A Ton of Crap (10 page)

The Middle Kingdom
The central government of the Old Kingdom collapsed in 2160 b.c., and around 2055 b.c., the prosperity and stability of Egypt was restored when Mentuhotep II came to power beginning what is known as the Middle Kingdom. Once again, art, literature, and great monuments defined this period. One stark contrast between the art of this time and that of the Old Kingdom, is that this work focused more on the individual and a democratization of the afterlife in which every person possessed a soul and was greeted by the gods and goddesses when they died.

COMPOSITION

Prepositional Phrases
A prepositional phrase adds meaning to the verbs and nouns in a sentence. It is composed of two parts; a preposition (a word that expresses the relationship between a noun or pronoun and the other words in the sentence), and the object of the preposition. For example, when looking at the phrase “In the building,” the word
in
is our preposition because it indicates the location, and
the building
is the object of the preposition.

INCA MATHEMATICS

The Color-Coding of the Quipu
The Incas did not stop at counting with the strings of the quipu. The quipu had a very functional purpose, and in order to discern what each value represented, a system needed to be in place in order to tell the Incas what was being counted. There were hundreds of strings on the quipu, and yet their system was very easy to understand. What they did was actually color-code the strings. So, for example, a green string might represent a certain type of crop, and the knots on the string would indicate how much of that crop was recorded.

THE NERVOUS SYSTEM

The Peripheral Nervous System
The peripheral nervous system consists of the nerves that receive and send the information from the central nervous system. There are two types of nerves: motor nerves, which send signals from the brain to different tissues in the body; and sensory nerves, which receive information in the form of pain, heat, or touch and then send those impulses to the central nervous system.

FRENCH

Articles
In French, there is always an article in front of the noun, and these change according to gender (masculine, feminine), and number (singular and plural). There are three types of articles: definite (equivalent to
the
in English), indefinite (equivalent to
a/an
in English), and partitive (used when a singular noun can represent smaller parts, such as the word
food
). The articles are:

ANCIENT EGYPT

The New Kingdom
The New Kingdom lasted from the sixteenth to the eleventh century b.c. and was defined by military campaigns that made the Egyptian empire the largest it had ever been. Amenhotep IV, who changed his name to Akhenaten, instituted new and radical worship of a new sun god, Aten. Attacking the priestly establishment, Akhenaten eventually made the Aten the only god. When Tutankhamen came to power after Akhenaten’s death, he returned Egypt to a polytheistis religion.

COMPOSITION

Adjective Clauses
Adjective clauses help indicate which part of a sentence is more important than the rest of the sentence a process known as subordination. The adjective clause is a dependent word group that modifies the noun. These usually include words like
which
,
who
,
whose
, and
that
. For example in “The dog that ate everyone’s lunch wanted seconds,”
that ate everyone’s lunch
is the adjective clause.

INCA MATHEMATICS

Local Statisticians
The Inca king appointed people, called quipucamayocs, to use the quipus, and effectively act as statisticians for the towns. These people were to use and interpret the quipus and keep census records on the population, as well as records of all produce, weaponry, and animals. This information was then sent to the capital, Cuzco, every year.

THE NERVOUS SYSTEM

The Somatic Nervous System
The somatic nervous system, or voluntary nervous system, is part of the peripheral nervous system. It is responsible for processing sensory information — such as pain, heat, and touch — from an external stimuli, and controlling the voluntary muscular systems. The somatic nervous system allows a person to receive sensory information and react to environmental changes. The somatic nervous system is also part of the autonomic nervous system.

FRENCH

French Today
French is the native language for approximately 75 million people worldwide, and it is the national language for over 25 countries including France, Haiti, Luxembourg, and Monaco, and more than 15 countries found in Africa. It is also one of the official languages of Canada, Switzerland, and Belgium, as well as one of the six official languages used by the United Nations today.