Exploring the Persian Empire

Exploring the Persian Empire

We are learning and researching about Persian Empire. In this post, I will identify important aspects of the rule of three important Kings: Cyrus the Great, Darius the Great and Xerxes the Great.

 Cyrus the Great (reigned 558 - 530 B.C.E)

        In 553 B.C.E, he started a rebllion to against the Medes and it took three years for hum to conquered their kingdom. By 548 B.C.E he controlled all of Iran and he began to look for opprtunities to expand his influence. In 546 B.C.E, he conquered the powerful kingdom of Lydia. Between 545 B.C.E and 539 B.C.E he campaigned in central Asia and Bactria. Babylonia and Mesopotamia fall to him next, in 539 B.C.E. Cyrus expanded Persia and it gradually became a powerful empire.
        When he conquered one of the empires, he did not put the people in that empire into slavers. He though it was not a good idea and they would against him. They had to pay taxes and be a part of his empire.
        He allowed a certain amount of regional autonomy in each state, in the form of a satrapy system. A satrapy was an administrative unit, usually organized on a geographical basis. During his reign, Cyrus maintained control over a vast region of conquered kingdoms, achieved through retaining and expanding the satrapies.
        His tomb, massive but simple, stands today as an impressive monument to the emperor.

Darius the Great (reigned 521 - 486 B.C.E)

        Darius extanded the empire both east and west. His armies pushed into northwestern India as far as the Indus River, absorbing the northern Indian kingdom of Grandhara, while capturing Thrace, Macedonia, and the western coast of the Black Sea in southeastern Europe.
        He was more important as an administrator than as a conqueror. Govering a large empire was much more difficult than conquering it. About 520 B.C.E he started to build a new capital at Persepolis. He intended Persepolis to serve as an administrative center and a monument to the Achaemenid dynasty.
        
        

The Social System of Aryans

The Social System of Aryans

Explain the origins of the caste system.

• The caste system is a system of social stratification and social restriction in which communities are defined by thousands of endogamous hereditary groups
•  The term "caste" was first used by the Portuguese to describe their inherited class status
• The Aryans constructed a well-defined social order. In some way their social hierarchy served to maintain the order and stability that states and political structures guaranteed in other societies.

What does the Aryan term “varna” mean?

          The Aryans used the term “varna”, a Sanskrit word meaning “color”, to refer to the major social classes. This terminology suggests that social distinctions arose partly from differences in complexion between the Aryans, who referred to themselves as "wheat-colored".

Briefly explain or identify who was in the each of the four main varnas.

          Four main varnas: brahmins (priests); kshatriyas (warriors and aristocrats); vaishyas (cultivators, artisans and merchants) and shudras (landless peasants and serfs).

Life in Mesopotamia - Babylon City

Life in Mesopotamia - Babylon City

- Was an Akkadian city-state of ancient Mesopotamia

- Founded in 1867 BC by an Amorite dynasty

- Along with Assyria to the north, was one of the two Akkadian nations that evolved after the collapse of the Akkadian Empire

- The city was built upon the Euphrates, and divided in equal parts along its left and right bank.

Did cooking make us human?

Did cooking make us human?

A question was posed: Did cooking make us human? 

 

 Four million years ago, earliest ancestors of human beings - Australopithecus appeared on the Earth. Have you ever thought what did they eat? Well, their main food was vegetables, sometimes they ate fruits. The video made an example: Monkeys eat a lot of fruits and vegetables so they have to spend much time in eating. So did the old humans. They have spent 50% of their time in chewing.