Stele N from Copán, Honduras, depicting King K'ac Yipyaj Chan K'awiil ("Smoke Shell"), as drawn by Frederick Catherwood in 1839

Ancient Greek funerary stele of Thrasea and Euandria. Marble, ca. 375-350 BC. Antikensammlung Berlin, Pergamon Museum, 738

A stele ( /ˈstiːliː/, historically /ˈstiːl/; Greek: στήλη stēlē; plural: στήλες stēlēz),^[1] also stela (plural stelae /ˈstiːlaɪ/) Latin,^[1] is a stone or wooden slab, generally taller than it is wide, erected for funerals or commemorative purposes, most usually decorated with the names and titles of the deceased or living — inscribed, carved in relief (bas-relief, sunken-relief, high-relief, and so forth), or painted onto the slab. It can also be used as a territorial marker to delineate land ownership.

History[link]

Stelae were also used as territorial markers, as the boundary stelae of Akhenaton at Amarna,^[2] or to commemorate military victories.^[3] They were widely used in the Ancient Near East, Mesopotamia, Greece, Egypt, Ethiopia, and, most likely independently, in China and elsewhere in the Far East, and, more surely independently, by Mesoamerican civilisations, notably the Olmec^[4] and Maya.^[5] The huge number of stelae surviving from ancient Egypt and in Central America constitute one of the largest and most significant sources of information on those civilisations. An informative stele of Tiglath-Pileser III is preserved in the British Museum. Two stelae built into the walls of a church are major documents relating to the Etruscan language.

Unfinished standing stones, set up without inscriptions from Libya in North Africa to Scotland were monuments of pre-literate Megalithic cultures in the Late Stone Age. The Pictish stones of Scotland, often intricately carved, date from between the 6th and 9th centuries.

An obelisk is a specialized kind of stele. The Insular high crosses of Ireland and Britain are specialized stelae. Likewise, the Totem pole of North and South America is a type of stelae. Gravestones with inscribed epitaph are also kinds of stelae.

Most recently, in the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin, the architect Peter Eisenman created a field of some 2,700 blank stelae.^[6] The memorial is meant to be read not only as the field, but also as an erasure of data that refer to memory of the Holocaust.

China[link]

Stelae (Chinese: 碑; pinyin: béi) have been the major medium of stone inscription in China since the Tang dynasty.^[7] Chinese stelae are generally rectangular stone tablets upon which Chinese characters are carved intaglio with a funerary, commemorative, or edifying text. They can commemorate talented writers and officials, inscribe poems, portraits, or maps, and frequently contain the calligraphy of famous historical figures.^[8]

Chinese stelae from before the Tang dynasty are rare: there are a handful from before the Qin dynasty, roughly a dozen from the Western Han, 160 from the Eastern Han, and several hundred from the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern dynasties, and Sui dynasty.^[9] During the Han dynasty, tomb inscriptions (Chinese: 墓誌; pinyin: mùzhì) containing biographical information on deceased people began to be written on stone tablets rather than wooden ones.^[9]

Erecting stelae at tombs or temples eventually became a widespread social and religious phenomenon. Emperors found it necessary to promulgate laws, regulating the use of funerary stelae by the population. The Ming Dynasty laws, instituted in the 14th century by its founder the Hongwu Emperor, listed a number of stele types available as status symbols to various ranks of the nobility and officialdom: the top noblemen and mandarins were eligible for stelae installed on top of a stone tortoise and crowned with hornless dragons, while the lower-level officials had to be satisfied with steles with plain rounded tops, standing on simple rectangular pedestals.^[10]

Stelae are found at nearly every significant mountain and historical site in China. The First Emperor made five tours of his domain in the third century BC and had Li Si make seven stone inscriptions commemorating and praising his work, of which fragments of two survive.^[11] One of the most famous mountain stelae is the 13 m (43 ft) high stele at Mount Tai with the personal calligraphy of Emperor Xuanzong of Tang commemorating his imperial sacrifices there in 725.^[11]

A number of such stone monuments have preserved the origin and history of China's minority religious communities. The 8th-century Christians of Xi'an left behind the Nestorian Stele, which survived adverse events of the later history by being buried underground for several centuries. Steles created by the Kaifeng Jews in 1489, 1512, and 1663, have survived the repeated flooding of the Yellow River that destroyed their synagogue several times, to tell us something about their world. China's Muslim have a number of steles of considerable antiquity as well, often containing both Chinese and Arabic text.

Thousands of steles, surplus to the original requirements, and no longer associated with the person they were erected for or to, have been assembled in Xi'an's Stele Forest Museum, which is a popular tourist attraction. Elsewhere, many unwanted steles can also be found in selected places in Beijing, such as Dong Yue Miao, the Five Pagoda Temple, and the Bell Tower, again assembled to attract tourists and also as a means of solving the problem faced by local authorities of what to do with them. The long, wordy, and detailed inscriptions on these steles are almost impossible to read for most are lightly engraved on white marble in characters only an inch or so in size, thus being difficult to see since the slabs are often ten or more feet tall.

There are more than 100,000 surviving stone inscriptions in China, but only approximately 30,000 have been transcribed or had rubbings made, and fewer than those 30,000 have been formally studied.^[9]

Notable stelae[link]

Victory stele of Naram-Sin, a 23rd century BC Mesopotamian king.

• Axumite Stele
• Stele of Naram-Sin
• Code of Hammurabi
• Gwanggaeto Stele
• Kul Tigin memorial stele inscribed in Chinese and Turkic
• Nestorian Stele
• Ukrainian stone stela
• Lemnos stela
• Lapis Niger
• For Israel/Egypt:
  • Merneptah Stele
  • Mesha Stele
• For Egypt:
  • Rosetta Stone
  • Boundary Stelae of Akhenaten
  • Palermo stone
  • The Stele of Ankh-ef-en-Khonsu
• For Sub-Saharan Africa:
  • Axumite Stele
  • Gao-Saney
• In the Western Hemisphere:
  • Peru: Raimondi Stela
  • Mexico: Stela C at Tres Zapotes
  • Mexico: Izapa Stela 5
  • Mexico: La Mojarra Stela 1
  • Guatemala: Stele 14 from Piedras Negras
  • Honduras: Stele H from Copan
• Vietnam: the Doctorate stelae at the Temple of Literature

Gallery[link]

• 

  Anthropomorphic stele no 25, Sion, Petit-Chasseur necropolis, Neolithic

• 

  Ancient Egyptian funerary stele

• 

  Healing stele of Horus-(a Cippus of Horus). Ptolemaic dynasty, c. 305-30 BC.

• 

  Sueno's Stone in Forres, Scotland

• 

  Maya stela, Quirigua

• 

  Kildalton Cross 800 AD Islay, Scotland

• 

  Cantabrian stelae 200 BC Cantabria, Spain

• 

  The Rosetta Stone in the British Museum

• 

  A Buddhist Stele from China, Northern Wei period, built in the early 6th century

• 

  Scythian 5th–4th c.BC. Salbyk kurgan surrounded by balbals with kurgan obelisk on the top. Upper Enisey-Irtysh interfluvial

• Shaolinstele.jpg

  1517 Shaolin stele dedicated to the mythical legend of Vajrapani's defeat of the Red Turban rebels. The Bodhisattva Guanyin (his original form) can be seen in the clouds above his head.^[12]

• 

  Stele from Philippi Archeology Museum

See also[link]

Ancient Near East portal

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Steles

• Hilarri or Basque steles
• Inscription
• Kurgan stelae
• Monumental inscription
• Runestone
• Stećci
• Stele Forest, in Xi'an, China
• Stele of the Vultures
• Totem pole
• Tombstone

References[link]

Citations

1. ^ ^{a b} Oxford English Dictionary
2. ^ Memoirs By Egypt Exploration Society Archaeological Survey of Egypt 1908, p. 19
3. ^ e.g., Piye's victory stela (M. Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature Vol 3, The University of California Press 1980, pp.66ff) or Shalmaneser's stela at Saluria (Boardman, op.cit, p.335)
4. ^ Pool, op.cit., p.265
5. ^ Pool, op.cit., p.277
6. ^ Till (2005): 168.
7. ^ Endymion Wilkinson, Chinese History: A Manual (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard-Yenching Institute, 2000): 436.
8. ^ Wilkinson (2000): 436-437.
9. ^ ^{a b c} Wilkinson (2000): 437.
10. ^ de Groot, Jan Jakob Maria (1892), The Religious System of China, II, Brill Archive, pp. 451–452, http://www.archive.org/stream/religioussystem01groogoog#page/n105/mode/1up .
11. ^ ^{a b} Wilkinson (2000): 438.
12. ^ Shahar, Meir. The Shaolin Monastery: History, Religion, and the Chinese Martial Arts. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2008 (ISBN 0824831101), pp. 35-36

Bibliography

• Boardman, John, ed. The Cambridge Ancient History, Part 1, 2nd Edition, (ISBN 9780521224963 | ISBN 0-521-22496-9)
• Pool, Christopher A. Olmec Archaeology and Early Mesoamerica. Cambridge University Press, 2007 (ISBN 9780521783125)
• Till, Karen E. The New Berlin: Memory, Politics, Place. University of Minnesota Press, 2005
• Wilkinson, Endymion (2000), Chinese History: A Manual (2nd ed.), Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard-Yenching Institute, ISBN 0674002490. 

External links[link]

• Funerary Stela

Tito Schipa.

Tito Schipa (27 December 1888 – 16 December 1965) was an Italian tenor. He is considered one of the finest tenori di grazia in operatic history. He was endowed with a natural, sensuous voice which he deployed with great intelligence and taste.

Biography[link]

Schipa was born Raffaele Attilio Amedeo Schipa in Lecce into an Arbëreshë family^[1]; his birthday was recorded as January 2, 1889 for military conscription purposes.^[2] He studied in Milan and made his operatic debut at age 21 in 1910 at Vercelli. He subsequently appeared throughout Italy and in Buenos Aires in Argentina. In 1917, he created the role of Ruggiero in Puccini's La rondine.

In 1919, Schipa travelled to the United States, joining the Chicago Opera Company. He remained with the Chicago company until 1932, whereupon he appeared at the New York Metropolitan Opera from 1932 to 1935, and again in 1941. He also sang at the San Francisco Opera, beginning in 1924.

From 1929 to 1949 he performed regularly in Italy, including at La Scala, Milan and the Rome Opera. He returned to Buenos Aires to sing in 1954. In 1957, he toured the Soviet Union.

Schipa's artistry is preserved on film. For example, in 1929 he appeared in a Vitaphone movie short, singing "M'appari tutt'amor" from Flotow's opera Martha.

Schipa's stage repertoire, which in his early career had encompassed a wide range of Verdi and Puccini roles, eventually contracted to about 20 congenial Italian and French operatic roles, including Massenet's Werther, Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore and Cilea's L'arlesiana. In concert, Schipa performed a preferred array of lyrical operatic arias and songs, including Neapolitan and Spanish popular songs. He delivered each of them with an infectious spirit and a refined sense of style.

Schipa made numerous audio recordings of arias and songs during his career, beginning in Italy in 1913. His recorded output included a famous 78-rpm set of Donizetti's Don Pasquale, made in 1932. This was one of the earliest complete opera recordings and it is still in circulation on CD.

Like his contemporary Richard Tauber, Tito Schipa was an early exponent of that rare breed of tenor who also conducts. (Latterly, Plácido Domingo carries on that tradition.) Although some contemporary critics considered Schipa's voice to be small in size, restricted in range and slightly husky in timbre, he was still capable of provoking intense public outpourings of support among his legion of fans. These fans were enthralled by Schipa's superior musicianship, as well as by his winning personality and his ability to breathe life into even the most trite song or hackneyed aria. Michael Scott (The Record of Singing: 1978), while admiring Schipa's charm and taste, points out that it is not correct to say that Schipa was a master of bel canto; indeed Scott and others regard Schipa's recording of "Il mio tesoro" from Mozart's Don Giovanni as one of the worst ever made, with sloppy runs and sketchy ornamentation. To be fair Schipa himself did not claim to be an exponent of the bel canto style.

Although he undertook concert engagements until 1962, Schipa retired from the operatic stage in 1958 to teach voice, firstly in Budapest. He died from diabetes in 1965 at the age of 77 in New York City, while teaching there.

He was a National Patron of Delta Omicron, an international professional music fraternity.^[3]

References[link]

• Tito Schipa (Grandi Tenori.com) - GrandiTenori's site on Schipa.

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Tito Schipa

• TitoSchipa.it - English version of the Italian site run by the Schipa family.
• Tito Schipa at the Internet Movie Database.
• YouTube - Tito Schipa sings "Una furtiva lagrima" from L'elisir D'amore - A 1929 video of Schipa singing the aria "Una furtiva lagrima" from Gaetano Donizetti's L'elisir D'amore.
• History of the Tenor - Sound Clips and Narration

Naram-Sin
Naram-Sin depicted on his victory stele
Born	Naram-Sin
Other names	Naram-Suen
Predecessor	Manishtushu
Successor	Shar-Kali-Sharri
Children	Shar-Kali-Sharri
Parents	Manishtushu (father) unknown mother
Relatives	Sargon of Akkad (grandfather) Tashlultum (grandmother) Rimush (uncle) En-hedu-ana (aunt)

Naram-Sin (also transcribed Narām-Sîn, Naram-Suen, Sin or Suen being the Akkadians' moon god equivalent to the Sumerian Nanna), reigned ca. 2254–2218 BCE, middle chronology, was the third successor and grandson of King Sargon of Akkad. Under Naram-Sin the Akkadian Empire reached its zenith. He was the first Mesopotamian king known to have claimed divinity for himself, and one of the first (following the earlier Lugal-Anne-Mundu) to be called "King of the Four Quarters".

Biography[link]

Naram-Sin was born as a son of Manishtushu. He was thus a nephew of King Rimush and grandson of Sargon and Tashlultum. Naram-Sin's aunt was the High Priestess En-hedu-ana.

Reign[link]

Naram-Sin traded with Meluhha (possibly corresponding to the Indus Valley civilization), and controlled a large portion of land along the Persian Gulf. He expanded his empire by defeating the King of Magan at the southern end of the Persian Gulf, and conquering the hill tribes to the north in the Taurus Mountains. His famous "Victory Stele" depicts his triumph over Satuni, chief of Lullubi in the Zagros Mountains. The king list gives the length of his reign as 56 years, and at least 20 of his year-names are known, referring to military actions against various places such as Uruk and Subartu. One unknown year was recorded as "the Year when Naram-Sin was victorious against Simurrum in Kirasheniwe, and took prisoner Baba the governor of Simurrum, and Dubul the ensi of Arame".^[1] Other year names refer to his construction work on temples in Akkad, Nippur, and Zabala. He also built administrative centers at Nagar and Nineveh.

One Mesopotamian myth has it that the goddess Inanna abandoned the former capital of Akkad following Naram-Sin's plunder of the Ekur (temple of the god Enlil) in Nippur. In his anger, Enlil brought the Gutians down from the hills east of the Tigris, to bring plague, famine and death throughout Mesopotamia. To prevent this destruction, eight of the gods decreed that the city of Akkad should be destroyed to spare the remaining cities. While this story may be mythological, it does suggest that Gutian raids were already beginning during this period.^{[citation needed]}

Soon after the death of Naram-Sin, the Akkadian Empire came under increasing pressure from Gutian incursions. By around 2124 BC, all Akkad was in the hands of the Gutians. The Gutians remained there for 125 years before being replaced by the Ur III state as the dominant political power.^[2][3]

Victory stele[link]

The Victory stele of Naram-Sin

Naram-Sin's famed victory stele depicts him as a god-king (symbolized by his horned helmet) climbing a mountain above his soldiers, and his enemies, the defeated Lullubi. Although the stele was broken off at the top when it was stolen and carried off by the Elamites, it still strikingly reveals the pride, glory, and divinity of Naram-Sin. The stele broke from tradition by using successive diagonal tiers, rather than a horizontal format, to communicate the story to viewers. It is six feet and seven inches tall, and made from pink sandstone.^[4] The stele was found at Susa, and is now in the Louvre Museum.^[5] A similar bas-relief depicting Naram-Sin was found a few miles north-east of Diarbekr, at Pir Hüseyin.

Children[link]

The only known son of Naram-Sin was his successor Shar-Kali-Sharri.

See also[link]

Ancient Near East portal

• Bassetki statue
• History of Sumer
• Sumerian king list

References[link]

Sources[link]

• H.W.F. Saggs, The Babylonians, Fourth Printing, 1988, Macmillan Publishers Ltd.
• J. P. Naab, E. Unger, Die Entdeckung der Stele des Naram-Sin in Pir Hüseyin, Istanbul Asariatika Nesriyati XII (1934)[1].

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Naram-Suen

• Victory Stele of Naram-Sin

Michael Harbison
Harbison in 2005
78th Lord Mayor of Adelaide
Preceded by	Alfred Huang
Succeeded by	Stephen Yarwood
Personal details
Born	(1953-06-16) 16 June 1953 (age 59)
Nationality	Australian

Michael John Henry Harbison (born 16 June 1953) was the Lord Mayor of Adelaide, South Australia from 2003 to 2010.^[1]

Before becoming Lord Mayor, he was a successful businessman and has been a Councillor since 1998.^[2]

In 2002 Harbison ran as Liberal candidate for the state seat of Adelaide^[3] and was defeated by Jane Lomax Smith.^[4]

References[link]

This article about a Liberal Party of Australia politician is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

This article about a mayor in Australia is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

Phillip Houghton (born 1954) is an Australian classical guitarist and composer. Born in Melbourne, he began studying music at the age of 20 at Melba Conservatorium of Music. After a year, he then began studying privately with well-known classical pianist and guitarist Sebastian Jorgenson at the Montsalvat Artists Colony in Eltham, Victoria.^[1]

Houghton has had little compositional training, however his music has achieved critical acclaim. In particular, his piece Stele was recorded by John Williams in his 1998 album "The Guitarist".^[2]

References[link]

1. ^ http://www.australianmusiccentre.com.au/artist/houghton-phillip
2. ^ http://www.philliphoughton.com.au/bio_page.htm