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Arizona Diamondbacks

The Arizona Diamondbacks (colloquially the D-backs) are an American professional baseball team based in Phoenix, Arizona. The Diamondbacks compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member of the National League (NL) West Division. The franchise was established on March 9, 1995, and began play in 1998 as an expansion team. The team plays its home games at Chase Field. Along with the Tampa Bay Rays, the Diamondbacks are one of the newest teams in the MLB and are the youngest team to win a World Series.

After a fifth-place finish in their inaugural season, the Diamondbacks made several off-season acquisitions, including future Hall of Fame pitcher Randy Johnson, who won four consecutive Cy Young Awards in his first four seasons with the team. In 1999, Arizona won 100 games and their first division championship. In 2001, they won the World Series over the three-time defending champion New York Yankees, becoming the fastest expansion team in major league history to win the World Series and the first and only men's major professional sports team in the State of Arizona to win a championship.

From 1998 to 2023, the Diamondbacks had an overall record of.

Franchise history
On March 9, 1995, Phoenix was awarded an expansion franchise to begin play for the season. A $130 million franchise fee was paid to Major League Baseball and on January 16, 1997, the Diamondbacks were voted into the National League. The Diamondbacks' first major league game was played against the Colorado Rockies on March 31, 1998, at Bank One Ballpark. The ballpark was renamed Chase Field in 2005, as a result of Bank One Corporation's merger with JPMorgan Chase & Co.

Since their debut, the Diamondbacks have won two Wild Card Series, five NL West division titles, two NL pennants, and the 2001 World Series.

They later became the fastest expansion franchise in baseball history to win a World Series. The Diamondbacks defeated the Yankees in Game 7 during the 2001 postseason.

After beating the Philadelphia Phillies 4–2 in Game 7 of the 2023 NLCS at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia, the Arizona Diamondbacks returned to the World Series for the first time since 2001 – against the Texas Rangers on October 27, 2023. They lost the series 4–1 at home in Arizona on November 1, 2023.

1998–2006
The Diamondbacks' original colors were purple, black, teal and copper. Their logo was an italicized block letter "A" with a diamond pattern, with the crossbar represented by a snake's tongue. This period saw the Diamondbacks wear several uniform combinations.

At home, the Diamondbacks wore cream uniforms with purple pinstripes. The primary sleeved uniform, worn from 1998 to 2000, featured the full team name ("Diamond" and "Backs" stacked together) in front and chest numbers. The alternate sleeveless version contained the "A" logo on the right chest, and was paired with purple undershirts. Before the 2001 season, the sleeved uniform was changed to feature the "A" logo. In all three uniforms, player names were teal with purple trim, and numbers were purple with white with teal trim.

The Diamondbacks' primary road gray uniform also had purple pinstripes. The first version featured "Arizona" in purple with white and teal trim along with black drop shadows, with chest numbers added. Player names were in purple with white trim, and numbers were teal with white and purple trim. In 2001, the uniform became sleeveless with black undershirts, and the lettering scheme was changed to purple with white, copper and black accents.

The alternate home purple uniform featured "Arizona" in teal with white and copper trim and black drop shadows. The letters were rendered in teal with copper and white trim, but were changed to copper with teal and white trim after only one season. This set was worn until 2002.

The alternate road black uniform featured the "A" logo on the right chest, while letters were purple with white trim and numbers were teal with white and purple trim. A zigzag pattern of teal, copper and purple was featured on the sleeves. In 2001, the uniform was changed to feature "Arizona" in front. The letters became purple with white and copper trim.

The Diamondbacks initially wore four different cap versions. The primary home cap is all-purple, while the road cap is black with a teal brim. They also wore a cream cap with purple brim, and a teal cap with purple brim. All designs featured the primary "A" logo. In 1999, the road cap became all-black and contained the alternate "D-snake" logo rendered in copper. Also, the teal and cream alternate caps were dropped.

The left sleeve of all four uniforms contained the snake logo with the full team name until the 2004 season, when it became exclusive to the road black uniform.

2007–2015
The franchise unveiled new uniforms and colors of Sedona red, Sonoran sand and black on November 8, 2006. The red shade is named for the sandstone canyon at Red Rock State Park near Sedona, while the beige (sand) shade is named for the Sonoran Desert. A sleeve patch was added featuring a lowercase "d" and "b" configured to look like a snake's head. The team also kept the "D" logo, which was slightly altered and put on an all-red cap to be used as their game cap. They kept the "A" logo with the new colors applied to it, with a solid black cap used as the alternate cap. Arizona's updated color scheme bore a striking resemblance to the Houston Astros' color scheme (brick red, sand and black) that the Astros used until 2012, as well as the NHL's Phoenix Coyotes, whose adoption of those colors predated the Diamondbacks by four years.

The white home uniform featured "D-Backs" in red with sand and black trim. The road gray uniform featured "Arizona" in red with sand and black trim. Player names were red with black trim while numbers were black with red trim.

The alternate red uniform contained "D-Backs" in sand with red and black trim, with player names in sand with black trim and numbers in black with sand trim.

There were two versions of the alternate black uniform. One design has the alternate "A" logo on the right chest, while the other has "Arizona" written in red with black and sand trim. The latter was introduced in 2013 as a tribute to the victims of the Yarnell Hill Fire. On both uniforms, player names were sand with red trim, and numbers in red with sand trim.

2016–2023
Prior to the 2016 season, the Diamondbacks reincorporated teal into its color scheme while keeping Sedona Red, Sonoran Sand and black. They also unveiled eight different uniform combinations, including two separate home white and away grey uniforms. One major difference between the two sets is that the non-teal uniforms feature a snakeskin pattern on the shoulders, while the teal-trimmed uniforms include a charcoal/grey snakeskin pattern on the back. Arizona also kept the throwback pinstriped sleeveless uniforms from their 2001 championship season for use during Thursday home games.

Starting with the 2020 season, the Diamondbacks made slight redesigns to their uniforms. The snakeskin patterns were removed while the teal-trimmed grey uniforms were retired. The team also reverted to a standard grey uniform after wearing a darker shade on the previous set. Two home white uniforms remain in use: the primary Sedona Red and the alternate teal. They would also wear two black uniforms: one with the primary "A" logo on the left chest and the other with "Los D-Backs" trimmed in teal. Three cap designs were also unveiled, all with a black base: the primary "A" cap, the teal-trimmed "snake" cap (paired exclusively on the teal alternates), and the sand-trimmed "snake" cap with red brim (paired exclusively on the Sedona Red alternates). The Nike swoosh logo is also placed on the right chest near the shoulder. In 2022, the Diamondbacks introduced a red "A" cap with black brim.

In 2021, the Diamondbacks were one of seven teams to wear Nike "City Connect" uniforms. The design is primarily sand and has "Serpientes" in black script lettering emblazoned in front. The first "S" in "Serpientes" was shaped to resemble a rattlesnake. The right sleeve has the flag of Arizona patch recolored to the Diamondbacks' red, sand and black scheme, and the left sleeve has the "A" logo recolored to black and sand. Numerals are in red. The cap is primarily sand with black brim and has the "A" logo in black and sand; the regular batting helmet is used with the uniform. Initially, the Diamondbacks wore white pants with this uniform, but has since switched to sand pants.

Before the 2023 season, the Diamondbacks promoted the alternate white uniform with teal accents to its primary home uniform and retired the previous Sedona Red white uniform. This is due to a new Nike rule that limits teams to four regular uniforms plus the "City Connect" uniform.

Since 2024
Coming off their second World Series appearance in, the Diamondbacks unveiled refreshed uniform designs starting in 2024. Turquoise returned full-time as an accent color on all uniforms along with Sedona red and black, but sand was removed except on the "City Connect" uniform. The home uniform is now a cream base with black piping, featuring the "A" logo on the left chest. The road grey uniform with black piping featured "Arizona" in Sedona red with teal and black outlines. The alternate black uniform with teal piping shared the same features as the home uniform. The alternate Sedona red uniform incorporated the full "Diamondbacks" wordmark in black with teal and Sedona red outlines, along with teal numbers trimmed in black on the left chest. All uniforms featured the snake head alternate logo on either sleeve, with the sponsor logo (Avnet since 2023) on the other sleeve. The home cap is Sedona red with black brim and featured the "A" logo, and its all-black counterpart is worn with both the home and black alternate uniform. The road cap is black with Sedona red trim and featured the return of the "D-snake" logo and is worn with both the road and alternate Sedona red uniform. The all-Sedona red alternate cap shared the same features as the road cap and is worn with the Sedona red uniform.

Radio and television
On July 18, 2023, a federal bankruptcy court granted Bally Sports' parent company Diamond Sports Group a motion to decline its contract with the Diamondbacks as part of its chapter 11 bankruptcy. As a result, Major League Baseball assumed production of the Diamondbacks' regional telecasts (maintaining staff such as commentators), and distributed them via local television providers and MLB.tv. As of 2024, these games are branded as DBacks.TV. Games air on the following cable providers and networks:

 * Cox (Phoenix) (CH. 34)
 * Cox (Tucson) (CH. 26)
 * Cox (Las Vegas) (YurView Las Vegas)
 * DirecTV/DirecTV Stream (CH. 686)
 * Charter (CH. 304 or CH. 444)
 * Xfinity/Comcast (CH. 1261)
 * FuboTV

The primary television play-by-play voice for the team's first nine seasons of play was Thom Brennaman, who also broadcast baseball and college football games nationally for Fox Television. Brennaman was the TV announcer for the Chicago Cubs and Cincinnati Reds (along with his father Marty Brennaman) before being hired by Diamondbacks founder Jerry Colangelo in 1996, two years before the team would begin play.

In October 2006, Brennaman left the Diamondbacks to call games with his father for the Reds beginning in 2007, signing a four-year deal.

On November 1, 2006, the team announced that the TV voice of the Milwaukee Brewers since 2002, Daron Sutton, would be hired as the Diamondbacks primary TV play-by-play voice. Sutton was signed to a five-year contract with a team option for three more years. Sutton's signature chants included "let's get some runs" when the D-backs trail in late innings.

Former Diamondbacks and Chicago Cubs first baseman Mark Grace and knuckleballer Tom Candiotti were the Diamondbacks primary color analysts for the 2006 and 2007 seasons. Former Diamondbacks third baseman Matt Williams also did color commentary on occasion, as did Cardinals and NBC broadcast legend Joe Garagiola, a longtime Phoenix-area resident and father of Joe Garagiola Jr., the first GM of the Diamondbacks.

The Diamondbacks announced in July 2007 that for the 2008 season, all regionally broadcast Diamondbacks TV games would be shown exclusively on Fox Sports Arizona (now Bally Sports Arizona) and a few could possibly be shown on the national MLB on Fox telecasts. Bally Sports Arizona is seen in 2.8 million households in Arizona and New Mexico. The previous flagship station since the inaugural 1998 season was KTVK (Channel 3), a popular over-the-air independent station (and former longtime ABC affiliate) in Phoenix.

From 2009 to 2012, Grace and Sutton were tagged as the main broadcasters of the Diamondbacks with pre-game and postgame shows on Fox Sports Arizona, being hosted by Joe Borowski.

On June 21, 2012, Sutton was suspended indefinitely amid rumors of insubordination. On August 24, the team announced that Grace had requested an indefinite leave of absence after being arrested for his second DUI in less than two years. Grace was later indicted on four DUI counts. ) For the remainder of the 2012 season, Sutton was replaced by Greg Schulte (Jeff Munn replaced Schulte on the radio broadcast) and Grace was replaced by Luis Gonzalez. At the end of the 2012 season, the team announced that neither Sutton nor Grace would return for the 2013 season.

On October 18, 2012, the team announced that Bob Brenly would return as a broadcaster to replace Grace and that he would be joined by then-ESPN personality Steve Berthiaume.

The English language flagship radio station is KTAR. Greg Schulte was the regular radio play-by-play voice, a 25-year veteran of sports radio in the Phoenix market, also well known for his previous work on Phoenix Suns, Arizona Cardinals and Arizona State University (ASU) broadcasts. It was announced in February 2023 that he would be retiring after the 2023 MLB season. He would call games with analyst Tom Candiotti.

Jeff Munn served as a backup radio play-by-play announcer until 2016; he served as the regular public address announcer at Chase Field in the early days of the franchise. He previously served as the public address announcer for the Suns in the 1990s at what became Footprint Center. He is also the play-by-play radio voice for ASU women's basketball. Mike Ferrin served in the same role for six years before parting ways with the team, and he was replaced by Chris Garagiola in December 2021.

Spanish broadcasts
The flagship Spanish language radio station is KHOV-FM 105.1 with Oscar Soria, Rodrigo López, and Richard Saenz.

Games were televised in Spanish on KPHE-LP—with Oscar Soria and Jerry Romo as the announcers, but this arrangement ended prior to the 2009 season due to the team switching fully to Fox Sports Arizona and the lack of carriage of KPHE-LP on the Cox cable system.

All-time leaders

 * Hitting
 * Games played: Luis Gonzalez (1999–2006) – 1,194
 * At bats: Luis Gonzalez – 4,488
 * Hits: Luis Gonzalez – 1,337
 * Batting average: Greg Colbrunn – .310
 * Runs: Luis Gonzalez – 780
 * Doubles: Luis Gonzalez – 310
 * Triples: Stephen Drew – 52
 * Home runs: Luis Gonzalez – 224
 * Runs batted in: Luis Gonzalez – 774
 * On-base percentage: Paul Goldschmidt* – .398
 * Walks: Paul Goldschmidt* – 655
 * Strikeouts: Paul Goldschmidt* – 1,059
 * Slugging percentage: Paul Goldschmidt* – .532
 * Stolen bases: Tony Womack – 182

 * Pitching
 * ERA: Randy Johnson (1999–2004, 2007–08) – 2.83
 * Wins: Randy Johnson – 118
 * Losses: Randy Johnson/Brandon Webb (2003–10) – 62
 * Games: Brad Ziegler – 377
 * Saves: José Valverde – 98
 * Innings: Randy Johnson – 1630.1
 * Starts: Randy Johnson – 232
 * Strikeouts: Randy Johnson – 2,077
 * Complete games: Randy Johnson – 38
 * Shutouts: Randy Johnson – 14
 * WHIP: Curt Schilling – 1.04

* signifies active Major League player
 * all stats are as of May 8, 2024, from the Arizona Diamondbacks website.

Retired numbers

 * No. 42 was retired throughout Major League Baseball in 1997 to honor Jackie Robinson.

Rivalry with the Los Angeles Dodgers
The rivalry between the Diamondbacks and the Los Angeles Dodgers has been one of the fiercest divisional matchups for several years. Animosity between the two teams began to escalate during the 2010s in multiple incidents involving either team throwing pitches at one another or instigating into large-scale brawls between both benches. After eliminating the Diamondbacks and clinching the division on September 19, 2013, multiple Dodgers players celebrated the win by jumping into the pool at Chase Field. The two sides met during the 2017 National League Division Series as the Diamondbacks were swept 3–0 by the Dodgers en route to their appearance in the World Series that season. The Dodgers led the series 257–191 with a 3–0 lead in the postseason. After clinching the 2023 NL Wild Card berth and defeating the Milwaukee Brewers in the National League Wild Card Series, the Diamondbacks played the Dodgers again in the 2023 NLDS. There, the Diamondbacks emphatically swept the Dodgers to even the all-time postseason record between the two clubs at 3–3.

Minor league affiliations
The Arizona Diamondbacks farm system consists of eight minor league affiliates.

title: Arizona Diamondbacks


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Aesthetics

Aesthetics (also spelled esthetics) is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature of beauty and the nature of taste; and functions as the philosophy of art. Aesthetics examines the philosophy of aesthetic value, which is determined by critical judgements of artistic taste; thus, the function of aesthetics is the "critical reflection on art, culture and nature".

Aesthetics studies natural and artificial sources of experiences and how people form a judgement about those sources of experience. It considers what happens in our minds when we engage with objects or environments such as viewing visual art, listening to music, reading poetry, experiencing a play, watching a fashion show, movie, sports or exploring various aspects of nature.

The philosophy of art specifically studies how artists imagine, create, and perform works of art, as well as how people use, enjoy, and criticize art. Aesthetics considers why people like some works of art and not others, as well as how art can affect our moods and our beliefs. Both aesthetics and the philosophy of art try to find answers to what exactly is art and what makes good art.

Etymology
The word aesthetic is derived from the Ancient Greek (', "perceptive, sensitive, pertaining to sensory perception"), which in turn comes from  (', "I perceive, sense, learn") and is related to  (, "perception, sensation"). Aesthetics in this central sense has been said to start with the series of articles on "The Pleasures of the Imagination", which the journalist Joseph Addison wrote in the early issues of the magazine The Spectator in 1712.

The term aesthetics was appropriated and coined with new meaning by the German philosopher Alexander Baumgarten in his dissertation Meditationes philosophicae de nonnullis ad poema pertinentibus ("Philosophical considerations of some matters pertaining the poem") in 1735; Baumgarten chose "aesthetics" because he wished to emphasize the experience of art as a means of knowing. Baumgarten's definition of aesthetics in the fragment Aesthetica (1750) is occasionally considered the first definition of modern aesthetics.

The term was introduced into the English language by Thomas Carlyle in his Life of Friedrich Schiller (1825).

History of aesthetics
The history of the philosophy of art as aesthetics covering the visual arts, the literary arts, the musical arts and other artists forms of expression can be dated back at least to Aristotle and the ancient Greeks. Aristotle writing of the literary arts in his Poetics stated that epic poetry, tragedy, comedy, dithyrambic poetry, painting, sculpture, music, and dance are all fundamentally acts of mimesis, each varying in imitation by medium, object, and manner. Aristotle applies the term mimesis both as a property of a work of art and also as the product of the artist's intention and contends that the audience's realisation of the mimesis is vital to understanding the work itself.

Aristotle states that mimesis is a natural instinct of humanity that separates humans from animals and that all human artistry "follows the pattern of nature". Because of this, Aristotle believed that each of the mimetic arts possesses what Stephen Halliwell calls "highly structured procedures for the achievement of their purposes." For example, music imitates with the media of rhythm and harmony, whereas dance imitates with rhythm alone, and poetry with language.

The forms also differ in their object of imitation. Comedy, for instance, is a dramatic imitation of men worse than average; whereas tragedy imitates men slightly better than average. Lastly, the forms differ in their manner of imitation – through narrative or character, through change or no change, and through drama or no drama. Erich Auerbach has extended the discussion of history of aesthetics in his book titled Mimesis.

Aesthetics and the philosophy of art
Some distinguish aesthetics from the philosophy of art, claiming that the former is the study of beauty and taste while the latter is the study of works of art. But aesthetics typically considers questions of beauty as well as of art. It examines topics such as art works, aesthetic experience, and aesthetic judgement.

Aesthetic experience refers to the sensory contemplation or appreciation of an object (not necessarily a work of art), while artistic judgement refers to the recognition, appreciation or criticism of art in general or a specific work of art. In the words of one philosopher, "Philosophy of art is about art. Aesthetics is about many things—including art. But it is also about our experience of breathtaking landscapes or the pattern of shadows on the wall opposite your office.

Philosophers of art weigh a culturally contingent conception of art versus one that is purely theoretical. They study the varieties of art in relation to their physical, social, and cultural environments. Aesthetic philosophers sometimes also refer to psychological studies to help understand how people see, hear, imagine, think, learn, and act in relation to the materials and problems of art. Aesthetic psychology studies the creative process and the aesthetic experience.

Aesthetic judgement, universals, and ethics
"Aesthetics is for the artist as ornithology is for the birds."

Aesthetic judgement
Aesthetics examines affective domain response to an object or phenomenon. Judgements of aesthetic value rely on the ability to discriminate at a sensory level. However, aesthetic judgements usually go beyond sensory discrimination.

For David Hume, delicacy of taste is not merely "the ability to detect all the ingredients in a composition", but also the sensitivity "to pains as well as pleasures, which escape the rest of mankind." Thus, sensory discrimination is linked to capacity for pleasure.

For Immanuel Kant (Critique of Judgment, 1790), "enjoyment" is the result when pleasure arises from sensation, but judging something to be "beautiful" has a third requirement: sensation must give rise to pleasure by engaging reflective contemplation. Judgements of beauty are sensory, emotional and intellectual all at once. Kant observed of a man "if he says that 'Canary wine is pleasant,' he is quite content if someone else corrects his expression and remind him that he ought to say instead: 'It is pleasant to me,'" because "every one has his own [sense of] taste". The case of "beauty" is different from mere "pleasantness" because "if he gives out anything as beautiful, he supposes in others the same satisfaction—he judges not merely for himself, but for every one, and speaks of beauty as if it were a property of things."

Viewer interpretations of beauty may on occasion be observed to possess two concepts of value: aesthetics and taste. Aesthetics is the philosophical notion of beauty. Taste is a result of an education process and awareness of elite cultural values learned through exposure to mass culture. Bourdieu examined how the elite in society define the aesthetic values like taste and how varying levels of exposure to these values can result in variations by class, cultural background, and education. According to Kant, beauty is subjective and universal; thus certain things are beautiful to everyone. In the opinion of Władysław Tatarkiewicz, there are six conditions for the presentation of art: beauty, form, representation, reproduction of reality, artistic expression and innovation. However, one may not be able to pin down these qualities in a work of art.

The question of whether there are facts about aesthetic judgments belongs to the branch of metaphilosophy known as meta-aesthetics.

Factors involved in aesthetic judgement

Aesthetic judgement is closely tied to disgust. Responses like disgust show that sensory detection is linked in instinctual ways to facial expressions including physiological responses like the gag reflex. Disgust is triggered largely by dissonance; as Darwin pointed out, seeing a stripe of soup in a man's beard is disgusting even though neither soup nor beards are themselves disgusting. Aesthetic judgements may be linked to emotions or, like emotions, partially embodied in physical reactions. For example, the awe inspired by a sublime landscape might physically manifest with an increased heart-rate or pupil dilation.

As seen, emotions are conformed to 'cultural' reactions, therefore aesthetics is always characterized by 'regional responses', as Francis Grose was the first to affirm in his Rules for Drawing Caricaturas: With an Essay on Comic Painting (1788), published in W. Hogarth, The Analysis of Beauty, Bagster, London s.d. (1791? [1753]), pp. 1–24. Francis Grose can therefore be claimed to be the first critical 'aesthetic regionalist' in proclaiming the anti-universality of aesthetics in contrast to the perilous and always resurgent dictatorship of beauty. 'Aesthetic Regionalism' can thus be seen as a political statement and stance which vies against any universal notion of beauty to safeguard the counter-tradition of aesthetics related to what has been considered and dubbed un-beautiful just because one's culture does not contemplate it, e.g. Edmund Burke's sublime, what is usually defined as 'primitive' art, or un-harmonious, non-cathartic art, camp art, which 'beauty' posits and creates, dichotomously, as its opposite, without even the need of formal statements, but which will be 'perceived' as ugly.

Likewise, aesthetic judgments may be culturally conditioned to some extent. Victorians in Britain often saw African sculpture as ugly, but just a few decades later, Edwardian audiences saw the same sculptures as beautiful. Evaluations of beauty may well be linked to desirability, perhaps even to sexual desirability. Thus, judgments of aesthetic value can become linked to judgments of economic, political, or moral value. In a current context, a Lamborghini might be judged to be beautiful partly because it is desirable as a status symbol, or it may be judged to be repulsive partly because it signifies over-consumption and offends political or moral values.

The context of its presentation also affects the perception of artwork; artworks presented in a classical museum context are liked more and rated more interesting than when presented in a sterile laboratory context. While specific results depend heavily on the style of the presented artwork, overall, the effect of context proved to be more important for the perception of artwork than the effect of genuineness (whether the artwork was being presented as original or as a facsimile/copy).

Aesthetic judgments can often be very fine-grained and internally contradictory. Likewise aesthetic judgments seem often to be at least partly intellectual and interpretative. What a thing means or symbolizes is often what is being judged. Modern aestheticians have asserted that will and desire were almost dormant in aesthetic experience, yet preference and choice have seemed important aesthetics to some 20th-century thinkers. The point is already made by Hume, but see Mary Mothersill, "Beauty and the Critic's Judgment", in The Blackwell Guide to Aesthetics, 2004. Thus aesthetic judgments might be seen to be based on the senses, emotions, intellectual opinions, will, desires, culture, preferences, values, subconscious behaviour, conscious decision, training, instinct, sociological institutions, or some complex combination of these, depending on exactly which theory is employed.

A third major topic in the study of aesthetic judgments is how they are unified across art forms. For instance, the source of a painting's beauty has a different character to that of beautiful music, suggesting their aesthetics differ in kind. The distinct inability of language to express aesthetic judgment and the role of social construction further cloud this issue.

Aesthetic universals
The philosopher Denis Dutton identified six universal signatures in human aesthetics:

 * 1) Expertise or virtuosity. Humans cultivate, recognize, and admire technical artistic skills.
 * 2) Nonutilitarian pleasure. People enjoy art for art's sake, and do not demand that it keep them warm or put food on the table.
 * 3) Style. Artistic objects and performances satisfy rules of composition that place them in a recognizable style.
 * 4) Criticism. People make a point of judging, appreciating, and interpreting works of art.
 * 5) Imitation. With a few important exceptions like abstract painting, works of art simulate experiences of the world.
 * 6) Special focus. Art is set aside from ordinary life and made a dramatic focus of experience.

Artists such as Thomas Hirschhorn have indicated that there are too many exceptions to Dutton's categories. For example, Hirschhorn's installations deliberately eschew technical virtuosity. People can appreciate a Renaissance Madonna for aesthetic reasons, but such objects often had (and sometimes still have) specific devotional functions. "Rules of composition" that might be read into Duchamp's Fountain or John Cage's 4′33″ do not locate the works in a recognizable style (or certainly not a style recognizable at the time of the works' realization). Moreover, some of Dutton's categories seem too broad: a physicist might entertain hypothetical worlds in his/her imagination in the course of formulating a theory. Another problem is that Dutton's categories seek to universalize traditional European notions of aesthetics and art forgetting that, as André Malraux and others have pointed out, there have been large numbers of cultures in which such ideas (including the idea "art" itself) were non-existent.

Aesthetic ethics
Aesthetic ethics refers to the idea that human conduct and behaviour ought to be governed by that which is beautiful and attractive. John Dewey has pointed out that the unity of aesthetics and ethics is in fact reflected in our understanding of behaviour being "fair"—the word having a double meaning of attractive and morally acceptable. More recently, James Page has suggested that aesthetic ethics might be taken to form a philosophical rationale for peace education.

Beauty
Beauty is one of the main subjects of aesthetics, together with art and taste. Many of its definitions include the idea that an object is beautiful if perceiving it is accompanied by aesthetic pleasure. Among the examples of beautiful objects are landscapes, sunsets, humans and works of art. Beauty is a positive aesthetic value that contrasts with ugliness as its negative counterpart.

Different intuitions commonly associated with beauty and its nature are in conflict with each other, which poses certain difficulties for understanding it. On the one hand, beauty is ascribed to things as an objective, public feature. On the other hand, it seems to depend on the subjective, emotional response of the observer. It is said, for example, that "beauty is in the eye of the beholder". It may be possible to reconcile these intuitions by affirming that it depends both on the objective features of the beautiful thing and the subjective response of the observer. One way to achieve this is to hold that an object is beautiful if it has the power to bring about certain aesthetic experiences in the perceiving subject. This is often combined with the view that the subject needs to have the ability to correctly perceive and judge beauty, sometimes referred to as "sense of taste". Various conceptions of how to define and understand beauty have been suggested. Classical conceptions emphasize the objective side of beauty by defining it in terms of the relation between the beautiful object as a whole and its parts: the parts should stand in the right proportion to each other and thus compose an integrated harmonious whole. Hedonist conceptions, on the other hand, focus more on the subjective side by drawing a necessary connection between pleasure and beauty, e.g. that for an object to be beautiful is for it to cause disinterested pleasure. Other conceptions include defining beautiful objects in terms of their value, of a loving attitude towards them or of their function.

New Criticism and "The Intentional Fallacy"
During the first half of the twentieth century, a significant shift to general aesthetic theory took place which attempted to apply aesthetic theory between various forms of art, including the literary arts and the visual arts, to each other. This resulted in the rise of the New Criticism school and debate concerning the intentional fallacy. At issue was the question of whether the aesthetic intentions of the artist in creating the work of art, whatever its specific form, should be associated with the criticism and evaluation of the final product of the work of art, or, if the work of art should be evaluated on its own merits independent of the intentions of the artist.

In 1946, William K. Wimsatt and Monroe Beardsley published a classic and controversial New Critical essay entitled "The Intentional Fallacy", in which they argued strongly against the relevance of an author's intention, or "intended meaning" in the analysis of a literary work. For Wimsatt and Beardsley, the words on the page were all that mattered; importation of meanings from outside the text was considered irrelevant, and potentially distracting.

In another essay, "The Affective Fallacy," which served as a kind of sister essay to "The Intentional Fallacy", Wimsatt and Beardsley also discounted the reader's personal/emotional reaction to a literary work as a valid means of analyzing a text. This fallacy would later be repudiated by theorists from the reader-response school of literary theory. One of the leading theorists from this school, Stanley Fish, was himself trained by New Critics. Fish criticizes Wimsatt and Beardsley in his essay "Literature in the Reader" (1970).

As summarized by Berys Gaut and Livingston in their essay "The Creation of Art": "Structuralist and post-structuralists theorists and critics were sharply critical of many aspects of New Criticism, beginning with the emphasis on aesthetic appreciation and the so-called autonomy of art, but they reiterated the attack on biographical criticisms' assumption that the artist's activities and experience were a privileged critical topic." These authors contend that: "Anti-intentionalists, such as formalists, hold that the intentions involved in the making of art are irrelevant or peripheral to correctly interpreting art. So details of the act of creating a work, though possibly of interest in themselves, have no bearing on the correct interpretation of the work."

Gaut and Livingston define the intentionalists as distinct from formalists stating that: "Intentionalists, unlike formalists, hold that reference to intentions is essential in fixing the correct interpretation of works." They quote Richard Wollheim as stating that, "The task of criticism is the reconstruction of the creative process, where the creative process must in turn be thought of as something not stopping short of, but terminating on, the work of art itself."

Derivative forms of aesthetics
A large number of derivative forms of aesthetics have developed as contemporary and transitory forms of inquiry associated with the field of aesthetics which include the post-modern, psychoanalytic, scientific, and mathematical among others.

Post-modern aesthetics and psychoanalysis
Early-twentieth-century artists, poets and composers challenged existing notions of beauty, broadening the scope of art and aesthetics. In 1941, Eli Siegel, American philosopher and poet, founded Aesthetic Realism, the philosophy that reality itself is aesthetic, and that "The world, art, and self explain each other: each is the aesthetic oneness of opposites."

Various attempts have been made to define Post-Modern Aesthetics. The challenge to the assumption that beauty was central to art and aesthetics, thought to be original, is actually continuous with older aesthetic theory; Aristotle was the first in the Western tradition to classify "beauty" into types as in his theory of drama, and Kant made a distinction between beauty and the sublime. What was new was a refusal to credit the higher status of certain types, where the taxonomy implied a preference for tragedy and the sublime to comedy and the Rococo.

Croce suggested that "expression" is central in the way that beauty was once thought to be central. George Dickie suggested that the sociological institutions of the art world were the glue binding art and sensibility into unities. Marshall McLuhan suggested that art always functions as a "counter-environment" designed to make visible what is usually invisible about a society. Theodor Adorno felt that aesthetics could not proceed without confronting the role of the culture industry in the commodification of art and aesthetic experience. Hal Foster attempted to portray the reaction against beauty and Modernist art in The Anti-Aesthetic: Essays on Postmodern Culture. Arthur Danto has described this reaction as "kalliphobia" (after the Greek word for beauty, κάλλος kallos). André Malraux explains that the notion of beauty was connected to a particular conception of art that arose with the Renaissance and was still dominant in the eighteenth century (but was supplanted later). The discipline of aesthetics, which originated in the eighteenth century, mistook this transient state of affairs for a revelation of the permanent nature of art. Brian Massumi suggests to reconsider beauty following the aesthetical thought in the philosophy of Deleuze and Guattari. Walter Benjamin echoed Malraux in believing aesthetics was a comparatively recent invention, a view proven wrong in the late 1970s, when Abraham Moles and Frieder Nake analyzed links between beauty, information processing, and information theory. Denis Dutton in "The Art Instinct" also proposed that an aesthetic sense was a vital evolutionary factor.

Jean-François Lyotard re-invokes the Kantian distinction between taste and the sublime. Sublime painting, unlike kitsch realism, "... will enable us to see only by making it impossible to see; it will please only by causing pain."

Sigmund Freud inaugurated aesthetical thinking in Psychoanalysis mainly via the "Uncanny" as aesthetical affect. Following Freud and Merleau-Ponty, Jacques Lacan theorized aesthetics in terms of sublimation and the Thing.

The relation of Marxist aesthetics to post-modern aesthetics is still a contentious area of debate.

Aesthetics and science
The field of experimental aesthetics was founded by Gustav Theodor Fechner in the 19th century. Experimental aesthetics in these times had been characterized by a subject-based, inductive approach. The analysis of individual experience and behaviour based on experimental methods is a central part of experimental aesthetics. In particular, the perception of works of art, music, sound, or modern items such as websites or other IT products is studied. Experimental aesthetics is strongly oriented towards the natural sciences. Modern approaches mostly come from the fields of cognitive psychology (aesthetic cognitivism) or neuroscience (neuroaesthetics ).

Truth in beauty and mathematics
Mathematical considerations, such as symmetry and complexity, are used for analysis in theoretical aesthetics. This is different from the aesthetic considerations of applied aesthetics used in the study of mathematical beauty. Aesthetic considerations such as symmetry and simplicity are used in areas of philosophy, such as ethics and theoretical physics and cosmology to define truth, outside of empirical considerations. Beauty and Truth have been argued to be nearly synonymous, as reflected in the statement "Beauty is truth, truth beauty" in the poem "Ode on a Grecian Urn" by John Keats, or by the Hindu motto "Satyam Shivam Sundaram" (Satya (Truth) is Shiva (God), and Shiva is Sundaram (Beautiful)). The fact that judgments of beauty and judgments of truth both are influenced by processing fluency, which is the ease with which information can be processed, has been presented as an explanation for why beauty is sometimes equated with truth. Recent research found that people use beauty as an indication for truth in mathematical pattern tasks. However, scientists including the mathematician David Orrell and physicist Marcelo Gleiser have argued that the emphasis on aesthetic criteria such as symmetry is equally capable of leading scientists astray.

Computational approaches
Computational approaches to aesthetics emerged amid efforts to use computer science methods "to predict, convey, and evoke emotional response to a piece of art. In this field, aesthetics is not considered to be dependent on taste but is a matter of cognition, and, consequently, learning. In 1928, the mathematician George David Birkhoff created an aesthetic measure $$M = O/C$$ as the ratio of order to complexity.

In the 1960s and 1970s, Max Bense, Abraham Moles and Frieder Nake were among the first to analyze links between aesthetics, information processing, and information theory. Max Bense, for example, built on Birkhoff's aesthetic measure and proposed a similar information theoretic measure $$M_\ddot{a}=R/H$$, where $$R$$ is the redundancy and $$H$$ the entropy, which assigns higher value to simpler artworks.

In the 1990s, Jürgen Schmidhuber described an algorithmic theory of beauty. This theory takes the subjectivity of the observer into account and postulates that among several observations classified as comparable by a given subjective observer, the most aesthetically pleasing is the one that is encoded by the shortest description, following the direction of previous approaches. Schmidhuber's theory explicitly distinguishes between that which is beautiful and that which is interesting, stating that interestingness corresponds to the first derivative of subjectively perceived beauty. He supposes that every observer continually tries to improve the predictability and compressibility of their observations by identifying regularities like repetition, symmetry, and fractal self-similarity.

Since about 2005, computer scientists have attempted to develop automated methods to infer aesthetic quality of images. Typically, these approaches follow a machine learning approach, where large numbers of manually rated photographs are used to "teach" a computer about what visual properties are of relevance to aesthetic quality. A study by Y. Li and C.J. Hu employed Birkhoff's measurement in their statistical learning approach where order and complexity of an image determined aesthetic value. The image complexity was computed using information theory while the order was determined using fractal compression. There is also the case of the Acquine engine, developed at Penn State University, that rates natural photographs uploaded by users.

There have also been relatively successful attempts with regard to chess and music. Computational approaches have also been attempted in film making as demonstrated by a software model developed by Chitra Dorai and a group of researchers at the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center. The tool predicted aesthetics based on the values of narrative elements. A relation between Max Bense's mathematical formulation of aesthetics in terms of "redundancy" and "complexity" and theories of musical anticipation was offered using the notion of Information Rate.

Evolutionary aesthetics
Evolutionary aesthetics refers to evolutionary psychology theories in which the basic aesthetic preferences of Homo sapiens are argued to have evolved in order to enhance survival and reproductive success. One example being that humans are argued to find beautiful and prefer landscapes which were good habitats in the ancestral environment. Another example is that body symmetry and proportion are important aspects of physical attractiveness which may be due to this indicating good health during body growth. Evolutionary explanations for aesthetical preferences are important parts of evolutionary musicology, Darwinian literary studies, and the study of the evolution of emotion.

Applied aesthetics
As well as being applied to art, aesthetics can also be applied to cultural objects, such as crosses or tools. For example, aesthetic coupling between art-objects and medical topics was made by speakers working for the US Information Agency. Art slides were linked to slides of pharmacological data, which improved attention and retention by simultaneous activation of intuitive right brain with rational left. It can also be used in topics as diverse as cartography, mathematics, gastronomy, fashion and website design.

Other approaches
Guy Sircello has pioneered efforts in analytic philosophy to develop a rigorous theory of aesthetics, focusing on the concepts of beauty, love and sublimity. In contrast to romantic theorists, Sircello argued for the objectivity of beauty and formulated a theory of love on that basis.

British philosopher and theorist of conceptual art aesthetics, Peter Osborne, makes the point that "'post-conceptual art' aesthetic does not concern a particular type of contemporary art so much as the historical-ontological condition for the production of contemporary art in general ...". Osborne noted that contemporary art is 'post-conceptual' in a public lecture delivered in 2010.

Gary Tedman has put forward a theory of a subjectless aesthetics derived from Karl Marx's concept of alienation, and Louis Althusser's antihumanism, using elements of Freud's group psychology, defining a concept of the 'aesthetic level of practice'.

Gregory Loewen has suggested that the subject is key in the interaction with the aesthetic object. The work of art serves as a vehicle for the projection of the individual's identity into the world of objects, as well as being the irruptive source of much of what is uncanny in modern life. As well, art is used to memorialize individuated biographies in a manner that allows persons to imagine that they are part of something greater than themselves.

Criticism
The philosophy of aesthetics as a practice has been criticized by some sociologists and writers of art and society. Raymond Williams, for example, argues that there is no unique and or individual aesthetic object which can be extrapolated from the art world, but rather that there is a continuum of cultural forms and experience of which ordinary speech and experiences may signal as art. By "art" we may frame several artistic "works" or "creations" as so though this reference remains within the institution or special event which creates it and this leaves some works or other possible "art" outside of the frame work, or other interpretations such as other phenomenon which may not be considered as "art".

Pierre Bourdieu disagrees with Kant's idea of the "aesthetic". He argues that Kant's "aesthetic" merely represents an experience that is the product of an elevated class habitus and scholarly leisure as opposed to other possible and equally valid "aesthetic" experiences which lay outside Kant's narrow definition.

Timothy Laurie argues that theories of musical aesthetics "framed entirely in terms of appreciation, contemplation or reflection risk idealizing an implausibly unmotivated listener defined solely through musical objects, rather than seeing them as a person for whom complex intentions and motivations produce variable attractions to cultural objects and practices".

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Aesthetics


text:
Talk:Allotropy

Comments
In the first paragraph, should graphene be considered a different allotrope of graphite? Or simply a smaller crystal of graphite constrained from vertical growth. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.240.34.25 (talk) 05:51, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Clearly, steam, water, and ice are not allotropes. However, what about the various solid phases of water (ice(I), ice(II), etc...)? I believe they would be considered polymorphs, but probably not allotropes because water isn't a pure element. Is this correct? --Matt Stoker

Right. Allotropy refers specifically to elements. I double-checked my understanding of this with the Penguin Dictionary of Chemistry (DWA Sharp, Penguin:1990 ISBN 0-145-051232-2), but I'd encourage anyone to consult whatever credible reference they feel necessary. --JoeAnderson

The last edit of this page commented "allotropy and isomerism are *distinct*" -- yes, but how? Roughly, is it the case that two allotropes will have completely different chemical properties (diamond vs carbon), while isomers tend to have similar properties (similar boiling points, etc)? -- Tarquin, Sunday, July 7, 2002

It is suggested that we consult the MACMILLAN ENCYCLOPEDIA of CHEMISTRY edited by J.J.Lagowski, 1997, SIMON SCHUSTER for a definitive exposition of the subjects ALLOTROPES and POLYMORPHS. It is pointed out that there is no phenomenon that results in the existence of ALLOTROPES. Allotropes exist as a result of the differing chemical bonding of the same atoms. --Anon

Why is "allotropy" a misnomer? -phma

The first paragraph of this article needs to be clarified. 207.67.132.210 13:42, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

This article indicates that allotrops can exist in the the solid, liquid, or gas phases. Is this true? I have been led to believe that allotropy specifically relates the structure of the solid matrix. for example for Fe: alpha-ferrite (BCC) gamma-austenite (FCC) delta-ferrite (BCC) are all allotropes > However, I have not been able to find information confirming nor contradicting this. The text I am using as a reference is Structures and Properties of Engineering Alloys Second Edition by Smith ISBN 0-07-059172-5

 * Yes, those phases would be allotropes, but only when talking about pure iron. In metallurgy, it's generally preferred to use the term "phase" as opposed to "allotrope" to avoid ambiguity. Allotropes are distinct chemical species with varying reactivities and physical properties. Allotropes can be present in any phase, but some become unstable in certain phases and will transition into a more energetically favourable structure. Hope this helps. --Xanthine 00:10, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

I have a doubt whether the amorphous state of some element (let's say C) can be called an allotrope of that element; shouldn't "allotrope" be used just for different crystalline forms? comparing amorphous and crystalline ... isn't it a bit like comparing liquid and solid? for polymorphism this doubt does not exist and indeed the term refers only to different crystalline forms of the same compound.

16:38, 16 April 2013 (UTC)G — Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.5.152.144 (talk)
 * The question is not what makes sense to Wikipedia editors, but rather how does the scientific literature use the term. The article now implies that the term is NOT restricted to crystalline phases, and is even used for gases such as dioxygen and ozone (trioxygen). If this is incorrect, we need reliable sources which say so explicitly. Dirac66 (talk) 22:11, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Allotropy - isomers
The term allotropy is usually only used for elements. In the case of compouds, the analogous term would be isomers. Andreas 02:25, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Expert
What exactly needs expert attention? kotepho 01:57, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

 * Erm... For a start, until recently the definition said a lot more about what allotropy isn't than what it actually is... --Xanthine 23:11, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Major Cleanup
I believe I'm suitably qualified to be an expert on this subject. I have done a large scale cleanup of this article, tidying up any discrepancies and clarifying a number of points. I think it reads a lot better now. If you notice any errors (factual or grammatical), please do let me know. And feel free to correct them. --Xanthine 00:10, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Usually ...
The article illustrates allotropy with two crystalline forms of Fe, but my impression is that usually allotropy refers to molecules or low dimensional materials. It can be assumed that all elements exhibit polymorphy, especially at high pressures. So while formally allotropy (isomerism for elements) is widespread, for instructional purposes, the discussion is usually limited to species existing as molecules (S, Se, As, P, C, O).--Smokefoot (talk) 13:09, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

 * Molecules or covalent solids (diamond is not a molecular solid, unless you call the entire crystal a very big molecule!) But I've never seen the term applied to metals. --Itub (talk) 16:37, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

 * I just found that many books do speak of allotropes of iron. These are often books on metallurgy and related topics. It is true, however, that most general chemistry textbooks only seem to give examples of allotropy among nonmetals. --Itub (talk) 09:58, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

References for metals
Are there any references for the metal allotropes? Even in the crystallography open database and the inorganic crystal structure database there is no structure for strontium other than the cubic. 129.93.61.170 (talk) 15:19, 19 August 2008 (UTC)Jared Hansen

Definition of Allotropy??????
It is saying that in the definition the word "chemical elements", but silica (SiO2) is not a element. But it has allotropic forms??????????? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Shivaaprs (talk • contribs) 03:24, 10 July 2010 (UTC)
 * The article refers to the element silicon (Si), not the compound silica which is the short name for silicon dioxide (SiO2). Dirac66 (talk) 12:27, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

Allotropy vs polymorphism
User 201.235.24.69 today added a [who?] to ask who are the many other chemists who have repeated Ostwald's advice to replace the term "allotropy" by "polymorphism". The sentence which is questioned was added by me on 18 May 2007. It is a paraphrase of Jensen's 2006 article, which refers to "sage advice, which many have since repeated", with a reference to a 1964 book "The allotropy of the elements" by W.E. Addison. I will add a reference to indicate the source of this sentence and the word "many", even if Wikipedia does not identify the many. Dirac66 (talk) 00:31, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

What does this mean ?
"Allotropes are typically more noticeable in non-metals ..." Does it mean that we are more likely to notice the difference in the cases of non-metallic allotropes, or that non-metals are more likely to exhibit allotropy ? 77.96.59.93 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 06:27, 16 September 2013 (UTC)
 * A revision history search shows that this phrase was added on 30 April 2006 by Xanthine who has been inactive on Wikipedia since 2009. So we are unlikely to have a reply from the author of this phrase. I think that this and the following sentence about metals should just be deleted, unless someone can provide a clearer statement about the occurrence of allotropy in non-metals and in metals, preferably with a source. Dirac66 (talk) 10:58, 16 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Done. Dirac66 (talk) 00:25, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

Sigma tin
What is sigma tin? I don't seem to be able to find anything about it. Except from Sigma Tin Alloy Manufacturers (Pte) Ltd which is located in Singapore. Grey tin AKA tin pest is stable below 13C to -274. White tin (normal tin) is stable between 13C and 161C and Rhombic tin is stable between 161C and melting point. This doesn't leave much space for sigma tin. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.172.102.81 (talk) 08:00, 29 January 2014 (UTC)
 * First, I have moved this comment down to a new section at the end of the talk page. The data you cite for grey, white and rhombic tin is for pressure = 1 atm. However the article on Tin mentions a σ phase at very high pressures. I checked the (translated Russian) source and the σ phase is stable at over 40 GPa (= 4 x 105 atm). I will add a note to this article with the source.
 * And I doubt that the company in Singapore works at such high pressure. Probably the use of Sigma is a coincidence and they just chose the name arbitrarily, or perhaps because Sigma sounds like Singapore Dirac66 (talk) 00:25, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 1 one external link on Allotropy. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20080131061355/http://www.physics.uoguelph.ca:80/summer/scor/articles/scor40.htm to http://www.physics.uoguelph.ca/summer/scor/articles/scor40.htm

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Cheers.—cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 08:11, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

Q-Carbon
I am placing a 'dubious' tag on the Q-Carbon entry on the list of allotropes.

If you follow the link to the Q-Carbon page there are several ongoing disputes that call these claims into question, including whether it is a genuine carbon allotrope at all. There are also serious questions of editorial impartiality there.

The entry for Q-Carbon also seems to stick out on the list of examples for a lack of neutral language. It seems to be extolling the virtues of Q-Carbon rather than summarizing its properties, e.g. "tough" and "brilliant".

If the list is not meant to be exhaustive, I would suggest that this line simply be struck. Anon, a mouse... (talk) 12:49, 5 February 2019 (UTC)

List of allotropes section
I've removed the 2009 expansion request template. There seems to be no need for it anymore. Torrent97 (talk) 10:38, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

title: Talk:Allotropy


text:
Ark of the Covenant

The Ark of the Covenant, also known as the Ark of the Testimony or the Ark of God, is believed to have been the most sacred religious relic of the Israelites. It is described as a wooden chest coated in pure gold and topped off by an elaborate golden lid known as the mercy seat. According to the Book of Exodus and First Book of Kings in the Hebrew Bible and the Old Testament, the Ark contained the Tablets of the Law, by which God delivered the Ten Commandments to Moses at Mount Sinai. According to the Book of Exodus, the Book of Numbers, and the Epistle to the Hebrews in the New Testament, it also contained Aaron's rod and a pot of manna.

The biblical account relates that approximately one year after the Israelites' exodus from Egypt, the Ark was created according to the pattern that God gave to Moses when the Israelites were encamped at the foot of Mount Sinai. Thereafter, the gold-plated acacia chest's staves were lifted and carried by the Levites approximately 2,000 cubits (800 m) in advance of the people while they marched. God spoke with Moses "from between the two cherubim" on the Ark's cover.

Contemporary archeologists disagree about the history of the Ark's movements around the Ancient Near East and the history and dating of the Ark narratives in the Bible. There is additional scholarly debate over possible historical influences that led to the creation of the Ark. Thomas Romer, for example, sees possible Bedouin influence, while Scott Noegel regards Egyptian influence as more likely.

Construction and description
According to the Book of Exodus, God instructed Moses to build the Ark during his 40-day stay upon Mount Sinai. He was shown the pattern for the tabernacle and furnishings of the Ark, and told that it would be made of shittim wood (also known as acacia wood) to house the Tablets of Stone. Moses instructed Bezalel and Aholiab to construct the Ark.

The Book of Exodus gives detailed instructions on how the Ark is to be constructed. It is to be $2 1/2$ cubits in length, $1 1/2$ cubits breadth, and $1 1/2$ cubits height (approximately 131 *) of acacia wood. Then it is to be gilded entirely with gold, and a crown or molding of gold is to be put around it. Four rings of gold are to be attached to its four corners, two on each side—and through these rings staves of shittim wood overlaid with gold for carrying the Ark are to be inserted; and these are not to be removed.

Mobile vanguard
The biblical account continues that, after its creation by Moses, the Ark was carried by the Israelites during their 40 years of wandering in the desert. Whenever the Israelites camped, the Ark was placed in a separate room in a sacred tent, called the Tabernacle.

When the Israelites, led by Joshua toward the Promised Land, arrived at the banks of the River Jordan, the Ark was carried in the lead, preceding the people, and was the signal for their advance. During the crossing, the river grew dry as soon as the feet of the priests carrying the Ark touched its waters, and remained so until the priests—with the Ark—left the river after the people had passed over. As memorials, twelve stones were taken from the Jordan at the place where the priests had stood.

During the Battle of Jericho, the Ark was carried around the city once a day for six days, preceded by the armed men and seven priests sounding seven trumpets of rams' horns. On the seventh day, the seven priests sounding the seven trumpets of rams' horns before the Ark compassed the city seven times, and, with a great shout, Jericho's wall fell down flat and the people took the city.

After the defeat at Ai, Joshua lamented before the Ark. When Joshua read the Law to the people between Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal, they stood on each side of the Ark. The Ark was then kept at Shiloh after the Israelites finished their conquest of Canaan. We next hear of the Ark in Bethel, where it was being cared for by the priest Phinehas, the grandson of Aaron. According to this verse, it was consulted by the people of Israel when they were planning to attack the Benjaminites at the Battle of Gibeah. Later the Ark was kept at Shiloh again, where it was cared for by Hophni and Phinehas, two sons of Eli.

Capture by the Philistines
According to the biblical narrative, a few years later the elders of Israel decided to take the Ark onto the battlefield to assist them against the Philistines, having recently been defeated at the battle of Eben-Ezer. They were again heavily defeated, with the loss of 30,000 men. The Ark was captured by the Philistines, and Hophni and Phinehas were killed. The news of its capture was at once taken to Shiloh by a messenger "with his clothes rent, and with earth upon his head". The old priest, Eli, fell dead when he heard it, and his daughter-in-law, bearing a son at the time the news of the Ark's capture was received, named him Ichabod—explained as "The glory has departed Israel" in reference to the loss of the Ark. Ichabod's mother died at his birth.

The Philistines took the Ark to several places in their country, and at each place misfortune befell them. At Ashdod it was placed in the temple of Dagon. The next morning Dagon was found prostrate, bowed down, before it; and on being restored to his place, he was on the following morning again found prostrate and broken. The people of Ashdod were smitten with tumors; a plague of rodents was sent over the land. This may have been the bubonic plague. The affliction of tumours was also visited upon the people of Gath and of Ekron, whither the Ark was successively removed.

Return of the Ark to the Israelites
After the Ark had been among them for seven months, the Philistines, on the advice of their diviners, returned it to the Israelites, accompanying its return with an offering consisting of golden images of the tumors and mice wherewith they had been afflicted. The Ark was set up in the field of Joshua the Beth-shemite, and the Beth-shemites offered sacrifices and burnt offerings. Out of curiosity the men of Beth-shemesh gazed at the Ark; and as a punishment, seventy of them (fifty thousand and seventy in some translations) were struck down by the Lord. The Bethshemites sent to Kirjath-jearim to have the Ark removed; and it was taken to the house of Abinadab, whose son Eleazar was sanctified to keep it. Kirjath-jearim remained the abode of the Ark for twenty years. Under Saul, the Ark was with the army before he first met the Philistines, but the king was too impatient to consult it before engaging in battle. In 1 Chronicles 13:3 it is stated that the people were not accustomed to consulting the Ark in the days of Saul.

In the days of King David
In the biblical narrative, at the beginning of his reign over the United Monarchy, King David removed the Ark from Kirjath-jearim amid great rejoicing. On the way to Zion, Uzzah, one of the drivers of the cart that carried the Ark, put out his hand to steady the Ark, and was struck dead by God for touching it. The place was subsequently named "Perez-Uzzah", literally outburst against Uzzah, as a result. David, in fear, carried the Ark aside into the house of Obed-edom the Gittite, instead of carrying it on to Zion, and it stayed there for three months.

On hearing that God had blessed Obed-edom because of the presence of the Ark in his house, David had the Ark brought to Zion by the Levites, while he himself, "girded with a linen ephod[...] danced before the Lord with all his might" and in the sight of all the public gathered in Jerusalem, a performance which caused him to be scornfully rebuked by his first wife, Saul's daughter Michal. In Zion, David put the Ark in the tent he had prepared for it, offered sacrifices, distributed food, and blessed the people and his own household. David used the tent as a personal place of prayer.

The Levites were appointed to minister before the Ark. David's plan of building a temple for the Ark was stopped on the advice of the prophet Nathan. The Ark was with the army during the siege of Rabbah; and when David fled from Jerusalem at the time of Absalom's conspiracy, the Ark was carried along with him until he ordered Zadok the priest to return it to Jerusalem.

In Solomon's Temple
According to the Biblical narrative, when Abiathar was dismissed from the priesthood by King Solomon for having taken part in Adonijah's conspiracy against David, his life was spared because he had formerly borne the Ark. Solomon worshipped before the Ark after his dream in which God promised him wisdom.

During the construction of Solomon's Temple, a special inner room, named ('Holy of Holies'), was prepared to receive and house the Ark; and when the Temple was dedicated, the Ark—containing the original tablets of the Ten Commandments—was placed therein. When the priests emerged from the holy place after placing the Ark there, the Temple was filled with a cloud, "for the glory of the Lord had filled the house of the Lord".

When Solomon married Pharaoh's daughter, he caused her to dwell in a house outside Zion, as Zion was consecrated because it contained the Ark. King Josiah also had the Ark returned to the Temple, from which it appears to have been removed by one of his predecessors (cf. 2 Chronicles 33–34 and 2 Kings 21–23).

In the days of King Hezekiah
Prior to king Josiah who is the last biblical figure mentioned as having seen the Ark, king Hezekiah had seen the Ark. Hezekiah is also known for protecting Jerusalem against the Assyrian Empire by improving the city walls and diverting the waters of the Gihon Spring through a tunnel known today as Hezekiah's Tunnel, which channeled the water inside the city walls to the Pool of Siloam.

In a noncanonical text known as the Treatise of the Vessels, Hezekiah is identified as one of the kings who had the Ark and the other treasures of Solomon's Temple hidden during a time of crisis. This text lists the following hiding places, which it says were recorded on a bronze tablet: (1) a spring named Kohel or Kahal with pure water in a valley with a stopped-up gate; (2) a spring named Kotel (or "wall" in Hebrew); (3) a spring named Zedekiah; (4) an unidentified cistern; (5) Mount Carmel; and (6) locations in Babylon.

To many scholars, Hezekiah is also credited as having written all or some of the Book of Kohelet (Ecclesiastes in the Christian tradition), in particular the famously enigmatic epilogue. Notably, the epilogue appears to refer to the Ark story with references to almond blossoms (i.e., Aaron's rod), locusts, silver, and gold. The epilogue then cryptically refers to a pitcher broken at a fountain and a wheel broken at a cistern.

Although scholars disagree on whether the Pool of Siloam's pure spring waters were used by pilgrims for ritual purification, many scholars agree that a stepped pilgrimage road between the pool and the Temple had been built in the first century CE. This roadway has been partially excavated, but the west side of the Pool of Siloam remains unexcavated.

The Babylonian conquest and aftermath
In 587 BC, when the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem, an ancient Greek version of the biblical third Book of Ezra, 1 Esdras, suggests that Babylonians took away the vessels of the ark of God, but does not mention taking away the Ark:

"And they took all the holy vessels of the Lord, both great and small, with the vessels of the ark of God, and the king's treasures, and carried them away into Babylon"

In Rabbinic literature, the final disposition of the Ark is disputed. Some rabbis hold that it must have been carried off to Babylon, while others hold that it must have been hidden lest it be carried off into Babylon and never brought back. A late 2nd-century rabbinic work known as the states the opinions of these rabbis that Josiah, the king of Judah, stored away the Ark, along with the jar of manna, and a jar containing the holy anointing oil, the rod of Aaron which budded and a chest given to Israel by the Philistines.

Service of the Kohathites
The Kohathites were one of the Levite houses from the Book of Numbers. Theirs was the responsibility to care for "the most holy things" in the tabernacle. When the camp, then wandering the Wilderness, set out the Kohathites would enter the tabernacle with Aaron and cover the ark with the screening curtain and "then they shall put on it a covering of fine leather, and spread over that a cloth all of blue, and shall put its poles in place." The ark was one of the items of the tent of meeting that the Kohathites were responsible for carrying.

Jewish tradition on location today
The Talmud in Yoma suggests that the Ark was removed from the Temple towards the end of the era of the FIrst Temple and the Second Temple never housed it. According to one view, it was taken to Babylon when Nebuchadnezzar conquered Jerusalem in 587 BCE, exiling King Jeconiah along with the upper classes.

Another perspective proposes that Josiah, king of Judah, hid the Ark in anticipation of the Temple's destruction. Where it was hidden remains uncertain. One account in the Talmud  mentions a priest's suspicion of a tampered stone in a chamber designated for wood storage, hinting at the Ark's concealment.

Alternatively, it's suggested that the Ark remained underground in the Holy of Holies. Some of the Chazal, including the Radak and Maimonides, propose that Solomon designed tunnels beneath the Temple to safeguard the Ark that Josiah later used. Attempts to excavate this area have yielded little due to political sensitivities.

A final opinion, found in the II Maccabees 2:4-10, asserts that Jeremiah hid the Ark and other sacred items in a cave on Mount Nebo (now in Jordan), anticipating the Neo-Babylonian invasion.

Archaeology and Historical Context
Archaeological evidence shows strong cultic activity at Kiriath-Jearim in the 8th and 7th centuries BC, well after the ark was supposedly removed from there to Jerusalem. In particular, archaeologists found a large elevated podium, associated with the Northern Kingdom and not the Southern Kingdom, which may have been a shrine. Thomas Römer suggests that this may indicate that the ark was not moved to Jerusalem until much later, possibly during the reign of King Josiah (reigned c. 640–609 BCE). He notes that this might explain why the ark featured prominently in the history before Solomon, but not after. Additionally, 2 Chronicles 35:3 indicates that it was moved during King Josiah's reign. However, Yigal Levin argues that there is no evidence that Kiriath-Jearim was a cultic center in the monarchical era or that it ever housed any "temple of the Ark".

Some scholars believe the story of the Ark was written independently around the 8th century BC in a text referred to as the "Ark Narrative" and then incorporated into the main biblical narrative just before the Babylonian exile.

Römer also suggests that the ark may have originally carried sacred stones "of the kind found in the chests of pre-Islamic Bedouins" and speculates that these may have been either a statue of Yahweh or a pair of statues depicting both Yahweh and his companion goddess Asherah. In contrast, Scott Noegel has argued that the parallels between the ark and these practices "remain unconvincing" in part because the Bedouin objects lack the ark's distinctive structure, function, and mode of transportation. Specifically, unlike the ark, the Bedouin chests "contained no box, no lid, and no poles," they did not serve as the throne or footstool of a god, they were not overlaid with gold, did not have kerubim figures upon them, there were no restrictions on who could touch them, and they were transported on horses or camels.

Noegel suggests that the ancient Egyptian Solar barque is a more plausible model for the Israelite ark, since Egyptian barks had all the features just mentioned. Noegel adds that the Egyptians also were known to place written covenants beneath the feet of statues, proving a further parallel to the placement of the covenantal tablets inside the ark.

Yigal Levin holds that some biblical texts suggest that the Ark of the Covenant was only one among many other different arks at regional shrines prior to the centralization of worship in Jerusalem, although other scholars disagree. While one author has questioned whether the Ark ever existed, other scholars have defended its historicity and antiquity based on significant parallels with similar artifacts from New Kingdom Egypt.

Tanakh
The Ark is first mentioned in the Book of Exodus and then numerous times in Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, I Samuel, II Samuel, I Kings, I Chronicles, II Chronicles, Psalms, and Jeremiah.

In the Book of Jeremiah, it is referenced by Jeremiah, who, speaking in the days of Josiah, prophesied a future time, possibly the end of days, when the Ark will no longer be talked about or be made use of again:

"And it shall be that when you multiply and become fruitful in the land, in those days—the word of the —they will no longer say, 'The Ark of the Covenant of the ' and it will not come to mind; they will not mention it, and will not recall it, and it will not be used any more."

Rashi comments on this verse that "The entire people will be so imbued with the spirit of sanctity that God's Presence will rest upon them collectively, as if the congregation itself was the Ark of the Covenant."

Second Book of Maccabees
According to Second Maccabees, at the beginning of chapter 2:

"The records show that it was the prophet Jeremiah who[...] prompted by a divine message[...] gave orders that the Tent of Meeting and the ark should go with him. Then he went away to the mountain from the top of which Moses saw God's promised land. When he reached the mountain, Jeremiah found a cave-dwelling; he carried the tent, the ark, and the incense-altar into it, then blocked up the entrance. Some of his companions came to mark out the way, but were unable to find it. When Jeremiah learnt of this he reprimanded them. 'The place shall remain unknown', he said, 'until God finally gathers his people together and shows mercy to them. The Lord will bring these things to light again, and the glory of the Lord will appear with the cloud, as it was seen both in the time of Moses and when Solomon prayed that the shrine might be worthily consecrated.'"

The "mountain from the top of which Moses saw God's promised land" would be Mount Nebo, located in what is now Jordan.

Samaritan tradition
Samaritan tradition claims that the Ark of the Covenant had been kept at a sanctuary on Mt. Gerizim.

Literal Old Testament ark

In the New Testament, the Ark is mentioned in the Letter to the Hebrews and the Revelation to St. John. Hebrews 9:4 states that the Ark contained "the golden pot that had manna, and Aaron's rod that budded, and the tablets of the covenant." says the prophet saw God's temple in heaven opened, "and the ark of his covenant was seen within his temple."

Mary as the new ark
In the Gospel of Luke, the author's accounts of the Annunciation and Visitation are constructed using eight points of literary parallelism to compare Mary to the Ark.

The contents of the ark are seen by theologians such as the Church Fathers and Thomas Aquinas as personified by Jesus Christ: the manna as the Holy Eucharist; Aaron's rod as Jesus' eternal priestly authority; and the tablets of the Law, as the Lawgiver himself.

Catholic scholars connect the pregnant, birthing Woman of the Apocalypse from Revelation 12:1-2, with the Blessed Virgin Mary, whom they identify as the "Ark of the New Covenant." Carrying the saviour of mankind within her, she herself became the Holy of Holies. This is the interpretation given in the third century by Gregory Thaumaturgus, and in the fourth century by Saint Ambrose, Saint Ephraem of Syria and Saint Augustine. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that Mary is a metaphorical version of the ark: "Mary, in whom the Lord himself has just made his dwelling, is the daughter of Zion in person, the ark of the covenant, the place where the glory of the Lord dwells. She is 'the dwelling of God[...] with men."

Saint Athanasius, the bishop of Alexandria, is credited with writing about the connections between the Ark and the Virgin Mary: "O noble Virgin, truly you are greater than any other greatness. For who is your equal in greatness, O dwelling place of God the Word? To whom among all creatures shall I compare you, O Virgin? You are greater than them all O (Ark of the) Covenant, clothed with purity instead of gold! You are the Ark in which is found the golden vessel containing the true manna, that is, the flesh in which Divinity resides" (Homily of the Papyrus of Turin).

Quran
The Ark is referred to in the Quran (Surah Al-Baqara: 248): "Their prophet further told them, “The sign of Saul’s kingship is that the Ark will come to you—containing reassurance from your Lord and relics of the family of Moses and the family of Aaron, which will be carried by the angels. Surely in this is a sign for you, if you ˹truly˺ believe.""

The Ark in other faiths
According to Uri Rubin, the Ark of the Covenant has a religious basis in Islam (and the Baha'i faith), which gives it special significance.

Whereabouts
Since its disappearance from the Biblical narrative, there have been a number of claims of having discovered or of having possession of the Ark, and several possible places have been suggested for its location.

Maccabees
2 Maccabees 2:4–10, written around 100 BC, says that the prophet Jeremiah, "being warned by God" before the Babylonian invasion, took the Ark, the Tabernacle, and the Altar of Incense, and buried them in a cave, informing those of his followers who wished to find the place that it should remain unknown "until the time that God should gather His people again together, and receive them unto mercy."

Ethiopia
The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church claims to possess the Ark of the Covenant in Axum. The Ark is kept under guard in a treasury near the Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion. Replicas of the tablets within the Ark, or tabots, are kept in every Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church. Each tabot is kept in its own holy of holies, each with its own dedication to a particular saint; the most popular of these include Saint Mary, Saint George and Saint Michael.

The Kebra Nagast is often said to have been composed to legitimise the Solomonic dynasty, which ruled the Ethiopian Empire following its establishment in 1270, but this is not the case. It was originally composed in some other language (Coptic or Greek), then translated into Arabic, and translated into Geʽez in 1321. It narrates how the Ark of the Covenant was brought to Ethiopia by Menelik I with divine assistance, while a forgery was left in the Temple in Jerusalem. Although the Kebra Nagast is the best-known account of this belief, the belief predates the document. Abu al-Makarim, writing in the last quarter of the twelfth century, makes one early reference to this belief that they possessed the Ark. "The Abyssinians possess also the Ark of the Covenant", he wrote, and, after a description of the object, describes how the liturgy is celebrated upon the Ark four times a year, "on the feast of the great nativity, on the feast of the glorious Baptism, on the feast of the holy Resurrection, and on the feast of the illuminating Cross."

In his controversial 1992 book The Sign and the Seal, British writer Graham Hancock reports on the Ethiopian belief that the ark spent several years in Egypt before it came to Ethiopia via the Nile River, where it was kept on the islands of Lake Tana for about four hundred years and finally taken to Axum. Archaeologist John Holladay of the University of Toronto called Hancock's theory "garbage and hogwash"; Edward Ullendorff, a former professor of Ethiopian Studies at the University of London, said he "wasted a lot of time reading it." In a 1992 interview, Ullendorff says that he examined the ark held in the church in Axum in 1941. Describing the ark there, he says, "They have a wooden box, but it's empty. Middle- to late-medieval construction, when these were fabricated ad hoc."

On 25 June 2009, the patriarch of the Orthodox Church of Ethiopia, Abune Paulos, said he would announce to the world the next day the unveiling of the Ark of the Covenant, which he said had been kept safe and secure in a church in Axum. The following day, he announced that he would not unveil the Ark after all, but that instead he could attest to its current status.

Southern Africa
The Lemba people of South Africa and Zimbabwe have claimed that their ancestors carried the Ark south, calling it the ngoma lungundu "voice of God", eventually hiding it in a deep cave in the Dumghe mountains, their spiritual home.

On 14 April 2008, in a UK Channel 4 documentary, Tudor Parfitt, taking a literalist approach to the Biblical story, described his research into this claim. He says that the object described by the Lemba has attributes similar to the Ark. It was of similar size, was carried on poles by priests, was not allowed to touch the ground, was revered as a voice of their God, and was used as a weapon of great power, sweeping enemies aside.

In his book The Lost Ark of the Covenant (2008), Parfitt also suggests that the Ark was taken to Arabia following the events depicted in the Second Book of Maccabees, and cites Arabic sources which maintain it was brought in distant times to Yemen. Genetic Y-DNA analyses in the 2000s have established a partially Middle-Eastern origin for a portion of the male Lemba population but no specific Jewish connection. Lemba tradition maintains that the Ark spent some time in a place called Sena, which might be Sena, Yemen. Later, it was taken across the sea to East Africa and may have been taken inland at the time of Great Zimbabwe. According to their oral traditions, it self-destructed sometime after the Lemba's arrival with the Ark. Using a core from the original, the Lemba priests constructed a new one. This replica was discovered in a cave by a Swedish-German missionary named Harald Philip Hans von Sicard in the 1940s and eventually found its way to the Museum of Human Science in Harare.

Rome
The Ark of the Covenant was said to have been kept in the Basilica of St. John Lateran, surviving the pillages of Rome by Alaric I and Gaiseric but lost when the basilica burned.

"Rabbi Eliezer ben José stated that he saw in Rome the mercy-seat of the temple. There was a bloodstain on it. On inquiry he was told that it was a stain from the blood which the high priest sprinkled thereon on the Day of Atonement."

Ireland
Between 1899 and 1902, the British-Israel Association of London carried out limited excavations of the Hill of Tara in Ireland looking for the Ark of the Covenant. The Irish nationalists including Maud Gonne and the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland (RSAI) campaigned successfully to have them stopped before they destroyed the hill. A non-invasive survey by archaeologist Conor Newman carried out from 1992 until 1995 found no evidence of the Ark.

The British Israelites believed that the Ark was located at the grave of the Egyptian princess Tea Tephi, who according to Irish legend came to Ireland in the 6th century BC and married Irish King Érimón. Because of the historical importance of Tara, Irish nationalists like Douglas Hyde and W. B. Yeats voiced their protests in newspapers and in 1902 Maud Gonne led a protest against the excavations at the site.

In literature and the arts
Philip Kaufman conceived of the Ark of the Covenant as the main plot device of Steven Spielberg's 1981 adventure film Raiders of the Lost Ark, where it is found by Indiana Jones in the Egyptian city of Tanis in 1936. In early 2020, a prop version made for the film (which does not actually appear onscreen) was featured on television series Antiques Roadshow.

In the Danish family film The Lost Treasure of the Knights Templar from 2006, the main part of the treasure found in the end is the Ark of the Covenant. The power of the Ark comes from static electricity stored in separated metal plates like a giant Leyden jar.

In Harry Turtledove's novel Alpha and Omega (2019) the ark is found by archeologists, and the characters have to deal with the proven existence of God.

The Ark has been depicted many times in art for two thousand years, some examples are in the article above, a few more are here.

Yom HaAliyah
Yom HaAliyah (Aliyah Day) (יום העלייה) is an Israeli national holiday celebrated annually on the tenth of the Hebrew month of Nisan to commemorate the Israelites crossing the Jordan River into the Land of Israel while carrying the Ark of the Covenant.

title: Ark of the Covenant


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Angles (tribe)

The Angles were one of the main Germanic peoples who settled in Great Britain in the post-Roman period. They founded several kingdoms of the Heptarchy in Anglo-Saxon England. Their name, which probably derives from the Angeln peninsula, is the root of the name England. According to Tacitus, writing around 100 AD, a people known as Angles (Anglii) lived east of the Lombards and Semnones, who lived near the River Elbe.

Etymology
The name of the Angles may have been first recorded in Latinised form, as Anglii, in the Germania of Tacitus. It is thought to derive from the name of the area they originally inhabited, the Angeln peninsula, which is on the Baltic Sea coast of Schleswig-Holstein.

Two related theories have been advanced, which attempt to give the name a Germanic etymology:
 * 1) It originated from the Germanic root for "narrow" (compare German and Dutch eng = "narrow"), meaning "the Narrow [Water]", i.e., the Schlei estuary; the root would be *h₂enǵʰ, "tight".
 * 2) The name derives from "hook" (as in angling for fish), in reference to the shape of the peninsula where they lived; Indo-European linguist Julius Pokorny derives it from Proto-Indo-European *h₂enk-, "bend" (see ankle). Alternatively, the Angles may have been called such because they were a fishing people or were originally descended from such.

According to Gesta Danorum, Dan and Angul were made rulers by the consent of their people because of their bravery. Dan gave name to Danes and Angel gave names to Angles.

Tacitus

The earliest known mention of the Angles may be in chapter 40 of Tacitus's Germania written around AD 98. Tacitus describes the "Anglii" as one of the more remote Suebic tribes compared to the Semnones and Langobardi, who lived on the Elbe and were better known to the Romans. He grouped the Angles with several other tribes in that region, the Reudigni, Aviones, Varini, Eudoses, Suarines, and Nuithones. These were all living behind ramparts of rivers and woods, and therefore inaccessible to attack.

He gives no precise indication of their geographical situation but states that, together with the six other tribes, they worshipped Nerthus, or Mother Earth, whose sanctuary was located on "an island in the Ocean". The Eudoses are the Jutes; these names probably refer to localities in Jutland or on the Baltic coast. The coast contains sufficient estuaries, inlets, rivers, islands, swamps, and marshes to have been then inaccessible to those not familiar with the terrain, such as the Romans, who considered it unknown, inaccessible, with a small population and of little economic interest.

The majority of scholars believe that the Anglii lived on the coasts of the Baltic Sea, probably in the southern part of the Jutland peninsula. This view is based partly on Old English and Danish traditions regarding persons and events of the fourth century, and partly because striking affinities to the cult of Nerthus as described by Tacitus are to be found in pre-Christian Scandinavian religion.

Ptolemy
Surviving versions of the work of Ptolemy, who wrote around AD 150, in his atlas Geography (2.10), describes them in a confusing manner. In one passage, the Sueboi Angeilloi (in Greek equivalent to Latin spelling Suevi Angili), are living in a stretch of land between the northern Rhine and central Elbe, but apparently not touching either river, with the Suebic Langobardi on the Rhine to their west, and the Suebic Semnones on the Elbe stretching to their east. This is unexpected. However, as pointed out by Gudmund Schütte, the Langobards also appear as the "Laccobardi" in another position near the Elbe and the Saxons, which is considered more likely to be correct, and the Angles probably lived in that region also. Owing to the uncertainty of this passage, much speculation existed regarding the original home of the Anglii.

One theory is that they or part of them dwelt or moved among other coastal people, perhaps confederated up to the basin of the Saale (in the neighbourhood of the ancient canton of Engilin) on the Unstrut valleys below the Kyffhäuserkreis, from which region the Lex Anglorum et Werinorum hoc est Thuringorum is believed by many to have come. The ethnic names of Frisians and Warines are also attested in these Saxon districts.

A second possible solution is that these Angles of Ptolemy are not those of Schleswig at all. According to Julius Pokorny, the Angri- in Angrivarii, the -angr in Hardanger and the Angl- in Anglii all come from the same root meaning "bend", but in different senses. In other words, the similarity of the names is strictly coincidental and does not reflect any ethnic unity beyond Germanic. Gudmund Schütte, in his analysis of Ptolemy, believes that the Angles have simply been moved by an error coming from Ptolemy's use of imperfect sources. He points out that Angles are placed correctly just to the northeast of the Langobardi, but that these have been duplicated, so that they appear once, correctly, on the lower Elbe, and a second time, incorrectly, at the northern Rhine.

Procopius
An especially early reference to the Angli in Britain is the 6th-century Byzantine historian Procopius who however expressed doubts about the stories he had heard about events in the west, which he apparently heard through Frankish diplomats. He never mentions the Saxons, but he states that an island called Brittia (which he believed to be distinct from Britain itself), was settled by three nations: the Angili, Frissones, and Brittones, each ruled by its own king. Each nation was so prolific that it sent large numbers of individuals every year to the Franks, who "allow them to settle in the part of their land which appears to be more deserted, and by this means they say they are winning over the island. Thus it actually happened that not long ago the king of the Franks, in sending some of his intimates on an embassy to the Emperor Justinian in Byzantium, sent with them some of the Angili, thus seeking to establish his claim that this island was ruled by him." Procopius claimed that the Angles had recently sent a large army of 400 ships to Europe, from Brittia to the Rhine, to enforce a marriage agreement with the Warini who he lived north of the Franks at that time.

Medieval historiography
Bede (died 735) stated that the Anglii, before coming to Great Britain, dwelt in a land called Angulus, "which lies between the province of the Jutes and the Saxons, and remains unpopulated to this day." Similar evidence is given by the 9th-century Historia Brittonum. King Alfred the Great and the chronicler Æthelweard identified this place with Angeln, in the province of Schleswig (though it may then have been of greater extent), and this identification agrees with the indications given by Bede.

In the Norwegian seafarer Ohthere of Hålogaland's account of a two-day voyage from the Oslo fjord to Schleswig, he reported the lands on his starboard bow, and Alfred appended the note "on these islands dwelt the Engle before they came hither". Confirmation is afforded by English and Danish traditions relating to two kings named Wermund and Offa of Angel, from whom the Mercian royal family claimed descent and whose exploits are connected with Angeln, Schleswig, and Rendsburg.

Danish tradition has preserved record of two governors of Schleswig, father and son, in their service, Frowinus (Freawine) and Wigo (Wig), from whom the royal family of Wessex claimed descent. During the fifth century, the Anglii invaded Great Britain, after which time their name does not recur on the continent except in the title of the legal code issued to the Thuringians: Lex Angliorum et Werinorum hoc est Thuringorum.

The Angles are the subject of a legend about Pope Gregory I, who happened to see a group of Angle children from Deira for sale as slaves in the Roman market. As the story was told by Bede, Gregory was struck by the unusual appearance of the slaves and asked about their background. When told they were called Anglii (Angles), he replied with a Latin pun that translates well into English: "Bene, nam et angelicam habent faciem, et tales angelorum in caelis decet esse coheredes" (It is well, for they have an angelic face, and such people ought to be co-heirs of the angels in heaven). Supposedly, this encounter inspired the pope to launch a mission to bring Christianity to their countrymen.

Archaeology
The province of Schleswig has proved rich in prehistoric antiquities that date apparently from the fourth and fifth centuries. A large cremation cemetery has been found at Borgstedt, between Rendsburg and Eckernförde, and it has yielded many urns and brooches closely resembling those found in pagan graves in England. Of still greater importance are the great deposits at Thorsberg moor (in Angeln) and Nydam, which contained large quantities of arms, ornaments, articles of clothing, agricultural implements, etc., and in Nydam, even ships. By the help of these discoveries, Angle culture in the age preceding the invasion of Britannia can be pieced together.

Anglian kingdoms in England
According to sources such as the History of Bede, after the invasion of Britannia, the Angles split up and founded the kingdoms of Northumbria, East Anglia, and Mercia. H. R. Loyn has observed in this context that "a sea voyage is perilous to tribal institutions", and the apparently tribe-based kingdoms were formed in England. Early times had two northern kingdoms (Bernicia and Deira) and two midland ones (Middle Anglia and Mercia), which had by the seventh century resolved themselves into two Angle kingdoms, viz., Northumbria and Mercia.

Northumbria held suzerainty amidst the Germanic presence in the British Isles in the 7th century, but was eclipsed by the rise of Mercia in the 8th century. Both kingdoms fell in the great assaults of the Danish Viking armies in the 9th century. Their royal houses were effectively destroyed in the fighting, and their Angle populations came under the Danelaw. Further south, the Saxon kings of Wessex withstood the Danish assaults. Then in the late 9th and early 10th centuries, the kings of Wessex defeated the Danes and liberated the Angles from the Danelaw.

They united their house in marriage with the surviving Angle royalty, and were accepted by the Angles as their kings. This marked the passing of the old Anglo-Saxon world and the dawn of the "English" as a new people. The regions of East Anglia and Northumbria are still known by their original titles. Northumbria once stretched as far north as what is now southeast Scotland, including Edinburgh, and as far south as the Humber estuary and even the river Witham.

The rest of that people stayed at the centre of the Angle homeland in the northeastern portion of the modern German Bundesland of Schleswig-Holstein, on the Jutland Peninsula. There, a small peninsular area is still called Angeln today and is formed as a triangle drawn roughly from modern Flensburg on the Flensburger Fjord to the City of Schleswig and then to Maasholm, on the Schlei inlet.

title: Angles (tribe)