Topic: Turkey
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๐ Gรถbekli Tepe
Gรถbekli Tepe (Turkish:ย [ษลbecหli teหpe], "Potbelly Hill") is an archaeological site in the Southeastern Anatolia Region of Turkey approximately 12ย km (7ย mi) northeast of the city of ลanlฤฑurfa. The tell (artificial mound) has a height of 15ย m (49ย ft) and is about 300ย m (980ย ft) in diameter. It is approximately 760ย m (2,490ย ft) above sea level.
The tell includes two phases of use, believed to be of a social or ritual nature by site discoverer and excavator Klaus Schmidt, dating back to the 10thโ8th millennium BCE. During the first phase, belonging to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA), circles of massive "T-shaped" stone pillars were erected โ the world's oldest known megaliths.
More than 200 pillars in about 20 circles are currently known through geophysical surveys. Each pillar has a height of up to 6ย m (20ย ft) and weighs up to 10 tons. They are fitted into sockets that were hewn out of the bedrock. In the second phase, belonging to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB), the erected pillars are smaller and stood in rectangular rooms with floors of polished lime. The site was abandoned after the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB). Younger structures date to classical times.
The details of the structure's function remain a mystery. The excavations have been ongoing since 1996 by the German Archaeological Institute, but large parts still remain unexcavated. In 2018, the site was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
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- "Gรถbekli Tepe" | 2022-09-12 | 21 Upvotes 4 Comments
- "Gรถbekli Tepe" | 2021-01-29 | 139 Upvotes 59 Comments
- "Gรถbekli Tepe" | 2020-07-03 | 142 Upvotes 99 Comments
- "Gรถbekli Tepe โ Stone age mountain sanctuary" | 2014-04-26 | 57 Upvotes 9 Comments
๐ Happy Nowruz
Nowruz (Persian: ููุฑูุฒโ, pronouncedย [nowหษพuหz]; lit.โ "new day") is the Iranian New Year, also known as the Persian New Year, which is celebrated worldwide by various ethno-linguistic groups.
Nowruz has Iranian and Zoroastrian origins, however, it has been celebrated by diverse communities for over 7,000 years in Western Asia, Central Asia, the Caucasus, the Black Sea Basin, the Balkans, and South Asia. It is a secular holiday for most celebrants that is enjoyed by people of several different faiths, but remains a holy day for Zoroastrians, Bahais, and some Muslim communities.
Nowruz is the day of the vernal equinox, and marks the beginning of spring in the Northern Hemisphere. It marks the first day of the first month (Farvardin) of the Iranian calendars. It usually occurs on March 21 or the previous or following day, depending on where it is observed. The moment the Sun crosses the celestial equator and equalizes night and day is calculated exactly every year, and families gather together to observe the rituals.
While Nowruz has been celebrated since the reform of the Iranian Calendar in the 11th century CE to mark the new year, the United Nations officially recognized the "International Day of Nowruz" with the adoption of UN resolution 64/253 in 2010.
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- "Nowruz" | 2021-03-20 | 105 Upvotes 15 Comments
- "Happy Nowruz" | 2017-03-20 | 43 Upvotes 5 Comments
๐ Locating a hospital by hanging meat around the city (981CE)
A bimaristan (Persian: ุจูู ุงุฑุณุชุงูโ, romanized:ย bฤซmฤrestฤn; Arabic: ุจูููู ูุงุฑูุณูุชูุงูโ, romanized:ย bฤซmฤristฤn), also known as dar al-shifa (also darรผลลifa in Turkish) or simply maristan, is a hospital in the historic Islamic world.
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- "Locating a hospital by hanging meat around the city (981CE)" | 2020-11-25 | 121 Upvotes 39 Comments
๐ The Turk
The Turk, also known as the Mechanical Turk or Automaton Chess Player (German: Schachtรผrke, "chess Turk"; Hungarian: A Tรถrรถk), was a fake chess-playing machine constructed in the late 18th century. From 1770 until its destruction by fire in 1854 it was exhibited by various owners as an automaton, though it was eventually revealed to be an elaborate hoax. Constructed and unveiled in 1770 by Wolfgang von Kempelen (Hungarian: Kempelen Farkas; 1734โ1804) to impress the Empress Maria Theresa of Austria, the mechanism appeared to be able to play a strong game of chess against a human opponent, as well as perform the knight's tour, a puzzle that requires the player to move a knight to occupy every square of a chessboard exactly once.
The Turk was in fact a mechanical illusion that allowed a human chess master hiding inside to operate the machine. With a skilled operator, the Turk won most of the games played during its demonstrations around Europe and the Americas for nearly 84 years, playing and defeating many challengers including statesmen such as Napoleon Bonaparte and Benjamin Franklin. The device was later purchased in 1804 and exhibited by Johann Nepomuk Mรคlzel. The chess masters who secretly operated it included Johann Allgaier, Boncourt, Aaron Alexandre, William Lewis, Jacques Mouret, and William Schlumberger, but the operators within the mechanism during Kempelen's original tour remain a mystery.
Discussed on
- "The Turk" | 2018-10-29 | 81 Upvotes 24 Comments
๐ Hierapolis Sawmill
The Hierapolis sawmill was a Roman water-powered stone sawmill at Hierapolis, Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey). Dating to the second half of the 3rd century AD, the sawmill is considered the earliest known machine to combine a crank with a connecting rod to form a crank slider mechanism.
The watermill is evidenced by a raised relief on the sarcophagus of a certain Marcus Aurelius Ammianos, a local miller. On the pediment a waterwheel fed by a mill race is shown powering via a gear train two frame saws cutting rectangular blocks by the way of connecting rods and, through mechanical necessity, cranks (see diagram). The accompanying inscription is in Greek and attributes the mechanism to Ammianos' "skills with wheels".
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- "Hierapolis Sawmill" | 2023-06-05 | 76 Upvotes 21 Comments
๐ Searches for Noah's Ark
Searches for Noah's Ark have been reported since antiquity, as ancient scholars sought to affirm the historicity of the Genesis flood narrative by citing accounts of relics recovered from the Ark.:โ43โ47โ With the emergence of biblical archaeology in the 19th century, the potential of a formal search attracted interest in alleged discoveries and hoaxes. By the 1940s, expeditions were being organized to follow up on these apparent leads.:โ8โ9โ This modern search movement has been informally called "arkeology".
In 2020, the young Earth creationist group the Institute for Creation Research acknowledged that, despite many expeditions, Noah's Ark had not been found and is unlikely to be found. Many of the supposed findings and methods used in the search are regarded as pseudoscience and pseudoarchaeology by geologists and archaeologists.:โ581โ582โ:โ72โ75โ
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- "Searches for Noah's Ark" | 2023-10-05 | 33 Upvotes 56 Comments
๐ First Council of Nicaea
The First Council of Nicaea ( ny-SEE-ษ; Ancient Greek: ฮฃฯฮฝฮฟฮดฮฟฯ ฯแฟฯ ฮฮนฮบฮฑฮฏฮฑฯ, romanized:ย Sรฝnodos tรชs Nikaรญas) was a council of Christian bishops convened in the Bithynian city of Nicaea (now ฤฐznik, Turkey) by the Roman Emperor Constantine I. The Council of Nicaea met from May until the end of July 325.
This ecumenical council was the first of many efforts to attain consensus in the church through an assembly representing all Christendom. Hosius of Corduba may have presided over its deliberations. Its main accomplishments were settlement of the Christological issue of the divine nature of God the Son and his relationship to God the Father, the construction of the first part of the Nicene Creed, mandating uniform observance of the date of Easter, and promulgation of early canon law.
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- "First Council of Nicaea" | 2024-03-31 | 32 Upvotes 51 Comments
๐ Piri Reis Map
The Piri Reis map is a world map compiled in 1513 by the Ottoman admiral and cartographer Piri Reis (pronouncedย [piหหษพiห ษพeis]). Approximately one third of the map survives; it shows the western coasts of Europe and North Africa and the coast of Brazil with reasonable accuracy. Various Atlantic islands, including the Azores and Canary Islands, are depicted, as is the mythical island of Antillia and possibly Japan.
The map's historical importance lies in its demonstration of the extent of global exploration of the New World by approximately 1510, and in its claim to have used a map of Christopher Columbus, otherwise lost, as a source. Piri also stated that he had used ten Arab sources and four Indian maps sourced from the Portuguese. More recently, the map has been the focus of claims for the pre-modern exploration of the Antarctic coast.
The Piri Reis map is in the Library of the Topkapฤฑ Palace in Istanbul, Turkey, but is not usually on display to the public.
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- "Piri Reis Map" | 2014-07-18 | 61 Upvotes 12 Comments
๐ Bulgur (Cooking wheat like rice)
Bulgur (from Arabic: ุจุฑุบูโ bourghoul, "groats") is a cereal food made from the cracked parboiled groats of several different wheat species, most often from durum wheat. It originates in Middle Eastern cuisine.
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- "Bulgur (Cooking wheat like rice)" | 2019-08-28 | 13 Upvotes 5 Comments
๐ Late Bronze Age Collapse
The Late Bronze Age collapse was a dark age transition in a large area covering much of Southeast Europe, West Asia and North Africa (comprising the overlapping regions of the Near East, the Eastern Mediterranean and North Africa, with the Balkans, the Aegean, Anatolia, and the Caucasus), which took place from the Late Bronze Age to the emerging Early Iron Age. It was a transition which historians believe was violent, sudden, and culturally disruptive, and involved societal collapse for some civilizations during the 12th century BCE. The palace economy of Mycenaean Greece, the Aegean region and Anatolia that characterized the Late Bronze Age disintegrated, transforming into the small isolated village cultures of the Greek Dark Ages. The Hittite Empire of Anatolia and the Levant collapsed, while states such as the Middle Assyrian Empire in Mesopotamia and the New Kingdom of Egypt survived but were considerably weakened.
Competing and even mutually compatible theories for the ultimate cause of the Late Bronze Age collapse have been made since the 19th century. These include volcanic eruptions, droughts, invasions by the Sea Peoples or migrations of Dorians, economic disruptions due to the rising use of ironworking, and changes in military technology and methods of war that saw the decline of chariot warfare.
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- "Late Bronze Age Collapse" | 2021-07-02 | 13 Upvotes 1 Comments