The Defining Characteristics of Ancient Egypt Essay Example for Free

The Defining Characteristics of Ancient Egypt Essay As ancient civilizations began to be recovered by archeologists and theories abounded, Vere Gordon Childe took the reins and wrote on his findings for nearly the last forty years of his life. Indeed, Childe was the first to â€Å"[view] the development of cultures as homotaxial, [which] led Childe to define stages of civilization according to social and economic patterns . † It is this approach that led archeologists to view ancient civilizations as prospering economies and has helped to set the characteristics for further defining them. Ancient Egypt, for example, can be defined by three major elements: the effects of the first wars in Egypt, the hieroglyphics that define Egypt as a literary culture, and the parliamentary Egypt, that of Kingdoms, Empires, and City-States. Ancient Egypt was not a warring nation and did not seek out new territories and conquest. In fact, during the Old Kingdom, the pharaohs were mostly involved in their people, their governments, and in building their economy. However, it was not to last. The early Asiatics invaded Egypt and brought the fall of the Old Kingdom. For the first time, Egypt had to set up defenses and plan for attacks from their surrounding nations and during the Middle Kingdom, Egypt took great strides to protect themselves from the warring and invading barbarians. By the New Kingdom, Egypt had become a vast military power and the neighboring nations had much to fear from retaliatory conquest and invasion. Egypt was not the simple, quiet nation that they once were—they were a powerful, wealthy nation that saw conquest as a way to further enrich their people and nation. Another way in which ancient Egypt can be defined characteristically is through their hieroglyphics. Egyptian hieroglyphics are one of the most complex languages in history; and, throughout archeological study, it is one of the few languages that has lasted without change for centuries. Indeed, â€Å"perhaps no modern society, with the possible exception of France, has such a preoccupation with the purity of language as the Egyptian society does . † Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics tell many stories: that of love, war, and planting seasons. They were, undeniably, as literary a nation as any have ever been. Finally, the development of Egyptian parliamentary procedures has a set of characteristics not seen in any other ancient nation. Egypt began with a ruling pharaoh—known affectionately as the â€Å"pyramid builders† who created the most striking and remarkable archeology in history with each new ruling leader. Pharaohs ruled their kingdoms for life, at which time their throne passed on to a son or relative—unless the family was overthrown. And, it is at the end of these reigns that war, strife, and even prosperousness have made their marks on Egypt—most notably, the end of the Old Kingdom and the Middle Kingdom, which brought rulers strikingly different from those of the past as Egypt moved to prosperity as a nation and war for conquest. Overall, as archeologists know, â€Å"no more difficult task confronts the historian than to trace the gradual emergence of a civilization, since this necessarily belongs to ages where written documents are either non-existent or very scanty . † It is through their tiring study that ancient Egypt and the characteristics that define it as a nation have emerged. Of these characteristics, a study of ancient war, hieroglyphics, and Egyptian parliamentary procedures mark Egypt most profoundly, differentiating it from other ancient nations. Bibliography. Asante, Molefi Kete. (2002). Culture and Customs of Egypt. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Childe, Vere Gordon. (1956). Piecing Together the Past: The Interpretation of Archelogical Data. New York: Frederick A. Praeger. Erman, Adolf. (2001). Life in Ancient Egypt, Vol. 2. London: Macmillian. Gardiner, Alan. (1964). Egypt of the Pharoahs: An Introduction. London: Oxford UP. Lamberg-Karlovsky, C. C. and Jeremy A. Sabloff. (1979). Ancient Civilizations: The Near East and Mesoamerica. Menlo Park, CA: Benjamin/Cummings Publishing.

Hamlet and His Home Essay examples -- William Shakespeare Hamlet Essay

Hamlet and His Home Hamlet begins at the open mouth of the Void. Barnardo and Francisco call out to each other and into darkness; they stand atop a guard platform that is naked to the open air and to the night. Every character's entrance is marked by a series of interrogatives, as characters already on stage try to ascertain the identity of those who are newly arrived and yet unseen. Darkness isolates these men from each other as they stand on the edge of civilization, the place where the solid stones of Elsinore castle open up into the world of night and the supernatural. The nature of the ghost remains debatable: Horatio has initially insisted that the guards' delusions have conjured the phantom (1.1.21), and, even accepting the reality of the apparition, Catholic teaching (ghosts are spirits of the dead coming up from purgatory) and Protestant doctrine (all ghostly apparitions are demons in disguise) hold divergent opinions on the nature and source of phantoms (Garber 12/15). The men have gather ed together on the guard platform, which has become a kind of stage within a stage. They have come to see a visitor who is a creature of hallucination, purgatory, or hell. This ghost is coming out of the open maw of night above and around the platform; what is known clings to the battlements, and all else in existence hails from the empty, the unknown, the imagined, the demonic. When Barnardo reports to Marcellus, "I have seen nothing" (1.1.20), the word "nothing" takes on a number of meanings. He has not seen the apparition; gazing out into the dark, he has barely seen anything at all. But "seeing" is still phrased in the positive, and so "nothing" becomes something to see. It is more than absence: emptiness itself exists as an ... ...st famous moments deal with a nothing that is the absence of what is known: as Hamlet asks what it would be not to be, the ultimate opaqueness of death is fearsome enough to make him go on living. It is too much for the prince to stare Nothing in the face. Later, in the play's most famous tableau, Hamlet literally stares at an embodiment of Nothing as he holds Yorick's skull. The skull's eye sockets are without subjectivity, empty of their tenant organs and the mind that saw through them; they contain, in a word, "nothing." But from their hollows something maddeningly elusive stares back: simultaneously a presence and an absence, as haunting as Hamlet's own dead father, and opaque as the darkness that envelopes Elsinore. Part of the play's power is in this substantive "nothing," a portal of slippage that relentlessly destabilizes what is known and what is knowable.

Mini Case

I. Deals-R-Us Brokers (Part 1) Fred Jones, a distant relative of yours and president of Deals-R-Us Brokers (DRUB), has come to you for advice. DRUB is a small brokerage house that enables its clients to buy and sell stocks over the Internet, as well as place traditional orders by phone or fax. DRUB has just decided to offer a set of stock analysis tools that will help its clients more easily pick winning stocks, or so Fred tells you. Fred’s information systems department has presented him with two alternatives for developing the new tools.The first alternative will have a special tool developed in C++ that clients will download onto their computers to run. The tool will communicate with the DRUB server to select data to analyze. The second alternative will have the C++ program running on the server, the client will use his or her browser to interact with the server. a. Classify the two alternatives in terms of what type of application architecture they use. b. Outline the pros and cons of the two alternatives and make a recommendation to Fred about which is better. Mini Case 1 SolutionThe second alternative will use the host-based architecture. Using this alternative, the server will do all the work. Because of this, the server will become very slow in processing those requests as more users are sending them. It cost a lot of money to upgrade those mainframes. The first alternative will use the client-server application architecture. In this case, the server and the client computer will share the workload. The server will be able to respond to many users’ requests without any slowness. This is the best option Fred needs to use for his business.

How to Make Napalm B - Chemical Synthesis of Gelled Sol

Napalm is the name given to any jellied form of gasoline or other flammable petroleum. It is used for circumstances where the liquid is too hard to apply or else wont stay where it is placed.  Napalm B, more usually just called napalm, is an example of a gelled sol. This easy napalm synthesis is an interesting introduction to sols and gels. Materials 35 g (1.2 oz) polystyrene (e.g., Styrofoam or other polystyrene foam, used for insulated cups and packing peanuts)100 ml (3.4 oz) gasolinematches or a lighter Procedure Break the polystyrene into small chunks. Sometimes you can find polystyrene foam beads, which will work fine without any additional processing.Pour 100 ml of gasoline into a glass container, such as a 250 ml (8.5 oz) beaker. Any similar-size glass container is fine.Stir in the polystyrene, a little at a time. The polystyrene foam will fizz and seem to dissolve, although this really is the formation of the gelled sol.When all of the polystyrene has been added, there should be no remaining liquid gasoline. The glass container will contain a semi-rigid sol. Observations and Experimentation With Napalm and the Gelled Sol In an outdoor location, away from heat or flame, invert the container of gelled sol. Notice that it will resist flowing out of the container. Although the sol is a liquid, it behaves like a solid in that it maintains its form.If the sol does not fall out of the glass container, gently tap it to dislodge it. Note the characteristics of Napalm B that make it a gelled sol.On a fire-safe surface, ignite the napalm. If you like, compare the combustion of napalm with the combustion of 100 ml of gasoline. Safety This project is best performed outdoors since gasoline vapors are volatile and toxic. Wear protective goggles and gloves to protect yourself from the splashing of the liquid. Use care when igniting the napalm. Its also advisable to have a fire extinguisher handy. This project is intended for mature chemistry students. Keep all materials away from children and pets. Source Robert Bruce Thompson, Illustrated Guide to Home Chemistry Experiments-All Lab, No Lecture, OReilly, 2008, pp. 326-329.