Comparison and contrast Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words - 1

Comparison and contrast - Research Paper Example This is due to various reasons to be covered later in the paper. In this paper, we shall compare and contrast variations between the Twilight book by Stephanie Meyer and the twilight movie. The twilight saga is a series of young fantasy of a young girl who falls in love with a vampire. It was in 2005 that Stephanie Meyers published the twilight saga as the first part of the series in hardcopy. It was among the many nominations as the best selling book in the States. Later director Catherine Hardwicke adapted a film from the novel Twilight and released it on November 8, 2008 (Baptiste 10). The young seventeen year old girl, Bella Swan falls in love with a handsome young vampire, Edward Cullen. Their relationship is faced by many challenges due to the fact that Bella is human and Edward is a vampire. Edward has to fight off the urge to hurt Bells due to the blood scent (Meyer 42). There also exists a feud between the vampires and the wolves. In the wolf territory a young and handsome man falls in love with Bella too. But their love scene is dwelled more in the next series which is the new moon. In this first series, Bella finds out that she is in trouble from a vampire tracker, James. She attends a vampire baseball game and from that time James hunts for her blood. The vampire family attempt to save Bella from James, but finally he catches her. Later on they save her and kill James. Edward then promises to love her and take care of her as long they are together. It is a romantic young love story basically but with fiction about vampires. This is the saga we are going t o analyze the comparison of plot development of the book and the movie. Some reasons why the movies may be disappointed would be due to various reasons. There could be changes, omissions, additions and many more. In the Twilight movie a lot of things do not match along with the book. In most movies this is done to give the movie the proper length. This is especially the omissions of

Panera Bread Essay Example for Free

Panera Bread Essay What are the Panera Bread’s primary sources of competitive advantage? In your judgment, are these sources of advantages sustainable? Why or why not? Panera’s primary sources of competitive advantage are: (1) the distinctive nature of its bakery products, (2) its brand strength, (3) the atmosphere of its restaurants, and (4). its position in the restaurant industry Yes,Panera Bread Co. (NASDAQ: PNRA) operates the signature restaurant chain Panera Bread, selling hand-crafted breads, sandwiches, salads, and drinks. Panera Bread bakery-cafes are often associated with the concept of â€Å"fast casual†, a mixture between fast food and more upscale casual dining. Customers still pay for their food at the counter, like a traditional fast food restaurant, but Panera arranges tables and chairs to be conducive to group meetings. Most Panera Bread restaurants are located in suburban strip malls and regional malls. As of December 29, 2009, Panera had 1,380 bakery-cafes, spanning 38 states, as well as some locations in Canada. Traditionally, companies like Panera have suffered in recessions, which decrease the frequency with which consumers eat out at restaurants. 1] However, Panera’s strategy during the recession has been â€Å"to stay consistent and not to react to the recession†, keeping costs constant and offering new salads and sandwiches. [2] As a result, Panera’s â€Å"fast casual† niche (between casual dining and fast food) contributes to its relative success; this positioning allowed it to avoid discounting wars and maintain its margins by attracting customers with a higher quality product perceived to be a good value for the money. Panera bread has a great meal of Bacon Turkey Bravo with 28G of fat per meal.

In this essay I will be investigating the fate and characteristics of

In this essay I will be investigating the fate and characteristics of a tragic hero in a play A View From The Bridge written by Arthur Miller. The character discussed in this essay is a longshoreman named Eddie Carbone. In this essay I will be investigating the fate and characteristics of a tragic hero in a play "A View From The Bridge" written by Arthur Miller. The character discussed in this essay is a longshoreman named Eddie Carbone - a responsible family man living in the rough neighborhoods of Red hook, Brooklyn, New York. A Sicilian community bound by a strict social code. Eddie's credentials are compared against Aristotle's view of a tragic hero " one who is neither villainous or virtuous, moving from a high happy status to a miserable one through some frailty or error in judgment." Through out the play we witness the development of this as we see Eddie fall from his high status in the community to losing everything, his family, respected name in the community and even his life. By witnessing his downfall (nemesis) the audience is moved to pity (pathos) because he suffers from a frailty that we recognize which could have happen to us. This is what makes him a tragic hero. Although fate plays a large part in his downfall, much of the events conspiring against him are caused by his flawed characteristics and wrong doings. So in this essay I will be determining whether Eddie Carbone disserves our pity. Eddie Carbone is respected in his community, seen as a reliable dominant longshoreman who "was as good as a man he had to be in a life that was hard and even." His name represents a lot in his community and brings pride back home. He is a caring family man, Beatrice usually gives in to his dema... ...he cruel reality of the society. Being an uncle, the level of incest is not as strong compared to father and daughter relationship. The gap between illegal family laws is smaller creating a stronger temptation for Eddie which makes his incestuous feeling difficult to ignore. And after all "Eddie was never meant to have a destiny" Eddie has lost everything, his family, his confidence in the community, friends etcetera. Basically eddie has already been paid back for all the faults he uncontrollably committed. I believe miller has succeeded in making us feel pity for Eddie. I think Eddie has represented a lot of individuals with incest problems, shown us how easily it was to be a victim and how emotionally difficult it is to free yourself. Finding your own daughter sexually attractive is an easy thing. He has made us wonder " Is incest really that bad?"

Complementing Texts: Homer’s The Odyssey and Dante’s Inferno Essay

Ever since human beings started telling stories for entertainment or for edification, heroes have made incredible journeys against what seem like impossible odds. In the beginning, heroes often these journeys to reach a goal, often in defiance of the gods who, for whatever reason, had imposed limits upon the main character of the story. In Homer’s story, The Odyssey, this limitation is that the gods will block his way home until he speaks to the sage Tiresias. By contrast, Dante Alighieri’s character of Dante primarily seeks to find answers to his questions; that is, knowledge, as a means to find salvation. While both heroes interact with the underworld to accomplish their aims, the stories complement each other, rather than mirror each other. In many ways, Dante’s text â€Å"corrects† the story found in Homer’s work, making it suitable for Christian audiences. Careful examination of texts reveals how some of these areas differ significantly between them. Some of these differences include the nature of the underworld itself and the hero’s interaction with it, the knowledge that Odysseus’ mother has of the living world, and the shared rule of the underworld. The Nature of the Underworld and the Heroes’ Interaction with It Like Dante’s Hell, Homer’s underworld is not a pleasant place to spend eternity. It is dark and gloomy; the inhabitants have dulled senses. The underworld into which Odysseus looks is Hades, not the Elysian Fields, where heroes were blessed with eternal happiness. Rather, the â€Å"unhappy dead† live there, cursed to bleak and boring existences for the rest of eternity. The dead who exist in Hades are those who have died unburied, like Odysseus’ friend, Elpenor, who died falling from a ladder leading from Circe’s roof, as well as Tiresias and Odysseus’ unhappy mother. And yet, misery of the inhabitants is one of several similarities between the two underworlds. One interesting difference between the Homer’s Hades and Dante’s Hell is that the stories’ heroes find their entrances in extremely different locations. Odysseus finds the entrance to Hades in a harbor at the â€Å"western edge of the world,† while Dante finds the entrance to Hell in the midst of a dark wood. While these differences might seem insignificant, they are, in truth, indicative of the different purposes behind the journeys that the heroes undertake. The harbor at the end of the world represents physical distance traveled; Odysseus is on a quest to return home to Ithaca, a goal that the gods have prevented him from attaining. It is an earthly goal, however, with measurable distances that must be traversed. While the ocean that Odysseus travels provides room for a communal journey through which he attempts to bring his crew home, Dante’s dark wood provides a far narrower field. It is restrictive and personal, perhaps driven by the solitary nature of Dante’s quest for knowledge and redemption. The distance that Dante must travel, therefore, is not one of finite measurement; rather, it exists within himself. It is a spiritual journey with no physical boundaries. Ultimately, this difference is magnified by the many levels of Hell, with its myriad levels, terraces, and malboges. In addition to the differing nature of the underworld as portrayed by each poet, the nature of the interaction that each hero has with the underworld and its inhabitants also varies. In order to interact at all with the inhabitants of the underworld, both heroes must make a rite of passage. Odysseus enters the realm of Hades by making a blood sacrifice of a ram, collecting its blood in a pit. Through this offering and by offering the appropriate supplications to the gods, Odysseus is able to call forth the souls of the dead. Being surrounded by the dead causes him to become afraid; however, he regains sufficient courage to control them and to question them. The character of Dante, however, must actually pass through the gates of Hell, ‘abandoning hope’ in order to learn what he desires. Although Odysseus is in the world of the dead, he is sure enough of himself to regain control, as opposed to Dante, who relinquishes all of his control to Virgil as then enter the underworld realm. While less â€Å"heroic† than Odysseus’ actions, this submissive behavior is actually of great importance, which again is based in the heroes’ purpose in entering the underworld. It is clear, that although both heroes must enter the realm of the underworld, each for his own purpose, Odysseus does not actually travel through Hades as Dante does through Hell. Rather, the dead approach Odysseus, coming â€Å"up in a crowd from Erebos: young men and brides, old men who had suffered much, and tender maidens to whom sorrow was a new thing; others killed in battle, warriors clad in bloodstained armor† (124) all surround his sacrificial pit in response to the ram’s blood that he has offered. This difference is also a significant one and related to the point made above it. Although Odysseus immediately appears to be the supplicant, by making the blood offering that attracts the dead, he is also in control of it. The dead must do his bidding in order to feed and give him the information that he requires. By contrast, the character of Dante physically travels into the midst of the souls of the damned. While he is under his own volition, Dante is a pilgrim, who must make an effort to gain his knowledge. He follows Virgil as Virgil leads, interacting with the souls on their own level in their own environment. This difference would also make Dante’s tale more appealing to Christian audiences. Although Odysseus’ cunning and strength were admired by the audience that lived at his time, the lesson of humility that the character of Dante both learns and teaches would be considered more acceptable to Alighieri’s audience. Although he is taking the initiative to learn on his own, like a proper pilgrim he is taking instruction from a master and listening to the moral lessons set before him. For those in the audience who recognize that he might have been contemplating suicide, Dante is also in the process of repenting. Knowledge of the Living World Odysseus seeks not merely wisdom from Tiresias, but he also seeks knowledge of his future in the living world. In truth, both Tiresias and Odysseus’ mother have clear knowledge of the living world, which they freely share with him in their turn. What is more, it is accurate knowledge, which allows him to prepare for his future, should he ever arrive at his destination. In a sense, both Tiresias and Odysseus’ mother are as living beings that have merely been transported to a new existence on an alternate plane, in that they can take initiative to see what lies ahead and then share it with him. Given that in other myths inhabitants of Hades are able to travel freely between the worlds with the gods’ permission, it seems apparent that the ancient Greeks saw the underworld as a place from which people could escape to return to the living if they had enough virtue or if they had a hero to aid them. This kind of belief is opposed to both Dante’s belief and to the belief of the Christians who formed his audience. Dante’s souls, perpetually trapped in their state of torment, must continuously atone for their actions on earth. They are surrounded by the reminders of their sins, perhaps tormented by the very things that they desired in life. At times, their appearance is dramatically altered to match their crimes. The only hope for the souls in Hell is Judgment Day, at which time they may be redeemed–or they may find themselves condemned to suffer throughout eternity. Even then, redeemed souls would not interact with the living; instead, they would pass into Heaven. Once again, the difference between the two realms and their inhabitants may be explained by virtue of the perception of the audiences for which the poets were writing. To the Greeks, life in the underworld was not necessarily a punishment. Certainly, the inhabitants of the underworld could experience punishment, even that of a perpetual nature. One good example of this kind of punishment would be Sisyphus, condemned to roll a boulder to the top of a hill for eternity, only to have it escape him and roll to the bottom again before it reaches the peak. However, the underworld is a plane of existence to which all humans will eventually travel. The underworld itself is divided into sections that provide reward or punishment or which simply continues the miserable existence that people had when on earth. This difference is, once again, quite different from the perspective of the Christian audience served by Dante, which viewed the underworld for punishment only. It is this understanding of the underworld being for punishment that would also limit the dead’s interaction with the living. Dante’s dead are unable to access the living world and, when encountering the character of Dante, are unable to learn from what he tells them. They have no minds and no insight, unlike the dead that Odysseus encounters, who know that they are suffering and why and yet are unable to interact with the world of the living in order to minimize their experiences. The Shared Rule of the Underworld In The Odyssey, both Hades and his wife, Persephone, rule the underworld. Although Hades has control over the underworld as a whole, Persephone is the Queen of the Women, with the ability to overrule even her husband in control of that group. In terms of importance, while this difference might seem trivial to some readers, it is perhaps of greatest significance of all of these points. Hades is not omnipotent, in that Persephone has equal control, if not greater control in some aspects of ruling the underworld. She strikes fear in Odysseus’ heart equal to that of her husband, in that Odysseus describes Hades as â€Å"mighty,† but Persephone as being â€Å"awful,† which would be synonymous with her being terrifying. This kind of rule would be unsurprising to the ancient Greeks, who lived in a world ruled by many gods. It also paralleled the arrangement of the gods on Mount Olympus, to a certain extent: Hades and Persephone, who ruled the world of the dead, mirrored Zeus and Hera, who ruled the world of the living. To the Christians that formed Dante’s audience, this arrangement would have been more than just a little shocking. Christians worship a single God who, while He might have different and while He may employ different helpers in the angels and the saints, has dominion over the living and the dead. As with the ancient Greek deities, God and Satan somewhat mirror each other. Despite Satan’s impressive appearance in The Inferno, however, he is as much a prisoner of Hell as its other residents. In addition, Satan does not mirror God’s power; rather, he is only capable of destruction, not creation. Conclusion In many ways, Dante’s Inferno complements and corrects Homer’s The Odyssey. Both are tales that bring a hero into contact with the underworld in order to achieve a particular goal. In the case of Odysseus, this goal is worldly and finite, while in the case of Dante, the goal is spiritual and may lead to eternal salvation. Several differences, among others, that indicate the complementary and corrective nature of Dante’s work are those of the nature of the respective underworlds and the heroes’ interaction with the inhabitants, the knowledge that the dead have of the living world, and the shared rule that Hades and Persephone have over the ancient Greek underworld. The story of heroic travels through the underworld is not a new one, neither was it new when Homer wrote The Odyssey. In the days of passing history and learning through oral means, such stories were necessary teaching tools. However, each culture imposed its morals and beliefs on this kind of tale. The different between these two stories provide an excellent example of how this cultural influence stamps this kind of heroic story with differences throughout history.

Earth and Its People Edition 3 Chapter 7 Outline

The Impact of the Silk Road †¢ The Silk Road at first caused many pastoral groups to form. Eventually, rich families did settleand build large establishments. †¢ The Silk Road allowed the spread of religions ( see chart above ) such as Nestorian Christianity,Manichaeism, Zoroastrianism, and Buddhism. †¢ The stirrup spread though out the Silk Road. It allowed riders to be much more stable and thuscaused military innovation. i. e. the superiority of the Tang calvary in China. The Indian Ocean Maritime System †¢The Indian Ocean Maritime System was a society of seafarers established across the IndianOcean and South China Sea. †¢ This trade system linked a network of sea trade routes from Africa to China. The main playerswere Africans, South Arabian Persian, and the  Southern Chinese people (including theIndonesians and Malays). †¢ Although much of the discoveries of new lands and waters were attributed to famous peoplesuch as Zhang Jian or Hippalus, we mus t not forget the the indigenous people of these areasalso greatly contributed to their  expansions. Origins of Contact and Trade †¢Madagascar is the world’s fourth largest island. †¢ 2000 years ago, people from one of the many Indonesian islands of Southeast Asia establishedthemselves in the mountainous land of Madagascar, 9,500 kilometers from home. †¢ These people kept much of their traditions but eventually lost most of it. [pic] The Impact of Indian Ocean Trade †¢ The precious materials wanted in  trade included ivory and minerals. †¢ Evidence of ancient copper mines has been  found in Oman in  southeastern Arabia. †¢ However, this volume of trade was  less than the amount occurring in the Mediterranean. †¢In the Indian area, the ports were small due to geographical problems such as inland monsoonwater not by the sea. †¢ E India, the Malay Peninsula, and Indonesia afforded more hospitable and densely populatedshores with e asier access to inland  populations. †¢ The empires that existed through out this Indus area never bothered to develop  as muchmaritime powers as the Greeks or  the Phoenocians did. †¢ The families around the coastal Indian area established bilingual and bicultural systems. Routes Across the Sahara Early Saharan Cultures †¢ The Sahara is broken only by the Nile River. †¢The trans-Saharan Caravan Routes were forced into existence due to the lack of water in manyareas. †¢ Before the Sahara became dry (pre 2500 B. C. E. ), this area was quite wet with a diverse group of  animals. †¢ Many believe that people from Mediterranean civilizations such as the Minoans, Mycenaeans, orRomans may have rode chariots into  the Saharan deserts. However, this evidence is lacking. [pic] Trade Across the Sahara †¢ Traders developed into two groups: the north and south. †¢ The North primarily focused on salt  trade. †¢ People from the souther Sahel brought forest and  agriculture goods.Sub-Saharan Africa A challenging Geography †¢ The use of rivers was limited by the many rapids in the rivers. †¢ The Southern Sahara area was limited and surrounded by many obstacles such as  the Niger,Zaire, Senegal Rivers, the Red  Sea, the Saharan Desert, etc. †¢ South of the Sahara are the steppes and savanna rain forests. These places were difficult totraverse. The Development of Cultural Unity †¢ â€Å"Anthropologists call â€Å"Great Traditions† those that typically include a written language, commonlegal and belief systems, ethical codes, and other intellectual attitudes.They loom large inwritten records as traditions that rise above the diversity of local  customs and beliefs commonlydistinguished as â€Å"small traditions. †Ã¢â‚¬  †¢ The elite culture in the sub-Saharan area turned the area into a Great Tradition area. †¢ This area is home to ~ 2000 languages. African Cultural Char acteristics †¢ African culture is shaped by the geographically different conditions of the lands. †¢ The post ice age time caused the diverse group of people to form. †¢ Although the population flourished at first, the  increase in dryness over the long period of  timecaused the diverse groups of people to  recede into specific areas.The Advent of Iron and the Bantu Migrations †¢ Agriculture started in the 2nd millennium B. C. E. and spread southward from the area by theSahara. †¢ Archaeology has also uncovered traces of copper mining in  the Sahara from the early  firstmillennium B. C. E. †¢ Copper smelting was during 400 C. E. †¢ Iron smelting was around the 1st millennium C. E. †¢ The Africans of Bantu probably figured out  how to smelt iron by themselves. The Spread of Ideas Ideas and Material Evidence †¢ In SE Asian, pig domestication was extremely important. †¢ Coinage in Anatolia and Europe was extremely popular. A t the same time coinage in China was also very popular. The Spread of Buddhism †¢ Please See The Above Image and Your Religious Charts The Spread of Christianity †¢ Please see Religious Chart ______________________________________________________ CHAPTER OUTLINE I. The Silk Road | | | |A. Origins and Operations | | 1. The Silk Road was an overland route that linked China to the Mediterranean world via Mesopotamia, Iran, and Central Asia. There were two periods of heavy use of the Silk Road: (1) 150 b. c. e. –907 c. e. and (2) the thirteenth through seventeenth centuries c. e. 2. The origins of the Silk Road trade may be located in the occasional trading of Central Asian nomads.Regular, large-scale trade was fostered by the Chinese demand for western products (particularly horses) and by the Parthian state in northeastern Iran and its control of the markets in Mesopotamia. 3. In addition to horses, China imported alfalfa, grapes, and a variety of other new crops a s well as medicinal products, metals, and precious stones. China exported peaches and apricots, spices, and manufactured goods including silk, pottery, and paper. | |B. The Impact of the Silk Road 1. Turkic nomads, who became the dominant pastoralist group in Central Asia, benefited from the trade. Their elites constructed houses, lived settled lives, and became interested in foreign religions including Christianity, Manicheanism, Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, and (eventually) Islam. 2. Central Asian military technologies, particularly the stirrup, were exported both east and west, with significant consequences for the conduct of war. | | II.The Sasanid Empire, 224-600 CE A. Politics and Society 1. The Sasanid kingdom was established in 224 and controlled the areas of Iran and Mesopotamia. 2. The Sasanid Empire made Zoroastrianism its official religion. The Byzantine Empire made Christianity its official religion. Both Zoroastrianism and Christianity were intolerant of other religions. 3. In the third century Mani of Mesopotamia founded a religion whose beliefs centered around the struggle between Good and Evil. Mani was killed by the Sasanid shah, but Manichaeism spread widely in Central Asia.Arabs had some awareness of these religions conflicts and knew about Christianity. III. The Indian Ocean Maritime System | | | | A. Origins of Contact and Trade | | 1.There is evidence of early trade between ancient Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley. This trade appears to have broken off as Mesopotamia turned more toward trade with East Africa. 2. Two thousand years ago, Malay sailors from Southeast Asia migrated to the islands of Madagascar. These migrants, however, did not retain communications or trade with their homeland. | | B. The Impact of Indian Ocean Trade 1. What little we know about trade in the Indian Ocean system before Islam is gleaned largely from a single first century c. . Greco-Egyptian text,  The Periplus of the Erythrean Sea. This account describes a trading system that must have been well established and flourishing when the account was written. The goods traded included a wide variety of spices, aromatic resins, pearls, Chinese pottery, and other luxury goods. The volume of trade was probably not as high as in the Mediterranean. 2. The culture of the Indian Ocean ports was often isolated from that of their hinterlands. In the western part of the Indian Ocean, trading ports did not have access to large inland populations of potential consumers.Even in those eastern Indian and Malay peninsula ports that did have access to large inland populations, the civilizations did not become oriented toward the sea. 3. Traders and sailors in the Indian Ocean system often married local women in the ports that they frequented. These women thus became mediators between cultures. | | IV. Routes Across the Sahara | |A. Early Saharan Cultures | | 1. Undateable rock paintings in the highland areas that separate the southern from the northern Sa hara indicate the existence of an early Saharan hunting culture that was later joined by cattle breeders who are portrayed as looking rather like contemporary West Africans. 2. The artwork indicates that the cattle breeders were later succeeded by horse herders who drove chariots.There is no evidence to support the earlier theory that these charioteers might have been Minoan or Mycenaean refugees. But there is also no evidence to show us either their origins or their fate. 3. The highland rock art indicates that camel riders followed the charioteers. The camel was introduced from Arabia and its introduction and domestication in the Sahara was probably related to the development of the trans-Saharan trade. Written evidence and the design of camel saddles and patterns of camel use indicate a south-to-north diffusion of camel riding. . The camel made it possible for people from the southern highlands of the Sahara to roam the desert and to establish contacts with the people of the nort hern Sahara. | | B. Trade Across the Sahara 1. Trade across the Sahara developed slowly when two local trading systems, one in the southern Sahara and one in the north, were linked. Traders in the southern Sahara had access to desert salt deposits and exported salt to the sub-Saharan regions in return for kola nuts and palm oil.Traders in the north exported agricultural products and wild animals to Italy. | | V. Sub-Saharan Africa | | A. A Challenging Geography | | 1. Sub-Saharan Africa is a large area with many different environmental zones and many geographical obstacles to movement. . Some of the significant geographical areas are the Sahel, the tropical savanna, the tropical rain forest of the lower Niger and Zaire, the savanna area south of the rain forest, steppe and desert below that, and the temperate highlands of South Africa. | | B. The Development of Cultural Unity 1. Scholars draw a distinction between the â€Å"great traditions† of ruling elite culture in a ci vilization and the many â€Å"small traditions† of the common people. . In sub-Saharan Africa no overarching â€Å"great tradition† developed. Sub-Saharan Africa is a vast territory of many â€Å"small traditions. † Historians know very little about the prehistory of these many â€Å"small traditions† and their peoples. 3. African cultures are highly diverse. The estimated two thousand spoken languages of the continent and the numerous different food production systems reflect the diversity of the African ecology and the difficulty of communication and trade between different groups.Another reason for the long dominance of â€Å"small traditions† is that no foreign power was able to conquer Africa and thus impose a unified â€Å"great tradition. † | | C. African Cultural Characteristics 1. Despite their diversity, African cultures display certain common features that attest to an underlying cultural unity that some scholars have called †Å"Africanity. † 2. One of these common cultural features is a concept of kingship in which kings are ritually isolated and oversee societies in which the people are arranged in age groups and kinship ivisions. 3. Other common features include cultivation with the hoe and digging stick, the use of rhythm in African music, and the functions of dancing and mask wearing in rituals. 4. One hypothesis offered to explain this cultural unity holds that the people of sub-Saharan Africa are descended from the people who occupied the southern Sahara during its â€Å"wet period† and migrated south the Sahel, where their cultural traditions developed. | | D. The Advent of Iron and the Bantu Migrations 1.Sub-Saharan agriculture had its origins north of the equator and then spread southward. Iron working also began north of the equator and spread southward, reaching southern Africa by 800 c. e. 2. Linguistic evidence suggests that the spread of iron and other technology in sub-Saharan Africa was the result of a phenomenon known as the Bantu migrations. 3. The original homeland of the Bantu people was in the area on the border of modern Nigeria and Cameroon. Evidence suggests that the Bantu people spread out toward the east and the south through a series of migrations over the period of the first millennium c. . By the eight century, Bantu-speaking people had reached East Africa. | | IV. The Spread of Ideas | | A. Ideas and Material Evidence | | 1. It is extremely difficult, sometimes impossible, to trace the dissemination of ideas in preliterate societies.For example, eating pork was restricted or prohibited by religious belief in Southeast Asia, in ancient Egypt, and in eastern Iran. Because Southeast Asia was an early center of pig domestication, scholars hypothesize that the pig and the religious injunctions concerning eating the pig traveled together toward the west. This has not been proved. 2. Another difficult problem involves the invention of coins. In the Mediterranean world, the coins were invented in Anatolia and spread from there to Europe, North Africa, and India.Chinese made cast copper coins—was this inspired by the Anatolian example? There is no way of knowing. | | B. The Spread of Buddhism 1. The spread of ideas in a deliberate and organized fashion such that we can trace it is a phenomenon of the first millennium c. e. This is particularly the case with the spread of Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam. 2. The spread of Buddhism was facilitated both by royal sponsorship and by the travels of ordinary pilgrims and missionaries.In India, the Mauryan king Ashoka and King Kanishka of the Kushans actively supported Buddhism. Two of the most well-known pilgrims who helped to transmit Buddhism to China were the Chinese monks Faxian and Xuanzang. Both have left reliable narrative accounts of their journeys. 3. Buddhist missionaries from India traveled to a variety of destinations: west to Syria, Egypt, and Mesopotamia, as well as to Sri Lanka, southeast Asia, and Tibet. 4. Buddhism was changed and further developed in the lands to which it spread.Theravada Buddhism became dominant in Sri Lanka, Mahayana in Tibet, and Chan (Zen) in East Asia. | | C. The Spread of Christianity 1. Armenia was an important entrepot for the Silk Road trade. Mediterranean states spread Christianity to Armenia in order to bring that kingdom over to its side and thus deprive Iran of control of this area. 2. The transmission of Christianity to Ethiopia was similarly linked to a Mediterranean Christian attempt to deprive Iran of trade.