Mapping the Middle East: Ancient and Modern

In class we started mapping the Middle East and Mediterranean regions, where the ancient civilizations we study were located. On the "Units of Study" section of my website, check out the Mesopotamia vocab, packet, and the ancient map of the Middle East for more information.

Our focus of study for the Mesopotamia unit is really the entire Fertile Crescent: An area that stretches from the Nile Valley of Egypt in the west, northward to Palestine, westward across the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, and southward to the Persian Gulf. Surrounded by inhospitable deserts, the Fertile Crescent is an area that has good soil for farming, rivers for water, and is in a strategic location for trade.

Mesopotamia itself comes from the Greek meaning "the Land Between the Rivers" because it is in the area between the southern parts of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. There the Sumerians built the very first true civilization and invented farming, the wheel, writing, and the first organized governments.

For more information about this region, check out a really cool website about Mesopotamia from the British Museum, or this one from the University of Chicago.

Want to see a wicked cheezy "school video" on ancient Mesopotamia? I mean it's interesting and all, but there is a very serious "cheez" factor. Enjoy:

How Important Is a Stable Food Supply?

When we look at a certain civilization, any civilization, the first and most important aspect is its stable food supply. Without a regular and dependable supply of food, a civilization will begin to break down into chaos.

History includes several examples of times and places in which hunger and a desire for food has caused political or social troubles: Russia in 1910 and 1917, the U.S. and Germany in the 1930s, the Soviet Union in the 1980s and 90s, and certain African countries in the 1970s up until the present day (sadly).

About two years ago, the price of wheat worldwide spiked and products such as bread and pasta almost doubled in price. The video below shows a survey of how different countries' news stations covered the crisis. Notice that in the U.S. the story focused on how much more pastries would cost, while in Egypt and Pakistan people were rioting and in a state of panic over the higher price and lower supply of bread:




In movies, there is one great example of what might happen in an earth that is overcrowded and polluted. Without the land to grow food, or clean oceans from which to find seafood, the company goes to drastic measures to provide food.

In Soylent Green, the main character finds out a terrible secret about what the people of New York have been eating. He also solves the mystery of where all of the missing rioters went after being arrested by the police. He tries to warn the others! 

The movie ends with the hilarious (and gross) thought that maybe one day the food supply just might be...PEOPLE!!!! The movie is pretty terrible, but the last scene includes one of the most famous lines in movie history.

The Bruins at Fenway

Outdoor hockey has come to Boston, with a full-sized skating rink on the field at Fenway. The rink was opened to the public for the first skating on Friday, and the big event will be the Bruins/Flyers game on New Year's Day.

Scuba Archaeology in the News

From the Boston Globe on Friday comes a cool story about some archaeology happening in the harbor of the ancient port city of Alexandria, Egypt.

The part of Alexandria where the famous queen Cleopatra's palace once stood is now underwater, thanks to a series of earthquakes. However, the Egyptian antiquities authorities are now lifting chunks of that palace's temple of the goddess Isis out of the water and are preparing them for display in a new museum devoted to scuba archaeology.

A crane lifted an ancient tower yesterday from Alexandria’s harbor. The tower is part of a pylon from a temple dedicated to Isis. (Asmaa Waguih/Reuters) 

Alexandria was a city founded by and named after Alexander the Great, a Greek conquerer who took over Egypt in the 320s BC. Later, Alexandria became the capital and most important city of later Egyptian dynasties. The last ruler of Egypt, Cleopatra VII committed suicide here in the first century BC, after her forces were defeated by the Roman emperor Augustus Caesar.

Here is an excerpt from the article:

"The palace and other buildings and monuments now lay strewn on the seabed in the harbor of Alexandria, the second-largest city in Egypt. Since 1994, archeologists have been exploring the ruins, one of the richest underwater excavations in the Mediterranean, with about 6,000 artifacts. Another 20,000 objects are scattered off other parts of Alexandria’s coast, said Ibrahim Darwish, head of the city’s underwater archeology department.

In recent years, excavators have discovered dozens of sphinxes in the harbor, along with pieces of what is believed to be the Alexandria Lighthouse, or Pharos, which was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world."

Read more about Alexandria scuba archaeology here.

Saturday Italian: Christmas Cookies

It's the last Saturday of the session, and we ended by making frosted ricotta cookies for Christmas. Yes, sprinkles were involved. It's a really easy recipe, and the cookies are wicked good!

Some people are unsure when they hear that ricotta is involved, but in Italy ricotta is used in both sweet and savory (not sweet) dishes. One of the best-known ways to use sweetened ricotta is to squeeze it into a cannoli shell. In this recipe, the ricotta is not used to flavor the cookie, but more to give it a light and airy texture.

Here's the recipe for about 12-18 cookies (depending on how big you make them):

Neolithic-O's: Part of a Healthy Breakfast

There is new evidence that early Homo sapiens were eating cereal grains earlier than previously thought. According to archaeologists working in Mozambique (Africa), humans were eating certain kinds of grains and roots they had processed (mashed up) using stone tools about 100,000 years ago.

This is a pretty big deal considering most archaeological thinking has been that humans didn't start eating these types of foods until maybe 20,000 years ago.

As stated in an article on www.canada.com:

"New archeological evidence suggests the modern-day diet could benefit from being more like what Homo sapiens were eating 100,000 years ago.

Dozens of stone tools found during an excavation in southeastern Africa represent the earliest evidence of human reliance on grains for sustenance, according to Julio Mercader, the University of Calgary researcher who uncovered the artifacts."

Read the rest of the article by clicking here.

Update: The Agricultural Revolution

 In class, we've been looking at a few key questions about these first human settlements. Before getting to the questions, you should check out a couple of really cool websites:

• The official site of the Catal Huyuk archaeological dig
• A kid-friendly site devoted to Catal Huyuk and its artifacts

1. How did humans go from hunting and gathering to farming?
Humans learned to save seeds to plant the following year, and captured and domesticated wild animals to make them tame and more useful (for meat, milk, wool, eggs, feathers).

    -What changes happened in the way humans lived?
Humans settle down in one place instead of wandering around living as hunter–gatherers. This allows them to build settlements and is the beginning of civilization.

Reflecting on Barter Day

Wow! I've never seen so much junk treasure in one room before. There was definitely a huge buzz around Barter Day with some people really excited about the treasure they brought home. Tonight's homework is to reflect a little bit on the concepts around Barter Day, and to think about the earliest communities who started trading about 10,000 years ago. You can read more specifically about those first farm towns in the Agricultural Revolution posts.

In understanding the marketplace and trade, it is important to know some basic economic terms:

Surplus: (noun) an extra supply of something. This could mean extra anything, but in this context we're usually talking about crops, or natural resources like wood or a certain kind of stone. Having a surplus is important to trade because people would never trade materials they needed to survive. It was only when farming produced more food than the village needed that they then traded the extra to other villages for things the people did not have.

Scarcity: (noun) not enough of something. Early farm towns often had scarcities of natural resources depending on where the town was located, such as a scarcity of wood in Egypt, or a scarcity of metal tools in Mesopotamia.

The Agricultural Revolution

Without a stable food supply, human civilization would not exist. About 7,000-10,000 years ago something special happened: hunter-gatherers learned that they could save and plant seeds instead of continuing to wander around looking for food. This began the agricultural revolution, and the Neolithic Age of human history. Rather than moving from place to place, groups of people settled in small villages permanently.

Speaking of Barter Day...

Think you can't get anything by bartering but tacky knickknacks? Think again! A Canadan guy named Kyle MacDonald used bartering to go from a small red paperclip to a house. He worked his way across the country trading one thing for another without the use of money. I wonder if anyone will carry Barter Day that far...



Check out an article about him from the BBC News:
Man turns paper clip into house

 Here's the timeline of trading followed by Kyle MacDonald:

• On July 14, 2005, he went to Vancouver and traded the paperclip for a fish-shaped pen.
• He then traded the pen the same day for a hand-sculpted doorknob from Seattle, Washington, which he nicknamed "Knob-T."
• He then traveled to Amherst, Massachusetts, with a friend to trade the Knob-T for a Coleman camp stove (with fuel).
• He went to San Clemente, California, and traded the camp stove for a Honda generator.
• He made a second (and successful) attempt (after having the generator confiscated by the New York City Fire Department) in Maspeth, Queens, to trade the generator for an "instant party."
• He traded the "instant party" to Quebec comedian and radio personality Michel Barrette for a Ski-doo snowmobile.
• Within a week of that, he traded the snowmobile for a two-person trip to Yahk, British Columbia.
• The second person on the trip to Yahk traded Kyle a cube van for the privilege. 
• He traded the cube van for a recording contract with Metal Works in Toronto.
• He traded the recording contract to Jody Gnant for a year's rent in Phoenix, Arizona.
• He traded the one year's rent in Phoenix, Arizona, for one afternoon with Alice Cooper.
• He traded the one afternoon with Alice Cooper for a KISS motorized snow globe.
• He traded the KISS motorized snow globe to Corbin Bernsen for a role in the film Donna on Demand.
• On or about July 5, 2006, he traded the movie role for a two-story farmhouse in Kipling, Saskatchewan.

Don't forget your tacky knickknacks on Wednesday!

Saturday Italian: The Music

In another realm, the Italians revolutionized the world of music by inventing opera, a form of theater in which all of the lines are sung to music. Operas were especially well known for the grand scale of production, and for creating some of the most memorable musical pieces in history.



The stories are usually either comedies or tragedies. In a comedy, the ending is a happy one, sometimes ending with a wedding ceremony. In a tragedy, the opera end with most of the important characters dead. The story lines are often very dramatic and have many plot twists to keep the viewer interested for over two or three hours.

In an opera there are four main parts, assigned according to how high or low the singers' voices are. The four main roles are the bass and tenor for men, and the alto and soprano for women. The most famous tenor of modern times was Luciano Pavarotti. One of the most famous sopranos of all time was Maria Callas, who was the original "diva."

One of the best-known operas is The Barber of Seville (il barbiere di Siviglia), about a barber named Figaro who gets into people's business with some funny results. The opera was written by a famous composer, Gioachino Rossini around 1815. It includes the aria "Largo al Factotum," which has been used in cartoons for years, from Bugs Bunny to Woody Woodpecker (who even sang the words in Italian).

Saturday Italian: The Masters

The first part of this week's Italian lesson looks at some important aspects of Italy's history and culture. From the Renaissance period of European history come three of the most famous Italians who ever lived: Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo Buonarroti, and Galileo Galilei. These men were famous for their advancements in art and science, and have had an impact on the way we view the world today.

Leonardo da Vinci (April 15, 1452 - May 2, 1519)

Leonardo was a true genius. He was a scientist, artist, sculptor, inventor, mathematician, engineer, and philosopher. Leonardo is the best-known example of a "Renaissance man," a person who is talented in many different fields.

Even today books like The DaVinci Code keep his memory alive through stories about his brilliance and influence.

Leonardo was born in the small town of Vinci in Tuscany. He moved to Florence to become an apprentice to the painter Verrocchio, who taught Leonardo the basics of the arts, and who recognized Leonardo's potential.

In his own paintings, Leonardo shows his mastery of realistic portraits, and setting a tone through the use of light and dark colors. This technique is called chiaroscuro in Italian, and allows the artist to depict the illusion of a light shining from within the picture.

Another technique employed by Leonardo was sfumato which is the blending of light and dark colors to create shadows and give scenes a mysterious effect.

Both techniques are evident in Leonardo's most famous portrait, the Mona Lisa which can today be seen in the Louvre Museum in Paris, France.The interesting thing about Mona Lisa is her face, both the half smile expression on her face, and the way her eyes seem to follow you wherever you are in the room.

Animal Mummies?

Most of us know that the ancient Egyptians mummified their dead. This means that the body of a dead king or important person was prepared in a way that prevented the body from rotting. By doing so, the spirit, or Ka, of the person could return to the body and come back alive in the afterlife. When the person came back to life, they might look for their pet to play with, so the Egyptians also mummified dead animals, including dogs, cats, crocodiles, ibis birds, monkeys, and many others.

In this last month's issue of National Geographic Magazine, the cover story was all about new resaerch and insight into the animal mummies of Egypt, and, like all NGM stories, has some fantastic photos along with the article. I have a copy of the issue in my classroom, so if you are interested just come and ask to borrow it.

There is also a television special on Animal Planet HD that talks a lot about the information from the article, along with some great video footage of the mummies themselves.

If you are interested in all things mummy, just wait until our ancient Eygpt unit this February, with a preview from the "Egypt Lady" next week. Paulette Morin will be coming to our school to talk about the wonders of ancient Egypt and hopefully spark your interest in that fascinating culture. Plus, we will see some real Eyptian animal mummies on our field trip to the Museum of fine Arts in Boston next spring. Very cool.

Barter Day!

As part of our study of ancient civilizations, students will be learning about the development of the first economies. Key concepts of this unit include surplus-scarcity, supply and demand, and trade; money was not used. To give students a clearer understanding of the concept of trading, or bartering, we will have “Barter Day” on Wednesday, December 16.

On Barter Day, students will become artisans in a marketplace and trade their “goods” with other students to learn about the challenges (and fun) of bartering. In the process, students learn about the importance of supply and demand and about competition in the marketplace.

Paleolithic Cave Painting: Lascaux

In 1940, in southwestern France, a group of school boys stumbled upon an amazing sight--a huge cave complex housing over 600 paintings and over 1500 engravings. The images showed several kinds of animals--birds, as well as cattle, bison, deer, and horses--and hundreds of "signs," shapes, dots, and other patterns. After archaeologists had a chance to study the cave art, they determined that the imagines were left by hunter-gatherers more than 15,000 years ago.

The caves at Lascaux contain some of the earliest known art in human history, dating back to somewhere between 15,000 and as far back as 27,000 years ago. The Paleolithic cave paintings consist mostly of realistic images of large animals. The other common theme of the paintings is a number of human hand prints. Pigments (paints) are made from ingredients such as plants, berries, rust, charcoal and dirt. The paintings demonstrate the advancement of Cro-Magnon humans and their way of life, and actually show the quality of the art and of the materials used getting better over time.

The cave complex at Lascaux is huge, with many rooms and tunnels underground. Such a place would have offered shelter and protection for a band of hunter-gatherers. The evidence shows that groups of humans returned to Lascaux year after year, and added their own paintings to earlier ones.

Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day

"Yesterday, December 7, 1941 -- a date which will live in infamy -- the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan." This was the first line of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's speech to Congress after the United States was attacked by imperial Japan, and almost 3,000 Americans died.

The attack at Pearl Harbor brought the United States into World War II on the side of the Allies. Four years later, the German and Japanese were defeated, the atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and several million people perished in Europe and Asia.

It is so important for us today to keep in mind the significance of Pearl Harbor:

• That every day there are men and women in the armed forces who are willing to fight and die for our freedom.
• That governments based on fascism, repression, militarism, and racism are dangerous to people who love liberty.
• That it is important to stand up to what is wrong, and fight for what is right.
• That most of the veterans of Pearl Harbor, and of World War II, have left us and it is so important to remember their experiences.
• That the sacrifices of previous generations have allowed us to live in freedom and security today.

Rock After School: World War II

This fall I have had a great experience offering an after school class all about World War II. We only have two Thursdays left to make our total of ten afternoons learning about the largest-scale war ever fought. Over the past eight weeks, we have traced major developments of the war from its causes in fascist Germany and imperial Japan, to the invasion of Poland, the attack on Pearl Harbor, Stalingrad, and D-Day, and many other milestones. The hardest aspect of the course is to pack in as much as possible into just an hour a week.

Here is the course description as printed in the Rock After School catalog: 

Welcome to the RAS World War II class! 
Join us to learn about this dramatic, history-changing time period when much of the entire world was caught up in war. World War II will come alive for students as we view film clips, movies, newsreels, and read first-hand articles and accounts. We will watch classic movies based on the war such as Tora! Tora! Tora!, hear a first-hand account from a veteran, and examine the battle strategies of great generals like Patton and Rommel.  We will also examine the causes of the war, the Holocaust, different aspects of the European and Pacific theaters, major military and political leaders, weaponry, and of course, the effects of the war on the people of the nations involved. (Note to Parents: All material will be covered in an age-appropriate manner, and all materials will be prescreened before viewing by students.)

Saturday Italian

On Saturday mornings I teach A Taste of Italy a class that includes Italian language, culture, and cooking in one six-week course. Today we made ricotta gnocchi, one of my favorite dishes.

Gnocchi are a very common Italian dish and can be made several different ways. Technically, gnocchi are little dumplings of dough that are boiled and served with a sauce. There are potato gnocchi and ricotta gnocchi, each with its own special flavor.

Here is the recipe of today’s ricotta gnocchi:
1½ lb (3 cups) whole milk ricotta 
1¾ tsp salt
2 eggs
½ cup parmigiano cheese
½ tsp white pepper
¼ tsp nutmeg (optional)
2 cups flour

In large bowl mix all ingredients except flour until very well blended. Slowly add flour a bit at a time. When dough comes together, but is still sticky, turn out onto a floured board. Remember to put flour on your hands to keep the dough from sticking. Cut the dough into four equal lumps.

One at a time, roll each lump into a “snake” about ½ inch thick. Cut it into pieces about the size of your thumbnail. Take each gnocco and roll down the back of a fork to make grooves.

Boil gnocchi in lots of water just until they float (3-5 minutes). Take out with a slotted spoon and mix with sauce. You can use tomato sauce or just a little melted butter and sage. Buon Appetito!

Vocabulary:
bollire = to boil       forchetta = fork       piatto = plate

sale = salt                pepe = pepper         farina = flour

uovo = egg              acqua = water         cucinare = to cook

cuoco = a cook        patata = potato        girare = to stir

The Iceman Returns

One day about 5,300 years ago a man left a small village in the Italian Alps. He might have been selling flint to other Neolithic settlements on the northern side of the mountains, in what is Austria today. However, his journey took a tragic turn when he got caught in a nasty snow drift and died. In 1991 a couple of hikers came across the body sticking out of a melting glacier and called for help. A group of archaeologists took the body back to the University of Innsbruck in Austria, and "Otzi" became an instant celebrity.

The Student Leadership Team

An Update:

The SLT had a great success with its Turkeys 4 America fundraiser. In the week before Thanksgiving, the students of High Rock donated $2,000 to help needy families have a good dinner this past holiday weekend. Added to the collections taken up at Pollard, we ended up giving Danny and Betsy Nally of T4A about $5,000 in all. Great job everybody!

Here's how the clusters came through:

• Cluster 1----- $371.24

• Cluster 2----- $763.05

• Cluster 3----- $286.94

• Cluster 4----- $340.81

• Cluster 5----- $183.00

The winning advisory receives a bagel/donut breakfast catered by the SLT. The prize went to my own in 117 for raising $186, the most of any single advisory in the school. Nice job folks!

Looking Ahead:
Next week, the SLT will launch its annual Give a Gift/Grant a Wish program which donates toys to the Newton Wellesley Hospital's pediatric ward for kids who will be in the hospital over the holidays. This is a wonderful opportunity to help sick and injured kids have a happy time despite their situation, all courtesy of the students here at High Rock.

It is easy to participate:

1. Take a gift tag off the Give a Gift/Grant a Wish bulletin board in the cafeteria
2. Buy the gift that the tag has written on it
3. Leave the (unwrapped) gift in Mr. Guerriero's Room (117)
4. Have great karma the rest of the month!

More SLT news after the jump:

Hunters and Gatherers

As you read the selection from A Message of Ancient Days, you learned about the development of early humans from the time of Homo erectus until the group of people known as Cro-Magnons lived and made cave art. One of the first things you may notice is that the reading talks about Homo heidelbergensis.

The important point to know is that Homo heidelbergensis is just a type of Homo erectus that lived in Europe about 500,000 years ago in what is today Germany, France, and Spain. This type of human ancestor exhibited the first aspects of culture in the human species: living together, making and using tools, making and controlling fire, adapting to colder climates, and hunting in coordinated groups.

Much more after the jump:

The "Bones Show"

From the fragments of Lucy’s skeleton, scientists were able to find out a number of facts about her. In class we used a grid to record which skeletal fragments give us certain information. Make sure you have listed each fragment and what anthropologists were able to learn from it.
 

Pelvic Bones Show…
That Lucy was female
Pelvic bones show the gender of the once living hominid

Leg Bones Show…
That Lucy was about 3.5 feet tall (height)
That she was about 25 years old (age)
An upright walker - (from her knee joint)
She was bipedal

Skull Shows…
Her brain was 1/3 the size of a modern human’s brain (Brain Size)

The Teeth and Jaw Show…
Lucy’s  jaw showed that she was an omnivore
(She ate plants AND insects.)
Jaw shows what a certain human or animal ate

"A Lost European Culture, Pulled From Obscurity"

From The New York Times today comes a great article about an ancient European civilization that many people haven't heard about. At the same time the Egyptians were at the height of their power, a unique culture was developing near the Danube River and the Balkans in Eastern Europe. Archaeologists have found golden objects, sculptures, jewelry, graves, and other cool artifacts.

The article is based on a new show at New York University's Institute for the Study of the Ancient World. The show is called “The Lost World of Old Europe: the Danube Valley, 5000-3500 B.C.”

You should check out the article, as it has some great graphics, a slide show, and some cool links.