ESSAY- FINAL COPY

ancient-essay-terence

anceint presentation 2

anceint-presentation

info on archaeologists who excavated the ruins

Information of the first archaeologist who lead the first excavation at the zimbabwe ruins- David Randall Maclver

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Randall-MacIver

Background information on the lady who lead the second archaeological excavation on the ruins-Gertrude Caton Thompson

Publication-The Zimbabwe Culture, 1931.

http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/information/biography/pqrst/thompson_gertrude.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gertrude_Caton-Thompson

information on the ruins

Zimbabwe

The Karanga people ruled a great inland African empire from about AD1000 to AD1600. The Karanga were traders and sailors who smelted gold and traded it on the shores of the Indian Ocean for glass beads and porcelain from as far away as China. European explorers discovered vast stone ruins of the Karanga in 1867. The site of the ruins was called Zimbabwe, which means “stone dwelling” in the native Bantu language of the region.

The ruins seem to have been the spiritual and religious center of a city of perhaps as many as 20,000 people. The sixty-acre site is situated atop a high plateau. Its builders used granite and other stones to form walls up to thirty-six feet high and twenty feet thick. Evidence suggests that the structure was built in the tenth century and abandoned about five hundred years later.

Many Europeans were unwilling to believe that sub-Saharan Africans could have built anything as grand as Zimbabwe; they theorized that ancient Phoenicians, Arabs, Romans, or Hebrews created the structures. British museum director Richard Hall destroyed portions of the site in an unsuccessful attempt to prove that it had been built by a foreign civilization. Later excavations in by archaeologists David Randall-MacIver and Gertrude Caton-Thompson proved that the Africans created the ruins.

The European colonial government of Rhodesia attempted to deny the Great Zimbabwe’s African origin. The leaders of Rhodesia argued the land was empty of people and culture before they arrived. When the government allowed people of all races to vote in 1980, the black majority Rhodesia discarded their colonial name and, looking to the past for nobler origins, chose to rename their nation Zimbabwe.

http://www.mrdowling.com/609-zimbabwe.html

 http://www.dlmcn.com/anczimb.html ( very important site )

Goals to be achieved

 

•finds the reasons behind the construction of the ruins of great Zimbabwe

•investigate why the ruins were build on major trading centre

•collect evidence and possible information that link to builders of the ruins

•separate the subjective information and the objective information

•investigate on the excavations done on the site, and the archaeologists who lead the excavations and their backgrounds

The Great Zimbabwe

plan-for-the-essay11

roman hydro engeneering

seven hillz

seven-hillz

the destruction and preservation of evidence

Gender Bias & Josephus

1) Using examples (modern or Ancient), discuss the difference between ‘fact’ and opinion’.

fact is something that actually exists or has happened eg. Julius Caesar was assassinated in 44 BC.

opinion is someone’s thought’s and idea towards something eg. the motives of the assassins are open to interpretation.

2) What factors affect the objectivity of authors of written sources?

many factors affect the objectivity of authors of written sources some of them are gender, class, race, cuture etc.

3) What is gender bias? How has it manifested itself in the reporting of history over the millenia? Give three examples of gender bias? Is it still a problem today in historiography?

Gender bias is discrimination and belief that the other gender is more superior than the other. ancient sources women had no say in anything and were not treated equal and most ancient written sources were written by men and tend to be bias against women.

i) Dio Cassius, Roman History, LXII. 2.2-4

ii) sir Alan Grdiner, Egypt of the Pharaohs, Oxford University Press, 1961, pp.183-4

iii) that cleopatra was the best pharoah of Egypt

gender bias is still a problem in today’s society but not as much as before.

 1)Who is Josephus? josphesus was a jewish historian2)When did he live?

he lived in-betwwen 41-100 AD.

3)What did he write about?

he wrote the jewish war against the roman’s.

4) How have modern authors ‘deconstructed’ Josephus’ accounts?

because josephus has the only account written source of the revolt. and other authors have intrepreted and seen where he wrote biased about the revolt.

5) Do they consider him biased and Why?

yes because he left his people and went to the roman empire and Ceaser gave him all his needs so he was never going to write anything against Ceaser and the romans.

6) Lastly, is his Bellum Judaicum useful as a source for the Jewish Revolt?

yes it is very important because as far as we know it is the only one we got. it is a good source whether bias or not and a good and well educated can tell whether the soruces is biased or not but overall is it very important.