Figurine

A figurine (a diminutive form of the word figure) or statuette is a small statue that represents a human, deity or animal, or in practice a pair or small group of them. Figurines have been made in many media, with pottery, metal, wood, glass, and today plastic or resin the most significant. Ceramic figurines not made of porcelain are called terracottas in historical contexts.

Figures with movable parts, allowing limbs to be posed, are more likely to be called dolls, mannequins, or action figures; or robots or automata, if they can move on their own. Figurines and miniatures are sometimes used in board games, such as chess, and tabletop role playing games.

Prehistory

In China, there are extant Neolithic figurines. Prehistoric figurines of pregnant women are called Venus figurines, because of their presumed representation of a goddess, or some connection to fertility. The two oldest known examples are made of stone, were found in Africa and Asia, and are several hundred thousand years old. Many made of fired clay have been found in Europe that date to 25-30,000 BC, and are the oldest ceramics known.

The Figurine

The Figurine: Araromire is a 2009 Nigerian supernatural suspense thriller film written by Kemi Adesoye, produced and directed by Kunle Afolayan, who also stars in the film as one of the main protagonists. It also stars Ramsey Nouah and Omoni Oboli.

The movie narrates the story of two friends who finds a mystical sculpture in an abandoned shrine in the forest while serving at a National Youth Service Corps camp, and one of them decides to take the artwork home. Unknown to them, the sculpture is from the goddess 'Araromire' which bestows seven years of good luck on anyone who encounters it, and after the seven years have expired, seven years of bad luck follow. The lives of the two friends begin to change for good, as they become successful and wealthy businessmen. However, after seven years, things start to change for the worse.

The original idea for a thriller film came long ago from Kunle Afolayan himself and Jovi Babs and it was to be titled Shrine. The script took nine months to be finalized and the development stage took five years. The film was shot in Lagos and Osun State for three months and received sponsorship from companies such as MicCom Golf Resort, GSK, Omatek Computers, MTN, IRS Airlines, and Cinekraft. It also had media partners like HiTV and others. There were no professional stunts on the ground, so most of the stunts were performed by Kunle Afolayan on set.

Arsenal

An arsenal is a place where arms and ammunition are made, maintained and repaired, stored, or issued, in any combination, whether privately or publicly owned. Arsenal and armoury (British English) or armory (US spelling) are mostly regarded as synonyms, although subtle differences in usage exist.

Sub-armory is a place of temporary storage or carrying of weapons and ammunition, like any temporary Post or patrol vehicle which is only operational in certain times of the day.

Etymology

From Italian: arsenale, and French: arsenal, from Arabic: دار الصناعة‎, dār aṣ-ṣināʕa, meaning "manufacturing shop".

Types

A lower-class arsenal, which can furnish the materiel and equipment of a small army, may contain a laboratory, gun and carriage factories, small-arms ammunition, small-arms, harness, saddlery tent and powder factories; in addition, it must possess great store-houses. In a second-class arsenal, the factories would be replaced by workshops. The situation of an arsenal should be governed by strategic considerations. If of the first class, it should be situated at the base of operations and supply, secure from attack, not too near a frontier, and placed so as to draw in readily the resources of the country. The importance of a large arsenal is such that its defences would be on the scale of those of a large fortress.

Arsenal (Central Park)

The Arsenal is a symmetrical brick building with modestly Gothic Revival details, located in Central Park, New York City, centered on 64th Street off Fifth Avenue. Built between 1847 and 1851 as a storehouse for arms and ammunition for the New York State Militia, the building predates the design and construction of Central Park, where only the Blockhouse (1814) is older.

The Arsenal was designed by Martin E. Thompson (1786–1877), originally trained as a carpenter, who had been a partner of Ithiel Town and went on to become one of the founders of the National Academy of Design. Thompson's symmetrical structure of brick in English bond, with headers every fifth course, presents a central block in the manner of a fortified gatehouse flanked by half-octagonal towers. The carpentry doorframe speaks of its purpose with an American eagle displayed between stacks of cannonballs over the door, and crossed sabers and stacked pikes represented in flanking panels.

The building currently houses the offices of the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation and the Central Park Wildlife Conservation Center, but it has also served as a zoo and housed a portion of the American Museum of Natural History's collections while its permanent structure was being erected. During the course of its lifetime it has also housed a police precinct, a weather bureau, and an art gallery.

Arsenal (film)

Arsenal (Russian: Арсенал, also alternative title January Uprising in Kiev in 1918) is a Soviet film by Ukrainian director Alexander Dovzhenko. The film was made in 1928 and released early in 1929. It is the second film in his "Ukraine Trilogy", the first being Zvenigora (1928) and the third being Earth (1930).

The film concerns an episode in the Russian Civil War in 1918 in which the Kiev Arsenal January Uprising of workers aided the besieging Bolshevik army against the Ukrainian national Parliament Central Rada who held legal power in Ukraine at the time. Regarded by film scholar Vance Kepley, Jr. as "one of the few Soviet political films which seems even to cast doubt on the morality of violent retribution", Dovzhenko's eye for wartime absurdities (for example, an attack on an empty trench) anticipates later pacifist sentiments in films by Jean Renoir and Stanley Kubrick.

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