Stumbled across my dad watching the 2013 film recreation of the famous short story, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. Though the movie is a complete bastardization of the written piece it was actually quite good. All that aside! In the end of the movie (spoilers) Mitty ends up searching for a man to the 'uncivilized portions of Afghanistan', which ends up being this same part of the world that the Bamiyan Buddhas are located. With the current research I am doing on the art pieces it was interesting to see the roads that Mitty took and see how that could possibly connect with the large amount of travel through these areas on the Silk Road. Though you never end up seeing the Buddhas the landscapes are very similar and are probably near each other. I think it's interesting that a place I never even knew existed suddenly starts appearing in many different places.
The Han Dynasty is seen as the second best imperial dynasty. Succeeding the Qin Dynasty, Liu Bang led a revolution against the Qin-dynasty... But honestly not much changed in the regime except for Confucian ideologies but this allowed this Dynasty to last longer than all other empire! Han revived the culture that was attempted to be burned or destroyed by the Qin dynasty. Well documented culture (Keep copious records and ritual music and also banquet music as well as a new style of poetry called Fu!). Tombs provide for recognition of elite status of person. If you were wealthy enough you could afford to make your funeral nice (silk funeral banners, quality preservation, elegant decorations, etc). The Funeral Banner draped on Lady Dai's tomb tells us that funeral proceedings was very important and was a statement to how important one was during that time. The Funeral Banner serves as a potential "name banner" to identify the dead during ceremony or perhaps as a register to aid the soul into the afterlife. Learning about the Qin Dynasty. I am really interested in the leader, Qin Shi Huang and how he managed to unify a massive region like China during his life at a very young age. I found that his accomplishments included: Standardizing currency within the regions, standardizing writing and measurements, as well as he continued a large amount of work on the Great Wall of China.
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1. What does the wall tell us about the Zimbabwe people (the Bantu- another Star Wars reference) themselves? Were they organized? Were they literate? What can we tell about the people by studying the wall's purpose and construction? Categories
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