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Eydhafushi Island, in Baa Atoll (South Maalhosmadulu Atoll), was once renowned for its <i>feyli</i> or sarong weavers. Eydhafushi is the capital of Baa Atoll.<br/><br/> Asia's smallest and least-known nation, the Republic of Maldives, lies scattered from north to south across a 750-kilometre sweep of the Indian Ocean 500 kilometres south-west of Sri Lanka. More than 1000 islands, together with innumerable banks and reefs, are grouped in a chain of nineteen atolls which extends from a point due west of Colombo to just south of the equator.
Eydhafushi Island, in Baa Atoll (South Maalhosmadulu Atoll), was once renowned for its <i>feyli</i> or sarong weavers. Eydhafushi is the capital of Baa Atoll.<br/><br/> Asia's smallest and least-known nation, the Republic of Maldives, lies scattered from north to south across a 750-kilometre sweep of the Indian Ocean 500 kilometres south-west of Sri Lanka. More than 1000 islands, together with innumerable banks and reefs, are grouped in a chain of nineteen atolls which extends from a point due west of Colombo to just south of the equator.
Eydhafushi Island, in Baa Atoll (South Maalhosmadulu Atoll), was once renowned for its <i>feyli</i> or sarong weavers. Eydhafushi is the capital of Baa Atoll.<br/><br/> Asia's smallest and least-known nation, the Republic of Maldives, lies scattered from north to south across a 750-kilometre sweep of the Indian Ocean 500 kilometres south-west of Sri Lanka. More than 1000 islands, together with innumerable banks and reefs, are grouped in a chain of nineteen atolls which extends from a point due west of Colombo to just south of the equator.
Eydhafushi Island, in Baa Atoll (South Maalhosmadulu Atoll), was once renowned for its <i>feyli</i> or sarong weavers. Eydhafushi is the capital of Baa Atoll.<br/><br/> Asia's smallest and least-known nation, the Republic of Maldives, lies scattered from north to south across a 750-kilometre sweep of the Indian Ocean 500 kilometres south-west of Sri Lanka. More than 1000 islands, together with innumerable banks and reefs, are grouped in a chain of nineteen atolls which extends from a point due west of Colombo to just south of the equator.
Eydhafushi Island, in Baa Atoll (South Maalhosmadulu Atoll), was once renowned for its <i>feyli</i> or sarong weavers. Eydhafushi is the capital of Baa Atoll.<br/><br/> Asia's smallest and least-known nation, the Republic of Maldives, lies scattered from north to south across a 750-kilometre sweep of the Indian Ocean 500 kilometres south-west of Sri Lanka. More than 1000 islands, together with innumerable banks and reefs, are grouped in a chain of nineteen atolls which extends from a point due west of Colombo to just south of the equator.
Eydhafushi Island, in Baa Atoll (South Maalhosmadulu Atoll), was once renowned for its <i>feyli</i> or sarong weavers. Eydhafushi is the capital of Baa Atoll.<br/><br/> Asia's smallest and least-known nation, the Republic of Maldives, lies scattered from north to south across a 750-kilometre sweep of the Indian Ocean 500 kilometres south-west of Sri Lanka. More than 1000 islands, together with innumerable banks and reefs, are grouped in a chain of nineteen atolls which extends from a point due west of Colombo to just south of the equator.
Eydhafushi Island, in Baa Atoll (South Maalhosmadulu Atoll), was once renowned for its <i>feyli</i> or sarong weavers. Eydhafushi is the capital of Baa Atoll.<br/><br/> Asia's smallest and least-known nation, the Republic of Maldives, lies scattered from north to south across a 750-kilometre sweep of the Indian Ocean 500 kilometres south-west of Sri Lanka. More than 1000 islands, together with innumerable banks and reefs, are grouped in a chain of nineteen atolls which extends from a point due west of Colombo to just south of the equator.
Eydhafushi Island, in Baa Atoll (South Maalhosmadulu Atoll), was once renowned for its <i>feyli</i> or sarong weavers. Eydhafushi is the capital of Baa Atoll.<br/><br/> Asia's smallest and least-known nation, the Republic of Maldives, lies scattered from north to south across a 750-kilometre sweep of the Indian Ocean 500 kilometres south-west of Sri Lanka. More than 1000 islands, together with innumerable banks and reefs, are grouped in a chain of nineteen atolls which extends from a point due west of Colombo to just south of the equator.
Eydhafushi Island, in Baa Atoll (South Maalhosmadulu Atoll), was once renowned for its <i>feyli</i> or sarong weavers. Eydhafushi is the capital of Baa Atoll.<br/><br/> Asia's smallest and least-known nation, the Republic of Maldives, lies scattered from north to south across a 750-kilometre sweep of the Indian Ocean 500 kilometres south-west of Sri Lanka. More than 1000 islands, together with innumerable banks and reefs, are grouped in a chain of nineteen atolls which extends from a point due west of Colombo to just south of the equator.
Eydhafushi Island, in Baa Atoll (South Maalhosmadulu Atoll), was once renowned for its <i>feyli</i> or sarong weavers. Eydhafushi is the capital of Baa Atoll.<br/><br/> Asia's smallest and least-known nation, the Republic of Maldives, lies scattered from north to south across a 750-kilometre sweep of the Indian Ocean 500 kilometres south-west of Sri Lanka. More than 1000 islands, together with innumerable banks and reefs, are grouped in a chain of nineteen atolls which extends from a point due west of Colombo to just south of the equator.
Eydhafushi Island, in Baa Atoll (South Maalhosmadulu Atoll), was once renowned for its <i>feyli</i> or sarong weavers. Eydhafushi is the capital of Baa Atoll.<br/><br/> Asia's smallest and least-known nation, the Republic of Maldives, lies scattered from north to south across a 750-kilometre sweep of the Indian Ocean 500 kilometres south-west of Sri Lanka. More than 1000 islands, together with innumerable banks and reefs, are grouped in a chain of nineteen atolls which extends from a point due west of Colombo to just south of the equator.
Eydhafushi Island, in Baa Atoll (South Maalhosmadulu Atoll), was once renowned for its <i>feyli</i> or sarong weavers. Eydhafushi is the capital of Baa Atoll.<br/><br/> Asia's smallest and least-known nation, the Republic of Maldives, lies scattered from north to south across a 750-kilometre sweep of the Indian Ocean 500 kilometres south-west of Sri Lanka. More than 1000 islands, together with innumerable banks and reefs, are grouped in a chain of nineteen atolls which extends from a point due west of Colombo to just south of the equator.
The Atlantic slave trade or transatlantic slave trade took place across the Atlantic Ocean from the 16th through to the 19th centuries. The vast majority of those enslaved that were transported to the New World, many on the triangular trade route and its Middle Passage, were West Africans from the central and western parts of the continent sold by western Africans to western European slave traders, or by direct European capture to the Americas.<br/><br/> The numbers were so great that Africans who came by way of the slave trade became the most numerous Old World immigrants in both North and South America before the late 18th century. Far more slaves were taken to South America than to the north. The South Atlantic economic system centered on producing commodity crops, and making goods and clothing to sell in Europe, and increasing the numbers of African slaves brought to the New World.
The Swahili people are a Bantu ethnic group and culture found in East Africa, mainly in the coastal regions and the islands of Kenya, Tanzania and northern Mozambique. The name Swahili is derived from the Arabic word Sawahil, meaning 'coastal dwellers', and they speak the Swahili language.<br/><br/> The Swahili are original Bantu inhabitants on the coast of East Africa, in Kenya, Tanzania and Mozambique. They are mainly united by culture and under the mother tongue of Kiswahili, a Bantu language. This also extends to Arab, Persian, and other migrants who reached the coast some believe as early as the 7th-8th c. CE, and mixed with the local people there, providing considerable cultural infusion and numerous loan words from Arabic and Persian.
The Atlantic slave trade or transatlantic slave trade took place across the Atlantic Ocean from the 16th through to the 19th centuries. The vast majority of those enslaved that were transported to the New World, many on the triangular trade route and its Middle Passage, were West Africans from the central and western parts of the continent sold by western Africans to western European slave traders, or by direct European capture to the Americas.<br/><br/> The numbers were so great that Africans who came by way of the slave trade became the most numerous Old World immigrants in both North and South America before the late 18th century. Far more slaves were taken to South America than to the north. The South Atlantic economic system centered on producing commodity crops, and making goods and clothing to sell in Europe, and increasing the numbers of African slaves brought to the New World.
Manjusri is a bodhisattva associated with <i>prajna</i> (insight) in Mahayana Buddhism. In Tibetan Buddhism, Manjusri manifests in a number of different Tantric forms. Yamantaka (meaning 'terminator of Yama' i.e. Death) is the wrathful manifestation of Manjusri, popular within the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism. Other variations upon his traditional form include Guhya-Manjusri, Guhya-Manjuvajra, and Manjuswari.<br/><br/> He is one of the Four Great Bodhisattvas of Chinese Buddhism, the other three being Ksitigarbha, Avalokitesvara, and Samantabhadra. In China, he is often paired with Samantabhadra.<br/><br/> In Tibetan Buddhism, Manjusrī is sometimes depicted in a trinity with Avalokitesvara and Vajrapani.
Eydhafushi Island, in Baa Atoll (South Maalhosmadulu Atoll), was once renowned for its <i>feyli</i> or sarong weavers. Eydhafushi is the capital of Baa Atoll.<br/><br/> Asia's smallest and least-known nation, the Republic of Maldives, lies scattered from north to south across a 750-kilometre sweep of the Indian Ocean 500 kilometres south-west of Sri Lanka. More than 1000 islands, together with innumerable banks and reefs, are grouped in a chain of nineteen atolls which extends from a point due west of Colombo to just south of the equator.
Magna Carta (Latin for 'the Great Charter'), also called Magna Carta Libertatum (Latin for 'the Great Charter of the Liberties'), is a charter agreed by King John of England at Runnymede, near Windsor, on 15 June 1215.<br/><br/> First drafted by the Archbishop of Canterbury to make peace between the unpopular King and a group of rebel barons, it promised the protection of church rights, protection for the barons from illegal imprisonment, access to swift justice, and limitations on feudal payments to the Crown, to be implemented through a council of 25 barons.
John (24 December 1166 – 19 October 1216), also known as John Lackland (Norman French: Johan sanz Terre), was King of England from 6 April 1199 until his death in 1216. John lost the Duchy of Normandy to King Philip II of France, resulting in the collapse of most of the Angevin Empire and contributing to the subsequent growth in power of the Capetian dynasty during the 13th century.<br/><br/> The baronial revolt at the end of John's reign led to the sealing of Magna Carta, a document of immense significance considered to be an early step in the evolution of the constitution of the United Kingdom.
Asia's smallest and least-known nation, the Republic of Maldives, lies scattered from north to south across a 750-kilometre sweep of the Indian Ocean 500 kilometres south-west of Sri Lanka. More than 1000 islands, together with innumerable banks and reefs, are grouped in a chain of nineteen atolls which extends from a point due west of Colombo to just south of the equator.<br/><br/> The atolls, formed of great rings of coral based on the submarine Laccadive-Chagos ridge, vary greatly in size. Some are only a few kilometres square, but in the far south the great atoll of Suvadiva is sixty-five kilometres across, and has a central lagoon of more than 2000 square kilometres. The northern and central atolls are separated from each other by comparatively narrow channels of deep water, but in the south Suvadiva is cut off by the eighty-kilometre-wide One-and-a-half-Degree Channel. Addu Atoll is still more isolated, being separated from the atoll of Suvadiva by the seventy-kilometre-wide Equatorial Channel.
Eydhafushi Island, in Baa Atoll (South Maalhosmadulu Atoll), was once renowned for its <i>feyli</i> or sarong weavers. Eydhafushi is the capital of Baa Atoll.<br/><br/> Asia's smallest and least-known nation, the Republic of Maldives, lies scattered from north to south across a 750-kilometre sweep of the Indian Ocean 500 kilometres south-west of Sri Lanka. More than 1000 islands, together with innumerable banks and reefs, are grouped in a chain of nineteen atolls which extends from a point due west of Colombo to just south of the equator.
Eydhafushi Island, in Baa Atoll (South Maalhosmadulu Atoll), was once renowned for its <i>feyli</i> or sarong weavers. Eydhafushi is the capital of Baa Atoll.<br/><br/> Asia's smallest and least-known nation, the Republic of Maldives, lies scattered from north to south across a 750-kilometre sweep of the Indian Ocean 500 kilometres south-west of Sri Lanka. More than 1000 islands, together with innumerable banks and reefs, are grouped in a chain of nineteen atolls which extends from a point due west of Colombo to just south of the equator.
The Atlantic slave trade or transatlantic slave trade took place across the Atlantic Ocean from the 16th through to the 19th centuries. The vast majority of those enslaved that were transported to the New World, many on the triangular trade route and its Middle Passage, were West Africans from the central and western parts of the continent sold by western Africans to western European slave traders, or by direct European capture to the Americas.<br/><br/> The numbers were so great that Africans who came by way of the slave trade became the most numerous Old World immigrants in both North and South America before the late 18th century. Far more slaves were taken to South America than to the north. The South Atlantic economic system centered on producing commodity crops, and making goods and clothing to sell in Europe, and increasing the numbers of African slaves brought to the New World.
Chinese muleteers were known to the Burmese as Panthay, and to the Thai and Lao as Haw or Chin Haw. They were - and to some extent still are - the masters of the Golden Triangle.<br/><br/> Yunnanese Chinese muleteers have for several centuries been the traders of the 'Golden Triangle' formed by the junction between Burma, China, Laos and Thailand. Travelling as far afield as Moulmein in Burma, Chengdu in China, Luang Prabang in Laos, Chiang Mai in Thailand and Lhasa in Tibet, they have long been indomitable caravan masters and today continue to thrive in motorized long distance commerce.<br/><br/> Simao District, formerly known as Cuiyun District, is a township under the jurisdiction of Pu'er Prefecture, Yunnan Province, China. It is located near the Burmese/ Myanmar border.
Vajrayoginī (Sanskrit: Vajrayoginī; Tibetan: Dorje Naljorma, Wylie: Rdo rje rnal ’byor ma; Mongolian: Огторгуйд Одогч, Нархажид, Chinese: 瑜伽空行母 Yújiā kōngxíngmǔ) is the Vajra yoginī, literally 'the diamond female yogi'.<br/><br/> She is a Highest Yoga Tantra Yidam (Skt. Iṣṭha-deva), and her practice includes methods for preventing ordinary death, intermediate state (bardo) and rebirth (by transforming them into paths to enlightenment), and for transforming all mundane daily experiences into higher spiritual paths.<br/><br/> Vajrayoginī is a generic female yidam and although she is sometimes visualized as simply Vajrayoginī, in a collection of her sādhanas she is visualized in an alternate form in over two thirds of the practices. Her other forms include Vajravārāhī (Tibetan: Dorje Pakmo, Wylie: rdo-rje phag-mo; English: the Vajra Sow) and Krodikali (alt. Krodhakali, Kālikā, Krodheśvarī, Krishna Krodhini, Sanskrit; Tibetan:Troma Nagmo; Wylie:khros ma nag mo; English: 'the Wrathful Lady' or 'the Fierce Black One' ).<br/><br/> Vajrayoginī is a ḍākiṇī and a Vajrayāna Buddhist meditation deity. As such she is considered to be a female Buddha.
Hiroshige's One Hundred Famous Views of Edo (名所江戸百景), actually composed of 118 woodblock landscape and genre scenes of mid-19th century Tokyo, is one of the greatest achievements of Japanese art. The series includes many of Hiroshige's most famous prints. It represents a celebration of the style and world of Japan's finest cultural flowering at the end of the Tokugawa Shogunate.<br/><br/> The series opens with spring (春の部). Scenes 1 though 42 represent the First to the Third Months, which are considered in Japan to be the spring season. Typically, early spring is marked by the festivities celebrated at the New Year, which begins the season. Blossoming plum trees are associated with the middle of spring, signifying the end of the cold weather and the beginning of the warm season.<br/><br/> Utagawa Hiroshige (歌川 広重, 1797 – October 12, 1858) was a Japanese ukiyo-e artist, and one of the last great artists in that tradition. He was also referred to as Andō Hiroshige (安藤 広重) (an irregular combination of family name and art name) and by the art name of Ichiyūsai Hiroshige (一幽斎廣重).
Vishnu (Sanskrit विष्णु Viṣṇu) is the Supreme god in the Vaishnavite tradition of Hinduism. Smarta followers of Adi Shankara, among others, venerate Vishnu as one of the five primary forms of God.<br/><br/> The Vishnu Sahasranama declares Vishnu as Paramatma (supreme soul) and Parameshwara (supreme God). It describes Vishnu as the All-Pervading essence of all beings, the master of - and beyond - the past, present and future, one who supports, sustains and governs the Universe and originates and develops all elements within. Vishnu governs the aspect of preservation and sustenance of the universe, so he is called 'Preserver of the Universe'.<br/><br/> In the Puranas, Vishnu is described as having the divine colour of water filled clouds, four-armed, holding a lotus, mace, conch (shankha) and chakra (wheel). Vishnu is also described in the Bhagavad Gita as having a 'Universal Form' (Vishvarupa) which is beyond the ordinary limits of human perception or imagination.
A dakini (Sanskrit: ḍākinī; Tibetan: khandroma) is a tantric deity described as a female embodiment of enlightened energy. In the Tibetan language, dakini is rendered khandroma which means 'she who traverses the sky' or 'she who moves in space'. Sometimes the term is translated poetically as 'sky dancer' or 'sky walker'.<br/><br/> The dakini, in all her varied forms, is an important figure in Tibetan Buddhism. She is so central to the requirements for a practitioner to attain full enlightenment as a Buddha that she appears in a tantric formulation of the Buddhist Three Jewels refuge formula known as the Three Roots. Most commonly she appears as the protector, alongside a guru and yidam (enlightened being).<br/><br/> Although dakini figures appear in Hinduism and in the Bön tradition, dakini are particularly prevalent in Vajrayana Buddhism and have been particularly conceived in Tibetan Buddhism where the dakini, generally of volatile or wrathful temperament, act somewhat as a muse for spiritual practice.<br/><br/> Dakini are energetic beings in female form, evocative of the movement of energy in space. In this context, the sky or space indicates shunyata, the insubstantiality of all phenomena, which is, at the same time, the pure potentiality for all possible manifestations.
Cotton was independently domesticated in the Old and New Worlds. It was first cultivated in the Old World 7,000 years ago (5th–4th millennia BCE), by the inhabitants of the Indus Valley Civilization, which covered a huge swath of the northwestern part of the South Asia, comprising today parts of eastern Pakistan and northwestern India. Cotton has always been an important crop along many sections of the old Silk Road.
Cotton was independently domesticated in the Old and New Worlds. It was first cultivated in the Old World 7,000 years ago (5th–4th millennia BCE), by the inhabitants of the Indus Valley Civilization, which covered a huge swath of the northwestern part of the South Asia, comprising today parts of eastern Pakistan and northwestern India. Cotton has always been an important crop along many sections of the old Silk Road.
China Burma India Theater (CBI) was the name used by the United States Army for its forces operating in conjunction with British and Chinese Allied air and land forces in China, Burma, and India during World War II. Well-known US units in this theater included the Flying Tigers, transport and bomber units flying the Hump, the 1st Air Commando Group, the engineers who built Ledo Road, and the 5307th Composite Unit (Provisional), otherwise known as Merrill's Marauders.
Cotton plant as imagined and drawn by John Mandeville; 'There grew there [India] a wonderful tree which bore tiny lambs on the endes of its branches. These branches were so pliable that they bent down to allow the lambs to feed when they are hungrie'.
Cochinchina is a region encompassing the southern third of Vietnam including Saigon, or Ho Chi Minh City. It was a French colony from 1862 to 1948. In 1864, all French territories in southern Vietnam were declared to be the new French colony of Cochinchina, which was to be governed by Admiral Jules Marie Dupré from 1868-74. The later state of South Vietnam was created in 1954 by combining Cochinchina with southern Annam. In Vietnamese, the region is called Nam Bo.
Brazil was a colony of Portugal from the landing of Pedro Álvares Cabral in 1500 until 1815, when it was elevated to the status of United Kingdom with Portugal and the Algarve. The colonial bond was in fact broken in 1808, when the capital of the Portuguese Kingdom was transferred from Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro, after Napoleon invaded Portugal. Independence from Portugal was achieved in 1822. Initially independent as the Empire of Brazil, the country has been a republic since 1889, although the bicameral legislature, now called Congress, dates back to 1824, when the first constitution was ratified.
Pierre Sonnerat (1748-1814) was a French naturalist and explorer who made several voyages to Southeast Asia between 1769 and 1781. He published this two-volume account of his voyage of 1774-81 in 1782.<br/><br/> Volume 1 deals exclusively with India, whose culture Sonnerat very much admired, and is especially noteworthy for its extended discussion of religion in India, Hinduism in particular.<br/><br/> Volume 2 covers Sonnerat’s travels to China, Burma, Madagascar, the Maldives, Mauritius, Ceylon (present-day Sri Lanka), Indonesia, and the Philippines. The book is illustrated with engravings based on Sonnerat’s drawings. Among the most interesting illustrations are Sonnerat’s pictures of various Hindu deities. Sonnerat was also a dedicated ornithologist and bird collector, and the book describes and depicts a number of species that he was the first to identify.
The weaving of cotton in Bali is a traditional method for making sarongs, blankets and batik clothing.<br/><br/> Located in the westernmost end of the Lesser Sunda Islands, lying between Java to the west and Lombok to the east, Bali is one of Indonesia’s 33 provinces with the provincial capital at Denpasar toward the south of the island.<br/><br/> With a population of 4 million, Bali is home to most of Indonesia's small Hindu minority. In the 2000 census, about 92% of Bali's population adhered to Balinese Hinduism while most of the remainder follow Islam. It is also the largest tourist destination in the country and is renowned for its highly developed arts, including traditional and modern dance, sculpture, painting, leather, metalworking, and music.
Circular piece of silk with Mongol images, Ilkhanid, early 14th century. Silk, cotton and gold.<br/><br/> The Ilkhanate, also spelled Il-khanate or Il Khanate was a Mongol khanate established in Persia in the 13th century, considered a part of the Mongol Empire. The Ilkhanate was based, originally, on Genghis Khan's campaigns in the Khwarezmid Empire in 1219–1224, and founded by Genghis's grandson, Hulagu, in territories which today comprise most of Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkey, and some regions of western Pakistan. The Ilkhanate initially embraced many religions, but was initially sympathetic to Buddhism and Nestorian Christianity. Later Ilkhanate rulers, beginning with Ghazan in 1295, embraced Islam.
The East India Company, which became the British East India Company after the 1707 Treaty of Union, was an early English joint-stock company that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China. The Company was granted an English Royal Charter by Queen Elizabeth I on 31 December 1600. After a rival English company challenged its monopoly in the late 17th century, the two companies were merged in 1708 to form the Honourable East India Company (HEIC), colloquially referred to as John Company.<br/><br/> The East India Company traded mainly in cotton, silk, indigo dye, saltpetre, tea and opium. The Company also came to rule large areas of India, exercising military power and assuming administrative functions, to the exclusion, gradually, of its commercial pursuits; it effectively functioned as a megacorporation. Company rule in India, which effectively began in 1757 after the Battle of Plassey, lasted until 1858, when, following the events of the Indian Rebellion of 1857, the British Crown assumed direct administration of India in the new British Raj. The Company itself was finally dissolved on 1 January 1874, as a result of the East India Stock Dividend Redemption Act.
Cotton was independently domesticated in the Old and New Worlds. It was first cultivated in the Old World 7,000 years ago (5th–4th millennia BC), by the inhabitants of the Indus Valley Civilization, which covered a huge swath of the northwestern part of the South Asia, comprising today parts of eastern Pakistan and northwestern India. Cotton has always been an important crop along many sections of the old Silk Road.
Cotton was independently domesticated in the Old and New Worlds. It was first cultivated in the Old World 7,000 years ago (5th–4th millennia BC), by the inhabitants of the Indus Valley Civilization, which covered a huge swath of the northwestern part of the South Asia, comprising today parts of eastern Pakistan and northwestern India. Cotton has always been an important crop along many sections of the old Silk Road.
Cotton was independently domesticated in the Old and New Worlds. It was first cultivated in the Old World 7,000 years ago (5th–4th millennia BC), by the inhabitants of the Indus Valley Civilization, which covered a huge swath of the northwestern part of the South Asia, comprising today parts of eastern Pakistan and northwestern India. Cotton has always been an important crop along many sections of the old Silk Road.
Circular piece of silk with Mongol images, Ilkhanid, early 14th century. Silk, cotton and gold.<br/><br/> The Ilkhanate, also spelled Il-khanate or Il Khanate was a Mongol khanate established in Persia in the 13th century, considered a part of the Mongol Empire. The Ilkhanate was based, originally, on Genghis Khan's campaigns in the Khwarezmid Empire in 1219–1224, and founded by Genghis's grandson, Hulagu, in territories which today comprise most of Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkey, and some regions of western Pakistan. The Ilkhanate initially embraced many religions, but was initially sympathetic to Buddhism and Nestorian Christianity. Later Ilkhanate rulers, beginning with Ghazan in 1295, embraced Islam.
The Swahili people are a Bantu ethnic group and culture found in East Africa, mainly in the coastal regions and the islands of Kenya, Tanzania and northern Mozambique. The name Swahili is derived from the Arabic word Sawahil, meaning 'coastal dwellers', and they speak the Swahili language.<br/><br/> The Swahili are original Bantu inhabitants on the coast of East Africa, in Kenya, Tanzania and Mozambique. They are mainly united by culture and under the mother tongue of Kiswahili, a Bantu language. This also extends to Arab, Persian, and other migrants who reached the coast some believe as early as the 7th-8th c. CE, and mixed with the local people there, providing considerable cultural infusion and numerous loan words from Arabic and Persian.
The Tea Horse Road (Cha Ma Dao) was a network of mule caravan paths winding through the mountains of Yunnan, Sichuan and Tibet in Southwest China.<br/><br/> It is also sometimes referred to as the Southern Silk Road and Ancient Tea and Horse Road. From around a thousand years ago, the Ancient Tea Route was a trade link from Yunnan, one of the first tea-producing regions, to India via Burma, to Tibet, and to central China via Sichuan Province. In addition to tea, the mule caravans carried salt.<br/><br/> It is believed that it was through this trading network that tea (typically tea bricks) first spread across China and Asia from its presumed origins in Pu'er county, near Simao Prefecture in Yunnan.
Phitsanulok is an ancient city in the lower plains of northern Thailand. It was capital of the Ayutthaya kingdom for 25 years from 1463 after a series of Burmese invasions. Although Phitsanulok is not located far to the north, the people of the region were known to the central Siamese as Lao at the turn of the 20th century.
Gossypium barbadense is a species of cotton plant. Some types of cotton are American Pima, Egyptian Giza, Indian Suvin, Chinese Xinjiang, Sudanese Barakat, and Russian Tonkovoloknistyi. It is a tropical, frost-sensitive perennial plant that produces yellow flowers and has black seeds. It grows as a small, bushy tree and yields cotton with unusually long, silky fibers. To grow, it requires full sun and high humidity and rainfall.