Song and Tand Poetry

I enjoyed these poems very much and saw many similarities betwwen them. For example ost of theoems from both dynasties were about family or nature. Hoever, the Song dynasty poems also included a lot about silk. These easily can be used as clues to discovering the past because people expressed bits about their culture through their art. So this could obviously be a way to represent the dnasty. I believe the poems reflected the dynasties very well because the Song were more based on economy while the Tang focused on Buddhist ideas.

Constantine and Prince Vladimir

The conversion of Prince Vladimir and Constantine to Christianity was very important for influencong both of their empires. In this way both leaders are smilar because of their support in changing the society. Constantine was the bridge that brought Christianity to popularity and allowed it to be practiced openly. He began to incorporate religion into many aspects of life and made Christianity very powerful. Prince Vladimir also acted as a bridge as he brought Byzantine culture into Russia. His conversion to Christianity linked the Russian empire to the Byzantine, and with Vladimir's help, a lot of Byxantine culture flowed into Russia forming a society that was a mix of the two. The fact that both Constantine and Vladimir both acted as link to another cultural aspect that they morphed into their corresponding empires.

Byzantine architecture

Some trends of architecture from the time of the Byzantine empire were archs on the lower levels and then either sharp pointed roofs or dome roofs. Another distinctive characteristic were very tall, thin towers. Most of these architecture methods seem decorative because of the wonderful craftmenship; however, the archs and pointed roofs show very clever structure to keep the buildings long lasting. There seems to be a lot of influence into American architecture which include most of the Byzantine empire characteristics. Domes and archs, of course are consistent throughout American architecture.

Documents on Constantinople

Document 1 is written by Benjamin of Tudela who is a traveling rabbi. He writes about how wonderful Constantinople and how he admires it but then in the end he describes how horribly the Jews were treated. The document,however still has a positive connotation to it.
Document 2 is written by Robert of Clari who describes about Constantinople's capture and how amazed the captors were.
Document 3 Nicetas Choniates and this document describes how the Latin people destroyed the entire city uncaring of what was important. This may not be a very credible source because it seems very exaggerated and only comes from one point of view. This seems to have been written for the general public.
Document 4 is a map of Constantinople which does not seem very credible because it is not drawn to scale and shows a very tiny city with large buildings. This map might have been drawn to show Constantinople's incredible protection with natural barriers surrounding the city with water and with man-made walls and many watch towers.
Document 5 shows the new forms of architecture cated by Constantine. This document is a photo of the inside of Saint Sophia.
Document 6 is written George Acropolites who describes the Michael the 8th Palaeologus who comes to Constantinople to find a new ruler of the city. The document depicts his route into the city and all his religious affiliations in the city and presenting the patriarch with the throne.
Document 7 has an unknown author and describes all the great things the Phonecians have accomplished and discusses Constantinople for its trading port.
The most reliable source seems to be Document 1 which was written by the traveling rabbi named Benjamin of Tudela. This document best describes the treatment of the people in the city and all of the religious buildings and the other architecture in the city. This document is written to the general public and seems to be most credible in describing the city.

Silk Road Project

Three things that I believe went well for this project were that me and my partner worked well together and tried to the best of our abilities to make the map as neat and detailed as we could. Another thing I thought went well was how my group scaled our map and that it made it much easier to trace the smaller map onto the large paper afterward. And the last thing thst I thought went well was that this project gave me a real idea of how large and difficult to travel on these roads would have been for merchants and all of the problems they had to overcome. Three things that i disliked about this project was that me and my partner drastically ran low on time by the last day and tried our best but were not able to make the map look as neat as we could have. Another thing I disliked was that I could not find a good map of the Roman empire in correspondence to the Silk Road, and was not able to accurately depict it on the map. The last thing I disliked about this project was how little information about the exports the book had but it was easy to find additional information on the internet. I believe collaboration was very good between me and my partner. I believe the only difficult part of this project was the short amount of time to make the maps we had and if I coild redo tuis project i would bring the map home over the weekendand work on making it more detailed and neat.