ESP Biography
RANJANA MEHRA, A Science major passionate about Ancient History
|
Major: Chemistry/Public Administration College: Texas A&M Year of Graduation: 1992 |
|
Brief Biographical Sketch:
With a Masters in Chemistry from Delhi University and a career that began in the Indian Administrative Services in the Department of Commerce and Textiles, my life seems to have meandered. But, I can see a place for all the milestones that my life's journey has taken me past. My civil service assignment took me to various parts of India, including Rajasthan, Sikkim, Calcutta, Assam, Manipur, Tripura, Nagaland, Chennai where I learned about the local culture and administration. It also exposed me to villages, such as Tilonia in Kishangarh, Rajasthan, where villagers' lives were being changed for the better as they formed cooperative societies to run their own shops, stocked with their own hand-made goods. My travels in India also exposed me to the kernel of beauty that manifests in its culture and traditions. I also had the great privilege to see the world, living with various people, developing an affinity for their cultures. A diplomat's daughter, I was raised in Belgrade,Tehran, Karachi, Kobe, and Delhi. Since coming to California, and obtaining a Teaching Credential, I have taught at various junior high and elementary schools of Santa Clara County School Districts using all of my life experiences to open young minds. I have a deep interest in the mysteries of ancient civilizations especially the cultures that abut India. I am very fascinated by the threads that connect the people that lived in the land belt that stretches from Europe to China. Not surprisingly, I am very curious in pursuing the many links that form the web of Indo-European family of languages particularly the Indo-Iranian family. I satisfy my curiosity by reading original source material, penned by travelers to this region. Because of a science background and a natural curiosity, my heart beats faster whenever scientists are able to push the frontiers of science, find a new cure for a disease, make advances in material science to enable the birth of cool devices, and reveal the strange workings of our Universe. But, it crescendoes when scientists using their newfound, but surely incomplete knowledge, are able to catapult our spacecrafts around the planets to go beyond our solar system. Past Classes(Look at the class archive for more.)In Search of Hittites in Splash! Fall 2011
Imagine, if you will, a bunch of archaeologists snooping around a field near Tell el Amarna on the east bank of the Nile on a fine morning in 1887. Imagine also an irate wife of an Egyptian farmer, throwing pieces of baked clay at these snoops, to send them on their way. Now, really stretch your imagination and see these archaeologists straining to catch these flying clay pieces, seeing all too clearly the cuneiform writing on them and almost fainting in their amazement as they realize what they have in their hands, then beseeching the woman for more of these baked clay pieces. But this is the stuff of legend. Not far from truth though. The archaeologists began looking for more and stumbled upon the most important clay-tablet archives that have ever been found, the records of king Amenophis IV. These Amarna tablets were easily readable, written in Akkadian, the ancient language for international negotiations in the Ancient East. They spoke of raids by bands of Hittite warriors across the far northern frontier of Egypt into Syria. But there were also actual Hittite letters indicating more amicable relations. The range of subject in these Amarna letters for the first time proved that the Hittites had been a Great Power and they lived in Asia Minor or Anatolia. We will use these to take a look at the mighty Hittites who took on the powerful Egyptian empire. We will discover why the Egyptians under Ramesses II and his Hittite counterpart Hattusilis III signed a peace treaty several decades after Ramesses II supposedly won a battle and celebrated his victory in the battle of Kadesh over the Hittites? We will also examine how the Hittites got to be such mighty warriors, with their state of the art chariots and their superior horsemanship? What did their neighbors, the Mitannis, who invoked Vedic deities in their treaties, have to do with it? We’ll go deep into the happenings in Anatolia and Syria around 1400 B.C.E.
While Europe Slept--Science in the Middle Ages in Splash! Fall 2011
Following the collapse of the western Roman empire, as Europe descended into the dark ages, the torch of wisdom was kept alive in the houses of wisdom in Baghdad, Cairo, Cordoba, and Uzbekistan where Egyptian, Greek, Indian, and Persian knowledge was translated into Arabic. The manuscripts brought by these scholars were deemed worth their weight in gold at these incubators of science, where ancient ideas were studied, improved and extended. This knowledge was then consolidated in books that were translated back into Latin as Europe awoke to Renaissance. Behind all this cross-cultural meeting and testing of ideas was the generous patronage of Al Mamun (786-833), the Caliph of Baghdad. But sources and names get lost in translation and not many people now know or give credit to these scientists who deserve a place of their own in the annals of history. They should be known as well if not better than Leonardo da Vinci, Wright Brothers, William Harvey who drew their inspiration from these medieval scientists. We’ll look at the remarkable achievements of Al Haitham, Al Jazari, Banu Musa brothers, Al Khawarizmi, Abbas Bin Firnas, Ibn Rushd, Ibn Sina, Al Idrisi, Piri Reis, Ibn Majid among others. We’ll also accompany the intrepid traveler Ibn Battuta as he journeys from Tangiers, Morocco to go beyond India and back in his epic journey, in 1325. Come with me, as I look back at this golden age of science.
Discovering Indus Civilization brick by baked brick in Splash! Spring 2011
The story reads like a whodunit. It was 1829. Undivided India was under colonial rule. A British army deserter stumbles upon the ruins of an ancient city near the modern village of Harappa. Thinking that he had at last found Sangala, the capital city of King Porus, who had met Alexander in battle in 326 B.C.E. he notes its location. Years pass by without anybody doing anything. In 1920, while laying the 100 mile long railway line from Lahore to Multan, the British, unravel ruins of an ancient city by using its bricks for ballast, thinking that the baked bricks belong to a modern abandoned city. The excavations finally begin at Mohenjo-Daro. The photo of a seal discovered there makes it to the Illustrated London News in 1924 making Dr. E. Mackay sit up and take notice in Chicago. He realizes that he has an identical seal, with the strange writing. He had found it in the foundation of a Mesopotamian temple in Kish. It was unlike anything that had been excavated in the ruins of Sumerian civilization and had been deemed foreign to the place. This was the connection. He immediately writes to the British guy heading the operations in India. This then was the start of the discovery of the Indus Valley Civilization--a civilization with its trade links to the Mesopotamians and coastal cities all along the Persian Gulf. A civilization about which Sargon the great has said to have boasted in the 2200 B. C. E. that its ships docked at the quay of Agade. We will see what they have discovered so far, debunking the myth of its collapse at the hands of Aryan invaders.
Master Administrators in Splash! Fall 2010
Master Administrators
The time was about 500 B.C.E. To speed communication for a smooth running of the empire that stretched from India to Egypt, a Royal Messenger Service was instituted. Relay stations were placed at intervals equivalent to the distance a horse can run at a moderate speed without collapsing from fatigue, about 14 miles. When a message was dispatched, the relay system operated day and night, making it possible for news to travel 240 miles per day. This time was remarkable when compared to the three months it took for the wagons carrying goods to travel that same route.
To facilitate trade between Persia, Egypt, and the Mediterranean, they dug a canal that linked the northern tip of the Red Sea with the Nile River to the west. From Nile, all ships could thereafter sail north to ports on the eastern Mediterranean. They were master administrators in operating their enormous political enterprise. They had a genius for devising solutions to the problems of imperial statecraft.
In this seminar, we will study the accomplishments of the early kings of Persia, looking at their unique achievements.
Intrepid Traders of the Ancient Silk Road in Splash! Fall 2010
Seidenstrasse or Silk Road was coined by the German explorer and geographer Baron Ferdinand von Richthofen in 1877 and romanticized by medieval accounts of travelers such as Marco Polo who described the route from Baghdad to China. But the route or routes were in existence from first century C.E. at least and throughout two millennia luxuries and other goods were traded by dauntless traders of these ancient silk roads. The best merchandise, according to one ambassador to Timur, came from China: especially silk, satins, musk, rubies, diamonds, pearls and rhubarb. Rhubarb?! Travel with me on this inhospitable terrain. We will begin our journey with the battle that generated a desire for silk: the battle between the Romans and the Parthians where the Romans got their first look at Silk. We will take a sneak peek into the secretive art of silk making and as a bonus get a peek into the lifestyles of people who rear the precious cocoons. We will carry some gold, religion, furniture and fashion from the west and bring back the riches and spice of the east on our way back to Rome. We will encounter bandits, cross Taklamakan desert, follow the path of parched bones, and stop in oasis towns and the cities of Mediterranean to trade our precious loads and exchange some news.
Hike on a trail in a redwood forest in Splash! Fall 2010
Have you ever gone for a hike on the trails that dot the San Francisco Bay Area. In this seminar, we will go on an imaginary hike through a redwood forest in the Santa Cruz mountains and look at the undergrowth and the trees that shade our trail. This will also give us an opportunity to study plant classification. We will learn about the common names of the plants we come across and also learn about a plant's genus and species name that make up a plant's scientific name. We will find out who Linnaeus was and how he brought some method to the madness of naming plants and knowing that one is actually talking about a unique plant. We will also look at some edible and some poisonous plants that grow all around us.
A Travel down the Old Seidenstrasse in Splash! Spring 2010
Seidenstrasse or Silk Road was coined by the German explorer and geographer Baron Ferdinand von Richthofen in 1877 and romanticized by medieval accounts of travelers such as Marco Polo who described the route from Baghdad to China. But the route or shall we say routes were in existence from first century C.E. at least and throughout two millennia luxuries were imported along these difficult routes. The best merchandise according to one ambassador to Timur came from China: especially silk, satins, musk, rubies, diamonds, pearls and rhubarb. Rhubarb?! Travel with me then, if you have the time, on this inhospitable terrain. We will carry some gold, religion, furniture and fashion from the west and bring back the riches and spice of the east on our way back to Rome. We will rest our tired feet in caravansarais in oasis towns and the cities of Mediterranean.
Master Administrators in Splash! Spring 2010
The time was about 500 B.C.E. To speed communication for a smooth running of the empire that stretched from India to Egypt, a Royal Messenger Service was instituted. Relay stations were placed at intervals equivalent to the distance a horse can run at a moderate speed without collapsing from fatigue, about 14 miles. When a message was dispatched, the relay system operated day and night, making it possible for news to travel 240 miles per day. This time was remarkable when compared to the three months it took for the wagons carrying goods to travel that same route.
To facilitate trade between Persia, Egypt, and the Mediterranean, they dug a canal that linked the northern tip of the Red Sea with the Nile River to the west. From Nile, all ships could thereafter sail north to ports on the eastern Mediterranean. They were master administrators in operating their enormous political enterprise. They had a genius for devising solutions to the problems of imperial statecraft. In this seminar, we will study the accomplishments of the early kings of Persia, looking at their unique achievements.
|
|
