THE RAINBOW COMPUTER

Tags

Color Computer, Optical Computer, Pre-calculating computer

A pre-calculating computer system

that operates on the logic of color

 

© W. J. Tomosky

 

 

I am proposing a computer that does not use a numbered base such as binary, octal or hexadecimal.

 

I am proposing a computer that runs on the logic of color. I have chosen the Lab Color Space¹ for its fine granularity.

 

The Lab Color Space may be broken into several partitions²; e.g.,  1, 2, 3 or 4.

  

¹     

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

      ²

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Any section may be used for mapping knowledge bases, micro instructions, programming instructions and floating point instructions. Therefore, any section may be arbitrarily sub-divided into four other sections. ³ This division could go on infinitesimally according to the user’s needs.

 

    ³  

 

 

 

 

 

 

We may then arbitrarily assign different types of instructions to different sub-divisions of quadrant 1; 1a for mapping knowledge bases, 1b for micro instructions, 1c for programming instructions and 1d for floating point instructions.⁴

 

    ⁴ 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Note the fine color granularity in each of the subsections in quadrant 1. This allows each hue to be mapped to not only a specific type of instruction but for an individual instruction.

 

Example; Let us assume that we wished to add two floating point numbers together. The instructions and data would be accessed. There would be an associated color that has been identified when this instruction was link-edited. This link edited color would automatically pass control to the “knowledge base map” which in turn would pass control, via the cloud, to a knowledge base that had stored all previously calculated combinations of floating point instructions. That would allow the computer to know whether this specific operation and numerical values had previously been calculated. If so, the answer would be automatically be retrieved. This would save calculation time. If not, the calculation would be accomplished and then stored on the data base for the next query. This would be a sort of Object Oriented Programming with the results of the calculation stored for the next user. In other words all machines who wished to do a specific calculation would immediately know if it has been previously computed or not. If yes, then the result would be automatically retrieved thus avoiding a potentially time consuming calculation. If no, then the calculation would be completed and stored locally for the next instance that ANY computer wished to use the results. Thus it would become another data base holding pre-calculated data.

 

This supposes that there are knowledge bases of all types; logarithmic tables, trigonometric tables, previously calculated tables, archaeological data bases, literary data bases, optical character/facial  recognition data bases, etc. Over time, all known epistemological elements could be efficiently stored and quickly retreived.

 

 

Color Reception and Management

 

We will first need to replace the Arithmetical Logic Unit (ALU) of the digital computer with a logic device that recognizes color as well as grey scale; we will call this the Color Logic Unit (CLU). For this we will first require a “front end” system of rods and cones⁴ to simulate the construction of the eye.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

⁴ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnTLcj6BDKE

 

The “Argus II” has been FDA approved and therefore it or other follow-on systems could be used to solve this problem. The Argus II works by substituting a small array of electrodes for the light-sensing cells that normally react to light by sending an electric signal toward the back of the retina. Those signals are relayed to the optic nerve behind the eye, and travel back along the nerve to the brain.⁵

 

⁵ http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2013-02/worlds-first-bionic-eye-receives-fda-approval

 

This page described the front end of the CLU. The back end must make sense of these signals. For the back end of the CLU we need a comparator unit to simulate the brain. For purposes of reliability I suggest that three comparator units be used in parallel and that a voting system selects the correct results. For example if comparator #1 and #2 agree but the results of #3 are different, then the results of #3 are disregarded. Likewise for any two comparators that agree. The odd result is always disregarded.

 

The following two abstracts define the basics of color comparison; spectrum management and refinement.

 

Multicolor cavity soliton.

Abstract

We show a new class of complex solitary wave that exists in a nonlinear optical cavity with appropriate dispersion characteristics.⁶  The cavity soliton consists of multiple soliton-like spectro-temporal components that exhibit distinctive colors but coincide in time and share a common phase, formed together via strong inter-soliton four-wave mixing and Cherenkov radiation. The multicolor cavity soliton shows intriguing spectral locking characteristics and remarkable capability of spectrum management to tailor soliton frequencies, which would be very useful for versatile generation and manipulation of multi-octave spanning phase-locked Kerr frequency combs, with great potential for applications in frequency metrology, optical frequency synthesis, and spectroscopy.

⁶ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27464131

 

 

Multi-color Cavity Metrology

 

This technique reduces the effect of the external seismic disturbances by four orders of magnitude and promises to greatly enhance the stability and reliability of the current generation of gravitational wave detector. The possibility for using multi-color techniques to overcome current quantum and thermal noise limits is also discussed.⁷

 

⁷ http://inspirehep.net/record/1113693/

 

 

We now have a front end color recognition system and a method for determining and correcting color reliability. This correction method is much like the correction algorithms that discover and correct ‘parity errors’ in digital computer systems.

 

Selecting a Color Space

 

Due to the fact that each color quadrant is defined by its intention (instruction type or data) we only need to focus on the finely granulated colors that we so choose from our Lab Color Space.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Three “guns” select the finely granulated colors that the user chooses. The guns are lasers which are ‘aimed’ by a plasma based optical system. This avoids mechanical movement. The lasers can then be pointed at any minute point on the Lab Color Space to select any instruction and its required corresponding data.⁸  Laser #1 selects the instruction, laser #2 selects the first data operand (if data is needed for this instruction) and likewise laser #3 selects the second data operand if data is required. This eliminates the need for registers to be loaded prior to the instruction being executed; all is done in parallel. 

 

    ⁸

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The three receiver/decoders⁹ described as the Color Reception and Management system, ibid, are also matched by a plasma optical system that receives the colors (instructions and data) that were projected by the laser guns.

 

 

      ₉  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All distortion caused by the parallax between the laser and the Lab Color Space will be controlled by the Multicolor cavity soliton and Multi-color Cavity Metrology methods; ibid.

 

This system could be also be used to help map thought processes. Until there is an ability to recognize minute thought processes the ability to follow eye movements could be mapped. Eye movements would control the laser pointer and the computer would operate on instructions and data.

 

Consider the example of the ophthalmologist’s “Field of Vision” test where many points of the retina/optic nerve can be tested to find blind spots in the patient’s vision.

 

An example may be to map what the brain may be doing as a human scans a piece of artwork. Or the eye movements of an architect may be converted to determine what he discerns as opposed to what he ignores (determines not to be useful). This type of mapping could also prove useful in medical, psychological and psychiatric diagnosis. The doctor could study a printed diagnosis much after the patient has been examined.

 

There exist an infinite number of diagnostic applications from mechanical diagnosis to aptitude diagnosis.

 

The previous description utilized flat planes. The next description utilizes spherical surfaces.

 

Additional speed may be added to the computer by using a multiple “eye” laser system that would algorithmically choose the next set(s) of data or instructions that “may” be required. In other words this is a look-ahead system that would prepare the next instruction and data while the current instruction is being executed.

 

This unit would use a spherical color space that would enclose multiple Argus II systems ¹⁰.

  

¹⁰

 

A FULLY PROGRAMMABLE “ISING MACHINE” WITH ALL NODES CONNECTED

Tags

Harvard, Intra-node calculations, Ising Machine, Traveling Salesman Problem

ISING MACHINE

FROM:    “SCIENCE” magazine, 04 Nov 2016, Reports, pages 614 -617

Unconventional, special-purpose machines (Ising Machines; computers using an entirely new type of computer that blends optical and electrical processing, reported Oct. 20 in the journal Science) may aid in accelerating the solution of some of the hardest problems in computing, such as large-scale combinatorial optimizations (for example, the “traveling salesman” problem, wherein a salesman has to visit a specific set of cities, each only once, and return to the first city, and the salesman wants to take the most efficient route possible, by exploiting different operating mechanisms than those of standard digital computers). The authors/researchers of this article present a scalable optical processor with electronic feedback that can operate at large scale with room-temperature technology. Their prototype machine is able to find exact solutions of, or sample good approximate solutions to, a variety of hard instances of Ising problems with up to 100 spins and 10,000 spin-spin connections.

 

An Ising machine, is named for a mathematical model of magnetism. The machine acts like a reprogrammable network of artificial magnets where each magnet only points up or down and, like a real magnetic system, it is expected to tend toward operating at low energy.

 

Rather than using magnets on a grid, the Stanford team used a special kind of laser system, known as a degenerate optical parametric oscillator, that, when turned on, will represent an upward- or downward-pointing “spin.”

 

UNDERSTANDING MULTI-RING LUNAR IMPACT CRATERS

Tags

Crustal Depth, GRAIL, Gravitational Impact, Impact, iSale, Lunar, Lunar Impact Rings, Moon, SVN

FROM:   “SCIENCE” magazine, 28 Oct 2016, Reports, pages 441 – 444

IMPACT CRATERS

Formation of the ‘Orientale’ Lunar Multi-ring Basin

This research report in “SCIENCE” discusses large lunar impact craters characterized by multiple concentric topographic rings; Multi-ring Basins.

These basins dominate the Moon. The researchers used iSALE open source modeling code, a well-established, world-class tool for studying impacts. The research simulated the formation of the ‘Orientale’ multi-ring basin consistent with high-resolution gravity data from the Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) spacecraft.

The simulated impact produced a large transient crater approximately 390 kilometers in diameter. The crater was not maintained due to subsequent gravitational collapse. These simulations indicated that a deep warm weak material was crucial to the formation of the outer rings.

The rings formed at different times during the gravitational collapse. Ring location and spacing are controlled by the diameter of the impact medium and lunar thermal gradients.

The researchers used graphs to depict the results of several model modifications to iSale (iSale open code is modifiable using Apache Subversion; SVN). The modified model utilized an impact speed of 15 kilometers per second, an impact medium diameter of 64 kilometers, a crustal thickness of 52 kilometers, a linear temperature gradient of 14 Kelvin per meter from a surface temperature of 300 Kelvin ( ~ 27 °C). 

 

This method/data could be used to extrapolate crustal depths of planets and their lunar surfaces from observed multi-ring structures IF we knew the surface temperatures and gravitational forces of those planets.

Do we really need ecclesiastical food-police?

Tags

Catholic Church, Chickens, Diet, Environment, Fasting, fish, Food Production, Global, Ruminants, Transportation

From; “Science” magazine, 16 September 2016, pages 1202 -1204

 

“PLATING UP SOLUTIONS”, by Tara Garnett, Food Climate Research Network, Oxford University

 

Garnett’s article defines the concerns of how to feed healthy food to people of various cultures while maintaining a sustainable low impact to the environment. The article has considered a variety of global locations, diet preferences, as well as food types and production/transportation methods.

 

Garnett indicates that various diets create various environmental impacts. Additionally, various methods of growing the food also create a variety of impacts. Meats have the additional impact of growing feed to be consumed by the animals; although ruminants can eat grasses grown in areas not suitable for legume crops. Chickens require food that could be eaten directly by humans and therefore are not the most efficient.

 

The question-framing plus data sources and methodologies required for such a study are variables that can only muddy the results.

 

Attempting to convince large populations to change, for example “western style” diets based only on environmental impact will fail. Economics will be the change-agent that impacts people’s choices in diet. However, I cannot avoid the fact that the Catholic Church was quite effective in getting people to include fish in their diet. This was based on metaphysical/moral grounds. If the environmental problems are strong enough to become a metaphysical/moral concern, that may drive the results.

 

 

CONSERVATION: Do you speak lion?

Tags

Conservation, dialogue, local expertise, Openness, Post Mortems, Scientific expertise, Wittgenstein, Working Together

 

From “Science”, W. M. Adams (August 25, 2016),  p 867-868.

Conservation problems tend to be highly complex, encompassing both biological and social systems and their interactions. Even multidisciplinary research may not be able to deliver the insights needed to solve them. An approach that would solve this problem requires five levels.

 

Experts and expertise: Confronted with complex social-ecological systems, experts may vary markedly in their ideas and conclusions. The following three disciplines can contribute to making expertise an effective basis for conservation

Transdisciplinarity: Conservation research should seek learning that operates independently of disciplinary boundaries.

Diversity of knowledge: Both local and scientific expertise has contributions to make in terms of understanding system change and in building mutual trust.

Transparency: One practical strategy is to publish a post-mortem that can be understood by later planners and by stakeholders suspicious of scientific methods or analysis.

Speaking lion: Conservation success could be improved by effective openness and dialogue about alternative actions. Wittgenstein famously observed that “if a lion could speak, we couldn’t understand it.”

Conclusion: All worthy efforts, including conservation, product development, marketing and politics require these five levels to be successful.

ATMOSPHERIC PRESSURES IN THE PLEISTOCENE AND TEMPERATURE CHANGES IN GREENLAND

Tags

Greenland, Ice Cores, Little Ice Age, Medieval Warm Period, Midden, Pleistocene

From:  “Science”, 23 September 2016, RESEARCH SECTION, Pgs. 1427 – 1430

by D.A.Stolper, M.L.Bender, G.B.Dreyfus, Y.Yan, J.A.Higgins

This article defined the research and methodology used to determine the contribution of O₂ to atmospheric pressures over the last 800,000 years. The medium used to determine this were Pleistocene ice cores from Greenland. Comparisons were made with the contribution of CO₂.

 

The finding was that although the contribution of CO₂ to atmospheric pressure (PCO₂) remained steady, the contribution of O₂ to atmospheric pressure (PO₂) declined by approximately 2%. This indicates that the O₂ sinks were larger than the O₂ sources.

 

The differences were attributable to the contribution of eroded and buried pyrite that tended to consume O₂ during its oxidation process.

 

The article considered factors that required adjustments and corrections for such things as air bubbles, particular geographical domes that the core samples were taken from and many other variables. Included in these adjustments was a rather lengthy discussion of the cooling of ocean temperatures during the periods under consideration.

This is an interesting fact. Cooling ocean temperatures should be, and probably are, considerations factored into global temperature models.

The following is from Wikipedia.

To investigate the possibility of climatic cooling, scientists drill into the Greenland ice caps to obtain core samples. The oxygen isotopes from the ice caps suggested that the Medieval Warm Period had caused a relatively milder climate in Greenland, lasting from roughly 800 to 1200. However, from 1300 or so the climate began to cool. By 1420, the “Little Ice Age” had reached intense levels in Greenland. Excavations of midden or garbage heaps from the Viking farms in both Greenland and Iceland show the shift from the bones of cows and pigs to those of sheep and goats. As the winters lengthened, and the springs and summers shortened, there must have been less and less time for Greenlanders to grow hay. A study of North Atlantic seasonal temperature variability showed a significant decrease in maximum summer temperatures beginning in the late 13th century to early 14th century—as much as 6-8 °C lower than modern summer temperatures. The study also found that the lowest winter temperatures of the last 2,000 years occurred in the late 14th century and early 15th century. By the mid-14th century deposits from a chieftain’s farm showed a large number of cattle and caribou remains, whereas, a poorer farm only several kilometers away had no trace of domestic animal remains, only seal. Bone samples from Greenland Norse cemeteries confirm that the typical Greenlander diet had increased by this time from 20% sea animals to 80%.

Defining the Development Period for Upper and Lower Jaw Plates in Vertebrates

Tags

Jaw Development, Prehistoric Vertebrates, Science Magazine

 

 

The discovery of Entelognathus revealed the presence of maxilla (the jaw or jawbone, specifically the upper jaw in most vertebrates), premaxilla (either of two bones that form the front part of the upper jaw in vertebrates), and dentary (one of a pair of membrane bones that in lower vertebrates form the distal part of the lower jaws and in mammals comprise the mandible).

The Entelognathus is a supposedly diagnosable osteichthyan (boned fish), in a Silurian (the third period of the Paleozoic era) placoderm (an extinct fish). However, the relationship between these marginal jaw bones and the gnathal (jaw) plates of conventional placoderms, thought to represent the inner dental arcade, [up to now] remained uncertain.

Researchers now report a second Silurian maxillate placoderm;

(Qilinyu rostrata).

Qilinyu rostrata bridges the unknown development of the gnathal (lower jaw only) and later maxillate (upper jaw) conditions for extinct fish.

Researchers propose that the maxilla, premaxilla, and dentary are homologous to the gnathal plates of placoderms and that all belong to the same dental arched group. The gnathal-maxillate transformation occurred concurrently in upper and lower jaws, predating the addition of infradentary (a serially homologous group ventral to the dentary) bones to the lower jaw.

Science continually refines the indistinct granularity of vertebrate development.

Extracted from:

“SCIENCE” magazine, 21 Oct 2016, 

Research

Reports

Paleontology

pages 334 – 336

 

 

Optic Flow Odometry, In Carried Ants, Operates Independently Of Stride Recognition

Tags

Ants, Dependence, Landmarks, lost, Optic Flow, Redundancy, science, Ventral Optic Flow

Ventral Optic Flow is a term used to describe what we would normally think of as ‘using landmarks and speed’ to determine where we are and were we have been.

The ventral Optic Flow (OF) of insects and airplane pilots is determined by the angular velocity of the underlying path with regards to a specific point[s].¹ 

Cataglyphis ants, which live in the desert, have two modes of navigation. The first is Optic Flow which records angular velocity. The second is a built in pedometer. These are redundant systems, both of which record where they have been.

There are two types of these ants (disregarding the queen ant). One is a forager and the other is an interior worker. At times, when there is work to be done outside of the nest,  the forager carries the interior worker. When being carried the interior worker has no pedometric feedback because it is not walking. However, the interior worker’s Optical Flow feedback remains active. If the two ants are separated, by experimental design, the interior worker can find its way back to the nest due to its OF capabilities. If the interior worker ant is blindfolded thus placing its OF out of commission, and then separated from the forager ant, it is totally lost and can no longer find its way back to the nest. It has neither OF or pedometric data stored.

 Redundant systems are always a good choice; whether in biology or technology. The preference for redundant systems in some technologies, such as computers, is at least three (or any odd number) of systems. Action is taken in favor of the majority of results recorded by the systems; or voting, if you will.

¹ “Flying Insects and Robots”; Dario Floreano, Jean-Christophe Zufferey, Mandyam V. Srinivasan,Charlie Ellington, Editors, Copyright Springer, 2009, page 29, Optic Flow Based Autopilots

EXTREMADURA: HOME TO HERDSMAN, RULERS AND ANARCHY (PART 28 – Works Referenced in Assembling these Posts)

Tags

Abdallah (1022 - 1045 A.D.), Abdelwahid al-Marrakushi, Aftasid, al Mansur, al Mutawakill, Aldea, Aledo, Alfonso I of Aragon, Alfonso III of Castile, Alfonso VI, Almohad, Almoravid, ANARCHY, Averroes, Badajoz, Berber, Carthage, Cordoba, Cowdrey, Duero River, Extremadura, Fernando I, Gabriel Jackson, Garcia I, Garcia Sanchez, Guadiana River, Hammudid, Hannibal, HERDSMAN, heresy, Hisham, Iberia, Ibn Abdun, Ibn Abi Amir, Ibn Marwan al Jilliqi, Iogna-Prat, James Michener, Jundi, Maliki School of Jurisprudence, Maurice_Lord of Montboisier, Merida, Morocco, Muhammad (1045 - 1068 A.D.), Musaffa, Peter of Bruis, Peter the Venerable, Pope Innocent II, Pope Innocent III, Romans, RULERS, The Abduniyyah, The Caribbean, The Cluny, The Mesta, Umar al Aftas, Umar and Yaha (1068 A.D.), Umayyad, Variathus, Vermundo III, Yusuf ibn Tashufin

 

 

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Chejne, Anwar G., Muslim Spain its History and Culture, Minneapolis, MI: University of Minnesota Press, 1974

 

Fletcher, Ian, In Hell Before Daylight, New York: Hippocrene Books, Inc., 1984

 

Glick, Thomas F., Islamic and Christian Spain in the Early Middle Ages, Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 1979

 

Imamuddin, S. M., Some Aspects of the Socio-Economic and Cultural History of Muslim Spain, Leiden Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 1965

 

Jackson, Gabriel, The Making of Medieval Spain, New York: Harcort Brace Jovanovich, Inc., 1972

 

Michener, James A., Iberia, New York: Fawcett Crest, 1968

 

Reilly, Bernard F., The Contest of Christian and Muslim Spain, Oxford UK: Blackwell, 1992

 

Smith, Colin, Christians and Moors in Spain (Vol. 1) 711 – 1150, Warminster, Wiltshire, UK: Aris & Philips Ltd. Teddington House, 1988

     —., Christians and Moors in Spain (Vol. II) 1195 – 1614   1989

 

Watt, W. Montgomery et. al, The History of Islamic Spain, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1965

 

Oliver Leaman, Averroes and his Philosophy, Clarendon Press – Oxford, 1988

 

A Book Review of “Order and Exclusion: Cluny and Christendom Face Heresy, Judaism, and Islam. (1000-1150)”        

“English Historical Review”, Sept. 2003, by H.E.J. Cowdrey

 

Dominique Urvoy, IBN RUSHD (AVERROES), Translated by Olivia Stewart, Routledge Press – London and New York, 1991

THE END OF THE SERIES ON EXTREMADURA

 

EXTREMADURA: HOME TO HERDSMAN, RULERS AND ANARCHY (PART 27 – Genesis)

Tags

Abdallah (1022 - 1045 A.D.), Abdelwahid al-Marrakushi, Aftasid, al Mansur, al Mutawakill, Aldea, Aledo, Alfonso I of Aragon, Alfonso III of Castile, Alfonso VI, Almohad, Almoravid, ANARCHY, Averroes, Badajoz, Berber, Carthage, Cordoba, Cowdrey, Duero River, Extremadura, Fernando I, Gabriel Jackson, Garcia I, Garcia Sanchez, Guadiana River, Hammudid, Hannibal, HERDSMAN, heresy, Hisham, Iberia, Ibn Abdun, Ibn Abi Amir, Ibn Marwan al Jilliqi, Iogna-Prat, James Michener, Jundi, Maliki School of Jurisprudence, Maurice_Lord of Montboisier, Merida, Morocco, Muhammad (1045 - 1068 A.D.), Musaffa, Peter of Bruis, Peter the Venerable, Pope Innocent II, Pope Innocent III, Romans, RULERS, The Abduniyyah, The Caribbean, The Cluny, The Mesta, Umar al Aftas, Umar and Yaha (1068 A.D.), Umayyad, Variathus, Vermundo III, Yusuf ibn Tashufin

 

What was it about the Extremadura that attracted people in the first place? As previously stated the Guadianna River basin, although marginally navigable,was of sufficient flow to maintain crops. Sizable migrations of native Iberians followed this waterway inland as early as 1500 B.C.. In 711 A.D. seven million Hispano-Romans lived in al Andalus. By 912 A.D. 2.8 million indigenous Muslims existed there. By 1100 A.D. the number had risen to 5.6 million indigenous Muslims. The Moors put the Guadianna’s fair supply of water to good use in order to irrigate land that would otherwise lay useless.

The Guadianna River flows for 840 kilometers (about 500 miles) starting at a point just eighty miles west of the Mediterranean coastal city of Valencia. Its path cuts almost directly westward until it reaches Badajoz at which point it turns southward and empties into the Atlantic Ocean. The watershed of the Guadianna covers 69,000 square kilometers (33,000 square miles). The Extremadura principality was a basin principality not unlike Toledo or Zarragossa.

The conquering Islamic policy of allowing the conquered people to continue farming their land was a boon to agricultural Spain. Likewise, it was a boon for the urban areas due to leasing arrangements made by wealthy Muslim landholders. This practice also allowed inexpensive produce to reach city dwellers.

Badajoz had a population of about 20,000 people during the Aftasid Dynasty. The roads that the Romans had built were no longer the busy byways that they had been. However, they were still used as a trading route starting at Lisbon (modern Portugal) and followed an eastward path to Badajoz, Merida, Manzares, Albacete and finally Barcelona.

 

“Andalusi merchants circulated freely throughout the Middle East: a Jewish trader from Badajoz was active in Palestine and Syria.”

 

[“Islamic and Christian Spain in the Early Middle Ages”, Thomas F. Glick, Princeton University Press, 1979, Page 131]

 

In 1065 the taifa of Badajoz included modern Extremadura plus Portugal Algarve; Leira, Coria, Santarem, Sintra, Lisbon, Badajoz, Merida, Setabul and Evora. The products of this taifa included wheat, olives and vines; which all were more well suited than the Extremadura’s less intensive garden agriculture. Leather was a year-round supplementary product as was its source, stock raising. The mountainous area surrounding Badajoz was more suitable for a pastoral system than a purely agricultural one.

Fishing was a major component of some urban areas. Cordova imported 20,000 dinar worth of sardines per day. Badajoz’ year round fishing industry was limited to two commercial fish species called “Tunny” and “Turtata.” These were found in the waters of the Guadianna upstream to Badajoz and Merida. In the spring and fall migrations of three additional species of fish left the sea and followed the river basin inland; “al Shulah” ran upstream in the spring, “Sardines” and “Burah” ran upstream in the fall.

The heavy mining areas south of Badajoz (towards Cadiz) did not extend inland far enough to be a major product of the principality of Badajoz. However, silver was mined just west of Badajoz in the area of Beja, which was located in the Badajoz principality.

Deforestation was becoming prevalent in some areas of Christian Spain due to ship building and the need for timbers in the mining industry. The Extremadura not only escaped a majority of this lumber industry but also had a climate that allowed oak to grow.

Badajoz’ strategic location seems to presage its fate. After the several aforementioned sieges, by both Muslims and Christians, Badajoz remained relatively safe until the political strife of the nineteenth and twentieth-centuries. Badajoz’ location made it ripe for siege by the British during the Napoleonic Peninsular war (1812) and then again during the Spanish Civil War when Franco’s Nationals defeated Badajoz’ majority of Republicans (1939). Both of these more recent sieges resulted in massacre and heavy bloodshed to both the military and civilian population.

 

Tomorrow: “Citations”