The Dual Alignments of the Solstitial Churches in North Wales

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bernadette Brady
Keyword(s):  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Roman Period ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Summer Solstice ◽  
Sacred Sites ◽  
Winter Solstice ◽  
Naked Eye ◽  
The North ◽  
North Wales ◽  
History Of

In the north of Wales, there are 105 churches that have stonework dated to the thirteenth century or earlier. Of these, only twelve are oriented to face the summer solstice sunrise. Additionally, all of these solstitial churches are located in the northern-most counties of Wales, near or around the valleys which flow beside the Snowdonia Mountains or to the east of the mountains. The twelve solstitial churches take their landscape into account and, thus, vary considerably in their azimuths in order to align to the actual sunrise of the summer solstice. In such terrain, one would expect a wide and diverse collection of western declinations, yet these twelve churches fall into three distinct regional bands of western declination. The twelve solstice churches have western declinations that align them either with the winter solstice sunset (this is the natural alignment) or with the period of early February or early November. With all the churches fitting into these declination patterns, this paper presents an argument for the origin of this apparent intentionality based on the history of the region. The Isle of Anglesey, in the Roman period, was one of Europe’s major Druidic centres of learning and their naked- eye astronomy skills are evident in artefacts such as the Coligny calendar. Based on this background, this paper suggests that the original fifth or sixth century churches, which were later rebuilt in stone, appropriated pre-existing sacred sites. Thus, today, these Welsh historical churches appear to have preserved, in their medieval walls, older non-Christian orientations.

The Library at Monte Cassino

2020 ◽  
pp. 788-804
Author(s):  
Francis Newton
Keyword(s):  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Golden Age ◽  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Constantine The African ◽  
History Of

This chapter surveys the history of the library at Monte Cassino from the earliest known manuscripts beginning with the time of St. Benedict in the sixth century, continuing through the better Carolingian period and the monastery’s Golden Age in the eleventh century under Abbots Desiderius and Oderisius, and ending in the thirteenth century. Illustrious teachers and writers, including Paul the Deacon, Alberic, Alfanus, Constantine the African, Amatus, and Peter the Deacon, are discussed, as is the abbey’s production of important classical and patristic texts.

Long-Term Interactions between Society and Ecology

2021 ◽  
pp. 107-148
Author(s):  
Tyler Franconi ◽  
Chris Gosden
Keyword(s):  
Soil Erosion ◽  
River Basins ◽  
Roman Period ◽  
The South ◽  
The North ◽  
Forested Landscapes ◽  
History Of ◽  
Human Use

The clearance history of England is reviewed looking first at what can be reconstructed of the patterns of forest and clearance across the country. A broad distinction is seen between more forested landscapes in the north and west, with greater clearance in the south and east. The forests of the north may have seen managed grazing, rather than being wild wood. From the start of the Roman period, the north was cleared as well, creating greater similarity across the country as a whole. We also look at the history of soil erosion, which is linked to clearance. We end by comparing two river basins—the Thames and the Eden—which have contrasting ecologies, topologies, and histories of human use.

A Statue of Henry III from Westminster Abbey

2011 ◽  
Vol 91 ◽  
pp. 253-282
Author(s):  
Richard Foster
Keyword(s):  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Close Resemblance ◽  
The North ◽  
History Of ◽  
Art Dealer

AbstractIt is generally assumed that no medieval figure sculpture has survived from the north front of the nave of Westminster Abbey after three and a half centuries of successive restorations. This assumption was challenged by the appearance at auction in 2007 of a life-sized statue of Henry iii bearing some of the stylistic hallmarks of the late thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The statue, according to its vendor, was acquired from the masons’ yard at Westminster Abbey in 1980, during the most recent major restoration of the north front carried out by Peter Foster, Surveyor of the Fabric until 1988. It was removed from the site with the consent of the contractors. Until the auction, it had been chained to a wall in the vendor's garden. The art dealer who bought the figure identified it as Henry iii from its close resemblance to the thirteenth-century tomb effigy of the king in Westminster Abbey. He purchased the statue in anticipation of it proving to be of a similar date. The purpose of this paper is to review the documented history of the figure sculpture on the north front of the abbey's nave and find a place for this statue within it.

Locality and Pleasure in Landscape: A Study of Three Nineteenth-Century Scottish Watercolourists

Rural History ◽  
1997 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 149-164 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janice Helland
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Housing Estate ◽  
The North ◽  
Stone Wall ◽  
North Wales ◽  
Loch Lomond ◽  
Short Walk

Helensburgh is a Scottish town whose quiet streets lead uphill away from the North Clyde Estuary. A short walk from the waterfront esplanade, almost hidden behind a naval housing estate (1957), an observant tourist can contemplate the stone remains of Ardencaple Castle, parts of which might date to the thirteenth century but more of which dates to the eighteenth century. Walking near the stone wall which runs parallel to the small street, it is difficult to imagine that a large, imposing, perhaps intimidating, building once stood upon vast grounds, housing the chief of the Clan MacAuley (or Macaulay). Recently, I stood with a friend in the warm September sun looking at the grey wall, trying to imagine the visage and the determination of nineteenth-century watercolourist Kate Macaulay as she might have gazed, sketchbook in hand, at the then extant house, once the property of her dispersed clan. She may have turned her eyes and her pencil away from the house toward the river or toward the rolling, treed and rocky terrain that stretched beyond the castle walls toward Loch Lomond. She, after all, preferred to draw and paint land and water more than the buildings sprouting from the stone and the soil. But she did paint ‘MacAuley’ land, recording numbers of scenes in and around Loch Lomond, Gare Loch and Loch Long, sometimes moving beyond clan boundaries to Oban and Skye or to the area around her own ‘Ardencaple House’ in North Wales.

A History of the North Wales Slate Industry.

1975 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 329
Author(s):  
J. G. Rule ◽  
Jean Lindsay
Keyword(s):  
The North ◽  
North Wales ◽  
History Of

A History of the North Wales Slate Industry

1975 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 486
Author(s):  
Kenneth Hudson ◽  
Jean Lindsay
Keyword(s):  
The North ◽  
North Wales ◽  
History Of

‘The Campaign of the Elephant’ in the Context of the History of Arabia in the Sixth Century

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 263-283
Author(s):  
D. Ye. Mishin
Keyword(s):  
Historical Context ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Historical Sources ◽  
The North ◽  
History Of ◽  
Scholarly Discussion

The goal of this article is to present an analysis of extant information on the ‘Campaign of the Elephant’ against Mecca with due regard to the overall historical context. The date of that event still remains as an object of a scholarly discussion, making this study opportune. The position of the scholars who reject the traditional dating of the campaign (around 570–571) and put it back to earlier times does not appear to be well-founded. Historical sources show that Emperor Justin II of Byzantium (565–574), who needed allies for his struggle against the Sasanians in the late 560’s and the early 570’s, called on the Ethiopian Negus and the latter’s half-independent governor of Yemen. The governor, probably, made a campaign to the North around the 570–571, and that appears to be remembered by the Arabs as ‘The Campaign of the Elephant’. Sasanid king Khusraw I Anushirwan (531–579) in 572 attacked and conquered Yemen. That came as a counter measure to the Ethiopian advance to the North, because the Sasanid king considered that activity to be a threat to his empire.

Ras al Khaimah: further archaeological discoveries

Antiquity ◽  
1976 ◽  
Vol 50 (200) ◽  
pp. 216-222
Author(s):  
Beatrice De Cardi
Keyword(s):  
United Arab Emirates ◽  
The State ◽  
Focused Attention ◽  
North East ◽  
The North ◽  
History Of ◽  
The City

Ras a1 Khaimah is the most northerly of the seven states comprising the United Arab Emirates and its Ruler, H. H. Sheikh Saqr bin Mohammad al-Qasimi, is keenly interested in the history of the state and its people. Survey carried out there jointly with Dr D. B. Doe in 1968 had focused attention on the site of JuIfar which lies just north of the present town of Ras a1 Khaimah (de Cardi, 1971, 230-2). Julfar was in existence in Abbasid times and its importance as an entrep6t during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries-the Portuguese Period-is reflected by the quantity and variety of imported wares to be found among the ruins of the city. Most of the sites discovered during the survey dated from that period but a group of cairns near Ghalilah and some long gabled graves in the Shimal area to the north-east of the date-groves behind Ras a1 Khaimah (map, FIG. I) clearly represented a more distant past.

Sequencing Analysis and Phylogenetic Tree of HPV Isolated from Breast Cancer Patients at Thi-Qar Province/Iraq

2020 ◽  
pp. 37-40
Keyword(s):  
Nucleotide Sequence ◽  
Phylogenetic Tree ◽  
Evolutionary Relationship ◽  
Nucleotide Sequencing ◽  
Sequencing Analysis ◽  
Breast Cancer Patients ◽  
The North ◽  
Formalin Fixed Paraffin ◽  
Formalin Fixed Paraffin Embedded ◽  
History Of

Genetic variety examination has demonstrated fundamental to the understanding of the epidemiological and developmental history of Papillomavirus (HPV), for the development of accurate diagnostic tests and for efficient vaccine design. The HPV nucleotide diversity has been investigated widely among high-risk HPV types. To make the nucleotide sequence of HPV and do the virus database in Thi-Qar province, and compare sequences of our isolates with previously described isolates from around the world and then draw its phylogenetic tree, this study done. A total of 6 breast formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE) of the female patients were included in the study, divided as 4 FFPE malignant tumor and 2 FFPE of benign tumor. The PCR technique was implemented to detect the presence of HPV in breast tissue, and the real-time PCR used to determinant HPV genotypes, then determined a complete nucleotide sequence of HPV of L1 capsid gene, and draw its phylogenetic tree. The nucleotide sequencing finding detects a number of substitution mutation (SNPs) in (L1) gene, which have not been designated before, were identified once in this study population, and revealed that the HPV16 strains have the evolutionary relationship with the South African race, while, the HPV33 and HPV6 showing the evolutionary association with the North American and East Asian race, respectively.

North American Association for the Study of Religion (NAASR)

2015 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 29-30
Author(s):  
Matt Sheedy
Keyword(s):  
North American ◽  
American Association ◽  
The North ◽  
History Of

I interviewed Russell McCutcheon back in March 2015, about his new role as president of the North American Association for the Study of Religion (NAASR), asking him about the history of the organization, goals for his tenure, and developments for NAASR’s upcoming conference in Atlanta in November 2015.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document