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Legio XXI Rapax
Legio XXI Rapax was a legion of the Roman army whose name name "Rapax" means "rapacious" or "greedy". It is not clear when the legion assumed this name; it may or may not be the same 21st legion Julius Caesar (100-44 BCE) formed before his...
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Legio XXI Rapax
A brick stamp of Legio XXI Rapax.
Terra-Sigillata-Museum, Rheinzabern.
Definition
Dowding System
Britain's integrated air defence system in the Second World War (1939-45), known as the Dowding System after the air chief marshal of that name, included code-breakers, radar stations, observers, searchlights, barrage balloons, anti-aircraft...
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The Dragon in Ancient China
Dragons appear in the mythology of many ancient cultures but nowhere else in the world was the creature quite so revered as in China. There, in marked contrast to other world mythologies, the dragon was almost always seen in a positive light...
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Legions of the Rhine Frontier
After Julius Caesar’s (100-44 BCE) conquest of Gaul, Roman legions pushed the borders of the Roman Empire’s frontier to the banks of the Rhine River. Augustus (r. 27 BCE - 14 CE) divided the newly acquired region into three provinces: Gallia...
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Battle of the Long Bridges
Battle During the Retreat of Germanicus (Kampf beim Rückzug des Germanicus), oil on canvas painting by Ferdinand Leeke, 1898. Berlin State Museums, Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation. Photo by Andres Kilger. The painting presents...
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Funerary Inscription of a Roman Soldier
Funerary inscription of a Roman soldier who served in the Legio XXI Rapax.
Roman Museum, Nyon, Switzerland.
Article
Hei Tiki
The hei tiki is a small personal adornment, fashioned by hand from tough pounamu (New Zealand greenstone or nephrite jade), and is worn around the neck. Hei means something looped around the neck, and tiki is a generic word used throughout...
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Geme-Suen v Ur-Lugal's Wife - A Court Case in Ancient Mesopotamia
During the 21st century BCE, an era known as the Ur III period in Mesopotamia, many records of court hearings were drawn up in Umma, a city in what is now southern Iraq. One court record relates a dispute between two women. The name of one...
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Monet Painting in His Studio Boat by Manet
An 1874 oil on canvas painting, Monet Painting in His Studio Boat, by Edouard Manet (1832-83), the French modernist painter. Claude Monet (1840-1926) took the impressionist ideal of painting outdoors one step further and built himself a floating...