The Guennol Lioness is a 5,000-year-old Mesopotamian statue found near Baghdad, Iraq. It shows the form of a muscular anthropomorphic lioness-woman.
The sculpture sold for $57.2 million at Sotheby's auction house on December 5, 2007. The sculpture was on loan to the Brooklyn Museum of Art until it was purchased at auction by an English collector.
The limestone sculpture is just over 8 cm (3.25 in) tall. It was described by Sotheby's as "one of the last known masterworks from the dawn of civilization remaining in private hands". One day before the auction, experts had been estimating that the highest bid would be between $14 million and $18 million.
At the time of its 2007 sale, the price paid at auction for the Guennol Lioness was the highest paid for a sculpture to that date. It easily exceeded the record of Pablo Picasso's "Tete de femme (Dora Maar)". On 3 February 2010, however, the second edition of the cast of the sculpture "L'Homme qui marche I" (Walking Man I) by Alberto Giacometti sold for £65,001,250 ($104,327,006) and overtook the Guennol Lioness as the most expensive sculpture ever sold at auction.
This lioness-woman sculpture is an Elamite figure believed to have been created about 3000–2800 B.C. Its historical significance is that it was made about the same time as the first known use of the wheel, the development of cuneiform writing, and the emergence of the first cities.
Many ancient Near East deities were represented as anthropomorphic figures. Such images evoked the Mesopotamian belief in attaining power over the physical world by combining the superior physical attributes of various species. It is possible that the nearby Sumerians borrowed this powerful artistic hybrid from the Proto-Elamites. The lioness was the frequent subject of veneration among cultures familiar with the well-coordinated hunting of female lions.
Lana Del Rey
Elizabeth Woolridge Grant (born June 21, 1985), known by her stage name Lana Del Rey, is an American singer and songwriter from New York. She has sold about 19.1 million albums and 13 million singles around the world. She has released six albums and four EPs since 2008. She released her first EP "Kill Kill" as Lizzy Grant in 2008. Two years later, she released her first studio album, titled "Lana Del Ray", by 5 Points Records. However, the album was pulled three months after its release. She released her first single as Lana Del Rey, "Video Games", in August 2011. It reached number one in the singles charts in Finland, Denmark,Germany, Japan, Slovakia, Scotland, and Luxembourg. Her second album "Born to Die" reached number 1 in the UK Albums Chart when it was released on January 27, 2012. "Born to Die" was reissued on November 9, 2012 as "Born to Die: The Paradise Edition", which featured eight new songs. The new songs were featured in the separate EP, "Paradise." In 2013 "Young and Beautiful" was on the soundtrack to "The Great Gatsby". Her third studio album, "Ultraviolence", was released in 2014. A short film, "Tropico", was released on the website VEVO on December 5. It has songs from her "Paradise" EP in it. She has also modelled for H&M.
Del Rey's song "Young and Beautiful" was nominated for the award for Best Song Written for Visual Media at the 2014 Grammy Awards. "Paradise" was nominated for Best Pop Vocal Album.
On April 14, 2014, the first single from "West Coast", was released.
Her fourth studio album, , was released on September 18, 2015.
The fifth studio album of Del Rey, "Lust for Life," was released on July 21, 2017. Four singles were previously released, being "", title track "" with The Weeknd, "Summer Bummer" with ASAP Rocky and Playboi Carti, and "Groupie Love", also with ASAP Rocky.
Del Rey's sixth studio album, "Norman Fucking Rockwell!", was released on August 30, 2019. The album was well-received by critics.
Del Rey was born in New York City. Lana began singing in her Church choir at a young age, where she was the cantor. She was raised Catholic. When she was fifteen she was sent to Kent School, a boarding school in Connecticut, to deal with her alcoholism. When she was 18 she moved to Bronx to study metaphysics at Fordham University.
EP's:
Albums:
Kelly Chen
Kelly Chen Wai-lam (born 13 September 1972) is a Hong Kong Cantopop singer and actress. She sings in Cantonese, English, Japanese, and Mandarin. She has released thirty-two studio albums. In 2009 the World Economic Forum chose her as one of the year's "Young Global Leaders". She has appeared in many TV commercials. She is signed to the record label Go East Entertainment Ltd, HK. In 2002 she started the Kelly Chen Children Education Fund.
Aminah
Aminah bint Wahb ( ; died 577 AD) was the mother of the prophet Muhammad.
Léa Seydoux
Léa Hélène Seydoux-Fornier de Clausonne (born 1 July 1985) is a French actress. In 2013, she won the Palme d'Or prize at the Cannes Film Festival for the movie "Blue Is the Warmest Colour". She is also known for her role as Bond girl Madeleine Swann in "Spectre" (2015), and will reprise the role in "No Time to Die" (2020).
St. Bees School
St. Bees School is a boarding school for boys and girls aged 4-18 in St. Bees, a West Cumbrian village. It was started in 1583 by the then Archbishop of Canterbury, Edmund Grindal as a boys' "free grammar school". The term 'free' did not mean that the school didn't charge the students, but that the school wasn't ruled by the Church. In 1976 the school became open to girls. The school grounds are about 250 acres (1,000,000 m2).
In 2013, 100% of GCSEs were A*-C, and 43% were A*/A. The school has a swimming pool which can be used by people who don't go to the school.
Extreme Rules (2010)
Extreme Rules (2010) was a professional wrestling pay-per-view show made by World Wrestling Entertainment. It was held on April 25, 2010 at the 1st Mariner Arena in Baltimore, Maryland. It was the second Extreme Rules event held by the WWE.
Daughter (band)
Daughter is an English indie rock band from London. They released their first album "If You Leave" in 2013, which reached 16 in the UK Albums Chart.
At first, Daughter was just a name for the music of singer Elena Tonra. Then Tonra met guitarist Igor Haefeli and drummer Remi Aguilella at London's the Institute of Contemporary Music Performance and made Daughter a band. Haefeli is Tonra's boyfriend. In April 2011 they released their first EP, "His Young Heart". On October 2 2011 their second EP was released by Communion Records. In 2012 they were signed to the British record label 4AD. Daughter's first single "Smother" was released in 2012. "Youth" was played in UK drama "Skins" in the eighth episode of series six and in "Grey's Anatomy" and" Mistresses".
In March 2013 Daughter's first album "If You Leave" was released by 4AD. It got mostly good reviews.
Daughter performed at the John Peel stage at Glastonbury Festival 2013. This was the first time they were on UK TV. They are currently touring Europe.
On 28 October 2013 the fourth single was released from "If You Leave", "Amsterdam".
"Human", the third single from "If You Leave", is on Zane Lowe's 100 Hottest Records of 2013.
In December 2013 NME put "If You Leave" on their list of 50 Best Albums Of 2013.
Xiu Xiu
Xiu Xiu is an American band formed in 2002. The members are Jamie Stewart, the band's only constant member, Shayna Dunkelman, Ches Smith, and Angela Seo. They have released 9 studio albums.
They released their first album, "Knife Play", in 2002. Pitchfork gave the album a score of 8.3/10. In 2008 they released "Women As Lovers". The sixth song on the album, "Under Pressure", is a cover of a 1981 song by Queen and David Bowie. Michael Gera sings in it. The version of the album on American iTunes has seven extra tracks.