Homework Assignment: Homework for Block D (April 19).

Imhotep The Great

My sacred land of ancient Egypt consists of many great tombs and architectural features. We ancient Egyptians would never leave a chance to prove our great architectural skills. From Pharaohs’ tombs to great pyramids, everything was as you might say, “a piece of cake for us” for us. Egypt had many architects willing to spend their entire lives making architectural history! I, my good people, happened to be one of those architects. Architecture was my passion, and everyone knew that I was born to be a great architect. So prepare yourselves to learn about my life and achievements, as this is a story you will not get to hear often.

I, unlike most of the great people of Egypt did not come from a wealthy family. My father was a commoner and I, like most children had a simple education. I was born in the Third Dynasty and lived during the great Old Kingdom. As a child, I showed keen interest in poetry as well as architecture. Later, these mere interests changed into an important occupation. Based on my background, no one knew that I was capable of such great work. I intended to prove them wrong.

I created structures which most people that time couldn’t have even dreamt of. I was best known for building the Step Pyramid for one of our earliest rulers, King Zoser at Saqarra. My name inscribed on the enclosure wall of Sekhmet The Great’s unfinished pyramid, made many think that I built it. The answer, however, to this mystery is for you to find out. The great art of architecture was not the only thing that fascinated me. I was also a physician. I wrote many medical texts, which were later used to help several people in need.

The people of my sacred land, Egypt, were very generous. They made sure that I was re-paid and honored for the things I did for them. I was honored with the designation of the Vizier and High Priest of Ptah. This resulted in people believing that I was the son of Ptah, as they thought that I was as great a leader as the great god himself. As I wrote many ancient and medical texts, I was said to be the Patron of all scribes as well as a great sage. When the mighty Romans came to conquer Egypt, they were extremely impressed by my work, and carved my praises in their temples. All that I had done lead to me leading a life of luxury and being treated no less than royalty.

As I said earlier, all who knew me said that I was born to be a great architect, and indeed the entire land of Egypt thought so too. After I had built numerous tombs, I was honored with the title of the first true architect the world had ever seen. Throughout my life I did things not only related to architecture, but also to help mankind. Think about it: if I hadn’t started building the great pyramids, then what would be the 7^th wonder of the world?

Picture Source

Homework Assignment: Homework Block D (April 19).

The past few weeks we have learnt a great deal about Ancient Egypt. To end this topic, we were all given a famous Egyptian Gods to talk and learn about. However, on the day that the presentations were to be made, I was not present in class. Luckily, the day after, I was not the only one presenting my speech. The following paragraphs are based on one speech, as I have not listened to all of them.

Although I only listened to one single presentation, I learned a great deal. The presentation I listened to was about Horus, the God of the sky. I learned that both of Horus’s eyes were the Sun and the Moon. Also, I found out that Horus fought a deadly battle against his own uncle: Seth the Evil. During the battle, Horus lost one of his eyes. As both of Horus’ eyes played a crucial part in the existing of the Earth, it was very important that both his eyes were intact. In addition to that, I gained knowledge about the fact that Horus was the son of Isis and Osiris. I noticed that the speaker completely got into the shoes of his appointed God. For instance, instead of referring to Seth as “Seth the Evil”, he referred to him as “Uncle Seth”. This not only sounded interesting, but it also made it much easier for the audience to understand what he was talking about.

If I were to re-do the assignment, then there would be numerous things which I would correct. For one, I would definitely name my God. I recited my entire speech, without once mentioning the name of my God. Also, I would try memorizing better, as there was a point in my speech, where I didn’t know what to say, and I had to improvise. In addition, I would try to wear a more “elaborate” costume as that would help the audience in understanding my character better and also I, myself would feel closer to the character.

Assignment: Homework All Blocks (Feb 13/14)

Egyptians worshipped many Gods and Goddesses. Each God or Goddess was unique and had great powers. Here are some pictures of several Egyptians Gods:

Ra: The Sun God- Ra was worshipped in many forms, such as an old king, falcon, scarab beetle and ram. He was considered to be the father of the Kings of Egypt. An interesting thing about Ra is, that he was believed to have come into being as a child at the beginning of creation, rising out of a water lilly!

Picture Source:

http://www.ancientegypt.co.uk/gods/explore/images/strah.jpg  

  http://www.tice.com.au/site-content/cms/images/RA.jpg

Maat: The Goddess of law, order and truth- Maat had one of the most important duties of all Gods and Goddesses. She had to make sure that the Sun rose everyday, at the appointed place and time!

Picture Source:

http://www.circewicca.nl/graph/works/maat.jpg

http://showcase.netins.net/web/ankh/maat.gif

Osiris: Judge of death- Osiris began as a fertility God, but in the later eras he became the Judge of death. He was also the Lord of Duat (underworld) and personified dead Kings!

Picture Source:

http://home.earthlink.net/~pgwhacker/ChristianOrigins/osiris.jpg 

 http://www.hermetic.com/sabazius/osiris.jpg

Isis: Protector of living and dead- Isis was the sister and wife of Osiris. She was one of the first Egyptian Goddesses to become well-known in Italy!

Picture Source:

http://grenier2clio.free.fr/egypte/pic/isis.jpg

http://www.ancient-egypt-online.com/images/isis.jpg

Horus: The Sky God- Horus had the Sun and the Moon as his two eyes! He was worshipped in Upper and Lower Egypt. Horus was the first state God of Egypt whose spirit entered the King.

Picture Source:

http://www.windows.ucar.edu/mythology/images/horus_sm.jpg 

http://www.logoi.com/pastimages/img/horus_3.jpg

Thoth: The God of scribes and knowledge- Thoth was depicted in three forms: an ibis, a man with a head of an ibis and a baboon. Because of his great knowledge, he assisted the Pharaoh in deciding where any Pyramid should be built!

Picture Source:

http://www.ancientneareast.net/images/egyptology/thoth.jpg

http://www.enormousfictions.com/wp-content/5399a.jpg

These are a few of the famous Egyptian Gods and Goddesses.

What would you change about the final product (the wiki you created) if you were to do the assignment again?

After working on our wikispace, for around 5 lessons, I, to be very honest, was quite pleased with our wikispace. However, if given the chance, I would change a few things. For one, I feel that on a few of our kingdom’s pages, we could have added much more information. I got a bit carried away with pictures, and added a lot them. This caused my focus to drift away from the “writing” part of the wikispace! I also feel that for this project I mainly focused on my part of the wikispace. For example, while exploring the wikispace for errors, I would only add pictures to the text that I typed. Lastly, I think that we could have improved the “Bibliography” page on our wikispace a lot. My group could have added more pictures, for the page to look more attractive. Also, I feel that instead of simply adding all the citations, we could have written what the citation was for, above that particular citation. Besides these mistakes, I thought that we (my group), did quite a good job on our wikispace.

Look at some of the other wikispaces from any class and find a few that you think are done exceptionally well. Tell me the name of the empire and the block, and then explain what you like about their wiki.

Ghana Empire-Block E 

The Ghana Empire wikipages created by Block E are truly amazing. After taking a look, and observing all their pages, I found out why this group had such wonderful wikipages. Balance. This group had a perfect balance between the written and pictorial information they had on their wikipages. This made their kingdom’s pages look very attractive, as well as informative.

Ancient Zimbabwe-Block H

This Ancient Zimbabwe page was a quintessential example of a good and informative wikipages, for beginners who are studying Ancient Zimbabwe! I noticed that the authors of these particular wikipages organized their data in a way, which is easy to understand, and at the same time interesting to look at! Because of this group’s wonderful formatting and organization skills, the information they have provided, can help many people, as information that is easy to read and understand, is information that most preferred.

Kongo Kingdom-Block E 

The authors of theKongo Kingdom pages have done a very professional job in presenting their information. Their pages, unlike those of Ancient Zimbabwe (Block H), are for people at extremely professional levels.

Homework Assignment: Homework for Block D (Wednesday 7 February). 

Finding information on ancient Africa, and then putting the information on the wikispace, was a great learning experience, as well as a lot of fun. Answering these questions, will help me reflect on my work, over the course of the month:

What did you learn from this task?

I learnt a lot of things from this task. During the start of the project, I learned a great deal about ancient Ghana. From the region, to the trade, I learnt everything. I learnt that Ghana was a very powerful empire, and that it had a great abundance in gold. Ghana used to be the main trading point for most black Africans in Western Africa. As Ghana did not have great quantities of salt, they used to trade their gold for salt with southern kingdoms. Not only did I gain knowledge about my own kingdom, I also learned a few things about other ancient empires such as the Mali Empire, and the Kongo Kingdom. As far as technology is concerned, I learnt many new skills about wikispaces. This helped me in making better wikispace pages, and working faster. In addition, I got familiar with the “iMovie making”, skill. I worked on an iMovie on ancient Africa, and that made me improve tremendously in iMovie. To visit our excellent wikispace on ancient Africa, click here.

Did you find this difficult or easy? Why?

At first finding enough information for our wikispace was slightly tough, as I was not looking at the correct sites for information. After receiving a few website evaluation hand-outs, which were extremely helpful, I finally was able to find relevant information on my topic. Besides that, I thought, that the project was a lot of fun, and reasonably easy.

What would you change about the process you went through to complete the wiki if you were to do the assignment again?

If we were to do the assignment again, then I would not change anything, as far as the research was concerned. For the technological part, however, I would give a lesson on the wikispace html, as some people may not have “Firefox” or “Internet Explorer”, at their houses, and therefore the information they add to the wikispace, does not look attractive.

Mahera

Hey Everyone!

I have researched the Internet, and have found some very interesting websites on Ancient Africa. I have added them as links, under the category of Ancient Africa. You will find them where the rest of my links are. Here is a brief description of them:

AFRICAN TIMELINE: This link will provide you with all the information you want about the African timeline. Even better, you can explore whichever time period, you want to research!

HISTORY OF AFRICA: Before starting with any research on anything, it is important to know about its history. This link will provide you with all the information you want about the history of Africa……and more!

HISTORY OF AFRICAN TRADE: African trade is a very interesting aspect of Africa. Learning about this topic, will also allow you to learn about the relationship between various ancient African kingdoms.

INDIVIDUAL INFO ABOUT VARIOUS ASPECTS OF ANCIENT AFRICA: If you are a new comer as far as ancient Africa is concerned, then this link is very useful, to explore each and every aspect of the fascinating continent.

WONDERS OF THE AFRICAN WORLD: Africa has so many beautiful wonders, from its numerous ethnic groups, to its fascinating clothing, and history. By exploring this link, you can learn alot about this topic.

I have not linked these titles of links, because you can easily find them, with same tiltles where the rest of my links are. Have fun exploring.

Mahera