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Lissie, Tx. Grain Company; While riding hwy. 90 back roads the other day, I ran upon this rusty old thing. I imagined at one time, this was a thriving business in this little community? But now it's out of business and replaced down the road with a bigger modern facility. Jobs lost her but gained down the road. I love anything with rust attached to it. Combined with a beautiful blue sky with puffy white clouds, I thought it what a perfect shot. Hope you enjoy too.
My story was that I had a secret, a big, dark secret that I could tell no one.
Of course, I never really understood it until later in life (though even now it seems a mystery in many ways), but early on, I presumed at times I was gay even though it did not seem exactly right.
There were no other options in the world as I understood it.
Decades later I was relived to discover crossdressers and transgender people on the Internet. Bingo!
This was a long period in my life to avoid an honest discussion about sex and gender. I thought, no one must ever know - which is silly because truly few really cared.
Isn’t this disappointing…..like an anticlimax?
All the things we think about ourselves that are so terrible to other people, are really just a little bit more information about us.
We’d worry a lot less about what other people think of us if we realized how seldom they do.
The toll of keeping a secret so long is huge and generally not appreciated. Imagine constantly working to divert attention from important parts of yourself that you do not want exposed. Imagine how those close to you feel when your truth is finally revealed.
We can only go forward.
It's not too late for future generations is it?
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A delicate interplay of light and nature captures the beauty of these sunlit leaves along the Hokitika Gorge walkway. A simple yet striking reminder of the small wonders that thrive in New Zealand's wilderness.
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LM: maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/DreamDay%20Event/128/228/2000
SN/NC: Syagrus romanzoffiana, Arecaceae Family
This is a palm with an identity crisis! A few decades ago the queen palm was assigned the name Cocos plumosa. During the late sixties and seventies most experts began referring to it as Arecastrum romanzoffianum. Now this queen has been placed in the genus Syagrus, the species name became romanzoffiana - hopefully Syagrus romanzoffiana will stick! The Queen palm is mostly found in Subtropical areas. It was once very popular as a garden tree; but in areas like Southern California where the climate is considerably dryer, it has since been taken over by other palms, such as Archontophoenix cunninghamiana, and other Archontophoenix as well, it is still the dominate pinnate palm, in places like Central Florida, where it thrives on the humidity, and tolerates the occasional 25 degree F. nights. Its fruit is edible to wildlife, often being sought after by birds. It was originally classified in the Coconut or Cocos genus, was moved to Arecastrum, then Syagrus. As a result of this, they often retain a previous name in retail trade. Usually called the "Cocos plumosa palm". (Palmpedia.net)
Esta é uma palmeira com crise de identidade! Há algumas décadas, a palmeira rainha recebeu o nome de Cocos plumosa. Durante o final dos anos sessenta e setenta, a maioria dos especialistas começou a referir-se a ele como Arecastrum romanzoffianum. Agora que esta rainha foi colocada no gênero Syagrus, o nome da espécie passou a ser romanzoffiana - espero que Syagrus romanzoffiana permaneça! A palmeira rainha é encontrada principalmente em áreas subtropicais. Já foi muito popular como árvore de jardim; mas em áreas como o sul da Califórnia, onde o clima é consideravelmente mais seco, desde então foi assumido por outras palmeiras, como Archontophoenix cunninghamiana, e outras Archontophoenix também, ainda é a palmeira pinada dominante, em lugares como a Flórida Central, onde é prospera com a umidade e tolera noites ocasionais de 25 graus F. Seu fruto é comestível para a vida selvagem, sendo frequentemente procurado por pássaros. Foi originalmente classificado no gênero Coco ou Cocos, foi transferido para Arecastrum, depois Syagrus. Como resultado disso, muitas vezes mantêm um nome anterior no comércio varejista. Geralmente chamada de "palmeira Cocos plumosa". (Palmpedia.net)
Dit is een palm met een identiteitscrisis! Enkele decennia geleden kreeg de koninginnenpalm de naam Cocos plumosa. Eind jaren zestig en zeventig begonnen de meeste experts het Arecastrum romanzoffianum te noemen. Nu deze koningin in het geslacht Syagrus is geplaatst, is de soortnaam romanzoffiana geworden - hopelijk blijft Syagrus romanzoffiana behouden! De Koninginnenpalm komt vooral voor in subtropische gebieden. Ooit was hij erg populair als tuinboom; maar in gebieden als Zuid-Californië, waar het klimaat aanzienlijk droger is, is het sindsdien overgenomen door andere palmen, zoals Archontophoenix cunninghamiana, en ook andere Archontophoenix. Het is nog steeds de dominante geveerde palm, in plaatsen als Centraal-Florida, waar hij voorkomt. gedijt op de luchtvochtigheid en tolereert af en toe nachten van 25 graden F. De vrucht is eetbaar voor dieren in het wild en wordt vaak gezocht door vogels. Het werd oorspronkelijk geclassificeerd in het geslacht Coconut of Cocos en werd verplaatst naar Arecastrum en vervolgens naar Syagrus. Als gevolg hiervan behouden ze vaak een oude naam in de detailhandel. Meestal de "Cocos plumosapalm" genoemd. (Palampedia.net)
Questa è una palma con una crisi d'identità! Alcuni decenni fa alla palma regina venne assegnato il nome Cocos plumosa. Tra la fine degli anni Sessanta e gli anni Settanta la maggior parte degli esperti cominciò a chiamarlo Arecastrum romanzoffianum. Ora questa regina è stata inserita nel genere Syagrus, il nome della specie è diventato romanzoffiana - speriamo che Syagrus romanzoffiana rimanga! La palma regina si trova principalmente nelle aree subtropicali. Un tempo era molto apprezzato come albero da giardino; ma in aree come la California meridionale, dove il clima è notevolmente più secco, da allora è stata sostituita da altre palme, come Archontophoenix cunninghamiana, e anche da altri Archontophoenix, è ancora la palma pennata dominante, in luoghi come la Florida centrale, dove è prospera sull'umidità e tollera le notti occasionali di 25 gradi F.. Il suo frutto è commestibile per la fauna selvatica, spesso ricercato dagli uccelli. Originariamente classificato nel genere Coconut o Cocos, fu spostato in Arecastrum, poi Syagrus. Di conseguenza, nel commercio al dettaglio spesso mantengono il nome precedente. Solitamente chiamata "palma Cocos plumosa". (Palmpedia.net)
Esta es una palma con una crisis de identidad! Hace unas décadas a la palmera reina se le asignó el nombre de Cocos plumosa. A finales de los años sesenta y setenta la mayoría de los expertos empezaron a referirse a él como Arecastrum romanzoffianum. Ahora que esta reina ha sido incluida en el género Syagrus, el nombre de la especie pasó a ser romanzoffiana. ¡Ojalá Syagrus romanzoffiana se mantenga! La palma reina se encuentra principalmente en zonas subtropicales. Alguna vez fue muy popular como árbol de jardín; pero en áreas como el sur de California, donde el clima es considerablemente más seco, desde entonces ha sido reemplazada por otras palmeras, como Archontophoenix cunninghamiana, y también otras Archontophoenix, sigue siendo la palmera pinnada dominante, en lugares como Florida central, donde prospera con la humedad y tolera noches ocasionales de 25 grados F. Su fruto es comestible para la vida silvestre y, a menudo, lo buscan las aves. Originalmente se clasificó en el género Coconut o Cocos, se trasladó a Arecastrum y luego a Syagrus. Por ello, en el comercio minorista suelen conservar su nombre anterior. Generalmente llamada "palma Cocos plumosa". (Palmpedia.net)
C'est un palmier en crise d'identité ! Il y a quelques décennies, le palmier royal a reçu le nom de Cocos plumosa. À la fin des années soixante et soixante-dix, la plupart des experts ont commencé à l'appeler Arecastrum romanzoffianum. Maintenant que cette reine a été placée dans le genre Syagrus, le nom de l'espèce est devenu romanzoffiana - j'espère que Syagrus romanzoffiana restera ! Le palmier royal se trouve principalement dans les zones subtropicales. Il était autrefois très populaire comme arbre de jardin ; mais dans des régions comme la Californie du Sud où le climat est considérablement plus sec, il a depuis été remplacé par d'autres palmiers, comme l'Archontophoenix cunninghamiana, et d'autres Archontophoenix également, il est toujours le palmier penné dominant, dans des endroits comme la Floride centrale, où il se développe grâce à l'humidité et tolère les nuits occasionnelles à 25 degrés F. Ses fruits sont comestibles pour la faune sauvage et sont souvent recherchés par les oiseaux. Classé à l'origine dans le genre Coconut ou Cocos, il a été déplacé vers Arecastrum, puis Syagrus. De ce fait, ils conservent souvent un ancien nom dans le commerce de détail. Généralement appelé « palmier Cocos plumosa ». (Palmpedia.net)
Dies ist eine Palme mit einer Identitätskrise! Vor einigen Jahrzehnten erhielt die Königinpalme den Namen Cocos plumosa. In den späten sechziger und siebziger Jahren begannen die meisten Experten, sie als Arecastrum romanzoffianum zu bezeichnen. Jetzt wurde diese Königin in die Gattung Syagrus eingeordnet, der Artname wurde romanzoffiana – hoffentlich bleibt Syagrus romanzoffiana bestehen! Die Königinpalme kommt hauptsächlich in subtropischen Gebieten vor. Einst war er als Gartenbaum sehr beliebt; Aber in Gegenden wie Südkalifornien, wo das Klima deutlich trockener ist, wurde sie inzwischen von anderen Palmen wie Archontophoenix cunninghamiana und anderen Archontophoenix-Palmen übernommen und ist immer noch die dominierende gefiederte Palme, beispielsweise in Zentralflorida lebt von der Luftfeuchtigkeit und verträgt gelegentliche 25-Grad-F-Nächte. Seine Früchte sind für Wildtiere essbar und werden oft von Vögeln gesucht. Es wurde ursprünglich in die Gattung Coconut oder Cocos eingeordnet, dann nach Arecastrum und dann nach Syagrus verschoben. Dadurch behalten sie im Einzelhandel häufig einen früheren Namen. Wird normalerweise als „Cocos plumosa-Palme“ bezeichnet. (Palmpedia.net)
これはアイデンティティクライシスを抱えたヤシです！ 数十年前、この女王ヤシにはココス・プルモーサという名前が付けられました。 60 年代後半から 70 年代にかけて、ほとんどの専門家がそれを Arecastrum romanzoffianum と呼び始めました。 現在、この女王は Syagrus 属に属し、種名は romanzoffiana になりました。Syagrus romanzoffiana が定着することを願っています。 クイーンヤシは主に亜熱帯地域で見られます。 かつては庭木として非常に人気がありました。 しかし、気候がかなり乾燥している南カリフォルニアのような地域では、その後、アルコントフェニックス・カニンガミアナや他のアルコントフェニックスなどの他のヤシに引き継がれていますが、中央フロリダのような場所では、依然として優勢な羽状ヤシです。 湿気で生育し、時折25℃の夜にも耐えます。 その果実は野生動物に食用とされ、鳥がそれを求めて訪れることもよくあります。 元々はココナッツ属またはココス属に分類されていましたが、アレカストルム、次にシャグルスに移されました。 この結果、小売業界では以前の名前が残ることがよくあります。 通常は「ココス・プルモサ・ヤシ」と呼ばれています。 (Palmpedia.net)
هذا كف يعاني من أزمة هوية! منذ بضعة عقود مضت، أُطلق على نخلة الملكة اسم كوكوس بلوموسا. خلال أواخر الستينيات والسبعينيات، بدأ معظم الخبراء يشيرون إليها باسم Arecastrum romanzoffianum. الآن تم وضع هذه الملكة في جنس Syagrus، وأصبح اسم النوع romanzoffiana - نأمل أن يظل Syagrus romanzoffiana موجودًا! تم العثور على نخلة الملكة في الغالب في المناطق شبه الاستوائية. كانت ذات يوم تحظى بشعبية كبيرة كشجرة حديقة؛ ولكن في مناطق مثل جنوب كاليفورنيا حيث يكون المناخ أكثر جفافًا إلى حد كبير، فقد تم الاستيلاء عليها منذ ذلك الحين من قبل أشجار النخيل الأخرى، مثل أرتشونتوفونيكس كننغهاميانا، وغيرها من أرتشونتوفونيكس أيضًا، ولا تزال هي النخلة المهيمنة، في أماكن مثل وسط فلوريدا، حيث يزدهر على الرطوبة ويتحمل أحيانًا 25 درجة فهرنهايت في الليل. ثمارها صالحة للأكل للحياة البرية، وغالبًا ما تبحث عنها الطيور. تم تصنيفها في الأصل ضمن جنس جوز الهند أو جوز الهند، وتم نقلها إلى Arecastrum، ثم Syagrus. ونتيجة لذلك، غالبا ما يحتفظون باسمهم السابق في تجارة التجزئة. يُطلق عليها عادةً اسم "نخيل
كوكوس بلوموسا". (بالمبيديا.نت)
SN/NC: Agapanthus Africanus, Fam. Amarylidaceae
The great majority is purple-blue. This one is a bit intermediate between white, purple and blue. Agapanthus /ˌæɡəˈpænθəs/ is the only genus in the subfamily Agapanthoideae of the flowering plant family Amaryllidaceae. The family is in the monocot order Asparagales. The name is derived from scientific Greek: αγάπη (agape) = love, άνθος (anthos) = flower.
Some species of Agapanthus are commonly known as lily of the Nile (or African lily in the UK), although they are not lilies and all of the species are native to Southern Africa (South Africa, Lesotho, Swaziland, Mozambique) though some have become naturalized in scattered places around the world (Australia, Great Britain, Mexico, Ethiopia, Jamaica, etc.) (Wikipedia)
A grande maioria é azul-roxo. Este é um pouco intermediário entre branco, roxo e azul. Agapanthus /יæəəəənφəs/ é o único gênero na subfamília Agapanthoideae da família de plantas em floração Amaryllidaceae. Algumas espécies de Agapanthus são comumente conhecidas como lírio do Nilo (ou lírio africano no Reino Unido), embora não sejam lírios e todas as espécies sejam nativas do sul da África. (Wikipedia)
De overgrote meerderheid is paarsblauw. Deze is een beetje intermediair tussen wit, paars en blauw. Agapanthus /ˌæɡəˈpænθəs/ is het enige geslacht in de onderfamilie Agapanthoideae van de bloeiende plantenfamilie (Amaryllidaceae). Sommige soorten Agapanthus zijn algemeen bekend als lelie van de Nijl (of Afrikaanse lelie in het Verenigd Koninkrijk), hoewel het geen lelies zijn en alle soorten inheems zijn in Zuidelijk Afrika. (Wikipedia)
La grande majorité est violet-bleu. Celui-ci est un peu intermédiaire entre le blanc, le violet et le bleu. Agapanthus /ˌæɡəˈpænθəs/ est le seul genre de la sous-famille des Agapanthoideae de la famille des Amaryllidaceae. Certaines espèces d’agapanthes sont communément connues sous le nom de lys du Nil (ou lys africain au Royaume-Uni), bien qu’elles ne soient pas des lys et que toutes les espèces soient originaires d’Afrique australe. (Wikipédia)
La gran mayoría es de color azul púrpura. Este es un poco intermedio entre blanco, púrpura y azul. Agapanthus /ˌæɡəˈpænθəs/ es el único género de la subfamilia Agapanthoideae de la familia Amaryllidaceae. Algunas especies de Agapanthus se conocen comúnmente como lirio del Nilo (o lirio africano en el Reino Unido), aunque no son lirios y todas las especies son nativas del sur de África. (Wikipedia)
La grande maggioranza è viola-blu. Questo è un po 'intermedio tra bianco, viola e blu. Agapanthus /ˌæɡəˈpænθəs/ è l'unico genere della sottofamiglia Agapanthoideae della famiglia delle Amaryllidaceae. Alcune specie di Agapanthus sono comunemente conosciute come giglio del Nilo (o giglio africano nel Regno Unito), anche se non sono gigli e tutte le specie sono originarie dell'Africa meridionale. (Wikipedia)
Die große Mehrheit ist lila-blau. Dieser ist ein bisschen zwischen Weiß, Lila und Blau. Agapanthus /ˌæɡəˈpænθəs/ ist die einzige Gattung in der Unterfamilie Agapanthoideae der Blütenpflanzenfamilie Amaryllidaceae. Einige Arten von Agapanthus sind allgemein als Lilie des Nils (oder afrikanische Lilie in Großbritannien) bekannt, obwohl sie keine Lilien sind und alle Arten im südlichen Afrika beheimatet sind. (Wikipedia)
大部分は紫がかった青です。これは白、紫、青の間の色です。アガパンサス /ˌæɡəˈpænθəs/ は、顕花植物科ヒガンバナ科のアガパンサス亜科の唯一の属です。アガパンサスの一部の種は一般にナイルユリ（英国ではアフリカユリ）として知られていますが、それらはユリではなく、すべての種がアフリカ南部原産です。 (ウィキペディア)
الغالبية العظمى من الأرجواني والأزرق. هذا هو واحد قليلا وسيطة بين الأبيض والأرجواني والأزرق. أغابانثوس / ˌæɡəˈpænθəs / هو الجنس الوحيد في Agapanthoideae subfamily من عائلة النبات المزهرة Amaryllidaceae. بعض أنواع أغابانثوس معروفة باسم زنبق النيل (أو زنبق الأفريقية في المملكة المتحدة)، على الرغم من أنها ليست الزنابق وجميع الأنواع هي أصلية في الجنوب الأفريقي. (ويكيبيديا)
This large succulent is one of many inside the Lyman Estate greenhouse. I have a similar one at home, but it isn't as pretty.
NEW STOCK!
Flight 4’s - White Thunder
January 2024
Legacy M & F - Lara - Reborn - KUPRA - Slink Hourglass - Signature Gianni - Belleza Jake - Unrigged (Resizeable)
Sunrise
Sonnenaufgang
Mono Lake (/ˈmoʊnoʊ/ MOH-noh) is a saline soda lake in Mono County, California, formed at least 760,000 years ago as a terminal lake in an endorheic basin. The lack of an outlet causes high levels of salts to accumulate in the lake which make its water alkaline.
The desert lake has an unusually productive ecosystem based on brine shrimp, which thrive in its waters, and provides critical habitat for two million annual migratory birds that feed on the shrimp and alkali flies (Ephydra hians). Historically, the native Kutzadika'a people ate the alkali flies' pupae, which live in the shallow waters around the edge of the lake. When the city of Los Angeles diverted water from the freshwater streams flowing into the lake, it lowered the lake level, which imperiled the migratory birds. The Mono Lake Committee formed in response and won a legal battle that forced Los Angeles to partially replenish the lake level.
Geology
Mono Lake occupies part of the Mono Basin, an endorheic basin that has no outlet to the ocean. Dissolved salts in the runoff thus remain in the lake and raise the water's pH levels and salt concentration. The tributaries of Mono Lake include Lee Vining Creek, Rush Creek and Mill Creek which flows through Lundy Canyon
The basin was formed by geological forces over the last five million years: basin and range crustal stretching and associated volcanism and faulting at the base of the Sierra Nevada. 45 Five million years ago, the Sierra Nevada was an eroded set of rolling hills and Mono Basin and Owens Valley did not yet exist.
From 4.5 to 2.6 million years ago, large volumes of basalt were extruded around what is now Cowtrack Mountain (east and south of Mono Basin); eventually covering 300 square miles (780 km2) and reaching a maximum thickness of 600 feet (180 m). 45 Later volcanism in the area occurred 3.8 million to 250,000 years ago. This activity was northwest of Mono Basin and included the formation of Aurora Crater, Beauty Peak, Cedar Hill (later an island in the highest stands of Mono Lake), and Mount Hicks.
Mono Lake is believed to have formed at least 760,000 years ago, dating back to the Long Valley eruption. Sediments located below the ash layer hint that Mono Lake could be a remnant of a larger and older lake that once covered a large part of Nevada and Utah, which would put it among the oldest lakes in North America. At its height during the most recent ice age, the lake would have been about 900 feet (270 m) deep. Prominent old shore lines, called strandlines by geologists, can be seen west of the Lake.
Currently, Mono Lake is in a geologically active area at the north end of the Mono–Inyo Craters volcanic chain and is close to Long Valley Caldera. Volcanic activity continues in the Mono Lake vicinity: the most recent eruption occurred 350 years ago, resulting in the formation of Paoha Island. Panum Crater (on the south shore of the lake) is an example of a combined rhyolite dome and cinder cone.
Tufa towers
Many columns of limestone rise above the surface of Mono Lake. These limestone towers consist primarily of calcium carbonate minerals such as calcite (CaCO3). This type of limestone rock is referred to as tufa, which is a term used for limestone that forms in low to moderate temperatures.
Tufa tower formation
Mono Lake is a highly alkaline lake, or soda lake. Alkalinity is a measure of how many bases are in a solution, and how well the solution can neutralize acids. Carbonate (CO32-) and bicarbonate (HCO3−) are both bases. Hence, Mono Lake has a very high content of dissolved inorganic carbon. Through supply of calcium ions (Ca2+), the water will precipitate carbonate-minerals such as calcite (CaCO3). Subsurface waters enter the bottom of Mono Lake through small springs. High concentrations of dissolved calcium ions in these subsurface waters cause huge amounts of calcite to precipitate around the spring orifices. The tufa originally formed at the bottom of the lake. It took many decades or even centuries to form the well-recognized tufa towers. When lake levels fell, the tufa towers came to rise above the water surface and stand as the majestic pillars seen today (see Lake Level History for more information).
Lake-level history
An important characteristic of Mono Lake is that it is a closed lake, meaning it has no outflow. Water can only escape the lake if it evaporates or is lost to groundwater. This may cause closed lakes to become very saline. The lake level of closed lakes will be strongly dependent on changes in climate. Hence, studying lake levels can reveal information about climate change in the past and present. Geochemists have observed that carbonates from closed lakes appear to have δ13C and δ18O (carbon and oxygen isotopes) with covariant trends. It has been proposed that this covariation occurs because of coupled evaporation and CO2 degassing. The lighter isotopes, 12C and 16O, will preferentially go to the gas phase with increased evaporation. As a result, δ13C and δ18O in the remaining lake both become increasingly heavy. Other factors such as biology, atmospheric properties, and freshwater compositions and flow may also influence δ13C and δ18O in lakes. These factors must be stable to achieve a covariant δ13C and δ18O trend. As such, correlations between δ18O and δ13C can be used to infer developments in the lake stability and hydrological characteristics through time. It is important to note that this correlation is not directly related to the lake level itself but rather the rate of change in lake level. Three different studies with three different methods provide different resolutions to understanding the lake level history of Mono Lake.
150-year record
The covariation between δ18O in lake water and lake level in Mono Lake have been recorded over a 150-year time interval in Mono Lake. The δ18O record was compared to historic lake levels recorded by the USGS. The lake level and δ18O record were observed to have a strong correlation with minor offsets. Changes in δ18O of lake water were inversely correlated with lake level. This revealed six stages in lake level in the past 150 years: high stands at 1845, 1880, and 1915 as well as low stands at 1860, 1900, and 1933. The δ18O record compared well to the recorded precipitation and streamflow of Nevada City in California. Decreases in δ18O correlated well with increases in precipitation as well as increases in streamflow and vice versa.
10,000-year record
A sediment core from Mono Lake reveals a 10,000 year record of carbonates (dated through ash beds). Here δ18O and δ13C did covary when observed through long time intervals of>5,000 years, whereas the correlation was not present during shorter time scales. It was found that the record revealed 5 periods of distinct lake conditions:
9.7 - 8.7 ka: Rising lake level. Decreasing δ18O and δ13C reflected an increased lake level. In fact, the lake level reached the Holocene High Stand. This high stand corresponded to a period of maximum effective moisture in the Great Basin.
8.7 - 6.5 ka: Dropping lake level. A sudden increase in δ18O and δ13C suggested that lake levels dropped. Following, weak correlation between δ18O and δ13C suggested that lake levels stabilized.
6.5 - 5.9 ka: Rising lake level. An increase in δ18O and δ13C correlated with a decrease in lake level. The lake level drop continued until the Holocene Low Stand at 5.9 ka, which corresponded to a period of minimum effective moisture in the Great Basin.
2 - 0.6 ka: Unconformity. The gap between 6 - 2 ka could be attributed to shallow lake conditions. In addition, sediment types observed in the core between 2 - 0.6 ka largely reflected shallow water conditions. During the Medieval Warm Period, which occurred from 0.9 - 0.7 ka, the lake level was around the same as today. In general, the period was dominated by a shallow, stable lake level with low covariance between δ18O and δ13C.
490 – 360 years ago: High, fluctuating lake levels. This period corresponded to the Little Ice Age. The isotopic record had very high annual resolution. The lake levels were generally high but fluctuated a little resulting in low correlation between δ18O and δ13C . At the end of this period, δ18O and δ13C evolved towards a trend of decreasing lake level.
Overall the lake levels of Mono Lake appeared to have corresponded to known climatic events such as periods of maximum or minimum effective moisture, the Medieval Warm Period, and the Little Ice Age.
35,000-year record
Lake levels of Mono Lake during the Pleistocene have also been reconstructed using stratigraphic inspection of paleoshorelines, radio carbon dating, and δ18O records from sediments. These analyses helped reconstruct lake levels of the past 35,000 years.
36 - 35 ka: Rising lake level. Decreasing δ18O revealed that lake level began to rise at about this time from a lake level altitude of 2015 m.
35 - 21 ka: High stable lake level. Little fluctuation in δ18O suggested a stable lake level. This stable lake level corresponded to two beds of silt that would have been deposited in a deep lake.
20 - 15 ka: Dropping lake level. There was a sudden fall in lake level at the beginning of this period. Sand delta terraces from this time period indicated a lake-surface altitude of 2035 m. Recorded δ18O increased over this time period, reflecting falling lake level.
5 - 13 ka: Rising lake level. During this period, Mono Lake rose to its highest lake-surface altitude of 2155 m. This corresponded to a decrease in δ18O.
13+ ka: Dropping lake level. Following peak lake level, the lake level decreased to 1965 m at ~ 10 ka as evidenced by an increase in δ18O and paleoshorelines.
This lake-level record has been correlated with significant climatic events including polar jet stream movement, Heinrich, and Dansgaard-Oeschger events.
Ecology
Aquatic life
The hypersalinity and high alkalinity (pH=10 or equivalent to 4 milligrams of NaOH per liter of water) of the lake means that no fish are native to the lake. An attempt by the California Department of Fish and Game to stock the lake failed.
The whole food chain of the lake is based on the high population of single-celled planktonic algae present in the photic zone of the lake. These algae reproduce rapidly during winter and early spring after winter runoff brings nutrients to the surface layer of water. By March the lake is "as green as pea soup" with photosynthesizing algae.
The lake is famous for the Mono Lake brine shrimp, Artemia monica, a tiny species of brine shrimp, no bigger than a thumbnail, that are endemic to the lake. During the warmer summer months, an estimated 4–6 trillion brine shrimp inhabit the lake. Brine shrimp have no food value for humans, but are a staple for birds of the region. The brine shrimp feed on microscopic algae.
Alkali flies, Ephydra hians live along the shores of the lake and walk underwater, encased in small air bubbles for grazing and to lay eggs. These flies are an important source of food for migratory and nesting birds.
8 Nematode species were found living in the littoral sediment:
Auanema spec., which is outstanding for its extreme arsenic resistance (survives concentrations 500 times higher than humans), having 3 sexes, and being viviparous.
Pellioditis spec.
Mononchoides americanus
Diplogaster rivalis
species of the family Mermithidae
Prismatolaimus dolichurus
2 species of the order Monhysteridae
Birds
Mono Lake is a vital resting and eating stop for migratory shorebirds and has been recognized as a site of international importance by the Western Hemisphere Shorebird Reserve Network. Nearly 2,000,000 waterbirds, including 35 species of shorebirds, use Mono Lake to rest and eat for at least part of the year. Some shorebirds that depend on the resources of Mono Lake include American avocets, killdeer and sandpipers. Over 1.5 million eared grebes and phalaropes use Mono Lake during their long migrations.
Late every summer tens of thousands of Wilson's phalaropes and red-necked phalaropes arrive from their nesting grounds, and feed until they continue their migration to South America or the tropical oceans respectively.
In addition to migratory birds, a few species spend several months to nest at Mono Lake. Mono Lake has the second largest nesting population of California gulls, Larus californicus, second only to the Great Salt Lake in Utah. Since abandoning the landbridged Negit Island in the late 1970s, California gulls have moved to some nearby islets and have established new, if less protected, nesting sites. Cornell University and Point Blue Conservation Science have continued the study of nesting populations on Mono Lake that was begun 35 years ago. Snowy plovers also arrive at Mono Lake each spring to nest along the remote eastern shores.
History
Native Americans
The indigenous people of Mono Lake are from a band of the Northern Paiute, called the Kutzadika'a. They speak the Northern Paiute language. The Kutzadika'a traditionally forage alkali fly pupae, called kutsavi in their language. Mono Lake was also referred to as Teniega Bah. The origin of the name "Kutzadika'a" is uncertain but could be a Yokut Native American term for "fly eater".
The term "Mono" is derived from "Monachi", a Yokut term for the tribes that live on both the east and west side of the Sierra Nevada.
During early contact, the first known Mono Lake Paiute chief was Captain John. He was also referred to by the Paiute names of Shibana or Poko Tucket. Captain John was the son of a Northern Paiute named 'older Captain John.'
The Mono tribe has two bands: Eastern and Western. The Eastern Mono joined the Western Mono bands' villages annually at Hetch Hetchy Valley, Yosemite Valley, and along the Merced River to gather acorns, different plant species, and to trade. The Western Mono traditionally lived in the south-central Sierra Nevada foothills, including Historical Yosemite Valley.
Present day Mono Reservations are currently located in Big Pine, Bishop, and several in Madera County and Fresno County, California.
Conservation efforts
The city of Los Angeles diverted water from the Owens River into the Los Angeles Aqueduct in 1913. In 1941, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power extended the Los Angeles Aqueduct system farther northward into the Mono Basin with the completion of the Mono Craters Tunnel between the Grant Lake Reservoir on Rush Creek and the Upper Owens River. So much water was diverted that evaporation soon exceeded inflow and the surface level of Mono Lake fell rapidly. By 1982 the lake was reduced to 37,688 acres (15,252 ha), 69 percent of its 1941 surface area. By 1990, the lake had dropped 45 vertical feet and had lost half its volume relative to the 1941 pre-diversion water level. As a result, alkaline sands and formerly submerged tufa towers became exposed, the water salinity doubled, and Negit Island became a peninsula, exposing the nests of California gulls to predators (such as coyotes), and forcing the gull colony to abandon this site.
In 1974 ecologist David Gaines and his student David Winkler studied the Mono Lake ecosystem and became instrumental in alerting the public of the effects of the lower water level with Winkler's 1976 ecological inventory of the Mono Basin. The National Science Foundation funded the first comprehensive ecological study of Mono Lake, conducted by Gaines and undergraduate students. In June 1977, the Davis Institute of Ecology of the University of California published a report, "An Ecological Study of Mono Lake, California," which alerted California to the ecological dangers posed by the redirection of water away from the lake for municipal uses.
Gaines formed the Mono Lake Committee in 1978. He and Sally Judy, a UC Davis student, led the committee and pursued an informational tour of California. They joined with the Audubon Society to fight a now famous court battle, the National Audubon Society v. Superior Court, to protect Mono Lake through state public trust laws. While these efforts have resulted in positive change, the surface level is still below historical levels, and exposed shorelines are a source of significant alkaline dust during periods of high winds.
Owens Lake, the once-navigable terminus of the Owens River which had sustained a healthy ecosystem, is now a dry lake bed during dry years due to water diversion beginning in the 1920s. Mono Lake was spared this fate when the California State Water Resources Control Board (after over a decade of litigation) issued an order (SWRCB Decision 1631) to protect Mono Lake and its tributary streams on September 28, 1994. SWRCB Board Vice-chair Marc Del Piero was the sole Hearing Officer (see D-1631). Since that time, the lake level has steadily risen. In 1941 the surface level was at 6,417 feet (1,956 m) above sea level. As of October 2013, Mono Lake was at 6,380.6 feet (1,945 m) above sea level. The lake level of 6,392 feet (1,948 m) above sea level is the goal, a goal made more difficult during years of drought in the American West.
In popular culture
Artwork
In 1968, the artist Robert Smithson made Mono Lake Non-Site (Cinders near Black Point) using pumice collected while visiting Mono on July 27, 1968, with his wife Nancy Holt and Michael Heizer (both prominent visual artists). In 2004, Nancy Holt made a short film entitled Mono Lake using Super 8 footage and photographs of this trip. An audio recording by Smithson and Heizer, two songs by Waylon Jennings, and Michel Legrand's Le Jeu, the main theme of Jacques Demy's film Bay of Angels (1963), were used for the soundtrack.
The Diver, a photo taken by Aubrey Powell of Hipgnosis for Pink Floyd's album Wish You Were Here (1975), features what appears to be a man diving into a lake, creating no ripples. The photo was taken at Mono Lake, and the tufa towers are a prominent part of the landscape. The effect was actually created when the diver performed a handstand underwater until the ripples dissipated.
In print
Mark Twain's Roughing It, published in 1872, provides an informative early description of Mono Lake in its natural condition in the 1860s. Twain found the lake to be a "lifeless, treeless, hideous desert... the loneliest place on earth."
In film
A scene featuring a volcano in the film Fair Wind to Java (1953) was shot at Mono Lake.
Most of the movie, High Plains Drifter (1973), by Clint Eastwood, was shot on the southern shores of Mono Lake in the 1970s. An entire town was built here for the movie. It was Clint Eastwood's first movie to direct and star in.
In music
The music video for glam metal band Cinderella's 1988 power ballad Don't Know What You Got ('Till It's Gone) was filmed by the lake.
(Wikipedia)
Der Mono Lake ist ein Natronsee; er ist also sowohl besonders alkalisch als auch besonders salzhaltig. Er liegt in Mono County im zentral-östlichen Teil von Kalifornien, in einem abflusslosen Becken am Westrand des Großen Beckens unter der Ostflanke der Sierra Nevada. Wegen der harschen Umweltbedingungen müssen Tiere und Pflanzen sowohl an den hohen pH-Wert angepasst sein als auch den Salzgehalt ertragen können. Daher hat sich ein Ökosystem aus sehr wenigen angepassten Arten bei sehr hoher Individuenzahl entwickelt, das für einige Vogelarten von besonderer Bedeutung ist.
Aus dem Einzugsgebiet des Sees wird seit 1941 Trinkwasser in eine über 520 km lange Wasserleitung abgeführt, die die Stadt Los Angeles versorgt. Dadurch sank der Wasserspiegel des Sees kontinuierlich ab, der Salzgehalt stieg, Teile des Seebetts trockneten aus. Für die Zuflüsse und den See ergaben sich schwerwiegende ökologische Folgen. Zugleich wurden im See und am Ufer zahlreiche unter Wasser entstandene Kalktuff-Gebilde in bizarren Formen sichtbar, was zur Bekanntheit des Sees beitrug. Naturschützer thematisierten ab Anfang der 1980er Jahre die Absenkung des Wasserspiegels. Nach Gerichtsbeschlüssen über eine Begrenzung der Ableitung steigt er seit Mitte der 1990er Jahre langsam wieder an.
Geographie
Das Mono-Becken liegt am Westrand der Basin-and-Range-Region, die durch eine Krustendehnung entstand. Dabei wurden überwiegend parallele Horst-und-Graben-Strukturen gebildet oder einzelne Becken wie am Mono Lake. Die Basin and Range-Region setzt sich im Norden, Osten und Süden des Sees in Kalifornien und Nevada fort. Im Südosten liegen die White Mountains, im Westen steigt die steile Flanke der Sierra Nevada auf. Das Einzugsgebiet des Mono Lake mit rund 2020 km² erstreckt sich in der Höhe vom Hauptkamm der Sierra mit Mount Lyell (3994 m) und Mount Dana (3978 m) bis hinunter zum Wasserspiegel von derzeit 1945 m über dem Meer (Stand 2017). Benachbarte Einzugsgebiete sind im Norden der Walker River, im Süden das Owens Valley mit der Long Valley Caldera als oberem Talschluss und im Westen jenseits des Sierra-Hauptkamms und des Tioga Passes der Yosemite-Nationalpark mit dem Merced River und dem Tuolumne River. Im Südwesten entspringt der San Joaquin River. Das Becken reicht 500 bis 1350 m unter das heutige Bodenniveau, es ist mit Sedimenten verfüllt, die von Gletschern, Oberflächengewässern und Vulkanen abgelagert wurden.
Das Becken entstand vor rund drei Millionen Jahren, der See gehört mit einem Alter von mindestens 760.000 Jahren zu den ältesten Seen Nordamerikas. Am Ende der letzten Eiszeit (in Nordamerika als Wisconsin glaciation bezeichnet) füllte sich das Mono-Becken vollständig mit Schmelzwasser und lief nach Osten in die benachbarten Becken über. Der dadurch entstandene, als Lake Russell bezeichnete prähistorische See hatte vor etwa 12.500 Jahren eine Fläche von knapp 900 km² und eine Tiefe von rund 100 m. Die damalige Uferlinie kann an den Hängen im Westen aus ihrer Terrassenstruktur abgelesen werden. Nach dem Ende der Eiszeit schmolzen die den See speisenden Gletscher ab; infolge des damit einhergehenden Klimawandels ließen auch die Niederschläge stark nach. Vor rund 9000 Jahren schließlich hatte der See etwa die heutige Ausdehnung, mit der er heute als Mono Lake bezeichnet wird.
Das heutige Erscheinungsbild des Mono Lake ist stark von historischem Vulkanismus geprägt. Die Mono-Inyo Craters südlich des Sees sind rhyolithische Lavadome und mit einem Alter von 2000 bis 600 Jahren die jüngste Hügelkette Nordamerikas. Der Panum-Krater, der nördlichste des Kraterfelds, ist mit rund 650 Jahren der jüngste und liegt nur etwas mehr als einen Kilometer südlich des Sees. Die dunkle Negit-Insel im Norden des Sees ist vulkanischen Ursprungs und knapp 2000 Jahre alt. Die größere, zentrale Pahoa-Insel ist die jüngste Auswirkung des Vulkanismus in der Region. Selbst nicht aus vulkanischem Material, wurde sie durch darunter aufsteigendes Magma angehoben und durchbrach vor rund 250 Jahren die Wasseroberfläche. Black Point am Nordwestufer ist der Überrest eines basaltischen Schlackenkegelvulkans, der vor etwa 13.300 Jahren unter Wasser ausbrach.
Da das Becken östlich der Sierra Nevada liegt, befindet es sich in ihrem Regenschatten. Während die östlichen Hochlagen des Gebirges Niederschläge von 1300 mm/a erhalten, herrscht an den Hängen und im Hügelland ein semiarides, am See selbst ein arides Klima mit 140 mm/a am Nordostufer. Der Zulauf zum See stammt von winterlichem Schneefall auf die höheren Lagen der Sierra, der nach der Schneeschmelze über den Lee Vining Creek und den Rush Creek zum See abläuft; beide Bäche werden vom Los Angeles Aqueduct angezapft. Kleinere Zuflüsse sind der Mill Creek und der Wilson Creek im Nordwesten. Weitere Zuflüsse im Süden und Norden führen nur zeitweise Wasser und spielen für den Wasserstand des Sees keine Rolle. Rush Creek und Mill Creek werden zur Gewinnung von Wasserkraft aufgestaut.
Mit seiner langen geologischen Existenz einhergehend ließen Klima und Niederschlag den Wasserspiegel des Sees immer wieder stark schwanken, in den letzten 3800 Jahren variierte der Wasserpegel um mindestens 40 m. Der höchste Wasserstand von 1980 m über dem Meer wurde mittels Radiokohlenstoffmethode auf vor rund 3800 Jahren datiert, der niedrigste feststellbare Pegel lag vor rund 1800 Jahren bei 1940 m. Beim Beginn der historischen Aufzeichnungen 1857 lag er bei 1949 m. Danach folgte ein Anstieg auf den Höchststand in der durch direkte Messungen belegten Zeit bei 1959 m im Jahr 1919 und ein langsamer Rückgang auf 1956 m beim Beginn der Ausleitung 1941. Im Ergebnis stand der Wasserspiegel in den letzten 2000 Jahren überwiegend unterhalb der vor der Ausleitung vorgefundenen Werte, so dass die Planungen für Wasserversorgung und -nutzung berücksichtigen müssen, dass ihre Modelle auf einer Phase mit überdurchschnittlichem Niederschlag beruhen und sie mit größerer Trockenheit rechnen sollten als bisher angenommen.
Da der Mono Lake keinen natürlichen Abfluss hat, verliert er nur durch Verdunstung an Wasser. Dadurch sammeln sich alle im zufließenden Wasser gelösten Mineralien im See an. In der Folge stieg der Salzgehalt, und das Seewasser wurde zunehmend alkalisch. Der See enthält ungefähr 258 Millionen Tonnen an im Wasser gelösten Salzen. Der Salzgehalt variiert entsprechend dem schwankenden Wasservolumen. Vor 1941 betrug er 50 Gramm pro Liter (die Ozeane der Welt haben einen durchschnittlichen Wert von 31,5 Gramm pro Liter). Als der See 1982 auf seinen niedrigsten Pegel sank, hatte der Salzgehalt sich auf 99 Gramm pro Liter verdoppelt. 2002 waren es 78 Gramm Salz pro Liter. Es wird erwartet, dass sich mit steigendem Wasserstand der Salzgehalt langfristig auf einem durchschnittlichen Niveau von 69 Gramm Salz pro Liter stabilisieren wird. Der See ist durch die Vielzahl an gelösten Carbonaten mit einem pH-Wert von 9,8 stark alkalisch. Höhere Salzkonzentrationen kommen in anderen Seen in den Vereinigten Staaten und anderen Teilen der Erde vor, aber kein anderer See der Erde weist eine vergleichbare Kombination aus Salinität und Alkalinität auf.
Auch andere Stoffe konzentrierten sich im See – die hohen Werte von ≈130 Mikromol Schwefel pro Liter Seewasser, 35 Mikromol Bor und insbesondere der hohe Gehalt von rund 200 bis im Einzelfall 300 Mikromol an Arsen pro Liter stellen einen weiteren Umweltfaktor des Sees dar, den nur wenige angepasste Organismen ertragen.
Die charakteristischen Kalktuff-Gebilde an den Seeufern entstehen unter Wasser, die heute sichtbaren wurden erst durch die Absenkung des Wasserspiegels freigelegt. Im See treten Quellen aus, die Wasser mit gelöstem Calciumcarbonat aus den umliegenden Bergen transportieren. Durch die unterschiedlichen Säurewerte von Quellwasser und See kommt es zur Ausfällung der Carbonate als Kalktuff. Eine Besonderheit des Mono Lake ist der Sand-Tuff. Quellen mit hoher Schüttung an sandigen Uferabschnitten können Süßwasser, Sand und das Salzwasser des Sees so verwirbeln, dass Tuffausfällungen in dünnen Schichten im Sand auftreten. Wird der Sand später durch die Strömung ausgewaschen, bleiben kleine, filigrane Gebilde aus Tuff erhalten, die in einigen Fällen trocken fallen und so der schnellen Zerstörung durch die Strömung entgehen.
Ein weiteres Mineral am Mono Lake ist Hazenit. Das biogene Phosphat wird in Algen des Sees gebildet, die an den Kalktuff-Säulen wachsen. Es wurde 2007 erstmals beschrieben und bisher an keinem anderen Ort gefunden.
Ökologie
Die hohe Salinität des Mono Lake in Verbindung mit der Alkalität eines pH-Wertes von knapp 10 schränkt das Ökosystem im und am See stark ein. Im See können nur Arten leben, deren Stoffwechsel in besonderem Maße an den osmotischen Druck und dem daraus folgenden geringen Gehalt an freiem Wasser im Organismus angepasst ist.
Der See unterteilt sich in zwei wesentliche Lebensräume:
In den tiefen Wasserbereichen ist Phytoplankton die Grundlage der Nahrungskette. Von diesen ernähren sich Krebstiere, vorwiegend die im Mono Lake endemische Art Artemia monica und in geringerem Maße Artemia salina, Kleinkrebse mit einer Größe von wenigen Millimetern bis unter einem Zentimeter. Im offenen Wasser gibt es kein Zooplankton von nennenswerter Verbreitung, der Seegrund ist in den tiefen Wasserbereichen völlig frei von tierischem Leben. Diese Krebstiere sind die Nahrungsgrundlage für den Schwarzhalstaucher und die Kaliforniermöwe.
In den Uferzonen ist die Salzfliegenart Ephydra hians maßgeblich. Auch sie ernährt sich von Phytoplankton. Anders als im Tiefwasser kommen in den Uferbereichen allerdings auch einige weitere Insektenarten vor, so zwei Bremsen der Gattung Chrysops sowie eine Stechfliegenart aus der Gnitzen-Gattung Culicoides und weitere Arten mit wesentlich geringerem Anteil. Die Insekten und ihre Larven bilden die Nahrungsgrundlage für Limikolen, die Vögel der Uferzonen. Darunter ist besonders der Wilson-Wassertreter zu nennen.
Weil im Mono Lake keine Fische leben können, ist die Nahrungskette vom Phytoplankton als Primärproduzenten über Zooplankton und Insekten als Primärkonsumenten zu den Vögeln als Endkonsumenten sehr kurz. Dafür kommen die Arten in großer Individuenzahl vor. Die höchste gemessene Dichte an Artemia-Krebsen im Mono Lake betrug 31.000 Tiere/m², der Wert schwankt zeitlich und räumlich stark. Die Salzfliegen und ihre Puppen bilden im Sommer Teppiche und Matten im Uferbereich. Die Matten aus Salzfliegen-Puppen halten sich unter Wasser vorwiegend im östlichen Teil des Seeufers auf, wobei sie an Tuff-Türmen ein ideales Substrat vorfinden. Die erwachsenen Tiere leben vorwiegend auf den Uferebenen und bilden dort dichte Bestände, die dunklen Wolken gleichen.
Auch einige Arten der Endkonsumenten kommen in sehr hoher Dichte vor, so dass der Mono Lake eine besondere Bedeutung für ihre Populationen hat. Schwarzhalstaucher nutzen den See als Rastplatz auf dem Vogelzug, wobei sie sich Nahrungsreserven anfressen und die Zeit zur Mauser nutzen. Spitzenzahlen von 600.000 bis 900.000 Exemplaren wurden beobachtet. Nachdem die Gesamtpopulation der Schwarzhalstaucher in Nordamerika auf etwa 2,5 Millionen geschätzt wird, ist der Mono Lake für mindestens ein Viertel bis zu etwa einem Drittel aller Individuen von großer Bedeutung. Die Artemia-Krebse und die Larven der Salzfliegen machen rund 95 % ihrer Nahrungsaufnahme während des Aufenthaltes am See aus.
Wilson-Wassertreter sind in besonderem Maße auf Rastplätze mit guter Nahrungsversorgung angewiesen, weil sie von Nordamerika auf dem Vogelzug einen Non-Stop-Flug in die Winterquartiere Südamerikas antreten.[23] Mono Lake ist der mit großem Abstand wichtigste Sammel- und Rastplatz für diese Art im westlichen Nordamerika mit rund 100.000 bis 125.000 Tieren pro Jahr, von denen etwa 70.000 als Spitzenbestand gleichzeitig anwesend sind. Auch sie nutzen den Aufenthalt am See zur Mauser. Das eng verwandte Odinshühnchen wird mit über 50.000 Individuen im Jahr am Mono Lake beschrieben, dies stellt aber einen wesentlich geringeren Anteil der nordamerikanischen Gesamtpopulation dar, weshalb diese Art weniger auf den See angewiesen ist. Für eine weitere Wassertreterart, das Thorshühnchen, ist der See nicht von Bedeutung.
Die Kaliforniermöwe ist die dritte Vogelart, für die der Mono Lake eine wesentliche Funktion von kontinentaler Bedeutung hat. Sie brütet mit rund 50.000 Exemplaren auf den Inseln des Sees. Bei einer Weltpopulation von 220.000 Tieren ist der Mono Lake für den Bestand der Art wichtig. Sie litt in besonderem Maße unter der Absenkung des Wasserspiegels zu den Zeiten des Tiefstandes Anfang und erneut Ende der 1980er Jahre. Damals fiel ein Teil des nördlichen Sees trocken und die Negit-Insel wurde zur Halbinsel. Über die Landbrücke konnten Kojoten die Brutgebiete erreichen und verhinderten in den betroffenen Jahren jeden Bruterfolg auf dieser Insel.
Für den Seeregenpfeifer ist der See ebenfalls von besonderer Bedeutung, obwohl er sich nur teilweise von den Larven der Salzfliegen ernährt und seine Nahrung überwiegend in der Vegetation der Uferebene sucht. Da er seine gut getarnten Nester nur auf weitgehend vegetationsfreiem Gelände anlegt, nutzt er besonders die trocken gefallenen Teile des ehemaligen Seebodens. Er profitierte daher von der Absenkung des Wasserspiegels. Die Art steht unter Artenschutz des Bundes nach dem Endangered Species Act, auf den Uferebenen des Mono Lake brüten rund 10 % des kalifornischen Bestands.[26] Weitere Limikolen, die das Nahrungsangebot des Mono Lake in besonderem Maße nutzen, sind Amerikanische Säbelschnäbler und der Keilschwanz-Regenpfeifer. Der See hat für diese Arten aber keine herausragende Bedeutung.
Die Uferbereiche sowie die Berg- und Hügelhänge im Mono-Becken reichen vom Hochgebirge über diverse Wald- und Buschökosysteme, Beifuß-Steppe und Grasland unterschiedlicher Dichte bis zu den weitgehend vegetationsfreien Salzböden des trockengefallenen Seebetts. Von besonderer Bedeutung ist nur die Salzvegetation. Auch sie ist wegen der hohen Anforderungen des Lebensraums arm an verschiedenen Arten und besteht insbesondere aus dem Kreuzblütler Cleomella parviflora, der Radmelde Bassia hyssopifolia, der Salzschwade Puccinellia airoides, dem Süßgras Distichlis spicata und mehreren Arten aus der Gattung der Simsen. Als die ersten Weißen das Gebiet erreichten, lebten in den Gewässern des Mono-Beckens keine Fische. Es wird angenommen, dass sie durch die erst relativ kurz zuvor stattgefundenen vulkanischen Aktivitäten ausgestorben waren, da verhältnismäßig junge, fossile Fische im Gebiet nachgewiesen wurden. Während im See selbst keine Fische leben können, wurden in den Zuflüssen zur Förderung des Angelsports zehn Fischarten eingesetzt, darunter fünf Forellen-Arten. Über 290 Vogelarten wurden im Mono-Gebiet nachgewiesen.[29] Säugetiere kommen mit über 70 Arten im Einzugsgebiet des Sees vor, Arten von besonderer Bedeutung aber nur in den höheren Lagen des Gebirges, so dass der Mono Lake selbst für Säugetiere keine besondere Rolle spielt.
Die besonderen Umweltbedingungen am Mono Lake werden intensiv erforscht. Das bislang größte Projekt war von 2000 bis 2006 das Mono Lake Microbial Observatory der University of Georgia. Auch die NASA forscht für ihr Astrobiology laboratory am See, um herauszufinden, wie Lebensformen sich an extreme Bedingungen anpassen. Ende 2010 gab ein NASA-Team bekannt, dass aus Sedimenten des Sees ein Bakterienstamm mit der Bezeichnung GFAJ-1 isoliert wurde, der Arsenat an Stelle von Phosphat in die DNA einbauen können soll. Dies würde das bisherige Verständnis der biochemischen Möglichkeiten für Lebewesen erweitern. Die Veröffentlichung wurde stark kritisiert, eine Überprüfung 2012 ergab, dass Arsen keinen Anteil an den Erbinformationen des Bakterienstammes hat und die ursprüngliche These damit zurückgewiesen werden muss.
Im Sediment des Uferbereichs wurden Fadenwurm-Arten entdeckt, die in besonderer Weise an die Umweltbedingungen angepasst sind. Insbesondere fällt Auanema spec. auf, die extrem arsenresistent ist und 500-fach so hohe Konzentrationen wie Menschen überlebt. Es gibt neben zwittrigen und männlichen auch weibliche Tiere. Außerdem legt diese Art keine Eier, sondern ist lebendgebärend.
Geschichte der Landnutzung
Die ursprünglichen Bewohner des Mono-Lake-Gebiets gehörten zu den Paiute-Indianern. Der regionale Stamm nannte sich selbst Kutzadika’a, was von dem Wort für die Salzfliegen in ihrer uto-aztekischen Sprache abgeleitet zu sein scheint. Sie sammelten die Fliegenlarven, trockneten sie und nutzten sie als proteinreiches Nahrungsmittel. Ihre Nachbarn, die Yokut, nannten sie Monachi, was wohl von den ersten Weißen zu Mono verkürzt wurde. Die Bedeutung des Wortes gilt als verloren.[36] Die westlichen Mono lebten das ganze Jahr in den Tälern der Westflanke der Sierra Nevada, insbesondere im Yosemite- und im Hetch-Hetchy-Tal. Die östlichen Mono verbrachten den größten Teil des Jahres östlich der Berge rund um den Mono Lake und zogen nur im Herbst über den Kamm, um Eicheln und andere Baumfrüchte als Wintervorrat zu sammeln.
Als 1852 eine Abteilung der US Army unter Lieutenant Tredwell Moore Miwok-Indianer von Westen über den Kamm der Sierra verfolgte, betraten erstmals Weiße das Mono-Gebiet. Kurz darauf erkundeten Prospektoren die Vorkommen von Rohstoffen auf der Ostseite der Sierra Nevada. Als einer der ersten Prospektoren kam Leroy Vining in das Gebiet, er fand keine lukrativen Bodenschätze und wandte sich der Forstwirtschaft zu. Die Zuflüsse des Mono Lake wurden zum Zentrum einer bescheidenen Weidewirtschaft mit Rindern und Schafen, mit der vor allem die Bergleute versorgt wurden, die zunächst nach Gold, später nach anderen Metallen gruben. Die heutige Geisterstadt Bodie im nördlichen Nachbartal des Sees war die größte Bergbaustadt der Region. Außerdem wurden die Bergwälder forstwirtschaftlich genutzt. Die Mono Mill wurde als größtes Sägewerk der Region 1881 gegründet und bestand bis 1917. Die Versorgung von Bodie mit Holz war der Hauptgrund für die Errichtung der Bodie Railway 1881, die vom Mono Lake über das Sägewerk zur Goldgräbersiedlung fuhr und ebenfalls 1917 eingestellt wurde.
Mark Twain hielt sich 1861 und 62 in der Region auf und schrieb in Roughing It (dt.: Durch Dick und Dünn) fasziniert über die „Millionen an Enten und Möwen“. Im Auftrag der Bauleitung für die Eisenbahn zog 1881 der Geologe Israel Russell in die Region und blieb hier mehrere Jahre. Er erforschte die Geologie des Gebietes – sein Buch Quaternary History of Mono Valley, California (1884) gilt bis heute als Referenz. 1886 kam John Muir vom Yosemite-Tal über einen Indianerpfad an den See. Er schrieb in seinem Tagebuch (erst 1911 als My First Summer in the Sierra veröffentlicht) ausführlich über das Zusammenwirken von Gletschern und Vulkanismus, die die Landschaft des Beckens prägen. Der See selbst spielte bei ihm keine große Rolle.
Die Anwohner entwickelten früh bescheidene Anfänge von Tourismus. In den 1920er Jahren wurden Badeeinrichtungen an den Stränden des Sees eröffnet, das Wasser hatte etwa den eineinhalbfachen Salzgehalt eines Ozeans, und vor der Wasserableitung gab es am Nordufer ausgedehnte Sandstrände. Ab 1928 und bis zum Zweiten Weltkrieg fanden jährlich Strandfeste mit Motorbootrennen und Schönheitswettbewerben in Badekostümen statt.[40] In den 1960er Jahren, bei bereits stark sinkendem Wasserspiegel, stand am nordwestlichen Ufer eine Marina, von der aus Bootsfahrten und Wasserskifahren angeboten wurden. Doch schon vor Ende des Jahrzehnts musste der Betrieb eingestellt werden, weil das Wasser vom Bootshaus nicht mehr erreichbar war und weite Uferbereiche sich in Schlammzonen verwandelten.
Heute liegt die kleine, nach dem Pionier Leroy Vining benannte Siedlung Lee Vining am westlichen Ufer des Sees, an den Hängen der Sierra die etwas größere Ortschaft June Lake. Noch immer findet ein bescheidener Abbau von Bimsstein an den Mono-Kratern statt. Ansonsten lebt die Region vom Tourismus. Im Sommer ist sie attraktiv für Wanderer und Angler und der See ist ein bedeutender Stopp für Touristen, die über den Tioga Pass in den Yosemite-Nationalpark fahren oder von dort kommen. Im Winter zieht das Skigebiet June Lake Ski Area am Oberlauf des Rush Creek die meisten Besucher an.
Wasserableitung
Die in den Wüsten Südkaliforniens liegende Siedlung Los Angeles hätte nicht zur Groß- und Millionenstadt anwachsen können, wenn sie sich nicht zu Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts dauerhafte Trinkwasserquellen erschlossen hätte. William Mulholland plante als Leiter des Los Angeles Department of Water and Power die Niederschläge auf der Ostflanke der Sierra Nevada zu nutzen. 1913 wurde der erste Los Angeles Aqueduct eröffnet, der vom Owens River im südlich an das Mono-Becken anschließenden Owens Valley Wasser ableitete. Von 1934 bis 1940 verlängerte Los Angeles das Aquäduktsystem bis in das Mono-Becken und zapfte ab 1941 Oberflächenwasser ab. Dazu wurde der Lee Vining Creek durch eine Pipeline an den Hängen der Sierra mit dem Grant Lake Reservoir am aufgestauten Rush Creek verbunden und ein Tunnel mit einer Druckröhre nach Südosten unter den Mono-Kratern in die Long Valley Caldera gebohrt. Dort wird das Wasser zunächst in einem Wasserkraftwerk zur Energiegewinnung genutzt; es fließt anschließend im Bett des Owens River nach Süden, bis es zwischen Big Pine und Lone Pine in den Aquädukt ausgeleitet wird.[43] Die Erlaubnis sah vor, dass Los Angeles aus dem Mono-Becken und dem Owens Valley bis zu 200 Kubikfuß pro Sekunde (≈5,66 m³/s) ableiten darf, ohne Restwassermengen festzulegen, die in den Bächen verbleiben und dem See zufließen müssen.[44] 1970 wurde die Kapazität der Leitung erweitert, als der zweite Los Angeles Aqueduct im Owens Valley eröffnet wurde, erst jetzt konnte Los Angeles die genehmigten Wassermengen tatsächlich ableiten und nutzen.
Folgen für die Ökosysteme
Schon bald überstieg die natürliche Verdunstung den reduzierten Wasserzufluss in den Mono Lake, so dass der Pegel des Sees dramatisch sank. 1941, vor der Ableitung der Zuflüsse, lag der Wasserspiegel des Sees auf 1956 m über dem Meer. Der niedrigste Wert wurde 1982 mit 1933 m über dem Meer erreicht. Die Bachläufe zum See fielen weitgehend trocken oder führten nur noch in der nassen Jahreszeit Wasser. Süßwassersümpfe auf dem Westufer, in denen bis 1940 zehntausende Entenvögel lebten, trockneten aus. Die Enten verschwanden aus dem Mono Basin. Am Ufer fiel Seeboden trocken, der mit alkalischem Sand bedeckt war. Einmal getrocknet, wurde dieser bei Stürmen aufgewirbelt und erzeugte ätzende Sandstürme, die die Grenzwerte für Partikel in der Luft weit überschritten und gesundheitsgefährdend waren. Andererseits wurden die meisten der heute sichtbaren bizarren Kalktufftürme trockengelegt und zugänglich, was wiederum erheblich zum Bekanntheitsgrad des Sees beigetragen hat.
1974 kartierte David Gaines, damals Doktorand der University of California, Davis, am See. Er verfasste einen Text über die Krise des bedrohten Ökosystems. 1976 war er an einer studentischen Forschungsgruppe an der Stanford University beteiligt, die die erste umfassende Studie des Mono-Lake-Ökosystems verfasste. Gaines gründete 1978 das Mono Lake Committee als Organisation innerhalb der Audubon Society und spielte eine ausschlaggebende Rolle in der Kampagne, die kalifornische Öffentlichkeit und Politiker über die Wirkungen des gesunkenen Pegels zu informieren. Zudem reichte die Naturschutzorganisation zusammen mit Fischereiverbänden und weiteren Interessengruppen Klagen gegen die Genehmigungen zur Wasserausleitung ein.
Als durch den sinkenden Wasserspiegel die Negit-Insel zur Halbinsel wurde, so dass Kojoten die Nester der Kaliforniermöwen plündern konnten, experimentierte der Forest Service mit Sprengungen, um einen Wassergraben zu erhalten. Nach dem niedrigsten Wasserstand von 1982 ließen überdurchschnittliche Regenfälle den See bis 1986 wieder etwas wachsen. Anschließend setzte eine mehrjährige Trockenheit ein. Als die Negit-Insel im Norden des Sees 1989 erneut zur Halbinsel wurde, bauten Naturschützer Elektrozäune, um die Brutplätze zu schützen. Zudem verstärkten sie Lobbykampagnen, mit denen Politiker des Staates Kalifornien, der Bundesebene und im Laufe der Zeit auch zunehmend Vertreter der Stadt Los Angeles für den Schutz des Mono Lake gewonnen wurden.
Kampf vor Politik und Gerichten
Demgegenüber standen die Interessen der Stadt Los Angeles. Sie nutzt einerseits das Trinkwasser von der Ostflanke der Sierra Nevada direkt, andererseits erzeugt es auf dem Weg und im Aquädukt Energie aus Wasserkraft, die ebenfalls Los Angeles zur Verfügung steht. Das Department of Water and Power stellte sich auf den Standpunkt, dass ihre Genehmigungen zur Wassernutzung unanfechtbar seien und ging zunächst auch auf großzügige Angebote kalifornischer Politiker zur Gewinnung von Wasser aus anderen Gebieten oder zur Nutzung von Einsparpotentialen nicht ein. Als die Prozesse ergaben, dass die Ausleitungsgenehmigungen erfolgreich angefochten werden konnten und die öffentliche Meinung sich stark für den Schutz des Mono-Gebiets einsetzte, änderte sich die Position des Departments langsam. Ab Ende der 1980er Jahre und verstärkt in den ersten Jahren nach 1990 wirkte die Stadtverwaltung an Projekten mit, durch die Kläranlagen in ganz Südkalifornien ausgebaut wurden. Geklärtes Wasser konnte so für Zwecke eingesetzt werden, die bisher Trinkwasser erforderten, welches dadurch für höherwertige Nutzungen frei wurde. Effektivere Bewässerungsmethoden in der Landwirtschaft sparten erhebliche Wassermengen ein, die den Siedlungsgebieten zur Verfügung gestellt werden konnten. Durch Kampagnen für Wassereinsparung, die gezielt auf den Schutz von Naturräumen wie dem Mono Lake und der Santa Monica Bay abstellten, wurde der Wasserverbrauch von Haushalten in Los Angeles im selben Zeitraum dauerhaft um über 15 % gesenkt.
Die Wasserableitung wirkte sich nicht nur am Mono Lake aus. Der aus dem Owens River gespeiste, rund 190 km südlich des Mono Lake gelegene Owens Lake, in dem früher ein ähnliches Ökosystem existierte, trocknete vollständig aus. Der Mono Lake entkam dem Schicksal des Owens Lake, weil 1983 eine Klage des Mono Lake Committee und verbündeter Organisationen vor dem Supreme Court of California ergab, dass die Wasserkontrollbehörde die öffentlichen Belange bei der Abwägung über die Wasserableitung nicht ausreichend beachtet hatte. Ein untergeordnetes Gericht bestimmte daraufhin einen vorläufigen Mindestpegel von 1944 m über dem Meer und schränkte die Ableitung ein, bis dieser erreicht wäre. Der Kongress der Vereinigten Staaten gab 1984 eine Studie in Auftrag, die den Mono Lake und das Becken auf Auswirkungen verschiedener Wasserstände untersuchen sollte. Eine dafür eingesetzte Arbeitsgruppe des National Research Council legte 1987 die umfassende Studie zur Ökologie des Gebietes und den Folgen der Wasserpegelabsenkung vor. Weitere Studien wurden vom Bundesstaat Kalifornien und der Fachbehörde für Wassernutzung in Auftrag gegeben.
Anordnung von Schutzmaßnahmen
Aufgrund der Studie von 1987, weiterer Studien sowie einer Umweltverträglichkeitsprüfung und nach einer Reihe langwieriger Prozesse erließ die kalifornische Behörde für Wasserressourcen California State Water Resources Control Board im September 1994 eine Entscheidung zum Schutz des Mono Lake und seiner Zuflüsse, durch die die Wasserableitung begrenzt wurde. Die Behörde legte für Rush Creek und Lee Vining Creek, die Zuflüsse des Sees, Restwassermengen fest, die unterhalb der Wehre zur Wasserableitung ein Ökosystem mit stabilem Fischbestand ermöglichen. Dabei sollen langfristig wieder Teile der für Entenvögel wichtigen Süßwassersumpfzonen entstehen. Für den Mono Lake selbst gab sie einen Wasserstand von 1948 Metern als Ziel vor. Der Wert wurde ermittelt, indem die in den Studien ermittelten Einflüsse verschiedener Wasserstände auf die einzelnen Ökofaktoren und die in besonderem Maße auf den See angewiesenen Arten abgewogen wurden.
Seitdem ist der Pegel langsam gestiegen; die Negit Insel ist wieder vor Landraubtieren sicher. Vom 1994 als Ziel definierten Pegelstand von 1948 Metern war der Wasserstand Ende 2017 noch rund drei Höhenmeter entfernt. Ursprünglich war vorgesehen, dass die Behörde für Wasserressourcen nach 20 Jahren, also im September 2014, prüft, ob das Ziel erreicht wurde und gegebenenfalls weitere Beschränkungen bei der Wasserableitung anordnet. Dazu kam es nicht, weil im August 2013 eine Vereinbarung zwischen den ursprünglichen Klägern, der Stadt Los Angeles und der kalifornischen Naturschutzbehörden geschlossen wurde. Sie sieht vor, dass die Stadtverwaltung auf eigene Kosten den Stausee Grant Lake im Einzugsgebiet des Mono Lake so umbauen muss, dass damit ein natürlicher Wasserabfluss in den Rush Creek simuliert werden kann. Dadurch werden die Ökosysteme des Bachlaufs und der Mündung in den Mono Lake renaturiert. Im Gegenzug erhält die Stadt Los Angeles das Recht, einmalig zusätzliche Wassermengen abzuleiten. Die Datenerhebung am See und in seinem Einzugsgebiet geht weiter, die kalifornische Wasserbehörde wird bis 2020 die Einhaltung überprüfen und gegebenenfalls weitere Maßnahmen anordnen.
Weitere Folgen
Als durch die Einschränkung der Wasserableitung erstmals Ende 1994 große Mengen Süßwasser dem See zuflossen, in dem eine hohe Salzkonzentration herrschte, legte sich das leichte Süßwasser über das schwere Salzwasser. Daher fanden 1995 die ansonsten durch jahreszeitliche Temperaturschwankungen im Frühjahr und Herbst ausgelösten, vollständigen Wasserzirkulationen im See nicht statt. Dieser Zustand wird meromiktisch genannt und hat Folgen für die Verteilung von Sauerstoff und Nährstoffen, insbesondere Stickstoff im See. Ohne Durchmischung von Oberflächen- mit Tiefenwasser gelangt kein Sauerstoff in die Tiefe, andererseits werden Nährstoffe, die in Form von Stoffwechselprodukten oder toten Lebewesen absinken, nicht mehr in die biologisch aktiveren Schichten nahe der Oberfläche transportiert.
Eine meromiktische Periode war schon während der Ausleitung zwischen 1982/83 und Ende 1988 durch besonders hohe Niederschläge aufgetreten, für die Jahre 1938 und 1969 besteht wegen bekannt hoher Niederschläge der Verdacht, dass eine meromiktische Phase vorlag, die aber wegen der damals geringeren Salinität jeweils nur ein Jahr dauern konnte. Der Beginn der meromiktischen Phase 1995 infolge der Renaturierung löste wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen aus. Aufgrund der damaligen Modelle wurde angenommen, dass diese Phase 44 bis 63 Jahre dauern und erhebliche negative Auswirkungen auf das Ökosystem des Sees haben würde. Daher schlug eine vom Los Angeles Department of Water and Power finanzierte Arbeitsgruppe vor, die volle Wasserableitung wieder aufzunehmen, um die Schichtung auf diese Weise aufzubrechen.
Tatsächlich folgte die längste bekannte meromiktische Periode des Mono Lake, jedoch war die Dauer erheblich geringer als vorhergesagt. Ende 2003 erfolgte eine vollständige Durchmischung und die Wiederaufnahme des Nährstofftransports zwischen den Wasserschichten. Eine weitere, kurze Phase dauerte von 2005/2006 bis 2007. In allen Fällen zeigten sich keine dauerhaften Folgen. Die Population der Salzkrebse ging während der meromiktischen Zustände zurück, worunter auch der Bruterfolg der Kaliforniermöwe litt, jedoch nicht in schwerwiegendem Ausmaß.
Außer der Beschränkung der Wasserableitung werden die Bachbetten der Zuflüsse auch direkt renaturiert. Am Mill Creek fand in den Jahren 2012 und 2013 ein Umbau des Wasserlaufs unterhalb des Kraftwerks statt, damit auch hier die rechtlich zugesicherte Wassermenge tatsächlich in den Bach abfließen kann.
Schutzgebiete am See
Seit 1982 ist der Teil des ehemaligen Seebetts, der seit dem Beginn der Wasserausleitung im Jahr 1941 trocken gefallen ist, unter dem Namen Mono Lake Tufa State Reserve als Schutzgebiet des Staates Kalifornien ausgewiesen. Aufgrund der Haushaltsnotlage des Staates Kalifornien war 2012 die Schließung der State Reserve geplant. Nur weil die Bodie Foundation, eine gemeinnützige Organisation, einige Verwaltungsfunktionen übernahm, bleibt das Schutzgebiet weiterhin zugänglich. Das Umfeld des Sees ist mit Ausnahme des Siedlungsbereichs von Lee Vining nahezu vollständig im Besitz der Bundesregierung und untersteht großteils dem Inyo National Forest innerhalb des United States Forest Service. Seit 1984 sind der Talgrund, die unteren Hänge und große Teile des Mono-Kraterfelds als Mono Basin National Forest Scenic Area ausgewiesen. Diese Form eines Schutzgebietes unter der Verwaltung des Forest Service ist einmalig. Bei Lee Vining informiert ein kleines Besucherzentrum in den Sommermonaten über die Problematik der Wasserableitung und die ökologische Bedeutung des Sees.
In den Hochlagen der Sierra Nevada liegen auf der Ostflanke und damit zumindest teilweise innerhalb des Mono Lake Basin zwei Wilderness Areas, die strengste Klasse von Naturschutzgebieten in den USA. Die Ansel Adams Wilderness und die Hoover Wilderness wurden 1964 eingerichtet, haben zusammen 1440 km² und stehen unter der Verwaltung des US Forest Service. Östlich des Sees wurde 2009 im Hügelland mit der Granite Mountain Wilderness eine weitere Wilderness Area eingerichtet. Sie hat 139 km² und wird durch das Bureau of Land Management verwaltet.
20 Kilometer nördlich des Mono Lake liegt der Bodie State Historic Park, der über eine Schotterstraße zu erreichen ist. Der State Park dient der Erhaltung der alten Goldgräberstadt Bodie, einer der besterhaltenen Geisterstädte der USA.
Mono Lake in den Medien
Clint Eastwood ließ für den Film Ein Fremder ohne Namen (1973) ein Dorf am südlichen Seeufer errichten. International bekannt wurde die bizarre Landschaft des Sees ab 1975, als ein Foto von Storm Thorgerson das Innencover und eine beiliegende Postkarte des Pink-Floyd-Albums Wish You Were Here zierte. Es zeigt den Mono Lake mit Tufftürmen und einen scheinbar ohne Spritzer ins Wasser eintauchenden Schwimmer. Es entstand im flachen Wasser, der Schwimmer war in Yoga geübt und konnte unter Wasser einen Handstand halten, bis die Wellen ausgelaufen waren. 1979 stellten Naturschützer eine Ausstellung von Fotos des Sees zusammen und erkannten, dass seit 1868 nahezu alle prominenten Landschaftsfotografen Amerikas den See und seine Tuff-Gebilde fotografiert hatten. Die Ausstellung zeigte unter anderem Werke von Ansel Adams, Timothy H. O’Sullivan, Philip Hyde und Brett Weston und reiste durch den Westen der Vereinigten Staaten. Sie ist heute im Besucherzentrum von Lee Vining zu sehen. Seitdem erschien eine Vielzahl an Bildbänden und Fotokalender, die den See und seine ungewöhnlichen Landschaften darstellen.
(Wikipedia)
Bellevue skyline with sunset reflections across Lake Washington, viewed from Seattle, Washington State, USA
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The Ancient Art of Kushti
The ancient traditional art of Indian wrestling, known as ‘kushti’, thrives in wrestling gyms, or ‘akhara’, scattered around the India. Akhara are one of the few places in India where Hindu men who come from different castes are considered equals.
Guru Jasram Ji's Akhara is on Mathura Road Highway in South Delhi near Modi Mill Flyover. It is one of the biggest and most reputed Akharas (wrestling training centers) in India. The Akhara is run by 85-year-old Guru Jasram Ji. Everyday he comes to the Akhara at 5.a.m. and 3 .p.m. to train the wrestlers.
kushtiwrestling.blogspot.in/2010/06/guru-jasram-jis-akhar...
It boggles the mind. Since 311 BC, Rome has had water delivered via aqueduct from distant sources to supply its inhabitants. It was shared with Ostia Antica, a port city west of Rome at the mouth of the Tiber river. Ostia Antica was a thriving community as early as the second century BC but especially from the 3rd through the 5th century AD losing its importance with the fall of the Roman Empire. It was flooded by the Tiber river in the 16th century and what you see in this photo was completely buried under sediment. The walls of this bath would have been at least two stories higher with hot baths, warm and cold baths. Pictured here is one of the many tiled baths of Neptune that Ostia Antica enjoyed dating back to 138 BC.
Padiku Subur mean " my rice is thriving"
As we know that some part of Indonesia such as Java was experiencing a very dry season for a long period of time, as the effect of the Elnina phenomenon.
But know the government attend to the Indonesian people that we have rice stock until the end of this year and we don't need to import rice from other country.
Photo taken on the eve of rice harvest at Kabupaten Banyumas - Central Java of Indonesia...
It's easy to pick holes in the legend of Thomas the Rhymer. Many of the references to him and his predictions were written centuries after his death, but folklore is not necessarily unreliable just because it's verbal, and there's a good argument that in this case, where there's smoke there may once have been fire!
The problem is that the historical reality of True Thomas has been almost completely submerged in the tidal wave of myth and legend that has grown up around him over the centuries since. While it seems reasonable to dismiss the story that he "disappeared for seven years to live with the Queen of Elfland and returned to Ercildoune with the gift of prophecy", there are plenty of predictions attributed to him that may either be genuine or may have contained some degree of truth.
Popular lore recounts that he prophesied some of the great events in Scottish history, including the death of Alexander III of Scotland in 1286. He is said to have told the Earl of Dunbar:
"On the morrow, afore noon, shall blow the greatest wind that ever was heard before in Scotland."
There having been no significant change in the weather by the time his lordship sat down for his lunch the following day, a "please explain" was sent to Thomas, who replied that the appointed hour had not yet come, shortly after which, news arrived from Fife of the king's death.
Another of the Rhymer's predictions is said to go like this:
"When the Yowes o' Gowrie come to land,
The Day o' Judgment's near at hand"
A "Yowe" in the country parts of Scotland, is a ewe and the Yowes of Gowrie were two large rounded ovine looking rocks in the Tay estuary, just off the shore from Invergowrie, close to the outlet of the Fowlis Burn. Why and how should two large rocks ever come ashore you might well wonder? Well they had been observed over a period of many years to be getting slowly but surely closer to the shoreline! Or to be more precise, the shoreline was getting closer to them! Then in the 19th century they finally did come ashore. The Dundee to Perth railway line was built along that part of the coast line, seemingly just offshore of the yowes, after which the area to landward of the railway was used as a rubbish dump - supposedly burying the yowes in the process. So technically the yowes have "come to land", without triggering the Day of Judgement, although there are parts of Dundee where it probably can't come soon enough!
Perhaps my favourite of the Rhymer's prophecies, concerns Fyvie Castle in Aberdeenshire. He is said to have said:
"Fyvie, Fyvie thou'se never thrive,
lang's there's in thee stanes three :
There's ane intill the highest tower,
There's ane intill the ladye's bower,
There's ane aneath the water-yett,
And thir three stanes ye'se never get."
What does that mean when translated loosely into understandable English?
It is believed that there were three special stones at Fyvie - weeping stones. They remained permanently damp, whatever the weather and the whereabouts of two of them are unknown. The Rhymer's prediction is interpreted as meaning that until all three were located, no eldest son would succeed to his father at Fyvie. The 'Ladye's bower' is the castle's charter room, and the one surviving stone is kept there to this day. Whether there is another one built into the castles 'highest tower', nobody seems to know, but the biggest problem is the one said to be underneath the water-gate. This would place it in the River Ythan, which runs around the castle, and trying to identify a damp stone is a river is of course a difficult task!
So what about the prediction, that no oldest son would inherit? I have known this story, without questioning it, for most of my life, having been solemnly told that indeed, no eldest son had ever inherited the castle. But in the interests of science, I though I would spend some time now trying to find out whether that's true!
Fyvie was originally (before the time of the Rhymer a royal castle. We know that King Alexander II signed charters here in February 1222 and The Bruce stayed here in the early years of the 14th century. Since then, it has been owned by five families - the Prestons, the Meldrums, the Setons, the Gordons and the Forbes-Leiths.
Actually, technically, there were six families! In 1370, King Robert II granted Fyvie to his son and heir John (later Robert III), who in turn passed the castle to his cousin, Sir James Lindsay. However, in 1388 the Scots had a rare victory over the English at the Battle of Otterburn, during which Ralph de Percy was captured by Sir Henry Preston, the brother-in-law of Sir James Lindsay. When Robert III came to the throne two years later in 1390 he purchased the rights to Ralph de Percy's ransom by transferring ownership of Fyvie Castle from Sir James Lindsay to Sir Henry Preston. This would seem rather unfair, although I imagine Sir James would have been adequately compensated, but it does of course set the prophesy off in the right direction - Sir James' heir never inherited Fyvie!
So leaving Sir James Lyndsay to one side, the first effective owner of Fyvie in the post royal era, was Sir Henry Preston. When he died around the year 1433, he wasn't succeeded by his son, because he didn't have any! Fyvie went to Sir Alexander Meldrum of that ilk, who had married one of Sir Henry's two daughters.
Fyvie remained in the hands of the Meldrums for about 160 years, passing through the hands of several (probably five) generations of the family, but as we don't know the genealogy of this part of the Meldrum family, we can't say whether an eldest son ever inherited. Probably yes, but the accuracy of the prophesy can't be disproved! In 1596, Fyvie was sold by the Meldrums to Alexander Seton, later Chancellor of Scotland.
Alexander Seton, 1st Earl of Dunfermline and Chancellor of Scotland, was born in 1555. His first wife, to whom he was already married when he bought Fyvie, was Lillias Drummond and after producing five children for him, all girls, it is said that Lord Seton, blaming his wife for the lack of a son and heir, began an affair with her cousin (and future wife) Grizel Leslie. Betrayed and heartbroken Lillias died not long after learning of the affair, .
Lillias Drummond died in May 1601 and Lord Seton married Grizel Leslie a few months later in October 1601. On their wedding night at Fyvie it is said that they were both distracted by a 'mournful moaning' from outside their bedroom window. A search for the source of the noises produced no results but the next morning the words D. LILLIAS DRUMMOND were found carved into the stone sill outside their bedroom window, in letters three inches high and upside down, the window being over 50 feet above ground level. The letters remain visible to this day and since that time, Fyvie Castle is said to have been haunted by a lady in green, roaming the corridors of the castle, crying at her betrayal by her husband and leaving behind the scent of Rose petals!
How much of that is true, I don’t know, but what is true is that before her death in 1606, Grizel Leslie produced two daughters and a son Charles, and that Charles died young! It was up to Lord Seton's third wife to produce his successor, another Charles.
The eldest son and heir of Charles Seton, 2nd Earl of Dunfermline, also named Charles, died in 1672, just before his father! Alexander, the 2nd son became 3rd Earl of Dunfermline, but dying unmarried, the title passed to his brother James.
James Seton, 4th Earl of Dunfermline, died in 1694, also unmarried - which was somewhat immaterial because, having supported the Jacobite cause in the 1689 Rising, his castle and estate had already been confiscated by the crown. Fyvie remained a crown property until it was sold in 1733.
The purchaser in 1733 was William Gordon, 2nd Earl of Aberdeen. His wife at the time was Anne Gordon, daughter of the 2nd Duke of Gordon and their eldest son William inherited Fyvie from his father. But those that have read this far and are hoping the Rhymer's prophesy will hold true will be delighted to learn that Lord William Gordon had already been married, twice and had two sons by his 2nd wife. So once again, the eldest son and heir didn't inherit Fyvie.
General William Gordon, 1st of Fyvie died in 1816 when, unfortunately for Thomas the Rhymer, who now can never be taken seriously again, was succeeded by his only son William Gordon, 2nd of Fyvie Castle. He died without children in 1847, whereupon Fyvie passed to his nephew, Charles Gordon 3rd of Fyvie.
When the 3rd laird died in 1851, Fyvie passed to his son and heir, for the 2nd (and last) time that we know of in five centuries, William Cosmo Gordon. Either he or his executors put Fyvie up for sale and it sold in 1889 to the 5th and last family to own it.
Fyvie's new owner was Alexander John Forbes-Leith, later 1st Baron Leith of Fyvie. He was a local boy who had made his fortune in the steel industry in the US of A and used Fyvie to house his huge collection of paintings, tapestries, armour and furniture. His only son and heir, Percy Forbes-Leith, 2nd Lt Royal Dragoons, was killed aged 19 in 1900 during the Boer War.
In 1982 Fyvie Castle was once again placed on the market, and in 1984 it was purchased by the National Trust for Scotland.
So could Thomas the Rhymer predict the future? Well it's my belief he could do so every bit as accurately as Nostradamus!
Scroll down!
Montblanc Elizabeth I Patron of Arts 2010 fountain pen.
1/4 You Tube vid: youtu.be/DWN22eyQ64A
Montblanc Elizabeth I writing instrument seriously tempted my pocket book but MAC preferred another holiday trip to a warm climate.
Limited Edition 4810 and Limited Edition 888
Montblanc's Patron of Art Edition has annually honoured a legendary benefactor of the arts and culture since this special writing instrument line was originally conceived in 1992. This year’s edition is dedicated to an all time great cultural force - Elizabeth I. Regarded the most successful monarch to ever ascend an English throne, under Elizabeth's astute and skillful rule, England "came of age" and, witnessing groundbreaking achievements, was transformed from a "remote backwater" to a globally dominant imperial power. Great battles were won. The New World - or the "Americas" - was discovered and the English Renaissance reached its zenith because of Elizabeth's artistic patronage.
Patron of Art Edition Elizabeth I - Limited Edition 888
Patron of Art Edition Elizabeth I - Limited Edition 4810
The "best educated woman of her generation..." Elizabeth was "passionately" interested in the arts and her "luminous" court stimulated some of the greatest artistic achievements of all time. William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe flourished during her reign as did the poet Edmund Spenser, the painter Nicholas Hillyard and the English composers William Byrd, John Dowland and Thomas Tallis.
Elizabeth I was also a gifted writer and the 2010 Montblanc Patron of Art Edition is therefore composed of two writing instruments conceived with sumptuously striking and clever adornments celebrating her intellect and inimitable regal flair. Patron of Art Edition Elizabeth I, limited to 4810 pieces and limited to 888 pieces, will debut in April 2010 and May 2010, respectively. And, as their presentation has always been associated with the Montblanc de la Culture Arts Patronage Award - which annually celebrates contemporary arts and cultural patrons - the Patron of Art Edition continues a story linking a historical figure with future talent.
Elizabeth I - A Legend in her Own Lifetime
Centuries after her death, Elizabeth I (1533 - 1603), is still considered as one of England's "most popular and influential rulers". She was born at Greenwich Palace on 7 September 1533 to Anne Boleyn, the second wife of Henry VIII, although her arrival was greeted with "surprise and displeasure", by the Court. The "failure" to produce a son for King Henry jeopardized Queen Anne’s life due to her husband's obsession with conceiving a male heir. Charged with adultery, she was beheaded in May 1536.
A retinue of governesses raised the young princess Elizabeth and though she was shunned by her father, Catherine Parr, the "remarkable" sixth and last wife of Henry VIII, oversaw the education which groomed the future queen for greatness and the Patron of Art Edition Elizabeth I will celebrate their special bond. Under the Cambridge scholar Roger Ascham, Elizabeth studied the classics, read history and theology and became fluent in six languages - Greek, Latin, French, Italian, Spanish and German. Her love of music and, skill as a musician, developed from the 60 instrumentalists who resided at Hatfield House, her childhood residence. From age 11, she composed prayers and poems and, when jailed for suspected treason against Mary I, her cousin in 1554, she etched onto a glass prison window a two-line verse with a diamond.
Upon ascending the throne on 15 January 1559, Elizabeth's writing focussed on government matters. She wrote powerful speeches, such as that which she delivered at Tilbury in Essex where English troops had gathered to prepare for Spanish invasion in 1588. Brandishing a silver breastplate over a flowing white velvet gown she arrived on horseback demonstrating the "courage and leadership the English expected" of a monarch - but had never been displayed by a female - and declared to the troops: “I have the body but of a weak and feeble woman but I have the heart and stomach of a king and of a King of England, too".
Nine days later, the defeat of the Spanish Armada proved England's "finest hour". Elizabeth's popularity reached a level no "English woman had enjoyed as a public figure" and she attained supreme power comparable to a "biblical and mythological figure". Her grand mode of dress overawed her subjects while the flourishing of her Renaissance court stimulated new literary, artistic and musical achievements. "Theatres thrived", and, as Shakespeare elevated the English language to its highest level of development, England’s literacy rate soared. Elizabeth attended the debut of Shakespeare's romantic comedy A Midsummer Night's Dream. Numerous works were dedicated to her including poet Edmund Spenser's masterpiece The Fairie Queen. Composers William Byrd, John Dowland and Thomas Tallis also toiled at her court.
The discoveries of adventurers Sir Francis Drake, who circumnavigated the world in 1580, Walter Raleigh's exploration of eastern Venezuela in 1594 and Humphrey Gilbert’s conquering of Newfoundland for the English throne in 1583, spearheaded a new age expansion by the end of Elizabeth's reign. Upon her passing on 24 March 1604, the pioneering monarch, it is said, "departed this life mildly like a lamb, easily like a ripe apple from the tree".
The Limited Edition Celebrating the Elizabethan Age
Patron of Art Edition Elizabeth I 4810
The design and adornments of the Patron of Art Edition Elizabeth I 4810 reflects the life, reign and heraldic regalia of Elizabeth I. Hand engraved on the 18 K gold nib is a bejewelled gold crown which she brandished ascending the throne in 1559. Lacquer barrel and cap signify the spots which appear on an ermine cape, part of the traditional coronation attire which Elizabeth also flaunted. While an ivory coloured Montblanc emblem tops the cap, the clip descends from gold plated Tudor Rose. This "double rose" motif became England’s floral emblem after Henry VII, Elizabeth's grandfather, commandeered it as the symbol of the Tudor Dynasty upon taking the crown from Richard IIII in 1485. The green cabochon embellishing the gold-plated cross upon the clip also reflects the bejewelled cross upon Elizabeth's crown.
Encircling the gold plate band adorning the cap - as well as the cone - is an elegant interlaced pattern inspired by the pretty needlework sleeve Elizabeth conceived for a prayer book she created especially for her stepmother, Catherine Parr, as a New Year's gift in 1544. Entitled The Mirror of the Sinful Soul, it was Lady Elizabeth's own English translation of the French verse originally composed by Queen Margaret of Navarre. A friend of Anne Boleyn, the French Queen gave the original manuscript to her and the religious poem was also a favourite of Catherine Parr’s. Today, Elizabeth I’s handmade book is owned by the University of Oxford's Bodleian Library. Etched by gold plated cap ring is "Video et Taceo" - or "I see and I keep silent". This maxim of Elizabeth I signified her moderate political views and cautious approach to foreign affairs.
Patron of Art Edition Elizabeth I Limited Edition 888
This 750 solid gold fountain pen features a barrel and cap in precious lacquer. Hand engraved on its 18 K gold nib is a bejewelled gold crown in which Elizabeth I ascended the throne in 1559. Topping the cap is the Montblanc emblem rendered in shimmering mother-of-pearl. The clip descends from a solid gold Tudor Rose while its embellishment - a princess cut green garnet - reflects the bejewelled crown. The intricate interlaced motif, derived from the needlework cover of The Mirror of the Sinful Soul, beautifies the solid gold cap and barrel. Elizabeth I's "Video et Taceo" maxim is embossed upon the cap ring.
Montblanc de la Culture Arts Patronage Award
Celebrating Past and Present
The Montblanc de la Culture Arts Patronage Award is presented in 11 countries and represents an exemplary bond forged between past and present and, since its inception in 1992, this merit has been directly linked with the Patron of the Art Edition. The prize, therefore, combines a tribute to an historic patron of the arts while acknowledging a contemporary one. By recognizing the importance of private patronage, the award conveys to the public its crucial role in fostering the arts and culture.
Each recipient of the Montblanc de la Culture Arts Patronage Award is chosen by an international jury of artists and receives financial support of € 15.000 in each country for a cultural project of their own choice. Montblanc also presents the honoree and the jury members with the precious Patron of Art Edition. Sought after by collectors around the world, Montblanc's Patron of Art Edition are writing instruments that will last a lifetime. And like every Montblanc writing instrument, these exceptionally handcrafted fountain pens have been created with the highest demand of craftsmanship that has made Montblanc the benchmark for writing culture.
Prized by connoisseurs and avid collectors, the Montblanc Patron of the Art Edition is a commemorative keepsake meant to be passed down through generations. Manufacturing tools, specially developed for the making of every Montblanc Limited Edition, are destroyed at the end of each production run. As a consequence, these intricately handcrafted pens are collector’s items. Limited Editions produced between 1992 and 2000, for example, have sold at auction for sums greatly exceeding their original retail price, ranging from (US) $ 2,200 to (US) $35,000. And nine years after its 1992 debut, Montblanc Patron of the Art Lorenzo de Medici sold at Christie’s in New York for more than six times its initial cost of (US) $1,292.00, ultimately fetching (US) $8,225.00.
Mei Boa-Jiu, China:
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mei_Baojiu
www.flickr.com/photos/gregsu/14914200150/in/photolist-uiq...
Mei Baojiu (Chinese: 梅葆玖; pinyin: Méi Bǎojiǔ) (29 March 1934 – 25 April 2016)[1] was a contemporary Peking opera artist, also a performer of the Dan role type in Peking Opera and Kunqu opera, the leader of Mei Lanfang Peking Opera troupe in Beijing Peking Opera Theatre. Mei's father Mei Lanfang was one of the most famous Peking opera performers. Mei Baojiu was the ninth and youngest child of Mei Lanfang. For this reason, he was called Baojiu, since in Chinese, jiu means nine.[2] Mei Baojiu was the master of the second generation of Méi School descendant, he was also Mei Lanfang's only child who is now a performer of the Dan role of the Peking Opera.[3]
Mei Baojiu: 梅葆玖
Born: 29 March 1934. Shanghai, China
Died: 25 April 2016 (aged 82) Beijing, China
Occupation: Peking opera artist
Parents: Mei Lanfang (father), Fu Zhifang (mother)
From childhood, Mei had learned Peking Opera from many artists. Mei Baojiu's first opera teacher was Wang Youqing (王幼卿), the nephew of Wang Yaoqing (王瑶卿), who had been the teacher of Mei Lanfang. Tao Yuzhi (陶玉芝) was his teacher of martial arts, while Zhu Chuanming (朱传茗), the famous performer of the Dan role type in Kunqu opera, taught him Kunqu. After that Mei learned the Dan role from Zhu Qinxin (朱琴心). Mei's regular performances of traditional opera include The Hegemon-King Bids His Concubine Farewell, Guifei Intoxicated (貴妃醉酒), Lady General Mu Takes Command (穆桂英挂帅), The story of Yang Guifei (太真外传), Luo Shen (洛神), Xi Shi (西施), etc. Mei has made significant contributions to cultural exchanges and promoting Peking Opera culture. Meanwhile, he also trains more than twenty students, such as Li Shengsu (李胜素), Dong Yuanyuan (董圆圆), Zhang Jing (张晶), Zhang Xinyue (张馨月), Hu Wenge (胡文阁) (the only male student),[4] Tian Hui (田慧), Wei Haimin.[5]
Biography:
Mei Baojiu as a child
In the spring of 1934, Mei Baojiu was born at No. 87 Sinan Road, Shanghai.[2] Because of his comely appearance and delicate voice, his father decided to send Baojiu to learn Peking opera and hoped that Baojiu could make contributions to Méi School. Baojiu himself also showed great interest as well as gifts in Peking opera in his early life. In 1942, Mei Lanfang and his wife Fu Zhifang (福芝芳) invited Wang Youqing (王幼卿), the disciple of famous Dan role performer - Wang Yaoqing (王瑶卿), from Beijing to teach Baojiu as his first qingyi teacher while requesting Zhu Chuanming (朱传茗), one of the most prestigious performers of the Dan role type to teach Baojiu Kunqu Opera. When Mei Lanfang was free from work, he also gave directions to his son himself.[6]
When Baojiu was ten years old, he played Xue Yi (薛倚) in San Niang teaches the child (三娘教子) as his first performance in Shanghai. At the age of twelve, together with his sister Mei Baoyue (梅葆玥), Baojiu acted in Yang Silang Visits His Mother (四郎探母). Being a Qingyi (青衣) performer, he started giving performances of the Legend of the White Snake, The Story Of Su San (玉堂春) and some other traditional plays for charity since the age of 13. He also performed in Wu Jiapo Hill (武家坡) with Baoyue (梅葆玥) at the same time. When Baojiu was 16, he took part in the national tour of the Mei Lanfang Troupe, and toured the country with the troupe. Usually, Baojiu performed for the first three days, and Mei Lanfang performed plays in the rest, sometimes they also performed cooperatively, such as in Legend of the White Snake. Baojiu played the part of Xiao Qing the green snake, while his father played Bai Suzhen the white snake.[6]
Mei Lanfang used to make suggestions to Baojiu in order to make the performance of Baojiu perfect when Baojiu was young. Once, after watching the play The Story Of Sue San (玉堂春), in which Baojiu performed, he came to Baojiu and suggested that Baojiu change the way of acting the spoken parts. He mentioned that it was the most exciting time when the heroine, Sue San, got the Senior judge. For this reason, Baojiu should speak infectiously, he should speak faster and faster to create tension.[7]
Baojiu also got a chance to share the stage with some prestigious senior performers, such as Xiao Changhua (萧长华), Jiang Miaoxiang (姜妙香) and Yu Zhenfei (俞振飞).[8]
Due to the guidance of the actors from the earlier generation, Mei Baojiu's acting greatly improved and hemade a great effort to promote Méi School as well.[9]
In 1961, after Mei Lanfang died, Baojiu took over the position of the leader of Mei Lanfang Peking Opera troupe. During this time, he acted in some other well known plays, such as The mulan (木兰从军), Return of the Phoenix (凤还巢) and Lian Jinfeng (廉锦枫). However, after 1964, almost all performance of traditional plays was forbidden, according to central government regulations. For this reason, Baojiu was forced to do recording and stage lighting related work.[10]
Fourteen years later, in 1978, Baojiu returned to the Mei Lanfang Peking Opera troupe and came back to stage. He reformed the troupe and rearranged many traditional plays like Yuzhoufeng the Sword(宇宙锋), The story of Yang Guifei (太真外传), Luo Shen (洛神), Xi Shi (西施) as well as Royal pavilion (御碑亭) at the same time.[11]
From 1981 to 1984, together with his sister Mei Baoyue and descendants of other schools, he participated in the performance of a series memorial activities to commemorate his father. Making the eight-hour long play lasts for only three hours, he also rearranged The story of Yang Guifei in the late 1980s.[12]
In 1993, led by Baojiu, the Mei Lanfang Peking Opera troupe visited Taiwan and gave elaborately prepared performances to the public. He has made significant contributions to cultural exchanges and promoting Peking Opera culture.[13]
Baojiu cultivates more than twenty students, such as Li Shengsu, Dong Yuanyuan (董圆圆), Zhang Jing (张晶), Zhang Xinyue (张馨月), Hu Wenge (the only male student), Tian Hui (田慧), Wei Haimin (魏海敏). In the last twenty years, he mainly focused on training these students.
As a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), Mei Baojiu put forward a proposal on introducing Peking Opera into elementary schools in 2009.[14]
In March 2012, at the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, Mei put forward a proposal on introducing the form of animation into Peking Opera in order to make more teenagers be interested in Peking Opera.[15]
On 26 March 2012, Mei received his Ph.D. from J. F. Oberlin University in Japan.[16]
On 31 March 2016, Mei was hospitalized because of bronchospasm. He died on 25 April 2016, at the age of 82.[17]
Famous plays:
Like his father, Mei Baojiu acts Dan role in the following classic Peking opera plays. The Hegemon-King Bids His Concubine Farewell tells the sad love story of Xiang Yu and his favourite concubine Consort Yu when he is surrounded by Liu Bang’s forces. Mei plays the role of Consort Yu. Shang Changrong (the 3rd son of Shang Xiaoyun) once played the role of Xiang Yu as Mei's partner.
Guifei Intoxicated, also named Bai Hua Ting (百花亭), is about Yang Guifei. In this play she drinks down her sorrow because she is irritated by Emperor Xuanzong of Tang breaking his promise. Based on Mei Lanfang’s original work, Mei Baojiu adapted this play for The Great Concubine of Tang (大唐贵妃), a contemporary Beijing opera with historical motif in 2002. Mu Guiying Takes Command, a classic Yu opera was adapted by Mei Lanfang in 1959, and he acted the leading role the same year in celebration of the 10th anniversary of PRC.
Cooperating with famous Yu opera master Ma Jinfeng (马金凤), Mei Baojiu performed this play in the Shuang xia guo style (双下锅), which means different forms of opera performed in one play.[3]
Family:
Mei Baojiu's mother, Fu Zhifang (福芝芳), the second wife of Mei Lanfang, bore 9 children, but only 4 of them survived.
Mei Baojiu is the youngest child in his family. His eldest brother, Mei Baochen (梅葆琛) (1925-2008), was a senior engineer in Beijing's Academy of Architecture (北京建筑设计院). His elder brother, Mei Shaowu (梅绍武) (1928-2005), was a researcher of the Chinese academy of social sciences institute of the United States (中国社会科学院美国研究所) and the president of Mei Lanfang Culture-art Seminar (中国梅兰芳文化艺术研究会). His elder sister Mei Baoyue (梅葆玥) (1930-2000) was a performer of the Laosheng role type in Peking Opera, and performed together with Mei Baojiu sometimes. Mei Baojiu is the only heir to the Meipai Qingyi (梅派青衣).[3][18]
Mei Baojiu's wife is named Lin Liyuan (林丽媛), she is the consultant of Mei Lanfang Troupe. They have no children.[19]
References:
^ Mei Shaowu (梅绍武), Mei Weidong (梅卫东), Biography of Mei Lanfang (梅兰芳自述) :Appendix - studies (附录：年谱简表)
^ a b Wu Ying (吴迎), From Mei Lanfang to Mei Baojiu (从梅兰芳到梅葆玖) Page 50
^ a b c "梅氏家族 (May Family)". Archived from the original on 19 January 2012. Retrieved 7 May 2012.
^ "胡文阁被梅葆玖"看"得紧紧的(组图) (Mei Baojiu keeps a close watch on Hu Wenge (photo))". 9 January 2012. Retrieved 7 May 2012.
^ "梅葆玖简介 (About Mei Baojiu)". July 2009. Retrieved 7 May 2012.
^ a b Li Zhongming (李仲明), The Family of Mei Lanfang (梅兰芳家族) Page93
^ Li Zhongming (李仲明), The Family of Mei Lanfang (梅兰芳家族) Page 96
^ "梅兰芳的剧照 Mei Lanfang snapshot". Archived from the original on 17 April 2012. Retrieved 7 May 2012.
^ Li Zhongming (李仲明), The Family of Mei Lanfang (梅兰芳家族) Page92 - 93
^ Li Zhongming (李仲明), The Family of Mei Lanfang (梅兰芳家族) Page110
^ Li Zhongming (李仲明), The Family of Mei Lanfang (梅兰芳家族) Page112-113
^ Xu Beicheng (徐北城), Mei Lanfang and the 20th century (梅兰芳与二十世纪) :chapter 10. the Dance of Mei (第十章：梅之舞)
^ Li Zhongming (李仲明), The Family of Mei Lanfang (梅兰芳家族) Page113-121
^ "Mei Baojiu". 11 March 2009. Retrieved 7 May 2012.
^ "Mei Baojiu". 7 March 2012. Retrieved 29 May 2012.
^ "Mei Baojiu". 29 March 2012. Retrieved 29 May 2012.
^ "京剧大师梅葆玖去世享年82岁 世间从此再无"梅先生"". people.cn. 25 April 2016. Retrieved 31 January 2019.
^ Li Zhongming (李仲明), The Family of Mei Lanfang (梅兰芳家族) Page84 - 90
^ "About Mei Baojiu". 29 March 2012. Archived from the original on 5 December 2012. Retrieved 29 May 2012.
Martine Franck, France:
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martine_Franck
Martine Franck (2 April 1938 – 16 August 2012) was a British-Belgian documentary and portrait photographer. She was a member of Magnum Photos for over 32 years. Franck was the second wife of Henri Cartier-Bresson and co-founder and president of the Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation.
Martine Franck
Photo of Martine Franck.jpg
Franck in 1972, by Henri-Cartier Bresson
Born: 2 April 1938 Antwerp, Belgium
Died: 16 August 2012 (aged 74) Paris, France
Occupation
Documentary and portrait photographer
Spouse(s): Henri Cartier-Bresson (m. 1970; died 2004)
Children: 1
Contents:
Early life:
Franck was born in Antwerp[1] to the Belgian banker Louis Franck and his British wife, Evelyn.[2] After her birth the family moved almost immediately to London.[2] A year later, her father joined the British army, and the rest of the family were evacuated to the United States, spending the remainder of the Second World War on Long Island and in Arizona.[3]
Franck's father was an amateur art collector who often took his daughter to galleries and museums. Franck was in boarding school from the age of six onwards, and her mother sent her a postcard every day, frequently of paintings. Ms. Franck, attended Heathfield School, an all-girls boarding school close to Ascot in England, and studied the history of art from the age of 14. "I had a wonderful teacher who really galvanized me," she says. "In those days she took us on outings to London, which was the big excitement of the year for me."[4]
Career:
Franck studied art history at the University of Madrid and at the Ecole du Louvre in Paris. After struggling through her thesis (on French sculptor Henri Gaudier-Brzeska and the influence of cubism on sculpture), she said she realized she had no particular talent for writing, and turned to photography instead.[5]
In 1963, Franck's photography career started following trips to the Far East, having taken pictures with her cousin’s Leica camera. Returning to France in 1964, now possessing a camera of her own, Franck became an assistant to photographers Eliot Elisofon and Gjon Mili at Time-Life. By 1969 she was a busy freelance photographer for magazines such as Vogue, Life and Sports Illustrated, and the official photographer of the Théâtre du Soleil (a position she held for 48 years).[6] From 1970 to 1971 she worked in Paris at the Agence Vu photo agency, and in 1972 she co-founded the Viva agency.[2]
In 1980, Franck joined the Magnum Photos cooperative agency as a "nominee", and in 1983 she became a full member. She was one of a very small number of women to be accepted into the agency.
In 1983, she completed a project for the now-defunct French Ministry of Women's Rights and in 1985 she began collaborating with the non-profit International Federation of Little Brothers of the Poor. In 1993, she first traveled to the Irish island of Tory where she documented the tiny Gaelic community living there. She also traveled to Tibet and Nepal, and with the help of Marilyn Silverstone photographed the education system of the Tibetan Tulkus monks. In 2003 and 2004 she returned to Paris to document the work of theater director Robert Wilson who was staging La Fontaine's fables at the Comédie Française.[7]
Nine books of Franck's photographs have been published, and in 2005 Franck was made a chevalier of the French Légion d'Honneur.[8]
Franck continued working even after she was diagnosed with bone cancer in 2010. Her last exhibition was in October 2011 at the Maison Européenne de la Photographie. The exhibit consisted of 62 portraits of artists "coming from somewhere else” collected from 1965 through 2010. This same year, there were collections of portraits shown at New York's Howard Greenberg Gallery and at the Claude Bernard Gallery, Paris.[9]
Work:
Franck was well known for her documentary-style photographs of important cultural figures such as the painter Marc Chagall, philosopher Michel Foucault and poet Seamus Heaney, and of remote or marginalized communities such as Tibetan Buddhist monks, elderly French people, and isolated Gaelic speakers. Michael Pritchard, the Director-General of the Royal Photographic Society, observed: "Martine was able to work with her subjects and bring out their emotions and record their expressions on film, helping the viewer understand what she had seen in person. Her images were always empathetic with her subject." In 1976, Frank took one of her most iconic photos of bathers beside a pool in Le Brusc, Provence. By her account, she saw them from a distance and rushed to photograph the moment, all the while changing the roll of film in her camera. She quickly closed the lens just at the right moment, when happened to be most intense.[9]
She cited as influences the portraits of British photographer Julia Margaret Cameron, the work of American photojournalist Dorothea Lange and American documentary photographer Margaret Bourke-White.[8] In 2010, she told The New York Times that photography "suits my curiosity about people and human situations." [10]
She worked outside the studio, using a 35 mm Leica camera, and preferring black and white film.[2] The British Royal Photographic Society has described her work as "firmly rooted in the tradition of French humanist documentary photography."[11]
Personal life:
Franck was often described as elegant, dignified and shy.[12][13][14]
In 1966, she met Henri Cartier-Bresson, thirty years her senior, when she was photographing Paris fashion shows for The New York Times. In 2010, she told interviewer Charlie Rose "his opening line was, ‘Martine, I want to come and see your contact sheets.’" They married in 1970, had one child, a daughter named Mélanie, and remained together until his death in 2004.[2]
Throughout her career Franck, who was sometimes described as a feminist, was uncomfortable being in the shadow of her famous husband and wanted to be recognized for her own work. In 1970, the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London planned to stage Franck's first solo exhibition: when she saw that the invitations included her husband's name and said he would be present at the launch, she cancelled the show. Franck once said that she put her husband's career ahead of her own. In 2003 Franck and her daughter launched the Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation to promote Cartier-Bresson's photojournalism, and in 2004 Franck became its president.[8]
Franck was diagnosed with leukemia in 2010, and died in Paris in 2012 at 74 years old.[2]
Publications:
Martine Franck: Dun jour, l'autre. France: Seuil, 1998. ISBN 978-2-02-034771-6
Tibetan Tulkus, images of continuity. London: Anna Maria Rossi & Fabio Rossi Publications, 2000. ISBN 978-0-9520992-8-4
Tory Island Images. Wolfhound Press, 2000. ISBN 978-0-86327-561-6
Martine Franck Photographe, Musée de la Vie romantique, Paris-Musées/Adam Biro, 2002. ISBN 978-2-87660-346-2
Fables de la Fontaine (production by Robert Wilson), Actes Sud. Paris, 2004
Martine Franck: One Day to the Next. Aperture, 2005. ISBN 978-0-89381-845-6
Martine Franck. Louis Baring. London: Phaidon, 2007. ISBN 978-0-7148-4781-8
Martine Franck: Photo Poche. France: Actes Sud, 2007. ISBN 978-2-7427-6725-0
Women/Femmes, Steidl, 2010. ISBN 978-3-86930-149-5
Venus d'ailleurs, Actes Sud, 2011
ExhibitionsEdit
La vie et la mort, Rencontres d'Arles, Arles, France, 1980[citation needed]
Martine Franck Photographe, Musée de la Vie romantique, Paris, 2004[citation needed]
Les Rencontres, Rencontres d'Arles, Arles, France, 2004[citation needed]
ReferencesEdit
^ Phaidon Editors (2019). Great women artists. Phaidon Press. p. 141. ISBN 0714878774.
^ a b c d e f Leslie Kaufman (22 August 2012). "Martine Franck, Documentary Photographer, Dies at 74". New York Times. Retrieved 25 August 2012.
^ Tori (21 August 2012). "'Magnum has lost a point of reference, a lighthouse, and one of our most influential and beloved members – Martine Franck". Film's Not Dead. Archived from the original on 26 August 2012. Retrieved 25 August 2012.
^ Grey, Tobias (21 October 2011). "Martine Franck's Curious Lens". ProQuest 899273270.
^ Bussell, Mark (8 June 2010). "Martine Franck's Pictures Within Pictures". New York Times. Retrieved 25 August 2012.
^ Wallace, Vaughan (20 August 2012). "Martine Franck: 1938 – 2012". Life magazine. Retrieved 25 August 2012.
^ Magnumphotos
^ a b c Hopkinson, Amanda (19 August 2012). "Martine Franck obituary". Guardian. Retrieved 25 August 2012.
^ a b Childs, Martin (29 August 2012). "The Independent". The Independent. Independent Print Ltd.
^ Bussell, Mark (8 June 2010). "Martine Franck's Pictures Within Pictures". The New York Times. Retrieved 19 September 2016.
^ Laurent, Olivier (17 August 2012). "Magnum Photos member and photographer Martine Franck has died". British Journal of Photography. Archived from the original on 19 August 2012. Retrieved 25 August 2012.
^ Gill, A.A. (2008). Previous convictions: assignments from here and there (1st Simon & Schuster trade pbk. ed.). New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks. p. 90. ISBN 978-1416572497.
^ Walker, David (17 August 2012). "Photographer Martine Franck dies". Photo District News. Retrieved 25 August 2012.
^ "Wife of Henri Cartier-Bresson, Martine Franck, dies at 74". Art Media Agency. 20 August 2012. Retrieved 25 August 2012.
External linksEdit
Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation
New York Times "Martine Franck's Pictures Within Pictures"
Martine Franck 1991 catalogue of Taipei Fine Art Museum, with the pencil painting of Henri Cartier-Bresson.
Dr. rer. pol. Arend Oetker, Germany:
de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arend_Oetker
Arend Oetker was born on March 30, 1939 in Bielefeld, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany and studied business administration and political science in Hamburg, Berlin and Cologne as well as Marketing at Harvard Business School. He received his doctorate in 1966 from the University of Cologne.
Dr. Arend Oetker, Managing Partner of Dr. Arend Oetker Holding, is Honorary Chairman of the Board and majority shareholder of the food company Hero AG, Deputy Chairman and major shareholder of KWS Saat AG and chairman of the board of Cognos AG.
Furthermore, Dr. Arend Oetker is actively involved as president of the German Council on Foreign Relations (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Auswärtige Politik e. V.), board member of the Confederation of German Employers‘ Associations (Bundesvereinigung der Deutschen Arbeitgeberverbände e. V.) and honorary member of the Federation of German Industries (Bundesverband der Deutschen Industrie e. V.). He has received a number of accolades in the field of visual arts and music.
Dr. Arend Oetker is married and has five children.
Dr. William Mong Man Wai, Hong Kong:
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Mong
William Mong Man-wai GBS (Chinese: 蒙民偉, 7 November 1927 – 20 July 2010) was the chairman of the Shun Hing Group, the distributor of Matsushita products (National, Panasonic, Technics) in Hong Kong.
He attended La Salle College in Hong Kong. Mong Man-wai died from cancer on 20 July 2010, aged 82. Many buildings in Hong Kong universities are named after him.[1]
Award received:
Gold Bauhinia Star
honorary doctor of the University of Hong Kong
honorary doctor of the Tsinghua University (2007)
honorary doctor of the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Giulio Mogol, Italy:
Giulio Rapetti (born 17 August 1936), in art Mogol (Italian pronunciation: [moˈɡɔl]), is an Italian music lyricist. He is best known for his collaborations with Lucio Battisti, Gianni Bella, Adriano Celentano and Mango.
Career:
Mogol was born in Milan. His father, Mariano Rapetti, was an important director of the Ricordi record label, and had been in his own time a successful lyricist of the 1950s. Young Giulio, who was likewise employed by Ricordi as a public relations expert, began his own career as a lyricist against his father's wishes.
His first successes were "Il cielo in una stanza", set to music by Gino Paoli and sung by Mina; "Al di là", a piece that won the 1961 Sanremo Festival, performed by Luciano Tajoli and Betty Curtis; "Una lacrima sul viso", which was a huge hit for Bobby Solo in 1964. Another famous song from 1961 was "Uno dei tanti" (English: "One among many") which was rewritten by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller in 1963 for Ben E. King and released under the title "I (Who Have Nothing)".
In addition to writing new lyrics in Italian for a great many singers, Mogol also took it upon himself, in years in which familiarity with the English language in Italy was still sparse, to translate many hits from overseas, especially film soundtracks, but also works of Bob Dylan and David Bowie.
In 1965, he met Lucio Battisti, a young guitarist and composer from the Latium region of central Italy. Mogol's lyrics contributed to Battisti's initial success as an author, in megahits such as "29 settembre", and led him to undertake the role of producer as well, as happened with the song "Sognando la California", which Mogol himself had translated from the signature number of The Mamas & the Papas, "California Dreamin'", and with "Senza luce" ("Without light"), an Italian rendering of "A Whiter Shade of Pale" by Procol Harum.
In 1966, Mogol, overcoming resistance from his record label, convinced Battisti to perform his own songs. The lyricist's intuition would have one of the most rewarding outcomes of the history of Italian music, as Battisti, after a halting start, would explode as a singer, becoming one of the most successful artists in the panorama of Italian music. In the same year, Mogol left the Ricordi label to create his own with Battisti, called Numero Uno, which brought together many celebrated Italian singer-songwriters. The pair wrote songs as well for Bruno Lauzi and Patty Pravo. Their greatest chart success came from the songs written for Mina in 1969–1970.
In 1980, Mogol broke the artistic relationship with Battisti, and successfully continued his independent career as a lyricist with the noted singer-songwriter Riccardo Cocciante, with whom he wrote the texts for some successful albums, first in the series being "Cervo a Primavera".
Mogol (2007)
Lately, he began his collaboration with Mango, co-writing successful songs like "Oro", "Nella mia città", "Come Monna Lisa" and "Mediterraneo".
Mogol has formed a stable partnership with Adriano Celentano; his songs for Celentano are scored by the Sicilian singer-songwriter Gianni Bella. This collaboration has produced the delicate song "L'arcobaleno", included in the CD Io non so parlar d'amore, which is considered dedicated to Battisti, who had recently died. Mogol has also collaborated with singer-songwriter Jack Rubinacci.
Mari Natsuki, Japan:
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mari_Natsuki
Junko Nakajima (中島 淳子, Nakajima Junko, born 2 May 1952), more commonly known by her stage name Mari Natsuki (夏木 マリ, Natsuki Mari), is a Japanese singer, dancer and actress.[1] Born in Tokyo, she started work as a singer from a young age. In 2007, Natsuki announced her engagement to percussionist Nobu Saitō, with their marriage taking place in Spring 2008.
Mari Natsuki
MJK 08427 Mari Natsuki (Berlinale 2018).jpg
Mari Natsuki (2018)
Born: Mari Natsuki. 夏木 マリ. 2 May 1952 (age 67) Tokyo, Japan
Nationality: Japanese
Other names: Junko Nakajima
Occupation: Singer, dancer, actress
Natsuki has participated in musical theatre, including that of Yukio Ninagawa. She provided the voice of Yubaba in Spirited Away, played the young witch's mother in the Japanese TV remake of Bewitched and has twice been nominated for a Japanese Academy Award. Natsuki played the character Big Mama in the Japanese version of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots[2] and has also acted in television dramas, such as the 2005 series Nobuta o Produce, playing the Vice Principal, Katharine.
Contents:
Film:
Otoko wa Tsurai yo series:
Tora-san, My Uncle (1989)
Tora-san Takes a Vacation (1990)
Tora-san Confesses (1991)
Tora-San Makes Excuses (1992)
Tora-san to the Rescue (1995)
Tora-san, Wish You Were Here (2019)
Onimasa (1982)
Legend of the Eight Samurai (1983)
Kita no Hotaru (1984)
Jittemai (1986)
Death Powder (1986)
Otoko wa Tsurai yo: Boku no Ojisan (1989)
The Hunted (1995)
Samurai Fiction (1998)
Spirited Away (2001)
Shōjo (2001)
Ping Pong (2002)
Okusama wa Majo (2004)
Sugar and Spice (2006)
Sakuran (2007)
Girl In The Sunny Place (2013)
Isle of Dogs (2018)
Ikiru Machi (2018)
Vision (2018)
Dai Kome Sōdō (2021), Taki
Television: Yoshitsune (2005), Carnation (2011), Montage (2016), Meet Me After School (2018)
Video Games: Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots (Big Mama) (2008), Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception (Katherine Marlowe) (2011)
Japanese dub:
Live-action: Feud (Joan Crawford (Jessica Lange)), The West Wing (C.J. Cregg (Allison Janney))
Animation: Moana (Tala)
References:
^ Mills, Ted. "Apple Music Preview. About Mari Natsuki". music.apple.com. Retrieved 9 November 2019.
^ Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns Of The Patriots: MGS4 Voice Cast Announced Archived 30 September 2007 at the Wayback Machine.
Changjae Shin, South Korea:
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shin_Chang-jae
Shin Chang-jae (born 1953/54) is a Korean billionaire businessman, Chairman and CEO of Kyobo Life Insurance Company.
Shin Chang-jae
Born: 1953/1954 (age 65–66)[1]
Nationality: Korean
Alma mater: Seoul National University
Occupation: Chairman and CEO, Kyobo Life Insurance Company
Net worth: $2.3 billion (June 2015)[1]
Spouse(s): married
Children: 2 sons
Early life:
He is the son of Shin Yong-ho, who founded Kyobo Life Insurance Company in 1958.[1] he has a doctorate from Seoul National University.[1]
Career: Kyobo Life Insurance Building, Seoul
He trained as an obstetrician and worked as a professor at the Seoul National University medical school.[1]
He has been Chairman and CEO of Kyobo Life Insurance Company since 2000.[1] In June 2015, Forbes estimated his net worth at US$2.3 billion.[1]
Personal life: He is married with two sons and lives in Seoul, South Korea.[1]
References: ^ a b c d e f g h "Shin Chang-Jae". Forbes. Retrieved 9 June 2015.
Patrick Charpenel, Mexico;
Patrick Charpenel will be the new executive director of El Museo del Barrio in New York.
Charpenel is a Mexico City–based curator who has worked extensively in Mexico as well as internationally. He organized a Gabriel Orozco retrospective at the Museo del Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City in 2006 and an exhibition of work by Franz West at the Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporáneo in 2009. He also oversaw the Art Public section for the 2009 and 2010 editions of Art Basel Miami Beach.
Charpenel served as the executive director of Museo Jumex, the private museum in Mexico City of ART news Top 200 collector Eugenio López Alonso. (Charpenel resigned from his post in 2015 amid the controversy over the cancellation of a Hermann Nitsch show.) Charpenel is also a writer and a collector of “a heterogeneous group of works” that focuses on such interests as “the structure of the global economy and the extension of artistic experience into the social sphere.”
Patrick Charpenel is an art historian and collector currently working as an independent curator in Mexico City. He holds a graduate degree in philosophy. Charpenel has curated numerous exhibitions including Franz West, Tamayo Museum, Mexico City, Mexico (2006); Sólo los personajes cambian, Museum of Contemporary Art, Monterrey, Mexico (2004); Inter.play, Moore Space, Miami, Florida (2003); Edén, Jumex Collection, Mexico City, Mexico (2003); and ACNÉ, Museum of Modern Art, Mexico City, Mexico (1995). He has numerous critical texts published in catalogues and magazines.
2018 Bienvenidos a El Museo del Barrio!
We are excited to announce the appointment of our new Executive Director, Patrick Charpenel. El Museo del Barrio is thrilled to have Charpenel join the institution’s leadership and we look forward to seeing what he will bring to the legacy of this museum.
YouTube: youtu.be/l1Amlj49bt8
Laura Garcia-Lorca de los Rios, Spain:
Gloria Giner de los Ríos García (28 March 1886 – 6 February 1970) was a Spanish teacher at the Escuela Normal Superior de Maestras and the Institución Libre de Enseñanza. The author of innovative manuals dedicated to the teaching of history and geography,[1] she, together with Leonor Serrano Pablo [es], developed the educational "recipe" that they called "enthusiastic observation". They also worked to change the androcentric canon of geographical studies to include women.[2]
Gloria Giner de los Ríos García
Born: 28 March 1886 Madrid, Spain
Died: 6 February 1970 (aged 83) Madrid, Spain
Resting place: Civil Cemetery of Madrid [es]
Occupation: Teacher
Spouse(s): Fernando de los Ríos
Children: Laura de los Ríos Giner [es]
Parents: Hermenegildo Giner de los Ríos [es] (father), Laura García Hoppe [es] (mother)
She lived in exile during the Francoist Spain era, forming part of the intellectual elite that carried out educational, philological, literary, legal, and cultural work. Her family had close connections to that of poet Federico García Lorca.
Biography:
Gloria Giner de los Ríos García was born in Madrid on 28 March 1886. The daughter of Laura García Hoppe [es] and Hermenegildo Giner de los Ríos [es], she spent her childhood and adolescence in Madrid, Alicante, and Barcelona, cities where her father held the Chair of Philosophy. After finishing high school in 1906 and teaching in 1908, she completed her training by attending classes at the Institución Libre de Enseñanza and taking courses in art, pedagogy, and philosophy.[3] In 1909, she was promoted to the Escuela de Estudios Superiores de Magisterio [es].[1]
Marriage, family, and social life:
On 1 July 1912, Giner married Fernando de los Ríos, who had obtained the Chair of Law at the University of Granada. It was in this city that the couple took up residence, and in which Gloria was a teacher at the Normal School, by right of consort at first, and later in her own position.[3] A year later, their daughter Laura de los Ríos Giner [es] was born. In Granada, the Ríos Giner family became friends with the García Lorca family, with Manuel de Falla, and with Berta Wilhelmi and her husband Eduardo Domínguez. Wilhelmi had been in contact with the Institución Libre de Enseñanza and had organized some community schools in Almuñécar.[4] With her collaboration, Giner organized the education of her daughter Laura and other children, including Isabel García Lorca [es], in order to separate them from Granada's private education system.[3]
Laura de los Ríos and Isabel García Lorca:
Federico García Lorca was one of the select circle of friends of the Ríos family. He dedicated the poem Romance sonámbulo to Fernando and Gloria,[5] and was the one who introduced their daughters, Laura de los Ríos and Isabel García Lorca. The friendship between the latter was very intense and lasting. They became sisters-in-law when Laura married Federico's younger brother Francisco [es]. In an interview, Isabel Garcia Lorca recalled:
Gloria Giner was an extraordinary being. Well, of character, I think there was a certain similarity in all of them, some high moral tension. People a little demanding with what others did and what they could do. They were like that down deep, including my mother.[6]
Laura, in another interview, told of her mother's life in Granada:
My mother attended her classes every day...in the afternoon she prepared her classes and helped my father. She translated from German, the language my father and a German teacher in Granada had taught her. She also translated from French, which she knew very well, from Greek and Latin...lovingly and intellectually my parents were a very well-matched marriage.[7]
Professional career:
In 1931, the Provisional Government of the Republic appointed her husband Minister of Justice, and in December, Minister of Public Instruction. Giner told her daughter, "I'm not going to give up my career and live as a minister."[8] Nonetheless she performed some ceremonial functions and accompanied her husband on trips through Spain.[3] In 1932 she was on leave as a teacher at the Normal School, but continued teaching at the Institución Libre de Enseñanza. In 1933, after her husband resigned from government office, she rejoined teaching by accepting a position in Zamora. For three courses she lived alone in a hotel room three days a week, returning to Madrid for the rest of the week.[8] In Zamora, as in Granada, society shunned her for being the wife of a socialist and not attending religious services.[7]
Exile:
At the end of September 1936, Fernando de los Ríos was appointed ambassador of Spain to the United States, a position he held until March 1939. Gloria Giner moved to Washington, D.C. with her daughter, her mother, and a nephew of her husband. Fernanda Urruti, Fernando's mother, would later join them. In Washington, Giner was invited to several meetings that Eleanor Roosevelt organized in the White House.[3] During the Civil War, Fernando de los Ríos was separated from his professorship at the University of Madrid. In 1939, the Franco government definitively separated him from his chair and dismissed him.
Fernando de los Ríos taught at The New School for Social Research in New York, an institution founded to welcome European intellectuals who emigrated for political reasons.[5] Giner was a professor at Columbia University.[3][9] The Ríos-Giner family lived in exile in the United States, which did not recognize Spanish Republican exiles and subjected those who wanted to enter to immigration laws. However, university students and artists were exempt from the rigid immigration quota, provided they were endorsed by US citizens or claimed by a university. Gloria was one of the exiled academics who passed through American universities and formed an intellectual elite.[10]
In 1942, her daughter Laura married Francisco García Lorca, younger brother of the poet Federico, in the Mead Chapel of Middlebury College, where both were professors at the Spanish School.[11] The couple had three daughters, and the family lived together in a New York apartment. In addition to preparing classes, writing poems, and working on the publication of her works, Giner took care of her three granddaughters, took them out for walks and, if necessary, took them on the bus and subway in New York.
In 1949, Fernando de los Ríos died. Over 50 personalities of politics and culture attended the funeral. José de los Ríos – the younger brother of Fernando and Francisco García Lorca – presided over the dual family. Fernando's wife, mother, and daughter stayed at the house during the funeral, in accordance with Spanish custom at the time.
Return to Spain:
Gloria Giner returned to Spain with her daughter's family in 1965. She died in Madrid on 6 February 1970.[12] She was buried in the Civil Cemetery of Madrid [es], and her husband's remains were reinterred there alongside hers on 28 June 1980.[13]
Teaching methods:
Gloria Giner and her great friend Leonor Serrano Pablo [es] worked together on the teaching of geography in order to connect with students.[14] Giner defended the formative capacity of the plastic arts "as a real basis for the teaching of history in the first years of the formation of the culture of the child". Her 1935 book Cien lecturas históricas became a prominent text for educational reformers inspired by the work of Rafael Altamira.[1]
With Altamira and Maria Montessori as references, they developed didactic methods that, in Serrano's words, revolved around "enthusiastic observation". This consisted of teaching geography in dialogue with the students, strengthening their physical and emotional relationship with the environment. Another component of enthusiastic observation was emotional. Impositions of rote memorization were eliminated. In Giner's words, "the soul was educated and the spirit strengthened".
Serrano and Giner also advocated for the meaningful inclusion of women in the androcentric canon of studies on geography. The Dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy had, in 1803, included the meaning of the word hombre (man) to refer to all mankind. Taking the term as inclusive of women, they understood that it forced men to relate to nature as women did. Serrano considered that rendering the androcentric references in geography meaningless would foster a "new creative, loving, anti-destructive, and anti-war humanity".[2] In the opinion of professor Ana I. Simón Alegre, this teaching, in the language of the 21st century, could be called the development of environmental education or the first manifestations of ecofeminism.[15]
Giner's last book, Por tierras de España (1962), also incorporated audio-lingual teaching methods.[9]
Works:
Historia de la pedagogía (1910)
Weimer, Hermann 1872-1942 (translation)
Geografía Primer grado. Aspectos de la naturaleza y vida del hombre en la tierra (1919)
Geografía: Primer grado (1919), with Federico Ribas (1890–1952)
Geografía general. El cielo, la Tierra y el hombre (1935)
Cien lecturas históricas (1935)
Lecturas geográficas. Espectáculos de la naturaleza, paisajes, ciudades y hombres (1936)
Romances de los ríos de España (1943)
Manual de historia de la civilización española (1951)
Cumbres de la civilización española: Interpretación del espíritu español individualizado en diecinueve figuras representativas (1955)
El paisaje de Hispanoamérica a través de su literatura: (antología) (1958)
Introducción a la historia de la civilización española (1959)
Por tierras de España (1962), with Luke Nolfi, ISBN 9780030800238
References:
^ a b c Duarte-Piña, Olga (2015). La enseñanza de la historia en la educación secundaria [Teaching of History in Secondary Education] (Thesis) (in Spanish). University of Seville. pp. 105–108. Retrieved 15 July 2019 – via Dialnet.
^ a b Simón Alegre, Ana I.; Sanz Álvarez, Arancha (January–June 2010). "Prácticas y teorías de descubrir paisajes: Viajeras y cultivadoras del estudio de la geografía en España, desde finales del siglo XIX hasta el primer tercio del XX" [Practices and Theories of Discovering Landscapes: Travelers and Cultivators of the Study of Geography in Spain, from the End of the 19th Century to the First Third of the 20th]. Arenal. Revista de historia de las mujeres (in Spanish). 17 (1): 55–79. ISSN 1134-6396. Retrieved 15 July 2019 – via Dialnet.
^ a b c d e f Ruiz-Manjón, Octavio (2007). "Gloria Giner de los Ríos: noticia biográfica de una madrileña" [Gloria Giner de los Ríos: Biographical Report of a Woman from Madrid]. Cuadernos de historia contemporánea (in Spanish) (Extra 1): 265–272. ISSN 0214-400X. Retrieved 15 July 2019 – via Dialnet.
^ Ruiz-Manjón, Octavio (31 May 2007). "Fernando de los Ríos. Un intelectual en el PSOE". El Cultural (in Spanish). Archived from the original on 10 March 2016. Retrieved 15 July 2019.
^ a b "Ríos Urruti, Fernando de los (1879–1949)" (in Spanish). Charles III University of Madrid. Retrieved 15 July 2019.
^ Méndez, José. "Isabel García Lorca". Revista Residencia (in Spanish). Retrieved 15 July 2019.
^ a b Rodrigo, Antonia (1 May 1982). "Laura de los Ríos". Revista Triunfo (in Spanish). No. 19. p. 64. Retrieved 15 July 2019.
^ a b "La niña que tocaba con Falla" [The Girl Who Played With Falla]. Granada Hoy (in Spanish). 8 March 2009. Retrieved 15 July 2019.
^ a b "Local Pair Co-Author Spanish Text". Democrat and Chronicle. 26 December 1962. p. 15. Retrieved 15 July 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
^ García Cueto, Pedro (30 April 2015). "Dos visiones del exilio cultural español: Vicente Llorens y Jordi Gracia" [Two Visions of Spanish Cultural Exile: Vicente Llorens and Jordi Gracia]. Fronterad (in Spanish). Archived from the original on 25 July 2018. Retrieved 15 July 2019.
^ Seseña, Natacha (26 December 1981). "Laura de los Ríos, un duelo de labores y esperanzas" [Laura de los Ríos, a Duel of Labors and Hopes]. El País (in Spanish). Retrieved 15 July 2019.
^ "Doña Gloria Giner de los Ríos". El Tiempo (in Spanish). 13 February 1970. p. 4. Retrieved 15 July 2019 – via Google News.
^ "Los restos de Fernando de los Ríos recibieron sepultura en el cementerio civil de Madrid" [The Remains of Fernando de los Ríos Buried in the Civil Cemetery of Madrid]. El País (in Spanish). 29 June 1980. Retrieved 15 July 2019.
^ Ortells Roca, Miquel; Artero Broch, Inmaculada (1 December 2013). "¿Para qué sirven las inspectoras? Leonor Serrano: La pedagogía y/contra el poder" [What are Inspectors For? Leonor Serrano: Pedagogy and/Against Power]. Quaderns (in Spanish) (76). Retrieved 15 July 2019.
^ Simón Alegre, Ana I. (1 March 2013). "Los inicios del ecofeminismo en España" [The Beginnings of Ecofeminism in Spain]. El Ecologista (in Spanish) (76). Retrieved 15 July 2019.
Further readingEdit
Fuentes, Víctor (2010). "'Manhattan transfers' personales al trasluz del exilio republicano en Nueva York". In Faber, Sebastiaan (ed.). Contra el olvido: el exilio español en Estados Unidos (in Spanish). Instituto Franklin de Estudios Norteamericanos. pp. 223–241. ISBN 9788481388701.
Zulueta, Carmen (2001). "Los domingos de don Fernando" [Sundays with Don Fernando]. Fundamentos de antropología (in Spanish) (10–11): 130–137.
Candida Gertler & Yana Peel, United Kingdom:
Candida Gertler (born 1966/1967) OBE is a British/German art collector, philanthropist, and former journalist.[2]
Candida Gertler
Born: 1966/1967 (age 52–53)[1]. Frankfurt am Main, Germany
Nationality: British, German
Occupation: Art collector
Net worth: £150 million (2009)
Spouse(s): Zak Gertler
Children: 2
Early life:
She was born in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, to Romanian Jewish immigrant parents.[1] [3] She studied journalism and law.[1]
Career:
In 2003 Gertler and Yana Peel founded the Outset Contemporary Art Fund.[4]
In June 2015, she was given an OBE "for services to Contemporary Visual Arts and Arts Philanthropy".[5]
She is a member of the Tate International Council.[6]
Personal life:
She is married to Zak Gertler.[7] They are Jewish, and have two children.[8]
He has been called "one of London's leading property developers".[7] In 2009, Zak Gertler and family had an estimated net worth of £150 million, down from £250 million in 2008.[9] "The Gertlers developed offices in Germany, moving into the London market in the 1990s."[9]
References:
^ a b c "The Tate's Secret Weapon: Outset". Art Market Monitor. 25 August 2009. Retrieved 12 April 2019.
^ "A missionary for art". Arterritory.com - Baltic, Russian and Scandinaviawn Art Territory. Retrieved 12 April 2019.
^ ""Artfully Dressed: Women in the Art World", Volume IV: Collectors & Patrons". Issuu. Retrieved 12 April 2019.
^ www.arterritory.com/en/art_market/collections/6202-a_miss...
^ "Candida GERTLER". www.thegazette.co.uk. Retrieved 12 April 2019.
^ "Interview with Candida Gertler, OBE". Artkurio Consultancy. Retrieved 12 April 2019.
^ a b "The London Magazine". www.thelondonmagazine.co.uk. Retrieved 12 April 2019.
^ parkeastsynagogue.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Annoucem...
^ a b "Zak Gertler and family". The Sunday Times. 26 April 2009. Retrieved 12 April 2019.
Yana Peel (born June 1974) is a Canadian executive, businesswoman, children's author and philanthropist.[2] She was CEO of the Serpentine Galleries from 2016 to 2019, and was previously a board member.[3][4]
Yana Peel:
Born: Yana Mirkin[1]. June 1974 (age 45). Leningrad, USSR (now Russia)
Nationality: Canadian
Alma mater: McGill University, London School of Economics
Predecessor: Julia Peyton-Jones
Spouse(s): Stephen Peel (m. 1999)
Children: 2
Peel is a co-founder of the Outset Contemporary Art Fund (with Candida Gertler), and Intelligence Squared Asia, and was CEO of Intelligence Squared Group from 2013 to 2016.[5]
Peel has several advisory positions including the Tate International Council, V-A-C Foundation, and the NSPCC therapeutic board.[6][7] She has been an advisor to the British Fashion Council, Asia Art Archive, Lincoln Center, Para Site and the Victoria and Albert Museum, where she founded the design fund.[6][8][9][7]
Early life:
Yana Peel was born in June 1974[10] in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg), Russia. Her family emigrated to Canada via Austria in 1978.[3] She grew up in Toronto, Ontario.[11]
Peel studied Russian studies at McGill University during the 1990s. [12][3][1] In 1996,[13] while being a student she co-organised a fashion show for charity.[1][6][14] After that, Peel undertook a post-graduate degree in economics at the London School of Economics.[3][11] Peel was a member of the 2011 class of the World Economic Forum's Young Global Leaders programme.[15]
Career:
Goldman Sachs:
Peel started her career in the equities division of Goldman Sachs in 1997 in London, and became an executive director before leaving in 2003.[16][6][3][2]
Outset Contemporary Art Fund:
Peel co-founded the charity Outset Contemporary Art Fund in 2003 with Candida Gertler.[17][6][11] Peel and Gertler generated a model whereby artists could be presented to potential donors in order to raise funds to purchase their work, or to fund new commissions with a view to donating them to public institutions.[6] The Fund purchased over 100 pieces for the Tate Modern, and commissioned work by artists including Francis Alys, Yael Bartana, Candice Breitz and Steve McQueen.[6][16]
Intelligence Squared:
In 2009, Peel co-founded Intelligence Squared Asia with Amelie Von Wedel, a not-for-profit platform for hosting live debates in Hong Kong.[18][17][19] In 2012 Peel became CEO of Intelligence Squared Group,[18][20] bringing the live events business out of its financial difficulties.[6] Peel has hosted interviews including: Olafur Eliasson and Shirin Neshat at Davos,[21] Ai Wei Wei at the Cambridge Union.[22]
Serpentine Galleries:
In April 2016, Peel was appointed to the role of CEO of the Serpentine Galleries.[23][3] Peel said it was her "mission to create a safe space for unsafe ideas",[2] and to promote a "socially conscious Serpentine".[11] She indicated that she wanted to give artists a greater say in the development of the Serpentine Galleries, in order to give "artists a voice in the biggest global conversations".[11] Peel worked in tandem with the artistic director, Hans Ulrich Obrist.[6]
Peel furthered the Serpentine Galleries' technological ambitions, introducing digital engagement initiatives including Serpentine Mobile Tours[24] and the translation of the exhibition Zaha Hadid: Early Paintings and Drawings into Virtual Reality.[25][26] Peel stated that she was "committed to maintaining and open-source spirit"[27] at the Serpentine Galleries, and that it was her ambition "to inspire the widest audiences with the urgency of art and architecture".[2] The Financial Times noted that Peel "has been able to lure companies such as Google and Bloomberg as partners to help meet the Serpentine's annual £9.5m target".[24]
Peel and Obrist selected both the first African architect to work on a pavilion,[28] and the youngest architect to do so.[29] In 2018, she broadened the global reach of the Serpentine Pavilion programme by announcing the launch of a pavilion in Beijing designed by Sichuan practice, Jiakun Architects.[30]
Together with Lord Richard Rogers and Sir David Adjaye, Peel and Obrist selected Burkina Faso architect Diébédo Francis Kéré to design the 2017 pavilion.[31] The pavilion was awarded the Civic Trust Award in 2018.[32]
The Serpentine selected Mexican architect Frida Escobedo to design the 2018 pavilion. She will be the youngest architect to have participated in the Pavilion programme since it began in 2000.[29]
She stepped down as CEO in June 2019 as a consequence of the attention paid to her co-ownership of NSO Group, an Israeli cyberweapons company whose software has allegedly been used by authoritarian regimes to spy on dissidents.[4]
Philanthropy:
Peel co-chaired Para Site, a not-for-profit contemporary art space in Hong Kong, from 2010 to 2015.[33] She has been involved with the project since 2009.[17]
Peel founded the Victoria and Albert Museum's design fund in 2011.[9] The fund supported the acquisition of contemporary design objects.[9]
Peel is a member of NSPCC's therapeutic board.[7] Inspired by her children, in 2008 Peel produced a series of toddler-friendly art books published by Templar, including: Art For Baby, Color For Baby and Faces For Baby.[34] These books feature works by artists ranging from Damien Hirst to Keith Haring. Proceeds from the sales of the books go towards the NSPCC.[35]
Personal life:
In 1999, Peel married Stephen Peel,[36] a private equity financier.[37] They have two children and live in Bayswater, London.[37][38]
Awards and honours:
Montblanc Award for Arts Patronage 2011[39]
Debrett's 500 List: Art[40]
Evening Standard Progress 1000 2017[41]
ArtLyst Power 100[42]
Harper's Bazaar Women Of The Year 2017[27]
Harper's Bazaar Working Wardrobe: Best dressed women 2018[43]
Henry Crown Fellow. Appointed by the Aspen Institute in 2018.[44]
References:
^ a b c "McGill Reporter - Volume 28 Number 11". reporter-archive.mcgill.ca. Retrieved 19 February 2018.
^ a b c d Bailey, Sarah. "In Conversation: Art and Fashion Are Both About Desire", Red, London, 1 November 2017. Retrieved on 19 February 2018.
^ a b c d e f McElvoy, Anne. "In The Hot Seat", Porter, London, 1 December 2016.
^ a b Greenfield, Patrick (18 June 2019). "Serpentine Galleries chief resigns in spyware firm row". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 18 June 2019 – via www.theguardian.com.
^ Sloway, Diane. "Meet Yana Peel, the Audacious Canadian Who's Transforming London's Famed Serpentine Galleries", W Magazine, 29 November 2016. Retrieved on 19 February 2018.
^ a b c d e f g h i Bourne, Henry. "L’alchimista", La Repubblica, Rome, 8 May 2017. Retrieved on 19 February 2018.
^ a b c "Serpentine Galleries Announce Appointment of Outset’s Yana Peel As CEO", ArtLys
Mugbil Al-Thukair was likely photographed in his bedchamber at his house in Manama, sitting on a prayer rug with a pious wistful countenance in a dapper embroidered silk Jubbah (open coat) and an ornate Cashmere Ghutra Shawl (headdress) fastened with the obsolete thick Najdi Agal (headband), the distinctive formal attire once worn by wealthy Arab merchants and tribal chieftains in Central Arabia and the northern Arabian Gulf in the early twentieth century as Al-Thukair supposedly was facing a Victorian colonial Anglo-Indian Raj four-poster teak wood bed (palang) surrounded by all the trappings of wealth typifying the lifestyle of a Gulf-rich pearl merchant and his household at the time, such as the open Indian teak wood wardrobe cabinet with an inside mirrored door on the left where a visible Cashmere Ghutra Shawl hangs from an open wardrobe drawer, a Victorian glass-shaded gas lamp in the right corner next to a pendulum clock in the back of a reclining wooden cane chair with its vertically striped cushion and several sitting chairs stacked high with books together with a variety of Persian rugs and carpets strewn across the floor during Jacques Cartier's second extended visit to Bahrain (from the 14th to the 26th of March 1912) the focal point of his Arabian Gulf pearl purchasing trip on Thursday, the 16th of March, 1912.
(Mugbil Bin Abdulrahman Al-Thukair was born in 1844 in the rural town of Unaizah in the Al-Qassim region in northern Najd, Central Arabia as Al-Qassim has always been considered the agricultural heartland of the Arabian Peninsula known since pre-Islamic times as the "Alimental Basket" or granary of Arabia for its abundant agricultural assets into a prestigious erudite family of merchants widespread across Arabia and the Fertile Crescent with a trading history that could be traced back to the early eighteenth century from a young age Al-Thukair was endowed with natural business acumen combined with deep intellectual and literary interests following in the footsteps of generations of his family's enterprising male offspring which drove him first in 1867 at the tender age of 23 to the prosperous port town of Jeddah on the Red Sea coast of Arabia with its bustling market and cosmopolitan outlook the obvious first choice for any ambitious young man from the hinterlands of Arabia mainly Najd in those days where he began to make his mark as a budding young merchant at the same time exploring any available business opportunities in the port cities and towns of the Near East (Middle East) and those in the neighbouring Indian subcontinent principally in the newly British-founded port city of Bombay (Mumbai), the quickly burgeoning commercial hub on the Arabian Sea, the main western gateway to India and the key gathering place for Arab merchants and their families from Arabia in the subcontinent forming a dynamic expatriate Arab community that would continue to exist from the mid-nineteenth century until India's independence from Britain in 1947 Bombay also provided a good head start for scores of young merchants from the Arabian Peninsula at the time some of whom became well-known household business names across the region most notably Alireza of Jeddah, Alghanim, Al-Kharafi and Alshaya of Kuwait among others, spurring young Al-Thukair to learn Hindi, the pre-oil seafaring age's business lingua franca in the Arabian Peninsula since the majority of Arabia's trade passed through Indian entrepôts and in due course he became proficient in the essential business language, the thriving port city of Basra in southern Iraq was yet another desirable alternative business opportunity for Al-Thukair, a familiar business destination for his family for many decades and a second adopted domicile for several family members as Iraq's only maritime gateway to the rest of the world, often visited by him in the early to mid-1870s while en route to Iraq's only port on the Arabian Gulf his ship would stop at Bahrain one of the three major ports of the Arabian Peninsula in the second half of the nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth centuries (the other two were Aden and Jeddah) allowing him during the few hours interval between passengers and cargo disembarkation and embarkation to wander around the town of Manama the cosmopolitan commercial hub on the main island of the Bahraini archipelago examining closely along the way Manama's ethnically diverse purveyors of bountiful goods from all over the world meanwhile assessing the business possibilities of the Bahraini market especially its booming pearl trade prompting him to dabble in the lucrative commodity with great success as part of his general trading business interests and after spending ten years in the coastal town of Jeddah now as a seasoned well-established general merchant Bahrain beckoned as the centre of the pearl trade in the Arabian Gulf and beyond a pioneering position consolidated by possessing in its northern waters the richest pearl oyster beds in the Gulf renowned worldwide for producing the finest quality pearls for their iridescent lustre, size and variety of colours making it the place of choice for anyone wishing to try his luck in the pearl business back then which was the mainstay of the Arabian Gulf economy prior to the discovery of oil similarly sundry of his Central Arabian Najdi merchant counterparts from the austere Arabian inland such as Algosaibi, Al-Ajaji, Al-Qadi and Al-Bassam were lured to Bahrain by the country's newfound political stability following the accession of the young, astute and literarily inclined Sheikh Isa Bin Ali Al Khalifa (1848-1932) to the throne in 1869 ushering in a new era of peace and prosperity after decades of turmoil and instability as reflected in the renewed confidence and heightened profitability prospects of the Bahraini pearl market driven by increasing international demand particularly in the West for high-quality natural pearls from the Arabian Gulf as rapidly soaring demand propelled pearl prices to unprecedented heights against such a heady backdrop Al-Thukair decided in 1877 at the age of 33 to relocate to Bahrain with his immediate family consisting of his wife and two young sons Abdullatif and Abdulmuhsin, a decision that would change his life forever Bahrain with its lush date palm groves and freshwater springs proved to be more suitable to his agrarian temperament than arid Jeddah though comparable to its vibrant multicultural and multi-ethnic society as it was the closest thing to a second home for the mature aspiring assiduous merchant after his beloved birthplace of Unaizah within a matter of years after arriving in the small island country he managed to become a leading pearl merchant and a highly esteemed public figure well-known for his philanthropic disposition, honest dealings, impeccable integrity and intellectual prowess so much so that he was dubbed "The Pride of Merchants" by the Bahraini business community he also took on the role of honorary chairman of the Manama business community and titular head of the Najdi diaspora community in Bahrain as a natural progression of his tremendous entrepreneurial successes and admirable character traits due to this exalted social status and the extensive network of highly influential personages he cultivated throughout the region Al-Thukair became increasingly sought-after as an arbiter of disputes including those of a political nature in Bahrain and elsewhere in the region but among the many scattered instances of his arbitration cases in the declassified annual Gulf reports from the British Archives, the following case from the latter stage of his life in Bahrain is one of the most striking examples of his high-level arbitrations where a family of illustrious clerics and judges resorted to his conscientious arbitration when asked by Ibrahim one of the two younger brothers of Bahrain's highest religious Muslim authority for nearly half a century the eminent cleric and unofficial supreme judge Sheikh Qasim Al Mehza (1847-1941) dubbed the "chief judge" unanimously by adherents of both Sunni and Shiite cross-sectarian Muslim denominations of Bahraini society for his scholarly knowledge of Islamic jurisprudence to intercede between the two younger siblings one of whom Ahmed was a highly respected cleric in his own right the first Bahraini graduate of the Al-Azhar of Cairo in 1887 and ironically their elder brother the highly learned cleric and judge Sheikh Qasim, here is the next slightly edited citation from the British Gulf residency report of 1912 concerning local Bahraini affairs from 1st to 30th September, exact date unspecified (A difference over the ownership of a plot of land and a shop recently arose between Sheikh Qasim Bin Mehza and his two brothers Ahmed and Ibrahim and the two parties were not on speaking terms. At the request of Ibrahim, Sheikh Mugbil and Yusuf Kanoo intervened and succeeded in arranging a comprise) correspondingly he was acting as an unpaid adviser, interlocutor and mediator to some of the Arabian Peninsula's rulers as attested by one of the earliest documented references to Al-Thukair in the British Archives in late 1888 and early 1889 where he was linked to a series of accounts dealing with the recurring violent hostilities between the neighbouring Sheikhdoms of Qatar and Abu Dhabi in which he acted as a go-between on behalf of Sheikh Qasim Bin Muhammad Al-Thani (r. 1868-1913) the first British-recognised Qatari ruler independent of Bahraini suzerainty and founder of the Al-Thani ruling dynasty to help broker a peaceful settlement between the two parties and other key players in the conflict including the Al Rasheed the then rulers of Arabia's northern region of Ha'il and their Ottoman backers both of whom intervened on behalf of the Qatari side, from early on as a middle-aged man Al-Thukair had gained recognition as an ethical impartial figure and a reliable confidant to the majority of the rulers in the Arabian Gulf as demonstrated in numerous instances in this mini-biography of the man, the following two edited extracts are part of a comprehensive report on the latter stage of the long-drawn fitful hostilities between Qatar and Abu Dhabi covering the period from March 1888 to June 1890 by the British Gulf residency in Bushehr Persia (Iran) on the bloody conflict which involved lengthy correspondence between the British political agent in Bahrain and his superior the political resident in Bushehr where Al-Thukair is frequently mentioned, a conflict that started as a random mid-sea raid by Qatari corsairs on an Abu Dhabi-owned pearl fishing vessel in Qatari waters killing all of its crew presumably around the year 1880 escalating into a prolonged fierce enmity between Sheikh Zayed Bin Khalifa Al Nahyan (r. 1855-1909) ruler of Abu Dhabi and Sheikh Qasim Bin Muhammad Al-Thani (r. 1868-1913) ruler of Qatar spiralling into uncontrollable atrocious carnage and depredation reprisals manifested in the thrice sacking of the Qatari capital Doha during the third of which Qatar ruler's son Ali was killed and the multiple sackings of the sedentary communities of Abu Dhabi's western region of Al Dhafra and other towns between 1880 and 1892 the first extract is a full-text letter while the second consists of the last two paragraphs of a longer letter the first of which is as follows (No. 10, dated the 20th January 1889. From-The Residency Agent, Bahrain. To-The Political Resident, Arabian Gulf. After compliments. I beg to send herewith a copy of a letter sent by Qasim Bin Thani (ruler of Qatar) to the Chief (ruler) of Bahrain with a special messenger who has also brought a number of other letters giving welcome tidings to Muhammad Bin Abdulwahab (Al-Faihani), Mugbil (Al-Thukair) and (Abdulrahman) Bin Aidan; and mentioning the number of people who were slain out of the inhabitants of Liwa (the Al Dhafra region is centred on the large Liwa Oasis in Abu Dhabi's westernmost domain); viz., 520 persons; and that they took from them large booty and numerous camels and that Sheikh Qasim returned safely with his army. I hear from reports that Sheikh Qasim lost 8 men killed. Others say 48, others again 110. But as yet there is no correct report as since the arrival of this messenger no one has come from Qatar owing to heavy "shemall" (northern gusty) winds. It is stated that Sheikh Qasim has not yet reached Al-Bidda (Doha). I hear that Isa Bin Ziyab a cousin of Sheikh Zayed Bin Khalifa (Al Nahyan) has arrived in Bahrain from Abu Dhabi and interviewed the Chief (ruler of Bahrain). According to what he says there are not so many people at Liwa and that Sheikh Zayed had not received any report of Sheikh Qasim's proceedings from Qatar to Liwa or any other place. I shall make further reports when I receive any fresh news) the second extract is as follows (No. 52, dated the 28th of March 1889. From-The Residency Agent, Bahrain. To-The Political Resident, Arabian Gulf. I have seen a letter from Qasim (ruler of Qatar) to Mugbil (Al-Thukair) in which the writer says that he is prepared to meet Zayed (ruler of Abu Dhabi) and that he is not afraid of his advance; on the contrary that he will himself march out to attack Zayed in case the latter should not advance against him. In that letter he also wishes Mugbil to believe that Ibn Rasheed (ruler of Ha'il in northern Arabia) will not fail to fulfil his promise. The date of this letter is 17th March. It is apparent that Qasim wrote that letter before the arrival of Nafi (Ibn Rasheed messenger) My own opinion is that if the news about Zayed's advance be true and also that if Qasim be supported by the Turkish soldiers, Zayed's forces will have hard work before them; for Qasim is regardless of expense and the Turkish soldiers are greedy as is known. Their number at Al-Bidda (Doha) is 250) the previous references were among several in this special report to Al-Thukair's top-level intermediation in this particular bloody conflict a small sample of his early political intermediation in regional affairs that would last until he unwillingly left his second adopted homeland Bahrain in mid-1917 but in connection with his frequent interactions with the rulers of the Arabian Peninsula the most significant of those were Sheikh Isa Bin Ali Al Khalifa (r. 1869-1932) of Bahrain, Sheikh Qasim Bin Muhammad Al-Thani (r. 1868-1913) of Qatar and Abdulaziz Ibn Saud (r. 1902-1953) ruler of Najd and its dependencies who was styled as such from the 13th of January 1902 onwards after the subtle young industrious scion of the House of Saud succeeded in recapturing the ancestral seat of power of his forefathers, the then small town of Riyadh from the bellicose Ottoman-backed Al Rasheed ruling clan of the northern Arabian region of Ha'il in an audacious dawn attack, the future king of what would become the sprawling Kingdom of Saudi Arabia perceptibly in the course of time Al-Thukair became such a revered sage that the ruler of Bahrain Sheikh Isa Bin Ali Al Khalifa asked him to be one of the signatories of a solemn pledge of allegiance deed to his eldest surviving son the 24-year-old newly appointed crown prince and future ruler Sheikh Hamad (r. 1932-1942) on 8th October 1896 following the untimely death of his eldest son and heir apparent Salman near Riyadh in Najd Central Arabia three years earlier on his exhausting perilous long land journey home from the Hajj pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca during the formal investiture ceremony for the crown prince an honour reserved for only a select few high-ranking merchants from the highest echelons of the Bahraini business community who were recognised as pillars of society outside the ranks of senior members of the ruling family, tribal chieftains and clergy leaders amongst whom were Hussain Bin Salman Matar (1817-1911) and Ahmed Bin Muhammed Kanoo (1835-1905) as for Al-Thukair's aforementioned special relationship with Ibn Saud the marriage of his niece Lulwa the daughter of his brother Yahya to Ibn Saud solidified that relationship enabling him to negotiate on behalf of Ibn Saud a favourable agreement with the Ottomans on the withdrawal of their garrison from the Al-Hasa Oasis and its environs in eastern Arabia which would become part of the future eastern province of Saudi Arabia as Ibn Saud was poised to take control of the oasis in mid-1914 soon before the outbreak of World War One given that by the year 1890 after more than a decade of his arrival in Bahrain Al-Thukair began to pursue in earnest his profound and ardent passion for spreading knowledge and learning an indelible lifelong characteristic of his initially by starting a literary salon at his house in Manama similar to that of his friend and first cousin to the ruler of Bahrain classical poet and intellectual Sheikh Ibrahim Bin Muhammad Al Khalifa's literary salon in Muharraq and those of several educated and well-travelled merchants and ruling family members in both Manama and Muharraq Bahrain's former political capital from 1810 to 1923 however the literary salon of Al-Thukair was rather different from its local counterparts in that it was more educationally oriented than the others by allocating a well-furnished spacious room in his house as a permanent location for the salon equipped with a relatively sizable varied library whose contents were kept in its wall alcoves as it was the antecedent of his most ambitious cultural and educational project ever the "Bahrain Literary Society" twenty-three years later since those literary salons (clubs) collectively played a discernible educational role as they were haunts for the knowledge-hungry local literate young men prior to the establishment of formal education following the end of the First World War furthermore Sheikh Ibrahim requested Al-Thukair to be the principal supplier of Arabic periodicals in Bahrain by making use of his network of regional business agents to acquire popular newspapers and magazines from the Levant and Egypt, therefore he took it upon himself to supply all of the needs for published materials of other literary salons as a courtesy moving in the same vein he also vigorously sponsored the publication of seminal literary and theological works from the Arab Islamic mediaeval heritage as well as non-formal charity schooling and public libraries well-stocked with diverse books and respected periodicals largely from the Levant and Egypt (such as Al-Muqtataf, Al-Mu'ayyad, Al-Hilal, Al-Manar and so on) in both Bahrain and his birthplace Unaizah in addition to his educational and cultural dissemination efforts he was acutely sensitive to the daily hardships of ordinary impoverished and marginalised people as evidenced by the next edited excerpt from the 1910 British Gulf residency report (Almas, Negro the Confidential Adviser of Sheikh Isa (ruler of Bahrain) died on 11th January and was replaced by Ali Bin Abdullah (Al-Obaidli) on the advice of Ali Bin Abdullah, Sheikh Isa called upon house owners to produce the sanads (Arabic singular title deed: سند, Romanised English plural: sanads) in virtue of which they held their property on their failing to do so they were evicted and no consideration was paid to the period of possession, Sheikh Mugbil Bin Abdulrahman Al-Thukair protested to Sheikh Isa against this measure as it pressed hardly on the poor the protest had the desired effect and the Sheikh (ruler) promised to refrain from such actions in the future) the rescinding of the ruler's decree in the past incident is the definitive indication of the unflinching deference accorded to Al-Thukair by everyone who came into contact with him from those in power to the ordinary man in the street he was also involved in a wide range of philanthropic activities that were not confined to the conventional charity act of almsgiving since he was a practical man who took a number of practical steps to assuage human suffering in any way he could defying common human prejudices among his various practical philanthropic contributions in Bahrain and elsewhere in the Gulf was the commissioning of a water well next to his house in Manama around the year 1900 akin to the undertakings of prominent fellow local pearl merchants Salman Bin Hussain Matar (1837-1944) and Muhammad Bin Rashid Bin Hindi (1850-1934) of Muharraq who attempted to alleviate some of the freshwater supply predicament that plagued Bahrain's urban dwellers predominantly those of Manama and Muharraq the two main densely populated towns in the small island nation at the turn of the twentieth century where the majority of the population had difficulty securing their daily domestic supply of freshwater owing to the lack of potable drinking water infrastructure in Bahrain and much of the Near East as in many other parts of the globe including some of the underdeveloped regions of the Western world in the early part of the twentieth century despite the fact that Bahrain had abundant freshwater resources unlike some of its Arab Gulf neighbours a small example of the central socioeconomic roles that rich mercantile elites played throughout Arab polities in the Arabian Gulf before the discovery of oil and the subsequent establishment of the modern welfare state Al-Thukair also tended to the spiritual needs of the inhabitants of his neighbourhood in Manama at roughly the same time he commissioned the water well he financed the renovation of an old dilapidated bijou Mosque within the vicinity of his house dating back to the late seventeen hundreds placing a nearby shop he owned as a charitable endowment for the Mosque which the locals of the area after him affectionately called Mugbil Mosque even though he was not its original builder he was also instrumental in locally funding the construction of Bahrain's second hospital after the opening of the "American Mission Hospital" in Manama on 26th January 1903 at the request of the British to fulfil their envisaged "Victoria Memorial Hospital" between 1902 and its formal opening on 9th November 1906 to commemorate the late Queen Victoria (defunct since 1948) situated in the Ras Rumman area in Manama south of the British political agency (present-day British Embassy) by rallying other leading merchants to contribute to this vital medical project as Bahrain was in desperate need of a quarantine medical facility to combat the rampant spread of recurring deadly epidemics specifically plague, cholera and typhus as reported in the British Gulf residency report of 1902 this is a slightly edited excerpt from the detailed report dated 23rd August 1902 by J. C. Gaskin, Esq, Assistant Political Agent, Bahrain where Gaskin was delegated by his superiors in the British Indian government the task of securing funds for the proposed hospital locally by taking the pulse of the local mercantile elite through cosying up to rich local merchants chief among them Al-Thukair to enlist their financial assistance in building the hospital, stated as follows (I would venture to report that since the receipt of your communication I have spoken on the subject to some of the leading native merchants and from their replies to me I got the impression that they would give liberal donations towards the hospital: and subsequently Haji Mugbil Al-Thukair the leading Bahraini merchant called on me and offered to subscribe R1,000. (One thousand rupees) Haji Mugbil's handsome offer will influence the native merchants who usually follow his lead) in recognition of his role in securing local funding for the hospital British colonial authorities invited Al-Thukair along with other donors to the hospital opening ceremony, the following edited excerpt from the British Gulf residency report for the year 1906-1907 formulated by the British political agent in Bahrain Captain F. B. Prideaux sheds light on the event (on the 9th November 1906 advantage was taken of the presence of the Political Resident (Major P. Z. Cox) in the Arabian Gulf to hold a public meeting for the opening of the Victoria Memorial Charitable Hospital nearly all the contributors to the Rs. 21,000 which the construction had cost were present on the occasion as were also the Chief (ruler) of Bahrain and his sons after the Resident had delivered a short extempore speech, the leading Arab merchant Haji Mugbil Al-Thukair read a reply expressing gratitude to the British Government for their interest in and protection of Bahrain and wishing long life to the Ruler Sheikh Isa Bin Ali) for some the antagonistic stance of Al-Thukair towards the British as expounded in detail further in the text seemed contradictory as he gladly collaborated with them in their efforts to secure funding for the construction of the said hospital in tandem with their other measures to improve public sanitation and hygiene to help curb the spread of virulent diseases in Bahrain's two major towns Manama and Muharraq as he saw his sporadic cooperation with the advanced British in a different light as he would endorse any attempt to better the lives of ordinary Bahrainis even if it meant occasionally cooperating with a foreign colonial power he vehemently opposed in that sense he was a modern practical man, it could not be denied that the least tangible of his philanthropic efforts but perhaps the most life-changing for those affected by it was the hidden assistance he rendered in paying off the debts of struggling insolvent merchants in Bahrain and across the Arabian Gulf with a special priority given to his own debtors who either had their debts temporarily reprieved or cancelled altogether as in this revealing slightly edited citation from the 1913 British Gulf residency report asserting the regional scope of his business interests dated 5th of May 1913 stating as follows (Sheikh Qasim Bin Thani (ruler) of Qatar has asked Yusuf Kanoo to use his influence with Sheikh Mugbil Al-Thukair in bringing about an amiable settlement between the latter and his Qatar debtors who are unable to pay their debts on account of the dullness of the pearl market) surpassed only by Bahrain's preeminent pearl merchant of all time dubbed by the Bahraini people "Father of orphans and protector of widows" for his unequalled altruism and magnanimity Salman Bin Hussain Matar, yet his most important legacy was the founding in mid-1913 of the first officially recognised Literary Society in Bahrain as touched upon earlier located in close proximity to the American Mission Bible Bookshop in Manama on what is now Sheikh Isa Al Kabeer (Isa the Great) Avenue in its own special-purpose premises inaugurated under his patronage and with the full endorsement of the ruler of Bahrain Sheikh Isa Bin Ali Al Khalifa and the moral support of a number of local literary figures and dignitaries led by Bahrain's foremost literary figure in the early twentieth century the acclaimed classical poet Sheikh Ibrahim Bin Muhammad Al Khalifa (1850-1933) in conjunction with Al-Thukair's younger and trusted energetic friend, the influential comprador merchant and shrewd entrepreneur founder and sole owner of Bahrain's first Western-style Bank in 1890 a true man of the world the maverick Yusuf Bin Ahmed Kanoo (1861-1945) this society was not merely an ordinary Literary Society but a modern educational institution in the true sense of the word a wellspring of radiance for the Bahraini people at the time comprising a comprehensive library, a school for teaching Arabic, English, mathematics and Islamic theology and a lecture hall ably managed by the gifted 33-year-old Al-Azhar graduate educator Muhammad Bin Abdulaziz Al-Mana (1882-1965) who would become the first chairman of the Directorate of Knowledge (Ministry of Education) in the newly-established Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the future judge and Grand Mufti (jurisconsult) of Qatar handpicked by Al-Thukair to undertake the onerous task of transforming this institution into a beacon of enlightenment and forward-thinking in a short period of time one of the many cultural contributions of the educated and enlightened Bahraini business elite who were at the vanguard of modernity and progress in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries through their previously mentioned literary salons and also through their lesser-known but no less important financing of numerous free of charge non-formal local schooling initiatives as those were among the earliest semi-modern organised educational institutions to tackle the prevalent illiteracy in Bahrain other than the existing traditional Quranic schools strikingly among the several non-formal schools of the time one stood out as the first female-founded charity school in Bahrain and most likely the entire Gulf established on the island of Muharraq the former capital of Bahrain in 1887 by the noblewoman and philanthropist heiress Sheikha Saida Bint Bishr (1834-1892) who defied all expectations of traditional domestic roles for women in the highly patriarchal society of late-nineteenth-century Bahrain by allocating the revenue of a date palm orchard she owned in Manama as an endowment for the school eponymously named after her nevertheless some of the independent charity schools date back to the early part of the nineteenth century since the earliest recorded charity school in Bahrain was that of Sheikh Isa Bin Rashid in Muharraq in 1829 an eminent cleric of the Island of Muharraq predating the reign of Sheikh Isa by forty years however this proliferation of educational initiatives noticeably in the last third of the nineteenth century was the fruit of the long-lasting stability of Sheikh Isa's reign the role of the Bahraini business elite was not limited to just paving the way for the establishment of modern education but also was directly involved in the development of Western-influenced formal education leading to the opening of the first elementary school for boys in Muharraq in 1919 followed by another for girls in 1928 also in Muharraq with a nine-year gap where some of the senior members of the said elite (such as Matar, Algosaibi, Al-Zayani and Fakhro) served on the first governmental educational regulatory body in the modern history of the country the education supervisory committee (the forerunner of the Ministry of Education) which oversaw the development of the nascent government's educational system chaired by Sheikh Abdullah (1883-1966) the youngest son of the ruler of Bahrain in the honorary position of minister of education, the first and only local state official to hold such a position under British colonial rule in Bahrain this exception was made due to the high status of its occupant considering he was the son of the ruler since the office of a minister was a symbol of sovereignty in an independent sovereign state which was not the case with Bahrain an office he would continue to occupy until his death in 1966 the education committee continued as the main financial backer of education in Bahrain by financing the construction of schools across the country since its formation in 1919 until the mid-1930s when the Bahraini government became financially self-sufficient as a result of stable oil export revenues lastly allowing the government to replenish its empty coffers permanently resolving the protracted financial problems that had beset the Bahraini government for many decades rendering it a thing of the past simultaneously with the establishment of formal education in 1919 another milestone was the creation of the first partially elected municipal councils in both Manama and Muharraq which were dominated by elected and appointed senior members of the Bahraini business elite who played a crucial role in sponsoring a number of infrastructure projects in the country including the Manama port project in 1919 as happened in the pre-oil era throughout the Gulf as the 1920s and 1930s saw the gradual emergence of the modern Bahraini bureaucratic centralised state and good governance replacing the existing centuries-old obsolete mediaeval fiefdom system an inexorable obstacle to human development in its entirety anywhere in the world of the early twentieth-century industrial age, it would be misleading not to mention the facilitating quintessential role of Britain in bringing those reforms to fruition as represented by the four most influential British colonial administrators and officers in the British colonial history of Bahrain whose contributions to the establishment of modern Bahrain could not be ignored or underestimated under any circumstances serving consecutively one after the other starting with the delicate and focal preliminary task of the wily Arabist and orientalist military commander and intelligence officer Captain N. N. E. Bray (1885-1962) as a political agent in Bahrain from November 1918 to June 1919 with clear directives to "seek the amelioration of the internal government by indirect and pacific means and by gaining the confidence and trust of the Sheikh (ruler)" followed by Major H. R. P. Dickson (1881-1959) with a brief yet extremely productive tenure from 1919 to 1920 he would later serve as a political agent in Kuwait from 1929 to 1936 then succeeded by the demoted from Colonel to Major for recklessly violent behaviour in post-World War One Iraq, inadvertently responsible for single-handedly igniting the first spark of what would become "The Iraqi revolt against the British" also known as the 1920 Iraqi Revolt or the Great Iraqi Revolution, the disgraced Anglo-Irish Clive Kirkpatrick Daly (1888-1966) with his divisive and controversial tenure from 1921 to 1926 and finally Charles D. Belgrave (1894-1969) who served as an administrator and financial adviser to the ruler of Bahrain in the newly created office of the "Adviser" to purposefully overshadow the increasingly unpopular post of the political agent for its association with Daly's heavy-handed colonial rule, Belgrave's long tenure from 1926 to 1957 is seen by historians as a consolidation of the modernising reforms of his predecessors particularly Daly, whom Belgrave held in high esteem where the reforms gained more momentum following the steady flow of oil revenues after the discovery of the essential commodity in 1932 as all four carefully selected highly competent Arabist hardy tricenarian officers were assigned by the British Government with specific instructions to introduce all required administrative reforms based on their own discretion in line with the broader British regional strategy of placating the growing social discontent among the disenfranchised lower classes by redressing the pressing multigenerational injustices in Bahraini society specifically in the semi-feudal systems of pearl fishing indentured workers and agricultural farmers coordinating their reforms with the financial and moral support of the cooperative Bahraini business elite under such circumstances the first batch of reforms in education, municipal and fiscal sectors was implemented almost immediately after Bray's assisting initiative by Dickson, whereas customs, judiciary, police and land reform fell to the authoritarian Daly while Belgrave is credited with creating several new government departments including the "Directorate of Religious Endowments" in 1927 his first significant reform after assuming office as a financial adviser to stem the chronic unfettered corruption of some of the local clergy whom the government entrusted to administer religious endowments (waqf) without any supervision or legal accountability followed by the slow process of his decades-long vital initiative to develop modern public utility infrastructure for electricity, water and telephone services which commenced effectively in early 1928 he was also instrumental in securing the oil concession that led to the discovery of oil in 1932 but his everlasting achievement was the founding of the "Minors Funds Directorate" in 1932 to protect the inheritance rights of orphans and widows, a life-changing cross-sectarian institution in the service of the Bahraini people operating without interruption since its inception the first governmental institution of its kind in Bahrain and Belgrave's most enduring legacy however Belgrave faced fierce and persistent opposition from deeply conservative reactionary and corrupt elements within the Sunni and Shiite cross-sectarian main religious composition of Bahrain who sought to obfuscate and obstruct the introduction of such a governmental institution as those elements had a vested interest in maintaining the status quo, deeming such a move as tantamount to heresy but Belgrave's dedication and perseverance prevailed in the end, sadly for many Bahrainis this remarkable feat of his remains a little-known historical fact the upcoming excerpt is one of numerous recurring instances in Belgrave's diary on this motion from 20th February 1931 until it was ratified on 15th January 1932 by the deputy ruler Sheikh Hamad less than a year before his accession to the throne on 9th December after being put forward for public debate by the government involving the wonted religious and mercantile elites of Bahraini society as alluded to earlier illustrating the great lengths Belgrave went to for the creation of this totally new governmental regulatory body with no precedent at least in Bahrain (Sunday 17th Jan 1932 Called on Yusuf Kanoo in the morning and discussed with him the question of the Proclamation which we are issuing ordering all wills to be registered with the Government and no persons to administer estates without getting permission from Government. It will to a certain extent safeguard the rights of widows and orphans who at present are being robbed wholesale) but the timing of the urgency in implementing the reforms cannot be overlooked as it coincided with the execution on the ground of the 1916 secret Sykes-Picot agreement on dividing the legacy of the vanquished Ottoman Empire between the two main World War One victorious powers, Britain and France giving birth to the ubiquitous British coined term "Middle East" recognising the fact that the Hejaz western region of the Arabian Peninsula where the holy cities of Mecca and Medina are located was under direct Ottoman rule and the Peninsula as a whole was and still is an extension of Iraq and the Levant in addition to achieving sustainable political stability in the Gulf as the advanced western Arabian frontier of the British Raj in the Indian subcontinent the jewel in the crown of the British Empire in the final analysis, the seemingly avowed altruistic goals of the reforms in Bahrain were part of the colonial "grafting process" reform assimilation policy of Britain through tactfully transplanting British hegemonic ideas into the newly formed Middle East as in other parts of the British Empire in contrast to its fellow draconian and pompous French to ensure the long-term strategic interests of Britain in the aftermath of World War One, thus everything the British undertook was to this end, Al-Thukair was concerned not only with the spread of modern learning and science but also with the introduction of modern technology in the region as he was either the first or second local to own a motor car in Bahrain in 1908 ten years before the supposed official arrival of the first motor vehicle in the country as depicted in the travel diary of international jeweller Jacques Cartier of the iconic Parisian Cartier jewellery house during his second visit to Bahrain in March 1912 moreover it is worth mentioning that among his numerous noble deeds was the utilisation of his high social status as a business doyen, arbiter of disputes and man of letters both locally and regionally in mustering financial and moral support for the Libyan resistance in the wake of the Italian invasion of Ottoman Libya in October of 1911 and Mussolini's subsequent genocidal fascist regime settler colonialism of this vast sparsely populated semidesert North African Arab nation where Al-Thukair successfully raised twenty thousand rupees in relief aid donations in Bahrain and elsewhere in the Gulf with the effective collaboration of the motivated cleric and merchant Sheikh Abdulwahab Bin Heji Al-Zayani (1863-1925) who travelled to Lengeh (an Arab coastal town in modern-day Iran) and Dubai as part of a Gulf-wide fundraising campaign for the embattled Libyans of Tripoli to be forwarded after the end of the subscription on the steamship SS. "Patiala" on 8th July 1912 to the Ottoman Red Crescent Society in the Iraqi city of Basra to be sent from there via Egypt to Tripoli, Libya as stated in the following are slightly edited excerpts from the 1912 British Gulf residency report concerning the Turco-Italian war and local and regional reactions to it from February and July respectively the first describes Sheikh Abdulwahab Al-Zayani's tireless zeal for collecting donations for the Libyan cause while the second describes Al-Thukair's delivery of those donations, it was clearly a collaborative effort rather than a single individual endeavour however this is not meant to diminish the efforts of Al-Thukair as he was either the driving force behind all of those initiatives or an integral member of the majority of them the first excerpt is as follows (The Arabs of Muharraq incited by an influential Mullah Sheikh Abdulwahab (Al-Zayani) have opened a subscription list for The Red Crescent Society in order to help it in bringing succour to the wounded in Tripoli. So far about Rs. 5,000 have been collected. This sum will be largely increased if the Arabs of Manama, Budaiya and Hidd join in as they have promised to do. The same Mullah is stated to have paid visits to Lengeh and Dubai about a month ago. At Lengeh he succeeded in collecting some 5,000 rupees but met with no success at Dubai where the people were sceptical as to the probability of the money ever reaching its ostensible destination) while the second as with the first shows the British meticulous documentation of the conclusion of the initiative (Sheikh Mugbil Al-Thukair forwarded on the 8th of July per SS. "Patiala" the sum of Rs. 20,000 being the total amount of subscription raised in Bahrain for the Red Crescent Society to Basra for transmission to Tripoli via Egypt) leading to the incensing of the British colonial authorities in Bahrain against him he also played a significant role in the Bahraini relief campaign to provide financial aid to the displaced Muslim refugees of the Balkan war precipitated by the raging Turco-Italian War over Ottoman Libya the "Balkan League" was formed in 1912 under the auspices of the Russians with the aim of putting an end to the Ottoman presence in the Balkans once and for all resulting in the ethnic genocide of nearly one and a half million Balkan Muslims with more than four hundred thousand refugees fleeing to Anatolia as news of the harrowing atrocities reached Bahrain cleric and pearl merchant Sheikh Abdulwahab Bin Heji Al-Zayani referred to earlier one of Bahrain's most revered national figures in the early twentieth century the leader of the first Bahraini independence movement from Britain at the turn of the twentieth century set up a fundraising refugee relief committee with the full backing of the ruler of Bahrain Sheikh Isa Bin Ali Al Khalifa who launched the donation fundraiser with the generous sum of ten thousand rupees appointing Al-Thukair as secretary-treasurer of the committee who rose to the occasion by exerting immense efforts to garner financial aid for the displaced Muslim refugees by exhorting the Bahraini populace to donate to their stranded Muslim brethren through his eloquent oratorical motivational skills, thus by the end of the fundraising the accumulated amount had risen to well over a hundred and four thousand rupees a sizable sum for a tiny country the size of Bahrain in the early twentieth century Sheikh Abdulwahab Bin Heji Al-Zayani and Yusuf Bin Ahmed Kanoo were entrusted by the committee with the task of faithfully delivering the donations to the representative of the Ottoman Governor of Iraq in the Iraqi port city of Basra on 28th December 1912 according to the 1912 report of the British political agency in Bushehr compiled by a number of political agents in the region including Captain D. L. R. Lorimer and Major A. P. Trevor both of whom served in Bahrain the following edited excerpt is part of Major Trevor's section of this thorough report written after he succeeded Lorimer as Political Agent in Bahrain on 1st November 1912 (The subscription raised by the Arabs of Bahrain for the Turkish Red Crescent Society having reached the handsome figure of Rs. 1,04,100 the amount was taken to Basra by SS. "Bahrain" (of the Arab Steamers, Limited) on 28th December by Sheikh Abdulwahab Al-Zayani and Yusuf Kanoo for despatch to the Sultan. Yusuf Kanoo stated that it was their intention to land at Bushehr and send a telegram to the Sultan stating the amount of the sum raised for the Red Crescent Fund and mentioning that it had been subscribed by the Sheikhs and people of Bahrain for the sick and wounded. The object of this telegram of course was to prevent hanky-panky on the part of the Wali (Ottoman Governor) of Basra) it should be pointed out that Sheikh Abdulwahab Al-Zayani was exiled to the Indian port city of Bombay by the British colonial authorities in Bahrain in 1923 along with several of his comrades in the Bahraini independence movement where he died and was buried in less than two years in 1925 on a similar note an oblique account related to a letter dated 11th April of the same year sent by an anonymous Indian Muslim leader requesting Al-Thukair to organise an unspecified cause relief aid campaign for the Muslims of an unnamed Indian province was included in the 1913 report of the British political agency in Bahrain demonstrating the widely acclaimed reputation he achieved through the efficacy of his fundraising campaigns however by the middle of the Great War Al-Thukair had suffered considerable losses in his pearl business wrought in part by the dire effects of war particularly on the luxury goods market but mainly attributed to British interventions aimed at undermining his business interests primarily in Bahrain as some Bahraini historical researchers concluded as a consequence of his active role in supporting the Libyan resistance movement against Italian colonialism as previously stated, needless to say from the British point of view the uncompromising character of Al-Thukair and his unequivocal stance against Western colonialism in all of its forms constituted a threat to British colonial economic hegemony in the region that needed to be addressed decisively by thwarting any attempt to achieve any form of economic independence no matter how insignificant or trivial it might seem as in Al-Thukair's participation as a founding major shareholder with a five percent stake with a number of other wealthy pearl merchants from Bahrain and Kuwait together with the rulers of the said countries and those of Qatar and Oman led and chaired by the regionally famous Kuwaiti pearl merchant Jassim Bin Muhammad Al-Ibrahim (1869-1956) and his fellow leading Bahraini pearl merchant Muhammad Bin Abdulwahab Al-Mishari (1864-1922) in the position of general manager in establishing the first truly regional Arab shareholding firm and the first fully Arab-owned ocean liner shipping company in the Arabian Gulf on 30th April 1911 "The Arab Steamers, Limited" made up for the first time in the modern history of the Gulf of a medium-sized fleet of Western-built passenger steamships the moderately edited following extract from the 1912 report of the British Gulf residency in the Persian (Iranian) coastal city of Bushehr gives an inkling of the size of the company's fleet (The Arab Steamers, Limited-This company started a service to the Arabian Gulf in July 1911 and during the past year, 18 of their steamers have called at Lengeh outwards from Bombay while 10 steamers called on the return journey from Basra) one must note that the fleet included the passenger and cargo ship "Tynesider" renamed "Faris" in early 1912 on which the Parisian jeweller Jacques Cartier (1884-1941) travelled to India and the Arabian Gulf the same year as the company's board named the previously mentioned respected Bahraini banker and merchant Yusuf Bin Ahmed Kanoo as its agent in Bahrain since he was friends with most of the board members incidentally it was Yusuf Kanoo's first shipping agency in 1911, thus launching his shipping agency business which would become the posthumous cornerstone of the eponymous regional multinational Y.B.A. Kanoo conglomerate in the post-World War Two Arabian Gulf oil economy, the following excerpt from the 1912 report of the British Gulf residency describes the sense of jubilation and pride of the Bahraini people at the arrival of the first passenger steamship of "The Arab Steamers, Limited" to bear the name Bahrain on its maiden voyage (SS. Bahrain a new acquisition of the Arab company, arrived at Bahrain on 1st March, fully dressed with flags. It was explained that the decoration was in honour of the first visit of the ship to its name-place. The name is a source of great delight to the local Arabs) apart from the legitimate premise of economic independence the real reason for the establishment of this firm was a response to the monopolistic exploitative practises and racially discriminatory colonial policies of the "British India Steam Navigation Company" (B.I.) against non-European passengers in general and Arabs in particular as attested by the exorbitant ticket prices of Arab travellers not to mention the additional cargo charges exacted on Arab-owned goods exacerbating the whole situation by barring affluent Arab first-class passengers from eating in the dining rooms and halls of its ships rightfully regarded as a disparaging and demeaning hierarchical colonial policy that posed an egregious affront to human dignity irrespective of race, colour, ethnicity or creed commonly practised by Western colonial powers of divesting non-white peoples of their humanity in order to legitimise their subjugation on the other hand unfortunately the fate of this pioneering highly successful company was tragically sealed unceremoniously in 1915 when it was sold to the "Bombay & Persia Steam Navigation Company" (The Mogul Line) as a direct result of insurmountable British pressure after less than five years of operation a pressure that began by dissuading Gulf Arab rulers from investing in such a venture while the company was still in formation under the usual infantilising colonial mendacious pretenses of catastrophic financial losses and no practical feasibility for themselves and their peoples whether in the near or distant future but their spurious discouraging attempts were in vain with the British-owned (B.I.) resorting to an all-out price war immediately after the start of the company's operations all these flagrantly malicious actions by the British helped stoke the flames of Arab patriotic sentiments to the fullest against them in the Gulf by causing Gulf Arabs including Iraqis to travel almost exclusively on the ships of "The Arab Steamers, Limited" still the company managed to command the substantial sum of three-quarters of a million British Indian silver rupees as a sale price exactly threefold the paid-in capital just over four years earlier given the geopolitical situation of the Great War adverse international economic conditions, sending the pearl-based mono-cultural economies of the Gulf into a tailspin along with wartime restrictions on sea travel, to compound matters further, the British Admiralty requisitioned one of the company's vessels, the passenger and cargo ship SS. "Budrie" originally named SS. "Golconda" for the war effort where it ended up being scuttled as a blockship at Scapa Flow in northern Scotland on 3rd October 1915 a clear testament to the enormous success that this ill-fated company enjoyed in its short-lived existence, the following excerpt is from a thoroughly detailed report on the trade movement of Oman by Major S. G. Knox the British consul in Muscat, Oman and its de facto ruler dated 13th April 1912 on sea trade and shipping movement in and out of the country, refers to the effect of the launching of "The Arab Steamers, Limited" on freight shipping rates (The British India Company who have got the contract for the carriage of mails from and to India provide one weekly fast mail service up and down and 1 fortnightly coasting slow mail service both ways. The vessels of the Arab Steamers, Limited have also maintained a weekly service. In consequence of the weekly service maintained by the Arab Steamers, the freights to India, etc., were greatly reduced during the year and those for United States of America enhanced) the doomed fate of this company became a cautionary tale for anyone attempting to challenge British colonial economic hegemony in the region for many decades to come until the defining watershed historical moment of Britain's future role as a global power in the outcome of the new harsh bipolar world order realities of the 1956 Suez crisis (known as the "tripartite aggression" in the Arab world) marking the beginning of the end of the British imperial presence in the Middle East incrementally superseded by American influence in all aspects nevertheless on the positive side racial discrimination, unwarranted prices and mistreatment of Arabs and non-Europeans on British passenger ships came to an end as the British realised though belatedly that such discriminatory practises could impinge on their long-term economic interests in the region epitomising British pragmatism at its finest one of the most contributing factors to the British Imperial enterprise's resounding successes over the centuries in comparison to its other European counterparts and finally culminating in the straw that broke the camel's back Al-Thukair's staunch allegiance to the sworn enemy of Great Britain in the region the Ottoman Turks on the eve of World War One demonstrably embodied itself in his spearheading of a very large Gulf-wide fundraising campaign comparable to, if not larger than his previous ones to raise financial aid for the Ottomans with a special emphasis on enlisting the financial assistance of Arabian Gulf heads of state, leading merchants and clerics where it attained a resounding success under the watchful eye of the British colonial authorities in the region confirmed by a concise reference in the British Archives to the recently deceased ruler of Qatar Sheikh Qasim Bin Muhammad Al-Thani who died on 17th July 1913 in relation to the worrying antagonistic fundraising activities of Al-Thukair the British in anticipation of the looming global conflagration of World War One (as it would be known in the West as the Great War or perhaps more idealistically as "the war to end war" the paradoxical catchphrase created by prolific English author H. G. Wells) as an inevitable conclusion in light of the fraught international situation of the escalating crisis in Europe among the newly allied powers of Britain, France and Russia since the turn of the twentieth century in the face of rising militaristic and economic power of Germany as leader of the central powers mainly the Austro-Hungarians and the beleaguered Ottomans in the same previously referred to 1913 report of the British Gulf residency stated as follows (Sheikh Qasim Bin Muhammad Al-Thani has sent 25 thousand rupees to Sheikh Mugbil and Yusuf Kanoo here with instructions to send the amount to Basra. It is the subscription of the Qatar people for the Turkish relief) a war of the kind that the ailing Ottoman Empire dubbed "The Sick Man of Europe" in the West would be playing its definitive role in deciding the future of the Middle East after four centuries of imperial dominance just as war-weary Britain would be playing itself forty years later in the face of the growing new American influence in the region in the aftermath of the Second World War though in a peaceful conciliatory mode as should be the norm between close strategic partners ultimately Al-Thukair's relentless and far-reaching fervour on all fronts caught up with him forcing the venerable septuagenarian merchant to reluctantly relinquish his most rewarding and cherished achievement the "Bahrain Literary Society" resulting in its permanent closure in 1917 due to the unfortunate fact that he was the sole benefactor of this progressive institution where he spared no expense on his beloved creation during its fruitful albeit brief existence followed soon thereafter by the selling of almost all of his assets in Bahrain starting with the sale of virtually all his Manama properties including his commercial buildings and four houses in early 1917 to his friend and equal in character and exalted social stature prominent pearl merchant Salman Bin Hussain Matar (1837-1944) and ending with his most prized possession his huge date palm orchard named "Tinar" on the outskirts of Manama near the historic Al-Khamis Mosque which he sold to his fellow countryman and successor in heading the Najdi community of Bahrain and Ibn Saud's representative notable pearl merchant Abdulaziz Bin Hassan Algosaibi (1876-1953) shortly before his final departure to his birthplace Unaizah where he would die less than six years later in 1923 at the age of 79 this is undoubtedly the clearest manifestation of his unwavering loyalty to his Central Arabian Najdi roots in spite of making Bahrain his home in every sense for forty years however some of his descendants chose to remain in Bahrain namely his Bahraini-born youngest son Abdulrahman who spent the best part of his life moving back and forth between Bahrain and the birthplace of his ancestors Unaizah and whose descendants still live in Bahrain remarkably those last few years of his life were not spent idly on the contrary notwithstanding his financial woes Al-Thukair rose above it all by erecting a charity school complex with free lodging for teachers in his beloved hometown of Unaizah he also funded the publication of two classical Islamic theological works to be distributed gratuitously among its literate residents as a last token of gratitude to the place that played a pivotal role in shaping his formative years the ultimate proof of his noble unfaltering magnanimous nature in the face of overwhelming vicissitudes of fortune in other words for Al-Thukair moral agency and altruism took precedence over expediency, personal gain and selfish interest this idealised narrative might be viewed by some with incredulity however the veracity of the preceding portrait of Al-Thukair was corroborated by an independent foreign source free of any cultural affiliation to the region represented in the travel diary of the young French jeweller Jacques Cartier who painted a more poignant portrait of him than even some of his local and regional contemporaries devoid of duplicity and guile (such values and principles as some commentators suggested were detrimental to Al-Thukair's business activities of course from a pragmatic unscrupulous perspective) as expected at the death announcement of Al-Thukair at dawn on the 13th of May 1923 in his then small sleepy rural hometown of Unaizah thousands of mourners of all genders and walks of life thronged to join the sombre funeral procession of one of Unaizah's most illustrious natives while paying their respects to the family of this noble pious benevolent man the least honour they could afford for someone who gave so much to his people as word of his passing spread beyond Unaizah, cables and letters of condolence started to pour in from regional potentates, political leaders, notables and leading merchants from around the Arabian Peninsula he was also mourned and deservedly eulogised in Iraqi, Levantine and Egyptian journals and periodicals by clerics, writers and intellectuals from the Gulf to Iraq and all the way to Egypt some of whom were personal friends such as the loyal Muhammad Bin Abdulaziz Al-Mana (1882-1965) the published author, judge and future Grand Mufti of Qatar and at one time the semi-adopted son and business assistant of Al-Thukair who wrote a heart-wrenching eloquently effusive obituary for Al-Thukair titled "The death of a great man and a famous philanthropist" in the respected Egyptian Magazine Al-Manar on 9th June 1923 less than a month after his death the unique closeness of Al-Mana to Al-Thukair in all respects including their shared birthplace allowed him to serve as a key link between Al-Thukair and all of his regional friends another personal friend was Sheikh Muhammad Saleh Khonji (1880-1967) the esteemed Bahraini multi-talented cleric, poet, writer, intellectual, historian, administrator and educator the second Bahraini to graduate from the reputable Al-Azhar Islamic University of Cairo, Egypt in 1902 a worthy member of the 1919 prestigious education supervisory committee and a regular patron of the "Bahrain Literary Society" the brainchild of Al-Thukair before and after its official inauguration in 1913 a prolific correspondent with Sheikh Muhammad Rasheed Rida the owner of Al-Manar Magazine in Cairo who also happened to be an epistolary friend of Al-Thukair as noted further down in the text curiously enough Khonji's upcoming literal translated description of Al-Thukair was the least ornate of his contemporaries written in a plain stoic unrhetorical spare style displaying the typical ascetic attributes of his writings (Mugbil was a well-educated big merchant who had correspondence through his many agents in India, East Africa, Arab countries and Europe may God Almighty rest his soul) Al-Thukair also formed abiding epistolary friendships throughout his adult life which began as a means to quench his lifelong thirst for intellectual knowledge by forming long-standing literary correspondents that evolved into genuine epistolary friendships as in the case of Mahmud Shukri Al-Alusi (1856-1924) the revered multidiscipline Iraqi Islamic thinker, linguist, historian and reformer editor-in-chief of the first Iraqi periodical the renowned weekly newspaper Al-Zawra'a and once professor and mentor to Al-Mana during his student days in Baghdad however there is strong evidence that the friendship of Al-Alusi and Al-Thukair was not solely epistolary as it was perfectly possible for both gentlemen to meet several times during Al-Thukair's numerous business trips to Iraq particularly in the 1890s there was also occasional specific correspondence between the two concerning the latter's generous and varied assistance to Al-Alusi including the forwarding of several batches of books each containing hundreds of copies of a newly printed first edition of an Islamic theological work by Al-Alusi printed and shipped to Iraq from India one batch at a time at Al-Thukair's expense in addition to financial assistance this was the main topic of a series of letters between the two parties dating back to the year 1893 but for the sake of historical accuracy some of the batches in question were consigned by the ruler of Qatar Sheikh Qasim Bin Muhammad Al-Thani to be delivered to Al-Alusi by Al-Thukair a trusted friend of the ruler as was the case with other Arabian Gulf rulers mentioned earlier the other distinguished epistolary friend of his was Sheikh Muhammad Rasheed Rida (1865-1935) the eminent Levantine-Egyptian Islamic theologian reformer, Quranic exegete, author and journalist founder and owner of Al-Manar Magazine in Cairo, Egypt to whom he regularly wrote seeking his scholarly counsel on Islamic jurisprudence issues who was alerted to the demise of Al-Thukair by their mutual friend Al-Mana, eliciting a brief yet meaningful obituary by Rida in his own Al-Manar Magazine; the following text is a literal translation of the obituary (we beseech thee Almighty God to bless the life of our mourning brother the just judge of Qatar and to bestow his mercy and blessings upon our departed brother and to unite us with him {In an Assembly of Truth, in the Presence of a Sovereign Omnipotent} (The Moon Surah (chapter) "verse 55" Quran) and to mitigate the grief of his family and offspring and to guide them in following his righteous path) the first impression of this final example of his lasting correspondence is that it was arguably the only one of his consequential epistolary friendships that remained exclusively epistolary since there is no record of any meeting between Al-Thukair and Rida that had ever occurred since their first correspondence at the end of the nineteenth century until the death of Al-Thukair a premise reinforced by an excessive degree of formality and reserved mutual respect a constant feature mirrored in their writings for each other over the years these are the most noteworthy examples to name a few of the monumental veneration that Al-Thukair received upon his death, an explicit attestation of the high standing that he enjoyed at all levels)
The Ancient Art of Kushti
The ancient traditional art of Indian wrestling, known as ‘kushti’, thrives in wrestling gyms, or ‘akhara’, scattered around the India. Akhara are one of the few places in India where Hindu men who come from different castes are considered equals.
Guru Jasram Ji's Akhara is on Mathura Road Highway in South Delhi near Modi Mill Flyover. It is one of the biggest and most reputed Akharas (wrestling training centers) in India. The Akhara is run by 85-year-old Guru Jasram Ji. Everyday he comes to the Akhara at 5.a.m. and 3 .p.m. to train the wrestlers.
kushtiwrestling.blogspot.in/2010/06/guru-jasram-jis-akhar...
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Old Utah junipers in Arches National Park.
Junipers grow in some of the most inhospitable landscapes imaginable, thriving in an environment of baking heat, bone-chilling cold, intense sunlight, little water and fierce winds. Often they appear to grow straight out of solid rock.
The juniper can withstand drought conditions that often kill other plants and trees. Its hidden secret: a massive underground root system which can account for 2/3 of a tree’s total mass. A juniper’s tap root can penetrate 25 feet straight down in search of water. It can also send out lateral roots 100 feet or more from the tree. The roots are especially hardy: even when knocked over by wind, junipers often continue to grow.
www.nps.gov/cany/learn/nature/utahjuniper.htm
Also, Utah Junipers have an interesting way of adapting to the desert. In extremely dry times, the juniper will actually cut off the water supply to parts of the tree. Those portions will die, allowing the remainder to survive. It's a tough world they live in; drastic measures are sometimes required.
Ancient Aphrodisias...was once a thriving Hellenic and Roman city in what is now modern day Turkey. Today it is an archaeological site, whose ruins include the remains of a beautiful ancient stadium. Established during the late Hellenistic period, Aphrodisias became a prosperous city under Roman rule from the 1st to the 5th century AD. In the 1st century BC, the city came under the personal protection of the Roman Emperor Augustus and many of the structures which can still be seen today date from that period and the following two centuries. The city became an artistic centre as a result of its location near a marble quarry; the city is now littered with sculpture. Artists even travelled to Aphrodisias to take part in annual sculpting competitions. However the city fell to ruin after a series of earthquakes and was eventually abandoned in the 12th century. Upon arrival to the ruins you will be greeted by the renovated Tetrapylon, a gateway of Corinthian style columns decorated with reliefs of the god Eros and goddess Nike. The Temple of Aphrodite would have been in the busy heart if the city. Originally over forty columns of the temple would have stood, a number of which have been realigned today, giving a great sense of the scale of the original building. The Temple was converted into a Basilica in the 5th century AD with the Roman conversion to Christianity. The stadium, dating as a far back as the 1st century BC, is beautifully preserved and is one of the biggest ancient constructions still surviving with a capacity of 30,000. There is also an onsite museum featuring thousands of pieces of Aphrodisian art including busts, decorative and religious sculpture, ceramics and a unique figure of the goddess Aphrodite herself. Other features of the ruins include the Odeon, the baths of Hadrian and the 8,000-seater ancient theatre which was adapted for gladiatorial combat in the Roman period. Also, look out for some of the over 2,000 Roman inscriptions still decipherable around the ruin.
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Salisbury and the Courthouse Museum (1859).
Sir Montague( or Montagu) Chapman, Third Baronet of Westmeath near Dublin Ireland, used a loop hole in the Special Survey regulations of 1839 and selected his 4,000 acres for £4,000 in different areas. He took 800 acres at Koonunga near Kapunda; 500 acres at Kapunda (a friend of his Bagot also got land there); 500 acres near Waterloo and Marrabel; and later in 1842 he selected a further 2,200 acres between the Little Para River and Dry Creek at what is now Mawson Lakes, Salisbury and Cross Keys. At Killua Castle in Ireland he had 9,000 acres and hundreds of tenant farmers. He wanted to do the same in SA. In 1840 he sent out Captain Charles Bagot from Ireland with 224 Irish immigrants to settle his, and Bagot’s lands, at Kapunda with Irish labourers and tenants. Then in 1842 he sailed out to SA himself with 120 Irish tenant farmers whom he installed on his lands at Cross Keys. Sir Montague Chapman returned to Ireland the next year. Then in 1847 he sent out a further 214 Irish immigrants to be tenant farmers on his Cross Key to Salisbury lands. They came out on the ships named Trafalgar and Aboukir. Sir Montague Chapman lived in Ireland not SA but returned to his SA estates in 1852 and drowned at sea in 1853 off Portland when returning to SA from Melbourne. His brother inherited the SA lands and estates. Many of his immigrant tenants soon became independent landowners themselves.
Daniel Brady, another Irishman was a self-made Irish immigrant to the area. He purchased 100 acres, now the Parafield Airport in 1845. He then got the license to the Cross Keys hotel. Much later Brady laid out the town of Virginia in 1858. But there were other Catholic influences in Salisbury too. William Leigh of Staffordshire (and of Leigh Street Adelaide) was a great land investor and speculator in SA and donated lands early to the Anglican Church ( in Leigh St.) then he converted to Catholicism and donated lands to the SA Catholic Church for the first church and bishop’s palace on West Terrace etc. At Salisbury he donated 500 acres to the local Catholic Church along the Little Para where the reservoir is now situated. The local church rented that farm out as income until it was sold in 1896. Thus, because of two major Catholic British aristocrats Salisbury thrived as a centre of Catholicism and had one of the largest Catholic Churches in SA in the mid-19th century. The church itself was set up when the state Government was offering glebe lands for churches to get established. The Catholics of Salisbury received 20 acres of land under this system through Bishop Murphy in 1850. The foundations of St Augustine’s Church were laid in 1851 with the church being used before its final official opening in 1857. This grand stone church replaced an earlier pug and pine church which had opened in 1847 on the site. The tower was added in 1926.
But the main story of Salisbury is centred on St Helena and its links to John Harvey the acknowledged “father” of Salisbury. His father, confirmed by recent DNA tests, was a native of St Helena of West African heritage and was probably a sailor who had an illegitimate child with a Scottish woman in Wick. Harvey’s mother was probably a herring worker or a street worker. There are no official records of Harvey’s birth which occurred between 1820 and 1823. Harvey’s appearance was African and on his death in 1899 the Barrier Miner of Broken Hill on 26 June referred to Harvey as a half caste. But who was John Harvey? Is his main claim to fame that he brought out from South Africa the first soursob bulbs? He was a man of ideas wanting to make money. He came out to SA alone when he was 16 years old arriving in 1839 on the ship named Superb with Allan McFarlane who took out the Mount Barker Special Survey in 1839. Harvey was probably employed as a labourer by Allen McFarlane before they left Scotland. By 1843 Harvey had moved to Gawler where he drove mails between Adelaide and Gawler. This gave him the idea of grazing cattle on the unoccupied plains between the two settlements. He started squatting. He let overlanders from NSW depasture their flocks on these lands, for a fee, although he had no legal right to do so. He accepted cattle for fees and soon had stock of his own. To this he added some horses which he bred for sale (or export to India) and once he had fattened the cattle he sold them for meat for the Adelaide market or through his butcher shop in growing Gawler. He became a major meat supplier for Adelaide and Gawler. He also experimented with cereal growing on the Salisbury plains and claims to have been the first to do so. Within a few years he had amassed a sizeable amount of money from almost nothing and he purchased his first land at Gawler, where he built his first stone house and at Salisbury when the Hundred of Yatala was declared in 1846. He was temporarily forced off the land he was squatting upon until he purchased 172 acres in 1847. He subdivided a small part of it to create the town of Salisbury with the main street named after himself and the street parallel to it named Wiltshire where his wife Ann Pitman (cousin of Sir Isaac Pitman of shorthand fame) was born. His town plans were submitted in 1848 as he hoped to make money from this action. Harvey continued living in Salisbury and went into building houses for people, breeding race horses and encouraging agriculture. He was elected to parliament in 1857 for one term and served on the Yatala District Council. His land deals included selling the area of Gawler that became Bassett Town by the old Gawler railway station. He was a mainstay of the Royal Horticultural Society and the Adelaide Racing Club. He was a local Justice of the Peace. John Harvey died in Salisbury in 1899, aged 78 years but his descendants stayed on in the town to be orange growers. John and his wife Ann are buried in St John’s Anglican cemetery. He left three sons and daughter.
By 1845 less hills land was available for settlement and some saw the potential of the fertile Little Para river valley close to Adelaide and on the main copper mine routes from Adelaide to Kapunda and Burra. Among the first public buildings was the Anglican church/school room dated as 1846 but probably built in 1849. John Harvey is known to have sold two lots to Anglican Bishop Short for a nominal amount for an Anglican Church in 1850. It is possible that the Anglicans were allowed to build before 1850 but that is before they officially owned the land. A number of Primitive Methodists were also drawn to Salisbury and they held their first services on the banks of the Little Para River in 1849. In 1851 they opened their Primitive Methodist Church called Hephzibah which was replaced with a solid stone church in 1858. The Primitive Methodists purchased their land from John Harvey. The Wesleyan Methodists had a church at the Old Spot (1857) but they too constructed a Wesleyan church in Salisbury West in 1858 after the arrival of the railway to the town. It has been a residence since 1904. No cathedral emerged as in England but the town had its churches, hotels, a flour mill and industry. From its early years it had a Courthouse and Police station with lock up cells behind it. The Salisbury courthouse, now the city museum was built in 1859.The architect was Edward Hamilton the government architect for many government buildings. It cost £730 to erect and it is a very elegant well-proportioned structure. Salisbury soon had a private school too. Charles James Blatche Taplin, my great great grandfather had a licensed school in Salisbury from 1855 until his death in 1867. His wife Eliza Taplin had a separate school for girls which she continued after his death. After the Education Act of 1875 the government built the old Salisbury School in 1876. Charles Taplin was also the treasurer of the St Johns Anglican Church for many years and was present at the laying of its foundation stone with architect Daniel Garlick in 1858. The town remained a local service centre until World War Two when the government purchased land at Penfield for an ammunitions works and secure storage area and a further 58 acres of land, mainly from descendants of John Harvey, along Park Terrace in Salisbury for emergency war housing which became known as the “cabin homes”.
Weaver, Minnesota; built in 1875, this is the only substantial commercial building that still exists in the once-thriving Mississippi River town.