title: Radiation

text: Alpha particles are helium-4 nuclei (two protons and two neutrons). They interact with matter strongly due to their charges and combined mass, and at their usual velocities only penetrate a few centimeters of air, or a few millimeters of low density material (such as the thin mica material which is specially placed in some Geiger counter tubes to allow alpha particles in). This means that alpha particles from ordinary alpha decay do not penetrate the outer layers of dead skin cells and cause no damage to the live tissues below. Some very high energy alpha particles compose about 10% of cosmic rays, and these are capable of penetrating the body and even thin metal plates. However, they are of danger only to astronauts, since they are deflected by the Earth's magnetic field and then stopped by its atmosphere.


title: Radiation

text: Alpha radiation is dangerous when alpha-emitting radioisotopes are ingested or inhaled (breathed or swallowed). This brings the radioisotope close enough to sensitive live tissue for the alpha radiation to damage cells. Per unit of energy, alpha particles are at least 20 times more effective at cell-damage as gamma rays and X-rays. See relative biological effectiveness for a discussion of this. Examples of highly poisonous alpha-emitters are all isotopes of radium, radon, and polonium, due to the amount of decay that occur in these short half-life materials.


title: Radiation

text: Beta-minus (β) radiation consists of an energetic electron. It is more penetrating than alpha radiation but less than gamma. Beta radiation from radioactive decay can be stopped with a few centimeters of plastic or a few millimeters of metal. It occurs when a neutron decays into a proton in a nucleus, releasing the beta particle and an antineutrino. Beta radiation from linac accelerators is far more energetic and penetrating than natural beta radiation. It is sometimes used therapeutically in radiotherapy to treat superficial tumors.


title: Radiation

text: Beta-plus (β) radiation is the emission of positrons, which are the antimatter form of electrons. When a positron slows to speeds similar to those of electrons in the material, the positron will annihilate an electron, releasing two gamma photons of 511 keV in the process. Those two gamma photons will be traveling in (approximately) opposite direction. The gamma radiation from positron annihilation consists of high energy photons, and is also ionizing.


title: Radiation

text: Neutrons are categorized according to their speed/energy. Neutron radiation consists of free neutrons. These neutrons may be emitted during either spontaneous or induced nuclear fission. Neutrons are rare radiation particles; they are produced in large numbers only where chain reaction fission or fusion reactions are active; this happens for about 10 microseconds in a thermonuclear explosion, or continuously inside an operating nuclear reactor; production of the neutrons stops almost immediately in the reactor when it goes non-critical.


title: Radiation

text: Neutrons can make other objects, or material, radioactive. This process, called neutron activation, is the primary method used to produce radioactive sources for use in medical, academic, and industrial applications. Even comparatively low speed thermal neutrons cause neutron activation (in fact, they cause it more efficiently). Neutrons do not ionize atoms in the same way that charged particles such as protons and electrons do (by the excitation of an electron), because neutrons have no charge. It is through their absorption by nuclei which then become unstable that they cause ionization. Hence, neutrons are said to be "indirectly ionizing." Even neutrons without significant kinetic energy are indirectly ionizing, and are thus a significant radiation hazard. Not all materials are capable of neutron activation; in water, for example, the most common isotopes of both types atoms present (hydrogen and oxygen) capture neutrons and become heavier but remain stable forms of those atoms. Only the absorption of more than one neutron, a statistically rare occurrence, can activate a hydrogen atom, while oxygen requires two additional absorptions. Thus water is only very weakly capable of activation. The sodium in salt (as in sea water), on the other hand, need only absorb a single neutron to become Na-24, a very intense source of beta decay, with half-life of 15 hours.


title: Radiation

text: In addition, high-energy (high-speed) neutrons have the ability to directly ionize atoms. One mechanism by which high energy neutrons ionize atoms is to strike the nucleus of an atom and knock the atom out of a molecule, leaving one or more electrons behind as the chemical bond is broken. This leads to production of chemical free radicals. In addition, very high energy neutrons can cause ionizing radiation by "neutron spallation" or knockout, wherein neutrons cause emission of high-energy protons from atomic nuclei (especially hydrogen nuclei) on impact. The last process imparts most of the neutron's energy to the proton, much like one billiard ball striking another. The charged protons and other products from such reactions are directly ionizing.


title: Radiation

text: High-energy neutrons are very penetrating and can travel great distances in air (hundreds or even thousands of meters) and moderate distances (several meters) in common solids. They typically require hydrogen rich shielding, such as concrete or water, to block them within distances of less than a meter. A common source of neutron radiation occurs inside a nuclear reactor, where a meters-thick water layer is used as effective shielding.


title: Radiation

text: There are two sources of high energy particles entering the Earth's atmosphere from outer space: the sun and deep space. The sun continuously emits particles, primarily free protons, in the solar wind, and occasionally augments the flow hugely with coronal mass ejections (CME).


title: Radiation

text: The particles from deep space (inter- and extra-galactic) are much less frequent, but of much higher energies. These particles are also mostly protons, with much of the remainder consisting of helions (alpha particles). A few completely ionized nuclei of heavier elements are present. The origin of these galactic cosmic rays is not yet well understood, but they seem to be remnants of supernovae and especially gamma-ray bursts (GRB), which feature magnetic fields capable of the huge accelerations measured from these particles. They may also be generated by quasars, which are galaxy-wide jet phenomena similar to GRBs but known for their much larger size, and which seem to be a violent part of the universe's early history.


title: Radiation

text: The kinetic energy of particles of non-ionizing radiation is too small to produce charged ions when passing through matter. For non-ionizing electromagnetic radiation (see types below), the associated particles (photons) have only sufficient energy to change the rotational, vibrational or electronic valence configurations of molecules and atoms. The effect of non-ionizing forms of radiation on living tissue has only recently been studied. Nevertheless, different biological effects are observed for different types of non-ionizing radiation.


title: Radiation

text: Even "non-ionizing" radiation is capable of causing thermal-ionization if it deposits enough heat to raise temperatures to ionization energies. These reactions occur at far higher energies than with ionization radiation, which requires only single particles to cause ionization. A familiar example of thermal ionization is the flame-ionization of a common fire, and the browning reactions in common food items induced by infrared radiation, during broiling-type cooking.


title: Radiation

text: The electromagnetic spectrum is the range of all possible electromagnetic radiation frequencies. The electromagnetic spectrum (usually just spectrum) of an object is the characteristic distribution of electromagnetic radiation emitted by, or absorbed by, that particular object.


title: Radiation

text: The non-ionizing portion of electromagnetic radiation consists of electromagnetic waves that (as individual quanta or particles, see photon) are not energetic enough to detach electrons from atoms or molecules and hence cause their ionization. These include radio waves, microwaves, infrared, and (sometimes) visible light. The lower frequencies of ultraviolet light may cause chemical changes and molecular damage similar to ionization, but is technically not ionizing. The highest frequencies of ultraviolet light, as well as all X-rays and gamma-rays are ionizing.


title: Radiation

text: The occurrence of ionization depends on the energy of the individual particles or waves, and not on their number. An intense flood of particles or waves will not cause ionization if these particles or waves do not carry enough energy to be ionizing, unless they raise the temperature of a body to a point high enough to ionize small fractions of atoms or molecules by the process of thermal-ionization (this, however, requires relatively extreme radiation intensities).


title: Radiation

text: As noted above, the lower part of the spectrum of ultraviolet, called soft UV, from 3 eV to about 10 eV, is non-ionizing. However, the effects of non-ionizing ultraviolet on chemistry and the damage to biological systems exposed to it (including oxidation, mutation, and cancer) are such that even this part of ultraviolet is often compared with ionizing radiation.


title: Radiation

text: Light, or visible light, is a very narrow range of electromagnetic radiation of a wavelength that is visible to the human eye, or 380–750 nm which equates to a frequency range of 790 to 400 THz respectively. More broadly, physicists use the term "light" to mean electromagnetic radiation of all wavelengths, whether visible or not.


title: Radiation

text: Infrared (IR) light is electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength between 0.7 and 300 micrometers, which corresponds to a frequency range between 430 and 1 THz respectively. IR wavelengths are longer than that of visible light, but shorter than that of microwaves. Infrared may be detected at a distance from the radiating objects by "feel." Infrared sensing snakes can detect and focus infrared by use of a pinhole lens in their heads, called "pits". Bright sunlight provides an irradiance of just over 1 kilowatt per square meter at sea level. Of this energy, 53% is infrared radiation, 44% is visible light, and 3% is ultraviolet radiation.


title: Radiation

text: Microwaves are electromagnetic waves with wavelengths ranging from as short as one millimeter to as long as one meter, which equates to a frequency range of 300 MHz to 300 GHz. This broad definition includes both UHF and EHF (millimeter waves), but various sources use different other limits. In all cases, microwaves include the entire super high frequency band (3 to 30 GHz, or 10 to 1 cm) at minimum, with RF engineering often putting the lower boundary at 1 GHz (30 cm), and the upper around 100 GHz (3mm).


title: Radiation

text: Radio waves are a type of electromagnetic radiation with wavelengths in the electromagnetic spectrum longer than infrared light. Like all other electromagnetic waves, they travel at the speed of light. Naturally occurring radio waves are made by lightning, or by certain astronomical objects. Artificially generated radio waves are used for fixed and mobile radio communication, broadcasting, radar and other navigation systems, satellite communication, computer networks and innumerable other applications. In addition, almost any wire carrying alternating current will radiate some of the energy away as radio waves; these are mostly termed interference. Different frequencies of radio waves have different propagation characteristics in the Earth's atmosphere; long waves may bend at the rate of the curvature of the Earth and may cover a part of the Earth very consistently, shorter waves travel around the world by multiple reflections off the ionosphere and the Earth. Much shorter wavelengths bend or reflect very little and travel along the line of sight.


title: Radiation

text: Very low frequency (VLF) refers to a frequency range of 30 Hz to 3 kHz which corresponds to wavelengths of 100,000 to 10,000 meters respectively. Since there is not much bandwidth in this range of the radio spectrum, only the very simplest signals can be transmitted, such as for radio navigation. Also known as the myriameter band or myriameter wave as the wavelengths range from ten to one myriameter (an obsolete metric unit equal to 10 kilometers).


title: Radiation

text: Extremely low frequency (ELF) is radiation frequencies from 3 to 30 Hz (10 to 10 meters respectively). In atmosphere science, an alternative definition is usually given, from 3 Hz to 3 kHz. In the related magnetosphere science, the lower frequency electromagnetic oscillations (pulsations occurring below ~3 Hz) are considered to lie in the ULF range, which is thus also defined differently from the ITU Radio Bands. A massive military ELF antenna in Michigan radiates very slow messages to otherwise unreachable receivers, such as submerged submarines.


title: Radiation

text: Thermal radiation is a common synonym for infrared radiation emitted by objects at temperatures often encountered on Earth. Thermal radiation refers not only to the radiation itself, but also the process by which the surface of an object radiates its thermal energy in the form of black body radiation. Infrared or red radiation from a common household radiator or electric heater is an example of thermal radiation, as is the heat emitted by an operating incandescent light bulb. Thermal radiation is generated when energy from the movement of charged particles within atoms is converted to electromagnetic radiation.


title: Radiation

text: As noted above, even low-frequency thermal radiation may cause temperature-ionization whenever it deposits sufficient thermal energy to raise temperatures to a high enough level. Common examples of this are the ionization (plasma) seen in common flames, and the molecular changes caused by the "browning" during food-cooking, which is a chemical process that begins with a large component of ionization.


title: Radiation

text: "Black-body radiation" is an idealized spectrum of radiation emitted by a body that is at a uniform temperature. The shape of the spectrum and the total amount of energy emitted by the body is a function of the absolute temperature of that body. The radiation emitted covers the entire electromagnetic spectrum and the intensity of the radiation (power/unit-area) at a given frequency is described by Planck's law of radiation. For a given temperature of a black-body there is a particular frequency at which the radiation emitted is at its maximum intensity. That maximum radiation frequency moves toward higher frequencies as the temperature of the body increases. The frequency at which the black-body radiation is at maximum is given by Wien's displacement law and is a function of the body's absolute temperature. A black-body is one that emits at any temperature the maximum possible amount of radiation at any given wavelength. A black-body will also absorb the maximum possible incident radiation at any given wavelength. A black-body with a temperature at or below room temperature would thus appear absolutely black, as it would not reflect any incident light nor would it emit enough radiation at visible wavelengths for our eyes to detect. Theoretically, a black-body emits electromagnetic radiation over the entire spectrum from very low frequency radio waves to x-rays, creating a continuum of radiation.


title: Radiation

text: The color of a radiating black-body tells the temperature of its radiating surface. It is responsible for the color of stars, which vary from infrared through red (2,500K), to yellow (5,800K), to white and to blue-white (15,000K) as the peak radiance passes through those points in the visible spectrum. When the peak is below the visible spectrum the body is black, while when it is above the body is blue-white, since all the visible colors are represented from blue decreasing to red.


title: Radiation

text: Electromagnetic radiation of wavelengths other than visible light were discovered in the early 19th century. The discovery of infrared radiation is ascribed to William Herschel, the astronomer. Herschel published his results in 1800 before the Royal Society of London. Herschel, like Ritter, used a prism to refract light from the Sun and detected the infrared (beyond the red part of the spectrum), through an increase in the temperature recorded by a thermometer.


title: Radiation

text: In 1801, the German physicist Johann Wilhelm Ritter made the discovery of ultraviolet by noting that the rays from a prism darkened silver chloride preparations more quickly than violet light. Ritter's experiments were an early precursor to what would become photography. Ritter noted that the UV rays were capable of causing chemical reactions.


title: Radiation

text: The first radio waves detected were not from a natural source, but were produced deliberately and artificially by the German scientist Heinrich Hertz in 1887, using electrical circuits calculated to produce oscillations in the radio frequency range, following formulas suggested by the equations of James Clerk Maxwell.


title: Radiation

text: Wilhelm Röntgen discovered and named X-rays. While experimenting with high voltages applied to an evacuated tube on 8 November 1895, he noticed a fluorescence on a nearby plate of coated glass. Within a month, he discovered the main properties of X-rays that we understand to this day.


title: Radiation

text: In 1896, Henri Becquerel found that rays emanating from certain minerals penetrated black paper and caused fogging of an unexposed photographic plate. His doctoral student Marie Curie discovered that only certain chemical elements gave off these rays of energy. She named this behavior radioactivity.


title: Radiation

text: Alpha rays (alpha particles) and beta rays (beta particles) were differentiated by Ernest Rutherford through simple experimentation in 1899. Rutherford used a generic pitchblende radioactive source and determined that the rays produced by the source had differing penetrations in materials. One type had short penetration (it was stopped by paper) and a positive charge, which Rutherford named "alpha rays." The other was more penetrating (able to expose film through paper but not metal) and had a negative charge, and this type Rutherford named "beta." This was the radiation that had been first detected by Becquerel from uranium salts. In 1900, the French scientist Paul Villard discovered a third neutrally charged and especially penetrating type of radiation from radium, and after he described it, Rutherford realized it must be yet a third type of radiation, which in 1903 Rutherford named gamma rays.


title: Radiation

text: Henri Becquerel himself proved that beta rays are fast electrons, while Rutherford and Thomas Royds proved in 1909 that alpha particles are ionized helium. Rutherford and Edward Andrade proved in 1914 that gamma rays are like X-rays, but with shorter wavelengths.


title: Radiation

text: Cosmic ray radiations striking the Earth from outer space were finally definitively recognized and proven to exist in 1912, as the scientist Victor Hess carried an electrometer to various altitudes in a free balloon flight. The nature of these radiations was only gradually understood in later years.


title: Radiation

text: The Neutron and neutron radiation were discovered by James Chadwick in 1932. A number of other high energy particulate radiations such as positrons, muons, and pions were discovered by cloud chamber examination of cosmic ray reactions shortly thereafter, and others types of particle radiation were produced artificially in particle accelerators, through the last half of the twentieth century.


title: Radiation

text: Radiation and radioactive substances are used for diagnosis, treatment, and research. X-rays, for example, pass through muscles and other soft tissue but are stopped by dense materials. This property of X-rays enables doctors to find broken bones and to locate cancers that might be growing in the body. Doctors also find certain diseases by injecting a radioactive substance and monitoring the radiation given off as the substance moves through the body. Radiation used for cancer treatment is called ionizing radiation because it forms ions in the cells of the tissues it passes through as it dislodges electrons from atoms. This can kill cells or change genes so the cells cannot grow. Other forms of radiation such as radio waves, microwaves, and light waves are called non-ionizing. They don't have as much energy so they are not able to ionize cells.


title: Radiation

text: All modern communication systems use forms of electromagnetic radiation. Variations in the intensity of the radiation represent changes in the sound, pictures, or other information being transmitted. For example, a human voice can be sent as a radio wave or microwave by making the wave vary to corresponding variations in the voice. Musicians have also experimented with gamma rays sonification, or using nuclear radiation, to produce sound and music.


title: Radiation

text: Researchers use radioactive atoms to determine the age of materials that were once part of a living organism. The age of such materials can be estimated by measuring the amount of radioactive carbon they contain in a process called radiocarbon dating. Similarly, using other radioactive elements, the age of rocks and other geological features (even some man-made objects) can be determined; this is called Radiometric dating. Environmental scientists use radioactive atoms, known as tracer atoms, to identify the pathways taken by pollutants through the environment.


title: Radiation

text: Radiation is used to determine the composition of materials in a process called neutron activation analysis. In this process, scientists bombard a sample of a substance with particles called neutrons. Some of the atoms in the sample absorb neutrons and become radioactive. The scientists can identify the elements in the sample by studying the emitted radiation.


title: Radiation

text: Radiation is not always dangerous, and not all types of radiation are equally dangerous, contrary to several common medical myths. For example, although bananas contain naturally occurring radioactive isotopes, particularly potassium-40 (K), which emit ionizing radiation when undergoing radioactive decay, the levels of such radiation are far too low to induce radiation poisoning, and bananas are not a radiation hazard. It would not be physically possible to eat enough bananas to cause radiation poisoning, as the radiation dose from bananas is non-cumulative. Radiation is ubiquitous on Earth, and humans are adapted to survive at the normal low-to-moderate levels of radiation found on Earth's surface. The relationship between dose and toxicity is often non-linear, and many substances that are toxic at very high doses actually have neutral or positive health effects, or are biologically essential, at moderate or low doses. There is some evidence to suggest that this is true for ionizing radiation: normal levels of ionizing radiation may serve to stimulate and regulate the activity of DNA repair mechanisms. High enough levels of any kind of radiation will eventually become lethal, however.


title: Radiation

text: Ionizing radiation in certain conditions can damage living organisms, causing cancer or genetic damage.


title: Radiation

text: Non-ionizing radiation in certain conditions also can cause damage to living organisms, such as burns. In 2011, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) of the World Health Organization (WHO) released a statement adding radio frequency electromagnetic fields (including microwave and millimeter waves) to their list of things which are possibly carcinogenic to humans.


title: Radiation

text: RWTH Aachen University's EMF-Portal web site presents one of the biggest database about the effects of Electromagnetic radiation. As of 12 July 2019 it has 28,547 publications and 6,369 summaries of individual scientific studies on the effects of electromagnetic fields.


title: Marduk

text: Marduk (Cuneiform: AMAR.UTU; Sumerian: "amar utu.k" "calf of the sun; solar calf"; ) was a god from ancient Mesopotamia and patron deity of the city of Babylon. When Babylon became the political center of the Euphrates valley in the time of Hammurabi (18th century BC), Marduk slowly started to rise to the position of the head of the Babylonian pantheon, a position he fully acquired by the second half of the second millennium BCE. In the city of Babylon, Marduk was worshipped in the temple Esagila. Marduk is associated with the divine weapon Imhullu. His symbolic animal and servant, whom Marduk once vanquished, is the dragon Mušḫuššu. "Marduk" is the Babylonian form of his name.


title: Marduk

text: The name "Marduk" was probably pronounced "Marutuk". The etymology of the name "Marduk" is conjectured as derived from "amar-Utu" ("immortal son of Utu" or "bull calf of the sun god Utu"). The origin of Marduk's name may reflect an earlier genealogy, or have had cultural ties to the ancient city of Sippar (whose god was Utu), dating to the third millennium BCE.


title: Marduk

text: Neo-Assyrian texts had become more critical of the Mesopotamian kings. The location of Marduk's statue, whether in Babylon or not, was related to the relationship between foreign kingship and traditional Babylonian religion. In the 12th century BCE, during the reign of Nebuchadnezzar I, the statue of Marduk (previously captured by Elamites) was restored to Babylon. "The Marduk Prophecy" is a prophetic text discussing three occasions on which Babylon is abandoned by Marduk. Some of the details are obscured by a lacuna. The reference to Marduk's reign in Hatti is believed to correspond to the Hittite king Mursili I's capture of Marduk's statue (later returned to Babylon by Kassite king Agum II). Marduk blesses and lives in Assur, a reference to another conflict - this time between the Assyrian king and the Kassite king Kastilias IV, that ended with Marduk's statue being moved from Babylon to Assyria. According to the text Babylon falls into a chaos while Marduk is in Elam, referring to Babylon's defeat at the hands of the Elamite king. It says a new king will arise to renew the temple Ekursagila, most likely a reference to Nebuchadnezzar I's victory over Elam and restoration of Marduk's statue to Babylon.


title: Marduk

text: Marduk's original character is obscure but he was later associated with water, vegetation, judgment, and magic. His consort was the goddess Sarpanit. He was also regarded as the son of Ea (Sumerian Enki) and Damkina, and the heir of Anu, but whatever special traits Marduk may have had were overshadowed by political developments in the Euphrates valley which led to people of the time imbuing him with traits belonging to gods who in an earlier period were recognized as the heads of the pantheon. There are particularly two gods—Ea and Enlil—whose powers and attributes pass over to Marduk.


title: Marduk

text: In the case of Ea, the transfer proceeded peacefully and without effacing the older god. Marduk took over the identity of Asarluhi, the son of Ea and god of magic, and was thus integrated into the pantheon of Eridu, where both Ea and Asarluhi originated. Ea, Marduk's father, voluntarily recognized the superiority of the son and handed over to him the control of humanity. This association of Marduk and Ea, while indicating primarily the passing to Babylon of the religious and political supremacy once enjoyed by Eridu, may also reflect an early dependence of Babylon upon Eridu, not necessarily of a political character but, in view of the spread of culture in the Euphrates valley from the south to the north, the recognition of Eridu as the older centre on the part of the younger one.


title: Marduk

text: While the relationship between Ea and Marduk is marked by harmony and an amicable abdication on the part of the father in favour of his son, Marduk's absorption of the power and prerogatives of Enlil of Nippur came at the expense of the latter's prestige. Babylon became independent in the early 19th century BCE, and was initially a small city state, overshadowed by older and more powerful Mesopotamian states such as Isin, Larsa and Assyria. The rise of "Marduk is closely connected with the political rise of Babylon from city-state to the capital of an empire." Marduk became the supreme god after the reign of Nebuchadnezzar I in the twelfth century, replacing Enlil. Although Nippur and the cult of Enlil enjoyed a period of renaissance during the more than four centuries of Kassite control in Babylonia (c. 1595 BCE–1157 BCE), the definite and permanent triumph of Marduk over Enlil became felt in Babylonia.


title: Marduk

text: During the Kassite reign, the Babylonians were attacked by the Assyrians, who captured the statue of Marduk. Aššur (Ashur), the supreme god in the north, was considered to be the only rival of Marduk, who reigned supreme in the South. While the statue was brought back to Babylon, the Kassite dynasty with a weakened defense fell to the Elamites (1157 BCE), and the statue of Marduk was taken to Susa, the Elam capital. Assyria remained an enemy of the Babylonians until the reign of Marduk-nadin-ahhe (1082–1070 BCE).


title: Marduk

text: The deity of Marduk results in the "Enûma Elish," which tells the story of Marduk's birth, heroic deeds and becoming the ruler of the gods. The purpose of this creation myth was to explain how Marduk came to power. This can be viewed as a form of Mesopotamian apologetics. Also included in this document are the fifty names of Marduk that represent everything Marduk symbolizes.


title: Marduk

text: In "Enûma Elish", a civil war between the gods was growing to a climactic battle. The Anunnaki gods gathered together to find one god who could defeat the gods rising against them. Marduk, a very young god, answered the call and was promised the position of head god.


title: Marduk

text: To prepare for battle, he makes a bow, fletches arrows, grabs a mace, throws lightning before him, fills his body with flame, makes a net to encircle Tiamat within it, gathers the four winds so that no part of her could escape, creates seven nasty new winds such as the whirlwind and tornado, and raises up his mightiest weapon, the rain-flood. Then he sets out for battle, mounting his storm-chariot drawn by four horses with poison in their mouths. In his lips he holds a spell and in one hand he grasps a herb to counter poison.


title: Marduk

text: First, he challenges the leader of the Anunnaki gods, the dragon of the primordial sea Tiamat, to single combat and defeats her by trapping her with his net, blowing her up with his winds, and piercing her belly with an arrow.


title: Marduk

text: Then, he proceeds to defeat Kingu, who Tiamat put in charge of the army and wore the Tablets of Destiny on his breast, "wrested from him the Tablets of Destiny, wrongfully his", and assumed his new position. Under his reign, humans were created to bear the burdens of life so the gods could be at leisure; the lowly creatures built Marduk a temple in Babylon (from Akkadian "bāb-il" and Sumerian KÁ.DINGIR both literally translated 'Gate of God'; cf. Genesis 11:9).


title: Marduk

text: Marduk was depicted as a human, often with his symbol the snake-dragon which he had taken over from the god Tishpak. Another symbol that stood for Marduk was the spade.


title: Marduk

text: Babylonian texts talk of the creation of Eridu by the god Marduk as the first city, "the holy city, the dwelling of their [the other gods'] delight". However, Eridu was founded in the 5th millennium BC and Marduk's ascendancy only occurred in the second millennium BC, so this is clearly a revisionist back-dating to inflate the prestige of Marduk.


title: Marduk

text: Leonard W. King in "The Seven Tablets of Creation" (1902) included fragments of god lists which he considered essential for the reconstruction of the meaning of Marduk's name. Franz Böhl in his 1936 study of the fifty names also referred to King's list.


title: Marduk

text: Richard Litke (1958) noticed a similarity between Marduk's names in the An:Anum list and those of the Enuma elish, albeit in a different arrangement.


title: Marduk

text: The connection between the An:Anum list and the list in Enuma Elish were established by Walther Sommerfeld (1982), who used the correspondence to argue for a Kassite period composition date of the Enuma elish, although the direct derivation of the Enuma elish list from the An:Anum one was disputed in a review by Wilfred Lambert (1984).


title: Marduk

text: The Marduk Prophecy is a "vaticinium ex eventu" text (a prophecy written after the events) describing the travels of the Marduk cult statue from Babylon. It relates its visits to the land of Ḫatti, corresponding to the statue's seizure during the sack of the city by Mursili I in 1595 BC (middle chronology); to Assyria, when Tukulti-Ninurta I overthrew Kashtiliash IV, taking the image to Assur in 1225 BC; and to Elam, when Kudur-Nahhunte ransacked the city and pilfered the statue around 1160 BC. Marduk addresses the prophecy to an assembly of the gods.


title: Marduk

text: The first two sojourns are described in glowing terms as good for both Babylon and the other places Marduk has graciously agreed to visit. The episode in Elam, however, is a disaster, where the gods have followed Marduk and abandoned Babylon to famine and pestilence. Marduk prophesies that he will return once more to Babylon to a messianic new king, who will bring salvation to the city and who will wreak a terrible revenge on the Elamites. This king is understood to be Nabu-kudurri-uṣur I, 1125–1103 BC. Thereafter the text lists various sacrifices.


title: Marduk

text: A copy was discovered in The House of Exorcist in the city of Assur and was written between 713–612 BC. It is closely related thematically to another "vaticinium ex eventu" text called the Shulgi prophecy, which probably followed it in a sequence of tablets. Both compositions present a favorable view of Assyria.


title: Marduk

text: During the first millennium BC, the Babylonians worshipped a deity under the title "Bel", meaning "lord", who was a syncretization of Marduk, Enlil, and the dying god Dumuzid. Bel held all the cultic titles of Enlil and his status in the Babylonian religion was largely the same. Eventually, Bel came to be seen as the god of order and destiny. The cult of Bel is a major component of the Jewish story of "Bel and the Dragon" from the apocryphal additions to Daniel. In the account, the Babylonians offer "twelve bushels of fine flour, twenty sheep, and fifty gallons of wine" every day to an idol of Bel and the food miraculously disappears overnight. The Persian king Cyrus the Great tells the Jewish wise man Daniel that the idol is clearly alive, because it eats the food that is offered to it, but Daniel objects that it "is only clay on the inside, and bronze on the outside, and has never tasted a thing." Daniel proves this by secretly covering the floor of the temple with ash. Daniel and Cyrus leave the temple and, when they return, Daniel shows the king the human footprints that have been left on the floor, proving that the food is really being eaten by the seventy priests of Bel. Bel is also mentioned in the writings of several Greek historians.


title: Veronica Lake

text: Constance Frances Marie Ockelman (November 14, 1922 – July 7, 1973), known professionally as Veronica Lake, was an American film, stage, and television actress. Lake was best known for her femme fatale roles in film noirs with Alan Ladd during the 1940s, her peek-a-boo hairstyle, and films such as "Sullivan's Travels" (1941) and "I Married a Witch" (1942). By the late 1940s, Lake's career began to decline, due in part to her alcoholism. She made only one film in the 1950s, but made several guest appearances on television. She returned to the big screen in 1966 in the film "Footsteps in the Snow" (1966), but the role failed to revitalize her career.


title: Veronica Lake

text: Lake's memoir, "Veronica: The Autobiography of Veronica Lake", was published in 1970. Her final screen role was in a low-budget horror film, "Flesh Feast" (1970). After years of heavy drinking, Lake died at the age of 50 in July 1973, from hepatitis and acute kidney injury.


title: Veronica Lake

text: Lake was born Constance Frances Marie Ockelman in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. Her father, Harry Eugene Ockelman, was of German and Irish descent, and worked for an oil company aboard a ship. He died in an oil tanker explosion in Marcus Hook, Pennsylvania in 1932. Lake's mother, Constance Frances Charlotta (née Trimble; 1902–1992), of Irish descent, in 1933 married Anthony Keane, a newspaper staff artist also of Irish descent, and Lake began using his surname.


title: Veronica Lake

text: The Keanes lived in Saranac Lake, New York, where young Lake attended St. Bernard's School. She was then sent to Villa Maria, an all-girls Catholic boarding school in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, from which she was expelled. Lake later claimed she attended McGill University and took a premed course for a year, intending to become a surgeon. This claim was included in several press biographies, although Lake later declared it was bogus. Lake subsequently apologized to the president of McGill, who was simply amused when she explained her habit of self-dramatizing. When her stepfather fell ill during her second year, the Keane family later moved to Miami, Florida. Lake attended Miami High School, where she was known for her beauty. She had a troubled childhood and was diagnosed with schizophrenia, according to her mother.


title: Veronica Lake

text: In 1938, the Keanes moved to Beverly Hills, California. While briefly under contract to MGM, Lake enrolled in that studio's acting farm, the Bliss-Hayden School of Acting (now the Beverly Hills Playhouse). She made friends with a girl named Gwen Horn and accompanied her when Horn went to audition at RKO. She appeared in the play "Thought for Food" in January 1939. A theatre critic from the "Los Angeles Times" called her "a fetching little trick" for her appearance in "She Made Her Bed".


title: Veronica Lake

text: Keane's first appearance on screen was as an extra for RKO, playing a small role as one of several students in the film "Sorority House" (1939). The part wound up being cut from the film, but she was encouraged to continue. Similar roles followed, including "All Women Have Secrets" (1939), "Dancing Co-Ed" (also 1939), "Young as You Feel" (1940), and "Forty Little Mothers" (also 1940). "Forty Little Mothers" was the first time she let her hair down on screen.


title: Veronica Lake

text: Lake attracted the interest of Fred Wilcox, an assistant director, who shot a test scene of her performing from a play and showed it to an agent. The agent, in turn, showed it to producer Arthur Hornblow Jr., who was looking for a new girl to play the part of a nightclub singer in a military drama, "I Wanted Wings" (1941). Hornblow changed the actress's name to Veronica Lake. According to him, her eyes, "calm and clear like a blue lake", were the inspiration for her new name.


title: Veronica Lake

text: The film became a big hit, and made the teenage Lake a star overnight; even before the film came out, Lake was dubbed "the find of 1941". During filming, Lake's long blonde hair accidentally fell over her right eye during a take and created a "peek-a-boo" effect. "I was playing a sympathetic drunk, I had my arm on a table ... it slipped ... and my hair – it was always baby fine and had this natural break – fell over my face ... It became my trademark and purely by accident", she recalled. The film's success influenced women to copy the style, which became Lake's trademark. However, Lake did not think this meant she would have a long career and maintained her goal was to be a surgeon. "Only the older actors keep on a long time ... I don't want to hang on after I've reached a peak. I'll go back to medical school", she said.


title: Veronica Lake

text: Paramount announced Lake to star in "China Pass" and a remake of "Blonde Venus". Instead, she was cast in Preston Sturges's "Sullivan's Travels" with Joel McCrea; and film noir "This Gun for Hire" (1942) with Robert Preston and Alan Ladd. Her scenes with Ladd in the latter became popular with audiences, prompting Paramount to reteam them in "The Glass Key", with Lake replacing Patricia Morison in the leading role. Lake was meant to be reunited with McCrea in the comedy "I Married a Witch", but his withdrawal from the project led to a delay in production; Fredric March was eventually cast as his replacement. Both films were highly successful, but also prevented a reunion with Hornblow for "Hong Kong" in which she was meant to co-star with Charles Boyer.


title: Veronica Lake

text: Upon the United States' entrance into World War II, Lake traveled throughout the United States to raise money for war bonds. She also became a popular pin-up girl for soldiers, and participated in awareness campaigns to help decrease accidents involving women getting their hair caught in machinery. Lake's only 1943 releases were both patriotic-themed. She made an appearance in Paramount's all-star musical revue "Star Spangled Rhythm" performing "A Sweater, Sarong and a Peek-A-Boo Bang" with Paulette Goddard and Dorothy Lamour. Her only film of the year was "So Proudly We Hail!" (1943) with Goddard and Claudette Colbert, in which she received acclaim for her role of a suicidal nurse. At the peak of her career, she was earning $4,500 a week.


title: Veronica Lake

text: Despite her initial success, Lake suffered a series of setbacks that ultimately derailed her career. Her complex personality quickly led to her to acquire a reputation for being difficult to work with. On "Sullivan's Travels", Lake did not disclose she was six months pregnant when filming began, upsetting director Preston Sturges to the point he had to be physically restrained. Lake also clashed with co-star McCrea to the point that he dropped out of "I Married a Witch", reportedly saying that "Life's too short for two films with Veronica Lake" (although he did later go on to work with her in "Ramrod" (1947)). His replacement Frederic March also clashed with Lake after he made crude remarks about her during pre-production. Eddie Bracken was quoted as saying, "She was known as 'The Bitch' and she deserved the title." "I Married A Witch" director René Clair had a differing view of Lake, saying "She was a very gifted girl, but she didn't believe she was gifted." Lake's behavior eventually spilt over into public view during a publicity stunt in which Lake's services as a dishwasher and revue performer were auctioned off for war bonds. One paper claimed Lake's "talk was on the grim side", while columnist Hedda Hopper claimed that "Lake clipped her own wings in her Boston bond appearance ... It's lucky for Lake, after Boston, that she isn't out of pictures".


title: Veronica Lake

text: With her role in "The Hour Before the Dawn" (1944), Lake changed her trademark hairstyle to encourage women working in war industry factories to adopt more practical, safer hairstyles. Lake had done so at the urging of the government to help decrease accidents involving women getting their hair caught in machinery. The film was not a success; Lake's image change and her role of unsympathetic role of Nazi spy Dora Bruckman earned negative reviews.


title: Veronica Lake

text: In late 1943, Lake took time off after undergoing a series of personal struggles. After tripping on a lightning cable while on the set of "The Hour Before Dawn", Lake went into premature delivery and gave birth to a son who died shortly after birth. Within weeks, Lake had also filed for divorce from her husband. Lake also began drinking more heavily during this time.


title: Veronica Lake

text: Upon returning to work in 1944, Lake took stock of her career, claiming, "I had to learn about acting. I've played all sorts of parts, taken just what came along regardless of high merit. In fact, I've been a sort of general utility person. I haven't liked all the roles. One or two were pretty bad". Lake also expressed interest in renegotiating her deal with Paramount:


title: Veronica Lake

text: The studio feels that way about it too. They have indicated they are going to fuss more about the pictures in which I appear. I think I'll enjoy being fussed about ... I want this to be the turning point and I think that it will. I am free and clear of unpleasant characters, unless they are strongly justified. I've had a varied experience playing them and also appearing as heroines. The roles themselves haven't been noteworthy and sometimes not even especially spotlighted, but I think they've all been beneficial in one way or another. From here on there should be a certain pattern of development, and that is what I am going to fight for if necessary, though I don't believe it will be because they are so understanding here at Paramount.


title: Veronica Lake

text: Lake returned with roles in the musical "Bring On the Girls" (1945) with Eddie Bracken and Sonny Tufts; and "Hold That Blonde" with Bracken. Lake enjoyed making the film, saying "it's a comedy, rather like what Carole Lombard used to do ... It represents a real change of pace". However, neither film was successful, as were minor roles in "Out of This World" and "Miss Susie Slagle's" (1946).


title: Veronica Lake

text: After her role in "Miss Susie Slagle's", producer John Houseman cast Lake in the film noir "The Blue Dahlia" (1946). The film reunited her with Alan Ladd, who had become one of Paramount's top stars since their last pairing in "The Glass Key". Lake was pleased with the role, but her performance in the film did not impress its screenwriter Raymond Chandler, who referred to her as "Moronica Lake". Nonetheless, it became her first success since "So Proudly We Hail!" and the largest of her career.


title: Veronica Lake

text: For the first time in her career, Lake ventured outside of Paramount with the United Artists Western "Ramrod" (1947). The film was directed by her then-husband Andre DeToth, in their first collaboration together. The film also reunited her with Joel McCrea, despite his earlier insistence that he would not work with her again. The film was also successful, continuing her comeback.


title: Veronica Lake

text: Following a cameo in "Variety Girl" (1947), Lake and Ladd reunited again for the crime film "Saigon" (1948). Lake returned to her former peek-a-boo hairstyle for the film, which unlike their previous films was not a noir. Reaction to the film was mixed; although financial success, it received a more mixed critical reception in comparison to the couple's earlier vehicles. Coupled with the flops "The Sainted Sisters" and "Isn't It Romantic?", Paramount opted not to renew Lake's contract in 1948.


title: Veronica Lake

text: Following her release from Paramount, Lake took a supporting role in "Slattery's Hurricane" (1949). The film, directed by DeToth, was released by 20th Century Fox. She also appeared with Zachary Scott in the Western "Stronghold" (1951). Shot in Mexico for Lippert Pictures, Lake later described the film as "a dog" and sued for unpaid wages on the film.


title: Veronica Lake

text: Lake and DeToth announced plans to make "Flanagan Boy" and "Before I Wake", the latter from a suspense novel by Mel Devrett. However, neither were made as the couple ran into financial difficulties. In April 1951, the IRS seized their home for unpaid taxes. Later that same year, Lake and DeToth filed for bankruptcy. Bankrupt and on the verge of a nervous breakdown, Lake left DeToth and flew alone to New York. Reflecting on her departure years later, Lake said:


title: Veronica Lake

text: "They said, 'She'll be back in a couple of months,'" recalled Lake. "Well I never returned. Enough was enough already. Did I want to be one of the walking dead or a real person?"


title: Veronica Lake

text: Lake performed in summer stock theatre and in stage roles in England. In October 1955, she collapsed in Detroit, where she had been appearing on stage in "The Little Hut".


title: Veronica Lake

text: After her third divorce, Lake drifted between cheap hotels in New York City, and was arrested several times for public drunkenness and disorderly conduct. In 1962, a "New York Post" reporter found her living at the all-women's Martha Washington Hotel in Manhattan, working as a waitress downstairs in the cocktail lounge. She was working under the name "Connie de Toth". Lake said she took the job in part because "I like people. I like to talk to them".


title: Veronica Lake

text: The reporter's widely distributed story led to speculation that Lake was destitute. After the story ran, fans of Lake sent her money which she returned as "a matter of pride". Lake vehemently denied that she was destitute and stated, "It's as though people were making me out to be down-and-out. I wasn't. I was paying $190 a month rent then, and that's a long way from being broke". The story did revive some interest in Lake and led to some television and stage appearances, including the 1963 off-Broadway revival of the musical "Best Foot Forward".


title: Veronica Lake

text: In 1966, she had a brief stint as a television hostess in Baltimore, Maryland, along with a largely ignored film role in "Footsteps in the Snow". She also continued appearing in stage roles. She went to Freeport in the Bahamas to visit a friend and ended up living there for a few years.


title: Veronica Lake

text: Lake's memoirs, "Veronica: The Autobiography of Veronica Lake", which she dictated to writer Donald Bain, were published in the United Kingdom in 1969 and in the United States the following year. In the book, Lake discusses her career, her failed marriages; romances with Howard Hughes, Tommy Manville and Aristotle Onassis; her alcoholism; and her guilt over not spending enough time with her children. In the book, Lake stated to Bain that her mother pushed her into a career as an actress. Bain quoted Lake, looking back at her career, as saying, "I never did cheesecake like Ann Sheridan or Betty Grable. I just used my hair". She also laughed off the term "sex symbol" and instead referred to herself as a "sex zombie".


title: Veronica Lake

text: When she visited the UK to promote her book in 1969, she received an offer to appear on stage in "Madam Chairman". Also in 1969, Lake essayed the role of Blanche DuBois in a revival of "A Streetcar Named Desire" on the English stage; her performance won rave reviews. With the proceeds from her autobiography, after she had divided them with Bain, she co-produced and starred in her final film, "Flesh Feast" (1970), a low-budget horror movie with a Nazi-myth storyline.


title: Veronica Lake

text: Lake's first marriage was to art director John S. Detlie, in 1940. They had a daughter, Elaine (born in 1941), and a son, Anthony (born July 8, 1943). According to news from the time, Lake's son was born prematurely after she tripped on a lighting cable while filming a movie. Anthony died on July 15, 1943. Lake and Detlie separated in August 1943 and divorced in December 1943.


title: Veronica Lake

text: In 1944, Lake married film director Andre DeToth with whom she had a son, Andre Anthony Michael III (known as Michael DeToth), and a daughter, Diana (born October 1948). Days before Diana's birth, Lake's mother sued her for support payments. After purchasing an airplane for de Toth, Lake earned her pilot's license in 1946. She later flew solo between Los Angeles and New York when leaving him. Lake and DeToth divorced in 1952.


title: Veronica Lake

text: In September 1955, she married songwriter Joseph Allan McCarthy. They were divorced in 1959. In 1969, she revealed that she rarely saw her children.


title: Veronica Lake

text: In June 1973, Lake returned from her autobiography promotion and summer stock tour in England to the United States and while traveling in Vermont, visited a local doctor, complaining of stomach pains. She was discovered to have cirrhosis of the liver as a result of her years of drinking, and on June 26, she checked into the University of Vermont Medical Center in Burlington.


title: Veronica Lake

text: She died there on July 7, 1973, of acute hepatitis and acute kidney injury. Her son Michael claimed her body. Lake's memorial service was held at the Universal Chapel in New York City on July 11.


title: Veronica Lake

text: She was cremated and, according to her wishes, her ashes were scattered off the coast of the Virgin Islands. In 2004, some of Lake's ashes were reportedly found in a New York antique store.


title: Veronica Lake

text: For her contribution to the motion picture industry, Lake has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6918 Hollywood Boulevard.


title: Veronica Lake

text: Clips from her role in "The Glass Key" (1942) were integrated into the film "Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid" (1982) as character Monica Stillpond.


title: Veronica Lake

text: Lake was one of the models for the animated character Jessica Rabbit in the film "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" (1988), especially for her hairstyle.


title: Veronica Lake

text: In the 1997 film "L.A. Confidential", Kim Basinger won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of a prostitute who is a Veronica Lake look-alike.


title: Veronica Lake

text: A geographical feature called "Lake Veronica" was a recurring joke in the "Rocky and Bullwinkle" series and film.


title: Veronica Lake

text: In the video game "" (2013-14), the visual style of Elizabeth character was inspired by Veronica Lake's femme fatale roles.


title: Veronica Lake

text: In "" (2013), Robert B. Sherman's posthumously released autobiography, he writes about his teenage friendship with Lake.


title: Veronica Lake

text: Veronica Lake's image was used as a sight gag in the movie "The Major and the Minor" (1942) with Ginger Rogers and Ray Milland.


title: Ghent

text: Ghent ( ; ; traditional English: Gaunt) is a city and a municipality in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is the capital and largest city of the East Flanders province, and the third largest in the country, exceeded in size only by Brussels and Antwerp. It is a port and university city.


title: Ghent

text: The city originally started as a settlement at the confluence of the Rivers Scheldt and Leie and in the Late Middle Ages became one of the largest and richest cities of northern Europe, with some 50,000 people in 1300.


title: Ghent

text: The municipality comprises the city of Ghent proper and the surrounding suburbs of Afsnee, Desteldonk, Drongen, Gentbrugge, Ledeberg, Mariakerke, Mendonk, Oostakker, Sint-Amandsberg, Sint-Denijs-Westrem, Sint-Kruis-Winkel, Wondelgem and Zwijnaarde. With 262,219 inhabitants at the beginning of 2019, Ghent is Belgium's second largest municipality by number of inhabitants. The metropolitan area, including the outer commuter zone, covers an area of and had a total population of 560,522 as of 1 January 2018, which ranks it as the fourth most populous in Belgium. The current mayor of Ghent, Mathias De Clercq is from the liberal & democratic party Open VLD.


title: Ghent

text: The ten-day-long Ghent Festival ("Gentse Feesten" in Dutch) is held every year and attended by about 1–1.5 million visitors.


title: Ghent

text: Archaeological evidence shows human presence around the confluence of the Scheldt and the Leie going back as far as the Stone Age and the Iron Age.


title: Ghent

text: Most historians believe that the older name for Ghent, 'Ganda', is derived from the Celtic word "ganda", which means confluence. Other sources connect its name with an obscure deity named Gontia.


title: Ghent

text: There are no written records of the Roman period, but archaeological research confirms that the Gent area continued to be inhabited.


title: Ghent

text: When the Franks invaded the Roman territories from the end of the 4th century and well into the 5th century, they brought their language with them, and Celtic and Latin were replaced by Old Dutch.


title: Ghent

text: Around 650, Saint Amand founded two abbeys in Ghent: St. Peter's (Blandinium) and Saint Bavo's Abbey. Around 800, Louis the Pious, son of Charlemagne, appointed Einhard, the biographer of Charlemagne, abbot of both abbeys. The city grew from several nuclei, the abbeys, and a commercial centre. However, in 851 and 879 the city was plundered by Vikings.


title: Ghent

text: Under the protection of the County of Flanders the city recovered and flourished from the 11th century, growing to become a small city-state. By the 13th century, Ghent was the biggest city in Europe north of the Alps after Paris; it was bigger than Cologne or Moscow. Up to 65,000 people lived within the city walls. The belfry and the towers of the Saint Bavo Cathedral and Saint Nicholas' Church are just a few examples of the skyline of the period.


title: Ghent

text: The rivers flowed in an area where much land was periodically flooded. These rich grass 'meersen' ("water-meadows": a word related to the English 'marsh') were ideally suited for herding sheep, the wool of which was used to make cloth. Ghent was the leading city for cloth during the Middle Ages.


title: Ghent

text: The wool industry, originally established at Bruges, created the first European industrialized zone in Ghent in the High Middle Ages. The mercantile zone was so highly developed that wool had to be imported from Scotland and England. This was one of the reasons for Flanders' good relationship with Scotland and England. Ghent was the birthplace of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster. Trade with England (but not Scotland) suffered significantly during the Hundred Years' War.


title: Ghent

text: The city recovered in the 15th century when Flanders was united with neighbouring provinces under the Dukes of Burgundy. High taxes led to a rebellion and eventually the Battle of Gavere in 1453, in which Ghent suffered a terrible defeat at the hands of Philip the Good. Around this time the centre of political and social importance in the Low Countries started to shift from Flanders (Bruges–Ghent) to Brabant (Antwerp–Brussels), although Ghent continued to play an important role. With Bruges, the city led two revolts against Maximilian of Austria, the first monarch of the House of Habsburg to rule Flanders.


title: Ghent

text: In 1500, Juana of Castile gave birth to Charles V, who became Holy Roman Emperor and King of Spain. Although native to Ghent, he punished the city after the 1539 Revolt of Ghent and obliged the city's nobles to walk in front of the Emperor barefoot with a noose (Dutch: ""strop"") around the neck; since this incident, the people of Ghent have been called ""Stroppendragers"" (noose bearers). Saint Bavo Abbey (not to be confused with the nearby Saint Bavo Cathedral) was abolished, torn down, and replaced with a fortress for Royal Spanish troops. Only a small portion of the abbey was spared demolition.


title: Ghent

text: The late 16th and 17th centuries brought devastation because of the Eighty Years' War. The war ended the role of Ghent as a centre of international importance. In 1745, the city was captured by French forces during the War of the Austrian Succession before being returned to the Empire of Austria under the House of Habsburg following the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748, when this part of Flanders became known as the Austrian Netherlands until 1815, the exile of the French Emperor Napoleon I, the end of the French Revolutionary and later Napoleonic Wars and the peace treaties arrived at by the Congress of Vienna.


title: Ghent

text: In the 18th and 19th centuries, Ghent's textile industry flourished again. Lieven Bauwens, having smuggled the industrial and factory machine plans out of England, introduced the first mechanical weaving machine on the European continent in 1800.


title: Ghent

text: The Treaty of Ghent, negotiated here and adopted on Christmas Eve 1814, formally ended the War of 1812 between Great Britain and the United States (the North American phase of the Napoleonic Wars). After the Battle of Waterloo, Ghent and Flanders, previously ruled from the House of Habsburg in Vienna as the Austrian Netherlands, became a part of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands with the northern Dutch for 15 years. In this period, Ghent established its own university (1816) and a new connection to the sea (1824–27).


title: Ghent

text: After the Belgian Revolution, with the loss of port access to the sea for more than a decade, the local economy collapsed, and the first Belgian trade union originated in Ghent. In 1913 there was a world exhibition in Ghent. As a preparation for these festivities, the Sint-Pieters railway station was completed in 1912.


title: Ghent

text: Ghent was occupied by the Germans in both World Wars but escaped severe destruction. The life of the people and the German invaders in Ghent during World War I is described by H. Wandt in "etappenleven te Gent". In World War II the city was liberated by the British 7th "Desert Rats" Armoured Division and local Belgian fighters on 6 September 1944, with the northern suburbs and the industrial area cleared over the following days by the 15th (Scottish) Infantry Division.


title: Ghent

text: The climate in this area has mild differences between highs and lows, and there is adequate rainfall year-round. According to the Köppen climate classification system, Ghent has a marine west coast climate, abbreviated "Cfb" on climate maps.


title: Ghent

text: Ghent is home to many people of foreign origin and immigrants. The 2020 census revealed that 35.5% of the inhabitants had roots outside of Belgium and 15.3% had a non-Belgian nationality. Many neighbourhoods already have a minority-majority population, primarily in the north, east, and west of the city and some pockets in the south. Some examples are Brugse Poort, Dampoort, Rabot, Ledeberg, Nieuw Gent/UZ and the area around Sleepstraat (known for its many Turkish restaurants).


title: Ghent

text: Much of the city's medieval architecture remains intact and is remarkably well preserved and restored. Its centre is a carfree area. Highlights are the Saint Bavo Cathedral with the "Ghent Altarpiece", the belfry, the Gravensteen castle, and the splendid architecture along the old Graslei harbour. Ghent has established a blend between comfort of living and history; it is not a city-museum. The city of Ghent also houses three béguinages and numerous churches including Saint-Jacob's church, Saint-Nicolas' church, Saint Michael's church and St. Stefanus.


title: Ghent

text: In the 19th century Ghent's most famous architect, Louis Roelandt, built the university hall Aula, the opera house, and the main courthouse. Highlights of modern architecture are the university buildings (the "Boekentoren" or Book Tower) by Henry Van de Velde. There are also a few theatres from diverse periods.


title: Ghent

text: The beguinages, as well as the belfry and adjacent cloth hall, were recognized by UNESCO as World Heritage Sites in 1998 and 1999.


title: Ghent

text: The Zebrastraat, a social experiment in which an entirely renovated site unites living, economy, and culture, can also be found in Ghent.


title: Ghent

text: One of the more notable pieces of contemporary architecture in Ghent is De Krook, the new central library and media center, a collaboration between local firm Coussée and Goris and Catalan firm RCR Arquitectos.


title: Ghent

text: Important museums in Ghent are the Museum voor Schone Kunsten (Museum of Fine Arts), with paintings by Hieronymus Bosch, Peter Paul Rubens, and many Flemish masters; the SMAK or Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst (City Museum for Contemporary Art), with works of the 20th century, including Joseph Beuys and Andy Warhol; and the Design Museum Gent with masterpieces of Victor Horta and Le Corbusier. The Huis van Alijn (House of the Alijn family) was originally a beguinage and is now a museum for folk art where theatre and puppet shows for children are presented. The "Museum voor Industriële Archeologie en Textiel" or MIAT displays the industrial strength of Ghent with recreations of workshops and stores from the 1800s and original spinning and weaving machines that remain from the time when the building was a weaving mill. The Ghent City Museum (Stadsmuseum, abbreviated STAM), is committed to recording and explaining the city's past and its inhabitants, and to preserving the present for future generations.


title: Ghent

text: In Ghent and other regions of East Flanders, bakeries sell a donut-shaped bun called a "mastel" (plural "mastellen"), which is basically a bagel. "Mastellen" are also called "Saint Hubert bread", because, on the Saint's feast day, which is 3 November, the bakers bring their batches to the early Mass to be blessed. Traditionally, it was thought that blessed mastellen immunized against rabies.


title: Ghent

text: Other local delicacies are the praline chocolates from local producers such as Leonidas, the cuberdons or 'neuzekes' ('noses'), cone-shaped purple jelly-filled candies, 'babelutten' ('babblers'), hard butterscotch-like candy, and of course, on the more fiery side, the famous 'Tierenteyn', a hot but refined mustard that has some affinity to French 'Dijon' mustard.


title: Ghent

text: Stoverij is a classic Flemish meat stew, preferably made with a generous addition of brown 'Trappist' (strong abbey beer) and served with French fries. 'Waterzooi' is a local stew originally made from freshwater fish caught in the rivers and creeks of Ghent, but nowadays often made with chicken instead of fish. It is usually served nouvelle-cuisine-style and supplemented by a large pot on the side.


title: Ghent

text: The city promotes a meat-free day on Thursdays called "Donderdag Veggiedag" with vegetarian food being promoted in public canteens for civil servants and elected councillors, in all city-funded schools, and promotion of vegetarian eating options in town (through the distribution of "veggie street maps"). This campaign is linked to the recognition of the detrimental environmental effects of meat production, which the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization has established to represent nearly one-fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions.


title: Ghent

text: The traditional confectionery is the cuberdon (also known as neuzekes or little noses). These are conical sweets with a soft centre, usually raspberry but other flavours can be found on the many street stalls around the city. Between 2011 and 2015 a feud between two local vendors made international news.


title: Ghent

text: The city is host to some big cultural events such as the Gentse Feesten, the International Film Festival of Ghent (with the World Soundtrack Awards) and the . Also, every five years, an extensive botanical exhibition ("Gentse Floraliën") takes place in Flanders Expo in Ghent, attracting numerous visitors to the city.


title: Ghent

text: The Gentse Feesten is an annual festival that lasts for ten days. It has been held for more than 50 years (since 1969), but has not taken place in 2020 and 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, being held again in the summer of 2022.


title: Ghent

text: The Festival of Flanders had its 50th celebration in 2008. In Ghent, it opens with the OdeGand City festivities that take place on the second Saturday of September. Some 50 concerts take place in diverse locations throughout the medieval inner city and some 250 international artists perform..


title: Ghent

text: The city of Ghent will co-host the 2021 World Choir Games together with the city of Antwerp. Organised by the Interkultur Foundation, the World Choir Games is the biggest choral competition and festival in the world.


title: Ghent

text: The numerous parks in the city can also be considered tourist attractions. Most notably, Ghent boasts a nature reserve (Bourgoyen-Ossemeersen, 230 hectare (570 acre)) and a recreation park (Blaarmeersen, 87 hectares; 215 acres).


title: Ghent

text: The port of Ghent, in the north of the city, is the third-largest port of Belgium. It is accessed by the Ghent–Terneuzen Canal, which ends near the Dutch port of Terneuzen on the Western Scheldt. The port houses, among others, large companies like ArcelorMittal, Volvo Cars, Volvo Trucks, Volvo Parts, Honda, and Stora Enso.


title: Ghent

text: The Ghent University and several research-oriented companies, such as Ablynx, Innogenetics, Cropdesign, and Bayer Cropscience, are situated in the central and southern part of the city.


title: Ghent

text: As the largest city in East Flanders, Ghent has many hospitals, schools, and shopping streets. Flanders Expo, the biggest event hall in Flanders and the second biggest in Belgium, is also located in Ghent. Tourism is becoming a major employer in the local area.


title: Ghent

text: Apart from the city buses mentioned above, Ghent also has numerous regional bus lines connecting it to towns and villages across the province of East Flanders. All of these buses stop in at least one of the city's regional bus hubs at either Sint-Pieters Station, Dampoort Station, Zuid or Rabot.


title: Ghent

text: International buses connecting Ghent to other European destinations are usually found at the Dampoort Station. A couple of private bus companies such as Eurolines, Megabus and Flixbus operate from the Dampoort bus hub.


title: Ghent

text: Buses to and from Belgium's first (Brussels Airport) and second airport (Brussels South Charleroi Airport) are operated by Flibco, and can be found at the rear exit of the Sint-Pieters Station.


title: Ghent

text: Ghent has the largest designated cyclist area in Europe, with nearly of cycle paths and more than 700 one-way streets, where bikes are allowed to go against the traffic. It also boasts Belgium's first bicycle boulevard, where cars are considered 'guests' and must stay behind cyclists. In 2013 it began doing on-street surveys of bicycles, adding bicycle parking racks in neighbourhoods where they were needed. In 2017 the city changed traffic circulation patterns to favour cycling. The switch was done over the course of a single weekend, changing traffic circulation on over 80 streets and 2500 road signs. It expanded the car-free zone in the historic city center more than twofold. It also put in radial barriers to car traffic, thus shifting it onto the inner ring road.


title: Ghent

text: More cyclists means a higher demand for bicycle parking stations. In 2010, the plans to renovate Gent-Sint-Pieters railway station, included 10,000 bicycle parking spots. In 2020 several sections of the underground parking facilities have been built, and the targets have been adjusted to a total of 17,000 parking spots.


title: Ghent

text: In the Belgian first football division Ghent is represented by K.A.A. Gent, who became Belgian football champions for the first time in its history in 2015. Another Ghent football club is KRC Gent-Zeehaven, playing in the Belgian fourth division. A football match at the 1920 Summer Olympics was held in Ghent.


title: Ghent

text: The Six Days of Ghent, a six-day track cycling race, is held annually, taking place in the Kuipke velodrome in Ghent. In road cycling, the city hosts the start and finish of the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, the traditional opening race of the cobbled classics season. It also lends its name to another cobbled classic, Gent–Wevelgem, although the race now starts in the nearby city of Deinze.


title: Ghent

text: The city hosts an annual athletics IAAF event in the Flanders Sports Arena: the Indoor Flanders meeting where two-time Olympic champion Hicham El Guerrouj set an indoor world record of 3:48.45 in the mile run in 1997.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: Chinese folk religion, also known as Chinese popular religion comprehends a range of traditional religious practices of Han Chinese, including the Chinese diaspora. Vivienne Wee described it as "an empty bowl, which can variously be filled with the contents of institutionalised religions such as Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, the Chinese syncretic religions". This includes the veneration of "shen" (spirits) and ancestors, exorcism of demonic forces, and a belief in the rational order of nature, balance in the universe and reality that can be influenced by human beings and their rulers, as well as spirits and gods. Worship is devoted to gods and immortals, who can be deities of places or natural phenomena, of human behaviour, or founders of family lineages. Stories of these gods are collected into the body of Chinese mythology. By the Song dynasty (960-1279), these practices had been blended with Buddhist doctrines and Taoist teachings to form the popular religious system which has lasted in many ways until the present day. The present day government of mainland China, like the imperial dynasties, tolerates popular religious organizations if they bolster social stability but suppresses or persecutes those that they fear would undermine it.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: After the fall of the empire in 1911, governments and modernizing elites condemned "feudal superstition" and opposed or attempted to eradicate traditional religion in order to promote modern values. By the late 20th century, these attitudes began to change both in Taiwan and in mainland China. Many scholars now view folk religion in a positive light. In recent times traditional religion is experiencing a revival in both China and Taiwan. Some forms have received official understanding or recognition as a preservation of traditional culture, such as Mazuism and the Sanyi teaching in Fujian, Huangdi worship, and other forms of local worship, for example the Longwang, Pangu or Caishen worship.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: Geomancy, acupuncture, and traditional Chinese medicine reflect this world view, since features of the landscape as well as organs of the body are in correlation with the five powers and yin and yang.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: Chinese religions have a variety of sources, local forms, founder backgrounds, and ritual and philosophical traditions. Despite this diversity, there is a common core that can be summarised as four theological, cosmological, and moral concepts: "Tian" (), the transcendent source of moral meaning; "qi" (), the breath or energy that animates the universe; "jingzu" (), the veneration of ancestors; and "bao ying" (), moral reciprocity; together with two traditional concepts of fate and meaning: "ming yun" (), the personal destiny or burgeoning; and "yuan fen" (), “fateful coincidence”, good and bad chances and potential relationships.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: Yin and yang () is the polarity that describes the order of the universe, held in balance by the interaction of principles of “extension” () and principles of “returning” (), with "yang" ("act") usually preferred over "yin" ("receptiveness") in common religion. "Ling" (), "numen" or "sacred", is the "medium" of the two states and the inchoate order of creation.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: The Chinese language historically has not had a concept or overarching name for "religion". In English, the terms "popular religion" or "folk religion" have long been used to mean local religious life. In Chinese academic literature and common usage "folk religion" () refers to specific organised folk religious sects.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: Contemporary academic study of traditional cults and the creation of a government agency that gave legal status to this religion have created proposals to formalise names and deal more clearly with folk religious sects and help conceptualise research and administration. The terms that have been proposed include "Chinese native religion" or "Chinese indigenous religion" (), "Chinese ethnic religion" (), or "Chinese religion" () viewed as comparable to the usage of the term "Hinduism" for Indian religion. In Malaysia, reports the scholar Tan Chee-Beng, Chinese do not have a definite term for their traditional religion, which is not surprising because "the religion is diffused into various aspects of Chinese culture". They refer to their religion as "bai fo" or "bai shen", which prompted Allan A. J. Elliott to suggest the term ""shenism"" (). Tan however, comments that is not the way the Chinese refer to their religion, which in any case includes worship of ancestors, not "shen", and suggests it is logical to use "Chinese Religion". "Shenxianism" (, literally, "religion of deities and immortals"), is a term partly inspired by Elliott's neologism, "Shenism".


title: Chinese folk religion

text: In the late Qing dynasty scholars Yao Wendong and Chen Jialin used the term "shenjiao" not referring to Shinto as a definite religious system, but to local "shin" beliefs in Japan. Other terms are "folk cults" (), "spontaneous religion" (), "lived (or living) religion" (), "local religion" (), and "diffused religion" (). "Folk beliefs" (), is a seldom used term taken by scholars in colonial Taiwan from Japanese during Japan's occupation (1895–1945). It was used between the 1990s and the early 21st century among mainland Chinese scholars.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: "Shendao" () is a term already used in the "Yijing" referring to the divine order of nature. Around the time of the spread of Buddhism in the Han period (206 BCE – 220 CE), it was used to distinguish the indigenous ancient religion from the imported religion. Ge Hong used it in his "Baopuzi" as a synonym for Taoism. The term was subsequently adopted in Japan in the 6th century as "Shindo", later "Shinto", with the same purpose of identification of the Japanese indigenous religion. In the 14th century, the Hongwu Emperor (Taizu of the Ming dynasty, 1328–1398) used the term "Shendao" clearly identifying the indigenous cults, which he strengthened and systematised.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: "Chinese Universism", not in the sense of "universalism", that is a system of universal application, that is Tian in Chinese thought, is a coinage of Jan Jakob Maria de Groot that refers to the metaphysical perspective that lies behind the Chinese religious tradition. De Groot calls Chinese Universism "the ancient metaphysical view that serves as the basis of all classical Chinese thought. ... In Universism, the three components of integrated universe—understood epistemologically, 'heaven, earth and man', and understood ontologically, 'Taiji (the great beginning, the highest ultimate), yin and yang'—are formed".


title: Chinese folk religion

text: In 1931 Hu Shih argued that "Two great religions have played tremendously important roles throughout Chinese history. One is Buddhism which came to China probably before the Christian era but which began to exert nation-wide influence only after the third century A.D. The other great religion has had no generic name, but I propose to call it Siniticism. It is the native ancient religion of the Han Chinese people: it dates back to time immemorial, over 10,000 years old, and includes all such later phases of its development as Moism, Confucianism (as a state religion), and all the various stages of the Taoist religion."


title: Chinese folk religion

text: Contemporary Chinese scholars have identified what they find to be the essential features of the ancient (or indigenous—ethnic) religion of China. According to Chen Xiaoyi () local indigenous religion is the crucial factor for a harmonious "religious ecology" (), that is the balance of forces in a given community. Professor Han Bingfang () has called for a rectification of distorted names (). Distorted names are "superstitious activities" () or "feudal superstition" (), that were derogatorily applied to the indigenous religion by leftist policies. Christian missionaries also used the propaganda label "feudal superstition" in order to undermine their religious competitor. Han calls for the acknowledgment of the ancient Chinese religion for what it really is, the "core and soul of popular culture" ().


title: Chinese folk religion

text: According to Chen Jinguo (), the ancient Chinese religion is a core element of Chinese cultural and religious self-awareness (). He has proposed a theoretical definition of Chinese indigenous religion in "three inseparable attributes" (), apparently inspired to Tang Junyi's thought:


title: Chinese folk religion

text: Ancient Chinese religious practices are diverse, varying from province to province and even from one village to another, for religious behaviour is bound to local communities, kinship, and environments. In each setting, institution and ritual behaviour assumes highly organised forms. Temples and the gods in them acquire symbolic character and perform specific functions involved in the everyday life of the local community. Local religion preserves aspects of natural beliefs such as totemism, animism, and shamanism.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: Ancient Chinese religion pervades all aspects of social life. Many scholars, following the lead of sociologist C. K. Yang, see the ancient Chinese religion deeply embedded in family and civic life, rather than expressed in a separate organisational structure like a "church", as in the West.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: Deity or temple associations and lineage associations, pilgrimage associations and formalised prayers, rituals and expressions of virtues, are the common forms of organisation of Chinese religion on the local level. Neither initiation rituals nor official membership into a church organisation separate from one person's native identity are mandatory in order to be involved in religious activities. Contrary to institutional religions, Chinese religion does not require "conversion" for participation.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: The prime criterion for participation in the ancient Chinese religion is not "to believe" in an official doctrine or dogma, but "to belong" to the local unit of an ancient Chinese religion, that is the "association", the "village" or the "kinship", with their gods and rituals. Scholar Richard Madsen describes the ancient Chinese religion, adopting the definition of Tu Weiming, as characterised by "immanent transcendence" grounded in a devotion to "concrete humanity", focused on building moral community within concrete humanity.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: Inextricably linked to the aforementioned question to find an appropriate "name" for the ancient Chinese religion, is the difficulty to define it or clearly outline its boundaries. Old sinology, especially Western, tried to distinguish "popular" and "élite" traditions (the latter being Confucianism and Taoism conceived as independent systems). Chinese sinology later adopted another dichotomy which continues in contemporary studies, distinguishing "folk beliefs" ("minjian xinyang") and "folk religion" ("minjian zongjiao"), the latter referring to the doctrinal sects.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: Many studies have pointed out that it is impossible to draw clear distinctions, and since the 1970s several sinologists swung to the idea of a unified "ancient Chinese religion" that would define the Chinese national identity, similarly to Hindu Dharma for India and Shinto for Japan. Other sinologists who have not espoused the idea of a unified "national religion" have studied Chinese religion as a system of meaning, or have brought further development in C. K. Yang's distinction between "institutional religion" and "diffused religion", the former functioning as a separate body from other social institutions, and the latter intimately part of secular social institutions.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: By the Han dynasty, the ancient Chinese religion mostly consisted of people organising into "shè" ("group", "body", local community altars) who worshipped their godly principle. In many cases the "lord of the "she"" was the god of the earth, and in others a deified virtuous person ("xiān" , "immortal"). Some cults such as that of Liu Zhang, a king in what is today Shandong, date back to this period.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: From the 3rd century on by the Northern Wei, accompanying the spread of Buddhism in China, strong influences from the Indian subcontinent penetrated the ancient Chinese indigenous religion. A cult of Ganesha ( "Xiàngtóushén", "Elephant-Head God") is attested in the year 531. Pollination from Indian religions included processions of carts with images of gods or floats borne on shoulders, with musicians and chanting.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: The ancient Chinese religion was subject to persecution in the 19th and 20th centuries. Many ancient temples were destroyed during the Taiping Rebellion and the Boxer Rebellion in the late 1800s. After the Xinhai Revolution of 1911 "most temples were turned to other uses or were destroyed, with a few changed into schools". During the Japanese invasion of China between 1937 and 1945 many temples were used as barracks by soldiers and destroyed in warfare.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: In the past, popular cults were regulated by imperial government policies, promoting certain deities while suppressing others. In the 20th century, with the decline of the empire, increasing urbanisation and Western influence, the issue for the new intellectuals who looked to the West was no longer controlling unauthorised worship of unregistered gods, but the delegitimisation of the ancient Chinese religion as a superstitious obstacle to modernisation.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: In 1904, a reform policy of the late Qing dynasty provided that schools would be built through the confiscation of temple property. "Anti-superstition" campaigns followed. The Nationalist government of the Republic of China intensified the suppression of the ancient Chinese religion with the 1928 "Standards for retaining or abolishing gods and shrines"; the policy attempted to abolish the cults of all gods with the exception of ancient great human heroes and sages such as Yu the Great, Guan Yu and Confucius.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: These policies were the background for those implemented by Communist Party after winning the Chinese Civil War and taking power in 1949. The Cultural Revolution, between 1966 and 1976 of the Chairman Mao period in the PRC, was the most serious and last systematic effort to destroy the ancient Chinese religion, while in Taiwan the ancient Chinese religion was very well-preserved but controlled by Republic of China (Taiwan) president Chiang Kai-Shek during his Chinese Cultural Renaissance to counter the Cultural Revolution.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: After 1978 the ancient Chinese religion started to rapidly revive in China, with millions of temples being rebuilt or built from scratch. Since the 1980s the central government moved to a policy of benign neglect or "wu wei" () in regard to rural community life, and the local government's new regulatory relationship with local society is characterised by practical mutual dependence; these factors have given much space for popular religion to develop. In recent years, in some cases, local governments have taken an even positive and supportive attitude towards indigenous religion in the name of promoting cultural heritage.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: Instead of signaling the demise of traditional ancient religion, China and Taiwan's economic and technological industrialization and development has brought a spiritual renewal. As its images and practices integrate the codes of the ancient Chinese culture, the ancient Chinese religion provides the Han Chinese people in both China and Taiwan a means to face the challenges of modernisation.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: Ancient Chinese religion draws from a vast heritage of sacred books, which according to the general worldview treat cosmology, history and mythology, mysticism and philosophy, as aspects of the same thing. Historically, the revolutionary shift toward a preference for textual transmission and text-based knowledge over long-standing oral traditions first becomes detectable in the 1st century CE. The spoken word, however, never lost its power. Rather than writing replacing the power of the spoken word, both existed side by side. Scriptures had to be recited and heard in order to be efficacious, and the limitations of written texts were acknowledged particularly in Taoism and folk religion.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: There are the classic books () such as the Confucian canon including the "Four Books and Five Classics" () and the "Classic of Filial Piety" (), then there are the "Mozi" (Mohism), the "Huainanzi", the "Shizi" and the "Xunzi". The "Interactions Between Heaven and Mankind" () is a set of Confucianised doctrines compiled in the Han dynasty by Dong Zhongshu, discussing politics in accordance with a personal "Tian" of whom mankind is viewed as the incarnation.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: Taoism has a separate body of philosophical, theological and ritual literature, including the fundamental "Daodejing" (), the "Daozang" (Taoist Canon), the "Liezi" and the "Zhuangzi", and a great number of other texts either included or not within the Taoist Canon. Vernacular literature and the folk religious sects have produced a great body of popular mythological and theological literature, the "baojuan" ().


title: Chinese folk religion

text: Recent discovery of ancient books, such as the "Guodian texts" in the 1990s and the "Huangdi sijing" () in the 1970s, has given rise to new interpretations of the ancient Chinese religion and new directions in its post-Maoist renewal. Many of these books overcome the dichotomy between Confucian and Taoist traditions. The Guodian texts include, among others, the "Taiyi Shengshui" (). Another book attributed to the Yellow Emperor is the "Huangdi yinfujing" ().


title: Chinese folk religion

text: Classical books of mythology include the "Classic of Mountains and Seas" (), the "Record of Heretofore Lost Works" (), "The Peach Blossom Spring" (), the "Investiture of the Gods" (), and the "Journey to the West" () among others.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: Fan and Chen summarise four spiritual, cosmological, and moral concepts: "Tian" (), Heaven, the source of moral meaning; "qi" (), the breath or substance of which all things are made; the practice of "jingzu" (), the veneration of ancestors; "bao ying" (), moral reciprocity.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: Confucians, Taoists, and other schools of thought share basic concepts of "Tian". "Tian" is both the physical heavens, the home of the sun, moon, and stars, and also the home of the gods and ancestors. "Tian" by extension is source of moral meaning, as seen in the political principle, the Mandate of Heaven, which holds that "Tian", responding to human virtue, grants the imperial family the right to rule and withdraws it when the dynasty declines in virtue. This creativity or virtue ("de") in humans is the potentiality to transcend the given conditions and act wisely and morally. "Tian" is therefore both transcendent and immanent.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: "Tian" is defined in many ways, with many names, the most widely known being "Tàidì" (the "Great Deity") and "Shàngdì" (the "Primordial Deity"). The concept of "Shangdi" is especially rooted in the tradition of the Shang dynasty, which gave prominence to the worship of ancestral gods and cultural heroes. The "Primordial Deity" or "Primordial Emperor" was considered to be embodied in the human realm as the lineage of imperial power. "Di" () is a term meaning "deity" or "emperor" (Latin: "imperator", verb "im-perare"; "making from within"), used either as a name of the primordial god or as a title of natural gods, describing a principle that exerts a fatherly dominance over what it produces. With the Zhou dynasty, that preferred a religion focused on gods of nature, "Tian" became a more abstract and impersonal idea of God. A popular representation is the Jade Deity ( "Yùdì") or Jade Emperor ( "Yùhuáng") originally formulated by Taoists. According to classical theology he manifests in five primary forms ( "Wǔfāng Shàngdì", "Five Forms of the Highest Deity").


title: Chinese folk religion

text: The "qi" is the breath or substance of which all things are made, including inanimate matter, the living beings, thought and gods. It is the continuum energy—matter. Stephen F. Teiser (1996) translates it as "stuff" of "psychophysical stuff". Neo-Confucian thinkers such as Zhu Xi developed the idea of "li" , the "reason", "order" of Heaven, that is to say the pattern through which the "qi" develops, that is the polarity of "yin" and "yang". In Taoism the "Tao" ("Way") denotes in one concept both the impersonal absolute "Tian" and its order of manifestation ("li").


title: Chinese folk religion

text: "Yin" and "yang" , whose root meanings respectively are "shady" and "sunny", or "dark" and "light", are modes of manifestation of the "qi", not material things in themselves. Yin is the "qi" in its dense, dark, sinking, wet, condensing mode; yang denotes the light, and the bright, rising, dry, expanding modality. Described as "Taiji" (the "Great Pole"), they represent the polarity and complementarity that enlivens the cosmos. They can also be conceived as "disorder" and "order", "activity" or "passivity", with act ("yang") usually preferred over receptiveness ("yin").


title: Chinese folk religion

text: The concept ""shén"" (cognate of "shēn", "extending, expanding") is translated as "gods" or "spirits". There are "shén" of nature; gods who were once people, such as the warrior Guan Gong; household gods, such as the Stove God; as well as ancestral gods ("zu" or "zuxian"). In the domain of humanity the "shen" is the "psyche", or the power or agency within humans. They are intimately involved in the life of this world. As spirits of stars, mountains and streams, "shen" exert a direct influence on things, making phenomena appear and things grow or extend themselves. An early Chinese dictionary, the "Shuowen jiezi" by Xu Shen, explains that they "are the spirits of Heaven" and they "draw out the ten thousand things". As forces of growth the gods are regarded as "yang", opposed to a "yin" class of entities called ""guǐ"" (cognate of "guī", "return, contraction"), chaotic beings. A disciple of Zhu Xi noted that "between Heaven and Earth there is no thing that does not consist of yin and yang, and there is no place where yin and yang are not found. Therefore, there is no place where gods and spirits do not exist". The dragon is a symbol of "yang", the principle of generation.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: In Taoist and Confucian thought, the supreme God and its order and the multiplicity of "shen" are identified as one and the same. In the "Yizhuan", a commentary to the "Yijing", it is written that "one "yin" and one "yang" are called the Tao ... the unfathomable change of "yin" and "yang" is called "shen"". In other texts, with a tradition going back to the Han period, the gods and spirits are explained to be names of "yin" and "yang", forces of contraction and forces of growth.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: While in popular thought they have conscience and personality, Neo-Confucian scholars tended to rationalise them. Zhu Xi wrote that they act according to the "li". Zhang Zai wrote that they are "the inherent potential ("liang neng") of the two ways of "qi"". Cheng Yi said that they are "traces of the creative process". Chen Chun wrote that "shen" and "gui" are expansions and contractions, going and coming, of "yin" and "yang"—"qi".


title: Chinese folk religion

text: Like all things in matter, the human soul is characterised by a dialectic of "yang" and "yin". These correspond to the "hun" and "po" () respectively. The "hun" is the traditionally "masculine", "yang", rational soul or mind, and the "po" is the traditionally "feminine", "yin", animal soul that is associated with the body. "Hun" (mind) is the soul ("shen") that gives a form to the vital breath ("qi") of humans, and it develops through the "po", stretching and moving intelligently in order to grasp things. The "po" is the soul ("shen") which controls the physiological and psychological activities of humans, while the "hun", the "shen" attached to the vital breath ("qi"), is the soul ("shen") that is totally independent of corporeal substance. The "hun" is independent and perpetual, and as such it never allows itself to be limited in matter. Otherwise said, the "po" is the "earthly" ("di") soul that goes downward, while the "hun" is the "heavenly" ("tian") soul that moves upward.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: To extend life to its full potential the human "shen" must be cultivated, resulting in ever clearer, more luminous states of being. It can transform in the pure intelligent breath of deities. In the human psyche there's no distinction between rationality and intuition, thinking and feeling: the human being is "xin" (), mind-heart. With death, while the "po" returns to the earth and disappears, the "hun" is thought to be pure awareness or "qi", and is the "shen" to whom ancestral sacrifices are dedicated.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: The "shen" of men who are properly cultivated and honoured after their death are upheld ancestors and progenitors ("zuxian" or "zu" ). When ancestries aren't properly cultivated the world falls into disruption, and they become "gui". Ancestral worship is intertwined with totemism, as the earliest ancestors of an ethnic lineage are often represented as animals or associated to them.


title: Chinese folk religion

text: Ancestors are means of connection with the "Tian", the primordial god which does not have form. As ancestors have form, they shape the destiny of humans. Ancestors who have had a significant impact in shaping the destiny of large groups of people, creators of genetic lineages or spiritual traditions, and historical leaders who have invented crafts and institutions for the wealth of the Chinese nation (culture heroes), are exalted among the highest divine manifestations or immortal beings ("xian" ).