title: Cleavage (breasts)

text: Despite a long history, display of cleavage can still be controversial. UK women's magazine "Stylist" in 2017 and Indian newspaper "Mid-Day" in 2019 reported "cleavage shaming" was commonplace in news and social media. Female Bollywood actors Disha Patani, Deepika Padukone, Priyanka Chopra, Nargis Fakhri and others were trolled and shamed for wearing cleavage-baring outfits in social and new media, including newspaper "Times of India". Extraordinary attention was generated when politicians Angela Merkel, Hillary Clinton and Jacqui Smith wore cleavage-revealing outfits even from media outlets "The Washington Post" and "The New York Times".


title: Cleavage (breasts)

text: As late as the 2010s, reports from Langley, British Columbia; Shreveport, Louisiana; Louisville, Kentucky; Reno, Nevada; Rockford, Illinois; Houston, Texas; Thunder Bay, Ontario; Kerikeri, New Zealand and elsewhere showed female students, especially non-white students, had been expelled and banned from schools, and punished for wearing dresses that reveal cleavage and legs. At the same time, there also has been reports of passengers of airlines, including Southwest Airlines, Spirit Airlines and EasyJet, were instructed against and evicted for showing "too much cleavage". In 2014, a television series called "The Empress of China" was taken off-air in China days after its premier because of too much cleavage; the show was aired again after much censorship. In the next year, organizers of ChinaJoy, the largest gaming and digital entertainment exhibition held in China, levied a fine of US$800 on women who revealed "more than two centimeters of cleavage".


title: Cleavage (breasts)

text: , women in Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan were required to completely cover their bodies; Iranian law required the wearing of a "chador" (over-cloak) or a "hijab" (head scarf), and in Egypt, the exposure of cleavage in the media was considered to be nudity. Various other presentation of clothed breasts, like side cleavage and bottom cleavage, are also regulated by law in some U.S. counties. Both were banned by CBS as "bare sides or under curvature of the breasts is also problematic" at the 55th Annual Grammy Awards in 2013. Underboob was banned in Springfield, Missouri in 2015 after a Free the Nipple rally. Thailand banned selfies showing underboob with provisions for up to five years in jail in 2016. Amazon subsidiary Twitch, a live video streaming service, banned underboobs and instructed on the amount of cleavage permissible in 2020.


title: Cleavage (breasts)

text: Hypothetically, non-paraphilic sexual attraction to breasts is a result of their function as a secondary sex characteristic. The breasts play roles in both sexual pleasure and reproduction. According to the American Psychiatric Association's DSM-5, sexual attraction to breasts is normal unless it is highly atypical and is therefore a form of partialism. According to psychiatrist Larry Young, attraction to breasts "is a brain organization effect that occurs in straight males when they go through puberty." According to sociologist Anthony Joseph Paul Cortese, the cleavage area between the breasts is "perhaps the epicentre" of display of female sexual attractiveness and stimulation of male sexual interest. According to social historian David Kunzle, waist confinement and décolletage are the primary sexualization devices of Western costume. According to music writer Ben Watson in "Art, Class and Cleavage" (Quartet Books, 1998), the deployment of the cleavage punctures through art's "spiritual pretensions" and alerts about the bodily roots of all culture.


title: Cleavage (breasts)

text: Vincenz Czerny, one of the early surgeons to perform a breast surgery, believed the aesthetics of cleavage to be a sign of symmetry and hence beauty. A study published in 2020 found intermammary distance (IMD), or cleavage gap, is one of the major influences on people's perception about a woman's fertility, health and age; accordingly, surgeon Gregory Evans recommends an intermammary distance between . Another study found women who display cleavage are more often identified as "voluptuous" than women who do not.


title: Cleavage (breasts)

text: Zoologist and ethologist Desmond Morris, author of "The Naked Ape" (Jonathan Cape Publishing, 1967), theorized that female human breasts as a sexual signal imitates the cleft between the buttocks that is a prevalent signal among other apes. Evolutionary psychologist David M. Buss explains that female humans evolved to have permanently enlarged mammary glands, unlike all other 222 primates. Functional anatomist Owen Lovejoy ("The origin of man", 1981) suggests, partly based on speculations by Morris, that prominent breasts among female Australopithecines helped attract males and cement the pair-bond necessary for further physical and cultural evolution toward modern humanity.


title: Cleavage (breasts)

text: Evolutionary psychologists theorize humans' permanently enlarged breasts, in contrast to other primates' breasts—which only become enlarged during ovulation—allowed females to "solicit male attention and investment even when they are not really fertile". Hence breast and buttock cleavages, sharing a similarity between their appearances, are considered to be erotic in many societies.


title: Cleavage (breasts)

text: American cultural anthropologist Katherine Ann Dettwyler, editor of "Breastfeeding: Biocultural Perspectives" (Aldine de Gruyter, 1995), proposed that men aren't necessarily biologically drawn to breasts as "humans can learn to view breasts as sexually attractive." Author Elizabeth Gould Davis said breasts, along with phalluses, were revered by the women of Çatalhöyük as instruments of motherhood but after a "patriarchal revolution", when men had appropriated both phallus worship and "the breast fetish" for themselves, these organs "acquired the erotic significance with which they are now endowed". Some scholars argue that it is important that the breast is partly or fully covered to be erotic. French semiotician Roland Barthes observed, "Woman is desexualized at the very moment when she is stripped naked"; while historical commentator Susan L. Stanton observes, "There is no mystery in a naked breast, there is no need to fantasize about what is beneath the clothing."


title: Cleavage (breasts)

text: According to author Marilyn Yalom in "A History of the Breast" (Ballantine Books, 1998), around these times, male thinkers decided a nursing mother's breasts were both erotic and a source of nourishment for future citizens of the nation. According to psychologist Richard D. McAnulty, when breasts are hypersexualized, they are not perceived as a body part to breastfeed infants. Therefore, exposure of the breast, such as in public breastfeeding, is considered embarrassing. Science journalist Natalie Angier shifts from using the term "functional" to using the term "maternal" to describe the "non-aesthetic breast" in her book "Woman: An Intimate Geography" (1999). In the same book, she argues human fascination with full cleavage may be a result of our fascination with round objects and attraction towards well-defined curves.


title: Cleavage (breasts)

text: In 2600 BCE, princess Nofret of the Fourth Dynasty of Egypt was depicted wearing a V-neck gown with a plunging neckline that exposed ample cleavage that was further emphasized by an elaborate necklace and prominently protruding nipples.


title: Cleavage (breasts)

text: In ancient Minoan culture, women wore clothes that complemented slim waists and full breasts. One of the better-known features of ancient Minoan fashion is breast exposure; women wore tops that could be arranged to completely cover or expose their breasts, with bodices to accentuate their cleavage. In 1600 BCE, snake goddess figurines with open dress-fronts revealing entire breasts, were sculpted in Minos. By that time, Cretan women in Knossos were wearing ornamental fitted bodices with open cleavage, sometimes with a peplum. Another set of Minoan figurines from 1500 BCE show women in bare-bosomed corsets.


title: Cleavage (breasts)

text: Ancient Greek women adorned their cleavage with a long pendant necklace called a "kathema". The ancient Greek goddess Hera is described in the "Iliad" to have worn something like an early version of a push-up bra festooned with "brooches of gold" and "a hundred tassels" to increase her cleavage to divert Zeus from the Trojan War. Women in Greek and Roman civilizations had at times used breastbands like "taenia" in Rome to enhance smaller busts but more often, women of the masculine Greco-Roman world, where unisex clothes were often preferred, used breastbands like "apodesmes" in Greece, and "fascia" or "mamillare" in Rome to suppress their breasts. Among these "mamillare" was a particularly strict leather corset for suppressing women with big busts.


title: Cleavage (breasts)

text: A silver coin that was found in South Arabia in the 3rd century BCE shows a buxom foreign ruler with much décolletage and an elaborate coiffure. Rabbi Aha b. Raba (circa 5th century) and Nathan the Babylonian (circa 2nd century) measured the appropriate size of the cleavage as "of one hand-breadth between a woman's breasts".


title: Cleavage (breasts)

text: During the Tang dynasty (7th to 9th centuries), women in China were increasingly freer than before and by the mid-Tang, their décolleté dresses became quite liberated. The Tang women inherited the traditional "ruqun" gown and modified it by opening up the collar to expose their cleavage, which had previously been unimaginable. Rather than the conservative garments worn by earlier Chinese women, women of the Tang era deliberately emphasized their cleavage. The popular style of the era was long gowns of soft fabrics that were cut with a pronounced décolletage and very wide sleeves, or a décolleté knee-length gown that was worn over a skirt.


title: Cleavage (breasts)

text: Between the 11th and 16th centuries, the prevailing décolleté clothes of women of Punjab, Gujarat and Rajasthan in India were replaced with covered bosoms and long veils as the region increasingly came under foreign control. During this period, elaborate, opulent courtly dresses with wide décolletage became popular in the Italian maritime states Venice, Genoa and Florence.


title: Cleavage (breasts)

text: Until the 12th century, the Christian West was not cleavage friendly but a change in attitude occurred by the 14th century with France leading the way, when necklines were lowered, clothes were tightened and breasts were once again flaunted. Décolleté gowns were introduced in the 15th century. In a breast-rating system that was invented at the time, the highest rating was given to breasts that were "small, white, round like apples, hard, firm, and wide apart".


title: Cleavage (breasts)

text: Women started squeezing the breasts and applying makeup to make their cleavage more attractive; cleavage was termed the "smile of the bustline" by contemporaneous Belgian chronicler Jean Froissart. A contemporaneous French courtesy manual "La Clef d'Amors" advised, "If you have a beautiful chest and a beautiful neck do not cover them up but your dress should be low cut so that everyone can gaze and gape after them". Contemporaneous poet Eustache Deschamps advised "a wide-open neckline and a tight dress with slits through which the breasts and the throat could be more visible".


title: Cleavage (breasts)

text: The French Catholic Church, however, tried to discourage the flaunting of cleavage. It mandated the cleavage, which it referred to as "the gates of hell", and the opening on woman's bodices be laced. French priest Oliver Maillard said women who exposed their breasts would be "strung up in hell by their udders". Monarchs like Charles VII of France ignored the church. It was common for women in his court to wear bodices through which their breasts, cleavage and nipples could be seen. In 1450, Agnès Sorel, mistress to Charles VII, started a fashion trend when she wore deep, low, square décolleté gowns with fully bared breasts in the French court.


title: Cleavage (breasts)

text: Across Europe, décolletage was often a feature of the dress of the late Middle Ages; this continued through the Victorian period. Gowns that exposed a woman's neck and the top of her chest were very common and uncontroversial in Europe from at least the 11th century until the mid-19th century. Ball gowns and evening gowns especially had low, square décolletage that was designed to display and emphasize cleavage.


title: Cleavage (breasts)

text: In many European societies between the Renaissance and the 19th century, wearing low-cut dresses that exposed breasts was more acceptable than it is in the early 21st century; bared female legs, ankles and shoulders were considered to be more risqué than exposed breasts.


title: Cleavage (breasts)

text: In aristocratic and upper-class circles, the display of breasts was at times regarded as a status symbol; a sign of beauty, wealth and social position. The bared breast invoked associations with nude sculptures of classical Greece that influenced the art, sculpture and architecture of the period.


title: Cleavage (breasts)

text: In mid-16th-century Turkey, during the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent, respectability regulations allowed "respectable" women to wear fashionable dresses with exposed cleavage; this privilege was denied to "prostitutes" so they could not draw attention to their livelihoods. The "entari", a popular women's garment of the Ottoman Empire, resembled the corseted bodice of Europe without the corset; its narrow top and narrow, long, plunging décolletage exposed a generous cleavage. Around this time, cleavage-revealing "gambaz" gowns became accepted among married women in the Levant, where bosoms were regarded as a sign of maternity.


title: Cleavage (breasts)

text: In 16th-century India, during the Mughal Empire, Hindu women started emulating the overdressed conquerors by covering their shoulders and breasts, though in contemporaneous paintings, women of Mughal palaces were often portrayed wearing Rajput-style cholis and breast jewelry. Mughal paintings often portrayed women with extraordinarily daring décolletage. Contemporaneous Rajput paintings often depict women wearing semi-transparent cholis that cover only the upper part of their breasts. In the 16th century, when Spanish conquistadors colonized the Inca Empire, traditional cleavage-revealing and colorful Inca dresses were replaced by high necks and covered bosoms.


title: Cleavage (breasts)

text: In European societies during the 16th century, women's fashions with exposed breasts were common across the class spectrum. Anne of Brittany has been painted wearing a dress with a square neckline. Low, square décolleté styles were popular in 17th-century England; Queen Mary II and Henrietta Maria, wife of Charles I of England, were depicted with widely bared breasts. Architect Inigo Jones designed a masque costume for Henrietta Maria that widely revealed both of her breasts. Cleavage-enhancing corsets, which used whalebone and other stiff materials to create a desired silhouette—a fashion that was also adopted by men for their coats—were introduced in the mid-16th century.


title: Cleavage (breasts)

text: Throughout the 16th century, shoulder straps stayed on the shoulders but as the 17th century progressed, they moved down the shoulders and across the top of the arms, and by the mid-17th century, the oval neckline of the period became commonplace. By the end of the century, necklines at the front of women's garments started to drop even lower. During the extreme décolletage of the Elizabethan era, necklines were often decorated with frills and strings of pearls, and were sometimes covered with tuckers and partlets (called a "tasselo" in Italy and "la modiste" in France). Late Elizabethan corsets, with their rigid, suppressive fronts, manipulated a woman's figure into a flat, cylindrical silhouette with a deep cleavage.


title: Cleavage (breasts)

text: Around 1610, flat collars started replacing neck trims, allowing provocative cleavage that was sometimes covered with a handkerchief. During the Georgian era, pendants became popular as décolletage decoration. Anne of Austria, along with female members of her court, was known for wearing very tight bodices and corsets that forced breasts together to make deeper cleavage, very low necklines that exposed breasts almost in entirety above the areolae, and pendants lying on the cleavage to highlight it. After the French Revolution décolletage become larger at the front and reduced at the back. During the fashions of 1795–1820, many women wore dresses that bared necks, bosoms and shoulders. Increasingly, the amount of décolletage became a major difference between day-wear and formal gowns.


title: Cleavage (breasts)

text: Cleavage was not without controversy. In 1713, British newspaper "The Guardian" complained about women forgoing their tuckers, and keeping their necks and tops of breasts uncovered. English poet and essayist Joseph Addison complained about décolletage so extreme "the neck of a fine woman at present take in almost half the body". Publications advised women against "unmasking their beauties". 18th-century news correspondents wrote that "otherwise polite, genteel women looked like common prostitutes".


title: Cleavage (breasts)

text: During the French Enlightenment, there was a debate about whether female breasts were merely a sensual enticement or a natural gift to be offered from mother to child. Not all women in France wore the open-neck style without modifications; a self-portrait by Adélaïde Labille-Guiard (France, 1785) shows the painter in a fashionable décolleté dress while her pupils have their bosoms accessorized with gauzy handkerchiefs. Nearly a century later, also in France, a man from the provinces who attended a court ball at the Tuileries in Paris in 1855 was disgusted by the décolleté dresses and is said to have said; "I haven't seen anything like that since I was weaned!". In 1890, the first breast augmentation was performed using an injection of liquid paraffin.


title: Cleavage (breasts)

text: By the end of the 18th century in Continental Europe, cleavage-enhancing corsets grew more dramatic, pushing the breasts upward. The tight lacing of corsets worn in the 19th and early 20th centuries emphasized both cleavage and the size of the bust and hips. Evening gowns and ball gowns were especially designed to display and emphasize the décolletage. Elaborate necklaces decorated the décolletage at parties and balls by 1849. There was also a trend of wearing camisole-like clothes and whale-bone corsets that gave the wearer a bust without a separation or any cleavage. Despite the contemporaneous popularity of décolletage dresses, complete exposure of breasts in portraits was limited to two groups of women; the scandalous (mistresses and prostitutes), and the pure (breastfeeding mothers and queens). In North America, the Gilded Age saw women adorning their cleavage with flowers attached to clothes and carefully placed jewelry.


title: Cleavage (breasts)

text: During the Victorian period of the mid-to-late 19th century, social attitudes required women to cover their bosoms in public. High collars were the norm for ordinary wear. Towards the end of this period, the full collar was in fashion, though some décolleté dresses were worn on formal occasions. For that purpose, the Bertha neckline, which lay below the shoulders and was often trimmed with of lace or other decorative material, became popular with upper and middle-class women but it was socially unacceptable for working-class women to expose that much skin. Multiple pearl necklaces were worn to cover the décolletage. Along with the Bertha neckline, straps were removed from corsets and shawls were made essential.


title: Cleavage (breasts)

text: By 1904, necklines of evening attire were lowered, exposing the shoulders, sometimes without straps but the neckline still ended above the cleavage. Clergymen all over the world were shocked when dresses with modest round or V-shaped necklines became fashionable around 1913. In the German Empire, Roman Catholic bishops joined to issue a pastoral letter attacking the new fashions. In the Edwardian era, extreme uplift with no hint of cleavage was as common as a bow-fronted look that was also popular. In 1908, a single rubber pad or a "bust form" was worn inside the front of the bodice to make cleavage virtually undetectable.


title: Cleavage (breasts)

text: The Flapper generation of 1920s flattened their chests to adopt the fashionable "boy-girl" look by either bandaging their breasts or by using bust latteners. Corsets started to go out of fashion by 1917, when metal was needed to make tanks and munitions for World War I and due to the vogue for boyish figures. In New Zealand, the early appearance of décolleté clothes in 1914 was soon superseded by the "flat" fashion. Breast suppression prevailed in the Western world so much the U.S. physician Lillian Farrar attributed "virginal atrophic prolapsed breasts" to the fashion imperatives of the time. In 1920, paraffin was replaced for breast augmentation with fatty tissue taken from the abdomen and buttocks.


title: Cleavage (breasts)

text: In 1914, New York socialite Mary Phelps Jacob (better known as Caresse Crosby) patented the garment as "the backless brassiere"; after making a few hundred garments, she sold the patent to The Warner Brothers Corset Company for US$1,500. In the next 30 years, Warner Brothers made more than US$15 million from Jacob's design. During the next century, the brassière industry went through many ups and downs, often influenced by the demand for cleavage.


title: Cleavage (breasts)

text: With a return to more womanly figures in the 1930s, corsetry maintained a strong demand, even at the height of the Great Depression. From the 1920s to the 1940s, corset manufacturers constantly tried training young women to use corsets but fashions became more restrained in terms of décolletage while exposure of the leg became more accepted in Western societies during World War I and remained so for nearly half a century. In the Republic of China in the early 20th century, qipao, a dress that shows the legs but no cleavage, became so popular many Chinese women consider it as their national dress.


title: Cleavage (breasts)

text: In the 1940s, a substantial amount of fabric in the center of brassières created a separation of breasts rather than a pushed-together cleavage. In 1947, Frederick Mellinger of Frederick's of Hollywood created the first padded brassière followed a year later by an early push-up version dubbed "The Rising Star". In that decade, Christian Dior introduced the "New Look" that included elastic corsets, pads and shaping girdles to widen hips, cinch waists and lift breasts.


title: Cleavage (breasts)

text: Under the Motion Picture Production Code, which was in effect in the U.S. between 1934 and 1968, the depiction of excessive cleavage was not permitted. Many female actors defied those standards; other celebrities, performers and models followed suit and the public was not far behind. Low-cut styles of various depths were common. In the post-war period, cleavage became a defining emblem; according to writer Peter Lewis; "The bust, bosom or cleavage was in the Fifties the apotheosis of erogenous zones. The breasts were the apples of all eyes." Around this time, the American word "cleavage" started to be used to define the space between the breasts.


title: Cleavage (breasts)

text: According to an urban American woman, during the 1950s, "At night... our shoulders were naked, our breasts half-bare". Dramatic necklaces that emphasized the cleavage became popular at balls and parties in France. In the U.S., television shows tried to mask exposed cleavage with tulle and even sketches, illustrations and short stories in "Reader's Digest" and "Saturday Evening Post" depicted women with tiny waists, big buttocks and ample cleavage. In this decade, Hollywood and the fashion industry successfully promoted large, cloven bustlines and falsies, the brassière industry started experimenting with the half-cup bra (also known as demi-cup or shelf bra) to facilitate décolletage. Polyvinyl sacs were often the preferred implant to augment breasts into a fuller, more projected appearance.


title: Cleavage (breasts)

text: Despite these developments, open presentation of cleavage was mostly limited to well-endowed female actors like Lana Turner, Marilyn Monroe (who was attributed with the revelation of America's "mammary madness" by journalist Marjorie Rosen), Rita Hayworth, Jane Russell, Brigitte Bardot, Jayne Mansfield and Sophia Loren, who were as celebrated for their cleavage as for their beauty. While these movie stars significantly influenced the appearance of women's busts in this decade, the stylish 1950s sweaters were a safer substitute for many women. Lingerie manufacturer Berlei launched the "Hollywood Maxwell" brassière, claiming it to be a "favourite of film stars".


title: Cleavage (breasts)

text: Modern augmentation mammaplasty began when Thomas Cronin and Frank Gerow developed the first silicone gel-filled breast prosthesis with Dow Corning Corporation, and the first implanting operation took place the following year. In the late 1960s, attention began to shift from the large bust to the trim lower torso, reasserting the need to diet, especially as new clothing fashions—brief, sheer, and close fitting—prohibited heavy reliance on foundation lingerie. Legs were comparatively less emphasized as elements of beauty.


title: Cleavage (breasts)

text: In the 1960s, driven by second-wave feminism, liberal politics and the free love movement, a bra burning movement arose to protest against—among various patriarchal imperatives—constructed cleavage and disciplined breasts. Yves Saint Laurent and U.S. designer Rudi Gernreich experimented with a bra-less look on the runway. The increasingly casual styles of the 1960s led to a bra-less look when women who were unwilling to give up bras turned to soft bras that did not lift and "were as light and discreet as possible" but still provided support.


title: Cleavage (breasts)

text: From the 1960s, changes in fashion leaned towards increased displays of cleavage in films and television; Jane Russell and Elizabeth Taylor were the biggest stars who led the fashion. In everyday life, low-cut dress styles became common, even for casual wear. Lingerie and shapewear manufacturers like Warner Brothers, Gossard, Formfit and Bali took the opportunity to market plunge bras with a lower gore that was suitable for low-cut styles.


title: Cleavage (breasts)

text: In the early 1970s, it became common to leave top buttons on shirts and blouses open to display pectoral muscles and cleavage. Daring women and men of all ages wore tailored, buttoned-down shirts that were open from the breast-point to the navel in a "groovy" style, with pendants, beads or medallions dangling on the chest, displaying a firm body achieved through exercise. As a new masculine style evolved, gay men adopted a traditionally masculine or working-class style with "half-unbuttoned shirt above the sweaty chest" and tight jeans.


title: Cleavage (breasts)

text: During the 1980s, deep, plunging cleavage became more common and less risqué as the popularity of work-outs and masculine shoulder-padded blazers increased. In 1985, designer Vivienne Westwood re-introduced the corset as a trendy way to enhance cleavage. It was followed in 1989 by Jean Paul Gaultier, who dressed Madonna in a pink corset. Soon, Westwood introduced an elastic-sided variant that worked as a balcony to push up the cleavage.


title: Cleavage (breasts)

text: The push-up bra and exaggerated cleavage became popular in the 1990s. In 1992, the bra and girdle industry in America posted sales of over US$1 billion. The Wonderbra brand, which had existed elsewhere, entered the U.S. market in 1994 with a newly designed, cleavage-enhancing bra. Driven by a controversial advertising campaign that featured model Eva Herzigova's cleavage, one Wonderbra was sold every 15 seconds shortly after the brand's launch, leading to first-year sales of US$120 million. The hypersexualized styles of Victoria's Secret became a "zeitgeist" in the 1990s. By 2013, Victoria's Secret had captured one-third of the women's underwear market in the U.S. In the early 1990s, Sara Lee Corporation—hen owner of the Wonderbra and Playtex brands—along with UK lingerie manufacturer Gossard, introduced a bra for Asian women who, according to Sara Lee, are "less buxom [and have] narrower shoulders". Traditional brands like Maidenform produced similar styles.


title: Cleavage (breasts)

text: Underwire bras, the most popular cleavage-boosting lingerie, accounted for 60% of the UK bra market in 2000 and 70% in 2005. About 70% of women who wear bras wear a steel underwire bra according to underwear manufacturer S&S Industries of New York in 2009. In 2001, 70% (350 million) of the bras sold in the U.S. were underwire bras. As of 2005, underwire bras were the fastest-growing segment of the market.


title: Cleavage (breasts)

text: Corsets also experienced a resurgence in the 2010s; this trend was driven by photographs on social media. According to fashion historian Valerie Steele, "The corset did not so much disappear as become internalised through diet, exercise and plastic surgery". By the turn of the 21st century, some of the attention given to cleavage and breasts started to shift to buttocks, especially in the media, while corsetry returned to mainstream fashion. According to dietician Rebecca Scritchfield, the resurgent popularity of corsets is driven by "the picture on Instagram of somebody with a tiny waist and giant boobs". At the same time alternatives to décolletage, which were often still called cleavages, emerged from Western cleavage culture.


title: Cleavage (breasts)

text: By the early 2000s, "sideboob" (also known as "side cleavage"), i.e. the exposure of the side of the breast had become popular. One writer called it the "new cleavage". In 2008, Armand Limnander wrote in "The New York Times" the "underboob" (also known as "bottom cleavage" and "reverse cleavage") was "a newly fetishized anatomical zone where the lower part of the breast meets the torso, popularized by 80s rock chicks in cutoff tank tops". It was further popularized by dancer-singer Teyana Taylor in the music video for Kanye West's 2016 song "Fade". Supermodels, including Bella Hadid, Gigi Hadid, and Kendall Jenner, contributed to the trend, which has appeared at beaches, on the red carpet, and in social media posts.


title: Cleavage (breasts)

text: In the 2010s and early 2020s, cleavage-enhancing bras began to decline in popularity. Bralettes and soft bras gained market share at the expense of underwire and padded bras, sometimes also serving as outerwear. Some bralettes have plunging designs, light padding or bottom support. In November 2016, the UK version of fashion magazine "Vogue" said "Cleavage is over"; this statement was widely criticized. Soft bras and sideboobs became popular over prominent cleavages. Soft bras consisted 30% of online retailer Net-a-Porter's bra sales by 2016. In 2017, the sales of cleavage-boosting bras fell by 45% while at Marks & Spencer, sales of wire-free bras grew by 40%.


title: Cleavage (breasts)

text: Jess Cartner-Morley, fashion editor of "The Guardian", reported in 2018 many women were dressing without bras, producing a less-dramatic cleavage, which she called "quiet cleavage". According to Sarah Shotton, creative director of Agent Provocateur, "Now it's about the athletic body, health and wellbeing" rather than the male gaze. According to lingerie designer Araks Yeramyan, "It was #MeToo that catapulted the bralette movement into what it is today". During the COVID-19 lockdowns, CNBC reported a drop of 12% in bra sales across 100 retailers while YouTubers made tutorials on re-purposing bras as face masks; this trend was sometimes called a "lockdown liberation".


title: Cleavage (breasts)

text: Throughout history, women have used many methods, including accentuation and display of breasts within the context of cultural norms of fashion and modesty, to enhance their physical attractiveness and femininity. Fetishization of breasts results in significant anxiety in women about having the correct breasts and resulting cleavage. All kinds of exercises, brassières and other methods of bust improvement have been recommended and advertised to cater for this need.


title: Cleavage (breasts)

text: Corsetry and bras are often used to enhance cleavage; author Nan McNab claims that “it has been said the quickest way for a woman to change her breasts is to buy a bra”. Before the brassière became popular, the bust was encased in corsets and structured garments called "bust improvers", which were made of boning and lace.


title: Cleavage (breasts)

text: When corsets became unfashionable, brassières and padding helped to project, display and emphasize the breasts. These were initially manufactured by small companies and supplied to retailers. Women had the choice of long-line bras, built-up backs, wedge-shaped inserts between the cups, wider straps, Lastex, firm bands under the cup, and light boning. In 2020, several lingerie and shapewear manufacturers, among them Wonderbra, Frederick's of Hollywood, Agent Provocateur and Victoria's Secret, produce bras that enhance cleavage and offer more than 30 types of bra, including underwire, padded, plunge and push-up bras.


title: Cleavage (breasts)

text: Development of underwire bras started in the 1930s but they did not gain widespread popularity until the 1950s, when the end of World War II freed metal for domestic use. In an underwire bra, a thin strip of metal, plastic or resin—usually with a nylon coating at both ends—is sewn into the bra fabric and under each cup from the center gore to the armpit. The insert helps to lift, separate, shape and support the breasts. Underwire bras can rub and press against the breast, causing skin irritation and breast pain, and the wire of a worn bra can protrude from the fabric.


title: Cleavage (breasts)

text: Padded bras have extra material, which may be foam, silicone, gel, air or fluid, in the cups to help the breasts look fuller. Different designs provide coverage and support, hide nipples, add shape to breasts that are far apart, and add comfort. Graduated padding has more padding at the bottom of the cups and gradually tapers towards the top. Some padded bras are made to suit deep-neck dresses.


title: Cleavage (breasts)

text: Plunge bra covers the nipples and the lower part of the breasts while leaving the top part bare, making it suitable for low-cut tops and deep V-necks. Plunge bras also have a lower, shorter and narrower center gore that maintains support while increasing cleavage by allowing the gore to drop several inches below the middle of the breasts. Plunge bras may be padded or push the breasts together to create cleavage.


title: Cleavage (breasts)

text: Push-up bras, which emerged in the mid-20th century, are designed to press the breasts upwards and closer together to give a fuller appearance with help of padded cups, differing from other padded bras in location of the pads. It leaves the upper and inner area of breasts uncovered adding more cleavage. Most of the push-up bras have underwires for added lift and support, while the padding is commonly made of foam. Wonderbra used to have 54 design elements in their push-up bras, including a three-part cup, underwires, a precision-angled back, rigid straps, and removable "cookies".


title: Cleavage (breasts)

text: In some forms of exercise, breasts unsupported by a sports bra are exposed to greater risk of droopiness. Author Taffy Brodesser-Akner claims that long hours wearing a sports bra or a push-up bra that presses breasts together can cause cleavage wrinkles, as does spending long hours sleeping on the side, during which the top breast bend past the body's midline. The deep vertical creases of these wrinkles stay longer as the collagen in skin start to break down with age and exposure to sun. Women with bigger breasts, either natural or surgically enhanced, suffer more from cleavage wrinkles. There have been claims of bra designs that minimize cleavage wrinkles. Cleavage wrinkles can also be reduced with botox and, according to Samantha Wilson, founder of skincare product manufacturer Skin Republic, by intense pulsed light (IPM), collagen induction therapy (CIT) and high-intensity focused ultrasound. In 2009, Slovenian lingerie manufacturer Lisca introduced a high-tech "Smart Memory Bra" that was supposed to push breasts further when its wearer becomes sexually aroused.


title: Cleavage (breasts)

text: Accessories, including lingerie tapes or duct tapes, removable gel pads, fabrics, silicone or microfiber inserts, and clothing—including socks—are used to enhance cleavage. Many women, such as beauty pageant participants and transgender people, create cleavage by placing tape underneath and across their breasts, bending forward, tightly pulling them together and up. Types of tape used include lingerie tape, surgical tape and athletic tape. Some use a strip of moleskin under the breasts; this is held in place with tape. Use of the wrong techniques or tape with too strong an adhesive can cause injuries such as rashes, blisters and torn skin.


title: Cleavage (breasts)

text: Falsies, small silicone-gel pads that are similar to the removable pads sold with some push-up bras, are sometimes referred to colloquially as "chicken fillets". Falsies evolved from the bosom pads of the 17th century that were often made of stiff rubber. By the mid 1800s,"bust improvers" were made using soft fabric pads of cotton and wool or inflatable rubber. In 1896, celluloid falsies were advertised and in the 20th century, soft foam rubber pads became available. Young women, some as young as 15, were expected to wear falsies to fill out their bodices. For cross-dressers or trans women who have not undergone hormone therapy or breast augmentation, semi-rigid pieces of material such as plastic is sometimes applied to the skin using surgical tape, surgical adhesive, specialist adhesives or even general-purpose craft glue to get a feminine cleavage.


title: Cleavage (breasts)

text: Cleavage, from a surgical perspective, is a combination of the intermammary distance and the degree of "fill" in the medial portion of the breast. Some flat-chested women feel self-conscious about their small breasts and want to improve their sexual attractiveness by seeking breast augmentation. According to plastic surgeon Gerard H. Pitman, "you can't have cleavage with an A cup. You have to be at least a B or a C." It is easier to push big breasts together to accent the hollow between them. Implants filled with sterile saline solution and implants filled with viscous silicone gel are used for breast reconstruction, and for the augmentation and enhancement of aesthetics—size, shape, and texture—of breasts. Plastic surgeons changed from using bodily tissues to these newer technologies in the 1950s.


title: Cleavage (breasts)

text: Sometimes, fat is injected into the subcutaneous plane to narrow the gap of the cleavage and is grafted onto wide-chested individuals. During breast reconstruction, surgeons are normally careful to preserve the natural cleavage of the breasts. Attempts to create or increase cleavage by loosening the medial borders of the breasts could result in symmastia (also called a "uniboob"), a confluence of the breast tissue of both breasts across the midline in front of the sternum, creating a lack of defined cleavage. About 3 cm of cleavage distance is recommended while augmenting breasts, to avoid medial perforation, compromised soft tissues, visible implants, rippling and symmastia. A high surgical release of pectoralis major muscles can enhance cleavage at the risk of the implant showing through soft tissues.


title: Cleavage (breasts)

text: A 2016 paper reported breast augmentation was one of the most common aesthetic surgery procedures performed by plastic surgeons. Annually, an estimated 8,000–20,000 surgeries are done in the UK and over 300,000 in the U.S. According to the paper, in the U.S., 4% of women had breast implants at the time. It reported annual sales of 300,000 implants in South America and estimated the global number of women with breast implants to be between five and ten million.


title: Cleavage (breasts)

text: Women seeking breast augmentation often request a specific form of cleavage enhancement and often produce photographs of desired cleavage shapes and appearances. Many of those who seek breast augmentation want "full cleavage" which, according to plastic surgeon Jeffrey Weinzweig, "in reality results only from external forces, such as a brassier. Attempts to create such full cleavage require unacceptable compromise to other aesthetic factors of the breast."


title: Cleavage (breasts)

text: The width of cleavage is determined at the point at which the breast tissue attaches to the periosteal bone membrane that covers the sternum and by the medial attachments of the pectoralis major (chest muscle). By modern cultural values, cleavage is considered more attractive when breasts are close together. A narrow cleft between the breasts is identified as unusual anatomy. Plastic surgeon John B. Tebbetts finds creating a narrow intermammary distance is not a priority over other aspects. He says if a patient wishes a gluteal appearance for her cleavage, she should use "an appropriate push up brassiere", avoiding "the temptation to create it surgically". Because large breasts are not always closer together than smaller ones, and because implants change only the volume of the breasts, not their position, implants cannot produce a tight cleavage if the gap between the breasts is wide. Wide-set breasts will have a wide cleavage even after surgery because implants cannot correct the condition. It is difficult to produce sufficiently feminine cleavage for transwomen, even with breast augmentation surgery, because people assigned male at birth have nipple-areolar complexes set farther apart on their chests than those assigned female at birth do. Fat grafting may be used to reduce the width of cleavage in transwomen.


title: Cleavage (breasts)

text: Regular exercise of the muscles and fibers of the pectoral complex, which lies just under the fatty tissues of the breast, helps prevent droopiness, creates the illusion of larger and firmer breasts, and enhances cleavage. Exercise does not enlarge the breasts but developing the pectoral muscles on the chest can give them a fuller appearance. Training the chest does not change the structure of the breasts because breast tissue is fat, which cannot be shaped; chest training can, however, prevent breasts from drooping and sagging by firming the muscles that surround the sternum. Even in moderately athletic women, the pectoralis major muscles on either side of the cleavage become more prominent with exercise.


title: Cleavage (breasts)

text: The most effective exercises for developing breasts and improving cleavage are incline chest press, chest fly and chest dip. Weight training, nautilus machines, push-ups and chest presses are helpful, as are exercise balls, dumbbells, rowing and basketball. Flat chest dumbbell pullovers and dumbbell flyers on incline bench is recommended for beginners, while the advanced exercisers may include bench press movements, flyers, pullovers, Pec Decs and push-ups at least twice a week.


title: Cleavage (breasts)

text: Pilates, tai chi and yoga boost cleavage by improving posture and strengthening the chest muscles. Hunching, tightening and closing off of the chest in yoga "asanas" are particularly helpful, along with breathing exercises like deep breathing ("sama vritti" or "kapalabhati") and retention ("kumbhaka"). The most recommended "asanas" to develop cleavage are backbends like cobra, bow, camel, bridge and locust; twisted poses like cow face and lord of the fishes; front bends like plough and resting child; standing poses like tree and warrior; and leg stretches like raised leg and inverted leg stretch.


title: Cleavage (breasts)

text: Supplements are frequently portrayed as natural means to increase breast size with the suggestion they are free from risk. Commonly used ingredients include black cohosh, (shown to have no estrogenic effect) "dong quai", hops, kava (may cause liver damage) and zearalenone (increases probability of estrogen-dependent breast cancer and may reduce fertility) among others. Despite folklore about using herbs for breast enlargement, there is no scientific evidence to support the effectiveness of any breast enlargement supplement. In the United States, both the Federal Trade Commission and the Food and Drug Administration have taken action against the manufacturers of these products for fraudulent practices.


title: Cleavage (breasts)

text: According to Samantha Wilson of Skin Republic, dermatologist Paul Jarrod Frank, and Philippa Curnow of Elizabeth Arden, compared with the epidermis on the face, the epidermis on the cleavage and neck has fewer hair follicles and oil glands, little subcutaneous fat cushioning the area, a limited number melanocytes, and is much thinner and more fragile. Skin in these areas can suffer from damage resulting in cleavage wrinkles, uneven skin tone, age spots, scars from heat rash, and female chest hairs, and may show loss of elasticity sooner. Some perfumes and colognes can cause a phototoxic rashes on the neck, wrists and cleavage that leaves patterned hyperpigmentation when healed.


title: Cleavage (breasts)

text: According to Curnow, the skin of the cleavage area often ages more quickly because it experiences more exposure to ultraviolet radiation (UV) and environmental factors like pollution than skin that remains covered in many cultures, while moisturizers and sunscreens are used more on the face and neck. According to Marnina Diprose, founder of skin care clinic Aroze Dermal Therapies, ultraviolet radiation can break down collagen and cause pigment deposition, leading to mottled pigmentation on the cleavage. The skin of the cleavage area may also show loss of elasticity more quickly. Dermatoheliosis (photo aging) is a problem when cleavage skin is exposed for prolonged periods to UV radiation in sunlight; it is characterized by hyperpigmentation, leathery texture, roughness, wrinkles, lentigines (age spots), actinic elastosis and telangiectasias (spider veins). For protection, regular use of high-factor sunscreen on the cleavage area is recommended by reconstructive surgeon Dr Anh Nguyen and others.


title: Cleavage (breasts)

text: Products routinely used on the face, including vitamin A, vitamin B3, and vitamin C, masks, cleansers, moisturizers, and exfoliators, are also applied to the cleavage, though products specifically designed for the cleavage and neck and also available. Additionally body oils like shea butter, coconut oil and almond oil, and bronzers are also used to achieve a "glowing" cleavage. Splashing cold water on the cleavage also helps.


title: Cleavage (breasts)

text: According to Victoria's Secret model Taylor Hill, most professional models use makeup to better define their cleavage. Makeup artist Stephen Dimmick recommends using a luminizer on the clavicle area. Makeup with shading effects is used to make cleavage appear deeper and the breasts look fuller. The middle of the cleavage is made to look deeper by using a shade of makeup color that is darker than the base color of the skin, while the most prominent areas of the breasts are made to look larger or more protruding by the use of a paler color. An illuminator on the collar bones and bronzing below them is used for more accent. Beauty journalist Zoe Weiner describes a more elaborate process of outlining the breasts with a contouring stick that is slightly darker than the skin tone then highlighting inside the contour lines with a highlighter slightly lighter than skin tone, followed by blending with a contouring brush in circular motions.


title: Cleavage (breasts)

text: Bright colors, ornaments and accessories, including ruffles and glitters that add detail to the cleavage area, help to make breasts look bigger and draw attention to them. Using the cleavage as a canvass, a recommended way of adornment is to layer necklaces and chokers with a pendant as a centerpiece of the cleavage. Georgian era-style rivière necklaces are also popular items with which to dress the décolletage.


title: Cleavage (breasts)

text: According to celebrity tattoo artist and tattoo historian Lyle Tuttle, sternum tattoos became popular with women's liberation. Singer Rihanna was a major driver in popularizing cleavage tattoos. According to tattooist Mira Mariah, "Since most sternums are a flat plane, there are really good opportunities for detail". Underboob tattoos are generally done under the breasts but could wrap around the sternum, cleavage, side boob and ribs.


title: Cleavage (breasts)

text: Cleavage piercings, also known as chest piercings and sternum piercings—one of the most-admired body piercings—is done on the cleavage area vertically or horizontally. A sternum piercing can be located anywhere along the sternum and can be either a surface piercing or a dermal piercing. The jewelry, generally flexible rods made of hypoallergenic metal like surgical titanium, surgical stainless steel, niobium or gold (14 karat and above), is placed vertically or horizontally between the breasts.


title: Cleavage (breasts)

text: Male cleavage (also known as "heavage"), a result of low necklines or unbuttoned shirts, has been a movie trend since the 1920s. Douglas Fairbanks revealed his chest in films including "The Thief of Bagdad" (1924) and "The Iron Mask" (1929), and Errol Flynn showed his male cleavage in movies like "The Adventures of Robin Hood" (1938). This aesthetic continued into the 1950s and 1960s with movie stars like Marlon Brando, who also displayed his chest in "The Adventures of Robin Hood", and Sean Connery in his many James Bond movies. The fashion tapered out since the 1970s, which according to fashion historian Robert Bryan, was "the golden age of male chest hair", epitomized by John Travolta in "Saturday Night Fever" (1977).


title: Cleavage (breasts)

text: This look was also popular with celebrities like Mick Jagger and Burt Reynolds in the 1970s, and Harry Styles, Jude Law, Simon Cowell and Kanye West in the 2010s. Throughout the 1970s, more men unbuttoned their shirts as both men and women took an anti-fashion approach to clothing and the rise of the leisure wear, and adopted comfortable, unisex styles. As a new masculine style evolved, gay men adopted a traditionally masculine or working-class style with "half-unbuttoned shirt above the sweaty chest" and tight jeans, rejecting the idea that male homosexuals want to be female.


title: Cleavage (breasts)

text: In India, male cleavage became popular with Bollywood movie stars Salman Khan (who was named "the king of cleavage" by "The Economic Times"), Shekhar Suman in the 1990s, and Shahid Kapoor and Akshay Kumar in the 2000s. Many male K-pop stars are also known for their cleavage. Man cleavage came back into style in the 2010s, especially among hipsters and Hispanic and Latino Americans. Stylist Christiaan Choy attributes its resurgence to fit physiques and the urge for personal styles. Fashion entrepreneur Harvey Paulvin said a men's V-neck should be between "two to four inches from the collar". Some men groom their chest hair to improve the male cleavage look (sometimes known as "manscaping"). Many still considered the look inappropriate for most situations.


title: Cleavage (breasts)

text: Some men who crossdress choose to wear bras among other articles of clothing. Bras may be worn for the feel of it or the silhouette it creates. A man bra may provide a "filling" inside the cups to create a cleavage, or work as a compression vest to flatten overgrown breasts in men. By the end of the 2000s, man bras were briefly popular with Japanese men as an online purchase item.


title: Cleavage (breasts)

text: Most cases of male breast development are attributed to gynecomastia, an endocrine disorder that causes breast development in males (also known as "man boobs" or "moobs"). Seeing as how the disorder can cause psychological distress, some men wear a male bra (also known as "compression bra" or "compression vest"), to flatten the cleavage rather than giving it a lift. Exercises like cardio and strength training are also recommended in reducing male breasts. In more severe cases, medical treatment may include surgical intervention. According to British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons (BAAPS), 323 men had breast reduction surgery in 2008 in the UK, which is 44% more than in 2007.


title: Apotheosis

text: Apotheosis (, ), also called divinization or deification (), is the glorification of a subject to divine levels and, commonly, the treatment of a human being, any other living thing, or an abstract idea in the likeness of a deity. The term has meanings in theology, where it refers to a belief, and in art, where it refers to a genre.


title: Apotheosis

text: In theology, "apotheosis" refers to the idea that an individual has been raised to godlike stature. In art, the term refers to the treatment of any subject (a figure, group, locale, motif, convention or melody) in a particularly grand or exalted manner.


title: Apotheosis

text: Before the Hellenistic period, imperial cults were known in Ancient Egypt (pharaohs) and Mesopotamia (from Naram-Sin through Hammurabi). In the New Kingdom of Egypt, all deceased pharaohs were deified as the god Osiris. The architect Imhotep was deified after his death.


title: Apotheosis

text: From at least the Geometric period of the ninth century BC, the long-deceased heroes linked with founding myths of Greek sites were accorded chthonic rites in their "heroon", or "hero-temple".


title: Apotheosis

text: In the Greek world, the first leader who accorded himself divine honours was Philip II of Macedon. At his wedding to his sixth wife, Philip's enthroned image was carried in procession among the Olympian gods; "his example at Aigai became a custom, passing to the Macedonian kings who were later worshipped in Greek Asia, from them to Julius Caesar and so to the emperors of Rome". Such Hellenistic state leaders might be raised to a status equal to the gods before death (e.g., Alexander the Great) or afterwards (e.g., members of the


title: Apotheosis

text: Ptolemaic dynasty). A heroic cult status similar to apotheosis was also an honour given to a few revered artists of the distant past, notably Homer.


title: Apotheosis

text: Archaic and Classical Greek hero-cults became primarily civic, extended from their familial origins, in the sixth century; by the fifth century none of the worshipers based their authority by tracing descent back to the hero, with the exception of some families who inherited particular priestly cults, such as the Eumolpides (descended from Eumolpus) of the Eleusinian mysteries, and some inherited priesthoods at oracle sites. The Greek hero cults can be distinguished on the other hand from the Roman cult of dead emperors, because the hero was not thought of as having ascended to Olympus or become a god: he was beneath the earth, and his power purely local. For this reason, hero cults were chthonic in nature, and their rituals more closely resembled those for Hecate and Persephone than those for Zeus and Apollo. Two exceptions were Heracles and Asclepius, who might be honoured as either gods or heroes, sometimes by chthonic night-time rites and sacrifice on the following day. One god considered as a hero to mankind is Prometheus, he secretly stole fire from Mt Olympus and introduced it to mankind.


title: Apotheosis

text: Up to the end of the Republic, the god Quirinus was the only one the Romans accepted as having undergone apotheosis, for his identification/syncretism with Romulus. (See Euhemerism). Subsequently, apotheosis in ancient Rome was a process whereby a deceased ruler was recognized as having been divine by his successor, usually also by a decree of the Senate and popular consent. In addition to showing respect, often the present ruler deified a popular predecessor to legitimize himself and gain popularity with the people. The upper-class did not always take part in the imperial cult, and some privately ridiculed the apotheosis of inept and feeble emperors, as in the satire "The Pumpkinification of (the Divine) Claudius", usually attributed to Seneca.


title: Apotheosis

text: At the height of the imperial cult during the Roman Empire, sometimes the emperor's deceased loved ones—heirs, empresses, or lovers, as Hadrian's Antinous—were deified as well. Deified people were awarded posthumously the title "Divus" ("Diva" if women) to their names to signify their divinity. Traditional Roman religion distinguished between a "deus" (god) and a "divus" (a mortal who became divine or deified), though not consistently. Temples and columns were erected to provide a space for worship.


title: Apotheosis

text: In the Roman story Cupid and Psyche, Zeus gives the ambrosia of the gods to the mortal Psyche, transforming her into a goddess herself.


title: Apotheosis

text: The Ming dynasty epic "Investiture of the Gods" deals heavily with deification legends. Numerous mortals have been deified into the Taoist pantheon, such as Guan Yu, Iron-crutch Li and Fan Kuai. Song Dynasty General Yue Fei was deified during the Ming Dynasty and is considered by some practitioners to be one of the three highest-ranking heavenly generals.


title: Apotheosis

text: Various Hindu and Buddhist rulers in the past have been represented as deities, especially after death, from India to Indonesia.


title: Apotheosis

text: Deceased North Korean leader Kim Il-Sung is the principal object of the North Korean cult of personality in which he is treated similarly to an explicitly apotheosized leader, with statues of and monuments dedicated to the "Eternal President", the annual commemoration of his birth, the paying of respects by newlyweds to his nearest statue, and the North Korean calendar being a Juche calendar based on Kim Il-sung's date of birth.


title: Apotheosis

text: Instead of the word "apotheosis", Christian theology uses in English the words "deification" or "divinization" or the Greek word ""theosis"". Pre-Reformation and mainstream theology, in both East and West, views Jesus Christ as the preexisting God who undertook mortal existence, not as a mortal being who attained divinity. It holds that he has made it possible for human beings to be raised to the level of sharing the divine nature: he became human to make humans "partakers of the divine nature" "For this is why the Word became man, and the Son of God became the Son of man: so that man, by entering into communion with the Word and thus receiving divine sonship, might become a son of God."" "For He was made man that we might be made God." "The only-begotten Son of God, wanting to make us sharers in his divinity, assumed our nature, so that he, made man, might make men gods."


title: Apotheosis

text: The Westminster Dictionary of Christian Theology, authored by Anglican Priest Alan Richardson, contains the following in an article titled "Deification":


title: Apotheosis

text: Corresponding to the Greek word "theosis" are the Latin-derived words "divinization" and "deification" used in the parts of the Catholic Church that are of Latin tradition. The concept has been given less prominence in Western theology than in that of the Eastern Catholic Churches, but is present in the Latin Church's liturgical prayers, such as that of the deacon or priest when pouring wine and a little water into the chalice: "By the mystery of this water and wine may we come to share in the divinity of Christ who humbled himself to share in our humanity." The Catechism of the Catholic Church quotes with approval Saint Athanasius's saying, "The Son of God became man so that we might become God."


title: Apotheosis

text: Catholic theology stresses the concept of supernatural life, "a new creation and elevation, a rebirth, it is a participation in and partaking of the divine nature" (cf. ). In Catholic teaching there is a vital distinction between natural life and supernatural life, the latter being "the life that God, in an act of love, freely gives to human beings to elevate them above their natural lives" and which they receive through prayer and the sacraments; indeed the Catholic Church sees human existence as having as its whole purpose the acquisition, preservation and intensification of this supernatural life. Catholics accused Socinianism of practicing anthropolatry.


title: Apotheosis

text: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church or Mormons), which believes itself to be the restored Church of Jesus Christ, believes in apotheosis along the lines of the Christian tradition of divinization or deification but refers to it as exaltation, or eternal life, and considers it to be accomplished by "sanctification". They believe that people may live with God throughout eternity in families and eventually become gods themselves but remain subordinate to God the Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit. While the primary focus of the LDS Church is on Jesus of Nazareth and his atoning sacrifice for man, Latter-day Saints believe that one purpose for Christ's mission and for his atonement is the exaltation or Christian deification of man. The third Article of Faith of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints states that all men may be saved from sin by the atonement of Jesus Christ, and LDS Gospel Doctrine (as published) states that all men will be saved and will be resurrected from death. However, only those who are sufficiently obedient and accept the atonement and the grace and mercy of Jesus Christ before the resurrection and final judgment will be "exalted" and receive a literal Christian deification.


title: Apotheosis

text: One popular Latter-day Saint quote, often attributed to the early Church leader Lorenzo Snow in 1837, is "As man now is, God once was: As God now is, man may be." The teaching was taught first by Joseph Smith while he was pointing to in the New Testament; he said that "God himself, the Father of us all, dwelt on an earth, the same as Jesus Christ himself did." Many Latter-day Saint and gentile scholars also have discussed the correlation between Latter-day Saint belief in exaltation and the ancient Christian theosis, or deification, as set forth by early Church Fathers. Several Latter-day Saint and gentile historians specializing in studies of the early Christian Church also claim that the Latter-day Saint belief in eternal progression is more similar to the ancient Christian deification as set forth in numerous patristic writings of the 1st to 4th centuries AD than the beliefs of any other modern faith group of the Christian tradition.


title: Apotheosis

text: Members of the Church believe that the original Christian belief in man's divine potential gradually lost its meaning and importance in the centuries after the death of the apostles, as doctrinal changes by post-apostolic theologians caused Christians to lose sight of the true nature of God and his purpose for creating humanity. The concept of God's nature that was eventually accepted as Christian doctrine in the 4th century set divinity apart from humanity by defining the Godhead as three persons sharing a common divine substance. That classification of God in terms of a substance is not found in scripture but, in many aspects, mirrored the Greek metaphysical philosophies that are known to have influenced the thinking of Church Fathers such as Justin Martyr, Origen, and Augustine. Latter-day Saints teach that by modern revelation, God restored the knowledge that he is the literal father of our spirits (Hebrews 12:9) and that the Biblical references to God creating mankind in his image and likeness are in no way allegorical. As such, Mormons assert that as the literal offspring of God the Father (Acts 17:28–29), humans have the potential to be heirs of his glory and co-heirs with Christ (Romans 8:16-17). The glory, Mormons believe, lies not in God's substance but in his intelligence: in other words, light and truth (Doctrine and Covenants 93:36). Thus, the purpose of humans is to grow and progress to become like the Father in Heaven. Mortality is seen as a crucial step in the process in which God's spirit children gain a body, which, though formed in the image of the Father's body, is subject to pain, illness, temptation, and death. The purpose of this earth life is to learn to choose the right in the face of that opposition, thereby gaining essential experience and wisdom. The level of intelligence we attain in this life will rise in the Resurrection (Doctrine and Covenants 130:18–19). Bodies will then be immortal like those of the Father and the Son (Philippians 3:21), but the degree of glory to which each person will resurrect is contingent upon the Final Judgment (Revelation 20:13, 1 Corinthians 15:40–41). Those who are worthy to return to God's presence can continue to progress towards a fullness of God's glory, which Mormons refer to as eternal life, or exaltation (Doctrine and Covenants 76).


title: Apotheosis

text: The Latter-day Saint concept of apotheosis/exaltation is expressed in Latter-day scriptures (Mosiah 3:19, Alma 13:12, D&C 78:7, D&C 78:22, D&C 84:4, D&C 84:23, D&C 88:68, D&C 93:28) and is expressed by a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles: "Though stretched by our challenges, by living righteously and enduring well we can eventually become sufficiently more like Jesus in our traits and attributes, that one day we can dwell in the Father's presence forever and ever" (Neal Maxwell, October 1997).


title: Apotheosis

text: In early 2014, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints published an essay on the official church website specifically addressing the foundations, history, and official beliefs regarding apotheosis. The essay addresses the scriptural foundations of this belief, teachings of the early Church Fathers on the subject of deification, and the teachings of modern Church leaders, starting with Joseph Smith.


title: Apotheosis

text: Distinctively, in Wesleyan Protestantism theosis sometimes implies the doctrine of entire sanctification which teaches, in summary, that it is the Christian's goal, in principle possible to achieve, to live without any (voluntary) sin (Christian perfection). Wesleyan theologians detect the influence on Wesley from the Eastern Fathers, who saw the drama of salvation leading to the deification (apotheosis) of the human, in order that the perfection that originally part of human nature in creation but distorted by the fall might bring fellowship with the divine.


title: Apotheosis

text: In art the matter is practical: the elevation of a figure to divine level, or being welcomed to Heaven, entails certain conventions. So it is that the apotheosis genre exists in Christian art as in other art. The features of the apotheosis genre may be seen in subjects that emphasize Christ's divinity (Transfiguration, Ascension, Christ Pantocrator) and that depict holy persons "in glory"—that is, in their roles as "God revealed" (Assumption, Ascension, etc.).


title: Apotheosis

text: Later artists have used the concept for motives ranging from genuine respect for the deceased (Constantino Brumidi's fresco "The Apotheosis of Washington" on the dome of the United States Capitol Building in Washington, D.C.), to artistic comment (Salvador Dalí's or Ingres's "The Apotheosis of Homer"), to mock-heroic and burlesque apotheoses for comedic effect.


title: Apotheosis

text: Many modern leaders have exploited the artistic imagery if not the theology of apotheosis. Examples include Rubens's depictions of James I of England at the Banqueting House (an expression of the Divine Right of Kings) or Henry IV of France, or Appiani's apotheosis of Napoleon. The C. H. Niehaus-designed "Apotheosis of St. Louis" (Louis IX of France) became a symbol for St. Louis MO. The term has come to be used figuratively to refer to the elevation of a dead leader (often one who was assassinated and/or martyred) to a kind of superhuman charismatic figure and an effective erasing of all faults and controversies which were connected with his name in life—for example, Abraham Lincoln in the US, Lenin in the USSR, Yitzchak Rabin in Israel, or Kim Jong-il in North Korea.


title: Apotheosis

text: "Apotheosis" in music refers to the appearance of a theme in grand or exalted form. It represents the musical equivalent of the apotheosis genre in visual art, especially where the theme is connected in some way with historical persons or dramatic characters. When crowning the end of a large-scale work the apotheosis functions as a peroration, following an analogy with the art of rhetoric.


title: Apotheosis

text: Apotheosis moments abound in music, and the word itself appears in some cases. François Couperin wrote two apotheoses, one for Arcangelo Corelli ("Le Parnasse, ou L'Apothéose de Corelli"), and one for Jean Baptiste Lully ("L'Apothéose de Lully"). Hector Berlioz used "Apotheose" as the title of the final movement of his "Grande symphonie funèbre et triomphale", a work composed in 1846 for the dedication of a monument to France's war dead. Two of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's ballets, "The Sleeping Beauty" and "The Nutcracker", contain apotheoses as finales; the same is true of Ludwig Minkus's "La Bayadère". Igor Stravinsky composed two ballets, "Apollo" and "Orpheus", which both contain episodes entitled "Apotheose". The concluding tableau of Maurice Ravel's "Ma mère l'Oye" is also titled "Apotheose." Czech composer Karel Husa, concerned in 1970 about arms proliferation and environmental deterioration, named his musical response "Apotheosis for This Earth". Aram Khachaturian entitled a segment of his ballet "Spartacus" "Sunrise and Apotheosis." Richard Wagner, referring to the lively rhythms which permeate Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony No. 7, called it the "apotheosis of the dance". Alexander Glazunov's ballet "The Seasons", Op.67 has as the concluding movement:- Autumn: Scene and Apotheosis.


title: Apotheosis

text: Musical theater has a tendency to use apotheosis often, although that can become easily confused with motif (narrative)s. One meta example of this is The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals, where musical theater itself is deified by the characters within the play, excluding the titular character.


title: Apotheosis

text: Samuel Menashe (1925–2011) wrote a poem entitled "Apotheosis," as did Barbara Kingsolver. Emily Dickinson (1830–1886) wrote "Love, Poem 18: Apotheosis." The poet Dejan Stojanović's "Dancing of Sounds" contains the line, "Art is apotheosis." Paul Laurence Dunbar wrote a poem entitled "Love's Apotheosis." Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote a poem entitled "The Apotheosis, or the Snow-Drop" in 1787.


title: Apotheosis

text: In an essay entitled "The Limitless Power of Science", Peter Atkins described science as an apotheosis, writing: Science, above all, respects the power of the human intellect. Science is the apotheosis of the intellect and the consummation of the Renaissance. Science respects more deeply the potential of humanity than religion ever can.


title: Apotheosis

text: Anthropologist Ludwig Feuerbach believed in anthropotheism or anthropolatry, other synonyms meaning the deification and worship of humanity.


title: Brandon Curry

text: Brandon Curry (born October 19, 1982) is an American professional bodybuilder who competes in the men's open bodybuilding division in the IFBB pro league. He is the 2019 Mr. Olympia bodybuilding champion.


title: Brandon Curry

text: Curry was born and raised in Nashville, Tennessee. He first became interested in weight training when he received a pair of Hulk Hogan-branded dumbbells for his sixth birthday. Curry would later recall in a magazine interview that he was motivated by superhero action figure G.I. Joe and the Rocky and Rambo films to develop his body to its fullest muscular capacity.


title: Brandon Curry

text: As a child, Curry's parents enrolled him in gymnastics classes, but he lost interest in the sport. Curry was involved in wrestling, track and field and football while he was a student at Hunters Lane Comprehensive High School in Nashville.


title: Brandon Curry

text: Curry attended Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, where he majored in exercise science. He initially played on the university's football team, but later left the team and switched his athletic focus to bodybuilding-related weight training.


title: Brandon Curry

text: Outside of bodybuilding, Curry works as a personal trainer. He divides his residency between Nashville and Oceanside, California.


title: Brandon Curry

text: Initially competing in the light-heavyweight class, Curry won his first bodybuilding competition, the 2003 Supernatural Bodybuilding. On June 17, 2006, he came in second in the light-heavyweight division at the NPC Junior National Championships; the five-foot-seven Curry weighed 189 pounds for that event. The following year, with 28 additional pounds added to his frame, he moved up to the heavyweight division for the NPC USA Championships on July 28, 2007, where he finished second in his division. On November 17, 2007, he came in second in the heavyweight division for that year's NPC National Championships.


title: Brandon Curry

text: In 2019, he won the Arnold Classic and cemented himself as one of the elite bodybuilders in the world with his win at the 2019 Mr. Olympia His initial success was in 2011 Mr. Olympia competitions where he stood 8th on his first time coming to Olympia's Stage. On July 25, 2008, Curry won both the heavyweight division and the overall of the NPC USA Championships, which secured him ranking as a professional bodybuilder.


title: Brandon Curry

text: Curry is married to his long-time girlfriend, Brandy Leaver. The couple has one daughter, named Zoey Curry, and three sons, including Marvelous Curry.


title: Passenger pigeon

text: The passenger pigeon or wild pigeon (Ectopistes migratorius) is an extinct species of pigeon that was endemic to North America. Its common name is derived from the French word "passager", meaning "passing by", due to the migratory habits of the species. The scientific name also refers to its migratory characteristics. The morphologically similar mourning dove ("Zenaida macroura") was long thought to be its closest relative, and the two were at times confused, but genetic analysis has shown that the genus "Patagioenas" is more closely related to it than the "Zenaida" doves.


title: Passenger pigeon

text: The passenger pigeon was sexually dimorphic in size and coloration. The male was in length, mainly gray on the upperparts, lighter on the underparts, with iridescent bronze feathers on the neck, and black spots on the wings. The female was , and was duller and browner than the male overall. The juvenile was similar to the female, but without iridescence. It mainly inhabited the deciduous forests of eastern North America and was also recorded elsewhere, but bred primarily around the Great Lakes. The pigeon migrated in enormous flocks, constantly searching for food, shelter, and breeding grounds, and was once the most abundant bird in North America, numbering around 3 billion, and possibly up to 5 billion. A very fast flyer, the passenger pigeon could reach a speed of . The bird fed mainly on mast, and also fruits and invertebrates. It practiced communal roosting and communal breeding, and its extreme gregariousness may be linked with searching for food and predator satiation.


title: Passenger pigeon

text: Passenger pigeons were hunted by Native Americans, but hunting intensified after the arrival of Europeans, particularly in the 19th century. Pigeon meat was commercialized as cheap food, resulting in hunting on a massive scale for many decades. There were several other factors contributing to the decline and subsequent extinction of the species, including shrinking of the large breeding populations necessary for preservation of the species and widespread deforestation, which destroyed its habitat. A slow decline between about 1800 and 1870 was followed by a rapid decline between 1870 and 1890. The last confirmed wild bird is thought to have been shot in 1901. The last captive birds were divided in three groups around the turn of the 20th century, some of which were photographed alive. Martha, thought to be the last passenger pigeon, died on September 1, 1914, at the Cincinnati Zoo. The eradication of the species is a notable example of anthropogenic extinction.


title: Passenger pigeon

text: Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus coined the binomial name "Columba macroura" for both the mourning dove and the passenger pigeon in the 1758 edition of his work "Systema Naturae" (the starting point of biological nomenclature), wherein he appears to have considered the two identical. This composite description cited accounts of these birds in two pre-Linnean books. One of these was Mark Catesby's description of the passenger pigeon, which was published in his 1731 to 1743 work "Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands", which referred to this bird as "Palumbus migratorius", and was accompanied by the earliest published illustration of the species. Catesby's description was combined with the 1743 description of the mourning dove by George Edwards, who used the name "C. macroura" for that bird. There is nothing to suggest Linnaeus ever saw specimens of these birds himself, and his description is thought to be fully derivative of these earlier accounts and their illustrations. In his 1766 edition of "Systema Naturae", Linnaeus dropped the name "C. macroura", and instead used the name "C. migratoria" for the passenger pigeon, and "C. carolinensis" for the mourning dove. In the same edition, Linnaeus also named "C. canadensis", based on "Turtur canadensis", as used by Mathurin Jacques Brisson in 1760. Brisson's description was later shown to have been based on a female passenger pigeon.


title: Passenger pigeon

text: In 1827 William John Swainson moved the passenger pigeon from the genus "Columba" to the new monotypic genus "Ectopistes", due in part to the length of the wings and the wedge shape of the tail. In 1906 Outram Bangs suggested that because Linnaeus had wholly copied Catesby's text when coining "C. macroura", this name should apply to the passenger pigeon, as "E. macroura". In 1918 Harry C. Oberholser suggested that "C. canadensis" should take precedence over "C. migratoria" (as "E. canadensis"), as it appeared on an earlier page in Linnaeus' book. In 1952 Francis Hemming proposed that the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN) secure the specific name "macroura" for the mourning dove, and the name "migratorius" for the passenger pigeon, since this was the intended use by the authors on whose work Linnaeus had based his description. This was accepted by the ICZN, which used its plenary powers to designate the species for the respective names in 1955.


title: Passenger pigeon

text: The passenger pigeon was a member of the pigeon and dove family, Columbidae. The oldest known fossil of the genus is an isolated humerus (USNM 430960) known from the Lee Creek Mine in North Carolina in sediments belonging to the Yorktown Formation, dating to the Zanclean stage of the Pliocene, between 5.3 and 3.6 million years ago. Its closest living relatives were long thought to be the "Zenaida" doves, based on morphological grounds, particularly the physically similar mourning dove (now "Z. macroura"). It was even suggested that the mourning dove belonged to the genus "Ectopistes" and was listed as "E. carolinensis" by some authors, including Thomas Mayo Brewer. The passenger pigeon was supposedly descended from "Zenaida" pigeons that had adapted to the woodlands on the plains of central North America.


title: Passenger pigeon

text: The passenger pigeon differed from the species in the genus "Zenaida" in being larger, lacking a facial stripe, being sexually dimorphic, and having iridescent neck feathers and a smaller clutch. In a 2002 study by American geneticist Beth Shapiro et al., museum specimens of the passenger pigeon were included in an ancient DNA analysis for the first time (in a paper focusing mainly on the dodo), and it was found to be the sister taxon of the cuckoo-dove genus "Macropygia". The "Zenaida" doves were instead shown to be related to the quail-doves of the genus "Geotrygon" and the "Leptotila" doves.


title: Passenger pigeon

text: A more extensive 2010 study instead showed that the passenger pigeon was most closely related to the New World "Patagioenas" pigeons, including the band-tailed pigeon ("P. fasciata") of western North America, which are related to the Southeast Asian species in the genera "Turacoena", "Macropygia" and "Reinwardtoena". This clade is also related to the "Columba" and "Streptopelia" doves of the Old World (collectively termed the "typical pigeons and doves"). The authors of the study suggested that the ancestors of the passenger pigeon may have colonized the New World from South East Asia by flying across the Pacific Ocean, or perhaps across Beringia in the north.


title: Passenger pigeon

text: In a 2012 study, the nuclear DNA of the passenger pigeon was analyzed for the first time, and its relationship with the "Patagioenas" pigeon was confirmed. In contrast to the 2010 study, these authors suggested that their results could indicate that the ancestors of the passenger pigeon and its Old World relatives may have originated in the Neotropical region of the New World.


title: Passenger pigeon

text: The cladogram below follows the 2012 DNA study showing the position of the passenger pigeon among its closest relatives:


title: Passenger pigeon

text: DNA in old museum specimens is often degraded and fragmentary, and passenger pigeon specimens have been used in various studies to discover improved methods of analyzing and assembling genomes from such material. DNA samples are often taken from the toe pads of bird skins in museums, as this can be done without causing significant damage to valuable specimens. The passenger pigeon had no known subspecies. Hybridization occurred between the passenger pigeon and the Barbary dove ("Streptopelia risoria") in the aviary of Charles Otis Whitman (who owned many of the last captive birds around the turn of the 20th century, and kept them with other pigeon species) but the offspring were infertile.


title: Passenger pigeon

text: The genus name, "Ectopistes", translates as "moving about" or "wandering", while the specific name, "migratorius", indicates its migratory habits. The full binomial can thus be translated as "migratory wanderer". The English common name "passenger pigeon" derives from the French word "", which means "to pass by" in a fleeting manner. While the pigeon was extant, the name "passenger pigeon" was used interchangeably with "wild pigeon". The bird also gained some less-frequently used names, including blue pigeon, merne rouck pigeon, wandering long-tailed dove, and wood pigeon. In the 18th century, the passenger pigeon was known as "tourte" in New France (in modern Canada), but to the French in Europe it was known as "tourtre". In modern French, the bird is known as "tourte voyageuse" or "pigeon migrateur", among other names.


title: Passenger pigeon

text: In the Native American Algonquian languages, the pigeon was called "amimi" by the Lenape, ' by the Ojibwe, and ' by the Kaskaskia Illinois. Other names in indigenous American languages include ' in Mohawk, and ', or "lost dove", in Choctaw. The Seneca people called the pigeon ', meaning "big bread", as it was a source of food for their tribes. Chief Simon Pokagon of the Potawatomi stated that his people called the pigeon ', and that the Europeans did not adopt native names for the bird, as it reminded them of their domesticated pigeons, instead calling them "wild" pigeons, as they called the native peoples "wild" men.


title: Passenger pigeon

text: The passenger pigeon was sexually dimorphic in size and coloration. It weighed between . The adult male was about in length. It had a bluish-gray head, nape, and hindneck. On the sides of the neck and the upper mantle were iridescent display feathers that have variously been described as being a bright bronze, violet or golden-green, depending on the angle of the light. The upper back and wings were a pale or slate gray tinged with olive brown, that turned into grayish-brown on the lower wings. The lower back and rump were a dark blue-gray that became grayish-brown on the upper tail-covert feathers. The greater and median wing-covert feathers were pale gray, with a small number of irregular black spots near the end. The primary and secondary feathers of the wing were a blackish-brown with a narrow white edge on the outer side of the secondaries. The two central tail feathers were brownish gray, and the rest were white.


title: Passenger pigeon

text: The tail pattern was distinctive as it had white outer edges with blackish spots that were prominently displayed in flight. The lower throat and breast were richly pinkish-rufous, grading into a paler pink further down, and into white on the abdomen and undertail covert feathers. The undertail coverts also had a few black spots. The bill was black, while the feet and legs were a bright coral red. It had a carmine-red iris surrounded by a narrow purplish-red eye-ring. The wing of the male measured , the tail , the bill , and the tarsus was .


title: Passenger pigeon

text: The adult female passenger pigeon was slightly smaller than the male at in length. It was duller than the male overall, and was a grayish-brown on the forehead, crown, and nape down to the scapulars, and the feathers on the sides of the neck had less iridescence than those of the male. The lower throat and breast were a buff-gray that developed into white on the belly and undertail-coverts. It was browner on the upperparts and paler buff brown and less rufous on the underparts than the male. The wings, back, and tail were similar in appearance to those of the male except that the outer edges of the primary feathers were edged in buff or rufous buff. The wings had more spotting than those of the male. The tail was shorter than that of the male, and the legs and feet were a paler red. The iris was orange red, with a grayish blue, naked orbital ring. The wing of the female was , the tail , the bill , and the tarsus was .


title: Passenger pigeon

text: The juvenile passenger pigeon was similar in plumage to the adult female, but lacked the spotting on the wings, and was a darker brownish-gray on the head, neck, and breast. The feathers on the wings had pale gray fringes (also described as white tips), giving it a scaled look. The secondaries were brownish-black with pale edges, and the tertial feathers had a rufous wash. The primaries were also edged with a rufous-brown color. The neck feathers had no iridescence. The legs and feet were dull red, and the iris was brownish, and surrounded by a narrow carmine ring. The plumage of the sexes was similar during their first year.


title: Passenger pigeon

text: Of the hundreds of surviving skins, only one appears to be aberrant in coloran adult female from the collection of Walter Rothschild, Natural History Museum at Tring. It is a washed brown on the upper parts, wing covert, secondary feathers, and tail (where it would otherwise have been gray), and white on the primary feathers and underparts. The normally black spots are brown, and it is pale gray on the head, lower back, and upper-tail covert feathers, yet the iridescence is unaffected. The brown mutation is a result of a reduction in eumelanin, due to incomplete synthesis (oxidation) of this pigment. This sex-linked mutation is common in female wild birds, but it is thought the white feathers of this specimen are instead the result of bleaching due to exposure to sunlight.


title: Passenger pigeon

text: The passenger pigeon was physically adapted for speed, endurance, and maneuverability in flight, and has been described as having a streamlined version of the typical pigeon shape, such as that of the generalized rock dove ("Columba livia"). The wings were very long and pointed, and measured from the wing-chord to the primary feathers, and to the secondaries. The tail, which accounted for much of its overall length, was long and wedge-shaped (or graduated), with two central feathers longer than the rest. The body was slender and narrow, and the head and neck were small.


title: Passenger pigeon

text: The internal anatomy of the passenger pigeon has rarely been described. Robert W. Shufeldt found little to differentiate the bird's osteology from that of other pigeons when examining a male skeleton in 1914, but Julian P. Hume noted several distinct features in a more detailed 2015 description. The pigeon had particularly large breast muscles that indicate powerful flight (musculus pectoralis major for downstroke and the smaller musculus supracoracoideus for upstroke). The coracoid bone (which connects the scapula, furcula, and sternum) was large relative to the size of the bird, , with straighter shafts and more robust articular ends than in other pigeons. The furcula had a sharper V-shape and was more robust, with expanded articular ends. The scapula was long, straight, and robust, and its distal end was enlarged. The sternum was very large and robust compared to that of other pigeons; its keel was deep. The overlapping uncinate processes, which stiffen the ribcage, were very well developed. The wing bones (humerus, radius, ulna, carpometacarpus) were short but robust compared to other pigeons. The leg bones were similar to those of other pigeons.


title: Passenger pigeon

text: The noise produced by flocks of passenger pigeons was described as deafening, audible for miles away, and the bird's voice as loud, harsh, and unmusical. It was also described by some as clucks, twittering, and cooing, and as a series of low notes, instead of an actual song. The birds apparently made croaking noises when building nests, and bell-like sounds when mating. During feeding, some individuals would give alarm calls when facing a threat, and the rest of the flock would join the sound while taking off.


title: Passenger pigeon

text: In 1911, American behavioral scientist Wallace Craig published an account of the gestures and sounds of this species as a series of descriptions and musical notations, based on observation of C. O. Whitman's captive passenger pigeons in 1903. Craig compiled these records to assist in identifying potential survivors in the wild (as the physically similar mourning doves could otherwise be mistaken for passenger pigeons), while noting this "meager information" was likely all that would be left on the subject. According to Craig, one call was a simple harsh "keck" that could be given twice in succession with a pause in between. This was said to be used to attract the attention of another pigeon. Another call was a more frequent and variable scolding. This sound was described as "kee-kee-kee-kee" or "tete! tete! tete!", and was used to call either to its mate or towards other creatures it considered to be enemies. One variant of this call, described as a long, drawn-out "tweet", could be used to call down a flock of passenger pigeons passing overhead, which would then land in a nearby tree. "Keeho" was a soft cooing that, while followed by louder "keck" notes or scolding, was directed at the bird's mate. A nesting passenger pigeon would also give off a stream of at least eight mixed notes that were both high and low in tone and ended with "keeho". Overall, female passenger pigeons were quieter and called infrequently. Craig suggested that the loud, strident voice and "degenerated" musicality was the result of living in populous colonies where only the loudest sounds could be heard.


title: Passenger pigeon

text: The passenger pigeon was found across most of North America east of the Rocky Mountains, from the Great Plains to the Atlantic coast in the east, to the south of Canada in the north, and the north of Mississippi in the southern United States, coinciding with its primary habitat, the eastern deciduous forests. Within this range, it constantly migrated in search of food and shelter. It is unclear if the birds favored particular trees and terrain, but they were possibly not restricted to one type, as long as their numbers could be supported. It originally bred from the southern parts of eastern and central Canada south to eastern Kansas, Oklahoma, Mississippi, and Georgia in the United States, but the primary breeding range was in southern Ontario and the Great Lakes states south through states north of the Appalachian Mountains. Though the western forests were ecologically similar to those in the east, these were occupied by band-tailed pigeons, which may have kept out the passenger pigeons through competitive exclusion.


title: Passenger pigeon

text: The passenger pigeon wintered from Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina south to Texas, the Gulf Coast, and northern Florida, though flocks occasionally wintered as far north as southern Pennsylvania and Connecticut. It preferred to winter in large swamps, particularly those with alder trees; if swamps were not available, forested areas, particularly with pine trees, were favored roosting sites. There were also sightings of passenger pigeons outside of its normal range, including in several Western states, Bermuda, Cuba, and Mexico, particularly during severe winters. It has been suggested that some of these extralimital records may have been due to the paucity of observers rather than the actual extent of passenger pigeons; North America was then unsettled country, and the bird may have appeared anywhere on the continent except for the far west. There were also records of stragglers in Scotland, Ireland, and France, although these birds may have been escaped captives, or the records incorrect.


title: Passenger pigeon

text: More than 130 passenger pigeon fossils have been found scattered across 25 US states, including in the La Brea Tar Pits of California. These records date as far back as 100,000 years ago in the Pleistocene era, during which the pigeon's range extended to several western states that were not a part of its modern range. The abundance of the species in these regions and during this time is unknown.


title: Passenger pigeon

text: The passenger pigeon was nomadic, constantly migrating in search of food, shelter, or nesting grounds. In his 1831 "Ornithological Biography", American naturalist and artist John James Audubon described a migration he observed in 1813 as follows:


title: Passenger pigeon

text: These flocks were frequently described as being so dense that they blackened the sky and as having no sign of subdivisions. The flocks ranged from only above the ground in windy conditions to as high as . These migrating flocks were typically in narrow columns that twisted and undulated, and they were reported as being in nearly every conceivable shape. A skilled flyer, the passenger pigeon is estimated to have averaged during migration. It flew with quick, repeated flaps that increased the bird's velocity the closer the wings got to the body. It was equally as adept and quick at flying through a forest as through open space. A flock was also adept at following the lead of the pigeon in front of it, and flocks swerved together to avoid a predator. When landing, the pigeon flapped its wings repeatedly before raising them at the moment of landing. The pigeon was awkward when on the ground, and moved around with jerky, alert steps.


title: Passenger pigeon

text: The passenger pigeon was one of the most social of all land birds. Estimated to have numbered three to five billion at the height of its population, it may have been the most numerous bird on Earth; researcher Arlie W. Schorger believed that it accounted for between 25 and 40 percent of the total land bird population in the United States. The passenger pigeon's historic population is roughly the equivalent of the number of birds that overwinter in the United States every year in the early 21st century. Even within their range, the size of individual flocks could vary greatly. In November 1859, Henry David Thoreau, writing in Concord, Massachusetts, noted that "quite a little flock of [passenger] pigeons bred here last summer," while only seven years later, in 1866, one flock in southern Ontario was described as being wide and long, took 14 hours to pass, and held in excess of 3.5 billion birds. Such a number would likely represent a large fraction of the entire population at the time, or perhaps all of it. Most estimations of numbers were based on single migrating colonies, and it is unknown how many of these existed at a given time. American writer Christopher Cokinos has suggested that if the birds flew single file, they would have stretched around the earth 22 times.


title: Passenger pigeon

text: A 2014 genetic study (based on coalescent theory and on "sequences from most of the genome" of three individual passenger pigeons) suggested that the passenger pigeon population experienced dramatic fluctuations across the last million years, due to their dependence on availability of mast (which itself fluctuates). The study suggested the bird was not always abundant, mainly persisting at around 1/10,000 the amount of the several billions estimated in the 1800s, with vastly larger numbers present during outbreak phases. Some early accounts also suggest that the appearance of flocks in great numbers was an irregular occurrence. These large fluctuations in population may have been the result of a disrupted ecosystem and have consisted of outbreak populations much larger than those common in pre-European times. The authors of the 2014 genetic study note that a similar analysis of the human population size arrives at an "effective population size" of between 9,000 and 17,000 individuals (or approximately 1/550,000th of the peak total human population size of 7 billion cited in the study).