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365/2021 - Expanding Horizons - Day 155 June4 - Saw seven eagles yesterday on the beach all in one group, was awesome.
Death Valley National Park Highway Road Gathering Storm Elliot McGucken Fuji GFX100 Fine Art Landscape Nature Photography! Master Medium Format Fine Art Photographer! Fujifilm GFX 100 Fujinon Lens
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All my photography celebrates the physics of light! The McGucken Principle of the fourth expanding dimension: The fourth dimension is expanding at the rate of c relative to the three spatial dimensions: dx4/dt=ic .
Lao Tzu--The Tao: Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.
Light Time Dimension Theory: The Foundational Physics Unifying Einstein's Relativity and Quantum Mechanics: A Simple, Illustrated Introduction to the Unifying Physical Reality of the Fourth Expanding Dimensionsion dx4/dt=ic !: geni.us/Fa1Q
"Between every two pine trees there is a door leading to a new way of life." --John Muir
Epic Stoicism guides my fine art odyssey and photography: geni.us/epicstoicism
“The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.” --John Muir
Epic Poetry inspires all my photography: geni.us/9K0Ki Epic Poetry for Epic Landscape Photography: Exalt Fine Art Nature Photography with the Poetic Wisdom of John Muir, Emerson, Thoreau, Homer's Iliad, Milton's Paradise Lost & Dante's Inferno Odyssey
“The mountains are calling and I must go.” --John Muir
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Exalt the goddess archetype in the fine art of photography! My Epic Book: Photographing Women Models!
Portrait, Swimsuit, Lingerie, Boudoir, Fine Art, & Fashion Photography Exalting the Venus Goddess Archetype: How to Shoot Epic ... Epic! Beautiful Surf Fine Art Portrait Swimsuit Bikini Models!
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Exalt your photography with Golden Ratio Compositions!
Golden Ratio Compositions & Secret Sacred Geometry for Photography, Fine Art, & Landscape Photographers: How to Exalt Art with Leonardo da Vinci's, Michelangelo's!
Epic Landscape Photography:
A Simple Guide to the Principles of Fine Art Nature Photography: Master Composition, Lenses, Camera Settings, Aperture, ISO, ... Hero's Odyssey Mythology Photography)
All art is but imitation of nature.-- Seneca (Letters from a Stoic - Letter LXV: On the First Cause)
The universe itself is God and the universal outpouring of its soul. --Chrysippus (Quoted by Cicero in De Natura Deorum)
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells. --To Autumn. by John Keats
In the winter of viral discontent, it might be easy to overlook some recent breakthroughs in lifespan expansion.
David Sinclair from Harvard Medical School just published the latest advances in reversing the biological clock and restoring function in the vision system. Full disclosure: after I read his book, he helped with due diligence when we became the largest investor in Cambrian Bio, a company that seeks to reverse the root causes of aging and disease.
Sinclair’s focus in on analog information loss, the epigenetic noise that accumulates in the methylation patterns running along our DNA and disturbing its expression. This degradation is a biological clock of aging, and today’s results “tell us the clock doesn't just represent time—it is time," said Sinclair. "If you wind the hands of the clock back, time also goes backward." (more book quotes below, after the news)
Today’s news: “Harvard Medical School scientists have successfully restored vision in mice by turning back the clock on aged eye cells in the retina to recapture youthful gene function. The achievement represents the first successful attempt to reverse glaucoma-induced vision loss, rather than merely stem its progression, the team said. If replicated through further studies, the approach could pave the way for therapies to promote tissue repair across various organs and reverse aging and age-related diseases in humans.
The team's approach is based on a new theory about why we age. Most cells in the body contain the same DNA molecules but have widely diverse functions. To achieve this degree of specialization, these cells must read only genes specific to their type. This regulatory function is the purview of the epigenome, a system of turning genes on and off in specific patterns without altering the basic underlying DNA sequence of the gene.
This theory postulates that changes to the epigenome over time cause cells to read the wrong genes and malfunction—giving rise to diseases of aging. One of the most important changes to the epigenome is DNA methylation, a process by which methyl groups are tacked onto DNA. Patterns of DNA methylation are laid down during embryonic development to produce the various cell types. Over time, youthful patterns of DNA methylation are lost, and genes inside cells that should be switched on get turned off and vice versa, resulting in impaired cellular function. Some of these DNA methylation changes are predictable and have been used to determine the biologic age of a cell or tissue.
The treatment worked similarly well in elderly, 12-month-old mice with diminishing vision due to normal aging. Following treatment of the elderly mice, the gene expression patterns and electrical signals of the optic nerve cells were similar to young mice, and vision was restored. When the researchers analyzed molecular changes in treated cells, they found reversed patterns of DNA methylation—an observation suggesting that DNA methylation is not a mere marker or a bystander in the aging process, but rather an active agent driving it.”
And from the Nature Paper:
“Ageing is a degenerative process that leads to tissue dysfunction and death. A proposed cause of ageing is the accumulation of epigenetic noise that disrupts gene expression patterns, leading to decreases in tissue function and regenerative capacity. Changes to DNA methylation patterns over time form the basis of ageing clocks… Collectively, these changes cause cells to lose their identity and so to lose the DNA-, RNA- and protein-expression patterns that once promoted their youthful resilience. These data indicate that mammalian tissues retain a record of youthful epigenetic information—encoded in part by DNA methylation—that can be accessed to improve tissue function and promote regeneration in vivo.”
Some of my favorite passages from his recent book, Lifespan:
“Aging, quite simply, is a loss of information. Yes, a singular reason why we age.” (p.20)
“Unlike digital DNA, analog information degrades over time — falling victim to the conspiring forces of magnetic fields, gravity, cosmic rays, and oxygen. Worse still, information is lost as it’s copied.” (p.22)
“Our DNA is constantly under attack. On average, each of our 46 chromosomes is broken in some way every time a cell copies its DNA, amounting to more than 2 trillion breaks in our body per day. And that’s just the breaks that occur during replication. If we didn’t have a way to repair our DNA wouldn’t last long.: (p.44) “Sirtuins stabilize human rDNA and prevent cellular senescence.” (p.43) “Adding more copies of the sirtuin genes increases the health and extends the lifespan of mice, just as adding extra copies does in yeast.” (p.45).
“Aging itself is a disease. Physicians and researchers have been avoiding saying that for a long time. Aging, we’ve long been told, is simply the process of growing old. And growing old has long been seen as an inevitable part of life.” (p.67).
“We know the process of aging begins long before we notice it. Girls who go through puberty earlier than normal, for example, have an accelerated epigenetic clock. The mistakes are there, even as a teenager.” (p.72)
“Your chance of developing a lethal disease increases by a thousandfold between the ages of 20 and 70, so preventing one disease makes little difference to lifespan.” (p.77) “Though smoking increases the risk of getting cancer five fold, being 50 years old increases your cancer risk a hundredfold. By the age of 70, it’s a thousandfold. Such exponentially increasing odds also apply to heart disease. And diabetes. And dementia.” (p.80)
“There’s a reason smokers seem to age fast: they do age faster. Smoking is not a private, victimless activity. The levels of DNA-damaging aromatic amines in cigarette smoke are about 50 to 60 times as high in secondhand as in firsthand smoke. In some places — cities with lots of cars, especially — the simple act of breathing is enough to do extra damage to your DNA.” (p.113)
“NAD boosts the activity of all seven sirtuins. And because NAD is used by over 500 different enzymes, without any NAD, we’d be dead in 30 seconds. NAD acts as a fuel for sirtuins. NAD levels decrease with age throughout the body. Human studies with NAD boosters (NMN and NR) are ongoing. So far, there has been no toxicity, not even a hint of it.” (p.134)
“Once you recognize that there are universal regulators of aging in everything from yeast to roundworms to mice to humans… and once you recognize that these regulators can be changed with a molecule such as NMN or a few hours of vigorous exercise or a few less meals… and once you realize that it’s all just one disease, it all becomes clear: Aging is going to be remarkably easy to tackle. Easier than cancer. I know how that sounds. It sounds crazy.” (p.148)
“Together, all the DNA in our body, if laid end to end, would stretch twice the diameter of the solar system. Unlike a simple DVD, the DNA in our cells is wet and vibrating in three dimensions. No wonder gene reading becomes difficult the older we get; it’s miraculous that any cell finds the right genes in the first place.” (p.159)
“That’s the world’s biggest problem: the future is seen as someone else’s concern. This is what I want to change— more than anything else in the world. I want everyone to expect that they will meet not only their grandchildren but their great-great-grandchildren. We will be accountable — in this life — for the decisions we made in the past that will impact the future. That, more than anything else, is how our understanding of aging and inevitable prolonged vitality is going to change the world. It will compel us to confront the challenges we currently push down the road.” (p.292-3)
Port Hardy, B.C. split ring cancel on fully illustrated UNION STEAMSHIPS advertizing cover:
UNION STEAMSHIPS Limited
Vancouver / B.C.
Delightful Cruises - Holiday Resorts - Seaside Cottages
The Union Steamship Company of British Columbia was a pioneer firm on coastal British Columbia. It was founded in November 1889 by John Darling, a director of the Union Steamship Company of New Zealand, and nine local businessmen. The company began by offering local service on Burrard Inlet near Vancouver and later expanded to servicing the entire British Columbia coast. Initially a cross-harbour service with the steamers Senator and Lonsdale, the line was asked to take on more roles, calling in at Howe Sound, Gibsons Landing, and various logging camps and sawmills. The demand outstripped the availability of vessels. The company was a lifeline for loggers, settlers and fish camps in a land without roads or cars. Boat day was a big event for many community as the steamer would bring in families, food and mail. The Union Steamship Company was bought out by the Canadian Pacific Steamships in 1948 in a marriage at the Senior Home. The SS Noronic fire in Toronto forced the Federal Maritime Department to change marine regulations regarding wooden passenger vessels, while the nature of the BC coastal fleet changed more to freight and a tug and barge operation. The Union Steamships ran until 1956 when a strike finished the fleet.
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Port Hardy is a district municipality in British Columbia, Canada located on the northeastern end of Vancouver Island. Port Hardy has a population of 4,132 at the last census (2016). It is the gateway to Cape Scott Provincial Park, the North Coast Trail and the BC Marine Trail, located on the northernmost tip of Vancouver Island. The community has access to spectacular wilderness adventures, such as kayaking, caving, world-class scuba diving, nature viewing, surfing, unique saltwater rapids, fishing and camping. Port Hardy was named after Vice-Admiral Sir Thomas Masterman Hardy who served as the captain of H.M.S. Victory. He served at the Battle of Trafalgar when Nelson died in his arms.
- from 1908 "Lovell's Gazetteer of the Dominion of Canada" - PORT HARDY, a post hamlet on the north-east end of Vancouver Island, in Comox-Atlln District, B.C. It has 1 store and 1 hotel. Port Hardy has a fine harbour, on Queen Charlotte Sound and when the Esquimau & Nanaimo RR. is extended to the north-east of the Island, a good trade is expected to be done with the upper ports of British Columbia, especially with Port Simpson and with Yukon and Alaska. The population in 1908 was 11.
- from "1909 Waugh Directory of Vancouver Island" - PORT HARDY - A trading post on the east side of Hardy Bay, 20 miles north west of Alert Bay and 185 miles north west of Nanaimo. A road is at present being made from Port Hardy to Rupert Arm (Quatsino Sound); has post office and store. Hardy Bay is one of the best harbours on the north coast of Vancouver Island. A. M. Lyons is the postmaster and has a store.
(from - Wrigley's 1918 British Columbia directory) - PORT HARDY - a post office and village on east coast of Vancouver Island, on Hardy Bay, 20 miles northwest of Alert Bay, and 230 miles northwest of Vancouver, in Comox Provincial Electoral District, served by C. P. R. and Union S.S. Co.'s boats from Vancouver. Has long distance telephone office. Nearest telegraph is Dominion wireless at Alert Bay. Has Anglican church. The population in 1918 was 22 families. Local resources: Fishing, minerals and timber.
The Port Hardy Post Office was established - 1 October 1904.
/ PORT HARDY / OC 16 / 37 / B.C. / - split ring cancel - this split ring hammer is not listed in the Proof Book but was most likely proofed c. 1904 when the Post Office opened - (RF B).
Cover was addressed to: Miss Margaret (Margo) T. Taylor / 1032 W. 8th Ave. / Vancouver, B.C.
She was a school teacher at the York House School, Vancouver, B.C. in 1937. Around 1946 she moved to the United States staying at Seattle and Los Angeles
Founded in 1932 by seven insightful women, York House School is a leading independent day school for girls from Junior Kindergarten to Grade 12 - it has come a long way since its beginnings in 1932 with 17 students in a big house at the corner of Granville Street and 28th Avenue.
Margaret Tamblyn Taylor
1908–1975
Birth - 1 Jun 1908 in Vancouver, British Columbia
Death - 9 Sep 1975 (aged 67) in Los Angeles, California
Letter was sent from the Steamship Catala - it was a Canadian coastal passenger and cargo steamship built for service with the Union Steamship Company of British Columbia. Catala was launched on February 25, 1925. The ship was delivered from Scotland to Vancouver under Capt. James Findlay, who had brought other steamships out from Scotland for the Union Steamship Company - (Capt. James Findlay is mentioned in the letter). Catala spent most of her operating career from 1925-1958 on the British Columbia Coast, carrying coastal freight and passengers.
The S.S. Catala was originally used to carry woodsmen and miners from British Columbia to Alaska. In 1962 it operated as a floating hotel for the World's Fair. It was tipped over during a storm while docked at Ocean Shores.
Following her grounding, efforts to re-float Catala failed, and the wreck was left to decay at the beach on Damon Point, Washington. Subsequent storms gradually exposed more of the hull until in April 2006 a beachcomber noticed that oil was leaking from the wreck. The State of Washington Department of Ecology cordoned off the wreck and removed 34,500 US gallons of heavy fuel oil before scrapping the rest of the ship.
(complete letter to follow)...
Fine Art Ballet Photography: Nikon D810 Elliot McGucken Fine Art Ballerina Dancer Dancing Ballet Spring Wildflowers! Black leotard!
Dancing for Dynamic Dimensions Theory dx4/dt=ic: The fourth dimension is expanding relative to the three spatial dimensions at the rate of c!
New ballet & landscape instagrams!
www.instagram.com/elliotmcgucken/
Nikon D810 Epic Fine Art Ballerina Goddess Dancing Ballet! Dr. Elliot McGucken Fine Art Ballet!
Marrying epic landscape, nature, and urban photography to ballet!
Nikon D810 with the Nikon MB-D12 Multi Battery Power Pack / Grip for D800 and D810 Digital Cameras allows one to shoot at a high to catch the action FPS! Ballerina Dance Goddess Photos! Pretty, Tall Ballet Swimsuit Bikini Model Goddess! Captured with the AF-S NIKKOR 70-200mm f/2.8G ED VR II from Nikon, and the Sigma 50mm f/1.4 DG HSM Art Lens for Nikon! Love them both!
www.facebook.com/45surfAchillesOdysseyMythology
A pretty goddess straight out of Homer's Iliad & Odyssey!
New Instagram! instagram.com/45surf
New facebook: www.facebook.com/45surfAchillesOdysseyMythology
Join my new fine art ballet facebook page! www.facebook.com/fineartballet/
The 45EPIC landscapes and goddesses are straight out of Homer's Iliad & Odyssey!
I'm currently updating a translation with the Greek names for the gods and goddesses--will publish soon! :)
"RAGE--Sing, O goddess, the anger of Achilles son of Peleus, that brought countless ills upon the Achaeans. Many a brave soul did it send hurrying down to Hades, and many a hero did it yield a prey to dogs and vultures, for so were the counsels of Zeus fulfilled from the day on which the son of Atreus, king of men, and great Achilles, first fell out with one another. " --Homer's Iliad capturing the rage of the 45EPIC landscapes and seascapes! :)
Ludwig van Beethoven: "Music/poetry/art should strike fire from the heart of man, and bring tears from the eyes of woman."
365/2021 - Expanding Horizons - Day 71 Mar 12 - First day home had to go across the river and caught this ship coming into Astoria in the fog.
• Parts: 36,800+ (~1,130 unique)
• 📐 Scale: 1:650
• 📏 Dimensions: 32in x 51in (80cm x 130cm)
• 📚 Research, Design + Build Time: 4 months
• Photography: James Vitullo 📷
• ©️ MMXXIV - Rocco Buttliere, LLC
___________________________________
During a brief stint in Washington D.C. in 2023, I spent the better part of a summer evening exploring the grounds of Capitol Hill. Few landscapes invite as much inquiry along winding paths paired with plenty of moments for quiet introspection on marble benches; all in picturesque view of the Capitol dome. These on-site experiences are exactly the form of anecdotal justification I seek when considering whether to recreate such monumental places in the first place.
In tackling any work of such storied precedence as the US Capitol, I always seek to expand the conversation beyond existing works in the medium of plastic bricks. While the consistent 1:650 scale among my works has always ensured some level of originality, it is no guarantee of further insight that cannot already be gleaned from existing works by other artists. With this in mind, I set out to capture the full 100-acre site currently maintained by The Architect of the Capitol. What's more, the diorama depicts a particular time of year - specifically late March to early April - as illustrated by the iconic presence of hundreds of cherry blossoms rendered in two shades of light pink.
The diorama starts downhill at the trapezoidal Capitol Reflecting Pool, with the Grant Memorial taking pride of place along its eastern edge and the US Botanic Garden across the street to the south. The diorama expands from there, capturing the radiating pathways meandering uphill, as designed by Frederick Law Olmsted within the parcels laid out in the city plan by Pierre Charles L'Enfant. The piece culminates with the widely imitated US Capitol Building, perched atop a plinth projecting from the Capitol Visitor Center on the opposite side.
Topping everything off is a custom-made representation of the Statue of Freedom (as designed by Thomas Crawford), steadfastly overlooking the National Mall from atop the dome. The statue was designed in collaboration with BigKidBrix and was sized comparably to the minifigure statuette / trophy element.
The piece was designed over the course of about two months: first in December 2023 through January 2024, paused during the build-out of SPQR - Phase II, then resumed between March and April. The build-out lasted from July through August and was completed by September. The piece will soon be added to my personal gallery of works, now available for touring exhibitions.
#Artist #SupportArtists #FineArt #SmallBusiness #SmallBusinessOwner #ChicagoArtist #LEGO #LEGOArchitecture #LEGOArt #LEGOArtist #InstaLEGO #GoBricks #USCapitol #USCapitolBuilding #CapitolHill #WashingtonDC #ArchitectOfTheCapitol #America #USA #Diorama #AmericanHistory
Every marketplace needs a Santa booth (seriously, what are these places called? Thrones? Booths? Sit on Santa places?) and hence I couldn't resist building one for the Eurobricks Expand the Winter Village Market contest. Forgive the lack of tiling and the slopey tree, the contest asks for TLG style building.
Happy Holidays!
Square shape by Angel Ecija Blanco
By looking at the crease pattern, I realized that you can fold other shaped boxes as well. Hexagonal & Octagonal versions calculated by me.
This is the second model that I folded from Angel Ecija Blanco's designs. The first one is the Self-Closing Twist Box (origamitutorials.com/self-closing-origami-twist-box/). Both designs share a few elements and are interesting to fold. You can read more here: origamitutorials.com/expandable-origami-coin-purse/
Pretty Ballerina Models! Fine Art Ballet Photography at Griffith Observatory and Levitated Mass! LACMA Collections! Nikon D810 Ballet Photos of Pretty Ballerina Dancing in Pointe Shoes at the LACMA Lights! Elliot McGucken Fine Art Ballet Photography!
Dancing for Dynamic Dimensions Theory dx4/dt=ic: The fourth dimension is expanding relative to the three spatial dimensions at the rate of c!
New ballet & landscape instagrams!
www.instagram.com/elliotmcgucken/
Nikon D810 Epic Fine Art Ballerina Goddess Dancing Ballet! Dr. Elliot McGucken Fine Art Ballet!
Marrying epic landscape, nature, and urban photography to ballet!
Nikon D810 with the Nikon MB-D12 Multi Battery Power Pack / Grip for D800 and D810 Digital Cameras allows one to shoot at a high to catch the action FPS! Ballerina Dance Goddess Photos! Pretty, Tall Ballet Swimsuit Bikini Model Goddess! Captured with the AF-S NIKKOR 70-200mm f/2.8G ED VR II from Nikon, and the Sigma 50mm f/1.4 DG HSM Art Lens for Nikon! Love them both!
www.facebook.com/45surfAchillesOdysseyMythology
A pretty goddess straight out of Homer's Iliad & Odyssey!
New Instagram! instagram.com/45surf
New facebook: www.facebook.com/45surfAchillesOdysseyMythology
Join my new fine art ballet facebook page! www.facebook.com/fineartballet/
The 45EPIC landscapes and goddesses are straight out of Homer's Iliad & Odyssey!
I'm currently updating a translation with the Greek names for the gods and goddesses--will publish soon! :)
"RAGE--Sing, O goddess, the anger of Achilles son of Peleus, that brought countless ills upon the Achaeans. Many a brave soul did it send hurrying down to Hades, and many a hero did it yield a prey to dogs and vultures, for so were the counsels of Zeus fulfilled from the day on which the son of Atreus, king of men, and great Achilles, first fell out with one another. " --Homer's Iliad capturing the rage of the 45EPIC landscapes and seascapes! :)
Ludwig van Beethoven: "Music/poetry/art should strike fire from the heart of man, and bring tears from the eyes of woman." Pretty blue eyes!
The ever expanding collection of Asahi Optical gear. I tried to get all my Asahi screwmount cameras in one shot, but unfortunately, there are still a couple that didn't make it.
It all started with one Spotmatic I received when I started my analog photography course.
Shot with:
Canon 1D-Mark III
Canon EF 17-40L f/4 USM
© text & photos Dutch.Dennis
365/2021 - Expanding Horizons ~ 100/365
Taken for Flickr Lounge ~ Plastic
Thank you to everyone who pauses long enough to look at my photo. All comments and Faves are very much appreciated
6/365 (01-06-2021) 365/2021-2021 Expanding Horizons
6/365 (01-06-2021) 365: The 2021 Edition
94/121 - Something that makes you sad - 121 Pictures in 2021
I'm still in shock after watching this afternoon's invasion of the US Capitol by domestic terrorists. This photo shows some of these extremist thugs wandering around and rifling through the US Senate Chamber. January 20, 2021, when President Joe Biden will be inaugurated cannot come soon enough.
.
o caminho de ohrid*
do alto das muralhas de ohrid onde
acorrera aos gritos desvairados dos vigias,
o rei samuel avistou o seu exército desfigurado,
arrastando-se entre as montanhas da macedónia.
aos catorze mil homens tinham sido
arrancados os olhos por ordem do imperador
e a um em cada cem mandara ele, basílio II,
fosse poupado um olho para conduzirem o regresso
dessa manada cega. depois de atravessarem altas neves
vinham-se agora despenhando para o lago,
tropeçando, agarrados uns aos outros,
a tortura espelhada nas contorções das faces,
o sangue a empapar-lhes os andrajos. e o rei,
tomado pela angústia, deu um grito de dor e morreu
no alto da muralha sobre a colina e os seus bosques e pomares
que o lago placidamente reflectia.
nesse instante compreendeu como era ambígua
a força cega do destino e em nenhum mosteiro
podia a iconostase explicar-lhe esse cruel mistério:
os santos, com feições dos retratos do fayoum,
entre as chamas trémulas emudeciam
nos seus frescos e as vozes dos jovens monges,
no seu canto austero e imperturbado,
elevavam uma grave primavera na penumbra.
*O rei Samuel (976-1014) conquistou o trono búlgaro pela força, depois de uma rebelião contra
o rei da Bulgária, e expandiu o seu império através da Macedónia, da Sérvia e da Bulgária,
tendo sido o primeiro a rejeitar a dinastia dos reis búlgaros. Pediu ao Papa (não ao arcebispo de
Constantinopla) uma nova coroa para o seu império, cuja sede era em Ohrid e Prespa (dois
lagos da Macedónia), o que era também uma razão para o ódio encarniçado de Basílio II, seu
adversário de toda a vida
© 2005, Vasco Graça Moura
From: Laocoonte, rimas várias, andamentos graves
Publisher: Quetzal, Lisbon, 2005
__________________
the road to ohrid*
from the heights of the walls of ohrid
to where he’d run upon hearing the screams
of the look-outs, king samuel beheld his disfigured
army dragging through the macedonian mountains.
the eyes of the fourteen thousand men had been
gouged by order of the emperor, basil the second,
who had instructed that one eye be spared in every
hundredth man so that they could lead the return
of that blind herd. having crossed over the high snows
they now came rushing down toward the lake,
stumbling and grabbing on to one another,
the torture mirrored in their facial contortions,
blood soaking their tattered clothes, and the king,
seized by anguish, uttered a shout of grief and died
on the heights of the walls over the hill and his forests and groves
which the lake so peacefully reflected.
in that instant he understood just how ambiguous
the blind force of destiny was, and in no monastery
could the screens of icons have elucidated that cruel mystery:
the saints, whose faces resembled fayumic portraits,
remained silent in their frescos amid the flickering
flames, and the voices of the young monks,
in their austere and unyielding chant,
were lifting up a grave spring in the shadows.
*King Samuel (976-1014) conquered the Bulgarian throne by force, after
rebelling against Bulgaria’s monarch, and he expanded his empire through Macedonia, Serbia
and Bulgaria, having been the first to reject the dynasty of the Bulgarian kings. He requested
from the pope (rather than from the patriarch of Constantinople) a new crown for his empire,
whose seat was in Ohrid and Presa (two lakes in Macedonia), and this was yet another reason
for the bloodthirsty hatred of Basil II, his lifetime adversary.
© 2005, Vasco Graça Moura
© Translation: 2005, Richard Zenith
The low-cost subsidiary of Lufthansa, Eurowings continues its expansion with its short-haul network growing following its acquisition of Germanwings... Whilst Germanwings aircraft can still be found, they are operating as Eurowings but under Germanwings flight numbers.
Recently, Eurowings are still embarking on a number of changes to its structure... The Germanwings brand is still in the process of being withdrawn with the elder aircraft being retired in favour of Airbus A320's on lease from Air Berlin. They will not carry Germanwings branding, instead Eurowings corporate identity.
Another major change is the wet-leasing of Airbus A319/A320 aircraft from Air Berlin. Currently, Etihad has announced major restructuring of majority shareholder, Air Berlin. In order to stem its losses, Air Berlin is shrinking its route network and fleet by wet-leasing a number of Airbus A320 family aircraft to competitor, Eurowings. Air Berlin's Austrian subsidiary, Niki will operate independently with Air Berlin selling its 49% stake in the company. 40 Airbus A320 family aircraft will be leased to the Lufthansa Group, 35 will head-over to Eurowings whilst 5 will be operated by Austrian Airlines.
Meanwhile, Eurowings operates two different subsidiaries, the main Eurowings arm that operates from its German bases, whilst its Eurowings Europe division operates from Austria. Eurowings is currently operating a growing fleet of Airbus A320's, both brand new and in the process of being transferred from Air Berlin, as well as its Airbus A330 fleet which are operated by SunExpress Germany as well as 2 Boeing 737-800's. The Bombardier CRJ900 fleet are being transferred to Lufthansa's regional arm, Lufthansa Cityline.
Currently, Eurowings operates 21 Airbus A320's as well as 4 Airbus A320's by Eurowings Europe. 6 Airbus A319's are due to arrive from Air Berlin as well as 35 more Airbus A320's, 27 coming from Air Berlin on a wet-lease basis, and 8 brand new.
Alpha Echo Whiskey Charlie is no longer part of the main Eurowings brand, now operated by Eurowings Europe from Austria. She was delivered new to Eurowings in March 2016 until transferring over to Eurowings Europe in January 2017 as OE-IQB. She is powered by 2 CFM International CFM56-5B4/3 engines.
Airbus A320-214(WL) D-AEWC on final approach into Runway 27L at London Heathrow (LHR) on EW1464 from Düsseldorf (DUS).
© All rights reserved 2012. Please do not use my images without my explicit permission.
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Some car headlights light up the air around the Garreg-ddu Dam in the Elan Valley, Mid-Wales.
Enjoy! :)
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If you are interested in purchasing any images of mine please email me at - olliesmalleyphotography@gmail.com for licensing details.
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...[ Camera ] ... Canon 5D Mark 2.
...[ Lens ] ... Samyang 14mm f/2.8 MF @ 14mm.
...[ Settings ] ... 30" @ f/2.8, ISO 3200.
...[ Editing ] ... Edited in LR5.
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The wetland was moist mud through the dry fall. We are having a series of rains, water is out to the hardhack.
www.doaks.org/about/about-dumbarton-oaks
History
Dumbarton Oaks was created by Mildred and Robert Woods Bliss, collectors and patrons of art and scholarship in the humanities. Robert Bliss was a diplomat in the US Foreign Service, and the Blisses traveled and lived in South America and Europe. After a long search for a permanent home in Washington, they purchased the 1801 Federal-style house and property in June of 1920. Throughout their lives they were enthusiastic collectors of art and books and ardent supporters of music and the arts.
After buying the property, the Blisses altered it significantly. Mildred Barnes Bliss worked closely with renowned landscape designer Beatrix Farrand to transform the land surrounding the house into terraced gardens and vistas. The Blisses renovated and expanded the original structure, adding the Music Room in 1929, and the wing to house the Byzantine Collection in 1940. As early as 1932, the Blisses had begun planning to convey the institution to Harvard, Robert's alma mater; the property was transferred in 1940. The Blisses remained very active, continuing to shape the institution, the collections, and the garden, until their deaths in the 1960s. The Pre-Columbian Gallery, designed by architect Philip Johnson to house Mr. Bliss's collection of Pre-Columbian art, which had been on long-term loan to the National Gallery of Art, opened to the public in 1963. The Garden Library was added in the same year, to house and display Mrs. Bliss's collection of rare and modern books related to all aspects of the history of gardens. Dumbarton Oaks continues to respond to the need for change; in 2005 scholars were welcomed into the new library, and in 2008 the extensive renovation of the Main House and Museum was completed.
Early History
Dumbarton Oaks is situated on land that formerly was part of a 1702 land grant patented by Colonel Ninian Beall (1625–1717) as the Rock of Dumbarton. In 1801, William Hammond Dorsey (1764–1818) acquired twenty acres from a Beall decedent and built a house, which survives, in part, as the central core of the present Dumbarton Oaks. The property subsequently passed through a series of individuals, including Vice President John C. Calhoun (1782–1850) and Edward Magruder Linthicum (1797–1869), who greatly enlarged the house. The Blisses acquired the house and six acres of land on November 15, 1920. They would eventually increase the size of the property to approximately fifty-four acres.
The Blisses
Robert Woods Bliss was born in 1875 in St. Louis, Missouri, where his father, William Henry Bliss, was US District Attorney. He graduated from Harvard University in 1900 and began a distinguished career as a Foreign Service officer and diplomat. He eventually served as Ambassador to Argentina (1927–33).
Mildred Barnes Bliss was born in New York City in 1879 to Anna Dorinda Blaksley and Demas Barnes, who had invested in the patent medicine Fletcher's Castoria, the phenomenal success of which made him a wealthy man. When Barnes died in 1888, his wealth passed to his wife and their only child, the nine-year-old Mildred. The second marriage of Anna Barnes to William Bliss in 1894 brought Mildred and Robert together, and they themselves married in 1908.
Mildred and Robert Bliss seated in front of windows reading together from a book
Robert Bliss's career brought the Blisses to Paris in 1912. There they became friends with a circle of Americans, including the artist Walter Gay, the author Edith Wharton, and Mildred Bliss’s childhood friend, the historian, diplomat, and banker Royall Tyler. Tyler introduced the Blisses to Parisian art dealers and sparked their passion for collecting, especially Byzantine and Pre-Columbian art. In Paris, Mildred Bliss began to support musicians and host musical evenings.
In 1920, the Blisses purchased the Georgetown property that they named Dumbarton Oaks. Their redesign of the house and the creation of the garden—directed by landscape designer Beatrix Farrand—made Dumbarton Oaks one of the outstanding residences of Washington. In 1940, the Blisses offered Harvard University the gift of Dumbarton Oaks, with its grounds, buildings, library, and art collections. Robert Bliss died in 1962, and Mildred Bliss in 1969.
From Private Estate to Research Institute
In preparation for the inauguration of the Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection on November 1, 1940, Mildred and Robert Woods Bliss undertook considerable planning beginning in 1936. They aggressively increased their collection of Byzantine and related artworks, creating what Walter Muir Whitehill would later call “not only a representative group of Byzantine and related objects in many materials, but pieces that illustrated the derivation of the style from classical antiquity and exemplified the extraneous elements brought into the Empire by barbarian invaders.”
In 1938, the Blisses began to work with the architect Thomas T. Waterman (1900–1951) to design and build library and exhibition pavilions for the new institution. These were located to the west of the music room and incorporated mosaics from excavations at Antioch, which the Blisses had helped fund.
The Blisses engaged Marvin Ross (1904–1977) to catalog the expanded Byzantine Collection, Elizabeth Bland (d. 1997) to register and help install the collection, Barbara Sessions (1899–1980) to assemble and catalog the research library (which by 1940 numbered some twelve thousand books), and Ethel B. Clark (1878–1964) to catalog Mildred Bliss’s collection of rare books, manuscripts, and holographic materials. They initiated the Census of Byzantine and Early Christian Objects in North American Collections, employing researchers Louisa Bellinger (1900–1968) and Elizabeth Dow (1911–2000) to undertake the task. They acquired for Dumbarton Oaks a copy of the Princeton Index of Christian Art and initiated the Dumbarton Oaks Papers in the hope that scholars would publish articles on objects in the collection. All of this was in place when the Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection was legally transferred to Harvard on November 29, 1940.
In giving Dumbarton Oaks to Harvard, Mildred and Robert Woods Bliss provided little direction for the development of the nascent research institute. Their letter to Harvard’s president announcing the gift stated rather simply their desire that Dumbarton Oaks “be used for study and research in the Humanities and Fine Arts, with especial emphasis upon Byzantine art and the history and culture of the Eastern Empire in all its aspects.” They further expressed their hope that Dumbarton Oaks itself would become a center of research and a place of residence for scholars, students, and artists.
In a 1939 letter to her friend Royall Tyler (1884–1953), Mildred Bliss was better able to articulate the general atmosphere she desired for the institution. She wrote, “I know that what Dumbarton Oaks has to give—the work that it can do—can never be done in a big center—it must be small and quiet and unemphatic: a place for meditation and recueillement.” She reiterated this sentiment, albeit after the fact, in the 1966 preamble to her last will and testament, where she wrote that “Dumbarton Oaks is conceived in a new pattern, where quality and not number shall determine the choice of its scholars; it is the home of the Humanities, not a mere aggregation of books and objects of art.”
The Second World War
The Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection opened a little more than a year after the outbreak of the Second World War. At first, the war seemed to have little impact on the embryonic institution. However, with the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and America’s entry into the conflict, Dumbarton Oaks quickly shifted from the academic to the pragmatic.
Dumbarton Oaks, in effect, reacted to and then joined the war effort: the collection was quickly packed and sent to various distant locations for safekeeping until the end of the war in 1945; use of the property was offered to relief organizations and then to the Departments of War and State, first to expedite the war effort and then to facilitate the establishment of world peace; a victory garden was maintained; and Dumbarton Oaks fellows provided the War Department with lists of potentially endangered sites, monuments, and artworks in Hungary, Bulgaria, Germany, Greece, Yugoslavia, Romania, and Tunisia in order to help insure their protection.
These activities notwithstanding, throughout the war years the Blisses also continued to collect art in order to further improve the Byzantine collection that they had given to Harvard University.
Dumbarton Oaks Conversations
Read the Online Publication
In the late summer and early fall of 1944, at the height of the Second World War, a series of important diplomatic meetings took place at Dumbarton Oaks. Their outcome was the United Nations charter that was adopted in San Francisco in 1945. At these meetings, officially known as the Washington Conversations on International Organization, Dumbarton Oaks, delegations from China, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States deliberated over proposals for the establishment of an organization to maintain peace and security in the world. Among the representatives were Soviet Ambassador to the United States, Andrei Gromyko (1909–1989); US Under Secretary of State Edward Stettinius, Jr. (1900–1949); Wellington Koo (1887–1985), Chinese Ambassador to the United Kingdom; and Sir Alexander Cadogan (1884–1968), British Permanent Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and Edward Wood (the Earl of Halifax) (1872–1959), British Ambassador to the United States, each of whom chaired his respective delegation.
Dignitaries seated at tables arrangned in a U-shape in the Music Room at the Dumbarton Oaks Conversations
Robert Woods Bliss was instrumental in arranging these meetings. Already in June 1942, on behalf of the Director of Dumbarton Oaks, John Thacher, and the Trustees for Harvard University, he had offered to place the facilities at the disposal of Secretary of State Cordell Hull. When in June 1944 the State Department found that Dumbarton Oaks could comfortably accommodate the delegates and that the environment [was] ideal, the offer was renewed by James B. Conant, then President of Harvard University, in a letter of June 30, 1944.
The conversations were held in two phases. In the first, representatives of the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States convened between August 21 and September 28. In the second, representatives of China, the United Kingdom and the United States held discussions between September 29 and October 7. Since the Russian and Chinese delegations could not meet at the same time and at the same place, the organizers took pains to hold the talks with the Chinese at the same place or at an equally glamorous site as where the conversations with the Russians were held.
The stated purposes of the proposed international organization were
To maintain international peace and security; and to that end to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace and the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace, and to bring about by peaceful means adjustment or settlement of international disputes which may lead to a breach of the peace
To develop friendly relations among nations and to take other appropriate measures to strengthen universal peace
To achieve international co-operation in the solution of international economic, social and other humanitarian problem
To afford a center for harmonizing the actions of nations in the achievement of these common ends
The delegates agreed on a tentative proposal to meet these goals on October 7, 1944. In his Witness to History, 1929–1969 (New York, 1973, 159), C. E. Bohlen observes that Dumbarton Oaks settled all but two issues regarding the organization of the United Nations—the voting procedure in the Security Council and the Soviet pressure for the admission of all sixteen of the Soviet republics to the General Assembly. It took the conference at Yalta, plus further negotiations with Moscow, before the issues were solved.
I recently moved to a new apartment in Denver and was able to rebuild and expand my camera wall. Here's an updated look at my little collection of cameras and photographic ephemera. Each shelf is numbered, and I'll list its contents in as close to left-to-right (or top-to-bottom) as I can.
1. Kodak Standard Flasholder, Yashica D TLR.
2. Kodak Pony II, Minolta Autopak 600-X.
3. Kodak Six-16 Brownie Junior.
4. Kodak Duoflex II with flash, Banier (1960s-vintage Diana clone).
5. Kodak Motormatic 35, Kodak Instamatic 804.
6. Kodak Brownie Starflash, Polaroid Square Shooter 2.
7. Kodak Instamatic Reflex, Argus C-3 Matchmatic.
8. Kodak Retina Ia, Kodak Retina I No.010 with Rodenstock-Ysar lens (standing), Kodak Baby Brownie Special (lower left), Kodak metal film cans and 126 cartidges, Argus Seventy-Five TLR (lower right)
9. Olympus 35SP, Konica Auto S2, Konica EE-Matic.
10. Imperial Debonair, antique wooden 4x5 film holder, Kodak Safelight glass, Mar-Crest camera & box, Imperial Satellite 127 with flash and box.
11. Agfa Ansco PB20 Viking folding camera, Kodak No. 2 Folding Cartridge Hawkeye Model B, Kodak Tourist II, Pentax Auto 110 with 50mm lens (lower left), antique Sekonik L-VI Leader light meter with flash cubes and developed Kodak Panatomic X negatives rolled on cardboard holder, Imperial Herco box camera, Kodak Baby Brownie Special box and exposed expired Polaroid 600 film pack (lower right).
12. Polaroid SX-70 One Step camera, exposed and expired Polaroid film, black Polaroid Spirit 600 with rainbow stripe camera.
Not shown are my Polaroid Automatic Land Camera 350 (photos coming soon!), my 4x5s or any of my SLRs (maybe a separate look at those...).
365/2021 - Expanding Horizons ~ 284/365
A glorious day for a walk in the Peak District.
Thank you to everyone who pauses long enough to look at my photo. All comments and Faves are very much appreciated
Closeup of my plastic model by Polar Lights. I added lighting and a complete interior with passengers and crew from the 1960’s Irwin Allen TV show “Land of the Giants”.
After the Emporium was expanded, this is the only side street off of Main Street USA that still exists. I think these side streets are hidden gems. There's a ton of detail in them, and they are very quiet and secluded. If you go all the way to the end of this street, you can't see the Castle, or Tomorrowland, or any of the hustle and bustle of the Magic Kingdom. It's actually quite nice. Thanks for lookin', and have a great day!!
Please View On Black!!
Fine Art Ballet Photography: Nikon D810 Elliot McGucken Fine Art Ballerina Dancer Dancing Ballet Spring Wildflowers! Black leotard!
Dancing for Dynamic Dimensions Theory dx4/dt=ic: The fourth dimension is expanding relative to the three spatial dimensions at the rate of c!
New ballet & landscape instagrams!
www.instagram.com/elliotmcgucken/
Nikon D810 Epic Fine Art Ballerina Goddess Dancing Ballet! Dr. Elliot McGucken Fine Art Ballet!
Marrying epic landscape, nature, and urban photography to ballet!
Nikon D810 with the Nikon MB-D12 Multi Battery Power Pack / Grip for D800 and D810 Digital Cameras allows one to shoot at a high to catch the action FPS! Ballerina Dance Goddess Photos! Pretty, Tall Ballet Swimsuit Bikini Model Goddess! Captured with the AF-S NIKKOR 70-200mm f/2.8G ED VR II from Nikon, and the Sigma 50mm f/1.4 DG HSM Art Lens for Nikon! Love them both!
www.facebook.com/45surfAchillesOdysseyMythology
A pretty goddess straight out of Homer's Iliad & Odyssey!
New Instagram! instagram.com/45surf
New facebook: www.facebook.com/45surfAchillesOdysseyMythology
Join my new fine art ballet facebook page! www.facebook.com/fineartballet/
The 45EPIC landscapes and goddesses are straight out of Homer's Iliad & Odyssey!
I'm currently updating a translation with the Greek names for the gods and goddesses--will publish soon! :)
"RAGE--Sing, O goddess, the anger of Achilles son of Peleus, that brought countless ills upon the Achaeans. Many a brave soul did it send hurrying down to Hades, and many a hero did it yield a prey to dogs and vultures, for so were the counsels of Zeus fulfilled from the day on which the son of Atreus, king of men, and great Achilles, first fell out with one another. " --Homer's Iliad capturing the rage of the 45EPIC landscapes and seascapes! :)
Ludwig van Beethoven: "Music/poetry/art should strike fire from the heart of man, and bring tears from the eyes of woman."
ATC NFT created for the Let's Swap ATCs group. Theme: Inspiration.
I used images from Tumble Fish Studios, ink, distress marker and my own word art.
Thanks for looking.
Expanded 17 September 2018.
40-storey multi-use tower constructed from 1996 to 1998 by Wijaya Kusuma Contractors and designed by Crone & Associates with Grahacipta Hadiprana as local partner architect. This is head office of Matahari Department Store and operational office of Multipolar, part of James Riyadi's Lippo business imperium.
Kantor pusat Matahari Department Store dan kantor Multipolar, dan sekaligus menjadi apartemen. Gedung ini dibangun oleh Wijaya Kusuma Contractors mulai dari 1996 dan selesai awal 1998 dengan rancangan oleh Crone & Associates dari Australia bersama dengan partner lokal Grahacipta Hadiprana.
Source/Sumber: Konstruksi, Juli 1998
Fine Art Ballet Photography: Nikon D810 Elliot McGucken Fine Art Ballerina Dancer Dancing Ballet Spring Wildflowers! Black leotard!
Dancing for Dynamic Dimensions Theory dx4/dt=ic: The fourth dimension is expanding relative to the three spatial dimensions at the rate of c!
New ballet & landscape instagrams!
www.instagram.com/elliotmcgucken/
Nikon D810 Epic Fine Art Ballerina Goddess Dancing Ballet! Dr. Elliot McGucken Fine Art Ballet!
Marrying epic landscape, nature, and urban photography to ballet!
Nikon D810 with the Nikon MB-D12 Multi Battery Power Pack / Grip for D800 and D810 Digital Cameras allows one to shoot at a high to catch the action FPS! Ballerina Dance Goddess Photos! Pretty, Tall Ballet Swimsuit Bikini Model Goddess! Captured with the AF-S NIKKOR 70-200mm f/2.8G ED VR II from Nikon, and the Sigma 50mm f/1.4 DG HSM Art Lens for Nikon! Love them both!
www.facebook.com/45surfAchillesOdysseyMythology
A pretty goddess straight out of Homer's Iliad & Odyssey!
New Instagram! instagram.com/45surf
New facebook: www.facebook.com/45surfAchillesOdysseyMythology
Join my new fine art ballet facebook page! www.facebook.com/fineartballet/
The 45EPIC landscapes and goddesses are straight out of Homer's Iliad & Odyssey!
I'm currently updating a translation with the Greek names for the gods and goddesses--will publish soon! :)
"RAGE--Sing, O goddess, the anger of Achilles son of Peleus, that brought countless ills upon the Achaeans. Many a brave soul did it send hurrying down to Hades, and many a hero did it yield a prey to dogs and vultures, for so were the counsels of Zeus fulfilled from the day on which the son of Atreus, king of men, and great Achilles, first fell out with one another. " --Homer's Iliad capturing the rage of the 45EPIC landscapes and seascapes! :)
Ludwig van Beethoven: "Music/poetry/art should strike fire from the heart of man, and bring tears from the eyes of woman."
Bergen, historically Bjørgvin, is a city and municipality in Vestland county on the west coast of Norway. As of 2022, its population was roughly 289,330. Bergen is the second-largest city in Norway after national capital Oslo. The municipality covers 465 square kilometres (180 sq mi) and is located on the peninsula of Bergenshalvøyen. The city centre and northern neighbourhoods are on Byfjorden, 'the city fjord'. The city is surrounded by mountains, causing Bergen to be called the "city of seven mountains". Many of the extra-municipal suburbs are on islands. Bergen is the administrative centre of Vestland county. The city consists of eight boroughs: Arna, Bergenhus, Fana, Fyllingsdalen, Laksevåg, Ytrebygda, Årstad, and Åsane.
Trading in Bergen may have started as early as the 1020s. According to tradition, the city was founded in 1070 by King Olav Kyrre and was named Bjørgvin, 'the green meadow among the mountains'. It served as Norway's capital in the 13th century, and from the end of the 13th century became a bureau city of the Hanseatic League. Until 1789, Bergen enjoyed exclusive rights to mediate trade between Northern Norway and abroad, and it was the largest city in Norway until the 1830s when it was overtaken by the capital, Christiania (now known as Oslo). What remains of the quays, Bryggen, is a World Heritage Site. The city was hit by numerous fires over the years. The Bergen School of Meteorology was developed at the Geophysical Institute starting in 1917, the Norwegian School of Economics was founded in 1936, and the University of Bergen in 1946. From 1831 to 1972, Bergen was its own county. In 1972 the municipality absorbed four surrounding municipalities and became a part of Hordaland county.
The city is an international centre for aquaculture, shipping, the offshore petroleum industry and subsea technology, and a national centre for higher education, media, tourism and finance. Bergen Port is Norway's busiest in terms of both freight and passengers, with over 300 cruise ship calls a year bringing nearly a half a million passengers to Bergen, a number that has doubled in 10 years. Almost half of the passengers are German or British. The city's main football team is SK Brann and a unique tradition of the city is the buekorps, which are traditional marching neighbourhood youth organisations. Natives speak a distinct dialect, known as Bergensk. The city features Bergen Airport, Flesland and Bergen Light Rail, and is the terminus of the Bergen Line. Four large bridges connect Bergen to its suburban municipalities.
Bergen has a mild winter climate, though with significant precipitation. From December to March, Bergen can, in rare cases, be up to 20 °C warmer than Oslo, even though both cities are at about 60° North. In summer however, Bergen is several degrees cooler than Oslo due to the same maritime effects. The Gulf Stream keeps the sea relatively warm, considering the latitude, and the mountains protect the city from cold winds from the north, north-east and east.
History
Hieronymus Scholeus's impression of Bergen. The drawing was made in about 1580 and was published in an atlas with drawings of many different cities (Civitaes orbis terrarum).
The city of Bergen was traditionally thought to have been founded by king Olav Kyrre, son of Harald Hardråde in 1070 AD, four years after the Viking Age in England ended with the Battle of Stamford Bridge. Modern research has, however, discovered that a trading settlement had already been established in the 1020s or 1030s.
Bergen gradually assumed the function of capital of Norway in the early 13th century, as the first city where a rudimentary central administration was established. The city's cathedral was the site of the first royal coronation in Norway in the 1150s, and continued to host royal coronations throughout the 13th century. Bergenhus fortress dates from the 1240s and guards the entrance to the harbour in Bergen. The functions of the capital city were lost to Oslo during the reign of King Haakon V (1299–1319).
In the middle of the 14th century, North German merchants, who had already been present in substantial numbers since the 13th century, founded one of the four Kontore of the Hanseatic League at Bryggen in Bergen. The principal export traded from Bergen was dried cod from the northern Norwegian coast, which started around 1100. The city was granted a monopoly for trade from the north of Norway by King Håkon Håkonsson (1217–1263). Stockfish was the main reason that the city became one of North Europe's largest centres for trade.[11] By the late 14th century, Bergen had established itself as the centre of the trade in Norway. The Hanseatic merchants lived in their own separate quarter of the town, where Middle Low German was used, enjoying exclusive rights to trade with the northern fishermen who each summer sailed to Bergen. The Hansa community resented Scottish merchants who settled in Bergen, and on 9 November 1523 several Scottish households were targeted by German residents. Today, Bergen's old quayside, Bryggen, is on UNESCO's list of World Heritage Sites.
In 1349, the Black Death was brought to Norway by an English ship arriving in Bergen. Later outbreaks occurred in 1618, 1629 and 1637, on each occasion taking about 3,000 lives. In the 15th century, the city was attacked several times by the Victual Brothers, and in 1429 they succeeded in burning the royal castle and much of the city. In 1665, the city's harbour was the site of the Battle of Vågen, when an English naval flotilla attacked a Dutch merchant and treasure fleet supported by the city's garrison. Accidental fires sometimes got out of control, and one in 1702 reduced most of the town to ashes.
Throughout the 15th and 16th centuries, Bergen remained one of the largest cities in Scandinavia, and it was Norway's biggest city until the 1830s, being overtaken by the capital city of Oslo. From around 1600, the Hanseatic dominance of the city's trade gradually declined in favour of Norwegian merchants (often of Hanseatic ancestry), and in the 1750s, the Kontor, or major trading post of the Hanseatic League, finally closed. During the 17th and 18th centuries, Bergen was involved in the Atlantic slave trade. Bergen-based slave trader Jørgen Thormøhlen, the largest shipowner in Norway, was the main owner of the slave ship Cornelia, which made two slave-trading voyages in 1673 and 1674 respectively; he also developed the city's industrial sector, particularly in the neighbourhood of Møhlenpris, which is named after him. Bergen retained its monopoly of trade with northern Norway until 1789. The Bergen stock exchange, the Bergen børs, was established in 1813.
Modern history
Bergen was separated from Hordaland as a county of its own in 1831. It was established as a municipality on 1 January 1838 (see formannskapsdistrikt). The rural municipality of Bergen landdistrikt was merged with Bergen on 1 January 1877. The rural municipality of Årstad was merged with Bergen on 1 July 1915.
During World War II, Bergen was occupied on the first day of the German invasion on 9 April 1940, after a brief fight between German ships and the Norwegian coastal artillery. The Norwegian resistance movement groups in Bergen were Saborg, Milorg, "Theta-gruppen", Sivorg, Stein-organisasjonen and the Communist Party. On 20 April 1944, during the German occupation, the Dutch cargo ship Voorbode anchored off the Bergenhus Fortress, loaded with over 120 tons of explosives, and blew up, killing at least 150 people and damaging historic buildings. The city was subject to some Allied bombing raids, aimed at German naval installations in the harbour. Some of these caused Norwegian civilian casualties numbering about 100.
Bergen is also well known in Norway for the Isdal Woman (Norwegian: Isdalskvinnen), an unidentified person who was found dead at Isdalen ("Ice Valley") on 29 November 1970. The unsolved case encouraged international speculation over the years and it remains one of the most profound mysteries in recent Norwegian history.
The rural municipalities of Arna, Fana, Laksevåg, and Åsane were merged with Bergen on 1 January 1972. The city lost its status as a separate county on the same date, and Bergen is now a municipality, in the county of Vestland.
Fires
The city's history is marked by numerous great fires. In 1198, the Bagler faction set fire to the city in connection with a battle against the Birkebeiner faction during the civil war. In 1248, Holmen and Sverresborg burned, and 11 churches were destroyed. In 1413 another fire struck the city, and 14 churches were destroyed. In 1428 the city was plundered by the Victual Brothers, and in 1455, Hanseatic merchants were responsible for burning down Munkeliv Abbey. In 1476, Bryggen burned down in a fire started by a drunk trader. In 1582, another fire hit the city centre and Strandsiden. In 1675, 105 buildings burned down in Øvregaten. In 1686 another great fire hit Strandsiden, destroying 231 city blocks and 218 boathouses. The greatest fire in history was in 1702, when 90% of the city was burned to ashes. In 1751, there was a great fire at Vågsbunnen. In 1756, yet another fire at Strandsiden burned down 1,500 buildings, and further great fires hit Strandsiden in 1771 and 1901. In 1916, 300 buildings burned down in the city centre including the Swan pharmacy, the oldest pharmacy in Norway, and in 1955 parts of Bryggen burned down.
Toponymy
Bergen is pronounced in English /ˈbɜːrɡən/ or /ˈbɛərɡən/ and in Norwegian [ˈbæ̀rɡn̩] (in the local dialect [ˈbæ̂ʁɡɛn]). The Old Norse forms of the name were Bergvin [ˈberɡˌwin] and Bjǫrgvin [ˈbjɔrɡˌwin] (and in Icelandic and Faroese the city is still called Björgvin). The first element is berg (n.) or bjǫrg (n.), which translates as 'mountain(s)'. The last element is vin (f.), which means a new settlement where there used to be a pasture or meadow. The full meaning is then "the meadow among the mountains". This is a suitable name: Bergen is often called "the city among the seven mountains". It was the playwright Ludvig Holberg who felt so inspired by the seven hills of Rome, that he decided that his home town must be blessed with a corresponding seven mountains – and locals still argue which seven they are.
In 1918, there was a campaign to reintroduce the Norse form Bjørgvin as the name of the city. This was turned down – but as a compromise, the name of the diocese was changed to Bjørgvin bispedømme.
Bergen occupies most of the peninsula of Bergenshalvøyen in the district of Midthordland in mid-western Hordaland. The municipality covers an area of 465 square kilometres (180 square miles). Most of the urban area is on or close to a fjord or bay, although the urban area has several mountains. The city centre is surrounded by the Seven Mountains, although there is disagreement as to which of the nine mountains constitute these. Ulriken, Fløyen, Løvstakken and Damsgårdsfjellet are always included as well as three of Lyderhorn, Sandviksfjellet, Blåmanen, Rundemanen and Kolbeinsvarden. Gullfjellet is Bergen's highest mountain, at 987 metres (3,238 ft) above mean sea level. Bergen is far enough north that during clear nights at the solstice, there is borderline civil daylight in spite of the sun having set.
Bergen is sheltered from the North Sea by the islands Askøy, Holsnøy (the municipality of Meland) and Sotra (the municipalities of Fjell and Sund). Bergen borders the municipalities Alver and Osterøy to the north, Vaksdal and Samnanger to the east, Os (Bjørnafjorden) and Austevoll to the south, and Øygarden and Askøy to the west.
The city centre of Bergen lies in the west of the municipality, facing the fjord of Byfjorden. It is among a group of mountains known as the Seven Mountains, although the number is a matter of definition. From here, the urban area of Bergen extends to the north, west and south, and to its east is a large mountain massif. Outside the city centre and the surrounding neighbourhoods (i.e. Årstad, inner Laksevåg and Sandviken), the majority of the population lives in relatively sparsely populated residential areas built after 1950. While some are dominated by apartment buildings and modern terraced houses (e.g. Fyllingsdalen), others are dominated by single-family homes.
The oldest part of Bergen is the area around the bay of Vågen in the city centre. Originally centred on the bay's eastern side, Bergen eventually expanded west and southwards. Few buildings from the oldest period remain, the most significant being St Mary's Church from the 12th century. For several hundred years, the extent of the city remained almost constant. The population was stagnant, and the city limits were narrow. In 1702, seven-eighths of the city burned. Most of the old buildings of Bergen, including Bryggen (which was rebuilt in a mediaeval style), were built after the fire. The fire marked a transition from tar covered houses, as well as the remaining log houses, to painted and some brick-covered wooden buildings.
The last half of the 19th century saw a period of rapid expansion and modernisation. The fire of 1855 west of Torgallmenningen led to the development of regularly sized city blocks in this area of the city centre. The city limits were expanded in 1876, and Nygård, Møhlenpris and Sandviken were urbanized with large-scale construction of city blocks housing both the poor and the wealthy. Their architecture is influenced by a variety of styles; historicism, classicism and Art Nouveau. The wealthy built villas between Møhlenpris and Nygård, and on the side of Mount Fløyen; these areas were also added to Bergen in 1876. Simultaneously, an urbanization process was taking place in Solheimsviken in Årstad, at that time outside the Bergen municipality, centred on the large industrial activity in the area. The workers' homes in this area were poorly built, and little remains after large-scale redevelopment in the 1960s–1980s.
After Årstad became a part of Bergen in 1916, a development plan was applied to the new area. Few city blocks akin to those in Nygård and Møhlenpris were planned. Many of the worker class built their own homes, and many small, detached apartment buildings were built. After World War II, Bergen had again run short of land to build on, and, contrary to the original plans, many large apartment buildings were built in Landås in the 1950s and 1960s. Bergen acquired Fyllingsdalen from Fana municipality in 1955. Like similar areas in Oslo (e.g. Lambertseter), Fyllingsdalen was developed into a modern suburb with large apartment buildings, mid-rises, and some single-family homes, in the 1960s and 1970s. Similar developments took place beyond Bergen's city limits, for example in Loddefjord.
At the same time as planned city expansion took place inside Bergen, its extra-municipal suburbs also grew rapidly. Wealthy citizens of Bergen had been living in Fana since the 19th century, but as the city expanded it became more convenient to settle in the municipality. Similar processes took place in Åsane and Laksevåg. Most of the homes in these areas are detached row houses,[clarification needed] single family homes or small apartment buildings. After the surrounding municipalities were merged with Bergen in 1972, expansion has continued in largely the same manner, although the municipality encourages condensing near commercial centres, future Bergen Light Rail stations, and elsewhere.
As part of the modernisation wave of the 1950s and 1960s, and due to damage caused by World War II, the city government ambitiously planned redevelopment of many areas in central Bergen. The plans involved demolition of several neighbourhoods of wooden houses, namely Nordnes, Marken, and Stølen. None of the plans was carried out in its original form; the Marken and Stølen redevelopment plans were discarded and that of Nordnes only carried out in the area that had been most damaged by war. The city council of Bergen had in 1964 voted to demolish the entirety of Marken, however, the decision proved to be highly controversial and the decision was reversed in 1974. Bryggen was under threat of being wholly or partly demolished after the fire of 1955, when a large number of the buildings burned to the ground. Instead of being demolished, the remaining buildings were restored and accompanied by reconstructions of some of the burned buildings.
Demolition of old buildings and occasionally whole city blocks is still taking place, the most recent major example being the 2007 razing of Jonsvollskvartalet at Nøstet.
Billboards are banned in the city.
Culture and sports
Bergens Tidende (BT) and Bergensavisen (BA) are the largest newspapers, with circulations of 87,076 and 30,719 in 2006, BT is a regional newspaper covering all of Vestland, while BA focuses on metropolitan Bergen. Other newspapers published in Bergen include the Christian national Dagen, with a circulation of 8.936, and TradeWinds, an international shipping newspaper. Local newspapers are Fanaposten for Fana, Sydvesten for Laksevåg and Fyllingsdalen and Bygdanytt for Arna and the neighbouring municipality Osterøy. TV 2, Norway's largest private television company, is based in Bergen.
The 1,500-seat Grieg Hall is the city's main cultural venue, and home of the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, founded in 1765, and the Bergen Woodwind Quintet. The city also features Carte Blanche, the Norwegian national company of contemporary dance. The annual Bergen International Festival is the main cultural festival, which is supplemented by the Bergen International Film Festival. Two internationally renowned composers from Bergen are Edvard Grieg and Ole Bull. Grieg's home, Troldhaugen, has been converted to a museum. During the 1990s and early 2000s, Bergen produced a series of successful pop, rock and black metal artists, collectively known as the Bergen Wave.
Den Nationale Scene is Bergen's main theatre. Founded in 1850, it had Henrik Ibsen as one of its first in-house playwrights and art directors. Bergen's contemporary art scene is centred on BIT Teatergarasjen, Bergen Kunsthall, United Sardines Factory (USF) and Bergen Center for Electronic Arts (BEK). Bergen was a European Capital of Culture in 2000. Buekorps is a unique feature of Bergen culture, consisting of boys aged from 7 to 21 parading with imitation weapons and snare drums. The city's Hanseatic heritage is documented in the Hanseatic Museum located at Bryggen.
SK Brann is Bergen's premier football team; founded in 1908, they have played in the (men's) Norwegian Premier League for all but seven years since 1963 and consecutively, except one season after relegation in 2014, since 1987. The team were the football champions in 1961–1962, 1963, and 2007,[155] and reached the quarter-finals of the Cup Winners' Cup in 1996–1997. Brann play their home games at the 17,824-seat Brann Stadion. FK Fyllingsdalen is the city's second-best team, playing in the Second Division at Varden Amfi. Its predecessor, Fyllingen, played in the Norwegian Premier League in 1990, 1991 and 1993. Arna-Bjørnar and Sandviken play in the Women's Premier League.
Bergen IK is the premier men's ice hockey team, playing at Bergenshallen in the First Division. Tertnes play in the Women's Premier Handball League, and Fyllingen in the Men's Premier Handball League. In athletics, the city is dominated by IL Norna-Salhus, IL Gular and FIK BFG Fana, formerly also Norrøna IL and TIF Viking. The Bergen Storm are an American football team that plays matches at Varden Kunstgress and plays in the second division of the Norwegian league.
Bergensk is the native dialect of Bergen. It was strongly influenced by Low German-speaking merchants from the mid-14th to mid-18th centuries. During the Dano-Norwegian period from 1536 to 1814, Bergen was more influenced by Danish than other areas of Norway. The Danish influence removed the female grammatical gender in the 16th century, making Bergensk one of very few Norwegian dialects with only two instead of three grammatical genders. The Rs are uvular trills, as in French, which probably spread to Bergen some time in the 18th century, overtaking the alveolar trill in the time span of two to three generations. Owing to an improved literacy rate, Bergensk was influenced by riksmål and bokmål in the 19th and 20th centuries. This led to large parts of the German-inspired vocabulary disappearing and pronunciations shifting slightly towards East Norwegian.
The 1986 edition of the Eurovision Song Contest took place in Bergen. Bergen was the host city for the 2017 UCI Road World Championships. The city is also a member of the UNESCO Creative Cities Network in the category of gastronomy since 2015.
Street art
Bergen is considered to be the street art capital of Norway. Famed artist Banksy visited the city in 2000 and inspired many to start creating street art. Soon after, the city brought up the most famous street artist in Norway: Dolk. His art can still be seen in several places in the city, and in 2009 the city council choose to preserve Dolk's work "Spray" with protective glass. In 2011, Bergen council launched a plan of action for street art in Bergen from 2011 to 2015 to ensure that "Bergen will lead the fashion for street art as an expression both in Norway and Scandinavia".
The Madam Felle (1831–1908) monument in Sandviken, is in honour of a Norwegian woman of German origin, who in the mid-19th century managed, against the will of the council, to maintain a counter of beer. A well-known restaurant of the same name is now situated at another location in Bergen. The monument was erected in 1990 by sculptor Kari Rolfsen, supported by an anonymous donor. Madam Felle, civil name Oline Fell, was remembered after her death in a popular song, possibly originally a folksong, "Kjenner Dokker Madam Felle?" by Lothar Lindtner and Rolf Berntzen on an album in 1977.
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway , is a Nordic , European country and an independent state in the west of the Scandinavian Peninsula . Geographically speaking, the country is long and narrow, and on the elongated coast towards the North Atlantic are Norway's well-known fjords . The Kingdom of Norway includes the main country (the mainland with adjacent islands within the baseline ), Jan Mayen and Svalbard . With these two Arctic areas, Norway covers a land area of 385,000 km² and has a population of approximately 5.5 million (2023). Mainland Norway borders Sweden in the east , Finland and Russia in the northeast .
Norway is a parliamentary democracy and constitutional monarchy , where Harald V has been king and head of state since 1991 , and Jonas Gahr Støre ( Ap ) has been prime minister since 2021 . Norway is a unitary state , with two administrative levels below the state: counties and municipalities . The Sami part of the population has, through the Sami Parliament and the Finnmark Act , to a certain extent self-government and influence over traditionally Sami areas. Although Norway has rejected membership of the European Union through two referendums , through the EEA Agreement Norway has close ties with the Union, and through NATO with the United States . Norway is a significant contributor to the United Nations (UN), and has participated with soldiers in several foreign operations mandated by the UN. Norway is among the states that have participated from the founding of the UN , NATO , the Council of Europe , the OSCE and the Nordic Council , and in addition to these is a member of the EEA , the World Trade Organization , the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development and is part of the Schengen area .
Norway is rich in many natural resources such as oil , gas , minerals , timber , seafood , fresh water and hydropower . Since the beginning of the 20th century, these natural conditions have given the country the opportunity for an increase in wealth that few other countries can now enjoy, and Norwegians have the second highest average income in the world, measured in GDP per capita, as of 2022. The petroleum industry accounts for around 14% of Norway's gross domestic product as of 2018. Norway is the world's largest producer of oil and gas per capita outside the Middle East. However, the number of employees linked to this industry fell from approx. 232,000 in 2013 to 207,000 in 2015.
In Norway, these natural resources have been managed for socially beneficial purposes. The country maintains a welfare model in line with the other Nordic countries. Important service areas such as health and higher education are state-funded, and the country has an extensive welfare system for its citizens. Public expenditure in 2018 is approx. 50% of GDP, and the majority of these expenses are related to education, healthcare, social security and welfare. Since 2001 and until 2021, when the country took second place, the UN has ranked Norway as the world's best country to live in . From 2010, Norway is also ranked at the top of the EIU's democracy index . Norway ranks third on the UN's World Happiness Report for the years 2016–2018, behind Finland and Denmark , a report published in March 2019.
The majority of the population is Nordic. In the last couple of years, immigration has accounted for more than half of population growth. The five largest minority groups are Norwegian-Poles , Lithuanians , Norwegian-Swedes , Norwegian-Syrians including Syrian Kurds and Norwegian-Pakistani .
Norway's national day is 17 May, on this day in 1814 the Norwegian Constitution was dated and signed by the presidency of the National Assembly at Eidsvoll . It is stipulated in the law of 26 April 1947 that 17 May are national public holidays. The Sami national day is 6 February. "Yes, we love this country" is Norway's national anthem, the song was written in 1859 by Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson (1832–1910).
Norway's history of human settlement goes back at least 10,000 years, to the Late Paleolithic , the first period of the Stone Age . Archaeological finds of settlements along the entire Norwegian coast have so far been dated back to 10,400 before present (BP), the oldest find is today considered to be a settlement at Pauler in Brunlanes , Vestfold .
For a period these settlements were considered to be the remains of settlers from Doggerland , an area which today lies beneath the North Sea , but which was once a land bridge connecting today's British Isles with Danish Jutland . But the archaeologists who study the initial phase of the settlement in what is today Norway reckon that the first people who came here followed the coast along what is today Bohuslân. That they arrived in some form of boat is absolutely certain, and there is much evidence that they could easily move over large distances.
Since the last Ice Age, there has been continuous settlement in Norway. It cannot be ruled out that people lived in Norway during the interglacial period , but no trace of such a population or settlement has been found.
The Stone Age lasted a long time; half of the time that our country has been populated. There are no written accounts of what life was like back then. The knowledge we have has been painstakingly collected through investigations of places where people have stayed and left behind objects that we can understand have been processed by human hands. This field of knowledge is called archaeology . The archaeologists interpret their findings and the history of the surrounding landscape. In our country, the uplift after the Ice Age is fundamental. The history of the settlements at Pauler is no more than fifteen years old.
The Fosna culture settled parts of Norway sometime between 10,000–8,000 BC. (see Stone Age in Norway ). The dating of rock carvings is set to Neolithic times (in Norway between 4000 BC to 1700 BC) and show activities typical of hunters and gatherers .
Agriculture with livestock and arable farming was introduced in the Neolithic. Swad farming where the farmers move when the field does not produce the expected yield.
More permanent and persistent farm settlements developed in the Bronze Age (1700 BC to 500 BC) and the Iron Age . The earliest runes have been found on an arrowhead dated to around 200 BC. Many more inscriptions are dated to around 800, and a number of petty kingdoms developed during these centuries. In prehistoric times, there were no fixed national borders in the Nordic countries and Norway did not exist as a state. The population in Norway probably fell to year 0.
Events in this time period, the centuries before the year 1000, are glimpsed in written sources. Although the sagas were written down in the 13th century, many hundreds of years later, they provide a glimpse into what was already a distant past. The story of the fimbul winter gives us a historical picture of something that happened and which in our time, with the help of dendrochronology , can be interpreted as a natural disaster in the year 536, created by a volcanic eruption in El Salvador .
In the period between 800 and 1066 there was a significant expansion and it is referred to as the Viking Age . During this period, Norwegians, as Swedes and Danes also did, traveled abroad in longships with sails as explorers, traders, settlers and as Vikings (raiders and pirates ). By the middle of the 11th century, the Norwegian kingship had been firmly established, building its right as descendants of Harald Hårfagre and then as heirs of Olav the Holy . The Norwegian kings, and their subjects, now professed Christianity . In the time around Håkon Håkonsson , in the time after the civil war , there was a small renaissance in Norway with extensive literary activity and diplomatic activity with Europe. The black dew came to Norway in 1349 and killed around half of the population. The entire state apparatus and Norway then entered a period of decline.
Between 1396 and 1536, Norway was part of the Kalmar Union , and from 1536 until 1814 Norway had been reduced to a tributary part of Denmark , named as the Personal Union of Denmark-Norway . This staff union entered into an alliance with Napoléon Bonaparte with a war that brought bad times and famine in 1812 . In 1814, Denmark-Norway lost the Anglophone Wars , part of the Napoleonic Wars , and the Danish king was forced to cede Norway to the king of Sweden in the Treaty of Kiel on 14 January of that year. After a Norwegian attempt at independence, Norway was forced into a loose union with Sweden, but where Norway was allowed to create its own constitution, the Constitution of 1814 . In this period, Norwegian, romantic national feeling flourished, and the Norwegians tried to develop and establish their own national self-worth. The union with Sweden was broken in 1905 after it had been threatened with war, and Norway became an independent kingdom with its own monarch, Haakon VII .
Norway remained neutral during the First World War , and at the outbreak of the Second World War, Norway again declared itself neutral, but was invaded by National Socialist Germany on 9 April 1940 .
Norway became a member of the Western defense alliance NATO in 1949 . Two attempts to join the EU were voted down in referendums by small margins in 1972 and 1994 . Norway has been a close ally of the United States in the post-war period. Large discoveries of oil and natural gas in the North Sea at the end of the 1960s led to tremendous economic growth in the country, which is still ongoing. Traditional industries such as fishing are also part of Norway's economy.
Stone Age (before 1700 BC)
When most of the ice disappeared, vegetation spread over the landscape and due to a warm climate around 2000-3000 BC. the forest grew much taller than in modern times. Land uplift after the ice age led to a number of fjords becoming lakes and dry land. The first people probably came from the south along the coast of the Kattegat and overland into Finnmark from the east. The first people probably lived by gathering, hunting and trapping. A good number of Stone Age settlements have been found which show that such hunting and trapping people stayed for a long time in the same place or returned to the same place regularly. Large amounts of gnawed bones show that they lived on, among other things, reindeer, elk, small game and fish.
Flintstone was imported from Denmark and apart from small natural deposits along the southern coast, all flintstone in Norway is transported by people. At Espevær, greenstone was quarried for tools in the Stone Age, and greenstone tools from Espevær have been found over large parts of Western Norway. Around 2000-3000 BC the usual farm animals such as cows and sheep were introduced to Norway. Livestock probably meant a fundamental change in society in that part of the people had to be permanent residents or live a semi-nomadic life. Livestock farming may also have led to conflict with hunters.
The oldest traces of people in what is today Norway have been found at Pauler , a farm in Brunlanes in Larvik municipality in Vestfold . In 2007 and 2008, the farm has given its name to a number of Stone Age settlements that have been excavated and examined by archaeologists from the Cultural History Museum at UiO. The investigations have been carried out in connection with the new route for the E18 motorway west of Farris. The oldest settlement, located more than 127 m above sea level, is dated to be about 10,400 years old (uncalibrated, more than 11,000 years in real calendar years). From here, the ice sheet was perhaps visible when people settled here. This locality has been named Pauler I, and is today considered to be the oldest confirmed human traces in Norway to date. The place is in the mountains above the Pauler tunnel on the E18 between Larvik and Porsgrunn . The pioneer settlement is a term archaeologists have adopted for the oldest settlement. The archaeologists have speculated about where they came from, the first people in what is today Norway. It has been suggested that they could come by boat or perhaps across the ice from Doggerland or the North Sea, but there is now a large consensus that they came north along what is today the Bohuslän coast. The Fosna culture , the Komsa culture and the Nøstvet culture are the traditional terms for hunting cultures from the Stone Age. One thing is certain - getting to the water was something they mastered, the first people in our country. Therefore, within a short time they were able to use our entire long coast.
In the New Stone Age (4000 BC–1700 BC) there is a theory that a new people immigrated to the country, the so-called Stone Ax People . Rock carvings from this period show motifs from hunting and fishing , which were still important industries. From this period, a megalithic tomb has been found in Østfold .
It is uncertain whether there were organized societies or state-like associations in the Stone Age in Norway. Findings from settlements indicate that many lived together and that this was probably more than one family so that it was a slightly larger, organized herd.
Finnmark
In prehistoric times, animal husbandry and agriculture were of little economic importance in Finnmark. Livelihoods in Finnmark were mainly based on fish, gathering, hunting and trapping, and eventually domestic reindeer herding became widespread in the Middle Ages. Archaeological finds from the Stone Age have been referred to as the Komsa culture and comprise around 5,000 years of settlement. Finnmark probably got its first settlement around 8000 BC. It is believed that the coastal areas became ice-free 11,000 years BC and the fjord areas around 9,000 years BC. after which willows, grass, heather, birch and pine came into being. Finnmarksvidda was covered by pine forest around 6000 BC. After the Ice Age, the land rose around 80 meters in the inner fjord areas (Alta, Tana, Varanger). Due to ice melting in the polar region, the sea rose in the period 6400–3800 BC. and in areas with little land elevation, some settlements from the first part of the Stone Age were flooded. On Sørøya, the net sea level rise was 12 to 14 meters and many residential areas were flooded.
According to Bjørnar Olsen , there are many indications of a connection between the oldest settlement in Western Norway (the " Fosnakulturen ") and that in Finnmark, but it is uncertain in which direction the settlement took place. In the earliest part of the Stone Age, settlement in Finnmark was probably concentrated in the coastal areas, and these only reflected a lifestyle with great mobility and no permanent dwellings. The inner regions, such as Pasvik, were probably used seasonally. The archaeologically proven settlements from the Stone Age in inner Finnmark and Troms are linked to lakes and large watercourses. The oldest petroglyphs in Alta are usually dated to 4200 BC, that is, the Neolithic . Bjørnar Olsen believes that the oldest can be up to 2,000 years older than this.
From around 4000 BC a slow deforestation of Finnmark began and around 1800 BC the vegetation distribution was roughly the same as in modern times. The change in vegetation may have increased the distance between the reindeer's summer and winter grazing. The uplift continued slowly from around 4000 BC. at the same time as sea level rise stopped.
According to Gutorm Gjessing, the settlement in Finnmark and large parts of northern Norway in the Neolithic was semi-nomadic with movement between four seasonal settlements (following the pattern of life in Sami siida in historical times): On the outer coast in summer (fishing and seal catching) and inland in winter (hunting for reindeer, elk and bear). Povl Simonsen believed instead that the winter residence was in the inner fjord area in a village-like sod house settlement. Bjørnar Olsen believes that at the end of the Stone Age there was a relatively settled population along the coast, while inland there was less settlement and a more mobile lifestyle.
Bronze Age (1700 BC–500 BC)
Bronze was used for tools in Norway from around 1500 BC. Bronze is a mixture of tin and copper , and these metals were introduced because they were not mined in the country at the time. Bronze is believed to have been a relatively expensive material. The Bronze Age in Norway can be divided into two phases:
Early Bronze Age (1700–1100 BC)
Younger Bronze Age (1100–500 BC)
For the prehistoric (unwritten) era, there is limited knowledge about social conditions and possible state formations. From the Bronze Age, there are large burial mounds of stone piles along the coast of Vestfold and Agder, among others. It is likely that only chieftains or other great men could erect such grave monuments and there was probably some form of organized society linked to these. In the Bronze Age, society was more organized and stratified than in the Stone Age. Then a rich class of chieftains emerged who had close connections with southern Scandinavia. The settlements became more permanent and people adopted horses and ard . They acquired bronze status symbols, lived in longhouses and people were buried in large burial mounds . Petroglyphs from the Bronze Age indicate that humans practiced solar cultivation.
Finnmark
In the last millennium BC the climate became cooler and the pine forest disappears from the coast; pine forests, for example, were only found in the innermost part of the Altafjord, while the outer coast was almost treeless. Around the year 0, the limit for birch forest was south of Kirkenes. Animals with forest habitats (elk, bear and beaver) disappeared and the reindeer probably established their annual migration routes sometime at that time. In the period 1800–900 BC there were significantly more settlements in and utilization of the hinterland was particularly noticeable on Finnmarksvidda. From around 1800 BC until year 0 there was a significant increase in contact between Finnmark and areas in the east including Karelia (where metals were produced including copper) and central and eastern Russia. The youngest petroglyphs in Alta show far more boats than the earlier phases and the boats are reminiscent of types depicted in petroglyphs in southern Scandinavia. It is unclear what influence southern Scandinavian societies had as far north as Alta before the year 0. Many of the cultural features that are considered typical Sami in modern times were created or consolidated in the last millennium BC, this applies, among other things, to the custom of burying in brick chambers in stone urns. The Mortensnes burial ground may have been used for 2000 years until around 1600 AD.
Iron Age (c. 500 BC–c. 1050 AD)
The Einangsteinen is one of the oldest Norwegian runestones; it is from the 4th century
Simultaneous production of Vikings
Around 500 years BC the researchers reckon that the Bronze Age will be replaced by the Iron Age as iron takes over as the most important material for weapons and tools. Bronze, wood and stone were still used. Iron was cheaper than bronze, easier to work than flint , and could be used for many purposes; iron probably became common property. Iron could, among other things, be used to make solid and sharp axes which made it much easier to fell trees. In the Iron Age, gold and silver were also used partly for decoration and partly as means of payment. It is unknown which language was used in Norway before our era. From around the year 0 until around the year 800, everyone in Scandinavia (except the Sami) spoke Old Norse , a North Germanic language. Subsequently, several different languages developed in this area that were only partially mutually intelligible. The Iron Age is divided into several periods:
Early Iron Age
Pre-Roman Iron Age (c. 500 BC–c. 0)
Roman Iron Age (c. 0–c. AD 400)
Migration period (approx. 400–600). In the migration period (approx. 400–600), new peoples came to Norway, and ruins of fortress buildings etc. are interpreted as signs that there has been talk of a violent invasion.
Younger Iron Age
Merovingian period (500–800)
The Viking Age (793–1066)
Norwegian Vikings go on plundering expeditions and trade voyages around the coastal countries of Western Europe . Large groups of Norwegians emigrate to the British Isles , Iceland and Greenland . Harald Hårfagre starts a unification process of Norway late in the 8th century , which was completed by Harald Hardråde in the 1060s . The country was Christianized under the kings Olav Tryggvason , fell in the battle of Svolder ( 1000 ) and Olav Haraldsson (the saint), fell in the battle of Stiklestad in 1030 .
Sources of prehistoric times
Shrinking glaciers in the high mountains, including in Jotunheimen and Breheimen , have from around the year 2000 uncovered objects from the Viking Age and earlier. These are objects of organic material that have been preserved by the ice and that elsewhere in nature are broken down in a few months. The finds are getting older as the melting makes the archaeologists go deeper into the ice. About half of all archaeological discoveries on glaciers in the world are made in Oppland . In 2013, a 3,400-year-old shoe and a robe from the year 300 were found. Finds at Lomseggen in Lom published in 2020 revealed, among other things, well-preserved horseshoes used on a mountain pass. Many hundreds of items include preserved clothing, knives, whisks, mittens, leather shoes, wooden chests and horse equipment. A piece of cloth dated to the year 1000 has preserved its original colour. In 2014, a wooden ski from around the year 700 was found in Reinheimen . The ski is 172 cm long and 14 cm wide, with preserved binding of leather and wicker.
Pytheas from Massalia is the oldest known account of what was probably the coast of Norway, perhaps somewhere on the coast of Møre. Pytheas visited Britannia around 325 BC. and traveled further north to a country by the "Ice Sea". Pytheas described the short summer night and the midnight sun farther north. He wrote, among other things, that people there made a drink from grain and honey. Caesar wrote in his work about the Gallic campaign about the Germanic tribe Haruders. Other Roman sources around the year 0 mention the land of the Cimbri (Jutland) and the Cimbri headlands ( Skagen ) and that the sources stated that Cimbri and Charyds lived in this area. Some of these peoples may have immigrated to Norway and there become known as hordes (as in Hordaland). Sources from the Mediterranean area referred to the islands of Scandia, Scandinavia and Thule ("the outermost of all islands"). The Roman historian Tacitus wrote around the year 100 a work about Germania and mentioned the people of Scandia, the Sviones. Ptolemy wrote around the year 150 that the Kharudes (Hordes) lived further north than all the Cimbri, in the north lived the Finnoi (Finns or Sami) and in the south the Gutai (Goths). The Nordic countries and Norway were outside the Roman Empire , which dominated Europe at the time. The Gothic-born historian Jordanes wrote in the 5th century about 13 tribes or people groups in Norway, including raumaricii (probably Romerike ), ragnaricii ( Ranrike ) and finni or skretefinni (skrid finner or ski finner, i.e. Sami) as well as a number of unclear groups. Prokopios wrote at the same time about Thule north of the land of the Danes and Slavs, Thule was ten times as big as Britannia and the largest of all the islands. In Thule, the sun was up 40 days straight in the summer. After the migration period , southern Europeans' accounts of northern Europe became fuller and more reliable.
Settlement in prehistoric times
Norway has around 50,000 farms with their own names. Farm names have persisted for a long time, over 1000 years, perhaps as much as 2000 years. The name researchers have arranged different types of farm names chronologically, which provides a basis for determining when the place was used by people or received a permanent settlement. Uncompounded landscape names such as Haug, Eid, Vik and Berg are believed to be the oldest. Archaeological traces indicate that some areas have been inhabited earlier than assumed from the farm name. Burial mounds also indicate permanent settlement. For example, the burial ground at Svartelva in Løten was used from around the year 0 to the year 1000 when Christianity took over. The first farmers probably used large areas for inland and outland, and new farms were probably established based on some "mother farms". Names such as By (or Bø) show that it is an old place of residence. From the older Iron Age, names with -heim (a common Germanic word meaning place of residence) and -stad tell of settlement, while -vin and -land tell of the use of the place. Farm names in -heim are often found as -um , -eim or -em as in Lerum and Seim, there are often large farms in the center of the village. New farm names with -city and -country were also established in the Viking Age . The first farmers probably used the best areas. The largest burial grounds, the oldest archaeological finds and the oldest farm names are found where the arable land is richest and most spacious.
It is unclear whether the settlement expansion in Roman times, migrations and the Iron Age is due to immigration or internal development and population growth. Among other things, it is difficult to demonstrate where in Europe the immigrants have come from. The permanent residents had both fields (where grain was grown) and livestock that grazed in the open fields, but it is uncertain which of these was more important. Population growth from around the year 200 led to more utilization of open land, for example in the form of settlements in the mountains. During the migration period, it also seems that in parts of the country it became common to have cluster gardens or a form of village settlement.
Norwegian expansion northwards
From around the year 200, there was a certain migration by sea from Rogaland and Hordaland to Nordland and Sør-Troms. Those who moved settled down as a settled Iron Age population and became dominant over the original population which may have been Sami . The immigrant Norwegians, Bumen , farmed with livestock that were fed inside in the winter as well as some grain cultivation and fishing. The northern border of the Norwegians' settlement was originally at the Toppsundet near Harstad and around the year 500 there was a Norwegian settlement to Malangsgapet. That was as far north as it was possible to grow grain at the time. Malangen was considered the border between Hålogaland and Finnmork until around 1400 . Further into the Viking Age and the Middle Ages, there was immigration and settlement of Norwegian speakers along the coast north of Malangen. Around the year 800, Norwegians lived along the entire outer coast to Vannøy . The Norwegians partly copied Sami livelihoods such as whaling, fur hunting and reindeer husbandry. It was probably this area between Malangen and Vannøy that was Ottar from the Hålogaland area. In the Viking Age, there were also some Norwegian settlements further north and east. East of the North Cape are the scattered archaeological finds of Norwegian settlement in the Viking Age. There are Norwegian names for fjords and islands from the Viking Age, including fjord names with "-anger". Around the year 1050, there were Norwegian settlements on the outer coast of Western Finnmark. Traders and tax collectors traveled even further.
North of Malangen there were Norse farming settlements in the Iron Age. Malangen was considered Finnmark's western border until 1300. There are some archaeological traces of Norse activity around the coast from Tromsø to Kirkenes in the Viking Age. Around Tromsø, the research indicates a Norse/Sami mixed culture on the coast.
From the year 1100 and the next 200–300 years, there are no traces of Norwegian settlement north and east of Tromsø. It is uncertain whether this is due to depopulation, whether it is because the Norwegians further north were not Christianized or because there were no churches north of Lenvik or Tromsø . Norwegian settlement in the far north appears from sources from the 14th century. In the Hanseatic period , the settlement was developed into large areas specialized in commercial fishing, while earlier (in the Viking Age) there had been farms with a combination of fishing and agriculture. In 1307 , a fortress and the first church east of Tromsø were built in Vardø . Vardø became a small Norwegian town, while Vadsø remained Sami. Norwegian settlements and churches appeared along the outermost coast in the Middle Ages. After the Reformation, perhaps as a result of a decline in fish stocks or fish prices, there were Norwegian settlements in the inner fjord areas such as Lebesby in Laksefjord. Some fishing villages at the far end of the coast were abandoned for good. In the interior of Finnmark, there was no national border for a long time and Kautokeino and Karasjok were joint Norwegian-Swedish areas with strong Swedish influence. The border with Finland was established in 1751 and with Russia in 1826.
On a Swedish map from 1626, Norway's border is indicated at Malangen, while Sweden with this map showed a desire to control the Sami area which had been a common area.
The term Northern Norway only came into use at the end of the 19th century and administratively the area was referred to as Tromsø Diocese when Tromsø became a bishopric in 1840. There had been different designations previously: Hålogaland originally included only Helgeland and when Norse settlement spread north in the Viking Age and the Middle Ages, Hålogaland was used for the area north approximately to Malangen , while Finnmark or "Finnmarken", "the land of the Sami", lay outside. The term Northern Norway was coined at a cafe table in Kristiania in 1884 by members of the Nordlændingernes Forening and was first commonly used in the interwar period as it eventually supplanted "Hålogaland".
State formation
The battle in Hafrsfjord in the year 872 has long been regarded as the day when Norway became a kingdom. The year of the battle is uncertain (may have been 10-20 years later). The whole of Norway was not united in that battle: the process had begun earlier and continued a couple of hundred years later. This means that the geographical area became subject to a political authority and became a political unit. The geographical area was perceived as an area as it is known, among other things, from Ottar from Hålogaland's account for King Alfred of Wessex around the year 880. Ottar described "the land of the Norwegians" as very long and narrow, and it was narrowest in the far north. East of the wasteland in the south lay Sveoland and in the north lay Kvenaland in the east. When Ottar sailed south along the land from his home ( Malangen ) to Skiringssal, he always had Norway ("Nordveg") on his port side and the British Isles on his starboard side. The journey took a good month. Ottar perceived "Nordveg" as a geographical unit, but did not imply that it was a political unit. Ottar separated Norwegians from Swedes and Danes. It is unclear why Ottar perceived the population spread over such a large area as a whole. It is unclear whether Norway as a geographical term or Norwegians as the name of a ethnic group is the oldest. The Norwegians had a common language which in the centuries before Ottar did not differ much from the language of Denmark and Sweden.
According to Sverre Steen, it is unlikely that Harald Hårfagre was able to control this entire area as one kingdom. The saga of Harald was written 300 years later and at his death Norway was several smaller kingdoms. Harald probably controlled a larger area than anyone before him and at most Harald's kingdom probably included the coast from Trøndelag to Agder and Vestfold as well as parts of Viken . There were probably several smaller kingdoms of varying extent before Harald and some of these are reflected in traditional landscape names such as Ranrike and Ringerike . Landscape names of "-land" (Rogaland) and "-mark" (Hedmark) as well as names such as Agder and Sogn may have been political units before Harald.
According to Sverre Steen, the national assembly was completed at the earliest at the battle of Stiklestad in 1030 and the introduction of Christianity was probably a significant factor in the establishment of Norway as a state. Håkon I the good Adalsteinsfostre introduced the leasehold system where the "coastal land" (as far as the salmon went up the rivers) was divided into ship raiders who were to provide a longship with soldiers and supplies. The leidange was probably introduced as a defense against the Danes. The border with the Danes was traditionally at the Göta älv and several times before and after Harald Hårfagre the Danes had control over central parts of Norway.
Christianity was known and existed in Norway before Olav Haraldson's time. The spread occurred both from the south (today's Denmark and northern Germany) and from the west (England and Ireland). Ansgar of Bremen , called the "Apostle of the North", worked in Sweden, but he was never in Norway and probably had little influence in the country. Viking expeditions brought the Norwegians of that time into contact with Christian countries and some were baptized in England, Ireland and northern France. Olav Tryggvason and Olav Haraldson were Vikings who returned home. The first Christians in Norway were also linked to pre-Christian local religion, among other things, by mixing Christian symbols with symbols of Odin and other figures from Norse religion.
According to Sverre Steen, the introduction of Christianity in Norway should not be perceived as a nationwide revival. At Mostratinget, Christian law was introduced as law in the country and later incorporated into the laws of the individual jurisdictions. Christianity primarily involved new forms in social life, among other things exposure and images of gods were prohibited, it was forbidden to "put out" unwanted infants (to let them die), and it was forbidden to have multiple wives. The church became a nationwide institution with a special group of officials tasked with protecting the church and consolidating the new religion. According to Sverre Steen, Christianity and the church in the Middle Ages should therefore be considered together, and these became a new unifying factor in the country. The church and Christianity linked Norway to Roman Catholic Europe with Church Latin as the common language, the same time reckoning as the rest of Europe and the church in Norway was arranged much like the churches in Denmark, Sweden and England. Norway received papal approval in 1070 and became its own church province in 1152 with Archbishop Nidaros .
With Christianity, the country got three social powers: the peasants (organized through the things), the king with his officials and the church with the clergy. The things are the oldest institution: At allthings all armed men had the right to attend (in part an obligation to attend) and at lagthings met emissaries from an area (that is, the lagthings were representative assemblies). The Thing both ruled in conflicts and established laws. The laws were memorized by the participants and written down around the year 1000 or later in the Gulationsloven , Frostatingsloven , Eidsivatingsloven and Borgartingsloven . The person who had been successful at the hearing had to see to the implementation of the judgment themselves.
Early Middle Ages (1050s–1184)
The early Middle Ages is considered in Norwegian history to be the period between the end of the Viking Age around 1050 and the coronation of King Sverre in 1184 . The beginning of the period can be dated differently, from around the year 1000 when the Christianization of the country took place and up to 1100 when the Viking Age was over from an archaeological point of view. From 1035 to 1130 it was a time of (relative) internal peace in Norway, even several of the kings attempted campaigns abroad, including in 1066 and 1103 .
During this period, the church's organization was built up. This led to a gradual change in religious customs. Religion went from being a domestic matter to being regulated by common European Christian law and the royal power gained increased power and influence. Slavery (" servitude ") was gradually abolished. The population grew rapidly during this period, as the thousands of farm names ending in -rud show.
The urbanization of Norway is a historical process that has slowly but surely changed Norway from the early Viking Age to today, from a country based on agriculture and sea salvage, to increasingly trade and industry. As early as the ninth century, the country got its first urban community, and in the eleventh century we got the first permanent cities.
In the 1130s, civil war broke out . This was due to a power struggle and that anyone who claimed to be the king's son could claim the right to the throne. The disputes escalated into extensive year-round warfare when Sverre Sigurdsson started a rebellion against the church's and the landmen's candidate for the throne , Magnus Erlingsson .
Emergence of cities
The oldest Norwegian cities probably emerged from the end of the 9th century. Oslo, Bergen and Nidaros became episcopal seats, which stimulated urban development there, and the king built churches in Borg , Konghelle and Tønsberg. Hamar and Stavanger became new episcopal seats and are referred to in the late 12th century as towns together with the trading places Veøy in Romsdal and Kaupanger in Sogn. In the late Middle Ages, Borgund (on Sunnmøre), Veøy (in Romsdalsfjorden) and Vågan (in Lofoten) were referred to as small trading places. Urbanization in Norway occurred in few places compared to the neighboring countries, only 14 places appear as cities before 1350. Stavanger became a bishopric around 1120–1130, but it is unclear whether the place was already a city then. The fertile Jæren and outer Ryfylke were probably relatively densely populated at that time. A particularly large concentration of Irish artefacts from the Viking Age has been found in Stavanger and Nord-Jæren.
It has been difficult to estimate the population in the Norwegian medieval cities, but it is considered certain that the cities grew rapidly in the Middle Ages. Oscar Albert Johnsen estimated the city's population before the Black Death at 20,000, of which 7,000 in Bergen, 3,000 in Nidaros, 2,000 in Oslo and 1,500 in Tunsberg. Based on archaeological research, Lunden estimates that Oslo had around 1,500 inhabitants in 250 households in the year 1300. Bergen was built up more densely and, with the concentration of exports there, became Norway's largest city in a special position for several hundred years. Knut Helle suggests a city population of 20,000 at most in the High Middle Ages, of which almost half in Bergen.
The Bjarkøyretten regulated the conditions in cities (especially Bergen and Nidaros) and in trading places, and for Nidaros had many of the same provisions as the Frostating Act . Magnus Lagabøte's city law replaced the bjarkøretten and from 1276 regulated the settlement in Bergen and with corresponding laws also drawn up for Oslo, Nidaros and Tunsberg. The city law applied within the city's roof area . The City Act determined that the city's public streets consisted of wide commons (perpendicular to the shoreline) and ran parallel to the shoreline, similarly in Nidaros and Oslo. The roads were small streets of up to 3 cubits (1.4 metres) and linked to the individual property. From the Middle Ages, the Norwegian cities were usually surrounded by wooden fences. The urban development largely consisted of low wooden houses which stood in contrast to the relatively numerous and dominant churches and monasteries built in stone.
The City Act and supplementary provisions often determined where in the city different goods could be traded, in Bergen, for example, cattle and sheep could only be traded on the Square, and fish only on the Square or directly from the boats at the quayside. In Nidaros, the blacksmiths were required to stay away from the densely populated areas due to the risk of fire, while the tanners had to stay away from the settlements due to the strong smell. The City Act also attempted to regulate the influx of people into the city (among other things to prevent begging in the streets) and had provisions on fire protection. In Oslo, from the 13th century or earlier, it was common to have apartment buildings consisting of single buildings on a couple of floors around a courtyard with access from the street through a gate room. Oslo's medieval apartment buildings were home to one to four households. In the urban farms, livestock could be kept, including pigs and cows, while pastures and fields were found in the city's rooftops . In the apartment buildings there could be several outbuildings such as warehouses, barns and stables. Archaeological excavations show that much of the buildings in medieval Oslo, Trondheim and Tønsberg resembled the oblong farms that have been preserved at Bryggen in Bergen . The land boundaries in Oslo appear to have persisted for many hundreds of years, in Bergen right from the Middle Ages to modern times.
High Middle Ages (1184–1319)
After civil wars in the 12th century, the country had a relative heyday in the 13th century. Iceland and Greenland came under the royal authority in 1262 , and the Norwegian Empire reached its greatest extent under Håkon IV Håkonsson . The last king of Haraldsätten, Håkon V Magnusson , died sonless in 1319 . Until the 17th century, Norway stretched all the way down to the mouth of Göta älv , which was then Norway's border with Sweden and Denmark.
Just before the Black Death around 1350, there were between 65,000 and 85,000 farms in the country, and there had been a strong growth in the number of farms from 1050, especially in Eastern Norway. In the High Middle Ages, the church or ecclesiastical institutions controlled 40% of the land in Norway, while the aristocracy owned around 20% and the king owned 7%. The church and monasteries received land through gifts from the king and nobles, or through inheritance and gifts from ordinary farmers.
Settlement and demography in the Middle Ages
Before the Black Death, there were more and more farms in Norway due to farm division and clearing. The settlement spread to more marginal agricultural areas higher inland and further north. Eastern Norway had the largest areas to take off and had the most population growth towards the High Middle Ages. Along the coast north of Stad, settlement probably increased in line with the extent of fishing. The Icelandic Rimbegla tells around the year 1200 that the border between Finnmark (the land of the Sami) and resident Norwegians in the interior was at Malangen , while the border all the way out on the
A 7 car Black Hawk is heading eastbound this cold winter morning with a twice normal consist size. Probably an excursion was run over the weekend causing the extra equipment to be needed. The photo was taken near 20th St. Rockford, IL in the late 70's.
Expanding off of Lesson #3 from my Essential Guide to Lego Customizing, I wanted to talk more about the tools that can be used for customizing Lego, which are completely optional to use, but I personally recommend using them. The photo contains examples of such tools used, but there are more out there that aren't pictured. I have also added notes identifying them for you.
Anyways...
It isn't the tools that you have that make good customs. It is how you use them. You can't call yourself a photographer just because you have a camera. You can't call yourself an artist just because you have a paintbrush and some paint. Same logic applies here as well.
Painting/Coloring
There a lot of options here when it comes to coloring your parts.
Paint - The obvious and popular choice. Paint is easy to use. When you shop for paint, look at the labels. Look for words like "quick bonding" and "plastic". You want the paint to remain on the plastic. Try not to get thick paint. You want nice and clean textures, almost as if you didn't paint at all. Good paint to use is model paint, vinyl dye, and some acrylic.
Spraypaint - Same thing as above. Quick bonding and made for plastic, and nice and clean textures. Krylon Fusion is a popular choice and is what I use and comes in several colors.
Markers - These can be used for last minute or just quick touch ups. From permanent markers to Vis a Vis pens to Sharpie markers, loads to choose from. And the great thing about markers is that they can be washed off in case you are just doing a temporary custom. Sharpies are the popular choice as they just look nice. And I will be the one to say this: despite what people say about using sharpies here in the community, there is nothing wrong with using them. I use them. I encourage their use.
Misc - Crayons, colored pencils, food dye, nail polish. If it works for you and gets the job done, go for it, but there are better options. :P
Cutting/Drilling/Sanding
Sometimes you have to cut parts to make them look right. Like coloring, many ways to do it.
I'm just going to go out and just recommend getting a Dremel tool. What exactly is a Dremel? Basically it is a drill, but you can switch the heads for other uses like sanding, grinding, and cutting. Works on plastic, wood, and metal. It is handy to have around. And they have drill bits that are perfect sizes for attaching Lego parts (like say if you want a torso with 4 arms).
Exacto knifes and nail clippers are also useful for cutting parts as well. Scissors are good for cloth parts. Nail file and sandpaper for smoothing down parts, especially ones that you cut to get rid of rough edges.
Gluing/Taping
For when you need to connect two parts together that have no connection points.
For glue, I think the obvious to use is super glue or a type of solvent. It bonds quickly and stays on very well. Wood glue and regular Elmers glue can be used, but they get way to messy, so stick with super glue.
For tape, the only tape you should ever use is electrical tape. Like markers, they are a great way for adding minor details like sleeves or slings, but they can also used in large uses. Look up Shobrick and you will know what I'm talking about. Other than that, any other tape is useless.
Misc.
Have you ever found a printed Lego piece, and wanted to make use of it but couldn't because it has a design on it that isn't exactly what you're looking for? Well there are ways to remove it. And by ways, I only mean one way because it's the only way I recommend - Brasso. Brasso is a metal polish that can be used to remove print. Whether you want to remove a whole design to have a blank torso or just simply alter it (see my Tron figs as an example), it is a useful tool to have. It will not alter the color or plastic of the Lego piece, although it will remove the finish on it, making it go from shiny to dull. But who cares. If you want to remove certain parts of a torso/head design but want to keep the rest, cover what you want to keep with scotch tape and wipe away the rest. If you need advice on Brasso, I'm your guy. Rubber erasers can be used too, but it's more tasking. Also on that note, do not use anything like rubbing alcohol, nail polish remover, or anything with acidic properties. It will melt your Lego.
Suppose you want to make a weapon or a headpiece/body wear but you can't cast parts. Well there is sculpey. It's a type of plastic clay, which some customizors use to make mostly headgear or add on to headgear. I never used it so I can't really give any advice on it, but there are those who do use it like Tin_7 and Amadgunslinger.
Anyways, with that said and done, all these items are easy to find at your local Wal-Mart, Target, Home Depot, Lowes, Michalls, ACMoore, etc. Who knows, you might find more tools to use at the stores. Practice with them. Toy with them. Use with caution. Always have back up parts if you screw up.
Today, Sunday 07th September 2014, saw the first day of Lothian Country Buses operation of service 104. The new service operates 7 days a week on a 30 minute frequency Monday to Sunday daytime. It operates between Edinburgh West End and Haddington via Princes Street - Meadowbank - Willowbrae - A1 - Wallyford - Tranent - Macmerry - Gladsmuir.
Here was the first departure from Edinburgh (0802) provided by Lothian Country Buses 171 seen parked up at its stand on Melville Crescent. 07th September 2014.
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Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells. --To Autumn. by John Keats
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