Aliens, lost people, and sacrifices. Oh My!

The Pyramids at Giza and Stonehenge are two of the seven wonders of the world. Their purpose of these two phenomenons are unknown which is what entices everyone the most. Another thing that grabs our attention is the fact that these monuments were built in a way that is so far ahead of their time it is just amazing. There are many speculations as to the the purpose of Stonehenge and The Great Pyramids.
The Pyramids at Giza are huge and breathtaking. The reason for them was originally thought as a burial place just like the others except when archaeologists took a peek inside there were absolutely no bodies found. Other things that made archaeologists think was the fact that there were no hieroglyphics that told which architect built the pyramid, as was the norm, and there was no cartouche, an oblong figure enclosing characters that represent the sovereign(dictionary.com), commemorating the pharaoh the pyramid was built for(Colavito, Jason). Some believe that the great pyramids were not even built by the Egyptians because it is not like any of the standard Egyptian pyramids. One conspiracy on this is that the Pyramids were built by a civilization before the time of the Egyptians. The conspiracy continues on that the Egyptians had figured this out and had opened the pyramids to learn a little about this civilization. Some believe that archaeologists forged some of the hieroglyphics so that it would look like the Egyptians built it, but historians noticed that the hieroglyphics are written incorrectly. This theory came from the archaeologists who went inside the Pyramids at Giza.
The Stonehenge is another puzzling marvel. The reason that it was built is also unknown. It was built over 5000 years ago. There is a stone archaeologists call the "slaughter stone" because it has pits that when filled with water always turn red. This is also the possibility of a chemical reaction. One of the weirdest things about The Stonehenge is the fact that it is made up of megaliths,A very large stone used in various prehistoric architectures or monumental styles(dictionary.com), which each way near 45 tons(Stonehenge Theories..). The megaliths had to have been carried there using man power and basic mechanisms. As if carrying them would be hard enough, the unknown people who built Stonehenge stood them up in a way were the giant stones still stand today. Some theories surrounding this are pretty weird. One is that Stonehenge was built by exra terrestrials as a marker when visiting earth. This one was thought up because of the difficulty of hauling the megaliths to their positions.


citation: Colavito, Jason. "Who Built the Great Pyramids?." Lost Civilizations Uncovered (2004): n. pag. Web. 5 Feb 2010. .
"Stonehenge Theories, Myths, Construction and Images." Mendak (2008): n. pag. Web. 5 Feb 2010. .
"Stonehenge_cloudy_sunset." commons wikiemedia. Web. 5 Feb 2010.
"Pyramide+Kheops." commons wikiemedia. Web. 5 Feb 2010.
"alien smily." commons wikiemedia. Web. 5 Feb 2010. .

Important or Unimportant?

What is important? The importance of something relies on a series of different things. These things include a person's knowledge, the circumstances, value, and the significance of that thing. Well first you have to think, what does important mean? The definition of important according Encarta Dictionary is having value or significance: worthy of note or consideration, especially for its interest, value, or relevance. There are many things that come to mind when you think of importance. The bare necessities of life are important. Water, food, and oxygen are important. The thing is you have to look beyond that. You have to look at how something and figure out how it will affect you, those around and you, and those connected to it. So the question is what exactly is important?
One of the main things that influence whether or not something is important is the way you view something. Your opinion affects what you do every day. Opinions in general are important, everyone has one. In certain trades or business, top spokespersons, or executives only care about opinions. The whole reason for ad campaigns is to swerve people's opinion to like a certain thing. An opinion is a personal view or take on an issue. Many obstacles that you come across in life will require an opinion. Different experiences in your everyday life shape your opinion. This is why people have different priorities, because they think different things are important.
Out of all the elements that decide if something is important or not is the knowledge a person holds. You make the best decisions when you know all the facts. Deciding that is important needs knowledge. For instance, in Egypt something that was very important to the Egyptians was magic and the afterlife. To the best of the Egyptians' knowledge they believed that after death their heart would be weighed and if it was heavy they would not go to the afterlife (Ancient Egyptian Religion). Their knowledge of the afterlife led them to deciding that living a rich life and not having a heavy heart at death is important.
Most of the time when you view someone's life for just a couple of minutes you can tell what is important to them. The circumstances surrounding our world influence just about everything. Archaeologists and historians could tell that the afterlife was important to ancient Egyptians by studying the Egyptians and their practices. The pyramids are something that comes to mind for anyone when thinking about Egypt. For instance, The Pyramids at Giza is called the mortuary city. The afterlife is clearly important because they built monuments surrounding it. The Egyptians felt that although their life on earth was important their afterlife had a higher significance. Another thing that they found important was magic. For ancient Egyptians, when anything went wrong they would visit magicians, or priests, charmers, or protection-makers were visited. For instance, if an Egyptian was having a lot of things go wrong in their life, they would blame it on a ghost or deity thus causing them to go to a wise woman. (Pinch, Geraldine) The circumstances surrounding anything prove its importance. The Egyptians felt the afterlife and magic was important so they would make their every day decisions from that.
There are about 6.6 billion people in the world. So many people die and so many people are born every day. Every single one of those people need things that will keep them alive for as long as possible. These things are what one would call, important. Water, food or nutrients, and air are all necessities of life. Without these mankind would be dead. In regions of the world, such as Africa, men, women, and children die avoidable deaths because they lack the necessities to life. In other cases things that are lacking are basic health care. In Haiti, an already poor country, there was an earthquake. The health care system in Haiti is not all that great and when the number of injured and dyingpeople grew, hospitals were bombarded with victims. If this was the case in a country like America the number of deaths would not be as high because we have a greater amount of hospitals. The fatalities in Haiti would not be higher if the total if they had a better health care system with things such as vaccines, badnages, wraps, and creams. If they had more personnel such as doctors and nurses, the doctors and nurses there would not be as stressed and do their work better. Also the ration of patients to doctor or nurse would not be as high. In this case the important thing for Haiti would be supplies. The gathering of more supplise has already been cosidered, the value of the supplies is very prominent, abd bears a great importance to the victims of the Haitian earthquake. This is they way you should look at things when trying to presume whether or not something has importance.
In history class there are thing s that you learn about several times from year to year. Sometimes you cannot help but wonder why you are getting taught something over and over again. Instances of these are The Revolution, World War 2, the Egyptians, and slavery. These events and events like these are what those who come up with curriculum for students find important. Have you ever just wondered why in elementary school you did not learn about the war of 1812, or the hostilities between Asian and Japan, or even the French and Indian war? These different subjects are more important to the countries they are based in because they affect their culture more. The Revoultion, Ancient Egypt, and slavery are occurences in history that have impacted the world as we know it today, the most. Mankind has learned from it smistakes that it has made in the pst. We have grown from what we have seen, done, and learned. There are important moments in history that have shaped mankind to be the way are today. The Revolutionary War is can be described as exactly it is called, revoultionary. This is an important subject because of its large significance and relevance. When something is revoltionary it is so new and different it causes a maj0r change. The major change was America breaking free from England. America is now one of the richest countries in the world, has a high immigration rate, and it helps many other countries.
To figure out if something is important there is a simple test you can use. Ask if it is relevant, valuable, or worthwhile. We all posses the power of deciding anything's importance. Ancienct man figured out the importance of things pterry easily and we use "the importance of something" every day when making decisions.

citation: "Ancient Egyptian Religion." Wikipedia. 4 February 2010. Wikipedia, Web. 4 Feb 2010. .
Pinch, Geraldine. "Ancient Egyptian Magic." BBC 5 November 2009: n. pag. Web. 4 Feb 2010. .
"Emblem-Important." commons wikiemedia. Web. 5 Feb 2010. .

Europe

In Mesopotamia the main monuments there were Ziggurats. In Egypt the main monuments were Pyramids. In Europe you have megaliths. There are two main types of megaliths, which means big rock, they are called dolmens and menhirs. Menhirs can stand along and dolmens are grouped together to make buildings. The people buried their dead in dolmens.

Egypt

• In Egypt is known officially as the Arabic Republic of Egypt
• The Pharaoh was in charging in flooding the Nile river so that it could fertilize the crops
• Pyramids
• pyramid of Djoser -Mastaba- a stepped pyramid, it has layers and each layer looks like a step. earliest pyramids are mastabas
• Dynastic
• middle period/intermediate period- 2150-2030 b.c. a political upheaval was occurring and the structure of older Egypt was changed.
• Middle Kingdom- 2030- 1640 b.c. After the upheaval Egypt went back to the way it was before, the only difference is they did not build monuments like the mortuary city of Giza
• second intermediate/ New kingdom- Akhenaten and his wife Nefertiti, Tutankhamun and Ramesses II. Akhenaten introduced monotheism. He introduced one god called Aten a sun god.
• his son Tutankhamun died as a boy and when he died so did the new kingdom, and the influence of the Greek and Roman world changed Egypt
• Persian Invasion- the Persians invaded Egypt and conquered the dynasties. After Egypt kicked them out the Greeks came in. Alexander, who was Greek and hated Persians, came to Egypt and the Egyptians loved him there.

What is the oldest human-created artifact that has mattered to you? Why/how does it matter?

The oldest human-created artifact that I find important is the spear. Without the spear mankind would not be were it is today, but still developing. Stone Age man new that they without food they would die. The invention of the spear helped them to hunt and opened the way to more inventions like stone tools and such. With the invention of the spear, hunting became easier, food came faster, and there was more time for other things like advancing in culture. The first spear is dated back to 250,000 years ago. Humans not only used the spears for hunting but for war.
Stone Age men figured out that for war and hunting, the sharper the spear head and the stronger the arm, the more damage would occur. Thus archaeologists have found things such as dead bears that date back to about 250,000 years ago and forward, with sharper spear heads. (http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistories.asp?historyid=aa89) From the spear came the bow and arrow, metal, and suits of Armour.
The invention of the bow and arrow has contributed to war and hunting today.
citation: "Stone Age Harpoon." Wikimedia commons. Web. 4 Feb 2010. .
Gascoigne, Bamber. “History of Arms and Armour” HistoryWorld. From 2001, ongoing.

Upper and Lower Egypt

• Lower Egypt is where the mouth of the Nile start, upper is where it thins out.
• Pyramids were covered in limestone because it reflected the suns and the Pharaohs buried inside them where the sun god reincarnated
• in an Egyptian culture from the old kingdom there is never a space between the legs
• there was a man, unsure if he was real or unreal, that brought upper Egypt and lower Egypt together by force.
• who built the pyramids?
• not the slaves! paid workers built the pyramids
• pyramids where called mortuary cities
• slaves maintained the mortuary cities by working in Egypt.
• the Egyptians believed that when you were buried your KA, or energy of the person, would hang around the pyramid until called to judgement
• judgement would be when the dead person meets with the god, the person's heart is measured against a feather. if they are equal then they can go to the after life.

Pyramids