Tang and Song Poetry

I actually really liked all of the the Tang and Song poetry.  I was expecting them to be about some confusing idea but it was actually relateable.  In my opinion I like the Tang poetry better because they are more thought provoking.  I liked how it had lines like, "He urges me to drink ten cups -- But what ten cups could make me as drunk As I always am with your love in my heart?"  I just think that is really cute and sweet.  The Tang and Song poetry are similar because they both have an overall positive tone and talk about drinking and nature.  They are different because the Song poetry are more harmonious and sound more like a song.  I think the poems represent the societies in way because it shows how the poets way of life was, but the poetry does not go into detail about politics or government for example.

Tang and Song Poetry

I actually really liked all of the the Tang and Song poetry.  I was expecting them to be about some confusing idea but it was actually relateable.  In my opinion I like the Tang poetry better because they are more thought provoking.  I liked how it had lines like, "He urges me to drink ten cups -- But what ten cups could make me as drunk As I always am with your love in my heart?"  I just think that is really cute and sweet.  The Tang and Song poetry are similar because they both have an overall positive tone and talk about drinking and nature.  They are different because the Song poetry are more harmonious and sound more like a song.  I think the poems represent the societies in way because it shows how the poets way of life was, but the poetry does not go into detail about politics or government for example.   

Conversion of Prince Vladimir

The reason Prince Vladimir converted to Christianity was because of his troops who reported on religions.  He chose Eastern Orthodox Christianity as the religion for his people and himself because it appealed to him and his men. First he himself converted to the religion then he made his people do the same.  The conversion of Constantine happened because of a belief that God helped him during battles.  To make everyone else the same religion as him he declared the Edit of Milan.  This helped people convert to Christianity or help the already converted in the Roman Empire to practice their religion.  I think these two conversions were more different than similar. The main difference between these two conversions were because Vladimir converted to keep control over his empire where as Constantine had a strong connection with the religion and wanted his people to feel the same. 

Architecture of the Byzantine Empire

The architecture of this period is different than for example the Gothic style because it is more uniform and standard.  It is more of larger squared bricks or pieces making up the walls of the buildings.   Also the roofs are mostly always rounded in domes instead of the pointed peaks of Gothic styled buildings.  The style of architecture is not distinctive but instead more of a subtle style.  The architecture is more of a functional use but it also is decorative too.  For example most of the buildings have functional and not over the top designs but some of the tombs are excessively large so that can be viewed as decorative.  Also some of the designs on the walls can be bright showy colors and designs.  I see some similarities to American architecture because we have many buildings that have domes or archways and out style is mostly functional but with some decoration with that. 

Documents!

#1
Benjamin of Tudela wrote this document and he wrote it to keep a history of Constantinople. It was written for the people, specifically people who are not Jews.

#2
This was written by Robert of Clari who must have been a noble in Constantinople.  This was written for mainly a way to brag about how rich and overly lavish the city was, so it was meant for people to be impressed by the greatness of the city.  This seems not very credible because it is only describing a few areas or buildings that are great and fails to talk about the conditions of the lower class and poor.

#3
 The author of this document was Nicetas Choniates who wrote this for someone looking in to show that the Latins greedy nature had a negative impact on Constantinople. 

#4
The painter of this painting was probably from Constantinople.  This painting was to show the seperation of Constantinople and the power of it to people.

#5
This photo was taken probably by someone trying to show the beauty of the interior of Saint Sophia for other people.

#6
The author of this document was George Acropolites who wrote this for people who did not have a religion and to try to convert them to the religion of Constantinople.

#7
Chrysobull was the author of this document who wrote this for the Venetians to show them how helpful Constantine was for them in war.

Document 1 was the most credible because it was written as it seems as a historical record of Constantinople.  Also this document is not biased at all whereas some of the documents are like number 2 or number 7. 

Reflection on Map-Making

1.  I really enjoyed this project and I thought it went really well!  I worked with Priscilla and it was a good experience.  The first thing that went well was the tracing of the map to scale.  It was difficult and at first took a while to figure out the scale but once that was done it was not really that bad.  I was pleasantly surprised that the map turned out correct.  I never would have thought I could successfully redraw a map on a larger scale and have it turn out half way decent.  Another thing that went well was how doing this map helped with understanding of different things happening at once.  Doing a large map like we did allows you to think about different societies or areas at the same time which is helpful.  The last thing that went well was the positive experience I got with the partnership of this project.  Sometimes when you do group projects in school you find one person doing more work because someone isn't doing anything.  This wasn't the case for making the map because me and Priscilla did everything fairly!  I would definitely want to do another group project if she could be my partner again.

2.Some things that didn't go as well making the map was the difficulty in finding the sizes of empires or societies because there were no borders.  Sometimes we would have to redraw a certain area several times to get the best look.  Another thing was the vagueness in some of the products that were spread.  For example we did nutmeg and in the book there wasn't a thorough description of where and how it was traded and spread and it was hard to find specifics online.  Finally one last thing that didn't go well was finding a scale at first because we wanted to find the easiest and best way to do it and it took a couple of tries before finding a good one.

3.What was hard about the map making was drawing things to scale.  Once you found a scale it was difficult to measure then multiply and it was tricky.  For our map we made a grid on the big and small map to follow but sometimes it was hard keeping track of what box you were in so it got hard.

4. In my opinion the collaboration for this project was really good!  Priscilla and I were able to work very well together and were able to work off each others strengths.  For example I was a little better at doing the outline of the map so I did a lot of that and she worked on figuring out the spread of our items.  This worked out better for us and made the final product the best it could be.  Another thing that helped was that we get along good so when we had to work outside of school twice this weekend it was not a problem at all..(even on a Friday night)! I had a fun time doing this map even with its challenges because Priscilla made such a good partner.

5. If we had to do this project again one thing I would do differently would be to organize the coloring better.  There were a couple things we did in colors that were difficult to tell the differences of.  There is a key to differentiate the colors but it would just make it easier to do it differently next time.  Another thing I would do differently would be to put more labels on  the map, even items that aren't necessarily needed.  I think this would just make the overall map look better and be easier to read.