title: Snowdonia

text: The double track North Wales Coast Line passes along the northern boundary of the park between Conwy and Bangor briefly entering it at Point where it is in tunnel. Stations serve the communities of Conwy, Penmaenmawr, Llanfairfechan and Bangor. The single-track Conwy Valley Line runs south from Llandudno Junction, entering the park north of Betws-y-coed which is served by a station then west up the Lledr valley by way of further stations at Pont-y-pant, Dolwyddelan and Roman Bridge. After passing through a tunnel the passenger line now terminates at Blaenau Ffestiniog railway station. Prior to 1961 the route continued as the Bala and Ffestiniog Railway via Trawsfynydd to Bala joining another former route along the Dee valley which ran southwest via Dolgellau to join the still extant coastal Cambrian Line south of Barmouth. The Pwllheli branch of the Cambrian Line splits from the Aberystwyth branch at Dovey Junction and continues via stations at Aberdovey, Tywyn, Tonfanau, Llwyngwril, Fairbourne and Morfa Mawddach to Barmouth where it crosses the Mawddach estuary by the GradeII* listed wooden Barmouth Bridge, a structure which also provides for walkers and cyclists. Further stations serve Llanaber, Tal-y-bont, Dyffryn Ardudwy, Llanbedr, Pensarn and Llandanwg before reaching Harlech. Tygwyn, Talsarnau and Llandecwyn stations are the last before the line exits the park as it crosses the Dwyryd estuary via Pont Briwet and turns westwards bound for Pwllheli via Penrhyndeudraeth, Porthmadog and Criccieth.


title: Snowdonia

text: Many sections of dismantled railway are now used by walking and cycling routes and are described elsewhere. The Bala Lake Railway is a heritage railway which has been established along a section of the former mainline route between Bala and Llanuwchllyn. Other heritage railways occupy sections of former mineral lines, often narrow gauge and are described in a separate section.


title: Snowdonia

text: Snowdonia is one of the wettest parts of the United Kingdom; Crib Goch in Snowdonia is the wettest spot in the United Kingdom, with an average rainfall of a year over the 30-year period prior to the mid-2000s. (There is a rainfall gauge at 713 metres, 2340' on the slopes below Crib Goch.)


title: Snowdonia

text: The earliest evidence for human occupation of the area dates from around 4000 - 3000 BCE with extensive traces of prehistoric field systems evident in the landscape. Within these are traces of irregular enclosures and hut circles. There are burial chambers of Neolithic and Bronze Age such as Bryn Cader Faner and Iron Age hillforts such as Bryn y Castell near Ffestiniog.


title: Snowdonia

text: The region was finally conquered by the Romans by AD 77–78. Remains of Roman marching camps and practice camps are evident. There was a Roman fort and amphitheatre at Tomen y Mur. Roads are known to have connected with Segontium (Caernarfon) and Deva Victrix (Chester) and include the northern reaches of Sarn Helen.


title: Snowdonia

text: There are numerous memorial stones of Early Christian affinity dating from the post-Roman period. The post-Roman hillfort of Dinas Emrys also dates to this time. Churches were introduced to the region in the 5th and 6th centuries. Llywelyn the Great and Llywelyn ap Gruffudd had various stone castles constructed to protect their borders and trade routes. Edward I built several castles around the margins including those at Harlech and Conwy for military and administrative reasons. Most are now protected within a World Heritage Site. Some of Snowdonia's many stone walls date back to this period too.


title: Snowdonia

text: The 18th century saw the start of industrial exploitation of the area's resources, assisted by the appearance in the late part of the century of turnpike trusts making it more accessible. The engineer Thomas Telford left a legacy of road and railway construction in and around Snowdonia. A new harbour at Porthmadog linked to slate quarries at Ffestiniog via a narrow gauge railway. At its peak in the 19th century the slate industry employed around 12,000 men. A further 1000 were employed in stone quarrying at Graiglwyd and Penmaenmawr. Mining for copper, iron and gold was undertaken during the 18th and 19th centuries, leaving a legacy of mine and mill ruins today. Ruins of the gold industry are found at Cefn Coch on the Dolmelynllyn estate.


title: Snowdonia

text: The park's entire coastline is a Special Area of Conservation, which runs from the Llŷn Peninsula down the mid-Wales coast, the latter containing valuable sand dune systems.


title: Snowdonia

text: The park's natural forests are of the mixed deciduous type, the commonest tree being the Welsh oak. Birch, ash, mountain-ash and hazel are also common. The park also contains some large (planted) coniferous forested areas such as Gwydir Forest near Betws-y-Coed, although some areas, once harvested, are now increasingly being allowed to regrow naturally.


title: Snowdonia

text: Northern Snowdonia is the only place in Britain where the Snowdon lily ("Gagea serotina"), an arctic–alpine plant, is found and the only place in the world where the Snowdonia hawkweed "Hieracium snowdoniense" grows.


title: Snowdonia

text: One of the major problems facing the park in recent years has been the growth of "Rhododendron ponticum". This fast-growing invasive species has a tendency to take over and stifle native species. It can form massive towering growths and has a companion fungus that grows on its roots producing toxins that are poisonous to any local flora and fauna for a seven-year period after the "Rhododendron" infestations have been eradicated. As a result, there are a number of desolate landscapes.


title: Snowdonia

text: Mammals in the park include otters, polecats, feral goats, and pine martens. Birds include raven, red-billed chough, peregrine, osprey, merlin and the red kite. The rainbow-coloured Snowdon beetle ("Chrysolina cerealis") is only found in northern Snowdonia.


title: Snowdonia

text: Snowdonia has a particularly high number of protected sites in respect of its diverse ecology; nearly 20% of its total area is protected by UK and European law. Half of that area was set aside by the government under the European Habitats Directive as a Special Area of Conservation. There are a large number of Sites of special scientific interest (or 'SSSIs'), designated both for fauna and flora but also in some cases for geology. Nineteen of these sites are managed as national nature reserves by Natural Resources Wales. The park also contains twelve Special Areas of Conservation (or 'SACs'), three Special Protection Areas (or 'SPAs') and three Ramsar sites. Some are wholly within the park boundaries, others straddle it to various degrees.


title: Snowdonia

text: The twelve SACs are as follows: Snowdonia SAC which covers much of the , and the Snowdon massif, Fens (north of Garndolbenmaen), the Oakwoods and Bat Sites - a series of sites between , and and and extending up the . It also includes many of the oakwoods of the and its tributaries. (in 2 parts), , River Dee and (Wales),


title: Snowdonia

text: The three SPAs are Dovey Estuary / (of which a part is within the park), (of which a part is within the park) and .


title: Snowdonia

text: The three designated Ramsar sites are the Dyfi Biosphere (Cors Fochno and Dyfi), Cwm Idwal and Llyn Tegid (Bala Lake).


title: Snowdonia

text: The area's economy was traditionally centred upon farming and from the early 19th century increasingly on mining and quarrying. Tourism has become an increasingly significant part of Snowdonia's economy during the 20th and 21st centuries.


title: Snowdonia

text: Significant sections of the park were afforested during the 20th century for timber production. Major conifer plantations include Dyfi Forest, Coed y Brenin Forest between Dolgellau and Trawsfynydd, Penllyn Forest south of Bala, Beddgelert Forest and Gwydyr (or Gwydir) Forest near Betws-y-Coed which is managed as a forest park by Natural Resources Wales.


title: Snowdonia

text: The region was once the most important producer of slate in the world. Some production continues but at a much reduced level from its peak. The park boundaries are drawn such that much of the landscape affected by slate quarrying and mining lies immediately outside of the designated area.


title: Snowdonia

text: Construction of a nuclear power station beside Llyn Trawsfynydd began in 1959 with the first power produced in 1965. The site was operational until 1991 though it continues as an employer during its decommissioning phase. Pumped storage hydroelectric schemes are in operation at Llanberis and Ffestiniog.


title: Snowdonia

text: Research indicates that there were 3.67 million visitors to Snowdonia National Park in 2013, with approximately 9.74 million tourist days spent in the park during that year. Total tourist expenditure was £433.6 million in 2013.


title: Snowdonia

text: Many of the hikers in the area concentrate on Snowdon itself. It is regarded as a fine mountain, but at times gets very crowded; in addition the Snowdon Mountain Railway runs to the summit.


title: Snowdonia

text: The other high mountains with their boulder-strewn summits as well as , one of the few mountains in the UK south of Scotland whose ascent needs hands as well as feet are also very popular. However, there are also some spectacular walks in Snowdonia on the lower mountains, and they tend to be relatively unfrequented. Among hikers' favourites are Y Garn (east of Llanberis) along the ridge to Elidir Fawr; Mynydd Tal-y-Mignedd (west of Snowdon) along the Nantlle Ridge to Mynydd Drws-y-Coed; Moelwyn Mawr (west of Blaenau Ffestiniog); and Pen Llithrig y Wrach north of Capel Curig. Further south are Y Llethr in the Rhinogydd, and Cadair Idris near Dolgellau.


title: Snowdonia

text: The park has of public footpaths, of public bridleways, and of other public rights of way. A large part of the park is also covered by right to roam laws.


title: Snowdonia

text: The Wales Coast Path runs within the park between Machynlleth and Penrhyndeudraeth, save for short sections of coast in the vicinity of Tywyn and Barmouth which are excluded from the park. It touches the park boundary again at Penmaen-bach Point on the north coast. An inland alternative exists between Llanfairfechan and Conwy, wholly within the park. The North Wales Path which predates the WCP, enters the park north of Bethesda and follows a route broadly parallel to the north coast visiting Aber Falls and the Sychnant Pass before exiting the park on the descent from Conwy Mountain. The Cambrian Way is a long-distance trail between Cardiff and Conwy which passes through the national park. It was officially recognised in 2019, and is now depicted on Ordnance Survey maps.


title: Snowdonia

text: Almost all external shots of Disney's fantasy film "Dragonslayer" were shot in Snowdonia National Park.


title: Snowdonia

text: The Dutch symphonic metal band Delain had filmed the official music video for their song "Burning Bridges" in Snowdonia. It was released through Napalm Records on 27 September 2019.


title: Paramagnetism

text: Paramagnetism is a form of magnetism whereby some materials are weakly attracted by an externally applied magnetic field, and form internal, induced magnetic fields in the direction of the applied magnetic field. In contrast with this behavior, diamagnetic materials are repelled by magnetic fields and form induced magnetic fields in the direction opposite to that of the applied magnetic field. Paramagnetic materials include most chemical elements and some compounds; they have a relative magnetic permeability slightly greater than 1 (i.e., a small positive magnetic susceptibility) and hence are attracted to magnetic fields. The magnetic moment induced by the applied field is linear in the field strength and rather weak. It typically requires a sensitive analytical balance to detect the effect and modern measurements on paramagnetic materials are often conducted with a SQUID magnetometer.


title: Paramagnetism

text: Paramagnetism is due to the presence of unpaired electrons in the material, so most atoms with incompletely filled atomic orbitals are paramagnetic, although exceptions such as copper exist. Due to their spin, unpaired electrons have a magnetic dipole moment and act like tiny magnets. An external magnetic field causes the electrons' spins to align parallel to the field, causing a net attraction. Paramagnetic materials include aluminium, oxygen, titanium, and iron oxide (FeO). Therefore, a simple rule of thumb is used in chemistry to determine whether a particle (atom, ion, or molecule) is paramagnetic or diamagnetic: if all electrons in the particle are paired, then the substance made of this particle is diamagnetic; if it has unpaired electrons, then the substance is paramagnetic.


title: Paramagnetism

text: Unlike ferromagnets, paramagnets do not retain any magnetization in the absence of an externally applied magnetic field because thermal motion randomizes the spin orientations. (Some paramagnetic materials retain spin disorder even at absolute zero, meaning they are paramagnetic in the ground state, i.e. in the absence of thermal motion.) Thus the total magnetization drops to zero when the applied field is removed. Even in the presence of the field there is only a small induced magnetization because only a small fraction of the spins will be oriented by the field. This fraction is proportional to the field strength and this explains the linear dependency. The attraction experienced by ferromagnetic materials is non-linear and much stronger, so that it is easily observed, for instance, in the attraction between a refrigerator magnet and the iron of the refrigerator itself.


title: Paramagnetism

text: Constituent atoms or molecules of paramagnetic materials have permanent magnetic moments (dipoles), even in the absence of an applied field. The permanent moment generally is due to the spin of unpaired electrons in atomic or molecular electron orbitals (see Magnetic moment). In pure paramagnetism, the dipoles do not interact with one another and are randomly oriented in the absence of an external field due to thermal agitation, resulting in zero net magnetic moment. When a magnetic field is applied, the dipoles will tend to align with the applied field, resulting in a net magnetic moment in the direction of the applied field. In the classical description, this alignment can be understood to occur due to a torque being provided on the magnetic moments by an applied field, which tries to align the dipoles parallel to the applied field. However, the true origins of the alignment can only be understood via the quantum-mechanical properties of spin and angular momentum.


title: Paramagnetism

text: If there is sufficient energy exchange between neighbouring dipoles, they will interact, and may spontaneously align or anti-align and form magnetic domains, resulting in ferromagnetism (permanent magnets) or antiferromagnetism, respectively. Paramagnetic behavior can also be observed in ferromagnetic materials that are above their Curie temperature, and in antiferromagnets above their Néel temperature. At these temperatures, the available thermal energy simply overcomes the interaction energy between the spins.


title: Paramagnetism

text: In general, paramagnetic effects are quite small: the magnetic susceptibility is of the order of 10 to 10 for most paramagnets, but may be as high as 10 for synthetic paramagnets such as ferrofluids.


title: Paramagnetism

text: In conductive materials, the electrons are delocalized, that is, they travel through the solid more or less as free electrons. Conductivity can be understood in a band structure picture as arising from the incomplete filling of energy bands.


title: Paramagnetism

text: In an ordinary nonmagnetic conductor the conduction band is identical for both spin-up and spin-down electrons. When a magnetic field is applied, the conduction band splits apart into a spin-up and a spin-down band due to the difference in magnetic potential energy for spin-up and spin-down electrons.


title: Paramagnetism

text: Since the Fermi level must be identical for both bands, this means that there will be a small surplus of the type of spin in the band that moved downwards. This effect is a weak form of paramagnetism known as "Pauli paramagnetism".


title: Paramagnetism

text: The effect always competes with a diamagnetic response of opposite sign due to all the core electrons of the atoms. Stronger forms of magnetism usually require localized rather than itinerant electrons. However, in some cases a band structure can result in which there are two delocalized sub-bands with states of opposite spins that have different energies. If one subband is preferentially filled over the other, one can have itinerant ferromagnetic order. This situation usually only occurs in relatively narrow (d-)bands, which are poorly delocalized.


title: Paramagnetism

text: Generally, strong delocalization in a solid due to large overlap with neighboring wave functions means that there will be a large Fermi velocity; this means that the number of electrons in a band is less sensitive to shifts in that band's energy, implying a weak magnetism. This is why s- and p-type metals are typically either Pauli-paramagnetic or as in the case of gold even diamagnetic. In the latter case the diamagnetic contribution from the closed shell inner electrons simply wins over the weak paramagnetic term of the almost free electrons.


title: Paramagnetism

text: Stronger magnetic effects are typically only observed when d or f electrons are involved. Particularly the latter are usually strongly localized. Moreover, the size of the magnetic moment on a lanthanide atom can be quite large as it can carry up to 7 unpaired electrons in the case of gadolinium(III) (hence its use in MRI). The high magnetic moments associated with lanthanides is one reason why superstrong magnets are typically based on elements like neodymium or samarium.


title: Paramagnetism

text: The above picture is a "generalization" as it pertains to materials with an extended lattice rather than a molecular structure. Molecular structure can also lead to localization of electrons. Although there are usually energetic reasons why a molecular structure results such that it does not exhibit partly filled orbitals (i.e. unpaired spins), some non-closed shell moieties do occur in nature. Molecular oxygen is a good example. Even in the frozen solid it contains di-radical molecules resulting in paramagnetic behavior. The unpaired spins reside in orbitals derived from oxygen p wave functions, but the overlap is limited to the one neighbor in the O molecules. The distances to other oxygen atoms in the lattice remain too large to lead to delocalization and the magnetic moments remain unpaired.


title: Paramagnetism

text: The Bohr–Van Leeuwen theorem proves that there cannot be any diamagnetism or paramagnetism in a purely classical system. The paramagnetic response has then two possible quantum origins, either coming from permanent magnetic moments of the ions or from the spatial motion of the conduction electrons inside the material. Both descriptions are given below.


title: Paramagnetism

text: For low levels of magnetization, the magnetization of paramagnets follows what is known as Curie's law, at least approximately. This law indicates that the susceptibility, formula_1, of paramagnetic materials is inversely proportional to their temperature, i.e. that materials become more magnetic at lower temperatures. The mathematical expression is:


title: Paramagnetism

text: Curie's law is valid under the commonly encountered conditions of low magnetization ("μ""H" ≲ "k""T"), but does not apply in the high-field/low-temperature regime where saturation of magnetization occurs ("μ""H" ≳ "k""T") and magnetic dipoles are all aligned with the applied field. When the dipoles are aligned, increasing the external field will not increase the total magnetization since there can be no further alignment.


title: Paramagnetism

text: For a paramagnetic ion with noninteracting magnetic moments with angular momentum "J", the Curie constant is related to the individual ions' magnetic moments,


title: Paramagnetism

text: where "n" is the number of atoms per unit volume. The parameter "μ" is interpreted as the effective magnetic moment per paramagnetic ion. If one uses a classical treatment with molecular magnetic moments represented as discrete magnetic dipoles, "μ", a Curie Law expression of the same form will emerge with "μ" appearing in place of "μ".


title: Paramagnetism

text: e^}/{k_{\mathrm{B}}T}\;}}}{\sum\limits_{M_{J} = -J}^{J}{e^}/{k_{\mathrm{B}}T}\;}}} = \frac{n\sum\limits_{M_{J} = -J}^{J}{M_{J}g_{J}\mu_{\mathrm{B}}e^H}/{k_{\mathrm{B}}T}\;}}}{\sum\limits_{M_{J} = -J}^{J}{e^H}/{k_{\mathrm{B}}T}\;}}}.</math>


title: Paramagnetism

text: Where formula_9 is the "z"-component of the magnetic moment for each Zeeman level, so formula_10 is called the Bohr magneton and "g" is the Landé g-factor, which reduces to the free-electron g-factor, "g" when "J" = "S". (in this treatment, we assume that the "x"- and "y"-components of the magnetization, averaged over all molecules, cancel out because the field applied along the "z"-axis leave them randomly oriented.) The energy of each Zeeman level is formula_11. For temperatures over a few "K", formula_12, and we can apply the approximation formula_13:


title: Paramagnetism

text: When orbital angular momentum contributions to the magnetic moment are small, as occurs for most organic radicals or for octahedral transition metal complexes with d or high-spin d configurations, the effective magnetic moment takes the form ( with g-factor "g" = 2.0023... ≈ 2),


title: Paramagnetism

text: where "N" is the number of unpaired electrons. In other transition metal complexes this yields a useful, if somewhat cruder, estimate.


title: Paramagnetism

text: When Curie constant is null, second order effects that couple the ground state with the excited states can also lead to a paramagnetic susceptibility independent of the temperature, known as Van Vleck susceptibility.


title: Paramagnetism

text: For some alkali metals and noble metals, conduction electrons are weakly interacting and delocalized in space forming a Fermi gas. For these materials one contribution to the magnetic response comes from the interaction between the electron spins and the magnetic field known as Pauli paramagnetism. For a small magnetic field formula_19, the additional energy per electron from the interaction between an electron spin and the magnetic field is given by:


title: Paramagnetism

text: where formula_21 is the vacuum permeability, formula_22 is the electron magnetic moment, formula_23 is the Bohr magneton, formula_24 is the reduced Planck constant, and the g-factor cancels with the spin formula_25. The formula_26 indicates that the sign is positive (negative) when the electron spin component in the direction of formula_19 is parallel (antiparallel) to the magnetic field.


title: Paramagnetism

text: For low temperatures with respect to the Fermi temperature formula_28 (around 10 kelvins for metals), the number density of electrons formula_29 (formula_30) pointing parallel (antiparallel) to the magnetic field can be written as:


title: Paramagnetism

text: with formula_32 the total free-electrons density and formula_33 the electronic density of states (number of states per energy per volume) at the Fermi energy formula_34.


title: Paramagnetism

text: In this approximation the magnetization is given as the magnetic moment of one electron times the difference in densities:


title: Paramagnetism

text: The Pauli paramagnetic susceptibility is a macroscopic effect and has to be contrasted with Landau diamagnetic susceptibility which is equal to minus one third of Pauli's and also comes from delocalized electrons. The Pauli susceptibility comes from the spin interaction with the magnetic field while the Landau susceptibility comes from the spatial motion of the electrons and it is independent of the spin. In doped semiconductors the ratio between Landau's and Pauli's susceptibilities changes as the effective mass of the charge carriers formula_37 can differ from the electron mass formula_38.


title: Paramagnetism

text: The magnetic response calculated for a gas of electrons is not the full picture as the magnetic susceptibility coming from the ions has to be included. Additionally, these formulas may break down for confined systems that differ from the bulk, like quantum dots, or for high fields, as demonstrated in the De Haas-Van Alphen effect.


title: Paramagnetism

text: Pauli paramagnetism is named after the physicist Wolfgang Pauli. Before Pauli's theory, the lack of a strong Curie paramagnetism in metals was an open problem as the leading Drude model could not account for this contribution without the use of quantum statistics.


title: Paramagnetism

text: Pauli paramagnetism and Landau diamagnetism are essentially applications of the spin and the free electron model, the first is due to intrinsic spin of electrons; the second is due to their orbital motion.


title: Paramagnetism

text: Materials that are called "paramagnets" are most often those that exhibit, at least over an appreciable temperature range, magnetic susceptibilities that adhere to the Curie or Curie–Weiss laws. In principle any system that contains atoms, ions, or molecules with unpaired spins can be called a paramagnet, but the interactions between them need to be carefully considered.


title: Paramagnetism

text: The narrowest definition would be: a system with unpaired spins that "do not interact" with each other. In this narrowest sense, the only pure paramagnet is a dilute gas of monatomic hydrogen atoms. Each atom has one non-interacting unpaired electron.


title: Paramagnetism

text: A gas of lithium atoms already possess two paired core electrons that produce a diamagnetic response of opposite sign. Strictly speaking Li is a mixed system therefore, although admittedly the diamagnetic component is weak and often neglected. In the case of heavier elements the diamagnetic contribution becomes more important and in the case of metallic gold it dominates the properties. The element hydrogen is virtually never called 'paramagnetic' because the monatomic gas is stable only at extremely high temperature; H atoms combine to form molecular H and in so doing, the magnetic moments are lost ("quenched"), because of the spins pair. Hydrogen is therefore "diamagnetic" and the same holds true for many other elements. Although the electronic configuration of the individual atoms (and ions) of most elements contain unpaired spins, they are not necessarily paramagnetic, because at ambient temperature quenching is very much the rule rather than the exception. The quenching tendency is weakest for f-electrons because "f" (especially 4"f") orbitals are radially contracted and they overlap only weakly with orbitals on adjacent atoms. Consequently, the lanthanide elements with incompletely filled 4f-orbitals are paramagnetic or magnetically ordered.


title: Paramagnetism

text: Thus, condensed phase paramagnets are only possible if the interactions of the spins that lead either to quenching or to ordering are kept at bay by structural isolation of the magnetic centers. There are two classes of materials for which this holds:


title: Paramagnetism

text: As stated above, many materials that contain d- or f-elements do retain unquenched spins. Salts of such elements often show paramagnetic behavior but at low enough temperatures the magnetic moments may order. It is not uncommon to call such materials 'paramagnets', when referring to their paramagnetic behavior above their Curie or Néel-points, particularly if such temperatures are very low or have never been properly measured. Even for iron it is not uncommon to say that "iron becomes a paramagnet" above its relatively high Curie-point. In that case the Curie-point is seen as a phase transition between a ferromagnet and a 'paramagnet'. The word paramagnet now merely refers to the linear response of the system to an applied field, the temperature dependence of which requires an amended version of Curie's law, known as the Curie–Weiss law:


title: Paramagnetism

text: This amended law includes a term θ that describes the exchange interaction that is present albeit overcome by thermal motion. The sign of θ depends on whether ferro- or antiferromagnetic interactions dominate and it is seldom exactly zero, except in the dilute, isolated cases mentioned above.


title: Paramagnetism

text: Obviously, the paramagnetic Curie–Weiss description above "T" or "T" is a rather different interpretation of the word "paramagnet" as it does "not" imply the "absence" of interactions, but rather that the magnetic structure is random in the absence of an external field at these sufficiently high temperatures. Even if "θ" is close to zero this does not mean that there are no interactions, just that the aligning ferro- and the anti-aligning antiferromagnetic ones cancel. An additional complication is that the interactions are often different in different directions of the crystalline lattice (anisotropy), leading to complicated magnetic structures once ordered.


title: Paramagnetism

text: Randomness of the structure also applies to the many metals that show a net paramagnetic response over a broad temperature range. They do not follow a Curie type law as function of temperature however; often they are more or less temperature independent. This type of behavior is of an itinerant nature and better called Pauli-paramagnetism, but it is not unusual to see, for example, the metal aluminium called a "paramagnet", even though interactions are strong enough to give this element very good electrical conductivity.


title: Paramagnetism

text: Some materials show induced magnetic behavior that follows a Curie type law but with exceptionally large values for the Curie constants. These materials are known as superparamagnets. They are characterized by a strong ferromagnetic or ferrimagnetic type of coupling into domains of a limited size that behave independently from one another. The bulk properties of such a system resembles that of a paramagnet, but on a microscopic level they are ordered. The materials do show an ordering temperature above which the behavior reverts to ordinary paramagnetism (with interaction). Ferrofluids are a good example, but the phenomenon can also occur inside solids, e.g., when dilute paramagnetic centers are introduced in a strong itinerant medium of ferromagnetic coupling such as when Fe is substituted in TlCuSe or the alloy AuFe. Such systems contain ferromagnetically coupled clusters that freeze out at lower temperatures. They are also called mictomagnets.


title: Nordic race

text: The Nordic race was a racial concept which originated in 19th century anthropology. It was considered a race or one of the putative sub-races into which some late-19th to mid-20th century anthropologists divided the Caucasian race, claiming that its ancestral homelands were Northwestern and Northern Europe, particularly to populations such as Anglo-Saxons, Germanic peoples, Balts, Baltic Finns, Northern French, and certain Celts and Slavs. The supposed physical traits of the Nordics included light eyes, light skin, tall stature, and dolichocephalic skull; their psychological traits were deemed to be truthfulness, equitability, a competitive spirit, naivete, reservedness, and individualism. In the early 20th century, the belief that the Nordic race constituted the superior branch of the Caucasian race gave rise to the ideology of Nordicism.


title: Nordic race

text: With the rise of modern genetics, the concept of distinct human races in a biological sense has become obsolete. In 2019, the American Association of Biological Anthropologists stated: "The belief in 'races' as natural aspects of human biology, and the structures of inequality (racism) that emerge from such beliefs, are among the most damaging elements in the human experience both today and in the past."


title: Nordic race

text: The Russian-born French anthropologist Joseph Deniker initially proposed "nordique" (meaning simply "northern") as an "ethnic group" (a term that he coined).


title: Nordic race

text: He defined "nordique" by a set of physical characteristics: the concurrence of somewhat wavy hair, light eyes, reddish skin, tall stature and a dolichocephalic skull. Of six 'Caucasian' groups Deniker accommodated four into secondary ethnic groups, all of which he considered intermediate to the Nordic: "Northwestern", "Sub-Nordic", "Vistula" and "Sub-Adriatic", respectively.


title: Nordic race

text: The notion of a distinct northern European race was also rejected by several anthropologists on craniometric grounds. German anthropologist Rudolf Virchow attacked the claim following a study of craniometry, which gave surprising results according to contemporary scientific racist theories on the "Aryan race". During the 1885 Anthropology Congress in Karlsruhe, Virchow denounced the "Nordic mysticism", while Josef Kollmann, a collaborator of Virchow, stated that the people of Europe, be they German, Italian, English or French, belonged to a "mixture of various races", furthermore declaring that the "results of craniology" led to "struggle against any theory concerning the superiority of this or that European race".


title: Nordic race

text: Other supposed "Caucasian sub-races" were the Alpine race, Dinaric race, Iranid race, East Baltic race, and the Mediterranean race.


title: Nordic race

text: American economist William Z. Ripley purported to define a "Teutonic race" in his book "The Races of Europe" (1899). He divided Europeans into three main subcategories: Teutonic, Alpine and Mediterranean. According to Ripley the Teutonic race resided in Scandinavia, northern France, northern Germany, the Baltic states and East Prussia, northern Poland, northwest Russia, Great Britain, Ireland, and parts of Central and Eastern Europe, and was typified by light hair, light skin, light eyes, tall stature, a narrow nose, and slender body type. It was Ripley who popularized this idea of three biological European races. Ripley borrowed Deniker's terminology of Nordic (he had previously used the term "Teuton"); his division of the European races relied on a variety of anthropometric measurements, but focused especially on their cephalic index and stature.


title: Nordic race

text: Compared to Deniker, Ripley advocated a simplified racial view and proposed the concept of a single Teutonic race linked to geographic areas where Nordic-like characteristics predominate, and contrasted these areas to the boundaries of two other types, "Alpine" and "Mediterranean", thus reducing the "caucasoid branch of humanity" to three distinct groups.


title: Nordic race

text: By 1902 the German archaeologist Gustaf Kossinna identified the original Aryans (Proto-Indo-Europeans) with the north German Corded Ware culture, an argument that gained in currency over the following two decades. He placed the Indo-European Urheimat in Schleswig-Holstein, arguing that they had expanded across Europe from there. By the early 20th century this theory was well-established, though far from universally accepted. Sociologists were soon using the concept of a "blond race" to model the migrations of the supposedly more entrepreneurial and innovative components of European populations.


title: Nordic race

text: By the early 20th century, Ripley's tripartite Nordic/Alpine/Mediterranean model was well established. Most 19th century race-theorists like Arthur de Gobineau, Otto Ammon, Georges Vacher de Lapouge and Houston Stewart Chamberlain preferred to speak of "Aryans", "Teutons", and "Indo-Europeans" instead of a "Nordic race". The British-born German racialist Houston Stewart Chamberlain considered the Nordic race to be made up of Celtic and Germanic peoples, as well as some Slavs. Chamberlain called those people "Celt-Germanic peoples", and his ideas would influence the ideology of Nordicism and Nazism.


title: Nordic race

text: Madison Grant, in his 1916 book "The Passing of the Great Race", took up Ripley's classification. He described a "Nordic" or "Baltic" type: "long skulled, very tall, fair skinned, with blond, brown or red hair and light coloured eyes. The Nordics inhabit the countries around the North and Baltic Seas and include not only the great Scandinavian and Teutonic groups, but also other early peoples who first appear in southern Europe and in Asia as representatives of Aryan language and culture."


title: Nordic race

text: According to Grant, the "Alpine race", shorter in stature, darker in colouring, with a rounder head, predominated in Central and Eastern Europe through to Turkey and the Eurasian steppes of Central Asia and Southern Russia. The "Mediterranean race", with dark hair and eyes, aquiline nose, swarthy complexion, moderate-to-short stature, and moderate or long skull was said to be prevalent in Southern Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa.


title: Nordic race

text: Only in the 1920s did a strong partiality for "Nordic" begin to reveal itself, and for a while the term was used almost interchangeably with Aryan. Later, however, "Nordic" would not be co-terminous with Aryan, Indo-European or Germanic. For example, the later Nazi minister for Food, Richard Walther Darré, who had developed a concept of the German peasantry as a Nordic race, used the term 'Aryan' to refer to the tribes of the Iranian plains.


title: Nordic race

text: In "Rassenkunde des deutschen Volkes" (Racial Science of the German People), published 1922, Hans F. K. Günther identified five principal European races instead of three, adding the East Baltic race (related to the Alpine race) and Dinaric race (related to the Nordic race) to Ripley's categories. This work was influential in Ewald Banse's publication of "Die Rassenkarte von Europa" in 1925 which combined research by Deniker, Ripley, Grant, Otto Hauser, Günther, Eugen Fischer and .


title: Nordic race

text: Carleton S. Coon in his book of 1939 "The Races of Europe" subdivided the Nordic race into three main types, "Corded", "Danubian" and "Hallstatt", besides


title: Nordic race

text: Types found in "places distant from the present northwestern European center of Nordic concentration" that he determined to be morphologically Nordic, were called "Exotic Nordics".


title: Nordic race

text: Coon took the Nordics to be a partially depigmented branch of the greater Mediterranean racial stock. This theory was also supported by Coon's mentor Earnest Albert Hooton, who in the same year published "Twilight of Man", which stated: "The Nordic race is certainly a depigmented offshoot from the basic long-headed Mediterranean stock. It deserves separate racial classification only because its blond hair (ash or golden), its pure blue or grey eyes".


title: Nordic race

text: Coon suggested that the Nordic type emerged as a result of a mixture of "the Danubian Mediterranean strain with the later Corded element". Hence his two main Nordic types show Corded and Danubian predominance, respectively . A third "Hallstatt" type Coon took to have emerged in the European Iron Age, in Central Europe, where he said that it was subsequently mostly replaced, but "found a refuge in Sweden and in the eastern valleys of southern Norway."


title: Nordic race

text: Coon's theories on race were widely disputed in his lifetime, and are considered pseudoscientific in modern anthropology.


title: Nordic race

text: The depigmentation theory received notable support from later anthropologists, thus in 1947 Melville Jacobs noted: "To many physical anthropologists Nordic means a group with an especially high percentage of blondness, which represent a depigmentated Mediterranean". In her work "Races of Man" (1963, 2nd Ed. 1965) Sonia Mary Cole went further to argue that the Nordic race belongs to the "brunette Mediterranean" Caucasoid division but that it differs only in its higher percentage of blonde hair and light eyes. The Harvard anthropologist Claude Alvin Villee Jr. also was a notable proponent of this theory, writing: "The Nordic division, a partially depigmised branch of the Mediterranean group." "Collier's Encyclopedia" as late as 1984 contains an entry for this theory, citing anthropological support.


title: Nordic race

text: The Swedish anthropologist Bertil Lundman introduced the term "Nordid" to describe the Nordic race in his book "The Races and Peoples of Europe" (1977) as:


title: Nordic race

text: Some forensic scientists, pathologists and anthropologists up to the 1990s continued to use the tripartite division of Caucasoids: Nordic, Alpine and Mediterranean, based on their cranial anthropometry. The anthropologist Wilton M. Krogman for example identified Nordic racial crania in his work "The Human Skeleton in Forensic Medicine" (1986) as being "dolichochranic".


title: Archaic Greece

text: Archaic Greece was the period in Greek history lasting from circa 800 BC to the second Persian invasion of Greece in 480 BC, following the Greek Dark Ages and succeeded by the Classical period. In the archaic period, Greeks settled across the Mediterranean and the Black Seas, as far as Marseille in the west and Trapezus (Trebizond) in the east; and by the end of the archaic period, they were part of a trade network that spanned the entire Mediterranean.


title: Archaic Greece

text: The archaic period began with a massive increase in the Greek population and of significant changes that rendered the Greek world at the end of the 8th century entirely unrecognisable from its beginning. According to Anthony Snodgrass, the archaic period was bounded by two revolutions in the Greek world. It began with a "structural revolution" that "drew the political map of the Greek world" and established the "poleis", the distinctively Greek city-states, and it ended with the intellectual revolution of the Classical period.


title: Archaic Greece

text: The archaic period saw developments in Greek politics, economics, international relations, warfare and culture. It laid the groundwork for the Classical period, both politically and culturally. It was in the archaic period that the Greek alphabet developed, the earliest surviving Greek literature was composed, monumental sculpture and red-figure pottery began in Greece and the hoplite became the core of Greek armies.


title: Archaic Greece

text: In Athens, the earliest institutions of democracy were implemented under Solon, and the reforms of Cleisthenes at the end of the archaic period brought in Athenian democracy as it was during the Classical period. In Sparta, many of the institutions credited to the reforms of Lycurgus were introduced during the archaic period, the region of Messenia was brought under Spartan control, helotage was introduced and the Peloponnesian League was founded and made Sparta a dominant power in Greece.


title: Archaic Greece

text: The word "archaic" derives from the Greek word , meaning 'old', and refers to the period in ancient Greek history before the classical period. The archaic period is generally considered to have lasted from the beginning of the 8th century BC until the beginning of the 5th century BC, with the foundation of the Olympic Games in 776 BC and the Second Persian invasion of Greece in 480 BC forming notional starting and ending dates. The archaic period was long considered to have been less important and historically interesting than the classical period and was studied primarily as a precursor to it. More recently, archaic Greece has come to be studied for its own achievements. With this reassessment of the significance of the archaic period, some scholars have objected to the term "archaic" because of its connotations in English of being primitive and outdated. No term which has been suggested to replace it has gained widespread currency, however, and the term is still in use.


title: Archaic Greece

text: Much evidence about the Classical period of ancient Greece comes from written histories, such as Thucydides's "History of the Peloponnesian War". By contrast, no such evidence survives from the archaic period. Surviving contemporary written accounts of life in the period are in the form of poetry. Other written sources from the archaic period include epigraphical evidence, including parts of law codes, inscriptions on votive offerings and epigrams inscribed on tombs. However, none of that evidence is in the quantity for which it survives from the classical period. What is lacking in written evidence is made up for in the rich archaeological evidence from the archaic Greek world. Indeed, although much knowledge of Classical Greek art comes from later Roman copies, all surviving archaic Greek art is original.


title: Archaic Greece

text: Other sources for the archaic period are the traditions recorded by later Greek writers such as Herodotus. However, those traditions are not part of any form of history that would be recognised today. Those transmitted by Herodotus were recorded whether or not he believed them to be accurate. Indeed, Herodotus did not even record any dates before 480 BC.


title: Archaic Greece

text: Politically, the archaic period saw the development of the polis (or city-state) as the predominant unit of political organisation. Many cities throughout Greece came under the rule of autocratic leaders, called "tyrants". It also saw the development of law and systems of communal decision-making, with the earliest evidence for law codes and constitutional structures dating to the period. By the end of the archaic period, both the Athenian and Spartan constitutions seem to have developed into their classical forms.


title: Archaic Greece

text: The archaic period saw significant urbanisation and the development of the concept of the polis as it was used in Classical Greece. By Solon's time, if not before, the word "polis" had acquired its classical meaning, and though the emergence of the polis as a political community was still in progress at this point, the polis as an urban centre was a product of the eighth century. However, the polis did not become the dominant form of socio-political organisation throughout Greece in the archaic period, and in the north and west of the country it did not become dominant until some way into the Classical period.


title: Archaic Greece

text: The urbanisation process in archaic Greece known as "synoecism" – the amalgamation of several small settlements into a single urban centre – took place in much of Greece in the eighth century BC. Both Athens and Argos, for instance, began to coalesce into single settlements around the end of that century. In some settlements, this physical unification was marked by the construction of defensive city walls, as was the case in Smyrna by the middle of the eighth century BC, and Corinth by the middle of the seventh century BC.


title: Archaic Greece

text: It seems that the evolution of the polis as a socio-political structure, rather than a simply geographical one, can be attributed to this urbanisation, as well as a significant population increase in the eighth century. These two factors created a need for a new form of political organisation, as the political systems in place at the beginning of the archaic period quickly became unworkable.


title: Archaic Greece

text: Though in the early part of the Classical period the city of Athens was both culturally and politically dominant, it was not until the late sixth century BC that it became a leading power in Greece.


title: Archaic Greece

text: The attempted coup by Cylon of Athens (who become tyrant of Athens) may be the earliest event in Athenian history which is clearly attested by ancient sources, dating to around 636 BCE. At this time, it seems that Athens' monarchy had already ended and the archonship had replaced it as the most important executive office in the state, though the archonship could only be held by members of the Eupatridae, the families which made up Athens' aristocracy.


title: Archaic Greece

text: The earliest laws of Athens were established by Draco, in 621/0; his law on homicide was the only one to have survived to the Classical period. Draco's law code aimed to replace private revenge as the first and only response of an individual to an offence committed against them. The law code of Draco, however, failed to prevent the tensions between the rich and poor which were the impetus to Solon's reforms.


title: Archaic Greece

text: In 594/3 BC, Solon was appointed "archon and mediator". Exactly what his reforms consisted of is uncertain. He claimed to have taken up the to set the land free, but the exact meaning of is unknown; their removal seems to have been part of the problem of – another word whose meaning is obscure. Solon was also credited with abolishing slavery for debtors, and establishing limits on who could be granted Athenian citizenship.


title: Archaic Greece

text: Solon instituted radical constitutional reform, replacing noble birth as a qualification for office with income. The poorest – called thetes – could hold no offices, although they could attend the Assembly and the law courts, while the richest class – the pentacosiomedimni – were the only people eligible to become treasurer, and possibly archon. He set up the Council of the Four Hundred, responsible for discussing motions which were to come before the Assembly. Finally, Solon substantially reduced the powers of the archon by giving citizens the right of appeal; their case was judged by the Assembly.


title: Archaic Greece

text: A second wave of constitutional reform in Athens was instituted by Cleisthenes towards the end of the sixth century. Cleisthenes apparently redivided the Athenian population, which had previously been grouped into four tribes, into ten new tribes. A new Council of 500 was instituted, with members from each deme represented. Demes were also given the power to determine their own members (which, in turn, provided them with influence over the membership of the citizen body more generally) and to somewhat determine their own judicial arrangements. These reforms gave the citizen body a sense of responsibility for what happened in the community for the first time. Between the reforms of Solon and Cleisthenes, the Athenian constitution had become identifiably democratic.


title: Archaic Greece

text: Sparta's constitution took on the form it would have in the Classical period during the eighth century BC. By the classical period, Spartan tradition attributed this constitution to Lycurgus of Sparta, who according to Thucydides lived a little over four centuries before the end of the Peloponnesian War, around the end of the ninth century. The First Messenian War, probably taking place from approximately 740 to 720 BC, saw the strengthening of the powers of the Gerousia against the assembly, and the enslavement of the Messenian population as Helots. Around the same time, the ephors gained the power to restrict the actions of the kings of Sparta. Thus by the late seventh century, Sparta's constitution had recognisably taken on its classical form.


title: Archaic Greece

text: From around 560 BC, Sparta began to build a series of alliances with other Greek states, which became the Peloponnesian League: by 550, cities such as Elis, Corinth, and Megara were part of the alliance. This series of alliances had the dual purpose of preventing the cities of the League from supporting the Helot population of Messenia, and of helping Sparta in its conflict with Argos, which in the archaic period was along with Sparta one of the major powers in the Peloponnese.


title: Archaic Greece

text: In the eighth and seventh centuries BC, Greeks began to spread across the Mediterranean, the Sea of Marmara, and the Black Sea. This was not simply for trade, but also to found settlements. These Greek colonies were not, as Roman colonies were, dependent on their mother-city, but were independent city-states in their own right.


title: Archaic Greece

text: Greeks settled outside of Greece in two distinct ways. The first was in permanent settlements founded by Greeks, which formed as independent poleis. The second form was in what historians refer to as "emporia"; trading posts which were occupied by both Greeks and non-Greeks and which were primarily concerned with the manufacture and sale of goods. Examples of this latter type of settlement are found at Al Mina in the east and Pithekoussai in the west.


title: Archaic Greece

text: The earliest Greek colonies were on Sicily. Many of these were founded by people from Chalcis, but other Greek states, such as Corinth and Megara were also responsible for early colonies in the area. By the end of the eighth century BC, Greek settlements in southern Italy were also well established. In the seventh century, Greek colonists expanded the areas that they settled. In the west, colonies were founded as far afield as Marseilles. In the east, the north Aegean, the Sea of Marmara, and the Black Sea all saw colonies founded. The dominant coloniser in these parts was Miletus. At the same time, early colonies such as Syracuse and Megara Hyblaea began to themselves establish colonies.


title: Archaic Greece

text: In the west, Sicily and southern Italy were some of the largest recipients of Greek colonisers. So many Greek settlements were founded in southern Italy that it was known in antiquity as Magna Graecia – "Great Greece". In the last quarter of the eighth century, new Greek settlements were founded in Sicily and southern Italy at an average rate of one every other year, and Greek colonists continued to found cities in Italy until the mid-fifth century BC.


title: Archaic Greece

text: Archaic Greece from the mid-seventh century BC has sometimes been called an "Age of Tyrants". The word (, whence the English 'tyrant') first appeared in Greek literature in a poem of Archilochus, to describe the Lydian ruler Gyges. The earliest Greek tyrant was Cypselus, who seized power in Corinth in a coup in 655 BC. He was followed by a series of others in the mid-seventh century BC, such as Orthagoras in Sicyon and Theagenes in Megara.


title: Archaic Greece

text: Various explanations have been provided for the rise of tyranny in the seventh century BC. The most popular of these explanations dates back to Aristotle, who argued that tyrants were set up by the people in response to the nobility becoming less tolerable. As there is no evidence from the time that the nobility were becoming increasingly arrogant during the period, modern explanations of seventh century tyranny have tried to find other reasons for unrest among the people. For example, Robert Drews argues that tyrannies were set up by individuals who controlled private armies and that early tyrants did not need the support of the people at all, whilst N.G.L. Hammond suggests that tyrannies were established as a consequence of in-fighting between rival oligarchs, rather than between the oligarchs and the people.


title: Archaic Greece

text: Recently historians have begun to question the existence of a seventh century "age of tyrants". In the archaic period, the Greek word "tyrannos", according to Victor Parker, did not have the negative connotations it had gained by the time Aristotle wrote his "Constitution of the Athenians". When Archilochus used the word tyrant, it was synonymous with "anax" (an archaic Greek word meaning 'king'). Parker dates the first use of the word in a negative context to the first half of the sixth century, at least fifty years after Cypselus took power in Corinth. It was not until the time of Thucydides that and ('king') were consistently distinguished. Similarly, Greg Anderson has argued that archaic Greek tyrants were not considered illegitimate rulers, and cannot be distinguished from any other rulers of the same period.


title: Archaic Greece

text: The Greek population doubled during the eighth century, resulting in more and larger settlements than previously. The largest settlements, such as Athens and Knossos, might have had populations of 1,500 in 1000 BC; by 700 they might have held as many as 5,000 people. This was part of a wider phenomenon of population growth across the Mediterranean region at this time, which may have been caused by a climatic shift that took place between 850 and 750, which made the region cooler and wetter. This led to the expansion of population into uncultivated areas of Greece and was probably also a driver for colonisation abroad.


title: Archaic Greece

text: Ancient sources give us little information on mortality rates in archaic Greece, but it is likely that not many more than half of the population survived to the age of 18: perinatal and infant mortality are likely to have been very high. The population of archaic Greece would have consequently been very young – somewhere between two-fifths and two-thirds of the population might have been under 18. By contrast, probably less than one in four people were over 40, and only one in 20 over the age of 60.


title: Archaic Greece

text: Evidence from human remains shows that the average age at death increased over the archaic period, but there is no clear trend for other measures of health. The size of houses gives some evidence for prosperity within society; in the eighth and seventh centuries, the average house size remained constant around 45–50 m, but the number of very large and very small houses increased, indicating increasing economic inequality. From the end of the seventh century, this trend reversed, with houses clustering closely around a growing average, and by the end of the archaic period the average house size had risen to about 125 m.


title: Archaic Greece

text: Not all arable land in Greece was yet under cultivation in the archaic period. Farms appear to have been small, cohesive units, concentrated near settlements. They were highly diversified, growing a wide variety of crops simultaneously, in order to make consistent use of human resources throughout the year and to ensure that the failure of any one crop was not too much of a disaster. Crop rotation was practiced, with fields left fallow every other year. Though wheat was preferred, in some parts of Greece barley was the staple grain; where wheat was grown it was durum rather than bread wheat. Alongside these, farmers cultivated pulses, vines, olives, fruit, and vegetables. Olives and grapes, which could be turned into oil and wine respectively, served as cash crops; farmers who cultivated land near population centres could also sell soft fruits and leafy vegetables at market.


title: Archaic Greece

text: Livestock were of secondary importance. Sheep and goats, in particular, were kept for meat, milk, wool, and fertiliser, but they were difficult to sustain and large herds were a sign of exceptional wealth. A team of oxen could increase agricultural output significantly but were expensive to maintain. As they had in the Dark Ages, the wealthiest members of Greek society could own large herds of cattle.


title: Archaic Greece

text: This pattern had probably developed before the beginning of the period and remained relatively consistent throughout it. The idea that it was preceded by a period of pastoralism and that agriculture only became dominant in the course of the archaic period is not supported by the archaeological or literary evidence. No technological innovations in agriculture appear to have occurred, except possibly the increased use of iron tools and more intensive use of manure.


title: Archaic Greece

text: The main source for the practice of agriculture in the period is Hesiod's "Works and Days", which gives the impression of very small subsistence holdings in which the owner performed most of the labour personally; close reading reveals that much of the produce is to be sold for profit, much of the work to be performed by slaves ( or ), and much of the owner's time to be spent away from the farm. Slaves' labour was supplemented by labourers who worked for a wage, as sharecroppers (called "hektemoroi" at Athens), or to pay off debts; this practice seems to have increased in the eighth century as the growth of the population increased the number of workers available, and intensified in the seventh century with the development of legally enforced debts and the status of the labourers increasingly becoming a source of social strife.


title: Archaic Greece

text: By the late eighth century BC, the archaic Greek world had become involved in an active trade network around the Aegean. It was this trade network that was the source of the orientalizing influence on Greek art in the early part of the archaic period. Meanwhile, to the west, trade between Corinth and Magna Graecia in Southern Italy and Sicily was booming.


title: Archaic Greece

text: The eastern trade mainly involved the Greek islands, with Aegina, for instance, acting as an intermediary between the east and the Greek mainland. East Greek states would go on to become extremely prosperous through the sixth century due to the trade with Asia and Egypt. Of the mainland cities, those on the coast were the biggest recipients of trade from the east, especially Corinth.


title: Archaic Greece

text: In the early part of the archaic period, Athens does not seem to have been particularly actively involved in this eastern trade, and very few examples of eastern imports have been found in Athens from the eighth or early seventh centuries. By contrast, nearby Euboea had trade-links with the east as early as the first half of the eighth century, and the earliest pottery from the Greek islands found at Al Mina in modern Syria is from Euboea.


title: Archaic Greece

text: By the sixth century, Greece was part of a trade network spanning the entire Mediterranean. Sixth century Laconian pottery has been found as far afield as Marseilles and Carthage to the west, Crete to the south and Sardis to the East.


title: Archaic Greece

text: At the beginning of the archaic period, coinage had not yet been invented. The Greeks measured the value of objects or fines using certain valuable objects, such as oxen, tripods, and metal spits, as units of account. As in the Near East, precious metal bullion was used as a medium of exchange, principally gold at first, but mainly silver by the beginning of the sixth century. The weight of this bullion (often known as hacksilber) was measured using standard units, named for their value in terms of metal spits ("") and handfuls () of metal spits; these terms would later be used as names for Greek coin denominations.


title: Archaic Greece

text: Coinage was invented in Lydia around 650 BC. It was quickly adopted by Greek communities in western Asia Minor, although the older system of bullion remained in use as well. The island of Aegina began to issue its distinctive "turtle" coins before 550 BC, and from there coinage spread to Athens, Corinth and the Cycladic Islands in the 540s BC, Southern Italy and Sicily before 525 BC, and Thrace before 514 BC. Most of these coinages were very small and were mostly only used within the community that issued them, but the "turtles" of Aegina (from 530 or 520 BC) and the "owls" of Athens (from 515 BC) were issued in great quantity and exported throughout the Greek world.


title: Archaic Greece

text: The images on coins initially changed rapidly, but increasingly each community settled on a single image or set of images. Some of these were the symbol or image of an important deity in the city or visual puns on the city's name, but in many cases their meaning is obscure and may not have been chosen for any special reason.


title: Archaic Greece

text: The reasons for the rapid and widespread adoption of coinage by the Greeks are not entirely clear and several possibilities, which are not mutually exclusive, have been suggested. One possibility is the increased ease of commerce which coinage allowed. Coins were of standardised weights, which meant that their value could be determined without weighing them. Furthermore, it was not necessary for users of coinage to spend time determining whether the silver was pure silver; the fact that the coin had been issued by the community was a promise that it was worth a set value. Another possibility is that coinage was adopted specifically to enable communities to make payments to their citizens, mercenaries and artisans in a transparent, fair and efficient way. Similarly, when wealthy members of the community were required to contribute wealth to the community for festivals and the equipment of navies, coinage made the process more efficient and transparent. A third possibility, that coinage was adopted as an expression of a community's independence and identity, seems to be anachronistic.


title: Archaic Greece

text: In the visual arts, the archaic period is characterised by a shift towards representational and naturalistic styles. It was the period in which monumental sculpture was introduced to Greece, and in which Greek pottery styles went through great changes, from the repeating patterns of the late geometric period to the earliest red-figure vases. The early part of the archaic period saw distinctive orientalizing influences, both in pottery and in sculpture.


title: Archaic Greece

text: At the beginning of the archaic period, Greek sculpture mostly consisted of small bronze works, particularly of horses. Bronze human figures were also produced, and both horse and human figures are primarily found in religious sanctuaries. Towards the end of the eighth century, horse figurines became much less common, disappearing "almost completely" by 700 BC. In the seventh century, Greek sculpture saw a strong Eastern influence, with mythical creatures such as griffins and sirens becoming much more popular. Also in the seventh century BC, Greek sculpture began to directly represent gods, a practice which had disappeared after the end of the Mycenaean period.


title: Archaic Greece

text: Life-size human sculpture in hard stone began in Greece in the archaic period. This was inspired in part by ancient Egyptian stone sculpture: the proportions of the New York Kouros exactly correspond to Egyptian rules about the proportion of human figures. In Greece, these sculptures best survive as religious dedications and grave markers, but the same techniques would have also been used to make cult images.


title: Archaic Greece

text: The best-known types of archaic sculpture are the kouros and kore, near life-size frontal statues of a young man or woman, which were developed around the middle of the seventh century BC in the Cyclades. Probably the earliest kore produced was the Dedication of Nikandre, which was dedicated to Artemis at her temple on Delos between 660 and 650 BC, while kouroi began to be created shortly after this. Kouroi and korai were used to represent both humans and divinities. Some kouroi, such as the Colossus of the Naxians from around 600 BC, are known to represent Apollo, while the Phrasikleia Kore was meant to represent a young woman whose tomb it originally marked.


title: Archaic Greece

text: Over the course of the sixth century, kouroi from Attica become more lifelike and naturalistic. However, this trend does not appear elsewhere in the Greek world. The genre began to become less common over the last part of the sixth century as the elites who commissioned kouroi declined in influence, and by around 480 kouroi were no longer made.


title: Archaic Greece

text: During the Greek Dark Ages, following the fall of the Mycenaean civilisation, Greek pottery decoration had been based around increasingly elaborate geometrical patterns. Human figures first appeared on Greek pots in Crete in the early part of the ninth century BC, but did not become common on mainland Greek pottery until the middle of the eighth century BC.


title: Archaic Greece

text: The eighth century saw the development of the orientalizing style, which signalled a shift away from the earlier geometric style and the accumulation of influences derived from Phoenicia and Syria. This orientalizing influence seems to have come from goods imported to Greece from the Near East.


title: Archaic Greece

text: At the beginning of the seventh century BC, vase painters in Corinth began to develop the black-figure style. At the same time, potters began to use incisions in the clay of vases in order to draw outlines and interior detailing. This adoption of incision, probably taken from eastern metalwork, allowed potters to show fine details of their decorations.


title: Archaic Greece

text: As the archaic period drew to a close, red-figure pottery was invented in Athens, with the first examples being produced about 525 BC, probably by the Andokides painter. The invention of the red-figure technique in Athens came at around the same time as the development of other techniques such as the white ground technique and Six's technique.


title: Archaic Greece

text: The earliest extant Greek literature comes from the archaic period. Poetry was the predominant form of literature in the period. Alongside the dominant lyric and epic traditions, tragedy began to develop in the archaic period, borrowing elements from the pre-existing genres of archaic Greek poetry. By the sixth century BC the first written prose in Greek literature appeared.


title: Archaic Greece

text: After the end of the Mycenaean period, the art of writing was lost in Greece: by the ninth century probably no Greeks understood the Bronze Age Linear B writing system. From the ninth century BC objects inscribed with Phoenician writing began to be brought into the Greek world, and it was from this Phoenician script that the Greek alphabet developed in the eighth century BC. By the middle of the eighth century BC, pottery inscribed in Greek begins to occur in the archaeological record.


title: Archaic Greece

text: The earliest known inscriptions in Greek tend to identify or explain the object on which they are inscribed. Possibly the earliest known Greek inscription is found on a jug from the first half of the eighth century BC, discovered in Osteria dell'Osa in Latium. Most early inscriptions were written in verse, though some from Ionia were in prose, influenced by the prose traditions of Ionia's eastern neighbours. From the beginning of the seventh century, curses and dedications began to be inscribed on objects, and by the sixth century, surviving inscriptions include public records such as law codes, lists of officials, and records of treaties.


title: Archaic Greece

text: Greek literature in the archaic period was predominantly poetry, though the earliest prose dates to the sixth century BC. Archaic poetry was primarily intended to be performed rather than read, and can be broadly divided into three categories: lyric, rhapsodic, and citharodic. The performance of the poetry could either be private (most commonly in the symposium) or public.


title: Archaic Greece

text: Though there would certainly have been a pre-existing literary tradition in Greece, the earliest surviving works are by Homer. Homer's poetry, though it dates to around the time that the Greeks developed writing, would have been composed orally – the earliest surviving poetry to have certainly been composed in writing is that of Archilochus, from the mid-seventh century BC. In contrast with the Classical period, in which the literary culture of Athens dominated the Greek world, the archaic poetic tradition was geographically spread out. Sappho and Alcaeus, for instance, were from Lesbos, while Pindar came from Thebes, and Alcman from Sparta.


title: Archaic Greece

text: The beginnings of Greek tragedy also have their roots in the archaic period, though the exact history is obscure. The competition in tragedy at the Great Dionysia began in the 530s BC. Aristotle believed that early tragedy developed from the dithyramb, a choral hymn to Dionysius; by ancient tradition the development from dithyramb to tragedy was ascribed to Thespis.


title: Archaic Greece

text: Evidence from Linear B tablets shows that the gods worshipped in archaic and classical Greece shared names with those worshipped by their Mycenaean predecessors. However, the practice of religion changed significantly in the archaic period.


title: Archaic Greece

text: The most significant change of the eighth century was the development of permanent temples as a regular feature of sanctuary sites, where in the Dark Ages there had probably been no building specifically used for cult purposes. In the seventh century, this development of temples continued with the appearance of the first monumental stone temple buildings, beginning with the temple of Apollo at Corinth. These temples were probably built to house cult statues of the god. Except on Crete, where there may have been a continuous tradition of cult statues from the Mycenaean period, these cult images were a new development in Greek religion – there is no evidence that Greek Dark Age cult on the mainland used cult images.


title: Archaic Greece

text: Along with the introduction of temples came an increase in the number of dedications at cult sites. In the seventh century, the number of surviving dedications decreases again, but there is also a marked change in the character of dedications, from the figurines of animals common in the eighth century to human figurines. In the eighth century, some sanctuaries – for instance at Olympia – begin to attract dedications from outside the local area.


title: Archaic Greece

text: The sanctuary of Zeus at Olympia had been a cult site in the Dark Ages, with dedications there dating back to the tenth century BC, but the eighth century saw an explosion in the number of dedications: 160 animal figurines are known from the 9th century, compared to 1,461 from the 8th. Bronze tripods and jewellery have also been discovered as dedications at archaic Olympia. Though most of the dedications from the 8th century were manufactured in the Peloponnese, dedications also came from Attica, and even as far afield as Italy and the eastern Mediterranean.


title: Archaic Greece

text: This enormous explosion in cultic activity in Olympia apparently coincides with the establishment of the Olympic Games as a major event. According to Greek tradition the first games at Olympia had been established by Herakles, but these had fallen out of practice until they were revived in 776 BC.


title: Archaic Greece

text: Delphi, on the slopes of Mount Parnassus, had been continuously occupied from the Bronze Age, but the first evidence of a sanctuary there dates to the eighth century BC when dedicatory bronze tripods and votive figurines begin to appear in the archaeological record. In the last quarter of the eighth century, the number of offerings at Delphi significantly increased, and there is evidence that these offerings were beginning to come from across Greece. This pan-Hellenic interest in the sanctuary at Delphi was presumably driven by the development of the oracle there.


title: Archaic Greece

text: The archaic period saw a series of changes in Greek funerary practices, with a significant increase in the diversity of Greek burial practice.


title: Archaic Greece

text: In Athens, the Dark Age practice had been to cremate adults and then bury the remains in a pottery vessel, along with pottery and metal grave goods. Soon after 800 BC, burial superseded cremation as the primary way of disposing of adult bodies, and grave goods declined in both quantity and quality; at the same time, the pots used as grave markers became significantly more elaborate. By the last third of the century, children and adults began to be buried together (previously there had been separate cemeteries for adults and children). Grave goods began to be left in trenches specifically for offerings which were separate from the graves themselves. Around 700 BC, Athens changed from inhumation back to cremation – but this time, cremation in the grave rather than on a separate pyre.


title: Archaic Greece

text: Also around 700 BC, burial in Athens was almost entirely confined to specific cemeteries outside of the settlement. Other settlements outside of Athens also saw a move to burial only in areas reserved for the purpose, though this was not a new development in Crete and several Aegean islands. Some other mainland cities, such as Argos and Corinth, also saw a reduction in grave goods. In Athens in the sixth century, Solon passed laws restricting the extravagance of funerals, and similar restrictions were also implemented at Gortyn, Mytilene, and Sparta.


title: Archaic Greece

text: The archaic period saw the beginning of philosophical and scientific thinking in Greece, and the Greeks' interaction with other cultures from Italy, Egypt, and the Near East in this period had a significant impact on their thought. In the archaic period, the boundaries between disciplines had not yet developed, and so the thinkers who were later identified as philosophers also engaged in practical pursuits: Andrea Nightingale describes them as "pragmatic and polymathic". For instance, ancient traditions about Thales of Miletus, traditionally identified as the first philosopher, also show his skill in such diverse fields as astronomy, engineering, politics, agriculture, and commerce.


title: Archaic Greece

text: In the archaic period, the most significant military development was the adoption of hoplite warfare by the Greek states. This occurred in the early part of the seventh century BC. The panoply, or hoplite's armour, began to appear in the eighth century, and the earliest known example comes from Argos in the late eighth century.


title: Archaic Greece

text: While the pieces which made up the panoply were all in use in Greece by the end of the eighth century, our first evidence for it being worn as a complete set of armour does not come until around 675 BC, where it is depicted on a Corinthian vase painting. The adoption of the phalanx tactics which would be used by hoplites in the Classical period does not appear to have taken place until the mid-seventh century; before this point, the older style of combat in which spears were thrown at the enemy before closing quarters was still used.


title: Archaic Greece

text: In the naval sphere, the archaic period saw the development of the trireme in Greece. In the eighth century, Greek navies began to use bireme ships with two banks of oars, and the three banked trireme seems to have become popular in the seventh century. Corinth was probably the first place in the Greek world to adopt the trireme in the mid seventh century BC. It was not until the mid-sixth century that the trireme became the most popular design for Greek battleships, due to its expense. According to Thucydides, the period saw the first Greek naval battles; he dates the first to around 664 BC.


title: Ori and the Will of the Wisps

text: Ori and the Will of the Wisps is a platform-adventure Metroidvania video game developed by Moon Studios and published by Xbox Game Studios. Announced during E3 2017, the title is a direct sequel to 2015's "Ori and the Blind Forest", and was released in March 2020 for Xbox One and Microsoft Windows. A Nintendo Switch version was released in September 2020 by Iam8bit, and a version optimized for Xbox Series X/S was released as its launch title in November 2020. The game maintains narrative continuity with "Blind Forest", and follows the journey of series' main character Ori in a new region called Niwen.


title: Ori and the Will of the Wisps

text: The game was developed by Moon Studios, a studio based in Vienna with contributors worldwide. The game introduces new melee combat, and its visuals were given an overhaul from the two-dimensional artwork in "Blind Forest", to the three-dimensional models played in multilayered backgrounds in "Will of the Wisps".


title: Ori and the Will of the Wisps

text: Upon release, "Ori and the Will of the Wisps" received widespread critical acclaim, with critics citing the game as an example of artistic expression in video gaming. Praise directed to the game included the story, characters, visuals, combat, elements of exploration, environments, chase sequences, and soundtrack. However, criticism was aimed at technical issues such as frame rate issues and visual bugs, which were largely resolved with a day-one patch.


title: Ori and the Will of the Wisps

text: "Ori and the Will of the Wisps" is a 2D Metroidvania; a platform game with an emphasis on exploration, collecting items and upgrades, and backtracking to previously inaccessible areas. The player controls the titular Ori, a white guardian spirit. As Ori, players must jump, climb, glide, and swim between various platforms to solve intricate puzzles. Gameplay unfolds in the form of a Metroidvania, with new abilities and upgrades allowing players to unlock previously inaccessible areas of the map. Some of the foundational gameplay elements were inspired by the "Rayman" and "Metroid" franchises.


title: Ori and the Will of the Wisps

text: Unlike its predecessor "Blind Forest", "Will of the Wisps" relies on autosaving rather than manually placed "soul links". The sequential upgrade system of the first title has been abandoned for a system of "shards" (inspired by the "Final Fantasy" series's "materia" system), which can be purchased or found throughout the game to upgrade or modify Ori's stats and attacks. Ori's attacks can be managed via a convenient radial menu, and orbs to increase Ori's health and energy can be found throughout the map.


title: Ori and the Will of the Wisps

text: A new mode called Spirit Trials was revealed at Gamescom 2018. The mode challenges players to race to a goal in the fastest time possible. To enhance competition and strategy, players can see the best times and the routes taken by other players. "Will of the Wisps" also introduces side quests from NPCs to earn collectible items such as Gorlek Ores, which are used to expand the game's hub area.


title: Ori and the Will of the Wisps

text: The story takes place immediately after the events of "Ori and the Blind Forest" and is narrated by the Spirit Tree in the forest of Niwen. Kuro's last egg hatches, giving birth to a baby owl whom Ori, Naru, and Gumo name Ku and raise as part of their family. Being born with a damaged wing, Ku is unable to fly until Gumo affixes Kuro's feather to it. Ku and Ori go on a flight that ends up taking them out of Nibel and into Niwen, where a storm separates them.


title: Ori and the Will of the Wisps

text: Ori's search for Ku eventually leads them to Kwolok, a toad looking over the Inkwater Marsh and some of the inhabitants of Niwen, the Moki. He tells Ori that Ku is in the Silent Woods, the Moki's former home now turned into a desolate graveyard of owls, but with the waters of Niwen unclean, Ori must set the wheels of The Wellspring back into motion to enter them. Kwolok also gives Ori a wisp, the Voice of the Forest, to guide them on their journey. Meanwhile, Naru and Gumo head off to Niwen via a raft to find Ori and Ku. Upon setting The Wellspring's wheels back into motion, clearing Niwen's water, Ori proceeds to enter the Silent Woods. There they reunite with Ku, but the pair encounters Shriek, a deformed, vicious owl who was an orphan at birth and rejected by the rest of her kind, ruling over the Silent Woods and terrorizing Niwen. Shriek attacks Ori and kills Ku.


title: Ori and the Will of the Wisps

text: After Ori mourns Ku's death, Kwolok explains that the Voice of the Forest is not at full power and is unable to bring Ku back in its current state. Due to the Spirit Willow's prior passing, the light that it carried was shattered into five wisps that scattered across Niwen, leaving the forest vulnerable to corruption and decay that killed the Willow's guardian spirits and Shriek's parents before her birth. Kwolok tasks Ori with seeking the other wisps of the Spirit Willow's light: the Memory, Eyes, Strength, and Heart of the Forest, and merge the four with the Voice to reform the tree's light. Kwolok leaves his marsh to help Ori with locating one of the other wisps, but his body is forcibly taken over by the Stink Spirit, a creature born out of the forest's decay whose body jamming the wheels of The Wellspring had been the cause of its non-functionality. Ori breaks the creature's control over Kwolok, allowing for him to kill it, but their fight leaves him mortally wounded. Before dying, Kwolok pleads to Ori to restore and protect Niwen in his place.


title: Ori and the Will of the Wisps

text: Ori eventually finds all five wisps and merges them together to reform Seir, the Golden Light. Ori and Seir head to the Spirit Willow and Seir revives it. However, the tree tells Ori that its time has passed and it can no longer carry Seir, asking Ori to merge with the light to restore Niwen, though Ori would have to leave their previous life behind. The Spirit Willow passes Seir onto Ori, but Shriek appears and snatches it. Ori defeats Shriek, who returns to the Silent Woods to die under the wings of her parents' corpses.


title: Ori and the Will of the Wisps

text: Ori merges with Seir, healing Niwen and reviving Ku with her damaged wing restored in the process, which Naru and Gumo arrive in time to witness. Ku, Naru, and Gumo find where Ori and Seir merged, and discover a Spirit Tree beginning to grow there. They help the tree flourish and continue their life as a family together, with the Spirit Tree revealing it was Ori all along, retelling the events leading up to when it merged with Seir. Eventually, the tree completely grows and life begins anew as a new spirit guardian falls from it.


title: Ori and the Will of the Wisps

text: Moon Studios's first game, "Ori and the Blind Forest", was both a critical and commercial success, but Daniel Smith observed that players asked for more "Ori", as they were able to complete the game in about eight hours. Smith said their team looked at how they could expand the game both in scale and in scope, while maintaining narrative continuity. Lead developer Thomas Mahler said of this change of scope and scale: "The idea is that "Will of the Wisps" should be to "Blind Forest" what "Super Mario Bros. 3" was to the original "Super Mario Bros.""


title: Ori and the Will of the Wisps

text: As "Blind Forest" ended with Ori returning Sein, an entity from the Spirit Tree that granted Ori several of their combat abilities, back to Nibel's Spirit Tree, the team was tasked with discovering a new type of melee-focused combat for Ori with projectile-aiming aspects, which informed the story's development. The original "Ori" was a game based only on two-dimensional artwork. Jeremy Gritton, an artist for Blizzard Entertainment at the time of "Blind Forest" release, was impressed with the game and left Blizzard to join Moon Studios to help lead the art development in "Will of the Wisps", with a major shift of making all of the major character art into three-dimensional models played in multilayered backgrounds to make them look seamlessly integrated. This also was used to help with the programs used develop the more flexible and streamlined processes for the cinematics of the game. "AM2R" developer Milton Guasti joined the team for supporting level design, and part of the level design included recreating the original "Blind Forest" map within the "Will of the Wisps" world and wrapping more levels around it. Gareth Coker, who composed the first game's soundtrack, continued to do the music for the sequel, incorporating unique themes for each of the characters that Ori meets throughout the game.


title: Ori and the Will of the Wisps

text: Because of the various expansions of scope and scale, Mahler and fellow lead developer Gennadiy Korol said the team was "crazy iterative" throughout the course of development. For example, the E3 2017 trailer went through 2,000 iterations during polishing. The Moon Studios team, originally about 20 at the time of "Blind Forest" release, expanded to 80 by the time "Will of the Wisps" was completed, but as with the first game, the team remained highly decentralized across the globe with few members working in the same common location and most working from home offices.


title: Ori and the Will of the Wisps

text: Due to the increased scope, which Smith estimated was three times larger than "Blind Forest", the game's development took longer than planned, resulting in a few delays. Smith said part of this is functionally tied to the nature of Metroidvanias: "Everything is so interconnected that if you change one aspect of the game, it's just inevitable that it's going to influence the rest. It just takes time to make an experience where we feel it's reached that polish that people want to enjoy." The sequel was first announced at E3 2017 with no set release date. A second trailer was revealed a year later at E3 2018 with a planned 2019 release date. By E3 2019, a new trailer affirmed that the game had been delayed but with a planned February 11, 2020 release date. A final delay of one month was announced with the game's final release trailer at The Game Awards 2019, setting the release date of March 11, 2020. Xbox Game Studios announced a Collector's Edition on the same day which includes a piano collections music CD, a steelbook, premium packaging, an art book and an original soundtrack music MP3 download alongside the game disc.


title: Ori and the Will of the Wisps

text: "Ori and the Will of the Wisps" was released for Xbox One and Windows 10 on March 11, 2020. It is a 4K UHD, Xbox One X Enhanced, and Xbox Play Anywhere title, and both versions were added to Microsoft's Xbox Game Pass program on launch. Smith said that being included on Game Pass was a net benefit for them: "I think Game Pass is a great vehicle to get what we've created into more gamers' hands and, ultimately, I think it's really healthy for the "Ori" IP, it's really healthy for Moon, it's really healthy for Xbox, for more people to play "Ori"."


title: Ori and the Will of the Wisps

text: A version for the Nintendo Switch was announced during a Nintendo Direct Mini: Partner Showcase and was released digitally on September 17, 2020; a physical version of the game and its predecessor were released December 8, 2020. During Microsoft's Xbox Games Showcase in July 2020, it was announced that the game would get an optimised version, running in 4K resolution at 120 frames per second, for the Xbox Series X (and later confirmed for the Xbox Series S) that was released on November 10, 2020.


title: Ori and the Will of the Wisps

text: "Ori and the Will of the Wisps" received "universal acclaim" for the Xbox One version based on 71 reviews, "universal acclaim" for the Xbox Series X version based on 4 reviews, "universal acclaim" for the Nintendo Switch version based on 24 reviews, and "generally favorable reviews" for the PC version of the game based on 44 reviews, according to review website Metacritic. By June 2020, the game was played by more than 2 million people. In mid-November 2020, the player count eclipsed 2.8 million people. Additionally, the Nintendo Switch version is tied with "", "", and both versions of "Hades" as the second highest rated game of 2020, only behind "Persona 5 Royal".


title: Ori and the Will of the Wisps

text: Chris Carter of "Destructoid" acclaimed the game, calling it a masterpiece. He described the game as "a hallmark of excellence", saying, "There may be flaws, but they are negligible and won't cause massive damage." Carter particularly praised the game's visuals, combat improvements from the game's predecessor, as well as the "dramatic chase sequences". However, he mentioned some frame rate issues regarding the Xbox One version of the game. "Electronic Gaming Monthly"s Michael Goroff stated positive opinions regarding the game, while pointing out the performance issues which the Xbox One edition of the game suffered from before the day-one patch was released. Goroff further mentioned that ""Ori and the Will of the Wisps" does everything that a good sequel is supposed to do. It refines "The Blind Forest"s mechanics, expands on the world, and throws in a whole bunch of new moves and concepts. But in an era that's rich with 'emotional platformers', "Will of the Wisps" doesn't do anything to make itself stand out. It's a fine, if not forgettable, experience." Writing for "Game Informer", Andrew Reiner praised the game's graphics, story and combat, subsequently calling the game better than its predecessor. Reiner said, "The story is fantastic, the world is breathtaking, and all of that pales in comparison to the wonderfully made gameplay that soars both as a platforming and combat game. Moon Studios has outdone itself with "Will of the Wisps", delivering an experience that doesn't have any lulls, makes the player feel clever, and just keeps getting better as it goes". "GameSpot"s critic, Steve Watts, gave the game a positive review, commending the combat, exploring elements, story as well as the "gorgeous animation and environments". Moreover, he highlighted occasional visual bugs as negative aspects of the game. 8 months after the initial release on Xbox One, another "GameSpot" critic, Mike Epstein, gave the Xbox Series X version of the game a higher score, commending the various enhancements it received and the "ironing out" of technical issues that "held back the launch version".


title: Ori and the Will of the Wisps

text: Austin Wood, reviewer for "GamesRadar+", acclaimed the game and its "breathtaking music", its world and its platforming. Wood stated that "There are a few minor stumbles here and there, but make no mistake: I "Ori and the Will of the Wisps". It's one of the best platformers ever made, and it's an easy front-runner for game of the year. If you liked the first game, you will love this one. And if you haven't experienced Ori's story, you owe it to yourself to dive in now, especially with both games now on Xbox Game Pass. I'll be replaying this game, listening to its soundtrack, and reminiscing over its characters for years to come." However, Wood acknowledged some negatives regarding a few of the game's abilities and called the final level "slightly underwhelming". Brandin Tyrrel of "IGN" also praised the game, saying, ""Ori and the Will of the Wisps" is an excellent return to this bright and beautiful open-world platformer, with an affecting story to bolster the white-knuckle challenge." Tyrrell further complimented the game for staying true to the original, while at the same time adding more content than its predecessor. "PC Gamer"s critic Tyler Wilde gave the game a favorable review, praising the platforming, boss fights and the visuals. However, Wilde mentioned some criticism regarding the fighting, saying "it's not much fun".


title: Ori and the Will of the Wisps

text: Writing for "VideoGamer", Josh Wise acclaimed the game for its graphics, music and platforming, stating that "In the beauty stakes and beyond, there are very few, in the rarefied realms of indie or AAA, who can challenge it". However, Wise pointed out some negatives towards the game's plot, calling it "thin". Tola Onanuga of "The Guardian" praised the game, saying that "More than anything else, "Ori and the Will of the Wisps" is an intoxicating feast for the senses. From its hauntingly beautiful visuals to its ambient, responsive music, there is so much to love about the look and feel of this long-awaited sequel." Onanuga acknowledged some less positive aspects of the game, calling the story "melancholy at times" and stating that fighting "the more common enemies can feel a little tedious after a while". She ended her review in a positive manner, saying, "Peppered with devious puzzles, "Ori and the Will of the Wisp[s]" is an irresistible challenge. There is extraordinary attention to detailthe entire world feels alive with excitement and danger."


title: Ori and the Will of the Wisps

text: "Time" and "Game Informer" listed "Ori and the Will of the Wisps" among "The 10 Best Video Games of 2020" and the best games in the eighth video game generation, respectively. "The Washington Post" listed "Ori and the Will of the Wisps" among their top ten best games of 2020, while "Paste" listed the game in their top 20 best games of 2020. Polygon has listed "Ori and the Will of the Wisps" among "The 50 best games of 2020", while WhatCulture ranked it third among the "20 Best Video Games Of 2020". "Ars Technica" listed the game among the best games of 2020. "The Guardian" listed the game in the top 5 of the 15 best video games of 2020. Bloomberg listed the game in the top 5 of the 15 best video games of 2020. Ori and the Will of the Wisps ranked top 3 in Digital Foundry's "Best Games of 2020", as well as in their top 10 of "Best Game Graphics of 2020". "Ori and the Will Of The Wisps" appeared at #5 in Game Informer's "Game Of The Year Countdown".


title: Ori and the Will of the Wisps

text: The game was nominated at the Golden Joystick Awards 2020 for the “Best Visual Design”, “Xbox Game of the Year”, and “Ultimate Game of the Year” categories. It won “Xbox Game of the Year”. The game received three nominations at The Game Awards 2020 for "Best Art Direction", "Best Score and Music", and "Best Action/Adventure", but it did not win any category.


title: Ori and the Will of the Wisps

text: At the 2020 awards from the National Academy of Video Game Trade Reviewers (NAVGTR for short), the game was nominated for the "Outstanding Art Direction, Fantasy", "Outstanding Gameplay Design, Franchise", "Outstanding Original Light Mix Score, Franchise", and "Outstanding Control Design, 2D or Limited 3D" categories, with the game winning all of the categories it was nominated for aside from "Outstanding Gameplay Design, Franchise". The game received 5 nominations at the 24th Annual D.I.C.E Awards in the "Adventure Game of the Year", "Outstanding Achievement in Audio Design", "Outstanding Achievement in Original Music Composition", "Outstanding Achievement in Art Direction", and "Outstanding Achievement in Animation" categories. At the 2021 edition of the SXSW Gaming Awards, the game was nominated for the "Video Game of the Year", "Excellence in Animation, Art, and Visual Achievement", "Excellence in Game Design", and "Excellence in Score" categories.