Beyond the Myth of The Inquisition IV

After the original crisis, more significantly, it just happened that the Inquisition outlived its purpose and lingered on. Some have always insisted that at any time the Catholic Church could re-activate this institution which they allege rests on torture and the extraction of confessions by coercion, among other ugly features. Honest students of history regard this assertion as mere propaganda. Note the following secular source. Reginald Trevor Davies, author of The Golden Century of Spain, writes the following in his article in volume 21 of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. The Spanish church was wealthy and powerful because the people were intensely religious and because it was largely a national institution in which no foreigner might hold office and in which the crown was supreme (papal power having been reduced almost to the vanishing point). It was, consequently, a fact of serious political importance that during the anarchy of Henry IV’s reign (1454-1475) the Jews gained great power and influence. They might compel — sometimes by means of their usury — their debtors to renounce the Christian religion; and Marranos (baptized Jews) often preserved their old religious faith in secret. At the same time the power of the Moriscos (baptized Moors) had increased, and they were reviving ancient heresies such as the half-forgotten Manichaeism. The Catholic kings consequently consulted Pope Sixtus IV, who thereupon issued a bull (Nov. 1, 1478) authorizing them to choose two or three inquisitors notable for their virtue and learning, to whom he granted jurisdiction. The bull was put into force by a royal cedula (decree) issued in Medina del Campo (Sept. 17, 1480) ordering the establishment of the Holy Office in Castile. The original crisis was a real one. We can only regret that the “inquisitors notable for their virtue and learning” were not as often found to do the work as was originally intended by pope and king. If anything, inquisitors and their lesser employees (“familiars”) were more prone to pettiness, laziness, and greed, than to cruelty. Of these, greed was dominant. Church historians have been slow to study seriously this matter of the Inquisition. “Church history generally lagged behind other kinds of historical research, and confessional feelings still ran sufficiently high as to make the history of inquisitions a difficult and disputed topic.” Fortunately, all this has changed in our time, and three whose work is perhaps most helpful to us are not Catholics at all. Only one of them is a “church historian” properly speaking. Let us next look at the remarks of Owen Chadwick, and then continue with a more detailed presentation of the work of Henry Kamen, and Edward Peters, both already cited. No one could accuse any of these respected academics, the first two of them British, of any denominational pro-Catholic bias. Yet they show the Inquisition in a different light from that of the exaggerated misrepresentations the Spanish themselves call The Black Legend (La Leyenda Negra).

Egyptians - The origins

 Ancient Egypt was a civilization that was made along the lower part of the Nile River in the north. The ancient Egyptian civilization lasted for nearly three millennia and ended upon the conquest of Alexander the Great. Women, men and children played a vital role in the civilization of ancient Egypt. In addition, a big part of the civilization was water. Dark soil was deposited by the flood of the Nile River and that is why Egypt was known as “the black land.” 


The name Egypt means "Two Lands," reflecting the two separate kingdoms of Upper and Lower prehistoric Egypt - Delta region in the north and a long length of sandstone and limestone in the south. In 3000 B.C., a single ruler, Menes, unified the entire land and set the stage for an impressive civilization that lasted 3,000 years. He began with the construction of basins to contain the flood water, digging canals and irrigation ditches to reclaim the marshy land. From these earliest of times, so important was the cutting of a dam that the event was heralded by a royal ceremony. King Menes is credited with diverting the course of the Nile to build the city of Memphis on the site where the great river had run. By 2500 B. C., an extensive system of dikes, canals and sluices had developed. It remained in use until the Roman occupation, 30 B.C. - 641 A.D


There have been recent studies that show the Egyptians are related to the North African regions. The kings of the ancient Egyptian times were called Pharaoh’s. The pharaoh’s reigns went between 3000 BC and 30 BC. For a number of different reasons, the Egyptian government imposed taxes on the people in Egypt. During the ancient Egyptian period, there was no type of currency; therefore, taxes were paid by work. The type of work that would be done all depended on the person. Every individual that lived in Egypt was expected to pay the tax by doing work for the public for at least a couple of weeks out of the year. Some of the work that was done involved mining and digging canals. A rich noble was able to hire a not so wealthy individual to do their tax.

During the ancient Egyptian times, there was the ever so famous hieroglyphic, which was a writing system. Hieroglyphics are known for being the earliest writing system in the world. Until the introduction of Christianity, the Egyptian magicians and the Egyptian priests used spells and magic. In ancient Egypt, there have been a few changes that have been noticeable. For instance, 2580 BC was the Great Pyramid of Giza. Ancient Egypt is one of those times where you would just have to be there in order to fully grasp and understand the knowledge. No one living today is able to describe fully the civilization of ancient Egypt as it truly was. All we are able to do is go by the records that were left behind by the Egyptians and make our own comprehension out of them. 

Dracula - The Legend ( IV )

» Dracula – Beyond the Legend

Bram Stoker’s inspiration

Vlad Tepes was born in 1428 in the fortress city of Sighisoara. His father, Vlad Dacul, was the military governor of Transylvania and had become a member of the Order of the Dragon a year before. The Order, similar to the Order of the Teutonic Knights, was a semi-military and religious organization established in 1387 in Rome in order to promote Catholic interests and crusades.

The Order is relevant for the legend, mainly because it explains the name of Dracula. For his deeds, the Order of the Dragon was bestowed upon him, hence the title Dracul (the Latin word for dragon is draco). While in medieval lure dragons served as symbols of independence, leadership, strength and wisdom, the biblical association of the devil with the serpent that tempted Adam and Eve gave the snake-like dragon connotations of evil. Thus, the Romanian word Dracul stands in English for both dragon and devil. Dracula, the title of Vlad Tepes,translates as Son of Dracul.

Moreover, the ceremonial uniform of the Order – black cloak over red accouterment – was Bram Stocker’ source of inspiration for Count Dracula’s look.

But how did Bram Stoker’s story turn into a myth? A partial explanation is provided by the circumstances under which the book was written and received. A genuine epidemic of “vampirism” had hit Eastern Europe at the end of the 17th century and continued throughout the 18th century. The number of reported cases soared dramatically, especially in the Balkans. Then, the epidemic traveled west to Germany, Italy, France, England and Spain. Travelers returning from the East would tell stories about the undead, which helped keep the interest in vampires alive. Western philosophers and artists tackled the issue ever more often. Bram Stoker’s novel came as the pinnacle of a long series of works based on tales coming from the East. Back then, most readers were certain that the novel had been inspired by real facts and that its story was perhaps just a bit romanticized. 

Who was Vlad Dracula?

An Intriguing Figure in The Fifteenth Century
by Benjamin Hugo Leblanc - EPHE-Sorbonne (Paris) & Laval University (Quebec) Count

Dracula is more than 100 years old and still alive! Of course, almost everybody has heard about this Nosferatu: through movies featuring Max Schreck, Bela Lugosi, Christopher Lee or Gary Oldman; in several books, including the recent Vampire Chronicles of Anne Rice, or even in bedtime stories told to us in our childhood. We all have an idea of who or what the Count is. However, on the other hand, Vlad Tepes (Dracula), the historical figure who inspired Bram Stoker’s novel, is definitely less well-known.

Vlad Tepes was born in December 1431 in the fortress of Sighisoara, Romania. Vlad's father, governor of Transylvania, had been inducted into the Order of the Dragon about one year before. The order — which could be compared to the Knights of the Hospital of St. John or even to the Teutonic Order of Knights — was a semi-military and religious society, originally created in 1387 by the Holy Roman Emperor and his second wife, Barbara Cilli. The main goal of such a secret fraternal order of knights was to protect the interests of Christianity and to crusade against the Turks. The boyars of Romania associated the dragon with the Devil and decided to call Vlad's father "Dracul," which in the Romanian language means "Devil;" "Dracula" is a diminutive, meaning "the son of the Devil."

In the winter of 1436-1437, Dracul became prince of Walachia (one of the three Romanian provinces) and took up residence at the palace of Targoviste, the princely capital. Vlad followed his father and lived six years at the princely court. In 1442, in order to keep the Turks at bay, Dracul sent his son, Vlad, and his younger brother, Radu, to Constantinople (today Istanbul) as hostages of the Sultan Murad II. Vlad was held there until 1448. This Turkish captivity surely played an important role in Dracula's upbringing; it must be at this period that he adopted a very pessimistic view of life and learned the Turkish method of impalement on stakes. The Turks set Vlad free after informing him of his father's assassination in 1447. He also learned about his older brother's death and how he had been tortured and buried alive by the boyars of Targoviste.

When he was 17 years old, Vlad Tepes (Dracula), supported by a force of Turkish cavalry and a contingent of troops lent to him by Pasha Mustafa Hassan, made his first major move toward seizing the Walachian throne. Vlad became the ruler of Walachia in July of 1456. During his six-year reign, he committed many cruelties, hence establishing his controversial reputation.

His first major act of revenge was aimed at the boyars of Targoviste for not being loyal to his father. On Easter Sunday of what we believe to be 1459, he arrested all the boyar families who had participated at the princely feast. He impaled the older ones on stakes while forcing the others to march from the capital to the town of Poenari. This fifty-mile trek was quite grueling and no one was permitted to rest until they reached their destination. Dracula then ordered the boyars to build him a fortress on the ruins of an older outpost overlooking the Arges River. Many died in the process. Dracula, therefore, succeeded in creating a new nobility and obtaining a fortress for future emergencies. What is left of the building today is identified as Poenari Fortress (Cetatea Poenari).

Vlad Tepes adopted the method of impaling criminals and enemies and raising them aloft in the town square for all to see. Almost any crime, from lying and stealing to killing, could be punished by impalement. Being so confident in the effectiveness of his law, Dracula placed a golden cup on display in the central square of Targoviste. The cup could be used by thirsty travelers, but had to remain on the square. According to the available historical sources, it was never stolen and remained entirely unmolested throughout Vlad's reign. Crime and corruption ceased; commerce and culture thrived, and many Romanians to this day view Vlad Tepes as a hero for his fierce insistence on honesty and order. It’s worth mentioning that most written sources regarding his reign are based on the numerous propagandistic pamphlets spread by the Germans with the help of their new invention, the printing press.

In the beginning of 1462, Vlad launched a campaign against the Turks along the Danube River. It was quite risky, the military force of Sultan Mehmed II being by far more powerful than the Walachian army. However, during the winter of 1462, Vlad was very successful and managed to gain several victories. To punish Dracula, the Sultan decided to launch a full-scale invasion of Walachia. His other goal was to transform this land into a Turkish province. He entered Walachia with an army three times larger than Dracula's. Finding himself without allies and forced to retreat towards Targoviste, Vlad burned his own villages and poisoned the wells along the way, so that the Turkish army would find nothing to eat or drink. Moreover, when the Sultan, exhausted, finally reached the capital city, he was confronted by a most gruesome sight: hundreds of stakes held the remaining carcasses of Turkish captives, a horror scene which was ultimately nicknamed the "Forest of the Impaled." This terror tactic, deliberately stage-managed by Dracula, was definitely successful. The scene had a strong effect on Mehmed's most stout-hearted officers, and the Sultan, tired and hungry, decided to withdraw (it is worth mentioning that even Victor Hugo, in his Legende des Siecles, recalls this particular incident). Nevertheless, following his retreat from Walachian territory, Mehmed encouraged and supported Vlad's younger brother, Radu, to take the Walachian throne. At the head of a Turkish army and joined by Vlad's detractors, Radu pursued his brother to Poenari Castle on the Arges River. According to legend, this is when Dracula's wife, in order to escape capture, committed suicide by hurling herself from the upper battlements, her body falling down the precipice into the river below, a scene exploited by Francis Ford Coppola's production. Vlad, who was definitely not the kind of man to kill himself, managed to escape the siege of his fortress by using a secret passage into the mountain. He was, however, assassinated toward the end of December 1476.

The only real link between the historical Dracula (1431-1476) and the modern literary myth of the vampire is the 1897 novel. Bram Stoker built his fictional character solely based on the research that he conducted in libraries in London. Political detractors and Saxon merchants, unhappy with the new trade regulations imposed by Vlad, did everything they could to blacken his reputation. They produced and disseminated throughout Western Europe exaggerated stories and illustrations about Vlad's cruelty. Vlad Tepes' reign was, however, presented in a different way in chronicles written in other parts of Europe.

Dracula - The Legend ( III )

Arefu

Where: 104 miles northwest of Bucharest / 11 miles north of Curtea de Arges
Note: access by car only
Next visit Arefu, where many of the villagers trace their ancestry back to the loyal minions of Vlad Tepes himself (in the movies, these are the ones who are always busy loading up Dracula’s coffins with Transylvanian earth). Legend has it that when the Turks attacked and took over the Poenari Castle in 1462, it was the villagers of Arefu who helped Vlad escape. Spend the night with the locals camping around a fire and listening to centuries-old folk tales. Homestays and B&Bs are available in Arefu and nearby villages.

Brasov

Where: 100 north of Bucharest
Nearest train station: Brasov 
Fringed by the peaks of the Southern Carpathian Mountains and resplendent with gothic, baroque and renaissance architecture, as well as a wealth of historical attractions, Brasov is one of the most visited places in Romania. Founded by Teutonic Knights in 1211 on an ancient Dacian site and settled by the Saxons as one of their seven walled citadels*, Brasov exudes a distinct medieval ambiance and has been used as a backdrop in many recent period films.


Sighisoara

Where: 170 northwest of Bucharest
Nearest train station: Sighisoara
Founded by Transylvanian Saxons during the 12th century, Sighisoara still stands as one of the most beautiful and best-preserved medieval towns in Europe. Designated as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO, this perfectly intact 16th century gem with nine towers, cobbled streets, burgher houses and ornate churches rivals the historic streets of Old Prague or Vienna for atmospheric magic. It is the birthplace of Vlad Tepes (Vlad the Impaler), ruler of the province of Walachia from 1456 to 1462


Vlad Dracul’s House (Casa Dracula)
Address: Str. Cositorarilor 5
Tel: (265) 771.108
Open: Tue. – Sun. 10:00 a.m. – 3:30 p.m.; Closed Mon.
The Vlad Dracul House is located in Sighisoara’s Citadel Square, close to the Clock Tower. This ocher-colored house is the place where Vlad Tepes, the inspiration for Bram Stoker’s famous Dracula, was born in 1431 and lived with his father, Vlad Dracul,  until 1435 when they moved to Targoviste. A wrought-iron dragon hangs above the entrance. The ground floor of the house serves as a restaurant, while the first floor is home to the Museum of Weapons.


Bistrita


Where: 265 miles northwest of Bucharest
Nearest train station: Bistrita
Located at the foot of the Bargau Mountains, not far from the Borgo Pass (Pasul Tihuta in Romanian) which connects the provinces of Transylvania and Moldavia, the town of Bistrita is one of the oldest in the region. Archeological findings indicate that the area has been inhabited since the Neolithic age, long before Bram Stocker chose it as the setting of his fictional Dracula’s castle. Saxon colonists, who settled here in 1206, helped develop the town into a flourishing medieval trading post. First mentioned in 1264 as Villa Bistiche, the name was later changed to Civitas Bysterce. Soon enough, Bistritz,as it was known to its German inhabitants, became one of Transylvania’s most important Saxon citadels (Siebenbürgens*).

Today, the old town’s quaint 15th and 16th century merchants’ houses, the remains of the 13th century fortress walls and a generally unhurried pace have preserved some of Bistrita’s  medieval atmosphere.

Dracula - The Legend ( I )

Dracula – Beyond the Legend
» Bram Stoker’s inspiration
» Who was Vlad Dracula ?

“We Draculs have a right to be proud…
I am the last of my kind”
 – Dracula, from Bram Stoker’s Dracula

Some say that Transylvania sits on one of Earth's strongest magnetic fields and its people have extra-sensory perception. Vampires are believed to hang around crossroads on St. George's Day, April 23, and the eve of St. Andrew, November 29. The area is also home to Bram Stoker's Dracula, and it's easy to get caught up in the tale while driving along winding roads through dense, dark, ancient forests and over mountain passes.Tales of the supernatural had been circulating in Romanian folklore for centuries when Irish writer Bram Stoker picked up the thread and spun it into a golden tale of ghoulishness that has never been out of print since its first publication in 1897. To research his immortal tale, Stoker immersed himself in the history, lore and legends of Transylvania, which he called a “whirlpool for the imagination.”Count Dracula, a fictional character in the Dracula novel, was inspired by one of the best-known figures of Romanian history, Vlad Dracula, nicknamed Vlad Tepes (Vlad the Impaler), who was the ruler of Walachia at various times from 1456-1462. Born in 1431 in Sighisoara, he resided all his adult life in Walachia, except for periods of imprisonment at Pest and Visegrad (in Hungary).

Tracking Dracula

Although he never traveled to Romania, Stoker crammed his book with descriptions of many real locations that can still be visited in present-day Romania. They include the most important historical places associated with Vlad Tepes, such as the 14th century town of Sighisoara where you can visit the house in which Vlad was born (now hosting a restaurant and a small museum of medieval weapons).
Other Dracula sites include: the Old Princely Court (Palatul Curtea Veche) in Bucharest,Snagov Monastery, where, according to legend, Vlad’s remains were buried; the ruins of the Poenari Fortress (considered to be the authentic Dracula's Castle); the village of Arefu where Dracula legends are still told, the city of Brasov where Vlad led raids against the Saxons merchants, and, of course, Bran Castle.
Some tours also cover the folkloric aspects of the fictional Dracula. For instance, visitors can eat the exact meal Jonathan Harker ate at The Golden Crown in Bistrita and sleep at Castle Dracula Hotel, built no so long ago on the Borgo Pass at the approximate site of the fictional Count’s castle.

Maya - The lost civilization ( III )

Post Classic Period - 1000 - 1500 AD Growth and Ruin
Chichen Itza was first populated between 500 and 900 AD by Mayans and for some reason abandoned around 900, the city was then resettled 100 years later and subsequently invaded by Toltecs from the North. There are numerous reliefs of both Mayan gods including Chac and the Toltec gods including Quetzacoatl. For some reason the city was abandoned around 1300. If the Spanish did not make it a policy to kill all of the Mayan priests and burn books when they arrived in Mexico, we would all have a few more answers. After the Classic period, the Maya migrated to the Yucat n peninsula. There they developed their own character, although their accomplishments and artwork are not considered as impressive as the Classic Maya. Most of the ruins you can see South of Cancun are from this time period and are definitely worth a visit. Chichen Itza (near Valladolid), Uxmal (near Merida) and Mayap n (west of Chichen Itza) were the three most important cities during the Post Classic period. They lived in relative peace from around 1000 - 1100 AD when Mayap n overthrew the confederation and ruled for over 200 years. In 1441 the Maya who had previously ruled Uxmal destroyed the city of Mayap n and founded a new city at Mani. Wars were fought between rival Mayan groups over the territory until the region was conquered by the Spanish.

Maya - The lost civilization ( II )

Maya had a complex society (Classic period 300 - 900 AD)



Most artistic and cultural achievement came about during the Classic period 300 - 900 AD. The Maya developed a complex, hierarchical society divided into classes and professions. Centralized governments, headed by a king, ruled territories with clearly defined boundaries. These borders changed as the various states lost and gained control over territory. Mayan centers flourished in Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, and El Salvador. The major cities of the Classic period were Tikal (Guatemala), Palenque and Yaxchilan (Chiapas, Mexico), Cop n and Quirigua (Honduras). For most of this period, the majority of the Maya population lived in the central lowlands of Mexico and Belize. The Northern Yucatan (where present day Cancun is located) was sparsely populated for most of the Classic period with only a few cities such as Dzibilchaltun (near M rida) and Xpuhil, Bec n and Chicann (near Chetumal). During the 9th century the population centers of the central lowlands declined significantly. This decline was very rapid and is attributed to famine, drought, breakdowns in trade, and political fragmentation. Fragmentation from large states into smaller city-states focused resources on rivalries between cities including not just wars, but competitions of architecture and art between rival cities. As the cities in the lowlands declined, urban centers sprung up in the Northern Yucatan, including Uxmal (near M rida).
Anthropologists used to contrast the "peaceful" Maya with the bloodthirsty Aztecs of central Mexico. Although human sacrifice was not as important to the Maya as to the Aztec, blood sacrifice played a major role in their religion. Individuals offered up their blood, but not necessarily their lives, to the gods through painful methods using sharp instruments such as sting-ray spines or performed ritualistic self mutilation. It is probable that people of all classes shed their blood during religious rites. The king's blood sacrifice was the most valuable and took place more frequently. The Maya were warlike and raided their neighbors for land, citizens, and captives. Some captives were subjected to the double sacrifice where the victims heart was torn out for the sun and head cut off to pour blood out for the earth.
The Mayan civilization was the height of pre-Columbian culture. They made significant discoveries in science, including the use of the zero in mathematics. Their writing was the only in America capable of expressing all types of thought. Glyphs either represent syllables or whole concepts and were written on long strips of paper or carved and painted on stone. They are arranged to be red from left to right and top to bottom in pairs of columns. The Mayan calendar begins around 3114 BC, before Maya culture existed, and could measure time well into the future. They wrote detailed histories and used their calendar to predict the future and astrological events. Fray Diego de Landa, second bishop of the Yucat n ordered a mass destruction of Mayan books in 1562 and only three survived.

Maya - The lost civilization ( I )

The Maya are probably the best-known of the classical civilizations of Mesoamerica. Mayan history starts in the Yucatan around 2600 B.C., Mayan history rose to prominence around A.D. 250 in present-day southern Mexico, Guatemala, western Honduras, El Salvador, and northern Belize.

Building on the inherited inventions and ideas of earlier civilizations such as the Olmec, the Maya developed astronomy, calendrical systems and hieroglyphic writing. The Maya were noted as well for elaborate and highly decorated ceremonial architecture, including temple-pyramids, palaces and observatories, all built without metal tools. Mayan history shows that they were also skilled farmers, clearing large sections of tropical rain forest and, where groundwater was scarce, building sizeable underground reservoirs for the storage of rainwater. The Maya were equally skilled as weavers and potters, and cleared routes through jungles and swamps to foster extensive trade networks with distant peoples.

Many people believe that the ancestors of the Maya crossed the Bering Strait at least 20,000 years ago. They were nomadic hunter-gatherers. Evidence of settled habitation in Mexico is found in the Archaic period 5000-1500 BC - corn cultivation, basic pottery and stone tools.

The first true civilization was established with the rise of the Olmecs in the Pre-Classic period 1500 BC -300 AD. The Olmecs settled on the Gulf Coast, and little is known about them.

They are regarded as the inventors of many aspects of Meso-American cultures including the first calendar and hieroglyphic writing in the Western hemisphere. Archeologists have not settled the relationship between the Olmecs and the Maya, and it is a mystery whether the Maya were their descendants, trading partners, or had another relationship, that is white place in Mayan history.

It is agreed that the Maya developed a complex calendar and the most elaborate form of hieroglyphics in America, both based on the Olmec's versions.

Some colors history

Isaac Newton made a study of color starting at the age of 23 in 1666 and developed the useful Newton color circle which gives insight about complementary colors and additive color mixing. He realized that some colors (magenta, purple) could not be produced as spectral colors. One of his contributions was the idea that white light is light containing all wavelengths of the visible spectrum. He demonstrated this fact with experiments on the dispersion of light in glass prisms.

Thomas Young is credited with suggesting that the eye has three different kinds of color receptors, corresponding roughly with the red, green, and blue primary colors which had been found useful in matching a wide range of visual colors by additive color mixing. This idea was put on a more quantitative basis by Hermann von Helmholtz and is sometimes called the Young-Helmholtz theory.

Detailed experiments carried out in the 1920s showed that the RGB primaries could indeed match all visual colors within a certain range called a gamut, but that they could not match all the spectral colors, particularly in the green range. It was found that if a certain amount of red light was added to the color being matched, then all colors could be matched. The quantitative results were expressed in terms of tristimulus values for the RGB primaries, but it was necessary to allow negative values for the red tristimulus values in order to match all colors.

In 1931 the Commission International de l'Eclairage (CIE) moved to define a standard system in which all the tristimulus values would be positive and in which all visible colors could be unambiguously represented by two chromaticity coordinates x,y. Mapping the visual colors led to the now familiar horseshoe curve in the x,y plane known as the CIE chromaticity diagram. It is the basis for most quantitative color measurement at present.

It was not until about 1965 that the detailed physiological experiments were performed to measure the absorption of the different types of cones in the eye. Those experiments verified the postulate of Young that there were indeed three types of cones.

It would seem that we could now use something similar to the response curves of the three types of cones as color matching functions, but the CIE curves are well established as the standard curves. There are some strange things about the 1931 CIE standard chromaticity diagram. As Fortner and Meyer point out, it "devotes an enormous amount of real estate to various green shades" and less space to colors like the reds and purples which are more differentiable to the eye. In 1976, a new CIE standard was released which corrected some of those problems and produced a diagram where the distance between two points on the diagram was proportional to the perceived color difference. However, this 1976 CIE standard has failed to gain acceptance, and the 1931 CIE is almost universally used.

Tattoos (Part I: History)

Many times we are fascinated of this type of art when we turn our head around and see something unusual on someone's skin. Still, there are a lot of things we don't know about this art: tattooing. There are people who live from this kind of art, unknowing its history or its significances, so I’ve decided to write a couple of rows about these things. Let's begin with a brief history of tattoos. For many years, the scientists thought the Egyptians and the Nubians were the first who used the tattoo art. But in 1991, it was discovered a mummy whose name was "Otzi: the Ice man" and whose day of birth was somewhere around 3300 b.C. This mummy had more sets of tattoos, including a line from the knee till the ankle and back. It was believed that the purpose of those tattoos was bound to the human body healing. During the Egyptian civilization, the most advanced in that Era, the tattoos were spread worldwide.
   The dynasties of those who built the pyramids had connections with other important cultures: Greeks, Persians, Arabs etc. The art of tattooing spread feather South-East Asia through 2200 b.C. Afterwards, this art reached the entire population. Thumb the same period the Japanese became interested in tattooing art, but just for its decorative aspects. The Japanese became some of the greatest artists in this domain. The way they used the colors, the perspective and the imagination they had, gave this practice a new meaning. In the first millennium of our Era, the Japanese adopted the tattoo practices and forms used by the Chinese. In the Balkan Peninsula, Thracians had another use for tattoos. According to Herodotus, they used this art to prove their statute in society. Though the Europeans knew about tattoos, they discovered this art after the Renaissance period. It was the meeting with the Native Americans from North America that brought this fashion in Europe. The English explorer James Cook brought the tattoos fashion from Polynesia in Europe from his explores in Pacific. In that period the bodies marked with signs had the significance that the respective person represented belongings which could be used and sold as any other product.

Books and their importance

Books have been hugely important in human civilization as instruments for communicating information and ideas. The digital age is challenging their ongoing existence - although the e-book has not yet taken over from print on paper, the landscape is constantly changing, with more and more of the traditional functions of books being performed electronically.

People usually think of books in terms of their contents, their texts, with less thought for books as artifacts. In fact, books may possess all kinds of potentially interesting qualities beyond their texts, as designed or artistic objects, or because they have unique properties deriving from the ways they have been printed, bound, annotated, beautified, or defaced. David Pearson explores these themes and uses many examples of books from the Middle Age to the present day to show why books may be interesting beyond their texts. As the format of a book becomes history - as texts are increasingly communicated electronically - we can recognize that books are also history in another significant way. Books can develop their own individual histories, which provide important evidence about the way they were used and regarded in the past, which make them an indispensable part of the fabric of our cultural heritage.
And now, let's begin with the things or questions that actually challenge us. First thing’s first. I think that we all are what we're reading and not how much we’ve read. There are so many books we can talk about but everyone has his taste in this domain. For example, I like philosophical, psychological novels and in my opinion, the best author who can combine these aspects is Dostoevsky. I don't want to go into details, so I'll give a few names of his books like "The brothers Karamazov", "Crime and punishment", "The idiot". He has a third dimension for his characters unlike other authors who have two dimensional characters. If we read attentively, we can find ourselves in his novels. In the end I'll let you post in the comments section about the books that you like the most and why.

The source: David Pearson