End of Year Reflection -> Traveling Time Machine

My time machine:

Prehistoric Kenya:

I've now landed in Kenya. The sun is high in the sky sending heat waves across the vast savanna. Wait! i hear a river, and i approach the river i realize that I'm not the only one being drawn towards it, a group of strange looking people (at least i think they're people)

are looking at me. They are wearing cloths made from animal fur and skins with no shoes. They are all woman and children each holding baskets woven from weeds filled with small berries. Just behind them and the waters edge there a rocks that have been chipped away but not my erosion. There are also strange homes (or are they tents)? I tried speaking to them but they don't really seem to understand. Then i remembered where i had been sent in the time machine I'm in prehistoric Kenya! Of course they don;t look, talk, or live like i do today this is thousands and thousands of years ago! Just then i hear calls like shouting, though the shouting was happy. I looked and approaching us was a small group of about eight men carrying a zebra carcas. After about 30 minutes of explaining what I am i was finally sitting in a tree talking to some of the children appearing to bemy age, though they didn't seem like my friends. Just then they all got up and started to head towards a fire that was being started i looked at my watch 7:00 the time read it had been an hour now i had to go back to my time machine. I thought for a moment and then typed in 'ancient Sumeria.

Ancient Sumeria:

I landed. I looked around, I had landed in some sort of neolithic town. There was farmers working the land, using irrigation systems that had been built along the Tigris and Euphrates river to water their crops, after all they were on the brink of civilization. It was amazing, i have never been able to imagine what the world would have looked like before civilizations, and now i know. But i still am glad that we eventually built great civilizations. Just then i got a marvelous idea; travel forward in time (several years) to when the civilizations began to develop. The change was miraculous! The cities now had; specialization of labor, social classes, trade near and far, leadership and planning, highly developed culture, writing system, and stable food supply. Yes, i do remember my teacher mentioning something about those being the factors of a civilization. I also remember that the fertile crescent was where civilizations and advanced agriculture began!

Ancient Egypt:

I've finally reached Egypt! As im looking around i spot a large cat missing its nose. I remembered my history teacher mensioning something about it, i pulled my guid book out of my back pocket scanning through it i found what i was looking for, i was staring at the famous Sphinx. It been 20 minutes and now im high up (and slightly uncomfortable) riding on camel gazing at the great and mystifying pyramids. I went in some of the pyramids and tried to picture how not all grave robbers got lost in these mazes of dark and dingy passages. Egypt was definitely my favorite place to go. And the ancient Egyptians, it was amazing! i was just about to start watching some of them moving the massive limestone onto what looked like a beginning pyramid when I checked my watch; i had five minutes to get back to my time capsule before i was stuck in Egypt forever! Though that didn't sound to bad i still had some other places i wanted to check out.

Ancient India: I gazed up at a beautiful but not completely finished symmetrical building. Yes, you guessed right, i landed right in front of the Taj Mahal. Of course seeing as they are still building it i wasn't allowed inside. But believe me i tried going in. Instead i went somewhere else, i rode along the Indus river, gazed up at the Himalayan mountains and met Buddha! Sure you may say, that its impossible in just an hour! But remember i had a time machine so i just kept on going back to India in other words reversing time, so that i could do everything i wanted! But i eventually did all i wanted to do, so i got back in the time machine and zipped off to the best place of all.

2008, archaeological dig at Stonehenge: Whoa! Now that's something you don't see everyday! I gazed up at the 25 ft long, 20-30 ton stones of the great mysterious Stonehenge. i didn't find out much from the archaeologists, they didn't like being interupted by i was given a sketch on what Stonehenges layout was;

I also discovered that the stones were carried several miles, they were not just found in the area. And the builders of Stonehenge had no electrical Means of transporting the bluestones. Though they aren't sure why Stonehenge was built or even when it was built they still have several theories. All of which (in my mind) fit pretty well. Ugh! place of sacrifice, though it works i don't think that i want to be sacrificed. Well there goes my plan of going back in time to when they were supposedly building Stonehenge.

The Indus and Ganges River Valleys

Describe the geography of the Indus and Ganges river valleys. The Indus river begin the Himalayas and flows down into the Arabian sea. Whereas the Ganges river follows along the Himalayas and then enters into the Bay of Bengal. The reason that the rivers grow larger as they go along is because as they flow through or along the Himalayas lots of melted ice seeps into the rivers making them larger.
How do the monsoons affect India and its climate? India has two different monsoon seasons; summer and winter. The summer monsoons begin mid-June, and bing in wet, moistened air from the Indian Ocean. The winter monsoons start in October and end around May, bringing in dry air form the north-east area and spread it throughout India and its surrounding countries. The summer monsoons season has many benefits such as farmers not being able to grow their crops without it, and agriculture is a vital part of India because 70% of it relies on agriculture. But though they benefit from the rain the monsoons sometimes lead to massive and destructive flooding. .

How did geography influence the building of Mohenjo-Daro similar to modern cities?

Due to Mohenjo-Daro's geography the inhabitance of the area built their homes and city above ground level. Also they built a citadel on a hill and probably surrounded it by a wall. They didn't only build a citadel though, sewage and drainage systems ran throughout the area taken all the waste and excess water out of the city. This probably kept the most important places from flooding.

How was it possible for the Aryans to spread their influence over the Indus and Ganges river valleys so successfully?

The Aryans used horse-drawn chariots in-order to spread their influence over the Indus and Ganges valleys. The Aryan warriors chariots gave the opposing cities struggles so the Aryan warriors succeded in winning many of their battles.

Who were the Aryans?

Arriving in India between 2000-15000 BC the Aryans came has newcomers from the north and settled in Mohenjo-Daro. By the year 800 BC the Aryan language and culture had spread far and wide throughout all of India.

Summery of the Taj Mahal Story

A long time ago in India there was a prince called Khurram. One day at the Meena Bazaar during the Nauroze Festival he met the prime ministers daughter and was taken by her beauty. After meeting and talking they both fell in love with each other. Prince Khurram and Mumtaz we devoted to each other by their strong bond of love. Mumtaz had many children. After giving birth to a little girl Mumtaz became ill and week. One day during a battle Khurram was called back to where Mumtaz was resting. That night she died leaving Khurram overcome with grief. He refused to eat for many days and nights. When he remembered the promise that he had made to Mumtaz (to let the whole world know of their love.) So he then proceeded to build the finest moselium he could imagine. He brought in pearl white marble, jade, crystal and many other rare and fine jewels from around the world. After years and years the tomb of Mumtaz was considered complete. They called this great place the Taj Mahal.

One Practice from the Buddhist Eightfold Path

I chose the practice Right Effort. Right effort is defined as "Right effort can be seen as a prerequisite for the other principles of the path. Without effort, which is in itself an act of will, nothing can be achieved, whereas misguided effort distracts the mind from its task, and confusion will be the consequence. Mental energy is the force behind right effort; it can occur in either wholesome or unwholesome states." I think that everyday most people show different forms of effort so at many different times in my life I have shown different efforts and different elements in my life that are important to me. Such as trying hard in school or a sport. But I also think that the amount of effort that Buddha put into making the world a better place is way beyond anything that i have done. So I think that putting in more effort in some parts of my life couldn't hurt.

Mapping Project

1) Include picture of poster and 3D map 2) Compare all three of your maps a) How do physical features, climate and elevation relate to each other? All the physical features of our maps were of course in India so therefore they were all very similar. For example, even though they were different kinds of maps, physical features map (3D map), climate map, and elevation map. In ,each we had the same places marked such as the Thar Desert, Indus and Ganges rivers and the Himalayas. In our climate map we mainly focused on what sort of weather and the temperatures that it were in different Indian areas, whereas on our 3D map and elevation map we focused on the hight of the different areas of India. b) What conclusions can you draw? (Think about natural resources, climate/weather, and human settlement.) To conclude I think that India definitely does have a wide variety when it comes to the natural recourses, elevation, and climate/weather. Because when you look at our map and other maps we had many different areas bordered off by different features. Also when looking our different maps i started to realize why people settled where they did, because you wouldn't want to settle in the middle of the Thar Desert but in the areas that provided a wide variety of recourses such as by a river like in areas like New Deli.

Hindu God: Ganesh or Ganesa

Ganesh or Ganesa, is one of the most well known and worshipped god within the Hindu Pantheon. Ganesh is hte son of Shiva and Parati, he has an elephantine appearance with a curved trunk, large ears, and the massive pot-bellied body of a human.
Ganesh is known as the Lord of Success and destroyer of evil and obstacles, aswell as being worshipped as the god of education, knowledge, wisdom, and wealth. Along with all is purposes of worship Ganesha is one of the five prime Hindu Deities (Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva, and Durgoa are the other four Hindu Deities.) Hindu Deities are beleived to be forms of the god Brahman and provide one of the ways to communicate with this one divinity.

"Faceless" Indus Valley National Geographic Article Summery

In 1921 a new civilization was discovered in what would become modern day Pakistan, the discovery revealed the Indus Valley civilization and the cities of Harappa and Mohenjo Daro. This culture/civilization emerged around 4,500 tears ago and remained thriving with trade and their highly fertile land from the Indus River floodplane for nearly 1000 years.

The inhabitents of this great Indus civilization were (as archaeologists have discovered) skilled urban planners with an understanding of how to control water using irrigation systems. However to the modern-day people those who occupied the ancient city in the 3rd millinnium still remain a mysterious puzzle.

The entire city is shrouded in mystery. It lacks palaces, temples, and monuments, there is no obvious central seat of government or showings of kings and queens. The city does however show signs that cleanliness and modesty we ranked hightly in this mysterious civilization. The city also appeared to be high in wealth and stature due to artifact that have been discovered such ivory, lapis, carnelian, and gold beads, also don't forget the baked-brick structures around the city.

Some examples of the ancient cities great irrigation systems include a watertight pool callecd the Great Bath. The Great Bath was perched ontop of a mound of dirt held inplace by some of the baked brick walls, it is the clostest structure that Mohenjo Daro has to a temple. Archaeologists also found that there were wells located in many places around the city as well as bathing areas and drainage systems in almost all houses in the area.

From about 2,500 to 1,900 the city was among some of the most important to the Indus civilization. However seeing as it had no government it was probably governed as a city-state. Maybe elected officials were chosen from each of the mounds.