Like are there small slabs of marble around with a face carved into it from sculptors trying to see what they were going for before finalizing it onto the finished sculpture?

What types of ships, how did they change and how did they handel against bigger ships?

I started thinking about this last night because something similar happened with "moot". It used to mean a point that needed discussion or debate but now it indicates almost the opposite: something is pointless or academic to discuss. I'm just curious to know if this phenomenon is unique to English (or even American English) and if it happens often.

I was thinking about how Christianity was formed in the realm of Judaism, while Islam was formed in a realm of Semitic polytheism (like Judaism) yet is still Abrahamic and talks about Adam and Eve, Satan, Abraham, Noah, Moses etc.

How would Muhammad have heard these stories enough to create a religion around it separate from the Judeo-Christian sphere of influence? Were there other believers before Muhammad in Mecca or Medina, or was it almost 100% dominated by Arab polytheism?

In the style/popularity of the 300 Spartans or the messenger who ran to Marathon.

What counting system did Pythagoras use? Was it base 10? Something else?

Are there any civilizations which does/did not value gold like people do now? What makes gold so valuable and precious to people?

The de Medici family was rich, and got their money from commerce/banking, which was looked down by aristocrats. So how could they marry a daughter to a French prince?

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Alternatively, is there enough of interest in this topic to warrant further study?

Did the Japanese want to annex China outright? Did they want to create more puppets like Manchukuo? Did they want to annex the coastline?

I just finished watching the BBC documentary "The Death of Yugoslavia," and while I found it fascinating, it left me with several questions that I'll have to look up later. However, one question struck me after the documentary explained the involvement of Western forces in mid-1995 that I think this sub might be able to answer.

Okay, so the documentary seems to imply that the key factors for Western involvement were the massacres at Tuzla, Srebenica, and Markale, at which point the decision was made to become actively involved against the Serbs via artillery and more air strikes. Regarding Srebenica in particular, when word got out that systematic genocide was being carried out against Muslim Bosniaks, was there any immediate comparisons to Rwanda the year before by Western officials? Was there a sense, particularly in the UN, that their failure to stop the genocide in Rwanda until it was too late prompted them to take action in Bosnia that they wouldn't have considered had the Rwandan genocide not taken place?

It sounds like a pretty horrible, traumatic experience to be forced to kill of of your own brothers in arms. Are there any accounts from soldiers who were forced to do this?

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Did the Vietnamese during that time have an ethnic or national identity? What did they think of their other neighbors compared to the Chinese? Did Vietnamese identity only arise after breaking off from Chinese control? Is the situation similar to what Hong Kong is today, since they don't consider themselves to be Chinese but are descended from Chinese people?

I've always wondered why people consider Caesar a villain in the grand scheme of things. I don't want this to be considered a bad question as I am new here, so I'll leave it here lol.

Preferably in a non-oblique perspective and an uncompressed format.

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I'm especially interested in how this developed in the early modern period, a markedly anti-gay time period as far as I'm aware (at least so far as one could say that "gay" was a concept at all).

EDIT'd for accuracy