The Book of Job

The book of Job is a moral tale in the bible proving Job's faith in God. It is really different from other bible moral stories because Job is punished for no reason at all. God allows the accuser(the devil) to do all these horrible things to Job to test his faith. After Job went through all these terrible things, he does not question God because he knows he is always right. The accuser challenges God again and God lets him test Job once again. Job then has to go through similar horrific things and have his children and wife killed.

Job morns for a week with his friends. His friends begin to question what is happening to Job. Saying these types of things only happen to people that have done bad things. Job says he did not do anything wrong and tries to convince his friends. His friends deep down know that he did not do anything wrong, but are too scared to say anything because they do not want to go against God and be punished. Job then puts God on trial asking what he did wrong ad why he is being punished.Doing this proves is faith to God because he is being honest and truthful about God. His friends however were being unfaithful and were not punished because Job said a prayer for them and they had to offer him gifts and they were not punished.At the end Job was rewarded by getting double of everything he owned, a family and offerings from his friends.

Alexander the Great

Alexander the Great was the son of Philip II the state Macedonia in Greece.In 338 BCE he defeated the combined forces of Athens and Thebes. He helped unify Greece besides Sparta. Then in 336 he was assassinated, thought to be ordered by Alexander the Great. The Thebans tried to rebel, but Alexander burnt down Thebes and sold their people into slavery. Then he began to think about expanding to the rest of the world. He crossed the Hellespont into Asia, and then defeated Darius III of Persia. This took place at the battle of Issus, which is just north of modern Iskenderon, Turkey.

In 332 Alexander the Great already conquered Egypt, founding the city Alexandria that is in the Nile Delta. He then marched back to Mesopotamia defeated Darius III again, and marched into Babylon and Susa with no remorse. His motive was to get to India and take over. Alexander the Great traveled 11,000 miles without defeat, but founded many new cities and destroyed ancient empires.In the 320's BCE he created the largest empire of the time. In 326 BCE reached the banks of the Indus River. He has been fascinated by the Indian culture for a long time, that he read in some of Aristotle's teachings. Alexander the Great first stopped at Taxila, north or modern day Pakistan. King Omphis greeted him with 200 silver talents. 3,000 oxen, 10,000 sleep, 30 elephants, 700 Indian cavalry and 5,000 infantry.On his way home be caught a fever and died in Babylon in 323 BCE.

The death of Socrates

The philosopher Socrates lived from 469–399 BCE.He was sentenced to death for refusing to recognize the gods recognized by the state and corrupting of the youth.In 399 BCE the jury consisted of five hundred Athenians. He was seventy years old when he was executed. Socrates felt like it was his time to go any ways. His views on Anti Democratic government made a lot of people turn against him.After the accuser and Socrates spoke, the jury voted him guilty. They chose to punish him with the death penalty.

Socrates had an chance to choose a different punish for himself instead of the death penalty. He said his punishment should be a fine for a sum of money. Socrates could have made a better suggestion and saved his life, but he basically chose to die, instead of spending his life in jail for expressing his opinions. The jury selected that he would be sentenced with death according to the two suggestions.Soon after he was taken to a jail and given a cup of poison hemlock to drink. Slowly his body become numb until it reached the heart and killed him. One of his famous quotes is "Death may be the greatest of all human blessings."

The Great Stupa

The Great Stupa is a famous monument in Buddhist architecture. Ashoka the Great had The Great Stupa built in Sanchi, India. It was made bigger in the second century BCE.A stupa is a type of burial place for the Buddhist. The first eight of them were built around the year 483 BCE. All of them were each holding the remains of Buddha.In the third century BCE Ashoka further scattered Buddha's remains to more stupas. The stupa structure is symbolic of a hemispheric dome. It was built from rubble and dirt and it was faced with stone.The dome also symbolizes the Dome of Heaven.

On the top of the dome is a small square platform, in the middle that is supported by three circular discs or umbrellas. There discs are called chatras. They symbolize both the bo tree which Buddha was given enlightenment. Also the three levels of Buddhist consciousness, desire, form, and formlessness. These three levels help the soul to enlightenment. The dome is put on a raised base around the top for a circular walk way. When they circle the walk way they symbolically follow the path of Buddha, and awake the enlightenment. The mandala is the Buddhist diagram of the cosmos, literally meaning circle.There are thirty two foot high stone pieces decorated with stories from the life of Buddha, and other things such as vines, elephants, and peacocks.

Solomon's Temple

Solomon's Temple in Hebrew is בית המקדש.It is translated to Beit HaMikdash, meaning the House of the Holy.The temple was known as the first temple. It was located in Jerusalem, and built by king Solomon. The temple was designed to hold the Ark of the Covenant and where the Israelites worshiped the God of Israel.Also sacrifices called korbanot were performed. The sacrifices were done with usually animals, such as sheep and bull. The temple was finsihed being built in 960 BCE and was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BCE.

In 516 BCE the templewas rebuilt, commonly called the second temple. It is described in the Book of Ezra .Also it was approved by the Persian king Cyrus the Great and ratified by Darius the Great. Then Herod the Great decided that the old temple would be torn down and replaced by a much better one. The temple was known as Herod's Temple. It stood until 70 CE till it was destroyed during the First Jewish-Roman War, by the Roman general Titus.

Cuneiform Writing in Sumeria

Cuneiform pictograms were drawn on clay tablets in vertical columns with a tool made from a sharpened reed stylus. Then two developments made the process quicker and easier: People wrote from left to right in horizontal rows. The new wedge shaped stylus was used for wedged shaped cuneiform.The word "cuneiform" derives from the Latin word cuneus,which meaning "wedge".Many of the tablets found by archaeologists were preserved because they were baked when enemy armies burned the buildings they were stored in.

The cuneiform script is one of the earliest known forms of writing.It was created by the Sumerians from in the 34th century BCE.Cuneiform writing began as a system of pictographs.Pictograms were originally drawn on clay tablets in vertical columns with a tool made from a sharpened reed stylus, or incised in stone. The archaic style was still missing the wedge-shape characteristic of the strokes.From about the year 2900 BC, the pictographs began to lose their original function.Given a sign could have various meanings depending on thee context. The signs were reduced from some 1,500 signs to some 600 signs.Writing became increasingly phonological.This process is directly parallel to, and not independent of the development of Egyptian hieroglyphic orthography.The knowledge of cuneiform was lost until 1835, when Henry Rawlinson the British army officer, found some Behistun inscriptions on a cliff at Behistun in Persia.

The ziggurat

Ziggurats were built by the Sumerians, Babylonians, and Assyrians for local religions.Every ziggurat was part of a temple complex that included other buildings. The end of the Early Dynastic Period were the earliest ziggurats.The earliest ziggurats date back to the 6th century BCE.Its built upon a rectangular, oval, or square platform.The ziggurat was a pyramid structure with a flat top.They have Sun-baked bricks, making up the core of the ziggurat, and facing of fired bricks on the outside.The facings often were glazed in different colors.The Mesopotamian ziggurats were not used for public worship or ceremonies. They were the dwelling places for the gods. Each of cities has its own patron god. Only priests were allowed on the ziggurat or in the rooms. It was their responsibility to care for the gods and attend to their needs. The priests were very powerful people in Sumerian society.

One of the best standing ziggurats is called Choqa Zanbil, located in western Iran. In Kashan, Iran, the Sialk ziggurat is the oldest ziggurat dating back to the 3rd millennium BCE. The massive ziggurat called Marduk or Etemenanki ,of ancient Babylon society. There is not even much of the base left of this giant structure.yet archeological findings and historical accounts put this tower at seven multicolored tiers, topped with a temple of exquisite proportions. People think it was painted and an indigo color, matching the tops of the tiers. It had three staircases leading to the temple, two of that were thought to have only went up to half the ziggurat's height.