Originally, a sarcophagus was a stone coffin manufactured from stone quarried at Assos in the Troad. It was popularly believed that the coffin would consume the body placed within it within forty days. Later the term came to be applied to any stone coffin. In ancient Egypt many stone coffins were made from limestone, basalt, marble or granite. Granite chiefly being used for the bodies of royalty and priests. Research Sarcophagus
A tor is a striking and sometimes fantastic tabular or pillow-shaped craggy or rocky hill or peak. Tors frequently occur in granite regions which have been exposed to long periods of weathering The term is most used in Cornwall and Devon, with over 170 tors on Dartmoor the highest being High Wilhays and Yes Tor. Research Tor
Waino Aaltonen was a Finnish artist. He was born in 1894 and died in 1966. At first a painter, he later turned to sculpture, and was a pioneer in the revival of carving directly from stone, his favourite medium being granite, though he also worked in bronze, notable his 1925 statue of the Finnish runner Nurmi. Research Waino Aaltonen
The Sphinx is a composite monster which appears in both Greek and Egyptian mythology. Both sphinx have the body of a lion and the head of a man - though the Egyptians had also two other sphinx with the head of a ram or a hawk. The Greek sphinx has wings, the Egyptian does not. In Greek mythology, the Sphinx posed a riddle to all who sought to pass. This riddle was at last explained by Oedipus, where upon the Sphinx destroyed itself. The Egyptian Sphinx was deemed to represent a real creature fabled to haunt the deserts, and was a god of wisdom and knowledge.
The oldest example of a statue of a sphinx is the Great Sphinx of Gizeh, in lower Egypt. This is a recumbent image of a man-headed lion, hewn out of a rocky knoll near the pyramid of Khafra. It is 57 meters long, the head nine meters long, the face four meters wide, and the height to the top of the head is 20 meters. The features were originally painted red, but were marred by mediaeval Mamelukevandals. Portions of the beard and uraeus are in the British Museum. In front of the breast Thothmes IV set up a granite slab, mentioning Khafra's name, to commemorate the digging of the image out of the drifted sand. Worshipped as Harmachis, there are the remains of an open-air temple between the paws, with an altar dating to Roman times.
The next oldest pair of sphinxes are a granite pair two meters long, bearing the name of Pepi I, of the Vith dynasty. Several examples from Tanis , once regarded as of Hyksos origin, are attributed to Amenemhat III. Under the New Empire avenues of sphinxes, mostly recumbent rams or ram-headed lions (crio-sphinx), were erected at Thebes from temple to temple. An unfinished Sphinx of that period was found in the Gebel Silsila quarries. Research Sphinx
Background radiation is low intensity ionising radiation which is always present in the environment. Most background radiation comes from natural sources such as cosmic rays and some types of rocks (for example granite in the Earth's crust); the rest - about 13 percent - comes from artificial sources. Of the artificial sources the one that contributes most to the
background radiation is the medical use of radioactive materials: other sources are the nuclear industry and fallout from weapons tests, television screens and luminous paint. When the radiation from a specific source is measured, the background radiation must be deducted from the result to make it accurate. Research Background Radiation
Macadamising was a system of road-making invented by John Macadam in 1819 involving the use of stones broken to six ounces weight and the use of clean flints and granite chippings. Research Macadamising
In geology, aggregate is a term applied to rocks composed of several different mineral constituents capable of being separated by mechanical means, such as granite, where the quartz, feldspar, and mica can be separated mechanically. Research Aggregate
Alumina (Al2O3) is the single oxide of the metal aluminium. As found native it is called corundum, when crystallized ruby or sapphire, when amorphousemery. It is next to the diamond in hardness. In combination with silica it is one of the most widely distributed of substances, as it enters in large quantity into the composition of granite, traps, slates, schists, clays, loams, and other rocks. The porcelain clays and kaolins contain about half their weight of this earth, to which they owe their most valuable properties. It forms compounds with certain colouring matters, which causes it to be employed in the preparation of the colours called lakes in dyeing and calico-printing. It combines with the acids and forms numerous salts, the most important of which are the sulphate (Alum) and acetate, the latter of extensive use as a mordant. Research Alumina
Anatase is one of the crystalline forms of titanium oxide, and an important source of the metal titanium. Anatase has the formulae TiO2 and a relative hardness of 6. It is found in granite, gneiss, micaschist, metamorphic limestone, and dolomite. Anatase may be present as an accessory mineral in the rocks or in a quartzvein traversing it. It is used as a coating for welding rods and as a source of titanium. Research Anatase
The Probert Encyclopaedia was designed, edited and programed by
Matt and Leela Probert
Abbreviations
Research Sarcophagus
