A ROMAN ARCH

 I experimented with some Roman constructions like the arch to see how they made them with stones. I used plasticine which also worked because the shape is what keeps it all together. The keystone (the one at the top in the middle) is the most important stone. You can see a lot of arches and keystones in  aqueduct in Segovia.

THE EVOLUTION OF CHINESE WRITING

 For my second History Club presentation, I chose to talk about the evolution of Chinese characters and also a bit about early Chinese rice farming.

I made a scroll with the early pictograms and talked about how they have evolved into modern Chinese characters.

Here you can see how they changed over the years and became more complicated.

 

 Here I have a friend helping me hold the scroll while I explain the characters and pictograms.

A ROMAN VILLA AND THE MAGNA MATER

 There is a new museum in Las Cuevas de Soria of an authentic Roman villa fom the IV century AD.

It was discovered and excavated between 1927 and 1928 and used to belong to a Hispano Romano family of Celtiberian origin.

Now you can see how it had a central garden patio and 30 rooms decorated with mosaics. There were baths and lots of mosaic floors. The mosaics were made from local limestone and mostly in geometrical designs. A person who made these mosaics was called a Musivario.

Also in this museum there is a part that talks about the Earth Goddesses throughout history and especially the Magna Mater who was known as the goddess Cibeles. (There is a statue of her in Madrid!)

We were in the first group to have a tour of this new museum. 

 The above photo is of the baths and below is a collection of different mosaic floors.

 Here you can see the monogram of the family name - Irrico  It is like a symbol that puts all the letters of the name together. You have to look carefully but you can see it in the bottom left symbol in the above photo.

These stones show the kinds of limestone they used to make the mosaics.

A MEDIEVAL FIESTA

 We went to a historic town called Hita in Guadalajara which is about 85km from Madrid. They have a medieval fiesta there every first weekend in July.

It was really cool beause you got to see how the soldiers really looked and jousting on horseback, etc. I got to try a bow and arrow and I bought myself a diabolo.