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It's the first shot I post here from my vacation with my darling in Karlovy Vary [Carlsbad] , it's a spa city situated in western Bohemia, Czech Republic, on the confluence of the rivers Ohře and Teplá, approximately 130 km (80.78 miles) west of Prague. It is named after King of Bohemia and Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV, who founded the city in 1370. It is historically famous for its hot springs (13 main springs, about 300 smaller springs, and the warm-water Teplá River).
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Canon 50D
Canon 50mm f1.8II
Me on Facebook
Uhlerstown-Frenchtown bridge from New Jersey to Pennsylvania, across the Delaware River
35mm plastic camera.
I recently bought two of the Atlas trainman bulkhead flats. These cars were virtually new during the time period I model so they've been given very little weathering. The load is some evergreen styrene tube I had laying around with strapping made from thin strips of electrical tape.
Agecroft Hall
Agecroft Hall rests serenely on the banks of the James River in Richmond, Virginia, more than 3,000 miles from its original home overlooking the River Irwell in Lancashire, England. Situated today in Richmond's Windsor Farms neighborhood, it is not a reconstruction, but a synthesis of Tudor and 20th century styles. It incorporates many of the decorative features and some of the structural elements of the original Agecroft Hall in England. It boasts original windows, ornately paneled wood interiors, period paintings and lavish furnishings.
The grounds and gardens add to Agecroft Hall's charm. Visitors are attracted to the stately boxwoods, aromatic roses, and medicinal herbs, all typical of an English manor home of days gone by. Agecroft Hall is more than a tribute to the past. Today, its exhibits and various programs have helped history come to life for generations of modern visitors.
Source: www.agecrofthall.com/View.aspx?page=about
The story of Agecroft Hall begins more than 500 years ago in the northwestern county of Lancashire, England. Thereafter follows a long and colorful history that documents the lives of the Langley and Dauntesey families in Lancashire and the Williams family in America. Much of the information known about Agecroft and its inhabitants comes from archival material that was preserved at Agecroft until the early 20th century. These remarkable documents, some of which are retained at Agecroft today, include deeds, settlements, and royal letters dated between 1199 and 1926.
Agecroft Hall was built on land in the Irwell River Valley, between the villages of Prestwich and Pendlebury, not far from the city of Manchester. The house was constructed in stages over the course of many years, and was expanded according to the needs of the residents. The greatest expansion took place under the auspices of William Dauntesey in the mid-16th century.
By the late 16th century, Agecroft was a quadrangular structure surrounding a central courtyard. The house contained approximately 20 rooms, including a kitchen, great hall, great parlor, dining parlor, several bedchambers, and a private chapel.
In 1561, Sir Robert Langley, last of the male Langley heirs, died, leaving Agecroft and adjoining lands in Pendlebury to his daughter, Ann Langley. She married William Dauntesey of London and Wiltshire sometime before 1570. Upon their marriage, Agecroft Hall became the property of of the Dauntesey family and remained so until 1811. Thereafter, as was often the custom when distant relatives inherited English estates, subsequent owners assumed the Dauntesey name.
Developments during the Industrial Revolution, such as the discovery and mining of coal near the house and the placement of railroad tracks through the property, led to the deterioration of the house. in 1867, attempts to modernize Agecroft resulted in the destruction of much of the interior of the original building. Additional modernization took place in 1894 after a serious fire destroyed the east and south wings of the house.
Finally, with increasing industrial development, the residents of Agecroft moved away. The house was unoccupied from 1904 until 1925 when it was put up for auction.
Source: www.agecrofthall.com/View.aspx?page=history/england
Rebuilding in America
Mr. Thomas C. Williams, Jr. of Richmond, Virginia, a wealthy entrepreneur, purchased Agecroft Hall upon the advice of this architect, Henry G. Morse. Mr. Williams, whose financial interests included tobacco, banking, and shipping, wished to build a true English manor house on his 23 acres overlooking the James River. Agecroft was dismantled, crated, transported across the ocean, and reconstructed in Richmond's Windsor Farms neighborhood. Windsor Farms was the fashionable new neighborhood being developed by Mr. Williams on the Williams' family farm site which had long been known as 'Windsor.'
The architect, Mr. Morse, was retained to oversee the reconstruction. The intention was not to replicate Agecroft as it had stood in Lancashire, but rather to create a functional and comfortable house reminiscent of its English predecessor. The original floor plan was abandoned and many 20th century conveniences were included. Reconstruction took two years and cost approximately $250,000, a considerable sum for that time. The project was completed during the spring of 1928.
Sadly, the following year Mr. Williams died. With great foresight and generosity, he stipulated in his will that upon his widow's death or relocation, Agecroft Hall would become a house museum. The core of the endowment for the museum came from the estates of Mr. Williams, his brother, A.D. Williams, and his sister, Sue Williams Massie. The museum is administered by the Agecroft Association, under the control of a Board of Trustees. The house and gardens opened to the public in 1969.
Along the Boquillas Canyon Trail. Looking east-northeastward.
This is one of my all-time favorite structural-geology photos (of those taken by me, that is).
This visit occurred in the late afternoon, and the walls of this great breach in the Sierra del Carmen were bathed in golden light. I actually like the fact that this slide transfer is distinctly smudgy-impressionist in some places and grainy-pointillist in others. Not a crisp digital image to be sure, but rather painterly.
What's visible here is mostly or entirely the cliff-forming Lower Cretaceous Santa Elena Limestone. Since the late Mesozoic it has been subjected to two episodes of supersized crustal disturbance:
- compression of the Laramide Orogeny (Upper Cretaceous to Lower Tertiary), which build a great monocline of strata warping upwards toward the northeast like a giant stair step; and
- Upper Tertiary to Lower Quaternary extension as part of the Rio Grande Rift / Basin and Range stretching of a huge portion of western North America. This created a series of normal faults and fault blocks—with the down-dropped blocks called grabens (also known as bolsons).
In this vista one doesn't have to be a trained structural geologist to see that the brightly illuminated fault block on the far side of the Rio Grande is tilting quite dramatically to the left (northward). As the angled Santa Elena strata show, it's slumping down toward the graben beyond it. The imposing west-facing fault scarp of the Sierra del Carmen was also produced by this Basin and Range activity.
To see the other photos and descriptions in this set and my other Big Bend series, visit my my From Persimmon Gap to Boquillas Canyon album.
First responders from across the country were in Virginia Beach for a massive structural collapse training exercise hosted by the Virginia Beach Fire Department and Virginia Task Force 2. The annual School was held at the sprawling complex of crawl spaces and staged disaster zones representing different scenarios – things first responders have seen and experienced first-hand. This course gives urban search and rescue teams a chance to practice their skills. More than 160 people took part in the hands-on training lasting for 8 days with students coming from as far as San Francisco, California, Texas, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Delaware.
Photographs by Craig McClure
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© 2021
ALL Rights reserved by City of Virginia Beach.
Contact photo[at]vbgov.com for permission to use. Commercial use not allowed.
An abstract from Wikipedia
The Hundertwasserhaus is an apartment house in Vienna, Austria, built after the idea and concept of Austrian artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser with architect Joseph Krawina as a co-creator. This expressionist landmark of Vienna is located in the Landstraße district on the corner of Kegelgasse and Löwengasse. The Hundertwasser House is one of Vienna's most visited buildings and has become part of Austria's cultural heritage.
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Art washes away from the soul, the dust of everyday life.
- Henri Matisse
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Sculpture group Shoal Fly By (2003) by Bellemo & Cat at Docklands, Melbourne's precinct centre.
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NO GIFS AND ANIMATED ICONS, PLEASE!
Kaiping Diaolou and Villages feature the Diaolou, multi-storeyed defensive village houses in Kaiping, which display a complex and flamboyant fusion of Chinese and Western structural and decorative forms. They reflect the significant role of émigré Kaiping people in the development of several countries in South Asia, Australasia and North America, during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. There are four groups of Diaolou and twenty of the most symbolic ones are inscribed on the List. These buildings take three forms: communal towers built by several families and used as temporary refuge, residential towers built by individual rich families and used as fortified residences, and watch towers. Built of stone, pise, brick or concrete, these buildings represent a complex and confident fusion between Chinese and Western architectural styles. Retaining a harmonious relationship with the surrounding landscape, the Diaolou testify to the final flowering of local building traditions that started in the Ming period in response to local banditry.
This was taken at Liberty Village, King West area. I see it all the time since I live in the area; but this time, it somehow looked different (better) so I had to capture it.
This photo has been featured in Torontoist Weekly Photo Roundup, Issue #82.
Borgund Stave Church (Norwegian: Borgund stavkyrkje) is a former parish church of the Church of Norway in Lærdal Municipality in Vestland county, Norway. It was built around the year 1200 as the village church of Borgund, and belonged to Lærdal parish (part of the Sogn prosti (deanery) in the Diocese of Bjørgvin) until 1868, when its religious functions were transferred to a "new" Borgund Church, which was built nearby. The old church was restored, conserved and turned into a museum. It is funded and run by the Society for the Preservation of Ancient Norwegian Monuments, and is classified as a triple-nave stave church of the Sogn-type. Its grounds contain Norway's sole surviving stave-built free-standing bell tower.
Borgund Stave Church was built sometime between 1180 and 1250 AD with later additions and restorations. Its walls are formed by vertical wooden boards, or staves, hence the name "stave church." The four corner posts are connected to one another by ground sills, resting on a stone foundation. The intervening staves rise from the ground sills; each is tongued and grooved, to interlock with its neighbours and form a sturdy wall. The exterior timber surfaces are darkened by protective layers of tar, distilled from pine.
Borgund is built on a basilica plan, with reduced side aisles, and an added chancel and apse. It has a raised central nave demarcated on four sides by an arcade. An ambulatory runs around this platform and into the chancel and apse, both added in the 14th century. An additional ambulatory, in the form of a porch, runs around the exterior of the building, sheltered under the overhanging shingled roof. The floor plan of this church resembles that of a central plan, double-shelled Greek cross with an apse attached to one end in place of the fourth arm. The entries to the church are in the three shorter arms of the cross.
Structurally, the building has been described as a "cube within a cube", each independent of the other. The inner "cube" is formed by continuous columns that rise from ground level to support the roof. The top of the arcade is formed by arched buttresses, knee jointed to the columns. Above the arcade, the columns are linked by cross-shaped, diagonal trusses, commonly dubbed "Saint Andrew's crosses"; these carry arched supports that offer the visual equivalent of a "second storey". While not a functional gallery, this is reminiscent of contemporary second story galleries of large stone churches elsewhere in Europe. Smaller beams running between these upper supporting columns help clamp everything firmly together. The weight of the roof is thus supported by buttresses and columns, preventing downward and outward movement of the stave walls.
The roof beams are supported by steeply angled scissor trusses that form an "X" shape with a narrow top span and a broader bottom span, tied by a bottom truss to prevent collapse. Additional support is given by a truss that cuts across the "X", below the crossing point but above the bottom truss. The roof is steeply pitched, boarded horizontally and clad with shingles. The original outer roof would have been weatherproofed with boards laid lengthwise, rather than shingles. In later years wooden shingles became more common. Scissor beam roof construction is typical of most stave churches.
Borgund has tiered, overhanging roofs, topped at their intersection by a shingle-roofed tower or steeple. On each of its four gables is a stylised "dragon" head, swooping from the carved roof ridge crests, Hohler remarks their similarity to the carved dragon heads found on the prows of Norse ships. Similar gable heads appear on small bronze church-shaped reliquaries common in Norway and Europe in this period. Borgund's current dragon heads are possible 18th century replacements; similar, original dragon heads remain on older structures, such as Lom Stave Church and nearby Urnes Stave Church. Borgund is one of the only stave churches to have preserved its crested ridge caps. They are carved with openwork vine and entangled plant designs.
The four outer dragon heads are perhaps the most distinctive of all non-Christian symbols adorning Borgund Stave Church. Their function is uncertain, and disputed; if pagan, they are recruited to the Christian cause in the battle between Good and Evil. They may have been intended to keep away evil spirits thought to threaten the church building; to ward off evil, rather than represent it,
On the lower side panel of the steeple are four carved circular cutouts. The carvings are weather-beaten, tarred and difficult to decipher, and there is disagreement about what they symbolize. Some[who?] believe they represent the four evangelists, symbolised by an eagle, an ox, a lion and a man. Hauglid describes the carvings as "dragons that extend their heads over to the neighboring field's dragon and bite into it", and points out their similarity to carvings at Høre Stave Church.
The church's west portal (the nave's main entrance), is surrounded by a larger carving of dragons biting each other in the neck and tail. At the bottom of the half-columns that flank the front entrance, two dragon heads spew vine stalks that wind upwards and are braided into the dragons above. The carving shares similarities with the west portal of Ål Stave Church, which also has kites[clarification needed] in a band braiding pattern, and follows the usual composition[clarification needed] in the Sogn-Valdres portals, a larger group of portals with very clear similarities. Bugge writes that Christian authority may have come to terms with such pagan and "wild scenes" in the church building because the rift could be interpreted as a struggle between good and evil; in Christian medieval art, the dragon was often used as a symbol of the devil himself but Bugge believes that the carvings were protective, like the dragon heads on the church roof.
The church interior is dark, as not much daylight enters the building. Some of the few sources of natural light are narrow circular windows along the roof, examples of daylighting. It was supposed that the narrow apertures would prevent the entry of evil spirits. Three entrances are heavily adorned with foliage and snakes, and are only wide enough for one person to enter, supposedly preventing the entry of evil spirits alongside the churchgoers. The portals were originally painted green, red, black, and white.
Most of the internal fittings have been removed. There is little in the building, apart from the row of benches that are installed along the wall inside the church in the ambulatory outside of the arcade and raised platform, a soapstone font, an altar (with 17th-century altarpiece), a 16th-century lectern, and a 16th-century cupboard for storing altar vessels. After the Reformation, when the church was converted for Protestant worship, pews, a pulpit and other standard church furnishings were included, however these have been removed since the building has come under the protection of the Fortidsminneforeningen (The Society for the Preservation of Norwegian Ancient Monuments).
The interior structure of the church is characterized by the twelve free-standing columns that support the nave's elevated central space. On the long side of the church there is a double interval between the second and third pillars, but with a half pillar resting on the lower bracing beam (the pier) which runs in between. The double interval provides free access from the south portal to the church's central compartment, which would otherwise have been obstructed by the middle bar. The tops of the poles are finished with grotesque, carved human and animal masks. The tie-bars are secured with braces in the form of St. Andrew's crosses with a sun - shaped center and carved leaf shapes along the arms. The crosses reappear in less ornate form as braces along the church walls. On the north and south sides of the nave, a total of eight windows let in small amounts of light, and at the top of the nave's west gable is a window of more recent date - probably from pre-Reformation times. On the south wall of the nave, the inauguration crosses are still on the inside of the wall. The interior choir walls and west portal have engraved figures and runes, some of which date to the Middle Ages. One, among the commonest of runic graffiti, reads "Ave Maria". An inscription by Þórir (Thor), written "in the evening at St. Olav's Mass" blames the pagan Norns for his problems; perhaps a residue of ancient beliefs, as these female beings were thought to rule the personal destinies of all in Norse mythology and the Poetic Edda.
The medieval interior of the stave church is almost untouched, save for its restorations and repairs, though the medieval crucifix was removed after the Reformation. The original wooden floor and the benches that run along the walls of the nave are largely intact, together with a medieval stone altar and a box-shaped baptismal font in soapstone. The pulpit is from the period 1550–1570 and the altarpiece dates from 1654, while the frame around the tablet is dated to 1620. The painting on the altarpiece shows the crucifixion in the centre, flanked by the Virgin Mary on the left and John the Baptist on the right. In the tympanum field, a white dove hovers on a blue background. Below the painting is an inscription with golden letters on a black background. A sacrament from the period 1550–1570 in the same style as the pulpit is also preserved. A restoration of the building was carried out in the early 1870s, led by the architect Christian Christie, who removed benches, a second-floor gallery with seating, a ceiling over the chancel, and various windows including two large windows on the north and south sides. As the goal was to return the church to pre-Reformation condition, all post-Reformation interior paintwork was also removed.
Images from the 1990s show deer antlers hung on the lower, east-facing pillars. A local story claims that this is all that remains of a whole stuffed reindeer, shot when it tried to enter during a Mass. A travelogue from 1668 claims that a reindeer was shot during a sermon "when it marched like a wizard in front of the other animal carcasses"
To the south of the church is a free-standing stave-work bell tower that covers remnants of the mediaeval foundry used to cast the church bell. It was probably built in the mid-13th century. It is Norway's only remaining free-standing stave-work bell tower.It was given a new door around the year 1700 but this was removed and not replaced at some time between the 1920s and 1940s, leaving the foundry pit was exposed. To preserve the interior, new walls were built as cladding on the outside of the stave walls in the 1990s. One of the medieval bells is on display in the new Borgund church.
Management
In 1868 the building was abandoned as a church but was turned into a museum; this saved it from the commonplace demolition of stave churches in that period. A new Borgund Church was built in 1868 a short distance south of the old church. The old church has not been formally used for religious purposes since that year. Borgund Stave Church was bought by the Society for the Preservation of Ancient Norwegian Monuments in 1877. The first guidebook in English for the stave church was published in 1898. From 2001, the Norwegian Directorate for Cultural Heritage has funded a program to research, restore, conserve and maintain stave churches.
Legacy
The church served as an example for the reconstruction of the Fantoft Stave Church in Fana, Bergen, in 1883 and for its rebuilding in 1997. The Gustav Adolf Stave Church in Hahnenklee, Germany, built in 1908, is modeled on the Borgund church. Four replicas exist in the United States, one at Chapel in the Hills, Rapid City, South Dakota, another in Lyme, Connecticut, the third on Washington Island, Wisconsin, and the fourth in Minot, North Dakota at the Scandinavian Heritage Park.
Borgund is a former municipality in Sogn og Fjordane county, Norway. It was located in the southeastern part of the traditional district of Sogn. The 635-square-kilometre (245 sq mi) municipality existed from 1864 until its dissolution in 1964. It encompassed an area in the eastern part of the present-day Lærdal Municipality. The administrative center of Borgund was the village of Steinklepp, just northeast of the village of Borgund. Steinklepp was the site of a store, a bank, and a school. The historical Filefjell Kongevegen road passes through the Borgund area.
Location
The former municipality of Borgund was situated near the southeastern end of the Sognefjorden, along the Lærdalselvi river. The lower parts of the municipality were farms such as Sjurhaugen and Nedrehegg. They were at an elevation of about 270 m (890 ft) above sea level. Høgeloft, on the border with the neighboring municipality of Hemsedal, is a mountain in the Filefjell range and it was the highest point in Borgund at 1,920 m (6,300 ft) above sea level. The lakes Eldrevatnet, Juklevatnet, and Øljusjøen were also located near the border with Hemsedal.
History
Borgund was established as a municipality in 1864 when it was separated from the municipality of Lærdal. Initially it had a population of 963. During the 1960s, there were many municipal mergers across Norway due to the work of the Schei Committee. On 1 January 1964, the municipality of Borgund (population: 492) was merged with the Muggeteigen area (population: 11) of the neighboring Årdal Municipality and all of Lærdal Municipality (population: 1,755) were all merged to form a new, larger municipality of Lærdal
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway , is a Nordic , European country and an independent state in the west of the Scandinavian Peninsula . Geographically speaking, the country is long and narrow, and on the elongated coast towards the North Atlantic are Norway's well-known fjords . The Kingdom of Norway includes the main country (the mainland with adjacent islands within the baseline ), Jan Mayen and Svalbard . With these two Arctic areas, Norway covers a land area of 385,000 km² and has a population of approximately 5.5 million (2023). Mainland Norway borders Sweden in the east , Finland and Russia in the northeast .
Norway is a parliamentary democracy and constitutional monarchy , where Harald V has been king and head of state since 1991 , and Jonas Gahr Støre ( Ap ) has been prime minister since 2021 . Norway is a unitary state , with two administrative levels below the state: counties and municipalities . The Sami part of the population has, through the Sami Parliament and the Finnmark Act , to a certain extent self-government and influence over traditionally Sami areas. Although Norway has rejected membership of the European Union through two referendums , through the EEA Agreement Norway has close ties with the Union, and through NATO with the United States . Norway is a significant contributor to the United Nations (UN), and has participated with soldiers in several foreign operations mandated by the UN. Norway is among the states that have participated from the founding of the UN , NATO , the Council of Europe , the OSCE and the Nordic Council , and in addition to these is a member of the EEA , the World Trade Organization , the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development and is part of the Schengen area .
Norway is rich in many natural resources such as oil , gas , minerals , timber , seafood , fresh water and hydropower . Since the beginning of the 20th century, these natural conditions have given the country the opportunity for an increase in wealth that few other countries can now enjoy, and Norwegians have the second highest average income in the world, measured in GDP per capita, as of 2022. The petroleum industry accounts for around 14% of Norway's gross domestic product as of 2018. Norway is the world's largest producer of oil and gas per capita outside the Middle East. However, the number of employees linked to this industry fell from approx. 232,000 in 2013 to 207,000 in 2015.
In Norway, these natural resources have been managed for socially beneficial purposes. The country maintains a welfare model in line with the other Nordic countries. Important service areas such as health and higher education are state-funded, and the country has an extensive welfare system for its citizens. Public expenditure in 2018 is approx. 50% of GDP, and the majority of these expenses are related to education, healthcare, social security and welfare. Since 2001 and until 2021, when the country took second place, the UN has ranked Norway as the world's best country to live in . From 2010, Norway is also ranked at the top of the EIU's democracy index . Norway ranks third on the UN's World Happiness Report for the years 2016–2018, behind Finland and Denmark , a report published in March 2019.
The majority of the population is Nordic. In the last couple of years, immigration has accounted for more than half of population growth. The five largest minority groups are Norwegian-Poles , Lithuanians , Norwegian-Swedes , Norwegian-Syrians including Syrian Kurds and Norwegian-Pakistani .
Norway's national day is 17 May, on this day in 1814 the Norwegian Constitution was dated and signed by the presidency of the National Assembly at Eidsvoll . It is stipulated in the law of 26 April 1947 that 17 May are national public holidays. The Sami national day is 6 February. "Yes, we love this country" is Norway's national anthem, the song was written in 1859 by Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson (1832–1910).
Norway's history of human settlement goes back at least 10,000 years, to the Late Paleolithic , the first period of the Stone Age . Archaeological finds of settlements along the entire Norwegian coast have so far been dated back to 10,400 before present (BP), the oldest find is today considered to be a settlement at Pauler in Brunlanes , Vestfold .
For a period these settlements were considered to be the remains of settlers from Doggerland , an area which today lies beneath the North Sea , but which was once a land bridge connecting today's British Isles with Danish Jutland . But the archaeologists who study the initial phase of the settlement in what is today Norway reckon that the first people who came here followed the coast along what is today Bohuslân. That they arrived in some form of boat is absolutely certain, and there is much evidence that they could easily move over large distances.
Since the last Ice Age, there has been continuous settlement in Norway. It cannot be ruled out that people lived in Norway during the interglacial period , but no trace of such a population or settlement has been found.
The Stone Age lasted a long time; half of the time that our country has been populated. There are no written accounts of what life was like back then. The knowledge we have has been painstakingly collected through investigations of places where people have stayed and left behind objects that we can understand have been processed by human hands. This field of knowledge is called archaeology . The archaeologists interpret their findings and the history of the surrounding landscape. In our country, the uplift after the Ice Age is fundamental. The history of the settlements at Pauler is no more than fifteen years old.
The Fosna culture settled parts of Norway sometime between 10,000–8,000 BC. (see Stone Age in Norway ). The dating of rock carvings is set to Neolithic times (in Norway between 4000 BC to 1700 BC) and show activities typical of hunters and gatherers .
Agriculture with livestock and arable farming was introduced in the Neolithic. Swad farming where the farmers move when the field does not produce the expected yield.
More permanent and persistent farm settlements developed in the Bronze Age (1700 BC to 500 BC) and the Iron Age . The earliest runes have been found on an arrowhead dated to around 200 BC. Many more inscriptions are dated to around 800, and a number of petty kingdoms developed during these centuries. In prehistoric times, there were no fixed national borders in the Nordic countries and Norway did not exist as a state. The population in Norway probably fell to year 0.
Events in this time period, the centuries before the year 1000, are glimpsed in written sources. Although the sagas were written down in the 13th century, many hundreds of years later, they provide a glimpse into what was already a distant past. The story of the fimbul winter gives us a historical picture of something that happened and which in our time, with the help of dendrochronology , can be interpreted as a natural disaster in the year 536, created by a volcanic eruption in El Salvador .
In the period between 800 and 1066 there was a significant expansion and it is referred to as the Viking Age . During this period, Norwegians, as Swedes and Danes also did, traveled abroad in longships with sails as explorers, traders, settlers and as Vikings (raiders and pirates ). By the middle of the 11th century, the Norwegian kingship had been firmly established, building its right as descendants of Harald Hårfagre and then as heirs of Olav the Holy . The Norwegian kings, and their subjects, now professed Christianity . In the time around Håkon Håkonsson , in the time after the civil war , there was a small renaissance in Norway with extensive literary activity and diplomatic activity with Europe. The black dew came to Norway in 1349 and killed around half of the population. The entire state apparatus and Norway then entered a period of decline.
Between 1396 and 1536, Norway was part of the Kalmar Union , and from 1536 until 1814 Norway had been reduced to a tributary part of Denmark , named as the Personal Union of Denmark-Norway . This staff union entered into an alliance with Napoléon Bonaparte with a war that brought bad times and famine in 1812 . In 1814, Denmark-Norway lost the Anglophone Wars , part of the Napoleonic Wars , and the Danish king was forced to cede Norway to the king of Sweden in the Treaty of Kiel on 14 January of that year. After a Norwegian attempt at independence, Norway was forced into a loose union with Sweden, but where Norway was allowed to create its own constitution, the Constitution of 1814 . In this period, Norwegian, romantic national feeling flourished, and the Norwegians tried to develop and establish their own national self-worth. The union with Sweden was broken in 1905 after it had been threatened with war, and Norway became an independent kingdom with its own monarch, Haakon VII .
Norway remained neutral during the First World War , and at the outbreak of the Second World War, Norway again declared itself neutral, but was invaded by National Socialist Germany on 9 April 1940 .
Norway became a member of the Western defense alliance NATO in 1949 . Two attempts to join the EU were voted down in referendums by small margins in 1972 and 1994 . Norway has been a close ally of the United States in the post-war period. Large discoveries of oil and natural gas in the North Sea at the end of the 1960s led to tremendous economic growth in the country, which is still ongoing. Traditional industries such as fishing are also part of Norway's economy.
Stone Age (before 1700 BC)
When most of the ice disappeared, vegetation spread over the landscape and due to a warm climate around 2000-3000 BC. the forest grew much taller than in modern times. Land uplift after the ice age led to a number of fjords becoming lakes and dry land. The first people probably came from the south along the coast of the Kattegat and overland into Finnmark from the east. The first people probably lived by gathering, hunting and trapping. A good number of Stone Age settlements have been found which show that such hunting and trapping people stayed for a long time in the same place or returned to the same place regularly. Large amounts of gnawed bones show that they lived on, among other things, reindeer, elk, small game and fish.
Flintstone was imported from Denmark and apart from small natural deposits along the southern coast, all flintstone in Norway is transported by people. At Espevær, greenstone was quarried for tools in the Stone Age, and greenstone tools from Espevær have been found over large parts of Western Norway. Around 2000-3000 BC the usual farm animals such as cows and sheep were introduced to Norway. Livestock probably meant a fundamental change in society in that part of the people had to be permanent residents or live a semi-nomadic life. Livestock farming may also have led to conflict with hunters.
The oldest traces of people in what is today Norway have been found at Pauler , a farm in Brunlanes in Larvik municipality in Vestfold . In 2007 and 2008, the farm has given its name to a number of Stone Age settlements that have been excavated and examined by archaeologists from the Cultural History Museum at UiO. The investigations have been carried out in connection with the new route for the E18 motorway west of Farris. The oldest settlement, located more than 127 m above sea level, is dated to be about 10,400 years old (uncalibrated, more than 11,000 years in real calendar years). From here, the ice sheet was perhaps visible when people settled here. This locality has been named Pauler I, and is today considered to be the oldest confirmed human traces in Norway to date. The place is in the mountains above the Pauler tunnel on the E18 between Larvik and Porsgrunn . The pioneer settlement is a term archaeologists have adopted for the oldest settlement. The archaeologists have speculated about where they came from, the first people in what is today Norway. It has been suggested that they could come by boat or perhaps across the ice from Doggerland or the North Sea, but there is now a large consensus that they came north along what is today the Bohuslän coast. The Fosna culture , the Komsa culture and the Nøstvet culture are the traditional terms for hunting cultures from the Stone Age. One thing is certain - getting to the water was something they mastered, the first people in our country. Therefore, within a short time they were able to use our entire long coast.
In the New Stone Age (4000 BC–1700 BC) there is a theory that a new people immigrated to the country, the so-called Stone Ax People . Rock carvings from this period show motifs from hunting and fishing , which were still important industries. From this period, a megalithic tomb has been found in Østfold .
It is uncertain whether there were organized societies or state-like associations in the Stone Age in Norway. Findings from settlements indicate that many lived together and that this was probably more than one family so that it was a slightly larger, organized herd.
Finnmark
In prehistoric times, animal husbandry and agriculture were of little economic importance in Finnmark. Livelihoods in Finnmark were mainly based on fish, gathering, hunting and trapping, and eventually domestic reindeer herding became widespread in the Middle Ages. Archaeological finds from the Stone Age have been referred to as the Komsa culture and comprise around 5,000 years of settlement. Finnmark probably got its first settlement around 8000 BC. It is believed that the coastal areas became ice-free 11,000 years BC and the fjord areas around 9,000 years BC. after which willows, grass, heather, birch and pine came into being. Finnmarksvidda was covered by pine forest around 6000 BC. After the Ice Age, the land rose around 80 meters in the inner fjord areas (Alta, Tana, Varanger). Due to ice melting in the polar region, the sea rose in the period 6400–3800 BC. and in areas with little land elevation, some settlements from the first part of the Stone Age were flooded. On Sørøya, the net sea level rise was 12 to 14 meters and many residential areas were flooded.
According to Bjørnar Olsen , there are many indications of a connection between the oldest settlement in Western Norway (the " Fosnakulturen ") and that in Finnmark, but it is uncertain in which direction the settlement took place. In the earliest part of the Stone Age, settlement in Finnmark was probably concentrated in the coastal areas, and these only reflected a lifestyle with great mobility and no permanent dwellings. The inner regions, such as Pasvik, were probably used seasonally. The archaeologically proven settlements from the Stone Age in inner Finnmark and Troms are linked to lakes and large watercourses. The oldest petroglyphs in Alta are usually dated to 4200 BC, that is, the Neolithic . Bjørnar Olsen believes that the oldest can be up to 2,000 years older than this.
From around 4000 BC a slow deforestation of Finnmark began and around 1800 BC the vegetation distribution was roughly the same as in modern times. The change in vegetation may have increased the distance between the reindeer's summer and winter grazing. The uplift continued slowly from around 4000 BC. at the same time as sea level rise stopped.
According to Gutorm Gjessing, the settlement in Finnmark and large parts of northern Norway in the Neolithic was semi-nomadic with movement between four seasonal settlements (following the pattern of life in Sami siida in historical times): On the outer coast in summer (fishing and seal catching) and inland in winter (hunting for reindeer, elk and bear). Povl Simonsen believed instead that the winter residence was in the inner fjord area in a village-like sod house settlement. Bjørnar Olsen believes that at the end of the Stone Age there was a relatively settled population along the coast, while inland there was less settlement and a more mobile lifestyle.
Bronze Age (1700 BC–500 BC)
Bronze was used for tools in Norway from around 1500 BC. Bronze is a mixture of tin and copper , and these metals were introduced because they were not mined in the country at the time. Bronze is believed to have been a relatively expensive material. The Bronze Age in Norway can be divided into two phases:
Early Bronze Age (1700–1100 BC)
Younger Bronze Age (1100–500 BC)
For the prehistoric (unwritten) era, there is limited knowledge about social conditions and possible state formations. From the Bronze Age, there are large burial mounds of stone piles along the coast of Vestfold and Agder, among others. It is likely that only chieftains or other great men could erect such grave monuments and there was probably some form of organized society linked to these. In the Bronze Age, society was more organized and stratified than in the Stone Age. Then a rich class of chieftains emerged who had close connections with southern Scandinavia. The settlements became more permanent and people adopted horses and ard . They acquired bronze status symbols, lived in longhouses and people were buried in large burial mounds . Petroglyphs from the Bronze Age indicate that humans practiced solar cultivation.
Finnmark
In the last millennium BC the climate became cooler and the pine forest disappears from the coast; pine forests, for example, were only found in the innermost part of the Altafjord, while the outer coast was almost treeless. Around the year 0, the limit for birch forest was south of Kirkenes. Animals with forest habitats (elk, bear and beaver) disappeared and the reindeer probably established their annual migration routes sometime at that time. In the period 1800–900 BC there were significantly more settlements in and utilization of the hinterland was particularly noticeable on Finnmarksvidda. From around 1800 BC until year 0 there was a significant increase in contact between Finnmark and areas in the east including Karelia (where metals were produced including copper) and central and eastern Russia. The youngest petroglyphs in Alta show far more boats than the earlier phases and the boats are reminiscent of types depicted in petroglyphs in southern Scandinavia. It is unclear what influence southern Scandinavian societies had as far north as Alta before the year 0. Many of the cultural features that are considered typical Sami in modern times were created or consolidated in the last millennium BC, this applies, among other things, to the custom of burying in brick chambers in stone urns. The Mortensnes burial ground may have been used for 2000 years until around 1600 AD.
Iron Age (c. 500 BC–c. 1050 AD)
The Einangsteinen is one of the oldest Norwegian runestones; it is from the 4th century
Simultaneous production of Vikings
Around 500 years BC the researchers reckon that the Bronze Age will be replaced by the Iron Age as iron takes over as the most important material for weapons and tools. Bronze, wood and stone were still used. Iron was cheaper than bronze, easier to work than flint , and could be used for many purposes; iron probably became common property. Iron could, among other things, be used to make solid and sharp axes which made it much easier to fell trees. In the Iron Age, gold and silver were also used partly for decoration and partly as means of payment. It is unknown which language was used in Norway before our era. From around the year 0 until around the year 800, everyone in Scandinavia (except the Sami) spoke Old Norse , a North Germanic language. Subsequently, several different languages developed in this area that were only partially mutually intelligible. The Iron Age is divided into several periods:
Early Iron Age
Pre-Roman Iron Age (c. 500 BC–c. 0)
Roman Iron Age (c. 0–c. AD 400)
Migration period (approx. 400–600). In the migration period (approx. 400–600), new peoples came to Norway, and ruins of fortress buildings etc. are interpreted as signs that there has been talk of a violent invasion.
Younger Iron Age
Merovingian period (500–800)
The Viking Age (793–1066)
Norwegian Vikings go on plundering expeditions and trade voyages around the coastal countries of Western Europe . Large groups of Norwegians emigrate to the British Isles , Iceland and Greenland . Harald Hårfagre starts a unification process of Norway late in the 8th century , which was completed by Harald Hardråde in the 1060s . The country was Christianized under the kings Olav Tryggvason , fell in the battle of Svolder ( 1000 ) and Olav Haraldsson (the saint), fell in the battle of Stiklestad in 1030 .
Sources of prehistoric times
Shrinking glaciers in the high mountains, including in Jotunheimen and Breheimen , have from around the year 2000 uncovered objects from the Viking Age and earlier. These are objects of organic material that have been preserved by the ice and that elsewhere in nature are broken down in a few months. The finds are getting older as the melting makes the archaeologists go deeper into the ice. About half of all archaeological discoveries on glaciers in the world are made in Oppland . In 2013, a 3,400-year-old shoe and a robe from the year 300 were found. Finds at Lomseggen in Lom published in 2020 revealed, among other things, well-preserved horseshoes used on a mountain pass. Many hundreds of items include preserved clothing, knives, whisks, mittens, leather shoes, wooden chests and horse equipment. A piece of cloth dated to the year 1000 has preserved its original colour. In 2014, a wooden ski from around the year 700 was found in Reinheimen . The ski is 172 cm long and 14 cm wide, with preserved binding of leather and wicker.
Pytheas from Massalia is the oldest known account of what was probably the coast of Norway, perhaps somewhere on the coast of Møre. Pytheas visited Britannia around 325 BC. and traveled further north to a country by the "Ice Sea". Pytheas described the short summer night and the midnight sun farther north. He wrote, among other things, that people there made a drink from grain and honey. Caesar wrote in his work about the Gallic campaign about the Germanic tribe Haruders. Other Roman sources around the year 0 mention the land of the Cimbri (Jutland) and the Cimbri headlands ( Skagen ) and that the sources stated that Cimbri and Charyds lived in this area. Some of these peoples may have immigrated to Norway and there become known as hordes (as in Hordaland). Sources from the Mediterranean area referred to the islands of Scandia, Scandinavia and Thule ("the outermost of all islands"). The Roman historian Tacitus wrote around the year 100 a work about Germania and mentioned the people of Scandia, the Sviones. Ptolemy wrote around the year 150 that the Kharudes (Hordes) lived further north than all the Cimbri, in the north lived the Finnoi (Finns or Sami) and in the south the Gutai (Goths). The Nordic countries and Norway were outside the Roman Empire , which dominated Europe at the time. The Gothic-born historian Jordanes wrote in the 5th century about 13 tribes or people groups in Norway, including raumaricii (probably Romerike ), ragnaricii ( Ranrike ) and finni or skretefinni (skrid finner or ski finner, i.e. Sami) as well as a number of unclear groups. Prokopios wrote at the same time about Thule north of the land of the Danes and Slavs, Thule was ten times as big as Britannia and the largest of all the islands. In Thule, the sun was up 40 days straight in the summer. After the migration period , southern Europeans' accounts of northern Europe became fuller and more reliable.
Settlement in prehistoric times
Norway has around 50,000 farms with their own names. Farm names have persisted for a long time, over 1000 years, perhaps as much as 2000 years. The name researchers have arranged different types of farm names chronologically, which provides a basis for determining when the place was used by people or received a permanent settlement. Uncompounded landscape names such as Haug, Eid, Vik and Berg are believed to be the oldest. Archaeological traces indicate that some areas have been inhabited earlier than assumed from the farm name. Burial mounds also indicate permanent settlement. For example, the burial ground at Svartelva in Løten was used from around the year 0 to the year 1000 when Christianity took over. The first farmers probably used large areas for inland and outland, and new farms were probably established based on some "mother farms". Names such as By (or Bø) show that it is an old place of residence. From the older Iron Age, names with -heim (a common Germanic word meaning place of residence) and -stad tell of settlement, while -vin and -land tell of the use of the place. Farm names in -heim are often found as -um , -eim or -em as in Lerum and Seim, there are often large farms in the center of the village. New farm names with -city and -country were also established in the Viking Age . The first farmers probably used the best areas. The largest burial grounds, the oldest archaeological finds and the oldest farm names are found where the arable land is richest and most spacious.
It is unclear whether the settlement expansion in Roman times, migrations and the Iron Age is due to immigration or internal development and population growth. Among other things, it is difficult to demonstrate where in Europe the immigrants have come from. The permanent residents had both fields (where grain was grown) and livestock that grazed in the open fields, but it is uncertain which of these was more important. Population growth from around the year 200 led to more utilization of open land, for example in the form of settlements in the mountains. During the migration period, it also seems that in parts of the country it became common to have cluster gardens or a form of village settlement.
Norwegian expansion northwards
From around the year 200, there was a certain migration by sea from Rogaland and Hordaland to Nordland and Sør-Troms. Those who moved settled down as a settled Iron Age population and became dominant over the original population which may have been Sami . The immigrant Norwegians, Bumen , farmed with livestock that were fed inside in the winter as well as some grain cultivation and fishing. The northern border of the Norwegians' settlement was originally at the Toppsundet near Harstad and around the year 500 there was a Norwegian settlement to Malangsgapet. That was as far north as it was possible to grow grain at the time. Malangen was considered the border between Hålogaland and Finnmork until around 1400 . Further into the Viking Age and the Middle Ages, there was immigration and settlement of Norwegian speakers along the coast north of Malangen. Around the year 800, Norwegians lived along the entire outer coast to Vannøy . The Norwegians partly copied Sami livelihoods such as whaling, fur hunting and reindeer husbandry. It was probably this area between Malangen and Vannøy that was Ottar from the Hålogaland area. In the Viking Age, there were also some Norwegian settlements further north and east. East of the North Cape are the scattered archaeological finds of Norwegian settlement in the Viking Age. There are Norwegian names for fjords and islands from the Viking Age, including fjord names with "-anger". Around the year 1050, there were Norwegian settlements on the outer coast of Western Finnmark. Traders and tax collectors traveled even further.
North of Malangen there were Norse farming settlements in the Iron Age. Malangen was considered Finnmark's western border until 1300. There are some archaeological traces of Norse activity around the coast from Tromsø to Kirkenes in the Viking Age. Around Tromsø, the research indicates a Norse/Sami mixed culture on the coast.
From the year 1100 and the next 200–300 years, there are no traces of Norwegian settlement north and east of Tromsø. It is uncertain whether this is due to depopulation, whether it is because the Norwegians further north were not Christianized or because there were no churches north of Lenvik or Tromsø . Norwegian settlement in the far north appears from sources from the 14th century. In the Hanseatic period , the settlement was developed into large areas specialized in commercial fishing, while earlier (in the Viking Age) there had been farms with a combination of fishing and agriculture. In 1307 , a fortress and the first church east of Tromsø were built in Vardø . Vardø became a small Norwegian town, while Vadsø remained Sami. Norwegian settlements and churches appeared along the outermost coast in the Middle Ages. After the Reformation, perhaps as a result of a decline in fish stocks or fish prices, there were Norwegian settlements in the inner fjord areas such as Lebesby in Laksefjord. Some fishing villages at the far end of the coast were abandoned for good. In the interior of Finnmark, there was no national border for a long time and Kautokeino and Karasjok were joint Norwegian-Swedish areas with strong Swedish influence. The border with Finland was established in 1751 and with Russia in 1826.
On a Swedish map from 1626, Norway's border is indicated at Malangen, while Sweden with this map showed a desire to control the Sami area which had been a common area.
The term Northern Norway only came into use at the end of the 19th century and administratively the area was referred to as Tromsø Diocese when Tromsø became a bishopric in 1840. There had been different designations previously: Hålogaland originally included only Helgeland and when Norse settlement spread north in the Viking Age and the Middle Ages, Hålogaland was used for the area north approximately to Malangen , while Finnmark or "Finnmarken", "the land of the Sami", lay outside. The term Northern Norway was coined at a cafe table in Kristiania in 1884 by members of the Nordlændingernes Forening and was first commonly used in the interwar period as it eventually supplanted "Hålogaland".
State formation
The battle in Hafrsfjord in the year 872 has long been regarded as the day when Norway became a kingdom. The year of the battle is uncertain (may have been 10-20 years later). The whole of Norway was not united in that battle: the process had begun earlier and continued a couple of hundred years later. This means that the geographical area became subject to a political authority and became a political unit. The geographical area was perceived as an area as it is known, among other things, from Ottar from Hålogaland's account for King Alfred of Wessex around the year 880. Ottar described "the land of the Norwegians" as very long and narrow, and it was narrowest in the far north. East of the wasteland in the south lay Sveoland and in the north lay Kvenaland in the east. When Ottar sailed south along the land from his home ( Malangen ) to Skiringssal, he always had Norway ("Nordveg") on his port side and the British Isles on his starboard side. The journey took a good month. Ottar perceived "Nordveg" as a geographical unit, but did not imply that it was a political unit. Ottar separated Norwegians from Swedes and Danes. It is unclear why Ottar perceived the population spread over such a large area as a whole. It is unclear whether Norway as a geographical term or Norwegians as the name of a ethnic group is the oldest. The Norwegians had a common language which in the centuries before Ottar did not differ much from the language of Denmark and Sweden.
According to Sverre Steen, it is unlikely that Harald Hårfagre was able to control this entire area as one kingdom. The saga of Harald was written 300 years later and at his death Norway was several smaller kingdoms. Harald probably controlled a larger area than anyone before him and at most Harald's kingdom probably included the coast from Trøndelag to Agder and Vestfold as well as parts of Viken . There were probably several smaller kingdoms of varying extent before Harald and some of these are reflected in traditional landscape names such as Ranrike and Ringerike . Landscape names of "-land" (Rogaland) and "-mark" (Hedmark) as well as names such as Agder and Sogn may have been political units before Harald.
According to Sverre Steen, the national assembly was completed at the earliest at the battle of Stiklestad in 1030 and the introduction of Christianity was probably a significant factor in the establishment of Norway as a state. Håkon I the good Adalsteinsfostre introduced the leasehold system where the "coastal land" (as far as the salmon went up the rivers) was divided into ship raiders who were to provide a longship with soldiers and supplies. The leidange was probably introduced as a defense against the Danes. The border with the Danes was traditionally at the Göta älv and several times before and after Harald Hårfagre the Danes had control over central parts of Norway.
Christianity was known and existed in Norway before Olav Haraldson's time. The spread occurred both from the south (today's Denmark and northern Germany) and from the west (England and Ireland). Ansgar of Bremen , called the "Apostle of the North", worked in Sweden, but he was never in Norway and probably had little influence in the country. Viking expeditions brought the Norwegians of that time into contact with Christian countries and some were baptized in England, Ireland and northern France. Olav Tryggvason and Olav Haraldson were Vikings who returned home. The first Christians in Norway were also linked to pre-Christian local religion, among other things, by mixing Christian symbols with symbols of Odin and other figures from Norse religion.
According to Sverre Steen, the introduction of Christianity in Norway should not be perceived as a nationwide revival. At Mostratinget, Christian law was introduced as law in the country and later incorporated into the laws of the individual jurisdictions. Christianity primarily involved new forms in social life, among other things exposure and images of gods were prohibited, it was forbidden to "put out" unwanted infants (to let them die), and it was forbidden to have multiple wives. The church became a nationwide institution with a special group of officials tasked with protecting the church and consolidating the new religion. According to Sverre Steen, Christianity and the church in the Middle Ages should therefore be considered together, and these became a new unifying factor in the country. The church and Christianity linked Norway to Roman Catholic Europe with Church Latin as the common language, the same time reckoning as the rest of Europe and the church in Norway was arranged much like the churches in Denmark, Sweden and England. Norway received papal approval in 1070 and became its own church province in 1152 with Archbishop Nidaros .
With Christianity, the country got three social powers: the peasants (organized through the things), the king with his officials and the church with the clergy. The things are the oldest institution: At allthings all armed men had the right to attend (in part an obligation to attend) and at lagthings met emissaries from an area (that is, the lagthings were representative assemblies). The Thing both ruled in conflicts and established laws. The laws were memorized by the participants and written down around the year 1000 or later in the Gulationsloven , Frostatingsloven , Eidsivatingsloven and Borgartingsloven . The person who had been successful at the hearing had to see to the implementation of the judgment themselves.
Early Middle Ages (1050s–1184)
The early Middle Ages is considered in Norwegian history to be the period between the end of the Viking Age around 1050 and the coronation of King Sverre in 1184 . The beginning of the period can be dated differently, from around the year 1000 when the Christianization of the country took place and up to 1100 when the Viking Age was over from an archaeological point of view. From 1035 to 1130 it was a time of (relative) internal peace in Norway, even several of the kings attempted campaigns abroad, including in 1066 and 1103 .
During this period, the church's organization was built up. This led to a gradual change in religious customs. Religion went from being a domestic matter to being regulated by common European Christian law and the royal power gained increased power and influence. Slavery (" servitude ") was gradually abolished. The population grew rapidly during this period, as the thousands of farm names ending in -rud show.
The urbanization of Norway is a historical process that has slowly but surely changed Norway from the early Viking Age to today, from a country based on agriculture and sea salvage, to increasingly trade and industry. As early as the ninth century, the country got its first urban community, and in the eleventh century we got the first permanent cities.
In the 1130s, civil war broke out . This was due to a power struggle and that anyone who claimed to be the king's son could claim the right to the throne. The disputes escalated into extensive year-round warfare when Sverre Sigurdsson started a rebellion against the church's and the landmen's candidate for the throne , Magnus Erlingsson .
Emergence of cities
The oldest Norwegian cities probably emerged from the end of the 9th century. Oslo, Bergen and Nidaros became episcopal seats, which stimulated urban development there, and the king built churches in Borg , Konghelle and Tønsberg. Hamar and Stavanger became new episcopal seats and are referred to in the late 12th century as towns together with the trading places Veøy in Romsdal and Kaupanger in Sogn. In the late Middle Ages, Borgund (on Sunnmøre), Veøy (in Romsdalsfjorden) and Vågan (in Lofoten) were referred to as small trading places. Urbanization in Norway occurred in few places compared to the neighboring countries, only 14 places appear as cities before 1350. Stavanger became a bishopric around 1120–1130, but it is unclear whether the place was already a city then. The fertile Jæren and outer Ryfylke were probably relatively densely populated at that time. A particularly large concentration of Irish artefacts from the Viking Age has been found in Stavanger and Nord-Jæren.
It has been difficult to estimate the population in the Norwegian medieval cities, but it is considered certain that the cities grew rapidly in the Middle Ages. Oscar Albert Johnsen estimated the city's population before the Black Death at 20,000, of which 7,000 in Bergen, 3,000 in Nidaros, 2,000 in Oslo and 1,500 in Tunsberg. Based on archaeological research, Lunden estimates that Oslo had around 1,500 inhabitants in 250 households in the year 1300. Bergen was built up more densely and, with the concentration of exports there, became Norway's largest city in a special position for several hundred years. Knut Helle suggests a city population of 20,000 at most in the High Middle Ages, of which almost half in Bergen.
The Bjarkøyretten regulated the conditions in cities (especially Bergen and Nidaros) and in trading places, and for Nidaros had many of the same provisions as the Frostating Act . Magnus Lagabøte's city law replaced the bjarkøretten and from 1276 regulated the settlement in Bergen and with corresponding laws also drawn up for Oslo, Nidaros and Tunsberg. The city law applied within the city's roof area . The City Act determined that the city's public streets consisted of wide commons (perpendicular to the shoreline) and ran parallel to the shoreline, similarly in Nidaros and Oslo. The roads were small streets of up to 3 cubits (1.4 metres) and linked to the individual property. From the Middle Ages, the Norwegian cities were usually surrounded by wooden fences. The urban development largely consisted of low wooden houses which stood in contrast to the relatively numerous and dominant churches and monasteries built in stone.
The City Act and supplementary provisions often determined where in the city different goods could be traded, in Bergen, for example, cattle and sheep could only be traded on the Square, and fish only on the Square or directly from the boats at the quayside. In Nidaros, the blacksmiths were required to stay away from the densely populated areas due to the risk of fire, while the tanners had to stay away from the settlements due to the strong smell. The City Act also attempted to regulate the influx of people into the city (among other things to prevent begging in the streets) and had provisions on fire protection. In Oslo, from the 13th century or earlier, it was common to have apartment buildings consisting of single buildings on a couple of floors around a courtyard with access from the street through a gate room. Oslo's medieval apartment buildings were home to one to four households. In the urban farms, livestock could be kept, including pigs and cows, while pastures and fields were found in the city's rooftops . In the apartment buildings there could be several outbuildings such as warehouses, barns and stables. Archaeological excavations show that much of the buildings in medieval Oslo, Trondheim and Tønsberg resembled the oblong farms that have been preserved at Bryggen in Bergen . The land boundaries in Oslo appear to have persisted for many hundreds of years, in Bergen right from the Middle Ages to modern times.
High Middle Ages (1184–1319)
After civil wars in the 12th century, the country had a relative heyday in the 13th century. Iceland and Greenland came under the royal authority in 1262 , and the Norwegian Empire reached its greatest extent under Håkon IV Håkonsson . The last king of Haraldsätten, Håkon V Magnusson , died sonless in 1319 . Until the 17th century, Norway stretched all the way down to the mouth of Göta älv , which was then Norway's border with Sweden and Denmark.
Just before the Black Death around 1350, there were between 65,000 and 85,000 farms in the country, and there had been a strong growth in the number of farms from 1050, especially in Eastern Norway. In the High Middle Ages, the church or ecclesiastical institutions controlled 40% of the land in Norway, while the aristocracy owned around 20% and the king owned 7%. The church and monasteries received land through gifts from the king and nobles, or through inheritance and gifts from ordinary farmers.
Settlement and demography in the Middle Ages
Before the Black Death, there were more and more farms in Norway due to farm division and clearing. The settlement spread to more marginal agricultural areas higher inland and further north. Eastern Norway had the largest areas to take off and had the most population growth towards the High Middle Ages. Along the coast north of Stad, settlement probably increased in line with the extent of fishing. The Icelandic Rimbegla tells around the year 1200 that the border between Finnmark (the land of the Sami) and resident Norwegians in the interior was at Malangen , while the border all the way out on the coast was at Kvaløya . From the end of the High Middle Ages, there were more Norwegians along the coast of Finnmark and Nord-Troms. In the inner forest and mountain tracts along the current border between Norway and Sweden, the Sami exploited the resources all the way down to Hedmark.
There are no censuses or other records of population and settlement in the Middle Ages. At the time of the Reformation, the population was below 200,000 and only in 1650 was the population at the same level as before the Black Death. When Christianity was introduced after the year 1000, the population was around 200,000. After the Black Death, many farms and settlements were abandoned and deserted, in the most marginal agricultural areas up to 80% of the farms were abandoned. Places such as Skien, Veøy and Borgund (Ålesund) went out of use as trading towns. By the year 1300, the population was somewhere between 300,000 and 560,000 depending on the calculation method. Common methods start from detailed information about farms in each village and compare this with the situation in 1660 when there are good headcounts. From 1300 to 1660, there was a change in the economic base so that the coastal villages received a larger share of the population. The inland areas of Eastern Norway had a relatively larger population in the High Middle Ages than after the Reformation. Kåre Lunden concludes that the population in the year 1300 was close to 500,000, of which 15,000 lived in cities. Lunden believes that the population in 1660 was still slightly lower than the peak before the Black Death and points out that farm settlement in 1660 did not reach the same extent as in the High Middle Ages. In 1660, the population in Troms and Finnmark was 6,000 and 3,000 respectively (2% of the total population), in 1300 these areas had an even smaller share of the country's population and in Finnmark there were hardly any Norwegian-speaking inhabitants. In the High Middle Ages, the climate was more favorable for grain cultivation in the north. Based on the number of farms, the population increased 162% from 1000 to 1300, in Northern and Western Europe as a whole the growth was 200% in the same period.
Late Middle Ages (1319–1537)
Due to repeated plague epidemics, the population was roughly halved and the least productive of the country's farms were laid waste. It took several hundred years before the population again reached the level before 1349 . However, those who survived the epidemics gained more financial resources by sharing. Tax revenues for the state almost collapsed, and a large part of the noble families died out or sank into peasant status due to the fall in national debt . The Hanseatic League took over trade and shipping and dominated fish exports. The Archbishop of Nidaros was the country's most powerful man economically and politically, as the royal dynasty married into the Swedish in 1319 and died out in 1387 . Eventually, Copenhagen became the political center of the kingdom and Bergen the commercial center, while Trondheim remained the religious center.
From Reformation to Autocracy (1537–1660)
In 1537 , the Reformation was carried out in Norway. With that, almost half of the country's property was confiscated by the royal power at the stroke of a pen. The large seizure increased the king's income and was able, among other things, to expand his military power and consolidated his power in the kingdom. From roughly the time of the Reformation and in the following centuries, the state increased its power and importance in people's lives. Until around 1620, the state administration was fairly simple and unspecialised: in Copenhagen, the central administration mainly consisted of a chancellery and an interest chamber ; and sheriffs ruled the civil (including bailiffs and sheriffs) and the military in their district, the sheriffs collected taxes and oversaw business. The accounts were not clear and without summaries. The clergy, which had great power as a separate organization, was appointed by the state church after the Reformation, administered from Copenhagen. In this period, Norway was ruled by (mainly) Danish noble sheriffs, who acted as intermediaries between the peasants and the Oldenborg king in the field of justice, tax and customs collection.
From 1620, the state apparatus went through major changes where specialization of functions was a main issue. The sheriff's tasks were divided between several, more specialized officials - the sheriffs retained the formal authority over these, who in practice were under the national administration in Copenhagen. Among other things, a separate military officer corps was established, a separate customs office was established and separate treasurers for taxes and fees were appointed. The Overbergamtet, the central governing body for overseeing mining operations in Norway, was established in 1654 with an office in Christiania and this agency was to oversee the mining chiefs in the Nordenfjeld and Sønnenfjeld areas (the mines at Kongsberg and Røros were established in the previous decades). The formal transition from county government to official government with fixed-paid county officials took place after 1660, but the real changes had taken place from around 1620. The increased specialization and transition to official government meant that experts, not amateurs, were in charge of each area, and this civil service meant, according to Sverre Steen that the dictatorship was not a personal dictatorship.
From 1570 until 1721, the Oldenborg dynasty was in repeated wars with the Vasa dynasty in Sweden. The financing of these wars led to a severe increase in taxation which caused great distress.
Politically-geographically, the Oldenborg kings had to cede to Sweden the Norwegian provinces of Jemtland , Herjedalen , Idre and Särna , as well as Båhuslen . As part of the financing of the wars, the state apparatus was expanded. Royal power began to assert itself to a greater extent in the administration of justice. Until this period, cases of violence and defamation had been treated as civil cases between citizens. The level of punishment was greatly increased. During this period, at least 307 people were also executed for witchcraft in Norway. Culturally, the country was marked by the fact that the written language became Danish because of the Bible translation and the University of Copenhagen's educational monopoly.
From the 16th century, business became more marked by production for sale and not just own consumption. In the past, it was particularly the fisheries that had produced such a large surplus of goods that it was sold to markets far away, the dried fish trade via Bergen is known from around the year 1100. In the 16th century, the yield from the fisheries multiplied, especially due to the introduction of herring in Western Norway and in Trøndelag and because new tools made fishing for herring and skre more efficient. Line fishing and cod nets that were introduced in the 17th century were controversial because the small fishermen believed it favored citizens in the cities.
Forestry and the timber trade became an important business, particularly because of the boom saw which made it possible to saw all kinds of tables and planks for sale abroad. The demand for timber increased at the same time in Europe, Norway had plenty of forests and in the 17th century timber became the country's most important export product. There were hundreds of sawmills in the country and the largest had the feel of factories . In 1680, the king regulated the timber trade by allowing exports only from privileged sawmills and in a certain quantity.
From the 1520s, some silver was mined in Telemark. When the peasants chased the German miners whereupon the king executed five peasants and demanded compensation from the other rebellious peasants. The background for the harsh treatment was that the king wanted to assert his authority over the extraction of precious metals. The search for metals led to the silver works at Kongsberg after 1624, copper in the mountain villages between Trøndelag and Eastern Norway, and iron, among other things, in Agder and lower Telemark. The financial gain of the quarries at that time is unclear because there are no reliable accounts. Kongsberg ma
This is my take on the PacWest Center (also known as the Icecube Building). It’s a great comp for black and white processing because it’s already black & white (Okay, it’s black & silver). While the lone tree growing out the side intrigues me I have to admit I like my contact William Walsh’s version a lot better: www.flickr.com/photos/54241790@N03/6943024393
MACHERMORE CASTLE WAS ORIGINALLY BUILT BY PETER MCDOWALL AND SITUATED ON THE EAST BANK OF THE RIVER CREE, ABOUT A MILE FROM THE TOWN OF NEWTON STEWART. MACHERMORE CASTLE IS A THREE HUNDRED YEARS OLD AND THE GREY OLD CASTLE AND BRAVELY WEATHERED THE STORMS, AND IT WOULD HAVE CONTINUED TO DO SO UNSCATHED HAD NOT MODERN TIMES NECESSITATED STRUCTURAL CHANGES. THE CASTLE NOW PRESENTS A HAPPY INSTANCE OF THE BLENDING OF THE OLD AND NEW STYLES OF ARCHITECTURE—AN ADAPTATION OF THE PAST TO PRESENT REQUIREMENTS.
MACHERMORE CASTLE IS BELIEVED TO HAVE BEEN BUILT ABOUT THE LATTER END OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. TRADITION SAYS THAT IT WAS AT FIRST INTENDED TO BUILD THE CASTLE ON THE HIGHER GROUND, A LITTLE TO THE NORTH-EAST OF THE PRESENT SITE, BUT THAT DURING THE NIGHT THE FOUNDATION STONES WERE ALWAYS REMOVED, SO THAT WHAT WAS BUILT DURING THE DAY WAS CARRIED OFF BY UNSEEN HANDS AND DEPOSITED IN ANOTHER PLACE. AS IT WAS NO USE TO STRIVE AGAINST THE SUPERNATURAL, THE CASTLE WAS EVENTUALLY BUILT WHERE THE MATERIALS WERE ALWAYS FOUND IN THE MORNING.
IN THE CASTLE ITSELF WAS A ROOM REPUTED TO BE HAUNTED. IN THIS INSTANCE THE PARTICULAR APARTMENT WAS IN THE NORTH-WEST ANGLE, AND WAS ALWAYS KNOWN AS DUNCAN’S ROOM. PROJECTING FROM THE TOP CORNER OF THE OUTER WALL IN THE SAME PART OF THE CASTLE WAS THE FINELY-CARVED FIGUREHEAD OF A MAN. A CLOSE INSPECTION REVEALED THE FACT THAT THE NECK WAS ENCIRCLED BY AN EXQUISITELY-CHISELLED LACE RUFFLE OF THE TUDOR PERIOD. THIS PIECE OF SCULPTURE WAS ALWAYS KNOWN AS DUNCAN’S HEAD. ON THE FLOOR OF DUNCAN’S ROOM THERE WAS THE MARK OF A BLOODY HAND, DISTINCTLY SHOWING THE IMPRESS OF THE FINGERS, THUMB, AND PALM. IT WAS SAID THAT REMOVING THAT PART OF THE FLOORING HAD BEEN TRIED SO AS TO ERADICATE ALL TRACE OF THE BYGONE TRAGEDY, BUT THE MARK OF THE BLOODY HAND APPEARED IN THE NEW WOOD AS FRESH AS BEFORE.
THE WHITE LADY OF MACHERMORE
THE WHITE LADY OF MACHERMORE WAS ONCE ALSO BELIEVED TO BE A GHOST AS SHE WAS ONLY SEEN AT VERY LOW LIGHT WANDERING AROUND THE GROUNDS OF THE CASTLE. THIS IS NOW KNOWN THAT ONE OF THE PREVIOUS OWNERS OF THE CASTLE HAD AN ALBINO DAUGHTER WHO ROAMED THE GROUNDS AT DUSK EVERY DAY AS SHE COULD NOT SEE IN NORMAL DAYLIGHT.
THERE IS A TRADITION THAT SOMEWHERE ABOUT MACHERMORE CASTLE THERE IS BURIED UNDER A FLAT STONE A KETTLE FULL OF GOLD, BUT SO FAR HAS NEVER BEEN FOUND.
Dorsal view of the main crew living area (windows removed for clarity.) Fore to aft: swimming pool, comms array, sports stadium, greenhouse, medium drone docking.
Name: S.S. Bessemer
Registration Number: KCC-1894 (Kolter Construction Contract Number 1,894)
Affiliation: Kolter Mining, Refining, and Fuel.
Class Name: Bessemer class
Type: Deep Space Mining Operations Flagship
Commissioned: Circa late 2500’s, post recent major conflict
Specifications:
Length: 1,844 meters (184.4 studs, 58.1 inches, 4.83 feet, 147.5 cm model)
Width: 503 meters (50.3 studs, 15.8 inches, 40.2 cm model)
Height: 484 meters, 398 meters without dorsal comms array, (48.4 studs, 15.2 inches, 38.7 cm model)
Crew: 2,950 standard complement + capacity for crew families, as well as smaller guest quarters for up to 2,000 additional personnel to be moved to/from mining operations.
Armament: 1 super-heavy coaxial particle beam cannon, (primarily for asteroid mining, but also more than capable of defensive action,) 4 dual-mounted heavy particle cannon turrets, 8 dual-mounted medium particle cannon turrets, 2 coaxial fore medium particle cannons, 80 quad-mounted 80mm anti-fighter flak railgun turrets.
Defensive systems:
Hull: Super-heavy steel alloy hull with carbon nanotube/buckypaper composite layers as spall lining.
Armor plating: steel, titanium alloy, tungsten, ceramic, and carbon nanotube composite armor layers against asteroids/other space debris, kinetic weapons, kinetic spalling, particle, laser, and plasma fire. Thick composite armor provides excellent survivability, but with very high mass. Some battleships are less armored than this ship.
Bulkheads: Extensive titanium bulkhead support network.
Structural integrity field: High power system designed for significant cargo mass placing stress on the frame, or to withstand asteroid impacts to the hull.
Shielding: Internally housed high power adaptive particle field repulsing shielding system capable of surviving significant punishment. Some older battleships have less robust shielding.
Powerplant: 1 primary matter-antimatter reactor with extensive fuel reserves, 2 secondary fusion reactors with extensive fuel reserves. Multiple massive power capacitors. Extensive heatinks.
Propulsion: 1 massive primary fusion engine for sub-lightspeed travel, 1 internal FTL core capable of moderate FTL speed, long range travel, and 32 large reaction control thrusters for slow but dependable below light speed maneuvering.
Computer systems: Single supercomputer core with onboard Virtual Intelligence system.
Comms and Sensors: Local and FTL comms arrays. Radar, LIDAR, infrared, multi-spectral, and additional other local area sensors systems, along with extensive FTL sensors.
Additional Systems: High power artificial singularity for both artificial gravity generation and inertial dampening, allowing for 1G gravity even when hauling an entire cargo hold full of heavy-metal. 6 massive blast furnaces for refining metal ore, an enormous central cargo hold system, 4 fuel refining tanks, 4 massive fuel storage tanks, and an internal rail system for moving ore and personnel.
Embarked Craft: 2 Thunderbird class super-heavy cargo/personnel shuttles, 2 Hurricane class heavy cargo/personnel shuttles, 20 heavy mining drones, 24 medium mining drones, 2 gunships of variable class, 2 heavy fighter/bombers of variable class, potential for multiple additional light shuttles and fighters.
Background: After seeing both the devastation to outlying areas of space caused by the recent Great War, and the corruption within the Federal Defense Navy (working title) Admiralty, Captain David Courtland retired honorably from military service and went to helm his family’s generations old mining company, Kolter Mining, Refining, and Fuel; one of the largest mining companies in United Earth Federation space. (Working title.)
He wanted to take the company, already a reputable and successful business, in a new direction. That direction was the disputed, war-torn, no-man’s-waste-land of space known as The Divide, (working title) situated between the major powers of the galaxy. Life in The Divide was desperate, with little hope for the many people stranded in the ruins, poverty, and crime infested land. None of the major powers could intervene without starting another territorial war, and as such, pirates, gangs, and unscrupulous mega-corporations ruled supreme.
Courtland wanted to make a difference to this sorrowful place, and with trillions of credits and a Fortunes 1,000 company at his control, he had the means to at least begin; although even he lacked the ability to single-handedly remedy the myriad of woes The Divide faced.
David’s plan was simple, to move significant mining operations to The Divide, thus:
1: Creating new, safe, well-paying, good jobs for both an area and an industry that seldom offered such things.
2: Allowing for the placement of company security forces to deter pirate activity around major settlements.
3: Providing tax-free revenue to fund new schools, hospitals, food, water, shetler, and other charitable activities in The Divide.
But to do it, he required a new kind of mining vessel, as well as additional security forces. Thus he contacted Nelson Heavy Industries, who in turn partnered with AxonTech Interstellar Systems for some components, to place an order for a line of custom massive deep space mining operation flagships with enhanced combat capabilities and capable of operating in the remotest reaches of space for months or even years at a time. And so the Bessemer class was born.
The Bessemer class is unlike any mining vessel ever produced before it. Certainly significantly larger mining ships existed, but these were typically little more than unarmed, slow moving things with small engines; closer to a semi-mobile starbase than a combination frontier battleship/mining vessel. But Courtland required something unique. Something that could move faster, survive more punishment, and something that had teeth; not a fragile, barely moving thing that would only sit in safe areas of space. Courtland needed a mighty sheepdog in a world of sheep and wolves.
Bessemer class vessels are 1,844 meters long, and possess more armor, firepower, and shielding than many pre Great War battleship designs. Almost any pirate or local gang would be terrified of the sight of over a mile of steel and particle cannons; clad in Kolter white, green, and yellow.
But the Bessemer, and others of her class, are not merely warships masquerading as civilian craft. They are heavy mining machines that live up to their name; a steel producing process that revolutionized the industry of Earth some seven hundred years earlier. The Bessemer and her sister ships are capable of blasting metal-rich asteroids to bits with their coaxial mining particle beam cannon, and then having swarms of automated mining drones devour any valuable deposits within before unloading the materials into the Bessemer’s ore hold for the internal rail system to run any raw ore through her six corvette sized forges, and then having the refined metal shunted to her cavernous lower hold, while any waste material from the refining process is vented directly into space.
Ships of this class are outfitted with a sizable hangar, advanced sensor suite, extensive internal cargo bays, and large cargo pod clamps that allow it to act in the capacity of miner, defensive ship, operations command center, and even freighter and personnel carrier should usual shipping to outlying mining sites be disrupted.
But capable as they are, these are not the spartan mining vessels with unlivable working conditions that some shady companies have been known to operate. These space-faring cities of steel feature robust safety systems, spacious and comfortable crew quarters, multiple restaurants, multiple mess-halls, multiple shops for clothing, food, electronics, and other items, an arcade, multiple gyms with weights, various weight and cardio machines, martial arts areas, gymnastics equipment, along with a walking track, a small bowling alley, an olympic sized swimming pool, a multi-sport stadium, a greenhouse, hydroponics bays, a small stage/concert area, several computer labs, a library, a small movie theater, crew lounges and break areas, a salon/spa, a bar/club, chapels, classroom/daycare areas, office areas, as well as repair stations, enough dry and frozen storage to keep everyone fed for extended missions, advanced workshops, astrotography, laboratories, guest bunk-rooms, and a starbase grade medical center.
Not everyone is happy about Kolter Mining’s efforts, however. While Courtland founded the Kolter Foundation to aid those in need, he also lobbied for what came to be known as the Kolter Bill to be passed. Mining employees out in the colonies loved the added protections this afforded them. But the executives of Kolter’s rival mining companies operating out of Earth’s colony worlds quickly found themselves facing laws that favored the profits of Kolter and their already developed safety systems and excellent treatment of employees. What’s more, the Federal Defense Navy Admiralty have been continually frustrated that rather than helping to line their pockets as part of the military industrial complex, Courtland has been working tirelessly to reveal their corruption and hidden support of crime in outlying areas of space.
What’s more, there are even rumors that Courtland is now working with, and possibly even helping to fund, a mercenary vigilante unit out in The Divide known as the Phoenix Command Group, founded by Jonathan Scarlett, another former Federal Defense Navy Captain who ran afoul of the Admiralty.
The wealthy and corrupt among the Admiralty, military industrial complex, crime syndicates, and corrupt businesses running shady operations out in The Divide are deeply troubled by these rumors. But those who are now citizens of no nation, and who have known nothing but hopelessness and need for years, have a slight spark of hope rising like a Phoenix.
IRL info: This digital SHIP was made in Bricklink’s Studio software from September 11th to September 30th, 2021. I did not originally plan to participate in SHIPtember, but I couldn’t resist. It is 184 studs (58.1 inches) long, 50 studs wide, and 48 studs high. It is comprised of 23,470 pieces, which I believe makes it my highest piece-count SHIP to date, and means that the model itself has a mass of 973.502 ounces, or 60.843 pounds, or 27.597 kilograms, which most likely makes it my heaviest SHIP as well as my most piece intensive. (I really need to learn to build a little more hollow.) Note that it uses all real pieces/colors that are available for sale on Bricklink. (Albeit at a price that makes attempting to build it in physical bricks highly impractical.) It is 100% connected, and should be at least somewhat stable in real life. I would want to reinforce the fore-end with more Technic, and switch out the longest Lego Technic axle holding the engine for an aftermarket stainless steel version. I cannot guarantee that various sections built out from the main SNOT and Technic frame would be totally stable without slight redesign of a few bits. It would also require a hefty display stand of some kind.
The current pictures are WIP to show the completed status of the build itself. Better renders done by importing the Studio build into Mecabricks, replacing any pieces that fail to load or change position, and then exporting to Blender for higher quality rendering, and finally hopefully doing some cool backgrounds with GIMP, will hopefully follow before whatever October picture deadline is decided on. Please do not use these early pictures in the poster if time remains, as I hope to provide better ones. Thank you for reading this lengthy description. Have a cookie.
If this ship had a theme song, this magnificent piece by Clamavi De Profundis would be it: youtu.be/Xm96Cqu4Ils
+++ DISCLAIMER +++
Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based historical facts. BEWARE!
Some background:
The G.91Y was an increased-performance version of the Fiat G.91 funded by the Italian government. Based on the G.91T two-seat trainer variant, the single Bristol Orpheus turbojet engine of this aircraft was replaced by two afterburning General Electric J85 turbojets which increased thrust by 60% over the single-engine variant. Structural modifications to reduce airframe weight increased performance further and an additional fuel tank occupying the space of the G.91T's rear seat provided extra range. Combat manoeuvrability was improved with the addition of automatic leading edge slats. The avionics equipment of the G.91Y was considerably upgraded with many of the American, British and Canadian systems being license-manufactured in Italy.
Flight testing of three pre-production aircraft was successful, with one aircraft reaching a maximum speed of Mach 0.98. Airframe buffeting was noted and was rectified in production aircraft by raising the position of the tailplane slightly.
An initial order of 55 aircraft for the Italian Air Force was completed by Fiat in March 1971, by which time the company had changed its name to Aeritalia (from 1969, when Fiat aviazione joined the Aerfer). The order was increased to 75 aircraft with 67 eventually being delivered. In fact, the development of the new G.91Y was quite long, and the first order was for about 20 pre-series examples that followed the two prototypes. The first pre-series 'Yankee' (the nickname of the new aircraft) flew in July 1968.
AMI (Italian Air Force) placed orders for two batches, 35 fighters followed by another 20, later cut to ten. The last one was delivered around mid 1976, so the total was two prototypes, 20 pre-series and 45 series aircraft. No immediate export success followed, though, and the Italian G.91Ys’ service lasted until the early '90s as attack/recce machines, both over ground and sea, until the AMX replaced them until 1994.
However, upon retirement some G.91Ys were still in good condition and the airframes had still some considerable flight hours left, so that about thirty revamped aircraft were put up for sale from 1992 onwards. At the same time, Poland was undergoing a dramatic political change. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union the Eastern European country immediately turned its political attention westward, including the prospects of joining NATO. The withdrawal of Russian forces based in Poland and partly obsolete military equipment of the Polish forces themselves led to a procurement process from 1991 onwards, which, among others, included a replacement for the Polish MiG-17 (domestic Lim-5, Lim-6 and Lim-6bis types), which had been operated by both Polish air force and navy since the late Sixties, primarily as fighter bombers in their late career, but also for reconnaissance tasks.
The G.91Y appeared, even though a vintage design, to be a suitable replacement option, since its performance envelope and the equipment outfit with three cameras in the nose made it a perfect package – and the price tag was not big, either. Especially the Polish Navy showed much interest, and after 10 months of negotiations Poland eventually bought 22 G.91Y from Italy, plus five G.91T two-seaters for conversion training, which were delivered between June 1993 and April 1994.
For the new operator the machines only underwent minor modifications. The biggest change was the addition of wirings and avionics for typical Polish Air Force ordnance, like indigenous MARS-2 pods for 16 unguided 57mm S-5 missiles, iron bombs of Russian origin of up to 500 kg (1.100 lb) caliber, SUU-23-2 gun pods as well as R-3 and R-60 missiles (which were very similar to the Western AIM-9 Sidewinder and actually date back to re-engineered specimen obtained by the USSR during the Korea war!). All machines were concentrated at Gdynia-Babie Doły in a newly founded, dedicated fighter bomber of the 1 Naval Aviation Squadron, which also operated MiG-21 fighters and PZL Iskra trainers. The Polish G.91Ys, nicknamed “Polski Fiat” by their crews (due to their compact size and overall simplicity, in reminiscence of the very popular, locally license-built Fiat 126), not only replaced the vintage MiG-17 types and some Polish Navy MiG-21 fighters, but also the handful of MiG-15UTI trainer veterans which were still used by the Polish Navy for observation duties over the Baltic Sea.
When Poland joined NATO on 12 March 1999, the G.91Ys (18 were still in service, plus all five trainers) received another major overhaul, a new low-visibility paint scheme, and they were updated with avionics that ensured inter-operability with other NATO forces, e .g. a GPS positioning sensor in a small, dorsal hump fairing. In 2006, when deliveries of 48 F-16C/D fighters to Poland started, the G.91Ys were to be retired within 12 months. But problems with the F-16s’ operability kept the G.91Y fleet active until 2011, when all aircraft were grounded and quickly scrapped.
General characteristics:
Crew: one
Length: 11.67 m (38 ft 3.5 in)
Wingspan: 9.01 m (29 ft 6.5 in)
Height: 4.43 m (14 ft 6.3 in)
Wing area: 18.13 m² (195.149 ft²)
Empty weight: 3,900 kg (8,598 lb)
Loaded weight: 7,800 kg (17,196 lb)
Max. takeoff weight: 8,700 kg (19,180 lb)
Powerplant:
2× General Electric J85-GE-13A turbojets, 18.15 kN (4,080 lbf) each
Performance:
Maximum speed: 1,110 km/h (600 kn, 690 mph, Mach 0.95) at 10,000 m (33,000 ft)
Range: 1,150 km (621 nmi, 715 mi)
Max. ferry range with drop tanks: 3,400 km (2,110 mls)
Service ceiling: 12,500 m (41,000 ft)
Rate of climb: 86.36 m/s (17,000 ft/min)
Wing loading: 480 kg/m² (98.3 lb/ft² (maximum)
Thrust/weight: 0.47 at maximum loading
Armament:
2× 30 mm (1.18 in) DEFA cannons with 120 RPG
4× under-wing pylon stations with a capacity of 1,814 kg (4,000 lb)
The kit and its assembly:
This whiffy Yankee Gina was inspired by a profile that had popped up during WWW picture search a while ago. Tracking it back, I found it to be artwork created and posted at DeviantArt by user “Jeremak-J”, depicting a G.91Y in polish markings and sporting a two-tone grey camouflage with light blue undersides and a medium waterline. I found the idea bizarre, but attractive, and, after some research, I found a small historic slot that might have made this “combo” possible.
When I recently delved through my (growing…) kit pile I came across a Matchbox G.91Y in a squashed box and with a cracked canopy – and decided to use that kit for a personal Polish variant.
The Matchbox G.91Y bears light and shadow galore. While it is IIRC the only IP kit of this aircraft, it comes with some problem areas. The fit of any major kit component is mediocre and the cockpit tub with an integral seat-thing is …unique. But the overall shape is IMHO quite good – a typical, simple Matchbox kit with a mix of (very fine) raised and engraved panel lines.
The OOB canopy could not be saved, but I was lucky to find a replacement part in the spares box – probably left over from the first G.91Y I built in the early Eighties. While the donor part had to be stripped from paint and was quite yellowed from age, it saved the kit.
It was built almost OOB, since major changes would not make sense in the context of my background story of a cheap 2nd hand purchase for an air force on a lean budget. I just added some details to the cockpit and changed the ordnance, using missile pods and iron bombs of Soviet origin (from a Kangnam/Revell Yak-38).
The exhausts were drilled open, because OOB these are just blank covers, only 0.5 mm deep! Inside, some afterburners were simulated (actually main wheels from an Arii 1:100 VF-1).
The flaps were lowered and extended, which is easy to realize on this kit.
The clumsy, molded guns were cut away, to be later replaced with free-standing, hollow steel needles.
In order to add some more exterior detail I also scratched the thin protector frames around the nozzles with thin wire.
Since the replacement canopy looked quite old and brittle, I did not dare cutting the clear part in two, so that the cockpit remained closed, despite the effort put into the interior.
A personal extra is the pair of chaff/flare dispensers on the rear fuselage, reminiscent of Su-22 installations.
Painting and markings:
The inspiring profile was nice, but I found it to be a bit fishy. The depicted tactical code format would IMHO not be plausible for the aircraft’s intended era, and roundels on the fuselage flanks would also long have gone in the Nineties. Therefore, I rather looked at real world benchmarks from the appropriate time frame for my Polish Gina’s livery, even though I wanted to stay true to the artist’s original concept, too.
One direction to add more plausibility was the scheme that Polish Su-22 fighter bombers received during their MLU, changing the typical tactical camouflage in up to four hues of green and brown into a much more subdued two tone grey livery with lighter, bluish-grey undersides, combined with toned-down markings like tactical codes in white outlines only. Some late MiG-21s also received this type of livery, and at least one Polish Fishbed instructional airframe received white low-viz national insignia.
For the paint scheme itself I used the MiG-21 pattern as benchmark (found in the Planes & Pilots MiG-21 book) and adapted it to the G.91Y as good as possible. The tones were a little difficult to define – some painting instructions recommend FS 36118 (US Gunship Grey) for the dark upper grey tone, but this is IMHO much too murky. Esp. on the Su-22s, the two upper greys show only little contrast, and the lower grey does not stand out much against the upper tones, either. On the other side, I found a picture of a real-life MiG-21U trainer in the new grey scheme, and the contrast between the grey on the upper surfaces appeared much stronger, with the light grey even having a brownish hue. Hmpf.
As a compromise I settled for FS 36173 (F-15E Dark Grey) and 36414 (Flint Grey). For the undersides I went for FS 35414 (Blue Green), which comes close to the typical Soviet underside blue, but it is brighter.
After basic painting, the kit received a light black ink wash and subtle post-shading, mostly in order to emphasize single panels, less for a true weathering effect.
The cockpit was painted in Dark Gull Grey (Humbrol 140), with a light blue dashboard and a black ejection seat. The OOB pilot was used and received an olive drab suit with a light grey helmet, modern and toned down like the aircraft itself. The landing gear as well as the air intake interior were painted in different shades of aluminum.
The decals were, as so often, puzzled together from various sources. The interesting, white-only Polish roundels come from a Mistercraft MiG-21. I also added them to the upper wing surfaces – this is AFAIK not correct, but without them I found the model to look rather bleak. Under the wings, full color insignia were used, though. The English language “Navy” markings on the fuselage might appear odd, but late MiG-21s in Polish Navy service actually had this operator designation added to their spines!
The typical, tactical four-digit code consists of markings for Italian Tornados, taken from two different Italeri sheets. The squadron emblem on the fin came from a Mistercraft Su-22, IIRC.
Most stencils were taken from the OOB sheet, some of them were replaced with white alternatives, though, in order to keep a consistent overall low-viz look.
Finally the kit was sealed with matt acrylic varnish.
An interesting result. Even though this Polish Gina is purely fictional, the model looks surprisingly convincing, and the grey low-viz livery actually suits the G.91Y well.