Awhile ago I was researching my family history for Green's class and our family timeline. Well, I have this great book called The Hirschy Genealogy, so it makes finding cool family stuff really easy. It goes all the way back to my great-great-great-great-grandfather, so it includes over 5,400 descendents, which I'm a part of (see, I'm not even out of middle school and they are already writing books about me!).
So I was reading about the Burckhardt family for awhile and then hopped on my computer to do a 3D tour of Abu Simbel on Encarta, which is a completely normal thing to do! =) Well I was doing some reading on it and a name showed up I recognized - Johann Ludwig Burckhardt! After reading his entry I actually found out, he discovered the great temple (pictured below, top) and the temple to Hathor there. He also was the first modern European to visit Petra (below, bottom), and probably the only non-Muslim ever allowed to openly visit Mecca (he had some sweet connections with the Viceroy of Egypt). And sure enough he's my great-great-great-great-uncle.
I was really proud of this one, because I liked the Great Temple of Abu Simbel anyway before this! It's one of my favorite ancient structures along with the Temple of the Great Jaguar. It was built by Ramses II I believe, who shows up in some of my other entries if you recall.
So I entered Burckhardt into the encyclopedia and got one other different entry. Jacob Burckhardt wrote The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, which completely reformed the idea of the Renaissance to the one we study today in history! He was the first person to refer to Da Vinci as "the universal man". So I looked him up in my handy reference and found out he's my cousin six times removed, which is like my great-great-great-great-grandfather's cousin I think.
So that kind of inspired me to keep studying history. A little cool too I thought.
Oh, and in Spell Bowl today we got the word "beachhead". Double "h"s - what kind of idiot would make a word like that? Our top three spellers all missed it. Ha, ha...
13 comments:
Being Mayan would be too much of a safety hazard; throwing in the of risk of the lottery of the gods for the latest sacrifice doesn't really appeal to me that much! I like my guts inside my body, thank you! =)
haha thats actually really cool!
and you dummies, i can spell beachhead :]
haha btw who aree your top three spellers..?
Coupe, Pandaguy, and I.
I know - I'm so ashamed...
You have some awesome ancestors. Mine were just Dutch traders. I'm glad you stuck around, I enjoy your journal. :)
Smiles, Leigh
iin reverse order, i hope.
Of course it is! =)
Dutch traders is better than some of my other ancestors though. Like the most exciting thing about my great-great-great-grandfather was that he had 29 children. Yup, he went through two wives.
29 children?!?!?!? holyy freaking cowwwww haha
Ya, no joke! =O
Whoever voted "other" has to say which one. =]
Aww, I got beachhead right. What does that make me? :( I was in the top three last year! Haha j/k I really don't care.
Ha, ha... sorry Katherine!!
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