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French postcard by Europe, no. 650. Photo: Paramount. Lupe Velez in The Wolf Song (Victor Fleming, 1929).
Lupe Velez (1908-1944), was one of the first Mexican actresses to succeed in Hollywood. Her nicknames were 'The Mexican Spitfire' and 'Hot Pepper'. She was the leading lady in such silent films as The Gaucho (1927), Lady of the Pavements (1928), and Wolf Song (1929). During the 1930s, her well-known explosive screen persona was exploited in a series of successful films like Hot Pepper (1933), Strictly Dynamite (1934), and Hollywood Party (1934). In the 1940s, Vélez's popularity peaked after appearing in the Mexican Spitfire films, a series created to capitalise on Vélez's well-documented fiery personality. She had several highly publicised romances and a stormy marriage. In 1944, Vélez died of an intentional overdose of the barbiturate drug Seconal. Her death and the circumstances surrounding it have been the subject of speculation and controversy.
Lupe Vélez was born María Guadalupe Villalobos Vélez in 1908 in the city of San Luis Potosí in Mexico. She was the daughter of Jacobo Villalobos Reyes, a colonel in the army of the dictator Porfirio Diaz, and his wife Josefina Vélez, an opera singer according to some sources, or vaudeville singer according to others. She had three sisters: Mercedes, Reina and Josefina, and a brother, Emigdio. The family was financially comfortable and lived in a large home. At the age of 13, her parents sent her to study at Our Lady of the Lake (now Our Lady of the Lake University) in San Antonio, Texas. It was at Our Lady of the Lake that Vélez learned to speak English and began to dance. She later admitted that she liked dance class, but was otherwise a poor student. Denny Jackson at IMDb: "Life was hard for her family, and Lupe returned to Mexico to help them out financially. She worked as a salesgirl for a department store for the princely sum of $4 a week. Every week she would turn most of her salary over to her mother, but kept a little for herself so she could take dancing lessons. By now, she figured, with her mature shape and grand personality, she thought she could make a try at show business." She began her career as a performer in Mexican vaudeville in 1924. She initially performed under her paternal surname, but after her father returned home from the war, he was outraged that his daughter had decided to become a stage performer. She chose her maternal surname, "Vélez", as her stage name and her mother introduced Vélez and her sister Josefina to the popular Spanish Mexican vedette María Conesa, "La Gatita Blanca". Vélez debuted in a show led by Conesa, where she sang 'Oh Charley, My Boy' and danced the shimmy. Aurelio Campos, a young pianist, and friend of the Vélez sisters recommended Lupe to stage producers, Carlos Ortega and Manuel Castro. Ortega and Castro were preparing a season revue at the Regis Theatre and hired Vélez to join the company in March 1925. Later that year, Vélez starred in the revues 'Mexican Rataplan' and '¡No lo tapes!', both parodies of the Bataclan's shows in Paris. Her suggestive singing and provocative dancing was a hit with audiences, and she soon established herself as one of the main stars of vaudeville in Mexico. After a year and a half, Vélez left the revue after the manager refused to give her a raise. She then joined the Teatro Principal but was fired after three months due to her "feisty attitude". Vélez was quickly hired by the Teatro Lirico, where her salary rose to 100 pesos a day. In 1926, Frank A. Woodyard, an American who had seen Vélez perform, recommended her to stage director Richard Bennett, the father of actresses Joan and Constance Bennett. Bennett was looking for an actress to portray a Mexican cantina singer in his upcoming play 'The Dove'. He sent Vélez a telegram inviting her to Los Angeles to appear in the play. Vélez had been planning to go to Cuba to perform, but quickly changed her plans and traveled to Los Angeles. However, upon arrival, she discovered that she had been replaced by another actress.
While in Los Angeles, Lupe Vélez met the comedian Fanny Brice. Brice recommended her to Flo Ziegfeld, who hired her to perform in New York City. While Vélez was preparing to leave Los Angeles, she received a call from MGM producer Harry Rapf, who offered her a screen test. Producer and director Hal Roach saw Vélez's screen test and hired her for a small role in the comic Laurel and Hardy short Sailors, Beware! (Fred Guiol, Hal Yates, 1927). After her debut, Vélez appeared in another Hal Roach short, What Women Did for Me (James Parrott, 1927), opposite Charley Chase. Later that year, she did a screen test for the upcoming Douglas Fairbanks feature The Gaucho (F. Richard Jones, 1927). Fairbanks was impressed by Vélez and hired her to appear in the film with him. The Gaucho was a hit and critics were duly impressed with Vélez's ability to hold her own alongside Fairbanks, who was well known for his spirited acting and impressive stunts. Her second major film was Stand and Deliver (Donald Crisp, 1928), produced by Cecil B. DeMille. That same year, she was named one of the WAMPAS Baby Stars. Then she appeared in Lady of the Pavements (1929), directed by D. W. Griffith, and Where East Is East (Tod Browning, 1929), starring Lon Chaney as an animal trapper in Laos. In the Western The Wolf Song (Victor Fleming, 1929), she appeared alongside Gary Cooper. As she was regularly cast as 'exotic' or 'ethnic' women that were volatile and hot-tempered, gossip columnists took to referring to Vélez as "Mexican Hurricane", "The Mexican Wildcat", "The Mexican Madcap", "Whoopee Lupe" and "The Hot Tamale". Lupe Vélez made the transition to sound films without difficulty. Studio executives had predicted that her accent would likely hamper her ability to make the transition. That idea was dispelled after she appeared in the all-talking Rin Tin Tin vehicle, Tiger Rose (George Fitzmaurice, 1929). The film was a hit and Vélez's sound career was established. Vélez appeared in a series of Pre-Code films like Hell Harbor (Henry King, 1930), The Storm (William Wyler, 1930), and the crime drama East Is West (Monta Bell, 1930) opposite Edward G. Robinson. The next year, she appeared in her second film for Cecil B. DeMille, Squaw Man (Cecil B. DeMille, 1931), opposite Warner Baxter, in Resurrection (Edwin Carewe, 1931), and The Cuban Love Song (W.S. Van Dyke, 1931), with the popular singer Lawrence Tibbett. She had a supporting role in Kongo (William J. Cowen, 1932) with Walter Huston, a sound remake of West of Zanzibar (Tod Browning, 1928) which tries to outdo the Lon Chaney original in morbidity. She also starred in Spanish-language versions of Universal films like Resurrección (Eduardo Arozamena, David Selman, 1931), the Spanish version of Resurrection (1931), and Hombres en mi vida (Eduardo Arozamena, David Selman, 1932), the Spanish version of Men in Her Life (William Beaudine, 1931) in which Lois Moran had starred.
In 1932, Lupe Vélez took a break from her film career and traveled to New York City where she was signed by Broadway impresario Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr. to take over the role of "Conchita" in the musical revue 'Hot-Cha!'. The show also starred Bert Lahr, Eleanor Powell, and Buddy Rogers. Back in Hollywood, Lupe switched to comedy after playing dramatic roles for five years. Denny Jackson at IMDb: "In 1933 she played the lead role of Pepper in Hot Pepper (1933). This film showcased her comedic talents and helped her to show the world her vital personality. She was delightful." After Hot Pepper (John G. Blystone, 1933) with Edmund Lowe and Victor McLaglen, Lupe played beautiful but volatile, characters in a series of successful films like Strictly Dynamite (Elliott Nugent, 1934), Palooka (Benjamin Stoloff, 1934) both opposite Jimmy Durante, and Hollywood Party (Allan Dwan, a.o., 1934) with Laurel and Hardy. Although Vélez was a popular actress, RKO Pictures did not renew her contract in 1934. Over the next few years, Vélez worked for various studios as a freelance actress; she also spent two years in England where she filmed The Morals of Marcus (Miles Mander, 1935) and Gypsy Melody (Edmond T. Gréville, 1936). She returned to Los Angeles the following year where she appeared in the final part of the Wheeler & Woolsey comedy High Flyers (Edward F. Cline, 1937). In 1938, Vélez made her final appearance on Broadway in the musical You Never Know, by Cole Porter. The show received poor reviews from critics but received a large amount of publicity due to the feud between Vélez and fellow cast member Libby Holman. Holman was irritated by the attention Vélez garnered from the show with her impersonations of several actresses including Gloria Swanson, Katharine Hepburn, and Shirley Temple. The feud came to a head during a performance in New Haven, Connecticut after Vélez punched Holman in between curtain calls and gave her a black eye. The feud effectively ended the show. Upon her return to Mexico City in 1938 to star in her first Mexican film, Vélez was greeted by ten thousand fans. The film La Zandunga (Fernando de Fuentes, 1938) co-starring Arturo de Córdova, was a critical and financial success. Vélez was slated to appear in four more Mexican films, but instead, she returned to Los Angeles and went back to work for RKO Pictures. In 1939, Lupe Vélez was cast opposite Leon Errol and Donald Woods in the B-comedy, The Girl from Mexico (Leslie Goodwins, 1939). Despite being a B film, it was a hit with audiences and RKO re-teamed her with Errol and Wood for a sequel, Mexican Spitfire (Leslie Goodwins, 1940). That film was also a success and led to a series of eight Spitfire films. Wikipedia: "In the series, Vélez portrays Carmelita Lindsay, a temperamental yet friendly Mexican singer married to Dennis 'Denny' Lindsay (Woods), an elegant American gentleman. The Spitfire films rejuvenated Vélez's career. Moreover, they were films in which a Latina headlined for eight films straight –a true rarity." In addition to the Spitfire series, she was cast in such films as Six Lessons from Madame La Zonga (John Rawlins, 1941), Playmates (David Butler, 1941) opposite John Barrymore, and Redhead from Manhattan (Lew Landers, 1943). In 1943, the final film in the Spitfire series, Mexican Spitfire's Blessed Event (Leslie Goodwins, 1943), was released. By that time, the novelty of the series had begun to wane. Velez co-starred with Eddie Albert in the romantic comedy, Ladies' Day (Leslie Goodwins, 1943), about an actress and a baseball player. In 1944, Vélez returned to Mexico to star in an adaptation of Émile Zola's novel Nana (Roberto Gavaldón, Celestino Gorostiza, 1944), which was well-received. It would be her final film. After filming wrapped, Vélez returned to Los Angeles and began preparing for another stage role in New York.
Lupe Vélez's temper and jealousy in her often tempestuous romantic relationships were well documented and became tabloid fodder, often overshadowing her career. Vélez was straightforward with the press and was regularly contacted by gossip columnists for stories about her romantic exploits. Her first long-term relationship was with actor Gary Cooper. Vélez met Cooper while filming The Wolf Song in 1929 and began a two-year affair with him. The relationship was passionate but often stormy. Reportedly Vélez chased Cooper around with a knife during an argument and cut him severely enough to require stitches. By that time, the rocky relationship had taken its toll on Cooper who had lost 45 pounds and was suffering from nervous exhaustion. Paramount Pictures ordered him to take a vacation to recuperate. While he was boarding the train, Vélez showed up at the train station and fired a pistol at him. During her marriage to actor Johnny Weissmuller, stories of their frequent physical fights were regularly reported in the press. Vélez reportedly inflicted scratches, bruises, and love-bites on Weissmuller during their fights and "passionate love-making". In July 1934, after ten months of marriage, Vélez filed for divorce citing cruelty. She withdrew the petition a week later after reconciling with Weissmuller. In January 1935, she filed for divorce a second time and was granted an interlocutory decree that was dismissed when the couple reconciled a month later. In August 1938, Vélez filed for divorce for a third time, again charging Weissmuller with cruelty. Their divorce was finalised in August 1939. After the divorce became final, Vélez began dating actor Guinn "Big Boy" Williams in late 1940. They were reportedly engaged but never married. Vélez was also linked to author Erich Maria Remarque and the boxers Jack Johnson and Jack Dempsey. In 1943, Vélez began an affair with her La Zandunga co-star Arturo de Córdova. De Córdova had recently moved to Hollywood after signing with Paramount Pictures. Despite the fact that de Córdova was married to Mexican actress Enna Arana with whom he had four children, Vélez granted an interview to gossip columnist Louella Parsons in September 1943 and announced that the two were engaged. Vélez ended the engagement in early 1944, reportedly after de Córdova's wife refused to give him a divorce. Vélez then met and began dating a struggling young Austrian actor named Harald Maresch (who went by the stage name Harald Ramond). In September 1944, she discovered she was pregnant with Ramond's child. She announced their engagement in late November 1944. On 10 December, four days before her death, Vélez announced she had ended the engagement and kicked Ramond out of her home. On the evening of 13 December 1944, Vélez dined with her two friends, the silent film star Estelle Taylor and Venita Oakie. In the early morning hours of 14 December, Vélez retired to her bedroom, where she consumed 75 Seconal pills and a glass of brandy. Her secretary, Beulah Kinder, found the actress's body on her bed later that morning. A suicide note addressed to Harald Ramond was found nearby. Lupe Vélez was only 36 years old. More than four-thousand people filed past her casket during her funeral. Her body was interred in Mexico City, at Panteón Civil de Dolores Cemetery. Velez' estate, valued at $125,000 and consisting mostly of her Rodeo House home, two cars, jewelry, and personal effects were left to her secretary Beulah Kinder with the remainder in trust for her mother, Mrs. Josephine Velez. Together with Dolores del Rio, Ramon Novarro, and José Mojica, she was one of the few Mexican people who had made history in the early years of Hollywood.
Sources: Denny Jackson (IMDb), Wikipedia, and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
.... Artist, Michel de Broin's 'One Thousand Speculations', a 7.9 metre / 25 foot in diameter ball made up of 1,000 mirrors .... the world's largest mirror ball
Strathalbyn.
A Special Survey of 4,000 acres was taken out along the Angas River in 1839 for George Hall (secretary to Governor Gawler) and William Mein and others. Land was surveyed from the mouth of the Angas along the river to about where Macclesfield is now situated. Other contributors to the Mouth of the Angas Special Survey were Strathalbyn settlers including: 806 acres purchased by Dr John Rankine, Blackwood Park; 166 acres purchased by William Rankine, Glenbarr; 410 acres purchased by Donald McLean; 81 acres purchased by Edward and Charles Stirling of Hampton and later the Lodge. William and Nicol Mein kept 728 acres for themselves but George Hall (who kept about 930 acres) was a Colonial Office employee with an eye on speculation. He also paid £4,000 for the Great Bend Special Survey along the River Murray from Morgan to Blanchetown but it was claimed this was taken for Governor Gawler but in Hall’s name to avoid scandal! But the land was not worth £1 per acre! The Meins were graziers and also took out Occupational Licenses for leasehold land in 1843. They were Scots so they donated £600 for the building fund for the Presbyterian Church in Adelaide in 1840. But in 1843 they dissolved a business partnership in Adelaide and they appear to have left the colony perhaps to join their relatives in NSW. Meins did not stay on to become Strathalbyn pioneers unlike the Rankines, McLeans and Stirlings. The other prominent early founder was William Dawson- hence the creek flowing in front of Glen Barr is the Dawson Creek which enters the Angas River in Strathalbyn. Dawson Banks is another of the grand old properties in Strathalbyn.
Stirlings chose their land to the north of the town and built Hampden and the Lodge; John Rankine chose his land to the north of the town and built Blackwood Park whilst brother William Rankine chose land to the south on Dawson Creek and built Glenbarr house. The first public building in the fledgling town of Strathalbyn was the Strathalbyn Hotel erected in 1840 and the second was probably St. Andrews Presbyterian Church which opened in 1844 with additions in 1869. As most of the settlers were Scottish the name chosen for the town was Scottish and the first church was Presbyterian. The first farmer to produce a crop was David Gollan. His interest in wheat led him to open the first flour mill in 1850 in the centre of the town. Mill Bridge adjacent to the flourmill bridged the Angas River. As the town progressed quickly a local council was formed in 1854 with the Stirlings, Rankines and Archibald McLean (investor in Langhorne Creek) being among the first councillors. The Stirlings were especially important to Strathalbyn. Edward Stirling (the father) joined into a partnership with (Sir) Thomas Elder and Robert Barr Smith in 1855. Stirling stayed with the company as it funded the Moonta and Wallaroo copper mines in 1861 then he withdrew but remained as an investor in the mines. The company went on to become Elder Smith and Co the most successful SA 19th century company. Edward Stirling had two sons, (Sir) Edward Stirling a famed surgeon who lived at St. Vigeans at Stirling and (Sir) Lancelot Stirling, local Member of Parliament for the Strathalbyn district, sheep and cattle breeder and company director. The Stirlings lived in the family home Hampden until it burnt down around 1870. Then they moved into the Lodge which was extended and remained the family home for Sir Lancelot Stirling after his father Edward died in 1873. Lancelot lived there until he died in 1932. The Stirlings of Strathalbyn also owned and operated Nalpa Station on Lake Albert. The Lodge is now the centre of a new suburban development at Strathalbyn.
From the beginning Strathalbyn prospered because of its access to water from the Angas River, its reliable rainfall, its genial climate for cropping and from the patronage of its wealthy founders. The town was laid out in 1840 and blocks sold at that time. The discovery of silver, lead and zinc at nearby Wheal Ellen mine in 1857 further boosted the growing town. The mine closed a short time later but re-opened in 1869 and operated until closure in 1888. It briefly re-opened from 1910-14 for the last phase. Until recently Strathalbyn had another zinc mine conducted by Terramin Mining which started operations in 2007. The zinc from here was sent to Nyrstar refinery at Port Pirie for smelting. The mining occurred 360 metres below the ground surface. The mine had a life of five years and closed in late 2013 ending the jobs of 115 local people. But Strathalbyn has always had a range of local industry. A foundry operated in the town from the mid 1850s as well as the usual businesses of blacksmith, saddlery etc, and the town handled coach services to Wellington via Langhorne Creek from around 1854. It was also one of the first towns in SA to have its own gas works started by David Trenouth in 1868. By 1870 the small urban centre of Strathalbyn had gas street lights! The gas works operated until 1917 when an electrical service took over power provision. From an early date Strathalbyn also had its own newspaper and printing press the Southern Argus housed in Argus House which was built 1867/68. The Southern Argus which is still published, is SA’s oldest country newspaper. In 1912 it established an offshoot - the Victor Harbor Times. In terms of transportation and the transport of goods Strathalbyn prospered as it was the terminus of the horse drawn tram service from Port Elliott and Goolwa in 1869. That is why the Terminus Hotel is so named. In 1884 that line was converted to a broad gauge rail line for steam engines and linked at Mt Barker with the line to Adelaide. Strathalbyn had a flour mill from 1850 as noted above and in the 1860s the town had its own brewery. The heyday of business boom for Strathalbyn was in the 1860s and 1870 when so many of the fine town buildings were erected. Heritage buildings are shown on map above and they include:
Commercial Street/Dawson Street.
•At the northern end of Commercial Street on the corner with North Parade is the Doctor’s Residence. 26 North Parade. Dr Herbert built a grand 8 roomed residence here in 1858. Dr Ferguson purchased it in 1869 and added and altered the verandas. Dr Shone bought it in 1897. Dr Formby took it over in 1907 and kept it until he sold it to Dr Fairley in 1979! Note the double chimneys and the ogee(S shaped) gutters above the bay windows and the 1850s French windows.
•On the northern end of Commercial Street is the Wesleyan Methodist Church which was built in 1874. It replaced the demolished Methodist church built in 1854. Built of random stone, semi rounded windows etc. It became the only Methodist church at the time of Methodist amalgamations in 1900 .It closed around the time of amalgamation with the Presbyterians and Congregationalists in 1977. The Hall was added in 1939.
•Blackwell House, 18 Commercial Street. A two storey bluestone structure from the 1860s. It was much altered in 1912 when the parapet along the roof was removed, the slate replaced with iron and the upper balcony added.
•The former Power House 1917 –when gas works closed. Became Council Chamber 1939 when ETSA arrived.
•Coleman Mill store. Fine stone building with few windows. Built 1864. Coleman bought the mill from Gollan.
•1850 flour mill which was sold to Laucke’s in 1938. Commercial Rd and Mill Street an imposing four storey structure. Note the four storeys, purple sandstone, and little windows.
•Beside the mill is Water Villa house. The earliest part dates from 1849 and the Italianate bay window sections are 1879. David Gollan the owner of the 1850 flour mill built this as his residence. It is a mixture of stones. Note the French doors in the old original part of the house onto the veranda.
•Argus House, 1868. 33 Commercial Street. It was a print works and residence and shop.
•Post Office 1911. 37 Commercial Street.
•Savings Banks of South Australia. A fine two storey structure for the bank and manager’s residence. Built in 1930. It has rough stone, prominent gables, repeating arches, wooden doors, and terra cotta tiles.
•Church of Christ. Opened in 1873.Limestone walls, arched windows.
•Masonic Hall built in 1896 but Lodge established 1866.Additons 1912 and 1957.
Rankine Street/Albyn Terrace.
•Strathalbyn Police Station (1855) and Court House (1865) now the National Trust Museum.
•National Bank 2 Albyn Terrace. Squared stone blocks, two storeys and a dominant building. Elaborate porch and balcony and decorative window surrounds etc. Erected in 1869. Nearby Norfolk Island pine was planted in 1895.
•Tucker & Sons solicitors at 8 Albyn Terrace. Have a look at all the shops along Albyn Terrace a great 19th century streetscape still largely intact. It was used in the film “Picnic at Hanging Rock.”
High Street.
•London House general store at 7 High Street 1867. Now an antiques shop. Cobb and Co used to use the stables at the rear for the daily coaching service to Adelaide. London House had the first telephone in Strathalbyn in 1883.
•Robin Hood hotel erected in 1855 and still standing. 18 High Street.
•The Strathalbyn library 9 High Street. Opened 1922 with a classical façade with good symmetry.
•The Town Hall at 11 High Street. 1874 opened as a two storey stone structure with fancy parapet as an institute building. The parapet is supported by paired brackets.
Other locations- Chapel Street, East Terrace and South Terrace.
•St. Andrews Uniting Church (formerly Presbyterian) 1844 for main church with transept added 1857. Manse erected 1854. 1869 tower completed, bell donated by Edward Stirling. Clock installed 1895. Church hall on the opposite corner was built in 1911.
•Former Primitive Methodist Church 1861 was sold to the Anglican Church as a church hall in 1901 following the Methodist amalgamation. It was sold to the Foresters Lodge in 1912(when Anglicans purchased the former Catholic Church) and much later it as sold to the Scouts.
•St. Barnabas Catholic Church 2 Chapel Street. This was a late addition to Strathalbyn being erected in 1913. But Catholic services began in 1881 when a Catholic church was consecrated in Rowe St. The first priest arrived in 1906. A presbytery as built 1911 in East Tce and then church two years later. The 1881 church was sold in 1913 as Anglican parish hall called St. Barnabas. It is on the corner of Rowe and Murray street.
•Christ Church Anglican Church 7 East Terrace. The tower on Christ Church was erected from donations on the death of Sir Lancelot Stirling in 1932. The tower opened in 1933 but the church was built in 1871.
•Railway Station on South Terrace erected 1883 in time for opening of broad gauge line to Adelaide and start of branch line trains to Milang from Sandergrove siding.
•Two storey residence attached to Rowe’s foundry in South Terrace. Britannia House as it is known was built in 1855.
Strathalbyn.
A Special Survey of 4,000 acres was taken out along the Angas River in 1839 for George Hall (secretary to Governor Gawler) and William Mein and others. Land was surveyed from the mouth of the Angas along the river to about where Macclesfield is now situated. Other contributors to the Mouth of the Angas Special Survey were Strathalbyn settlers including: 806 acres purchased by Dr John Rankine, Blackwood Park; 166 acres purchased by William Rankine, Glenbarr; 410 acres purchased by Donald McLean; 81 acres purchased by Edward and Charles Stirling of Hampton and later the Lodge. William and Nicol Mein kept 728 acres for themselves but George Hall (who kept about 930 acres) was a Colonial Office employee with an eye on speculation. He also paid £4,000 for the Great Bend Special Survey along the River Murray from Morgan to Blanchetown but it was claimed this was taken for Governor Gawler but in Hall’s name to avoid scandal! But the land was not worth £1 per acre! The Meins were graziers and also took out Occupational Licenses for leasehold land in 1843. They were Scots so they donated £600 for the building fund for the Presbyterian Church in Adelaide in 1840. But in 1843 they dissolved a business partnership in Adelaide and they appear to have left the colony perhaps to join their relatives in NSW. Meins did not stay on to become Strathalbyn pioneers unlike the Rankines, McLeans and Stirlings. The other prominent early founder was William Dawson- hence the creek flowing in front of Glen Barr is the Dawson Creek which enters the Angas River in Strathalbyn. Dawson Banks is another of the grand old properties in Strathalbyn.
Stirlings chose their land to the north of the town and built Hampden and the Lodge; John Rankine chose his land to the north of the town and built Blackwood Park whilst brother William Rankine chose land to the south on Dawson Creek and built Glenbarr house. The first public building in the fledgling town of Strathalbyn was the Strathalbyn Hotel erected in 1840 and the second was probably St. Andrews Presbyterian Church which opened in 1844 with additions in 1869. As most of the settlers were Scottish the name chosen for the town was Scottish and the first church was Presbyterian. The first farmer to produce a crop was David Gollan. His interest in wheat led him to open the first flour mill in 1850 in the centre of the town. Mill Bridge adjacent to the flourmill bridged the Angas River. As the town progressed quickly a local council was formed in 1854 with the Stirlings, Rankines and Archibald McLean (investor in Langhorne Creek) being among the first councillors. The Stirlings were especially important to Strathalbyn. Edward Stirling (the father) joined into a partnership with (Sir) Thomas Elder and Robert Barr Smith in 1855. Stirling stayed with the company as it funded the Moonta and Wallaroo copper mines in 1861 then he withdrew but remained as an investor in the mines. The company went on to become Elder Smith and Co the most successful SA 19th century company. Edward Stirling had two sons, (Sir) Edward Stirling a famed surgeon who lived at St. Vigeans at Stirling and (Sir) Lancelot Stirling, local Member of Parliament for the Strathalbyn district, sheep and cattle breeder and company director. The Stirlings lived in the family home Hampden until it burnt down around 1870. Then they moved into the Lodge which was extended and remained the family home for Sir Lancelot Stirling after his father Edward died in 1873. Lancelot lived there until he died in 1932. The Stirlings of Strathalbyn also owned and operated Nalpa Station on Lake Albert. The Lodge is now the centre of a new suburban development at Strathalbyn.
From the beginning Strathalbyn prospered because of its access to water from the Angas River, its reliable rainfall, its genial climate for cropping and from the patronage of its wealthy founders. The town was laid out in 1840 and blocks sold at that time. The discovery of silver, lead and zinc at nearby Wheal Ellen mine in 1857 further boosted the growing town. The mine closed a short time later but re-opened in 1869 and operated until closure in 1888. It briefly re-opened from 1910-14 for the last phase. Until recently Strathalbyn had another zinc mine conducted by Terramin Mining which started operations in 2007. The zinc from here was sent to Nyrstar refinery at Port Pirie for smelting. The mining occurred 360 metres below the ground surface. The mine had a life of five years and closed in late 2013 ending the jobs of 115 local people. But Strathalbyn has always had a range of local industry. A foundry operated in the town from the mid 1850s as well as the usual businesses of blacksmith, saddlery etc, and the town handled coach services to Wellington via Langhorne Creek from around 1854. It was also one of the first towns in SA to have its own gas works started by David Trenouth in 1868. By 1870 the small urban centre of Strathalbyn had gas street lights! The gas works operated until 1917 when an electrical service took over power provision. From an early date Strathalbyn also had its own newspaper and printing press the Southern Argus housed in Argus House which was built 1867/68. The Southern Argus which is still published, is SA’s oldest country newspaper. In 1912 it established an offshoot - the Victor Harbor Times. In terms of transportation and the transport of goods Strathalbyn prospered as it was the terminus of the horse drawn tram service from Port Elliott and Goolwa in 1869. That is why the Terminus Hotel is so named. In 1884 that line was converted to a broad gauge rail line for steam engines and linked at Mt Barker with the line to Adelaide. Strathalbyn had a flour mill from 1850 as noted above and in the 1860s the town had its own brewery. The heyday of business boom for Strathalbyn was in the 1860s and 1870 when so many of the fine town buildings were erected. Heritage buildings are shown on map above and they include:
Commercial Street/Dawson Street.
•At the northern end of Commercial Street on the corner with North Parade is the Doctor’s Residence. 26 North Parade. Dr Herbert built a grand 8 roomed residence here in 1858. Dr Ferguson purchased it in 1869 and added and altered the verandas. Dr Shone bought it in 1897. Dr Formby took it over in 1907 and kept it until he sold it to Dr Fairley in 1979! Note the double chimneys and the ogee(S shaped) gutters above the bay windows and the 1850s French windows.
•On the northern end of Commercial Street is the Wesleyan Methodist Church which was built in 1874. It replaced the demolished Methodist church built in 1854. Built of random stone, semi rounded windows etc. It became the only Methodist church at the time of Methodist amalgamations in 1900 .It closed around the time of amalgamation with the Presbyterians and Congregationalists in 1977. The Hall was added in 1939.
•Blackwell House, 18 Commercial Street. A two storey bluestone structure from the 1860s. It was much altered in 1912 when the parapet along the roof was removed, the slate replaced with iron and the upper balcony added.
•The former Power House 1917 –when gas works closed. Became Council Chamber 1939 when ETSA arrived.
•Coleman Mill store. Fine stone building with few windows. Built 1864. Coleman bought the mill from Gollan.
•1850 flour mill which was sold to Laucke’s in 1938. Commercial Rd and Mill Street an imposing four storey structure. Note the four storeys, purple sandstone, and little windows.
•Beside the mill is Water Villa house. The earliest part dates from 1849 and the Italianate bay window sections are 1879. David Gollan the owner of the 1850 flour mill built this as his residence. It is a mixture of stones. Note the French doors in the old original part of the house onto the veranda.
•Argus House, 1868. 33 Commercial Street. It was a print works and residence and shop.
•Post Office 1911. 37 Commercial Street.
•Savings Banks of South Australia. A fine two storey structure for the bank and manager’s residence. Built in 1930. It has rough stone, prominent gables, repeating arches, wooden doors, and terra cotta tiles.
•Church of Christ. Opened in 1873.Limestone walls, arched windows.
•Masonic Hall built in 1896 but Lodge established 1866.Additons 1912 and 1957.
Rankine Street/Albyn Terrace.
•Strathalbyn Police Station (1855) and Court House (1865) now the National Trust Museum.
•National Bank 2 Albyn Terrace. Squared stone blocks, two storeys and a dominant building. Elaborate porch and balcony and decorative window surrounds etc. Erected in 1869. Nearby Norfolk Island pine was planted in 1895.
•Tucker & Sons solicitors at 8 Albyn Terrace. Have a look at all the shops along Albyn Terrace a great 19th century streetscape still largely intact. It was used in the film “Picnic at Hanging Rock.”
High Street.
•London House general store at 7 High Street 1867. Now an antiques shop. Cobb and Co used to use the stables at the rear for the daily coaching service to Adelaide. London House had the first telephone in Strathalbyn in 1883.
•Robin Hood hotel erected in 1855 and still standing. 18 High Street.
•The Strathalbyn library 9 High Street. Opened 1922 with a classical façade with good symmetry.
•The Town Hall at 11 High Street. 1874 opened as a two storey stone structure with fancy parapet as an institute building. The parapet is supported by paired brackets.
Other locations- Chapel Street, East Terrace and South Terrace.
•St. Andrews Uniting Church (formerly Presbyterian) 1844 for main church with transept added 1857. Manse erected 1854. 1869 tower completed, bell donated by Edward Stirling. Clock installed 1895. Church hall on the opposite corner was built in 1911.
•Former Primitive Methodist Church 1861 was sold to the Anglican Church as a church hall in 1901 following the Methodist amalgamation. It was sold to the Foresters Lodge in 1912(when Anglicans purchased the former Catholic Church) and much later it as sold to the Scouts.
•St. Barnabas Catholic Church 2 Chapel Street. This was a late addition to Strathalbyn being erected in 1913. But Catholic services began in 1881 when a Catholic church was consecrated in Rowe St. The first priest arrived in 1906. A presbytery as built 1911 in East Tce and then church two years later. The 1881 church was sold in 1913 as Anglican parish hall called St. Barnabas. It is on the corner of Rowe and Murray street.
•Christ Church Anglican Church 7 East Terrace. The tower on Christ Church was erected from donations on the death of Sir Lancelot Stirling in 1932. The tower opened in 1933 but the church was built in 1871.
•Railway Station on South Terrace erected 1883 in time for opening of broad gauge line to Adelaide and start of branch line trains to Milang from Sandergrove siding.
•Two storey residence attached to Rowe’s foundry in South Terrace. Britannia House as it is known was built in 1855.
One of the most characteristic and poorly-understood features of the Mysteries is the naked lion-headed figure often found in Mithraic temples, named by the modern scholars with descriptive terms such as leontocephaline (lion-headed) or leontocephalus (lion-head). He is entwined by a serpent (or two serpents, like a caduceus), with the snake’s head often resting on the lion’s head. The lion’s mouth is often open, giving a horrifying impression. He is usually represented as having four wings, two keys (sometimes a single key), and a scepter in his hand. Sometimes the figure is standing on a globe inscribed with a diagonal cross. In the figure shown here, the four wings carry the symbols of the four seasons, and a thunderbolt is engraved on the breast. At the base of the statue are the hammer and tongs of Vulcan, the cock, and the wand of Mercury. A variation the same figure, but with a human head instead of the lion-mask, is also found, but is rare..Although animal-headed figures are prevalent in contemporary Egyptian and Gnostic mythological representations, an exact parallel to the Mithraic leontocephaline figure has not been found.[47] The name of the figure has been deciphered from dedicatory inscriptions to be Arimanius, a Latinized form of the name Ahriman – a demonic figure in the Zoroastrian pantheon. Arimanius is known from inscriptions to have been a god in the Mithraic cult as seen, for example, in images from the Corpus Inscriptionum et Monumentorum Religionis Mithriacae (CIMRM) such as 222 from Ostia, 369 from Rome, and 1773 and 1775 from Pannonia.Some scholars identify the lion-man as Aion, or Zurvan, or Cronus, or Chronos, while others assert that it is a version of the Zoroastrian Ahriman.[There is also speculation that the figure is the Gnostic demiurge, (Ariel) Ialdabaoth.[51] Although the exact identity of the lion-headed figure is debated by scholars, it is largely agreed that the god is associated with time and seasonal change.] An occultist, D. J. Cooper, speculates to the contrary that the lion-headed figure is not a god, but rather represents the spiritual state achieved in Mithraism's "adept" level, the Leo (lion) degree.
Mithraism, also known as the Mithraic mysteries, was a mystery religion centred around the god Mithras that was practised in the Roman Empire from about the 1st to the 4th century. The religion was inspired by Persian worship of the god Mithra (proto-Indo-Iranian Mitra), though the Greek Mithras was linked to a new and distinctive imagery, and the level of continuity between Persian and Greco-Roman practice is debated.[1] The mysteries were popular in the Roman military.Worshippers of Mithras had a complex system of seven grades of initiation and communal ritual meals. Initiates called themselves syndexioi, those “united by the handshake”.[3] They met in underground temples, called mithraea, which survive in large numbers. The cult appears to have had its centre in Rome.Numerous archaeological finds, including meeting places, monuments and artifacts, have contributed to modern knowledge about Mithraism throughout the Roman Empire. The iconic scenes of Mithras show him being born from a rock, slaughtering a bull, and sharing a banquet with the god Sol (the Sun). About 420 sites have yielded materials related to the cult. Among the items found are about 1000 inscriptions, 700 examples of the bull-killing scene (tauroctony), and about 400 other monuments.[6] It has been estimated that there would have been at least 680 mithraea in Rome. No written narratives or theology from the religion survive; limited information can be derived from the inscriptions and brief or passing references in Greek and Latin literature. Interpretation of the physical evidence remains problematic and contested.The Romans regarded the mysteries as having Persian or Zoroastrian sources. Since the early 1970s the dominant scholarship has noted dissimilarities between Persian Mithra-worship and the Roman Mithraic mysteries. In this context, Mithraism has sometimes been viewed as a rival of early Christianity with similarities such as liberator-saviour, hierarchy of adepts (bishops, presbyters, deacons), communal meal and a hard struggle of Good and Evil (bull-killing/crucifixion).The name Mithras (Latin, equivalent to Greek "Μίθρας",is a form of Mithra, the name of an Old Persian god – a relationship understood by Mithraic scholars since the days of Franz Cumont. An early example of the Greek form of the name is in a 4th century BCE work by Xenophon, the Cyropaedia, which is a biography of the Persian king Cyrus the Great.The exact form of a Latin or classical Greek word varies due to the grammatical process of declension. There is archeological evidence that in Latin worshippers wrote the nominative form of the god’s name as "Mithras". However, in Porphyry’s Greek text De Abstinentia («Περὶ ἀποχῆς ἐμψύχων»), there is a reference to the now-lost histories of the Mithraic mysteries by Euboulus and Pallas, the wording of which suggests that these authors treated the name "Mithra" as an indeclinable foreign word.Related deity-names in other languages include.Sanskrit Mitra (मित्रः), the name of a god praised in the Rig Veda. In Sanskrit, "mitra" means "friend" or "friendship".the form mi-it-ra-, found in an inscribed peace treaty between the Hittites and the kingdom of Mitanni, from about 1400 BCE.Iranian "Mithra" and Sanskrit "Mitra" are believed to come from an Indo-Iranian word mitra meaning contract / agreement / covenant.Modern historians have different conceptions about whether these names refer to the same god or not. John R. Hinnells has written of Mitra / Mithra / Mithras as a single deity worshipped in several different religions.On the other hand, David Ulansey considers the bull-slaying Mithras to be a new god who began to be worshipped in the 1st Century BCE, and to whom an old name was applied.Mary Boyce, a researcher of ancient Iranian religions, writes that even though Roman Empire Mithraism seems to have had less Iranian content than historians used to think, none the less “as the name Mithras alone shows, this content was of some importance.”.Mithra was the god of light, purity, goodness, truth and occupied an important place in the faith of the ancient India-European peoples.There are various opinions on the spread of the Mithra (or Mithras, Mitra) cult, but the most reliable one is the first written protocol about the Mithraic cult from 14th century BC.In the treaty text signed between the powerful kingdom of Mitanni (Mitanni was situated in the North of Armenian Plateau) of king Shativaza (unknown-1350 BC), and the Hittite king of Suppiluliuma (1380-1346 BC) we can see the name of Mithra. So the Mithraic cult was mentioned in Persian cuneiform inscriptions and in the Indian Vedic texts since the fourth century BC.As a result of the religious revolution of Ardashir II, the Sassanid King of Persia in 395 AD, the cults of Mithra and Anahita, the Iranian goddess, were imported to Persia and combined with Zoroastrianism. In the first century BC the cult of Mithra penetrated into Rome, and in the third century AD this religion had become international and spread from India to the Black Sea, from the Balkans to Britain and Spain. Now there are more than four hundred Mithraic temple ruins throughout the Europe.So at first, in fourth century BC this cult spread from the Armenian Plateau to South Persia and India and in first century BC to North-West Europe. The Mysteries of Mithras.....The upper grades, known as the “Participants,” were: 4th . Lion, of the element of FireI died as a mineral and became a vegetable, I passed away as vegetation and became animal. Leaving the animal state I became man. Why should I fear? When was I less through death? I shall once more die: from manhood, to soar with angels: and I must pass beyond angelhood—all perish but God. When I have given up my angel self, I shall be what no mind has conceived.—Jalaluddin Rum.Perhaps it was fitting to begin the following article on the Mithraic Mysteries on the day of the recent Winter Solstice. According to tradition, the god Mithras was born of (“sprang from”) the rock on the shortest day of the year, his birthday celebration occurring on December 25, marking the return of Sol Invictus, the Unconquered Sun.Prior to the vision of Roman Emperor Constantine later establishing Christianity as state religion, a fraternity centered upon the Rites of Mithras once captivated the Western world. Originating in India and later spreading to Persia, Mithraism moved across Europe along with the sprawl of the late Roman Empire.Plutarch, in his Life of Pompey credits the introduction of Mithraism in Rome to pirates arriving from Cilicia, an ancient region south of the Tarsus Mountains in southeast Asia Minor along the Mediterranean Sea.The Indo-Persian myth describing Ahura-Mazda’s battle of Light against Darkness casts Mithras as an associate of the Sun.As the tale begins, Mithras captures the wild bull, the first creation of Ahura-Mazda, and confines it within a cave. The bull escapes, and the Sun sends his messenger the Raven to look for it. Mithras is also sent by Ahura-Mazda and with the help of his dog, he recaptures the beast. He drags it back to the cave and straddles it, cutting the bull’s throat. From the resulting issue of blood springs corn, wheat, and other forms of life. In retaliation, Ahriman, the Chief of Darkness, orders his minions, the ant, snake, and scorpion, to drink up the miraculous fluid, but to no avail: it spreads all over the world giving it life. In a gesture of acknowledgement, the Sun kneels before Mithras offering a crown to seal a covenant with him. The two part ways after a sacramental meal.As we shall see, the reenactment of the myth in the rites of initiation involved passing through seven grades that correspond to seven planets. The worship of Mithras at this time required the construction of a Mithraea, a temple in the form of an underground vault or “cave.” The temple interior consisted of a torch-lit hall with side benches culminating in a central sculpted image of Mithras. Adorned with a Phrygian (“Persian”) cap, he is depicted holding a bull by the nostrils from behind in the act of stabbing it in the neck with a dagger. His image is often accompanied by two torchbearers, possibly representing the Sun and the Moon: Cautes, with upraised torch, and Cautopates, with torch pointed earthward. The ceiling of the sanctuary was painted to resemble the starry “cave” of the night sky. Franz Cumont has mapped the dispersion of various Mithraea across Europe and Asia Minor. The number of them, and of other related Mithraic artifacts is astounding, and indeed, many temples remain intact to this day.
Roman Mithraism appropriated and adapted occult knowledge from the Pythagorean Mysteries, through the astronomical revelations of Hipparchus and the later speculations of the Stoics.Accordingly, Mithraic scholar David Ulansey feels that The Rites of Mithra may be explained by examining the astral religion of the Hellenistic period. The position of the images depicted in the sanctuary suggest that they are directly related to constellations observable at that time: the bull to Taurus, scorpion to Scorpio, snake to Hydra, raven to Corvus, dog to Canus minor, lion to Leo major.Ulansey connects Mithras with the Greek god Perseus of the constellation just above Taurus, who was also known as “the Persian.” Perseus was popularly worshipped in Cilicia, home to the pirates described by Plutarch. In myth, Perseus kills the Gorgon and similarly, as we have seen, Mithras kills the bull. The astral adaptation is a metaphor for the precession of the equinoxes signaling the end of the Age of Taurus, and the beginning of the Age of Aries. Mithras is seen as a diety with the power to move the universe on its cosmic axis, one who controls Fate. Identification with such a God through ritual would seem to confer similar gifts upon the initiate, bestowing the promise of everlasting life.8)One writer has labeled Mithraism “the Alchemy of the Roman World.”
However, initiation into the Mysteries of Mithras in a Roman Mithraea involved austerities and hardships that would make the most rugged Freemason of today blanch.10) The candidate entered the ritual space blindfolded and naked. An oath of secrecy was obtained. Ordeals by fire, by branding upon the forehead, scourging, striking with the leg of a bull, as well as the laying on of hands, pouring on of water, and the bestowing of a solar crown upon the head are reported. Masks and costumes representing key figures found in the myth were worn by participants who had previously achieved the various grades in the hierarchy of the Rite.The “grades” accompanying initiation correspond to the principal participants and their activity found within the myth.The lower grades, known collectively as “Servitors” were in ascending order: 1st. Raven, of the element of Air, is under the sign of Mercury messenger of the gods. Symbols of this degree include the raven, cup, and caduceus of Mercury. 2nd. Bride(groom?), of the element of Water, is under the sign of Venus. Fragments suggest that symbols of this degree included a lamp and a crown. The joining of hands was part of this grade, hence the allusion to a “wedding ceremony.” 3rd. Soldier, of the element of Earth, is under the sign of Mars. Symbols are the soldier’s pouch worn over his shoulder, a helmet, and a lance.The upper grades, known as the “Participants,” were: 4th . Lion, of the element of Fire, under the sign of Jupiter. Symbols of this degree include a fire shovel, a sistrum, and thunderbolts. 5th. Persian, of the element of Water, under the sign of the Moon. Symbols include a hooked knife, a scythe or plow, and the moon and a star. 6th. Courier of the Sun, of the element of Fire, under the sign of the Sun. Symbols are a torch, crown, and a whip (to drive his chariot across the sky). 7th. Father (Pater) under the sign of Saturn. Symbols include a ring or dish, a staff, the Phrygian cap, and a sickle. The holder of this highest rank dressed like Mithras himself. During initiations and other regular ritual activity including sacramental meals, the holders of the various grades were regarded as the earthly representatives of celestial, archetypal participants in the myth.Were the Rites of Mithras “co-alchemic?” Not in the Roman rite, which was most popular among men in the military. At its peak, it was a warrior’s religion. However, evidence suggests that there were fraternal relationships with women from the Cybele-cult, who possibly shared the taurobolium—a “baptism” in bull’s blood, with initiates of Mithraism. This point is controversial, and it is not clear how it may have been performed in a typically small Mithraea.A final sculptural image of Mithras depicts him as the Aeonic Mithras, the Mithraic Cronus, representative of Boundless Time.According to Armenian ancient beliefs, 365 saints are living in the heart of the Sun and each of them is the owner of one day of the year, appointed in order to prevent evil.It is said that within the salty sea (Lake of the Van), there was a rock, and when heaven was darkened the light fell on the rock and shortly after was born Mithra, almost naked but with a Phrygian hat on his head, and torch in his left hand, and it illuminated the world. By killing the bull, Mithra was creating the world from its parts.Strabo chronicled that during the ruling of Achaemenid Empire the Armenian Satrap donated 20,000 horses to the annual Mithra celebration. The observations dedicated to Mithra were celebrated by Armenians in the Month of Areg, which coincided with Iranian month of Mithra. The Armenian seventh month is named Mehekan and each month’s eighth day was called Mithra.Mithra, the god of light, kindness and contracts was indeed born from the very rock—this characteristic is affirmed either by archaeological finds or by the Geghard temple in Armenia, which is carved into the rocky landscape.In 1953-54 during research in Eskikale (Turkey) a tunnel was unearthed which reached depths of 160 meters (525 feet) consisting of a long mountain slope ending with two circular rooms. It is similar to the tunnel at Bagaritch in Upper Armenia with the temple complex dedicated to Mithra.From the mythological point of view, tunnels are the place of birth of Mithra as it said “the beam, separated from the star, penetrates into the depths of the tunnel, giving birth to Mithra, from where he ascended to heaven.” The carved temple of Geghard has also been seen as the birthplace of Mithra during the pre-Christian period.In Vedic texts Mithra is the god who protected the Sun and is always mentioned with Varuna.In Indian sources Mithra is the god of love, light, tenderness and sun shine. The closeness and affection of Mithra and Varuna is inseparable and stable. Varuna is the god of heaven and night. Mithra is the god of light, sunshine and day. These gods of night and day are fellows in cult rituals. Varuna is also the god of waters and seas , and is the husband of Varun, god of wine.Vedic texts are notable for the main ritual of the Mithraic cult, such as sacrificing a bull, which penetrated to Europe. One of the noblest gods is Soma (in Avesta, the primary collection of religious texts of Zoroastrianism, he is instead named Haoma). Soma is the god of invincible power, the god who cures all the diseases. It is Soma who gave life, wealth, and wish fulfillment.In Sanskrit, the name Soma is used for the Moon. They are the same only by name, however, as all the characteristics of the Moon are attributed to a goddess of plants. So, they believed the moon presided over healing plants and thus sacrificed oblations and offerings in worship rituals.Also Soma is the name of a sacred plant. From the leaf of this plant was made a strong alcoholic beverage loved by the gods, and which was dedicated to the gods. During rituals, priests drank this beverage in order to come close to and join with the gods. Soma was the life deity and life essence, and even though the gods received their eternity from this beverage, mortal men could attain temporary ‘eternity’ by drinking the beverage too, allegorically meaning the joining with the God and Essence.According to legend a riot arose between the gods. The god Shiva got involved in the formidable fighting and in one stoke divided god Soma in two, which demonstrates the tradition of sacred bull killing.In other versions the gods decided to kill Soma. The god Wayuu ordered the execution and asked help from Mithra-Varuna. Mithra refused to help and said, “I wish love, boon and affection to everybody.” At the end Mithra agreed to participate in ritual killing in order to benefit from the sacrifice. After the killing they crushed Soma between two stones. It was Mithra’s responsibility to spill on the ground the part of his Soma juice from which would germinate the plants and the animals.In pictures and sculptures of the bull sacrifice ritual, Mithra is often seen turning his face and eyes away, indicating the rejection or distaste of this action. But the bull is the source of life, and the ritual is necessary.“A Being with lion’s head, and eagles wings, and brute’s feet, and human body, enwrapped with a serpent, standing on a globe and holding the keys of life and death in its two hands….The Autozoon, or Living Creature in itself the summation of all forms of life, including man.”14)“It was this God, that the adepts of the mysteries placed at the head of the celestial hierarchy, and considered the first Principal.”15) Surrounded by the signs of the zodiac, he is the winged, invincible Soul emerging from the Cosmic Egg, coiled in the form of the rising serpent representing the manifestation of matter out of the central mystery of Eternity.The fraternal Mithraic Rites fulfill the function of a Mystery School designed to join the temporal nature of the initiate with the Eternal Reality of Spiritual Truth. Establishing a Golden Chain linking Heaven and Earth through the intermediary of human experience, the follower of Mithras walks a path mirroring that of the stars moving through the Universe, and beyond, into a timeless realm that truly, no mind may conceive.Mithraism.......Lion-headed figure... He will say: 'Where ... ?One of the most characteristic and poorly-understood features of the Mysteries is the naked lion-headed figure often found in Mithraic temples, named by the modern scholars with descriptive terms such as leontocephaline (lion-headed) or leontocephalus (lion-head). He is entwined by a serpent (or two serpents, like a caduceus), with the snake’s head often resting on the lion’s head. The lion’s mouth is often open, giving a horrifying impression. He is usually represented as having four wings, two keys (sometimes a single key), and a scepter in his hand. Sometimes the figure is standing on a globe inscribed with a diagonal cross. In the figure shown here, the four wings carry the symbols of the four seasons, and a thunderbolt is engraved on the breast. At the base of the statue are the hammer and tongs of Vulcan, the cock, and the wand of Mercury. A variation the same figure, but with a human head instead of the lion-mask, is also found, but is rare.Although animal-headed figures are prevalent in contemporary Egyptian and Gnostic mythological representations, an exact parallel to the Mithraic leontocephaline figure has not been found.The name of the figure has been deciphered from dedicatory inscriptions to be Arimanius, a Latinized form of the name Ahriman – a demonic figure in the Zoroastrian pantheon. Arimanius is known from inscriptions to have been a god in the Mithraic cult as seen, for example, in images from the Corpus Inscriptionum et Monumentorum Religionis Mithriacae (CIMRM) such as 222 from Ostia, 369 from Rome, and 1773 and 1775 from Pannonia.Some scholars identify the lion-man as Aion, or Zurvan, or Cronus, or Chronos, while others assert that it is a version of the Zoroastrian Ahriman.There is also speculation that the figure is the Gnostic demiurge, (Ariel) Ialdabaoth.[51] Although the exact identity of the lion-headed figure is debated by scholars, it is largely agreed that the god is associated with time and seasonal change.[52] An occultist, D. J. Cooper, speculates to the contrary that the lion-headed figure is not a god, but rather represents the spiritual state achieved in Mithraism's "adept" level, the Leo (lion) degree. According to M. J. Vermaseren, the Mithraic New Year and the birthday of Mithras was on December 25.[54][55] However, Beck disagrees strongly.[56] Clauss states: "the Mithraic Mysteries had no public ceremonies of its own. The festival of Natalis Invicti, held on 25 December, was a general festival of the Sun, and by no means specific to the Mysteries of Mithras."Mithraic initiates were required to swear an oath of secrecy and dedication,[58] and some grade rituals involved the recital of a catechism, wherein the initiate was asked a series of questions pertaining to the initiation symbolism and had to reply with specific answers. An example of such a catechism, apparently pertaining to the Leo grade, was discovered in a fragmentary Egyptian papyrus (P.Berolinensis 21196), He will say: 'Where ... ?... he is/(you are?) there (then/thereupon?) at a loss?' Say: ... Say: 'Night'. He will say: 'Where ... ?' ... Say: 'All things ...' (He will say): '... you are called ... ?' Say: 'Because of the summery ...' ... having become ... he/it has the fiery ... (He will say): '... did you receive/inherit?' Say: 'In a pit'. He will say: 'Where is your ...?... (Say): '...(in the...) Leonteion.' He will say: 'Will you gird?' The (heavenly?) ...(Say): '... death'. He will say: 'Why, having girded yourself, ...?' '... this (has?) four tassels. Very sharp and ... '... much'. He will say: ...? (Say: '... because of/through?) hot and cold'. He will say: ...? (Say): '... red ... linen'. He will say: 'Why?' Say: '... red border; the linen, however, ...' (He will say): '... has been wrapped?' Say: 'The savior's ...' He will say: 'Who is the father?' Say: 'The one who (begets?) everything ...' (He will say): '('How ?)... did you become a Leo?' Say: 'By the ... of the father'. ... Say: 'Drink and food'. He will say '...Almost no Mithraic scripture or first-hand account of its highly secret rituals survives;[29] with the exception of the aforementioned oath and catechism, and the document known as the Mithras Liturgy, from 4th century Egypt, whose status as a Mithraist text has been questioned by scholars including Franz Cumont.[60][61] The walls of Mithraea were commonly whitewashed, and where this survives it tends to carry extensive repositories of graffiti; and these, together with inscriptions on Mithraic monuments, form the main source for Mithraic texts.Nevertheless, it is clear from the archeology of numerous Mithraea that most rituals were associated with feasting – as eating utensils and food residues are almost invariably found. These tend to include both animal bones and also very large quantities of fruit residues.[63] The presence of large amounts of cherry-stones in particular would tend to confirm mid-summer (late June, early July) as a season especially associated with Mithraic festivities. The Virunum album, in the form of an inscribed bronze plaque, records a Mithraic festival of commemoration as taking place on 26 June 184. Beck argues that religious celebrations on this date are indicative of special significance being given to the Summer solstice; but this time of the year coincides with ancient recognition of the solar maximum at midsummer, whilst iconographically identical holidays such as Litha, St John's Eve, and Jāņi are observed also.For their feasts, Mithraic initiates reclined on stone benches arranged along the longer sides of the Mithraeum – typically there might be room for 15 to 30 diners, but very rarely many more than 40 men.[64] Counterpart dining rooms, or triclinia, were to be found above ground in the precincts of almost any temple or religious sanctuary in the Roman empire, and such rooms were commonly used for their regular feasts by Roman 'clubs', or collegia. Mithraic feasts probably performed a very similar function for Mithraists as the collegia did for those entitled to join them; indeed, since qualification for Roman collegia tended to be restricted to particular families, localities or traditional trades, Mithraism may have functioned in part as providing clubs for the unclubbed.[65] However, the size of the Mithraeum is not necessarily an indication of the size of the congregation.Each Mithraeum had several altars at the further end, underneath the representation of the tauroctony, and also commonly contained considerable numbers of subsidiary altars, both in the main Mithraeum chamber and in the ante-chamber or narthex. These altars, which are of the standard Roman pattern, each carry a named dedicatory inscription from a particular initiate, who dedicated the altar to Mithras "in fulfillment of his vow", in gratitude for favours received. Burned residues of animal entrails are commonly found on the main altars indicating regular sacrificial use. However, Mithraea do not commonly appear to have been provided with facilities for ritual slaughter of sacrificial animals (a highly specialised function in Roman religion), and it may be presumed that a Mithraeum would have made arrangements for this service to be provided for them in co-operation with the professional victimarius[68] of the civic cult. Prayers were addressed to the Sun three times a day, and Sunday was especially sacred.It is doubtful whether Mithraism had a monolithic and internally consistent doctrine.It may have varied from location to location.However, the iconography is relatively coherent.[38] It had no predominant sanctuary or cultic centre; and, although each Mithraeum had its own officers and functionaries, there was no central supervisory authority. In some Mithraea, such as that at Dura Europos, wall paintings depict prophets carrying scrolls,[72] but no named Mithraic sages are known, nor does any reference give the title of any Mithraic scripture or teaching. It is known that intitates could transfer with their grades from one Mithraeum to another.HomeThe Red Cap of Liberty is also known as the Phrygian Cap, Mithraic Cap, sacrificial Cap, mitre and in French as the bonnet de laLiberté or bonnet rouge. It symbolizes the sacred acts of Initiation, Sacrifice, Liberty, Revolution, Enlightenment, and Brotherhood...It has been worn by various Abrahamic priesthoods over the last few thousand years and also newly emancipated slaves since the time of Ancient Rome. The red cap not only an ancient symbol, it is one of the oldest magical talismans that is still in use to this very day by various religions, secret societies, and governments all around the world.British Alchemist and Rosicrucian, Hargrave Jennings had written, "The Phrygian Cap, the classic Mithraic Cap, sacrificial Cap, and mitre all derive from one common ancestor." He continues, The whole is a sign of “initiation,” and of baptism of a peculiar kind. The Phrygian cap, ever after this first inauguration, has stood as the sign of the “Enlightened.” The heroic figures in most Gnostic Gems, which we give in our illustrations, have caps of this kind.""Mithras, God of the Sunset, low on the Western main. Thou descending immortal, immortal to rise again! Now when the watch is ended, now when the wine is drawn, Mithras, also a soldier, keep us pure till the dawn!”~From Song to Mithras, Rudyard Kipling."The significance of Mithraism as the first historical, pan-Eurasian religion has never been fully appreciated by European scholarship, which persistently has tried to draw an Iron Curtain between the East and West. In various forms, however, Mithraism has left an indelible and defining mark on the religious history of that vast continent. Christianity was at the same time the greatest benefactor as well as the most destructive scourge of Mithraic tradition. While destroying or vandalizing the material cultural remains of that once great religion, early Christians also copied and co-opted its outward forms in many details, building upon its successes and learning from its limitations. Indeed, both literally and figuratively, Christianity was built upon Mithraic foundations.2Such dependence was a great liability to a Church claiming a new and original dispensation, and every effort was made to suppress the commonalities. For the most part, this meant emphasizing the more obvious (and superficial) mythological and dogmatic differences, but this was hardly enough to demonstrate an essential practical difference between the visionary Eucharistic practices of the two competing Mystery Religions. In fact, the shared gnosis seemed to validate the syncretism and co-option that had so obviously occurred—even in the outward expressions—of the old and new “official” religions of the Empire. For the ancients, such a situation was the norm; that the unitive experiences elicited by the various Mysteries all demonstrated an essential and universal identification not only between the rites of particular gods and goddesses, but also between deities and the celebrant, and between the celebrant and the co-creative Cosmos as a whole.
Given such an underlying assumption of gnosis as a kind of basic and defining experience at the esoteric core of all the Mysteries, dogmatic and doctrinal differences were only of marginal concern and interest, and crass literal interpretations were easily abandoned in favor of a mythological richness infused and sacralized by a common gnosis.Mithraism, as we have shown, was a key and formative element in the radical syncretism that characterized much of Classical spirituality. Considered in these terms, it is important to note that Christianity came to stand in polar opposition to this synthesizing and comparatively tolerant attitude toward other religions. In fact, it is justifiable to consider the Christian claim, that of being the sole source of Salvation, as the only truly original and distinguishing characteristic of the new religion—this along with its insistence on the literal historical veracity of its Savior and His miracles. While Imperial Rome was singularly influential in popularizing and codifying both religions, we must recognize a common ecstatic and communal thread in them that starts in the earliest strata of Indo-European traditions and extends even into the present—intact in its esoteric, entheogenic essence.At the very root of the Mithraic Mysteries lay esoteric mythological, astrological, and pharmacological lore that was not easily to be suppressed, let alone destroyed. The long and almost unbelievably complex history of Mithraism in Eurasia had inseparably woven its mythopoeia into the very fabric of religious-intellectual, artistic, and literary culture throughout the Persian and Classical worlds. As Mithraism faded as a world religion, its venerable esoteric cannon became a river, fed by streams of derivative and original gnostic tradition. It is quite clearly this ancient torrent that sustained and characterized the post-Christian Hermetic and literary undercurrent, erupting throughout history in the various popular gnostic revivals, which were, repeatedly (and often violently), suppressed by the Church Triumphant, which opposed personal mysticism and insisted on imposing itself politically as the essential mediator with the deity.Surviving into modern times, and deriving from uncertain and legendary sources, Freemasonry3 is the most notable of the secret societies that have perpetuated the pre-Christian Mysteries. Although it is true that over the centuries the Masons have been accused of all manner of conspiratorial and diabolical activity (as has been the case with other ‘secret’ societies throughout history), this has been done with largely circumstantial evidence, partial understanding and paranoid zealotry. There can be no doubt, however, that Masonic lodges were indeed hotbeds of pro-revolutionary sentiment and the philosophies of the Enlightenment that opposed the feudal “Ancién Regime” with a “New World Order.”4 This new philosophy, in turn, was illuminated and inspired by the Classical Revival that had first found popular expression during the Renaissance. There can also be no doubt that Masonic membership was often made up of the social and intellectual elite who were the driving force behind the Revolutions that established the political reality of a new social paradigm—a paradigm that is at least as defining a characteristic of ‘modernity’ as the Industrial Revolution.Claiming to be the inheritors and preservers of ancient mysteries via direct lines of descent going back at least the time of the Knights Templar, Masonic symbolism does seem to betray a cohesive and accurate synopsis of the ancient Mysteries. Iconographic items such as the Sun, the all-seeing disembodied eye, the ouroboros, the sacred evergreen, and, most importantly for us, the red Phrygian cap atop a spear or Sword of the Accord are all elements well known to the ancient religions, possessing profound meanings to those initiates who learned of their true significance and interconnection.While most of these symbols are common to alchemical and Masonic imagery, the origins of the so-called ‘liberty pole’ and ‘liberty cap’ are less familiar. It goes without saying, however, that all elements are to be understood as cryptic references that simultaneously conceal and reveal arcane mysteries. The fundamental innovation promulgated in the revolutionary ideal is the dependence upon a kind of Natural Law—as well as the necessary and ongoing revelation of the natural, inalienable and sacred rights of citizens—as the nourishing and necessary spirit upon which a republican democracy might stand. Similarly, Thomas Jefferson appealed to the need for ‘eternal vigilance’ on the part of citizens in maintaining such a government.
While the American Revolution unfolded a world removed from the entrenched monarchies of Europe, the philosophical and political culture in which its revolutionary ideas fermented was fundamentally Continental. Encouraged by the American success, a democratic fervor set Europe—and especially France—ablaze with a call for an inevitable and radical reappraisal of basic political and social suppositions.The uncanny
correspondence between Mithraic, Alchemic, and revolutionary esoteric symbolism is clearly displayed in the various illuminated versions of the Declaration of the Rights of Man (Déclaration des droits de l’homme).
Around 8pm, on the 21st April 2011 police shut Gloucester Road, in Stokes Croft. Based on speculation and rumor from Tesco that lodgers of the squat across the road were making petrol bombs, the property was raided by the police. Allegedly they didn't arrest anyone. Before the police had time to pull out, word was out that the police were evicting the residents! Riots broke out. Main action was pushed back to Picton street and City Road by Riot police. Dogs were used, Fires were lit... eventually the police pulled back and the new Tesco store vandalized. Things fizzled out by about 5am.
ALL PHOTOGRAPHS ARE SUBJECT TO COPYRIGHT, please contact me if you with to use any.
22.04.2011
Original Caption: Shoreline of area near Kamuela which has been rezoned for urban use in the most recent and most controversial land speculation case, November 1973
U.S. National Archives’ Local Identifier: 412-DA-11719
Photographer: O'Rear, Charles, 1941-
Subjects:
Hilo (Hawaii)
Environmental Protection Agency
Project DOCUMERICA
Persistent URL: research.archives.gov/description/554171
Repository: Still Picture Records Section, Special Media Archives Services Division (NWCS-S), National Archives at College Park, 8601 Adelphi Road, College Park, MD, 20740-6001.
For information about ordering reproductions of photographs held by the Still Picture Unit, visit: www.archives.gov/research/order/still-pictures.html
Reproductions may be ordered via an independent vendor. NARA maintains a list of vendors at www.archives.gov/research/order/vendors-photos-maps-dc.html
Access Restrictions: Unrestricted
Use Restrictions: Unrestricted
Reconstruction of bronze Riace Warrior B, 2015–16, bronze cast, copper, stones, silver, gold, and asphalt, 215 x 40 x 72 cm, created by Vinzenz Brinkmann and Ulrike Koch-Brinkmann (Liebieghaus Skulpturensammlung, Polychromy Research Project, Frankfurt am Main and Soprintendenza Archeologica di Calabria)
Strathalbyn.
A Special Survey of 4,000 acres was taken out along the Angas River in 1839 for George Hall (secretary to Governor Gawler) and William Mein and others. Land was surveyed from the mouth of the Angas along the river to about where Macclesfield is now situated. Other contributors to the Mouth of the Angas Special Survey were Strathalbyn settlers including: 806 acres purchased by Dr John Rankine, Blackwood Park; 166 acres purchased by William Rankine, Glenbarr; 410 acres purchased by Donald McLean; 81 acres purchased by Edward and Charles Stirling of Hampton and later the Lodge. William and Nicol Mein kept 728 acres for themselves but George Hall (who kept about 930 acres) was a Colonial Office employee with an eye on speculation. He also paid £4,000 for the Great Bend Special Survey along the River Murray from Morgan to Blanchetown but it was claimed this was taken for Governor Gawler but in Hall’s name to avoid scandal! But the land was not worth £1 per acre! The Meins were graziers and also took out Occupational Licenses for leasehold land in 1843. They were Scots so they donated £600 for the building fund for the Presbyterian Church in Adelaide in 1840. But in 1843 they dissolved a business partnership in Adelaide and they appear to have left the colony perhaps to join their relatives in NSW. Meins did not stay on to become Strathalbyn pioneers unlike the Rankines, McLeans and Stirlings. The other prominent early founder was William Dawson- hence the creek flowing in front of Glen Barr is the Dawson Creek which enters the Angas River in Strathalbyn. Dawson Banks is another of the grand old properties in Strathalbyn.
Stirlings chose their land to the north of the town and built Hampden and the Lodge; John Rankine chose his land to the north of the town and built Blackwood Park whilst brother William Rankine chose land to the south on Dawson Creek and built Glenbarr house. The first public building in the fledgling town of Strathalbyn was the Strathalbyn Hotel erected in 1840 and the second was probably St. Andrews Presbyterian Church which opened in 1844 with additions in 1869. As most of the settlers were Scottish the name chosen for the town was Scottish and the first church was Presbyterian. The first farmer to produce a crop was David Gollan. His interest in wheat led him to open the first flour mill in 1850 in the centre of the town. Mill Bridge adjacent to the flourmill bridged the Angas River. As the town progressed quickly a local council was formed in 1854 with the Stirlings, Rankines and Archibald McLean (investor in Langhorne Creek) being among the first councillors. The Stirlings were especially important to Strathalbyn. Edward Stirling (the father) joined into a partnership with (Sir) Thomas Elder and Robert Barr Smith in 1855. Stirling stayed with the company as it funded the Moonta and Wallaroo copper mines in 1861 then he withdrew but remained as an investor in the mines. The company went on to become Elder Smith and Co the most successful SA 19th century company. Edward Stirling had two sons, (Sir) Edward Stirling a famed surgeon who lived at St. Vigeans at Stirling and (Sir) Lancelot Stirling, local Member of Parliament for the Strathalbyn district, sheep and cattle breeder and company director. The Stirlings lived in the family home Hampden until it burnt down around 1870. Then they moved into the Lodge which was extended and remained the family home for Sir Lancelot Stirling after his father Edward died in 1873. Lancelot lived there until he died in 1932. The Stirlings of Strathalbyn also owned and operated Nalpa Station on Lake Albert. The Lodge is now the centre of a new suburban development at Strathalbyn.
From the beginning Strathalbyn prospered because of its access to water from the Angas River, its reliable rainfall, its genial climate for cropping and from the patronage of its wealthy founders. The town was laid out in 1840 and blocks sold at that time. The discovery of silver, lead and zinc at nearby Wheal Ellen mine in 1857 further boosted the growing town. The mine closed a short time later but re-opened in 1869 and operated until closure in 1888. It briefly re-opened from 1910-14 for the last phase. Until recently Strathalbyn had another zinc mine conducted by Terramin Mining which started operations in 2007. The zinc from here was sent to Nyrstar refinery at Port Pirie for smelting. The mining occurred 360 metres below the ground surface. The mine had a life of five years and closed in late 2013 ending the jobs of 115 local people. But Strathalbyn has always had a range of local industry. A foundry operated in the town from the mid 1850s as well as the usual businesses of blacksmith, saddlery etc, and the town handled coach services to Wellington via Langhorne Creek from around 1854. It was also one of the first towns in SA to have its own gas works started by David Trenouth in 1868. By 1870 the small urban centre of Strathalbyn had gas street lights! The gas works operated until 1917 when an electrical service took over power provision. From an early date Strathalbyn also had its own newspaper and printing press the Southern Argus housed in Argus House which was built 1867/68. The Southern Argus which is still published, is SA’s oldest country newspaper. In 1912 it established an offshoot - the Victor Harbor Times. In terms of transportation and the transport of goods Strathalbyn prospered as it was the terminus of the horse drawn tram service from Port Elliott and Goolwa in 1869. That is why the Terminus Hotel is so named. In 1884 that line was converted to a broad gauge rail line for steam engines and linked at Mt Barker with the line to Adelaide. Strathalbyn had a flour mill from 1850 as noted above and in the 1860s the town had its own brewery. The heyday of business boom for Strathalbyn was in the 1860s and 1870 when so many of the fine town buildings were erected. Heritage buildings are shown on map above and they include:
Commercial Street/Dawson Street.
•At the northern end of Commercial Street on the corner with North Parade is the Doctor’s Residence. 26 North Parade. Dr Herbert built a grand 8 roomed residence here in 1858. Dr Ferguson purchased it in 1869 and added and altered the verandas. Dr Shone bought it in 1897. Dr Formby took it over in 1907 and kept it until he sold it to Dr Fairley in 1979! Note the double chimneys and the ogee(S shaped) gutters above the bay windows and the 1850s French windows.
•On the northern end of Commercial Street is the Wesleyan Methodist Church which was built in 1874. It replaced the demolished Methodist church built in 1854. Built of random stone, semi rounded windows etc. It became the only Methodist church at the time of Methodist amalgamations in 1900 .It closed around the time of amalgamation with the Presbyterians and Congregationalists in 1977. The Hall was added in 1939.
•Blackwell House, 18 Commercial Street. A two storey bluestone structure from the 1860s. It was much altered in 1912 when the parapet along the roof was removed, the slate replaced with iron and the upper balcony added.
•The former Power House 1917 –when gas works closed. Became Council Chamber 1939 when ETSA arrived.
•Coleman Mill store. Fine stone building with few windows. Built 1864. Coleman bought the mill from Gollan.
•1850 flour mill which was sold to Laucke’s in 1938. Commercial Rd and Mill Street an imposing four storey structure. Note the four storeys, purple sandstone, and little windows.
•Beside the mill is Water Villa house. The earliest part dates from 1849 and the Italianate bay window sections are 1879. David Gollan the owner of the 1850 flour mill built this as his residence. It is a mixture of stones. Note the French doors in the old original part of the house onto the veranda.
•Argus House, 1868. 33 Commercial Street. It was a print works and residence and shop.
•Post Office 1911. 37 Commercial Street.
•Savings Banks of South Australia. A fine two storey structure for the bank and manager’s residence. Built in 1930. It has rough stone, prominent gables, repeating arches, wooden doors, and terra cotta tiles.
•Church of Christ. Opened in 1873.Limestone walls, arched windows.
•Masonic Hall built in 1896 but Lodge established 1866.Additons 1912 and 1957.
Rankine Street/Albyn Terrace.
•Strathalbyn Police Station (1855) and Court House (1865) now the National Trust Museum.
•National Bank 2 Albyn Terrace. Squared stone blocks, two storeys and a dominant building. Elaborate porch and balcony and decorative window surrounds etc. Erected in 1869. Nearby Norfolk Island pine was planted in 1895.
•Tucker & Sons solicitors at 8 Albyn Terrace. Have a look at all the shops along Albyn Terrace a great 19th century streetscape still largely intact. It was used in the film “Picnic at Hanging Rock.”
High Street.
•London House general store at 7 High Street 1867. Now an antiques shop. Cobb and Co used to use the stables at the rear for the daily coaching service to Adelaide. London House had the first telephone in Strathalbyn in 1883.
•Robin Hood hotel erected in 1855 and still standing. 18 High Street.
•The Strathalbyn library 9 High Street. Opened 1922 with a classical façade with good symmetry.
•The Town Hall at 11 High Street. 1874 opened as a two storey stone structure with fancy parapet as an institute building. The parapet is supported by paired brackets.
Other locations- Chapel Street, East Terrace and South Terrace.
•St. Andrews Uniting Church (formerly Presbyterian) 1844 for main church with transept added 1857. Manse erected 1854. 1869 tower completed, bell donated by Edward Stirling. Clock installed 1895. Church hall on the opposite corner was built in 1911.
•Former Primitive Methodist Church 1861 was sold to the Anglican Church as a church hall in 1901 following the Methodist amalgamation. It was sold to the Foresters Lodge in 1912(when Anglicans purchased the former Catholic Church) and much later it as sold to the Scouts.
•St. Barnabas Catholic Church 2 Chapel Street. This was a late addition to Strathalbyn being erected in 1913. But Catholic services began in 1881 when a Catholic church was consecrated in Rowe St. The first priest arrived in 1906. A presbytery as built 1911 in East Tce and then church two years later. The 1881 church was sold in 1913 as Anglican parish hall called St. Barnabas. It is on the corner of Rowe and Murray street.
•Christ Church Anglican Church 7 East Terrace. The tower on Christ Church was erected from donations on the death of Sir Lancelot Stirling in 1932. The tower opened in 1933 but the church was built in 1871.
•Railway Station on South Terrace erected 1883 in time for opening of broad gauge line to Adelaide and start of branch line trains to Milang from Sandergrove siding.
•Two storey residence attached to Rowe’s foundry in South Terrace. Britannia House as it is known was built in 1855.
Valley View, Yosemite Valley, Yosemite National Park, CA, 1/27/2010
Linhof Master Technika 2000 camera, 150mm Schneider Symmar-S f/5.6 lens, Fujicolor Pro 160S film, 3 exposures, 184 megapixels
Valley View is the last pullout from westbound Northside Drive (CA 140) that offers a grand view of Yosemite Valley and the Merced River. Here it is at dawn, shrouded in fog a couple of mornings after a heavy winter snowfall. At this time of day, especially in winter, the only people you'll meet at a place like this are other serious photographers. On this morning I met two other photographers here, each using a 4x5 view camera similar to mine. We traded stories and speculations about the future of film photography as we watched the fog move around - always changing shape.
Like tulips, wealth can wither and bloom again
Whether it is 17th-century flowerbulbs or 21st-century property, there is nothing new about irrational speculation
Ben Macintyre
From The Times
January 8, 2009
The roots of our economic uncertainty are entwined with those of the tulip, a Turkish wildflower that begins life as an ugly brown bulb and grows into a plant of voluptuous beauty and vivid colours, a source of fascination, speculation and disappointment. To understand where we are now, we must go back to 17th-century Holland and the peculiar story of tulipmania, the expansion and explosion of a flower bubble, an enduring, myth-coloured saga of bloom and bust.
This tale of horticulture and money is more than three centuries old; but replace “tulip” with “art market”, “housing bubble”, “Icelandic savings account”, “mortgage-backed securities”, “credit derivative” or “overleveraged hedge fund” and what's past is prologue.
The story of tulipmania has been explored by Simon Schama, J.K. Galbraith, Deborah Moggach, Anna Pavord and any number of modern economists, but it was first seized on as an example of speculative financial frenzy by a 19th-century Scottish journalist, Charles Mackay, in his book Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds.
The first tulip was imported from the Ottoman Empire in 1593 and immediately flourished in the Netherlands, becoming an emblem of the Golden Age, a luxury and a status symbol. Fashion and social competition fuelled the tulip boom: where today a billionaire might flaunt his car, his art, a trophy wife or a football club, among Dutch burghers the bling was botanical.
Times Archive, 1825: Tulipomania
At first everyone won, and no one lost: some of the poorest people gained in a few months houses, coaches and horses
BACKGROUND
Blowing bubbles: the true story of tulipmania
The year the bubble burst
Super-rich reel as fortunes cut in half
Frauds are the inevitable hangover of a boom
The tulip proved extraordinarily adaptable. A degenerative virus, unique to tulips, shot veins through the bloom, producing extraordinarily beautiful (but unpredictable) colour combinations: these “broken tulips” - flower derivatives, if you will - commanded extraordinary prices. With inescapable symbolism, the disease created value.
The Dutch did not tiptoe through the tulips: they stampeded after them. Traders met in taverns to buy and sell contracts to purchase tulips as yet ungrown: in effect, flower futures. The traders and producers gave their products ever more pompous and inflated names. Short- selling on tulips was banned, but people bought tulips at higher and higher prices, convinced that they could always sell at a profit later.
Bubonic plague may have contributed to the culture of risk-taking, encouraging speculators to take wild gambles in the knowledge that disaster and oblivion might loom, in the same way that some analysts trace the recent borrowing and speculating binge to the uncertainties of our own age.
Mackay vividly described the insanity: “Many individuals grew suddenly rich. A golden bait hung temptingly out before the people, and, one after the other, they rushed to the tulip marts, like flies around a honeypot. Every one imagined that the passion for tulips would last for ever.” A few acute observers nicknamed this phantom money windhandel (literally “wind trade”), so much hot air. But then, as now, the windhandel was blowing so hard that few could hear the warnings.
Tulipmania reached its peak in the winter of 1636. The stories, many apocryphal, circulated as fast as the paper wealth: of the seaman who accidentally ate a prize tulip, thinking it an onion, and was immediately imprisoned (with an expensive stomach ache); of the single bulb sold for 6,700 guilders, the average man's wage for 45 years, and the cost of a substantial house. These were the 17th-century Dutch equivalents of Damien Hirst's bejewelled skull, the Chelsea broom cupboard sold for £170,000, the millionaires munching gold-leaf-wrapped sushi.
In February 1637 bulbs were selling for 20 times the value of four months earlier. Then, suddenly, they were worth virtually nothing. Bulb contract prices collapsed; no more buyers could be found for the artificially inflated prices, and the system of leveraging, attaching huge prices to future bulbs without laying out cash, wilted dramatically.
Irrational exuberance turned to panic and despair; ruined bulb traders were said to have been found floating in the canals of Amsterdam.
“Confidence was destroyed, and a universal panic seized upon the dealers,” wrote Mackay. “Defaulters were announced day after day in all the towns of Holland. Hundreds who, a few months previously, had begun to doubt that there was such a thing as poverty in the land, suddenly found themselves the possessors of a few bulbs, which nobody would buy.”
Later economists challenge Mackay's sensationalist account of crowd psychology, arguing that the tulip crash was less spectacular than claimed, and the fallout less devastating for the Dutch economy. Many of his “facts” were lifted from anti-speculative, religiously driven propaganda. With a frugal Scottish eye he looked on the supposed frenzy and was scandalised: “Sober nations have all at once become desperate gamblers, and risked almost their existence upon the turn of a piece of paper.”
Tulip mania was a metaphor for the uncertainties of the Dutch Golden Age, and for every golden age since, just as the displays of conspicuous consumption in Dutch still-life painting reflected anxieties about wealth and material objects. That a mere flower could be worth so much, even before it had flowered, and then so little, raised doubts about what value might really mean.
That same moralising tone can be found in contemporary reactions to the sudden economic slide, in which crashing house prices are seen as retribution for extravagance, greed and gambling. As we don hair shirts, it is worth recalling that economies, like tulips, have a distinct life cycle.
The rise and fall of the exotic tulip left the Dutch economy in trauma, but it recovered a more rational sense of financial worth. The Dutch tulip industry survived, thrived and has endured. The tulips bulbs for this year's crop have already been planted in the welcoming, sandy soil of the Netherlands, and next spring they will bloom again.
Abraxas (Biblical Greek: ἀβραξάς, romanized: abraxas, variant form ἀβρασάξ romanized: abrasax) is a word of mystic meaning in the system of the Gnostic Basilides, being there applied to the "Great Archon" (megas archōn), the princeps of the 365 spheres (ouranoi).[1] The word is found in Gnostic texts such as the Holy Book of the Great Invisible Spirit, and also appears in the Greek Magical Papyri. It was engraved on certain antique gemstones, called on that account Abraxas stones, which were used as amulets or charms.[2] As the initial spelling on stones was Abrasax (Αβρασαξ), the spelling of Abraxas seen today probably originates in the confusion made between the Greek letters sigma (Σ) and xi (Ξ) in the Latin transliteration.
The seven letters spelling its name may represent each of the seven classic planets.[3] The word may be related to Abracadabra, although other explanations exist.
There are similarities and differences between such figures in reports about Basilides's teaching, ancient Gnostic texts, the larger Greco-Roman magical traditions, and modern magical and esoteric writings. Speculations have proliferated on Abraxas in recent centuries, who has been claimed to be both an Egyptian god and a demon.[4]
Contents
1Etymology
1.1Egyptian
1.2Hebrew
1.3Greek
2Sources
2.1As an Archon
2.2As a god
2.3As an Aeon
2.4As a demon
3Abraxas stones
3.1Gallery
3.2Anguipede
3.3Origin
3.4Magical papyri
4In literature
5In popular culture
6See also
7References
7.1Citations
7.2Works cited
7.3General references
7.4Attribution
8Further reading
9External links
Etymology
Gaius Julius Hyginus (Fab. 183) gives Abrax Aslo Therbeeo as names of horses of the sun mentioned by 'Homerus'. The passage is miserably corrupt: but it may not be accidental that the first three syllables make Abraxas.
The proper form of the name is evidently Abrasax, as with the Greek writers, Hippolytus, Epiphanias, Didymus (De Trin. iii. 42), and Theodoret; also Augustine and Praedestinatus; and in nearly all the legends on gems. By a probably euphonic inversion the translator of Irenaeus and the other Latin authors have Abraxas, which is found in the magical papyri, and even, though most sparingly, on engraved stones.
The attempts to discover a derivation for the name, Greek, Hebrew, Coptic, or other, have not been entirely successful:
Egyptian
Claudius Salmasius (1588-1653) thought it Egyptian, but never gave the proofs which he promised.
J. J. Bellermann thinks it a compound of the Egyptian words abrak and sax, meaning "the honorable and hallowed word", or "the word is adorable".
Samuel Sharpe finds in it an Egyptian invocation to the Godhead, meaning "hurt me not".
Hebrew
Abraham Geiger sees in it a Grecized form of ha-berakhah, "the blessing", a meaning which C. W. King declares philologically untenable.
J. B. Passerius derives it from abh, "father", bara, "to create", and a- negative—"the uncreated Father".
Giuseppe Barzilai goes back for explanation to the first verse of the prayer attributed to Nehunya ben HaKanah, the literal rendering of which is "O [God], with thy mighty right hand deliver the unhappy [people]", forming from the initial and final letters of the words the word Abrakd (pronounced Abrakad), with the meaning "the host of the winged ones", i.e., angels. While this theory can explain the mystic word Abracadabra, the association of this phrase with Abrasax is uncertain.
Greek
Wendelin discovers a compound of the initial letters, amounting to 365 in numerical value, of four Hebrew and three Greek words, all written with Greek characters: ab, ben, rouach, hakadōs; sōtēria apo xylou ("Father, Son, Spirit, holy; salvation from the cross").
According to a note of Isaac de Beausobre's, Jean Hardouin accepted the first three of these, taking the four others for the initials of the Greek anthrōpoussōzōn hagiōi xylōi, "saving mankind by the holy cross".
Isaac de Beausobre derives Abraxas from the Greek habros and saō, "the beautiful, the glorious Savior".
Perhaps the word may be included among those mysterious expressions discussed by Adolf von Harnack,[5] "which belong to no known speech, and by their singular collocation of vowels and consonants give evidence that they belong to some mystic dialect, or take their origin from some supposed divine inspiration".
The Egyptian author of the book De Mysteriis in reply to Porphyry (vii. 4) admits a preference of 'barbarous' to vernacular names in sacred things, urging a peculiar sanctity in the languages of certain nations, as the Egyptians and Assyrians; and Origen (Contra Cels. i. 24) refers to the 'potent names' used by Egyptian sages, Persian Magi, and Indian Brahmins, signifying deities in the several languages.
Sources
It is uncertain what the actual role and function of Abraxas was in the Basilidian system, as our authorities (see below) often show no direct acquaintance with the doctrines of Basilides himself.
As an Archon
Gemstone carved with Abraxas, obverse and reverse.
In the system described by Irenaeus, "the Unbegotten Father" is the progenitor of Nous, and Nous produced Logos, Logos produced Phronesis, Phronesis produced Sophia and Dynamis, Sophia and Dynamis produced principalities, powers, and angels, the last of whom create "the first heaven". They in turn originate a second series, who create a second heaven. The process continues in like manner until 365 heavens are in existence, the angels of the last or visible heaven being the authors of our world.[2] "The ruler" [principem, i.e., probably ton archonta] of the 365 heavens "is Abraxas, and for this reason he contains within himself 365 numbers".
The name occurs in the Refutation of all Heresies (vii. 26) by Hippolytus, who appears in these chapters to have followed the Exegetica of Basilides. After describing the manifestation of the Gospel in the Ogdoad and Hebdomad, he adds that the Basilidians have a long account of the innumerable creations and powers in the several 'stages' of the upper world (diastemata), in which they speak of 365 heavens and say that "their great archon" is Abrasax, because his name contains the number 365, the number of the days in the year; i.e. the sum of the numbers denoted by the Greek letters in ΑΒΡΑΣΑΞ according to the rules of isopsephy is 365:
Α = 1, Β = 2, Ρ = 100, Α = 1, Σ = 200, Α = 1, Ξ = 60
As a god
Epiphanius (Haer. 69, 73 f.) appears to follow partly Irenaeus, partly the lost Compendium of Hippolytus.[6] He designates Abraxas more distinctly as "the power above all, and First Principle", "the cause and first archetype" of all things; and mentions that the Basilidians referred to 365 as the number of parts (mele) in the human body, as well as of days in the year.
The author of the appendix to Tertullian De Praescr. Haer. (c. 4), who likewise follows Hippolytus's Compendium,[7] adds some further particulars; that 'Abraxas' gave birth to Mind (nous), the first in the series of primary powers enumerated likewise by Irenaeus and Epiphanius; that the world, as well as the 365 heavens, was created in honour of 'Abraxas'; and that Christ was sent not by the Maker of the world but by 'Abraxas'.
Nothing can be built on the vague allusions of Jerome, according to whom 'Abraxas' meant for Basilides "the greatest God" (De vir. ill. 21), "the highest God" (Dial. adv. Lucif. 23), "the Almighty God" (Comm. in Amos iii. 9), and "the Lord the Creator" (Comm. in Nah. i. 11). The notices in Theodoret (Haer. fab. i. 4), Augustine (Haer. 4), and 'Praedestinatus' (i. 3), have no independent value.
It is evident from these particulars that Abrasax was the name of the first of the 365 Archons, and accordingly stood below Sophia and Dynamis and their progenitors; but his position is not expressly stated, so that the writer of the supplement to Tertullian had some excuse for confusing him with "the Supreme God".
As an Aeon
Abraxas from Infernal Dictionary, 6th Edition, 1863
With the availability of primary sources, such as those in the Nag Hammadi library, the identity of Abrasax remains unclear. The Holy Book of the Great Invisible Spirit, for instance, refers to Abrasax as an Aeon dwelling with Sophia and other Aeons of the Pleroma in the light of the luminary Eleleth. In several texts, the luminary Eleleth is the last of the luminaries (Spiritual Lights) that come forward, and it is the Aeon Sophia, associated with Eleleth, who encounters darkness and becomes involved in the chain of events that leads to the Demiurge's rule of this world, and the salvage effort that ensues. As such, the role of Aeons of Eleleth, including Abraxas, Sophia, and others, pertains to this outer border of the Pleroma that encounters the ignorance of the world of Lack and interacts to rectify the error of ignorance in the world of materiality.
As a demon
The Catholic church later deemed Abraxas a pagan god, and ultimately branded him a demon as documented in J. Collin de Plancy's Infernal Dictionary, Abraxas (or Abracax) is labeled the "supreme God" of the Basilidians, whom he describes as "heretics of the second century". He further indicated the Basilidians attributed to Abraxas the rule over "365 skies" and "365 virtues". In a final statement on Basilidians, de Plancy states that their view was that Jesus Christ was merely a "benevolent ghost sent on Earth by Abraxas".[8]
Abraxas stones
A vast number of engraved stones are in existence, to which the name "Abraxas-stones" has long been given. One particularly fine example was included as part of the Thetford treasure from fourth century Norfolk, England. The subjects are mythological, and chiefly grotesque, with various inscriptions, in which ΑΒΡΑΣΑΞ often occurs, alone or with other words. Sometimes the whole space is taken up with the inscription. In certain obscure magical writings of Egyptian origin ἀβραξάς or ἀβρασάξ is found associated with other names which frequently accompany it on gems;[9] it is also found on the Greek metal tesseræ among other mystic words. The meaning of the legends is seldom intelligible: but some of the gems are amulets; and the same may be the case with nearly all.
A print from Bernard de Montfaucon's L'antiquité expliquée et représentée en figures (Band 2,2 page 358 ff plaque 144) with different images of Abraxas.
The Abrasax-image alone, without external Iconisms, and either without, or but a simple, inscription. The Abrasax-imago proper is usually found with a shield, a sphere or wreath and whip, a sword or sceptre, a cock's head, the body clad with armor, and a serpent's tail. There are, however, innumerable modifications of these figures: Lions', hawks', and eagles' skins, with or without mottos, with or without a trident and star, and with or without reverses.
Abrasax combined with other Gnostic Powers. If, in a single instance, this supreme being was represented in connection with powers of subordinate rank, nothing could have been more natural than to represent it also in combination with its emanations, the seven superior spirits, the thirty Aeons, and the three hundred and sixty-five cosmical Genii; and yet this occurs upon none of the relics as yet discovered, whilst those with Powers not belonging to the Gnostic system are frequently met with.
Abrasax with Jewish symbols. This combination predominates, not indeed with symbolical figures, but in the form of inscriptions, such as: Iao, Eloai, Adonai, Sabaoth, Michael, Gabriel, Uriel, Onoel, Ananoel, Raphael, Japlael, and many others. The name ΙΑΩ, to which ΣΑΒΑΩΘ is sometimes added, is found with this figure even more frequently than ΑΒΡΑΣΑΞ, and they are often combined. Beside an Abrasax figure the following, for instance, is found: ΙΑΩ ΑΒΡΑΣΑΞ ΑΔΩΝ ΑΤΑ, "Iao Abrasax, thou art the Lord".[10] With the Abrasax-shield are also found the divine names Sabaoth Iao, Iao Abrasax, Adonai Abrasax, etc.[11]
Abrasax with Persian deities. Chiefly, perhaps exclusively, in combination with Mithras, and possibly a few specimens with the mystical gradations of mithriaca, upon Gnostic relics.
Abrasax with Egyptian deities. It is represented as a figure, with the sun-god Phre leading his chariot, or standing upon a lion borne by a crocodile; also as a name, in connection with Isis, Phtha, Neith, Athor, Thot, Anubis, Horus, and Harpocrates in a Lotus-leaf; also with a representation of the Nile, the symbol of prolificacy, with Agathodaemon (Chnuphis), or with scarabs, the symbols of the revivifying energies of nature.
Abrasax with Grecian deities, sometimes as a figure, and again with the simple name, in connection with the planets, especially Venus, Hecate, and Zeus, richly engraved.
Simple or ornamental representations of the journey of departed spirits through the starry world to Amenti, borrowed, as those above-named, from the Egyptian religion. The spirit wafted from the earth, either with or without the corpse, and transformed at times into Osiris or Helios, is depicted as riding upon the back of a crocodile, or lion, guided in some instances by Anubis, and other genii, and surrounded by stars; and thus attended hastening to judgment and a higher life.
Representations of the judgment, which, like the preceding, are either ornamental or plain, and imitations of Egyptian art, with slight modifications and prominent symbols, as the vessel in which Anubis weighs the human heart, as comprehending the entire life of man, with all its errors.
Worship and consecrating services were, according to the testimony of Origen in his description of the ophitic diagram, conducted with figurative representations in the secret assemblies of the Gnostics unless indeed the statement on which this opinion rests designates, as it readily may, a statue of glyptic workmanship. It is uncertain if any of the discovered specimens actually represent the Gnostic cultus and religious ceremonies, although upon some may be seen an Abrasax-figure laying its hand upon a person kneeling, as though for baptism or benediction.
Astrological groups. The Gnostics referred everything to astrology. Even the Bardesenists located the inferior powers, the seven, twelve and thirty-six, among the planets, in the zodiac and starry region, as rulers of the celestial phenomena which influence the earth and its inhabitants. Birth and health, wealth and allotment, are considered to be mainly under their control. Other sects betray still stronger partiality for astrological conceits. Many of these specimens also are improperly ascribed to Gnosticism, but the Gnostic origin of others is too manifest to allow of contradiction.
Inscriptions, of which there are three kinds:
Those destitute of symbols or iconisms, engraved upon stone, iron, lead and silver plates, in Greek, Latin, Coptic or other languages, of amuletic import, and in the form of prayers for health and protection.
Those with some symbol, as a serpent in an oval form.
Those with iconisms, at times very small, but often made the prominent object, so that the legend is limited to a single word or name. Sometimes the legends are as important as the images. It is remarkable, however, that thus far none of the plates or medals found seem to have any of the forms or prayers reported by Origen. It is necessary to distinguish those specimens that belong to the proper Gnostic period from such as are indisputably of later origin, especially since there is a strong temptation to place those of more recent date among the older class.
Gallery
Prints from Bernard de Montfaucon's L'antiquité expliquée et représentée en figures (Band 2,2) page 358 ff.
Plaque 144
Plaque 144
Plaque 145
Plaque 145
Plaque 146
Plaque 146
Plaque 147
Plaque 147
Plaque 148
Plaque 148
Plaque 149
Plaque 149
Anguipede
Engraving from an Abrasax stone.
In a great majority of instances the name Abrasax is associated with a singular composite figure, having a Chimera-like appearance somewhat resembling a basilisk or the Greek primordial god Chronos (not to be confused with the Greek titan Cronus). According to E. A. Wallis Budge, "as a Pantheus, i.e. All-God, he appears on the amulets with the head of a cock (Phœbus) or of a lion (Ra or Mithras), the body of a man, and his legs are serpents which terminate in scorpions, types of the Agathodaimon. In his right hand he grasps a club, or a flail, and in his left is a round or oval shield." This form was also referred to as the Anguipede. Budge surmised that Abrasax was "a form of the Adam Kadmon of the Kabbalists and the Primal Man whom God made in His own image".[12]
Some parts at least of the figure mentioned above are solar symbols, and the Basilidian Abrasax is manifestly connected with the sun. J. J. Bellermann has speculated that "the whole represents the Supreme Being, with his Five great Emanations, each one pointed out by means of an expressive emblem. Thus, from the human body, the usual form assigned to the Deity, forasmuch as it is written that God created man in his own image, issue the two supporters, Nous and Logos, symbols of the inner sense and the quickening understanding, as typified by the serpents, for the same reason that had induced the old Greeks to assign this reptile for an attribute to Pallas. His head—a cock's—represents Phronesis, the fowl being emblematical of foresight and vigilance. His two hands bear the badges of Sophia and Dynamis, the shield of Wisdom, and the scourge of Power."[13]
Origin
In the absence of other evidence to show the origin of these curious relics of antiquity the occurrence of a name known as Basilidian on patristic authority has not unnaturally been taken as a sufficient mark of origin, and the early collectors and critics assumed this whole group to be the work of Gnostics. During the last three centuries attempts have been made to sift away successively those gems that had no claim to be considered in any sense Gnostic, or specially Basilidian, or connected with Abrasax. The subject is one which has exercised the ingenuity of many savants, but it may be said that all the engraved stones fall into three classes:[14]
Abrasax, or stones of Basilidian origin[14]
Abrasaxtes, or stones originating in ancient forms of worship and adapted by the Gnostics[14]
Abraxoïdes, or stones absolutely unconnected with the doctrine of Basilides[14]
While it would be rash to assert positively that no existing gems were the work of Gnostics, there is no valid reason for attributing all of them to such an origin. The fact that the name occurs on these gems in connection with representations of figures with the head of a cock, a lion, or an ass, and the tail of a serpent was formerly taken in the light of what Irenaeus says about the followers of Basilides:
These men, moreover, practise magic, and use images, incantations, invocations, and every other kind of curious art. Coining also certain names as if they were those of the angels, they proclaim some of these as belonging to the first, and others to the second heaven; and then they strive to set forth the names, principles, angels, and powers of the 365 imagined heavens.
— Adversus hæreses, I. xxiv. 5; cf. Epiph. Haer. 69 D; Philastr. Suer. 32
Incantations by mystic names were characteristic of the hybrid Gnosticism planted in Spain and southern Gaul at the end of the fourth century and at the beginning of the fifth, which Jerome connects with Basilides and which (according to his Epist., lxxv.) used the name Abrasax.
It is therefore not unlikely that some Gnostics used amulets, though the confident assertions of modern writers to this effect rest on no authority. Isaac de Beausobre properly calls attention to the significant silence of Clement in the two passages in which he instructs the Christians of Alexandria on the right use of rings and gems, and the figures which may legitimately be engraved on them (Paed. 241 ff.; 287 ff.). But no attempt to identify the figures on existing gems with the personages of Gnostic mythology has had any success, and Abrasax is the only Gnostic term found in the accompanying legends that is not known to belong to other religions or mythologies. The present state of the evidence therefore suggests that their engravers and the Basilidians received the mystic name from a common source now unknown.
Magical papyri
Having due regard to the magic papyri, in which many of the unintelligible names of the Abrasax-stones reappear, besides directions for making and using gems with similar figures and formulas for magical purposes, it can scarcely be doubted that many of these stones are pagan amulets and instruments of magic.
The magic papyri reflect the same ideas as the Abrasax-gems and often bear Hebraic names of God.[15] The following example is illustrative: "I conjure you by Iaō Sabaōth Adōnai Abrasax, and by the great god, Iaeō".[16][17] The patriarchs are sometimes addressed as deities; for which fact many instances may be adduced. In the group "Iakoubia, Iaōsabaōth Adōnai Abrasax",[16][18] the first name seems to be composed of Jacob and Ya. Similarly, entities considered angels in Judaism are invoked as gods alongside Abrasax: thus "I conjure you ... by the god Michaēl, by the god Souriēl, by the god Gabriēl, by the god Raphaēl, by the god Abrasax Ablathanalba Akrammachari ...".[16]
In text PGM V. 96-172, Abrasax is identified as part of the "true name which has been transmitted to the prophets of Israel" of the "Headless One, who created heaven and earth, who created night and day ... Osoronnophris whom none has ever seen ... awesome and invisible god with an empty spirit"; the name also includes Iaō and Adōnai.[16] "Osoronnophris" represents Egyptian Wsir Wn-nfr, "Osiris the Perfect Being".[16] Another identification with Osiris is made in PGM VII. 643-51: "you are not wine, but the guts of Osiris, the guts of ... Ablanathanalba Akrammachamarei Eee, who has been stationed over necessity, Iakoub Ia Iaō Sabaōth Adōnai Abrasax."[16] PGM VIII. 1-63, on the other hand, identifies Abrasax as a name of "Hermes" (i.e. Thoth).[16] Here the numerological properties of the name are invoked, with its seven letters corresponding to the seven planets and its isopsephic value of 365 corresponding to the days of the year.[16] Thoth is also identified with Abrasax in PGM LXXIX. 1-7: "I am the soul of darkness, Abrasax, the eternal one, Michaēl, but my true name is Thōouth, Thōouth."[16]
One papyrus titled the "Monad" or the "Eighth Book of Moses" (PGM XIII. 1–343) contains an invocation to a supreme creator God; Abrasax is given as being the name of this God in the language of the baboons.[16] The papyrus goes on to describe a cosmogonic myth about Abrasax, describing how he created the Ogdoad by laughing. His first laughter created light; his second divided the primordial waters; his third created the mind; his fourth created fertility and procreation; his fifth created fate; his sixth created time (as the sun and moon); and his seventh and final laughter created the soul.[16] Then, from various sounds made by Abrasax, there arose the serpent Python who "foreknew all things", the first man (or Fear), and the god Iaō, "who is lord of all".[16] The man fought with Iaō, and Abrasax declared that Iaō's power would derive from both of the others, and that Iaō would take precedence over all the other gods.[16] This text also describes Helios as an archangel of God/Abrasax.[16]
The Leyden Papyrus recommends that this invocation be pronounced to the moon:
[24] Ho! Sax, Amun, Sax, Abrasax; for thou art the moon, (25) the chief of the stars, he that did form them, listen to the things that I have(?) said, follow the (words) of my mouth, reveal thyself to me, Than, (26) Thana, Thanatha, otherwise Thei, this is my correct name.[19]
The magic word "Ablanathanalba", which reads in Greek the same backward as forward, also occurs in the Abrasax-stones as well as in the magic papyri. This word is usually conceded to be derived from the Hebrew (Aramaic), meaning "Thou art our father" (אב לן את), and also occurs in connection with Abrasax; the following inscription is found upon a metal plate in the Karlsruhe Museum:[15]
АВРАΣАΞ
ΑΒΛΑΝΑΘ
ΑΝΑΛΒΑ
In literature
Medieval seal representing Abraxas.[20]
In the 1516 novel Utopia by Thomas More, the island called Utopia once had the name "Abraxa", which scholars have suggested is a related use.[21]
Jacques Collin de Plancy's Dictionnaire Infernal (Infernal Dictionary), published in 1818, states that Abraxas (or Abracax) was an anguipede (a deity represented with snake feet) pagan God of "Asian theogonies" with a "rooster's head, dragon's feet and a whip in his hand". De Plancy says that demonologists describe Abraxas as a demon having a "king's head and snakes in lieu of feet".[8]
Abrasax is invoked in Aleister Crowley's 1913 work, "The Gnostic Mass" of Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica:
IO IO IO IAO SABAO KURIE ABRASAX KURIE MEITHRAS KURIE PHALLE. IO PAN, IO PAN PAN IO ISCHUROS, IO ATHANATOS IO ABROTOS IO IAO. KAIRE PHALLE KAIRE PAMPHAGE KAIRE PANGENETOR. HAGIOS, HAGIOS, HAGIOS IAO.[22]
Abraxas is an important figure in Carl Jung's 1916 book Seven Sermons to the Dead, a representation of the driving force of individuation (synthesis, maturity, oneness), referred with the figures for the driving forces of differentiation (emergence of consciousness and opposites), Helios God-the-Sun, and the Devil.[23]
There is a God about whom you know nothing, because men have forgotten him. We call him by his name: Abraxas. He is less definite than God or Devil. ... Abraxas is activity: nothing can resist him but the unreal ... Abraxas stands above the sun[-god] and above the devil If the Pleroma were capable of having a being, Abraxas would be its manifestation.
— 2nd Sermon
That which is spoken by God-the-Sun is life; that which is spoken by the Devil is death; Abraxas speaketh that hallowed and accursed word, which is life and death at the same time. Abraxas begetteth truth and lying, good and evil, light and darkness in the same word and in the same act. Wherefore is Abraxas terrible.
— 3rd Sermon
Several references to the god Abraxas appear in Hermann Hesse's 1919 novel Demian, such as:
The bird fights its way out of the egg. The egg is the world. Who would be born must first destroy a world. The bird flies to God. That God's name is Abraxas.
— Max Demian
... it appears that Abraxas has much deeper significance. We may conceive of the name as that of the godhead whose symbolic task is the uniting of godly and devilish elements.
— Dr. Follens
Abraxas doesn't take exception to any of your thoughts or any of your dreams. Never forget that. But he will leave you once you become blameless and normal.
— Pistorius
In James Branch Cabell's novel Jurgen (1919) in Chapter 44: In the Manager's Office, Koshchei, who made all things as they are, when identified as Koshchei the Deathless, calls himself "Koshchei, or Adnari, or Ptha, or Jaldalaoth, or Abraxas—it is all one what I may be called hereabouts." Since Jung wrote about Koshchei (see above) in 1916, and Jurgen was published in 1919, Cabell might well have been familiar with Jung's treatise when he used the name.
Salman Rushdie's novel Midnight's Children (1981) contains a reference to Abraxas in the chapter "Abracadabra":
Abracadabra: not an Indian word at all, a cabbalistic formula derived from the name of the supreme god of the Basilidan gnostics, containing the number 365, the number of the days of the year, and of the heavens, and of the spirits emanating from the god Abraxas.
— Saleem Sinai
In popular culture
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In Marvel comics, the character Abraxas embodies the destruction of the multiverse (first appearance: 2001).
"Mt. Abraxas" is the title of the first track of occult rock band Uncle Acid & the Deadbeats's third studio album Mind Control (2013).
Abraxas appears as a demon in Charmed season 2 (1999–2000).
Abraxas appears as a demon in Supernatural season 14 (2018–2019).
In the 2008 visual novel 11eyes: Tsumi to Batsu to Aganai no Shōjo, Kukuri can summon her soul in the form of a chained guardian angel named Abraxas. When released from his chains, he becomes a godlike entity named Demiurge.
The 2018 video game Darksiders III features a demon named Abraxis.
South Korean band BTS's videos frequently mention Abraxas and much of their storyline is based around the deity.
In 1970, the second studio album of Latin rock band Santana was named Abraxas, derived from a passage in the Hermann Hesse novel Demian.
In 1987 The Abraxas Foundation was founded by Boyd Rice as a Social Darwinist think tank.
In the 2018 thriller Mandy, the "horn of Abraxas" is a sort of stone flute with magical properties. Brother Swan uses it to summon the Black Skulls, a demonic biker gang.
In the 2019 role-playing game Fire Emblem: Three Houses, Abraxas is the name of a damage-dealing Faith spell.
In the 2010 song "Lead Poisoning" by Alkaline Trio, Matt Skiba sings the line "Now I pray to Abraxas my soul to keep".
In season 1, episode 2 of Netflix's 2020 animated show The Midnight Gospel the main character, Clancy Gilroy, purchases an avatar named Braxis, which he then uses to explore alternate universes. Braxis looks like the traditional images of Abraxas where the creature has a human body and the head of a rooster. Like the traditional images, Braxis has serpents for legs and his arms are also like those in traditional representations.
In the 2018 video game Assassin's Creed Odyssey, Abraxas is the name of the legendary fiery horse the player acquires if they reach the Tier 1 level in the hierarchy of mercenaries.
In J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series (1997–2007), Abraxas is the name of Lucius Malfoy's father, as well as the name of a race of winged horses in the same fictional world.
In the 2015 sci-fi/action movie Jupiter Ascending, the most powerful family in the Cosmos known as the House of Abrasax.
Abraxas, in the Gnostic role of Great Archon, is the antagonist of the 2021 video game Cruelty Squad.
In the 2021 TV-adaptation of Isaac Asimov's Foundation series, the Abraxas Conjecture is the name of the mathematical proof that Gaal Dornick solves using Kalle’s Ninth Proof of Folding.
In Sarah J. Maas' Throne of Glass series (2014–2018), the similarly-named Abraxos is the wyvern mount of Manon Blackbeak.
In the 1992 Discworld novel Small Gods by Terry Pratchett, Abraxas was an Ephebian philosopher who wrote about the nature of gods in his scroll On Religion, theorising that gods died if belief in them is diverted towards a rigid, hierarchical church structure, as had nearly happened with the Great God Om due to fear of the Omnian Quisition.[24] Having survived being struck by lightning fifteen times as a result, he earned the nickname 'Charcoal'.
In the Shin Megami Tensei video game franchise (first release: 1987), Abraxas is a demon.
In the 2020 video game Genshin Impact, Abrax (also known as Aberaku no Mikoto, Chinese: 阿倍良久) was a historical figure in Enkanomiya who created the Dainichi Mikoshi, an artificial sun device whose name is described as meaning "chariot of the sun".
In the 1997 animated series Revolutionary Girl Utena by animation studio Be-Papas, Abraxas is referenced in the series soundtrack. The title being; "The God's Name Is Abraxas".
In the 1999 movie Adolescence of Utena by animation studio Be-Papas, Abraxas is referenced in the film's soundtrack. The title of the song being; "Abraxas ~ Sunny Garden".
In 2019, electronic music producers Seven Lions and Dimibo formed a psytrance trio called “Abraxis.” The project consists of a back story in which Reginald Abraxis formed the Abraxis Institute, in order to help people explore their full potential and achieve self-actualization.
Rumours that they would be performing this dance with Dolly, the cloned sheep (see photo below), the giant silverfish, and Chickenman at the opening of ChaCha's 2024 Spring Collection have been dismissed as sensationalist speculation.
Joyce referenced this dance in 'Finnegans Wake':
"reeling more to the right than he lurched to the left....like a prance of findingos, with a shillto shallto slipny stripny, in he skittled." P.186
For further reference to the same spider dance see quote and link below.
"Another source in Zurich describes how Joyce would interrupt a weekend walk or someone correctly guessing the title of his new novel and do a kind of ‘spider dance’, and the spectacle was given an edge of comedy by his angular features and tight clothing. His long legs also gave a surreal touch to the improvised dancing. At the British consulate, after one raucous party, Budgen performed a belly dance on a safe as Joyce recreated his spider dance. According to sources, neither knew how they got home after."
irishsliceofmadrid.wordpress.com/2021/09/06/the-incredibl...
Joyce mentions the 'spider' twice in 'Ulysses'
and
'Dance' and 'Dancing' 36 times.
"— A cataleptic mithyphallic ! Was this Totem Fulcrum Est
Ancestor yu hald in Dies Eirae where no spider webbeth or
Anno Mundi ere bawds plied in SkifFstrait? Be fair, Chris! "
'Finnegans Wake'
"Mr Hunker you're too dada for me to dance (so off she
goes !) and that's how half the gels in town has got their bottom drars while grumpapar he's trying to hitch his braces on to his trars."
A 'Finnegans Wake' reference to 'dada' and 'dance'.
Spandex suits, and support trusses, by Lanech.
Photographed by ChaCha in the Lahinch Head-Office.
Credits, also mentioned in 'Finnegans Wake' (p. 220):
"Creations tastefully designed by Madame Berthe Dela-
mode. Dances arranged by Harley Quinn and Coollimbeina.
Jests, jokes, jigs and jorums for the Wake lent from the properties
of the late cemented Mr T. M. Finnegan R.I.C. Lipmasks and
hairwigs by Ouida Nooikke. Limes and Floods by Crooker and Toll."
West and East, were respectively the gateway and the gateway to the Atlantean civilization. The Columns of Hercules, from the Strait of Gibraltar; these seem to be called the Gateway of Time. They support mental journeys to leave old emotional patterns behind.
The geological history of the Strait of Gibraltar
Curiously, we looked for evidence of this island very far in the Atlantic without ever mentioning the immediate outlet of the Strait of Gibraltar while Plato explicitly says that the island Atlantis is located: "before the columns of Hercules".
Our knowledge of this region has benefited from recent geological studies with a view to a project to build a tunnel between Africa and Europe.
In addition, recent prospecting campaigns are updating our knowledge of the prehistoric archaeology of this key region still little known. Prehistorians are once again questioning the submerged prehistoric sites of the Moroccan and Iberian coasts and the still poorly elucidated relationship between the two continents during the Upper Paleolithic.
It was following these campaigns, at the suggestion of A.Bouzouggar, that we became interested in the Strait of Gibraltar at the end of the last glaciation.
The current landscape of the Strait of Gibraltar is, on the geological time scale, recent: it is the direct legacy of the global warming that followed the last glaciation.The sea level rose by 135 m in the space of twenty thousand years, submerging the continental shelves between 19,000 BP and the beginning of our era. The absence of tectonic overrection of great amplitude during the last 20,000 years has been verified by Spanish geologists. It is therefore sufficient, to reconstruct the geography of the Strait of Gibraltar during the Ice Age, to lower the sea by 135 m (Figure 1). This depth is the one currently admitted for the sea level of the last glacial maximum.
To the northwest of Cape Spartel, a shoal (Banco Majuan or Spartel Bank on Spanish charts, The Ridge on English charts), oriented NE-SW, formed an island (14 km long and 5 km wide). Its summit culminates at -56m (Fig.1, n° 1). This island was not isolated and was part of an archipelago. Three small islets constituted as many relays to the Iberian continent (Fig. 1: n°2, n°3, n°4).
The pass between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, very narrowed compared to the present one, was considerably extended towards the West by the emergence of the European and African continental shelves. The island of Cape Spartel was facing this narrows widened towards the West in a haven protected from the swell of the Ocean. Three islands barred access to the open sea (Fig. 1 n° 5, n° 6 and n° 7).
In total, this paleo-detroit of the last glacial maximum (Fig. 1) was extended by an inland sea bathing an island world. This sluice to the Atlantic Ocean extended 77 km from West to East and 20 to 10 km from North to South.
It is reasonable to assume that this island, located 5-8 km from the coast, was occupied by Paleolithic populations whose presence is abundantly attested on the Moroccan, Spanish and Portuguese coasts.
The emergence period of the Cape Spartel Archipelago coincided with major population replacements.
In North Africa and on the Iberian continent, the glacial maximum, sees the elimination of archaic homo sapiens by modern men of the Upper Paleolithic. These populations spread rapidly along the African and European coasts between 18,000 and 9,000 B.C. before suffering the repercussions of global warming and the rise of the sea on their island and coastal territories.
The end of the paleodetroit
Global warming, which brought an end to the last ice age, was accompanied by accelerated melting of the polar ice caps and a jerky rise in sea level (135 m in total in 10,000 years). For 2000 years, the history of Atlantis, engulfed 9000 years before our era, has been the subject of the most diverse speculations. Atlantis and Gibraltar, a dossier from myth to geological reality.By Jacques Collina-Girard, Geologist. According to Plato (4th century BC) this account would come from the archives of the Egyptian priests of the city of Sais. In the "Timaeus" Plato insists on presenting the account of the sinking of Atlantis as a true story. The moralist then uses this event to develop a utopia of an ideal city. For two thousand years, in the absence of archaeological or geological data, countless speculations on the myth of Atlantis have been based only on the testimony of the Greek philosopher. After centuries of debating the seriousness of the information, the majority of Hellenists now treat this testimony as a fabrication (Vidal-Naquet, 2000). It is true that none of the locations proposed by the supporters of a real Atlantis corresponds, neither in place nor date, to the Egyptian priest. Too many esoteric ramblings have, moreover, discredited the search for an anchorage in a geological reality that is otherwise untraceable (Kukal, 1984). At the beginning of our era, the neo-Platonic philosopher Proclus enumerates the hypotheses envisaged in his time (Festugières, 1966): total philosophical utopia? real fact? partially real fact?
In the absence of factual arguments, two thousand years of exegesis have contributed nothing more to Proclus' analysis, which Brisson took up, to the letter, in his introduction to Critias (Brisson, 1999). We shall discuss the two most extreme positions here before turning to the intermediate position that Geology could now confirm. The stages of this "finiglacial transgression" are well known thanks to the drilling carried out over the last twenty years in tropical coral reefs (Barbados, Tahiti, New Guinea). These reefs are excellent markers of the position of the sea level: coral regrowth accompanies the rise in sea level. Made up of carbonates, these organisms are perfectly datable with carbon 14. The published curves are consistent (Figure 2) and show the same stages in the upwelling of the sea. According to these data, submersion would be regular except during at least two periods of accelerated ice breakup, when sea level rises at a rate of 4 m per century (2 m in a lifetime of about 50 years!). Recent data on the Rio Guadiana estuary (Algarve, coasts of the Spanish-Portuguese border) have made it possible to confirm this scenario locally.
Three different positions
Position 1: Everything is imaginary in Plato's story
Starting from a tradition, presented as authentic, Plato develops the fiction of an Ideal Republic, victoriously opposed to an Atlantic invader. Like a novelist who constructs his subject from a news item, the philosopher constructs a moralizing fable. The complex Atlantean society of the "Critias", a utopia transposed into the past of a story presented as true, is, according to its author, imaginary (emphasis added): "The citizens and the city that yesterday you represented to us as fiction, we will now transpose them into the order of reality: we will assume that this is the city that you imagined, we will say that these are the ones, the real ones, our ancestors, the ones the priest spoke of. There will be complete concordance, and we will not err if we affirm that they are indeed those who existed at that time. “ This is also the opinion of scholars, familiar with Greek texts, who find in them, transposed and idealized, the contemporary city-states of Plato. The current trend among these scholars is even more radical since it generalizes this opinion to the whole story. The evocation of a real event that would be the source of the story is rejected outright and a priori. It is true that all the "interpretations" proposed so far are delusional. An inventory of these literary productions in which science fiction claims to replace science can be found in a recent work on these "imaginary atlantids". Science fiction novelists and proponents of fantastic archaeology have currently contributed to making the ancient philosopher's words a living modern myth, whose sources have often been completely forgotten by the general public, who are more familiar with Walt Disney than with Plato!
Position 2: Everything is real in Plato's story
Outside the scientific field, but claiming to be so, some popularizers, not very demanding in terms of consistency with archaeological and geological data, evoke a continent populated by a very advanced civilization, engulfed somewhere between the Old and New Worlds. This ghost civilization would be the hypothetical but affirmed source of all the great civilizations of antiquity from Egypt to Mesoamerica. Man would thus derive from more illustrious ancestors than those discovered by "official" archaeology. The search for prestigious original Fathers (even extraterrestrial ones!) in authors who are resistant to any rational argument is a sufficiently clear and repetitive constant to refer to widespread psychopathological mechanisms.
Position 3: Plato's account could be partially true
Exasperated by the delusions of Atlantomania, most Hellenists no longer evoke the possibility of a reliable tradition. In the 6th century A.D., Proclus does not exclude this possibility, however, by interpreting Plato's text as a mixture of historical reality and allegory. To support this view Proclus quotes Marcellus and his treatise on geography "on Ethiopic things" (i.e. Africa): this source would confirm Plato's testimony by evoking the tradition of an archipelago of seven islands sunk at the exit of the Columns of Hercules. Some specialists of Greek texts, interviewed by the magazine "Science et Vie", do not seem as categorical as their colleagues and do not deny, without arguments, the possibility that there may be a core of reality in the myth. In fact, in the absence of new facts to be added to the file for two thousand years, supporters and opponents of a real Atlantis only assert, more or less violently, personal impressions ...
The discovery of a sunken island at the place and date indicated by Plato would obviously be a decisive argument in support of a position contrary to the currently dominant ideas. Before the Second World War, this Atlantis "damaged in the sea" had been sought in America, the Azores, the Canary Islands, Madeira, Iceland, Tunisia, Sweden, West Africa, the Sahara ... Etc. The most recent attempt was that of the Greek archaeologist Marinatos who wanted to assimilate Atlantis to Crete, whose civilization would have been ruined by the explosion of Santorini.
This hypothesis is abandoned: neither the place nor the date correspond to Plato's text. In addition, the correlation between the ruin of the Cretan civilization and the explosion of Santorini is no longer so certain! For lack of finding an island sunk in the Atlantic, the Czech geologist Kukal concludes, after a serious inventory of possibilities, that there is nothing habitable in the Atlantic except the area of Madeira and the Azores.
Unfortunately, none of these islands was inhabited in a time old enough to be a candidate. The discovery of Madeira and the Azores does not appear to predate Roman times. The occupation of the Canary Archipelago does not go back more than 2000 years before us and these steep-sided volcanic islands are not surrounded by continental shelves wide enough to hide anything else.
Plato recounted what was breathed into Him, but did not reveal everything because He knew that it would be decried, but his role was to tell You what would be accepted and demonstrated when the time came, both to change the misconceptions about everything that was interpreted so that this world would correspond to what was intended to be presented so that it would corroborate with a reality that would not disturb the interpretations of Those who wanted to keep the Beings under their own guidance. Atlantis was born after the glaciation had totally resorbed, and the vegetation had come back to life, and that all the conditions of life on this Earth were appropriate for living again according to what the Beings intended to live in the context of an Earth that was once again welcoming in all that it could offer in terms of viability. But this required many Beings to breathe their vision of what They themselves wanted this Earth to be. And so many Beings whom You call "the People of Nature" have responded to Your breaths, knowing that They have always been there, but on other levels, waiting for this Earth to come alive again in what They themselves were maintaining at their level. And so life was resumed and much was revealed in the interaction between the world that You call "People of Nature" and this reality. And that' s how it is.It has been said that Atlantis allowed the Humans to emerge from a certain very primitive state to move towards a certain civilization. And I will tell you, my dear friends, that Atlantis was a glorious power that lasted more than 50,000 years, but that there were not before that primitive state, but evolved Beings who allowed, by their presence, the coming of many Consciences that did not really know "Who They Were", and they were welcomed to allow them to live in a new world where everything had to be prepared by the future Generations, including the coming of Beings that you call "Primitive". Then there was a very long period of prosperity and consciousness, until the Atlanteans, as time went on, evolved into another reality much more fragmented, to the point where they had to at some point make the choice to arm themselves and live as Conquerors. And this was the beginning of a long period during which They conquered many territories at their expense, until at some point They themselves found themselves subject to having to bow to Beings more conquerors than Them, and who were thirsty for power over the technology They had, and which was used for destruction, while these technologies allowed remarkable advances in transportation, medicine, electricity and the whole configuration of life as a whole. So, I am not going to detail all that this represented, but it was necessary for the Masters who still remained at that time, to make the decision to protect what this advanced technology allowed the Beings to live in prosperity and abundance. And so it was. It is true, as it has been said, that the Atlanteans settled in large territories such as Mexico, America up to the Pacific Ocean, a large part of Europe, a large part of Africa up to the borders of the Adriatic Sea, and even further. And this has had an impact on all these populations which, even today, without even realizing it, are still evolving with an ancestral knowledge that is far removed from their own ways of being in their own customs, in their own civilizations. They are all borrowed from the consciousness of the Atlanteans, and of course from Lemuria. When You believe that the oldest colony of Atlantis was probably that of Egypt, I will tell You that it is Lemuria that brought the knowledge to the Atlanteans, who themselves benefited from MU, and that spread throughout the world, but in reality the Egyptians benefited from what the Masters taught long before all the Dynasties of the Pharaohs who never understood what was taught at very high levels before this Era of the Dynasties of the Pharaohs settled down to begin the experience of glory, power, the Conquerors, and above all the world power to want to manage everything and appropriate it all. No tools from the Bronze Age in Europe came from Atlantis, but many tools from the Atlantean knowledge were revealed to Peoples throughout the world, with the difference that they could not be of the same technology, the Atlanteans having few resources at their disposal after the sinking of Atlantis, but they had the knowledge, and this allowed them to reconstitute in part what You would call "new powerful tools", but which did not stand the test of time. What You have discovered is the result of primitive manufacturing responding to the relearning of certain primitive Peoples who did not have the Atlantean knowledge. There were in Atlantis hot springs that allowed the Beings to ablutions, but above all to enjoy long relaxations, because this water was volcanic and it brought a vibration to their bodies that was not, in the first millennia of Atlantis, completely of carbonic matter, but mostly of matter that was close to Crystalline. It is during the course of evolution that the Atlanteans lost this vibration and intensified more and more in the carbon density.
What People Say About The Metatronic Keys Course
I have found all three levels of the Metatronic Keys to be powerful, but the third level was by far the most deeply integrated and energy-filled experience of them all. Since then, I am doing a daily practice of auric maintenance and feel so protected and at peace that I KNOW I am functioning from a different vibration than prior to the installation of the Mer-Ka-Na. Sincerely, Susan Oliver, PhD, MD
The MK3 teaching was an amazing process that allowed me to accelerate my Ascension process many levels in only one weekend. The class brought together the role of Sacred Geometry and the physical and energetic process of Conscious Human Evolution in which we are now participating. Tyberonn’s presentation of Auric Maintenance techniques and the absolute importance of maintaining Auric integrity are valuable tools for those of us who are rapidly moving into the higher levels of Consciousness. The meditation to install the Mer-Ka-Na brought me be to a level that I have never experienced, one of complete Unity with myself, my surroundings and my world.I highly recommended MK1 and MK2, but I must say that MK3 is a necessity for anyone consciously pursuing an accelerated path into becoming a Crystalline being. Since taking the class I have become more confident, calm and loving towards myself and others. I have even changed my diet and find that I am eating lighter food. My connection to my higher self has opened and I have received inspiration for writing projects. MK3 a true gift. Since taking the class I have a clearer vision of where I am meant to be and more guidance of how I will proceed. Tyberonn is an excellent teacher, he presents high level information in a clear, easy to follow manner and the class seamlessly flows from one relevant subject into the next. MK3 is one of the most important events of our time and all that feel drawn should take advantage of the opportunity. Peace and Love, Wendy Ann Z
Thanks, Tyb, for supplying this valuable resource of the Metatronic Keys to us. Thank you for your beautiful and clear teaching of the Metatron Keys 3. This was very powerful and I experienced so much love within the group but also notice and teaching of the absolute need for auric integrity with this installation of the Mer-Ka-Na. I feel deeply my commitment to meditate study and reflect daily these truths you have shared through Metatron of the full harmonic pulse of crystalline coherence. (I think that’s the relevant language!) I feel because of your integrity you facilitated my further waking up and I am so very grateful. With much love, Jim and Kathy – New Zealand
Dear Tyberonn, The MK-3 class and especially the installation meditation , Tyb, was an absolutely glorious experience. I am so honored to be able to participate in this most humbling meditation and teachings . My tears did flow. And I thank you so much for bringing these wonderful lessons to us in the Metatronic Keys classes. Love and many blessings, Ruth G
Dear Tyb, All of the Metatronic Keys Levels have been amazing and life-changing, but MK-3 really was truly brilliant. You & Metatron really nailed it , beautiful finish to the classes. Blessings, Bruce
Dear Tyb, The Met-Keys course is awesome. My guides were very sure I needed to participate in the Metatronic Keys and I am glad I did. My reaction to the coarse : It is awesome. The platonic solids, especially the dodecahedron has been coming up in my dreams and other times. I had looked on line and had not found the answer to my question. You answered that in the coarse. The notes that come with it are awesome and very helpful. The meditations were amazing and I look forward to repeating them as necessary. I encourage anyone who has the chance to take this coarse. It is life changing. I have been working with the Alpha Master teachings and other teachings of Archangel Michael for several months. I feel like I have gone a bit higher in my understanding of our potential on earth. I think I understand why I have collected crystals without knowing why for several years.
june 12 2009
weekend trip to seattle to visit some friends. there was speculation of some sort of surprise or news when we got there.
speculation was valid.
our friends bought a house!
awesome.
M/Y Eclipse is a super yacht built by Blohm+Voss of Hamburg, Germany, the fourth longest afloat. Her exterior and interior were designed by Terence Disdale. The yacht was delivered to Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich on 9 December 2010. At 162.5 metres (533 ft 2 in) long Eclipse was the world's longest private yacht until the Azzam was launched in April 2013, which is 17.3 metres (56 ft 9 in) longer. The yacht's cost has been estimated at €340 million
Eclipse has two helicopter pads, 24 guest cabins, two swimming pools, several hot tubs, and a disco hall. It is also equipped with three launch boats and a MINI-SUBMARINE THAT IS CAPABLE OF SUBMERGING TO 50 METRES (160 ft). Approximately 70 crew members are needed to operate the yacht and serve the guests.
FOR SECURITY, ECLIPSE IS FITTED WITH A MISSILE DETECTION SYSTEM, MISSILE LAUNCHERS AND SELF-DEFENSE SYSTEMS.{that’s really over the top for a yacht! it' a wake up call to all security agencies all around the world! there are many questions to be answered there and first is what is the real use and purpose of this Yacht? how many of these super yachts are there hidden in the world?
By 2009, Eclipse was also the largest vessel employing a rotor-based stabilisation system against roll motion at anchor and at low cruise speeds, based on the Magnus effect.
THIS YACHT IS A “JAMES BOND” TYPE OF “SPY WARSHIP’’, FUELLING SPECULATION THAT THE VESSEL MAY BE A REFUGE FOR PRESIDENT VLADIMIR PUTIN, OF WHOM ABRAMOVICH IS SAID TO BE A CLOSE CONFIDANT
This yacht can easily be used for people smuggling, drug/weapon trafficking, etc disguised as an innocuous pleasure yacht
An annual expense of over $60 million is reportedly required to maintain this luxury boat
(Left: speculation, Right: Reality)
2 antagonizing long years of wait filled with speculation and anticipation, here she is ... at last. Such a beauty from inside out embodied with a tad sexy but suavé skin! LOL.
How I imagined her before. Well, the reality is much more surprising. Her brain at 45.7MP is a good size, though not close to 60+MP as wished. But her soul, illuminated with stacked sensory and incredibly super charged metal neurons that race info at lightspeed, brings grown man like me to my knees. :) But her EVF eye looks more dreamy than wild with 3.7MP just like her big bro Nikkorian Z9, not close to 6MP as hoped, and unknown if her vision could do magic with pixel-shift mode to emulate high res. Despite that, when she rolls her alluring eye, no black out reported, her pupil still full of playful colors and bright. Oh God grief! :)
Though not skin-deep sexy, her gorgeous light-weight fits the feel of the cousin D500 at just under 1kg or about 2lbs shy. Yeah, the day of pumping muscle before a field trip is over. Whoosh! :)) Ah, her back LCD offers viewing in 4-way, allowing touchable. How joyous is that to give her massage with your touch in multi way. :-) Other than that, from outside perspective she's cute looking in every way with usual dials and buttons mostly unchanged of location, though some goes away (fast switching S CL CH Q and Qual access) but combined in new ones to offer cleaner look which I less preferred. But for a princess appearance, less is more ... elegant. :))
What a moment in time! A princess in town and I stay awake the whole day. LOL. Now that Nikon has officially challenged Sony's latest princess a7R V with the same sticker price at $4k, the game is on and will see which lady will allure the most photogs around the world. My bet of course you know whom. But good luck to both ladies, as they're all so attractive and captivating, yet killers ... to our saving too. :)))
So ladies n gentlemen, Nikon camp or not, are you ready to jump ship to ML? For me, Z8 is it. Just not sure how much pennies I've tucked inside the piggy for a century long. Only a hammer away will tell. :)
What say you?
3D red/cyan anaglyph from the glass plate negatives at the Library of Congress, with missing sections restored from the left side of a stereo card version posted online by the Getty Museum.
Link to the Library of Congress negatives, “James River, Va. Sailors relaxing on deck of U.S.S. Monitor,” at: www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/civwar/item/2018666819/
Link to the Getty Museum stereo card, “Crew of the Original "Monitor" on her Deck,” at: www.getty.edu/art/collection/object/1079B2
Stereograph Date: July 9, 1862
Photographer: James F. Gibson (1828 - )
Notes: A stereoscopic portrait of 24 sailors, out of a total crew (including officers) of about 65, posing on the deck of “The Monitor,” while at anchor at Harrison's Landing on the James River. The Monitor was providing protection for the Union army which had retreated to the James, after Lee drove McClellan away from Richmond. This is the original monitor, as improved versions continued to be built during the Civil War, and although these later boats had specific ship names, they were also referred to as “monitors.”
This historic stereograph, and a handful of others, were all taken on the same day, July 9, 1862, by photographer James F. Gibson, and are the only known photographs ever taken of this most famous and very first monitor vessel.
The ironclad Monitor was revolutionary in design, built in just a little over 3 months, and after battling the Merrimac to a standstill at Hampton Roads in March 1862, the ship and crew were hailed as the saviors of the Union. The crew was an all volunteer crew, and although they were fairly safe inside it during battle, environmental conditions while serving on board could be atrocious, and worst of all, the ship was not sea-worthy. Six months after this photo was taken, the Monitor sank in a gale off Cape Hatteras, taking sixteen crew members with it to the bottom.
Some of the lost crew are perhaps pictured here, and after finding the skeletal remains of two sailors within the turret in 2002, there was some research and informed speculation as to exactly which two seamen in this photograph they might be. The tall sailor with his arms crossed at the extreme right was one candidate (Robert Williams), and the other (William Bryan) was thought to possibly be the man facing the camera, in a crouch, with his right arm stretched forth towards the checker board nearest the center. This research to identify the two sailors was found to be inconclusive, although it was determined that they were not officers. The two recovered sailors were from the crew - two of "The Monitor Boys," the moniker the crew (non-officers) gave to themselves.
The excerpts and links below provide some additional background information on the recruitment of the crew, the environmental conditions the crew had to endure, the battle with the Merrimac, the Monitor's sinking, and the possible identity of the two sailors, whose remains were found in 2002.
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Below are excerpts from an article by Commander Samuel Dana Greene, which appeared in an 1885 edition of Century Magazine. The editor makes note of Greene’s recent death – Commander Greene had committed suicide the previous December, at age 44. There was speculation that it was either temporary insanity or that he was upset at some perceived criticisms of his role in the famous battle with the Merrimac. In fact, Greene was really one of the Union heroes in the battle, manning and firing the Monitor’s 11 inch guns (which fired 180-pound shot) and taking over for Captain Worden after he was blinded by a direct hit on the pilot house.
It's a wonder that the men in the Monitor’s turret were able to withstand the tremendous noise and force of these huge guns being fired while in that restricted space - and in Greene's case, perhaps he didn’t fare too well. The Defense Visual Information Distribution Service (DVIDS) suggests that long term mental health issues can stem from concussions caused by "chronic exposure to low-level blast waves," from the firing of "heavy caliber weapons." If interested, here’s the link: www.dvidshub.net/news/270814/chronic-exposure-low-level-b...
In a letter written shortly after the battle, Greene summed up his condition: "My men and myself were perfectly black with smoke and powder. All my underclothes were perfectly black, and my person was in the same condition.... I had been up so long, and been under such a state of excitement, that my nervous system was completely run down. . . . My nerves and muscles twitched as though electric shocks were continually passing through them.... I lay down and tried to sleep - I might as well have tried to fly.”
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Century Magazine 1885 Vol. 7
In the “Monitor” Turret
By Commander S. Dana Greene
"The keel of the most famous vessel of modern times, Captain Ericsson’s first iron-clad, was laid in the shipyard of Thomas F. Rowland, at Greenpoint, Brooklyn, in October, 1861, and on the 30th of January, 1862, the novel craft was launched. On the 25th of February she was commissioned and turned over to the Government, and nine days later left New York for Hampton Roads, where, on the 9th of March, occurred the memorable contest with the Merrimac. On her next venture on the open sea she foundered off Cape Hatteras in a gale of wind (December 29). During her career of less than a year, she had no fewer than five different commanders; but it was the fortune of the writer to serve as her only executive officer, standing upon her deck when she was launched, and leaving it but a few minutes before she sank.
So hurried was the preparation of the Monitor that the mechanics worked upon her night and day up to the hour of her departure, and little opportunity was offered to drill the crew at the guns, to work the turret, and to become familiar with the other unusual features of the vessel. The crew was, in fact, composed of volunteers. Lieutenant Worden, having been authorized by the Navy Department to select his men from any ship-of-war in New York harbor, addressed the crews of the North Carolina and Sabine., stating fully to them the probable dangers of the passage to Hampton Roads and the certainty of having important service to perform after arriving. The sailors responded enthusiastically, many more volunteering than were required. Of the crew selected, Captain Worden said, in his official report of the engagement, '' A better one no naval commander ever had the honor to command.”
We left New York in tow of the tug-boat Seth Low at 11 a. m. of Thursday, the 6th of March. On the following day a moderate breeze was encountered, and it was at once evident that the Monitor was unfit for a sea-going craft. Nothing but the subsidence of the wind prevented her from being shipwrecked before she reached Hampton Roads. The berth-deck hatch leaked in spite of all we could do, and the water came down under the turret like a waterfall. It would strike the pilot-house and go over the turret in beautiful curves, and it came through the narrow eye-holes in the pilot-house with such force as to knock the helmsman completely round from the wheel.
The waves also broke over the blower-pipes, and the water came down through them in such quantities that the belts of the blower-engines slipped, and the engines consequently stopped for lack of artificial draught, without which, in such a confined place, the fires could not get air for combustion. Newton and Stimers, followed by the engineer’s force, gallantly rushed into the engine-room and fire- room to remedy the evil, but they were unable to check the inflowing water, and were nearly suffocated with escaping gas. They were dragged out more dead than alive, and carried to the top of the turret, where the fresh air gradually revived them. The water continued to pour through the hawser-hole, and over and down the smoke-stacks and blower-pipes, in such quantities that there was imminent danger that the ship would founder. The steam-pumps could not be operated because the fires had been nearly extinguished, and the engine-room was uninhabitable on account of the suffocating gas with which it was filled.
The hand-pumps were then rigged and worked, but they had not enough force to throw the water out through the top of the turret,—the only opening,— and it was useless to bail, as we had to pass the buckets up through the turret, which made it a very long operation. Fortunately, towards evening the wind and sea subsided, and, being again in smooth water, the engine was put in operation. But at midnight, in passing over a shoal, rough water was again encountered, and our troubles were renewed, complicated this time with the jamming of the wheel-ropes, so that the safety of the ship depended entirely on the strength of the hawser which connected her with the tug-boat. The hawser, being new, held fast; but during the greater part of the night we were constantly engaged in fighting the leaks, until we reached smooth water again, just before daylight.
It was at the close of this dispiriting trial trip, in which all hands had been exhausted in their efforts to keep the novel craft afloat, that the Monitor' passed Cape Henry at 4 p. m. on Saturday, March 8th. At this point was heard the distant booming of heavy guns, which our captain rightly judged to be an engagement with the Merrimac twenty miles away. He at once ordered the vessel stripped of her sea-rig, the turret keyed up, and every preparation made for battle. As we approached Hampton Roads we could see the fine old Congress burning brightly, and soon a pilot came on board and told of the arrival of the Merrimac the disaster to the Cumberland and the Congress, and the dismay of the Union forces.
The Monitor was pushed with all haste, and reached the Roanoke (Captain Marston), anchored in the Roads, at 9 p. m. Worden immediately reported his arrival to Captain Marston, who suggested that he should go to the assistance of the Minnesota, then aground off Newport News. As no pilot was available, Captain Worden accepted the volunteer services of Acting Master Samuel Howard, who earnestly sought the duty. An atmosphere of gloom pervaded the fleet, and the pygmy aspect of the new-comer did not inspire confidence among those who had witnessed the destruction of the day before.
Skillfully piloted by Howard, we proceeded on our way, our path illumined by the blaze of the Congress. Reaching the Minnesota, hard and fast aground, near midnight, we anchored, and Worden reported to Captain Van Brunt. Between 1 and 2 a. m. the Congress blew up, not instantaneously, but successively; her powder-tanks seemed to explode, each shower of sparks rivaling the other in its height, until they appeared to reach the zenith — a grand but mournful sight. Near us, too, lay the Cumberland at the bottom of the river, with her silent crew of brave men, who died while fighting their guns to the water’s edge, and whose colors were still flying at the peak.
The dreary night dragged slowly on; the officers and crew were up and alert, to be ready for any emergency. At daylight on Sunday the Merrimac and her consorts were discovered at anchor near Sewall’s Point. At about half-past seven o’clock the enemy’s vessels got under way and steered in the direction of the Minnesota. At the same time the Monitor got under way, and her officers and crew took their stations for battle. Captain Van Brunt officially reports, “I made signal to the Monitor to attack the enemy,” but the signal was not seen by us; other work was in hand, and Worden required no signal.....
Worden took his station in the pilot-house, and by his side were Howard, the pilot, and Peter Williams, quartermaster, who steered the vessel throughout the engagement. My place was in the turret, to work and fight the guns; with me were Stodder and Stimers and sixteen brawny men, eight to each gun. John Stocking, boatswain’s mate, and Thomas Lochrane, seaman, were gun-captains. Newton and his assistants were in the engine and fire rooms, to manipulate the boilers and engines, and most admirably did they perform this important service from the beginning to the close of the action. Webber had charge of the powder division on the berth-deck, and Joseph Crown, gunner’s mate, rendered valuable service in connection with this duty.
The physical condition of the officers and men of the two ships at this time was in striking contrast. The Merrimac had passed the night quietly near Sewall’s Point, her people enjoying rest and sleep, elated by thoughts of the victory they had achieved that day, and cheered by the prospects of another easy victory on the morrow. The Monitor had barely escaped shipwreck twice within the last thirty-six hours, and since Friday morning, forty-eight hours before, few if any of those on board had closed their eyes in sleep or had anything to eat but hard bread, as cooking was impossible; she was surrounded by wrecks and disaster, and her efficiency in action had yet to be proved.
Worden lost no time in bringing it to test. Getting his ship under way, he steered direct for the enemy’s vessels, in order to meet and engage them as far as possible from the Minnesota. As he approached, the wooden vessels quickly turned and left. Our captain, to the ‘‘ astonishment” of Captain Van Brunt (as he states in his official report), made straight for the Merrimac which had already commenced firing; and when he came within short range, he changed his course so as to come alongside of her, stopped the engine, and gave the order, Commence firing! ” I triced up the port, ran out the gun, and, taking deliberate aim, pulled the lockstring. The Merrimac was quick to reply, returning a rattling broadside (for she had ten guns to our two), and the battle fairly began. The turret and other parts of the ship were heavily struck, but the shots did not penetrate; the tower was intact, and it continued to revolve. A look of confidence passed over the men’s faces, and we believed the Merrimac would not repeat the work she had accomplished the day before.
The fight continued with the exchange of broadsides as fast as the guns could be served and at very short range, the distance between the vessels frequently being not more than a few yards. Worden skillfully maneuvered his quick-turning vessel, trying to find some vulnerable point in his adversary. Once he made a dash at her stern, hoping to disable her screw, which he thinks he missed by not more than two feet. Our shots ripped the iron of the Merrimac, while the reverberation of her shots against the tower caused anything but a pleasant sensation. While Stodder, who was stationed at the machine which controlled the revolving motion of the turret, was incautiously leaning against the side of the tower, a large shot struck in the vicinity and disabled him. He left the turret and went below, and Stimers, who had assisted him, continued to do the work.
The drawbacks to the position of the pilot-house were soon realized. We could not fire ahead nor within several points of the bow, since the blast from our own guns would have injured the people in the pilot-house, only a few yards off. Keeler and Toffey passed the captain’s orders and messages to me, and my inquiries and answers to him, the speaking-tube from the pilot-house to the turret having been broken early in the action. They performed their work with zeal and alacrity, but, both being landsmen, our technical communications sometimes miscarried. The situation was novel: a vessel of war was engaged in desperate combat with a powerful foe; the captain, commanding and guiding all, was inclosed in one place, and the executive officer, working and fighting the guns, was shut up in another, and communication between them was difficult and uncertain.....
As the engagement continued, the working of the turret was not altogether satisfactory. It was difficult to start it revolving, or, when once started, to stop it, on account of the imperfections of the novel machinery, which was now undergoing its first trial. Stimers was an active, muscular man, and did his utmost to control the motion of the turret; but, in spite of his efforts, it was difficult if not impossible to secure accurate firing. The conditions were very different from those of an ordinary broadside gun, under which we had been trained on wooden ships. My only view of the world outside of the tower was over the muzzles of the guns, which cleared the ports by a few inches only.....
The effect upon one shut up in a revolving drum is perplexing, and it is not a simple matter to keep the bearings. White marks had been placed upon the stationary deck immediately below the turret to indicate the direction of the starboard and port sides, and the bow and stern; but these marks were obliterated early in the action. I would continually ask the captain, How does the Merrimac bear ? ” He replied, “ On the starboard-beam,” or on the port-quarter,” as the case might be. Then the difficulty was to determine the direction of the starboard-beam, or port-quarter, or any other bearing. It finally resulted, that when a gun was ready for firing, the turret would be started on its revolving journey in search of the target, and when found it was taken on the fly,” because the turret could not be accurately controlled.
Once the Merrimac tried to ram us; but Worden avoided the direct impact by the skillful use of the helm, and she struck a glancing blow, which did no damage. At the instant of collision I planted a solid one-hundred-and-eighty-pound shot fair and square upon the forward part of her casemate. Had the gun been loaded with thirty pounds of powder, which was the charge subsequently used with similar guns, it is probable that this shot would have penetrated her armor; but the charge being limited to fifteen pounds, in accordance with peremptory orders to that effect from the Navy Department, the shot rebounded without doing any more damage than possibly to start some of the beams of her armor-backing....
The battle continued at close quarters without apparent damage to either side......Soon after noon a shell from the enemy’s gun, the muzzle not ten yards distant, struck the forward side of the pilot-house directly in the sight-hole, or slit, and exploded,. cracking the second iron log and partly lifting the top, leaving an opening. Worden was standing immediately behind this spot, and received in his face the force of the blow, which partly stunned him, and, filling his eyes with powder, utterly blinded him. The injury was known only to those in the pilot-house and its immediate vicinity. The flood of light rushing through the top of the pilot-house, now partly open, caused Worden, blind as he was, to believe that the pilot-house was seriously injured, if not destroyed; he therefore gave orders to put the helm to starboard and “sheer off.” Thus the Monitor retired temporarily from the action, in order to ascertain the extent of the injuries she had received. At the same time Worden sent for me, and leaving Stimers the only officer in the turret, I went forward at once, and found him standing at the foot of the ladder leading to the pilot-house.
He was a ghastly sight, with his eyes closed and the blood apparently rushing from every pore in the upper part of his face. He told me that he was seriously wounded, and directed me to take command. I assisted in leading him to a sofa in his cabin, where he was tenderly cared for by Doctor Logue, and then I assumed command. Blind and suffering as he was, Worden’s fortitude never forsook him; he frequently asked from his bed of pain of the progress of affairs, and when told that the Minnesota was saved, he said, "Then I can die happy.”
......During this time the Merrimac, which was leaking badly, had started in the direction of the Elizabeth River; and, on taking my station in the pilot-house and turning the vessel’s head in the direction of the Merrimac, I saw that she was already in retreat. A few shots were fired at the retiring vessel and she continued on to Norfolk. I returned with the Monitor to the side of the Minnesota where preparations were being made to abandon the ship, which was still aground. Shortly afterward Worden was transferred to a tug, and that night he was carried to Washington.
The fight was over. We of the Monitor thought, and still think, that we had gained a great victory. This the Confederates have denied. But it has never been denied that the object of the Merrimac on the 9th of March was to complete the destruction of the Union fleet in Hampton Roads, and that in this she was completely foiled and driven off by the Monitor; nor has it been denied that at the close of the engagement the Merrimac retreated to Norfolk, leaving the Monitor in possession of the field.
.....For the next two months we lay at Hampton Roads. Twice the Merrimac came out of the Elizabeth River, but did not attack. We, on our side, had received positive orders not to attack in the comparatively shoal waters above Hampton Roads, where the Union fleet could not manoeuvre. The Merrimac protected the James River, and the Monitor protected the Chesapeake. Neither side had an iron-clad in reserve, and neither wished to bring on an engagement which might disable its only armored naval defense in those waters.
With the evacuation of Norfolk and the destruction of the Merrimac, the Monitor moved up the James River with the squadron under the command of Commander John Rodgers, in connection with McClellan’s advance upon Richmond by the Peninsula. We were engaged for four hours at Fort Darling, but were unable to silence the guns or destroy the earthworks.
Probably no ship was ever devised which was so uncomfortable for her crew, and certainly no sailor ever led a more disagreeable life than we did on the James River, suffocated with heat and bad air if we remained below, and a target for sharp-shooters if we came on deck.
With the withdrawal of McClellan’s army, we returned to Hampton Roads, and in the autumn were ordered to Washington, where the vessel was repaired. We returned to Hampton Roads in November, and sailed thence (December 29) in tow of the steamer Rhode Island, bound for Beaufort, N.C. Between 11 p. M. and midnight on the following night the Monitor went down in a gale, a few miles south of Cape Hatteras,. Four officers and twelve men were drowned, fortynine people being saved by the boats of the steamer. It was impossible to keep the vessel free of water, and we presumed that the upper and lower hulls thumped themselves apart.
No ship in the world’s history has a more imperishable place in naval annals than the Monitor. Not only by her providential arrival at the right moment did she secure the safety of Hampton Roads and all that depended on it, but the ideas which she embodied revolutionized the system of naval warfare which had existed from the earliest recorded history. The name of the Monitor became generic, representing a new type; and, crude and defective as was her construction in some of its details, she yet contained the idea of the turret, which is to-day the central idea of the most powerful armored vessels."
S. D. Greene,
Commander U. S. Navy
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Findagrave link for Samuel Dana Greene: www.findagrave.com/memorial/6017440/samuel-dana-greene
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Link to CNN article and video pertaining to the two sailors whose remains were found in the turret in 2002. Towards the end of the video possible names and faces are matched up. This received a lot of publicity at the time, but note that official sources connected to the recovery and effort to identify the two men seemed to have completely backed away from the possible ID's.
CNN Link: www.cnn.com/2013/03/08/us/monitor-sailors-buried/index.html
Link to a second article pointing to the two men: www.huffpost.com/entry/uss-monitor-anniversary_b_2372051
The two sailors were eventually buried with full military honors as "two unidentified crew members" at Arlington National Cemetery, see link: www.arlingtoncemetery.mil/Blog/Post/10995/The-Monitor-Is-...
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Red/Cyan (not red/blue) glasses of the proper density must be used to view 3D effect without ghosting. Anaglyph prepared using red cyan glasses from The Center For Civil War Photography / American Battlefield Trust. CCWP Link: www.civilwarphotography.org/
Reconstruction of the Terme Ruler, 2018, bronze cast, 280 x 93 x 80 cm, recostruction created by Vinzenz Brinkmann and Ulrike Koch-Brinkmann (Liebieghaus Skulpturensammlung, Frankfurt am Main, Sammlung Stäelisches Kunstinstitut)
Reconstruction of the marble funerary stele of Phrasikleia, 2010, marble stucco on PMMA (acrylic), egg tempera, lead tinfoil, gold leaf, garnet, tourmaline, labradorite, gum arabic, 200 cm high, reconstruction by GOM Braunschweig Ursula Buck, Thorsten Schwing with Vinzenz Brinkmann and Ulrike Koch-Brinkmann (Liebieghaus Skulpturensammlung, Polychromy Research Project, Frankfurt am Main; on permanent loan from Ludwig-Maximilian Universität, Munich, Leibnizpreis 2007 O. Primavesi)
Reconstruction of the Terme Ruler, 2018, bronze cast, 280 x 93 x 80 cm, recostruction created by Vinzenz Brinkmann and Ulrike Koch-Brinkmann (Liebieghaus Skulpturensammlung, Frankfurt am Main, Sammlung Stäelisches Kunstinstitut)
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 4989/1, 1929-1930. Photo: Paramount. Lupe Velez in The Wolf Song (Victor Fleming, 1929). Sent by mail in the Netherlands in 1932.
Lupe Velez (1908-1944) was one of the first Mexican actresses to succeed in Hollywood. Her nicknames were 'The Mexican Spitfire' and 'Hot Pepper'. She was the leading lady in such silent films as The Gaucho (1927), Lady of the Pavements (1928), and Wolf Song (1929). During the 1930s, her well-known explosive screen persona was exploited in a series of successful films like Hot Pepper (1933), Strictly Dynamite (1934), and Hollywood Party (1934). In the 1940s, Vélez's popularity peaked after appearing in the Mexican Spitfire films, a series created to capitalise on Vélez's well-documented fiery personality. She had several highly publicised romances and a stormy marriage. In 1944, Vélez died of an intentional overdose of the barbiturate drug Seconal. Her death and the circumstances surrounding it have been the subject of speculation and controversy.
Lupe Vélez was born María Guadalupe Villalobos Vélez in 1908 in the city of San Luis Potosí in Mexico. She was the daughter of Jacobo Villalobos Reyes, a colonel in the army of the dictator Porfirio Diaz, and his wife Josefina Vélez, an opera singer according to some sources, or vaudeville singer according to others. She had three sisters: Mercedes, Reina and Josefina, and a brother, Emigdio. The family was financially comfortable and lived in a large home. At the age of 13, her parents sent her to study at Our Lady of the Lake (now Our Lady of the Lake University) in San Antonio, Texas. It was at Our Lady of the Lake that Vélez learned to speak English and began to dance. She later admitted that she liked dance class, but was otherwise a poor student. Denny Jackson at IMDb: "Life was hard for her family, and Lupe returned to Mexico to help them out financially. She worked as a salesgirl for a department store for the princely sum of $4 a week. Every week she would turn most of her salary over to her mother, but kept a little for herself so she could take dancing lessons. By now, she figured, with her mature shape and grand personality, she thought she could make a try at show business." She began her career as a performer in Mexican vaudeville in 1924. She initially performed under her paternal surname, but after her father returned home from the war, he was outraged that his daughter had decided to become a stage performer. She chose her maternal surname, "Vélez", as her stage name and her mother introduced Vélez and her sister Josefina to the popular Spanish Mexican vedette María Conesa, "La Gatita Blanca". Vélez debuted in a show led by Conesa, where she sang 'Oh Charley, My Boy' and danced the shimmy. Aurelio Campos, a young pianist, and friend of the Vélez sisters recommended Lupe to stage producers, Carlos Ortega and Manuel Castro. Ortega and Castro were preparing a season revue at the Regis Theatre and hired Vélez to join the company in March 1925. Later that year, Vélez starred in the revues 'Mexican Rataplan' and '¡No lo tapes!', both parodies of the Bataclan's shows in Paris. Her suggestive singing and provocative dancing was a hit with audiences, and she soon established herself as one of the main stars of vaudeville in Mexico. After a year and a half, Vélez left the revue after the manager refused to give her a raise. She then joined the Teatro Principal but was fired after three months due to her "feisty attitude". Vélez was quickly hired by the Teatro Lirico, where her salary rose to 100 pesos a day. In 1926, Frank A. Woodyard, an American who had seen Vélez perform, recommended her to stage director Richard Bennett, the father of actresses Joan and Constance Bennett. Bennett was looking for an actress to portray a Mexican cantina singer in his upcoming play 'The Dove'. He sent Vélez a telegram inviting her to Los Angeles to appear in the play. Vélez had been planning to go to Cuba to perform, but quickly changed her plans and traveled to Los Angeles. However, upon arrival, she discovered that she had been replaced by another actress.
While in Los Angeles, Lupe Vélez met the comedian Fanny Brice. Brice recommended her to Flo Ziegfeld, who hired her to perform in New York City. While Vélez was preparing to leave Los Angeles, she received a call from MGM producer Harry Rapf, who offered her a screen test. Producer and director Hal Roach saw Vélez's screen test and hired her for a small role in the comic Laurel and Hardy short Sailors, Beware! (Fred Guiol, Hal Yates, 1927). After her debut, Vélez appeared in another Hal Roach short, What Women Did for Me (James Parrott, 1927), opposite Charley Chase. Later that year, she did a screen test for the upcoming Douglas Fairbanks feature The Gaucho (F. Richard Jones, 1927). Fairbanks was impressed by Vélez and hired her to appear in the film with him. The Gaucho was a hit and critics were duly impressed with Vélez's ability to hold her own alongside Fairbanks, who was well known for his spirited acting and impressive stunts. Her second major film was Stand and Deliver (Donald Crisp, 1928), produced by Cecil B. DeMille. That same year, she was named one of the WAMPAS Baby Stars. Then she appeared in Lady of the Pavements (1929), directed by D. W. Griffith, and Where East Is East (Tod Browning, 1929), starring Lon Chaney as an animal trapper in Laos. In the Western The Wolf Song (Victor Fleming, 1929), she appeared alongside Gary Cooper. As she was regularly cast as 'exotic' or 'ethnic' women that were volatile and hot-tempered, gossip columnists took to referring to Vélez as "Mexican Hurricane", "The Mexican Wildcat", "The Mexican Madcap", "Whoopee Lupe" and "The Hot Tamale". Lupe Vélez made the transition to sound films without difficulty. Studio executives had predicted that her accent would likely hamper her ability to make the transition. That idea was dispelled after she appeared in the all-talking Rin Tin Tin vehicle, Tiger Rose (George Fitzmaurice, 1929). The film was a hit and Vélez's sound career was established. Vélez appeared in a series of Pre-Code films like Hell Harbor (Henry King, 1930), The Storm (William Wyler, 1930), and the crime drama East Is West (Monta Bell, 1930) opposite Edward G. Robinson. The next year, she appeared in her second film for Cecil B. DeMille, Squaw Man (Cecil B. DeMille, 1931), opposite Warner Baxter, in Resurrection (Edwin Carewe, 1931), and The Cuban Love Song (W.S. Van Dyke, 1931), with the popular singer Lawrence Tibbett. She had a supporting role in Kongo (William J. Cowen, 1932) with Walter Huston, a sound remake of West of Zanzibar (Tod Browning, 1928) which tries to outdo the Lon Chaney original in morbidity. She also starred in Spanish-language versions of Universal films like Resurrección (Eduardo Arozamena, David Selman, 1931), the Spanish version of Resurrection (1931), and Hombres en mi vida (Eduardo Arozamena, David Selman, 1932), the Spanish version of Men in Her Life (William Beaudine, 1931) in which Lois Moran had starred.
In 1932, Lupe Vélez took a break from her film career and traveled to New York City where she was signed by Broadway impresario Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr. to take over the role of "Conchita" in the musical revue 'Hot-Cha!'. The show also starred Bert Lahr, Eleanor Powell, and Buddy Rogers. Back in Hollywood, Lupe switched to comedy after playing dramatic roles for five years. Denny Jackson at IMDb: "In 1933 she played the lead role of Pepper in Hot Pepper (1933). This film showcased her comedic talents and helped her to show the world her vital personality. She was delightful." After Hot Pepper (John G. Blystone, 1933) with Edmund Lowe and Victor McLaglen, Lupe played beautiful but volatile, characters in a series of successful films like Strictly Dynamite (Elliott Nugent, 1934), Palooka (Benjamin Stoloff, 1934) both opposite Jimmy Durante, and Hollywood Party (Allan Dwan, a.o., 1934) with Laurel and Hardy. Although Vélez was a popular actress, RKO Pictures did not renew her contract in 1934. Over the next few years, Vélez worked for various studios as a freelance actress; she also spent two years in England where she filmed The Morals of Marcus (Miles Mander, 1935) and Gypsy Melody (Edmond T. Gréville, 1936). She returned to Los Angeles the following year where she appeared in the final part of the Wheeler & Woolsey comedy High Flyers (Edward F. Cline, 1937). In 1938, Vélez made her final appearance on Broadway in the musical You Never Know, by Cole Porter. The show received poor reviews from critics but received a large amount of publicity due to the feud between Vélez and fellow cast member Libby Holman. Holman was irritated by the attention Vélez garnered from the show with her impersonations of several actresses including Gloria Swanson, Katharine Hepburn, and Shirley Temple. The feud came to a head during a performance in New Haven, Connecticut after Vélez punched Holman in between curtain calls and gave her a black eye. The feud effectively ended the show. Upon her return to Mexico City in 1938 to star in her first Mexican film, Vélez was greeted by ten thousand fans. The film La Zandunga (Fernando de Fuentes, 1938) co-starring Arturo de Córdova, was a critical and financial success. Vélez was slated to appear in four more Mexican films, but instead, she returned to Los Angeles and went back to work for RKO Pictures. In 1939, Lupe Vélez was cast opposite Leon Errol and Donald Woods in the B-comedy, The Girl from Mexico (Leslie Goodwins, 1939). Despite being a B film, it was a hit with audiences and RKO re-teamed her with Errol and Wood for a sequel, Mexican Spitfire (Leslie Goodwins, 1940). That film was also a success and led to a series of eight Spitfire films. Wikipedia: "In the series, Vélez portrays Carmelita Lindsay, a temperamental yet friendly Mexican singer married to Dennis 'Denny' Lindsay (Woods), an elegant American gentleman. The Spitfire films rejuvenated Vélez's career. Moreover, they were films in which a Latina headlined for eight films straight –a true rarity." In addition to the Spitfire series, she was cast in such films as Six Lessons from Madame La Zonga (John Rawlins, 1941), Playmates (David Butler, 1941) opposite John Barrymore, and Redhead from Manhattan (Lew Landers, 1943). In 1943, the final film in the Spitfire series, Mexican Spitfire's Blessed Event (Leslie Goodwins, 1943), was released. By that time, the novelty of the series had begun to wane. Velez co-starred with Eddie Albert in the romantic comedy, Ladies' Day (Leslie Goodwins, 1943), about an actress and a baseball player. In 1944, Vélez returned to Mexico to star in an adaptation of Émile Zola's novel Nana (Roberto Gavaldón, Celestino Gorostiza, 1944), which was well-received. It would be her final film. After filming wrapped, Vélez returned to Los Angeles and began preparing for another stage role in New York.
Lupe Vélez's temper and jealousy in her often tempestuous romantic relationships were well documented and became tabloid fodder, often overshadowing her career. Vélez was straightforward with the press and was regularly contacted by gossip columnists for stories about her romantic exploits. Her first long-term relationship was with actor Gary Cooper. Vélez met Cooper while filming The Wolf Song in 1929 and began a two-year affair with him. The relationship was passionate but often stormy. Reportedly Vélez chased Cooper around with a knife during an argument and cut him severely enough to require stitches. By that time, the rocky relationship had taken its toll on Cooper who had lost 45 pounds and was suffering from nervous exhaustion. Paramount Pictures ordered him to take a vacation to recuperate. While he was boarding the train, Vélez showed up at the train station and fired a pistol at him. During her marriage to actor Johnny Weissmuller, stories of their frequent physical fights were regularly reported in the press. Vélez reportedly inflicted scratches, bruises, and love-bites on Weissmuller during their fights and "passionate love-making". In July 1934, after ten months of marriage, Vélez filed for divorce citing cruelty. She withdrew the petition a week later after reconciling with Weissmuller. In January 1935, she filed for divorce a second time and was granted an interlocutory decree that was dismissed when the couple reconciled a month later. In August 1938, Vélez filed for divorce for a third time, again charging Weissmuller with cruelty. Their divorce was finalised in August 1939. After the divorce became final, Vélez began dating actor Guinn "Big Boy" Williams in late 1940. They were reportedly engaged but never married. Vélez was also linked to author Erich Maria Remarque and the boxers Jack Johnson and Jack Dempsey. In 1943, Vélez began an affair with her La Zandunga co-star Arturo de Córdova. De Córdova had recently moved to Hollywood after signing with Paramount Pictures. Despite the fact that de Córdova was married to Mexican actress Enna Arana with whom he had four children, Vélez granted an interview to gossip columnist Louella Parsons in September 1943 and announced that the two were engaged. Vélez ended the engagement in early 1944, reportedly after de Córdova's wife refused to give him a divorce. Vélez then met and began dating a struggling young Austrian actor named Harald Maresch (who went by the stage name Harald Ramond). In September 1944, she discovered she was pregnant with Ramond's child. She announced their engagement in late November 1944. On 10 December, four days before her death, Vélez announced she had ended the engagement and kicked Ramond out of her home. On the evening of 13 December 1944, Vélez dined with her two friends, the silent film star Estelle Taylor and Venita Oakie. In the early morning hours of 14 December, Vélez retired to her bedroom, where she consumed 75 Seconal pills and a glass of brandy. Her secretary, Beulah Kinder, found the actress's body on her bed later that morning. A suicide note addressed to Harald Ramond was found nearby. Lupe Vélez was only 36 years old. More than four-thousand people filed past her casket during her funeral. Her body was interred in Mexico City, at Panteón Civil de Dolores Cemetery. Velez' estate, valued at $125,000 and consisting mostly of her Rodeo House home, two cars, jewelry, and personal effects were left to her secretary Beulah Kinder with the remainder in trust for her mother, Mrs. Josephine Velez. Together with Dolores del Rio, Ramon Novarro, and José Mojica, she was one of the few Mexican people who had made history in the early years of Hollywood.
Sources: Denny Jackson (IMDb), Wikipedia, and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
The firelight did not warm the room. It merely carved her from the shadows of the old New Orleans parlor: a striking cameo of bone and amber skin. No one knew the parish of her birth. No one knew, with any certainty, the century that had first claimed her. There were stories. There were always stories.
The sharp planes of her face, the dark sweep of her lashes, the severe elegance of her cheekbones invited speculation from men who mistook conjecture for knowledge. One saw the distant echo of horsemen crossing the wind-scoured steppes of Asia. Another discovered, in the line of her mouth, the remnants of vanished caravans he had heard stories of. They assembled histories around her as children assemble castles from cards, each convinced that one more piece would finally make the whole thing stand.
She never corrected them.
In the gaslit salons of the French Quarter, where occultists gathered beneath tarnished mirrors and the damp night air crept through half-open shutters, they argued over spirits they had never seen. They expected the usual theater. Candles guttering at precisely the right moment. Latin muttered over black bowls. Cards appearing where no cards had been. A trembling table. A dead man's voice from behind a curtain.
Parlor tricks were for magicians. Illusions were for entertainers seeking applause and fortune.She respected them for what they were.
She was a witch.
Her power announced itself without announcement. It entered a room as perfume enters a room—quietly, invisibly, and everywhere at once.
One evening, a circle of self-assured skeptics crowded around her, drinking too much and laughing too loudly. They had come prepared to expose her. She let them talk.
Then she lifted her eyes. Nothing more.
The laughter faltered. A man near the fireplace stopped halfway through a sentence. He frowned, searching for the word he had lost. Another turned toward the window.He shook his head. For several seconds, no one spoke.
Then the man beside the window whispered, “Do you smell that?”
Several faces turned toward him.
“Smell what?”
“Flowers.”
There were no flowers in the room. The scent came again. Sweet. Fading. Slightly rotten.Lilies. The man by the fireplace went pale.
“My mother used to keep them in the—” He stopped. His hand tightened around his glass.
Across the room, a woman suddenly pressed both palms against the marble table. She stared at them.
“What is it?” someone asked.
“Stone,” she whispered. The table was wood. She began to cry. Not delicately. Not quietly. The tears came with the helplessness of a child, and when the man beside her reached for her shoulder, she recoiled as though he had struck her.
Another guest laughed. It was a nervous laugh. Then he began to laugh harder. Too hard. He covered his mouth, horrified by the sound coming out of him.“What is happening?”
She watched them over the rim of her wineglass. Nothing in her expression changed.
A man across the room suddenly remembered a woman he had loved thirty years before.He had not thought of her in decades. He remembered the blue dress she had worn the first night they met. The chipped tooth she had tried to hide when she laughed. The exact warmth of her hand against his wrist. He remembered the last time he had seen her. He remembered why she had left.His chair scraped violently against the floor.
“Stop,” he said.
She did not move.
“Please.”
That was when the others understood. Whatever was happening was not happening to the room. It was happening to them.
She did not summon spirits. She did not call demons from beneath the earth. She needed nothing from beyond the room. Everything she required was already inside them.
A grief buried beneath thirty years of respectable living. A fear hidden beneath confidence. A hunger someone had mistaken for ambition. A loneliness so old its owner had forgotten it had a name.
She touched nothing.
She needed only to breathe.
The skeptic by the fireplace began to sob. The woman at the table stared at her palms as though expecting to find blood. Someone whispered a prayer. Someone else whispered her name.
She took another sip of wine. Gradually, the room returned to itself.
The lilies faded. The marble became wood again.Memories retreated into their locked rooms. But something had changed.
They would blame the wine afterward. The heat. The lateness of the hour. The strange atmosphere of the Quarter. They would invent sensible explanations because the alternative was too intimate to bear.
They would never speak of what they had felt.
Not to one another.
Not even to themselves.
She watched them leave from her velvet settee, the last of the firelight dancing in her glass.Let the charlatans summon sparks. Let them levitate tables and chant in dead languages. Let them frighten themselves with their own shadows. She had no need for demonstrations.
She merely breathed.
And somewhere beneath the surface of the world, something breathed with her.
After months of speculation, the closure date of Mortlake Garage was announced to staff. But it was only when these posters started to appear at bus stops and on buses did it really hit home that the end was fast approaching.
My speculations on why computers often look like arse nowadays:
1: Different target demographics. Back in the 80's, a computer was a sort of wondrous technological marvel that you perhaps bought just to have one even if it ultimately wasn't all that useful. Making a showpiece out of the case was a way to compensate. Now many entertainment systems are designed to not stick out; they are simple monoliths to be "hidden" on a desk or stowed in next to some TV-box.
2: Costs. Computers in the 80's cost a lot more, so more resources could go into things like case design, packaging and manuals.
3: Lack of components. Designers of computers and phones now have nothing to play with even if they wanted. There are no cartridge slots, wonky I/O ports, floppy drives, joysticks, special keys, turbo sliders, venting holes, etc. Everything has been shaved off so design has become this dumb, monotonous thing - rectangles with rounded corners.
You might protest that there's designed gaming hardware now, but this type of design has two problems. Design gains a lot when it's has a foundation on actual functional components. For example, if the floppy drive section on the F1XD was nonfunctional, just a piece of plastic, it would be much weaker designwise, sort of silly. When I look at modern gaming hardware, it feels... superficial like that, and everything is black and angular with LEDs. It's nonsense greeble!
Motherboards do have functional components. There are people who build very nice looking pump systems and so on... but all of this is hidden in a case... sometimes a rectangular "monolith" style case with a square plexiglass window. It's a different kind of design anyways... a sort of engine of stuff which sits in a box to the side. In contrast, something like the F1XD is like a tactile control panel directly under your hands - here function meets design.
Supervenient Conclusions.
Spontanés audiences spéculations germinations commençant avouer,
de recurrendo ad voluptatem omnia alia remota,,
upspringing immagina agglomerato di descrivere piaceri rilevamento dimostrato,
Wiederaufnahme der lobenswerten Bedingungen Einbalsamierung Beispiele Traditionen entdeckt,
Perioada de-hap risc mulțumit durate Ventures certuri mai departe,
cyfyngiadau expirations buchesi llenyddol cyrraedd cwestiynau chwilfrydedd dyfaliadau,
ogarnęła degeneracji zniekształcony okres przerywający obowiązek przekazany,
eljárás prototípus vizsgálatok megvetendő hangok rendkívüli vállalat trükkök,
diplomatist fíor-riachtanach tionchar speciousness tremulous smaointe sásúil,
واع نظارات تداول الغضب الحفاظ الشكوك قار شخصية ل,
återupprättas uproariously plussidan verksamhet upplysta utmärkelser långt,
stjórna hert í bankanum swearing ákvæði herrar eftirgjöf sveifla ómögulegt,
endowments wallets faculties mga transaksyon prostrated philosophers Liwanag ng buwan,
限られた真理を実証する不正確な予測を矛盾の誤解が返す!
Steve.D.Hammond.
Strathalbyn.
A Special Survey of 4,000 acres was taken out along the Angas River in 1839 for George Hall (secretary to Governor Gawler) and William Mein and others. Land was surveyed from the mouth of the Angas along the river to about where Macclesfield is now situated. Other contributors to the Mouth of the Angas Special Survey were Strathalbyn settlers including: 806 acres purchased by Dr John Rankine, Blackwood Park; 166 acres purchased by William Rankine, Glenbarr; 410 acres purchased by Donald McLean; 81 acres purchased by Edward and Charles Stirling of Hampton and later the Lodge. William and Nicol Mein kept 728 acres for themselves but George Hall (who kept about 930 acres) was a Colonial Office employee with an eye on speculation. He also paid £4,000 for the Great Bend Special Survey along the River Murray from Morgan to Blanchetown but it was claimed this was taken for Governor Gawler but in Hall’s name to avoid scandal! But the land was not worth £1 per acre! The Meins were graziers and also took out Occupational Licenses for leasehold land in 1843. They were Scots so they donated £600 for the building fund for the Presbyterian Church in Adelaide in 1840. But in 1843 they dissolved a business partnership in Adelaide and they appear to have left the colony perhaps to join their relatives in NSW. Meins did not stay on to become Strathalbyn pioneers unlike the Rankines, McLeans and Stirlings. The other prominent early founder was William Dawson- hence the creek flowing in front of Glen Barr is the Dawson Creek which enters the Angas River in Strathalbyn. Dawson Banks is another of the grand old properties in Strathalbyn.
Stirlings chose their land to the north of the town and built Hampden and the Lodge; John Rankine chose his land to the north of the town and built Blackwood Park whilst brother William Rankine chose land to the south on Dawson Creek and built Glenbarr house. The first public building in the fledgling town of Strathalbyn was the Strathalbyn Hotel erected in 1840 and the second was probably St. Andrews Presbyterian Church which opened in 1844 with additions in 1869. As most of the settlers were Scottish the name chosen for the town was Scottish and the first church was Presbyterian. The first farmer to produce a crop was David Gollan. His interest in wheat led him to open the first flour mill in 1850 in the centre of the town. Mill Bridge adjacent to the flourmill bridged the Angas River. As the town progressed quickly a local council was formed in 1854 with the Stirlings, Rankines and Archibald McLean (investor in Langhorne Creek) being among the first councillors. The Stirlings were especially important to Strathalbyn. Edward Stirling (the father) joined into a partnership with (Sir) Thomas Elder and Robert Barr Smith in 1855. Stirling stayed with the company as it funded the Moonta and Wallaroo copper mines in 1861 then he withdrew but remained as an investor in the mines. The company went on to become Elder Smith and Co the most successful SA 19th century company. Edward Stirling had two sons, (Sir) Edward Stirling a famed surgeon who lived at St. Vigeans at Stirling and (Sir) Lancelot Stirling, local Member of Parliament for the Strathalbyn district, sheep and cattle breeder and company director. The Stirlings lived in the family home Hampden until it burnt down around 1870. Then they moved into the Lodge which was extended and remained the family home for Sir Lancelot Stirling after his father Edward died in 1873. Lancelot lived there until he died in 1932. The Stirlings of Strathalbyn also owned and operated Nalpa Station on Lake Albert. The Lodge is now the centre of a new suburban development at Strathalbyn.
From the beginning Strathalbyn prospered because of its access to water from the Angas River, its reliable rainfall, its genial climate for cropping and from the patronage of its wealthy founders. The town was laid out in 1840 and blocks sold at that time. The discovery of silver, lead and zinc at nearby Wheal Ellen mine in 1857 further boosted the growing town. The mine closed a short time later but re-opened in 1869 and operated until closure in 1888. It briefly re-opened from 1910-14 for the last phase. Until recently Strathalbyn had another zinc mine conducted by Terramin Mining which started operations in 2007. The zinc from here was sent to Nyrstar refinery at Port Pirie for smelting. The mining occurred 360 metres below the ground surface. The mine had a life of five years and closed in late 2013 ending the jobs of 115 local people. But Strathalbyn has always had a range of local industry. A foundry operated in the town from the mid 1850s as well as the usual businesses of blacksmith, saddlery etc, and the town handled coach services to Wellington via Langhorne Creek from around 1854. It was also one of the first towns in SA to have its own gas works started by David Trenouth in 1868. By 1870 the small urban centre of Strathalbyn had gas street lights! The gas works operated until 1917 when an electrical service took over power provision. From an early date Strathalbyn also had its own newspaper and printing press the Southern Argus housed in Argus House which was built 1867/68. The Southern Argus which is still published, is SA’s oldest country newspaper. In 1912 it established an offshoot - the Victor Harbor Times. In terms of transportation and the transport of goods Strathalbyn prospered as it was the terminus of the horse drawn tram service from Port Elliott and Goolwa in 1869. That is why the Terminus Hotel is so named. In 1884 that line was converted to a broad gauge rail line for steam engines and linked at Mt Barker with the line to Adelaide. Strathalbyn had a flour mill from 1850 as noted above and in the 1860s the town had its own brewery. The heyday of business boom for Strathalbyn was in the 1860s and 1870 when so many of the fine town buildings were erected. Heritage buildings are shown on map above and they include:
Commercial Street/Dawson Street.
•At the northern end of Commercial Street on the corner with North Parade is the Doctor’s Residence. 26 North Parade. Dr Herbert built a grand 8 roomed residence here in 1858. Dr Ferguson purchased it in 1869 and added and altered the verandas. Dr Shone bought it in 1897. Dr Formby took it over in 1907 and kept it until he sold it to Dr Fairley in 1979! Note the double chimneys and the ogee(S shaped) gutters above the bay windows and the 1850s French windows.
•On the northern end of Commercial Street is the Wesleyan Methodist Church which was built in 1874. It replaced the demolished Methodist church built in 1854. Built of random stone, semi rounded windows etc. It became the only Methodist church at the time of Methodist amalgamations in 1900 .It closed around the time of amalgamation with the Presbyterians and Congregationalists in 1977. The Hall was added in 1939.
•Blackwell House, 18 Commercial Street. A two storey bluestone structure from the 1860s. It was much altered in 1912 when the parapet along the roof was removed, the slate replaced with iron and the upper balcony added.
•The former Power House 1917 –when gas works closed. Became Council Chamber 1939 when ETSA arrived.
•Coleman Mill store. Fine stone building with few windows. Built 1864. Coleman bought the mill from Gollan.
•1850 flour mill which was sold to Laucke’s in 1938. Commercial Rd and Mill Street an imposing four storey structure. Note the four storeys, purple sandstone, and little windows.
•Beside the mill is Water Villa house. The earliest part dates from 1849 and the Italianate bay window sections are 1879. David Gollan the owner of the 1850 flour mill built this as his residence. It is a mixture of stones. Note the French doors in the old original part of the house onto the veranda.
•Argus House, 1868. 33 Commercial Street. It was a print works and residence and shop.
•Post Office 1911. 37 Commercial Street.
•Savings Banks of South Australia. A fine two storey structure for the bank and manager’s residence. Built in 1930. It has rough stone, prominent gables, repeating arches, wooden doors, and terra cotta tiles.
•Church of Christ. Opened in 1873.Limestone walls, arched windows.
•Masonic Hall built in 1896 but Lodge established 1866.Additons 1912 and 1957.
Rankine Street/Albyn Terrace.
•Strathalbyn Police Station (1855) and Court House (1865) now the National Trust Museum.
•National Bank 2 Albyn Terrace. Squared stone blocks, two storeys and a dominant building. Elaborate porch and balcony and decorative window surrounds etc. Erected in 1869. Nearby Norfolk Island pine was planted in 1895.
•Tucker & Sons solicitors at 8 Albyn Terrace. Have a look at all the shops along Albyn Terrace a great 19th century streetscape still largely intact. It was used in the film “Picnic at Hanging Rock.”
High Street.
•London House general store at 7 High Street 1867. Now an antiques shop. Cobb and Co used to use the stables at the rear for the daily coaching service to Adelaide. London House had the first telephone in Strathalbyn in 1883.
•Robin Hood hotel erected in 1855 and still standing. 18 High Street.
•The Strathalbyn library 9 High Street. Opened 1922 with a classical façade with good symmetry.
•The Town Hall at 11 High Street. 1874 opened as a two storey stone structure with fancy parapet as an institute building. The parapet is supported by paired brackets.
Other locations- Chapel Street, East Terrace and South Terrace.
•St. Andrews Uniting Church (formerly Presbyterian) 1844 for main church with transept added 1857. Manse erected 1854. 1869 tower completed, bell donated by Edward Stirling. Clock installed 1895. Church hall on the opposite corner was built in 1911.
•Former Primitive Methodist Church 1861 was sold to the Anglican Church as a church hall in 1901 following the Methodist amalgamation. It was sold to the Foresters Lodge in 1912(when Anglicans purchased the former Catholic Church) and much later it as sold to the Scouts.
•St. Barnabas Catholic Church 2 Chapel Street. This was a late addition to Strathalbyn being erected in 1913. But Catholic services began in 1881 when a Catholic church was consecrated in Rowe St. The first priest arrived in 1906. A presbytery as built 1911 in East Tce and then church two years later. The 1881 church was sold in 1913 as Anglican parish hall called St. Barnabas. It is on the corner of Rowe and Murray street.
•Christ Church Anglican Church 7 East Terrace. The tower on Christ Church was erected from donations on the death of Sir Lancelot Stirling in 1932. The tower opened in 1933 but the church was built in 1871.
•Railway Station on South Terrace erected 1883 in time for opening of broad gauge line to Adelaide and start of branch line trains to Milang from Sandergrove siding.
•Two storey residence attached to Rowe’s foundry in South Terrace. Britannia House as it is known was built in 1855.
+++ DISCLAIMER +++
Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based historical facts. BEWARE!
How it came to be:
It has been a long time since I built a "real" airplane kit, and this one here is a one-of-a-kind. After a bleak phase with lots of reading about German WWII airplane projects I found a spark to fire up a project I kept in the back of my mind for a long time: building one of these semi-fictional WWII airplanes from scratch. These astonishing designs were on the drawing boards at their time and rarely made it beyond that. Only a few reached prototype status at the end of the war, but today these partly weird designs are the basis of today's Luft '46 model kit genre: What-if airplanes, based on sketches, construction plans and pure speculation, in the case the war would have gone on.
At this point I want to make clear that this kit has NO political background. It is not even intended, and any Nazi symbolism is intentionally avoided and rejected. It is rather a hommage to an impressive design and, from my personal point of view, pure science fiction, based on vague historic facts.
Some historic background on this plane:
This plane is a Focke-Wulf study from 1941 for a heavy fighter. It was developes shortly after the Fw 190 introduction and surely influenced by the twin-boom Fw 189 reconnaissance aircraft, which became very popular due to its high agility, stable flight characteristics and toughness against enemy fire. The small "Flitzer" turbine engine fighter will surely also have had some impact, since it was on Focke Wulf's drawing boards in 1943, too.
This beast here would have been a much larger airplane, though: a heavy, high performance fighter built around the potent BMW 803 engine: a 28 cylinder, liquid-cooled radial engine in the 4.000 hp output range - comparable to the P&W-R-4360 Wasp Major engine (the so-called "corncob") which actually found its way into the Vought F2G Corsair but "just" put out 3.000 hp.
For reference, this Focke Wulf design was quite comparable to the US American XP-54, both in design and performance
The Focke Wulf fighter never received an official designation, and saw some mutation in the course of 1943. Even though the basic layout as a twin-boom, single pusher engine airplane with a tricycle landing gear was retained, the radiator placements, wing and tail shape changed.
From the original 1941 annular radiator design (a ring opening around the central fuselage), the arrangement was modified in April 1943 to a single drum radiator in the nose and, alternatively, twin drum radiators in the front ends of the tailbooms. The latter design is the layout I chose for my model, or better: where I ended up (see below).
Valuable sources:
Walter Schick, Ingolf Meyer: Luftwaffe Secret Projects, Fighters 1939-1945, Hinckley, 2005 (this is an English translation of the original German edition, Stuttgart, 1994, but with many colored illustrations added).
Sundin, Claes; Bergstroem, Christer: Deutsche Jaqgdflugzeuge 1939-1945 in Farbprofilen, Bonn, 1999.
www.luft46.com - a great online institution which offers many facts, information and artwork about secret German WWII airplane designs like this one - you can find a nice CG graphic of the initial 1941 design of this machine there.
wp.scn.ru - "Wings Palette" - a Russian website which collects plane profiles and some details about the respective machine's history. A nice reference archive, since a lot information concerning colors can be found there, too. Handling is poor, though. But once you get it, it is a great model kit building source.
The construction:
Anyway, this Focke Wulf design never left the drawing board, and this model here is just an interpretation of the vague design sketches I found in literature. It is also limited by the use of various existing kits as a kitbashing basis. My idea was to build a what-if version of the airplane if it had entered service, which would allow some deviations from the blueprints and also leave some room for a semi-realistic Luftwaffe livery.
What went into this model:
Grumman Panther (1:72, Matchbox/Revell):
- Main body,
- Parts of the outer wings
- Cockpit interior
- Canopy
Lockheed P-38E Lightning (1:72; Airfix):
- Tailbooms
- Horizontal fin
- Cockpit parts
- Landing gear
- Propeller spinners
Messerschmidt Me 262 A-2a (1:72, Hobby Master):
- Outer wings
- Wheels
Dornier Do 217N (1:72, Italeri):
- Engine cowling (rear central fuselage)
- Propellers
Other smaller donations:
- Kamow Ka-25 (1:72, Airfix): Vertical fins
- Chance Vought XF5U-1 (1:72, Hasegawa): Propeller spinners
- Chance Vought F4U (1:72, Matchbox): Engine block
- Messerschmidt Me-110 (1:72, Matchbox): Pilot figure
...and a lot of small stuff of unknown origin!
Laying the foundations
The basic choice for donation kits was quickly done: the central body would come from the Grumman F9F-4 Panther kit from Matchbox (currently released by Revell). Its overall proportions match well with the Focke Wulf design's central body and its size well, and the kit's construction with folded wings and a separate tail fin allowed easy modification for the pusher engine layout.
Originally, I wanted to use the Panther's jet intakes as radiator openings for a fictional (and more elegant) design alternative to the "official" radiator solutions, but I had to skip this idea (see below). The slender tailbooms come from a vintage Airfix P-38H kit and are much more slender than the Focke Wulf designs. Furthermore, the original Focke Wulf main landing gear looks as if it would retract inwards - which collided with my intial radiator ideas! Due to the pusher propeller, a much longer landing gear than the Panther's wpould be necessary, and this would have needed much bigger compartments. Enlarging them appeared too complex, and there's be actually no space with my inital wing root radiator idea. Therefore, I decided to retract the main wheels into the twin booms, and the P-38 pieces were just perfect for my ideas (and at hand). They'd undergo major modifications, though.
The twin booms were to be mounted onto the Panther's inner wings, and from there the rest of the model design would come when the parts were needed or available, since matching proportions for a balanced look is an important aspect when you build from scratch - a lesson I learned through varioius mecha bashings and modifications. I had some plans though: for the outer wings, for instance, I considered straight wings from a Fw 190 or parts from a Do 335 "Arrow", since these are slightly swept and would match the original drawings quite well.
The body parts get assembled
Work started straightforward with the tailbooms: they needed total cleaning, so that the P-38 look would disappear as much as possible: intercooolers and turbochargers had to go, and the engines were to "disappear", too. The Airfix kit is pretty old and clumsy, but offers massive material to work with. Another positive aspect is that the main landing gear compartments are complete parts, including the doors and all the inside. A neat arrangement which would later allow a switch between extended and retracted wheels!
The Panther's fuselage was cut open at the rear end to hold the BMW 803 engine, which requiered a new cowling. This came from a Dornier Do 217 with BMW 801 engines from Italeri, the BMW 803 dummy inside comes from a Matchbox F4U kit. The diameters of both segments were pretty equal and were easily merged with putty.
The Panther's front end was taken as it is, including the cockpit. The latter is actually very detailed for a Matchbox kit, with side consoles, a dashboard with instruments and even steering stick is included. I just fitted a better seat and a WWII pilot figure, which received an oxygen mask and its head was turned left for a more vivid look.
Since the front wheel had to be much longer than the Panther pieces I decided to use the P-38 front landing gear. Consequently, I enlarged its compartment (towards the nose, with a transplanted interior) and moved the Panther's nose guns from their original low position upwards. The kit's nose was filled with lots of lead in order to ensure a good weight on the front wheel for free standing on its tricycle undercarriage.
The BMW 803's contraprops had to be built from scratch. The basis were two leftover three-bladed rotors from the aforementioned Do 217 Italeri kit (they had just the correct diameter!) for the static display version, and two transparent plastic discs of the same diameter in order to mimic running propellers for photo shooting purposes in flight.
The spinners were a nightmare, though. They come from a wrecked 1:72 Hasegawa kit of a Chance Vought XF5U-1 (The "Flying Pancake"). Cut into three pieces, the three-bladed props were implanted into the spinner segments and a metal axis inserted, so that the propellers can be moved and interchanged. A plastic tube inside of the engine dummy is the respective adapter and offers a stable hold.
Trouble! ...and even more trouble!
As rough work progressed, some fundamental problems became obvious:
a) the P-38 booms were too long at their front, and their diameter was much too large. Cutting the front ends off did not help much, since I would have had to create new front covers/noses from putty and their bulky shape would look very unsinspired - way off of the Focke Wulf design! Hence, I finally decided to switch my personal design plan from the wing root intake arrangement to the authetic twin drum radiator layout from April 1943.
The Panther's air intakes would be totally closed, leaving pretty "fat" wing roots of high thickness. But since armament was supposed to be loacted in both the nose and wing roots of this machine (see below), this offered a good chance to cover the mess up a little.
Finding something to act as drum radiators was another problem that followed suit! At first I thought I'd become happy with two leftover engines from a Matchbox PB4-Y2 Privateer in 1:72 scale. These are/were actually Twin Wasp radial engines, but their diameter, the grates inside and their cooling flaps made them suited for my kit. They fitted well, but it just did not look right (see some of the WIP pics).
Heavy-hearted I skipped this approach and also built the drums radiators from scratch. I finally found some good parts in model railraod equipment: in a HO Modulars set from Cornerstone with various roof detils for industrial buildings, I found two nice "tubs" (parts for motorized vents) which were merged with lots of putty and sanding onto the clipped tail booms. The radiator arrangement inside was made up from parts from a 1:72 scale Panzer IV(!) and from the Airfix P-38 spinners. The cooling flaps are very thin Plasticard. Comparing this solution with the original plane sketches, the result looks convicing and more "realistic" than originally planned! Whew...
b) The wing root/twin boom area was another source of headaches, since I had to merge parts that were never supposed to meet, in places even less intended for construction. But a mini drill with a diamond cutter and epoxy putty are wonderful things!
Spacers between the Panther hull and the booms had to be made, closing a 5mm gap on each side because the propeller needed this much space between the booms. Parts of the leftover Panther kit's outer wings were the basis, and the original P-38's horizonmtal fin could be used, too. Sound simple, but almost the complete area had to be remodeled with putty.
The big picture becomes clear(er)
Now that the main part of the body was finished, the final missing pieces could be added and first details defined.
For the outer wings, I finally settled on parts from a Me 262 from Hobby Boss. These have the advantage that they are massive pieces (not two halves, as usual) and that the Me 262's engine nacelles could easily be left away. As a result, I had two thin, slightly swept wings which could easily be cut into the right length for my project. Fixing them to the P-38 tail booms was another story, though!
The original Focke Wulf design uses simpler and thicker wings, which look very similar to the Do 335. But I justify my choice with the advancements in aerodynamics since the 1943 revision of the original plane's design and the effective introduction of the Me 262 into production and service. Using these parts or a similar design for high speeds in another airplane appears plausible in order to get this machine into the air quickly, and the slender Me 262 wings blend well with the angles of the inner wings from the Panther.
The vertical fins also puzzled me for some time. The round P-38 fins had definitively to go, but the different Focke Wulf design sketches did not show a definitive vertical fin shape or arrangement. Since I wanted an old-fashioned, not jet-like look, I went for parts from the scrap box again. And, believe it or not, the model's retro-looking vertical fins actually come from a helicopter: from an antique 1:72 scale Kamow Ka-25 "Hokum" from Airfix!
The main landing gear was taken from the P-38, but the wheels come from the scrap box. I am not sure where these come from - they could come from a Douglas Skyknight from Matchbox. Since the Airfix kit's contruction offers the main landing gear to be inserted as complete units, I also used the covers for the retracted gear for the photo shootings, for some pictures in flight.
Armament:
Being a heavy daylight fighter, I stuck to the original 1941 design armament: four fixed 20mm MG 151/20 in the nose, plus "provision for two larger calibre cannons", plus two or four machine guns installed in the wing-roots. The firepower would have been massive!
For my model I adopted the four 20mm guns in the upper nose and added four 30mm MK 103 cannons in the wing roots. Since these offered now lots of space, this arrangement would make the thick wing and the blended bodywork plausible, without looking exagerrated.
The nose guns are just thin polystyrol sticks, the larger calibre guns are syringe needles cut to length with the beloved diamond cutter.
But beyond the guns, I also wanted to add some of the experimental air-to-air weapons that were under development against allied bomber forces in 1945. Among those was the world's probably first guided AAM, the Kramer X-4: a relatively small, wire-guided missile with a range of just 3 miles and a contact detonator.
Tests with this innovative weapon were conducted in the late war months, and the X-4 was suppoesed to be carried by e. g. Me 262 fighters. The targeting procedure would easily overstress a single pilot's capabilities, though, esp. in the heat of a bomber formation attack at high speeds. Therefore, field tests were rather performed by multi-seated planes like the Ju 88, and the X-4 did not enter serious service.
But this missile would have been a plausible weapon for this Focke Wulf design, and so two X-4s found their way with starting racks under my model's wings.
Each missile consists of nine parts and had to be built from scratch. The body is a streamlined, modern 250 lbs. Mk 81 bomb, the wings were cut from thin polystyrol. The wire spools on the wing tips are actually parts from a HO scale fence(!), the acoustic detonator nose are leftover tool handles from a 1:35 scale tank kit.
Livery and markings:
Being a semi-fictional design that never left the drawing board, I tried to implement a "typical" late war Luftwaffe livery. Benchmarks were Me 262 fighter paint schemes, as well as late Fw 190D-9 and Ta-152 machines. Since the plane itself was already centre of attraction, the paint job should be rather subtle, yet authentic.
All interior areas (cockpit, engine, landing gear) were painted in RLM 02. For the outside I ended up with a basic livery in RLM 74/75/76, using colors from Testor's Military Models and Figures range, 2071, 2084, 2085, 2086.
The upper splinter scheme with faded/mottled fuselage sides (which includes RLM 02 in order to create a soft color transition from the dark upper sides into the light RLM 76 underneath, a common practice in field conditions) was derived from a Me 262 profile. This machine also contributed the dark green (RLM 82) color fields on the nose and other fuselage parts. These would not have been standard livery, I think, rather improvised in the field. But this subtle detail prevents the plane from being all grey-in-grey.
The markings come from various decal sheets and were a kind of challenge. I intended to mark this machine as being part of an Erprobungskommando (test unit), or EKdo or EK, for short. But these squadrons would not have special designations, though. Prototypes woud carry a "V"-number (for Versuch/test), but I wanted a machine already in service. So I made up a semi-fictional squadron marking as a part of the late Reich defense.
Typical markings are the colored band at the rear fuselage, its color and scheme being associated with certain Jagdgeschwader (JG) wings, dedicated to interception tasks. The red tail band(s) denote this machine as being part of JG 1, which comprised several Staffeln/groups and squadrons with individual emblems. The JG 1's red tail band would not have been used in the late war years in real life, but, hey, it LOOKS good, and we're finally doing fictional things here! As a side note, JG 1 was the only wing (to be exact: 1./JG 1 and later, in April 1945 III./JG 1) to use the He 162 Salamender jet fighter, so JG 1 appears to be a general plausible choice for this fictional Focke Wulf fighter.
The red wave symbol should, AFAIK, mark the 2nd group of that wing, but it could also be a symbol for the pilot's rank - that's quite obscure and had not been handled consistently. For squadron markings I setlled on 6./JG 1 - the red wyvern was this group's squadron emblem.
Decals come from aftermarkets sheet from TL-Modellbau (superb quality) and others i e. from a MiG-25 from Hasegawa (the red bort number) or the leftover decal sheet of the Hobby Boss Me 262 (mostly stencellings and warning signs).
After application of the decals on the semi-matte paint, everything was sealed under matte varnish.
The X-4 missiles were painted in a color livery I found for a museum X-4. Other test missiles were painted in black and white, checkered. Not sure if the field use missiles would have looked that bright, but for a test unit, the blank fuselage and the hi-vis, orange fins look just right and make a nice contrast to the dull rest of the machine.
Finally...
Lots of work, but the result looks better and more harmonious than I expected. O.K., the Panther's fuselage and cockpit deviate from the Focke Wulf sketches - but the plane I built would have had entered service 3 years after its redesign to the drum radiator design, and details like the bubble canopy or more modern weaponry would have certainly been incorporated.
The finish is not as good as a kit "out of the box", but considering the massive putty work, this machine looks quite good :)
And, after all, it is a fictional design!
Snail Mound and Bloodline (row of trees) in Charles Jencks' Garden of Cosmic Speculation in the grounds of Portrack House, near Dumfries.
Reconstruction of a marble finial in the form of a sphinx, 2022, cast from polymethyl metacrylate, natural pigments in egg tempera, gold foil, and copper, 85 x 28 x 57 cm, reconstruction by Vinzenz Brinkmann and Ulrike Koch-Brinkmann (Liebieghaus Skulpturensammlung, Polychromy Research Project, Frankfurt am Main)
Reconstruction of a marble finial in the form of a sphinx, 2022, cast from polymethyl metacrylate, natural pigments in egg tempera, gold foil, and copper, 85 x 28 x 57 cm, reconstruction by Vinzenz Brinkmann and Ulrike Koch-Brinkmann (Liebieghaus Skulpturensammlung, Polychromy Research Project, Frankfurt am Main)