The dingo (plural: dingoes or dingos) is a mammal found in Australia and South-East Asia. Dingos are similar to domestic dogs. Dingoes were brought to Australia from South-East Asia about 4000 years ago. They are not found in Tasmania as the sea levels cut the island off from mainland Australia about 10,000 years ago. Most dingos in the wild are no longer purebreed dingos. Their scientific name, "Canis lupus (wolf) dingo", changed recently from "Canis familiaris (dog) dingo". This was to show it is related to the white footed wolf which lives in Asia.
Dingoes are usually between 117 cm to 124 cm in length. Their tail is about 30 cm in length. They usually weigh between 10 kg and 20 kg. The colour of their fur is usually yellow-ginger, but can sometimes include tan, black, white or sandy colours. They live for about 14 years.
Dingos live in packs of between 3 and 12, but they can be seen alone as well. The leaders are the alpha male and the alpha female and are usually the only pair to breed. Young dingos are called "cubs". The breeding season is in March and April. After a gestation of 63 days, the adult females usually give birth to 4-5 cubs in a litter. Mothers will regurgitate food for the cubs to eat. They become independent of their mother after four to eight months of age.
Dingos do not bark like other dogs, but they do howl.
Dingos are carnivores and eat other animals such as kangaroos, wallabies, wallaroos, rabbits, rodents, lizards, sheep, calves, poultry and carrion. It believed to have hunted several animal species to extinction including some species of bandicoots and rat kangaroos. They often hunt in packs.
While some people keep dingos as pets, they are regarded as a pest by farmers. They are controlled by trapping, shooting, poisoning (with Sodium monofluoroacetate), and fences. The dingo fence which runs through South Australia, and then along the New South Wales border through to central Queensland is the world's longest fence. Dingos are protected in national parks and reserves.
It is illegal to have a dingo as a pet in South Australia, Queensland and Tasmania. In Victoria and the Northern Territory you have to have a special permit to keep a dingo. The dingo can be a dangerous animal and have attacked people at times. On April 30, 2001, a nine-year-old boy was attacked and killed on Fraser Island by a dingo. A dingo is believed to have killed a baby, Azaria Chamberlain, at Uluru in August, 1980. This became a world famous case when her mother was sent to jail for murdering the baby. She was later found innocent and released. "Evil Angels", a book about Azaria by John Bryson, was made into a movie starring Meryl Streep.
Silk Road
The Silk Road was a group of trade routes that went across Asia to the Mediterranean Sea. This let China trade with the Middle East and the Mediterranean world.
It was called the Silk Road because silk was traded along it. At the time, silk was only made in China, and it was a valuable material.
The Silk Road not only earned China a lot of money, but all along the route cities prospered and markets flourished. Cities like Samarkand and Bukhara were built largely on the trade from the silk route.
Trade on the Silk Road played a big part in the growth of the ancient cultures of China, Egypt, Mesopotamia, Persia, India, and Rome, and helped to make the beginning of today's world. The term Silk Road is English for the German word "Seidenstraße". The first person who called it that was a German geographer in 1877.
Of course, many other things were also traded, even ideas. Because the traders came from many places, different ideas were brought to China, and China's ideas were taken to other places.
Some of the other things traded were porcelain and other types of pottery, food, wine, and spices. Chess pieces from northern India were brought to China and Persia. Paper arrived in the west from China. Metals and jewels were certainly transported, and very likely slaves also. Probably no trader went the whole way along. Goods would be traded on at every stopping-point. Deals might be needed to get past difficult places.
The Silk Road first traveled west from northern China. Then the part of the Silk Road on land split into two branches. One branch went north of the Tibetan Plateau, and the other branch went south of it.
After the two parts rejoined, it went in an almost straight line west through mountains via Tabriz in north Iran and the north tip of the Syrian Desert to the Levant (Syria, Israel, Palestine). From there Mediterranean trading ships took routes to Italy, and land routes went north through Anatolia or south to North Africa.
The sea route was also called the "Silk Road". It ran from South China, to the Philippines, Brunei, Siam, Malacca, Ceylon, India, Pakistan, and Iran. In Europe it went between Israel, Lebanon, Egypt and Italy. Past the Mediterranean Sea, it continued to Portugal and Sweden.
The Buddhist religion and the Greco-Buddhist culture started to move east on the Silk Road, reaching China from around the second century BC. Trading also helped make many arts and crafts, brought different religions, and food to China. Chinese people helped build the Silk Road. They bought and sold with other people, and built up their culture.
The Kushan empire, in the northwest part of India, was in the middle of these trades.
The Silk Road brought other cultures into Central Asia and China. It also helped the rise of the Mongol Empire, the largest land empire ever.
The Roman Empire, which bought a lot of Chinese goods, began to fall from power in the West around the 5th century. In Central Asia, Islam expanded starting in the 7th century. This brought a stop to Chinese growth westwards at the Battle of Talas in 751 AD. More growth of the Islamic Turks in Central Asia from the 10th century stopped trade in that part of the world.
Isis
Isis is a goddess in Egyptian mythology. She was known as the goddess of the moon. As goddess of life and magic, Isis protected women and children, and healed the sick. Closely linked to the throne, she was one of the greatest goddesses of Ancient Egypt.
Her symbols were the ankh, her wings, and her throne headdress. She was the sister and wife of Osiris. Isis and Osiris had a son named Horus.
The English pronunciation used, ), comes from the pronunciation of the Greek name, , which changed the Egyptian name by adding a final "-s" because of the grammatical requirements of Greek noun endings.
The Egyptian name was recorded as or . It meant '(She of the Throne)'. However, the true Egyptian pronunciation is not known because their writing system left out vowels. Based on recent studies, the reconstructed pronunciation of her name is * (ooh-saht). Later, the name in Coptic dialects was "Ēse" or "Ēsi".
To make it easier to say, Egyptologists choose to say the word as "ee-set". Sometimes they may also say "ee-sa". This is because the last "t" in her name was a feminine (female) suffix which is known to have been dropped in speech in the last stages of the Egyptian language.
Isis was perhaps the most important goddess of all Egyptian mythology. During the course of Egyptian history, Isis assumed the attributes and functions of virtually every other important goddess in the land. Her most important functions, however, were those of motherhood, marital devotion, healing the sick, and the working of magical spells and charms. She was believed to be the most powerful magician in the universe, because she had learned the Secret Name of Ra from the god himself. Isis was the sister and wife of Osiris, sister of Set, and twin sister of Nephthys. She was the mother of Horus the Child (Harpocrates), and was the protective goddess of Horus's son Amset, protector of the liver of the deceased.
Isis was responsible for protecting Horus from Set during his infancy; for helping Osiris to return to life; and for assisting her husband to rule in the land of the Dead.