title: Malayalam cinema

text: "Swaham" (1994), directed by Shaji N. Karun, was the first Malayalam film entry for the competition in the Cannes International Film Festival, where it was a nominee for the Palme d'Or. Murali Nair's "Marana Simhasanam" later won the Caméra d'Or at the 1999 Cannes Film Festival. "Guru" (1997), directed by Rajiv Anchal, was chosen as India's official entry to the Oscars to be considered for nomination in the Best Foreign Film category for that year, making it the first film in Malayalam to be chosen for Oscar nomination. Noted script writer A.K. Lohithadas made his directorial debut with "Bhoothakkannadi", for which he won the Indira Gandhi Award for Best Debut Film of a Director.


title: Malayalam cinema

text: . In 2001 came the world's first film with only one actor in the cast, The Guard. Slapstick comedy was the predominant theme of the films of this era. "C.I.D. Moosa" (2003) by Johny Antony, "Meesa Madhavan" (2002) by Lal Jose and "Kunjikoonan" (2002) directed by Sasi Shanker are examples. Sequels to a number of successful films were made. Some movies were examples of exemplary film making, such as "Meghamalhar", "Madhuranombarakattu", "Nandanam", "Perumazhakkalam", and "Kaazhcha". In 2008, Malayalam movie artists came together in the multistar film "" to raise funds for the AMMA.


title: Malayalam cinema

text: After several years of quality deterioration, Malayalam films saw the signs of massive resurgence after 2010 with the release of several experimental films (known as New Wave or New Generation films), mostly from new directors. New Wave is characterised by fresh and unusual themes and new narrative techniques. These films differ from conventional themes of the 1990s and 2000s and have introduced several new trends to the Malayalam industry. While the new generation's formats and styles are deeply influenced by global and Indian trends, their themes are firmly rooted in Malayali life and mindscapes. The new generation also helped the Malayalam film industry regain its past glory.


title: Malayalam cinema

text: Salim Ahamed's "Adaminte Makan Abu" was chosen as India's official entry to the Academy Awards to be considered for nomination in the Best Foreign Film category in 2011.


title: Malayalam cinema

text: "Christian Brothers" (2011) was released worldwide with a total of 310 prints on 18 March; it went to 154 centres in Kerala, 90 centres outside Kerala and 80 centres overseas, making it the widest release for a Malayalam film at that time. This record was later broken by "Peruchazhi" (2014), which released in 500 screens worldwide on 29 August. "Drishyam" (2013) became the first Malayalam film to cross the 500 million mark at the box office. The film was critically acclaimed and was remade in four languages. Later, in 2016, "Pulimurugan" directed by Vyshak became the first Malayalam film to cross the 1 billion mark at the box office.


title: Malayalam cinema

text: In recent years, Malayalam films have gained popularity in Sri Lanka, with fans citing cultural similarities between Sinhalese people and Malayalis as a reason. In 2019, "Lucifer" became the highest grossing Malayalam film of all time. Lucifer became the highest grossing Indian film in Dubai. The film collected a final gross of 2000 million at the box office.


title: Malayalam cinema

text: In November 2020, Lijo Jose Pellissery's film "Jallikattu" was selected as India's submission for Oscar for best foreign language film making as third Malayalam film as entry..In 2020 a mid the COVID-19lockdown, Sufiyum Sujatayum, starring Jayasurya and Aditi Rao Hydari, has become the first Malayalam film to be released on the Amazon Prime Video (OTT) platform as theatres remain shut in Kerala due to the pandemic. In 2021, "Drishyam 2" , "Nayattu" , "Kala" , "Joji" , "The Great Indian Kitchen" and "Malik" made their list in the highest rated 2021 movies in Imdb ."Drishyam 2" , "The Great Indian Kitchen" and "Malik" became Worldwide famous and most debated movies in 2021.


title: Malayalam cinema

text: Malayalam Cinema's first ever original superhero Minnal Murali was released through Netflix on 24 December 2021. Tovino Thomas as Minnal Murali which was directed by Basil Joseph under Weekend Blockbusters gained great reviews by critics and became top watched Non-English movie on Netflix. It broke all records of Malayalam Cinema trailers on YouTube crossing 6 Million Views and 500K+ likes in 24 hours. In March 2022, Amal Neeerad's "Bheeshma Parvam" took the record for the biggest opening weekend ever in Kerala for a Malayalam movie. The Mammooty starring action thriller grossed Rs. 21-21.25 crores in the state during its 4-days weekend, besting the previous record held by Lucifer which earned Rs. 20 crores.


title: Malayalam cinema

text: "Newspaper Boy" (1955), a neorealistic film, drew inspiration from Italian neorealism. "Padayottam" (1982) was India's first indigenously produced 70 mm film, while "My Dear Kuttichathan" (1984) was India's first 3D film. "O' Faby" (1993) was India's first live-action/animation hybrid film.


title: Malayalam cinema

text: "Amma Ariyan" (1986) was the first film made in India with money collected from the public. It was produced by Odessa Collective, founded by the director John Abraham and friends. The money was raised by collecting donations and screening Charlie Chaplin's film "The Kid".


title: Malayalam cinema

text: "Jalachhayam" (2010) was the world first feature film shot entirely on a cell phone camera and it was also an experimental film directed by Sathish Kalathil who is the director of Veena Vaadanam, the first documentary film in India shot with the same movie capture medium.


title: Malayalam cinema

text: Malayalam cinema's directors have included J. C. Daniel, the director and producer of the first Malayalam film, "Vigathakumaran" (1928). Unlike other Indian films at that time, most of them were based on the Puranas, he chose to base his film on a social theme. Though it failed commercially, he paved the way for the Malayalam film industry and is widely considered the ""father" "of" "Malayalam cinema"". Until the 1950s, Malayalam film didn't see many talented film directors. The milestone film "Neelakuyil" (1954), directed by Ramu Kariat and P. Bhaskaran, shed a lot of limelight over its directors. Ramu Kariat went on to become a celebrated director in the 1960s and 1970s. P. Bhaskaran directed a few acclaimed films in the 1960s. The cameraman of "Neelakuyil", A. Vincent, also became a noted director of the 1960s and 1970s. Another noted director of the 1950s was P. Ramadas, the director of the neorealistic film "Newspaper Boy" (1955).


title: Malayalam cinema

text: In the 1970s, the Malayalam film industry saw the rise of film societies. It triggered a new genre of films known as "parallel cinema". The main driving forces of the movement, who gave priority to serious cinema, were Adoor Gopalakrishnan and G. Aravindan. People like John Abraham and P. A. Backer gave a new dimension to Malayalam cinema through their political themes. The late 1970s witnessed the emergence of another stream of Malayalam films, known as "middle-stream cinema", which seamlessly integrated the seriousness of the parallel cinema and the popularity of the mainstream cinema. Most of the films belonging to this stream were directed by PN Menon, I. V. Sasi, P. G. Viswambharan, K. G. George, Bharathan and Padmarajan.


title: Malayalam cinema

text: In the 1980s and early 1990s, a new array of directors joined the stalwarts who had already made a mark in the industry. This period saw the narrowing of the gap between the different streams of the industry. Directors like P. G. Viswambharan, K. G. George, Priyadarshan, I. V. Sasi, John Abraham, Fazil, Joshiy, Bhadran, Kamal, Sibi Malayil, Hariharan, Sathyan Anthikad, K. Madhu and Siddique-Lal contributed significantly . There were also extraordinary screenwriters like M. T. Vasudevan Nair, T. Damodaran, A. K. Lohithadas and Sreenivasan, whose contributions were also commendable.


title: Malayalam cinema

text: The 2000s saw a decline in the quality of Malayalam films. Many directors who had excelled in the Golden Age struggled as many of their films continuously failed critically and commercially. As a result, the gap between parallel cinema (now known as art cinema) and mainstream cinema (now known as commercial cinema) widened. The 2000s also saw a commercial film formula being created in line with Tamil and Bollywood films. Directors like Shaji Kailas, Rafi Mecartin and Anwar Rasheed directed blockbusters which had few artistic merits to boast of. Despite the overall decline, some directors stood apart and made quality cinema. Shaji N. Karun, Lenin Rajendran, Shyamaprasad and Jayaraj made films that won laurels. Notable directors who debuted in this time include Blessy, Lal Jose, R.Sharath, Ranjith, Rosshan Andrrews, Amal Neerad, Aashiq Abu, Dr. Biju, Vineeth Sreenivasan and Lijo Jose Pellissery.


title: Malayalam cinema

text: Out of the 40 National Film Awards for Best Director given away till 2007, Malayalam directors have received 12. The directors who have won include Adoor Gopalakrishnan (1973, 1985, 1988, 1990, 2007), G. Aravindan (1978, 1979, 1987), Shaji N. Karun (1989), T. V. Chandran (1994), Jayaraj (1998, 2017) and Rajivnath (1999). There are several recipients of the Special Jury Award as well: Mankada Ravi Varma (1984), John Abraham (1987), Shaji N. Karun (1995) and Pradeep Nair (2005).


title: Malayalam cinema

text: Film music, which refers to playback singing in the context of Indian music, forms the most important canon of popular music in India. The film music of Kerala in particular is the most popular form of music in the state. Before Malayalam cinema and Malayalam film music developed, the Keralites eagerly followed Tamil and Hindi film songs, and that habit has stayed with them until now. The history of Malayalam film songs begins with the 1948 film "Nirmala" which was produced by artist P. J. Cherian who introduced play-back singing for the first time in the film. The film's music composer was P. S. Divakar, and the songs were sung by P. Leela, T. K. Govindarao, Vasudeva Kurup, C. K. Raghavan, Sarojini Menon and Vimala B. Varma, who is credited as the first playback singer of Malayalam cinema.


title: Malayalam cinema

text: The main trend in the early years was to use the tune of hit Hindi or Tamil songs in Malayalam songs. This trend changed in the early 1950s with the arrival of a number of poets and musicians to the Malayalam music scene. By the middle of the 1950s, the Malayalam film music industry started finding its own identity. This reformation was led by the music directors Brother Laxmanan, G. Devarajan, V. Dakshinamoorthy, M. S. Baburaj and K. Raghavan along with the lyricists Vayalar Ramavarma, P. Bhaskaran, O. N. V. Kurup and Sreekumaran Thampi. Major playback singers of that time were Kamukara Purushothaman, K. P. Udayabhanu, A. M. Rajah, P. Leela, Santha P. Nair, Ayiroor Sadasivan, Lalitha Thampi, C. S. Radhadevi, A. K. Sukumaran, B. Vasantha, P. Susheela, P. Madhuri and S. Janaki. Despite that, these singers got high popularity throughout Kerala and were part of the Golden age of Malayalam music (1960 to 1970).


title: Malayalam cinema

text: In the later years many non-Malayalis like Manna Dey, Talat Mahmood, Lata Mangeshkar, Asha Bhosle, Hemlata, Kishore Kumar, Mahendra Kapoor and S. P. Balasubrahmanyam sang for Malayalam films. This trend was also found among composers to an extent, with film composers from other languages including Naushad Ali, Usha Khanna, M. B. Sreenivasan, Bombay Ravi, Shyam, Bappi Lahiri, Laxmikant–Pyarelal, Salil Chowdhury, Ilaiyaraaja, Vishal Bhardwaj and A. R. Rahman scoring music for Malayalam films. This can be attributed to the fact that film music in South India had a parallel growth pattern with many instances of cross-industry contributions. The late 1950s through the mid-1970s can be considered as the golden period of Malayalam film music in its own identity. Along with the leading music directors, the likes of M. B. Sreenivasan, M. K. Arjunan, Pukezhenty Vellappan Nair, M. S. Viswanathan, A. T. Ummer, R. K. Shekhar, Salil Chowdhury and lyricists like Thirunainar Kurichi Madhavan Nair, Mankombu Gopalakrishnan and Bharanikkavu Sivakumar, numerous everlasting and hit songs were delivered to the music lovers. The soft melodious music and high quality lyrics were the highlights of these songs.


title: Malayalam cinema

text: K. J. Yesudas, who debuted in 1961, virtually revolutionised the Malayalam film music industry and became the most popular Malayalam singer ever along with K. S. Chithra. The trio of Vayalar, G. Devarajan and Yesudas also made unforgettable songs like the earlier trio of Kamukara, Tirunainaarkurichy and Brother Laxmanan. Yesudas became equally popular with classical music audience and people who patronised film music. He along with P. Jayachandran gave a major face-lift to Malayalam playback singing in the 1960s and 1970s. K. S. Chithra debuted in 1979, and by the mid-eighties, she became the most sought after female singer in South India.


title: Malayalam cinema

text: By the late 1970s, the trends in music started changing and more rhythm oriented songs with a western touch came with the dominance of music directors like Shyam, K. J. Joy, and Jerry Amaldev. The lyricists were forced to write lyrics according to the tune in these days and were often criticised for quality issues. However, from 1979 to 1980, the revolutionary music director Raveendran along with Johnson and M. G. Radhakrishnan led the second reformation of Malayalam film music by creating melodious and classical oriented music with the soul of the culture of Kerala. Lyricists like Poovachal Khader, Kavalam Narayana Panicker and Bichu Thirumala in 1980s and Kaithapram Damodaran Namboothiri, V. Madhusoodanan Nair and Girish Puthenchery in the 1990s were part of this musical success. Contributions from Kannur Rajan, Bombay Ravi, S. P. Venkatesh, Mohan Sithara, Ouseppachan, Sharath, Vidyadharan, Raghukumar and Vidyasagar were also notable in this period. K. J. Yesudas and K. S. Chithra and singers like M. G. Sreekumar, G. Venugopal, Radhika Thilak, Unni Menon and Sujatha Mohan were also active then. A notable aspect in the later years was the extensive of classical carnatic music in many film songs of the 1980s and 1990s. Classical Carnatic music was heavily used in films like "Chithram" (1988), "His Highness Abdullah" (1990), "Bharatham" (1991), "Sargam" (1992), "Kudumbasametham" (1992), "Sopanam" (1993) etc.


title: Malayalam cinema

text: At present, the major players in the scene are composers like A. R. Rahman, M. Jayachandran, Bijibal, Deepak Dev, Rex Vijayan, Jakes Bejoy, Rahul Raj, Prashant Pillai, Shaan Rahman, Sushin Shyam, Gopi Sundar, Alphons Joseph, Rajesh Murugesan, Jassie Gift, Shahabaz Aman, Vishnu Vijay, lyricists Rafeeq Ahamed, Anwar Ali, B. K. Harinarayanan, Vinayak Sasikumar, Vayalar Sarath and Anil Panachooran, and singers Vineeth Sreenivasan, Shreya Ghoshal, Shankar Mahadevan, Vijay Yesudas, Shweta Mohan, Karthik, Naresh Iyer, Manjari, Haricharan, Shahabaz Aman, Sithara Krishnakumar, Vaikom Vijayalakshmi, K. S. Harisankar, Sayanora Philip, Benny Dayal and Jyotsna Radhakrishnan, along with stalwarts in the field.


title: Malayalam cinema

text: Young composers like Deepak Dev, Rex Vijayan, Rahul Raj, Jakes Bejoy, Sushin Shyam, and Prashant Pillai are not only known for their catchy tunes, but also for bringing in a lot of electronics, digital sound and a variety of genres in Malayalam film scores and songs.


title: Malayalam cinema

text: The National Award-winning music composers of Malayalam cinema are Johnson (1994, 1995), Bombay Ravi (1995), Ouseppachan (2008), Ilaiyaraaja (2010), Isaac Thomas Kottukapally (2011), Bijibal (2012) and M. Jayachandran (2016). Until 2009, the 1995 National Award that Johnson received for the film score of "Sukrutham" (1994) was the only instance in the history of the award in which the awardee composed the film soundtrack rather than its songs. He shared that award with Bombay Ravi, who received the award for composing songs for the same film. In 2010 and 2011, the awards given to film scores were won by Malayalam films: "Kerala Varma Pazhassi Raja" (Ilaiyaraaja) and "Adaminte Makan Abu" (Isaac Thomas Kottukapally). Raveendran also received a Special Mention in 1991 for composing songs for the film "Bharatham".


title: Malayalam cinema

text: The lyricists who have won the National Award are Vayalar Ramavarma (1973), O. N. V. Kurup (1989) and Yusufali Kechery (2001). The male singers who have received the National Award are K. J. Yesudas (1973, 1974, 1988, 1992, 1994, 2017), P. Jayachandran (1986) and M. G. Sreekumar (1991, 2000). Yesudas has won two more National Awards for singing in Hindi (1977) and Telugu (1983) films, which makes him the person who has won the most National Film Award for Best Male Playback Singer, with eight. The female singers who have won the award are S. Janaki (1981) and K. S. Chithra (1987, 1989). Chitra had also won the award for Tamil (1986, 1997, 2005) and Hindi (1998) film songs, which makes her the person with the most National Film Award for Best Female Playback Singer awards, six times.


title: Malayalam cinema

text: The Kerala State Film Awards are given to motion pictures made in the Malayalam language. The awards have been bestowed by Kerala State Chalachitra Academy since 1998 on behalf of the Department of Cultural Affairs of the government of Kerala. The awards were started in 1969. The awardees are decided by an independent jury formed by the academy and the Department of Cultural Affairs. The jury usually consists of personalities from the film field. For the awards for literature on cinema, a separate jury is formed. The academy annually invites films for the award and the jury analyses the films before deciding the winners. The awards intend to promote films with artistic values and encourage artists and technicians.


title: Malayalam cinema

text: The International Film Festival of Kerala (IFFK) is held annually in Thiruvananthapuram, the capital city of Kerala. It was started in 1996 and is organised by Kerala State Chalachitra Academy on behalf of the Department of Cultural Affairs of the State Government. It is held in November/December every year and is acknowledged as one of the leading film festivals in India.


title: Malayalam cinema

text: The Travancore National Pictures was the first film studio in Kerala. It was established by J. C. Daniel in 1926 in Thiruvananthapuram, which was then a part of Travancore. Producer-director Kunchacko and film distributor K. V. Koshy established Udaya Studios in Alappuzha in 1947. The studio influenced the gradual shift of Malayalam film industry from its original base of Madras, Tamil Nadu to Kerala. In 1951, P. Subramaniam established Merryland Studio in Nemom, Trivandrum. The other major studios are Sreekrishna (1952, Trivandrum), Ajantha (1958, Keezhmadu – now extinct), Chithralekha (1965, Aakkulam, Trivandrum), Uma Studio (1975, Trivandrum), Navodaya (1978, Thrikkakkara) and Chithranjali (1980, Trivandrum).


title: Malayalam cinema

text: The Association of Malayalam Movie Artists (A.M.M.A) is an organisation formed by artists of Malayalam cinema. It aims to act against piracy, to safeguard the interests of member actors and actresses, and to serve as a common forum to raise concerns and address issues. The activities of AMMA include endowments, insurance schemes, and committees on wages and benefits on revision, funds for research, pensions, and education loans for the children of the members. The organisation ventured into film production in 2008 with "" to raise funds for its activities.


title: Malayalam cinema

text: Organizations such as Kerala Film Producers Association, Kerala Film Distributors Association, Kerala Cine Exhibitors Federation, Hyperlink Film Club and Kerala Film Exhibitors Association have coordinated work stoppages.


title: Paul Mullin (footballer, born 1994)

text: Paul Philip Mullin (born 6 November 1994) is a Welsh professional footballer who plays as a forward for National League side Wrexham. He is a product of the Everton, Liverpool and Huddersfield Town academies. He was the 2020–21 EFL League Two top scorer with Cambridge United and, having helped to secure their promotion to League One as runners-up, then subsequently moved to Wrexham ahead of the 2021–22 season where he again became top-scorer; this time in the National League.


title: Paul Mullin (footballer, born 1994)

text: Mullin was born in Litherland, Merseyside. He spent time in the academies of both Everton and Liverpool and after a period in the Liverpool Foundation Football College, he moved to Huddersfield Town.


title: Paul Mullin (footballer, born 1994)

text: Huddersfield Town's youth coach Frankie Bunn invited Mullin to the squad. Subsequently Mullin was signed to Huddersfield Town in 2012 after impressing at U18 and U21 level; he signed a one-year contract at the club. However, at the end of the 2013–14 season, Mullin was released by the club, without ever making a first team appearance.


title: Paul Mullin (footballer, born 1994)

text: After a successful trial period he signed for Morecambe on a short term contract in August 2014. He made his professional debut coming on as a second-half substitute in the League Cup first round defeat to Bradford City on 12 August 2014. Four days later, on his league debut, Mullin scored his first professional goal after coming on as a second-half substitute in the 3–2 win over Newport County, which he scored a winning goal. One week later, on 23 August, Mullin made his full debut scoring both goals in a 2–1 win away at Cambridge United. After scoring three goals in the first seven matches, Mullin signed a three-year contract with the club in mid-September. Then on 31 October 2014, Mullin would end his eleven games without scoring despite losing 2–1 to Accrington Stanley.


title: Paul Mullin (footballer, born 1994)

text: On 27 June 2017, Mullin joined League two club Swindon Town for an undisclosed fee. Mullin was well regarded by fans for his hard-working approach but goals were hard to come by; which led to his departure after only one season.


title: Paul Mullin (footballer, born 1994)

text: In June 2018, he signed for Tranmere Rovers. He scored his first goal for Tranmere in a 4–3 EFL Trophy loss against Crewe Alexandra on 4 September 2018.


title: Paul Mullin (footballer, born 1994)

text: In January 2020, Tranmere Rovers took Premier League club Watford to an FA Cup third round replay after drawing 3–3 at Vicarage Road, Mullin scored a penalty in the first game and went on to score the winner after coming on as a substitute in the replay at Prenton Park. Tranmere drew Manchester United in the fourth round at home.


title: Paul Mullin (footballer, born 1994)

text: Mullin signed for Cambridge United on a six-month loan deal on 31 January 2020, and scored his first goal for the club on 11 February 2020, away at Scunthorpe United. He scored again at Leyton Orient on 7 March, the last match before the season was curtailed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.


title: Paul Mullin (footballer, born 1994)

text: In July 2020, Mullin signed permanently on a one-year contract. On 20 October 2020, he scored a hat-trick in a 3–1 victory over Port Vale, taking his goal total to 11 in ten matches in all competitions. On 27 March 2021, Mullin scored his 25th league goal of the season in a 2–1 victory over Carlisle United, a goal which saw him break David Crown's record on the most league goals by a Cambridge United player in a season. As a gesture, club partners Mead renamed their stand the "Paul Mullin Stand", a name that would stay in place for the remainder of the 2020–21 season.


title: Paul Mullin (footballer, born 1994)

text: In April 2021, Mullin was nominated for the EFL League Two Player of the Season, before being announced as the winner at the EFL Awards on 29 April, where he was also named in the 2020–21 EFL League Two Team of the Season.Mullin was also awarded the League Two Golden boot after scoring 32 goals in Cambridge United's 2020–21 campaign, in which they secured promotion to the third tier of English football, a record number for the division since its rebranding in 2004.


title: Paul Mullin (footballer, born 1994)

text: At the end of the 2020–21 season Mullin rejected a new contract offer with Cambridge United and in July 2021 joined National League side Wrexham on a three-year deal. After scoring three goals across the course of the month, including a vital winner against FC Halifax Town, Mullin was awarded the league's Player of the Month award for November 2021. Mullin continued to have a successful first season at Wrexham, winning Wrexham Men's Team Top Goalscorer, Player of the Season, and Goal of the Season awards as well as the National League's Golden Boot and Player of the Season.


title: Matt Stonie

text: Matthew Kai Stonie (born ) is an American competitive eater and YouTuber. He is the number five ranked competitive eater in Major League Eating. Stonie won the 2015 Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest, dethroning 8-time defending champion Joey Chestnut. Stonie has gained fame from his YouTube channel, to which he uploads video footage of his eating challenges.


title: Matt Stonie

text: Stonie was born in San Francisco, California and raised in San Jose. He is of Japanese, Lithuanian and Czech ancestry. He graduated from Evergreen Valley High School in San Jose. In 2013, he was listed as weighing at a height of . His nickname, "Megatoad," is from the character Toad from the "Super Mario" franchise. Stonie has a younger brother named Morgan Stonie, who is oftentimes involved with the production of his challenges uploaded to his YouTube channel.


title: Matt Stonie

text: Stonie's Major League Eating debut was at the Stockton Deep Fried Asparagus Championship in Stockton, California in 2011. At the time, he was the youngest member of the Major League Eating organization, being 18 years old. His first win came in 2010 in a lobster roll eating contest in Hampton Beach, New Hampshire.


title: Matt Stonie

text: On July 4, 2015, Stonie defeated eight-time defending Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest champion Joey Chestnut by eating 62 hot dogs to Chestnut's 60. Since 2016, Stonie's ranking in Major League Eating has fluctuated between second and fifth.


title: Matt Stonie

text: As of April 2022, Stonie has amassed over 15.3 million subscribers and 3.11 billion video views on his YouTube channel, with his most viewed video having been viewed over 126 million times.


title: Matt Stonie

text: In August of 2022, Stonie partnered with TGI Friday's to release his own franchise of fast casual restaurants, Stonie Bowls. The franchise focuses on large portion rice and poke bowls. Stonie would release the debut announcement of the franchise as a challenge video that urges viewers to beat his time in eating one of the 5 pound ultimate Stonie bowls.


title: Stele

text: A stele ( ), or occasionally stela (plural "stelas" or "stelæ"), when derived from Latin, is a stone or wooden slab, generally taller than it is wide, erected in the ancient world as a monument. The surface of the stele often has text, ornamentation, or both. These may be inscribed, carved in relief, or painted.


title: Stele

text: Stelae were created for many reasons. Grave stelae were used for funerary or commemorative purposes. Stelae as slabs of stone would also be used as ancient Greek and Roman government notices or as boundary markers to mark borders or property lines. Stelae were occasionally erected as memorials to battles. For example, along with other memorials, there are more than half-a-dozen steles erected on the battlefield of Waterloo at the locations of notable actions by participants in battle.


title: Stele

text: A traditional Western gravestone (headstone, tombstone, gravestone, or marker) may technically be considered the modern equivalent of ancient stelae, though the term is very rarely applied in this way. Equally, stele-like forms in non-Western cultures may be called by other terms, and the words "stele" and "stelae" are most consistently applied in archaeological contexts to objects from Europe, the ancient Near East and Egypt, China, and sometimes Pre-Columbian America.


title: Stele

text: Steles have also been used to publish laws and decrees, to record a ruler's exploits and honors, to mark sacred territories or mortgaged properties, as territorial markers, as the boundary steles of Akhenaton at Amarna, or to commemorate military victories. They were widely used in the ancient Near East, Mesopotamia, Greece, Egypt, Somalia, Eritrea, Ethiopia, and, most likely independently, in China and elsewhere in the Far East, and, independently, by Mesoamerican civilisations, notably the Olmec and Maya.


title: Stele

text: The large number of steles, including inscriptions, surviving from ancient Egypt and in Central America constitute one of the largest and most significant sources of information on those civilisations, in particular Maya stelae. The most famous example of an inscribed stela leading to increased understanding is the Rosetta Stone, which led to the breakthrough allowing Egyptian hieroglyphs to be read. An informative stele of Tiglath-Pileser III is preserved in the British Museum. Two steles built into the walls of a church are major documents relating to the Etruscan language.


title: Stele

text: Standing stones (menhirs), set up without inscriptions from Libya in North Africa to Scotland, were monuments of pre-literate Megalithic cultures in the Late Stone Age. The Pictish stones of Scotland, often intricately carved, date from between the 6th and 9th centuries.


title: Stele

text: An obelisk is a specialized kind of stele. The Insular high crosses of Ireland and Britain are "specialized steles". Totem poles of North and South America that are made out of stone may also be considered a specialized type of stele. Gravestones, typically with inscribed name and often with inscribed epitaph, are among the most common types of stele seen in Western culture.


title: Stele

text: Most recently, in the "Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe" in Berlin, the architect Peter Eisenman created a field of some 2,700 blank steles. The memorial is meant to be read not only as the field, but also as an erasure of data that refer to memory of the Holocaust.


title: Stele

text: Egyptian steles (or Stelae, Books of Stone) have been found dating as far back as the First Dynasty of Egypt. These vertical slabs of stone are used as tombstones, for religious usage, and to mark boundaries, and are most commonly made of limestone and sandstone, or harder kinds of stone such as granite or diorite, but wood was also used in later times.


title: Stele

text: Stele fulfilled several functions. There were votive, commemorative, and liminal or boundary stelae, but the largest group was the tomb stelae. Their picture area showed the owner of the stele, often with his family, and an inscription listed the name and titles of the deceased after a prayer to one, or several, of the gods of the dead and request for offerings. Less frequently, an autobiographical text provided additional information about the individual's life.


title: Stele

text: In the mastaba tombs of the Old Kingdom (2686 - 2181 BC), stelae functioned as false doors, symbolizing passage between the present and the afterlife, which allowed the deceased to receive offerings. These were both real and represented by formulae on the false door.


title: Stele

text: Liminal, or boundary, stele were used to mark size and location of fields and the country's borders. Votive stelae were exclusively erected in temples by pilgrims to pay homage to the gods or sacred animals. Commemorative stelae were placed in temples by the pharaoh, or his senior officials, detailing important events of his reign. Some of the most widely known Egyptian stelae include: the Kamose Stelae, recounting the defeat of the Hyksos; the Victory Stele, describing the campaigns of the Nubian pharaoh Piye as he reconquered the country; the Restoration Stele of Tutankhamun (1336 - 1327 BC), detailing the religious reforms enacted after the Amarna period; and the Merneptah Stele, which features the first known historical mention of the Israelites. In Ptolemaic times (332 - 30 BC), decrees issued by the pharaoh and the priesthood were inscribed on stelae in hieroglyphs, demotic script and Greek, the most famous example of which is the Rosetta Stone.


title: Stele

text: Urartian steles were freestanding stone obelisks that served a variety of purposes, erected in the Iron Age kingdom which existed in the Armenian Highlands of modern Armenia, Turkey and Iran between the 9th and 6th centuries BC. Some were located within temple complexes, set within monumental rock-cut niches (such as the niche of the Rock of Van, discovered by Marr and Orbeli in 1916), or erected beside tombs. Others stood in isolated positions and, such as the Kelashin Stele, had a commemorative function or served as boundary markers. Although sometimes plain, most bore a cuneiform inscription that would detail the stele's function or the reasons for its erection. The stele from Van's "western niche" contained annals of the reign of Sarduri II, with events detailed yearly and with each year separated by the phrase "For the God Haldi I accomplished these deeds". Urartian steles are sometimes found reused as Christian Armenian gravestones or as spolia in Armenian churches - Maranci suggests this reuse was a deliberate desire to capitalize on the potency of the past. Some scholars have suggested Urartian steles may have influenced the development of the Armenian khachkar.


title: Stele

text: Greek funerary markers, especially in Attica, had a long and evolutionary history in Athens. From public and extravagant processional funerals to different types of pottery used to store ashes after cremation, visibility has always been a large part of Ancient Greek funerary markers in Athens. Regarding stelai (Greek plural of stele), in the period of the Archaic style in Ancient Athens (600 BC) stele often showed certain archetypes of figures, such as the male athlete. Generally their figures were singular, though there are instances of two or more figures from this time period. Moving into the 6th and 5th centuries BC, Greek stelai declined and then rose in popularity again in Athens and evolved to show scenes with multiple figures, often of a family unit or a household scene. One such notable example is the Stele of Hegeso. Typically grave stelai are made of marble and carved in relief, and like most Ancient Greek sculpture they were vibrantly painted. For more examples of stelai, the Getty Museum's published Catalog of Greek Funerary Sculpture is a valuable resource


title: Stele

text: Steles (Chinese: "bēi" 碑) have been the major medium of stone inscription in China since the Tang dynasty. Chinese steles are generally rectangular stone tablets upon which Chinese characters are carved intaglio with a funerary, commemorative, or edifying text. They can commemorate talented writers and officials, inscribe poems, portraits, or maps, and frequently contain the calligraphy of famous historical figures. In addition to their commemorative value, many Chinese steles are regarded as exemplars of traditional Chinese calligraphic scripts, especially the clerical script.


title: Stele

text: Chinese steles from before the Tang dynasty are rare: there are a handful from before the Qin dynasty, roughly a dozen from the Western Han, 160 from the Eastern Han, and several hundred from the Wei, Jin, Northern and Southern, and Sui dynasties. During the Han dynasty, tomb inscriptions (, "mùzhì") containing biographical information on deceased people began to be written on stone tablets rather than wooden ones.


title: Stele

text: Erecting steles at tombs or temples eventually became a widespread social and religious phenomenon. Emperors found it necessary to promulgate laws, regulating the use of funerary steles by the population. The Ming dynasty laws, instituted in the 14th century by its founder the Hongwu Emperor, listed a number of stele types available as status symbols to various ranks of the nobility and officialdom: the top noblemen and mandarins were eligible for steles installed on top of a stone tortoise and crowned with hornless dragons, while the lower-level officials had to be satisfied with steles with plain rounded tops, standing on simple rectangular pedestals.


title: Stele

text: Steles are found at nearly every significant mountain and historical site in China. The First Emperor made five tours of his domain in the 3rd century BC and had Li Si make seven stone inscriptions commemorating and praising his work, of which fragments of two survive. One of the most famous mountain steles is the high stele at Mount Tai with the personal calligraphy of Emperor Xuanzong of Tang commemorating his imperial sacrifices there in 725.


title: Stele

text: A number of such stone monuments have preserved the origin and history of China's minority religious communities. The 8th-century Christians of Xi'an left behind the Xi'an Stele, which survived adverse events of the later history by being buried underground for several centuries. Steles created by the Kaifeng Jews in 1489, 1512, and 1663, have survived the repeated flooding of the Yellow River that destroyed their synagogue several times, to tell us something about their world. China's Muslim have a number of steles of considerable antiquity as well, often containing both Chinese and Arabic text.


title: Stele

text: Thousands of steles, surplus to the original requirements, and no longer associated with the person they were erected for or to, have been assembled in Xi'an's Stele Forest Museum, which is a popular tourist attraction. Elsewhere, many unwanted steles can also be found in selected places in Beijing, such as Dong Yue Miao, the Five Pagoda Temple, and the Bell Tower, again assembled to attract tourists and also as a means of solving the problem faced by local authorities of what to do with them. The long, wordy, and detailed inscriptions on these steles are almost impossible to read for most are lightly engraved on white marble in characters only an inch or so in size, thus being difficult to see since the slabs are often 3m or more tall.


title: Stele

text: There are more than 100,000 surviving stone inscriptions in China. However, only approximately 30,000 have been transcribed or had rubbings made, and fewer than those 30,000 have been formally studied.


title: Stele

text: Maya stelae were fashioned by the Maya civilization of ancient Mesoamerica. They consist of tall sculpted stone shafts or slabs and are often associated with low circular stones referred to as altars, although their actual function is uncertain. Many stelae were sculpted in low relief, although plain monuments are found throughout the Maya region. The sculpting of these monuments spread throughout the Maya area during the Classic Period (250–900 AD), and these pairings of sculpted stelae and circular altars are considered a hallmark of Classic Maya civilization. The earliest dated stela to have been found "in situ" in the Maya lowlands was recovered from the great city of Tikal in Guatemala. During the Classic Period almost every Maya kingdom in the southern lowlands raised stelae in its ceremonial centre.


title: Stele

text: Stelae became closely associated with the concept of divine kingship and declined at the same time as this institution. The production of stelae by the Maya had its origin around 400 BC and continued through to the end of the Classic Period, around 900, although some monuments were reused in the Postclassic (c. 900–1521). The major city of Calakmul in Mexico raised the greatest number of stelae known from any Maya city, at least 166, although they are very poorly preserved.


title: Stele

text: Hundreds of stelae have been recorded in the Maya region, displaying a wide stylistic variation. Many are upright slabs of limestone sculpted on one or more faces, with available surfaces sculpted with figures carved in relief and with hieroglyphic text. Stelae in a few sites display a much more three-dimensional appearance where locally available stone permits, such as at Copán and Toniná. Plain stelae do not appear to have been painted nor overlaid with stucco decoration, but most Maya stelae were probably brightly painted in red, yellow, black, blue and other colours.


title: Stele

text: Khmer inscriptions are a corpus of post-5th century historical texts engraved sometimes on steles, but more generally on materials such as stone and metal ware found in a wide range of mainland Southeast Asia (Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand and Laos) and relating to the Khmer civilization. The study of Khmer inscriptions is known as Khmer epigraphy.


title: Stele

text: More than 1,200 Khmer inscriptions of varying length have been collected. There was an 'explosion' of Khmer epigraphy from the seventh century, with the earliest recorded Khmer stone inscription dating from 612 AD at Angkor Borei.


title: Stele

text: Ogham stones are vertical grave and boundary markers, erected at hundreds of sites in Ireland throughout the first millennium AD, bearing inscriptions in the Primitive Irish language. They have occasionally been described as "steles."


title: Stele

text: The Horn of Africa contains many stelae. In the highlands of Ethiopia and Eritrea, the Axumites erected a number of large stelae, which served a religious purpose in pre-Christian times. One of these granite columns is the largest such structure in the world, standing at 90 feet.


title: Stele

text: Additionally, Tiya is one of nine megalithic pillar sites in the central Gurage Zone of Ethiopia. As of 1997, 118 stele were reported in the area. Along with the stelae in the Hadiya Zone, the structures are identified by local residents as "Yegragn Dingay" or "Gran's stone", in reference to Imam Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi (Ahmad "Gurey" or "Gran"), ruler of the Adal Sultanate.


title: Stele

text: The stelae at Tiya and other areas in central Ethiopia are similar to those on the route between Djibouti City and Loyada in Djibouti. In the latter area, there are a number of anthropomorphic and phallic stelae, which are associated with graves of rectangular shape flanked by vertical slabs. The Djibouti-Loyada stelae are of uncertain age, and some of them are adorned with a T-shaped symbol.


title: Stele

text: Near the ancient northwestern town of Amud in Somalia, whenever an old site had the prefix "Aw" in its name (such as the ruins of Awbare and Awbube), it denoted the final resting place of a local saint. Surveys by A.T. Curle in 1934 on several of these important ruined cities recovered various artefacts, such as pottery and coins, which point to a medieval period of activity at the tail end of the Adal Sultanate's reign. Among these settlements, Aw Barkhadle is surrounded by a number of ancient stelae. Burial sites near Burao likewise feature old stelae.


title: Candyman (film series)

text: Candyman is an American supernatural horror-slasher film series originating from the 1985 short story "The Forbidden" of the collection "Books of Blood" by Clive Barker, about the legend of the "Candyman", the ghost of an artist and son of a slave who was murdered in the late 19th century. Its film adaptation, "Candyman", directed by Bernard Rose in 1992, starred Tony Todd as the title character. Although the film initially underperformed at the American box office, it became a cult classic. A novelization


title: Candyman (film series)

text: and a comic adaptation of the film were released in the same year. Two sequels, "" (1995) and "" (1999), were released. A direct sequel to the original "Candyman" (which ignores other sequels), directed by Nia DaCosta and produced by Jordan Peele, was released on August 27, 2021.


title: Candyman (film series)

text: "Candyman", the first film in the series, is a 1992 slasher film, serving as a loose adaptation of the Clive Barker's 1985 short story "The Forbidden" of the collection "Books of Blood". The film follows a graduate student, Helen Lyle, who is studying urban legends along with her colleague Bernadette. She takes strong interest in learning about a mysterious hook-handed murderer coined as "The Candyman" in the Cabrini Green urban project dwelling which many of the residents feared he lived behind the mirrors and the walls of the apartments randomly killing them 'gutting' them with his hook after chanting his name 5 times in a mirror. Helen becomes intrigued by the mythical story that she jokingly summons him in denial and disbelief, later to learn who was really behind the mirror, questioning her reality.


title: Candyman (film series)

text: "Farewell to the Flesh" is the second film in the series. The film follows the story of a school teacher, Annie Tarrant, who comes to learn about her family's past after losing her father due to his obsession with the Candyman. She denies his existence after hearing her students talk about him and learning that one of her students was obsessed with him. She speaks his name to prove he does not exist, but later finds out who Candyman really is.


title: Candyman (film series)

text: "Day of the Dead" is the third film in the series. The story continues with Annie Tarrant's daughter, Caroline Mckeever, who is now an adult. She denies Candyman's existence by protecting her family's bloodline as her business partner Miguel uses the story of her Great Great Grandfather Daniel Robitaille/Candyman in his art exhibit for profit. Caroline soon learns why her mother tried to destroy the myth of Candyman but is caught between his web of deceptive murders, framing her in order for her to submit to become immortal as family with him in death.


title: Candyman (film series)

text: A fourth film in the series was produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Monkeypaw Productions and was released on August 27, 2021. Yahya Abdul-Mateen II stars in the film, while Tony Todd returns to the eponymous role. It is a direct sequel to the first film (ignoring other sequels), taking place twenty-seven years later, in Cabrini Green, Chicago. A young, over-confident visual artist named Anthony McCoy struggles to find inspiration to get him further exposure. He learns about an old urban legend that took place in the project housing developments at Cabrini Green of a grad student name Helen Lyle who became mentally insane during her research and sacrificed herself to save a baby, which sparks his interest. He further researches the information which leads him to encounter a neighborhood laundromat owner who also reveals his version of the urban legend, which is learned to be of an amputated hook-handed man in the 1970s named Sherman Fields who was wrongfully murdered at the hands of Chicago police officers which Cabrini Green residents believed him to be "The Candyman" who harmed children with razor blades in candy. Anthony becomes obsessed with these urban legend findings as he uses it for his artwork presentation and to influence the summoning of the spirit of 'The Candyman', but later realizes the consequences of his actions as he learns the real truth behind the legend by his hallucinations, which in turn becomes a deadly reality.


title: Candyman (film series)

text: According to Virginia Madsen, Bernard Rose originally wanted the first sequel "Candyman 2" to be a prequel showing Candyman and Helen's "look-alike" falling in love, but the idea was turned down because the studio was worried about how a fully-fledged interracial romance would be received. A possible fourth film was in development in 2004; according to Tony Todd, it was intended to be set in New England at a women's college, and focus on a professor who is a descendant of Candyman but has no idea who he is, with Todd describing "the initial image [being] of Candyman in a blizzard". The film was stuck in development hell. The slasher crossover film "Freddy vs. Jason" (2003) also inspired Miramax to want to create a "Candyman vs. Hellraiser" crossover, but Clive Barker, originator of both franchises, had recommended against it. A crossover with the "Leprechaun" film series was also considered, but Tony Todd immediately flat out refused to participate in such a project, saying he had too much respect for his character to see him used for such a purpose.


title: Candyman (film series)

text: "Candyman (1992) and Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh" soundtrack was composed by Philip Glass. According to Glass, "it has become a classic, so I still make money from that score, get checks every year". Tony Todd confirmed in an interview with IGN that a limited edition featuring 7500 copies of the film's soundtrack was released in February 2015. The composition ""Candyman's Suite: Helen's Theme"" became a widely popular theme song for Halloween and was often featured in a few television commercials and series including in one episode of "."


title: Candyman (film series)

text: "Candyman (2021)" original score soundtrack was composed by Chicago musician Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe who used solo compositions based around voice and extended modular synthesis techniques. He expressed in an interview with fellow musician DeForrest Brown Jr. that he used field recordings of Cabrini Green to capture the essence and spirit of the neighborhood and layered it as textural elements on top of the main instruments. In January 2022, "Variety" reported that Candyman's film score, briefly made the shortlist for the 2022 Academy Awards in the category of Best Original Score, however did not make the official final ballot list. Phillips Glass score ""Helen's Theme/Music Box"" was also reimagined by Lowe as a new interpolation on the soundtrack as well as in one scene and end credits of the film.


title: Candyman (film series)

text: A board game based on "Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh" was released during the mid 1990s as a promotional item for the film of the same name. The game features a board, 1 die and cards (Hook, Candyman, Voodoo, Mansion Key) that will impact the player or others. The game's premise is stated as "to win, player must proceed clockwise along the streets of New Orleans and get to the mansion with the key card in order to unlock the secret to Candyman's power".


title: Saka

text: The Saka (Old Persian: ; Kharoṣṭhī: ; Ancient Egyptian: , ; , , , ), Shaka (Sanskrit (Brāhmī): , , ; Sanskrit (Devanāgarī): , ), or Sacae (Ancient Greek: ; Latin: ) were a group of nomadic Iranian peoples who historically inhabited the northern and eastern Eurasian Steppe and the Tarim Basin.


title: Saka

text: The Sakas were closely related to the European Scythians, and both groups formed part of the wider Scythian cultures and ultimately derived from the earlier Andronovo culture, and the Saka language formed part of the Scythian languages. However, the Sakas of the Asian steppes are to be distinguished from the Scythians of the Pontic Steppe; and although the ancient Persians, ancient Greeks, and ancient Babylonians respectively used the names "Saka," "Scythian," and "Cimmerian" for all the steppe nomads, the name "Saka" is used specifically for the ancient nomads of the eastern steppe while "Scythian" is used for the related group of nomads living in the western steppe; and while the Cimmerians were often described by contemporaries as culturally Scythian, they may have differed ethnically from the Scythians proper, to whom the Cimmerians were related, and who also displaced and replaced the Cimmerians.


title: Saka

text: Prominent archaeological remains of the Sakas include Arzhan, Tunnug, the Pazyryk burials, the Issyk kurgan, Saka Kurgan tombs, the Barrows of Tasmola and possibly Tillya Tepe.


title: Saka

text: In the 2nd century BC, many Sakas were driven by the Yuezhi from the steppe into Sogdia and Bactria and then to the northwest of the Indian subcontinent, where they were known as the Indo-Scythians. Other Sakas invaded the Parthian Empire, eventually settling in Sistan, while others may have migrated to the Dian Kingdom in Yunnan, China. In the Tarim Basin and Taklamakan Desert of today's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, they settled in Khotan, Yarkand, Kashgar and other places.


title: Saka

text: Linguist Oswald Szemerényi studied synonyms of various origins for "Scythian" and differentiated the following terms: , , , and .


title: Saka

text: Derived from an Iranian verbal root , "go, roam" (related to "seek") and thus meaning "nomad" was the term , from which came the names:


title: Saka

text: From the Indo-European root ', meaning "propel, shoot" (and from which was also derived the English word ), of which ' is the zero-grade form, was descended the Scythians' self-name reconstructed by Szemerényi as (roughly "archer"). From this were descended the following exonyms:


title: Saka

text: A late Scythian sound change from /δ/ to /l/ resulted in the evolution of into . From this was derived the Greek word , which, according to Herodotus, was the self-designation of the Royal Scythians.


title: Saka

text: The name was used by the ancient Persian to refer to all the Iranian nomadic tribes living to the north of their empire, including both those who lived between the Caspian Sea and the Hungry steppe, and those who lived to the north of the Danube and the Black Sea. The Assyrians meanwhile called these nomads the Ishkuzai (Akkadian: ) or Askuzai (Akkadian: , , ), and the Ancient Greeks called them Skuthai (Ancient Greek: , , ).


title: Saka

text: The Achaemenid inscriptions initially listed a single group of . However, following Darius I's campaign of 520 to 518 BC against the Asian nomads, they were differentiated into two groups, both living in Central Asia to the east of the Caspian Sea:


title: Saka

text: The scholar David Bivar had tentatively identified the with the , and John Manuel Cook had tentatively identified the with the . More recently, the scholar Rüdiger Schmitt has suggested that the and the might have collectively designated the /Massagetae.


title: Saka

text: The Achaemenid king Xerxes I listed the Saka coupled with the () people of Central Asia, who might possibly have been identical with the .


title: Saka

text: Although the ancient Persians, ancient Greeks, and ancient Babylonians respectively used the names "Saka," "Scythian," and "Cimmerian" for all the steppe nomads, modern scholars now use the term Saka to refer specifically to Iranian peoples who inhabited the northern and eastern Eurasian Steppe and the Tarim Basin; and while the Cimmerians were often described by contemporaries as culturally Scythian, they may have differed ethnically from the Scythians proper, to whom the Cimmerians were related, and who also displaced and replaced the Cimmerians.


title: Saka

text: The and both lived in the steppe and highland areas located in northern Central Asia and to the east of the Caspian Sea.


title: Saka

text: The /Massagetae more specifically lived around Chorasmia and in the lowlands of Central Asia located to the east of the Caspian Sea and the south-east of the Aral Sea, in the Kyzylkum Desert and the Ustyurt Plateau, most especially between the Araxes and Iaxartes rivers. The /Massagetae could also be found in the Caspian Steppe. The imprecise description of where the Massagetae lived by ancient authors has however led modern scholars to ascribe to them various locations, such as the Oxus delta, the Iaxartes delta, between the Caspian and Aral seas or forther to the north or north-east, but without basing these suggestions on any conclusive arguments. Other locations assigned to the Massagetae include the area corresponding to modern-day Turkmenistan.


title: Saka

text: The , who may have been identical with the , lived on the north-east border of the Achaemenid Empire on the Iaxartes river.


title: Saka

text: Some other Saka groups lived to the east of the Pamir Mountains and to the north of the Iaxartes river, as well as in the regions corresponding to modern-day Qirghizia, Tian Shan, Altai, Tuva, Mongolia, Xinjiang, and Kazakhstan.


title: Saka

text: The , that is the Saka who were in contact with the Chinese, inhabited the Ili and Chu valleys of modern Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, which was called the "land of the ", i.e. "land of the Saka", in the "Book of Han".


title: Saka

text: Recent archeological and genetic data suggests that the Western and Eastern Scythians of the 1st millennium BC originated independently, but both combine Yamnaya-related ancestry, which spread eastwards from the area of the European steppes, with an East Asian-related component, which most closely corresponds to the modern North Siberian Nganasan people of the lower Yenisey River, to varying degrees, but generally higher among Eastern Scythians.


title: Saka

text: On the other hand, archaeological evidence now tends to suggest that the origins of Scythian culture, characterized by its kurgans burial mounds and its "Animal style" of the 1st millennium BC, are to be found among Eastern Scythians rather than their Western counterparts: eastern kurgans are older than western ones (such as the Altaic kurgan Arzhan 1 in Tuva), and elements of the "Animal style" are first attested in areas of the Yenisei river and modern-day China in the 10th century CE. The rapid spread of Scythian culture, from the Eastern Scythians to the Western Scythians, is also confirmed by significant east-to-west gene flow across the steppes during the 1st millennium BC.


title: Saka

text: The Sakas spoke a language belonging to the Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. The Pazyryk burials of the Pazyryk culture in the Ukok Plateau in the 4th and 3rd centuries BC are thought to be of Saka chieftains. These burials show striking similarities with the earlier Tarim mummies at Gumugou. The Issyk kurgan of south-eastern Kazakhstan, and the Ordos culture of the Ordos Plateau has also been connected with the Saka. It has been suggested that the ruling elite of the Xiongnu was of Saka origin. Some scholars contend that in the 8th century BC, a Saka raid from the Altai may be "connected" with a raid on Zhou China.


title: Saka

text: The Saka tribe of the Massagetae/ rose to power in the 8th to 7th centuries BC, when they migrated from the east into Central Asia, from where they expelled the Scythians, another nomadic Iranian tribe to whom they were closely related, after which they came to occupy large areas of the region beginning in the 6th century BC. The Massagetae forcing the Early Scythians to the west across the Araxes river and into the Caucasian and Pontic steppes started a significant movement of the nomadic peoples of the Eurasian Steppe, following which the Scythians displaced the Cimmerians and the Agathyrsi, who were also nomadic Iranian peoples closely related to the Massagetae and the Scythians, conquered their territories, and invaded Western Asia, where their presence had an important role in the history of the ancient civilisations of Mesopotamia, Anatolia, Egypt, and Iran.


title: Saka

text: According to the ancient Greek historian Diodorus Siculus, the Parthians rebelled against the Medes during the reign of Cyaxares, after which the Parthians put their country and capital city under the protection of the Sakas. This was followed by a long war opposing the Medes to the Saka, the latter of whom were led by the queen Zarinaea. At the end of this war, the Parthians accepted Median rule, and the Saka and the Medes made peace.


title: Saka

text: According to the Greek historian Ctesias, once the Persian Achaemenid Empire's founder, Cyrus, had overthrown his grandfather the Median king Astyages, the Bactrians accepted him as the heir of Astyages and submitted to him, after which he founded the city of Cyropolis on the Iaxartes river as well as seven fortresses to protect the northern frontier of his empire against the Saka. Cyrus then attacked the , initially defeated them and captured their king, Amorges. After this, Amorges's queen, Sparethra, defeated Cyrus with a large army of both men and women warriors and captured Parmises, the brother-in-law of Cyrus and the brother of his wife Amytis, as well as Parmises's three sons, whom Sparethra exchanged in return for her husband, after which Cyrus and Amorges became allies, and Amorges helped Cyrus conquer Lydia.


title: Saka

text: Cyrus, accompanied by the of his ally Amorges, later carried out a campaign against the Massagetae/ in 530 BC. According to Herodotus, Cyrus captured a Massagetaean camp by ruse, after which the Massagetae queen Tomyris led the tribe's main force against the Persians, defeated them, and placed the severed head of Cyrus in a sack full of blood. Some versions of the records of the death of Cyrus named the Derbices, rather than the Massagetae, as the tribe against whom Cyrus died in battle, because the Derbices were a member tribe of the Massagetae confederation or identical with the whole of the Massagetae. After Cyrus had been mortally wounded by the Derbices/Massagetae, Amorges and his army helped the Persian soldiers defeat them. Cyrus told his sons to respect their own mother as well as Amorges above everyone else before dying.


title: Saka

text: Possibly shortly before the 520s BC, the Saka expanded into the valleys of the Ili and Chu in eastern Central Asia. Around 30 Saka tombs in the form of kurgans (burial mounds) have also been found in the Tian Shan area dated to between 550–250 BC.


title: Saka

text: Darius I waged wars against the eastern Sakas during a campaign of 520 to 518 BC where, according to his inscription at Behistun, he conquered the Massagetae/, captured their king Skunxa, and replaced him with a ruler who was loyal to Achaemenid rule. The territories of the Saka were absorbed into the Achaemenid Empire as part of Chorasmia that included much of the territory between the Oxus and the Iaxartes rivers, and the Saka then supplied the Achaemenid army with large number of mounted bowmen. According to Polyaenus, Darius fought against three armies led by three kings, respectively named Sacesphares, Amorges or Homarges, and Thamyris, with Polyaenus's account being based on accurate Persian historical records. After Darius's administrative reforms of the Achaemenid Empire, the were included within the same tax district as the Medes.


title: Saka

text: During the period of Achaemenid rule, Central Asia was in contact with Saka populations who were themselves in contact with China.


title: Saka

text: After Alexander the Great conquered the Achaemenid Empire, the Saka resisted his incursions into Central Asia.


title: Saka

text: The Saka were pushed out of the Ili and Chu River valleys by the Yuezhi. An account of the movement of these people is given in Sima Qian's "Records of the Grand Historian". The Yuehzhi, who originally lived between Tängri Tagh (Tian Shan) and Dunhuang of Gansu, China, were assaulted and forced to flee from the Hexi Corridor of Gansu by the forces of the Xiongnu ruler Modu Chanyu, who conquered the area in 177–176 BC. In turn the Yuehzhi were responsible for attacking and pushing the Sai ("i.e." Saka) west into Sogdiana, where, between 140 and 130 BC, the latter crossed the Syr Darya into Bactria. The Saka also moved southwards toward the Pamirs and northern India, where they settled in Kashmir, and eastward, to settle in some of the oasis-states of Tarim Basin sites, like Yanqi (焉耆, Karasahr) and Qiuci (龜茲, Kucha). The Yuehzhi, themselves under attacks from another nomadic tribe, the Wusun, in 133–132 BC, moved, again, from the Ili and Chu valleys, and occupied the country of Daxia, (大夏, "Bactria").


title: Saka

text: The ancient Greco-Roman geographer Strabo noted that the four tribes that took down the Bactrians in the Greek and Roman account – the "Asioi", "Pasianoi", "Tokharoi" and "Sakaraulai" – came from land north of the Syr Darya where the Ili and Chu valleys are located. Identification of these four tribes varies, but "Sakaraulai" may indicate an ancient Saka tribe, the "Tokharoi" is possibly the Yuezhi, and while the Asioi had been proposed to be groups such as the Wusun or Alans.


title: Saka

text: René Grousset wrote of the migration of the Saka: "the Saka, under pressure from the Yueh-chih [Yuezhi], overran Sogdiana and then Bactria, there taking the place of the Greeks." Then, "Thrust back in the south by the Yueh-chih," the Saka occupied "the Saka country, Sakastana, whence the modern Persian Seistan." Some of the Saka fleeing the Yuezhi attacked the Parthian Empire, where they defeated and killed the kings Phraates II and Artabanus. These Sakas were eventually settled by Mithridates II in what become known as Sakastan. According to Harold Walter Bailey, the territory of Drangiana (now in Afghanistan and Pakistan) became known as "Land of the Sakas", and was called Sakastāna in the Persian language of contemporary Iran, in Armenian as Sakastan, with similar equivalents in Pahlavi, Greek, Sogdian, Syriac, Arabic, and the Middle Persian tongue used in Turfan, Xinjiang, China. This is attested in a contemporary Kharosthi inscription found on the Mathura lion capital belonging to the Saka kingdom of the Indo-Scythians (200 BC – 400 AD) in North India, roughly the same time the Chinese record that the Saka had invaded and settled the country of "Jibin" 罽賓 (i.e. Kashmir, of modern-day India and Pakistan).


title: Saka

text: Iaroslav Lebedynsky and Victor H. Mair speculate that some Sakas may also have migrated to the area of Yunnan in southern China following their expulsion by the Yuezhi. Excavations of the prehistoric art of the Dian Kingdom of Yunnan have revealed hunting scenes of Caucasoid horsemen in Central Asian clothing. The scenes depicted on these drums sometimes represent these horsemen practising hunting. Animal scenes of felines attacking oxen are also at times reminiscent of Scythian art both in theme and in composition.


title: Saka

text: Migrations of the 2nd and 1st century BC have left traces in Sogdia and Bactria, but they cannot firmly be attributed to the Saka, similarly with the sites of Sirkap and Taxila in ancient India. The rich graves at Tillya Tepe in Afghanistan are seen as part of a population affected by the Saka.


title: Saka

text: The Shakya clan of India, to which Gautama Buddha, called "Śākyamuni" "Sage of the Shakyas", belonged, were also likely Sakas, as Michael Witzel and Christopher I. Beckwith have alleged. The scholar Bryan Levman however criticised this hypothesis for resting on slim to no evidence, and maintains that the Shakyas were a population native to the north-east Gangetic plain who were unrelated to the Iranic Sakas.


title: Saka

text: The region in modern Afghanistan and Iran where the Saka moved to became known as "land of the Saka" or Sakastan. This is attested in a contemporary Kharosthi inscription found on the Mathura lion capital belonging to the Saka kingdom of the Indo-Scythians (200 BC – 400 AD) in northern India, roughly the same time the Chinese record that the Saka had invaded and settled the country of "Jibin" 罽賓 (i.e. Kashmir, of modern-day India and Pakistan). In the Persian language of contemporary Iran the territory of Drangiana was called Sakastāna, in Armenian as Sakastan, with similar equivalents in Pahlavi, Greek, Sogdian, Syriac, Arabic, and the Middle Persian tongue used in Turfan, Xinjiang, China. The Sakas also captured Gandhara and Taxila, and migrated to North India. The most famous Indo-Scythian king was Maues. An Indo-Scythians kingdom was established in Mathura (200 BC – 400 AD). Weer Rajendra Rishi, an Indian linguist, identified linguistic affinities between Indian and Central Asian languages, which further lends credence to the possibility of historical Sakan influence in North India. According to historian Michael Mitchiner, the Abhira tribe were a Saka people cited in the Gunda inscription of the Western Satrap Rudrasimha I dated to AD 181.


title: Saka

text: The Kingdom of Khotan was a Saka city state in on the southern edge of the Tarim Basin. As a consequence of the Han–Xiongnu War spanning from 133 BC to 89 AD, the Tarim Basin (now Xinjiang, Northwest China), including Khotan and Kashgar, fell under Han Chinese influence, beginning with the reign of Emperor Wu of Han (r. 141–87 BC).


title: Saka

text: Archaeological evidence and documents from Khotan and other sites in the Tarim Basin provided information on the language spoken by the Saka.>


title: Saka

text: The official language of Khotan was initially Gandhari Prakrit written in Kharosthi, and coins from Khotan dated to the 1st century bear dual inscriptions in Chinese and Gandhari Prakrit, indicating links of Khotan to both India and China. Surviving documents however suggest that an Iranian language was used by the people of the kingdom for a long time Third-century AD documents in Prakrit from nearby Shanshan record the title for the king of Khotan as "hinajha" (i.e. "generalissimo"), a distinctively Iranian-based word equivalent to the Sanskrit title "senapati", yet nearly identical to the Khotanese Saka "hīnāysa" attested in later Khotanese documents. This, along with the fact that the king's recorded regnal periods were given as the Khotanese "kṣuṇa", "implies an established connection between the Iranian inhabitants and the royal power," according to the Professor of Iranian Studies Ronald E. Emmerick. He contended that Khotanese-Saka-language royal rescripts of Khotan dated to the 10th century "makes it likely that the ruler of Khotan was a speaker of Iranian." Furthermore, he argued that the early form of the name of Khotan, "hvatana", is connected semantically with the name Saka.


title: Saka

text: The region once again came under Chinese suzerainty with the campaigns of conquest by Emperor Taizong of Tang (r. 626–649). From the late eighth to ninth centuries, the region changed hands between the rival Tang and Tibetan Empires. However, by the early 11th century the region fell to the Muslim Turkic peoples of the Kara-Khanid Khanate, which led to both the Turkification of the region as well as its conversion from Buddhism to Islam.


title: Saka

text: Later Khotanese-Saka-language documents, ranging from medical texts to Buddhist literature, have been found in Khotan and Tumshuq (northeast of Kashgar). Similar documents in the Khotanese-Saka language dating mostly to the 10th century have been found in the Dunhuang manuscripts.


title: Saka

text: Although the ancient Chinese had called Khotan "Yutian" (于闐), another more native Iranian name occasionally used was "Jusadanna" (瞿薩旦那), derived from Indo-Iranian "Gostan" and "Gostana", the names of the town and region around it, respectively.


title: Saka

text: Much like the neighboring people of the Kingdom of Khotan, people of Kashgar, the capital of Shule, spoke Saka, one of the Eastern Iranian languages. According to the "Book of Han", the Saka split and formed several states in the region. These Saka states may include two states to the northwest of Kashgar, and Tumshuq to its northeast, and Tushkurgan south in the Pamirs. Kashgar also conquered other states such as Yarkand and Kucha during the Han dynasty, but in its later history, Kashgar was controlled by various empires, including Tang China, before it became part of the Turkic Kara-Khanid Khanate in the 10th century. In the 11th century, according to Mahmud al-Kashgari, some non-Turkic languages like the Kanchaki and Sogdian were still used in some areas in the vicinity of Kashgar, and Kanchaki is thought to belong to the Saka language group. It is believed that the Tarim Basin was linguistically Turkified before the 11th century ended.


title: Saka

text: Persians referred to all northern nomads as Sakas. Herodotus (IV.64) describes them as Scythians, although they figure under a different name:


title: Saka

text: In the 1st century BC, the Greek-Roman geographer Strabo gave an extensive description of the peoples of the eastern steppe, whom he located in Central Asia beyond Bactria and Sogdiana.


title: Saka

text: Strabo went on to list the names of the various tribes he believed to be "Scythian", and in so doing almost certainly conflated them with unrelated tribes of eastern Central Asia. These tribes included the Saka.


title: Saka

text: The Sakas receive numerous mentions in Indian texts, including the Purāṇas, the "Manusmṛiti", the "Rāmāyaṇa", the "Mahābhārata", and the "Mahābhāṣya" of Patanjali.


title: Saka

text: Modern scholarly consensus is that the Eastern Iranian language ancestral to the Pamir languages in Central Asia and the medieval Saka language of Xinjiang, was one of the Scythian languages. Evidence of the Middle Iranian "Scytho-Khotanese" language survives in Northwest China, where Khotanese-Saka-language documents, ranging from medical texts to Buddhist texts, have been found primarily in Khotan and Tumshuq (northeast of Kashgar). They largely predate the Islamization of Xinjiang under the Turkic-speaking Kara-Khanid Khanate. Similar documents, the Dunhuang manuscripts, were discovered written in the Khotanese Saka language and date mostly from the tenth century.


title: Saka

text: Attestations of the Saka language show that it was an Eastern Iranian language. The linguistic heartland of Saka was the Kingdom of Khotan, which had two varieties, corresponding to the major settlements at Khotan (now called Hotan) and Tumshuq (now titled Tumxuk). Tumshuqese and Khotanese varieties of Saka contain many borrowings from the Middle Indo-Aryan languages, but also share features with the modern Eastern Iranian languages Wakhi and Pashto.


title: Saka

text: The Issyk inscription, a short fragment on a silver cup found in the Issyk kurgan in Kazakhstan is believed to be an early example of Saka, constituting one of very few autochthonous epigraphic traces of that language. The inscription is in a variant of Kharosthi. Harmatta identifies the dialect as Khotanese Saka, tentatively translating its as: "The vessel should hold wine of grapes, added cooked food, so much, to the mortal, then added cooked fresh butter on".


title: Saka

text: A growing body of both linguistic and physical anthropological evidence suggest the Wakhi are descendants of Saka. According to the Indo-Europeanist Martin Kümmel, Wakhi may be classified as a Western Saka dialect; the other attested Saka dialects, Khotanese and Tumshuqese, would then be classified as Eastern Saka.


title: Saka

text: The Saka heartland was gradually conquered during the Turkic expansion, beginning in the sixth century, and the area was gradually Turkified linguistically under the Uyghurs.


title: Saka

text: The earliest studies could only analyze segments of mtDNA, thus providing only broad correlations of affinity to modern West Eurasian or East Eurasian populations. For example, in a 2002 study the mitochondrial DNA of Saka period male and female skeletal remains from a double inhumation kurgan at the Beral site in Kazakhstan was analysed. The two individuals were found to be not closely related. The HV1 mitochondrial sequence of the male was similar to the Anderson sequence which is most frequent in European populations. The HV1 sequence of the female suggested a greater likelihood of Asian origins.


title: Saka

text: More recent studies have been able to type for specific mtDNA lineages. For example, a 2004 study examined the HV1 sequence obtained from a male "Scytho-Siberian" at the Kizil site in the Altai Republic. It belonged to the N1a maternal lineage, a geographically West Eurasian lineage. Another study by the same team, again of mtDNA from two Scytho-Siberian skeletons found in the Altai Republic, showed that they had been typical males "of mixed Euro-Mongoloid origin". One of the individuals was found to carry the F2a maternal lineage, and the other the D lineage, both of which are characteristic of East Eurasian populations.


title: Saka

text: These early studies have been elaborated by an increasing number of studies by Russian scholars. Conclusions are (i) an early, Bronze Age mixing of both west and east Eurasian lineages, with western lineages being found far to the east, but not vice versa; (ii) an apparent reversal by Iron Age times, with an increasing presence of East Eurasian lineages in the Central Asian steppe; (iii) the possible role of migrations from the south, the Balkano-Danubian and Iranian regions, toward the steppe.


title: Saka

text: Ancient Y-DNA data was finally provided by Keyser "et al" in 2009. They studied the haplotypes and haplogroups of 26 ancient human specimens from the Krasnoyarsk area in Siberia dated from between the middle of the 2nd millennium BC and the 4th century AD (Scythian and Sarmatian timeframe). Nearly all subjects belonged to haplogroup R-M17. The authors suggest that their data shows that between the Bronze and the Iron Ages the constellation of populations known variously as Scythians, Andronovians, etc. were blue- (or green-) eyed, fair-skinned and light-haired people who might have played a role in the early development of the Tarim Basin civilisation. Moreover, this study found that they were genetically more closely related to modern populations in eastern Europe than those of central and southern Asia. The ubiquity and dominance of the R1a Y-DNA lineage contrasted markedly with the diversity seen in the mtDNA profiles.


title: Saka

text: A genetic study published in "Nature" in May 2018 examined the remains of twenty-eight Sakas buried between ca. 900 BC to AD 1, compromising eight Sakas of southern Siberia (Tagar culture), eight Sakas of the central steppe (Tasmola culture), and twelve Sakas of the Tian Shan. The six samples of Y-DNA extracted from the Tian Shan Saka belonged to the haplogroups R (four samples), R1 and R1a1. The samples of mtDNA extracted from the Tien Shan Saka belonged to C4, H4d, T2a1, U5a1d2b, H2a, U5a1a1, HV6 (two samples), D4j8 (two samples), W1c and G2a1. The study detected significant genetic differences between the Sakas and Scythians of the Pannonian Basin, and between Sakas of southern Siberia, the central steppe and the Tian Shan. Tian Shan Sakas were found to be of about 70% Western Steppe Herder (WSH) ancestry, 25% Siberian Hunter-Gatherer ancestry and 5% Iranian Neolithic ancestry. The Iranian Neolithic ancestry was primarily male-derived, probably from the Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex. Sakas of the Tasmola culture were found to be of about 56% WSH ancestry and 44% Siberian Hunter-Gather ancestry. The peoples of the Tagar culture had about 83.5% WSH ancestry, 9% Ancient North Eurasian (ANE) ancestry and 7.5% Siberian Hunter-Gatherer ancestry. The study suggested that the Saka were the source of west Eurasian ancestry among the Xiongnu, and that the Huns probably emerged through minor male-driven East Asian geneflow into the Saka through westward migrations by the Xiongnu.


title: Saka

text: Early physical analyses have unanimously concluded that the Saka, even those far to the east (e.g. the Pazyryk region), possessed predominantly "Europid" features, although mixed "Euro-Mongoloid" phenotypes also occur, depending on site and period.


title: Saka

text: The 2nd century BC Han Chinese envoy Zhang Qian described the Sai (Saka) as having yellow (probably meaning hazel or green), and blue eyes. In "Natural History", the 1st century AD Roman author Pliny the Elder characterises the Seres, sometimes identified as Saka or Tocharians, as red-haired and blue-eyed.


title: Saka

text: The spectacular grave-goods from Arzhan, and others in Tuva, have been dated from about 900 BC onward, and are associated with the Saka. Burials at Pazyryk in the Altay Mountains have included some spectacularly preserved Sakas of the "Pazyryk culture" – including the Ice Maiden of the 5th century BC.


title: Saka

text: Saka burials documented by modern archaeologists include the kurgans at Pazyryk in the Ulagan (Red) district of the Altai Republic, south of Novosibirsk in the Altai Mountains of southern Siberia (near Mongolia). Archaeologists have extrapolated the Pazyryk culture from these finds: five large burial mounds and several smaller ones between 1925 and 1949, one opened in 1947 by Russian archaeologist Sergei Rudenko. The burial mounds concealed chambers of larch-logs covered over with large cairns of boulders and stones.


title: Saka

text: The Pazyryk culture flourished between the 7th and 3rd century BC in the area associated with the "Sacae".


title: Saka

text: Ordinary Pazyryk graves contain only common utensils, but in one, among other treasures, archaeologists found the famous , the oldest surviving wool-pile oriental rug. Another striking find, a 3-metre-high four-wheel funerary chariot, survived well-preserved from the 5th to 4th century BC.


title: Saka

text: A site found in 1968 in Tillia Tepe (literally "the golden hill") in northern Afghanistan (former Bactria) near Shebergan consisted of the graves of five women and one man with extremely rich jewelry, dated to around the 1st century BC, and probably related to that of Saka tribes normally living slightly to the north. Altogether the graves yielded several thousands of pieces of fine jewelry, usually made from combinations of gold, turquoise and lapis-lazuli.


title: Saka

text: A high degree of cultural syncretism pervades the findings, however. Hellenistic cultural and artistic influences appear in many of the forms and human depictions (from amorini to rings with the depiction of Athena and her name inscribed in Greek), attributable to the existence of the Seleucid empire and Greco-Bactrian kingdom in the same area until around 140 BC, and the continued existence of the Indo-Greek kingdom in the northwestern Indian sub-continent until the beginning of our era. This testifies to the richness of cultural influences in the area of Bactria at that time.


title: Saka

text: In 2020, archaeologists excavated multiple burial mounds in the Eleke Sazy Valley in East Kazakhstan. Here, a large number of gold artifacts were found. These artifacts included golf harness fittings, pendants, chains, appliqués, and more - most of which are in the Animal Style of the Scythian-Saka era dating back to the 5th-4th centuries BC.


title: Saka

text: The art of the Saka was of a similar styles as other Iranian peoples of the steppes, which is referred to collectively as Scythian art. In 2001, the discovery of an undisturbed royal Scythian burial-barrow illustrated Scythian animal-style gold that lacks the direct influence of Greek styles. Forty-four pounds of gold weighed down the royal couple in this burial, discovered near Kyzyl, capital of the Siberian republic of Tuva.


title: Saka

text: Ancient influences from Central Asia became identifiable in China following contacts of metropolitan China with nomadic western and northwestern border territories from the 8th century BC. The Chinese adopted the Scythian-style animal art of the steppes (descriptions of animals locked in combat), particularly the rectangular belt-plaques made of gold or bronze, and created their own versions in jade and steatite.


title: Saka

text: Following their expulsion by the Yuezhi, some Saka may also have migrated to the area of Yunnan in southern China. Saka warriors could also have served as mercenaries for the various kingdoms of ancient China. Excavations of the prehistoric art of the Dian civilisation of Yunnan have revealed hunting scenes of Caucasoid horsemen in Central Asian clothing.


title: Saka

text: Saka influences have been identified as far as Korea and Japan. Various Korean artifacts, such as the royal crowns of the kingdom of Silla, are said to be of "Scythian" design. Similar crowns, brought through contacts with the continent, can also be found in Kofun era Japan.


title: Saka

text: Similar to other eastern Iranian peoples represented on the reliefs of the Apadāna at Persepolis, Sakas are depicted as wearing long trousers, which cover the uppers of their boots. Over their shoulders they trail a type of long mantle, with one diagonal edge in back. One particular tribe of Sakas ("the Saka tigraxaudā") wore pointed caps. Herodotus in his description of the Persian army mentions the Sakas as wearing trousers and tall pointed caps.


title: Saka

text: Herodotus says Sakas had "high caps tapering to a point and stiffly upright." Asian Saka headgear is clearly visible on the Persepolis Apadana staircase bas-relief – high pointed hat with flaps over ears and the nape of the neck. From China to the Danube delta, men seemed to have worn a variety of soft headgear – either conical like the one described by Herodotus, or rounder, more like a Phrygian cap.


title: Saka

text: Saka women dressed in much the same fashion as men. A Pazyryk burial, discovered in the 1990s, contained the skeletons of a man and a woman, each with weapons, arrowheads, and an axe. Herodotus mentioned that Sakas had "high caps and … wore trousers." Clothing was sewn from plain-weave wool, hemp cloth, silk fabrics, felt, leather and hides.


title: Saka

text: Pazyryk findings give the most almost fully preserved garments and clothing worn by the Scythian/Saka peoples. Ancient Persian bas-reliefs, inscriptions from Apadana and Behistun and archaeological findings give visual representations of these garments.


title: Saka

text: Based on the Pazyryk findings (can be seen also in the south Siberian, Uralic and Kazakhstan rock drawings) some caps were topped with zoomorphic wooden sculptures firmly attached to a cap and forming an integral part of the headgear, similar to the surviving nomad helmets from northern China. Men and warrior women wore tunics, often embroidered, adorned with felt applique work, or metal (golden) plaques.


title: Saka

text: Persepolis Apadana again serves a good starting point to observe the tunics of the Sakas. They appear to be a sewn, long-sleeved garment that extended to the knees and was girded with a belt, while the owner's weapons were fastened to the belt (sword or dagger, gorytos, battle-axe, whetstone etc.). Based on numerous archeological findings, men and warrior women wore long-sleeved tunics that were always belted, often with richly ornamented belts. The Kazakhstan Saka (e.g. Issyk Golden Man/Maiden) wore shorter and closer-fitting tunics than the Pontic steppe Scythians. Some Pazyryk culture Saka wore short belted tunic with a lapel on the right side, with upright collar, 'puffed' sleeves narrowing at the wrist and bound in narrow cuffs of a color different from the rest of the tunic.


title: Saka

text: Men and women wore coats: e.g. Pazyryk Saka had many varieties, from fur to felt. They could have worn a riding coat that later was known as a Median robe or Kantus. Long sleeved, and open, it seems that on the Persepolis Apadana Skudrian delegation is perhaps shown wearing such coat. The Pazyryk felt tapestry shows a rider wearing a billowing cloak.


title: Peppermint (2018 film)

text: Peppermint is a 2018 American vigilante action thriller film directed by Pierre Morel and starring Jennifer Garner. Also featuring John Ortiz, John Gallagher Jr., Juan Pablo Raba, and Tyson Ritter, the plot follows a mother who transforms herself into a vigilante in a quest for revenge against the drug cartel that killed her daughter and husband.


title: Peppermint (2018 film)

text: The film was released in the United States on September 7, 2018. It grossed $53 million worldwide and received generally negative reviews from critics, but more positive reviews from audiences. The film was released on Netflix in 2020, as well as other platforms.


title: Peppermint (2018 film)

text: An unidentified woman engages in a brutal fight with a man in a car. After a fierce struggle, she manages to shoot him in the head.


title: Peppermint (2018 film)

text: Five years earlier, the same woman, Riley North, is working as a banker in Los Angeles, struggling to make ends meet. Her husband Chris owns a failing mechanic shop, and together, they have a ten-year-old daughter, Carly. Chris's friend tries to coerce him into robbing Diego Garcia, a powerful drug lord. Chris turns him down; however, Garcia, having already discovered his involvement, orders his men to make an example of him. When Riley and Chris take Carly out to a carnival for her birthday, Diego's men gun down the family in a drive-by shooting, killing Carly and Chris and injuring Riley.


title: Peppermint (2018 film)

text: Despite her injuries, Riley is able to positively identify the shooters. The LAPD detectives handling the case are hesitant to pursue charges against the three, as they are members of Garcia's drug cartel, which wields considerable power and influence. Prior to the preliminary hearing, Riley is visited by the perpetrators' lawyer, who tries to bribe her. She refuses the bribe, but the lawyer notices she has anti-psychotic medication at home and uses this information to paint her as an unreliable witness. Judge Stevens, who is secretly on the cartel's payroll, declares there is insufficient evidence to allow the perpetrators to stand trial and dismisses the case, while the prosecuting lawyers do nothing. Outraged, Riley tries to attack her family's killers, but she is subdued and ordered to be held at a psychiatric ward. En route, she escapes and vanishes.


title: Peppermint (2018 film)

text: Five years later, Detectives Moises Beltran and Stan Carmichael arrive at the site of the carnival and find the three shooters hanging from the Ferris wheel, having been killed by Riley. The killings attract the attention of FBI agent Lisa Inman. Inman explains to the detectives that before vanishing, Riley robbed the bank she used to work at, and that she has now returned, having robbed a gun store to steal a wide arsenal of weapons and ammunition.


title: Peppermint (2018 film)

text: Riley kills Judge Stevens by blowing up his house, having already killed the defense and prosecution lawyers involved. The police decide to tell the media about Riley, which causes a debate on social media between those who see her as a hero and those who see her as a criminal.


title: Peppermint (2018 film)

text: Riley heads to a business that is a front for Diego's money laundering, where she kills most of his men. Diego realizes Riley is responsible for his recent shipments going missing and resolves to kill her. Inman discovers Riley has been living in Skid Row, owing to recent changes to crime patterns in the area. She finds Riley's van, full of the stolen weapons, and learns that the people there see Riley as their guardian angel for keeping them safe.


title: Peppermint (2018 film)

text: Riley survives a trap set by Diego, follows his henchmen to Diego's home, and kills his many guards. When Diego's young daughter, who evokes her own murdered child, interrupts her as she confronts Diego, she hesitates and flees, allowing Diego to wound her. Inman calls Carmichael to Skid Row to wait for Riley, but Carmichael, secretly on Diego's payroll, shoots Inman dead and notifies Diego of Riley's likely destination.


title: Peppermint (2018 film)

text: Riley returns to Skid Row, which is swarming with Diego's men. She manages to kill several of them before finding Inman's body. Using Inman's phone, Riley contacts the media to reveal her location, alerting both the media and the police to the scene, and confronts Diego, stalling him long enough for the police to arrive. Believing Carmichael betrayed him, Diego shoots him and flees, only to be beaten down by Riley. Beltran and the LAPD surround Riley and Diego; Beltran assures Riley that Diego will be brought to justice this time, but Riley remains unconvinced, as the justice system failed her previously. With no chance to escape and underestimating Riley's resolve, Diego mocks Riley, confident that she can't kill him now and that she will spend more time in prison than him. However, Riley states that they will not be going to prison and shoots Diego in the head; the police fire at Riley, but she manages to escape.


title: Peppermint (2018 film)

text: Beltran finds Riley wounded at her family's gravestone and has her brought to a hospital, despite Riley's expressed desire to die. Beltran later visits her, telling her that there are those who agree with what she did, and slips her the key to her handcuffs, allowing Riley to escape again.


title: Peppermint (2018 film)

text: In May 2017 director Pierre Morel was attached to the project, he previously directed the first film in the "Taken" series starring Liam Neeson. The script, influenced by the Marvel Comics character Frank Castle / Punisher, came from writer Chad St. John, who previously co-wrote the script for "London Has Fallen". In August 2017, Jennifer Garner was in talks to join the film as Riley North, a woman who, driven by the deaths of her husband and daughter, killed by a cartel, wages a one-woman war on crime using various weapons. The title of the film, "Peppermint", refers both to the flavor of ice-cream the character's daughter was eating upon her death, and the eventual alias taken by her as she embarks on her crusade.


title: Peppermint (2018 film)

text: Garner trained for three months to prepare. Training included dance, cardio and weight training, boxing workouts, artillery sessions, and stunt work with her longtime double, Shauna Duggins.


title: Peppermint (2018 film)

text: The film premiered at the Regal Cinemas L.A. Live Stadium 14 in Los Angeles on August 28, 2018. Ahead of the release of the film Garner received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.


title: Peppermint (2018 film)

text: "Peppermint" has grossed $35.4 million in the United States and Canada, and $18.4 million in other territories, for a total worldwide gross of $53.8 million, against a production budget of $22.8 million, to $25 million.


title: Peppermint (2018 film)

text: In the United States and Canada, "Peppermint" was released alongside "The Nun" and "God Bless the Broken Road", and was projected to gross $10–13million from 2,980 theaters in its opening weekend. The film made $4.7million on its first day, including $800,000 from Thursday night previews. It went on to debut to $13.4million, finishing second at the box office, behind "The Nun".


title: Peppermint (2018 film)

text: On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of based on reviews, and an average rating of . The website's critical consensus reads, "Far from refreshing, "Peppermint" wastes strong work from Jennifer Garner on a dreary vigilante-revenge story that lacks unique twists or visceral thrills." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 29 out of 100, based on 26 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.


title: Peppermint (2018 film)

text: Frank Scheck of "The Hollywood Reporter" called the film ""Death Wish" on steroids", and said it "lacks subtlety and anything even remotely resembling credibility, but, like its heroine, it certainly gets the job done". IndieWire's Jude Dry gave the film a "C+". He wrote that Garner deserves to be in better films, and said the film is a "rare return to form for Garner, who doles out her vigilante justice with effortless charm. Unfortunately, that's about the only reason to see "Peppermint"".


title: Peppermint (2018 film)

text: Richard Roeper of the "Chicago Sun-Times" gave the film two out of four stars, writing, "In the stylishly directed but gratuitously nasty and cliché-riddled "Peppermint", Garner plays essentially two characters cut from the same person." Writing for "TheWrap", Todd Gilchrist said that "Peppermint" "ultimately possesses the stale predictability of an unwrapped candy discovered at the bottom of a purse."


title: Peppermint (2018 film)

text: Andrew Barker of "Variety" wrote: "Garner gives everything that is asked of her, from brute physicality to dewy-eyed tenderness, but this half-witted calamity botches just about everything else. Drably by-the-numbers except for the moments where it goes gobsmackingly off-the-rails, "Peppermint" misfires from start to finish."


title: Peppermint (2018 film)

text: Emily Yoshida of "New York Magazine" wrote: "There was a time when a woman being the star of her own bad action franchise could have been considered the apex of progress, but that time is past." Yoshida criticizes the lack of originality in the film and says that casting Garner is not enough to change that.


title: Eaton Corporation

text: Eaton Corporation plc is an American-Irish multinational power management company with 2021 sales of $19.63 billion, founded in the United States with global headquarters in Dublin, Ireland, and a secondary administrative center in Beachwood, Ohio. Eaton has more than 86,000 employees and sells products to customers in more than 175 countries.


title: Eaton Corporation

text: In 1911, Joseph O. Eaton, brother-in-law Henning O. Taube and Viggo V. Torbensen, incorporated the Torbensen Gear and Axle Co. in Bloomfield, New Jersey. With financial backing from Torbensen's mother, the company was set to manufacture Torbensen's patented internal-gear truck axle. In 1914, the company moved to Cleveland, Ohio, to be closer to its core business, the automotive industry.


title: Eaton Corporation

text: The Torbensen Axle Company incorporated in Ohio in 1916, succeeding the New Jersey corporation. A year later, Republic Motor Truck Company, Torbensen's largest customer bought out the company. But Eaton and Torbensen were not content and bowed out of Republic to form the Eaton Axle Company in 1919. A year later, in 1920, Eaton Axle Company merged with Standard Parts. Standard Parts went in receivership later the same year and was later liquidated. In 1923, Eaton bought the Torbensen Axle Co. back from Republic and changed the name to the Eaton Axle and Spring Company.


title: Eaton Corporation

text: Eaton officers believed the quickest way to grow the business was through acquisitions and began buying companies in the automotive industry. By 1932, the diversified company changed its name to Eaton Manufacturing Company. In 1937, Eaton became international by opening a manufacturing plant in Canada. In 1958 Eaton Corporation acquired Fuller Manufacturing. The company name changed once again in 1965 to Eaton Yale & Towne Inc. after the acquisition of Yale & Towne Manufacturing Co. in 1963. Stockholders approved the change to the company's current name in 1971. In 1978, Eaton Corporation acquired Samuel Moore & Company, Kenway Systems, and Cutler-Hammer.