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210-502: Like many countries' heraldry, there is a classical influence within English heraldry, such as designs originally on Greek and Roman pottery. Many coats of arms feature charges related to the bearer's name or profession (e.g. Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon (The Queen Mother), depicting bows quartered with a lion ), a practice known as " canting arms ". Representations in person of Saints or other figure are very rare, although there are however

420-507: A Golden Hind support the shield and reflect both the original and later, better known, name of Sir Francis Drake 's ship. The crest contains the Latin motto Indagate Fingite Invenite ('Explore Dream Discover'), a quote from Mark Twain , reflecting the university's ambitions for its students and Plymouth's history of great seafarers. In the arms of Cranfield University (prepared by Sir Colin Cole ,

630-644: A mother goddess . Hayden argues the fertility charm interpretation is most parsimonious; Venus figurines are often found alongside other apparent fertility objects, such as phallic representations, and that secular interpretations in particular are implausible for such widespread objects. He similarly disagrees with the goddess symbolism, as seen in feminist anthropology , on the basis that contemporary hunter-gatherers that venerate female fertility often lack actual matriarchal structures. Indeed, in more recent hunter-gatherer societies, secret societies venerating female fertility are occasionally restricted to men. Contra

840-536: A 'strongman' was often the best solution. Athens fell under a tyranny in the second half of the 6th century BC. When this tyranny was ended, the Athenians founded the world's first democracy as a radical solution to prevent the aristocracy regaining power. A citizens' assembly (the Ecclesia ), for the discussion of city policy, had existed since the reforms of Draco in 621 BC; all citizens were permitted to attend after

1050-495: A coalition of 31 Greek city states, including Athens and Sparta, determined to resist the Persian invaders. At the same time, Greek Sicily was invaded by a Carthaginian force. In 480 BC, the first major battle of the invasion was fought at Thermopylae , where a small rearguard of Greeks, led by three hundred Spartans, held a crucial pass guarding the heart of Greece for several days; at the same time Gelon , tyrant of Syracuse, defeated

1260-767: A conspicuously high rate of evidence of modification compared to the bones of other birds. They then proposed some "Cult of the Sun Bird" where the golden eagle was a symbol of power. H. s. sapiens emerged in Africa as early as 300,000 years ago. In the Middle Paleolithic, particularly its first couple hundred thousand years, the archaeological record of H. s. sapiens is barely distinguishable from their Neanderthal and H. heidelbergensis contemporaries. Though these first H. s. sapiens demonstrated some ability to construct shelter, use pigments, and collect artifacts, they yet lacked

1470-596: A council of elders (the Gerousia ) and magistrates specifically appointed to watch over the kings (the Ephors ). Only free, land-owning, native born men could be citizens entitled to the full protection of the law in a city-state. In most city-states, unlike the situation in Rome , social prominence did not allow special rights. Sometimes families controlled public religious functions, but this ordinarily did not give any extra power in

1680-514: A decisive victory, and in 447 lost Boeotia again. Athens and Sparta signed the Thirty Years' Peace in the winter of 446/5, ending the conflict. Despite the treaty, Athenian relations with Sparta declined again in the 430s, and in 431 BC the Peloponnesian War began. The first phase of the war saw a series of fruitless annual invasions of Attica by Sparta, while Athens successfully fought

1890-562: A few uses, mostly originating from seals , where there have never been such limitations. Although many places have dropped such iconography, the Metropolitan Borough of St Marylebone , London , includes a rendering of the Virgin Mary, although this is never stated. This is also the case in many other examples, particularly those depicting Christ, to remove religious complications. Unlike in mainland Europe where armorial achievements make

2100-435: A fish stew have been unearthed from some graves. Burial practices themselves varied heavily. Bodies might be buried whole, or partially dismembered before burial; in some cases, animals were found in graves alongside humans, such as deer, pigs, and cats. Bodies were often covered in ochre. The context of Mesolithic burial is unclear; though some have argued these burials were reserved for prestigious individuals, others think just

2310-554: A general increase of interest in heraldry. This was caused by a number of factors, including the creation of the Order of the Bath in 1725, and grants of arms to its members, augmentations for honour granted to successful military commanders in the Peninsular and Napoleonic wars , and the rise in popularity of name and arms clauses. The medieval period, and with it heraldry, also became popular as

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2520-436: A group of city-states allied themselves to defend Greece, the vast majority of poleis remained neutral, and after the Persian defeat, the allies quickly returned to infighting. Thus, the major peculiarities of the ancient Greek political system were its fragmented nature (and that this does not particularly seem to have tribal origin), and the particular focus on urban centers within otherwise tiny states. The peculiarities of

2730-488: A hypothesis driven by the common finding of cave bear remains around Neanderthal habitats and by the frequency of such worship amongst cold-dwelling hunter-gatherer societies. Cave excavations throughout the twentieth century found copious bear remains in and around Neanderthal habitats, including stacked skulls, bear bones around human graves, and patterns of skeletal remains consistent with animal skin displays. Other archaeologists, such as Ina Wunn  [ de ] , find

2940-436: A job but to become an effective citizen. Girls also learned to read, write and do simple arithmetic so they could manage the household. They almost never received education after childhood. Prehistoric religions Prehistoric religion is the religious practice of prehistoric cultures. Prehistory, the period before written records, makes up the bulk of human experience; over 99% of human experience occurred during

3150-595: A lack of creativity or supernatural comprehension, that Neanderthal-associated archaeological findings are too quickly ascribed religious motive, and that the genetic and neurological remnants of Neanderthal skeletons do not permit the cognitive complexity required for religion. While the Neanderthals dominated Europe, Middle Paleolithic H. s. sapiens ruled Africa. Middle Paleolithic H. s. sapiens , like its Neanderthal contemporaries, bears little obvious trace of religious practice. The art, tools, and stylistic practice of

3360-702: A large use of their eponymous Saints, these are few and far between in England. The lion is the most common charge, particularly in Royal heraldry. Heraldic roses are also common in English heraldry, as in the War of the Roses where both houses, Lancaster and York, used them, and in the ensuing Tudor dynasty. The heraldic eagle , while common on the European continent and particularly in Germany ,

3570-438: A learning style where orthopraxy dominated in thought, life, and culture. This is contrasted with prehistoric H. s. sapiens religious ritual, which is understood as an extension of art, culture, and intellectual curiosity. Archaeologists such as Brian Hayden interpret Neanderthal burial as suggestive of both belief in an afterlife and of ancestor worship . Hayden also interprets Neanderthals as engaging in bear worship ,

3780-454: A lifecycle based around rites of passage. From the finding of places that may have been dedicated birthing huts , it appears that Mesolithic people shared the assumption of some more modern hunter-gatherers that birth was a spiritually dangerous experience, and that heavily pregnant women needed to be secluded from society for the wellbeing of both parties. Nonetheless, the archaeological findings thought to have been birthing huts are disputed; it

3990-512: A local church , cathedral or diocese , such as the arms of Watford Borough Council which feature the arms of the Diocese of St. Albans . Similarly they can also feature the arms of a local patron Saint, as in the arms of St. Edmundsbury Borough Council which features the coat of arms of Saint Edmund . Another example is the use of the rose, the symbol of the Virgin Mary . Others are derived from

4200-413: A lozenge while they are unmarried. The wife of an armigerous man may bear her husband's arms alone on a shield or banner differenced by a small lozenge. If she bears arms in her own right, while she is married, a woman may marshal (combine) her or her father's arms with her husband's on a single shield, normally by impalement . Upon becoming a widow, a woman may bear her late husband's arms alone on

4410-460: A lozenge, oval or similar vehicle of display, differenced by a lozenge and if she bears arms in her own right, returns to bearing her father's arms upon a lozenge, though now impaled with her late husband's arms. Her husband's arms are borne on the dexter side and her father's arms on the sinister side. The royal coat of arms is the official coat of arms of the British monarch . These arms are used by

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4620-467: A minority as such, preferring more mundane functions for the majority. The study of religious art in the Upper Paleolithic focuses in particular on cave art —referred to alternatively by some writers (such as David S. Whitley ) as "rock art", as not all of it was produced on cave walls rather than rock formations elsewhere. Cave art is frequently conceptualised as a tool of shamanism. This model,

4830-501: A representation of the Garter behind the shield. Children and male-line grandchildren of a monarch are usually granted their own coats of arms. Although many are given peerage titles named for places in Wales or Scotland, the royal family follows English heraldic tradition; indeed, most coats of arms of the royal family are based on the royal arms as described above. The Heraldic Visitations of

5040-745: A result of Epaminondas ' liberation of Messenia from Spartan rule, the helot system there came to an end and the helots won their freedom. However, it did continue to persist in Laconia until the 2nd century BC. For most of Greek history, education was private, except in Sparta. During the Hellenistic period, some city-states established public schools . Only wealthy families could afford a teacher. Boys learned how to read, write and quote literature. They also learned to sing and play one musical instrument and were trained as athletes for military service. They studied not for

5250-638: A result of the Romantic movement and Gothic revival . Heraldry in England is heavily regulated by the College of Arms , who issue the arms. A person can be issued the arms themselves, but the college fields many requests from people attempting to demonstrate descent from an armigerous (arms-bearing) person; a person descended in the male line (or through heraldic heiresses ) from such an ancestor may be reissued that ancestor's arms (with differencing marks if necessary to distinguish from senior-line cousins). To that end,

5460-401: A rich imagination or the level of intelligence of modern humans", he discusses the findings of Homo heidelbergensis bones at Sima de los Huesos and the evidence stretching from Germany to China for cannibal practices amongst Lower Paleolithic humans. A number of skulls found in archaeological excavations of Lower Paleolithic sites across diverse regions have had significant proportions of

5670-558: A sense of moral responsibility. Though the emergence of ritual in H. erectus "should not be understood as the full flowering of religious capacity", it marked a qualitative and quantitative change to its forebears. An area of particular scholarly interest is the evidence base for cannibalism and ritual mutilation amongst H. erectus . Skulls found in Java and at the Chinese Zhoukoudian archaeological site bear evidence of tampering with

5880-489: A significant proportion are circumcised , dating the origin of that practice to the era. Sculptures of animals are also recorded, as are sculptures that appear to be part-human and part-animal. The latter especially are deemed spiritually significant and possibly shamanistic in intent, representing the transformation of their subjects in the spirit realm. Other interpretations of therianthropic sculpture include ancestor figures, totems, and gods. Though fully human sculptures in

6090-410: A significant proportion young or disabled, and many buried in shared tombs. They are frequently posed in unusual positions and buried with rich grave goods. Taylor supposes many of these dead were human sacrifices , excluded from the ordinary means of body disposal (he presumes cannibalism) and warded by talismans. Hayden rather speculates these were shamans or otherwise people whose religious prominence

6300-546: A single pendant made of stone laid on his chest. Two children or young teenagers were additionally interred near him; their bodies were similarly decorated, with thousands of mammoth ivory beads, antlers, mammoth-shaped ivory carvings, and ochre-covered bones of other humans. The children had abnormal skeletons, with one having short bowed legs and the other an unusual facial structure. Burials so elaborate clearly suggest some concept of an afterlife and are similar to shaman burials in cultures described in written records. Burial

6510-516: A special type of slaves called helots . Helots were Messenians enslaved en masse during the Messenian Wars by the state and assigned to families where they were forced to stay. Helots raised food and did household chores so that women could concentrate on raising strong children while men could devote their time to training as hoplites . Their masters treated them harshly, and helots revolted against their masters several times. In 370/69 BC, as

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6720-506: A spiritual revolution and others as simply the beginning of the beginning. While the full significance of these changes is difficult to discern, they clearly map to an advance in cognitive capacity in the directions that would eventually lead to religion. The Middle Paleolithic was the era of coterminous Neanderthal and H. s. sapiens ( anatomically modern human ) habitation. H. s. sapiens originated in Africa and Neanderthals in Eurasia; over

6930-441: A taxonomic problem. The classification of Neanderthals, a close relative of anatomically modern humans, as Homo neanderthalensis or Homo sapiens neanderthalensis is a decades-long matter of dispute. Neanderthals and H. s. sapiens were able to interbreed, a trait associated with membership in the same species, and around 2% of the modern human genome is composed of Neanderthal DNA. However, strong negative selection existed against

7140-577: A team at the French National Centre for Scientific Research published their analysis that the markings were intentionally made and possibly held symbolic significance. The archaeological record preserves Neanderthal associations with red pigments and quartz crystals. Hayden states "it is inconceivable to me that early hunting and gathering groups would have been painting images or decorating their bodies without some kind of symbolic or religious framework for such activities"; he draws comparison to

7350-416: A veneration of spirits or deities, but rather a bonding and social ritual that would later evolve into supernatural faith. In 2019 Gibraltarian palaeoanthropologists Stewart, Geraldine and Clive Finlayson and Spanish archaeologist Francisco Guzmán speculated that the golden eagle had iconic value to Neanderthals, as exemplified in some modern human societies because they reported that golden eagle bones had

7560-690: A war with the Roman Republic in the late 3rd century. Although the First Macedonian War was inconclusive, the Romans, in typical fashion, continued to fight Macedon until it was completely absorbed into the Roman Republic (by 149 BC). In the east, the unwieldy Seleucid Empire gradually disintegrated, although a rump survived until 64 BC, whilst the Ptolemaic Kingdom continued in Egypt until 30 BC when it too

7770-669: A year, the Thirty had been overthrown. The first half of the fourth century saw the major Greek states attempt to dominate the mainland; none were successful, and their resulting weakness led to a power vacuum which would eventually be filled by Macedon under Philip II and then Alexander the Great. In the immediate aftermath of the Peloponnesian war, Sparta attempted to extend their own power, leading Argos, Athens, Corinth, and Thebes to join against them. Aiming to prevent any single Greek state gaining

7980-428: Is a broad term referring to a range of spiritual experiences, practised at many times in many places. Broadly speaking, it refers to spiritual practice involving altered states of consciousness , where practitioners render themselves in ecstatic or extreme psychological states in order to commune with spirits or deities. The study of prehistoric shamanism is controversial—so controversial that people debating each side of

8190-405: Is also connected, by analogy with modern hunter-gatherers, to initiation rituals; a painting that depicts an animal to most members of a tribe may have a deeper symbolic meaning to those involved in smaller secret societies . Comparative evidence for this form of cave art is difficult to gather, as secret societies by definition do not share their nature with outsider anthropologists. In some cases,

8400-430: Is also curious about the emergence of cave art towards the very end of the Middle Paleolithic, where drawings and traces of red ochre finally emerge 50,000 years ago; this art, the first remnants of true human creativity, would usher in the Upper Paleolithic and the birth of complex religion. The emergence of the Upper Paleolithic c. 40,000–50,000 years ago was a time of explosive development. The Upper Paleolithic saw

8610-465: Is debated. Herodotus was succeeded by authors such as Thucydides , Xenophon , Demosthenes , Plato and Aristotle . Most were either Athenian or pro-Athenian, which is why far more is known about the history and politics of Athens than of many other cities. Their scope is further limited by a focus on political, military and diplomatic history, ignoring economic and social history. The archaic period, lasting from approximately 800 to 500 BC, saw

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8820-706: Is even more enraptured by the Botswanan Tsodilo —sacred to modern hunter-gatherers—which primarily houses Upper Paleolithic paintings and artifacts, but has objects stretching back far earlier. Middle Paleolithic spearheads have been found in Tsodilo's Rhino Cave, many of which were distinctly painted and some of which had apparently travelled long distances with nomadic hunter-gatherers. Rhino Cave presents unusual rock formations that modern hunter-gatherers understand as spiritually significant, and Wightman hypothesises this sense may have been shared by their earliest forebears. He

9030-606: Is evident even in the appointment of the heralds themselves—Sir John Vanbrugh , a prominent dramatist and architect who knew nothing of heraldry, was appointed to the office of Clarenceux King of Arms , the second-highest office in the College of Arms. No new grants were made between November 1704 and June 1707. The situation slowly improved throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, with the number of new grants per year slowly rising—14 in 1747, 40 in 1784 and 82 in 1884. These numbers reflect an increasing geographical spread in grantees, due to

9240-481: Is frequently seen through the lenses of sympathetic magic and ritual healing. Sculptures found in Siberia have been analysed through such an understanding by comparison to more recent Siberian hunter-gatherers, who made figurines while ill to represent and ward off those illnesses. Venus figurines are not alone in terms of sexually explicit Paleolithic sculpture; around a hundred phallic representations are known, of which

9450-522: Is known from much more fragmentary documents such as annals, king lists, and pragmatic epigraphy . Herodotus is widely known as the "father of history": his Histories are eponymous of the entire field . Written between the 450s and 420s BC, Herodotus' work reaches about a century into the past, discussing 6th century BC historical figures such as Darius I of Persia , Cambyses II and Psamtik III , and alluding to some 8th century BC persons such as Candaules . The accuracy of Herodotus' works

9660-452: Is mountainous, and as a result, ancient Greece consisted of many smaller regions, each with its own dialect, cultural peculiarities, and identity. Regionalism and regional conflicts were prominent features of ancient Greece. Cities tended to be located in valleys between mountains, or on coastal plains, and dominated a certain area around them. In the south lay the Peloponnese , consisting of

9870-446: Is one of the major ways archaeologists understand past societies; in the words of Timothy Taylor , "there can be no clearer a priori demonstration of ritual in past societies than the archaeological uncovery of a formal human burial". Upper Paleolithic burials do not appear to represent an ordinary cross-section of the population. Rather, their subjects are unusual and extravagant. Three-quarters of Upper Paleolithic burials were of men,

10080-541: Is possible their spiritual significance was broader, as a place where people who died young in general would be buried separate from the older dead. Later in life, Anders Fischer argues for the existence of a coming-of-age ritual amongst males—perhaps circumcision—connected to the use of flint blades. The bulk of modern understanding of Mesolithic religion comes from burial practices. Mesolithic Scandinavian burial rites are relatively well-reconstructed. The dead were buried with grave goods, notably including food; remnants of

10290-487: Is quartered, depicting in the first and fourth quarters the three lions passant guardant of England ; in the second, the rampant lion and double tressure flory-counter-flory of Scotland ; and in the third, a harp for Ireland . The crest is a lion statant guardant wearing the Tudor crown , itself standing upon another representation of that crown. The dexter supporter is a likewise crowned lion , symbolizing England ;

10500-571: Is relatively rare in English heraldry and, in early English heraldry, was often associated with alliances with German princes. The coat of arms of Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick , pictured on the left, uses almost all typical forms of heraldry in England: The first quarter consists of his father-in-law, Richard Beauchamp , who bore with an escutcheon of De Clare quartering Despenser , now shown in Neville's fourth quarter. The second quarter shows

10710-412: Is seldom seen. Stranger Knights and Ladies do not embellish the arms they use in their countries with English decorations. Knights and Ladies Companion are also entitled to receive heraldic supporters , a privilege granted to few other private individuals. While some families claim supporters by ancient use, and others have been granted them as a special reward, only peers, Knights and Ladies Companion of

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10920-522: Is speculative, and the Lower Paleolithic in particular has no clear evidence of religious practice. Not even the loosest evidence for ritual exists prior to 500,000 years before the present, though archaeologist Gregory J. Wightman notes the limits of the archaeological record means their practice cannot be thoroughly ruled out. The early hominins of the Lower Paleolithic—an era well before

11130-462: Is speculative, and hard evidence for religious practice exists only amongst Upper Paleolithic H. s. sapiens . Though Hayden and to some degree Pettitt take a spiritualised interpretation of Neanderthal culture, these interpretations are unclear at best; as Pettitt says, "the very real possibility exists that religion sensu stricto is a unique characteristic of symbolically and linguistically empowered Homo sapiens ". Other writers, such as Wunn, find

11340-502: Is that it was oriented around goddess worship. Feminist analyses of prehistoricism interpret findings such as the Venus figurines as suggestive of fully realised goddesses. Marija Gimbutas argued that, as evinced by Eurasian Venus figurines, the predominant deity in Paleolithic and Neolithic religion throughout Europe was a goddess with later subservient male deities. She supposed this religion

11550-588: Is that of Sungir 1, a middle-aged man buried at the Russian Sungir site. In good physical health at the time of his death, Sungir 1 seems to have been killed by human weaponry, an incision on his remains matching that which would be produced by contemporary stone blades. The body was doused in ochre, particularly around the head and neck, and adorned with ivory bead jewellery of around 3,000 beads. Twelve fox canine teeth surrounded his forehead, while twenty-five arm bands made of mammoth ivory were worn on his arms, and

11760-475: Is unclear exactly how this change occurred. For instance, in Athens, the kingship had been reduced to a hereditary, lifelong chief magistracy ( archon ) by c. 1050 BC; by 753 BC this had become a decennial, elected archonship; and finally by 683 BC an annually elected archonship. Through each stage, more power would have been transferred to the aristocracy as a whole, and away from a single individual. Inevitably,

11970-485: The AL 333 fossils, a group of Australopithecus afarensis found together near Hadar, Ethiopia , as perhaps deliberately moved to the area as a mortuary practice. Later Lower Paleolithic remains have also been interpreted as bearing associations of funerary rites, particularly cannibalism. Though archaeologist Kit W. Wesler states "there is no evidence in the Lower Paleolithic of the kind of cultural elaboration that would imply

12180-753: The Archaic period , the Greek population grew beyond the capacity of the limited arable land of Greece proper, resulting in the large-scale establishment of colonies elsewhere: according to one estimate, the population of the widening area of Greek settlement increased roughly tenfold from 800 BC to 400 BC, from 800,000 to as many as 7 + 1 ⁄ 2 -10 million. This was not simply for trade, but also to found settlements. These Greek colonies were not, as Roman colonies were, dependent on their mother-city, but were independent city-states in their own right. Greeks settled outside of Greece in two distinct ways. The first

12390-670: The Battle of Aegospotami , and began to blockade Athens' harbour; driven by hunger, Athens sued for peace, agreeing to surrender their fleet and join the Spartan-led Peloponnesian League. Following the Athenian surrender, Sparta installed an oligarchic regime, the Thirty Tyrants , in Athens, one of a number of Spartan-backed oligarchies which rose to power after the Peloponnesian war. Spartan predominance did not last: after only

12600-564: The Delian League gradually transformed from a defensive alliance of Greek states into an Athenian empire, as Athens' growing naval power intimidated the other league states. Athens ended its campaigns against Persia in 450, after a disastrous defeat in Egypt in 454, and the death of Cimon in action against the Persians on Cyprus in 450. As the Athenian fight against the Persian empire waned, conflict grew between Athens and Sparta. Suspicious of

12810-628: The Falcon King of Arms , a position created under King Edward III . Other positions were created for important counties, such as the Lancastrian King of Arms , but the balance of power between them and those charged with larger regions remains unclear. During the Tudor period, grants of arms were made for significant contributions to the country by one of the Herald and Kings of Arms in a standard format, as in

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13020-626: The Greco-Persian Wars to the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC, and which included the Golden Age of Athens and the Peloponnesian War . The unification of Greece by Macedon under Philip II and subsequent conquest of the Achaemenid Empire by Alexander the Great spread Hellenistic civilization across the Middle East. The Hellenistic Period is considered to have ended in 30 BC, when

13230-619: The Lower and Middle Paleolithic "belongs to the realm of legend". In early research, Australopithecus , the first hominins to emerge in the fossil record , were thought to have sophisticated hunting patterns. These hunting patterns were extrapolated from those of modern hunter-gatherers, and in turn anthropologists and archaeologists pattern-matched Australopithecus and peers to the complex ritual surrounding such hunts. These assumptions were later disproved, and evidence suggesting Australopithecus and peers were capable of using tools such as fire

13440-516: The Mediterranean , associated lions to a neolithic goddess referred to as Potnia Theron , translated to the 'Mistress of Animals.' In this role, lions became associated with polarities such as the seasons, the zodiacal belt , and with the power of the elite. Importantly, this motif is more common in later Near Eastern and Mesopotamian art with a male figure, called the Master of Animals . Leading to

13650-536: The Middle Paleolithic (300,000 BC–50,000 BC) the apparent beginnings of culture and art alongside the emergence of Neanderthals and anatomically modern humans ; the Upper Paleolithic (50,000 BC–10,000 BC) a sharp flourishing of culture, the emergence of sophisticated and elaborate art, jewellery, and clothing, and the worldwide dispersal of Homo sapiens sapiens . Religion prior to the Upper Paleolithic

13860-710: The Paeonians due north, the Thracians to the northeast, and the Illyrians , with whom the Macedonians were frequently in conflict, to the northwest. Chalcidice was settled early on by southern Greek colonists and was considered part of the Greek world, while from the late 2nd millennium BC substantial Greek settlement also occurred on the eastern shores of the Aegean , in Anatolia . During

14070-526: The Paleolithic period alone. Prehistoric cultures spanned the globe and existed for over two and a half million years; their religious practices were many and varied, and the study of them is difficult due to the lack of written records describing the details of their faiths. The cognitive capacity for religion likely first emerged in Homo sapiens sapiens , or anatomically modern humans , although some scholars posit

14280-615: The Parthenon of Athens. Politically, the Classical Period was dominated by Athens and the Delian League during the 5th century, but displaced by Spartan hegemony during the early 4th century BC, before power shifted to Thebes and the Boeotian League and finally to the League of Corinth led by Macedon . This period was shaped by the Greco-Persian Wars , the Peloponnesian War , and

14490-648: The Rise of Macedon . Following the Classical period was the Hellenistic period (323–146 BC), during which Greek culture and power expanded into the Near and Middle East from the death of Alexander until the Roman conquest. Roman Greece is usually counted from the Roman victory over the Corinthians at the Battle of Corinth in 146 BC to the establishment of Byzantium by Constantine as

14700-422: The Zoroastrian and Mithraic religions , as well as Judaeo , Christian , and Islamic monotheism . Furthermore, it became central to Hindu and Buddhist beliefs, and in this way, spread eastward along the Silk Road . As the Silk Road further developed, the imagery of the lion westward with the Roman Empire reaching both China and Britain by the early 1st century. Lion imagery became incorporated into

14910-506: The brain case of the skull in ways thought to correspond to removing the brain for cannibalistic purposes, as observed in hunter-gatherers. Perhaps more tellingly, in those sites and others a number of H. erectus skulls show signs suggesting that the skin and flesh was cut away from the skull in predetermined patterns. These patterns, unlikely to occur by coincidence, are associated in turn with ritual. The lineage leading to anatomically modern humans originated around 500,000 years before

15120-449: The poleis grouped themselves into leagues, membership of which was in a constant state of flux. Later in the Classical period, the leagues would become fewer and larger, be dominated by one city (particularly Athens , Sparta and Thebes ); and often poleis would be compelled to join under threat of war (or as part of a peace treaty). Even after Philip II of Macedon conquered the heartlands of ancient Greece, he did not attempt to annex

15330-427: The "mind in the cave" conjecture, sees much cave art as produced in altered states of consciousness as a tool to connect the artist with the spirit realm . Visionary cave art, as shamanic art is referred to, is characterised by unnatural imagery such as animal-human hybrids, and by recurring themes such as sex, death, flight, and physical transformation. Not all religious cave art depicts shamanic experience. Cave art

15540-460: The 146 BC conquest of Greece after the Battle of Corinth. Macedonia became a Roman province while southern Greece came under the surveillance of Macedonia's prefect ; however, some Greek poleis managed to maintain a partial independence and avoid taxation. The Aegean Islands were added to this territory in 133 BC. Athens and other Greek cities revolted in 88 BC, and the peninsula was crushed by

15750-565: The Carthaginian invasion at the Battle of Himera . The Persians were decisively defeated at sea by a primarily Athenian naval force at the Battle of Salamis , and on land in 479 BC at the Battle of Plataea . The alliance against Persia continued, initially led by the Spartan Pausanias but from 477 by Athens, and by 460 Persia had been driven out of the Aegean. During this long campaign,

15960-560: The College of Arms, and subsequently is usually appointed from among the other officers of arms at the college. The Garter Principal is also the principal adviser to the Sovereign of the United Kingdom (particularly England , Wales and Northern Ireland ) with respect to ceremonial and heraldry. Heraldry of English county families: Ancient Greece Ancient Greece ( Ancient Greek : Ἑλλάς , romanized :  Hellás )

16170-519: The Corinthian empire in northwest Greece and defended its own empire, despite a plague which killed the leading Athenian statesman Pericles . The war turned after Athenian victories led by Cleon at Pylos and Sphakteria , and Sparta sued for peace, but the Athenians rejected the proposal. The Athenian failure to regain control of Boeotia at Delium and Brasidas ' successes in northern Greece in 424 improved Sparta's position after Sphakteria. After

16380-581: The Dark Ages was the Archaic Period , beginning around the 8th century BC, which saw early developments in Greek culture and society leading to the Classical Period from the Persian invasion of Greece in 480 BC until the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC. The Classical Period is characterized by a "classical" style, i.e. one which was considered exemplary by later observers, most famously in

16590-467: The Garter, Knights and Ladies of the Thistle, and certain other knights and ladies are automatically entitled to them. On January 5, 1420, William Bruges was appointed by King Henry V to be Garter King of Arms. Since the creation of the position, it has been changed into the position Garter Principal King of Arms , but the duties remain the same. Ex officio , it also makes the position's holder head of

16800-460: The Great Seal of Richard I , where he is depicted on horseback with a shield containing one lion on the visible half. Because several of his immediate kin used lion coats, it has been speculated that his father Henry II may likewise have borne a single-lion coat of arms, perhaps with the same colours as later used by the family, a gold lion on red. Heraldry is thought to have becoming popular among

17010-641: The Greek city-states. It greatly widened the horizons of the Greeks and led to a steady emigration of the young and ambitious to the new Greek empires in the east. Many Greeks migrated to Alexandria, Antioch and the many other new Hellenistic cities founded in Alexander's wake, as far away as present-day Afghanistan and Pakistan , where the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom and the Indo-Greek Kingdom survived until

17220-460: The Greek colonies Syracusae ( Συράκουσαι ), Neapolis ( Νεάπολις ), Massalia ( Μασσαλία ) and Byzantion ( Βυζάντιον ). These colonies played an important role in the spread of Greek influence throughout Europe and also aided in the establishment of long-distance trading networks between the Greek city-states, boosting the economy of ancient Greece . Ancient Greece consisted of several hundred relatively independent city-states ( poleis ). This

17430-569: The Greek colony Sybaris in southern Italy, its allies, and the Serdaioi. In 499 BC, the Ionian city states under Persian rule rebelled against their Persian-supported tyrant rulers. Supported by troops sent from Athens and Eretria , they advanced as far as Sardis and burnt the city before being driven back by a Persian counterattack. The revolt continued until 494, when the rebelling Ionians were defeated. Darius did not forget that Athens had assisted

17640-476: The Greek system are further evidenced by the colonies that they set up throughout the Mediterranean , which, though they might count a certain Greek polis as their 'mother' (and remain sympathetic to her), were completely independent of the founding city. Inevitably smaller poleis might be dominated by larger neighbors, but conquest or direct rule by another city-state appears to have been quite rare. Instead

17850-803: The Greeks began 250 years of expansion, settling colonies in all directions. To the east, the Aegean coast of Asia Minor was colonized first, followed by Cyprus and the coasts of Thrace , the Sea of Marmara and south coast of the Black Sea . Eventually, Greek colonization reached as far northeast as present-day Ukraine and Russia ( Taganrog ). To the west the coasts of Illyria , Southern Italy (called " Magna Graecia ") were settled, followed by Southern France , Corsica , and even eastern Spain . Greek colonies were also founded in Egypt and Libya . Modern Syracuse , Naples , Marseille and Istanbul had their beginnings as

18060-423: The Greeks were very aware of their tribal origins; Herodotus was able to extensively categorise the city-states by tribe. Yet, although these higher-level relationships existed, they seem to have rarely had a major role in Greek politics. The independence of the poleis was fiercely defended; unification was something rarely contemplated by the ancient Greeks. Even when, during the second Persian invasion of Greece,

18270-531: The Ionian revolt, and in 490 he assembled an armada to retaliate. Though heavily outnumbered, the Athenians—supported by their Plataean allies—defeated the Persian hordes at the Battle of Marathon , and the Persian fleet turned tail. Ten years later, a second invasion was launched by Darius' son Xerxes . The city-states of northern and central Greece submitted to the Persian forces without resistance, but

18480-670: The King in his official capacity as monarch, and are also known as Arms of Dominion . Variants of the Royal Arms are used by other members of the Royal Family ; and by the British Government in connection with the administration and government of the country. In Scotland , the monarch has a separate version of the Royal Arms, a variant of which is used by the Scotland Office . The shield

18690-479: The League of Corinth following the death of Philip, Alexander began his campaign against Persia in 334 BC. He conquered Persia, defeating Darius III at the Battle of Issus in 333 BC, and after the Battle of Gaugamela in 331 BC proclaimed himself king of Asia. From 329 BC he led expeditions to Bactria and then India; further plans to invade Arabia and North Africa were halted by his death in 323 BC. The period from

18900-512: The Mediterranean region is commonly considered to have begun in the 8th century BC (around the time of the earliest recorded poetry of Homer) and ended in the 6th century AD. Classical antiquity in Greece was preceded by the Greek Dark Ages ( c.  1200 – c.  800 BC ), archaeologically characterised by the protogeometric and geometric styles of designs on pottery. Following

19110-527: The Mesolithic, and the lack of encouragement to do so by way of an absence of interesting archaeological findings, tied into one another; for instance, no Mesolithic cemeteries were unearthed until 1975. Serious study of Mesolithic religion would not emerge until the 21st century, reinvigorating the field and reinterpreting prior assumptions of the Mesolithic as a bleak age. Much research on Mesolithic religion centres on Scandinavia, where evidence has emerged for

19320-659: The Middle Paleolithic; supporters of the second hypothesis point to evidence of increasing cultural, ritual, and spiritual sophistication 150,000–50,000 years ago. Neanderthals were the earliest hominins to bury their dead, although not the chronologically first burials, as earlier burials (such as those of the Skhul and Qafzeh hominins ) are recorded amongst early H. s. sapiens . Though relatively few Neanderthal burials are known, spaced thousands of years apart over broad geographical ranges, Hayden argues them undeniable hallmarks of spiritual recognition and "clear indications of concepts of

19530-597: The Neolithic saw the transition from nomadic bands to sedentary villages. This decreased the egalitarianism of those societies that transitioned; instead of more loosely collected confederates, they were now led by individuals with increasing power over those people within their domain. This "big man" framework centralised religion and elevated the status of religious leaders. As the spectrum of human experience shifted from hunter-gatherers to farmers, ritual and religion followed. The ritual calendar of Neolithic life revolved around

19740-469: The Paleolithic comprises the emergence of the Homo genus, the evolution of mankind, and the emergence of art, technology, and culture. The Paleolithic is broadly divided into Lower, Middle, and Upper periods. The Lower Paleolithic (2.5 mya –300,000 BC) sees the emergence of stone tools, the evolution of Australopithecus , Homo habilis , and Homo erectus , and the first dispersal of humanity from Africa;

19950-464: The Paleolithic, and possibly engaged in ancestor worship both of one's individual ancestors and of the ancestors of entire groups, tribes, and settlements. One famous feature of Neolithic religion were the stone circles of the British Isles , of which the best known today is Stonehenge . A particularly well-known area of late Neolithic through Chalcolithic religion is Proto-Indo-European mythology ,

20160-643: The Recorder of Plymouth, and Baroness Wilcox . The books represent the university's focus on learning and scholarship. The scattering of small stars represents navigation , which has played a key role in the history of the city and the university. The scallop shells in gold represent pilgrimage , a sign of the importance of the departure of the Pilgrim Fathers from the Barbican aboard the Mayflower in 1620. A Pelican and

20370-667: The Roman general Sulla . The Roman civil wars devastated the land even further, until Augustus organized the peninsula as the province of Achaea in 27 BC. Greece was a key eastern province of the Roman Empire, as the Roman culture had long been in fact Greco-Roman . The Greek language served as a lingua franca in the East and in Italy , and many Greek intellectuals such as Galen would perform most of their work in Rome . The territory of Greece

20580-468: The Upper Paleolithic are generally female, those with mixed human and animal traits are near-universally male, across broad geographic and chronological ranges. The Upper Paleolithic saw the advent of complex burials with lavish grave goods . Burials seem to have been relatively uncommon in these societies, perhaps reserved for people of high social or religious status. Many of these burials seem to have been accompanied by large quantities of red ochre, but

20790-483: The Upper Paleolithic share consistent features. They focus on the midsections of their subjects; the faces are blank or abstract, and the hands and feet small. Despite the near-nonexistence of obesity amongst hunter-gatherers, many depict realistically rendered obese subjects. The figures are universally women, often nude, and frequently pregnant. Interpretations of Venus figurines range from self-portraits to anti-climate-change charms to matriarchal representations of

21000-524: The administration of the county on behalf of the monarch, filling such offices as Sheriff , Justice of the Peace, Commissioners, Knights of the Shire or Members of Parliament, and in the feudal era if tenants-in-chief fought in the royal army. Almost every town council, city council and major educational establishment has an official armorial bearing (coat of arms), although the use of such arms varies wildly, due to

21210-612: The afterlife". Though Pettitt is more cautious about the significance of Neanderthal burial, he deems it a sophisticated and "more than prosaic" practice. Pettitt deems the Neanderthals of at least southwest France, Germany, and the Levant possessive of clear mortuary rites he presumes linked to an underlying belief system. He calls particular attention to potential grave markers found around Neanderthal burials, particularly those of children, at La Ferrassie in Dordogne . One matter discussed in

21420-664: The aims of the institution and history of the establishment, town or major alumni. For instance the Letters Patent granting Arms to the University of Plymouth were presented by Eric Dancer , CBE , JP , Lord Lieutenant of Devon , in a ceremony at the University on 27 November 2008, in the presence of Henry Paston-Bedingfeld , York Herald of the College of Arms , the Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress of Plymouth, Judge William Taylor,

21630-575: The ancient Greeks did not think in terms of race . Most families owned slaves as household servants and laborers, and even poor families might have owned a few slaves. Owners were not allowed to beat or kill their slaves. Owners often promised to free slaves in the future to encourage slaves to work hard. Unlike in Rome, freedmen did not become citizens. Instead, they were mixed into the population of metics , which included people from foreign countries or other city-states who were officially allowed to live in

21840-428: The ancient world—that is, those in recorded history closest chronologically to prehistoric religion—focused on orthopraxy , or a focus on correct practice and ritual, rather than orthodoxy , or a focus on correct faith and belief. This is in contrast to many mainstream modern faiths, such as Christianity, that move the focus to orthodoxy. Shamanism may have been a major part of Upper Paleolithic religion. Shamanism

22050-438: The archaeological record is one of remarkable stability, with little change in tool design over hundreds of thousands of years; Neanderthal cognition, as backfilled from genetic and skeletal evidence, is thought rigid and simplistic compared to that of contemporary, let alone modern, H. s. sapiens . By extension, Neanderthal ritual is speculated to have been a teaching mechanism that resulted in an unchanging culture, by embedding

22260-599: The archaeological record stymie extrapolation from burial to funeral rites, though evidence of grave goods and unusual markings on bones suggest funerary practices. In addition to funerals, a growing evidence base suggests Neanderthals made use of bodily ornamentation through pigments, feathers, and even claws. As such ornamentation is not preserved in the archaeological record, it is understood only by comparison to modern hunter-gatherers, where it often corresponds to rituals of spiritual significance. Unlike H. s. sapiens over equivalent periods, Neanderthal society as preserved in

22470-462: The argument have dubbed their interlocutors "shamaniacs" and "shamanophobes". The shamanistic interpretation of prehistoric religion is based in the "neuropsychological model", where shamanic experience is deemed an inherent function of the human brain. The symbols associated with shamanic art, such as animal-human hybrid figures, are suggested to originate from certain levels of trance. The neuropsychological model has been criticised; opponents refer to

22680-417: The arms of an associated influential family or local organisation, or their creation is granted as an honour to an influential person. In local government, however, there has been a move away from traditional heraldic style designs to clean, streamlined ones, as in the case of London . Whether this is a good or bad thing is a matter of debate. Often use is restricted to certain events and institutions within

22890-462: The arms of the Montacutes (Montagu). The third quarter shows the arms of Neville differenced by a label for Lancaster. King Henry I of England was said to have given a badge decorated with a lion to his son-in-law Geoffrey Plantagenet, Count of Anjou , and some have interpreted this as a grant of the lion arms later seen on his funerary enamel, but the first documented royal coat of arms appear on

23100-418: The artistic understanding of such early hominins. The tail end of the Lower Paleolithic saw a cognitive and cultural shift. The emergence of revolutionary technologies such as fire, coupled with the course of human evolution extending development to include a true childhood and improved bonding between mother and infant, perhaps broke new ground in cultural terms. It is in the last few hundred thousand years of

23310-403: The badge shows the links between the various disciplines to be studied at the university and in itself also refers to engineering where it plays so many parts. English heraldists include: Members of the Order of the Garter may encircle their arms with the Garter and, if they wish, with a depiction of the collar as well. However, the Garter is normally used alone, and the more elaborate version

23520-403: The behavioural sophistication associated with humans today. The process through which H. s. sapiens became cognitively and culturally sophisticated is known as behavioural modernity . The emergence of behavioural modernity is unclear; traditionally conceptualised as a sudden shock around the beginning of the Upper Paleolithic, modern accounts more often understand it as a slow process throughout

23730-419: The brain cases broken away. Writers such as Hayden speculate that this marks cannibalistic tendencies of religious significance; Hayden, deeming cannibalism "the most parsimonious explanation", compares the behaviour to hunter-gatherer tribes described in written records to whom brain-eating bore spiritual significance. By extension, he reads the skull's damage as evidence of Lower Paleolithic ritual practice. For

23940-549: The capital of the Roman Empire in 330 AD. Finally, Late Antiquity refers to the period of Christianization during the later 4th to early 6th centuries AD, consummated by the closure of the Academy of Athens by Justinian I in 529. The historical period of ancient Greece is unique in world history as the first period attested directly in comprehensive, narrative historiography , while earlier ancient history or protohistory

24150-426: The case of Thomas Bertie, granted arms on 10 July 1550. This was given as a passage read out by the herald. Although many are written in English, it is possible they were also read out in Latin. The introduction in his case read: To all noble and gentled the present letters reading hearing or seeing, Thomas Hawley alias Clarencieulx principal Herald and King of Arms of the south-east and west parts of this realm from

24360-646: The center, while in the east lay Boeotia , Attica , and Megaris . Northeast lay Thessaly , while Epirus lay to the northwest. Epirus stretched from the Ambracian Gulf in the south to the Ceraunian Mountains and the Aoos river in the north, and consisted of Chaonia (north), Molossia (center), and Thesprotia (south). In the northeast corner was Macedonia , originally consisting Lower Macedonia and its regions, such as Elimeia , Pieria , and Orestis . Around

24570-420: The college is involved in genealogy and the many pedigrees (family trees) in their records, although not open to the public, have official status. Anyone may register a pedigree with the college, where they are carefully internally audited and require official proofs before being altered. Applications are open to anyone with a 'reputable status' (normally including a university degree, but officially down to

24780-442: The concept of Neanderthal religion "mere speculation" that at best is an optimistic interpretation of the archaeological record. What ritual Neanderthals had, rather than supernatural, is oft interpreted as a mechanism of teaching and social bonding. Matt J. Rossano , defining Neanderthal practice as "proto-religion", compares it to "purely mimetic community activities" such as marching, sports, and concerts. He understands it not as

24990-522: The conclusion humans of the era worshipped or otherwise venerated the bears. The concept was pioneered by excavations in the late 1910s in Switzerland, where apparent deposits of cave bear bones from which paleontologists could not draw obvious function were interpreted ritualistically. The idea was debunked as early as the 1970s as a simple artefact of sedimentary deposits changing over thousands of years. Another controversial hypothesis in Paleolithic faith

25200-459: The context of Neanderthal burial is grave goods , objects placed in graves that are frequently seen in early religious cultures. Outside of the controversial Shanidar IV "flower burial", now considered coincidence, Neanderthals are not seen to bury their dead with grave goods. However, a burial of an adult and child of the Kizil-Koba culture was accompanied by a flint stone with markings. In 2018,

25410-455: The course of the archaic period. Already in the seventh century, the right of all citizen men to attend the assembly appears to have been established. After a failed coup led by Cylon of Athens around 636 BC, Draco was appointed to establish a code of laws in 621. This failed to reduce the political tension between the poor and the elites, and in 594 Solon was given the authority to enact another set of reforms, which attempted to balance

25620-473: The course of the eighth and seventh century. According to Spartan tradition, this constitution was established by the legendary lawgiver Lycurgus . Over the course of the first and second Messenian wars , Sparta subjugated the neighbouring region of Messenia , enserfing the population. In the sixth century, Greek city-states began to develop formal relationships with one another, where previously individual rulers had relied on personal relationships with

25830-633: The course of the period, H. s. sapiens range expanded to areas formerly dominated by Neanderthals, eventually supplanting them and ushering in the Upper Paleolithic. Much is unknown about Neanderthal cognition, particularly the capacities that would give rise to religion. Religious interpretations of Neanderthals have discussed their possibly-ritual use of caves, their burial practices, and religious practices amongst H. s. sapiens hunter-gatherer tribes in recorded history considered to have similar lifestyles to Neanderthals. Pre-religious interpretations of Neanderthals argue their archaeological record suggests

26040-574: The culmination of political and social developments which had begun in the Greek dark age, with the polis (city-state) becoming the most important unit of political organisation in Greece. The absence of powerful states in Greece after the collapse of Mycenaean power, and the geography of Greece, where many settlements were separated from their neighbours by mountainous terrain, encouraged the development of small independent city-states. Several Greek states saw tyrants rise to power in this period, most famously at Corinth from 657 BC. The period also saw

26250-461: The death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC until the death of Cleopatra , the last Macedonian ruler of Egypt, is known as the Hellenistic period. In the early part of this period, a new form of kingship developed based on Macedonian and Near Eastern traditions. The first Hellenistic kings were previously Alexander's generals, and took power in the period following his death, though they were not part of existing royal lineages and lacked historic claims to

26460-423: The deaths of Cleon and Brasidas, the strongest proponents of war on each side, a peace treaty was negoitiated in 421 by the Athenian general Nicias . The peace did not last, however. In 418 BC allied forces of Athens and Argos were defeated by Sparta at Mantinea . In 415 Athens launched an ambitious naval expedition to dominate Sicily; the expedition ended in disaster at the harbor of Syracuse , with almost

26670-531: The defining cultural icons of both China and Britain , becoming steadily more populist and taking on culturally specific forms such as European heraldry and the Chinese lion dance . One of the first contemporary records of medieval heraldry is a roll of arms called Falkirk Rolls , written soon after the Battle of Falkirk in 1298. It includes the whole range of recognised heraldic colours (including furs) and designs. This clearly demonstrates that English heraldry

26880-529: The development of aeronautical research. The keys signify the gaining of knowledge by study and instruction. The owl , with its wings expanded, may also be taken to represent knowledge in the widest sense. In the badge, which repeats the keys, the crown rayonny refers both to the royal charter under which Cranfield came into being and, by the finials composed of the rays of the sun, to energy and its application through engineering and technological skills to industry, commerce and public life. The chain that surrounds

27090-466: The direct offspring of Neanderthals and H. s. sapiens , consistent with the reduced fertility seen in hybrid species such as mules ; this has been used as recent argument against the classification of Neanderthals as a H. sapiens subspecies. The study of Neanderthal ritual, as proxy and preface for religion, revolves around death and burial rites. The first undisputed burials, approximately 150,000 years ago, were performed by Neanderthals. The limits of

27300-646: The discretion of the college). The College of Arms was incorporated in 1484 by King Richard III, and is a corporate body consisting of the professional heralds who are delegated heraldic authority by the British monarch. Based in London, the college is one of the few remaining government heraldic authorities in Europe. Its legal basis relies on the Law of Arms , which makes the right to grant arms exclusively to due authority , which has, since

27510-657: The dominance that would allow it to challenge Persia, the Persian king initially joined the alliance against Sparta, before imposing the Peace of Antalcidas ("King's Peace") which restored Persia's control over the Anatolian Greeks. By 371 BC, Thebes was in the ascendancy, defeating Sparta at the Battle of Leuctra , killing the Spartan king Cleombrotus I , and invading Laconia. Further Theban successes against Sparta in 369 led to Messenia gaining independence; Sparta never recovered from

27720-409: The domination of politics and concomitant aggregation of wealth by small groups of families was apt to cause social unrest in many poleis . In many cities a tyrant (not in the modern sense of repressive autocracies), would at some point seize control and govern according to their own will; often a populist agenda would help sustain them in power. In a system wracked with class conflict , government by

27930-700: The east to the Indian king Chandragupta Maurya in exchange for war elephants, and later lost large parts of Persia to the Parthian Empire . By the mid-third century, the kingdoms of Alexander's successors was mostly stable, though there continued to be disputes over border areas. The great capitals of Hellenistic culture were Alexandria in the Ptolemaic Kingdom and Antioch in the Seleucid Empire . The conquests of Alexander had numerous consequences for

28140-537: The elites of other cities. Towards the end of the archaic period, Sparta began to build a series of alliances, the Peloponnesian League , with cities including Corinth , Elis , and Megara , isolating Messenia and reinforcing Sparta's position against Argos , the other major power in the Peloponnese. Other alliances in the sixth century included those between Elis and Heraea in the Peloponnese; and between

28350-445: The emergence of H. s. sapiens —slowly gained, as they began to collaborate and work in groups, the ability to control and mediate their emotional responses. Their rudimentary sense of collaborative identity laid the groundwork for the later social aspects of religion. Australopithecus , the first hominins, were a pre-religious people. Though twentieth-century historian of religion Mircea Eliade felt that even this earliest branch on

28560-440: The emergence of Homo until 50,000 years before the present) of apparent cultural stability. No serious evidence for religious practice exists amongst Homo habilis , the first hominin to use tools. The picture complicates as Homo erectus emerges. H. erectus was the point where hominins seem to have developed an appreciation for ritual, the intellectual ability to stem aggression of the kind seen in modern chimpanzees , and

28770-600: The end of the first century BC. The city-states within Greece formed themselves into two leagues; the Achaean League (including Corinth and Argos) and the Aetolian League (including Sparta and Athens). For much of the period until the Roman conquest, these leagues were at war, often participating in the conflicts between the Diadochi (the successor states to Alexander's empire). The Antigonid Kingdom became involved in

28980-592: The entire army killed, and the ships destroyed. Soon after the Athenian defeat in Syracuse, Athens' Ionian allies began to rebel against the Delian league, while Persia began to once again involve itself in Greek affairs on the Spartan side. Initially the Athenian position continued relatively strong, with important victories at Cyzicus in 410 and Arginusae in 406. However, in 405 the Spartan Lysander defeated Athens in

29190-635: The era of classical antiquity was immediately followed by the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine period. Three centuries after the decline of Mycenaean Greece during the Bronze Age Collapse , Greek urban poleis began to form in the 8th century BC, ushering in the Archaic period and the colonization of the Mediterranean Basin. This was followed by the age of Classical Greece , from

29400-428: The era's H. s. sapiens are not suggestive of the complexity necessary for spiritual belief and practice. However, the Middle Paleolithic is long, and the H. s. sapiens who lived in it heterogeneous. Models of behavioural modernity disagree on how humanity became behaviourally and cognitively sophisticated, whether as a sudden emergence in the Upper Paleolithic or a slow process over the last hundred thousand years of

29610-477: The evidence for the "bear cult" unconvincing. Wunn interprets Neanderthals as a pre-religious people, and the presence of bear remains around Neanderthal habitats as a coincidental association; as cave bears by their nature dwell in caves, their bones should be expected to be found there. The broader archaeological evidence overall suggests that bear worship was not a major factor of Paleolithic religion. In recent years, genetic and neurological research has expanded

29820-529: The exact borders of the Hellenistic kingdoms were not settled. Antigonus attempted to expand his territory by attacking the other successor kingdoms until they joined against him, and he was killed at the Battle of Ipsus in 301 BC. His son Demetrius spent many years in Seleucid captivity, and his son, Antigonus II , only reclaimed the Macedonian throne around 276. Meanwhile, the Seleucid kingdom gave up territory in

30030-410: The existence of Lower Paleolithic Venus figurines. The Venus of Berekhat Ram is one such highly speculative figure, a scoria dated 300–350 thousand years ago with several grooves interpreted as resembling a woman's torso and head. Scanning electron microscopy found the Venus of Berekhat Ram's grooves consistent with those that would be produced by contemporary flint tools. Pettitt argues that though

30240-495: The existence of Neanderthal religion and sparse evidence exists for earlier ritual practice. Excluding sparse and controversial evidence in the Middle Paleolithic (300,000–50,000 years ago), religion emerged with certainty in the Upper Paleolithic around 50,000 years ago. Upper Paleolithic religion was possibly shamanic , oriented around the phenomenon of special spiritual leaders entering trance states to receive esoteric spiritual knowledge. These practices are extrapolated based on

30450-472: The figurine "can hardly be described as artistically achieved", it and other speculative Venuses of the Lower Paleolithic, such as the Venus of Tan-Tan , demand further scrutiny for their implications for contemporary theology. These figurines were possibly produced by H. heidelbergensis , whose brain sizes were not far behind those of Neanderthals and H. s. sapiens , and have been analysed for their implications for

30660-684: The first truly supernatural tendency to reveal itself to the human psyche. Price refers to an extension of this as the "neuropsychological model", where shamanism is conceptualised as hard-wired in the human mind. Though some authors are unsympathetic to the neuropsychological model, Price finds a strong basis for some psychological underpinning to shamanism. Upper Paleolithic humans produced complex paintings, sculptures, and other artforms, much of which held apparent ritual significance. Religious interpretations of such objects, especially "portable art" such as figurines, varies. Some writers understand virtually all such art as spiritual, while others read only

30870-473: The following millennia and ushered in a new era of prehistory. Despite prior assumptions of immediate radical change, the encroachment of agriculture was a slow process, and early agriculturalists do not seem to have sharp cultural distinctions from their hunter-gatherer peers. In archaeological terms, the Neolithic is marked by megaliths , ceremonial structures, complex tombs, and elaborate artifacts with apparent spiritual significance. Sociologically speaking,

31080-512: The footsteps of other authors, ascribes this to shamanism . He draws a line between pre-Upper Paleolithic social bonding rituals and faith healing , where the latter is an evolution of the former. Gesturing at the universality of faith healing concepts in hunter-gatherer societies throughout recorded history, as well as their tendencies to involve the altered states of consciousness ascribed to shamanism and their placebo effect on psychologically inspired pain, he conjectures that these rituals were

31290-464: The founding of Greek colonies around the Mediterranean, with Euboean settlements at Al-Mina in the east as early as 800 BC, and Ischia in the west by 775. Increasing contact with non-Greek peoples in this period, especially in the Near East, inspired developments in art and architecture, the adoption of coinage, and the development of the Greek alphabet. Athens developed its democratic system over

31500-409: The general trend is likely to be correct. It is clear that heraldry saw a resurgence in England in the early 19th century. Since 1797, no case of free assumption of arms has ever been successfully prosecuted in England. The Court of Chivalry, the court of enforcement of such cases, has fallen into unimportance. The English system of cadency allows nuclear family members to personally use the arms of

31710-402: The governance of the institution, and who uses the arms, particularly concerning unitary authorities . The College of Arms grants arms only to people or corporate bodies, and so coats of arms are attributed to Borough, District or Town councils, rather than to a place or its populace. Mottoes are common but not universal. Arms of such councils may feature the historical ecclesiastical arms of

31920-569: The government. In Athens, the population was divided into four social classes based on wealth. People could change classes if they made more money. In Sparta, all male citizens were called homoioi , meaning "peers". However, Spartan kings, who served as the city-state's dual military and religious leaders, came from two families. Women in Ancient Greece appear to have primarily performed domestic tasks, managed households, and borne and reared children. Slaves had no power or status. Slaves had

32130-425: The harvest; the people of the age worshipped grain-oriented deities, prayed and sacrificed for good harvests, and threw celebrations in the harvest season. The Neolithic saw the emergence of a "spiritual aristocracy" of people whose societal role was as mages, missionaries, and monarchs. In the Neolithic, shamanism was increasingly understood as the domain of an elite, rather than the Paleolithic conceptualisation where

32340-494: The head of that family 'by courtesy'. This involves the addition of a brisure , or mark of difference to the original coat of arms. The brisure identifies the bearer's family relationship to the actual bearer of the arms, although there is some debate over how strictly the system should be followed, the accepted system is shown below: †also known as an octofoil Women do not display the "war-like" crest. Daughters have no special brisures, and customarily bear their father's arms on

32550-459: The hominins is capable of religion for much the same reason as the tools and artworks of prehistoric H. s. sapiens are finer and more detailed than those of their Neanderthal contemporaries; all are products of a unique cognition. The Paleolithic , sometimes called the Old Stone Age, makes up over 99% of humanity's history. Lasting from approximately 2.5 million years ago through to 10,000 BC,

32760-502: The human evolutionary line "had a certain spiritual awareness", the twenty-first century's understanding of Australopithecene cognition does not permit the level of abstraction necessary for spiritual experience. For all that the hominins of the Lower Paleolithic are read as incapable of spirituality, some writers read the traces of their behaviour such as to permit an understanding of ritual, even as early as Australopithecus . Durham University professor of archaeology Paul Pettitt reads

32970-465: The human mind. The question of when religion emerged in the evolving psyche has sparked the curiosity of paleontologists for decades. On the whole, neither the archaeological record nor the current understanding of how human intelligence evolved suggests early hominins had the cognitive capacity for spiritual belief. Religion was certainly present during the Upper Paleolithic period, dating to about 50,000 through 12,000 years ago, while religion in

33180-535: The increasing Athenian power funded by the Delian League, Sparta offered aid to reluctant members of the League to rebel against Athenian domination. These tensions were exacerbated in 462 BC when Athens sent a force to aid Sparta in overcoming a helot revolt, but this aid was rejected by the Spartans. In the 450s, Athens took control of Boeotia, and won victories over Aegina and Corinth. However, Athens failed to win

33390-424: The knights on the first and second crusades , along with the idea of chivalry. Under Henry III, it gained a system of classification and a technical language. However, over the next two centuries, the system was abused, leading to the swamping of true coats-of-arms. For the rest of the medieval period, it was popular within the upper classes to have a distinctive family mark for competitions and tournaments, and it

33600-584: The last Hellenistic kingdom, Ptolemaic Egypt , was annexed by the Roman Republic . Classical Greek culture , especially philosophy, had a powerful influence on ancient Rome , which carried a version of it throughout the Mediterranean and much of Europe. For this reason, Classical Greece is generally considered the cradle of Western civilization , the seminal culture from which the modern West derives many of its founding archetypes and ideas in politics, philosophy, science, and art. Classical antiquity in

33810-575: The late Middle Paleolithic. Where behavioural modernity is conceptualised as originating in the Middle Paleolithic, some authors also push back the traditional framework of religion's origin to account for it. Wightman discusses Wonderwerk Cave in South Africa, inhabited 180,000 years ago by early H. s. sapiens and filled with unusual objects such as quartz crystals and inscribed stones. He argues these may have been ritual artifacts that served as foci for rites performed by these early humans. Wightman

34020-455: The late medieval period, been the Monarch or State, who gives the College of Arms this right and duty. Much of it is under the personal responsibility of the Monarch and not government, although the college has always been self-funded and independent. According to one source, the number of grants of arms in each half-century was roughly as follows: Although the accuracy of the figures is in doubt,

34230-626: The lifestyles of modern hunter-gatherers have been rendered so peripheral as to lose that knowledge entirely. Nonetheless, these arts are still studied, and general ideas can still be concluded; concepts associated with secret society cave art include ancestor figures, animals as metaphors, and long-distance travel. Another art form of probable religious significance are the Venus figurines . These are hand-held statuettes of nude women found in Upper Paleolithic sites across Eurasia, speculated to hold significance to fertility rites. Though separated by thousands of years and kilometres, Venus figurines across

34440-503: The lion being culturally pictured as a master of the animal kingdom. With the incursions of the Indo-European speakers , this association changed. While initially through myths of confrontation between the goddess lions and the hero or demigod . Eventually, it became a direct association between the lion and the male deity , this led to an association with status and the divine authority of kingship. Lion imagery became associated with

34650-514: The loss of Messenia's fertile land and the helot workforce it provided. The rising power of Thebes led Sparta and Athens to join forces; in 362 they were defeated by Thebes at the Battle of Mantinea . In the aftermath of Mantinea, none of the major Greek states were able to dominate. Though Thebes had won the battle, their general Epaminondas was killed, and they spent the following decades embroiled in wars with their neighbours; Athens, meanwhile, saw its second naval alliance, formed in 377, collapse in

34860-449: The matter of decomposition makes it difficult to discern whether such pigments were applied to flesh or bone. One remarkable case of a pigmented burial is that of Lake Mungo 3 in inland New South Wales , Australia; the ochre in which the body was found covered must have been transported for hundreds of kilometres, considering the distance between the burial and the nearest sources. One of the most elaborate Upper Paleolithic burials known

35070-461: The mid-13th century). The position of herald in England was well defined, and so on January 5, 1420, William Bruges was appointed by King Henry V to be Garter King of Arms. No such position had been created in other countries. A succession of different titles was introduced over the next four centuries for principal governor of arms, including King of Arms . Some were members of the College of Arms , some were not. Other holders of positions included

35280-495: The mid-350s. The power vacuum in Greece after the Battle of Mantinea was filled by Macedon, under Philip II . In 338 BC, he defeated a Greek alliance at the Battle of Chaeronea , and subsequently formed the League of Corinth . Philip planned to lead the League to invade Persia, but was murdered in 336 BC. His son Alexander the Great was left to fulfil his father's ambitions. After campaigns against Macedon's western and northern enemies, and those Greek states that had broken from

35490-433: The nature of prehistoric religion is so speculative, the evidence left in the archaeological record is strongly suggestive of a visionary framework where faith is practised through entering trances, personal experience with deities, and other hallmarks of shamanism—to the point of some authors suggesting, in the words of archaeologist of shamanism Neil Price , that these tendencies and techniques are in some way hard-wired into

35700-409: The opposite position, Wunn finds the cannibalism hypothesis bereft of factual backing; she interprets the patterns of skull damage as a matter of what skeletal parts are more or less preserved over the course of thousands or millions of years. Even within the cannibalism framework, she argues that the practice would be more comparable to brain-eating in chimpanzees than in hunter-gatherers. In the 2010s,

35910-533: The opposite, noting that dedicated cemeteries in the era overrepresent the very young, the very old, and young women who may have died in childbirth. These dead are traditionally considered more liminal than the average person, and their burials separate from the community may have marked an intentional distancing. The Neolithic was the dawn of agriculture. Originating around 10,000 BC in the Fertile Crescent , agriculture spread across Eurasia and North Africa in

36120-571: The period that the archaeological record begins to demonstrate hominins as creatures that influence their environment as much as they are influenced by it. Later Lower Paleolithic hominins built wind shelters to protect themselves from the elements; they collected unusual natural objects; they began the use of pigments such as red ochre . These shifts do not coincide with species-level evolutionary leaps, being observed in both H. heidelbergensis and H. erectus . Different authors interpret these shifts with different levels of skepticism, some seeing them as

36330-410: The power of the rich and the poor. In the middle of the sixth century, Pisistratus established himself as a tyrant, and after his death in 527 his son Hippias inherited his position; by the end of the sixth century he had been overthrown and Cleisthenes carried out further democratising reforms. In Sparta, a political system with two kings, a council of elders , and five ephors developed over

36540-456: The pre-Christian practices of protohistoric Bronze and Iron Age societies. Prehistory is the period in human history before written records. The lack of written evidence demands the use of archaeological evidence, which makes it difficult to extrapolate conclusive statements about religious belief. Much of the study of prehistoric religion is based on inferences from historic (textual) and ethnographic evidence, for example analogies between

36750-476: The present day. Modern humans are classified taxonomically as Homo sapiens sapiens . This classification is controversial, as it goes against traditional subspecies classifications; no other hominins have been treated as uncontroversial members of H. sapiens . The 2003 description of Homo sapiens idaltu drew attention as a relatively clear case of a H. sapiens subspecies, but was disputed by authors such as Chris Stringer . Neanderthals in particular pose

36960-473: The rare cave art they produced, as insufficiently sophisticated for such comprehension. Rather, Neanderthal orthopraxy is a cultural teaching mechanism that permitted their unusually stable culture, existing at the same technological level for hundreds of thousands of years during rapid H. s. sapiens change. To Nielsen, Neanderthal ritual is how they preserved an intractable culture via teachings passed down through generations. Ultimately, Neanderthal religion

37170-613: The reforms of Solon (early 6th century), but the poorest citizens could not address the assembly or run for office. With the establishment of the democracy, the assembly became the de jure mechanism of government; all citizens had equal privileges in the assembly. However, non-citizens, such as metics (foreigners living in Athens) or slaves , had no political rights at all. After the rise of democracy in Athens, other city-states founded democracies. However, many retained more traditional forms of government. As so often in other matters, Sparta

37380-420: The regions of Laconia (southeast), Messenia (southwest), Elis (west), Achaia (north), Korinthia (northeast), Argolis (east), and Arcadia (center). These names survive to the present day as regional units of modern Greece , though with somewhat different boundaries. Mainland Greece to the north, nowadays known as Central Greece , consisted of Aetolia and Acarnania in the west, Locris , Doris , and Phocis in

37590-399: The relative rarity of some forms of art associated with it, to tendencies in modern shamanic cultures they find incompatible with it, and to the work of pre-model archaeologists who cautioned against shamanic interpretations. A popular myth about prehistoric religion is bear worship . Early scholars of prehistory, finding skeletons of the extinct cave bear around Paleolithic habitats, drew

37800-438: The religion of Palaeolithic and modern hunter-gatherer societies. The usefulness of analogy in archaeological reasoning is theoretically complex and contested, but in the context of prehistoric religion can be strengthened by circumstantial evidence; for instance, it has been observed that red ochre was significant to many prehistoric societies and to modern hunter-gatherers. Religion exists in all known human societies, but

38010-598: The religion of the people who first spoke the Proto-Indo-European language , which has been partially reconstructed through shared religious elements between early Indo-European language speakers. Bronze Age and Iron Age religions are understood in part through archaeological records, but also, more so than Paleolithic and Neolithic, through written records; some societies had writing in these ages, and were able to describe those which did not. These eras of prehistoric religion see particular cultural focus today by modern reconstructionists, with many pagan faiths today based on

38220-522: The rich and complex body of art left behind by Paleolithic artists, particularly the elaborate cave art and enigmatic Venus figurines they produced. The Neolithic Revolution , which established agriculture as the dominant lifestyle, occurred around 12,000 BC and ushered in the Neolithic . Neolithic society grew hierarchical and inegalitarian compared to its Paleolithic forebears, and their religious practices likely changed to suit. Neolithic religion may have become more structural and centralised than in

38430-518: The right to have a family and own property, subject to their master's goodwill and permission, but they had no political rights. By 600 BC, chattel slavery had spread in Greece. By the 5th century BC, slaves made up one-third of the total population in some city-states. Between 40–80% of the population of Classical Athens were slaves. Slaves outside of Sparta almost never revolted because they were made up of too many nationalities and were too scattered to organize. However, unlike later Western culture ,

38640-497: The river Trent southward, sendeth humble commendation and greeting. This seems to be the standard introduction, each herald using their name and position. The early 18th century is often considered the nadir of English heraldry. The heraldic establishment was not held in high regard by the public; the authority of the Court of Chivalry (though not its armorial jurisdiction) was challenged, and an increasing number of ' new men ' simply assumed arms, without any authority. This attitude

38850-434: The several counties of England were instituted in the 16th century and required each family which displayed coat armour to report to the visiting heralds, generally holding court in the county capital during a certain period, to declare its pedigree to show it came from ancient gentry stock. This has given rise to well recorded armorials of the ancient gentry families from each county, which generally assumed amongst themselves

39060-457: The sinister, a unicorn , symbolising Scotland . According to legend, a free unicorn was considered a very dangerous beast; therefore the heraldic unicorn is chained, as were both supporting unicorns in the Royal coat of arms of Scotland . The coat features both the motto of English monarchs , Dieu et mon droit (God and my right), and the motto of the Order of the Garter , Honi soit qui mal y pense (Shamed be he who thinks ill of it) on

39270-465: The sometime Garter Principal King of Arms ), the "bars wavy" in the chief of the shield are intended in combination with the cranes to allude to the name Cranfield . The three-branched torch in the base refers to learning and knowledge in the sciences of engineering, technology and management. In the crest, the astral crown alludes to the college of Aeronautics and also commemorates the contribution of its founding Chancellor, Lord Kings Norton , to

39480-448: The state. City-states legally owned slaves. These public slaves had a larger measure of independence than slaves owned by families, living on their own and performing specialized tasks. In Athens, public slaves were trained to look out for counterfeit coinage , while temple slaves acted as servants of the temple's deity and Scythian slaves were employed in Athens as a police force corralling citizens to political functions. Sparta had

39690-520: The study of Paleolithic cannibalism grew more complex due to new methods of archaeological interpretation, which led to the conclusion much Paleolithic cannibalism was for nutritional rather than ritual reasons. In the Upper Paleolithic, religion is associated with symbolism and sculpture. One Upper Paleolithic remnant that draws cultural attention are the Venus figurines , carved statues of nude women speculated to represent deities, fertility symbols, or ritual fetish objects . Archaeologists have proposed

39900-732: The study of prehistoric religion was only popularised around the end of the nineteenth century. A founder effect in prehistoric archaeology, a field pioneered by nineteenth-century secular humanists who found religion a threat to their evolution-based field of study, may have impeded the early attribution of a religious motive to prehistoric humans. Prehistoric religion differs from the religious format known to most twenty-first century commentators, based around orthodox belief and scriptural study. Rather, prehistoric religion, like later hunter-gatherer religion, possibly drew from shamanism and ecstatic experience , as well as animism , though analyses indicate animism may have emerged earlier. Though

40110-556: The study of the emergence of religion. In 2018, the cultural anthropologist Margaret Boone Rappaport published her analysis of the sensory, neurological, and genetic differences between the great apes , Neanderthals, H. s. sapiens , and H. s. idaltu . She interprets the H. s. sapiens brain and genome as having a unique capacity for religion through characteristics such as expanded parietal lobes , greater cognitive flexibility, and an unusually broad capacity for both altruism and aggression. In Rappaport's framework, only H. s. sapiens of

40320-412: The territories they controlled. The most important of these rulers in the decades after Alexander's death were Antigonus I and his son Demetrius in Macedonia and the rest of Greece, Ptolemy in Egypt, and Seleucus I in Syria and the former Persian empire; smaller Hellenistic kingdoms included the Attalids in Anatolia and the Greco-Bactrian kingdom . In the early part of the Hellenistic period,

40530-460: The territory or unify it into a new province, but compelled most of the poleis to join his own Corinthian League . Initially many Greek city-states seem to have been petty kingdoms; there was often a city official carrying some residual, ceremonial functions of the king ( basileus ), e.g., the archon basileus in Athens. However, by the Archaic period and the first historical consciousness, most had already become aristocratic oligarchies . It

40740-411: The time of Alexander I of Macedon , the Argead kings of Macedon started to expand into Upper Macedonia , lands inhabited by independent Macedonian tribes like the Lyncestae , Orestae and the Elimiotae and to the west, beyond the Axius river , into Eordaia , Bottiaea , Mygdonia , and Almopia , regions settled by Thracian tribes. To the north of Macedonia lay various non-Greek peoples such as

40950-533: The town or city, its use superseded by the logo of the local borough council or Arms Length Management Organisation . Current uses of historical coats of arms normally include use in town halls and on litter bins and benches (where corporate-style council logos are deemed inappropriate). Many British educational establishments have arms dating back hundreds of years, but the College of Arms continues to grant new arms to schools, colleges and universities each year. The arms of educational establishments often represent

41160-408: The traditional fertility interpretation, Patricia C. Rice argues nonetheless that the Venuses are symbols of women throughout their lifetime, not just throughout reproduction, and that they represent a veneration of femaleness and femininity as a whole. Sculpture more broadly is a significant part of Upper Paleolithic art and often analysed for its spiritual implications. Upper Paleolithic sculpture

41370-426: The use of red ochre amongst those modern hunter-gatherers to whom it represents a sacred colour. He similarly connects quartz collection to religious use of crystals in later shamanic practice. Not all writers are as convinced that this represents underlying spiritual experience. To Mark Nielsen , evidence of ritual practice amongst Neanderthals does not represent religion; he interprets their cultural remnants, such as

41580-542: The worldwide emergence of H. s. sapiens as the sole species of humanity, displacing their Neanderthal contemporaries across Eurasia and travelling to previously human-uninhabited territories such as Australia. The complexity of stone tools grew, and the production of complex art, sculpture, and decoration began. Long-distance trade networks emerged to connect communities that had complex house-like habitations and food storage networks. True religion made its clear emergence during this period of flourishing. Rossano, following in

41790-440: Was a northeastern Mediterranean civilization, existing from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BC to the end of classical antiquity ( c.  600 AD ), that comprised a loose collection of culturally and linguistically related city-states and other territories. Prior to the Roman period , most of these regions were officially unified once under the Kingdom of Macedon from 338 to 323 BC. In Western history ,

42000-426: Was a notable exception to the rest of Greece, ruled through the whole period by not one, but two hereditary monarchs. This was a form of diarchy . The Kings of Sparta belonged to the Agiads and the Eurypontids, descendants respectively of Eurysthenes and Procles . Both dynasties' founders were believed to be twin sons of Aristodemus , a Heraclid ruler. However, the powers of these kings were held in check by both

42210-460: Was a situation unlike that in most other contemporary societies, which were either tribal or kingdoms ruling over relatively large territories. Undoubtedly, the geography of Greece —divided and sub-divided by hills, mountains, and rivers—contributed to the fragmentary nature of ancient Greece. On the one hand, the ancient Greeks had no doubt that they were "one people"; they had the same religion , same basic culture, and same language. Furthermore,

42420-468: Was conquered by the Romans. The Aetolian league grew wary of Roman involvement in Greece, and sided with the Seleucids in the Roman–Seleucid War ; when the Romans were victorious, the league was effectively absorbed into the Republic. Although the Achaean league outlasted both the Aetolian league and Macedon, it was also soon defeated and absorbed by the Romans in 146 BC, bringing Greek independence to an end. The Greek peninsula came under Roman rule during

42630-511: Was deemed coincidental. For several decades, prehistoricist consensus has opposed the idea of an Australopithecus faith. The first evidence of ritual emerges in the hominin genus Homo , which emerged between 2–3 million years ago and includes modern humans, their ancestors and closest relatives. The exact question of when ritual shaded into religious faith evades simple answer. The Lower and Middle Paleolithic periods, dominated by early Homo hominins, were an extraordinarily long period (from

42840-402: Was fully developed at this time, and although the language is not quite identical, much of the terminology is the same as is still used. It is an occasional roll of arms, meaning it charted the heraldry visible on one occasion. Other rolls of arms covering England include the Caerlaverock Poem (composed 1300 about siege of Caerlaverock ) and Glover's Roll (a mixed and varied collection from around

43050-404: Was in life, rather than death; he notes especially the frequency of physical disability, comparing it to the many shamans in recorded societies who were singled out for physical or psychological differences. Upper Paleolithic religions were presumably polytheist , venerating multiple deities, as this form of religion predates monotheism in recorded history. As well as polytheism, religions of

43260-417: Was in permanent settlements founded by Greeks, which formed as independent poleis. The second form was in what historians refer to as emporia ; trading posts which were occupied by both Greeks and non-Greeks and which were primarily concerned with the manufacture and sale of goods. Examples of this latter type of settlement are found at Al Mina in the east and Pithekoussai in the west. From about 750 BC

43470-402: Was popular (although not prevalent) within the lower classes. It found particular use with knights, for practice and in the mêlée of battle, where heraldry was worn on embroidered fabric covering their armour. Indeed, their houses' signs became known as coats-of-arms in this way. They were also worn on shields, where they were known as shields-of-arms. As well as military uses, the main charge

43680-401: Was the transitional period between the Paleolithic and the Neolithic. In European archaeology, it traditionally refers to hunter-gatherers living after the end of the Pleistocene ice age. Traditional archaeology takes a quotidian view of Mesolithic life, perceiving it as an era of cultural "impoverishment" without great cultural, artistic, or societal advances. The lack of enthusiasm to study

43890-419: Was used in the seals of households. These were used to prove the authenticity of documents carried by heralds (messengers) and is the basis of the word heraldry in English. One example of this is the seal of John Mundegumri (1175), which bears a single fleur-de-lys . Prior to the 16th century, there was no regulation on the use of arms in England. Prehistoric religions of the Middle East , North India and

44100-498: Was wiped out by steppe invaders later in the Neolithic, prior to the beginning of the historical period. The broad geographic range of Venuses has also seen their goddess interpretation in other regions; for instance, Bret Hinsch proposes a line of descent from Venuses to historical Chinese goddess worship. The goddess hypothesis has been criticised for basis in a limited geographical range, and for not mapping onto similar observations seen in modern hunter-gatherers. The Mesolithic

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