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Central Europe, between the early 16th and early 18th centuries. The empire emerged from a Anatolian beyliks, ''beylik'', or principality, founded in northwestern Anatolia in by the Turkoman (ethnonym), Turkoman tribal leader Osman I. His successors Ottoman wars in Europe, conquered much of Anatolia and expanded into the Balkans by the mid-14th century, transforming their petty kingdom into a transcontinental empire. The Ottomans ended the Byzantine Empire with the Fall of Constantinople, conquest of Constantinople in 1453 by Mehmed II. With its capital at History of Istanbul#Ottoman Empire, Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul) and control over a significant portion of the Mediterranean Basin, the Ottoman Empire was at the centre of interacti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mameluk
Mamluk or Mamaluk (; (singular), , ''mamālīk'' (plural); translated as "one who is owned", meaning "slave") were non-Arab, ethnically diverse (mostly Turkic, Caucasian, Eastern and Southeastern European) enslaved mercenaries, slave-soldiers, and freed slaves who were assigned high-ranking military and administrative duties, serving the ruling Arab and Ottoman dynasties in the Muslim world. The most enduring Mamluk realm was the knightly military class in medieval Egypt, which developed from the ranks of slave-soldiers. Originally the Mamluks were slaves of Turkic origins from the Eurasian Steppe, but the institution of military slavery spread to include Circassians, Abkhazians, Georgians, Armenians, Russians, and Hungarians, as well as peoples from the Balkans such as Albanians, Greeks, and South Slavs (''see'' Saqaliba). They also recruited from the Egyptians. The "Mamluk/Ghulam Phenomenon", as David Ayalon dubbed the creation of the specific warrior class, was ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Crusades
The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and at times directed by the Papacy during the Middle Ages. The most prominent of these were the campaigns to the Holy Land aimed at reclaiming Jerusalem and its surrounding territories from Muslim rule. Beginning with the First Crusade, which culminated in the Siege of Jerusalem (1099), capture of Jerusalem in 1099, these expeditions spanned centuries and became a central aspect of European political, religious, and military history. In 1095, after a Byzantine request for aid,Helen J. Nicholson, ''The Crusades'', (Greenwood Publishing, 2004), 6. Pope Urban II proclaimed the first expedition at the Council of Clermont. He encouraged military support for List of Byzantine emperors, Byzantine emperor Alexios I Komnenos, AlexiosI Komnenos and called for an armed pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Across all social strata in Western Europe, there was an enthusiastic response. Participants came from all over Europe and had a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
