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My poor rhodie suffered severe damage from the heavy snow and ice this past winter. We lost 2 of the main branches so it doesn't look as full anymore, but I still love those blooms.
We've had two nights in a row without raccoons, which makes life a little easier for me and much easier for the amphibians in the yard. Northern red legged frog, backyard Olympia.
Early Modern Hungary was one of the most backward and oppressive regimes in Europe, with the Hungarian nobility prioritizing their feudal privileges (exemption from taxes, claims upon serfs' rents and labor) above all other concerns. In 1514, as Ottoman forces broke out of the Balkans and bore down on Central Europe, Pope Leo X called for a crusade against the Ottomans to protect Christendom. Hungary's peasants rallied to the call, but the nobility--fearing an armed peasantry and unwilling to lose their labor in the fields--resisted. The peasants then turned against the nobility in the revolutionary Dózsa Revolt. This rebellion was crushed brutally. Its leader, György Dózsa, was mocked as King of the Peasants and executed by being placed on a red hot throne, with a red hot crown upon his head. His followers were forced to eat his flesh while he was still alive, and the nobility imposed a perpetual serfdom upon the peasants.
A dozen years later, in 1526, Ottoman armies under Suleiman the Magnificent marched into Hungary, defeated the noble armies, and killed the Hungarian king, Louis II. For the next century and a half Hungary was plundered: by the Ottomans, who enslaved Hungarians for service in the Janissary Corps; by the Habsburgs, who laid claim to both occupied and unoccupied regions of Hungary; and by the Hungarian nobility themselves, who often lived in a comfortable exile in Austria but sent collectors to their old estates to extort payments from the peasants.
In 1686 Hapsburg and Hungarian forces evicted the Ottomans, but the Habsburgs ruled Hungary as a colony, stifling industry and maintaining the harsh feudal system, which generally pleased the Hungarian nobles, who sought only the maintenance of their privileges. So, in 1848, Hungary was again swept up in revolution, along with much of Europe, as commoners were joined by modernizers calling for the abolition of feudal privileges, for personal freedoms, and for constitutionalism. A Hungarian revolutionary government abolished serfdom, proclaimed civil equality, and ended the tax exemption of the Hungarian nobility.
Unlike most of the 1848 Revolutions, the one in Hungary escalated into full scale war. But this revolution, like the Dózsa Revolt, was also crushed. Austria called for assistance from Russia and, with the aid of 200,000 Russian soldiers, defeated the Revolutionary forces and executed its leaders. But even in defeat, the Revolution somehow achieved its aims. The Habsburgs recognized they could not force the peasants back into serfdom. They maintained its abolition, and the abolition of the tax exempt status of the nobility. Soon, in 1867, a weakened Austria was forced to recognize Hungary as an equal partner in the empire, creating a Dual Monarchy. This allowed Hungary to reform its parliament and granted it autonomy in internal affairs, which led to a period of rapid modernization.
Above, the Széchenyi Chain Bridge, the brainchild of the reforming Hungarian nobleman, Count István Széchenyi (1791-1860). Széchenyi was a wealthy Hungarian nobleman who argued that feudalism was bad for the nation and for the nobility because it stifled innovation. He hoped and believed (perhaps incorrectly) that change could be brought about by reform rather than revolution. Before 1848, he was deeply involved in modernizing and development schemes, one of which was the creation of a bridge to connect the two halves of the capital, Buda and Pest, which were often separated by dangerous waters or ice floes of the Danube. The most striking feature of the bridge was the symbolic insistence by Széchenyi that nobles, too, must pay a toll to cross it, an insistence that reeked of class treason to other aristocrats. The bridge was completed in 1849, just after the Revolution of 1848 was defeated and while Széchenyi himself was institutionalized for a mental breakdown brought on by the Revolution. But the bridge soon came to represent, like Széchenyi himself, the modernizing spirit in Hungary. The Chain Bridge, with Buda Castle in background, Budapest, Hungary.
This dates to the 1360s and was built on the site of a medieval cathedral just after the Ottoman conquest of Plovdiv. It was rebuilt in the 15th century and is still active. The Dzhumaya Mosque, AKA Friday Mosque in Plovdiv, Bulgaria.
Mrs. Orca on one of the highest peaks of the summer, Malyovitsa (2729m). This is in the middle of the Rila Mountains, and in the distance you can see most of the first four days of our route, with the Verila Mountains in the middle and Vitosha (2290m) in the far distance. Mrs. Orca on Malyovitsa Peak, Rila Mountains, Five Mountains Trail (E4) Bulgaria.
Ein bezauberndes Weihnachtsboot liegt auf dem Weiher unseres Nachbarn vor Anker, zusammen mit den frisch verschneiten Bäumen war die Szenerie wie aus einem Märchen, ich konnte mich kaum mehr davon losreißen...Herzliche Grüße aus dem frisch verschneiten Isarwinkel
An enchanting Christmas boat is anchored on our neighbour's pond, together with the freshly snow-covered trees the scenery was like something out of a fairy tale, I could hardly tear myself away from it...
Google Pixel 8 Pro Night Mode
This is Utricularia inflata (swollen bladderwort), a very strange carnivorous plant. It has no roots, only a stem and leaf structure that floats freely in the water and has evolved into a system of carnivorous traps to ensnare small organisms, such as mosquito larvae. Each of the thousands or tens of thousands of bladders on the plant are small vacuum traps with tiny hair triggers which, when they detect a passing organism, spring the trap and suck it in to be digested. The plant also seasonally forms the strange floating cartwheel raft (left image) that acts as a base for the rather attractive snapdragon-like flower that emerges several inches above the water (right). This species is native to the American Southeast but has spread invasively to much of the country, including to our neighborhood ponds and, from there, to my goldfish pond. Composite image of swollen bladderwort (Utricularia inflata), backyard Olympia.
This is one of the most interesting sites in Plovdiv. In the lower half of the image is a small portion of the 2nd century AD Roman Stadium. This, the curved northern end of the stadium, has been fully excavated and you can walk right down into it from street level, or enter through its original northern tunnel entrance (the roof of which is bottom left of image). The excavated portion is a perfect semicircle, and when I first saw it I mistakenly visualized a small circular theater seating at most a few thousand. What you actually see is just the tip of the iceberg, however, since most is buried beneath the main market street of modern Plovdiv. The stadium sat about 30,000 spectators in its 240 meters of length and was used for races and other spectacles. It is, in fact, still complete, and there are some ambitious plans to reinforce the modern buildings that sit atop it and excavate the whole of the stadium to create a massive underground archaeological site.
The top half of the image is the Djumaya (or Friday) Mosque. In the Roman Era there was probably a pagan temple here, likely replaced by a Christian basilica in late antiquity. In the late medieval era the Sveta Petka Tarnovska Cathedral stood here, but when the Ottomans captured Plovdiv in the 1360s, they tore it down and used the materials to construct this mosque, one of the largest and oldest in the Balkans. Roman Stadium and Djumaya Mosque, Plovdiv, Bulgaria.
We rented bikes in Vienna and pedaled about forty kilometers along the river to reach the charming town of Tulln. In addition to some nice riverfront gardens, Tulln has a notable early 11th century church complete with this exemplary mid-13th century ossuary, or charnel house, one of the earliest of its kind.
In Roman Europe the dead by law were buried outside of city limits. But after the collapse it became common to bury the dead in churchyards, which evolved by the beginning of the High Middle Ages into the requirement that they be buried in consecrated ground, that is, grounds blessed by a bishop. In practical terms, this meant that urban churchyard real estate filled up quickly.
Practically speaking, it became necessary to dig up the deceased after a decade or so and move their (now, much more compact) remains so that the grave could be reoccupied. The bones, naturally, could not be discarded casually, as they were expected to reanimate on Judgement Day and had to remain on consecrated grounds. But at first, there wasn't any single institutional system for what to do with them.
Another theological basis for the special care of disinterred bones appeared in the mid 13th century, when the doctrine of Purgatory was formally defined by the Catholic Church. Because most of those destined for salvation were now believed to pass through Purgatory rather than directly to Heaven, loved ones were now expected to continue to pray over remains for the salvation of those already dead, so as to hasten their passage through this markedly unpleasant place.
Ossuaries provided both the practical and theological solution to the problem of what to do with the old bones. Often, they were an octagonal building immediately adjacent to a church. Tulln's remarkably original and well preserved one is unusual in that it is eleven-sided. Additionally, it was completed just before the doctrine of Purgatory was formalized, making it one of the earliest examples of this kind of building. Despite its age and unique design, it shares the same layout as typical medieval ossuaries, where the remains of thousands are housed on the lower level, with a chapel above where prayers were offered for the the souls of the deceased below.
From this time forward Ossuaries became common across much of Catholic Europe until the Reformation. In areas subject to the Reformation most were destroyed or repurposed, since the theological basis for their existence did not exist in Protestant communities. We've visited a number of them before, the strangest of which was undoubtedly the Capela dos Ossos in Évora, Portugal, where in the context of the Counter-Reformation the collection and display of bones was taken to a rather morbid extreme.
Outside of Protestant Europe, ossuaries ultimately gave way not to the Reformation but to the Enlightenment. For example, in late 18th century Austria, which within living memory had been stricken by the plague, burial within churchyards and urban places was banned as unhygienic as part of a package of reforms issued by Emperor Joseph II.
The 13th century Tulln Ossuary at the Parish Church of Saint Stephen, Tulln, Austria.
"The relationship between critic and writer is similar to the one between the pigeon and the statue." Ashwin Sanghi
Today's Bulgaria was part of a region known to the ancient Greeks and Romans as Thrace, after the people who lived there. They were a tribal people, but with the 5th century BC establishment of the Odrysian Dynasty a large portion of them were organized into single kingdom, which commenced a Thracian golden age when Thrace played a major role in the politics of the ancient world. Deceased kings of this era were deified and buried in monumental tombs (some of which can be visited) in the Valley of Thracian Kings.
During a period of internal division resulting from dynastic dispute, Alexander the Great's father, Phillip II, conquered much of the region, and many Thracian elites became Hellenized. The conquest was completed by Alexander, but the Thracians rebelled after his death and revived an autonomous state which continued in some form until final conquest by the Romans in the 1st century AD.
Above, a life sized portrait head of the Thracian King Seuthes III, who led a restored Thracian State after Alexander's death in 323 BC. This portrait was almost certainly produced by a Greek artist. It is one of my favorite artifacts from one of my favorite museums, the Sofia Archaeological Museum. The museum is somewhat small (it is housed in a 15th century Ottoman Mosque) but packs a real wallop and is amazingly well curated. Particularly memorable is the Hall of Treasures, which is actually a fairly small room containing artifacts excavated from and around Thracian burial mounds, mostly executed in the Greek style. Portrait of Seuthes III (4th century BC), in the Sofia Archaeological Museum, Sofia, Bulgaria.