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October 14, 2017 - WASHINGTON, DC. World Bank / IMF 2017 Annual Meetings. Taking Women-Owned Businesses to the Next Level. Watch Event
Jim Yong Kim, President, World Bank Group; Ivanka Trump, Senior Adviser To The President Of The United States; Reem Bint Ebrahim Al Hashimy, Minister Of State For International Cooperation, United Arab Emirates; Steven Puig, CEO, Banco BHD; Philippe Le Houérou, CEO, IFC; Anta Babacar Ngom, Executive Director, Sedima; Nour Al-Hassan, CEO, Tarjama; Win Win Tint, CEO, City Mart Holding Company. Photo: World Bank / Simone D. McCourtie
Photo ID: 101417-WomenOwnedBiz0222f
All my own work .
One with almost the lot and only $15.
Biggest create your own burger .
Made with 15 separate items , not 10 of each which is what someone did in America .
Owned by John Navarro of the Bomb Club.
61st Annual Road Kings Car Show at Santa Anita Park
The 2012 Show: www.flickr.com/photos/98560172@N02/sets/72157634765752621/
My YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/channel/UCaTtf-Hz1nTzZMoBqyBDeKA/videos
In late November 2019 I made the briefest of visits to Warrington and had a couple of spare hours to observe the town's bus operations. It has been over 30 years since I visited so it was pleasing to see there is still a municipal fleet operating, now running as Warrington's Own Buses.
The 90+ strong fleet is made up of:
32x VDL SB120 / Wright Cadet;
13x ADL Enviro200 MMC;
12x Volvo B7RLE / Wright Eclipse 2;
11x Optare Versa;
9x VDL DB250 / Wright Pulsar Gemini;
9x Volvo B7TL / Wright Eclipse Gemini;
4x Volvo B7TL / Alexander ALX400;
2x ADL Enviro200;
1x Leyland Titan PD2 / East Lancs.
The weather and light were against me this time so lets hope it's not another 30 years before I visit again!
Rally on the Rye in aid of 'we own it' campaign againt polluting our waterways.
This action is part of the ongoing campaign against water privatisation and the "Thames Water Ofwat deal," which campaigners argue would permit illegal sewage pollution to continue until 2040
,NO Self promotion by Image / HTML or WEB Link plz, Doing so Might cause you A Block from Me Only Appreciate Faves And Own Comments , and Avoid Round Up Comments with me Plz ,
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Description:
Good Bye Misty -2011, What Should have been the correct Caption for this set, I finally decide to make this a dedication to my friend RONI , and returned to the Basic and named this Photo set,
This is a Sort of Introducing BANGLADESH to my Flickr friends at different caption and set created by me.
This Photos are Taken on 20th Jan 2011 during my visit to village SALAN under Dhamrai UpoZilla, Dhaka, BANGLADSH,
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,The Misty weather in 2011 almost gone, I was Lucky to visit a village and collect few
seasonal shots, and now here presenting one of the rural Misty Lifestyle and weather , Before if you had Noticed I made a set on city life style and Misty days at Dhaka here
The Mist weather by enlarge any weather all over the world, be a misty, rainy or snow, the comes like blessing and when they go they have there last touch in the society,
And same I observe this yr, BANGLADESH sustain two cold shock in the country ,
And several people died , and a stormy / rain was although blessings for the farmer er
Still counted at least 20 life from the rural life here in BANGLADESH,
Even after all those negative , still the surreal Beauty catches peoples eye when you freeze image , and that’s the subject for me to present here in this set , for my flickr friend RONI.
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Thanks In Advance for not Inviting me to any Group and Attaching Graphics to this picture as a part of your comments, I appreciate you to view my photo , click Faves and write your comments instead you copy pest your comment to me.
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-Please don't use or alter this image on websites, blogs or any other media without my explicit permission. © All rights reserved
Owned by: Republic Services of Tampa, FL
Chassis: Mack LE (Low Entry)
Body manufacturer: McNeilus
Type of truck: Rear load garbage truck
Additional notes:
Location of photo: Hillsborough County, FL
If you want to use this image, ask permission PRIOR to use. Don't be a thief - under most circumstances, I'm quite reasonable.
Copyright 2012 - Alan B.
Colorized by Artificial Intelligence Algorithm Tool from originally scanned hi-res photo from the respective source.
Credit disclaimer: I do not own the original scanned image and believe that it is in the public domain. These images have been collected from Flickr's search results and/or collected from various internet sources. If you know the link to the original image, please kindly put it into comment section as I will update the description to give full credit to the respective owner.
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www.youtube.com/channel/UC8JtcV_EejccsUNXSK_ejcw Springs of Eden
German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 270/5, 1919-1924. Photo: Becker & Maass.
Hilde Wörner (1895-1963) was a German stage and film actress, who also worked as a filmmaker. She appeared mainly in silent films, had her own series and her most notable film was Ernst Lubitsch’s Die Flamme (1922).
Hilde Wörner was born as Hilde Wörner-Lichtenstein.in 1895. The place of birth is unknown. At 16,Wörner began her stage career in Elberfeld (toady a part of Wuppertal). In 1912, Johannes Maurach brought them to the Stadttheater in Essen. Later followed engagements at the theatres of Oldenburg and Bremen. In the late phase of the First World War she reached Berlin, where she succeeded Lisa Weise in the operetta ensemble of the Berliner Theater. There she was the first soubrette. Almost at the same time, Heinrich Bolten-Baeckers, director of the Oliver Filmgesellschaft, signed her for the cinema. Wörner made her film debut in the silent film Baronin Kammerjungfer/Baroness Kammerjungfer (Leo Peukert, 1917). She immediately had the status of a ‘series star’. "This is the highest thing a film diva strives for," said Wörner in 1919. She specialised in the role of youthful salon ladies and played in both dramas and comedies. However, according to German Wikipedia, she was regarded as a mediocre actress. In 1919, Hilde Wörner founded the Filmproduktionsgesellschaft Wörner-Film in Berlin, which produced various feature films until 1923. At that time, Wörner was married to the silent film director Carl Müller-Hagen, who directed many of her films, such as the six-part series Die Berliner Range/The Berlin Range (1919-1921) and the crime costume drama Moriturus (1920) with Max Landa, as detective, Reinhold Schünzel in the title role, and Conrad Veidt as the criminal.
In 1920, Hilde Wörner appeared in the Austrian-German production Der Graf von Cagliostro/The Count of Cagliostro (Reinhold Schünzel, 1920), in which director Reinhold Schünzel played the role of the eighteenth century Italian adventurer Alessandro Cagliostro opposite Anita Berber and Conrad Veidt. With her small film company she produced Russian director Dimitri Buchowetzki’s historical drama Danton (1921) with Emil Jannings as Danton and Werner Krauss as Robespierre. Based on the play Danton's Death by Georg Büchner, the film tells how during his reign of terror, Robespierre orchestrates the trial and execution of several of his fellow leading French revolutionaries including Georges Danton. Wörner also produced hius version of William Shakespeare’s Othello (Dimitri Buchowetzki, 1922), again with Emil Jannings and Werner Krauss. At the side of Pola Negri, Wörner played the second female starring role in Die Flamme/The Flame/Montmartre (Ernst Lubitsch, 1923), which she also produced. It was Ernst Lubitsch last German film before he moved to Hollywood. Then Wörner retired from the film business and continued to work in the theatre. In 1926, she returned seen in a supporting role in Rosen aus dem Süden/Roses from the south (Carl Froelich, 1926), starring Henny Porten. In 1930, she appeared in small parts in two sound films, the musical comedy Einbrecher/Burglars (Hanns Schwarz, 1930) with Willy Fritsch and Lilian Harvey, and the historical film Das Flötenkonzert von Sans-souci/The Flute Concerto of Sans-Souci (Gustav Ucicky, 1930) starring Otto Gebühr as Friedrich II (aka Frederick the Great). It was part of the popular cycle of Prussian films.
It was her last film appearance. Wörner married tenor Eduard Lichtenstein and performed with him at the Metropol Theater in Berlin. After the rise of the Nazis, the Jewish Lichtenstein and his wife moved to the Netherlands where they lived in Amsterdam. In the summer of 1933, she appeared in Kabarett der Prominenten, founded by Willy Rose, She also played in Rosen’s comedy Der Chauffeur meiner Frau in the Netherlands. About what later happened to her is little known, but that she married the Dutch conductor Jan Koetsier. In 1949, she translated for him a musical play based on Frederik van Eeden’s play Frans Hals/Een vrolijk geval (Frans Hals – a cheerful case) into German. Hilde Wörner passed away in 1963. She was 67.
Want to own this custom figure, or one like it? Head on over to my eBay auctions to see what's available this week! ---> rover.ebay.com/rover/1/711-53200-19255-0/1?ff3=4&pub=...
To see more, visit ---> www.mintconditioncustom.com/batman-arkham-origins-shock-g...
To see exclusive WIP pics and more, check out the video ---> www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAqk_EePBnk
This custom Arkham Origins Batman action figure was really fun to work on, because I just got to go crazy with my dremel. Well, not completely. I wanted Batman to look battle damaged, as he does late in the game. I actually researched stills from the game to make sure the battle damage was accurate. To achieve the damage, I used my dremel on some parts (such as the bullet mark on the chest), but for most of it I used my carbide scriber to dig into the figure to actually give the damage dimension. I then painted inside each damage mark with some silver paint to show the metal plating underneath shining through. I also gave Batman his shock gloves. In the game, Batman gets these from the Electrocutioner. Once again, I wanted to make sure they were accurate. I used a combination of some styrene rods, Aves Apoxie Sculpt, and some electronic wiring to put the gloves together. I made sure they wouldn't interfere with articulation, and would be nice and sturdy. All that was left was to paint up the gloves, and dry brush some gray shades all over the figure to give it more of a weathered look, and now Batman, while tired I'm sure, is ready to fight for his life against Black Mask's assassins!
The guest room in this place is kinda like the rooms in Wayne Manor, but they have their own....style? I mean, they're just as big and fancy, but they look different. Older, I guess. I mean. the walls have these weird shapes and animals all over them. For some reason the servant people here asked for my costume and gave me new cloths. Well, my costume was dirty, maybe they're washing it! After two days of waiting, one of the hooded guys wakes me up early. Earlier than I wake up for school! And the hooded guy was rude. I think it was the same jerk who kicked me back at Ra's hall while I was still unconscious. Wouldn't be so rude if he knew I could drop a skyscraper on him... He takes me down alot of stairs until I'm in front of a big wooden door, with Tim, Steph, and Ra's waiting. Tim and Steph are out of costume too, and are wearing cloths kinda like what the hooded guys wear.
"Finally, Jackson joins us! Now we can began with our trials. These trials will decide rather or not I share a secret I've kept well-guarded for centuries, and have only been willing to share with one man. You all should know this man very well. These trials are nothing to simply scoff at. These are the types of trials that can cost even the most trained individuals their life. Are you sure you wish to face them?"
"Yes!"
"Yep!"
"Bring it! I'm not afraid!"
"Save your bravery, Jackson. The first trial is not for you. It is for Timothy."
"Alright, what'cha got for me? I can handle it."
"Don't be so sure. Like I have with the detective, I have observed you, Timothy. Your skills in hand-to-hand combat are unmatched. There are few in my league who would be able to handle such skills as yours. But this skill ends when your opponent is away from you, and hidden in the vast areas of mother earth."
"So what, ranged opponent?"
"Smart boy. I will unleash you in the mountains where you shall be hunted by a skilled archer, one trained by the great assassin Merlyn. Your objective is to defeat him and bring back his helm and bow to me."
"Wait, Merlyn? hasn't that guy mopped the floor with Green Arrow a few times? And you're not even giving Tim his staff?"
"Precisely, Stephanie. This will be quite the taxing challenge for Tim's survival skills."
Wait, Tim's going OUTSIDE? But he doesn't even have any sleeves! He'll freeze out there! And if this archer guy is good enough to kick Green Arrow's butt even when he has all his gadgets, Tim can't do better! This is suicide! I think Steph knew this, too. Tim walked up to the big door to leave, but Steph grabbed his shoulder and tried to stop him.
"Tim, this is stupid! You can't last out there!"
"I don't really have a choice, Steph. None of us do."
"Please, Tim! I don't wanna lose you again..."
"Steph, we both know I've survived worse. I can handle myself. I'll come back to you. I swear, alright?"
"I know, but-"
"Look, you're not gonna lose me again because some jackass archer puts an arrow through me. I love you too much to see you suffer like that again. If this archer wants to take me down, he's gonna need more than cold weather and some sharp sticks."
"...just please come back okay..."
"I will. Ra's! I'm ready."
"Very well! Let the first trial commence!"
Good luck, Tim...
Rally on the Rye in aid of 'we own it' campaign againt polluting our waterways.
This action is part of the ongoing campaign against water privatisation and the "Thames Water Ofwat deal," which campaigners argue would permit illegal sewage pollution to continue until 2040
Format: Fotonegativ
Film: Agfa 4x6 1/2
Dato / Date: 21 August 1932
Fotograf / Photographer: Fritz Digre (1897 – 1992)
Sted / Place: Ved Kristiansten festning, Trondheim
Wikipedia: Norges Forsvarsforening
Wikipedia: Tåkelegging
Eier / Owner Institution: Trondheim byarkiv, The Municipal Archives of Trondheim
Arkivreferanse / Archive reference: Tor.H43.B80.F29531 – konv. 66
Adresseavisen, mandag den 22. august 1932 s. 4:
Kristiansten i røk og damp
Minst 15,000 mennesker overvar stormen på festningen. - Folkemassen holdt trofast stand til siste slutt.
Grått og kalt var det søndag formiddag. Men folk lot sig ikke skremme av været. Allerede lenge før de militære øvelser skulde begynne gikk en stadig strøm av mennesker opover mot Småbergene og "slag-marken" ovenfor Haldens gate. Og da klokken nærmet sig 1 var plassen rundt omkring festningen sort av mennesker. Det er ganske umulig med nogen sikkerhet å kunde si hvor mange tilskuere det var, men vi tar neppe for meget i, når vi sier at minst 15,000 mennesker var på benene. Oppe på Kristiansten festning var det reservert plass for en rekke innbudne deriblandt "krigskorrespondentene" som blev informert av premierløitnant Rode. Oppe på festningen og utenfor var det vakt av soldater iført uniformer fra 1814. De farverike og morsomme uniformer lyste godt op i gråværet.
Presis på slaget 1 smalt et kanonskudd som tegn på at øvelsene skulde begynne. Regnet høljet ned, og regnskurene holdt ved så godt som hele tiden mens øvelsene pågikk, men publikum holdt trofast stand. Få var de som flyktet for veten og kulden. Begeistring og beundring stod å lese i ansiktene og det store publikum "var med" fra først til sist. Og dette at en så veldig folkemasse bivånet krigsspillet under de uhyggelige værforhold må vel sies å være et storslagent bevis på en våknende interesse hos det brede lag for forsvarssaken.
En vellykket opvisning
Midt på plassen tok generalen til hest opstilling og så begynte øvelsene. Dragonene og hjulrytterne var de første på pletten, og mens Divisjonsmusikken som var plasert under festningsmuren spilte, foregikk øvelsene med fart og humør. Festlig var det å se, hvordan kavaleriet tumlet med sine hester som viste en fremragende dressur. Man fikk også se kavaleriet og hjulryttere foreta avstigninger og raske fremstøt med påfølgende skytninger. I det hele tatt vidnet øvelsene om at guttene hadde nyttet dagene på moen godt. Eksersisen gikk uten å knirke på et eneste punkt. Til slutt viste en del av sanitetskorpset sitt virke, idet nogen kavalerister lot sig kaste av hestene og straks var saniteten der med sykebårer og forbindingssaker.
Efterat øvelsene var slutt red generalen til Kristiansten festning, hvor han ovenfra muren fulgte begivenhetenes videre utvikling.
Slagets gang.
Hele plassen fra festningen og bortimot Howmarken er nu tom. Det er stille, men plutselig opdager man ute på plassen nogen karer som åleglatt smyger sig fremover mot festningen. Fiendens speidere. Like efter smeller et kanonskudd oppe fra Kristiansten. Speiderne er opdaget og nu knitrer det løs. Maskingeværer og mitraljøser synger sin sang, og så svares det fra den annen side. Først melder artilleriet sig med kanoner som er plasert oppe på haugen bak plassen, og så begynner fiendens soldater som allerede er på sprangvis fremrykning å komme på skuddhold. Efter hvert sprang fremover, legger de geværet an og fyrer løs, bak dem følger en ledsagerkanon og på den ene fløi har angriperne fått rigget op maskingevær som følger med i fremrykningen. Hele tiden understøttes angrepet av artilleriets kanoner bak, som stadig gir ild.
Festningen biter godt fra sig.
Men festningen forsvares tappert. Uavladelig taler haubitzerne på vollen foran festningsmuren sitt uhyggelige sprog. Og nede i helningene under festningen ligger godt skjult av busker og knauser travle mitraljøseposter og soldater som flittig bruker sin "Krag-Jørgen".
Angriperne går dog uforferdet på. De avanserer stadig fremover. Nu er de nede på sletten og skal til å ta de siste bakkene op til festningen. Da plutselig møter de et motangrep. Fra begge fløier stormer festningsforsvarerne frem med gassmasker på. Da 150 meter skiller, gir de ild og legger ut røkbomber. I ett nu ligger et tett røkbelte mellem festningen og fienden og i ly av dette løper forsvarerne tilbake til sine forskansninger.
Ilden ophører et øieblikk. Det blir et par minutters stillhet over slagmarken, men så ser man plutselig angriperne storme frem. De har kommet sig gjennem røkbeltet! Den siste skanse skal til å falle. Forsvarerne innser det håpløse i situasjonen og skal nettop til å overgi sig, det hvite flagg er kommet frem - da - nettop i det kritiske øieblikk forkynner et hornsignal: ilden ophører!
Krigsspillet er til ende! Det efterfølges av en flott defilering for general L'Orange som tar plass i Festningsgaten - og offiserer og soldater kan puste ut efter et vellykket slag for forsvarets sak.
Notiser. [s. 5]
Major Frølich Hanssen som hadde ledelsen av oppvisningene og krigsspillet har all ære av arrangementet. Til de minste detaljer forløp alt programmessig.
Forsvarspartiet bestod av 2net rekruttbatteri av A. I. R. 3, chef kaptein Kvam, 5. Divisjons skole, chef kaptein Løken. Angrepspartiet: Hjulrytterkompaniet, chef kaptein Mitlied, dragoneskadronen, rittmester Aaby, mitraljøseeskadronen, rittmester Gedde, 1. Batteri A. I. R. 3, chef kaptein Kallager.
Trøndelag ingeniørbataljons rekruttavdeling under ledelse av kaptein Møller deltok i opvisningene. De rigget op en radiostasjon og sendte ut brevduer.
Ca. 500 mann med ca. 250 hester har deltatt i militærøvelsene her i byen.
Kavalleriet vilde ha vist oss litt mere under opvisningen, men på den sleipe, glatte gressmark sparte man hestene og sløifet endel.
Fra festningsmuren, hvor endel innbudne hadde plass, hadde man et utmerket overblikk over krigsskueplassen. Blandt de notable tilskuere heroppe så man en rekke eldre officerer i uniform, vi nevner kemner Kobbe, major Grøgaard, sorenskriver Haukaas, major Bøckman, major Bonsak Lund, videre flere civile autoriteter, blandt andre borgermester Lindboe, kjøbmann Olaf Dahl, formannen i Trøndelag krets av Norges Forsvarsforening grosserer Joh. P. Dahl, skoleinspektør Ribsskog, rektor Bjørge, kjøbmann Karl M. Hansen, stortingsmennene Lykke og Ræder, disponent Giæver, dr. Wallem og en rekke andre som alle interessert fulgte slagets gang.
Kommunistene her i byen nyttet anledningen til å demonstrere sin egen avmakt. Lørdag eftermiddag arrangerte de ”massemøte” på Torvet for rekruttene. Ikke en eneste rekrutt deltok. Og efterpå drog et musikk-korps gjennem gatene til Studentersamfundet, hvor det skulde være ”soldatfest”. Musikken blev fulgt av 10 – ti – mann og en hel del småbarn. Deres tilstelning var altså like mislykket som militærets var vellykket.
Domkirkens stensamling og Erkebispegårdens historiske rum var under soldatfestlighetene åpne for publikum. Igår formiddag var det spesiell omvisning for soldatene under arkitekt Hjeltes ledelse.
Adresseavisens fotografer (Schrøders bataljon) opererte i ildlinjene og var alltid påferde der slagtummelen var verst. Det var de mest seiglivede karer en slagmark har sett.
More photos from our annual visit to Bird Island | Seychelles - a privately owned, remote, coral sand cay island situated in the Indian Ocean just south of the equator, some 1200km off the East African coast - the northernmost island of the Seychelles archipelago.
Crab Plover (Dromas ardeola)
An unusual black and white wader with a large black bill and long, bluish-grey legs. Adult birds have a pure white head, body and wings, but with black flight feathers and mantle, whereas immature birds have dark streaking on the back of the head, grey mantle, wings and tail. Breeds on islands from Somalia, to the Red Sea and Persian Gulf between May and July, which is later than other shorebird species that may compete for its specialist food source. Outside the breeding season, the birds move south along the East African coast (mainly Somalia, Kenya and Tanzania) with some reaching the Seychelles, Comoros and Madagascar.
Given that these birds have such a relatively restricted range we consider ourselves lucky to have seen and photographed them on each of our last few annual visits to Bird Island. On each previous occasion there have only been 3-6 birds present on the island, whereas this year there were 7 birds during our first week with another 4 joining them towards the end of our stay. They generally keep together in a mixed group of sub-adult and immature birds, mainly just standing around, or patrolling the shoreline at low tide for crabs. They’re normally on the remotest part of the beach keeping themselves well away from human presence.
Last year I noted that the various shots we have of these birds may give the impression that they are easy to photograph – they’re not! Without doubt that was the same situation this year. In fact I managed far fewer shots than in previous years and hardly a single good flight shot. But, one afternoon I got lucky, and found the original group of 7 birds together on a part of the beach that catches the late afternoon sun. I was very fortunate as I was totally alone with these birds for almost an hour, slowly gaining their confidence as I edged closer. I managed to get quite a lot of pretty decent photos with detail I have not previously achieved. I will be lucky to have that opportunity again. I’ve limited myself here to just six photos - the first five were all taken within a few minutes of each other during that one session, with the other being a group photo of 5 birds, which shows the normal long distant quality of shot that you get.
Heron failing to snatch a fish caught by G.W.Egret.
( better Large )
From the Wassand hide
Hornsea Mere.
The Mahabharata or Mahābhārata (US /məhɑːˈbɑrətə/; UK /ˌmɑːhəˈbɑːrətə/; Sanskrit: महाभारतम्, Mahābhāratam, pronounced [məɦaːˈbʱaːrət̪əm]) is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India, the other being the Ramayana.
Besides its epic narrative of the Kurukshetra War and the fates of the Kaurava and the Pandava princes, the Mahabharata contains philosophical and devotional material, such as a discussion of the four "goals of life" or purusharthas (12.161). Among the principal works and stories in the Mahabharata are the Bhagavad Gita, the story of Damayanti, an abbreviated version of the Ramayana, and the Rishyasringa, often considered as works in their own right.
Traditionally, the authorship of the Mahabharata is attributed to Vyasa. There have been many attempts to unravel its historical growth and compositional layers. The oldest preserved parts of the text are thought to be not much older than around 400 BCE, though the origins of the epic probably fall between the 8th and 9th centuries BCE. The text probably reached its final form by the early Gupta period (c. 4th century CE). The title may be translated as "the great tale of the Bhārata dynasty". According to the Mahabharata itself, the tale is extended from a shorter version of 24,000 verses called simply Bhārata.
The Mahabharata is the longest known epic poem and has been described as "the longest poem ever written". Its longest version consists of over 100,000 shloka or over 200,000 individual verse lines (each shloka is a couplet), and long prose passages. About 1.8 million words in total, the Mahabharata is roughly ten times the length of the Iliad and the Odyssey combined, or about four times the length of the Ramayana. W. J. Johnson has compared the importance of the Mahabharata to world civilization to that of the Bible, the works of Shakespeare, the works of Homer, Greek drama, or the Qur'an.
TEXTURAL HISTORY AND STRUCTURE
The epic is traditionally ascribed to the sage Vyasa, who is also a major character in the epic. Vyasa described it as being itihāsa (history). He also describes the Guru-shishya parampara, which traces all great teachers and their students of the Vedic times.
The first section of the Mahabharata states that it was Ganesha who wrote down the text to Vyasa's dictation. Ganesha is said to have agreed to write it only if Vyasa never paused in his recitation. Vyasa agrees on condition that Ganesha takes the time to understand what was said before writing it down.
The epic employs the story within a story structure, otherwise known as frametales, popular in many Indian religious and non-religious works. It is recited by the sage Vaisampayana, a disciple of Vyasa, to the King Janamejaya who is the great-grandson of the Pandava prince Arjuna. The story is then recited again by a professional storyteller named Ugrasrava Sauti, many years later, to an assemblage of sages performing the 12-year sacrifice for the king Saunaka Kulapati in the Naimisha Forest.
The text has been described by some early 20th-century western Indologists as unstructured and chaotic. Hermann Oldenberg supposed that the original poem must once have carried an immense "tragic force" but dismissed the full text as a "horrible chaos." Moritz Winternitz (Geschichte der indischen Literatur 1909) considered that "only unpoetical theologists and clumsy scribes" could have lumped the parts of disparate origin into an unordered whole.
ACCRETION AND REDACTION
Research on the Mahabharata has put an enormous effort into recognizing and dating layers within the text. Some elements of the present Mahabharata can be traced back to Vedic times. The background to the Mahabharata suggests the origin of the epic occurs "after the very early Vedic period" and before "the first Indian 'empire' was to rise in the third century B.C." That this is "a date not too far removed from the 8th or 9th century B.C." is likely. It is generally agreed that "Unlike the Vedas, which have to be preserved letter-perfect, the epic was a popular work whose reciters would inevitably conform to changes in language and style," so the earliest 'surviving' components of this dynamic text are believed to be no older than the earliest 'external' references we have to the epic, which may include an allusion in Panini's 4th century BCE grammar Ashtādhyāyī 4:2:56. It is estimated that the Sanskrit text probably reached something of a "final form" by the early Gupta period (about the 4th century CE). Vishnu Sukthankar, editor of the first great critical edition of the Mahabharata, commented: "It is useless to think of reconstructing a fluid text in a literally original shape, on the basis of an archetype and a stemma codicum. What then is possible? Our objective can only be to reconstruct the oldest form of the text which it is possible to reach on the basis of the manuscript material available." That manuscript evidence is somewhat late, given its material composition and the climate of India, but it is very extensive.
The Mahabharata itself (1.1.61) distinguishes a core portion of 24,000 verses: the Bharata proper, as opposed to additional secondary material, while the Ashvalayana Grhyasutra (3.4.4) makes a similar distinction. At least three redactions of the text are commonly recognized: Jaya (Victory) with 8,800 verses attributed to Vyasa, Bharata with 24,000 verses as recited by Vaisampayana, and finally the Mahabharata as recited by Ugrasrava Sauti with over 100,000 verses. However, some scholars such as John Brockington, argue that Jaya and Bharata refer to the same text, and ascribe the theory of Jaya with 8,800 verses to a misreading of a verse in Adiparvan (1.1.81). The redaction of this large body of text was carried out after formal principles, emphasizing the numbers 18 and 12. The addition of the latest parts may be dated by the absence of the Anushasana-parva and the Virata parva from the "Spitzer manuscript". The oldest surviving Sanskrit text dates to the Kushan Period (200 CE).
According to what one character says at Mbh. 1.1.50, there were three versions of the epic, beginning with Manu (1.1.27), Astika (1.3, sub-parva 5) or Vasu (1.57), respectively. These versions would correspond to the addition of one and then another 'frame' settings of dialogues. The Vasu version would omit the frame settings and begin with the account of the birth of Vyasa. The astika version would add the sarpasattra and ashvamedha material from Brahmanical literature, introduce the name Mahabharata, and identify Vyasa as the work's author. The redactors of these additions were probably Pancharatrin scholars who according to Oberlies (1998) likely retained control over the text until its final redaction. Mention of the Huna in the Bhishma-parva however appears to imply that this parva may have been edited around the 4th century.
The Adi-parva includes the snake sacrifice (sarpasattra) of Janamejaya, explaining its motivation, detailing why all snakes in existence were intended to be destroyed, and why in spite of this, there are still snakes in existence. This sarpasattra material was often considered an independent tale added to a version of the Mahabharata by "thematic attraction" (Minkowski 1991), and considered to have a particularly close connection to Vedic (Brahmana) literature. The Panchavimsha Brahmana (at 25.15.3) enumerates the officiant priests of a sarpasattra among whom the names Dhrtarashtra and Janamejaya, two main characters of the Mahabharata's sarpasattra, as well as Takshaka, the name of a snake in the Mahabharata, occur.
HISTORICAL REFERENCES
The earliest known references to the Mahabharata and its core Bharata date to the Ashtadhyayi (sutra 6.2.38) of Pāṇini (fl. 4th century BCE) and in the Ashvalayana Grhyasutra (3.4.4). This may suggest that the core 24,000 verses, known as the Bharata, as well as an early version of the extended Mahabharata, were composed by the 4th century BCE.
A report by the Greek writer Dio Chrysostom (c. 40 - c. 120 CE) about Homer's poetry being sung even in India seems to imply that the Iliad had been translated into Sanskrit. However, scholars have, in general, taken this as evidence for the existence of a Mahabharata at this date, whose episodes Dio or his sources identify with the story of the Iliad.
Several stories within the Mahabharata took on separate identities of their own in Classical Sanskrit literature. For instance, Abhijñānashākuntala by the renowned Sanskrit poet Kālidāsa (c. 400 CE), believed to have lived in the era of the Gupta dynasty, is based on a story that is the precursor to the Mahabharata. Urubhanga, a Sanskrit play written by Bhāsa who is believed to have lived before Kālidāsa, is based on the slaying of Duryodhana by the splitting of his thighs by Bhima.
The copper-plate inscription of the Maharaja Sharvanatha (533–534 CE) from Khoh (Satna District, Madhya Pradesh) describes the Mahabharata as a "collection of 100,000 verses" (shatasahasri samhita).
HISTORICAL CONTEXT
The historicity of the Kurukshetra War is unclear. Many historians estimate the date of the Kurukshetra war to Iron Age India of the 10th century BCE. The setting of the epic has a historical precedent in Iron Age (Vedic) India, where the Kuru kingdom was the center of political power during roughly 1200 to 800 BCE. A dynastic conflict of the period could have been the inspiration for the Jaya, the foundation on which the Mahabharata corpus was built, with a climactic battle eventually coming to be viewed as an epochal event.
Puranic literature presents genealogical lists associated with the Mahabharata narrative. The evidence of the Puranas is of two kinds. Of the first kind, there is the direct statement that there were 1015 (or 1050) years between the birth of Parikshit (Arjuna's grandson) and the accession of Mahapadma Nanda (400-329 BCE), which would yield an estimate of about 1400 BCE for the Bharata battle. However, this would imply improbably long reigns on average for the kings listed in the genealogies. Of the second kind are analyses of parallel genealogies in the Puranas between the times of Adhisimakrishna (Parikshit's great-grandson) and Mahapadma Nanda. Pargiter accordingly estimated 26 generations by averaging 10 different dynastic lists and, assuming 18 years for the average duration of a reign, arrived at an estimate of 850 BCE for Adhisimakrishna, and thus approximately 950 BCE for the Bharata battle.
B. B. Lal used the same approach with a more conservative assumption of the average reign to estimate a date of 836 BCE, and correlated this with archaeological evidence from Painted Grey Ware sites, the association being strong between PGW artifacts and places mentioned in the epic.
Attempts to date the events using methods of archaeoastronomy have produced, depending on which passages are chosen and how they are interpreted, estimates ranging from the late 4th to the mid-2nd millennium BCE. The late 4th millennium date has a precedent in the calculation of the Kaliyuga epoch, based on planetary conjunctions, by Aryabhata (6th century). Aryabhatta's date of February 18 3102 BCE for Mahabharata war has become widespread in Indian tradition. Coincidentally, this marks the disppearance of Krishna from earth from many source.[36] The Aihole inscription of Pulikeshi II, dated to Saka 556 = 634 CE, claims that 3735 years have elapsed since the Bharata battle, putting the date of Mahabharata war at 3137 BCE. Another traditional school of astronomers and historians, represented by Vriddha-Garga, Varahamihira (author of the Brhatsamhita) and Kalhana (author of the Rajatarangini), place the Bharata war 653 years after the Kaliyuga epoch, corresponding to 2449 BCE.
SYNOPSIS
The core story of the work is that of a dynastic struggle for the throne of Hastinapura, the kingdom ruled by the Kuru clan. The two collateral branches of the family that participate in the struggle are the Kaurava and the Pandava. Although the Kaurava is the senior branch of the family, Duryodhana, the eldest Kaurava, is younger than Yudhisthira, the eldest Pandava. Both Duryodhana and Yudhisthira claim to be first in line to inherit the throne.
The struggle culminates in the great battle of Kurukshetra, in which the Pandavas are ultimately victorious. The battle produces complex conflicts of kinship and friendship, instances of family loyalty and duty taking precedence over what is right, as well as the converse.
The Mahabharata itself ends with the death of Krishna, and the subsequent end of his dynasty and ascent of the Pandava brothers to heaven. It also marks the beginning of the Hindu age of Kali Yuga, the fourth and final age of mankind, in which great values and noble ideas have crumbled, and man is heading towards the complete dissolution of right action, morality and virtue.
THE OLDER GENERATIONS
King Janamejaya's ancestor Shantanu, the king of Hastinapura, has a short-lived marriage with the goddess Ganga and has a son, Devavrata (later to be called Bhishma, a great warrior), who becomes the heir apparent. Many years later, when King Shantanu goes hunting, he sees Satyavati, the daughter of the chief of fisherman, and asks her father for her hand. Her father refuses to consent to the marriage unless Shantanu promises to make any future son of Satyavati the king upon his death. To resolve his father's dilemma, Devavrata agrees to relinquish his right to the throne. As the fisherman is not sure about the prince's children honouring the promise, Devavrata also takes a vow of lifelong celibacy to guarantee his father's promise.
Shantanu has two sons by Satyavati, Chitrāngada and Vichitravirya. Upon Shantanu's death, Chitrangada becomes king. He lives a very short uneventful life and dies. Vichitravirya, the younger son, rules Hastinapura. Meanwhile, the King of Kāśī arranges a swayamvara for his three daughters, neglecting to invite the royal family of Hastinapur. In order to arrange the marriage of young Vichitravirya, Bhishma attends the swayamvara of the three princesses Amba, Ambika and Ambalika, uninvited, and proceeds to abduct them. Ambika and Ambalika consent to be married to Vichitravirya.
The oldest princess Amba, however, informs Bhishma that she wishes to marry king of Shalva whom Bhishma defeated at their swayamvara. Bhishma lets her leave to marry king of Shalva, but Shalva refuses to marry her, still smarting at his humiliation at the hands of Bhishma. Amba then returns to marry Bhishma but he refuses due to his vow of celibacy. Amba becomes enraged and becomes Bhishma's bitter enemy, holding him responsible for her plight. Later she is reborn to King Drupada as Shikhandi (or Shikhandini) and causes Bhishma's fall, with the help of Arjuna, in the battle of Kurukshetra.
THE PANDAVA AND KAURAVA PRINCES
When Vichitravirya dies young without any heirs, Satyavati asks her first son Vyasa to father children with the widows. The eldest, Ambika, shuts her eyes when she sees him, and so her son Dhritarashtra is born blind. Ambalika turns pale and bloodless upon seeing him, and thus her son Pandu is born pale and unhealthy (the term Pandu may also mean 'jaundiced'). Due to the physical challenges of the first two children, Satyavati asks Vyasa to try once again. However, Ambika and Ambalika send their maid instead, to Vyasa's room. Vyasa fathers a third son, Vidura, by the maid. He is born healthy and grows up to be one of the wisest characters in the Mahabharata. He serves as Prime Minister (Mahamantri or Mahatma) to King Pandu and King Dhritarashtra.
When the princes grow up, Dhritarashtra is about to be crowned king by Bhishma when Vidura intervenes and uses his knowledge of politics to assert that a blind person cannot be king. This is because a blind man cannot control and protect his subjects. The throne is then given to Pandu because of Dhritarashtra's blindness. Pandu marries twice, to Kunti and Madri. Dhritarashtra marries Gandhari, a princess from Gandhara, who blindfolds herself so that she may feel the pain that her husband feels. Her brother Shakuni is enraged by this and vows to take revenge on the Kuru family. One day, when Pandu is relaxing in the forest, he hears the sound of a wild animal. He shoots an arrow in the direction of the sound. However the arrow hits the sage Kindama, who curses him that if he engages in a sexual act, he will die. Pandu then retires to the forest along with his two wives, and his brother Dhritarashtra rules thereafter, despite his blindness.
Pandu's older queen Kunti, however, had been given a boon by Sage Durvasa that she could invoke any god using a special mantra. Kunti uses this boon to ask Dharma the god of justice, Vayu the god of the wind, and Indra the lord of the heavens for sons. She gives birth to three sons, Yudhisthira, Bhima, and Arjuna, through these gods. Kunti shares her mantra with the younger queen Madri, who bears the twins Nakula and Sahadeva through the Ashwini twins. However, Pandu and Madri indulge in sex, and Pandu dies. Madri dies on his funeral pyre out of remorse. Kunti raises the five brothers, who are from then on usually referred to as the Pandava brothers.
Dhritarashtra has a hundred sons through Gandhari, all born after the birth of Yudhishtira. These are the Kaurava brothers, the eldest being Duryodhana, and the second Dushasana. Other Kaurava brothers were Vikarna and Sukarna. The rivalry and enmity between them and the Pandava brothers, from their youth and into manhood, leads to the Kurukshetra war.
LAKSHAGRAHA (THE HOUSE OF LAC)
After the deaths of their mother (Madri) and father (Pandu), the Pandavas and their mother Kunti return to the palace of Hastinapur. Yudhisthira is made Crown Prince by Dhritarashtra, under considerable pressure from his kingdom. Dhritarashtra wanted his own son Duryodhana to become king and lets his ambition get in the way of preserving justice.
Shakuni, Duryodhana and Dusasana plot to get rid of the Pandavas. Shakuni calls the architect Purochana to build a palace out of flammable materials like lac and ghee. He then arranges for the Pandavas and the Queen Mother Kunti to stay there, with the intention of setting it alight. However, the Pandavas are warned by their wise uncle, Vidura, who sends them a miner to dig a tunnel. They are able to escape to safety and go into hiding. Back at Hastinapur, the Pandavas and Kunti are presumed dead.
MARRIAGE TO DRAUPADI
Whilst they were in hiding the Pandavas learn of a swayamvara which is taking place for the hand of the Pāñcāla princess Draupadī. The Pandavas enter the competition in disguise as Brahmins. The task is to string a mighty steel bow and shoot a target on the ceiling, which is the eye of a moving artificial fish, while looking at its reflection in oil below. Most of the princes fail, many being unable to lift the bow. Arjuna succeeds however. The Pandavas return home and inform their mother that Arjuna has won a competition and to look at what they have brought back. Without looking, Kunti asks them to share whatever it is Arjuna has won among themselves. On explaining the previous life of Draupadi, she ends up being the wife of all five brothers.
INDRAPRASTHA
After the wedding, the Pandava brothers are invited back to Hastinapura. The Kuru family elders and relatives negotiate and broker a split of the kingdom, with the Pandavas obtaining a new territory. Yudhishtira has a new capital built for this territory at Indraprastha. Neither the Pandava nor Kaurava sides are happy with the arrangement however.
Shortly after this, Arjuna elopes with and then marries Krishna's sister, Subhadra. Yudhishtira wishes to establish his position as king; he seeks Krishna's advice. Krishna advises him, and after due preparation and the elimination of some opposition, Yudhishthira carries out the rājasūya yagna ceremony; he is thus recognised as pre-eminent among kings.
The Pandavas have a new palace built for them, by Maya the Danava. They invite their Kaurava cousins to Indraprastha. Duryodhana walks round the palace, and mistakes a glossy floor for water, and will not step in. After being told of his error, he then sees a pond, and assumes it is not water and falls in. Draupadi laughs at him and ridicules him by saying that this is because of his blind father Dhritrashtra. He then decides to avenge his humiliation.
THE DICE GAME
Shakuni, Duryodhana's uncle, now arranges a dice game, playing against Yudhishtira with loaded dice. Yudhishtira loses all his wealth, then his kingdom. He then even gambles his brothers, himself, and finally his wife into servitude. The jubilant Kauravas insult the Pandavas in their helpless state and even try to disrobe Draupadi in front of the entire court, but her honour is saved by Krishna who miraculously creates lengths of cloth to replace the ones being removed.
Dhritarashtra, Bhishma, and the other elders are aghast at the situation, but Duryodhana is adamant that there is no place for two crown princes in Hastinapura. Against his wishes Dhritarashtra orders for another dice game. The Pandavas are required to go into exile for 12 years, and in the 13th year must remain hidden. If discovered by the Kauravas, they will be forced into exile for another 12 years.
EXILE AND RETURN
The Pandavas spend thirteen years in exile; many adventures occur during this time. They also prepare alliances for a possible future conflict. They spend their final year in disguise in the court of Virata, and are discovered just after the end of the year.
At the end of their exile, they try to negotiate a return to Indraprastha. However, this fails, as Duryodhana objects that they were discovered while in hiding, and that no return of their kingdom was agreed. War becomes inevitable.
THE BATTLE AT KURUKSHETRA
The two sides summon vast armies to their help and line up at Kurukshetra for a war. The kingdoms of Panchala, Dwaraka, Kasi, Kekaya, Magadha, Matsya, Chedi, Pandyas, Telinga, and the Yadus of Mathura and some other clans like the Parama Kambojas were allied with the Pandavas. The allies of the Kauravas included the kings of Pragjyotisha, Anga, Kekaya, Sindhudesa (including Sindhus, Sauviras and Sivis), Mahishmati, Avanti in Madhyadesa, Madra, Gandhara, Bahlika people, Kambojas and many others. Before war being declared, Balarama had expressed his unhappiness at the developing conflict and left to go on pilgrimage; thus he does not take part in the battle itself. Krishna takes part in a non-combatant role, as charioteer for Arjuna.
Before the battle, Arjuna, seeing the opposing army includes many relatives and loved ones, including his great grandfather Bhishma and his teacher Drona, has doubts about the battle and he fails to lift his Gāndeeva bow. Krishna wakes him up to his call of duty in the famous Bhagavad Gita section of the epic.
Though initially sticking to chivalrous notions of warfare, both sides soon adopt dishonourable tactics. At the end of the 18-day battle, only the Pandavas, Satyaki, Kripa, Ashwatthama, Kritavarma, Yuyutsu and Krishna survive.
THE END OF THE PANDAVAS
After "seeing" the carnage, Gandhari, who had lost all her sons, curses Krishna to be a witness to a similar annihilation of his family, for though divine and capable of stopping the war, he had not done so. Krishna accepts the curse, which bears fruit 36 years later.
The Pandavas, who had ruled their kingdom meanwhile, decide to renounce everything. Clad in skins and rags they retire to the Himalaya and climb towards heaven in their bodily form. A stray dog travels with them. One by one the brothers and Draupadi fall on their way. As each one stumbles, Yudhisthira gives the rest the reason for their fall (Draupadi was partial to Arjuna, Nakula and Sahadeva were vain and proud of their looks, and Bhima and Arjuna were proud of their strength and archery skills, respectively). Only the virtuous Yudhisthira, who had tried everything to prevent the carnage, and the dog remain. The dog reveals himself to be the god Yama (also known as Yama Dharmaraja), and then takes him to the underworld where he sees his siblings and wife. After explaining the nature of the test, Yama takes Yudhishthira back to heaven and explains that it was necessary to expose him to the underworld because (Rajyante narakam dhruvam) any ruler has to visit the underworld at least once. Yama then assures him that his siblings and wife would join him in heaven after they had been exposed to the underworld for measures of time according to their vices.
Arjuna's grandson Parikshit rules after them and dies bitten by a snake. His furious son, Janamejaya, decides to perform a snake sacrifice (sarpasattra) in order to destroy the snakes. It is at this sacrifice that the tale of his ancestors is narrated to him.
THE REUNION
The Mahabharata mentions that Karna, the Pandavas, and Dhritarashtra's sons eventually ascended to svarga and "attained the state of the gods" and banded together — "serene and free from anger."
THEMES
JUST WAR
The Mahabharata offers one of the first instances of theorizing about "just war", illustrating many of the standards that would be debated later across the world. In the story, one of five brothers asks if the suffering caused by war can ever be justified. A long discussion ensues between the siblings, establishing criteria like proportionality (chariots cannot attack cavalry, only other chariots; no attacking people in distress), just means (no poisoned or barbed arrows), just cause (no attacking out of rage), and fair treatment of captives and the wounded.
Versions, translations, and derivative works.
CRITICAL EDITION
Between 1919 and 1966, scholars at the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Pune, compared the various manuscripts of the epic from India and abroad and produced the Critical Edition of the Mahabharata, on 13,000 pages in 19 volumes, followed by the Harivamsha in another two volumes and six index volumes. This is the text that is usually used in current Mahabharata studies for reference. This work is sometimes called the "Pune" or "Poona" edition of the Mahabharata.
REGIONAL VERSIONS
Many regional versions of the work developed over time, mostly differing only in minor details, or with verses or subsidiary stories being added. These include the Tamil street theatre, terukkuttu and kattaikkuttu, the plays of which use themes from the Tamil language versions of Mahabharata, focusing on Draupadi.
Outside the Indian subcontinent, in Indonesia, a version was developed in ancient Java as Kakawin Bhāratayuddha in the 11th century under the patronage of King Dharmawangsa (990–1016), and later it spread to neighboring island of Bali where today remains a Hindu majority island, despite today Indonesia is the most populous Muslim majority nation. It has become the fertile source for Javanese literature, dance drama (wayang wong), and wayang shadow puppet performances. This Javanese version differ slightly from the original Indian version. For example Draupadi is only be wed to Yudhisthira, not to the entire Pandavas brothers, this might demonstrate ancient Javanese opposition of polyandry practice. The author later added some female characters to be wed to the Pandavas. Arjuna for example is described as having many wives and consorts next to Subhadra. Another difference is Shikhandi did not undergone sex change and remains as a woman, to be wed to Arjuna, and took the role as a warrior princess during the war. Another twist is Gandhari was described as antagonist character that hates Pandava so much. Her hate was out of jealousy, because during svayambara for the hand of Gandhari, she was actually in love with Pandu, but later being wed to his blind elder brother instead, whom she does not love, as a protest she then blindfold herself. Another notable difference is the inclusion of Punakawans, the clown servants of the main characters in the storyline, which is not found in Indian version. This characters includes Semar, Petruk, Gareng and Bagong, they are much-loved by Indonesian audiences. There are some spin-off episode developed in ancient Java, such as Arjunawiwaha composed in 11th century.
A Kawi version of the Mahabharata, of which eight of the eighteen parvas survive, is found on the Indonesian island of Bali. It has been translated into English by Dr. I. Gusti Putu Phalgunadi.
TRANSLATIONS
A Persian translation of Mahabharta, titled Razmnameh, was produced at Akbar's orders, by Faizi and `Abd al-Qadir Bada'uni in the 18th century.
The first complete English translation was the Victorian prose version by Kisari Mohan Ganguli, published between 1883 and 1896 (Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers) and by M. N. Dutt (Motilal Banarsidass Publishers). Most critics consider the translation by Ganguli to be faithful to the original text. The complete text of Ganguli's translation is in the public domain and is available online.
Another English prose translation of the full epic, based on the Critical Edition, is in progress, published by University Of Chicago Press. It was initiated by Indologist J. A. B. van Buitenen (books 1–5) and, following a 20-year hiatus caused by the death of van Buitenen, is being continued by D. Gitomer of DePaul University (book 6), J. L. Fitzgerald of Brown University (books 11–13) and Wendy Doniger of the University of Chicago (books 14–18).
An early poetry translation by Romesh Chunder Dutt and published in 1898 condenses the main themes of the Mahabharata into English verse. A later poetic "transcreation" (author's own description) of the full epic into English, done by the poet P. Lal is complete, and in 2005 began being published by Writers Workshop, Calcutta. The P. Lal translation is a non-rhyming verse-by-verse rendering, and is the only edition in any language to include all slokas in all recensions of the work (not just those in the Critical Edition). The completion of the publishing project is scheduled for 2010. Sixteen of the eighteen volumes are now available.
A project to translate the full epic into English prose, translated by various hands, began to appear in 2005 from the Clay Sanskrit Library, published by New York University Press. The translation is based not on the Critical Edition but on the version known to the commentator Nīlakaṇṭha. Currently available are 15 volumes of the projected 32-volume edition.
Indian economist Bibek Debroy has also begun an unabridged English translation in ten volumes. Volume 1: Adi Parva was published in March 2010.
Many condensed versions, abridgements and novelistic prose retellings of the complete epic have been published in English, including works by Ramesh Menon, William Buck, R. K. Narayan, C. Rajagopalachari, K. M. Munshi, Krishna Dharma, Romesh C. Dutt, Bharadvaja Sarma, John D. Smith and Sharon Maas.
DERIVATIVE LITERATURE
Bhasa, the 2nd- or 3rd-century CE Sanskrit playwright, wrote two plays on episodes in the Marabharata, Urubhanga (Broken Thigh), about the fight between Duryodhana and Bhima, while Madhyamavyayoga (The Middle One) set around Bhima and his son, Ghatotkacha. The first important play of 20th century was Andha Yug (The Blind Epoch), by Dharamvir Bharati, which came in 1955, found in Mahabharat, both an ideal source and expression of modern predicaments and discontent. Starting with Ebrahim Alkazi it was staged by numerous directors. V. S. Khandekar's Marathi novel, Yayati (1960) and Girish Karnad's debut play Yayati (1961) are based on the story of King Yayati found in the Mahabharat. Bengali writer and playwright, Buddhadeva Bose wrote three plays set in Mahabharat, Anamni Angana, Pratham Partha and Kalsandhya. Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni wrote a version from the perspective of Draupadi entitled The Palace of Illusions: A Novel, which was published in 2008.
Amar Chitra Katha published a 1,260 page comic book version of the Mahabharata.
IN FILM AND TELEVISION
In Indian cinema, several film versions of the epic have been made, dating back to 1920. In Telugu film Daana Veera Soora Karna (1977) directed by and starring N. T. Rama Rao depicts Karna as the lead character. The Mahabharata was also reinterpreted by Shyam Benegal in Kalyug. Prakash Jha directed 2010 film Raajneeti was partially inspired by the Mahabharata. A 2013 animated adaptation holds the record for India's most expensive animated film.
In the late 1980s, the Mahabharat TV series, directed by Ravi Chopra, was televised on India's national television (Doordarshan). In the Western world, a well-known presentation of the epic is Peter Brook's nine-hour play, which premiered in Avignon in 1985, and its five-hour movie version The Mahabharata (1989).
Uncompleted projects on the Mahabharata include a ones by Rajkumar Santoshi, and a theaterical adaptation planned by Satyajit Ray
JAIN VERSION
ain version of Mahabharata can be found in the various Jain texts like Harivamsapurana (the story of Harivamsa) Trisastisalakapurusa Caritra (Hagiography of 63 Illustrious persons), Pandavacaritra (lives of Pandavas) and Pandavapurana (stories of Pandavas). From the earlier canonical literature, Antakrddaaśāh (8th cannon) and Vrisnidasa (upangagama or secondary canon) contain the stories of Neminatha (22nd Tirthankara), Krishna and Balarama. Prof. Padmanabh Jaini notes that, unlike in the Hindu Puranas, the names Baladeva and Vasudeva are not restricted to Balarama and Krishna in Jain puranas. Instead they serve as names of two distinct class of mighty brothers, who appear nine times in each half of time cycles of the Jain cosmology and rule the half the earth as half-chakravartins. Jaini traces the origin of this list of brothers to the Jinacharitra by Bhadrabahu swami (4th–3rd century BCE). According to Jain cosmology Balarama, Krishna and Jarasandha are the ninth and the last set of Baladeva, Vasudeva, and Partivasudeva. The main battle is not the Mahabharata, but the fight between Krishna and Jarasandha (who is killed by Krishna). Ultimately, the Pandavas and Balarama take renunciation as Jain monks and are reborn in heavens, while on the other hand Krishna and Jarasandha are reborn in hell. In keeping with the law of karma, Krishna is reborn in hell for his exploits (sexual and violent) while Jarasandha for his evil ways. Prof. Jaini admits a possibility that perhaps because of his popularity, the Jain authors were keen to rehabilitate Krishna. The Jain texts predict that after his karmic term in hell is over sometime during the next half time-cycle, Krishna will be reborn as a Jain Tirthankara and attain liberation. Krishna and Balrama are shown as contemporaries and cousins of 22nd Tirthankara, Neminatha. According to this story, Krishna arranged young Neminath’s marriage with Rajamati, the daughter of Ugrasena, but Neminatha, empathizing with the animals which were to be slaughtered for the marriage feast, left the procession suddenly and renounced the world.
CULTURAL INFLUENCE
In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna explains to Arjuna his duties as a warrior and prince and elaborates on different Yogic and Vedantic philosophies, with examples and analogies. This has led to the Gita often being described as a concise guide to Hindu philosophy and a practical, self-contained guide to life. In more modern times, Swami Vivekananda, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Mahatma Gandhi and many others used the text to help inspire the Indian independence movement.
WIKIPEDIA
NERAMBOKK” (a village in Iritty, Kannur)
Each and every village has its own sanctity. The heritage and village calmness is on a shredding stage now. For bringing back the sweet nostalgic reminiscences of the past, a group of villagers from Iritty, who lives in beautiful village on the shore of Bavalipuzha.
The Palace of Versailles is a former royal residence commissioned by King Louis XIV located in Versailles, about 19 kilometers (12 mi) west of Paris, France.
The palace is owned by the French Republic and since 1995 has been managed, under the direction of the French Ministry of Culture, by the Public Establishment of the Palace, Museum and National Estate of Versailles. About 15,000,000 people visit the palace, park, or gardens of Versailles every year, making it one of the most popular tourist attractions in the world.
Louis XIII built a simple hunting lodge on the site of the Palace of Versailles in 1623. With his death came Louis XIV who expanded the château into the beginnings of a palace that went through several changes and phases from 1661 to 1715. It was a favorite residence for both kings, and in 1682, Louis XIV moved the seat of his court and government to Versailles, making the palace the de facto capital of France. This state of affairs was continued by Kings Louis XV and Louis XVI, who primarily made interior alterations to the palace, but in 1789 the royal family and capital of France returned to Paris. For the rest of the French Revolution, the Palace of Versailles was largely abandoned and emptied of its contents, and the population of the surrounding city plummeted.
Napoleon, following his coronation as Emperor, used Versailles as a summer residence from 1810 to 1814, but did not restore it. Following the Bourbon Restoration, when the king was returned to the throne, he resided in Paris and it was not until the 1830s that meaningful repairs were made to the palace. A museum of French history was installed within it, replacing the apartments of the southern wing.
The palace and park were designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1979 for its importance as the center of power, art, and science in France during the 17th and 18th centuries. The French Ministry of Culture has placed the palace, its gardens, and some of its subsidiary structures on its list of culturally significant monuments.
History
Main article: History of the Palace of Versailles
An engraving of Louis XIII's château as it appeared in 1652
Versailles around 1652, engraving by Jacques Gomboust [fr]
In 1623, Louis XIII, King of France, built a hunting lodge on a hill in a favorite hunting ground, 19 kilometers (12 mi) west of Paris and 16 kilometers (10 mi) from his primary residence, the Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye The site, near a village named Versailles, was a wooded wetland that Louis XIII's court scorned as being generally unworthy of a king; one of his courtiers, François de Bassompierre, wrote that the lodge "would not inspire vanity in even the simplest gentleman". From 1631 to 1634, architect Philibert Le Roy replaced the lodge with a château for Louis XIII, who forbade his queen, Anne of Austria, from staying there overnight, even when an outbreak of smallpox at Saint-Germain-en-Laye in 1641 forced Louis XIII to relocate to Versailles with his three-year-old heir, the future Louis XIV.
When Louis XIII died in 1643, Anne became Louis XIV's regent, and Louis XIII's château was abandoned for the next decade. She moved the court back to Paris, where Anne and her chief minister, Cardinal Mazarin, continued Louis XIII's unpopular monetary practices. This led to the Fronde, a series of revolts against royal authority from 1648 to 1653 that masked a struggle between Mazarin and the princes of the blood, Louis XIV's extended family, for influence over him. In the aftermath of the Fronde, Louis XIV became determined to rule alone. Following Mazarin's death in 1661, Louis XIV reformed his government to exclude his mother and the princes of the blood, moved the court back to Saint-Germain-en-Laye, and ordered the expansion of his father's château at Versailles into a palace.
Louis XIV had hunted at Versailles in the 1650s, but did not take any special interest in Versailles until 1661. On 17 August 1661, Louis XIV was a guest at a sumptuous festival hosted by Nicolas Fouquet, the Superintendent of Finances, at his palatial residence, the Château de Vaux-le-Vicomte. Louis XIV was impressed by the château and its gardens, which were the work of Louis Le Vau, the court architect since 1654, André Le Nôtre, the royal gardener since 1657, and Charles Le Brun, a painter in royal service since 1647. Vaux-le-Vicomte's scale and opulence inspired Louis XIV's aesthetic sense, but also led him to imprison Fouquet that September, as he had also built an island fortress and a private army. Louis XIV was also inspired by Vaux-le-Vicomte, and he recruited its authors for his own projects. Louis XIV replaced Fouquet with Jean-Baptiste Colbert, a protégé of Mazarin and enemy of Fouquet, and charged him with managing the corps of artisans in royal employment. Colbert acted as the intermediary between them and Louis XIV, who personally directed and inspected the planning and construction of Versailles.
Construction
Work at Versailles was at first concentrated on gardens, and through the 1660s, Le Vau only added two detached service wings and a forecourt to the château. But in 1668–69, as a response to the growth of the gardens, and victory over Spain in the War of Devolution, Louis XIV decided to turn Versailles into a full-scale royal residence. He vacillated between replacing or incorporating his father's château, but settled on the latter by the end of the decade, and from 1668 to 1671, Louis XIII's château was encased on three sides in a feature dubbed the enveloppe. This gave the château a new, Italianate façade overlooking the gardens, but preserved the courtyard façade, resulting in a mix of styles and materials that dismayed Louis XIV and that Colbert described as a "patchwork". Attempts to homogenize the two façades failed, and in 1670 Le Vau died, leaving the post of First Architect to the King vacant for the next seven years.
Le Vau was succeeded at Versailles by his assistant, architect François d'Orbay. Work at the palace during the 1670s focused on its interiors, as the palace was then nearing completion, though d'Orbay expanded Le Vau's service wings and connected them to the château, and built a pair of pavilions for government employees in the forecourt. In 1670, d'Orbay was tasked by Louis XIV with designing a city, also called Versailles, to house and service Louis XIV's growing government and court. The granting of land to courtiers for the construction of townhouses that resembled the palace began in 1671. The next year, the Franco-Dutch War began and funding for Versailles was cut until 1674, when Louis XIV had work begun on the Ambassadors' Staircase , a grand staircase for the reception of guests, and demolished the last of the village of Versailles.
Following the end of the Franco-Dutch War with French victory in 1678, Louis XIV appointed as First Architect Jules Hardouin-Mansart, an experienced architect in Louis XIV's confidence, who would benefit from a restored budget and large workforce of former soldiers. Mansart began his tenure with the addition from 1678 to 1681 of the Hall of Mirrors, a renovation of the courtyard façade of Louis XIII's château, and the expansion of d'Orbay's pavilions to create the Ministers' Wings in 1678–79. Adjacent to the palace, Mansart built a pair of stables called the Grande and Petite Écuries from 1679 to 1682 and the Grand Commun, which housed the palace's servants and general kitchens, from 1682 to 1684. Mansart also added two entirely new wings in Le Vau's Italianate style to house the court, first at the south end of the palace from 1679 to 1681 and then at its north end from 1685 to 1689.
War and the resulting diminished funding slowed construction at Versailles for the rest of the 17th century. The Nine Years' War, which began in 1688, stopped work altogether until 1698. Three years later, however, the even more expensive War of the Spanish Succession began and, combined with poor harvests in 1693–94 and 1709–10, plunged France into crisis. Louis XIV thus slashed funding and canceled some of the work Mansart had planned in the 1680s, such as the remodeling of the courtyard façade in the Italianate style. Louis XIV and Mansart focused on a permanent palace chapel, the construction of which lasted from 1699 to 1710.
Louis XIV's successors, Louis XV and Louis XVI, largely left Versailles as they inherited it and focused on the palace's interiors. Louis XV's modifications began in the 1730s, with the completion of the Salon d'Hercule, a ballroom in the north wing, and the expansion of the king's private apartment, which required the demolition of the Ambassadors' Staircase In 1748, Louis XV began construction of a palace theater, the Royal Opera of Versailles at the northernmost end of the palace, but completion was delayed until 1770; construction was interrupted in the 1740s by the War of the Austrian Succession and then again in 1756 with the start of the Seven Years' War. These wars emptied the royal treasury and thereafter construction was mostly funded by Madame du Barry, Louis XV's favorite mistress. In 1771, Louis XV had the northern Ministers' Wing rebuilt in Neoclassical style by Ange-Jacques Gabriel, his court architect, as it was in the process of falling down. That work was also stopped by financial constraints, and it remained incomplete when Louis XV died in 1774. In 1784, Louis XVI briefly moved the royal family to the Château de Saint-Cloud ahead of more renovations to the Palace of Versailles, but construction could not begin because of financial difficulty and political crisis. In 1789, the French Revolution swept the royal family and government out of Versailles forever.
Role in politics and culture
The Palace of Versailles was key to Louis XIV's politics, as an expression and concentration of French art and culture, and for the centralization of royal power. Louis XIV first used Versailles to promote himself with a series of nighttime festivals in its gardens in 1664, 1668, and 1674, the events of which were disseminated throughout Europe by print and engravings. As early as 1669, but especially from 1678, Louis XIV sought to make Versailles his seat of government, and he expanded the palace so as to fit the court within it. The moving of the court to Versailles did not come until 1682, however, and not officially, as opinion on Versailles was mixed among the nobility of France.
By 1687, however, it was evident to all that Versailles was the de facto capital of France, and Louis XIV succeeded in attracting the nobility to Versailles to pursue prestige and royal patronage within a strict court etiquette, thus eroding their traditional provincial power bases. It was at the Palace of Versailles that Louis XIV received the Doge of Genoa, Francesco Maria Imperiale Lercari in 1685, an embassy from the Ayutthaya Kingdom in 1686, and an embassy from Safavid Iran in 1715.[
Louis XIV died at Versailles on 1 September 1715 and was succeeded by his five-year-old great-grandson, Louis XV, then the duke of Anjou, who was moved to Vincennes and then to Paris by Louis XV's regent, Philippe II, Duke of Orléans. Versailles was neglected until 1722, when Philippe II removed the court to Versailles to escape the unpopularity of his regency, and when Louis XV began his majority. The 1722 move, however, broke the cultural power of Versailles, and during the reign of Louis XVI, courtiers spent their leisure in Paris, not Versailles.
During Christmas 1763, Mozart and his family visited Versailles and dined with the kings. The 7-year-old Mozart played several works during his stay and later dedicated his first two harpsichord sonatas, published in 1764 in Paris, to Madame Victoria, daughter of Louis XV.
In 1783, the palace was the site of the signing of the last two of the three treaties of the Peace of Paris (1783), which ended the American Revolutionary War. On September 3, British and American delegates, led by Benjamin Franklin, signed the Treaty of Paris at the Hôtel d'York (now 56 Rue Jacob) in Paris, granting the United States independence. On September 4, Spain and France signed separate treaties with England at the Palace of Versailles, formally ending the war.
The King and Queen learned of the Storming of the Bastille in Paris on 14 July 1789, while they were at the palace, and remained isolated there as the Revolution in Paris spread. The growing anger in Paris led to the Women's March on Versailles on 5 October 1789. A crowd of several thousand men and women, protesting the high price and scarcity of bread, marched from the markets of Paris to Versailles. They took weapons from the city armory, besieged the palace, and compelled the King and royal family and the members of the National Assembly to return with them to Paris the following day.
As soon as the royal family departed, the palace was closed. In 1792, the National Convention, the new revolutionary government, ordered the transfer of all the paintings and sculptures from the palace to the Louvre. In 1793, the Convention declared the abolition of the monarchy and ordered all of the royal property in the palace to be sold at auction. The auction took place between 25 August 1793 and 11 August 1794. The furnishings and art of the palace, including the furniture, mirrors, baths, and kitchen equipment, were sold in seventeen thousand lots. All fleurs-de-lys and royal emblems on the buildings were chambered or chiseled off. The empty buildings were turned into a storehouse for furnishings, art and libraries confiscated from the nobility. The empty grand apartments were opened for tours beginning in 1793, and a small museum of French paintings and art school was opened in some of the empty rooms.
By virtue of an order issued by the Versailles district directorate in August 1794, the Royal Gate was destroyed, the Cour Royale was cleared and the Cour de Marbre lost its precious floor.
19th century – history museum and government venue
When Napoleon became Emperor of the French in 1804, he considered making Versailles his residence but abandoned the idea because of the cost of the renovation. Prior to his marriage with Marie-Louise in 1810, he had the Grand Trianon restored and refurnished as a springtime residence for himself and his family, in the style of furnishing that it is seen today.
In 1815, with the final downfall of Napoleon, Louis XVIII, the younger brother of Louis XVI, became King, and considered returning the royal residence to Versailles, where he had been born. He ordered the restoration of the royal apartments, but the task and cost was too great. Louis XVIII had the far end of the south wing of the Cour Royale demolished and rebuilt (1814–1824) to match the Gabriel wing of 1780 opposite, which gave greater uniformity of appearance to the front entrance. Neither he nor his successor Charles X lived at Versailles.
The French Revolution of 1830 brought a new monarch, Louis-Philippe to power, and a new ambition for Versailles. He did not reside at Versailles but began the creation of the Museum of the History of France, dedicated to "all the glories of France", which had been used to house some members of the royal family. The museum was begun in 1833 and inaugurated on 30 June 1837. Its most famous room is the Galerie des Batailles (Hall of Battles), which lies on most of the length of the second floor of the south wing. The museum project largely came to a halt when Louis Philippe was overthrown in 1848, though the paintings of French heroes and great battles still remain in the south wing.
Emperor Napoleon III used the palace on occasion as a stage for grand ceremonies. One of the most lavish was the banquet that he hosted for Queen Victoria in the Royal Opera of Versailles on 25 August 1855.
During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871, the palace was occupied by the general staff of the victorious German Army. Parts of the château, including the Gallery of Mirrors, were turned into a military hospital. The creation of the German Empire, combining Prussia and the surrounding German states under William I, was formally proclaimed in the Hall of Mirrors on 18 January 1871. The Germans remained in the palace until the signing of the armistice in March 1871. In that month, the government of the new Third French Republic, which had departed Paris during the War for Tours and then Bordeaux, moved into the palace. The National Assembly held its meetings in the Opera House.
The uprising of the Paris Commune in March 1871, prevented the French government, under Adolphe Thiers, from returning immediately to Paris. The military operation which suppressed the Commune at the end of May was directed from Versailles, and the prisoners of the Commune were marched there and put on trial in military courts. In 1875 a second parliamentary body, the French Senate, was created and held its meetings for the election of a President of the Republic in a new hall created in 1876 in the south wing of the palace. The French Senate continues to meet in the palace on special occasions, such as the amendment of the French Constitution.
20th century
The end of the 19th and the early 20th century saw the beginning of restoration efforts at the palace, first led by Pierre de Nolhac, poet and scholar and the first conservator, who began his work in 1892. The conservation and restoration were interrupted by two world wars but have continued until the present day.
The palace returned to the world stage in June 1919, when, after six months of negotiations, the Treaty of Versailles, formally ending the First World War, was signed in the Hall of Mirrors. Between 1925 and 1928, the American philanthropist and multi-millionaire John D. Rockefeller, Jr. gave $2,166,000, the equivalent of about thirty million dollars today, to restore and refurbish the palace.
More work took place after World War II, with the restoration of the Royal Opera of Versailles. The theater was reopened in 1957, in the presence of Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom.
In 1978, parts of the palace were heavily damaged in a bombing committed by Breton terrorists.
Starting in the 1950s, when the museum of Versailles was under the directorship of Gérald van der Kemp, the objective was to restore the palace to its state – or as close to it as possible – in 1789 when the royal family left the palace. Among the early projects was the repair of the roof over the Hall of Mirrors; the publicity campaign brought international attention to the plight of post-war Versailles and garnered much foreign money including a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation.
One of the more costly endeavors for the museum and France's Fifth Republic has been to repurchase as much of the original furnishings as possible. Consequently, because furniture with a royal provenance – and especially furniture that was made for Versailles – is a highly sought-after commodity on the international market, the museum has spent considerable funds on retrieving much of the palace's original furnishings.
21st century
In 2003, a new restoration initiative – the "Grand Versailles" project – was started, which began with the replanting of the gardens, which had lost over 10,000 trees during Cyclone Lothar on 26 December 1999. One part of the initiative, the restoration of the Hall of Mirrors, was completed in 2006. Another major project was the further restoration of the backstage areas of the Royal Opera of Versailles in 2007 to 2009.
The Palace of Versailles is currently owned by the French state. Its formal title is the Public Establishment of the Palace, Museum and National Estate of Versailles. Since 1995, it has been run as a Public Establishment, with an independent administration and management supervised by the French Ministry of Culture.
The grounds of the palace will host the equestrian competition during the 2024 Summer Olympics.
Architecture and plan
The Palace of Versailles is a visual history of French architecture from the 1630s to the 1780s. Its earliest portion, the corps de logis, was built for Louis XIII in the style of his reign with brick, marble, and slate, which Le Vau surrounded in the 1660s with Enveloppe, an edifice that was inspired by Renaissance-era Italian villas. When Mansart made further expansions to the palace in the 1680s, he used the Enveloppe as the model for his work. Neoclassical additions were made to the palace with the remodeling of the Ministers' Wings in the 1770s, by Ange-Jacques Gabriel, and after the Bourbon Restoration.
The palace was largely completed by the death of Louis XIV in 1715. The eastern facing palace has a U-shaped layout, with the corps de logis and symmetrical advancing secondary wings terminating with the Dufour Pavilion on the south and the Gabriel Pavilion to the north, creating an expansive cour d'honneur known as the Royal Court (Cour Royale). Flanking the Royal Court are two enormous asymmetrical wings that result in a façade of 402 metres (1,319 ft) in length. Covered by around a million square feet (10 hectares) of roof, the palace has 2,143 windows, 1,252 chimneys, and 67 staircases.[
The palace and its grounds have had a great influence on architecture and horticulture from the mid-17th century to the end of the 18th century. Examples of works influenced by Versailles include Christopher Wren's work at Hampton Court Palace, Berlin Palace, the Palace of La Granja, Stockholm Palace, Ludwigsburg Palace, Karlsruhe Palace, Rastatt Palace, Nymphenburg Palace, Schleissheim Palace, and Esterházy Palace.
Royal Apartments
The construction in 1668–1671 of Le Vau's enveloppe around the outside of Louis XIII's red brick and white stone château added state apartments for the king and the queen. The addition was known at the time as the château neuf (new château). The grands appartements (Grand Apartments, also referred to as the State Apartments[141][142]) include the grand appartement du roi and the grand appartement de la reine. They occupied the main or principal floor of the château neuf, with three rooms in each apartment facing the garden to the west and four facing the garden parterres to the north and south, respectively. The private apartments of the king (the appartement du roi and the petit appartement du roi) and those of the queen (the petit appartement de la reine) remained in the château vieux (old château). Le Vau's design for the state apartments closely followed Italian models of the day, including the placement of the apartments on the main floor (the piano nobile, the next floor up from the ground level), a convention the architect borrowed from Italian palace design.
The king's State Apartment consisted of an enfilade of seven rooms, each dedicated to one of the known planets and their associated titular Roman deity. The queen's apartment formed a parallel enfilade with that of the grand appartement du roi. After the addition of the Hall of Mirrors (1678–1684) the king's apartment was reduced to five rooms (until the reign of Louis XV, when two more rooms were added) and the queen's to four.
The queen's apartments served as the residence of three queens of France – Marie-Thérèse d'Autriche, wife of Louis XIV, Marie Leczinska, wife of Louis XV, and Marie-Antoinette, wife of Louis XVI. Additionally, Louis XIV's granddaughter-in-law, Princess Marie-Adélaïde of Savoy, duchesse de Bourgogne, wife of the Petit Dauphin, occupied these rooms from 1697 (the year of her marriage) to her death in 1712.
Ambassador's Staircase
The Ambassadors' Staircase (Escalier des Ambassadeurs) was an imperial staircase built from 1674 to 1680 by d'Orbay. Until Louis XV had it demolished in 1752 to create a courtyard for his private apartments, the staircase was the primary entrance into the Palace of Versailles and the royal apartments especially. It was entered from the courtyard via a vestibule that, cramped and dark, contrasted greatly with the tall, open space of the staircase – famously lit naturally with a skylight – so as to overawe visitors.
The staircase and walls of the room that contained it were clad in polychrome marble and gilded bronze, with decor in the Ionic order. Le Brun and painted the walls and ceiling of the room according to a festive theme to celebrate Louis XIV's victory in the Franco-Dutch War. On the wall immediately above the staircase were trompe-l'œil paintings of people from the Four Parts of the World looking into the staircase over a balustrade, a motif repeated on the ceiling fresco. There they were joined by allegorical figures for the twelve months of the year and various Classical Greek figures such as the Muses. A marble bust of Louis XIV, sculpted by Jean Warin in 1665–66, was placed in a niche above the first landing of the staircase.
The State Apartments of the King
The construction of the Hall of Mirrors between 1678 and 1686 coincided with a major alteration to the State Apartments. They were originally intended as his residence, but the King transformed them into galleries for his finest paintings, and venues for his many receptions for courtiers. During the season from All-Saints Day in November until Easter, these were usually held three times a week, from six to ten in the evening, with various entertainments.
The Salon of Hercules
This was originally a chapel. It was rebuilt beginning in 1712 under the supervision of the First Architect of the King, Robert de Cotte, to showcase two paintings by Paolo Veronese, Eleazar and Rebecca and Meal at the House of Simon the Pharisee, which was a gift to Louis XIV from the Republic of Venice in 1664. The painting on the ceiling, The Apotheosis of Hercules, by François Lemoyne, was completed in 1736, and gave the room its name.
The Salon of Abundance
The Salon of Abundance was the antechamber to the Cabinet of Curios (now the Games Room), which displayed Louis XIV's collection of precious jewels and rare objects. Some of the objects in the collection are depicted in René-Antoine Houasse's painting Abundance and Liberality (1683), located on the ceiling over the door opposite the windows.
The Salon of Venus
This salon was used for serving light meals during evening receptions. The principal feature in this room is Jean Warin's life-size statue of Louis XIV in the costume of a Roman emperor. On the ceiling in a gilded oval frame is another painting by Houasse, Venus subjugating the Gods and Powers (1672–1681). Trompe-l'œil paintings and sculpture around the ceiling illustrate mythological themes.
The Salon of Mercury
The Salon of Mercury was the original State Bedchamber when Louis XIV officially moved the court and government to the palace in 1682. The bed is a replica of the original commissioned by King Louis-Philippe in the 19th century when he turned the palace into a museum. The ceiling paintings by the Flemish artist Jean Baptiste de Champaigne depict the god Mercury in his chariot, drawn by a rooster, and Alexander the Great and Ptolemy surrounded by scholars and philosophers. The Automaton Clock was made for the King by the royal clockmaker Antoine Morand in 1706. When it chimes the hour, figures of Louis XIV and Fame descend from a cloud.
The Salon of Mars
The Salon of Mars was used by the royal guards until 1782, and was decorated on a military theme with helmets and trophies. It was turned into a concert room between 1684 and 1750, with galleries for musicians on either side. Portraits of Louis XV and his Queen, Marie Leszczinska, by the Flemish artist Carle Van Loo decorate the room today.
The Salon of Apollo
The Salon of Apollo was the royal throne room under Louis XIV, and was the setting for formal audiences. The eight-foot-high silver throne was melted down in 1689 to help pay the costs of an expensive war, and was replaced by a more modest throne of gilded wood. The central painting on the ceiling, by Charles de la Fosse, depicts the Sun Chariot of Apollo, the King's favorite emblem, pulled by four horses and surrounded by the four seasons.
The Salon of Diana
The Salon of Diana was used by Louis XIV as a billiards room, and had galleries from which courtiers could watch him play. The decoration of the walls and ceiling depicts scenes from the life of the goddess Diana. The celebrated bust of Louis XIV by Bernini made during the famous sculptor's visit to France in 1665 is on display here.
Private apartments of the King and Queen
The apartments of the King were the heart of the château; they were in the same location as the rooms of Louis XIII, the creator of the château, on the first floor (second floor US style). They were set aside for the personal use of Louis XIV in 1683. He and his successors Louis XV and Louis XVI used these rooms for official functions, such as the ceremonial lever ("waking up") and the coucher ("going to bed") of the monarch, which was attended by a crowd of courtiers.
The King's apartment was accessed from the Hall of Mirrors from the Oeil de Boeuf antechamber or from the Guardroom and the Grand Couvert, the ceremonial room where Louis XIV often took his evening meals, seated alone at a table in front of the fireplace. His spoon, fork, and knife were brought to him in a golden box. The courtiers could watch as he dined.
The King's bedchamber had originally been a Drawing Room before Louis XIV transformed it into his own bedroom in 1701. He died there on 1 September 1715. Both Louis XV and Louis XVI continued to use the bedroom for their official awakening and going to bed. On 6 October 1789, from the balcony of this room Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette, joined by the Marquis de Lafayette, looked down on the hostile crowd in the courtyard, shortly before the King was forced to return to Paris.
The bed of the King is placed beneath a carved relief by Nicolas Coustou entitled France watching over the sleeping King. The decoration includes several paintings set into the paneling, including a self-portrait of Antony van Dyck.
Private apartments of The Queen
The petit appartement de la reine is a suite of rooms that were reserved for the personal use of the queen. Originally arranged for the use of the Marie-Thérèse, consort of Louis XIV, the rooms were later modified for use by Marie Leszczyńska and finally for Marie-Antoinette. The Queen's apartments and the King's Apartments were laid out on the same design, each suite having seven rooms. Both suites had ceilings painted with scenes from mythology; the King's ceilings featured male figures, the Queen's featured females.
Hall of Mirrors
The Hall of Mirrors is a long gallery at the westernmost part of the palace that looks out onto the gardens. The hall was built from 1678 to 1681 on the site of a terrace Le Vau built between the king and queen's suites. The hall is clad in marble and decorated in a modified version of the Corinthian order, with 578 mirrors facing 17 windows and reflecting the light provided by them. The ceiling fresco, painted by Le Brun over the next four years, embellishes the first 18 years of Louis XIV's reign in 30 scenes, 17 of which are military victories over the Dutch. The fresco depicts Louis XIV himself alongside Classical figures in the scenes celebrating moments in his reign such as the beginning of personal rule in 1661, breaking from earlier frescoes at Versailles that used allegories derived from Classical and mythological scenes.
The Salon of War and the Salon of Peace bookend the Hall of Mirrors on its northern and southern ends respectively. The Salon of War, constructed and decorated from 1678 to 1686, celebrates French victories in the Franco-Dutch War with marble panels, gilded bronze trophies of arms, and a stucco bas-relief of Louis XIV on horsebask riding over his enemies. The Salon of Peace is decorated in the same fashion but according to its eponymous theme.
Royal Chapel
The Royal Chapel of Versailles is located at the southern end of the north wing. The building stands 40-meter (130 ft) high, and measures 42 meters (138 ft) long and 24 meters (79 ft) wide. The chapel is rectangular with a semicircular apse, combining traditional, Gothic royal French church architecture with the French Baroque style of Versailles. The ceiling of the chapel is constituted by an unbroken vault, divided into three frescos by Antoine Coypel, Charles de La Fosse, and Jean Jouvenet. The palette of motifs beneath the frescoes glorify the deeds of Louis IX, and include images of David, Constantine, Charlemagne, and Louis IX, fleur de lis, and Louis XIV's monogram. The organ of the chapel was built by Robert Clicquot and Julien Tribuot in 1709–1710.
Louis XIV commissioned the chapel, its sixth, from Mansart and Le Brun in 1683–84. It was the last building constructed at Versailles during Louis XIV's reign. Construction was delayed until 1699, however, and it was not completed until 1710. The only major modification to the chapel since its completion was the removal of a lantern from its roof in 1765. A full restoration of the chapel began in late 2017 and lasted into early 2021.
Royal Opera
The Royal Opera of Versailles was originally commissioned by Louis XIV in 1682 and was to be built at the end of the North Wing with a design by Mansart and Vigarani. However, due to the expense of the King's continental wars, the project was put aside. The idea was revived by Louis XV with a new design by Ange-Jacques Gabriel in 1748, but this was also temporarily put aside. The project was revived and rushed ahead for the planned celebration of the marriage of the Dauphin, the future Louis XVI, and Marie-Antoinette. For economy and speed, the new opera was built almost entirely of wood, which also gave it very high quality acoustics. The wood was painted to resemble marble, and the ceiling was decorated with a painting of the Apollo, the god of the arts, preparing crowns for illustrious artists, by Louis Jean-Jacques Durameau. The sculptor Augustin Pajou added statuary and reliefs to complete the decoration. The new Opera was inaugurated on 16 May 1770, as part of the celebration of the royal wedding.
In October 1789, early in the French Revolution, the last banquet for the royal guardsmen was hosted by the King in the opera, before he departed for Paris. Following the Franco-German War in 1871 and then the Paris Commune until 1875, the French National Assembly met in the opera, until the proclamation of the Third French Republic and the return of the government to Paris.
Museum of the History of France
Shortly after becoming King in 1830, Louis Philippe I decided to transform the palace into a museum devoted to "All the Glories of France," with paintings and sculpture depicting famous French victories and heroes. Most of the apartments of the palace were entirely demolished (in the main building, practically all of the apartments were annihilated, with only the apartments of the king and queen remaining almost intact), and turned into a series of several large rooms and galleries: the Coronation Room (whose original volume was left untouched by Louis-Philippe), which displays the celebrated painting of the coronation of Napoleon I by Jacques-Louis David; the Hall of Battles; commemorating French victories with large-scale paintings; and the 1830 room, which celebrated Louis-Philippe's own coming to power in the French Revolution of 1830. Some paintings were brought from the Louvre, including works depicting events in French history by Philippe de Champaigne, Pierre Mignard, Laurent de La Hyre, Charles Le Brun, Adam Frans van der Meulen, Nicolas de Largillière, Hyacinthe Rigaud, Jean-Antoine Houdon, Jean-Marc Nattier, Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun, Hubert Robert, Thomas Lawrence, Jacques-Louis David, and Antoine-Jean Gros. Others were commissioned especially for the museum by prominent artists of the early 19th century, including Eugène Delacroix, who painted Saint Louis at the French victory over the British in the Battle of Taillebourg in 1242. Other painters featured include Horace Vernet and François Gérard. A monumental painting by Vernet features Louis Philippe himself, with his sons, posing in front of the gates of the palace.
The overthrow of Louis Philippe in 1848 put an end to his grand plans for the museum, but the Gallery of Battles is still as it was, and is passed through by many visitors to the royal apartments and grand salons. Another set of rooms on the first floor has been made into galleries on Louis XIV and his court, displaying furniture, paintings, and sculptures. In recent years, eleven rooms on the ground floor between the Chapel and the Opera have been turned into a history of the palace, with audiovisual displays and models.
Estate of Versailles
The estate of Versailles consists of the palace, the subsidiary buildings around it, and its park and gardens. As of June 2021, the estate altogether covers an area of 800 hectares (8.0 km2; 2,000 acres), with the park and gardens laid out to the south, west, and north of the palace. The palace is approached from the east by the Avenue de Paris, measuring 17 miles (27 km) from Paris to a gate between the Grande and Petite Écuries. Beyond these stables is the Place d'Armes, where the Avenue de Paris meets the Avenue de Sceaux and Avenue de Saint-Cloud (see map), the three roads that formed the main arteries of the city of Versailles. Exactly where the three roads meet is a gate leading into the cour d'honneur. hemmed in by the Ministers' Wings. Beyond is the Royal Gate and the main palace, which wraps around the Royal and finally Marble Courts
The estate was established by Louis XIII as a hunting retreat, with a park just to the west of his château. From 1661, Louis XIV expanded the estate until, at its greatest extent, the estate was made up by the Grand Parc , a hunting ground of 15,000 hectares (150 km2; 37,000 acres), and the gardens, called the Petit Parc, which covered 1,700 hectares (17 km2; 4,200 acres). A 25-mile (40 km) long, 10-foot (3.0 m) high wall with 24 gateways enclosed the estate.
The landscape of the estate had to be created from the bog that surrounded Louis XIII's château using landscape architecture usually employed in fortress building. The approach to the palace and the gardens were carefully laid out via the moving of earth and construction of terraces. The water from the marsh was marshalled into a series of lakes and ponds around Versailles, but these reservoirs were not sufficient for the palace, city, or gardens. Great lengths were taken to supply Versailles with water, such as the damming of the river Bièvre to create an inflow in the 1660s, the construction of an enormous pumping station at the river Seine near Marly-le-Roi in 1681, and an attempt to divert water from the river Eure with a canal in the later 1680s.
Gardens
The gardens of Versailles, as they have existed since the reign of Louis XIV, are the work of André Le Nôtre. Le Nôtre's gardens were preceded by a simple garden laid out in the 1630s by landscape architects Jacques Boyceau and Jacques de Nemours, which he rearranged along an east–west axis that, because of Louis XIV's land purchases and the clearing of woodland, were expanded literally as far as could be seen. The resulting gardens were a collaboration between Le Nôtre, Le Brun, Colbert, and Louis XIV, marked by rigid order, discipline, and open space, with axial paths, flowerbeds, hedges, and ponds and lakes as motifs. They became the epitome of the French formal garden style, and have been very influential and widely imitated or reproduced.
Subsidiary structures
The first of the subsidiary structures of the Palace of Versailles was the Versailles Menagerie [fr],[199][200] built by Le Vau between the years 1662 and 1664, at the southern end of the Grand Canal. The apartments, overlooking the pens, were renovated by Mansart from 1698 to 1700, but the Menagerie fell into disuse in 1712. After a long period of decay, it was demolished in 1801. The Versailles Orangery, just to the south of the palace, was first built by Le Vau in 1663, originally as part of the general moving of earth to create the Estate.[191] It was also modified by Mansart, who, from 1681 to 1685, totally rebuilt it and doubled its size.
In late 1679, Louis XIV commissioned Mansart to build the Château de Marly, a retreat at the edge of Versailles's estate, about 5 miles (8.0 km) from the palace. The château consisted of a primary residential building and twelve pavilions, in Palladian style placed in two rows on either side of the main building. Construction was completed in 1686, when Louis XIV spent his first night there. The château was nationalized and sold in 1799, and subsequently demolished and replaced with industrial buildings. These were themselves demolished in 1805, and then in 1811 the estate was purchased by Napoleon. On 1 June 2009, the grounds of the Château de Marly were ceded to the Public Establishment of the Palace, Museum and National Estate of Versailles.
La Lanterne, is a hunting lodge named after the lantern that topped the nearby Menagerie that was built in 1787 by Philippe Louis de Noailles, then the palace governor. It has since 1960 been a state residence.
Petit Trianon
The Petit Trianon, whose construction from 1762 to 1768 led to the advent of the names "Grand" and "Petit Trianon", was constructed for Louis XV and the Madame du Barry in the Neoclassical style by Gabriel. The building has a piano nobile, basement, and attic, with five windows on each floor. On becoming king, Louis XVI gave the Petit Trianon to Marie Antoinette, who remodeled it, relaid its gardens in the then-current English and Oriental styles, and formed her own court there.
In 1668, Louis XIV purchased and demolished the hamlet of Trianon, near the northern tip of the Grand Canal, and in its place, he commissioned Le Vau to construct a retreat from court, remembered as the Porcelain Trianon. Designed and built by Le Vau in 1670, it was the first example of Chinoiserie (faux Chinese) architecture in Europe, though it was largely designed in French style. The roof was clad not with porcelain but with delftware, and was thus prone to leaks, so in 1687 Louis XIV ordered it demolished. Nevertheless, the Porcelain Trianon was itself influential and copycats were built across Europe.
The Grand Trianon
The Grand Trianon with courtyard and gardens. The wing at left is a residence of the President of France.
The Grand Trianon with courtyard and gardens. The wing at left is a residence of the President of France.
To replace the Porcelain Trianon, Louis XIV tasked Mansart with the construction in 1687 of the Grand Trianon, built from marble in three months. The Grand Trianon has a single story, except for its attached service wing, which was modified by Mansart in 1705–06. The east façade has a courtyard while the west faces the gardens of the Grand Trianon, and between them a peristyle. The interiors are mostly original,[214] and housed Louis XIV, the Madame de Maintenon, Marie Leszczynska, and Napoleon, who ordered restorations to the building. Under de Gaulle, the north wing of the Grand Trianon became a residence of the President of France.
The Queen's hamlet and Theater
Near the Trianons are the French pavilion, built by Gabriel in 1750 between the two residences, and the Queen's Theater and Queen's Hamlet, built by architect Richard Mique in 1780 and from 1783 to 1785 respectively. These were both built at the behest of Marie Antoinette; the theater, hidden in the gardens, indulged her appreciation of opera and is absolutely original, and the hamlet to extend her gardens with rustic amenities. The building scheme of the Queen's Hamlet includes a farmhouse (the farm was to produce milk and eggs for the queen), a dairy, a dovecote, a boudoir, a barn that burned down during the French Revolution, a mill and a tower in the form of a lighthouse.
Modern political and ceremonial functions
The palace still serves political functions. Heads of state are regaled in the Hall of Mirrors; the bicameral French Parliament—consisting of the Senate (Sénat) and the National Assembly (Assemblée nationale)—meet in joint session (a congress of the French Parliament) in Versailles to revise or otherwise amend the French Constitution, a tradition that came into effect with the promulgation of the 1875 Constitution. For example, the Parliament met in joint session at Versailles to pass constitutional amendments in June 1999 (for domestic applicability of International Criminal Court decisions and for gender equality in candidate lists), in January 2000 (ratifying the Treaty of Amsterdam), and in March 2003 (specifying the "decentralized organization" of the French Republic).
In 2009, President Nicolas Sarkozy addressed the global financial crisis before a congress in Versailles, the first time that this had been done since 1848, when Charles-Louis Napoleon Bonaparte gave an address before the French Second Republic. Following the November 2015 Paris attacks, President François Hollande gave a speech before a rare joint session of parliament at the Palace of Versailles. This was the third time since 1848 that a French president addressed a joint session of the French Parliament at Versailles. The president of the National Assembly has an official apartment at the Palace of Versailles. In 2023 a state visit by Charles III to France included a state banquet at the Palace.
The Henry Ford Museum has an exhibit on Jim Henson's work and legacy, through September 6, 2021.
The exhibit featured a corner where we could assemble our own Muppets. I decided to make mine a scientist, complete with safety goggles.
Owned by: Allied Waste
Chassis: Mack LEU
Body: McNeilus
Truck number: 2204
Type of truck: Front Loader
Notes: I'm certain that this is the only residential front loader at this yard that has a pusher axle.
Owned by BAE (British Aerospace) this Lightning stayed in its silver finish throughout its UK life escaping the paint brushes 👍
Once owned and converted by Bradford City Transport and was re-painted in the livery of West Yorkshire PTE out of Bradford colours back in 2013. It is seen here at Ravensthorpe Shopping Park when attending the Dewsbury Bus Museum Autumn Open & Running Day on 18/11/2018. © Peter Steel 2018.
Owned by the Faulconbridge family, one of whom - Martha - in 1815 became the mother of Sir Henry Parkes, five time Prime Minister of New South Wales (See 'Moat House Farm' post) Having lost it's many acres to the encroaching houses, it last served as a Dairy before succumbing to the inevitability of domestic idle.
Kolkata privately owned Ashok Leyland mini bus WB25C8427 at BaraBazar on route 172 to Howrah on 23 November 2013. The conductor is on the look out for any extra passengers on an already full bus.
JAMX 1075 is owned by Connecticut Waste Processing not sure how they can up with the JAMX mark.. This old ACF Coalveyor started life as Kansas City Light and Power KCLX 45289
+++ DISCLAIMER +++
Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based historical facts. BEWARE!
Some background:
Under the Treaty of Trianon (1920), Hungary was forbidden from owning military aircraft. However, a secret air arm was gradually established under the cover of civilian flying clubs. During 1938, as a result of the Bled agreement, the existence of the Royal Hungarian Air Force (Hungarian: Magyar Királyi Honvéd Légierő (MKHL)), was made known. The army's aviation service was reorganized and expanded.
Late 1938 the army aviation was once again reorganized. Admiral Horthy, the head of state, ordered that the army aviation should become an independent service with effect of 01.09.1939. It subsequently participated in clashes with the newly established Slovak Republic and in the border confrontation with the Kingdom of Romania.
In 1940, the decision was made to unite the Air Force, the anti-aircraft forces, and the civilian air defense organizations under one central headquarters. In April 1941, operations were conducted in support of the German invasion of Yugoslavia and, on 27 June 1941, Hungary declared war on the Soviet Union.
On 01.06.1941, the Air Defense Corps was established, and Lieutenant General Béla Rákosi became Commander of Army Aviation. In effect the Air Force had once again become part of the Army. In the summer of 1942, an air brigade was attached to the Luftwaffe's VIII. Fliegerkorps at the Eastern Front.
At that time, most of the Hungarian Air Force's fighter equipment was of German origin, consisting of types like Bf 109 F and G, Fw 190 A/F, Me 210. But some indigenous designs were under development, too, e. g. at the RMI, Repülo Muszaki Intézet, or Aviation Technical Institute. Its aircraft were primarily (but not exclusively) by László Varga, and as a result, RMI designs were often given the Varga name (in some cases, even when he was not the major designer). But the RMI designation was used in parallel, too.
One of the domestic developments was the RMI-11 'Sólyom' (= Falcon) fighter. This single engine aircraft drew heavily upon the Bf 109 design, but featured some changes and improvements like an inward-retracting landing gear or a bubble canopy. It also incorporated elements from the heavy RMI-8 fighter, a push/pull design with twin tail booms, but the RMI-8’s sole prototype was destroyed by Allied air raids before a serious test program could be launched.
In contrast to the complex RMI-8 the RMI-11 was a small and light aircraft, a conventional but clean design, based on simple shapes for easy, modular production. Most of its structure was made from wood, saving sparse metal whenever possible. Empty weight was, for instance, about 200 kg less than a contemporary Bf- 109 G.
The RMI-11 was driven by a liquid-cooled DB 605 inverted V12 engine, rated at 1.475 hp. Thanks to the low weight of the airframe, the machine achieved a high top speed and an exceptional high rate of climb.
Originally designed as a fast and agile interceptor in the early stages of WWII, the RMI was only armed with two 13mm MG 131 with 300 RPG and two 7.92 mm MG 17 in the outer wings. Two underwing hardpoints could carry up to 100 kg each.
The RMI-11 prototype made its maiden flight in late 1943 and after a basic but successful test program immediately ordered into production – in a hurry, though, and beginning March 1944, Allied bomber raids began on Hungary and progressively increased in intensity.
Production of the RMI-11 gained only slowly momentum, due to material shortages, because the RMI-11was primarily of plywood bonded with a special phenolic resin adhesive that was supplied from German sources. Due to Allied bombing raids on the glue’s original production sites the plywood glue had to be replaced by one that was not as strong, and was later found to react chemically, apparently in a corrosive manner, with the wood in RMI-11’s structure. In November 1944, several RMI-11s crashed with wing and tail failures due to plywood delamination. This same problem also critically affected the German Focke Wulf Ta 154 and Heinkel He 162 programs.
Late in 1944 all efforts were redirected towards countering the advancing Red Army. Soon it was clear that the type needed long range cannons with higher caliber in order to encounter heavy Allied bombers, so plans were made to add heavier German armament. This was realized through an extra pair of MG 151/20 20 mm cannons with 150 RPG, which were added in fairings under the wings instead of the original bomb hardpoints (which were hardly ever used in service at all). During the same refit, the rather ineffective MG 17s were deleted, saving weight and leaving more room inside of the wings for the MG 131s’ ammunition supply (now with 400 RPG)
At that time only about 60 production aircraft had been completed and modified, and production was halted due to the severe structural problems. These machines were nevertheless thrown into service, with repairs and upgrades done at the Hungarian airfields – but the glue problem was a constant operational danger.
Still, all these efforts were to no avail: All fighting in Hungary ended on 16 April 1945, and all RMI-11’s were scrapped after hostilities ended.
General characteristics
Crew: 1
Length: 8.82 m (28 ft 10 ½ in)
Wingspan: 10.58 m (34 ft 8 in)
Height: 4.10 m (13 ft 5 in)
Wing area: 16.82 m² (181.00 ft²)
Empty weight: 1,964 kg (4,330 lb)
Loaded weight: 2,200 kg (4,840 lb)
Max. take-off weight: 2,395 kg (5,280 lb)
Powerplant:
1× Daimler-Benz DB 605A-1 liquid-cooled inverted V12, 1,475 PS (1,085 kW)
Performance:
Maximum speed: 640 km/h (398 mph) at 6,300 m (20,669 ft)
Cruise speed: 590 km/h (365 mph) at 6.000 m (19.680 ft)
Range: 850 km (528 mi)
Service ceiling: 12.000 m (39.370 ft)
Rate of climb: 17.0 m/s (3.345 ft/min)
Wing loading: 196 kg/m² (40 lb/ft²)
Power/mass: 344 W/kg (0.21 hp/lb)
Armament:
2× 13mm MG 131 (.51 in) machine guns in the wings,400 RPG, plus 2× 20mm MG 151/20 (.51 in) machine cannons, 150 RPG, in external underwing fairings.With the cannons deleted up to 8× 15 kg (33 lb) or 2× 50, 100, or 150 kg (110, 220, or 330 lb) bombs under the wings
The kit and its assembly:
This is a serious kitbash and a totally fictional aircraft - and you are IMHO an expert modeler if you recognize what basically went into it!
This build was inspired when I recently bought an RS Models Nakajima Kikka jet fighter, the double seater kit. As a bonus it comes with two fuselages: effectively, it is the single seater kit with an extra sprue and a different canopy. Looking at the Kikka's profile I found that it HAD to be converted into a piston engine aircraft, with a liquid-cooled engine. Wings and anything else would come from the scrap box, but it should become a sleek fighter aircraft, a late WWII design.
From that, things went straightforward:
● Fuselage from a RS Models Nakajima N9J1 "Kikka", front end cut away
● Wings from an Revell Macchi C.200 Saetta
● Stabilizers from an Art Model MiG I-210 fighter
● Canopy from a late Supermarine Spitfire (Special Hobby, IIRC)
● Nose/engine and radiators from an RS Models Ki-78
● The propeller was scratched from single pieces/blades and the Ki-78 spinner
● The landing gear is a Ki-78/C.200 parts mix.
I settled for the Ki-78's radiator installment on the rear flanks because it is a unique feature and simply does not hamper the sleek side profile. I also thought that this might have been a smart solution for modular production - fuselage and wings could be completed separately.
The Ki-78 engine had to be widened considerably to match the Kikka’s trapezoidal fuselage diameter, putty and major sculpting resulted in a relatively smooth and subtle intersection. As per usual, an axis construction for the propeller was added, too, so that it can spin freely. Mating wings and fuselage necessitated a new cockpit floor (which acts at the same time as landing gear well interior), and a 3mm bridge at the wing roots had to filled – but that was easy.
The cockpit interior was outfitted with spares, the Spitfire canopy needed some small styrene wedges under the windshield to make it fit onto the Kikka fuselage.
Things went rather smoothly until I fixed the wings to the completed fuselage. However I placed them, it looked odd – too far back, and the nose stood out; too far forward, and the tail was too long. Somehow, proportions did not match – only slightly, but it bugged me. So far that I eventually decided to shorten the fuselage – after having completed it, radiators already in place and everything sanded even. I made a vertical cut behind the cockpit and removed ~7mm of length – and suddenly the aircraft looked good! Needed some extra body work, but the aircraft looks much more balanced now.
The underwing fairings for the cannons were late additions, too. I wanted to keep the fuselage clean, with no nose guns, but adding heavier armament turned out to be tricky. The fairing solution was inspired by a real-world Fw 190 Rüstsatz which featured two MG 151/20 apiece. I had appropriate parts from an Academy Fw 190 left over, so I sliced these up and narrowed them for a single cannon each, and this was the right size for the slender aircraft. All gun barrels were created through heated and pulled-out styrene tubes.
Painting and markings:
Deciding what this aircraft was to become was tougher than building it! With its clearly German origin it had to be a WWII Axis type, but I did neither want a German nor a Japanese aircraft, even Italy was ruled out – all too obvious. With Hungary and its RMI designs I eventually found a good potential origin, and this also allowed a rather "colorful" livery. With the Hungarian background this kitbash became the RMI-11.
The paint scheme was inspired by an experimental Hungarian camouflage in Green, Gray and Brown, seen on a Bf 109G. I could not find color indications, but in the end I settled for three RLM tones for the upper sides, RLM 71, 75 and 79, coupled with RLM 76 for the lower sides. All tones are enamels from Modelmaster's Authentic range, panels and leading edges were slightly emphasized with lighter shades. As a small design twist I added a wavy, medium waterline on the fuselage sides.
Interior surfaces were, lacking any reference, kept in RLM 02. In order not to be too fanciful, the spinner became black with a green tip (RLM 62), and the blades were painted with a mix of RLM 70 (Black Green) and Black, for a very dark and dull green tone, Luftwaffe style.
The yellow markings correspond to German Luftwaffe markings of the late WWII era, the yellow 45° “V” under the lower left wing was introduced in the Balkan region in 1944, it was also carried by Luftwaffe aircraft in this conflict theatre.
The flashy decoration on all tail surfaces disappeared at that time on real aircraft (only small Hungarian flags were carried on the tail rudder), but I still incorporated the full national insignia because it's unique and a colorful contrast to the rest of the aircraft.
Most markings belong to a real Hungarian Bf 109G (from a Print Scale aftermarket sheet), I just scratched the national markings on the fuselage and the yellow markings (all cut from stock decal material) and parts of the Hungarian flag insignia on the tail: the tips were painted with red, the white and green bands were cut to measure from a Frecce Tricolori sheet.
A light black ink wash was applied and some dry painting added with gray and black (for soot and exhaust stains), for a lightly weathered effect. As final step, everything was sealed under matt acrylic varnish (Revell).
A quickie, done in just a week, but with a very convincing look. One might recognize Bf 109 F/G, Ki-78 and even He 100 features, but none of these aircraft really matches up with the RMI-11 at second glance, there are too many individual differences. If it gets you wondering – mission accomplished! ;)
Owned by Pacific National but still in the Freight Australia scheme G528 stands alongside the newer model XR559 in the current scheme while stabled on grain trains at Dimboola on 16-10-11
Mount Isa Township.
Like Broken Hill Mt Isa is an isolated outback town created because of a mineral discovery in 1923. It was part of the Cloncurry Shire council until it was declared a town with its own local government in 1963. Today it has a population of around 20,000 people but at its peak in the 1970s it had 34,000 people. The city area encompasses a huge unpopulated area making Mt Isa the second biggest city in Australia in land area! The town is basically a mining company town like Broken Hill but unlike Broken Hill and other mining centres in Australia it is such a long way from the coast and port facilities. No mining town is further from the nearest port than Mt Isa. The port of Townsville is almost 900 kms away and the capital Brisbane is over 1800 kms away.
Pastoralism came to the Mt Isa region in the 1860s and 1870s when much of outback QLD was occupied by graziers. The region was known for its mining as the Cloncurry copper and goldfields were not that far away and to the south of Mt Isa was the Duchess copper mine and township. (In 1966 the only major source of phosphate was discovered at Duchess mine.) The rocky outcrops and ranges of the area were attractive to prospectors hoping for another great mineral find after the great finds at Cloncurry in 1872.
An itinerant mineral prospector named John Campbell Miles was camped on the Leichhardt River looking at rock samples in late 1923. He found promising samples and took them to the government assayer in Cloncurry discovering that his samples were 50% to 78% pure lead with copper as well. The QLD government investigated the deposits further as Miles named the field Mt Isa. Businessmen in Cloncurry saw the potential of the area for mining. In January 1924 the Mount Isa Mines Ltd Company was floated beginning their search for investment capital to develop the site. Douglas McGillivray of Cloncurry was a major investor and his funds permitted the new company to acquire mining leases for the relevant areas. Miners flocked to the area and by the end of 1924 a small town had emerged with tents, and a few wooden buildings from other towns in the region. Mt Isa then had a school room, a water supply from the Leichhardt River and stores, hotels and an open air picture theatre!
But it was to take another 10 years before large scale mining began. MIM (Mt Isa Mines) continued to purchases additional mining leases and they searched overseas for capital as the first leases cost them £245,000. On top for this was the cost of underground explorations, drilling, metallurgical tests and plant construction. By 1932 MIM had spent around £4 million with no production, returns or profits. But the size and potential of this project was not underestimated by anyone. In 1929 the QLD government extended the railway from Cloncurry ( it reached there in 1910) via Duchess to Mt Isa. By this time the population was around 3,000 people. Mined ore was carted by road to the smelter in Cloncurry. The township had progressed too with a town planned by the Company with tree lined streets on the river, with a dam for a water supply on Rifle Creek. The mine operations were on the western side of the River and the town and businesses on the eastern side of the River. The Catholic Church opened in 1929 and the Company built a fine small hospital for the town. As the Great Depression hit MIM stopped spending on the development on the town and concentrated on the mines. By this time profits were repaying interest on the loans but the company did not return a dividend on investments until 1947.
The fortunes of Mt Isa Mines changed in the 1930s as Julius Kruttschnitt, a native of New Orleans was appointed mine manager in 1930. He obtained additional financial investment in MIM from the American Smelting and Refining Company and the first reruns on lead production occurred in 1931. By 1937 under Kruttschnitt’s guidance the almost bankrupt company of 1930 was returning profits by 1936. This manager was known for always wearing a collar, tie and suit regardless of the Mt Isa temperatures. He played sport with the miners, his wife contributed to town events and he worked on better housing for the workers. He retired from the MIM in 1953 but remained on the Company Board until 1967. At this time Mt Isa Mines became the largest single export earner for Australia and MIM was the largest mining company in Australia. Kruttschnitt died in 1974 in Brisbane. He received many Australiana and international awards for his work in mining engineering and metallurgy. He really put Mt Isa on the map.
During World War Two the mine concentrated on copper and ceased lead and silver operations as demanded by the war needs. Until this time the mine had concentrated on lead production. Labour shortages were crippling during the War years but the mine continued. Many American troops were stationed here too and the Mt Isa Hospital had an underground hospital built in case of air raids. No bombing attacks were experienced and the hospital was mainly used by nurses on night duty catching up on some sleep in the relative cool underground but the hospital still remains and is operated by the National Trust. It is unlikely that we will have free time when the underground hospital is open to visit it.
After World War Two the fortunes of Mt Isa changed remarkably. Lead prices trebled after the War from £25 per ton to £91 per ton and hence the MIM was able to pay its first dividends in 1947. Workers received a lead bonus to make their wages higher and about three times the amount of average wages in Brisbane. The population of the town doubled in the early 1950s just before Kruttschnitt retired from around 3,000 to over 7,000. It doubled again by 1961 when the population reached 13,000 and it doubled again by 1971 when it reached 26,000. New facilities came with the bigger population- an Olympic size swimming pool, some air conditioning in some buildings, bitumen roads, less dust, more hotels and employee clubs, including the Marie Kruttschnitt Ladies Club! Miners’ wages doubled during the Korean War. It was during this period the rail line from Mt Isa to Townsville became the profitable ever for the Queensland Railways. It was the profits from this line that led Queensland Rail to develop and rebuilt other lines and introduce the electric Tilt train etc. MIM discovered more and more ore deposits and firstly doubled and then trebled production in the 1950s. Mt Isa surpassed Broken Hill as Australia’s biggest and wealthiest mine.
New suburbs were built by MIM, the town became the centre of local government and the Company built a new dam for a water supply on Lake Moondarra with importer sand for a lake shore beach. As more stores opened in Mt Isa Mount Isa mines closed its cooperative store. A large new hospital was opened in 1960; the Royal Flying Doctor Service transferred its headquarters from Cloncurry to Mt Isa; and the town had a new air of prosperity and modernity. The calm soon broke. There was a major split between the Australian Workers Union, an Americana union agitator called Patrick Mackie and the Mine management over pay and profit sharing ideas. All work at the mine stopped during a bitter dispute that lasted eight months. The Liberal Country Party government which included Joh Bjelke Petersen (he was a minster and not premier in 1964) used the police to restrict the activities of the AWU and the Mackie Unionists. Many miners left the town as they could not survive without work and it took some time after the dispute resolution for the mine to restart full operations. Mining restarted in 1965.
Ten years (1974) later MIM financially assisted with the construction and opening of the new Civic Centre. Mt Isa’s population reached its maximum of around 34,000 and the future looked bright. As the ore quality declined the town population declined but MIM found new ways of extracting copper and lead from lower grade ore. The city continued to exist until MIM sold utu to Xstrata in 2003. Since the then town population has been slowly increasing. The local federal MP is Bob Katter who is proposing to create a new conservative party for the next federal election.
Mount Isa Mines Today.
In the 2001 Census over 20% of Mt Isa’s workforce was employed in mining. The town mainly survives because of the Xstrata Mines which took over the previous company, Mount Isa Mines (MIM) Ltd in 2003. Xstrata has invested $570 million in the mines since its takeover. Xstrata today employs over 3,000 staff and 1,000 contractors in the mine. Xstrata is a large multinational mining company with its headquarters in Switzerland and its head office in London. It has mines in Africa, Australia, Asia and the Americas. It miens coal, and copper primarily in Australia at places as far apart as Mt Isa, McArthur River zinc mine in the NT, Bulga coal mine and Anvil Hill coal mine in NSW and Cosmos nickel mine in WA.
Apart from the mines itself Mt Isa has other infrastructure: a power station (oil fired); an experimental mine dam; and various buildings and works such as the winding plant, shaft headframe etc. Most importantly for the township it also has the copper smelter works. The ore is further processed in the Townsville smelter after transportation to the coast. The Mt Isa smelter produced over 200,000 tons of copper in 2010 and smelted lead and the concentrator refines the ores of copper, zinc, lead and silver. Across all its mines in Australia Xstrata employs almost 10,000 people second only to its workforce in Africa. Xstrata also operates the Ernest Henry copper, gold and magnetite mines 38 kms north of Cloncurry. This group of mines is expected to employ around 500 people on a long term basis. All the ore from these mines is treated in the concentrator and the smelter in Mt Isa. The Isa smelter and concentrator also handles the silver, lead and zinc from the George Fisher( Hilton) mines 20 kms south of Mt Isa. The stack from the smelter, erected in 1978, stands 270 metres high and can be seen from 40 kms away.
Outback at Isa Discovery Centre and Riversleigh Fossil Centre.
This centre was opened in 2003. The Riversleigh Fossil Centre moved into the complex; a purpose built mine called the Hard Times mine was dug and opened to give visitors an underground mine experience; and the Isa Experience Gallery opened with an Outback Park outside. The complex also operates the Visitor Information Centre. The Isa Experience Gallery uses multimedia approaches to bring the history and Aboriginal culture and mining background of Mount Isa to life.
Riversleigh World Heritage fossil site is 250kms north of Mt Isa on the Gregory River on an isolated cattle station. The fossil site covers over 10,000 hectares and is now included in the Lawn Hill national Park. It has been a protected site since 1983 and was declared a World Heritage site of international significance in 1994. But why? Sir David Attenborough explains:
Riversleigh is the worlds’ richest mammal fossil site dating from 15-25 million years ago. The massive number of fossils discovered here are generally imbedded in hard limestone which was formed when freshwater pools solidified. This happened at time when this part of Australia was a rich rainforest area, rather than the semi-arid grassland that it is now. The fossils cover a period of 20 million years helping scientists understand how Australia, its climate and animal species changed. Most of what is known about Australia’s mammals over 20 million years was learnt from bone discoveries at Riversleigh, and the most significant ones were found in just one hour!
It is the mammals that we find the most fascinating today with large mega-fauna from prehistoric eras the most amazing. But there have also been finds of birds, frogs, fish, turtles and reptiles. The finds have included: the ancestors of Tasmanian Tigers (thylacines); large meat eating kangaroos; huge crocodiles; giant flightless birds; the ancestors of our platypus (monotreme); ancient koalas and wombats; diprotodon; giant marsupial moles and bandicoots; around 40 species of bats; and marsupial “lions”. The site has yielded a complete skull and teeth of a giant platypus and the various thylacines have added to our previous knowledge of just one- the now extinct Tasmanian Tiger.
Scientists have dug over 250 fossil rich sites at Riversleigh finding hundreds of new species. Who has heard of: dasyurids, cuscuses, ilariids and wynyardiids? I have no idea what they were. Other strange discoveries have been: 'Thingodonta' (Yalkaparidon) - an odd marsupial with skull and teeth like no other living marsupial; Fangaroo- a small grass eating kangaroo species with giant teeth; the Giant Rat-kangaroo, (Ekaltadeta) that ate meat( perhaps the Fangaroo); and the Emuary, (Emuarius) which was half emu and half cassowary in features. The Fossil Centre in Mt Isa has some reconstructions of some of these fossil animals of prehistoric times.