Lothian Buses Gemini 3 Facelift bodied Volvo B5LH number 554 (SA15 VUE) ‘Estiland’ is seen here at OT, under a certain sign that relates to its number plate

 

Taken on Wednesday the 17th of December 2025.

 

This is a photo I’ve been wanting to get for SO many years, 554 (SA15 VUE) ‘Estiland’ under the big ‘vue’ sign at OT, corresponding wi the registration plate very nicely. The original photo needed some editing work to be presentable, but I went a bit over the top wi the saturation and such, because I can.

 

Thanks to ZZ9 for motivating me to try and actually finallly go and get this shot!

 

I posted a photo of this bus to flickr shortly after its 5th birthday, talking about how weird it seemed that it was already five years old, the new hybrids on the 34 were a highlight of 2015, and they seemed fairly new and exciting for a while after. Well now it’s over a decade old somehow, but spending its days mainly on the 34 and 35, just where it’s most at home.

 

So I unofficially named this bus ‘Estiland’ originally, mistakenly thinking it was Estonian for Estonia (no, that’s Eesti), but the name stuck and It’s now played a part of enough of my life that I have a fondness for it, even slightly more than some others in its batch.

 

In November this year, ZZ9 nicknamed this ‘Lothian’s Cinema Bus’ in relation to the number plate, as we see here quite clearly. I intend to add ZZ9’s name to the unofficial names doc, what better name could there be for this? However, ‘Estiland’ is also staying, that’s what it’s always been to me. It’s by far not the first bus wi two names, even though I usually try and avoid multiple names, there’s no reason why we can’t have some! An example currently in the fleet is XLB number 1066, which I nicknamed ‘Frances’, and Callum Colville nicknamed ‘Battle of Hastings’, due to the fleet number corresponding to the date of that battle.

 

This batch (551-570) may be unremarkable, but they seem to still be doing just as well as ever, usually winding their slow way through the city from the foot of the Pentlands in Currie to the sea at OT. If anyone wants to have a go at which of this batch of B5LHs have which seatback colours then go ahead, it’s not intuitive!

  

Vehicle Information

 

Operator: Lothian Buses

Service: 34 Leith Harbour and Newhaven Ocean Terminal Ocean Drive – Currie Riccarton Hariot-Watt University The Avenue (Trip NovWedAL23925725)

Vehicle type: Wrightbus Eclipse Gemini 3 Facelift bodied Volvo B5LH

Vehicle engine: Euro 6 Diesel-Electric Hybrid

Vehicle fleet number: 554

Vehicle registration: SA15 VUE

Vehicle name: Estiland

Vehicle depot: Longstone (LS)

Vehicle livery: Lothian Buses Madder and White Fleet of the Future (FOTF) non-ADL Double Deck 2020 version

Vehicle destination screen: white Hanover LED screen

Vehicle destination display: Heriot-Watt 34 / via Research Park

Vehicle Chassis: Vo B5LH YV3T1U22XFA172380

Vehicle Body: Wt AM087

Vehicle Seating: H49/25F

Operating area: City of Edinburgh, Midlothian and East Lothian

Registration prefix area: Glesga

Year of manufacture: 2015

Date of first registration: 14.07.2015 (Day T42198)

Original operator: Lothian Buses

Original fleet number: 554

Original registration: SA15 VUE

Age of vehicle: 10 years, 5 months and 3 days (total 3809 days)

Photo location: Ocean Drive, Ocean Terminal, Leith Harbour and Newhaven, Lìte, City of Edinburgh

Taken on: Wednesday the 17th of December 2025 (17.12.2025)

 

Taken on Day U3639

  

References

 

Bus Lists on the Web (2025) SA15VUE. Available at: www.buslistsontheweb.co.uk/ (Accessed 17.12.2025, Day U3641)

 

Bustimes.org (2025) Lothian Buses - Vehicles – 554 (SA15 VUE). Available at: bustimes.org/vehicles/loth-554?date=2025-12-17 (Accessed 17.12.2025, Day U3641)

 

GOV.UK (2025) Check MOT History – SA15 VUE. Available at: www.check-mot.service.gov.uk/results?registration=SA15VUE... (Accessed 17.12.2025, Day U3641)

 

Scottish Community Councils (2025) Find a Community Council. Available at: www.communitycouncils.scot/community-council-finder (Accessed 17.12.2025, Day U3641)

  

Tel-Aviv At war

Thank you ShiningStella for tagging me!

 

I tag anyone who wants to do it~!

 

1. Who is your favorite Frozen character (or characters) and why?

Elsa. Not only because she’s a very beautiful, protective and caring person she’s a very relatable character to a lot of people too. Next favorite is Anna. I love her personality, free-spirited and happy!

 

2. Which is your favorite Frozen song (or songs) and why?

“Let it Go”. I love it so much! Like the first time I’ve seen a video of it on tumblr I fell in love with the song. The meaning and message behind it are really beautiful.

 

The song is also about self-acceptance and loving yourself. I know a lot of people hate themselves so much to the point that they think people see them as terrible people or “monsters”. But because of this song, it gives them confidence and encouragement that you shouldn’t really care what they think. Just be yourself and love who you are. Because you’ll never know what you’re capable of until you let it go. And this is why I really love it to the max.

 

3. If you could make one change to the movie, what would it be?

I have a few I really wanted to see despite the movie being already perfect so I’ll list it down here. (I’m sorry if this is quite long…)

 

More screen time for Elsa and their marketing strategy. When I first watched it with sis and some friends in the cinemas, I was really so excited to see her but then afterwards I got disappointed of how little she was shown in the entire movie. The way they advertise Frozen was just totally misleading because they make you think that they'll be focusing more on Elsa when the movie focuses more on Anna.

 

Another thing is Evil Elsa. I’m really interested in their original storyline before they rewrote everything. I’ve seen a deleted scene where Elsa was evil and I really thought it was cool. And if they did follow that storyline (in an alternate universe or something) I hope that Evil Elsa would redeem herself good because most Disney villains always end up dead or getting punished or something, but in this idea of Evil Elsa plot, like she IS bad but in the end she TURNS good. Like maybe she turned good during that scene when Anna sacrificed herself and turned to ice and then she realized Anna’s act of true love for her, how much Anna cares for her after all those years of isolating herself from her, and still loves her unconditionally no matter how many times she pushes her away. And then Elsa cries, repents for the things she has done, and then the ice melts and we follow the Frozen ending. :)

 

LASTLY, okay, so when Anna became frozen solid… I really, really, wished Elsa sang a reprise version of “Do you want to build a snow man?” like this:

 

“Yes, I want to build a snowman…

I’m sorry that it took so long…

I didn’t know I needed you…

I really do, and now you’re gone…

We only have each other… it’s just you and me…

So, Anna please come back to me…

Just ask me once more… just one more time…

I promise I’ll open the door…

Yes, I want to build a snowman…”

 

I know the audience were probably crying by now because of that scene but if you add that, wow, totally a killer! I really think that if they included that, it would bring lots of emotion into that scene. AND THEN! After she sings that, she cries and after several seconds, Anna begins to melt.

 

4. Would you want to see a Frozen sequel? What would you want it to be about?

I have mixed feelings about this… I love Disney but I think most people can agree that sequels are not really one of their strong points. I’d love a sequel… but only if it’s as good as the original movie… Like if they can pull a Shrek/Shrek 2 thing.

 

But if not then maybe a short sequel like in “Tangled Ever After” and we see how our precious babies are doing. :)

 

5. Ice Palace or Arendelle Castle?

Ice Palace! Are we not going to praise the fact that Elsa is such an amazing architect? I also love Arendelle’s Castle too.

 

6. If you could choose a sidekick from the movie, would you choose Sven or Olaf? Why?

That’s a toughie. Can I choose both please? Sven’s good because I can ride around on him. And Olaf to brighten my mood.

 

7. Do you think all men pick their noses, are Kristoff claimed?

Maybe? I need to ask a guy friend for this.

 

8. Which Frozen character is the most like you (or the one you relate to most) and why?

A mixture of both Elsa and Anna probably… I can relate to Elsa's side of pushing people I love away because of some circumstances. And Anna, her side about “what if I meet the one?”.

 

9. How many times have you seen Frozen so far?

More than 10!

 

10. In keeping with my overall blog theme, ;) which of the Frozen dolls that have been released is your favorite? (e.g. the Disney Store fashion dolls, Disney Store Disney Animator's Collection and Toddler dolls, Limited Edition Disney Store dolls, Mattel dolls, etc)

My favourite is LE Coronation Elsa. She’s so cute, like the moment I saw her in people’s pictures I just wanna steal their Elsa and hug it. And also, I love the Classic Frozen dolls from DS and the rest of the LE Frozen dolls! How I wish they would make Kristoff and Hans LE dolls. It would be cool!

The term 'Compression' seem to be used more and more often these days especially in the digital world. Mostly relate to file size, your photos, your video, files can be compress to send out through email, time can be compress because your boss want you to finish the same amount of work within a shorter time frame. But what I am referring to is the compression of distance made by any telephoto lens. Lining up the hi-rise buildings in right above the residential area with all these houses that are located 10 km away from downtown. Guess where I was to shoot this photo?

 

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©2017 Bun Lee

This photo relates to the 292 service that used to be operated by Selwyn Motors of Westgate. See previous posts relating to Selwyn's and Metrobus F810YLV.

 

Looking along Sandtoft Road towards Sandtoft, with F810YLV heading into Westgate to make its first pick up on its journey to Doncaster. This was the start of the 292 Saturday only service.

 

When the bus departed Selwyn's Saxon Lane premises, it turned left onto Westgate Road heading towards Sandtoft, and not right towards Belton.

 

The bus ran empty as far as Sandtoft airfield, were it turned around and from where it could be said, the service started. It's first actual pick up was just opposite to Saxon Lane in Westgate, although it could technically pick up before this point.

 

Saturday 01st October 2016

talk show: an oil painting by jaisini by yustas kotz-gottlieb

Talk Show is a painting that proves the idea that we live in a post-modern world with the apparent loss of any reasonable hope for alternative to the present. In Talk Show, immediacy unites with immortality, trivial with profound. In our days the long myth of immortality is replaced by the myth of immediacy. The substitution of the trivial for the profound for many was a loss, rather than a gain, although, the will to be immediate speaks more directly to our lives. Jaisini unites the two principles, searching for unique ways that can create this double effect of a physical lowland, united with the philosophical purity of mind. Talk Show has the significance of biblical wisdom based on a street scene. In Talk Show, Jaisini pictures not the dark side’ of people, but the substantial one, when sex became ‘the lyricism of the masses’. The picture shows that we live in a more cynical, realistic time by means of parody. The new cynicism is the old one. The work is timeless and can relate to anyone. Talk Show has the analogous environment as in the work called Show Time; the crowd representatives and the image that centers the crowd’s attention. In Talk Show, it is the two dogs in an intercourse that attracts the attention of different people of the crowd. In the painting we can clearly see the interlocked line of composition. This line flows freely as an unconscious line. The absence of an ‘end’ in Jaisini’s composition may be the artist’s revolt against the end of ideology and the general failures of social theory, obsessed with ‘ends’, with visions of finished worlds and finalities. Modern society was once based on a principle of expansion, but having reached a certain ‘critical mass’ it has begun to recoil. Is this why Jaisini creates his secluded line composition? What we are witnessing in the domain of the social is a kind of inverse explosion. The artist avoids breaking the line because any attempt to save the principle of expansion is not ‘archaic’ and regressive. The principle of enclosure is the radical inquiry for continuance. Jaisini has found his way to avoid the end-state. His closed circle of composition creates a new visual code that guarantees the ‘addressee,’ a recognizable meaning. The Talk Show mockery reflects the contemporary condition of Byzantizm. It could be mentioned here that evenin Cicero’s time, the ancient world was becoming stupid. Talk Show may symbolize the mass communication as an enclosing circle connecting mass culture and its audiences of ‘mass conformist,’ the picture’s title can be attributed to the fact that consequently television, along with the rest of mass culture, has become an undreamed-of medium of psychological control. We become part of mass communication circuits, part of a realm and era of connection, contact, feedback, an era that is ‘obscene,’ yet lunar cold. The reason why the artist prescribes the emerald color to his painting may be to symbolize the coldness of the contemporary world of communications which contacts penetrate without resistance. In the picture, we see the dogs’ intercourse as the critique of the talk show. Copyright © 2014 Yustas Kotz-Gottlieb All Rights Reserved

Talk Show on Spark website, circa 1999

 

This is what I am like of a weekend until about 10 or so.

Aircraft movements relating to the end of the State Visit to the UK by the President of the United States, bringing Trump back from Chequers prior to boarding Air Force One.

 

The formation consisted of three US Army Chinook helicopters, US Marine Corps VH-3 Sea King (Marine One) and the National Police Air Service H-145 helicopter.

 

Air Force One and two C-32 jets departed Stansted.

 

Photos taken off Belmer Road, Stansted Airport.

I relate to this little guy #california #joshuatree #cactus #film #adventures

 

11 Likes on Instagram

  

(References:- K. Lal in his book Tarekh e Punjab & The crumbling glory of Sheikhupura Fort by Aown Ali)

  

In West Punjab (now in Pakistan), the town of Sheikhupura (about 35 km west of Lahore) is hailed a center of historically significant architecture.

 

The Hiran Minar (Minaret of the Antelope) and the Sheikhupura Fort make this stop a focal point of interest.

 

The town, now a district headquarters and one of the major industrial cities of Punjab, has grown from a village, originally called “Jahangirpura” when it was settled during the reign of the Mughal emperor, Jahangir, because of its proximity to Hiran Minar, a royal hunting resort.

 

The primary historical importance of the city relates to its Fort. It lays no claim to grandeur. Locally known as Qila Sheikhupura, it has gave its name to the town as well.

 

Construction of the fort began in the second year of Jahangir’s reign (1607). The Tuzuk-i-Jahangiri (autobiography of Jahangir) mentions that the emperor assigned the job of constructing a fort at that location to Sikandar Moeen during a hunting trip to Hiran Minar.

 

The two centuries that followed were mostly uneventful for the Fort. Neither a seat of government nor a target for invaders, it remained but a halt for imperial entourages heading on pleasure trips to Kashmir in the north, or towards Kabul in the west.

 

The Fort’s political importance did not emerge until the establishment of the Sikh Empire at the end of the 18th century.

 

A veteran historian and archeologist, Ihsan H. Nadiem, tells us that immediately before the consolidation of Punjab under the Sikhs, the Fort served as a convenient place for robbers looting the countryside.

 

The Durrani king, Shah Zaman, during his invasion of Lahore in 1797, briefly besieged the Fort, but only to purge it of the robbers. Soon after his departure, the Fort was once again occupied by the highwaymen.

  

Shortly thereafter, Lehna Singh Majithia (who also served as the Governor of Lahore. The son of General Lehna Singh, Sardar Dyal Singh, was perhaps the most significant Punjabi of the late 19th century in the British Punjab. He was the main force behind the founding of Punjab University), an ally of Ranjit Singh, invaded the fort and took occupation. After him, its ownership passed on to Bhai Singh, followed by Sahib Singh and Sahai Singh in 1808, at which point Ranjit Singh marched upon it and caused its surrender.

 

This whole story of Sheikhupura raid wrote by Hindu writer K. Lal in his book Tarekh e Punjab (Page 196-197) and it is as under:

 

“Mahraja Ranjeet was busy in handling state affairs, in the meantime a group of farmers belong to Sheikhpura came to his door, they wanted to seek help against brutal Sikh rulers Sardar Arbel Singh & Sardar Ameer Singh. These Sardars had occupied the Sheikhupura fort and land, there army looting common people up to that level that they were dying of hunger. That group of farmer said the people of Sheikhupura accepted the over lordship of the Maharaja and requested to take their territory under Mahraja rule and control to protect them from these two brutal Sardars.

Mahraja accepted the request and assigned his eldest son, the crown prince, Kharak Singh for Sheikhupura fort Campaign. He reached Sheikhupura; he has four thousand army troops and support of one Cannon artillery.

Sheikhupura fort was very well constructed with strong fortified walls, Mahraja himself selected best cannons from his cannon yard for this campaign and also assign one of his best army officer Sardar Hakma Singh for assisting Crown prince Kharak Singh in this campaign.

When this troop reached Sheikhupura, Crown Prince Kharak Singh called both the ruling Sardar’s to him, but instead of appearing in front of Prince they have further fortified the fort and get ready for war.

The Prince first sieges the fort and then orders Canon artillery to start fire on fort walls. The fort walls were strongly fortified and hold the Cannon artillery attack for days.

This result less campaign made Prince to think if he wanted to win this fight he has to reinforce his troops and artillery as well. For that purpose he wrote for help to his father Mahraja Ranjit Singh. When Maharaja saw this letter he got angry, he ordered to send biggest cannon of his artillery the Ahmad Shahi Gun. Which he forcefully took from Saheb Singh Guajarati)

(Ahmad Shahi Gun also known as zamzama gun…, The Zamzama Gun is a large bore cannon. It is also known as Kim’s Gun or Bhangianwali Taop. It was cast in 1757 in Lahore. At that time Lahore was a part of the Durrani Empire. The gun was used by Ahmed Shah in the battle of Panipat in 1761. In 1802, Ranjit Singh got hold of the gun and used it in the battles of Daska, Kasur, Sujanpur, Wazirabad and Multan. In the siege of Multan, the gun was badly damaged. It is currently on display in front of the Lahore Museum at The Mall Road, Lahore.)

The Maharaja also reached the Sheikhupura Fort with fresh troops and again the battle started.

After two days of fight, Maharaja ordered to place Ahmed Shah Gun in front of Main gate of Fort. It was tough task and took many lives of soldiers but at last it was placed there. Hundred rounds of guns were fired and main gate of fort completely destroyed. The Mahraja troops entered the fort and raise the winning flag on wall. Both Arbel & Ameer Singh were arrested.

Since the area of Sheikhupura won in name of Crown Prince Kharak Singh, the fort and “Jageer” of Sheikhupura bestowed to Prince by his father Mahraja Ranjeet Singh under the primacy of her mother Rani Datar Kaur (1801-1840), the mother of the crown prince, Kharak Singh. She was also known as Rani Raj Kaur or Mai Nakkain. She lived in the Fort till her death.”

 

She had a considerable role in the rehabilitation of this small, strategically unimportant and hitherto almost abandoned citadel. She built a wonderful haveli within it. The excellent frescoes in the distinctive Kangra style found in the parlour and in the two chambers on the first floor of this haveli, are attributed to Raj Kaur‘s excellent taste.

 

In mid-19th century, when the British invaded Punjab, they used the Fort to imprison the Sikh kingdom’s Regent, Rani Jind Kaur – “Jindaa(n)” - after taking her son, the child Emperor Duleep Singh, prisoner.

 

In a letter dated August 9, 1847 Sir Henry Montgomery Lawrence, the British Resident in Punjab suggested to the Governor General that the Queen be banished from Punjab, to prevent the populace from rising under banner.

 

The 8-year old Emperor was removed from his palace in the Lahore Fort on August 19, 1847, and taken to the Shalimar Gardens, while his mother, the Queen, was confined to the distant Sheikhupura Fort.

 

Historian Himadri Banerjee describes how Jindaan was forcibly removed from Lahore between 8 and 9 pm under a heavy military escort. Accompanied by Sardar Arjan Singh Rangharnanglia and Gurmukh Singh Lamma, she was lodged in Sheikhupura Fort in the early hours of Friday, August 20, 1847, under the charge of Sardar Boor Singh.

 

Soon after her arrival at Sheikhupura, she wrote the following letter to the Resident at Lahore, protesting the ruthless separation from her young eight-year old.

 

With the Grace of the Great Guru

From Bibi Sahib to Lawrence Sahib,

 

We have arrived safely at Sheikhupura, You should send our luggage with care, As I was sitting in the Samman (Burj - Palace in Lahore Fort), in the same way I am in Sheikhupura. Both the places are same to me; you have been very cruel to me. You have snatched my son from me … In the name of the God you worship and in the name of the king whose salt you eat, restore my son to me. I cannot bear the pain of this separation … I shall reside in Sheikhupura. I shall not go to Lahore. Send my son to me. I will come to you at Lahore only during the days when you hold darbar. On that day I will send him. A great deal (of injustice) has been done to me. A great deal (of injustice) has been done to my son also. You have accepted what other people have said. Put an end to it now. Too much has been done.

 

The Queen resided in the Sheikhupura Fort for nine months. On the afternoon of May 15, 1848, she was taken away, to be imprisoned in Chunar Fort, near Benares (in current day Uttar Pradesh, India). She made a dramatic escape from there and fled to Nepal, where she remained until, years later, almost blind and dying, was finally allowed to visit her son, who was by then exiled in England.

 

The Sheikhupura Fort was thus witness to a number of crucial turning points during the half-century of the Sikh Raj.

 

The Empire had held played a crucial role as a bulwark against ongoing invasions through the subcontinent’s porous western borders. At its peak, it held sway from Tibet in the east to the Khyber Pass in the west, to Kashmir in the north and to Sindh in the south. It also, while Ranjit Singh was alive, kept the British at bay, even though the rest of the subcontinent had collapsed under them like a row of dominoes.

 

After the annexation of Punjab, the Sheikhupura Fort was temporarily used as administrative headquarters of the Gujranwala district from 1849 to 1851. However, upon the transfer of the district headquarters to Gujranwala town, it was turned into a military outpost.

  

After a split of administration jurisdictions in 1918, a new district was created in Sheikhupura. The Fort then passed on to house the police headquarters of the newly created district.

 

After the partition of Punjab and India in 1947, it was briefly used by the immigrants from East Punjab (by then in the newly-created India) as shelter, and

later by encroachers, from whom it came into the possession of the Department of Archaeology of Pakistan in 1967.

 

Within the complex, no building from the Mughal period is left standing, except the main entrance façade. There are also some remains of sandstone columns depicting the history of the laying of the foundations of the Sheikhupura Fort.

 

Today, what we can see standing, although dilapidated, is a crumbling six-storey haveli, identical to the haveli of Naunihal Singh, which is situated inside Mori Gate in Lahore.

 

The most vibrant aspect of the beauty of the haveli in the Sheikhupura Fort is its frescoes.

 

Sadly, precious wooden doors, windows and parts of the roof have already been whisked away by raiders and the haveli has turned into a haunted house.

 

Inside the ruins and rooms occupied by bats, we can still find signs of the former lifestyle through colourful and thematic paintings and other art work in the Kangra style. Fresco art work in the haveli of Raj Kaur portrays almost all aspects of daily life – ranging from worship to romantic love to military life. Colors are still vivid, the art work is glittering, but the haveli is now, due to institutional neglect, close to the end of its physical life.

 

Despite its poor condition, no contractor or labourer agrees to work as it is believed the fort is haunted by ghosts of the queens which used to live there.

 

This fort is closed to the public due to its bad structural condition; it took me at least three years to take permission to visit this place.

  

Throughout the Metropolitan Museum of Art you can find many entire rooms on display. In relating to the art these period rooms rooms offer a new level of interest is added. You can also relate to the people who lived there and increase your understanding of living in that time.

 

This Art Nouveau Parisian Dining Room has a bond with the other room I posted today in that they are the only two rooms in the Met that I know of created after the common use of electric lighting. Like the Living room from the Little House, Wayzata, Minnesota this room was completed in 1914 and about to celebrate a one hundredth birthday.

 

Both were meant to get away from it all but this Central Paris setting was an every day respite from a rapidly industrializing world. Interesting contrast in that Frank Lloyd Wright grasped onto a natural future for the summer residence of Frances W. Little, while Lucien Hesse tried to offer a new sort of restoration of the 18th century for Auguste Rateau in this dining room that stood at the foot of the Eiffel Tower.

 

I wonder what sort of period rooms will be on display one hundred years from now and what people will understand about our time.

To view more of my images of aircraft and space craft, click "here" !

 

Very sad news, relating to a fatal crash of this beautiful aircraft, please read "here" ! ............ More "here" !

 

The North American Aviation P-51 Mustang was an American long-range, single-seat fighter and fighter-bomber used during World War II, the Korean War and other conflicts. The Mustang was conceived, designed and built by North American Aviation (NAA) in response to a specification issued directly to NAA by the British Purchasing Commission. The prototype NA-73X airframe was rolled out on 9 September 1940, 102 days after the contract was signed and, with an engine installed, first flew on 26 October. The Mustang was originally designed to use the Allison V-1710 engine, which had limited high-altitude performance. It was first flown operationally by the Royal Air Force (RAF) as a tactical-reconnaissance aircraft and fighter-bomber (Mustang Mk I). The addition of the Rolls-Royce Merlin to the P-51B/C model transformed the Mustang's performance at altitudes above 15,000 ft, matching or bettering that of the Luftwaffe's fighters. The definitive version, the P-51D, was powered by the Packard V-1650-7, a license-built version of the Rolls-Royce Merlin 60 series two-stage two-speed supercharged engine, and armed with six .50 caliber (12.7 mm) M2 Browning machine guns. From late 1943, P-51Bs (supplemented by P-51Ds from mid-1944) were used by the USAAF's Eighth Air Force to escort bombers in raids over Germany, while the RAF's 2 TAF and the USAAF's Ninth Air Force used the Merlin-powered Mustangs as fighter-bombers, roles in which the Mustang helped ensure Allied air superiority in 1944. The P-51 was also in service with Allied air forces in the North African, Mediterranean and Italian theaters, and saw limited service against the Japanese in the Pacific War. During World War II, Mustang pilots claimed 4,950 enemy aircraft shot down. At the start of the Korean War, the Mustang was the main fighter of the United Nations until jet fighters such as the F-86 took over this role; the Mustang then became a specialized fighter-bomber. Despite the advent of jet fighters, the Mustang remained in service with some air forces until the early 1980s. After World War II and the Korean War, many Mustangs were converted for civilian use, especially air racing, and increasingly, preserved and flown as historic warbird aircraft at airshows. In April 1938, shortly after the German Anschluss of Austria, the British government established a purchasing commission in the United States, headed by Sir Henry Self. Self was given overall responsibility for Royal Air Force (RAF) production and research and development, and also served with Sir Wilfrid Freeman, the "Air Member for Development and Production". Self also sat on the British Air Council Sub-committee on Supply (or "Supply Committee") and one of his tasks was to organize the manufacturing and supply of American fighter aircraft for the RAF. At the time, the choice was very limited, as no U.S. aircraft then in production or flying met European standards, with only the Curtiss P-40 Tomahawk coming close. The Curtiss-Wright plant was running at capacity, so P-40s were in short supply. North American Aviation (NAA) was already supplying its Harvard trainer to the RAF, but was otherwise underutilized. NAA President "Dutch" Kindelberger approached Self to sell a new medium bomber, the B-25 Mitchell. Instead, Self asked if NAA could manufacture the Tomahawk under license from Curtiss. Kindelberger said NAA could have a better aircraft with the same engine in the air sooner than establishing a production line for the P-40. The Commission stipulated armament of four .303 in (7.7 mm) machine guns, the Allison V-1710 liquid-cooled engine, a unit cost of no more than $40,000, and delivery of the first production aircraft by January 1941. In March 1940, 320 aircraft were ordered by Sir Wilfred Freeman who had become the executive head of Ministry of Aircraft Production (MAP), and the contract was promulgated on 24 April. The NA-73X, which was designed by a team led by lead engineer Edgar Schmued, followed the best conventional practice of the era, but included several new features. One was a wing designed using laminar flow airfoils which were developed co-operatively by North American Aviation and the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). These airfoils generated very low drag at high speeds. During the development of the NA-73X, a wind tunnel test of two wings, one using NACA 5-digit airfoils and the other using the new NAA/NACA 45–100 airfoils, was performed in the University of Washington Kirsten Wind Tunnel. The results of this test showed the superiority of the wing designed with the NAA/NACA 45–100 airfoils. The other feature was a new radiator design that exploited the "Meredith Effect", in which heated air exited the radiator as a slight amount of jet thrust. Because NAA lacked a suitable wind tunnel to test this feature, it used the GALCIT 10 ft (3.0 m) wind tunnel at Caltech. This led to some controversy over whether the Mustang's cooling system aerodynamics were developed by NAA's engineer Edgar Schmued or by Curtiss, although NAA had purchased the complete set of P-40 and XP-46 wind tunnel data and flight test reports for US$56,000. The NA-73X was also one of the first aircraft to have a fuselage lofted mathematically using conic sections; this resulted in the aircraft's fuselage having smooth, low drag surfaces. To aid production, the airframe was divided into five main sections—forward, center, rear fuselage and two wing halves — all of which were fitted with wiring and piping before being joined. The prototype NA-73X was rolled out in September 1940 and first flew on 26 October 1940, respectively 102 and 149 days after the order had been placed, an uncommonly short gestation period. The prototype handled well and accommodated an impressive fuel load. The aircraft's two-section, semi-monocoque fuselage was constructed entirely of aluminum to save weight. It was armed with four .30 in (7.62 mm) M1919 Browning machine guns, two in the wings and two mounted under the engine and firing through the propeller arc using gun synchronizing gear. While the United States Army Air Corps (USAAC) could block any sales it considered detrimental to the interests of the US, the NA-73 was considered to be a special case because it had been designed at the behest of the British. In September 1940. a further 300 NA-73s were ordered by MAP. To ensure uninterrupted delivery Colonel Oliver P. Echols arranged with the Anglo-French Purchasing Commission to deliver the aircraft, and NAA gave two examples (41-038 and 41-039) to the USAAC for evaluation.

 

"From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia" !

 

I could relate to this quote as a GenX'er who was around before everyone had GPS on their phones and cars. We relied a lot on printed maps and the verbal directions of others. That led to a lot of frustration on the road.

 

Note the foggy, gloomy San Francisco summer weather in the background which leads me to another quote attributed to Mark Twain, "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco".

 

ODC: Hal Roach says...

Recently I noticed the following planning application which relates to my photograph]

 

Full Development Description

 

The development will consist of:- Demolition of all existing structures on the site including 18 no. light industrial units (1,330 sq.m) and the construction of a student residence complex with associated ancillary accommodation and a café/ restaurant. The overall building will comprise a gross floor area of 16,994 sq.m incorporating a 7 storey building (6 storey plus setback level) all within a perimeter block around a central landscaped courtyard over a part basement. The following accommodation is proposed: - Basement level accommodating 11 no. car parking spaces, 286 no. bicycle parking spaces, ancillary store, plant and waste management areas with access for vehicles via a ramp from Gloucester Place Upper and for bicycles via a ramp linking to an internal courtyard within the development and accessed from Gardiner Street Lower Ground floor level accommodating a management suite ( 36 sq.m), reception (70 sq.m), gym (106 sq.m), storage (122 sq.m), laundry ( 36 sq.m), ancillary circulation areas (270 sq.m) and student accommodation ( 4 no. 1 bed accessible studios, 4 no. 4 bed accessible units, 3 no. 4 bed units, 6 no. 5 bed units). The ground floor level also accommodates a café/ restaurant (51 sq.m) fronting onto Gardiner Street Lower; Levels 1-6 comprises student accommodation (28 no. 1 bed accessible studios, 4 no. 3 bed units, 25 no. 4 bed units, 62 no. 5 bed units and 1 no. 8 bed unit) with associated ancillary circulation areas and communal areas at 6th floor level including screening/ presentation room (38 sq.m), seminar room (33 sq.m), study room ( 42 sq.m), communal living room/ kitchen (176 sq.m), toilets ( 9 sq.m), storage (3 sq.m), and an external balcony/ terrace. Permission is also sought for hard and soft landscaping, solar panels at roof level, boundary treatments, signage and all ancillary site and development works.

 

Other recent examples:

 

Planning permission has been granted for a €41 million 400-bedroom student housing complex near St Patrick’s Cathedral. The development, which also includes shops, restaurants, cafes and a gym, is to be built on a 2.5 acre site on Mill Street in Newmarket in the southwest inner city.

 

A planning application for Dublin’s largest off-campus student accommodation has been lodged with Dublin City Council. Designed to cater for up to 970 third-level students, the proposed development is beside the 3 Arena, within the Dublin Docklands strategic development zone. Envisaged are two blocks of six and eight storeys with “student clusters” of between five- and eight-bed spaces, as well as twin and single study units.

 

Mortar Developments is hoping to secure permission to build at Church Street, which is adjacent to Smithfield.

The accommodation will include 232 bedrooms, as well as a number of ancillary facilities such as a gym, pool room, cafe and a takeaway. The scheme will involve the construction of a property varying in height between five and seven floors.

The following is an excerpt of a blog written by Tim Dees who relates his experiences working for Silva's in the mid 1970's.

 

Link: timdees.com/blog/?p=375

 

The ambulances were pink, because that was the owner’s wife’s favorite color. Pink bed linen, and when I got there, they were just moving away from pink shirts, as they were too difficult to find. Bob Silva never bought a new ambulance. They were all used Cadillacs, as he believed a used Cadillac was much classier than a new van-type that actually ran. I was taking a woman in labor to a hospital in San Francisco when the tranny gave up the ghost in Hunter’s Point. I’d told Bob the day before that it was on its last legs, and he advised that I should shut up and drive what I was given to drive. We were dead in the water, and just barely within radio range to call for another rig to take our patient.

 

The county came out with some new regs for gear that had to be on the rig, and one requirement was an obstetrics kit. Pre-packaged OB kits from Dyna-Med were $7.50 each. Silva bought one. He put it on a rig, sent it to be inspected, then brought that one back and put the same kit on the next rig to be inspected. When it was finally left in the rig he usually drove, he wrapped it in strapping tape to discourage anyone from actually using it. It wasn’t like we didn’t need OB kits. I delivered three babies while I worked there.

 

The electronic sirens we’re so used to now were just coming into widespread use in the 1970s. Most of our ambulances were equipped with mechanical sirens that wound up slowly when activated. They had brakes on them, and if you forgot to brake the siren before you left the rig, it would take a minute or more to wind down, growling the whole time. The big daddy of these mechanical sirens was the Federal Q2. Some of these are still in use on fire engines. The Q2 is a massive thing, and drew so much power that the engine would knock when you leaned on the button too long—the spark plugs didn’t get enough voltage. Few man-made things are as loud as a Q2. One day, while en route back to the station with a new attendant, I stopped at a Safeway for some groceries. I left the attendant in the rig, telling him to tap the siren if we got a call. When the call came in, he didn’t tap on the horn ring that activated the siren—he held it down. The ambulance was parked facing the store and its large plate glass windows. I heard the siren, then heard the window start to reverberate in its frame as it resonated with the blast of sonic waves—“whap-whap-whap-whapwhapWhapWhapWHAPWHAPWHAP.” I made it back to the rig, screaming ineffectively, before the window shattered.

 

Between the mechanical siren, separate heater for the rear compartment, more blinking lights than a Vegas casino, etc., the ambulances needed a lot of electrical power. A single battery would be dead before you got to the hospital, so most ambulances had two car batteries, cross-connected via a big rotary Cole-Hersee switch. The switch, which looked a little like the access cover to your house’s sewer cleanout pipe, had four positions: Battery One, Battery Two, Both, and Off. “Both” was the usual setting, but when the rig was parked, it was common to switch it to “Off,” so the batteries wouldn’t be drained if you had forgotten to turn something off. This effectively disconnected the batteries from the rest of the rig. If you wanted to have some fun with another crew, you could turn everything in their rig on, but leave the Cole-Hersee switch off. When they turned it back on, hilarity would ensue.

 

The gear we had in these ambulances was very basic, and most of us purchased and brought our own equipment to work, rather than provide inferior care for our patients. I bought my own stethoscope and sphygmomanometer (blood pressure cuff), chemical cold packs, wire ladder splints, ammonia “wake up gizmo” ampules, etc. Consumable supplies, such as self-adhering Kerlix bandages and waterproof tape, were stolen from the hospitals. The bandages we had on board, furnished by the company, were made of crumbling linen material from the Korean War era. Oropharyngeal airways were supposed to be either used once and discarded, or autoclaved between patients, but we had neither replacement airways or an autoclave, so we wiped them clean with alcohol and hoped for the best.

 

Our suction apparatus was powered through the engine’s vacuum manifold. Suction power went to zero when the engine was accelerating. If you were trying to clear gunk from a patient’s airway while your driver was flooring it, you’d tell him to coast until you had made some progress.

 

We weren’t allowed to say someone was dead, even if the flesh was falling from their bones. Law enforcement officers could make that determination, but doing so meant they would have to remain at the scene until the coroner arrived, which could take hours. This being the case, many officers chose to see some glimmer of life in corpses long past resurrection. We responded to an “11-80” (traffic accident with serious injuries) attended by a member of the California Highway Patrol to find a pickup truck that had rolled over with an unfortunate passenger in the back. The passenger had not quite been decapitated, as his head was hanging by a few strips of flesh. This was one of the more obvious dead people I had encountered, but the Chippie ordered us to run him in. Getting the body onto the gurney had the same effect achieved in kosher slaughterhouses, where the neck veins are severed and the blood is allowed to drain from the carcass. By the time we got to the hospital, the floor of the rear compartment was literally awash in blood, with it sloshing over my boots. I called the office and told them we would be out of service for a while.

 

This pre-dated the AIDS scare, and even though hepatitis and other bloodborne pathogens were just as nasty then as now (and there was no vaccine), we had no latex gloves to wear. Back then, gloves were worn by medical people to protect the patient from infection. There wasn’t a lot of thought given to protecting the caregivers. I remember cleaning up after an especially gruesome call and thinking that I wasn’t just cleaning something, but rather someone, out from under my fingernails.

 

One case where we didn’t have to transport was at the home of an older gentleman. I never knew the circumstances that prompted the call, but we arrived a few minutes after the fire department and before the cops. As we walked up to the house, the firemen were walking out, chuckling to one another. “He’s dead!” they said with some amusement. We entered the bedroom to find an older man lying supine on top of his bed, naked. Rigor had set in, so he had been gone for some time. What the firefighters found so funny was that the man had expired while engaged in an act of self-pleasure, and still had the weapon in hand. My partner and I looked at each other and registered much the same expression the firemen had. As we walked out, the cops were just arriving. “He’s dead!” we told them. I suppose there are worse ways to go, but that’s not how I want to be found.

 

I ran a lot of calls at Silva’s. The shifts were 120 hours long–yes, five days straight. You got paid straight time ($2.00/hour in 1974) for the first eight hours, a guaranteed time-and-a-half for five more hours, and were unpaid for three hours of meals, whether you actually got to eat them or not. Between midnight and eight in the morning, you got overtime for the time you were actually in service on the call. If you rolled and were cancelled two minutes out–which was common–you got two minutes of overtime. I swear some of those rigs could find their own way home, because there were many nights I have no memory of having driven them there. When my days off finally arrived, I would usually sleep through at least one of them.

 

The full Silva’s uniform was a sartorial delight. Each time they would give me a new uniform article, it would fall to a mysteriously tragic end, so I wore a white shirt, navy blue knit slacks, and a nylon bomber jacket. If you wanted to show you were management material, the required outfit consisted of a white (formerly pink) shirt with royal blue trousers and Ike jacket. The trousers had white piping down each leg, as did the cuffs of the jacket. On each shoulder of the Ike jacket was a huge purple and gold patch, proclaiming the wearer to be employed by Silva’s Ambulance Service, the words spelled out in metallic script. One was also obliged to wear a royal blue CHP clip-on neck tie. Mandatory accessories to the ensemble included a gold metal nametag, white belt, and white leather shoes. Worn on the shirt or jacket was a shield-type gold badge, about the size of a soup plate. All the badges identified the wearers as “Technician,” except for Bob Silva’s. His said, “Owner.” There was a $20 deposit on the badge. Those who were really in with the in crowd had huge custom Western-style belt buckles with their first names spelled out diagonally, and the corners adorned with red crosses, stars of life, or tiny ambulances. However, the crowning glory accessory–and I only saw one of these–was a gold tie bar, wider than the tie itself, with a fine gold chain attached to either end of the bar. Dangling from the chain was a pink Cadillac ambulance. Its wearer was extremely proud of this, and wouldn’t tell anyone where he got it, lest someone steal his thunder.

 

Employee turnover was around 200% annually, and I was a prized employee because I always showed up on time and sober. I was able to work full time on school vacations and summer, and from Friday evening to early Monday morning, when I’d leave to make it to my first class at San Jose State. It wasn’t uncommon to have an employee go AWOL, and have the cops show up a day or so later, looking for them. You had to be fingerprinted to get an ambulance driver’s license, but all you needed to work as an attendant was a first aid card, which management would procure for you for a small fee.

 

Bob Curry, in almost the full Silva's uniform (no badge), posing with a "new" ambulance, formerly used by Allied Ambulance in Oakland.

Bob Curry, in almost the full Silva’s uniform (no badge), posing with a “new” ambulance, formerly used by Allied Ambulance in Oakland.

 

There was one very senior employee whose name was also Bob. Bob thought he was the manager, and would tell you he was if asked, despite advice to the contrary if one of the Silvas was listening. Bob was very possessive of “his” ambulance, which was always the newest one (given that they were all used, “new” was a relative term). One night, I had just come in to work, and a call came in. The dispatcher told me to take it, so I grabbed an attendant and got in the first rig I saw. It was Bob’s, of course. When I returned, Bob screamed my face, lest I forget that that particular rig was HIS ambulance, and I had better stay the hell out of it if I knew what was good for me. Bob had an apartment near the main station, so he didn’t have to sleep at the station when he was on duty. If you were Bob’s attendant (Bob never worked in the back unless there was some real hero stuff going on), you were allowed to drive Bob’s ambulance to his place, where you switched seats. That night, a co-conspirator and I did a little customizing to Bob’s rig. When he got in the next morning, he found the handle on the driver’s door adorned with some adhesive tape, reading “Bob’s Door Handle.” Inside, more tape indicated Bob’s Steering Wheel, Bob’s Cigarette Lighter, Bob’s Gearshift, Bob’s Turn Indicator, Bob’s Accelerator, Bob’s Radio, Bob’s Other Radio, and so on. Tucked under Bob’s Sun Visor was a card on a little string, trimmed to drop to eye level: “Hi, Bob.”

 

Silva’s didn’t have the market cornered on odd employees. A rival company employed a guy we called Captain Action. Captain Action worked for a company that had more traditional uniforms, but still included a badge. The issued badge wasn’t up to Captain Action’s high standards. He had his own badge made up. It was a thing of beauty. It was a gold seven-point star (the most common style of police badge in those parts), but much larger than most police badges. It put the Silva’s badge to shame on size alone. I remember it had a big California State Seal in the middle, and a lot of text on the banners and inner ring. There was so much lettering on the badge that I never got to finish reading it, although I saw it often. Captain Action also wore a police-style Sam Browne belt with various snaps and cases, including a cuff case, handcuffs, and a baton ring. I never saw a baton, but I’m sure he had it around somewhere.

 

Captain Action loved to talk on the radio. Each ambulance had two radios, one on the company channel, and one that broadcasted on a shared, county-wide channel, called County Control. There was no direct channel to the hospitals, so one was obliged to tell County Control what you had and where you were bringing it, so the dispatcher could give the appropriate ER the heads up. An appropriate message might be something like, “County Control, Ambulance 3335, en route Code 3 to Peninsula Medical with an unconscious head injury.” Captain Action preferred to be somewhat more detailed, and made liberal use of the phonetic alphabet. “County Control, Ambulance 3330, en route Peninsula Medical Center with a 33-year-old white male with a history of cardiac myopathy, I spell CHARLES-ADAM-ROBERT-DAVID-IDA-ADAM-CHARLES-BREAK-MARY-YELLOW-OCEAN-PAUL-ADAM-TOM-HENRY-YELLOW…”

 

After one of these lengthy naratives (keep in mind that there were ten or twelve other ambulances in the county that used the same channel), the dispatcher was oddly silent. Captain Action made another try to ensure his message made it through. “County Control, Ambulance 3330, did you copy?”

 

“Ambulance 3330, County Control, TOM-EDWARD-NORA-BREAK-FRANK-OCEAN-UNION-ROBERT.”

 

Ah, the good old days.

 

Written by Tim Dees on January 1st, 2015

Coria was a fort and town 2.5 miles (4.0 km) south of Hadrian's Wall, in the Roman province of Britannia at a point where a big Roman north–south road (Dere Street) bridged the River Tyne and met another Roman road (Stanegate), which ran east–west between Coria and Luguvalium (the modern Carlisle) in the Solway Plain. The full Latin name is uncertain. In English, it is known as Corchester or Corbridge Roman Site as it sits on the edge of the village of Corbridge in the English county of Northumberland. It is in the guardianship of English Heritage and is partially exposed as a visitor attraction, including a site museum.

 

The place-name appears in contemporary records as Corstopitum and Corie Lopocarium. These forms are generally recognised as corrupt. Suggested reconstructions include Coriosopitum, Corsopitum or Corsobetum. The Vindolanda tablets show that it was locally referred to by the simple form, Coria, the name for a local tribal centre. The suffix ought to represent the name of the local tribe, a member of the Brigantian confederation but its correct form is unknown. It gave its name to Corbridge, albeit by processes which are debated.

 

There is evidence of Iron Age round houses on the site but the first Romans in the area built the Red House Fort, 0.5 mi (0.80 km) to the west, as a supply camp for Agricola's campaigns.

 

Soon after Roman victories in modern Scotland, around AD 84, a new fort was built on the site with turf ramparts and timber gates. Barrack blocks surrounded a headquarters building, a commander's residence, administrative staff accommodation, workshops and granaries. It was probably occupied by a 500-strong cavalry unit called the Ala Gallorum Petriana but burnt down in AD 105. A second timber fort was built, guarding an important crossing of the River Tyne, when the Solway Firth–Tyne divide was the Roman frontier. Around AD 120, when Hadrian's Wall was built just over two miles to the north, the fort was rebuilt again, probably to house infantry away from the Wall. About twenty years later, when the frontier was pushed further north and the Antonine Wall built, the first stone fort was erected under the Governor Quintus Lollius Urbicus.

 

English Heritage has released monographs on the forts along Hadrian's Wall through the Archaeology Data Service. Bishop and Dore's report on the excavations at Corbridge 1947–80 reveal the complex history of the sequence of mainly earth and timber forts which preceded the masonry buildings. The reports also cover a metal hoard found within the fort, possibly linked to the abandonment between AD 122 and 138

 

After the Romans fell back to Hadrian's Wall in AD 163, the army seems to have been largely removed from Coria. Its ramparts were levelled and a big rebuilding programme of a very different nature was instigated. A series of probable temples were erected, followed by granaries, a fountain house and a large courtyard complex, which may have been intended to become a civilian forum or a military storehouse and workshop establishment. It was never finished in its original plan.

 

Burnt timber buildings may relate to Cassius Dio's reference to tribes crossing the frontier but by the early 3rd century there was more construction. Two compounds opposite the supposed forum were built as part of a military supply depot within the town. It was connected with the Second and the Sixth Legion and may have been part of the supply network for Septimius Severus' northern campaigns.

 

Information on the 3rd- and 4th-century town is lacking but an elaborate house was certainly put up which may have housed an Imperial official. Coria was probably a big market centre for the lead, iron and coal industries in the area, as well as agriculture, evidenced by the granaries. A pottery store has also been identified. When occupation came to an end is unclear. It is not even known if the site was still occupied when the Anglo-Saxons arrived to found adjoining Corbridge.

 

The Corbridge Hoard was found here.

 

Between 1906 and 1914, the site was excavated following a desire by the Northumberland County History Committee to assess the Roman remains at Corbridge ahead of a book on the history of the parish, overseen by Francis J. Haverfield. During that time, a number of scholars from Oxford University were sent by Haverfield to supervise local labourers tasked with the actual excavation, including J.P. Bushe-Fox and Leonard Woolley, making it one of the first training excavations in British archaeology. Brian Dobson later ran adult training excavations at Corbridge in the 1960s and 1970s.

 

Work on Hexham Abbey in 1881 brought to light a Roman funerary monument in the stonework of the south porch of the transept. An elaborately carved stone (now on display in the abbey) shows a standard-bearer in the Roman cavalry riding down a barbarian: its inscription shows it to commemorate Flavinus, an officer in the ala Petriana who died aged 25 after seven years' service. The ala Petriana is known to have been stationed at Corbridge, and the slab is thought to date to the late first century and to have once stood in the military cemetery near the fort there.

 

Roman Britain was the territory that became the Roman province of Britannia after the Roman conquest of Britain, consisting of a large part of the island of Great Britain. The occupation lasted from AD 43 to AD 410.

 

Julius Caesar invaded Britain in 55 and 54 BC as part of his Gallic Wars. According to Caesar, the Britons had been overrun or culturally assimilated by the Belgae during the British Iron Age and had been aiding Caesar's enemies. The Belgae were the only Celtic tribe to cross the sea into Britain, for to all other Celtic tribes this land was unknown. He received tribute, installed the friendly king Mandubracius over the Trinovantes, and returned to Gaul. Planned invasions under Augustus were called off in 34, 27, and 25 BC. In 40 AD, Caligula assembled 200,000 men at the Channel on the continent, only to have them gather seashells (musculi) according to Suetonius, perhaps as a symbolic gesture to proclaim Caligula's victory over the sea. Three years later, Claudius directed four legions to invade Britain and restore the exiled king Verica over the Atrebates. The Romans defeated the Catuvellauni, and then organized their conquests as the province of Britain. By 47 AD, the Romans held the lands southeast of the Fosse Way. Control over Wales was delayed by reverses and the effects of Boudica's uprising, but the Romans expanded steadily northward.

 

The conquest of Britain continued under command of Gnaeus Julius Agricola (77–84), who expanded the Roman Empire as far as Caledonia. In mid-84 AD, Agricola faced the armies of the Caledonians, led by Calgacus, at the Battle of Mons Graupius. Battle casualties were estimated by Tacitus to be upwards of 10,000 on the Caledonian side and about 360 on the Roman side. The bloodbath at Mons Graupius concluded the forty-year conquest of Britain, a period that possibly saw between 100,000 and 250,000 Britons killed. In the context of pre-industrial warfare and of a total population of Britain of c. 2 million, these are very high figures.

 

Under the 2nd-century emperors Hadrian and Antoninus Pius, two walls were built to defend the Roman province from the Caledonians, whose realms in the Scottish Highlands were never controlled. Around 197 AD, the Severan Reforms divided Britain into two provinces: Britannia Superior and Britannia Inferior. During the Diocletian Reforms, at the end of the 3rd century, Britannia was divided into four provinces under the direction of a vicarius, who administered the Diocese of the Britains. A fifth province, Valentia, is attested in the later 4th century. For much of the later period of the Roman occupation, Britannia was subject to barbarian invasions and often came under the control of imperial usurpers and imperial pretenders. The final Roman withdrawal from Britain occurred around 410; the native kingdoms are considered to have formed Sub-Roman Britain after that.

 

Following the conquest of the Britons, a distinctive Romano-British culture emerged as the Romans introduced improved agriculture, urban planning, industrial production, and architecture. The Roman goddess Britannia became the female personification of Britain. After the initial invasions, Roman historians generally only mention Britain in passing. Thus, most present knowledge derives from archaeological investigations and occasional epigraphic evidence lauding the Britannic achievements of an emperor. Roman citizens settled in Britain from many parts of the Empire.

 

History

Britain was known to the Classical world. The Greeks, the Phoenicians and the Carthaginians traded for Cornish tin in the 4th century BC. The Greeks referred to the Cassiterides, or "tin islands", and placed them near the west coast of Europe. The Carthaginian sailor Himilco is said to have visited the island in the 6th or 5th century BC and the Greek explorer Pytheas in the 4th. It was regarded as a place of mystery, with some writers refusing to believe it existed.

 

The first direct Roman contact was when Julius Caesar undertook two expeditions in 55 and 54 BC, as part of his conquest of Gaul, believing the Britons were helping the Gallic resistance. The first expedition was more a reconnaissance than a full invasion and gained a foothold on the coast of Kent but was unable to advance further because of storm damage to the ships and a lack of cavalry. Despite the military failure, it was a political success, with the Roman Senate declaring a 20-day public holiday in Rome to honour the unprecedented achievement of obtaining hostages from Britain and defeating Belgic tribes on returning to the continent.

 

The second invasion involved a substantially larger force and Caesar coerced or invited many of the native Celtic tribes to pay tribute and give hostages in return for peace. A friendly local king, Mandubracius, was installed, and his rival, Cassivellaunus, was brought to terms. Hostages were taken, but historians disagree over whether any tribute was paid after Caesar returned to Gaul.

 

Caesar conquered no territory and left no troops behind, but he established clients and brought Britain into Rome's sphere of influence. Augustus planned invasions in 34, 27 and 25 BC, but circumstances were never favourable, and the relationship between Britain and Rome settled into one of diplomacy and trade. Strabo, writing late in Augustus's reign, claimed that taxes on trade brought in more annual revenue than any conquest could. Archaeology shows that there was an increase in imported luxury goods in southeastern Britain. Strabo also mentions British kings who sent embassies to Augustus, and Augustus's own Res Gestae refers to two British kings he received as refugees. When some of Tiberius's ships were carried to Britain in a storm during his campaigns in Germany in 16 AD, they came back with tales of monsters.

 

Rome appears to have encouraged a balance of power in southern Britain, supporting two powerful kingdoms: the Catuvellauni, ruled by the descendants of Tasciovanus, and the Atrebates, ruled by the descendants of Commius. This policy was followed until 39 or 40 AD, when Caligula received an exiled member of the Catuvellaunian dynasty and planned an invasion of Britain that collapsed in farcical circumstances before it left Gaul. When Claudius successfully invaded in 43 AD, it was in aid of another fugitive British ruler, Verica of the Atrebates.

 

Roman invasion

The invasion force in 43 AD was led by Aulus Plautius,[26] but it is unclear how many legions were sent. The Legio II Augusta, commanded by future emperor Vespasian, was the only one directly attested to have taken part. The Legio IX Hispana, the XIV Gemina (later styled Martia Victrix) and the XX (later styled Valeria Victrix) are known to have served during the Boudican Revolt of 60/61, and were probably there since the initial invasion. This is not certain because the Roman army was flexible, with units being moved around whenever necessary. The IX Hispana may have been permanently stationed, with records showing it at Eboracum (York) in 71 and on a building inscription there dated 108, before being destroyed in the east of the Empire, possibly during the Bar Kokhba revolt.

 

The invasion was delayed by a troop mutiny until an imperial freedman persuaded them to overcome their fear of crossing the Ocean and campaigning beyond the limits of the known world. They sailed in three divisions, and probably landed at Richborough in Kent; at least part of the force may have landed near Fishbourne, West Sussex.

 

The Catuvellauni and their allies were defeated in two battles: the first, assuming a Richborough landing, on the river Medway, the second on the river Thames. One of their leaders, Togodumnus, was killed, but his brother Caratacus survived to continue resistance elsewhere. Plautius halted at the Thames and sent for Claudius, who arrived with reinforcements, including artillery and elephants, for the final march to the Catuvellaunian capital, Camulodunum (Colchester). Vespasian subdued the southwest, Cogidubnus was set up as a friendly king of several territories, and treaties were made with tribes outside direct Roman control.

 

Establishment of Roman rule

After capturing the south of the island, the Romans turned their attention to what is now Wales. The Silures, Ordovices and Deceangli remained implacably opposed to the invaders and for the first few decades were the focus of Roman military attention, despite occasional minor revolts among Roman allies like the Brigantes and the Iceni. The Silures were led by Caratacus, and he carried out an effective guerrilla campaign against Governor Publius Ostorius Scapula. Finally, in 51, Ostorius lured Caratacus into a set-piece battle and defeated him. The British leader sought refuge among the Brigantes, but their queen, Cartimandua, proved her loyalty by surrendering him to the Romans. He was brought as a captive to Rome, where a dignified speech he made during Claudius's triumph persuaded the emperor to spare his life. The Silures were still not pacified, and Cartimandua's ex-husband Venutius replaced Caratacus as the most prominent leader of British resistance.

 

On Nero's accession, Roman Britain extended as far north as Lindum. Gaius Suetonius Paulinus, the conqueror of Mauretania (modern day Algeria and Morocco), then became governor of Britain, and in 60 and 61 he moved against Mona (Anglesey) to settle accounts with Druidism once and for all. Paulinus led his army across the Menai Strait and massacred the Druids and burnt their sacred groves.

 

While Paulinus was campaigning in Mona, the southeast of Britain rose in revolt under the leadership of Boudica. She was the widow of the recently deceased king of the Iceni, Prasutagus. The Roman historian Tacitus reports that Prasutagus had left a will leaving half his kingdom to Nero in the hope that the remainder would be left untouched. He was wrong. When his will was enforced, Rome[clarification needed] responded by violently seizing the tribe's lands in full. Boudica protested. In consequence, Rome[clarification needed] punished her and her daughters by flogging and rape. In response, the Iceni, joined by the Trinovantes, destroyed the Roman colony at Camulodunum (Colchester) and routed the part of the IXth Legion that was sent to relieve it. Paulinus rode to London (then called Londinium), the rebels' next target, but concluded it could not be defended. Abandoned, it was destroyed, as was Verulamium (St. Albans). Between seventy and eighty thousand people are said to have been killed in the three cities. But Paulinus regrouped with two of the three legions still available to him, chose a battlefield, and, despite being outnumbered by more than twenty to one, defeated the rebels in the Battle of Watling Street. Boudica died not long afterwards, by self-administered poison or by illness. During this time, the Emperor Nero considered withdrawing Roman forces from Britain altogether.

 

There was further turmoil in 69, the "Year of the Four Emperors". As civil war raged in Rome, weak governors were unable to control the legions in Britain, and Venutius of the Brigantes seized his chance. The Romans had previously defended Cartimandua against him, but this time were unable to do so. Cartimandua was evacuated, and Venutius was left in control of the north of the country. After Vespasian secured the empire, his first two appointments as governor, Quintus Petillius Cerialis and Sextus Julius Frontinus, took on the task of subduing the Brigantes and Silures respectively.[38] Frontinus extended Roman rule to all of South Wales, and initiated exploitation of the mineral resources, such as the gold mines at Dolaucothi.

 

In the following years, the Romans conquered more of the island, increasing the size of Roman Britain. Governor Gnaeus Julius Agricola, father-in-law to the historian Tacitus, conquered the Ordovices in 78. With the XX Valeria Victrix legion, Agricola defeated the Caledonians in 84 at the Battle of Mons Graupius, in north-east Scotland. This was the high-water mark of Roman territory in Britain: shortly after his victory, Agricola was recalled from Britain back to Rome, and the Romans initially retired to a more defensible line along the Forth–Clyde isthmus, freeing soldiers badly needed along other frontiers.

 

For much of the history of Roman Britain, a large number of soldiers were garrisoned on the island. This required that the emperor station a trusted senior man as governor of the province. As a result, many future emperors served as governors or legates in this province, including Vespasian, Pertinax, and Gordian I.

 

Roman military organisation in the north

In 84 AD

In 84 AD

 

In 155 AD

In 155 AD

 

Hadrian's Wall, and Antonine Wall

There is no historical source describing the decades that followed Agricola's recall. Even the name of his replacement is unknown. Archaeology has shown that some Roman forts south of the Forth–Clyde isthmus were rebuilt and enlarged; others appear to have been abandoned. By 87 the frontier had been consolidated on the Stanegate. Roman coins and pottery have been found circulating at native settlement sites in the Scottish Lowlands in the years before 100, indicating growing Romanisation. Some of the most important sources for this era are the writing tablets from the fort at Vindolanda in Northumberland, mostly dating to 90–110. These tablets provide evidence for the operation of a Roman fort at the edge of the Roman Empire, where officers' wives maintained polite society while merchants, hauliers and military personnel kept the fort operational and supplied.

 

Around 105 there appears to have been a serious setback at the hands of the tribes of the Picts: several Roman forts were destroyed by fire, with human remains and damaged armour at Trimontium (at modern Newstead, in SE Scotland) indicating hostilities at least at that site.[citation needed] There is also circumstantial evidence that auxiliary reinforcements were sent from Germany, and an unnamed British war of the period is mentioned on the gravestone of a tribune of Cyrene. Trajan's Dacian Wars may have led to troop reductions in the area or even total withdrawal followed by slighting of the forts by the Picts rather than an unrecorded military defeat. The Romans were also in the habit of destroying their own forts during an orderly withdrawal, in order to deny resources to an enemy. In either case, the frontier probably moved south to the line of the Stanegate at the Solway–Tyne isthmus around this time.

 

A new crisis occurred at the beginning of Hadrian's reign): a rising in the north which was suppressed by Quintus Pompeius Falco. When Hadrian reached Britannia on his famous tour of the Roman provinces around 120, he directed an extensive defensive wall, known to posterity as Hadrian's Wall, to be built close to the line of the Stanegate frontier. Hadrian appointed Aulus Platorius Nepos as governor to undertake this work who brought the Legio VI Victrix legion with him from Germania Inferior. This replaced the famous Legio IX Hispana, whose disappearance has been much discussed. Archaeology indicates considerable political instability in Scotland during the first half of the 2nd century, and the shifting frontier at this time should be seen in this context.

 

In the reign of Antoninus Pius (138–161) the Hadrianic border was briefly extended north to the Forth–Clyde isthmus, where the Antonine Wall was built around 142 following the military reoccupation of the Scottish lowlands by a new governor, Quintus Lollius Urbicus.

 

The first Antonine occupation of Scotland ended as a result of a further crisis in 155–157, when the Brigantes revolted. With limited options to despatch reinforcements, the Romans moved their troops south, and this rising was suppressed by Governor Gnaeus Julius Verus. Within a year the Antonine Wall was recaptured, but by 163 or 164 it was abandoned. The second occupation was probably connected with Antoninus's undertakings to protect the Votadini or his pride in enlarging the empire, since the retreat to the Hadrianic frontier occurred not long after his death when a more objective strategic assessment of the benefits of the Antonine Wall could be made. The Romans did not entirely withdraw from Scotland at this time: the large fort at Newstead was maintained along with seven smaller outposts until at least 180.

 

During the twenty-year period following the reversion of the frontier to Hadrian's Wall in 163/4, Rome was concerned with continental issues, primarily problems in the Danubian provinces. Increasing numbers of hoards of buried coins in Britain at this time indicate that peace was not entirely achieved. Sufficient Roman silver has been found in Scotland to suggest more than ordinary trade, and it is likely that the Romans were reinforcing treaty agreements by paying tribute to their implacable enemies, the Picts.

 

In 175, a large force of Sarmatian cavalry, consisting of 5,500 men, arrived in Britannia, probably to reinforce troops fighting unrecorded uprisings. In 180, Hadrian's Wall was breached by the Picts and the commanding officer or governor was killed there in what Cassius Dio described as the most serious war of the reign of Commodus. Ulpius Marcellus was sent as replacement governor and by 184 he had won a new peace, only to be faced with a mutiny from his own troops. Unhappy with Marcellus's strictness, they tried to elect a legate named Priscus as usurper governor; he refused, but Marcellus was lucky to leave the province alive. The Roman army in Britannia continued its insubordination: they sent a delegation of 1,500 to Rome to demand the execution of Tigidius Perennis, a Praetorian prefect who they felt had earlier wronged them by posting lowly equites to legate ranks in Britannia. Commodus met the party outside Rome and agreed to have Perennis killed, but this only made them feel more secure in their mutiny.

 

The future emperor Pertinax (lived 126–193) was sent to Britannia to quell the mutiny and was initially successful in regaining control, but a riot broke out among the troops. Pertinax was attacked and left for dead, and asked to be recalled to Rome, where he briefly succeeded Commodus as emperor in 192.

 

3rd century

The death of Commodus put into motion a series of events which eventually led to civil war. Following the short reign of Pertinax, several rivals for the emperorship emerged, including Septimius Severus and Clodius Albinus. The latter was the new governor of Britannia, and had seemingly won the natives over after their earlier rebellions; he also controlled three legions, making him a potentially significant claimant. His sometime rival Severus promised him the title of Caesar in return for Albinus's support against Pescennius Niger in the east. Once Niger was neutralised, Severus turned on his ally in Britannia; it is likely that Albinus saw he would be the next target and was already preparing for war.

 

Albinus crossed to Gaul in 195, where the provinces were also sympathetic to him, and set up at Lugdunum. Severus arrived in February 196, and the ensuing battle was decisive. Albinus came close to victory, but Severus's reinforcements won the day, and the British governor committed suicide. Severus soon purged Albinus's sympathisers and perhaps confiscated large tracts of land in Britain as punishment. Albinus had demonstrated the major problem posed by Roman Britain. In order to maintain security, the province required the presence of three legions, but command of these forces provided an ideal power base for ambitious rivals. Deploying those legions elsewhere would strip the island of its garrison, leaving the province defenceless against uprisings by the native Celtic tribes and against invasion by the Picts and Scots.

 

The traditional view is that northern Britain descended into anarchy during Albinus's absence. Cassius Dio records that the new Governor, Virius Lupus, was obliged to buy peace from a fractious northern tribe known as the Maeatae. The succession of militarily distinguished governors who were subsequently appointed suggests that enemies of Rome were posing a difficult challenge, and Lucius Alfenus Senecio's report to Rome in 207 describes barbarians "rebelling, over-running the land, taking loot and creating destruction". In order to rebel, of course, one must be a subject – the Maeatae clearly did not consider themselves such. Senecio requested either reinforcements or an Imperial expedition, and Severus chose the latter, despite being 62 years old. Archaeological evidence shows that Senecio had been rebuilding the defences of Hadrian's Wall and the forts beyond it, and Severus's arrival in Britain prompted the enemy tribes to sue for peace immediately. The emperor had not come all that way to leave without a victory, and it is likely that he wished to provide his teenage sons Caracalla and Geta with first-hand experience of controlling a hostile barbarian land.

 

Northern campaigns, 208–211

An invasion of Caledonia led by Severus and probably numbering around 20,000 troops moved north in 208 or 209, crossing the Wall and passing through eastern Scotland on a route similar to that used by Agricola. Harried by punishing guerrilla raids by the northern tribes and slowed by an unforgiving terrain, Severus was unable to meet the Caledonians on a battlefield. The emperor's forces pushed north as far as the River Tay, but little appears to have been achieved by the invasion, as peace treaties were signed with the Caledonians. By 210 Severus had returned to York, and the frontier had once again become Hadrian's Wall. He assumed the title Britannicus but the title meant little with regard to the unconquered north, which clearly remained outside the authority of the Empire. Almost immediately, another northern tribe, the Maeatae, went to war. Caracalla left with a punitive expedition, but by the following year his ailing father had died and he and his brother left the province to press their claim to the throne.

 

As one of his last acts, Severus tried to solve the problem of powerful and rebellious governors in Britain by dividing the province into Britannia Superior and Britannia Inferior. This kept the potential for rebellion in check for almost a century. Historical sources provide little information on the following decades, a period known as the Long Peace. Even so, the number of buried hoards found from this period rises, suggesting continuing unrest. A string of forts were built along the coast of southern Britain to control piracy; and over the following hundred years they increased in number, becoming the Saxon Shore Forts.

 

During the middle of the 3rd century, the Roman Empire was convulsed by barbarian invasions, rebellions and new imperial pretenders. Britannia apparently avoided these troubles, but increasing inflation had its economic effect. In 259 a so-called Gallic Empire was established when Postumus rebelled against Gallienus. Britannia was part of this until 274 when Aurelian reunited the empire.

 

Around the year 280, a half-British officer named Bonosus was in command of the Roman's Rhenish fleet when the Germans managed to burn it at anchor. To avoid punishment, he proclaimed himself emperor at Colonia Agrippina (Cologne) but was crushed by Marcus Aurelius Probus. Soon afterwards, an unnamed governor of one of the British provinces also attempted an uprising. Probus put it down by sending irregular troops of Vandals and Burgundians across the Channel.

 

The Carausian Revolt led to a short-lived Britannic Empire from 286 to 296. Carausius was a Menapian naval commander of the Britannic fleet; he revolted upon learning of a death sentence ordered by the emperor Maximian on charges of having abetted Frankish and Saxon pirates and having embezzled recovered treasure. He consolidated control over all the provinces of Britain and some of northern Gaul while Maximian dealt with other uprisings. An invasion in 288 failed to unseat him and an uneasy peace ensued, with Carausius issuing coins and inviting official recognition. In 293, the junior emperor Constantius Chlorus launched a second offensive, besieging the rebel port of Gesoriacum (Boulogne-sur-Mer) by land and sea. After it fell, Constantius attacked Carausius's other Gallic holdings and Frankish allies and Carausius was usurped by his treasurer, Allectus. Julius Asclepiodotus landed an invasion fleet near Southampton and defeated Allectus in a land battle.

 

Diocletian's reforms

As part of Diocletian's reforms, the provinces of Roman Britain were organized as a diocese governed by a vicarius under a praetorian prefect who, from 318 to 331, was Junius Bassus who was based at Augusta Treverorum (Trier).

 

The vicarius was based at Londinium as the principal city of the diocese. Londinium and Eboracum continued as provincial capitals and the territory was divided up into smaller provinces for administrative efficiency.

 

Civilian and military authority of a province was no longer exercised by one official and the governor was stripped of military command which was handed over to the Dux Britanniarum by 314. The governor of a province assumed more financial duties (the procurators of the Treasury ministry were slowly phased out in the first three decades of the 4th century). The Dux was commander of the troops of the Northern Region, primarily along Hadrian's Wall and his responsibilities included protection of the frontier. He had significant autonomy due in part to the distance from his superiors.

 

The tasks of the vicarius were to control and coordinate the activities of governors; monitor but not interfere with the daily functioning of the Treasury and Crown Estates, which had their own administrative infrastructure; and act as the regional quartermaster-general of the armed forces. In short, as the sole civilian official with superior authority, he had general oversight of the administration, as well as direct control, while not absolute, over governors who were part of the prefecture; the other two fiscal departments were not.

 

The early-4th-century Verona List, the late-4th-century work of Sextus Rufus, and the early-5th-century List of Offices and work of Polemius Silvius all list four provinces by some variation of the names Britannia I, Britannia II, Maxima Caesariensis, and Flavia Caesariensis; all of these seem to have initially been directed by a governor (praeses) of equestrian rank. The 5th-century sources list a fifth province named Valentia and give its governor and Maxima's a consular rank. Ammianus mentions Valentia as well, describing its creation by Count Theodosius in 369 after the quelling of the Great Conspiracy. Ammianus considered it a re-creation of a formerly lost province, leading some to think there had been an earlier fifth province under another name (may be the enigmatic "Vespasiana"), and leading others to place Valentia beyond Hadrian's Wall, in the territory abandoned south of the Antonine Wall.

 

Reconstructions of the provinces and provincial capitals during this period partially rely on ecclesiastical records. On the assumption that the early bishoprics mimicked the imperial hierarchy, scholars use the list of bishops for the 314 Council of Arles. The list is patently corrupt: the British delegation is given as including a Bishop "Eborius" of Eboracum and two bishops "from Londinium" (one de civitate Londinensi and the other de civitate colonia Londinensium). The error is variously emended: Bishop Ussher proposed Colonia, Selden Col. or Colon. Camalodun., and Spelman Colonia Cameloduni (all various names of Colchester); Gale and Bingham offered colonia Lindi and Henry Colonia Lindum (both Lincoln); and Bishop Stillingfleet and Francis Thackeray read it as a scribal error of Civ. Col. Londin. for an original Civ. Col. Leg. II (Caerleon). On the basis of the Verona List, the priest and deacon who accompanied the bishops in some manuscripts are ascribed to the fourth province.

 

In the 12th century, Gerald of Wales described the supposedly metropolitan sees of the early British church established by the legendary SS Fagan and "Duvian". He placed Britannia Prima in Wales and western England with its capital at "Urbs Legionum" (Caerleon); Britannia Secunda in Kent and southern England with its capital at "Dorobernia" (Canterbury); Flavia in Mercia and central England with its capital at "Lundonia" (London); "Maximia" in northern England with its capital at Eboracum (York); and Valentia in "Albania which is now Scotland" with its capital at St Andrews. Modern scholars generally dispute the last: some place Valentia at or beyond Hadrian's Wall but St Andrews is beyond even the Antonine Wall and Gerald seems to have simply been supporting the antiquity of its church for political reasons.

 

A common modern reconstruction places the consular province of Maxima at Londinium, on the basis of its status as the seat of the diocesan vicarius; places Prima in the west according to Gerald's traditional account but moves its capital to Corinium of the Dobunni (Cirencester) on the basis of an artifact recovered there referring to Lucius Septimius, a provincial rector; places Flavia north of Maxima, with its capital placed at Lindum Colonia (Lincoln) to match one emendation of the bishops list from Arles;[d] and places Secunda in the north with its capital at Eboracum (York). Valentia is placed variously in northern Wales around Deva (Chester); beside Hadrian's Wall around Luguvalium (Carlisle); and between the walls along Dere Street.

 

4th century

Emperor Constantius returned to Britain in 306, despite his poor health, with an army aiming to invade northern Britain, the provincial defences having been rebuilt in the preceding years. Little is known of his campaigns with scant archaeological evidence, but fragmentary historical sources suggest he reached the far north of Britain and won a major battle in early summer before returning south. His son Constantine (later Constantine the Great) spent a year in northern Britain at his father's side, campaigning against the Picts beyond Hadrian's Wall in the summer and autumn. Constantius died in York in July 306 with his son at his side. Constantine then successfully used Britain as the starting point of his march to the imperial throne, unlike the earlier usurper, Albinus.

 

In the middle of the century, the province was loyal for a few years to the usurper Magnentius, who succeeded Constans following the latter's death. After the defeat and death of Magnentius in the Battle of Mons Seleucus in 353, Constantius II dispatched his chief imperial notary Paulus Catena to Britain to hunt down Magnentius's supporters. The investigation deteriorated into a witch-hunt, which forced the vicarius Flavius Martinus to intervene. When Paulus retaliated by accusing Martinus of treason, the vicarius attacked Paulus with a sword, with the aim of assassinating him, but in the end he committed suicide.

 

As the 4th century progressed, there were increasing attacks from the Saxons in the east and the Scoti (Irish) in the west. A series of forts had been built, starting around 280, to defend the coasts, but these preparations were not enough when, in 367, a general assault of Saxons, Picts, Scoti and Attacotti, combined with apparent dissension in the garrison on Hadrian's Wall, left Roman Britain prostrate. The invaders overwhelmed the entire western and northern regions of Britannia and the cities were sacked. This crisis, sometimes called the Barbarian Conspiracy or the Great Conspiracy, was settled by Count Theodosius from 368 with a string of military and civil reforms. Theodosius crossed from Bononia (Boulogne-sur-Mer) and marched on Londinium where he began to deal with the invaders and made his base.[ An amnesty was promised to deserters which enabled Theodosius to regarrison abandoned forts. By the end of the year Hadrian's Wall was retaken and order returned. Considerable reorganization was undertaken in Britain, including the creation of a new province named Valentia, probably to better address the state of the far north. A new Dux Britanniarum was appointed, Dulcitius, with Civilis to head a new civilian administration.

 

Another imperial usurper, Magnus Maximus, raised the standard of revolt at Segontium (Caernarfon) in north Wales in 383, and crossed the English Channel. Maximus held much of the western empire, and fought a successful campaign against the Picts and Scots around 384. His continental exploits required troops from Britain, and it appears that forts at Chester and elsewhere were abandoned in this period, triggering raids and settlement in north Wales by the Irish. His rule was ended in 388, but not all the British troops may have returned: the Empire's military resources were stretched to the limit along the Rhine and Danube. Around 396 there were more barbarian incursions into Britain. Stilicho led a punitive expedition. It seems peace was restored by 399, and it is likely that no further garrisoning was ordered; by 401 more troops were withdrawn, to assist in the war against Alaric I.

 

End of Roman rule

The traditional view of historians, informed by the work of Michael Rostovtzeff, was of a widespread economic decline at the beginning of the 5th century. Consistent archaeological evidence has told another story, and the accepted view is undergoing re-evaluation. Some features are agreed: more opulent but fewer urban houses, an end to new public building and some abandonment of existing ones, with the exception of defensive structures, and the widespread formation of "dark earth" deposits indicating increased horticulture within urban precincts. Turning over the basilica at Silchester to industrial uses in the late 3rd century, doubtless officially condoned, marks an early stage in the de-urbanisation of Roman Britain.

 

The abandonment of some sites is now believed to be later than had been thought. Many buildings changed use but were not destroyed. There was a growing number of barbarian attacks, but these targeted vulnerable rural settlements rather than towns. Some villas such as Chedworth, Great Casterton in Rutland and Hucclecote in Gloucestershire had new mosaic floors laid around this time, suggesting that economic problems may have been limited and patchy. Many suffered some decay before being abandoned in the 5th century; the story of Saint Patrick indicates that villas were still occupied until at least 430. Exceptionally, new buildings were still going up in this period in Verulamium and Cirencester. Some urban centres, for example Canterbury, Cirencester, Wroxeter, Winchester and Gloucester, remained active during the 5th and 6th centuries, surrounded by large farming estates.

 

Urban life had generally grown less intense by the fourth quarter of the 4th century, and coins minted between 378 and 388 are very rare, indicating a likely combination of economic decline, diminishing numbers of troops, problems with the payment of soldiers and officials or with unstable conditions during the usurpation of Magnus Maximus 383–87. Coinage circulation increased during the 390s, but never attained the levels of earlier decades. Copper coins are very rare after 402, though minted silver and gold coins from hoards indicate they were still present in the province even if they were not being spent. By 407 there were very few new Roman coins going into circulation, and by 430 it is likely that coinage as a medium of exchange had been abandoned. Mass-produced wheel thrown pottery ended at approximately the same time; the rich continued to use metal and glass vessels, while the poor made do with humble "grey ware" or resorted to leather or wooden containers.

 

Sub-Roman Britain

Towards the end of the 4th century Roman rule in Britain came under increasing pressure from barbarian attacks. Apparently, there were not enough troops to mount an effective defence. After elevating two disappointing usurpers, the army chose a soldier, Constantine III, to become emperor in 407. He crossed to Gaul but was defeated by Honorius; it is unclear how many troops remained or ever returned, or whether a commander-in-chief in Britain was ever reappointed. A Saxon incursion in 408 was apparently repelled by the Britons, and in 409 Zosimus records that the natives expelled the Roman civilian administration. Zosimus may be referring to the Bacaudic rebellion of the Breton inhabitants of Armorica since he describes how, in the aftermath of the revolt, all of Armorica and the rest of Gaul followed the example of the Brettaniai. A letter from Emperor Honorius in 410 has traditionally been seen as rejecting a British appeal for help, but it may have been addressed to Bruttium or Bologna. With the imperial layers of the military and civil government gone, administration and justice fell to municipal authorities, and local warlords gradually emerged all over Britain, still utilizing Romano-British ideals and conventions. Historian Stuart Laycock has investigated this process and emphasised elements of continuity from the British tribes in the pre-Roman and Roman periods, through to the native post-Roman kingdoms.

 

In British tradition, pagan Saxons were invited by Vortigern to assist in fighting the Picts, Scoti, and Déisi. (Germanic migration into Roman Britannia may have begun much earlier. There is recorded evidence, for example, of Germanic auxiliaries supporting the legions in Britain in the 1st and 2nd centuries.) The new arrivals rebelled, plunging the country into a series of wars that eventually led to the Saxon occupation of Lowland Britain by 600. Around this time, many Britons fled to Brittany (hence its name), Galicia and probably Ireland. A significant date in sub-Roman Britain is the Groans of the Britons, an unanswered appeal to Aetius, leading general of the western Empire, for assistance against Saxon invasion in 446. Another is the Battle of Deorham in 577, after which the significant cities of Bath, Cirencester and Gloucester fell and the Saxons reached the western sea.

 

Historians generally reject the historicity of King Arthur, who is supposed to have resisted the Anglo-Saxon conquest according to later medieval legends.

 

Trade

During the Roman period Britain's continental trade was principally directed across the Southern North Sea and Eastern Channel, focusing on the narrow Strait of Dover, with more limited links via the Atlantic seaways. The most important British ports were London and Richborough, whilst the continental ports most heavily engaged in trade with Britain were Boulogne and the sites of Domburg and Colijnsplaat at the mouth of the river Scheldt. During the Late Roman period it is likely that the shore forts played some role in continental trade alongside their defensive functions.

 

Exports to Britain included: coin; pottery, particularly red-gloss terra sigillata (samian ware) from southern, central and eastern Gaul, as well as various other wares from Gaul and the Rhine provinces; olive oil from southern Spain in amphorae; wine from Gaul in amphorae and barrels; salted fish products from the western Mediterranean and Brittany in barrels and amphorae; preserved olives from southern Spain in amphorae; lava quern-stones from Mayen on the middle Rhine; glass; and some agricultural products. Britain's exports are harder to detect archaeologically, but will have included metals, such as silver and gold and some lead, iron and copper. Other exports probably included agricultural products, oysters and salt, whilst large quantities of coin would have been re-exported back to the continent as well.

 

These products moved as a result of private trade and also through payments and contracts established by the Roman state to support its military forces and officials on the island, as well as through state taxation and extraction of resources. Up until the mid-3rd century, the Roman state's payments appear to have been unbalanced, with far more products sent to Britain, to support its large military force (which had reached c. 53,000 by the mid-2nd century), than were extracted from the island.

 

It has been argued that Roman Britain's continental trade peaked in the late 1st century AD and thereafter declined as a result of an increasing reliance on local products by the population of Britain, caused by economic development on the island and by the Roman state's desire to save money by shifting away from expensive long-distance imports. Evidence has been outlined that suggests that the principal decline in Roman Britain's continental trade may have occurred in the late 2nd century AD, from c. 165 AD onwards. This has been linked to the economic impact of contemporary Empire-wide crises: the Antonine Plague and the Marcomannic Wars.

 

From the mid-3rd century onwards, Britain no longer received such a wide range and extensive quantity of foreign imports as it did during the earlier part of the Roman period; vast quantities of coin from continental mints reached the island, whilst there is historical evidence for the export of large amounts of British grain to the continent during the mid-4th century. During the latter part of the Roman period British agricultural products, paid for by both the Roman state and by private consumers, clearly played an important role in supporting the military garrisons and urban centres of the northwestern continental Empire. This came about as a result of the rapid decline in the size of the British garrison from the mid-3rd century onwards (thus freeing up more goods for export), and because of 'Germanic' incursions across the Rhine, which appear to have reduced rural settlement and agricultural output in northern Gaul.

 

Economy

Mineral extraction sites such as the Dolaucothi gold mine were probably first worked by the Roman army from c. 75, and at some later stage passed to civilian operators. The mine developed as a series of opencast workings, mainly by the use of hydraulic mining methods. They are described by Pliny the Elder in his Natural History in great detail. Essentially, water supplied by aqueducts was used to prospect for ore veins by stripping away soil to reveal the bedrock. If veins were present, they were attacked using fire-setting and the ore removed for comminution. The dust was washed in a small stream of water and the heavy gold dust and gold nuggets collected in riffles. The diagram at right shows how Dolaucothi developed from c. 75 through to the 1st century. When opencast work was no longer feasible, tunnels were driven to follow the veins. The evidence from the site shows advanced technology probably under the control of army engineers.

 

The Wealden ironworking zone, the lead and silver mines of the Mendip Hills and the tin mines of Cornwall seem to have been private enterprises leased from the government for a fee. Mining had long been practised in Britain (see Grimes Graves), but the Romans introduced new technical knowledge and large-scale industrial production to revolutionise the industry. It included hydraulic mining to prospect for ore by removing overburden as well as work alluvial deposits. The water needed for such large-scale operations was supplied by one or more aqueducts, those surviving at Dolaucothi being especially impressive. Many prospecting areas were in dangerous, upland country, and, although mineral exploitation was presumably one of the main reasons for the Roman invasion, it had to wait until these areas were subdued.

 

By the 3rd and 4th centuries, small towns could often be found near villas. In these towns, villa owners and small-scale farmers could obtain specialist tools. Lowland Britain in the 4th century was agriculturally prosperous enough to export grain to the continent. This prosperity lay behind the blossoming of villa building and decoration that occurred between AD 300 and 350.

 

Britain's cities also consumed Roman-style pottery and other goods, and were centres through which goods could be distributed elsewhere. At Wroxeter in Shropshire, stock smashed into a gutter during a 2nd-century fire reveals that Gaulish samian ware was being sold alongside mixing bowls from the Mancetter-Hartshill industry of the West Midlands. Roman designs were most popular, but rural craftsmen still produced items derived from the Iron Age La Tène artistic traditions. Britain was home to much gold, which attracted Roman invaders. By the 3rd century, Britain's economy was diverse and well established, with commerce extending into the non-Romanised north.

 

Government

Further information: Governors of Roman Britain, Roman client kingdoms in Britain, and Roman auxiliaries in Britain

Under the Roman Empire, administration of peaceful provinces was ultimately the remit of the Senate, but those, like Britain, that required permanent garrisons, were placed under the Emperor's control. In practice imperial provinces were run by resident governors who were members of the Senate and had held the consulship. These men were carefully selected, often having strong records of military success and administrative ability. In Britain, a governor's role was primarily military, but numerous other tasks were also his responsibility, such as maintaining diplomatic relations with local client kings, building roads, ensuring the public courier system functioned, supervising the civitates and acting as a judge in important legal cases. When not campaigning, he would travel the province hearing complaints and recruiting new troops.

 

To assist him in legal matters he had an adviser, the legatus juridicus, and those in Britain appear to have been distinguished lawyers perhaps because of the challenge of incorporating tribes into the imperial system and devising a workable method of taxing them. Financial administration was dealt with by a procurator with junior posts for each tax-raising power. Each legion in Britain had a commander who answered to the governor and, in time of war, probably directly ruled troublesome districts. Each of these commands carried a tour of duty of two to three years in different provinces. Below these posts was a network of administrative managers covering intelligence gathering, sending reports to Rome, organising military supplies and dealing with prisoners. A staff of seconded soldiers provided clerical services.

 

Colchester was probably the earliest capital of Roman Britain, but it was soon eclipsed by London with its strong mercantile connections. The different forms of municipal organisation in Britannia were known as civitas (which were subdivided, amongst other forms, into colonies such as York, Colchester, Gloucester and Lincoln and municipalities such as Verulamium), and were each governed by a senate of local landowners, whether Brythonic or Roman, who elected magistrates concerning judicial and civic affairs. The various civitates sent representatives to a yearly provincial council in order to profess loyalty to the Roman state, to send direct petitions to the Emperor in times of extraordinary need, and to worship the imperial cult.

 

Demographics

Roman Britain had an estimated population between 2.8 million and 3 million people at the end of the second century. At the end of the fourth century, it had an estimated population of 3.6 million people, of whom 125,000 consisted of the Roman army and their families and dependents.[80] The urban population of Roman Britain was about 240,000 people at the end of the fourth century. The capital city of Londinium is estimated to have had a population of about 60,000 people. Londinium was an ethnically diverse city with inhabitants from the Roman Empire, including natives of Britannia, continental Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa. There was also cultural diversity in other Roman-British towns, which were sustained by considerable migration, from Britannia and other Roman territories, including continental Europe, Roman Syria, the Eastern Mediterranean and North Africa. In a study conducted in 2012, around 45 percent of sites investigated dating from the Roman period had at least one individual of North African origin.

 

Town and country

During their occupation of Britain the Romans founded a number of important settlements, many of which survive. The towns suffered attrition in the later 4th century, when public building ceased and some were abandoned to private uses. Place names survived the deurbanised Sub-Roman and early Anglo-Saxon periods, and historiography has been at pains to signal the expected survivals, but archaeology shows that a bare handful of Roman towns were continuously occupied. According to S.T. Loseby, the very idea of a town as a centre of power and administration was reintroduced to England by the Roman Christianising mission to Canterbury, and its urban revival was delayed to the 10th century.

 

Roman towns can be broadly grouped in two categories. Civitates, "public towns" were formally laid out on a grid plan, and their role in imperial administration occasioned the construction of public buildings. The much more numerous category of vici, "small towns" grew on informal plans, often round a camp or at a ford or crossroads; some were not small, others were scarcely urban, some not even defended by a wall, the characteristic feature of a place of any importance.

 

Cities and towns which have Roman origins, or were extensively developed by them are listed with their Latin names in brackets; civitates are marked C

 

Alcester (Alauna)

Alchester

Aldborough, North Yorkshire (Isurium Brigantum) C

Bath (Aquae Sulis) C

Brough (Petuaria) C

Buxton (Aquae Arnemetiae)

Caerleon (Isca Augusta) C

Caernarfon (Segontium) C

Caerwent (Venta Silurum) C

Caister-on-Sea C

Canterbury (Durovernum Cantiacorum) C

Carlisle (Luguvalium) C

Carmarthen (Moridunum) C

Chelmsford (Caesaromagus)

Chester (Deva Victrix) C

Chester-le-Street (Concangis)

Chichester (Noviomagus Reginorum) C

Cirencester (Corinium) C

Colchester (Camulodunum) C

Corbridge (Coria) C

Dorchester (Durnovaria) C

Dover (Portus Dubris)

Exeter (Isca Dumnoniorum) C

Gloucester (Glevum) C

Great Chesterford (the name of this vicus is unknown)

Ilchester (Lindinis) C

Leicester (Ratae Corieltauvorum) C

Lincoln (Lindum Colonia) C

London (Londinium) C

Manchester (Mamucium) C

Newcastle upon Tyne (Pons Aelius)

Northwich (Condate)

St Albans (Verulamium) C

Silchester (Calleva Atrebatum) C

Towcester (Lactodurum)

Whitchurch (Mediolanum) C

Winchester (Venta Belgarum) C

Wroxeter (Viroconium Cornoviorum) C

York (Eboracum) C

 

Religion

The druids, the Celtic priestly caste who were believed to originate in Britain, were outlawed by Claudius, and in 61 they vainly defended their sacred groves from destruction by the Romans on the island of Mona (Anglesey). Under Roman rule the Britons continued to worship native Celtic deities, such as Ancasta, but often conflated with their Roman equivalents, like Mars Rigonemetos at Nettleham.

 

The degree to which earlier native beliefs survived is difficult to gauge precisely. Certain European ritual traits such as the significance of the number 3, the importance of the head and of water sources such as springs remain in the archaeological record, but the differences in the votive offerings made at the baths at Bath, Somerset, before and after the Roman conquest suggest that continuity was only partial. Worship of the Roman emperor is widely recorded, especially at military sites. The founding of a Roman temple to Claudius at Camulodunum was one of the impositions that led to the revolt of Boudica. By the 3rd century, Pagans Hill Roman Temple in Somerset was able to exist peaceably and it did so into the 5th century.

 

Pagan religious practices were supported by priests, represented in Britain by votive deposits of priestly regalia such as chain crowns from West Stow and Willingham Fen.

 

Eastern cults such as Mithraism also grew in popularity towards the end of the occupation. The London Mithraeum is one example of the popularity of mystery religions among the soldiery. Temples to Mithras also exist in military contexts at Vindobala on Hadrian's Wall (the Rudchester Mithraeum) and at Segontium in Roman Wales (the Caernarfon Mithraeum).

 

Christianity

It is not clear when or how Christianity came to Britain. A 2nd-century "word square" has been discovered in Mamucium, the Roman settlement of Manchester. It consists of an anagram of PATER NOSTER carved on a piece of amphora. There has been discussion by academics whether the "word square" is a Christian artefact, but if it is, it is one of the earliest examples of early Christianity in Britain. The earliest confirmed written evidence for Christianity in Britain is a statement by Tertullian, c. 200 AD, in which he described "all the limits of the Spains, and the diverse nations of the Gauls, and the haunts of the Britons, inaccessible to the Romans, but subjugated to Christ". Archaeological evidence for Christian communities begins to appear in the 3rd and 4th centuries. Small timber churches are suggested at Lincoln and Silchester and baptismal fonts have been found at Icklingham and the Saxon Shore Fort at Richborough. The Icklingham font is made of lead, and visible in the British Museum. A Roman Christian graveyard exists at the same site in Icklingham. A possible Roman 4th-century church and associated burial ground was also discovered at Butt Road on the south-west outskirts of Colchester during the construction of the new police station there, overlying an earlier pagan cemetery. The Water Newton Treasure is a hoard of Christian silver church plate from the early 4th century and the Roman villas at Lullingstone and Hinton St Mary contained Christian wall paintings and mosaics respectively. A large 4th-century cemetery at Poundbury with its east–west oriented burials and lack of grave goods has been interpreted as an early Christian burial ground, although such burial rites were also becoming increasingly common in pagan contexts during the period.

 

The Church in Britain seems to have developed the customary diocesan system, as evidenced from the records of the Council of Arles in Gaul in 314: represented at the council were bishops from thirty-five sees from Europe and North Africa, including three bishops from Britain, Eborius of York, Restitutus of London, and Adelphius, possibly a bishop of Lincoln. No other early sees are documented, and the material remains of early church structures are far to seek. The existence of a church in the forum courtyard of Lincoln and the martyrium of Saint Alban on the outskirts of Roman Verulamium are exceptional. Alban, the first British Christian martyr and by far the most prominent, is believed to have died in the early 4th century (some date him in the middle 3rd century), followed by Saints Julius and Aaron of Isca Augusta. Christianity was legalised in the Roman Empire by Constantine I in 313. Theodosius I made Christianity the state religion of the empire in 391, and by the 5th century it was well established. One belief labelled a heresy by the church authorities — Pelagianism — was originated by a British monk teaching in Rome: Pelagius lived c. 354 to c. 420/440.

 

A letter found on a lead tablet in Bath, Somerset, datable to c. 363, had been widely publicised as documentary evidence regarding the state of Christianity in Britain during Roman times. According to its first translator, it was written in Wroxeter by a Christian man called Vinisius to a Christian woman called Nigra, and was claimed as the first epigraphic record of Christianity in Britain. This translation of the letter was apparently based on grave paleographical errors, and the text has nothing to do with Christianity, and in fact relates to pagan rituals.

 

Environmental changes

The Romans introduced a number of species to Britain, including possibly the now-rare Roman nettle (Urtica pilulifera), said to have been used by soldiers to warm their arms and legs, and the edible snail Helix pomatia. There is also some evidence they may have introduced rabbits, but of the smaller southern mediterranean type. The European rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus) prevalent in modern Britain is assumed to have been introduced from the continent after the Norman invasion of 1066. Box (Buxus sempervirens) is rarely recorded before the Roman period, but becomes a common find in towns and villas

 

Legacy

During their occupation of Britain the Romans built an extensive network of roads which continued to be used in later centuries and many are still followed today. The Romans also built water supply, sanitation and wastewater systems. Many of Britain's major cities, such as London (Londinium), Manchester (Mamucium) and York (Eboracum), were founded by the Romans, but the original Roman settlements were abandoned not long after the Romans left.

 

Unlike many other areas of the Western Roman Empire, the current majority language is not a Romance language, or a language descended from the pre-Roman inhabitants. The British language at the time of the invasion was Common Brittonic, and remained so after the Romans withdrew. It later split into regional languages, notably Cumbric, Cornish, Breton and Welsh. Examination of these languages suggests some 800 Latin words were incorporated into Common Brittonic (see Brittonic languages). The current majority language, English, is based on the languages of the Germanic tribes who migrated to the island from continental Europe

Fall relates to tranquility especially along this slow moving branch of the Boise River.

Life is full of stories – some deeply personal and specific, others universally relatable. My story is beautiful and complicated and bittersweet and hard. Life is just that way. So are photographs.

 

The birth of my daughter was life-changing, but not in the way I expected. Though there has been no greater joy for me, the responsibility of another life has proven to be at times a heavy load. Thinking about this in a literal sense, I imagined a heavy home on my shoulders, yet held tightly with love – a burden and a joy, a challenge and a reprieve. This became the first image in the series The Heart and the Heavy.

 

From there the stories evolved, just as my life has. The genesis of an image comes from moments of life, like a still from an old movie. Movement and pain and the simple joys of being alive are frozen in time – a study of fictional worlds based in reality. Compelled to shoot these stories, I am haunted for days and months until it is released in an image. Telling someone’s tale in a world not quite like our own.

 

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It has been almost two years since I shot the image that changed my focus and redirected me as an artist. That image, The Heart and The Heavy, became a catalyst for a new study and the exhibit by the same name. I am thrilled to have the work on display in somewhat of an southeast tour this fall and winter.

 

First up, the Durham Art Guild is presenting the show from October 1 - 28 at the Room 100 Gallery in the Golden Belt in Durham, NC. There will be a public reception on Friday, October 18th from 6-9 p.m.

 

Next stop on the tour is Atlanta. The Jennifer Schwartz Gallery and I will be creating a one-night only special event on November 1st from 6-9 p.m. at DEADRINGER [prints + projects] located at Studio LR-12 at The Goat Farm Arts Center (1200 Foster Street, Atlanta, GA 30318). Then catch the show for the remainder of the year in the Jennifer Schwartz Gallery.

 

The MoNA Gallery in Charlotte will host the show from March 7 - April 26, 2014, with the opening reception on March the 7th. MoNA Gallery is located at 1900 N. Brevard St., Charlotte, NC 28206.

 

I couldn't be happier to be sharing this body of work. I hope to see you there!

  

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Cervine: of or relating to deer

 

The ending of an unfinished 52 week

You may have noticed I have not posted in a few weeks and you may also be thinking doesnt a 52 week mean you post once a week for a year? Well I regret to inform you that I am retiring my 52 week. I dont want to say quitting or giving up because, while I am stopping it, I dont feel like those are the right words. It ran its course and looking back I did improve and had some amazing times and did some crazy things that I may have not gotten to do if I had not been doing my 52 week. But at the same time it wasn't the 52 week I wanted to lead. I wanted to accomplish a successful 52 week where you could see steady and great growth in my photography skills, understanding of lighting, photoshop skills and creativity. I wanted a 52 week where very few, if any, weeks were skipped. I wanted a 52 week that I coud devote a good amount of time to. But I wasnt always growing, I definitely missed many weeks and I neglected my project tremendously. Often times I would wait until the last day to think of an idea, shoot it, and then edit it. But the main reason I am stopping this first attempt (there will definitely be future ones that will be more successful!) at a 52 week is because this is it. This is my final year of high school. Throughout this year I will experience my last year as an editor, my last year as a designer for the yearbook, my first and last year as a designer for the paper, my last year as a photog for NW, my last year with my journalism family in that room I began to call home. And the truth is Im running out of time. There isnt enough hours in the day or days in the week. So in order to hopefully have more quality concept photos Im going to put more focus in each one rather than worrying that I get one posted before I go to bed Sunday night. And in order to put my full effort into becoming the best editor I can be and taking the best journalistic photos I can take and creating the most beautiful spreads I can design, I need to put in the time. Because I am not satisfied enough with all my work that I have done here, because I want to end this precious time here by blowing everyone away with something amazing. for once I want to do something great. And I want to give my time to being a better editor, because I feel like I have been a pretty awful one so far. And it hurts, I hate thinking im a bad editor...but the truth is that I have been. So I had to create new priorities. I had to put journalism first. concept photography second. and money, well I have to cut that out for now. my 52 week isnt the only thing Im cutting out. Despite how I said I hated my job that first week I got it, I forgot to mention that I kind of ended up loving it. It was a stellar job and i got to work with some great people and it really was a lot of fun. Being a griller at Mongolian BBQ was most definitely the best job a high school student could ever even hope for. However I recently turned in my 2 weeks notice which made me a lot more upset than I thought it would. I will hopefully be back their in the summer but for now, I have to prioritize. I should have appreciated what a great job I had more, but I didnt. So I will these last couple of weeks and then I will continue on focusing on trying to become better. and will hopefully still be posting good things here relatively frequently.

 

in other news...Ill be 18 on the 18th, which is pretty soon! My golden birthday, so hopefully that means itll be a good year! Trying to think of what photo I want to do for my birthday....

Abbey Pumping Station museum comprises collections of industrial, technological and scientific items relating to Leicester. The pump house has four working examples of Woolf compound rotative beam engines made by Gimsons, a Leicester engineering business started by brothers Josiah and Benjamin Gimson in 1842.

Entropy, as expressed by the Second Law of Thermodynamics, is an all pervasive natural force, similar in importance to gravity or electro- magnetism. Its attributes involve the flow of what we call "time". It shows why time travel is impossible and why water only runs downhill. Entropy permeates all aspects of human existence. Entropy explains why it is easy to lose money and difficult to make money. Entropy is the force behind Murphy's Law: Anything that can go wrong, must go wrong. Is time-travel impossible? Why does water only run downhill? Why is it easy to lose money but difficult to acquire it? The answer to these and many other puzzling questions rests in the Second Law of Thermodynamics, in Entropy. The so-called Second Law relates closely to the term Entropy. An understanding of this fundamental law of nature and its ramification provides great insights in the way the world really works. Entropy, as expressed by the Second Law, is the ultimate Natural Law because it determines the flow of what we call "time". Thus, entropy deals with the very existence of the universe. The term entropy describes phenomena that have the most profound effect on all events in human existence, including our ability to achieve happiness by aligning ourselves with Objective Reality.

 

The Second Law holds a unique position in science because it has never evolved from a theory such as the Theory of Relativity or the Theory of Quantum Mechanics. The Second Law is empirical. There is no fully satisfactory theoretical proof for the Second Law, although there are some connections to Quantum Mechanics, Probability and Relativity. Once a Unified Field Theory, the Theory of Everything, is developed, it will and must account for Entropy. Many scientists, who claimed that this Law is paradoxical in nature, have tried to attack it. However, in all instances the alleged paradoxes were due to faulty reasoning. The Second Law has prevailed and has established itself as the most fundamental of all Natural Laws.

 

The profound nature of the Second Law manifests itself in every aspect of human existence. It covers questions pertaining to the obscure beginnings of the universe to the way we pour milk in our coffee. I remember my high school teacher posing the question: You have a cup of very hot coffee that you would like to drink as soon as possible, let us say, within 5 minutes. Should you first add the desired quantity of cold milk to the coffee and then let the coffee sit for 5 minutes? Alternatively, do you let the coffee sit for 5 minutes and then add the same quantity of milk?

 

The answer is not intuitive but it is simple, if we are familiar with the Second Law: The rate of heat exchange between the hot coffee and the ambient air depends on their temperature differential. The higher the temperature differential, the faster will be the rate of exchange. Within the 5-minute waiting period, heat transfers to the air at a higher rate if we do not add the cold milk initially to the coffee. If we add the milk at the beginning, instead of at the end of the 5 minutes, the energy transfer will slow down and the coffee will be markedly hotter at the end of 5 minutes.

 

This revelation does not appear to be a momentous event. It was only intended to indicate the pervasiveness of the Second Law, especially in view of the fact that most people are seemingly ignorant of it. The point is, the Second Law is not intuitive. We have to acquire the relevant knowledge by a rational thought process in order to take advantage of it. The cup of coffee is not important but the principle behind the cup permeates all of our existence: In order to optimize the effectiveness of our actions it is helpful to understand the implications of Entropy.

 

Entropy describes the degradation of energy to perform work. What is energy? On the high school level, we simply defined energy as the capacity to do work. However, the real question is, What factor, precisely, is doing this work? Why does energy have the capacity to perform work? The HOWs in life are easy, the WHYs are the tough ones.

 

Energy is the raw material of the universe. At the time of the Big Bang, about 13.7 billion years ago, there was nothing but raw energy. There was no mass with a physical attribute. It was only much later in the nascent universe that this primal energy transformed itself into physical mass, stars, nebula and black holes. Stars, and particularly supernovas, are the factories of the elements, such as iron, from which human beings are formed.

 

As we know from Einstein's famous formula E = m c^2, mass and energy are freely convertible into each other. The Hydrogen Bomb demonstrates this conversion in a spectacular fashion. Most of the energy it generates is due to the conversion of matter into energy. Such conversion of matter into energy, and vice-versa, is also a less spectacular event in everyday phenomena although it is usually so minuscule as to escape our attention: When we exercise vigorously, we convert chemical energy into radiated heat energy. All this radiated energy that leaves our body has mass, just as light has energy and weight, although it will not register on our bathroom scale.

 

In cognizance of these basic facts, we can stipulate that energy is the basic raw material that makes up the universe and all that is contained within it, including human beings. The essence of the universe is the unity of energy, time and space.

 

Energy is essentially a heat phenomenon. Heat and work are mechanisms by which systems exchange energy with one another. The mechanical equivalent of heat is called a Joule. 4.2 joules are the equivalent of one calorie, the amount of heat required to raise the temperature of one gram of water by one degree Celsius.

 

In order for energy to perform work, a difference must exist between energy at a high potential and energy at a more randomized, diluted, potential. The term entropy is a measure of the degree to which energy has lost the capacity to perform useful work. Entropy signifies the dilution, the randomization of energy. We may look at water in two lakes, connected by a canal. Unless the lakes are at a different level, unless they are at a different energy potential, there is plenty of water, but all this water has no potential energy and cannot perform any useful work because it cannot change levels. This ability or inability to perform useful work is an analogy to and is at the heart of the term entropy and the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

 

Let us back up a little: This whole subject of Thermodynamics sounds like a very complicated affair. Indeed, it is both very simple and extremely complex. There are three Laws of Thermodynamics, but we need to concern ourselves only with the first two laws because they are closely interwoven and can actually be expressed in one sentence: The total energy content of the universe is constant and the total entropy, the non-usable energy, is constantly increasing. There you have it: The combination of the first and second law of thermodynamics.

 

Very interesting, but what does it mean? It means that energy cannot be created or destroyed. It can be transformed into mass, chemical energy, heat energy, latent energy and work, but it cannot be created and it cannot disappear. Energy is also in a constant, inevitable and irreversible process of becoming increasingly randomized. Salt crystals may be dissolved in a beaker of water without losing its identity as salt. The salt became more randomized when it dissolved in the water. The Law of Entropy decrees that it cannot reconvert itself to the less randomized, crystalline version. The salt cannot reconstitute itself as crystals, unless we introduce external energy to evaporate the water.

 

The amount of energy in the universe was established at the time of the Big Bang. At that point, energy was extremely concentrated and ordered. Since then, the universe has expanded vastly and energy has become more diluted and randomized. It is inherent in the nature of the universe that this process must and will continue. If it were to stop, the universe would cease to exist.

 

This increasing randomization of energy, entropy, is part of the structure of the universe. The energy dilemma does not involve the amount of energy that is available; it involves the form in which the energy is available. The universe is involved in a constant process of converting one form of energy into another form and in doing so, it inevitably must convert part of the original energy into more randomized, less usable, heat energy. Potential energy is organized energy whereas heat represents randomized, disorganized energy. Heat energy is irretrievable energy. Although the energy contained in heat is not destroyed, it has become unavailable for producing work. All forms of energy are degraded incessantly and irreversibly to an inferior, lower-quality, more-randomized form of energy: Heat.

 

By the same principle, the solar energy that pours out of the furnace of the sun travels on and on until it eventually becomes scattered throughout the universe: It becomes so randomized that it becomes unusable for the performance of work. Therefore, we must stipulate that entropy, as a measure of the randomness of energy in the universe, is always increasing.

 

The question arises, what will happen when all the usable energy in the universe is converted into randomized heat energy and is no longer capable of performing such work as expanding the universe. We refer to this condition as the Heat Death of the Universe: Once all the energy in the universe is converted to and randomized as heat, then the universe will be in a state of energy equilibrium, everything will be of the same temperature and entropy will remain constant. This is where science gets more complicated and involves the microwave background radiation consisting of photons near, but not quite at, absolute Zero. Scientists have recently detected this microwave background radiation and have thus confirmed the connectivity between Thermodynamics and Quantum Mechanics.

 

Before we go on to some practical manifestations of entropy, we need to be aware of a very important characteristic of entropy: The Laws of Thermodynamics pertain only to a system that we refer to as a closed system: An entity that does not exchange energy, information or mass with anything outside the system. The universe in its totality is a closed system because no new energy is injected into it. Therefore, all laws of Thermodynamics apply to the universe. Earth is not a closed system because our sun constantly injects it with new energy. This infusion of energy into the non-closed system of the earth makes it possible to comply with the Second Law while achieving an increase in the complexity of life forms, as necessitated by the process of evolution.

 

The laws of thermodynamics are among the very few laws of nature that describe phenomena that are an integral part of the origin of the universe, of the Big Bang. The other laws in this category are gravity, relativity, nuclear binding forces and electromagnetism. Human beings need not concern themselves with the effects of relativity or quantum mechanics. However, the phenomena of thermodynamics constantly and profoundly affect all human beings.

 

If there are any laws that have truly universal applicability and that also affect ordinary human affairs, they are the Laws of Thermodynamics. The following statement contains the essence of Entropy: In any transformation of energy from one form to another, useful energy is lost irreversibly. The German physicist Clausius first used the term Entropy in 1865 to describe the nature of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Even great physicists of that period, like James Maxwell, had trouble with a concept involving only negatives and dealing with the idea of measuring a state of disorder. Today we can condense the statement of Entropy by stating: Entropy in a closed system can never decrease. There are no exceptions to this statement.

 

The Second Law decrees that water can only flow downhill. Objects do not run uphill by themselves. If we wish to have water run uphill, we must supply outside energy to pump it up the hill.

 

A clock gradually runs down because the latent energy in its spring is used to run the clock and part of this energy is converted to irretrievable heat. Because the heat cannot be reconstituted into usable energy, this energy is lost irretrievably and the clock cannot rewind itself.

 

Even in the most complex energy transformations, there is a forward direction to the process because only an outside energy source can reverse a heat-process within a closed system. The burning of gasoline in a car creates mechanical energy and heat. However, no process in the universe will allow the exhaust gases to re-combine with the heat energy and reconstitute the original gasoline: The heat energy of the burning gasoline has achieved a higher and irreversible state of randomization: The entropy of the system, and the universe, is irreversibly increased, as required by the Second Law.

 

The close relationship of entropy to the statistical laws of probability becomes clear when we hold a stack of five coins in a hand and throw them on a flat surface. Instead of retaining their previous order and proximity, they scatter and increase their randomness. The fall of the coins generated and dissipated the tiniest little bit of heat and the lack of this heat prevented the coins from reforming in the same stack as before. Entropy always drives all transformation of energy in such a way as to increase irreversible randomness.

 

Ice must have a tendency to melt because H2O molecules in ice crystals are more orderly than in the form of water. Ice crystals tend to become randomized by changing from orderly ice crystals to a more disorderly state as a liquid.

 

Water must evaporate: A gaseous structure is more randomized than a liquid state.

 

Time can only flow in one direction: The arrow of time can only move from the dead past to the non-existing future. The Second Law is closely interwoven with the laws of probability. Therefore, the laws of entropy are statistical laws. If we apply statistical laws applicable to entropy to future events, they provide meaningful results; if we apply them to past events, they are meaningless. Therefore, time can flow only from the dead past toward the future, which does not yet exist. Time travel will always remain impossible: It is inherently impossible to move from one state of non-existence to other states of non-existence. The Second Law decrees that the universe would have to cease to exist in order to allow for time-travel.

 

The laws of thermodynamics are the descriptors of the universe and do not permit perpetual motion machines. We would only waste our time and money if we were to attempt building a machine that not only can run forever, but that could even produce excess energy while doing so.

 

Heat flows from a hot object to a cold object, never the other way around. When we drop a hot peace of metal in a container of cold water, the metal cools and the water heats up until their temperatures have equalized. During this process the entropy, the randomness of the system consisting of the water and the metal, increases and no further useful work can be performed because there is no longer a temperature differential between the water and the metal: The system has become randomized.

 

This manifestation of the Second Law can be stated quite simply: Heat energy will not flow from a cooler to a warmer body. It would be foolish to try to warm our hands on a block of ice although there is considerable heat in the ice. If we compare the heat of ice with the heat of liquid hydrogen, ice would appear to be very hot, indeed. It would be easy to build a machine that runs on the heat differential between the cold block of ice and the much colder liquid hydrogen. However, since the heat in the ice is at a much lower level than the heat in our body, heat cannot flow from the ice to our hands. We cannot warm our hands by immersing them in ice. We have always known this fact. Now we know why we cannot warm our hand by touching a block of ice.

 

Bridges and buildings will inevitably collapse, unless entropy is counteracted by the addition of new energy, such as money, energy, power or labor, to the system. If we do not paint the bridge, it will eventually, but inevitably, collapse.

 

Money is not energy but it represents energy. Therefore, money becomes randomized automatically, in compliance with the Second Law. As we only know too well, money has a distinct tendency to dissipate, to randomize. On the other hand, the creation of wealth requires an infusion of energy from a source outside the system, such as a competent strategy or the contribution of additional capital or labor.

 

We know empirically, that things do not organize themselves into artifacts that are more complex unless new energy is inserted from outside the system. This fact is obvious because a broken window will not repair itself. Without competent management, without the energy to organize and structure transactions, a business will fail, a victim of entropy.

 

Without new software, without the infusion of new energy from outside the computer system, a computer will never acquire new capabilities, but its hard-drive will fill up with defects and clutter due to the degeneration of the data it holds. A well known fact.

 

The Second Law of Thermodynamics is closely interwoven with the future of the universe and with all life on earth. Sometimes people say that the existence of life on earth violates or contradicts the Second Law. However, this is not the case; we know of nothing in the universe that violates the Second Law.

 

The definition of life revolves around three prerequisites: The organism must be able to replicate itself, the organism must be capable of energy conversion and the organism must be subject to evolution. The essence of evolution is an increase in complexity, as is obvious when we consider the evolution of living organisms over eons of time.

 

An increase in complexity entails an increase in the orderliness of the organizational character of the organism: Life represents a decrease of entropy, a decrease of randomness. Such a decrease in randomization can only come about as a result of an infusion of energy from the outside of the closed system, from the outside of the organism. Therefore, the ability to utilize energy by converting it to a usable form, is the essence of all things that we call alive or living. In the case of life on earth, the outside energy is derived from the sun. No sunlight, no life on earth.

 

This is the chain of life on earth: No energy, no evolution. -- No evolution, no life -- No energy, no life

 

The discussion of energy is significant, because nothing happens in the universe without energy. The whole universe is a cauldron of energy conversions. As far as human beings are concerned, we need to remember that the standard of living of a person or a nation is determined primarily by the availability of usable energy sources, such as oil or nuclear energy. Without sources of energy to turn our wheels and to compensate for entropy, humanity would revert to the primeval existence of hunters and gatherers.

 

Many people have trouble understanding the principle of entropy because it is a concept of negatives, because it is a measure of the disorder, of the randomness of a closed system. Every biochemical function requires a decrease in entropy, which can only be achieved by the infusion of energy into a life-sustaining system.

 

Many people erroneously believe that everything that we use up can be recycled and reused if we only develop the appropriate technology. However, the Second Law makes it inherently impossible to achieve complete reconstitution or recycling. In order to recycle a used product, we must insert additional energy in the collecting, transportation and reprocessing of used materials and this energy expenditure contributes to the overall entropy, the randomness, of the environment. Thus, discards can be recycled only by the expenditure of additional energy and at the expense of increasing the entropy of the universe as a whole. On a light note: Every time someone lights a cigarette, he increases the entropy of the universe and contributes to the energy death of the universe.

 

Why is this discussion of entropy and the Second Law so important to us, to ordinary human beings? After all, most of us are more concerned with living a happy life, than the heat death of the universe. The problem is that the Second Law has a tendency to interfere with our happiness because it has a pervasive, pernicious effect on our lives. It is imperative that we are aware of the impairments caused by entropy in order to counteract them effectively.

 

If we encounter a problem in life, it is most important to be fully cognizant of the precise nature and cause of the problem. In trying to resolve the problem, it would be counter-productive to invoke the help of imagined superior beings, instead of dealing with the problem in a realistic, purposeful manner. Unless we understand the nature of entropy, we cannot resolve the deleterious effects that make it difficult to achieve desired results. Therefore, a profound knowledge of the Second Law is extremely important to our quest for happiness.

 

"Murphy's Law" is well known. After allowing for many humorous embellishments and variations on the basic theme, Mr. Murphy’s proposition states: "Anything that can go wrong will go wrong." A corollary version claims: "Left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse".

 

We laugh about this aspect of life because we have all experienced the effect of Mr. Murphy's Law on many occasions. Rather than recognize Murphy's Law as a humorous version of a basic law of nature, we usually look upon it as a quirk of nature. Nothing could be further from the truth: When we look at the Second Law of Thermodynamics, we realize that Mr. Murphy's law is an inescapable consequence of the principle of Entropy.

 

Unless we constantly insert new energy into a house by maintaining it, painting it, repairing it, the structure will eventually but inevitably be leveled to the ground. Its molecules will move from a lower level of randomization, from structure, to a higher level of randomization, towards unstructured debris.

 

Entropy is the reason why paint peels, why hot coffee turns cold. Furthermore, entropy is the reason why investments have a preordained inclination to go sour -- unless we enhance success by inserting into the investment system additional energy in the form of strategy, work, calculated risk or other forms of energy. Entropy ensures that sugar, which becomes more randomized when it is dissolved in water, will not reconstitute itself in the crystalline form -- unless we apply heat energy from outside the system and evaporate the water.

 

Wherever we look, whatever we do, we must be acutely aware of the immutable laws of thermodynamics, especially the easily overlooked Second Law: Entropy. This fundamental law of physics ranks with other fundamental manifestations of the universe such as gravity, time and electromagnetism.

 

Anything that can go wrong not only will go wrong, it must go wrong, as decreed by the Second Law of Thermodynamics

 

www.rationality.net/entropy.htm

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The North American Aviation P-51 Mustang was an American long-range, single-seat fighter and fighter-bomber used during World War II, the Korean War and other conflicts. The Mustang was conceived, designed and built by North American Aviation (NAA) in response to a specification issued directly to NAA by the British Purchasing Commission. The prototype NA-73X airframe was rolled out on 9 September 1940, 102 days after the contract was signed and, with an engine installed, first flew on 26 October. The Mustang was originally designed to use the Allison V-1710 engine, which had limited high-altitude performance. It was first flown operationally by the Royal Air Force (RAF) as a tactical-reconnaissance aircraft and fighter-bomber (Mustang Mk I). The addition of the Rolls-Royce Merlin to the P-51B/C model transformed the Mustang's performance at altitudes above 15,000 ft, matching or bettering that of the Luftwaffe's fighters. The definitive version, the P-51D, was powered by the Packard V-1650-7, a license-built version of the Rolls-Royce Merlin 60 series two-stage two-speed supercharged engine, and armed with six .50 caliber (12.7 mm) M2 Browning machine guns. From late 1943, P-51Bs (supplemented by P-51Ds from mid-1944) were used by the USAAF's Eighth Air Force to escort bombers in raids over Germany, while the RAF's 2 TAF and the USAAF's Ninth Air Force used the Merlin-powered Mustangs as fighter-bombers, roles in which the Mustang helped ensure Allied air superiority in 1944. The P-51 was also in service with Allied air forces in the North African, Mediterranean and Italian theaters, and saw limited service against the Japanese in the Pacific War. During World War II, Mustang pilots claimed 4,950 enemy aircraft shot down. At the start of the Korean War, the Mustang was the main fighter of the United Nations until jet fighters such as the F-86 took over this role; the Mustang then became a specialized fighter-bomber. Despite the advent of jet fighters, the Mustang remained in service with some air forces until the early 1980s. After World War II and the Korean War, many Mustangs were converted for civilian use, especially air racing, and increasingly, preserved and flown as historic warbird aircraft at airshows. In April 1938, shortly after the German Anschluss of Austria, the British government established a purchasing commission in the United States, headed by Sir Henry Self. Self was given overall responsibility for Royal Air Force (RAF) production and research and development, and also served with Sir Wilfrid Freeman, the "Air Member for Development and Production". Self also sat on the British Air Council Sub-committee on Supply (or "Supply Committee") and one of his tasks was to organize the manufacturing and supply of American fighter aircraft for the RAF. At the time, the choice was very limited, as no U.S. aircraft then in production or flying met European standards, with only the Curtiss P-40 Tomahawk coming close. The Curtiss-Wright plant was running at capacity, so P-40s were in short supply. North American Aviation (NAA) was already supplying its Harvard trainer to the RAF, but was otherwise underutilized. NAA President "Dutch" Kindelberger approached Self to sell a new medium bomber, the B-25 Mitchell. Instead, Self asked if NAA could manufacture the Tomahawk under license from Curtiss. Kindelberger said NAA could have a better aircraft with the same engine in the air sooner than establishing a production line for the P-40. The Commission stipulated armament of four .303 in (7.7 mm) machine guns, the Allison V-1710 liquid-cooled engine, a unit cost of no more than $40,000, and delivery of the first production aircraft by January 1941. In March 1940, 320 aircraft were ordered by Sir Wilfred Freeman who had become the executive head of Ministry of Aircraft Production (MAP), and the contract was promulgated on 24 April. The NA-73X, which was designed by a team led by lead engineer Edgar Schmued, followed the best conventional practice of the era, but included several new features. One was a wing designed using laminar flow airfoils which were developed co-operatively by North American Aviation and the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). These airfoils generated very low drag at high speeds. During the development of the NA-73X, a wind tunnel test of two wings, one using NACA 5-digit airfoils and the other using the new NAA/NACA 45–100 airfoils, was performed in the University of Washington Kirsten Wind Tunnel. The results of this test showed the superiority of the wing designed with the NAA/NACA 45–100 airfoils. The other feature was a new radiator design that exploited the "Meredith Effect", in which heated air exited the radiator as a slight amount of jet thrust. Because NAA lacked a suitable wind tunnel to test this feature, it used the GALCIT 10 ft (3.0 m) wind tunnel at Caltech. This led to some controversy over whether the Mustang's cooling system aerodynamics were developed by NAA's engineer Edgar Schmued or by Curtiss, although NAA had purchased the complete set of P-40 and XP-46 wind tunnel data and flight test reports for US$56,000. The NA-73X was also one of the first aircraft to have a fuselage lofted mathematically using conic sections; this resulted in the aircraft's fuselage having smooth, low drag surfaces. To aid production, the airframe was divided into five main sections—forward, center, rear fuselage and two wing halves — all of which were fitted with wiring and piping before being joined. The prototype NA-73X was rolled out in September 1940 and first flew on 26 October 1940, respectively 102 and 149 days after the order had been placed, an uncommonly short gestation period. The prototype handled well and accommodated an impressive fuel load. The aircraft's two-section, semi-monocoque fuselage was constructed entirely of aluminum to save weight. It was armed with four .30 in (7.62 mm) M1919 Browning machine guns, two in the wings and two mounted under the engine and firing through the propeller arc using gun synchronizing gear. While the United States Army Air Corps (USAAC) could block any sales it considered detrimental to the interests of the US, the NA-73 was considered to be a special case because it had been designed at the behest of the British. In September 1940. a further 300 NA-73s were ordered by MAP. To ensure uninterrupted delivery Colonel Oliver P. Echols arranged with the Anglo-French Purchasing Commission to deliver the aircraft, and NAA gave two examples (41-038 and 41-039) to the USAAC for evaluation.

 

"From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia" !

 

Photographer: P H Jauncey. PAColl-1296-2-07. Lucy Taylor photographs relating to Wellington Girls’ College, Alexander Turnbull Library

 

An expanded version was published in FishHead magazine, January 2014.

 

Here we are at the Wellington Girls’ College in Thorndon. It is Parents’ Day, 1927, and the girls are giving a demonstration of Swedish drill. This particular move was called the halfway side falling position and was designed to strengthen the side muscles. An instruction booklet of the time stresses that it should be done without bending the knees or letting the hips sink. The girls seem very proficient.

 

By the 1920s Swedish drill was seen as the state-of-the-art in girls’ physical education. The flexing, lunging and balancing movements are not dissimilar to some exercise programmes today, and the loose tunics worn here were certainly an improvement on the restrictive clothing these girls’ mothers would have had to wear for any outdoor activity.

 

Less modern was the strict regimentation. In the years between the wars such military-like manoeuvrings were a popular part of organised activity for the young. In the same year as this photograph was taken, the outdoor highlight for many Wellington school children was a tightly choreographed welcome to the Duke of York at Newtown Park. Theyformed themselves into a living union jack. Other examples of uniformed mass choreography for young people included the uniquely New Zealand phenomenon of marching girls that emerged in the 1930s.

 

Mrs Taylor, the head of the College’s physical training programme, was an innovator, though. In particular she ignored some of her how-to-do-drill textbooks and enjoyed mixing her Swedish drill instruction with music and dance.

 

The girls in this photograph no doubt also took part in one of the highlights of the school year – Mrs Taylor’s annual “gymnastic display.” In 1927 it was at the Opera House. In addition to Swedish drill, the newspaper advertisements promised “Lantern marching, Cymbals, Wands, Poi Dances, Spanish Dances, Thunder, Rain and Frost,” all of which were ambitiously worked into a “Fairy Folk Tales of the Maori” theme, based on James Cowan’s recently published children’s book of the same name.

 

Go to this image's record

 

Read a review of the Opera House gymnastic display

 

Wellingtonians: From the Turnbull Collections contains a selection of the entries from this Flickr set, and some new ones too. This high-quality publication costs just $29.99. You can pick it up at good bookshops or from the publisher, Steele Roberts.

Ganesha, also spelled Ganesh, and also known as Ganapati and Vinayaka, is a widely worshipped deity in the Hindu pantheon. His image is found throughout India and Nepal. Hindu sects worship him regardless of affiliations. Devotion to Ganesha is widely diffused and extends to Jains, Buddhists, and beyond India.

 

Although he is known by many attributes, Ganesha's elephant head makes him easy to identify. Ganesha is widely revered as the remover of obstacles, the patron of arts and sciences and the deva of intellect and wisdom. As the god of beginnings, he is honoured at the start of rituals and ceremonies. Ganesha is also invoked as patron of letters and learning during writing sessions. Several texts relate mythological anecdotes associated with his birth and exploits and explain his distinct iconography.

 

Ganesha emerged as a distinct deity in the 4th and 5th centuries CE, during the Gupta Period, although he inherited traits from Vedic and pre-Vedic precursors. He was formally included among the five primary deities of Smartism (a Hindu denomination) in the 9th century. A sect of devotees called the Ganapatya arose, who identified Ganesha as the supreme deity. The principal scriptures dedicated to Ganesha are the Ganesha Purana, the Mudgala Purana, and the Ganapati Atharvashirsa.

 

ETYMOLOGY AND OTHER NAMES

Ganesha has been ascribed many other titles and epithets, including Ganapati and Vighneshvara. The Hindu title of respect Shri is often added before his name. One popular way Ganesha is worshipped is by chanting a Ganesha Sahasranama, a litany of "a thousand names of Ganesha". Each name in the sahasranama conveys a different meaning and symbolises a different aspect of Ganesha. At least two different versions of the Ganesha Sahasranama exist; one version is drawn from the Ganesha Purana, a Hindu scripture venerating Ganesha.

 

The name Ganesha is a Sanskrit compound, joining the words gana, meaning a group, multitude, or categorical system and isha, meaning lord or master. The word gaņa when associated with Ganesha is often taken to refer to the gaņas, a troop of semi-divine beings that form part of the retinue of Shiva. The term more generally means a category, class, community, association, or corporation. Some commentators interpret the name "Lord of the Gaņas" to mean "Lord of Hosts" or "Lord of created categories", such as the elements. Ganapati, a synonym for Ganesha, is a compound composed of gaṇa, meaning "group", and pati, meaning "ruler" or "lord". The Amarakosha, an early Sanskrit lexicon, lists eight synonyms of Ganesha : Vinayaka, Vighnarāja (equivalent to Vighnesha), Dvaimātura (one who has two mothers), Gaṇādhipa (equivalent to Ganapati and Ganesha), Ekadanta (one who has one tusk), Heramba, Lambodara (one who has a pot belly, or, literally, one who has a hanging belly), and Gajanana; having the face of an elephant).

 

Vinayaka is a common name for Ganesha that appears in the Purāṇas and in Buddhist Tantras. This name is reflected in the naming of the eight famous Ganesha temples in Maharashtra known as the Ashtavinayak (aṣṭavināyaka). The names Vighnesha and Vighneshvara (Lord of Obstacles) refers to his primary function in Hindu theology as the master and remover of obstacles (vighna).

 

A prominent name for Ganesha in the Tamil language is Pillai. A. K. Narain differentiates these terms by saying that pillai means a "child" while pillaiyar means a "noble child". He adds that the words pallu, pella, and pell in the Dravidian family of languages signify "tooth or tusk", also "elephant tooth or tusk". Anita Raina Thapan notes that the root word pille in the name Pillaiyar might have originally meant "the young of the elephant", because the Pali word pillaka means "a young elephant".

 

In the Burmese language, Ganesha is known as Maha Peinne, derived from Pali Mahā Wināyaka. The widespread name of Ganesha in Thailand is Phra Phikhanet or Phra Phikhanesuan, both of which are derived from Vara Vighnesha and Vara Vighneshvara respectively, whereas the name Khanet (from Ganesha) is rather rare.

 

In Sri Lanka, in the North-Central and North Western areas with predominantly Buddhist population, Ganesha is known as Aiyanayaka Deviyo, while in other Singhala Buddhist areas he is known as Gana deviyo.

 

ICONOGRAPHY

Ganesha is a popular figure in Indian art. Unlike those of some deities, representations of Ganesha show wide variations and distinct patterns changing over time. He may be portrayed standing, dancing, heroically taking action against demons, playing with his family as a boy, sitting down or on an elevated seat, or engaging in a range of contemporary situations.

 

Ganesha images were prevalent in many parts of India by the 6th century. The 13th century statue pictured is typical of Ganesha statuary from 900–1200, after Ganesha had been well-established as an independent deity with his own sect. This example features some of Ganesha's common iconographic elements. A virtually identical statue has been dated between 973–1200 by Paul Martin-Dubost, and another similar statue is dated c. 12th century by Pratapaditya Pal. Ganesha has the head of an elephant and a big belly. This statue has four arms, which is common in depictions of Ganesha. He holds his own broken tusk in his lower-right hand and holds a delicacy, which he samples with his trunk, in his lower-left hand. The motif of Ganesha turning his trunk sharply to his left to taste a sweet in his lower-left hand is a particularly archaic feature. A more primitive statue in one of the Ellora Caves with this general form has been dated to the 7th century. Details of the other hands are difficult to make out on the statue shown. In the standard configuration, Ganesha typically holds an axe or a goad in one upper arm and a pasha (noose) in the other upper arm.

 

The influence of this old constellation of iconographic elements can still be seen in contemporary representations of Ganesha. In one modern form, the only variation from these old elements is that the lower-right hand does not hold the broken tusk but is turned towards the viewer in a gesture of protection or fearlessness (abhaya mudra). The same combination of four arms and attributes occurs in statues of Ganesha dancing, which is a very popular theme.

 

COMMON ATTRIBUTES

Ganesha has been represented with the head of an elephant since the early stages of his appearance in Indian art. Puranic myths provide many explanations for how he got his elephant head. One of his popular forms, Heramba-Ganapati, has five elephant heads, and other less-common variations in the number of heads are known. While some texts say that Ganesha was born with an elephant head, he acquires the head later in most stories. The most recurrent motif in these stories is that Ganesha was created by Parvati using clay to protect her and Shiva beheaded him when Ganesha came between Shiva and Parvati. Shiva then replaced Ganesha's original head with that of an elephant. Details of the battle and where the replacement head came from vary from source to source. Another story says that Ganesha was created directly by Shiva's laughter. Because Shiva considered Ganesha too alluring, he gave him the head of an elephant and a protruding belly.

 

Ganesha's earliest name was Ekadanta (One Tusked), referring to his single whole tusk, the other being broken. Some of the earliest images of Ganesha show him holding his broken tusk. The importance of this distinctive feature is reflected in the Mudgala Purana, which states that the name of Ganesha's second incarnation is Ekadanta. Ganesha's protruding belly appears as a distinctive attribute in his earliest statuary, which dates to the Gupta period (4th to 6th centuries). This feature is so important that, according to the Mudgala Purana, two different incarnations of Ganesha use names based on it: Lambodara (Pot Belly, or, literally, Hanging Belly) and Mahodara (Great Belly). Both names are Sanskrit compounds describing his belly. The Brahmanda Purana says that Ganesha has the name Lambodara because all the universes (i.e., cosmic eggs) of the past, present, and future are present in him. The number of Ganesha's arms varies; his best-known forms have between two and sixteen arms. Many depictions of Ganesha feature four arms, which is mentioned in Puranic sources and codified as a standard form in some iconographic texts. His earliest images had two arms. Forms with 14 and 20 arms appeared in Central India during the 9th and the 10th centuries. The serpent is a common feature in Ganesha iconography and appears in many forms. According to the Ganesha Purana, Ganesha wrapped the serpent Vasuki around his neck. Other depictions of snakes include use as a sacred thread wrapped around the stomach as a belt, held in a hand, coiled at the ankles, or as a throne. Upon Ganesha's forehead may be a third eye or the Shaivite sectarian mark , which consists of three horizontal lines. The Ganesha Purana prescribes a tilaka mark as well as a crescent moon on the forehead. A distinct form of Ganesha called Bhalachandra includes that iconographic element. Ganesha is often described as red in color. Specific colors are associated with certain forms. Many examples of color associations with specific meditation forms are prescribed in the Sritattvanidhi, a treatise on Hindu iconography. For example, white is associated with his representations as Heramba-Ganapati and Rina-Mochana-Ganapati (Ganapati Who Releases from Bondage). Ekadanta-Ganapati is visualized as blue during meditation in that form.

 

VAHANAS

The earliest Ganesha images are without a vahana (mount/vehicle). Of the eight incarnations of Ganesha described in the Mudgala Purana, Ganesha uses a mouse (shrew) in five of them, a lion in his incarnation as Vakratunda, a peacock in his incarnation as Vikata, and Shesha, the divine serpent, in his incarnation as Vighnaraja. Mohotkata uses a lion, Mayūreśvara uses a peacock, Dhumraketu uses a horse, and Gajanana uses a mouse, in the four incarnations of Ganesha listed in the Ganesha Purana. Jain depictions of Ganesha show his vahana variously as a mouse, elephant, tortoise, ram, or peacock.

 

Ganesha is often shown riding on or attended by a mouse, shrew or rat. Martin-Dubost says that the rat began to appear as the principal vehicle in sculptures of Ganesha in central and western India during the 7th century; the rat was always placed close to his feet. The mouse as a mount first appears in written sources in the Matsya Purana and later in the Brahmananda Purana and Ganesha Purana, where Ganesha uses it as his vehicle in his last incarnation. The Ganapati Atharvashirsa includes a meditation verse on Ganesha that describes the mouse appearing on his flag. The names Mūṣakavāhana (mouse-mount) and Ākhuketana (rat-banner) appear in the Ganesha Sahasranama.

 

The mouse is interpreted in several ways. According to Grimes, "Many, if not most of those who interpret Gaṇapati's mouse, do so negatively; it symbolizes tamoguṇa as well as desire". Along these lines, Michael Wilcockson says it symbolizes those who wish to overcome desires and be less selfish. Krishan notes that the rat is destructive and a menace to crops. The Sanskrit word mūṣaka (mouse) is derived from the root mūṣ (stealing, robbing). It was essential to subdue the rat as a destructive pest, a type of vighna (impediment) that needed to be overcome. According to this theory, showing Ganesha as master of the rat demonstrates his function as Vigneshvara (Lord of Obstacles) and gives evidence of his possible role as a folk grāma-devatā (village deity) who later rose to greater prominence. Martin-Dubost notes a view that the rat is a symbol suggesting that Ganesha, like the rat, penetrates even the most secret places.

 

ASSOCIATIONS

 

OBSTACLES

Ganesha is Vighneshvara or Vighnaraja or Vighnaharta (Marathi), the Lord of Obstacles, both of a material and spiritual order. He is popularly worshipped as a remover of obstacles, though traditionally he also places obstacles in the path of those who need to be checked. Paul Courtright says that "his task in the divine scheme of things, his dharma, is to place and remove obstacles. It is his particular territory, the reason for his creation."

 

Krishan notes that some of Ganesha's names reflect shadings of multiple roles that have evolved over time. Dhavalikar ascribes the quick ascension of Ganesha in the Hindu pantheon, and the emergence of the Ganapatyas, to this shift in emphasis from vighnakartā (obstacle-creator) to vighnahartā (obstacle-averter). However, both functions continue to be vital to his character.

 

BUDDHI (KNOWLEDGE)

Ganesha is considered to be the Lord of letters and learning. In Sanskrit, the word buddhi is a feminine noun that is variously translated as intelligence, wisdom, or intellect. The concept of buddhi is closely associated with the personality of Ganesha, especially in the Puranic period, when many stories stress his cleverness and love of intelligence. One of Ganesha's names in the Ganesha Purana and the Ganesha Sahasranama is Buddhipriya. This name also appears in a list of 21 names at the end of the Ganesha Sahasranama that Ganesha says are especially important. The word priya can mean "fond of", and in a marital context it can mean "lover" or "husband", so the name may mean either "Fond of Intelligence" or "Buddhi's Husband".

 

AUM

Ganesha is identified with the Hindu mantra Aum, also spelled Om. The term oṃkārasvarūpa (Aum is his form), when identified with Ganesha, refers to the notion that he personifies the primal sound. The Ganapati Atharvashirsa attests to this association. Chinmayananda translates the relevant passage as follows:

 

(O Lord Ganapati!) You are (the Trinity) Brahma, Vishnu, and Mahesa. You are Indra. You are fire [Agni] and air [Vāyu]. You are the sun [Sūrya] and the moon [Chandrama]. You are Brahman. You are (the three worlds) Bhuloka [earth], Antariksha-loka [space], and Swargaloka [heaven]. You are Om. (That is to say, You are all this).

 

Some devotees see similarities between the shape of Ganesha's body in iconography and the shape of Aum in the Devanāgarī and Tamil scripts.

 

FIRST CHAKRA

According to Kundalini yoga, Ganesha resides in the first chakra, called Muladhara (mūlādhāra). Mula means "original, main"; adhara means "base, foundation". The muladhara chakra is the principle on which the manifestation or outward expansion of primordial Divine Force rests. This association is also attested to in the Ganapati Atharvashirsa. Courtright translates this passage as follows: "[O Ganesha,] You continually dwell in the sacral plexus at the base of the spine [mūlādhāra cakra]." Thus, Ganesha has a permanent abode in every being at the Muladhara. Ganesha holds, supports and guides all other chakras, thereby "governing the forces that propel the wheel of life".

 

FAMILY AND CONSORTS

Though Ganesha is popularly held to be the son of Shiva and Parvati, the Puranic myths give different versions about his birth. In some he was created by Parvati, in another he was created by Shiva and Parvati, in another he appeared mysteriously and was discovered by Shiva and Parvati or he was born from the elephant headed goddess Malini after she drank Parvati's bath water that had been thrown in the river.

 

The family includes his brother the war god Kartikeya, who is also called Subramanya, Skanda, Murugan and other names. Regional differences dictate the order of their births. In northern India, Skanda is generally said to be the elder, while in the south, Ganesha is considered the first born. In northern India, Skanda was an important martial deity from about 500 BCE to about 600 CE, when worship of him declined significantly in northern India. As Skanda fell, Ganesha rose. Several stories tell of sibling rivalry between the brothers and may reflect sectarian tensions.

 

Ganesha's marital status, the subject of considerable scholarly review, varies widely in mythological stories. One pattern of myths identifies Ganesha as an unmarried brahmacari. This view is common in southern India and parts of northern India. Another pattern associates him with the concepts of Buddhi (intellect), Siddhi (spiritual power), and Riddhi (prosperity); these qualities are sometimes personified as goddesses, said to be Ganesha's wives. He also may be shown with a single consort or a nameless servant (Sanskrit: daşi). Another pattern connects Ganesha with the goddess of culture and the arts, Sarasvati or Śarda (particularly in Maharashtra). He is also associated with the goddess of luck and prosperity, Lakshmi. Another pattern, mainly prevalent in the Bengal region, links Ganesha with the banana tree, Kala Bo.

 

The Shiva Purana says that Ganesha had begotten two sons: Kşema (prosperity) and Lābha (profit). In northern Indian variants of this story, the sons are often said to be Śubha (auspiciouness) and Lābha. The 1975 Hindi film Jai Santoshi Maa shows Ganesha married to Riddhi and Siddhi and having a daughter named Santoshi Ma, the goddess of satisfaction. This story has no Puranic basis, but Anita Raina Thapan and Lawrence Cohen cite Santoshi Ma's cult as evidence of Ganesha's continuing evolution as a popular deity.

 

WOSHIP AND FESTIVALS

Ganesha is worshipped on many religious and secular occasions; especially at the beginning of ventures such as buying a vehicle or starting a business. K.N. Somayaji says, "there can hardly be a [Hindu] home [in India] which does not house an idol of Ganapati. [..] Ganapati, being the most popular deity in India, is worshipped by almost all castes and in all parts of the country". Devotees believe that if Ganesha is propitiated, he grants success, prosperity and protection against adversity.

 

Ganesha is a non-sectarian deity, and Hindus of all denominations invoke him at the beginning of prayers, important undertakings, and religious ceremonies. Dancers and musicians, particularly in southern India, begin performances of arts such as the Bharatnatyam dance with a prayer to Ganesha. Mantras such as Om Shri Gaṇeshāya Namah (Om, salutation to the Illustrious Ganesha) are often used. One of the most famous mantras associated with Ganesha is Om Gaṃ Ganapataye Namah (Om, Gaṃ, Salutation to the Lord of Hosts).

 

Devotees offer Ganesha sweets such as modaka and small sweet balls (laddus). He is often shown carrying a bowl of sweets, called a modakapātra. Because of his identification with the color red, he is often worshipped with red sandalwood paste (raktacandana) or red flowers. Dūrvā grass (Cynodon dactylon) and other materials are also used in his worship.

 

Festivals associated with Ganesh are Ganesh Chaturthi or Vināyaka chaturthī in the śuklapakṣa (the fourth day of the waxing moon) in the month of bhādrapada (August/September) and the Gaṇeśa jayanti (Gaṇeśa's birthday) celebrated on the cathurthī of the śuklapakṣa (fourth day of the waxing moon) in the month of māgha (January/February)."

 

GANESH CHATURTI

An annual festival honours Ganesha for ten days, starting on Ganesha Chaturthi, which typically falls in late August or early September. The festival begins with people bringing in clay idols of Ganesha, symbolising Ganesha's visit. The festival culminates on the day of Ananta Chaturdashi, when idols (murtis) of Ganesha are immersed in the most convenient body of water. Some families have a tradition of immersion on the 2nd, 3rd, 5th, or 7th day. In 1893, Lokmanya Tilak transformed this annual Ganesha festival from private family celebrations into a grand public event. He did so "to bridge the gap between the Brahmins and the non-Brahmins and find an appropriate context in which to build a new grassroots unity between them" in his nationalistic strivings against the British in Maharashtra. Because of Ganesha's wide appeal as "the god for Everyman", Tilak chose him as a rallying point for Indian protest against British rule. Tilak was the first to install large public images of Ganesha in pavilions, and he established the practice of submerging all the public images on the tenth day. Today, Hindus across India celebrate the Ganapati festival with great fervour, though it is most popular in the state of Maharashtra. The festival also assumes huge proportions in Mumbai, Pune, and in the surrounding belt of Ashtavinayaka temples.

 

TEMPLES

In Hindu temples, Ganesha is depicted in various ways: as an acolyte or subordinate deity (pãrśva-devatã); as a deity related to the principal deity (parivāra-devatã); or as the principal deity of the temple (pradhāna), treated similarly as the highest gods of the Hindu pantheon. As the god of transitions, he is placed at the doorway of many Hindu temples to keep out the unworthy, which is analogous to his role as Parvati’s doorkeeper. In addition, several shrines are dedicated to Ganesha himself, of which the Ashtavinayak (lit. "eight Ganesha (shrines)") in Maharashtra are particularly well known. Located within a 100-kilometer radius of the city of Pune, each of these eight shrines celebrates a particular form of Ganapati, complete with its own lore and legend. The eight shrines are: Morgaon, Siddhatek, Pali, Mahad, Theur, Lenyadri, Ozar and Ranjangaon.

 

There are many other important Ganesha temples at the following locations: Wai in Maharashtra; Ujjain in Madhya Pradesh; Jodhpur, Nagaur and Raipur (Pali) in Rajasthan; Baidyanath in Bihar; Baroda, Dholaka, and Valsad in Gujarat and Dhundiraj Temple in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh. Prominent Ganesha temples in southern India include the following: Kanipakam in Chittoor; the Jambukeśvara Temple at Tiruchirapalli; at Rameshvaram and Suchindram in Tamil Nadu; at Malliyur, Kottarakara, Pazhavangadi, Kasargod in Kerala, Hampi, and Idagunji in Karnataka; and Bhadrachalam in Andhra Pradesh.

 

T. A. Gopinatha notes, "Every village however small has its own image of Vighneśvara (Vigneshvara) with or without a temple to house it in. At entrances of villages and forts, below pīpaḹa (Sacred fig) trees [...], in a niche [...] in temples of Viṣṇu (Vishnu) as well as Śiva (Shiva) and also in separate shrines specially constructed in Śiva temples [...]; the figure of Vighneśvara is invariably seen." Ganesha temples have also been built outside of India, including southeast Asia, Nepal (including the four Vinayaka shrines in the Kathmandu valley), and in several western countries.

 

RISE TO PROMINENCE

 

FIRST APEARANCE

Ganesha appeared in his classic form as a clearly recognizable deity with well-defined iconographic attributes in the early 4th to 5th centuries. Shanti Lal Nagar says that the earliest known iconic image of Ganesha is in the niche of the Shiva temple at Bhumra, which has been dated to the Gupta period. His independent cult appeared by about the 10th century. Narain summarizes the controversy between devotees and academics regarding the development of Ganesha as follows:

 

What is inscrutable is the somewhat dramatic appearance of Gaņeśa on the historical scene. His antecedents are not clear. His wide acceptance and popularity, which transcend sectarian and territorial limits, are indeed amazing. On the one hand there is the pious belief of the orthodox devotees in Gaņeśa's Vedic origins and in the Purāṇic explanations contained in the confusing, but nonetheless interesting, mythology. On the other hand there are doubts about the existence of the idea and the icon of this deity" before the fourth to fifth century A.D. ... [I]n my opinion, indeed there is no convincing evidence of the existence of this divinity prior to the fifth century.

 

POSSIBLE INFLUENCES

Courtright reviews various speculative theories about the early history of Ganesha, including supposed tribal traditions and animal cults, and dismisses all of them in this way:

 

In the post 600 BC period there is evidence of people and places named after the animal. The motif appears on coins and sculptures.

 

Thapan's book on the development of Ganesha devotes a chapter to speculations about the role elephants had in early India but concludes that, "although by the second century CE the elephant-headed yakṣa form exists it cannot be presumed to represent Gaṇapati-Vināyaka. There is no evidence of a deity by this name having an elephant or elephant-headed form at this early stage. Gaṇapati-Vināyaka had yet to make his debut."

 

One theory of the origin of Ganesha is that he gradually came to prominence in connection with the four Vinayakas (Vināyakas). In Hindu mythology, the Vināyakas were a group of four troublesome demons who created obstacles and difficulties but who were easily propitiated. The name Vināyaka is a common name for Ganesha both in the Purāṇas and in Buddhist Tantras. Krishan is one of the academics who accepts this view, stating flatly of Ganesha, "He is a non-vedic god. His origin is to be traced to the four Vināyakas, evil spirits, of the Mānavagŗhyasūtra (7th–4th century BCE) who cause various types of evil and suffering". Depictions of elephant-headed human figures, which some identify with Ganesha, appear in Indian art and coinage as early as the 2nd century. According to Ellawala, the elephant-headed Ganesha as lord of the Ganas was known to the people of Sri Lanka in the early pre-Christian era.

 

A metal plate depiction of Ganesha had been discovered in 1993, in Iran, it dated back to 1,200 BCE. Another one was discovered much before, in Lorestan Province of Iran.

 

First Ganesha's terracotta images are from 1st century CE found in Ter, Pal, Verrapuram and Chandraketugarh. These figures are small, with elephant head, two arms, and chubby physique. The earliest Ganesha icons in stone were carved in Mathura during Kushan times (2nd-3rd centuries CE).

 

VEDIC AND EPIC LITERATURE

The title "Leader of the group" (Sanskrit: gaṇapati) occurs twice in the Rig Veda, but in neither case does it refer to the modern Ganesha. The term appears in RV 2.23.1 as a title for Brahmanaspati, according to commentators. While this verse doubtless refers to Brahmanaspati, it was later adopted for worship of Ganesha and is still used today. In rejecting any claim that this passage is evidence of Ganesha in the Rig Veda, Ludo Rocher says that it "clearly refers to Bṛhaspati—who is the deity of the hymn—and Bṛhaspati only". Equally clearly, the second passage (RV 10.112.9) refers to Indra, who is given the epithet 'gaṇapati', translated "Lord of the companies (of the Maruts)." However, Rocher notes that the more recent Ganapatya literature often quotes the Rigvedic verses to give Vedic respectability to Ganesha .

 

Two verses in texts belonging to Black Yajurveda, Maitrāyaṇīya Saṃhitā (2.9.1) and Taittirīya Āraṇyaka (10.1), appeal to a deity as "the tusked one" (Dantiḥ), "elephant-faced" (Hastimukha), and "with a curved trunk" (Vakratuņḍa). These names are suggestive of Ganesha, and the 14th century commentator Sayana explicitly establishes this identification. The description of Dantin, possessing a twisted trunk (vakratuṇḍa) and holding a corn-sheaf, a sugar cane, and a club, is so characteristic of the Puranic Ganapati that Heras says "we cannot resist to accept his full identification with this Vedic Dantin". However, Krishan considers these hymns to be post-Vedic additions. Thapan reports that these passages are "generally considered to have been interpolated". Dhavalikar says, "the references to the elephant-headed deity in the Maitrāyaṇī Saṃhitā have been proven to be very late interpolations, and thus are not very helpful for determining the early formation of the deity".

 

Ganesha does not appear in Indian epic literature that is dated to the Vedic period. A late interpolation to the epic poem Mahabharata says that the sage Vyasa (Vyāsa) asked Ganesha to serve as his scribe to transcribe the poem as he dictated it to him. Ganesha agreed but only on condition that Vyasa recite the poem uninterrupted, that is, without pausing. The sage agreed, but found that to get any rest he needed to recite very complex passages so Ganesha would have to ask for clarifications. The story is not accepted as part of the original text by the editors of the critical edition of the Mahabharata, in which the twenty-line story is relegated to a footnote in an appendix. The story of Ganesha acting as the scribe occurs in 37 of the 59 manuscripts consulted during preparation of the critical edition.[174] Ganesha's association with mental agility and learning is one reason he is shown as scribe for Vyāsa's dictation of the Mahabharata in this interpolation. Richard L. Brown dates the story to the 8th century, and Moriz Winternitz concludes that it was known as early as c. 900, but it was not added to the Mahabharata some 150 years later. Winternitz also notes that a distinctive feature in South Indian manuscripts of the Mahabharata is their omission of this Ganesha legend. The term vināyaka is found in some recensions of the Śāntiparva and Anuśāsanaparva that are regarded as interpolations. A reference to Vighnakartṛīṇām ("Creator of Obstacles") in Vanaparva is also believed to be an interpolation and does not appear in the critical edition.

 

PURANIC PERIOD

Stories about Ganesha often occur in the Puranic corpus. Brown notes while the Puranas "defy precise chronological ordering", the more detailed narratives of Ganesha's life are in the late texts, c. 600–1300. Yuvraj Krishan says that the Puranic myths about the birth of Ganesha and how he acquired an elephant's head are in the later Puranas, which were composed from c. 600 onwards. He elaborates on the matter to say that references to Ganesha in the earlier Puranas, such as the Vayu and Brahmanda Puranas, are later interpolations made during the 7th to 10th centuries.

 

In his survey of Ganesha's rise to prominence in Sanskrit literature, Ludo Rocher notes that:

 

Above all, one cannot help being struck by the fact that the numerous stories surrounding Gaṇeśa concentrate on an unexpectedly limited number of incidents. These incidents are mainly three: his birth and parenthood, his elephant head, and his single tusk. Other incidents are touched on in the texts, but to a far lesser extent.

 

Ganesha's rise to prominence was codified in the 9th century, when he was formally included as one of the five primary deities of Smartism. The 9th-century philosopher Adi Shankara popularized the "worship of the five forms" (Panchayatana puja) system among orthodox Brahmins of the Smarta tradition. This worship practice invokes the five deities Ganesha, Vishnu, Shiva, Devi, and Surya. Adi Shankara instituted the tradition primarily to unite the principal deities of these five major sects on an equal status. This formalized the role of Ganesha as a complementary deity.

 

SCRIPTURES

Once Ganesha was accepted as one of the five principal deities of Brahmanism, some Brahmins (brāhmaṇas) chose to worship Ganesha as their principal deity. They developed the Ganapatya tradition, as seen in the Ganesha Purana and the Mudgala Purana.

 

The date of composition for the Ganesha Purana and the Mudgala Purana - and their dating relative to one another - has sparked academic debate. Both works were developed over time and contain age-layered strata. Anita Thapan reviews comments about dating and provides her own judgement. "It seems likely that the core of the Ganesha Purana appeared around the twelfth and thirteenth centuries", she says, "but was later interpolated." Lawrence W. Preston considers the most reasonable date for the Ganesha Purana to be between 1100 and 1400, which coincides with the apparent age of the sacred sites mentioned by the text.

 

R.C. Hazra suggests that the Mudgala Purana is older than the Ganesha Purana, which he dates between 1100 and 1400. However, Phyllis Granoff finds problems with this relative dating and concludes that the Mudgala Purana was the last of the philosophical texts concerned with Ganesha. She bases her reasoning on the fact that, among other internal evidence, the Mudgala Purana specifically mentions the Ganesha Purana as one of the four Puranas (the Brahma, the Brahmanda, the Ganesha, and the Mudgala Puranas) which deal at length with Ganesha. While the kernel of the text must be old, it was interpolated until the 17th and 18th centuries as the worship of Ganapati became more important in certain regions. Another highly regarded scripture, the Ganapati Atharvashirsa, was probably composed during the 16th or 17th centuries.

 

BEYOND INDIA AND HINDUISM

Commercial and cultural contacts extended India's influence in western and southeast Asia. Ganesha is one of a number of Hindu deities who reached foreign lands as a result.

 

Ganesha was particularly worshipped by traders and merchants, who went out of India for commercial ventures. From approximately the 10th century onwards, new networks of exchange developed including the formation of trade guilds and a resurgence of money circulation. During this time, Ganesha became the principal deity associated with traders. The earliest inscription invoking Ganesha before any other deity is associated with the merchant community.

 

Hindus migrated to Maritime Southeast Asia and took their culture, including Ganesha, with them. Statues of Ganesha are found throughout the region, often beside Shiva sanctuaries. The forms of Ganesha found in Hindu art of Java, Bali, and Borneo show specific regional influences. The spread of Hindu culture to southeast Asia established Ganesha in modified forms in Burma, Cambodia, and Thailand. In Indochina, Hinduism and Buddhism were practiced side by side, and mutual influences can be seen in the iconography of Ganesha in the region. In Thailand, Cambodia, and among the Hindu classes of the Chams in Vietnam, Ganesha was mainly thought of as a remover of obstacles. Today in Buddhist Thailand, Ganesha is regarded as a remover of obstacles, the god of success.

 

Before the arrival of Islam, Afghanistan had close cultural ties with India, and the adoration of both Hindu and Buddhist deities was practiced. Examples of sculptures from the 5th to the 7th centuries have survived, suggesting that the worship of Ganesha was then in vogue in the region.

 

Ganesha appears in Mahayana Buddhism, not only in the form of the Buddhist god Vināyaka, but also as a Hindu demon form with the same name. His image appears in Buddhist sculptures during the late Gupta period. As the Buddhist god Vināyaka, he is often shown dancing. This form, called Nṛtta Ganapati, was popular in northern India, later adopted in Nepal, and then in Tibet. In Nepal, the Hindu form of Ganesha, known as Heramba, is popular; he has five heads and rides a lion. Tibetan representations of Ganesha show ambivalent views of him. A Tibetan rendering of Ganapati is tshogs bdag. In one Tibetan form, he is shown being trodden under foot by Mahākāla, (Shiva) a popular Tibetan deity. Other depictions show him as the Destroyer of Obstacles, and sometimes dancing. Ganesha appears in China and Japan in forms that show distinct regional character. In northern China, the earliest known stone statue of Ganesha carries an inscription dated to 531. In Japan, where Ganesha is known as Kangiten, the Ganesha cult was first mentioned in 806.

 

The canonical literature of Jainism does not mention the worship of Ganesha. However, Ganesha is worshipped by most Jains, for whom he appears to have taken over certain functions of Kubera. Jain connections with the trading community support the idea that Jainism took up Ganesha worship as a result of commercial connections. The earliest known Jain Ganesha statue dates to about the 9th century. A 15th-century Jain text lists procedures for the installation of Ganapati images. Images of Ganesha appear in the Jain temples of Rajasthan and Gujarat.

 

WIKIPEDIA

 

Kinetic: Relating to, caused by, or producing motion.

 

These are called “Kinetic” photographs because there is motion, energy, and movement involved, specifically my and the camera’s movements.

 

Most of these are shot outdoors where I have the room to literally spin and throw my little camera several feet up into the air, with some throws going as high as 15 feet or more!

 

None of these are Photoshopped, layered, or a composite photo...what you see occurs in one shot, one take.

 

Aren’t I afraid that I will drop and break my camera? For regular followers of my photostream and this series you will know that I have already done so. This little camera has been dropped many times, and broken once when dropped on concrete outside. It still functions...not so well for regular photographs, but superbly for more kinetic work.

 

Albeit supremely risky this is one of my favorite ways to produce abstract photographs.

 

If you'd like to see more please check out my set, "Vertigo:"

 

www.flickr.com/photos/motorpsiclist/sets/72157630591282642/

 

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To read more about Kinetic Photography click the Wikipedia link below:

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_photography

 

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My photographs and videos and any derivative works are my private property and are copyright © by me, John Russell (aka “Zoom Lens”) and ALL my rights, including my exclusive rights, are reserved. ANY use without my permission in writing is forbidden by law.

 

Uses: Anything relating to finance and money.

 

Free Creative Commons Finance Images... I created these images in my studio and have made them all available for personal or commercial use. Hope you like them and find them useful.

 

To see more of our CC by 2.0 finance images click here... see profile for attribution.

 

Inspiration: Receiving money. Earning money. Investing. Cost of living. Saving money... etc.

 

Maths in neon at Autonomy in Cambridge. This is Bayes's Theorem, relating the probability of A given B to B given A.

 

This image is used on the Philosopher, Psychologist, Plasterer blog paul-david-robinson.com/post/5129596878/the-philosophy-of... in an article "The Philosophy of Physics". It was also used on the Wikipedia article for Bayes Theorem.

 

It was further used on a Spanish blog profeblog.es/blog/luismiglesias/2010/01/02/fotografia-mat...

 

It was later used in a father's blog post about having twin girls - www.bigdansramblings.com/2012/03/30/phases-finding-twin-g... - congratulations mate.

 

It is also used on a blog article about Stanford offering a statistics in medicine course - scopeblog.stanford.edu/2013/05/28/stanford-offers-free-st...

 

And an article "Signal, Noise and Clinical Trials" - lacertabio.com/2013/04/signal-noise-and-clinical-trial-re...

 

And a review of an elementary statistics course. moocnewsandreviews.com/course-review-elementary-statistic...

 

And the front page of a wiki about Probabilistic Programming for Advancing Machine Learning (whatever that is) - ppaml.galois.com/wiki/

 

And an LSE blog post about citations: "A Bayesian approach to the REF: finding the right data on journal articles and citations to inform decision-making." blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2013/12/02/journal...

 

And an Italian site "Rebel Fitness". Not sure why, I assume it just looked mathematical. www.fitnessribelle.it/alimentazione/calcolo-calorie/

 

And a blog about the emotional state of being an entrepreneur - www.ecosystemsandentrepreneurs.com/blog/2015/4/3/the-emot...

 

And a Strangeloop presentation about probability. www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiiWzJE0fEA

 

An article about Bayesian logic in Python. machinelearningmastery.com/naive-bayes-classifier-scratch...

 

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Bayes’s Theorem & Naïve Bayes Classifiers " dem1995.github.io/machine-learning/extra_pages/naive_baye...

Here is another scan and retouch that relates some history... and needs help from Edna to stand up. It was snapped of Katherine at Alice's Wild Basin cabin at the Copeland Lake area, the south end of Rocky Mtn. National Park. Grandmother, Alice, spent every summer at her cabin right near the Wild Basin Lodge. The one-year-old and mother is at the porch steps on the south side of the cabin. The pine is the balsam by the steps in the background that Granny watered regularly. Down the hill, the North St.Vrain River scrambled down the canyon. It was filled with all those trout. Alice kept her fly rod on nails on the porch above. It was quick to grab on her way down to the river. The cabin was ever a mellow place to stay in 1943 and anytime later.

 

Talk about a mellow place to stay, the entire world would like to pack in here this summer as Global Warming ramps up. It snowed on me at Wild Basin one July. Now, at Longmont, the nights are seldom dropping to 60 and below so far. So much for T-Rump's Tirade against the Environment (his TTE - Trade the Environment for cash policy); it's starting to really pay off with rain in the Arctic and state sized bergs calving in the Antarctic.

 

The water supply for the uninsulated cabin was pumped directly from the river when there was no thought about the quality of the water supply. Do I remember something about tumbling streams oxygenating themselves in a 1/4 mile? Nobody ever gave a thought about drinking from the stream that fed Longmont's water supply.

 

As usual, dust on the negative and contact printing left untold flecks, white and black, and garbage across the image. In close, it looks like a shotgun blast. As always, it provides plenty of practice whether needed or not. I used the same two techniques, the Stamp and Brush to work on the image. Unfortunately, the scanner usually features all the defects on old snaps like this. I suppose that it will always be possible that this family will exchange the digital retouching and spread them far enough that my labor won't be entirely wasted.

 

I gang output these to high resolution PDFs that can be printed at home of taken to Fed-X Kinkos for their color printing. I have enough to output another sheet. Their output never seems to waver from the quality of the PDF. Trimming them with scissors, especially the deckle edges, will be a challenge.

  

This self portrait, "In Limbo" relates to how I currently feel about my photography and the photography world overall. I know that it is an irrational fear but sometimes I am terrified that I will not be able to constantly put out meaningful, aesthetically striking, and important work. I don't want to be a one hit wonder. I would love nothing more then to make a career out of my art but I know that the chances are not in my favour. I have to be prepared for that. On the other hand, I wholeheartedly believe that if you follow your passion then everything else will follow. Truth.

 

Fun fact: I'm wearing my friend's bat mitzvah dress aka I have the body of a 12 year old apparently hahaha.

 

Please like my facebook page!

Crowle Manor Terrier 1738 - Nmbers relate to manorial Plan

Uses: Anything relating to finance and money.

 

Free Creative Commons Finance Images... I created these images in my studio and have made them all available for personal or commercial use. Hope you like them and find them useful.

 

To see more of our CC by 2.0 finance images click here... see profile for attribution.

(References:- K. Lal in his book Tarekh e Punjab & The crumbling glory of Sheikhupura Fort by Aown Ali)

 

In West Punjab (now in Pakistan), the town of Sheikhupura (about 35 km west of Lahore) is hailed a center of historically significant architecture.

 

The Hiran Minar (Minaret of the Antelope) and the Sheikhupura Fort make this stop a focal point of interest.

 

The town, now a district headquarters and one of the major industrial cities of Punjab, has grown from a village, originally called “Jahangirpura” when it was settled during the reign of the Mughal emperor, Jahangir, because of its proximity to Hiran Minar, a royal hunting resort.

 

The primary historical importance of the city relates to its Fort. It lays no claim to grandeur. Locally known as Qila Sheikhupura, it has gave its name to the town as well.

 

Construction of the fort began in the second year of Jahangir’s reign (1607). The Tuzuk-i-Jahangiri (autobiography of Jahangir) mentions that the emperor assigned the job of constructing a fort at that location to Sikandar Moeen during a hunting trip to Hiran Minar.

 

The two centuries that followed were mostly uneventful for the Fort. Neither a seat of government nor a target for invaders, it remained but a halt for imperial entourages heading on pleasure trips to Kashmir in the north, or towards Kabul in the west.

 

The Fort’s political importance did not emerge until the establishment of the Sikh Empire at the end of the 18th century.

 

A veteran historian and archeologist, Ihsan H. Nadiem, tells us that immediately before the consolidation of Punjab under the Sikhs, the Fort served as a convenient place for robbers looting the countryside.

 

The Durrani king, Shah Zaman, during his invasion of Lahore in 1797, briefly besieged the Fort, but only to purge it of the robbers. Soon after his departure, the Fort was once again occupied by the highwaymen.

 

Shortly thereafter, Lehna Singh Majithia (who also served as the Governor of Lahore. The son of General Lehna Singh, Sardar Dyal Singh, was perhaps the most significant Punjabi of the late 19th century in the British Punjab. He was the main force behind the founding of Punjab University), an ally of Ranjit Singh, invaded the fort and took occupation. After him, its ownership passed on to Bhai Singh, followed by Sahib Singh and Sahai Singh in 1808, at which point Ranjit Singh marched upon it and caused its surrender.

 

This whole story of Sheikhupura raid wrote by Hindu writer K. Lal in his book Tarekh e Punjab (Page 196-197) and it is as under:

 

“Mahraja Ranjeet was busy in handling state affairs, in the meantime a group of farmers belong to Sheikhpura came to his door, they wanted to seek help against brutal Sikh rulers Sardar Arbel Singh & Sardar Ameer Singh. These Sardars had occupied the Sheikhupura fort and land, there army looting common people up to that level that they were dying of hunger. That group of farmer said the people of Sheikhupura accepted the over lordship of the Maharaja and requested to take their territory under Mahraja rule and control to protect them from these two brutal Sardars.

Mahraja accepted the request and assigned his eldest son, the crown prince, Kharak Singh for Sheikhupura fort Campaign. He reached Sheikhupura; he has four thousand army troops and support of one Cannon artillery.

Sheikhupura fort was very well constructed with strong fortified walls, Mahraja himself selected best cannons from his cannon yard for this campaign and also assign one of his best army officer Sardar Hakma Singh for assisting Crown prince Kharak Singh in this campaign.

When this troop reached Sheikhupura, Crown Prince Kharak Singh called both the ruling Sardar’s to him, but instead of appearing in front of Prince they have further fortified the fort and get ready for war.

The Prince first sieges the fort and then orders Canon artillery to start fire on fort walls. The fort walls were strongly fortified and hold the Cannon artillery attack for days.

This result less campaign made Prince to think if he wanted to win this fight he has to reinforce his troops and artillery as well. For that purpose he wrote for help to his father Mahraja Ranjit Singh. When Maharaja saw this letter he got angry, he ordered to send biggest cannon of his artillery the Ahmad Shahi Gun. Which he forcefully took from Saheb Singh Guajarati)

(Ahmad Shahi Gun also known as zamzama gun…, The Zamzama Gun is a large bore cannon. It is also known as Kim’s Gun or Bhangianwali Taop. It was cast in 1757 in Lahore. At that time Lahore was a part of the Durrani Empire. The gun was used by Ahmed Shah in the battle of Panipat in 1761. In 1802, Ranjit Singh got hold of the gun and used it in the battles of Daska, Kasur, Sujanpur, Wazirabad and Multan. In the siege of Multan, the gun was badly damaged. It is currently on display in front of the Lahore Museum at The Mall Road, Lahore.)

The Maharaja also reached the Sheikhupura Fort with fresh troops and again the battle started.

After two days of fight, Maharaja ordered to place Ahmed Shah Gun in front of Main gate of Fort. It was tough task and took many lives of soldiers but at last it was placed there. Hundred rounds of guns were fired and main gate of fort completely destroyed. The Mahraja troops entered the fort and raise the winning flag on wall. Both Arbel & Ameer Singh were arrested.

Since the area of Sheikhupura won in name of Crown Prince Kharak Singh, the fort and “Jageer” of Sheikhupura bestowed to Prince by his father Mahraja Ranjeet Singh under the primacy of her mother Rani Datar Kaur (1801-1840), the mother of the crown prince, Kharak Singh. She was also known as Rani Raj Kaur or Mai Nakkain. She lived in the Fort till her death.”

 

She had a considerable role in the rehabilitation of this small, strategically unimportant and hitherto almost abandoned citadel. She built a wonderful haveli within it. The excellent frescoes in the distinctive Kangra style found in the parlour and in the two chambers on the first floor of this haveli, are attributed to Raj Kaur‘s excellent taste.

 

In mid-19th century, when the British invaded Punjab, they used the Fort to imprison the Sikh kingdom’s Regent, Rani Jind Kaur – “Jindaa(n)” - after taking her son, the child Emperor Duleep Singh, prisoner.

 

In a letter dated August 9, 1847 Sir Henry Montgomery Lawrence, the British Resident in Punjab suggested to the Governor General that the Queen be banished from Punjab, to prevent the populace from rising under banner.

 

The 8-year old Emperor was removed from his palace in the Lahore Fort on August 19, 1847, and taken to the Shalimar Gardens, while his mother, the Queen, was confined to the distant Sheikhupura Fort.

 

Historian Himadri Banerjee describes how Jindaan was forcibly removed from Lahore between 8 and 9 pm under a heavy military escort. Accompanied by Sardar Arjan Singh Rangharnanglia and Gurmukh Singh Lamma, she was lodged in Sheikhupura Fort in the early hours of Friday, August 20, 1847, under the charge of Sardar Boor Singh.

 

Soon after her arrival at Sheikhupura, she wrote the following letter to the Resident at Lahore, protesting the ruthless separation from her young eight-year old.

 

With the Grace of the Great Guru

From Bibi Sahib to Lawrence Sahib,

 

We have arrived safely at Sheikhupura, You should send our luggage with care, As I was sitting in the Samman (Burj - Palace in Lahore Fort), in the same way I am in Sheikhupura. Both the places are same to me; you have been very cruel to me. You have snatched my son from me … In the name of the God you worship and in the name of the king whose salt you eat, restore my son to me. I cannot bear the pain of this separation … I shall reside in Sheikhupura. I shall not go to Lahore. Send my son to me. I will come to you at Lahore only during the days when you hold darbar. On that day I will send him. A great deal (of injustice) has been done to me. A great deal (of injustice) has been done to my son also. You have accepted what other people have said. Put an end to it now. Too much has been done.

 

The Queen resided in the Sheikhupura Fort for nine months. On the afternoon of May 15, 1848, she was taken away, to be imprisoned in Chunar Fort, near Benares (in current day Uttar Pradesh, India). She made a dramatic escape from there and fled to Nepal, where she remained until, years later, almost blind and dying, was finally allowed to visit her son, who was by then exiled in England.

 

The Sheikhupura Fort was thus witness to a number of crucial turning points during the half-century of the Sikh Raj.

 

The Empire had held played a crucial role as a bulwark against ongoing invasions through the subcontinent’s porous western borders. At its peak, it held sway from Tibet in the east to the Khyber Pass in the west, to Kashmir in the north and to Sindh in the south. It also, while Ranjit Singh was alive, kept the British at bay, even though the rest of the subcontinent had collapsed under them like a row of dominoes.

 

After the annexation of Punjab, the Sheikhupura Fort was temporarily used as administrative headquarters of the Gujranwala district from 1849 to 1851. However, upon the transfer of the district headquarters to Gujranwala town, it was turned into a military outpost.

 

After a split of administration jurisdictions in 1918, a new district was created in Sheikhupura. The Fort then passed on to house the police headquarters of the newly created district.

 

After the partition of Punjab and India in 1947, it was briefly used by the immigrants from East Punjab (by then in the newly-created India) as shelter, and

later by encroachers, from whom it came into the possession of the Department of Archaeology of Pakistan in 1967.

 

Within the complex, no building from the Mughal period is left standing, except the main entrance façade. There are also some remains of sandstone columns depicting the history of the laying of the foundations of the Sheikhupura Fort.

 

Today, what we can see standing, although dilapidated, is a crumbling six-storey haveli, identical to the haveli of Naunihal Singh, which is situated inside Mori Gate in Lahore.

 

The most vibrant aspect of the beauty of the haveli in the Sheikhupura Fort is its frescoes.

 

Sadly, precious wooden doors, windows and parts of the roof have already been whisked away by raiders and the haveli has turned into a haunted house.

 

Inside the ruins and rooms occupied by bats, we can still find signs of the former lifestyle through colourful and thematic paintings and other art work in the Kangra style. Fresco art work in the haveli of Raj Kaur portrays almost all aspects of daily life – ranging from worship to romantic love to military life. Colors are still vivid, the art work is glittering, but the haveli is now, due to institutional neglect, close to the end of its physical life.

 

Despite its poor condition, no contractor or labourer agrees to work as it is believed the fort is haunted by ghosts of the queens which used to live there.

 

This fort is closed to the public due to its bad structural condition; it took me at least three years to take permission to visit this place.

 

From Wikipedia relating to the original structure:

 

For the Canadian Centennial in 1967, the City of Calgary elected to undertake, as a civic project, the construction of a new planetarium. This choice was reflective of the interest in space exploration that was prominent in the 1960s. A design competition was held in 1964 for the new building. Advised by the director of the architecture department at the University of British Columbia, Henry Elder, the three finalists were McMillan Long, Gordon Atkins, and Bill Boucock. The design by the firm of McMillan Long and Associates was eventually selected as the winner. This firm had been established in 1964 between Hugh McMillan and Jack Long, and lasted until 1969, at which time McMillan retired. The Centennial Planetarium was built between 1966 and 1967 by Sam Hashman.

 

Built on a site north of Mewata Armouries overlooking the Bow River, the Planetarium is constructed of raw concrete and features non-orthogonal design. Designed around a central bay, the building has two main wings. The west wing holds the "celestial theatre," a 255-seat theatre with a 65-foot domed screen. The east wing holds a 250-seat lecture hall. The Planetarium also contains a library, observation deck, and telescopes.

 

In 1967 the Planetarium won the Nation Design Council Concrete Award, and in 1970 the Massey Medal in Architecture.

 

From 1971 to 1985, the Planetarium also housed the collection of aircraft, aero engines, and associated reference library that became the basis of the Hangar Flight Museum. [1]

 

In 1984 the Calgary Science Centre moved into the Centennial Planetarium. It would occupy the space for the next 27 years.

 

The Science Centre moved into a new building in 2011, leaving the Planetarium empty or under-utilized until Contemporary Calgary acquired it. After extensive renovations, the building reopened as Calgary's premier modern art gallery.

Does this Sabrina relate to Sabrina the 1954 romantic comedy film "Sabrina," directed by Billy Wilder and starring Audrey Hepburn, or the 2018-2020 Netflix series "Chilling Adventures of Sabrina," or perhaps to Sabrina Carpenter who was recently announced as a performer at the 2026 Grammy Awards, or maybe none of these?

 

Graffiti (plural; singular graffiti or graffito, the latter rarely used except in archeology) is art that is written, painted or drawn on a wall or other surface, usually without permission and within public view. Graffiti ranges from simple written words to elaborate wall paintings, and has existed since ancient times, with examples dating back to ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, and the Roman Empire (see also mural).

 

Graffiti is a controversial subject. In most countries, marking or painting property without permission is considered by property owners and civic authorities as defacement and vandalism, which is a punishable crime, citing the use of graffiti by street gangs to mark territory or to serve as an indicator of gang-related activities. Graffiti has become visualized as a growing urban "problem" for many cities in industrialized nations, spreading from the New York City subway system and Philadelphia in the early 1970s to the rest of the United States and Europe and other world regions

 

"Graffiti" (usually both singular and plural) and the rare singular form "graffito" are from the Italian word graffiato ("scratched"). The term "graffiti" is used in art history for works of art produced by scratching a design into a surface. A related term is "sgraffito", which involves scratching through one layer of pigment to reveal another beneath it. This technique was primarily used by potters who would glaze their wares and then scratch a design into them. In ancient times graffiti were carved on walls with a sharp object, although sometimes chalk or coal were used. The word originates from Greek γράφειν—graphein—meaning "to write".

 

The term graffiti originally referred to the inscriptions, figure drawings, and such, found on the walls of ancient sepulchres or ruins, as in the Catacombs of Rome or at Pompeii. Historically, these writings were not considered vanadlism, which today is considered part of the definition of graffiti.

 

The only known source of the Safaitic language, an ancient form of Arabic, is from graffiti: inscriptions scratched on to the surface of rocks and boulders in the predominantly basalt desert of southern Syria, eastern Jordan and northern Saudi Arabia. Safaitic dates from the first century BC to the fourth century AD.

 

Some of the oldest cave paintings in the world are 40,000 year old ones found in Australia. The oldest written graffiti was found in ancient Rome around 2500 years ago. Most graffiti from the time was boasts about sexual experiences Graffiti in Ancient Rome was a form of communication, and was not considered vandalism.

 

Ancient tourists visiting the 5th-century citadel at Sigiriya in Sri Lanka write their names and commentary over the "mirror wall", adding up to over 1800 individual graffiti produced there between the 6th and 18th centuries. Most of the graffiti refer to the frescoes of semi-nude females found there. One reads:

 

Wet with cool dew drops

fragrant with perfume from the flowers

came the gentle breeze

jasmine and water lily

dance in the spring sunshine

side-long glances

of the golden-hued ladies

stab into my thoughts

heaven itself cannot take my mind

as it has been captivated by one lass

among the five hundred I have seen here.

 

Among the ancient political graffiti examples were Arab satirist poems. Yazid al-Himyari, an Umayyad Arab and Persian poet, was most known for writing his political poetry on the walls between Sajistan and Basra, manifesting a strong hatred towards the Umayyad regime and its walis, and people used to read and circulate them very widely.

 

Graffiti, known as Tacherons, were frequently scratched on Romanesque Scandinavian church walls. When Renaissance artists such as Pinturicchio, Raphael, Michelangelo, Ghirlandaio, or Filippino Lippi descended into the ruins of Nero's Domus Aurea, they carved or painted their names and returned to initiate the grottesche style of decoration.

 

There are also examples of graffiti occurring in American history, such as Independence Rock, a national landmark along the Oregon Trail.

 

Later, French soldiers carved their names on monuments during the Napoleonic campaign of Egypt in the 1790s. Lord Byron's survives on one of the columns of the Temple of Poseidon at Cape Sounion in Attica, Greece.

 

The oldest known example of graffiti "monikers" found on traincars created by hobos and railworkers since the late 1800s. The Bozo Texino monikers were documented by filmmaker Bill Daniel in his 2005 film, Who is Bozo Texino?.

 

In World War II, an inscription on a wall at the fortress of Verdun was seen as an illustration of the US response twice in a generation to the wrongs of the Old World:

 

During World War II and for decades after, the phrase "Kilroy was here" with an accompanying illustration was widespread throughout the world, due to its use by American troops and ultimately filtering into American popular culture. Shortly after the death of Charlie Parker (nicknamed "Yardbird" or "Bird"), graffiti began appearing around New York with the words "Bird Lives".

 

Modern graffiti art has its origins with young people in 1960s and 70s in New York City and Philadelphia. Tags were the first form of stylised contemporary graffiti. Eventually, throw-ups and pieces evolved with the desire to create larger art. Writers used spray paint and other kind of materials to leave tags or to create images on the sides subway trains. and eventually moved into the city after the NYC metro began to buy new trains and paint over graffiti.

 

While the art had many advocates and appreciators—including the cultural critic Norman Mailer—others, including New York City mayor Ed Koch, considered it to be defacement of public property, and saw it as a form of public blight. The ‘taggers’ called what they did ‘writing’—though an important 1974 essay by Mailer referred to it using the term ‘graffiti.’

 

Contemporary graffiti style has been heavily influenced by hip hop culture and the myriad international styles derived from Philadelphia and New York City Subway graffiti; however, there are many other traditions of notable graffiti in the twentieth century. Graffiti have long appeared on building walls, in latrines, railroad boxcars, subways, and bridges.

 

An early graffito outside of New York or Philadelphia was the inscription in London reading "Clapton is God" in reference to the guitarist Eric Clapton. Creating the cult of the guitar hero, the phrase was spray-painted by an admirer on a wall in an Islington, north London in the autumn of 1967. The graffito was captured in a photograph, in which a dog is urinating on the wall.

 

Films like Style Wars in the 80s depicting famous writers such as Skeme, Dondi, MinOne, and ZEPHYR reinforced graffiti's role within New York's emerging hip-hop culture. Although many officers of the New York City Police Department found this film to be controversial, Style Wars is still recognized as the most prolific film representation of what was going on within the young hip hop culture of the early 1980s. Fab 5 Freddy and Futura 2000 took hip hop graffiti to Paris and London as part of the New York City Rap Tour in 1983

 

Commercialization and entrance into mainstream pop culture

Main article: Commercial graffiti

With the popularity and legitimization of graffiti has come a level of commercialization. In 2001, computer giant IBM launched an advertising campaign in Chicago and San Francisco which involved people spray painting on sidewalks a peace symbol, a heart, and a penguin (Linux mascot), to represent "Peace, Love, and Linux." IBM paid Chicago and San Francisco collectively US$120,000 for punitive damages and clean-up costs.

 

In 2005, a similar ad campaign was launched by Sony and executed by its advertising agency in New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and Miami, to market its handheld PSP gaming system. In this campaign, taking notice of the legal problems of the IBM campaign, Sony paid building owners for the rights to paint on their buildings "a collection of dizzy-eyed urban kids playing with the PSP as if it were a skateboard, a paddle, or a rocking horse".

 

Tristan Manco wrote that Brazil "boasts a unique and particularly rich, graffiti scene ... [earning] it an international reputation as the place to go for artistic inspiration". Graffiti "flourishes in every conceivable space in Brazil's cities". Artistic parallels "are often drawn between the energy of São Paulo today and 1970s New York". The "sprawling metropolis", of São Paulo has "become the new shrine to graffiti"; Manco alludes to "poverty and unemployment ... [and] the epic struggles and conditions of the country's marginalised peoples", and to "Brazil's chronic poverty", as the main engines that "have fuelled a vibrant graffiti culture". In world terms, Brazil has "one of the most uneven distributions of income. Laws and taxes change frequently". Such factors, Manco argues, contribute to a very fluid society, riven with those economic divisions and social tensions that underpin and feed the "folkloric vandalism and an urban sport for the disenfranchised", that is South American graffiti art.

 

Prominent Brazilian writers include Os Gêmeos, Boleta, Nunca, Nina, Speto, Tikka, and T.Freak. Their artistic success and involvement in commercial design ventures has highlighted divisions within the Brazilian graffiti community between adherents of the cruder transgressive form of pichação and the more conventionally artistic values of the practitioners of grafite.

 

Graffiti in the Middle East has emerged slowly, with taggers operating in Egypt, Lebanon, the Gulf countries like Bahrain or the United Arab Emirates, Israel, and in Iran. The major Iranian newspaper Hamshahri has published two articles on illegal writers in the city with photographic coverage of Iranian artist A1one's works on Tehran walls. Tokyo-based design magazine, PingMag, has interviewed A1one and featured photographs of his work. The Israeli West Bank barrier has become a site for graffiti, reminiscent in this sense of the Berlin Wall. Many writers in Israel come from other places around the globe, such as JUIF from Los Angeles and DEVIONE from London. The religious reference "נ נח נחמ נחמן מאומן" ("Na Nach Nachma Nachman Meuman") is commonly seen in graffiti around Israel.

 

Graffiti has played an important role within the street art scene in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), especially following the events of the Arab Spring of 2011 or the Sudanese Revolution of 2018/19. Graffiti is a tool of expression in the context of conflict in the region, allowing people to raise their voices politically and socially. Famous street artist Banksy has had an important effect in the street art scene in the MENA area, especially in Palestine where some of his works are located in the West Bank barrier and Bethlehem.

 

There are also a large number of graffiti influences in Southeast Asian countries that mostly come from modern Western culture, such as Malaysia, where graffiti have long been a common sight in Malaysia's capital city, Kuala Lumpur. Since 2010, the country has begun hosting a street festival to encourage all generations and people from all walks of life to enjoy and encourage Malaysian street culture.

 

The modern-day graffitists can be found with an arsenal of various materials that allow for a successful production of a piece. This includes such techniques as scribing. However, spray paint in aerosol cans is the number one medium for graffiti. From this commodity comes different styles, technique, and abilities to form master works of graffiti. Spray paint can be found at hardware and art stores and comes in virtually every color.

 

Stencil graffiti is created by cutting out shapes and designs in a stiff material (such as cardboard or subject folders) to form an overall design or image. The stencil is then placed on the "canvas" gently and with quick, easy strokes of the aerosol can, the image begins to appear on the intended surface.

 

Some of the first examples were created in 1981 by artists Blek le Rat in Paris, in 1982 by Jef Aerosol in Tours (France); by 1985 stencils had appeared in other cities including New York City, Sydney, and Melbourne, where they were documented by American photographer Charles Gatewood and Australian photographer Rennie Ellis

 

Tagging is the practice of someone spray-painting "their name, initial or logo onto a public surface" in a handstyle unique to the writer. Tags were the first form of modern graffiti.

 

Modern graffiti art often incorporates additional arts and technologies. For example, Graffiti Research Lab has encouraged the use of projected images and magnetic light-emitting diodes (throwies) as new media for graffitists. yarnbombing is another recent form of graffiti. Yarnbombers occasionally target previous graffiti for modification, which had been avoided among the majority of graffitists.

 

Theories on the use of graffiti by avant-garde artists have a history dating back at least to the Asger Jorn, who in 1962 painting declared in a graffiti-like gesture "the avant-garde won't give up"

 

Many contemporary analysts and even art critics have begun to see artistic value in some graffiti and to recognize it as a form of public art. According to many art researchers, particularly in the Netherlands and in Los Angeles, that type of public art is, in fact an effective tool of social emancipation or, in the achievement of a political goal

 

In times of conflict, such murals have offered a means of communication and self-expression for members of these socially, ethnically, or racially divided communities, and have proven themselves as effective tools in establishing dialog and thus, of addressing cleavages in the long run. The Berlin Wall was also extensively covered by graffiti reflecting social pressures relating to the oppressive Soviet rule over the GDR.

 

Many artists involved with graffiti are also concerned with the similar activity of stenciling. Essentially, this entails stenciling a print of one or more colors using spray-paint. Recognized while exhibiting and publishing several of her coloured stencils and paintings portraying the Sri Lankan Civil War and urban Britain in the early 2000s, graffitists Mathangi Arulpragasam, aka M.I.A., has also become known for integrating her imagery of political violence into her music videos for singles "Galang" and "Bucky Done Gun", and her cover art. Stickers of her artwork also often appear around places such as London in Brick Lane, stuck to lamp posts and street signs, she having become a muse for other graffitists and painters worldwide in cities including Seville.

 

Graffitist believes that art should be on display for everyone in the public eye or in plain sight, not hidden away in a museum or a gallery. Art should color the streets, not the inside of some building. Graffiti is a form of art that cannot be owned or bought. It does not last forever, it is temporary, yet one of a kind. It is a form of self promotion for the artist that can be displayed anywhere form sidewalks, roofs, subways, building wall, etc. Art to them is for everyone and should be showed to everyone for free.

 

Graffiti is a way of communicating and a way of expressing what one feels in the moment. It is both art and a functional thing that can warn people of something or inform people of something. However, graffiti is to some people a form of art, but to some a form of vandalism. And many graffitists choose to protect their identities and remain anonymous or to hinder prosecution.

 

With the commercialization of graffiti (and hip hop in general), in most cases, even with legally painted "graffiti" art, graffitists tend to choose anonymity. This may be attributed to various reasons or a combination of reasons. Graffiti still remains the one of four hip hop elements that is not considered "performance art" despite the image of the "singing and dancing star" that sells hip hop culture to the mainstream. Being a graphic form of art, it might also be said that many graffitists still fall in the category of the introverted archetypal artist.

 

Banksy is one of the world's most notorious and popular street artists who continues to remain faceless in today's society. He is known for his political, anti-war stencil art mainly in Bristol, England, but his work may be seen anywhere from Los Angeles to Palestine. In the UK, Banksy is the most recognizable icon for this cultural artistic movement and keeps his identity a secret to avoid arrest. Much of Banksy's artwork may be seen around the streets of London and surrounding suburbs, although he has painted pictures throughout the world, including the Middle East, where he has painted on Israel's controversial West Bank barrier with satirical images of life on the other side. One depicted a hole in the wall with an idyllic beach, while another shows a mountain landscape on the other side. A number of exhibitions also have taken place since 2000, and recent works of art have fetched vast sums of money. Banksy's art is a prime example of the classic controversy: vandalism vs. art. Art supporters endorse his work distributed in urban areas as pieces of art and some councils, such as Bristol and Islington, have officially protected them, while officials of other areas have deemed his work to be vandalism and have removed it.

 

Pixnit is another artist who chooses to keep her identity from the general public. Her work focuses on beauty and design aspects of graffiti as opposed to Banksy's anti-government shock value. Her paintings are often of flower designs above shops and stores in her local urban area of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Some store owners endorse her work and encourage others to do similar work as well. "One of the pieces was left up above Steve's Kitchen, because it looks pretty awesome"- Erin Scott, the manager of New England Comics in Allston, Massachusetts.

 

Graffiti artists may become offended if photographs of their art are published in a commercial context without their permission. In March 2020, the Finnish graffiti artist Psyke expressed his displeasure at the newspaper Ilta-Sanomat publishing a photograph of a Peugeot 208 in an article about new cars, with his graffiti prominently shown on the background. The artist claims he does not want his art being used in commercial context, not even if he were to receive compensation.

 

Territorial graffiti marks urban neighborhoods with tags and logos to differentiate certain groups from others. These images are meant to show outsiders a stern look at whose turf is whose. The subject matter of gang-related graffiti consists of cryptic symbols and initials strictly fashioned with unique calligraphies. Gang members use graffiti to designate membership throughout the gang, to differentiate rivals and associates and, most commonly, to mark borders which are both territorial and ideological.

 

Graffiti has been used as a means of advertising both legally and illegally. Bronx-based TATS CRU has made a name for themselves doing legal advertising campaigns for companies such as Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Toyota, and MTV. In the UK, Covent Garden's Boxfresh used stencil images of a Zapatista revolutionary in the hopes that cross referencing would promote their store.

 

Smirnoff hired artists to use reverse graffiti (the use of high pressure hoses to clean dirty surfaces to leave a clean image in the surrounding dirt) to increase awareness of their product.

 

Graffiti often has a reputation as part of a subculture that rebels against authority, although the considerations of the practitioners often diverge and can relate to a wide range of attitudes. It can express a political practice and can form just one tool in an array of resistance techniques. One early example includes the anarcho-punk band Crass, who conducted a campaign of stenciling anti-war, anarchist, feminist, and anti-consumerist messages throughout the London Underground system during the late 1970s and early 1980s. In Amsterdam graffiti was a major part of the punk scene. The city was covered with names such as "De Zoot", "Vendex", and "Dr Rat". To document the graffiti a punk magazine was started that was called Gallery Anus. So when hip hop came to Europe in the early 1980s there was already a vibrant graffiti culture.

 

The student protests and general strike of May 1968 saw Paris bedecked in revolutionary, anarchistic, and situationist slogans such as L'ennui est contre-révolutionnaire ("Boredom is counterrevolutionary") and Lisez moins, vivez plus ("Read less, live more"). While not exhaustive, the graffiti gave a sense of the 'millenarian' and rebellious spirit, tempered with a good deal of verbal wit, of the strikers.

 

I think graffiti writing is a way of defining what our generation is like. Excuse the French, we're not a bunch of p---- artists. Traditionally artists have been considered soft and mellow people, a little bit kooky. Maybe we're a little bit more like pirates that way. We defend our territory, whatever space we steal to paint on, we defend it fiercely.

 

The developments of graffiti art which took place in art galleries and colleges as well as "on the street" or "underground", contributed to the resurfacing in the 1990s of a far more overtly politicized art form in the subvertising, culture jamming, or tactical media movements. These movements or styles tend to classify the artists by their relationship to their social and economic contexts, since, in most countries, graffiti art remains illegal in many forms except when using non-permanent paint. Since the 1990s with the rise of Street Art, a growing number of artists are switching to non-permanent paints and non-traditional forms of painting.

 

Contemporary practitioners, accordingly, have varied and often conflicting practices. Some individuals, such as Alexander Brener, have used the medium to politicize other art forms, and have used the prison sentences enforced on them as a means of further protest. The practices of anonymous groups and individuals also vary widely, and practitioners by no means always agree with each other's practices. For example, the anti-capitalist art group the Space Hijackers did a piece in 2004 about the contradiction between the capitalistic elements of Banksy and his use of political imagery.

 

Berlin human rights activist Irmela Mensah-Schramm has received global media attention and numerous awards for her 35-year campaign of effacing neo-Nazi and other right-wing extremist graffiti throughout Germany, often by altering hate speech in humorous ways.

 

In Serbian capital, Belgrade, the graffiti depicting a uniformed former general of Serb army and war criminal, convicted at ICTY for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including genocide and ethnic cleansing in Bosnian War, Ratko Mladić, appeared in a military salute alongside the words "General, thank to your mother". Aleks Eror, Berlin-based journalist, explains how "veneration of historical and wartime figures" through street art is not a new phenomenon in the region of former Yugoslavia, and that "in most cases is firmly focused on the future, rather than retelling the past". Eror is not only analyst pointing to danger of such an expressions for the region's future. In a long expose on the subject of Bosnian genocide denial, at Balkan Diskurs magazine and multimedia platform website, Kristina Gadže and Taylor Whitsell referred to these experiences as a young generations' "cultural heritage", in which young are being exposed to celebration and affirmation of war-criminals as part of their "formal education" and "inheritance".

 

There are numerous examples of genocide denial through celebration and affirmation of war criminals throughout the region of Western Balkans inhabited by Serbs using this form of artistic expression. Several more of these graffiti are found in Serbian capital, and many more across Serbia and Bosnian and Herzegovinian administrative entity, Republika Srpska, which is the ethnic Serbian majority enclave. Critics point that Serbia as a state, is willing to defend the mural of convicted war criminal, and have no intention to react on cases of genocide denial, noting that Interior Minister of Serbia, Aleksandar Vulin decision to ban any gathering with an intent to remove the mural, with the deployment of riot police, sends the message of "tacit endorsement". Consequently, on 9 November 2021, Serbian heavy police in riot gear, with graffiti creators and their supporters, blocked the access to the mural to prevent human rights groups and other activists to paint over it and mark the International Day Against Fascism and Antisemitism in that way, and even arrested two civic activist for throwing eggs at the graffiti.

 

Graffiti may also be used as an offensive expression. This form of graffiti may be difficult to identify, as it is mostly removed by the local authority (as councils which have adopted strategies of criminalization also strive to remove graffiti quickly). Therefore, existing racist graffiti is mostly more subtle and at first sight, not easily recognized as "racist". It can then be understood only if one knows the relevant "local code" (social, historical, political, temporal, and spatial), which is seen as heteroglot and thus a 'unique set of conditions' in a cultural context.

 

A spatial code for example, could be that there is a certain youth group in an area that is engaging heavily in racist activities. So, for residents (knowing the local code), a graffiti containing only the name or abbreviation of this gang already is a racist expression, reminding the offended people of their gang activities. Also a graffiti is in most cases, the herald of more serious criminal activity to come. A person who does not know these gang activities would not be able to recognize the meaning of this graffiti. Also if a tag of this youth group or gang is placed on a building occupied by asylum seekers, for example, its racist character is even stronger.

By making the graffiti less explicit (as adapted to social and legal constraints), these drawings are less likely to be removed, but do not lose their threatening and offensive character.

 

Elsewhere, activists in Russia have used painted caricatures of local officials with their mouths as potholes, to show their anger about the poor state of the roads. In Manchester, England, a graffitists painted obscene images around potholes, which often resulted in them being repaired within 48 hours.

 

In the early 1980s, the first art galleries to show graffitists to the public were Fashion Moda in the Bronx, Now Gallery and Fun Gallery, both in the East Village, Manhattan.

 

A 2006 exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum displayed graffiti as an art form that began in New York's outer boroughs and reached great heights in the early 1980s with the work of Crash, Lee, Daze, Keith Haring, and Jean-Michel Basquiat. It displayed 22 works by New York graffitists, including Crash, Daze, and Lady Pink. In an article about the exhibition in the magazine Time Out, curator Charlotta Kotik said that she hoped the exhibition would cause viewers to rethink their assumptions about graffiti.

 

From the 1970s onwards, Burhan Doğançay photographed urban walls all over the world; these he then archived for use as sources of inspiration for his painterly works. The project today known as "Walls of the World" grew beyond even his own expectations and comprises about 30,000 individual images. It spans a period of 40 years across five continents and 114 countries. In 1982, photographs from this project comprised a one-man exhibition titled "Les murs murmurent, ils crient, ils chantent ..." (The walls whisper, shout and sing ...) at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris.

 

In Australia, art historians have judged some local graffiti of sufficient creative merit to rank them firmly within the arts. Oxford University Press's art history text Australian Painting 1788–2000 concludes with a long discussion of graffiti's key place within contemporary visual culture, including the work of several Australian practitioners.

 

Between March and April 2009, 150 artists exhibited 300 pieces of graffiti at the Grand Palais in Paris.

 

Spray paint has many negative environmental effects. The paint contains toxic chemicals, and the can uses volatile hydrocarbon gases to spray the paint onto a surface.

 

Volatile organic compound (VOC) leads to ground level ozone formation and most of graffiti related emissions are VOCs. A 2010 paper estimates 4,862 tons of VOCs were released in the United States in activities related to graffiti.

  

In China, Mao Zedong in the 1920s used revolutionary slogans and paintings in public places to galvanize the country's communist movement.

 

Based on different national conditions, many people believe that China's attitude towards Graffiti is fierce, but in fact, according to Lance Crayon in his film Spray Paint Beijing: Graffiti in the Capital of China, Graffiti is generally accepted in Beijing, with artists not seeing much police interference. Political and religiously sensitive graffiti, however, is not allowed.

 

In Hong Kong, Tsang Tsou Choi was known as the King of Kowloon for his calligraphy graffiti over many years, in which he claimed ownership of the area. Now some of his work is preserved officially.

 

In Taiwan, the government has made some concessions to graffitists. Since 2005 they have been allowed to freely display their work along some sections of riverside retaining walls in designated "Graffiti Zones". From 2007, Taipei's department of cultural affairs also began permitting graffiti on fences around major public construction sites. Department head Yong-ping Lee (李永萍) stated, "We will promote graffiti starting with the public sector, and then later in the private sector too. It's our goal to beautify the city with graffiti". The government later helped organize a graffiti contest in Ximending, a popular shopping district. graffitists caught working outside of these designated areas still face fines up to NT$6,000 under a department of environmental protection regulation. However, Taiwanese authorities can be relatively lenient, one veteran police officer stating anonymously, "Unless someone complains about vandalism, we won't get involved. We don't go after it proactively."

 

In 1993, after several expensive cars in Singapore were spray-painted, the police arrested a student from the Singapore American School, Michael P. Fay, questioned him, and subsequently charged him with vandalism. Fay pleaded guilty to vandalizing a car in addition to stealing road signs. Under the 1966 Vandalism Act of Singapore, originally passed to curb the spread of communist graffiti in Singapore, the court sentenced him to four months in jail, a fine of S$3,500 (US$2,233), and a caning. The New York Times ran several editorials and op-eds that condemned the punishment and called on the American public to flood the Singaporean embassy with protests. Although the Singapore government received many calls for clemency, Fay's caning took place in Singapore on 5 May 1994. Fay had originally received a sentence of six strokes of the cane, but the presiding president of Singapore, Ong Teng Cheong, agreed to reduce his caning sentence to four lashes.

 

In South Korea, Park Jung-soo was fined two million South Korean won by the Seoul Central District Court for spray-painting a rat on posters of the G-20 Summit a few days before the event in November 2011. Park alleged that the initial in "G-20" sounds like the Korean word for "rat", but Korean government prosecutors alleged that Park was making a derogatory statement about the president of South Korea, Lee Myung-bak, the host of the summit. This case led to public outcry and debate on the lack of government tolerance and in support of freedom of expression. The court ruled that the painting, "an ominous creature like a rat" amounts to "an organized criminal activity" and upheld the fine while denying the prosecution's request for imprisonment for Park.

 

In Europe, community cleaning squads have responded to graffiti, in some cases with reckless abandon, as when in 1992 in France a local Scout group, attempting to remove modern graffiti, damaged two prehistoric paintings of bison in the Cave of Mayrière supérieure near the French village of Bruniquel in Tarn-et-Garonne, earning them the 1992 Ig Nobel Prize in archeology.

 

In September 2006, the European Parliament directed the European Commission to create urban environment policies to prevent and eliminate dirt, litter, graffiti, animal excrement, and excessive noise from domestic and vehicular music systems in European cities, along with other concerns over urban life.

 

In Budapest, Hungary, both a city-backed movement called I Love Budapest and a special police division tackle the problem, including the provision of approved areas.

 

The Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003 became Britain's latest anti-graffiti legislation. In August 2004, the Keep Britain Tidy campaign issued a press release calling for zero tolerance of graffiti and supporting proposals such as issuing "on the spot" fines to graffiti offenders and banning the sale of aerosol paint to anyone under the age of 16. The press release also condemned the use of graffiti images in advertising and in music videos, arguing that real-world experience of graffiti stood far removed from its often-portrayed "cool" or "edgy'" image.

 

To back the campaign, 123 Members of Parliament (MPs) (including then Prime Minister Tony Blair), signed a charter which stated: "Graffiti is not art, it's crime. On behalf of my constituents, I will do all I can to rid our community of this problem."

 

In the UK, city councils have the power to take action against the owner of any property that has been defaced under the Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003 (as amended by the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act 2005) or, in certain cases, the Highways Act. This is often used against owners of property that are complacent in allowing protective boards to be defaced so long as the property is not damaged.

 

In July 2008, a conspiracy charge was used to convict graffitists for the first time. After a three-month police surveillance operation, nine members of the DPM crew were convicted of conspiracy to commit criminal damage costing at least £1 million. Five of them received prison sentences, ranging from eighteen months to two years. The unprecedented scale of the investigation and the severity of the sentences rekindled public debate over whether graffiti should be considered art or crime.

 

Some councils, like those of Stroud and Loerrach, provide approved areas in the town where graffitists can showcase their talents, including underpasses, car parks, and walls that might otherwise prove a target for the "spray and run".

 

Graffiti Tunnel, University of Sydney at Camperdown (2009)

In an effort to reduce vandalism, many cities in Australia have designated walls or areas exclusively for use by graffitists. One early example is the "Graffiti Tunnel" located at the Camperdown Campus of the University of Sydney, which is available for use by any student at the university to tag, advertise, poster, and paint. Advocates of this idea suggest that this discourages petty vandalism yet encourages artists to take their time and produce great art, without worry of being caught or arrested for vandalism or trespassing.[108][109] Others disagree with this approach, arguing that the presence of legal graffiti walls does not demonstrably reduce illegal graffiti elsewhere. Some local government areas throughout Australia have introduced "anti-graffiti squads", who clean graffiti in the area, and such crews as BCW (Buffers Can't Win) have taken steps to keep one step ahead of local graffiti cleaners.

 

Many state governments have banned the sale or possession of spray paint to those under the age of 18 (age of majority). However, a number of local governments in Victoria have taken steps to recognize the cultural heritage value of some examples of graffiti, such as prominent political graffiti. Tough new graffiti laws have been introduced in Australia with fines of up to A$26,000 and two years in prison.

 

Melbourne is a prominent graffiti city of Australia with many of its lanes being tourist attractions, such as Hosier Lane in particular, a popular destination for photographers, wedding photography, and backdrops for corporate print advertising. The Lonely Planet travel guide cites Melbourne's street as a major attraction. All forms of graffiti, including sticker art, poster, stencil art, and wheatpasting, can be found in many places throughout the city. Prominent street art precincts include; Fitzroy, Collingwood, Northcote, Brunswick, St. Kilda, and the CBD, where stencil and sticker art is prominent. As one moves farther away from the city, mostly along suburban train lines, graffiti tags become more prominent. Many international artists such as Banksy have left their work in Melbourne and in early 2008 a perspex screen was installed to prevent a Banksy stencil art piece from being destroyed, it has survived since 2003 through the respect of local street artists avoiding posting over it, although it has recently had paint tipped over it.

 

In February 2008 Helen Clark, the New Zealand prime minister at that time, announced a government crackdown on tagging and other forms of graffiti vandalism, describing it as a destructive crime representing an invasion of public and private property. New legislation subsequently adopted included a ban on the sale of paint spray cans to persons under 18 and increases in maximum fines for the offence from NZ$200 to NZ$2,000 or extended community service. The issue of tagging become a widely debated one following an incident in Auckland during January 2008 in which a middle-aged property owner stabbed one of two teenage taggers to death and was subsequently convicted of manslaughter.

 

Graffiti databases have increased in the past decade because they allow vandalism incidents to be fully documented against an offender and help the police and prosecution charge and prosecute offenders for multiple counts of vandalism. They also provide law enforcement the ability to rapidly search for an offender's moniker or tag in a simple, effective, and comprehensive way. These systems can also help track costs of damage to a city to help allocate an anti-graffiti budget. The theory is that when an offender is caught putting up graffiti, they are not just charged with one count of vandalism; they can be held accountable for all the other damage for which they are responsible. This has two main benefits for law enforcement. One, it sends a signal to the offenders that their vandalism is being tracked. Two, a city can seek restitution from offenders for all the damage that they have committed, not merely a single incident. These systems give law enforcement personnel real-time, street-level intelligence that allows them not only to focus on the worst graffiti offenders and their damage, but also to monitor potential gang violence that is associated with the graffiti.

 

Many restrictions of civil gang injunctions are designed to help address and protect the physical environment and limit graffiti. Provisions of gang injunctions include things such as restricting the possession of marker pens, spray paint cans, or other sharp objects capable of defacing private or public property; spray painting, or marking with marker pens, scratching, applying stickers, or otherwise applying graffiti on any public or private property, including, but not limited to the street, alley, residences, block walls, and fences, vehicles or any other real or personal property. Some injunctions contain wording that restricts damaging or vandalizing both public and private property, including but not limited to any vehicle, light fixture, door, fence, wall, gate, window, building, street sign, utility box, telephone box, tree, or power pole.

 

To help address many of these issues, many local jurisdictions have set up graffiti abatement hotlines, where citizens can call in and report vandalism and have it removed. San Diego's hotline receives more than 5,000 calls per year, in addition to reporting the graffiti, callers can learn more about prevention. One of the complaints about these hotlines is the response time; there is often a lag time between a property owner calling about the graffiti and its removal. The length of delay should be a consideration for any jurisdiction planning on operating a hotline. Local jurisdictions must convince the callers that their complaint of vandalism will be a priority and cleaned off right away. If the jurisdiction does not have the resources to respond to complaints in a timely manner, the value of the hotline diminishes. Crews must be able to respond to individual service calls made to the graffiti hotline as well as focus on cleanup near schools, parks, and major intersections and transit routes to have the biggest impact. Some cities offer a reward for information leading to the arrest and prosecution of suspects for tagging or graffiti related vandalism. The amount of the reward is based on the information provided, and the action taken.

 

When police obtain search warrants in connection with a vandalism investigation, they are often seeking judicial approval to look for items such as cans of spray paint and nozzles from other kinds of aerosol sprays; etching tools, or other sharp or pointed objects, which could be used to etch or scratch glass and other hard surfaces; permanent marking pens, markers, or paint sticks; evidence of membership or affiliation with any gang or tagging crew; paraphernalia including any reference to "(tagger's name)"; any drawings, writing, objects, or graffiti depicting taggers' names, initials, logos, monikers, slogans, or any mention of tagging crew membership; and any newspaper clippings relating to graffiti crime.

112 pictures in 2012 #29 leap day (any shot to be taken on, or relating to 29th February 2012)

 

PeterJ© on Flickeflu

View On Black

Another excerpt from the story that I first started relating here.

 

The three siblings had traveled for several days, finding food and water through their own skills or the generosity of strangers along their route - which meandered but steadily took them west toward the great ocean that marked the edge of the known world. On the 19th day of their journey, they finally reached the rocky shores of the great ocean, and stopped - struck by the vast vista of water spread out before them. For the first time in any of their young lives they felt the weight of that great body of water and it penetrated them to their core, knowing their goal lay on its far side. But having traveled far, and in no particular hurry, they decided to camp that evening on the beach and plan their crossing upon morning.

 

It was while searching for firewood that the youngest brother saw a sparkle of white nestled amongst the stones of the beach. Scrambling over the slippery rocks to just near the edge of the surf, he bent down and plucked up three perfectly smooth, white stones that made him involuntarily catch his breath for the obvious magic they held within them, for surely these must be three of the fabled wishing stones of old. Smiling at his good fortune, he ran up the beach to share the news with his brother and sister. Arriving breathless at the camp though, their reactions were mixed. Rather than a similar excitement, the older brother met the stones with caution and the sister was more curious than anything else. All three had grown up with stories of the magic of old, but that was all the world was left with these days... stories and tattered memories of the great magic that had once been so common. After much debate, the youngest brother and his sister wanted to try to use the stones to cross the ocean safely. The eldest brother held out though, arguing that they had come so far on just their wits and abilities that it was foolish to trust something they knew next to nothing about. But the younger two were just as stubborn, arguing that they should not be diverted by fear of the unknown, as the crossing of the ocean itself was a great unknown voyage that would not be without great danger. In the end, they decided to put the stones aside and get some badly needed rest, as the trek across the continent had been arduous indeed. The stones and their use could wait until the next morning as well, just as the ocean would.

 

And indeed, wait they did, for the stones and the ocean were still there when the three awoke in a chilly, damp fog. But still agreement eluded them and even threatened to fray the bonds between them. So each decided to take a stone and decide how to best use it. The youngest brother walked down to the surf, wading up to his knees and wished to be a fish, so that he could swim across the ocean to the far side, agreeing to wait on the far shore for the other two. Amazingly enough, and quite suddenly, the youngest brother was gone, and a silver fish hung suspended momentarily in the air where he had stood, and then gravity claimed it and the fish splashed into the ocean. The other two watched it leap once above the waves and then it was seen no more, presumably swimming west.

 

The middle sister then took up her stone, and with a quick hug to her older brother, wished to be a bird, such that she could fly safely above the ocean to the far shore, and hopefully keep an eye out for her younger brother. In a blink, she too vanished and a splendid white gull flapped its wings a bit unsteadily, before rising into the sky, circling twice and flying away west until her silhouette vanished into the morning mist. The oldest stood there a long time gazing out across the ocean and into the fog, which gently receded as the day grew longer. He stood there, just looking, holding his stone in his hand. At one point he brought it up to his chest and mouthed words that only an empty beach could hear and dropped the stone into his pocket.

 

He spent the rest of that day collecting wood, with which he started to fashion a small boat. The beach was quite generous, for between what the ocean had washed up and what he carried himself, he soon had all he needed and small but sturdy vessel lay in front of him, pulled up just beyond the hungry reach of the incoming tide. Into the boat he stocked what food and water he had left and just as the shadows were beginning to grow long, he pushed the small craft into the height of the tide. He sailed all through the evening, and though he did not think it likely, the fatigue of the day soon caught up with him and he fell fast asleep, trusting to the wind and tides to carry him in the right direction. In the middle of the night, the eldest brother was woken from his sleep and sat up with a start. The sky above him was absolutely dark and at first he didn't notice the reason, but as the fog of sleep slowly crept from his brain, he realized that not a star shone in the sky above. He then became aware of a light from the ocean itself, and leaning over the side of his small boat, he gasped as he saw all the stars of the night sky floating in the ocean - not reflected, for he glanced quickly back up to the still blank canvas of the night sky above him. The ocean itself contained all the stars that should have been wheeling by over him. The eldest could make no sense of this spectacle, and he lingered at the edge of the boat for some time trying to comprehend what he saw. Slowly dawn approached on the horizon and the stars faded from the waters around the boat as the sky lightened above it.

 

He was shaken from his reverie by the cry of a gull overhead and looking up he saw his sister flying closer and closer until she plummeted into the ocean nearby. The eldest brother quickly brought his boat around and scooped the bird from the water and set her gently into the boat. In a moment the bird was gone, replaced by the familiar form of his younger sister. "The ocean is too big," she gasped. "I flew for hours and hours and still saw no land, there is no way I can fly across this whole expanse. I am glad you came when you did." He gave her some food and water and together they sailed through the day. Just as the sun was approaching the horizon and the breeze was turning cool, a gleaming silver fish jumped from the water and landed with a splash in the boat, only to disappear and be replaced by the form of the youngest. "Am I so glad to see you," the youngest exclaimed. "It is impossible to find one's way through the ocean, it is too vast and deep. I asked other fish, but they only know of things below the waves, coasts and quests such as ours do not concern them and they were of no help at all."

 

And with that the three were once again reunited. They pointed their boat toward the setting sun and ran with the wind across the surface of the ocean. And for another eighteen days they sailed such, collecting rain water when they needed it and catching fish from the bountiful waters to fill their stomachs. But other than that first night, the stars remained as they should, twinkling safely in the night sky overhead, and the eldest remained at a loss to explain the significance of what he had seen. The story of that night had such an impact that it distracted the younger two siblings from ever asking their older brother what had become of his wishing stone, and for his part, he did not bring the subject up, content as he was with having the three reunited. And on the nineteenth day of sailing, a dark strip of land finally broke the horizon, and smiles crested the horizons on three different faces in a like manner.

  

Uses: Anything relating to finance and money.

 

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Here is another scan and retouch that relates enormous history for our piece of the Rockies. When I discovered it, I exclaimed "WTF!" That inserted a worm into my brain and I dug in. It required a load of research and visits to Google Maps as well as Wikipedia to identify and confirm the location. I suppose I could have driven up with a sandwich and a drink. This place is a real zoo now. I finally found the skyline and nailed the information. In fact, it was a snap of William James and Edna Sophia Kiteley on an exceptionally early shot from Trail Ridge Road in Rocky Mtn. National Park. How early? Look at the heavy machinery marks on the edge of the road. Was the highway under construction? It was finished to the Grand Lake side in 1939. Were they married? I saw no rings when I focused in close. They were married in 03/29/1937. The Fall River road was already in existence and construction on Trail Ridge lagged for some time.

 

OK, OK, this in very close to the now existing Many Park Overlook. Looks skimpy to me as far as established overlooks go! Find RMNP on Google maps and plug in the overlook name. You will have to be fluid with the 3D functionality of the maps and you can match the skyline though paved today. Don't look so paved then and I could not find when the road was paved, let alone cleaned up from construction.

 

Grandmother, Alice, spent every summer at her cabin right near the Wid Basin Lodge at the southern end of Rocky Mountain National Park. This was probably a day's excursion from her cabin in an old jalopy. Granny probably went fly fishing instead.

 

As usual, the negative and contact printing left a lot of flecks, white and black, and garbage across the image. In close, it looks like a shotgun blast. As always, it provides plenty of practice whether needed or not. I used the same two techniques, the Stamp and Brush to work on the image. Unfortunately, the scanner usually features all the defects on old snaps like this. I suppose that it will always be possible that this family will exchange the digital shots and spread them far enough that my labor won't be entirely wasted.

 

Generally, I gang output these to high resolution PDFs that can be printed at home of taken to Fed-X Kinkos for their color printing. I have enough to output another sheet. Their output never seems to waver from the quality of the PDF.

 

I received a load of scanning and retouching recently relegated to me. So far, I have a load of solid days packed into the project and the collection has not shrunk that much. I wonder why the family thinks that I owe them so much difficult retouching and output labor?

  

Uses: Anything relating to finance and money.

 

Free Creative Commons Finance Images... I created these images in my studio and have made them all available for personal or commercial use. Hope you like them and find them useful.

 

To see more of our CC by 2.0 finance images click here... see profile for attribution.

From the Jungian point of view, if some kind of image or reference to Noah’s Ark appears in a dream or work of art, it could possibly relate to an important inner calling to work at one’s “individuation” more single-mindedly.

 

The latter is defined by Jung as follows in Daryl Sharp's “Jung Lexicon”:

 

“A process of psychological differentiation, having for its goal the development of the individual personality.

 

In general, it is the process by which individual beings are formed and differentiated; in particular, it is the development of the psychological individual as a being distinct from the general, collective psychology. ["Definitions," CW 6, par. 756.]

 

The aim of individuation is nothing less than to divest the self of the false wrappings of the persona on the one hand, and of the suggestive power of primordial images on the other. ["The Function of the Unconscious," CW 7, par. 269. ]”

 

As Alexandra Nicewicz Carroll notes in a psychological analysis of the film “Noah” (2014):

 

“Jung compared the narrative, symbols, and archetypes of individuation with mythology and religious scriptures, and found similarities that suggested myth and scripture as individuation narratives in their own right.

 

Jung’s studies included the Old Testament (or Hebrew Bible), which he interpreted as a record of humanity’s collective psychological adaption and regeneration through repeated engagement with the numinous, transcendent power that encompasses the entire psyche, the Self (an archetype of the in-dwelling God)…

 

… the film constantly returns to the theme of the ‘destruction of innocents/innocence.’ Psychologically, the process of psychological adaption and restoration needs more than just the death of the persona/Tubal-cain [in the film] to succeed.

 

Psychological adaption and regeneration also requires the dissolution of elements associated with the persona that impede the personality’s development.”

 

A central issue Jung observed in the process of psychological adaption and restoration was the individual’s regular struggle to assert her/his unique personality amidst societal expectations that reward conformity.

 

In Jungian terms, this conflict occurs between the persona, an individual’s public face concerned with adherence to societal expectations (think of the face you display while at work), and the personality, the individual’s private face reserved for life away from society.

 

The constant theme of conflict between Tubal-cain, self-proclaimed king of Man, and Noah, who lives away from Man, personifies this psychological conflict between the persona and the personality, respectively...

 

… Noah’s journey into Tubal-cain’s territory brings the conflict to a head as Noah builds his ark with Tubal-cain looking on.

 

Noah’s action reflects the movement of unconscious elements into consciousness, where Noah/unconscious literally sets up shop to build his ark—a project the Tubal-cain/consciousness cannot ignore.

 

Noah refuses to submit to the control of Tubal-cain and rejects pressure from Tubal-cain to alter the Creator’s plan. The personality, in other words, defies the desires of the reward-seeking, conformity-driven persona…

 

… Floodwaters, the ark, and the animals that reside on that ark are the most well known legacy of Noah’s biblical mythology, and are no less significant when considering Noah from an archetypal perspective.

 

According to Jung, water is the most common symbol for unconsciousness, and as a fixture in religious ritual, water embodies sacredness and denotes a hierophany, a direct encounter with the divine.

 

Thus, the moment we all anticipate (the actual flood) does not simply indicate the destruction of wickedness, the flood waters confirm humanity’s psychological and spiritual entrance into the realm of the unconscious and home to the divine Creator”.

 

OCAD University, Toronto

 

Du point de vue jungien, si une sorte d’image ou de référence à l’arche de Noé apparaît dans un rêve ou une œuvre d’art, cela pourrait éventuellement se rapporter à un appel intérieur important à travailler à son « individuation » de manière plus résolue.

 

Ce dernier est défini comme suit par l’analyste Daryl Sharp dans « Jung Lexicon » :

 

"Un processus de différenciation psychologique, ayant pour but le développement de la personnalité individuelle.

 

En général, c’est le processus par lequel les êtres individuels sont formés et différenciés ; En particulier, c’est le développement de l’individu psychologique en tant qu’être distinct de la psychologie générale, collective. [« Définitions », CW 6, par. 756.]

 

Le but de l’individuation n’est rien de moins que de dépouiller le moi des faux enveloppements de la personnalité d’une part, et du pouvoir suggestif des images primordiales d’autre part. ["La fonction de l’inconscient », CW 7, par. 269.] »

 

Comme le note Alexandra Nicewicz Carroll dans une analyse psychologique du film Noah (2014):

 

« Jung a comparé le récit, les symboles et les archétypes de l’individuation avec la mythologie et les écritures religieuses, et a trouvé des similitudes qui suggéraient que le mythe et l’écriture étaient des récits d’individuation à part entière.

 

Les études de Jung comprenaient l’Ancien Testament (ou Bible hébraïque), qu’il interprétait comme un enregistrement de l’adaptation psychologique collective et de la régénération de l’humanité par un engagement répété avec le pouvoir numineux et transcendant qui englobe toute la psyché, le Soi (un archétype du Dieu intérieur) ...

 

… Le film revient constamment sur le thème de la « destruction des innocents/innocence ».

 

Psychologiquement, le processus d’adaptation et de restauration psychologique a besoin de plus que la mort du personnage/Tubal-Caïn [dans le film] pour réussir. L’adaptation et la régénération psychologiques nécessitent également la dissolution des éléments associés à la personnalité qui entravent le développement de la personnalité.

 

Un problème central que Jung a observé dans le processus d’adaptation et de restauration psychologiques était la lutte régulière de l’individu pour affirmer sa personnalité unique au milieu des attentes sociétales qui récompensent la conformité.

 

En termes jungiens, ce conflit se produit entre le persona, le visage public d’un individu préoccupé par l’adhésion aux attentes de la société (pensez au visage que vous affichez au travail), et la personnalité, le visage privé de l’individu réservé à la vie loin de la société.

 

Le thème constant du conflit entre Tubal-Caïn, roi autoproclamé de l’Homme, et Noé, qui vit loin de l’Homme, personnifie ce conflit psychologique entre le personnage et la personnalité, respectivement...

 

… Le voyage de Noé sur le territoire de Tubal-Caïn amène le conflit à son paroxysme alors que Noé construit son arche sous le regard de Tubal-Caïn.

 

L’action de Noé reflète le mouvement de des éléments inconscients dans la conscience, où Noé/inconscient s’installe littéralement pour construire son arche – un projet que le Tubal-caïn/conscience ne peut ignorer.

 

Noé refuse de se soumettre au contrôle de Tubal-Caïn et rejette la pression de Tubal-Caïn pour modifier le plan du Créateur. La personnalité, en d’autres termes, défie les désirs de la personnalité en quête de récompense, motivée par la conformité...

 

… Les eaux de crue, l’arche et les animaux qui résident sur cette arche sont l’héritage le plus connu de la mythologie biblique de Noé, et ne sont pas moins importants si l’on considère Noé d’un point de vue archétypal.

 

Selon Jung, l’eau est le symbole le plus courant de l’inconscience, et en tant qu’élément incontournable du rituel religieux, l’eau incarne le sacré et dénote une hiérophanie, une rencontre directe avec le divin.»

 

The English language contains many expressions relating to astronomical events, which is not all that strange, when you realise that before humans had clocks, radar, satellites, and so on, people were completely reliant on their own observations in order to keep time and predict seasonal changes.

 

The term ‘blue moon’ is one of many ‘full moon’-expressions. You may have also heard of ‘wolf moon’ or ‘harvest moon’, for example. Many of these terms come from ancient cultures where celestial observations guided local timekeeping.

 

A blue moon does not actually tell you anything about the colour of the Moon. The expression is commonly used when two full moons happen in one calendar month.

 

Our calendar months are based on the lunar cycle. The Moon takes 29.5 days to go through a full cycle. Our calendar months range from 28 to 31 days. As you can tell, the two cycles don’t match up completely. As a consequence, some months will have an extra full moon. The second moon in the same calendar month is often referred to as a ‘blue moon’.

 

This is a relatively rare event, only happening about once every two or three years. Hence the connection to the expression: something that seldomly happens.

 

So, if the Moon doesn’t actually change colour, where did the word ‘blue’ come from? It’s believed this word may have come from the Old English word ‘belewe’, which means ‘betray’. The moon ‘tricked’ people to believe a new calendar month had started, when in fact, it was still the same month.

 

Incidentally, there have been moments when the moon has taken on a slightly more blueish hue than what we’re used to. This sometimes happens as a result of increased ash or smoke particles in the atmosphere after a volcanic eruption, like when Krakatoa erupted in 1883. But such events only occur once in a … blue moon.

 

Credits: ESA

A tradition relating to the Rennsteig requires that a real hiking enthusiast to take a pebble from the river Werra at Hörschel, at the starting point of the trail, and to carry it with him to the end of the trail where he is to throw the pebble into the river Saale.

 

Due to rainy days it was too slippery and dangerous to go down directly to the river, but there was a stone basin at the shore offering pebbles to pick from.

 

We selected a pebble each, and we followed along almost to the end of the first day's section of the trail. As we did not complete the trail. We kept the pebble and will take it with us when we hopefully will finish the entire Rennsteig trail one day.

 

www.rennsteig.de/

 

Hörschel, Thuringia, Germany

"Mad Month" is a Collection of Images that relate to its Title...."MAD"

"M" stands for Minimal

"A " stands for Abstract

"D " stands for I don't know what yet?...…."Drunk", "Digital", "Daft", Dumb, Debonair, Donuts, Dingly Dell, Dynamic, Dopamine, Doctor Dolittle, Disaster, DaDa, Devil, Disguise, Distance, Donegal, Dope, Dinner, Dachau, Diabetic, Dali, Deli, Dildo, Drop Dead, Dead Drop, Funky Chicken, Dogmatic, Dog, Dachshund, Dork, Dill, Daffodil. Dresden, Dog, Dull, Dozy, Different. Delicate. Deer, Dear, Ditto, Dipstick, Dumbarton, Donald Duck, Demented, Dinosaur, Donkey, December, Dragon, Drachma, Dance, Disk, Duet, Dollar, Donald, Dunce, Happy Birthday Mum, Diamond, Demand, Desert, Dialog, Dance, Daddy, Decaf, Didier, Duchamp, Dimitri, Ding Dong, Diogenes, Dwarf,

I will think of a few Reasons as the Month progresses.

Visiting Dyce Military Cemetery Aberdeen Scotland today Sunday 13th Of January 2019, I found a number of hand painted stones placed on the Cross Of Sacrifice, it is the first time I have viewed any personal items reflecting thoughts of remembrance other than flowers or wreaths at a commonwealth grave cemetery.

 

Hand painted and personally placed on the Cross Of Sacrifice by unknowns who appreciate those who gave the ultimate sacrifice moved me , hence I captured a number of photo’s to archive the scene .

 

There are ten German graves in Dyce Cemetery. It is assumed that all of them relate to Luftwaffe personnel.

 

They are the crews of three aircraft which failed to make it back after missions over Aberdeen.

 

Aberdeen was the most frequently bombed city in Scotland. It was attacked 34 times and 178 people were killed.

 

The heaviest attack was on 21st April 1943. In a pre-planned air raid 25 Dornier 217s of the Kampf-Geschwader Group 2 swept into Aberdeen from the north of the city as dusk fell causing damage in the Woodside, Hilton, Cattofield, Kittybrewster and George Street areas.

 

The toll was heavy : 98 people were killed and a similar number seriously injured.

 

Dyce airport was a Royal Air Force station during the 1939-1945 War, and an extension on the western side of the old churchyard was chosen by the authorities for the burial of casualties from the air station.

 

Only airmen are buried in this reserved plot.

 

There is 1 Commonwealth burial of the 1914-18 war in the churchyard.

 

There are a further 45 of the 1939-45 war, 1 being an unidentified airman of the R.A.F. There are 11 Foreign National war burials and 4 non-war Service burials here.

 

The Cross of Sacrifice is a Commonwealth war memorial designed in 1918 by Sir Reginald Blomfield for the Imperial War Graves Commission (now the Commonwealth War Graves Commission). It is present in Commonwealth war cemeteries containing 40 or more graves. Its shape is an elongated Latin cross with proportions more typical of the Celtic cross, with the shaft and crossarm octagonal in section. It ranges in height from 18 to 24 feet (5.5 to 7.3 m).

 

A bronze longsword, blade down, is affixed to the front of the cross (and sometimes to the back as well). It is usually mounted on an octagonal base. It may be freestanding or incorporated into other cemetery features.

 

The Cross of Sacrifice is widely praised, widely imitated, and the archetypal British war memorial. It is the most imitated of Commonwealth war memorials, and duplicates and imitations have been used around the world.

  

The Imperial War Graves Commission

 

The First World War introduced killing on such a mass scale that few nations were prepared to cope with it. Millions of bodies were never recovered, or were recovered long after any identification could be made. Hundreds of thousands of bodies were buried on the battlefield where they lay. It was often impossible to dig trenches without unearthing remains, and artillery barrages often uncovered bodies and flung the disintegrating corpses into the air.

 

Many bodies were buried in French municipal cemeteries, but these rapidly filled to capacity. Due to the costs and sheer number of remains involved, Australia, Canada, India, Newfoundland, New Zealand, South Africa, and the United Kingdom barred repatriation of remains.

 

Fabian Ware, a director of the Rio Tinto mining company, toured some battlefields in as part of a British Red Cross mission in the fall of 1914.

 

Ware was greatly disturbed by status of British war graves, many of which were marked by deteriorating wooden crosses, haphazardly placed and with names and other identifying information written nearly illegibly in pencil. Ware petititoned the British government to establish an official agency to oversee the locating, recording, and marking of British war dead, and to acquire land for cemeteries. The Imperial War Office agreed, and created the Graves Registration Commission in March 1915. In May, the Graves Registration Commission ceased to operate an ambulance service for the British Red Cross, and in September was made an official arm of the military after being attached to the Royal Army Service Corps.

 

During its short existence, the Graves Registration Commission consolidated many British war dead cemeteries. Ware negotiated a treaty with the French government whereby the French would purchase space for British war cemeteries, and the British government assumed the cost of platting, creating, and maintaining the sites. Over the next few months, the Graves Registration Commission closed British war dead cemeteries with fewer than 50 bodies, disinterred the bodies, and reinterred them at the new burying grounds. The Graves Registration Commission became the Directorate of Graves Registration and Enquiries in February 1916.

 

As the war continued, there was a growing awareness in the British Army that a more permanent body needed be organized to care for British war graves after the war. In January 1916, the prime minister H. H. Asquith appointed a National Committee for the Care of Soldiers' Graves to take over this task. Edward, Prince of Wales agreed to serve as the committee's president. The committee's membership reflected all members of the British Commonwealth (with a special representative from India).

 

Over the next year, members of the National Committee for the Care of Soldiers' Graves began to feel that their organization was inadequate to the task, and that a more formal organization, with a broader mandate, should be created. The idea was broached at the first Imperial War Conference in March 1917, and on 21 May 1917 the Imperial War Graves Commission (IWGC) was chartered . Lord Derby was named its chair, and the Prince of Wales its president.

 

The same month he was appointed to the senior architects' committee, Blomfield accompanied Lutyens and Baker on a tour of French and Belgian battlefields.

 

Designing the Cross of Sacrifice

 

Kenyon, Baker, and Blomfield all submitted cross designs to the senior architects' committee. Kenyon submitted two draft designs, one for a Celtic cross and one for a medieval Christian cross (both typically found in old English cemeteries). Baker, who had advocated the cemetery theme of "crusade" since July 1917 and (according to Goebel, was "obsessed" with the idea), submitted the design of a stone Christian cross with a bronze longsword (called a Crusader's sword by Baker) on the front. His design, which he called the "Ypres cross", also included a bronze image of a naval sailing ship, emblematic of the Royal Navy's role in winning both the Crusades and the First World War.

 

Blomfield, on the other hand, took a different approach to the cross. He rejected Kenyon's design, arguing that "runic monuments or gothic crosses had nothing to do with the grim terrors of the trenches." Blomfield wanted a design that reflected the war, which had stripped away any notions about glory in combat and nobility in death on the battlefield. "What I wanted to do in designing this Cross was to make it as abstract and impersonal as I could, to free it from any association of any particular style, and, above all, to keep clear of any sentimentalism of the Gothic. This was a man's war far too terrible for any fripperies, and I hoped to get within range of the infinite in this symbol..." His design featured an elongated cross of abstract design, on the front of which was a bronze longsword, blade pointed downward. It was intended to be an overtly Christian symbol, in contrast to Lutyen's Stone of Remembrance (which was purposefully stripped of any such associations). Blomfield drew the inspiration for the sword from a sword which hung in his home in Rye.

 

The senior architects' committee quickly endorsed the Blomfield design. The committee considered adding text to the base or steps of the cross, but rejected this idea.

In order to ensure that the architects' ideas for Commonwealth cemeteries worked well in the field, the IWGC decided to fund the construction of three experimental cemeteries Le Tréport, Forceville, and Louvencourt. The goal was to determine how expensive the cemeteries were likely to be.

 

The model cemeteries were designed by Baker, Lutyens, and Blomfield, and began construction in May 1918. Due to problems with construction, none were complete until early 1920, six months later than planned. Each model cemetery had a chapel and shelter, but no Stone of Remembrance or Cross of Sacrifice. Nevertheless, even without these major additions, the cemeteries were too expensive.

 

The model cemeteries experiment changed the way the Stone of Remembrance was placed in cemeteries, and almost changed the design of the Cross of Sacrifice itself. To reduce costs, Blomfield offered to design a wide variation of Crosses, many of which were less costly than the original design. But the committee of senior architects rejected his offer. What became apparent with the experimental cemeteries is that a full-size Cross or Stone was appropriate only for the largest cemeteries. Mid-size and smaller cemeteries needed smaller memorials. Blomfield quickly designed two smaller-sized Crosses to accommodate this need. But Lutyens refused to allow anything but a full-sized War Stone (12 feet (3.7 m) in length and 5 feet (1.5 m) in height) to be used.

 

Subsequently, and partly as a cost-saving measure, no Stone of Remembrance was erected in a cemetery with fewer than 400 graves. Budgetary issues also led the committee to agree that shelters should be forgone in any cemetery with fewer than 200 graves.

 

The model cemeteries experiment also helped the architects decide where to place the Cross of Sacrifice. As early as 1917, Lutyens and Kenyon had agreed that the War Stone should be in the east, but facing west. (All graves were supposed to face east, facing the enemy, although many of the earliest cemeteries had graves facing in other [sometimes in many different] directions.)

 

The initial idea was to have the Cross of Sacrifice be in opposition to the Stone. In practice, however, the placement of the Cross of Sacrifice varied widely.

 

The model cemeteries experiment also had one other effect, and that was to make Blomfield's design for the cross the only one ever used by the IWGC. The original intent of the senior architects had been to allow each junior architect to design his own cross for his own cemetery. But Blomfield's design proved so wildly popular that the decision was made to implement it as a standard feature in all cemeteries.

 

The formal adoption of Blomfield's Cross of Sacrifice, and the concepts regarding its placement, position, and use, were outlined by Kenyon in a report, A Memorandum on the Cross as Central Monument, submitted in January 1919 as an addendum to his November 1918 main report.

 

About the Cross of Sacrifice

 

Cross of Sacrifice at Eindhoven, Netherlands.

According to Fabian Ware, the name "Cross of Sacrifice" arose spontaneously from an unknown source, and attached itself to the cross.

 

The Cross of Sacrifice is carved from white stone.[61][58] This is usually Portland stone,[62] but it is sometimes granite[63] or any type of white limestone commonly found in France or Belgium. In Italy, Chiampo Perla limestone was used.[65] The proportions of the cross, with short arms close to the top of the shaft are similar to some Celtic crosses, the crossarm being one-third the length of the shaft (as measured from the point where the shaft emerges from the base).

 

The cross consists of three pieces: The shaft, from base to crossarm; the crossarm; and the upper shaft, above the crossarm. The crossarm is fastened to the lower and upper shaft by two bronze dowels. A joggle (a portion of the shaft which extends into the base, acting as a joint) about 6 inches (15 cm) long extends into the base, where it is secured by another bronze dowel. The shaft and crossarm are both octagonal in shape, and the shaft tapers slightly as it rises to give the cross entasis.

 

On the large size version, there are three plain mouldings on the shaft near the base, often reduced to one in smaller sizes, and the three extremities of the cross finish at a plain moulding projecting sideways from the main element. The crossarms are sometimes irregular octagons in section, with four wide faces at front, back, top and bottom, and four shorter faces in between them.

A stylized bronze longsword, point down, is fastened to the front of the cross.[66] The cross is designed so that a second bronze sword may be fastened to the rear as well. The sword is positioned so that the crossguard on the sword matches where the cross' shaft and crossarm meet.

 

The Cross of Sacrifice originally came in four heights: 14 feet (4.3 m), 18 feet (5.5 m), 20 feet (6.1 m), and 24 feet (7.3 m).[43] Sizes up to 30 feet (9.1 m) are now permitted,[67] although sometimes even larger versions are allowed. As of 2012, the largest Cross of Sacrifice in the world was the 40-foot (12 m) high marker at the Halifax Memorial in Halifax.

 

The Halifax Memorial's Cross of Sacrifice

 

The shaft is fastened to an octagonal base. The size of the base varies, according to the height of the shaft, but the 24-foot (7.3 m) high cross has a base 15 feet 6 inches (4.72 m) in diameter.[69] This largest base weighs 2 short tons (1.8 t).[58] The base usually sits on three octagonal steps.[58] This can vary, however, depending on the height of the cross, its placement in the cemetery, and whether it is part of some other cemetery element.

 

The position of the Cross of Sacrifice in Commonwealth war cemeteries varies depending on a wide range of factors. Many cemeteries were laid out haphazardly during the war. The role of the junior designing architect was to determine the position of the Cross (and Stone of Remembrance) in relationship to the graves.[57] Most cemeteries had two axes—a main axis and an entrance axis, or a main/entrance axis and a lateral axis. An overriding guiding principle was that the War Stone should be the focus of the cemetery.

 

The Cross of Sacrifice, however, usually functioned as the primary orienting feature of the cemetery for visitors, due to its height. In hilly areas, the architect had to ensure that the cross was visible from the road or path. (This was far less important in flat areas, obviously.) When a road passed directly by the cemetery, the cross usually was placed near the road and the entrance to the cemetery associated with the cross. These design considerations meant that the Cross of Sacrifice could be placed in a wide variety of places. Sometimes it was situated next to the War Stone, and sometimes in opposition to it. In some cases, the Cross of Sacrifice was placed in a distant corner of the cemetery, so that its relationship to the Stone of Remembrance was not clear.

 

It was not necessary for the Cross of Sacrifice to stand alone, either. In some cases, it was incorporated into a wall or benches.

 

The placement of the Cross of Sacrifice affected other elements of the cemetery. The architect's choice of buildings to erect—double shelters, galleries, gateways, pergolas, sheltered alcoves, or single shelters—depended on the location of the War Stone, the Cross of Sacrifice, and the size of the cemetery.

 

The cross at Tyne Cot Cemetery near Ypres, Belgium, was incorporated into a pillbox.

 

A Cross of Sacrifice was erected in almost every Commonwealth war cemetery. Subsequent Commonwealth War Graves Commission policy has erected the cross Commonwealth war cemeteries with 40 or more graves.

 

There were only a handful of exceptions. No cross was erected in cemeteries which held a majority of Chinese or Indian graves.

 

In Turkey, no cross was erected in order to accommodate local Muslim feelings. Instead, a simple Latin cross was carved into a stone slab, which was placed at the rear of the cemetery. In Macedonia, a cairn was used in place of a cross to reflect the local custom.

 

In the several Commonwealth cemeteries in the mountains of Italy, Blomfield's design was replaced with a Latin cross made of rough square blocks of red or white stone.

 

It is unclear how much it cost to manufacture a Cross of Sacrifice. Generally speaking, however, the cost of building a cemetery was borne by each Commonwealth nation in proportion to number of their war dead in that cemetery.

 

While generally considered a beautiful design, the Cross of Sacrifice is not a robust one. The artwork is susceptible to toppling in high wind, as the shaft is held upright only by a 6-inch (15 cm) long piece of stone and a single bronze dowel. Should the stone joggle or dowel break, the shaft topples.

 

This problem quickly became apparent in Europe, where a large number of the crosses fell in high winds in the 1920s and 1930s. At one point, the Imperial War Graves Commission considered suing Blomfield for under-designing the artwork, but no lawsuit was ever filed.

 

Vandalism has also been a problem. Crosses of Sacrifice have been smashed or the bronze swords stolen, with the vandalism being particularly bad in the 1970s.

 

The Cross of Sacrifice is considered one of the great pieces of war-related art. Its enduring popularity, historian Allen Frantzen says, is because it is both simple and expressive, its abstraction reflecting the modernity people valued after the war.

 

Fabian Ware argued that its greatness was because its symbolism is so purposefully vague: To some, it is a Christian cross; to others, the stone is irrelevant and the sword itself is the cross; and to others, the artwork symbolizes those who sacrificed their lives to the sword.

 

The theme of sacrifice is commonly seen in the piece. Jeroen Geurst points out that Lutyens' War Stone unsettlingly brings to mind images of soldiers sacrificed on the altar of war, while Blomfield's cross speaks about self-sacrifice and the saving grace of Jesus Christ's sacrifice.

 

The sword has drawn praise as well. Frantzen notes that the sword can be both an offensive and defensive weapon, which mitigates against an interpretation of the Cross of Sacrifice as a glorification of war.

 

The sword also incorporates elements of chivalry, which was an important value to officers and men during the war.

 

Historian Mark Sheftall agrees that the sword evokes chivalric themes, and argues that by combining the religious and the chivalric with the classical Blomfield created "a single powerful image".But the military element has also been criticized. Geurst argues that one may interpret the sword as implying that the Great War was a religious crusade—which it most certainly was not.

 

The impact of the Cross of Sacrifice on war memorialization is difficult to underestimate. The IWGC considered the artwork a "mark of the symbolism of the present crusade". Cemetery historian Ken Worpole argues that the Cross of Sacrifice "became one of the most resonant and distinctive artefacts in British and Commonwealth war cemeteries, following the end of World War One."

 

First World War historian Bruce Scates observes that its symbolism was effective throughout the Commonwealth, despite widely disparate cultural and religious norms.

 

Historians agree it is the most widely imitated of Commonwealth war memorials,and Sheftall concludes that it has become the archetypal example of Great War commemoration in Britain.