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Prodicus

Prodicus of Ceos (Πρόδικος ὁ Κεῖος, Pródikos ho Keios; c. 465 BC – c. 395 BC) was a Greek philosopher, and part of the first generation of Sophists. He came to Athens as ambassador from Ceos, and became known as a speaker and a teacher. Plato treats him with greater respect than the other sophists, and in several of the Platonic dialogues Socrates appears as the friend of Prodicus. One writer claims Socrates used his method of instruction. Prodicus made linguistics and ethics prominent in his curriculum. The content of one of his speeches is still known, and concerns a fable in which Heracles has to make a choice between Virtue and Vice. He also interpreted religion through the framework of naturalism.

Life
Prodicus was a native of Ioulis on the island of Ceos, the birthplace of Simonides, whom he is described as having imitated. Prodicus came frequently to Athens for the purpose of transacting business on behalf of his native city, and attracted admiration as an orator, although his voice was deep and apt to fall. Plutarch describes him as slender and weak; and Plato also alludes to his weakness, and a degree of effeminacy which thus resulted. Philostratus accuses him of luxury and avarice, but no earlier source mentions this.

In the Protagoras of Plato, (dramatic date c. 430 BC), Prodicus is mentioned as having previously arrived in Athens. He appears in a play of Eupolis, and in The Clouds (423 BC) and The Birds (414 BC) of Aristophanes. He came frequently to Athens on public business. His pupils included the orators Theramenes and Isocrates, and in the year of the death of Socrates (399 BC), Prodicus was still living. According to the statement of Philostratus, on which little reliance can be placed, he delivered his lecture on virtue and vice in Thebes and Sparta also. The Apology of Plato unites him with Gorgias and Hippias as among those who were considered competent to instruct the youth in any city. Lucian mentions him among those who held lectures at Olympia.

In the dialogues of Plato he is mentioned or introduced with a certain degree of esteem, compared with the other sophists. Aristophanes, in The Clouds, deals more indulgently with him than with Socrates; and Xenophon's Socrates, for the purpose of combating the voluptuousness of Aristippus, borrows from the book of "the wise Prodicus" the story of the choice of Hercules. Like Protagoras and others, Prodicus delivered lectures in return for payment of from half a drachma to 50 drachmae, probably according to whether the hearers limited themselves to a single lecture or a more complete course. Prodicus is said to have amassed a great amount of money. The assertion that he hunted after rich young men is only found in Philostratus.

Teachings
Prodicus was part of the first generation of Sophists. "He was a Sophist in the full sense of a professional freelance educator." As he taught both philosophy and politics, so Plato represents his instructions as chiefly ethical, and gives preference to his distinction of ideas, such as courage, rashness, boldness, over similar attempts of other sophists. He sometimes gave individual show-orations, and though known to Callimachus, they do not appear to have been long preserved. In contrast with Gorgias and others, who boasted of possessing the art of making the small appear great, the great small, and of expatiating in long or short speeches, Prodicus required that the speech should be neither long nor short, but of the proper measure, and it is only as associated with other sophists that he is charged with endeavouring to make the weaker cause appear strong by means of his rhetoric (thereby inspiring, e.g., Milton's description of Belial).

Linguistics
Several of Plato's dialogues focus upon Prodicus' linguistic theory, and his insistence upon the correct use of names. He paid special attention to the correct use of words, and the distinction of expressions related in sense. Thucydides is said to have gained from him his accuracy in the use of words. In the Cratylus, Socrates jokes that if he could have afforded the fifty drachma lectures he would now be an expert on "the correctness of names." In several of the Platonic dialogues Socrates appears as the friend and companion of Prodicus, which reveals at least that the two did have close personal relations, and that Socrates did attend at least a few of his lectures. "For Socrates, correct language was the prerequisite for correct living (including an efficient government). But Prodicus, though his linguistic teaching undoubtedly included semantic distinctions between ethical terms, had stopped at the threshold. The complete art of logoi embraced nothing less than the whole of philosophy."

Ethics
The speech on the choice of Hercules was entitled Horai (Ὧραι). Hercules, as he was entering manhood, had to choose one of the two paths of life, that of virtue and that of vice. There appeared two women, the one of dignified beauty, adorned with purity, modesty, and discretion, the other of a voluptuous form, and meretricious look and dress. The latter promises to lead him by the shortest road, without any toil, to the enjoyment of every pleasure. The other, while she reminds him of his progenitors and his noble nature, does not conceal from him that the gods have not granted what is really beautiful and good apart from trouble and careful striving. While one seeks to deter him from the path of virtue by urging the difficulty of it; the other calls attention to the unnatural character of enjoyment which anticipates the need of it, its want of the highest joy, that arising from noble deeds, and the consequences of a life of voluptuousness, and how she herself, honoured by gods and men, leads to all noble works, and to true well-being in all circumstances of life. Hercules decides for virtue. This outline in Xenophon probably represents, in a very abbreviated form, the leading ideas of the original, of which no fragments remain.

Another speech, apparently by Prodicus, is mentioned in the spurious Platonic dialogue Eryxias. Prodicus undertakes to show that the value of external goods depends simply upon the use which is made of them, and that virtue must be learnt. Similar sentiments were expressed in Prodicus's Praise of Agriculture. The spurious dialogue Axiochus attributes to him views respecting the worthlessness of earthly life in different ages and callings, and how we must long after freedom from connection with the body in the heavenly and cognate aether. Also found here is a doctrine that death is not to be feared, as it affects neither the living nor the departed.

Naturalism
Prodicus, like some of his fellow Sophists, interpreted religion through the framework of naturalism. The gods he regarded as personifications of the sun, moon, rivers, fountains, and whatever else contributes to the comfort of our life, and he was sometimes charged with atheism. "His theory was that primitive man was so impressed with the gifts nature provided him for the furtherance of his life that he believed them to be the discovery of gods or themselves to embody the godhead. This theory was not only remarkable for its naturalism but for its discernment of a close connection between religion and agriculture."

title: Prodicus


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Mehet-Weret

Mehet-Weret or Mehturt (mḥt-wrt) is an ancient Egyptian deity of the sky in ancient Egyptian religion. Her name means "Great Flood".

She was mentioned in the Pyramid Texts. In ancient Egyptian creation myths, she gives birth to the sun at the beginning of time. In spell 17 of the Book of the Dead the god Ra is born from her buttocks. In art she is portrayed as a cow with a sun disk between her horns. She is associated with the goddesses Neith, Hathor, and Isis, all of whom have similar characteristics, and like them she could be called the "Eye of Ra". In some instances she is simply an epithet for those goddesses. Her own titles included 'mound' and 'island'.

Origin
Mehet-Weret was responsible for raising the sun into the sky every day. She produced the light for the crops of those who worshipped her, and she also caused the annual Nile River flood that fertilized the crops with water. In Patricia Monaghan's The Encyclopedia of Goddesses and Heroines, she describes Mehet-Weret as the goddess of creation because she gives birth to the sun every day, creating life for all those who worship her.

Geraldine Pinch suggests that Mehet-Weret was also 'probably' the Milky Way in the night sky, to correspond with her identification as the celestial waters travelled by the solar barque.

Physical description
Mehet-Weret is depicted as either a cow-headed woman, a seated cow, or a cow carrying a child, often the golden disk of the sun is between her horns She appears on a golden bed found in the Tomb of Tutankhamun, the sides of which are made from star-patterned cows labelled as Isis-Mehet.

She is also featured twice on the sarcophagus of Khonsu, son of Sennedjem, who was buried in tomb TT1 during the Nineteenth Dynasty. In both instances she appears as a seated cow with the sun between her horns. She is depicted dressed in a number of ritual items as a way to denote her divine standing; a flail rises out of her back. In one image Khonsu is depicted bowing and adoring her, in the other a small Horus head lies in front of her on her dais.

Death and afterlife
The goddess Mehet-Weret was featured in a number of spells in the Book of the Dead, including spell 17. In this spell she was credited for the birth of Re, and she is also the one who protects Re, because it was believed by the ancient people of Egypt that the sun died every day and was reborn by Mehet-Weret. She was responsible for taking him into the underworld, or night because of the darkness, and then bringing him back to the world the next day, almost as if in the afterlife. The people of Egypt believed that Mehet-Weret was a goddess of creation and rebirth, so she was featured in one of the spells to help the humans make their way into the afterlife. The Book of the Dead is an important text in the Egyptian culture because it allows the audience to understand the different journeys that the ancient Egyptians believed in to get to the afterlife.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Mehet-Weret


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Mendes

Mendes (Μένδης, gen.: Μένδητος), the Greek name of the ancient Egyptian city of Djedet, also known in ancient Egypt as Per-Banebdjedet ("The Domain of the Ram Lord of Djedet") and Anpet, is known today as Tell El-Ruba (تل الربع).

The city is located in the eastern Nile delta (30.95833°N, 31.51583°W) and was the capital of the 16th Lower Egyptian nome of Kha, until it was replaced by Thmuis in Greco-Roman Egypt. The two cities are only several hundred meters apart. During the 29th Dynasty, Mendes was also the capital of Ancient Egypt, lying on the Mendesian branch of the Nile (now silted up), about 35 km east of al-Mansurah.

History

In ancient times, Mendes was a famous city that attracted the notice of most ancient geographers and historians, including Herodotus (ii. 42, 46. 166), Diodorus (i. 84), Strabo (xvii. p. 802), Mela (i. 9 § 9), Pliny the Elder (v. 10. s. 12), Ptolemy (iv. 5. § 51), and Stephanus of Byzantium (s. v.). The city was the capital of the Mendesian nome, situated at the point where the Mendesian arm of the Nile (Μενδήσιον στόμα, Scylax, p. 43; Ptol. iv, 5. § 10; Mendesium ostium, Pliny, Mela, ll. cc.) flows into the lake of Tanis. Archaeological evidence attests to the existence of the town at least as far back as the Naqada II period (4th millennium BCE). Under the first Pharaohs, Mendes quickly became a strong seat of provincial government and remained so throughout the Ancient Egyptian period. In Classical times, the nome it governed was one of the nomes assigned to that division of the native army which was called the Calasires, and the city was celebrated for the manufacture of a perfume designated as the Mendesium unguentum. (Plin. xiii. 1. s. 2.) Mendes, however, declined early, and disappears in the first century AD; since both Ptolemy (l. c.) and P. Aelius Aristides (iii. p. 160) mention Thmuis as the only town of note in the Mendesian nome. From its position at the junction of the river and the lake, it was probably encroached upon by their waters, after the canals fell into neglect under the Macedonian kings, and when they were repaired by Augustus (Sueton. Aug. 18, 63) Thmuis had attracted its trade and population.

Religion
The chief deities of Mendes were the ram deity Banebdjedet (lit. Ba of the Lord of Djedet), who was the Ba of Osiris, and his consort, the fish goddess Hatmehit. With their child Har-pa-khered ("Horus the Child"), they formed the triad of Mendes.

The ram deity of Mendes was described by Herodotus in his Histories as being represented with the head and fleece of a goat: "...whereas anyone with a sanctuary of Mendes or who comes from the province of Mendes, will have nothing to do with (sacrificing) goats, but uses sheep as his sacrificial animals... They say that Heracles' overriding desire was to see Zeus, but Zeus was refusing to let him do so. Eventually, as a result of Heracles' pleading, Zeus came up with a plan. He skinned a ram and cut off his head, then he held the head in front of himself, wore the fleece, and showed himself to Heracles like that. That is why the Egyptian statues of Zeus have a ram's head, is why rams are sacred to the Thebans, and they do not use them as sacrificial animals. However there is just one day of the year—the day of the festival of Zeus—when they chop up a single ram, skin it, dress the statue of Zeus in the way mentioned, and then bring the statue of Heracles up close to the statue of Zeus. Then everyone around the sanctuary mourns the death of the ram and finally they bury it in a sacred tomb."

Demonologists in early modern times often imagined Satan as manifesting himself as a goat or satyr, because goats had a reputation for lustful behavior and were used in the iconography of pre-Christian gods like Pan and the goat of Mendes. The occultist Eliphas Levi in his Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie (1855) drew an image of the fictitious medieval idol Baphomet that conflated it with the goat of Mendes and the imagery of the Satanic satyr. The image of the satyr-like Baphomet and its supposed connection with Mendes has since been repeated by various occultists, conspiracy theorists, and neopagans.

Ruins
The site is today the largest surviving tell in the Nile delta, and consists of both Tell El-Ruba (the site of the main temple enclosure) and Tell El-Timai (the settlement site of Thmuis to the south). Overall, Mendes is about 3 km long from north to south and averages about 900m east-to-west. An Old Kingdom necropolis is estimated to contain over 9,000 interments. Several campaigns of 20th-century excavations have been led by North American institutions, including New York University and the University of Toronto, as well as a Pennsylvania State University team led by Donald Redford. Under the direction of Redford, the current excavations are concentrating on a number of areas in and around the main temple.

Work on the New Kingdom processional-style temple has recently uncovered foundation deposits of Merenptah below the second pylon. It is thought that four separate pylons or gates existed for each of the Avatars of the main deity worshiped here. Evidence has suggested that their construction dates from at least the Middle Kingdom, as foundation deposits were uncovered. The original structures were buried, added to, or incorporated into later ones over time by later rulers.

A cemetery of sacred rams was discovered in the northwest corner of Tell El-Ruba. Monuments bearing the names of Ramesses II, Merneptah, and Ramesses III were also found. A temple attested by its foundation deposits was built by Amasis II. The tomb of Nepherites I, which Donald Redford concluded was destroyed by the Persians, was discovered by a joint team from the University of Washington and the University of Toronto in 1992–1993.

On the edge of the temple mound, a sondage supervised by Matthew J. Adams has revealed uninterrupted stratification from the Middle Kingdom down to the First Dynasty. Coring results suggest that future excavations in that sondage should expect to take the stratification down into the Buto-Maadi Period. The material excavated so far is already the longest uninterrupted stratification for all of the Nile Delta, and possibly for all of Egypt.

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Meret

In Egyptian mythology, Meret (also spelled Mert) was a goddess who was strongly associated with rejoicing, such as singing and dancing.

In myth
Meret was a token wife occasionally given to Hapy, the god of the Nile flood. Her name being a reference to this, meaning simply the beloved. As token wife, she was usually depicted with the same associations as Hapy, having on her head either the blue lotus for Upper Egypt, or the papyrus plant for Lower Egypt. Since Hapy was the source of bountifulness, Meret was usually depicted with an offering bowl, as she was seen, being his wife, as the symbolic recipient of his generosity.

Among the lower classes, where nationalism was less important than successful harvest, she was more strongly considered the wife of Hapy than the protectresses of Lower and Upper Egypt, which were more normally his wife in the upper classes. As a deity whose role was to be the symbolic receiver of bounty from the inundation of the Nile, she was strongly associated with rejoicing, such as singing and dancing. Later stories tell that Meret was the goddess of the eighth hour, in the Book of Gates.

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Mert

Mert or MERT may refer to:

People

 * Mert (given name), a Turkish masculine given name and a nickname
 * Mert (surname)

MERT

 * Medical Emergency Response Team, British Armed Forces designation for in-theatre aeromedical evacuation units
 * Multi-Environment Real-Time, Unix-based hybrid time-sharing and real-time operating system
 * Penn MERT, a student-run volunteer emergency medical services organization of the University of Pennsylvania

Other uses

 * Mert River, Turkey

title: Mert


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Meretseger

Meretseger (also known as Mersegrit ' or Mertseger) was a Theban cobra-goddess in ancient Egyptian religion, in charge with guarding and protecting the vast Theban Necropolis — on the west bank of the Nile, in front of Thebes — and especially the heavily guarded Valley of the Kings. Her cult was typical of the New Kingdom of Egypt (1550–1070 BC).

Role and characteristics
Meretseger's name means "She Who Loves Silence", in reference to the silence of the desert cemetery area she kept or, according to another interpretation, "Beloved of Him Who Makes Silence (Osiris)".

Meretseger was the patron of the artisans and workers of the village of Deir el-Medina, who built and decorated the great royal and noble tombs. Desecrations of rich royal burials were already in progress from the Old Kingdom of Egypt (27th/22nd century BC), sometimes by the workers themselves: the genesis of Meretseger was the spontaneous need to identify a guardian goddess, both dangerous and merciful, of the tombs of sovereigns and aristocrats. Her cult, also present in Esna (near Luxor), reached its peak during the 18th Dynasty. A royal wife of the Middle Kingdom pharaoh Senusret III (c. 1878–1839 BC) was called Meretseger; she was the first to bear the title Great Royal Wife (which became the standard title for chief wives of Pharaohs) and the first whose name was written in a cartouche: however, as there are no contemporary sources relating to the Great Royal Wife Meretseger, this homonym of the goddess is most likely a creation of the New Kingdom.

The goddess Meretseger was worshiped by the workers' guild, who feared her wrath very much. Being a local deity, only small rock temples were dedicated to her (such as the one located on the path leading to the Valley of the Queens ) and some stelae with prayers and poignant requests for forgiveness, as well as various cappelletti right at the foot of the hill dedicated to her — which was her embodiment too. She was sometimes associated with Hathor: even the latter was considered a protector of the graves in her funerary aspects of "Lady Of The West" and "Lady Of The Necropolis" who opened the gates of the underworld. Her close association with the Valley of the Kings prevented her becoming anything more than a local deity, and when the valley ceased being in use (and Thebes was abandoned as a capital), so she also ceased being worshipped (11th/10th century BC).

Meretseger's hill
Meretseger was especially associated with the hill now called el Qurn "The Horn" (tꜣ-dhnt "The Peak" ), a natural peak, the highest point (420 m) in the Theban Hills, which dramatically overlooks the Valley of the Kings. It has an almost pyramidal shape when viewed from the entrance to the Valley of the Kings, and therefore some Egyptologists believe it may have been the reason for choosing the location as a royal necropolis. El Qurn, also believed to be one of the entrances to the Duat (underworld), was sacred to both Meretseger and Hathor, but the former was considered its real personification. For this reason, two of Meretseger's many epithets were "Peak of the West" (Dehent-Imentet) and "Lady Of The Peak". Many small stelae created by artisans and workers have been found as evidence of devotion to their favorite deities: in addition to Meretseger, Ptah, Amun, Hathor, Thoth and the deified pharaoh Amenhotep I (c. 1525–1504 BC), whose cult was very popular in Deir el-Medina.

Stela of Neferabu
It was believed that Meretseger punished the workers who committed a sacrilege (by stealing something from the royal graves or the building sites — copper instruments were particularly precious — as well as those who failed in an oath) poisoning them with her bite. But she was also considered generous in forgiving those who repented to her and, in this case, would heal him from physical evil. This is the case of the draftsman Neferabu, who would have been cured of blindness after having begged Meretseger, as he himself was able to attest on a limestone stela (Museo egizio, Turin) dedicated to her: "Giving praise to the Peak of the West, kissing the ground to her ka, I give praise, hear (my) call, I was a truthful man on earth! Made by the servant of the Place-of-Truth, Neferabu, justified. (I was) an ignorant man and foolish, who knew not good from evil, I did the transgression against the Peak, and she taught a lesson to me. I was in her hand by night as by day, I sat on bricks like the woman on labor, I called to the wind, it came not to me, I libated to the Peak of the West, great of strength, and to every god and goddess. Behold, I will say to the great and small, who are in the troop: beware the Peak! For there is a lion within her! The Peak strikes with the stroke of a savage lion, she is after him who offends her! I called upon my Mistress, I found her coming to me as a sweet breeze; she was merciful to me, having made me see her hand. She returned to me appeased, she made my malady forgotten; for the Peak of the West is appeased, if one calls upon her. So says Neferabu, justified. He says: Behold, let hear every ear, that lives upon earth: beware the Peak of the West!" In relation to the Egyptians with their divinities, the concepts of sin, repentance and forgiveness were very unusual; these characteristics of Meretseger's cult appear to be a unicum.

Rock shrine in Deir el-Medina
Meretseger's rock shrine in Deir el-Medina was formed by a series of caves placed in a semicircle, whose vaults however collapsed due to earthquakes, and on the outer walls still retains many steles, while a large number of fragments have been inventoried and distributed to various museums. It was also dedicated to the most revered Ptah, god of craftsmen and artisans. Overlying the temple there is a rock with the shape of a snake's head. The large amount of material found confirms that the temple was very popular and famous — locally.

Iconography
Meretseger was sometimes portrayed as a cobra-headed woman, though this iconography is rather rare: in this case she could hold the was-sceptre as well as having her head surmounted by a feather and being armed with two knives. More commonly, she was depicted as a woman-headed snake or scorpion, a cobra-headed sphinx, lion-headed cobra or three-headed (woman, snake and vulture) cobra. On various steles, she wears a modius surmounted by the solar disk and by two feathers, or the hathoric crown (the solar disk between two bovine horns). Her main artistic depictions are inside lavish royal tombs, for example:

 * the tomb (TT56) of Userhat, "Scribe who Counts the Bread for Upper And Lower Egypt" under Pharaoh Amenhotep II (1427–1401 BC), where she appears with Montu;
 * the tomb (KV14) of Queen Twosret (c. 1191–1189 BC) and Pharaoh Setnakhte (c. 1189–1186 BC), where she appears genuflected;
 * the tomb (KV9) of Pharaoh Ramesses VI (c. 1144–1136 BC), where she appears, along with Khonsu, Amun-ra, Ptah-Sokar and Ra-Horakhty, receiving offerings by the King himself;
 * the tomb (KV18) of Pharaoh Ramesses X (c. 1111–1107 BC), where she appears with Ra-Horakhty;
 * the tomb (KV4) of Pharaoh Ramesses XI (c. 1107–1077 BC), where she appears with many deities.

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Piraeus

Piraeus (Πειραιάς ; Πειραιεύς ; Ancient:, Katharevousa: ) is a port city within the Athens-Piraeus urban area, in the Attica region of Greece. It is located 8 km southwest of Athens along the east coast of the Saronic Gulf in the Attica.

The municipality of Piraeus and four other suburban municipalities form the regional unit of Piraeus, sometimes called the Greater Piraeus area, with a total population of 448,051. At the 2021 census, Piraeus had a population of 168,151 people, making it the fifth largest municipality in Greece and the second largest (after the municipality of Athens) within the Athens-Piraeus urban area.

Piraeus has a long recorded history, dating back to ancient Greece. The city was founded in the early 5th century BC, when plans to make it the new port of Athens were implemented: A prototype harbour was constructed, which resulted in concentrating in one location all the import and transit trade of Athens, along with the navy's base. During the Golden Age of Athens, the Long Walls were constructed to fortify the route from the main settlement to the port (Piraeus). During the classical period, the naval base in Piraeus had 372 trireme shipsheds. Beginning in the 3rd century B.C., Piraeus went into a period of cumulative decline. However, it began growing once again in the 19th century, after Athens was made the capital of Greece. Today, Piraeus is a large city, bustling with activity, and an integral part of Athens. It is a huge marine and commercial-industrial centre, and home to Greece’s largest harbour.

The port of Piraeus is the chief port in Greece, the 5th largest passenger port in Europe and the 24th largest passenger port in the world serving about 4.37 million passengers annually in 2020. With a throughput of 5.44 million TEUs, Piraeus is among the busiest ten ports in Europe in terms of container traffic, and is the busiest container port in the Eastern Mediterranean. The city hosted events in both the 1896 and 2004 Summer Olympics held in Athens. The University of Piraeus is one of the largest universities in Greece, and includes the country's second-oldest business school, as well as the oldest academic department dedicated to the study of finance.

Ancient and medieval times
Piraeus has been inhabited since at least the 26th century BC. Piraeus is a rocky outcropping on the Greek coast that features the steep hill of Munichia and modern-day Kastella. Although long connected to the mainland by a land bridge that is consistently above water, Piraeus in prehistoric times was an island connected to the mainland only by a low-lying stretch of land that was flooded by sea water most of the year. Whenever the land bridge dried up, it was used as a salt field (its ancient name, the Halipedon, means the 'salt field'), and its muddy soil made for a tricky passage. Over time, however, the area became increasingly silted, high, and dry—and flooding ceased—so that, by early classical times, the land passage could be safely crossed at all times. Thus in ancient Greece, Piraeus assumed increased importance because of its three deep-water harbours: the main port of Cantharus and the two smaller ports, Zea and Munichia. The Piraeus harbours gradually replaced the older and shallower Phaleron harbour, which fell into disuse.

In the late 6th and early 5th centuries BC, the area became the focus of strategic and political improvements due to its natural advantages. For example, in 511 BC, the hill of Munichia was fortified by Hippias, and four years later Piraeus was made a deme of Athens by Cleisthenes. According to the ancient Greek historian Thucydides, in 493 BC, Themistocles initiated fortification works in Piraeus, and later advised the Athenians to take advantage of its natural harbours' strategic potential instead of using the sandy bay of Phaleron. A duty of 2 percent was levied on goods passing through the port. These were very effective at raising funds for the city of Athens. In the year 399 after the Peloponnesian War, for example, the city had collected 1,800 talents in harbour dues despite economic effects of the war.

In 483 BC, a new silver vein was discovered in the Laurion mines, and the profit from mining that silver was utilized to fund the construction of 200 triremes; the Athenian fleet was transferred to Piraeus, and the triremes were built in its shipyards. The Athenian fleet played a crucial role in the battle of Salamis against the Persians in 480 BC. From then on, Piraeus was permanently used as the navy’s base. After the second Persian invasion of Greece, Themistocles fortified the three harbours of Piraeus and created the neosoikoi (ship houses); the Themistoclean Walls were completed in 471 BC, transforming Piraeus into a great military and commercial harbour. The city's fortifications were later further improved by the construction of the Long Walls under Cimon and Pericles, which secured the route from Piraeus and its ports to the main city of Athens. Meanwhile, Piraeus was rebuilt, based on the famous grid plan of architect Hippodamus of Miletus, known as the Hippodamian plan. (The main agora of the city was named after him in honour of this achievement.) As a result, Piraeus flourished, becoming a highly secure port with booming commercial activity, and a city bustling with life.

In the second year of the Peloponnesian War, Piraeus suffered its first setback when the Athens plague spread to it. In 429, the Spartans ravaged Salamis as part of an abortive attack on the Piraeus. But when the Athenians responded by sending a fleet to investigate, the Spartan alliance forces fled. In 404 BC, the Spartan fleet under Lysander blockaded Piraeus, and subsequently Athens surrendered to the Spartans, putting an end to the Delian League and the war itself. Piraeus was to suffer the same fate as Athens and bear the brunt of the Spartans' rage, as the city's walls and the Long Walls were torn down; the Athenian fleet surrendered to the victors, some of the triremes were burnt, and the neosoikoi were pulled down. As a result, the tattered and unfortified port city was not able to compete with prosperous Rhodes, which became the dominant commercial force in the region. In 403 BC, Munichia was seized by Thrasybulus and the exiles from Phyle, in the battle of Munichia, where the Phyleans defeated the Thirty Tyrants of Athens, but in the following battle of Piraeus the exiles were defeated by Spartan forces.

After the reinstatement of democracy, a general Conon rebuilt the walls in 393 BC, founded the temple of Aphrodite Euploia and the sanctuary of Zeus Sotiros and Athena, and built the famous Skeuotheke (arsenal) of Philon, the ruins of which have been discovered at Zea harbour. The reconstruction of Piraeus went on during the period of Alexander the Great, but this revival of the town was quashed by Roman Lucius Cornelius Sulla, who captured and totally destroyed Piraeus in 86 BC. The destruction was completed in 395 AD by the Goths under Alaric I. Piraeus was led to a long period of decline which lasted for fifteen centuries. During the Byzantine period the harbour of Piraeus was occasionally used for the Byzantine fleet, but it was very far from the capital city of Constantinople.

In the Middle Ages, the port was usually called by the Venetians the "port of Sithines" (that is, of Athens) and in the 14th century, the name "Lion" is first attested, after the colossal ancient sculpture of a lion, the Piraeus Lion, which stood at the harbour's entrance. This later become Porto Leone (Πόρτο Λεόνε). It was also called Porto Drako (Πόρτο Δράκο) by Greeks, drako meaning not just "dragon", but any monster.

Ottoman period
When Piraeus was taken by the Ottoman Empire in 1456, it became known as Aslan Liman ("Lion Harbour"), a translation of the existing Venetian name.

The Piraeus Lion itself was looted in 1687 by Francesco Morosini during his expedition against Athens (part of the Morean War) and was carried to the Venetian Arsenal, where it still stands today. A copy of the lion statue is on display at the Archaeological Museum of Piraeus.

Under Ottoman rule, especially before the beginning of the Greek War of Independence, Piraeus was mostly deserted, except for the monastery of Saint Spyridon (1590) and a customs house, and it was only used occasionally as a commercial port. Although there were numerous land owners, Athenians did not live in the area.

There were at least two failed attempts to create a new town, the first in 1792 by bringing a population from Hydra and the second during the Greek War of Independence in 1825 by the installation of people from Psara, but it was not until 1829 that permanent habitation of the area was restarted. Piraeus at first developed into a small town with few dwellings, far from its glorious past as a prosperous city, with its population consisting largely of fishermen.

Modern era

With the creation of the modern Greek state and the proclamation of Athens as its capital in 1832, the port, still named Πόρτο Λεόνε "Porto Leone" or Πόρτο Δράκο "Porto Draco", again acquired a reason for growth, and began to develop into a commercial and industrial centre. Migrants, mainly from the Aegean Islands, continued to arrive. A town plan was also drawn up and approved by King Otto, but not completely fulfilled, as it was revolutionary for its time.

The municipality was established in 1835, reviving the ancient name "Piraeus". Following petitions from the new and emerging prosperous bourgeoisie, municipal elections were held to elect a mayor for the city, Kyriakos Serfiotis of Hydra. Piraeus had around 300 inhabitants at this time.

Piraeus, from a deserted small town, quickly became the leading port and the second largest city in Greece, with its prime geographical location and closeness to the Greek capital helping it continually to grow, attracting people from across the country. A number of events contributed to the development of the city; among these were its ultimate declaration as the leading port of Greece, the completion of the Athens-Piraeus Railway in 1869, the industrial development of the area in the 1860s, and the creation of the Corinth Canal in 1893, all of which left Piraeus more strategically important than ever. New buildings were constructed to cover the necessities of this growth, such as educational institutions, churches, the Stock Exchange Building, the Town Hall, the Central Market, the Post Office Building and charity institutions; the port was also supplemented and modernised, with dredging operations, the construction of the Royal Landing, the Troumba Pier and the quay-ways up to the Customs House area, the commencement of construction work on the Outer Moles and the completion of permanent dry-docks. At the end of the 19th century, Piraeus had a population of 51,020 people.

The establishment of the Port Committee in 1911, which controlled the works of construction and maintenance of the port, and the Piraeus Port Authority in 1930, which made a more efficient job of managing a port slowly increasing in traffic, played a catalytic role in the city's development. The town flourished and neo-classical buildings were erected; one of them, which continues to ornament the present town, is the Piraeus Municipal Theatre, an excellent example of the area's once wider neoclassical architecture. After the decisive period for Greece of 1912–1922, Piraeus experienced a major demographic explosion, with its population almost doubling to reach 251,659 in 1928 from 133,482 in 1920, an increase owed to the arrival of Greek refugees from Asia Minor after the 1919–1922 Greco-Turkish War and the Genocide of the Greeks in Anatolia and finally the subsequent population exchange between Greece and Turkey. Although there was an increase in the labour force, a variety of social problems also emerged with the concentration of new populations in the suburbs of the city, such as Nikaia, Keratsini, Perama, Drapetsona and Korydallos.

The involvement of Greece in World War II came as a major setback to the city's progress. After the war, the city began its development once more, as damage to the port and the city were repaired and new additions took shape after 1955. Piraeus is now the fifth largest municipality in Greece; the city proper with its suburbs form the Piraeus urban area, which is incorporated in the Athens urban area, thus making Piraeus an integral part of the Greek capital. The port of Piraeus is now an important international port, and the largest in the country.

Geography
Piraeus is situated in the southwest part of the central plain of Attica, also widely known as the Attica Basin, which the Athens urban area (or agglomeration) sprawls across. Piraeus is bounded by the Mount Aigaleo to the northwest, and the Saronic Gulf to the south and west, and connected with the rest of the Athens urban area to the east and northeast. The "city proper" of Piraeus consists of a rocky peninsula, originally an island, featuring three natural harbours. In addition to the central one, called Kantharos in ancient times, the smaller harbours to the east are still in use: Zea, also known as Pasalimani, and Munichia, the smallest of the three and widely known as Mikrolimano and  Tourkolimano . Nowadays, the Greater Piraeus includes the harbours of Drapetsona, Keratsini and Perama. The central harbour is a hub of commercial and passenger shipping, whereas the two smaller ones cater to recreational and fishing craft. The municipality has an area of 10.865 km2.

Climate
Under Köppen climate classification Piraeus has a hot semi-arid climate (BSh) and according to the Hellenic National Meteorological Service climate atlas it is the only area in Attica, Greece that clearly falls into this climate category. Due to summer night land breezes in Athens, Piraeus records high minimum summer temperatures while the mean annual temperature stands at 19.4 C.

Demography
Piraeus is the fifth most populous municipality in Greece with an official population of 168,151 (in 2021). The Greater Piraeus, part of the greater Athens urban area, comprises the city proper (municipality of Piraeus) and four other suburban municipalities, having a total population of 448,051 people (in 2021).

The table below shows the historical population of Piraeus and Piraeus regional unit in recent times.

Archaeological sites
Among the archaeological sites of Piraeus, parts of the ancient Themistoclean Walls and Eëtioneia, a mole in the entrance to the harbour, are still preserved in good condition. Excavations in Pasalimani revealed the Skeuotheke, an ancient structure where ship rigging equipment was stored, designed by architect Philon. In Kastella the Syrangion is to be found, which probably served as a sanctuary to the local hero Syrango, and the Cave of Arethusa, both prehistoric. Ruins of the ancient city at the basement of the cathedral of Agia Triada and the ancient Theater of Zea next to the Archaeological Museum, the ancient neosoikoi in Zea, Munichia and Kantharos navy yard, can also be seen.

Bronze statues
The discovery of four bronze statues at a construction site near the Tinaneios Gardens in Piraeus, Greece on July 18, 1959 is still remembered by an entire generation as a momentous discovery in Modern Greek archaeology. The statues are now featured in the Piraeus Museum, and are largely responsible for the creation of the modern Archaeological Museum of Piraeus. While drilling in order to lay pipes, the Hydrex Company came across the hand of a bronze kouros (youth) at a depth of approximately 1.50 meters. Excavations began after the custodian of the local museum, Dimitrios Kalantonis, and the Director of the Archaeological Service, Yiannis Papdimitriou, were informed. Four noteworthy bronze statues were uncovered in the continuing excavations – the Archaic Apollo (the kouros whose hand had originally been seen), the large Artemis, a smaller Artemis, and a larger-than-life Athena. However, the enthusiasm for the dig led to poor documentation of the details and context of the finds, leaving rare photos taken by the media or public as the only record. There are multiple theories as to how the statues came to be carefully arranged within what is thought to have been a small square room. When and why the statues were apparently hidden is open to debate, along with their origins, date, and style. One early theory suggests that the statues had been stored near the harbour with the intention of being shipped to Italy; however, the presence of coins near the statues dating from a period of war opens up another possibility – that the statues were hidden for safe keeping, and then lost when the building was destroyed. Dating the concealment of the statues is another issue, as they may have been buried anytime between the 1st century BC and the 3rd century AD. The statue of the kouros was recognized to be of Apollo, and dated to the 5th century BC. The other three female statues, from the 4th century BC, show a different, more human, form of sculpture that sets them apart from their older companion.

Leisure and entertainment
Piraeus provides a wide variety of entertainment. There are a lot of tavernas and restaurants in Piraeus, renowned for their cuisine. Most are spread along the coasts of Mikrolimano and Piraiki, specializing in seafood and attracting many visitors, including tourists. The nightlife of the city is vibrant, with numerous bars and nightclubs. Plenty of major shopping areas can be found on the central avenues of Piraeus, Iroon Polytechneiou and Grigoriou Labraki.

In the summer, the Maritime Festival take place, while the Three Kings' Way Festival marks the beginning of the carnival, with all the associated costumes and entertainment.

The Municipal Theater has been the center of the arts in Piraeus, hosting a variety of cultural events including theater, dance and music events. The open air Veakeio Theater in Kastella is a popular destination during the summer and hosts concerts, folk music bands and Greek and foreign troupes, while the Menandreio Theater, widely known as Delfinario, is popular for hosting variety shows. Village Park, a large multipurpose center and part of the Village Cinemas built in suburban Agios Ioannis Renti, attracts a large number of people from the whole of Athens, offering a diversity of shops, cafes, and restaurant, in addition to the twenty cinemas making it the largest cinema complex in Greece. Next to it, the Allou Fun Park is the most recent and largest amusement theme park in Athens, offering its numerous rides and attractions, restaurants and pastry shops.

Museums

Piraeus is home to several museums and other institutions of great interest within their field. The Archaeological Museum of Piraeus displays objects from classical antiquity found at the area of Piraeus and the greater coastal zone, typical of the history and culture of the ancient city. The city also houses the Hellenic Maritime Museum, with exhibits relating to the nautical tradition of Greece, the Merchant Shipping History Institute Exhibition, the Panos Aravantinos Decor Museum and the Museum of Electric Railways, hosted in the Piraeus station. The Municipal Art Gallery and the Municipal Library, one of the largest in Greece, are also prominent within the culture of Piraeus.

Sport

Traditionally, Piraeus has played a major role in Greek sport. The city boasts one of the most popular and one of the most prestigious Greek multisport clubs, Olympiacos CFP. The other major club is Ethnikos Piraeus, with a long athletic tradition, while other historic clubs are Atromitos Piraeus F.C. and Peiraikos Syndesmos.

In football, Olympiacos F.C. is the most successful football club in Greece, having won by far more titles than any other Greek football club, and its ground is at the Karaiskakis Stadium, in Neo Faliro. Ethnikos Piraeus F.C. had a longstanding presence in Super League Greece and also used the Karaiskakis Stadium as home ground, but in recent years the club has competed in lower divisions and currently plays home matches at the Helleniko Stadium, in Ellinikon. In basketball, Olympiacos B.C. is the only major club from Piraeus, one of the most successful at domestic and European level, and its home arena is the Peace and Friendship Stadium, while the volleyball department of the same club, Olympiacos S.C., is the dominant domestically and has made great success in European competitions as well. Piraeus rides really high in water polo, where Ethnikos Piraeus and Olympiacos departments have entirely dominated in Greece; the first is considered the "Emperor" of the sport and the latter is the only Greek water polo club to have been crowned European Champion.

First class sporting facilities can be found in Piraeus. The Karaiskakis Stadium, built in 1885 as a bicycle track, enlarged in 1964 and completely rebuilt in 2004, is the second largest football venue in Greece with a capacity of 33,334 and one of the most modern in Europe. It hosted the 1971 UEFA Cup Winners' Cup Final and several games of the football tournament in the 2004 Summer Olympics, while it was used as a velodrome in the 1896 Summer Olympics. The Peace and Friendship Stadium, part of the Faliro Coastal Zone Olympic Complex and built in 1985 opposite to the Karaiskakis Stadium, is the second largest indoor arena in the country and one of the most impressive around Europe, having hosted multiply major international events in several sports, including the volleyball tournament in the 2004 Athens Olympics, the 1998 FIBA World Championship, the EuroBasket 1987 and the Final Four of the Euroleague 1993.

Maritime industry

In addition to being the largest marine–based shipping centre of Greece, Piraeus is also the commercial hub of Greek shipping, with most of Greece's shipowners having offices there, largely centred around the street Akti Miaouli. In its capacities as host to Greek shipping, Piraeus has been affected significantly by the various governments of Greece. Following World War II, the Greek government attempted to nationalize the proceeds of the insurance payments given to Greek shipowners who had lost vessels as a result of those vessels having been commandeered by the Allied Forces; the insurance had been provided by Lloyd's of London and guaranteed by the coalition of the allied forces. Although Greek shipowners ultimately won their case against the Greek government in the British courts, most were uninterested in continuing to base their headquarters in Piraeus, both out of distrust of the Greek government, and because the war had left the Greater Athens area in a state of severe poverty. As a result, Greece's shipowners left Piraeus en masse in favour of operations in London, New York, Alexandria and other major shipping cities.

Today the port of Piraeus ranks 7th in Europe and the 1st in the Mediterranean in terms of TEUs transported through it each year.

1967 military junta
In 1967, when a group of colonels staged a coup d'état against the government, in order to increase desperately needed revenues, the junta offered lavish incentives for Greek shipowners to bring their companies back to Piraeus. This included both tax incentives and other inducements, as highlighted by the fact that Aristotle Onassis was allowed to purchase the entire island of Skorpios, which otherwise would have been a violation of Greek coastline laws.

1974 democratic government
After the junta fell in 1974, the successive democratic government generally maintained the deregulation of Greek-based shipping, and many shipowners have maintained commercial operations there since. Today, however, as a result of traffic congestion plaguing the Athens area, and the fact that most shipowners reside in the lavish northern suburbs of Athens, many shipowners have opted once again to move their bases away from Piraeus to Northern Athens.

Shipping today
After the post-2008 financial crisis collapse of global shipping, the port was gradually acquired by China Ocean Shipping Company (COSCO), which is a Chinese state-owned enterprise. Under COSCO, Piraeus has become a busy port, rising from traffic of 400,000 containers in 2008 to nearly five million containers in 2018. Most European trade with China occurs via Greek ships, including through Piraeus.

With an annual number of 8,1 million passengers by 2015, Piraeus also became the EU's sixth-largest port in terms of passenger transportation. The central port serves ferry routes to almost every island in the eastern portion of Greece, the island of Crete, the Cyclades, the Dodecanese, and much of the northern and the eastern Aegean Sea, while the western part of the port is used for cargo services. The following operators serve the port:
 * Minoan Lines
 * ANEK Lines
 * Blue Star Ferries
 * Hellenic Seaways
 * Celestyal Cruises
 * Monarch Classic Cruises

Transport

Piraeus is served by buses and trolleybuses (OSY), Suburban Railway, the Metro Lines 1 and 3 and the Athens Tram. Piraeus station refers to the two railway stations (Metro, and Suburban Railway) located next to the seaport.

Landmarks

Piraeus is marked by the diversity of culture among its neighbourhoods. The hill of Kastella is one of the most prosperous and attractive neighbourhoods, with a panoramic view over Athens basin and the Saronic Gulf. Its elegance comes from its numerous neo-classical mansions, while the Veakeio Theater and a church dedicated to the Prophet Elijah are the most popular buildings. The coastal area of Neo Faliro has been upgraded and is also prominent, with the Peace and Friendship Stadium and the Karaiskakis Stadium, an indoor arena and a football ground respectively lying opposite one another, predominating. Mikrolimano and Bay of Zea, are the smaller harbours of Piraeus acts as Marinas, attract large numbers of visitors with their picturesque vistas and vigorous nightlife. Kaminia, by contrast, is a working-class neighbourhood which still preserves the traditional look of an earlier period. The Municipal Theater in the center of Piraeus was built in 1885 and remains an impressive neo-classical building. Located across from the Neo-Byzantine Piraeus Cathedral, it forms one of the most renowned landmarks of the city and a popular meeting place.

Districts

 * Agios Neilos
 * Agia Sophia
 * Freattyda
 * Kallipoli
 * Kaminia
 * Kastella
 * Maniatika
 * Mikrolimano
 * Terpsithea (Trouba)

Cinema
Movies filmed in Piraeus include:
 * Stella (1955 film)
 * The Angry Hills (film)
 * Never on Sunday
 * The Red Lanterns
 * The Burglars, starring Jean-Paul Belmondo

Twin towns – sister cities
Piraeus is twinned with:

 * 🇺🇸 Baltimore, United States (1982)
 * 🇷🇴 Galaţi, Romania (1985)
 * 🇫🇷 Marseille, France (1984)
 * 🇺🇦 Odesa, Ukraine (1993)
 * 🇨🇿 Ostrava, Czech Republic
 * 🇦🇷 Rosario, Argentina
 * Shanghai, China (1985)
 * 🇷🇺 Saint Petersburg, Russia (1965)
 * 🇸🇾 Tartus, Syria (2022)
 * 🇧🇬 Varna, Bulgaria
 * 🇺🇸 Worcester, United States

Mayors of Piraeus

 * Kyriakos Serfiotis (1835–1841)
 * Petros Skylitsis-Homiridis (1841–1845) and (1848–1854)
 * Antonios Theoharis (1845–1848)
 * Loukas Rallis (1855–1866)
 * Demetrios Moutzopoulos (1866–1874)
 * Tryfon Moutzopoulos (1874–1883) and (1895–1903)
 * Aristides Skylitsis (1883–1887)
 * Theodoros Retsinas (1887–1895)
 * Pavlos Damalis (1903–1907)
 * Dimosthenis Skylitsis-Homiridis (1907–1914)
 * Anastasios Panagiotopoulos (1914–1932)
 * Michail Rinopoulos (1932)
 * Athanasios N. Miaoulis (1932)
 * Sotiris Stratigis (1932–1938)

 * Michail Manoussos (1938–1941)
 * Panagiotis Kyriakides (1941-1945)
 * Georgios Andrianopoulos (1951–1966)
 * Georgios Kyriakakos (1966–1967)
 * Aristidis Skylitsis (1967–1974)
 * Vasilios Zeppos (1974–1975)
 * Anastasios Voulodimos (1975–1978)
 * Georgios Kyriakakos (1978–1982)
 * Ioannis Papaspyrou (1982–1986)
 * (1987–1990)
 * Stelios Logothetis (1991–1998)
 * Christos Agrapidis (1999–2006)
 * Panagiotis Fasoulas (2007–2010)
 * Vasilis Michaloliakos (2011–2014)
 * Ioannis Moralis (2014–present)

Notable people

 * Sophia Antoniadis, classical scholar
 * Spyridon Manousakis (Spiros Arion), professional wrestler
 * Giorgos Dalaras, singer
 * Georgios B. Giannakis, computer scientist and inventor
 * Jannis Kounellis, artist
 * Emmanuel Kriaras, philologist
 * Dimos Moutsis, composer
 * Michalis Oikonomou, painter
 * Dimitrios Diamantakos, Footballer
 * Dimitris Papamichael, actor
 * Katina Paxinou, actress
 * Dimitris Pikionis, architect
 * Dimitris Rontiris, actor and director
 * Costas Simitis, Prime Minister of Greece
 * Pantelis Thalassinos, singer and songwriter
 * Yannis Tsarouchis, artist and painter
 * Charilaos Vasilakos, Olympic medalist
 * Aimilios Veakis, actor
 * Thanassis Vengos, actor
 * Tolis Voskopoulos, singer
 * Nicola Zaccaria, Greek bass
 * Dimitra Asilian, water polo player

Universities and institutes

 * University of Piraeus, established in 1938, operates four schools with more than 9.000 registered students.

title: Piraeus


text:
Meskhenet

In ancient Egyptian mythology, Meskhenet, (also spelt Mesenet, Meskhent, and Meshkent) was the goddess of childbirth, and the creator of each child's Ka, a part of their soul, which she breathed into them at the moment of birth. She was worshipped from the earliest of times by Egyptians.

In mythology
In ancient Egypt, women delivered babies while squatting on a pair of bricks, known as "birth bricks", and Meskhenet was the goddess associated with this form of delivery. Consequently, in art, she was sometimes depicted as a brick with a woman's head, wearing a cow's uterus upon it. At other times she was depicted as a woman with a symbolic cow's uterus on her headdress.

Since she was responsible for creating the Ka, she was associated with fate. Thus later she was sometimes said to be paired with Shai, who became a god of destiny after the deity evolved out of an abstract concept.

Meskhenet features prominently in the last of the folktales in the Westcar Papyrus. The story tells of the birth of Userkaf, Sahure, and Neferirkare Kakai, the first three kings of the Fifth Dynasty, who in the story are said to be triplets. Just after each child is born, Meskhenet appears and prophesies that he will become king of Egypt.

title: Meskhenet


text:
List of United States Numbered Highways

United States Numbered Highways are components of a national system of highways that is administered by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) and the various state departments of transportation. These U.S. Numbered Highways were initially designated on November 11, 1926, and extend throughout the contiguous United States.

There are several U.S. Highways that exist entirely within one state. Since the current policy on numbering and designating US Highways was written in 1991, AASHTO has been in the process of eliminating all intrastate U.S. Highways under 300 mi in length, "as rapidly as the State Highway Department and the Standing Committee on Highways of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials can reach agreement with reference thereto"; new additions to the system must therefore serve more than one state.

title: List of United States Numbered Highways


text:
Gorgias

Gorgias (Γοργίας; 483–375 BC) was an ancient Greek sophist, pre-Socratic philosopher, and rhetorician who was a native of Leontinoi in Sicily. Along with Protagoras, he forms the first generation of Sophists. Several doxographers report that he was a pupil of Empedocles, although he would only have been a few years younger. W. K. C. Guthrie writes that "Like other Sophists, he was an itinerant that practiced in various cities and giving public exhibitions of his skill at the great pan-Hellenic centers of Olympia and Delphi, and charged fees for his instruction and performances. A special feature of his displays was to ask miscellaneous questions from the audience and give impromptu replies." He has been called "Gorgias the Nihilist" although the degree to which this epithet adequately describes his philosophy is controversial.

Prominent among his claims to recognition is that he transplanted rhetoric from his native Sicily to Attica, and contributed to the diffusion of the Attic dialect as the language of literary prose.

Life
Gorgias was born c. 483 BC in Leontinoi, a Chalcidian colony in eastern Sicily that was allied with Athens. His father's name was Charmantides. He had a brother named Herodicus, who was a physician, and sometimes accompanied him during his travels. He also had a sister, whose name is not known, but whose grandson dedicated a golden statue to his great uncle at Delphi. It is not known whether Gorgias married or had children. Gorgias is said to have studied under the Sicilian philosopher Empedocles of Acragas (c. 490 – c.  430 BC), but it is not known when, where, for how long, or in what capacity. He may have also studied under the rhetoricians Corax of Syracuse and Tisias, but very little is known about either of these men, nor is anything known about their relationship with Gorgias.

It is not known what kind of role Gorgias may have played in the politics in his native Leontinoi, but it is known that, in 427 BC, when he was around sixty years old, he was sent to Athens by his fellow-citizens as the head of an embassy to ask for Athenian protection against the aggression of the Syracusans. After 427 BC, Gorgias appears to have settled in mainland Greece, living at various points in a number of city-states, including Athens and Larisa. He was well known for delivering orations at Panhellenic Festivals and is described as having been "conspicuous" at Olympia. There is no surviving record of any role he might have played in organizing the festivals themselves.

Gorgias's primary occupation was as a teacher of rhetoric. According to Aristotle, his students included Isocrates. (Other students are named in later traditions; the Suda adds Pericles, Polus, and Alcidamas, Diogenes Laërtius mentions Antisthenes, and according to Philostratus, "I understand that he attracted the attention of the most admired men, Critias and Alcibiades who were young, and Thucydides and Pericles who were already old. Agathon too, the tragic poet, whom Comedy regards as wise and eloquent, often Gorgianizes in his iambic verse"). Additionally, although they are not described as his students, Gorgias is widely thought to have influenced the styles of the historian Thucydides, the tragic playwright Agathon, the doctor Hippocrates, the rhetorician Alcidamas, and the poet and commentator Lycophron.

Gorgias is reputed to have lived to be one hundred and eight years old (Matsen, Rollinson and Sousa, 33). He won admiration for his ability to speak on any subject (Matsen, Rollinson and Sousa, 33). He accumulated considerable wealth; enough to commission a gold statue of himself for a public temple. After his Pythian Oration, the Greeks installed a solid gold statue of him in the temple of Apollo at Delphi (Matsen, Rollinson and Sousa, 33). He died at Larissa in Thessaly.

Philosophy
The philosophies of the pre-Socratic Greek Sophists are controversial among scholars in general, due to their highly subtle and ambiguous writings and also to the fact that they are best known as characters in Plato's dialogues. Gorgias, however, is particularly frustrating for modern scholars to attempt to understand. While scholars debate the precise subtleties of the teachings of Protagoras, Hippias, and Prodicus, they generally agree on the basic frameworks of what these thinkers believed. With Gorgias, however, scholars widely disagree on even the most basic framework of his ideas, including over whether or not that framework even existed at all. The greatest hindrance to scholarly understanding of Gorgias's philosophy is that the vast majority of his writings have been lost and those that have survived have suffered considerable alteration by later copyists.

These difficulties are further compounded by the fact that Gorgias's rhetoric is frequently elusive and confusing; he makes many of his most important points using elaborate, but highly ambiguous, metaphors, similes, and puns. Many of Gorgias's propositions are also thought to be sarcastic, playful, or satirical. In his treatise On Rhetoric, Aristotle characterizes Gorgias's style of oratory as "pervasively ironic" and states that Gorgias recommended responding to seriousness with jests and to jests with seriousness. Gorgias frequently blurs the lines between serious philosophical discourse and satire, which makes it extremely difficult for scholars to tell when he is being serious and when he is merely joking. Gorgias frequently contradicts his own statements and adopts inconsistent perspectives on different issues. As a result of all these factors, Scott Porter Consigny calls him "perhaps the most elusive of the polytropic quarry hunted in Plato's Sophist.

Gorgias has been labelled "The Nihilist"   because some scholars have interpreted his thesis on "the non-existent" to be an argument against the existence of anything that is straightforwardly endorsed by Gorgias himself. According to Alan Pratt, nihilism is "the belief that all values are baseless and that nothing can be known or communicated." It is associated with pessimism and a radical skepticism that condemns existence.

Gorgias presented his nihilist arguments in On Non-Existence; however, the original text is no longer extant. We only know his arguments through commentary by Sextus Empiricus and Pseudo-Aristotle's De Melisso, Xenophane, Gorgia. Ostensibly Gorgias developed three sequential arguments: first, that nothing exists; second, that even if existence exists, it is inapprehensible to humans; and third, that even if existence is apprehensible, it certainly cannot be communicated or interpreted to one's neighbors.

That being said, there is consensus in late 20th century and early 21st century scholarship that the label 'nihilist' is misleading, in part because if his argument were genuinely meant to support nihilism it would be self-undermining. The argument, of course, is itself something, and has pretensions to communicate knowledge, in conflict with its explicit pronouncement that there is nothing and that it can't be known or communicated. Gisela Striker argues: "I find it hard to believe that anyone should ever have thought that Gorgias seriously advocated the view that nothing is and that he was, therefore, a 'nihilist.' Similarly Caston states: "Gorgias would have to be not merely disconsolate, but quite dull-witted, to have missed the conflict between his presentation and its content". Finally, Wardy says, "This sadly mistaken reading overlooks the most obvious consequence of Gorgias' paradoxologia (παραδοξολογία): his message refutes itself, and in consequence, so far from constituting a theory of logos, it confronts us with a picture of what language cannot be, with what it cannot be assumed to aspire to be." Gigon and Newiger make similar points.

Rhetorical innovation
Gorgias ushered in rhetorical innovations involving structure and ornamentation, and he introduced paradoxologia – the idea of paradoxical thought and paradoxical expression. For these advancements, Gorgias has been labeled the "father of sophistry" (Wardy 6). Gorgias is also known for contributing to the diffusion of the Attic Greek dialect as the language of literary prose. Gorgias was the first orator known to develop and teach a "distinctive style of speaking" (Matsen, Rollinson and Sousa, 33).

Gorgias' extant rhetorical works – Encomium of Helen (Ἑλένης ἐγκώμιον), Defense of Palamedes (Ὑπέρ Παλαμήδους ἀπολογία), On Non-Existence (Περὶ τοῦ μὴ ὄντος ἢ Περὶ φύσεως), and Epitaphios (Επιτάφιος) – come to us via a work entitled Technai (Τέχναι), a manual of rhetorical instruction, which may have consisted of models to be memorized and demonstrate various principles of rhetorical practice (Leitch, et al. 29). Although some scholars claim that each work presents opposing statements, the four texts can be read as interrelated contributions to the up-and-coming theory and art (technē) of rhetoric (McComiskey 32). Of Gorgias' surviving works, only the Encomium and the Defense are believed to exist in their entirety. Meanwhile, there are his own speeches, rhetorical, political, or other. A number of these are referred to and quoted by Aristotle, including a speech on Hellenic unity, a funeral oration for Athenians fallen in war, and a brief quotation from an Encomium on the Eleans. Apart from the speeches, there are paraphrases of the treatise "On Nature or the Non-Existent." These works are each part of the Diels-Kranz collection, and although academics consider this source reliable, many of the works included are fragmentary and corrupt. Questions have also been raised as to the authenticity and accuracy of the texts attributed to Gorgias (Consigny 4).

Gorgias' writings are intended to be both rhetorical (persuasive) and performative. He goes to great lengths to exhibit his ability of making an absurd, argumentative position appear stronger. Consequently, each of his works defend positions that are unpopular, paradoxical and even absurd. The performative nature of Gorgias' writings is exemplified by the way that he playfully approaches each argument with stylistic devices such as parody, artificial figuration and theatricality (Consigny 149). Gorgias' style of argumentation can be described as poetics-minus-the-meter (poiêsis-minus-meter). Gorgias argues that persuasive words have power (dunamis) that is equivalent to that of the gods and as strong as physical force. In the Encomium, Gorgias likens the effect of speech on the soul to the effect of drugs on the body: "Just as different drugs draw forth different humors from the body – some putting a stop to disease, others to life – so too with words: some cause pain, others joy, some strike fear, some stir the audience to boldness, some benumb and bewitch the soul with evil persuasion" (Gorgias 32). The Encomium "argues for the totalizing power of language."

Gorgias also believed that his "magical incantations" would bring healing to the human psyche by controlling powerful emotions. He paid particular attention to the sounds of words, which, like poetry, could captivate audiences. His florid, rhyming style seemed to hypnotize his audiences (Herrick 42).

Unlike other Sophists, such as Protagoras, Gorgias did not profess to teach arete (excellence, or, virtue). He believed that there was no absolute form of arete, but that it was relative to each situation. For example, virtue in a slave was not the same as virtue in a statesman. He believed that rhetoric, the art of persuasion, was the king of all sciences, since he saw it as a techné with which one could persuade an audience toward any course of action. While rhetoric existed in the curriculum of every Sophist, Gorgias placed more prominence upon it than any of the others.

Much debate over both the nature and value of rhetoric begins with Gorgias. Plato's dialogue Gorgias presents a counter-argument to Gorgias' embrace of rhetoric, its elegant form, and performative nature (Wardy 2). The dialogue tells the story of a debate about rhetoric, politics and justice that occurred at a dinner gathering between Socrates and a small group of Sophists. Plato attempts to show that rhetoric does not meet the requirements to actually be considered a technê but rather is a somewhat dangerous "knack" to possess, both for the orator and for his audience, because it gives the ignorant the power to seem more knowledgeable than an expert to a group.

On Non-Existence
Gorgias is the author of a lost work: On Nature or the Non-Existent (also On Non-Existence). Rather than being one of his rhetorical works, it presented a theory of being that at the same time refuted and parodied the Eleatic thesis. The original text was lost and today there remain just two paraphrases of it. The first is preserved by the Pyrrhonist philosopher Sextus Empiricus in Against the Logicians and the other by Pseudo-Aristotle, the author of On Melissus, Xenophanes, and Gorgias. Each work, however, excludes material that is discussed in the other, which suggests that each version may represent intermediary sources (Consigny 4). It is clear, however, that the work developed a skeptical argument, which has been extracted from the sources and translated as below:
 * 1) Nothing exists;
 * 2) Even if something exists, nothing can be known about it; and
 * 3) Even if something can be known about it, knowledge about it can't be communicated to others.
 * 4) Even if it can be communicated, it cannot be understood.

The argument has largely been seen as an ironic refutation of Parmenides' thesis on Being. Gorgias set out to prove that it is as easy to demonstrate that being is one, unchanging and timeless as it is to prove that being has no existence at all. Regardless of how it "has largely been seen" it seems clear that Gorgias was focused instead on the notion that true objectivity is impossible since the human mind can never be separated from its possessor.

"How can anyone communicate the idea of color by means of words since the ear does not hear colors but only sounds?" This quote was used to show his theory that 'there is nothing', 'if there were anything no one would know it', 'and if anyone did know it, no one could communicate it'. This theory, thought of in the late 5th century BC, is still being contemplated by many philosophers throughout the world. This argument has led some to label Gorgias a nihilist (one who believes nothing exists, or that the world is incomprehensible, and that the concept of truth is fictitious).

For the first main argument where Gorgias says, "there is no-thing", he tries to persuade the reader that thought and existence are not the same. By claiming that if thought and existence truly were the same, then everything that anyone thought would suddenly exist. He also attempted to prove that words and sensations could not be measured by the same standards, for even though words and sensations are both derived from the mind, they are essentially different. This is where his second idea comes into place.

Encomium of Helen

The Encomium of Helen is considered to be a good example of epideictic oratory and was supposed to have been Gorgias' "show piece or demonstration piece," which was used to attract students (Matsen, Rollinson and Sousa, 33). In their writings, Gorgias and other sophists speculated "about the structure and function of language" as a framework for expressing the implications of action and the ways decisions about such actions were made" (Jarratt 103). And this is exactly the purpose of Gorgias' Encomium of Helen. Of the three divisions of rhetoric discussed by Aristotle in his Rhetoric (forensic, deliberative, and epideictic), the Encomium can be classified as an epideictic speech, expressing praise for Helen of Troy and ridding her of the blame she faced for leaving Sparta with Paris (Wardy 26).

Helen – the proverbial "Helen of Troy" – exemplified both sexual passion and tremendous beauty for the Greeks. She was the daughter of Zeus and Leda, the Queen of Sparta, and her beauty was seen by the Trojans as the direct cause of the decade long Trojan War between Greece and Troy. The war began after the goddesses Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite asked Paris (a Trojan prince) to select who was the most beautiful of the three. Each goddess tried to influence Paris' decision, but he ultimately chose Aphrodite who then promised Paris the most beautiful woman. Paris then traveled to Greece where he was greeted by Helen and her husband Menelaus. Under the influence of Aphrodite, Helen allowed Paris to persuade her to elope with him. Together they traveled to Troy, not only sparking the war, but also a popular and literary tradition of blaming Helen for her wrongdoing. It is this tradition which Gorgias confronts in the Encomium.

The Encomium opens with Gorgias explaining that "a man, woman, speech, deed, city or action that is worthy of praise should be honored with acclaim, but the unworthy should be branded with blame" (Gorgias 30). In the speech Gorgias discusses the possible reasons for Helen's journey to Troy. He explains that Helen could have been persuaded in one of four ways: by the gods, by physical force, by love, or by speech (logos). If it were indeed the plan of the gods that caused Helen to depart for Troy, Gorgias argues that those who blame her should face blame themselves, "for a human's anticipation cannot restrain a god's inclination" (Gorgias 31). Gorgias explains that, by nature, the weak are ruled by the strong, and, since the gods are stronger than humans in all respects, Helen should be freed from her undesirable reputation. If, however, Helen was abducted by force, it is clear that the aggressor committed a crime. Thus, it should be he, not Helen, who should be blamed. And if Helen was persuaded by love, she should also be rid of ill repute because "if love is a god, with the divine power of the gods, how could a weaker person refuse and reject him? But if love is a human sickness and a mental weakness, it must not be blamed as mistake, but claimed as misfortune" (Gorgias 32). Finally, if speech persuaded Helen, Gorgias claims he can easily clear her of blame. Gorgias explains: "Speech is a powerful master and achieves the most divine feats with the smallest and least evident body. It can stop fear, relieve pain, create joy, and increase pity" (Gorgias 31). It is here that Gorgias compares the effect of speech on the mind with the effect of drugs on the body. He states that Helen has the power to "lead" many bodies in competition by using her body as a weapon (Gumpert, 74). This image of "bodies led and misled, brought together and led apart, is of paramount importance in Gorgias' speech," (Gumpert, 74).

While Gorgias primarily used metaphors and paradox, he famously used "figures of speech, or schemata" (Matsen, Rollinson and Sousa). This included balanced clauses (isocolon), the joining of contrasting ideas (antithesis), the structure of successive clauses (parison), and the repetition of word endings (homoeoteleuton) (Matsen, Rollinson and Sousa, 33). The Encomium shows Gorgias' interest in argumentation, as he makes his point by "systematically refuting a series of possible alternatives," (Matsen, Rollinson and Sousa, 33). It is an encomium of the "rhetorical craft itself, and a demonstration of its power over us," (Gumpert, 73). According to Van Hook, The Encomium of Helen abounds in "amplification and brevity, a rhythm making prose akin to poetry, bold metaphors and poetic or unusual epithets" (122).

Defense of Palamedes
In the Defense of Palamedes Gorgias describes logos as a positive instrument for creating ethical arguments (McComiskey 38). The Defense, an oration that deals with issues of morality and political commitment (Consigny 38), defends Palamedes who, in Greek mythology, is credited with the invention of the alphabet, written laws, numbers, armor, and measures and weights (McComiskey 47).

In the speech Palamedes defends himself against the charge of treason. In Greek mythology, Odysseus – in order to avoid going to Troy with Agamemnon and Menelaus to bring Helen back to Sparta – pretended to have gone mad and began sowing the fields with salt. When Palamedes threw Odysseus' son, Telemachus, in front of the plow, Odysseus avoided him, demonstrating that he was sane. Odysseus, who never forgave Palamedes for making him reveal himself, later accused Palamedes of betraying the Greeks to the Trojans. Soon after, Palamedes was condemned and killed (Jarratt 58).

In this epideictic speech, like the Encomium, Gorgias is concerned with experimenting with how plausible arguments can cause conventional truths to be doubted (Jarratt 59). Throughout the text, Gorgias presents a method for composing logical (logos), ethical (ethos) and emotional (pathos) arguments from possibility, which are similar to those described by Aristotle in Rhetoric. These types of arguments about motive and capability presented in the Defense are later described by Aristotle as forensic topoi. Gorgias demonstrates that in order to prove that treason had been committed, a set of possible occurrences also need to be established. In the Defense these occurrences are as follows: communication between Palamedes and the enemy, exchange of a pledge in the form of hostages or money, and not being detected by guards or citizens. In his defense, Palamedes claims that a small sum of money would not have warranted such a large undertaking and reasons that a large sum of money, if indeed such a transaction had been made, would require the aid of many confederates in order for it to be transported. Palamedes reasons further that such an exchange could neither have occurred at night because the guards would be watching, nor in the day because everyone would be able to see. Palamedes continues, explaining that if the aforementioned conditions were, in fact, arranged then action would need to follow. Such action needed to take place either with or without confederates; however, if these confederates were free men then they were free to disclose any information they desired, but if they were slaves there was a risk of their voluntarily accusing to earn freedom, or accusing by force when tortured. Slaves, Palamedes says, are untrustworthy. Palamedes goes on to list a variety of possible motives, all of which he proves false.

Through the Defense Gorgias demonstrates that a motive requires an advantage such as status, wealth, honour, and security, and insists that Palamedes lacked a motive (McComiskey 47–49).

Epitaphios (or the Athenian funeral oration)
This text is considered to be an important contribution to the genre of epitaphios. During the 5th and 4th centuries BC, such funeral orations were delivered by well-known orators during public burial ceremonies in Athens, whereby those who died in wars were honoured. Gorgias' text provides a clever critique of 5th century propagandist rhetoric in imperial Athens and is the basis for Plato's parody, Menexenus (Consigny 2).

In antiquity
Plato was one of Gorgias' greatest critics and a student of Socrates. Plato's dislike for sophistic doctrines is well known, and it is in his eponymous dialogue that both Gorgias himself as well as his rhetorical beliefs are ridiculed (McComiskey 17).

In his dialogue Gorgias, Plato distinguishes between philosophy and rhetoric, characterizing Gorgias as a shallow, opportunistic orator who entertains his audience with his eloquent words and who believes that it is unnecessary to learn the truth about actual matters when one has discovered the art of persuasion. In the dialogue, Gorgias responds to one of Socrates' statements as follows: "Rhetoric is the only area of expertise you need to learn. You can ignore all the rest and still get the better of the professionals!" (Plato 24).

Gorgias, whose On Non-Existence is taken to be critical of the Eleatic tradition and its founder Parmenides, describes philosophy as a type of seduction, but he does not deny philosophy entirely, giving some respect to philosophers.

Plato answers Gorgias by reaffirming the Parmenidean ideal that being is the basic substance and reality of which all things are composed, insisting that philosophy is a dialectic distinct from and superior to rhetoric (Wardy 52).

Aristotle also criticizes Gorgias, labeling him a mere Sophist whose primary goal is to make money by appearing wise and clever, thus deceiving the public by means of misleading or sophistic arguments.

Despite these negative portrayals, Gorgias's style of rhetoric was highly influential. Gorgias's Defense of Helen influenced Euripides's Helen and his Defense of Palamedes influenced the development of western dicanic argument, including possibly even Plato's version of the Apology of Socrates.

Modern reception
For almost all of western history, Gorgias has been a marginalized and obscure figure in both philosophical thought and culture at large. In the nineteenth century, however, writers such as the German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831) and the English classicist George Grote (1794–1871) began to work to "rehabilitate" Gorgias and the other Sophists from their longstanding reputation as unscrupulous charlatans who taught people how to persuade others using rhetoric for unjust causes. As early as 1872, the English philosopher Henry Sidgwick (1838–1900) was already calling this the "old view". Modern sources continue to affirm that the old stereotype of the Sophists is not accurate.

Since the late twentieth century, scholarly interest in Gorgias has increased dramatically and the amount of research conducted on him is even beginning to rival the research on his more traditionally popular contemporary Parmenides. Gorgias's distinctive writing style, filled with antithesis and figurative language, has been seen as foreshadowing the later development of Menippean satire, as well as, in more recent times, the mannerist, grotesque, and carnivalesque genres. Several scholars have even argued that Gorgias's thoughts on the nature of knowledge, language, and truth foreshadow the views of modern philosophers such as Martin Heidegger, Jacques Derrida, Ludwig Wittgenstein, A. J. Ayer, Amélie Rorty, and Stanley Fish. Nonetheless, many academic philosophers still ridicule any efforts to portray Gorgias as a serious thinker.

title: Gorgias


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Mnevis

Mnevis (Μνέυις, ⲉⲙⲛⲉⲩⲓ) is the Hellenized name of an ancient Egyptian bull god which had its centre of worship at Heliopolis, and was known to the ancient Egyptians as Mer-wer or Nem-wer.

Although initially a separate god, it was later assimilated to the syncretized god Atum-Ra as his physical manifestation, and also considered as the ba of Ra. Mnevis is often depicted as a black bull wearing a solar disk and uraeus. As reported by Plutarch, the Mnevis bull was second only to the Memphite Apis bull in importance. Similarly to the Apis bull, the Mnevis bull's movements were thought to be driven by divine will, and used as an oracle. The priesthood of Mnevis also went as far as to claim that Mnevis was none other than the father of the more famous Apis.

The Mnevis bull was entitled to two concubines, more precisely two cows representing Hathor and Iusaaset. When the bull died, he was embalmed and buried with all honours in a dedicated necropolis which was located not far from the temple at Heliopolis. Another burial ground was reserved for the so-called Mothers of Mnevis, which were considered the embodiment of the cow-goddess Hesat. After a Mnevis bull's death a replacement for him was sought, usually a completely black bull. There was only ever one Mnevis bull at a time.

The cult of Mnevis was among the very few to be tolerated during the "Amarna heresy" of King Akhenaten, probably because of its solar attributes. It is known that Akhenaten ordered the construction of a necropolis for Mnevis bulls in Akhetaten, although it has not yet been found.

title: Mnevis


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Anarcho-primitivism

Anarcho-primitivism, also known as anti-civilization anarchism, is an anarchist critique of civilization that advocates a return to non-civilized ways of life through deindustrialization, abolition of the division of labor or specialization, abandonment of large-scale organization and all technology other than prehistoric technology and the dissolution of agriculture. Anarcho-primitivists critique the origins and alleged progress of the Industrial Revolution and industrial society. According to anarcho-primitivists, the shift from hunter-gatherer to agricultural subsistence during the Neolithic Revolution gave rise to coercion, social alienation, and social stratification.

Anarcho-primitivism argues that civilization is at the root of societal and environmental problems. Primitivists also consider domestication, technology and language to cause social alienation from "authentic reality". As a result, they propose the abolition of civilization and a return to a hunter-gatherer lifestyle.

Roots
The roots of primitivism lay in Enlightenment philosophy and the critical theory of the Frankfurt School. The early-modern philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau blamed agriculture and cooperation for the development of social inequality and causing habitat destruction. In his Discourse on Inequality, Rousseau depicted the state of nature as a "primitivist utopia"; however, he stopped short of advocating a return to it. Instead, he called for political institutions to be recreated anew, in harmony with nature and without the artificiality of modern civilization. Later, critical theorist Max Horkheimer argued that Environmental degradation stemmed directly from social oppression, which had vested all value in labor and consequently caused widespread alienation.

Development
The modern school of anarcho-primitivism was primarily developed by John Zerzan, whose work was released at a time when green anarchist theories of social and deep ecology were beginning to attract interest. Primitivism, as outlined in Zerzan's work, first gained popularity as enthusiasm in deep ecology began to wane.

Zerzan claimed that pre-civilization societies were inherently superior to modern civilization and that the move towards agriculture and the increasing use of technology had resulted in the alienation and oppression of humankind. Zerzan argued that under civilization, humans and other species have undergone domestication, which stripped them of their agency and subjected them to control by capitalism. He also claimed that language, mathematics and art had caused alienation, as they replaced "authentic reality" with an abstracted representation of reality. In order to counteract such issues, Zerzan proposed that humanity return to a state of nature, which he believed would increase social equality and individual autonomy by abolishing private property, organized violence and the division of labour.

Primitivist thinker Paul Shepard also criticized domestication, which he believed had devalued non-human life and reduced human life to their labor and property. Other primitivist authors have drawn different conclusions to Zerzan on the origins of alienation, with John Fillis blaming technology and Richard Heinberg claiming it to be a result of addiction psychology.

Adoption and practice
Primitivist ideas were taken up by the eco-terrorist Ted Kaczynski, although he has been repeatedly criticised for his violent means by more pacifistic anarcho-primitivists, who instead advocate for non-violent forms of direct action. Primitivist concepts have also taken root within the philosophy of deep ecology, inspiring the direct actions of groups such as Earth First!. Another radical environmentalist group, the Earth Liberation Front (ELF), was directly influenced by anarcho-primitivism and its calls for rewilding.

s
A common criticism is of hypocrisy, i.e. that people rejecting civilization typically maintain a civilized lifestyle themselves, often while still using the very industrial technology that they oppose in order to spread their message. Activist writer Derrick Jensen counters that this criticism merely resorts to an ad hominem argument, attacking individuals but not the actual validity of their beliefs. He further responds that working to entirely avoid such hypocrisy is ineffective, self-serving, and a convenient misdirection of activist energies. Primitivist John Zerzan admits that living with this hypocrisy is a necessary evil for continuing to contribute to the larger intellectual conversation.

Wolfi Landstreicher and Jason McQuinn, post-leftists, have both criticized the romanticized exaggerations of indigenous societies and the pseudoscientific (and even mystical) appeal to nature they perceive in anarcho-primitivist ideology and deep ecology.

Ted Kaczynski also argued that certain anarcho-primitivists have exaggerated the short working week of primitive society, arguing that they only examine the process of food extraction and not the processing of food, creation of fire and childcare, which adds up to over 40 hours a week.

title: Anarcho-primitivism


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Talk:Babadag

= Comments = The main article picture (and also the one entitled ”Northern access road” from the gallery) is not from Babadag, Romania. They are from Babadag, Turkey (see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babada%C4%9F,_Denizli)

Name
Is it Babatag or Babadag? The article title reads Babatag. -- JeLuF 21:37 Oct 2, 2002 (UTC)

 * It's Babadag. Bogdan | Talk 09:44, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

title: Talk:Babadag


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Nunet

nunet was a global provider of mobile and IPTV video management technologies for broadcasters, media brands and Mobile Network Operators. The Mobile TV CMS product provides broadcasters with the ability to aggregate, encode, optimise and schedule live, looped and VOD channels for broadcast to mobile devices and IPTV platforms. The company's Mobile TV CMS is in use by a wide range of Mobile Network Operators globally to include the Vodafone Group, Vodacom, SFR, Proximus and Mobilkom A1; distributing content from a wide range of broadcasters and producers to include Eurosport, MTV, Discovery and Fashion TV. Founded in 1997, nunet AG was acquired by IMG (business) in 2006 and later in 2009 by KIT Digital, Inc. and was based in Cologne, Germany and London, UK.

title: Nunet