Extracting economics from Roman marble quarries†

Singapore, for example like other countries, is urbanising extremely fast and is also needing building materials. There are countless stories about how there is a sand mafia, both in Singapore and in India, where rivers and sea shores and beaches are being literally ripped apart to collect sand which goes into the building of infrastructure and houses. Big issues.

Nothing new, see what Rome had to handle...
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ehr.12375/abstract?campaign=wolearlyview

Urbanization across the Roman Empire created a demand for building materials on an unprecedented scale. Quarrying was largely conducted by municipalities, institutions, or landed aristocrats, who owned or inherited the valuable land from which stone was extracted. By using principles of economics as a guide, and with greater coordination between theory and written and archaeological sources, this article examines the decision-making processes involved in opening a quarry. Theories of economic rationality, resource economics, and statistical methods are helpful for understanding the prices for marble recorded in Diocletian's Edict, Roman jurists’ writings about exploitation on private land, and newly discovered quarries in the region of Aphrodisias, Turkey. Here it is argued that the exchange of local building stone took place in a competitive market where landowners actively tried to improve their financial situation, but did so at considerable risk. At Aphrodisias, examples of failed attempts exist alongside long-running and successful enterprises. Entrepreneurs there did not extract a homogeneous set of resources, but chose to target marbles with inconsistent physical properties at increasing distances from the city in response to greater demand and rising prices. Roman jurists, primarily interested in protecting property value, made landowners calculate whether potential profits earned from sales outweighed the degradation of land.

Package tour to Mecca? How the Hajj became an essential part of the British calendar

This is one of my biggest regrets kids. That I wasn't able to go check out Mecca. Or even Medina whilst I was in Saudi Arabia in the 90's. 

And now, the Wahhabis and Saudis have torn down all the history and have made a sodding shopping mall over the bloody haram e sharif. So not really sure if it's worth going there any more but hey ho. 

This article was a good reminder of how we had to take care of so many things when we ran the empire (utterly shambolic if you ask me) but there you go. We were the biggest Muslim power early in the last century and this mess was something for us to manage. Go figure. 

Another reason why a government shouldn't get entangled with religion. You want to do stupid things in the name of religion, go do it as long as you don't muck up others. I am now hearing that some Muslim MPs want to introduce sharia law in the uk. Can you imagine trying to run an English society based upon that crappy medieval laws of jurisprudence? But hey ho. They should allow it. Like that they have done with the Jewish courts. But with one overriding rule. It cannot violate the universal declaration of human rights and there cannot be two laws. The common secular laws must rule supreme. 

It was lovely speaking to you son. Missing you. 

Love

Baba

Package tour to Mecca? How the Hajj became an essential part of the British calendar
http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/package-tour-to-mecca-how-the-hajj-became-an-essential-part-of-the-british-calendar
(via Instapaper)

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This week, millions of Muslims make the annual pilgrimage to Mecca known as the Hajj. A new study reveals how, in the age of Empire, the spiritual journey became a major feature of British imperial culture, attracting the interest of Queen Victoria, Winston Churchill and others – and resulting in one of the earliest Thomas Cook package tours.

Britain ended up facilitating the pilgrimage in an ultimately futile attempt to gain legitimacy among its Muslim subjects. Inadvertently, it ended up acting like a Muslim power.

Modern customers are more likely to book 

On "world's oldest papyrus"

This is a long but very interesting story kids. I'll let you read this in peace when you get a chance. Yesterday Diya and I went for a great time at the Wallace collection. Diya loved the landscapes and the food paintings. She shared the photos. We had a nice time wandering around the museum. It's one of my favourite small museums. Had some very cute stuff as well as some really lovely paintings. 

Anyway, what's so interesting about this article son is how it Sheds light on how an entire country was mobilised to build the pyramids. You have to go there once. It's an extraordinary place. The sheer scale is monumental. Completely blows your mind. It's just the years and years of work with millions of people working their hearts out. Stupendous. And then they found papyrus?!!!  

I'm going to explore archeology next time after finishing this study course. Maybe underwater archeology. That way I can kill two birds with one stone on diving and archeology. Anyway. I'm now day dreaming. 

Have a lovely week. Kannu best of luck with your new term. Missing you already :) 

Love

Baba

Begin forwarded message:

From: Agade@listserv.unc.edu

Date: 4 October 2015 at 22:56:45 BST

To: "The Agade mailing list." <agade@listserv.unc.edu>

Subject: [agade] FEATURES: On "world's oldest papyrus"

Reply-To: "Sasson, Jack M" <jack.m.sasson@Vanderbilt.Edu>

From < http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/ancient-egypt-shipping-mining-farming-economy-pyramids-180956619/>:

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The World's Oldest Papyrus and What It Can Tell Us About the Great Pyramids

Ancient Egyptians leveraged a massive shipping, mining and farming economy to propel their civilization forward

Alexander Stille

Following notes written by an English traveler in the early 19th century and two French pilots in the 1950s, Pierre Tallet made a stunning discovery: a set of 30 caves honeycombed into limestone hills but sealed up and hidden from view in a remote part of the Egyptian desert, a few miles inland from the Red Sea, far from any city, ancient or modern. During his first digging season, in 2011, he established that the caves had served as a kind of boat storage depot during the fourth dynasty of the Old Kingdom, about 4,600 years ago. Then, in 2013, during his third digging season, he came upon something quite unexpected: entire rolls of papyrus, some a few feet long and still relatively intact, written in hieroglyphics as well as hieratic, the cursive script the ancient Egyptians used for everyday communication. Tallet realized that he was dealing with the oldest known papyri in the world.

They had a project manager for the Duomo and Pantheon

I shared this article with the team the other day. I quote the abstract

This paper narrates the project management of the construction of the Florence Duomo by Filippo Brunelleschi in the fifteenth century. This was the most significant dome project in Europe in 1300 years, and possibly the most significant, innovative and complex project of the Renaissance era (Colombo and Lanzavecchia, 1997). It still stands as the largest brick dome ever built. In order to achieve what seemed technically impossible at the time, Brunelleschi researched and adapted the construction and project management of the Pantheon in Rome in the second century. The paper allows us in turn to learn both product and process innovation from this case study, both of which are essential to contemporary project management practice. The case is valuable in understanding key drivers of project management success, and illustrates the substantial potential for learning, and therefore knowledge transfer, from previous historical projects and experiences.

So I am a project manager as well, I deliver change. But even so, I cannot imagine project managing something like this.

this is the Pantheon. Well, the painting is better…the photographs don't show a good perspective. Massive structure. While I was there, I was dumbstruck…what an amazing building

And then the Duomo, I haven't seen this but its on my list, what an extraordinary building as well.

Now these architects and project managers are some to look up to! brilliant. One day I will deliver something like this I hope when I grow up!

St. Peter's Basilica

This church has quite a lot of personal links to me son. It has the grave of saint Peter, one of the most astounding and amazing men. Fascinating history. His fierce courage faith drive ambition is extraordinary. 

Second is the fact that one of my heros, Michelangelo worked here for many moons. What a man. Renaissance man indeed. A painter, sculptor engineer poet and and and. What amazing skills and experience son. 

Then the sheer architectural beauty of this building. Architecture is painting with bricks and mortar and sometimes much more difficult. This extraordinary building is truly beautiful. Shows a wonderful confluence of art architecture Etc etc. 

Then there is the history. A very large part of the world's history was driven from this building son. Popes and people who desired Christianity's blessing influenced events across the world. 

And then you have the faith of billions of Christians who came here to worship and pray. The stones literally hum with emotions. 

You were tiny when we took you there in your little pram. We asked for Gods blessing for you under Michelangelo's dome and Bernini's magnificent pillars. Do go there again son with your wife and your children and ask for blessings again. 

Love

Baba

St. Peter's Basilica - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Peter%27s_Basilica

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London rooftops could be turned into allotments

Now, this is a great idea.

The unused spaces are to be converted into vegetable gardens which would grow potatoes and brussels sprouts in an attempt to feed the 2012 Olympic athletes with home-grown products.

It is thought the flat roofs in London comprise an area 24 times the size of Richmond Park - and their owners will be offered incentives to convert their space.

As environmental awareness has grown, growing vegetables on allotments has become more popular across the country, although London still produces little of its own food.

We should be thinking more along these lines, quite an interesting idea, no?

Technorati Tags: London,Architecture

Now this is a job!!!

Preparing Your Organization for a “Flat” World

A report on a flat infrastructure required for a flat world floated past my desk relating of course to Thomas Friedman's book, the World is Flat. It is a very good book, strongly recommend anybody who hasnt noticed the harsh and fast moving winds of globalisation sweeping the globe. But all that is fine, what Friedman doesnt talk about and what people are a bit unclear on as to what kind of structure should a firm adopt so as to take advantage of this flat world at best and at worst, to deal with customers who are operating in a flat world?

Now you will ask me, what do you mean by structure? well, there can be many different dimensions to this structure. You can talk about a tax structure, a legal structure, an organisational structure, an IT structure, a process structure, and so on and so forth. And in a blog post, one cannot go that far. And I am not going to touch the Tax elements. And not the legal bits. And not the HR aspects. Dont know anything about those things, they make my hair hurt. But let me home into something that is the most difficult. Re-arranging your organisation is relatively easy, you just arrange for a matrix organisation so that you have global product or functional responsibilities while you have local/regional/continental client facing dimensions. Or you can just have one or the other, depending upon the size of the company and the products which you offer. Process architecture/structure is a bit more difficult but given sufficient technical support and big fat pipes, you can do it.

But the main challenge comes from having a good IT global firmwide architecture which can help you manage a flat world. Within financial institutions, I have seen this kind of flat world architecture only for similar products or limited scope, like a global system for foreign exchange trading, or for swift processing. Limited product/process architectures. If anybody comes and tells you that its possible to have a single all singing dancing architecture which can do everything, then they are selling you a pipe dream.

While an enterprise architecture looks good on powerpoint or a wall chart, it is almost impossible to achieve in real life. So the best you can achieve for a global financial institution is what I call as a multiple ladder structure. Imagine one ladder and stand it up. One leg of the ladder is one product chain. the other leg of the ladder is another product chain. The rungs are the inter-connections such as a common CRM, a common reporting engine, a common risk engine, a common operations engine, a common confirmations engine, a common payments engine, etc. etc. Now get another ladder and knock out one leg and fix it to the first ladder, so you end up with a ladder with 3 legs. And so on and so forth. Of course, the number of rungs will differ depending upon the product and function but if the world is flat, then your firm has a superimposed grid of this multi ladder structure. If you want to add another country to the firm mix, then extend the legs. If that country has a unique function (like specific reporting requirements, or like switzerland, wouldnt allow data to go outside), then extend/modify the rungs. Best of luck!

Some extracts from this vendor report is given below.
However, while today’s world has now been famously reconceived by journalist Thomas Friedman as "flat"—in terms of the ease with which global competitors can seize opportunities and the ways in which you can reach out with greater ease to suppliers and customers—most likely, your IT infrastructure is still geared to old round-earth notions and priorities. In other words, it’s not as flexible, adaptable and powerful as it should be to keep you competitive. And simply spending more or adding bells and whistles isn’t the answer.

Enterprise architecture addresses a variety of areas and can include:
• Models of business processes, data, systems and technology
• Descriptions of the data that make up these models
• Traceability to the goals and objectives of the organization
• Visible standards upon which the architecture is built
• Ability to visualize and share information easily across the organization