Orion is a constellation located on the celestial equator east of Taurus. It is a rectangular configuration with three stars in line near its centre. It is represented on pictorial charts as the figure of Orion, the hunter in Greek mythology, standing with uplifted club. Three bright stars (Orion's Belt) represent his belt and three fainter stars aligned south of the belt represent his sword. Research Orion
The zodiac was the name given by the ancient Greeks to the heavens. It was an imaginary belt in the celestial sphere, extending about 80 degrees on either side of the ecliptic, the apparent path of the Sun among the stars. The width of the zodiac was determined originally so as to include the orbits of the Sun and Moon and of the five planets (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn) that were known to the people of ancient times.
The zodiac is divided into 12 sections of 300 degrees each, which are called the signs of the zodiac. Starting with the vernalequinox and then proceeding eastward along the ecliptic, each of the divisions is named for the constellation situated within its limits in the second century BC. The names of the zodiacal signs are Aries, the Ram; Taurus, the Bull; Gemini, the Twins; Cancer, the Crab; Leo, the Lion; Virgo, the Virgin; Libra, the Balance; Scorpio, the Scorpion; Sagittarius, the Archer; Capricorn, the Goat; Aquarius, the Water Bearer; and Pisces, the Fish. Because of the precession of the equinoxes about the ecliptic, a 26,000-year cycle, the first point of Aries retrogrades about 10 degrees in 70 years, so that the sign Aries today lies in the constellationPisces. In about 24,000 years, when the retrogression will have completed the entirecircuit of 3600, the zodiacal signs and constellations will again coincide.
It is believed that the zodiacal signs originated in Mesopotamia as early as 2000 BC . The Greeks adopted the symbols from the Babylonians and passed them on to the other ancient civilisations. The Egyptians assigned other names and symbols to the zodiacal divisions. The Chinese also adopted the 12-fold division, but called the signs rat, ox, tiger, hare, dragon, serpent, horse, sheep, monkey, hen, dog, and pig. Independently, the Aztec Indians devised a similar system. Research Zodiac
Ankole cattle (Bostaurus) also known as Watussi cattle are a domestic breed of cattle reared by tribesmen in eastern and southern Africa. Ankole cattle are large, imposing with a shaggy red coat and large straight horns. Research Ankole Cattle
The Friesian, Holstein or Holstein-Friesian (Bostaurus) is a breed of black and white coloured dairy cattle that originated in North Holland and Freisland. They produce a high yield of milk which has a low butterfat content. Research Friesian Cattle
Croesus was the last King of Lydia. He reigned from 560 BC until 546 BC, conquered Ionia extending the empire from the northern and western coasts of Asia Minor to the Halys on the east and MountTaurus on the south, including the Greek colonies of the mainland. and became an ally of Sparta. His riches, obtained chiefly from mines and the gold-dust of the river Pactolus, were greater than those of any king before him, so that his wealth became proverbial. Croesus joined with Nabonidus of Babylon to oppose Cyrus of Persia, but was overthrown by him at Sardis in 546 BC. The date of his death is unknown, but he survived his captor, and is referred to in the reign of Cambyses. Research Croesus
Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe was a German poet and writer. He was born in 1749 at Frankfort-on-the-Main and died in 1832. His father, who was a Doctor of Laws and imperial councillor, was a well-to-do citizen and an admirer of the fine arts. The Seven Years' War broke out when Johann Goethe was eight years old, and Count de Thorane, lieutenant du roi of the French army in Germany, was quartered in the house of his father. The count, being an amateur and liberal patron of art, encouraged the boy's incipient taste for pictures. At the same time young Johann Goethe learned the French language practically; and a French theatrical company, then performing at Frankfort, awakened his taste for dramatic performances. Drawing, music, natural science, the elements of jurisprudence, and the languages, occupied him alternately.
After the breaking off of a youthful love affair, which gave a name to the heroine of his great work Faust and some features to his Wilhelm Meister, he was sent to the University of Leipzig to prepare himself for the legal profession, but he did not follow any regular course of studies. Johann Goethe began at this period, what he practised throughout his life, to embody in a poem, or in a poetical form, whatever occupied his mind intensely;
and no one, perhaps, was ever more in need of such an exercise, as his nature continually hurried him from one extreme to another.
In 1768 he left Leipzig, and after an illness of some length he went to the University of Strasburg in 1770, to pursue the study of law, according to his father's wishes. At Strasburg he became acquainted with Herder - a decisive circumstance in his life. Herder made him more acquainted with the Italian school of the fine arts, and inspired his mind with views of poetry more congenial to his character than any which he had hitherto conceived. While here he fell in love with Frederica Brion, daughter of the pastor of Sesenheim, but the affair, though it made a more abiding impression on him than some others, resulted in nothing.
Johann Goethe's numerous love affairs form one of the most curious studies in biography. His attachments were all fugitive; the love passion was continuous, but the object was ever changing. In 1771 he took the degree of Doctor of Jurisprudence, and wrote a dissertation on a legal subject. He then went to Wetzlar to practise law, where he found, in his own love for a betrothed lady, and in the fate of a young man named Jerusalem, the subjects for his striking work, The Sorrows of Werther, which formed an epoch in German literature. The attention of the public had already been attracted to him, however, by his drama Gotz von Berlichingen (published 1773). Werther appeared in 1774. Not long after the publication of Werther, Charles Augustus, the hereditary duke of Saxe-Weimar, met Johann Goethe on a journey, and when in 1775 he took the government into his own hands, he invited Johann Goethe to his court. Johann Goethe accepted the invitation, and on the 7th of November, 1775, arrived at Weimar. Wieland was already there, having been the duke's tutor: Herder was added to the band in 1776; Schiller was afterwards one of its members for a few years; and other poets and critics and novelists were gathered round these chiefs.
Johann Goethe was the leading spirit of the group even during the last quarter of the 18th century, when these men and others were constructing and guiding the literature of all Germany; and his supremacy became yet more absolute afterwards, when for another generation he stood alone.
In 1776 he was made privy-councillor of legation, with a seat and vote in the privy-council. In 1782 he was made president of the chamber, and ennobled. In 1786 he made a journey to Italy, where he remained two years, visited Sicily, and remained a long time in Rome. This residence in Italy had the effect of still further developing his artistic powers. Here his Iphigenia was matured, Egmont finished, and Tasso projected. The first of these was published in 1787, the second in 1788, and the third in 1790. In the same year with Tasso was published the earliest form of the first part of Faust, with the title Dr. Faust, ein Trauerspiel (Dr. Faust, a Tragedy), a poem in a dramatic form, which belongs rather to Johann Goethe's whole life than to any particular period of it.
At the time that Johann Goethe was engaged in the production of these works of imagination he had been pursuing various other studies of a scientific nature with as ardent an interest as if these had belonged to his peculiar province. The result of his studies in botany was a work published also in 1790, Versuch die Metamorphose der Pflanzen zu Erklaren (Attempts to Explain the Metamorphosis of Plants), in which he gives expression to the view that the whole plant; and its different parts, may all be regarded as variously modified leaves. In the following year (1791) he began to apply himself to optics, and in 1791-1792 he published a work on this subject called Beitrage zur Optik.
On the 1st of May, 1791, he became director of the court theatre at Weimar. In 1792 he followed his prince during the campaign of the Prussians against the revolutionary party in France, and was present at the Battle of Valmy on the 20th of September. At the Weimar theatre he brought out some of the dramatic chefs-d'oeuvre of Schiller, and there, too, his own dramatic works first appeared, Goetz von Berlichingen, Faust, Iphigenia in Taurus, Tasso, Clavigo, Stella, and CountEgmont.
In 1794-1796 Johann Goethe published Wilhelm Meister's Lehrjahre (Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship), a novel which has become well known to English readers through the translation of Carlyle, and which had as a continuation Wilhelm Meister's Wanderjahre (that is, his travels as a journeyman; 1821). His next work of importance was Hermann und Dorothea (1797), a narrative poem, in hexameterverse, the characters of which are taken from humble life.
In 1806 Johann Goethe married Christiane Vulpius, with whom he had lived since 1788, and of whom he always spoke with warmth and gratitude for the degree in which she had contributed to his domestic happiness. In 1808 he published another edition of Faust in a considerably altered form. In 1809 was published Wahlverwandtschaften (Elective Affinities), another novel, and in
1810 the Farbenlehre or Theory of Colours, a work in which he had the boldness to oppose the Newtonian theory, and to which Goethe himself attached great importance, although the theory therein promulgated met with no acceptance among scientists. In 1811-1814 appeared Johann Goethe's autobiography, with the titleAus meinem Leben: Dichtung und Wahrheit; in 1819 the Westostlicher Divan, a remarkable collection of oriental songs and poems. Johann Goethe's last work was the second part of Faust, which was completed on the evening before the last anniversary of his birthday which he lived to see.
Johann Goethe's works taken altogether form a rich constellation of poetry, romance, science, art, and philosophy. His greatest production is his Faust, emphatically a philosophical dramatic poem, and the best of Goethe's productions in a department for which he seems to have been born. Much light is thrown on Goethe's life and character by the published correspondence with his contemporaries, Herder, Frau von Stein, Lavator, Jacobi, Merck, Countess Stolberg, etc; by Eckermann's Conversations, and especially by his own autobiography, which he himself describes as 'poetry and truth,' and in which probably the truth is sometimes clouded by the poetry. Research Johann Goethe
The Kurds are the Kurdish culture, living mostly in the Taurus and Sagros mountains of west Iran and north Iraq in the region called Kurdistan. The
Kurdish languages (Kurmanji, Sorani Kurdish, Gurano, and Zaza) are members of the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European family, and the Kurds are a non-Arab, non-Turkic ethnic group. The Kurds are predominantly Sunni Muslims, although there are some Shiites in Iran. Kurds traditionally owe allegiance to their families, and larger groups are brought together under an agha, or lord. They are predominantly shepherds and farmers, cultivating a wide range of crops and fruit. National dress is still worn in the more mountainous regions and there is a strong tradition of poetry and music. Kurdish professionals are found in many Middle Eastern cities. Research Kurd
The Probert Encyclopaedia was designed, edited and programed by
Matt and Leela Probert
Abbreviations
Research Aldebaran
