If you have followed my blog at all you have certainly noticed that one specific aspect in my pictures is connected to colors. For some unknown reason I've always been very drawn to colors when dealing with photography (I cannot do b&w stuff). I could even say that because of this preference my early experiences with digital cameras were mostly disappointing: I couldn't stand the standard look of the early digital cameras because colors were so different and flat compared to golden era of film photography. And because of this disappointment 'getting good colors' became the thing that I kept of chasing for years.

 

It's one thing to recognize that the flat look and 'the standard and objective' colors, which most of the current digital cameras provide out of the box, doesn't actually carry any resemblance to the visual legacy that was left from the era of film photography. Just take a look, for example, old Kodachrome slides and compare them to your JPEGs and you should see two very different interpretations of colors and also become aware that these differences are not only about 'technological advancement' but also artistic choices. Behind the Kodachrome (and other films) there is a artistic interpretation of 'what looks good' and how the colors should be reproduced. JPEG on the other hand is much more 'objective' (read: flat) with some minor contrast and skin color correction thrown in. No wonder why standard JPEGs from the camera look so boring (though they have really been getting better with time).

 

While it's easy to point JPEGs with your finger, it's entirely different thing to determine what are 'good colors'. For example, while I like film era colors, I don't think we should concentrate to reduplicate them as they were – instead I think we should bring in some influences from that visual era there but then continue to define what are good colors at 21th century photography. Rather than ready-made-Lightroom-presets this calls for a cultivated taste regarding colors, which is much harder. I would love to transfer something from the film era legacy to today's photography, but at the same time I don't want photographs to look like they were taken 20 or 30 years ago (read: faded look) as I think it is intellectually dishonest to add a feeling of nostalgia to a picture from a digital filter. Like I said, it's a difficult question.

 

So how I have I solved this 'getting good colors' so far? I believe everyone has to develop their own 'theory of good colors' and 'methodology' to get there eventually. For me it's a three part response: Zeiss glass, VSCO-presets as a starting point and editing. I used to search for clear and bright colors and ultimately found my answer from Zeiss lenses. I'll be first one to admit that there are also other manufacturers out there who deliver great equipment color wise, but for some reason I found Zeiss to provide those small nuances which made difference to me (from my current setup I think the Batis 2/25 is the best followed by the Touit 2.8/50M). Then I use VSCO-presets as a starting point. They give me an easy way to explore whole bunch of different looks which I would never come across without them. Do they look like film? In some cases yes, but I usually erase the vintage look by editing. If I would recommend some of their film packs I would say that the Film Pack 04 is great and Film Pack 07 provides pretty nice starting points for general explorations as well – other ones are way too much vintage for my taste. But even with Zeiss glass and VSCO-presets it comes down to editing. Sometimes it's easy to see what the picture asks for, but sometimes it takes much longer to realize what is wrong with colors or how I should adjust them. It looks like I will never get rid of this task as much as I would like to. Like I said, colors are complicated thing once you step outside of the supposition of objective colors.

 

Ps. For this particular picture I used Provia 100F emulation from the VSCO Film pack 04. One of my favorites, but most often provides way too much contrast which is frustrating with some images. It also shifts the white balance in a nonlinear way that it's difficult to edit. I've also noticed that one cannot just slap on slide film preset to any picture as the end result would look just bad. Slide film emulations, such as the Provia 100F, works as a good starting point when used with conditions that would be similar to real world use of that particular film - in this case it means a lot of sunlight.

 

Days of Zeiss: www.daysofzeiss.com

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beamish_Museum

 

Beamish Museum is the first regional open-air museum, in England, located at Beamish, near the town of Stanley, in County Durham, England. Beamish pioneered the concept of a living museum. By displaying duplicates or replaceable items, it was also an early example of the now commonplace practice of museums allowing visitors to touch objects.

 

The museum's guiding principle is to preserve an example of everyday life in urban and rural North East England at the climax of industrialisation in the early 20th century. Much of the restoration and interpretation is specific to the late Victorian and Edwardian eras, together with portions of countryside under the influence of industrial revolution from 1825. On its 350 acres (140 ha) estate it uses a mixture of translocated, original and replica buildings, a large collection of artefacts, working vehicles and equipment, as well as livestock and costumed interpreters.

 

The museum has received a number of awards since it opened to visitors in 1972 and has influenced other living museums. It is an educational resource, and also helps to preserve some traditional and rare north-country livestock breeds.

 

History

Genesis

In 1958, days after starting as director of the Bowes Museum, inspired by Scandinavian folk museums, and realising the North East's traditional industries and communities were disappearing, Frank Atkinson presented a report to Durham County Council urging that a collection of items of everyday history on a large scale should begin as soon as possible, so that eventually an open air museum could be established. As well as objects, Atkinson was also aiming to preserve the region's customs and dialect. He stated the new museum should "attempt to make the history of the region live" and illustrate the way of life of ordinary people. He hoped the museum would be run by, be about and exist for the local populace, desiring them to see the museum as theirs, featuring items collected from them.

 

Fearing it was now almost too late, Atkinson adopted a policy of "unselective collecting" — "you offer it to us and we will collect it." Donations ranged in size from small items to locomotives and shops, and Atkinson initially took advantage of a surplus of space available in the 19th-century French chateau-style building housing the Bowes Museum to store items donated for the open air museum. With this space soon filled, a former British Army tank depot at Brancepeth was taken over, although in just a short time its entire complement of 22 huts and hangars had been filled, too.

 

In 1966, a working party was established to set up a museum "for the purpose of studying, collecting, preserving and exhibiting buildings, machinery, objects and information illustrating the development of industry and the way of life of the north of England", and it selected Beamish Hall, having been vacated by the National Coal Board, as a suitable location.

 

Establishment and expansion

In August 1970, with Atkinson appointed as its first full-time director together with three staff members, the museum was first established by moving some of the collections into the hall. In 1971, an introductory exhibition, "Museum in the Making" opened at the hall.

 

The museum was opened to visitors on its current site for the first time in 1972, with the first translocated buildings (the railway station and colliery winding engine) being erected the following year. The first trams began operating on a short demonstration line in 1973. The Town station was formally opened in 1976, the same year the reconstruction of the colliery winding engine house was completed, and the miners' cottages were relocated. Opening of the drift mine as an exhibit followed in 1979.

 

In 1975 the museum was visited by the Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, and by Anne, Princess Royal, in 2002. In 2006, as the Grand Master of the United Grand Lodge of England, The Duke of Kent visited, to open the town masonic lodge.

 

With the Co-op having opened in 1984, the town area was officially opened in 1985. The pub had opened in the same year, with Ravensworth Terrace having been reconstructed from 1980 to 1985. The newspaper branch office had also been built in the mid-1980s. Elsewhere, the farm on the west side of the site (which became Home Farm) opened in 1983. The present arrangement of visitors entering from the south was introduced in 1986.

 

At the beginning of the 1990s, further developments in the Pit Village were opened, the chapel in 1990, and the board school in 1992. The whole tram circle was in operation by 1993.[8] Further additions to the Town came in 1994 with the opening of the sweet shop and motor garage, followed by the bank in 1999. The first Georgian component of the museum arrived when Pockerley Old Hall opened in 1995, followed by the Pockerley Waggonway in 2001.

 

In the early 2000s two large modern buildings were added, to augment the museum's operations and storage capacity - the Regional Resource Centre on the west side opened in 2001, followed by the Regional Museums Store next to the railway station in 2002. Due to its proximity, the latter has been cosmetically presented as Beamish Waggon and Iron Works. Additions to display areas came in the form of the Masonic lodge (2006) and the Lamp Cabin in the Colliery (2009). In 2010, the entrance building and tea rooms were refurbished.

 

Into the 2010s, further buildings were added - the fish and chip shop (opened 2011)[28] band hall (opened 2013) and pit pony stables (built 2013/14) in the Pit Village, plus a bakery (opened 2013) and chemist and photographers (opened 2016) being added to the town. St Helen's Church, in the Georgian landscape, opened in November 2015.

 

Remaking Beamish

A major development, named 'Remaking Beamish', was approved by Durham County Council in April 2016, with £10.7m having been raised from the Heritage Lottery Fund and £3.3m from other sources.

 

As of September 2022, new exhibits as part of this project have included a quilter's cottage, a welfare hall, 1950s terrace, recreation park, bus depot, and 1950s farm (all discussed in the relevant sections of this article). The coming years will see replicas of aged miners' homes from South Shields, a cinema from Ryhope, and social housing will feature a block of four relocated Airey houses, prefabricated concrete homes originally designed by Sir Edwin Airey, which previously stood in Kibblesworth. Then-recently vacated and due for demolition, they were instead offered to the museum by The Gateshead Housing Company and accepted in 2012.

 

Museum site

The approximately 350-acre (1.4 km2) current site, once belonging to the Eden and Shafto families, is a basin-shaped steep-sided valley with woodland areas, a river, some level ground and a south-facing aspect.

 

Visitors enter the site through an entrance arch formed by a steam hammer, across a former opencast mining site and through a converted stable block (from Greencroft, near Lanchester, County Durham).

 

Visitors can navigate the site via assorted marked footpaths, including adjacent (or near to) the entire tramway oval. According to the museum, it takes 20 minutes to walk at a relaxed pace from the entrance to the town. The tramway oval serves as both an exhibit and as a free means of transport around the site for visitors, with stops at the entrance (south), Home Farm (west), Pockerley (east) and the Town (north). Visitors can also use the museum's buses as a free form of transport between various parts of the museum. Although visitors can also ride on the Town railway and Pockerley Waggonway, these do not form part of the site's transport system (as they start and finish from the same platforms).

 

Governance

Beamish was the first English museum to be financed and administered by a consortium of county councils (Cleveland, Durham, Northumberland and Tyne and Wear) The museum is now operated as a registered charity, but continues to receive support from local authorities - Durham County Council, Sunderland City Council, Gateshead Council, South Tyneside Council and North Tyneside Council. The supporting Friends of Beamish organisation was established in 1968. Frank Atkinson retired as director in 1987. The museum has been 96% self-funding for some years (mainly from admission charges).

 

Sections of the museum

1913

The town area, officially opened in 1985, depicts chiefly Victorian buildings in an evolved urban setting of 1913.

 

Tramway

The Beamish Tramway is 1.5 miles (2.4 km) long, with four passing loops. The line makes a circuit of the museum site forming an important element of the visitor transportation system.

 

The first trams began operating on a short demonstration line in 1973, with the whole circle in operation by 1993.[8] It represents the era of electric powered trams, which were being introduced to meet the needs of growing towns and cities across the North East from the late 1890s, replacing earlier horse drawn systems.

 

Bakery

Presented as Joseph Herron, Baker & Confectioner, the bakery was opened in 2013 and features working ovens which produce food for sale to visitors. A two-storey curved building, only the ground floor is used as the exhibit. A bakery has been included to represent the new businesses which sprang up to cater for the growing middle classes - the ovens being of the modern electric type which were growing in use. The building was sourced from Anfield Plain (which had a bakery trading as Joseph Herron), and was moved to Beamish in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The frontage features a stained glass from a baker's shop in South Shields. It also uses fittings from Stockton-on-Tees.

 

Motor garage

Presented as Beamish Motor & Cycle Works, the motor garage opened in 1994. Reflecting the custom nature of the early motor trade, where only one in 232 people owned a car in 1913, the shop features a showroom to the front (not accessible to visitors), with a garage area to the rear, accessed via the adjacent archway. The works is a replica of a typical garage of the era. Much of the museum's car, motorcycle and bicycle collection, both working and static, is stored in the garage. The frontage has two storeys, but the upper floor is only a small mezzanine and is not used as part of the display.

 

Department Store

Presented as the Annfield Plain Industrial Co-operative Society Ltd, (but more commonly referred to as the Anfield Plain Co-op Store) this department store opened in 1984, and was relocated to Beamish from Annfield Plain in County Durham. The Annfield Plain co-operative society was originally established in 1870, with the museum store stocking various products from the Co-operative Wholesale Society (CWS), established 1863. A two-storey building, the ground floor comprises the three departments - grocery, drapery and hardware; the upper floor is taken up by the tea rooms (accessed from Redman Park via a ramp to the rear). Most of the items are for display only, but a small amount of goods are sold to visitors. The store features an operational cash carrier system, of the Lamson Cash Ball design - common in many large stores of the era, but especially essential to Co-ops, where customer's dividends had to be logged.

 

Ravensworth Terrace

Ravensworth Terrace is a row of terraced houses, presented as the premises and living areas of various professionals. Representing the expanding housing stock of the era, it was relocated from its original site on Bensham Bank, having been built for professionals and tradesmen between 1830 and 1845. Original former residents included painter John Wilson Carmichael and Gateshead mayor Alexander Gillies. Originally featuring 25 homes, the terrace was to be demolished when the museum saved it in the 1970s, reconstructing six of them on the Town site between 1980 and 1985. They are two storey buildings, with most featuring display rooms on both floors - originally the houses would have also housed a servant in the attic. The front gardens are presented in a mix of the formal style, and the natural style that was becoming increasingly popular.

 

No. 2 is presented as the home of Miss Florence Smith, a music teacher, with old fashioned mid-Victorian furnishings as if inherited from her parents. No. 3 & 4 is presented as the practice and home respectively (with a knocked through door) of dentist J. Jones - the exterior nameplate having come from the surgery of Mr. J. Jones in Hartlepool. Representing the state of dental health at the time, it features both a check-up room and surgery for extraction, and a technicians room for creating dentures - a common practice at the time being the giving to daughters a set on their 21st birthday, to save any future husband the cost at a later date. His home is presented as more modern than No.2, furnished in the Edwardian style the modern day utilities of an enamelled bathroom with flushing toilet, a controllable heat kitchen range and gas cooker. No. 5 is presented as a solicitor's office, based on that of Robert Spence Watson, a Quaker from Newcastle. Reflecting the trade of the era, downstairs is laid out as the partner's or principal office, and the general or clerk's office in the rear. Included is a set of books sourced from ER Hanby Holmes, who practised in Barnard Castle.

 

Pub

Presented as The Sun Inn, the pub opened in the town in 1985. It had originally stood in Bondgate in Bishop Auckland, and was donated to the museum by its final owners, the Scottish and Newcastle Breweries. Originally a "one-up one down" cottage, the earliest ownership has been traced to James Thompson, on 21 January 1806. Known as The Tiger Inn until the 1850s, from 1857 to 1899 under the ownership of the Leng family, it flourished under the patronage of miners from Newton Cap and other collieries. Latterly run by Elsie Edes, it came under brewery ownership in the 20th Century when bought by S&N antecedent, James Deuchar Ltd. The pub is fully operational, and features both a front and back bar, the two stories above not being part of the exhibit. The interior decoration features the stuffed racing greyhound Jake's Bonny Mary, which won nine trophies before being put on display in The Gerry in White le Head near Tantobie.

 

Town stables

Reflecting the reliance on horses for a variety of transport needs in the era, the town features a centrally located stables, situated behind the sweet shop, with its courtyard being accessed from the archway next to the pub. It is presented as a typical jobmaster's yard, with stables and a tack room in the building on its north side. A small, brick built open air, carriage shed is sited on the back of the printworks building. On the east side of the courtyard is a much larger metal shed (utilising iron roof trusses from Fleetwood), arranged mainly as carriage storage, but with a blacksmith's shop in the corner. The building on the west side of the yard is not part of any display. The interior fittings for the harness room came from Callaly Caste. Many of the horses and horse-drawn vehicles used by the museum are housed in the stables and sheds.

 

Printer, stationer and newspaper branch office

Presented as the Beamish Branch Office of the Northern Daily Mail and the Sunderland Daily Echo, the two storey replica building was built in the mid-1980s and represents the trade practices of the era. Downstairs, on the right, is the branch office, where newspapers would be sold directly and distributed to local newsagents and street vendors, and where orders for advertising copy would be taken. Supplementing it is a stationer's shop on the left hand side, with both display items and a small number of gift items on public sale. Upstairs is a jobbing printers workshop, which would not produce the newspapers, but would instead print leaflets, posters and office stationery. Split into a composing area and a print shop, the shop itself has a number of presses - a Columbian built in 1837 by Clymer and Dixon, an Albion dating back to 1863, an Arab Platen of c. 1900, and a Wharfedale flat bed press, built by Dawson & Son in around 1870. Much of the machinery was sourced from the print works of Jack Ascough's of Barnard Castle. Many of the posters seen around the museum are printed in the works, with the operation of the machinery being part of the display.

 

Sweet shop

Presented as Jubilee Confectioners, the two storey sweet shop opened in 1994 and is meant to represent the typical family run shops of the era, with living quarters above the shop (the second storey not being part of the display). To the front of the ground floor is a shop, where traditional sweets and chocolate (which was still relatively expensive at the time) are sold to visitors, while in the rear of the ground floor is a manufacturing area where visitors can view the techniques of the time (accessed via the arched walkway on the side of the building). The sweet rollers were sourced from a variety of shops and factories.

 

Bank

Presented as a branch of Barclays Bank (Barclay & Company Ltd) using period currency, the bank opened in 1999. It represents the trend of the era when regional banks were being acquired and merged into national banks such as Barclays, formed in 1896. Built to a three-storey design typical of the era, and featuring bricks in the upper storeys sourced from Park House, Gateshead, the Swedish imperial red shade used on the ground floor frontage is intended to represent stability and security. On the ground floor are windows for bank tellers, plus the bank manager's office. Included in a basement level are two vaults. The upper two storeys are not part of the display. It features components sourced from Southport and Gateshead

 

Masonic Hall

The Masonic Hall opened in 2006, and features the frontage from a former masonic hall sited in Park Terrace, Sunderland. Reflecting the popularity of the masons in North East England, as well as the main hall, which takes up the full height of the structure, in a small two story arrangement to the front of the hall is also a Robing Room and the Tyler's Room on the ground floor, and a Museum Room upstairs, featuring display cabinets of masonic regalia donated from various lodges. Upstairs is also a class room, with large stained glass window.

 

Chemist and photographer

Presented as W Smith's Chemist and JR & D Edis Photographers, a two-storey building housing both a chemist and photographers shops under one roof opened on 7 May 2016 and represents the growing popularity of photography in the era, with shops often growing out of or alongside chemists, who had the necessary supplies for developing photographs. The chemist features a dispensary, and equipment from various shops including John Walker, inventor of the friction match. The photographers features a studio, where visitors can dress in period costume and have a photograph taken. The corner building is based on a real building on Elvet Bridge in Durham City, opposite the Durham Marriot Hotel (the Royal County), although the second storey is not part of the display. The chemist also sells aerated water (an early form of carbonated soft drinks) to visitors, sold in marble-stopper sealed Codd bottles (although made to a modern design to prevent the safety issue that saw the original bottles banned). Aerated waters grew in popularity in the era, due to the need for a safe alternative to water, and the temperance movement - being sold in chemists due to the perception they were healthy in the same way mineral waters were.

 

Costing around £600,000 and begun on 18 August 2014, the building's brickwork and timber was built by the museum's own staff and apprentices, using Georgian bricks salvaged from demolition works to widen the A1. Unlike previous buildings built on the site, the museum had to replicate rather than relocate this one due to the fact that fewer buildings are being demolished compared to the 1970s, and in any case it was deemed unlikely one could be found to fit the curved shape of the plot. The studio is named after a real business run by John Reed Edis and his daughter Daisy. Mr Edis, originally at 27 Sherburn Road, Durham, in 1895, then 52 Saddler Street from 1897. The museum collection features several photographs, signs and equipment from the Edis studio. The name for the chemist is a reference to the business run by William Smith, who relocated to Silver Street, near the original building, in 1902. According to records, the original Edis company had been supplied by chemicals from the original (and still extant) Smith business.

 

Redman Park

Redman Park is a small lawned space with flower borders, opposite Ravensworth Terrace. Its centrepiece is a Victorian bandstand sourced from Saltwell Park, where it stood on an island in the middle of a lake. It represents the recognised need of the time for areas where people could relax away from the growing industrial landscape.

 

Other

Included in the Town are drinking fountains and other period examples of street furniture. In between the bank and the sweet shop is a combined tram and bus waiting room and public convenience.

 

Unbuilt

When construction of the Town began, the projected town plan incorporated a market square and buildings including a gas works, fire station, ice cream parlour (originally the Central Cafe at Consett), a cast iron bus station from Durham City, school, public baths and a fish and chip shop.

 

Railway station

East of the Town is the Railway Station, depicting a typical small passenger and goods facility operated by the main railway company in the region at the time, the North Eastern Railway (NER). A short running line extends west in a cutting around the north side of the Town itself, with trains visible from the windows of the stables. It runs for a distance of 1⁄4 mile - the line used to connect to the colliery sidings until 1993 when it was lifted between the town and the colliery so that the tram line could be extended. During 2009 the running line was relaid so that passenger rides could recommence from the station during 2010.

 

Rowley station

Representing passenger services is Rowley Station, a station building on a single platform, opened in 1976, having been relocated to the museum from the village of Rowley near Consett, just a few miles from Beamish.

 

The original Rowley railway station was opened in 1845 (as Cold Rowley, renamed Rowley in 1868) by the NER antecedent, the Stockton and Darlington Railway, consisting of just a platform. Under NER ownership, as a result of increasing use, in 1873 the station building was added. As demand declined, passenger service was withdrawn in 1939, followed by the goods service in 1966. Trains continued to use the line for another three years before it closed, the track being lifted in 1970. Although in a state of disrepair, the museum acquired the building, dismantling it in 1972, being officially unveiled in its new location by railway campaigner and poet, Sir John Betjeman.

 

The station building is presented as an Edwardian station, lit by oil lamp, having never been connected to gas or electricity supplies in its lifetime. It features both an open waiting area and a visitor accessible waiting room (western half), and a booking and ticket office (eastern half), with the latter only visible from a small viewing entrance. Adorning the waiting room is a large tiled NER route map.

 

Signal box

The signal box dates from 1896, and was relocated from Carr House East near Consett. It features assorted signalling equipment, basic furnishings for the signaller, and a lever frame, controlling the stations numerous points, interlocks and semaphore signals. The frame is not an operational part of the railway, the points being hand operated using track side levers. Visitors can only view the interior from a small area inside the door.

 

Goods shed

The goods shed is originally from Alnwick. The goods area represents how general cargo would have been moved on the railway, and for onward transport. The goods shed features a covered platform where road vehicles (wagons and carriages) can be loaded with the items unloaded from railway vans. The shed sits on a triangular platform serving two sidings, with a platform mounted hand-crane, which would have been used for transhipment activity (transfer of goods from one wagon to another, only being stored for a short time on the platform, if at all).

 

Coal yard

The coal yard represents how coal would have been distributed from incoming trains to local merchants - it features a coal drop which unloads railway wagons into road going wagons below. At the road entrance to the yard is a weighbridge (with office) and coal merchant's office - both being appropriately furnished with display items, but only viewable from outside.

 

The coal drop was sourced from West Boldon, and would have been a common sight on smaller stations. The weighbridge came from Glanton, while the coal office is from Hexham.

 

Bridges and level crossing

The station is equipped with two footbridges, a wrought iron example to the east having come from Howden-le-Wear, and a cast iron example to the west sourced from Dunston. Next to the western bridge, a roadway from the coal yard is presented as crossing the tracks via a gated level crossing (although in reality the road goes nowhere on the north side).

 

Waggon and Iron Works

Dominating the station is the large building externally presented as Beamish Waggon and Iron Works, estd 1857. In reality this is the Regional Museums Store (see below), although attached to the north side of the store are two covered sidings (not accessible to visitors), used to service and store the locomotives and stock used on the railway.

 

Other

A corrugated iron hut adjacent to the 'iron works' is presented as belonging to the local council, and houses associated road vehicles, wagons and other items.

 

Fairground

Adjacent to the station is an events field and fairground with a set of Frederick Savage built steam powered Gallopers dating from 1893.

 

Colliery

Presented as Beamish Colliery (owned by James Joicey & Co., and managed by William Severs), the colliery represents the coal mining industry which dominated the North East for generations - the museum site is in the former Durham coalfield, where 165,246 men and boys worked in 304 mines in 1913. By the time period represented by Beamish's 1900s era, the industry was booming - production in the Great Northern Coalfield had peaked in 1913, and miners were relatively well paid (double that of agriculture, the next largest employer), but the work was dangerous. Children could be employed from age 12 (the school leaving age), but could not go underground until 14.

 

Deep mine

Reconstructed pitworks buildings showing winding gear

Dominating the colliery site are the above ground structures of a deep (i.e. vertical shaft) mine - the brick built Winding Engine House, and the red painted wooden Heapstead. These were relocated to the museum (which never had its own vertical shaft), the winding house coming from Beamish Chophill Colliery, and the Heapstead from Ravensworth Park Mine in Gateshead. The winding engine and its enclosing house are both listed.

 

The winding engine was the source of power for hauling miners, equipment and coal up and down the shaft in a cage, the top of the shaft being in the adjacent heapstead, which encloses the frame holding the wheel around which the hoist cable travels. Inside the Heapstead, tubs of coal from the shaft were weighed on a weighbridge, then tipped onto jigging screens, which sifted the solid lumps from small particles and dust - these were then sent along the picking belt, where pickers, often women, elderly or disabled people or young boys (i.e. workers incapable of mining), would separate out unwanted stone, wood and rubbish. Finally, the coal was tipped onto waiting railway wagons below, while the unwanted waste sent to the adjacent heap by an external conveyor.

 

Chophill Colliery was closed by the National Coal Board in 1962, but the winding engine and tower were left in place. When the site was later leased, Beamish founder Frank Atkinson intervened to have both spot listed to prevent their demolition. After a protracted and difficult process to gain the necessary permissions to move a listed structure, the tower and engine were eventually relocated to the museum, work being completed in 1976. The winding engine itself is the only surviving example of the type which was once common, and was still in use at Chophill upon its closure. It was built in 1855 by J&G Joicey of Newcastle, to an 1800 design by Phineas Crowther.

 

Inside the winding engine house, supplementing the winding engine is a smaller jack engine, housed in the rear. These were used to lift heavy equipment, and in deep mines, act as a relief winding engine.

 

Outdoors, next to the Heapstead, is a sinking engine, mounted on red bricks. Brought to the museum from Silksworth Colliery in 1971, it was built by Burlington's of Sunderland in 1868 and is the sole surviving example of its kind. Sinking engines were used for the construction of shafts, after which the winding engine would become the source of hoist power. It is believed the Silksworth engine was retained because it was powerful enough to serve as a backup winding engine, and could be used to lift heavy equipment (i.e. the same role as the jack engine inside the winding house).

 

Drift mine

The Mahogany Drift Mine is original to Beamish, having opened in 1855 and after closing, was brought back into use in 1921 to transport coal from Beamish Park Drift to Beamish Cophill Colliery. It opened as a museum display in 1979. Included in the display is the winding engine and a short section of trackway used to transport tubs of coal to the surface, and a mine office. Visitor access into the mine shaft is by guided tour.

 

Lamp cabin

The Lamp Cabin opened in 2009, and is a recreation of a typical design used in collieries to house safety lamps, a necessary piece of equipment for miners although were not required in the Mahogany Drift Mine, due to it being gas-free. The building is split into two main rooms; in one half, the lamp cabin interior is recreated, with a collection of lamps on shelves, and the system of safety tokens used to track which miners were underground. Included in the display is a 1927 Hailwood and Ackroyd lamp-cleaning machine sourced from Morrison Busty Colliery in Annfield Plain. In the second room is an educational display, i.e., not a period interior.

 

Colliery railways

The colliery features both a standard gauge railway, representing how coal was transported to its onward destination, and narrow-gauge typically used by Edwardian collieries for internal purposes. The standard gauge railway is laid out to serve the deep mine - wagons being loaded by dropping coal from the heapstead - and runs out of the yard to sidings laid out along the northern-edge of the Pit Village.

 

The standard gauge railway has two engine sheds in the colliery yard, the smaller brick, wood and metal structure being an operational building; the larger brick-built structure is presented as Beamish Engine Works, a reconstruction of an engine shed formerly at Beamish 2nd Pit. Used for locomotive and stock storage, it is a long, single track shed featuring a servicing pit for part of its length. Visitors can walk along the full length in a segregated corridor. A third engine shed in brick (lower half) and corrugated iron has been constructed at the southern end of the yard, on the other side of the heapstead to the other two sheds, and is used for both narrow and standard gauge vehicles (on one road), although it is not connected to either system - instead being fed by low-loaders and used for long-term storage only.

 

The narrow gauge railway is serviced by a corrugate iron engine shed, and is being expanded to eventually encompass several sidings.

 

There are a number of industrial steam locomotives (including rare examples by Stephen Lewin from Seaham and Black, Hawthorn & Co) and many chaldron wagons, the region's traditional type of colliery railway rolling stock, which became a symbol of Beamish Museum. The locomotive Coffee Pot No 1 is often in steam during the summer.

 

Other

On the south eastern corner of the colliery site is the Power House, brought to the museum from Houghton Colliery. These were used to store explosives.

 

Pit Village

Alongside the colliery is the pit village, representing life in the mining communities that grew alongside coal production sites in the North East, many having come into existence solely because of the industry, such as Seaham Harbour, West Hartlepool, Esh Winning and Bedlington.

 

Miner's Cottages

The row of six miner's cottages in Francis Street represent the tied-housing provided by colliery owners to mine workers. Relocated to the museum in 1976, they were originally built in the 1860s in Hetton-le-Hole by Hetton Coal Company. They feature the common layout of a single-storey with a kitchen to the rear, the main room of the house, and parlour to the front, rarely used (although it was common for both rooms to be used for sleeping, with disguised folding "dess" beds common), and with children sleeping in attic spaces upstairs. In front are long gardens, used for food production, with associated sheds. An outdoor toilet and coal bunker were in the rear yards, and beyond the cobbled back lane to their rear are assorted sheds used for cultivation, repairs and hobbies. Chalkboard slates attached to the rear wall were used by the occupier to tell the mine's "knocker up" when they wished to be woken for their next shift.

 

No.2 is presented as a Methodist family's home, featuring good quality "Pitman's mahogany" furniture; No.3 is presented as occupied by a second generation well off Irish Catholic immigrant family featuring many items of value (so they could be readily sold off in times of need) and an early 1890s range; No.3 is presented as more impoverished than the others with just a simple convector style Newcastle oven, being inhabited by a miner's widow allowed to remain as her son is also a miner, and supplementing her income doing laundry and making/mending for other families. All the cottages feature examples of the folk art objects typical of mining communities. Also included in the row is an office for the miner's paymaster.[11] In the rear alleyway of the cottages is a communal bread oven, which were commonplace until miner's cottages gradually obtained their own kitchen ranges. They were used to bake traditional breads such as the Stottie, as well as sweet items, such as tea cakes. With no extant examples, the museum's oven had to be created from photographs and oral history.

 

School

The school opened in 1992, and represents the typical board school in the educational system of the era (the stone built single storey structure being inscribed with the foundation date of 1891, Beamish School Board), by which time attendance at a state approved school was compulsory, but the leaving age was 12, and lessons featured learning by rote and corporal punishment. The building originally stood in East Stanley, having been set up by the local school board, and would have numbered around 150 pupils. Having been donated by Durham County Council, the museum now has a special relationship with the primary school that replaced it. With separate entrances and cloakrooms for boys and girls at either end, the main building is split into three class rooms (all accessible to visitors), connected by a corridor along the rear. To the rear is a red brick bike shed, and in the playground visitors can play traditional games of the era.

 

Chapel

Pit Hill Chapel opened in 1990, and represents the Wesleyan Methodist tradition which was growing in North East England, with the chapels used for both religious worship and as community venues, which continue in its role in the museum display. Opened in the 1850s, it originally stood not far from its present site, having been built in what would eventually become Beamish village, near the museum entrance. A stained glass window of The Light of The World by William Holman Hunt came from a chapel in Bedlington. A two handled Love Feast Mug dates from 1868, and came from a chapel in Shildon Colliery. On the eastern wall, above the elevated altar area, is an angled plain white surface used for magic lantern shows, generated using a replica of the double-lensed acetylene gas powered lanterns of the period, mounted in the aisle of the main seating area. Off the western end of the hall is the vestry, featuring a small library and communion sets from Trimdon Colliery and Catchgate.

 

Fish bar

Presented as Davey's Fried Fish & Chip Potato Restaurant, the fish and chip shop opened in 2011, and represents the typical style of shop found in the era as they were becoming rapidly popular in the region - the brick built Victorian style fryery would most often have previously been used for another trade, and the attached corrugated iron hut serves as a saloon with tables and benches, where customers would eat and socialise. Featuring coal fired ranges using beef-dripping, the shop is named in honour of the last coal fired shop in Tyneside, in Winlaton Mill, and which closed in 2007. Latterly run by brothers Brian and Ramsay Davy, it had been established by their grandfather in 1937. The serving counter and one of the shop's three fryers, a 1934 Nuttal, came from the original Davy shop. The other two fryers are a 1920s Mabbott used near Chester until the 1960s, and a GW Atkinson New Castle Range, donated from a shop in Prudhoe in 1973. The latter is one of only two known late Victorian examples to survive. The decorative wall tiles in the fryery came to the museum in 1979 from Cowes Fish and Game Shop in Berwick upon Tweed. The shop also features both an early electric and hand-powered potato rumblers (cleaners), and a gas powered chip chopper built around 1900. Built behind the chapel, the fryery is arranged so the counter faces the rear, stretching the full length of the building. Outside is a brick built row of outdoor toilets. Supplementing the fish bar is the restored Berriman's mobile chip van, used in Spennymoor until the early 1970s.

 

Band hall

The Hetton Silver Band Hall opened in 2013, and features displays reflecting the role colliery bands played in mining life. Built in 1912, it was relocated from its original location in South Market Street, Hetton-le-Hole, where it was used by the Hetton Silver Band, founded in 1887. They built the hall using prize money from a music competition, and the band decided to donate the hall to the museum after they merged with Broughtons Brass Band of South Hetton (to form the Durham Miners' Association Brass Band). It is believed to be the only purpose built band hall in the region. The structure consists of the main hall, plus a small kitchen to the rear; as part of the museum it is still used for performances.

 

Pit pony stables

The Pit Pony Stables were built in 2013/14, and house the museum's pit ponies. They replace a wooden stable a few metres away in the field opposite the school (the wooden structure remaining). It represents the sort of stables that were used in drift mines (ponies in deep mines living their whole lives underground), pit ponies having been in use in the north east as late as 1994, in Ellington Colliery. The structure is a recreation of an original building that stood at Rickless Drift Mine, between High Spen and Greenside; it was built using a yellow brick that was common across the Durham coalfield.

 

Other

Doubling as one of the museum's refreshment buildings, Sinker's Bait Cabin represents the temporary structures that would have served as living quarters, canteens and drying areas for sinkers, the itinerant workforce that would dig new vertical mine shafts.

 

Representing other traditional past-times, the village fields include a quoits pitch, with another refreshment hut alongside it, resembling a wooden clubhouse.

 

In one of the fields in the village stands the Cupola, a small round flat topped brick built tower; such structures were commonly placed on top of disused or ventilation shafts, also used as an emergency exit from the upper seams.

 

The Georgian North (1825)

A late Georgian landscape based around the original Pockerley farm represents the period of change in the region as transport links were improved and as agriculture changed as machinery and field management developed, and breeding stock was improved. It became part of the museum in 1990, having latterly been occupied by a tenant farmer, and was opened as an exhibit in 1995. The hill top position suggests the site was the location of an Iron Age fort - the first recorded mention of a dwelling is in the 1183 Buke of Boldon (the region's equivalent of the Domesday Book). The name Pockerley has Saxon origins - "Pock" or "Pokor" meaning "pimple of bag-like" hill, and "Ley" meaning woodland clearing.

 

The surrounding farmlands have been returned to a post-enclosure landscape with ridge and furrow topography, divided into smaller fields by traditional riven oak fencing. The land is worked and grazed by traditional methods and breeds.

 

Pockerley Old Hall

The estate of Pockerley Old Hall is presented as that of a well off tenant farmer, in a position to take advantage of the agricultural advances of the era. The hall itself consists of the Old House, which is adjoined (but not connected to) the New House, both south facing two storey sandstone built buildings, the Old House also having a small north–south aligned extension. Roof timbers in the sandstone built Old House have been dated to the 1440s, but the lower storey (the undercroft) may be from even earlier. The New House dates to the late 1700s, and replaced a medieval manor house to the east of the Old House as the main farm house - once replaced itself, the Old House is believed to have been let to the farm manager. Visitors can access all rooms in the New and Old House, except the north–south extension which is now a toilet block. Displays include traditional cooking, such as the drying of oatcakes over a wooden rack (flake) over the fireplace in the Old House.

 

Inside the New House the downstairs consists of a main kitchen and a secondary kitchen (scullery) with pantry. It also includes a living room, although as the main room of the house, most meals would have been eaten in the main kitchen, equipped with an early range, boiler and hot air oven. Upstairs is a main bedroom and a second bedroom for children; to the rear (i.e. the colder, north side), are bedrooms for a servant and the servant lad respectively. Above the kitchen (for transferred warmth) is a grain and fleece store, with attached bacon loft, a narrow space behind the wall where bacon or hams, usually salted first, would be hung to be smoked by the kitchen fire (entering through a small door in the chimney).

 

Presented as having sparse and more old fashioned furnishings, the Old House is presented as being occupied in the upper story only, consisting of a main room used as the kitchen, bedroom and for washing, with the only other rooms being an adjoining second bedroom and an overhanging toilet. The main bed is an oak box bed dating to 1712, obtained from Star House in Baldersdale in 1962. Originally a defensive house in its own right, the lower level of the Old House is an undercroft, or vaulted basement chamber, with 1.5 metre thick walls - in times of attack the original tenant family would have retreated here with their valuables, although in its later use as the farm managers house, it is now presented as a storage and work room, housing a large wooden cheese press.[68] More children would have slept in the attic of the Old House (not accessible as a display).

 

To the front of the hall is a terraced garden featuring an ornamental garden with herbs and flowers, a vegetable garden, and an orchard, all laid out and planted according to the designs of William Falla of Gateshead, who had the largest nursery in Britain from 1804 to 1830.

 

The buildings to the east of the hall, across a north–south track, are the original farmstead buildings dating from around 1800. These include stables and a cart shed arranged around a fold yard. The horses and carts on display are typical of North Eastern farms of the era, Fells or Dales ponies and Cleveland Bay horses, and two wheeled long carts for hilly terrain (as opposed to four wheel carts).

 

Pockerley Waggonway

The Pockerley Waggonway opened in 2001, and represents the year 1825, as the year the Stockton and Darlington Railway opened. Waggonways had appeared around 1600, and by the 1800s were common in mining areas - prior to 1800 they had been either horse or gravity powered, before the invention of steam engines (initially used as static winding engines), and later mobile steam locomotives.

 

Housing the locomotives and rolling stock is the Great Shed, which opened in 2001 and is based on Timothy Hackworth's erecting shop, Shildon railway works, and incorporating some material from Robert Stephenson and Company's Newcastle works. Visitors can walk around the locomotives in the shed, and when in steam, can take rides to the end of the track and back in the line's assorted rolling stock - situated next to the Great Shed is a single platform for passenger use. In the corner of the main shed is a corner office, presented as a locomotive designer's office (only visible to visitors through windows). Off the pedestrian entrance in the southern side is a room presented as the engine crew's break room. Atop the Great Shed is a weather vane depicting a waggonway train approaching a cow, a reference to a famous quote by George Stephenson when asked by parliament in 1825 what would happen in such an eventuality - "very awkward indeed - for the coo!".

 

At the far end of the waggonway is the (fictional) coal mine Pockerley Gin Pit, which the waggonway notionally exists to serve. The pit head features a horse powered wooden whim gin, which was the method used before steam engines for hauling men and material up and down mineshafts - coal was carried in corves (wicker baskets), while miners held onto the rope with their foot in an attached loop.

 

Wooden waggonway

Following creation of the Pockerley Waggonway, the museum went back a chapter in railway history to create a horse-worked wooden waggonway.

 

St Helen's Church

St Helen's Church represents a typical type of country church found in North Yorkshire, and was relocated from its original site in Eston, North Yorkshire. It is the oldest and most complex building moved to the museum. It opened in November 2015, but will not be consecrated as this would place restrictions on what could be done with the building under church law.

 

The church had existed on its original site since around 1100. As the congregation grew, it was replaced by two nearby churches, and latterly became a cemetery chapel. After closing in 1985, it fell into disrepair and by 1996 was burnt out and vandalised leading to the decision by the local authority in 1998 to demolish it. Working to a deadline of a threatened demolition within six months, the building was deconstructed and moved to Beamish, reconstruction being authorised in 2011, with the exterior build completed by 2012.

 

While the structure was found to contain some stones from the 1100 era, the building itself however dates from three distinct building phases - the chancel on the east end dates from around 1450, while the nave, which was built at the same time, was modernised in 1822 in the Churchwarden style, adding a vestry. The bell tower dates from the late 1600s - one of the two bells is a rare dated Tudor example. Gargoyles, originally hidden in the walls and believed to have been pranks by the original builders, have been made visible in the reconstruction.

 

Restored to its 1822 condition, the interior has been furnished with Georgian box pews sourced from a church in Somerset. Visitors can access all parts except the bell tower. The nave includes a small gallery level, at the tower end, while the chancel includes a church office.

 

Joe the Quilter's Cottage

The most recent addition to the area opened to the public in 2018 is a recreation of a heather-thatched cottage which features stones from the Georgian quilter Joseph Hedley's original home in Northumberland. It was uncovered during an archaeological dig by Beamish. His original cottage was demolished in 1872 and has been carefully recreated with the help of a drawing on a postcard. The exhibit tells the story of quilting and the growth of cottage industries in the early 1800s. Within there is often a volunteer or member of staff not only telling the story of how Joe was murdered in 1826, a crime that remains unsolved to this day, but also giving visitors the opportunity to learn more and even have a go at quilting.

 

Other

A pack pony track passes through the scene - pack horses having been the mode of transport for all manner of heavy goods where no waggonway exists, being also able to reach places where carriages and wagons could not access. Beside the waggonway is a gibbet.

 

Farm (1940s)

Presented as Home Farm, this represents the role of North East farms as part of the British Home Front during World War II, depicting life indoors, and outside on the land. Much of the farmstead is original, and opened as a museum display in 1983. The farm is laid out across a north–south public road; to the west is the farmhouse and most of the farm buildings, while on the east side are a pair of cottages, the British Kitchen, an outdoor toilet ("netty"), a bull field, duck pond and large shed.

 

The farm complex was rebuilt in the mid-19th century as a model farm incorporating a horse mill and a steam-powered threshing mill. It was not presented as a 1940s farm until early 2014.

 

The farmhouse is presented as having been modernised, following the installation of electric power and an Aga cooker in the scullery, although the main kitchen still has the typical coal-fired black range. Lino flooring allowed quicker cleaning times, while a radio set allowed the family to keep up to date with wartime news. An office next to the kitchen would have served both as the administration centre for the wartime farm, and as a local Home Guard office. Outside the farmhouse is an improvised Home Guard pillbox fashioned from half an egg-ended steam boiler, relocated from its original position near Durham.

 

The farm is equipped with three tractors which would have all seen service during the war: a Case, a Fordson N and a 1924 Fordson F. The farm also features horse-drawn traps, reflecting the effect wartime rationing of petrol would have had on car use. The farming equipment in the cart and machinery sheds reflects the transition of the time from horse-drawn to tractor-pulled implements, with some older equipment put back into use due to the war, as well as a large Foster thresher, vital for cereal crops, and built specifically for the war effort, sold at the Newcastle Show. Although the wartime focus was on crops, the farm also features breeds of sheep, cattle, pigs and poultry that would have been typical for the time. The farm also has a portable steam engine, not in use, but presented as having been left out for collection as part of a wartime scrap metal drive.

 

The cottages would have housed farm labourers, but are presented as having new uses for the war: Orchard Cottage housing a family of evacuees, and Garden Cottage serving as a billet for members of the Women's Land Army (Land Girls). Orchard Cottage is named for an orchard next to it, which also contains an Anderson shelter, reconstructed from partial pieces of ones recovered from around the region. Orchard Cottage, which has both front and back kitchens, is presented as having an up to date blue enameled kitchen range, with hot water supplied from a coke stove, as well as a modern accessible bathroom. Orchard Cottage is also used to stage recreations of wartime activities for schools, elderly groups and those living with dementia. Garden Cottage is sparsely furnished with a mix of items, reflecting the few possessions Land Girls were able to take with them, although unusually the cottage is depicted with a bathroom, and electricity (due to proximity to a colliery).

 

The British Kitchen is both a display and one of the museum's catering facilities; it represents an installation of one of the wartime British Restaurants, complete with propaganda posters and a suitably patriotic menu.

 

Town (1950s)

As part of the Remaking Beamish project, with significant funding from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, the museum is creating a 1950s town. Opened in July 2019, the Welfare Hall is an exact replica of the Leasingthorne Colliery Welfare Hall and Community Centre which was built in 1957 near Bishop Auckland. Visitors can 'take part in activities including dancing, crafts, Meccano, beetle drive, keep fit and amateur dramatics' while also taking a look at the National Health Service exhibition on display, recreating the environment of an NHS clinic. A recreation and play park, named Coronation Park was opened in May 2022 to coincide with the celebrations around the Platinum Jubilee of Elizabeth II.

 

The museum's first 1950s terrace opened in February 2022. This included a fish and chip shop from Middleton St George, a cafe, a replica of Norman Cornish's home, and a hairdressers. Future developments opposite the existing 1950s terrace will see a recreation of The Grand Cinema, from Ryhope, in Sunderland, and toy and electricians shops. Also underdevelopment are a 1950s bowling green and pavilion, police houses and aged miner's cottages. Also under construction are semi-detached houses; for this exhibit, a competition was held to recreate a particular home at Beamish, which was won by a family from Sunderland.

 

As well as the town, a 1950s Northern bus depot has been opened on the western side of the museum – the purpose of this is to provide additional capacity for bus, trolleybus and tram storage once the planned trolleybus extension and the new area are completed, providing extra capacity and meeting the need for modified routing.

 

Spain's Field Farm

In March 2022, the museum opened Spain's Field Farm. It had stood for centuries at Eastgate in Weardale, and was moved to Beamish stone-by-stone. It is exhibited as it would have been in the 1950s.

 

1820s Expansion

In the area surrounding the current Pockerley Old Hall and Steam Wagon Way more development is on the way. The first of these was planned to be a Georgian Coaching Inn that would be the museum's first venture into overnight accommodation. However following the COVID-19 pandemic this was abandoned, in favour of self-catering accommodation in existing cottages.

 

There are also plans for 1820s industries including a blacksmith's forge and a pottery.

 

Museum stores

There are two stores on the museum site, used to house donated objects. In contrast to the traditional rotation practice used in museums where items are exchanged regularly between store and display, it is Beamish policy that most of their exhibits are to be in use and on display - those items that must be stored are to be used in the museum's future developments.

 

Open Store

Housed in the Regional Resource Centre, the Open Store is accessible to visitors. Objects are housed on racks along one wall, while the bulk of items are in a rolling archive, with one set of shelves opened, with perspex across their fronts to permit viewing without touching.

 

Regional Museums Store

The real purposes of the building presented as Beamish Waggon and Iron Works next to Rowley Station is as the Regional Museums Store, completed in 2002, which Beamish shares with Tyne and Wear Museums. This houses, amongst other things, a large marine diesel engine by William Doxford & Sons of Pallion, Sunderland (1977); and several boats including the Tyne wherry (a traditional local type of lighter) Elswick No. 2 (1930). The store is only open at selected times, and for special tours which can be arranged through the museum; however, a number of viewing windows have been provided for use at other times.

 

Transport collection

Main article: Beamish Museum transport collection

The museum contains much of transport interest, and the size of its site makes good internal transportation for visitors and staff purposes a necessity.

 

The collection contains a variety of historical vehicles for road, rail and tramways. In addition there are some modern working replicas to enhance the various scenes in the museum.

 

Agriculture

The museum's two farms help to preserve traditional northcountry and in some cases rare livestock breeds such as Durham Shorthorn Cattle; Clydesdale and Cleveland Bay working horses; Dales ponies; Teeswater sheep; Saddleback pigs; and poultry.

 

Regional heritage

Other large exhibits collected by the museum include a tracked steam shovel, and a coal drop from Seaham Harbour.

 

In 2001 a new-build Regional Resource Centre (accessible to visitors by appointment) opened on the site to provide accommodation for the museum's core collections of smaller items. These include over 300,000 historic photographs, printed books and ephemera, and oral history recordings. The object collections cover the museum's specialities. These include quilts; "clippy mats" (rag rugs); Trade union banners; floor cloth; advertising (including archives from United Biscuits and Rowntree's); locally made pottery; folk art; and occupational costume. Much of the collection is viewable online and the arts of quilting, rug making and cookery in the local traditions are demonstrated at the museum.

 

Filming location

The site has been used as the backdrop for many film and television productions, particularly Catherine Cookson dramas, produced by Tyne Tees Television, and the final episode and the feature film version of Downton Abbey. Some of the children's television series Supergran was shot here.

 

Visitor numbers

On its opening day the museum set a record by attracting a two-hour queue. Visitor numbers rose rapidly to around 450,000 p.a. during the first decade of opening to the public, with the millionth visitor arriving in 1978.

 

Awards

Museum of the Year1986

European Museum of the Year Award1987

Living Museum of the Year2002

Large Visitor Attraction of the YearNorth East England Tourism awards2014 & 2015

Large Visitor Attraction of the Year (bronze)VisitEngland awards2016

It was designated by the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council in 1997 as a museum with outstanding collections.

 

Critical responses

In responding to criticism that it trades on nostalgia the museum is unapologetic. A former director has written: "As individuals and communities we have a deep need and desire to understand ourselves in time."

 

According to the BBC writing in its 40th anniversary year, Beamish was a mould-breaking museum that became a great success due to its collection policy, and what sets it apart from other museums is the use of costumed people to impart knowledge to visitors, rather than labels or interpretive panels (although some such panels do exist on the site), which means it "engages the visitor with history in a unique way".

 

Legacy

Beamish was influential on the Black Country Living Museum, Blists Hill Victorian Town and, in the view of museologist Kenneth Hudson, more widely in the museum community and is a significant educational resource locally. It can also demonstrate its benefit to the contemporary local economy.

 

The unselective collecting policy has created a lasting bond between museum and community.

Body:

-Advance‑Design GMC (’47–’55)

-GMC‑specific horizontal grille bars

-Single‑piece windshield

-Short‑bed (most desirable configuration)

-Heavy‑duty trim vs. Chevrolet equivalent

-Patina finish common on unrestored survivors

 

Engine & Drivetrain (Factory):

-GMC‑built inline‑six: 228 / 236 / 248 cu. in.

-Known for stronger internals than Chevy’s 216

-3‑speed manual transmission

-Rear‑wheel drive

 

Chassis:

-Ladder‑frame construction

-Leaf springs front and rear

-Drum brakes

-6‑volt electrical system (original)

 

Interior:

-Steel dash with simple gauge cluster

-Bench seat

-Minimalist work‑truck layout

 

The 1951 GMC ½‑Ton Short Pickup carries a different kind of presence than its Chevrolet cousin — heavier, more purposeful, and built for real work. GMC trucks of this era were the “premium” side of GM’s lineup, equipped with their own stronger inline‑six engines and heavier‑duty components. Even in weathered patina, the truck you photographed stands with quiet authority: sun‑burned paint, surface rust, and decades of honest use written across every panel.

 

The horizontal grille bars and bold GMC badging give it a tougher, more industrial face. The short‑bed proportions add a touch of sportiness, making these trucks especially sought after today. On the show field, this ’51 doesn’t rely on shine — its appeal comes from authenticity. It’s a survivor, a working‑class relic that earned every mark it carries. And that’s exactly what makes it so compelling.

  

Thank you kindly for visiting—faves and comments are always deeply appreciated! ~Sonja

Interventions

 

“Developing works on an on-site manner. Dijkman reacts to a specific context by making temporary spatial shifts or adjustments to a given space. These gestures often manifest themselves as installations that alternate the architectonic characteristics of a building or site, Dijkman manages to provoke and activate the local population and officials to rethink discriminatory policies practiced through these particular uses of public space. In a more formal way, her installations function as unexpected theatre stages that shine bright in the dark and bring out these usually hidden and invisible system of control.

 

Working alone or in collaboration with various artists or collectives, Dijkman shows a strong belief in the efficiency of the artistic actions and interventions as ways to reflect on and improve the existing reality. These sometimes subtle and small interventions function as gigantic mirrors that reflect back the (hidden) image of the one responsible for the establishment and practice of certain rules and regulations. Her definition of public space is wide and includes nature and urban environments in their totality”

 

Text quoted from the SB8 catalogue. Megan Bardoe and Vesna Madzoski

 

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en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chroma_key

Catch it if you can.

 

I would like to thank my lovely "models" for standing on the chroma key stage so that people can see how large the stage is, plus it makes an interesting visual.

The sociable lapwing or sociable plover (Vanellus gregarius) is a critically endangered wader in the lapwing family of birds. The genus name is Medieval Latin for a lapwing and derives from vannus a winnowing fan. The specific gregarius is Latin for "sociable" from grex, gregis, "flock"

 

In 2004, BirdLife International categorised this bird as critically endangered, due to a very rapid population decline for poorly understood reasons. The main decline took place between 1960 and 1987, when the known population halved; it is some 20–25% of the 1930s population levels. The current population was estimated to be between 600 and 1,800 mature birds in 2006, but is being revised to the upward end of that scale, possibly more, following the discovery of the species' previously unknown main wintering grounds in Syria, where 1500 birds of all ages were encountered. Additionally, in October 2007, a superflock of approximately 3,200 sociable lapwings were discovered in Turkey, according to Guven Eken, director of the Turkish Nature Association.The current IUCN classification is CR A3bc—meaning that the population is expected to decline in the next decade or so by 80%, but based on theoretical considerations and the known habitat destruction rather than direct observation of the birds. Thus, the new discoveries might mean that as more data becomes available, the species could be downlisted to Endangered.

Biennalist :

Biennalist is an Art Format commenting on active biennials and managed cultural events through artworks.Biennalist takes the thematics of the biennales and similar events like festivals and conferences seriously, questioning the established structures of the staged art events in order to contribute to the debate, which they wish to generate.

-------------------------------------------

links about Biennalist :

 

Thierry Geoffroy/Colonel:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thierry_Geoffroy

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_Room_(art)

 

www.emergencyrooms.org/formats.html

 

www.colonel.dk/

 

—--Biennale from wikipedia —--

 

The Venice International Film Festival is part of the Venice Biennale. The famous Golden Lion is awarded to the best film screening at the competition.

Biennale (Italian: [bi.enˈnaːle]), Italian for "biennial" or "every other year", is any event that happens every two years. It is most commonly used within the art world to describe large-scale international contemporary art exhibitions. As such the term was popularised by Venice Biennale, which was first held in 1895. Since the 1990s, the terms "biennale" and "biennial" have been interchangeably used in a more generic way - to signify a large-scale international survey show of contemporary art that recurs at regular intervals but not necessarily biannual (such as triennials, Documenta, Skulptur Projekte Münster).[1] The phrase has also been used for other artistic events, such as the "Biennale de Paris", "Kochi-Muziris Biennale", Berlinale (for the Berlin International Film Festival) and Viennale (for Vienna's international film festival).

Characteristics[edit]

According to author Federica Martini, what is at stake in contemporary biennales is the diplomatic/international relations potential as well as urban regeneration plans. Besides being mainly focused on the present (the “here and now” where the cultural event takes place and their effect of "spectacularisation of the everyday"), because of their site-specificity cultural events may refer back to,[who?] produce or frame the history of the site and communities' collective memory.[2]

 

The Great Exhibition in The Crystal Palace in Hyde Park, London, in 1851, the first attempt to condense the representation of the world within a unitary exhibition space.

A strong and influent symbol of biennales and of large-scale international exhibitions in general is the Crystal Palace, the gigantic and futuristic London architecture that hosted the Great Exhibition in 1851. According to philosopher Peter Sloterdijk,[3][page needed] the Crystal Palace is the first attempt to condense the representation of the world in a unitary exhibition space, where the main exhibit is society itself in an a-historical, spectacular condition. The Crystal Palace main motives were the affirmation of British economic and national leadership and the creation of moments of spectacle. In this respect, 19th century World fairs provided a visual crystallization of colonial culture and were, at the same time, forerunners of contemporary theme parks.

The Venice Biennale as an archetype[edit]

 

The structure of the Venice Biennale in 2005 with an international exhibition and the national pavilions.

The Venice Biennale, a periodical large-scale cultural event founded in 1895, served as an archetype of the biennales. Meant to become a World Fair focused on contemporary art, the Venice Biennale used as a pretext the wedding anniversary of the Italian king and followed up to several national exhibitions organised after Italy unification in 1861. The Biennale immediately put forth issues of city marketing, cultural tourism and urban regeneration, as it was meant to reposition Venice on the international cultural map after the crisis due to the end of the Grand Tour model and the weakening of the Venetian school of painting. Furthermore, the Gardens where the Biennale takes place were an abandoned city area that needed to be re-functionalised. In cultural terms, the Biennale was meant to provide on a biennial basis a platform for discussing contemporary art practices that were not represented in fine arts museums at the time. The early Biennale model already included some key points that are still constitutive of large-scale international art exhibitions today: a mix of city marketing, internationalism, gentrification issues and destination culture, and the spectacular, large scale of the event.

Biennials after the 1990s[edit]

The situation of biennials has changed in the contemporary context: while at its origin in 1895 Venice was a unique cultural event, but since the 1990s hundreds of biennials have been organized across the globe. Given the ephemeral and irregular nature of some biennials, there is little consensus on the exact number of biennials in existence at any given time.[citation needed] Furthermore, while Venice was a unique agent in the presentation of contemporary art, since the 1960s several museums devoted to contemporary art are exhibiting the contemporary scene on a regular basis. Another point of difference concerns 19th century internationalism in the arts, that was brought into question by post-colonial debates and criticism of the contemporary art “ethnic marketing”, and also challenged the Venetian and World Fair’s national representation system. As a consequence of this, Eurocentric tendency to implode the whole word in an exhibition space, which characterises both the Crystal Palace and the Venice Biennale, is affected by the expansion of the artistic geographical map to scenes traditionally considered as marginal. The birth of the Havana Biennial in 1984 is widely considered an important counterpoint to the Venetian model for its prioritization of artists working in the Global South and curatorial rejection of the national pavilion model.

International biennales[edit]

In the term's most commonly used context of major recurrent art exhibitions:

Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art, South Australia

Asian Art Biennale, in Taichung, Taiwan (National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts)

Athens Biennale, in Athens, Greece

Bienal de Arte Paiz, in Guatemala City, Guatemala[4]

Arts in Marrakech (AiM) International Biennale (Arts in Marrakech Festival)

Bamako Encounters, a biennale of photography in Mali

Bat-Yam International Biennale of Landscape Urbanism

Beijing Biennale

Berlin Biennale (contemporary art biennale, to be distinguished from Berlinale, which is a film festival)

Bergen Assembly (triennial for contemporary art in Bergen, Norway)www.bergenassembly.no

Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture, in Shenzhen and Hong Kong, China

Bienal de Arte de Ponce in Ponce, Puerto Rico

Biënnale van België, Biennial of Belgium, Belgium

BiennaleOnline Online biennial exhibition of contemporary art from the most promising emerging artists.

Biennial of Hawaii Artists

Biennale de la Biche, the smallest biennale in the world held at deserted island near Guadeloupe, French overseas region[5][6]

Biwako Biennale [ja], in Shiga, Japan

La Biennale de Montreal

Biennale of Luanda : Pan-African Forum for the Culture of Peace,[7] Angola

Boom Festival, international music and culture festival in Idanha-a-Nova, Portugal

Bucharest Biennale in Bucharest, Romania

Bushwick Biennial, in Bushwick, Brooklyn, New York

Canakkale Biennial, in Canakkale, Turkey

Cerveira International Art Biennial, Vila Nova de Cerveira, Portugal [8]

Changwon Sculpture Biennale in Changwon, South Korea

Dakar Biennale, also called Dak'Art, biennale in Dakar, Senegal

Documenta, contemporary art exhibition held every five years in Kassel, Germany

Estuaire (biennale), biennale in Nantes and Saint-Nazaire, France

EVA International, biennial in Limerick, Republic of Ireland

Göteborg International Biennial for Contemporary Art, in Gothenburg, Sweden[9]

Greater Taipei Contemporary Art Biennial, in Taipei, Taiwan

Gwangju Biennale, Asia's first and most prestigious contemporary art biennale

Havana biennial, in Havana, Cuba

Helsinki Biennial, in Helsinki, Finland

Herzliya Biennial For Contemporary Art, in Herzliya, Israel

Incheon Women Artists' Biennale, in Incheon, South Korea

Iowa Biennial, in Iowa, USA

Istanbul Biennial, in Istanbul, Turkey

International Roaming Biennial of Tehran, in Tehran and Istanbul

Jakarta Biennale, in Jakarta, Indonesia

Jerusalem Biennale, in Jerusalem, Israel

Jogja Biennale, in Yogyakarta, Indonesia

Karachi Biennale, in Karachi, Pakistan

Keelung Harbor Biennale, in Keelung, Taiwan

Kochi-Muziris Biennale, largest art exhibition in India, in Kochi, Kerala, India

Kortrijk Design Biennale Interieur, in Kortrijk, Belgium

Kobe Biennale, in Japan

Kuandu Biennale, in Taipei, Taiwan

Lagos Biennial, in Lagos, Nigeria[10]

Light Art Biennale Austria, in Austria

Liverpool Biennial, in Liverpool, UK

Lofoten International Art Festival [no] (LIAF), on the Lofoten archipelago, Norway[11]

Manifesta, European Biennale of contemporary art in different European cities

Mediations Biennale, in Poznań, Poland

Melbourne International Biennial 1999

Mediterranean Biennale in Sakhnin 2013

MOMENTA Biennale de l'image [fr] (formerly known as Le Mois de la Photo à Montréal), in Montreal, Canada

MOMENTUM [no], in Moss, Norway[12]

Moscow Biennale, in Moscow, Russia

Munich Biennale, new opera and music-theatre in even-numbered years

Mykonos Biennale

Nakanojo Biennale[13]

NGV Triennial, contemporary art exhibition held every three years at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia

October Salon – Belgrade Biennale [sr], organised by the Cultural Center of Belgrade [sr], in Belgrade, Serbia[14]

OSTEN Biennial of Drawing Skopje, North Macedonia[15]

Biennale de Paris

Riga International Biennial of Contemporary Art (RIBOCA), in Riga, Latvia[16]

São Paulo Art Biennial, in São Paulo, Brazil

SCAPE Public Art Christchurch Biennial in Christchurch, New Zealand[17]

Prospect New Orleans

Seoul Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism

Sequences, in Reykjavík, Iceland[18]

Shanghai Biennale

Sharjah Biennale, in Sharjah, UAE

Singapore Biennale, held in various locations across the city-state island of Singapore

Screen City Biennial, in Stavanger, Norway

Biennale of Sydney

Taipei Biennale, in Taipei, Taiwan

Taiwan Arts Biennale, in Taichung, Taiwan (National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts)

Taiwan Film Biennale, in Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, U.S.A.

Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art [el], in Thessaloniki, Greece[19]

Dream city, produced by ART Rue Association in Tunisia

Vancouver Biennale

Visayas Islands Visual Arts Exhibition and Conference (VIVA ExCon) in the Philippines [20]

Venice Biennale, in Venice, Italy, which includes:

Venice Biennale of Contemporary Art

Venice Biennale of Architecture

Venice Film Festival

Vladivostok biennale of Visual Arts, in Vladivostok, Russia

Whitney Biennial, hosted by the Whitney Museum of American Art, in New York City, NY, USA

Web Biennial, produced with teams from Athens, Berlin and Istanbul.

West Africa Architecture Biennale,[21] Virtual in Lagos, Nigeria.

WRO Biennale, in Wrocław, Poland[22]

Music Biennale Zagreb

[SHIFT:ibpcpa] The International Biennale of Performance, Collaborative and Participatory Arts, Nomadic, International, Scotland, UK.

 

—---Venice Biennale from wikipedia —

 

The Venice Biennale (/ˌbiːɛˈnɑːleɪ, -li/; Italian: La Biennale di Venezia) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation.[2][3][4] The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of its kind. The main exhibition held in Castello, in the halls of the Arsenale and Biennale Gardens, alternates between art and architecture (hence the name biennale; biennial).[5][6][7] The other events hosted by the Foundation—spanning theatre, music, and dance—are held annually in various parts of Venice, whereas the Venice Film Festival takes place at the Lido.[8]

Organization[edit]

Art Biennale

Art Biennale

International Art Exhibition

1895

Even-numbered years (since 2022)

Venice Biennale of Architecture

International Architecture Exhibition

1980

Odd-numbered years (since 2021)

Biennale Musica

International Festival of Contemporary Music

1930

Annually (Sep/Oct)

Biennale Teatro

International Theatre Festival

1934

Annually (Jul/Aug)

Venice Film Festival

Venice International Film Festival

1932

Annually (Aug/Sep)

Venice Dance Biennale

International Festival of Contemporary Dance

1999

Annually (June; biennially 2010–16)

  

International Kids' Carnival

2009

Annually (during Carnevale)

  

History

1895–1947

On April 19, 1893, the Venetian City Council passed a resolution to set up an biennial exhibition of Italian Art ("Esposizione biennale artistica nazionale") to celebrate the silver anniversary of King Umberto I and Margherita of Savoy.[11]

A year later, the council decreed "to adopt a 'by invitation' system; to reserve a section of the Exhibition for foreign artists too; to admit works by uninvited Italian artists, as selected by a jury."[12]

The first Biennale, "I Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte della Città di Venezia (1st International Art Exhibition of the City of Venice)" (although originally scheduled for April 22, 1894) was opened on April 30, 1895, by the Italian King and Queen, Umberto I and Margherita di Savoia. The first exhibition was seen by 224,000 visitors.

The event became increasingly international in the first decades of the 20th century: from 1907 on, several countries installed national pavilions at the exhibition, with the first being from Belgium. In 1910 the first internationally well-known artists were displayed: a room dedicated to Gustav Klimt, a one-man show for Renoir, a retrospective of Courbet. A work by Picasso "Family of Saltimbanques" was removed from the Spanish salon in the central Palazzo because it was feared that its novelty might shock the public. By 1914 seven pavilions had been established: Belgium (1907), Hungary (1909), Germany (1909), Great Britain (1909), France (1912), and Russia (1914).

During World War I, the 1916 and 1918 events were cancelled.[13] In 1920 the post of mayor of Venice and president of the Biennale was split. The new secretary general, Vittorio Pica brought about the first presence of avant-garde art, notably Impressionists and Post-Impressionists.

1922 saw an exhibition of sculpture by African artists. Between the two World Wars, many important modern artists had their work exhibited there. In 1928 the Istituto Storico d'Arte Contemporanea (Historical Institute of Contemporary Art) opened, which was the first nucleus of archival collections of the Biennale. In 1930 its name was changed into Historical Archive of Contemporary Art.

In 1930, the Biennale was transformed into an Ente Autonomo (Autonomous Board) by Royal Decree with law no. 33 of 13-1-1930. Subsequently, the control of the Biennale passed from the Venice city council to the national Fascist government under Benito Mussolini. This brought on a restructuring, an associated financial boost, as well as a new president, Count Giuseppe Volpi di Misurata. Three entirely new events were established, including the Biennale Musica in 1930, also referred to as International Festival of Contemporary Music; the Venice Film Festival in 1932, which they claim as the first film festival in history,[14] also referred to as Venice International Film Festival; and the Biennale Theatro in 1934, also referred to as International Theatre Festival.

In 1933 the Biennale organized an exhibition of Italian art abroad. From 1938, Grand Prizes were awarded in the art exhibition section.

During World War II, the activities of the Biennale were interrupted: 1942 saw the last edition of the events. The Film Festival restarted in 1946, the Music and Theatre festivals were resumed in 1947, and the Art Exhibition in 1948.[15]

1948–1973[edit]

The Art Biennale was resumed in 1948 with a major exhibition of a recapitulatory nature. The Secretary General, art historian Rodolfo Pallucchini, started with the Impressionists and many protagonists of contemporary art including Chagall, Klee, Braque, Delvaux, Ensor, and Magritte, as well as a retrospective of Picasso's work. Peggy Guggenheim was invited to exhibit her collection, later to be permanently housed at Ca' Venier dei Leoni.

1949 saw the beginning of renewed attention to avant-garde movements in European—and later worldwide—movements in contemporary art. Abstract expressionism was introduced in the 1950s, and the Biennale is credited with importing Pop Art into the canon of art history by awarding the top prize to Robert Rauschenberg in 1964.[16] From 1948 to 1972, Italian architect Carlo Scarpa did a series of remarkable interventions in the Biennale's exhibition spaces.

In 1954 the island San Giorgio Maggiore provided the venue for the first Japanese Noh theatre shows in Europe. 1956 saw the selection of films following an artistic selection and no longer based upon the designation of the participating country. The 1957 Golden Lion went to Satyajit Ray's Aparajito which introduced Indian cinema to the West.

1962 included Arte Informale at the Art Exhibition with Jean Fautrier, Hans Hartung, Emilio Vedova, and Pietro Consagra. The 1964 Art Exhibition introduced continental Europe to Pop Art (The Independent Group had been founded in Britain in 1952). The American Robert Rauschenberg was the first American artist to win the Gran Premio, and the youngest to date.

The student protests of 1968 also marked a crisis for the Biennale. Student protests hindered the opening of the Biennale. A resulting period of institutional changes opened and ending with a new Statute in 1973. In 1969, following the protests, the Grand Prizes were abandoned. These resumed in 1980 for the Mostra del Cinema and in 1986 for the Art Exhibition.[17]

In 1972, for the first time, a theme was adopted by the Biennale, called "Opera o comportamento" ("Work or Behaviour").

Starting from 1973 the Music Festival was no longer held annually. During the year in which the Mostra del Cinema was not held, there was a series of "Giornate del cinema italiano" (Days of Italian Cinema) promoted by sectorial bodies in campo Santa Margherita, in Venice.[18]

1974–1998[edit]

1974 saw the start of the four-year presidency of Carlo Ripa di Meana. The International Art Exhibition was not held (until it was resumed in 1976). Theatre and cinema events were held in October 1974 and 1975 under the title Libertà per il Cile (Freedom for Chile)—a major cultural protest against the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.

On 15 November 1977, the so-called Dissident Biennale (in reference to the dissident movement in the USSR) opened. Because of the ensuing controversies within the Italian left wing parties, president Ripa di Meana resigned at the end of the year.[19]

In 1979 the new presidency of Giuseppe Galasso (1979-1982) began. The principle was laid down whereby each of the artistic sectors was to have a permanent director to organise its activity.

In 1980, the Architecture section of the Biennale was set up. The director, Paolo Portoghesi, opened the Corderie dell'Arsenale to the public for the first time. At the Mostra del Cinema, the awards were brought back into being (between 1969 and 1979, the editions were non-competitive). In 1980, Achille Bonito Oliva and Harald Szeemann introduced "Aperto", a section of the exhibition designed to explore emerging art. Italian art historian Giovanni Carandente directed the 1988 and 1990 editions. A three-year gap was left afterwards to make sure that the 1995 edition would coincide with the 100th anniversary of the Biennale.[13]

The 1993 edition was directed by Achille Bonito Oliva. In 1995, Jean Clair was appointed to be the Biennale's first non-Italian director of visual arts[20] while Germano Celant served as director in 1997.

For the Centenary in 1995, the Biennale promoted events in every sector of its activity: the 34th Festival del Teatro, the 46th art exhibition, the 46th Festival di Musica, the 52nd Mostra del Cinema.[21]

1999–present[edit]

In 1999 and 2001, Harald Szeemann directed two editions in a row (48th & 49th) bringing in a larger representation of artists from Asia and Eastern Europe and more young artists than usual and expanded the show into several newly restored spaces of the Arsenale.

In 1999 a new sector was created for live shows: DMT (Dance Music Theatre).

The 50th edition, 2003, directed by Francesco Bonami, had a record number of seven co-curators involved, including Hans Ulrich Obrist, Catherine David, Igor Zabel, Hou Hanru and Massimiliano Gioni.

The 51st edition of the Biennale opened in June 2005, curated, for the first time by two women, Maria de Corral and Rosa Martinez. De Corral organized "The Experience of Art" which included 41 artists, from past masters to younger figures. Rosa Martinez took over the Arsenale with "Always a Little Further." Drawing on "the myth of the romantic traveler" her exhibition involved 49 artists, ranging from the elegant to the profane.

In 2007, Robert Storr became the first director from the United States to curate the Biennale (the 52nd), with a show entitled Think with the Senses – Feel with the Mind. Art in the Present Tense.

Swedish curator Daniel Birnbaum was artistic director of the 2009 edition entitled "Fare Mondi // Making Worlds".

The 2011 edition was curated by Swiss curator Bice Curiger entitled "ILLUMInazioni – ILLUMInations".

The Biennale in 2013 was curated by the Italian Massimiliano Gioni. His title and theme, Il Palazzo Enciclopedico / The Encyclopedic Palace, was adopted from an architectural model by the self-taught Italian-American artist Marino Auriti. Auriti's work, The Encyclopedic Palace of the World was lent by the American Folk Art Museum and exhibited in the first room of the Arsenale for the duration of the biennale. For Gioni, Auriti's work, "meant to house all worldly knowledge, bringing together the greatest discoveries of the human race, from the wheel to the satellite," provided an analogous figure for the "biennale model itself...based on the impossible desire to concentrate the infinite worlds of contemporary art in a single place: a task that now seems as dizzyingly absurd as Auriti's dream."[22]

Curator Okwui Enwezor was responsible for the 2015 edition.[23] He was the first African-born curator of the biennial. As a catalyst for imagining different ways of imagining multiple desires and futures Enwezor commissioned special projects and programs throughout the Biennale in the Giardini. This included a Creative Time Summit, e-flux journal's SUPERCOMMUNITY, Gulf Labor Coalition, The Invisible Borders Trans-African Project and Abounaddara.[24][25]

The 2017 Biennale, titled Viva Arte Viva, was directed by French curator Christine Macel who called it an "exhibition inspired by humanism".[26] German artist Franz Erhard Walter won the Golden Lion for best artist, while Carolee Schneemann was awarded a posthumous Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement.[27]

The 2019 Biennale, titled May You Live In Interesting Times, was directed by American-born curator Ralph Rugoff.[28]

The 2022 edition was curated by Italian curator Cecilia Alemani entitled "The Milk of Dreams" after a book by British-born Mexican surrealist painter Leonora Carrington.[29]

The Biennale has an attendance today of over 500,000 visitors.[30][31][32]

Role in the art market[edit]

When the Venice Biennale was founded in 1895, one of its main goals was to establish a new market for contemporary art. Between 1942 and 1968 a sales office assisted artists in finding clients and selling their work,[33] a service for which it charged 10% commission. Sales remained an intrinsic part of the biennale until 1968, when a sales ban was enacted. An important practical reason why the focus on non-commodities has failed to decouple Venice from the market is that the biennale itself lacks the funds to produce, ship and install these large-scale works. Therefore, the financial involvement of dealers is widely regarded as indispensable;[16] as they regularly front the funding for production of ambitious projects.[34] Furthermore, every other year the Venice Biennale coincides with nearby Art Basel, the world's prime commercial fair for modern and contemporary art. Numerous galleries with artists on show in Venice usually bring work by the same artists to Basel.[35]

Central Pavilion and Arsenale[edit]

The formal Biennale is based at a park, the Giardini. The Giardini includes a large exhibition hall that houses a themed exhibition curated by the Biennale's director.

Initiated in 1980, the Aperto began as a fringe event for younger artists and artists of a national origin not represented by the permanent national pavilions. This is usually staged in the Arsenale and has become part of the formal biennale programme. In 1995 there was no Aperto so a number of participating countries hired venues to show exhibitions of emerging artists. From 1999, both the international exhibition and the Aperto were held as one exhibition, held both at the Central Pavilion and the Arsenale. Also in 1999, a $1 million renovation transformed the Arsenale area into a cluster of renovated shipyards, sheds and warehouses, more than doubling the Arsenale's exhibition space of previous years.[36]

A special edition of the 54th Biennale was held at Padiglione Italia of Torino Esposizioni – Sala Nervi (December 2011 – February 2012) for the 150th Anniversary of Italian Unification. The event was directed by Vittorio Sgarbi.[37]

National pavilions[edit]

Main article: National pavilions at the Venice Biennale

The Giardini houses 30 permanent national pavilions.[13] Alongside the Central Pavilion, built in 1894 and later restructured and extended several times, the Giardini are occupied by a further 29 pavilions built at different periods by the various countries participating in the Biennale. The first nation to build a pavilion was Belgium in 1907, followed by Germany, Britain and Hungary in 1909.[13] The pavilions are the property of the individual countries and are managed by their ministries of culture.[38]

Countries not owning a pavilion in the Giardini are exhibited in other venues across Venice. The number of countries represented is still growing. In 2005, China was showing for the first time, followed by the African Pavilion and Mexico (2007), the United Arab Emirates (2009), and India (2011).[39]

The assignment of the permanent pavilions was largely dictated by the international politics of the 1930s and the Cold War. There is no single format to how each country manages their pavilion, established and emerging countries represented at the biennial maintain and fund their pavilions in different ways.[38] While pavilions are usually government-funded, private money plays an increasingly large role; in 2015, the pavilions of Iraq, Ukraine and Syria were completely privately funded.[40] The pavilion for Great Britain is always managed by the British Council[41] while the United States assigns the responsibility to a public gallery chosen by the Department of State which, since 1985, has been the Peggy Guggenheim Collection.[42] The countries at the Arsenale that request a temporary exhibition space pay a hire fee per square meter.[38]

In 2011, the countries were Albania, Andorra, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Bangladesh, Belarus, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, China, Congo, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cuba, Cyprus, Czechia and Slovakia, Denmark, Egypt, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Haiti, Hungary, Iceland, India, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Mexico, Moldova, Montenegro, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, San Marino, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Singapore, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Syrian Arab Republic, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States of America, Uruguay, Venezuela, Wales and Zimbabwe. In addition to this there are two collective pavilions: Central Asia Pavilion and Istituto Italo-Latino Americano. In 2013, eleven new participant countries developed national pavilions for the Biennale: Angola, Bosnia and Herzegowina, the Bahamas, Bahrain, the Ivory Coast, Kosovo, Kuwait, the Maldives, Paraguay, Tuvalu, and the Holy See. In 2015, five new participant countries developed pavilions for the Biennale: Grenada,[43] Republic of Mozambique, Republic of Seychelles, Mauritius and Mongolia. In 2017, three countries participated in the Art Biennale for the first time: Antigua & Barbuda, Kiribati, and Nigeria.[44] In 2019, four countries participated in the Art Biennale for the first time: Ghana, Madagascar, Malaysia, and Pakistan.[45]

As well as the national pavilions there are countless "unofficial pavilions"[46] that spring up every year. In 2009 there were pavilions such as the Gabon Pavilion and a Peckham pavilion. In 2017 The Diaspora Pavilion bought together 19 artists from complex, multinational backgrounds to challenge the prevalence of the nation state at the Biennale.[47]

The Internet Pavilion (Italian: Padiglione Internet) was founded in 2009 as a platform for activists and artists working in new media.[48][49][50] Subsequent editions were held since,[51] 2013,[51] in conjunction with the biennale.[52]

-----

وینسVenetsiya

art umjetnost umění kunst taideτέχνη művészetList ealaínarte māksla menasartiKunst sztuka artăumenie umetnost konstcelfקונסטարվեստincəsənətশিল্প艺术(yìshù)藝術 (yìshù)ხელოვნებაकलाkos duabアートಕಲೆសិល្បៈ미(misul)ສິນລະປະകലकलाအတတ်ပညာकलाකලාවகலைఆర్ట్ศิลปะ آرٹsan'atnghệ thuậtفن (fan)אומנותهنرsanat artist

venice biennale Venezia Venedig biennalen Bienal_de_Venecia Venise Venecia Bienalo Bienal Biënnale Venetië Veneza Μπιενάλε της Βενετίας ヴェネツィ ア・ビエンナーレ 威尼斯双年展 Venedik Bienali Venetsian biennaali Wenecji biennial #venicebiennale #venicebiennial biennalism

Veneziako Venecija Venècia Venetië Veneetsia Venetsia VenedigΒ ενετία Velence Feneyjar Venice Venēcija Venezja Venezia Wenecja VenezaVeneția Venetsiya Benátky Benetke Fenisוועניס Վենետիկ ভেনি স威尼斯 威尼斯 ვენეციისવે નિસवेनिसヴ ェネツィアವೆನಿಸ್베니스வெனிஸ்వెనిస్เวนิซوینس Venetsiya Italy italia

 

--------key words

headband protest fashion protestfashion artistic intervention performance artformat action installation critical critic critique institutional critic choregraphy scenography

#venicebiennale #biennalist #artformat #biennale #artbiennale #biennial

#BiennaleArte2024 #artformat

Decibelle is one of many creations from a group of various engineers. Their goal is to create androids that are catered to a specific task. She was created as a radio technician and was programmer to be a social communications tower. She is the older sister to Circuit, who was created by the same group.

After a sudden power down, she awoke to a new world where she was sheltered from the world. Due to her being unable to travel and move, she used her skill to gather others who would travel to her location and get her information from there. She grew bored with her time, wanted to interact more with the world around her. She had heard of people who would perform on the Internet for fun and money.

She outfitted herself with the appropriate equipment for gaming, the most popular genre of online entertainment. She gave herself an alternate face to her original ‘cyclops’ face that is meant for function, with a cleaner looking face that she assumed viewers would like more. She marketed herself as playing games she had never played before, and while streaming online, she had her webcam pointed from the waist up to hide her tower-like lower body.

She was recognized quickly, and was later contracted by news outlets and broadcast studios to cover events and add commentary. She developed small drones to be her outside eyes, and experience traveling in the world she resides without being able to leave.

 

Check out my YouTube for more MOCs like this!

 

goo.gl/1axFRH

  

Rhesus macaque 普通獼猴/恆河猴 (Specific name: Macaca mulatta)

the implied absence of explicit specificity

U-BOOT TYP VII C - 1/38 (minifig) scale with full interior.

  

~ 177 CM (~70 INCH) LONG

~ 15.000 PARTS

~ 4.5 YEARS OF WORK

  

GOALS

 

The model was supposed to represent a ship from the initial period of the war.

It does not show a specific copy, but it should resemble uboots such as U-69 or U-96 (known from the classic Das Boot movie).

I wanted to get a fairly good representation of both the curves of the hull and as many pieces of internal equipment as possible.

  

MODEL CHARACTERISTICS

 

It consists of 6 modules that naturally represent the 6 sections of a real ship:

 

1. The forward torpedo room and crew compartment [Bow: ~ 3600 parts]

2. Officers', radio and listening room [Front mess: ~ 2000 parts]

3. Control room with conning tower [Control room: ~ 2700 parts]

4. Petty Officers' romm and galley [Rear mess: ~ 1700 parts]

5. Diesel engines room [Diesels: ~ 2400 parts]

6. Electric engines and aft torpedo room [Stern: ~ 2800 parts]

  

In each module, the port and / or starboard can be removed.

So the entire model can represent the ship from the outside or with an open interior.

The target configuration is with the starboard closed and the port open.

 

I finally made two photo sessions of the entire model - in a fully closed configuration and with a closed starboard and open port side.

 

Adittionally I have prepared presentation of individual modules separately.

  

[b][CONSTRUCTION][/b]

 

The construction was planned to be made in sections and I started from the control room.

Each module was first designed in LDD (first the hull, then the interior) and then built in reality.

 

The modules were created in this order:

3. Control room

2. Front mess

1. Bow

4. Rear mess

5. Diesels

6. Stern

 

Designing started on 26.12.2017.

  

[b][PHOTOS][/b]

 

I invite you to view photos.

I'm sorry that there are so many, but I couldn't resist.

(it took me about 3 months to photograph and post-process them)

 

Flickr albums (part of the photos):

0. Overall: www.flickr.com/photos/pigletciamek/albums/72177720300082599

1. Bow: www.flickr.com/photos/pigletciamek/albums/72177720300077412

2. Front mess: www.flickr.com/photos/pigletciamek/albums/72177720300086873

3. Control room: www.flickr.com/photos/pigletciamek/albums/72177720300082694

4. Rear mess: www.flickr.com/photos/pigletciamek/albums/72177720300082699

5. Diesels: www.flickr.com/photos/pigletciamek/albums/72177720300086878

6. Stern: www.flickr.com/photos/pigletciamek/albums/72177720300077462

0-6. Alltogether: www.flickr.com/photos/pigletciamek/albums/72177720300076411

  

BS (all photos):

0. Overall: brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=584704

1. Bow: brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=584706

2. Front mess: brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=584707

3. Control room: brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=584708

4. Rear mess: brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=584709

5. Diesels: brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=584710

6. Stern: brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=584711

   

Sometimes, great timing happens and everything connects for one short moment in life and makes you feel present in the universe.

 

As I was turning from a corner, I saw these delightful autumnal colours around the red brick wall and there walked a lovely young person dressed in perfect matching colours with Nature.

At that very moment, she had the same thoughts--as I learned a minute later--and that's when I stopped her for a portrait.

 

It was easy to talk to Riina, 23y/o, almost 24, in a fortnight. She acted naturally in front of my camera and my camera loved her. She become one with this delightful autumnal tableau.

 

Riina is a student of philosophy; her reflections upon my questions emphasised her philosophical education. I would have loved to discuss longer with her, but there wasn't enough time. She was on her way to support the Extinction Rebellion, the global environmental movement's manifestation in town. She did, however, promise to answer my questions by returning email.

 

I sent her the photos and was so glad to receive her answers within a few hours.

The floor is yours, Riina.

 

"When one is asked about "The Meaning of Life" I like to paraphrase whomever it was--I don't remember where I heard this and whether I'm remembering it right--who said that life does not have a meaning per se, but things within life have meanings, which I think, gets formed through specific subject's experiences and that same subjects relations to things they bump into within these experiences.

I'm talking about the meanings of life since those things that have a meaning or meanings to this specific subject, are the things that inspire me and are connected, I think, to all the your questions. So, at this moment in time I'm rather into--which means deeply in love with--books, philosophy, dancing, nature, especially forests, humour, especially satire, animals, especially dolphins, art, history, solitude, walking, writing and, I guess, thinking. These are the things I do in life, that I like to do in my spare time and that inspire me.

 

"What I love about myself is that I'm insanely curious--it brings a lot of meaning to my existence and keeps me, most of the time, rather satisfied, by which I mean excited and joyful. Interestingly, it seems that the more curious you are, the more curious you get; and the more curious you get, the more you get the learn. And I've had some amazing luck with ending up being this almost strangely inquisitive person. I really dig it!

 

"The Younger-Me question was to me definitely the easiest to answer; I would advice her to not be so deeply afraid of feelings, to not think of them as something one should wish to get rid of or worse, hide them and imagine them non-existent. It would have made things a lot easier, I suppose, if I'd understood feelings as mentionable, understandable, acceptable and manageable and not as some kind of demonic and horrible signs-of-weaknesses.

 

"And I thought a lot about what I would say to the world, but I suppose I can't imagine myself being a worthy advice-giver, since I'm myself actively trying to find a way to flourish. However, there's this one thought-provoker I like, which often helps me to answer a question of what it is that I "ought" to do in any specific situation; that is, "Imagine a person who would be in your opinion morally 'perfectly good'. How would they act in this situation?" I like this since it leaves us to imagine our own kind of goodness and own kind of perfection--which in my case means a person who definitely is not "perfect" in all kinds of situations, not even in most situations--and I don't have to end up implying that I'd know better about living a flourishing life than I do. It's kind of a version of "What would [...] do?" but a more imaginative one."

 

Thank you, Riina, I was happy to run into you so totally randomly, a second later and we would have missed each other. You were a breath of fresh air.

 

"It was really great to meet you, Ann, this was a lot of fun! I've never experienced anything like this and I appreciate you and all this!"

Riina

  

This is my 858th submission to The Human Family group.

Visit the group here to see more portraits and stories: The Human Family

White-breasted Nuthatches are gray-blue on the back, with a frosty white face and underparts. The black or gray cap and neck frame the face and make it look like the bird is wearing a hood. The lower belly and under the tail is often chestnut. And while it's the largest of the four North American Nuthatches, it's still a relatively small bird with a body length of only 5 - 6 inches (13 - 14 cm) and a wingspan of 8 - 11 inches (20 - 27 cm).

 

The female has on average, a narrower back band, slightly duller upperparts and buffer underparts than the male. But the surest way to distinguish a female is her cap can be gray. Unfortunately many females have black caps, thus they can be difficult to distinguish from the male in the field. But if it has a gray cap you can be assured it's a female.

 

The White-breasted Nuthatch has nine sub-species, although the differences are small and change gradually across its range. Based on my location the Nuthatches in this series would be sub-specis S. c. carolinensis. Supposedly the difference is this sub-species has the palest back and cap. It also happens to be the "nominate" sub-species (i.e. the best to describe and represent its species, which bears the species' specific name).

 

The White-breasted Nuthatch, like all four members of the genus, has a large head, short tail, short wings, a powerful bill and strong feet. Nuthatches in general are active, agile little birds with an appetite for insects and large, meaty seeds. They get their common name from their habit of jamming large nuts and acorns into tree bark, then whacking them with their sharp bill to “hatch” out the seed from the inside.

 

Like most of its genus, the White-breasted Nuthatch is non-migratory, and the adults normally stay in their territory year-round. But there may be some noticeable dispersal due to seed failure or high reproductive success in some years.

 

Of the four species of Nuthatches in North America, the White-breasted Nuthatch is the most common. Especially in the eastern half of the continent. These tree climbing birds are very adept at climbing up, around, and even down a tree in search of insects that it gleans from the trunk or limbs. It is also the largest of the four species...the other three being the Red-breasted Nuthatch, Brown-headed Nuthatch, and Pygmy Nuthatch. These three significantly smaller nuthatches have ranges which overlap that of the White-breasted, but none has white plumage completely surrounding the eye.

 

ISO1600, aperture f/8, exposure .003 seconds (1/400) focal length 630mm

 

Salvin’s mollymawk was previously considered to be a subspecies of Diomedea cauta (Gould, 1841). However, following the transfer of D. cauta to the genus Thalassarche it was elevated to specific status. Salvin’s mollymawk frequents New Zealand coastal waters, especially south from Cook Strait and is a familiar albatross scavenging around commercial and recreational fishing vessels.

Identification

Salvin’s mollymawk is a typical medium-sized albatross. It is black across the upperwings, with a white lower back and rump and black tip to the tail. The underparts are white with narrow black borders under the wing and a small black notch in the “armpit” at the base of the leading edge of the wing. The head, throat and nape are pale grey, creating a hooded effect. The bill is grey-green, with a paler top and bottom and a black spot at the tip of the lower bill. Juveniles fledge with olive-brown bills with a dark tip, but apparently immediately depart New Zealand waters, and do not return until they have adult colouration.

Voice: Salvin’s mollymawks are usually silent at sea, though may give harsh croaking when squabbling for food. They utter a variety of brays, croaks and wails during courtship.

Similar species: White-capped and Chatham Island mollymawks are close relatives, but all are separated by the degree of grey on the head and the bill colour. White-capped mollymawk has a white head and neck, with a small black patch in front of the eyes and a grey wash on the cheeks. Its bill has grey-blue sides with yellowish top, bottom and tip. Chatham Island mollymawk is the darkest-faced of the three and has a bright yellow bill with a dark spot near the tip of the lower mandible. Juveniles of Buller’s and Salvin’s mollymawks are very similar, but both species fly across the Pacific Ocean to seas off Chile and Peru as soon as they fledge. Juve

WW2 German Camo SS troops (Non-Specific).

@algonquinoutfit : #GlobalFatBikeDay Sale $500 off @Surly_Bikes #ECR #TodayOnly! 705-787-0262 bikes@algonquinoutfitters.com #FatBike… t.co/jurG8cMLuY (via Twitter twitter.com/algonquinoutfit/status/805099319493873665)

This tree is overtaken by its own beautiful pink blooms. How beautiful!

I only wished I could have made better photos of it.

These shots were quickly captured at home in limited time.

 

Also I am not sure what the name of this tree is, any help in this regard will be appreciated.

 

EDIT:

[ I have found the specific species of this beautiful plant. It is a "Calliandra Brevipes also known as Pink Powderpuff" the Mimosa is more of a tree and this one is more of a shrub. The leaves also differs considerably in size. ]

 

All camera and lens information available in the EXIF data.

Critique is welcomed.

Thank you all very much for your visits, favs and comments.

Was scrolling through Lightroom looking for a specific image when I came across this pic already processed and just sitting there. I don't remember why I didn't like it enough to post anywhere before... Maybe it's because I had already posted so many Antelope Canyon shots already.

 

If you look closely near the bottom middle of the image you can see all the legs of the people being held back around the bend by our guide. I was going to burn them out but thought it was more true to the scene to leave them in.

 

I hope to finally get out and collect some new images this week. I picked up a sweet year long assignment with my favorite Maine publisher that I really need to get to work on.

 

PLUS | website | blog

Knole has always excited a range of different reactions. Henry VIII liked it so much that he forced Thomas Cranmer, his Archbishop of Canterbury, to hand it to him in 1538. Yet, the following century, the diarist John Evelyn was so depressed by the greyness of this 'greate old fashion'd house' that he hurried out into the sunshine. In the 18th century, Horace Walpole was impressed by Knole's 'beautiful decent simplicity which charms one' but on a later visit decided that it 'has neither beauty nor prospects'.

 

These mixed emotions can partly be explained by the many faces Knole presents on different days and at different times of the year. On a dull winter's day, as you ride the crest of the knoll in front of the house and the north front looms in sight, Knole's sprawling mass of sodden Kentish ragstone strikes a sombre note. But on a sunny summer's day, the south front, with its colonnade of seven lightly coloured marble arches, dances to a very different tune.

 

The Sackvilles and Knole

 

Knole was rebuilt and then furnished in three main bursts of activity, each separated by around a hundred years. In the early 17th century, Thomas Sackville, 1st Earl of Dorset, transformed the late medieval archbishop's palace into a Renaissance mansion. Towards the end of the 17th century, his great-great-grandson, the 6th Earl, acquired Knole's unique collection of Stuart furniture and textiles through his office as Lord Chamberlain. And then, towards the end of the 18th century the 6th Earl's great-grandson, the 3rd Duke, added Old Masters bought on the Grand Tour to Italy and portraits commissioned from contemporary English artists such as Reynolds and Gainsborough.

 

Visitors today see a house and collection little changed since the 3rd Duke's day. By the end of the 17th century, the Sackvilles had withdrawn to private apartments on the ground floor and tended to live there rather than in the more formal, public rooms on the first floor - today's showrooms. The very fact that large areas of Knole were inhabited only intermittently from the end of the 17th century and that the furniture therefore remained under dust sheets for long periods, accounts for its miraculous survival.

 

Knole comes to the National Trust

 

In 1946, the Sackville family handed over Knole to the National Trust with an endowment towards its maintenance. The family retained possession of the park and many of the contents of the house and were granted a 200-year lease on various private apartments within the house.

 

Vita Sackville-West and Knole

 

Vita Sackville-West had grown to love Knole's many faces from her happy childhood there. In 'Knole and the Sackvilles' (1922), she wrote that Knole 'has a deep inward gaiety of some very old woman who has always been beautiful, who has had many lovers and seen many generations come and go … It is above all an English home,' she continued, 'It has the tone of England; it melts into the green of the garden turf, into the tawnier green of the park beyond, into the blue of the pale English sky.'

On display in the Great Hall is a facsimile of the bound manuscript of Virginia Woolf's novel 'Orlando'. The novel is dedicated to Vita Sackville-West and, in the words of Vita's son, Nigel Nicolson, it is 'the longest and most charming love letter in literature'. Vita is the eponymous hero/heroine (Orlando changes gender over the four centuries in which the novel is set) and Orlando's ancestral home is a house, like Knole, with a legendary 365 rooms. The pages are threaded through with similarly specific references to Knole and to its past and present incumbents. It ends with Orlando taking possession of the house whereas, in fact, Vita had been denied ownership of her beloved Knole because the house was passed through the male line.

In 1930 Vita fell in love with Sissinghurst Castle and bought it, along with 4,000 acres of farmland. Together Vita and her husband, Harold Nicolson, made a garden which reflected their different personalities - Harold being a classicist and Vita a romantic. Today, Sissinghurst Castle Garden is also owned by the National Trust.

 

Foe further information please visit www.nationaltrust.org.uk/main/w-vh/w-visits/w-findaplace/...

Taken with a Cokin Close Up +3 filter

 

Licensing

 

A selection of my photography is available for commercial, editorial and media licensing, with high-resolution files available through my stock photography portfolios.

 

For licensing enquiries, stock availability, or to enquire about a specific photograph:

 

• Adobe Stock: stock.adobe.com/uk/contributor/213316334/Chris%20Jones

• Alamy: www.alamy.com/stock-photo/?cid=PX7TB98Y3L9LPU3CG4AWN87626...

• Portfolio: chrisgj6.myportfolio.com

 

© Chris Jones (chrisgj6). All rights reserved. Please do not reproduce or use this photograph commercially without permission or an appropriate licence.

U-BOOT TYP VII C - 1/38 (minifig) scale with full interior.

  

~ 177 CM (~70 INCH) LONG

~ 15.000 PARTS

~ 4.5 YEARS OF WORK

  

GOALS

 

The model was supposed to represent a ship from the initial period of the war.

It does not show a specific copy, but it should resemble uboots such as U-69 or U-96 (known from the classic Das Boot movie).

I wanted to get a fairly good representation of both the curves of the hull and as many pieces of internal equipment as possible.

  

MODEL CHARACTERISTICS

 

It consists of 6 modules that naturally represent the 6 sections of a real ship:

 

1. The forward torpedo room and crew compartment [Bow: ~ 3600 parts]

2. Officers', radio and listening room [Front mess: ~ 2000 parts]

3. Control room with conning tower [Control room: ~ 2700 parts]

4. Petty Officers' romm and galley [Rear mess: ~ 1700 parts]

5. Diesel engines room [Diesels: ~ 2400 parts]

6. Electric engines and aft torpedo room [Stern: ~ 2800 parts]

  

In each module, the port and / or starboard can be removed.

So the entire model can represent the ship from the outside or with an open interior.

The target configuration is with the starboard closed and the port open.

 

I finally made two photo sessions of the entire model - in a fully closed configuration and with a closed starboard and open port side.

 

Adittionally I have prepared presentation of individual modules separately.

  

[b][CONSTRUCTION][/b]

 

The construction was planned to be made in sections and I started from the control room.

Each module was first designed in LDD (first the hull, then the interior) and then built in reality.

 

The modules were created in this order:

3. Control room

2. Front mess

1. Bow

4. Rear mess

5. Diesels

6. Stern

 

Designing started on 26.12.2017.

  

[b][PHOTOS][/b]

 

I invite you to view photos.

I'm sorry that there are so many, but I couldn't resist.

(it took me about 3 months to photograph and post-process them)

 

Flickr albums (part of the photos):

0. Overall: www.flickr.com/photos/pigletciamek/albums/72177720300082599

1. Bow: www.flickr.com/photos/pigletciamek/albums/72177720300077412

2. Front mess: www.flickr.com/photos/pigletciamek/albums/72177720300086873

3. Control room: www.flickr.com/photos/pigletciamek/albums/72177720300082694

4. Rear mess: www.flickr.com/photos/pigletciamek/albums/72177720300082699

5. Diesels: www.flickr.com/photos/pigletciamek/albums/72177720300086878

6. Stern: www.flickr.com/photos/pigletciamek/albums/72177720300077462

0-6. Alltogether: www.flickr.com/photos/pigletciamek/albums/72177720300076411

  

BS (all photos):

0. Overall: brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=584704

1. Bow: brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=584706

2. Front mess: brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=584707

3. Control room: brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=584708

4. Rear mess: brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=584709

5. Diesels: brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=584710

6. Stern: brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=584711

   

This location may be of interest to a specific group of people: Fans of the books by Gavin Maxwell, and specifically those relating to his pet otters - the trilogy of "Ring of Bright Water"; "Raven seek thy Brother" and "The Rocks remain".

  

He had a colourful life: During WW2 he trained SOE agents who were to be dropped into France for sabotage missions, etc but it is in his later years when he turned to writing that he is best remembered for.

  

This is the location in a remote part of the North-west of Scotland that he wrote about. A film was also made, based on his story: Ring of Bright Water starring Virginia McKenna and Bill Travers.

  

His house, known in the books and film as "Camusfearna", stood where the memorial stone now is. Maxwell's ashes are buried underneath it. In the background is "Raef Payne's cottage" that is referred to in Maxwells' story.

  

The books were hugely popular and sold millions. The location of "Camusfearna" (real name: Sandaig) remained mostly unknown until the house burned down in 1968. Then it made news round the world because of its famous occupant. One of his otters, Edal, died in the fire and is buried nearby, with a memorial cairn.

  

For the vast majority of people the site is too remote to visit (even if they wanted to). Living in Scotland, I was able to visit Sandaig in 1977 and again in 2011. Now, more than 50 years after the fire I've posted a selection of my pictures of Sandaig, and nearby, on Flickr. For anyone interested the pictures will be in my "RoBW" Album.

 

Venedig - Markusdom

 

seen from St Mark's Campanile

 

gesehen vom Markusturm

 

The Patriarchal Cathedral Basilica of Saint Mark (Italian: Basilica Cattedrale Patriarcale di San Marco), commonly known as St Mark's Basilica (Italian: Basilica di San Marco; Venetian: Baxéłega de San Marco), is the cathedral church of the Catholic Patriarchate of Venice; it became the episcopal seat of the Patriarch of Venice in 1807, replacing the earlier cathedral of San Pietro di Castello. It is dedicated to and holds the relics of Saint Mark the Evangelist, the patron saint of the city.

 

The church is located on the eastern end of Saint Mark's Square, the former political and religious centre of the Republic of Venice, and is attached to the Doge's Palace. Prior to the fall of the republic in 1797, it was the chapel of the Doge and was subject to his jurisdiction, with the concurrence of the procurators of Saint Mark de supra for administrative and financial affairs.

 

The present structure is the third church, begun probably in 1063 to express Venice's growing civic consciousness and pride. Like the two earlier churches, its model was the sixth-century Church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople, although accommodations were made to adapt the design to the limitations of the physical site and to meet the specific needs of Venetian state ceremonies. Middle-Byzantine, Romanesque, and Islamic influences are also evident, and Gothic elements were later incorporated. To convey the republic's wealth and power, the original brick façades and interior walls were embellished over time with precious stones and rare marbles, primarily in the thirteenth century. Many of the columns, reliefs, and sculptures were spoils stripped from the churches, palaces, and public monuments of Constantinople as a result of the Venetian participation in the Fourth Crusade. Among the plundered artefacts brought back to Venice were the four ancient bronze horses that were placed prominently over the entry.

 

The interior of the domes, the vaults, and the upper walls were slowly covered with gold-ground mosaics depicting saints, prophets, and biblical scenes. Many of these mosaics were later retouched or remade as artistic tastes changed and damaged mosaics had to be replaced, such that the mosaics represent eight hundred years of artistic styles. Some of them derive from traditional Byzantine representations and are masterworks of Medieval art; others are based on preparatory drawings made by prominent Renaissance artists from Venice and Florence, including Paolo Veronese, Tintoretto, Titian, Paolo Uccello, and Andrea del Castagno.

 

History

 

Several medieval chronicles narrate the translatio, the removal of Saint Mark's body from Alexandria in Egypt by two Venetian merchants and its transfer to Venice in 828/829. The Chronicon Venetum further recounts that the relics of Saint Mark were initially placed in a corner tower of the castrum, the fortified residence of the Doge and seat of government located on the site of the present Doge's Palace. Doge Giustiniano Participazio (in office 827–829) subsequently stipulated in his will that his widow and his younger brother and successor Giovanni (in office 829–832) were to erect a church dedicated to Saint Mark wherein the relics would ultimately be housed. Giustiniano further specified that the new church was to be built between the castrum and the Church of Saint Theodore to the north. Construction of the new church may have actually been underway during Giustinian's lifetime and was completed by 836 when the relics of Saint Mark were transferred.

 

Although the Participazio church was long believed to have been a rectangular structure with a single apse, soundings and excavations have demonstrated that St Mark's was from the beginning a cruciform church with at least a central dome, likely in wood. It has not been unequivocally established if each of the four crossarms of the church had a similar dome or were instead covered with gabled wooden roofs.

 

The prototype was the Church of the Holy Apostles (demolished 1461) in Constantinople. This radical break with the local architectural tradition of a rectangular plan in favour of a centrally planned Byzantine model reflected the growing commercial presence of Venetian merchants in the imperial capital as well as Venice's political ties with Byzantium. More importantly, it underscored that St Mark's was intended not as an ecclesiastical seat but as a state sanctuary.

 

Remnants of the Participazio church likely survive and are generally believed to include the foundations and lower parts of several of the principal walls, including the western wall between the nave and the narthex. The great entry portal may also date to the early church as well as the western portion of the crypt, under the central dome, which seems to have served as the base for a raised dais upon which the original altar was located.

 

Orseolo church (976–c. 1063)

 

The Participazio church was severely damaged in 976 during the popular uprising against Doge Pietro IV Candiano (in office 959–976) when the fire that angry crowds had set to drive the Doge from the castrum spread to the adjoining church. Although the structure was not completely destroyed, it was compromised to the point that the Concio, the general assembly, had to alternatively convene in the cathedral of San Pietro di Castello to elect Candiano's successor, Pietro I Orseolo (in office 976–978). Within two years, the church was repaired and at the sole expense of the Orseolo family, indications that the actual damage was relatively limited. Most likely, the wooden components had been consumed, but the walls and supports remained largely intact.

 

Nothing certain is known of the appearance of the Orseolo church. But given the short duration of the reconstruction, it is probable that work was limited to repairing damage with little innovation. It was at this time, however, that the tomb of Saint Mark, located in the main apse, was surmounted with brick vaults, creating the semi-enclosed shrine that would later be incorporated into the crypt when the floor of the chancel was raised during the construction of the third church.

 

Contarini church (c. 1063–present)

 

Construction

 

Civic pride led many Italian cities in the mid-eleventh century to begin erecting or rebuilding their cathedrals on a grand scale. Venice was similarly interested in demonstrating its growing commercial wealth and power, and probably in 1063, under Doge Domenico I Contarini (in office 1043–1071), St Mark's was substantially rebuilt and enlarged to the extent that the resulting structure appeared entirely new.

 

The northern transept was lengthened, likely by incorporating the southern lateral nave of the Church of Saint Theodore. Similarly, the southern transept was extended, perhaps by integrating a corner tower of the castrum. Most significantly, the wooden domes were rebuilt in brick. This required strengthening the walls and piers in order to support the new heavy barrel vaults, which in turn were reinforced by arcades along the sides of the northern, southern, and western crossarms. The vaults of the eastern crossarm were supported by inserting single arches that also served to divide the chancel from the choir chapels in the lateral apses.

 

In front of the western façade, a narthex was built. To accommodate the height of the existing great entry, the vaulting system of the new narthex had to be interrupted in correspondence to the portal, thus creating the shaft above that was later opened to the interior of the church. The crypt was also enlarged to the east, and the high altar was moved from under the central dome to the chancel, which was raised, supported by a network of columns and vaults in the underlying crypt. By 1071, work had progressed far enough that the investiture of Doge Domenico Selvo (in office 1071–1084) could take place in the unfinished church.

 

Work on the interior began under Selvo who collected fine marbles and stones for the embellishment of the church and personally financed the mosaic decoration, hiring a master mosaicist from Constantinople. The Pala d'Oro (golden altarpiece), ordered from Constantinople in 1102, was installed on the high altar in 1105. For the consecration under Doge Vitale Falier Dodoni (in office 1084–1095), various dates are recorded, most likely reflecting a series of consecrations of different sections. The consecration on 8 October 1094 is considered to be the dedication of the church. On that day, the relics of Saint Mark were also placed into the new crypt.

 

Embellishment

 

The juncture of the southern and western crossarms, showing the original brickwork and the subsequent embellishment

 

As built, the Contarini church was a severe brick structure. Adornment inside was limited to the columns of the arcades, the balusters and parapets of the galleries, and the lattice altar screens. The wall surfaces were decorated with moulded arches that alternated with engaged brickwork columns as well as niches and a few cornices. With the exception of the outside of the apse and the western façade that faced Saint Mark's Square, the stark brick exterior was enlivened only by receding concentric arches in contrasting brick around the windows.

 

The western façade, comparable to middle-Byzantine churches erected in the tenth and eleventh centuries, was characterized by a series of arches set between protruding pillars. The walls were pierced by windows set in larger blind arches, while the intervening pillars were adorned with niches and circular patere made of rare marbles and stones that were surrounded with ornamental frames. Other decorative details, including friezes and corbel tables, reflected Romanesque trends, an indication of the taste and craftsmanship of the Italian workers.

 

With few exceptions, most notably the juncture of the southern and western crossarms, both the exterior and interior of the church were subsequently sheathed with revetments of marble and precious stones and enriched with columns, reliefs, and sculptures. Many of these ornamental elements were spolia taken from ancient or Byzantine buildings. Particularly in the period of the Latin Empire (1204–1261), following the Fourth Crusade, the Venetians pillaged the churches, palaces, and public monuments of Constantinople and stripped them of polychrome columns and stones. Once in Venice, some of the columns were sliced for revetmets and patere; others were paired and spread across the façades or used as altars. Despoliation continued in later centuries, notably during the Venetian–Genoese Wars. Venetian sculptors also integrated the spoils with local productions, copying the Byzantine capitals and friezes so effectively that some of their work can only be distinguished with difficulty from the originals.

 

Later modifications

 

In addition to the sixteen windows in each of the five domes, the church was originally lit by three or seven windows in the apse and probably eight in each of the lunettes. But many of these windows were later walled up to create more surface space for the mosaic decoration, with the result that the interior received insufficient sunlight, particularly the areas under the galleries which remained in relative darkness. The galleries were consequently reduced to narrow walkways with the exception of the ends of the northern, southern, and western crossarms where they remain. These walkways maintain the original relief panels of the galleries on the side facing the central section of the church. On the opposite side, new balustrades were erected.

 

The narthex of the Contarini church was originally limited to the western side. As with other Byzantine churches, it extended laterally beyond the façade on both sides and terminated in niches, of which the northern remains. The southern terminus was separated by a wall in the early twelfth century, thus creating an entry hall that opened on the southern façade toward the Doge's Palace and the waterfront. In the early thirteenth century, the narthex was extended along the northern and southern sides to completely surround the western crossarm.

 

Also, in the first half of the thirteenth century, the original low-lying brick domes, typical of Byzantine churches, were surmounted with higher, outer shells supporting bulbous lanterns with crosses. These wooden frames covered in lead provided more protection from weathering to the actual domes below and gave greater visual prominence to the church. Various Near-Eastern models have been suggested as sources of inspiration and construction techniques for the heightened domes, including the Al-Aqsa and Qubbat aṣ-Ṣakhra mosques in Jerusalem and the conical frame erected over the dome of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in the early thirteenth century.

 

Architecture

 

Exterior

 

The three exposed façades result from a long and complex evolution. Particularly in the thirteenth century, the exterior appearance of the church was radically altered: the patterned marble encrustation was added, and a multitude of columns and sculptural elements was applied to enrich the state church. It is probable that structural elements were also added to the façades or modified.

 

Western façade

 

The exterior of the basilica is divided into two registers. On the western façade, the lower register is dominated by five deeply recessed portals that alternate with large piers. The lower register was later completely covered with two tiers of precious columns, largely spoils from the Fourth Crusade.

 

Consistent with Byzantine traditions, the sculptural elements are largely decorative: only in the arches that frame the doorways is there a functional use of sculpture that articulates the architectural lines. In addition to the reliefs in the spandrels, the sculpture at the lower level, relatively limited, includes narrow Romanesque bands, statues, and richly carved borders of foliage mixed with figures derived from Byzantine and Islamic traditions. The eastern influence is most pronounced in the tympana over the northern-most and southern-most portals.

 

The iconographic programme is expressed primarily in the mosaics in the lunettes. In the lower register, those of the lateral portals narrate the translatio, the translation of Saint Mark's relics from Alexandria to Venice. From right to left, they show the removal of the saint's body from Egypt, its arrival in Venice, its veneration by the Doge, and its deposition in the church. This last mosaic is the only one on the façade that survives from the thirteenth century; the others were remade in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. The general appearance of the lost compositions is recorded in Gentile Bellini's Procession in Piazza San Marco (1496), which also documents the earlier gilding on the façade.

 

The upper register is enriched with an elaborate Gothic crowning, executed in the late-fourteenth/early-fifteenth centuries. The original lunettes, transformed into ogee arches, are outlined with foliage and topped with statues of four military saints over the lateral lunettes and of Saint Mark flanked by angels over the central lunette, the point of which contains the winged lion of Saint Mark holding a book with the angelic salutation of the praedestinatio: "Peace to you Mark, my Evangelist" ("Pax tibi Marce evangelista meus"). The intervening aediculae with pinnacles house figures of the Four Evangelists and on the extremities, facing one another, the Virgin and the Archangel Gabriel in allusion to Venice's legendary foundation on the 25 March 421, the feast of the Annunciation.

 

Culminating in the Last Judgment over the main portal, the sequence of mosaics in the lateral lunettes of the upper register present scenes of Christ's victory over death: from left to right, the Descent from the Cross, the Harrowing of Hell, the Resurrection, and the Ascension. The central lunette was originally blind and may have been pierced by several smaller windows; the present large window was inserted after the fire of 1419 destroyed the earlier structure. The reliefs of Christ and the Four Evangelists, now inserted into the northern façade, may also survive from the original decoration of the central lunette.

 

The four gilded bronze horses were among the early spoils brought from Constantinople after the Fourth Crusade. They were part of a quadriga adorning the Hippodrome and are the only equestrian team to survive from classical Antiquity. In the mid-thirteenth century, they were installed prominently on the main façade of St Mark's as symbols of Venice's military triumph over Byzantium and of its newfound imperial status as the successor of the Byzantine Empire. Since 1974 the original four horses are preserved inside, having been substituted with copies on the balcony over the central portal.

 

Northern façade

 

The aediculae on the northern façade contain statues of the four original Latin Doctors of the Church: Jerome, Augustine, Ambrose, and Gregory the Great. Allegorical figures of Prudence, Temperance, Faith, and Charity top the lunettes.

 

Southern façade

 

The Gothic crowning continues in the upper register of the southern façade, the lunettes being topped with the allegorical figures of Justice and Fortitude and the aediculae housing statues of Saint Anthony Abbot and Saint Paul the Hermit.

 

The southern façade is the most richly encrusted façade with rare marbles, spoils, and trophies, including the so-called pillars of Acre, the statue of the four tetrarchs embedded into the external wall of the treasury, and the porphyry imperial head on the south-west corner of the balcony, traditionally believed to represent Justinian II and popularly identified as Francesco Bussone da Carmagnola.

 

After a section of the narthex was partitioned off between 1100 and 1150 to create an entry hall, the niche that had previously marked the southern end of the narthex was removed, and the corresponding arch on the southern façade was opened to establish a second entry. Like the entry on the western façade, the passage was distinguished with precious porphyry columns. On either side, couchant lions and griffins were placed. Presumably, the southern entry was also flanked by the two carved pillars long believed to have been brought to Venice from the Genoese quarter in St Jean d'Acre as booty of the first Venetian–Genoese war (1256–1270) but actually spoils of the Fourth Crusade, taken from the Church of St Polyeuctus in Constantinople.

 

Between 1503 and 1515, the entry hall was transformed into the funerary chapel of Giovanni Battista Cardinal Zen, bishop of Vicenza, who had bequeathed a large portion of his wealth to the Venetian Republic, asking to be entombed in St Mark's. The southern entrance was consequently closed, blocked by the altar and a window above, and although the griffins remain, much of the decoration was transferred or destroyed.The pillars were moved slightly eastward.

 

Influence

 

As the state church, St Mark's was a point of reference for Venetian architects. Its influence during the Gothic period seems to have been limited to decorative patterns and details, such as the portal and painted wall decoration in the Church of Santo Stefano and the portal of the Church of the Madonna dell'Orto, consisting of an ogee arch with flame-like relief sculture reminiscent of the crockets on St Mark's.

 

In the early Renaissance, despite the introduction of classical elements into Venetian architecture by Lombard stonecutters, faithfulness to local building traditions remained strong. In the façades of Ca' Dario and the Church of Santa Maria dei Miracoli, surface decoration in emulation of St Mark's is the principal characteristic, and the overall effect derives from the rich encrustration of shimmering coloured marbles and the circular patterns, derived from the basilica. Similarly, the Foscari Arch in the courtyard of the Doge's Palace is based on ancient triumphal arches but owes its detailing to the basilica: the superimposed columns clustered together, the Gothic pinnacles, and the crowning statuary. At the Scuola Grande di San Marco, the reference to St Mark's is made in the series of lunettes along the roofline which recalls the profile of the basilica.

 

Administration

 

Under the Venetian Republic, St Mark's was the private chapel of the Doge. The primicerius, responsible for the religious functions, was nominated by the Doge personally, and despite several attempts by the Bishop of Olivolo/Castello (after 1451 Patriarch of Venice) to claim jurisdiction over St Mark's, the primicerius remained subject to the Doge alone.

 

Beginning in the ninth century, the Doge also nominated a procurator operis ecclesiae Sancti Marci, responsible for the financial administration of the church, its upkeep, and its decoration. By the mid-thirteenth century there were two procurators in charge of the church, denominated de supra (Ecclesiam sancti Marci). Elected by the Great Council, they supervised the church in temporalibus, limiting the authority of the Doge. In 1442, there were three procurators de supra who administered the church and its treasury. The procurators also hired and paid the proto, directly responsible for overseeing construction, maintenance, and restoration.

 

St Mark's ceased to be the private chapel of the Doge as a result of the fall of the Republic of Venice to the French in 1797, and the primicerius was required to take an oath of office under the provisional municipal government. At that time, plans began to transfer the seat of the Patriarch of Venice from San Pietro di Castello to St Mark's. However, no action was taken before Venice passed under Austrian control in 1798. During the first period of Austrian rule (1798–1805), it was alternatively suggested that the episcopal seat be moved to the Church of San Salvador, but again no action was taken until 1807 when, during the second period of French domination (1805–1814), St Mark's became the patriarchal cathedral. The new status was confirmed by Emperor Francis I of Austria in 1816 during the second period of Austrian rule (1814–1866) and by Pope Pius VII in 1821.

 

(Wikipedia)

 

Der Markusdom (italienisch Basilica di San Marco) in Venedig war das zentrale Staatsheiligtum der Republik Venedig bis zu ihrem Ende 1797 und ist seit 1807 die Kathedrale des Patriarchen von Venedig. Er befindet sich am Markusplatz im Sestiere San Marco.

 

Geschichte

 

Die erste dem heiligen Markus geweihte Kirche wurde 828 gestiftet und in den Jahren 829 bis 832 als Palastkapelle des Dogenpalastes unter dem Dogen Giovanni I. Particiaco erbaut, um die 828 aus Alexandria geraubten Gebeine des Evangelisten Markus aufzunehmen, der den heiligen Theodor als Stadtheiligen Venedigs ablöste. Dabei war der Wechsel des Stadtpatrons auch ein Zeichen der Unabhängigkeit von Byzanz.

 

976 wurden die Kirche und 200 Häuser durch ein von Aufständischen im Dogenpalast gelegtes Feuer zerstört. Im selben Jahr begann unter dem Dogen Pietro I. Orseolo der Wiederaufbau der zweiten Kirche. Der heutige Markusdom wurde 1063–1094 als Stiftung des Dogen Domenico Contarini errichtet. Der Legende nach wurden die Gebeine des hl. Markus durch ein Wunder am 25. Juni 1094 wiedergefunden. Dieser Tag wurde zum Feiertag Inventio Sancti Marci.

 

Im 13. Jahrhundert wurden die Kuppeln der Markuskirche erhöht, die nördliche – vom Dogenpalast abgewandte – Vorhalle hinzugefügt und die dem Markusplatz zugewandte Westfront als Säulenfassade umgestaltet. Seither sind die Kuppeln vom Markusplatz aus zu sehen. Die nördliche Vorhalle entstand zwischen 1231 und 1253 nach byzantinischem Vorbild. In der zweiten Hälfte des 14. Jahrhunderts erfolgte eine dritte Bauphase, die das Gebäude im Sinne der venezianischen Gotik veränderte. Diese Bau- und Ausschmückungsphase erstreckte sich bis ins 17. Jahrhundert, als Fertigstellungsdatum gilt vielfach das Jahr 1617.

 

Daher erschien zum 400. Jahrestag eine 2-Euro-Gedenkmünze.

 

Bis zum Ende der Republik Venedig war es durch die Jahrhunderte hindurch ihr erklärtes Ziel, den Bischofssitz des Patriarchen von Venedig weit entfernt vom Zentrum der Macht in San Pietro di Castello zu halten. Die Quadriga über dem Hauptportal, die aus Konstantinopel stammt, wurde 1982 durch Kopien ersetzt, das Gesamtgebäude bis 1994 restauriert.

 

Architektur

 

San Marcos Baugestalt folgt Vorbildern aus der byzantinischen Architektur: Ein ungleichmäßiges griechisches Kreuz bildet den Grundriss (76,5 m Länge und 62,6 m Breite). Der westliche Arm ist breiter und länger. Neben der Vierung sind auch die Kreuzarme durch Kuppeln (45 m Höhe) überwölbt. Dabei sind die Vierungskuppel und die westliche Kuppel größer als die restlichen drei Kuppeln. Die enge Verbindung Venedigs mit Byzanz bewirkte, dass die zu den Bauarbeiten herangezogenen Künstler vor allem nach byzantinischen Vorbildern arbeiteten. Vorbild könnte die heute nicht mehr vorhandene justinianische Apostelkirche in Konstantinopel (536–546) gewesen sein. San Marco folgt also bewusst keinen neueren Bauten der eigenen Zeit, sondern der würdevolleren, ursprünglichen Form. San Marco hat den Baugedanken des großen überkuppelten Zentralbaues nach Italien gebracht und wurde damit seinerseits vorbildlich für die wesentlich späteren Großkuppelbauten von Bramante und Michelangelo. Die Anbauten des 13. Jahrhunderts erfolgten noch im byzantinischen, die des 14. Jahrhunderts im gotischen Stil.

 

Um vom Markusplatz aus in die Basilika zu gelangen, muss man einige Stufen hinabsteigen. Dieses Absinken des Bodens, das zurzeit 23 cm beträgt, betrifft nicht nur die Markuskirche, sondern alle alten Stadtteile Venedigs.

 

Fassade

 

Die in zwei Stockwerke geteilte Hauptfassade repräsentiert den Anspruch von San Marco als Staatskirche Venedigs und ist zugleich Zeichen des Triumphes über Konstantinopel beim Kreuzzug von 1204. Die Fassade wird gegliedert durch fünf Portale mit mosaikverzierten Bögen und entsprechenden Bögen im Abschlussgeschoss, von denen die vier seitlichen ebenfalls Mosaikschmuck aufweisen. Die Supraportenmosaiken über den vier seitlichen Portalen erzählen von der Seite der Mole im Süden nach Norden die Legende der Rettung und Überführung der Gebeine des hl. Markus nach San Marco (siehe Bild), wobei "Rettung und Überführung" eher ein Euphemismus sind, also eine beschönigende Bezeichnung für Diebstahl. Das nördliche Portal ist das älteste und einzige aus dem 13. Jh. erhaltene Portal, die Porta Sant'Alipio, auf dem die Ansicht des Markusdoms im 13. Jahrhundert überliefert wird. Über dem mittleren Portal der fünf eindrucksvollen Portale ist das Jüngste Gericht nach der Vorlage Lattanzio Querenas (1836) dargestellt.[8] Die Archivolten[9] dieses mittleren Portals wurden im 13. Jahrhundert skulptiert und zeigen die venezianischen Zünfte, die zwölf Monatszeichen und Allegorien der Tugenden. Die vier seitlichen oberen Bögen sind bekrönt mit Blattschmuck und jeweils Reliefbüsten der Propheten im Bogenzwickel. Auf den Bogenspitzen stehen Stadtheilige Venedigs: Konstantin, Demetrius, Markus (1420), Georg und Theodor.

 

Im Giebelfeld des mittleren, größeren Bogens unterhalb der Statue des heiligen Markus befindet sich ein goldenes Relief des schreitenden Markuslöwen, beides republikanische Symbole.

 

Der Eindruck der Fassade ist weiter bestimmt durch die überreiche Dekoration durch Marmorverkleidung, die unzähligen antiken Säulen aus Marmor, Porphyr, Jaspis, Serpentin und Alabaster und viele Skulpturen unterschiedlichster Epochen. Die 2600 oft antiken Säulen wurden zu großen Teilen bei Eroberungen (z. B. die von Byzanz während des Kreuzzuges 1204) zusammengetragen und in San Marco als Spolien weiterverwendet. Meist erfüllen sie keine tragende Funktion, sondern dienen zur Dekoration und als Symbolträger für die Macht Venedigs; so die Pilastri Acritani (Pfeiler aus Akko) vor dem Südportal, die aus der Polyeuktoskirche in Konstantinopel stammen.

 

Nach byzantinischem Vorbild erhielt die Markuskirche 1231–1253 die nördliche Vorhalle (62 m lang, 6 m breit, 7,35 m hoch), die von acht kleineren Kuppeln überwölbt wird.

 

Angesichts der Schäden, die Scharen von Tauben durch Knabbern an der kalkhaltigen Bausubstanz für ihre Ernährung und durch Ausscheidungen verursachten, erließ die Stadt Anfang Mai 2008 ein Fütterungsverbot. Das unterbundene, vorher legale Füttern, das sogar durch Futterverkäufer auf dem Markusplatz forciert wurde, reduzierte die Taubenpopulation am Markusplatz drastisch.

 

Pferde von San Marco

 

Die Balustrade über dem Portal wird durch eine Kopie des berühmten antiken Viergespanns aus vergoldeter Bronze dominiert, das – wie auch viele der Säulen und einige Skulpturen – bei der Eroberung von Konstantinopel (1204) geraubt wurde.

 

Die vier Pferde von San Marco, ehemals Teil einer Quadriga, sind das einzige erhaltene antike Vierergespann. Nach Restaurierung und Untersuchung in den 1960er Jahren wurden sie im Museo Marciano im Inneren des Doms (in einem Seitenraum der Empore) ausgestellt und an der Fassade von San Marco durch Kopien ersetzt. Der Ursprung der Kolossalfiguren ist unter Experten umstritten, ihr Entstehungsort ist zwischen Rom, Griechenland und Alexandrien nicht geklärt. Sicher ist jedoch, dass sie deutlich älter sind als ihr Transfer nach Konstantinopel im frühen 4. Jahrhundert. Manche Wissenschaftler schreiben sie den nicht erhaltenen Triumphbögen der Kaiser Nero oder Trajan in Rom, andere dem Mausoleum Kaiser Hadrians zu (also dem 1./2. Jahrhundert n. Chr.); stilistisch werden aber auch Ähnlichkeiten mit der Reiterstatue Mark Aurels (um 165 n. Chr.) gesehen. Eine Einzelmeinung weist sie sogar dem griechischen Bildhauer Lysipp (aus dem 4. Jahrhundert v. Chr.) zu, der im Auftrag von Rhodos ein Gespann für Delphi schuf.

 

Kaiser Konstantin der Große nahm die Quadriga mit nach Konstantinopel, wo sie im Hippodrom aufgestellt und 1204 im Vierten Kreuzzug bei der Eroberung Konstantinopels als Kriegsbeute nach Venedig mitgenommen wurde. Dafür nahm man ihnen möglicherweise die Köpfe ab und setzte sie später falsch wieder auf.

 

Bei der Restaurierung der Pferde fiel auf, dass der Goldbezug der 1,60 Meter großen und je 875 kg schweren Plastiken schon vor Jahrhunderten eingeritzt worden war, damit die Pferde in der Sonne nicht zu sehr blenden und einen lebensechteren Eindruck machen. Außerdem wurde festgestellt, dass die Quadriga nicht aus üblicher Bronze gefertigt war, wie man jahrhundertelang glaubte, sondern fast ausschließlich aus Kupfer, das zwar viel schwieriger zu schmelzen ist als Bronze, jedoch leichter vergoldet werden kann. Jede Figur wurde in nur zwei Teilen gegossen, deren Nahtlinie das Halsband verdeckt.

 

In Venedig standen die Pferde zunächst einige Jahrzehnte lang vor dem Arsenal und wären fast eingeschmolzen worden, bevor man sich rechtzeitig ihrer Bedeutung bewusst wurde und sie an der Fassade des Markusdomes unterbrachte. Im Jahr 1798 ließ Napoleon nach seinem siegreichen Italienfeldzug und der Beseitigung der Republik neben zahlreichen Kunstwerken aus Galerien und Sammlungen auch die beiden Wahrzeichen der Serenissima di San Marco, den Markuslöwen und die vier goldenen Pferde nach Paris bringen. Dort zierten die Pferde fortan den Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel. Infolge des Wiener Kongresses konnte das Raubgut 1815 im Beisein Kaiser Franz I. und des Staatskanzlers Fürst Metternich an seine historischen Plätze im nunmehr österreichischen Venedig zurückkehren. In Paris kamen an ihre Stelle Kopien von François Joseph Bosio.

 

(Wikipedia)

Crab and lobster fishermen boats.

 

From Wikipedia:

 

Shippagan (2011 population: 2,631) is a Canadian town in Gloucester County, New Brunswick.

Shippagan is located in the northeastern part of the Acadian Peninsula: a combination bridge-causeway connects the town with Lamèque Island to the northeast.

 

The peninsula is approximately 5 km (3 miles) long and at maximum 5 km (3 miles) wide, bordered on the north-west by Shippagan Bay, to the north by Shippagan harbour to the east by the Gulf of Saint Lawrence and to the west by St Simon's Bay.

 

Approximately 99% of the town's residents are Francophone.

 

he town was founded by the Duguay family, from Paspébiac, Quebec and the Robichaux family from Bonaventure, Quebec in 1790, as a result of expansion of the Charles Robin Company. Jean-Baptiste Robichaux was in 1798 the first settler from Grand Chipagan to petition the government for title to his land, in 1798; he was the son of an expelled Acadian.

 

The location of the town is an ideal spot for fishing, which was its first economic product, as well as exporting timber from further inland. There are also numerous peat bogs in the area, and their exploitation continues to this day.

 

Shippagan is home to campuses of the Université de Moncton and New Brunswick Community College.

 

The name originates from the Mi'kmaq Sepagun-chiche, which roughly translates as "Ducks' transit route". This name described the immediate region rather than the specific location of the current settlement that inherited the name.

 

Different spellings have been applied over the years. None of the earliest known francophone explorers such as Jacques Cartier, Samuel de Champlain and Nicolas Denys mentions the name Shippagan, which appears in writing for the first time only in 1656 when Ignatius of Paris, a Capucine missionary, wrote to his superiors recommending the establishment of four or five missionary posts, one of which he called "Cibaguensi", a Latinised form of Shippagan.

 

During the eighteenth century various orthographies were used for the nearby settlement on the site of what is now Bas-Caraquet, most commonly Chipagan, and this is the name subsequently applied and adapted for modern-day Shippagan. Early English language texts applied the francophone spelling, "Chipagan", but from the early nineteenth centuries various anglophone variants were preferred, such as Shipagan, Ship-a-gang, Shipegan, Shippegan, Shippigan and Shippagan. By the twenty-first century custom had settled on "Town of Shippagan" which on 9 September 2009 was officially reduced to "Shippagan".

 

Visit: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shippagan

  

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This building stands 47 feet tall and is considered one of the city's most recognizable, historic visual landmarks. Over its long lifespan, it transitioned from its original use as a bank to various local commercial businesses, and it is widely known in recent decades as the home of Al's TV Antenna & Satellite and WFBI Studio. Because of its historical value, miniature handcrafted scale replicas of this specific building are even displayed at regional tourism hubs like the Rainbow Springs State Park gift shop

 

Property Features and Sales History

Structure: The building spans 6,690 square feet and contains 5 bathrooms with zero residential beds.

 

Architectural Overview

Flatiron Shape / Triangular Plan: The building's most distinct characteristic is its sharp, acute-angled, triangular shape custom-built over a century ago to perfectly fit the intersecting road layout. This footprint is modeled after the iconic turn-of-the-century "Flatiron" building style common in early American commercial hubs.

 

Commercial Vernacular / Early 20th Century Commercial: Built originally as a bank during the height of Dunnellon's historic phosphate "Boomtown" era, the structure features the utilitarian yet distinct brick or masonry framework, large window storefront displays, and narrow footprint classic to early Florida commercial architecture

 

Last Sale: The property last traded hands-on June 30, 2008, selling for $175,000.

 

Ownership: Following a brief deed transfer from Fero Lanse, a firm named Old Triangle LLC took over ownership in September 2008 and remains the long-term owner of the building.

 

Commercial Tenant History

Divided into several suites, the building has housed an array of utility, electronics, and construction businesses serving Marion, Citrus, and Levy counties:

 

Al's TV Antenna & Satellite: One of the most long-standing brands associated with this location. Originally established in 1973 by Alfonso Arevalo, the premier television sales, internet, and authorized Dish retail provider transitioned to this sector of Dunnellon under the leadership of his son, Andrew.

 

Dusty's Tree Service (Suite 6): Established in 2015 by native resident Dustin Carroll, this state-licensed utility and excavation contractor uses the location as a home base for regional tree removal and storm protection operations.

 

Cave Creek Construction Services (Suite 4): Headed by JD Donahue, this active local general contractor operates out of the building, specializing in local residential builds and restoration projects.

 

Nick Soeghen, LLC (Suite 4): A Florida limited liability company registered by Amber Donahoe that briefly operated out of Suite 4 starting in mid-2020 before later dissolving.

 

FloridaRadioUSA (Suite C3): An early corporate entity registered by Sabatino Cupelli that utilized the building as its official address from 2010 to 2011.

 

Credit for the data above is given to the following websites:

www.google.com/search?q=history+of+11928+n+williams+st%2C...

www.google.com/search?q=who+was+the+architect+of+11928+N+...

www.google.com/search?q=what+year+was+the+building+at+119...

www.google.com/search?q=what+is+the+architectural+style+o...

 

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Butterflies reproduce the way other animals do -- sperm from a male fertilizes eggs from a female. Males and females of the same species recognize one another by the size, color, shape and vein structure of the wings, all of which are species specific. Butterflies also recognize each other through pheromones or scents. During mating, males use clasping organs on their abdomens to grasp females.

 

Many male butterflies deliver more than just sperm to their mates. Most provide a spermatophore, a package of sperm and nutrients the female needs to produce and lay eggs. Some males collect specific nutrients to produce a better spermatophore in an attempt to attract a mate. Some females, however, don't have a choice -- in some species, males mate with females before they have left their chrysalis or swarm the chrysalis waiting for the female to appear. In most species, males and females look a lot a like, but females often have larger abdomens for carrying their eggs.

 

Females store the sperm in a sac called a bursa until she's ready to lay her eggs. She fertilizes her eggs as she lays them, using the last sperm she received first. For this reason, males of some species will leave a substance that dries into a film on the female's abdomen in an effort to keep her from mating with other males. Females lay their eggs one at a time or in batches of hundreds depending on their species.

 

A butterfly has to take special care when laying eggs. The eggs must be kept warm and at the right humidity level. Too much moisture and the egg will rot or be attacked by fungus. Too little and the egg will dry out. Caterpillars also need to start eating as soon as they hatch, so most of the time females place the eggs directly onto a plant the caterpillar will eat. Typically, the eggs attach to the underside of a leaf so they are hidden from predators.

 

In spite of all the effort female butterflies make to protect their eggs, very few make it to adulthood. Ants, birds and other animals can eat the eggs themselves. Also caterpillars and butterflies are popular snacks for everything from birds to bats. Some insects also lurk in or around flowers to prey on adult butterflies. A butterfly's chrysalis also has few defenses from predators and, at all stages of life, a butterfly can succumb to fungi and diseases.

 

Kite Butterfly, Rice Paper, Idea leuconoe

Wings of the Tropics, Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden, Miami FL

www.susanfordcollins.com

The 311/3030 was an upgraded version of the standard 311 awarded to high-performing pilots during the Kincaid Cluster campaigns. All came in a distinctive red colour scheme, with individual details left to the pilot and their ground crew.

 

This image shows a platoon under the command of Subedar Peirera of the 21st Independent Company, 11th Armoured Division. It was highly unusual for an entire platoon to be equipped with the 3030, indicating that this was a unit assembled for a highly specific task.

 

The photography is a bit pisspoor. I really, really need to get round to building that damn lightbox. Maybe sometime over the holidays.

 

All of the 311s are designed for playing the Game Formerly Known as Mechaton, now known as Mobile Frame Zero: Rapid Attack. A human to scale would be 2 bricks plus 1 plate high. KInd of like this: www.flickr.com/photos/bricklovinfreakboy/6316813976

DESCRIPTION

 

The main role of the Starwolf Tactical Fighter is 'First Attack Wave Suppression (FAWS)'. An attacking force will typically launch multiple fighters to engage the capital ships offensive and defensive weapon systems. Starwolves are launched to prevent this 'first wave' of attacking fighters to reach the capital ships by greatly reducing their numbers before coming into in range. The remaining enemy fighters are more easily handled by the capital ships defense network.

 

As a secondary, attack role, the Starwolf can use it's Hedgehog system to overwhelm the shields of enemy capital class ships with a single burst of 16 missiles with a synchronized impact on a specific point. Only when friendly capital ships have trouble engaging enemy capital ships will Starwolves be deployed for this role. The problem with this tactic is that Starwolves will need to be heavily supported by fighters when attacking enemy ships head on.

 

Starwolves have atmospheric flight capabilities, however this uses considerably more fuel than spaceflight. A Starwolf is incapable of landing on a planet surface.

  

STANDARD OFFENSIVE WEAPON SYSTEMS LOADOUT

 

Two 'Muger MK7' 20 mm caliber chain guns

The guns fire a mix of armor piercing incendiary tracers and high explosive rounds at a rate of 2400 rounds per minute with a spool-up time of 0.5 seconds.

 

Two 'Kurstroski-S30' 30 mm caliber cannons

The cannons fire High Explosive Dual Purpose rounds at a rate of 350 rounds per minute.

 

Four 'Spagin HE5' High Explosive Missiles

Standard multi purpose fire-and-forget missiles with proximity detection systems.

 

HAAM16 'Hedgehog' Multimissile System

Multiple 'SPIKE' missiles fired simultaneously at up to 16 targets. The missiles are guided by the Hedgehog radar system. The high maneuverability of the missiles makes them capable of evading most countermeasures while guided by the Hedgehog. The system can also be used to overwhelm the shields of capital-class vessels.

  

DEFENSIVE SYSTEMS

 

Electronic warfare pod

The pod integrated in the lower wing is outfitted with many types of electronic warfare capabilities that include field jamming (producing a stealth bubble around the ship), ghosting (projecting false data) and tactical hacking (taking control of enemy ship systems, as well as some reconnaissance abilities.

 

Starburst

The starburst system ejects multiple decoys in different directions to confuse enemy guided weapon systems.

  

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NOTES

 

This was originally planned as a more standard shaped fighter. But once I started work on the engines the ship grew more in width than it did in length. Also, the placeholder dual wings looked kind of cool, so I build on that. The problem was getting it to be stable enough to be handled, and sturdy enough to hold up the cockpit section. I had a blast building it because it turned out so different than I had initially planned. Please check out the other views in the Starwolf set as they explain more than I can tell you (especially the front view).

Site-specific installation called "Glowing Core" by German artist Rebecca Horn (b.1944).

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebecca_Horn

The name of the building is Llotja de Palma, a historic building with Gothic design, built between 1426 and 1448. The building was originally the headquarters of the School of Merchants.

There are so many questions I could ask you right now. But I have one specific one in mind and be careful, it is a dangerous one. It's trap lies in thinking you can answer it, at least in any sort of universal way.

 

What is the value of a photograph?

 

Is it in the selling price? How many hundreds or thousands or millions of dollars it fetches on the market? Is it in how many hundreds or thousands or millions of people crowd into a museum to see it? Is it in how many hundreds or thousands or millions of times you look at in a quiet, private moment and smile? Is the value of a photo weighed by joy, dollars, fame, world peace? Is it in how many cars it sells through magazine ads? Is it in how many years it stays magneted to the fridge door? Is it how good we think it is or is it how good you think it is? Is it how good the most educated photo instructor or gallery curator in the world thinks it is?

 

There are so many pulpits to preach from when it comes to this. You, me and everyone else will have their own answer. And that is the problem. It isn't in the question, it is in the answer and our very attempts to assure ourselves that an answer exists, must exist. Because every answer we come up with to this question is both right and wrong. All those possible values I proposed above? Every single one of them is right. Value is in all of those, it is each and every one and many more I could not think to list. But I also think value is a slippery thing. I think that first it is not something that has to be defined to exist and I also think it is one of those things that the more you try to pin it down the more elusive it becomes. Answering this question is the will-o-the-wisp that just leads you deeper and deeper into the swamp. The more certain you are of your answer the deeper in the quagmire you really are.

 

My advice? I don't know. I cannot really give you advice because for each of you the situation is different. Some of you can be content to stay out of that swamp but others, for good reasons or ill must brave its fens and bogs and unknowable depths. Just tread carefully.

 

This photo by the way was made as part of a Christmas portrait project I have worked on the past few years volunteering in a shelter downtown in early December to photograph homeless men and women who would like the gift of a print, either to keep for themselves but quite often to send off to family somewhere or other. Yes, it teaches you a bit about a value that photography can have, I realize this. And I admit it strikes me to see how much a simple portrait can matter to some people while ten minutes away other people are drowning in photos of themselves. There is something clean and simple in this exchange.

 

Anyway, I was reminded of this train of thought today at work discussing the market value of photos, museum shows and whatnot.

 

Just some thoughts.

ITM1692074

 

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At a crossroads – Needing to make an important decision

When you are at a crossroads, you are at a point in your life where you need to make a decision. The implication is that the decision you make will have big, life-altering consequences.

Bad apple – Bad person

You can use this idiom to describe someone who is not nice and maybe even criminal.

Barking up the wrong tree – Pursuing the wrong course

When you “bark up the wrong tree” you are pursuing the wrong solution to your problems.

Be closefisted – Stingy

If you are being “closefisted”, you don’t want to spend a lot of money.

Be cold-hearted – Uncaring

If you decide to be “cold-hearted”, you are making a deliberate decision not to care about someone or something.

Be on solid ground – Confident

When you are “on solid ground”, you are confident in your position or feel that you are safe.

Beat around the bush – Avoid saying

When you do this, you are taking a long time to say what you really need to say. You may be doing this because the “truth” is embarrassing or your unsure about how the listener will take it.

Behind you – Supportive

When you are “behind” someone, you are saying that they have your support.

Between a rock and a hard place – Facing difficulties

When you have to choose between two options, neither of which are ideal or “good”.

Blow off steam – Try to relax

When you are stressed or upset about something, sometimes you need to do something to keep you from thinking about it.

Born with a silver spoon in their mouth – Born wealthy

This idiomatic expression is used to describe someone who was born into a wealthy family.

Break the bank – Spend a lot

When you “break the bank”, you spend a lot of money on something. If something will “break the bank”, then it’s expensive.

Bright spark – Smart

A “bright spark” is someone who is smart and valuable to an organization.

Build a case – Argue your point

When you “build a case” for something, you are preparing to argue a point or convince someone that your opinion is the right one.

Build castles in the sky – Daydream

When you fantasize about something you hope to have or achieve.

Burn your bridges – End a relationship

When you “burn your bridges” you end a relationship permanently.

Butter up – Flatter

When you “butter” someone up, you are telling them nice things about themselves.

Bought a lemon – Bad bargain

If something you bought is a “lemon” it is a bad product. In a sense, you wasted your money on it.

Break the ice – Start a conversation

When you start a conversation strangers with the end goal of making new friends.

Calm before the storm – Peaceful

When you use this to describe your state of being or mind, you’re talking about a quiet period before anticipated trouble comes your way.

Chasing rainbows – Pursuing dreams

When you try to follow your dreams. The implication here, however, is that you might be better off forgetting your dreams.

Clear as mud – Hard to understand

When you are confused about something or a situation.

Cool as a cucumber – Calm

This idiomatic expression is meant to describe someone who is calm and relaxed.

Couch potato – Lazy

A couch potato is a lazy person. Specifically, someone who sprawls on their couch watching TV almost all day.

Cross that bridge when we get to it – Think about it later

When you say this, you are telling someone that you will think about something later. The implication is that it’s a problem or a decision that can be put off for now.

Chew it over – Think had about something

This idiom implies that you need to make an important decision and can’t afford to be hasty about it.

Come to light – Be revealed

When something “comes to light” something that was originally concealed from you is revealed.

Cut back on – Reduce

When you use this idiom, you are reducing something.

Cut to the chase – Speak concisely

When you tell someone to “cut to the chase”, you are expressing impatience. This is usually used when someone feels someone else is taking to long to deliver important news.

Crystal clear – Easy to understand

When you say that something is “crystal clear”, you are saying that it is understood.

Dead-end job – No more opportunities

When you are stuck in a “dead-end job”, you are in a career situation where there is no more room for advancement.

Dig deep – Strive

When you “dig deep” you put a lot of effort into a task.

Digging into – Looking closer

When you “dig into” something, you are looking for more information.

Don’t run before you can walk – Don’t assume something is easy

This is a descriptive idiom, it’s meant to make you think about how a baby needs to learn how to walk before they can run. It’s supposed to caution you about assuming you can just do something without learning the basics.

Down to earth – Practical

This describes someone who is known for being sensible and practical.

Eat like a bird – Small appetite

This is used to describe someone who doesn’t eat a lot.

Eat like a horse – Eat a lot

If you eat like a horse, you are eating a lot. You can “eat like a bird” most of the time but “eat like a horse” at a specific time because you are either very hungry or you really like the food.

Eat your words – Admit you were wrong

When you “eat your words” you are admitting that something you said earlier turned out to be wrong.

Every cloud has a silver lining – Things will get better

When you say this, you are telling yourself or someone else that you will get through your troubles.

Face the music – Face the consequences

When you “face the music”, you are owning up to a mistake and trying to make amends.

Find your feet – Adapt

When you are “finding your feet” you are learning how to adapt to a new situation, like a new job.

Follow in their footsteps – Imitate

This idiom is often used between children and their parents, but it can also refer to a mentor or someone you admire. If you “follow in someone’s footsteps”, you do the same thing that they did.

Food for thought – Something to think about

If you are given “food for thought” you have been given something to think about.

A frosty reception – To be unwelcome

If you received a “frosty reception”, you are not welcome.

Fly off the handle – Rages

You can use this idiom to describe someone who is visibly angry over a situation. Often this means that someone is shouting and maybe gesturing violently and even causing damage to property. It also implies that the angry reaction is disproportionate to the situation.

Get on with your life – Continue on after a setback

This is something you can say and should do after going through some problems.

Give them a run for their money – Compete

If you are competing with someone, you are giving them a “run for their money.”

Go Dutch – Split the bill

You can use this idiomatic expression when dining out with friends.

Go with the flow – Relax and get along

When you “go with the flow” you keep calm and just go along with whatever is happening around you.

Got off scot-free – Escaped

When you “get off scot-free”, you managed to escape any consequences for your actions.

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Hard to swallow – Unbelievable

If someone told you something that you just can’t believe, they told you something that is “hard to swallow”.

Have your whole life in front of you – Young

Someone who has their whole life in front of them is young and full of promise.

Hold out an olive branch – Apologize

When you do this, you try to make amends or peace with someone you’ve hurt or angered.

In hot water – In trouble

This idiomatic expression can be used to say that you are in a less than ideal situation.

Inching forward - Making slow progress

When you say this, you’re saying things are proceeding slowly.

Keep on the straight and narrow – Keep out of trouble

When you say this, you are implying that you are going to live in a morally correct way.

Keep your chin up – Stay positive

Even if you’re going through a hard time, you should keep thinking positive.

Kicked the bucket – Died

This is an irreverent phrase to say that someone has died. Be careful how you use it.

Let the cat out of the bag – Spoiled the secret

You “let the cat out of the bag” when you accidentally let someone in on a secret that they weren’t meant to know.

Look up to – Respect

When you “look up to” someone you are acknowledging that you respect them and value their opinion.

Loaded – Rich

When you call someone “loaded” you are saying that they are rich.

Lost at sea – Confused

If a situation is making you feel confused or lost, this is the idiom to use.

Making ends meet – Careful budgeting

If you. don’t have much money, you need to “make ends meet”. This means you carefully budget what you do have to meet your needs.

Make a mountain out of a molehill –Exaggerate

This idiom is used to say that someone is being over-dramatic with their complaints or concerns.

Make waves – Change things

When you “make waves”, you change a situation dramatically. This can also mean that you caused trouble.

Nip in the bud – Stop

When you do this, you take action to keep a situation from getting worse.

No sweat – Easy

When you say “no sweat” you are saying that a task was easy

Not your cup of tea – Not something you like

If you say that something is “not your cup of tea” you are saying it’s not something you particularly like or enjoy.

Once in a blue moon – Rare

This implies something that either won’t happen or rarely happens.

Out in the open – Public knowledge

When something is “out in the open”, it is a matter of public knowledge.

Over the moon – Very happy

You can use this to describe the feeling of getting something you’ve been looking forward to for a long time.

On cloud nine – Very happy

Similar to being over the moon.

Packed like sardines – Crowded

If people are “packed like sardines” in a venue, they are standing very close together in a small space.

Piece of cake –Easy

If you say something is a “piece of cake” you are saying that it is easy.

Pitch in - Contribute

When you “pitch-in”, you work with a group of people to reach a common goal.

Point of view – An opinion

Your “point of view” is what you think about someone or a situation.

Pony up – Pay

If you are paying back a debt, you are “ponying up” the money.

Pour oil on troubled waters – Calm things down

This basically means that you played peacemaker and kept an argument from developing into a physical fight.

Put your head in the sand – Deny something unpleasant

When you have your “head in the sand”, you are deliberately ignoring a bad situation.

Rags to riches – Became rich

Someone who went from “rags to riches” was born poor or underprivileged, but is now in a better social position.

Rain or shine – No matter what

This idiomatic expression is used to express the idea that nothing will stop you.

Reap the rewards – Received the benefits

When you “reap the rewards”, you are getting the benefits of your good work.

Rings a bell – Sounds familiar

When you think that you’ve heard a piece of information before but are not so sure.

Rule of thumb – General practice

A “rule of thumb” is an unwritten rule that is followed by the majority.

Separate the wheat from the chaff – Decide what is valuable

This picturesque idiom refers to how, when you harvest wheat, you need to separate it from the stalks and leaves. So, it means that you pick out or choose what is valuable to keep.

Shell out money – Pay

When you “shell out money”, you pay for an item.

Sitting on the fence – Neutral

When you “sit on the fence” you are avoiding making a decision. Often, this is a decision between two people with different opinions.

Smart cookie – Smart person

You can use this idiom to describe someone intelligent.

Spice things up – Make things interesting

When you “spice things up” you do something to break out of your normal routine.

Spill the beans – Tell

When you do this, you tell someone something they didn’t know. It may or not have been a secret previously.

Sticky fingers – Thief

If you accuse someone of having “sticky fingers” you are basically calling them a thief.

Take a side – Choose who to support

When you “take a side” in an argument, you are agreeing with one of those arguing.

Throw light on – Explain something

When you “throw light on” a situation, you help make sure that it is understood.

To move at a snail’s pace – Move slowly

This is another idiomatic phrase that’s meant to paint a picture. A snail moves slowly, so to move at its pace means things are going slowly.

Tread carefully – Be cautious

This implies that a situation is fraught and it might be easy to offend those involved.

Under the table – Secretive

When you do something “under the table”, you are trying to do something so that only a small amount of people are aware of it. It’s commonly used to describe something that is possibly unscrupulous. For example, bribes are given “under the table”.

Undermine your position – Act unconvincingly

When you behave in a way that makes you and your opinion seem untrustworthy.

Up in the air – Uncertain

When you say something is “up in the air”, you are saying that you are not sure that an event is happening.

Weather the storm – Survive

When you “weather the storm”, you endure a bad situation.

When it rains, it pours – Trouble comes

This refers to the fact that sometimes, many bad things happen to people at one time.

So there you have it, 10 idiomatic expressions and their meanings. These idioms are used by native English language speakers to add some color to their daily speech.

 

Google is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence,[9] and consumer electronics. It has been referred to as "the most powerful company in the world"[10] and one of the world's most valuable brands due to its market dominance, data collection, and technological advantages in the area of artificial intelligence.[11][12][13] Its parent company Alphabet is considered one of the Big Five American information technology companies, alongside Amazon, Apple, Meta, and Microsoft.

Google was founded on September 4, 1998, by Larry Page and Sergey Brin while they were PhD students at Stanford University in California. Together they own about 14% of its publicly listed shares and control 56% of the stockholder voting power through super-voting stock. The company went public via an initial public offering (IPO) in 2004. In 2015, Google was reorganized as a wholly owned subsidiary of Alphabet Inc. Google is Alphabet's largest subsidiary and is a holding company for Alphabet's Internet properties and interests. Sundar Pichai was appointed CEO of Google on October 24, 2015, replacing Larry Page, who became the CEO of Alphabet. On December 3, 2019, Pichai also became the CEO of Alphabet.[14]

The company has since rapidly grown to offer a multitude of products and services beyond Google Search, many of which hold dominant market positions. These products address a wide range of use cases, including email (Gmail), navigation (Waze & Maps), cloud computing (Cloud), web browsing (Chrome), video sharing (YouTube), productivity (Workspace), operating systems (Android), cloud storage (Drive), language translation (Translate), photo storage (Photos), video calling (Meet), smart home (Nest), smartphones (Pixel), wearable technology (Pixel Watch & Fitbit), music streaming (YouTube Music), video on demand (YouTube TV), artificial intelligence (Google Assistant), machine learning APIs (TensorFlow), AI chips (TPU), and more. Discontinued Google products include gaming (Stadia), Glass,[citation needed] Google+, Reader, Play Music, Nexus, Hangouts, and Inbox by Gmail.[15][16]

Google's other ventures outside of Internet services and consumer electronics include quantum computing (Sycamore), self-driving cars (Waymo, formerly the Google Self-Driving Car Project), smart cities (Sidewalk Labs), and transformer models (Google Brain).[17]

Google and YouTube are the two most visited websites worldwide followed by Facebook and Twitter. Google is also the largest search engine, mapping and navigation application, email provider, office suite, video sharing platform, photo and cloud storage provider, mobile operating system, web browser, ML framework, and AI virtual assistant provider in the world as measured by market share. On the list of most valuable brands, Google is ranked second by Forbes[18] and fourth by Interbrand.[19] It has received significant criticism involving issues such as privacy concerns, tax avoidance, censorship, search neutrality, antitrust and abuse of its monopoly position.

In March 1999, the company moved its offices to Palo Alto, California,[52] which is home to several prominent Silicon Valley technology start-ups.[53] The next year, Google began selling advertisements associated with search keywords against Page and Brin's initial opposition toward an advertising-funded search engine.[54][22] To maintain an uncluttered page design, advertisements were solely text-based.[55] In June 2000, it was announced that Google would become the default search engine provider for Yahoo!, one of the most popular websites at the time, replacing Inktomi.

 

In 2003, after outgrowing two other locations, the company leased an office complex from Silicon Graphics, at 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway in Mountain View, California.[59] The complex became known as the Googleplex, a play on the word googolplex, the number one followed by a googol zeroes. Three years later, Google bought the property from SGI for $319 million.[60] By that time, the name "Google" had found its way into everyday language, causing the verb "google" to be added to the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary and the Oxford English Dictionary, denoted as: "to use the Google search engine to obtain information on the Internet".[61][62] The first use of the verb on television appeared in an October 2002 episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.[63]

Additionally, in 2001 Google's investors felt the need to have a strong internal management, and they agreed to hire Eric Schmidt as the chairman and CEO of Google.[49] Eric was proposed by John Doerr from Kleiner Perkins. He had been trying to find a CEO that Sergey and Larry would accept for several months, but they rejected several candidates because they wanted to retain control over the company. Michael Moritz from Sequoia Capital at one point even menaced requesting Google to immediately pay back Sequoia's $12.5m investment if they did not fulfill their promise to hire a chief executive office, which had been made verbally during investment negotiations. Eric wasn't initially enthusiastic about joining Google either, as the company's full potential hadn't yet been widely recognized at the time, and as he was occupied with his responsibilities at Novell where he was CEO. As part of him joining, Eric agreed to buy $1 million of Google preferred stocks as a way to show his commitment and to provide funds Google needed.

Google generates most of its revenues from advertising. This includes sales of apps, purchases made in-app, digital content products on Google and YouTube, Android and licensing and service fees, including fees received for Google Cloud offerings. Forty-six percent of this profit was from clicks (cost per clicks), amounting to US$109,652 million in 2017. This includes three principal methods, namely AdMob, AdSense (such as AdSense for Content, AdSense for Search, etc.) and DoubleClick AdExchange.

In addition to its own algorithms for understanding search requests, Google uses technology its acquisition of DoubleClick, to project user interest and target advertising to the search context and the user history.

In 2007, Google launched "AdSense for Mobile", taking advantage of the emerging mobile advertising market.

Google Analytics allows website owners to track where and how people use their website, for example by examining click rates for all the links on a page. Google advertisements can be placed on third-party websites in a two-part program. Google Ads allows advertisers to display their advertisements in the Google content network, through a cost-per-click scheme.[138] The sister service, Google AdSense, allows website owners to display these advertisements on their website and earn money every time ads are clicked.[139] One of the criticisms of this program is the possibility of click fraud, which occurs when a person or automated script clicks on advertisements without being interested in the product, causing the advertiser to pay money to Google unduly. Industry reports in 2006 claimed that approximately 14 to 20 percent of clicks were fraudulent or invalid.[140] Google Search Console (rebranded from Google Webmaster Tools in May 2015) allows webmasters to check the sitemap, crawl rate, and for security issues of their websites, as well as optimize their website's visibility.

Consumer services

Web-based services

Google offers Gmail for email, Google Calendar for time-management and scheduling, Google Maps for mapping, navigation and satellite imagery, Google Drive for cloud storage of files, Google Docs, Sheets and Slides for productivity, Google Photos for photo storage and sharing, Google Keep for note-taking, Google Translate for language translation, YouTube for video viewing and sharing, Google My Business for managing public business information, and Duo for social interaction. In March 2019, Google unveiled a cloud gaming service named Stadia. A job search product has also existed since before 2017, Google for Jobs is an enhanced search feature that aggregates listings from job boards and career sites.

Some Google services are not web-based. Google Earth, launched in 2005, allowed users to see high-definition satellite pictures from all over the world for free through a client software downloaded to their computers.

Software

Google develops the Android mobile operating system, as well as its smartwatch, television, car, and Internet of things-enabled smart devices variations.

It also develops the Google Chrome web browser, and Chrome OS, an operating system based on Chrome.

 

Hardware

 

In January 2010, Google released Nexus One, the first Android phone under its own brand. It spawned a number of phones and tablets under the "Nexus" branding until its eventual discontinuation in 2016, replaced by a new brand called Pixel.

In 2011, the Chromebook was introduced, which runs on Chrome OS.

In July 2013, Google introduced the Chromecast dongle, which allows users to stream content from their smartphones to televisions.

In June 2014, Google announced Google Cardboard, a simple cardboard viewer that lets user place their smartphone in a special front compartment to view virtual reality (VR) media.

Other hardware products include:

•Nest, a series of voice assistant smart speakers that can answer voice queries, play music, find information from apps (calendar, weather etc.), and control third-party smart home appliances (users can tell it to turn on the lights, for example). The Google Nest line includes the original Google Home (later succeeded by the Nest Audio), the Google Home Mini (later succeeded by the Nest Mini, the Google Home Max, the Google Home Hub (later rebranded as the Nest Hub), and the Nest Hub Max.

•Nest Wifi (originally Google Wifi), a connected set of Wi-Fi routers to simplify and extend coverage of home Wi-Fi.

 

Enterprise services

Google Workspace (formerly G Suite until October 2020) is a monthly subscription offering for organizations and businesses to get access to a collection of Google's services, including Gmail, Google Drive and Google Docs, Google Sheets and Google Slides, with additional administrative tools, unique domain names, and 24/7 support.

On September 24, 2012, Google launched Google for Entrepreneurs, a largely not-for-profit business incubator providing startups with co-working spaces known as Campuses, with assistance to startup founders that may include workshops, conferences, and mentorships. Presently, there are seven Campus locations: Berlin, London, Madrid, Seoul, São Paulo, Tel Aviv, and Warsaw.

On March 15, 2016, Google announced the introduction of Google Analytics 360 Suite, "a set of integrated data and marketing analytics products, designed specifically for the needs of enterprise-class marketers" which can be integrated with BigQuery on the Google Cloud Platform. Among other things, the suite is designed to help "enterprise class marketers" "see the complete customer journey", generate "useful insights", and "deliver engaging experiences to the right people". Jack Marshall of The Wall Street Journal wrote that the suite competes with existing marketing cloud offerings by companies including Adobe, Oracle, Salesforce, and IBM.

 

Internet services

In February 2010, Google announced the Google Fiber project, with experimental plans to build an ultra-high-speed broadband network for 50,000 to 500,000 customers in one or more American cities.[178][179] Following Google's corporate restructure to make Alphabet Inc. its parent company, Google Fiber was moved to Alphabet's Access division.[180][181]

In April 2015, Google announced Project Fi, a mobile virtual network operator, that combines Wi-Fi and cellular networks from different telecommunication providers in an effort to enable seamless connectivity and fast Internet signal.

 

Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes, its name comes from the face book directories often given to American university students. Membership was initially limited to Harvard students, gradually expanding to other North American universities and, since 2006, anyone over 13 years old. As of July 2022, Facebook claimed 2.93 billion monthly active users,[6] and ranked third worldwide among the most visited websites as of July 2022.[7] It was the most downloaded mobile app of the 2010s.[8]

Facebook can be accessed from devices with Internet connectivity, such as personal computers, tablets and smartphones. After registering, users can create a profile revealing information about themselves. They can post text, photos and multimedia which are shared with any other users who have agreed to be their "friend" or, with different privacy settings, publicly. Users can also communicate directly with each other with Facebook Messenger, join common-interest groups, and receive notifications on the activities of their Facebook friends and the pages they follow.

The subject of numerous controversies, Facebook has often been criticized over issues such as user privacy (as with the Cambridge Analytica data scandal), political manipulation (as with the 2016 U.S. elections) and mass surveillance.[9] Posts originating from the Facebook page of Breitbart News, a media organization previously affiliated with Cambridge Analytica,[10] are currently among the most widely shared political content on Facebook.[11][12][13][14][15] Facebook has also been subject to criticism over psychological effects such as addiction and low self-esteem, and various controversies over content such as fake news, conspiracy theories, copyright infringement, and hate speech.

 

Zuckerberg built a website called "Facemash" in 2003 while attending Harvard University. The site was comparable to Hot or Not and used "photos compiled from the online face books of nine Houses, placing two next to each other at a time and asking users to choose the "hotter" person". Facemash attracted 450 visitors and 22,000 photo-views in its first four hours. The site was sent to several campus group listservs, but was shut down a few days later by Harvard administration. Zuckerberg faced expulsion and was charged with breaching security, violating copyrights and violating individual privacy. Ultimately, the charges were dropped. Zuckerberg expanded on this project that semester by creating a social study tool. He uploaded art images, each accompanied by a comments section, to a website he shared with his classmates.

A "face book" is a student directory featuring photos and personal information. In 2003, Harvard had only a paper version[ along with private online directories. Zuckerberg told The Harvard Crimson, "Everyone's been talking a lot about a universal face book within Harvard. ... I think it's kind of silly that it would take the University a couple of years to get around to it. I can do it better than they can, and I can do it in a week."[29] In January 2004, Zuckerberg coded a new website, known as "TheFacebook", inspired by a Crimson editorial about Facemash, stating, "It is clear that the technology needed to create a centralized Website is readily available ... the benefits are many." Zuckerberg met with Harvard student Eduardo Saverin, and each of them agreed to invest $1,000 ($1,435 in 2021 dollars[30]) in the site.[31] On February 4, 2004, Zuckerberg launched "TheFacebook", originally located at thefacebook.com.

Six days after the site launched, Harvard seniors Cameron Winklevoss, Tyler Winklevoss, and Divya Narendra accused Zuckerberg of intentionally misleading them into believing that he would help them build a social network called HarvardConnection.com. They claimed that he was instead using their ideas to build a competing product. The three complained to the Crimson and the newspaper began an investigation. They later sued Zuckerberg, settling in 2008 for 1.2 million shares (worth $300 million ($354 million in 2021 dollars[30]) at Facebook's IPO).

Membership was initially restricted to students of Harvard College. Within a month, more than half the undergraduates had registered.[36] Dustin Moskovitz, Andrew McCollum, and Chris Hughes joined Zuckerberg to help manage the growth of the website.[37] In March 2004, Facebook expanded to Columbia, Stanford and Yale.[38] It then became available to all Ivy League colleges, Boston University, NYU, MIT, and successively most universities in the United States and Canada.

In mid-2004, Napster co-founder and entrepreneur Sean Parker—an informal advisor to Zuckerberg—became company president.[41] In June 2004, the company moved to Palo Alto, California.[42] It received its first investment later that month from PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel. In 2005, the company dropped "the" from its name after purchasing the domain name Facebook.com for US$200,000 ($277,492 in 2021 dollars). The domain had belonged to AboutFace Corporation.

In May 2005, Accel Partners invested $12.7 million ($17.6 million in 2021 dollars) in Facebook, and Jim Breyer added $1 million ($1.39 million in 2021 dollars) of his own money. A high-school version of the site launched in September 2005. Eligibility expanded to include employees of several companies, including Apple Inc. and Microsoft.

 

Facebook was sued by the Federal Trade Commission as well as a coalition of several states for illegal monopolization and antitrust. The FTC and states sought the courts to force Facebook to sell its subsidiaries WhatsApp and Instagram.[183][184] The suits were dismissed by a federal judge on June 28, 2021, who stated that there was not enough evidence brought in the suit to determine Facebook to be a monopoly at this point, though allowed the FTC to amend its case to include additional evidence. In its amended filings in August 2021, the FTC asserted that Facebook had been a monopoly in the area of personal social networks since 2011, distinguishing Facebook's activities from social media services like TikTok that broadcast content without necessarily l

 

At a crossroads – Needing to make an important decision

When you are at a crossroads, you are at a point in your life where you need to make a decision. The implication is that the decision you make will have big, life-altering consequences.

Bad apple – Bad person

You can use this idiom to describe someone who is not nice and maybe even criminal.

Barking up the wrong tree – Pursuing the wrong course

When you “bark up the wrong tree” you are pursuing the wrong solution to your problems.

Be closefisted – Stingy

If you are being “closefisted”, you don’t want to spend a lot of money.

Be cold-hearted – Uncaring

If you decide to be “cold-hearted”, you are making a deliberate decision not to care about someone or something.

Be on solid ground – Confident

When you are “on solid ground”, you are confident in your position

I updated it with a part of foundations and stairs around both towers. Every part in specific color is available to buy so it can be built in real life. In this section, right between those two stairs next to both towers, there would be standing Marriott hotel. More renders soon.

 

A tribute to my all time favourite buildings - The Twin Towers - World Trade Center. I finished this project a few months ago but I still will be updating it with some details. I'm planning to build these in real life one day.

R.I.P. To all innocent people who lost their lives on Sep 11, 2001.

@algonquinoutfit : Sunrise: December 02, 2016 at 07:37AM AM Snow Showers today! With a high of: 2 and a low of:-3 t.co/K3bab3aMI8 (via Twitter twitter.com/algonquinoutfit/status/804641404068753408)

Gnosticism (from Ancient Greek: γνωστικός gnostikos, "having knowledge", from γνῶσις gnōsis, knowledge) is a modern name for a variety of ancient religious ideas and systems, originating in Jewish Christian milieux in the first and second century AD. These systems believed that the material world is created by an emanation or 'works' of a lower god (demiurge), trapping the divine spark within the human body. This divine spark could be liberated by gnosis, spiritual knowledge acquired through direct experience. Some of the core teachings include the following:

All matter is evil, and the non-material, spirit-realm is good.

There is an unknowable God, who gave rise to many lesser spirit beings called Aeons.

The creator of the (material) universe is not the supreme god, but an inferior spirit (the Demiurge).

Gnosticism does not deal with "sin," only ignorance.

To achieve salvation, one needs gnosis (knowledge).

The Gnostic ideas and systems flourished in the Mediterranean world in the second century AD, in conjunction with and influenced by the early Christian movements and Middle Platonism. After the second century, a decline set in. In the Persian Empire, Gnosticism in the form of Manicheism spread as far as China, while Mandaeism is still alive in Iraq.

A major question in scholarly research is the qualification of Gnosticism, based on the study of its texts, as either an interreligious phenomenon or as an independent religion.

 

Gnosis refers to knowledge based on personal experience or perception. In a religious context, gnosis is mystical or esoteric knowledge based on direct participation with the divine. In most Gnostic systems, the sufficient cause of salvation is this "knowledge of" ("acquaintance with") the divine. It is an inward "knowing", comparable to that encouraged by Plotinus (neoplatonism), and differs from proto-orthodox Christian views.[1] Gnostics are "those who are oriented toward knowledge and understanding – or perception and learning – as a particular modality for living".

 

The usual meaning of gnostikos in Classical Greek texts is "learned" or "intellectual", such as used by Plato in the comparison of "practical" (praktikos) and "intellectual" (gnostikos). Plato's use of "learned" is fairly typical of Classical texts.

 

By the Hellenistic period, it began to also be associated with Greco-Roman mysteries, becoming synonymous with the Greek term musterion. The adjective is not used in the New Testament, but Clement of Alexandria[note 3] speaks of the "learned" (gnostikos) Christian in complimentary terms. The use of gnostikos in relation to heresy originates with interpreters of Irenaeus. Some scholars[note consider that Irenaeus sometimes uses gnostikos to simply mean "intellectual",[note 5] whereas his mention of "the intellectual sect" is a specific designation.

 

The term "Gnosticism" does not appear in ancient sources,[note 10] and was first coined in the 17th century by Henry More in a commentary on the seven letters of the Book of Revelation, where More used the term "Gnosticisme" to describe the heresy in Thyatira. The term Gnosticism was derived from the use of the Greek adjective gnostikos (Greek γνωστικός, "learned", "intellectual") by St. Irenaeus (c. 185 AD) to describe the school of Valentinus as he legomene gnostike haeresis "the heresy called Learned (gnostic)."

 

Origins

The earliest origins of Gnosticism are obscure and still disputed. The proto-orthodox Christian groups called Gnostics a heresy of Christianity,] but according to the modern scholars the theology's origin is closely related to Jewish sectarian milieus and early Christian sects. Scholars debate Gnosticism's origins as having roots in Neoplatonism and Buddhism, due to similarities in beliefs, but ultimately, its origins are currently unknown. As Christianity developed and became more popular, so did Gnosticism, with both proto-orthodox Christian and Gnostic Christian groups often existing in the same places. The Gnostic belief was widespread within Christianity until the proto-orthodox Christian communities expelled the group in the second and third centuries (C.E.). Gnosticism became the first group to be declared heretical.

 

Some scholars prefer to speak of "gnosis" when referring to first-century ideas that later developed into gnosticism, and to reserve the term "gnosticism" for the synthesis of these ideas into a coherent movement in the second century.No gnostic texts have been discovered that pre-date Christianity,and "pre-Christian Gnosticism as such is hardly attested in a way to settle the debate once and for all."

 

Jewish Christian origins

 

Contemporary scholarship largely agrees that Gnosticism has Jewish Christian origins, originating in the late first century AD in non rabbinical Jewish sects and early Christian sects.

 

Many heads of gnostic schools were identified as Jewish Christians by Church Fathers, and Hebrew words and names of God were applied in some gnostic systems. The cosmogonic speculations among Christian Gnostics had partial origins in Maaseh Bereshit and Maaseh Merkabah. This thesis is most notably put forward by Gershom Scholem (1897–1982) and Gilles Quispel (1916–2006). Scholem detected Jewish gnosis in the imagery of the merkavah, which can also be found in "Christian" Gnostic documents, for example the being "caught away" to the third heaven mentioned by Paul the Apostle. Quispel sees Gnosticism as an independent Jewish development, tracing its origins to Alexandrian Jews, to which group Valentinus was also connected.

 

Many of the Nag Hammadi texts make reference to Judaism, in some cases with a violent rejection of the Jewish God. Gershom Scholem once described Gnosticism as "the Greatest case of metaphysical anti-Semitism". Professor Steven Bayme said gnosticism would be better characterized as anti-Judaism. Recent research into the origins of Gnosticism shows a strong Jewish influence, particularly from Hekhalot literature.

 

Within early Christianity, the teachings of Paul and John may have been a starting point for Gnostic ideas, with a growing emphasis on the opposition between flesh and spirit, the value of charisma, and the disqualification of the Jewish law. The mortal body belonged to the world of inferior, worldly powers (the archons), and only the spirit or soul could be saved. The term gnostikos may have acquired a deeper significance here.

 

Alexandria was of central importance for the birth of Gnosticism. The Christian ecclesia (i. e. congregation, church) was of Jewish–Christian origin, but also attracted Greek members, and various strand of thought were available, such as "Judaic apocalypticism, speculation on divine wisdom, Greek philosophy, and Hellenistic mystery religions."

 

Regarding the angel Christology of some early Christians, Darrell Hannah notes:

 

[Some] early Christians understood the pre-incarnate Christ, ontologically, as an angel. This "true" angel Christology took many forms and may have appeared as early as the late First Century, if indeed this is the view opposed in the early chapters of the Epistle to the Hebrews. The Elchasaites, or at least Christians influenced by them, paired the male Christ with the female Holy Spirit, envisioning both as two gigantic angels. Some Valentinian Gnostics supposed that Christ took on an angelic nature and that he might be the Saviour of angels. The author of the Testament of Solomon held Christ to be a particularly effective "thwarting" angel in the exorcism of demons. The author of De Centesima and Epiphanius’ "Ebionites" held Christ to have been the highest and most important of the first created archangels, a view similar in many respects to Hermas’ equation of Christ with Michael. Finally, a possible exegetical tradition behind the Ascension of Isaiah and attested by Origen's Hebrew master, may witness to yet another angel Christology, as well as an angel Pneumatology.

 

The pseudepigraphical Christian text Ascension of Isaiah identifies Jesus with angel Christology:

 

[The Lord Christ is commissioned by the Father] And I heard the voice of the Most High, the father of my LORD as he said to my LORD Christ who will be called Jesus, ‘Go out and descend through all the heavens...

 

The Shepherd of Hermas is a Christian literary work considered as canonical scripture by some of the early Church fathers such as Irenaeus. Jesus is identified with angel Christology in parable 5, when the author mentions a Son of God, as a virtuous man filled with a Holy "pre-existent spirit".

 

Neoplatonic influences

See also: Platonic Academy, Neoplatonism and Gnosticism, and Neoplatonism and Christianity

In the 1880s Gnostic connections with neo-Platonism were proposed.Ugo Bianchi, who organised the Congress of Messina of 1966 on the origins of Gnosticism, also argued for Orphic and Platonic origins.Gnostics borrowed significant ideas and terms from Platonism, using Greek philosophical concepts throughout their text, including such concepts as hypostasis (reality, existence), ousia (essence, substance, being), and demiurge (creator God). Both Sethian Gnostics and Valentinian Gnostics seem to have been influenced by Plato, Middle Platonism, and Neo-Pythagoreanism academies or schools of thought. Both schools attempted "an effort towards conciliation, even affiliation" with late antique philosophy, and were rebuffed by some Neoplatonists, including Plotinus.

 

Persian origins or influences

Early research into the origins of Gnosticism proposed Persian origins or influences, spreading to Europe and incorporating Jewish elements. According to Wilhelm Bousset (1865–1920), Gnosticism was a form of Iranian and Mesopotamian syncretism,[29] and Richard August Reitzenstein (1861–1931) most famously situated the origins of Gnosticism in Persia.

 

Carsten Colpe (b. 1929) has analyzed and criticised the Iranian hypothesis of Reitzenstein, showing that many of his hypotheses are untenable. Nevertheless, Geo Widengren (1907–1996) argued for the origin of (Mandaean) Gnosticism in Mazdean (Zoroastrianism) Zurvanism, in conjunction with ideas from the Aramaic Mesopotamian world.

 

Buddhist parallels

 

In 1966, at the Congress of Median, Buddhologist Edward Conze noted phenomenological commonalities between Mahayana Buddhism and Gnosticism, in his paper Buddhism and Gnosis, following an early suggestion put forward by Isaac Jacob Schmidt. The influence of Buddhism in any sense on either the gnostikos Valentinus (c. 170) or the Nag Hammadi texts (3rd century) is not supported by modern scholarship, although Elaine Pagels (1979) called it a "possibility".

 

Characteristics

Cosmology

 

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The Syrian–Egyptian traditions postulate a remote, supreme Godhead, the Monad. From this highest divinity emanate lower divine beings, known as Aeons. The Demiurge, one of those Aeons, creates the physical world. Divine elements "fall" into the material realm, and are locked within human beings. This divine element returns to the divine realm when Gnosis, esoteric or intuitive knowledge of the divine element within, is obtained.

 

Dualism and monism

Gnostic systems postulate a dualism between God and the world, varying from the "radical dualist" systems of Manichaeism to the "mitigated dualism" of classic gnostic movements. Radical dualism, or absolute dualism, posits two co-equal divine forces, while in mitigated dualism one of the two principles is in some way inferior to the other. In qualified monism the second entity may be divine or semi-divine. Valentinian Gnosticism is a form of monism, expressed in terms previously used in a dualistic manner.

 

Moral and ritual practice

Gnostics tended toward asceticism, especially in their sexual and dietary practice. In other areas of morality, Gnostics were less rigorously ascetic, and took a more moderate approach to correct behaviour. In normative early Christianity the Church administered and prescribed the correct behaviour for Christians, while in Gnosticism it was the internalised motivation that was important. Ritualistic behaviour was not important unless it was based on a personal, internal motivation. Ptolemy's Epistle to Flora describes a general asceticism, based on the moral inclination of the individual.

 

Concepts

Monad

 

In many Gnostic systems, God is known as the Monad, the One. God is the high source of the pleroma, the region of light. The various emanations of God are called æons. According to Hippolytus, this view was inspired by the Pythagoreans, who called the first thing that came into existence the Monad, which begat the dyad, which begat the numbers, which begat the point, begetting lines, etc.

 

The Sethian cosmogony as most famously contained in the Apocryphon ("Secret book") of John describes an unknown God, very similar to the orthodox apophatic theology, but different from the orthodox teachings that this God is the creator of heaven and earth. Orthodox theologians often attempt to define God through a series of explicit positive statements: he is omniscient, omnipotent, and truly benevolent. The Sethian hidden transcendent God is, by contrast, defined through negative theology: he is immovable, invisible, intangible, ineffable; commonly, "he" is seen as being hermaphroditic, a potent symbol for being, as it were, "all-containing". In the Apocryphon of John, this god is good in that it bestows goodness. After the apophatic statements, the process of the Divine in action is used to describe the effect of such a god.

 

Pleroma

Pleroma (Greek πλήρωμα, "fullness") refers to the totality of God's powers. The heavenly pleroma is the center of divine life, a region of light "above" (the term is not to be understood spatially) our world, occupied by spiritual beings such as aeons (eternal beings) and sometimes archons. Jesus is interpreted as an intermediary aeon who was sent from the pleroma, with whose aid humanity can recover the lost knowledge of the divine origins of humanity. The term is thus a central element of Gnostic cosmology.

 

Pleroma is also used in the general Greek language, and is used by the Greek Orthodox church in this general form, since the word appears in the Epistle to the Colossians. Proponents of the view that Paul was actually a gnostic, such as Elaine Pagels, view the reference in Colossians as a term that has to be interpreted in a gnostic sense.

 

Emanation

 

The Supreme Light or Consciousness descends through a series of stages, gradations, worlds, or hypostases, becoming progressively more material and embodied. In time it will turn around to return to the One (epistrophe), retracing its steps through spiritual knowledge and contemplation.

 

Aeon

 

In many Gnostic systems, the aeons are the various emanations of the superior God or Monad. From this first being, also an æon, a series of different emanations occur, beginning in certain Gnostic texts with the hermaphroditic Barbelo, from which successive pairs of aeons emanate, often in male–female pairings called syzygies. The numbers of these pairings varied from text to text, though some identify their number as being thirty. The aeons as a totality constitute the pleroma, the "region of light". The lowest regions of the pleroma are closest to the darkness; that is, the physical world.

 

Two of the most commonly paired æons were Christ and Sophia (Greek: "Wisdom"); the latter refers to Christ as her "consort" in A Valentinian Exposition.

 

Sophia

 

In Gnostic tradition, the term Sophia (Σoφíα, Greek for "wisdom") refers to the final and lowest emanation of God. In most if not all versions of the gnostic myth, Sophia births the demiurge, who in turn brings about the creation of materiality. The positive or negative depiction of materiality thus resides a great deal on mythic depictions of Sophia's actions. She is occasionally referred to by the Hebrew equivalent of Achamoth (this is a feature of Ptolemy's version of the Valentinian gnostic myth). Jewish Gnosticism with a focus on Sophia was active by 90 AD.[citation needed]

 

Sophia, emanating without her partner, resulted in the production of the Demiurge (Greek: lit. "public builder"),[50] who is also referred to as Yaldabaoth and variations thereof in some Gnostic texts.[43] This creature is concealed outside the pleroma;[43] in isolation, and thinking itself alone, it creates materiality and a host of co-actors, referred to as archons. The demiurge is responsible for the creation of mankind; trapping elements of the pleroma stolen from Sophia inside human bodies.[43][51] In response, the Godhead emanates two savior aeons, Christ and the Holy Spirit; Christ then embodies itself in the form of Jesus, in order to be able to teach man how to achieve gnosis, by which they may return to the pleroma.[52]

 

Demiurge[edit]

 

A lion-faced deity found on a Gnostic gem in Bernard de Montfaucon's L'antiquité expliquée et représentée en figures may be a depiction of Yaldabaoth, the Demiurge; however, cf. Mithraic Zervan Akarana[53]

Main article: Demiurge

The term demiurge derives from the Latinized form of the Greek term dēmiourgos, δημιουργός, literally "public or skilled worker".[note 20] This figure is also called "Yaldabaoth",[43] Samael (Aramaic: sæmʻa-ʼel, "blind god"), or "Saklas" (Syriac: sækla, "the foolish one"), who is sometimes ignorant of the superior god, and sometimes opposed to it; thus in the latter case he is correspondingly malevolent. Other names or identifications are Ahriman, El, Satan, and Yahweh.

 

The demiurge creates the physical universe and the physical aspect of humanity.[55] The demiurge typically creates a group of co-actors named archons who preside over the material realm and, in some cases, present obstacles to the soul seeking ascent from it.[43] The inferiority of the demiurge's creation may be compared to the technical inferiority of a work of art, painting, sculpture, etc. to the thing the art represents. In other cases it takes on a more ascetic tendency to view material existence negatively, which then becomes more extreme when materiality, including the human body, is perceived as evil and constrictive, a deliberate prison for its inhabitants.

 

Moral judgements of the demiurge vary from group to group within the broad category of Gnosticism, viewing materiality as being inherently evil, or as merely flawed and as good as its passive constituent matter allows.[56]

 

Archon[edit]

Main article: Archon (Gnosticism)

In late antiquity some variants of Gnosticism used the term archon to refer to several servants of the demiurge.[51] In this context they may be seen as having the roles of the angels and demons of the Old Testament.[citation needed]

 

According to Origen's Contra Celsum, a sect called the Ophites posited the existence of seven archons, beginning with Iadabaoth or Ialdabaoth, who created the six that follow: Iao, Sabaoth, Adonaios, Elaios, Astaphanos, and Horaios.[57] Similarly to the Mithraic Kronos and Vedic Narasimha, a form of Vishnu, Ialdabaoth had a head of a lion.[43][58][59]

 

Other concepts[edit]

Other Gnostic concepts are:[60]

 

sarkic – earthly, hidebound, ignorant, uninitiated. The lowest level of human thought; the fleshly, instinctive level of thinking.

hylic – lowest order of the three types of human. Unable to be saved since their thinking is entirely material, incapable of understanding the gnosis.

psychic – "soulful", partially initiated. Matter-dwelling spirits

pneumatic – "spiritual", fully initiated, immaterial souls escaping the doom of the material world via gnosis.

kenoma – the visible or manifest cosmos, "lower" than the pleroma

charisma – gift, or energy, bestowed by pneumatics through oral teaching and personal encounters

logos – the divine ordering principle of the cosmos; personified as Christ. See also Odic force.

hypostasis – literally "that which stands beneath" the inner reality, emanation (appearance) of God, known to psychics

ousia – essence of God, known to pneumatics. Specific individual things or being.

Jesus as Gnostic saviour[edit]

Jesus is identified by some Gnostics as an embodiment of the supreme being who became incarnate to bring gnōsis to the earth,[61][52] while others adamantly denied that the supreme being came in the flesh, claiming Jesus to be merely a human who attained divinity through gnosis and taught his disciples to do the same.[citation needed] Among the Mandaeans, Jesus was considered a mšiha kdaba or "false messiah" who perverted the teachings entrusted to him by John the Baptist.[62] Still other traditions identify Mani and Seth – third son of Adam and Eve – as salvific figures.

 

Development[edit]

Three periods can be discerned in the development of Gnosticism:[63]

 

Late first century and early second century: development of Gnostic ideas, contemporaneous with the writing of the New Testament;

mid-second century to early third century: high point of the classical Gnostic teachers and their systems, "who claimed that their systems represented the inner truth revealed by Jesus";[63]

end of second century to fourth century: reaction by the proto-orthodox church and condemnation as heresy, and subsequent decline.

During the first period, three types of tradition developed:[63]

 

Genesis was reinterpreted in Jewish milieus, viewing Jahweh as a jealous God who enslaved people; freedom was to be obtained from this jealous God;

A wisdom tradition developed, in which Jesus' sayings were interpreted as pointers to an esoteric wisdom, in which the soul could be divinized through identification with wisdom.[63][note 21] Some of Jesus' sayings may have been incorporated into the gospels to put a limit on this development. The conflicts described in 1 Corinthians may have been inspired by a clash between this wisdom tradition and Paul's gospel of crucifixion and arising;[63]

A mythical story developed about the descent of a heavenly creature to reveal the Divine world as the true home of human beings.[63] Jewish Christianity saw the Messiah, or Christ, as "an eternal aspect of God's hidden nature, his "spirit" and "truth", who revealed himself throughout sacred history".[25]

The movement spread in areas controlled by the Roman Empire and Arian Goths,[65] and the Persian Empire. It continued to develop in the Mediterranean and Middle East before and during the 2nd and 3rd centuries, but decline also set in during the third century, due to a growing aversion from the Catholic Church, and the economic and cultural deterioration of the Roman Empire.[66] Conversion to Islam, and the Albigensian Crusade (1209–1229), greatly reduced the remaining number of Gnostics throughout the Middle Ages, though a few Mandaean communities still exist. Gnostic and pseudo-gnostic ideas became influential in some of the philosophies of various esoteric mystical movements of the 19th and 20th centuries in Europe and North America, including some that explicitly identify themselves as revivals or even continuations of earlier gnostic groups.

 

Relation with early Christianity[edit]

Dillon notes that Gnosticism raises questions about the development of early Christianity.[67]

 

Orthodoxy and heresy[edit]

See also: Diversity in early Christian theology

The Christian heresiologists, most notably Irenaeus, regarded Gnosticism as a Christian heresy. Modern scholarship notes that early Christianity was very diverse, and Christian orthodoxy only settled in the 4th century, when the Roman Empire declined and Gnosticism lost its influence.[68][66][69][67] Gnostics and proto-orthodox Christians shared some terminology. Initially, they were hard to distinguish from each other.[70]

 

According to Walter Bauer, "heresies" may well have been the original form of Christianity in many regions.[71] This theme was further developed by Elaine Pagels,[72] who argues that "the proto-orthodox church found itself in debates with gnostic Christians that helped them to stabilize their own beliefs."[67] According to Gilles Quispel, Catholicism arose in response to Gnosticism, establishing safeguards in the form of the monarchic episcopate, the creed, and the canon of holy books.[73]

 

Historical Jesus[edit]

See also: Jesus in comparative mythology and Christ myth theory

The Gnostic movements may contain information about the historical Jesus, since some texts preserve sayings which show similarities with canonical sayings.[74] Especially the Gospel of Thomas has a significant amount of parallel sayings.[74] Yet, a striking difference is that the canonical sayings center on the coming endtime, while the Thomas-sayings center on a kingdom of heaven that is already here, and not a future event.[75] According to Helmut Koester, this is because the Thomas-sayings are older, implying that in the earliest forms of Christianity Jesus was regarded as a wisdom-teacher.[75] An alternative hypothesis states that the Thomas authors wrote in the second century, changing existing sayings and eliminating the apocalyptic concerns.[75] According to April DeConick, such a change occurred when the endtime did not come, and the Thomasine tradition turned toward a "new theology of mysticism" and a "theological commitment to a fully-present kingdom of heaven here and now, where their church had attained Adam and Eve's divine status before the Fall."[75]

 

Johannine literature[edit]

The prologue of the Gospel of John describes the incarnated Logos, the light that came to earth, in the person of Jesus.[76] The Apocryphon of John contains a scheme of three descendants from the heavenly realm, the third one being Jesus, just as in the Gospel of John. The similarities probably point to a relationship between gnostic ideas and the Johannine community.[76] According to Raymond Brown, the Gospel of John shows "the development of certain gnostic ideas, especially Christ as heavenly revealer, the emphasis on light versus darkness, and anti-Jewish animus."[76] The Johannine material reveals debates about the redeemer myth.[63] The Johannine letters show that there were different interpretations of the gospel story, and the Johannine images may have contributed to second-century Gnostic ideas about Jesus as a redeemer who descended from heaven.[63] According to DeConick, the Gospel of John shows a "transitional system from early Christianity to gnostic beliefs in a God who transcends our world."[76] According to DeConick, John may show a bifurcation of the idea of the Jewish God into Jesus' Father in Heaven and the Jews' father, "the Father of the Devil" (most translations say "of [your] father the Devil"), which may have developed into the gnostic idea of the Monad and the Demiurge.[76]

 

Paul and Gnosticism[edit]

Tertullian calls Paul "the apostle of the heretics",[77] because Paul's writings were attractive to gnostics, and interpreted in a gnostic way, while Jewish Christians found him to stray from the Jewish roots of Christianity.[78] In I Corinthians Paul refers to some church members as "having knowledge" (Greek: τὸν ἔχοντα γνῶσιν, ton echonta gnosin).[79] James Dunn claims that in some cases, Paul affirmed views that were closer to gnosticism than to proto-orthodox Christianity.[80]

 

According to Clement of Alexandria, the disciples of Valentinus said that Valentinus was a student of a certain Theudas, who was a student of Paul,[80] and Elaine Pagels notes that Paul's epistles were interpreted by Valentinus in a gnostic way, and Paul could be considered a proto-gnostic as well as a proto-Catholic.[60] Many Nag Hammadi texts, including, for example, the Prayer of Paul and the Coptic Apocalypse of Paul, consider Paul to be "the great apostle".[80] The fact that he claimed to have received his gospel directly by revelation from God appealed to the gnostics, who claimed gnosis from the risen Christ.[81] The Naassenes, Cainites, and Valentinians referred to Paul's epistles.[82] Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy have expanded upon this idea of Paul as a gnostic teacher;[83] although their premise that Jesus was invented by early Christians based on an alleged Greco-Roman mystery cult has been dismissed by scholars.[84][note 22] However, his revelation was different from the gnostic revelations.[85]

 

Major movements[edit]

Syrian-Egyptian Gnosticism[edit]

Syrian-Egyptian Gnosticism includes Sethianism, Valentinianism, Basilideans, Thomasine traditions, and Serpent Gnostics, as well as a number of other minor groups and writers.[86] Hermeticism is also a western Gnostic tradition,[66] though it differs in some respects from these other groups.[87] The Syrian–Egyptian school derives much of its outlook from Platonist influences. It depicts creation in a series of emanations from a primal monadic source, finally resulting in the creation of the material universe. These schools tend to view evil in terms of matter that is markedly inferior to goodness and lacking spiritual insight and goodness rather than as an equal force.

 

Many of these movements used texts related to Christianity, with some identifying themselves as specifically Christian, though quite different from the Orthodox or Roman Catholic forms. Jesus and several of his apostles, such as Thomas the Apostle, claimed as the founder of the Thomasine form of Gnosticism, figure in many Gnostic texts. Mary Magdalene is respected as a Gnostic leader, and is considered superior to the twelve apostles by some gnostic texts, such as the Gospel of Mary. John the Evangelist is claimed as a Gnostic by some Gnostic interpreters,[88] as is even St. Paul.[60] Most of the literature from this category is known to us through the Nag Hammadi Library.

 

Sethite-Barbeloite[edit]

Main article: Sethianism

Sethianism was one of the main currents of Gnosticism during the 2nd to 3rd centuries, and the prototype of Gnosticism as condemned by Irenaeus.[89] Sethianism attributed its gnosis to Seth, third son of Adam and Eve and Norea, wife of Noah, who also plays a role in Mandeanism and Manicheanism. Their main text is the Apocryphon of John, which does not contain Christian elements,[89] and is an amalgam of two earlier myths.[90] Earlier texts such as Apocalypse of Adam show signs of being pre-Christian and focus on the Seth, third son of Adam and Eve.[91] Later Sethian texts continue to interact with Platonism. Sethian texts such as Zostrianos and Allogenes draw on the imagery of older Sethian texts, but utilize "a large fund of philosophical conceptuality derived from contemporary Platonism, (that is, late middle Platonism) with no traces of Christian content."[31][note 23]

 

According to John D. Turner, German and American scholarship views Sethianism as "a distinctly inner-Jewish, albeit syncretistic and heterodox, phenomenon", while British and French scholarship tends to see Sethianism as "a form of heterodox Christian speculation".[92] Roelof van den Broek notes that "Sethianism" may never have been a separate religious movement, and that the term refers rather to a set of mythological themes which occur in various texts.[93]

 

According to Smith, Sethianism may have begun as a pre-Christian tradition, possibly a syncretic cult that incorporated elements of Christianity and Platonism as it grew.[94] According to Temporini, Vogt, and Haase, early Sethians may be identical to or related to the Nazarenes (sect), the Ophites, or the sectarian group called heretics by Philo.[91]

 

According to Turner, Sethianism was influenced by Christianity and Middle Platonism, and originated in the second century as a fusion of a Jewish baptizing group of possibly priestly lineage, the so-called Barbeloites,[95] named after Barbelo, the first emanation of the Highest God, and a group of Biblical exegetes, the Sethites, the "seed of Seth".[96] At the end of the second century, Sethianism grew apart from the developing Christian orthodoxy, which rejected the docetian view of the Sethians on Christ.[97] In the early third century, Sethianism was fully rejected by Christian heresiologists, as Sethianism shifted toward the contemplative practices of Platonism while losing interest in their own origins.[98] In the late third century, Sethianism was attacked by neo-Platonists like Plotinus, and Sethianism became alienated from Platonism. In the early- to mid-fourth century, Sethianism fragmented into various sectarian Gnostic groups such as the Archontics, Audians, Borborites, and Phibionites, and perhaps Stratiotici, and Secundians.[99][31] Some of these groups existed into the Middle Ages.[99]

 

Samaritan Baptist sects[edit]

According to Magris, Samaritan Baptist sects were an offshoot of John the Baptist.[100] One offshoot was in turn headed by Dositheus, Simon Magus, and Menander. It was in this milieu that the idea emerged that the world was created by ignorant angels. Their baptismal ritual removed the consequences of sin, and led to a regeneration by which natural death, which was caused by these angels, was overcome.[100] The Samaritan leaders were viewed as "the embodiment of God's power, spirit, or wisdom, and as the redeemer and revealer of 'true knowledge'".[100]

 

The Simonians were centered on Simon Magus, the magician baptised by Philip and rebuked by Peter in Acts 8, who became in early Christianity the archetypal false teacher. The ascription by Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, and others of a connection between schools in their time and the individual in Acts 8 may be as legendary as the stories attached to him in various apocryphal books. Justin Martyr identifies Menander of Antioch as Simon Magus' pupil. According to Hippolytus, Simonianism is an earlier form of the Valentinian doctrine.[101]

 

The Basilidians or Basilideans were founded by Basilides of Alexandria in the second century. Basilides claimed to have been taught his doctrines by Glaucus, a disciple of St. Peter, but could also have been a pupil of Menander.[102] Basilidianism survived until the end of the 4th century as Epiphanius knew of Basilidians living in the Nile Delta. It was, however, almost exclusively limited to Egypt, though according to Sulpicius Severus it seems to have found an entrance into Spain through a certain Mark from Memphis. St. Jerome states that the Priscillianists were infected with it.

 

Valentinianism[edit]

Main article: Valentinianism

Valentinianism was named after its founder Valentinus (c. 100 – 180), who was a candidate for bishop of Rome but started his own group when another was chosen.[103] Valentinianism flourished after the middle of the 2nd century. The school was popular, spreading to Northwest Africa and Egypt, and through to Asia Minor and Syria in the east,[104] and Valentinus is specifically named as gnostikos by Irenaeus. It was an intellectually vibrant tradition,[105] with an elaborate and philosophically "dense" form of Gnosticism. Valentinus' students elaborated on his teachings and materials, and several varieties of their central myth are known.

 

Valentinian Gnosticism may have been monistic rather than dualistic.[note 24] In the Valentinian myths, the creation of a flawed materiality is not due to any moral failing on the part of the Demiurge, but due to the fact that he is less perfect than the superior entities from which he emanated.[108] Valentinians treat physical reality with less contempt than other Gnostic groups, and conceive of materiality not as a separate substance from the divine, but as attributable to an error of perception which becomes symbolized mythopoetically as the act of material creation.[108]

 

The followers of Valentinius attempted to systematically decode the Epistles, claiming that most Christians made the mistake of reading the Epistles literally rather than allegorically. Valentinians understood the conflict between Jews and Gentiles in Romans to be a coded reference to the differences between Psychics (people who are partly spiritual but have not yet achieved separation from carnality) and Pneumatics (totally spiritual people). The Valentinians argued that such codes were intrinsic in gnosticism, secrecy being important to ensuring proper progression to true inner understanding.[note 25]

 

According to Bentley Layton "Classical Gnosticism" and "The School of Thomas" antedated and influenced the development of Valentinus, whom Layton called "the great [Gnostic] reformer" and "the focal point" of Gnostic development. While in Alexandria, where he was born, Valentinus probably would have had contact with the Gnostic teacher Basilides, and may have been influenced by him.[109] Simone Petrement, while arguing for a Christian origin of Gnosticism, places Valentinus after Basilides, but before the Sethians. According to Petrement, Valentinus represented a moderation of the anti-Judaism of the earlier Hellenized teachers; the demiurge, widely regarded as a mythological depiction of the Old Testament God of the Hebrews, is depicted as more ignorant than evil.[110]

 

Thomasine traditions[edit]

The Thomasine Traditions refers to a group of texts which are attributed to the apostle Thomas.[111][note 26] Karen L. King notes that "Thomasine Gnosticism" as a separate category is being criticised, and may "not stand the test of scholarly scrutiny".[112]

 

Marcion[edit]

Marcion was a Church leader from Sinope (present-day Turkey), who preached in Rome around 150 CE,[113] but was expelled and started his own congregation, which spread throughout the Mediterranean. He rejected the Old Testament, and followed a limited Christian canon, which included only a redacted version of Luke, and ten edited letters of Paul.[114] Some scholars do not consider him to be a gnostic,[115][note 27] but his teachings clearly resemble some Gnostic teachings.[113] He preached a radical difference between the God of the Old Testament, the Demiurge, the "evil creator of the material universe", and the highest God, the "loving, spiritual God who is the father of Jesus", who had sent Jesus to the earth to free mankind from the tyranny of the Jewish Law.[113][2] Like the Gnostics, Marcion argued that Jesus was essentially a divine spirit appearing to men in the shape of a human form, and not someone in a true physical body.[116] Marcion held that the heavenly Father (the father of Jesus Christ) was an utterly alien god; he had no part in making the world, nor any connection with it.[116]

 

Hermeticism[edit]

Hermeticism is closely related to Gnosticism, but its orientation is more positive.[66][87]

 

Other Gnostic groups[edit]

Serpent Gnostics. The Naassenes, Ophites and the Serpentarians gave prominence to snake symbolism, and snake handling played a role in their ceremonies.[113]

Cerinthus (c. 100), the founder of a heretical school with gnostic elements. Like a Gnostic, Cerinthus depicted Christ as a heavenly spirit separate from the man Jesus, and he cited the demiurge as creating the material world. Unlike the Gnostics, Cerinthus taught Christians to observe the Jewish law; his demiurge was holy, not lowly; and he taught the Second Coming. His gnosis was a secret teaching attributed to an apostle. Some scholars believe that the First Epistle of John was written as a response to Cerinthus.[117]

The Cainites are so-named since Hippolytus of Rome claims that they worshiped Cain, as well as Esau, Korah, and the Sodomites. There is little evidence concerning the nature of this group. Hippolytus claims that they believed that indulgence in sin was the key to salvation because since the body is evil, one must defile it through immoral activity (see libertinism). The name Cainite is used as the name of a religious movement, and not in the usual Biblical sense of people descended from Cain.

The Carpocratians, a libertine sect following only the Gospel according to the Hebrews

The school of Justin, which combined gnostic elements with the ancient Greek religion.

The Borborites, a libertine Gnostic sect, said to be descended from the Nicolaitans[118]

Persian Gnosticism[edit]

The Persian Schools, which appeared in the western Persian province of Babylonia (in particular, within the Sassanid province of Asuristan), and whose writings were originally produced in the Aramaic dialects spoken in Babylonia at the time, are representative of what is believed to be among the oldest of the Gnostic thought forms. These movements are considered by most to be religions in their own right, and are not emanations from Christianity or Judaism.

 

Manichaeism[edit]

 

Manicheanism priests writing at their desks, with panel inscription in Sogdian. Manuscript from Khocho, Tarim Basin.

Main article: Manichaeism

Manichaeism was founded by the Prophet Mani (216–276). Mani's father was a member of the Jewish-Christian sect of the Elcesaites, a subgroup of the Gnostic Ebionites. At ages 12 and 24, Mani had visionary experiences of a "heavenly twin" of his, calling him to leave his father's sect and preach the true message of Christ. In 240–41, Mani travelled to the Indo-Greek Kingdom of the Sakhas in modern-day Afghanistan, where he studied Hinduism and its various extant philosophies. Returning in 242, he joined the court of Shapur I, to whom he dedicated his only work written in Persian, known as the Shabuhragan. The original writings were written in Syriac Aramaic, in a unique Manichaean script.

 

Manichaeism conceives of two coexistent realms of light and darkness that become embroiled in conflict. Certain elements of the light became entrapped within darkness, and the purpose of material creation is to engage in the slow process of extraction of these individual elements. In the end the kingdom of light will prevail over darkness. Manicheanism inherits this dualistic mythology from Zurvanist Zoroastrianism,[119] in which the eternal spirit Ahura Mazda is opposed by his antithesis, Angra Mainyu. This dualistic teaching embodied an elaborate cosmological myth that included the defeat of a primal man by the powers of darkness that devoured and imprisoned the particles of light.[120]

 

According to Kurt Rudolph, the decline of Manichaeism that occurred in Persia in the 5th century was too late to prevent the spread of the movement into the east and the west.[121] In the west, the teachings of the school moved into Syria, Northern Arabia, Egypt and North Africa.[note 28] There is evidence for Manicheans in Rome and Dalmatia in the 4th century, and also in Gaul and Spain. From Syria it progressed still farther, into Palestine, Asia Minor and Armenia. The influence of Manicheanism was attacked by imperial elects and polemical writings, but the religion remained prevalent until the 6th century, and still exerted influence in the emergence of the Paulicians, Bogomils and Cathari in the Middle Ages, until it was ultimately stamped out by the Catholic Church.[121]

 

In the east, Rudolph relates, Manicheanism was able to bloom, because the religious monopoly position previously held by Christianity and Zoroastrianism had been broken by nascent Islam. In the early years of the Arab conquest, Manicheanism again found followers in Persia (mostly amongst educated circles), but flourished most in Central Asia, to which it had spread through Iran. Here, in 762, Manicheanism became the state religion of the Uyghur Empire.[121]

 

Mandaeanism[edit]

Main article: Mandaeanism

 

Mandaean house of worship in Nasiriya, Iraq

The Mandaeans are Semites and speak a dialect of Eastern Aramaic known as Mandaic. Their religion has been practised primarily around the lower Karun, Euphrates and Tigris and the rivers that surround the Shatt-al-Arab waterway, part of southern Iraq and Khuzestan Province in Iran. Mandaeanism is still practiced in small numbers, in parts of southern Iraq and the Iranian province of Khuzestan, and there are thought to be between 60,000 and 70,000 Mandaeans worldwide.[124]

 

The name of the group derives from the term Mandā d-Heyyi, which roughly means "Knowledge of Life". Although the exact chronological origins of this movement are not known, John the Baptist eventually came to be a key figure in the religion, as an emphasis on baptism is part of their core beliefs. As with Manichaeism, despite certain ties with Christianity,[125] Mandaeans do not believe in Moses, Jesus, or Mohammed. Their beliefs and practices likewise have little overlap with the religions that manifested from those religious figures and the two should not be confused. Significant amounts of original Mandaean Scripture, written in Mandaean Aramaic, survive in the modern era. The primary source text is known as the Genzā Rabbā and has portions identified by some scholars as being copied as early as the 3rd century. There is also the Qolastā, or Canonical Book of Prayer and The Book of John the Baptist (sidra ḏ-iahia).

 

Middle Ages[edit]

After its demise in the Mediterranean world, Gnosticism lived on in the periphery of the Byzantine Empire, and resurfaced in the western world. The Paulicians, an Adoptionist group which flourished between 650 and 872 in Armenia and the Eastern Themes of the Byzantine Empire, were accused by orthodox medieval sources of being Gnostic and quasi Manichaean Christian. The Bogomils, emerged in Bulgaria between 927 and 970 and spread throughout Europe. It was as synthesis of Armenian Paulicianism and the Bulgarian Orthodox Church reform movement.

 

The Cathars (Cathari, Albigenses or Albigensians) were also accused by their enemies of the traits of Gnosticism; though whether or not the Cathari possessed direct historical influence from ancient Gnosticism is disputed. If their critics are reliable the basic conceptions of Gnostic cosmology are to be found in Cathar beliefs (most distinctly in their notion of a lesser, Satanic, creator god), though they did not apparently place any special relevance upon knowledge (gnosis) as an effective salvific force.[verification needed]

 

Islam[edit]

The message of the Islamic prophet Muhammad shows close similarities to many Gnostic ideas. The Quran, like Gnostic cosmology, makes a sharp distinction between this world and the afterlife. The notion of four rivers in heaven, as mentioned in the Quran, separating this world from the other , also appears frequently in Mandaean literature. God is commonly thought of as being beyond human comprehension. In some Islamic schools of thought, somehow identifiable with the Gnostic Monad.[126][127] However, according to Islam and unlike most Gnostic sects, not rejection of this world, but performing good deeds leads to the heaven. And according to the Islamic belief in strict Oneness of God, there was no room for a lower deity; such as the demiurge.[128] According to Islam, both good and evil come from one God, a position especially opposed by the Manichaeans. Ibn al-Muqaffa depicted the Islamic deity as a demonic entity who "fights with humans and boasts about His victories" and "sitting on a throne, from which He can descend". It would be impossible that both light and darkness were created from one source, since they were regarded as two different eternal principles.[129] Muslim theologists countered this accusation by the example of a repeating sinner, who says: "I laid, and I repent";[130] this would prove that good can also result out of evil.

 

Islam also integrated traces of an entity given authority over the lower world in some early writings: Iblis is regarded by some Sufis as the owner of this world, and humans must avoid the treasures of this world, since they would belong to him.[131] In the Isma'ili Shia work Umm al Kitab, Azazil's role resembles whose of the Gnostic demiurge.[132] Like the demiurge, he is endowed with the ability to create his own world and seeks to imprison humans in the material world, but here, his power is limited and depends on the higher God.[133] Such Gnostic anthropogenic can be found frequently among Isma'ili traditions.[134] However, Ismailism were often criticised as non-Islamic. Ghazali characterized them as a group who are outwardly Shias but were actually adherence of a dualistic and philosophical religion. Further traces of Gnostic ideas can be found in Sufi anthropogenic.[135] Like the gnostic conception of human beings imprisoned in matter, Sufi-traditions acknowledges the human soul is an accomplice of the material world and subject to bodily desires similar to the way archontic spheres envelop the pneuma.[136] The Ruh must therefore gain victory over the lower and material-bound psyche, to overcome his animal nature. A human being captured by his animal desires, mistakenly claims autonomy and independence from the "higher God", thus resembling the lower deity in classical gnostic traditions. However, since the goal is not to abandon the created world, but just to free oneself from ones own lower desires, it can be disputed whether this can still be Gnostic, but rather a completion of the message of Muhammad.[129] It seems that Gnostic ideas were an influential part of early Islamic development but later lost its influence. However the Gnostic light metaphorics and the idea of unity of existence still prevailed in later Islamic thought.[127]

 

Kabbalah[edit]

Gnostic ideas found a Jewish variation in the mystical study of Kabbalah. Many core Gnostic ideas reappear in Kabbalah, where they are used for dramatically reinterpreting earlier Jewish sources according to this new system.[137] The Kabbalists originated in 13th-century Provence,[note 29] which was at that time also the center of the Gnostic Cathars. While some scholars in the middle of the 20th century tried to assume an influence between the Cathar "gnostics" and the origins of the Kabbalah, this assumption has proved to be an incorrect generalization not substantiated by any original texts.[139] On the other hand, other scholars, such as Scholem, have postulated that there was originally a "Jewish gnosticism", which influenced the early origins of gnosticism.[140]

 

Kabbalah does not employ the terminology or labels of non-Jewish Gnosticism, but grounds the same or similar concepts in the language of the Torah (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible).[141] The 13th-century Zohar ("Splendor"), a foundational text in Kabbalah, is written in the style of a Jewish Aramaic Midrash, clarifying the five books of the Torah with a new Kabbalistic system that uses completely Jewish terms.[142]

 

Modern times[edit]

Main article: Gnosticism in modern times

The Mandaeans are an ancient Gnostic sect that have survived to this day and are found today in Iraq.[143] Their namesake owes to their following John the Baptist and in that country, they have about five thousand followers.[143] A number of ecclesiastical bodies that think of themselves as Gnostic have set up or re-founded since World War II, including the Ecclesia Gnostica, Apostolic Johannite Church, Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica, the Gnostic Church of France, the Thomasine Church, the Alexandrian Gnostic Church, the North American College of Gnostic Bishops,[144] and the Universal Gnosticism of Samael Aun Weor.[145]

 

A number of 19th-century thinkers such as Arthur Schopenhauer,[146] Albert Pike and Madame Blavatsky studied Gnostic thought extensively and were influenced by it, and even figures like Herman Melville and W. B. Yeats were more tangentially influenced.[147] Jules Doinel "re-established" a Gnostic church in France in 1890, which altered its form as it passed through various direct successors (Fabre des Essarts as Tau Synésius and Joanny Bricaud as Tau Jean II most notably), and, though small, is still active today.[148]

 

Early 20th-century thinkers who heavily studied and were influenced by Gnosticism include Carl Jung (who supported Gnosticism), Eric Voegelin (who opposed it), Jorge Luis Borges (who included it in many of his short stories), and Aleister Crowley, with figures such as Hermann Hesse being more moderately influenced. René Guénon founded the gnostic review, La Gnose in 1909, before moving to a more Perennialist position, and founding his Traditionalist School. Gnostic Thelemite organizations, such as Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica and Ordo Templi Orientis, trace themselves to Crowley's thought.

 

The discovery and translation of the Nag Hammadi library after 1945 has had a huge effect on Gnosticism since World War II. Intellectuals who were heavily influenced by Gnosticism in this period include Lawrence Durrell, Hans Jonas, Philip K. Dick and Harold Bloom, with Albert Camus and Allen Ginsberg being more moderately influenced.[147] Celia Green has written on Gnostic Christianity in relation to her own philosophy.[149]

 

Alfred North Whitehead was aware of the existence of the newly discovered Gnostic scrolls. Accordingly, Michel Weber has proposed a Gnostic interpretation of his late metaphysics.[150]

 

Sources[edit]

Heresiologists[edit]

Prior to the discovery of the Nag Hammadi library in 1945 Gnosticism was known primarily through the works of heresiologists, Church Fathers who opposed those movements. These writings had an antagonistic bias towards gnostic teachings, and were incomplete. Several heresiological writers, such as Hippolytus, made little effort to exactly record the nature of the sects they reported on, or transcribe their sacred texts. Reconstructions of incomplete Gnostic texts were attempted in modern times, but research on Gnosticism was coloured by the orthodox views of those heresiologists.

 

Justin Martyr (c. 100/114 – c. 162/168) wrote the First Apology, addressed to Roman Emperor Antoninus Pius, which criticising Simon Magus, Menander and Marcion. Since this time, both Simon and Menander have been considered as 'proto-Gnostic'.[151] Irenaeus (died c. 202) wrote Against Heresies (c. 180–185), which identifies Simon Magus from Flavia Neapolis in Samaria as the inceptor of Gnosticism. From Samaria he charted an apparent spread of the teachings of Simon through the ancient "knowers" into the teachings of Valentinus and other, contemporary Gnostic sects.[note 30] Hippolytus (170–235) wrote the ten-volume Refutation Against all Heresies, of which eight have been unearthed. It also focuses on the connection between pre-Socratic (and therefore Pre-Incantation of Christ) ideas and the false beliefs of early gnostic heretical leaders. Thirty-three of the groups he reported on are considered Gnostic by modern scholars, including 'the foreigners' and 'the Seth people'. Hippolytus further presents individual teachers such as Simon, Valentinus, Secundus, Ptolemy, Heracleon, Marcus and Colorbasus. Tertullian (c. 155–230) from Carthage wrote Adversus Valentinianos ('Against the Valentinians'), c. 206, as well as five books around 207–208 chronicling and refuting the teachings of Marcion.

 

Gnostic texts[edit]

See also: Gnostic texts and Nag Hammadi library

Prior to the discovery at Nag Hammadi, a limited number of texts were available to students of Gnosticism. Reconstructions were attempted from the records of the heresiologists, but these were necessarily coloured by the motivation behind the source accounts.

 

The Nag Hammadi library [note 31] is a collection of Gnostic texts discovered in 1945 near Nag Hammadi, Upper Egypt. Twelve leather-bound papyrus codices buried in a sealed jar were found by a local farmer named Muhammed al-Samman.[152] The writings in these codices comprised fifty-two mostly Gnostic treatises, but they also include three works belonging to the Corpus Hermeticum and a partial translation/alteration of Plato's Republic. These codices may have belonged to a nearby Pachomian monastery, and buried after Bishop Athanasius condemned the use of non-canonical books in his Festal Letter of 367.[153] Though the original language of composition was probably Greek, the various codices contained in the collection were written in Coptic. A 1st- or 2nd-century date of composition for the lost Greek originals has been proposed, though this is disputed; the manuscripts themselves date from the 3rd and 4th centuries. The Nag Hammadi texts demonstrated the fluidity of early Christian scripture and early Christianity itself.[note 32]

 

Academic studies[edit]

Development[edit]

Prior to the discovery of Nag Hammadi, the Gnostic movements were largely perceived through the lens of the early church heresiologists. Johann Lorenz von Mosheim (1694–1755) proposed that Gnosticism developed on its own in Greece and Mesopotamia, spreading to the west and incorporating Jewish elements. According to Mosheim, Jewish thought took Gnostic elements and used them against Greek philosophy.[33] J. Horn and Ernest Anton Lewald proposed Persian and Zoroastrian origins, while Jacques Matter described Gnosticism as an intrusion of eastern cosmological and theosophical speculation into Christianity.[33]

 

In the 1880s Gnosticism was placed within Greek philosophy, especially neo-Platonism.[29] Adolf von Harnack (1851–1930), who belonged to the School of the History of Dogma and proposed a Kirchengeschichtliches Ursprungsmodell, saw gnosticism as an internal development within the church under the influence of Greek philosophy.[29][155] According to Harnack, Gnosticism was the "acute Hellenization of Christianity."[29]

 

The Religionsgeschichtliche Schule ("history of religions school", 19th century) had a profound influence on the study of Gnosticism.[29] The Religionsgeschichtliche Schule saw Gnosticism as a pre-Christian phenomenon, and Christian gnosis as only one, and even marginal instance of this phenomenon.[29] According to Wilhelm Bousset (1865–1920), Gnosticism was a form of Iranian and Mesopotamian syncretism,[29] and Eduard Norden (1868–1941) also proposed pre-Christian origins,[29] while Richard August Reitzenstein (1861–1931), and Rudolf Bultmann (1884–1976) also situated the origins of Gnosticism in Persia.[29] Hans Heinrich Schaeder (1896–1957) and Hans Leisegang saw Gnosticism as an amalgam of eastern thought in a Greek form.[29]

 

Hans Jonas (1903–1993) took an intermediate approach, using both the comparative approach of the Religionsgeschichtliche Schule and the existentialist hermeneutics of Bultmann. Jonas emphasized the duality between God and the world, and concluded that Gnosticism cannot be derived from Platonism.[19]

 

Contemporary scholarship largely agrees that Gnosticism has Jewish or Judeo-Christian origins;[19] this theses is most notably put forward by Gershom G. Scholem (1897–1982) and Gilles Quispel (1916–2006).[156]

 

The study of Gnosticism and of early Alexandrian Christianity received a strong impetus from the discovery of the Coptic Nag Hammadi Library in 1945.[157][158] A great number of translations have been published, and the works of Elaine Pagels, Professor of Religion at Princeton University, especially The Gnostic Gospels, which detailed the suppression of some of the writings found at Nag Hammadi by early bishops of the Christian church, has popularized Gnosticism in mainstream culture,[web 3][web 4] but also incited strong responses and condemnations from clergical writers.[159]

 

Definitions of Gnosticism[edit]

According to Matthew J. Dillon, six trends can be discerned in the definitions of Gnosticism:[160]

 

Typologies, "a catalogue of shared characteristics that are used to classify a group of objects together."[160]

Traditional approaches, viewing Gnosticism as a Christian heresy[161]

Phenomenological approaches, most notably Hans Jonas[162]

Restricting Gnosticism, "identifying which groups were explicitly called gnostics",[163] or which groups were clearly sectarian[163]

Deconstructing Gnosticism, abandoning the category of "Gnosticism"[164]

Psychology and cognitive science of religion, approaching Gnosticism as a psychological phenomena[165]

Typologies[edit]

The 1966 Messina conference on the origins of gnosis and Gnosticism proposed to designate

 

... a particular group of systems of the second century after Christ" as gnosticism, and to use gnosis to define a conception of knowledge that transcends the times, which was described as "knowledge of divine mysteries for an élite.[166]

 

This definition has now been abandoned.[160] It created a religion, "Gnosticism", from the "gnosis" which was a widespread element of ancient religions,[note 33] suggesting a homogeneous conception of gnosis by these Gnostic religions, which did not exist at the time.[167]

 

According to Dillon, the texts from Nag Hammadi made clear that this definition was limited, and that they are "better classified by movements (such as Valentinian), mythological similarity (Sethian), or similar tropes (presence of a Demiurge)."[160] Dillon further notes that the Messian-definition "also excluded pre-Christian Gnosticism and later developments, such as the Mandaeans and the Manichaeans."[160]

 

Hans Jonas discerned two main currents of Gnosticism, namely Syrian-Egyptian, and Persian, which includes Manicheanism and Mandaeanism.[19] Among the Syrian-Egyptian schools and the movements they spawned are a typically more Monist view. Persian Gnosticism possesses more dualist tendencies, reflecting a strong influence from the beliefs of the Persian Zurvanist Zoroastrians. Those of the medieval Cathars, Bogomils, and Carpocratians seem to include elements of both categories.

 

Gilles Quispel divided Syrian-Egyptian Gnosticism further into Jewish Gnosticism (the Apocryphon of John)[89] and Christian Gnosis (Marcion, Basilides, Valentinus). This "Christian Gnosticism" was Christocentric, and influenced by Christian writings such as the Gospel of John and the Pauline epistles.[168] Other authors speak rather of "Gnostic Christians", noting that Gnostics were a prominent substream in the early church.[169]

 

Traditional approaches – Gnosticism as Christian heresy[edit]

The best known example of this approach is Adolf von Harnack (1851–1930), who stated that "Gnosticism is the acute Hellenization of Christianity."[161] According to Dillon, "many scholars today continue in the vein of Harnack in reading gnosticism as a late and contaminated version of Christianity", notably Darrell Block, who criticises Elaine Pagels for her view that early Christianity was wildly diverse.[162]

 

Phenomenological approaches[edit]

Hans Jonas (1903–1993) t

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Legong is a form of Balinese dance. It is a refined dance form characterized by intricate finger movements, complicated footwork, and expressive gestures and facial expressions.

 

An extremely basic definition of legong is a dance traditionally performed by pre-pubescent girls in the palaces of feudal Bali.

 

One translation is that the word is made up of two words. Lega meaning happy and Ing wong meaning person – put them together and you get: “something that makes people happy”. Another one is oleg meaning dance and gong meaning gamelan, the music that accompanies the dance.

 

Legong probably originated in the 19th century as royal entertainment. Today the most common legong dance is Legong Keraton, so named by the Sultanate of Keraton Surakarta when the music and dance composer and genius I Wayan Lotring from Kuta was invited to perform in the 1920s with his Gamelan Pelegongan group in the keraton (palace) in Surakarta.

 

___________________________________________

 

Bali is an island and province of Indonesia. The province includes the island of Bali and a few smaller neighbouring islands, notably Nusa Penida, Nusa Lembongan, and Nusa Ceningan. It is located at the westernmost end of the Lesser Sunda Islands, between Java to the west and Lombok to the east. Its capital of Denpasar is located at the southern part of the island.

 

With a population of 3,890,757 in the 2010 census, and 4,225,000 as of January 2014, the island is home to most of Indonesia's Hindu minority. According to the 2010 Census, 83.5% of Bali's population adhered to Balinese Hinduism, followed by 13.4% Muslim, Christianity at 2.5%, and Buddhism 0.5%.

 

Bali is a popular tourist destination, which has seen a significant rise in numbers since the 1980s. It is renowned for its highly developed arts, including traditional and modern dance, sculpture, painting, leather, metalworking, and music. The Indonesian International Film Festival is held every year in Bali.

 

Bali is part of the Coral Triangle, the area with the highest biodiversity of marine species. In this area alone over 500 reef building coral species can be found. For comparison, this is about 7 times as many as in the entire Caribbean. There is a wide range of dive sites with high quality reefs, all with their own specific attractions. Many sites can have strong currents and swell, so diving without a knowledgeable guide is inadvisable. Most recently, Bali was the host of the 2011 ASEAN Summit, 2013 APEC and Miss World 2013.

 

HISTORY

ANCIENT

Bali was inhabited around 2000 BC by Austronesian people who migrated originally from Southeast Asia and Oceania through Maritime Southeast Asia. Culturally and linguistically, the Balinese are closely related to the people of the Indonesian archipelago, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Oceania. Stone tools dating from this time have been found near the village of Cekik in the island's west.

 

In ancient Bali, nine Hindu sects existed, namely Pasupata, Bhairawa, Siwa Shidanta, Waisnawa, Bodha, Brahma, Resi, Sora and Ganapatya. Each sect revered a specific deity as its personal Godhead.

 

Inscriptions from 896 and 911 don't mention a king, until 914, when Sri Kesarivarma is mentioned. They also reveal an independent Bali, with a distinct dialect, where Buddhism and Sivaism were practiced simultaneously. Mpu Sindok's great granddaughter, Mahendradatta (Gunapriyadharmapatni), married the Bali king Udayana Warmadewa (Dharmodayanavarmadeva) around 989, giving birth to Airlangga around 1001. This marriage also brought more Hinduism and Javanese culture to Bali. Princess Sakalendukirana appeared in 1098. Suradhipa reigned from 1115 to 1119, and Jayasakti from 1146 until 1150. Jayapangus appears on inscriptions between 1178 and 1181, while Adikuntiketana and his son Paramesvara in 1204.

 

Balinese culture was strongly influenced by Indian, Chinese, and particularly Hindu culture, beginning around the 1st century AD. The name Bali dwipa ("Bali island") has been discovered from various inscriptions, including the Blanjong pillar inscription written by Sri Kesari Warmadewa in 914 AD and mentioning "Walidwipa". It was during this time that the people developed their complex irrigation system subak to grow rice in wet-field cultivation. Some religious and cultural traditions still practised today can be traced to this period.

 

The Hindu Majapahit Empire (1293–1520 AD) on eastern Java founded a Balinese colony in 1343. The uncle of Hayam Wuruk is mentioned in the charters of 1384-86. A mass Javanese emigration occurred in the next century.

 

PORTUGUESE CONTACTS

The first known European contact with Bali is thought to have been made in 1512, when a Portuguese expedition led by Antonio Abreu and Francisco Serrão sighted its northern shores. It was the first expedition of a series of bi-annual fleets to the Moluccas, that throughout the 16th century usually traveled along the coasts of the Sunda Islands. Bali was also mapped in 1512, in the chart of Francisco Rodrigues, aboard the expedition. In 1585, a ship foundered off the Bukit Peninsula and left a few Portuguese in the service of Dewa Agung.

 

DUTCH EAST INDIA

In 1597 the Dutch explorer Cornelis de Houtman arrived at Bali, and the Dutch East India Company was established in 1602. The Dutch government expanded its control across the Indonesian archipelago during the second half of the 19th century (see Dutch East Indies). Dutch political and economic control over Bali began in the 1840s on the island's north coast, when the Dutch pitted various competing Balinese realms against each other. In the late 1890s, struggles between Balinese kingdoms in the island's south were exploited by the Dutch to increase their control.

 

In June 1860 the famous Welsh naturalist, Alfred Russel Wallace, travelled to Bali from Singapore, landing at Buleleng on the northcoast of the island. Wallace's trip to Bali was instrumental in helping him devise his Wallace Line theory. The Wallace Line is a faunal boundary that runs through the strait between Bali and Lombok. It has been found to be a boundary between species of Asiatic origin in the east and a mixture of Australian and Asian species to the west. In his travel memoir The Malay Archipelago, Wallace wrote of his experience in Bali:

 

I was both astonished and delighted; for as my visit to Java was some years later, I had never beheld so beautiful and well-cultivated a district out of Europe. A slightly undulating plain extends from the seacoast about ten or twelve miles inland, where it is bounded by a fine range of wooded and cultivated hills. Houses and villages, marked out by dense clumps of coconut palms, tamarind and other fruit trees, are dotted about in every direction; while between them extend luxurious rice-grounds, watered by an elaborate system of irrigation that would be the pride of the best cultivated parts of Europe.

 

The Dutch mounted large naval and ground assaults at the Sanur region in 1906 and were met by the thousands of members of the royal family and their followers who fought against the superior Dutch force in a suicidal puputan defensive assault rather than face the humiliation of surrender. Despite Dutch demands for surrender, an estimated 200 Balinese marched to their death against the invaders. In the Dutch intervention in Bali, a similar massacre occurred in the face of a Dutch assault in Klungkung.

 

AFTERWARD THE DUTCH GOVERNORS

exercised administrative control over the island, but local control over religion and culture generally remained intact. Dutch rule over Bali came later and was never as well established as in other parts of Indonesia such as Java and Maluku.

 

n the 1930s, anthropologists Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson, artists Miguel Covarrubias and Walter Spies, and musicologist Colin McPhee all spent time here. Their accounts of the island and its peoples created a western image of Bali as "an enchanted land of aesthetes at peace with themselves and nature." Western tourists began to visit the island.

 

Imperial Japan occupied Bali during World War II. It was not originally a target in their Netherlands East Indies Campaign, but as the airfields on Borneo were inoperative due to heavy rains, the Imperial Japanese Army decided to occupy Bali, which did not suffer from comparable weather. The island had no regular Royal Netherlands East Indies Army (KNIL) troops. There was only a Native Auxiliary Corps Prajoda (Korps Prajoda) consisting of about 600 native soldiers and several Dutch KNIL officers under command of KNIL Lieutenant Colonel W.P. Roodenburg. On 19 February 1942 the Japanese forces landed near the town of Senoer [Senur]. The island was quickly captured.

 

During the Japanese occupation, a Balinese military officer, Gusti Ngurah Rai, formed a Balinese 'freedom army'. The harshness of war requisitions made Japanese rule more resented than Dutch rule. Following Japan's Pacific surrender in August 1945, the Dutch returned to Indonesia, including Bali, to reinstate their pre-war colonial administration. This was resisted by the Balinese rebels, who now used recovered Japanese weapons. On 20 November 1946, the Battle of Marga was fought in Tabanan in central Bali. Colonel I Gusti Ngurah Rai, by then 29 years old, finally rallied his forces in east Bali at Marga Rana, where they made a suicide attack on the heavily armed Dutch. The Balinese battalion was entirely wiped out, breaking the last thread of Balinese military resistance.

 

INDIPENDENCE FROM THE DUTCH

In 1946, the Dutch constituted Bali as one of the 13 administrative districts of the newly proclaimed State of East Indonesia, a rival state to the Republic of Indonesia, which was proclaimed and headed by Sukarno and Hatta. Bali was included in the "Republic of the United States of Indonesia" when the Netherlands recognised Indonesian independence on 29 December 1949.

 

CONTEMPORARY

The 1963 eruption of Mount Agung killed thousands, created economic havoc and forced many displaced Balinese to be transmigrated to other parts of Indonesia. Mirroring the widening of social divisions across Indonesia in the 1950s and early 1960s, Bali saw conflict between supporters of the traditional caste system, and those rejecting this system. Politically, the opposition was represented by supporters of the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) and the Indonesian Nationalist Party (PNI), with tensions and ill-feeling further increased by the PKI's land reform programs. An attempted coup in Jakarta was put down by forces led by General Suharto.

 

The army became the dominant power as it instigated a violent anti-communist purge, in which the army blamed the PKI for the coup. Most estimates suggest that at least 500,000 people were killed across Indonesia, with an estimated 80,000 killed in Bali, equivalent to 5% of the island's population. With no Islamic forces involved as in Java and Sumatra, upper-caste PNI landlords led the extermination of PKI members.

 

As a result of the 1965/66 upheavals, Suharto was able to manoeuvre Sukarno out of the presidency. His "New Order" government reestablished relations with western countries. The pre-War Bali as "paradise" was revived in a modern form. The resulting large growth in tourism has led to a dramatic increase in Balinese standards of living and significant foreign exchange earned for the country. A bombing in 2002 by militant Islamists in the tourist area of Kuta killed 202 people, mostly foreigners. This attack, and another in 2005, severely reduced tourism, producing much economic hardship to the island.

 

GEOGRAPHY

The island of Bali lies 3.2 km east of Java, and is approximately 8 degrees south of the equator. Bali and Java are separated by the Bali Strait. East to west, the island is approximately 153 km wide and spans approximately 112 km north to south; administratively it covers 5,780 km2, or 5,577 km2 without Nusa Penida District, its population density is roughly 750 people/km2.

 

Bali's central mountains include several peaks over 3,000 metres in elevation. The highest is Mount Agung (3,031 m), known as the "mother mountain" which is an active volcano rated as one of the world's most likely sites for a massive eruption within the next 100 years. Mountains range from centre to the eastern side, with Mount Agung the easternmost peak. Bali's volcanic nature has contributed to its exceptional fertility and its tall mountain ranges provide the high rainfall that supports the highly productive agriculture sector. South of the mountains is a broad, steadily descending area where most of Bali's large rice crop is grown. The northern side of the mountains slopes more steeply to the sea and is the main coffee producing area of the island, along with rice, vegetables and cattle. The longest river, Ayung River, flows approximately 75 km.

 

The island is surrounded by coral reefs. Beaches in the south tend to have white sand while those in the north and west have black sand. Bali has no major waterways, although the Ho River is navigable by small sampan boats. Black sand beaches between Pasut and Klatingdukuh are being developed for tourism, but apart from the seaside temple of Tanah Lot, they are not yet used for significant tourism.

 

The largest city is the provincial capital, Denpasar, near the southern coast. Its population is around 491,500 (2002). Bali's second-largest city is the old colonial capital, Singaraja, which is located on the north coast and is home to around 100,000 people. Other important cities include the beach resort, Kuta, which is practically part of Denpasar's urban area, and Ubud, situated at the north of Denpasar, is the island's cultural centre.

 

Three small islands lie to the immediate south east and all are administratively part of the Klungkung regency of Bali: Nusa Penida, Nusa Lembongan and Nusa Ceningan. These islands are separated from Bali by the Badung Strait.

 

To the east, the Lombok Strait separates Bali from Lombok and marks the biogeographical division between the fauna of the Indomalayan ecozone and the distinctly different fauna of Australasia. The transition is known as the Wallace Line, named after Alfred Russel Wallace, who first proposed a transition zone between these two major biomes. When sea levels dropped during the Pleistocene ice age, Bali was connected to Java and Sumatra and to the mainland of Asia and shared the Asian fauna, but the deep water of the Lombok Strait continued to keep Lombok Island and the Lesser Sunda archipelago isolated.

 

CLIMATE

Being just 8 degrees south of the equator, Bali has a fairly even climate year round.

 

Day time temperatures at low elevations vary between 20-33⁰ C although it can be much cooler than that in the mountains. The west monsoon is in place from approximately October to April and this can bring significant rain, particularly from December to March. Outside of the monsoon period, humidity is relatively low and any rain unlikely in lowland areas.

 

ECOLOGY

Bali lies just to the west of the Wallace Line, and thus has a fauna that is Asian in character, with very little Australasian influence, and has more in common with Java than with Lombok. An exception is the yellow-crested cockatoo, a member of a primarily Australasian family. There are around 280 species of birds, including the critically endangered Bali myna, which is endemic. Others Include barn swallow, black-naped oriole, black racket-tailed treepie, crested serpent-eagle, crested treeswift, dollarbird, Java sparrow, lesser adjutant, long-tailed shrike, milky stork, Pacific swallow, red-rumped swallow, sacred kingfisher, sea eagle, woodswallow, savanna nightjar, stork-billed kingfisher, yellow-vented bulbul and great egret.

 

Until the early 20th century, Bali was home to several large mammals: the wild banteng, leopard and the endemic Bali tiger. The banteng still occurs in its domestic form, whereas leopards are found only in neighbouring Java, and the Bali tiger is extinct. The last definite record of a tiger on Bali dates from 1937, when one was shot, though the subspecies may have survived until the 1940s or 1950s. The relatively small size of the island, conflict with humans, poaching and habitat reduction drove the Bali tiger to extinction. This was the smallest and rarest of all tiger subspecies and was never caught on film or displayed in zoos, whereas few skins or bones remain in museums around the world. Today, the largest mammals are the Javan rusa deer and the wild boar. A second, smaller species of deer, the Indian muntjac, also occurs. Saltwater crocodiles were once present on the island, but became locally extinct sometime during the last century.

 

Squirrels are quite commonly encountered, less often is the Asian palm civet, which is also kept in coffee farms to produce Kopi Luwak. Bats are well represented, perhaps the most famous place to encounter them remaining the Goa Lawah (Temple of the Bats) where they are worshipped by the locals and also constitute a tourist attraction. They also occur in other cave temples, for instance at Gangga Beach. Two species of monkey occur. The crab-eating macaque, known locally as "kera", is quite common around human settlements and temples, where it becomes accustomed to being fed by humans, particularly in any of the three "monkey forest" temples, such as the popular one in the Ubud area. They are also quite often kept as pets by locals. The second monkey, endemic to Java and some surrounding islands such as Bali, is far rarer and more elusive is the Javan langur, locally known as "lutung". They occur in few places apart from the Bali Barat National Park. They are born an orange colour, though by their first year they would have already changed to a more blackish colouration. In Java however, there is more of a tendency for this species to retain its juvenile orange colour into adulthood, and so you can see a mixture of black and orange monkeys together as a family. Other rarer mammals include the leopard cat, Sunda pangolin and black giant squirrel.

 

Snakes include the king cobra and reticulated python. The water monitor can grow to at least 1.5 m in length and 50 kg and can move quickly.

 

The rich coral reefs around the coast, particularly around popular diving spots such as Tulamben, Amed, Menjangan or neighbouring Nusa Penida, host a wide range of marine life, for instance hawksbill turtle, giant sunfish, giant manta ray, giant moray eel, bumphead parrotfish, hammerhead shark, reef shark, barracuda, and sea snakes. Dolphins are commonly encountered on the north coast near Singaraja and Lovina.

 

A team of scientists conducted a survey from 29 April 2011 to 11 May 2011 at 33 sea sites around Bali. They discovered 952 species of reef fish of which 8 were new discoveries at Pemuteran, Gilimanuk, Nusa Dua, Tulamben and Candidasa, and 393 coral species, including two new ones at Padangbai and between Padangbai and Amed. The average coverage level of healthy coral was 36% (better than in Raja Ampat and Halmahera by 29% or in Fakfak and Kaimana by 25%) with the highest coverage found in Gili Selang and Gili Mimpang in Candidasa, Karangasem regency.

 

Many plants have been introduced by humans within the last centuries, particularly since the 20th century, making it sometimes hard to distinguish what plants are really native.[citation needed] Among the larger trees the most common are: banyan trees, jackfruit, coconuts, bamboo species, acacia trees and also endless rows of coconuts and banana species. Numerous flowers can be seen: hibiscus, frangipani, bougainvillea, poinsettia, oleander, jasmine, water lily, lotus, roses, begonias, orchids and hydrangeas exist. On higher grounds that receive more moisture, for instance around Kintamani, certain species of fern trees, mushrooms and even pine trees thrive well. Rice comes in many varieties. Other plants with agricultural value include: salak, mangosteen, corn, kintamani orange, coffee and water spinach.

 

ENVIRONMENT

Some of the worst erosion has occurred in Lebih Beach, where up to 7 metres of land is lost every year. Decades ago, this beach was used for holy pilgrimages with more than 10,000 people, but they have now moved to Masceti Beach.

 

From ranked third in previous review, in 2010 Bali got score 99.65 of Indonesia's environmental quality index and the highest of all the 33 provinces. The score measured 3 water quality parameters: the level of total suspended solids (TSS), dissolved oxygen (DO) and chemical oxygen demand (COD).

 

Because of over-exploitation by the tourist industry which covers a massive land area, 200 out of 400 rivers on the island have dried up and based on research, the southern part of Bali would face a water shortage up to 2,500 litres of clean water per second by 2015. To ease the shortage, the central government plans to build a water catchment and processing facility at Petanu River in Gianyar. The 300 litres capacity of water per second will be channelled to Denpasar, Badung and Gianyar in 2013.

 

ECONOMY

Three decades ago, the Balinese economy was largely agriculture-based in terms of both output and employment. Tourism is now the largest single industry in terms of income, and as a result, Bali is one of Indonesia's wealthiest regions. In 2003, around 80% of Bali's economy was tourism related. By end of June 2011, non-performing loan of all banks in Bali were 2.23%, lower than the average of Indonesian banking industry non-performing loan (about 5%). The economy, however, suffered significantly as a result of the terrorist bombings 2002 and 2005. The tourism industry has since recovered from these events.

 

AGRICULTURE

Although tourism produces the GDP's largest output, agriculture is still the island's biggest employer; most notably rice cultivation. Crops grown in smaller amounts include fruit, vegetables, Coffea arabica and other cash and subsistence crops. Fishing also provides a significant number of jobs. Bali is also famous for its artisans who produce a vast array of handicrafts, including batik and ikat cloth and clothing, wooden carvings, stone carvings, painted art and silverware. Notably, individual villages typically adopt a single product, such as wind chimes or wooden furniture.

 

The Arabica coffee production region is the highland region of Kintamani near Mount Batur. Generally, Balinese coffee is processed using the wet method. This results in a sweet, soft coffee with good consistency. Typical flavours include lemon and other citrus notes. Many coffee farmers in Kintamani are members of a traditional farming system called Subak Abian, which is based on the Hindu philosophy of "Tri Hita Karana". According to this philosophy, the three causes of happiness are good relations with God, other people and the environment. The Subak Abian system is ideally suited to the production of fair trade and organic coffee production. Arabica coffee from Kintamani is the first product in Indonesia to request a Geographical Indication.

 

TOURISM

The tourism industry is primarily focused in the south, while significant in the other parts of the island as well. The main tourist locations are the town of Kuta (with its beach), and its outer suburbs of Legian and Seminyak (which were once independent townships), the east coast town of Sanur (once the only tourist hub), in the center of the island Ubud, to the south of the Ngurah Rai International Airport, Jimbaran, and the newer development of Nusa Dua and Pecatu.

 

The American government lifted its travel warnings in 2008. The Australian government issued an advice on Friday, 4 May 2012. The overall level of the advice was lowered to 'Exercise a high degree of caution'. The Swedish government issued a new warning on Sunday, 10 June 2012 because of one more tourist who was killed by methanol poisoning. Australia last issued an advice on Monday, 5 January 2015 due to new terrorist threats.

 

An offshoot of tourism is the growing real estate industry. Bali real estate has been rapidly developing in the main tourist areas of Kuta, Legian, Seminyak and Oberoi. Most recently, high-end 5 star projects are under development on the Bukit peninsula, on the south side of the island. Million dollar villas are being developed along the cliff sides of south Bali, commanding panoramic ocean views. Foreign and domestic (many Jakarta individuals and companies are fairly active) investment into other areas of the island also continues to grow. Land prices, despite the worldwide economic crisis, have remained stable.

 

In the last half of 2008, Indonesia's currency had dropped approximately 30% against the US dollar, providing many overseas visitors value for their currencies. Visitor arrivals for 2009 were forecast to drop 8% (which would be higher than 2007 levels), due to the worldwide economic crisis which has also affected the global tourist industry, but not due to any travel warnings.

 

Bali's tourism economy survived the terrorist bombings of 2002 and 2005, and the tourism industry has in fact slowly recovered and surpassed its pre-terrorist bombing levels; the longterm trend has been a steady increase of visitor arrivals. In 2010, Bali received 2.57 million foreign tourists, which surpassed the target of 2.0–2.3 million tourists. The average occupancy of starred hotels achieved 65%, so the island is still able to accommodate tourists for some years without any addition of new rooms/hotels, although at the peak season some of them are fully booked.

 

Bali received the Best Island award from Travel and Leisure in 2010. The island of Bali won because of its attractive surroundings (both mountain and coastal areas), diverse tourist attractions, excellent international and local restaurants, and the friendliness of the local people. According to BBC Travel released in 2011, Bali is one of the World's Best Islands, ranking second after Santorini, Greece.

 

In August 2010, the film Eat Pray Love was released in theatres. The movie was based on Elizabeth Gilbert's best-selling memoir Eat, Pray, Love. It took place at Ubud and Padang-Padang Beach at Bali. The 2006 book, which spent 57 weeks at the No. 1 spot on the New York Times paperback nonfiction best-seller list, had already fuelled a boom in Eat, Pray, Love-related tourism in Ubud, the hill town and cultural and tourist center that was the focus of Gilbert's quest for balance through traditional spirituality and healing that leads to love.

 

In January 2016, after music icon David Bowie died, it was revealed that in his will, Bowie asked for his ashes to be scattered in Bali, conforming to Buddhist rituals. He had visited and performed in a number of Southest Asian cities early in his career, including Bangkok and Singapore.

 

Since 2011, China has displaced Japan as the second-largest supplier of tourists to Bali, while Australia still tops the list. Chinese tourists increased by 17% from last year due to the impact of ACFTA and new direct flights to Bali. In January 2012, Chinese tourists year on year (yoy) increased by 222.18% compared to January 2011, while Japanese tourists declined by 23.54% yoy.

 

Bali reported that it has 2.88 million foreign tourists and 5 million domestic tourists in 2012, marginally surpassing the expectations of 2.8 million foreign tourists. Forecasts for 2013 are at 3.1 million.

 

Based on Bank Indonesia survey in May 2013, 34.39 percent of tourists are upper-middle class with spending between $1,286 to $5,592 and dominated by Australia, France, China, Germany and the US with some China tourists move from low spending before to higher spending currently. While 30.26 percent are middle class with spending between $662 to $1,285.

 

SEX TOURISM

In the twentieth century the incidence of tourism specifically for sex was regularly observed in the era of mass tourism in Indonesia In Bali, prostitution is conducted by both men and women. Bali in particular is notorious for its 'Kuta Cowboys', local gigolos targeting foreign female tourists.

 

Tens of thousands of single women throng the beaches of Bali in Indonesia every year. For decades, young Balinese men have taken advantage of the louche and laid-back atmosphere to find love and lucre from female tourists—Japanese, European and Australian for the most part—who by all accounts seem perfectly happy with the arrangement.

 

By 2013, Indonesia was reportedly the number one destination for Australian child sex tourists, mostly starting in Bali but also travelling to other parts of the country. The problem in Bali was highlighted by Luh Ketut Suryani, head of Psychiatry at Udayana University, as early as 2003. Surayani warned that a low level of awareness of paedophilia in Bali had made it the target of international paedophile organisations. On 19 February 2013, government officials announced measures to combat paedophilia in Bali.

 

TRANSPORTATION

The Ngurah Rai International Airport is located near Jimbaran, on the isthmus at the southernmost part of the island. Lt.Col. Wisnu Airfield is found in north-west Bali.

 

A coastal road circles the island, and three major two-lane arteries cross the central mountains at passes reaching to 1,750m in height (at Penelokan). The Ngurah Rai Bypass is a four-lane expressway that partly encircles Denpasar. Bali has no railway lines.

 

In December 2010 the Government of Indonesia invited investors to build a new Tanah Ampo Cruise Terminal at Karangasem, Bali with a projected worth of $30 million. On 17 July 2011 the first cruise ship (Sun Princess) anchored about 400 meters away from the wharf of Tanah Ampo harbour. The current pier is only 154 meters but will eventually be extended to 300–350 meters to accommodate international cruise ships. The harbour here is safer than the existing facility at Benoa and has a scenic backdrop of east Bali mountains and green rice fields. The tender for improvement was subject to delays, and as of July 2013 the situation remained unclear with cruise line operators complaining and even refusing to use the existing facility at Tanah Ampo.

 

A Memorandum of Understanding has been signed by two ministers, Bali's Governor and Indonesian Train Company to build 565 kilometres of railway along the coast around the island. As of July 2015, no details of this proposed railways have been released.

 

On 16 March 2011 (Tanjung) Benoa port received the "Best Port Welcome 2010" award from London's "Dream World Cruise Destination" magazine. Government plans to expand the role of Benoa port as export-import port to boost Bali's trade and industry sector. The Tourism and Creative Economy Ministry has confirmed that 306 cruise liners are heading for Indonesia in 2013 – an increase of 43 percent compared to the previous year.

 

In May 2011, an integrated Areal Traffic Control System (ATCS) was implemented to reduce traffic jams at four crossing points: Ngurah Rai statue, Dewa Ruci Kuta crossing, Jimbaran crossing and Sanur crossing. ATCS is an integrated system connecting all traffic lights, CCTVs and other traffic signals with a monitoring office at the police headquarters. It has successfully been implemented in other ASEAN countries and will be implemented at other crossings in Bali.

 

On 21 December 2011 construction started on the Nusa Dua-Benoa-Ngurah Rai International Airport toll road which will also provide a special lane for motorcycles. This has been done by seven state-owned enterprises led by PT Jasa Marga with 60% of shares. PT Jasa Marga Bali Tol will construct the 9.91 kilometres toll road (totally 12.7 kilometres with access road). The construction is estimated to cost Rp.2.49 trillion ($273.9 million). The project goes through 2 kilometres of mangrove forest and through 2.3 kilometres of beach, both within 5.4 hectares area. The elevated toll road is built over the mangrove forest on 18,000 concrete pillars which occupied 2 hectares of mangroves forest. It compensated by new planting of 300,000 mangrove trees along the road. On 21 December 2011 the Dewa Ruci 450 meters underpass has also started on the busy Dewa Ruci junction near Bali Kuta Galeria with an estimated cost of Rp136 billion ($14.9 million) from the state budget. On 23 September 2013, the Bali Mandara Toll Road is opened and the Dewa Ruci Junction (Simpang Siur) underpass is opened before. Both are ease the heavy traffic congestion.

 

To solve chronic traffic problems, the province will also build a toll road connecting Serangan with Tohpati, a toll road connecting Kuta, Denpasar and Tohpati and a flyover connecting Kuta and Ngurah Rai Airport.

 

DEMOGRAPHICS

The population of Bali was 3,890,757 as of the 2010 Census; the latest estimate (for January 2014) is 4,225,384. There are an estimated 30,000 expatriates living in Bali.

 

ETHNIC ORIGINS

A DNA study in 2005 by Karafet et al. found that 12% of Balinese Y-chromosomes are of likely Indian origin, while 84% are of likely Austronesian origin, and 2% of likely Melanesian origin. The study does not correlate the DNA samples to the Balinese caste system.

 

CASTE SYSTEM

Bali has a caste system based on the Indian Hindu model, with four castes:

 

- Sudra (Shudra) – peasants constituting close to 93% of Bali's population.

- Wesia (Vaishyas) – the caste of merchants and administrative officials

- Ksatrias (Kshatriyas) – the kingly and warrior caste

- Brahmana (Bramhin) – holy men and priests

 

RELIGION

Unlike most of Muslim-majority Indonesia, about 83.5% of Bali's population adheres to Balinese Hinduism, formed as a combination of existing local beliefs and Hindu influences from mainland Southeast Asia and South Asia. Minority religions include Islam (13.3%), Christianity (1.7%), and Buddhism (0.5%). These figures do not include immigrants from other parts of Indonesia.

 

Balinese Hinduism is an amalgam in which gods and demigods are worshipped together with Buddhist heroes, the spirits of ancestors, indigenous agricultural deities and sacred places. Religion as it is practised in Bali is a composite belief system that embraces not only theology, philosophy, and mythology, but ancestor worship, animism and magic. It pervades nearly every aspect of traditional life. Caste is observed, though less strictly than in India. With an estimated 20,000 puras (temples) and shrines, Bali is known as the "Island of a Thousand Puras", or "Island of the Gods". This is refer to Mahabarata story that behind Bali became island of god or "pulau dewata" in Indonesian language.

 

Balinese Hinduism has roots in Indian Hinduism and Buddhism, and adopted the animistic traditions of the indigenous people. This influence strengthened the belief that the gods and goddesses are present in all things. Every element of nature, therefore, possesses its own power, which reflects the power of the gods. A rock, tree, dagger, or woven cloth is a potential home for spirits whose energy can be directed for good or evil. Balinese Hinduism is deeply interwoven with art and ritual. Ritualizing states of self-control are a notable feature of religious expression among the people, who for this reason have become famous for their graceful and decorous behaviour.

 

Apart from the majority of Balinese Hindus, there also exist Chinese immigrants whose traditions have melded with that of the locals. As a result, these Sino-Balinese not only embrace their original religion, which is a mixture of Buddhism, Christianity, Taoism and Confucianism, but also find a way to harmonise it with the local traditions. Hence, it is not uncommon to find local Sino-Balinese during the local temple's odalan. Moreover, Balinese Hindu priests are invited to perform rites alongside a Chinese priest in the event of the death of a Sino-Balinese. Nevertheless, the Sino-Balinese claim to embrace Buddhism for administrative purposes, such as their Identity Cards.

 

LANGUAGE

Balinese and Indonesian are the most widely spoken languages in Bali, and the vast majority of Balinese people are bilingual or trilingual. The most common spoken language around the tourist areas is Indonesian, as many people in the tourist sector are not solely Balinese, but migrants from Java, Lombok, Sumatra, and other parts of Indonesia. There are several indigenous Balinese languages, but most Balinese can also use the most widely spoken option: modern common Balinese. The usage of different Balinese languages was traditionally determined by the Balinese caste system and by clan membership, but this tradition is diminishing. Kawi and Sanskrit are also commonly used by some Hindu priests in Bali, for Hinduism literature was mostly written in Sanskrit.

 

English and Chinese are the next most common languages (and the primary foreign languages) of many Balinese, owing to the requirements of the tourism industry, as well as the English-speaking community and huge Chinese-Indonesian population. Other foreign languages, such as Japanese, Korean, French, Russian or German are often used in multilingual signs for foreign tourists.

 

CULTURE

Bali is renowned for its diverse and sophisticated art forms, such as painting, sculpture, woodcarving, handcrafts, and performing arts. Balinese cuisine is also distinctive. Balinese percussion orchestra music, known as gamelan, is highly developed and varied. Balinese performing arts often portray stories from Hindu epics such as the Ramayana but with heavy Balinese influence. Famous Balinese dances include pendet, legong, baris, topeng, barong, gong keybar, and kecak (the monkey dance). Bali boasts one of the most diverse and innovative performing arts cultures in the world, with paid performances at thousands of temple festivals, private ceremonies, or public shows.

 

The Hindu New Year, Nyepi, is celebrated in the spring by a day of silence. On this day everyone stays at home and tourists are encouraged to remain in their hotels. On the day before New Year, large and colourful sculptures of ogoh-ogoh monsters are paraded and finally burned in the evening to drive away evil spirits. Other festivals throughout the year are specified by the Balinese pawukon calendrical system.

 

Celebrations are held for many occasions such as a tooth-filing (coming-of-age ritual), cremation or odalan (temple festival). One of the most important concepts that Balinese ceremonies have in common is that of désa kala patra, which refers to how ritual performances must be appropriate in both the specific and general social context. Many of the ceremonial art forms such as wayang kulit and topeng are highly improvisatory, providing flexibility for the performer to adapt the performance to the current situation. Many celebrations call for a loud, boisterous atmosphere with lots of activity and the resulting aesthetic, ramé, is distinctively Balinese. Often two or more gamelan ensembles will be performing well within earshot, and sometimes compete with each other to be heard. Likewise, the audience members talk amongst themselves, get up and walk around, or even cheer on the performance, which adds to the many layers of activity and the liveliness typical of ramé.

 

Kaja and kelod are the Balinese equivalents of North and South, which refer to ones orientation between the island's largest mountain Gunung Agung (kaja), and the sea (kelod). In addition to spatial orientation, kaja and kelod have the connotation of good and evil; gods and ancestors are believed to live on the mountain whereas demons live in the sea. Buildings such as temples and residential homes are spatially oriented by having the most sacred spaces closest to the mountain and the unclean places nearest to the sea.

 

Most temples have an inner courtyard and an outer courtyard which are arranged with the inner courtyard furthest kaja. These spaces serve as performance venues since most Balinese rituals are accompanied by any combination of music, dance and drama. The performances that take place in the inner courtyard are classified as wali, the most sacred rituals which are offerings exclusively for the gods, while the outer courtyard is where bebali ceremonies are held, which are intended for gods and people. Lastly, performances meant solely for the entertainment of humans take place outside the walls of the temple and are called bali-balihan. This three-tiered system of classification was standardised in 1971 by a committee of Balinese officials and artists to better protect the sanctity of the oldest and most sacred Balinese rituals from being performed for a paying audience.

 

Tourism, Bali's chief industry, has provided the island with a foreign audience that is eager to pay for entertainment, thus creating new performance opportunities and more demand for performers. The impact of tourism is controversial since before it became integrated into the economy, the Balinese performing arts did not exist as a capitalist venture, and were not performed for entertainment outside of their respective ritual context. Since the 1930s sacred rituals such as the barong dance have been performed both in their original contexts, as well as exclusively for paying tourists. This has led to new versions of many of these performances which have developed according to the preferences of foreign audiences; some villages have a barong mask specifically for non-ritual performances as well as an older mask which is only used for sacred performances.

 

Balinese society continues to revolve around each family's ancestral village, to which the cycle of life and religion is closely tied. Coercive aspects of traditional society, such as customary law sanctions imposed by traditional authorities such as village councils (including "kasepekang", or shunning) have risen in importance as a consequence of the democratisation and decentralisation of Indonesia since 1998.

 

WIKIPEDIA

An early model type British "open cab" 2-4-0 steam locomotive, built in 1846. Specific details unknown.

The waterbuck (Kobus ellipsiprymnus) is a large antelope found widely in sub-Saharan Africa. It is placed in the genus Kobus of the family Bovidae. It was first described by Irish naturalist William Ogilby in 1833.

The specific name ellipsiprymnus refers to the white elliptical ring on the rump, from the Greek ellipes (ellipse) and prymnos (prumnos, hind part).

 

The animal acquired the vernacular name "waterbuck" due to its heavy dependence on water as compared to other antelopes and its ability to enter into water for defence.

The thirteen subspecies are grouped under two varieties: the common or ellipsen waterbuck and the defassa waterbuck. The head-and-body length is typically between 177–235 cm (70–93 in) and the average height is between 120 and 136 cm (47 and 54 in). A sexually dimorphic antelope, males are taller as well as heavier than females. Males reach approximately 127 cm (50 in) at the shoulder, while females reach 119 cm (47 in). Males typically weigh 198–262 kg (437–578 lb) and females 161–214 kg (355–472 lb). The coat colour varies from brown to grey. The long, spiral horns, present only on males, curve backward, then forward and are 55–99 cm (22–39 in) long.

 

Waterbuck are rather sedentary in nature. A gregarious animal, the waterbuck may form herds consisting of six to 30 individuals. These groups are either nursery herds with females and their offspring or bachelor herds. Males start showing territorial behaviour from the age of five years, but are most dominant from the age of six to nine. The waterbuck cannot tolerate dehydration in hot weather, and thus inhabits areas close to sources of water. Predominantly a grazer, the waterbuck is mostly found on grassland. In equatorial regions, breeding takes place throughout the year, but births are at their peak in the rainy season. The gestational period lasts for seven to eight months, followed by the birth of a single calf.

 

Waterbuck inhabit scrub and savanna areas along rivers, lakes and valleys. Due to their requirement for grasslands as well as water, the waterbuck have a sparse ecotone distribution. The IUCN lists the waterbuck as being of Least Concern. More specifically, the common waterbuck is listed as of Least Concern while the defassa waterbuck is Near Threatened. The population trend for both the common and defassa waterbuck is downwards, especially that of the latter, with large populations being eliminated from certain habitats because of hunting and human disturbance.

 

You can read more here:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterbuck

 

Letsha Link

Pilanesberg National Park

Northwest Province

South Africa

Site-specific перформанс Ірини Плотнікової "IceDora" на фестивалі сучасного мистецтва Гогольфест 2016, Київ, Україна © repor.to/popenko

A group of us visited three specific sites in Pickens County, in the upstate of South Carolina over the weekend of March 19-20, 2021. Lots of wildflowers in full bloom. These are just a sampling of what we saw.

 

For the full trip report, please go to Jim's Blog.

Westwards from the Bell-Tower stands the exquisite Customs Palace Divona, called Sponza,...

 

Sponza Palace

built in Dubrovniks specific Gothic-Renaissance style. The Palace that also served as the mint and arsenal, was constructed in the 16th century according to the design of Paskoje Miličević. Built in a rectangular shape, it has a shady portico and atrium. The stone-mason’s works were mainly performed by the Andrijić Brothers. The doors in the atrium and the first floor portico lead to the storages.

 

The following inscription can be read on the main wall: FALLERE NOSTRAVETANT; ET FALL PONDERE: MEQVE PONDERO CVM MERCES PONDERAT IPSE DEUS (We are forbidden to cheat or falsify measures, and when I weigh goods, God himself is weighing them with me). This Palace was the liveliest commercial centre of the City, and in the 17th century it became the meeting place of members of the Academy of the Learned, who used to discuss literature, arts and science. Today the Sponza Palace houses the Dubrovnik Archives, considered to be among the richest in Europe.

 

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Građena je od 1516. do 1521. godine. Gradili su je dubrovački majstor Paskoje Miličević i braća Andrijić s Korčule, od 1516. do 1520. godine.

 

Za vrijeme Dubrovačke Republike, imala je razne funkcije. Bila je carinarnica, državna blagajna, banka, kovnica novca, škola i riznica. Palača je prvobitno bila namijenjena za carinarnicu u kojoj se carinila trgovačka roba što su je trgovci donosili iz svih krajeva svijeta. Atrij palače s arkadama, bilo je najživlje trgovačko središte i sastajalište poslovnih ljudi Republike. U jednom je krilu bila državna kovnica novca koju je Republika osnovala 1377. godine, i koja je u ovoj palači neprekidno djelovala sve do pada Republike. Vrlo brzo, već potkraj 16. stoljeća, Divona postaje i kulturno središte Republike kada je u njoj osnovana prva književna institucija u Dubrovniku – "Akademija složnih" u kojoj su se okupljali najobrazovaniji građani Dubrovnika i tu su raspravljali o književnosti, umjetnosti i svim znanstvenim dostignućima svoga vremena. U njoj je organizirana i prva škola u Dubrovniku.

 

Francuski kipar Bertrandus Gallicus izradio je medaljon u reljefu, na kojem je monogram Isusa u pratnji dva anđela. Skladišni odjeli nazvani su po svecima. Na nadsvođenom prolazu atrija piše na latinskom jeziku: Fallere nostra venant et falli pondera; meque pondero cum merces ponderat ipse deus. (Nama je zabranjeno varati i krivo mjeriti; i kad važem robu; sa mnom je važe sam Bog).

 

Danas je u palači smješten Državni arhiv u Dubrovniku, koji čuva povijesnu građu Dubrovačke Republike s materijalima najstarije povijesti Dubrovnika i njegova područja od proteklih stoljeća do najnovijeg vremena. A i palača sama postala je na svoj način jedna od dragocjenijih dokumenata tog arhiva. Neoštećena u potresu, postojano je dočekala i naše vrijeme.

 

Na trgu pred Sponzom svake se godine svečano otvara Dubrovačke ljetne igre. S terase iznad trijema ispred Sponze glumci odjeveni u kostime kneza i dubrovačke vlastele evociraju davna vremena kulturnih manifestacija i slobode Dubrovačke Republike.

 

Danas se u palači Sponzi nalazi Spomen soba poginulim hrvatskim dubrovačkim braniteljima.

 

10019 R Dubrovnik Palača Sponza (Divona) 1.VIII.1939.

. . . the natural make-up of the women is called Thanaka. It is a cream made out of the bark of specific trees. Thanaka cream has been used by Burmese women for over 2000 years. It has a fragrant scent somewhat similar to sandalwood. The creamy paste is applied to the face in attractive designs, the most common form being a circular patch on each cheek, nose, sometimes made stripey with the fingers known as thanaka bè gya, or patterned in the shape of a leaf, often also highlighting the bridge of the nose with it at the same time. It may be applied from head to toe (thanaka chi zoun gaung zoun). Apart from cosmetic beauty, thanaka also gives a cooling sensation and provides protection from sunburn. It is believed to help remove acne and promote smooth skin. It is also an anti-fungal. The active ingredients of thanaka are coumarin and marmesin.

______________________________________

 

Yangon (Burmese: ရန်ကုန်, MLCTS rankun mrui, pronounced: [jàɴɡòʊɴ mjo̰]; formerly known as Rangoon, literally: "End of Strife") is the capital of the Yangon Region of Myanmar, also known as Burma. Yangon served as the capital of Myanmar until 2006, when the military government relocated the capital to the purpose-built city of Naypyidaw in central Myanmar. With over 7 million people, Yangon is Myanmar's largest city and is its most important commercial centre.

 

Yangon boasts the largest number of colonial-era buildings in the region, and has a unique colonial-era urban core that is remarkably intact. The colonial-era commercial core is centred around the Sule Pagoda, which reputed to be over 2,000 years old. The city is also home to the gilded Shwedagon Pagoda — Myanmar's most sacred Buddhist pagoda. The mausoleum of the last Mughal Emperor is located in Yangon, where he had been exiled following the Indian Mutiny of 1857.

 

Yangon suffers from deeply inadequate infrastructure, especially compared to other major cities in Southeast Asia. Though many historic residential and commercial buildings have been renovated throughout central Yangon, most satellite towns that ring the city continue to be profoundly impoverished and lack basic infrastructure.

 

ETYMOLOGY

Yangon (ရန်ကုန်) is a combination of the two words yan (ရန်) and koun (ကုန်), which mean "enemies" and "run out of", respectively. It is also translated as "End of Strife". "Rangoon" most likely comes from the British imitation of the pronunciation of "Yangon" in the Arakanese language, which is [rɔ̀ɴɡʊ́ɴ].

 

HISTORY

EARLY HISTORY

Yangon was founded as Dagon in the early 11th century (c. 1028–1043) by the Mon, who dominated Lower Burma at that time. Dagon was a small fishing village centred about the Shwedagon Pagoda. In 1755, King Alaungpaya conquered Dagon, renamed it "Yangon", and added settlements around Dagon. The British captured Yangon during the First Anglo-Burmese War (1824–26), but returned it to Burmese administration after the war. The city was destroyed by a fire in 1841.

 

COLONIAL RANGOON

The British seized Yangon and all of Lower Burma in the Second Anglo-Burmese War of 1852, and subsequently transformed Yangon into the commercial and political hub of British Burma. Yangon is also the place where the British sent Bahadur Shah II, the last Mughal emperor, to live after the Indian Rebellion of 1857. Based on the design by army engineer Lt. Alexander Fraser, the British constructed a new city on a grid plan on delta land, bounded to the east by the Pazundaung Creek and to the south and west by the Yangon River. Yangon became the capital of all British-ruled Burma after the British had captured Upper Burma in the Third Anglo-Burmese War of 1885. By the 1890s Yangon's increasing population and commerce gave birth to prosperous residential suburbs to the north of Royal Lake (Kandawgyi) and Inya Lake. The British also established hospitals including Rangoon General Hospital and colleges including Rangoon University.

 

Colonial Yangon, with its spacious parks and lakes and mix of modern buildings and traditional wooden architecture, was known as "the garden city of the East." By the early 20th century, Yangon had public services and infrastructure on par with London.

 

Before World War II, about 55% of Yangon's population of 500,000 was Indian or South Asian, and only about a third was Bamar (Burman). Karens, the Chinese, the Anglo-Burmese and others made up the rest.

 

After World War I, Yangon became the epicentre of Burmese independence movement, with leftist Rangoon University students leading the way. Three nationwide strikes against the British Empire in 1920, 1936 and 1938 all began in Yangon. Yangon was under Japanese occupation (1942–45), and incurred heavy damage during World War II. The city was retaken by the Allies in May 1945.

 

Yangon became the capital of Union of Burma on 4 January 1948 when the country regained independence from the British Empire.

 

CONTEMPORARY YANGON

Soon after Burma's independence in 1948, many colonial names of streets and parks were changed to more nationalistic Burmese names. In 1989, the current military junta changed the city's English name to "Yangon", along with many other changes in English transliteration of Burmese names. (The changes have not been accepted by many Burmese who consider the junta unfit to make such changes, nor by many publications, news bureaus including, most notably, the BBC and foreign nations including the United Kingdom and United States.)

 

Since independence, Yangon has expanded outwards. Successive governments have built satellite towns such as Thaketa, North Okkalapa and South Okkalapa in the 1950s to Hlaingthaya,

 

Shwepyitha and South Dagon in the 1980s. Today, Greater Yangon encompasses an area covering nearly 600 square kilometres.

 

During Ne Win's isolationist rule (1962–88), Yangon's infrastructure deteriorated through poor maintenance and did not keep up with its increasing population. In the 1990s, the current military government's more open market policies attracted domestic and foreign investment, bringing a modicum of modernity to the city's infrastructure. Some inner city residents were forcibly relocated to new satellite towns. Many colonial-period buildings were demolished to make way for high-rise hotels, office buildings, and shopping malls, leading the city government to place about 200 notable colonial-period buildings under the Yangon City Heritage List in 1996. Major building programs have resulted in six new bridges and five new highways linking the city to its industrial back country. Still, much of Yangon remains without basic municipal services such as 24-hour electricity and regular garbage collection.

 

Yangon has become much more indigenous Burmese in its ethnic make-up since independence. After independence, many South Asians and Anglo-Burmese left. Many more South Asians were forced to leave during the 1960s by Ne Win's xenophobic government. Nevertheless, sizable South Asian and Chinese communities still exist in Yangon. The Anglo-Burmese have effectively disappeared, having left the country or intermarried with other Burmese groups.

 

Yangon was the centre of major anti-government protests in 1974, 1988 and 2007. The 1988 People Power Uprising resulted in the deaths of hundreds, if not thousands of Burmese civilians, many in Yangoon where hundreds of thousands of people flooded into the streets of the then capital city. The Saffron Revolution saw mass shootings and the use of crematoria in Yangoon by the Burmese government to erase evidence of their crimes against monks, unarmed protesters, journalists and students.

 

The city's streets saw bloodshed each time as protesters were gunned down by the government.

 

In May 2008, Cyclone Nargis hit Yangon. While the city had few human casualties, three quarters of Yangon's industrial infrastructure was destroyed or damaged, with losses estimated at US$800 million.

 

In November 2005, the military government designated Naypyidaw, 320 kilometres north of Yangon, as the new administrative capital, and subsequently moved much of the government to the newly developed city. At any rate, Yangon remains the largest city, and the most important commercial centre of Myanmar.

 

GEOGRAPHY

Yangon is located in Lower Burma (Myanmar) at the convergence of the Yangon and Bago Rivers about 30 km away from the Gulf of Martaban at 16°48' North, 96°09' East (16.8, 96.15). Its standard time zone is UTC/GMT +6:30 hours.

 

CLIMATE

Yangon has a tropical monsoon climate under the Köppen climate classification system. The city features a lengthy wet season from May through October where a substantial amount of rainfall is received; and a dry season from November through April, where little rainfall is seen. It is primarily due to the heavy rainfall received during the rainy season that Yangon falls under the tropical monsoon climate category. During the course of the year 1961 to 1990s, average temperatures show little variance, with average highs ranging from 29 to 36 °C and average lows ranging from 18 to 25 °C.

 

CITYSCAPE

Until the mid-1990s, Yangon remained largely constrained to its traditional peninsula setting between the Bago, Yangon and Hlaing rivers. People moved in, but little of the city moved out. Maps from 1944 show little development north of Inya Lake and areas that are now layered in cement and stacked with houses were then virtual backwaters. Since the late 1980s, however, the city began a rapid spread north to where Yangon International airport now stands. But the result is a stretching tail on the city, with the downtown area well removed from its geographic centre. The city's area has steadily increased from 72.52 square kilometres in 1901 to 86.2 square kilometres in 1940 to 208.51 square kilometres in 1974, to 346.13 square kilometres in 1985, and to 598.75 square kilometres in 2008.

 

ARCHITECTURE

Downtown Yangon is known for its leafy avenues and fin-de-siècle architecture. The former British colonial capital has the highest number of colonial period buildings in south-east Asia. Downtown Yangon is still mainly made up of decaying colonial buildings. The former High Court, the former Secretariat buildings, the former St. Paul's English High School and the Strand Hotel are excellent examples of the bygone era. Most downtown buildings from this era are four-story mix-use (residential and commercial) buildings with 4.3 m ceilings, allowing for the construction of mezzanines. Despite their less-than-perfect conditions, the buildings remain highly sought after and most expensive in the city's property market.

 

In 1996, the Yangon City Development Committee created a Yangon City Heritage List of old buildings and structures in the city that cannot be modified or torn down without approval. In 2012, the city of Yangon imposed a 50-year moratorium on demolition of buildings older than 50 years. The Yangon Heritage Trust, an NGO started by Thant Myint-U, aims to create heritage areas in Downtown, and attract investors to renovate buildings for commercial use.

 

A latter day hallmark of Yangon is the eight-story apartment building. (In Yangon parlance, a building with no elevators (lifts) is called an apartment building and one with elevators is called a condominium. Condos which have to invest in a local power generator to ensure 24-hour electricity for the elevators are beyond the reach of most Yangonites.) Found throughout the city in various forms, eight-story apartment buildings provide relatively inexpensive housing for many Yangonites. The apartments are usually eight stories high (including the ground floor) mainly because city regulations, until February 2008, required that all buildings higher than 23 m or eight stories to install lifts. The current code calls for elevators in buildings higher than 19 m or six stories, likely ushering in the era of the six-story apartment building. Although most apartment buildings were built only within the last 20 years, they look much older and rundown due to shoddy construction and lack of proper maintenance.

 

Unlike other major Asian cities, Yangon does not have any skyscrapers. Aside from a few high-rise hotels and office towers, most high-rise buildings (usually 10 stories and up) are "condos" scattered across prosperous neighbourhoods north of downtown such as Bahan, Dagon, Kamayut and Mayangon. The tallest building in Yangon, Pyay Gardens, is a 25-story condo in the city's north.

 

Older satellite towns such as Thaketa, North Okkalapa and South Okkalapa are lined mostly with one to two story detached houses with access to the city's electricity grid. Newer satellite towns such as North Dagon and South Dagon are still essentially slums in a grid layout. The satellite towns - old or new - receive little or no municipal services.

 

ROAD LAYOUT

Downtown Yangon's road layout follows a grid pattern, based on four types of roads:

 

Broad 49-m wide roads running west to east

Broad 30-m wide roads running south to north

Two narrow 9.1-m wide streets running south to north

Mid-size 15-m wide streets running south to north

 

The east-west grid of central was laid out by British military engineers Fraser and Montgomerie after the Second Anglo-Burmese War. The city was later developed by the Public Works Department and Bengal Corps of Engineers. The pattern of south to north roads is as follows: one broad 30 m wide broad road, two narrow streets, one mid-size street, two more narrow streets, and then another 30 m wide broad road. This order is repeated from west to east. The narrow streets are numbered; the medium and broad roads are named.

 

For example, the 30 m Lanmadaw Road is followed by 9.1 m-wide 17th and 18th streets then the medium 15 m Sint-Oh-Dan Road, the 30-foot 19th and 20th streets, followed by another 30 m wide Latha Road, followed again by the two numbered small roads 21st and 22nd streets, and so on.

 

The roads running parallel west to east were the Strand Road, Merchant Road, Maha Bandula (née Dalhousie) Road, Anawrahta (Fraser) Road, and Bogyoke Aung San (Montgomerie) Road.

 

PARKS AND GARDENS

The largest and best maintained parks in Yangon are located around Shwedagon Pagoda. To the south-east of the gilded stupa is the most popular recreational area in the city – Kandawgyi Lake. The 61-ha lake is surrounded by the 45-ha Kandawgyi Nature Park, and the 28-ha Yangon Zoological Gardens, which consists of a zoo, an aquarium and an amusement park. West of the pagoda towards the former Hluttaw (Parliament) complex is the 53-ha People's Square and Park, (the former parading ground on important national days when Yangon was the capital.) A few miles north of the pagoda lies the 15-ha Inya Lake Park – a favorite hangout place of Yangon University students, and a well-known place of romance in Burmese popular culture.

 

Hlawga National Park and Allied War Memorial at the outskirts of the city are popular day-trip destinations with the well-to-do and tourists.

 

Yangon Book Plaza, the first and biggest book shop in Myanmar was opened on February 26, 2017 on the fifth floor of Than Zay Market in Lanmadaw Township, Yangon.

 

ADMINISTRATION

Yangon is administered by the Yangon City Development Committee (YCDC). YCDC also coordinates urban planning. The city is divided into four districts. The districts combined have a total of 33 townships. The current mayor of Yangon is Maung Maung Soe. Each township is administered by a committee of township leaders, who make decisions regarding city beautification and infrastructure. Myo-thit (lit. "New Towns", or satellite towns) are not within such jurisdictions.

 

TRANSPORT

Yangon is Burma's main domestic and international hub for air, rail, and ground transportation.

 

AIR

Yangon International Airport, located 19 km from the centre, is the country's main gateway for domestic and international air travel. The airport has three terminals, known as T1, T2 and T3 which is also known as Domestic. It has direct flights to regional cities in Asia – mainly, Doha, Dubai, Dhaka, Kolkata, Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Beijing, Seoul, Guangzhou, Taipei, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Kunming and Singapore. Although domestic airlines offer service to about twenty domestic locations, most flights are to tourist destinations such as Bagan, Mandalay, Heho and Ngapali, and to the capital Naypyidaw.

 

RAILWAYS

Yangon Central Railway Station is the main terminus of Myanmar Railways' 5,403-kilometre rail network whose reach covers Upper Myanmar (Naypyidaw, Mandalay, Shwebo), upcountry (Myitkyina), Shan hills (Taunggyi, Lashio) and the Taninthayi coast (Mawlamyaing, Dawei).

 

Yangon Circular Railway operates a 45.9-kilometre 39-station commuter rail network that connects Yangon's satellite towns. The system is heavily utilized by the local populace, selling about 150,000 tickets daily. The popularity of the commuter line has jumped since the government reduced petrol subsidies in August 2007.

 

BUSES AND CARS

Yangon has a 4,456-kilometre road network of all types (tar, concrete and dirt) in March 2011. Many of the roads are in poor condition and not wide enough to accommodate an increasing number of cars. The vast majority of Yangon residents cannot afford a car and rely on an extensive network of buses to get around. Over 300 public and private bus lines operate about 6,300 crowded buses around the city, carrying over 4.4 million passengers a day. All buses and 80% of the taxis in Yangon run on compressed natural gas (CNG), following the 2005 government decree to save money on imported petroleum. Highway buses to other cities depart from Dagon Ayeyar Highway Bus Terminal for Irrawaddy delta region and Aung Mingala Highway Bus Terminal for other parts of the country.

 

Motor transportation in Yangon is highly expensive for most of its citizens. As the government allows only a few thousand cars to be imported each year in a country with over 50 million people, car prices in Yangon (and in Burma) are among the highest in the world. In July 2008, the two most popular cars in Yangon, 1986/87 Nissan Sunny Super Saloon and 1988 Toyota Corolla SE Limited, cost the equivalent of about US$20,000 and US$29,000 respectively. A sports utility vehicle, imported for the equivalent of around US$50,000, goes for US$250,000. Illegally imported unregistered cars are cheaper – typically about half the price of registered cars. Nonetheless, car usage in Yangon is on the rise, a sign of rising incomes for some, and already causes much traffic congestion in highway-less Yangon's streets. In 2011, Yangon had about 300,000 registered motor vehicles in addition to an unknown number of unregistered ones.

 

Since 1970, cars have been driven on the right side of the road in Burma, as part of a military decree. However, as the government has not required left hand drive (LHD) cars to accompany the right side road rules, many cars on the road are still right hand drive (RHD) made for driving on the left side. Japanese used cars, which make up most of the country's imports, still arrive with RHD and are never converted to LHD. As a result, Burmese drivers have to rely on their passengers when passing other cars.

 

Within Yangon city limits, it is illegal to drive trishaws, bicycles, and motorcycles. Since February 2010, pickup truck bus lines have been forbidden to run in 6 townships of central Yangon, namely Latha, Lanmadaw, Pabedan, Kyauktada, Botahtaung and Pazundaung Townships. In May 2003, a ban on using car horns was implemented in six townships of Downtown Yangon to reduce noise pollution. In April 2004, the car horn ban was expanded to cover the entire city.

 

RIVER

Yangon's four main passenger jetties, all located on or near downtown waterfront, mainly serve local ferries across the river to Dala and Thanlyin, and regional ferries to the Irrawaddy delta. The 35-km Twante Canal was the quickest route from Yangon to the Irrawaddy delta until the 1990s when roads between Yangon and the Irrawaddy Division became usable year-round. While passenger ferries to the delta are still used, those to Upper Burma via the Irrawaddy river are now limited mostly to tourist river cruises.

 

DEMOGRAPHICS

Yangon is the most populous city by far in Burma although estimates of the size of its population vary widely. All population figures are estimates since no official census has been conducted in Burma since 1983. A UN estimate puts the population as 4.35 million in 2010 but a 2009 U.S. State Department estimate puts it at 5.5 million. The U.S. State Department's estimate is probably closer to the real number since the UN number is a straight-line projection, and does not appear to take the expansion of city limits in the past two decades into account. The city's population grew sharply after 1948 as many people (mainly, the indigenous Burmese) from other parts of the country moved into the newly built satellite towns of North Okkalapa, South Okkalapa, and Thaketa in the 1950s and East Dagon, North Dagon and South Dagon in the 1990s. Immigrants have founded their regional associations (such as Mandalay Association, Mawlamyaing Association, etc.) in Yangon for networking purposes. The government's decision to move the nation's administrative capital to Naypyidaw has drained an unknown number of civil servants away from Yangon.

 

Yangon is the most ethnically diverse city in the country. While Indians formed the slight majority prior to World War II, today, the majority of the population is of indigenous Bamar (Burman) descent. Large communities of Indians/South Asian Burmese and the Chinese Burmese exist especially in the traditional downtown neighborhoods. A large number of Rakhine and Karen also live in the city.

 

Burmese is the principal language of the city. English is by far the preferred second language of the educated class. In recent years, however, the prospect of overseas job opportunities has enticed

 

some to study other languages: Mandarin Chinese is most popular, followed by Japanese, and French.

 

RELIGIONS

The primary religions practiced in Yangon are Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, and Islam. Shwedagon Pagoda is a famous religious landmark in the city.

 

MEDIA

Yangon is the country's hub for the movie, music, advertising, newspaper and book publishing industries. All media is heavily regulated by the military government. Television broadcasting is off limits to the private sector. All media content must first be approved by the government's media censor board, Press Scrutiny and Registration Division.

 

Most television channels in the country are broadcast from Yangon. TV Myanmar and Myawaddy TV are the two main channels, providing Burmese-language programming in news and entertainment. Other special interest channels are MWD-1 and MWD-2, MRTV-3, the English-language channel that targets overseas audiences via satellite and via Internet, MRTV-4 and Channel 7 are with a focus on non-formal education programs and movies, and Movie 5, a pay-TV channel specializing in broadcasting foreign movies.

 

Yangon has three radio stations. Myanmar Radio National Service is the national radio service and broadcasts mostly in Burmese (and in English during specific times.) Pop culture oriented Yangon City FM and Mandalay City FM radio stations specialize in Burmese and English pop music, entertainment programs, live celebrity interviews, etc. New radio channels such as Shwe FM and Pyinsawaddy FM can also be tuned with the city area.

 

Nearly all print media and industries are based out of Yangon. All three national newspapers – two Burmese language dailies Myanma Alin (မြန်မာ့အလင်း) and Kyemon (ကြေးမုံ), and the English language The New Light of Myanmar — are published by the government. Semi-governmental The Myanmar Times weekly, published in Burmese and in English, is mainly geared for Yangon's expatriate community. Over twenty special interest journals and magazines covering sports, fashion, finance, crime, literature (but never politics) vie for the readership of the general populace.

 

Access to foreign media is extremely difficult. Satellite television in Yangon, and in Burma, is very expensive as the government imposes an annual registration fee of one million kyats. Certain foreign newspapers and periodicals such as the International Herald Tribune and the Straits Times can be found only in a few (mostly downtown) bookstores. Internet access in Yangon, which has the best telecommunication infrastructure in the country, is slow and erratic at best, and the Burmese government implements one of the world's most restrictive regimes of Internet control. International text messaging and voice messaging was permitted only in August 2008.

 

COMMUNICATION

Common facilities taken for granted elsewhere are luxury prized items in Yangon and Burma. The price of a GSM mobile phone was about K1.1 million in August 2008. In 2007, the country of 55 million had only 775,000 phone lines (including 275,000 mobile phones), and 400,000 computers. Even in Yangon, which has the best infrastructure, the estimated telephone penetration rate was only 6% at the end of 2004, and the official waiting time for a telephone line was 3.6 years. Most people cannot afford a computer and have to use the city's numerous Internet cafes to access a heavily restricted Internet, and a heavily censored local intranet. According to official statistics, in July 2010, the country had over 400,000 Internet users, with the vast majority hailing from just two cities, Yangon and Mandalay. Although Internet access was available in 42 cities across the country, the number of users outside the two main cities was just over 10,000.

 

LIFESTYLE

Yangon's property market is the most expensive in the country and beyond the reach of most Yangonites. Most rent outside the centre and few can afford to rent such apartments. (In 2008, rents for a typical 60 to 70 m2 apartments in the centre and vicinity range between K70,000 and K150,000 and those for high end condos between K200,000 and K500,000.)

 

Most men of all ages (and some women) spend their time at ubiquitous tea-shops, found in any corner or street of the city. Watching European football (mostly English Premier League with occasional La Liga, Serie A, Bundesliga) matches while sipping tea is a popular pastime among many Yangonites. The average person stays close to his or her residential neighbourhood. The well-to-do tend to visit shopping malls and parks on weekends. Some leave the city on weekends for Chaungtha and Ngwesaung beach resorts in Ayeyarwady Division.

 

Yangon is also home to many pagoda festivals (paya pwe), held during dry-season months (November – March). The most famous of all, the Shwedagon Pagoda Festival in March, attracts thousands of pilgrims from around the country.

 

Yangon's museums are the domain of tourists and rarely visited by the locals.

 

Most of Yangon's larger hotels offer some kind of nightlife entertainment, geared towards tourists and the well-to-do Burmese. Some hotels offer traditional Burmese performing arts shows complete with a traditional Burmese orchestra. The pub scene in larger hotels is more or less the same as elsewhere in Asia. Other options include karaoke bars and pub restaurants in Yangon Chinatown.

 

Due to the problems of high inflation, the lack of high denomination notes, and the fact that many of the population do not have access to checks, or credit or debit cards, it is common to see citizens carrying a considerable amount of cash. (The highest denomination of Burmese currency kyat is 10 000 (~US$10.)) Credit cards are only rarely used in the city, chiefly in the more lavish hotels. Credit cards are also accepted in the major supermarket and convenience store chains.

 

SPORTS

As the city has the best sporting facilities in the country, most national-level annual sporting tournaments such as track and field, football, volleyball, tennis and swimming are held in Yangon. The 40,000-seat Aung San Stadium and the 32,000-seat Thuwunna Stadium are the main venues for the highly popular annual State and Division football tournament. Until April 2009, the now defunct Myanmar Premier League, consisted of 16 Yangon-based clubs, played all its matches in Yangon stadiums, and attracted little interest from the general public or commercial success despite the enormous popularity of football in Burma. Most Yangonites prefer watching European football on satellite TV. Teams such as Manchester United, Liverpool, Chelsea, Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Manchester City are among the favorite European teams among the Yangonites. It remains to be seen whether the Myanmar National League, the country's first professional football league, and its Yangon-based club Yangon United FC will attract a sufficient following in the country's most important media market.

 

Yangon is also home to annual the Myanmar Open golf tournament, and the Myanmar Open tennis tournament. The city hosted the 1961 and 1969 South East Asian Games. During colonial times, cricket was played mostly by British officials in the city. First-class cricket was played in the city in January 1927 when the touring Marylebone Cricket Club played Burma and the Rangoon Gymkhana. Two grounds were used to host these matches, the BAA Ground and the Gymkhana Ground. These matches mark the only time Burma and Rangoon Gymkhana have appeared in first-class cricket, and the only time first-class cricket has been played in Burma. After independence cricket all but died out in the country.

 

Yangon has a growing population of skateboarders, as documented in the films Altered Focus: Burma and Youth of Yangon. German non-profit organization Make Life Skate Life has received permission from the Yangon City Development Committee to construct a concrete skatepark at Thakin Mya park in downtown, and plans to complete the park in November 2015.

 

ECONOMY

Yangon is the country's main centre for trade, industry, real estate, media, entertainment and tourism. The city represents about one fifth of the national economy. According to official statistics for FY 2010–2011, the size of the economy of Yangon Region was 8.93 trillion kyats, or 23% of the national GDP.

 

The city is Lower Burma's main trading hub for all kinds of merchandise – from basic food stuffs to used cars although commerce continues to be hampered by the city's severely underdeveloped banking industry and communication infrastructure. Bayinnaung Market is the largest wholesale centre in the country for rice, beans and pulses, and other agricultural commodities. Much of the country's legal imports and exports go through Thilawa Port, the largest and busiest port in Burma. There is also a great deal of informal trade, especially in street markets that exist alongside street platforms of Downtown Yangon's townships. However, on 17 June 2011, the YCDC announced that street vendors, who had previously been allowed to legally open shop at 3 pm, would be prohibited from selling on the streets, and permitted to sell only in their townships of residence, presumably to clean up the city's image. Since 1 December 2009, high-density polyethylene plastic bags have been banned by city authorities.

 

Manufacturing accounts for a sizable share of employment. At least 14 light industrial zones ring Yangon, directly employing over 150,000 workers in 4,300 factories in early 2010. The city is the centre of country's garment industry which exported US$292 million in 2008/9 fiscal year. More than 80 percent of factory workers in Yangon work on a day-to-day basis. Most are young women between 15 and 27 years of age who come from the countryside in search of a better life. The manufacturing sector suffers from both structural problems (e.g. chronic power shortages) and political.

 

problems (e.g. economic sanctions). In 2008, Yangon's 2500 factories alone needed about 120 MW of power; yet, the entire city received only about 250 MW of the 530 MW needed. Chronic power shortages limit the factories' operating hours between 8 am and 6 pm.

 

Construction is a major source of employment. The construction industry has been negatively affected by the move of state apparatus and civil servants to Naypyidaw, new regulations introduced in August 2009 requiring builders to provide at least 12 parking spaces in every new high-rise building, and the general poor business climate. As of January 2010, the number of new high-rise building starts approved in 2009–2010 was only 334, compared to 582 in 2008–2009.

 

Tourism represents a major source of foreign currency for the city although by south-east Asian standards the number of foreign visitors to Yangon has always been quite low - about 250,000 before the Saffron Revolution in September 2007. The number of visitors dipped even further following the Saffron Revolution and Cyclone Nargis. The recent improvement in the country's political climate has attracted an increasing number of businessmen and tourists. Between 300,000 and 400,000 visitors that went through Yangon International in 2011. However, after years of underinvestment, Yangon's modest hotel infrastructure - only 3000 of the total 8000 hotel rooms in Yangon are "suitable for tourists" - is already bursting at seams, and will need to be expanded to handle additional visitors. As part of an urban development strategy, a hotel zone has been planned in Yangon's outskirts, encompassing government- and military-owned land in Mingaladon, Hlegu and Htaukkyant Townships.

 

EDUCATION

Yangon educational facilities has a very high number of qualified teachers but the state spending on education is among the lowest of the world. Around 2007 estimate by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies puts the spending for education at 0.5% of the national budget. The disparity in educational opportunities and achievement between rich and poor schools is quite stark even within the city. With little or no state support forthcoming, schools have to rely on forced "donations" and various fees from parents for nearly everything – school maintenance to teachers' salaries, forcing many poor students to drop out.

 

While many students in poor districts fail to reach high school, a handful of Yangon high schools in wealthier districts such as Dagon 1, Sanchaung 2, Kamayut 2, Bahan 2, Latha 2, and TTC provide the majority of students admitted to the most selective universities in the country, highlighting the extreme shallowness of talent pool in the country. The wealthy bypass the state education system altogether, sending their children to private English language instruction schools such as YIEC or more widely known as ISM, or abroad (typically Singapore or Australia) for university education. In 2014, international schools in Yangon cost at least US$8,000 a year.

 

There are over 20 universities and colleges in the city. While Yangon University remains the best known (its main campus is a part of popular Burmese culture e.g. literature, music, film, etc.), the nation's oldest university is now mostly a graduate school, deprived of undergraduate studies. Following the 1988 nationwide uprising, the military government has repeatedly closed universities, and has dispersed most of undergraduate student population to new universities in the suburbs such as Dagon University, the University of East Yangon and the University of West Yangon. Nonetheless many of the country's most selective universities are still in Yangon. Students from around the country still have to come to study in Yangon as some subjects are offered only at its universities. The University of Medicine 1, University of Medicine 2, Yangon Technological University, University of Computer Studies and Myanmar Maritime University are the most selective in the country.

 

HEALTH CARE

The general state of health care in Yangon is poor. According to a 2007 estimate, the military government spends 0.4% of the national budget on health care, and 40% to 60% on defense. By the government's own figures, it spends 849 kyats (US$0.85) per person. Although health care is nominally free, in reality, patients have to pay for medicine and treatment, even in public clinics and hospitals. Public hospitals including the flagship Yangon General Hospital lack many of the basic facilities and equipment.

 

Wealthier Yangonites still have access to country's best medical facilities and internationally qualified doctors. Only Yangon and Mandalay have any sizable number of doctors left as many Burmese doctors have emigrated. The well-to-do go to private clinics or hospitals like Pun Hlaing International Hospital and Bahosi Medical Clinic. Medical malpractice is widespread, even in private clinics and hospitals that serve the well-to-do. In 2009 and 2010, a spate of high-profile deaths brought out the severity of the problem, even for the relatively well off Yangonites. The wealthy do not rely on domestic hospitals and travel abroad, usually Bangkok or Singapore, for treatment.

 

WIKIPEDIA

in Canada, the U.S. and the World. The Honey Bee has played a very specific and important role for well over 1,000,000 years. Honey Bees pollinate flowers, fruits, vegetables, and make honey. Honey Bees are vital to the sustainability of human and animal life because they are able to keep the food chain in balance by maintaining plant life. Fairly recently, there has been an extreme decrease in the Honey Bee population throughout the world. Millions of Honey Bees have left their hives and died off without any logical explanation. This epidemic is called Colony Collapse Disorder, or CCD. There are some theories as to why this is happening but we are still not 100% sure. It is very important to raise awareness about this terrible phenomenon in order to find out why this is happening, and more importantly, how to stop it.

Although there are no specific reasons to become an alcoholic, many social, family, environmental, and genetic factors may contribute to its development.

 

Researchers have shown that the lack of endorphin is hereditary, and thus that there is a genetic predisposition to become addicted to alcohol. Beta-endorphin is a kind of "morphine" released by the brain in response to several situations, such as pain. In this way, beta-endorphins can be considered "endogenous analgesics" to numb or dull pains.

 

According to José Rico Irles, lecturer of Medicine of the UGR, and head of the research group, this low beta-endorphin level determines whether someone may become an alcoholic. When a subjects' brain with low beta-endorphin levels gets used to the presence of an exogenous surplus, then, when its own production stops, a dependence starts on the external source: alcohol. Source MedicalNewsToday.

  

There is a very specific silence that belongs only to the world before dawn. The pavement is cool, the air is crisp, and while most of the world is still tangled in bed sheets, you are lacing up your running shoes. Many runners stick to the flat, predictable paths for their morning miles, but if you want to experience pure, unadulterated running joy, you have to head for the hills. Running an incline is often viewed as a punishment or a grueling test of will and lung capacity, but once you shift your perspective, hill running becomes less about the physical burn and entirely about the breathtaking reward waiting at the summit.

 

We willingly put ourselves through the burning calves and heavy breathing before breakfast because there is an undeniable magic in the upward struggle. On a hill, your stride naturally shortens, allowing you to stop worrying about your pace and instead focus purely on your effort and breath as you settle into a meditative, rhythmic cadence. Every single step fights gravity, offering a primal, grounding satisfaction in feeling your muscles work to propel you upward. Through the physical burn, an intense sense of anticipation builds because you know that the effort is buying you a front-row seat to nature’s greatest daily show.

 

As your legs crest the top of the climb, the physical strain suddenly fades into the background, replaced by a rush of endorphins and pure awe. Your chest heaves and your heart races, but you stop in your tracks to take it all in. The beautiful scene shows the morning sun peaking over the hill and giving light to the beautiful golden view. Watching the sunrise from an elevation changes the entire experience because, instead of merely seeing the sky change color above you, you get to watch the light physically travel across the earth below. The dark, sleepy shadows of the valley are systematically chased away as a warm, amber glow spills over the ridges, turning the fields and pathways into a vibrant, golden tapestry.

 

Perhaps the greatest joy of a morning hill run is not just the exercise or the scenery, but the profound sense of renewal it brings. Soft morning light has a magical quality that lacks the harsh, glaring interrogation of the midday sun; it is gentle, forgiving, and literally paints the world anew. Under this soft illumination, even the most familiar landscapes look entirely transformed, with the dew on the grass catching the golden rays like scattered diamonds. When you stand above that sun-drenched valley, soaking in the fresh morning light, you realize that the burn in your legs was a small price to pay to witness the earth hit the reset button, and as you begin your effortless descent, you carry a little bit of that golden warmth with you into the rest of your day.

...in some specific sign language

Formerly based at Croydon garage, new for route 64. These will be leaving the fleet soon, this bus I think is one of the few that still retain the original Metrobus logos and I do hope it stays that way for this specific bus!

please view on black