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Includes teams from Estelline/Hendricks, Chamberlain, Milbank Area, Wall/Kadoka Area/Philip and Sisseton. Permission granted for journalism outlets and educational purposes. Not for commercial use. Must be credited. Photo courtesy of South Dakota Public Broadcasting.
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Petworth House has an extensive art collection - both paintings and sculpture. Shown here is a sculpture by John Charles Felix Rossi (1762-1839) - The British Pugilist (Athleta Britannicus) from 1828.
Includes teams from Deuel, Hot Springs, Madison, Parkston/Ethan/Hanson/Mt. Vernon. Permission granted for journalism outlets and educational purposes. Not for commercial use. Must be credited. Photo courtesy of South Dakota Public Broadcasting.
©2021 SDPB
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Most of our model designs follow Comic-Figures or and also your ideas and desires.Our Costumes are not made in the same measurement, but are made with our special attention to your request.The tailors , who expertize in making estraordinary costumes in...
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Includes smoked streaky bacon from Ramsay of Carluke, three naan doughballs, tomato-chilli jam, fresh coriander and cream cheese. Each kit also contains loose-leaf Darjeeling tea, chai spices and fresh ginger slices for brewing Masala Chai. Breakfast and Chai for 2.
The clone wars at-te from like 2008 was one of the first large lego Star Wars sets that I ever owned. But of course being like 8 or 9 at the time I took it apart almost right after building it, and I've always wanted to make one with a lot more upgrades. So I finally did. I based the interior off of the clone wars episodes on Ryloth and the exterior off of screenshots from Attack of the Clones. The legs are all pose-able and it can hold a pilot, gunner, 6 troops in the front seats, 6 more in the command center, and probably like 4 or 5 more if you really want to pack them in there. I also wanted to include access hatches so that it actually makes sense as to how the clones can get up into the thing. leave some feedback if you see anything that I could fix easily. Hopefully I will be able to improve it over time. Happy building everyone.
-Ty
Blaise Castle is a folly built in 1766 near Henbury in Bristol, England. The castle sits within the Blaise Castle Estate, which also includes Blaise Castle House, a Grade II* listed 18th-century mansion house. The folly castle is also Grade II* listed and ancillary buildings including the orangery and dairy also have listings. Along with Blaise Hamlet, a group of nine small cottages around a green built in 1811 for retired employees, and various subsidiary buildings, the parkland is listed Grade II* on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens of special historic interest in England.
The site has signs of occupation during the Neolithic, Bronze Age, Iron Age and Roman periods. After the Dissolution of the Monasteries the site was sold. In 1766 Thomas Farr commissioned Robert Mylne to build the sham castle in Gothic Revival style. After Farr's bankruptcy, the estate was sold several times until purchased by John Scandrett Harford, who demolished the previous dwelling in 1789 and built the Neoclassical Blaise Castle House. His son, also named John Scandrett Harford, continued with the development of the buildings and estate, which his family occupied until 1926, when it was bought by Bristol City Council. The park was laid out by Humphry Repton in the early 19th century. The estate is now owned by Bristol City Council. The house is run as a museum by the Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery and holds a variety of collections. The Picture Room, added in the 1830s, is hung with paintings, mostly of the 19th century. There are selections on display from Bristol Museum's 10,000 items of historic costume, and of toys from the 18th century to the 1980s.
Flint fragments show Blaise Castle Estate was probably first inhabited by Neolithic farmers. There is more definitive evidence for Bronze Age, Iron Age and Roman activity through the distinctive hill-forts in the area and other archaeological finds. The value of this historic landscape was recognised when it became a scheduled monument in 1982.
The land was granted to the Bishop of Worcester as part of the Kingdom of Mercia before the Norman conquest. During this time, when it was the property of the church, the estate had a chapel dedicated to Saint Blaise, which has given the estate its name. Following the Dissolution of the Monasteries, the estate was granted to Ralph Sadler who let it to tenants until 1675. A large part of the estate was bought by Sir Samuel Astry of Henbury.
The chapel's last ruins were removed in 1707.
In the later 18th century, the estate was owned by a sugar merchant and investor in the slave trade, Thomas Farr, who bought it from Astry's descendants in 1762;[8] he built the sham castle. Farr went bankrupt when ships he owned were blockaded during the American Revolutionary War, and the estate was bought in 1778 by Denham Skeate, a lawyer from Bath. Eleven years later he sold it to John Harford, a wealthy Bristol merchant and banker, who demolished the old house in 1789 and had the present two-storey Neoclassical Blaise Castle House built in 1796–1798, designed by William Paty. It is a square stone block with adjoining domestic offices which are faced with stucco. The north west entrance front has five bays with a central semicircular projecting porch with Ionic columns. It is a grade II* listed building, though described by Simon Jenkins as "solid, simple and unexciting". John Nash added a connected conservatory or orangery around 1805 or 1806, and in 1832–1833, Charles Robert Cockerell designed the Picture Room for Harford's son, John Scandrett Harford, who had inherited the estate after his father's death in 1812. The Picture Room extends into a portico which has six Ionic columns. This now houses a display of paintings from the Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery. The hall has bas-relief medallions by Bertel Thorvaldsen.
The elder Harford also had Blaise Hamlet built to house his servants and tenants, to designs of Nash and George Repton, in 1811. The estate was sold to Bristol City Council in 1926, to preserve it from development. During World War II the house was occupied by the armed forces. A branch of the Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery since 1949, Blaise Castle House now features collections relating to household items in addition to its period interior decoration. Galleries have displays of historic domestic equipment used for lighting, cooking, cleaning, washing, including a display of toilets.
On a hill above the gorge is a sham castle in Gothic Revival style overlooking Bristol, Avonmouth and the Avon Gorge, with views across to South Wales on a clear day. It was built in 1766, by Robert Mylne, on the site of a chapel dedicated to Saint Blaise. The folly is reputed to have cost £3,000. The circular building is built of local ashlar stone with limestone dressings. It has three turrets with crenallated parapets.
Denham Skeate opened the site to the public.
It was open to paying visitors and a popular attraction from the first with excellent views on a clear day. Vessels could be seen passing on the River Avon from the castle, and the hills and mountains of Wales were visible beyond the river. The castle was mentioned by Jane Austen in her novel Northanger Abbey. John Thorpe, planning a trip to Bristol with Catherine Morland and her brother, describes the castle as "the finest place in England – worth going fifty miles at any time to see.
It was inhabited into the 20th century and was elaborately decorated internally. It is a Grade II* listed building and was restored in 1957.
The castle and its 650 acres (2.6 km2) of parkland are now open to the public.[34] Along with Blaise Hamlet, the parkland is listed Grade II* on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens of special historic interest in England.
The grounds were laid out by Humphry Repton (1752–1818) a leading landscape gardener. Parts of Repton's designs still exist, notably the carriage drive which winds its way from the house, sections of which follow the original route. In addition to the conservatory and the almshouses in Blaise Hamlet, Nash built the limestone dairy in 1802.
The grounds include a gorge cut by the Hazel Brook through Bristol's limestone. The gorge has a number of landscape features, including Goram's Chair, a limestone outcrop often used by climbers, and Lover's Leap and Potter's Point, two panoramic viewing spots. Stratford Mill was moved from West Harptree and re-erected within the gorge after Chew Valley Lake was flooded to form a reservoir. Ongoing renovations started in 2004 of the mill, settling ponds and associated estate pathways. At the gorge's southern end, Hazel Brook joins the River Trym, which continues its flow towards Sea Mills. Other features within the estate include two pools: the Giant's Soapdish and the Penny Well, and two caves: the Robber's Cave and the Butcher's Cave.
Kings Weston Hill, to the west of the castle, also forms the part of the estate which is close to Kings Weston Roman Villa.
Henbury is a suburb of Bristol, England, approximately 5 miles (8.0 km) north west of the city centre. It was formerly a village in Gloucestershire and is now bordered by Westbury-on-Trym to the south; Brentry to the east and the Blaise Castle Estate, Blaise Hamlet and Lawrence Weston to the west. To the north lie the South Gloucestershire village of Hallen and the entertainment/retail park Cribbs Causeway.
The Hazel Brook (also known as the Hen), a tributary of the River Trym, flows through Henbury and crosses Henbury Road in a small ford near The Henbury Arms carvery restaurant. The ford is more than a foot deep relatively often and a small bridge exists as a main route for motor vehicles a few metres away.
Henbury is also the name of a council ward for Bristol City Council that includes both Henbury and Brentry.
Henbury Golf Club sits on the south border.
Henbury was first mentioned in 692 as Heanburg. The name is from the Old English hēan byrig, meaning 'high fortified place'. It was mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Henberie.
By a charter purported to date from the 690s Æthelred, king of Mercia, granted land at Henbury to Oftfor, bishop of Worcester, but the authenticity of the charter has been disputed. An 8th century charter grants land at "Heanburu" to the church at Worcester, but the reference may be to Hanbury in Worcestershire. There is more secure evidence that by the 790s Henbury was held by the Bishop of Worcester.
Henbury was historically a very large parish and the centre of a hundred of the same name. The parish extended to the River Severn and included King's Weston, Lawrence Weston, Hallen, Charlton, Pilning, Northwick and Aust. When the civil parish was created in 1866, parts of the ancient parish were separated to form the civil parishes of Redwick and Northwick (later Pilning and Severn Beach) and Aust. The parish of Compton Greenfield, including the village of Easter Compton, was added to the civil parish of Henbury in 1885.
In 1901, part of the civil parish was absorbed into Bristol, and further parts were absorbed into Bristol between then and 1933. In 1935, the civil parish was abolished, when the remaining parts were absorbed into the civil parishes of Pilning and Severn Beach, and Almondsbury.
Botany Bay is an old name for the area of Henbury centred on the modern Marmion Crescent believed to derive from the nineteenth-century name of a row of cottages. The Great House, Henbury was the home of the Astry family, and of the slave or manservant Scipio Africanus (see below). Nearby Henbury Court was built by Thomas Stock to replace the Great House. Henbury Court was demolished in the 1950s.
The parish Church of St Mary the Virgin dates from approximately 1096. The tower is from the early 13th century. The north chapel was built, and further restoration work undertaken by Thomas Rickman in 1836, with further restoration by G. E. Street in 1875–7. It is a grade II* listed building.[11] The churchyard contains the grave of Scipio Africanus, the west African 18th-century manservant of Charles William Howard, 7th Earl of Suffolk, notable for its brightly painted gravestones.
Emmanuel Chapel Henbury is an independent evangelical church located on Satchfield Crescent.
St Antony's Church is a Catholic church which was built in the 1950s and is also located on Satchfield Crescent.
Schools
Henbury Court Primary School
Blaise Primary School
Blaise High School
Woodstock Special School
Other buildings
Crow Lane shops
Henbury Village Hall is a Grade II listed building.
Henbury Leisure Centre is home to a 25-metre swimming pool, fitness suite, full-size all-weather pitch and a variety of fitness programmes and classes. It is located on the site of Henbury Secondary School.
The Henbury Lodge Hotel is operated by Best Western. The building itself is believed to have been built around 1600 as two cottages, before being combined into one dwelling in 1712.
Location and transportation links
Henbury is served by buses of First West of England, routes 1, 2, 4 and 76.
Henbury provides good access to major trunk roads such as the A4018, M4 and M5 motorways. It is located approximately two miles away from M5 junction 17 and five miles from the M4/M5 interchange. Bristol city centre is approximately five miles south east of Henbury.
Henbury station on the Henbury Loop railway between St Andrews Road and Filton Junction was opened in 1910 and closed in 1964. The station is scheduled to reopen in 2021 as part of MetroWest's Phase Two, with trains calling at Bristol Temple Meads railway station.
Somerset is a ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by the Bristol Channel, Gloucestershire, and Bristol to the north, Wiltshire to the east and the north-east, Dorset to the south-east, and Devon to the south-west. The largest settlement is the city of Bath, and the county town is Taunton.
Somerset is a predominantly rural county, especially to the south and west, with an area of 4,171 km2 (1,610 sq mi) and a population of 965,424. After Bath (101,557), the largest settlements are Weston-super-Mare (82,418), Taunton (60,479), and Yeovil (49,698). Wells (12,000) is a city, the second-smallest by population in England. For local government purposes the county comprises three unitary authority areas: Bath and North East Somerset, North Somerset, and Somerset.
The centre of Somerset is dominated by the Levels, a coastal plain and wetland, and the north-east and west of the county are hilly. The north-east contains part of the Cotswolds AONB, all of the Mendip Hills AONB, and a small part of Cranborne Chase and West Wiltshire Downs AONB; the west contains the Quantock Hills AONB, a majority of Exmoor National Park, and part of the Blackdown Hills AONB. The main rivers in the county are the Avon, which flows through Bath and then Bristol, and the Axe, Brue, and Parrett, which drain the Levels.
There is evidence of Paleolithic human occupation in Somerset, and the area was subsequently settled by the Celts, Romans and Anglo-Saxons. The county played a significant part in Alfred the Great's rise to power, and later the English Civil War and the Monmouth Rebellion. In the later medieval period its wealth allowed its monasteries and parish churches to be rebuilt in grand style; Glastonbury Abbey was particularly important, and claimed to house the tomb of King Arthur and Guinevere. The city of Bath is famous for its Georgian architecture, and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The county is also the location of Glastonbury Festival, one of the UK's major music festivals.
Somerset is a historic county in the south west of England. There is evidence of human occupation since prehistoric times with hand axes and flint points from the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic eras, and a range of burial mounds, hill forts and other artefacts dating from the Neolithic, Bronze and Iron Ages. The oldest dated human road work in Great Britain is the Sweet Track, constructed across the Somerset Levels with wooden planks in the 39th century BCE.
Following the Roman Empire's invasion of southern Britain, the mining of lead and silver in the Mendip Hills provided a basis for local industry and commerce. Bath became the site of a major Roman fort and city, the remains of which can still be seen. During the Early Medieval period Somerset was the scene of battles between the Anglo-Saxons and first the Britons and later the Danes. In this period it was ruled first by various kings of Wessex, and later by kings of England. Following the defeat of the Anglo-Saxon monarchy by the Normans in 1066, castles were built in Somerset.
Expansion of the population and settlements in the county continued during the Tudor and more recent periods. Agriculture and coal mining expanded until the 18th century, although other industries declined during the industrial revolution. In modern times the population has grown, particularly in the seaside towns, notably Weston-super-Mare. Agriculture continues to be a major business, if no longer a major employer because of mechanisation. Light industries are based in towns such as Bridgwater and Yeovil. The towns of Taunton and Shepton Mallet manufacture cider, although the acreage of apple orchards is less than it once was.
The Palaeolithic and Mesolithic periods saw hunter-gatherers move into the region of Somerset. There is evidence from flint artefacts in a quarry at Westbury that an ancestor of modern man, possibly Homo heidelbergensis, was present in the area from around 500,000 years ago. There is still some doubt about whether the artefacts are of human origin but they have been dated within Oxygen Isotope Stage 13 (524,000 – 478,000 BP). Other experts suggest that "many of the bone-rich Middle Pleistocene deposits belong to a single but climatically variable interglacial that succeeded the Cromerian, perhaps about 500,000 years ago. Detailed analysis of the origin and modification of the flint artefacts leads to the conclusion that the assemblage was probably a product of geomorphological processes rather than human work, but a single cut-marked bone suggests a human presence." Animal bones and artefacts unearthed in the 1980s at Westbury-sub-Mendip, in Somerset, have shown evidence of early human activity approximately 700,000 years ago.
Homo sapiens sapiens, or modern man, came to Somerset during the Early Upper Palaeolithic. There is evidence of occupation of four Mendip caves 35,000 to 30,000 years ago. During the Last Glacial Maximum, about 25,000 to 15,000 years ago, it is probable that Somerset was deserted as the area experienced tundra conditions. Evidence was found in Gough's Cave of deposits of human bone dating from around 12,500 years ago. The bones were defleshed and probably ritually buried though perhaps related to cannibalism being practised in the area at the time or making skull cups or storage containers. Somerset was one of the first areas of future England settled following the end of Younger Dryas phase of the last ice age c. 8000 BC. Cheddar Man is the name given to the remains of a human male found in Gough's Cave in Cheddar Gorge. He is Britain's oldest complete human skeleton. The remains date from about 7150 BC, and it appears that he died a violent death. Somerset is thought to have been occupied by Mesolithic hunter-gatherers from about 6000 BCE; Mesolithic artefacts have been found in more than 70 locations. Mendip caves were used as burial places, with between 50 and 100 skeletons being found in Aveline's Hole. In the Neolithic era, from about 3500 BCE, there is evidence of farming.
At the end of the last ice age the Bristol Channel was dry land, but later the sea level rose, particularly between 1220 and 900 BC and between 800 and 470 BCE, resulting in major coastal changes. The Somerset Levels became flooded, but the dry points such as Glastonbury and Brent Knoll have a long history of settlement, and are known to have been occupied by Mesolithic hunters. The county has prehistoric burial mounds (such as Stoney Littleton Long Barrow), stone rows (such as the circles at Stanton Drew and Priddy) and settlement sites. Evidence of Mesolithic occupation has come both from the upland areas, such as in Mendip caves, and from the low land areas such as the Somerset Levels. Dry points in the latter such as Glastonbury Tor and Brent Knoll, have a long history of settlement with wooden trackways between them. There were also "lake villages" in the marsh such as those at Glastonbury Lake Village and Meare. One of the oldest dated human road work in Britain is the Sweet Track, constructed across the Somerset Levels with wooden planks in the 39th century BC, partially on the route of the even earlier Post Track.
There is evidence of Exmoor's human occupation from Mesolithic times onwards. In the Neolithic period people started to manage animals and grow crops on farms cleared from the woodland, rather than act purely as hunter gatherers. It is also likely that extraction and smelting of mineral ores to make tools, weapons, containers and ornaments in bronze and then iron started in the late Neolithic and into the Bronze and Iron Ages.
The caves of the Mendip Hills were settled during the Neolithic period and contain extensive archaeological sites such as those at Cheddar Gorge. There are numerous Iron Age Hill Forts, which were later reused in the Dark Ages, such as Cadbury Castle, Worlebury Camp and Ham Hill. The age of the henge monument at Stanton Drew stone circles is unknown, but is believed to be from the Neolithic period. There is evidence of mining on the Mendip Hills back into the late Bronze Age when there were technological changes in metal working indicated by the use of lead. There are numerous "hill forts", such as Small Down Knoll, Solsbury Hill, Dolebury Warren and Burledge Hill, which seem to have had domestic purposes, not just a defensive role. They generally seem to have been occupied intermittently from the Bronze Age onward, some, such as Cadbury Camp at South Cadbury, being refurbished during different eras. Battlegore Burial Chamber is a Bronze Age burial chamber at Williton which is composed of three round barrows and possibly a long, chambered barrow.
The Iron Age tribes of later Somerset were the Dobunni in north Somerset, Durotriges in south Somerset and Dumnonii in west Somerset. The first and second produced coins, the finds of which allows their tribal areas to be suggested, but the latter did not. All three had a Celtic culture and language. However, Ptolemy stated that Bath was in the territory of the Belgae, but this may be a mistake. The Celtic gods were worshipped at the temple of Sulis at Bath and possibly the temple on Brean Down. Iron Age sites on the Quantock Hills, include major hill forts at Dowsborough and Ruborough, as well as smaller earthwork enclosures, such as Trendle Ring, Elworthy Barrows and Plainsfield Camp.
Somerset was part of the Roman Empire from 47 AD to about 409 AD. However, the end was not abrupt and elements of Romanitas lingered on for perhaps a century.
Somerset was invaded from the south-east by the Second Legion Augusta, under the future emperor Vespasian. The hillforts of the Durotriges at Ham Hill and Cadbury Castle were captured. Ham Hill probably had a temporary Roman occupation. The massacre at Cadbury Castle seems to have been associated with the later Boudiccan Revolt of 60–61 AD. The county remained part of the Roman Empire until around 409 AD.
The Roman invasion, and possibly the preceding period of involvement in the internal affairs of the south of England, was inspired in part by the potential of the Mendip Hills. A great deal of the attraction of the lead mines may have been the potential for the extraction of silver.
Forts were set up at Bath and Ilchester. The lead and silver mines at Charterhouse in the Mendip Hills were run by the military. The Romans established a defensive boundary along the new military road known the Fosse Way (from the Latin fossa meaning ditch). The Fosse Way ran through Bath, Shepton Mallet, Ilchester and south-west towards Axminster. The road from Dorchester ran through Yeovil to meet the Fosse Way at Ilchester. Small towns and trading ports were set up, such as Camerton and Combwich. The larger towns decayed in the latter part of the period, though the smaller ones appear to have decayed less. In the latter part of the period, Ilchester seems to have been a "civitas" capital and Bath may also have been one. Particularly to the east of the River Parrett, villas were constructed. However, only a few Roman sites have been found to the west of the river. The villas have produced important mosaics and artifacts. Cemeteries have been found outside the Roman towns of Somerset and by Roman temples such as that at Lamyatt. Romano-British farming settlements, such as those at Catsgore and Sigwells, have been found in Somerset. There was salt production on the Somerset Levels near Highbridge and quarrying took place near Bath, where the Roman Baths gave their name to Bath.
Excavations carried out before the flooding of Chew Valley Lake also uncovered Roman remains, indicating agricultural and industrial activity from the second half of the 1st century until the 3rd century AD. The finds included a moderately large villa at Chew Park, where wooden writing tablets (the first in the UK) with ink writing were found. There is also evidence from the Pagans Hill Roman Temple at Chew Stoke. In October 2001 the West Bagborough Hoard of 4th century Roman silver was discovered in West Bagborough. The 681 coins included two denarii from the early 2nd century and 8 Miliarense and 671 Siliqua all dating to the period AD 337 – 367. The majority were struck in the reigns of emperors Constantius II and Julian and derive from a range of mints including Arles and Lyons in France, Trier in Germany and Rome.
In April 2010, the Frome Hoard, one of the largest-ever hoards of Roman coins discovered in Britain, was found by a metal detectorist. The hoard of 52,500 coins dated from the 3rd century AD and was found buried in a field near Frome, in a jar 14 inches (36 cm) below the surface. The coins were excavated by archaeologists from the Portable Antiquities Scheme.
This is the period from about 409 AD to the start of Saxon political control, which was mainly in the late 7th century, though they are said to have captured the Bath area in 577 AD. Initially the Britons of Somerset seem to have continued much as under the Romans but without the imperial taxation and markets. There was then a period of civil war in Britain though it is not known how this affected Somerset. The Western Wandsdyke may have been constructed in this period but archaeological data shows that it was probably built during the 5th or 6th century. This area became the border between the Romano-British Celts and the West Saxons following the Battle of Deorham in 577 AD. The ditch is on the north side, so presumably it was used by the Celts as a defence against Saxons encroaching from the upper Thames Valley. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the Saxon Cenwalh achieved a breakthrough against the British Celtic tribes, with victories at Bradford-on-Avon (in the Avon Gap in the Wansdyke) in 652 AD, and further south at the Battle of Peonnum (at Penselwood) in 658 AD, followed by an advance west through the Polden Hills to the River Parrett.
The Saxon advance from the east seems to have been halted by battles between the British and Saxons, for example; at the siege of Badon Mons Badonicus (which may have been in the Bath region e.g. at Solsbury Hill), or Bathampton Down. During the 5th, 6th and 7th centuries, Somerset was probably partly in the Kingdom of Dumnonia, partly in the land of the Durotriges and partly in that of the Dobunni. The boundaries between these is largely unknown, but may have been similar to those in the Iron Age. Various "tyrants" seem to have controlled territories from reoccupied hill forts. There is evidence of an elite at hill forts such as Cadbury Castle and Cadbury Camp; for example, there is imported pottery. Cemeteries are an important source of evidence for the period and large ones have been found in Somerset, such as that at Cannington, which was used from the Roman to the Saxon period. The towns of Somerset seem to have been little used during that period but there continued to be farming on the villa sites and at the Romano-British villages.
There may have been effects from plague and volcanic eruption during this period as well as marine transgression into the Levels.
The language spoken during this period is thought to be Southwestern Brythonic, but only one or two inscribed stones survive in Somerset from this period. However, a couple of curse tablets found in the baths at Bath may be in this language. Some place names in Somerset seem to be Celtic in origin and may be from this period or earlier, e.g. Tarnock. Some river names, such as Parrett, may be Celtic or pre-Celtic. The religion of the people of Somerset in this period is thought to be Christian but it was isolated from Rome until after the Council of Hertford in 673 AD when Aldhelm was asked to write a letter to Geraint of Dumnonia and his bishops. Some church sites in Somerset are thought to date from this period, e.g., Llantokay Street.
Most of what is known of the history of this period comes from Gildas's On the Ruin of Britain, which is thought to have been written in Durotrigan territory, possibly at Glastonbury.
The earliest fortification of Taunton started for King Ine of Wessex and Æthelburg, in or about the year 710 AD. However, according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle this was destroyed 12 years later.
This is the period from the late 7th century (for most of Somerset) to 1066, though for part of the 10th and 11th centuries England was under Danish control. Somerset, like Dorset to the south, held the West Saxon advance from Wiltshire/Hampshire back for over a century, remaining a frontier between the Saxons and the Romano-British Celts.
The Saxons conquered Bath following the Battle of Deorham in 577, and the border was probably established along the line of the Wansdyke to the north of the Mendip Hills. Then Cenwalh of Wessex broke through at Bradford-on-Avon in 652, and the Battle of Peonnum possibly at Penselwood in 658, advancing west through the Polden Hills to the River Parrett. In 661 the Saxons may have advanced into what is now Devon as a result of a battle fought at Postesburh, possibly Posbury near Crediton.
Then in the period 681–85 Centwine of Wessex conquered King Cadwaladr and "advanced as far as the sea", but it is not clear where this was. It is assumed that the Saxons occupied the rest of Somerset about this time. The Saxon rule was consolidated under King Ine, who established a fort at Taunton, demolished by his wife in 722. It is sometimes said that he built palaces at Somerton and South Petherton but this does not seem to be the case. He fought against Geraint in 710. In 705 the diocese of Sherborne was formed, taking in Wessex west of Selwood. Saxon kings granted land in Somerset by charter from the 7th century onward. The way and extent to which the Britons survived under the Saxons is a debatable matter. However, King Ine's laws make provision for Britons. Somerset originally formed part of Wessex and latter became a separate "shire". Somersetshire seems to have been formed within Wessex during the 8th century though it is not recorded as a name until later. Mints were set up at times in various places in Somerset in the Saxon period, e.g., Watchet.
Somerset played an important part in defeating the spread of the Danes in the 9th century. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records that in 845 Alderman Eanwulf, with the men of Somersetshire (Sumorsǣte), and Bishop Ealstan, and Alderman Osric, with the men of Dorsetshire, conquered the Danish army at the mouth of the Parret. This was the first known use of the name Somersæte. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle reports that in January 878 the King Alfred the Great fled into the marshes of Somerset from the Viking's invasion and made a fort at Athelney. From the fort Alfred was able to organize a resistance using the local militias from Somerset, Wiltshire and Hampshire.
Viking raids took place for instance in 987 and 997 at Watchet and the Battle of Cynwit. King Alfred was driven to seek refuge from the Danes at Athelney before defeating them at the Battle of Ethandun in 878, usually considered to be near Edington, Wiltshire, but possibly the village of Edington in Somerset. Alfred established a series of forts and lookout posts linked by a military road, or Herepath, so his army could cover Viking movements at sea. The Herepath has a characteristic form which is familiar on the Quantocks: a regulation 20 m wide track between avenues of trees growing from hedge laying embankments. The Herepath ran from the ford on the River Parrett at Combwich, past Cannington hill fort to Over Stowey, where it climbed the Quantocks along the line of the current Stowey road, to Crowcombe Park Gate. Then it went south along the ridge, to Triscombe Stone. One branch may have led past Lydeard Hill and Buncombe Hill, back to Alfred's base at Athelney. The main branch descended the hills at Triscombe, then along the avenue to Red Post Cross, and west to the Brendon Hills and Exmoor. A peace treaty with the Danes was signed at Wedmore and the Danish king Guthrum the Old was baptised at Aller. Burhs (fortified places) had been set up by 919, such as Lyng. The Alfred Jewel, an object about 2.5 inch long, made of filigree gold, cloisonné-enamelled and with a rock crystal covering, was found in 1693 at Petherton Park, North Petherton. Believed to have been owned by Alfred the Great it is thought to have been the handle for a pointer that would have fit into the hole at its base and been used while reading a book.
Monasteries and minster churches were set up all over Somerset, with daughter churches from the minsters in manors. There was a royal palace at Cheddar, which was used at times in the 10th century to host the Witenagemot, and there is likely to have been a "central place" at Somerton, Bath, Glastonbury and Frome since the kings visited them. The towns of Somerset seem to have been in occupation in this period though evidence for this is limited because of subsequent buildings on top of remains from this period. Agriculture flourished in this period, with a re-organisation into centralised villages in the latter part in the east of the county.
In the period before the Norman Conquest, Somerset came under the control of Godwin, Earl of Wessex, and his family. There seems to have been some Danish settlement at Thurloxton and Spaxton, judging from the place-names. After the Norman Conquest, the county was divided into 700 fiefs, and large areas were owned by the crown, with fortifications such as Dunster Castle used for control and defence.
This period of Somerset's history is well documented, for example in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and Asser's Life of Alfred.
This is the period from 1066 to around 1500. Following the defeat of the Saxons by the Normans in 1066, various castles were set up in Somerset by the new lords such as that at Dunster, and the manors was awarded to followers of William the Conqueror such as William de Moyon and Walter of Douai. Somerset does not seem to have played much part in the civil war in King Stephen's time, but Somerset lords were main players in the murder of Thomas Becket.
A good picture of the county in 1086 is given by Domesday Book, though there is some difficulty in identifying the various places since the hundreds are not specified. The total population given for the county, which had different boundaries to those today, was 13,399, however this only included the heads of households, so with their families this may have been around 67,000. Farming seems to have prospered for the next three centuries but was severely hit by the Black Death which in 1348 arrived in Dorset and quickly spread through Somerset, causing widespread mortality, perhaps as much as 50% in places. It re-occurred, resulting in a change in feudal practices since the manpower was no longer so available.
Reclamation of land from marsh in the Somerset Levels increased, largely under monastic influence. Crafts and industries also flourished, the Somerset woollen industry being one of the largest in England at this time. "New towns" were founded in this period in Somerset, i.e. Newport, but were not successful. Coal mining on the Mendips was an important source of wealth while quarrying also took place, an example is near Bath.
The towns grew, again often by monastic instigation, during this period and fairs were started. The church was very powerful at this period, particularly Glastonbury Abbey. After their church burnt down, the monks there "discovered" the tomb of "King Arthur" and were able rebuild their church. There were over 20 monasteries in Somerset at this period including the priory at Hinton Charterhouse which was founded in 1232 by Ela, Countess of Salisbury who also founded Lacock Abbey. Many parish churches were re-built in this period. Between 1107 and 1129 William Giffard the Chancellor of King Henry I, converted the bishop's hall in Taunton into Taunton Castle. Bridgwater Castle was built in 1202 by William Brewer. It passed to the king in 1233 and in 1245 repairs were ordered to its motte and towers. During the 11th century Second Barons' War against Henry III, Bridgwater was held by the barons against the King. In the English Civil War the town and the castle were held by the Royalists under Colonel Sir Francis Wyndham. Eventually, with many buildings destroyed in the town, the castle and its valuable contents were surrendered to the Parliamentarians. The castle itself was deliberately destroyed in 1645.
During the Middle Ages sheep farming for the wool trade came to dominate the economy of Exmoor. The wool was spun into thread on isolated farms and collected by merchants to be woven, fulled, dyed and finished in thriving towns such as Dunster. The land started to be enclosed and from the 17th century onwards larger estates developed, leading to establishment of areas of large regular shaped fields. During this period a Royal Forest and hunting ground was established, administered by the Warden. The Royal Forest was sold off in 1818.
In the medieval period the River Parrett was used to transport Hamstone from the quarry at Ham Hill, Bridgwater was part of the Port of Bristol until the Port of Bridgwater was created in 1348, covering 80 miles (130 km) of the Somerset coast line, from the Devon border to the mouth of the River Axe. Historically, the main port on the river was at Bridgwater; the river being bridged at this point, with the first bridge being constructed in 1200 AD. Quays were built in 1424; with another quay, the Langport slip, being built in 1488 upstream of the Town Bridge. A Customs House was sited at Bridgwater, on West Quay; and a dry dock, launching slips and a boat yard on East Quay. The river was navigable, with care, to Bridgwater Town Bridge by 400 to 500 tonnes (440 to 550 tons) vessels. By trans-shipping into barges at the Town Bridge the Parrett was navigable as far as Langport and (via the River Yeo) to Ilchester.
This is the period from around 1500 to 1800. In the 1530s, the monasteries were dissolved and their lands bought from the king by various important families in Somerset. By 1539, Glastonbury Abbey was the only monastery left, its abbot Richard Whiting was then arrested and executed on the orders of Thomas Cromwell. From the Tudor to the Georgian times, farming specialised and techniques improved, leading to increases in population, although no new towns seem to have been founded. Large country houses such as at Hinton St George and Montacute House were built at this time.
The Bristol Channel floods of 1607 are believed to have affected large parts of the Somerset Levels with flooding up to 8 feet (2 m) above sea level. In 1625, a House of Correction was established in Shepton Mallet and, today, HMP Shepton Mallet is England's oldest prison still in use.
During the English Civil War, Somerset was largely Parliamentarian, although Dunster was a Royalist stronghold. The county was the site of important battles between the Royalists and the Parliamentarians, notably the Battle of Lansdowne in 1643 and the Battle of Langport in 1645. The castle changed hands several times during 1642–45 along with the town. During the Siege of Taunton it was defended by Robert Blake, from July 1644 to July 1645. This war resulted in castles being destroyed to prevent their re-use.
In 1685, the Duke of Monmouth led the Monmouth Rebellion in which Somerset people fought against James II. The rebels landed at Lyme Regis and travelled north hoping to capture Bristol and Bath, puritan soldiers damaged the west front of Wells Cathedral, tore lead from the roof to make bullets, broke the windows, smashed the organ and the furnishings, and for a time stabled their horses in the nave. They were defeated in the Battle of Sedgemoor at Westonzoyland, the last battle fought on English soil. The Bloody Assizes which followed saw the losers being sentenced to death or transportation.
The Society of Friends established itself in Street in the mid-17th century, and among the close-knit group of Quaker families were the Clarks: Cyrus started a business in sheepskin rugs, later joined by his brother James, who introduced the production of woollen slippers and, later, boots and shoes. C&J Clark still has its headquarters in Street, but shoes are no longer manufactured there. Instead, in 1993, redundant factory buildings were converted to form Clarks Village, the first purpose-built factory outlet in the United Kingdom.
The 18th century was largely one of peace and declining industrial prosperity in Somerset. The Industrial Revolution in the Midlands and Northern England spelt the end for most of Somerset's cottage industries. However, farming continued to flourish, with the Bath and West of England Agricultural Society being founded in 1777 to improve methods. John Billingsley conducted a survey of the county's agriculture in 1795 but found that methods could still be improved.
Arthur Wellesley took his title, Duke of Wellington from the town of Wellington. He is commemorated on a nearby hill with a large, spotlit obelisk, known as the Wellington Monument.
In north Somerset, mining in the Somerset coalfield was an important industry, and in an effort to reduce the cost of transporting the coal the Somerset Coal Canal was built; part of it was later converted into a railway. Other canals included the Bridgwater and Taunton Canal, Westport Canal, Grand Western Canal, Glastonbury Canal and Chard Canal.[9] The Dorset and Somerset Canal was proposed, but very little of it was ever constructed.
The 19th century saw improvements to Somerset's roads with the introduction of turnpikes and the building of canals and railways. The usefulness of the canals was short-lived, though they have now been restored for recreation. The railways were nationalised after the Second World War, but continued until 1965, when smaller lines were scrapped; two were transferred back to private ownership as "heritage" lines.
In 1889, Somerset County Council was created, replacing the administrative functions of the Quarter Sessions.
The population of Somerset has continued to grow since 1800, when it was 274,000, particularly in the seaside towns such as Weston-super-Mare. Some population decline occurred earlier in the period in the villages, but this has now been reversed, and by 1951 the population of Somerset was 551,000.
Chard claims to be the birthplace of powered flight, as it was here in 1848 that the Victorian aeronautical pioneer John Stringfellow first demonstrated that engine-powered flight was possible through his work on the Aerial Steam Carriage. North Petherton was the first town in England (and one of the few ever) to be lit by acetylene gas lighting, supplied by the North Petherton Rosco Acetylene Company. Street lights were provided in 1906. Acetylene was replaced in 1931 by coal gas produced in Bridgwater, as well as by the provision of an electricity supply.
Around the 1860s, at the height of the iron and steel era, a pier and a deep-water dock were built, at Portishead, by the Bristol & Portishead Pier and Railway to accommodate the large ships that had difficulty in reaching Bristol Harbour. The Portishead power stations were coal-fed power stations built next to the dock. Construction work started on Portishead "A" power station in 1926. It began generating electricity in 1929 for the Bristol Corporation's Electricity Department. In 1951, Albright and Wilson built a chemical works on the opposite side of the dock from the power stations. The chemical works produced white phosphorus from phosphate rock imported, through the docks, into the UK. The onset of new generating capacity at Pembroke (oil-fired) and Didcot (coal-fired) in the mid-1970s brought about the closure of the older, less efficient "A" Station. The newer of the two power stations ("B" Station) was converted to burn oil when the Somerset coalfields closed. Industrial activities ceased in the dock with the closure of the power stations. The Port of Bristol Authority finally closed the dock in 1992, and it has now been developed into a marina and residential area.
During the First World War hundreds of Somerset soldiers were killed, and war memorials were put up in most of the towns and villages; only a few villages escaped casualties. There were also casualties – though much fewer – during the Second World War, who were added to the memorials. The county was a base for troops preparing for the 1944 D-Day landings, and some Somerset hospitals still date partly from that time. The Royal Ordnance Factory ROF Bridgwater was constructed early in World War II for the Ministry of Supply. It was designed as an Explosive ROF, to produce RDX, which was then a new experimental high-explosive. It obtained water supplies from two sources via the Somerset Levels: the artificial Huntspill River which was dug during the construction of the factory and also from the King's Sedgemoor Drain, which was widened at the same time. The Taunton Stop Line was set up to resist a potential German invasion, and the remains of its pill boxes can still be seen, as well as others along the coast. A decoy town was constructed on Black Down, intended to represent the blazing lights of a town which had neglected to follow the black-out regulations. Sites in the county housed Prisoner of War camps including: Norton Fitzwarren, Barwick, Brockley, Goathurst and Wells. Various airfields were built or converted from civilian use including: RNAS Charlton Horethorne (HMS Heron II), RAF Weston-super-Mare, RNAS Yeovilton (HMS Heron), Yeovil/Westland Airport, RAF Weston Zoyland, RAF Merryfield, RAF Culmhead and RAF Charmy Down.
Exmoor was one of the first British National Parks, designated in 1954, under the 1949 National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act. and is named after its main river. It was expanded in 1991 and in 1993 Exmoor was designated as an Environmentally Sensitive Area. The Quantock Hills were designated as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) in 1956, the first such designation in England under the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949. The Mendip Hills followed with AONB designation in 1972.
Hinkley Point A nuclear power station was a Magnox power station constructed between 1957 and 1962 and operating until ceasing generation in 2000. Hinkley Point B is an Advanced Gas-cooled Reactor (AGR) which was designed to generate 1250 MW of electricity (MWe). Construction of Hinkley Point B started in 1967. In September 2008 it was announced, by Électricité de France (EDF), that a third, twin-unit European Pressurised Reactor (EPR) power station known as Hinkley Point C is planned, to replace Hinkley Point B which was due for closure in 2016, but has now has its life extended until 2022.
Somerset today has only two small cities, Bath and Wells, and only small towns in comparison with other areas of England. Tourism is a major source of employment along the coast, and in Bath and Cheddar for example. Other attractions include Exmoor, West Somerset Railway, Haynes Motor Museum and the Fleet Air Arm Museum as well as the churches and the various National Trust and English Heritage properties in Somerset.
Agriculture continues to be a major business, if no longer a major employer because of mechanisation. Light industries take place in towns such as Bridgwater and Yeovil. The towns of Taunton and Shepton Mallet manufacture cider, although the number of apple orchards has reduced.
In the late 19th century the boundaries of Somerset were slightly altered, but the main change came in 1974 when the county of Avon was set up. The northern part of Somerset was removed from the administrative control of Somerset County Council. On abolition of the county of Avon in 1996, these areas became separate administrative authorities, "North Somerset" and "Bath and North East Somerset". The Department for Communities and Local Government was considering a proposal by Somerset County Council to change Somerset's administrative structure by abolishing the five districts to create a Somerset unitary authority. The changes were planned to be implemented no later than 1 April 2009. However, support for the county council's bid was not guaranteed and opposition among the district council and local population was strong; 82% of people responding to a referendum organised by the five district councils rejected the proposals. It was confirmed in July 2007 that the government had rejected the proposals for unitary authorities in Somerset, and that the present two-tier arrangements of Somerset County Council and the district councils will remain.
Includes teams from Brookings, SF Lincoln, SF Roosevelt, RC Central. Permission granted for journalism outlets and educational purposes. Not for commercial use. Must be credited. Photo courtesy of South Dakota Public Broadcasting.
©2021 SDPB
20/01/16 #1115. An evening at the Ice Hockey - watching the Rovaniemi Roki beat Hermes 8-3. Ice hockey is a such a fast paced game. Another very cold day, with temperatures again below -30C and on the way home from work, the bonus of a view of Northern Lights - a slowly shifting green ribbon streaking across the sky - not sure why I didn't at least try to capture that with the compact that I had on me.
ODC-Include Your Hand
Some of the Organic Squash Blossoms in our garden are enormous this year. We don't know for sure exactly what variety this one is. Stu figures it is a Zucchini of some sort because the plant has an upright growth pattern as opposed to a Vine. We will find out when it starts producing to know for sure.
Lotus Elan S3 (1966-69) Engine 1558 cc S4 DOC Production 7895 (includes S1, S2 and S3)
Registration Number SBY 2 F
LOTUS SET
www.flickr.com/photos/45676495@N05/sets/72157623671671113...
The original Elan was introduced in 1962 as a roadster, although an optional hardtop was offered in 1963 and a coupé version in 1965. The two-seat Lotus Elan replaced the Lotus Elite. It was the first Lotus road car to use a steel backbone chassis with a fibreglass body. At 1,600 lb the Elan was both lightweight and had highly responsive handling. Initial versions of the Elan were also available as a kit to be assembled by the customer. The Elan was technologically advanced with a DOHC 1557 cc engine, 4-wheel disc brakes, rack and pinion steering, and 4-wheel independent suspension.
Series 1 introduced in 1962 with pop up head lights, built on a backbone frame, all independant springing and discs all round. The early ones had a 1498 cc engine, changed to the 1558 after the first batch.
The Series 2 (1964-66) was the same basic spec. and appearance, with enlarged brake calipers, polished veneer fascia, and centre locking wheels. All were fixed heads until June 1966.
The Series 3 has a higher final drive ratio and optional close ratio gearbox. The Special Equipment model has an uprated 115 bhp
An Elan was famously used by Emma Peel, the leather clad heroine on the Avengers TV Series.
A Big thankyou for an incredible 24.2 Million views
Shot 04:05:2014 at the Donington Historic Festival REF 102-252
The Great Patriotic War (Russian: Вели́кая Оте́чественная война́, romanized: Velikaja Otečestvennaja vojna) is a term used in Russia and some other former republics of the Soviet Union to describe the conflict fought during the period from 22 June 1941 to 9 May 1945 along the many fronts of the Eastern Front of World War II, primarily between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. For some legal purposes, this period may be extended to 11 May 1945 to include the end of the Prague offensive.
History
The term Patriotic War refers to the Russian resistance to the French invasion of Russia under Napoleon I, which became known as the Patriotic War of 1812. In Russian, the term отечественная война originally referred to a war on one's own territory (otechestvo means "the fatherland"), as opposed to a campaign abroad (заграничная война), and later was reinterpreted as a war for the fatherland, i.e. a defensive war for one's homeland. Sometimes the Patriotic War of 1812 was also referred to as the Great Patriotic War (Великая отечественная война); the phrase first appeared in 1844 and became popular on the eve of the centenary of the Patriotic War of 1812.
After 1914, the phrase was applied to World War I. It was the name of a special war-time appendix to the magazine Theater and Life (Театр и жизнь) in Saint Petersburg, and referred to the Eastern Front of World War I, where Russia fought against the German Empire and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The phrases Second Patriotic War (Вторая отечественная война) and Great World Patriotic War (Великая всемирная отечественная война) were also used during World War I in Russia.
The term Great Patriotic War re-appeared in the official newspaper of the CPSU, Pravda, on 23 June 1941, just a day after Germany invaded the Soviet Union. It was found in the title of "The Great Patriotic War of the Soviet People" (Velikaya Otechestvennaya Voyna Sovetskogo Naroda), a long article by Yemelyan Yaroslavsky, a member of Pravda editors' collegium. The phrase was intended to motivate the population to defend the Soviet fatherland and to expel the invader, and a reference to the Patriotic War of 1812 was seen as a great morale booster. During the Soviet period, historians engaged in huge distortions to make history fit with Communist ideology, with Marshal Mikhail Kutuzov and Prince Pyotr Bagration transformed into peasant generals, Alexander I alternatively ignored or vilified, and the war becoming a massive "People's War" fought by the ordinary people of Russia with almost no involvement on the part of the government. The invasion by Germany was called the Great Patriotic War by the Soviet government to evoke comparisons with the victory by Tsar Alexander I over Napoleon's invading army.
The term Отечественная война (Patriotic War or Fatherland War) was officially recognized by establishment of the Order of the Patriotic War on 20 May 1942, awarded for heroic deeds.
The term is not generally used outside the former Soviet Union, and the closest term is the Eastern Front of World War II (1941–1945). Neither term covers the initial phase of World War II in Eastern Europe, during which the USSR, then still in a non-aggression pact with Germany, invaded eastern Poland (1939), the Baltic states (1940), Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina (1940) and Finland (1939–1940). The term also does not cover the Soviet–Japanese War (1945) nor the Battles of Khalkhin Gol (1939).
In Russia and some other post-Soviet countries, the term is given great significance; it is accepted as a representation of the most important part of World War II. Until 2014, Uzbekistan was the only nation in the Commonwealth of Independent States that had not recognized the term, referring to it as World War II on the state holiday - the Day of Remembrance and Honour.
On 9 April 2015, the Ukrainian parliament replaced the term Great Patriotic War (1941–1945) (Velyka vitchyzniana viina) in the country's law with the "Second World War (1939–1945)" (Druha svitova viina), as part of a set of decommunization laws. Also in 2015, Ukraine's "Victory Day over Nazism in World War II" was established as a national holiday in accordance with the law of "On Perpetuation of Victory over Nazism in World War II 1939–1945". The new holiday was celebrated on May 9 and replaced the Soviet-Russian Victory Day, which is celebrated on May 9. These laws were adopted by the Ukrainian parliament within the package of laws on decommunization. In 2023 Ukraine abolished the 2015 9 May "Victory Day over Nazism" holiday and replaced it with the new public holiday "Day of Remembrance and Victory over Nazism in World War II 1939 – 1945" which is celebrated on 8 May annually.
Voronezh is a city and the administrative centre of Voronezh Oblast in southwestern Russia straddling the Voronezh River, located 12 kilometers (7.5 mi) from where it flows into the Don River. The city sits on the Southeastern Railway, which connects western Russia with the Urals and Siberia, the Caucasus and Ukraine, and the M4 highway (Moscow–Voronezh–Rostov-on-Don–Novorossiysk). In recent years the city has experienced rapid population growth, rising in 2021 to 1,057,681, up from 889,680 recorded in the 2010 Census, making it the 14th-most populous city in the country.
History
The first chronicle references to the word "Voronezh" are dated 1177, when the Ryazan prince Yaropolk, having lost the battle, fled "to Voronozh" and there was moving "from town to town". Modern data of archeology and history interpret Voronezh as a geographical region, which included the Voronezh river (tributary of the Don) and a number of settlements. In the lower reaches of the river, a unique Slavic town-planning complex of the 8th – early 11th century was discovered, which covered the territory of the present city of Voronezh and its environs (about 42 km long, about 13 forts and many unfortified villages). By the 12th – 13th centuries, most of the old towns were desolate, but new settlements appeared upstream, closer to Ryazan.
For many years, the hypothesis of the Soviet historian Vladimir Zagorovsky dominated: he produced the toponym "Voronezh" from the hypothetical Slavic personal name Voroneg. This man allegedly gave the name of a small town in the Chernigov Principality (now the village of Voronezh in Ukraine). Later, in the 11th or 12th century, the settlers were able to "transfer" this name to the Don region, where they named the second city Voronezh, and the river got its name from the city. However, now many researchers criticize the hypothesis, since in reality neither the name of Voroneg nor the second city was revealed, and usually the names of Russian cities repeated the names of the rivers, but not vice versa.
The linguistic comparative analysis of the name "Voronezh" was carried out by the Khovansky Foundation in 2009. There is an indication of the place names of many countries in Eurasia, which may partly be not only similar in sound, but also united by common Indo-European languages: Varanasi, Varna, Verona, Brno, etc.
A comprehensive scientific analysis was conducted in 2015–2016 by the historian Pavel Popov. His conclusion: "Voronezh" is a probable Slavic macrotoponym associated with outstanding signs of nature, has a root voron- (from the proto-Slavic vorn) in the meaning of "black, dark" and the suffix -ezh (-azh, -ozh). It was not “transferred” and in the 8th - 9th centuries it marked a vast territory covered with black forests (oak forests) - from the mouth of the Voronezh river to the Voronozhsky annalistic forests in the middle and upper reaches of the river, and in the west to the Don (many forests were cut down). The historian believes that the main "city" of the early town-planning complex could repeat the name of the region – Voronezh. Now the hillfort is located in the administrative part of the modern city, in the Voronezh upland oak forest. This is one of Europe's largest ancient Slavic hillforts, the area of which – more than 9 hectares – 13 times the area of the main settlement in Kyiv before the baptism of Rus.
In it is assumed that the word "Voronezh" means bluing - a technique to increase the corrosion resistance of iron products. This explanation fits well with the proximity to the ancient city of Voronezh of a large iron deposit and the city of Stary Oskol.
Folk etymology claims the name comes from combining the Russian words for raven (ворон) and hedgehog (еж) into Воронеж. According to this explanation two Slavic tribes named after the animals used this combination to name the river which later in turn provided the name for a settlement. There is not believed to be any scientific support for this explanation.
In the 16th century, the Middle Don basin, including the Voronezh river, was gradually conquered by Muscovy from the Nogai Horde (a successor state of the Golden Horde), and the current city of Voronezh was established in 1585 by Feodor I as a fort protecting the Muravsky Trail trade route against the slave raids of the Nogai and Crimean Tatars. The city was named after the river.
17th to 19th centuries
In the 17th century, Voronezh gradually evolved into a sizable town. Weronecz is shown on the Worona river in Resania in Joan Blaeu's map of 1645. Peter the Great built a dockyard in Voronezh where the Azov Flotilla was constructed for the Azov campaigns in 1695 and 1696. This fleet, the first ever built in Russia, included the first Russian ship of the line, Goto Predestinatsia. The Orthodox diocese of Voronezh was instituted in 1682 and its first bishop, Mitrofan of Voronezh, was later proclaimed the town's patron saint.
Owing to the Voronezh Admiralty Wharf, for a short time, Voronezh became the largest city of South Russia and the economic center of a large and fertile region. In 1711, it was made the seat of the Azov Governorate, which eventually morphed into the Voronezh Governorate.
In the 19th century, Voronezh was a center of the Central Black Earth Region. Manufacturing industry (mills, tallow-melting, butter-making, soap, leather, and other works) as well as bread, cattle, suet, and the hair trade developed in the town. A railway connected Voronezh with Moscow in 1868 and Rostov-on-Don in 1871.
20th century
World War II
During World War II, Voronezh was the scene of fierce fighting between Soviet and combined Axis troops. The Germans used it as a staging area for their attack on Stalingrad, and made it a key crossing point on the Don River. In June 1941, two BM-13 (Fighting machine #13 Katyusha) artillery installations were built at the Voronezh excavator factory. In July, the construction of Katyushas was rationalized so that their manufacture became easier and the time of volley repetition was shortened from five minutes to fifteen seconds. More than 300 BM-13 units manufactured in Voronezh were used in a counterattack near Moscow in December 1941. In October 22, 1941, the advance of the German troops prompted the establishment of a defense committee in the city. On November 7, 1941, there was a troop parade, devoted to the anniversary of the October Revolution. Only three such parades were organized that year: in Moscow, Kuybyshev, and Voronezh. In late June 1942, the city was attacked by German and Hungarian forces. In response, Soviet forces formed the Voronezh Front. By July 6, the German army occupied the western river-bank suburbs before being subjected to a fierce Soviet counter-attack. By July 24 the frontline had stabilised along the Voronezh River as the German forces continued southeast into the Great Bend of the Don. The attack on Voronezh represented the first phase of the German Army's 1942 campaign in the Soviet Union, codenamed Case Blue.
Until January 25, 1943, parts of the Second German Army and the Second Hungarian Army occupied the western part of Voronezh. During Operation Little Saturn, the Ostrogozhsk–Rossosh Offensive, and the Voronezhsko-Kastornenskoy Offensive, the Voronezh Front exacted heavy casualties on Axis forces. On January 25, 1943, Voronezh was liberated after ten days of combat. During the war the city was almost completely ruined, with 92% of all buildings destroyed.
Post-war
By 1950, Voronezh had been rebuilt. Most buildings and historical monuments were repaired. It was also the location of a prestigious Suvorov Military School, a boarding school for young boys who were considered to be prospective military officers, many of whom had been orphaned by war.
In 1950–1960, new factories were established: a tire factory, a machine-tool factory, a factory of heavy mechanical pressing, and others. In 1968, Serial production of the Tupolev Tu-144 supersonic plane was established at the Voronezh Aviation factory. In October 1977, the first Soviet domestic wide-body plane, Ilyushin Il-86, was built there.
In 1989, TASS published details of an alleged UFO landing in the city's park and purported encounters with extraterrestrial beings reported by a number of children. A Russian scientist that was cited in initial TASS reports later told the Associated Press that he was misquoted, cautioning, "Don't believe all you hear from TASS," and "We never gave them part of what they published", and a TASS correspondent admitted the possibility that some "make-believe" had been added to the TASS story, saying, "I think there is a certain portion of truth, but it is not excluded that there is also fantasizing".
21st century
From 10 to 17 September 2011, Voronezh celebrated its 425th anniversary. The anniversary of the city was given the status of a federal scale celebration that helped attract large investments from the federal and regional budgets for development.
On December 17, 2012, Voronezh became the fifteenth city in Russia with a population of over one million people.
Today Voronezh is the economic, industrial, cultural, and scientific center of the Central Black Earth Region. As part of the annual tradition in the Russian city of Voronezh, every winter the main city square is thematically drawn around a classic literature. In 2020, the city was decorated using the motifs from Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker. In the year of 2021, the architects drew inspiration from Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale The Snow Queen as well as the animation classic The Snow Queen from the Soviet Union. The fairy tale replica city will feature the houses of Kai and Gerda, the palace of the snow queen, an ice rink, and illumination.
In June 2023, during the Wagner Group rebellion, forces of the Wagner Group claimed to have taken control of military facilities in the city. Later they were confirmed to have taken the city itself.
Administrative and municipal status
Voronezh is the administrative center of the oblast.[1] Within the framework of administrative divisions, it is incorporated as Voronezh Urban Okrug—an administrative unit with the status equal to that of the districts.[1] As a municipal division, this administrative unit also has urban okrug status.
City divisions
The city is divided into six administrative districts:
Zheleznodorozhny (183,17 km²)
Tsentralny (63,96 km²)
Kominternovsky (47,41 km²)
Leninsky (18,53 km²)
Sovetsky (156,6 km²)
Levoberezhny (123,89 km²)
Economy
The leading sectors of the urban economy in the 20th century were mechanical engineering, metalworking, the electronics industry and the food industry.
In the city are such companies as:
Tupolev Tu-144
Voronezhselmash (agricultural engineering)
Sozvezdie[36] (headquarter, JSC Concern “Sozvezdie”, in 1958 the world's first created mobile telephony and wireless telephone Altai
Verofarm (pharmaceutics, owner Abbott Laboratories),
Voronezh Mechanical Plant[37] (production of missile and aircraft engines, oil and gas equipment)
Mining Machinery Holding - RUDGORMASH[38] (production of drilling, mineral processing and mining equipment)
VNiiPM Research Institute of Semiconductor Engineering (equipment for plasma-chemical processes, technical-chemical equipment for liquid operations, water treatment equipment)
KBKhA Chemical Automatics Design Bureau with notable products:.
Pirelli Voronezh.
On the territory of the city district government Maslovka Voronezh region with the support of the Investment Fund of Russia, is implementing a project to create an industrial park, "Maslowski", to accommodate more than 100 new businesses, including the transformer factory of Siemens. On September 7, 2011 in Voronezh there opened a Global network operation center of Nokia Siemens Networks, which was the fifth in the world and the first in Russia.
Construction
In 2014, 926,000 square meters of housing was delivered.
Clusters of Voronezh
In clusters of tax incentives and different preferences, the full support of the authorities. A cluster of Oil and Gas Equipment, Radio-electronic cluster, Furniture cluster, IT cluster, Cluster aircraft, Cluster Electromechanics, Transport and logistics cluster, Cluster building materials and technologies.
Geography
Urban layout
Information about the original urban layout of Voronezh is contained in the "Patrol Book" of 1615. At that time, the city fortress was logged and located on the banks of the Voronezh River. In plan, it was an irregular quadrangle with a perimeter of about 238 meter. inside it, due to lack of space, there was no housing or siege yards, and even the cathedral church was supposed to be taken out. However, at this small fortress there was a large garrison - 666 households of service people. These courtyards were reliably protected by the second line of fortifications by a standing prison on taras with 25 towers covered with earth; behind the prison was a moat, and beyond the moat there were stakes. Voronezh was a typical military settlement (ostrog). In the city prison there were only settlements of military men: Streletskaya, Kazachya, Belomestnaya atamanskaya, Zatinnaya and Pushkarskaya. The posad population received the territory between the ostrog and the river, where the Monastyrskaya settlements (at the Assumption Monastery) was formed. Subsequently, the Yamnaya Sloboda was added to them, and on the other side of the fort, on the Chizhovka Mountain, the Chizhovskaya Sloboda of archers and Cossacks appeared. As a result, the Voronezh settlements surrounded the fortress in a ring. The location of the parish churches emphasized this ring-like and even distribution of settlements: the Ilyinsky Church of the Streletskaya Sloboda, the Pyatnitskaya Cossack and Pokrovskaya Belomestnaya were brought out to the passage towers of the prison. The Nikolskaya Church of the Streletskaya Sloboda was located near the marketplace (and, accordingly, the front facade of the fortress), and the paired ensemble of the Rozhdestvenskaya and Georgievskaya churches of the Cossack Sloboda marked the main street of the city, going from the Cossack Gate to the fortress tower.
Climate
Voronezh experiences a humid continental climate (Köppen: Dfb) with long, cold winters and short, warm summers.
Transportation
Air
The city is served by the Voronezh International Airport, which is located north of the city and is home to Polet Airlines. Voronezh is also home to the Pridacha Airport, a part of a major aircraft manufacturing facility VASO (Voronezhskoye Aktsionernoye Samoletostroitelnoye Obshchestvo, Voronezh aircraft production association) where the Tupolev Tu-144 (known in the West as the "Concordski"), was built and the only operational unit is still stored. Voronezh also hosts the Voronezh Malshevo air force base in the southwest of the city, which, according to a Natural Resources Defense Council report, houses nuclear bombers.[citation needed]
Rail
Since 1868, there is a railway connection between Voronezh and Moscow. Rail services form a part of the South Eastern Railway of the Russian Railways. Destinations served direct from Voronezh include Moscow, Kyiv, Kursk, Novorossiysk, Sochi, and Tambov. The main train station is called Voronezh-1 railway station and is located in the center of the city.
Bus
There are three bus stations in Voronezh that connect the city with destinations including Moscow, Belgorod, Lipetsk, Volgograd, Rostov-on-Don, and Astrakhan.
Education and culture
Aviastroiteley Park
The city has seven theaters, twelve museums, a number of movie theaters, a philharmonic hall, and a circus. It is also a major center of higher education in central Russia. The main educational facilities include:
Voronezh State University
Voronezh State Technical University
Voronezh State University of Architecture and Construction
Voronezh State Pedagogical University
Voronezh State Agricultural University
Voronezh State University of Engineering Technologies
Voronezh State Medical University named after N. N. Burdenko
Voronezh State Academy of Arts
Voronezh State University of Forestry and Technologies named after G.F. Morozov
Voronezh State Institute of Physical Training
Voronezh Institute of Russia's Home Affairs Ministry
Voronezh Institute of High Technologies
Military Educational and Scientific Center of the Air Force «N.E. Zhukovsky and Y.A. Gagarin Air Force Academy» (Voronezh)
Plekhanov Russian University of Economics (Voronezh branch)
Russian State University of Justice
Admiral Makarov State University of Sea and River Fleet (Voronezh branch)
International Institute of Computer Technologies
Voronezh Institute of Economics and Law
and a number of other affiliate and private-funded institutes and universities. There are 2000 schools within the city.
Theaters
Voronezh Chamber Theatre
Koltsov Academic Drama Theater
Voronezh State Opera and Ballet Theatre
Shut Puppet Theater
Festivals
Platonov International Arts Festival
Sports
ClubSportFoundedCurrent LeagueLeague
RankStadium
Fakel VoronezhFootball1947Russian Premier League1stTsentralnyi Profsoyuz Stadion
Energy VoronezhFootball1989Women's Premier League1stRudgormash Stadium
Buran VoronezhIce Hockey1977Higher Hockey League2ndYubileyny Sports Palace
VC VoronezhVolleyball2006Women's Higher Volleyball League A2ndKristall Sports Complex
Religion
Annunciation Orthodox Cathedral in Voronezh
Orthodox Christianity is the predominant religion in Voronezh.[citation needed] There is an Orthodox Jewish community in Voronezh, with a synagogue located on Stankevicha Street.
In 1682, the Voronezh diocese was formed to fight the schismatics. Its first head was Bishop Mitrofan (1623-1703) at the age of 58. Under him, the construction began on the new Annunciation Cathedral to replace the old one. In 1832, Mitrofan was canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church.
In the 1990s, many Orthodox churches were returned to the diocese. Their restoration was continued. In 2009, instead of the lost one, a new Annunciation Cathedral was built with a monument to St. Mitrofan erected next to it.
Cemeteries
There are ten cemeteries in Voronezh:
Levoberezhnoye Cemetery
Lesnoye Cemetery
Jewish Cemetery
Nikolskoye Cemetery
Pravoberezhnoye Cemetery
Budyonnovskoe Cemetery
Yugo-Zapadnoye Cemetery
Podgorenskоye Cemetery
Kominternovskoe Cemetery
Ternovoye Cemetery is а historical site closed to the public.
Born in Voronezh
18th century
Yevgeny Bolkhovitinov (1767–1837), Orthodox Metropolitan of Kiev and Galicia
Mikhail Pavlov (1792–1840), Russian academic and professor at Moscow University
19th century
1801–1850
Aleksey Koltsov (1809–1842), Russian poet
Ivan Nikitin (1824–1861), Russian poet
Nikolai Ge (1831–1894), Russian realist painter famous for his works on historical and religious motifs
Vasily Sleptsov (1836–1878), Russian writer and social reformer
Nikolay Kashkin (1839–1920), Russian music critic
1851–1900
Valentin Zhukovski (1858–1918), Russian orientalist
Vasily Goncharov (1861–1915), Russian film director and screenwriter, one of the pioneers of the film industry in the Russian Empire
Anastasiya Verbitskaya (1861–1928), Russian novelist, playwright, screenplay writer, publisher and feminist
Mikhail Olminsky (1863–1933), Russian Communist
Serge Voronoff (1866–1951), French surgeon of Russian extraction
Andrei Shingarev (1869–1918), Russian doctor, publicist and politician
Ivan Bunin (1870–1953), the first Russian writer to win the Nobel Prize for Literature
Alexander Ostuzhev (1874–1953), Russian and Soviet drama actor
Valerian Albanov (1881–1919), Russian navigator and polar explorer
Jan Hambourg (1882–1947), Russian violinist, a member of a famous musical family
Volin (1882–1945), anarchist
Boris Hambourg (1885–1954), Russian cellist who made his career in the USA, Canada, England and Europe
Boris Eikhenbaum (1886–1959), Russian and Soviet literary scholar, and historian of Russian literature
Anatoly Durov (1887–1928), Russian animal trainer
Samuil Marshak (1887–1964), Russian and Soviet writer, translator and children's poet
Eduard Shpolsky (1892–1975), Russian and Soviet physicist and educator
George of Syracuse (1893–1981), Eastern Orthodox archbishop of the Ecumenical Patriarchate
Yevgeny Gabrilovich (1899–1993), Soviet screenwriter
Semyon Krivoshein (1899–1978), Soviet tank commander; Lieutenant General
Andrei Platonov (1899–1951), Soviet Russian writer, playwright and poet
Ivan Pravov (1899–1971), Russian and Soviet film director and screenwriter
William Dameshek (1900–1969), American hematologist
20th century
1901–1930
Ivan Nikolaev (1901–1979), Soviet architect and educator
Galina Shubina (1902–1980), Russian poster and graphics artist
Pavel Cherenkov (1904–1990), Soviet physicist who shared the Nobel Prize in physics in 1958 with Ilya Frank and Igor Tamm for the discovery of Cherenkov radiation, made in 1934
Yakov Kreizer (1905–1969), Soviet field commander, General of the army and Hero of the Soviet Union
Iosif Rudakovsky (1914–1947), Soviet chess master
Pawel Kassatkin (1915–1987), Russian writer
Alexander Shelepin (1918–1994), Soviet state security officer and party statesman
Grigory Baklanov (1923–2009), Russian writer
Gleb Strizhenov (1923–1985), Soviet actor
Vladimir Zagorovsky (1925–1994), Russian chess grandmaster of correspondence chess and the fourth ICCF World Champion between 1962 and 1965
Konstantin Feoktistov (1926–2009), cosmonaut and engineer
Vitaly Vorotnikov (1926–2012), Soviet statesman
Arkady Davidowitz (1930), writer and aphorist
1931–1950
Grigory Sanakoev (1935), Russian International Correspondence Chess Grandmaster, most famous for being the twelfth ICCF World Champion (1984–1991)
Yuri Zhuravlyov (1935), Russian mathematician
Mykola Koltsov (1936–2011), Soviet footballer and Ukrainian football children and youth trainer
Vyacheslav Ovchinnikov (1936), Russian composer
Iya Savvina (1936–2011), Soviet film actress
Tamara Zamotaylova (1939), Soviet gymnast, who won four Olympic medals at the 1960 and 1964 Summer Olympics
Yury Smolyakov (1941), Soviet Olympic fencer
Yevgeny Lapinsky (1942–1999), Soviet Olympic volleyball player
Galina Bukharina (1945), Soviet athlete
Vladimir Patkin (1945), Soviet Olympic volleyball player
Vladimir Proskurin (1945), Soviet Russian football player and coach
Aleksandr Maleyev (1947), Soviet artistic gymnast
Valeri Nenenko (1950), Russian professional football coach and player
1951–1970
Vladimir Rokhlin, Jr. (1952), Russian-American mathematician and professor of computer science and mathematics at the Yale University
Lyubov Burda (1953), Russian artistic gymnast
Mikhail Khryukin (1955), Russian swimmer
Aleksandr Tkachyov (1957), Russian gymnast and two times Olympic Champion
Nikolai Vasilyev (1957), Russian professional football coach and player
Aleksandr Babanov (1958), Russian professional football coach and player
Sergey Koliukh (1960), Russian political figure; 4th Mayor of Voronezh
Yelena Davydova (1961), Soviet gymnast
Aleksandr Borodyuk (1962), Russian football manager and former international player for USSR and Russia
Aleksandr Chayev (1962), Russian swimmer
Elena Fanailova (1962), Russian poet
Alexander Litvinenko (1962–2006), officer of the Russian FSB and political dissident
Yuri Shishkin (1963), Russian professional football coach and player
Yuri Klinskikh (1964–2000), Russian musician, singer, songwriter, arranger, founder rock band Sektor Gaza
Yelena Ruzina (1964), athlete
Igor Bragin (1965), footballer
Gennadi Remezov (1965), Russian professional footballer
Valeri Shmarov (1965), Russian football player and coach
Konstantin Chernyshov (1967), Russian chess grandmaster
Igor Pyvin (1967), Russian professional football coach and player
Vladimir Bobrezhov (1968), Soviet sprint canoer
1971–1980
Oleg Gorobiy (1971), Russian sprint canoer
Anatoli Kanishchev (1971), Russian professional association footballer
Ruslan Mashchenko (1971), Russian hurdler
Aleksandr Ovsyannikov (1974), Russian professional footballer
Dmitri Sautin (1974), Russian diver who has won more medals than any other Olympic diver
Sergey Verlin (1974), Russian sprint canoer
Maxim Narozhnyy (1975–2011), Paralympian athlete
Aleksandr Cherkes (1976), Russian football coach and player
Andrei Durov (1977), Russian professional footballer
Nikolai Kryukov (1978), Russian artistic gymnast
Kirill Gerstein (1979), Jewish American and Russian pianist
Evgeny Ignatov (1979), Russian sprint canoeist
Aleksey Nikolaev (1979), Russian-Uzbekistan footballer
Aleksandr Palchikov (1979), former Russian professional football player
Konstantin Skrylnikov (1979), Russian professional footballer
Aleksandr Varlamov (1979), Russian diver
Angelina Yushkova (1979), Russian gymnast
Maksim Potapov (1980), professional ice hockey player
1981–1990
Alexander Krysanov (1981), Russian professional ice hockey forward
Yulia Nachalova (1981–2019), Soviet and Russian singer, actress and television presenter
Andrei Ryabykh (1982), Russian football player
Maxim Shchyogolev (1982), Russian theatre and film actor
Eduard Vorganov (1982), Russian professional road bicycle racer
Anton Buslov (1983–2014), Russian astrophysicist, blogger, columnist at The New Times magazine and expert on transportation systems
Dmitri Grachyov (1983), Russian footballer
Aleksandr Kokorev (1984), Russian professional football player
Dmitry Kozonchuk (1984), Russian professional road bicycle racer for Team Katusha
Alexander Khatuntsev (1985), Russian professional road bicycle racer
Egor Vyaltsev (1985), Russian professional basketball player
Samvel Aslanyan (1986), Russian handball player
Maksim Chistyakov (1986), Russian football player
Yevgeniy Dorokhin (1986), Russian sprint canoer
Daniil Gridnev (1986), Russian professional footballer
Vladimir Moskalyov (1986), Russian football referee
Elena Danilova (1987), Russian football forward
Sektor Gaza (1987–2000), punk band
Regina Moroz (1987), Russian female volleyball player
Roman Shishkin (1987), Russian footballer
Viktor Stroyev (1987), Russian footballer
Elena Terekhova (1987), Russian international footballer
Natalia Goncharova (1988), Russian diver
Yelena Yudina (1988), Russian skeleton racer
Dmitry Abakumov (1989), Russian professional association football player
Igor Boev (1989), Russian professional racing cyclist
Ivan Dobronravov (1989), Russian actor
Anna Bogomazova (1990), Russian kickboxer, martial artist, professional wrestler and valet
Yuriy Kunakov (1990), Russian diver
Vitaly Melnikov (1990), Russian backstroke swimmer
Kristina Pravdina (1990), Russian female artistic gymnast
Vladislav Ryzhkov (1990), Russian footballer
1991–2000
Danila Poperechny (1994), Russian stand-up comedian, actor, youtuber, podcaster
Darya Stukalova (1994), Russian Paralympic swimmer
Viktoria Komova (1995), Russian Olympic gymnast
Vitali Lystsov (1995), Russian professional footballer
Marina Nekrasova (1995), Russian-born Azerbaijani artistic gymnast
Vladislav Parshikov (1996), Russian football player
Dmitri Skopintsev (1997), Russian footballer
Alexander Eickholtz (1998) American sportsman
Angelina Melnikova (2000), Russian Olympic gymnast
Lived in Voronezh
Aleksey Khovansky (1814–1899), editor
Ivan Kramskoi (1837–1887), Russian painter and art critic
Mitrofan Pyatnitsky (1864–1927), Russian musician
Mikhail Tsvet (1872–1919), Russian botanist
Alexander Kuprin (1880–1960), Russian painter, a member of the Jack of Diamonds group
Yevgeny Zamyatin (1884-1937), Russian writer, went to school in Voronezh
Osip Mandelstam (1891–1938), Russian poet
Nadezhda Mandelstam (1899-1980), Russian writer
Gavriil Troyepolsky (1905–1995), Soviet writer
Nikolay Basov (1922–2001), Soviet physicist and educator
Vasily Peskov (1930–2013), Russian writer, journalist, photographer, traveller and ecologist
Valentina Popova (1972), Russian weightlifter
Igor Samsonov, painter
Tatyana Zrazhevskaya, Russian boxer
The twin snow leopards born at the Rio Grande Bio Park May 3, 2013. The female cubs are named Kira and Trini.
These cubs are the first cubs born at the BioPark since July 2011. The 2011 male cubs, Kiran and Kalmali, recently moved to other North American zoos as part of a Species Survival Plan (SSP).
Snow leopards are endangered, and zoos and conservation organizations around the world are protecting them through a SSP. The Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) manages the SSP to help arrange adult pairs to promote genetic diversity. Lynn Tupa, ABQ BioPark Zoo Manager, is the studbook keeper and maintains snow leopard records for the SSP. For the past eight years, Albuquerque's Zoo has been the most successful institution in the United States for breeding snow leopards.
Our adult snow leopards, Azeo and Kachina, ages 11 and 10 respectively, are a highly compatible breeding pair, having produced five previous litters.
The snow leopard (Panthera uncia) has been classified as endangered since 1974. Today, fewer than 5,000 snow leopards survive in their native Central Asian range from Afghanistan to Tibet. Threats include poaching for the illegal trade of pelts and bones for traditional Chinese medicine, degradation of habitat and the decline of prey due to over hunting.
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Select photos from my Flickr stream are available for purchase as prints or personal download at [www.winterfirephotographicarts.com].
Coria was a fort and town 2.5 miles (4.0 km) south of Hadrian's Wall, in the Roman province of Britannia at a point where a big Roman north–south road (Dere Street) bridged the River Tyne and met another Roman road (Stanegate), which ran east–west between Coria and Luguvalium (the modern Carlisle) in the Solway Plain. The full Latin name is uncertain. In English, it is known as Corchester or Corbridge Roman Site as it sits on the edge of the village of Corbridge in the English county of Northumberland. It is in the guardianship of English Heritage and is partially exposed as a visitor attraction, including a site museum.
The place-name appears in contemporary records as Corstopitum and Corie Lopocarium. These forms are generally recognised as corrupt. Suggested reconstructions include Coriosopitum, Corsopitum or Corsobetum. The Vindolanda tablets show that it was locally referred to by the simple form, Coria, the name for a local tribal centre. The suffix ought to represent the name of the local tribe, a member of the Brigantian confederation but its correct form is unknown. It gave its name to Corbridge, albeit by processes which are debated.
There is evidence of Iron Age round houses on the site but the first Romans in the area built the Red House Fort, 0.5 mi (0.80 km) to the west, as a supply camp for Agricola's campaigns.
Soon after Roman victories in modern Scotland, around AD 84, a new fort was built on the site with turf ramparts and timber gates. Barrack blocks surrounded a headquarters building, a commander's residence, administrative staff accommodation, workshops and granaries. It was probably occupied by a 500-strong cavalry unit called the Ala Gallorum Petriana but burnt down in AD 105. A second timber fort was built, guarding an important crossing of the River Tyne, when the Solway Firth–Tyne divide was the Roman frontier. Around AD 120, when Hadrian's Wall was built just over two miles to the north, the fort was rebuilt again, probably to house infantry away from the Wall. About twenty years later, when the frontier was pushed further north and the Antonine Wall built, the first stone fort was erected under the Governor Quintus Lollius Urbicus.
English Heritage has released monographs on the forts along Hadrian's Wall through the Archaeology Data Service. Bishop and Dore's report on the excavations at Corbridge 1947–80 reveal the complex history of the sequence of mainly earth and timber forts which preceded the masonry buildings. The reports also cover a metal hoard found within the fort, possibly linked to the abandonment between AD 122 and 138
After the Romans fell back to Hadrian's Wall in AD 163, the army seems to have been largely removed from Coria. Its ramparts were levelled and a big rebuilding programme of a very different nature was instigated. A series of probable temples were erected, followed by granaries, a fountain house and a large courtyard complex, which may have been intended to become a civilian forum or a military storehouse and workshop establishment. It was never finished in its original plan.
Burnt timber buildings may relate to Cassius Dio's reference to tribes crossing the frontier but by the early 3rd century there was more construction. Two compounds opposite the supposed forum were built as part of a military supply depot within the town. It was connected with the Second and the Sixth Legion and may have been part of the supply network for Septimius Severus' northern campaigns.
Information on the 3rd- and 4th-century town is lacking but an elaborate house was certainly put up which may have housed an Imperial official. Coria was probably a big market centre for the lead, iron and coal industries in the area, as well as agriculture, evidenced by the granaries. A pottery store has also been identified. When occupation came to an end is unclear. It is not even known if the site was still occupied when the Anglo-Saxons arrived to found adjoining Corbridge.
The Corbridge Hoard was found here.
Between 1906 and 1914, the site was excavated following a desire by the Northumberland County History Committee to assess the Roman remains at Corbridge ahead of a book on the history of the parish, overseen by Francis J. Haverfield. During that time, a number of scholars from Oxford University were sent by Haverfield to supervise local labourers tasked with the actual excavation, including J.P. Bushe-Fox and Leonard Woolley, making it one of the first training excavations in British archaeology. Brian Dobson later ran adult training excavations at Corbridge in the 1960s and 1970s.
Work on Hexham Abbey in 1881 brought to light a Roman funerary monument in the stonework of the south porch of the transept. An elaborately carved stone (now on display in the abbey) shows a standard-bearer in the Roman cavalry riding down a barbarian: its inscription shows it to commemorate Flavinus, an officer in the ala Petriana who died aged 25 after seven years' service. The ala Petriana is known to have been stationed at Corbridge, and the slab is thought to date to the late first century and to have once stood in the military cemetery near the fort there.
Roman Britain was the territory that became the Roman province of Britannia after the Roman conquest of Britain, consisting of a large part of the island of Great Britain. The occupation lasted from AD 43 to AD 410.
Julius Caesar invaded Britain in 55 and 54 BC as part of his Gallic Wars. According to Caesar, the Britons had been overrun or culturally assimilated by the Belgae during the British Iron Age and had been aiding Caesar's enemies. The Belgae were the only Celtic tribe to cross the sea into Britain, for to all other Celtic tribes this land was unknown. He received tribute, installed the friendly king Mandubracius over the Trinovantes, and returned to Gaul. Planned invasions under Augustus were called off in 34, 27, and 25 BC. In 40 AD, Caligula assembled 200,000 men at the Channel on the continent, only to have them gather seashells (musculi) according to Suetonius, perhaps as a symbolic gesture to proclaim Caligula's victory over the sea. Three years later, Claudius directed four legions to invade Britain and restore the exiled king Verica over the Atrebates. The Romans defeated the Catuvellauni, and then organized their conquests as the province of Britain. By 47 AD, the Romans held the lands southeast of the Fosse Way. Control over Wales was delayed by reverses and the effects of Boudica's uprising, but the Romans expanded steadily northward.
The conquest of Britain continued under command of Gnaeus Julius Agricola (77–84), who expanded the Roman Empire as far as Caledonia. In mid-84 AD, Agricola faced the armies of the Caledonians, led by Calgacus, at the Battle of Mons Graupius. Battle casualties were estimated by Tacitus to be upwards of 10,000 on the Caledonian side and about 360 on the Roman side. The bloodbath at Mons Graupius concluded the forty-year conquest of Britain, a period that possibly saw between 100,000 and 250,000 Britons killed. In the context of pre-industrial warfare and of a total population of Britain of c. 2 million, these are very high figures.
Under the 2nd-century emperors Hadrian and Antoninus Pius, two walls were built to defend the Roman province from the Caledonians, whose realms in the Scottish Highlands were never controlled. Around 197 AD, the Severan Reforms divided Britain into two provinces: Britannia Superior and Britannia Inferior. During the Diocletian Reforms, at the end of the 3rd century, Britannia was divided into four provinces under the direction of a vicarius, who administered the Diocese of the Britains. A fifth province, Valentia, is attested in the later 4th century. For much of the later period of the Roman occupation, Britannia was subject to barbarian invasions and often came under the control of imperial usurpers and imperial pretenders. The final Roman withdrawal from Britain occurred around 410; the native kingdoms are considered to have formed Sub-Roman Britain after that.
Following the conquest of the Britons, a distinctive Romano-British culture emerged as the Romans introduced improved agriculture, urban planning, industrial production, and architecture. The Roman goddess Britannia became the female personification of Britain. After the initial invasions, Roman historians generally only mention Britain in passing. Thus, most present knowledge derives from archaeological investigations and occasional epigraphic evidence lauding the Britannic achievements of an emperor. Roman citizens settled in Britain from many parts of the Empire.
History
Britain was known to the Classical world. The Greeks, the Phoenicians and the Carthaginians traded for Cornish tin in the 4th century BC. The Greeks referred to the Cassiterides, or "tin islands", and placed them near the west coast of Europe. The Carthaginian sailor Himilco is said to have visited the island in the 6th or 5th century BC and the Greek explorer Pytheas in the 4th. It was regarded as a place of mystery, with some writers refusing to believe it existed.
The first direct Roman contact was when Julius Caesar undertook two expeditions in 55 and 54 BC, as part of his conquest of Gaul, believing the Britons were helping the Gallic resistance. The first expedition was more a reconnaissance than a full invasion and gained a foothold on the coast of Kent but was unable to advance further because of storm damage to the ships and a lack of cavalry. Despite the military failure, it was a political success, with the Roman Senate declaring a 20-day public holiday in Rome to honour the unprecedented achievement of obtaining hostages from Britain and defeating Belgic tribes on returning to the continent.
The second invasion involved a substantially larger force and Caesar coerced or invited many of the native Celtic tribes to pay tribute and give hostages in return for peace. A friendly local king, Mandubracius, was installed, and his rival, Cassivellaunus, was brought to terms. Hostages were taken, but historians disagree over whether any tribute was paid after Caesar returned to Gaul.
Caesar conquered no territory and left no troops behind, but he established clients and brought Britain into Rome's sphere of influence. Augustus planned invasions in 34, 27 and 25 BC, but circumstances were never favourable, and the relationship between Britain and Rome settled into one of diplomacy and trade. Strabo, writing late in Augustus's reign, claimed that taxes on trade brought in more annual revenue than any conquest could. Archaeology shows that there was an increase in imported luxury goods in southeastern Britain. Strabo also mentions British kings who sent embassies to Augustus, and Augustus's own Res Gestae refers to two British kings he received as refugees. When some of Tiberius's ships were carried to Britain in a storm during his campaigns in Germany in 16 AD, they came back with tales of monsters.
Rome appears to have encouraged a balance of power in southern Britain, supporting two powerful kingdoms: the Catuvellauni, ruled by the descendants of Tasciovanus, and the Atrebates, ruled by the descendants of Commius. This policy was followed until 39 or 40 AD, when Caligula received an exiled member of the Catuvellaunian dynasty and planned an invasion of Britain that collapsed in farcical circumstances before it left Gaul. When Claudius successfully invaded in 43 AD, it was in aid of another fugitive British ruler, Verica of the Atrebates.
Roman invasion
The invasion force in 43 AD was led by Aulus Plautius,[26] but it is unclear how many legions were sent. The Legio II Augusta, commanded by future emperor Vespasian, was the only one directly attested to have taken part. The Legio IX Hispana, the XIV Gemina (later styled Martia Victrix) and the XX (later styled Valeria Victrix) are known to have served during the Boudican Revolt of 60/61, and were probably there since the initial invasion. This is not certain because the Roman army was flexible, with units being moved around whenever necessary. The IX Hispana may have been permanently stationed, with records showing it at Eboracum (York) in 71 and on a building inscription there dated 108, before being destroyed in the east of the Empire, possibly during the Bar Kokhba revolt.
The invasion was delayed by a troop mutiny until an imperial freedman persuaded them to overcome their fear of crossing the Ocean and campaigning beyond the limits of the known world. They sailed in three divisions, and probably landed at Richborough in Kent; at least part of the force may have landed near Fishbourne, West Sussex.
The Catuvellauni and their allies were defeated in two battles: the first, assuming a Richborough landing, on the river Medway, the second on the river Thames. One of their leaders, Togodumnus, was killed, but his brother Caratacus survived to continue resistance elsewhere. Plautius halted at the Thames and sent for Claudius, who arrived with reinforcements, including artillery and elephants, for the final march to the Catuvellaunian capital, Camulodunum (Colchester). Vespasian subdued the southwest, Cogidubnus was set up as a friendly king of several territories, and treaties were made with tribes outside direct Roman control.
Establishment of Roman rule
After capturing the south of the island, the Romans turned their attention to what is now Wales. The Silures, Ordovices and Deceangli remained implacably opposed to the invaders and for the first few decades were the focus of Roman military attention, despite occasional minor revolts among Roman allies like the Brigantes and the Iceni. The Silures were led by Caratacus, and he carried out an effective guerrilla campaign against Governor Publius Ostorius Scapula. Finally, in 51, Ostorius lured Caratacus into a set-piece battle and defeated him. The British leader sought refuge among the Brigantes, but their queen, Cartimandua, proved her loyalty by surrendering him to the Romans. He was brought as a captive to Rome, where a dignified speech he made during Claudius's triumph persuaded the emperor to spare his life. The Silures were still not pacified, and Cartimandua's ex-husband Venutius replaced Caratacus as the most prominent leader of British resistance.
On Nero's accession, Roman Britain extended as far north as Lindum. Gaius Suetonius Paulinus, the conqueror of Mauretania (modern day Algeria and Morocco), then became governor of Britain, and in 60 and 61 he moved against Mona (Anglesey) to settle accounts with Druidism once and for all. Paulinus led his army across the Menai Strait and massacred the Druids and burnt their sacred groves.
While Paulinus was campaigning in Mona, the southeast of Britain rose in revolt under the leadership of Boudica. She was the widow of the recently deceased king of the Iceni, Prasutagus. The Roman historian Tacitus reports that Prasutagus had left a will leaving half his kingdom to Nero in the hope that the remainder would be left untouched. He was wrong. When his will was enforced, Rome[clarification needed] responded by violently seizing the tribe's lands in full. Boudica protested. In consequence, Rome[clarification needed] punished her and her daughters by flogging and rape. In response, the Iceni, joined by the Trinovantes, destroyed the Roman colony at Camulodunum (Colchester) and routed the part of the IXth Legion that was sent to relieve it. Paulinus rode to London (then called Londinium), the rebels' next target, but concluded it could not be defended. Abandoned, it was destroyed, as was Verulamium (St. Albans). Between seventy and eighty thousand people are said to have been killed in the three cities. But Paulinus regrouped with two of the three legions still available to him, chose a battlefield, and, despite being outnumbered by more than twenty to one, defeated the rebels in the Battle of Watling Street. Boudica died not long afterwards, by self-administered poison or by illness. During this time, the Emperor Nero considered withdrawing Roman forces from Britain altogether.
There was further turmoil in 69, the "Year of the Four Emperors". As civil war raged in Rome, weak governors were unable to control the legions in Britain, and Venutius of the Brigantes seized his chance. The Romans had previously defended Cartimandua against him, but this time were unable to do so. Cartimandua was evacuated, and Venutius was left in control of the north of the country. After Vespasian secured the empire, his first two appointments as governor, Quintus Petillius Cerialis and Sextus Julius Frontinus, took on the task of subduing the Brigantes and Silures respectively.[38] Frontinus extended Roman rule to all of South Wales, and initiated exploitation of the mineral resources, such as the gold mines at Dolaucothi.
In the following years, the Romans conquered more of the island, increasing the size of Roman Britain. Governor Gnaeus Julius Agricola, father-in-law to the historian Tacitus, conquered the Ordovices in 78. With the XX Valeria Victrix legion, Agricola defeated the Caledonians in 84 at the Battle of Mons Graupius, in north-east Scotland. This was the high-water mark of Roman territory in Britain: shortly after his victory, Agricola was recalled from Britain back to Rome, and the Romans initially retired to a more defensible line along the Forth–Clyde isthmus, freeing soldiers badly needed along other frontiers.
For much of the history of Roman Britain, a large number of soldiers were garrisoned on the island. This required that the emperor station a trusted senior man as governor of the province. As a result, many future emperors served as governors or legates in this province, including Vespasian, Pertinax, and Gordian I.
Roman military organisation in the north
In 84 AD
In 84 AD
In 155 AD
In 155 AD
Hadrian's Wall, and Antonine Wall
There is no historical source describing the decades that followed Agricola's recall. Even the name of his replacement is unknown. Archaeology has shown that some Roman forts south of the Forth–Clyde isthmus were rebuilt and enlarged; others appear to have been abandoned. By 87 the frontier had been consolidated on the Stanegate. Roman coins and pottery have been found circulating at native settlement sites in the Scottish Lowlands in the years before 100, indicating growing Romanisation. Some of the most important sources for this era are the writing tablets from the fort at Vindolanda in Northumberland, mostly dating to 90–110. These tablets provide evidence for the operation of a Roman fort at the edge of the Roman Empire, where officers' wives maintained polite society while merchants, hauliers and military personnel kept the fort operational and supplied.
Around 105 there appears to have been a serious setback at the hands of the tribes of the Picts: several Roman forts were destroyed by fire, with human remains and damaged armour at Trimontium (at modern Newstead, in SE Scotland) indicating hostilities at least at that site.[citation needed] There is also circumstantial evidence that auxiliary reinforcements were sent from Germany, and an unnamed British war of the period is mentioned on the gravestone of a tribune of Cyrene. Trajan's Dacian Wars may have led to troop reductions in the area or even total withdrawal followed by slighting of the forts by the Picts rather than an unrecorded military defeat. The Romans were also in the habit of destroying their own forts during an orderly withdrawal, in order to deny resources to an enemy. In either case, the frontier probably moved south to the line of the Stanegate at the Solway–Tyne isthmus around this time.
A new crisis occurred at the beginning of Hadrian's reign): a rising in the north which was suppressed by Quintus Pompeius Falco. When Hadrian reached Britannia on his famous tour of the Roman provinces around 120, he directed an extensive defensive wall, known to posterity as Hadrian's Wall, to be built close to the line of the Stanegate frontier. Hadrian appointed Aulus Platorius Nepos as governor to undertake this work who brought the Legio VI Victrix legion with him from Germania Inferior. This replaced the famous Legio IX Hispana, whose disappearance has been much discussed. Archaeology indicates considerable political instability in Scotland during the first half of the 2nd century, and the shifting frontier at this time should be seen in this context.
In the reign of Antoninus Pius (138–161) the Hadrianic border was briefly extended north to the Forth–Clyde isthmus, where the Antonine Wall was built around 142 following the military reoccupation of the Scottish lowlands by a new governor, Quintus Lollius Urbicus.
The first Antonine occupation of Scotland ended as a result of a further crisis in 155–157, when the Brigantes revolted. With limited options to despatch reinforcements, the Romans moved their troops south, and this rising was suppressed by Governor Gnaeus Julius Verus. Within a year the Antonine Wall was recaptured, but by 163 or 164 it was abandoned. The second occupation was probably connected with Antoninus's undertakings to protect the Votadini or his pride in enlarging the empire, since the retreat to the Hadrianic frontier occurred not long after his death when a more objective strategic assessment of the benefits of the Antonine Wall could be made. The Romans did not entirely withdraw from Scotland at this time: the large fort at Newstead was maintained along with seven smaller outposts until at least 180.
During the twenty-year period following the reversion of the frontier to Hadrian's Wall in 163/4, Rome was concerned with continental issues, primarily problems in the Danubian provinces. Increasing numbers of hoards of buried coins in Britain at this time indicate that peace was not entirely achieved. Sufficient Roman silver has been found in Scotland to suggest more than ordinary trade, and it is likely that the Romans were reinforcing treaty agreements by paying tribute to their implacable enemies, the Picts.
In 175, a large force of Sarmatian cavalry, consisting of 5,500 men, arrived in Britannia, probably to reinforce troops fighting unrecorded uprisings. In 180, Hadrian's Wall was breached by the Picts and the commanding officer or governor was killed there in what Cassius Dio described as the most serious war of the reign of Commodus. Ulpius Marcellus was sent as replacement governor and by 184 he had won a new peace, only to be faced with a mutiny from his own troops. Unhappy with Marcellus's strictness, they tried to elect a legate named Priscus as usurper governor; he refused, but Marcellus was lucky to leave the province alive. The Roman army in Britannia continued its insubordination: they sent a delegation of 1,500 to Rome to demand the execution of Tigidius Perennis, a Praetorian prefect who they felt had earlier wronged them by posting lowly equites to legate ranks in Britannia. Commodus met the party outside Rome and agreed to have Perennis killed, but this only made them feel more secure in their mutiny.
The future emperor Pertinax (lived 126–193) was sent to Britannia to quell the mutiny and was initially successful in regaining control, but a riot broke out among the troops. Pertinax was attacked and left for dead, and asked to be recalled to Rome, where he briefly succeeded Commodus as emperor in 192.
3rd century
The death of Commodus put into motion a series of events which eventually led to civil war. Following the short reign of Pertinax, several rivals for the emperorship emerged, including Septimius Severus and Clodius Albinus. The latter was the new governor of Britannia, and had seemingly won the natives over after their earlier rebellions; he also controlled three legions, making him a potentially significant claimant. His sometime rival Severus promised him the title of Caesar in return for Albinus's support against Pescennius Niger in the east. Once Niger was neutralised, Severus turned on his ally in Britannia; it is likely that Albinus saw he would be the next target and was already preparing for war.
Albinus crossed to Gaul in 195, where the provinces were also sympathetic to him, and set up at Lugdunum. Severus arrived in February 196, and the ensuing battle was decisive. Albinus came close to victory, but Severus's reinforcements won the day, and the British governor committed suicide. Severus soon purged Albinus's sympathisers and perhaps confiscated large tracts of land in Britain as punishment. Albinus had demonstrated the major problem posed by Roman Britain. In order to maintain security, the province required the presence of three legions, but command of these forces provided an ideal power base for ambitious rivals. Deploying those legions elsewhere would strip the island of its garrison, leaving the province defenceless against uprisings by the native Celtic tribes and against invasion by the Picts and Scots.
The traditional view is that northern Britain descended into anarchy during Albinus's absence. Cassius Dio records that the new Governor, Virius Lupus, was obliged to buy peace from a fractious northern tribe known as the Maeatae. The succession of militarily distinguished governors who were subsequently appointed suggests that enemies of Rome were posing a difficult challenge, and Lucius Alfenus Senecio's report to Rome in 207 describes barbarians "rebelling, over-running the land, taking loot and creating destruction". In order to rebel, of course, one must be a subject – the Maeatae clearly did not consider themselves such. Senecio requested either reinforcements or an Imperial expedition, and Severus chose the latter, despite being 62 years old. Archaeological evidence shows that Senecio had been rebuilding the defences of Hadrian's Wall and the forts beyond it, and Severus's arrival in Britain prompted the enemy tribes to sue for peace immediately. The emperor had not come all that way to leave without a victory, and it is likely that he wished to provide his teenage sons Caracalla and Geta with first-hand experience of controlling a hostile barbarian land.
Northern campaigns, 208–211
An invasion of Caledonia led by Severus and probably numbering around 20,000 troops moved north in 208 or 209, crossing the Wall and passing through eastern Scotland on a route similar to that used by Agricola. Harried by punishing guerrilla raids by the northern tribes and slowed by an unforgiving terrain, Severus was unable to meet the Caledonians on a battlefield. The emperor's forces pushed north as far as the River Tay, but little appears to have been achieved by the invasion, as peace treaties were signed with the Caledonians. By 210 Severus had returned to York, and the frontier had once again become Hadrian's Wall. He assumed the title Britannicus but the title meant little with regard to the unconquered north, which clearly remained outside the authority of the Empire. Almost immediately, another northern tribe, the Maeatae, went to war. Caracalla left with a punitive expedition, but by the following year his ailing father had died and he and his brother left the province to press their claim to the throne.
As one of his last acts, Severus tried to solve the problem of powerful and rebellious governors in Britain by dividing the province into Britannia Superior and Britannia Inferior. This kept the potential for rebellion in check for almost a century. Historical sources provide little information on the following decades, a period known as the Long Peace. Even so, the number of buried hoards found from this period rises, suggesting continuing unrest. A string of forts were built along the coast of southern Britain to control piracy; and over the following hundred years they increased in number, becoming the Saxon Shore Forts.
During the middle of the 3rd century, the Roman Empire was convulsed by barbarian invasions, rebellions and new imperial pretenders. Britannia apparently avoided these troubles, but increasing inflation had its economic effect. In 259 a so-called Gallic Empire was established when Postumus rebelled against Gallienus. Britannia was part of this until 274 when Aurelian reunited the empire.
Around the year 280, a half-British officer named Bonosus was in command of the Roman's Rhenish fleet when the Germans managed to burn it at anchor. To avoid punishment, he proclaimed himself emperor at Colonia Agrippina (Cologne) but was crushed by Marcus Aurelius Probus. Soon afterwards, an unnamed governor of one of the British provinces also attempted an uprising. Probus put it down by sending irregular troops of Vandals and Burgundians across the Channel.
The Carausian Revolt led to a short-lived Britannic Empire from 286 to 296. Carausius was a Menapian naval commander of the Britannic fleet; he revolted upon learning of a death sentence ordered by the emperor Maximian on charges of having abetted Frankish and Saxon pirates and having embezzled recovered treasure. He consolidated control over all the provinces of Britain and some of northern Gaul while Maximian dealt with other uprisings. An invasion in 288 failed to unseat him and an uneasy peace ensued, with Carausius issuing coins and inviting official recognition. In 293, the junior emperor Constantius Chlorus launched a second offensive, besieging the rebel port of Gesoriacum (Boulogne-sur-Mer) by land and sea. After it fell, Constantius attacked Carausius's other Gallic holdings and Frankish allies and Carausius was usurped by his treasurer, Allectus. Julius Asclepiodotus landed an invasion fleet near Southampton and defeated Allectus in a land battle.
Diocletian's reforms
As part of Diocletian's reforms, the provinces of Roman Britain were organized as a diocese governed by a vicarius under a praetorian prefect who, from 318 to 331, was Junius Bassus who was based at Augusta Treverorum (Trier).
The vicarius was based at Londinium as the principal city of the diocese. Londinium and Eboracum continued as provincial capitals and the territory was divided up into smaller provinces for administrative efficiency.
Civilian and military authority of a province was no longer exercised by one official and the governor was stripped of military command which was handed over to the Dux Britanniarum by 314. The governor of a province assumed more financial duties (the procurators of the Treasury ministry were slowly phased out in the first three decades of the 4th century). The Dux was commander of the troops of the Northern Region, primarily along Hadrian's Wall and his responsibilities included protection of the frontier. He had significant autonomy due in part to the distance from his superiors.
The tasks of the vicarius were to control and coordinate the activities of governors; monitor but not interfere with the daily functioning of the Treasury and Crown Estates, which had their own administrative infrastructure; and act as the regional quartermaster-general of the armed forces. In short, as the sole civilian official with superior authority, he had general oversight of the administration, as well as direct control, while not absolute, over governors who were part of the prefecture; the other two fiscal departments were not.
The early-4th-century Verona List, the late-4th-century work of Sextus Rufus, and the early-5th-century List of Offices and work of Polemius Silvius all list four provinces by some variation of the names Britannia I, Britannia II, Maxima Caesariensis, and Flavia Caesariensis; all of these seem to have initially been directed by a governor (praeses) of equestrian rank. The 5th-century sources list a fifth province named Valentia and give its governor and Maxima's a consular rank. Ammianus mentions Valentia as well, describing its creation by Count Theodosius in 369 after the quelling of the Great Conspiracy. Ammianus considered it a re-creation of a formerly lost province, leading some to think there had been an earlier fifth province under another name (may be the enigmatic "Vespasiana"), and leading others to place Valentia beyond Hadrian's Wall, in the territory abandoned south of the Antonine Wall.
Reconstructions of the provinces and provincial capitals during this period partially rely on ecclesiastical records. On the assumption that the early bishoprics mimicked the imperial hierarchy, scholars use the list of bishops for the 314 Council of Arles. The list is patently corrupt: the British delegation is given as including a Bishop "Eborius" of Eboracum and two bishops "from Londinium" (one de civitate Londinensi and the other de civitate colonia Londinensium). The error is variously emended: Bishop Ussher proposed Colonia, Selden Col. or Colon. Camalodun., and Spelman Colonia Cameloduni (all various names of Colchester); Gale and Bingham offered colonia Lindi and Henry Colonia Lindum (both Lincoln); and Bishop Stillingfleet and Francis Thackeray read it as a scribal error of Civ. Col. Londin. for an original Civ. Col. Leg. II (Caerleon). On the basis of the Verona List, the priest and deacon who accompanied the bishops in some manuscripts are ascribed to the fourth province.
In the 12th century, Gerald of Wales described the supposedly metropolitan sees of the early British church established by the legendary SS Fagan and "Duvian". He placed Britannia Prima in Wales and western England with its capital at "Urbs Legionum" (Caerleon); Britannia Secunda in Kent and southern England with its capital at "Dorobernia" (Canterbury); Flavia in Mercia and central England with its capital at "Lundonia" (London); "Maximia" in northern England with its capital at Eboracum (York); and Valentia in "Albania which is now Scotland" with its capital at St Andrews. Modern scholars generally dispute the last: some place Valentia at or beyond Hadrian's Wall but St Andrews is beyond even the Antonine Wall and Gerald seems to have simply been supporting the antiquity of its church for political reasons.
A common modern reconstruction places the consular province of Maxima at Londinium, on the basis of its status as the seat of the diocesan vicarius; places Prima in the west according to Gerald's traditional account but moves its capital to Corinium of the Dobunni (Cirencester) on the basis of an artifact recovered there referring to Lucius Septimius, a provincial rector; places Flavia north of Maxima, with its capital placed at Lindum Colonia (Lincoln) to match one emendation of the bishops list from Arles;[d] and places Secunda in the north with its capital at Eboracum (York). Valentia is placed variously in northern Wales around Deva (Chester); beside Hadrian's Wall around Luguvalium (Carlisle); and between the walls along Dere Street.
4th century
Emperor Constantius returned to Britain in 306, despite his poor health, with an army aiming to invade northern Britain, the provincial defences having been rebuilt in the preceding years. Little is known of his campaigns with scant archaeological evidence, but fragmentary historical sources suggest he reached the far north of Britain and won a major battle in early summer before returning south. His son Constantine (later Constantine the Great) spent a year in northern Britain at his father's side, campaigning against the Picts beyond Hadrian's Wall in the summer and autumn. Constantius died in York in July 306 with his son at his side. Constantine then successfully used Britain as the starting point of his march to the imperial throne, unlike the earlier usurper, Albinus.
In the middle of the century, the province was loyal for a few years to the usurper Magnentius, who succeeded Constans following the latter's death. After the defeat and death of Magnentius in the Battle of Mons Seleucus in 353, Constantius II dispatched his chief imperial notary Paulus Catena to Britain to hunt down Magnentius's supporters. The investigation deteriorated into a witch-hunt, which forced the vicarius Flavius Martinus to intervene. When Paulus retaliated by accusing Martinus of treason, the vicarius attacked Paulus with a sword, with the aim of assassinating him, but in the end he committed suicide.
As the 4th century progressed, there were increasing attacks from the Saxons in the east and the Scoti (Irish) in the west. A series of forts had been built, starting around 280, to defend the coasts, but these preparations were not enough when, in 367, a general assault of Saxons, Picts, Scoti and Attacotti, combined with apparent dissension in the garrison on Hadrian's Wall, left Roman Britain prostrate. The invaders overwhelmed the entire western and northern regions of Britannia and the cities were sacked. This crisis, sometimes called the Barbarian Conspiracy or the Great Conspiracy, was settled by Count Theodosius from 368 with a string of military and civil reforms. Theodosius crossed from Bononia (Boulogne-sur-Mer) and marched on Londinium where he began to deal with the invaders and made his base.[ An amnesty was promised to deserters which enabled Theodosius to regarrison abandoned forts. By the end of the year Hadrian's Wall was retaken and order returned. Considerable reorganization was undertaken in Britain, including the creation of a new province named Valentia, probably to better address the state of the far north. A new Dux Britanniarum was appointed, Dulcitius, with Civilis to head a new civilian administration.
Another imperial usurper, Magnus Maximus, raised the standard of revolt at Segontium (Caernarfon) in north Wales in 383, and crossed the English Channel. Maximus held much of the western empire, and fought a successful campaign against the Picts and Scots around 384. His continental exploits required troops from Britain, and it appears that forts at Chester and elsewhere were abandoned in this period, triggering raids and settlement in north Wales by the Irish. His rule was ended in 388, but not all the British troops may have returned: the Empire's military resources were stretched to the limit along the Rhine and Danube. Around 396 there were more barbarian incursions into Britain. Stilicho led a punitive expedition. It seems peace was restored by 399, and it is likely that no further garrisoning was ordered; by 401 more troops were withdrawn, to assist in the war against Alaric I.
End of Roman rule
The traditional view of historians, informed by the work of Michael Rostovtzeff, was of a widespread economic decline at the beginning of the 5th century. Consistent archaeological evidence has told another story, and the accepted view is undergoing re-evaluation. Some features are agreed: more opulent but fewer urban houses, an end to new public building and some abandonment of existing ones, with the exception of defensive structures, and the widespread formation of "dark earth" deposits indicating increased horticulture within urban precincts. Turning over the basilica at Silchester to industrial uses in the late 3rd century, doubtless officially condoned, marks an early stage in the de-urbanisation of Roman Britain.
The abandonment of some sites is now believed to be later than had been thought. Many buildings changed use but were not destroyed. There was a growing number of barbarian attacks, but these targeted vulnerable rural settlements rather than towns. Some villas such as Chedworth, Great Casterton in Rutland and Hucclecote in Gloucestershire had new mosaic floors laid around this time, suggesting that economic problems may have been limited and patchy. Many suffered some decay before being abandoned in the 5th century; the story of Saint Patrick indicates that villas were still occupied until at least 430. Exceptionally, new buildings were still going up in this period in Verulamium and Cirencester. Some urban centres, for example Canterbury, Cirencester, Wroxeter, Winchester and Gloucester, remained active during the 5th and 6th centuries, surrounded by large farming estates.
Urban life had generally grown less intense by the fourth quarter of the 4th century, and coins minted between 378 and 388 are very rare, indicating a likely combination of economic decline, diminishing numbers of troops, problems with the payment of soldiers and officials or with unstable conditions during the usurpation of Magnus Maximus 383–87. Coinage circulation increased during the 390s, but never attained the levels of earlier decades. Copper coins are very rare after 402, though minted silver and gold coins from hoards indicate they were still present in the province even if they were not being spent. By 407 there were very few new Roman coins going into circulation, and by 430 it is likely that coinage as a medium of exchange had been abandoned. Mass-produced wheel thrown pottery ended at approximately the same time; the rich continued to use metal and glass vessels, while the poor made do with humble "grey ware" or resorted to leather or wooden containers.
Sub-Roman Britain
Towards the end of the 4th century Roman rule in Britain came under increasing pressure from barbarian attacks. Apparently, there were not enough troops to mount an effective defence. After elevating two disappointing usurpers, the army chose a soldier, Constantine III, to become emperor in 407. He crossed to Gaul but was defeated by Honorius; it is unclear how many troops remained or ever returned, or whether a commander-in-chief in Britain was ever reappointed. A Saxon incursion in 408 was apparently repelled by the Britons, and in 409 Zosimus records that the natives expelled the Roman civilian administration. Zosimus may be referring to the Bacaudic rebellion of the Breton inhabitants of Armorica since he describes how, in the aftermath of the revolt, all of Armorica and the rest of Gaul followed the example of the Brettaniai. A letter from Emperor Honorius in 410 has traditionally been seen as rejecting a British appeal for help, but it may have been addressed to Bruttium or Bologna. With the imperial layers of the military and civil government gone, administration and justice fell to municipal authorities, and local warlords gradually emerged all over Britain, still utilizing Romano-British ideals and conventions. Historian Stuart Laycock has investigated this process and emphasised elements of continuity from the British tribes in the pre-Roman and Roman periods, through to the native post-Roman kingdoms.
In British tradition, pagan Saxons were invited by Vortigern to assist in fighting the Picts, Scoti, and Déisi. (Germanic migration into Roman Britannia may have begun much earlier. There is recorded evidence, for example, of Germanic auxiliaries supporting the legions in Britain in the 1st and 2nd centuries.) The new arrivals rebelled, plunging the country into a series of wars that eventually led to the Saxon occupation of Lowland Britain by 600. Around this time, many Britons fled to Brittany (hence its name), Galicia and probably Ireland. A significant date in sub-Roman Britain is the Groans of the Britons, an unanswered appeal to Aetius, leading general of the western Empire, for assistance against Saxon invasion in 446. Another is the Battle of Deorham in 577, after which the significant cities of Bath, Cirencester and Gloucester fell and the Saxons reached the western sea.
Historians generally reject the historicity of King Arthur, who is supposed to have resisted the Anglo-Saxon conquest according to later medieval legends.
Trade
During the Roman period Britain's continental trade was principally directed across the Southern North Sea and Eastern Channel, focusing on the narrow Strait of Dover, with more limited links via the Atlantic seaways. The most important British ports were London and Richborough, whilst the continental ports most heavily engaged in trade with Britain were Boulogne and the sites of Domburg and Colijnsplaat at the mouth of the river Scheldt. During the Late Roman period it is likely that the shore forts played some role in continental trade alongside their defensive functions.
Exports to Britain included: coin; pottery, particularly red-gloss terra sigillata (samian ware) from southern, central and eastern Gaul, as well as various other wares from Gaul and the Rhine provinces; olive oil from southern Spain in amphorae; wine from Gaul in amphorae and barrels; salted fish products from the western Mediterranean and Brittany in barrels and amphorae; preserved olives from southern Spain in amphorae; lava quern-stones from Mayen on the middle Rhine; glass; and some agricultural products. Britain's exports are harder to detect archaeologically, but will have included metals, such as silver and gold and some lead, iron and copper. Other exports probably included agricultural products, oysters and salt, whilst large quantities of coin would have been re-exported back to the continent as well.
These products moved as a result of private trade and also through payments and contracts established by the Roman state to support its military forces and officials on the island, as well as through state taxation and extraction of resources. Up until the mid-3rd century, the Roman state's payments appear to have been unbalanced, with far more products sent to Britain, to support its large military force (which had reached c. 53,000 by the mid-2nd century), than were extracted from the island.
It has been argued that Roman Britain's continental trade peaked in the late 1st century AD and thereafter declined as a result of an increasing reliance on local products by the population of Britain, caused by economic development on the island and by the Roman state's desire to save money by shifting away from expensive long-distance imports. Evidence has been outlined that suggests that the principal decline in Roman Britain's continental trade may have occurred in the late 2nd century AD, from c. 165 AD onwards. This has been linked to the economic impact of contemporary Empire-wide crises: the Antonine Plague and the Marcomannic Wars.
From the mid-3rd century onwards, Britain no longer received such a wide range and extensive quantity of foreign imports as it did during the earlier part of the Roman period; vast quantities of coin from continental mints reached the island, whilst there is historical evidence for the export of large amounts of British grain to the continent during the mid-4th century. During the latter part of the Roman period British agricultural products, paid for by both the Roman state and by private consumers, clearly played an important role in supporting the military garrisons and urban centres of the northwestern continental Empire. This came about as a result of the rapid decline in the size of the British garrison from the mid-3rd century onwards (thus freeing up more goods for export), and because of 'Germanic' incursions across the Rhine, which appear to have reduced rural settlement and agricultural output in northern Gaul.
Economy
Mineral extraction sites such as the Dolaucothi gold mine were probably first worked by the Roman army from c. 75, and at some later stage passed to civilian operators. The mine developed as a series of opencast workings, mainly by the use of hydraulic mining methods. They are described by Pliny the Elder in his Natural History in great detail. Essentially, water supplied by aqueducts was used to prospect for ore veins by stripping away soil to reveal the bedrock. If veins were present, they were attacked using fire-setting and the ore removed for comminution. The dust was washed in a small stream of water and the heavy gold dust and gold nuggets collected in riffles. The diagram at right shows how Dolaucothi developed from c. 75 through to the 1st century. When opencast work was no longer feasible, tunnels were driven to follow the veins. The evidence from the site shows advanced technology probably under the control of army engineers.
The Wealden ironworking zone, the lead and silver mines of the Mendip Hills and the tin mines of Cornwall seem to have been private enterprises leased from the government for a fee. Mining had long been practised in Britain (see Grimes Graves), but the Romans introduced new technical knowledge and large-scale industrial production to revolutionise the industry. It included hydraulic mining to prospect for ore by removing overburden as well as work alluvial deposits. The water needed for such large-scale operations was supplied by one or more aqueducts, those surviving at Dolaucothi being especially impressive. Many prospecting areas were in dangerous, upland country, and, although mineral exploitation was presumably one of the main reasons for the Roman invasion, it had to wait until these areas were subdued.
By the 3rd and 4th centuries, small towns could often be found near villas. In these towns, villa owners and small-scale farmers could obtain specialist tools. Lowland Britain in the 4th century was agriculturally prosperous enough to export grain to the continent. This prosperity lay behind the blossoming of villa building and decoration that occurred between AD 300 and 350.
Britain's cities also consumed Roman-style pottery and other goods, and were centres through which goods could be distributed elsewhere. At Wroxeter in Shropshire, stock smashed into a gutter during a 2nd-century fire reveals that Gaulish samian ware was being sold alongside mixing bowls from the Mancetter-Hartshill industry of the West Midlands. Roman designs were most popular, but rural craftsmen still produced items derived from the Iron Age La Tène artistic traditions. Britain was home to much gold, which attracted Roman invaders. By the 3rd century, Britain's economy was diverse and well established, with commerce extending into the non-Romanised north.
Government
Further information: Governors of Roman Britain, Roman client kingdoms in Britain, and Roman auxiliaries in Britain
Under the Roman Empire, administration of peaceful provinces was ultimately the remit of the Senate, but those, like Britain, that required permanent garrisons, were placed under the Emperor's control. In practice imperial provinces were run by resident governors who were members of the Senate and had held the consulship. These men were carefully selected, often having strong records of military success and administrative ability. In Britain, a governor's role was primarily military, but numerous other tasks were also his responsibility, such as maintaining diplomatic relations with local client kings, building roads, ensuring the public courier system functioned, supervising the civitates and acting as a judge in important legal cases. When not campaigning, he would travel the province hearing complaints and recruiting new troops.
To assist him in legal matters he had an adviser, the legatus juridicus, and those in Britain appear to have been distinguished lawyers perhaps because of the challenge of incorporating tribes into the imperial system and devising a workable method of taxing them. Financial administration was dealt with by a procurator with junior posts for each tax-raising power. Each legion in Britain had a commander who answered to the governor and, in time of war, probably directly ruled troublesome districts. Each of these commands carried a tour of duty of two to three years in different provinces. Below these posts was a network of administrative managers covering intelligence gathering, sending reports to Rome, organising military supplies and dealing with prisoners. A staff of seconded soldiers provided clerical services.
Colchester was probably the earliest capital of Roman Britain, but it was soon eclipsed by London with its strong mercantile connections. The different forms of municipal organisation in Britannia were known as civitas (which were subdivided, amongst other forms, into colonies such as York, Colchester, Gloucester and Lincoln and municipalities such as Verulamium), and were each governed by a senate of local landowners, whether Brythonic or Roman, who elected magistrates concerning judicial and civic affairs. The various civitates sent representatives to a yearly provincial council in order to profess loyalty to the Roman state, to send direct petitions to the Emperor in times of extraordinary need, and to worship the imperial cult.
Demographics
Roman Britain had an estimated population between 2.8 million and 3 million people at the end of the second century. At the end of the fourth century, it had an estimated population of 3.6 million people, of whom 125,000 consisted of the Roman army and their families and dependents.[80] The urban population of Roman Britain was about 240,000 people at the end of the fourth century. The capital city of Londinium is estimated to have had a population of about 60,000 people. Londinium was an ethnically diverse city with inhabitants from the Roman Empire, including natives of Britannia, continental Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa. There was also cultural diversity in other Roman-British towns, which were sustained by considerable migration, from Britannia and other Roman territories, including continental Europe, Roman Syria, the Eastern Mediterranean and North Africa. In a study conducted in 2012, around 45 percent of sites investigated dating from the Roman period had at least one individual of North African origin.
Town and country
During their occupation of Britain the Romans founded a number of important settlements, many of which survive. The towns suffered attrition in the later 4th century, when public building ceased and some were abandoned to private uses. Place names survived the deurbanised Sub-Roman and early Anglo-Saxon periods, and historiography has been at pains to signal the expected survivals, but archaeology shows that a bare handful of Roman towns were continuously occupied. According to S.T. Loseby, the very idea of a town as a centre of power and administration was reintroduced to England by the Roman Christianising mission to Canterbury, and its urban revival was delayed to the 10th century.
Roman towns can be broadly grouped in two categories. Civitates, "public towns" were formally laid out on a grid plan, and their role in imperial administration occasioned the construction of public buildings. The much more numerous category of vici, "small towns" grew on informal plans, often round a camp or at a ford or crossroads; some were not small, others were scarcely urban, some not even defended by a wall, the characteristic feature of a place of any importance.
Cities and towns which have Roman origins, or were extensively developed by them are listed with their Latin names in brackets; civitates are marked C
Alcester (Alauna)
Alchester
Aldborough, North Yorkshire (Isurium Brigantum) C
Bath (Aquae Sulis) C
Brough (Petuaria) C
Buxton (Aquae Arnemetiae)
Caerleon (Isca Augusta) C
Caernarfon (Segontium) C
Caerwent (Venta Silurum) C
Caister-on-Sea C
Canterbury (Durovernum Cantiacorum) C
Carlisle (Luguvalium) C
Carmarthen (Moridunum) C
Chelmsford (Caesaromagus)
Chester (Deva Victrix) C
Chester-le-Street (Concangis)
Chichester (Noviomagus Reginorum) C
Cirencester (Corinium) C
Colchester (Camulodunum) C
Corbridge (Coria) C
Dorchester (Durnovaria) C
Dover (Portus Dubris)
Exeter (Isca Dumnoniorum) C
Gloucester (Glevum) C
Great Chesterford (the name of this vicus is unknown)
Ilchester (Lindinis) C
Leicester (Ratae Corieltauvorum) C
Lincoln (Lindum Colonia) C
London (Londinium) C
Manchester (Mamucium) C
Newcastle upon Tyne (Pons Aelius)
Northwich (Condate)
St Albans (Verulamium) C
Silchester (Calleva Atrebatum) C
Towcester (Lactodurum)
Whitchurch (Mediolanum) C
Winchester (Venta Belgarum) C
Wroxeter (Viroconium Cornoviorum) C
York (Eboracum) C
Religion
The druids, the Celtic priestly caste who were believed to originate in Britain, were outlawed by Claudius, and in 61 they vainly defended their sacred groves from destruction by the Romans on the island of Mona (Anglesey). Under Roman rule the Britons continued to worship native Celtic deities, such as Ancasta, but often conflated with their Roman equivalents, like Mars Rigonemetos at Nettleham.
The degree to which earlier native beliefs survived is difficult to gauge precisely. Certain European ritual traits such as the significance of the number 3, the importance of the head and of water sources such as springs remain in the archaeological record, but the differences in the votive offerings made at the baths at Bath, Somerset, before and after the Roman conquest suggest that continuity was only partial. Worship of the Roman emperor is widely recorded, especially at military sites. The founding of a Roman temple to Claudius at Camulodunum was one of the impositions that led to the revolt of Boudica. By the 3rd century, Pagans Hill Roman Temple in Somerset was able to exist peaceably and it did so into the 5th century.
Pagan religious practices were supported by priests, represented in Britain by votive deposits of priestly regalia such as chain crowns from West Stow and Willingham Fen.
Eastern cults such as Mithraism also grew in popularity towards the end of the occupation. The London Mithraeum is one example of the popularity of mystery religions among the soldiery. Temples to Mithras also exist in military contexts at Vindobala on Hadrian's Wall (the Rudchester Mithraeum) and at Segontium in Roman Wales (the Caernarfon Mithraeum).
Christianity
It is not clear when or how Christianity came to Britain. A 2nd-century "word square" has been discovered in Mamucium, the Roman settlement of Manchester. It consists of an anagram of PATER NOSTER carved on a piece of amphora. There has been discussion by academics whether the "word square" is a Christian artefact, but if it is, it is one of the earliest examples of early Christianity in Britain. The earliest confirmed written evidence for Christianity in Britain is a statement by Tertullian, c. 200 AD, in which he described "all the limits of the Spains, and the diverse nations of the Gauls, and the haunts of the Britons, inaccessible to the Romans, but subjugated to Christ". Archaeological evidence for Christian communities begins to appear in the 3rd and 4th centuries. Small timber churches are suggested at Lincoln and Silchester and baptismal fonts have been found at Icklingham and the Saxon Shore Fort at Richborough. The Icklingham font is made of lead, and visible in the British Museum. A Roman Christian graveyard exists at the same site in Icklingham. A possible Roman 4th-century church and associated burial ground was also discovered at Butt Road on the south-west outskirts of Colchester during the construction of the new police station there, overlying an earlier pagan cemetery. The Water Newton Treasure is a hoard of Christian silver church plate from the early 4th century and the Roman villas at Lullingstone and Hinton St Mary contained Christian wall paintings and mosaics respectively. A large 4th-century cemetery at Poundbury with its east–west oriented burials and lack of grave goods has been interpreted as an early Christian burial ground, although such burial rites were also becoming increasingly common in pagan contexts during the period.
The Church in Britain seems to have developed the customary diocesan system, as evidenced from the records of the Council of Arles in Gaul in 314: represented at the council were bishops from thirty-five sees from Europe and North Africa, including three bishops from Britain, Eborius of York, Restitutus of London, and Adelphius, possibly a bishop of Lincoln. No other early sees are documented, and the material remains of early church structures are far to seek. The existence of a church in the forum courtyard of Lincoln and the martyrium of Saint Alban on the outskirts of Roman Verulamium are exceptional. Alban, the first British Christian martyr and by far the most prominent, is believed to have died in the early 4th century (some date him in the middle 3rd century), followed by Saints Julius and Aaron of Isca Augusta. Christianity was legalised in the Roman Empire by Constantine I in 313. Theodosius I made Christianity the state religion of the empire in 391, and by the 5th century it was well established. One belief labelled a heresy by the church authorities — Pelagianism — was originated by a British monk teaching in Rome: Pelagius lived c. 354 to c. 420/440.
A letter found on a lead tablet in Bath, Somerset, datable to c. 363, had been widely publicised as documentary evidence regarding the state of Christianity in Britain during Roman times. According to its first translator, it was written in Wroxeter by a Christian man called Vinisius to a Christian woman called Nigra, and was claimed as the first epigraphic record of Christianity in Britain. This translation of the letter was apparently based on grave paleographical errors, and the text has nothing to do with Christianity, and in fact relates to pagan rituals.
Environmental changes
The Romans introduced a number of species to Britain, including possibly the now-rare Roman nettle (Urtica pilulifera), said to have been used by soldiers to warm their arms and legs, and the edible snail Helix pomatia. There is also some evidence they may have introduced rabbits, but of the smaller southern mediterranean type. The European rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus) prevalent in modern Britain is assumed to have been introduced from the continent after the Norman invasion of 1066. Box (Buxus sempervirens) is rarely recorded before the Roman period, but becomes a common find in towns and villas
Legacy
During their occupation of Britain the Romans built an extensive network of roads which continued to be used in later centuries and many are still followed today. The Romans also built water supply, sanitation and wastewater systems. Many of Britain's major cities, such as London (Londinium), Manchester (Mamucium) and York (Eboracum), were founded by the Romans, but the original Roman settlements were abandoned not long after the Romans left.
Unlike many other areas of the Western Roman Empire, the current majority language is not a Romance language, or a language descended from the pre-Roman inhabitants. The British language at the time of the invasion was Common Brittonic, and remained so after the Romans withdrew. It later split into regional languages, notably Cumbric, Cornish, Breton and Welsh. Examination of these languages suggests some 800 Latin words were incorporated into Common Brittonic (see Brittonic languages). The current majority language, English, is based on the languages of the Germanic tribes who migrated to the island from continental Europe
Includes:
RT Helmet
RT Armor
Impaler AR
Ground Dweller BR
Head Hunter Pistol
I'm quite pleased with how the new Charcoal color came out...it's a little darker than the Steel but a little shinier than the black.
The genus Orchelimum includes 21 meadow katydid species, all of them restricted to North America. Orchelimum vulgare (i.e. he Common Meadow Katydid) is widespread in eastern North America, occurring from Maine and southern Quebec west to North Dakota and southern Manitoba, and south to Georgia, Louisiana, and eastern Texas.
Its color is variable and includes light shades of green and brown. A conspicuous brown stripe runs down the midline of the pronotum. The eyes are orange. Males are territorial and tend not to leap away when disturbed. Rather, they move to the side of their perch that is opposite the source of disturbance much like some grasshoppers do.
The Common Meadow Katydid is univoltine (i.e. it produces one brood in a season capable of hibernating). It passes the winter in the egg stage in plant tissue, and nymphs emerge in May and June. The nymphs feed readily on clover and other forage crops, but apparently adults feed mostly on aphids and other insects, with some plant material making up part of their diet. Adults begin to appear in late July, and eggs are laid in September and October.
As with other species of Orchelimum, the calling songs of the Common Meadow Katydid are produced only by males. Males sing both day and night. The songs are apparently intended to attract females and to maintain local territory free of other males. Sound is produced using stridulating structures on the bases of the leathery forewings, which are known as tegmina. The song has a two-part structure with a series of trills or buzzes interspersed with staccato ticks.
ISO400, aperture f/11, exposure .006 seconds (1/160) focal length 300mm
Campbell's Soup Cans, 1962
Synthetic polymer paint on thirty-two canvases, Each canvas 20 x 16" (50.8 x 40.6 cm).
Andy Warhol, American, 1928-1987
When Warhol first exhibited Campbell's Soup Cans, sometimes referred to as 32 Campbell's Soup Cans, each one simultaneously hung from the wall like a painting and rested on a shelf like groceries in a store. Each of the thirty two-canvases, measuring 20 inches by 16 inches, corresponds to one of the varieties of soup then sold by the Campbell Soup Company. There is no evidence that Warhol envisioned the canvases in a particular sequence. Here, they are arranged in rows that reflect the chronological order in which they were introduced, beginning with "Tomato" in the upper left, which debuted in 1897. The individual paintings were produced with a semi-mechanized silkscreen process, using a non-painterly style. Repeating the same image at the same scale, the canvases stress the uniformity and ubiquity of the Campbell's can.
For Warhol, a commercial illustrator who became a successful author, painter, and film director, the work was his first one-man gallery exhibition as a fine artist. First exhibited in the Ferus Gallery of Los Angeles, California, it marked the West Coast debut of pop art.
Gift of Irving Blum; Nelson A. Rockefeller Bequest, gift of Mr. and Mrs. William A. M. Burden, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Fund, gift of Nina and Gordon Bunshaft in honor of Henry Moore, Lillie P. Bliss Bequest, Philip Johnson Fund, Frances Keech Bequest, gift of Mrs. Bliss Parkinson, and Florence B. Wesley Bequest (all by exchange)
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The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) was founded in 1929 and is often recognized as the most influential museum of modern art in the world. Over the course of the next ten years, the Museum moved three times into progressively larger temporary quarters, and in 1939 finally opened the doors of its midtown home, located on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues in midtown.
MoMA's holdings include more than 150,000 paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints, photographs, architectural models and drawings, and design objects. Highlights of the collection inlcude Vincent Van Gogh's The Starry Night, Salvador Dali's The Persisence of Memory, Pablo Picasso's Les Demoiseels d'Avignon and Three Musicians, Claude Monet's Water Lilies, Piet Mondrian's Broadway Boogie Woogie, Paul Gauguin's The Seed of the Areoi, Henri Matisse's Dance, Marc Chagall's I and the Village, Paul Cezanne's The Bather, Jackson Pollack's Number 31, 1950, and Andy Warhol's Campbell's Soup Cans. MoMA also owns approximately 22,000 films and four million film stills, and MoMA's Library and Archives, the premier research facilities of their kind in the world, hold over 300,000 books, artist books, and periodicals, and extensive individual files on more than 70,000 artists.
The Ajanta Caves (Ajiṇṭhā leni; Marathi: अजिंठा लेणी) in Aurangabad district of Maharashtra, India are about 30 rock-cut Buddhist cave monuments which date from the 2nd century BCE to about 480 or 650 CE. The caves include paintings and sculptures described by the government Archaeological Survey of India as "the finest surviving examples of Indian art, particularly painting", which are masterpieces of Buddhist religious art, with figures of the Buddha and depictions of the Jataka tales. The caves were built in two phases starting around the 2nd century BCE, with the second group of caves built around 400–650 CE according to older accounts, or all in a brief period of 460 to 480 according to the recent proposals of Walter M. Spink. The site is a protected monument in the care of the Archaeological Survey of India, and since 1983, the Ajanta Caves have been a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The caves are located in the Indian state of Maharashtra, near Jalgaon and just outside the village of Ajinṭhā 20°31′56″N 75°44′44″E), about 59 kilometres from Jalgaon railway station on the Delhi – Mumbai line and Howrah-Nagpur-Mumbai line of the Central Railway zone, and 104 kilometres from the city of Aurangabad. They are 100 kilometres from the Ellora Caves, which contain Hindu and Jain temples as well as Buddhist caves, the last dating from a period similar to Ajanta. The Ajanta caves are cut into the side of a cliff that is on the south side of a U-shaped gorge on the small river Waghur, and although they are now along and above a modern pathway running across the cliff they were originally reached by individual stairs or ladders from the side of the river 35 to 110 feet below.
The area was previously heavily forested, and after the site ceased to be used the caves were covered by jungle until accidentally rediscovered in 1819 by a British officer on a hunting party. They are Buddhist monastic buildings, apparently representing a number of distinct "monasteries" or colleges. The caves are numbered 1 to 28 according to their place along the path, beginning at the entrance. Several are unfinished and some barely begun and others are small shrines, included in the traditional numbering as e.g. "9A"; "Cave 15A" was still hidden under rubble when the numbering was done. Further round the gorge are a number of waterfalls, which when the river is high are audible from outside the caves.
The caves form the largest corpus of early Indian wall-painting; other survivals from the area of modern India are very few, though they are related to 5th-century paintings at Sigiriya in Sri Lanka. The elaborate architectural carving in many caves is also very rare, and the style of the many figure sculptures is highly local, found only at a few nearby contemporary sites, although the Ajanta tradition can be related to the later Hindu Ellora Caves and other sites.
HISTORY
Like the other ancient Buddhist monasteries, Ajanta had a large emphasis on teaching, and was divided into several different caves for living, education and worship, under a central direction. Monks were probably assigned to specific caves for living. The layout reflects this organizational structure, with most of the caves only connected through the exterior. The 7th-century travelling Chinese scholar Xuanzang informs us that Dignaga, a celebrated Buddhist philosopher and controversialist, author of well-known books on logic, lived at Ajanta in the 5th century. In its prime the settlement would have accommodated several hundred teachers and pupils. Many monks who had finished their first training may have returned to Ajanta during the monsoon season from an itinerant lifestyle.
The caves are generally agreed to have been made in two distinct periods, separated by several centuries.
CAVES OF THE FIRST (SATAVAHANA) PERIOD
The earliest group of caves consists of caves 9, 10, 12, 13 and 15A. According to Walter Spink, they were made during the period 100 BCE to 100 CE, probably under the patronage of the Satavahana dynasty (230 BCE – c. 220 CE) who ruled the region. Other datings prefer the period 300 BCE to 100 BCE, though the grouping of the earlier caves is generally agreed. More early caves may have vanished through later excavations. Of these, caves 9 and 10 are stupa halls of chaitya-griha form, and caves 12, 13, and 15A are vihāras (see the architecture section below for descriptions of these types). The first phase is still often called the Hinayāna phase, as it originated when, using traditional terminology, the Hinayāna or Lesser Vehicle tradition of Buddhism was dominant, when the Buddha was revered symbolically. However the use of the term Hinayana for this period of Buddhism is now deprecated by historians; equally the caves of the second period are now mostly dated too early to be properly called Mahayana, and do not yet show the full expanded cast of supernatural beings characteristic of that phase of Buddhist art. The first Satavahana period caves lacked figurative sculpture, emphasizing the stupa instead, and in the caves of the second period the overwhelming majority of images represent the Buddha alone, or narrative scenes of his lives.
Spink believes that some time after the Satavahana period caves were made the site was abandoned for a considerable period until the mid-5th century, probably because the region had turned mainly Hindu
CAVES OF THE LATER OR VAKATAKA PERIOD
The second phase began in the 5th century. For a long time it was thought that the later caves were made over a long period from the 4th to the 7th centuries CE, but in recent decades a series of studies by the leading expert on the caves, Walter M. Spink, have argued that most of the work took place over the very brief period from 460 to 480 CE, during the reign of Emperor Harishena of the Vakataka dynasty. This view has been criticized by some scholars, but is now broadly accepted by most authors of general books on Indian art, for example Huntington and Harle.
The second phase is still often called the Mahāyāna or Greater Vehicle phase, but scholars now tend to avoid this nomenclature because of the problems that have surfaced regarding our understanding of Mahāyāna.
Some 20 cave temples were simultaneously created, for the most part viharas with a sanctuary at the back. The most elaborate caves were produced in this period, which included some "modernization" of earlier caves. Spink claims that it is possible to establish dating for this period with a very high level of precision; a fuller account of his chronology is given below. Although debate continues, Spink's ideas are increasingly widely accepted, at least in their broad conclusions. The Archaeological Survey of India website still presents the traditional dating: "The second phase of paintings started around 5th – 6th centuries A.D. and continued for the next two centuries". Caves of the second period are 1–8, 11, 14–29, some possibly extensions of earlier caves. Caves 19, 26, and 29 are chaitya-grihas, the rest viharas.
According to Spink, the Ajanta Caves appear to have been abandoned by wealthy patrons shortly after the fall of Harishena, in about 480 CE. They were then gradually abandoned and forgotten. During the intervening centuries, the jungle grew back and the caves were hidden, unvisited and undisturbed, although the local population were aware of at least some of them.
REDISCOVERY
On 28 April 1819, a British officer for the Madras Presidency, John Smith, of the 28th Cavalry, while hunting tiger, accidentally discovered the entrance to Cave No. 10 deep within the tangled undergrowth. There were local people already using the caves for prayers with a small fire, when he arrived. Exploring that first cave, long since a home to nothing more than birds and bats and a lair for other larger animals, Captain Smith vandalized the wall by scratching his name and the date, April 1819. Since he stood on a five-foot high pile of rubble collected over the years, the inscription is well above the eye-level gaze of an adult today. A paper on the caves by William Erskine was read to the Bombay Literary Society in 1822. Within a few decades, the caves became famous for their exotic setting, impressive architecture, and above all their exceptional, all but unique paintings. A number of large projects to copy the paintings were made in the century after rediscovery, covered below. In 1848 the Royal Asiatic Society established the "Bombay Cave Temple Commission" to clear, tidy and record the most important rock-cut sites in the Bombay Presidency, with John Wilson, as president. In 1861 this became the nucleus of the new Archaeological Survey of India. Until the Nizam of Hyderabad built the modern path between the caves, among other efforts to make the site easy to visit, a trip to Ajanta was a considerable adventure, and contemporary accounts dwell with relish on the dangers from falls off narrow ledges, animals and the Bhil people, who were armed with bows and arrows and had a fearsome reputation.
Today, fairly easily combined with Ellora in a single trip, the caves are the most popular tourist destination in Mahrashtra, and are often crowded at holiday times, increasing the threat to the caves, especially the paintings. In 2012, the Maharashtra Tourism Development Corporation announced plans to add to the ASI visitor centre at the entrance complete replicas of caves 1, 2, 16 & 17 to reduce crowding in the originals, and enable visitors to receive a better visual idea of the paintings, which are dimly-lit and hard to read in the caves. Figures for the year to March 2010 showed a total of 390,000 visitors to the site, divided into 362,000 domestic and 27,000 foreign. The trends over the previous few years show a considerable growth in domestic visitors, but a decline in foreign ones; the year to 2010 was the first in which foreign visitors to Ellora exceeded those to Ajanta.
PAINTINGS
Mural paintings survive from both the earlier and later groups of caves. Several fragments of murals preserved from the earlier caves (Caves 9 and 11) are effectively unique survivals of court-led painting in India from this period, and "show that by Sātavāhana times, if not earlier, the Indian painter had mastered an easy and fluent naturalistic style, dealing with large groups of people in a manner comparable to the reliefs of the Sāñcī toraņa crossbars".
Four of the later caves have large and relatively well-preserved mural paintings which "have come to represent Indian mural painting to the non-specialist", and fall into two stylistic groups, with the most famous in Caves 16 and 17, and apparently later paintings in Caves 1 and 2. The latter group were thought to be a century or more later than the others, but the revised chronology proposed by Spink would place them much closer to the earlier group, perhaps contemporary with it in a more progressive style, or one reflecting a team from a different region. The paintings are in "dry fresco", painted on top of a dry plaster surface rather than into wet plaster.
All the paintings appear to be the work of painters at least as used to decorating palaces as temples, and show a familiarity with and interest in details of the life of a wealthy court. We know from literary sources that painting was widely practised and appreciated in the courts of the Gupta period. Unlike much Indian painting, compositions are not laid out in horizontal compartments like a frieze, but show large scenes spreading in all directions from a single figure or group at the centre. The ceilings are also painted with sophisticated and elaborate decorative motifs, many derived from sculpture. The paintings in cave 1, which according to Spink was commissioned by Harisena himself, concentrate on those Jataka tales which show previous lives of the Buddha as a king, rather than as an animal or human commoner, and so show settings from contemporary palace life.
In general the later caves seem to have been painted on finished areas as excavating work continued elsewhere in the cave, as shown in caves 2 and 16 in particular. According to Spink's account of the chronology of the caves, the abandonment of work in 478 after a brief busy period accounts for the absence of painting in caves such as 4 and 17, the later being plastered in preparation for paintings that were never done.
COPIES
The paintings have deteriorated significantly since they were rediscovered, and a number of 19th-century copies and drawings are important for a complete understanding of the works. However, the earliest projects to copy the paintings were plagued by bad fortune. In 1846, Major Robert Gill, an Army officer from Madras presidency and a painter, was appointed by the Royal Asiatic Society to replicate the frescoes on the cave walls to exhibit these paintings in England. Gill worked on his painting at the site from 1844 to 1863 (though he continued to be based there until his death in 1875, writing books and photographing) and made 27 copies of large sections of murals, but all but four were destroyed in a fire at the Crystal Palace in London in 1866, where they were on display.
Another attempt was made in 1872 when the Bombay Presidency commissioned John Griffiths, then principal of the Bombay School of Art, to work with his students to make new copies, again for shipping to England. They worked on this for thirteen years and some 300 canvases were produced, many of which were displayed at the Imperial Institute on Exhibition Road in London, one of the forerunners of the Victoria and Albert Museum. But in 1885 another fire destroyed over a hundred paintings that were in storage. The V&A still has 166 paintings surviving from both sets, though none have been on permanent display since 1955. The largest are some 3 × 6 metres. A conservation project was undertaken on about half of them in 2006, also involving the University of Northumbria. Griffith and his students had unfortunately painted many of the paintings with "cheap varnish" in order to make them easier to see, which has added to the deterioration of the originals, as has, according to Spink and others, recent cleaning by the ASI.
A further set of copies were made between 1909 and 1911 by Christiana Herringham (Lady Herringham) and a group of students from the Calcutta School of Art that included the future Indian Modernist painter Nandalal Bose. The copies were published in full colour as the first publication of London's fledgling India Society. More than the earlier copies, these aimed to fill in holes and damage to recreate the original condition rather than record the state of the paintings as she was seeing them. According to one writer, unlike the paintings created by her predecessors Griffiths and Gill, whose copies were influenced by British Victorian styles of painting, those of the Herringham expedition preferred an 'Indian Renascence' aesthetic of the type pioneered by Abanindranath Tagore.
Early photographic surveys were made by Robert Gill, who learnt to use a camera from about 1856, and whose photos, including some using stereoscopy, were used in books by him and Fergusson (many are available online from the British Library), then Victor Goloubew in 1911 and E.L. Vassey, who took the photos in the four volume study of the caves by Ghulam Yazdani (published 1930–1955).
ARCHITECTURE
The monasteries mostly consist of vihara halls for prayer and living, which are typically rectangular with small square dormitory cells cut into the walls, and by the second period a shrine or sanctuary at the rear centred on a large statue of the Buddha, also carved from the living rock. This change reflects the movement from Hinayana to Mahāyāna Buddhism. The other type of main hall is the narrower and higher chaitya hall with a stupa as the focus at the far end, and a narrow aisle around the walls, behind a range of pillars placed close together. Other plainer rooms were for sleeping and other activities. Some of the caves have elaborate carved entrances, some with large windows over the door to admit light. There is often a colonnaded porch or verandah, with another space inside the doors running the width of the cave.
The central square space of the interior of the viharas is defined by square columns forming a more or less square open area. Outside this are long rectangular aisles on each side, forming a kind of cloister. Along the side and rear walls are a number of small cells entered by a narrow doorway; these are roughly square, and have small niches on their back walls. Originally they had wooden doors. The centre of the rear wall has a larger shrine-room behind, containing a large Buddha statue. The viharas of the earlier period are much simpler, and lack shrines. Spink in fact places the change to a design with a shrine to the middle of the second period, with many caves being adapted to add a shrine in mid-excavation, or after the original phase.
The plan of Cave 1 shows one of the largest viharas, but is fairly typical of the later group. Many others, such as Cave 16, lack the vestibule to the shrine, which leads straight off the main hall. Cave 6 is two viharas, one above the other, connected by internal stairs, with sanctuaries on both levels.
The four completed chaitya halls are caves 9 and 10 from the early period, and caves 19 and 26 from the later period of construction. All follow the typical form found elsewhere, with high ceilings and a central "nave" leading to the stupa, which is near the back, but allows walking behind it, as walking around stupas was (and remains) a common element of Buddhist worship (pradakshina). The later two have high ribbed roofs, which reflect timber forms, and the earlier two are thought to have used actual timber ribs, which have now perished. The two later halls have a rather unusual arrangement (also found in Cave 10 at Ellora) where the stupa is fronted by a large relief sculpture of the Buddha, standing in Cave 19 and seated in Cave 26. Cave 29 is a late and very incomplete chaitya hall.
The form of columns in the work of the first period is very plain and un-embellished, with both chaitya halls using simple octagonal columns, which were painted with figures. In the second period columns were far more varied and inventive, often changing profile over their height, and with elaborate carved capitals, often spreading wide. Many columns are carved over all their surface, some fluted and others carved with decoration all over, as in cave 1.
The flood basalt rock of the cliff, part of the Deccan Traps formed by successive volcanic eruptions at the end of the Cretaceous, is layered horizontally, and somewhat variable in quality, so the excavators had to amend their plans in places, and in places there have been collapses in the intervening centuries, as with the lost portico to cave 1. Excavation began by cutting a narrow tunnel at roof level, which was expanded downwards and outwards; the half-built vihara cave 24 shows the method. Spink believes that for the first caves of the second period the excavators had to relearn skills and techniques that had been lost in the centuries since the first period, which were then transmitted to be used at later rock-cut sites in the region, such as Ellora, and the Elephanta, Bagh, Badami and Aurangabad Caves.
The caves from the first period seem to have been paid for by a number of different patrons, with several inscriptions recording the donation of particular portions of a single cave, but according to Spink the later caves were each commissioned as a complete unit by a single patron from the local rulers or their court elites. After the death of Harisena smaller donors got their chance to add small "shrinelets" between the caves or add statues to existing caves, and some two hundred of these "intrusive" additions were made in sculpture, with a further number of intrusive paintings, up to three hundred in cave 10 alone.
A grand gateway to the site, at the apex of the gorge's horsehoe between caves 15 and 16, was approached from the river, and is decorated with elephants on either side and a nāga, or protective snake deity.
ICONOGRAPHY OF THE CAVES
In the pre-Christian era, the Buddha was represented symbolically, in the form of the stupa. Thus, halls were made with stupas to venerate the Buddha. In later periods the images of the Buddha started to be made in coins, relic caskets, relief or loose sculptural forms, etc. However, it took a while for the human representation of the Buddha to appear in Buddhist art. One of the earliest evidences of the Buddha's human representations are found at Buddhist archaeological sites, such as Goli, Nagarjunakonda, and Amaravati. The monasteries of those sites were built in less durable media, such as wood, brick, and stone. As far as the genre of rock-cut architecture is concerned it took many centuries for the Buddha image to be depicted. Nobody knows for sure at which rock-cut cave site the first image of the Buddha was depicted. Current research indicates that Buddha images in a portable form, made of wood or stone, were introduced, for the first time, at Kanheri, to be followed soon at Ajanta Cave 8 (Dhavalikar, Jadhav, Spink, Singh). While the Kanheri example dates to 4th or 5th century CE, the Ajanta example has been dated to c. 462–478 CE (Spink). None of the rock-cut monasteries prior to these dates, and other than these examples, show any Buddha image although hundreds of rock-cut caves were made throughout India during the first few centuries CE. And, in those caves, it is the stupa that is the object of veneration, not the image. Images of the Buddha are not found in Buddhist sailagrhas (rock-cut complexes) until the times of the Kanheri (4th–5th century CE) and Ajanta examples (c. 462–478 CE).
The caves of the second period, now all dated to the 5th century, were typically described as "Mahayana", but do not show the features associated with later Mahayana Buddhism. Although the beginnings of Mahāyāna teachings go back to the 1st century there is little art and archaeological evidence to suggest that it became a mainstream cult for several centuries. In Mahayana it is not Gautama Buddha but the Bodhisattva who is important, including "deity" Bodhisattva like Manjushri and Tara, as well as aspects of the Buddha such as Aksobhya, and Amitabha. Except for a few Bodhisattva, these are not depicted at Ajanta, where the Buddha remains the dominant figure. Even the Bodhisattva images of Ajanta are never central objects of worship, but are always shown as attendants of the Buddha in the shrine. If a Bodhisattva is shown in isolation, as in the Astabhaya scenes, these were done in the very last years of activities at Ajanta, and are mostly 'intrusive' in nature, meaning that they were not planned by the original patrons, and were added by new donors after the original patrons had suddenly abandoned the region in the wake of Emperor Harisena's death.
The contrast between iconic and aniconic representations, that is, the stupa on one hand and the image of the Buddha on the other, is now being seen as a construct of the modern scholar rather than a reality of the past. The second phase of Ajanta shows that the stupa and image coincided together. If the entire corpus of the art of Ajanta including sculpture, iconography, architecture, epigraphy, and painting are analysed afresh it will become clear that there was no duality between the symbolic and human forms of the Buddha, as far as the 5th-century phase of Ajanta is concerned. That is why most current scholars tend to avoid the terms 'Hinayana' and 'Mahayana' in the context of Ajanta. They now prefer to call the second phase by the ruling dynasty, as the Vākāţaka phase.
CAVES
CAVE 1
Cave 1 was built on the eastern end of the horse-shoe shaped scarp, and is now the first cave the visitor encounters. This would when first made have been a less prominent position, right at the end of the row. According to Spink, it is one of the latest caves to have been excavated, when the best sites had been taken, and was never fully inaugurated for worship by the dedication of the Buddha image in the central shrine. This is shown by the absence of sooty deposits from butter lamps on the base of the shrine image, and the lack of damage to the paintings that would have been happened if the garland-hooks around the shrine had been in use for any period of time. Although there is no epigraphic evidence, Spink believes that the Vākāţaka Emperor Harishena was the benefactor of the work, and this is reflected in the emphasis on imagery of royalty in the cave, with those Jakata tales being selected that tell of those previous lives of the Buddha in which he was royal.
The cliff has a more steep slope here than at other caves, so to achieve a tall grand facade it was necessary to cut far back into the slope, giving a large courtyard in front of the facade. There was originally a columned portico in front of the present facade, which can be seen "half-intact in the 1880s" in pictures of the site, but this fell down completely and the remains, despite containing fine carving, were carelessly thrown down the slope into the river, from where they have been lost, presumably carried away in monsoon torrents.
This cave has one of the most elaborate carved façades, with relief sculptures on entablature and ridges, and most surfaces embellished with decorative carving. There are scenes carved from the life of the Buddha as well as a number of decorative motifs. A two pillared portico, visible in the 19th-century photographs, has since perished. The cave has a front-court with cells fronted by pillared vestibules on either side. These have a high plinth level. The cave has a porch with simple cells on both ends. The absence of pillared vestibules on the ends suggest that the porch was not excavated in the latest phase of Ajanta when pillared vestibules had become a necessity and norm. Most areas of the porch were once covered with murals, of which many fragments remain, especially on the ceiling. There are three doorways: a central doorway and two side doorways. Two square windows were carved between the doorways to brighten the interiors.
Each wall of the hall inside is nearly 12 m long and 6.1 m high. Twelve pillars make a square colonnade inside supporting the ceiling, and creating spacious aisles along the walls. There is a shrine carved on the rear wall to house an impressive seated image of the Buddha, his hands being in the dharmachakrapravartana mudra. There are four cells on each of the left, rear, and the right walls, though due to rock fault there are none at the ends of the rear aisle. The walls are covered with paintings in a fair state of preservation, though the full scheme was never completed. The scenes depicted are mostly didactic, devotional, and ornamental, with scenes from the Jataka stories of the Buddha's former existences as a bodhisattva), the life of the Gautama Buddha, and those of his veneration. The two most famous individual painted images at Ajanta are the two over-life size figures of the protective bodhisattvas Padmapani and Vajrapani on either side of the entrance to the Buddha shrine on the wall of the rear aisle (see illustrations above). According to Spink, the original dating of the paintings to about 625 arose largely or entirely because James Fegusson, a 19th-century architectural historian, had decided that a scene showing an ambassador being received, with figures in Persian dress, represented a recorded embassy to Persia (from a Hindu monarch at that) around that date.
CAVE 2
Cave 2, adjacent to Cave 1, is known for the paintings that have been preserved on its walls, ceilings, and pillars. It looks similar to Cave 1 and is in a better state of preservation.
Cave 2 has a porch quite different from Cave one. Even the façade carvings seem to be different. The cave is supported by robust pillars, ornamented with designs. The front porch consists of cells supported by pillared vestibules on both ends. The cells on the previously "wasted areas" were needed to meet the greater housing requirements in later years. Porch-end cells became a trend in all later Vakataka excavations. The simple single cells on porch-ends were converted into CPVs or were planned to provide more room, symmetry, and beauty.
The paintings on the ceilings and walls of this porch have been widely published. They depict the Jataka tales that are stories of the Buddha's life in former existences as Bodhisattva. Just as the stories illustrated in cave 1 emphasize kingship, those in cave 2 show many "noble and powerful" women in prominent roles, leading to suggestions that the patron was an unknown woman. The porch's rear wall has a doorway in the center, which allows entrance to the hall. On either side of the door is a square-shaped window to brighten the interior.
The hall has four colonnades which are supporting the ceiling and surrounding a square in the center of the hall. Each arm or colonnade of the square is parallel to the respective walls of the hall, making an aisle in between. The colonnades have rock-beams above and below them. The capitals are carved and painted with various decorative themes that include ornamental, human, animal, vegetative, and semi-divine forms.
Paintings appear on almost every surface of the cave except for the floor. At various places the art work has become eroded due to decay and human interference. Therefore, many areas of the painted walls, ceilings, and pillars are fragmentary. The painted narratives of the Jataka tales are depicted only on the walls, which demanded the special attention of the devotee. They are didactic in nature, meant to inform the community about the Buddha's teachings and life through successive rebirths. Their placement on the walls required the devotee to walk through the aisles and 'read' the narratives depicted in various episodes. The narrative episodes are depicted one after another although not in a linear order. Their identification has been a core area of research since the site's rediscovery in 1819. Dieter Schlingloff's identifications have updated our knowledge on the subject.
CAVE 4
The Archeological Survey of India board outside the caves gives the following detail about cave 4: "This is the largest monastery planned on a grandiose scale but was never finished. An inscription on the pedestal of the buddha's image mentions that it was a gift from a person named Mathura and paleographically belongs to 6th century A.D. It consists of a verandah, a hypostylar hall, sanctum with an antechamber and a series of unfinished cells. The rear wall of the verandah contains the panel of Litany of Avalokiteśvara".
The sanctuary houses a colossal image of the Buddha in preaching pose flanked by bodhisattvas and celestial nymphs hovering above.
CAVES 9-10
Caves 9 and 10 are the two chaitya halls from the first period of construction, though both were also undergoing an uncompleted reworking at the end of the second period. Cave 10 was perhaps originally of the 1st century BCE, and cave 9 about a hundred years later. The small "shrinelets" called caves 9A to 9D and 10A also date from the second period, and were commissioned by individuals.
The paintings in cave 10 include some surviving from the early period, many from an incomplete programme of modernization in the second period, and a very large number of smaller late intrusive images, nearly all Buddhas and many with donor inscriptions from individuals. These mostly avoided over-painting the "official" programme and after the best positions were used up are tucked away in less prominent positions not yet painted; the total of these (including those now lost) was probably over 300, and the hands of many different artists are visible.
OTHER CAVES
Cave 3 is merely a start of an excavation; according to Spink it was begun right at the end of the final period of work and soon abandoned. Caves 5 and 6 are viharas, the latter on two floors, that were late works of which only the lower floor of cave 6 was ever finished. The upper floor of cave 6 has many private votive sculptures, and a shrine Buddha, but is otherwise unfinished. Cave 7 has a grand facade with two porticos but, perhaps because of faults in the rock, which posed problems in many caves, was never taken very deep into the cliff, and consists only of the two porticos and a shrine room with antechamber, with no central hall. Some cells were fitted in.
Cave 8 was long thought to date to the first period of construction, but Spink sees it as perhaps the earliest cave from the second period, its shrine an "afterthought". The statue may have been loose rather than carved from the living rock, as it has now vanished. The cave was painted, but only traces remain.
SPINK´S DETAILED CHRONOLOGY
Walter M. Spink has over recent decades developed a very precise and circumstantial chronology for the second period of work on the site, which unlike earlier scholars, he places entirely in the 5th century. This is based on evidence such as the inscriptions and artistic style, combined with the many uncompleted elements of the caves. He believes the earlier group of caves, which like other scholars he dates only approximately, to the period "between 100 BCE – 100 CE", were at some later point completely abandoned and remained so "for over three centuries", as the local population had turned mainly Hindu. This changed with the accession of the Emperor Harishena of the Vakataka Dynasty, who reigned from 460 to his death in 477. Harisena extended the Central Indian Vakataka Empire to include a stretch of the east coast of India; the Gupta Empire ruled northern India at the same period, and the Pallava dynasty much of the south.
According to Spink, Harisena encouraged a group of associates, including his prime minister Varahadeva and Upendragupta, the sub-king in whose territory Ajanta was, to dig out new caves, which were individually commissioned, some containing inscriptions recording the donation. This activity began in 462 but was mostly suspended in 468 because of threats from the neighbouring Asmaka kings. Work continued on only caves 1, Harisena's own commission, and 17–20, commissioned by Upendragupta. In 472 the situation was such that work was suspended completely, in a period that Spink calls "the Hiatus", which lasted until about 475, by which time the Asmakas had replaced Upendragupta as the local rulers.
Work was then resumed, but again disrupted by Harisena's death in 477, soon after which major excavation ceased, except at cave 26, which the Asmakas were sponsoring themselves. The Asmakas launched a revolt against Harisena's son, which brought about the end of the Vakataka Dynasty. In the years 478–480 major excavation by important patrons was replaced by a rash of "intrusions" – statues added to existing caves, and small shrines dotted about where there was space between them. These were commissioned by less powerful individuals, some monks, who had not previously been able to make additions to the large excavations of the rulers and courtiers. They were added to the facades, the return sides of the entrances, and to walls inside the caves. According to Spink, "After 480, not a single image was ever made again at the site", and as Hinduism again dominated the region, the site was again abandoned, this time for over a millennium.
Spink does not use "circa" in his dates, but says that "one should allow a margin of error of one year or perhaps even two in all cases".
IMPACT ON MODERN INDIAN PAINTINGS
The Ajanta paintings, or more likely the general style they come from, influenced painting in Tibet and Sri Lanka.
The rediscovery of ancient Indian paintings at Ajanta provided Indian artists examples from ancient India to follow. Nandlal Bose experimented with techniques to follow the ancient style which allowed him to develop his unique style. Abanindranath Tagore also used the Ajanta paintings for inspiration.
WIKIPEDIA
Kenia - Kikuyu dancer at the Thomson waterfalls.
Having migrated to their current location about four centuries ago, the Kikuyu now make up Kenya’s largest ethnic group. The Kikuyu people spread rapidly throughout the Central Province and Kenya. The Kikuyu usually identify their land by the surrounding mountain ranges which they call Kirinyaga-the shining mountain. The Kikuyu are Bantu and actually came into Kenya during the Bantu migration. They include some families from all the surrounding people and can be identified with the Kamba, the Meru, the Embu and the Chuka.
The Kikuyu tribe was originally founded by a man named Gikuyu. Kikuyu history says that the Kikuyu God, Ngai, took Gikuyu to the top of Kirinyaga and told him to stay and build his home there. He was also given his wife, Mumbi. Together, Mumbi and Gikuyu had nine daughters. There was actually a tenth daughter but the Kikuyu considered it to be bad luck to say the number ten. When counting they used to say “full nine” instead of ten. It was from the nine daughters that the nine (occaisionally a tenth) Kikuyu clans -Achera, Agachiku, Airimu, Ambui, Angare, Anjiru, Angui, Aithaga, and Aitherandu- were formed.
The Kikuyu rely heavily on agriculture. They grow bananas, sugarcane, arum lily, yams, beans, millet, maize, black beans and a variety of other vegetables. They also raise cattle, sheep, and goats. They use the hides from the cattle to make bedding, sandals, and carrying straps and they raise the goats and sheep to use for religious sacrifices and purification. In the Kikuyu culture boys and girls are raised very differently. The girls are raised to work in the farm and the boys usually work with the animals. The girls also have the responsibility of taking care of a baby brother or sister and also helping the mother out with household chores.
In the Kikuyu culture family identity is carried on by naming the first boy after the father’s father and the second after the mother’s father. The same goes for the girls; the first is named after the father’s mother and the second after the mother’s mother. Following children are named after the brothers and sisters of the grandparents, starting with the oldest and working to the youngest. Along with the naming of the children was the belief that the deceased grandparent’s spirit, that the child was named after, would come in to the new child. This belief was lost with the increase in life-span because generally the grandparents are now still alive when the children are born.
Though they are traditionally agricultural people and have a reputation as hard-working people, a lot of them are now involved in business. Most of the Kikuyu still live on small
family plots but many of them have also seen the opportunities in business and have moved to cities and different areas to work. They have a desire for knowledge and it is believed that all children should receive a full education. They have a terrific reputation for money management and it is common for them to have many enterprises at one time. The Kikuyu have also been active politically. The first president of Kenya, Jomo Kenyatta, was actually a Kikuyu. Kenyatta was a major figure in Kenya's fight for independence.
Here's the little demon you already caught a glimpse of !
Her outfit includes a corset, a skirt and an overskirt made of feathers to look somewhat like a fallen angel... She will also come with human legs as I made them before finishing the hooves
;)
I hope you'll like her ^^
The Postcard
A postally unused postcard bearing no publisher's name. The card has a divided back.
Margate
Margate is a seaside town in Thanet, Kent, England, 24 km north-east of Canterbury. It includes Cliftonville, Garlinge, Palm Bay and Westbrook.
The town has been a significant maritime port since the Middle Ages, and was associated with Dover as part of the Cinque Ports in the 15th. century. It became a popular place for holidaymakers in the 18th. century, owing to easy access via the Thames, and later with the arrival of the railways.
Popular landmarks include the sandy beaches and the Dreamland amusement park. During the late 20th. century the town went into decline along with other British seaside resorts, but attempts are being made (2021) to revitalise the economy.
History of Margate
Margate was recorded as "Meregate" in 1264 and as "Margate" in 1299, but the spelling continued to vary into modern times. The name is thought to refer to a pool gate or gap in a cliff where pools of water are found, often allowing swimmers to jump in.
Margate gives its name to the relatively unknown yet influential Battle of Margate. It started on the 24th. March 1387, and was the last major naval battle of the Caroline War phase of the Hundred Years' War.
Despite the battle being named after Margate, very little actually happened near the coastal town - the battle is named after Margate as this was where an English fleet of 51 vessels was anchored.
Margate has been a leading seaside resort for at least 250 years. Like its neighbour Ramsgate, it has been a traditional holiday destination for Londoners drawn to its sandy beaches. Margate had a Victorian jetty which was largely destroyed by a storm in 1978.
In the late 18th. century, the town was chosen by the physician John Coakley Lettsom as the location for the Royal Sea Bathing Hospital, which was the first of its kind in Great Britain.
Like Brighton and Southend, Margate was infamous for gang violence between mods and rockers in the 1960's, and mods and skinheads in the 1980's.
The Turner Contemporary Art Gallery occupies a prominent position next to the harbour, and was constructed there with the specific aim of revitalising the town. The Thanet Offshore Wind Project, completed in 2010, is visible from the seafront.
Margate Tourism
For at least 250 years Margate has been drawing Londoners to its beaches, Margate Sands. The bathing machines in use at Margate were described in 1805 as:
"Four-wheeled carriages, covered with canvas, and
having at one end of them an umbrella of the same
materials which is let down to the surface of the water,
so that the bather descending from the machine by a
few steps is concealed from the public view, whereby
the most refined female is enabled to enjoy the
advantages of the sea with the strictest delicacy".
The Dreamland Amusement Park (featured in "The Jolly Boys' Outing" episode of the TV series Only Fools and Horses) is situated in the centre of Margate. After its closure in 2006, it reopened in 2015 following a lengthy campaign by the "Save Dreamland" Campaign Group.
The Scenic Railway roller coaster at Dreamland, which opened in 1920, is Grade II* Listed, and is the second oldest in the world. It was severely damaged by fire on the 7th. April 2008, but has now been fully restored and reopened to the public.
Cliftonville, next to Margate, had an Arnold Palmer mini golf course. It closed, and was illegally converted into a skate park, which was later shut down by the council amid safety concerns.
Margate Theatres and Exhibitions
There are two notable theatres, the Theatre Royal in Addington Street – the second oldest theatre in the country – and the Tom Thumb Theatre, the second smallest in the country, in addition to the Winter Gardens.
The Theatre Royal was built in 1787, burned down in 1829 and was remodelled in 1879. From 1885 to 1899, actor-manager Sarah Thorne ran a school for acting at the Theatre Royal which is regarded as Britain's first formal drama school.
Actors who received their initial theatrical training there include Harley Granville-Barker, Evelyn Millard, Louis Calvert, George Thorne, Janet Achurch, Adelaide Neilson and Irene and Violet Vanbrugh.
An annual jazz festival takes place in June.
In September, an annual car show commences known as "Oh So Retro" featuring classic and retro vehicles, trade stalls and family-friendly entertainment.
Margate Museum in Market Place explores the town's seaside heritage in a range of exhibits and displays.
The Margate Grotto and Caves
The Shell Grotto, has walls and roof covered in elaborate decorations of over four million shells. These cover 2,000 square feet (190 m2) in complex patterns. It was discovered in 1835, and is of unknown age and origin. It has been designated as a Grade I listed building.
First discovered in 1798, the Margate Caves (also known as the Vortigern Caves) are situated at the bottom of Northdown Road.
The Walpole Bay Tidal Pool
The Walpole Bay Tidal Pool is a Grade 2 listed tidal sea bathing pool built in 1937. The pool covers over four acres, and its dimensions are 450 ft long, 300 ft wide at the seaward end and 550 ft long at the landward end. The water in the pool is refreshed by the incoming tide twice a day, and fresh water springs rise from the beach within the walls.
The Turner Contemporary Gallery
The former chairman of the Margate Civic Society, John Crofts, had a plan to develop a centre that would show the link that the painter JMW Turner shared with Margate. Turner described the Thanet skies as "The loveliest in all Europe."
Crofts became increasingly determined to create such a gallery, and in 1998 the Leader of Kent County Council met a number of people from the art world to discuss the idea.
They hoped that the centre would regenerate the once-thriving town of Margate and offer an alternative to Margate's traditional tourist trade. The County Council offered to partly fund the building of the Turner Gallery. In 2001 the Turner Contemporary was officially established. The view from the gallery is similar to that seen by Turner from his lodging house.
To reduce the cost, Thanet District Council chose a new site inland from the harbour wall. The scheme was supported by the artist Tracey Emin, who was brought up in Margate. The building itself was designed by David Chipperfield Architects after the abandonment of the design by Snøhetta + Spence.
Building work started in 2008, but the project's initiator, John Crofts, died in 2009. The Turner Contemporary Gallery officially opened on the 16th. April 2011.
Historic Sites in Margate
There is a 16th.-century, two-storey timber-framed Tudor house built on a flint plinth in King Street.
Margate's Jubilee Clock Tower was built to commemorate Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee in 1887, although not completed until 1889. It had a Time Ball mechanism, mounted on a mast atop the tower, which was raised a few minutes before 1 pm each day and dropped at precisely 1 pm, thereby allowing residents, visitors and ships to know the exact time.
The Time Ball fell out of use many years ago, but the Margate Civic Society raised funds to have the Time Ball repaired and brought back into use. This was successful, and a civic ceremony celebrated the restoration on the 24th. May 2014, Queen Victoria's birthday, and the 125th. anniversary of the Clock Tower's official opening. The Time Ball now drops at 1 pm each day, and is one of only a handful of working time balls in the world.
Draper's Mill is a smock mill built in 1845 by John Holman. It was working by wind until 1916 and by engine until the late 1930's. It was saved from demolition, and is now restored and open to the public.
Cultural References to Margate
Margate features at the start and as a recurrent theme in Margate writer Iain Aitch's travelogue, A Fete Worse Than Death. The author was born in the town.
T. S. Eliot, who in 1921 recuperated after a mental breakdown in the suburb of Cliftonville, commented in his poem The Waste Land Part III - The Fire Sermon:
"On Margate sands.
I can connect
Nothing with nothing".
Margate features as a destination in Graham Swift's novel Last Orders and its film adaptation. The character Jack Dodds had asked to have his remains scattered at Margate, and the book tells the tale of the drive to Margate and the memories evoked on the way.
The Victorian author William Thackeray used out-of-season Margate as the setting for his early unfinished novel 'A Shabby Genteel Story'.
"Margate" is the title of a UK single released by Chas & Dave in 1982.
"Margate Fhtagn" is a song by UK steampunk band The Men That Will Not Be Blamed For Nothing. The story related in the song combines the Victorian tradition of the seaside holiday with the works of H. P. Lovecraft, specifically the Cthulhu Mythos, to tell the tale of a Victorian family going on a seaside holiday to Margate, which gets interrupted by Cthulhu rising from the sea.
It is thought that Ralph Vaughan Williams wrote his Lark Ascending whilst walking along the cliffs in Margate.
Margate in Film and Television
J. M. W. Turner's long-term relationship with Mrs. Sophia Booth of Margate was featured in the film Mr. Turner (2014).
The railway station and Dreamland feature prominently in the Only Fools & Horses episode "The Jolly Boys' Outing" (1989).
In series 4 (2017) of the British television crime drama Peaky Blinders, the character Alfie Solomons chooses to reside at Margate, where he's shot on the beach by Tommy Shelby.
The town appeared on BBC TV's The Apprentice in May 2009.
The 2012 BBC television drama series True Love was set and filmed in Margate. The show had its first public screening at the Turner Contemporary.
The 2014 ITV sitcom Edge of Heaven was set in a 1980's-themed bed and breakfast establishment in Margate.
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Al Sayyid, Arabian stallion sculpted by Heike Polster of Germany. Painted and Haired by Jen Kroll in 2008. Media used include acrylic paints, pastels, metallic powders, watercolor pencils, and mohair fibers.
This only includes the openings. None of the other parts which stretch out for some distance. Nor does it include Kitty Todd. Which is quite large in itself.
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Miss Claus includes Dress and Hat. 3 color packs available: Velvet, Satin, Patterns. Customizable and Hideable Fur. Materials Enabled. Tintable. Copy & MOD (except for Scripts & HUD). Sizes include Maitreya + Petite, LaraX + Petite, Legacy + Perky + Bombshell, Reborn + Waifu, Kupra, Belleza Gen.X Classic & Curvy, and Peach. Boots come in 22 color HUD. Customizable base, fur and laces. Can be worn with and without fur. Materials enabled. Copy & MOD (except for scripts & HUD). Bonus! HUD to mix & match with Patterns Version of Miss Claus Dress. Sizes include Maitreya, LaraX, Legacy, Reborn, Kupra, Belleza Gen.X and Peach. Gloves come with 2 color packs, both with 22 solid colors. 3rd color pack is a Pattern Mix containing 10 Patterns + 10 Matching Colors. Hideable Fur. Materials Enabled. Copy & MOD (except for scripts & HUD).
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Dimples: .Incomum. Dimples - LEL EVO X, Hair: !KILOWATT - Layla, Heads: LeLUTKA Briannon 4.0, Jewelry: Kaithleen's Floral Spinal Piercing, MICHAN - Nola Rings Fatpack (reborn), [SG] Emo Gauges w/HUD Female Pack, RAWR! Chrysalis Choker, Body: eBody Reborn, Body Scars: - Ophilus - Face Scar & Tapes (Unisex -EvoX Bom Only), Tattoos: .:Inkling:. Lippy Ink // Brat Pack, [HOLMGANG] Cow spots Tattoo, *HP* Little Buddy, Skin: [Heaux] Winter - Browless - Icy *VE for Briannon head, Velour: The "Ipanema Body" for ebody Reborn - Fit (Icy), Eyes: VELOUR "KRYSTAL" EYES, Ears: ^^ Swallow^^ PIXIE Gauged S lel Evo E Ears (f), Extras: KOKOS-VEINS BREAST-BOM, R.O.S.S - Bento Drool (LeLUTKA Briannon), R.O.S.S - Bento Tears - (LeLUTKA Briannon), LooKatMe - Naughty Bandaids Bom, (The DeadBoy) Morus Tongue 1.6, Shape: tsuki. moon shape {lel briannon & ebody reborn}
A gorgeous evening to be out and about on the South Downs, with the liquid songs of the Skylarks over the wheat fields. I even caught a glimpse of a Badger, just as it disappeared in to some bushes
Muscat (Arabic: مَسْقَط, Masqaṭ pronounced [ˈmasqatˤ]) is the capital and most populated city in Oman. It is the seat of the Governorate of Muscat. According to the National Centre for Statistics and Information (NCSI), the total population of Muscat Governorate was 1.72 million as of September 2022. The metropolitan area spans approximately 3,500 km2 (1,400 sq mi) and includes six provinces called wilayats, making it the largest city in the Arabian Peninsula by area.[citation needed] Known since the early 1st century AD as an important trading port between the west and the east, Muscat was ruled by various indigenous tribes as well as foreign powers such as the Persians, the Portuguese Empire and the Ottoman Empire at various points in its history. A regional military power in the 18th century, Muscat's influence extended as far as East Africa and Zanzibar. As an important port-town in the Gulf of Oman, Muscat attracted foreign traders and settlers such as the Persians, Balochs and Sindhis. Since the accession of Qaboos bin Said as Sultan of Oman in 1970, Muscat has experienced rapid infrastructural development that has led to the growth of a vibrant economy and a multi-ethnic society. Muscat is termed as a Beta - Global City by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network.
The Hajar Mountains dominate the landscape of Muscat. The city lies on the Arabian Sea along the Gulf of Oman and is in the proximity of the strategic Straits of Hormuz. Low-lying white buildings typify most of Muscat's urban landscape, while the port-district of Muttrah, with its corniche and harbour, form the north-eastern periphery of the city. Muscat's economy is dominated by trade, petroleum, liquified natural gas and porting.
Toponymy
Ptolemy's Map of Arabia identifies the territories of Cryptus Portus and Moscha Portus. Scholars are divided in opinion on which of the two is related to the city of Muscat. Similarly, Arrianus references Omana and Moscha in Voyage of Nearchus. Interpretations of Arrianus' work by William Vincent and Jean Baptiste Bourguignon d'Anville conclude that Omana was a reference to Oman, while Moscha referred to Muscat. Similarly, other scholars identify Pliny the Elder's reference to Amithoscuta to be Muscat.
The origin of the word Muscat is disputed. Some authors claim that the word has Arabic origins – from moscha, meaning an inflated hide or skin. Other authors claim that the name Muscat means anchorage or the place of "letting fall the anchor". Other derivations include muscat from Old Persian, meaning strong-scented, or from Arabic, meaning falling-place, or hidden. Cryptus Portus is synonymous with Oman ("hidden land"). But "Ov-man" (Omman), and the old Sumerian name Magan (Maa-kan), means sea-people in Arabic. An inhabitant is a Muscatter, Muscatian, Muscatite or Muscatan. In 1793 AD the capital was transferred from Rustaq to Muscat.
History
See also: Timeline of Muscat, Oman
Evidence of communal activity in the area around Muscat dates back to the 6th millennium BC in Ras al-Hamra, where burial sites of fishermen have been found. The graves appear to be well formed and indicate the existence of burial rituals. South of Muscat, remnants of Harappan pottery indicate some level of contact with the Indus Valley civilisation. Muscat's notability as a port was acknowledged as early as the 1st century AD by the Greek geographer Ptolemy, who referred to it as Cryptus Portus (the Hidden Port), and by Pliny the Elder, who called it Amithoscuta.
The port fell to a Sassanid invasion in the 3rd century AD, under the rule of Shapur I, while conversion to Islam occurred during the 7th century. Muscat's importance as a trading port continued to grow in the centuries that followed, under the influence of the Azd dynasty, a local tribe. The establishment of the First Imamate in the 9th century was the first step in consolidating disparate Omani tribal factions under the banner of an Ibadi state. However, tribal skirmishes continued, allowing the Abbasids of Baghdad to conquer Oman. The Abbasids occupied the region until the 11th century, when they were driven out by the local Yahmad tribe. Power over Oman shifted from the Yahmad tribe to the Azdi Nabahinah clan, during whose rule, the people of coastal ports such as Muscat prospered from maritime trade and close alliances with the Indian subcontinent, at the cost of the alienation of the people of the interior of Oman.
The Portuguese admiral Afonso de Albuquerque sailed to Muscat in 1507, in an attempt to establish trade relations. As he approached the harbour, his ships were fired on. He then decided to conquer Muscat. Most of the city burned to the ground during and after the fighting.
The Portuguese maintained a hold on Muscat for over a century, despite challenges from Persia and a bombardment of the town by the Ottoman Turks in 1546. The Turks twice captured Muscat from the Portuguese, in the Capture of Muscat (1552) and 1581–88. The election of Nasir bin Murshid Al-Ya'rubi as Imam of Oman in 1624 changed the balance of power again in the region, from the Persians and the Portuguese to local Omanis. Among the most important castles and forts in Muscat, the Al Jalali Fort and the Al-Mirani Fort are the most prominent buildings left by the Portuguese. On August 16, 1648 the Imam dispatched an army to Muscat, which captured and demolished the high towers of the Portuguese, weakening their grip over the town. Decisively, in 1650, a small but determined body of the Imam's troops attacked the port at night, forcing an eventual Portuguese surrender on January 23, 1650. A civil war and repeated incursions by the Persian king Nader Shah in the 18th century destabilised the region, and further strained relations between the interior and Muscat. This power vacuum in Oman led to the emergence of the Al Bu Sa‘id dynasty, which has ruled Oman ever since.
Muscat's naval and military supremacy was re-established in the 19th century by Said bin Sultan, who signed a treaty with U.S. President Andrew Jackson's representative Edmund Roberts on September 21, 1833. Having gained control over Zanzibar, in 1840 Said moved his capital to Stone Town, the ancient quarter of Zanzibar City; however, after his death in 1856, control over Zanzibar was lost when it became an independent sultanate under his sixth son, Majid bin Said (1834/5–1870), while the third son, Thuwaini bin Said, became the Sultan of Oman.
By the 19th century, a large Hindu merchant community in the port city dominated its commercial life. It is argued that their settlement at least since the fifteenth century; one of the reasons is that the Portuguese relied heavily on them to secure a trade monopoly in the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf area. The Sindhis were amongst the first during this era, followed by the Kutchis. The merchant community played an important role in expelling the Europeans in 1650. They were not affected by civil war that established the Al Bu Sa‘id dynasty and continued to prosper under Ahmad bin Said al-Busaidi. Important trade existed between the city and Thatta, and later, Kutch, expanding to other parts of India.
During the second half of the 19th century, the fortunes of the Al Bu Sa‘id declined and friction with the Imams of the interior resurfaced. Muscat and Muttrah were attacked by tribes from the interior in 1895 and again in 1915. A tentative ceasefire was brokered by the British, which gave the interior more autonomy. However, conflicts among the disparate tribes of the interior, and with the Sultan of Muscat and Oman continued into the 1950s, and eventually escalated into the Dhofar Rebellion (1962). The rebellion forced the Sultan Said bin Taimur to seek the assistance of the British in quelling the uprisings from the interior. The failed assassination attempt of April 26, 1966 on Said bin Taimur led to the further isolation of the Sultan, who had moved his residence from Muscat to Salalah, amidst the civilian armed conflict. On July 23, 1970, Qaboos bin Said, son of the Sultan, staged a bloodless coup d'état in the Salalah palace with the assistance of the British, and took over as ruler.
With the assistance of the British, Qaboos bin Said put an end to the Dhofar uprising and consolidated disparate tribal territories. He renamed the country the Sultanate of Oman (called Muscat and Oman hitherto), in an attempt to end to the interior's isolation from Muscat. Qaboos enlisted the services of capable Omanis to fill positions in his new government, drawing from such corporations as Petroleum Development Oman. New ministries for social services such as health and education were established. The construction of Mina Qaboos, a new port conceived initially by Sa‘id bin Taimur, was developed during the early days of Qaboos' rule. Similarly, a new international airport was developed in Muscat's Seeb district. A complex of offices, warehouses, shops and homes transformed the old village of Ruwi in Muttrah into a commercial district. The first five-year development plan in 1976 emphasised infrastructural development of Muscat, which provided new opportunities for trade and tourism in the 1980s–1990s, attracting migrants from around the region. On June 6, 2007, Cyclone Gonu hit Muscat causing extensive damage to property, infrastructure and commercial activity.
Geography and geology
Muscat is located in northeast Oman. The Tropic of Cancer passes south of the area. It is bordered to its west by the plains of the Al Batinah Region and to its east by Ash Sharqiyah Region. The interior plains of Ad Dakhiliyah Region border Muscat to the south, while the Gulf of Oman forms the northern and western periphery of the city. The water along the coast of Muscat runs deep, forming two natural harbours, in Muttrah and Muscat. The Central Hajar Mountains run through the northern coastline of the city.
Volcanic rocks, predominantly serpentinite and diorite are apparent in the Muscat area and extend along the Gulf of Oman coast for ten or twelve 16 kilometres (9.9 mi) from the district of Darsait to Yiti. Plutonic rocks constitute the hills and mountains of Muscat and span approximately 30 miles (48 km) from Darsait to Ras Jissah. These igneous rocks consists of serpentinite, greenstone, and basalt, typical of rocks in southeastern regions of the Arabian Peninsula. South of Muscat, the volcanic rock strata are broken up and distorted, rising to a maximum height of 6,000 feet (1,800 m) in Al-Dakhiliyah, a region which includes Jebel Akhdar, the country's highest range. The hills in Muscat are mostly devoid of vegetation but are rich in iron.
The halophytic sabkha type desert vegetation is predominant in Muscat. The Qurum Nature Reserve contains plants such as the Arthrocnemum Macrostachyum and Halopeplis Perfoliata. Coral reefs are common in Muscat. Acropora reefs exist in the sheltered bays of the satellite towns of Jussah and Khairan. Additionally, smaller Porites reef colonies exist in Khairan, which have fused to form a flat-top pavement that is visible at low tide. Crabs and spiny crayfish are found in the waters of the Muscat area, as are sardines and bonito. Glassfish are common in freshwater estuaries, such as the Qurum Nature Reserve.
The Sultan Qaboos Street forms the main artery of Muscat, running west-to-east through the city. The street eventually becomes Al Nahdah Street near Al Wattayah. Several inter-city roads such as Nizwa Road and Al Amrat Road, intersect with Al Sultan Qaboos Road (in Rusail and Ruwi, respectively). Muttrah, with the Muscat Harbour, Corniche, and Mina Qaboos, is located in the north-eastern coastline of the city, adjacent to the Gulf of Oman. Other coastal districts of Muscat include Darsait, Mina Al Fahal, Ras Al Hamar, Al Qurum Heights, Al Khuwair, and Al Seeb. Residential and commercial districts further inland include Al Hamriyah, Al Wadi Al Kabir, Ruwi, Al Wattayah, Madinat Qaboos, Al Azaiba and Al Ghubra.
Climate
Muscat features a hot, arid climate (Köppen climate classification BWh) with long, sweltering summers and warm "winters". Annual rainfall in Muscat is about 10 centimetres or 4 inches, falling mostly from December to April. In general, precipitation is scarce in Muscat, with the months May to November typically receiving only a trace of rainfall. However, in recent years, heavy precipitation events from tropical systems originating in the Arabian Sea have struck the city. Cyclone Gonu in June 2007 and Cyclone Phet in June 2010 affected the city with damaging winds and rainfall amounts exceeding 100 millimetres or 4 inches in just a single day. The climate generally is very hot and also very humid in the summer, with temperatures sometimes reaching as high as 45 °C or 113 °F.
Economy
Muscat's economy, like that of Oman, is dominated by trade. The more traditional exports of the city included dates, mother of pearl, and fish. Many of the souks of Muttrah sell these items and traditional Omani artefacts. Petroleum Development Oman has been central to Muscat's economy since at least 1962 and is the country's second largest employer, after the government. Its major shareholders include Shell, Total, and Partex and its production is estimated to be about 720,000 barrels per day (114,000 m3/d). Muscat also has major trading companies such as the Suhail Bahwan Group, which is a trading partner for corporations such as Toshiba, Subaru, Seiko, Hewlett-Packard, General Motors, RAK Ceramics; Saud Bahwan Group whose trading partners are Toyota, Daihatsu, KIA and Hertz Rent-a-Car; Zubair Automotive whose trading partners include Mitsubishi, and Chrysler brands such as Dodge; and Moosa AbdulRahman Hassan which operates as one of the oldest automotive agencies in the entire region having been established in 1927. The private Health Care sector of Muscat, Oman has numerous hospitals and clinics.
The Muscat Securities Market is the principal stock exchange of Oman. It is located in Central Business District of Muscat and it was established in 1988, and has since distinguished itself as a pioneer among its regional peers in terms of transparency and disclosure regulations and requirements.
Mina'a Sultan Qaboos, Muscat's main trading port, is a trading hub between the Persian Gulf, the Indian subcontinent and the Far East with an annual volume of about 1.6 million tons. However, the emergence of the Jebel Ali Free Zone in neighboring Dubai, United Arab Emirates, has made that port the premier maritime trading port of the region with about 44 million tons traded in cargo annually. Many infrastructural facilities are owned and operated by the government of Oman. Omantel is the major telecommunications organization in Oman and provides local, long-distance and international dialing facilities and operates as the country's only ISP. Recent liberalization of the mobile telephone market has seen the establishment of a second provider, Ooredoo.
Muscat is home to multibillion-dollar conglomerate CK Industries with their headquarters located in Ruwi. Ajman based Amtek Industries also have a couple of offices around the city. It is also home to Galfar Engineering, headed by P. Mohammed Ali.
The airline Oman Air has its head office on the grounds of Muscat International Airport.
Demographics
According to the 2003 census conducted by the Oman Ministry of National Economy, the population of Muscat is over 630,000, which included 370,000 males and 260,000 females. Muscat formed the second largest governorate in the country, after Al Batinah, accounting for 27% of the total population of Oman. As of 2003, Omanis constituted 60% of the total population of Muscat, while expatriates accounted for about 40%. The population density of the city was 162.1 per km2.
Shangri la in Muscat
The governorate of Muscat comprises six wilayats: Muttrah, Bawshar, Seeb, Al Amrat, Muscat and Qurayyat. Seeb, located in the western section of the governorate, was the most populous (with over 220,000 residents), while Muttrah had the highest number of expatriates (with over 100,000). Approximately 71% of the population was within the 15–64 age group, with the average Omani age being 23 years. About 10% of the population is illiterate, an improvement when compared to the 18% illiteracy rate recorded during the 1993 census. Expatriates accounted for over 60% of the labour force, dominated by males, who accounted for 80% of the city's total labour. A majority of expatriates (34%) was in engineering-related occupations, while most Omanis worked in engineering, clerical, scientific or technical fields. The defense sector was the largest employer for Omanis, while construction, wholesale and retail trade employed the largest number of expatriates.
The ethnic makeup of Muscat has historically been influenced by people not native to the Arabian Peninsula. British Parliamentary papers dating back to the 19th century indicate the presence of a significant Hindu Gujarati merchants in the city. Indeed, four Hindu temples existed in Muscat ca. 1760. Christianity flourished in Oman (Bēṯ Mazūnāyē "land of the Maganites"; a name deriving from its Sumerian designation) from the late 4th century to the 7th century. Missionary activity by the Assyrians of the Church of the East resulted in a significant Christian population living in the region, with a bishop being attested by 424 AD under the Metropolitan of Fars and Arabia. The rise of Islam saw the Syriac and Arabic-speaking Christian population eventually disappear. It is thought to have been brought back in by the Portuguese in 1507. Protestant missionaries established a hospital in Muscat in the 19th century.
Like the rest of Oman, Arabic is the predominant language of the city. In addition, English, Balochi, Sindhi, Swahili and Indian languages such as Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Konkani, Malayalam, Marathi, Odia, Tamil, Tulu, Telugu and Urdu are spoken by the residents of Muscat.
Islam is the predominant religion in the city, with most followers being Ibadi Muslims. Non-Muslims are allowed to practise their religion, but may not proselytize publicly or distribute religious literature. In 2017 the Sultanate of Oman unveiled the Mushaf Muscat, an interactive calligraphic Quran following a brief from the Omani Ministry of Endowments and Religious Affairs.
Notable landmarks
The city has numerous mosques including the Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque, Ruwi Mosque, Saeed bin Taimoor and Zawawi Mosque. A few Shi'ite mosques also exist here. Muscat has a number of museums. These include Museum of Omani Heritage, National Museum of Oman, Oman Children's Museum, Bait Al Zubair, Oman Oil and Gas Exhibition Centre, Omani French Museum, Sultan's Armed Forces Museum and the Omani Aquarium and Marine Science and Fisheries Centre. The Bait Al Falaj Fort played an important role in Muscat's military history.
Recent projects include an opera house which opened on October 14, 2011. One of the most notable new projects is the Oman National Museum. It is expected to be an architectural jewel along with the Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque. Visitors are also encouraged[who?] to visit Old Muscat and the Old Palace. The main shopping district is situated in Al Qurum Commercial Area. However, shopping malls are found throughout the city. One of the largest malls in Oman is Oman Avenues Mall, located in Ghubra. The fourth largest mall is in Seeb, near the international airport, called City Centre Muscat, housing all major international brands and the largest Carrefour hypermarket. Two new megamalls opened during 2019 and 2020: in the Mabela area of Muscat are Al Araimi Boulevard and Mall of Muscat.[citation needed] The Mall of Muscat is also home to the Oman Aquarium and a snow park which opened in late 2019.[50] Mall Of Oman, the largest shopping mall in Oman was opened in Summer 2021 housing over 100+ stores including Snow Oman, Vox Cinemas, an arcade (Magic Planet) and various food chains.
Culture
The traditional Dhow, an enduring symbol of Oman
Outwardly, Oman shares many of the cultural characteristics of its Arab neighbours, particularly those in the Gulf Cooperation Council. Despite these similarities, important factors make Oman unique in the Middle East. These result as much from geography and history as from culture and economics. The relatively recent and artificial nature of the state of Oman makes it difficult to describe a national culture; however, sufficient cultural heterogeneity exists within its national boundaries to make Oman distinct from other Arab States of the Persian Gulf. Oman's cultural diversity is greater than that of its Arab neighbours, given its historical expansion to the Swahili Coast and the Indian Ocean.
Oman has a long tradition of shipbuilding, as maritime travel played a major role in the Omanis' ability to stay in contact with the civilisations of the ancient world. Sur was one of the most famous shipbuilding cities of the Indian Ocean. The Al Ghanja ship takes one whole year to build. Other types of Omani ship include As Sunbouq and Al Badan.
In March 2016, archaeologists working off Al-Hallaniyah Island identified a shipwreck believed to be that of the Esmeralda from Vasco da Gama's 1502–1503 fleet. The wreck was initially discovered in 1998. Later underwater excavations took place between 2013 and 2015 through a partnership between the Oman Ministry of Heritage and Culture and Blue Water Recoveries Ltd., a shipwreck recovery company. The vessel was identified through such artifacts as a "Portuguese coin minted for trade with India (one of only two coins of this type known to exist) and stone cannonballs engraved with what appear to be the initials of Vincente Sodré, da Gama's maternal uncle and the commander of the Esmeralda".
Notable people
Mohammed Al Barwani (born 1952), billionaire and founder of MB Holding
Avicii (1989–2018), Swedish music producer and DJ, died in Muscat Hills
Mahesh Bhupathi (born 1974), Indian tennis player. He studied at the Indian School, Muscat.
Sarah-Jane Dias (born 1974), Indian actress. She studied at the Indian School, Muscat.
Isla Fisher (born 1976), Australian actress, born to Scottish parents and lived in Australia
Tate McRae (born 2003), Canadian singer-songwriter, studied at The American International School Muscat
Ali Al-Habsi (born 1981), professional footballer, captain of the Oman national and goalkeeper for Saudi club Al Hilal
Amad Al-Hosni (born 1984), professional footballer
Ahmad Al Harthy (born 1981), racecar driver
Fatma Al-Nabhani (born 1991), tennis player
Ali bin Masoud al Sunaidy (born 1964), former Omani Minister of Commerce and Industry
Sneha Ullal (born 1987), Indian Bollywood Actress. She studied at the Indian School, Muscat.
Nitya Vidyasagar (born 1985), American actress
Al Faisal Al Zubair (born 1998), racecar driver
Hamed Al-Wahaibi (born 1968), rally driver
Oman, officially the Sultanate of Oman, is a country located in West Asia. It is situated on the southeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula, and spans the mouth of the Persian Gulf. It shares land borders with Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen, while sharing maritime borders with Iran and Pakistan. The capital and largest city is Muscat. Oman has a population of nearly 4.7 million and is ranked the 124th most-populous country. The coast is formed by the Arabian Sea on the southeast, and the Gulf of Oman on the northeast. The Madha and Musandam exclaves are surrounded by United Arab Emirates on their land borders, with the Strait of Hormuz (which it shares with Iran) and the Gulf of Oman forming Musandam's coastal boundaries.
From the 17th century, the Omani Sultanate was an empire, vying with the Portuguese and British Empires for influence in the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean. At its peak in the 19th century, Omani influence and control extended across the Strait of Hormuz to Iran and Pakistan, and as far south as Zanzibar. In the 20th century, the sultanate came under the influence of the United Kingdom. For over 300 years, the relations built between the two empires were based on mutual benefit. The UK recognized Oman's geographical importance as a trading hub that secured their trading lanes in the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean and protected their empire in the Indian sub-continent. Oman is an absolute monarchy led by a sultan, with power passed down through the male line. Qaboos bin Said was the Sultan from 1970 until his death on 10 January 2020. Qaboos, who died childless, had named his cousin, Haitham bin Tariq, as his successor in a letter, and the family confirmed him as the Sultan of Oman.
Formerly a maritime empire, Oman is the oldest continuously independent state in the Arab world. It is a member of the United Nations, the Arab League, the Gulf Cooperation Council, the Non-Aligned Movement and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation. It has oil reserves ranked 22nd globally. In 2010, the United Nations Development Programme ranked Oman as the most improved nation in the world in terms of development during the preceding 40 years. A portion of its economy involves tourism and trading fish, dates and other agricultural produce. Oman is categorized as a high-income economy and, as of 2023, ranks as the 48th most peaceful country in the world according to the Global Peace Index.
Oman is the site of pre-historic human habitation, stretching back over 100,000 years. The region was impacted by powerful invaders, including other Arab tribes, Portugal and Britain. Oman once possessed the island of Zanzibar on the east coast of Africa as a colony. Oman also held Gwadar as a colony for many years.
Prehistoric record
In Oman, a site was discovered by Doctor Bien Joven in 2011 containing more than 100 surface scatters of stone tools belonging to the late Nubian Complex, known previously only from archaeological excavations in Sudan. Two optically stimulated luminescence age estimates place the Arabian Nubian Complex at approximately 106,000 years old. This provides evidence for a distinct Mobile Stone Age technocomplex in southern Arabia, around the earlier part of the Marine Isotope Stage 5.
The hypothesized departure of humankind from Africa to colonise the rest of the world involved them crossing the Straits of Bab el Mandab in the southern Red Sea and moving along the green coastlines around Arabia and thence to the rest of Eurasia. Such crossing became possible when sea level had fallen by more than 80 meters to expose much of the shelf between southern Eritrea and Yemen; a level that was reached during a glacial stadial from 60 to 70 ka as climate cooled erratically to reach the last glacial maximum. From 135,000 to 90,000 years ago, tropical Africa had megadroughts which drove the humans from the land and towards the sea shores, and forced them to cross over to other continents. The researchers used radiocarbon dating techniques on pollen grains trapped in lake-bottom mud to establish vegetation over the ages of the Malawi lake in Africa, taking samples at 300-year-intervals. Samples from the megadrought times had little pollen or charcoal, suggesting sparse vegetation with little to burn. The area around Lake Malawi, today heavily forested, was a desert approximately 135,000 to 90,000 years ago.
Luminescence dating is a technique that measures naturally occurring radiation stored in the sand. Data culled via this methodology demonstrates that 130,000 years ago, the Arabian Peninsula was relatively warmer which caused more rainfall, turning it into a series of lush habitable land. During this period the southern Red Sea's levels dropped and was only 4 kilometres (2.5 mi) wide. This offered a brief window of time for humans to easily cross the sea and cross the Peninsula to opposing sites like Jebel Faya. These early migrants running away from the climate change in Africa, crossed the Red Sea into Yemen and Oman, trekked across Arabia during favourable climate conditions. 2,000 kilometres of inhospitable desert lie between the Red Sea and Jebel Faya in UAE. But around 130,000 years ago the world was at the end of an ice age. The Red Sea was shallow enough to be crossed on foot or on a small raft, and the Arabian peninsula was being transformed from a parched desert into a green land.
There have been discoveries of Paleolithic stone tools in caves in southern and central Oman, and in the United Arab Emirates close to the Straits of Hormuz at the outlet of the Persian Gulf (UAE site (Jebel Faya). The stone tools, some up to 125,000 years old, resemble those made by humans in Africa around the same period.
Persian period
The northern half of Oman (beside modern-day Bahrain, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, plus Balochistan and Sindh provinces of Pakistan) presumably was part of the Maka satrapy of the Persian Achaemenid Empire. By the time of the conquests of Alexander the Great, the satrapy may have existed in some form and Alexander is said to have stayed in Purush, its capital, perhaps near Bam, in Kerman province. From the 2nd half of the 1st millennium BCE, waves of Semitic speaking peoples migrated from central and western Arabia to the east. The most important of these tribes are known as Azd. On the coast Parthian and Sassanian colonies were maintained. From c. 100 BCE to c. 300 CE Semitic speakers appear in central Oman at Samad al-Shan and the so-called Pre-islamic recent period, abbreviated PIR, in what has become the United Arab Emirates. These waves continue, in the 19th century bringing Bedouin ruling families who finally ruled the Persian Gulf states.
The Kingdom of Oman was subdued by the Sasanian Empire's forces under Vahrez during the Aksumite–Persian wars. The 4,000-strong Sasanian garrison was headquartered at Jamsetjerd/Jamshedgird (modern Jebel Gharabeh, also known as Felej al-Sook).
Conversion to Islam
Oman was exposed to Islam in 630, during the lifetime of the prophet Muhammad; consolidation took place in the Ridda Wars in 632.
In 751 Ibadi Muslims, a moderate branch of the Kharijites, established an imamate in Oman. Despite interruptions, the Ibadi imamate survived until the mid-20th century.
Oman is currently the only country with a majority Ibadi population. Ibadhism has a reputation for its "moderate conservatism". One distinguishing feature of Ibadism is the choice of ruler by communal consensus and consent. The introduction of Ibadism vested power in the Imam, the leader nominated by the ulema. The Imam's position was confirmed when the imam—having gained the allegiance of the tribal sheiks—received the bay'ah (oath of allegiance) from the public.
Foreign invasions
Several foreign powers attacked Oman. The Qarmatians controlled the area between 931 and 932 and then again between 933 and 934. Between 967 and 1053 Oman formed part of the domain of the Iranian Buyyids, and between 1053 and 1154 Oman was part of the Seljuk Empire. Seljuk power even spread through Oman to Koothanallur in southern India.
In 1154 the indigenous Nabhani dynasty took control of Oman, and the Nabhani kings ruled Oman until 1470, with an interruption of 37 years between 1406 and 1443.
The Portuguese took Muscat on 1 April 1515, and held it until 26 January 1650, although the Ottomans controlled Muscat from 1550 to 1551 and from 1581 to 1588. In about the year 1600, Nabhani rule was temporarily restored to Oman, although that lasted only to 1624 with the establishment of the fifth imamate, also known as the Yarubid Imamate. The latter recaptured Muscat from the Portuguese in 1650 after a colonial presence on the northeastern coast of Oman dating to 1508.
Turning the table, the Omani Yarubid dynasty became a colonial power itself, acquiring former Portuguese colonies in east Africa and engaging in the slave trade, centered on the Swahili coast and the island of Zanzibar.
By 1719 dynastic succession led to the nomination of Saif bin Sultan II (c. 1706–1743). His candidacy prompted a rivalry among the ulama and a civil war between the two factions, led by major tribes, the Hinawi and the Ghafiri, with the Ghafiri supporting Saif ibn Sultan II. In 1743, Persian ruler Nader Shah occupied Muscat and Sohar with Saif's assistance. Saif died, and was succeeded by Bal'arab bin Himyar of the Yaruba.
Persia had occupied the coast previously. Yet this intervention on behalf of an unpopular dynasty brought about a revolt. The leader of the revolt, Ahmad bin Said al-Busaidi, took advantage of the assassination of the Persian king, Nadir Shah in Khurasan in 1747 and the chaos that resulted in the Persian Empire by expelling the dwindling Persian forces. He then defeated Bal'arab, and was elected sultan of Muscat and imam of Oman.
The Al Busaid clan thus became a royal dynasty. Like its predecessors, Al Busaid dynastic rule has been characterized by a history of internecine family struggle, fratricide, and usurpation. Apart from threats within the ruling family, there were frequent challenges from the independent tribes of the interior. The Busaidid dynasty renounced the imamate after Ahmad bin Said. The interior tribes recognized the imam as the sole legitimate ruler, rejected the authority of the sultan, and fought for the restoration of the imamate.
Schisms within the ruling family became apparent before Ahmad ibn Said's death in 1783 and later manifested themselves with the division of the family into two main lines:
the Sultan ibn Ahmad (ruled 1792–1806) line, controlling the maritime state, with nominal control over the entire country
the Qais branch, with authority over the Al Batinah and Ar Rustaq areas
This period also included a revolt in Oman's colony of Zanzibar in the year 1784.
During the period of Sultan Said ibn Sultan's reign (1806–1856), Oman built up its overseas colonies, profiting from the slave trade. As a regional commercial power in the 19th century, Oman held the island of Zanzibar on the Swahili Coast, the Zanj region of the East African coast, including Mombasa and Dar es Salaam, and (until 1958) Gwadar on the Arabian Sea coast of present-day Pakistan.
When Great Britain prohibited slavery in the mid-19th century, the sultanate's fortunes reversed. The economy collapsed, and many Omani families migrated to Zanzibar. The population of Muscat fell from 55,000 to 8,000 between the 1850s and 1870s. Britain seized most of the overseas possessions, and by 1900 Oman had become a different country than before.
Late 19th and early 20th centuries
When Sultan Sa'id bin Sultan Al-Busaid died in 1856, his sons quarrelled over the succession. As a result of this struggle, the empire—through the mediation of Britain under the Canning Award—was divided in 1861 into two separate principalities: Sultanate of Zanzibar (with its African Great Lakes dependencies), and the area of "Muscat and Oman". This name was abolished in 1970 in favor of "Sultanate of Oman", but implies two political cultures with a long history:
The coastal tradition: more cosmopolitan, and secular, found in the city of Muscat and adjacent coastline ruled by the sultan.
The interior tradition: insular, tribal, and highly religious under the ideological tenets of Ibadism, found in "Oman proper" ruled by an imam.
The more cosmopolitan Muscat has been the ascending political culture since the founding of the Al Busaid dynasty in 1744, although the imamate tradition has found intermittent expression.
The death of Sa'id bin Sultan in 1856 prompted a further division: the descendants of the late sultan ruled Muscat and Oman (Thuwaini ibn Said Al-Busaid, r. 1856–1866) and Zanzibar (Mayid ibn Said Al-Busaid, r. 1856–1870); the Qais branch intermittently allied itself with the ulama to restore imamate legitimacy. In 1868, Azzan bin Qais Al-Busaid (r. 1868–1871) emerged as self-declared imam. Although a significant number of Hinawi tribes recognized him as imam, the public neither elected him nor acclaimed him as such.
Imam Azzan understood that to unify the country a strong, central authority had to be established with control over the interior tribes of Oman. His rule was jeopardized by the British, who interpreted his policy of bringing the interior tribes under the central government as a move against their established order. In resorting to military means to unify Muscat and Oman, Imam Azzan alienated members of the Ghafiri tribes, who revolted in the 1870–1871 period. The British gave financial and political support to Turki bin Said Al-Busaid, Imam Azzan's rival in exchange of controlling the area. In the Battle of Dhank, Turki bin Said defeated the forces of Imam Azzan, who was killed in battle outside Muttrah in January 1871.
Muscat and Oman was the object of Franco-British rivalry throughout the 18th century. During the 19th century, Muscat and Oman and the United Kingdom concluded several treaties of commerce benefitting mostly the British. In 1908 the British entered into an agreement based in the imperialistic plans to control the area. Their traditional association was confirmed in 1951 through a new treaty of commerce, based on oil reserves, and navigation by which the United Kingdom recognized the Sultanate of Muscat and Oman as a fully independent state, under their supervision and their strategic neo-colonial interest.
During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, there were tensions between the sultan in Muscat and the Ibadi Imam in Nizwa. This conflict was resolved temporarily by the Treaty of Seeb, which granted the imam rule in the interior Imamate of Oman, while recognising the sovereignty of the sultan in Muscat and its surroundings.
Late 20th century
In 1954, the conflict flared up again, when the Treaty of Seeb was broken by the sultan after oil was discovered in the lands of the Imam. The new imam (Ghalib bin Ali) led a 5-year rebellion against the sultan's attack. The Sultan was aided by the colonial British forces and the Shah of Iran. In the early 1960s, the Imam, exiled to Saudi Arabia, obtained support from his hosts and other Arab governments, but this support ended in the 1980s. The case of the Imam was argued at the United Nations as well, but no significant measures were taken.
Zanzibar paid an annual subsidy to Muscat and Oman until its independence in early 1964.
In 1964, a separatist revolt began in Dhofar province. Aided by Communist and leftist governments such as the former South Yemen (People's Democratic Republic of Yemen), the rebels formed the Dhofar Liberation Front, which later merged with the Marxist-dominated Popular Front for the Liberation of Oman and the Arabian Gulf (PFLOAG). The PFLOAG's declared intention was to overthrow all traditional Persian Gulf régimes. In mid-1974, the Bahrain branch of the PFLOAG was established as a separate organisation and the Omani branch changed its name to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Oman (PFLO), while continuing the Dhofar Rebellion.
1970s
In the 1970 Omani coup d'état, Qaboos bin Said al Said ousted his father, Sa'id bin Taimur, who later died in exile in London. Al Said ruled as sultan until his death. The new sultan confronted insurgency in a country plagued by endemic disease, illiteracy, and poverty. One of the new sultan's first measures was to abolish many of his father's harsh restrictions, which had caused thousands of Omanis to leave the country, and to offer amnesty to opponents of the previous régime, many of whom returned to Oman. 1970 also brought the abolition of slavery.
Sultan Qaboos also established a modern governmental structure and launched a major development programme to upgrade educational and health facilities, build modern infrastructure and develop the country's natural resources.
In an effort to curb the Dhofar insurgency, Sultan Qaboos expanded and re-equipped the armed forces and granted amnesty to all surrendering rebels while vigorously prosecuting the war in Dhofar. He obtained direct military support from the UK, imperial Iran, and Jordan. By early 1975, the guerrillas were confined to a 50-square-kilometre (19 sq mi) area near the Yemeni border and shortly thereafter were defeated. As the war drew to a close, civil action programs were given priority throughout Dhofar and helped win the allegiance of the people. The PFLO threat diminished further with the establishment of diplomatic relations in October 1983 between South Yemen and Oman, and South Yemen subsequently lessened propaganda and subversive activities against Oman. In late 1987 Oman opened an embassy in Aden, South Yemen, and appointed its first resident ambassador to the country.
Throughout his reign, Sultan Qaboos balanced tribal, regional, and ethnic interests in composing the national administration. The Council of Ministers, which functions as a cabinet, consisted of 26 ministers, all of whom were directly appointed by Qaboos. The Majlis Al-Shura (Consultative Council) has the mandate of reviewing legislation pertaining to economic development and social services prior to its becoming law. The Majlis Al-Shura may request ministers to appear before it.
1990s
In November 1996, Sultan Qaboos presented his people with the "Basic Statutes of the State", Oman's first written "constitution". It guarantees various rights within the framework of Qur'anic and customary law. It partially resuscitated long dormant conflict-of-interest measures by banning cabinet ministers from being officers of public shareholding firms. Perhaps most importantly, the Basic Statutes provide rules for setting Sultan Qaboos' succession.
Oman occupies a strategic location on the Strait of Hormuz at the entrance to the Persian Gulf, 35 miles (56 km) directly opposite Iran. Oman has concerns with regional stability and security, given tensions in the region, the proximity of Iran and Iraq, and the potential threat of political Islam. Oman maintained its diplomatic relations with Iraq throughout the Gulf War while supporting the United Nations allies by sending a contingent of troops to join coalition forces and by opening up to pre-positioning of weapons and supplies.
2000s
In September 2000, about 100,000 Omani men and women elected 83 candidates, including two women, to seats in the Majlis Al-Shura. In December 2000, Sultan Qaboos appointed the 48-member Majlis Al Dowla, or State Council, including five women, which acts as the upper chamber in Oman's bicameral representative body.
Al Said's extensive modernization program has opened the country to the outside world and has preserved a long-standing political and military relationship with the United Kingdom, the United States, and others. Oman's moderate, independent foreign policy has sought to maintain good relations with all Middle Eastern countries.
Qaboos, the Arab world's longest-serving ruler, died on 10 January 2020 after nearly 50 years in power. On 11 January 2020, his cousin Haitham bin Tariq al-Said was sworn in as Oman's new sultan.
Rulers of Oman
of Zanzibar and Oman)
Thuwaini bin Said (19 October 1856 – 11 February 1866)
Salim bin Thuwaini (11 February 1866 – October 1868)
Azzan bin Qais (October 1868 – 30 January 1871)
Turki bin Said (30 January 1871 – 4 June 1888)
Faisal bin Turki (4 June 1888 – 15 October 1913)
Taimur bin Faisal (15 October 1913 – 10 February 1932)
Said bin Taimur (10 February 1932 – 23 July 1970)
Qaboos bin Said (23 July 1970 to 10 January 2020)
Haitham bin Tariq (11 January 2020 - present)
Rushmore Cave is the closest show cave to Mount Rushmore National Memorial in the United States. It contains a wide variety of natural formations. It is the ninth longest cave in South Dakota. It measures a distance of 3,652.6 feet (1,113.3 m).
It was discovered in 1876 when a log flume that supplied water to mining operations in town of Hayward broke and spilled onto the side of the hill. As the water flowed down the hill it started flowing into a small hole in the hillside. The local miners who went up to fix the flume noticed this abnormality and became suspicious of where this water was going. After fixing the flume, the men decided to go inside and explore. After about 30 feet (9.1 m), the men came to a large drop off which went down about 15 feet (4.6 m). They exited the cave, and went out into the woods where they cut down a tree and then used this tree as a ladder to access the cave. The miners then noticed that the majority of the cave was made out of limestone. Knowing that limestone doesn't contain any gold deposits, they abandoned the cave as a mining opportunity, and left it alone. Some of the local townspeople heard news of this discovery, and became very curious as to what they might find inside the cave.
The cave was created by a very long process stretching over a 360 million year time period. It started during the Mississippian Period, during which the entire Black Hills area was covered by a large inland sea. In this sea lived many kinds of sea creatures, and crustaceans. As these sea creatures died, their bodies sunk down to the sea floor. The flesh rotted away leaving behind many solid bone fragments which then compressed, and over time hardened into a rock known as limestone.
The cave has a cornucopia of rooms including the Entrance Room, Post Office, Image Room, Big Room, Fairyland, Rope Room, Geode Room, The Rouge Room (Party Room), Arrowhead Room, and the Floral Room.
The cave also includes boxwork and many dripstone formations including stalactites, stalagmites, columns, helictites and flowstone.
South Dakota is a landlocked U.S. state in the North Central region of the United States. It is also part of the Great Plains. South Dakota is named after the Dakota Sioux tribe, which comprises a large portion of the population with nine reservations currently in the state and has historically dominated the territory. South Dakota is the 17th largest by area, but the 5th least populous, and the 5th least densely populated of the 50 United States. Pierre is the state capital, and Sioux Falls, with a population of about 213,900, is South Dakota's most populous city. The state is bisected by the Missouri River, dividing South Dakota into two geographically and socially distinct halves, known to residents as "East River" and "West River". South Dakota is bordered by the states of North Dakota (to the north), Minnesota (to the east), Iowa (to the southeast), Nebraska (to the south), Wyoming (to the west), and Montana (to the northwest).
Humans have inhabited the area for several millennia, with the Sioux becoming dominant by the early 19th century. In the late 19th century, European-American settlement intensified after a gold rush in the Black Hills and the construction of railroads from the east. Encroaching miners and settlers triggered a number of Indian wars, ending with the Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890. As the southern part of the former Dakota Territory, South Dakota became a state on November 2, 1889, simultaneously with North Dakota. They are the 39th and 40th states admitted to the union; President Benjamin Harrison shuffled the statehood papers before signing them so that no one could tell which became a state first.
Key events in the 20th century included the Dust Bowl and Great Depression, increased federal spending during the 1940s and 1950s for agriculture and defense, and an industrialization of agriculture that has reduced family farming. Eastern South Dakota is home to most of the state's population, and the area's fertile soil is used to grow a variety of crops. West of the Missouri River, ranching is the predominant agricultural activity, and the economy is more dependent on tourism and defense spending. Most of the Native American reservations are in West River. The Black Hills, a group of low pine-covered mountains sacred to the Sioux, is in the southwest part of the state. Mount Rushmore, a major tourist destination, is there. South Dakota has a temperate continental climate, with four distinct seasons and precipitation ranging from moderate in the east to semi-arid in the west. The state's ecology features species typical of a North American grassland biome.
While several Democrats have represented South Dakota for multiple terms in both chambers of Congress, the state government is largely controlled by the Republican Party, whose nominees have carried South Dakota in each of the last 14 presidential elections. Historically dominated by an agricultural economy and a rural lifestyle, South Dakota has recently sought to diversify its economy in other areas to both attract and retain residents. South Dakota's history and rural character still strongly influence the state's culture.
The history of South Dakota describes the history of the U.S. state of South Dakota over the course of several millennia, from its first inhabitants to the recent issues facing the state.
Human beings have lived in what is today South Dakota for at least several thousand years. Early hunters are believed to have first entered North America at least 17,000 years ago via the Bering land bridge, which existed during the last ice age and connected Siberia with Alaska. Early settlers in what would become South Dakota were nomadic hunter-gatherers, using primitive Stone Age technology to hunt large prehistoric mammals in the area such as mammoths, sloths, and camels. The Paleolithic culture of these people disappeared around 5000 BC, after the extinction of most of their prey species.
Between AD 500 and 800, much of eastern South Dakota was inhabited by a people known as the 'Mound Builders'. The Mound Builders were hunters who lived in temporary villages and were named for the low earthen burial mounds they constructed, many of which still exist. Their settlement seems to have been concentrated around the watershed of the Big Sioux River and Big Stone Lake, although other sites have been excavated throughout eastern South Dakota. Either assimilation or warfare led to the demise of the Mound Builders by the year 800. Between 1250 and 1400 an agricultural people, likely the ancestors of the modern Mandan of North Dakota, arrived from the east and settled in the central part of the state. In 1325, what has become known as the Crow Creek Massacre occurred near Chamberlain. An archeological excavation of the site has discovered 486 bodies buried in a mass grave within a type of fortification; many of the skeletal remains show evidence of scalping and decapitation.
The Arikara, also known as the Ree, began arriving from the south in the 16th century. They spoke a Caddoan language similar to that of the Pawnee, and probably originated in what is now Kansas and Nebraska. Although they would at times travel to hunt or trade, the Arikara were far less nomadic than many of their neighbors, and lived for the most part in permanent villages. These villages usually consisted of a stockade enclosing a number of circular earthen lodges built on bluffs looking over the rivers. Each village had a semi-autonomous political structure, with the Arikara's various subtribes being connected in a loose alliance. In addition to hunting and growing crops such as corn, beans, pumpkin and other squash, the Arikara were also skilled traders, and would often serve as intermediaries between tribes to the north and south It was probably through their trading connections that Spanish horses first reached the region around 1760. The Arikara reached the height of their power in the 17th century, and may have included as many as 32 villages. Due both to disease as well as pressure from other tribes, the number of Arikara villages would decline to only two by the late 18th century, and the Arikara eventually merged entirely with the Mandan to the north.
The sister tribe of the Arikaras, the Pawnee, may have also had a small amount of land in the state. Both were Caddoan and were among the only known tribes in the continental U.S. to have committed human sacrifice, via a religious ritual that occurred once a year. It is said that the U.S. government worked hard to halt this practice before their homelands came to be heavily settled, for fear that the general public might react harshly or refuse to move there.
The Lakota Oral histories tell of them driving the Algonquian ancestors of the Cheyenne from the Black Hills regions, south of the Platte River, in the 18th century. Before that, the Cheyenne say that they were, in fact, two tribes, which they call the Tsitsistas & Sutaio After their defeat, much of their territory was contained to southeast Wyoming & western Nebraska. While they had been able to hold off the Sioux for quite some time, they were heavily damaged by a smallpox outbreak. They are also responsible for introducing the horse to the Lakota.
The Ioway, or Iowa people, also inhabited the region where the modern states of South Dakota, Minnesota & Iowa meet, north of the Missouri River. They also had a sister nation, known as the Otoe who lived south of them. They were Chiwere speaking, a very old variation of Siouan language said to have originated amongst the ancestors of the Ho-Chunk of Wisconsin. They also would have had a fairly similar culture to that of the Dhegihan Sioux tribes of Nebraska & Kansas.
By the 17th century, the Sioux, who would later come to dominate much of the state, had settled in what is today central and northern Minnesota. The Sioux spoke a language of the Siouan language family, and were divided into two culture groups – the Dakota & Nakota. By the early 18th century the Sioux would begin to move south and then west into the plains. This migration was due to several factors, including greater food availability to the west, as well as the fact that the rival Ojibwe & other related Algonquians had obtained rifles from the French at a time when the Sioux were still using the bow and arrow. Other tribes were also displaced during some sort of poorly understood conflict that occurred between Siouan & Algonquian peoples in the early 18th century.
In moving west into the prairies, the lifestyle of the Sioux would be greatly altered, coming to resemble that of a nomadic northern plains tribe much more so than a largely settled eastern woodlands one. Characteristics of this transformation include a greater dependence on the bison for food, a heavier reliance on the horse for transportation, and the adoption of the tipi for habitation, a dwelling more suited to the frequent movements of a nomadic people than their earlier semi-permanent lodges.
Once on the plains, a schism caused the two subgroups of the Sioux to divide into three separate nations—the Lakota, who migrated south, the Asiniboine who migrated back east to Minnesota & the remaining Sioux. It appears to be around this time that the Dakota people became more prominent over the Nakota & the entirety of the people came to call themselves as such.
The Lakota, who crossed the Missouri around 1760 and reached the Black Hills by 1776, would come to settle largely in western South Dakota, northwestern Nebraska, and southwestern North Dakota. The Yankton primarily settled in southeastern South Dakota, the Yanktonnais settled in northeastern South Dakota and southeastern North Dakota, and the Santee settled primarily in central and southern Minnesota. Due in large part to the Sioux migrations, a number of tribes would be driven from the area. The tribes in and around the Black Hills, most notably the Cheyenne, would be pushed to the west, the Arikara would move further north along the Missouri, and the Omaha would be driven out of southeastern South Dakota and into northeastern Nebraska.
Later, the Lakota & Assiniboine returned to the fold, forming a single confederacy known as the Oceti Sakowin, or Seven council fire. This was divided into four cultural groups—the Lakota, Dakota, Nakota & Nagoda-- & seven distinct tribes, each with their own chief—the Nakota Mdewakan (Note—Older attempts at Lakota language show a mistake in writing the sound 'bl' as 'md', such as summer, Bloketu, misprinted as mdoketu. Therefore, this word should be Blewakan.) & Wahpeton, the Dakota Santee & Sisseton, the Nagoda Yankton & Yanktonai & the Lakota Teton. In this form, they were able to secure from the U.S. government a homeland, commonly referred to as Mni-Sota Makoce, or the Lakotah Republic. However, conflicts increased between Sioux & American citizens in the decades leading up the Civil War & a poorly funded & organized Bureau of Indian Affairs had difficulty keeping peace between groups. This eventually resulted in the United States blaming the Sioux for the atrocities & rendering the treaty which recognized the nation of Lakotah null and void. The U.S., however, later recognized their fault in a Supreme Court case in the 1980s after several decades of failed lawsuits by the Sioux, yet little has been done to smooth the issue over to the best interests of both sides.
France was the first European nation to hold any real claim over what would become South Dakota. Its claims covered most of the modern state. However, at most a few French scouting parties may have entered eastern South Dakota. In 1679 Daniel G. Duluth sent explorers west from Lake Mille Lacs, and they may have reached Big Stone Lake and the Coteau des Prairies. Pierre Le Sueur's traders entered the Big Sioux River Valley on multiple occasions. Evidence for these journeys is from a 1701 map by William De L'Isle that shows a trail to below the falls of the Big Sioux River from the Mississippi River.
After 1713, France looked west to sustain its fur trade. The first Europeans to enter South Dakota from the north, the Verendrye brothers, began their expedition in 1743. The expedition started at Fort La Reine on Lake Manitoba, and was attempting to locate an all-water route to the Pacific Ocean. They buried a lead plate inscribed near Ft. Pierre; it was rediscovered by schoolchildren in 1913.
In 1762, France granted Spain all French territory west of the Mississippi River in the Treaty of Fontainebleau. The agreement, which was signed in secret, was motivated by a French desire to convince Spain to come to terms with Britain and accept defeat in the Seven Years' War. In an attempt to secure Spanish claims in the region against possible encroachment from other European powers, Spain adopted a policy for the upper Missouri which emphasized the development of closer trade relations with local tribes as well as greater exploration of the region, a primary focus of which would be a search for a water route to the Pacific Ocean. Although traders such as Jacques D'Eglise and Juan Munier had been active in the region for several years, these men had been operating independently, and a determined effort to reach the Pacific and solidify Spanish control of the region had never been undertaken. In 1793, a group commonly known as the Missouri Company was formed in St. Louis, with the twin goals of trading and exploring on the upper Missouri. The company sponsored several attempts to reach the Pacific Ocean, none of which made it further than the mouth of the Yellowstone. In 1794, Jean Truteau (also spelled Trudeau) built a cabin near the present-day location of Fort Randall, and in 1795 the Mackay-Evans Expedition traveled up the Missouri as far as present-day North Dakota, where they expelled several British traders who had been active in the area. In 1801, a post known as Fort aux Cedres was constructed by Registre Loisel of St. Louis, on Cedar Island on the Missouri about 35 miles (56 km) southeast of the present location of Pierre. This trading post was the major regional post until its destruction by fire in 1810.[30] In 1800, Spain gave Louisiana back to France in the Treaty of San Ildefonso.
In 1803, the United States purchased the Louisiana Territory from Napoleon for $11,000,000. The territory included most of the western half of the Mississippi watershed and covered nearly all of present-day South Dakota, except for a small portion in the northeast corner of the state. The region was still largely unexplored and unsettled, and President Thomas Jefferson organized a group commonly referred to as the Lewis and Clark Expedition to explore the newly acquired region over a period of more than two years. The expedition, also known as the Corps of Discovery, was tasked with following the route of the Missouri to its source, continuing on to the Pacific Ocean, establishing diplomatic relations with the various tribes in the area, and taking cartographic, geologic, and botanical surveys of the area. The expedition left St. Louis on May 14, 1804, with 45 men and 15 tons of supplies in three boats (one keelboat and two pirogues). The party progressed slowly against the Missouri's current, reaching what is today South Dakota on August 22. Near present-day Vermillion, the party hiked to the Spirit Mound after hearing local legends of the place being inhabited by "little spirits" (or "devils"). Shortly after this, a peaceful meeting took place with the Yankton Sioux, while an encounter with the Lakota Sioux further north was not as uneventful. The Lakota mistook the party as traders, at one point stealing a horse. Weapons were brandished on both sides after it appeared as though the Lakota were going to further delay or even halt the expedition, but they eventually stood down and allowed the party to continue up the river and out of their territory. In north central South Dakota, the expedition acted as mediators between the warring Arikara and Mandan. After leaving the state on October 14, the party wintered with the Mandan in North Dakota before successfully reaching the Pacific Ocean and returning by the same route, safely reaching St. Louis in 1806. On the return trip, the expedition spent only 15 days in South Dakota, traveling more swiftly with the Missouri's current.
Pittsburgh lawyer Henry Marie Brackenridge was South Dakota's first recorded tourist. In 1811 he was hosted by fur trader Manuel Lisa.
In 1817, an American fur trading post was set up at present-day Fort Pierre, beginning continuous American settlement of the area. During the 1830s, fur trading was the dominant economic activity for the few white people who lived in the area. More than one hundred fur-trading posts were in present-day South Dakota in the first half of the 19th century, and Fort Pierre was the center of activity.[citation needed] General William Henry Ashley, Andrew Henry, and Jedediah Smith of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, and Manuel Lisa and Joshua Pilcher of the St. Louis Fur Company, trapped in that region. Pierre Chouteau Jr. brought the steamship Yellowstone to Fort Tecumseh on the Missouri River in 1831. In 1832 the fort was replaced by Fort Pierre Chouteau Jr.: today's town of Fort Pierre. Pierre bought the Western Department of John Jacob Astor's American Fur Company and renamed it Pratte, Chouteau and Company, and then Pierre Chouteau and Company. It operated in present-day South Dakota from 1834 to 1858. Most trappers and traders left the area after European demand for furs dwindled around 1840.
Main articles: Kansas–Nebraska Act, Nebraska Territory, Organic act § List of organic acts, and Dakota Territory
In 1855, the U.S. Army bought Fort Pierre but abandoned it the following year in favor of Fort Randall to the south. Settlement by Americans and Europeans was by this time increasing rapidly, and in 1858 the Yankton Sioux signed the 1858 "Treaty of Washington", ceding most of present-day eastern South Dakota to the United States.
Land speculators founded two of eastern South Dakota's largest present-day cities: Sioux Falls in 1856 and Yankton in 1859. The Big Sioux River falls was the spot of an 1856 settlement established by a Dubuque, Iowa, company; that town was quickly removed by native residents. But in the following year, May 1857, the town was resettled and named Sioux Falls. That June, St. Paul, Minnesota's Dakota Land Company came to an adjacent 320 acres (130 ha), calling it Sioux Falls City. In June 1857, Flandreau and Medary, South Dakota, were established by the Dakota Land Company. Along with Yankton in 1859, Bon Homme, Elk Point, and Vermillion were among the new communities along the Missouri River or border with Minnesota. Settlers therein numbered about 5,000 in 1860. In 1861, Dakota Territory was established by the United States government (this initially included North Dakota, South Dakota, and parts of Montana and Wyoming). Settlers from Scandinavia, Germany, Ireland, Czechoslovakia[citation needed] and Russia,[citation needed] as well as elsewhere in Europe and from the eastern U.S. states increased from a trickle to a flood, especially after the completion of an eastern railway link to the territorial capital of Yankton in 1872, and the discovery of gold in the Black Hills in 1874 during a military expedition led by George A. Custer.
The Dakota Territory had significant regional tensions between the northern part and the southern part from the beginning, the southern part always being more populated – in the 1880 United States census, the population of the southern part (98,268) was more than two and a half times of the northern part (36,909), and southern Dakotans saw the northern part as bit of disreputable, "controlled by the wild folks, cattle ranchers, fur traders” and too frequently the site of conflict with the indigenous population. Also, the new railroads built connected the northern and southern parts to different hubs – northern part was closer tied to Minneapolis–Saint Paul area; and southern part to Sioux City and from there to Omaha. The last straw was territorial governor Nehemiah G. Ordway moving the territorial capital from Yankton to Bismarck in modern-day North Dakota. As the Southern part had the necessary population for statehood (60,000), they held a separate convention in September 1883 and drafted a constitution. Various bills to divide the Dakota Territory in half ended up stalling, until in 1887, when the Territorial Legislature submitted the question of division to a popular vote at the November general elections, where it was approved by 37,784 votes over 32,913. A bill for statehood for North Dakota and South Dakota (as well as Montana and Washington) titled the Enabling Act of 1889 was passed on February 22, 1889, during the Administration of Grover Cleveland, dividing Dakota along the seventh standard parallel. It was left to his successor, Benjamin Harrison, to sign proclamations formally admitting North and South Dakota to the Union on November 2, 1889. Harrison directed his Secretary of State James G. Blaine to shuffle the papers and obscure from him which he was signing first and the actual order went unrecorded.
With statehood South Dakota was now in a position to make decisions on the major issues it confronted: prohibition, women's suffrage, the location of the state capital, the opening of the Sioux lands for settlement, and the cyclical issues of drought (severe in 1889) and low wheat prices (1893–1896). In early 1889 a prohibition bill passed the new state legislature, only to be vetoed by Governor Louis Church. Fierce opposition came from the wet German community, with financing from beer and liquor interests. The Yankee women organized to demand suffrage, as well as prohibition. Neither party supported their cause, and the wet element counter-organized to block women's suffrage. Popular interest reached a peak in the debates over locating the state capital. Prestige, real estate values and government jobs were at stake, as well as the question of access in such a large geographical region with limited railroads. Huron was the temporary site, centrally located Pierre was the best organized contender, and three other towns were in the running. Real estate speculators had money to toss around. Pierre, population 3200, made the most generous case to the voters—its promoters truly believed it would be the next Denver and be the railway hub of the Dakotas. The North Western railroad came through but not the others it expected. In 1938 Pierre counted 4000 people and three small hotels.
The national government continued to handle Indian affairs. The Army's 1874 Custer expedition took place despite the fact that the western half of present-day South Dakota had been granted to the Sioux by the Treaty of Fort Laramie as part of the Great Sioux Reservation. The Sioux declined to grant mining rights or land in the Black Hills, and the Great Sioux War of 1876 broke out after the U.S. failed to stop white miners and settlers from entering the region. The Sioux were eventually defeated and settled on reservations within South Dakota and North Dakota.
In 1889 Harrison sent general George Crook with a commission to persuade the Sioux to sell half their reservation land to the government. It was believed that the state would not be viable unless more land was made available to settlers. Crook used a number of dubious methods to secure agreement and obtain the land.
On December 29, 1890, the Wounded Knee Massacre occurred on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. It was the last major armed conflict between the United States and the Sioux Nation, the massacre resulted in the deaths of 300 Sioux, many of them women and children. In addition 25 U.S. soldiers were also killed in the episode.
Railroads played a central role in South Dakota transportation from the late 19th century until the 1930s, when they were surpassed by highways. The Milwaukee Road and the Chicago & North Western were the state's largest railroads, and the Milwaukee's east–west transcontinental line traversed the northern tier of the state. About 4,420 miles (7,110 km) of railroad track were built in South Dakota during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, though only 1,839 miles (2,960 km) were active in 2007.
The railroads sold land to prospective farmers at very low rates, expecting to make a profit by shipping farm products out and home goods in. They also set up small towns that would serve as shipping points and commercial centers, and attract businessmen and more farmers. The Minneapolis and St. Louis Railway (M&StL) in 1905, under the leadership of vice president and general manager L. F. Day, added lines from Watertown to LeBeau and from Conde through Aberdeen to Leola. It developed town sites along the new lines and by 1910, the new lines served 35 small communities.
Not all of the new towns survived. The M&StL situated LeBeau along the Missouri River on the eastern edge of the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation. The new town was a hub for the cattle and grain industries. Livestock valued at one million dollars were shipped out in 1908, and the rail company planned a bridge across the Missouri River. Allotment of the Cheyenne River Reservation in 1909 promised further growth. By the early 1920s, however, troubles multiplied, with the murder of a local rancher, a fire that destroyed the business district, and drought that ruined ranchers and farmers alike. LeBeau became a ghost town.
Most of the traffic was freight, but the main lines also offered passenger service. After the European immigrants settled, there never were many people moving about inside the state. Profits were slim. Automobiles and busses were much more popular, but there was an increase during World War II when gasoline was scarce. All passenger service was ended in the state by 1969.
In the rural areas farmers and ranchers depended on local general stores that had a limited stock and slow turnover; they made enough profit to stay in operation by selling at high prices. Prices were not marked on each item; instead the customer negotiated a price. Men did most of the shopping, since the main criterion was credit rather than quality of goods. Indeed, most customers shopped on credit, paying off the bill when crops or cattle were later sold; the owner's ability to judge credit worthiness was vital to his success.
In the cities consumers had much more choice, and bought their dry goods and supplies at locally owned department stores. They had a much wider selection of goods than in the country general stores and price tags that gave the actual selling price. The department stores provided a very limited credit, and set up attractive displays and, after 1900, window displays as well. Their clerks—usually men before the 1940s—were experienced salesmen whose knowledge of the products appealed to the better educated middle-class housewives who did most of the shopping. The keys to success were a large variety of high-quality brand-name merchandise, high turnover, reasonable prices, and frequent special sales. The larger stores sent their buyers to Denver, Minneapolis, and Chicago once or twice a year to evaluate the newest trends in merchandising and stock up on the latest fashions. By the 1920s and 1930s, large mail-order houses such as Sears, Roebuck & Co. and Montgomery Ward provided serious competition, making the department stores rely even more on salesmanship and close integration with the community.
Many entrepreneurs built stores, shops, and offices along Main Street. The most handsome ones used pre-formed, sheet iron facades, especially those manufactured by the Mesker Brothers of St. Louis. These neoclassical, stylized facades added sophistication to brick or wood-frame buildings throughout the state.
During the 1930s, several economic and climatic conditions combined with disastrous results for South Dakota. A lack of rainfall, extremely high temperatures and over-cultivation of farmland produced what was known as the Dust Bowl in South Dakota and several other plains states. Fertile topsoil was blown away in massive dust storms, and several harvests were completely ruined. The experiences of the Dust Bowl, coupled with local bank foreclosures and the general economic effects of the Great Depression resulted in many South Dakotans leaving the state. The population of South Dakota declined by more than seven percent between 1930 and 1940.
Prosperity returned with the U.S. entry into World War II in 1941, when demand for the state's agricultural and industrial products grew as the nation mobilized for war. Over 68,000 South Dakotans served in the armed forces during the war, of which over 2,200 were killed.
In 1944, the Pick-Sloan Plan was passed as part of the Flood Control Act of 1944 by the U.S. Congress, resulting in the construction of six large dams on the Missouri River, four of which are at least partially located in South Dakota.[83] Flood control, hydroelectricity and recreational opportunities such as boating and fishing are provided by the dams and their reservoirs.
On the night of June 9–10, 1972, heavy rainfall in the eastern Black Hills caused the Canyon Lake Dam on Rapid Creek to fail. The failure of the dam, combined with heavy runoff from the storm, turned the usually small creek into a massive torrent that washed through central Rapid City. The flood resulted in 238 deaths and destroyed 1,335 homes and around 5,000 automobiles.[84] Damage from the flood totaled $160 million (the equivalent of $664 million today).
On April 19, 1993, Governor George S. Mickelson was killed in a plane crash in Iowa while returning from a business meeting in Cincinnati. Several other state officials were also killed in the crash. Mickelson, who was in the middle of his second term as governor, was succeeded by Walter Dale Miller.
In recent decades, South Dakota has transformed from a state dominated by agriculture to one with a more diversified economy. The tourism industry has grown considerably since the completion of the interstate system in the 1960s, with the Black Hills being especially impacted. The financial service industry began to grow in the state as well, with Citibank moving its credit card operations from New York to Sioux Falls in 1981, a move that has since been followed by several other financial companies. In 2007, the site of the recently closed Homestake gold mine near Lead was chosen as the location of a new underground research facility. Despite a growing state population and recent economic development, many rural areas have been struggling over the past 50 years with locally declining populations and the emigration of educated young adults to larger South Dakota cities, such as Rapid City or Sioux Falls, or to other states. The Cattleman's Blizzard of October 2013 killed tens of thousands of livestock in western South Dakota, and was one of the worst blizzards in the state's history.
Fish include gray snappers, bluestriped grunt, chubs, and a sea bream (a porgy species). Dry Tortugas is a small island group 68 miles (109 km) west of Key West. I was a little disappointed by the underwater visibility here during my short day visit from Key West. It was only about 25 feet when I initially got in the water and gradually decreased to 20 feet after about an hour. However, fish were abundant and coral growth was profuse on the old coal dock pilings. Going back to Key West we saw many flying fish from the bow of the "Yankee Freedom" ferry.