Here are Todays Amazing Pre 1900 Deals!
More Great Information on Pre 1900:
Amethyst The Church And The Color Purple by David-John Turner
One of the world's most popular gemstones, Amethyst is classified today as a semi-precious gem. However, from pre-biblical times in ancient Mesopotamia, right up to the European Middle Ages, Amethyst was regarded as a precious gem. During the latter part of this period Diamond, Sapphire, Emerald, Ruby and Amethyst were attributed the joint title of the five 'Cardinal Gems.' Amethysts inclusion into the 'Cardinal Gem' set was due to the association made by Pharaohs, Kings, and of course Cardinals, who all held Amethyst's purple color representative of the highest echelons of society.
By today's standards the color purple is commonplace, and is easily bought as tincture and paint from any local hardware store. However, prior to the wonders of modern science purple dye was the single most rarest nuance available in nature. According to the Greek philosopher and tutor of 'Alexander The Great,' Aristotle: In it's purest form it possesses a value ten to twenty times its weight in gold!"
Legend has it that the first purple dye was discovered by Herakle-Melqart (city god of Tyr) who was walking along the Levantine shoreline with the nymph Tyrus. His dog found a Murex snail and devoured it, which left a beautiful purple color around the dog's mouth. Tyrus saw the color and told Herakle-Melqart she would not accept his courtship until he brought her a robe of the same color. So he collected the Murex shells, extracted the dye, and tinted the first garment purple.
The Levantine coast where they walked was an area that today encapsulates the city of Sur in modern Lebanon, known in pre-biblical times as Tyr. For thousands of years, this part of Lebanon was known as Canaan or Phoenicia, which literally translated meant 'The Land Of Purple.'
Although the earliest purple dyes were found in Minoan pottery glazes on the island of Crete, circa 1900 B.C., Phoenicia and its principal city of Tyr were the first to exploit the Murex's purple dye commercially. Tyrian texts mention the Murex's dye as early as 1600 B.C., from where it became Tyr's principal source of income for 100's of years. It is from this geographical origin that we get the name 'Tyrian Purple.' It should be noted that by today's standards the ancient purples, known as porpora, were more red than purple. They varied from a fiery red, to viola and an almost red-black.
The Murex dye industry proved to be so lucrative to the Tyrians that the shell was adopted as a symbol of Tyr appearing on their earliest coinage alongside their city god, Melqart. Over the course of time, and through extensive trade networks stretching from Babylonia, Egypt, Persia, and Rome the Murex's highly coveted dye became synonymous with wealth and an exotic trade rarity reserved for the rich.
Of all countries that Phoenicia was to trade the Murex dye with it was Italy who would become her most loyal customer. The Phoenicians first traded in Italy with the Etruscans, a society of artisans particularly skilled in the art of jewelry fabrication. However, it was with the creation of Imperial Rome by Romulus in 753 B.C. that the Murex's purple dye began to be synonymous with power, wealth and position.
Pliny the Elder, author of the world's first Encyclopedia in the 1st century A.D. wrote: I find that, from the very first, purple has been in use at Rome, but that Romulus employed it for the trabea..." The trabea was similar to the toga, and decorated with purple stripes. There were various kinds of trabea; one was completely purple and sacred to the gods, another was purple and white and was the royal robe worn by kings such as Romulus and later Tullus Hostilius. Pliny continues: As to the toga prtexta (a toga bordered with purple, worn by magistrates and free-born children) and the laticlave vestment (a purple badge of the senatorial order), it is a fact well ascertained, that Tullus Hostilius was the first king who made use of them..." From this use as a status symbol in early Imperial Rome it was a matter of time until purple assumed another moniker, 'Imperial Purple.'
Hundreds of years later, with the demise of the Roman Empire and the emergence of the Byzantine Empire, the usage of 'Imperial Purple' and 'Tyrian Purple' had been strictly reserved for nobility and the church. By the fall of Byzantium in 1453 the Murex shell had all but vanished, and in 1464 the Pope Paul II introduced the 'Cardinal's Purple,' authorizing the use of cochineal insect to dye cardinals' and archbishops' robes instead. The 'Cardinal Purple' of the cochineal was much closer to what we call purple than the Murex's 'Tyrian' or 'Imperial' variety, and led to our modern interpretation of purple being a mixture of red and blue.
From this point in time onwards Amethyst, echoing the same purple coloration, became a regular feature in the ornamentation of Rome's holy men, worn as rings and amulets as a sign of pious virtue. It is from these various associations that Amethyst, with its emblematic colors of the Roman Catholic Church, took its place amongst diamond, sapphire, ruby and emerald as a 'Cardinal Gem.'
Copyright SilverShake Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
Written for SilverShake, an online retailer of amethyst silver jewelry and sterling silver jewelry at wholesale prices. Purchase today and get silver jewelry worth up to $60...Free!
Article Source: http://www.earticlesonline.com/Article/Amethyst-The-Church-And-The-Color-Purple/77759
Is it true that pre-1900 circumcision was not practiced in the UK/US?
i think it was in wikipedia (circumcision section) that said it was only in 1900 that circumcision spread to the UK and US.
does that mean before then it was never done in those places?
Yes is true. Almost no one was cut before then, except if they wre Jewish (and that was a small poulation)
IIn the US during the late 1800s early 1900s there was the thinking that sexuality was bad. Circumcision was pushed to curb male sexual pleasure (which it does) and to stop masturbation (it does not do that, but it makes it rather difficult). In Europe, sexuality was and still is considered normal human thing that is not to be repressed. In the UK, the Victorian era left issues as to sexuality and circ caught on a bit with the wrong thinking about hygeine (they did not understand good bacteria and the harm of exposure to foreign bacteria).
Some US Jewish doctors got the idea that the biblical circumcsion was actually healthier than the natural state (it is not) and they pushed it. Some still do (Dr Schoen). This is unfortunate as people against circumcision are against harming babies and have no religion or race issue. However, this barbaric practice would have died out if not for those trying to justify it by making up medical reasons to do it.
Dr Alan Guttmacher, an Obstretrician, took over as Editor of Planned Parenthood Magazine in 1941 until 1983, and conducted a long campaign to persuade MOTHERS to circumcise their sons.
The arguments rehearsed were the familiar ones of "Hygiene", supposed cleanliness,and the familiar scare stories of Diseases. All backed up by the junk science. Guttmacher's doctor pals, mostly Jewish, wrote "learned papers" largely theory, no proof, to scientific magazines, which were then requoted out of context by Planned Parenthood. His success in pushing male circumcision was because he cleverly climbed on the back of John Harvey Kellogg's religious campaign to stop masturbation in boys. Kellogg didn't realise girls masturbated too. It is now also knwon that the original old Testament did not even have circumcision in it and it is an ancient blood/marking sacrifice ritual taht predates the Jews. The Europeans never allowed their medicine to be hijacked by sexual nuts or religious wackos.
There is no justification. There is no sense to removing erogenous tissue and capactity for pleasure from your childs life.
