Materialist Factors

2018 ◽  
pp. 263-315
Author(s):  
Jonathan Kaplan ◽  
Federico Paredes Umaña
Keyword(s):  
Control Systems ◽  
Hydraulic Engineering ◽  
Ancient Maya ◽  
Complex Society ◽  
Water Control ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Ancient City

This chapter details the two principal materialist research foci of the project, water and cacao. Water control systems in Mesoamerica and at ancient Maya cities are reviewed in order to set the discoveries at Chocolá in context in an attempt to understand both functional and ideological meanings of water control at the ancient city. Chocolá’s hydraulic engineering, including stone conduits and canals, closely resembles the systems at Takalik Abaj and Kaminaljuyu, suggesting a deliberate sharing of technology and underscoring the likelihood of links between these three ancient cities and polities. Similarly, the context of cacao in ancient Mesoamerica and specifically in the ancient Maya world is explained, leading to the hypothesis of intensive surplus arboriculture—large cacao groves—that, it is proposed, underlay Chocolá’s rise to wealth and power as a complex society. In addition, a “mystery tale” is recounted, in which one of the most stunning carved monuments of the Southern Maya Region, the so-called Shook Altar, plays a central role in the authors’ theory of surplus cacao production at Chocolá and long-distance trade of the commodity.

Water, Cacao, and The Early Maya of Chocóla

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Kaplan ◽  
Federico Paredes Umaña
Keyword(s):  
Control Systems ◽  
New World ◽  
Intensive Agriculture ◽  
Water Control ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Ancient Trade ◽  
Ancient City ◽  
The World ◽  
Maya People ◽  
Material Substances

Before the authors’ research, Chocolá was no more than an intriguing legend. Chocolá’s apparent political links to the greatest Preclassic southern Maya area polity, Kaminaljuyu, would make any discovery about Chocolá conceivably vital to a better understanding of Maya origins and New World archaeology, as both ancient cities are located in the Southern Maya Region. Two facts led researchers to search more specifically for the material bases for Chocolá’s rise to power: 1) Mesoamerica’s greatest rainfall, 2) cacao groves around the modern village lying atop the ancient city. Cacao was so important to the Maya that, mythologically, the cacao god was the maize god’s brother and uncle of the “Hero Twins,” conceived as the aboriginal creators of the Maya people. If water control systems have been documented archaeologically at virtually all great ancient cities around the world, cacao is uniquely a Maya “invention,” the Maya being the first people in the world to domesticate the plant and cultivate it through intensive agriculture. These two discoveries—impressive water management and cacao at Preclassic Chocolá—likely are not coincidental. A complex, hierarchical society would have been in place for arboriculture of water-thirsty cacao for long-distance ancient trade. Thus, two material substances, one necessary for human survival, the other highly valued throughout Mesoamerica as consumable and essential in Maya mythology, may explain, in part, how this and other Southern Maya “kingdoms of chocolate” may represent a “sweet beginning” for one of the greatest civilizations of the ancient world.

scholarly journals Comparative Analysis of Coil Structures and Orientations of Single Transmitter and Multi Receivers Wireless Power Transfer System

2021 ◽  
Vol 309 ◽  
pp. 01118
Author(s):  
CH Jagadeesh ◽  
Phaneendra Babu Bobba
Keyword(s):  
Control Systems ◽  
Transfer System ◽  
Power Transfer ◽  
Wireless Power ◽  
Maglev Train ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Strongly Coupled ◽  
Multiple Loads ◽  
Single Coil ◽  
Wireless Power Transfer System

Single transmitter and multi receiver (STMR) based WPT system is used to power multiple loads at a time. It consists of some limitations like long distance power transfer, mutual inductance between receiver coils and misalignment of receiver coils. this paper is going to give a detailed information about different designs of STMR, which are going to overcome the limitations of STMR. Different designs proposed by different authors are wireless power repeater system with single coil in each repeater, wireless power repeater system with two coils in each repeater, spherical strongly coupled magnetic resonant, square shape coils, maglev train IPT system and cube shaped unidirectional flux transmitter type. The above-mentioned designs are analysed and concluded a best design from it, depending up on applications and discussed about the control systems used in STMR.

Archaeological Operations

2018 ◽  
pp. 126-193
Author(s):  
Jonathan Kaplan ◽  
Federico Paredes Umaña
Keyword(s):  
Control System ◽  
Hierarchical Structure ◽  
Field Data ◽  
The South ◽  
Water Control ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
The North ◽  
Ancient Society ◽  
Preclassic Period

Chapter 4 abstracts and summarizes the very copious field data from the three lengthy field seasons at Chocolá, including the specific evidence obtained about the very extensive water control system that was discovered. Intensive grid excavations were undertaken in five operations: Mound 15, the northernmost part of the elite north sector, Mounds 6 and 7, in the southern part of the north sector, Mound 2, in the central administrative sector, and Mound 5, in the south sector. Accordingly, our three field seasons provide the specific evidence and artifacts we have been able to use to understand the clearly hierarchical structure of the ancient society and city. Of particular importance for a better understanding of the material underpinnings of Chocolá is our research at Mound 5, in the south, where we believe cacao arboriculture was developed for long-distance trade in the Preclassic period.

scholarly journals An internet of things for water utility monitoring and control

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (2.1) ◽  
pp. 20
Author(s):  
Kranthi Madala ◽  
D Divya Bharathi ◽  
Sushma Chowdary Polavarapu
Keyword(s):  
Internet Of Things ◽  
Control Systems ◽  
Emerging Technology ◽  
Water Monitoring ◽  
Water Utilities ◽  
Monitoring And Control ◽  
Water Control ◽  
Water Utility ◽  
Control Approach ◽  
And Control

The aim of thepaper is to advise more efficient water monitoring and control approach to reduce the water loss. This may assist users, operatorsto improve water control systems, by using the emerging technology. Net of factors is one of the essential strategies for making consumption of water assets more efficient and for developing extra utilityproperstructures. Now–a–days the water monitoring and control is dealing with a few issues. As an example the manipulate structures usedby using waterdistributionutilities ought to function over a hugevicinity. Massive water utilities go through transit losses due to leaks and burstpipes. An IoT answer for water tracking and control ambitions at being capable of gather more than one device, analyzing these recordsand dispatching themand consequences from processing to diverse programs or to other devices.

scholarly journals Trade, Merchants, and the Lost Cities of the Bronze Age*

2019 ◽  
Vol 134 (3) ◽  
pp. 1455-1503 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gojko Barjamovic ◽  
Thomas Chaney ◽  
Kerem Coşar ◽  
Ali Hortaçsu
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Bronze Age ◽  
Gravity Model ◽  
Large Data ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Trade Data ◽  
Large Cities ◽  
Ancient City ◽  
The Bronze Age

AbstractWe analyze a large data set of commercial records produced by Assyrian merchants in the nineteenth century BCE. Using the information from these records, we estimate a structural gravity model of long-distance trade in the Bronze Age. We use our structural gravity model to locate lost ancient cities. In many cases, our estimates confirm the conjectures of historians who follow different methodologies. In some instances, our estimates confirm one conjecture against others. We also structurally estimate ancient city sizes and offer evidence in support of the hypothesis that large cities tend to emerge at the intersections of natural transport routes, as dictated by topography. Finally, we document persistent patterns in the distribution of city sizes across four millennia, find a distance elasticity of trade in the Bronze Age close to modern estimates, and show suggestive evidence that the distribution of ancient city sizes, inferred from trade data, is well approximated by Zipf’s law.

A Middle Formative Irrigation System near Santa Clara Coatitlan in the Basin of Mexico

1982 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 133-144 ◽  
Author(s):  
Deborah L. Nichols
Keyword(s):  
Control Systems ◽  
Methodological Problem ◽  
Irrigation System ◽  
Theoretical Issue ◽  
Water Control ◽  
Settlement Systems ◽  
Excellent Opportunity ◽  
Basin Of Mexico ◽  
Middle Formative ◽  
The Relationship

A major theoretical issue in studies of prehistoric societies in the Basin of Mexico concerns the relationship between irrigation and the development of prehistoric settlement systems. Locating and dating the remains of prehistoric water control systems, however, presents a major methodological problem. The discovery of a series of stratified prehistoric canals in the exposed profiles of contemporary borrow pits near Santa Clara Coatitlan provided an excellent opportunity for dating a prehistoric irrigation system. Results of recent excavations, reported on in this paper, demonstrate that these canals are part of a middle Formative floodwater irrigation system, which is the earliest confirmed evidence, to date, for the use of irrigation in the Basin of Mexico.

Can We Read Cosmology in Ancient Maya City Plans? Comment on Ashmore and Sabloff

2003 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 221-228 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael E. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Cosmological Model ◽  
Recent Article ◽  
City Planning ◽  
Classic Maya ◽  
Ancient Maya ◽  
Ancient City ◽  
South Axis ◽  
Empirical Foundation ◽  
Rule Out

AbstractArguments for the cosmological significance of ancient Maya city layouts are plausible, but empirical applications are subjective and lack rigor. I illustrate this contention through brief comments on a recent article by Ashmore and Sabloff. I first discuss some of the complexities and pitfalls in studying cosmology from ancient city plans, and then focus on one component of the authors’ cosmological model—the hypothesized north-south axis at Classic Maya cities. My goal is not to down-play or rule out the role of cosmology in Maya city planning, but rather to encourage the use of explicit assumptions and rigorous methods that will provide the study of Maya city planning with a more secure empirical foundation.

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