text
stringlengths 9
2.4k
|
|---|
The modest colony would change dramatically starting in the early 4th century, when Constantine the Great granted Christianity legal status within the Roman Empire. This led to the construction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, laying the groundwork for its eventual transformation into a prominent Christian center during the Byzantine period. The ban on Jews was maintained until the Muslim conquest of Jerusalem in 636. The "Aelia" part of the name was used in Arabic as "Īlyāʾ" during the Umayyad Caliphate.
Name.
"Aelia" came from Hadrian's Aelia gens, while "Capitolina" meant that the new city was dedicated to Jupiter Capitolinus, whom the Romans believed had vanquished and replaced the God of the Jews. A temple to Jupiter was built in the city. The Latin name "Aelia" is the source of the much later term "Īlyāʾ" (), a 7th-century early Arab name for Jerusalem.
Founding.
|
In the past, conflicting accounts in ancient sources led scholars to debate whether Aelia Capitolina’s foundation was a cause or a consequence of the Bar Kokhba revolt (132–135 CE). According to Cassius Dio, Hadrian's decision to rebuild Jerusalem and erect a temple to Jupiter on the site of the former Jewish Temple was a direct catalyst for the revolt. He writes that the construction ""caused a long and serious war, since the Jews objected to having gentiles settled in their city and foreign cults established there"." In contrast, Eusebius of Caesarea, writing from a Christian perspective, framed the establishment of Aelia Capitolina as a punitive measure following the Jewish defeat. He wrote that when the city "h"ad been emptied of the Jewish nation and had suffered the total destruction of its ancient inhabitants, it was colonized by a different race, and the Roman city which subsequently arose changed its name and was called Aelia"". Supporters of this view regarded the construction of Aelia Capitolina as part of Hadrian's broader policies to suppress Jewish nationalism following the revolt, inclduing the prohibition of circumcision, the expulsion of Jews from Jerusalem, and the renaming of Judaea as Syria Palaestina, removing its Jewish-associated name.
|
The discovery of Aelia Capitolina coins struck before the revolt, found in a building abandoned prior to the uprising and in coin hoards from Bar Kokhba refuge caves, has provided strong archaeological evidence that the city's foundation preceded the revolt. This evidence has led most modern historians to favor Cassius Dio’s account, placing Hadrian’s urban and religious policies as key factors that contributed to Jewish resistance. Meanwhile, Eusebius' interpretation, which presents the city's reconstruction as a post-revolt punishment, is now seen as likely influenced by a supersessionist theology.
Construction and plan.
Jerusalem was rebuilt in the style of its original Hippodamian plan, although adapted to Roman use. Jews were prohibited from entering the city on pain of death except for one day each year: during the fast day of Tisha B'Av. Taken together, these measures (which also affected Jewish Christians) essentially secularized the city. Historical sources and archaeological evidence indicate that veterans of the Roman military and immigrants from the western parts of the empire now inhabited the rebuilt city.
|
Archaeological evidence from this period indicates that Roman customs, including pork consumption and the presence of statues and figured decorations, became widespread. Jewish symbols and practices, such as the use of miqvaot (ritual baths) and traditional stone vessels, disappeared.
The city was without walls, protected by a light garrison of Legio X Fretensis during the Late Roman period. The detachment at Jerusalem, which encamped all over the city's western hill, was responsible for preventing Jews from returning to the city. Roman enforcement of this prohibition continued through the 4th century.
Layout and street pattern.
The urban plan of Aelia Capitolina was that of a typical Roman town wherein main thoroughfares crisscrossed the urban grid lengthwise and widthwise. The urban grid was based on the usual central north–south road ("cardo maximus") and central east–west route ("decumanus maximus"). However, as the main cardo ran up the western hill, and the Temple Mount blocked the eastward route of the main decumanus, the strict pattern had to be adapted to the local topography; a secondary, eastern cardo, diverged from the western one and ran down the Tyropoeon Valley, while the decumanus had to zigzag around the Temple Mount, passing it on its northern side. The Hadrianic western cardo terminated not far beyond its junction with the decumanus, where it reached the Roman garrison's encampment, but in the Byzantine period, it was extended over the former camp to reach the southern, expanded margins of the city.
|
The two cardines converged near the Damascus Gate, and a semicircular piazza covered the remaining space; in the piazza, a columnar monument was constructed, hence the Arabic name for the gate, "Bab el-Amud" ("Gate of the Column"). Tetrapylones were constructed at the other junctions between the main roads.
This street pattern has been preserved in the Old City of Jerusalem to the present. The original thoroughfare, flanked by rows of columns and shops, was about wide, but buildings have extended onto the streets over the centuries, and the modern lanes replacing the ancient grid are now quite narrow. The substantial remains of the western cardo have now been exposed to view near the junction with Suq el-Bazaar, and remnants of one of the tetrapylones are preserved in the 19th century Franciscan chapel at the junction of the Via Dolorosa and Suq Khan ez-Zeit.
Western forum.
As was standard for new Roman cities, Hadrian placed the city's main forum at the junction of the main cardo and decumanus, now the location for the (smaller) Muristan. Adjacent to the forum, Hadrian built a large temple to Venus, at a site later used for the construction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre; several boundary walls of Hadrian's temple have been found among the archaeological remains beneath the church.
|
Valley cardo and eastern forum.
The Struthion Pool lay in the path of the northern decumanus, so Hadrian placed vaulting over it, added a large pavement on top, and turned it into a secondary forum; the pavement can still be seen under the Convent of the Sisters of Zion.
"Ecce homo" arch.
Near the Struthion Pool, Hadrian built a triple-arched gateway as an entrance to the eastern forum of Aelia Capitolina. Traditionally, this was thought to be the gate of Herod's Antonia Fortress, which itself was alleged to be the location of Jesus' trial and Pontius Pilate's "Ecce homo" speech as described in John 19:13. This was due in part to the 1864 discovery of a game etched on a flagstone of the pool. According to the convent's nuns, the game was played by Roman soldiers and may have ended in the execution of a 'mock king'. Ermete Pierotti is the first to term the words "Ecce Homo" to the arch, in reference to Pilate's words to Jesus. It is possible that following its destruction, the Antonia Fortress's pavement tiles were brought to the cistern of Hadrian's plaza.
|
When later constructions narrowed the "Via Dolorosa", the two arches on either side of the central arch became incorporated into a succession of more modern buildings. The Basilica of Ecce Homo now preserves the northern arch. The southern arch was incorporated into a zawiya (Sufi monastery) for Uzbek dervishes of the Naqshbandi order in the 16th century, but these were demolished in the 19th century in order to found a mosque.
Population.
Aelia Capitolina remained a relatively minor city within the Roman Empire, with an estimated population of around 4,000 inhabitants, significantly lower than the population during the late Second Temple period. The demographic consisted primarily of Roman legionaries, veterans, and other non-Jewish settlers.
Jews were permitted to enter Aelia Capitolina only once a year, on Tisha B'Av, to mourn the destruction of the Second Temple. A Christian pilgrim from Bordeaux, who visited the city in 333, recorded that Jews would gather annually to anoint a perforated stone, where they would ""bewail themselves with groans, rend their garments, and so depart"." Similarly, Jerome described the annual Jewish pilgrimage to the city, writing: "And in order for them to be allowed to weep over the ruin of their city, they pay a fine [...] on the day in which Jerusalem was captured and plundered by the Romans, the people came mourning, the feeble foolish women assemble, and the old men, covered with years and rags, show the wrath of the Lord in their bodies and in their physical appearance".
|
According to Eusebius, the Jerusalem church was dispersed twice, first in 70 CE and again in 135 CE. A key distinction between these periods is that from 70 to 130 CE, the bishops of Jerusalem bore Jewish names, whereas after 135 CE, the bishops of Aelia Capitolina appear to have been Greek. Eusebius' evidence for the continuation of a church at Aelia Capitolina is confirmed by the Itinerarium Burdigalense, a 4th-century Christian travelogue.
Later history.
The reign of Constantine the Great and the construction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in the early fourth century initiated the process of Christian establishment in Jerusalem, eventually transforming the small colony into a prominent Christian center. The city was later ranked the fifth imperial patriarchate, alongside Rome, Alexandria, Constantinople, and Antioch. This transformation continued over the next three centuries during the Byzantine period until the Muslim conquest of the city in 636/7.
The ban on Jewish entry remained in place after the Christianization of the Roman Empire, and continued until the 7th-century Muslim conquest of Jerusalem. Christians had been allowed to visit the city since the 4th century, when Constantine ordered the construction of Christian holy sites in the city. Burial remains from the Byzantine period are exclusively Christian, suggesting that the population of Jerusalem in Byzantine times probably consisted only of Christians.
|
In the fifth century, the emperor based in Constantinople maintained control of the city, but following Sasanian emperor Khosrow II's early seventh-century advance through Syria, his generals Shahrbaraz and Shahin Vahmanzadegan attacked Jerusalem, aided by the Jews of Palaestina Prima, who had risen against the Byzantines. In 614, after 21 days of siege, Jerusalem was captured. Byzantine chronicles relate that the Sasanian and Jewish forces slaughtered tens of thousands of Christians in the city, many at the Mamilla Pool, and destroyed their monuments and churches, including the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The conquered city would remain in Sasanian hands for some fifteen years. It was reconquered by emperor Heraclius in 629.
Byzantine Jerusalem was conquered by the armies of Umar, the Rashid caliph, in 636, which resulted in the removal of the restrictions on Jews living in the city. In this era, it was referred to in Arabic as "Madinat Bayt al-Maqdis" "City of the Temple", a name restricted to the Temple Mount. The rest of the city was called "Ilyā", reflecting the Roman name "Aelia".
References.
Footnotes
Citations
Bibliography.
Main sources
Further reading
|
Aelian
Aelian or Aelianus may refer to:
|
Aelianus Tacticus
Aelianus Tacticus (; fl. 2nd century AD), also known as Aelian (), was a Greek military writer who lived in Rome.
Work.
Aelian's military treatise in fifty-three chapters on the tactics of the Greeks, titled "On Tactical Arrays of the Greeks" (), is dedicated to the emperor Hadrian, though this is probably a mistake for Trajan, and the date 106 has been assigned to it. It is a handbook of Greek, i.e. Macedonian, drill and tactics as practiced by the Hellenistic successors of Alexander the Great. The author claims to have consulted all the best authorities, the most important of which was a lost treatise on the subject by Polybius. Perhaps the chief value of Aelian's work lies in his critical account of preceding works on the art of war, and in the fullness of his technical details in matters of drill.
Aelian also gives a brief account of the constitution of a Roman army at that time. The work arose, he says, from a conversation he had with the emperor Nerva at Frontinus's house at Formiae. He promises a work on Naval Tactics also; but this, if it was written, is lost.
|
Critics of the 18th century — Guichard Folard and the Prince de Ligne — were unanimous in thinking Aelian greatly inferior to Arrian, but Aelian exercised a great influence both on his immediate successors, the Byzantines, and later on the Arabs, (who translated the text for their own use). The author of the "Strategikon" ascribed to the emperor Maurice selectively used Aelian's work as a conceptional model, especially its preface. Emperor Leo VI the Wise incorporated much of Aelian's text in his own "Taktika". The Arabic version of Aelian was made about 1350. It was first translated into Latin by Theodore Gaza, published at Rome in 1487. The Greek editio princeps was edited by Francesco Robortello and published at Venice in 1552.
In spite of its academic nature, the copious details to be found in the treatise rendered it of the highest value to the army organisers of the 16th century, who were engaged in fashioning a regular military system out of the semi-feudal systems of previous generations. The Macedonian phalanx of Aelian had many points of resemblance to the solid masses of pikemen and the squadrons of cavalry of the Spanish and Dutch systems, and the translations made in the 16th century formed the groundwork of numerous books on drill and tactics.
|
The first significant reference to the influence of Aelian in the 16th century is a letter to Maurice of Nassau, Prince of Orange from his cousin William Louis, Count of Nassau-Dillenburg on December 8, 1594. The letter is influential in supporting the thesis of the early-modern Military Revolution. In the letter, William Louis discusses the use of ranks by soldiers of Imperial Rome as discussed in Aelian's Tactica. Aelian was discussing the use of the counter march in the context of the Roman sword gladius and spear pilum. William Louis in a 'crucial leap' realised that the same technique could work for men with firearms.
|
Agarose
Agarose is a heteropolysaccharide, generally extracted from certain red algae. It is a linear polymer made up of the repeating unit of agarobiose, which is a disaccharide made up of -galactose and 3,6-anhydro--galactopyranose. Agarose is one of the two principal components of agar, and is purified from agar by removing agar's other component, agaropectin.
Agarose is frequently used in molecular biology for the separation of large molecules, especially DNA, by electrophoresis. Slabs of agarose gels (usually 0.7 - 2%) for electrophoresis are readily prepared by pouring the warm, liquid solution into a mold. A wide range of different agaroses of varying molecular weights and properties are commercially available for this purpose. Agarose may also be formed into beads and used in a number of chromatographic methods for protein purification.
Structure.
Agarose is a linear polymer with a molecular weight of about 120,000, consisting of alternating -galactose and 3,6-anhydro--galactopyranose linked by α-(1→3) and β-(1→4) glycosidic bonds. The 3,6-anhydro--galactopyranose is an -galactose with an anhydro bridge between the 3 and 6 positions, although some -galactose units in the polymer may not contain the bridge. Some -galactose and -galactose units can be methylated, and pyruvate and sulfate are also found in small quantities.
|
Each agarose chain contains ~800 molecules of galactose, and the agarose polymer chains form helical fibers that aggregate into supercoiled structure with a radius of 20-30 nanometer (nm). The fibers are quasi-rigid, and have a wide range of length depending on the agarose concentration. When solidified, the fibers form a three-dimensional mesh of channels of diameter ranging from 50 nm to >200 nm depending on the concentration of agarose used - higher concentrations yield lower average pore diameters. The 3-D structure is held together with hydrogen bonds and can therefore be disrupted by heating back to a liquid state.
Properties.
Agarose is available as a white powder which dissolves in near-boiling water, and forms a gel when it cools. Agarose exhibits the phenomenon of thermal hysteresis in its liquid-to-gel transition, i.e. it gels and melts at different temperatures. The gelling and melting temperatures vary depending on the type of agarose. Standard agaroses derived from "Gelidium" has a gelling temperature of and a melting temperature of , while those derived from "Gracilaria", due to its higher methoxy substituents, has a gelling temperature of and melting temperature of . The melting and gelling temperatures may be dependent on the concentration of the gel, particularly at low gel concentration of less than 1%. The gelling and melting temperatures are therefore given at a specified agarose concentration.
|
Natural agarose contains uncharged methyl groups and the extent of methylation is directly proportional to the gelling temperature. Synthetic methylation however have the reverse effect, whereby increased methylation lowers the gelling temperature. A variety of chemically modified agaroses with different melting and gelling temperatures are available through chemical modifications.
The agarose in the gel forms a meshwork that contains pores, and the size of the pores depends on the concentration of agarose added. On standing, the agarose gels are prone to syneresis (extrusion of water through the gel surface), but the process is slow enough to not interfere with the use of the gel.
Agarose gel can have high gel strength at low concentration, making it suitable as an anti-convection medium for gel electrophoresis. Agarose gels as dilute as 0.15% can form slabs for gel electrophoresis. The agarose polymer contains charged groups, in particular pyruvate and sulfate. These negatively charged groups can slow down the movement of DNA molecules in a process called electroendosmosis (EEO).
|
Low EEO (LE) agarose is therefore generally preferred for use in agarose gel electrophoresis of nucleic acids. Zero EEO agaroses are also available but these may be undesirable for some applications as they may be made by adding positively charged groups that can affect subsequent enzyme reactions. Electroendosmosis is a reason agarose is used preferentially over agar as agaropectin in agar contains a significant amount of negatively charged sulphate and carboxyl groups. The removal of agaropectin in agarose substantially reduces the EEO, as well as reducing the non-specific adsorption of biomolecules to the gel matrix. However, for some applications such as the electrophoresis of serum protein, a high EEO may be desirable, and agaropectin may be added in the gel used.
LE agarose is said to be better for preparative electrophoresis, i.e. when DNA needs to be extracted from an agarose gel.
Low melting and gelling temperature agaroses.
The melting and gelling temperatures of agarose can be modified by chemical modifications, most commonly by hydroxyethylation, which reduces the number of intrastrand hydrogen bonds, resulting in lower melting and setting temperatures compared to standard agaroses. The exact temperature is determined by the degree of substitution, and many available low-melting-point (LMP) agaroses can remain fluid at range. This property allows enzymatic manipulations to be carried out directly after the DNA gel electrophoresis by adding slices of melted gel containing DNA fragment of interest to a reaction mixture. The LMP agarose contains fewer of the sulphates that can affect some enzymatic reactions, and is therefore preferably used for some applications.
|
Hydroxyethylated agarose also has a smaller pore size (~90 nm) than standard agaroses. Hydroxyethylation may reduce the pore size by reducing the packing density of the agarose bundles, therefore LMP gel can also have an effect on the time and separation during electrophoresis. Ultra-low melting or gelling temperature agaroses may gel only at .
Applications.
Agarose is a preferred matrix for work with proteins and nucleic acids as it has a broad range of physical, chemical and thermal stability, and its lower degree of chemical complexity also makes it less likely to interact with biomolecules. Agarose is most commonly used as the medium for analytical scale electrophoretic separation in agarose gel electrophoresis. Gels made from purified agarose have a relatively large pore size, making them useful for separation of large molecules, such as proteins and protein complexes >200 kilodaltons, as well as DNA fragments >100 basepairs. Agarose is also used widely for a number of other applications, for example immunodiffusion and immunoelectrophoresis, as the agarose fibers can function as anchor for immunocomplexes.
|
Agarose gel electrophoresis.
Agarose gel electrophoresis is the routine method for resolving DNA in the laboratory. Agarose gels have lower resolving power for DNA than acrylamide gels, but they have greater range of separation, and are therefore usually used for DNA fragments with lengths of 50–20,000 bp (base pairs), although resolution of over 6 Mb is possible with pulsed field gel electrophoresis (PFGE). It can also be used to separate large protein molecules, and it is the preferred matrix for the gel electrophoresis of particles with effective radii larger than 5-10 nm.
The pore size of the gel affects the size of the DNA that can be sieved. The lower the concentration of the gel, the larger the pore size, and the larger the DNA that can be sieved. However low-concentration gels (0.1 - 0.2%) are fragile and therefore hard to handle, and the electrophoresis of large DNA molecules can take several days. The limit of resolution for standard agarose gel electrophoresis is around 750 kb. This limit can be overcome by PFGE, where alternating orthogonal electric fields are applied to the gel. The DNA fragments reorientate themselves when the applied field switches direction, but larger molecules of DNA take longer to realign themselves when the electric field is altered, while for smaller ones it is quicker, and the DNA can therefore be fractionated according to size.
|
Agarose gels are cast in a mold, and when set, usually run horizontally submerged in a buffer solution. Tris-acetate-EDTA and Tris-Borate-EDTA buffers are commonly used, but other buffers such as Tris-phosphate, barbituric acid-sodium barbiturate or Tris-barbiturate buffers may be used in other applications. The DNA is normally visualized by staining with ethidium bromide and then viewed under a UV light, but other methods of staining are available, such as SYBR Green, GelRed, methylene blue, and crystal violet. If the separated DNA fragments are needed for further downstream experiment, they can be cut out from the gel in slices for further manipulation.
Protein purification.
Agarose gel matrix is often used for protein purification, for example, in column-based preparative scale separation as in gel filtration chromatography, affinity chromatography and ion exchange chromatography. It is however not used as a continuous gel, rather it is formed into porous beads or resins of varying fineness. The beads are highly porous so that protein may flow freely through the beads. These agarose-based beads are generally soft and easily crushed, so they should be used under gravity-flow, low-speed centrifugation, or low-pressure procedures. The strength of the resins can be improved by increased cross-linking and chemical hardening of the agarose resins, however such changes may also result in a lower binding capacity for protein in some separation procedures such as affinity chromatography.
|
Agarose is a useful material for chromatography because it does not absorb biomolecules to any significant extent, has good flow properties, and can tolerate extremes of pH and ionic strength as well as high concentration of denaturants such as 8M urea or 6M guanidine HCl. Examples of agarose-based matrix for gel filtration chromatography are Sepharose and WorkBeads 40 SEC (cross-linked beaded agarose), "Praesto" and Superose (highly cross-linked beaded agaroses), and Superdex (dextran covalently linked to agarose).
For affinity chromatography, beaded agarose is the most commonly used matrix resin for the attachment of the ligands that bind protein. The ligands are linked covalently through a spacer to activated hydroxyl groups of agarose bead polymer. Proteins of interest can then be selectively bound to the ligands to separate them from other proteins, after which it can be eluted. The agarose beads used are typically of 4% and 6% densities with a high binding capacity for protein.
Solid culture media.
Agarose plate may sometimes be used instead of agar for culturing organisms as agar may contain impurities that can affect the growth of the organism or some downstream procedures such as polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Agarose is also harder than agar and may therefore be preferable where greater gel strength is necessary, and its lower gelling temperature may prevent causing thermal shock to the organism when the cells are suspended in liquid before gelling. It may be used for the culture of strict autotrophic bacteria, plant protoplast, "Caenorhabditis elegans", other organisms and various cell lines.
|
Motility assays.
Agarose is sometimes used instead of agar to measure microorganism motility and mobility. Motile species will be able to migrate, albeit slowly, throughout the porous gel and infiltration rates can then be visualized. The gel's porosity is directly related to the concentration of agar or agarose in the medium, so different concentration gels may be used to assess a cell's swimming, swarming, gliding and twitching motility. Under-agarose cell migration assay may be used to measure chemotaxis and chemokinesis. A layer of agarose gel is placed between a cell population and a chemoattractant. As a concentration gradient develops from the diffusion of the chemoattractant into the gel, various cell populations requiring different stimulation levels to migrate can then be visualized over time using microphotography as they tunnel upward through the gel against gravity along the gradient.
|
Atomic absorption spectroscopy
Atomic absorption spectroscopy (AAS) is a spectro-analytical procedure for the quantitative measurement of chemical elements. AAS is based on the absorption of light by free metallic ions that have been atomized from a sample. An alternative technique is atomic emission spectroscopy (AES).
In analytical chemistry, the technique is used for determining the concentration of a particular element (the analyte) in a sample to be analyzed. AAS can be used to determine over 70 different elements in solution, or directly in solid samples via electrothermal vaporization, and is used in pharmacology, biophysics,
archaeology and toxicology research.
Atomic emission spectroscopy (AAS) was first used as an analytical technique, and the underlying principles were established in the second half of the 19th century by Robert Wilhelm Bunsen and Gustav Robert Kirchhoff, both professors at the University of Heidelberg, Germany.
The modern form of AAS was largely developed during the 1950s by a team of Australian chemists. They were led by Sir Alan Walsh at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Division of Chemical Physics, in Melbourne, Australia.
|
Instrumentation.
In order to analyze a sample for its atomic constituents, it has to be atomized. The atomizers most commonly used nowadays are flames and electrothermal (graphite tube) atomizers. The atoms should then be irradiated by optical radiation, and the radiation source could be an element-specific line radiation source or a continuum radiation source. The radiation then passes through a monochromator in order to separate the element-specific radiation from any other radiation emitted by the radiation source, which is finally measured by a detector.
Atomizers.
The atomizers most commonly used nowadays are spectroscopic flames and electrothermal atomizers. Other atomizers, such as glow-discharge atomization, hydride atomization, or cold-vapor atomization, might be used for special purposes.
Flame atomizers.
The oldest and most commonly used atomizers in AAS are flames, principally the air-acetylene flame with a temperature of about 2300 °C and the nitrous oxide system (N2O)-acetylene flame with a temperature of about 2700 °C. The latter flame, in addition, offers a more reducing environment, being ideally suited for analytes with a high affinity to oxygen.
|
Liquid or dissolved samples are typically used with flame atomizers. The sample solution is aspirated by a pneumatic analytical nebulizer, transformed into an aerosol, which is introduced into a spray chamber, where it is mixed with the flame gases and conditioned in a way that only the finest aerosol droplets (< 10 μm) enter the flame. This conditioning process reduces interference, but only about 5% of the aerosolized solution reaches the flame because of it.
On top of the spray chamber is a burner head that produces a flame that is laterally long (usually 5–10 cm) and only a few mm deep. The radiation beam passes through this flame at its longest axis, and the flame gas flow-rates may be adjusted to produce the highest concentration of free atoms. The burner height may also be adjusted so that the radiation beam passes through the zone of highest atom cloud density in the flame, resulting in the highest sensitivity.
The processes in a flame include the stages of desolvation (drying) in which the solvent is evaporated and the dry sample nano-particles remain, vaporization (transfer to the gaseous phase) in which the solid particles are converted into gaseous molecule, atomization in which the molecules are dissociated into free atoms, and ionization where (depending on the ionization potential of the analyte atoms and the energy available in a particular flame) atoms may be in part converted to gaseous ions.
|
Each of these stages includes the risk of interference in case the degree of phase transfer is different for the analyte in the calibration standard and in the sample. Ionization is generally undesirable, as it reduces the number of atoms that are available for measurement, i.e., the sensitivity.
In flame AAS, a steady-state signal is generated during the time period when the sample is aspirated. This technique is typically used for determinations in the mg L−1 range and may be extended down to a few μg L−1 for some elements.
Electrothermal atomizers.
Electrothermal AAS (ET AAS) using graphite tube atomizers was pioneered by Boris V. L'vov at the Saint Petersburg Polytechnical Institute, Russia, since the late 1950s, and investigated in parallel by Hans Massmann at the Institute of Spectrochemistry and Applied Spectroscopy (ISAS) in Dortmund, Germany.
Although a wide variety of graphite tube designs have been used over the years, the dimensions nowadays are typically 20–25 mm in length and 5–6 mm inner diameter. With this technique liquid/dissolved, solid, and gaseous samples may be analyzed directly. A measured volume (typically 10–50 μL) or a weighed mass (typically around 1 mg) of a solid sample are introduced into the graphite tube and subject to a temperature program. This typically consists of stages, such as drying – the solvent is evaporated; pyrolysis – the majority of the matrix constituents are removed; atomization – the analyte element is released to the gaseous phase; and cleaning – eventual residues in the graphite tube are removed at high temperature.
|
The graphite tubes are heated via their ohmic resistance using a low-voltage high-current power supply; the temperature in the individual stages can be controlled very closely, and temperature ramps between the individual stages facilitate the separation of sample components. Tubes may be heated transversely or longitudinally, where the former ones have the advantage of a more homogeneous temperature distribution over their length. The so-called stabilized temperature platform furnace (STPF) concept, proposed by Walter Slavin, based on research of Boris L'vov, makes ET AAS essentially free from interference. The major components of this concept are atomization of the sample from a graphite platform inserted into the graphite tube (L'vov platform) instead of from the tube wall in order to delay atomization until the gas phase in the atomizer has reached a stable temperature; use of a chemical modifier in order to stabilize the analyte to a pyrolysis temperature that is sufficient to remove the majority of the matrix components; and integration of the absorbance over the time of the transient absorption signal instead of using peak height absorbance for quantification.
|
In ET AAS, a transient signal is generated, the area of which is directly proportional to the mass of analyte (not its concentration) introduced into the graphite tube. This technique has the advantage that any kind of sample, solid, liquid, or gaseous, can be analyzed directly. Its sensitivity is 2–3 orders of magnitude higher than that of flame AAS, so that determinations in the low μg L−1 range (for a typical sample volume of 20 μL) and ng g−1 range (for a typical sample mass of 1 mg) can be carried out. It shows a very high degree of freedom from interferences, so that ET AAS might be considered the most robust technique available nowadays for the determination of trace elements in complex matrices.
Specialized atomization techniques.
While flame and electrothermal vaporizers are the most common atomization techniques, several other atomization methods are utilized for specialized use.
Glow-discharge atomization.
A glow-discharge device (GD) serves as a versatile source, as it can simultaneously introduce and atomize the sample. The glow discharge occurs in a low-pressure argon gas atmosphere between 1 and 10 torr. In this atmosphere lies a pair of electrodes applying a DC voltage of 250 to 1000 V to break down the argon gas into positively charged ions and electrons. These ions, under the influence of the electric field, are accelerated into the cathode surface containing the sample, bombarding the sample and causing neutral sample atom ejection through the process known as sputtering. The atomic vapor produced by this discharge is composed of ions, ground state atoms, and a fraction of excited atoms. When the excited atoms relax back into their ground state, a low-intensity glow is emitted, giving the technique its name.
|
The requirement for samples of glow discharge atomizers is that they are electrical conductors. Consequently, atomizers are most commonly used in the analysis of metals and other conducting samples. However, with proper modifications, it can be utilized to analyze liquid samples as well as nonconducting materials by mixing them with a conductor (e.g. graphite).
Hydride atomization.
Hydride generation techniques are specialized in solutions of specific elements. The technique provides a means of introducing samples containing arsenic, antimony, selenium, bismuth, and lead into an atomizer in the gas phase. With these elements, hydride atomization enhances detection limits by a factor of 10 to 100 compared to alternative methods. Hydride generation occurs by adding an acidified aqueous solution of the sample to a 1% aqueous solution of sodium borohydride, all of which is contained in a glass vessel. The volatile hydride generated by the reaction that occurs is swept into the atomization chamber by an inert gas, where it undergoes decomposition. This process forms an atomized form of the analyte, which can then be measured by absorption or emission spectrometry.
|
Cold-vapor atomization.
The cold-vapor technique is an atomization method limited only for the determination of mercury due to it being the only metallic element to have a large vapor pressure at ambient temperature. Because of this, it has an important use in determining organic mercury compounds in samples and their distribution in the environment. The method initiates by converting mercury into Hg2+ by oxidation from nitric and sulfuric acids, followed by a reduction of Hg2+ with tin(II) chloride. The mercury is then swept into a long-pass absorption tube by bubbling a stream of inert gas through the reaction mixture. The concentration is determined by measuring the absorbance of this gas at 253.7 nm. Detection limits for this technique are in the parts-per-billion range, making it an excellent mercury detection atomization method.
Radiation sources.
We have to distinguish between line source AAS (LS AAS) and continuum source AAS (CS AAS). In classical LS AAS, as it has been proposed by Alan Walsh, the high spectral resolution required for AAS measurements is provided by the radiation source itself that emits the spectrum of the analyte in the form of lines that are narrower than the absorption lines. Continuum sources, such as deuterium lamps, are only used for background correction purposes. The advantage of this technique is that only a medium-resolution monochromator is necessary for measuring AAS; however, it has the disadvantage that usually a separate lamp is required for each element that has to be determined. In CS AAS, in contrast, a single lamp, emitting a continuum spectrum over the entire spectral range of interest is used for all elements. Obviously, a high-resolution monochromator is required for this technique, as will be discussed later.
|
Hollow cathode lamps.
Hollow cathode lamps (HCL) are the most common radiation source in LS AAS. Inside the sealed lamp, filled with argon or neon gas at low pressure, is a cylindrical metal cathode containing the element of interest and an anode. A high voltage is applied across the anode and cathode, resulting in an ionization of the fill gas. The gas ions are accelerated towards the cathode and, upon impact on the cathode, sputter cathode material that is excited in the glow discharge to emit the radiation of the sputtered material, i.e., the element of interest. In the majority of cases single element lamps are used, where the cathode is pressed out of predominantly compounds of the target element. Multi-element lamps are available with combinations of compounds of the target elements pressed in the cathode. Multi element lamps produce slightly less sensitivity than single element lamps and the combinations of elements have to be selected carefully to avoid spectral interferences. Most multi-element lamps combine a handful of elements, e.g.: 2 - 8. Atomic Absorption Spectrometers can feature as few as 1-2 hollow cathode lamp positions or in automated multi-element spectrometers, a 8-12 lamp positions may be typically available.
|
Electrodeless discharge lamps.
Electrodeless discharge lamps (EDL) contain a small quantity of the analyte as a metal or a salt in a quartz bulb together with an inert gas, typically argon gas, at low pressure. The bulb is inserted into a coil that is generating an electromagnetic radio frequency field, resulting in a low-pressure inductively coupled discharge in the lamp. The emission from an EDL is higher than that from an HCL, and the line width is generally narrower, but EDLs need a separate power supply and might need a longer time to stabilize.
Deuterium lamps.
Deuterium HCL or even hydrogen HCL and deuterium discharge lamps are used in LS AAS for background correction purposes. The radiation intensity emitted by these lamps decreases significantly with increasing wavelength, so that they can be only used in the wavelength range between 190 and about 320 nm.
Continuum sources.
When a continuum radiation source is used for AAS, it is necessary to use a high-resolution monochromator, as will be discussed later. In addition, it is necessary that the lamp emits radiation of intensity at least an order of magnitude above that of a typical HCL over the entire wavelength range from 190 nm to 900 nm. A special high-pressure xenon short arc lamp, operating in a hot-spot mode has been developed to fulfill these requirements.
|
Spectrometer.
As already pointed out above, there is a difference between medium-resolution spectrometers that are used for LS AAS and high-resolution spectrometers that are designed for CS AAS. The spectrometer includes the spectral sorting device (monochromator) and the detector.
Spectrometers for LS AAS.
In LS AAS, the high resolution that is required for the measurement of atomic absorption is provided by the narrow line emission of the radiation source, and the monochromator simply has to resolve the analytical line from other radiation emitted by the lamp. This can usually be accomplished with a band pass between 0.2 and 2 nm, i.e., a medium-resolution monochromator. Another feature to make LS AAS element-specific is modulation of the primary radiation and the use of a selective amplifier that is tuned to the same modulation frequency, as already postulated by Alan Walsh. This way any (unmodulated) radiation emitted for example by the atomizer can be excluded, which is imperative for LS AAS. Simple monochromators of the Littrow or (better) the Czerny-Turner design are typically used for LS AAS. Photomultiplier tubes are the most frequently used detectors in LS AAS, although solid state detectors might be preferred because of their better signal-to-noise ratio.
|
Spectrometers for CS AAS.
When a continuum radiation source is used for AAS measurement it is indispensable to work with a high-resolution monochromator. The resolution has to be equal to or better than the half-width of an atomic absorption line (about 2 pm) in order to avoid losses of sensitivity and linearity of the calibration graph. The research with high-resolution (HR) CS AAS was pioneered by the groups of O'Haver and Harnly in the US, who also developed the (up until now) only simultaneous multi-element spectrometer for this technique. The breakthrough, however, came when the group of Becker-Ross in Berlin, Germany, built a spectrometer entirely designed for HR-CS AAS. The first commercial equipment for HR-CS AAS was introduced by Analytik Jena (Jena, Germany) at the beginning of the 21st century, based on the design proposed by Becker-Ross and Florek. These spectrometers use a compact double monochromator with a prism pre-monochromator and an echelle grating monochromator for high resolution. A linear charge-coupled device (CCD) array with 200 pixels is used as the detector. The second monochromator does not have an exit slit; hence the spectral environment at both sides of the analytical line becomes visible at high resolution. As typically only 3–5 pixels are used to measure the atomic absorption, the other pixels are available for correction purposes. One of these corrections is that for lamp flicker noise, which is independent of wavelength, resulting in measurements with very low noise level; other corrections are those for background absorption, as will be discussed later.
|
Background absorption and background correction.
The relatively small number of atomic absorption lines (compared to atomic emission lines) and their narrow width (a few pm) make spectral overlap rare; there are only few examples known that an absorption line from one element will overlap with another. Molecular absorption, in contrast, is much broader, so that it is more likely that some molecular absorption band will overlap with an atomic line. This kind of absorption might be caused by un-dissociated molecules of concomitant elements of the sample or by flame gases. We have to distinguish between the spectra of di-atomic molecules, which exhibit a pronounced fine structure, and those of larger (usually tri-atomic) molecules that don't show such fine structure. Another source of background absorption, particularly in ET AAS, is scattering of the primary radiation at particles that are generated in the atomization stage, when the matrix could not be removed sufficiently in the pyrolysis stage.
All these phenomena, molecular absorption and radiation scattering, can result in artificially high absorption and an improperly high (erroneous) calculation for the concentration or mass of the analyte in the sample. There are several techniques available to correct for background absorption, and they are significantly different for LS AAS and HR-CS AAS.
|
Background correction techniques in LS AAS.
In LS AAS background absorption can only be corrected using instrumental techniques, and all of them are based on two sequential measurements: firstly, total absorption (atomic plus background), secondly, background absorption only. The difference of the two measurements gives the net atomic absorption. Because of this, and because of the use of additional devices in the spectrometer, the signal-to-noise ratio of background-corrected signals is always significantly inferior compared to uncorrected signals. It should also be pointed out that in LS AAS there is no way to correct for (the rare case of) a direct overlap of two atomic lines. In essence, there are three techniques used for background correction in LS AAS:
Deuterium background correction.
This is the oldest and still most commonly used technique, particularly for flame AAS. In this case, a separate source (a deuterium lamp) with broad emission is used to measure the background absorption over the entire width of the exit slit of the spectrometer. The use of a separate lamp makes this technique the least accurate one, as it cannot correct for any structured background. It also cannot be used at wavelengths above about 320 nm, as the emission intensity of the deuterium lamp becomes very weak. The use of deuterium HCL is preferable compared to an arc lamp due to the better fit of the image of the former lamp with that of the analyte HCL.
|
Smith-Hieftje background correction.
This technique (named after their inventors) is based on the line-broadening and self-reversal of emission lines from HCL when high current is applied. Total absorption is measured with normal lamp current, i.e., with a narrow emission line, and background absorption after application of a high-current pulse with the profile of the self-reversed line, which has little emission at the original wavelength, but strong emission on both sides of the analytical line. The advantage of this technique is that only one radiation source is used; among the disadvantages are that the high-current pulses reduce lamp lifetime, and that the technique can only be used for relatively volatile elements, as only those exhibit sufficient self-reversal to avoid dramatic loss of sensitivity. Another problem is that background is not measured at the same wavelength as total absorption, making the technique unsuitable for correcting structured background.
Zeeman-effect background correction.
|
Background correction techniques in HR-CS AAS.
In HR-CS AAS background correction is carried out mathematically in the software using information from detector pixels that are not used for measuring atomic absorption; hence, in contrast to LS AAS, no additional components are required for background correction.
Background correction using correction pixels.
It has already been mentioned that in HR-CS AAS lamp flicker noise is eliminated using correction pixels. In fact, any increase or decrease in radiation intensity that is observed to the same extent at all pixels chosen for correction is eliminated by the correction algorithm. This obviously also includes a reduction of the measured intensity due to radiation scattering or molecular absorption, which is corrected in the same way. As measurement of total and background absorption, and correction for the latter, are strictly simultaneous (in contrast to LS AAS), even the fastest changes of background absorption, as they may be observed in ET AAS, do not cause any problem. In addition, as the same algorithm is used for background correction and elimination of lamp noise, the background corrected signals show a much better signal-to-noise ratio compared to the uncorrected signals, which is also in contrast to LS AAS.
|
Background correction using a least-squares algorithm.
The above technique can obviously not correct for a background with fine structure, as in this case the absorbance will be different at each of the correction pixels. In this case, HR-CS AAS is offering the possibility to measure correction spectra of the molecule(s) that is (are) responsible for the background and store them in the computer. These spectra are then multiplied with a factor to match the intensity of the sample spectrum and subtracted pixel by pixel and spectrum by spectrum from the sample spectrum using a least-squares algorithm. This might sound complex, but first of all the number of di-atomic molecules that can exist at the temperatures of the atomizers used in AAS is relatively small, and second, the correction is performed by the computer within a few seconds. The same algorithm can actually also be used to correct for direct line overlap of two atomic absorption lines, making HR-CS AAS the only AAS technique that can correct for this kind of spectral interference.
|
Arthur St. Clair
Major-General Arthur St. Clair ( – August 31, 1818) was a Scottish-born American military officer and politician. Born in Thurso, Caithness, he served in the British Army during the French and Indian War before settling in the Province of Pennsylvania. During the American Revolutionary War, he rose to the rank of major general in the Continental Army, but lost his command after a controversial retreat from Fort Ticonderoga.
After the war, he served as President of the Continental Congress, which during his term passed the Northwest Ordinance. He was then made governor of the Northwest Territory in 1788, which was further enlarged by the portion that would become Ohio in 1800. In 1791, he commanded an American army in St. Clair's Defeat, which became the greatest victory achieved by Native Americans against the United States. Politically out-of-step with the Jefferson administration, he was replaced as governor in 1802 and died in obscurity.
Early life and career.
St. Clair was born in Thurso, Caithness. Little is known of his early life. Early biographers estimated his year of birth as 1734, but subsequent historians uncovered a birth date of March 23, 1736, which in the modern calendar system means that he was born in 1737. His parents, unknown to early biographers, were probably William Sinclair, a merchant, and Elizabeth Balfour. He reportedly attended the University of Edinburgh before being apprenticed to the renowned physician William Hunter.
|
In 1757, St. Clair purchased a commission in the British Army's Royal American Regiment and came to North America with Admiral Edward Boscawen's fleet for the French and Indian War. He served under General Jeffery Amherst during the capture of Louisburg, Nova Scotia, on July 26, 1758. On April 17, 1759, he was promoted to lieutenant and assigned under the command of General James Wolfe, under whom he served at the Battle of the Plains of Abraham which resulted in the capture of Quebec City.
Settler in America.
On April 16, 1762, he resigned his commission, and by 1764 had settled in Ligonier Valley, Pennsylvania, where he purchased land and went into business as an operator of flour and grist mills. The fortune he amassed soon made him the largest landowner in Western Pennsylvania.
In 1770, St. Clair entered politics when he was elected as a justice of both the Court of Quarter Sessions and of Common Pleas. He subsequently served as a member of the proprietary council, a justice, recorder, and clerk of the orphans' court, and prothonotary of Bedford and Westmoreland counties.
|
In 1774, during Lord Dunmore's War, the colony of Virginia illegally took claim of the area around present-day Pittsburgh. A militia was quickly raised to drive off the Virginians and St. Clair, in his capacity as a magistrate, issued an order for the arrest of the officer leading the Virginia troops. The boundary dispute between Virginia and Pennsylvania wasn't settled until 1780, when both sides agreed to extend the Mason–Dixon line westward from Maryland to 80° 31′ west, the current western border of Pennsylvania. (see: District of West Augusta)
Revolutionary War.
By the mid-1770s, St. Clair considered himself more of an American than a British subject. In January 1776, he accepted a commission in the Continental Army as a colonel of the 3rd Pennsylvania Regiment. He first saw service in the final days of the failed Quebec invasion, where he saw action in the Battle of Trois-Rivières. He was appointed a brigadier general in August 1776 and was tasked by George Washington to help train and equip newly arrived recruits from New Jersey. He took part in George Washington's crossing of the Delaware River on the night of December 25–26, 1776, before the Battle of Trenton on the morning of December 26. Many biographers credit St. Clair with the strategy that led to Washington's capture of Princeton, New Jersey, on January 3, 1777. St. Clair was promoted to major general in February 1777.
|
In April 1777, St. Clair was given command of Fort Ticonderoga. His outnumbered garrison could not resist British General John Burgoyne's larger force in the Saratoga campaign; thus, St. Clair was forced to retreat at the resulting siege on July 5, 1777. He successfully evacuated his men, but choosing not to stand and fight permanently damaged his sterling reputation. In 1778, he was court-martialed for the loss of Ticonderoga. The court exonerated him and approved his return to duty, but he would never hold a command again during the Revolution. He still saw action, however, as an aide-de-camp to Washington, who retained a high opinion of him. St. Clair was at Yorktown when Lord Cornwallis surrendered his army. During his military service, St. Clair was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1780.
President of the United States in Congress Assembled.
Following his discharge from the Army, St. Clair was elected to the Pennsylvania Council of Censors in 1783 and served as a delegate to the Confederation Congress, serving from November 2, 1785, until November 28, 1787. Chaos ruled the day in early 1787 with Shays's Rebellion in full force and the states refusing to settle their disputes or contribute to the now six-year-old federal government. On February 2, 1787, the delegates finally gathered into a quorum and elected St. Clair to a one-year term as President of the Continental Congress. Congress enacted its most important piece of legislation, the Northwest Ordinance, during his tenure. Time was running out for the Confederation Congress, however; during St. Clair's presidency, the Philadelphia Convention was drafting a new United States Constitution, which would abolish the old Congress. St. Clair is the only foreign-born "president" of the United States.
|
Northwest Territory.
Under the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, which created the Northwest Territory, St. Clair was appointed governor of what is now Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin and part of Minnesota. He named Cincinnati, Ohio, to honor his membership in the Society of the Cincinnati, and it was there that he decided to relocate his home.
As governor, he formulated "Maxwell's Code" (named after its printer, William Maxwell), the first written laws of the territory. He also worked with Josiah Harmar, Senior Officer of the United States, to resolve the issue of Native American tribes refusing to leave their lands, which the federal government had seized as punishment for their support of the British during the Revolution. In 1789, the two men succeeded in getting several Native American tribal leaders to sign the Treaty of Fort Harmar, but the treaty was never fully implemented and the tribes rejected it outright as illegitimate.
Supported with intelligence, supplies, and weapons funneled to them by British agents, the tribes decided to wage full-scale war against the Americans in what came to be called the "Northwest Indian War" (or "Little Turtle's War"). Harmar was ordered by President Washington's administration to crush the Indians with a force comprised mainly of ill-disciplined and inexperienced state militiamen; he suffered a humiliating defeat in October 1790.
|
Army commander.
In March 1791, St. Clair succeeded the disgraced Harmar as Senior Officer of the new United States Army and was restored to his previous rank of major general. He personally led a punitive expedition, this time with two full Army regiments and a large contingent of militia. Unlike Harmar, St. Clair had a far better organized and supplied force; unfortunately, like Harmar, St. Clair was also devoid of any practical experience in frontier warfare and generally dismissive of the Indians as fighters. In October 1791, he ordered the construction of Fort Jefferson to serve as the advance post for his campaign. Located in present-day Darke County in far western Ohio, the fort was built of wood and intended primarily as a supply depot; accordingly, it was originally named Fort Deposit.
St. Clair's defeat.
In November 1791, near modern-day Fort Recovery, St. Clair advanced on the main Indian settlements at the head of the Wabash River. On November 4, they were routed in battle by a tribal confederation led by Miami chief Little Turtle and Shawnee chief Blue Jacket with the support of British agents Alexander McKee and Simon Girty. More than 600 American soldiers and scores of camp followers were killed in the battle, which came to be known as "St. Clair's Defeat"; other names include the "Battle of the Wabash", the "Columbia Massacre," or the "Battle of a Thousand Slain". It remains the greatest defeat of a U.S. army by Native Americans in history, with a total of 623 fallen Americans compared to just 50 fallen Native Americans. The wounded were many, including St. Clair and Capt. Robert Benham.
|
Continued as Governor 1788-1802.
Although an investigation exonerated him, St. Clair surrendered his commission in March 1792 at the request of President Washington before resuming his previous office as territorial governor.
A Federalist, St. Clair refocused his energies on carving up the Northwest Territory into two states that would strength Federalist control of Congress. However, he was opposed by Ohio Democrat-Republicans for what they perceived as his shameless partisanship, high-handedness, and arrogance in office. In 1802, he declared that his constituents "are no more bound by an act of Congress than we would be bound by an edict of the first consul of France." This, coupled with the gradual collapse of Federalist influence in Washington D.C., led President Thomas Jefferson to remove him as governor. He thus played no part in the organizing of the state of Ohio in 1803.
The first Ohio Constitution provided for a weak governor and a strong legislature, largely as a reaction to St. Clair's method of governance.
|
Family life.
St. Clair met Phoebe Bayard, a member of one of the most prominent families in Boston, and they were married in 1760. Miss Bayard's mother's maiden name was Bowdoin, and she was the sister of James Bowdoin, a colonial governor of Massachusetts.
His eldest daughter was Louisa St. Clair Robb, a mounted messenger and scout, and known as a beautiful huntress.
Like many of his Revolutionary-era peers, St. Clair suffered from gout due to poor diet, as noted in his correspondence with John Adams.
Death.
In retirement, St. Clair lived with his daughter, Louisa St. Clair Robb, and her family on the ridge between Ligonier and Greensburg.
Arthur St. Clair died in poverty in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, on August 31, 1818, at the age of 81. His remains are buried under a Masonic monument in St. Clair Park in downtown Greensburg. St. Clair had been a petitioner for a Charter for Nova Caesarea
Lodge #10 in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1791. This Lodge exists today, as Nova Caesarea Harmony #2. His wife Phoebe died shortly after and is buried beside him.
|
Legacy.
A portion of the Hermitage, St. Clair's home in Oak Grove, Pennsylvania (north of Ligonier), was later moved to Ligonier, Pennsylvania, where it is now preserved, along with St. Clair artifacts and memorabilia at the Fort Ligonier Museum.
An American Civil War steamer was named USS "St. Clair".
Lydia Sigourney included a poem in his honor, in her first poetry collection of 1815.
The site of Clair's inauguration as Governor of the Northwest Territory is now occupied by the "National Start Westward Memorial of The United States", commemorating the settlement of the territory.
Places named in honor of Arthur St. Clair include:
In Pennsylvania:
In Ohio:
Other States:
In Scotland:
References.
Notes
Books
|
Ajaccio
Ajaccio (, , ; French: ; or ; , ; ) is the capital and largest city of Corsica, France. It forms a French commune, prefecture of the department of Corse-du-Sud, and head office of the "Collectivité territoriale de Corse" (capital city of Corsica). It is also the largest settlement on the island. Ajaccio is located on the west coast of the island of Corsica, southeast of Marseille.
The original city went into decline in the Middle Ages, but began to prosper again after the Genoese built a citadel in 1492, to the south of the earlier settlement. After the Corsican Republic was declared in 1755, the Genoese continued to hold several citadels, including Ajaccio, until the French took control of the island.
The inhabitants of the commune are known as "Ajacciens" (men) or "Ajacciennes" (women). The most famous of these is Napoleon Bonaparte, who was born in Ajaccio in 1769, and whose ancestral home, the Maison Bonaparte, is now a museum. Other dedications to him in the city include Ajaccio Napoleon Bonaparte Airport.
|
Toponymy.
Several hypotheses have been advanced as to the etymology of the name "Ajaccio" ("Aiacciu" in Corsican, "Addiazzo" on old documents). Among these, the most prestigious suggests that the city was founded by the Greek legendary hero Ajax and named after him. Other more realistic explanations are, for example, that the name could be related to the Tuscan "agghiacciu" meaning "sheep pens". Another explanation, supported by Byzantine sources from around the year 600 AD called the city "Agiation" which suggests a possible Greek origin for the word, "agathè" could mean "good luck" or "good mooring" (this was also the root of the name of the city of Agde).
Geography.
Location.
Ajaccio is located on the west coast of the island of Corsica, southeast of Marseille. The commune occupies a sheltered position at the foot of wooded hills on the northern shore of the Gulf of Ajaccio between Gravona and the "pointe de la Parata" and includes the "îles Sanguinaires" (Bloody Islands). The harbour lies to the east of the original citadel below a hill overlooking a peninsula which protects the harbour in the south where the Quai de la Citadelle and the Jettée de la Citadelle are. The modern city not only encloses the entire harbour but takes up the better part of the Gulf of Ajaccio and in suburban form extends for some miles up the valley of the river Gravona. The flow from that river is nearly entirely consumed as the city's water supply. Many beaches and coves border its territory and the terrain is particularly rugged in the west where the highest point is .
|
Urbanism.
Although the commune of Ajaccio has a large area (82.03 km2), only a small portion of this is urbanized. Therefore, the urban area of Ajaccio is located in the east of the commune on a narrow coastal strip forming a densely populated arc. The rest of the territory is natural with habitation of little importance and spread thinly. Suburbanization occurs north and east of the main urban area.
The original urban core, close to the old marshy plain of "Cannes" was abandoned in favour of the current city which was built near the "Punta della Lechia". It has undergone various improvements, particularly under Napoleon, who originated the two current major structural arteries (the "Cours Napoleon" oriented north–south and the "Cours Grandval" oriented east–west).
Ajaccio experienced a demographic boom in the 1960s, which explains why 85% of dwellings are post-1949. This is reflected in the layout of the city which is marked by very large areas of low-rise buildings and concrete towers, especially on the heights ("Les Jardins de l'Empereur") and in the north of the city - e.g. the waterfront, "Les Cannes", and "Les Salines". A dichotomy appears in the landscape between the old city and the imposing modern buildings. Ajaccio gives the image of a city built on two different levels.
|
Climate.
The city has a Mediterranean climate which is "Csa" in the Köppen climate classification. The average annual sunshine is 2,726 hours.
There are important local climatic variations, especially with wind exposure and total precipitation, between the city centre, the airport, and the "îles Sanguinaires". The annual average rainfall is at the "Campo dell'Oro" weather station (as per the chart) and at the "Parata": the third-driest place in metropolitan France. The heat and dryness of summer are somewhat tempered by the proximity of the Mediterranean Sea except when the sirocco is blowing. In autumn and spring, heavy rain-storm episodes may occur. Winters are mild and snow is rare. Ajaccio is the French city which holds the record for the number of thunderstorms in the reference period 1971–2000 with an average of 39 thunderstorm days per year.
On 14 September 2009, the city was hit by a tornado with an intensity of F1 on the Fujita scale. There was little damage except torn billboards, flying tiles, overturned cars, and broken windows but no casualties.
|
Weather Data for Ajaccio
History.
Antiquity.
The city was not mentioned by the Greek geographer Ptolemy of Alexandria in the 2nd century AD despite the presence of a place called "Ourkinion" in the "Cinarca" area. It is likely that the city of Ajaccio had its first development at this time. The 2nd century was a period of prosperity in the Mediterranean basin (the Pax Romana) and there was a need for a proper port at the head of the several valleys that lead to the Gulf able to accommodate large ships. Some important underwater archaeological discoveries recently made of Roman ships tend to confirm this.
Further excavations conducted recently led to the discovery of important early Christian remains suggest that an upwards reevaluation might be necessary of the size of Ajaccio city in Late Antiquity and the beginning of the Middle Ages. The city was in any case already significant enough to be the seat of a diocese, mentioned by Pope Gregory the Great in 591. The city was then further north than the location chosen later by the Genoese - in the location of the existing quarters of "Castel Vecchio" and "Sainte-Lucie".
|
The earliest certain written record of a settlement at Ajaccio with a name ancestral to its name was the exhortation in Epistle 77 written in 601AD by Gregory the Great to the Defensor Boniface, one of two known rectors of the early Corsican church, to tell him not to leave Aléria and Adjacium without bishops. There is no earlier use of the term and Adjacium is not an attested Latin word, which probably means that it is a Latinization of a word in some other language. The Ravenna Cosmography of about 700 AD cites Agiation, which sometimes is taken as evidence of a prior Greek city, as -ion appears to be a Greek ending. There is, however, no evidence at all of a Greek presence on the west coast and the Ionians at Aléria on the east coast had been expelled by the Etruscans long before Roman domination.
Ptolemy, who must come the closest to representing indigenous names, lists the Lochra River just south of a feature he calls the "sandy shore" on the southwest coast. If the shore is the Campo dell'Oro (Place of Gold) the Lochra would seem to be the combined mouth of the Gravona and Prunelli Rivers, neither one of which sounds like Lochra.
|
North of there was a Roman city, Ourchinion. The western coastline was so distorted, however, that it is impossible to say where Adjacium was; certainly, he would have known its name and location if he had had any first-hand knowledge of the island and if in fact it was there. Ptolemy's Ourchinion is further north than Ajaccio and does not have the same name. It could be Sagone. The lack of correspondence between Ptolemaic and historical names known to be ancient has no defense except in the case of the two Roman colonies, Aleria and Mariana. In any case the population of the region must belong to Ptolemy's Tarabeni or Titiani people, neither of which are ever heard about again.
Archaeological evidence.
The population of the city throughout the centuries maintained an oral tradition that it had originally been Roman. Travellers of the 19th century could point to the Hill of San Giovanni on the northwest shore of the Gulf of Ajaccio, which still had a cathedral said to have been the 6th-century seat of the Bishop of Ajaccio. The Castello Vecchio ("old castle"), a ruined citadel, was believed to be Roman but turned out to have Gothic features. The hill was planted with vines. The farmers kept turning up artifacts and terracotta funerary urns that seemed to be Roman.
|
In the 20th century, the hill was covered over with buildings and became a part of downtown Ajaccio. In 2005 construction plans for a lot on the hill offered the opportunity to the "Institut national de recherches archéologiques preventatives" (Inrap) to excavate. They found the baptistry of a 6th-century cathedral and large amounts of pottery dated to the 6th and 7th centuries AD; in other words, an early Christian town. A cemetery had been placed over the old church. In it was a single Roman grave covered over with roof tiles bearing short indecipherable inscriptions. The finds of the previous century had included Roman coins. This is the only evidence so far of a Roman city continuous with the early Christian one.
Medieval Genoese period.
It has been established that after the 8th century the city, like most other Corsican coastal communities, strongly declined and disappeared almost completely. Nevertheless, a castle and a cathedral were still in place in 1492 which last was not demolished until 1748.
Towards the end of the 15th century, the Genoese were eager to assert their dominance in the south of the island and decided to rebuild the city of Ajaccio. Several sites were considered: the "Pointe de la Parata" (not chosen because it was too exposed to the wind), the ancient city (finally considered unsafe because of the proximity of the salt ponds), and finally the "Punta della Lechia" which was finally selected.
|
Work began on the town on 21 April 1492 south of the Christian village by the Bank of Saint George at Genoa, who sent Cristoforo of Gandini, an architect, to build it. He began with a castle on Capo di Bolo, around which he constructed residences for several hundred people.
The new city was essentially a colony of Genoa. The Corsicans were restricted from the city for some years.
Nevertheless, the town grew rapidly and became the administrative capital of the province of "Au Delà Des Monts" (more or less the current "Corse-du-Sud"). Bastia remained the capital of the entire island.
Although at first populated exclusively by the Genoese, the city slowly opened to the Corsicans while the Ajaccians, almost to the French conquest, were legally citizens of the Republic of Genoa and were happy to distinguish themselves from the insular "paesani" who lived mainly in "Borgu", a suburb outside the city walls (the current "rue Fesch" was the main street).
Attachment to France.
Ajaccio was occupied from 1553 to 1559 by the French, but it again fell to the Genoese after the Treaty of Cateau Cambresis in the latter year.
|
Subsequently, the Republic of Genoa was strong enough to keep Corsica until 1755, the year Pasquale Paoli proclaimed the Corsican Republic. Paoli took most of the island for the republic, but he was unable to force Genoese troops out of the citadels of Saint-Florent, Calvi, Ajaccio, Bastia and Algajola. Leaving them there, he went on to build the nation, while the Republic of Genoa was left to ponder prospects and solutions. Their ultimate solution was to sell Corsica to France in 1768 and French troops of the Ancien Régime replaced Genoese ones in the citadels, including Ajaccio's.
Corsica was formally annexed to France in 1780.
Napoleon.
Napoleon Bonaparte (born as Napoleone di Buonaparte) was born at Ajaccio in the same year as the Battle of Ponte Novu, 1769. The Buonaparte family at the time had a huge four-story home in town (now a museum known as Maison Bonaparte) and a rarely used country home in the hills north of the city (now site of the Arboretum des Milelli). The father of the family, attorney Carlo di Buonaparte, was secretary to Pasquale Paoli during the Corsican Republic.
|
After the defeat of Paoli, the Comte de Marbeuf began to meet with some leading Corsicans to outline the shape of the future and enlist their assistance. The Comte was among a delegation from Ajaccio in 1769, offered his loyalty and was appointed assessor.
Marbeuf also offered Carlo di Buonaparte an appointment for one of his sons to the Military College of Brienne, but Napoleone did not speak French which was a requirement and he had to be at least ten years of age. There is a dispute concerning Napoleon's age because of this requirement; the emperor is known to have altered the civic records at Ajaccio concerning himself and it is possible that he was born in Corte in 1768 when his father was there on business. In any case Napoleon was sent to a school in Autun to learn basic French, then after a year went to Brienne from 1779 to 1784.
At Brienne Napoleon concentrated on studies. He wrote a boyish history of Corsica. He did not share his father's views but held Pasquale Paoli in high esteem and was at heart a Corsican nationalist. The top students were encouraged to go into the artillery. After graduation and a brief sojourn at the Military School of Paris Napoleon applied for a second-lieutenancy in the artillery regiment of La Fère at Valence and after a time was given the position. Meanwhile, his father died and his mother was cast into poverty in Corsica, still having four children to support. Her only income was Napoleon's meager salary.
|
The regiment was in Auxonne when the revolution broke out in the summer of 1789. Napoleon returned on leave to Ajaccio in October, became a Jacobin and began to work for the revolution. The National Assembly in Paris united Corsica to France and pardoned its exiles. Paoli returned in 1790 after 21 years and kissed the soil on which he stood. He and Napoleon met and toured the battlefield of Paoli's defeat. A national assembly at Orezza created the department of Corsica and Paoli was subsequently elected president. He commanded the national guard raised by Napoleon. After a brief return to his regiment Napoleon was promoted to first lieutenant and came home again on leave in 1791.
All officers were recalled from leave in 1792, intervention threatened and war with Austria (Marie-Antoinette's homeland) began. Napoleon returned to Paris for review, was exonerated, then promoted to captain and given leave to escort his sister, a schoolgirl, back to Corsica at state expense. His family was prospering; his estate increased.
|
Napoleon became a lieutenant-colonel in the Corsican National Guard. Paoli sent him off on an expedition to Sardinia, ordered by France, under Paolis's nephew but the nephew had secret orders from Paoli to make sure the expedition failed. Paoli was now a conservative, opposing the execution of the king and supporting an alliance with Great Britain. Returning from Sardinia Napoleon with his family and all his supporters were instrumental in getting Paoli denounced at the National Convention in Paris in 1793. Napoleon earned the hatred of the Paolists by pretending to support Paoli and then turning against him (payment, one supposes, for Sardinia).
Paoli was convicted in absentia, a warrant was issued for his arrest (which could not be served) and Napoleon was dispatched to Corsica as Inspector General of Artillery to take the citadel of Ajaccio from the royalists who had held it since 1789. The Paolists combining with the royalists defeated the French in two pitched battles and Napoleon and his family went on the run, hiding by day, while the Paolists burned their estate. Napoleon and his mother, Laetitia, were taken out by ship in June 1793, by friends while two of the girls found refuge with other friends. They landed in Toulon with only Napoleon's pay for their support.
|
The Bonapartes moved to Marseille but in August Toulon offered itself to the British and received the protection of a fleet under Admiral Hood. The Siege of Toulon began in September under revolutionary officers mainly untrained in the art of war. Napoleon happened to present socially one evening and during a casual conversation over a misplaced 24-pounder explained the value of artillery. Taken seriously he was allowed to bring up over 100 guns from coastal emplacements but his plan for the taking of Toulon was set aside as one incompetent officer superseded another. By December they decided to try his plan and made him a Colonel. Placing the guns at close range he used them to keep the British fleet away while he battered down the walls of Toulon. As soon as the Committee of Public Safety heard of the victory Napoleon became a brigadier general, the start of his meteoric rise to power.
The Bonapartes were back in Ajaccio in 1797 under the protection of General Napoleon. Soon after Napoleon became First Consul and then emperor, using his office to spread revolution throughout Europe. In 1811 he made Ajaccio the capital of the new Department of Corsica. Despite his subsequent defeat by the Prussians, Russians, and British, his exile and his death, no victorious power reversed that decision or tried to remove Corsica from France. Among the natives, though Corsican nationalism is strong, and feeling often runs high in favour of a union with Italy; loyalty to France, however, as evidenced by elections, remains stronger.
19th and 20th centuries.
|
In the 19th century Ajaccio became a winter resort of the high society of the time, especially for the English, in the same way as Monaco, Cannes, and Nice. An Anglican Church was even built.
The first prison in France for children was built in Ajaccio in 1855: the Horticultural colony of Saint Anthony. It was a correctional colony for juvenile delinquents (from 8 to 20 years old), established under Article 10 of the Act of 5 August 1850. Nearly 1,200 children from all over France stayed there until 1866, when it was closed. Sixty percent of them perished, the victims of poor sanitation and malaria which infested the unhealthy areas that they were responsible to clean.
Contemporary history.
On 9 September 1943, the people of Ajaccio rose up against the Nazi occupiers and became the first French town to be liberated from the domination of the Germans. General Charles de Gaulle went to Ajaccio on 8 October 1943 and said: "We owe it to the field of battle the lesson of the page of history that was written in French Corsica. Corsica to her fortune and honour is the first morsel of France to be liberated; which was done intentionally and willingly, in the light of its liberation, this demonstrates that these are the intentions and the will of the whole nation."
|
Throughout this period, no Jew was executed or deported from Corsica through the protection afforded by its people and its government. This event now allows Corsica to aspire to the title "Righteous Among the Nations", as no French region except for the commune Le Chambon-sur-Lignon in Haute-Loire carries this title. Their case is being investigated .
Since the middle of the 20th century, Ajaccio has seen significant development. The city has seen population growth and considerable urban sprawl. Today Ajaccio is the capital of Corsica and the main town of the island and seeks to establish itself as a true regional centre.
Ajaccio was a hotspot for violence during the violent unrest in March 2022.
Economy.
The city is, with Bastia, the economic, commercial and administrative centre of Corsica. Its urban area of nearly 90,000 inhabitants is spread over a large part of the Corse-du-Sud, on either side of the Gulf of Ajaccio and up the valley of the Gravona. Its business is primarily oriented towards the services sector.
|
The services sector is by far the main source of employment in the city. Ajaccio is an administrative centre comprising communal, intercommunal, departmental, regional, and prefectural services.
It is also a shopping centre with the commercial streets of the city centre and the areas of peripheral activities such as that of "Mezzavia" (hypermarket "Géant Casino") and along the ring road (hypermarket Carrefour and E. Leclerc).
Tourism is one of the most vital aspects of the economy, split between the seaside tourism of summer, cultural tourism, and fishing. A number of hotels, varying from one star to five star, are present across the commune.
Ajaccio is the seat of the "Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Ajaccio and Corsica South". It manages the ports of Ajaccio, Bonifacio, Porto-Vecchio, Propriano and the Tino Rossi marina. It also manages Ajaccio airport and Figari airport as well as the convention centre and the "Centre of Ricanto".
Secondary industry is underdeveloped, apart from the aeronautical company "Corsica Aerospace Composites CCA", the largest company on the island with 135 employees at two sites. The storage sites of GDF Suez (formerly Gaz de France) and Antargaz in the district of "Vazzio" are classified as high risk.
|
Energy.
The "Centrale EDF du Vazzio", a heavy oil power station, provides the south of the island with electricity. The Gravona Canal delivers water for consumption by the city.
Transport.
Road access.
By road, the city is accessible from National Route NR194 from Bastia and NR193 via NR196 from Bonifacio.
These two main axes, as well as the roads leading to suburban villages, connect Ajaccio from the north - the site of Ajaccio forming a dead end blocked by the sea to the south. Only the "Cours Napoleon" and the "Boulevard du Roi Jerome" cross the city.
Along with the high urban density, this explains the major traffic and parking problems especially during peak hours and during the summer tourist season. A bypass through several neighbourhoods is nearing completion.
Communal bus services.
The Muvistrada provide services on 21 urban routes, one "city" route for local links and 20 suburban lines. The frequency varies according to demand with intervals of 30 minutes for the most important routes:
A park and ride with 300 spaces was built at "Mezzana" in the neighbouring commune of Sarrola-Carcopino in order to promote intermodality between cars and public transport. It was inaugurated on 12 July 2010.
|
Airport.
The city is served by an Ajaccio Napoleon Bonaparte Airport which is the headquarters of Air Corsica, a Corsican airline. It connects Ajaccio to a number of cities in mainland France (including Paris, Marseille, Nice, and Brive) and to places in Europe to serve the tourist industry.
The airline CCM Airlines also has its head office on the grounds of the Airport.
Port.
The port of Ajaccio is connected to the French mainland on an almost daily basis (Marseille, Toulon, Nice). There are also occasional links to the Italian mainland (Livorno) and to Sardinia, as well as a seasonal service serving Calvi and Propriano. The two major shipping companies providing these links are Corsica Linea and Corsica Ferries.
Ajaccio has also become a stopover for cruises with a total of 418,086 passengers in 2007by far the largest in Corsica and the second-largest in France (after Marseille, but ahead of Nice/Villefranche-sur-Mer and Cannes). The goal is for Ajaccio to eventually become the premier French port for cruises as well as being a main departure point.
|
The Port function of the city is also served by the commercial, pleasure craft, and artisanal fisheries (3 ports).
Railways.
The railway station in Ajaccio belongs to "Chemins de fer de la Corse" and is located near the port at the "Square Pierre Griffi". It connects Ajaccio to Corte, Bastia (3 h 25 min) and Calvi.
There are two optional stops:
In addition, the municipality has introduced an additional commuter service between Mezzana station in the suburbs and Ajaccio station located in the centre.
Administration.
Ajaccio was successively:
Ajaccio remained (with some interruptions) an electoral stronghold of the Bonapartist (CCB) party until the municipal elections of 2001. The outgoing municipality was then beaten by a left-wing coalition led by Simon Renucci which gathered Social Democrats, Communists, and Charles Napoleon - the pretender to the imperial throne.
List of Successive Mayors of Ajaccio
Quarters.
10 Quarters are recognized by the municipality.
Intercommunality.
Since December 2001, Ajaccio has been part of the "Communauté d'agglomération du Pays Ajaccien" with nine other communes: Afa, Alata, Appietto, Cuttoli-Corticchiato, Peri, Sarrola-Carcopino, Tavaco, Valle-di-Mezzana, and Villanova.
|
Origins.
The geopolitical arrangements of the commune are slightly different from those typical of Corsica and France. Usually an arrondissement includes cantons and a canton includes one to several communes including the chef-lieu, "chief place", from which the canton takes its name. The city of Ajaccio is one commune, but it contains four cantons, Cantons 1–4, and a fraction of Canton 5. The latter contains three other communes: Bastelicaccia, Alata and Villanova, making a total of four communes for the five cantons of Ajaccio.
Each canton contains a certain number of quartiers, "quarters". Cantons 1, 2, 3, 4 are located along the Gulf of Ajaccio from west to east, while 5 is a little further up the valleys of the Gravona and the Prunelli Rivers. These political divisions subdivide the population of Ajaccio into units that can be more democratically served but they do not give a true picture of the size of Ajaccio. In general language, "greater Ajaccio" includes about 100,000 people with all the medical, educational, utility and transportational facilities of a big city. Up until World War II it was still possible to regard the city as being a settlement of narrow streets localized to a part of the harbour or the Gulf of Ajaccio: such bucolic descriptions do not fit the city of today, and travelogues intended for mountain or coastal recreational areas do not generally apply to Corsica's few big cities.
|
The arrondissement contains other cantons that extend generally up the two rivers into central Corsica.
Twin towns – sister cities.
Ajaccio is twinned with:
Population.
The population of Ajaccio increased sharply after 1960 due to migration from rural areas and the coming of "Pied-Noirs" (French Algerians), immigrants from the Maghreb and French from mainland France.
Health.
Ajaccio has three hospital sites:
Education.
Ajaccio is the headquarters of the Academy of Corsica.
The city of Ajaccio has:
Higher education is undeveloped except for a few BTS and IFSI, the University of Corsica Pascal Paoli is located in Corte. A research facility of INRA is also located on Ajaccio.
Culture and heritage.
Ajaccio has a varied tourism potential, with both a cultural framework in the centre of the city and a natural heritage around the coves and beaches of the Mediterranean Sea, as well as the Natura 2000 reserve of the "îles Sanguinaires".
Civil heritage.
The commune has many buildings and structures that are registered as historical monuments:
|
Religious heritage.
The town is the seat of a bishopric dating at least from the 7th century. It has tribunals of first instance and of commerce, training colleges, a communal college, a museum and a library; the three latter are established in the Palais Fesch, founded by Cardinal Fesch, who was born at Ajaccio in 1763.
The commune has several religious buildings and structures that are registered as historical monuments:
In popular culture.
Films made in Ajaccio include:
Sports.
There are various sports facilities developed throughout the city.
Military.
Units that were stationed in Ajaccio:
|
Ajaigarh
Ajaigarh or Ajaygarh is a town and a nagar panchayat in the Panna District of Madhya Pradesh state in central India.
Ajaigarh State was one of the princely states of India during the period of the British Raj. The state was founded in 1785, and its capital was in Ajaigarh.
History.
Ajaigarh was the capital of a princely state of the same name during the British Raj. Ajaigarh was founded in 1765 by Guman Singh, a Bundela Rajput who was the nephew of Raja Pahar Singh of Jaitpur. After Ajaigarh was captured by the British in 1809, it became a princely state in the Bundelkhand Agency of the Central India Agency. It had an area of , and a population of 78,236 in 1901. The rulers bore the title of "sawai maharaja". He commanded an estimated annual revenue of about £15,000/-, and paid a tribute of £460/-. The chief resided at the town of Nowgong, at the foot of the hill-fortress of Ajaigarh, from which the state took its name. This fort, situated on a steep hill, towers more than above the eponymous township, and contains the ruins of several temples adorned with elaborately carved sculptures. The town was often afflicted by malaria, and suffered severely from famine in 1868–69 and 1896–97.
|
The state acceded to the Government of India on 1 January 1950; the ruling chief was granted a privy purse of Rs. 74,700/-, and the courtesy use of his styles and titles. All of these were revoked by the government of India in 1971, at the time when these privileges were revoked from all erstwhile princes. The former princely state became part of the new Indian state of Vindhya Pradesh, and most of the territory of the former state, including the town of Ajaigarh, became part of Panna District, with a smaller portion going to Chhatarpur District. Vindhya Pradesh was merged into Madhya Pradesh on 1 November 1956.
Rulers of Ajaygarh.
Maharajadhiraja Chhatrasal : 1649–1731
(founder ruler of many kingdoms)
___________________________|______________________________
Hirdeshah Jagatraj Bhartichandra
(Panna) (Jaitpur) (Jaso)
____________________________|______________________________
Vir Singh Kirat Singh Pahar Singh (1758–1765)
____________________________|______________________________
Khuman Singh Guman Singh (1765–1792) Durg Singh
|
(Charkari) (Banda)(No issues) |
|__________________Son of______|
Bhakhat Singh :b. 1792-d. 1837
(Founder ruler of Ajaigarh)
_____________________________|_______________________________
Madho Singh (r. 1837–1849) Mahipat Singh (r. 1849–1853)
(No male issue) |
Ranjore Singh (K.C.I.E)__________Vijay Singh (R. 1853–1855)
(born 1844; died 1919) (died early, fell from horse)
_____________________________|________________________________
Jaipal Singh Bhopal Singh (K.C.I.E.) Pakshpal Singh
(born 1866; died 1942) |
| Col. Deshpal Singh : (1914 - )
Punyapratap Singh: | |
(born 1884; died 1958) Ajaiveer Singh Ashit Varn Singh (1953–2017)
| (No Male Issue) |
Devendra Vijay Singh |
(born 1913; died 1984) Hraday Shah ---------------|
(Privy Purses, titles abolished)
_____________________________|_________________________________
Mahipendra Singh Kaushalendra Singh Surendra Singh
| (born 1934; died 1982) |
Shailendra Singh Ajayraj Singh Tarunendra Singh
Ajaigarh Fort.
Ajaigarh or Ajaygarh Fort is among the top attractions of the region. It stands alone on a hilltop in the district of Panna and is easily accessible from Khajuraho. The fort is bordered by the Vindhya Hills and provides views of the Ken River. This fort is noted for its rich historical past and its architecture, which dates to the Chandela dynasty.
|
The fort is visited by both history and art lovers. This fort has two gates (earlier there were five), two temples and two rock-cut tanks, close to the northern gate. These tanks have been named as Ganga and Yamuna.
Ajaygarh Fort, also known as Ajaypal Fort, is an ancient and mysterious fort located in the Panna district of Madhya Pradesh. It was built by the Chandela kings and stands atop a high hill. At the main entrance of the fort, there is an old inscription that no one has been able to decipher till today. It is believed that this inscription holds the secret path to a hidden treasure.
Demographics.
As of the 2001 India census, Ajaigarh had a population of 13,979. Males constitute 53% of the population and females 47%. Ajaigarh has an average literacy rate of 59%, which is lower than the national average of 59.5%; with 61% of the males and 39% of females literate. 16% of the population is under 6 years of age.
|
Ajanta Caves
The Ajanta Caves are 30 rock-cut Buddhist cave monuments dating from the second century BCE to about 480 CE in Aurangabad district of Maharashtra state in India. Ajanta Caves are a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Universally regarded as masterpieces of Buddhist religious art, the caves include paintings and rock-cut sculptures described as among the finest surviving examples of ancient Indian art, particularly expressive paintings that present emotions through gesture, pose and form.
The caves were built in two phases, the first starting around the second century BCE and the second occurring from 400 to 650 CE, according to older accounts, or in a brief period of 460–480 CE according to later scholarship.
The Ajanta Caves constitute ancient monasteries ("Viharas") and worship-halls ("Chaityas") of different Buddhist traditions carved into a wall of rock. The caves also present paintings depicting the past lives and rebirths of the Buddha, pictorial tales from "Aryasura's Jatakamala", and rock-cut sculptures of Buddhist deities. Textual records suggest that these caves served as a monsoon retreat for monks, as well as a resting site for merchants and pilgrims in ancient India. While vivid colours and mural wall paintings were abundant in Indian history as evidenced by historical records, Caves 1, 2, 16 and 17 of Ajanta form the largest corpus of surviving ancient Indian wall-paintings.
|
The Ajanta Caves are mentioned in the memoirs of several medieval-era Chinese Buddhist travelers. They were covered by jungle until accidentally "discovered" and brought to Western attention in 1819 by a colonial British officer Captain John Smith on a tiger-hunting party. The caves are in the rocky northern wall of the U-shaped gorge of the River Waghur, in the Deccan plateau. Within the gorge are a number of waterfalls, audible from outside the caves when the river is high.
Transport.
With the Ellora Caves, Ajanta is one of the major tourist attractions of Maharashtra. It is about from the city of Jalgaon, Maharashtra, India, from the city of Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar (formerly Auragabad) and east-northeast of Mumbai. Ajanta is from the Ellora Caves, which contain Hindu, Jain and Buddhist caves, the last dating from a period similar to Ajanta. The Ajanta style is also found in the Ellora Caves and other sites such as the Elephanta Caves, Aurangabad Caves, Shivleni Caves and the cave temples of Karnataka. Nearest airports are Jalgaon and Sambhaji Nagar followed by Mumbai and nearest railway stations are Jalgaon & Bhusawal.
|
History.
The Ajanta Caves are generally agreed to have been made in two distinct phases; first during the 2nd century BCE to 1st century CE, and second several centuries later.
The caves consist of 36 identifiable foundations, some of them discovered after the original numbering of the caves from 1 through 29. The later-identified caves have been suffixed with the letters of the alphabet, such as 15A, identified between originally numbered caves 15 and 16. The cave numbering is a convention of convenience and does not reflect the chronological order of their construction.
Caves of the first period (Satavahana).
The earliest group consists of caves 9, 10, 12, 13 and 15 A. The murals in these caves depict stories from the Jatakas. Later caves reflect the artistic influence of the Gupta period, but there are differing opinions on which century in which the early caves were built. According to Walter Spink, they were made during the period 100 BCE to 100 CE, probably under the patronage of the Hindu Satavahana dynasty (230 BCE – 220 CE) who ruled the region. Other datings prefer the period of the Maurya Empire (300 BCE to 100 BCE). Of these, caves 9 and 10 are stupa containing worship halls of "chaitya-griha" form, and caves 12, 13, and 15A are "vihāras" (see the architecture section below for descriptions of these types). The first Satavahana period caves lacked figurative sculpture, emphasizing the stupa instead.
|
According to Spink, once the Satavahana period caves were made, the site was not further developed for a considerable period until the mid-5th century. However, the early caves were in use during this dormant period, and Buddhist pilgrims visited the site, according to the records left by Chinese pilgrim Faxian around 400 CE.
Caves of the later or Vakataka period.
The second phase of construction at the Ajanta Caves site began in the 5th century. For a long time it was thought that the later caves were made over an extended period from the 4th to the 7th centuries CE, but in recent decades a series of studies by the leading expert on the caves, Walter M. Spink, have argued that most of the work took place over the very brief period from 460 to 480 CE, during the reign of Hindu Emperor Harishena of the Vākāṭaka dynasty. This view has been criticised by some scholars, but is now broadly accepted by most authors of general books on Indian art, for example, Huntington and Harle.
The second phase is attributed to the theistic Mahāyāna, or Greater Vehicle tradition of Buddhism. Caves of the second period are 1–8, 11, 14–29, some possibly extensions of earlier caves. Caves 19, 26, and 29 are "chaitya-grihas", the rest "viharas". The most elaborate caves were produced in this period, which included some refurbishing and repainting of the early caves.
|
Spink states that it is possible to establish dating for this period with a very high level of precision; a fuller account of his chronology is given below. Although debate continues, Spink's ideas are increasingly widely accepted, at least in their broad conclusions. The Archaeological Survey of India website still presents the traditional dating: "The second phase of paintings started around 5th–6th centuries A.D. and continued for the next two centuries".
According to Spink, the construction activity at the incomplete Ajanta Caves was abandoned by wealthy patrons in about 480 CE, a few years after the death of Harishena. However, states Spink, the caves appear to have been in use for a period of time as evidenced by the wear of the pivot holes in caves constructed close to 480 CE. The second phase of constructions and decorations at Ajanta corresponds to the very apogee of Classical India, or India's golden age. However, at that time, the Gupta Empire was already weakening from internal political issues and from the assaults of the Hūṇas, so that the Vakatakas were actually one of the most powerful empires in India. Some of the Hūṇas, the Alchon Huns of Toramana, were precisely ruling the neighbouring area of Malwa, at the doorstep of the Western Deccan, at the time the Ajanta caves were made. Through their control of vast areas of northwestern India, the Huns may actually have acted as a cultural bridge between the area of Gandhara and the Western Deccan, at the time when the Ajanta or Pitalkhora caves were being decorated with some designs of Gandharan inspiration, such as .
|
According to Richard Cohen, a description of the caves by 7th-century Chinese Traveller Xuanzang and scattered medieval graffiti suggest that the Ajanta Caves were known and probably in use subsequently, but without a stable or steady Buddhist community presence. The Ajanta caves are mentioned in the 17th-century text "Ain-i-Akbari" by Abu al-Fazl, as twenty four rock-cut cave temples each with remarkable idols.
Colonial era/Rediscovery.
On 28 April 1819 a British officer named John Smith, of the 28th Cavalry, while hunting tigers was shown the entrance to Cave No. 10 when a local shepherd boy guided him to the location and the door. The caves were well known by locals already. Captain Smith went to a nearby village and asked the villagers to come to the site with axes, spears, torches, and drums, to cut down the tangled jungle growth that made entering the cave difficult. He first saw ceilings with beautiful and artistically drawn faces on them, then he noticed monastic halls which helped him identify their Buddhist origin. He then deliberately damaged an image on the wall by scratching his name and the date over the painting of a bodhisattva. Since he stood on a five-foot high pile of rubble collected over the years, the inscription is well above the eye-level gaze of an adult today. A paper on the caves by William Erskine was read to the Bombay Literary Society in 1822.
|
Within a few decades, the caves became famous for their exotic setting, impressive architecture, and above all their exceptional and unique paintings. A number of large projects to copy the paintings were made in the century after rediscovery. In 1848, the Royal Asiatic Society established the "Bombay Cave Temple Commission" to clear, tidy and record the most important rock-cut sites in the Bombay Presidency, with John Wilson as president. In 1861 this became the nucleus of the new Archaeological Survey of India.
During the colonial era, the Ajanta site was in the territory of the princely state of the Hyderabad and not British India. In the early 1920s, Mir Osman Ali Khan, the last Nizam of Hyderabad, appointed people to restore the artwork, converted the site into a museum and built a road to bring tourists to the site for a fee. These efforts resulted in early mismanagement, states Richard Cohen, and hastened the deterioration of the site. Post-independence, the state government of Maharashtra built arrival, transport, facilities, and better site management. The modern Visitor Center has good parking facilities and public conveniences and ASI operated buses run at regular intervals from Visitor Center to the caves.
|
The Nizam's Director of Archaeology obtained the services of two experts from Italy, Professor Lorenzo Cecconi, assisted by Count Orsini, to restore the paintings in the caves. The Director of Archaeology for the last Nizam of Hyderabad said of the work of Cecconi and Orsini:
Despite these efforts, later neglect led to the paintings degrading in quality once again.
Since 1983, Ajanta caves have been listed among the UNESCO World Heritage Sites of India.
The Ajanta Caves, along with the Ellora Caves, have become the most popular tourist destination in Maharashtra, and are often crowded at holiday times, increasing the threat to the caves, especially the paintings. In 2012, the Maharashtra Tourism Development Corporation announced plans to add to the ASI visitor centre at the entrance complete replicas of caves 1, 2, 16 & 17 to reduce crowding in the originals, and enable visitors to receive a better visual idea of the paintings, which are dimly-lit and hard to read in the caves.
Sites and monasteries.
Sites.
|
The caves are carved out of flood basalt and granite rock of a cliff, part of the Deccan Traps formed by successive volcanic eruptions at the end of the Cretaceous geological period. The rock is layered horizontally, and somewhat variable in quality. This variation within the rock layers required the artists to amend their carving methods and plans in places. The inhomogeneity in the rock has also led to cracks and collapses in the centuries that followed, as with the lost portico to cave 1. Excavation began by cutting a narrow tunnel at roof level, which was expanded downwards and outwards; as evidenced by some of the incomplete caves such as the partially-built "vihara" caves 21 through 24 and the abandoned incomplete cave 28.
The sculpture artists likely worked at both excavating the rocks and making the intricate carvings of pillars, roof, and idols; further, the sculpture and painting work inside a cave were integrated parallel tasks. A grand gateway to the site was carved, at the apex of the gorge's horseshoe between caves 15 and 16, as approached from the river, and it is decorated with elephants on either side and a nāga, or protective Naga (snake) deity. Similar methods and application of artist talent is observed in other cave temples of India, such as those from Hinduism and Jainism. These include the Ellora Caves, Ghototkacha Caves, Elephanta Caves, Bagh Caves, Badami Caves, Aurangabad Caves and Shivleni Caves.
|
The caves from the first period seem to have been paid for by a number of different patrons to gain merit, with several inscriptions recording the donation of particular portions of a single cave. The later caves were each commissioned as a complete unit by a single patron from the local rulers or their court elites, again for merit in Buddhist afterlife beliefs as evidenced by inscriptions such as those in Cave 17. After the death of Harisena, smaller donors motivated by getting merit added small "shrinelets" between the caves or add statues to existing caves, and some two hundred of these "intrusive" additions were made in sculpture, with a further number of intrusive paintings, up to three hundred in cave 10 alone.
Monasteries.
The majority of the caves are "vihara" halls with symmetrical square plans. To each vihara hall are attached smaller square dormitory cells cut into the walls. A vast majority of the caves were carved in the second period, wherein a shrine or sanctuary is appended at the rear of the cave, centred on a large statue of the Buddha, along with exuberantly detailed reliefs and deities near him as well as on the pillars and walls, all carved out of the natural rock. This change reflects the shift from Hinayana to Mahāyāna Buddhism. These caves are often called monasteries.
|
The central square space of the interior of the viharas is defined by square columns forming a more-or-less square open area. Outside this are long rectangular aisles on each side, forming a kind of cloister. Along the side and rear walls are a number of small cells entered by a narrow doorway; these are roughly square, and have small niches on their back walls. Originally they had wooden doors. The centre of the rear wall has a larger shrine-room behind, containing a large Buddha statue.
The viharas of the earlier period are much simpler, and lack shrines. Spink places the change to a design with a shrine to the middle of the second period, with many caves being adapted to add a shrine in mid-excavation, or after the original phase.
The plan of Cave 1 shows one of the largest viharas, but is fairly typical of the later group. Many others, such as Cave 16, lack the vestibule to the shrine, which leads straight off the main hall. Cave 6 is two viharas, one above the other, connected by internal stairs, with sanctuaries on both levels.
|
Worship halls.
The other type of main hall architecture is the narrower rectangular plan with high arched ceiling type "chaitya-griha" – literally, "the house of stupa". This hall is longitudinally divided into a nave and two narrower side aisles separated by a symmetrical row of pillars, with a stupa in the apse. The stupa is surrounded by pillars and concentric walking space for circumambulation. Some of the caves have elaborate carved entrances, some with large windows over the door to admit light. There is often a colonnaded porch or verandah, with another space inside the doors running the width of the cave. The oldest worship halls at Ajanta were built in the 2nd to 1st century BCE, the newest ones in the late 5th century CE, and the architecture of both resembles the architecture of a Christian church, but without the crossing or chapel chevette. The Ajanta Caves follow the Cathedral-style architecture found in still older rock-cut cave carvings of ancient India, such as the Lomas Rishi Cave of the Ajivikas near Gaya in Bihar dated to the 3rd century BCE. These chaitya-griha are called worship or prayer halls.
|
The four completed "chaitya" halls are caves 9 and 10 from the early period, and caves 19 and 26 from the later period of construction. All follow the typical form found elsewhere, with high ceilings and a central "nave" leading to the stupa, which is near the back, but allows walking behind it, as walking around stupas was (and remains) a common element of Buddhist worship ("pradakshina"). The later two have high ribbed roofs carved into the rock, which reflect timber forms, and the earlier two are thought to have used actual timber ribs and are now smooth, the original wood presumed to have perished. The two later halls have a rather unusual arrangement (also found in Cave 10 at Ellora) where the stupa is fronted by a large relief sculpture of the Buddha, standing in Cave 19 and seated in Cave 26. Cave 29 is a late and very incomplete "chaitya" hall.
The form of columns in the work of the first period is very plain and un-embellished, with both "chaitya" halls using simple octagonal columns, which were later painted with images of the Buddha, people and monks in robes. In the second period columns were far more varied and inventive, often changing profile over their height, and with elaborate carved capitals, often spreading wide. Many columns are carved over all their surface with floral motifs and Mahayana deities, some fluted and others carved with decoration all over, as in cave 1.
|
Paintings.
Most of the Ajanta caves, and almost all the murals paintings date from nearly 600 years later, during a second phase of construction. The paintings in the Ajanta caves predominantly narrate the Jataka tales. These are Buddhist legends describing the previous births of the Buddha. These fables embed ancient morals and cultural lores that are also found in the fables and legends of Hindu and Jain texts. The Jataka tales are exemplified through the life example and sacrifices that the Buddha made in hundreds of his past incarnations, where he is depicted as having been reborn as an animal or human.
Mural paintings survive from both the earlier and later groups of caves. Several fragments of murals preserved from the earlier caves (Caves 10 and 11) are effectively unique survivals of ancient painting in India from this period, and "show that by Sātavāhana times, if not earlier, the Indian painters had mastered an easy and fluent naturalistic style, dealing with large groups of people in a manner comparable to the reliefs of the Sāñcī toraņa crossbars". Some connections with the art of Gandhara can also be noted, and there is evidence of a shared artistic idiom.
|
Four of the later caves have large and relatively well-preserved mural paintings which, states James Harle, "have come to represent Indian mural painting to the non-specialist", and represent "the great glories not only of Gupta but of all Indian art". They fall into two stylistic groups, with the most famous in Caves 16 and 17, and apparently later paintings in Caves 1 and 2. The latter group were thought to be a century or later than the others, but the revised chronology proposed by Spink would place them in the 5th century as well, perhaps contemporary with it in a more progressive style, or one reflecting a team from a different region. The Ajanta frescos are classical paintings and the work of confident artists, without cliches, rich and full. They are luxurious, sensuous and celebrate physical beauty, aspects that early Western observers felt were shockingly out of place in these caves presumed to be meant for religious worship and ascetic monastic life.
The paintings are in "dry fresco", painted on top of a dry plaster surface rather than into wet plaster. All the paintings appear to be the work of painters supported by discriminating connoisseurship and sophisticated patrons from an urban atmosphere. We know from literary sources that painting was widely practised and appreciated in the Gupta period. Unlike much Indian mural painting, compositions are not laid out in horizontal bands like a frieze, but show large scenes spreading in all directions from a single figure or group at the centre. The ceilings are also painted with sophisticated and elaborate decorative motifs, many derived from sculpture. The paintings in cave 1, which according to Spink was commissioned by Harisena himself, concentrate on those Jataka tales which show previous lives of the Buddha as a king, rather than as deer or elephant or another Jataka animal. The scenes depict the Buddha as about to renounce the royal life.
|
In general the later caves seem to have been painted on finished areas as excavating work continued elsewhere in the cave, as shown in caves 2 and 16 in particular. According to Spink's account of the chronology of the caves, the abandonment of work in 478 after a brief busy period accounts for the absence of painting in places including cave 4 and the shrine of cave 17, the later being plastered in preparation for paintings that were never done.
Spink's chronology and cave history.
Walter Spink has over recent decades developed a very precise and circumstantial chronology for the second period of work on the site, which unlike earlier scholars, he places entirely in the 5th century. This is based on evidence such as the inscriptions and artistic style, dating of nearby cave temple sites, comparative chronology of the dynasties, combined with the many uncompleted elements of the caves. He believes the earlier group of caves, which like other scholars he dates only approximately, to the period "between 100 BCE – 100 CE", were at some later point completely abandoned and remained so "for over three centuries". This changed during the Hindu emperor Harishena of the Vakataka Dynasty, who reigned from 460 to his death in 477, who sponsored numerous new caves during his reign. Harisena's rule extended the Central Indian Vakataka Empire to include a stretch of the east coast of India; the Gupta Empire ruled northern India at the same period, and the Pallava dynasty much of the south.
|
According to Spink, Harisena encouraged a group of associates, including his prime minister Varahadeva and Upendragupta, the sub-king in whose territory Ajanta was, to dig out new caves, which were individually commissioned, some containing inscriptions recording the donation. This activity began in many caves simultaneously about 462. This activity was mostly suspended in 468 because of threats from the neighbouring Asmaka kings. Thereafter work continued on only Caves 1, Harisena's own commission, and 17–20, commissioned by Upendragupta. In 472 the situation was such that work was suspended completely, in a period that Spink calls "the Hiatus", which lasted until about 475, by which time the Asmakas had replaced Upendragupta as the local rulers.
Work was then resumed, but again disrupted by Harisena's death in 477, soon after which major excavation ceased, except at cave 26, which the Asmakas were sponsoring themselves. The Asmakas launched a revolt against Harisena's son, which brought about the end of the Vakataka Dynasty. In the years 478–480 CE major excavation by important patrons was replaced by a rash of "intrusions" – statues added to existing caves, and small shrines dotted about where there was space between them. These were commissioned by less powerful individuals, some monks, who had not previously been able to make additions to the large excavations of the rulers and courtiers. They were added to the facades, the return sides of the entrances, and to walls inside the caves. According to Spink, "After 480, not a single image was ever made again at the site". However, there exists a Rashtrakuta inscription outside of cave 26 dateable to end of seventh or early 8th century, suggesting the caves were not abandoned until then.
|
Spink does not use "circa" in his dates, but says that "one should allow a margin of error of one year or perhaps even two in all cases".
Hindu and Buddhist sponsorship.
The Ajanta Caves were built in a period when both the Buddha and the Hindu gods were simultaneously revered in Indian culture. According to Spink and other scholars, the royal Vakataka sponsors of the Ajanta Caves probably worshipped both Hindu and Buddhist gods. This is evidenced by inscriptions in which these rulers, who are otherwise known as Hindu devotees, made Buddhist dedications to the caves. According to Spink,
A terracotta plaque of Mahishasuramardini, also known as Durga, was also found in a burnt-brick vihara monastery facing the caves on the right bank of the river Waghora that has been recently excavated. This suggest that the deity was possibly under worship by the artisans. According to Yuko Yokoschi and Walter Spink, the excavated artifacts of the 5th century near the site suggest that the Ajanta caves deployed a huge number of builders.
|
Cave 1.
Cave 1 was built on the eastern end of the horseshoe-shaped scarp and is now the first cave the visitor encounters. This cave, when first made, would have been in a less prominent position, right at the end of the row. According to Spink, it is one of the last caves to have been excavated, when the best sites had been taken, and was never fully inaugurated for worship by the dedication of the Buddha image in the central shrine. This is shown by the absence of sooty deposits from butter lamps on the base of the shrine image, and the lack of damage to the paintings that would have happened if the garland-hooks around the shrine had been in use for any period of time. Spink states that the Vākāṭaka Emperor Harishena was the benefactor of the work, and this is reflected in the emphasis on imagery of royalty in the cave, with those Jataka tales being selected that tell of those previous lives of the Buddha in which he was royal.
The cliff has a steeper slope here than at other caves, so to achieve a tall grand facade it was necessary to cut far back into the slope, giving a large courtyard in front of the facade. There was originally a columned portico in front of the present facade, which can be seen "half-intact in the 1880s" in pictures of the site, but this fell down completely and the remains, despite containing fine carvings, were carelessly thrown down the slope into the river and lost.
|
This cave (35.7 m × 27.6 m) has one of the most elaborate carved facades, with relief sculptures on entablature and ridges, and most surfaces embellished with decorative carving. There are scenes carved from the life of the Buddha as well as a number of decorative motifs. A two-pillared portico, visible in the 19th-century photographs, has since perished. The cave has a forecourt with cells fronted by pillared vestibules on either side. These have a high plinth level. The cave has a porch with simple cells at both ends. The absence of pillared vestibules on the ends suggests that the porch was not excavated in the latest phase of Ajanta when pillared vestibules had become customary. Most areas of the porch were once covered with murals, of which many fragments remain, especially on the ceiling. There are three doorways: a central doorway and two side doorways. Two square windows were carved between the doorways to brighten the interiors.
Each wall of the hall inside is nearly long and high. Twelve pillars make a square colonnade inside, supporting the ceiling and creating spacious aisles along the walls. There is a shrine carved on the rear wall to house an impressive seated image of the Buddha, his hands being in the "dharmachakrapravartana mudra." There are four cells on each of the left, rear, and the right walls, though due to rock fault there are none at the ends of the rear aisle.
|
cover the walls and the ceilings. They are in a fair state of preservation, although the full scheme was never completed. The scenes depicted are mostly didactic, devotional, and ornamental, with scenes from the Jataka stories of the Buddha's former lives as a bodhisattva, the life of the Gautama Buddha, and those of his veneration. The two most famous individual painted images at Ajanta are the two over-lifesize figures of the protective bodhisattvas Padmapani and Vajrapani on either side of the entrance to the Buddha shrine on the wall of the rear aisle (see illustrations above). Other significant frescoes in Cave 1 include the Sibi, Sankhapala, Mahajanaka, Mahaummagga, and Champeyya Jataka tales. The cave-paintings also show the Temptation of Mara, the miracle of Sravasti where the Buddha simultaneously manifests in many forms, the story of Nanda, and the story of Siddhartha and Yasodhara.
Cave 2.
Cave 2, adjacent to Cave 1, is known for the paintings that have been preserved on its walls, ceilings, and pillars. It looks similar to Cave 1 and is in a better state of preservation. This cave is best known for its feminine focus, intricate rock carvings and paint artwork yet it is incomplete and lacks consistency. One of the 5th-century frescos in this cave also shows children at a school, with those in the front rows paying attention to the teacher, while those in the back row are shown distracted and acting.
|
Cave 2 (35.7 m × 21.6 m) was started in the 460s, but mostly carved between 475 and 477 CE, probably sponsored and influenced by a woman closely related to emperor Harisena. It has a porch quite different from Cave 1. Even the façade carvings seem to be different. The cave is supported by robust pillars, ornamented with designs. The front porch consists of cells supported by pillared vestibules on both ends.
The hall has four colonnades which are supporting the ceiling and surrounding a square in the center of the hall. Each arm or colonnade of the square is parallel to the respective walls of the hall, making an aisle in between. The colonnades have rock-beams above and below them. The capitals are carved and painted with various decorative themes that include ornamental, human, animal, vegetative, and semi-divine motifs. Major carvings include that of goddess Hariti. She is a Buddhist deity who originally was the demoness of smallpox and a child eater, who the Buddha converted into a guardian goddess of fertility, easy child birth and one who protects babies.
|
have been widely published. They depict the Hamsa, Vidhurapandita, Ruru, Kshanti Jataka tales and the Purna Avadhana. Other frescos show the miracle of Sravasti, Ashtabhaya Avalokitesvara and the dream of Maya. Just as the stories illustrated in cave 1 emphasise kingship, those in cave 2 show many noble and powerful women in prominent roles, leading to suggestions that the patron was an unknown woman. The porch's rear wall has a doorway in the center, which allows entrance to the hall. On either side of the door is a square-shaped window to brighten the interior.
Cave 3.
Cave 3 is merely a start of an excavation; according to Spink it was begun right at the end of the final period of work and soon abandoned.
This is an incomplete monastery and only the preliminary excavations of pillared veranda exist. The cave was one of the last projects to start at the site. Its date could be ascribed to circa 477 CE, just before the sudden death of Emperor Harisena. The work stopped after the scooping out of a rough entrance of the hall.
|
Cave 4.
Cave 4, a Vihara, was sponsored by Mathura, likely not a noble or courtly official, rather a wealthy devotee. This is the largest vihara in the inaugural group, which suggests he had immense wealth and influence without being a state official. It is placed at a significantly higher level, possibly because the artists realized that the rock quality at the lower and same level of other caves was poor and they had a better chance of a major vihara at an upper location. Another likely possibility is that the planners wanted to carve into the rock another large cistern to the left courtside for more residents, mirroring the right, a plan implied by the height of the forward cells on the left side.
The Archaeological Survey of India dates it to the 6th century CE. Spink, in contrast, dates this cave's inauguration a century earlier, to about 463 CE, based on construction style and other inscriptions. Cave 4 shows evidence of a dramatic collapse of its ceiling in the central hall, likely in the 6th century, something caused by the vastness of the cave and geological flaws in the rock. Later, the artists attempted to overcome this geological flaw by raising the height of the ceiling through deeper excavation of the embedded basalt lava.
|
The cave has a squarish plan, houses a colossal image of the Buddha in preaching pose flanked by bodhisattvas and celestial nymphs hovering above. It consists, of a verandah, a hypostylar hall, sanctum with an antechamber and a series of unfinished cells. This monastery is the largest among the Ajanta caves and it measures nearly (35 m × 28 m). The door frame is exquisitely sculpted flanking to the right is carved Bodhisattva as reliever of Eight Great Perils. The rear wall of the veranda contains the panel of litany of Avalokiteśvara. The cave's ceiling collapse likely affected its overall plan, caused it being left incomplete. Only the Buddha's statue and the major sculptures were completed, and except for what the sponsor considered most important elements all other elements inside the cave were never painted.
Cave 5.
, an unfinished excavation, was planned as a monastery (10.32 × 16.8 m). Cave 5 is devoid of sculpture and architectural elements except the door frame. The ornate carvings on the frame has female figures with mythical "makara" creatures found in ancient and medieval-era Indian arts. The cave's construction was likely initiated about 465 CE but abandoned because the rock has geological flaws. The construction was resumed in 475 CE after Asmakas restarted work at the Ajanta caves, but abandoned again as the artists and sponsor redesigned and focussed on an expanded Cave 6 that abuts Cave 5.
|
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.