title: Guerrillero Heroico

text: However, Korda did not want commercialization of the image in relation to products he believed Guevara would not support, especially alcohol. This belief was displayed for the first time in 2000, when in response to Smirnoff using Che's picture in a vodka commercial, Korda claimed his moral rights (a form of copyright law) and sued advertising agency Lowe Lintas and Rex Features, the company that supplied the photograph. Lintas and Rex claimed that the image was in the public domain. The final result was an out of court settlement for US$50,000 to Korda, which he donated to the Cuban healthcare system, stating "if Che was still alive, he would have done the same."


title: Guerrillero Heroico

text: After the settlement, Korda reiterated that he was not against its propagation altogether, telling reporters:


title: Guerrillero Heroico

text: Cuban historian Edmundo Desnoes has stated that "Che's image may be cast aside, bought and sold and deified, but it will form a part of the universal system of the revolutionary struggle, and can recover its original meaning at any moment." That meaning's origin harkens back to when Korda's photograph was first published on April 16, 1961, in the daily Cuban newspaper "Revolución", advertising a noon conference during which the main speaker was "Dr. Ernesto 'Che' Guevara". The conference was disrupted, however, when 1,300 CIA-supported counter-revolutionaries stormed the beaches of Cuba, in what became known as the failed Bay of Pigs invasion. The image was thus republished a second time advertising the newly convened conference on April 28, 1961. Because of this fact, it seems very likely that in the context of both of these publications, that Che could have seen the photograph that would later contribute to his iconic status.


title: Guerrillero Heroico

text: The very first time Cubans on a large scale became familiar with the photograph, despite its earlier reproduction in "Revolución", was on hearing the news of Che's death. Upon the news of Che's execution, it was enlarged and draped on a banner down the five-story building of the Ministry of the Interior in the Plaza de la Revolución in Havana. This building where Che himself had formerly worked, served as a backdrop to Fidel's eulogy on October 18, 1967, publicly acknowledging the death of Che Guevara before a crowd of over a million mourners. José Gómez Fresquet, renowned Cuban poster maker and graphic artist, recalls how on hearing the news of Guevara's death, he immediately worked all night producing the poster to be used at the rally honoring him the next day. Korda had given Fresquet a copy of the portrait as a basis for the poster, which he created on red paper. This was the first privately produced "Guerrillero Heroico" to be created in Cuba. Since then the building has seen many versions of the image, and today a permanent steel outline, derived from the photograph, adorns the building.


title: Guerrillero Heroico

text: Passed out to the occasional friend and published in a few small Cuban publications, Che's image remained relatively unknown for 7 years. A print was sold or given to wealthy Italian publisher and intellectual Giangiacomo Feltrinelli in 1967. Feltrinelli had just returned from Bolivia where he had hoped his fame would help in negotiating the release of French journalist and professor Régis Debray. Debray had been arrested in Bolivia in connection with guerrilla operations led by Che Guevara. As Guevara's eventual capture or death appeared to be imminent with the CIA closing in on his whereabouts, Feltrinelli acquired the rights to publish Che's captured Bolivian Diary. At this time Feltrinelli asked Cuban officials where to obtain Guevara images and was directed to Korda's studio where he presented a letter of introduction from the government. The document asked for Korda's assistance in finding a good portrait of Che. Korda knew right away that his favorite image of Che was perfect and pointed to the 1960 shot of Che hanging on the wall, saying that the photograph was the best of those he had taken of Che. Feltrinelli agreed and ordered 2 prints. When he returned the next day to pick them up Korda told him that because he was a friend of the revolution he did not have to pay.


title: Guerrillero Heroico

text: Upon his return to Italy, Feltrinelli disseminated thousands of copies of the poster to raise awareness of Che's precarious situation and impending demise. Later in 1967 after his October 9, 1967 execution, Che's "Bolivian Diary" with Korda's photograph on the cover was released worldwide. Feltrinelli also created posters to promote the book, crediting the copyright to © Libreria Feltrinelli 1967 (in the lower left hand corner of the image) with no mention of Korda. By this time, Korda's image had officially entered the public consciousness. Alberto Korda later expounded that if Feltrinelli had paid him just one lira for each reproduction, that he would have received millions. However, Korda also expressed that he forgave him, because through his actions, the image became famous.


title: Guerrillero Heroico

text: Feltrinelli's version of the image was used in October 1967 in Milan, Italy, when spontaneous protests occurred in response to the news of Che's death. Italian photographer Giorgio Mondolfo later stated that "the first time I saw the picture by Alberto Korda, I was not even slightly interested in the author. I was only fifteen, and it was the picture that had drawn us – many for the first time – to gather in the streets, crying "Che lives!""


title: Guerrillero Heroico

text: "Guerrillero Heroico" also appeared in the August 1967 issue of "Paris Match". Published only a few months before his eventual capture and execution, the issue featured a major article titled "Les Guerrilleros" by journalist Jean Lartéguy. Lartéguy wrote At a time when Cuban revolutionaries want to create Vietnams all over the world, the Americans run the risk of finding their own Algeria in Latin America. The article ended by asking "Where is Che Guevara?" The caption of the photograph read "The official photograph of Che Guevara; on his beret the star, the symbol of the Comandante." It is not known who provided the magazine with the image, and it was also not credited to Feltrinelli. However, with its wide circulation throughout Europe, and its status as an influential news journal, "Paris Match" could also be viewed as one of the original purveyors of the image.


title: Guerrillero Heroico

text: During the May 1968 Paris student riots, which eventually shook the de Gaulle government (but did not overthrow it), organizer "Danny The Red" utilized Fitzpatrick's rendition of Che during the protests. At this time, Che's image was picked up by the Dutch anarchist group "The Provos" in Amsterdam, who focused on triggering violent responses from authorities through non-violent means.


title: Guerrillero Heroico

text: In 1967, Irish artist Jim Fitzpatrick was also using Korda's image as a basis for creating his own stylized posters. Fitzpatrick claims he received a copy of the photograph from the Dutch anarchist group "the Provos", who produced a magazine bearing the group's name. Fitzpatrick remembers that Provo magazine claimed the image originally came to Europe via Jean-Paul Sartre. Fitzpatrick's source of the image, then, would not have been Feltrinelli.


title: Guerrillero Heroico

text: To create the image Fitzpatrick made a paper negative on a piece of equipment called a grant. They were then printed in one color black and one color red, and he handpainted the star in yellow. Fitzpatrick "wanted the image to breed like rabbits" and hand printed thousands of images to give away to anyone for free in London, in addition to getting friends to pass them out while encouraging others to make their own versions. He printed about a hundred copies at a time to fulfill the demand of political groups in Ireland, France, and the Netherlands who began requesting the image. A batch was also sent to Spain, where they were seized by Franco's police.


title: Guerrillero Heroico

text: Because of the high demand, Fitzpatrick formed a poster company called "Two Bear Feet" and produced a variety of posters in 1967 using the Korda image. All of them were created without copyright, because Fitzpatrick wanted them to be reproduced. One of these posters would be published in the satirical magazine "Private Eye". The best-known was printed on silver foil and was exhibited in an exhibition in London called "Viva Che" at the Arts Laboratory, curated by Peter Meyer. This show was originally to be held at the Lisson Gallery in 1968 and illustrates how fast the image moved from protest into the realm of fine art.


title: Guerrillero Heroico

text: Because of Fitzpatrick's desire for the photograph to reflect something of himself, he raised Che's eyes more and added his initial, an "F", on the shoulder. It was not until the 40th anniversary of Che's death that Fitzpatrick admitted to this fact stating "I’m a bit mischievous, so I never told anyone." At this time Fitzpatrick said that "I love the picture and wherever I am in the world, if I see it, I take a photo of it. I always have a chuckle when I see that little 'F'. I know that it's mine." In November 2008, Fitzpatrick announced that he would be signing over the copyright of his Che image to the William Soler Pediatric Cardiology Hospital in Havana, Cuba. In announcing his reason for ensuring all future proceeds would go to the children's hospital, Fitzpatrick stated that "Cuba trains doctors and then sends them around the world ... I want their medical system to benefit." Additionally, Fitzpatrick publicized his desire to gift the original artwork to the archive run by Guevara's widow, Aleida March.


title: Guerrillero Heroico

text: Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams is interviewed in the 2008 documentary "Chevolution" about the famous photograph. As he speaks, the film shows a montage of Che murals in Belfast, with Adams remarking "I suppose people from my background were drawn to that image, because of what Che Guevara represented." To mark the 50th anniversary of Guevara's death the Irish postal service An Post issued a €1 stamp featuring Fitzpatrick's stylised version of the image. The initial print run of 122,000 sold out within days with An Post saying they experienced "unprecedented demand".


title: Guerrillero Heroico

text: "Guerrillero Heroico" made its American debut in 1968 on New York City Subway billboards, when the image appeared in painted form by Paul Davis, for a poster advertising the February issue of Evergreen Review. Paul Davis has stated that he was "inspired by Italian paintings of martyred saints and Christ", in his romanticised version of Che.


title: Guerrillero Heroico

text: However, the fascination was not solely an American phenomenon. For instance, British journalist Richard Gott who met with Che Guevara several times expressed a similar view, by stating how he was "struck by his magnetic physical attraction, comparable to the aura of a rock star". In Gott's opinion "almost everyone had the same impression, and journalists were particularly susceptible". "Time" magazine, in an August 8, 1960, cover story after meeting with Guevara displayed this view, by remarking that Che wore "a smile of melancholy sweetness that many women find devastating".


title: Guerrillero Heroico

text: Argentine journalist Julia Costenlos, recalls that in her view he was "blessed with a unique appeal, an incalculable enchantment that came completely naturally". Even under duress, "The Times" journalist Henry Brandon, who spoke with Guevara at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis, remarked that Che possessed a "genial charm" that "might have made Charles Boyer envious".


title: Guerrillero Heroico

text: In judging the enduring appeal of the image, Darrel Couturier, representative for Korda since 1997, has opined that it was "the image of a very dashing young man" and that in the "age of free love and flower power ... the time was ripe for a figure" or "image that could represent this great diversity in thinking and behavior the world over". According to Couturier, this "age of religious revolution", matched with Guevara's premature death, "elevated him to almost martyrdom".


title: Guerrillero Heroico

text: As pop artists took to the image with glee, it evolved into a popular and heavily commercialized icon that often strayed far from Che's hard-line Marxist message. British pop artist Sir Peter Blake has referred to "Guerrillero Heroico" as "one of the great icons of the 20th century". When converted into a stark black cut-out, Korda's photograph became easy, cheap, and fast to copy using the favored material and method of the 1960s: lith film and screen painting. By the time of his death in 1967, Che was already "a legend, the romantic epitome of worldwide rebellion" and in the wake of his perceived martyrdom, Korda's photograph went viral. Rebellious young people found in it a "sense of empowerment, a crystallization of the perennial idealism of youth".


title: Guerrillero Heroico

text: According to the V&A Museum, "the photograph enshrines Che as a mythic hero. Taken from below, the revolutionary leader with searching eyes and resolute expression becomes larger than life. A perspective that dominates the imagery of social realism, it bears an irresistible aura of authority, independence and defiance." The V&A Museum goes on to state that Korda's famous photograph first deified Che and turned him into an icon of radical chic. Its story, a complex mesh of conflicting narratives, gave "Guerrillero Heroico" a life of its own, an enduring fascination independent of Che himself. The Italian magazine "Skime" evokes even more praise, decreeing it "absolutely the most famous of history" while proclaiming that it "captures beauty and youth, courage and generosity, aesthetic and moral virtues of a person who possessed all the characteristics necessary to be converted into a symbol of an epoch like ours, lacking in historic legends and mythic incarnations." Journalist Richard Gott has also remarked that "the red star in Che's beret was up there with 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds'." Jonathan Green, director of the UCR photography museum, has remarked that "pop art is a rejection of traditional figuration, rhetoric, and rendition. Its egalitarian anti-art stance was the perfect corollary for Che's anti-establishment attitude."


title: Guerrillero Heroico

text: The Che image has been cited as an example of the merging of politics and marketing and the power that images hold over our society. Trisha Ziff, the curator of a 2004 touring exhibition on the iconography of Che has stated that "Che Guevara has become a brand. And the brand's logo is the image, which represents change. It has become the icon of the outside thinker, at whatever level, whether it is anti-war, pro-green or anti-globalisation. Its presence, everywhere from Belfast to Soweto, or from walls in the Palestinian territories to Parisian boutiques, makes it an image that is out of control. It has become a corporation, an empire, at this point."


title: Guerrillero Heroico

text: Alberto Korda's photograph has received wide distribution and modification, appearing on countless numbers of T-shirts, posters, consumer products, protest banners, personal tattoos, and in many other formats. It has morphed into an iconic countercultural symbol for a new generation of youth. The image is now worn on the chests of a diverse group of individuals, from those who truly support the ideals that Che Guevara lived for, to those expressing a more generalized anti-authoritarian stance.


title: Guerrillero Heroico

text: Journalist Michael Casey, in his 2009 book "Che's Afterlife: The Legacy of an Image", notes how the universal image can be found "in all corners of the world" and theorizes that it arrived as a symbol of rebellion during an era when the world was aching for change. In defining Korda's photograph as a "brand" and "quintessential post-modern icon", Casey notes that somehow the photograph encapsulates "hope and beauty", which causes people around the globe to "invest their dreams in it". While David Kunzle, author of the book "Che Guevara: Icon, Myth, and Message", has opined that "The beret functions subliminally as a flattened halo."


title: Guerrillero Heroico

text: Trisha Ziff, the curator of "Che! Revolution and Commerce" describes "Guerrillero Heroico" as a "statuesque image taken from below", which "derives from a visual language of mythologized heroes harking back to an era of socialist realism" while referencing "a classical Christ-like demeanor". Jon Lee Anderson, author of "Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life", in the photograph Che appears "as the ultimate revolutionary icon" with "his eyes staring boldly into the future" and "his expression a virile embodiment of outrage at social injustice".


title: Guerrillero Heroico

text: The stylized image of Che Guevara, adapted from Korda's photograph, is commonly accompanied by several different symbols that add context to its inherent suggested meaning. The most common of these are the red star, hammer and sickle, Cuban flag, and the saying in Spanish (translation: "Towards Victory, Always"). The multi-meaning phrase became the sign off for Che Guevara's numerous letters and speeches as a revolutionary, and represent the commitment to both never give up on the eventual triumph of a Marxist world revolution, and the belief that this victory once it occurs, will be eternal. As a result, has become a de facto slogan or catchphrase, used as a motto by those who continue to support and/or admire Che Guevara's life and/or ideals.


title: Guerrillero Heroico

text: For decades the famous image was unhindered by international copyright agreements, because Cuba was not a signatory to the Berne Convention. Fidel Castro described it as a "bourgeois concept" which meant that artists and advertisers were free to use Korda's work as they pleased. Legally, Cuban Law no. 156 signed on September 28, 1994, to amend part of Law no. 14 of the 1977 Copyright Act (Article 47), states that pictures taken in Cuba fall into the public domain worldwide, 25 years after their first use. As for the United States, since the image was first published in Cuba without compliance with U.S. copyright formalities and used in Cuba before February 20, 1972 (more than 25 years before Cuba signed the Berne Convention in 1997) it is also generally, although not universally, considered to be in the public domain.


title: Guerrillero Heroico

text: Despite conflicting claims about whether or not the image could have copyright established, Korda's children have sought to control commercial use of the image from defamation. Korda's daughter Diana Diaz pursued a 2003 lawsuit in France against a Paris-based press rights group Reporters Without Borders, for using the Che photograph in a poster campaign decrying Cuba as "the world's largest jail", aimed at dissuading French tourists from vacationing in Cuba after the jailing of 29 dissident journalists. In suing the group for 1.14 million euros, Diaz's lawyer, Randy Yaloz remarked that "we are going after everyone who betrays the moral rights of my client". Moral rights are a separate component of copyright law that are not recognized in the U.S., but are recognized in some other countries, notably in France where Diaz filed the lawsuit. Moral rights aim to protect the integrity of a work from defamation, distortion, slander, or offensive mutilation, even if the originator no longer owns the copyright. However, Reporters Without Borders stopped using the image before any legal judgment was rendered.


title: Guerrillero Heroico

text: Ariana Hernández-Reguant addressed the image's copyright status in 2004 in her article "Copyrighting Che: Art and Authorship under Cuban Late Socialism". She expressed a skeptical view towards Korda's heirs being able to establish ownership over the image, noting in reference to the lawsuits involving the image, "There was never any official ruling on whether the depiction constituted a violation of copyright." The author goes on to state that: "Korda took the picture while working for a state-run newspaper, his actual property rights would be questionable under both Cuban and international law."


title: Guerrillero Heroico

text: In 2007, law student Sarah Levy also addressed the potential legal status of the image in Cuba. It was her ultimate contention that "in Cuba the copyright protection in Korda's Guevara photograph would have already expired, and despite the claims of ownership from Korda's heirs, the State would now hold any rights associated with the photograph." In regards to the more commonly disseminated stylized version of the photograph, lawyers say it will be an uphill struggle to deter non-photographic use of such a widely reproduced image, other than in countries like Italy where laws protect image rights.


title: Guerrillero Heroico

text: Guevara's heirs also believe they have legal justification to prevent the image's "exploitation" or slander. Guevara's Cuban widow Aleida March stated in 2005 that "We have a plan to deal with the misuse. We can't attack everyone with lances like Don Quixote, but we can try to maintain the ethics of Guevara's legacy." In reference to this pronouncement, Guevara's daughter Aleida Guevara told Reuters, "It will be costly and difficult because each country has different laws, but a limit has to be drawn."


title: Rickettsia

text: Rickettsia is a genus of nonmotile, gram-negative, nonspore-forming, highly pleomorphic bacteria that may occur in the forms of cocci (0.1 μm in diameter), bacilli (1–4 μm long), or threads (up to about 10 μm long). The term "rickettsia" has nothing to do with rickets (which is a deficiency disease resulting from lack of vitamin D); the bacterial genus "Rickettsia" instead was named after Howard Taylor Ricketts, in honor of his pioneering work on tick-borne spotted fever.


title: Rickettsia

text: Properly, "Rickettsia" is the name of a single genus, but the informal term "rickettsia", plural "rickettsias", usually not capitalised, commonly applies to any members of the order Rickettsiales. Being obligate intracellular bacteria, rickettsias depend on entry, growth, and replication within the cytoplasm of living eukaryotic host cells (typically endothelial cells). Accordingly, "Rickettsia" species cannot grow in artificial nutrient culture; they must be grown either in tissue or embryo cultures; typically, chicken embryos are used, following a method developed by Ernest William Goodpasture and his colleagues at Vanderbilt University in the early 1930s. Many new strains or species of "Rickettsia" are described each year. Some "Rickettsia" species are pathogens of medical and veterinary interest, but many "Rickettsia" are non-pathogenic to vertebrates, including humans, and infect only arthropods, often non-hematophagous, such as aphids or whiteflies. Many "Rickettsia" species are thus arthropod-specific symbionts, but are often confused with pathogenic "Rickettsia" (especially in medical literature), showing that the current view in rickettsiology has a strong anthropocentric bias.


title: Rickettsia

text: Pathogenic "Rickettsia" species are transmitted by numerous types of arthropods, including chigger, ticks, fleas, and lice, and are associated with both human and plant diseases. Most notably, "Rickettsia" species are the pathogens responsible for typhus, rickettsialpox, boutonneuse fever, African tick-bite fever, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, Flinders Island spotted fever, and Queensland tick typhus (Australian tick typhus). The majority of pathogenic "Rickettsia" bacteria are susceptible to antibiotics of the tetracycline group.


title: Rickettsia

text: The classification of "Rickettsia" into three groups (spotted fever, typhus, and scrub typhus) was initially based on serology. This grouping has since been confirmed by DNA sequencing. All three of these groups include human pathogens. The scrub typhus group has been reclassified as a related new genus, "Orientia", but they still are in the order Rickettsiales and accordingly still are grouped with the rest of the rickettsial diseases.


title: Rickettsia

text: Rickettsias are more widespread than previously believed and are known to be associated with arthropods, leeches, and protists. Divisions have also been identified in the spotted fever group and this group likely should be divided into two clades. Arthropod-inhabiting rickettsiae are generally associated with reproductive manipulation (such as parthenogenesis) to persist in host lineage.


title: Rickettsia

text: In March 2010, Swedish researchers reported a case of bacterial meningitis in a woman caused by "Rickettsia helvetica" previously thought to be harmless.


title: Rickettsia

text: Infection occurs in nonhuman mammals; for example, species of "Rickettsia" have been found to afflict the South American guanaco, "Lama guanacoe".


title: Rickettsia

text: Rickettsial organisms are obligate intracellular parasites and invade vascular endothelial cells in target organs, damaging them and producing increased vascular permeability with consequent oedema, hypotension, and hypoalbuminaemia.


title: Rickettsia

text: Certain segments of rickettsial genomes resemble those of mitochondria. The deciphered genome of "R. prowazekii" is 1,111,523 bp long and contains 834 genes. Unlike free-living bacteria, it contains no genes for anaerobic glycolysis or genes involved in the biosynthesis and regulation of amino acids and nucleosides. In this regard, it is similar to mitochondrial genomes; in both cases, nuclear (host) resources are used.


title: Rickettsia

text: ATP production in "Rickettsia" is the same as that in mitochondria. In fact, of all the microbes known, the "Rickettsia" is probably the closest relative (in a phylogenetic sense) to the mitochondria. Unlike the latter, the genome of "R. prowazekii", however, contains a complete set of genes encoding for the tricarboxylic acid cycle and the respiratory chain complex. Still, the genomes of the "Rickettsia", as well as the mitochondria, are frequently said to be "small, highly derived products of several types of reductive evolution".


title: Rickettsia

text: The recent discovery of another parallel between "Rickettsia" and viruses may become a basis for fighting HIV infection. Human immune response to the scrub typhus pathogen, "Orientia tsutsugamushi", appears to provide a beneficial effect against HIV infection progress, negatively influencing the virus replication process. A probable reason for this actively studied phenomenon is a certain degree of homology between the rickettsiae and the virus, namely, common epitope(s) due to common genome fragment(s) in both pathogens. Surprisingly, the other infection reported to be likely to provide the same effect (decrease in viral load) is the virus-caused illness dengue fever.


title: Rickettsia

text: Comparative analysis of genomic sequences have also identified five conserved signature indels in important proteins, which are uniquely found in members of the genus "Rickettsia". These indels consist of a four-amino-acid insertion in transcription repair coupling factor Mfd, a 10-amino-acid insertion in ribosomal protein L19, a one-amino-acid insertion in FtsZ, a one-amino-acid insertion in major sigma factor 70, and a one-amino-acid deletion in exonuclease VII. These indels are all characteristic of the genus and serve as molecular markers for "Rickettsia".


title: Rickettsia

text: Bacterial small RNAs play critical roles in virulence and stress/adaptation responses. Although their specific functions have not been discovered in "Rickettsia", few studies showed the expression of novel sRNA in human microvascular endothelial cells (HMEC) infected with "Rickettsia".


title: Rickettsia

text: Genomes of intracellular or parasitic bacteria undergo massive reduction compared to their free-living relatives. Examples include Rickettsia for alpha proteobacteria, T. whipplei for Actinobacteria, Mycoplasma for Firmicutes (the low G+C content Gram-positive), and Wigglesworthia and Buchnera for gamma proteobacteria.


title: Rickettsia

text: The genus "Rickettsia" is named after Howard Taylor Ricketts (1871–1910), who studied Rocky Mountain spotted fever in the Bitterroot Valley of Montana, and eventually died of typhus after studying that disease in Mexico City.


title: Rickettsia

text: In his early part of career, he undertook research at Northwestern University on blastomycosis. He later worked on Rocky Mountain spotted fever at the University of Chicago and Bitterroot Valley of Montana. He was so devoted to his research that on several occasions,he injected himself with pathogens to study their effects. On account of the apparent similarity between Rocky Mountain fever and typhus fever, he became occupied in investigating the latter in Chicago where the disease was epidemic, and became a victim of the epidemic in 1910. His investigations and discoveries added materially to the sum of medical knowledge .


title: Kalush (rap group)

text: Kalush (stylised in all caps) is a Ukrainian rap group formed in 2019. The group consists of founder and rapper Oleh Psiuk, multi-instrumentalist Ihor Didenchuk, and breakdancer MC KylymMen (). Didenchuk is also a member of the electro-folk band Go_A, which represented Ukraine in the Eurovision Song Contest 2021.


title: Kalush (rap group)

text: In early 2021, the group launched the side project Kalush Orchestra, with , Vitalii Duzhyk, and Dzhonni Dyvnyy as additional members. Unlike the original line-up, Kalush Orchestra focuses on hip hop blended with folk motifs and elements from Ukrainian traditional music. On 14 May 2022, the group won the Eurovision Song Contest 2022 with 631 points, securing Ukraine's third Eurovision victory with their song "".


title: Kalush (rap group)

text: Kalush was formed in 2019 by Oleh Psiuk and Ihor Didenchuck, together with Daniil Chernov as MC KylymMen. The group was named after Psiuk's hometown of Kalush, Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast. Their debut single "" () was released in October 2019. After the release of their second single "" () in November 2019, Kalush signed a recording contract with the American hip hop label Def Jam Recordings.


title: Kalush (rap group)

text: On 19 February 2021, the trio released their debut album (), named after a neighbourhood of the town Kalush. On 23 July 2021, Kalush released their second album, entitled (), together with rapper .


title: Kalush (rap group)

text: In 2021, Kalush announced the launch of the side project Kalush Orchestra, which focuses on hip hop with folk motifs and elements from Ukrainian traditional music. The core members of Kalush were joined by multi-instrumentalists Tymofii Muzychuk and Vitalii Duzhyk, and backing vocalist Andrii Handziuk (alias Dzhonni Dyvnyy, or Johnny Da Strange).


title: Kalush (rap group)

text: On 12 February 2022, Kalush Orchestra competed to in the Eurovision Song Contest 2022 in Turin, Italy with the song "". In the final of the national selection "Vidbir", they placed second with 14 points (six from the jury and eight from the audience). Due to technical difficulties that occurred during the voting process, Psiuk believed that Alina Pash had been wrongly chosen as the winner.


title: Kalush (rap group)

text: Despite coming in second place, the band were offered the chance to represent Ukraine at Eurovision, after Pash withdrew her candidacy due to controversy regarding her travel history in Crimea. On 22 February, Kalush Orchestra accepted the offer. On the same day, the Ukrainian public broadcaster UA:PBC published the official voting results of "Vidbir" 2022, confirming that Pash had been correctly chosen as the winner, contrary to Psiuk's claims.


title: Kalush (rap group)

text: During the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Daniil Chernov has been serving in the Territorial Defense Forces around the capital Kyiv. When the group left the country for the Eurovision Song Contest in April that year, fellow dancer Vlad Kurochka replaced him as MC KylymMen, while (alias Sasha Tab) replaced Dzhonni Dyvnyy as backing vocalist. Dzhonni Dyvnyy stated that he could not travel to Turin due to commitments with other musical projects.


title: Kalush (rap group)

text: The group won the Eurovision final on 14 May with 631 points, securing Ukraine's third Eurovision victory. "" became the first song with rap lyrics to win the contest, as well as the winning song with the highest number of televote points in the history of the contest. The group later announced that they would put their Eurovision trophy up for auction to raise money for the Ukrainian armed forces. The trophy was sold for , with proceeds earmarked for purchase of combat drones for Ukraine's military. The group subsequently embarked on a promotional tour across Europe and North America to raise awareness and donations for Ukrainian efforts in combating the Russian invasion.


title: Fur

text: Fur is a thick growth of hair that covers the skin of mammals. It consists of a combination of oily guard hair on top and thick underfur beneath. The guard hair keeps moisture from reaching the skin; the underfur acts as an insulating blanket that keeps the animal warm.


title: Fur

text: The fur of mammals has many uses: protection, sensory purposes, waterproofing, and camouflaging, with the primary usage being thermoregulation. The types of hair include


title: Fur

text: Hair length is negligible in thermoregulation, as some tropical mammals, such as sloths, have the same fur length as some arctic mammals but with less insulation; and, conversely, other tropical mammals with short hair have the same insulating value as arctic mammals. The denseness of fur can increase an animal's insulation value, and arctic mammals especially have dense fur; for example, the musk ox has guard hairs measuring as well as a dense underfur, which forms an airtight coat, allowing them to survive in temperatures of . Some desert mammals, such as camels, use dense fur to prevent solar heat from reaching their skin, allowing the animal to stay cool; a camel's fur may reach in the summer, but the skin stays at . Aquatic mammals, conversely, trap air in their fur to conserve heat by keeping the skin dry.


title: Fur

text: Mammalian coats are colored for a variety of reasons, the major selective pressures including camouflage, sexual selection, communication, and physiological processes such as temperature regulation. Camouflage is a powerful influence in many mammals, as it helps to conceal individuals from predators or prey. Aposematism, warning off possible predators, is the most likely explanation of the black-and-white pelage of many mammals which are able to defend themselves, such as in the foul-smelling skunk and the powerful and aggressive honey badger. In arctic and subarctic mammals such as the arctic fox ("Vulpes lagopus"), collared lemming ("Dicrostonyx groenlandicus"), stoat ("Mustela erminea"), and snowshoe hare ("Lepus americanus"), seasonal color change between brown in summer and white in winter is driven largely by camouflage. Differences in female and male coat color may indicate nutrition and hormone levels, important in mate selection. Some arboreal mammals, notably primates and marsupials, have shades of violet, green, or blue skin on parts of their bodies, indicating some distinct advantage in their largely arboreal habitat due to convergent evolution. The green coloration of sloths, however, is the result of a symbiotic relationship with algae. Coat color is sometimes sexually dimorphic, as in many primate species. Coat color may influence the ability to retain heat, depending on how much light is reflected. Mammals with darker colored coats can absorb more heat from solar radiation and stay warmer; some smaller mammals, such as voles, have darker fur in the winter. The white, pigmentless fur of arctic mammals, such as the polar bear, may reflect more solar radiation directly onto the skin.


title: Fur

text: The term "pelage"first known use in English (French, from Middle French, from for 'hair', from Old French , from Latin )is sometimes used to refer to an animal's complete coat. The term fur is also used to refer to animal pelts which have been processed into leather with their hair still attached. The words "fur" or "furry" are also used, more casually, to refer to hair-like growths or formations, particularly when the subject being referred to exhibits a dense coat of fine, soft "hairs". If layered, rather than grown as a single coat, it may consist of short down hairs, long guard hairs, and in some cases, medium awn hairs. Mammals with reduced amounts of fur are often called "naked", as with the naked mole-rat, or "hairless", as with hairless dogs.


title: Fur

text: An animal with commercially valuable fur is known within the fur industry as a furbearer. The use of fur as clothing or decoration is controversial; animal welfare advocates object to the trapping and killing of wildlife, and to the confinement and killing of animals on fur farms.


title: Fur

text: The modern mammalian fur arrangement is known to have occurred as far back as docodonts, haramiyidans and eutriconodonts, with specimens of "Castorocauda", "Megaconus" and "Spinolestes" preserving compound follicles with both guard hair and underfur.


title: Fur

text: Down hair (also known as underfur, undercoat, underhair or ground hair) is the bottomor innerlayer, composed of wavy or curly hairs with no straight portions or sharp points. Down hairs, which are also flat, tend to be the shortest and most numerous in the coat. Thermoregulation is the principal function of the down hair, which insulates a layer of dry air next to the skin.


title: Fur

text: The awn hair can be thought of as a hybrid, bridging the gap between the distinctly different characteristics of down and guard hairs. Awn hairs begin their growth much like guard hairs, but less than half way to their full length, awn hairs start to grow thin and wavy like down hair. The proximal part of the awn hair assists in thermoregulation (like the down hair), whereas the distal part can shed water (like the guard hair). The awn hair's thin basal portion does not allow the amount of piloerection that the stiffer guard hairs are capable of. Mammals with well developed down and guard hairs also usually have large numbers of awn hairs, which may even sometimes be the bulk of the visible coat.


title: Fur

text: Guard hair (overhair) is the top—or outer—layer of the coat. Guard hairs are longer, generally coarser, and have nearly straight shafts that protrude through the layer of softer down hair. The distal end of the guard hair is the visible layer of most mammal coats. This layer has the most marked pigmentation and gloss, manifesting as coat markings that are adapted for camouflage or display. Guard hair repels water and blocks sunlight, protecting the undercoat and skin in wet or aquatic habitats, and from the sun's ultraviolet radiation. Guard hairs can also reduce the severity of cuts or scratches to the skin. Many mammals, such as the domestic dog and cat, have a pilomotor reflex that raises their guard hairs as part of a threat display when agitated.


title: Fur

text: Hair is one of the defining characteristics of mammals; however, several species or breeds have considerably reduced amounts of fur. These are often called "naked" or "hairless".


title: Fur

text: Some mammals naturally have reduced amounts of fur. Some semiaquatic or aquatic mammals such as cetaceans, pinnipeds and hippopotamuses have evolved hairlessness, presumably to reduce resistance through water. The naked mole-rat has evolved hairlessness, perhaps as an adaptation to their subterranean life-style. Two of the largest extant terrestrial mammals, the elephant and the rhinoceros, are largely hairless. The hairless bat is mostly hairless but does have short bristly hairs around its neck, on its front toes, and around the throat sac, along with fine hairs on the head and tail membrane. Most hairless animals cannot go in the sun for long periods of time, or stay in the cold for too long. Marsupials are born hairless and grow out fur later in development.


title: Fur

text: Humans are the only primate species that have undergone significant hair loss. The hairlessness of humans compared to related species may be due to loss of functionality in the pseudogene KRTHAP1 (which helps produce keratin) Although the researchers dated the mutation to 240 000 ya, both the Altai Neandertal and Denisovan have the loss-of-function mutation, indicating it is much older. Mutations in the gene HR can lead to complete hair loss, though this is not typical in humans.


title: Fur

text: At times, when a hairless domesticated animal is discovered, usually owing to a naturally occurring genetic mutation, humans may intentionally inbreed those hairless individuals and, after multiple generations, artificially create breeds that are hairless. There are several breeds of hairless cats, perhaps the most commonly known being the Sphynx cat. Similarly, there are some breeds of hairless dogs. Other examples of artificially selected hairless animals include the hairless guinea-pig, nude mouse, and the hairless rat.


title: Fur

text: Fur has long served as a source of clothing for humans, including Neanderthals. Historically, it was worn for its insulating quality, with aesthetics becoming a factor over time. Pelts were worn in or out, depending on their characteristics and desired use. Today fur and trim used in garments may be dyed bright colors or to mimic exotic animal patterns, or shorn close like velvet. The term "a fur" may connote a coat, wrap, or shawl.


title: Fur

text: The manufacturing of fur clothing involves obtaining animal pelts where the hair is left on the animal's processed skin. In contrast, making leather involves removing the hair from the hide or pelt and using only the skin.


title: Fur

text: Fur is also used to make felt. A common felt is made from beaver fur and is used in bowler hats, top hats, and high-end cowboy hats.


title: Fur

text: Common furbearers used include fox, rabbit, mink, leopard, beaver, ermine, otter, sable, jaguar, seal, coyote, chinchilla, raccoon, lemur, and possum.


title: Zerubbabel

text: According to the biblical narrative, Zerubbabel was a governor of the Achaemenid Empire's province Yehud Medinata and the grandson of Jeconiah, penultimate king of Judah. Zerubbabel led the first group of Jews, numbering 42,360, who returned from the Babylonian captivity in the first year of Cyrus the Great, the king of the Achaemenid Empire. The date is generally thought to have been between 538 and 520 BC. Zerubbabel also laid the foundation of the Second Temple in Jerusalem soon after.


title: Zerubbabel

text: In all of the accounts in the Hebrew Bible that mention Zerubbabel, he is always associated with the high priest who returned with him, Joshua (Jeshua) son of Jozadak (Jehozadak). Together, these two men led the first wave of Jewish returnees from exile and began to rebuild the Temple. Old Testament theologian John Kessler describes the region of Judah as a small province that contained land extending 25 km from Jerusalem and was independently ruled prior to the Persian rule.


title: Zerubbabel

text: Appointed by Darius I, Zerubbabel was governor of Yehud province. It was after this appointment that Zerubbabel began to rebuild the Temple. Elias Bickerman speculates that one of the reasons that Zerubbabel was able to rebuild the Temple was because of "the widespread revolts at the beginning of the reign of Darius I in 522 BC, which preoccupied him to such a degree that Zerubbabel felt he could initiate the rebuilding of the temple without repercussions".


title: Zerubbabel

text: The Davidic line from Jeconiah had been cursed by Jeremiah, saying that no offspring of "Coniah" would sit on the throne (Jeremiah 22:30). However, Zerubbabel was of the main Davidic line through Solomon and Jeconiah.


title: Zerubbabel

text: The prophets Zechariah and Haggai both give unclear statements regarding Zerubbabel's authority in their oracles, in which Zerubbabel was either the subject of a false prophecy or the receiver of a divine promotion to kingship. He could also be viewed as a governor of a state within another nation and thus technically "not on the throne" of a nation. Either way, he was given the task of rebuilding the Temple in the second year of the reign of Darius I (520 BC), along with the high priest Joshua son of Jehozadak.


title: Zerubbabel

text: Muslim historian Ya'qubi attributed the recovery of the Torah and the Books of the Prophets to him instead of Ezra. The Seder Olam Zutta lists him as the Exilarch in Babylon to succeed Shealtiel. The texts are conflicting as to whether Zerubbabel was the son of Shealtiel or his nephew. His son Meshullam succeeded him as Exilarch, and was followed by another son Hananiah. His other sons were Hashubah, Ohel, Berechiah, Hasadiah and Jushab-hesed (). He also had a daughter called Shelomith ().


title: Zerubbabel

text: Zerubbabel may have had a Babylonian style name because of his interaction with the Babylonian court.


title: Zerubbabel

text: The Book of Ezra begins with Cyrus the Great entrusting the Temple vessels to Sheshbazzar (, "prince of Judah", probably from ); this apparently important figure disappears from the story entirely after being named in and , and Zerubbabel is abruptly introduced as the main figure. Both are called governors of Judah and are both credited with laying the foundation of the Temple. A number of explanations have been proposed, including: (1) the two are the same person; (2) Sheshbazzar was in fact Shenazzar (probably from ), Zerubabbel's uncle (mentioned in the Books of Chronicles); (3) Sheshbazzar began the work and Zerubbabel finished it.


title: Zerubbabel

text: "'On that day, says the Lord of Hosts, I will take you Zerubbabel, son of Shealtiel, my servant, and wear you like a signet ring; for it is you whom I have chosen. This is the word of the Lord of Hosts'" ().


title: Zerubbabel

text: This quotation from the Book of Haggai illustrates the messianic expectations that are often associated with Zerubbabel. The term, "my servant," describes Zerubbabel as God's servant. This term is often associated with King David. Walter Rose concludes that the fact that "the epithet 'servant' is hardly ever used for kings after David may be related to the fact that most of them were disappointing in their performance as kings appointed by YHVH". Rose emphasizes that the author of the Book of Haggai is associating Zerubbabel with King David.


title: Zerubbabel

text: Scholars have also analyzed the phrase "I will take you." Rose associates this term with a mission, change, or protection. For Zerubbabel, this mission was likely the rebuilding of the second Temple.


title: Zerubbabel

text: The most widely debated part of this prophecy is the phrase, "wear you like a signet ring." A signet ring is an authoritative symbol that is associated with power. Rose interprets this passage by comparing it to the passage in , in through which he concludes that the King is a signet ring on God's hand. John Kessler interprets the idea of the nature of the Signet ring as such that "the real true figure of speech at issue is a personification of which the simile or metaphor is only a part. The real trope consists of the personification of Yahweh, who is likened to the owner of a signet". However, this word when in Hebrew has been translated as meaning both seal and signet ring.


title: Zerubbabel

text: It is unclear whether Haggai's prophecy claims that Zerubbabel is going to be the King of the Land of Judah or if he is just to build the second Temple. Many scholars have interpreted the following passage from Haggai as identifying Zerubbabel as a king of the land of Judah, a continuation of the Davidic line:


title: Zerubbabel

text: "Zerubbabel is to be made either the representative of YHVH, or the new king who will restore the monarchy, or the new world leader. One sometimes finds words like messianic or Messiah used to describe Zerubbabel's role".


title: Zerubbabel

text: According to Peter Ackroyd, Zerubbabel was "'a royal representative of God'". Both historians' interpretations of the prophecy of Haggai appear to understand the term of the "signet ring" as being a metaphor for Zerubbabel attaining God's authority on earth.


title: Zerubbabel

text: Not all biblical scholars interpret Zerubbabel's authority in the same manner. Other scholars see it as a prophecy proclaiming that Zerubbabel will become king. According to Sara Japhet:


title: Zerubbabel

text: "Haggai does not explain, however, for what Zerubbabel was chosen. From what is described in the prophecy—the overthrow of the kingdoms of the nations as the first stage in the choosing of Zerubbabel—we may conclude that Haggai sees Zerubbabel as a king, whose kingdom is made possible by a change in the political structure. ... [F]rom now on, since Zerubbabel has been chosen as a 'signet,' he will be 'sitting on the throne of David and ruling again in Judah'. All this, however, is only hinted at in the prophecy of Haggai and not stated explicitly".


title: Zerubbabel

text: "The Promise of David…was now functioning in a new form, accommodated to the realities of the Persian period. Zerubbabel was not the ruler of a nation, but the governor of a province. Yet, such a provisional situation posed no inherent threat to the promise of the Davidic house".


title: Zerubbabel

text: Some historians claim that Haggai's prophecy does not claim that Zerubbabel will become the King of Judah. Rose's concludes that the imagery itself does not claim that Zerubbabel will be King of Judea. Rose also claims that "in Haggai's passage, one does not find a statement about Zerubbabel being YHVH's anointed, or about his autonomous rule (given by God), present or future, and there is no explicit promise that God will make the nations submit to his chosen one. One reads only about a mutual destruction of political and military forces masterminded by God. On the basis of these observations, I think it is safe to conclude that there is no reason to assume that divine intervention which does not mention autonomous rule or submission of the nations to Zerubbabel () would necessarily imply a change of his position".


title: Zerubbabel

text: Furthermore, Rose makes this claim because the prophecy does not claim that Zerubbabel will become king:


title: Zerubbabel

text: "The absence of any reference to the Davidic line from which Zerubbabel came, and the failure to use words like "melech" ... (related to the title of King)...point in a different direction".


title: Zerubbabel

text: Falling in line with the rest of the twelve prophetic books of the Hebrew Bible (the Nevi'im), the book of Zechariah describes a hope for a future king, beyond the current leader Zerubbabel, and further establishes a portrayal of this future king. Anthony Petterson argues that the standard explanation of Haggai and Zechariah's prophecies, in which Zerubbabel was supposed to be the restorer of the Davidic dynasty but never fulfilled these expectations, does not actually stand as an explanation of the final form of these texts.


title: Zerubbabel

text: Zerubbabel's name is mentioned four times throughout Zechariah 1–8, and all of these instances occur in one short oracle written in chapter 4. Any other references to Zerubbabel throughout this book are guesses or theories as to his significance. Zechariah 4:1–3 gives a vision that was had by Zechariah of a lampstand with a bowl on it. Upon that are seven lamps, each with seven lips. There are two olive trees, one to the right of the bowl and one to the left. The explanation, told by the angel that Zechariah is conversing with, is as follows:


title: Zerubbabel

text: "This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel: 'Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,' says the Lord of hosts. 'Who are you, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel you shall become a plain! And he shall bring forth the capstone with shouts of "Grace, grace to it!"' (Zech 4:6–7)


title: Zerubbabel

text: "The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this house; his hands shall also complete it. … The seven are the eyes of the Lord, which range through the whole earth … the two olive trees … are the two sons of oil (anointed ones) who stand by the Lord of the whole earth." (Zech 4:9–14)


title: Zerubbabel

text: There is a debate in the biblical scholarly community as to who the "sons of oil" is referencing. Though conventional wisdom often understood it to be Zerubbabel and Joshua, Boda argues that, because of the important role that prophets were said to play in the reconstruction of the Temple in Zech 8:9, Haggai and Zechariah are the sons of oil.


title: Zerubbabel

text: The controversy regarding the prophesies about Zerubbabel relate back to this quote about Zerubbabel laying the foundation of the temple and eventually completing it. Zech 3:8 and 6:12 refer to a man called "The Branch." In Zechariah 6, the Lord tells Zechariah to gather silver and gold from the returned exiles (who had come back to Judah from Babylonia), and to go to the house of Josiah son of Zephaniah (members of the Davidic lineage). Then Zechariah is told to fashion a crown out of the silver and gold, set it on the head of Joshua son of Jehozadak, and tell him the following:


title: Zerubbabel

text: "Thus says the Lord of hosts: Here is a man whose name is Branch (Hebrew: "Zemah"): for he shall branch out in his place, and he shall build the temple of the Lord … he shall bear royal honor, and shall sit upon his throne and rule. There shall be a priest by his throne, with peaceful understanding between the two of them." (Zech 6:12–13)


title: Zerubbabel

text: It is unclear whether or not "the Branch" refers to Zerubbabel. Should this have been the intention of the author, then the restoration of the Davidic line of kings would be imminent, as Zerubbabel is a member of the line of David (1 Chron 3:19–20). There is some evidence for this link, namely that Zerubbabel was the governor of Judah at the time of Zechariah, he was frequently associated with Joshua (Ezra 3:2, 3:8), and he is also described as the Temple builder (Zech 4:9). However, there are several reasons that complicate this association. The first is that Joshua is the one crowned, not the Branch. The next is that Zerubbabel is not mentioned. The third is that the references to Zemah appear to anticipate a future event, while Zerubbabel existed in the present. Zechariah neither proclaims that Zerubbabel will restore the monarchy, nor does he contradict the previous hopes for a Davidic king (Hag 2:23). Rather, Zechariah maintains hope for a Davidic king in the future, without tying down the prophecy directly to Zerubbabel.


title: Zerubbabel

text: According to the Book of Ezra chapter 2, Zerubbabel returned to Jerusalem in the first wave of liberated exiles under the decree of King Cyrus of Persia in 538 BC. The mention of Zerubbabel in the book of Ezra primarily serves the purpose of describing the return to Judah following the exile from Babylon and the construction of the Second Temple. According to the authors of the Book of Ezra, "when the seventh month came… Jeshua son of Jozadak along with his fellow-priests, and Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, with his colleagues, set to work to build the altar of the God of Israel". ()


title: Zerubbabel

text: "In the second month of the second year, after they came to the house of God in Jerusalem, Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel and Jeshua son of Jozadak began the work". ()


title: Zerubbabel

text: This passage describes how Zerubbabel was part of the group who began to build the second Temple of Jerusalem. According to the Book of Ezra, Zerubbabel is also under the authority of King Cyrus of Persia to build the Temple (Ezr. 4:3). The passages describing Zerubbabel do mention the prophecies of Haggai and of Zechariah concerning Zerubbabel's actions in the land of Judah.


title: Zerubbabel

text: Regarding Sheshbazzar, he was appointed governor of Judah by the Persian King Cyrus in the year 538 BCE, and was given gold and told to return to Jerusalem to rebuild the Temple. According to a letter from Tattenai (the governor of the province Beyond the River) to King Darius I, Sheshbazzar started the Temple, but it lay under construction for a long time. It seems as though Zerubbabel picked up construction shortly afterwards, in the 2nd year of Darius' rule (August 29, 520 BCE) (see Zerubbabel in Haggai). This is a contradiction, however, as Zerubbabel was said in to have laid the foundations of the new Temple, while Tattenai's letter to Darius says that Sheshbazzar laid the foundations of the Temple ().


title: Zerubbabel

text: "the gold and silver vessels of the house of God, which Nebuchadnezzar carried away from the temple in Jerusalem and brought to Babylon, are to be returned; they are all to be taken back to the temple in Jerusalem, and restored each to its place in the house of God". ()


title: Zerubbabel

text: The final detail in the book of Ezra regarding Zerubbabel is a date for the completion of the second Temple. According to the Book of Ezra, "the house was completed on the third day of the month of Adar, in the sixth year of the reign of King Darius." In this passage, the word "house" refers to the second Temple.


title: Zerubbabel

text: The reference to Zerubbabel in the Book of Nehemiah is rather brief. The author of the Book of Nehemiah only refers to Zerubbabel in passing when the author states that: "These are the priests and the Levites which came back with Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel and with Jeshua" (Neh. 12:1). The Book of Nehemiah provides no new information regarding Zerubbabel; however, Nehemiah seems to have replaced Zerubbabel as governor (Neh. 5:14).


title: Zerubbabel

text: The mention of Zerubbabel in 1 Chronicles only states Zerubbabel and his lineage and descendants. This passage states:


title: Zerubbabel

text: "The sons of Pedaiah: Zerubbabel and Shimei. The sons of Zerubbabel: Meshullam and Hannaniah; they had a sister Shelomith. There were five others: Hashubah, Ohel, Berechiah, Hasadiah, and Jushab-hesed" (1 Chronicles 3:19).


title: Zerubbabel

text: Unlike the passages in Nehemiah, Haggai, and Ezra, 1 Chronicles appears to state that Zerubbabel is not the son of Shealtiel, but rather the son of Pedaiah. For a further explanation of this contradiction please see the section on Zerubbabel and his family.


title: Zerubbabel

text: The Hebrew Bible has conflicting texts regarding whether Zerubbabel is the son of Shealtiel or of Pedaiah. Several texts (that are thought to be more or less contemporaneous) explicitly call "Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel" (, , ). The Seder Olam Zutta also supports that position. makes Zerubbabel a nephew of Shealtiel: King Jeconiah is the father of Shealtiel and Pedaiah, then Pedaiah is the father of Zerubbabel.


title: Zerubbabel

text: The text which identifies Zerubbabel as a son of Pedaiah could be a scribal error. It occurs in a part of the text where the Hebrew seems incongruent and possibly garbled (). The expected mention of Shealtiel being a father seems accidentally omitted, and thus his children became confused with Pedaiah's. There may be other problems with these verses as well.


title: Zerubbabel

text: In any case, those texts that call Zerubbabel "son of Shealtiel" have a context that is overtly political and seems to emphasize Zerubbabel's potential royal claim to the throne of the Davidic Dynasty by being Shealtiel's successor. Zerubbabel is understood as the legal successor of Shealtiel, with Zerubbabel's title paralleling the High Priest Jeshua's title, "son of Jozadak", that emphasizes Joshua's rightful claim to the dynasty of high priests, descending from Aaron. Therefore, with one descending from David and the other from Aaron, these two officials have the divine authority to rebuild the Temple.


title: Zerubbabel

text: These genealogies do not match the genealogy presented in 1 Chronicles; various explanations have been suggested .


title: Zerubbabel

text: Zerubbabel is listed alongside Jeshua (Joshua) son of Jozadak and Nehemiah as a leader of the restoration of the Temple. Notably, Ezra is missing from this honor. This portion of the text of Sirach is a list and brief description of the famous rulers, prophets, and ancestors of the kingdom of Judah (beginning in chapter 44).


title: Zerubbabel

text: 1 Esdras 3–4 tells the story of a speech-writing competition between three bodyguards of Darius I known as the "Tale of the Three Guardsmen", in which the winner would receive honor and riches from the King.


title: Zerubbabel

text: Scholars have long debated the source of the competition and the Praise of Truth. Cook says that the competition story could be either "a secondary insertion or part of the original compilation. The argument for wine conflicts with Proverbs xxiii.29–35 and Sirach.xxxi.25–30. Cook mentions other views of the Praise of Truth: "may be a specimen of Palestinian wisdom (Zunz),and although Volz (1493) thinks it shows contact with Alexandrian religious philosophy, Torrey (46 seq.) fails to find anything 'hellenistic' or suggestive of the influence of Greek literature or philosophy".


title: Zerubbabel

text: Torrey (1910) disagrees with German critics: "But if any student of the Greek Bible will look closely at the idiom of these two chapters, he will find it precisely the same which elsewhere results from a close rendering of a Hebrew or Aramaic original. … All those who are familiar with Semitic modes of thought and literary forms will recognize here a characteristic Semitic product". Dancy (2001) supports Torrey: "And the praise of truth is clearly an insertion (4.34–41). It differs totally from the other three in being not a courtly speech but a lofty hymn. In particular, Egyption Ma'at and Persian Arsha were deities of order, representing both truth and (as here) justice. The hymn is unlikely to be Jewish in origin, otherwise the praise would have been of Wisdom, but its elevated tone clearly appealed to the Jewish editor."


title: Zerubbabel

text: The first two spoke about the strength of wine and the strength of kings, respectively, but the winner was the third bodyguard, who spoke about the strength of women and truth:


title: Zerubbabel

text: "If she smiles at him, he laughs; if she loses her temper with him, he flatters her so that she may be reconciled with him. Gentlemen, why are not women strong, since they do such things?" (1 Esd 4:31–32).


title: Zerubbabel

text: This speaker is told (in parentheses) to be Zerubbabel, but this detail was likely tacked onto a secular, Hellenized tale about the power of wine, kings, truth, and women. The author of 1 Esdras might have done so to glorify the power of Zerubbabel, the description of which is unparalleled in Ezra, Nehemiah, and Haggai, as the aforementioned books all discuss the power of Zerubbabel in accordance to the power of the high priest Joshua. After Zerubbabel wins the competition, he is given sanction to rebuild the Temple and return the sacred Temple vessels that Nebuchadnezzar II had preserved after the conquest of Babylon.


title: Zerubbabel

text: It is also probable that the author of 1 Esdras included this reference to Zerubbabel to alleviate any confusion about the difference between Zerubbabel and Sheshbazzar that was apparent in the original book of Ezra.


title: Zerubbabel

text: The account of Zerubbabel in 1 Esdras is almost identical to the account of Zerubbabel in the Book of Ezra, included in the Kethuvim. This is because many scholars believe that 1 Esdras is a Greek version of the Book of Ezra. However, there are a few details that appear in 1 Esdras and not in the Book of Ezra. The first discrepancy is that 1 Esdras refers to Zerubbabel's son as Joakim (1 Esd. 5:5). However, this is not one of the sons included in the genealogy included in 1 Chronicles and the Book of Ezra makes no mention of Zerubbabel's son.


title: Zerubbabel

text: The second discrepancy is that the author of 1 Esdras claims that it was "Zerubbabel who spoke wise words before King Darius of Persia" (1 Esd. 5:6). However, there is no passage similar to this in the Book of Ezra. Finally 1 Esdras mentions a person called Sanabassar as the Governor of Judah and that it was he who laid the foundation for the first temple (1 Esd. 6:18–20). Sanabassar may refer to Shashbazar. However, according to the Book of Ezra, Zerubbabel is the governor of Judah and he laid the foundation for the Temple.


title: Zerubbabel

text: He was given sanction to rebuild the Temple and return the sacred Temple vessels that Nebuchadnezzar II had preserved after the conquest of Babylon.


title: Zerubbabel

text: Alcuin Blamires has found five authors who tell the tale of a contest to identify what is the strongest thing. According to Blamires these tales represent "the nearest discoverable counterpart to Theophrastus/Jerome's influence on medieval misogyny." In chronological order they are:


title: Zerubbabel

text: Five versions pick truth as strongest after discussing the merits of women. Bozon's omission of the "Esdras sequel on truth" was either deliberate or "not available in the account he is following. Le Fèvre "makes Zorobabel a fourth speaker, championing truth after the other three nominations have been aired by three preceding speakers". Lope De Vega also ignores truth. Walker observes that De Vega used several historical sources in addition to 1 Esdras. Four versions (Esdras, Josephus, Gower and Collier) mention the courtesan Apame who took the crown of Darius in Esdras and Josephus (in Gower Apemen is courtesan of Cyrus). Collier follows Esdras fairly closely and "ends with a pious expression of the poet's submission to divine will:".


title: Zerubbabel

text: The contest inspired six sixteenth century artists to create prints illustrating the four powers. Veldman has located works by Philips Galle, Johannes Wierix, Pieter Perret, Zacharias Dolendo, Nicolaus Knüpfer and Christoffel van Sichem. The last work dates from 1657. The disappearance of 1 Esdras from the Dutch bible "would certainly have contributed to the sudden decline in the riddle's popularity".


title: Zerubbabel

text: Many authors consider "truth" to be the core of this story. Some modern critics view "women" as the focus as they were often belittled in biblical and medieval texts. Milton disagrees with Zorobabel and asserts that "truth and justice are all one".


title: Zerubbabel

text: Although he is not mentioned in Craft Freemasonry, Zerubbabel is considered to be of great importance to a number of Masonic bodies. Within Holy Royal Arch freemasonry and Scottish Rite Freemasonry he is considered to be a ruling principal.


title: Zerubbabel

text: He is the receiver of an apocalypse in the seventh-century "Apocalypse of Zerubbabel," also known as "Sefer Zerubbabel." This text contains a prophecy given to Zerubbabel from God. It is very similar to the style of the prophecy given in 1 Enoch. The prophecy contains messianic imagery and Zerubbabel is told the future of the city of Jerusalem.


title: Zerubbabel

text: He plays a large role in Sholem Asch's final work "The Prophet". He is announced as the Prince of Judah upon his return to the Holy Land. One of the firm and long-standing followers and friends of the Prophet Isaiah, and descendant of the Davidic Dynasty.


title: Egyptian calendar

text: The ancient Egyptian calendar – a civil calendar – was a solar calendar with a 365-day year. The year consisted of three seasons of 120 days each, plus an intercalary month of five epagomenal days treated as outside of the year proper. Each season was divided into four months of 30 days. These twelve months were initially numbered within each season but came to also be known by the names of their principal festivals. Each month was divided into three 10-day periods known as decans or decades. It has been suggested that during the Nineteenth Dynasty and the Twentieth Dynasty the last two days of each decan were usually treated as a kind of weekend for the royal craftsmen, with royal artisans free from work.


title: Egyptian calendar

text: Because this calendrical year was nearly a quarter of a day shorter than the solar year, the Egyptian calendar lost about one day every four years relative to the Gregorian calendar. It is therefore sometimes referred to as the (), as its months rotated about one day through the solar year every four years. 's Canopus Decree attempted to correct this through the introduction of a sixth epagomenal day every four years but the proposal was resisted by the Egyptian priests and people and abandoned until the establishment of the Alexandrian or Coptic calendar by Augustus. The introduction of a leap day to the Egyptian calendar made it equivalent to the reformed Julian calendar, although by extension it continues to diverge from the Gregorian calendar at the turn of most centuries.


title: Egyptian calendar

text: This ran concurrently with an which was used for some religious rituals and festivals. Some Egyptologists have described it as lunisolar, with an intercalary month supposedly added every two or three years to maintain its consistency with the solar year, but no evidence of such intercalation before the has yet been discovered.


title: Egyptian calendar

text: Current understanding of the earliest development of the Egyptian calendar remains speculative. A tablet from the reign of the First Dynasty pharaoh Djer (BC) was once thought to indicate that the Egyptians had already established a link between the heliacal rising of Sirius ( or "Sopdet", "Triangle"; , "Sôthis") and the beginning of their year, but more recent analysis has questioned whether the tablet's picture refers to Sirius at all. Similarly, based on the Palermo Stone, Alexander Scharff proposed that the Old Kingdom observed a 320-day year, but his theory has not been widely accepted. Some evidence suggests the early civil calendar had 360 days, although it might merely reflect the unusual status of the five epagomenal days as days "added on" to the proper year.


title: Egyptian calendar

text: With its interior effectively rainless for thousands of years, ancient Egypt was "a gift of the river" Nile, whose annual flooding organized the natural year into three broad natural seasons known to the Egyptians as:


title: Egyptian calendar

text: As early as the reign of Djer (BC, Dynasty I), yearly records were being kept of the flood's high-water mark. Otto E. Neugebauer noted that a 365-day year can be established by averaging a few decades of accurate observations of the Nile flood without any need for astronomical observations, although the great irregularity of the flood from year to year and the difficulty of maintaining a sufficiently accurate Nilometer and record in prehistoric Egypt has caused other scholars to doubt that it formed the basis for the Egyptian calendar.<br>


title: Egyptian calendar

text: Note that the names of the three natural seasons were incorporated into the Civil calendar year (see below), but as this calendar year is a , the seasons of this calendar slowly rotate through the natural solar year, meaning that Civil season Akhet/Inundation only occasionally coincided with the Nile inundation.


title: Egyptian calendar

text: The Egyptians appear to have used a purely lunar calendar prior to the establishment of the solar civil calendar in which each month began on the morning when the waning crescent moon could no longer be seen. Until the closing of Egypt's polytheist temples under the Byzantines, the lunar calendar continued to be used as the liturgical year of various cults. The lunar calendar divided the month into four weeks, reflecting each quarter of the lunar phases. Because the exact time of morning considered to begin the Egyptian day remains uncertain and there is no evidence that any method other than observation was used to determine the beginnings of the lunar months prior to the there is no sure way to reconstruct exact dates in the lunar calendar from its known dates. The difference between beginning the day at the first light of dawn or at sunrise accounts for an 11–14 year shift in dated observations of the lunar cycle. It remains unknown how the Egyptians dealt with obscurement by clouds when they occurred and the best current algorithms have been shown to differ from actual observation of the waning crescent moon in about one-in-five cases.


title: Egyptian calendar

text: Parker and others have argued for its development into an observational and then calculated lunisolar calendar which used a 30 day intercalary month every two to three years to accommodate the lunar year's loss of about 11 days a year relative to the solar year and to maintain the placement of the heliacal rising of Sirius within its twelfth month. No evidence for such a month, however, exists in the present historical record.


title: Egyptian calendar

text: A second lunar calendar is attested by a demotic astronomical papyrus dating to sometime after 144 AD which outlines a lunisolar calendar operating in accordance with the Egyptian civil calendar according to a 25 year cycle. The calendar seems to show its month beginning with the first visibility of the waxing crescent moon, but Parker displayed an error in the cycle of about a day in 500 years, using it to show the cycle was developed to correspond with the new moon around 357BC. This date places it prior to the Ptolemaic period and within the native Egyptian Dynasty XXX. Egypt's 1st Persian occupation, however, seems likely to have been its inspiration. This lunisolar calendar's calculations apparently continued to be used without correction into the Roman period, even when they no longer precisely matched the observable lunar phases.


title: Egyptian calendar

text: The days of the lunar month — known to the Egyptians as a "temple month" — were individually named and celebrated as stages in the life of the moon god, variously Thoth in the Middle Kingdom or Khonsu in the Ptolemaic era: "He ... is conceived ... on "Psḏntyw"; he is born on "Ꜣbd"; he grows old after "Smdt"".


title: Egyptian calendar

text: The civil calendar was established at some early date in or before the Old Kingdom, with probable evidence of its use early in the reign of Shepseskaf (BC, Dynasty IV) and certain attestation during the reign of Neferirkare (mid-25th centuryBC, Dynasty V). It was probably based upon astronomical observations of Sirius whose reappearance in the sky closely corresponded to the average onset of the Nile flood through the 5th and A recent development is the discovery that the 30-day month of the Mesopotamian calendar dates as late as the Jemdet Nasr Period (late 4th-millenniumBC), a time Egyptian culture was borrowing various objects and cultural features from the Fertile Crescent, leaving open the possibility that the main features of the calendar were borrowed in one direction or the other as well.


title: Egyptian calendar

text: The civil year comprised exactly 365 days, divided into 12 months of 30 days each and an intercalary month of five days, were celebrated as the birthdays of the gods Osiris, Horus, Set, Isis, and Nephthys. The regular months were grouped into Egypt's three seasons, which gave them their original names, and divided into three 10-day periods known as decans or decades. In later sources, these were distinguished as "first", "middle", and "last". It has been suggested that during the Nineteenth Dynasty and the Twentieth Dynasty the last two days of each decan were usually treated as a kind of weekend for the royal craftsmen, with royal artisans free from work. Dates were typically expressed in a YMD format, with a pharaoh's regnal year followed by the month followed by the day of the month. For example, the New Year occurred on


title: Egyptian calendar

text: The importance of the calendar to Egyptian religion is reflected in the use of the title "Lord of Years" ("") for its various creator gods. Time was also considered an integral aspect of Maat, the cosmic order which opposed chaos, lies, and violence.


title: Egyptian calendar

text: The civil calendar was apparently established in a year when Sirius rose on its New Year but, because of its lack of leap years, it began to slowly cycle backwards through the solar year. Sirius itself, about 40° below the ecliptic, follows a Sothic year almost exactly matching that of the Sun, with its reappearance now occurring at the latitude of Cairo (ancient Heliopolis and Memphis) on 19July (Julian), only two or three days later than its occurrence in early antiquity.


title: Egyptian calendar

text: Following Censorinus and Meyer, the standard understanding was that, four years from the calendar's inception, Sirius would have no longer reappeared on the Egyptian New Year but on the next day ; four years later, it would have reappeared on the day after that; and so on through the entire calendar until its rise finally returned to 1460 years after the calendar's inception, an event known as "apocatastasis". Owing to the event's extreme regularity, Egyptian recordings of the calendrical date of the rise of Sirius have been used by Egyptologists to fix its calendar and other events dated to it, at least to the level of the four-Egyptian-year periods which share the same date for Sirius's return, known as "tetraëterides" or "quadrennia". For example, an account that Sothis rose on —the 181st day of the year—should show that somewhere 720, 721, 722, or 723 years have passed since the last apocatastasis. Following such a scheme, the record of Sirius rising on in 239BC implies apocatastases on 1319 and 2779BC ±3 years. Censorinus's placement of an apocatastasis on 21July AD139 permitted the calculation of its predecessors to 1322, 2782, and 4242BC. The last is sometimes described as "the first exactly dated year in history" but, since the calendar is attested before Dynasty XVIII and the last date is now known to far predate early Egyptian civilization, it is typically credited to Dynasty II around the middle date.


title: Egyptian calendar

text: The classic understanding of the Sothic cycle relies, however, on several potentially erroneous assumptions. Following Scaliger, Censorinus's date is usually emended to 20July but ancient authorities give a variety of 'fixed' dates for the rise of Sirius. His use of the year 139 seems questionable, as 136 seems to have been the start of the tetraëteris and the later date chosen to flatter the birthday of Censorinus's patron. Perfect observation of Sirius's actual behavior during the cycle—including its minor shift relative to the solar year—would produce a period of 1457 years; observational difficulties produce a further margin of error of about two decades. Although it is certain the Egyptian day began in the morning, another four years are shifted depending on whether the precise start occurred at the first light of dawn or at sunrise. It has been noted that there is no recognition in surviving records that Sirius's minor irregularities sometimes produce a triëteris or penteteris (three- or five-year periods of agreement with an Egyptian date) rather than the usual four-year periods and, given that the expected discrepancy is no more than 8 years in 1460, the cycle may have been applied schematically according to the civil years by Egyptians and the Julian year by the Greeks and Romans. The occurrence of the apocatastasis in the so close to the great political and sun-based religious reforms of /Akhenaton also leaves open the possibility that the cycle's strict application was occasionally subject to political interference. The record and celebration of Sirius's rising would also vary by several days (equating to decades of the cycle) in eras when the official site of observation was moved from near Cairo. The return of Sirius to the night sky varies by about a day per degree of latitude, causing it to be seen 8–10 days earlier at Aswan than at Alexandria, a difference which causes Rolf Krauss to propose dating much of Egyptian history decades later than the present consensus.


title: Egyptian calendar

text: Following Alexander the Great's conquest of the Persian Empire, the Macedonian Ptolemaic Dynasty came to power in Egypt, continuing to use its native calendars with Hellenized names. In 238 BC, Ptolemy III's Canopus Decree ordered that every 4th year should incorporate a sixth day in its intercalary month, honoring him and his wife as gods equivalent to the children of Nut. The reform was resisted by the Egyptian priests and people and was abandoned.


title: Egyptian calendar

text: Egyptian scholars were involved with the establishment of Julius Caesar's reform of the Roman calendar, although the Roman priests initially misapplied its formula and—by counting inclusively—added leap days every three years instead of every four. The mistake was corrected by Augustus through omitting leap years for a number of cycles until AD4. As the personal ruler of Egypt, he also imposed a reform of its calendar in 26 or 25BC, possibly to correspond with the beginning of a new Callipic cycle, with the first leap day occurring on 6 Epag. in the year 22BC. This "Alexandrian calendar" corresponds almost exactly to the Julian, causing 1Thoth to remain at 29August except during the year before a Julian leap year, when it occurs on 30August instead. The calendars then resume their correspondence after 4Phamenoth/ 29February of the next year.


title: Egyptian calendar

text: For much of Egyptian history, the months were not referred to by individual names, but were rather numbered within the three seasons. As early as the Middle Kingdom, however, each month had its own name. These finally evolved into the New Kingdom months, which in turn gave rise to the Hellenized names that were used for chronology by Ptolemy in his Almagest and by others. Copernicus constructed his tables for the motion of the planets based on the Egyptian year because of its mathematical regularity. A convention of modern Egyptologists is to number the months consecutively using Roman numerals.


title: Egyptian calendar

text: A persistent problem of Egyptology has been that the festivals which give their names to the months occur in the next month. Alan Gardiner proposed that an original calendar governed by the priests of Ra was supplanted by an improvement developed by the partisans of Thoth. Parker connected the discrepancy to his theories concerning the lunar calendar. Sethe, Weill, and Clagett proposed that the names expressed the idea that each month culminated in the festival beginning the next.


title: Egyptian calendar

text: The reformed Egyptian calendar continues to be used in Egypt as the Coptic calendar of the Egyptian Church and by the Egyptian populace at large, particularly the fellah, to calculate the agricultural seasons. It differs only in its era, which is dated from the ascension of the Roman emperor Diocletian. Contemporary Egyptian farmers, like their ancient predecessors, divide the year into three seasons: winter, summer, and inundation. It is also associated with local festivals such as the annual Flooding of the Nile and the ancient Spring festival "Sham el-Nessim".


title: Egyptian calendar

text: The Ethiopian calendar is based on this reformed calendar but uses Amharic names for its months and uses a different era. The French Republican Calendar was similar, but began its year at the autumnal equinox. British orrery maker John Gleave represented the Egyptian calendar in a reconstruction of the Antikythera mechanism.


title: Sujud

text: Sujūd (, ), or sajdah (, ), is the act of low bowing or prostration to God facing the "qiblah" (direction of the Kaaba at Mecca). It is usually done in standardized prayers (salah). The position involves kneeling and bowing till one touches the ground with the forehead, nose, palms, knees and toes, and remaining in that position until one attains a relaxed state while glorifying God ( "subḥāna rabbiya l-ʾaʿlā", "Glory be to my Lord, the Most High!") thrice or more in odd number of times.


title: Sujud

text: Sujud (prostration) is one of the main pillars of daily prayer in Islam. A single act of sujud is called a sajdah (plural "sajdāt"). Muslims do sujud several times in each prayer, depending on the number of "raka'at" of prayer: two sajadat are performed every raka'ah, and prayers vary in obligatory length between two and four raka'at (additional supererogatory raka'at are often performed as "sunnah muakkadah", or emulation of the example of Muhammad as represented in the sahih hadith). A raka'ah is a unit of set actions that have to be performed in a prayer. The shortest "fard" (obligatory) Muslim prayer is that of "fajr", performed immediately before sunrise. It consists of two raka'ah. The raka'ah can be described as follows:


title: Sujud

text: Points 1-7 define one raka'ah. Thus, the shortest prayer, that of fajr, contains four sajadat. For Hanafis, witr prayer is three raka'ahs, which is for them considered wajib, a level of necessity below that of fard but above all else: in practice, this makes witr obligatory.


title: Sujud

text: While in sujud, the use of a turbah (a small piece of soil or clay, often a clay tablet), on which a person places their forehead, is compulsory in most Shi'a schools of Islam.


title: Sujud

text: This is from the sunnah of the Islamic prophet Muhammad that whenever he used to hear news which would make him happy, he would make sujud to thank God.


title: Sujud

text: During recitation (tilawa) of the Qur'an, including individual and congregation prayers, there are fifteen places where Muslims believe, when Muhammad recited a certain verse ("ayah"), he prostrated to God.


title: Sujud

text: This act (sujud) is the sign and symbol of the great respect that Muslims attach to God/Allah because He is giver and that He is Merciful too he who ask for His mercy and Grace.


title: Sujud

text: In most copies of the Qur'an these are indicated by the symbol ۩ , with an over-line on the word/s that invoked the prostration. Muslims must prostrate once in order to follow the Sunnah (example) of Muhammad and recite any one or more of the following along with Takbeer before and after the sujud,


title: Sujud

text: Sujud Sahwi or Sajdah of forgetfulness occurs during the ritual "salat" prayer. Out of forgetfulness a person can either omit obligatory parts of salat (Qabli) or add to the salat (Ba'adi). In either cases the person corrects their salat by doing the Sujud Sahwi.


title: Sujud

text: Sujud is made only to God. In prayer, Muslims face the Kaaba in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, but make their sujud to God, not the Kaaba. The Kaaba is only a united direction that Muslims face as it is the order of God in the Qur'an. If any person claiming to be Muslim makes a sujud to any thing/deity/person other than God, he is considered a disbeliever, unless it is forced upon them.


title: Sujud

text: There are numerous things that a Muslim can say during sujud as is evident from the example of Muhammad. Among them are "duas" (prayers for God's help), "hamd" (praising of God), "tasbih" (glorifying God) and statements of Muhammad which make a person humble. Muslims are not allowed to recite the Qur'an during sujud. During the obligatory sujud during prayer one recites "".


title: Sujud

text: Many Muslim footballers perform the sujud as a goal celebration, as well as cricketers when they score a century.


title: Skald

text: A skald, or skáld (Old Norse: , later ; , meaning "poet"), is one of the often named poets who composed skaldic poetry, one of the two kinds of Old Norse poetry, the other being Eddic poetry, which is anonymous. Skaldic poems were traditionally composed on one occasion, sometimes extempore, and include both extended works and single verses ("lausavísur"). They are characteristically more ornate in form and diction than eddic poems, employing many kennings and heiti, more interlacing of sentence elements, and the complex "dróttkvætt" metre.


title: Skald

text: More than 5,500 skaldic verses have survived, preserved in more than 700 manuscripts, including in several sagas and in Snorri Sturluson's "Prose Edda", a handbook of skaldic composition that led to a revival of the art. Many of these verses are fragments of originally longer works, and the authorship of many is unknown. The earliest known skald from whom verses survive is Bragi Boddason, known as Bragi the Old, a Norwegian skald of the first half of the 9th century. Most skalds of whom we know were attached to the courts of Norwegian kings during the Viking Age, and increasingly were Icelanders; the subject matter of their extended poems was sometimes mythical before the conversion, thereafter usually historical and encomiastic, detailing the deeds of the skald's patron. The tradition continued into the Late Middle Ages.


title: Skald

text: The standard edition of the skaldic poetic corpus, "Den norsk-islandske skjaldedigtning", was edited by Finnur Jónsson and published in 1908–15. A new edition was prepared online by the Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages project and began publication in 2007.


title: Skald

text: The word "skald" (which internal rhymes show to have had a short vowel until the 14th century) is perhaps ultimately related to (). Old High German has , and . The Old High German variant stem , etymologically identical to the "skald-" stem (), means "to scold, blame, accuse, insult". The person doing the insulting is a or . The West Germanic counterpart of the skald is the . Like , which is related to Modern English "scoff", the word "skald" is thus probably cognate with English "scold", reflecting the importance of mocking taunts in the poetry of the skalds.


title: Skald

text: Skaldic poetry and Eddic poetry stem from the same tradition of alliterative verse, and in Old Norse as well as Icelandic, the word "skald" simply means "poet". Skaldic verse is distinguished from Eddic by being associated with a single poet rather than with tradition, and by characteristically being more complex in style, using "dróttkvætt" ("court metre"), which requires internal rhyme as well as alliteration, rather than the simpler and older "fornyrðislag" ("way of ancient words"), "ljóðaháttr" ("song form"), and "málaháttr" ("speech form") metres of the Eddic poems. Skaldic poetry is also characteristically more ornate in its diction, using more interlacing of elements of meaning within the verse and many more kennings and "heiti", which both assisted in meeting the greater technical demands of the metre and allowed the poets to display their skill in wordplay. The resulting complexity can appear somewhat hermetic to modern readers, as well as creating ambiguity in interpretation; but the original audiences, familiar with the conventions of the syntactic interweaving as well as the vocabulary of the kennings, may have understood much on the first hearing and derived intellectual satisfaction from decoding the remainder.


title: Skald

text: Eddic poems are also largely mythological or heroic in content, while skaldic verse has a wider range of subject matter, including mythological narratives by heathen skalds, accounts of battles and the deeds of courtly patrons, and personal statements. Eddic poetry typically includes a large amount of dialogue and rarely recounts battles; skaldic poetry, the reverse. Skalds also composed spontaneous verses reacting to events, insult verses ("níðvísur") such as Þorleifr jarlsskáld's curse on his former patron Jarl Hákon Sigurðarson and the "níð" that provoked the missionary Þangbrandr into killing Vetrliði Sumarliðason, and occasionally love poems and erotic verse ("mansöngr"); Hallfreðr Óttarsson and especially Kormákr Ögmundarson are known for their love poetry.


title: Skald

text: However, the distinction is a modern one that is not absolute. Eddic poetry is defined primarily by what has been preserved in the Codex Regius manuscript, while skaldic verses are preserved in a large number of manuscripts, including many sagas, and some skaldic poetry, including prophetic, dream, and memorial poems, uses the simpler metres. Medieval Scandinavians appear to have distinguished between older and more modern poetry rather than considering skaldic verse as a distinct genre.


title: Skald

text: Extemporaneous composition was especially valued, to judge by the sagas. Egill Skallagrímsson is supposed to have composed his "Höfuðlausn" in one night to ransom his head. King Harald Hardrada is said to have set his skald, Þjóðólfr Arnórsson, a hard challenge as they were walking down the street, to compose two stanzas casting a quarreling smith and tanner through the choice of kennings as specific figures first from mythology and then from heroic legend. However, the impression from the sagas that many Icelanders could improvise a skaldic verse on the spur of the moment is probably exaggerated.


title: Skald

text: There is debate over how skaldic poetry was originally performed. General scholarly consensus is that it was spoken rather than sung; although there is no evidence that the skalds employed musical instruments, some speculate that they may have accompanied their verses with the harp or lyre.


title: Skald

text: A large number of the preserved skaldic verses are individual stanzas, called "lausavísur" ("loose verses"), often said to have been improvised impromptu. Long forms include the drápa, a series of stanzas with a refrain ("stef") at intervals, and the flokkr, vísur, or dræplingr, a shorter series of verses without refrain. There are also some shield poems, which supposedly describe (mythological) scenes on a shield presented to the poet by a patron.


title: Skald

text: The corpus of skaldic poetry comprises 5797 verses by 447 skalds preserved in 718 manuscripts. Many of the longer poems are preserved only in part, in sagas and in the "Prose Edda".


title: Skald

text: Most of the longer skaldic poems were composed by court poets to honor kings and jarls. They typically have historical content, relating battles and other deeds from the king's career. Examples include:


title: Skald

text: Some extended works were composed as circumstance pieces, such as the following by Egill Skallagrímsson:


title: Skald

text: The "dróttkvætt" metre appears to have been an innovation associated with a new fashion in formally more elaborate poetry associated with named poets. The metre has been compared to Irish and Latin poetic forms, which may have influenced its development; origins in magic have also been suggested, because of the existence of skaldic curses (such as Egill Skallagrímsson's on King Eric Bloodaxe) and because there are 10th-century magical inscriptions on runestones in the metre. Since the first example of skaldic poetry of which we know is Bragi Boddason's "Ragnarsdrápa" from the early 9th century, some have argued that he and his associates invented it, but his work is already highly accomplished, suggesting that this style of poetry had been developing for some time. Bragi (whom many scholars consider was deified as the god Bragi) was a Norwegian, and skaldic poetry is thought to have originated in either Norway or the Scandinavian Baltic.


title: Skald

text: Most of the skalds of whom we know spent all or part of their careers as court poets, either those of kings, particularly the kings of Norway, or those of jarls, particularly the Hlaðir jarls, a dynasty based in what is now Trøndelag some of whose members ruled all or part of Norway as heathens in alternation with the Christian converters King Olaf Tryggvason and King Olaf Haraldsson (Saint Olaf). They produced praise poetry telling of their patrons' deeds, which became an orally transmitted record and was subsequently cited in history sagas. Their accuracy has been the subject of debate, but the verse form guards against corruption and the skalds traditionally criticized as well as advised their patrons. Skalds at the court at Hlaðir have been credited with developing the Valhalla complex and the cult of Odin as an aristocratic, educated form of heathenism influenced by Christian eschatology. Poetic ability was highly valued; the art was practised by the Norwegian kings themselves, and several skalds, such as Egill Skallagrímsson, are the subject of their own biographical sagas.


title: Skald

text: Icelandic skalds came to dominate at Norwegian courts; the last prominent Norwegian skald was Eyvindr skáldaspillir, and from the second half of the 10th century, all known court skalds were Icelanders. By the end of the 10th century, skaldic poetry had become increasingly internally complex, and in the 11th century Christian skalds reacted against this complexity by using far fewer kennings, especially avoiding those referencing heathen deities. In the 12th century, a century after the conversion of Iceland, some skalds reintroduced heathen kennings as literary formulae, interest in ancient tradition was revived, and "drápur" were produced on historical figures, such as Einarr Skúlason's "Geisli" on Olaf Tryggvason, composed 150 years after his death. Skalds experimented with new metres, notably "hrynhent", which uses longer lines than "dróttkvætt" and was probably influenced by Latin metres. This metre arose in the 10th century and was popularized in the 11th by Arnórr jarlaskáld, whose "Hrynhenda" (c. 1045} is about King Magnus the Good; in the 12th century it was the dominant metre of religious skaldic poetry.


title: Skald

text: Despite these adaptations, the skaldic tradition itself was endangered by the popularity of newer and simpler forms of poetry and loss of knowledge of the kenning tradition. Snorri Sturluson's "Prose Edda", a handbook produced around 1220 that includes a guide to the metres, an explanation of kennings and their mythological and heroic bases grounded in contemporary learning, and numerous examples that preserve many skaldic verses, enabled skaldic poetry to continue in Iceland after the tradition of court poetry ended in the 13th century.


title: Skald

text: Christian religious poetry became an increasingly important part of the skaldic tradition beginning in the 12th century, and by the 14th represents all that survives. Eysteinn Ásgrímsson's "Lilja" was particularly influential: it uses the "hrynhent" metre and almost no kennings, and was much imitated. Christian skaldic poetry died out in Iceland only with the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century, although that produced after 1400 is rarely studied as part of the skaldic corpus.