Bison history – North America
Bison history: A bison losing his warm winter coat Bison or buffalo? Bison (we used to call them buffalo) are a kind of cattle, like cows. Like other cows such as [...]
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08, 2017
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08, 2017
Early Medieval Russia
Ukrainian landscape In 500 BC, we might have called the people living in Russia Scythians. But then between about 300 and 800 AD, a lot of people passed through Russia. Most of them were [...]
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08, 2017
Huns – Central Asian history
A drawing of a plaque made by Huns Who were the Huns? The Huns probably came from western China, where they were known as the Xiong-nu. They were part of the [...]
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08, 2017
The Avars – Early Middle Ages
Grasslands of Central Asia - the steppe homeland of the Avars Ruled by the Rouran The Avars were a mostly Turkic group of people. We first hear of them living [...]
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07, 2017
Medieval Islamic science
Medieval Islamic science: Al Tusi's diagram of linear motion from circular motion Indian and African science In the Early Middle Ages, before the formation of the Islamic Empire, Buddhists ran the world's biggest [...]
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07, 2017
Medieval Islamic astronomy
Islamic astronomers taking observations West Asian astronomy before Islam West Asian astronomers had been world leaders in astronomy for thousands of years before the Islamic conquests in the 600s AD. In the last centuries BC, [...]
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07, 2017
Medieval Islamic economy – The Silk Road
Turkomen on the Silk Road with camels Just like under Persian or Sassanian rule, the economy of West Asia during the Islamic period depended very heavily on trade. The Silk Road ran right across the Islamic Empire. It [...]
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07, 2017
Medieval Islamic pottery – Islamic art
A tin-glazed plate Just about the time of the Arab conquests (about 600-700 AD), potters started to use metal-based glazes on their pots. So Islamic pottery looks very different from the Roman pottery that came [...]
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07, 2017
Indra, god of rain – Ancient India
Indra, 4-5th c. AD (Mathura, India) Who was Indra? In the earliest Hindu stories that we know of, from the Rig Veda, Indra is the ruler of the Hindu gods, the [...]
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07, 2017
Who is Poseidon? Greek gods
The god Poseidon rules the ocean Ocean god Poseidon The Greeks thought of the god Poseidon as a god of violent, unpredictable movement. He is most often the god of the ocean, which is [...]
