Sea Silk (Bisso)

From Wikipedia - ...
China never managed to reach the Roman Empire directly in antiquity, although general Ban Chao sent Gan Ying as an envoy to "Daqin" in 97 AD. Gan Ying did not reach Daqin, he stopped at the coast of a large sea, because "sailor(s) of the Parthian west border" told him that the voyage to cross the sea might take a long time and be dangerous. Gan Ying left a detailed account of the Roman Empire, but it is generally considered to have been based on second hand information:
The Kingdom of Da Qin (the Roman Empire) is also called Lijian. As it is found to the west of the sea, it is also called the Kingdom of Haixi ("West of the Sea"). The territory extends for several thousands of li. It has more than four hundred walled towns. There are several tens of smaller dependent kingdoms. The walls of the towns are made of stone. They have established postal relays at intervals, which are all plastered and whitewashed. There are pines and cypresses, as well as trees and plants of all kinds.
- Gan Ying gives a very idealistic view of Roman governance which is likely the result of some story he was told while visiting the Persian Gulf in 97 AD. He also described, less fancifully, Roman products:
Their kings are not permanent. They select and appoint the most worthy man. If there are unexpected calamities in the kingdom, such as frequent extraordinary winds or rains, he is unceremoniously rejected and replaced. The one who has been dismissed quietly accepts his demotion, and is not angry. The people of this country are all tall and honest. They resemble the people of the Middle Kingdom and that is why this kingdom is called Da Qin. This country produces plenty of gold [and] silver, [and of] rare and precious [things] they have luminous jade, 'bright moon pearls,' Haiji rhinoceroses, coral, yellow amber, opaque glass, whitish chalcedony, red cinnabar, green gemstones, gold-thread embroideries, woven gold-threaded net, delicate polychrome silks painted with gold, and asbestos cloth.
They also have a fine cloth which some people say is made from the down of 'water sheep' [sea silk], but which is made, in fact, from the cocoons of wild silkworms (wild silk). They blend all sorts of fragrances, and by boiling the juice, make a compound perfume. [They have] all the precious and rare things that come from the various foreign kingdoms. They make gold and silver coins. Ten silver coins are worth one gold coin. They trade with Anxi [Parthia] and Tianzhu [North-western India] by sea. The profit margin is ten to one. . . . The king of this country always wanted to send envoys to the Han, but Anxi [Parthia], wishing to control the trade in multi-coloured Chinese silks, blocked the route to prevent [the Romans] getting through [to China].

Moving sand dunes on Mars

Moving Sand Dunes on Mars, by Amelia Carolina Sparavigna, Department of Applied Science and Technology, Politecnico di Torino, Torino, Italy

Abstract: It was recently announced that the sand dunes on Mars can move. This important result was obtained by means of the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE), the camera onboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The images, recorded three years apart, of the dunes in the Nili Patera caldera show that they move. Here we compare an image HiRISE of 2007 with an image of 1999 recorded by the Mars Global Surveyor. Therefore, with the help of Gimp, the GNU image processing software to enhance the images, we can see and measure the motion of the dunes during a longer period of time.

A dune on Mars which is moving. In the Nili Patera caldera.

199 on the left, 2007 on the right

More details and article at:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/162390676/Moving-Sand-Dunes-on-Mars

Peruvian dunes (Google Earth)

http://staff.polito.it/amelia.sparavigna/DUNE/

"Moving Dunes on the Google Earth" at http://arxiv.org/abs/1301.1290

(where I show how to use the time series of the Google Earth to estimate the motion of the barchans. I discuss also how to use reference points and adjust the Google images to have a "movie")

"A Study of Moving Sand Dunes by Means of Satellite Images"

at http://www.ijsciences.com/pub/article/229 

From Google Earth to Tatooine

Today (11 August 2013)  I found this article entitled "Star Wars home of Anakin Skywalker threatened by dune" http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-23375344
It is told that "Sand dunes migrating over the Tunisian desert are poised to bury a famous Star Wars film set. The buildings of the fictional city Mos Espa featured in The Phantom Menace, "Episode I" of the Jedi saga. Sited on the planet Tatooine, this was the home of the young Anakin Skywalker ... Scientists have used the dwellings as a fixed geographic reference to measure the migration of giant wind-blown crescent-shaped dunes, or barchans. They have published details in the journal Geomorphology." The paper is in press, and you can see it at  http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169555X13003486
BBC continues "Ralph Lorenz, from Johns Hopkins University, ...  visited the Mos Espa site in 2009, and noted that part of a nearby set used in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope had already been overrun. Using satellite images of the site, they were able to determine the speed of dune movement, which is approaching the buildings once inhabited by such luminaries as Anakin, his slave owner Watto, and rival podracer Sebulba".
Before these "Dunes on the planet Tatooine",  on 4 January 2013 it was published  my "Moving Dunes on the Google Earth", as you can find at http://arxiv.org/abs/1301.1290, where I showed how to use the time series of the Google Earth to estimate the motion of the barchans. I used the barchans in Peru. I have also  discussed how to use reference points and adjust the Google images to have a "movie".
It seems that the authors of "Dunes on planet Tatooine: Observation of barchan migration at the Star Wars film set in Tunisia" do not know my "Moving dunes on the Google Earth" because my paper is not cited.
Therefore I cite myself!

And show you a "movie" of the barchan which is threatening Luke Skywalker's home.

More movies http://staff.polito.it/amelia.sparavigna/DUNE/

Moving sand dunes on the Google Earth

"Moving dunes on the Google Earth" is my paper on arXiv, published 4 January 2013. It shows how using GH time series you can see the motion of dunes. Here an example.

To see a movie, please visit Moving sand dunes ... post

http://physics-sparavigna.blogspot.it/2013/06/moving-sand-dunes-on-google-earth.html

Dharmadhatu

Dharmadhatuvagishvara Manjushri, gilded bronze, Nepal, 19th century

MAO, Museo d'Arte Orientale, Torino

Angeli e Demoni

 

Il Tibet al Museo d'Arte Orientale di Torino

Amenhotep II

Amenhotep II (Amun is Satisfied) was the seventh Pharaoh of the 18th dynasty of Egypt. Amenhotep inherited a vast kingdom from his father Thutmose III.  His reign is usually dated from 1427 to 1401 BC.

Museo Egizio Torino

Kongorikishi

"Kongōrikishi (金剛力士) or Niō (仁王) are two wrath-filled and muscular guardians of the Buddha, standing today at the entrance of many Buddhist temples all across Asia including China, Japan and Korea in the form of frightening wrestler-like statues.
They are manifestations of the Bodhisattva Vajrapāṇi protector deity and the oldest and most powerful of the Mahayana pantheon. According to Japanese tradition, they travelled with the historical Buddha to protect him and there are references to this in the Theravada Scriptures as well as the Ambatta Sutta. Within the generally pacifist tradition of   Buddhism, stories of Niō guardians like Kongōrikishi justified the use of  physical force to protect cherished values and beliefs against evil. Nio-Vajrapani is also seen as a manifestation of Mahasthamaprapta or the Bodhisattva of Power that flanks Amida in the Pure Land Tradition and as Vajrasattva, the Dharmapala of the Tibetan tradition...

...Kongōrikishi are a possible case of the transmission of the image of the Greek hero Heracles to East Asia along the Silk Road.  Heracles was used in Greco-Buddhist art to represent Vajrapani, the protector of the Buddha (See also Image), and his representation
was then used in China and Japan to depict the protector gods of Buddhist temples. This transmission is part of the wider Greco-Buddhist syncretic phenomenon, where Buddhism interacted with the Hellenistic  culture of Central Asia from the 4th century BC to the 4th century AD.[4]

Source: Wikipedia

See also http://stretchingtheboundaries.blogspot.it/2011/04/kongo-rikishi.html

Solar orientation of Ales Stenar

Ales Stenar and the direction of the sun during the day as given by sollumis.com, on the Winter and Summer solstices. The image shows a good agreement with the solar orientation suggested in

Andrew M. Kobos, January/February, 2001. Ales Stenar: When? Who? What for?,

http://www.zwoje-scrolls.com/as/aleseng.html

More 

On the solar orientation of Ales Stenar site, A.C. Sparavigna

PORTO, POLITO, http://porto.polito.it/2507517/

and also
http://stretchingtheboundaries.blogspot.it/2012/04/ales-stone-boat.html

UPDATE AND UPGRADE (2016)

To see Ales Stenar and its orientaton to the MOON see this:

http://stretchingtheboundaries.blogspot.it/2016/09/ales-stenar-and-moon.html