The Minoan and Mycenaean Civilizations Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

The Minoan and Mycenaean Civilizations - Essay Example They both had developed their own writing system and their wealth and sovereign as they expanded to the East, as evidences of their culture were found by means of archeological digs. It is important to note that the Minoan Civilization came first. The civilization took root in Crete at around 7000 BC. Minoans were fishermen, as they were island people. At around 2700 BC, the Bronze Age started in Crete. This brought upon a surge of development, from the arts to commerce. By 1700 BC, the Minoan civilization and culture showed a lot of sophistication and organization. Because of newly-found power, the upper class practiced their leadership abilities but this was later thwarted with monarchy in later times, as evidenced by the presence of palaces in Crete. The Early Bronze Age showed a certain degree of greatness, a promise of success for the Minoan Civilization. The Minoans were merchants. Their economy thrived on trading. Most historians believe that the Minoans traded tin, the most i mportant commodity that time, along with copper. Tin with copper (which came from Cyprus) are the major components of Bronze. Other important objects that the Minoans traded were saffron, ceramics, gold and silver. ... Their religion even focused on females, as they had female deities and female priests. It was thought that Minoan religion was matriarchal and the same goes for their society. Minoan religion has several goddesses and the major god that they revere is also a female goddess. They had their own language. Archeologists have found at least 3000 tablets with filled with Cretan scripts. Historians believe that Cretans had their own hieroglyphic system. There were also cups that were recovered and they were thought to be inkwells, as they have ink residue in it. The Minoans also had their art. Best examples of Minoan art are preserved through pottery and architecture. Their palaces also had frescoes that are also evidences that Minoan culture was indeed urbane. Their pottery designs, as well as the style and design in their other artifacts can be largely described as having a strong geometrical aesthetic. Some of the designs tend to be naturalistic too, as the pieces tend to have animals in it. Most Minoan art has bulls in it. Bulls had a special place in Minoan culture. Minoan architecture was quite defining, especially for their culture. Minoan architecture was believed to be heavily influenced by geography. The architecture must have been influenced by the earthquakes that were frequent around the area. That explains why the buildings in Minoan architecture are big but they had little stories, or they are not as multi-leveled as other palaces at the time. The palaces had small rooms and had a lot of divisions, partitions; they also had little windows and the buildings were constructed in blocks. Other techniques also indicate that they were preparing for some seismic activity. One of the most striking contributions of the Minoan

Analysis of Relational Technology Tool Research Paper

Analysis of Relational Technology Tool - Research Paper Example These aspects are covered with an eye towards being able to understand the achievement of the function of Facebook as a relational technology; the application of Facebook to one aspect of computer-mediated communication or CMC; critiquing how Facebook supports the achievement of the goals of CMC; and making recommendations on better means of accomplishing the goals related to CMC (Lord, 2003; Barnes, 2002). Facebook touts itself as being in the business of creating products that provide utility value to advertisers, developers and end-users, through the Facebook platform. That platform is a social media platform that end-users utilize to be able to connect and interact with their families and friends, as well as to know more about the world through the news and the shared information from friends and created pages that are made possible through their being posted on the social media platform. Developers have a stake in making use of the platform to create applications that leverage t he user base and the technical and social media strength of the platform. Advertisers on the other hand, as the third leg of the ecosystem after users and developers, can leverage the large user base of Facebook and the social nature of their interactions to reach large targeted audiences for their products and services (Google, 2013). The end-user focused products are many and have been well-developed and evolved after many years of use by millions of users around the world. Those products are made available to users on the Facebook platform, which in turn can be accessed from a host of devices, from personal computers to tablets to smart phones by the largest providers of devices in the world, from Apple to Android devices to other operating system platforms and form factors. The key end-user products include Timeline, News Feed, Places, Pages, and the photo uploading service. There is also an email and a chat facility to complement the other forms of sharing and communication on the platform. News Feed is a personalized platform for the sharing of information, news and status posts from friends, from various Pages, and from other parties that have presence on Facebook. Pages are user-created Facebook pages that cater to various content and interests providers and enthusiasts, and include Fan pages for artists, pages for news and media organizations, official pages of artists and public figures, and the like. The scale of the Pages product is demonstrated in the stat which says that as of the second quarter of 2012, about 42 million pages exist on Facebook, that have ten or more Likes. Likes is a Facebook feature that allows users to tag posts and Pages that they like. The photo service is another end-user product that allows users to upload, share and archive digital images on Facebook. The Places product, meanwhile, allows users to share their locations and the places that they visit to friends and family. The tagging functionality in the Photos app allows for another layer of social sharing of photos that include information on the users who are in the photos. This is a social way of annotating and sharing the photos (Reuters, 2013). II. History of the