Judea

Sunday, 03 February 2013

Judea - A virgin unspotted, by William Billings (1746-1800)

Judea Pearl Tribute Symposium: Causality

Video about the 1933 New York Times (and other newspapers) headline

The Pentecostals Of Alexandria - Lion of Judea - Lyrics (HQ)

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Accona Desert
The Accona Desert (Italian: Deserto di Accona) is a semi-arid area in Tuscany, Italy, in the center of the so-called Crete senesi, near the comune of Asciano. It is characterized by calanques and dome-shaped formations locally known as biancane (deriving from Italian bianco, white, due to their light shade).
Due to yearly rain amounting to no more than 600 mm (24 in), cultivations take advantage of a large irrigation system.
The desert houses the medieval abbey of Monte Oliveto Maggiore.

Coordinates: 43°11′44.19″N 11°34′22.43″E / 43.1956083°N 11.5728972°E / 43.1956083; 11.5728972

wn.com/Accona_Desert
Aelia Capitolina
Aelia Capitolina (^{[pronunciation?]}; Latin in full: Colonia Aelia Capitolina) was a city built by the emperor Hadrian, and occupied by a Roman colony, on the site of Jerusalem, which was in ruins since 70 AD, leading in part to the Bar Kokhba revolt of 132–136.
Jerusalem was still in ruins from the First Jewish-Roman War in 70 AD. Josephus, a contemporary, reports that "Jerusalem ... was so thoroughly razed to the ground by those that demolished it to its foundations, that nothing was left that could ever persuade visitors that it had once been a place of habitation."
When the Roman Emperor Hadrian vowed to rebuild Jerusalem from the wreckage in 130 AD, he considered reconstructing Jerusalem as a gift for the Jewish people. The Jews awaited with hope, but then after Hadrian visited Jerusalem, he decided to rebuild the city as a Roman colony which would be inhabited by his legionnaires. Hadrian's new plans included temples to the major regional deities, and certain Roman gods, in particular Jupiter Capitolinus. Jews secretly started putting aside arms from the Roman munitions workshops; soon after, a revolt broke out under Simeon ben Kosiba. This Bar Kokhba revolt, which the Romans managed to suppress, enraged Hadrian, and he came to be determined to erase Judaism from the province. Circumcision was forbidden, Iudaea province was renamed Syria Palaestina and Jews were banned from entering the city on pain of death.

wn.com/Aelia_Capitolina
Alfei Menashe
Alfei Menashe (Hebrew: אַלְפֵי מְנַשֶׁה‎‎) is an Israeli settlement located in the seam zone on the western edge of the central West Bank. It was granted local council status in 1987. As of 2007, the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics counts 6,200 residents. The international community considers Israeli settlements in the West Bank illegal under international law, but the Israeli government disputes this.
The town's proximity to the Green Line (less than 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) east) and its similar proximity to the Palestinian Arab town of Qalqilyah has made its inclusion on the Israeli side of the West Bank barrier controversial, especially as the looping nature of the barrier's path forms a quasi-enclave of some Palestinian villages to its south. In September 2005, Israel's Supreme Court ruled that the government must consider re-routing the barrier in this area. Work was begun in the summer of 2009 (and is ongoing as of October 2009) to construct a new route for the barrier, which will no longer incorporate the Palestinian village of Ras al-Tira (and several other villages) on the Israeli side.

wn.com/Alfei_Menashe
Amargosa Desert
The Amargosa Desert is located in Nye County in western Nevada, United States, along the California–Nevada border. It is largely coincident with the geographic Amargosa Valley.
The desert is named after the Amargosa River, so-named for the Spanish word for bitter because of the bitter taste of the water.
The Amargosa Desert lies at an elevation of about 2,600 to 2,750 feet (790 to 840 m), and includes the community of Amargosa Valley, Nevada, (formerly Lathrop Wells), which lies at the southern end of the desert.
The desert lies between the Funeral Mountains and Death Valley to the west, and Yucca Mountain and the Nellis Air Force Range to the east.
The Amargosa Desert is an arid desert habitat and an ecotone between the northern Great Basin and southern Mojave Desert ecosystems and biogeography regions. The seasonal Amargosa River course runs through the desert, with the rare Shoshone pupfish in nearby Amargosa Pupfish Station of the Desert National Wildlife Refuge Complex.

Coordinates: 36°30′N 116°30′W / 36.5°N 116.5°W / 36.5; -116.5

wn.com/Amargosa_Desert
Antarctica
Antarctica

This map uses an orthographic projection, near-polar aspect. The South Pole is near the center, where longitudinal lines converge.
Antarctica (ⁱ/æntˈɑrtɨkə/ or /ænˈtɑːktɨkə/) is Earth's southernmost continent, containing the geographic South Pole. It is situated in the Antarctic region of the Southern Hemisphere, almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle, and is surrounded by the Southern Ocean. At 14.0 million km² (5.4 million sq mi), it is the fifth-largest continent in area after Asia, Africa, North America, and South America. For comparison, Antarctica is nearly twice the size of Australia. About 98% of Antarctica is covered by ice that averages at least 1 mile (1.6 km) in thickness.
Antarctica, on average, is the coldest, driest, and windiest continent, and has the highest average elevation of all the continents. Antarctica is considered a desert, with annual precipitation of only 200 mm (8 inches) along the coast and far less inland. The temperature in Antarctica has reached −89 °C (−129 °F). There are no permanent human residents, but anywhere from 1,000 to 5,000 people reside throughout the year at the research stations scattered across the continent. Only cold-adapted organisms survive there, including many types of algae, animals (for example mites, nematodes, penguins, seals and tardigrades), bacteria, fungi, plants, and protista. Vegetation where it occurs is tundra.

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Aralkum
Aralkum is the name given to the new desert that has appeared on the seabed once occupied by the Aral Sea. It lies to the south and east of what remains of the Aral Sea in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan.
While the level of the Aral Sea has fluctuated over its existence, the most recent level drop was caused by the former Soviet Union building massive irrigation projects in the region. The consequent severely reduced inflow subsequently caused the water level in the Aral Sea to drop. While the North Aral Sea is presently rising thanks to a dike, the South Aral Sea is still^[when?] dropping, thus expanding the size of the desert.
The sands of the Aralkum are made up of a salt-marsh consisting of finely-dispersed sea depositions and remnants of mineral deposits, washed away from irrigated fields. The dusts which originate from it contain pollutants. The desert's location on a powerful east-west airstream has resulted in pesticides in the dust being found in the blood of penguins in Antarctica. Aral dust has also been found in the glaciers of Greenland, the forests of Norway, and the fields of Russia.

wn.com/Aralkum
Atacama Desert
Coordinates: 24°30′S 69°15′W / 24.5°S 69.25°W / -24.5; -69.25
The Atacama Desert (Spanish: Desierto de Atacama) is a plateau in South America, covering a 600-mile (1,000 km) strip of land on the Pacific coast, west of the Andes mountains. It is, according to NASA, National Geographic and many other publications, the driest desert in the world. The Atacama occupies 40,600 square miles (105,000 km²) in northern Chile, composed mostly of salt basins (salares), sand, and felsic lava flows towards the Andes.
The Atacama Desert ecoregion, as defined by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), extends from a few kilometers south of the Peru-Chile border to about 30° south latitude. To the north lies the Peruvian Sechura Desert ecoregion, whilst to the south is the Chilean Matorral ecoregion.
The National Geographic Society, by contrast, considers the coastal area of southern Peru to be part of the Atacama Desert. It includes in this definition the deserts south of the Ica Region in Peru.
To the east lies the less arid Central Andean dry puna ecoregion. The drier portion of this ecoregion is located south of the Loa River between the parallel Sierra Vicuña Mackenna and Cordillera Domeyko. To the north of the mentioned river lies the Pampa del Tamarugal.

wn.com/Atacama_Desert
Badain Jaran Desert
Coordinates: 40°4′21″N 102°12′36″E / 40.0725°N 102.21°E / 40.0725; 102.21
The Badain Jaran Desert (Chinese: 巴丹吉林沙漠; pinyin: Bā dān jí lín Shā mò) is a desert in China which spans the provinces of Gansu, Ningxia and Inner Mongolia. It covers an area of 49,000 sq. kilometers (19,000 sq. miles).
This desert is home to the tallest stationary dunes on Earth. Some of the dunes reach a height of 500 meters (1,600 ft.). The dunes are kept in place in the arid, windy region by an underground water source. Analyses of the ground water indicates that it is snowmelt that flows through fractured rock from mountains hundreds of kilometers away.
The desert also features over 100 spring-fed lakes that lie between the dunes, some of which are fresh while others are extremely saline. These lakes give the desert its name which is Mongolian for "mysterious lakes". It is also crossed by one river, the Ruo Shui ("weak water"), which has formed a great alluvial plain in the desert.

wn.com/Badain_Jaran_Desert
Bardenas Reales
The Bárdenas Reales is a semi-desert natural region, or badlands, of some 42,000 hectares (100,000 acres) in southeast Navarre (Spain). The soils are made up of clay, chalk and sandstone and have been eroded by water and wind creating surprising shapes, canyons, plateaus, tabular structures and isolated hills, called seamounts. Bárdenas lacks urban areas, vegetation is scarce and the many streams that cross the territory have a markedly seasonal flow, staying dry most of the year.
The Bárdenas is in the southeast of Navarra, bordering Aragon. It is located in the middle of the depression of the Ebro valley at the foot of the mountains of the Yugo and the Zaragoza region of Cinco Villas. It is 45 km (28 mi) from north to south and 24 km (15 mi) east-west and at an altitude ranging between 280 and 659 m (920 and 2,162 ft). Its area is 41,845 hectares (103,400 acres). Limited to sixteen municipalities, of which thirteen are in Navarre and three in the province of Zaragoza. The Navarrese are Valtierra, Arguedas, Carcastillo, Santacara, Mélida, Rada, Caparroso, Villafranca, Cadreita, Tudela, Cabanillas, Fustiñana and Buñuel, while the Zaragozan are: Tauste, Ejea de los Caballeros and Sádaba.

wn.com/Bardenas_Reales
Beit El
Beit El (Hebrew: בֵּית אֵל‎‎) is an Israeli settlement and a local council in the Benjamin region of the central West Bank, within the borders of the Mateh Binyamin Regional Council. The religiously observant town is located in the hills north of Jerusalem east of the Palestinian city of al-Bireh. In 2009, it had a population of 5,308. The head of the local council is Moshe Rosenbaum. The international community considers Israeli settlements in the West Bank illegal under international law, but the Israeli government disputes this.
In Biblical times, Beit El was the site where Jacob slept and dreamt of the angels coming up and down a ladder (Genesis 28:19). Beit El has been identified with the ruins surrounding the Palestinian village of Beitin and with hilltop site of Pisgat Ya'akov.
Beit El was established in 1977, ten years after the Six Day War. Several families moved into the Israel Defense Forces base and others settled on nearby hilltops. In September 1997, Beit El was awarded local council status. 1,200 families now reside in Beit El, most affiliated with the Religious Zionist Movement. Its Ulpana neighbourhood was established in 1999. A stop-work order was issued by an Israeli court as early as September of that year, but construction has continued, notwithstanding a demolition order issued by the High Court in 2008 after Palestinians from the village of Dura al-Qar' appealed to the High Court of Israel.

wn.com/Beit_El
Beitar Illit
Beitar Illit (Hebrew: בֵּיתָר עִלִּית‎‎; officially also spelled Betar Illit; "Illit" is pronounced "ee-leet") is an Israeli settlement and city west of Gush Etzion, 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) south of Jerusalem, in the Judean Mountains of the West Bank. At the end of 2007, it had a total population of 38,800 consisting of over 6000 families. By 2020, the population is expected to reach 100,000. Beitar Illit was established in 1984 and initially settled by a small group of young families from the religious zionist yeshiva of Machon Meir, including that of Rabbi Reuven Hass (now of Beit El). As Beitar Illit began to grow, an influx of Haredi Jewish Bobov families came to predominate while the original group moved on. The city has since expanded to three adjacent hills. It is named after the ancient Jewish city of Betar, whose ruins lie 1 kilometre (0.62 mi) away.
The international community considers Israeli settlements in the West Bank illegal under international law, but the Israeli government disputes this.

wn.com/Beitar_Illit
Bethlehem
Bethlehem (Arabic: بيت لحم‎ Bayt Laḥm (help·info) or Bēt Laḥm, lit "House of Flesh"; Hebrew: בֵּית לֶחֶם‎ Bēṯ Leḥem, Modern: Bet Leḥem, IPA: [bet ˈleχem], lit "House of Bread;" Greek: Βηθλεὲμ, Vithleém) is a Palestinian city located in the central West Bank and approximately 8 kilometers (5.0 mi) south of Jerusalem, with a population of about 30,000 people. It is the capital of the Bethlehem Governorate of the Palestinian National Authority and a hub of Palestinian culture and tourism. The Hebrew Bible identifies Bethlehem as the city David was from and the location where he was crowned as the king of Israel. The New Testament identifies Bethlehem as the birthplace of Jesus of Nazareth. The town is inhabited by one of the oldest Christian communities in the world, although the size of the community has shrunk due to emigration.
The city was sacked by the Samaritans in 529, but rebuilt by the Byzantine emperor Justinian I. Bethlehem was conquered by the Arab Caliphate of 'Umar ibn al-Khattāb in 637, who guaranteed safety for the city's religious shrines. In 1099, Crusaders captured and fortified Bethlehem and replaced its Greek Orthodox clergy with a Latin one. The Latin clergy were expelled after the city was captured by Saladin, the sultan of Egypt and Syria. With the coming of the Mamluks in 1250, the city's walls were demolished, and were subsequently rebuilt during the rule of the Ottoman Empire.

wn.com/Bethlehem
Blue Desert
Coordinates: 28°38′23″N 34°33′39″E / 28.63972°N 34.56083°E / 28.63972; 34.56083
The Blue Desert is an area of the Sinai Desert near the Red Sea resort of Dahab, where a number of rocks are painted blue.
This piece of art was created in 1980 when, following the 1979 Egyptian–Israeli Peace Treaty Belgian artist Jean Verame visited Sinai to paint a line of peace. Verame gained the permission of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and received a grant of ten tons of paint from the United Nations.
Jean Verame later created a similar installation near the village of Tafraout in southern Morocco.

wn.com/Blue_Desert
Błędów Desert
Błędów Desert (Polish: Pustynia Błędowska) is an area of sands between Błędów (part of Dąbrowa Górnicza in Upper Silesian Metropolitan Union) and the village of Klucze in Poland. The area lies mainly on the Silesian Highlands in the Silesian Voivodeship. It occupies an area of 32 km² (12 sq mi).
The Bledowska Sands are the largest (in Central Europe) accumulation of loose sand away from any sea, deposited thousands of years ago by a melting glacier.
During the Second World War, the area was used by the German Afrika Korps for training and testing equipment before deployment in Africa.

Coordinates: 50°21′22″N 19°31′03″E / 50.35617°N 19.51762°E / 50.35617; 19.51762

wn.com/Błędów_Desert
Chalbi Desert
The Chalbi Desert is a small desert in northern Kenya near the border with Ethiopia. The desert is located east of Lake Turkana, the largest permanent desert lake in the world.^{[citation needed]} The settlement of North Horr lies in the desert. Marsabit is the closest major city.

wn.com/Chalbi_Desert
Channeled Scablands
The Channeled Scablands are a unique geological erosion feature in the U.S. state of Washington. They were created by the cataclysmic Missoula Floods that swept periodically across eastern Washington and down the Columbia River Plateau during the Pleistocene epoch. Geologist J Harlen Bretz coined the term in a series of papers in the 1920s. Debate over the origin of the Scablands raged for four decades and is one of the great debates in the history of earth science. The Scablands are also important to planetary scientists as perhaps the best terrestrial analog for the Martian outflow channels.
River valleys formed by erosion normally have a 'V' cross section, and glaciers leave a 'U' cross section. The Channeled Scablands have a rectangular cross section and are spread over immense areas of eastern Washington. They exhibit a unique drainage pattern that appears to have an entrance in the northeast and an exit in the southwest. The eroded channels also show an anastomosing, or braided, appearance. There are also immense potholes and ripple marks, much larger than those found on ordinary rivers. When first studied, no known theories could explain the origin of these features.

wn.com/Channeled_Scablands
Cholistan Desert
Cholistan Desert (Urdu, Saraiki:صحرائے چولستان), also locally known as Rohi (روہی) sprawls thirty kilometers from Bahawalpur, Punjab, Pakistan and covers an area of 26,300 km². It adjoins the Thar Desert extending over to Sindh and into India.
The word Cholistan is derived from the Turkish word Chol, which means Desert. Cholistan thus means Land of the Desert. The people of Cholistan lead a semi-nomadic life, moving from one place to another in search of water and fodder for their animals. The dry bed of the Hakra River runs through the area, along which many settlements of the Indus Valley Civilization have been found.
The Desert also has an Annual Jeep Rally, known as Cholistan Desert Jeep Rally. It is the biggest motor sports event in Pakistan.
The language of Cholistan also reflects a number of features of its historical and geographical background. The Saraiki language is an Indo-Aryan language of the Lahnda languages group, and is spoken in Cholistan as well as in a large part of central Pakistan. Though once a considered a dialect of Punjabi, it is considered a separate language now. One of the chief authors in the Saraiki language is Khwaja Ghulam Farid, a polyglot Sufi poet, who helped develop Saraiki's poetics. The Saraiki community diffused when Saraiki-speaking Hindus migrated to the neighboring Indian states of Bikaner and Jaisalmer during Partition and were replaced by Urdu-speaking Muslim refugees from India. However, since the majority of Urdu-speakers settled in the cities and few settled in rural Cholistan, the countryside maintains a strong Saraiki community.

wn.com/Cholistan_Desert
Danakil Desert
The Danakil Desert lies in the Afar Triangle. It extends into the north-east of Ethiopia, the south of Eritrea and into much of Djibouti. It is the homeland of the Afar people who are known for their ability to withstand the extremes and survive as they have done for hundreds of years. It is known for its extreme heat and inhospitability. The deepest point in the desert lies up to 100 m below sea level in the Danakil Depression. The Danakil Desert's main industry is salt mining that is still cut by hand and loaded onto camels for transport and it is not uncommon to see caravans of camels making the slow journey through the desert. It is also home to wildlife, including African Wild Asses.
Many volcanoes exist in the region, including Erta Ale and the Dabbahu Volcano. It was named by National Geographic as the "Cruelest Place on Earth". The area was subject to a BBC documentary by a BBC correspondent Kate Humble
Coordinates: 14°14′30″N 40°18′00″E / 14.2417°N 40.3°E / 14.2417; 40.3

wn.com/Danakil_Desert
Deliblatska Peščara
Deliblatska Peščara (Serbian Cyrillic: Делиблатска Пешчара) or Deliblato Sand is a large sand area situated in the Vojvodina province, Serbia. It is located in southern Banat (mostly in the South Banat District, with a smaller part in the Central Banat District). The sand is named after the village of Deliblato, which is situated in the municipality of Kovin.
Deliblatska Peščara is the largest sandy terrain in Europe, once part of a vast prehistoric desert. It originated from the withdrawal of the Pannonian Sea. Due to its forest and surroundings, it was proclaimed to be the Special Nature Reserve.
Coordinates: 44°51′1.31″N 21°5′33.42″E / 44.8503639°N 21.0926167°E / 44.8503639; 21.0926167

wn.com/Deliblatska_Peščara
Eastern Desert

The Eastern Desert is the section of Sahara Desert east of the Nile River, between the river and the Red Sea. It extends from Egypt in the north to Eritrea in the south, and also comprises parts of Sudan and Ethiopia.
The Eastern Desert's main geographic features are the western Red Sea coastline - wth the "Red Sea Riviera" - and the Eastern Desert mountain range that runs along the coast, the highest peak of which is Shaiyb al-Banat. Other notable ecological areas are Wadi Gamal National Park and Gebel Elba. The Eastern Desert is a popular setting for safaris and other excursions.

wn.com/Eastern_Desert
Efrat
Efrat (Hebrew: אֶפְרָת‎‎), or officially Efrata (Hebrew: אֶפְרָתָה‎‎), is an Israeli settlement established in 1983 and a local council in the Judean Mountains of the West Bank. Efrat is located 12 kilometers (7.5 mi) south of Jerusalem, between Bethlehem and Hebron, 6.5 kilometers east of the Green line, inside of the Separation Barrier. The settlement rises to a height of 960 meters (3150 feet) above sea level and covers about 6,000 dunam (1,500 acres). The international community considers Israeli settlements in the West Bank illegal under international law, but the Israeli government disputes this.
Efrat had 7,183 residents in 2009, a decline from over 8,000 in 2008. Although it is geographically located within Gush Etzion ("Etzion Bloc"), Efrat is independent from the Gush Etzion Regional Council. Since November 2008, Oded Ravivi, an attorney and lieutenant colonel in the army and member of the Likud Central Committee is the head of Efrat regional council.
Efrat is named after the biblical place Ephrath. While according to the Israeli Ministry of the Interior, "Efrata" is the quotation from the Biblical verse, and therefore the town's name, Efrata's residents and municipality have maintained for many years that the reference isn't the location's name, but rather means "towards Efrat". The '-a' ending is very common in Hebrew and always means 'towards'. On the other hand, there are very clear biblical references to "Ephratah", in a context it cannot possibly mean "towards Ephrat", e.g. Ruth 4:11, 1 Chronicles 2:50, 1 Chronicles 4:4, Psalms 132:6, Micah 5:1. Therefore, there are two names in use: Internal and private references speak of "Efrat", whereas all inter-city roadsigns, under purview of the National Government, read "Efrata".

wn.com/Efrat
Ein Gedi
Coordinates: 31°27′0″N 35°23′0″E / 31.45°N 35.383333°E / 31.45; 35.383333
Ein Gedi (Hebrew: עֵין גֶּדִי‎‎) is an oasis in Israel, located west of the Dead Sea, near Masada and the caves of Qumran.
The name Ein Gedi is composed of two Hebrew words: ein means spring and gdi means goat-kid. En Gedi thus means "Kid spring."
In the 2 Chronicles 20:2 it is identified with Hazazon-tamar, where the Moabites and Ammonites gathered in order to fight Josaphat. In Genesis 14:7 Hazazon-tamar is mentioned as being a Amorite city, smitten by Chedorlaomer in his war against the cities of the plain.
In Joshua 15:62, Ein Gedi is enumerated among the cities of the Tribe of Judah in the desert Betharaba, but Ezekiel 47:10 shows that it was also a fisherman's town. Later, King David hides in the desert of Ein Gedi (1 Samuel 24:1-2) and King Saul seeks him "even upon the most craggy rocks, which are accessible only to wild goats" (1 Samuel 24:3).
The Song of Songs (Songs 1:14) speaks of the "vineyards of En Gedi." The words of Ecclesiasticus 24:18, "I was exalted like a palm tree in Cades" (’en aígialoîs), may perhaps be understood of the palm trees of Ein Gedi.

wn.com/Ein_Gedi
Elkana
Elkana or Elqana (Hebrew: אֶלְקָנָה‎‎) is an Israeli settlement and local council in the north-western Samarian hills in the West Bank. Elkana is situated just to the east of the Green Line and the city of Rosh HaAyin. The Trans-Samarian Highway previously cut through the town until 2000 when the road, which now skirts to the south, was upgraded. It was founded in 1977 by a group from Gush Emunim of religious and non-religious Jews. As of 2002, it had a population of 4,000 people or 800 families.
Elkana was established as one the earliest settlements after 64 Knesset members signed a bill to allow the use of state land in the area for construction. On 1 May 1977, fifteen men climbed the hill and started preparing the area for families for the official day on 10 May. Amongst the first families to move to the settlement was that of the former Chief of Staff Shaul Mofaz ten days later. Elkana became the fourth community to be established by the Seventeenth government of Israel headed by Yitzhak Rabin, following the Kadum outpost, Ofra, and Ma'ale Adumim. A few months later, forty families had moved in to prefabricated home's called 'ashkubiot' and after two years, over a hundred families lived in the village.

wn.com/Elkana
Gibson Desert
The Gibson Desert covers a large dry area in the state of Western Australia and is still largely in an almost "pristine" state. It is about 155,000 square kilometres (60,000 square miles) in size, making it the 5th largest desert in Australia, after the Great Sandy, Great Victoria, Tanami and Simpson deserts.
The Gibson Desert is located on the central east Sweden plateau between the saline Lake Disappointment and Lake Macdonald along the Tropic of Capricorn, south of the Great Sandy Desert, east of the Little Sandy Desert, and north of the Great Victoria Desert. The altitude rises to just above 500 meters in places. As noted by early Australian explorers such as Ernest Giles large portions of the desert are characterized by gravel-covered terrains covered in thin desert grasses and it also contains extensive areas of undulating red sand plains and dunefields, low rocky/gravelly ridges and substantial upland portions with a high degree of laterite formation. The sandy soil of the lateritic buckshot plains is rich in iron. Several isolated salt-water lakes occur in the centre of the region and to the southwest a system of small lakes follow paleo-drainage features. Groundwater sources include portions of the Officer Basin and Canning Basin.

wn.com/Gibson_Desert
Gobi Desert
The Gobi (Mongolian: Говь, Govi, "semidesert"; Chinese: 戈壁; pinyin: Gēbì) is a large desert region in Asia. It covers parts of northern and northwestern China, and of southern Mongolia. The desert basins of the Gobi are bounded by the Altai Mountains and the grasslands and steppes of Mongolia on the north, by the Hexi Corridor and Tibetan Plateau to the southwest, and by the North China Plain to the southeast. The Gobi is most notable in history as part of the great Mongol Empire, and as the location of several important cities along the Silk Road.
The Gobi is made up of several distinct ecological and geographic regions based on variations in climate and topography. One is the Eastern Gobi desert steppe Ecoregion, a Palearctic ecoregion in the Deserts and xeric shrublands Biome, home to the Bactrian camel and various other animals.. It is a rain shadow desert formed by the Himalaya range blocking rain-carrying clouds from reaching the Gobi from the Indian Ocean.
The Gobi measures over 1,610 km (1,000 mi) from southwest to northeast and 800 km (500 mi) from north to south. The desert is widest in the west, along the line joining the Lake Bosten and the Lop Nor (87°-89° east). It occupies an arc of land 1,295,000 km² (500,002 sq mi) in area as of 2007, making it the fifth largest in the world^{[clarification needed]} and Asia's largest. Much of the Gobi is not sandy but is covered with bare rock.

wn.com/Gobi_Desert
Great Sandy Desert
The Great Sandy Desert is a desert located in the North West of Western Australia straddling the Pilbara and southern Kimberley regions. It is the second largest desert in Australia after the Great Victoria Desert and encompasses an area of 284,993 square kilometres (110,036 sq mi) The Gibson Desert lies to the south and the Tanami Desert lies to the East of the Great Sandy Desert.
The Great Sandy Desert contains large Ergs, often consisting of longitudinal dunes. The Wolfe Creek meteorite impact crater is located in the northeast.
The region is sparsely populated. The main populations consist of Indigenous Australian communities and mining centers. The aboriginal people of the desert fall into two main groups: the Martu in the west and the Pintupi in the east. Linguistically, they are speakers of multiple Western Desert Languages. Many of these indigenous people were forcibly removed from their lands during the 20th century and relocated to settlements such as Papunya in the Northern Territory. In recent years,^[when?] some of the original inhabitants have returned.^{[citation needed]} Young Indigenous adults from the Great Sandy Desert region travel to and work in the Wilurarra Creative programs to maintain and develop their culture.

wn.com/Great_Sandy_Desert
Gush Etzion
Gush Etzion (Hebrew: גּוּשׁ עֶצְיוֹן‎‎, lit. Etzion Bloc) is a cluster of Israeli settlements located in the Judaean Mountains directly south of Jerusalem and Bethlehem in the West Bank, Palestinian territories. The core group includes four agricultural villages that were founded in 1940-1947 on property purchased in the 1920s and 1930s, and destroyed before the outbreak of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. The area was left outside the 1949 armistice lines. These settlements were rebuilt after the 1967 Six-Day War, along with new communities that have expanded the area of the Etzion Bloc. The international community considers Israeli settlements in the West Bank illegal under international law, but the Israeli government disputes this. In 2011, Gush Etzion consists of 22 settlements with a population of 70,000.
The core settlements of Gush Etzion before 1948 were Kfar Etzion, Massu'ot Yitzhak, Ein Tzurim and Revadim, built on tracts of land purchased from the early 1920s. From November 29, 1947, Kfar Etzion was under siege and cut off from Jerusalem. On May 13, 1948, when the village surrendered, 127 Jewish inhabitants were massacred by the Arab Legion. The other villages surrendered the next day. The inhabitants were taken prisoner and the homes were plundered and burned.

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Haifa District
Haifa District (Hebrew: מחוז חיפה‎, Mehoz Ḥeifa; Arabic: منطقة حيفا‎) is an administrative district surrounding the city of Haifa, Israel. The district is one of six administrative districts of Israel, and its capital is Haifa. The district land area is 864 km² (299.3 mi²).
According to the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics, at the end of 2005, the population of the district stood at 858,000, of which 71.27% are Jewish, 18.81% are Arab Muslims, 1.78% are Arab Christians, 2.52% are Druze, and 4.9% are "not classified by religion", and grew at an average annual rate of 0.8%.

Coordinates: 32°35′N 35°00′E / 32.583°N 35°E / 32.583; 35

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Har Adar
Har Adar (Hebrew: הַר אֲדָר‎‎) is an Israeli settlement and local council in the Seam Zone and the Maccabim sub-region of the West Bank. Har Adar was founded in 1982 and has a population of 3,200. It is located near Abu Ghosh and the Green Line on Road 425, approximately 15 kilometers west of Jerusalem. Har Adar is ranked high on the Israeli socio-economic scales, at 9/10.
The international community considers Israeli settlements in the West Bank illegal under international law, but the Israeli government disputes this.
The location of Har Adar was named Radar Hill (Hebrew: גִּבְעַת הָרָדָאר‎‎, Giv'at HaRadar), for the World War II British military installation there which had an anti-air radar for the protection of Jerusalem. The installation was handed over to the Jordanian Arab Legion on May 10, 1948, prior to the second phase of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. 23 attempts by the Palmach's Harel Brigade to conquer it failed, although the Jewish force held the position for four days starting May 22, 1948. It was finally captured in the Six-Day War by the Harel Brigade. A monument for the fallen soldiers of the brigade stands at the top of the town.

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Hebron
Hebron (Arabic: الخليل (help·info) al-Ḫalīl; Hebrew: חֶבְרוֹן (help·info), Standard Hebrew: Ḥevron, Tiberian: Ḥeḇrôn ISO 259-3: Ḥebron), is located in the southern West Bank, 30 km (19 mi) south of Jerusalem. Nestled in the Judean Mountains, it lies 930 meters (3,050 ft) above sea level. It is the largest city in the West Bank and home to an estimated 175,000 Palestinians, and over 500 Jewish settlers concentrated in and around the old quarter. The city is most notable for containing the traditional burial site of the biblical Patriarchs and Matriarchs and is therefore considered the second-holiest city in Judaism after Jerusalem. The city is also venerated by Muslims for its association with Abraham and was traditionally viewed as one of the "four holy cities of Islam."
Hebron is a busy hub of West Bank trade, responsible for roughly a third of the area's gross domestic product, largely due to the sale of marble from quarries. It is locally well known for its grapes, figs, limestone, pottery workshops and glassblowing factories, and is the location of the major dairy product manufacturer, al-Junaidi. The old city of Hebron is characterized by narrow, winding streets, flat-roofed stone houses, and old bazaars. The city is home to Hebron University and the Palestine Polytechnic University.

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Herodium
Herodium or Herodion (from Ancient Greek: Ἡρώδειον; Hebrew: הרודיון‎, Arabic: هيروديون‎, Jabal al-Fraidees) is a volcano-like hill with a truncated cone located 12 kilometres (7.5 mi) south of Jerusalem, near the city of Bethlehem in the West Bank.Herod the Great built a fortress and palace (see Herod's Palace) on the top of Herodium, and may have been buried there. Herodium is 758 meters (2,487 ft) above sea level.
Herodion was known by the Crusaders as the "Mountain of Franks". Arab locals call it Jabal al-Fourdis ("Mountain of Paradise").
In 40 BCE, after the Parthian conquest of Syria, Herod fled to Masada. On the way, at the location of Herodion, Herod clashed with the Parthians and emerged victorious. According to the Roman Jewish historian Josephus, he "built a town on that spot in commemoration of his victory, and enhanced it with wonderful palaces... and he called it Herodion after himself" (The Wars of the Jews I, Chapter 13).
Josephus describes Herodium as follows: "This fortress, which is some sixty stadia distant from Jerusalem, is naturally strong and very suitable for such a structure, for reasonably nearby is a hill, raised to a (greater) height by the hand of man and rounded off in the shape of a breast. At intervals it has round towers, and it has a steep ascent formed of two hundred steps of hewn stone. Within it are costly royal apartments made for security and for ornament at the same time. At the base of the hill there are pleasure grounds built in such a way as to be worth seeing, among other things because of the way in which water, which is lacking in that place, is brought in from a distance and at great expense. The surrounding plain was built up as a city second to none, with the hill serving as an acropolis for the other dwellings." (The Wars of the Jews I, 21, 10; Antiquities of the Jews XIV, chapter 13.9).

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Indus Valley Desert
The Indus Valley Desert is an almost uninhabited desert ecoregion of northern Pakistan.
The Indus Valley desert covers an area of 19,500 square kilometers (7,500 sq mi) in northwestern Punjab Province between the Chenab and Indus rivers. The Indus Valley Desert is drier and less hospitable than the Northwestern thorn scrub forests that surround it with temperatures ranging from freezing in winter to extremely hot (more than 45°)in summer with only 600-800mm of rainfall per year.
The desert vegatation is quite varied due to the variety of temperatures with Prosopis shrubs being the characteristic species.
The desert is home to five large mammals: Wolf, hyena, caracal, leopard and the Urial (Ovis orientalis punjabensis) along with many rodents and other mammals. Meanwhile the 190 species of bird in the desert include the Red-necked Falcon.
Like the nearby Thar Desert the Indus Valley desert has little farming or grazing due to its hard climate and therefore the natural habitats are almost intact. However hunting still goes on and is a threat to caracals, wolves and other mammals.

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Israel
Coordinates: 31°N 35°E / 31°N 35°E / 31; 35
Israel, officially the State of Israel ( /ˈɪzriːəl/ or /ˈɪzreɪəl/; Hebrew: מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל‎, Medīnat Yisrā'el, IPA: [me̞diˈnät jisʁäˈʔe̞l] ( listen); Arabic: دَوْلَة إِسْرَائِيل‎, Dawlat Isrāʼīl, IPA: [dawlat ʔisraːˈʔiːl]), is a parliamentary republic in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Lebanon in the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan and the West Bank in the east, Egypt and the Gaza Strip on the southwest, and the Gulf of Aqaba in the Red Sea to the south, and it contains geographically diverse features within its relatively small area. Israel is defined as a Jewish and Democratic State in its Basic Laws and is the world's only Jewish-majority state.
Following the adoption of a resolution by the General Assembly of the United Nations on 29 November 1947 recommending the adoption and implementation of the United Nations plan to partition Palestine, on 14 May 1948 David Ben-Gurion, the Executive Head of the World Zionist Organization and president of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, declared the establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz Israel, to be known as the State of Israel, a state independent from the British Mandate for Palestine. Neighboring Arab states invaded the next day in support of the Palestinian Arabs. Israel has since fought several wars with neighboring Arab states, in the course of which it has occupied the West Bank, Sinai Peninsula, Gaza Strip and the Golan Heights. Portions of these territories, including east Jerusalem, have been annexed by Israel, but the border with the neighboring West Bank has not yet been permanently defined.^{[neutrality is disputed]} Israel has signed peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan, but efforts to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict have so far not resulted in peace.

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Jaffa
Jaffa (English pronunciation: /ˈdʒæfə/, /ˈdʒɑːfə/;Hebrew: יָפוֹ‎‎, Yāfō (help·info); Arabic: يَافَا‎ Yāfā (help·info); Latin: Joppe; also Japho, Joppa (transliteration from the Greek "Ιόππη") is an ancient port city believed^{[by whom?]} to be one of the oldest in the world. Jaffa was incorporated with Tel Aviv in 1950 creating the city of Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel. Jaffa is famous for its association with the biblical story of the prophet Jonah.
The name of the city is mentioned in Egyptian sources and the Amarna Letters as Yapu. There are several legends about the origin of the name Jaffa. Some say it is named for Japheth, one of the sons of Noah, who built it after the Great Flood.^{[citation needed]} The Hellenist tradition links the name to "Iopeia", which is Cassiopeia, the mother of Andromeda. An outcropping of rocks near the harbor is reputed to have been the place from which Andromeda was rescued by Perseus. Pliny the Elder associates the name with Jopa, the daughter of Aeolus, god of wind. The Arab geographer Al-Muqaddasi mentions it under the name Yaffa, which is used by Arabic speakers today.

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Jericho
Jericho ( /ˈdʒɛrɪkoʊ/; Arabic: أريحا‎ ʼArīḥā [ʔæˈriːħɑː] ( listen)); Hebrew: יְרִיחוֹ‎‎ Yeriẖo [jeʁiˈħo] ( listen) is a city located near the Jordan River in the West Bank of the Palestinian territories. It is the capital of the Jericho Governorate and has a population of more than 20,000. Situated well below sea level on an east-west route 16 kilometres (10 mi) north of the Dead Sea, Jericho is the lowest permanently inhabited site on earth. It is also believed to be one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world.
Described in the Old Testament as the "City of Palm Trees", copious springs in and around Jericho have made it an attractive site for human habitation for thousands of years. It is known in Judeo-Christian tradition as the place of the Israelites' return from bondage in Egypt, led by Joshua, the successor to Moses. Archaeologists have unearthed the remains of more than 20 successive settlements in Jericho, the first of which dates back 11,000 years (9000 BCE), almost to the very beginning of the Holocene epoch of the Earth's history.

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Jerusalem
Jerusalem ( /dʒəˈruːsələm/; Hebrew: יְרוּשָׁלַיִם‎‎ Yerushaláyim ; Arabic: القُدس‎ al-Quds and/or أورشليم Ûrshalîm) is the capital of Israel, though not internationally recognized as such, and one of the oldest cities in the world. It is located in the Judean Mountains, between the Mediterranean Sea and the northern edge of the Dead Sea. If the area and population of East Jerusalem is included, it is Israel's largest city in both population and area, with a population of 801,000 residents over an area of 125.1 km² (48.3 sq mi). Jerusalem is also a holy city to the three major Abrahamic religions—Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
During its long history, Jerusalem has been destroyed twice, besieged 23 times, attacked 52 times, and captured and recaptured 44 times. The oldest part of the city was settled in the 4th millennium BCE. In 1538, walls were built around Jerusalem under Suleiman the Magnificent. Today those walls define the Old City, which has been traditionally divided into four quarters—known since the early 19th century as the Armenian, Christian, Jewish, and Muslim Quarters. The Old City became a World Heritage site in 1981, and is on the List of World Heritage in Danger. Modern Jerusalem has grown far beyond its boundaries.

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Jerusalem District
The Jerusalem District (Hebrew: מחוז ירושלים‎; Arabic: منطقة القدس‎) is one of six administrative districts of Israel. The district capital is Jerusalem. The Jerusalem District has a land area of 652 km². The population of 910,300 is 67.8% Jewish and 30.6% Arab. A fifth (21%) of the Arabs in Israel live in the Jerusalem District, which includes both East and West Jerusalem.
The majority of Arabs in the Jerusalem District are Palestinians, eligible for citizenship under Israeli law, but non-citizens by collective choice. The minority are Israeli Arabs living in Abu Ghosh, Beit Safafa and East Jerusalem, where Israeli Arab professionals have settled since the late 1970s, mainly for the provision of legal and other services to the local population. The non-Jewish population is 28.3% Muslims, 1.8% Christians and 1.4% unclassified by religion.
Coordinates: 31°45′N 35°00′E / 31.75°N 35°E / 31.75; 35

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Jordan
Jordan ( /ˈdʒɔr.dən/;Arabic: اَلأُرْدُنّ, Al-'Urdunn), officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan (Arabic: اَلمَمْلَكَة اَلأُرْدُنِيَّة اَلهَاشِمِيَّة), Al-Mamlakah Al-Urdaniyyah Al-Hashimiyyah) is a kingdom on the East Bank of the River Jordan. The country borders Saudi Arabia to the east and south-east, Iraq to the north-east, Syria to the north and the West Bank and Israel to the west, sharing control of the Dead Sea with the latter. Jordan's only port is at its south-western tip, at the Gulf of Aqaba, which is shared with Israel, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia. Over half of Jordan is covered by the Arabian Desert. However, the western part of Jordan is arable land and forests. Jordan is part of the Fertile Crescent. The capital city is Amman. According to the CIA World Factbook, Jordan has the second highest life expectancy in the Middle East, after Israel. The average life expectancy is one position behind the United Kingdom, although the age remains exactly the same (80.05 years).
The precursor to modern Jordan was founded in 1921 as the Hashemite Emirate, and it was recognized by the League of Nations as a state under the British mandate in 1922 known as The Emirate of Transjordan. In 1946, Jordan became an independent sovereign state officially known as the Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan. After capturing the West Bank area of Cisjordan during the 1948–49 war with Israel, Abdullah I took the title King of Jordan and Palestine, and he officially changed the country's name to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan in April 1949.

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Jornada del Muerto
The Jornada del Muerto (Spanish for "single day's journey of the dead man" hence "route of the dead man") in the U.S. state of New Mexico was the name given by the Spanish conquistadors to the Jornada del Muerto Desert basin, and the particularly dry 100-mile (160 km) stretch of a route through it.
The trail led northward from central Spanish colonial New Spain, present-day Mexico, to the farthest reaches of the viceroyalty in northern Nuevo México Province. The route later became El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro.
The Jornada del Muerto Desert ecoregion, in the Deserts and xeric shrublands Biome, is an expansive and long stretch of flat desert landforms and xeric habitat about 100 miles (160 km) from north to south. The desert runs between: the Oscura Mountains and San Andres Mountains on the east; and the Fra Cristóbal Range and Caballo Mountains on the west. The western mountains block access to the Rio Grande, the most reliable water source in the region.
The Jornada del Muerto Desert remains almost entirely uninhabited and undeveloped to the present day. Located just to the east of the southernmost region of the desert is the Jornada Basin LTER station, used for study of desert ecology, land management, plant physiology, and related topics.

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Judaean Desert
Coordinates: 31°41′56″N 35°18′23″E / 31.69889°N 35.30639°E / 31.69889; 35.30639

The Judaean Desert (Hebrew: מִדְבַּר יְהוּדָה‎, Midbar Yehuda - both Desert of Judah or Judaean Desert) is a desert in Israel and the West Bank that lies east of Jerusalem and descends to the Dead Sea. It stretches from the northeastern Negev to the east of Beit El, and is marked by terraces with escarpments. It ends in a steep escarpment dropping to the Dead Sea and the Jordan Valley. The Judaean Desert is crossed by numerous wādis from northeast to southeast, and has many nahals, most of them deep, from 1,200 feet in the west to 600 feet in the east. Judaean Desert is an area with a special morphological structure along the east of the Judaean Mountains.
It is sometimes known as יְשִׁימוֹן‎, Yeshimon - desert, wildland, or yet Wilderness of Judah or Wilderness of Judaea, among others.
The Judaean desert lies east of Jerusalem and descends to the Dead Sea. Rainfall in the Judaea region varies from 400–500 millimetres (16–20 in) in the western hills, rising to 600 millimetres (24 in) around western Jerusalem (in central Judaea), falling back to 400 millimetres (16 in) in eastern Jerusalem and dropping to around 100mm in the eastern parts, due to a rainshadow effect. The climate ranges from Mediterranean in the west and desert climate in the east, with a strip of steppe climate in the middle. Major urban areas in the region include Jerusalem, Bethlehem, the Gush Etzion, Jericho and Hevron.

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Judea
Coordinates: 31°41′56″N 35°18′23″E / 31.69889°N 35.30639°E / 31.69889; 35.30639
Judea or Judæa ( /dʒuː.ˈdiː.ə/; from Hebrew: יהודה‎, Standard Yəhuda Tiberian Yəhûḏāh "Tribe of Judah", Greek: Ιουδαία, Ioudaía; Latin: Iudaea) was the name of the mountainous southern part of the historic Land of Israel (Hebrew: ארץ ישראל‎ Eretz Yisrael) from the 8th century BCE (Assyrian rule) to the 2nd century CE, when Roman Judea was renamed Syria Palaestina following the Jewish Bar Kokhba revolt.
The name Judea is a Greek and Roman adaptation of the name "Judah", which originally encompassed the territory of the Israelite tribe of that name and later of the ancient Kingdom of Judah. Judea was sometimes used as the name for the entire region, including parts beyond the river Jordan. It was the name in use in English until the Jordanian occupation of the area in 1948. Jordan called the area of Judea and Samaria ad-difa’a al-gharbiya (translated into English as the "West Bank"). "Yehuda" is the Hebrew term used for the area in modern Israel since the region was conquered and occupied by Israel in 1967.

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Kalahari Desert
The Kalahari Desert (Dorsland in Afrikaans) is a large semi-arid sandy savannah in Southern Africa extending 900,000 square kilometres (350,000 sq mi), covering much of Botswana and parts of Namibia and South Africa. As semi-desert, with huge tracts of excellent grazing after good rains, the Kalahari supports more animals and plants than a true desert, such as the Namib Desert to the west. There are small amounts of rainfall and the summer temperature is very high. It usually receives 3–7.5 inches (76–190 mm) of rain per year. The surrounding Kalahari Basin covers over 2,500,000 square kilometres (970,000 sq mi) extending farther into Botswana, Namibia and South Africa, and encroaching into parts of Angola, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The only permanent river, the Okavango, flows into a delta in the northwest, forming marshes that are rich in wildlife. Ancient dry riverbeds—called omuramba—traverse the Central Northern reaches of the Kalahari and provide standing pools of water during the rainy season. Previously havens for wild animals from elephant to giraffe, and for predators such as lion and cheetah, the riverbeds are now mostly grazing spots, though leopard or cheetah can still be found.

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Karakum Desert
The Karakum Desert, also spelled Kara-Kum and Gara Gum (“Black Sand”) (Turkmen: Garagum, Russian: Каракумы) is a desert in Central Asia. It occupies about 70 percent, or 350,000 km², of the area of Turkmenistan.
The population is sparse, with an average of one person per 6.5 km² (one person per 2.5 square miles). Rainfall is equally sparse, where precipitation comes maybe once a decade in some areas.
Covering much of present day Turkmenistan, the Karakum Desert lies east of the Caspian Sea, with the Aral Sea to the north and the Amu Darya river and the Kyzyl Kum desert to the northeast. In modern times, with the shrinking of the Aral Sea, the extended "Aral Karakum" has appeared on the former seabed, with an estimated area of 15,440 sq mi/40,000 km². Although the level of the Aral Sea has fluctuated over its existence, the most recent level drop was caused by the former Soviet Union building massive irrigation projects in the region. Although the North Aral Sea is currently rising, the South Aral Sea is still dropping, thus expanding the size of the desert.

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Karnei Shomron
Karnei Shomron (Hebrew: קַרְנֵי שׁוֹמְרוֹן‎‎) (lit. "Rays of (light of) Samaria") is an Israeli settlement and town established in 1977 in the northwestern West Bank, east of Kfar Sava. Karnei Shomron is located 48 kilometres (30 mi) northeast of Tel Aviv and 85 kilometres (53 mi) north of Jerusalem. In 2006, the population of Karnei Shomron was 6,300. The international community considers Israeli settlements in the West Bank illegal under international law, but the Israeli government disputes this.
In 1991, several Israeli settlements were merged to become a single municipality called Karnei Shomron Local Council:
Mitzpe Tzvaim; Midreshet Shilat, a midrasha for girls; and Ramat Gil'ad are also part of Karnei Shomron. Neve Aliza is a religious neighborhood of American-style homes founded by new immigrants from the United States and Canada in 1985.
The chief rabbi of Karnei Shomron is Rabbi Yitzhak HaLevy. Herzl Ben-Ari is the head of the Karnei Shomron Local Council.
On February 16, 2002, two teenagers were killed and 30 people were wounded, six seriously, when a suicide bomber blew himself up at a pizzeria in the Karnei Shomron (located in Ginot Shomron) shopping mall. A third teenager died of her wounds on February 27. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine claimed responsibility for the attack.

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Kedumim
Kedumim (Hebrew: קְדוּמִים‎‎), also spelled Qedumim, is an Israeli settlement and a town located in the Samarian hills of the West Bank that was founded during Hanukkah 1975 and now enjoys the municipal status of local council. Founded in 1975 by members of the Gush Emunim settlement movement, its current population is now about 3,500 people. Daniella Weiss was the mayor of Kedumim. The international community considers Israeli settlements in the West Bank illegal under international law, but the Israeli government disputes this.
In late 1974, an group affiliated with Gush Emunim named Garin Elon Moreh, led by Rabbi Menachem Felix and Benjamin (Beni) Katzover, attempted to establish a settlement on the ruins of the Sebastia train station dating from the Ottoman period. An Israeli Cabinet resolution, passed 17-2 with 3 abstentions, found the settlement illegal in 1975. After seven attempts and six removals from the site by the Israel Defense Forces, an agreement was reached according to which the Israeli government allowed 25 families to settle in the Kadum army camp southwest of Nablus/Shechem. The small mobile home site housing 25 families eventually became the municipality of Kedumim. The Sebastia agreement was a turning point that opened up the southern West Bank to Jewish settlement.

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Kiryat Arba
Kiryat Arba or Qiryat Arba (קִרְיַת־אַרְבַּע), lit. "Town of the Four," is an urban Israeli settlement on the outskirts of Hebron, in the Judean Mountains region of the West Bank. In 2008, Kiryat Arba had a population of 7,200.
The international community considers Israeli settlements in the West Bank illegal under international law, but the Israeli government disputes this.
Kiryat Arba is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible. The Book of Joshua chapter 14 verse 15 says (Darby_Bible): "Now the name of Hebron before was Kirjath-Arba; the great man among the Anakim..." There are various explanations for the name, not mutually exclusive. According to the great Biblical commentator Rashi, Kiryat Arba ("Town of Arba") means either the town (kirya) of Arba, the giant who had three sons, or the town of the four giants: Anak (the son of Arba) and his three sons - Ahiman, Sheshai and Talmi - who are described as being the sons of a "giant" in Numbers 13:22: "On the way through the Negev, they (Joshua and Caleb) came to Hebron where [they saw] Ahiman, Sheshai and Talmi, descendants of the Giant (ha-anak)..." Some say that Anak ("Giant", see Anak) is a proper name (Targum Jonathan and the Septuagint), and that he, Anak, may have been the father of the three others mentioned in the Book of Numbers as living in Hebron, previously known as "Kiryat Arba."

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Kumtag Desert
The Kumtag Desert, Kumtagh Desert or Desert of Kum-tag, the king of China in the year BC.1305 (Chinese: 库姆塔格沙漠; pinyin: Kùmǔtǎgé Shāmò Turkish:Kumdağ), literally "sand mountain desert" in Old Turkic language (Kum meaning sand and Tag meaning Mountain), is an arid landform in Northwestern China, which was proclaimed as a national park in the year 2002.
1. Broad definition: The oval Tarim Basin with its central Taklamakan Desert is bounded on the north, west and south by mountains. On the east side the Kumtag is an unbroken plain about 100 miles from north to south that runs from the Taklamakan to Gansu and Mongolia. Many modern maps do not show a Kumtag in this sense which implies that the usage may be out of date.
The Kumtag Desert is a section of the Taklamakan Desert which lies east-southeast of the Desert of Lop. It is on the other side of the Kara-koshun and reaches north-eastwards as far as the vicinity of the town of Sa-chow and the lake of Kara-nor, or Kala-chi. It is bordered by Dunhuang in the east, Tian Shan in the north, and with an area of 22,800+ square kilometers. Its southern rim is marked by a labyrinth of hills, dotted in groups and irregular clusters,worn down as it were to mere fragments of their former skeletal structure. Between these and the Altyn-Tagh, intervenes a broad latitudinal valley, seamed with watercourses that come down from the foothills of the Altyn-tagh. Beside these scrubby desert plants of the usual character maintain a precarious existence. Water reaching them in some instances at intervals of years only. This part of the desert has a general slope northwest towards the relative depression of the Kara-koshun. A noticeable feature of the Kum-tagh is the presence of large accumulations of drift-sand, especially along the foot of the crumbling desert ranges, where it rises into dunes sometimes as much as 250 feet (76 m) in height and climbs half-way up the flanks of ranges themselves.

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La Guajira Desert
La Guajira Desert is located in the northernmost part of Colombia, 610 km (380 mi) north of Bogota, in the La Guajira Department, covering most of La Guajira Peninsula including Venezuelan territory. The area holds immense coal reserves, exploited in a zone known as El Cerrejon. The area is also home to the indigenous Wayuu people and a variety of desert flora and fauna.
The National Natural Park of Macuira is located in the La Guajira Desert and is a tropical oasis. It has been a national park since 1977. The park covers 25,000 hectares (62,000 acres) in La Guiajira’s only mountain chain, and ranges in altitude from 0 to 450 metres (1,480 ft). It has a warm climate of about 27 °C (81 °F).
Coordinates: 12°04′18″N 71°35′52″W / 12.07167°N 71.59778°W / 12.07167; -71.59778

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Lechuguilla Desert
The Lechuguilla Desert is a small desert located in southwestern Arizona near the U.S.-Mexico border. It is considered to be part of the Lower Colorado Valley region of the Sonoran Desert. It lies in a north-south direction between the Gila Mountains and The Cabeza Prieta Mountains, and almost entirely in the Barry M. Goldwater Air Force Range. The desert is named after the Lechuguilla plant, known scientifically as Agave lecheguilla. The desert is also on the north border of the Gran Desierto de Altar of Sonora, Mexico.
The Lechuguilla Desert lies to the east, northeast of the connected ranges, Gila Mountains, north and the Tinajas Altas Mountains, which extend southeast into north Sonora. To the west and southwest of the two ranges, lies the Yuma Desert. The Tule Desert (Arizona) lies east of the Lechuguilla, and the Cabeza Prieta Mountains; all three deserts are at the northwest perimeter of the great desert, the Gran Desierto de Altar, and the Pinacate Volcanic field region.

Coordinates: 32°25′05″N 113°59′00″W / 32.4181104°N 113.9832679°W / 32.4181104; -113.9832679

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Libyan Desert
The Libyan Desert covers an area of approximately 1,100,000 km², it extends approximately 1100 km from east to west, and 1,000 km from north to south, in about the shape of a rectangle. Like most of the Sahara, this desert is primarily sand and hamada or stony plain.
Sand plains, dunes, ridges and some depressions (basins) typify the endorheic region, with no rivers draining into or out of the desert. The Gilf Kebir plateau reaches an altitude of just over 1000 m, and along with the nearby massif of Jebel Uweinat is an exception to the uninterrupted territory of basement rocks covered by layers of horizontally bedded sediments, forming a massive sand plain, low plateaus and dunes.
The desert features a striking diversity of landscapes including mountains such as Jebel Uweinat (1980 m), the Gilf Kebir plateau, and sand seas (see below). The Libyan Desert is barely populated apart from the modern settlements at oases of the lower Cyrenaica region in southeastern Libya. The indigenous population is Berber. In most of Upper Egypt, the desert is close to the Nile River, with a seasonal flood plain only a few kilometers wide between river and desert.

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Little Sandy Desert
The Little Sandy Desert is a desert located in Western Australia south of the Great Sandy Desert and west of the Gibson Desert. It is to the east of Great Northern Highway south of Newman and approximately 200 kilometres north of Wiluna. To the north the nearest large area identifiable is the Karlamilyi National Park.
It is named because it is relatively close and similar to the Great Sandy Desert, but is much smaller. Its landforms, fauna and flora, etc., are all similar to the Great Sandy Desert. Both deserts are crossed by the Canning Stock Route.
It is one of Western Australia's Interim Biogeographic Regionalisation for Australia (IBRA) regions.
Indigenous groups that have identified with the region include the Mandildjara
Coordinates: 25°16′S 121°52′E / 25.26°S 121.86°E / -25.26; 121.86

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Lod
Lod (Hebrew: לוֹד‎‎; Arabic: الْلُدّ‎ al-Ludd; Greco-Latin: Lydda, Diospolis) is a city 15 kilometers (9.3 mi) southeast of Tel Aviv in the Center District of Israel. At the end of 2011, it had a population of 74,000.
The name is derived from the Biblical city of Lod. When al-Ludd, as it was known by its Arab inhabitants was captured by Israel, the Arab inhabitants fled or were expelled and the city was settled by Jewish immigrants, most of them refugees from Arab countries. Of the former Arab population, only 1,056 inhabitants remained. It is today known as Lod, its biblical name.
Israel's main international airport, Ben Gurion International Airport (previously known as Lydda Airport, RAF Lydda, and Lod Airport) is located on the outskirts of the city.
The Hebrew name Lod appears in the bible as a town of Benjamin, founded by Shamed or Shamer (1 Chronicles 8:12; Ezra 2:33; Nehemiah 7:37; 11:35). In the New Testament it appears as its Greek form, Lydda. The city also finds reference in an Islamic Hadith, as the location of the battlefield where 'Dajjal' (the Anti-Christ) will be slayed before the Day of Judgment.

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Lop Desert
The Lop Desert or Lop Nur or Lop Nor, is a desert extending from Korla eastwards along the foot of the Kuruktagh to the formerly terminal Tarim Basin in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region of China. It is an almost perfectly horizontal expanse. Lake Bosten in the northwest lies at an altitude of 1,030 m to 1,040 m (3,380 to 3,410 ft), while the Lop Nur in the southeast is only 250 m lower.
In the past Lop Nur was a huge marsh in the eastern part of Xinjiang. When the Tarim River dried up in the late 20th century, Lop Nur became an infertile desert, although there are still occasional soft, wet riverbeds to be found. The extreme weather and ever moving sand dunes have resulted in the deaths of hundreds of people. Hein returned later, traving by boat up the rivers to the lake. He saw a multitude of wildlife. However, the building of dams by the Chinese garrisons have blocked the water from the rivers feeding in to Lop Nor and it is now primarily salt flats.
Now the region is a broad, unbroken expanses of clay intermingled with sand. The clay, mostly of a yellow or yellow-grey color, is hard and thickly sprinkled with fine gravel. There are benches, flattened ridges and tabular masses of consolidated clay (yardangs) that are in a distinctly defined laminae, three stories being sometimes superimposed one upon the other, while their vertical faces are abraded, and often undercut, by the wind. The formations themselves are separated by parallel gullies or wind furrows, 6 to 20 feet deep, all sculptured in the direction of the prevailing northeast to southwest wind. There is no drifting sand or sand dunes, except in the south towards the outlying foothills of the Altyn-Tagh.

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Masada
Masada (Hebrew מצדה, pronounced Metzada (help·info), from מצודה, metzuda, "fortress") is the name for a site of ancient palaces and fortifications in the Southern District of Israel, on top of an isolated rock plateau, or horst, on the eastern edge of the Judaean Desert, overlooking the Dead Sea. Masada is best known for the violence that occurred there in the first century CE. In the final accords of the First Jewish–Roman War, the Siege of Masada by troops of the Roman Empire led to the mass suicide of the Sicarii rebels. Masada is located at 31°18'56"N, 35°21'14"E, about 20 kilometres (12 mi) east of Arad.
The cliffs on the east edge of Masada are about 1,300 feet (400 m) high and the cliffs on the west are about 300 feet (91 m) high; the natural approaches to the cliff top are very difficult. The top of the plateau is flat and rhomboid-shaped, about 1,800 feet (550 m) by 900 feet (270 m). There was a casemate wall around the top of the plateau totaling 4,300 feet (1.3 km) long and 12 feet (3.7 m) high, with many towers, and the fortress included storehouses, barracks, an armory, the palace, and cisterns that were refilled by rainwater. Three narrow, winding paths led from below up to fortified gates.

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Monegros Desert
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Namib Desert
The Namib is a coastal desert in southern Africa. The name Namib is of Nama origin and means "vast place". According to the broadest definition, the Namib stretches for more than 2,000 kilometres (1,200 mi) along the Atlantic coasts of Angola, Namibia, and South Africa, extending southward from the Carunjamba River in Angola, through Namibia and to the Olifants River in Western Cape, South Africa. The Namib's northernmost portion, which extends 450 kilometres (280 mi) from the Angola-Namibia border, is known as Moçâmedes Desert, while its southern portion approaches the neighboring Kalahari Desert. From the Atlantic coast eastward, the Namib gradually ascends in elevation, reaching up to 200 kilometres (120 mi) inland to the foot of the Great Escarpment. Annual precipitation ranges from 2 millimetres (0.079 in) in the most arid regions to 200 millimetres (7.9 in) at the escarpment, making the Namib the only true desert in southern Africa. Having endured arid or semi-arid conditions for roughly 80–55 million years, the Namib is also the oldest desert in the world.

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Negev
The Negev (Hebrew: נֶּגֶב‎‎, Tiberian vocalization: Néḡeḇ; Arabic: النقب‎ al-Naqab) is a desert and semidesert region of southern Israel. The region's largest city and administrative capital is Beersheba (pop. 185,000), in the north. At its southern end is the Gulf of Aqaba and the resort city of Eilat. It contains several development towns, including Dimona, Arad and Mitzpe Ramon, as well as a number of small Bedouin cities, including Rahat and Tel as-Sabi. There are also several kibbutzim, including Revivim and Sde Boker; the latter became the home of Israel's first Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, after his retirement from politics.
The desert is home to the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, whose faculties include the Jacob Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research and the Albert Katz International School for Desert Studies, both located on the Midreshet Ben-Gurion campus adjacent to Sde Boker.
The origin of the word negev is from the Hebrew root denoting 'dry'. In the Bible the word Negev is also used for the direction 'south'. In Arabic, the Negev is known as al-Naqab, although it was created with the establishment of the Egypt-Palestine frontier in the 19th century and has no single traditional Arabic name. During the British Mandate it was called Beersheba sub-district.

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Nubian Desert
Coordinates: 20°30′N 33°00′E / 20.5°N 33°E / 20.5; 33
The Nubian Desert (Arabic: صحراء النوبة‎, Şaḩrā’ an Nūbyah) is in the eastern region of the Sahara Desert, spanning approximately 400,000 km² of northeastern Sudan between the Nile and the Red Sea. The arid region, a largely sandstone plateau, has lots of wadis flowing towards the Nile. There is virtually no rainfall in the Nubian, and there are no oases. The traditional inhabitants of the area are the Nubians.
The world's earliest known archaeoastronomical megalith was erected in Nabta Playa in the Nubian Desert in southern Egypt. The Nubian Desert is known for turtles crossing its path.
The town of Abidiya is located nearby.
This desert is the only habitat for the critically endangered palm Medemia argun, which only appears rarely in some oases in the desert.
On October 7, 2008 the meteoroid 2008 TC3 exploded above the Nubian Desert.

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Nyiri Desert
Nyiri Desert, also called The Nyika or Tarudesert, is a desert in southern Kenya. It is located east of Lake Magadi and between Amboseli, Tsavo West and Nairobi National Parks. High proportion of Kajiado District's land area is of Nyiri Desert. Its aridity is caused by rain shadow of the Mount Kilimanjaro.
Coordinates: 2°23′48″S 37°15′38″E / 2.39667°S 37.26056°E / -2.39667; 37.26056

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Oleshky Sands
Oleshky Sands (Ukrainian: Олешківські піски) is the largest expanse of sand in Ukraine. It is situated inland from the Ukrainian coast of the Black Sea and consists of sand dunes or kuchuhury (locally), which reach a height of five meters. Some sparse vegetation can be located across the sands.
The Olehsky Desert is located in Tsiurupynsk Raion, Kherson Oblast, 30 km (~20 mi) east of Kherson. The previous name of Tsiurupynsk was Oleshky. Before the Russian annexation of the Crimean Khanate at the end of the XVIII, the territory belonged to the nomad Nogai Hordes, particularly the Djambuilut Horde. No detail historical information about the region has survived to our days.
The closest populated settlement is seven kilometers away (~4.5 mi). In Soviet times the sands were used as an Air Force bombing range for pilots of the Warsaw Pact alliance. To this day there is a possibility of finding some unexploded ordnance.
Due to its temperature and the amount of precipitation these sands sometimes are qualified as a semi-desert. Oleshky Sands are 15 km in diameter (~10 mi) and they are surrounded by a very dense forest planted to prevent dunes moving. Due to its density, the forest often catches fire. Although a relatively small sandy steppe, the Oleshky Sands have sandstorms. They occur due to the type of the sand in the area as it is very fine and is easily get picked up by a wind. The intensity of the sandstorms is rather weak. In the Oleshky sands at the depth of 300–400 m (~1000 ft) there is an underground lake, which forms an essential part of the local environment.

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Oranit
Oranit (Hebrew: אֳרָנִית‎‎) is an Israeli settlement and local council located in the Seam Zone, straddling the Green Line. It is surrounded by Horshim forest to the west, Rosh HaAyin and Kfar Qasim to the southwest, Sha'arei Tikva to the east, and Khirbet Abu Salman to the northeast. In 2009, the population was over 6000.
The international community considers Israeli settlements in the West Bank illegal under international law, but the Israeli government disputes this.
In April 1983, the Israeli government approved the establishment of Oranit, one of three settlements planned for "western Samaria."
According to Amnesty International the majority of the land of the neighboring Palestinian village of ‘Izbat Salman was lost when Oranit was established, with most of the remainder being effectively lost when the West Bank barrier was built to encompass Oranit and enough surrounding land for future expansion of the settlement. The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East has estimated that three Palestinian villages in the vicinity lost 3,000 dunums of land with the creation of Oranit settlement. Thirty Palestinian farmers were initially given access to their farmland through the the gates of the settlement. This right was soon withdrawn for security reasons and the settlement has since expanded onto this Palestinian farmland.

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Ordos Desert
The Ordos Desert, also known as the Mu Us Desert, (simplified Chinese: 鄂尔多斯沙漠; traditional Chinese: 鄂爾多斯沙漠; pinyin: È 'ěr duō sī Shā mò) is a desert and steppe region lying on a plateau in the south of the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China (centered ca. 39°N 109°E / 39°N 109°E / 39; 109). The soil of the Ordos is a mixture of clay and sand and, as a result, is poorly suited for agriculture. It extends over an area of approximately 90,650 km². It comprises two large deserts: the 7th largest desert in China, the Kubuqi Desert (库布其沙漠/庫布齊沙漠; pinyin: Kù bù qí Shā mò) in the north, and the 8th largest desert in China, the Maowusu Desert (毛乌素沙漠/毛烏素沙漠; pinyin: Máo wū sù Shā mò), in the south.
The Ordos Desert is almost completely encircled by the Great Bend of the Yellow River (Ordos Loop) in the west, north, and east. Mountain ranges separate the Ordos from the Gobi Desert north and east of the Yellow River. The mountain chains separating the Ordos from the central Gobi in the north of the great bend of the Yellow River are: the Kara-naryn-ula, the Sheitenula, and the Yin Mountains, which link on to the south end of the Greater Khingan Mountains. In the south and east, the Great Wall of China separates the Ordos from fertile loess lands. The Ordos covers the southern section of the Inner Mongolia, an Autonomous Region of China, the Ningxia, an Autonomous Entity of China, and the Chinese Provinces of Shaanxi and Gansu.

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Owyhee Desert
The Owyhee Desert ecoregion, within the Deserts and xeric shrublands Biome, is in the Northwestern United States. The Owyhee Uplands Bypass passes through the desert.
An arid region of canyons, volcanic rock, sagebrush and grass makes up the ~9,375 sq mi (24,280 km²) Owyhee Desert.
The desert is in northern Nevada, southwestern Idaho and southeastern Oregon. It is located on the south edge of the Columbia Plateau southwest of Boise, Idaho, stretching east from the Santa Rosa Range. It has a mean elevation of approximately 5,300 ft (1,600 m). The Owyhee Desert is primarily drained by the tributaries of the Bruneau River and Owyhee Rivers, which then flow into the Snake River.
Most of the land in the desert is owned by the federal government and managed by the Bureau of Land Management. It is largely used as ranchland, resulting in ongoing controversies regarding federal mismanagement and environmental degradation resulting from overgrazing.^[who?]
In 1999, the Desert Group submitted an alternative for Owyhee resource management.

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Patagonian Desert
The Patagonian Desert, also known as the Patagonia Desert or the Patagonian Steppe, is the largest desert in Argentina and is the 7th largest desert in the world by area, occupying 673,000 square kilometers (260,000 mi²). It is located primarily in Argentina with small parts in Chile and is bounded by the Andes, to its west, and the Atlantic Ocean to its east, in the region of Patagonia, southern Argentina. To the north the desert grades into the semi-arid Cuyo Region and the Dry and Humid Pampas. The central parts of the steppe are dominated by shrubby and herbaceous plant species albeit to the west, where precipitation is higher, bushes are replaced by grasses. Topographically the deserts consist of alternating tablelands and massifs dissected by river valleys and canyons. The more western parts of the steppe host lakes of glacial origin and grades into barren mountains or cold temperate forests along valleys.
Inhabited by hunter-gatherers since Pre-Hispanic times the desert faced in the 19th century migration of Mapuches, Chileans, Argentines, Welshs and other European peoples transforming it from a conflictive borderland zone to an integral part of Argentina with cattle, sheep and horse husbandry being the primary land use.

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Pedirka Desert
The Pedirka Desert is an Australian desert, located about 100 kilometres (62 mi) north-west of Oodnadatta and 250 kilometres (160 mi) north-east of Coober Pedy in South Australia. Mount Deane and Witjira National Park are just to the north.
The desert is relatively small, occupying about 1,250 square kilometres (480 sq mi).
Coordinates: 26°54′S 134°54′E / 26.9°S 134.9°E / -26.9; 134.9

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Piscinas
Piscinas is a comune (municipality) in the Province of Carbonia-Iglesias in the Italian region Sardinia, located about 40 km southwest of Cagliari and about 15 km southeast of Carbonia, in the Sulcis-Iglesiente traditional subregion.
Piscinas borders the following municipalities: Giba, Masainas, Santadi, Teulada, Tratalias, Villaperuccio.

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Qaidam Basin
Qaidam Basin, also spelled Tsaidam (from Mongolian: Цайдам, "salt marsh" or "wide valley"; simplified Chinese: 柴达木盆地; traditional Chinese: 柴達木盆地; pinyin: Cháidámù Péndì) is an hyperarid basin that occupies a large part of the Haixi Mongol and Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Qinghai Province, western China. The basin covers an area of approximately 120,000 km², one fourth of which is covered by saline lakes and playas.
Around 35,000 square kilometers, or one third of the basin is desert, which is known in Chinese as Chaidamu Pendi Shamo (柴达木盆地沙漠), i.e. Qaidam Basin Desert.
The Qaidam Basin forms a sort of shelf on the northeast side of the Tibetan Plateau. The Tibetan Plateau is at least 14,000 feet above sea level, the Qaidam about 10,000 and Gansu to the north about 3,000 to 4,000 feet. A low water divide separates the Qaidam Basin proper from that of Qinghai Lake to the east.
Orographically, the Qaidam Basin is a comparatively low areas in the northeastern part of the Tibetan Plateau. Qaidam is an intermontane basin, i.e. it is surrounded on all sides by mountain ranges. In the south, the Kunlun Mountains separate it from the higher central section of the Tibetan Plateau. In the north, a number of smaller ridges (Shulenanshan, etc) separate the basin from another higher plateau, which is more known for its northern escarpment, the Qilian Mountains; that entire mountain system is often generically known as Nanshan. In the northwest, the Altyn-Tagh separates the Qaidam Basin from the Kumtagh Desert of southeastern Xinjiang.

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Rangipo Desert
Rangipo Desert is a barren desert-like environment in New Zealand, located in the Ruapehu District on the North Island Volcanic Plateau; to the east of the three active peaks of Mount Tongariro, Mount Ngauruhoe, and Mount Ruapehu, and to the west of the Kaimanawa Range.
The Rangipo Desert receives 1,500–2,500 mm (59–98 in) of rainfall per year, but resembles a desert because of a poor soil quality, drying winds and the mass sterilization of seeds during a series of violent eruptions, particularly ignimbrite flows about 20,000 years ago. The vegetation is low and sparse, consisting of mainly tussock and snow grasses. The headwaters of many small streams, which later to turn into large rivers, gouge deep serrated valleys through the unconsolidated ash and pumice-rich earth. The climate here is harsh and alpine, with close to 270 ground frosts per year in comparison with less than 30 in the coastal regions of Hawke's Bay, 80 km (50 mi) to the east. Heavy snowfalls - rarely seen in the rest of the island - are also a common occurrence in winter. Trampers and climbers in the area should be mindful of the extreme chill effect of the cold south wind which can produce wind chill factors lowering the temperature below zero for days on end.

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Richtersveld
The Richtersveld is a mountainous desert landscape characterised by rugged kloofs and high mountains, situated in South Africa’s Northern Cape province. It is full of changing scenery from flat sandy plains, to craggy sharp mountains of volcanic rock and the lushness of the Orange River, which forms the border with neighbouring Namibia. The park ranges in altitude from less than 60m (less than 200 feet) in its far North, along the Orange river, to 1377 m (4518 feet) at Cornellberg somewhat South of centre.
Located in South Africa's northern Namaqualand, this arid area represents a harsh landscape where water is a great scarcity and only the hardiest of lifeforms survive. Despite this, the Richtersveld is regarded as the only Arid Biodiversity Hotspot on Earth, with an astonishing variety of plant, bird and animal life (much of which is endemic).
A favourite amongst nature travellers to South Africa, the landscape is sometimes described as "martian". Though barren and desolate at first glance, closer examination reveals the area to be rich in desert lifeforms, with an array or unique species specially adapted for survival.

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Ryn Desert
The Ryn Desert or Ryn-Peski Desert (Russian: Рын-пески; Kazakh: Нарын-Құм), is a desert in western Kazakhstan and southeastern Russia, north of the Caspian Sea and southeast of the Volga Upland. The borders of the desert are very loosely defined. Some maps show the desert almost entirely within the Caspian Depression, stretching almost to the coast of the Caspian Sea, while others show it north of the depression. It lies west of the Ural River between 46° and 49° North latitude, and 47° to 52° East longitude. Temperatures can reach extreme highs of 45°C to 48°C during summer and in winter it can drop to a low of -28°C to -36°C .
Many small towns are scattered throughout the Ryn Desert, and population density is between 1 and 15 people per square mile. The Ryn lies in a semi-arid climate zone, and receives very little rainfall.
High winds sweep across the desert, and in 2001 a dust storm in the Baltic Sea was determined as originating in the Ryn Desert^{[citation needed]}. A study of long-range dust transportation to the Baltic Sea region—by analyzing dust pollution in Scandinavia, showed that aerosol concentrations there were influenced more by the Ryn Desert region than the Sahara Desert in Africa.

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Sahara
The Sahara (Arabic: الصحراء الكبرى‎, Aṣ-Ṣaḥrā´ al-Kubrā, "The Great Desert") is the world's largest hot desert and second largest desert, after Antarctica. At over 9,400,000 square kilometres (3,600,000 sq mi), it covers most of Northern Africa, making it almost as large as China or the United States. The Sahara stretches from the Red Sea, including parts of the Mediterranean coasts, to the outskirts of the Atlantic Ocean. To the south, it is delimited by the Sahel, a belt of semi-arid tropical savanna that composes the northern region of central and western Sub-Saharan Africa.
Some of the sand dunes can reach 180 metres (590 ft) in height. The name comes from the Arabic word for desert: (صَحراء ṣaḥrāʾ [sˤɑħrɑːʔ] ( listen)).
The Sahara's boundaries are the Atlantic Ocean on the west, the Atlas Mountains and the Mediterranean Sea on the north, the Red Sea on the east, and the Sudan (region) and the valley of the Niger River on the south. The Sahara is divided into western Sahara, the central Ahaggar Mountains, the Tibesti Mountains, the Air Mountains (a region of desert mountains and high plateaus), Ténéré desert and the Libyan desert (the most arid region). The highest peak in the Sahara is Emi Koussi (3,415 m/11,204 ft) in the Tibesti Mountains in northern Chad.

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Sechura Desert

The Sechura Desert is located south of the Piura Region of Peru along the Pacific Ocean coast and inland to the foothills of the Andes Mountains. It is north of the Atacama Desert.
Within Peru, the desert is described as the strip along the northern Pacific coast of Peru in the southern Piura and western Lambayeque regions, and extending from the coast 20–100 km inland to the secondary ridges of the Andes Mountains. At its northern end near the city of Piura, the Sechura Desert transitions to the Tumbes-Piura tropical-dry forests ecoregion. Comprising much of eastern Lambayeque Region, this habitat is composed of equatorial dry forests. The total area of the Sechura Desert is 188,735 km².
The international World Wildlife Fund (WWF) defines the Sechura Desert as the entire stretch of coastal desert from the northwestern tip of Peru to parts of northern Chile, where it meets the Atacama Desert. In a third definition, the National Geographic Society includes part of the coastal desert in southern Peru (near Ica, Peru|Ica) within the Atacama Desert (See graphic map at Atacama Desert.)

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Simpson Desert
Coordinates: 24°34′S 137°25′E / 24.57°S 137.42°E / -24.57; 137.42
The Simpson Desert is a large area of dry, red sandy plain and dunes in Northern Territory, South Australia and Queensland in central Australia. It is the fourth largest Australian desert, with an area of 176,500 km² (68,100 sq mi).
The desert is underlain by the Great Artesian Basin, one of the largest inland drainage areas in the world. Water from the basin rises to the surface at numerous natural springs, including Dalhousie Springs, and at bores drilled along stock routes, or during petroleum exploration. As a result of exploitation by such bores, the flow of water to springs has been steadily decreasing in recent years.
The Simpson Desert is an erg which contains the world's longest parallel sand dunes. These north-south oriented dunes are static, held in position by vegetation. They vary in height from 3 metres in the west to around 30 metres on the eastern side. The largest and most famous dune, Nappanerica, or more popularly Big Red (named by Simpson Desert traveller Dennis Bartell), is 40 metres in height.

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Sonoran Desert
The Sonoran Desert is a North American desert which covers large parts of the Southwestern United States in Arizona, California, Northwest Mexico in Sonora, Baja California, and Baja California Sur. It is one of the largest and hottest deserts in North America, with an area of 311,000 square kilometers (120,000 sq mi). The western portion of the United States-Mexico border passes through the Sonoran Desert.
In phytogeography, the Sonoran Desert is within the Sonoran Floristic Province of the Madrean Region in southwestern North America, part of the Holarctic Kingdom of the northern Western Hemisphere. The desert contains a variety of unique and endemic plants and animals, such as the Saguaro (Carnegiea gigantea) and Organ Pipe cactus (Stenocereus thurberi).
The Sonoran desert wraps around the northern end of the Gulf of California, from Baja California Sur (El Vizcaíno Biosphere Reserve in central and Pacific west coast, Central Gulf Coast subregion on east to southern tip), north through much of Baja California, excluding the central northwest mountains and Pacific west coast, through southeastern California and southwestern and southern Arizona to western and central parts of Sonora.

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Strzelecki Desert
The Strzelecki Desert (English pronunciation: /tʃəˈlɛtski/) is located in the Far North Region of South Australia, southwest Queensland and western New South Wales. It is positioned in the northeast of the Lake Eyre Basin, and north of the Flinders Ranges. Two other deserts occupy the Lake Eyre Basin—the Tirari Desert and the Simpson Desert.
The Dingo Fence, Birdsville Track, the Strzelecki Track, the Diamantina River, Cooper Creek and the Strzelecki Creek all pass through the Desert.
The desert is characterized by extensive dune fields and is home to three wilderness areas. It was named after the Polish explorer Paweł Edmund Strzelecki by Charles Sturt. He was the first non-indigenous explorer in the area, followed closely by the ill-fated Burke and Wills expedition.
Much of the desert is preserved within the Strzelecki Regional Reserve in South Australia. Parts of the eastern sections of the desert are protected by the Sturt National Park. A population of the endangered Dusky Hopping Mouse lives in the desert.

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Sturt Stony Desert
Sturt Stony Desert (previously Sturt's Stony Desert) is an area in the north-east of South Australia, named by Charles Sturt in 1844, while he trying to find the inland sea which he believed lay at the centre of the Australia . The stones caused his horses to limp and wore down the hooves of the cattle and sheep which Sturt had taken on the expedition.
The larger Simpson Desert is located to the west and the Strzelecki Desert is to the south east. To the south west of Sturt Stony Desert is the Tirari Desert. The Birdsville Track is a route between Marree in South Australia and Birdsville in Queensland. The desert is part of the Tirari-Sturt stony desert ecoregion .
Coordinates: 27°S 140°E / 27°S 140°E / -27; 140

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Syrian Desert
The Syrian Desert (Arabic: بادية الشام, bādiyat ash-shām‎), also known as the Syro-Arabian desert is a combination of steppe and true desert that is located in the northern Arabian Peninsula covering 200,000 square miles (over 500,000 square kilometers). The desert is very rocky and flat.
The Syrian desert is part of the Al-Hamad, which covers portions of Syria, Iraq, Jordan,and Saudi Arabia. Its border on the west is the Orontes Valley, and its border on the east is the Euphrates. In the north, the desert gives way to the more fertile areas of grass. In the south, it runs into the deserts of the southern Arabian Peninsula. Many mini-deserts exist in the Syrian Desert such as Palmyra. Damascus is located on an oasis. The desert's remarkable landscape was formed by lava flows from the volcanic region of the Jebel Druze in southern Syria. The Syrian Desert is the origin of the Syrian hamster.
The desert was historically inhabited by bedouin tribes, and many tribes still remain in the region, their members living mainly in towns and settlements built near oases. Some bedouin still maintain their traditional way of life in the desert. Safaitic inscriptions, proto-Arabic texts written by literate bedouin, are found throughout the Syrian Desert. These date approximately from the 1st century B.C. to the 4th century A.D.

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Taklamakan Desert
The Taklamakan Desert, also known as Taklimakan and Teklimakan, is a desert in northwest China, in the southwest portion of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. It is bounded by the Kunlun Mountains to the south, and the desert Pamir Mountains and Tian Shan (ancient Mount Imeon) to the west and north.
The name is probably an Uyghur borrowing of Arabic tark, "to leave alone/out/behind, relinquish, abandon" + makan, "place". Another plausible explanation is that it is derived from Turki taqlar makan, which means "the place of ruins". Popular accounts wrongly claim that Takla Makan means "go in and you will never come out". It may also mean "The point of no return" or "The Desert of Death".
The Taklamakan Desert Ecoregion is a Chinese ecoregion of the Deserts and xeric shrublands Biome.^{[citation needed]}
It has an area of 337,000 km². (130,116 sq. mi.), and includes the Tarim Basin, which is 1,000 kilometres (620 mi) long and 400 kilometres (250 mi) wide. It is crossed at its northern and at its southern edge by two branches of the Silk Road as travelers sought to avoid the arid wasteland. It is the world's second largest shifting sand desert with about 85% made up of shifting sand dunes ranking 18th in size in a ranking of the world's largest non-polar deserts.

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Tanami Desert
The Tanami Desert is a desert in northern Australia situated in the Northern Territory. It has a rocky terrain with small hills. The Tanami was the Northern Territory's final frontier and was not fully explored until well into the twentieth century. It is traversed by the Tanami Track.
Under the name Tanami, it is one of the Interim Biogeographic Regionalisation for Australia (IBRA) regions.
According to government commissions, the Tanami desert is uniquely "one of the most important biological areas to be found in Australia particularly as it provides refuge for several of Australia's rare and endangered species."
The species that are found include:
Significant bird species include:
The Tanami Desert is Kukatja and Walpiri country. The Tjurabalan live at the edge of the desert.
Coordinates: 20°S 130°E / 20°S 130°E / -20; 130

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Tatacoa Desert
The Tatacoa Desert, the second largest arid zone in Colombia after the Guajira Peninsula, is one of the most attractive scenery Colombia occupies 330 square kilometers of land in ocher and gray brushstrokes of green cactus. The Desert Tatacoa has two distinctive colors: ocher in the area of Cuzco and gray in the Los Hoyos. The Tatacoa or the Valley of Sorrows, as he called in 1538 the conquistador Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada, for traces of deterioration noted in its territory is not just a desert, but a tropical dry forest. His name "Tatacoa" also gave it the Spanish, referring to rattlesnakes and not, as you might think, harmless snakes black. As revealed by scientists, Tatacoa during the Tertiary Period was a garden with thousands of flowers and trees have gradually been drying up to become a desert. This semiarid region that is located north of Huila Department, 38 km from the city of Neiva in Colombia and 10 miles from Natagaima in Tolima. It is a rich deposit of fossils and is a great tourist destination.

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Tel Aviv District
The Tel Aviv District (Hebrew: מחוז תל אביב‎; Arabic: منطقة تل أبيب‎) is the smallest and most densely populated of six administrative districts of Israel with a population of 1.2 million residents. It is 99.0% Jewish and 1.0% Arab (0.7% Muslim, 0.3% Christian)^{[citation needed]}.
The district's capital is Tel Aviv and the metropolitan area created by the Tel Aviv district and its neighboring cities is named Gush Dan.
Coordinates: 32°05′N 34°48′E / 32.083°N 34.8°E / 32.083; 34.8

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Tengger Desert
The Tengger Desert (Mongolian: Тэнгэр цөл, lit. Sky Desert, Chinese: 腾格里沙漠, Mandarin: Ténggélǐ Shāmò) covers about 36,700 km² and is mostly in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region in China.
Coordinates: 38°42′N 104°42′E / 38.7°N 104.7°E / 38.7; 104.7

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Thar Desert
The Thar Desert (Rajasthani: थार मरुधर, Hindi:थार मरुस्थल, Urdu (Urdu: تھر صحرا also known as the Great Indian Desert) is a large, arid region in the northwestern part of the Indian subcontinent and forms a natural boundary running along the border between India and Pakistan. With an area of more than 200,000 km² (77,000 sq mi), it is the world's 9th largest subtropical desert.
It lies mostly in the Indian State of Rajasthan, and extends into the northern portion of Haryana and Punjab states and into southern Gujarat state. In Pakistan, the desert covers eastern Sindh province and the southeastern portion of Pakistan's Punjab province. The Cholistan Desert adjoins the Thar desert spreading into Pakistani Punjab province.
In India the Thar Desert (also known as the Great Indian Desert) extends from the Sutlej River, surrounded by the Aravalli Ranges on the east, on the south by the salt marsh known as the Great Rann of Kutch (parts of which are sometimes included in the Thar), and on the west by the Indus River. Its boundary to the large thorny steppe to the north is ill-defined, about 3/5th of the total geographical area of the State.
In Pakistan, the desert covers eastern Sindh and the southeastern portion of Punjab, Pakistan. The Tharparkar District is one of the major parts of the desert area. Tharparkar consists of two words: Thar means ‘desert’ while Parkar stands for ‘the other side’.

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Tirari Desert
The Tirari Desert is a 15,250 square kilometres (5,888 sq mi)desert in the eastern part of the Far North region of South Australia.
The Tirari Desert features salt lakes and large north-south running sand dunes. It is located partly within the Lake Eyre National Park. It lies mainly to the east of Lake Eyre North. Cooper Creek runs through the centre of the desert.
The adjacent deserts of the area include Simpson Desert which lies to the north while the Strzelecki Desert is to the east and the Sturt Stony Desert runs aligned with the Birdsville track to the north east.
The desert experiences harsh conditions with high temperatures and very low rainfall (mean annual rainfall is below 125 millimetres (4.9 in)).

The main vehicular access to the desert is via the unpaved Birdsville Track which runs northwards from Marree to Birdsville. The Mungerannie Hotel is the only location between the two towns that provides services.
The Tirari Desert region has a number of large cattle stations which are stopping points on the Channel Country aviation mail run.

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Ustyurt Plateau
The Ustyurt Plateau, also spelled Ust-Yurt, Ust-Urt and Usturt (Kazakh: Üstirt, Turkmen: Üstyurt), is a central Asian plateau in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, between the Aral Sea and the Caspian Sea. It extends roughly 200,000 km², with an average elevation of 150 meters, and consists primarily of stony desert. The plateau’s semi-nomadic population raises sheep, goats, and camels.
Coordinates: 43°17′N 55°33′E / 43.283°N 55.55°E / 43.283; 55.55

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Valley of Elah
The Valley of Elah, "the valley of the oak or terebinth" (Hebrew: עמק האלה‎ Emek HaElah) (Arabic Wadi es-Sunt), best known as the place described in the Bible where the Israelites were encamped when David fought Goliath (1 Sam. 17:2, 19). It was near Azekah and Socho (17:1). On the west side of the valley, near Socho, there is a very large and ancient tree of this kind, 55 feet in height, its trunk 17 feet in circumference, and the breadth of its shade no less than 75 feet. It marks the upper end of the valley, and forms a noted object, being one of the largest terebinths in the area.
The Valley of Elah has gained new importance as a point of support for the argument that Israel was more than a tribal chiefdom in the time of King David. At Khirbet Qeiyafa, southwest of Jerusalem in the Elah Valley, Prof. Yosef Garfinkel has discovered a fortified Judahite city from the Iron Age IIa dated sometime between 1050 and 915 BCE. The fortifications have been said to support the Biblical account of the United Monarchy at the beginning of Iron Age II.

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Wahiba Sands
The Wahiba Sands, or Ramlat al-Wahiba (also called Sharqiya Sands), are a region of desert in Oman. The region is named for the Wahiba tribe. The area is defined by a boundary of 180 kilometers (110 mi) north to south and 80 kilometers (50 mi) east to west, with an area of 12,500 square kilometers (4,800 sq mi). The desert has been of scientific interest since a 1986 expedition by the Royal Geographical Society documented the diversity of the terrain, the flora and fauna, noting 16,000 invertebrates as well as 200 species of other wildlife, including avifauna. They also documented 150 species of native flora.
The desert was formed during the Quaternary period as a result of the forces of south-west blowing monsoon and the northern shamal trade wind, coming in from the east. Based on the types of dunes found in the area, it is divided into the high, or upper, Wahiba and low Wahiba. The upper area contains mega-ridge sand systems on a north-south line that are believed to have been formed by monsoon. The dunes of the north, formed at some point after the last regional glaciation, measure up to 100 meters (330 ft) high, with peaks accumulating in the areas just beyond the strongest wind speeds, where declining velocity wind deposited sand. The north and west boundaries of the desert are delineated by the fluvial systems Wadi Batha and Wadi Andam. Beneath the surface sands are an older layer of cemented carbonate sand.Alluvium deposits believed to have originated from the Wadi Batha during the Paleolithic era have been disclosed in the central desert 200 meters (660 ft) beneath the interdune surface.Wind erosion is believed to have contributed to the existence of a nearly level plain in the southwest.

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West Bank
The West Bank (Arabic: الضفة الغربية‎ aḍ-Ḍaffah l-Ġarbiyyah, Hebrew: הגדה המערבית‎, HaGadah HaMa'aravit also known as Hebrew: יהודה והשומרון‎ Yehuda ve-Ha'Shomron (Judea and Samaria)) of the Jordan River is the landlocked geographical eastern part of the Palestinian territories located in Western Asia. To the west, north, and south, the West Bank shares borders with the state of Israel. To the east, across the Jordan River, lies the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. The West Bank also contains a significant coastline along the western bank of the Dead Sea. Since 1967, most of the West Bank has been under Israeli military occupation and is referred to as Judea and Samaria Area by Israel. A smaller part of the West Bank is administered by the Israeli civilian authorities as part of Jerusalem District.

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Yehud Medinata
Yehud Medinata (Aramaic for "the province of Judah") or simply Yehud, was an autonomous province of the Achaemenid (ancient Persia) empire, roughly equivalent to the older kingdom of Judah but covering a smaller area, within the satrapy of Eber-Nari. The region corresponded to the Babylonian province with the same name, formed after the fall of the kingdom of Judah to the Neo-Babylonian Empire (c.597 after its conquest of the Mediterranean east coast, and again in 585/6 BCE after suppressing an unsuccessful Judean revolt).
The name Yehud is known from coins unearthed in the region. Archaeological evidence is quite limited, and a history of the period is dependent almost entirely on biblical sources of often uncertain reliability.
There is not complete agreement on the chronology of the Babylonian and Persian periods: the following table is used in this article, but alternative dates for many events are plausible - this is especially true of the chronological sequence of Ezra and Nehemiah, with Ezra 7:6-8 stating that Ezra came to Jerusalem "in the seventh year of Artaxerxes the King," without specifying whether this was Artaxerxes I (465-424 BCE) or Artaxerxes II (404-359 BCE); the probable date for his mission is 458 BCE, but it is possible that it took place in 397 BCE.

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Yp Desert
The Yp Desert is a desert and ecoregion, within the Deserts and xeric shrublands Biome, in Owyhee County, Idaho, and Elko County, Nevada in the northwestern United States.
The Yp Desert lies at the eastern edges of the Owyhee Desert, and is home to the South Fork Owyhee River Recreation Area.
Josephine Reservoir, a small reservoir, Hat Peak, and the Duck Valley Indian Reservation are at the eastern perimeter of the Yp Desert.

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Yuha Desert
The Yuha Desert is a section of the Sonoran Desert located in the Imperial Valley of California; south of Interstate 8, west of El Centro, CA, and north of the international border.
Unique aspects of the Yuha Desert include the Oyster Shell Beds, De Anza Historical Monument, Crucifixion Thorn Natural Area, and the Yuha geoglyph. It is the homeland of the Quechan Native American people.
The Yuha Desert is designated an Area of Critical Environmental Concern by the Bureau of Land Management and is managed as a limited use area for biologic and archeologic resource conservation. The primary species of concern is the flat-tailed horned lizard. Off Highway Vehicles(OHV) are limited to signed routes to protect both the flat-tail horned lizard habitat and the archeologic resources including, lithic reduction sites, and historic use of the region.
Coordinates: 32°43′N 115°50′W / 32.717°N 115.833°W / 32.717; -115.833

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Abraham
Abraham (Hebrew: אַבְרָהָם (help·info), Modern: Avraham, Tiberian: ʼAḇrāhām, Ashkenazi Avrohom or Avruhom, Arabic: إبراهيم‎ Ibrāhīm, Ge'ez: አብርሃም ʼAbrəham, Greek: Aβραάμ, Russian: Авраам), whose birth name was Abram, is the eponym of the Abrahamic religions, among which are Judaism, Christianity and Islam. According to both the Hebrew Bible and the Qur'an, through his sons Ishmael and Isaac, Abraham is the forefather of many tribes, namely the Ishmaelites, Israelites, Midianites and Edomites. Abraham was a descendant of Noah's son, Shem. Christians believe that Jesus was a descendant of Abraham through Isaac, and Muslims believe that Muhammad was a descendant of Abraham through Ishmael. Abraham is notable for his advocation and promotion of monotheism.
The Book of Genesis narrative that records the life of Abraham presents his role as one that could only be fulfilled through a monotheistic covenant established between him and God. The Qur'an has stories about Abraham and his offspring that are similar to the Bible's. In Islam, Abraham is recognised as a prophet, patriarch and messenger, archetype of the perfect Muslim, and reformer of the Kaaba.

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Alexander the Great
Alexander III of Macedon (20/21 July 356 – 10/11 June 323 BC), commonly known as Alexander the Great (Greek: Ἀλέξανδρος ὁ Μέγας, Aléxandros ho Mégas from the Greek αλέξω alexo "to defend, help" + ανήρ aner "man"), was a king of Macedon, a state in northern ancient Greece. Born in Pella in 356 BC, Alexander was tutored by Aristotle until the age of 16. By the age of thirty, he had created one of the largest empires of the ancient world, stretching from the Ionian Sea to the Himalayas. He was undefeated in battle and is considered one of history's most successful commanders.
Alexander succeeded his father, Philip II of Macedon, to the throne in 336 BC after Philip was assassinated. Upon Philip's death, Alexander inherited a strong kingdom and an experienced army. He was awarded the generalship of Greece and used this authority to launch his father's military expansion plans. In 334 BC, he invaded Persian-ruled Asia Minor and began a series of campaigns that lasted ten years. Alexander broke the power of Persia in a series of decisive battles, most notably the battles of Issus and Gaugamela. He subsequently overthrew the Persian King Darius III and conquered the entirety of the Persian Empire. At that point, his empire stretched from the Adriatic Sea to the Indus River.

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Cyrus the Great
Cyrus II of Persia (Old Persian: Kuruš (c. 600 BC or 576 BC–530 BC), commonly known as Cyrus the Great, also known as Cyrus the Elder, was the founder of the Achaemenid Empire. Under his rule, the empire embraced all the previous civilized states of the ancient Near East, expanded vastly and eventually conquered most of Southwest Asia and much of Central Asia, parts of Europe and the Caucasus. From the Mediterranean sea and Hellespont in the west to the Indus River in the east, Cyrus the Great created the largest empire the world had yet seen. He also pronounced one of the first historically important declarations of human rights via the Cyrus Cylinder sometime between 539-530 BCE.
The reign of Cyrus the Great lasted between 29 and 31 years. Cyrus built his empire by conquering first the Median Empire, then the Lydian Empire and eventually the Neo-Babylonian Empire. Either before or after Babylon, he led an expedition into central Asia, which resulted in major campaigns that were described as having brought "into subjection every nation without exception". Cyrus did not venture into Egypt, as he himself died in battle, fighting the Massagetae along the Syr Darya in December 530 BC. He was succeeded by his son, Cambyses II, who managed to add to the empire by conquering Egypt, Nubia, and Cyrenaica during his short rule.

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Hadrian
Hadrian (Latin: Publius Aelius Traianus Hadrianus Augustus 24 January 76 – 10 July 138), was a Roman Emperor from 117 to 138. He is best known for building Hadrian's Wall, which marked the northern limit of Roman Britain. In Rome, he re-built the Pantheon and constructed the Temple of Venus and Roma. In addition to being emperor, Hadrian was a humanist and was philhellene in all his tastes. He was the third of the so-called Five Good Emperors.
Hadrian was born Publius Aelius Hadrianus to an ethnically Italian family in Italica near Seville. His predecessor Trajan was a maternal cousin of Hadrian's father. Trajan never officially designated an heir, but according to his wife Pompeia Plotina, Trajan named Hadrian emperor immediately before his death. Trajan's wife and his friend Licinius Sura were well-disposed towards Hadrian, and he may well have owed his succession to them.

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Herodotus
Herodotus ( /hɨˈrɒdətəs/; Ancient Greek: Ἡρόδοτος Hēródotos) was an ancient Greek historian who was born in Halicarnassus, Caria (modern day Bodrum, Turkey) and lived in the fifth century BC (circa 484 – 425 BC). He has been called the "Father of History", and was the first historian known to collect his materials systematically, test their accuracy to a certain extent and arrange them in a well-constructed and vivid narrative.The Histories—his masterpiece and the only work he is known to have produced—is a record of his "inquiry" (or ἱστορία historía, a word that passed into Latin and acquired its modern meaning of "history"), being an investigation of the origins of the Greco-Persian Wars and including a wealth of geographical and ethnographical information. Although some of his stories were fanciful, he claimed he was reporting only what had been told to him. Little is known of his personal history.
The Histories, otherwise known as The Researches or The Inquiries, were divided by later Alexandrian editors into nine books, named after the nine Muses: the "Muse of History", Clio, representing the first book, then Euterpe, Thaleia, Melpomene, Terpsichore, Erato, Polymnia, Ourania and Calliope for books 2 to 9, respectively. At its simplest and broadest level of meaning, The Histories is structured as a dynastic history of four Persian kings:

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Hyrcanus II
Hyrcanus II, a member of the Hasmonean dynasty, was the Jewish High Priest and King of Judea in the 1st century BC.
Hyrcanus was the eldest son of Alexander Jannaeus, King and High Priest, and Alexandra Salome. After the death of Alexander in 76 BC, his widow succeeded to the rule of Judea and installed her elder son Hyrcanus as High Priest.
When Salome died in 67 BC, she named Hyrcanus as successor to the Kingship as well. Hyrcanus was already High Priest but also shared his mother's religious views, sympathetic to the Pharisees. In contrast to this, Alexander Jannaeus had supported the Sadducees.
Hyrcanus had scarcely reigned three months when his younger brother Aristobulus II, who agreed with his father's Sadducean stance, rose in rebellion. Hyrcanus advanced against him at the head of his mercenaries and his followers. The brothers met in battle near Jericho and many of Hyrcanus' soldiers went over to Aristobulus II, and thereby gave the latter the victory.
Hyrcanus took refuge in the citadel of Jerusalem; but the capture of the Temple by Aristobulus II compelled Hyrcanus to surrender. A peace was then concluded, according to the terms of which Hyrcanus was to renounce the throne and the office of high priest, but was to enjoy the revenues of the latter office.

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Isaac
Isaac ( /ˈaɪzək/;Hebrew: יִצְחָק, Modern Yitsẖak Tiberian Yiṣḥāq, ISO 259-3 Yiçḥaq, "he will laugh"; Yiddish: יצחק, Yitskhok; Ancient Greek: Ἰσαάκ, Isaak; Latin: Isaac; Arabic: إسحاق‎ or Arabic: إسحٰق‎ʼIsḥāq) as described in the Hebrew Bible, was the only son Abraham had with his wife Sarah, and was the father of Jacob and Esau. Isaac was one of the three patriarchs of the Israelites. According to the Book of Genesis, Abraham was 100 years old when Isaac was born, and Sarah was beyond childbearing years.
Isaac was the only biblical patriarch whose name was not changed, and the only one who did not leave Canaan. Compared to those of Abraham and Jacob, Isaac's story relates fewer incidents of his life. He died when he was 180 years old, making him the longest-lived patriarch.
The anglicized name Isaac is a transliteration of the Hebrew term Yiṣḥāq which literally means "He laughs/will laugh."Ugaritic texts dating from the 13th century BCE refer to the benevolent smile of the Canaanite deity El. Genesis, however, ascribes the laughter to Isaac's parents, Abraham and Sarah, rather than El. According to the biblical narrative, Abraham fell on his face and laughed when Elohim imparted the news of their son's eventual birth. He laughed because Sarah was past the age of childbearing; both she and Abraham were advanced in age. Later, when Sarah overheard three messengers of the Lord renew the promise, she laughed inwardly for the same reason. Sarah denied laughing when Elohim questioned Abraham about it.

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Jacob
Jacob ( /ˈdʒeɪkəb/; Hebrew: יַעֲקֹב‎‎ Standard Yaʿakov, Tiberian Yaʿăqōḇ (help·info); Septuagint Greek: Ἰακώβ Iakōb; Arabic: يَعْقُوب‎ Yaʿqūb; "heel" or "leg-puller"), also later known as Israel (Hebrew: יִשְׂרָאֵל‎‎, Standard Yisraʾel, Tiberian Yiśrāʾēl; Septuagint Greek: Ἰσραήλ Israēl; Arabic: إِسْرَائِيل‎ Isrāʾīl; "persevere with God"), as described in the Hebrew Bible, the Talmud, the New Testament and the Qur'an was the third patriarch of the Hebrew people with whom God made a covenant, and ancestor of the tribes of Israel, which were named after his descendants.
In the Hebrew Bible, he is the son of Isaac and Rebekah, the grandson of Abraham and Sarah and of Bethuel, and the younger twin brother of Esau. Jacob had twelve sons and at least one daughter, by his two wives, Leah and Rachel, and by their female slaves Bilhah and Zilpah. The children named in Genesis were Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Issachar, Zebulun, daughter Dinah, Joseph, and Benjamin.
Before the birth of Benjamin, Jacob is renamed "Israel" by an angel (Genesis 32:28-29 and 35:10). The name "Israel" can be translated as "God contended", but other meanings have also been suggested. Some commentators say the name comes from the verb śœarar ("to rule, be strong, have authority over"), thereby making the name mean "God rules" or "God judges". Other possible meanings include "the prince of God" (from the King James Version) or "El fights/struggles".

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Jewish diaspora
The Jewish diaspora (or simply the Diaspora) is the English term used to describe the Galut גלות (Yiddish: 'Golus'), or 'exile', of the Jews from the region of the Kingdom of Judah and Roman Judaea and later emigration from wider Eretz Israel.
The diaspora began with the 6th century BCE conquest of the ancient Kingdom of Judah, the destruction of the First Temple (c. 586 BCE), and the expulsion of the population, as recorded in the Bible. The Babylonian ruler, Nebuchadnezzar allowed them to remain in a unified community in Babylon. Another group of Jews fled to Egypt, where they settled in the Nile delta. From 597 BCE onwards, there were three distinct groups of Hebrews: a group in Babylon and other parts of the Middle East, a group in Judaea, and another group in Egypt. While Cyrus the Persian allowed the Jews to return to their homeland in 538 BCE, most chose to remain in Babylon. A large number of Jews in Egypt became mercenaries in Upper Egypt on an island called the Elephantine. All of these Jews retained their religion, identity, and social customs; both under the Persians and the Greeks, they were allowed to conduct their lives according to their own laws.

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Jews
The Jews (Hebrew: יְהוּדִים‎‎ ISO 259-3 Yhudim Israeli pronunciation [jehuˈdim]), also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and an ethnoreligious group, originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation.Converts to Judaism, whose status as Jews within the Jewish ethnos is equal to those born into it, have been absorbed into the Jewish people throughout the millennia.
In Jewish tradition, Jewish ancestry is traced to the Biblical patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the second millennium BCE. The modern State of Israel defines itself as a Jewish state in its Basic Laws, and Israel's Law of Return states: "Every Jew has the right to come to this country as an oleh." Israel is the only country where Jews are a majority of the population. Jews achieved political autonomy twice before in ancient history. The first of these periods lasted from 1350 to 586 BCE, and encompassed the periods of the Judges, the United Monarchy, and the Divided Monarchy of the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah, ending with the destruction of the First Temple. The second was the period of the Hasmonean Kingdom spanning from 140 to 37 BCE. Since the destruction of the First Temple, most Jews have lived in diaspora. A minority in every country in which they live (except Israel), they have frequently experienced persecution throughout history, resulting in a population that has fluctuated both in numbers and distribution over the centuries.

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Josephus
Titus Flavius Josephus (37 – c. 100), also called Joseph ben Matityahu (Biblical Hebrew: יוסף בן מתתיהו, Yosef ben Matityahu), was a 1st-century Romano-Jewish historian and hagiographer of priestly and royal ancestry who recorded Jewish history, with special emphasis on the 1st century AD and the First Jewish–Roman War, which resulted in the Destruction of Jerusalem and its temple in 70.
His most important works were The Jewish War (c. 75) and Antiquities of the Jews (c. 94).The Jewish War recounts the Jewish revolt against Roman occupation (66–70). Antiquities of the Jews recounts the history of the world from a Jewish perspective for an ostensibly Roman audience. These works provide valuable insight into 1st century Judaism and the background of Early Christianity (See main article Josephus on Jesus).
Josephus introduces himself in Greek as Iōsēpos (Ιώσηπος), son of Matthias, an ethnic Jew, a priest from Jerusalem" in his first book. He was the second-born son of Matthias and his wife, who was an unnamed Jewish noblewoman. His older brother, his full-blooded sibling, was also called Matthias. The mother of Josephus was an aristocratic woman who descended from royalty and of the former ruling Hasmonean Dynasty. Josephus’ paternal grandparents were Josephus and his wife, an unnamed Jewish noblewoman. His paternal grandparents were distant relatives of each other, as they were both direct descendants of Simon Psellus. Josephus came from a wealthy, aristocratic family and through his father, he descended from the priestly order of the Jehoiarib, which was the first of the 24 orders of Priests in the Temple in Jerusalem. Through his father, Josephus was a descendant of the High Priest Jonathon. Jonathon may have been Alexander Jannaeus, the High Priest and Hasmonean ruler who governed Judea from 103 BC-76 BC. Born and raised in Jerusalem, Josephus was educated alongside his brother.

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Judas Maccabeus
Judah Maccabee (or Judas Maccabeus, also spelled Machabeus, or Maccabaeus, Hebrew: יהודה המכבי, Y'hudhah HamMakabi, Judah the Hammer) was a Kohen and a son of the Jewish priest Mattathias. He led the Maccabean revolt against the Seleucid Empire (167–160 BCE) and is acclaimed as one of the greatest warriors in Jewish history alongside Joshua, Gideon and David.
The Jewish feast of Hanukkah ("Dedication") commemorates the restoration of Jewish worship at the temple in Jerusalem in 165 BCE, after Judah Maccabee removed the pagan statuary.
Judah was the third son (Josephus) of Mattathias the Hasmonean, a Jewish priest from the village of Modiin. In 167 BCE Mattathias, together with his sons Judah, Eleazar, Simon, John, and Jonathan, started a revolt against the Seleucid ruler Antiochus IV Epiphanes, who since 175 BCE had issued decrees that forbade Jewish religious practices. After Mattathias's death in 166 BCE, Judah assumed leadership of the revolt in accordance with the deathbed disposition of his father. The First Book of Maccabees praises Judah's valor and military talent, suggesting that those qualities made Judah a natural choice for the new commander.

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Maccabees
The Maccabees also spelled Machabees (Hebrew: מכבים‎ or Maqabim, מקבים, Machabi (Latin) or Machado from Latin (marculatum) that means "Hammer" (Greek: Μακκαβαῖοι, /makav'εï/) were a Jewish rebel army that took control of Judea, which had been a client state of the Seleucid Empire. They founded the Hasmonean dynasty, which ruled from 164 BCE to 63 BCE, reasserting the Jewish religion, expanding the boundaries of the Land of Israel and reducing the influence of Hellenism and Hellenistic Judaism.
In the 2nd century BCE, Judea lay between the Ptolemaic Kingdom based in Egypt and the Seleucid empire based in Syria, kingdoms formed after the death of Alexander the Great (336–323 BCE). Judea had been under Ptolemaic rule, but fell to the Seleucids around 200 BCE. Judea at that time had been affected by the Hellenization begun by Alexander. Some Jews, mainly those of the urban upper class, notably the Tobiad family, wished to dispense with Jewish law and to adopt a Greek lifestyle. According to the historian Victor Tcherikover, the main motive for the Tobiads' Hellenism was economic and political. The Hellenizing Jews built a gymnasium in Jerusalem, competed in international Greek games, "removed their marks of circumcision and repudiated the holy covenant".

wn.com/Maccabees
Roman Emperor
The Roman emperor was the ruler of the Roman State during the imperial period (starting at about 27 BC). The Romans had no single term for the office although at any given time, a given title was associated with the emperor. If a man was "proclaimed emperor" this normally meant he was proclaimed augustus, or (for generals) imperator (from which English emperor ultimately derives). Several other titles and offices were regularly accumulated by emperors, such as caesar, princeps senatus, consul and Pontifex Maximus. The power of emperors was generally based on the accumulation of powers from republican offices and the support of the army.
Roman emperors refused to be considered "kings", instead claiming to be leaders of a republic, however nominal. The first emperor, Augustus, resolutely refused recognition as a monarch. Although Augustus could claim that his power was authentically Republican, his successor, Tiberius, could not convincingly make the same claim. Nonetheless, the Republican institutional framework (senate, consuls, magistracies etc.) was preserved until the very end of the Western Empire.

wn.com/Roman_Emperor
Simon bar Kokhba
Simon bar Kokhba (Hebrew: שמעון בר כוכבא‎) (died A.D. 135) was the Jewish leader of what is known as the Bar Kokhba revolt against the Roman Empire in 132 CE, establishing an independent Jewish state of Israel which he ruled for three years as Nasi ("Ruler"). His state was conquered by the Romans in 135 following a two-year war.
Documents discovered in the modern era give us his original name, Simon ben Kosiba, (Hebrew: שמעון בן כוסבא‎) he was given the surname Bar Kokhba, (Aramaic for "Son of a Star", referring to the Star Prophecy of Numbers 24:17, "there shall step forth a star out of Jacob, and a scepter shall rise out of Israel, and shall smite through the corners of Moab") by his contemporary, the Jewish sage Rabbi Akiva.
After the failure of the revolt, the rabbinical writers referred to bar Kokhba as "Simon bar Kozeba" (Hebrew: בר כוזיבא‎, "Son of lies" or "Son of deception").
Despite the devastation wrought by the Romans during the First Jewish-Roman War (66–73 CE), which left the population and countryside in ruins, a series of laws passed by Roman Emperors provided the incentive for the second rebellion. The last straw was a series of laws enacted by the Roman Emperor Hadrian, including an attempt to prevent Jews from living in Jerusalem; a new Roman city, Aelia Capitolina, was to be built in its place. The second Jewish rebellion took place 60 years after the first and re-established an independent state lasting three years. For many Jews of the time, this turn of events was heralded as the long hoped for Messianic Age. The excitement was short-lived, however; after a brief span of glory, the revolt was eventually crushed by the Roman legions.

wn.com/Simon_bar_Kokhba

Exist Trace - Judea (PV)

The Judea PV full version. Enjoy!!...

published: 16 Dec 2006

author: Yuuyami

Exist†trace - JUDEA [retake version]

From their album 「Recreation Eve」(19.11.2008)...

published: 25 Nov 2008

author: popywan

exist†trace - JUDEA PV

exist†trace - JUDEA PV...

published: 17 Dec 2006

author: Nightmare76

Judea - A virgin unspotted, by William Billings (1746-1800)

From "Carols for Quire 2": Quire Cleveland, conducted by Ross W. Duffin, performing at Tri...

published: 08 Dec 2010

author: QuireCleveland

The People's Front

From Monty Python's The Life of Brian. Great for getting discussion board sniping back on ...

published: 24 Feb 2007

author: kurish666

river in judea.wmv

The Magic Project (seventh grade chorus at Mattawoman MS) sings "River in Judea" at festiv...

published: 31 Mar 2010

author: mmschorus

Exist Trace JUDEA (live)

...

published: 17 Jul 2009

author: retrt8

Judea Pearl Tribute Symposium: Causality

UCLA computer science professor Judea Pearl was honored March 12, 2010 at an all-day works...

published: 17 May 2010

author: UCLA

exist†trace - JUDEA

Band Members: guitar&guitar; synthe...miko birthday... 3/7 23:59 blood type... B bass...猶人 ...

published: 24 Mar 2008

author: Daedoichi

Judea Declares War On Germany 1 of 9

Judea Declares War On Germany...

published: 23 Apr 2010

author: SeekTruth01

"Judea Declares War on Germany" (Complete)

Video about the 1933 New York Times (and other newspapers) headline "Judea Declares War on...

published: 17 Apr 2011

author: GBPPR2

The Pentecostals Of Alexandria - Lion of Judea - Lyrics (HQ)

POA sings "Lion of Judea" by Eddie James Lyrics: Lion of Judah (lion of Judah) You are the...

published: 17 Oct 2011

author: PentecostalTube

Handel Judas Maccabaeus Hail, hail, Judea, happy land

Duet & Chorus Hail, hail, Judea, happy land! Salvation prospers in his hand. Woman= Lisa S...

published: 22 Feb 2008

author: elias12186

Monty Python - Life of Brian - PFJ Splitters

Funniest movie ever made...

published: 29 Nov 2007

author: Klute2006

#83 | Infectados

La peor lepra que nos puede agarrar hoy en día es creernos que afuera están los mundanos, ...

published: 20 Jan 2011

author: DanteGebelOk

Joshua God Wars Pt 11: The Battle is the Lord's

Follow me to glimpse a scene where we find a teenager too young to enlist in the Army. He ...

published: 05 Jul 2009

author: Jim Tompkins

Judea

published: 12 Sep 2010

author: Robert Eng

Judea

Judea is center stage for the Bible's story of redemption. Join Mart De Haan and Jimmy DeY...

published: 02 Dec 2010

author: Day of Discovery

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photo: AP / Manish

ALTERNATE CROP OF DEL108 - A Tibetan man screams as he runs engulfed in flames after self-immolating at a protest in New Delhi, India, ahead of Chinese President Hu Jintao's visit to the country Monday, March 26, 2012. The Tibetan activist lit himself on fire at the gathering and was rushed to hospital with unknown injuries, reports said.

As Self-Immolations Approach 100, Some Tibetans Are Asking if It Is Worth It

The New York Times

02 Feb 2013

NEW DELHI — A crowd of Tibetans came here to India’s capital last week, bearing flags and political banners and a bittersweet admixture of hope and despair. A grim countdown was under way. The number of Tibetans who have set themselves on fire to protest Chinese rule in Tibet had reached 99, one short of an anguished milestone. Enlarge This Image. Freetibet.org, via Associated Press ... Related ... Connect With Us on Twitter ... (Mr ... Mr ... ....(size: 10.7Kb)

photo: AP / Elise Amendola

Pedestrians walk through a gate on the campus of Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass. Thursday, Aug. 30, 2012.

Harvard: Dozens disciplined over exam cheating

New Straits/Business Times

02 Feb 2013

BOSTON. Harvard University said Friday it issued academic sanctions against about 60 students who were forced to withdraw from school for a period of time in a cheating scandal that involved the final exam in a class on Congress, drawing criticism from a high-profile alumnus.   The school implicated as many as 125 students in the scandal when officials first addressed the issue last year. . ... . ... . ... ....(size: 5.1Kb)

photo: AP / Manu Brabo

A Free Syrian Army fighter fires his weapon during clashes with government forces in the Karmal Jabl district of Aleppo, Syria, Sunday, Oct. 14, 2012.

US says Iran steps up Syria support

Al Jazeera

01 Feb 2013

Hillary Clinton, the outgoing US secretary of state, has warned that Iran is stepping up its support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad while Russia is continuing to send money and arms to the regime. Clinton on Thursday accused Tehran of sending into Syria "more personnel" to support and advise military security forces in their fight against the armed opposition ... "The Iranians have been actively involved from the very beginning ... ....(size: 19.0Kb)

photo: US Navy / MCS2 Matthew D. Leistikow

File - U.S. Army Pfc. Donivan Dean, 2nd Platoon, Alpha Company, 1st Brigade, 37th Armor Battalion, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division, finds a spot to maintain a security overwatch as members of the Iraqi Army's 3rd Company, 1st Battalion, 46th Brigade, 12th Iraqi Army Division, conduct a Flash Traffic Control Point by the Schmit Bridge in Zaab, Iraq, Feb. 27, 2010.

Dozens killed in Iraq police compound attack

France24

03 Feb 2013

At least 33 people were killed on Sunday after a suicide bomber and two gunmen attacked a police headquarters in Kirkuk, northern Iraq, official sources said, the third major attack in the region in several weeks. By News Wires (text).  . A suicide bomber driving a car and gunmen disguised in police uniforms killed at least 33 people in the Iraqi city Kirkuk on Sunday when they tried to storm the police headquarters ... (REUTERS). IRAQ....(size: 8.5Kb)

photo: AP / Eduardo Verdugo

A worker belonging to Mexico's state-owned oil company PEMEX keeps journalists away after an explosion at an adjacent building to the executive tower of PEMEX in Mexico City, Thursday Jan. 31, 2013.

25 die in Mexico oil company office building blast

Chicago Sun-Times

01 Feb 2013

MEXICO CITY — Rescuers searched the rubble for survivors and authorities promised a thorough investigation after an office building blast killed 25 people and injured 101 at the headquarters of Mexico’s state-owned oil company, Petroleos Mexicanos ... Theories ranged from an electrical fire to an air conditioning problem to a possible attack. “We have no conclusive report on the reason,” Pena Nieto told reporters ... My son .” ... ....(size: 4.5Kb)

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Westminster’s Tory tots must do some growing up

The Daily Telegraph

02 Feb 2013

The mutineers are living in a Hogwarts fantasy world – where all it needs to achieve growth is a wave of the magic wand. Tory MPs are expected to send a shot across the prime ministerial bows with the vote on gay marriage Photo. ALAMY. By Matthew d'Ancona. 9.00PM GMT 02 Feb 2013 ... “The manoeuvring has exposed divisions among supporters of Afriyie.” The People’s Front of Judea, it seems, is already splitting ... ....(size: 17.4Kb)

Blake Alcott: The Case of Gilad Atzmon

The Other Site

02 Feb 2013

To Shun or Bury the Hatchet?. The Case of Gilad Atzmon. by BLAKE ALCOTT ... Tony Judt ... Martin Indyk ... He asserts that Israel is not just another colonial power, but one driven by a distinctly Jewish ideology, and he convinced me that we must understand this Jewish-ness to understand for instance AIPAC, or to see that the West Bank to be given up by Israel in some phantasmagoric two-state settlement is not the West Bank, but Judea and Samaria....(size: 54.4Kb)

Jesus’ looks aren't spiritual issue

Rocky Mount Telegram

01 Feb 2013

“He didn’t have an impressive form or majesty that we should look at Him, no appearance that we should desire Him” (Isaiah 53.2). With the exception of the above verse, the Bible tells us very little about how Jesus looked ... In his book “The Resurrection Tomb,” E. Raymond Capt quotes from a letter written by Publius Lentrelus, a resident of Judea during Jesus’ time ... Anselm of Canterbury ... ....(size: 3.7Kb)

Museum and gallery events

Philadelphia Daily News

01 Feb 2013

More coverage. A restaging relevant to the 21st century Good pal going with a mean girl Three weekend events for kids. Posted. Friday, February 1, 2013, 3.01 AM. Art Museums & Institutions. The Barnes Foundation - Philadelphia 2025 Benjamin Franklin Pkwy.; 215-278-7000. www.barnesfoundation.org. $18; $15 seniors 65 and over; $10 students and children 17 and under ... Free ... The Temple Judea Museum 8339 Old York Rd., Elkins Park; 215-887-2027....(size: 29.9Kb)

The Case of Gilad Atzmon

CounterPunch

01 Feb 2013

Panel at Cooper Union NYC led by Anne-Marie Slaughter, 28 September 2006 .. Tony Judt ... TJ ... He asserts that Israel is not just another colonial power, but one driven by a distinctly Jewish ideology, and he convinced me that we must understand this Jewish-ness to understand for instance AIPAC, or to see that the West Bank to be given up by Israel in some phantasmagoric two-state settlement is not the West Bank, but Judea and Samaria ... ....(size: 50.5Kb)

Jewish captives in imperial city of Rome

WorldNetDaily

30 Jan 2013

Yet, when the Romans conquered the tiny province of Judea and quashed the First Jewish Revolt in 70 C.E., it was actually a pretty big deal. BAR readers are familiar with the Judea Capta coins issued by the ......(size: 1.1Kb)

Alison Weir: History of the US-Israeli Relationship, Part I

The Other Site

29 Jan 2013

Louis Brandeis, flanked by Rabbi Stephen Samuel Wise, founding secretary of the American Federation of Zionists (right) and Nathan Straus, co-owner of Macy’sLibrary of Congress. How the "Special Relationship" was created. While many people are led to believe that US support for Israel is driven by the American establishment and U.S ... [14] ... U.S ... C ... With blood and fire, Judea fell. With blood and fire, Judea shall rise.”....(size: 134.0Kb)

Dodgy casting choices on the horizon

Toronto Sun

28 Jan 2013

Article Tweet. There are ordinary casting mistakes -- Adam Sandler in The Longest Yard springs to mind -- and then there are extraordinary casting mistakes along the lines of Denise Richards playing a nuclear physicist (The World Is Not Enough) or Keanu Reeves as Buddha ... The Bible gets updated to show Pilate's life, following him from his youth as a sensitive lad to his adult life as governor of Judea, where he attempts to keep order ... ....(size: 9.3Kb)

Julian Knight: Reading of laundering rules is too restrictive

The Independent

27 Jan 2013

The Office of Fair Trading says banks are too slow and bureaucratic when it comes to customers switching current account. In addition charges are too high it says ... I have experienced this myself at Metro ... The EU and you ... The answer it transpires as the People's Front of Judea debate the matter is just about everything that made life tolerable – roads, aqueducts, peace and, of course, wine ... Not much I'm afraid ... Well done, National Savings ... ....(size: 4.5Kb)

What's new to do in the San Fernando Valley and greater Los Angeles area beginning ...

LA Daily News

26 Jan 2013

By Sandra Barrera and Holly Andres, Staff Writersdailynews.com. Posted.   01/25/2013 04.05.42 PM PST. January 26, 2013 12.33 AM GMTUpdated. 01/25/2013 04.31.42 PM PST. Muse (AP Photo/Michael Probst). Immaculée Ilibagiza, the author of Left to Tell ... Muse. 8 p.m ... $21 ... Judea Pearl, president of the Encino-based Daniel Pearl Foundation, will be among the guest speakers honoring Holocaust survivor and film producer Branko Lustig, 7 p.m....(size: 46.3Kb)

photo: AP / Sebastian Scheiner

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, walks as he arrives to brief the media in Jerusalem, Monday, Jan. 21, 2013. General elections in Israel will be held

Netanyahu begins informal coalition talks in Israel

The Hindu

25 Jan 2013

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu contacted two potential coalition partners on Thursday, in his first, informal, steps towards forming the country’s next government ... Mr ... No details emerged from the two-and-a-half hour meeting. Mr. Lapid was the first party leader with whom Mr ... Mr ... “There won’t be a freeze, not in Jerusalem and not in Judea and Samaria,” he added, using the Biblical terms for the West Bank....(size: 2.8Kb)

Priest in trouble for denying existence of Jesus

WorldNetDaily

25 Jan 2013

116 ... Christ, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius [14-37] at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilate, and the most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their center and become popular. ....(size: 4.2Kb)

Fascism Wins Big in Israel

The People's Voice

25 Jan 2013

Israeli election results hardened fascist rule. Dominant right-wing parties control 102 of 120 Knesset seats. Israelis have themselves to blame. They elected Israel's most extremist government in history. Militarism, belligerence, state-sponsored terrorism, occupation ruthlessness, settlement expansions, and neoliberal harshness reflect official policy. Peace is a non-starter ... Israel wants all valued Judea and Samaria areas Judaized ... -###-....(size: 10.1Kb)

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Coordinates: 31°41′56″N 35°18′23″E / 31.69889°N 35.30639°E / 31.69889; 35.30639

Etymology [link]

The name Judea is a Greek and Roman adaptation of the name "Judah", which originally encompassed the territory of the Israelite tribe of that name and later of the ancient Kingdom of Judah. Judea was sometimes used as the name for the entire region, including parts beyond the river Jordan.^[2] It was the name in use in English until the Jordanian occupation of the area in 1948. Jordan called the area of Judea and Samaria ad-difa’a al-gharbiya (translated into English as the "West Bank").^[3] "Yehuda" is the Hebrew term used for the area in modern Israel since the region was conquered and occupied by Israel in 1967.^[4]

Historical boundaries [link]

The Judean hills

The classical Roman-Jewish historian Josephus wrote: "In the limits of Samaria and Judea lies the village Anuath, which is also named Borceos. This is the northern boundary of Judea. The southern parts of Judea, if they be measured lengthways, are bounded by a village adjoining to the confines of Arabia; the Jews that dwell there call it Jordan. However, its breadth is extended from the river Jordan to Joppa. The city Jerusalem is situated in the very middle; on which account some have, with sagacity enough, called that city the Navel of the country. Nor indeed is Judea destitute of such delights as come from the sea, since its maritime places extend as far as Ptolemais: it was parted into eleven portions, of which the royal city Jerusalem was the supreme, and presided over all the neighboring country, as the head does over the body. As to the other cities that were inferior to it, they presided over their several toparchies; Gophna was the second of those cities, and next to that Acrabatta, after them Thamna, and Lydda, and Emmaus, and Pella, and Idumea, and Engaddi, and Herodium, and Jericho; and after them came Jamnia and Joppa, as presiding over the neighboring people; and besides these there was the region of Gamala, and Gaulonitis, and Batanea, and Trachonitis, which are also parts of the kingdom of Agrippa. This [last] country begins at Mount Libanus, and the fountains of Jordan, and reaches breadthways to the lake of Tiberias; and in length is extended from a village called Arpha, as far as Julias. Its inhabitants are a mixture of Jews and Syrians. And thus have I, with all possible brevity, described the country of Judea, and those that lie round about it."^[5]

Geography [link]

Mediterranean oak and terebinth woodland in the Valley of Elah, southwestern Judea.

Judea is a mountainous region, part of which is considered to be a desert. It varies greatly in height, rising to an altitude of 1,020 m (3,346 ft) in the south at Mount Hebron, 30 km (19 mi) southwest of Jerusalem, and descending to as much as 400 m (1,312 ft) below sea level in the east of the region. It also varies in rainfall, starting with about 400–500 millimetres (16–20 in) in the western hills, rising to 600 millimetres (24 in) around western Jerusalem (in central Judea), falling back to 400 millimetres (16 in) in eastern Jerusalem and dropping to around 100mm in the eastern parts, due to a rainshadow effect (this is the Judean desert). The climate, accordingly, moves between Mediterranean in the west and desert climate in the east, with a strip of steppe climate in the middle. Major urban areas in the region include Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Gush Etzion, Jericho and Hebron.^[6]

Geographers divide Judea into several distinct regions: the Hebron hills, the Jerusalem saddle, the Bethel hills and the Judean desert east of Jerusalem, which descends in a series of steps to the Dead Sea. The hills are distinct for their anticline structure. In ancient times the hills were forested, and the Bible records agriculture and sheep farming being practiced in the area. Animals are still grazed today, with shepherds moving them between the low ground to the hilltops (which have more rainfall) as summer approaches, while the slopes are still layered with centuries-old stone terracing. The Jewish Revolt against the Romans ended in the devastation of vast areas of the Judaean countryside.^[7]

History [link]

Early Iron Age [link]

Main article: History of ancient Israel and Judah

By the Early Iron Age, around 1020 BCE, the Southern Levant came to be ruled by the Kingdom of Israel, and its successors, the Northern Kingdom and the Kingdom of Judah. The Northern Kingdom was conquered into the Neo-Assyrian Empire in 720 BCE. The Kingdom of Judah remained nominally independent, but paid tribute to the Assyrian Empire from 715 and throughout the first half of the 7th century BCE, regaining its independence as the Assyrian Empire declined after 640 BCE, but after 609 again fell under the sway of imperial rule, this time paying tribute at first to the Egyptians and after 601 BCE to the Neo-Babylonian Empire, until 586 BCE, when it was finally conquered by Babylonia.

Judea is central to much of the narrative of the Torah, with the Patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob said to have been buried at Hebron in the Tomb of the Patriarchs.

Persian and Hellenistic periods [link]

The Babylonian Empire fell to the conquests of Cyrus the Great in 539 BCE.^[8] Judea remained under Persian rule until the conquest of Alexander the Great in 332 BCE, eventually falling under the rule of the Hellenistic Seleucid Empire until the revolt of Judas Maccabeus resulted in the Hasmonean dynasty of Kings who ruled in Judea for over a century.^[9]

Roman conquest [link]

Main article: Roman Judea

Judea lost its independence to the Romans in the 1st century BCE, by becoming first a tributary kingdom, then a province, of the Roman Empire. The Romans had allied themselves to the Maccabees and interfered again in 63 BCE, at the end of the Third Mithridatic War, when the proconsul Pompeius Magnus ("Pompey the Great") stayed behind to make the area secure for Rome. Queen Alexandra Salome had recently died, and a civil war broke out between her sons, Hyrcanus II and Aristobulus II. Pompeius restored Hyrcanus but political rule passed to the Herodian family who ruled as client kings. In 6 CE, Judea came under direct Roman rule as the province of Iudaea. Eventually, the Jews rose against Roman rule in 66 CE in a revolt that was unsuccessful. Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 CE and much of the population was killed or enslaved.^[10]

Bar Kokhba revolt [link]

The Jews rebelled again 70 years later under the leadership of Simon bar Kokhba and established the last Kingdom of Israel, which lasted three years, before the Romans managed to conquer the province for good, at a high cost in terms of manpower and expense.

After the defeat of Bar Kokhba (132–135 CE) the Roman Emperor Hadrian was determined to wipe out the identity of Israel-Judah-Judea, and renamed it Philistina (Syria Palaestina, after the ancient enemy of the Israelites; the Philistines). Until that time the area had been called "province of Judea" (Roman Judea) by the Romans.^[11] At the same time, he changed the name of the city of Jerusalem to Aelia Capitolina. The Romans killed many Jews and sold many more into slavery; many Jews departed into the Jewish diaspora, but there was never a complete Jewish abandonment of the area, and Jews have been an important (and sometimes persecuted) minority in Judea since that time.^[12]

Jewish resettlement [link]

The failure of the Bar Kokhba revolt and the subsequent Roman conquest greatly diminished Jewish presence in Judea. Since then, the Jewish population of Judea has fluctuated greatly, with other Jews joining and leaving the ancient local population over time.

Beginning in the late 19th century, Jewish settlement increased within the territory of what is now Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, with Judea (or the territory of the West Bank south of Jerusalem) attracting a growing number of settlements and resulting in growing conflict between Muslim and Jewish residents of the region. Today, much of Judea falls under the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority, and the presence of Jewish settlers in now-Palestinian cities such as Hebron and the establishment of Jewish settlements (under Israeli jurisdiction) is considered controversial. Jewish settlers have proposed establishing the State of Judea should Israel withdraw from the West Bank.

Timeline [link]

Map of the southern Levant, c.830s BCE.

Kingdom of Judah

Kingdom of Israel

Philistine city-states

Phoenician states

Kingdom of Ammon

Kingdom of Edom

Kingdom of Aram-Damascus

Aramean tribes

Arubu tribes

Nabatu tribes

Assyrian Empire

Kingdom of Moab

11th century BCE–930 BCE — part of the Kingdom of Israel
930 BCE–586 BCE — Kingdom of Judah
586 BCE–539 BCE — Babylonian Empire
539 BCE–332 BCE — Persian Empire
332 BCE–305 BCE — Macedonian Empire of Alexander the Great
305 BCE–198 BCE — Ptolemaics
198 BCE–141 BCE — Seleucids
141 BCE–37 BCE — The Hasmonean state in Israel established by the Maccabees, after 63 BCE under Roman supremacy
37 BCE–70 CE — Herodian Dynasty ruling Judea under Roman supremacy (37 BCE–6 CE, 41–44 CE), interchanging with direct Roman rule (6–41, 44–66). This ended in the first Jewish Revolt of 66–73, which saw the Temple destroyed in 70.
73 — Fall of Masada
115–117 — Kitos War
132–135 — Bar Kokhba's revolt
135 — Emperor Hadrian reverts to the name Syria Palaestina first used by Herodotus.

References [link]

^ LDS.org: "Book of Mormon Pronunciation Guide" (retrieved 2012-02-25), IPA-ified from «jū-dē´a»
^ Studies in Palestinian Geography, Prof. S.J. Riggs, Auburn Theological Seminary, 1894, JSTOR The Biblical World
^ "This Side of the River Jordan; On Language," Philologos, September 22, 2010, Forward.
^ Britannica: Judaea
^ Ancient History Sourcebook: Josephus (37 – after 93 CE): Galilee, Samaria, and Judea in the First Century CE
^ Picturesque Palestine I: Jerusalem, Judah, Ephraim
^ Unlikely A Tale of Two Conquests: The Unlikely Numismatic Association Between the Fall of New France (AD 1760) and the Fall of Judaea (AD 70)
^ "The Persians". Jewish Virtual Library. http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/Persians.html. Retrieved 2009-06-09.
^ "The Hasmonean Dynasty". Jewish Virtual Library. http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/Hasmonean.html. Retrieved 2009-06-09.
^ "Roman Rule". Jewish Virtual Library. http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/Romans.html. Retrieved 2009-06-09.
^ "The Name "Palestine"". Jewish Virtual Library. http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/palname.html. Retrieved 2010-08-16.
^ "Shimon Bar-Kokhba". Jewish Virtual Library. http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/Kokhba.html. Retrieved 2009-06-09.

External links [link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Judean Desert

The Jewish History Resource Center Project of the Dinur Center for Research in Jewish History, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Judea and civil war
The subjugation of Judea
Judaea 6–66 CE
Judea photos

v t e Judea and Samaria Area

Cities	Ariel · Beitar Illit · Ma'ale Adumim · Modi'in Illit

Regional committee	Committee of the Jewish Community of Hebron

Local councils	Alfei Menashe · Beit Aryeh-Ofarim · Beit El · Efrat · Elkana · Giv'at Ze'ev · Har Adar · Immanuel · Karnei Shomron · Kedumim · Kiryat Arba · Ma'ale Efrayim · Oranit

Regional councils	Gush Etzion · Har Hevron · Mateh Binyamin · Megilot Dead Sea · Shomron · Southern Jordan Valley (Bik'at HaYarden)

Region: West Bank Other sub-divisions: Center District · Haifa District · Jerusalem District · North District · South District · Tel Aviv District See also: Population statistics · Israeli settlement · Israeli settlement timeline · Israeli West Bank barrier

v t e World Deserts

Desert List of deserts List of deserts by area

Africa	Algerian Bayuda Blue Chalbi Danakil Djurab Eastern Ferio Farafra Kalahari Libyan Moçâmedes Namib Nubian Nyiri Owami Richtersveld Sahara Ténéré White

Asia	Ad-Dahna Akshi Arabian Aral Karakum Aralkum Badain Jaran Betpak-Dala Cholistan Dasht-e Kavir Dasht-e Lut Dasht-e Margoh Dasht-e Naomid Gurbantünggüt Gobi Hami Indus Valley Judaean Karakum Kharan Khash Kumtag Kyzyl Kum Liwa Lop Maranjab Nefud Negev Ordos Qaidam Ramlat al-Sab`atayn Rub' al Khali Russian Arctic Registan Saryesik-Atyrau Syrian Taklamakan Tengger Thal Thar Tihamah Ustyurt Plateau Wahiba Sands

Australia	Gibson Great Sandy Great Victoria Little Sandy Nullarbor Plain Painted Pedirka Simpson Strzelecki Sturt's Stony Tanami Tirari

Europe	Accona Bardenas Reales Błędów Cabo de Gata Deliblatska Peščara Hálendi Monegros Oleshky Oltenian Sahara Piscinas Ryn Stranja Tabernas

North America	Alvord Amargosa Baja California Black Rock Carcross Carson Channeled scablands Chihuahuan Escalante Forty Mile Gran Desierto de Altar Great Basin Great Salt Lake Great Sandy Jornada del Muerto Kaʻū Lechuguilla Mojave North American Arctic Owyhee Painted Desert Red Desert Sevier Smoke Creek Sonoran Tule (Arizona) Tule (Nevada) Yp Yuha Yuma

South America	Atacama La Guajira Los Médanos de Coro Monte Patagonian Sechura Tatacoa

Polar Regions	Antarctica Arctic

Zealandia	Rangipo Desert

project category commons

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William Billings (b. Boston, October 7, 1746 – d. Boston, September 26, 1800) was an American choral composer, and is widely regarded as the father of American choral music.^[1] Billings created what is now recognized as a uniquely American style.

At the age of 14, the death of his father stopped Billings' formal schooling. He took up tanning and never received formal training in music. "He had one eye, a deformed arm and a harsh voice; he was lame in one leg; and he was addicted to snuff."^[2] Married with six children, Billings died in poverty on September 26, 1800. His funeral was announced in the Columbian Centinel: "Died- Mr. William Billings, the celebrated music composer. His funeral will be tomorrow at 4 o'clock, PM from the house of Mrs. Amos Penniman, in Chamber-street, West-Boston."^[3]

Psalm-Singer's Amusement by Billings, "printed and sold by the author at his house near the White Horse, Boston," 1781

Psalm-Singer's Amusement by Billings, 1781

1 The music
2 Billings as a writer
- 2.1 Verse
- 2.2 Pedagogical writing
3 Reception
4 Notes
5 References
- 5.1 Scholarly edition of Billings's works
- 5.2 Other
6 See also
7 External links

The music [link]

Virtually all of Billings' music was written for four-part chorus, singing a cappella. His many hymns and anthems were published mostly in book-length collections, as follows:

The New-England Psalm-Singer (1770)
The Singing Master's Assistant (1778)
Music in Miniature (1779)
The Psalm-Singer's Amusement (1781)
The Suffolk Harmony (1786)
The Continental Harmony (1794)

Sometimes Billings would revise and improve a song, including the new version in his next volume.

Billings' music can be at times forceful and stirring, as in his patriotic song "Chester"; ecstatic, as in his hymn "Africa"; or elaborate and celebratory, as in his "Easter Anthem." The latter sounds rather like a miniature Handelian chorus, sung a cappella. As might be expected from a composer who was very close to his roots in folk music, Billings' music shows a striking purity.

His "Jargon," written to a tongue-in-cheek text, contains jarring dissonances that sound more like those of the 20th century than of the 18th.

He also wrote several Christmas carols, including "Judea" in 1778 and "Shiloh" in 1781.

Billings as a writer [link]

Verse [link]

Billings often wrote the lyrics for his own compositions. Like the notes, the words are occasionally awkward but always forceful and vivid.

As an example, McKay and Crawford (see Books, below) compare Billings' metrical rendering of Luke 2:8-11 with that of Nahum Tate, thought to be the inspiration for Billings' work:

Tate:

While shepherds watched their flocks by night

All seated on the ground,

The angel of the Lord came down,

And glory shone around.

Billings:

As shepherds in Jewry were guarding their sheep,

Promiscusly seated estranged from sleep;

An Angel from heaven presented to view,

And thus he accosted the trembling few

Dispel all your sorrows, and banish your fears,

For Jesus our Saviour in Jewry appears.

Pedagogical writing [link]

Billings wrote long prefaces to his works in which he explained (often in an endearingly eccentric prose style) the rudiments of music and how his work should be performed. His writings reflect his extensive experience as a singing master. They also provide information on choral performance practice in Billings's day; for instance, a passage from the preface to The Continental Harmony indicates that Billings liked to have both men and women sing the treble (top) and tenor lines, an octave apart:

"...in general they are best sung together, viz. if a man sings it as a Medius, and a woman as a Treble, it is in effect as two parts; so likewise, if a man sing a Tenor with a masculine and woman with a feminine voice, the Tenor is as full as two parts, and a tune so sung (although it has but four parts) is in effect the same as six. Such a conjunction of masculine and feminine voices is beyond expression, sweet and ravishing, and is esteemed by all good judges to be vastly preferable to any instrument whatever, framed by human invention.

Reception [link]

Billings' work was very popular in its heyday, but his career was hampered by the primitive state of copyright law in America at the time. By the time the copyright laws had been strengthened, it was too late for Billings: the favorites among his tunes had already been widely reprinted in other people's hymnals, permanently copyright-free.

William Billings grave memorial at the Central Burying Ground on Boston Common

With changes in the public's musical taste, Billings' fortunes declined. His last tune-book, The Continental Harmony, was published as a project of his friends, in an effort to help support the revered but no longer popular composer. His temporary employment as a Boston street sweeper was probably a project of a similar nature.

Billings died in poverty at age 53, and for a considerable time after his death, his music was almost completely neglected in the American musical mainstream. However, his compositions remained popular for a time in the rural areas of New England, which resisted the newer trends in sacred music. Moreover, a few of Billings' songs were carried southward and westward through America, as a result of their appearance in shape note hymnals. They ultimately resided in the rural South, as part of the Sacred Harp singing tradition.

In the latter part of the twentieth century a Billings revival occurred, and a sumptuous complete scholarly edition of his works was published (see Books, below). Works by Billings are commonly sung by American choral groups today, particularly performers of early music. In addition, the recent spread of Sacred Harp music has acquainted many more people with Billings' music: several of his compositions are among the more frequently sung of the works in the Sacred Harp canon [1].

The Stoughton Musical Society, formed by former students of Billings, has carried on his tradition for over 200 years, and included twenty-seven Billings tunes in their 1878 music collection, The Stoughton Musical Society's Centennial Collection of Sacred Music. Among the favorite tunes by Billings sung by this choral society are: "Majesty" and "Chester"[2].

The modern American composer William Schuman featured Billings' American Revolutionary War anthem "Chester", along with two other of Billings' hymns, in his composition New England Triptych.

William Billings was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970.

Notes [link]

^ William Billings
^ Gary and Mark (2007)
^ Nathan (1976)

References [link]

Scholarly edition of Billings's works [link]

Complete works of William Billings in four volumes, edited by Karl Kroeger and Hans Nathan:
- The New England psalm-singer. University of Virginia Press (1981).
- The Singing Masters Assistant, Music in Miniature. University of Virginia Press (1984). ISBN 0-8139-0839-6.
- The Psalm-Singer's Amusement. University of Virginia Press (1987). ISBN 0-8139-1130-3.
- The Continental Harmony. University of Virginia Press (1990). ISBN 1-878528-01-7.

Other [link]

McKay, David P. and Richard Crawford (1975) William Billings of Boston. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-09118-8.
Gary, Charles & Mark, Michael. (2007). A History of American Music Education. Rowman & Littlefield Education: UK.
Hall, Roger L. MAJESTY: A discussion of Facts and Fiction about William Billings and The Stoughton Musical Society (PineTree Press, 2000)
Nathan, Hans. 1976. William Billings: Data and Documents. Detroit: College Music Society.

External links [link]

Persondata
Name	Billings, William
Alternative names
Short description	American choral composer
Date of birth	7 October 1746
Place of birth	Boston
Date of death	26 September 1800
Place of death	Boston

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Judea Pearl
Born	1936 (age 75–76) Tel Aviv, British Mandate for Palestine (present-day Israel)
Nationality	Israeli American
Fields	Computer Science Statistics
Alma mater	Technion, Israel Rutgers University, U.S. Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn, U.S.
Known for	Artificial Intelligence Causality Bayesian Networks

Judea Pearl (born 1936) is an Israeli American computer scientist and philosopher, best known for championing the probabilistic approach to artificial intelligence and the development of Bayesian networks (see the article on belief propagation). He is also credited for developing a theory of causal and counterfactual inference based on structural models (see article on causality). He is the 2011 winner of the ACM Turing Award, the highest distinction in computer science, "for fundamental contributions to artificial intelligence through the development of a calculus for probabilistic and causal reasoning."^[1]^[2]

Judea Pearl is the father of journalist Daniel Pearl, who was kidnapped and murdered by militants in Pakistan connected with Al-Qaeda and the International Islamic Front in 2002 for his being American and Jewish.^[3]^[4]

1 Biography
2 Murder of Daniel Pearl
3 Research
4 References
5 External links

Biography [link]

Judea Pearl was born in Tel Aviv, Israel, in 1936 and received a B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from the Technion in 1960. In 1960 he came to the United States and received a masters degree in Physics from Rutgers University, U.S. and a Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn, U.S., in 1965. He worked at RCA Research Laboratories on superconductive parametric and storage devices and at Electronic Memories, Inc., on advanced memory systems. He then joined UCLA's Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science in 1970, where he is currently a professor of computer science and statistics and director of the Cognitive Systems Laboratory. He and his wife, Ruth, had three children. In addition, as of 2011^[update], he is a member of the International Advisory Board of NGO Monitor.^[5]

Murder of Daniel Pearl [link]

In 2002, his son, Daniel Pearl, a journalist working for the Wall Street Journal was kidnapped and murdered in Pakistan, leading Judea and the other members of the family and friends to create the Daniel Pearl Foundation.^[6] On the seventh anniversary of Daniel's death, Judea wrote an article in the Wall Street Journal titled Daniel Pearl and the Normalization of Evil: When will our luminaries stop making excuses for terror?.^[7]

Research [link]

Judea Pearl was one of the pioneers of Bayesian networks and the probabilistic approach to artificial intelligence, and one of the first to mathematize causal modeling in the empirical sciences. His work is also intended as a high-level cognitive model. He is interested in the philosophy of science, knowledge representation, nonstandard logics, and learning. Pearl is described as "one of the giants in the field of artificial intelligence” by UCLA computer science professor Richard Korf.^[8] His work on causality has "revolutionized the understanding of causality in statistics, psychology, medicine and the social sciences" according to the Association for Computing Machinery.^[9]

Books [link]

Heuristics, Addison-Wesley, 1984
Probabilistic Reasoning in Intelligent Systems, Morgan-Kaufmann, 1988
Causality: Models, Reasoning, and Inference, Cambridge University Press, 2000
I Am Jewish: Personal Reflections Inspired by the Last Words of Daniel Pearl, Jewish Lights, 2004.

Scientific papers [link]

List of papers on Pearl's personal website

Lectures [link]

Awards [link]

2012--Harvey Prize (For "foundational work that has touched a multitude of spheres of modern life")
2011--ACM Turing Award^[1]^[2]
2011--IEEE Intelligent Systems' AI's Hall of Fame^[10]^[11]
2011--David E. Rumelhart Prize (For Contributions to the Theoretical Foundations of Human Cognition)
2011--Rumelhart Prize Symposium in honor of Judea Pearl
2010--Festschrift and symposium in honor of Judea Pearl
2008--Benjamin Franklin Medal in Computers and Cognitive Science
2007--University of Toronto, Honorary Doctorate
2006--Purpose Prize
2004--2003 ACM Allen Newell Award
2003--Pekeris Memorial Lecture
2002—Corresponding Member, Spanish Academy of Engineering
2001--Lakatos Award, London School of Economics and Political Science
2000--AAAI Classic Paper Award
1999--IJCAI Award for Research Excellence in Artificial Intelligence
1996--UCLA 81st Faculty Research Lecturer
1995—Member, National Academy of Engineering
1990—Fellow, American Association for Artificial Intelligence (AAAI)
1988—Fellow, Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE)
1975—NATO Senior Fellowship in Science
1965—RCA Laboratories Achievement Award

References [link]

^ ^a ^b Judea Pearl – A. M. Turing Award winner, ACM, retrieved 2012-03-14.
^ ^a ^b Gold, Virginia (March 15, 2012). "Judea Pearl Wins ACM A.M. Turing Award for Contributions that Transformed Artificial Intelligence". The Association for Computing Machinery. Archived from the original on March 15, 2012. http://www.webcitation.org/66CCWiGVz. Retrieved March 15, 2012. "ACM, the Association for Computing Machinery today named Judea Pearl of the University of California, Los Angeles the winner of the 2011 ACM A.M. Turing Award for innovations that enabled remarkable advances in the partnership between humans and machines that is the foundation of Artificial Intelligence (AI)."
^ Fonda, Daren (September 27, 2003). "On the Trail of Daniel Pearl". TIME. http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,490640,00.html. Retrieved July 20, 2011.
^ Escobar, Pepe (June 28, 2003). "Who killed Daniel Pearl?". Book Review. Asia Times Online. http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/EF28Df02.html. Retrieved July 20, 2011.
^ "International Advisory Board Profiles". NGO Monitor. 2011. http://www.ngo-monitor.org/article.php?viewall=yes&id=2028. Retrieved July 20, 2011.
^ "Biography of Dr. Judea Pearl". Daniel Pearl Foundation. 2011. http://www.danielpearl.org/about_us/Judea_Pearl.html. Retrieved July 20, 2011.
^ Pearl, Judea (February 3, 2009). "Daniel Pearl and the Normalization of Evil". The Wall Street Journal: p. A15. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123362422088941893.html. Retrieved July 20, 2011.
^ Amundson, Marlys (Fall 2004). "A Profile of Judea Pearl – Computer Science Pioneer,Visionary" (PDF). UCLA Engineer (UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science) (12): 16–17. http://ftp.cs.ucla.edu/pub/stat_ser/pearl-engineer-fall04.pdf. Retrieved July 20, 2011.
^ "ACM HONORS INNOVATORS WHO CHANGED THE SCIENTIFIC WORLD". New York: Association for Computing Machinery. April 27, 2004. http://bayes.cs.ucla.edu/Newell_2003.htm. Retrieved July 20, 2011.
^ "AI's Hall of Fame". IEEE Intelligent Systems (IEEE Computer Society) 26 (4): 5–15. 2011. DOI:10.1109/MIS.2011.64. http://www.computer.org/cms/Computer.org/ComputingNow/homepage/2011/0811/rW_IS_AIsHallofFame.pdf. edit
^ "IEEE Computer Society Magazine Honors Artificial Intelligence Leaders". DigitalJournal.com. August 24, 2011 (2011-08-24). http://www.digitaljournal.com/pr/399442. Retrieved September 18, 2011 (2011-09-18). Press release source: PRWeb (Vocus).

External links [link]

	Biography portal
	Greater Los Angeles portal
	Israel portal

Judea Pearl's personal website
Daniel Pearl Foundation Website
Interview with Judea Pearl from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum
Interview with Judea Pearl on Robots and Free Will
Judea Pearl at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
Judea Pearl at the AI Genealogy Project.

A. M. Turing Award laureates

Alan Perlis (1966)
Maurice Vincent Wilkes (1967)
Richard Hamming (1968)
Marvin Minsky (1969)
James H. Wilkinson (1970)
John McCarthy (1971)
Edsger W. Dijkstra (1972)
Charles Bachman (1973)
Donald Knuth (1974)
Allen Newell / Herbert A. Simon (1975)
Michael O. Rabin / Dana Scott (1976)
John Backus (1977)
Robert W. Floyd (1978)
Kenneth E. Iverson (1979)
Tony Hoare (1980)
Edgar F. Codd (1981)
Stephen Cook (1982)
Ken Thompson / Dennis Ritchie (1983)
Niklaus Wirth (1984)
Richard Karp (1985)
John Hopcroft / Robert Tarjan (1986)
John Cocke (1987)
Ivan Sutherland (1988)
William Kahan (1989)
Fernando J. Corbató (1990)
Robin Milner (1991)
Butler Lampson (1992)
Juris Hartmanis / Richard Stearns (1993)
Edward Feigenbaum / Raj Reddy (1994)
Manuel Blum (1995)
Amir Pnueli (1996)
Douglas Engelbart (1997)
Jim Gray (1998)
Fred Brooks (1999)
Andrew Yao (2000)
Ole-Johan Dahl / Kristen Nygaard (2001)
Ron Rivest / Adi Shamir / Leonard Adleman (2002)
Alan Kay (2003)
Vint Cerf / Bob Kahn (2004)
Peter Naur (2005)
Frances E. Allen (2006)
Edmund M. Clarke / E. Allen Emerson / Joseph Sifakis (2007)
Barbara Liskov (2008)
Charles P. Thacker (2009)
Leslie G. Valiant (2010)
Judea Pearl (2011)

Persondata
Name	Pearl, Judea
Alternative names
Short description	Computer scientist
Date of birth	1936
Place of birth	Tel Aviv, Israel
Date of death
Place of death

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Monty Python
275px The Python troupe in 1969 Back row: Graham Chapman, Eric Idle, Terry Gilliam Front row: Terry Jones, John Cleese, Michael Palin
Medium	Television, film, theatre, audio recordings, books
Nationality	British^[1]
Years active	1969–1983
Genres	Satire, surreal humour, dark comedy
Influences	The Goons, Spike Milligan, Peter Cook
Influenced	Douglas Adams, Eddie Izzard, George Carlin, Vic and Bob, Steve Pemberton, Matt Stone, Trey Parker, Matt Groening
Notable works and roles	Monty Python's Flying Circus (1969–1974) And Now for Something Completely Different (1971) Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1974) Monty Python's Life of Brian (1979) Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl (1982) Monty Python's The Meaning of Life (1983)
Members	Graham Chapman John Cleese Terry Gilliam Eric Idle Terry Jones Michael Palin
Website	PythOnline

Monty Python (sometimes known as The Pythons)^[2]^[3] was a British surreal comedy group who created Monty Python's Flying Circus, a British television comedy sketch show that first aired on the BBC on 5 October 1969. Forty-five episodes were made over four series. The Python phenomenon developed from the television series into something larger in scope and impact, spawning touring stage shows, films, numerous albums, several books and a stage musical as well as launching the members to individual stardom. The group's influence on comedy has been compared to The Beatles' influence on music.^[4]^[5]

The television series, broadcast by the BBC from 1969 to 1974, was conceived, written and performed by members Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin. Loosely structured as a sketch show, but with an innovative stream-of-consciousness approach (aided by Gilliam's animation), it pushed the boundaries of what was acceptable in style and content.^[6]^[7] A self-contained comedy team responsible for both writing and performing their work, the Pythons' creative control allowed them to experiment with form and content, discarding rules of television comedy. Their influence on British comedy has been apparent for years, while in North America it has coloured the work of cult performers from the early editions of Saturday Night Live through to more recent absurdist trends in television comedy. "Pythonesque" has entered the English lexicon as a result.

In a 2005 UK poll to find The Comedian's Comedian, three of the six Pythons members were voted by fellow comedians and comedy insiders to be among the top 50 greatest comedians ever: Cleese at #2, Idle at #21, and Palin at #30.^[8]

1 Before Flying Circus
2 Monty Python's Flying Circus
3 Life after the Flying Circus
4 Python members
- 4.1 Associate Pythons
- 4.2 Other contributors
5 Cultural influence
6 Media
7 See also
8 References
9 Further reading
10 External links

[edit] Before Flying Circus

Palin and Jones met at Oxford University, where they performed together with the Oxford Revue. Cleese and Chapman met at Cambridge. Idle was also at Cambridge, but started a year after Cleese and Chapman. Cleese met Gilliam in New York while on tour with the Cambridge University Footlights revue Cambridge Circus (originally entitled A Clump of Plinths). Chapman, Cleese and Idle were members of the Footlights, which at that time also included the future Goodies (Tim Brooke-Taylor, Bill Oddie and Graeme Garden), and Jonathan Lynn (co-writer of Yes Minister and Yes, Prime Minister). During Idle's presidency of the Club, feminist writer Germaine Greer and broadcaster Clive James were members. Recordings of Footlights revues (called "Smokers") at Pembroke College include sketches and performances by Idle and Cleese. They are kept in the archives of the Pembroke Players, along with tapes of Idle's performances in some of the college drama society's theatrical productions.

Python members appeared in and/or wrote the following shows before Monty Python's Flying Circus. The Frost Report is credited as first uniting the British Pythons and providing an environment in which they could develop their particular styles:

I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again (radio) (1964–1973) [Cleese: cast member & writer] – [Idle and Chapman: writers]
The Frost Report (1966–1967) [Cleese: cast member and writer] – [Idle: writer of Frost's monologues] – [Chapman, Palin and Jones: writers]
At Last the 1948 Show (1967) [Chapman and Cleese: writers and cast members] – [Idle: writer]
Twice a Fortnight (1967) [Palin and Jones: cast members and writers]
Do Not Adjust Your Set (1967–1969) [Idle, Jones, and Palin: cast members & writers] – [Gilliam: animation]
— Bonzo Dog Band: musical interludes]
We Have Ways of Making You Laugh (1968) [Idle: cast member & writer] – [Gilliam: animation]
How to Irritate People (1968) [Cleese and Chapman: cast members & writers] – [Palin: cast member]
The Complete and Utter History of Britain (1969) [Palin and Jones: cast members & writers]
Doctor in the House (1969) [Cleese & Chapman: writers]

Several featured other important British comedy writers or performers of the future, including Marty Feldman, Jonathan Lynn, David Jason and David Frost, as well as members of other future comedy teams, Ronnie Corbett and Ronnie Barker (the Two Ronnies), and Tim Brooke-Taylor, Graeme Garden and Bill Oddie (the Goodies).

Following the success of Do Not Adjust Your Set, originally intended to be a children's programme, with adults, ITV offered Palin, Jones, Idle and Gilliam their own series together. At the same time Cleese and Chapman were offered a show by the BBC, which had been impressed by their work on The Frost Report and At Last The 1948 Show. Cleese was reluctant to do a two-man show for various reasons, including Chapman's supposedly difficult personality. Cleese had fond memories of working with Palin and invited him to join the team. With the ITV series still in pre-production, Palin agreed and suggested the involvement of his writing partner Jones and colleague Idle—who in turn suggested that Gilliam could provide animations for the projected series. Much has been made of the fact that the Monty Python troupe is the result of Cleese's desire to work with Palin and the chance circumstances that brought the other four members into the fold.^[9]

[edit] Monty Python's Flying Circus

Main article: Monty Python's Flying Circus

Development of the series [link]

The Pythons had a definite idea about what they wanted to do with the series. They were admirers of the work of Peter Cook, Alan Bennett, Jonathan Miller and Dudley Moore on Beyond the Fringe, and had worked on Frost, which was similar in style. They enjoyed Cook and Moore's sketch show Not Only... But Also. One problem the Pythons perceived with these programmes was that though the body of the sketch would be strong, the writers would often struggle to then find a punchline funny enough to end on, and this would detract from the overall sketch quality. They decided that they would simply not bother to "cap" their sketches in the traditional manner, and early episodes of the Flying Circus series make great play of this abandonment of the punchline (one scene has Cleese turn to Idle, as the sketch descends into chaos, and remark that "This is the silliest sketch I've ever been in"—they all resolve not to carry on and simply walk off the set). However, as they began assembling material for the show, the Pythons watched one of their collective heroes, Spike Milligan, recording his groundbreaking series Q5 (1969). Not only was the programme more irreverent and anarchic than any previous television comedy, Milligan would often "give up" on sketches halfway through and wander off set (often muttering "Did I write this?"). It was clear that their new series would now seem less original, and Jones in particular became determined the Pythons should innovate.

After much debate, Jones remembered an animation Gilliam had created for Do Not Adjust Your Set called Beware of the Elephants, which had intrigued him with its stream-of-consciousness style. Jones felt it would be a good concept to apply to the series: allowing sketches to blend into one another. Palin had been equally fascinated by another of Gilliam's efforts, entitled Christmas Cards, and agreed that it represented "a way of doing things differently". Since Cleese, Chapman and Idle were less concerned with the overall flow of the programme, it was Jones, Palin and Gilliam who became largely responsible for the presentation style of the Flying Circus series, in which disparate sketches are linked to give each episode the appearance of a single stream-of-consciousness (often using a Gilliam animation to move from the closing image of one sketch to the opening scene of another).

Writing started at 9 am and finished at 5 pm. Typically, Cleese and Chapman worked as one pair isolated from the others, as did Jones and Palin, while Idle wrote alone. After a few days, they would join together with Gilliam, critique their scripts, and exchange ideas. Their approach to writing was democratic. If the majority found an idea humorous, it was included in the show. The casting of roles for the sketches was a similarly unselfish process, since each member viewed himself primarily as a 'writer', rather than an actor desperate for screen time. When the themes for sketches were chosen, Gilliam had carte blanche to decide how to bridge them with animations, using a camera, scissors, and airbrush.

While the show was a collaborative process, different factions within Python were responsible for elements of the team's humour. In general, the work of the Oxford-educated members (Jones and Palin) was more visual, and more fanciful conceptually (e.g., the arrival of the Spanish Inquisition in a suburban front room), while the Cambridge graduates' sketches tended to be more verbal and more aggressive (for example, Cleese and Chapman's many "confrontation" sketches, where one character intimidates or hurls abuse, or Idle's characters with bizarre verbal quirks, such as The Man Who Speaks In Anagrams). Cleese confirmed that "most of the sketches with heavy abuse were Graham's and mine, anything that started with a slow pan across countryside and impressive music was Mike and Terry's, and anything that got utterly involved with words and disappeared up any personal orifice was Eric's".^[10] Gilliam's animations, meanwhile, ranged from the whimsical to the savage (the cartoon format allowing him to create some astonishingly violent scenes without fear of censorship).

Several names for the show were considered before Monty Python's Flying Circus was settled upon. Some were Owl Stretching Time, Toad Elevating Moment, A Bucket, a Horse and a Spoon, Vaseline Review and Bun, Wackett, Buzzard, Stubble and Boot. Flying Circus stuck when the BBC explained it had printed that name in its schedules and was not prepared to amend it. Many variations on the name in front of this title then came and went (popular legend holds that the BBC considered Monty Python's Flying Circus to be a ridiculous name, at which point the group threatened to change their name every week until the BBC relented). "Gwen Dibley's Flying Circus" was named after a woman Palin had read about in the newspaper, thinking it would be amusing if she were to discover she had her own TV show. "Baron Von Took's Flying Circus" was considered as an affectionate tribute to Barry Took, the man who had brought them together. Arthur Megapode's Flying Circus was suggested, then discarded.

There are differing, somewhat confusing accounts of the origins of the Python name although the members agree that its only "significance" was that they thought it sounded funny. In the 1998 documentary Live At Aspen during the US Comedy Arts Festival, where the troupe was awarded the AFI Star Award by the American Film Institute, the group implied that "Monty" was selected (Eric Idle's idea) as a gently-mocking tribute to Field Marshal Lord Montgomery, a legendary British general of World War II; requiring a "slippery-sounding" surname, they settled on "Python". On other occasions Idle has claimed that the name "Monty" was that of a popular and rotund fellow who drank in his local pub; people would often walk in and ask the barman, "Has Monty been in yet?", forcing the name to become stuck in his mind. The name Monty Python was later described by the BBC as being "envisaged by the team as the perfect name for a sleazy entertainment agent".^[11]

Style of the show [link]

Flying Circus popularised innovative formal techniques, such as the cold open, in which an episode began without the traditional opening titles or announcements.^[12] An example of this is the "It's" man: Palin, outfitted in Robinson Crusoe garb, making a tortuous journey across various terrains, before finally approaching the camera to state, "It's...", only to be then cut off by the title sequence and theme music. On several occasions the cold open lasted until mid show, after which the regular opening titles ran. Occasionally the Pythons tricked viewers by rolling the closing credits halfway through the show, usually continuing the joke by fading to the familiar globe logo used for BBC continuity, over which Cleese would parody the clipped tones of a BBC announcer. On one occasion the credits ran directly after the opening titles. Because of their dislike of finishing with punchlines, they experimented with ending the sketches by cutting abruptly to another scene or animation, walking offstage, addressing the camera (breaking the fourth wall), or introducing a totally unrelated event or character. A classic example of this approach was the use of Chapman's "Colonel" character, who walked into several sketches and ordered them to be stopped because things were becoming "far too silly." Another favourite way of ending sketches was to drop a cartoonish "16-ton weight" prop on one of the characters when the sketch seemed to be losing momentum, or a knight in full armour (played by Terry Gilliam) would wander on-set and hit characters over the head with a rubber chicken,^[13] before cutting to the next scene. Yet another way of changing scenes was when John Cleese, usually outfitted in a dinner suit, would come in as a radio commentator and make the formal and determined announcement, "And now for something completely different."

The Python theme music is The Liberty Bell, a march by John Philip Sousa, which was chosen, among other reasons, because the recording was in the public domain.^[12]

The use of Gilliam's surreal, collage stop motion animations was another innovative intertextual element of the Python style. Many of the images Gilliam used were lifted from famous works of art, and from Victorian illustrations and engravings. The giant foot which crushes the show's title at the end of the opening credits is in fact the foot of Cupid, cut from a reproduction of the Renaissance masterpiece Venus, Cupid, Folly, and Time by Bronzino. This foot, and Gilliam's style in general, are visual trademarks of the series.

The Pythons used the British tradition of cross-dressing comedy by donning frocks and makeup and playing female roles themselves while speaking in falsetto. Generally speaking, female roles were played by a woman (usually Carol Cleveland) only when the scene specifically required that the character be sexually attractive (although sometimes they used Idle for this). In some episodes and later in Monty Python's Life of Brian they took the idea one step further by playing women who impersonated men (in the stoning scene).

Many sketches are well-known and widely quoted. "Dead Parrot", "The Lumberjack Song", "Spam", "Nudge Nudge", "The Spanish Inquisition", "Upper Class Twit of the Year", "Cheese Shop" and "The Ministry of Silly Walks" are just a few examples.

Introduction to North America [link]

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) added Monty Python’s Flying Circus to its national September 1970 fall lineup.^[14] They aired the 13 episodes of Series 1, which had first run on the BBC the previous fall (October 1969 to January 1970), as well as the first 6 episodes of Series 2 only a few weeks after they first appeared on the BBC (September to November 1970).^[14] The CBC dropped the show when it returned to regular programming after the Christmas 1970 break, choosing to not place the remaining 7 episodes of series 2 on the January 1971 CBC schedule.^[14] Within a week the CBC received hundreds of calls complaining of the cancellation, and more than 100 people staged a demonstration at the CBC’s Montreal studios.^[14]

Time-Life Films had the right to distribute all BBC-TV programs in the United States, however they had decided that British comedy simply would not work in America. Therefore, it was not worth the investment to convert the Python episodes from the European PAL standard to the American NTSC standard.

Sketches from Monty Python’s Flying Circus were introduced to American audiences in August 1972, with the release of the Python movie And Now for Something Completely Different, featuring sketches from series 1 and 2 of the television show. This 1972 release met limited box office success.

In the summer of 1974 Ron Devillier, the program director for non-profit PBS television station KERA in Dallas, Texas, started airing episodes of Monty Python’s Flying Circus. Ratings shot through the roof, providing an encouraging sign to the other 100 PBS stations that had signed up to begin airing the show in October 1974—exactly 5 years after their BBC debut. There was also cross-promotion from FM radio stations across the country, whose airing of tracks from the Python LPs had already introduced American audiences to this bizarre brand of comedy. The popularity on PBS resulted in the 1974 re-release of the 1972 "...Completely Different" movie, with much greater box office success.

The ability to show Monty Python’s Flying Circus under the American NTSC standard had been made possible by the commercial actions of American television producer Greg Garrison. Garrison produced the NBC series The Dean Martin Comedy World, which ran during the summer of 1974. The concept was to show clips from comedy shows produced in other countries, including tape of the Python sketches "Bicycle Repairman" and "The Dull Life of a Stockbroker". Payment for use of these two sketches was enough to allow Time-Life Films to convert the entire Python library to NTSC standard, allowing for the sale to the PBS network stations who then brought the entire show to US audiences.

With the popularity of Python throughout the rest of the 1970s and through most of the 1980s, PBS stations looked at other British comedies, leading to UK shows such as Are You Being Served? gaining a US audience, and leading, over time, to many PBS stations having a "British Comedy Night" which airs many popular UK comedies.^[15]

[edit] End of Flying Circus

Having considered the possibility at the end of the second series, Cleese left the Flying Circus at the end of the third. He later explained that he felt he no longer had anything fresh to offer the show, and claimed that only two Cleese-and-Chapman-penned sketches in the third series ("Dennis Moore" and the "Cheese Shop") were truly original, and that the others were bits and pieces from previous work cobbled together in slightly different contexts.^[9] He was also finding Chapman, who was at that point in the full throes of alcoholism, difficult to work with. According to an interview with Idle, "It was on an Air Canada flight on the way to Toronto, when John (Cleese) turned to all of us and said 'I want out.' Why? I don't know. He gets bored more easily than the rest of us. He's a difficult man, not easy to be friendly with. He's so funny because he never wanted to be liked. That gives him a certain fascinating, arrogant freedom."^[16]

The rest of the group carried on for one more "half" series before calling a halt to the programme in 1974. The name Monty Python's Flying Circus appears in the opening animation for series four, but in the end credits the show is listed as simply "Monty Python". Despite his official departure from the group, Cleese supposedly made a (non-speaking) cameo appearance in the fourth series, but never appeared in the credits as a performer. Several episodes credit him as a co-writer since some sketches were recycled from scenes cut from the Holy Grail script. While the first three series contained 13 episodes each, the fourth ended after six.

[edit] Life after the Flying Circus

Filmography [link]

[edit] And Now for Something Completely Different (1971)

Main article: And Now for Something Completely Different

The Pythons' first feature film (directed by Ian MacNaughton, reprising his role from the television series). It was composed of sketches from the first two seasons of the Flying Circus, reshot on a low budget (and often slightly edited) for cinema release. Material selected for the film includes: "Dead Parrot", "The Lumberjack Song", "Upper Class Twit of the Year", "Hell's Grannies", "Self-Defence Class", "How Not To Be Seen" and "Nudge Nudge". Financed by Playboy's UK executive Victor Lownes, it was intended as a way of breaking Monty Python into America, and although it was ultimately unsuccessful in this, the film did good business in the UK (this still being in the era before home video would make it much more accessible to view the material again). The group did not consider the film a success.

[edit] Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1974)

Main article: Monty Python and the Holy Grail

In 1974, between production on the third and fourth seasons, the group decided to embark on their first "proper" feature film, containing entirely new material. Monty Python and the Holy Grail was based on Arthurian Legend and was directed by Jones and Gilliam. Again, the latter also contributed linking animations (and put together the opening credits). Along with the rest of the Pythons, Jones and Gilliam performed several roles in the film, but it was Chapman who took the lead as King Arthur. Cleese returned to the group for the film, feeling that the group were once again breaking new ground. Holy Grail was filmed on location, in picturesque rural areas of Scotland, with a budget of only £229,000; the money was raised in part with investments from rock groups such as Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull and Led Zeppelin—and UK music industry entrepreneur Tony Stratton-Smith (founder and owner of the Charisma Records label, for which the Pythons recorded their comedy albums).

The backers of the film wanted to cut the famous Black Knight scene (in which the Black Knight loses his limbs in a duel) but it was eventually kept in the movie.^[17]

[edit] Monty Python's Life of Brian (1979)

Main article: Monty Python's Life of Brian

Following the success of Holy Grail, reporters asked for the title of the next Python film, despite the fact that the team had not even begun to consider a third one. Eventually, Idle flippantly replied "Jesus Christ – Lust for Glory", which became the group's stock answer once they realised that it shut reporters up. However, they soon began to seriously consider a film lampooning the New Testament era in the same way Holy Grail had lampooned Arthurian legend. Despite them all sharing a distrust of organised religion, they agreed not to mock Jesus nor his teachings directly. Instead, they decided to write a satire on credulity and hypocrisy among the followers of someone who had been mistaken for the "Messiah," but who had no desire to be followed as such. Chapman was cast in the lead role of Brian.

The focus therefore shifted to a separate individual born at the same time, in a neighbouring stable. When Jesus appears in the film (first, as a baby in the stable, and then later on the Mount, speaking the Beatitudes), he is played straight (by actor Kenneth Colley) and portrayed with respect. The comedy begins when members of the crowd mishear his statements of peace, love and tolerance. ("I think he said, 'Blessed are the cheesemakers.'")

Directing duties were handled solely by Jones, having amicably agreed with Gilliam that Jones' approach to film-making was better suited for Python's general performing style. Holy Grail's production had often been stilted by their differences behind the camera. Gilliam again contributed two animated sequences (one being the opening credits) and took charge of set design. The film was shot on location in Tunisia, the finances being provided this time by former Beatle George Harrison, who together with Denis O'Brien formed the production company Hand-Made Films for the movie. He had a cameo role as the 'owner of the Mount.'

Despite its subject matter attracting controversy, particularly upon its initial release, it has (together with its predecessor) been ranked among the greatest comedy films. A Channel 4 poll in 2005 ranked Holy Grail in sixth place, with Life of Brian at the top.^[18]

[edit] Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl (1982)

Main article: Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl

Filmed at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles during preparations for The Meaning of Life, this was a concert film (directed by Terry Hughes) in which the Pythons performed sketches from the television series in front of an audience. The released film also incorporated footage from the German television specials (the inclusion of which gives Ian MacNaughton his first on-screen credit for Python since the end of Flying Circus) and live performances of several songs from the troupe's then-current Monty Python's Contractual Obligation Album.

[edit] Monty Python's The Meaning of Life (1983)

Main article: Monty Python's The Meaning of Life

Python's final film returned to something structurally closer to the style of Flying Circus. A series of sketches loosely follows the ages of man from birth to death. Directed again by Jones solo, The Meaning of Life is embellished with some of Python's most bizarre and disturbing moments, as well as various elaborate musical numbers. The film is by far their darkest work, containing a great deal of black humour, garnished by some spectacular violence (including an operation to remove a liver from a living patient without anaesthetic and the morbidly obese Mr. Creosote exploding over several restaurant patrons). At the time of its release, the Pythons confessed their aim was to offend "absolutely everyone."

Besides the opening credits and the fish sequence, Gilliam, by now an established live action director, no longer wanted to produce any linking cartoons, offering instead to direct one sketch—The Crimson Permanent Assurance. Under his helm, though, the segment grew so ambitious and tangential that it was cut from the movie and used as a supporting feature in its own right. (Television screenings also use it as a prologue.) Crucially, this was the last project that all six Pythons would collaborate on, except for the 1989 compilation Parrot Sketch Not Included, where they are all seen sitting in a closet for four seconds. This would be the last time Chapman appeared on-screen with the Pythons.

[edit] Secret Policeman's Ball benefit shows

Members of Python contributed their services to charitable endeavours and causes—sometimes as an ensemble, at other times as individuals. The cause that has been the most frequent and consistent beneficiary has been the human rights work of Amnesty International. Between 1976 and 1981, the troupe or its members appeared in four major fund-raisers for Amnesty—known collectively as the Secret Policeman's Ball shows—which were turned into multiple films, TV shows, videos, record albums and books. These benefit shows and their many spin-offs raised considerable sums of money for Amnesty, raised public and media awareness of the human rights cause and influenced many other members of the entertainment community (especially rock musicians) to become involved in political and social issues.^[19] Among the many musicians who have publicly attributed their activism—and the organisation of their own benefit events—to the inspiration of the work in this field of Monty Python are U2, Bob Geldof, Pete Townshend and Sting.^[19] The shows are credited by Amnesty with helping the organisation develop public awareness in the US where one of the spin-off films was a major success.

Cleese and Jones had an involvement (as performer, writer or director) in all four Amnesty benefit shows, Palin in three, Chapman in two and Gilliam in one. Idle did not participate in the Amnesty shows. Notwithstanding Idle's lack of participation, the other five members (together with "Associate Pythons" Carol Cleveland and Neil Innes) all appeared together in the first Secret Policeman's Ball benefit—the 1976 A Poke In The Eye (With A Sharp Stick)—where they performed several Python sketches. In this first show they were collectively billed as Monty Python. (Peter Cook deputised for the errant Idle in one major sketch The Courtroom.) In the next three shows, the participating Python members performed many Python sketches, but were billed under their individual names rather than under the collective Python banner. After a six-year break, Amnesty resumed producing Secret Policeman's Ball benefit shows in 1987 (sometimes with, and sometimes without variants of the iconic title) and by 2006 had presented a total of twelve such shows. The shows since 1987 have featured newer generations of British comedic performers, including many who have attributed their participation in the show to their desire to emulate the Python's pioneering work for Amnesty. (Cleese and Palin made a brief cameo appearance in the 1989 Amnesty show; apart from that the Pythons have not appeared in shows after the first four.)

Going solo [link]

Each member has pursued various film, television and stage projects since the break-up of the group, but often continued to work with one another. Many of these collaborations were very successful, most notably A Fish Called Wanda (1988), written by Cleese, in which he starred along with Palin. The pair also appeared in Time Bandits (1981), a film directed by Gilliam, who wrote it together with Palin. Gilliam directed Jabberwocky (1977), and also directed and co-wrote Brazil (1985) and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988), which featured Palin and Idle respectively. Yellowbeard (1983) was co-written by Chapman and featured Chapman, Cleese and Palin alongside many of their English contemporaries, including Peter Cook, Spike Milligan and Marty Feldman.

Palin and Jones wrote the comedic TV series Ripping Yarns (1976–79), starring Palin. Jones also appeared in the pilot episode and Cleese appeared in a non-speaking part in the episode "Golden Gordon". Jones' film Erik the Viking, also has Cleese playing a small part.

In 1996, Terry Jones wrote and directed an adaption of Kenneth Grahame's novel The Wind in the Willows. It featured four members of Monty Python: Jones as Mr. Toad, Idle as Ratty, Cleese as Mr. Toad's lawyer, and Palin as the Sun. Gilliam was considered for the voice of the river.

In terms of numbers of productions, Cleese has the most prolific solo career, having appeared in 59 theatrical films, 22 TV shows or series (including Cheers, 3rd Rock from the Sun, Q's assistant in the James Bond movies, and Will & Grace), 23 direct-to-video productions, six video games, and a number of commercials.^[20] His BBC sitcom Fawlty Towers (written by and starring Cleese together with his then-wife Connie Booth), is considered the greatest solo work by a Python since the sketch show finished. It is the only comedy series to rank higher than the Flying Circus on the BFI TV 100's list, topping the whole poll.

Idle enjoyed critical success with Rutland Weekend Television in the mid-1970s, out of which came the Beatles parody The Rutles (responsible for the cult mockumentary All You Need Is Cash), and as an actor in Nuns on the Run (1990) with Robbie Coltrane. Idle has had success with Python songs: "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" went to no. 3 in the UK singles chart in 1991. The song had been revived by Simon Mayo on BBC Radio 1, and was consequently released as a single that year. The theatrical phenomenon of the Python musical Spamalot has made Idle the most financially successful of the troupe post-Python. Written by Idle, it has proved an enormous hit on Broadway, London's West End and also Las Vegas.^[21] This was followed by Not the Messiah (He's a Very Naughty Boy), which repurposes The Life of Brian as an oratorio. For the work's 2007 premiere at the Luminato festival in Toronto (which commissioned the work), Idle himself sang the "baritone-ish" part.

Post-Python reunions [link]

Since The Meaning of Life, their last project as a team, the Pythons have often been the subject of reunion rumours.^[21] The final reunion of all six members occurred during the Parrot Sketch Not Included – 20 Years of Monty Python special. The death of Chapman in 1989 (on the eve of their 20th anniversary) put an end to the speculation of any further reunions. There have been several occasions since 1989 when the surviving five members have gathered together for appearances—albeit not formal reunions.

In 1996, Jones, Idle, Cleese and Palin were featured in a film adaptation of The Wind in the Willows, which was later renamed Mr. Toad's Wild Ride.

In 1998 during the US Comedy Arts Festival, where the troupe was awarded the AFI Star Award by the American Film Institute, the five remaining members along with what was purported to be Chapman's ashes, were reunited on stage for the first time in 18 years.^[22] The occasion was in the form of an interview called Monty Python Live At Aspen, (hosted by Robert Klein, with an appearance by Eddie Izzard) in which the team looked back at some of their work and performed a few new sketches.

On 9 October 1999, to commemorate 30 years since the first Flying Circus television broadcast, BBC2 devoted an evening to Python programmes, including a documentary charting the history of the team, interspersed with new sketches by the Monty Python team filmed especially for the event. The program appears, though omitting a few things, on the DVD The Life of Python. Though Idle's involvement in the special is limited, the final sketch marks the only time since 1989 that all surviving members of the troupe appear in one sketch, albeit not in the same room.

In 2002, four of the surviving members, bar Cleese, performed "The Lumberjack Song" and "Sit on My Face" for George Harrison's memorial concert. The reunion also included regular supporting contributors Neil Innes and Carol Cleveland, with a special appearance from Tom Hanks.

In an interview to publicise the DVD release of The Meaning of Life, Cleese said a further reunion was unlikely. "It is absolutely impossible to get even a majority of us together in a room, and I'm not joking," Cleese said. He said that the problem was one of business rather than one of bad feelings.^[23] A sketch appears on the same DVD spoofing the impossibility of a full reunion, bringing the members “together” in a deliberately unconvincing fashion with modern bluescreen/greenscreen techniques.

Idle has responded to queries about a Python reunion by adapting a line used by George Harrison in response to queries about a possible Beatles reunion. When asked in November 1989 about such a possibility, Harrison responded: "As far as I'm concerned, there won't be a Beatles reunion as long as John Lennon remains dead." Idle's version of this was that he expected to see a proper Python reunion, "just as soon as Graham Chapman comes back from the dead", but added, "we're talking to his agent about terms."^[24]

2003's The Pythons Autobiography By The Pythons, compiled from interviews with the surviving members, reveals that a series of disputes in 1998, over a possible sequel to Holy Grail that had been conceived by Idle, may have resulted in the group's permanent fission. Cleese's feeling was that The Meaning of Life had been personally difficult and ultimately mediocre, and did not wish to be involved in another Python project for a variety of reasons (not least amongst them was the absence of Chapman, whose straight man-like central roles in the original Grail and Brian films had been considered to be essential performance anchorage). Apparently Idle was angry with Cleese for refusing to do the film, which most of the remaining Pythons thought reasonably promising (the basic plot would have taken on a self-referential tone, featuring them in their main 'knight' guises from Holy Grail, mulling over the possibilities of reforming their posse). The book also reveals that a secondary option around this point was the possibility of revitalising the Python brand with a new stage tour, perhaps with the promise of new material. This idea had also hit the buffers at Cleese's refusal, this time with the backing of other members.

March 2005 saw a full, if non-performing, reunion of the surviving cast members at the premiere of Idle's musical Spamalot, based on Monty Python and the Holy Grail. It opened in Chicago and has since played in New York on Broadway, London and numerous other major cities across the world. In 2004, it was nominated for 14 Tony Awards and won three: Best Musical, Best Direction of a Musical for Mike Nichols and Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Musical for Sara Ramirez, who played the Lady of the Lake, a character specially added for the musical. Cleese played the voice of God, played in the film by Chapman.

Owing in part to the success of Spamalot, PBS announced on 13 July 2005, that it would begin to re-air the entire run of Monty Python's Flying Circus and new one-hour specials focusing on each member of the group, called Monty Python's Personal Best.^[25] Each episode was written and produced by the individual being honoured, with the five remaining Pythons collaborating on Chapman's programme, the only one of the editions to take on a serious tone with its new material.

Eric Idle and John Cleese appeared on stage together singing "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" with the rest of the performers for the climax of Prince Charles 60th Birthday Show.

In 2009, to commemorate the fortieth anniversary of the first episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus, a six part documentary entitled Monty Python: Almost the Truth (The Lawyer's Cut) was released, featuring interviews with the surviving members of the team as well as archive interviews with Graham Chapman and numerous excerpts from the television series and films.

Also in commemoration of the 40th anniversary Idle, Palin, Jones and Gilliam appeared in a production of Not the Messiah (He's a Very Naughty Boy) at the Royal Albert Hall. The European premiere was held on 23 October 2009.^[26] An official 40th anniversary Monty Python reunion event took place in New York City on 15 October 2009 where the Team received a Special Award from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts.^[27]

In June 2011, it was announced that Monty Python have begun production on their first film project since the Meaning of Life in 1983. Their next film, A Liar's Autobiography, is an animated 3D movie based on the memoir of the late Python member, Graham Chapman, who died in 1989 at the age of 48. A Liar’s Autobiography was published in 1980 and details Chapman's journey through medical school, alcoholism, acknowledgement of his gay identity and the toils of surreal comedy.

Asked what was true in a deliberately fanciful account by Chapman of his life, Terry Jones joked: "Nothing . . . it’s all a downright, absolute, blackguardly lie."

The film will use Chapman's own voice - from a reading of his autobiography shortly before he died of cancer - and entertainment channel EPIX announced that the film will be released in early 2012 in both 2D and 3D formats. Produced and directed by London-based Bill Jones, Ben Timlett and Jeff Simpson, the new film has 15 animation companies working on chapters that will range from three to 12 minutes in length, each in a different style.

John Cleese has recorded new dialogue which will be matched with Chapman’s voice and Michael Palin will voice Chapman’s mother and father. Terry Gilliam plays various roles. Among the original Python group, only Eric Idle has not become involved, though Timlett said the filmmakers are “working on” him.^[28]

Python members [link]

Graham Chapman was originally a medical student, joining the Footlights at Cambridge. He completed his medical training and was legally entitled to practice as a doctor. Chapman is best remembered for the lead roles in Holy Grail, as King Arthur, and Life of Brian, as Brian Cohen. He died of spinal and throat cancer on 4 October 1989. At Chapman's memorial service, Cleese delivered an irreverent eulogy that included all the euphemisms for being dead from the Dead Parrot sketch, which they had written.

John Cleese is the oldest Python. He met his future Python writing partner, Graham Chapman, in Cambridge.

Terry Gilliam, an American, was the only member of the troupe of non-British origin.^[29] He started off as an animator and strip cartoonist for Harvey Kurtzman's Help! magazine, one issue of which featured Cleese. Moving from the USA to England, he animated features for Do Not Adjust Your Set and was then asked by its makers to join them on their next project: Monty Python's Flying Circus. He co-directed Monty Python and the Holy Grail and directed short segments of other Python films (for instance "The Crimson Permanent Assurance", the short film that appears before The Meaning of Life).

When Monty Python was first formed, two writing partnerships were already in place: Cleese and Chapman, Jones and Palin. That left two in their own corners: Gilliam, operating solo due to the nature of his work, and Eric Idle. Regular themes in his contributions were elaborate wordplay and musical numbers. After Flying Circus, he hosted Saturday Night Live four times in the first five seasons. Idle's initially successful solo career faltered in the 1990s with the failures of his 1993 film Splitting Heirs (written, produced by and starring him) and 1998's An Alan Smithee Film: Burn Hollywood Burn (in which he starred), which was awarded five Razzies, including 'Worst Picture of the Year'. He revived his career by returning to the source of his worldwide fame, adapting Monty Python material for other media. He also wrote the Broadway musical Spamalot, based on the Holy Grail movie. He also wrote Not the Messiah (He's a Very Naughty Boy), an oratorio derived from the Life of Brian.

Terry Jones has been described by other members of the team as the “heart” of the operation. Jones had a lead role in maintaining the group's unity and creative independence. Python biographer George Perry has commented that should you "speak to him on subjects as diverse as fossil fuels, or Rupert Bear, or mercenaries in the Middle Ages or Modern China... in a moment you will find yourself hopelessly out of your depth, floored by his knowledge." Many others agree that Jones is characterised by his irrepressible, good-natured enthusiasm. However, Jones' passion often led to prolonged arguments with other group members—in particular Cleese—with Jones often unwilling to back down. Since his major contributions were largely behind the scenes (direction, writing), and he often deferred to the other members of the group as an actor, Jones' importance to Python was often underrated. However, he does have the legacy of delivering possibly the most famous line in all of Python, as Brian's mother Mandy in Life of Brian, "He's not the Messiah, he's a very naughty boy!", a line voted the funniest in film history on two occasions.^[30]^[31]

Michael Palin attended Oxford, where he met his Python writing partner Jones. The two also wrote the series Ripping Yarns together. Palin and Jones originally wrote face-to-face, but soon found it was more productive to write apart and then come together to review what the other had written. Therefore, Jones and Palin's sketches tended to be more focused than that of the others, taking one bizarre situation, sticking to it, and building on it. After Flying Circus, he hosted Saturday Night Live four times in the first ten seasons. His comedy output began to decrease in amount following the increasing success of his travel documentaries for the BBC. Palin released a book of diaries from the Python years entitled Michael Palin Diaries 1969–1979, published in 2007.

Associate Pythons [link]

Several people have been accorded unofficial "Associate Python" status over the years. Occasionally such people have been referred to as the 7th Python, in a style reminiscent of George Martin (or other associates of The Beatles) being dubbed "the Fifth Beatle." The two collaborators with the most meaningful and plentiful contributions have been Neil Innes and Carol Cleveland. Both were present and presented as Associate Pythons at the official Monty Python 25th anniversary celebrations held in Los Angeles in July 1994.

File:CarolCleveland.jpg

Carol Cleveland as the stereotypical "blonde bombshell" in the Marriage Guidance Counsellor sketch.

Neil Innes is the only non-Python besides Douglas Adams to be credited with writing material for the Flying Circus. He appeared in sketches and the Python films, as well as performing some of his songs in Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl. He was also a regular stand-in for absent team members on the rare occasions when they re-created sketches. For example, he took the place of Cleese at the Concert for George. Gilliam once noted that if anyone qualified for the title of the "Seventh Python," it would certainly be Innes. He was one of the creative talents in the off-beat Bonzo Dog Band. He would later portray Ron Nasty of the Rutles and write all of the Rutles' compositions for All You Need is Cash (1978). By 2005, a falling out had occurred between Idle and Innes over additional Rutles projects, the results being Innes' critically acclaimed Rutles "reunion" album The Rutles: Archaeology and Idle's straight-to-DVD The Rutles 2: Can't Buy Me Lunch, each undertaken without the other's participation. According to an interview with Idle in the Chicago Tribune in May 2005, his attitude is that he and Innes go back "too far. And no further." Innes has remained silent on the dispute.

Carol Cleveland was the most important female performer in the Monty Python ensemble, commonly referred to as the "Python Girl." Originally hired by producer/director John Howard Davies for just the first five episodes of the Flying Circus, she went on to appear in approximately two-thirds of the episodes as well as in all of the Python films, and in most of their stage shows as well. Her common portrayal as the stereotypical "blonde bimbo" eventually earned her the sobriquet "Carol Cleavage" from the other Pythons, but she felt that the variety of her roles should not be described in such a pejorative way.

Other contributors [link]

Cleese's first wife Connie Booth appeared in, amongst others "The Lumberjack Song" and as the "witch" in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Cleese and Booth later co-wrote and co-starred in Fawlty Towers.

Douglas Adams was "discovered" by Chapman when a version of the Footlights Revue (a 1974 BBC2 television show featuring some of Adams' early work) was performed live in London's West End. In Cleese's absence from the final TV series, the two formed a brief writing partnership, with Adams earning a writing credit in one episode for a sketch called "Patient Abuse". In the sketch, a man who had been stabbed by a nurse arrives at his doctor's office bleeding profusely from the stomach, when the doctor makes him fill out numerous senseless forms before he can administer treatment. He also had two cameo appearances in this season. Firstly, in the episode The Light Entertainment War, Adams shows up in a surgeon's mask (as Dr. Emile Koning, according to the on-screen captions), pulling on gloves, while Palin narrates a sketch that introduces one person after another, and never actually gets started. Secondly, at the beginning of Mr. Neutron, Adams is dressed in a "pepperpot" outfit and loads a missile onto a cart being driven by Terry Jones, who is calling out for scrap metal ("Any old iron..."). Adams and Chapman also subsequently attempted a few non-Python projects, including Out of the Trees. He also contributed to a sketch on the soundtrack album for Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

Stand-up comedian Eddie Izzard, a devoted fan of the group, has occasionally stood in for absent members. When the BBC held a "Python Night" in 1999 to celebrate 30 years of the first broadcast of Flying Circus, the Pythons recorded some new material with Izzard standing in for Idle, who had declined to partake in person (he taped a solo contribution from the US). Izzard hosted a history of the group entitled The Life of Python (1999) that was part of the Python Night and appeared with them at a festival/tribute in Aspen, Colorado, in 1998 (released on DVD as Live at Aspen).

Cultural influence [link]

By the time of the twenty-fifth anniversary of Monty Python in 1994, the point was already being made that "the five surviving members had with the passing years begun to occupy an institutional position in the edifice of British social culture that they had once had so much fun trying to demolish".^[32] A similar point is made in a 2006 book on the relationship between Monty and philosophy: "It is remarkable, after all, not only that the utterly bizarre Monty Python's Flying Circus was sponsored by the BBC in the first place, but that Monty Python itself grew into an institution of enormous cultural influence"^[33] Matt Groening, creator and co-developer of the animated sitcom The Simpsons, names Monty Python as an influence and pays tribute through a couch gag used in seasons five and six.^[34]

Space [link]

In 2010 the commercial space company SpaceX, launched a wheel of cheese into low earth orbit and returned it safely to the earth. Elon Musk, CEO and CTO of SpaceX, claimed this was done as a tribute to Monty Python.

World records [link]

On St George's Day, 23 April 2007, the cast and creators of Spamalot gathered in Trafalgar Square under the tutelage of the two Terrys (Jones and Gilliam) to set a new record for the world's largest coconut orchestra. They led 5,567 people "clip-clopping" in time to the Python classic "Always Look On The Bright Side of Life" for the Guinness World Records attempt.^[35]

'Pythonesque'[link]

Amongst the more visible cultural influences of Monty Python is the inclusion of terms either directly from, or derived from, Monty Python, into the lexicon of the English language. The most obvious of these is the term 'pythonesque', which has become a byword in surreal humour, and is included in standard dictionaries.^[36] Terry Jones commented on his disappointment at the existence of such a term, claiming the initial aim of Monty Python was to create something new and impossible to categorize and that "the fact that Pythonesque is now a word in the Oxford English Dictionary shows the extent to which we failed".^[37]

The term has been applied to animations similar to those constructed by Gilliam (e.g. the cut-out style of South Park, whose creators have often acknowledged a debt to Python, including contributing material to the aforementioned 30th anniversary theme night).^[38]

Good Eats creator Alton Brown cited Python as one of the influences that shaped how he created the series, as well as how he authors the script for each episode.^[39] Recent episodes even include Gilliam-style animations to illustrate key points.

Things named after Monty Python [link]

Beyond a dictionary definition, Python terms have entered the lexicon in other ways.

The Python programming language by Guido van Rossum is named after the troupe, and Monty Python references are often found in sample code created for that language. Additionally, a 2001 April Fool's Day joke by van Rossum and Larry Wall involving the merger of Python with Perl was dubbed "Parrot" after the Dead Parrot Sketch. The name "Parrot" was later used for a project to develop a virtual machine for running bytecode for interpreted languages such as Perl and Python. Also, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory wrote some spacecraft navigation software in Python, which they dubbed "Monty". There is also a python refactoring tool called bicyclerepair ( [1] ), named after Bicycle Repair Man sketch.
In 1985, a fossil of a previously unknown species of gigantic prehistoric snake from the Miocene was discovered in Riversleigh, Queensland, Australia. The Australian palaeontologist who discovered the fossil snake was a Monty Python fan, and he gave the snake the taxonomic name of Montypythonoides riversleighensis in honour of the Monty Python team.^[40] (Transliterated from Greek Μοντυπυθωνοειδής back to English, Montypythonoides means "like Monty Python".)
In 2006, Ben & Jerry's, known for their "celebrity flavours", introduced to the lineup "Vermonty Python", a coffee liqueur ice cream with a chocolate cookie crumb swirl and fudge cows. The name "Minty Python" had been suggested before in 1996 in a contest to select the quintessential British ice cream flavor.^[41]^[42]
In 1999, Black Sheep Brewery released an ale named "Monty Python's Holy Grail Ale."^[43]
The band Toad the Wet Sprocket drew its name from the Eric Idle monologue "Rock Notes" on Monty Python's Contractual Obligation Album from 1980.
The band Boxhamsters, which is the German translation of Brook-Hamster, the winner of the Upper Class Twit of the Year.^[44]
A philosophy lecture series entitled Themes in Contemporary Analytic Philosophy as Reflected in the Work of Monty Python.^[45]^[46]
The term "spam" in reference to bulk, unsolicited email is derived from the programme's 1970 "Spam" sketch.^[47]
In the book The Reptile Room by "Lemony Snicket", the character Uncle Monty was named after Monty Python, in a joke referring to his obsession with snakes.
Seven asteroids are named after Monty Python: 9617 Grahamchapman, 9618 Johncleese, 9619 Terrygilliam, 9620 Ericidle, 9621 Michaelpalin, 9622 Terryjones, and 13681 Monty Python .
The endangered Bemaraha woolly lemur (Avahi cleesei) is named after John Cleese.

Dead Parrot Society is the title of a comedy CD released in 1993 featuring sketches from Monty Python's Flying Circus as well as Graham Chapman, Peter Cook, John Cleese, Dudley Moore, and The Portsmouth Sinfonia The title is also a play on the 1989 film Dead Poets Society.

Media [link]

Main article: Monty Python mediagraphy

Television [link]

Monty Python's Flying Circus (1969–74)

The show that started the Python phenomenon. See also List of Monty Python's Flying Circus episodes

Monty Python's Fliegender Zirkus (1972)

Two 45-minute specials made by WDR for West German television. The first was recorded in German, while the second was in English with German dubbing.

Monty Python's Personal Best (2006)

Six one-hour specials, each episode presenting the best of one member's work.

Films [link]

There were five Monty Python productions released as theatrical films:

And Now for Something Completely Different (1971)

A collection of sketches from the first and second TV series of Monty Python's Flying Circus purposely re-enacted and shot for film.

Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1974)

King Arthur and his knights embark on a low-budget search for the Holy Grail, encountering humorous obstacles along the way. Some of these turned into standalone sketches.

Monty Python's Life of Brian (1979)

Brian is born on the first Christmas, in the stable next to Jesus'. He spends his life being mistaken for a messiah.

Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl (1982)

A videotape recording directed by Ian MacNaughton of a live performance of sketches. Originally intended for a TV/video special. Transferred to 35mm and given a limited theatrical release in the US.

Monty Python's The Meaning of Life (1983)

An examination of the meaning of life in a series of sketches from conception to death and beyond.

Monty Python: Almost the Truth (The Lawyer's Cut) (2009)

This film features interviews with all the surviving Python members, along with archive representation for the late Graham Chapman.

A Liar's Autobiography: Volume IV (2012)

This is an animated film which is based on the memoir of the late Monty Python member, Graham Chapman.

Albums [link]

Monty Python's Flying Circus (1970)
Another Monty Python Record (1971)
Monty Python's Previous Record (1972)
The Monty Python Matching Tie and Handkerchief (1973)
Monty Python Live at Drury Lane (1974)
The Album of the Soundtrack of the Trailer of the Film of Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)
Monty Python Live at City Center (1976)
The Monty Python Instant Record Collection (1977)
Monty Python's Life of Brian (1979)
Monty Python's Contractual Obligation Album (1980)
Monty Python's The Meaning of Life (1983)
The Final Rip Off (1988)
Monty Python Sings (1989)
The Monty Python Instant Record Collection, Volume 2 (1991)
The Ultimate Monty Python Rip Off (1994)
The Instant Monty Python CD Collection (1994)
Spamalot (Broadway version of Monty Python and the Holy Grail with Tim Curry as King Arthur) (2005)
The Hastily Cobbled Together for a Fast Buck Album (unreleased)

Theatre [link]

Monty Python's Flying Circus – Between 1974 and 1980 (Live at the Hollywood Bowl was released in 1982, but was performed in 1980) the Pythons made three sketch-based stage shows, comprising mainly material from the original television series.
Monty Python's Spamalot – Written by Idle directed by Mike Nichols, with music and lyrics by John Du Prez and Idle, and starring Hank Azaria, Tim Curry, and David Hyde Pierce, Spamalot is a musical adaptation of the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail. It ran in Chicago from 21 December 2004 to 23 January 2005, and began performances on Broadway on 17 March 2005. It won three Tonys.
Not the Messiah (He's a Very Naughty Boy) – The Toronto Symphony Orchestra commissioned Idle and John Du Prez to write the music and lyrics of an oratorio based on Monty Python's Life of Brian. Entitled Not the Messiah, it had its world premiere as part of Luminato, a "festival of arts and creativity" taking place 1–10 June 2007 in Toronto. Not the Messiah was conducted by Peter Oundjian, Music Director of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, who is Idle’s cousin. It was performed by a narrator, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, with guest soloists and choir. According to Idle, "It will be funnier than Handel, though not as good".

Books [link]

Monty Python's Big Red Book (1971) ISBN 0-413-29520-6.
The Brand New Monty Python Bok (1973) ISBN 0-7493-1170-3.
Monty Python and The Holy Grail (book) – Mønti Pythøn ik den Hølie Gräilen (Bøk) (1977) ISBN 0-413-38520-5.
MONTYPYTHONSCRAPBOOK/ The Life of Brian (1979) ISBN 0-413-46550-0.
Monty Python's Flying Circus – Just The Words Volume 1 (1989) ISBN 0-413-62540-0.
Monty Python's Flying Circus – Just The Words Volume 2 (1989) ISBN 0-413-62550-8.
The Complete Monty Python's Flying Circus Volumes 1 & 2
The Fairly Incomplete & Rather Badly Illustrated Monty Python Song Book (1994) ISBN 0-413-69000-8
Michael Palin Diaries 1969–1979
The Pythons: Autobiography by the Pythons
The Life of Brian/Jesus (2011) ISBN 978-1-84876-628-0.

Games [link]

Monty Python's Flying Circus (1990) a computer game released by Virgin Games for 8-bit systems such as the Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC and the Sinclair ZX Spectrum^[48]
Monty Python's Complete Waste of Time (1994) released by 7th Level for PC / DOS
Monty Python & the Quest for the Holy Grail (1996), official game released by 7th Level. It used footage and imagery from the film, as well as audio clips (some new) and featured an animated version of a scene never filmed entitled "King Brian The Wild".
Monty Python's The Meaning of Life (1997), also released by 7th Level. According to the jewel case description, it's based on the film by the same name, but it's really something completely similar yet entirely different.
Python-opoly (2007), a Monty Python-themed property game released by Toy Vault Inc.^[49]
Monty Python Fluxx (2008), a card game released by Looney Labs^[50]
Blazing Dragons

References [link]

^ Gilliam was born American and obtained British citizenship in 1968. In protest at George W. Bush, he renounced his American citizenship in January 2006 and is now only a British citizen. (in German) Kopflos am Potsdamer Platz, DE: Tagesspiegel, 10 February 2006, http://www.tagesspiegel.de/kultur/;art772,2004101, retrieved 15 September 2007
^ Wilmut (1980), p. 250.
^ The Pythons by 'The Pythons', ISBN 0-7528-5293-0.
^ Todd Leopold (11 December 2003). "How Monty Python changed the world". CNN. http://www.cnn.com/2003/SHOWBIZ/TV/12/10/monty.python/index.html. Retrieved 30 March 2007. "Python has been called "the Beatles of comedy,""
^ Mark Lewisohn. "Monty Python's Flying Circus". BBC. http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/guide/articles/m/montypythonsflyi_1299002137.shtml. Retrieved 31 March 2007. "In essence, the Monty Python team are the comedy equivalent of the Beatles."
^ 'Holy' Monty Python History Lesson. Entertainment Tonight. Retrieved 24 April 2012
^ 'Monty Python' Reunion Planned for New Movie. Christian Post. Retrieved 24 April 2012
^ "Cook voted 'comedians' comedian'". BBC News. 2 January 2005. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/tv_and_radio/4141019.stm. Retrieved 21 September 2008.
^ ^a ^b The Pythons Autobiography By The Pythons—Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin, John Chapman, David Sherlock, Bob McCabe—Thomas Dunne Books; Orion, 2003
^ Wilmut (1980), p.211
^ "BBC – Comedy – Monty Python". http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/montypython/index.shtml.
^ ^a ^b Museum of Broadcast Communications. "Monty Python's Flying Circus". http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/M/htmlM/montypython/montypython.htm.
^ Monty Python's Flying Circus Just The Words Volume 1, p33. Methuen, 1990
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Jamie Bradburn, with reference to Toronto Star article of 1971-02-02 (2011-09-20). "Vintage Toronto Ads: Jack of Hearts’ Flying Circus". St. Joseph Media. http://torontoist.com/2011/09/vintage-toronto-ads-jack-of-hearts-flying-circus/. Retrieved 2012-03-21.
^ David Stewart; David C. Stewart (May 1999). The PBS companion: a history of public television. TV Books. p. 216. ISBN 978-1-57500-050-3. http://books.google.com/books?id=U3S4AAAAIAAJ. Retrieved 29 September 2010.
^ Richard Ouzounian, "Python still has legs", Toronto Star, 16 July 2006
^ Interview with John Cleese on Q-The Podcast with host John Ghomeshi, on 16 July 2009
^ "50 Greatest Comedy Films". channel4.com. http://www.channel4.com/film/newsfeatures/microsites/G/greatest-comedyfilms/index.html. Retrieved 21 September 2008.
^ ^a ^b Secret Policeman's Ball recruits New York's finest to Amnesty celebration. The Guardian. Retrieved 24 April 2012
^ IMDB; as of January 2005; includes pre-release items.
^ ^a ^b Alan Parker; Mick O'Shea (1 April 2006). And Now For Something Completely Digital: The Complete Illustrated Guide to Monty Python CDs and DVDs. The Disinformation Company. p. 68. ISBN 978-1-932857-31-3. http://books.google.com/books?id=G49bRxbeH1kC&pg=PA68. Retrieved 29 September 2010.
^ Alleen Pace Nilsen; Don Lee Fred Nilsen (2000). Encyclopedia of 20th-century American humor. Oryx Press. p. 86. ISBN 978-1-57356-218-8. http://books.google.com/books?id=0ufWAAAAMAAJ. Retrieved 29 September 2010.
^ Monty Python reunion 'unlikely', BBC News, 9 September 2003
^ Graham Chapman; John Cleese; Terry Gilliam; Eric Idle (15 November 2005). The Pythons Autobiography by the Pythons. Macmillan. p. 328. ISBN 978-0-312-31145-2. http://books.google.com/books?id=3Q-XD02f4oQC&pg=PT328. Retrieved 29 September 2010.
^ Exclusive new Monty Python specials slated to premiere in 2006, PBS, 13 July 2005
^ mollyblack wrote: (11 July 2009). "retrieved 6 July 2009". The Independent (UK). http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/theatre-dance/news/monty-python-stars-to-stage-reunion-1733638.html. Retrieved 19 August 2009.
^ "Pythons receive BAFTA Special Award". Bafta.org. 18 October 2009. http://www.bafta.org/access-all-areas/videos/monty-python-special-award,877,BA.html. Retrieved 18 October 2009.
^ "Monty Python back for 3D animated film". The Daily Telegraph (London). 28 June 2011. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/film-news/8602765/Monty-Python-back-for-3D-animated-film.html.
^ David Morgan (6 October 2006). "Terry Gilliam Sounds Off, Director Of 'Brazil' Says Current Events Parallel His Cult Movie". CBSNews. http://www.showbuzz.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/10/06/movies/main2071659.shtml. Retrieved 21 September 2008.
^ Philip French, Mark Kermode, Jason Solomons, Akin Ojumu, and Killian Fox (22 July 2007). "The last laugh: your favourite 50". The Observer (UK). http://film.guardian.co.uk/features/featurepages/0,,2131880,00.html. Retrieved 21 September 2008.
^ Sarah Womack (19 February 2002). "Life of Brian wins the vote for film's best laughter line". London: Telegraph. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1385293/Life-of-Brian-wins-the-vote-for-film's-best-laughter-line.html. Retrieved 21 September 2008.
^ Perry, George (1999). The Life of Python. London: Pavilion Books. p. 6. ISBN 1-85793-441-5. http://books.google.com/books?id=J_Zg-9u4yLAC&printsec=frontcover&dq=life+python#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved 24 August 2010.
^ Hardcastle, G.L., & Reisch, G.A. (2006). "”What’s All This Then?” The Introduction". In Gary L. Hardcastle & George A Reisch. Monty Python and Philosophy: Nudge Nudge, Think Think!. Vol. 19 in Popular Culture and Philosophy series. Chicago: Open Court. p. 8. ISBN 978-0-8126-9593-9. http://books.google.com/books?id=wPQelKFNA5MC&printsec=frontcover&dq=monty+python#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved 24 August 2010. Also ISBN 0-8126-9593-3
^ "Monty Python's Flying Circus Foot couch gag - Simpsons Wiki". Simpsons.wikia.com. 2011-12-24. http://simpsons.wikia.com/wiki/Monty_Python's_Flying_Circus_Foot_couch_gag. Retrieved 2012-01-02.
^ BBC-Spamalot cast sets coconut record.
^ "Monty Pythonesque." Webster's New Millennium Dictionary of English, Preview Edition (v 0.9.7). Lexico Publishing Group, LLC. 23 November 2007. Pythonesque
^ Monty Python: Live at Aspen, 1998
^ "Monty Python meets South Park". BBC News. 4 October 1999. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/464765.stm. Retrieved 21 September 2008.
^ Marc Berman (27 September 2009). "Mr. TV: Food for Thought". Mediaweek. http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/content_display/community/programming-insider/column/e3icbd5f8a8048766fc980ec4910fe71b25. Retrieved 27 October 2009.
^ Monty Python – a Brief History, BBC, 29 January 2002
^ "STAN FREBERG HERE – British Ice Cream Flavors:". http://leemichaelwithers.tripod.com/sfh7_16_96.htm. Retrieved 1 October 2010. "Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream has just finished a contest to select the quintessential British ice cream flavor. ... They wanted a kind of "pun" flavor along the lines of their successful American flavor, "Cherry Garcia"--hmm, my favorite. Anyhow, the winner was "Cool Brittania." ... But some of the 7500 losers might have been better. How about this, for British flavors: "Minty Python"? "Jack the Ripple"? Or how about "The Rolling Scones"?"
^ "American Scoops Up Prize For Name Of Brit Ben & Jerry's – Orlando Sentinel". Wall Street Journal. 4 July 1996. http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/1996-07-04/business/9607030986_1_ben-jerry-ice-cream-flavor. Retrieved 1 October 2010. "If Britain were an ice cream, what flavor would it be? Jack the Ripple? Charles and Diana Split? Those names were floated in a contest run by Ben & Jerry's Homemade Inc. to create the quintessential British ice cream flavor, along the lines of its world-famous American flavor, Cherry Garcia."
^ "Monty Python's Holy Grail". Blacksheepbrewery.com. http://www.blacksheepbrewery.com/Beers/BottledBeers/HolyGrail.aspx. Retrieved 2012-01-02.
^ "Boxhamsters". www.boxhamsters.net. http://www.boxhamsters.net. Retrieved 19 August 2009.
^ Eric Barnes. "Gary L. Hardcastle: Themes in Contemporary Analytic Philosophy as Relfected in the Work of Monty Python". Mtholyoke.edu. http://www.mtholyoke.edu/~ebarnes/python/python.htm. Retrieved 2012-01-02.
^ Gary L. Hardcastle & George A Reisch, ed. (2006). Monty Python and Philosophy: Nudge Nudge, Think Think!. Chicago: Open Court. ISBN 978-0-8126-9593-9. Also ISBN 0-8126-9593-3
^ "RFC 2635 – DON\x27T SPEW A Set of Guidelines for Mass Unsolicited Mailings and Postings (spam*):". http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2635. Retrieved 29 September 2010.
^ "Monty Python's Flying Circus on World of Spectrum". Worldofspectrum.org. http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseekid.cgi?id=0003260. Retrieved 19 August 2009.
^ "Toy Vault web site for Python-opoly, retrieved November 20, 2008". Toyvault.com. http://www.toyvault.com/pythonopoly/index.htm. Retrieved 19 August 2009.
^ "Web site for Monty Python Fluxx". Fluxxgames.com. http://fluxxgames.com/. Retrieved 19 August 2009.

External links [link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Monty Python

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Monty Python

Pythonline.com – Monty Python's sort-of official site, actively maintained by Eric Idle
Monty Python – Official YouTube page
Monty Python Videos – Monty Python's best videos and movies
2012 interview with Carol Cleveland, covering Flying Circus and Holy Grail
Python at ifilm.com
Pythonisms: Python quotes as figures of speech
Release of the 3-DVD Secret Policeman's Balls
40 Years of Monty Python – photo essay by TIME magazine
Monty Python Reunion event, New York, 15 October 2009

v t e Monty Python

Graham Chapman John Cleese Terry Gilliam Eric Idle Terry Jones Michael Palin Carol Cleveland Neil Innes

Television series	Flying Circus episodes Fliegender Zirkus Personal Best

Filmography	And Now for Something Completely Different Holy Grail Life of Brian Live at the Hollywood Bowl The Meaning of Life

Studio albums	Another Record Previous Record Matching Tie and Handkerchief Holy Grail Life of Brian Contractual Obligation The Meaning of Life

Compilation albums	Instant Record Collection Final Rip Off Ultimate Rip Off Instant CD Collection Sings

Live albums	Flying Circus Live at Drury Lane Live at City Center

Specials	Parrot Sketch Not Included Live at Aspen Python Night

Documentaries	Almost the Truth (Lawyers Cut)

Stage productions	Spamalot Not the Messiah (He's a Very Naughty Boy) An Evening Without Monty Python

Literature	Big Red Book Brand New Bok Bert Fegg's Nasty Book for Boys and Girls

Video games	Complete Waste of Time Quest for the Holy Grail The Meaning of Life

Characters	Mr Praline Gumbys The "it's" man The Colonel Mr Creosote Killer Rabbit Other characters

Sketches	Anne Elk's Theory on Brontosauruses Architects Argument Bruces Cheese Shop Colin "Bomber" Harris vs Colin "Bomber" Harris Crunchy Frog Dead Bishop Dead Parrot Dirty Fork Dirty Hungarian Phrasebook Election Night Special Fish Licence Fish-Slapping Dance Four Yorkshiremen The Funniest Joke in the World How Not to Be Seen Kilimanjaro Expedition Lifeboat Marriage Guidance Counsellor Ministry of Silly Walks Mouse Problem Nudge Nudge Patient Abuse Philosophers' Football Match Piranha Brothers Ron Obvious Sam Peckinpah's "Salad Days" Seduced Milkmen Self Defence Against Fresh Fruit Spam Spanish Inquisition Bishop Undertakers Upper Class Twit of the Year Vocational Guidance Counsellor

Songs	"Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" "Decomposing Composers" "Eric the Half-a-Bee" "Every Sperm Is Sacred" "Galaxy Song" "I Bet You They Won't Play This Song on the Radio" "I Like Chinese" "I've Got Two Legs" "Knights of the Round Table" "The Lumberjack Song" "Never Be Rude to an Arab" "Oliver Cromwell" "Penis Song (Not the Noel Coward Song)" "Bruces' Philosophers Song" "Sit on My Face"

Related articles	Mediagraphy The Hastily Cobbled Together for a Fast Buck Album Do Not Adjust Your Set At Last the 1948 Show How to Irritate People Holy Flying Circus Rutland Weekend Television

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Name	Python, Monty
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André Campra

André Campra (Aix-en-Provence, (baptized) 4 December 1660 – 29 June 1744 in Versailles) was a French composer and conductor.

Campra was one of the leading French opera composers in the period between Jean-Baptiste Lully and Jean-Philippe Rameau. He wrote several tragédies en musique, but his chief claim to fame is as the creator of a new genre, opéra-ballet. He also wrote three books of cantatas as well as religious music, including a requiem. ^[1]^[2]

1 Biography
2 Principal works
3 Legacy
4 References
5 Sources
6 External links

Biography [link]

Campra was the son of Jean-François Campra, a surgeon and violinist from Graglia, in Italy, and of Louise Fabry, from Aix-en-Provence. Campra's father was his first music teacher. Campra became a choirboy at Saint-Sauveur in Aix in 1674, and commenced ecclesiastical studies four years later. He was reprimanded by his superiors in 1681 for having taken part in theatrical performances without permission, but was nevertheless made a chaplain on 27 May that year.

From 1694 to 1700, he was maître de musique (music director) at the cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris, after having served in a similar capacity in Arles and Toulouse. Campra controversially brought violins into the making of sacred music at Notre-Dame de Paris which at the time was seen as very avant-garde due to their reputation as 'street instruments'.^[3]

He began to turn toward the theatre in 1697 and published some theatrical compositions under his brother's name to protect his reputation within the church.^[3] In 1700 he gave up his post at Notre-Dame and concentrated on his theatrical music to critical success. By 1705 he was a musical celebrity but this resulted in him becoming a target for negative articles in the press.^[4] From 1720 onwards, he returned to the composition of sacred music. Although Campra had obtained critical success he did not have financial security and hence in 1722 he was engaged by the prince of Conti as maître de musique although this appointment was short lived.^[4] After the death of the regent, Campra became sous-maître at the Royal Chapel in Versailles in 1723. In 1730 he became the Inspecteur Général at the Opéra (Royal Academy of Music).

He died at the age of 83.

With his composition of L'Europe galante he was the true genius of the opéra-ballet, a musical genre originated by Pascal Colasse (in his Ballet des saisons).He also wrote the Rigaudon.

Principal works [link]

Cantatas [link]

Book I 1708 - Hebe. L'Heureux jaloux. Didon. Daphne. Arion. Les femmes.
Book II 1714 - Les Heureux Epoux, Silène, Achille oisif, La Dispute de l'Amour,
Book III 1728 - Enée et Didon ^[5]

Sacred works [link]

Nisi Dominus (1722)
Requiem (after 1723)
Motets for the royal chapel (1723-1741)

Legacy [link]

A theme from his 1717 opera Camille was used as the basis of the collaborative work La guirlande de Campra by seven French composers, written in 1952.

A state-owned secondary school in the centre of Aix-en-Provence, is named after André Campra, Collège Campra. There is a statue of Campra inside one of the buildings.

References [link]

^ Viking p.180
^ Grove
^ ^a ^b BBC Radio 3: 7 December 2010.
^ ^a ^b BBC Radio 3: 8 December 2010.
^ James R. Anthony La musique en France à l'époque baroque: de Beaujoyeulx à Rameau 1981 "Enée et Didon (Livre III), qui est pratiquement une cantate-opéra, mettant en scène deux protagonistes, ... Dans les cantates plus tardives de Campra, l'usage systématique de tous les procédés lyriques se conjugue avec une utilisation ..."

Sources [link]

Anthony, James R. "Campra, André". Grove Music Online (subscription access).
BBC Radio 3. "Composer of the Week: André Campra 1660-1744", Episode 2, BBC: Broadcast 7 December 2010
BBC Radio 3. "Composer of the Week: André Campra 1660-1744", Episode 3, BBC: Broadcast 8 December 2010
Viking Opera Guide ed. Holden (Viking, 1993)

External links [link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: André Campra

Free scores by André Campra at the International Music Score Library Project
Free scores by André Campra in the Werner Icking Music Archive (WIMA)
Free scores by André Campra in the Choral Public Domain Library (ChoralWiki)

Persondata
Name	Campra, Andre
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	1660
Place of birth
Date of death	1744
Place of death

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