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Title:
Silence.
B♭ (B Flat)
A Novel by Mitsushiro Nakagawa
日本語のあらすじ等は下の方にあります😃
一部分の公開を更新しました。今回が最後です😃
“Synopsis”
A Palestinian group from Gaza hacks into North Korea’s cryptocurrency system, stealing hundreds of millions of dollars. Their true goal is not money—but to recreate the lost homeland of Gaza on American soil.
Amid the backdrop of hardline Republican immigration policies and a growing wave of xenophobia, a quiet plan begins to take shape: the gradual collapse of America from within.
During a speech at Madison Square Garden, Republican presidential candidate Justin Bradford is shot. Almost simultaneously in Los Angeles, former president Owen Reed is attacked at a rally for Democratic hopeful Ryan Bennett.
Two assassinations—mirroring one another—ignite a nation’s deepest divide. Yet, against all odds, Justin survives. His blood type is one in 2.5 million: the Bombay Blood Group.
The only person who can donate such blood is Anaya Patel, a community art facilitator working in Brooklyn. Her blood, stored in the Bellevue Hospital Blood Bank, is used for an emergency transfusion that saves the candidate’s life.
Jack Vance, an agent of the U.S. Secret Service, suspects a Gaza-based network behind the attacks. Together with Cameron Bartlett, the FBI Director of the Los Angeles Field Office, and Veronica Reeves, a senior investigator from New York, he begins to uncover a vast conspiracy.
Their investigation leads them to Rafi Gannam, a former architecture student at the Islamic University of Gaza, who has infiltrated redevelopment sites across Los Angeles and New York—embedding C4 explosives deep within beams and structural cores.
His targets: new residential districts where agents of ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) and ERO (Enforcement and Removal Operations) live—symbols of “the order America built.”
Veronica urges the President to pursue dialogue to prevent further destruction, but President Grant M. Ranford refuses to listen.
Meanwhile, the recovering Justin and his Democratic rival Ryan appear on national television, calling for unity beyond political divisions.
Their words of reason, however, are drowned out when Grant takes the stage in Iowa, defiantly declaring: “We will never bow to terror.”
Among the crowd, Rafi’s operatives have already taken their positions.
As chaos erupts and the stage collapses, Amir Nasser—once Rafi’s comrade, haunted by the memory of his sister’s death in Gaza—tries desperately to halt the chain of destruction.
But Rafi’s conviction remains unshaken.
Under the twilight beneath the Williamsburg Bridge, amid the city’s fading noise, the two men part ways.
It is the boundary between prayer and vengeance, between hope and nothingness.
“Characters”
Anaya Patel – 25, Community Art Facilitator
Arjun Singh – 26, Anaya’s boyfriend, Luminatech Innovations
Mika Sato – 25, Anaya’s friend, Community Art Facilitator
Justin Bradford – 27, Republican Presidential Candidate
Eleanor Blake – 26, Justin’s fiancée
President Grant M. Langford – 61, Incumbent Republican President
Vice President Charles “Chuck” Baines – 64, Incumbent Republican Vice President
Ryan Bennett – 30, Democratic Presidential Candidate
Sophia Bennett – 30, Ryan’s wife
Owen Reed – 65, Former Democratic President
Jack Vance – 45, Secret Service, Former FBI Los Angeles Field Office
Ben Holloway – 30, Jack’s colleague
Darryl Ross – 29, Jack’s colleague
Elijah Kane – 28, Jack’s colleague
Marcus Dane – 45, FBI Los Angeles Field Office
Cameron Bartlett – 55, FBI Los Angeles Field Office, Field Office Director
Tom Caldwell – 38, FBI Technical Unit, Marcus’s subordinate
Veronica Reeves – 41, FBI Special Agent
Alexander Harris – 52, FBI New York Field Office, Field Office Director
Elliot Chen – 36, Technology Unit Chief
Alicia Monroe – 58, FBI Director
Zakaria Haddad – 51, Gaza Strip, Palestine; Former Islamic University Engineering Professor, New York Team
Amir Nasser – 23, Gaza Strip, Palestine; Former Islamic University Electronics Engineering, New York Team
Rafi Gannam – 32, Gaza Strip, Palestine; Islamic University, Architecture, New York Team
Rohan Shah – 29, Gaza Strip, Palestine; Islamic University, Architecture, New York Team
Majid Hamza – 47, Gaza Strip, Palestine; University of Palestine, Information Technology, Los Angeles Team
Samira Hammad – 28, Gaza Strip, Palestine; University of Palestine, Engineering, Los Angeles Team
Saeed Kabari – 35, Gaza Strip, Palestine; University of Palestine, Business Administration, Los Angeles Team
Reem Nasser – 30, Gaza Strip, Palestine; University of Palestine, Media Studies, Los Angeles Team
Noah Levi – 55, Israel, residing in Tel Aviv, Jewish
B♭ will be released worldwide on February 29, 2026.
Recently, director Ridley Scott remarked that streaming films and series have become dull.
I agree.
If you have two hours to spare for such stories, I ask for only two minutes of your time.
Two minutes with my novel will outlast those two hours.
I am confident of that.
Stay tuned.
Mitsushiro
October 9th, 2025
P.S.
Micchan — the man who challenges Netflix. 😃
( iPhone 13 Pro shot )
Motosuka Beach. Kujukuri Beach. Sanmu City. Chiba Prefecture. Japan. October 9, 2025. … 0.9 / 10
(Photo of the day. Unpublished.)
Images.
Taylor Swift … This Love
youtu.be/PfJzQuqWSSE?si=TrtL4Mb-uN2dNmML
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🌟 My New Novel: "B♭" (B Flat)
This is the 20th installment! 😄
The following is still in the first draft stage. I will revise it further.
•The order of the content being shared is random.
•This will be the final time I share partial excerpts.
The full novel will be released on February 28, 2026.
Please look forward to it! 😃
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My new novel
B♭ (B Flat)
English translation by GPT-5, in collaboration with Mitsushiro Nakagawa
“Jack, look at your phone. Another message just came through. The IP address traces to a branch of the New York Public Library near Grand Central — via the Stavros Niarchos Foundation.”
It was a FaceTime from Ben. He was standing by in the NYPD Midtown South command post just beside the Garden. Despite everything that was happening, Ben’s voice was calm.
Jack slid his finger across his iPhone and read the short line that appeared. The characters lay down carelessly, yet somehow they gave the sentence a shape.
— There’s an arched ceiling in the underground concourse of Grand Central. Come there. Jack Vance. And don’t come alone — though, of course, you won’t be alone. —
The message struck at the inside of Jack’s chest like a ringing.
The car threaded north along Vanderbilt Avenue and came up at the southern lip of Grand Central. The city had not quite woken; the damp that hid in the canyon between buildings carried the metallic smell of morning. Jack let off the gas and eased the black SUV to the curb, almost sliding it along. As the tires brushed the edge of the pavement, the remaining beads of rain on the road leapt up into streaks of light.
He pushed open the heavy door and stepped out. His shoes hit the cobbles a beat later. Once he turned to look down the street behind him, the red reflection of a siren flashed through a shop window and briefly lit the faces of passersby, whitening them for a single instant.
Weaving through that cut of light, Jack made for the stairs that led down to the concourse. The service door groaned with a slight metallic protest. Inside, a low hum, like the breathing of a subway, filled the space. A cold breath struck his cheeks, and from the depths of the HVAC ducts a distant station announcement blurred toward him.
Wiping the sweat from his brow, Jack took the stairs of Grand Central two at a time. The amber lighting flowed across his soles; his footsteps linked together like the heartbeat of the terminal.
The iron handrail was cold, passing a faint tremor into his fingertips. From far down the stairs other footsteps layered over one another, keeping an old rhythm that led downward. The arched ceiling drew the air in gently; the lights spread a thin film of glow.
The concourse smelled of damp; the old brick walls seemed unable to forget past rains and exhaled them faintly. The floor tiles were dulled by years of feet; hairline cracks ran through them, where little memories of the city had gathered. Jack walked without attending to these things. His gaze was naturally drawn to the darkness at the far end of the corridor. The usual stream of commuters hurried past.
Weathered signs and bulletin boards clung to the walls like pillows for torn flyers. A cleaner dragged her mop in a single ribbon; beyond it, a lone bench sat as if sketching a pale loneliness.
The air that moved through the passage felt to Jack like the slow pulse of a city’s vein. He felt his breath fall into the same beat and kept walking.
Light touched the tiles at his feet and shadows stretched and swayed. The faint metallic noise of an escalator sounded somewhere far away; the gust from the stairs cooled the heat that had gathered in his body. The scent of the city, the underground damp, and the faint warmth of old lamps mixed; time began to melt slowly.
Stopping, Jack rubbed his palms and let his eyes roam. The hum all around carried a peculiar echo that blurred one’s sense of direction. He told himself he was only looking for “it,” somewhere in the concourse.
As he moved again, a high metallic scrape suddenly sliced the air. His neck muscles twitched and a tautness ran through the soles of his feet. Reflexively he froze; at the edge of his vision a receiver quivered.
Its cord, knotted with the weight of years, twisted; dusty metal glinted dully. A telephone that should have been unused rang out abruptly, like a festival bell — an alien note within the city’s hush. The sound was low but it made the air itself tremble.
Jack turned to it slowly. The heavy underground air seemed to press against the backs of his knees. All he heard was his own breathing and the faint vibration of the receiver. People flowed past as if nothing had happened: a mother led a child by the hand, an old man refolded his newspaper and tucked it under his arm, and moved on.
The receiver was calling to Jack. The call came from a tear in silence, spreading slowly like ink trembling on the reverse side of an old map. He reached out without speaking and picked up the handset. The metal was cold; that cold dropped reality onto his palm.
“…Jack.”
The voice was low but distinct. Its timbre made time seem to slip backward just a touch. He recognized the voice from online footage; yet unlike the voice heard on television, here it carried not a blade but the color of a distant sunset.
Through the receiver Jack felt the corridor’s edges, the bench’s solitude, the small scrap of paper on the floor trickle into the pauses of the conversation. The voice let the city’s details slide in through the window of speech.
“What’s up, Amir? Sounding a little low.” Jack’s voice was quiet and heavy, like a stone dropped to ground. Through the handset he heard Amir’s small nasal laugh.
“Sometimes you get down — you’re only human.”
The voice was calm and remote. It was not the public mask Amir sometimes wore, but something honed in shadow. During the call the brief chatter of a passing parent and child snapped into the line and then was gone.
“Listen carefully to what I’m going to say. Well, you’re probably recording.”
“Likewise,” Jack replied.
Amir’s words fell smoothly through the receiver, making tiny ripples on the tiled floor of the underground. The noise around them blurred once and then resolved again: the mother’s footsteps, the mop’s scrape, the distant clink of a vending machine — all intersecting with the rhythm of speech.
“I’m out of the team. The reason? I don’t want to watch more people die. That’s it.”
Jack felt the receiver’s pulse under his fingers. The voice tried on calm but Jack could hear a tremor beneath. The lights in the concourse blurred slightly with each of Amir’s sentences.
“Are you asking me to believe that? Your professor Zakaria says don’t talk like that — he went out in a big way.” Amir fell silent and let out an exhale that sounded like a laugh as if to shrug something off. At the corridor’s edge a child sucking on candy made a tiny wet sound that filled the space between words.
“So what now? Heartbroken?” Jack asked.
“Something like that. This detonator will destroy many buildings yet.”
That phrase punched through the little room inside the receiver. For an instant the light underground clouded faintly. Yet the corridor moved on as always; no one turned. The anomaly existed only in sound.
“Tell me exactly where, how many, what mechanism — brief. Don’t mix in jokes.” Jack’s tone chilled like ice cracking. Amir tried to explain calmly, but Jack listened more to the weight behind the words than to their particulars. In the pauses, the phone booth’s shadow stretched and traced a thin black groove across the floor.
“We weren’t trained terrorists, not professionals. The information was distributed piece by piece. Think of how betrayal would happen — like how I can call you now.” Amir’s voice was careful; not fearful. Jack pressed the receiver to his ear and felt the city’s everyday noises woven into the fabric of the explanation. An old woman adjusting her bag at the corridor’s edge, the faint opening of a shutter somewhere distant — the beginnings of small workdays.
“We infiltrated about five years ago. We planted C4 in the core of buildings that were being built then. Rafi studied architecture, so he knew where to place it. You’ve seen the collapse a million times online, you know how it looks. To detonate, you need an old phone that reads a ‘mute reader’ QR code. Along with it is a tablet I made myself. I embedded C4 into two-thirds of its battery. The tablet has old fingerprint authentication — the kind from a long time ago. I made two of them. One is in Los Angeles, one in New York.”
“So there are two detonators?”
“I don’t know. I wasn’t the only one from the electronics department. Also, the phones that read the QR code are ancient, too specialized — they never caught on.”
“How do you trigger it?”
“There’s a special QR code placed on a site. You hold the phone up and read it. The QR is a 3D layer. The code rises in relief, deciphers itself, converts into a detonation code, and sends it by radio.”
“Radio? Not Wi‑Fi?”
“If it were Wi‑Fi you’d shut it down quickly. I modified the tablet. It’s not Wi‑Fi — it uses FM radio, like pirate radio.”
“We can jam the frequency.”
Amir laughed for a long moment before speaking.
“I set the app so the frequency can be changed arbitrarily. I also set it so that any signal sent to jam the frequency triggers the detonation. So either way, boom.”
Jack was silent for a little while, then asked,
“Where is the QR code located?”
“I don’t know. Everything was compartmentalized. Hardware production, QR placement, activation method. By scattering the flow, it seemed designed to deter betrayal.”
Silence fell again between them. Amir lifted his eyes from the ground and said,
“Jack, I’d tell you if I knew. Only those holding a mute reader would know. Today, that’s…”
“Just Rafi?”
“That’s right.”
Silence spread between them. The call hovered like thin ice. Jack’s breathing returned slowly to the present. The underground light was narrow but it marked him clearly.
“Why are you talking?”
“Like I said. I’m tired of people dying.”
“You knew you’d talk and yet Rafi let you go unharmed? Sounds too neat to be true.”
“Maybe I’m just making it up to dupe you.”
“Jack, take it easy. Amir, don’t move.”
Veronica’s composed voice cut into the call.
“Jack, he’s quite handsome in person.”
Amir, who was standing on the opposite side of the wall from Jack, holding a receiver himself, smiled at that.
The joke across the handset dried the damp air of the concourse a little. They were tracing different faces of the same space with their fingers.
Jack tightened his grip on the receiver and nodded softly. The nod felt like a small signal matched to the city’s beat and also like the announcement of yet another endless season.
Light in the corridor flowed slowly; shadows folded and layered; the conversation seeped into the tiles and sank.
Jack looked around slowly. The NYPD officers who routinely guarded Grand Central from terror stood at the entrances. Under Veronica’s orders, they had all focused on keeping Amir within range. Red and green laser dots from M4 carbines with Picatinny rails marked Amir’s feet. Likely the red came from the terminal’s NYPD contingent and the green from Veronica’s team. Two squads had lined up their sights to contain his movement. Of course, the sights were not on Amir’s forehead.
Suddenly a sharp smack of sound struck the receiver.
“Amir, who are you?” It was Ana.
Amir’s eyes widened for an instant then he recovered.
“Was I followed? Miss Patel. And who are you? Getting in Jack’s way.”
He shrugged with his thumb and pointed to his own feet, where the red and green laser dots rested. Ana stepped forward in her voice.
“Please. Come with Jack.”
Jack added, “For now, get arrested. We’ll hear the details with Veronica.”
Veronica said nothing; Jack assumed she nodded. He switched the receiver in his hand.
Amir laughed.
“If I were to say yes and surrender, we wouldn’t be having this conversation now, would we? Look — trains are coming in. Watch your crosshairs.”
The concourse swelled with people in the early morning. New York breathed around the terminal. The stream of humanity was the city’s pulse, its very blood flow; warmth surged through the concourse.
When Ana shifted her gaze for a moment to that tide of people, she spoke calmly and gently.
“Please. To Jack.”
Amir’s smile fell when he met her look. He accepted Ana’s gaze and said,
“Do you remember the morning at the exhibition when we first met? That wasn’t an accident. I went there to kill you.”
Ana’s eyes went white. Life drained from her gaze; the surrounding clamor carried her away and it vanished. Then, softly, she said, why?
“If you disappear, Bombay Blood in America will be just Justin and me.”
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Across the nation television networks switched to breaking news. Anchors’ voices trembled as they searched for words; the screen held still images of the scene. Smartphone notifications chimed all at once, but what arrived felt less like words than an announcement of silence.
Social feeds filled in an instant; everyone stared at the frozen time on their screens.
“What is going on…?” Hands halted midreach as people watched the images. On distant street corners, in cafés, in offices, faces of people holding their breath were shown.
An old woman on a park bench gripped her bag; a mother with a child went speechless; a driver tightened his hands on the wheel. Silence took the city’s clamor, the suburbs’ stillness, the open fields of the countryside and wrapped them all together in a single deep breath.
Emergency responses began within government agencies. Phones rang; red alarms flashed on screens. A presidential aide lost words and the pen in his hand trembled. Hallways inside the White House fell quiet; only footsteps echoed.
Words could not be pinned down; fear and confusion spread like a chain. Emergency teams moved; experts began analysis. Reports, communications, camera footage — every piece of information crossed and re-crossed — yet the four had slipped through all eyes of surveillance.
Their silence left no record, but it scored a sure claw mark on the world’s timeline.
City, state, nation, the world — all inhaled together and froze in the same instant.
The four shadows completed their mission at the center of the world without being recognized, then dissolved as shadows into the curtain of night.
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My new novel:
B♭ (B-flat)
There’s still more to come. 😃
(This is not the final draft.)
Set in New York City.
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Soundtrack.
music.apple.com/jp/playlist/b-my-novel-soundtrack/pl.u-47...
For japanese
music.apple.com/jp/playlist/b-my-novel-soundtrack-for-jap...
Note: I gave a brief explanation of this novel in the following video:
youtu.be/3w65lqUF-YI?si=yG7qy6TPeCL9xRJV
iTunes Playlist Link::
music.apple.com/jp/playlist/b/pl.u-47DJGhopxMD
For japanese
music.apple.com/jp/playlist/b-my-novel-soundtrack-for-jap...
My new novel:
B♭ (B-flat)
Notes
1. "Bombay Blood Type (hh type)"
•Characteristics: A rare blood type that lacks the usual ABO antigens — cannot be classified as A, B, or O.
•Discovery: First identified in 1952 in Mumbai, India (formerly Bombay).
•Prevalence: Roughly 1 in 10,000 people in India; globally, about 1 in 2.5 million.
•Transfusion Compatibility: Only compatible with blood from other Bombay type donors.
2. 2024 Harvard University Valedictorian Speech – The Power of Not Knowing
youtu.be/SOUH8iVqSOI?si=Ju-Y728irtcWR71K
3. Shots Fired at Trump Rally
youtu.be/1ejfAkzjEhk?si=ASqJwEmkY-2rW_hT
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Title.
無音。
僕の新しい小説
B♭ （ビーフラット） ……. Mitsushiro Nakagawa
“あらすじ”
北朝鮮の仮想通貨システムをハッキングし、数億ドルを奪取したガザ出身のパレスチナ人グループが、アメリカ合衆国へ密かに潜入する。
彼らの目的は、失われた祖国ガザを、アメリカの地に「復元」することだった。
共和党による強硬な移民政策と、国内にくすぶる排外感情を利用し、アメリカ社会を内側から崩壊させる計画が静かに進行していく。
共和党大統領候補ジャスティン・ブラッドフォードがマディソン・スクエア・ガーデンで演説中に狙撃され、ほぼ同時刻、ロサンゼルスでは前大統領オーウェン・リードもまた、民主党候補ライアン・ベネットの集会で撃たれる。
国家を二分する双方向の暗殺。だが、ジャスティンは奇跡的に生還する。
彼の血液型は、世界でわずか250万人に一人といわれる「ボンベイブラッド」。
その希少な血を提供できたのは、ブルックリンで活動するコミュニティアート・ファシリテーター、アナヤ・パテルだった。
彼女の血液はベルビュー病院の血液バンクに保存されており、緊急輸血によって、候補者の命はかろうじて繋がれた。
シークレットサービスのジャック・バンスは、テロの背後にガザ出身の組織が関与していることを察知し、FBIロサンゼルス支局長官キャメロン・バートレット、ニューヨーク支局の特別捜査官ヴェロニカ・リーブスと共に捜査を進める。
やがて彼らは、イスラム大学で建築学を学んだラフィ・ガンナムが、ロサンゼルスやニューヨークの再開発現場に潜入し、梁や構造体の中枢にC4爆薬を仕込んでいた事実に辿り着く。
標的は、ICE（移民・関税執行局）やERO（執行・送還作戦部門）の職員が暮らす新興住宅街——すなわち、「アメリカが築いた秩序」そのものだった。
ヴェロニカは、これ以上の破壊を防ぐため、大統領への対話を進言するが、現職のグラント・ランフォード大統領は耳を貸さない。
一方、命を取り留めたジャスティンと民主党候補ライアンは、テレビを通じて国民に訴えかけ、分断を乗り越えようとする。
だが、その理性の声を嘲笑うかのように、グラントはアイオワ州での演説を強行し、「テロには屈しない」と宣言する。
その会場には、すでにラフィの仲間が率いる工作チームが潜入していた。
崩壊する会場の惨状を前に、仲間の一人アミール・ナッセルは、かつてガザで妹を失った記憶に引き裂かれ、破壊の連鎖を止めようとする。
だが、ラフィの信念は揺るがない。
ウィリアムズバーグ橋の下、夕暮れの喧騒のなか、二人は決別する。
それは、祈りと報復、希望と虚無の境界線だった——。
“登場人物”
アナヤ・パテル ２５歳 コミュニティアート・ファシリテーター
アルジュン・シン ２６歳 アナヤの恋人・ルミナテック・イノベーションズ社
佐藤 ミカ ２５歳 アナの友人・コミュニティアート・ファシリテーター
ジャスティン・ブラッドフォード ２７歳 共和党大統領候補
エリノア・ブレイク ２６歳 ジャスティンの婚約者
グラント・M・ランフォード大統領 ６１歳 共和党大統領現職
チャールズ・ベインズ副大統領 ６４歳 共和党副大統領現職
ライアン・ベネット ３０歳 民主党大統領候補
ソフィア・ベネット ３０歳 ライアンの妻
オーウェン・リード ６５歳 民主党前大統領
ジャック・バンス ４５歳 シークレットサービス 元FBIロサンゼルス支局
ベン・ホロウェイ ３０歳 ジャックの同僚
ダリル・ロス ２９歳 ジャックの同僚
イライジャ・ケイン ２８歳 ジャックの同僚
マーカス・デイン ４５歳 FBI ロサンゼルス支局
キャメロン・バートレット ５５歳 FBI ロサンゼルス支局 支局長
トム・コールドウェル ３８歳 FBI技術班 マーカスの部下
ヴェロニカ・リーヴス ４１歳 FBI特別捜査官
アレクサンダー・ハリス ５２歳 FBI ニューヨーク支局 支局長
エリオット・チェン ３６歳 テクノロジー班主任
アリシア・モンロー ５８歳 FBI長官
ザカリア・ハッダード ５１歳 パレスチナ・ガザ地区 元イスラム大学 工学部教授 ニューヨークチーム
アミール・ナッセル ２３歳 パレスチナ・ガザ地区 元イスラム大学 電子工学部 ニューヨークチーム
ラフィ・ガンナム ３２歳 パレスチナ・ガザ地区 イスラム大学 建築学部 ニューヨークチーム
ロハン・シャー ２９歳 パレスチナ・ガザ地区 イスラム大学 建築学部 ニューヨークチーム
マジード・ハムザ ４７歳 パレスチナ・ガザ地区 パレスチナ大学 情報技術学部 ロサンゼルスチーム
サミラ・ハンマド ２８歳 パレスチナ・ガザ地区 パレスチナ大学 工学部 ロサンゼルスチーム
サイード・カバリ ３５歳 パレスチナ・ガザ地区 パレスチナ大学 経営学部 ロサンゼルスチーム
リーム・ナセル ３０歳 パレスチナ・ガザ地区 パレスチナ大学 メディア学部 ロサンゼルスチーム
ノア・レヴィ 55歳 イスラエル テルアビブ在住 ユダヤ人
僕のこの小説は、来年、２０２６年２月末日に公開します。
先日、リドリースコット監督がサブスクの映画やドラマ群がつまらないと話していたようだけど、同感です。
僕も非常に退屈です。
それらに2時間を要するなら、僕の小説を２分間だけ読んで欲しい。
その2分間は、２時間を越えるでしょう。
僕は自信があります。
ぜひ、期待してお待ちください。
Mitsushiro Nakagawa
09th. Oct . 2025.
追伸
ネトフリに挑戦する男、みっちゃん。😃
( iPhone 13 pro shot )
本須賀海岸。九十九里浜。山武市。千葉県。日本。10月９日。2025. … 0.9 / 10
(今日の写真。それは未発表です。）
Images.
Taylor Swift … This Love ( 和訳 )
youtu.be/PfJzQuqWSSE?si=TrtL4Mb-uN2dNmML
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僕の新しい小説。
B♭ （ビーフラット）
第20弾。 😄
以下は、まだ初稿の段階です。まだ推敲します。
公開している内容の順番はバラバラです。
今回で部分的な公開を最後にします。
２０２６年２月２８日。
その日にすべてを公開します。
期待して待っていてください。😃
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僕の新しい小説。
B♭ （ビーフラット）
「ジャック、スマホのメッセージを見ろ。またメッセージが飛び込んでいる。IPアドレスは、グランドセントラルターミナルのそばにあるニューヨーク公共図書館の分館、スタヴロス・ニアルコス財団経由だ」
ベンからのフェイスタイムだった。ガーデンのすぐそば、NYPDのミッドタウン南分署に設置された対策室で待機しているベンからだ。ベンの声はこれだけの事件が起きているにも関わらず、冷静だった。
ジャックはアイフォンに指を滑らせ、表示された短い文を確かめた。文字列は無造作に並んでいたが文の輪郭を整えているように見えた。
― グランドセントラルの地下コンコースにアーチ形の天井がある。そこへ来い。ジャック・バンス。言うまでもないがひとりでだぞ、と言っても一人ではないと思うがな ―
メッセージは、ジャックの胸の内を強く叩いた。
車はヴァンダービルト・アヴェニューを北へ抜け、グランドセントラルの南端に差しかかった。街はまだ朝を迎えきれず、ビルの谷間に籠もった湿気が金属の匂いを帯びていた。
ジャックはアクセルを抜き、黒いSUVを滑らせるように歩道ぎりぎりへ寄せた。タイヤが縁石をかすめる瞬間、路面に残る雨粒が光の筋となって跳ねた。
ジャックは重いドアを押し開き、足を落とした。靴音が一拍遅れて石畳に響いた。
彼は一度だけ背後の通りを見やると、赤いサイレンの反射がショーウィンドウの奥をよぎり、通りの影に沈む通行人の顔を、刹那だけ白く照らした。
その光の切れ目を縫うように、ジャックは地下コンコースへ降りる階段へと向かった。
通用扉は重く、金属の軋みがわずかに響いた。構内には地下鉄の呼吸のような低い唸りが満ちていた。
冷気が頬を打ち、空調ダクトの奥から、遠くの構内放送が滲んで聞こえくる。
額の汗を拭ったジャックはグランドセントラルの階段を一段飛ばしに駆け降りた。照明の琥珀色が靴底に流れ、ターミナルの心臓の鼓動のように足音が連なった。
鉄の手すりは冷たく、指先に浅い震えを伝えた。階段の奥からは人の足音が複層的に重なり、地下へと導く古いリズムを刻んでいる。アーチ型の天井は空気を柔らかに吸い込み、照明は薄く膜のように光を張っている。
地下コンコースの空気は湿り、古い煉瓦の壁は過去の雨を忘れられずに微かに匂っているようだ。床のタイルは長年の踏み跡で曇り、ところどころにひびが走って、そこへ街の小さな記憶が溜まっている。
ジャックはそれらを意識せずに歩を進めた。彼の視線は、通路の奥にある暗がりへと自然に吸い寄せられていた。そこにはいつもと同じ出勤途中の人たちが早足で過ぎていく。
壁際に並ぶ古びた看板や掲示板は、折れたチラシを枕にして眠るように貼り付いている。清掃員が一つの帯のようにモップを引き、その先でベンチが一つ、淡い孤独を描くように置かれている。
通路を流れる空気は、まるで都市の静脈のゆっくりした鼓動だとジャックは思った。自分の呼吸が、その鼓動と同じ拍に馴染むのを感じながら、歩みを進めた。
足元のタイルに光が差し、影がゆらりと伸びた。エスカレーターの金属音が遠くで微かに鳴り、階段から吹き下りる風がジャックの体にこもった熱を冷ました。街の匂いと、地下の湿り気と、古い電灯の微熱が入り混じって、時間はゆっくりと溶けてゆく。
歩を止めたジャックは掌をこすり、周囲に視線を散らした。耳に入る雑踏は、独特の反響を帯びて方向感覚を曖昧にする。彼はただ、どこかにいる「それ」を捜しているのだと自分に言い聞かせる。
再び歩き出した瞬間、金属が擦れる高音が辺りの空気を裂いた。一瞬、彼の頸筋が弾かれ、足元に微かな緊張が走った。反射的に足を止めると、視界の端で受話器が小さく揺れていた。
コードは年月の重みでねじれ、埃まみれの金属部分が鈍く光っている。誰も使わないはずの電話が、唐突に、祭りの鐘のように鳴った。都市の静寂に差し込む異音。音は低く、しかし確実に空気を震わせた。
ジャックはゆっくりと視線をそれに向けた。地下の重い空気が一瞬、膝の裏を押すように沈む。耳に届くのは自分の呼吸と、受話器の小さな振動音だけだ。周囲の人々は何事もないように通り過ぎ、母親が幼児の手を引き、老いた男が新聞を折りたたんで小脇に抱え直し、去ってゆく。
受話器はジャックを呼んでいた。沈黙の裂け目からの呼び声は、まるで古い地図の裏側で震えるインクのように、じわりと広がる。ジャックは無言で手を伸ばし、受話器を取り上げた。金属は冷たく、その冷たさが掌に現実を落とした。
「……ジャック」
声は低く、だがはっきりしていた。耳に残る音色に、時間が少しだけ逆戻りする気配があった。ネットの映像で見知った声の輪郭。しかしテレビで聞いたときとは異なり、そこには刃ではなく遠い夕焼けのような色度が含まれているようだった。
ジャックは受話器越しに、通路の端の人影や、ベンチの孤独、床に落ちた小さな紙片──それらが会話の合間に流れ込むのを感じた。声音は会話の窓に、街の細部を滑り込ませるものだ。
「どうした、アミール。覇気のない声だな」
ジャックの声は静かだが、地面に落ちる石のように重みを持っていた。受話器の向こうで、アミールがすこし鼻で笑うのが聞こえた。
「ときどきは落ち込むこともあるさ、人間だからね」
その声は穏やかで、かつ遠い。以前に見せた公の顔とは違い、こちらは影の中で磨かれたものだった。通話の間、隣を通り過ぎる親子の会話がスナップのように割り込み、また消えていった。
「ジャック、これから言うことをよく聴け。ま、録音はしてるだろうけどな」
「それはお互い様だろ」
受話器の向こうで、アミールの言葉は滑らかに落ち、地下のタイルに小さな波紋を作るようだった。周囲の雑音が一度だけ音像を濁らせ、また整頓される。母親の靴音、清掃員のモップの擦れる音、遠くの自販機の冷える音──それらが会話のリズムに交差してゆく。
「俺はこのチームから降りた。理由は、もう多くの人間が死ぬのを見たくないからだ。それだけだ」
ジャックの指先が受話器の脈動を確かめた。声は冷静を装うが、その奥に震えがあるのを彼は聴き取った。地下の照明の輪郭が、アミールの言葉ごとにわずかに滲む。
「それを信じろって言うのか？ お前らの教授、ザカリアはそんな弱音を吐くなって言ってるぞ、せっかく盛大に死んだのに」
アミールはしばらく黙り、何かを笑い飛ばすような吐息を漏らした。通路の端でキャンディを舐める子供の小さな舌音が、言葉の間を埋めた。
「で、どうしたんだ？ 失恋でもしたのか？」
「そんなところだ。この起爆装置は、これからも多くの建物を破壊する」
その一言が、受話器の内の小さな部屋を突き破った。ジャックは一瞬だけ、地下の光が薄く濁るのを見た。だが通路は相変わらず普段どおりで、誰も振り返らない。異変は音の中にしか存在しない。
「どこにどれくらいセットし、どんな仕掛けなんだ、正確に、手短に話せ。つまらないジョークは混ぜるな」
ジャックの口調は掴みかけた氷のように冷たい。受話器の向こうでアミールは静かに説明を試みるが、ジャックは言葉の細部よりもその声が持つ重さに耳を澄ます。通話の合間、壁際の電話ボックスの影が長く伸び、床に細い黒い溝を引いた。
「俺たちは、一般人で訓練されたテロリストではない。しかし、渡された情報は各個人へ分散されていた。たとえば今、俺がこうしてあんたに電話しているように裏切りが生まれた時のことを考えてね」
アミールの声は慎重で、しかし怯えはない。ジャックは受話器を耳にしっかり押し当て、周囲の生活音がそのまま説明の布地となって織り込まれていくのを感じていた。通路の端で老女がバッグを直す音、遠くでシャッターが開く小さな仕事のはじまりの合図が聞こえた。
「俺たちが潜入したのは、今から５年ほど前だ。その頃に建てられていた建造物の中枢にC4を仕掛けた。ラフィは大学で建築学を学んでいたからね。崩壊する様子はもうネットでも１００万回再生だからわかってるだろう。起爆させるためには、ミュートリーダーというQRコードを読み取る昔の携帯電話が必要だ。それとペアで独自に俺がつくったタブレットもだ。このタブレットのバッテリー部分、3分の２にC4を埋め込んだ。このタブレットも大昔にあった指紋認証式のタブレットだ。俺が作ったタブレットは2台だ。それがロサンゼルスとニューヨークに分かれて存在している」
「つまり、起爆装置は2台か？」
「わからない。俺の他にも電子工学部の人間がいたからな。それからQRコードを読み取る携帯電話は大昔、あまりに特殊すぎて売れずに浸透しなかった機器だ」
「どういう流れで起爆させるんだ？」
「あるサイトに特殊なQRコードが設置されているらしい。そこに携帯電話をかざして読み込む。QRコードは３Dレイヤーだ。コードが立体的に浮かび上がって解読し、起爆させるコードへ変換させ、電波で飛ばす」
「電波？ Wi-Fiではなくか？」
「Wi-Fiだったら、あんたらすぐに止められるだろ？ そこは俺がタブレットを改造した。Wi-FiではなくFM電波だ、パイレーツラジオ（海賊ラジオ）と同じ仕組みだ」
「ならば、周波数を駆逐できるぞ」
アミールはしばらく笑ってからいった。
「周波数はいくらでも変えられるようにアプリを設定した。ちなみに周波数を妨害しようと発せられた電波も起爆するようセットした。つまり、いずれにしても、ドカンだ」
ジャックは、しばらく沈黙してから続けた。
「QRコードは、どこのサイトにあるんだ？」
「わからない。すべての過程で分散している。ハードの製造、QRコードの場所、起爆させる操作。流れを散らすことで、裏切りを抑止しているようだった」
ふたりの間に再び沈黙が落ちた。アミールは、足元に落とした視線を引き上げて、いった。
「ジャック、ここまで話しているんだから、知っていたら話しているさ。つまり、ミュートリーダーを手にしている人間にしかわからない。今で言うなら ….」
「ラフィだけ、か」
「そのとおりだ」
二人の間に沈黙が落ち、通話は薄い氷の上で揺れている。ジャックの呼吸がゆっくりと現実を取り戻した。地下の光は細く、しかししっかりと彼を照らしている。
「アミール、どうして話す？」
「さっきもいったとおりだ。人の死にはうんざりだ」
「お前がこうして喋ることがわかっているのに、ラフィはお前を無傷で解放したのか？ この話を信じるにはうますぎないか？」
「確かに。俺が適当なことをいって、あんたらをカモるかもね」
「ジャック、お疲れ様、アミール、その場を動かないで」
ヴェロニカの落ち着いた声が二人の通話に割り込んだ。
「ジャック、実物はなかなかの男前だな」
そういったアミールは、ちょうどジャックのいる壁面の反対側で受話器を手にしていた。
受話器越しの冗談は、地下の湿った空気を幾分、乾かせた。彼らは同じ空間の別々の面を指でなぞっているようだ。
ジャックは受話器を握りなおし、静かに頷いた。その頷きは、街の鼓動に合わせた小さな合図のようでもあり、また終わりのない季節の一端を告げるものでもあった。通路の光がゆるやかに流れ、影が折り重なり、会話は地下のタイルにゆっくりと染み渡っていった。
ジャックは、ゆっくり辺りを見渡した。元々、グランドセントラルターミナルをテロから守る為に、日常的に警護していたNYPDが出入り口に構えている。非常事態の現在、ヴェロニカの指示で一斉にアミールを射程内に捕らえていた。ピカティニーレールを持ったM4カービンの赤とグリーンのレーザーサイトがアミールの両足に張り付いていた。おそらく、赤はターミナルのNYPDで、グリーンがヴェロニカのチームだろう。二つの班がアミールの動きを封じようと照準を定めていた。もちろん、照準はアミールの額にはない。
突然、ジャックの受話器の向こうから頬を叩く音が響いた。
「アミール、あなたは何者なの？」
その声はアナだった。
アミールは一瞬目を丸くしたが、すぐに自分を取り戻した。
「ジャック、つけられてたのか？ ミス・パテル。君こそ何者なんだ？ ジャックの邪魔をしているよ」
彼はそういって親指を逆さにし、自分の足を示した。そこには、赤とグリーンのレーザーサイトが静かに張り付いていた。アナはアミールに詰め寄ると言い放った。
「いっしょに出頭して」
その言葉にジャックは付け足した。
「とりあえず捕まれ。詳しい話は、ヴェロニカといっしょに聞いてやる」
ヴェロニカは足さなかったが、おそらく頷いているだろうと思いながら、ジャックは受話器を持ち替えた。
アミールは一笑した。
「言うまでもないが、はい、わかりましたというなら、ここで対話してないよな。ほら、列車がたくさん到着したぞ、照準に気をつけな」
早朝のターミナルに、人が溢れ出した。ターミナルを中心にニューヨークは呼吸している。人の流れは、都市の脈動であり、血流そのものだ。コンコースには人の熱気が溢れ出していた。
溢れた人の流れに一瞬目を移すと、アナは冷静に、そして穏やかな眼差しでいった。
「おねがい。ジャックのところへ」
アミールも同じように笑みを消すと、アナの視線を受け入れ、いった。
「君に初めて会った展示の朝を覚えているかい？ あれは偶然じゃない。僕は君を殺しに行ったんだ」
アナの視線が白くなった。眼差しからは生気が失せ、周囲の喧騒に流され、消えていった。そして、どうして？ と小さく言葉を落とした。
「君が消えれば、アメリカでボンベイブラッドは、ジャスティンと僕だけだ」
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全国のテレビ局が緊急報道に切り替わった。
キャスターの声は震え、言葉を探す間、画面には会場の静止した映像が映った。スマートフォンの通知が一斉に鳴り、しかし、届くのは言葉ではなく、静寂の報せのように感じられた。
SNSのタイムラインは瞬く間に情報で埋まり、誰もが画面の中で止まった時間を見つめていた。
「どういうことだ…？」画面を見つめる手が、思わず止まる。
画面の向こう、遠くの街角でも、カフェでも、オフィスでも、息を呑む人々の姿が映る。
公園のベンチに座る老女は、手にしたバッグを握りしめ、子供を抱く母親は言葉を失い、運転中の男性はハンドルを握る手に力を込めた。
沈黙は、都市の喧騒、郊外の静けさ、田舎の広野を一斉に包み込み、世界を一つの深い呼吸に束ねた。
政府機関では緊急対応が始まっていた。電話が鳴り、スクリーンに赤い警報が灯っている。大統領補佐官は言葉を失い、ペンを握る手が微かに震えている。ホワイトハウス内の廊下は、普段の喧騒を消し、足音だけが響いた。
誰も正確に理解できないまま、言葉は混乱と恐怖の連鎖として広がっていく。政府内の応急対応が動き、専門家たちが分析を開始する。報告書、通信、カメラ映像、あらゆる情報が交錯するが、四人の存在は、すべての監視の目をすり抜けていた。
四人の沈黙は、記録に残らず、しかし世界の時間軸に確実な爪痕を刻んだのだ。
都市、州、国家、世界 — すべてが一瞬にして同じ呼吸をし、同じ時間の中で凍りついた。
四人の影は、誰にも認識されることなく、世界の中心でその使命を終え、影のまま、夜の帳の中に溶け込んでいった。
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僕の新しい小説。
B♭ （ビーフラット）
舞台はニューヨークです。
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Soundtrack.
music.apple.com/jp/playlist/b-my-novel-soundtrack/pl.u-47...
For japanese
music.apple.com/jp/playlist/b-my-novel-soundtrack-for-jap...
iTunes Playlist Link::
music.apple.com/jp/playlist/b/pl.u-47DJGhopxMD
For japanese
music.apple.com/jp/playlist/b-my-novel-soundtrack-for-jap...
追記 この小説を多少説明しました。
youtu.be/3w65lqUF-YI?si=yG7qy6TPeCL9xRJV
メモ
1
「Bombay型（ボンベイ型、hh型）」
•特徴：通常のABO血液型を持たない（A、B、Oに分類されない）特殊な型。
•発見地：1952年、インド・ムンバイ（旧ボンベイ）で初めて確認。
•発生頻度：インドでは1万人に1人程度だが、世界的には約250万人に1人とも。
•輸血制限：同じBombay型しか輸血できない。
2
2024年ハーバード大学首席の卒業式スピーチ『知らないことの力』
youtu.be/SOUH8iVqSOI?si=Ju-Y728irtcWR71K
3
Shots fired at Trump rally
youtu.be/1ejfAkzjEhk?si=ASqJwEmkY-2rW_hT
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Tymfi mountain, Epirus, Greece - August 2019.
Tymfi mountain is one of the most beautiful mountains I've ever been to. This was the second time I managed to visit these hiking trails. I was given the opportunity by winning a Canon competition and the prize was to participate in a workshop in Tymfi and its homonymous dragonlake. The main purpose of the workshop was night photography and astrophotography. After all, mountains are one of the best places for this kind of photography because of the little light pollution they have. The original plan was to shoot the moon rising above the dragon lake. But we calculated wrong the rise time so we had a dark sky with the galaxy looking crystal clear behind the dragonlake. So we managed to get some good astrophotographies. On the way back to the Astrakas refuge the moon had started to rise behind the highest Tymfi’s peak, Gamila. It slowly began to illuminate Astraka, the second highest peak, and the colt between Astraka and Lapatos where the refuge came into view. The shade of the Gamila and Ploskos peaks covered the Laka Tsoumani plateau where there were herds of semi-wild horses. The galaxy above Astraka had begun to disappear, and so it is equally noticeable in the photo. As the moonlight shone, along with the galaxy most of the stars began to disappear. However I was lucky enough to have a very clear and bright view, of Jupiter to the right of the galaxy and Saturn to his left. The sky was clear except for one cloud over the colt that filled the indifferent part of the sky with almost no star due to the light pollution from the small and large Papigo. Without a second thought I set up the tripod and fastened the wide-angle lens to the camera. I push up the iso and set the time to 20 seconds to prevent the movement of the stars. The result is what you see.
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Yep, that's me, or at least my shadow, standing on the Boardwalk at one of my favorite places. A place that I can walk around and explore for hours and totally lose track of time; a place where I am totally in my element. Taken late last month during the "Golden Hour" on an unseasonably nice winter day. I adore the golden brown grasses against that awesome sky. If I try this again, I need to remind myself to remove my camera sling bag from my shoulder to prevent the appearance of a huge growth on the right side.
Baker Wetlands,
Lawrence (Douglas County), KS..
The snowblower storage checklist was finally completed this past weekend!
Ready to go when the going gets tough again later this year.
GB Railfreight Class 92, 92038, effortlessly leads the Caledonian Sleeper Up Highlander (1M16) south through Acton Bridge.
This was a last minute change of location after I discovered the local friendly farmer at Chapel Lane had put large boulders in the off-road parking spots.
A revised timetable was in operation due to the Covid-19 pandemic, with only the Inverness and Glasgow portions running and splitting/joining at Edinburgh to form one train in each direction on the WCML.
Hadrian's Wall is a stone and turf fortification built by the Roman Empire across the width of Great Britain. It was the second of three such fortifications built across Great Britain, the first being Gask Ridge and the last the Antonine Wall. All three were built to prevent military raids by the Pictish tribes (ancient inhabitants of Scotland) to the north, to improve economic stability and provide peaceful conditions in the Roman province of Britannia to the south, and to physically mark the frontier of the Empire. Hadrian's Wall is the best known of the three because it remains the most physically preserved and evident today.
The wall was the northern border of the Empire in Britain for much of the Roman Empire's rule, and also the most heavily fortified border in the Empire. In addition to its use as a military fortification, it is thought that the gates through the wall would also have served as customs posts to allow trade taxation.
A significant portion of the wall still exists, particularly the mid-section, and for much of its length the wall can be followed on foot. It is the most popular tourist attraction in Northern England, where it is often known simply as the Roman Wall. It was made a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987. English Heritage, a government organization in charge of managing the historic environment of England, describes it as "the most important monument built by the Romans in Britain".[1]
Sections of Hadrian's Wall remain near Greenhead and along the route, though other large sections have been dismantled over the years to use the stones for various nearby construction projects.
Sections of Hadrian's Wall remain near Greenhead and along the route, though other large sections have been dismantled over the years to use the stones for various nearby construction projects.
The Roman name of the Wall
No stone inscription survives to confirm what the Wall was called in antiquity, and no historical source gives it a name. However, the discovery of a small enamelled bronze Roman cup in Staffordshire in 2003 has provided a clue. The cup is inscribed with a series of names of Roman forts (see also the botrom of this page) along the western sector of the Wall, together with a personal name and a phrase:
MAIS COGGABATA VXELODVNVM CAMBOGLANNA RIGORE VALI AELI DRACONIS
Here we have Bowness (MAIS, followed by what must be the correct name for Drumburgh-by-Sands (COGGABATA) until now known only as CONGAVATA from the late Roman document, the Notitia Dignitatum. Next comes Stanwix (VXELODVNVM), then Castlesteads (CAMBOGLANNA), before we get to the most tantalizing part.
RIGORE seems to be the ablative form of the Latin word rigor. This can mean several things, but one of its less well-known meanings is ‘straight line’, ‘course’ or ‘direction’. This was used by Roman surveyors and appears on a number of inscriptions to indicate a line between places. So the meaning could be ‘from the course’, or better in English 'according to the course'.
The Staffordshire Moorlands cup, which provides the ancient name of Hadrian's Wall.
The Staffordshire Moorlands cup, which provides the ancient name of Hadrian's Wall.
There is no such word as vali, but in antiquity Hadrian’s Wall was known as the Vallum, the Latin word for a frontier which is today incorrectly applied to the ditch and mounds dug by the Roman army just south of the Wall. The genitive form of Vallum is Valli, so one of the most likely meanings is VAL[L]I, ‘of the frontier’. Omitting one of a pair of double consonants is common on Roman inscriptions, and transcribing an inscription from a written note is the easiest way to miss out letters. Another similar bronze vessel, known as the Rudge Cup (found in Wiltshire in the 18th century) has VN missing from the name VXELODVNVM, for example, although the letters appear on the Staffordshire cup. The Rudge Cup only bears fort names.
The name AELI is also in the genitive. This was Hadrian's nomen, his main family name and we know that the Roman bridge at Newcastle-upon-Tyne was called Pons Aelius.
Finally we have the name DRACONIS, which can be translated as ‘[by the hand – or property] of Aelius Draco’. It was normal for Roman manufacturers to give their names in the genitive (‘of’), and ‘by the hand’ would be understood. The form is common, for example, on samian pottery.
The translation, therefore, could be:
‘Mais, Coggabata, Uxelodunum, Camboglanna, according to the line of the Aelian frontier. [By the hand or The property] of Draco’.
This would mean the Romans knew Hadrian's Wall as Vallum Aeli, 'the Aelian frontier'.
Dimensions
Hadrian's Wall was 80 Roman miles (73.5 English miles or 117 kilometres) long, its width and height dependent on the construction materials which were available nearby: east of River Irthing the wall was made from squared stone and measured 3 m (9.7 ft) wide and 5 to 6 metres (16–20 ft) tall; west of the river the wall was made from turf and measured 6 metres (20 ft) wide and 3.5 metres (11.5 ft) high. This does not include the wall's ditches, berms, and forts. The central section measured 8 Roman feet wide (7.8 ft or 2.4 m) on a 10 foot base.
Route
Map showing the location of Hadrian's Wall.
Map showing the location of Hadrian's Wall.
Hadrian's Wall extended west Segedunum at Wallsend on the River Tyne to the shore of the Solway Firth. The A69 and B6318 roads follow the course of the wall as it starts in Newcastle upon Tyne to Carlisle, then on round the northern coast of Cumbria. The Wall is entirely in England and south of the border with Scotland by 15 kilometres (9 mi) in the west and 110 kilometres (68 mi) in the east.
Hadrian
Hadrian's Wall was built following a visit by Roman emperor Hadrian (AD 76–138) in AD 122. Hadrian was experiencing military difficulties in Britain, and from the peoples of various conquered lands across the Empire, including Egypt, Judea, Libya, Mauretania, and many of the peoples conquered by his predecessor Trajan, so he was keen to impose order. However the construction of such an impressive wall was probably also a symbol of Roman power, both in occupied Britain and in Rome. Frontiers in the early empire were based more on natural features or fortified zones with a heavy military presence. Military roads or limes often marked the border, with forts and signal towers spread along them and it was not until the reign of Domitian that the first solid frontier was constructed, in Germania Superior, using a simple fence. Hadrian expanded on this idea, redesigning the German border by ordering a continuous timber palisade supported by forts behind it. Although such defences would not have held back any concerted invasion effort, they did physically mark the edge of Roman territory and went some way to providing a degree of control over who crossed the border and where.
Hadrian reduced Roman military presence in the territory of the Brigantes and concentrated on building a more solid linear fortification to the north of them. This was intended to replace the Stanegate road which is generally thought to have served as the limes (the boundary of the Roman Empire) until then.
Construction
Construction probably started in 122 AD and was largely completed within eight years, with soldiers from all three of the occupying Roman legions participating in the work. The route chosen largely paralleled the nearby Stanegate road from Luguvalium (Carlisle) to Coria (Corbridge), which was already defended by a system of forts, including Vindolanda. The Wall in part follows the outcrop of a harder, more resistant igneous dolerite rock escarpment, known as the Great Whin Sill.
The initial plan called for a ditch and wall with 80 small, gated milecastle fortlets every Roman mile holding a few dozen troops each, and pairs of evenly spaced intermediate turrets used for observation and signalling. The wall was initially designed to a width of 3 metres (10 ft) (the so-called "Broad Wall"). The height is estimated to have been around 5 or 6 metres (16–20 ft). Local limestone was used in the construction, except for the section to the west of Irthing where turf was used instead as there were no useful outcrops nearby. The turf wall was 6 metres wide (20 ft) and around 3.5 metres (11.5 ft) high. Milecastles in this area were also built from timber and earth rather than stone but turrets were always stone. The Broad Wall was initially built with a clay-bonded rubble core and mortared dressed rubble facing stones, but this seems to have made it vulnerable to collapse and repair with a mortared core was sometimes necessary.
Roman fort at Corstopitum.
Roman fort at Corstopitum.
The milecastles were of three different designs, depending on which Roman legion built them — the Second, Sixth, and Twentieth Legions, whose inscriptions tell us were all involved in the construction. Similarly there are three different turret designs along the route. All were about 493 metres (539 yd) apart and measured 4.27 metres square (46.0 sq ft) internally.
Construction was divided into lengths of about 5 miles (8 km). One group of each legion would create the foundations and build the milecastles and turrets and then other cohorts would follow, building the wall itself.
Early in its construction, just after reaching the North Tyne (construction worked from east to west), the width of the wall was narrowed to 2.5 metres (8.2 ft) or even less (sometimes 1.8m) (the "Narrow Wall"). However, Broad Wall foundations had already been laid as far as the river Irthing, where the Turf Wall began, and many turrets and milecastles were optimistically provided with stub 'wing walls' in preparation for joining to the Broad Wall; a handy reference for archaeologists trying to piece together the construction chronology.
Within a few years it was decided to add a total of 14 to 17 (sources disagree) full-sized forts along the length of the wall, including Vercovicium (Housesteads) and Banna (Birdoswald), each holding between 500 and 1,000 auxiliary troops (no legions were posted to the wall). The eastern end of the wall was extended further east from Pons Aelius (Newcastle) to Segedunum (Wallsend) on the Tyne estuary. Some of the larger forts along the wall, such as Cilurnum (Chesters) and Vercovicium (Housesteads), were built on top of the footings of milecastles or turrets, showing the change of plan. An inscription mentioning early governor Aulus Platorius Nepos indicates that the change of plans took place early on. Also some time still during Hadrian's reign (i.e., before AD 138) the wall west of the Irthing was rebuilt in sandstone to basically the same dimensions as the limestone section to the east.
Vallum at Hadrian's Wall near milecastle 42
Vallum at Hadrian's Wall near milecastle 42
After the forts had been added (or possibly at the same time), the so-called Vallum was built on the southern side. It consisted of a large, flat-bottomed ditch 6 metres (20 ft) wide at the top and 3 metres (10 ft) deep bounded by a berm on each side 10 metres (33 ft) wide. Beyond the berms were earth banks 6 metres (20 ft) wide and 2 metres (6.5 ft) high. Causeways crossed the ditch at regular intervals. Initially the berm appears to have been the main route for transportation along the wall. The Vallum probably delineated a military zone rather than intending to be a major fortification, though the British tribes to the south were also sometimes a military problem.
The Wall was thus part of a defensive system which, from north to south included:
* a glacis and a deep ditch
* a berm with rows of pits holding entanglements
* the curtain wall itself
* a later military road (the "Military Way")
* a north mound, a ditch and a south mound to prevent or slow down any raids from a rebelling southern tribe.
Roman-period names
The remains of milecastle 39, near Steel Rigg
The remains of milecastle 39, near Steel Rigg
The Roman-period names of some of the Hadrian's Wall forts are known, from the Notitia Dignitatum and other evidence:
* Segedunum (Wallsend)
* Pons Aelius (Newcastle on Tyne)
* Condercum (Benwell Hill)
* Vindobala (Halton Chesters)[2]
* Hunnum (Rudchester)[2]
* Cilurnum (Chesters aka Walwick Chesters)[2]
* Procolita (Carrowburgh)
* Vercovicium (Housesteads)
* Aesica (Great Chesters)[2]
* Magnis (Carvoran)
* Banna (Birdoswald)
* Camboglanna (Castlesteads)
* Uxelodunum (Stanwix. Also known as Petriana)
* Aballava (Burgh-by-Sands)
* Coggabata (Drumburgh)
* Mais (Bowness)
Outpost forts beyond the Wall include:
* Habitancum (Risingham)
* Bremenium (Rochester)[2]
* Ad Fines (Chew Green) [1]
Supply forts behind the wall include:
* Alauna (Maryport)
* Arbeia (South Shields)
* Coria (Corbridge)
* Vindolanda (Little Chesters)[2]
* Vindomora (Ebchester)[2]
Garrison
The wall was garrisoned by auxiliary (i.e., non-legionary) units of the army (non-citizens). Their numbers fluctuated throughout the occupation, but may have been around 9,000 strong in general, including infantry and cavalry. The new forts could hold garrisons of 500 men while cavalry units of 1,000 troops were stationed at either end. The total number of soldiers manning the early wall was probably greater than 10,000.
They suffered serious attacks in 180, and especially between 196 and 197 when the garrison had been seriously weakened, following which major reconstruction had to be carried out under Septimius Severus. The region near the wall remained peaceful for most of the rest of the 3rd century. It is thought that many in the garrison may have married and integrated into the local community.
Part of Hadrian's wall near Housesteads.
Part of Hadrian's wall near Housesteads.
After Hadrian
In the years after Hadrian's death in 138, the new emperor, Antoninus Pius essentially abandoned the wall, though leaving it occupied in a support role, and began building a new wall in Scotland proper, about 160 kilometres (100 mi) north, the Antonine Wall. This turf wall ran 40 Roman miles (about 37.8 mi or 61 km) and had significantly more forts than Hadrian's Wall. Antonine was unable to conquer the northern tribes and so when Marcus Aurelius became emperor, he abandoned the Antonine Wall and occupied Hadrian's Wall once again in 164. It remained occupied by Roman troops until their withdrawal from Britain.
In the late 4th century, barbarian invasions, economic decline, and military coups loosened the Empire's hold on Britain. By 410, the Roman administration and its legions were gone, and Britain was left to look to its own defences and government. The garrisons, by now probably made up mostly of local Britons who had nowhere else to go, probably lingered on in some form for generations. Archaeology is beginning to reveal that some parts of the Wall remained occupied well into the 5th century. Enough also survived in the 8th century for spolia from it to find its way into the construction of Jarrow Priory, and for Bede to see and describe the Wall thus in Historia Ecclesiastica 1.5, although he misidentified it as being built by Septimius Severus:
“ after many great and dangerous battles, he thought fit to divide that part of the island, which he had recovered from the other unconquered nations, not with a wall, as some imagine, but with a rampart. For a wall is made of stones, but a rampart, with which camps are fortified to repel the assaults of enemies, is made of sods, cut out of the earth, and raised above the ground all round like a wall, having in front of it the ditch whence the sods were taken, and strong stakes of wood fixed upon its top. ”
But in time the wall was abandoned and fell into ruin. Over the centuries and even into the 20th century a large proportion of the stone was reused in other local buildings.
In fiction
Sycamore Gap (the "Robin Hood Tree")
Sycamore Gap (the "Robin Hood Tree")
* Hadrian's Wall was featured extensively in the movie King Arthur (which depicted the story of the people the Arthurian legends were supposedly based on). The one kilometre (0.6 mi) long replica, located in County Kildare, Ireland, was the largest movie set ever built in that country, and took a crew of 300 construction workers four and a half months to build. The fort in the movie where Arthur and his Sarmatian "knights" were garrisoned was based on the Roman fort named Vindolanda, which was built around AD 80 just south of Hadrian's Wall in what is now called Chesterholm, in Northern England. In the movie, the fort is attached to the wall.
* Sycamore Gap, a section of the wall between two crests just west of milecastle 38, is locally known as the "Robin Hood Tree". This location was used in the 1991 film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, as the setting for an interlude during Robin's journey from the White Cliffs (actually shot at the Seven Sisters Hills) to Nottingham via Aysgarth Falls.
What's art about if it isn't about learning something? Well I learnt something. Several things actually. Will I use what I've learnt to grow and become wiser? That seems unlikely. So what did I learn?
1) Ice is very cold.
2) Icy water feels even colder.
3) Even kneeling on ice might not spread your weight enough to prevent it cracking.
4) Don't ever admit to doing something stupid. Especially not on the internet. You'll never know who might read it.
I've resigned myself to the fact that I won't ever feel confident enough in my creativity to know what it is I will make ahead of time, and I won't know how, whatever it is, will turn out. It was never an issue when noone ever saw what I make but now, a little self doubt lurks in the back of my mind, that I must make something interesting otherwise I shouldn't have bothered. Often, as I wander around some wild place somewhere (no not a bar in Blackpool on a Saturday night), I am thinking about future land art projects and the potential of different places. But always lurking there is the thought that it better be good when I get round to doing it.
On the face of it, this voice at the back of the room would seem to be a help, always encouraging me to try harder. But the weird thing is, this voice actually seems to be a hindrance. There is a subtle but important difference between "it better be good" and "I wonder if it'll be any good?"
When I listen to those words it seems to be an extra burden, a burden that makes it harder to tap into any creativity. I have no idea what creativity actually is, where it lives or how it operates. But what I do know is that you can plug into it directly if you would just relax and go with the flow. A sense of expectation of how something should be, how it ought to be, if only you tried hard enough is not where it's at. I think this is what I love about land art. As I start, the distractions, the so called "encouraging" voices just fade away and all that matters is the moment. And when enough moments join together, I often end up exactly where I wanted to be had I been thinking about it in the first place. I've said it before but it seems it is a hard lesson to learn. It's about the doing. The thinking, the planning, the expectations. None of this really helps.
So I set off, the frost crunching under my feet and doubting/encouraging voices in my head struggling to help me think of what I could do. I went to a small pool of dark water and tried to chop out some ice. Fun though that was, it didn't inspire me, so I continued to trudge up the hill. On the slopes either side of me, camo jacketed plonkers with shotguns and dogs attempted to shoot, stupid and inbred pheasants. A fitting challenge for the Saturday shotgun warriors. We haven't quite gone to the lengths of fencing in animals for rich (and fat) obnoxious clients to shoot but it isn't far off.
Now don't get me wrong, I am not hypocritical enough to suggest that shooting is completely wrong. I could only occupy the moral highground if I didn't eat industrially farmed animals and didn't ignore the fact that I couldn't kill, what I eat, myself. But I do wonder at the mentality of people who shoot animals for a hobby, as a way to relax, to let off steam on a Saturday morning. Does it make you feel manly to outwit a pheasant with a bunch of beaters, dogs and high powered weaponry? Is it simply target practice and honing a skill?
I always wonder whether they have something missing in their lives and their neuroses drive them to show off, inaudibly shouting "look at me, look at me, LOOK AT ME! I'm really, really important! I demand your attention!" Because what seems to be common amongst this activities is noise. Lots of it and the seemingly willfull need to pee off as many people as possible. Especially people who like peace and quiet!
How many examples can you think of? Here's a few for starters: riding big, powerful motorbikes around country lanes in the summer, riding jet skis across lakes and off shore, off roading on green lanes and shooting things for fun. Why oh why do all these things have to be so loud? And why do you have to do them in beautiful and quiet places and spoil the peace and quiet for so many others? Are you so lacking in empathy that you have no idea how you are spoiling it for everyone else? Or do you have a pathological need to take over places and claim them as yours to make up for your inadaquecies? I think this is one of the biggest splits in our species. The sensitive and the not sensitive. The noisy and the quiet. The considerate and inconsiderate.
So the soundtrack to my sculpturing went like this "hey, hey, hey, hey, hey!" As the beaters flushed the doomed birds from the undergrowth and "KABOOM! KABOOM!" as another pheasant bit the dust. I expect that if I ever go mad that that will be the soundtrack to my insanity too. I wanted to stand on a rock and shout out "shut the hell up you noisy idiots!" to try and get rid of my frustrated feeling. But I don't think they were going to see the error of their ways so I went back to what I was doing with the frustrated feeling still present.
So what was a I doing I hear you ask?
A bank of fog was sliding in from the south, leaving the tips of the mountains poking through the sea of moisture. Unusually for an inversion, a layer of cloud lay above us too (me and the mountains) and gradually the temperature began to warm.
On another small dark pool I begun to lay out sections of frosted bracken, to make a pattern on the ice. When I leant back I noticed I had left hand prints where my body heat had melted the surface and I liked them and decided to do something along those lines instead. On all fours, I kneeled on the ice, positioning my hands to make prints in the surface, when suddenly cracks spread across the surface like fractured glass and I was about to become more acquainted with this medium than I originally planned. I had one of those Wiley Coyote moments like when he runs over the cliff's edge, only to be found pedalling in mid-air. Just for a split second gravity didn't grab me and then all at once the icey water and me, became intimate. I managed to extricate myself after immersing only one leg and fortunately I was wearing two pairs of trousers for warmth and had some spare socks, so pretty quickly I was dry again. I smirked to myself at being such a fool but soon found that the broken ice was fantastically clear and square edged so my foolishness had served a purpose and revealed to me the beauty of this ice.
I took a section and rounded the edges before trying to melt my hand print into it. I could only manage a little at a time before I had to rewarm my hand, so I challenged myself to count to fifty before I would put on a glove to warm up, only to try and melt some more for another count to fifty.
As the handprint begun to form I started to think about how I would be able to photograph it. The imprint was like a ghost, difficult to pin down, like a fleeting image in the corner of your eye. I put the ice back in the water but the image disappeared so I went searching for another way.
I found a slab with thick frost on it, so I melted another handprint onto it and placed the ice on top, in an effort to put a black background behind the imprint. This didn't work either. I then picked some holly berries thinking that I would squish them up and fill in the mould but that was also a failure. And then it dawned on me, bubbles underwater are very bright, especially against the dark, peaty water!
I went back to the little pool and to its twin with the unbroken ice. I put my handprint on top of it, face down so that air would be trapped and then started to ladle (I didn't actually use a ladle - who carries around a ladle?!) water from the broken pool onto the ice of the intact one. Soon the effect was working and I had learnt something new about contrast and ice.
After taking some more pictures of it set against the sky, I collected my gear and headed off downhill. The cretins were still shooting at anything that moved and the irritation at the noisy buggers still dwelled in the pit of my stomach.
At the bottom of the hill I sat and watched two Buzzards sitting in adjacent trees, one of which kept calling and flying to the other one, perhaps with spring on her mind. For a few minutes I watched transfixed and thought what magnificent creatures they are. As I set off again towards home I noticed that the feeling in my stomach had gone and a few quiet moments observing the wonder of nature had calmed and comforted me. That is all that is required for peace. An open mind and a moment to fill it. Perhaps the Saturday shotgunners should try it one day. They might actually like it and discover that there is another way.
www.birdlife.org/datazone/sites/index.html?action=SitHTMD...
Site description The site is a National Park covering 36,000 ha of the High Atlas, including the highest mountain in Morocco, Jbel Toubkal (4,167 m). Located only 60 km south of the town of Marrakech, the dramatic mountain scenery attracts thousands of visitors each year, many of whom climb Jbel Toubkal or trek elsewhere in the park. The mountain summits are often only slightly above the level of their surrounding high plateaus, which are separated by deep valleys. The park extends from 1,000 m upwards and therefore encompasses a range of vegetation-types, from forest to alpine meadow. Forest only covers 15% of the park, and consists mainly of the oldest Quercus rotundifolia stands in the High Atlas and Juniperus thurifera. Along the valleys, irrigated agriculture is practised and most of the park is used for extensive livestock-grazing.
More than 95 breeding species have been recorded, among them nine species of the Mediterranean North Africa biome. Thirteen raptors are recorded, among them Gypaetus barbatus, which definitely bred in the park until 1980. The Parc National de Toubkal is one of only two areas in Morocco where Apus caffer has been recorded breeding, and also holds several species with quite localized distributions in Africa, such as Rhodopechys sanguinea and Eremophila alpestris.
Conservation issues The National Park was created by 'Arrête viziriel' on 19 January 1942. Despite its protected status, the park has been facing growing pressures since the 1960s. Poaching has wiped out some species and overgrazing has destroyed or degraded much of the natural vegetation. Tourism has mushroomed and led to erosion of footpaths—on some days 30-40 tourists may be found together at one time on the summit of Jbel Toubkal, in spite of the long and arduous trek required to reach it. To counter these threats and safeguard wildlife, in the 1950s AEFCS created a reserve for Ammotragus lervia adjacent to the park, and in 1994 enclosed an area of 1,000 ha for the reintroduction of Gazella cuvieri. Both these measures have resulted in the protection of areas of forest habitat which are important for breeding birds. In 1994, a management plan for the park was drawn up under the auspices of AEFCS. Further conservation measures required include the training of local guides; the protection of nest-sites of the rarer bird species, particularly raptors; maintenance of trails to prevent erosion; and the establishment of grazing enclosures to protect endemic plant species.
Mussenden Tempe which stands on the edge of the cliffs at Downhill, Castlerock. Extensive work has been carried out to prevent further erosion of the cliffs.
Olympus Mju II
Ilford FP4 Plus, Ilfosol3 1+9, 6 min 30 sec
CanoScan 9000F Mark II
I diritti delle mie immagini sono riservati. E' vietato qualsiasi uso, senza il mio preventivo consenso:
mattia.camellini@alice.it
The high Spring sunshine prevented the sun from being directly on the nose of 59205; however upon reflection, this really isn't a bad picture after all!
In a picturesque rural landscape, 59205 is near-perfectly mirrored alongside the Kennet & Avon Canal whilst it powers uphill the summit of Savernake Bank with the 6C31 09.20 Theale-Whatley Quarry empty stone.
One of my favourite photos of Jason.
He was seven here. Taken by my grandma.
She and he and my youngest brother were
on a road trip to Springfield (Illinois)
with a stop at New Salem Historic Site.
(My family are Abraham Lincoln groupies.)
Today is the anniversary of my son’s death.
You are remembered and I love you to the
moon and back, Jason.
Thankfully the wide tonal range of a 6x7 transparency provides sufficient detail in the dark winter shadows to prevent this 'wrong' side view looking too dark! Unfortunately a long shadow from another class 37 has put half the front of the Railfreight Hoover into the gloom - the disadvantage of shooting in the depths of winter alas.
I have no idea at all what this is about. But I am very intrigued. Any tips welcome. References to extra-terrestrial origin will be accepted but may face additional scrutiny.
Update: Just got a response from the public company that runs the park: they are cleaning the groundwater from pollutants. Seems that during WW2 the German airforce wasn't too pedantic about preventing fuel spills.
[Tempelhofer-Feld_20220320_1725_e-m10_03206713]
No stay in Provence would be complete without some landscape and village photography, especially if your wife is with you doing watercolor painting! So, taking a break from old stones (although there will be some of those...), here are a few of those shots I took in October 2024.
Mollans-sur-Ouvèze
Although it is at the exact same latitude as Vaison-la-Romaine (which is indisputably in Provence), and a mere dozen kilometers from it (not to mention on the same river!), Mollans-sur-Ouvèze’s claim to being a Provençal village is disputed. It lies in the département of Drôme, not in that of Vaucluse, and the mere fact that the southernmost part of Drôme insists on calling itself “Drôme Provençale” is enough to make purists smirk: Vaucluse doesn’t need to call itself Provençal, everyone knows it is. If southern Drôme feels that need, it just shows how hard it’s trying to attach itself to a province with which its ties are in fact dubious...
Whether in Provence or just not far from it didn’t prevent us from paying a visit, and the part of the village that’s just around where the old bridge crosses the river is lovely, picturesque, and does have a Provençal air to it. The name of Mollans’ most famous fountain, however, gives a clue as to why we are not really in Provence here, historically speaking, and in spite of what local tourism marketers would have you believe...
The Fontaine du Dauphin was built in 1713, but the lovely curved wash house that’s behind it is from the 1860s.
Magasin4 is a club founded in 1994 dedicated to alternative music : Hardcore, Funk, Punk, Alternative Rock, Ska, Pop, Experimental Musics, Chanson Française, Jazz and a lot of original fusions... The entrance fee is kept low so that nothing can prevent you from discovering groups and styles.
A giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis) looks down into our car hoping we have feed pellets. For a fee, the Fossil Rim Wildlife Center provides healthy food pellets to feed some species.
Giraffes’ necks contain seven vertebrae like a human neck. Still, for all its length, a giraffe’s neck is too short to reach the ground. As a result, they have to spread their legs precariously or kneel down on padded knees, which are actually wrists, to take a drink. Their ability to get that drink and then jerk their heads up to scout for predators without fainting is the result of an awesome circulatory system that has been studied by NASA as a key to preventing blackouts at high altitudes. The complex system of vessels prohibits too much blood flow to the brain when the head is lowered, yet doesn’t allow the blood to accumulate in the feet.
Reference: fossilrim.org/animals/giraffe/
In order to prevent risk to field journalists in hazardous situations such as disaster areas, war zones, and areas of civil unrest, BSN News purchased a bulk order of outdated general-purpose wheel-drones and outfitted them with on-board recording equipment for field use. They painted them in their network colors and dubbed them MMDs, or Mobile Media Drones, and used them to supplement their field teams, even completely replacing them in some cases.
These drones' ability to cover stories 24/7 without rest fit well with the 24-hour news cycle, and they could also be folded into small cargo containers and shipped nearly anywhere they were required. As their onboard processors learned from their accompanying operators and journalists, they were eventually able to venture into dangerous situations completely autonomously with little risk to their field crews.
They are now a common site in almost any newsworthy locale, mingling with their human counterparts in their quest for the big scoop. This one has been fitted with several audio and video capture abilities, including a boom mic and a holographic capture module built into the right shoulder.
Not my preferred location to photograph this working conveying new SWR 707 015+016 on delivery from Germany but it was running stupidly early at this juncture - 28 minutes to the good. This prevented me walking to Larkhall Rise in the background which had been my location of choice. A few minutes earlier the sun had actually been out but a couple of minutes after recording this it started raining such was the vagaries of the weather yesterday!
La Pagoda de la Colina del Tigre, conocida oficialmente como Pagoda de Yunyan, que a veces se traduce por Torre de Huqiu, es una pagoda china situada en la Colina del Tigre, en la ciudad de Suzhou, provincia de Jiangsu, en el este de China. Recibe el apodo de 'La torre inclinada de China'.
Era la pagoda del antiguo Templo de Yunian. Su construcción comenzó en 907 d. C., durante el último periodo de las Cinco Dinastías, cuando el Imperio de Wuyue gobernaba Suzhou, y se completó en 961 d. C., durante la Dinastía Song.
Los pisos superiores de la pagoda se crearon durante el reinado del emperador Chongzhen (1628-1644), el último emperador de la Dinastía Ming
La Pagoda de Yunyan presenta una altura de 47 metros; tiene siete pisos y es una muestra representativa de la arquitectura octogonal. Se construyó según la estructura de la masonería, que intentaba imitar las pagodas de madera predominantes en la época.
En más de un millar de años, la pagoda se ha ido inclinando gradualmente debido al desgaste natural. Actualmente la parte de arriba difiere unos 2,32 metros de la parte de abajo. Toda la estructura pesa 7000 toneladas, que se sostiene gracias a las columnas de ladrillo internas. Sin embargo, la pagoda se inclina aproximadamente tres grados por la rotura de dos columnas de apoyo.
La pagoda se inclina porque una parte de la base es tierra, mientras que la otra es piedra. Durante 1957, se llevó a cabo un plan para estabilizar el edificio y prevenir una futura tendencia a inclinarse, mediante el cual se introdujo hormigón en la tierra para hacer una base más sólida.
Durante el proceso de reforzamiento, se encontró un ataúd de piedra con escrituras budistas. El recipiente contenía una inscripción en la que se tenía en cuenta la fecha de finalización de la pagoda como el decimoséptimo día del duodécimo mes del segundo año de la era Jianlong (961 d. C.).
La Pagoda de Yunyan ha sido designada como Máximo Lugar Nacional, Histórico y Cultural de Jiangsu. El acceso público a la parte de arriba de la torre se vetó en septiembre de 2010.
es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pagoda_de_la_Colina_del_Tigre
The Tiger Hill Pagoda, more officially the Yunyan Pagoda (Chinese: 云岩寺塔; pinyin: Yún yán sì tǎ), also sometimes translated as Huqiu Tower, is a Chinese pagoda situated on Tiger Hill in Suzhou city, Jiangsu Province of Eastern China. It is nicknamed the 'Leaning Tower of China'.
The primary pagoda of the former Yunyan Temple, which was founded in 327 and rebuilt for the last time in 1871. The temple suffered damage in successive wars and most of the temple was destroyed during the Second Sino-Japanese War. Some elements of the temple such as the formal entrance, the Yunyan Pagoda, and several other buildings and smaller shrines have survived, and now stand as landmarks throughout Tiger Hill Park.
Construction of the pagoda began in 907 CE, during the later period of the Five Dynasties period, at a time when Suzhou was ruled by the Wuyue Kingdom. Construction was completed in 961 CE during the Song Dynasty.
The uppermost stories of the pagoda were built as an addition during the reign of the Chongzhen Emperor (1628–1644), the last emperor of the Ming Dynasty.
The Yunyan Pagoda rises to a height of 47 m (154 ft). The pagoda has seven stories and is octagonal in plan, and was built with a masonry structure designed to imitate wooden-structured pagodas prevalent at the time.
In more than a thousand years the pagoda has gradually slanted due to forces of nature. Now the top and bottom of the tower vary by 2.32 meters. The entire structure weighs some 7,000,000 kilograms (15,000,000 lb), supported by internal brick columns. However, the pagoda leans roughly 3 degrees due to the cracking of two supporting columns.
The pagoda leans because the foundation is originally half rock and the other half is on soil. In 1957, efforts were made to stabilize the pagoda and prevent further leaning. Concrete was also pumped into the soil forming a stronger foundation.
During the reinforcement process, a stone casket containing Buddhist scriptures was found. The container had an inscription noting the completion date of the pagoda as the seventeenth day of the twelfth month of the second year of the Jianlong era (961 CE).
The Yunyan Pagoda is a designated Major National Historical and Cultural Site in Jiangsu. As of September 2010, public access to the top of the tower is no longer allowed.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiger_Hill_Pagoda
www.travelchinaguide.com/attraction/jiangsu/suzhou/tiger_...
al Preventorio, l'ospedale per bambini abbandonato a Orio Canavese
at the Preventorium, the abandoned children's hospital in Orio Canavese
-- 15 Cool Pineapple Facts --
1. A pineapple is neither a pine nor an apple, but a fruit consisting of many berries that have grown together.
2. This also means that Pineapples are not a single fruit, but a group of berries that have fused together. The technical term for this is a “multiple fruit” or a “collective fruit”.
3. The scientific name of a pineapple is Ananas comosus. This word comes from the Tupi words “nanas” (which means pine) and “comosus” (which means tufted). Tupi is the language used by the Tupi people, who are indigenous people of Brazil.
4. In Hawaiian, a pineapple is called “hala kahiki”. This is because the Hawaiians thought the pineapple resembled the “Hala” fruit. “Kahiki” means foreign, hence pineapples became “foreign Hala’s in Hawaiʻi.
5. Pineapples were historically very useful on long boat trips. Eating pineapple prevented scurvy, and pineapple juice mixed with sand is a great cleaning agent for boats.
6. Pineapples can “eat you back”! Pineapples contain an enzyme called “bromelain”. This enzyme breaks down proteins in your mouth. So when you eat a pineapple, it is eating you back. Once the bromelain enters your stomach the enzymes are broken down, so you don’t need to worry about being eaten inside-out. Actually, pineapples have many medicinal qualities!
7. Fun additional fact: workers on pineapple fields often don’t have fingerprints, which could be caused by this enzyme!
8. Pollination of pineapples is required for seed formation, but the presence of seeds has a negative effect on the quality of the fruit. Possible pollinators for Pineapples are honey bees, pineapple bees, and Hummingbirds. In Hawaiʻi, the import of hummingbirds is prohibited for this reason.
9. It can take more than two years for a pineapple plant to produce a single pineapple fruit.
10. Pineapple plants can grow from seeds of through vegetative reproduction (cloning). Cloning is by far the most popular method to grow new pineapples. To clone a pineapple you can use four different parts of the plant: the crowns, slips, suckers, and shoots. The crown is the very top of the pineapple fruit. Slips are the leafy branches that are attached directly below the fruit. The suckers and shoots both originate from near the bottom of the stem.
11. Pineapples come originally from South America, most probably from the region between South Brazil and Paraguay. From here, pineapples quickly spread around the continent up to Mexico and the West Indies, where Columbus found them when visiting Guadeloupe in 1493. Columbus then brought the pineapple back to Europe, from which it later made its trip to Hawaiʻi.
12. Do you want to grow pineapples yourself? Then keep in mind that altitude matters! In Hawai’i, the best pineapples in terms of sugar content & sugar-acid balance grow at an elevation of ≈300 m.
13.. Pineapples can be tricked into flowering using smoke! This was first discovered on the Azores Islands using smoke. Later research showed the component in smoke responsible for the flowering to be ethylene. Now, forced flowering of pineapples is standard practice on Hawaiʻi because it allows the fruits to be produced throughout the year.
14. Pineapple production on Hawaiʻi has severely decreased in the past few decades. Harvest volume now is only a few % of the peak rate it once was.
15. The last pineapple cannery on Hawaiʻi closed in 2006 and now only fresh pineapples are exported. This is possible because of recent advancements in pineapple cultivation that have produced sweeter pineapples that are easier to transport (the so-called ‘MD-2’ pineapple cultivar).
-- Technical Information (or Nerdy Stuff) --
‧ Camera - Nikon D7200 (handheld)
‧ Lens – Nikkor 18-300mm Zoom
‧ ISO – 640
‧ Aperture – f/7.1
‧ Exposure – 1/500 second
‧ Focal Length – 230mm
The original RAW file was processed with Adobe Camera Raw and final adjustments were made with Photoshop CS6.
"For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." ~Jeremiah 29:11
The best way to view my photostream is through Flickriver with the following link: www.flickriver.com/photos/photojourney57/
To the Zion Narrows! Nikon D810 Fine Art Zion National Park Autumn Hike! Dr. Elliot McGucken Fine Art Landscape Photography!
facebook.com/mcgucken (new fine art landscapes facebook page!)
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Dr. Elliot McGucken Fine Art Photography!
I love shooting fine art landscapes and fine art nature photography! :) I live for it!
Feel free to ask me any questions! Always love sharing tech talk and insights! :)
And all the best on Your Epic Hero's Odyssey!
The new Lightroom rocks!
Beautiful magnificent clouds!
View your artistic mission into photography as an epic odyssey of heroic poetry! Take it from Homer in Homer's Odyssey: "Tell me, O muse, of that ingenious hero who travelled far and wide after he had sacked the famous town of Troy. Many cities did he visit, and many were the nations with whose manners and customs he was acquainted; moreover he suffered much by sea while trying to save his own life and bring his men safely home; but do what he might he could not save his men, for they perished through their own sheer folly in eating the cattle of the Sun-god Hyperion; so the god prevented them from ever reaching home. Tell me, too, about all these things, O daughter of Jove, from whatsoever source you may know them. " --Samuel Butler Translation of Homer's Odyssey
All the best on your Epic Hero's Odyssey from Johnny Ranger McCoy!
Working on a book! 45EPIC Landscape and Nature Photography!
Majestic autumn leaves in Zion! Long exposures in the Narrows!
Autumn maples and cottonwoods in Zion NP!
Ilha de São Jorge, Açores, Portugal.
This photo gives a real good view over the West part of the Island from above. The clouds prevent you to see the East part of the Island, as it is much longer then visible here (53 kms.). The narrow strip of land at the bottom of the picture is the Ponta dos Rosais. The island is nothing more then a big chunk of steep volcanic rocks in the middle of the ocean without the existence of beaches.
Taken by José Luís Ávila Silveira Pedro Noronha e Costa.
Photo is in the public domain.
Hutsulian wedding in Bukovina.
Chernivtsi, Ukraine.
A long time ago, before giving the bride to the reliable hands of her future husband, she would have been dressed in a strict appropriate manner.
How long does it take? For example, Hutsuls(Carpathian Mountain natives) could spend three hours dressing the bride. Sure you will say that modern brides may take as much time with their preparations, with all those hairstyles and manicures. But understand that Hutsuls are not accustomed to elaborate cosmetic use, as they prefer a more natural look.
When dressing their brides, Hutsuls would beautify her with colorful embroidered shirts, a wide woven belt, hankerchieves, a sheepskin coat, an embroidered necklace, and special shoes – red sandals. The bride's hair would be beautifully braided and decorated with different flowers, ribbons and various small, red trinkets in which coins and cloves of garlic are hidden inside as a preventative measure against bad energies. The bride's mother would also put a wreath on the head of her daughter, in which the bride cannot take off until the end of a wedding. This is performed as a blessing of good luck for the couple's future.
Nowadays, the wreath is often replaced with bread given from the godparents. The bread will be decorated with a little wreath on top. It is customary for the bride to kiss the bread while kneeling.
While closest relatives are dressing the bride, she is sitting anxiously on a chair with a pillow. When the bride stands up and goes out to the groom, the bridesmaids compete against each other to be the first to fall on the pillow. The bridesmaid that falls on that pillow first – will be the first to become marrried herself.
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SLR Camera: Nikon F5
Lens: AF Zoom-Nikkor 28-105mm f/3.5-4.5D
Film: Kodak Ektar 100
Filter: Promaster Spectrum 7 UV
Flash: Nikon Speedlight SB-28 (fill flash)
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-- focal length - 50 mm
-- aperture - 11
Film was processed and scanned by "Mark" Studio Lab. in Chernivtsi. I am happy with the results.
To see the pictures taken with this camera click here.
Thank you for your comments and Fav's.
Pont du Mont-Blanc :
Campagne pour la prévention des maladies cardio-vasculaires.
Mont Blanc Bridge :
Campaign for the prevention of cardiovascular diseases.
Grade I listed historic cathedral.
"The Cathedral and Metropolitical Church of Saint Peter in York, commonly known as York Minster, is the cathedral of York, England, and is one of the largest of its kind in Northern Europe. The minster is the seat of the Archbishop of York, the third-highest office of the Church of England (after the monarch as Supreme Governor and the Archbishop of Canterbury), and is the mother church for the Diocese of York and the Province of York. It is run by a dean and chapter, under the Dean of York. The title "minster" is attributed to churches established in the Anglo-Saxon period as missionary teaching churches, and serves now as an honorific title. Services in the minster are sometimes regarded as on the High Church or Anglo-Catholic end of the Anglican continuum.
The minster, devoted to Saint Peter, has a very wide Decorated Gothic nave and chapter house, a Perpendicular Gothic quire and east end and Early English North and South transepts. The nave contains the West Window, constructed in 1338, and over the Lady Chapel in the east end is the Great East Window (finished in 1408), the largest expanse of medieval stained glass in the world. In the north transept is the Five Sisters Window, each lancet being over 53 feet (16.3 m) high. The south transept contains a rose window, while the West Window contains a heart-shaped design colloquially known as The Heart of Yorkshire.
A bishop of York was summoned to the Council of Arles in 314 indicating the presence of a Christian community in York at this time; however, archaeological evidence of Christianity in Roman York is limited. The first recorded church on the site was a wooden structure built hurriedly in 627 to provide a place to baptise Edwin, King of Northumbria. Moves toward a more substantial building began in the decade of the 630s. A stone structure was completed in 637 by Oswald and was dedicated to Saint Peter. The church soon fell into disrepair and was dilapidated by 670 when Saint Wilfrid ascended to the See of York. He repaired and renewed the structure. The attached school and library were established and by the 8th century were some of the most substantial in Northern Europe.
In 741, the church was destroyed in a fire. It was rebuilt as a more impressive structure containing thirty altars. The church and the entire area then passed through the hands of numerous invaders, and its history is obscure until the 10th century. There were a series of Benedictine archbishops, including Saint Oswald of Worcester, Wulfstan and Ealdred, who travelled to Westminster to crown William in 1066. Ealdred died in 1069 and was buried in the church.
The church was damaged in 1069 during William the Conqueror's harrying of the North, but the first Norman archbishop, Thomas of Bayeux, arriving in 1070, organised repairs. The Danes destroyed the church in 1075, but it was again rebuilt from 1080. Built in the Norman style, it was 111 m (364.173 ft) long and rendered in white and red lines. The new structure was damaged by fire in 1137 but was soon repaired. The choir and crypt were remodelled in 1154, and a new chapel was built, all in the Norman style.
The Gothic style in cathedrals had arrived in the mid 12th century. Walter de Gray was made archbishop in 1215 and ordered the construction of a Gothic structure to compare to Canterbury; building began in 1220. The north and south transepts were the first new structures; completed in the 1250s, both were built in the Early English Gothic style but had markedly different wall elevations. A substantial central tower was also completed, with a wooden spire. Building continued into the 15th century.
The Chapter House was begun in the 1260s and was completed before 1296. The wide nave was constructed from the 1280s on the Norman foundations. The outer roof was completed in the 1330s, but the vaulting was not finished until 1360. Construction then moved on to the eastern arm and chapels, with the last Norman structure, the choir, being demolished in the 1390s. Work here finished around 1405. In 1407 the central tower collapsed; the piers were then reinforced, and a new tower was built from 1420. The western towers were added between 1433 and 1472. The cathedral was declared complete and consecrated in 1472.
The English Reformation led to the looting of much of the cathedral's treasures and the loss of much of the church lands. Under Elizabeth I there was a concerted effort to remove all traces of Roman Catholicism from the cathedral; there was much destruction of tombs, windows and altars. In the English Civil War the city was besieged and fell to the forces of Cromwell in 1644, but Thomas Fairfax prevented any further damage to the cathedral.
Following the easing of religious tensions there was some work to restore the cathedral. From 1730 to 1736 the whole floor of the minster was relaid in patterned marble and from 1802 there was a major restoration. However, on 2 February 1829, an arson attack by Jonathan Martin inflicted heavy damage on the east arm. An accidental fire in 1840 left the nave, south west tower and south aisle roofless and blackened shells. The cathedral slumped deeply into debt and in the 1850s services were suspended. From 1858 Augustus Duncombe worked successfully to revive the cathedral. In 1866, there were six residentiary canonries: of which one was the Chancellor's, one the Sub-Dean's, and another annexed to the Archdeaconry of York.
During the 20th century there was more concerted preservation work, especially following a 1967 survey that revealed the building, in particular the central tower, was close to collapse. £2,000,000 was raised and spent by 1972 to reinforce and strengthen the building foundations and roof. During the excavations that were carried out, remains of the north corner of the Roman Principia (headquarters of the Roman fort, Eboracum) were found under the south transept. This area, as well as remains of the Norman cathedral, re-opened to the public in spring 2013 as part of the new exhibition exploring the history of the building of York Minster.
York is a cathedral city and unitary authority area in North Yorkshire, England. The population of the council area which includes nearby villages was 208,200 as of 2017 and the population of the urban area was 153,717 at the 2011 census. Located at the confluence of the Rivers Ouse and Foss, it is the county town of the historic county of Yorkshire. The city is known for its famous historical landmarks such as York Minster and the city walls, as well as a variety of cultural and sporting activities, which makes it a popular tourist destination in England. The local authority is the City of York Council, a single tier governing body responsible for providing all local services and facilities throughout the city. The City of York local government district includes rural areas beyond the old city boundaries. It is about 25 miles north-east of Leeds and 34 miles north-west of Kingston upon Hull. York is the largest settlement in the ceremonial county of North Yorkshire.
The city was founded by the Romans as Eboracum in 71 AD. It became the capital of the Roman province of Britannia Inferior, and later of the kingdoms of Deira, Northumbria and Jórvík. In the Middle Ages, York grew as a major wool trading centre and became the capital of the northern ecclesiastical province of the Church of England, a role it has retained. In the 19th century, York became a major hub of the railway network and a confectionery manufacturing centre, a status it maintained well into the 20th century. During the Second World War, York was bombed as part of the Baedeker Blitz. Although less affected by bombing than other northern cities, several historic buildings were gutted and restoration efforts continued into the 1960s.
The economy of York is dominated by services. The University of York and National Health Service are major employers, whilst tourism has become an important element of the local economy. In 2016, York became sister cities with the Chinese city of Nanjing, as per an agreement signed by the Lord Mayor of York, focusing on building links in tourism, education, science, technology and culture. Today, the city is a popular tourist attraction, especially for international visitors from America, Germany, France and China. In 2017, York became UK's first human rights city, which formalised the city's aim to use human rights in decision making." - info from Wikipedia.
Summer 2019 I did a solo cycling tour across Europe through 12 countries over the course of 3 months. I began my adventure in Edinburgh, Scotland and finished in Florence, Italy cycling 8,816 km. During my trip I took 47,000 photos.
Now on Instagram.
Become a patron to my photography on Patreon.
The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is a church in the Christian Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem. According to traditions dating back to the 4th century, it contains the two holiest sites in Christianity: the site where Jesus was crucified, at a place known as Calvary or Golgotha, and Jesus's empty tomb, where he is believed by Christians to have been buried and resurrected. Each time the church was rebuilt, some of the antiquities from the preceding structure were used in the newer renovation. The tomb itself is enclosed by a 19th-century shrine called the Aedicule. The Status Quo, an understanding between religious communities dating to 1757, applies to the site.
Within the church proper are the last four stations of the Cross of the Via Dolorosa, representing the final episodes of the Passion of Jesus. The church has been a major Christian pilgrimage destination since its creation in the 4th century, as the traditional site of the resurrection of Christ, thus its original Greek name, Church of the Anastasis ('Resurrection').
Control of the church itself is shared, a simultaneum, among several Christian denominations and secular entities in complicated arrangements essentially unchanged for over 160 years, and some for much longer. The main denominations sharing property over parts of the church are the Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox and Armenian Apostolic, and to a lesser degree the Coptic, Syriac, and Ethiopian Orthodox churches.
Following the siege of Jerusalem in AD 70 during the First Jewish–Roman War, Jerusalem had been reduced to ruins. In AD 130, the Roman emperor Hadrian began the building of a Roman colony, the new city of Aelia Capitolina, on the site. Circa AD 135, he ordered that a cave containing a rock-cut tomb be filled in to create a flat foundation for a temple dedicated to Jupiter or Venus. The temple remained until the early 4th century.
After allegedly seeing a vision of a cross in the sky in 312, Constantine the Great began to favor Christianity, signed the Edict of Milan legalising the religion, and sent his mother, Helena, to Jerusalem to look for Christ's tomb. With the help of Bishop of Caesarea Eusebius and Bishop of Jerusalem Macarius, three crosses were found near a tomb; one which allegedly cured people of death was presumed to be the True Cross Jesus was crucified on, leading the Romans to believe that they had found Calvary. Constantine ordered in about 326 that the temple to Jupiter/Venus be replaced by a church. After the temple was torn down and its ruins removed, the soil was removed from the cave, revealing a rock-cut tomb that Helena and Macarius identified as the burial site of Jesus. A shrine was built, enclosing the rock tomb walls within its own.
In 327, Constantine and Helena separately commissioned the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem to commemorate the birth of Jesus.
The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, planned by the architect Zenobius, was built as separate constructs over the two holy sites: a rotunda called the Anastasis ("Resurrection"), where Helena and Macarius believed Jesus to have been buried, and across a courtyard to the east, the great basilica, an enclosed colonnaded atrium (the Triportico, sometimes called the Martyrium) with the traditional site of Calvary in one corner. The church was consecrated on 13 September 335. The Church Of The Holy Sepulchre site has been recognized since early in the 4th century as the place where Jesus was crucified, buried, and rose from the dead.
This building was destroyed by a fire in May of AD 614, when the Sassanid Empire, under Khosrau II, invaded Jerusalem and captured the True Cross. In 630, the Emperor Heraclius rebuilt the church after recapturing the city. After Jerusalem came under Islamic rule, it remained a Christian church, with the early Muslim rulers protecting the city's Christian sites, prohibiting their destruction or use as living quarters. A story reports that the caliph Umar ibn al-Khattab visited the church and stopped to pray on the balcony, but at the time of prayer, turned away from the church and prayed outside. He feared that future generations would misinterpret this gesture, taking it as a pretext to turn the church into a mosque. Eutychius of Alexandria adds that Umar wrote a decree saying that Muslims would not inhabit this location. The building suffered severe damage from an earthquake in 746.
Early in the 9th century, another earthquake damaged the dome of the Anastasis. The damage was repaired in 810 by Patriarch Thomas I. In 841, the church suffered a fire. In 935, the Christians prevented the construction of a Muslim mosque adjacent to the Church. In 938, a new fire damaged the inside of the basilica and came close to the rotunda. In 966, due to a defeat of Muslim armies in the region of Syria, a riot broke out, which was followed by reprisals. The basilica was burned again. The doors and roof were burnt, and Patriarch John VII was murdered.
On 18 October 1009, Fatimid caliph al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah ordered the complete destruction of the church as part of a more general campaign against Christian places of worship in Palestine and Egypt. The damage was extensive, with few parts of the early church remaining, and the roof of the rock-cut tomb damaged; the original shrine was destroyed. Some partial repairs followed. Christian Europe reacted with shock and expulsions of Jews, serving as an impetus to later Crusades.
In wide-ranging negotiations between the Fatimids and the Byzantine Empire in 1027–28, an agreement was reached whereby the new Caliph Ali az-Zahir (al-Hakim's son) agreed to allow the rebuilding and redecoration of the church. The rebuilding was finally completed during the tenures of Emperor Constantine IX Monomachos and Patriarch Nicephorus of Constantinople in 1048. As a concession, the mosque in Constantinople was reopened and the khutba sermons were to be pronounced in az-Zahir's name. Muslim sources say a by-product of the agreement was the renunciation of Islam by many Christians who had been forced to convert under al-Hakim's persecutions. In addition, the Byzantines, while releasing 5,000 Muslim prisoners, made demands for the restoration of other churches destroyed by al-Hakim and the reestablishment of a patriarch in Jerusalem. Contemporary sources credit the emperor with spending vast sums in an effort to restore the Church of the Holy Sepulchre after this agreement was made. Still, "a total replacement was far beyond available resources. The new construction was concentrated on the rotunda and its surrounding buildings: the great basilica remained in ruins."
The rebuilt church site consisted of "a court open to the sky, with five small chapels attached to it." The chapels were east of the court of resurrection (when reconstructed, the location of the tomb was under open sky), where the western wall of the great basilica had been. They commemorated scenes from the passion, such as the location of the prison of Christ and his flagellation, and presumably were so placed because of the difficulties of free movement among shrines in the city streets. The dedication of these chapels indicates the importance of the pilgrims' devotion to the suffering of Christ. They have been described as 'a sort of Via Dolorosa in miniature'... since little or no rebuilding took place on the site of the great basilica. Western pilgrims to Jerusalem during the 11th century found much of the sacred site in ruins." Control of Jerusalem, and thereby the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, continued to change hands several times between the Fatimids and the Seljuk Turks (loyal to the Abbasid caliph in Baghdad) until the Crusaders' arrival in 1099.
Many historians maintain that the main concern of Pope Urban II, when calling for the First Crusade, was the threat to Constantinople from the Turkish invasion of Asia Minor in response to the appeal of Byzantine Emperor Alexios I Komnenos. Historians agree that the fate of Jerusalem and thereby the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was also of concern, if not the immediate goal of papal policy in 1095. The idea of taking Jerusalem gained more focus as the Crusade was underway. The rebuilt church site was taken from the Fatimids (who had recently taken it from the Abassids) by the knights of the First Crusade on 15 July 1099.
The First Crusade was envisioned as an armed pilgrimage, and no crusader could consider his journey complete unless he had prayed as a pilgrim at the Holy Sepulchre. The classical theory is that Crusader leader Godfrey of Bouillon, who became the first Latin ruler of Jerusalem, decided not to use the title "king" during his lifetime, and declared himself Advocatus Sancti Sepulchri ("Protector [or Defender] of the Holy Sepulchre"). By the Crusader period, a cistern under the former basilica was rumoured to have been where Helena had found the True Cross, and began to be venerated as such; the cistern later became the Chapel of the Invention of the Cross, but there is no evidence of the site's identification before the 11th century, and modern archaeological investigation has now dated the cistern to 11th-century repairs by Monomachos.
According to the German priest and pilgrim Ludolf von Sudheim, the keys of the Chapel of the Holy Sepulchre were in hands of the "ancient Georgians", and the food, alms, candles and oil for lamps were given to them by the pilgrims at the south door of the church.
Eight 11th- and 12th-century Crusader leaders (Godfrey, Baldwin I, Baldwin II, Fulk, Baldwin III, Amalric, Baldwin IV and Baldwin V — the first eight rulers of the Kingdom of Jerusalem) were buried in the south transept and inside the Chapel of Adam. The royal tombs were destroyed by the Greeks in 1809–1810. It is unclear if the remains of those men were exhumed; some researchers hypothesize that some of them may still be in unmarked pits under the church.
William of Tyre, chronicler of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, reports on the renovation of the Church in the mid-12th century. The Crusaders investigated the eastern ruins on the site, occasionally excavating through the rubble, and while attempting to reach the cistern, they discovered part of the original ground level of Hadrian's temple enclosure; they transformed this space into a chapel dedicated to Helena, widening their original excavation tunnel into a proper staircase. The Crusaders began to refurnish the church in Romanesque style and added a bell tower. These renovations unified the small chapels on the site and were completed during the reign of Queen Melisende in 1149, placing all the holy places under one roof for the first time. The church became the seat of the first Latin patriarchs and the site of the kingdom's scriptorium. It was lost to Saladin, along with the rest of the city, in 1187, although the treaty established after the Third Crusade allowed Christian pilgrims to visit the site. Emperor Frederick II (r. 1220–50) regained the city and the church by treaty in the 13th century while under a ban of excommunication, with the curious consequence that the holiest church in Christianity was laid under interdict. The church seems to have been largely in the hands of Greek Orthodox patriarch Athanasius II of Jerusalem (c. 1231–47) during the Latin control of Jerusalem. Both city and church were captured by the Khwarezmians in 1244.
There was certainly a recognisable Nestorian (Church of the East) presence at the Holy Sepulchre from the years 1348 through 1575, as contemporary Franciscan accounts indicate. The Franciscan friars renovated the church in 1555, as it had been neglected despite increased numbers of pilgrims. The Franciscans rebuilt the Aedicule, extending the structure to create an antechamber. A marble shrine commissioned by Friar Boniface of Ragusa was placed to envelop the remains of Christ's tomb, probably to prevent pilgrims from touching the original rock or taking small pieces as souvenirs. A marble slab was placed over the limestone burial bed where Jesus's body is believed to have lain.
After the renovation of 1555, control of the church oscillated between the Franciscans and the Orthodox, depending on which community could obtain a favorable firman from the "Sublime Porte" at a particular time, often through outright bribery. Violent clashes were not uncommon. There was no agreement about this question, although it was discussed at the negotiations to the Treaty of Karlowitz in 1699. During the Holy Week of 1757, Orthodox Christians reportedly took over some of the Franciscan-controlled church. This may have been the cause of the sultan's firman (decree) later developed into the Status Quo.
A fire severely damaged the structure again in 1808, causing the dome of the Rotunda to collapse and smashing the Aedicule's exterior decoration. The Rotunda and the Aedicule's exterior were rebuilt in 1809–10 by architect Nikolaos Ch. Komnenos of Mytilene in the contemporary Ottoman Baroque style.[citation needed] The interior of the antechamber, now known as the Chapel of the Angel, was partly rebuilt to a square ground plan in place of the previously semicircular western end.
Another decree in 1853 from the sultan solidified the existing territorial division among the communities and solidified the Status Quo for arrangements to "remain in their present state", requiring consensus to make even minor changes.
The dome was restored by Catholics, Greeks and Turks in 1868, being made of iron ever since.
By the time of the British Mandate for Palestine following the end of World War I, the cladding of red marble applied to the Aedicule by Komnenos had deteriorated badly and was detaching from the underlying structure; from 1947 until restoration work in 2016–17, it was held in place with an exterior scaffolding of iron girders installed by the British authorities.
In 1948, Jerusalem was divided between Israel and Jordan and the Old City with the church were made part of Jordan. In 1967, Israeli forces captured East Jerusalem in the Six Day War, and that area has remained under Israeli control ever since. Under Israeli rule, legal arrangements relating to the churches of East Jerusalem were maintained in coordination with the Jordanian government. The dome at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was restored again in 1994–97 as part of extensive modern renovations that have been ongoing since 1959. During the 1970–78 restoration works and excavations inside the building, and under the nearby Muristan bazaar, it was found that the area was originally a quarry, from which white meleke limestone was struck.
East of the Chapel of Saint Helena, the excavators discovered a void containing a second-century[dubious – discuss] drawing of a Roman pilgrim ship, two low walls supporting the platform of Hadrian's second-century temple, and a higher fourth-century wall built to support Constantine's basilica. After the excavations of the early 1970s, the Armenian authorities converted this archaeological space into the Chapel of Saint Vartan, and created an artificial walkway over the quarry on the north of the chapel, so that the new chapel could be accessed (by permission) from the Chapel of Saint Helena.
After seven decades of being held together by steel girders, the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) declared the visibly deteriorating Aedicule structure unsafe. A restoration of the Aedicule was agreed upon and executed from May 2016 to March 2017. Much of the $4 million project was funded by the World Monuments Fund, as well as $1.3 million from Mica Ertegun and a significant sum from King Abdullah II of Jordan. The existence of the original limestone cave walls within the Aedicule was confirmed, and a window was created to view this from the inside. The presence of moisture led to the discovery of an underground shaft resembling an escape tunnel carved into the bedrock, seeming to lead from the tomb. For the first time since at least 1555, on 26 October 2016, marble cladding that protects the supposed burial bed of Jesus was removed. Members of the National Technical University of Athens were present. Initially, only a layer of debris was visible. This was cleared in the next day, and a partially broken marble slab with a Crusader-style cross carved was revealed. By the night of 28 October, the original limestone burial bed was shown to be intact. The tomb was resealed shortly thereafter. Mortar from just above the burial bed was later dated to the mid-fourth century.
On 25 March 2020, Israeli health officials ordered the site closed to the public due to the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the keeper of the keys, it was the first such closure since 1349, during the Black Death. Clerics continued regular prayers inside the building, and it reopened to visitors two months later, on 24 May.
During church renovations in 2022, a stone slab covered in modern graffiti was moved from a wall, revealing Cosmatesque-style decoration on one face. According to an IAA archaeologist, the decoration was once inlaid with pieces of glass and fine marble; it indicates that the relic was the front of the church's high altar from the Crusader era (c. 1149), which was later used by the Greek Orthodox until being damaged in the 1808 fire.
The courtyard facing the entrance to the church is known as the parvis. Two streets open into the parvis: St Helena Road (west) and Suq ed-Dabbagha (east). Around the parvis are a few smaller structures.
South of the parvis, opposite the church:
Broken columns—once forming part of an arcade—stand opposite the church, at the top of a short descending staircase stretching over the entire breadth of the parvis. In the 13th century, the tops of the columns were removed and sent to Mecca by the Khwarezmids.
The Gethsemane Metochion, a small Greek Orthodox monastery (metochion).
On the eastern side of the parvis, south to north:
The Monastery of St Abraham (Greek Orthodox), next to the Suq ed-Dabbagha entrance to the parvis.
The Chapel of St John the Evangelist (Armenian Orthodox)
The Chapel of St Michael and the Chapel of the Four Living Creatures (both are disputed between the Copts and Ethiopians), giving access to Deir es-Sultan (also disputed), a rooftop monastery surrounding the dome of the Chapel of St Helena.
North of the parvis, in front of the church façade or against it:
Chapel of the Franks (Chapel of Our Lady of Sorrows): a blue-domed Roman Catholic Crusader chapel dedicated to Our Lady of Sorrows, which once provided exclusive access to Calvary. The chapel marks the 10th Station of the Cross (the stripping of Jesus's garments).
Oratory of St. Mary of Egypt: a Greek Orthodox oratory and chapel, directly beneath the Chapel of the Franks, dedicated to St. Mary of Egypt.
The tomb (including a ledgerstone) of Philip d'Aubigny aka Philip Daubeney (died 1236), a knight, tutor, and royal councilor to Henry III of England and signer of the Magna Carta—is placed in front of, and between, the church's two original entrance doors, of which the eastern one is walled up. It is one of the few tombs of crusaders and other Europeans not removed from the Church after the Khwarizmian capture of Jerusalem in 1244. In the 1900s, during a fight between the Greeks and Latins, some monks damaged the tomb by throwing stones from the roof. A stone marker[clarification needed] was placed on his tomb in 1925, sheltered by a wooden trapdoor that hides it from view.[citation needed]
A group of three chapels borders the parvis on its west side. They originally formed the baptistery complex of the Constantinian church. The southernmost chapel was the vestibule, the middle chapel the baptistery, and the north chapel the chamber in which the patriarch chrismated the newly baptized before leading them into the rotunda north of this complex. Now they are dedicated as (from south to north)
The Chapel of St. James the Just (Greek Orthodox),
The Chapel of St. John the Baptist (Greek Orthodox),
The Chapel of the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste (Greek Orthodox; at the base of the bell tower).
The 12th-century Crusader bell tower is just south of the Rotunda, to the left of the entrance. Its upper level was lost in a 1545 collapse. In 1719, another two storeys were lost.
The wooden doors that compose the main entrance are the original, highly carved arched doors. Today, only the left-hand entrance is currently accessible, as the right doorway has long since been bricked up. The entrance to the church leads to the south transept, through the crusader façade in the parvis of a larger courtyard. This is found past a group of streets winding through the outer Via Dolorosa by way of a souq in the Muristan. This narrow way of access to such a large structure has proven to be hazardous at times. For example, when a fire broke out in 1840, dozens of pilgrims were trampled to death.
According to their own family lore, the Muslim Nuseibeh family has been responsible for opening the door as an impartial party to the church's denominations already since the seventh century. However, they themselves admit that the documents held by various Christian denominations only mention their role since the 12th century, in the time of Saladin, which is the date more generally accepted. After retaking Jerusalem from the Crusaders in 1187, Saladin entrusted the Joudeh family with the key to the church, which is made of iron and 30 centimetres (12 in) long; the Nuseibehs either became or remained its doorkeepers.
The 'immovable ladder' stands beneath a window on the façade.
Just inside the church entrance is a stairway leading up to Calvary (Golgotha), traditionally regarded as the site of Jesus's crucifixion and the most lavishly decorated part of the church. The exit is via another stairway opposite the first, leading down to the ambulatory. Golgotha and its chapels are just south of the main altar of the catholicon.
Calvary is split into two chapels: one Greek Orthodox and one Catholic, each with its own altar. On the left (north) side, the Greek Orthodox chapel's altar is placed over the supposed rock of Calvary (the 12th Station of the Cross), which can be touched through a hole in the floor beneath the altar. The rock can be seen under protective glass on both sides of the altar. The softer surrounding stone was removed when the church was built. The Roman Catholic (Franciscan) Chapel of the Nailing of the Cross (the 11th Station of the Cross) stretches to the south. Between the Catholic Altar of the Nailing to the Cross and the Orthodox altar is the Catholic Altar of the Stabat Mater, which has a statue of Mary with an 18th-century bust; this middle altar marks the 13th Station of the Cross.
On the ground floor, just underneath the Golgotha chapel, is the Chapel of Adam. According to tradition, Jesus was crucified over the place where Adam's skull was buried. According to some, the blood of Christ ran down the cross and through the rocks to fill Adam's skull. Through a window at the back of the 11th-century apse, the rock of Calvary can be seen with a crack traditionally held to be caused by the earthquake that followed Jesus's death;[78] some scholars claim it is the result of quarrying against a natural flaw in the rock.
Behind the Chapel of Adam is the Greek Treasury (Treasury of the Greek Patriarch). Some of its relics, such as a 12th-century crystal mitre, were transferred to the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate Museum (the Patriarchal Museum) on Greek Orthodox Patriarchate Street.
Just inside the entrance to the church is the Stone of Anointing (also Stone of the Anointing or Stone of Unction), which tradition holds to be where Jesus's body was prepared for burial by Joseph of Arimathea, though this tradition is only attested since the crusader era (notably by the Italian Dominican pilgrim Riccoldo da Monte di Croce in 1288), and the present stone was only added in the 1810 reconstruction.
The wall behind the stone is defined by its striking blue balconies and taphos symbol-bearing red banners (depicting the insignia of the Brotherhood of the Holy Sepulchre), and is decorated with lamps. The modern mosaic along the wall depicts the anointing of Jesus's body, preceded on the right by the Descent from the Cross, and succeeded on the left by the Burial of Jesus.
The wall was a temporary addition to support the arch above it, which had been weakened after the damage in the 1808 fire; it blocks the view of the rotunda, separates the entrance from the catholicon, sits on top of four of the now empty and desecrated Crusader graves and is no longer structurally necessary. Opinions differ as to whether it is to be seen as the 13th Station of the Cross, which others identify as the lowering of Jesus from the cross and located between the 11th and 12th stations on Calvary.
The lamps that hang over the Stone of Unction, adorned with cross-bearing chain links, are contributed by Armenians, Copts, Greeks and Latins.
Immediately inside and to the left of the entrance is a bench (formerly a divan) that has traditionally been used by the church's Muslim doorkeepers, along with some Christian clergy, as well as electrical wiring. To the right of the entrance is a wall along the ambulatory containing the staircase leading to Golgotha. Further along the same wall is the entrance to the Chapel of Adam.
The rotunda is the building of the larger dome located on the far west side. In the centre of the rotunda is a small chapel called the Aedicule in English, from the Latin aedicula, in reference to a small shrine. The Aedicule has two rooms: the first holds a relic called the Angel's Stone, which is believed to be a fragment of the large stone that sealed the tomb; the second, smaller room contains the tomb of Jesus. Possibly to prevent pilgrims from removing bits of the original rock as souvenirs, by 1555, a surface of marble cladding was placed on the tomb to prevent further damage to the tomb. In October 2016, the top slab was pulled back to reveal an older, partially broken marble slab with a Crusader-style cross carved in it. Beneath it, the limestone burial bed was revealed to be intact.
Under the Status Quo, the Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Armenian Apostolic Churches all have rights to the interior of the tomb, and all three communities celebrate the Divine Liturgy or Holy Mass there daily. It is also used for other ceremonies on special occasions, such as the Holy Saturday ceremony of the Holy Fire led by the Greek Orthodox patriarch (with the participation of the Coptic and Armenian patriarchs). To its rear, in the Coptic Chapel, constructed of iron latticework, lies the altar used by the Coptic Orthodox. Historically, the Georgians also retained the key to the Aedicule.
To the right of the sepulchre on the northwestern edge of the Rotunda is the Chapel of the Apparition, which is reserved for Roman Catholic use.
In the central nave of the Crusader-era church, just east of the larger rotunda, is the Crusader structure housing the main altar of the Church, today the Greek Orthodox catholicon. Its dome is 19.8 metres (65 ft) in diameter, and is set directly over the centre of the transept crossing of the choir where the compas is situated, an omphalos ("navel") stone once thought to be the center of the world and still venerated as such by Orthodox Christians (associated with the site of the Crucifixion and the Resurrection).
Since 1996 this dome is topped by the monumental Golgotha Crucifix, which the Greek Patriarch Diodoros I of Jerusalem consecrated. It was at the initiative of Israeli professor Gustav Kühnel to erect a new crucifix at the church that would not only be worthy of the singularity of the site, but that would also become a symbol of the efforts of unity in the community of Christian faith.
The catholicon's iconostasis demarcates the Orthodox sanctuary behind it, to its east. The iconostasis is flanked to the front by two episcopal thrones: the southern seat (cathedra) is the patriarchal throne of the Greek Orthodox patriarch of Jerusalem, and the northern seat is for an archbishop or bishop. (There is also a popular claim that both are patriarchal thrones, with the northern one being for the patriarch of Antioch — which has been described as a misstatement, however.)
South of the Aedicule is the "Place of the Three Marys", marked by a stone canopy (the Station of the Holy Women) and a large modern wall mosaic. From here one can enter the Armenian monastery, which stretches over the ground and first upper floor of the church's southeastern part.
West of the Aedicule, to the rear of the Rotunda, is the Syriac Chapel with the Tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, located in a Constantinian apse and containing an opening to an ancient Jewish rock-cut tomb. This chapel is where the Syriac Orthodox celebrate their Liturgy on Sundays.
The Syriac Orthodox Chapel of Saint Joseph of Arimathea and Saint Nicodemus. On Sundays and feast days it is furnished for the celebration of Mass. It is accessed from the Rotunda, by a door west of the Aedicule.
On the far side of the chapel is the low entrance to an almost complete first-century Jewish tomb, initially holding six kokh-type funeral shafts radiating from a central chamber, two of which are still exposed. Although this space was discovered relatively recently and contains no identifying marks, some believe that Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus were buried here. Since Jews always buried their dead outside the city, the presence of this tomb seems to prove that the Holy Sepulchre site was outside the city walls at the time of the crucifixion.
The Franciscan Chapel of St. Mary Magdalene – The chapel, an open area, indicates the place where Mary Magdalene met Jesus after his resurrection.
The Franciscan Chapel of the Apparition (Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament), directly north of the above – in memory of Jesus's meeting with his mother after the Resurrection, a non-scriptural tradition. Here stands a piece of an ancient column, allegedly part of the one Jesus was tied to during his scourging.
The Arches of the Virgin are seven arches (an arcade) at the northern end of the north transept, which is to the catholicon's north. Disputed by the Orthodox and the Latin, the area is used to store ladders.
In the northeast side of the complex, there is the Prison of Christ, alleged to be where Jesus was held. The Greek Orthodox are showing pilgrims yet another place where Jesus was allegedly held, the similarly named Prison of Christ in their Monastery of the Praetorium, located near the Church of Ecce Homo, between the Second and Third Stations of the Via Dolorosa. The Armenians regard a recess in the Monastery of the Flagellation at the Second Station of the Via Dolorosa as the Prison of Christ. A cistern among the ruins beneath the Church of St. Peter in Gallicantu on Mount Zion is also alleged to have been the Prison of Christ. To reconcile the traditions, some allege that Jesus was held in the Mount Zion cell in connection with his trial by the Jewish high priest, at the Praetorium in connection with his trial by the Roman governor Pilate, and near the Golgotha before crucifixion.
The chapels in the ambulatory are, from north to south: the Greek Chapel of Saint Longinus (named after Longinus), the Armenian Chapel of the Division of Robes, the entrance to the Chapel of Saint Helena, and the Greek Chapel of the Derision.
Chapel of Saint Helena – between the Chapel of the Division of Robes and the Greek Chapel of the Derision are stairs descending to the Chapel of Saint Helena. The Armenians, who own it, call it the Chapel of St. Gregory the Illuminator, after the saint who brought Christianity to the Armenians.
Chapel of St Vartan (or Vardan) Mamikonian – on the north side of the Chapel of Saint Helena is an ornate wrought iron door, beyond which a raised artificial platform affords views of the quarry, and which leads to the Chapel of Saint Vartan. The latter chapel contains archaeological remains from Hadrian's temple and Constantine's basilica. These areas are open only on request.
Chapel of the Invention of the Cross (named for the Invention (Finding) of the Holy Cross) – another set of 22 stairs from the Chapel of Saint Helena leads down to the Roman Catholic Chapel of the Invention of the Holy Cross, believed to be the place where the True Cross was found.
An Ottoman decree of 1757 helped establish a status quo upholding the state of affairs for various Holy Land sites. The status quo was upheld in Sultan Abdülmecid I's firman (decree) of 1852/3, which pinned down the now-permanent statutes of property and the regulations concerning the roles of the different denominations and other custodians.
The primary custodians are the Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox and Armenian Apostolic churches. The Greek Orthodox act through the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate as well as through the Brotherhood of the Holy Sepulchre. Roman Catholics act through the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land. In the 19th century, the Coptic Orthodox, the Ethiopian Orthodox and the Syriac Orthodox also acquired lesser responsibilities, which include shrines and other structures in and around the building.
None of these controls the main entrance. In 1192, Saladin assigned door-keeping responsibilities to the Muslim Nusaybah family. The wooden doors that compose the main entrance are the original, highly carved doors. The Joudeh al-Goudia (al-Ghodayya) family were entrusted as custodian to the keys of the Holy Sepulchre by Saladin in 1187. Despite occasional disagreements, religious services take place in the Church with regularity and coexistence is generally peaceful. An example of concord between the Church custodians is the full restoration of the Aedicule from 2016 to 2017.
The establishment of the modern Status Quo in 1853 did not halt controversy and occasional violence. In 1902, 18 friars were hospitalized and some monks were jailed after the Franciscans and Greeks disagreed over who could clean the lowest step of the Chapel of the Franks. In the aftermath, the Greek patriarch, Franciscan custos, Ottoman governor and French consul general signed a convention that both denominations could sweep it. On a hot summer day in 2002, a Coptic monk moved his chair from its agreed spot into the shade. This was interpreted as a hostile move by the Ethiopians and eleven were hospitalized after the resulting fight. In another incident in 2004, during Orthodox celebrations of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, a door to the Franciscan chapel was left open. This was taken as a sign of disrespect by the Orthodox and a fistfight broke out. Some people were arrested, but no one was seriously injured.
On Palm Sunday, in April 2008, a brawl broke out when a Greek monk was ejected from the building by a rival faction. Police were called to the scene but were also attacked by the enraged brawlers. On Sunday, 9 November 2008, a clash erupted between Armenian and Greek monks during celebrations for the Feast of the Cross.
In February 2018, the church was closed following a tax dispute over 152 million euros of uncollected taxes on church properties. The city hall stressed that the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and all other churches are exempt from the taxes, with the changes only affecting establishments like "hotels, halls and businesses" owned by the churches. NPR had reported that the Greek Orthodox Church calls itself the second-largest landowner in Israel, after the Israeli government.
There was a lock-in protest against an Israeli legislative proposal which would expropriate church lands that had been sold to private companies since 2010, a measure which church leaders assert constitutes a serious violation of their property rights and the Status Quo. In a joint official statement the church authorities protested what they considered to be the peak of a systematic campaign in:
a discriminatory and racist bill that targets solely the properties of the Christian community in the Holy Land ... This reminds us all of laws of a similar nature which were enacted against the Jews during dark periods in Europe.
The 2018 taxation affair does not cover any church buildings or religious related facilities (because they are exempt by law), but commercial facilities such as the Notre Dame Hotel which was not paying the municipal property tax, and any land which is owned and used as a commercial land. The church holds the rights to land where private homes have been constructed, and some of the disagreement had been raised after the Knesset had proposed a bill that will make it harder for a private company not to extend a lease for land used by homeowners. The church leaders have said that such a bill will make it harder for them to sell church-owned lands. According to The Jerusalem Post:
The stated aim of the bill is to protect homeowners against the possibility that private companies will not extend their leases of land on which their houses or apartments stand.
In June 2019, a number of Christian denominations in Jerusalem raised their voice against the Supreme Court's decision to uphold the sale of three properties by the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate to Ateret Cohanim – an organization that seeks to increase the number of Jews living in the Old City and East Jerusalem. The church leaders warned that if the organization gets to control the sites, Christians could lose access to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. In June 2022, the Supreme Court upheld the sale and ended the legal battle.
The site of the church had been a temple to Jupiter or Venus built by Hadrian before Constantine's edifice was built. Hadrian's temple had been located there because it was the junction of the main north–south road with one of the two main east–west roads and directly adjacent to the forum (now the location of the Muristan, which is smaller than the former forum). The forum itself had been placed, as is traditional in Roman towns, at the junction of the main north–south road with the other main east–west road (which is now El-Bazar/David Street). The temple and forum together took up the entire space between the two main east–west roads (a few above-ground remains of the east end of the temple precinct still survive in the Alexander Nevsky Church complex of the Russian Mission in Exile).
From the archaeological excavations in the 1970s, it is clear that construction took over most of the site of the earlier temple enclosure and that the Triportico and Rotunda roughly overlapped with the temple building itself; the excavations indicate that the temple extended at least as far back as the Aedicule, and the temple enclosure would have reached back slightly further. Virgilio Canio Corbo, a Franciscan priest and archaeologist, who was present at the excavations, estimated from the archaeological evidence that the western retaining wall of the temple itself would have passed extremely close to the east side of the supposed tomb; if the wall had been any further west any tomb would have been crushed under the weight of the wall (which would be immediately above it) if it had not already been destroyed when foundations for the wall were made.
Other archaeologists have criticized Corbo's reconstructions. Dan Bahat, the former city archaeologist of Jerusalem, regards them as unsatisfactory, as there is no known temple of Aphrodite (Venus) matching Corbo's design, and no archaeological evidence for Corbo's suggestion that the temple building was on a platform raised high enough to avoid including anything sited where the Aedicule is now; indeed Bahat notes that many temples to Aphrodite have a rotunda-like design, and argues that there is no archaeological reason to assume that the present rotunda was not based on a rotunda in the temple previously on the site.
The New Testament describes Jesus's tomb as being outside the city wall,[l] as was normal for burials across the ancient world, which were regarded as unclean. Today, the site of the Church is within the current walls of the old city of Jerusalem. It has been well documented by archaeologists that in the time of Jesus, the walled city was smaller and the wall then was to the east of the current site of the Church. In other words, the city had been much narrower in Jesus's time, with the site then having been outside the walls; since Herod Agrippa (41–44) is recorded by history as extending the city to the north (beyond the present northern walls), the required repositioning of the western wall is traditionally attributed to him as well.
The area immediately to the south and east of the sepulchre was a quarry and outside the city during the early first century as excavations under the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer across the street demonstrated.[citation needed]
The church is a part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site Old City of Jerusalem.
The Christian Quarter and the (also Christian) Armenian Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem are both located in the northwestern and western part of the Old City, due to the fact that the Holy Sepulchre is located close to the northwestern corner of the walled city. The adjacent neighbourhood within the Christian Quarter is called the Muristan, a term derived from the Persian word for hospital – Christian pilgrim hospices have been maintained in this area near the Holy Sepulchre since at least the time of Charlemagne.
From the ninth century onward, the construction of churches inspired by the Anastasis was extended across Europe. One example is Santo Stefano in Bologna, Italy, an agglomeration of seven churches recreating shrines of Jerusalem.
Several churches and monasteries in Europe, for instance, in Germany and Russia, and at least one church in the United States have been wholly or partially modeled on the Church of the Resurrection, some even reproducing other holy places for the benefit of pilgrims who could not travel to the Holy Land. They include the Heiliges Grab ("Holy Tomb") of Görlitz, constructed between 1481 and 1504, the New Jerusalem Monastery in Moscow Oblast, constructed by Patriarch Nikon between 1656 and 1666, and Mount St. Sepulchre Franciscan Monastery built by the Franciscans in Washington, DC in 1898.
Author Andrew Holt writes that the church is the most important in all Christendom.
Jerusalem is an ancient city in West Asia, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the oldest cities in the world, and is considered holy to the three major Abrahamic religions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Both Israel and Palestine claim Jerusalem as their capital; Israel maintains its primary governmental institutions there, and the State of Palestine ultimately foresees it as its seat of power. Neither claim, however, is widely recognized internationally.
Throughout its long history, Jerusalem has been destroyed at least twice, besieged 23 times, captured and recaptured 44 times, and attacked 52 times. The part of Jerusalem called the City of David shows first signs of settlement in the 4th millennium BCE, in the shape of encampments of nomadic shepherds. During the Canaanite period (14th century BCE), Jerusalem was named as Urusalim on ancient Egyptian tablets, probably meaning "City of Shalem" after a Canaanite deity. During the Israelite period, significant construction activity in Jerusalem began in the 10th century BCE (Iron Age II), and by the 9th century BCE, the city had developed into the religious and administrative centre of the Kingdom of Judah. In 1538, the city walls were rebuilt for a last time around Jerusalem under Suleiman the Magnificent of the Ottoman Empire. Today those walls define the Old City, which since the 19th century has been divided into four quarters – the Armenian, Christian, Jewish, and Muslim quarters. The Old City became a World Heritage Site in 1981, and is on the List of World Heritage in Danger. Since 1860, Jerusalem has grown far beyond the Old City's boundaries. In 2022, Jerusalem had a population of some 971,800 residents, of which almost 60% were Jews and almost 40% Palestinians. In 2020, the population was 951,100, of which Jews comprised 570,100 (59.9%), Muslims 353,800 (37.2%), Christians 16,300 (1.7%), and 10,800 unclassified (1.1%).
According to the Hebrew Bible, King David conquered the city from the Jebusites and established it as the capital of the United Kingdom of Israel, and his son, King Solomon, commissioned the building of the First Temple. Modern scholars argue that Jews branched out of the Canaanite peoples and culture through the development of a distinct monolatrous—and later monotheistic—religion centred on El/Yahweh. These foundational events, straddling the dawn of the 1st millennium BCE, assumed central symbolic importance for the Jewish people. The sobriquet of holy city (Hebrew: עיר הקודש, romanized: 'Ir ha-Qodesh) was probably attached to Jerusalem in post-exilic times. The holiness of Jerusalem in Christianity, conserved in the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, which Christians adopted as their own "Old Testament", was reinforced by the New Testament account of Jesus's crucifixion and resurrection there. In Sunni Islam, Jerusalem is the third-holiest city, after Mecca and Medina. The city was the first qibla, the standard direction for Muslim prayers (salah), and in Islamic tradition, Muhammad made his Night Journey there in 621, ascending to heaven where he speaks to God, according to the Quran. As a result, despite having an area of only 0.9 km2 (3⁄8 sq mi), the Old City is home to many sites of seminal religious importance, among them the Temple Mount with its Western Wall, Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa Mosque, and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
Today, the status of Jerusalem remains one of the core issues in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. During the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, West Jerusalem was among the areas captured and later annexed by Israel while East Jerusalem, including the Old City, was captured and later annexed by Jordan. Israel captured East Jerusalem from Jordan during the 1967 Six-Day War and subsequently effectively annexed it into Jerusalem, together with additional surrounding territory.[note 6] One of Israel's Basic Laws, the 1980 Jerusalem Law, refers to Jerusalem as the country's undivided capital. All branches of the Israeli government are located in Jerusalem, including the Knesset (Israel's parliament), the residences of the Prime Minister (Beit Aghion) and President (Beit HaNassi), and the Supreme Court. The international community rejects the annexation as illegal and regards East Jerusalem as Palestinian territory occupied by Israel.
Etymology
The name "Jerusalem" is variously etymologized to mean "foundation (Semitic yry' 'to found, to lay a cornerstone') of the pagan god Shalem"; the god Shalem was thus the original tutelary deity of the Bronze Age city.
Shalim or Shalem was the name of the god of dusk in the Canaanite religion, whose name is based on the same root S-L-M from which the Hebrew word for "peace" is derived (Shalom in Hebrew, cognate with Arabic Salam). The name thus offered itself to etymologizations such as "The City of Peace", "Abode of Peace", "Dwelling of Peace" ("founded in safety"), or "Vision of Peace" in some Christian authors.
The ending -ayim indicates the dual, thus leading to the suggestion that the name Yerushalayim refers to the fact that the city initially sat on two hills.
Ancient Egyptian sources
The Execration Texts of the Middle Kingdom of Egypt (c. 19th century BCE), which refer to a city called rwšꜣlmm or ꜣwšꜣmm, variously transcribed as Rušalimum, or Urušalimum, may indicate Jerusalem. Alternatively, the Amarna letters of Abdi-Heba (1330s BCE), which reference an Úrušalim, may be the earliest mention of the city.
Hebrew Bible and Jewish sources
The form Yerushalem or Yerushalayim first appears in the Bible, in the Book of Joshua. According to a Midrash, the name is a combination of two names united by God, Yireh ("the abiding place", the name given by Abraham to the place where he planned to sacrifice his son) and Shalem ("Place of Peace", the name given by high priest Shem).
Oldest written mention of Jerusalem
One of the earliest extra-biblical Hebrew writing of the word Jerusalem is dated to the sixth or seventh century BCE and was discovered in Khirbet Beit Lei near Beit Guvrin in 1961. The inscription states: "I am Yahweh thy God, I will accept the cities of Judah and I will redeem Jerusalem", or as other scholars suggest: "Yahweh is the God of the whole earth. The mountains of Judah belong to him, to the God of Jerusalem". An older example on papyrus is known from the previous century.
In extra-biblical inscriptions, the earliest known example of the -ayim ending was discovered on a column about 3 km west of ancient Jerusalem, dated to the first century BCE.
Jebus, Zion, City of David
An ancient settlement of Jerusalem, founded as early as the Bronze Age on the hill above the Gihon Spring, was, according to the Bible, named Jebus. Called the "Fortress of Zion" (metsudat Zion), it was renamed as the "City of David", and was known by this name in antiquity. Another name, "Zion", initially referred to a distinct part of the city, but later came to signify the city as a whole, and afterwards to represent the whole biblical Land of Israel.
Greek, Roman and Byzantine names
In Greek and Latin, the city's name was transliterated Hierosolyma (Greek: Ἱεροσόλυμα; in Greek hieròs, ἱερός, means holy), although the city was renamed Aelia Capitolina for part of the Roman period of its history.
Salem
The Aramaic Apocryphon of Genesis of the Dead Sea Scrolls (1QapGen 22:13) equates Jerusalem with the earlier "Salem" (שלם), said to be the kingdom of Melchizedek in Genesis 14. Other early Hebrew sources, early Christian renderings of the verse and targumim, however, put Salem in Northern Israel near Shechem (Sichem), now Nablus, a city of some importance in early sacred Hebrew writing. Possibly the redactor of the Apocryphon of Genesis wanted to dissociate Melchizedek from the area of Shechem, which at the time was in possession of the Samaritans. However that may be, later Rabbinic sources also equate Salem with Jerusalem, mainly to link Melchizedek to later Temple traditions.
Arabic names
In Arabic, Jerusalem is most commonly known as القُدس, transliterated as al-Quds and meaning "the holy" or "the holy sanctuary", cognate with Hebrew: הקדש, romanized: ha-qodesh. The name is possibly a shortened form of مدينة القُدس Madīnat al-Quds "city of the holy sanctuary" after the Hebrew nickname with the same meaning, Ir ha-Qodesh (עיר הקדש). The ق (Q) is pronounced either with a voiceless uvular plosive (/q/), as in Classical Arabic, or with a glottal stop (ʔ) as in Levantine Arabic. Official Israeli government policy mandates that أُورُشَلِيمَ, transliterated as Ūrušalīm, which is the name frequently used in Christian translations of the Bible into Arabic, be used as the Arabic language name for the city in conjunction with القُدس, giving أُورُشَلِيمَ-القُدس, Ūrušalīm-al-Quds. Palestinian Arab families who hail from this city are often called "Qudsi" (قُدسي) or "Maqdasi" (مقدسي), while Palestinian Muslim Jerusalemites may use these terms as a demonym.
Given the city's central position in both Jewish nationalism (Zionism) and Palestinian nationalism, the selectivity required to summarize some 5,000 years of inhabited history is often influenced by ideological bias or background. Israeli or Jewish nationalists claim a right to the city based on Jewish indigeneity to the land, particularly their origins in and descent from the Israelites, for whom Jerusalem is their capital, and their yearning for return. In contrast, Palestinian nationalists claim the right to the city based on modern Palestinians' longstanding presence and descent from many different peoples who have settled or lived in the region over the centuries. Both sides claim the history of the city has been politicized by the other in order to strengthen their relative claims to the city, and that this is borne out by the different focuses the different writers place on the various events and eras in the city's history.
Prehistory
The first archaeological evidence of human presence in the area comes in the form of flints dated to between 6000 and 7000 years ago, with ceramic remains appearing during the Chalcolithic period, and the first signs of permanent settlement appearing in the Early Bronze Age in 3000–2800 BCE.
Bronze and Iron Ages
The earliest evidence of city fortifications appear in the Mid to Late Bronze Age and could date to around the 18th century BCE. By around 1550–1200 BCE, Jerusalem was the capital of an Egyptian vassal city-state, a modest settlement governing a few outlying villages and pastoral areas, with a small Egyptian garrison and ruled by appointees such as king Abdi-Heba. At the time of Seti I (r. 1290–1279 BCE) and Ramesses II (r. 1279–1213 BCE), major construction took place as prosperity increased. The city's inhabitants at this time were Canaanites, who are believed by scholars to have evolved into the Israelites via the development of a distinct Yahweh-centric monotheistic belief system.
Archaeological remains from the ancient Israelite period include the Siloam Tunnel, an aqueduct built by Judahite king Hezekiah and once containing an ancient Hebrew inscription, known as the Siloam Inscription; the so-called Broad Wall, a defensive fortification built in the 8th century BCE, also by Hezekiah; the Silwan necropolis (9th–7th c. BCE) with the Monolith of Silwan and the Tomb of the Royal Steward, which were decorated with monumental Hebrew inscriptions; and the so-called Israelite Tower, remnants of ancient fortifications, built from large, sturdy rocks with carved cornerstones. A huge water reservoir dating from this period was discovered in 2012 near Robinson's Arch, indicating the existence of a densely built-up quarter across the area west of the Temple Mount during the Kingdom of Judah.
When the Assyrians conquered the Kingdom of Israel in 722 BCE, Jerusalem was strengthened by a great influx of refugees from the northern kingdom. When Hezekiah ruled, Jerusalem had no fewer than 25,000 inhabitants and covered 25 acres (10 hectares).
In 587–586 BCE, Nebuchadnezzar II of the Neo-Babylonian Empire conquered Jerusalem after a prolonged siege, and then systematically destroyed the city, including Solomon's Temple. The Kingdom of Judah was abolished and many were exiled to Babylon. These events mark the end of the First Temple period.
Biblical account
This period, when Canaan formed part of the Egyptian empire, corresponds in biblical accounts to Joshua's invasion, but almost all scholars agree that the Book of Joshua holds little historical value for early Israel.
In the Bible, Jerusalem is defined as lying within territory allocated to the tribe of Benjamin though still inhabited by Jebusites. David is said to have conquered these in the siege of Jebus, and transferred his capital from Hebron to Jerusalem which then became the capital of a United Kingdom of Israel, and one of its several religious centres. The choice was perhaps dictated by the fact that Jerusalem did not form part of Israel's tribal system, and was thus suited to serve as the centre of its confederation. Opinion is divided over whether the so-called Large Stone Structure and the nearby Stepped Stone Structure may be identified with King David's palace, or dates to a later period.
According to the Bible, King David reigned for 40 years and was succeeded by his son Solomon, who built the Holy Temple on Mount Moriah. Solomon's Temple (later known as the First Temple), went on to play a pivotal role in Jewish religion as the repository of the Ark of the Covenant. On Solomon's death, ten of the northern tribes of Israel broke with the United Monarchy to form their own nation, with its kings, prophets, priests, traditions relating to religion, capitals and temples in northern Israel. The southern tribes, together with the Aaronid priesthood, remained in Jerusalem, with the city becoming the capital of the Kingdom of Judah.
Classical antiquity
In 538 BCE, the Achaemenid King Cyrus the Great invited the Jews of Babylon to return to Judah to rebuild the Temple. Construction of the Second Temple was completed in 516 BCE, during the reign of Darius the Great, 70 years after the destruction of the First Temple.
Sometime soon after 485 BCE Jerusalem was besieged, conquered and largely destroyed by a coalition of neighbouring states. In about 445 BCE, King Artaxerxes I of Persia issued a decree allowing the city (including its walls) to be rebuilt. Jerusalem resumed its role as capital of Judah and centre of Jewish worship.
Many Jewish tombs from the Second Temple period have been unearthed in Jerusalem. One example, discovered north of the Old City, contains human remains in a 1st-century CE ossuary decorated with the Aramaic inscription "Simon the Temple Builder". The Tomb of Abba, also located north of the Old City, bears an Aramaic inscription with Paleo-Hebrew letters reading: "I, Abba, son of the priest Eleaz(ar), son of Aaron the high (priest), Abba, the oppressed and the persecuted, who was born in Jerusalem, and went into exile into Babylonia and brought (back to Jerusalem) Mattathi(ah), son of Jud(ah), and buried him in a cave which I bought by deed." The Tomb of Benei Hezir located in Kidron Valley is decorated by monumental Doric columns and Hebrew inscription, identifying it as the burial site of Second Temple priests. The Tombs of the Sanhedrin, an underground complex of 63 rock-cut tombs, is located in a public park in the northern Jerusalem neighbourhood of Sanhedria. These tombs, probably reserved for members of the Sanhedrin and inscribed by ancient Hebrew and Aramaic writings, are dated to between 100 BCE and 100 CE.
When Alexander the Great conquered the Achaemenid Empire, Jerusalem and Judea came under Macedonian control, eventually falling to the Ptolemaic dynasty under Ptolemy I. In 198 BCE, Ptolemy V Epiphanes lost Jerusalem and Judea to the Seleucids under Antiochus III. The Seleucid attempt to recast Jerusalem as a Hellenized city-state came to a head in 168 BCE with the successful Maccabean revolt of Mattathias and his five sons against Antiochus IV Epiphanes, and their establishment of the Hasmonean Kingdom in 152 BCE with Jerusalem as its capital.
In 63 BCE, Pompey the Great intervened in a struggle for the Hasmonean throne and captured Jerusalem, extending the influence of the Roman Republic over Judea. Following a short invasion by Parthians, backing the rival Hasmonean rulers, Judea became a scene of struggle between pro-Roman and pro-Parthian forces, eventually leading to the emergence of an Edomite named Herod. As Rome became stronger, it installed Herod as a client king of the Jews. Herod the Great, as he was known, devoted himself to developing and beautifying the city. He built walls, towers and palaces, and expanded the Temple Mount, buttressing the courtyard with blocks of stone weighing up to 100 tons. Under Herod, the area of the Temple Mount doubled in size. Shortly after Herod's death, in 6 CE Judea came under direct Roman rule as the Iudaea Province, although the Herodian dynasty through Agrippa II remained client kings of neighbouring territories until 96 CE.
Roman rule over Jerusalem and Judea was challenged in the First Jewish–Roman War (66–73 CE), which ended with a Roman victory. Early on, the city was devastated by a brutal civil war between several Jewish factions fighting for control of the city. In 70 CE, the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and the Second Temple. The contemporary Jewish historian Josephus wrote that the city "was so thoroughly razed to the ground by those that demolished it to its foundations, that nothing was left that could ever persuade visitors that it had once been a place of habitation." Of the 600,000 (Tacitus) or 1,000,000 (Josephus) Jews of Jerusalem, all of them either died of starvation, were killed or were sold into slavery. Roman rule was again challenged during the Bar Kokhba revolt, beginning in 132 CE and suppressed by the Romans in 135 CE. More recent research indicates that the Romans had founded Aelia Capitolina before the outbreak of the revolt, and found no evidence for Bar Kokhba ever managing to hold the city.
Jerusalem reached a peak in size and population at the end of the Second Temple Period, when the city covered two km2 (3⁄4 sq mi) and had a population of 200,000.
Late Antiquity
Following the Bar Kokhba revolt, Emperor Hadrian combined Iudaea Province with neighbouring provinces under the new name of Syria Palaestina, replacing the name of Judea. The city was renamed Aelia Capitolina, and rebuilt it in the style of a typical Roman town. Jews were prohibited from entering the city on pain of death, except for one day each year, during the holiday of Tisha B'Av. Taken together, these measures (which also affected Jewish Christians) essentially "secularized" the city. Historical sources and archaeological evidence indicate that the rebuilt city was now inhabited by veterans of the Roman military and immigrants from the western parts of the empire.
The ban against Jews was maintained until the 7th century, though Christians would soon be granted an exemption: during the 4th century, the Roman emperor Constantine I ordered the construction of Christian holy sites in the city, including the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Burial remains from the Byzantine period are exclusively Christian, suggesting that the population of Jerusalem in Byzantine times probably consisted only of Christians.
Jerusalem.
In the 5th century, the eastern continuation of the Roman Empire, ruled from the recently renamed Constantinople, maintained control of the city. Within the span of a few decades, Jerusalem shifted from Byzantine to Persian rule, then back to Roman-Byzantine dominion. Following Sassanid Khosrau II's early 7th century push through Syria, his generals Shahrbaraz and Shahin attacked Jerusalem (Persian: Dej Houdkh) aided by the Jews of Palaestina Prima, who had risen up against the Byzantines.
In the Siege of Jerusalem of 614, after 21 days of relentless siege warfare, Jerusalem was captured. Byzantine chronicles relate that the Sassanids and Jews slaughtered tens of thousands of Christians in the city, many at the Mamilla Pool, and destroyed their monuments and churches, including the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. This episode has been the subject of much debate between historians. The conquered city would remain in Sassanid hands for some fifteen years until the Byzantine emperor Heraclius reconquered it in 629.
Middle Ages
After the Muslim conquest of the Levant, Byzantine Jerusalem was taken by Umar ibn al-Khattab in 638 CE. Among the first Muslims, it was referred to as Madinat bayt al-Maqdis ("City of the Temple"), a name restricted to the Temple Mount. The rest of the city "was called Iliya, reflecting the Roman name given the city following the destruction of 70 CE: Aelia Capitolina". Later the Temple Mount became known as al-Haram al-Sharif, "The Noble Sanctuary", while the city around it became known as Bayt al-Maqdis, and later still, al-Quds al-Sharif "The Holy, Noble". The Islamization of Jerusalem began in the first year A.H. (623 CE), when Muslims were instructed to face the city while performing their daily prostrations and, according to Muslim religious tradition, Muhammad's night journey and ascension to heaven took place. After 13 years, the direction of prayer was changed to Mecca. In 638 CE the Islamic Caliphate extended its dominion to Jerusalem. With the Muslim conquest, Jews were allowed back into the city. The Rashidun caliph Umar ibn al-Khattab signed a treaty with Christian Patriarch of Jerusalem Sophronius, assuring him that Jerusalem's Christian holy places and population would be protected under Muslim rule. Christian-Arab tradition records that, when led to pray at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, one of the holiest sites for Christians, the caliph Umar refused to pray in the church so that Muslims would not request conversion of the church to a mosque. He prayed outside the church, where the Mosque of Umar (Omar) stands to this day, opposite the entrance to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. According to the Gaullic bishop Arculf, who lived in Jerusalem from 679 to 688, the Mosque of Umar was a rectangular wooden structure built over ruins which could accommodate 3,000 worshipers.
When the Arab armies under Umar went to Bayt Al-Maq
Surf's up! Nikon D810 Photos Pro Women Surfers Surfing! Surf Girl Goddesses! Sports Photography With New Tamron SP 150-600mm F/5-6.3 Di VC USD Lens for Nikon!
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Nikon D810 Photos Pro Women's Surfing Sports Photography Tamron SP 150-600mm F/5-6.3 Di VC USD !
I shot in DX mode which crops away the extra pixels and takes me 1.5X closer while allowing for up to 7 FPS with the Nikon D810's Nikon MB-D12 Battery Grip using the 8 AA battery option! 8 Duracells took me through around 3,000 shots no problem--maybe more! I was shooting at the equivalent of 900mm with the 1.5x crop factor! Pretty close! Had I gone with the Nikon D4s, I would have gotten 12 fps, but no DX crop factor, as the sensor has only around 24mp, compared to the d810's 36 megapixels! Sure the larger pixel size on the Nikon D4s full frame sensor comes in handy indoors or at night, but in the bright sun, there's more than enough light for the smaller pixels in crop mode! Sure we lose some pixels from the outer edges when shooting in DX crop mode, but most of those pixels would be cropped away in Lightroom anyway. And the smaller files make the memory cards last longer, while also upping the FPS to 7 shots per second! Not quite 12 FPS, but still awesome and enough I felt!
What a beautiful way to test the Nikon D810 and Tamron 150-600mm zoom lens for sports photography!
Athletic graceful girl goddesses! Tall, thin, fit and in shape! Pro women's surfers form the van's us open wearing both long wetsuits and bikini bottoms with shorty wetsuit tops/summer wetsuits. Sexy, beautiful beach babes and water goddesses all! Many are professional swimsuit bikini / surf lifestyle models too!
45surf photography! :)
View your artistic mission into photography as an epic odyssey of heroic poetry! Take it from Homer in Homer's Odyssey: "Tell me, O muse, of that ingenious hero who travelled far and wide after he had sacked the famous town of Troy. Many cities did he visit, and many were the nations with whose manners and customs he was acquainted; moreover he suffered much by sea while trying to save his own life and bring his men safely home; but do what he might he could not save his men, for they perished through their own sheer folly in eating the cattle of the Sun-god Hyperion; so the god prevented them from ever reaching home. Tell me, too, about all these things, O daughter of Jove, from whatsoever source you may know them. " --Samuel Butler Translation of Homer's Odyssey
All the best on your Epic Hero's Odyssey from Johnny Ranger McCoy!
...the sun from setting and keep this golden hour a little bit more
Paros, Cyclades. Greece
Canon EOS 6D, Sigma lens
Oral traditions of the Grane are rich in stories of moon-shining, with illicit distilling of whisky providing a welcome supplement to the farm or the loom. The practice was so wide spread that in 1834-48 an excise officer was based in Haslingden to try to prevent it, he was conspicuously unsuccessful.
Allegedly Grane whisky was regularly delivered to a Haslingden Hotel by the daughter of a weaving family. Three or four gallons would fill a hollow metal saddle, concealed beneath bales of woven cloth on a donkey. A similar device was used by a man one night at Haslingden Fair, he wore a metal waist coat containing Grane whiskey, very uncomfortable but full of consolation.
In August 1859 the police raided the house of James Morris at Far Pike Low, it seams that a still-room had been installed in 1803 by his Grandfather. The Morrises where a whisky stilling dynasty. Ames was fined for the offences but this did not seam to deterred him. The 1859 raid was initially unsuccessful, Morris protested his innocence and managed while the police where elsewhere to conceal the coiled copper piping which was the most incriminating piece of the distiller’s equipment. But at the last moment the Police where told to search the well adjacent to the house, there they found pipes and a hidden still room, with a 100 gallon still, 10 gallon cans and tubs and many other items including glasses and measures.
James Morris was fined £230 and costs and to avoid prison had to sell the property and its equipment and stock. The magistrate handing out the fine was non other than Daniel Thwaite who became a brewing magnate in Blackburn.
By 1861 James was living with his family in Roscow Fold in Grane Village. Working as an engine tender at calf hill mill. In all probability he was back at spinning whisky too. It was too much of a coincidence that after the engine house was demolished in 1910, a complete whisky still was discovered.
(extract from a notice board by the ruins)
The Kavadi-bearer observes strict celibacy. Only pure, Sattwic food is taken; he abstains from all sorts of intoxicating drinks and drugs. He thinks of God all the time. Many of the Kavadi-bearers, especially those who do it as a spiritual Sadhana, impose various forms of self-torture. Some pass a sharp little spear through their tongue, which is made to protrude out of the mouth. Others may pass a spear through the cheek. This sort of piercing is done in other parts of the body also. The bearer does not shave; he grows a beard. He eats only once a day. The spear pierced through his tongue or cheek reminds him of the Lord constantly. It also prevents him from speaking. It gives him great power of endurance.
Source - Internet
Featured in the foreground is the Tall Bluestem Grass which made this area one of the best cattle grazing areas in the world.
---"This balance between the National and State governments ought to be dwelt on with peculiar attention, as it is of the utmost importance. It forms a double security to the people. If one encroaches on their rights they will find a powerful protection in the other. Indeed, they will both be prevented from overpassing their constitutional limits by a certain rival ship, which will ever subsist between them." --Alexander Hamilton, speech to the New York Ratifying Convention, 1788
The Paris Pride March took place on the eve of parliamentary elections in France, which are likely to bring the far right to power with with a majority of MPs in the assembly.
The only force capable of preventing this is the left-wing coalition bringing together the main currents of the left and the ecologists.
This left-wing and green force is in the majority in big cities, like the popular 20th arrondissement in Paris where I live. Let's hope it will be heard, despite the media steamroller that favors the far right.
Epic north rim Grand Canyon sunset with a summer thunderstorm breaking!
New Instagram!
Celebrating Dr. E's LAw of Moving Dimensions ^& Dynamic Dimensions Theory dx4/dt=ic which derives from Homer's Odyssey! "Tell me, O muse, of that ingenious hero who travelled far and wide after he had sacked the famous town of Troy. Many cities did he visit, and many were the nations with whose manners and customs he was acquainted; moreover he suffered much by sea while trying to save his own life and bring his men safely home; but do what he might he could not save his men, for they perished through their own sheer folly in eating the cattle of the Sun-god Hyperion; so the god prevented them from ever reaching home. Tell me, too, about all these things, O daughter of Jove, from whatsoever source you may know them." --Homer's Odyssey! herosodysseyphysics.wordpress.com
Drove 60 miles down a rocky dirt road for these shots and camped overnight to shoot this Torweap / Tuweep sunrise! Toroweap, a Paiute terms,"dry or barren valley." And it was! I slept five feet from the edge all night, as I was shooting night shots of a dead tree on the edge, with the canyon and silvered river down below.
New blog celebrating my philosophy of photography with tips, insights, and tutorials!
Ask me any questions! :)
Nikon D810 & Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8G ED AF-S Nikkor Wide Angle Zoom Lens Photos of Tuweep Toroweap Overlook Grand Canyon Arizona! Dr. Elliot McGucken Fine Art Landscape & Nature Photography for Los Angeles Gallery Show !
Will be busy printing and framing in nice large, matted formats and frames and museum glass! Five of these photos will be printed on 40" x 60" floating wall mounted metal sheets! I think I know which--will share photos of the photos hanging on the walls!
And I am mounting some on plexiglass/acryllic--front mounting them! Some I am printing on lossy fuji-crystal archival paper too, and then front mounting 40"x60" versions to plexiglass--will send photos!
The secret to HDR photography is that you want people to say, "Woe dude--that's unreal!" And not, "Dude--that's not real!" "Unreal" is the word they use when they're trying to figure out the photo--what makes it cool--is it a photo? Is it painted? How'd it come to be--how'd you bend the light that way? "That's not real," is what they say if you have the saturation/HDR/ etc. turned up too high. :)
Some (almost) final edits for my Los Angeles Gallery Show! Printing them on metallic paper at 13" x 19" and mounting and framing them on a 4mm 18x24 white mat and 2" dark wood frame. Also printing some 40" x 70" whihc is over three feet by five feet! Wish you all could come (and hang out with the goddesses)!
Let me know your favs.!
New Instagram!
Videos!
I booked a major photography show at a major LA gallery in December! Will also be giving some lectures on the story--the Hero's Odyssey Mythology--behind the photography!
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Preparing for some gallery shows this fall to celebrate 300,000,000 views! Printing a few dozen photographs in ~ 30"x40" formats and mounting/framing. Here are some close-to-final edits. HDR photography 7 exposures shot at 1EV and combined in photomatix: 36 megapixel Nikon D800E with the awesome Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8G ED AF-S Nikkor Wide Angle Zoom Lens. 45SURF Hero's Odyssey Mythology Photography!
Epic Scenic HDR Landscapes Shot with Nikon D800E: Hero's Odyssey Mythology Photography!
Shot with the Nikon Nikkor wide-angle 14-24 mm 2.8 lens!
Seven exposures @ 1EV finished in photomatix.
Enjoy the Hero's Odyssey Mythology Photography, and all the best on a hero's odyssey of your own making!
These were shot with Nikon's best D810 with the 14-24mm wide-angle Nikkor lens. 7 exposures were taken at 1 EV intervals, and combined in photomatix to bring out the shadows and highlights.
Rather large HDR (high dynamic range) photo--you can see great detail both near and far! View the detail at full size!
The Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8G ED AF-S Nikkor Wide Angle Zoom Lens rocks!
High Dynamic Range (HDR) photos rock in capturing the full dynamic range of the scene!
All the best on your epic hero's odyssey from Johnny Ranger McCoy!
Toroweap / Tuweep in the Grand Canyon, Arizona is Beautiful!
New blog celebrating my philosophy of photography with tips, insights, and tutorials!
Nikon D810 Sunrise Photos of Toroweap (Tuweep) Overlook Grand Canyon Arizona! Dr. Elliot McGucken Fine Art Landscape & Nature Photography for Los Angeles Gallery Show !
All the best on your epic hero's odyssey!
New Instagram!
New blog! 45surf.wordpress.com Ask me anything! :)
Brian Dettmer
Prevent Horizon
2008
Altered Books
11-1/4" x 14" x 11-1/2"
Image Courtesy of the Artist and Kinz + Tillou Fine Art
On a recent flight from Nashville, Tennessee to Santa Barbara California, flying on a certain airline not know for the best customer service, I happened to make a couple comments that were frowned upon by the flight crew. They were going to duct tape my mouth to prevent any further outbursts, but realized they'd already used up all their tape, so they made me stand outside for the remainder of the flight.
The mute swan (Cygnus olor) is a species of swan and a member of the waterfowl family Anatidae. It is native to much of Eurosiberia, and (as a rare winter visitor) the far north of Africa. It is an introduced species in North America – home to the largest populations outside of its native range – with additional smaller introductions in Australasia and southern Africa. The name 'mute' derives from it being less vocal than other swan species. Measuring 125 to 170 cm (49 to 67 in) in length, this large swan is wholly white in plumage with an orange beak bordered with black. It is recognizable by its pronounced knob atop the beak, which is larger in males.
Mute swan sub-fossils, 6,000 years old, have been found in post-glacial peat beds of East Anglia, Great Britain. They have been recorded from Ireland east to Portugal and Italy, and from France, 13,000 BP (Desbrosse and Mourer-Chauvire 1972–1973). The paleosubspecies. Cygnus olor bergmanni, which differed only in size from the living bird, is known from fossils found in Azerbaijan. Cygnus Falconeri, another paleosubspecies from the Mediterranean islands of Malta and Sicily, may have been even bigger (one third bigger than Cygnus olor) and flightless.
Adults of this large swan typically range from 140 to 160 cm (55 to 63 in) long, although can range in extreme cases from 125 to 170 cm (49 to 67 in), with a 200 to 240 cm (79 to 94 in) wingspan. Males are larger than females and have a larger knob on their bill. On average, this is the second largest waterfowl species after the trumpeter swan, although male mute swans can easily match or even exceed a male trumpeter in mass. Among standard measurements of the mute swan, the wing chord measures 53–62.3 cm (20.9–24.5 in), the tarsus is 10–11.8 cm (3.9–4.6 in) and the bill is 6.9–9 cm (2.7–3.5 in).
The mute swan is one of the heaviest flying birds. In several studies from Great Britain, males (known as cobs) were found to average from about 10.6 to 11.87 kg (23.4 to 26.2 lb), with a weight range of 9.2–14.3 kg (20–32 lb) while the slightly smaller females (known as pens) averaged about 8.5 to 9.67 kg (18.7 to 21.3 lb), with a weight range of 7.6–10.6 kg (17–23 lb). While the top normal weight for a big cob is roughly 15 kg (33 lb), one unusually big Polish cob weighed almost 23 kg (51 lb) and this counts as the largest weight ever verified for a flying bird, although it has been questioned whether this heavyweight could still take flight.
Young birds, called cygnets, are not the bright white of mature adults, and their bill is dull grayish-black, not orange, for the first year. The down may range from pure white to grey to buff, with grey/buff the most common. The white cygnets have a leucistic gene. Cygnets grow quickly, reaching a size close to their adult size in approximately three months after hatching. Cygnets typically retain their grey feathers until they are at least one year old, with the down on their wings having been replaced by flight feathers earlier that year.
All mute swans are white at maturity, though the feathers (particularly on the head and neck) are often stained orange-brown by iron and tannins in the water.
The mute swan is found naturally mainly in temperate areas of Europe then across the Palearctic as far east as Primorsky Krai, near Sidemi.
It is partially migratory throughout northern latitudes in Europe and Asia, as far south as North Africa and the Mediterranean. It is known and recorded to have nested in Iceland and is a vagrant to that area as well as to Bermuda, according to the UN Environment Program chart of international status chart of bird species, which places it in 70 countries, breeding in 49 countries, and vagrant in 16 countries.[citation needed] While most of the current population in Japan is introduced, mute swans are depicted on scrolls more than 1,000 years old, and wild birds from the mainland Asian population still occur rarely in winter. Natural migrants to Japan usually occur along with whooper and sometimes Bewick's swans.[citation needed]
The mute swan is protected in most of its range, but this has not prevented illegal hunting and poaching. It is often kept in captivity outside its natural range, as a decoration for parks and ponds, and escapes have happened. The descendants of such birds have become naturalized in the eastern United States and Great Lakes, much as the Canada goose has done in Europe.
For more information, please visit en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mute_swan
One way to prevent broken window theory from applying to your down-filtered roadside motel is to just not have any windows at all.
This seems to be the last survivor of the King Oscar chain of motels in the Pacific Northwest, and since the beginning of the pandemic (if not a little bit before that), this motel has provided crucial housing for people who had been living in their cars or on the street or in encampments. It does show some of the signs of that kind of semi-permanent residency, but not all of the signs are so dire as the worst photos in one-star reviews online. There were some outdoor grills, evidence of a nice little BBQ patio party, residents carrying clean loads back from the laundry and enjoying a laugh together. At least some of the rooms are still bookable by travelers. $65 appears to be the going rate on Booking.com for this place.
There are many different germs and infections inside and outside of the healthcare setting. Despite the variety of viruses and bacteria, germs spread from person to person through a common series of events. Therefore, to prevent germs from infecting more people, we must break the chain of infection. No matter the germ, there are six points at which the chain can
be broken and a germ can be stopped from infecting another person. The six links include: the infectious agent, reservoir, portal of exit, mode of transmission, portal of entry, and susceptible host.
• Infectious agent is the pathogen (germ) that causes diseases
• Reservoir includes places in the environment where the pathogen lives (this includes people,
animals and insects, medical equipment, and soil and water)
• Portal of exit is the way the infectious agent leaves the reservoir (through open wounds, aerosols, and splatter of body fluids including coughing, sneezing, and saliva)
• Mode of transmission is the way the infectious agent can be passed on (through direct or indirect contact, ingestion, or inhalation)
• Portal of entry is the way the infectious agent can enter a new host (through broken skin, the respiratory tract, mucous membranes, and catheters and tubes)
• Susceptible host can be any person (the most vulnerable of whom are receiving healthcare, are immunocompromised, or have invasive medical devices including lines, devices, and airways)
The way to stop germs from spreading is by interrupting this chain at any link. Break the chain by cleaning your hands frequently, staying up to date on your vaccines (including the flu shot), covering coughs and sneezes and staying home when sick, following the rules for standard and contact isolation, using personal protective equipment the right way, cleaning and disinfecting the environment, sterilizing medical instruments and equipment, following safe injection practices, and using antibiotics wisely to prevent antibiotic resistance.
For other ways to protect patients, visit
It takes a chain reaction of events for infections to spread to others. The way to stop germs from spreading is by interrupting the chain. When you go into a hospital or other healthcare setting to receive care, you become vulnerable to catching infections. But the good news is that patients, their families, and visitors can take steps to prevent infections by simply knowing the top infection prevention basics!
Are you a healthcare professional? Learn how you can break the chain of infection in healthcare settings.
The best way to stay healthy while visiting the hospital is to speak up for your care. Don’t be shy. After all, we’re talking about your health. Your doctors, your nurses, and other members of your care team want you to have a voice in your care.
So ask questions, voice concerns, and make sure you’re comfortable with the care you are getting while in the hospital or other healthcare facility.
Keeping your hands clean is the number one way to prevent the spread of infection. Clean your hands after using the bathroom; after sneezing, blowing your nose, or coughing; before eating; when visiting someone who is sick; or whenever your hands are dirty.
Make sure that everyone around you, including your healthcare providers and your visitors, do too. Did you see them clean their hands? If not, it’s okay to ask them to clean their hands!
Ask about safe injection practices. Safe injection practices are steps that your healthcare providers should follow when they give injections. For example, not using the same needle or syringe on more than one patient.
Remember: One needle, one syringe, only one time.
Ask to have your room or equipment cleaned. Keeping healthcare facilities clean is extremely important. It’s very easy for germs to be passed from the surfaces to the hands and to other people.
So speak up and ask to have your room or equipment cleaned if they appear dirty or dusty.
Ask questions about the medications that are prescribed to you. Know what they are for, how to take them, how long you should take them, and how often you should take them. If you are taking antibiotics, take them exactly as prescribed, even if you start to feel better.
Using antibiotics the wrong way can cause bacteria to grow into superbugs.
Ask about vaccines you need to stay healthy. The majority of Americans who die each year from vaccine-preventable diseases are adults. Vaccines are a very effective way to prevent the suffering (and costs) associated with vaccine-preventable infections.
Vaccines are among the safest medical products available. The potential risks associated with the diseases these vaccines prevent are much greater than the potential risks associated with the vaccines themselves.
Know about infection preventionists. These germ sleuths work every day to protect you. Your safety is their #1 priority. They strive to keep you, visitors, volunteers, employees, and healthcare providers safe from infection.
Infection preventionists partner with your healthcare team to make sure everyone is doing the right things to keep you safe from healthcare-associated infections.
Become familiar with healthcare-associated infections. Healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) are infections that patients can get while receiving treatment for medical or surgical conditions. No matter where you are—in a hospital, a long-term care facility, outpatient surgery center, dialysis center, doctor’s office, or elsewhere—you are at risk for infections.
These kinds of infections are often preventable.
professionals.site.apic.org/infection-prevention-basics/b...
Evidence always plays a major role in devising a strategy for any global health crisis – it becomes even more important when the circumstances of that crisis continuously evolve. With the total count of Coronavirus patients exceeding 885,000 across more than 170 countries, it is clear that COVID-19 is a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic and a crisis of unprecedented magnitude.Italy and Spain now have over 100,000 confirmed cases of the virus, while the US will soon pass the 200,000 mark. The lesson from these developments is clear: we must abandon the assumptions that COVID-19 will be contained without drastic public health interventions. On 16 March, researchers from Imperial College of London announced a searing report on the impact of an uncontrolled pandemic, that describes the cost of inaction: approximately 510,000 deaths in the UK and 2.2 million in the US. The report highlighted that infections would peak by the middle of June and, without effective policies in place, could lead to as many as 55,000 deaths on the worst day. This scenario is corroborated by emerging evidence suggesting that younger adults, who were previously thought to be less affected – are also prone to developing severe forms of the coronavirus infection. Upon publication of the report, the UK government changed its previous policy of “building herd immunity” and the US reinforced its approach to adopt stricter measures towards containing the spread of the infection.While the numbers in the report are sobering, it does provide guidance on how to develop a global health strategy for containing COVID-19. To be successful, all major countries around the world must act now.
The report described two major approaches available for containing COVID-19. One is mitigation: slowing down the spread of the epidemic but not interrupting the transmission completely, while ensuring the healthcare needs for those who are at risk of developing serious forms of the infection are met. This approach, which includes “social distancing” along with isolation and quarantining of cases, is unlikely to contain the pandemic and may result in the death of thousands of patients while severely burdening health systems, especially available intensive care units. As such, the researchers recommend the second approach, suppression, as more optimal. Suppression refers to a reversal of epidemic spread by reducing the infectivity of the coronavirus and continued maintenance of this approach for up to 18 months. A reversal of spread can be achieved by the implementation of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPI). These include strict lockdown measures – social distancing in entire populations, the closure of schools and community spaces – and extending these measures until vaccines can be developed. Infectivity of COVID-19 is determined by its reproduction number, or R0 (pronounced R naught), which current epidemiological estimates suggest lies between 1.5 to 3. This means that every COVID-19 patient can infect up to three other people on average. The suppression strategy will require the elimination of human-to-human transmission by lowering the R0 to less than one, which is postulated to halt the spread of the infection. Mitigation strategies, the researchers observe, are unlikely to reduce R0 to less than one. To achieve these metrics, the first step would be to test as many individuals as possible even the ones who may not exhibit symptoms. This is important because coronavirus infection has a longer incubation period of 1-14 days (compared to 1-4 days in flu) and emerging evidence suggests that people with mild or no symptoms may be responsible for the rapid spread of the infection. This approach was also underscored by the Director-General of the World Health Organization), Dr Tedros Ghebreyesus, who highlighted the importance of “breaking the chains of transmission”. This identification of infected individuals by rapid and reliable testing will be crucial to building an effective approach to impede the spread of the infection. The next critical step will be case isolation and voluntary home quarantines. These NPIs should be supplemented by strict social distancing with people maintaining almost six feet of distance along with the closure of schools, universities, bars, and other areas of social gatherings. This is especially important because recent investigation suggests that coronavirus is viable in aerosols for hours and on surfaces for days. The suppression strategy will also ensure that healthcare systems are not overburdened and capacity for critical care is preserved – a practice that has come to be known as “flattening the curve”. Failure to suppress the transmission of infection in countries like Italy has been responsible for the decimation of its healthcare systems leading to thousands of deaths. The implementation of these suppression strategies is also the reason that countries in Asia, such as Singapore, Hong Kong SAR and Taiwan, China, have succeeded in maintaining low case counts of COVID-19. Learning from the experiences of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) epidemic of 2003 and swine flu of 2009, these countries instituted strict travel controls and rapid screening and contact tracing of infected individuals. To develop resilient response systems that can halt the transmission, these countries also escalated the production of tests for COVID-19 soon after the genetic sequence of the virus became available. Singapore even enacted mandatory quarantines with criminal penalties for violators. Although some experts have highlighted the limited applicability of complete lockdown measures in developing economies, such countries can still benefit from implementing strict mitigation strategies.With a case fatality rate of up to 3.4% and up to 60% of the global population at risk, many of these measures may seem drastic, but they are also necessary to halt the transmission of this deadly pathogen. It may even seem an overreaction to an epidemic that is not well understood and where comprehensive data is missing. However, given the trajectory of the infection in Italy and the rapid collapse of its entire health system, it is prudent to exercise extreme caution to prevent other countries from trailing that path. In moments of extreme uncertainty, the judgement of leaders is as important as evidence. To combat the pandemic of COVID-19, we will need to sacrifice short-term comforts for long-term gains. More than evidence, this will require courage on the part of national leaders; their next step will become a part of their legacy.
www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/04/covid-19-containment-suppr...