Category: Essays

Dear family and friends,

I have forgotten to write you a letter with things here so busy. Just to let you know, I have chosen to become a blacksmith and it is a vital job in the Jamestown colony. It’s a demanding occupation, but also a well-paying one. When I’m not at work, I enjoy smoking tobacco from my old pipe, playing dice with my fellow cronies, and whistling from an instrument I made out of wood. Once stumbling across this territory along the James River, I have been eating a different diet from at home. My favorite foods include raccoon, tortoises, and the sturgeons just to name a few. Other foods I enjoy include oysters, gulls, herons, and rays. In case you were wondering why I have come to Jamestown, it’s because I feel the need for adventure. I want to strike it rich and find gold here and also discover a water route to eastern Asia. Furthermore, there are many different things you need to know about the colony.

Agent Orange was the code name for a militarily developed herbicide mainly used in Southeast Asian jungles.  Although the genesis of the product goes back to the 1940’s, serious testing for this herbicide did not begin until the early 1960’s.   “Agent Orange”, named after the broad orange band used to mark the drums it was stored in, was tested in Vietnam in the early 1960’s and was then brought into ever widening use during the height of the war in 1967-68.  The campaign to spray defoliants in Vietnam was known as Operation Ranch Hand.  Beginning in 1962 and ending in 1971, Operation Ranch Hand sprayed over 18 million gallons of herbicide affecting over 5.5 million acres of land.  The effects of Agent Orange can still be seen today, a devastating scar engraved in the veterans and civilians of the Vietnam War and on Mother Nature, herself.

In this book, McClellan and Dorn explore the history of science and technology.  The first three chapters span the period from the Neolithic Era to the Egyptian Kingdom and assorted civilizations in between.  Technology in the Paleolithic and Neolithic eras was of great cultural and sociological importance to early humans.  Science, on the other hand, according to McClellan and Dorn, was essentially nonexistent until after the Neolithic Era.

Greek mythology is brought through a wide history in the form of word of mouth and the words of poets during festivals. Many Greeks learned about the gods by these sources and their mythology was connected with every feature of their lives. Greek myths are the only things left from the religion and were carried on by followers who told them. The people of Crete believed every natural object had a spirit and that fetishes had special magical powers. These beliefs were made into a set of legends, which only some survived to produce classical Greek mythology. Different parts of a house were dedicated to a certain god, where people would worship and since cities honored one or a group of gods, they built temples for them and held festivals. Some people of the Greek culture have proposed explanations for how Greek mythology developed. They included Euhemerus, Prodicus of Ceos, and Herodotus. They said that myths were “distortions of history and gods were heroes who had been glorified over time; gods were personifications of natural phenomena, such as the sun moon, winds, and water; and Greek rituals were inherited from the Egyptians.” (said in order of names) (1)  This religion’s history greatly affects the way that Greek myths are told and how they explain how everything is the way it is now.

China

A coffin is a case in which a corpse is buried. The Egyptian’s coffins were often very elaborately decorated.  Red, brown, yellow, blue, and turquoise are all on the coffins at the Rosicrucian Museum.  These coffins are filled with writing inside and outside.  I noticed that all the writing was done in black.  On the bottom of one of the coffins feet are painted.  Each coffin has a different face painted.  The personal characteristics of the one who died are painted.  This way each coffin is different.

A sarcophagus is where the coffin is placed for burial.