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not interleaved with uppercase. To keep options available for lowercase letters and other graphics, the special and numeric codes were arranged before the letters, and the letter A was placed in position 41hex to match the draft of the corresponding British standard. The digits 09 are prefixed with 011, but the remaining 4 bits correspond to their respective values in binary, making conversion with binarycoded decimal straightforward.
Many of the nonalphanumeric characters were positioned to correspond to their shifted position on typewriters; an important subtlety is that these were based on mechanical typewriters, not electric typewriters. Mechanical typewriters followed the de facto standard set by the Remington No. 2 1878, the first typewriter with a shift key, and the shifted values of 23456789 were "' early typewriters omitted 0 and 1, using O capital letter o and l lowercase letter L instead, but 1! and 0 pairs became standard once 0 and 1 became common. Thus, in ASCII !" were placed in the second st |
ick, positions 15, corresponding to the digits 15 in the adjacent stick. The parentheses could not correspond to 9 and 0, however, because the place corresponding to 0 was taken by the space character. This was accommodated by removing underscore from 6 and shifting the remaining characters, which corresponded to many European typewriters that placed the parentheses with 8 and 9. This discrepancy from typewriters led to bitpaired keyboards, notably the Teletype Model 33, which used the leftshifted layout corresponding to ASCII, differently from traditional mechanical typewriters.
Electric typewriters, notably the IBM Selectric 1961, used a somewhat different layout that has become de facto standard on computers following the IBM PC 1981, especially Model M 1984 and thus shift values for symbols on modern keyboards do not correspond as closely to the ASCII table as earlier keyboards did. The ? pair also dates to the No. 2, and the , . pairs were used on some keyboards others, including the No. 2, did not sh |
ift , comma or . full stop so they could be used in uppercase without unshifting. However, ASCII split the ; pair dating to No. 2, and rearranged mathematical symbols varied conventions, commonly to ; .
Some thencommon typewriter characters were not included, notably , while were included as diacritics for international use, and for mathematical use, together with the simple line characters in addition to common . The symbol was not used in continental Europe and the committee expected it would be replaced by an accented in the French variation, so the was placed in position 40hex, right before the letter A.
The control codes felt essential for data transmission were the start of message SOM, end of address EOA, end of message EOM, end of transmission EOT, "who are you?" WRU, "are you?" RU, a reserved device control DC0, synchronous idle SYNC, and acknowledge ACK. These were positioned to maximize the Hamming distance between their bit patterns.
Character order
ASCIIcode order is also calle |
d ASCIIbetical order. Collation of data is sometimes done in this order rather than "standard" alphabetical order collating sequence. The main deviations in ASCII order are
All uppercase come before lowercase letters; for example, "Z" precedes "a"
Digits and many punctuation marks come before letters
An intermediate order converts uppercase letters to lowercase before comparing ASCII values.
Character groups
Control characters
ASCII reserves the first 32 codes numbers 031 decimal for control characters codes originally intended not to represent printable information, but rather to control devices such as printers that make use of ASCII, or to provide metainformation about data streams such as those stored on magnetic tape.
For example, character 10 represents the "line feed" function which causes a printer to advance its paper, and character 8 represents "backspace". refers to control characters that do not include carriage return, line feed or white space as nonwhitespace control characters. Except f |
or the control characters that prescribe elementary lineoriented formatting, ASCII does not define any mechanism for describing the structure or appearance of text within a document. Other schemes, such as markup languages, address page and document layout and formatting.
The original ASCII standard used only short descriptive phrases for each control character. The ambiguity this caused was sometimes intentional, for example where a character would be used slightly differently on a terminal link than on a data stream, and sometimes accidental, for example with the meaning of "delete".
Probably the most influential single device affecting the interpretation of these characters was the Teletype Model 33 ASR, which was a printing terminal with an available paper tape readerpunch option. Paper tape was a very popular medium for longterm program storage until the 1980s, less costly and in some ways less fragile than magnetic tape. In particular, the Teletype Model 33 machine assignments for codes 17 ControlQ, D |
C1, also known as XON, 19 ControlS, DC3, also known as XOFF, and 127 Delete became de facto standards. The Model 33 was also notable for taking the description of ControlG code 7, BEL, meaning audibly alert the operator literally, as the unit contained an actual bell which it rang when it received a BEL character. Because the keytop for the O key also showed a leftarrow symbol from ASCII1963, which had this character instead of underscore, a noncompliant use of code 15 ControlO, Shift In interpreted as "delete previous character" was also adopted by many early timesharing systems but eventually became neglected.
When a Teletype 33 ASR equipped with the automatic paper tape reader received a ControlS XOFF, an abbreviation for transmit off, it caused the tape reader to stop; receiving ControlQ XON, "transmit on" caused the tape reader to resume. This socalled flow control technique became adopted by several early computer operating systems as a "handshaking" signal warning a sender to stop transmission becau |
se of impending buffer overflow; it persists to this day in many systems as a manual output control technique. On some systems, ControlS retains its meaning but ControlQ is replaced by a second ControlS to resume output.
The 33 ASR also could be configured to employ ControlR DC2 and ControlT DC4 to start and stop the tape punch; on some units equipped with this function, the corresponding control character lettering on the keycap above the letter was TAPE and TAPE respectively.
Delete vs Backspace
The Teletype could not move its typehead backwards, so it did not have a key on its keyboard to send a BS backspace. Instead, there was a key marked that sent code 127 DEL. The purpose of this key was to erase mistakes in a manuallyinput paper tape the operator had to push a button on the tape punch to back it up, then type the rubout, which punched all holes and replaced the mistake with a character that was intended to be ignored. Teletypes were commonly used with the lessexpensive computers from Digital Equi |
pment Corporation; these systems had to use what keys were available, and thus the DEL code was assigned to erase the previous character. Because of this, DEC video terminals by default sent the DEL code for the key marked "Backspace" while the separate key marked "Delete" sent an escape sequence; many other competing terminals sent a BS code for the Backspace key.
The Unix terminal driver could only use one code to erase the previous character, this could be set to BS or DEL, but not both, resulting in recurring situations of ambiguity where users had to decide depending on what terminal they were using shells that allow line editing, such as ksh, bash, and zsh, understand both. The assumption that no key sent a BS code allowed ControlH to be used for other purposes, such as the "help" prefix command in GNU Emacs.
Escape
Many more of the control codes have been assigned meanings quite different from their original ones. The "escape" character ESC, code 27, for example, was intended originally to allow sen |
ding of other control characters as literals instead of invoking their meaning, a socalled "escape sequence". This is the same meaning of "escape" encountered in URL encodings, C language strings, and other systems where certain characters have a reserved meaning. Over time this interpretation has been coopted and has eventually been changed.
In modern usage, an ESC sent to the terminal usually indicates the start of a command sequence usually in the form of a socalled "ANSI escape code" or, more properly, a "Control Sequence Introducer" from ECMA48 1972 and its successors, beginning with ESC followed by a "" leftbracket character. In contrast, an ESC sent from the terminal is most often used as an outofband character used to terminate an operation or special mode, as in the TECO and vi text editors. In graphical user interface GUI and windowing systems, ESC generally causes an application to abort its current operation or to exit terminate altogether.
End of Line
The inherent ambiguity of many control cha |
racters, combined with their historical usage, created problems when transferring "plain text" files between systems. The best example of this is the newline problem on various operating systems. Teletype machines required that a line of text be terminated with both "Carriage Return" which moves the printhead to the beginning of the line and "Line Feed" which advances the paper one line without moving the printhead. The name "Carriage Return" comes from the fact that on a manual typewriter the carriage holding the paper moved while the position where the typebars struck the ribbon remained stationary. The entire carriage had to be pushed returned to the right in order to position the left margin of the paper for the next line.
DEC operating systems OS8, RT11, RSX11, RSTS, TOPS10, etc. used both characters to mark the end of a line so that the console device originally Teletype machines would work. By the time socalled "glass TTYs" later called CRTs or "dumb terminals" came along, the convention was so well |
established that backward compatibility necessitated continuing to follow it. When Gary Kildall created CPM, he was inspired by some of the command line interface conventions used in DEC's RT11 operating system.
Until the introduction of PC DOS in 1981, IBM had no influence in this because their 1970s operating systems used EBCDIC encoding instead of ASCII, and they were oriented toward punchcard input and line printer output on which the concept of "carriage return" was meaningless. IBM's PC DOS also marketed as MSDOS by Microsoft inherited the convention by virtue of being loosely based on CPM, and Windows in turn inherited it from MSDOS.
Unfortunately, requiring two characters to mark the end of a line introduces unnecessary complexity and ambiguity as to how to interpret each character when encountered by itself. To simplify matters, plain text data streams, including files, on Multics used line feed LF alone as a line terminator. Unix and Unixlike systems, and Amiga systems, adopted this convention fr |
om Multics. On the other hand, the original Macintosh OS, Apple DOS, and ProDOS used carriage return CR alone as a line terminator; however, since Apple has now replaced these obsolete operating systems with the Unixbased macOS operating system, they now use line feed LF as well. The Radio Shack TRS80 also used a lone CR to terminate lines.
Computers attached to the ARPANET included machines running operating systems such as TOPS10 and TENEX using CRLF line endings; machines running operating systems such as Multics using LF line endings; and machines running operating systems such as OS360 that represented lines as a character count followed by the characters of the line and which used EBCDIC rather than ASCII encoding. The Telnet protocol defined an ASCII "Network Virtual Terminal" NVT, so that connections between hosts with different lineending conventions and character sets could be supported by transmitting a standard text format over the network. Telnet used ASCII along with CRLF line endings, and sof |
tware using other conventions would translate between the local conventions and the NVT. The File Transfer Protocol adopted the Telnet protocol, including use of the Network Virtual Terminal, for use when transmitting commands and transferring data in the default ASCII mode. This adds complexity to implementations of those protocols, and to other network protocols, such as those used for Email and the World Wide Web, on systems not using the NVT's CRLF lineending convention.
End of FileStream
The PDP6 monitor, and its PDP10 successor TOPS10, used ControlZ SUB as an endoffile indication for input from a terminal. Some operating systems such as CPM tracked file length only in units of disk blocks, and used ControlZ to mark the end of the actual text in the file. For these reasons, EOF, or endoffile, was used colloquially and conventionally as a threeletter acronym for ControlZ instead of SUBstitute. The endoftext code ETX, also known as ControlC, was inappropriate for a variety of reasons, while using Z as t |
he control code to end a file is analogous to its position at the end of the alphabet, and serves as a very convenient mnemonic aid. A historically common and still prevalent convention uses the ETX code convention to interrupt and halt a program via an input data stream, usually from a keyboard.
In C library and Unix conventions, the null character is used to terminate text strings; such nullterminated strings can be known in abbreviation as ASCIZ or ASCIIZ, where here Z stands for "zero".
Control code chart
Other representations might be used by specialist equipment, for example ISO 2047 graphics or hexadecimal numbers.
Printable characters
Codes 20hex to 7Ehex, known as the printable characters, represent letters, digits, punctuation marks, and a few miscellaneous symbols. There are 95 printable characters in total.
Code 20hex, the "space" character, denotes the space between words, as produced by the space bar of a keyboard. Since the space character is considered an invisible graphic rather than a |
control character it is listed in the table below instead of in the previous section.
Code 7Fhex corresponds to the nonprintable "delete" DEL control character and is therefore omitted from this chart; it is covered in the previous section's chart. Earlier versions of ASCII used the up arrow instead of the caret 5Ehex and the left arrow instead of the underscore 5Fhex.
Character set
Usage
ASCII was first used commercially during 1963 as a sevenbit teleprinter code for American Telephone Telegraph's TWX TeletypeWriter eXchange network. TWX originally used the earlier fivebit ITA2, which was also used by the competing Telex teleprinter system. Bob Bemer introduced features such as the escape sequence. His British colleague Hugh McGregor Ross helped to popularize this work according to Bemer, "so much so that the code that was to become ASCII was first called the BemerRoss Code in Europe". Because of his extensive work on ASCII, Bemer has been called "the father of ASCII".
On March 11, 1968, US President L |
yndon B. Johnson mandated that all computers purchased by the United States Federal Government support ASCII, stating
I have also approved recommendations of the Secretary of Commerce Luther H. Hodges regarding standards for recording the Standard Code for Information Interchange on magnetic tapes and paper tapes when they are used in computer operations.
All computers and related equipment configurations brought into the Federal Government inventory on and after July 1, 1969, must have the capability to use the Standard Code for Information Interchange and the formats prescribed by the magnetic tape and paper tape standards when these media are used.
ASCII was the most common character encoding on the World Wide Web until December 2007, when UTF8 encoding surpassed it; UTF8 is backward compatible with ASCII.
Variants and derivations
As computer technology spread throughout the world, different standards bodies and corporations developed many variations of ASCII to facilitate the expression of nonEnglish la |
nguages that used Romanbased alphabets. One could class some of these variations as "ASCII extensions", although some misuse that term to represent all variants, including those that do not preserve ASCII's charactermap in the 7bit range. Furthermore, the ASCII extensions have also been mislabelled as ASCII.
7bit codes
From early in its development, ASCII was intended to be just one of several national variants of an international character code standard.
Other international standards bodies have ratified character encodings such as ISO 646 1967 that are identical or nearly identical to ASCII, with extensions for characters outside the English alphabet and symbols used outside the United States, such as the symbol for the United Kingdom's pound sterling ; e.g. with code page 1104. Almost every country needed an adapted version of ASCII, since ASCII suited the needs of only the US and a few other countries. For example, Canada had its own version that supported French characters.
Many other countries devel |
oped variants of ASCII to include nonEnglish letters e.g. , , , , currency symbols e.g. , , etc. See also YUSCII Yugoslavia.
It would share most characters in common, but assign other locally useful characters to several code points reserved for "national use". However, the four years that elapsed between the publication of ASCII1963 and ISO's first acceptance of an international recommendation during 1967 caused ASCII's choices for the national use characters to seem to be de facto standards for the world, causing confusion and incompatibility once other countries did begin to make their own assignments to these code points.
ISOIEC 646, like ASCII, is a 7bit character set. It does not make any additional codes available, so the same code points encoded different characters in different countries. Escape codes were defined to indicate which national variant applied to a piece of text, but they were rarely used, so it was often impossible to know what variant to work with and, therefore, which character a co |
de represented, and in general, textprocessing systems could cope with only one variant anyway.
Because the bracket and brace characters of ASCII were assigned to "national use" code points that were used for accented letters in other national variants of ISOIEC 646, a German, French, or Swedish, etc. programmer using their national variant of ISOIEC 646, rather than ASCII, had to write, and, thus, read, something such as
ai 'n';
instead of
ai 'n';
C trigraphs were created to solve this problem for ANSI C, although their late introduction and inconsistent implementation in compilers limited their use. Many programmers kept their computers on USASCII, so plaintext in Swedish, German etc. for example, in email or Usenet contained ", " and similar variants in the middle of words, something those programmers got used to. For example, a Swedish programmer mailing another programmer asking if they should go for lunch, could get "N jag har smrgsar" as the answer, which should be "N jag har smrgsar" meanin |
g "No I've got sandwiches".
In Japan and Korea, still a variation of ASCII is used, in which the backslash 5C hex is rendered as a Yen sign, in Japan or a Won sign, in Korea. This means that, for example, the file path CUsersSmith is shown as CUsersSmith in Japan or CUsersSmith in Korea.
8bit codes
Eventually, as 8, 16, and 32bit and later 64bit computers began to replace 12, 18, and 36bit computers as the norm, it became common to use an 8bit byte to store each character in memory, providing an opportunity for extended, 8bit relatives of ASCII. In most cases these developed as true extensions of ASCII, leaving the original charactermapping intact, but adding additional character definitions after the first 128 i.e., 7bit characters.
Encodings include ISCII India, VISCII Vietnam. Although these encodings are sometimes referred to as ASCII, true ASCII is defined strictly only by the ANSI standard.
Most early home computer systems developed their own 8bit character sets containing linedrawing and game g |
lyphs, and often filled in some or all of the control characters from 0 to 31 with more graphics. Kaypro CPM computers used the "upper" 128 characters for the Greek alphabet.
The PETSCII code Commodore International used for their 8bit systems is probably unique among post1970 codes in being based on ASCII1963, instead of the more common ASCII1967, such as found on the ZX Spectrum computer. Atari 8bit computers and Galaksija computers also used ASCII variants.
The IBM PC defined code page 437, which replaced the control characters with graphic symbols such as smiley faces, and mapped additional graphic characters to the upper 128 positions. Operating systems such as DOS supported these code pages, and manufacturers of IBM PCs supported them in hardware. Digital Equipment Corporation developed the Multinational Character Set DECMCS for use in the popular VT220 terminal as one of the first extensions designed more for international languages than for block graphics. The Macintosh defined Mac OS Roman and Post |
script also defined a set, both of these contained both international letters and typographic punctuation marks instead of graphics, more like modern character sets.
The ISOIEC 8859 standard derived from the DECMCS finally provided a standard that most systems copied at least as accurately as they copied ASCII, but with many substitutions. A popular further extension designed by Microsoft, Windows1252 often mislabeled as ISO88591, added the typographic punctuation marks needed for traditional text printing. ISO88591, Windows1252, and the original 7bit ASCII were the most common character encodings until 2008 when UTF8 became more common.
ISOIEC 4873 introduced 32 additional control codes defined in the 809F hexadecimal range, as part of extending the 7bit ASCII encoding to become an 8bit system.
Unicode
Unicode and the ISOIEC 10646 Universal Character Set UCS have a much wider array of characters and their various encoding forms have begun to supplant ISOIEC 8859 and ASCII rapidly in many environments. W |
hile ASCII is limited to 128 characters, Unicode and the UCS support more characters by separating the concepts of unique identification using natural numbers called code points and encoding to 8, 16, or 32bit binary formats, called UTF8, UTF16, and UTF32, respectively.
ASCII was incorporated into the Unicode 1991 character set as the first 128 symbols, so the 7bit ASCII characters have the same numeric codes in both sets. This allows UTF8 to be backward compatible with 7bit ASCII, as a UTF8 file containing only ASCII characters is identical to an ASCII file containing the same sequence of characters. Even more importantly, forward compatibility is ensured as software that recognizes only 7bit ASCII characters as special and does not alter bytes with the highest bit set as is often done to support 8bit ASCII extensions such as ISO88591 will preserve UTF8 data unchanged.
See also
3568 ASCII, an asteroid named after the character encoding
Alt codes
Ascii85
ASCII art
ASCII Ribbon Campaign
Basic Latin Un |
icode block ASCII as a subset of Unicode
Extended ASCII
HTML decimal character rendering
Jargon File, a glossary of computer programmer slang which includes a list of common slang names for ASCII characters
List of computer character sets
List of Unicode characters
Notes
References
Further reading
from
External links
Computerrelated introductions in 1963
Character sets
Character encoding
Latinscript representations
Presentation layer protocols |
Austin is the capital of Texas in the United States.
Austin may also refer to
Geographical locations
Australia
Austin, Western Australia
Canada
Austin, Manitoba
Austin, Ontario
Austin, Quebec
Austin Island, Nunavut
France
SaintAustin, hamlet at la NeuvilleChantd'Oisel, Normandy
Hong Kong
Austin station MTR, Kowloon
United States
Austin, Arkansas
Austin, Colorado
Austin Township, Macon County, Illinois
Austin, Chicago, Cook County, Illinois
Austin, Indiana
Austin, Kentucky
Austin, Minnesota
Austin, Missouri
Austin, Nevada
Austin, Ohio
Austin, Oregon
Austin, Pennsylvania
Austin, Texas
Austin County, Texas note that the city of Austin, Texas is located in Travis County
Schools
Austin College, Sherman, Texas
University of Texas at Austin, flagship institution of the University of Texas System
Austin Peay State University, Clarksville, Tennessee
Religion
Augustine of Hippo
An adjective for the Augustinians
Business
American Austin Car Company, shortlived American automobile ma |
ker
Austin Automobile Company, shortlived American automobile company
Austin Motor Company, British car manufacturer
Austin cookies and crackers, Keebler Company brand
Entertainment
"Austin" song, a single by Blake Shelton
Austin, a kangaroo Beanie Baby produced by Ty, Inc.
Austin the kangaroo from the children's television series The Backyardigans
Other uses
Austin building, a building designed by artist Ellsworth Kelly under construction in Austin, Texas
Austin given name, a short form of Augustin, or Augustine, including fictional characters
Austin surname
USS Austin, three ships
See also
All pages beginning with Austin
August disambiguation
Augustin disambiguation
Augustine disambiguation
Austin station disambiguation
Austins disambiguation
Austen disambiguation
Justice Austin disambiguation
Austinburg disambiguation |
Animation is a method in which figures are manipulated to appear as moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited on film. Today, most animations are made with computergenerated imagery CGI. Computer animation can be very detailed 3D animation, while 2D computer animation which may have the look of traditional animation can be used for stylistic reasons, low bandwidth, or faster realtime renderings. Other common animation methods apply a stop motion technique to two and threedimensional objects like paper cutouts, puppets, or clay figures.
An animated cartoon is an animated film, usually a short film aimed at children and featuring an exaggerated visual style. The style takes inspiration from comic strips, often featuring anthropomorphic animals, superheroes, or the adventures of child protagonists. Especially with animals that form a natural predatorprey relationship e.g. cats and mice, coyotes and birds the acti |
on often centers around violent pratfalls such as falls, collisions and explosions that would be lethal in real life.
Commonly, animators achieved the effect by a rapid succession of images that minimally differ from each other. The illusionas in motion pictures in generalis thought to rely on the phi phenomenon and beta movement, but the exact causes are still uncertain. Analog mechanical animation media that rely on the rapid display of sequential images include the phnakisticope, zoetrope, flip book, praxinoscope, and film. Television and video are popular electronic animation media that originally were analog and now operate digitally. For display on computers, technology such as the animated GIF and Flash animation were developed.
In addition to short films, feature films, television series, animated GIFs, and other media dedicated to the display of moving images, animation is also prevalent in video games, motion graphics, user interfaces, and visual effects.
The physical movement of image parts th |
rough simple mechanicsfor instance moving images in magic lantern showscan also be considered animation. The mechanical manipulation of threedimensional puppets and objects to emulate living beings has a very long history in automata. Electronic automata were popularized by Disney as animatronics.
Etymology
The word "animation" stems from the Latin "animtin", stem of "animti", meaning "a bestowing of life". The primary meaning of the English word is "liveliness" and has been in use much longer than the meaning of "moving image medium".
History
Before cinematography
Hundreds of years before the introduction of true animation, people all over the world enjoyed shows with moving figures that were created and manipulated manually in puppetry, automata, shadow play, and the magic lantern. The multimedia phantasmagoria shows that were very popular in European theatres from the late 18th century through the first half of the 19th century, featured lifelike projections of moving ghosts and other frightful imagery |
in motion.
In 1833, the stroboscopic disc better known as the phnakisticope introduced the principle of modern animation with sequential images that were shown one by one in quick succession to form an optical illusion of motion pictures. Series of sequential images had occasionally been made over thousands of years, but the stroboscopic disc provided the first method to represent such images in fluent motion and for the first time had artists creating series with a proper systematic breakdown of movements. The stroboscopic animation principle was also applied in the zoetrope 1866, the flip book 1868 and the praxinoscope 1877. A typical 19thcentury animation contained about 12 images that were displayed as a continuous loop by spinning a device manually. The flip book often contained more pictures and had a beginning and end, but its animation would not last longer than a few seconds. The first to create much longer sequences seems to have been Charlesmile Reynaud, who between 1892 and 1900 had much success |
with his 10 to 15minutelong Pantomimes Lumineuses.
Silent era
When cinematography eventually broke through in 1895 after animated pictures had been known for decades, the wonder of the realistic details in the new medium was seen as its biggest accomplishment. Animation on film was not commercialized until a few years later by manufacturers of optical toys, with chromolithography film loops often traced from liveaction footage for adapted toy magic lanterns intended for kids to use at home. It would take some more years before animation reached movie theaters.
After earlier experiments by movie pioneers J. Stuart Blackton, Arthur MelbourneCooper, Segundo de Chomn, and Edwin S. Porter among others, Blackton's The Haunted Hotel 1907 was the first huge stop motion success, baffling audiences by showing objects that apparently moved by themselves in full photographic detail, without signs of any known stage trick.
mile Cohl's Fantasmagorie 1908 is the oldest known example of what became known as traditional h |
anddrawn animation. Other great artistic and very influential short films were created by Ladislas Starevich with his puppet animations since 1910 and by Winsor McCay with detailed drawn animation in films such as Little Nemo 1911 and Gertie the Dinosaur 1914.
During the 1910s, the production of animated "cartoons" became an industry in the US. Successful producer John Randolph Bray and animator Earl Hurd, patented the cel animation process that dominated the animation industry for the rest of the century. Felix the Cat, who debuted in 1919, became the first animated superstar.
American golden age
In 1928, Steamboat Willie, featuring Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse, popularized film with synchronized sound and put Walt Disney's studio at the forefront of the animation industry.
The enormous success of Mickey Mouse is seen as the start of the golden age of American animation that would last until the 1960s. The United States dominated the world market of animation with a plethora of celanimated theatrical sho |
rts. Several studios would introduce characters that would become very popular and would have longlasting careers, including Maria Butinova Studios' Mapmo 1924, The Leo King Knott 1931, Walt Disney Productions' Goofy 1932 and Donald Duck 1934, Warner Bros. Cartoons' Looney Tunes characters like Porky Pig 1935, Daffy Duck 1937, Bugs Bunny 19381940, Tweety 19411942, Sylvester the Cat 1945, Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner 1949, Fleischer StudiosParamount Cartoon Studios' Betty Boop 1930, Popeye 1933, Superman 1941 and Casper 1945, MGM cartoon studio's Tom and Jerry 1940 and Droopy, Walter Lantz ProductionsUniversal Studio Cartoons' Woody Woodpecker 1940, Terrytoons20th Century Fox's Dinky Duck 1939, Mighty Mouse 1942 and Heckle and Jeckle 1946 and United Artists' Pink Panther 1963.
Features before CGI
In 1917, ItalianArgentine director Quirino Cristiani made the first featurelength film El Apstol now lost, which became a critical and commercial success. It was followed by Cristiani's Sin dejar rastros in 1918, |
but one day after its premiere, the film was confiscated by the government.
After working on it for three years, Lotte Reiniger released the German featurelength silhouette animation Die Abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed in 1926, the oldest extant animated feature.
In 1937, Walt Disney Studios premiered their first animated feature, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, still one of the highestgrossing traditional animation features . The Fleischer studios followed this example in 1939 with Gulliver's Travels with some success. Partly due to foreign markets being cut off by the Second World War, Disney's next features Pinocchio, Fantasia both 1940 and Fleischer Studios' second animated feature Mr. Bug Goes to Town 19411942 failed at the box office. For decades afterward, Disney would be the only American studio to regularly produce animated features, until Ralph Bakshi became the first to also release more than a handful features. SullivanBluth Studios began to regularly produce animated features starting with An Ame |
rican Tail in 1986.
Although relatively few titles became as successful as Disney's features, other countries developed their own animation industries that produced both short and feature theatrical animations in a wide variety of styles, relatively often including stop motion and cutout animation techniques. Russia's Soyuzmultfilm animation studio, founded in 1936, produced 20 films including shorts per year on average and reached 1,582 titles in 2018. China, Czechoslovakia Czech Republic, Italy, France, and Belgium were other countries that more than occasionally released feature films, while Japan became a true powerhouse of animation production, with its own recognizable and influential anime style of effective limited animation.
Television
Animation became very popular on television since the 1950s, when television sets started to become common in most developed countries. Cartoons were mainly programmed for children, on convenient time slots, and especially US youth spent many hours watching Saturday |
morning cartoons. Many classic cartoons found a new life on the small screen and by the end of the 1950s, the production of new animated cartoons started to shift from theatrical releases to TV series. HannaBarbera Productions was especially prolific and had huge hit series, such as The Flintstones 19601966 the first prime time animated series, ScoobyDoo since 1969 and Belgian coproduction The Smurfs 19811989. The constraints of American television programming and the demand for an enormous quantity resulted in cheaper and quicker limited animation methods and much more formulaic scripts. Quality dwindled until more daring animation surfaced in the late 1980s and in the early 1990s with hit series such as The Simpsons since 1989 as part of a "renaissance" of American animation.
While US animated series also spawned successes internationally, many other countries produced their own childoriented programming, relatively often preferring stop motion and puppetry over cel animation. Japanese anime TV series beca |
me very successful internationally since the 1960s, and European producers looking for affordable cel animators relatively often started coproductions with Japanese studios, resulting in hit series such as Barbapapa The NetherlandsJapanFrance 19731977, Wickie und die starken Mnner Vicky the Viking AustriaGermanyJapan 1974, and The Jungle Book ItalyJapan 1989.
Switch from cels to computers
Computer animation was gradually developed since the 1940s. 3D wireframe animation started popping up in the mainstream in the 1970s, with an early short appearance in the scifi thriller Futureworld 1976.
The Rescuers Down Under was the first feature film to be completely created digitally without a camera. It was produced in a style that's very similar to traditional cel animation on the Computer Animation Production System CAPS, developed by The Walt Disney Company in collaboration with Pixar in the late 1980s.
The socalled 3D style, more often associated with computer animation, has become extremely popular since Pix |
ar's Toy Story 1995, the first computeranimated feature in this style.
Most of the cel animation studios switched to producing mostly computer animated films around the 1990s, as it proved cheaper and more profitable. Not only the very popular 3D animation style was generated with computers, but also most of the films and series with a more traditional handcrafted appearance, in which the charming characteristics of cel animation could be emulated with software, while new digital tools helped developing new styles and effects.
Economic status
In 2008, the animation market was worth US68.4 billion. Animated featurelength films returned the highest gross margins around 52 of all film genres between 2004 and 2013. Animation as an art and industry continues to thrive as of the early 2020s.
Education, propaganda and commercials
The clarity of animation makes it a powerful tool for instruction, while its total malleability also allows exaggeration that can be employed to convey strong emotions and to thwart real |
ity. It has therefore been widely used for other purposes than mere entertainment.
During World War II, animation was widely exploited for propaganda. Many American studios, including Warner Bros. and Disney, lent their talents and their cartoon characters to convey to the public certain war values. Some countries, including China, Japan and the United Kingdom, produced their first featurelength animation for their war efforts.
Animation has been very popular in television commercials, both due to its graphic appeal, and the humour it can provide. Some animated characters in commercials have survived for decades, such as Snap, Crackle and Pop in advertisements for Kellogg's cereals. The legendary animation director Tex Avery was the producer of the first Raid "Kills Bugs Dead" commercials in 1966, which were very successful for the company.
Other media, merchandise and theme parks
Apart from their success in movie theaters and television series, many cartoon characters would also prove extremely lucrative |
when licensed for all kinds of merchandise and for other media.
Animation has traditionally been very closely related to comic books. While many comic book characters found their way to the screen which is often the case in Japan, where many manga are adapted into anime, original animated characters also commonly appear in comic books and magazines. Somewhat similarly, characters and plots for video games an interactive animation medium have been derived from films and vice versa.
Some of the original content produced for the screen can be used and marketed in other media. Stories and images can easily be adapted into children's books and other printed media. Songs and music have appeared on records and as streaming media.
While very many animation companies commercially exploit their creations outside moving image media, The Walt Disney Company is the best known and most extreme example. Since first being licensed for a children's writing tablet in 1929, their Mickey Mouse mascot has been depicted on an e |
normous amount of products, as have many other Disney characters. This may have influenced some pejorative use of Mickey's name, but licensed Disney products sell well, and the socalled Disneyana has many avid collectors, and even a dedicated Disneyana fanclub since 1984.
Disneyland opened in 1955 and features many attractions that were based on Disney's cartoon characters. Its enormous success spawned several other Disney theme parks and resorts. Disney's earnings from the theme parks have relatively often been higher than those from their movies.
Criticism
Criticism of animation has been common in media and cinema since its inception. With its popularity, a large amount of criticism has arisen, especially animated featurelength films. Many concerns of cultural representation, psychological effects on children have been brought up around the animation industry, which has remained rather politically unchanged and stagnant since its inception into mainstream culture.
Awards
As with any other form of media, |
animation has instituted awards for excellence in the field. The original awards for animation were presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for animated shorts from the year 1932, during the 5th Academy Awards function. The first winner of the Academy Award was the short Flowers and Trees, a production by Walt Disney Productions. The Academy Award for a featurelength animated motion picture was only instituted for the year 2001, and awarded during the 74th Academy Awards in 2002. It was won by the film Shrek, produced by DreamWorks and Pacific Data Images. Disney Animation and Pixar has produced the most films either to win or be nominated for the award. Beauty and the Beast was the first animated film nominated for Best Picture. Up and Toy Story 3 also received Best Picture nominations after the Academy expanded the number of nominees from five to ten.
Academy Award for Best Animated Feature
Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film
Several other countries have instituted an award f |
or the bestanimated feature film as part of their national film awards Africa Movie Academy Award for Best Animation since 2008, BAFTA Award for Best Animated Film since 2006, Csar Award for Best Animated Film since 2011, Golden Rooster Award for Best Animation since 1981, Goya Award for Best Animated Film since 1989, Japan Academy Prize for Animation of the Year since 2007, National Film Award for Best Animated Film since 2006. Also since 2007, the Asia Pacific Screen Award for Best Animated Feature Film has been awarded at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards. Since 2009, the European Film Awards have awarded the European Film Award for Best Animated Film.
The Annie Award is another award presented for excellence in the field of animation. Unlike the Academy Awards, the Annie Awards are only received for achievements in the field of animation and not for any other field of technical and artistic endeavour. They were reorganized in 1992 to create a new field for Best Animated Feature. The 1990s winners were domin |
ated by Walt Disney; however, newer studios, led by Pixar DreamWorks, have now begun to consistently vie for this award. The list of awardees is as follows
Annie Award for Best Animated Feature
Annie Award for Best Animated Short Subject
Annie Award for Best Animated Television Production
Production
The creation of nontrivial animation works i.e., longer than a few seconds has developed as a form of filmmaking, with certain unique aspects. Traits common to both liveaction and animated featurelength films are labor intensity and high production costs.
The most important difference is that once a film is in the production phase, the marginal cost of one more shot is higher for animated films than liveaction films. It is relatively easy for a director to ask for one more take during principal photography of a liveaction film, but every take on an animated film must be manually rendered by animators although the task of rendering slightly different takes has been made less tedious by modern computer animat |
ion. It is pointless for a studio to pay the salaries of dozens of animators to spend weeks creating a visually dazzling fiveminute scene if that scene fails to effectively advance the plot of the film. Thus, animation studios starting with Disney began the practice in the 1930s of maintaining story departments where storyboard artists develop every single scene through storyboards, then handing the film over to the animators only after the production team is satisfied that all the scenes make sense as a whole. While liveaction films are now also storyboarded, they enjoy more latitude to depart from storyboards i.e., realtime improvisation.
Another problem unique to animation is the requirement to maintain a film's consistency from start to finish, even as films have grown longer and teams have grown larger. Animators, like all artists, necessarily have individual styles, but must subordinate their individuality in a consistent way to whatever style is employed on a particular film. Since the early 1980s, te |
ams of about 500 to 600 people, of whom 50 to 70 are animators, typically have created featurelength animated films. It is relatively easy for two or three artists to match their styles; synchronizing those of dozens of artists is more difficult.
This problem is usually solved by having a separate group of visual development artists develop an overall look and palette for each film before the animation begins. Character designers on the visual development team draw model sheets to show how each character should look like with different facial expressions, posed in different positions, and viewed from different angles. On traditionally animated projects, maquettes were often sculpted to further help the animators see how characters would look from different angles.
Unlike liveaction films, animated films were traditionally developed beyond the synopsis stage through the storyboard format; the storyboard artists would then receive credit for writing the film. In the early 1960s, animation studios began hiring |
professional screenwriters to write screenplays while also continuing to use story departments and screenplays had become commonplace for animated films by the late 1980s.
Techniques
Traditional
Traditional animation also called cel animation or handdrawn animation was the process used for most animated films of the 20th century. The individual frames of a traditionally animated film are photographs of drawings, first drawn on paper. To create the illusion of movement, each drawing differs slightly from the one before it. The animators' drawings are traced or photocopied onto transparent acetate sheets called cels, which are filled in with paints in assigned colors or tones on the side opposite the line drawings. The completed character cels are photographed onebyone against a painted background by a rostrum camera onto motion picture film.
The traditional cel animation process became obsolete by the beginning of the 21st century. Today, animators' drawings and the backgrounds are either scanned into or |
drawn directly into a computer system. Various software programs are used to color the drawings and simulate camera movement and effects. The final animated piece is output to one of several delivery media, including traditional 35 mm film and newer media with digital video. The "look" of traditional cel animation is still preserved, and the character animators' work has remained essentially the same over the past 70 years. Some animation producers have used the term "tradigital" a play on the words "traditional" and "digital" to describe cel animation that uses significant computer technology.
Examples of traditionally animated feature films include Pinocchio United States, 1940, Animal Farm United Kingdom, 1954, Lucky and Zorba Italy, 1998, and The Illusionist BritishFrench, 2010. Traditionally animated films produced with the aid of computer technology include The Lion King US, 1994, The Prince of Egypt US, 1998, Akira Japan, 1988, Spirited Away Japan, 2001, The Triplets of Belleville France, 2003, and Th |
e Secret of Kells IrishFrenchBelgian, 2009.
Full
Full animation refers to the process of producing highquality traditionally animated films that regularly use detailed drawings and plausible movement, having a smooth animation. Fully animated films can be made in a variety of styles, from more realistically animated works like those produced by the Walt Disney studio The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, The Lion King to the more 'cartoon' styles of the Warner Bros. animation studio. Many of the Disney animated features are examples of full animation, as are nonDisney works, The Secret of NIMH US, 1982, The Iron Giant US, 1999, and Nocturna Spain, 2007. Fully animated films are animated at 24 frames per second, with a combination of animation on ones and twos, meaning that drawings can be held for one frame out of 24 or two frames out of 24.
Limited
Limited animation involves the use of less detailed or more stylized drawings and methods of movement usually a choppy or "skippy" movement animat |
ion. Limited animation uses fewer drawings per second, thereby limiting the fluidity of the animation. This is a more economic technique. Pioneered by the artists at the American studio United Productions of America, limited animation can be used as a method of stylized artistic expression, as in Gerald McBoingBoing US, 1951, Yellow Submarine UK, 1968, and certain anime produced in Japan. Its primary use, however, has been in producing costeffective animated content for media for television the work of HannaBarbera, Filmation, and other TV animation studios and later the Internet web cartoons.
Rotoscoping
Rotoscoping is a technique patented by Max Fleischer in 1917 where animators trace liveaction movement, frame by frame. The source film can be directly copied from actors' outlines into animated drawings, as in The Lord of the Rings US, 1978, or used in a stylized and expressive manner, as in Waking Life US, 2001 and A Scanner Darkly US, 2006. Some other examples are Fire and Ice US, 1983, Heavy Metal 1981 |
, and Aku no Hana Japan, 2013.
Liveaction blending
Liveactionanimation is a technique combining handdrawn characters into live action shots or liveaction actors into animated shots. One of the earlier uses was in Koko the Clown when Koko was drawn over liveaction footage. Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks created a series of Alice Comedies 19231927, in which a liveaction girl enters an animated world. Other examples include Allegro Non Troppo Italy, 1976, Who Framed Roger Rabbit US, 1988, Volere volare Italy 1991, Space Jam US, 1996 and Osmosis Jones US, 2001.
Stop motion
Stopmotion animation is used to describe animation created by physically manipulating realworld objects and photographing them one frame of film at a time to create the illusion of movement. There are many different types of stopmotion animation, usually named after the medium used to create the animation. Computer software is widely available to create this type of animation; traditional stopmotion animation is usually less expensive but more t |
imeconsuming to produce than current computer animation.
Puppet animation Typically involves stopmotion puppet figures interacting in a constructed environment, in contrast to realworld interaction in model animation. The puppets generally have an armature inside of them to keep them still and steady to constrain their motion to particular joints. Examples include The Tale of the Fox France, 1937, The Nightmare Before Christmas US, 1993, Corpse Bride US, 2005, Coraline US, 2009, the films of Ji Trnka and the adult animated sketchcomedy television series Robot Chicken US, 2005present.
Puppetoon Created using techniques developed by George Pal, are puppetanimated films that typically use a different version of a puppet for different frames, rather than simply manipulating one existing puppet.
Clay animation or Plasticine animation Often called claymation, which, however, is a trademarked name. It uses figures made of clay or a similar malleable material to create stopmotion animation. The figures may hav |
e an armature or wire frame inside, similar to the related puppet animation below, that can be manipulated to pose the figures. Alternatively, the figures may be made entirely of clay, in the films of Bruce Bickford, where clay creatures morph into a variety of different shapes. Examples of clayanimated works include The Gumby Show US, 19571967, Mio Mao Italy, 19742005, Morph shorts UK, 19772000, Wallace and Gromit shorts UK, as of 1989, Jan vankmajer's Dimensions of Dialogue Czechoslovakia, 1982, The Trap Door UK, 1984. Films include Wallace Gromit The Curse of the WereRabbit, Chicken Run and The Adventures of Mark Twain.
Stratacut animation Most commonly a form of clay animation in which a long breadlike "loaf" of clay, internally packed tight and loaded with varying imagery, is sliced into thin sheets, with the animation camera taking a frame of the end of the loaf for each cut, eventually revealing the movement of the internal images within.
Cutout animation A type of stopmotion animation produced by |
moving twodimensional pieces of material paper or cloth. Examples include Terry Gilliam's animated sequences from Monty Python's Flying Circus UK, 19691974; Fantastic Planet FranceCzechoslovakia, 1973; Tale of Tales Russia, 1979, The pilot episode of the adult television sitcom series and sometimes in episodes of South Park US, 1997 and the music video Live for the moment, from Verona Riots band produced by Alberto Serrano and Nvola Uy, Spain 2014.
Silhouette animation A variant of cutout animation in which the characters are backlit and only visible as silhouettes. Examples include The Adventures of Prince Achmed Weimar Republic, 1926 and Princes et Princesses France, 2000.
Model animation Refers to stopmotion animation created to interact with and exist as a part of a liveaction world. Intercutting, matte effects and split screens are often employed to blend stopmotion characters or objects with live actors and settings. Examples include the work of Ray Harryhausen, as seen in films, Jason and the Argo |
nauts 1963, and the work of Willis H. O'Brien on films, King Kong 1933.
Go motion A variant of model animation that uses various techniques to create motion blur between frames of film, which is not present in traditional stop motion. The technique was invented by Industrial Light Magic and Phil Tippett to create special effect scenes for the film The Empire Strikes Back 1980. Another example is the dragon named "Vermithrax" from the 1981 film Dragonslayer.
Object animation Refers to the use of regular inanimate objects in stopmotion animation, as opposed to specially created items.
Graphic animation Uses nondrawn flat visual graphic material photographs, newspaper clippings, magazines, etc., which are sometimes manipulated frame by frame to create movement. At other times, the graphics remain stationary, while the stopmotion camera is moved to create onscreen action.
Brickfilm A subgenre of object animation involving using Lego or other similar brick toys to make an animation. These have had a recent |
boost in popularity with the advent of video sharing sites, YouTube and the availability of cheap cameras and animation software.
Pixilation Involves the use of live humans as stopmotion characters. This allows for a number of surreal effects, including disappearances and reappearances, allowing people to appear to slide across the ground, and other effects. Examples of pixilation include The Secret Adventures of Tom Thumb and Angry Kid shorts, and the Academy Awardwinning Neighbours by Norman McLaren.
Computer
Computer animation encompasses a variety of techniques, the unifying factor being that the animation is created digitally on a computer. 2D animation techniques tend to focus on image manipulation while 3D techniques usually build virtual worlds in which characters and objects move and interact. 3D animation can create images that seem real to the viewer.
2D
2D animation figures are created or edited on the computer using 2D bitmap graphics and 2D vector graphics. This includes automated compute |
rized versions of traditional animation techniques, interpolated morphing, onion skinning and interpolated rotoscoping.
2D animation has many applications, including analog computer animation, Flash animation, and PowerPoint animation. Cinemagraphs are still photographs in the form of an animated GIF file of which part is animated.
Final line advection animation is a technique used in 2D animation, to give artists and animators more influence and control over the final product as everything is done within the same department. Speaking about using this approach in Paperman, John Kahrs said that "Our animators can change things, actually erase away the CG underlayer if they want, and change the profile of the arm."
3D
3D animation is digitally modeled and manipulated by an animator. The 3D model maker usually starts by creating a 3D polygon mesh for the animator to manipulate. A mesh typically includes many vertices that are connected by edges and faces, which give the visual appearance of form to a 3D objec |
t or 3D environment. Sometimes, the mesh is given an internal digital skeletal structure called an armature that can be used to control the mesh by weighting the vertices. This process is called rigging and can be used in conjunction with key frames to create movement.
Other techniques can be applied, mathematical functions e.g., gravity, particle simulations, simulated fur or hair, and effects, fire and water simulations. These techniques fall under the category of 3D dynamics.
Terms
Celshaded animation is used to mimic traditional animation using computer software. The shading looks stark, with less blending of colors. Examples include Skyland 2007, France, The Iron Giant 1999, United States, Futurama 1999, United States Appleseed Ex Machina 2007, Japan, The Legend of Zelda The Wind Waker 2002, Japan, The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild 2017, Japan
Machinima Films created by screen capturing in video games and virtual worlds. The term originated from the software introduction in the 1980s demoscene, |
as well as the 1990s recordings of the firstperson shooter video game Quake.
Motion capture is used when liveaction actors wear special suits that allow computers to copy their movements into CG characters. Examples include Polar Express 2004, US, Beowulf 2007, US, A Christmas Carol 2009, US, The Adventures of Tintin 2011, US kochadiiyan 2014, India
Computer animation is used primarily for animation that attempts to resemble real life, using advanced rendering that mimics in detail skin, plants, water, fire, clouds, etc. Examples include Up 2009, US, How to Train Your Dragon 2010, US
Physically based animation is animation using computer simulations.
Mechanical
Animatronics is the use of mechatronics to create machines that seem animate rather than robotic.
AudioAnimatronics and Autonomatronics is a form of robotics animation, combined with 3D animation, created by Walt Disney Imagineering for shows and attractions at Disney theme parks move and make noise generally a recorded speech or song. They are |
fixed to whatever supports them. They can sit and stand, and they cannot walk. An AudioAnimatron is different from an androidtype robot in that it uses prerecorded movements and sounds, rather than responding to external stimuli. In 2009, Disney created an interactive version of the technology called Autonomatronics.
Linear Animation Generator is a form of animation by using static picture frames installed in a tunnel or a shaft. The animation illusion is created by putting the viewer in a linear motion, parallel to the installed picture frames. The concept and the technical solution were invented in 2007 by Mihai Girlovan in Romania.
Chuckimation is a type of animation created by the makers of the television series Action League Now! in which charactersprops are thrown, or chucked from off camera or wiggled around to simulate talking by unseen hands.
The magic lantern used mechanical slides to project moving images, probably since Christiaan Huygens invented this early image projector in 1659.
Other
H |
ydrotechnics a technique that includes lights, water, fire, fog, and lasers, with highdefinition projections on mist screens.
Drawn on film animation a technique where footage is produced by creating the images directly on film stock; for example, by Norman McLaren, Len Lye and Stan Brakhage.
Paintonglass animation a technique for making animated films by manipulating slow drying oil paints on sheets of glass, for example by Aleksandr Petrov.
Erasure animation a technique using traditional 2D media, photographed over time as the artist manipulates the image. For example, William Kentridge is famous for his charcoal erasure films, and Piotr Dumaa for his auteur technique of animating scratches on plaster.
Pinscreen animation makes use of a screen filled with movable pins that can be moved in or out by pressing an object onto the screen. The screen is lit from the side so that the pins cast shadows. The technique has been used to create animated films with a range of textural effects difficult to achieve wi |
th traditional cel animation.
Sand animation sand is moved around on a back or frontlighted piece of glass to create each frame for an animated film. This creates an interesting effect when animated because of the light contrast.
Flip book a flip book sometimes, especially in British English, called a flick book is a book with a series of pictures that vary gradually from one page to the next, so that when the pages are turned rapidly, the pictures appear to animate by simulating motion or some other change. Flip books are often illustrated books for children, they also are geared towards adults and employ a series of photographs rather than drawings. Flip books are not always separate books, they appear as an added feature in ordinary books or magazines, often in the page corners. Software packages and websites are also available that convert digital video files into custommade flip books.
Character animation
Multisketching
Special effects animation
See also
Twelve basic principles of animation
Anim |
ated war film
Animation department
Animated series
Architectural animation
Avar
Independent animation
International Animation Day
International Animated Film Association
International Tourne of Animation
List of filmrelated topics
Motion graphic design
Society for Animation Studies
Wireframe model
References
Citations
Sources
Journal articles
Books
Online sources
External links
The making of an 8minute cartoon short
"Animando", a 12minute film demonstrating 10 different animation techniques and teaching how to use them.
Bibliography on animation Websiite "Histoire de la tlvision"
Cartooning
Articles containing video clips
Film and video technology |
Apollo is one of the Olympian deities in classical Greek and Roman religion and Greek and Roman mythology. The national divinity of the Greeks, Apollo has been recognized as a god of archery, music and dance, truth and prophecy, healing and diseases, the Sun and light, poetry, and more. One of the most important and complex of the Greek gods, he is the son of Zeus and Leto, and the twin brother of Artemis, goddess of the hunt. Seen as the most beautiful god and the ideal of the kouros ephebe, or a beardless, athletic youth, Apollo is considered to be the most Greek of all the gods. Apollo is known in Greekinfluenced Etruscan mythology as Apulu.
As the patron deity of Delphi Apollo Pythios, Apollo is an oracular godthe prophetic deity of the Delphic Oracle. Apollo is the god who affords help and wards off evil; various epithets call him the "averter of evil". Delphic Apollo is the patron of seafarers, foreigners and the protector of fugitives and refugees.
Medicine and healing are associated with Apollo, wh |
ether through the god himself or mediated through his son Asclepius. Apollo delivered people from epidemics, yet he is also a god who could bring illhealth and deadly plague with his arrows. The invention of archery itself is credited to Apollo and his sister Artemis. Apollo is usually described as carrying a golden bow and a quiver of silver arrows. Apollo's capacity to make youths grow is one of the best attested facets of his panhellenic cult persona. As the protector of young kourotrophos, Apollo is concerned with the health and education of children. He presided over their passage into adulthood. Long hair, which was the prerogative of boys, was cut at the coming of age ephebeia and dedicated to Apollo.
Apollo is an important pastoral deity, and was the patron of herdsmen and shepherds. Protection of herds, flocks and crops from diseases, pests and predators were his primary duties. On the other hand, Apollo also encouraged founding new towns and establishment of civil constitution. He is associated wit |
h dominion over colonists. He was the giver of laws, and his oracles were consulted before setting laws in a city.
As the god of mousike, Apollo presides over all music, songs, dance and poetry. He is the inventor of stringmusic, and the frequent companion of the Muses, functioning as their chorus leader in celebrations. The lyre is a common attribute of Apollo. In Hellenistic times, especially during the 5th century BCE, as Apollo Helios he became identified among Greeks with Helios, the personification of the sun. In Latin texts, however, there was no conflation of Apollo with Sol among the classical Latin poets until 1st century CE. Apollo and HeliosSol remained separate beings in literary and mythological texts until the 5th century CE.
Etymology
Apollo Attic, Ionic, and Homeric Greek , Apolln ; Doric , Apelln; Arcadocypriot , Apeiln; Aeolic , Aploun;
The name Apollounlike the related older name Paeanis generally not found in the Linear B Mycenean Greek texts, although there is a possible attestatio |
n in the lacunose form perjo Linear B on the KN E 842 tablet, though it has also been suggested that the name might actually read "Hyperion" uperjone.
The etymology of the name is uncertain. The spelling in Classical Attic had almost superseded all other forms by the beginning of the common era, but the Doric form, Apellon , is more archaic, as it is derived from an earlier . It probably is a cognate to the Doric month Apellaios , and the offerings apellaia at the initiation of the young men during the familyfestival apellai . According to some scholars, the words are derived from the Doric word apella , which originally meant "wall," "fence for animals" and later "assembly within the limits of the square." Apella is the name of the popular assembly in Sparta, corresponding to the ecclesia . R. S. P. Beekes rejected the connection of the theonym with the noun apellai and suggested a PreGreek protoform Apalyun.
Several instances of popular etymology are attested from ancient authors. Thus, the Greeks mo |
st often associated Apollo's name with the Greek verb apollymi, "to destroy". Plato in Cratylus connects the name with apolysis, "redemption", with apolousis, "purification", and with haploun, "simple", in particular in reference to the Thessalian form of the name, , and finally with aeiballon, "evershooting". Hesychius connects the name Apollo with the Doric apella, which means "assembly", so that Apollo would be the god of political life, and he also gives the explanation sekos, "fold", in which case Apollo would be the god of flocks and herds. In the ancient Macedonian language pella means "stone," and some toponyms may be derived from this word Pella, the capital of ancient Macedonia and PellnPellene.
A number of nonGreek etymologies have been suggested for the name, The Hittite form Apaliunas d is attested in the ManapaTarhunta letter. The Hittite testimony reflects an early form , which may also be surmised from comparison of Cypriot with Doric . The name of the Lydian god Qdns kns may refle |
ct an earlier kalyn before palatalization, syncope, and the preLydian sound change y d. Note the labiovelar in place of the labial p found in preDoric j and Hittite Apaliunas.
A Luwian etymology suggested for Apaliunas makes Apollo "The One of Entrapment", perhaps in the sense of "Hunter".
GrecoRoman epithets
Apollo's chief epithet was Phoebus ; , Phoibos , literally "bright". It was very commonly used by both the Greeks and Romans for Apollo's role as the god of light. Like other Greek deities, he had a number of others applied to him, reflecting the variety of roles, duties, and aspects ascribed to the god. However, while Apollo has a great number of appellations in Greek myth, only a few occur in Latin literature.
Sun
Aegletes ; , Aiglts, from , "light of the sun"
Helius ; , Helios, literally "sun"
Lyceus ; , Lykeios, from ProtoGreek , "light". The meaning of the epithet "Lyceus" later became associated with Apollo's mother Leto, who was the patron goddess of Lycia and who was identified with th |
e wolf .
Phanaeus ; , Phanaios, literally "giving or bringing light"
Phoebus ; , Phoibos, literally "bright", his most commonly used epithet by both the Greeks and Romans
Sol Roman , "sun" in Latin
Wolf
Lycegenes ; , Lukgens, literally "born of a wolf" or "born of Lycia"
Lycoctonus ; , Lykoktonos, from , "wolf", and , "to kill"
Origin and birth
Apollo's birthplace was Mount Cynthus on the island of Delos.
Cynthius ; , Kunthios, literally "Cynthian"
Cynthogenes ; , Kynthogens, literally "born of Cynthus"
Delius ; , Delios, literally "Delian"
Didymaeus ; , Didymaios from , "twin", as the twin of Artemis
Place of worship
Delphi and Actium were his primary places of worship.
Acraephius ; , Akraiphios, literally "Acraephian" or Acraephiaeus ; , Akraiphiaios, "Acraephian", from the Boeotian town of Acraephia , reputedly founded by his son Acraepheus.
Actiacus ; , Aktiakos, literally "Actian", after Actium
Delphinius ; , Delphinios, literally "Delphic", after Delphi . An etiology in the Homeric Hym |
ns associated this with dolphins.
Epactaeus, meaning "god worshipped on the coast", in Samos.
Pythius ; , Puthios, from , Pyth, from the region around Delphi
Smintheus ; , Smintheus, "Sminthian"that is, "of the town of Sminthos or Sminthe" near the Troad town of Hamaxitus
Napaian Apollo , from the city of Nape at the island of Lesbos
Healing and disease
Acesius ; , Akesios, from , "healing". Acesius was the epithet of Apollo worshipped in Elis, where he had a temple in the agora.
Acestor ; , Akestr, literally "healer"
Culicarius Roman , from Latin culicrius, "of midges"
Iatrus ; , Itros, literally "physician"
Medicus Roman , "physician" in Latin. A temple was dedicated to Apollo Medicus at Rome, probably next to the temple of Bellona.
Paean ; , Pain, physician, healer
Parnopius ; , Parnopios, from , "locust"
Founder and protector
Agyieus ; , Agueus, from , "street", for his role in protecting roads and homes
Alexicacus ; , Alexikakos, literally "warding off evil"
Apotropaeus ; , Apotropaios, f |
rom , "to avert"
Archegetes ; , Arkhgets, literally "founder"
Averruncus Roman ; from Latin verruncare, "to avert"
Clarius ; , Klrios, from Doric , "allotted lot"
Epicurius ; , Epikourios, from , "to aid"
Genetor ; , Genetr, literally "ancestor"
Nomius ; , Nomios, literally "pastoral"
Nymphegetes ; , Numphgets, from , "Nymph", and , "leader", for his role as a protector of shepherds and pastoral life
Patroos from , "related to one's father," for his role as father of Ion and founder of the Ionians, as worshipped at the Temple of Apollo Patroos in Athens
Sauroctunos, lizard killer, possibly a reference to his killing of Python
Prophecy and truth
Coelispex Roman , from Latin coelum, "sky", and specere "to look at"
Iatromantis ; , Itromantis, from , "physician", and , "prophet", referring to his role as a god both of healing and of prophecy
Leschenorius ; , Leskhnorios, from , "converser"
Loxias ; , Loxias, from , "to say", historically associated with , "ambiguous"
Manticus ; , Mantikos, literal |
ly "prophetic"
Proopsios , meaning "foreseer" or "first seen"
Music and arts
Musagetes ; Doric , Mousgets, from , "Muse", and "leader"
Musegetes ; , Mousgets, as the preceding
Archery
Aphetor ; , Aphtr, from , "to let loose"
Aphetorus ; , Aphtoros, as the preceding
Arcitenens Roman , literally "bowcarrying"
Argyrotoxus ; , Argyrotoxos, literally "with silver bow"
Clytotoxus ; , Klyttoxos, "he who is famous for his bow", the renowned archer.
Hecargus ; , Hekaergos, literally "farshooting"
Hecebolus ; , Hekbolos, "farshooting"
Ismenius ; , Ismnios, literally "of Ismenus", after Ismenus, the son of Amphion and Niobe, whom he struck with an arrow
Amazons
Amazonius , Pausanias at the Description of Greece writes that near Pyrrhichus there was a sanctuary of Apollo, called Amazonius with image of the god said to have been dedicated by the Amazons.
Celtic epithets and cult titles
Apollo was worshipped throughout the Roman Empire. In the traditionally Celtic lands, he was most often seen as a healing |
and sun god. He was often equated with Celtic gods of similar character.
Apollo Atepomarus "the great horseman" or "possessing a great horse". Apollo was worshipped at Mauvires Indre. Horses were, in the Celtic world, closely linked to the sun.
Apollo Belenus "bright" or "brilliant". This epithet was given to Apollo in parts of Gaul, Northern Italy and Noricum part of modern Austria. Apollo Belenus was a healing and sun god.
Apollo Cunomaglus "hound lord". A title given to Apollo at a shrine at Nettleton Shrub, Wiltshire. May have been a god of healing. Cunomaglus himself may originally have been an independent healing god.
Apollo Grannus. Grannus was a healing spring god, later equated with Apollo.
Apollo Maponus. A god known from inscriptions in Britain. This may be a local fusion of Apollo and Maponus.
Apollo Moritasgus "masses of sea water". An epithet for Apollo at Alesia, where he was worshipped as god of healing and, possibly, of physicians.
Apollo Vindonnus "clear light". Apollo Vindonnus had |
a temple at Essarois, near ChtillonsurSeine in presentday Burgundy. He was a god of healing, especially of the eyes.
Apollo Virotutis "benefactor of mankind". Apollo Virotutis was worshipped, among other places, at Fins d'Annecy HauteSavoie and at Jublains MaineetLoire.
Origins
The cult centers of Apollo in Greece, Delphi and Delos, date from the 8th century BCE. The Delos sanctuary was primarily dedicated to Artemis, Apollo's twin sister. At Delphi, Apollo was venerated as the slayer of the monstrous serpent Python. For the Greeks, Apollo was the most Greek of all the gods, and through the centuries he acquired different functions. In Archaic Greece he was the prophet, the oracular god who in older times was connected with "healing". In Classical Greece he was the god of light and of music, but in popular religion he had a strong function to keep away evil. Walter Burkert discerned three components in the prehistory of Apollo worship, which he termed "a Doriannorthwest Greek component, a CretanMinoan comp |
onent, and a SyroHittite component."
Healer and godprotector from evil
In classical times, his major function in popular religion was to keep away evil, and he was therefore called "apotropaios" , "averting evil" and "alexikakos" "keeping off ill"; from v. n. . Apollo also had many epithets relating to his function as a healer. Some commonlyused examples are "paion" literally "healer" or "helper" "epikourios" , "succouring", "oulios" , "healer, baleful" and "loimios" , "of the plague". In later writers, the word, "paion", usually spelled "Paean", becomes a mere epithet of Apollo in his capacity as a god of healing.
Apollo in his aspect of "healer" has a connection to the primitive god Paean , who did not have a cult of his own. Paean serves as the healer of the gods in the Iliad, and seems to have originated in a preGreek religion. It is suggested, though unconfirmed, that he is connected to the Mycenaean figure pajawone Linear B . Paean was the personification of holy songs sung by "seerdoctors" , whi |
ch were supposed to cure disease.
Homer illustrated Paeon the god and the song both of apotropaic thanksgiving or triumph. Such songs were originally addressed to Apollo and afterwards to other gods to Dionysus, to Apollo Helios, to Apollo's son Asclepius the healer. About the 4th century BCE, the paean became merely a formula of adulation; its object was either to implore protection against disease and misfortune or to offer thanks after such protection had been rendered. It was in this way that Apollo had become recognized as the god of music. Apollo's role as the slayer of the Python led to his association with battle and victory; hence it became the Roman custom for a paean to be sung by an army on the march and before entering into battle, when a fleet left the harbour, and also after a victory had been won.
In the Iliad, Apollo is the healer under the gods, but he is also the bringer of disease and death with his arrows, similar to the function of the Vedic god of disease Rudra. He sends a plague to |
the Achaeans. Knowing that Apollo can prevent a recurrence of the plague he sent, they purify themselves in a ritual and offer him a large sacrifice of cows, called a hecatomb.
Dorian origin
The Homeric Hymn to Apollo depicts Apollo as an intruder from the north. The connection with the northerndwelling Dorians and their initiation festival apellai is reinforced by the month Apellaios in northwest Greek calendars. The familyfestival was dedicated to Apollo Doric . Apellaios is the month of these rites, and Apellon is the "megistos kouros" the great Kouros. However it can explain only the Doric type of the name, which is connected with the Ancient Macedonian word "pella" Pella, stone. Stones played an important part in the cult of the god, especially in the oracular shrine of Delphi Omphalos.
Minoan origin
George Huxley regarded the identification of Apollo with the Minoan deity Paiawon, worshipped in Crete, to have originated at Delphi. In the Homeric Hymn, Apollo appeared as a dolphin and carried Cretan p |
riests to Delphi, where they evidently transferred their religious practices. Apollo Delphinios or Delphidios was a seagod especially worshipped in Crete and in the islands. Apollo's sister Artemis, who was the Greek goddess of hunting, is identified with Britomartis Diktynna, the Minoan "Mistress of the animals". In her earliest depictions she was accompanied by the "Master of the animals", a bowwielding god of hunting whose name has been lost; aspects of this figure may have been absorbed into the more popular Apollo.
Anatolian origin
A nonGreek origin of Apollo has long been assumed in scholarship. The name of Apollo's mother Leto has Lydian origin, and she was worshipped on the coasts of Asia Minor. The inspiration oracular cult was probably introduced into Greece from Anatolia, which is the origin of Sibyl, and where some of the oldest oracular shrines originated. Omens, symbols, purifications, and exorcisms appear in old AssyroBabylonian texts. These rituals were spread into the empire of the Hittites |
, and from there into Greece.
Homer pictures Apollo on the side of the Trojans, fighting against the Achaeans, during the Trojan War. He is pictured as a terrible god, less trusted by the Greeks than other gods. The god seems to be related to Appaliunas, a tutelary god of Wilusa Troy in Asia Minor, but the word is not complete. The stones found in front of the gates of Homeric Troy were the symbols of Apollo. A western Anatolian origin may also be bolstered by references to the parallel worship of Artimus Artemis and Qdns, whose name may be cognate with the Hittite and Doric forms, in surviving Lydian texts. However, recent scholars have cast doubt on the identification of Qdns with Apollo.
The Greeks gave to him the name agyieus as the protector god of public places and houses who wards off evil and his symbol was a tapered stone or column. However, while usually Greek festivals were celebrated at the full moon, all the feasts of Apollo were celebrated at the seventh day of the month, and the emphasis giv |
en to that day sibutu indicates a Babylonian origin.
The Late Bronze Age from 1700 to 1200 BCE Hittite and Hurrian Aplu was a god of plague, invoked during plague years. Here we have an apotropaic situation, where a god originally bringing the plague was invoked to end it. Aplu, meaning the son of, was a title given to the god Nergal, who was linked to the Babylonian god of the sun Shamash. Homer interprets Apollo as a terrible god who brings death and disease with his arrows, but who can also heal, possessing a magic art that separates him from the other Greek gods. In Iliad, his priest prays to Apollo Smintheus, the mouse god who retains an older agricultural function as the protector from field rats. All these functions, including the function of the healergod Paean, who seems to have Mycenean origin, are fused in the cult of Apollo.
ProtoIndoEuropean
The Vedic Rudra has some similar functions with Apollo. The terrible god is called "the archer" and the bow is also an attribute of Shiva. Rudra could b |
ring diseases with his arrows, but he was able to free people of them and his alternative Shiva is a healer physician god. However the IndoEuropean component of Apollo does not explain his strong relation with omens, exorcisms, and with the oracular cult.
Oracular cult
Unusually among the Olympic deities, Apollo had two cult sites that had widespread influence Delos and Delphi. In cult practice, Delian Apollo and Pythian Apollo the Apollo of Delphi were so distinct that they might both have shrines in the same locality. Lycia was sacred to the god, for this Apollo was also called Lycian. Apollo's cult was already fully established when written sources commenced, about 650 BCE. Apollo became extremely important to the Greek world as an oracular deity in the archaic period, and the frequency of theophoric names such as Apollodorus or Apollonios and cities named Apollonia testify to his popularity. Oracular sanctuaries to Apollo were established in other sites. In the 2nd and 3rd century CE, those at Didyma |
and Claros pronounced the socalled "theological oracles", in which Apollo confirms that all deities are aspects or servants of an allencompassing, highest deity. "In the 3rd century, Apollo fell silent. Julian the Apostate 359361 tried to revive the Delphic oracle, but failed."
Oracular shrines
Apollo had a famous oracle in Delphi, and other notable ones in Claros and Didyma. His oracular shrine in Abae in Phocis, where he bore the toponymic epithet Abaeus , Apollon Abaios, was important enough to be consulted by Croesus.
His oracular shrines include
Abae in Phocis.
Bassae in the Peloponnese.
At Clarus, on the west coast of Asia Minor; as at Delphi a holy spring which gave off a pneuma, from which the priests drank.
In Corinth, the Oracle of Corinth came from the town of Tenea, from prisoners supposedly taken in the Trojan War.
At Khyrse, in Troad, the temple was built for Apollo Smintheus.
In Delos, there was an oracle to the Delian Apollo, during summer. The Hieron Sanctuary of Apollo adjacent to t |
he Sacred Lake, was the place where the god was said to have been born.
In Delphi, the Pythia became filled with the pneuma of Apollo, said to come from a spring inside the Adyton.
In Didyma, an oracle on the coast of Anatolia, south west of Lydian Luwian Sardis, in which priests from the lineage of the Branchidae received inspiration by drinking from a healing spring located in the temple. Was believed to have been founded by Branchus, son or lover of Apollo.
In Hierapolis Bambyce, Syria modern Manbij, according to the treatise De Dea Syria, the sanctuary of the Syrian Goddess contained a robed and bearded image of Apollo. Divination was based on spontaneous movements of this image.
At Patara, in Lycia, there was a seasonal winter oracle of Apollo, said to have been the place where the god went from Delos. As at Delphi the oracle at Patara was a woman.
In Segesta in Sicily.
Oracles were also given by sons of Apollo.
In Oropus, north of Athens, the oracle Amphiaraus, was said to be the son of Apollo; O |
ropus also had a sacred spring.
in Labadea, east of Delphi, Trophonius, another son of Apollo, killed his brother and fled to the cave where he was also afterwards consulted as an oracle.
Temples of Apollo
Many temples were dedicated to Apollo in Greece and the Greek colonies. They show the spread of the cult of Apollo and the evolution of the Greek architecture, which was mostly based on the rightness of form and on mathematical relations. Some of the earliest temples, especially in Crete, do not belong to any Greek order. It seems that the first peripteral temples were rectangular wooden structures. The different wooden elements were considered divine, and their forms were preserved in the marble or stone elements of the temples of Doric order. The Greeks used standard types because they believed that the world of objects was a series of typical forms which could be represented in several instances. The temples should be canonic, and the architects were trying to achieve this esthetic perfection. From t |
he earliest times there were certain rules strictly observed in rectangular peripteral and prostyle buildings. The first buildings were built narrowly in order to hold the roof, and when the dimensions changed some mathematical relations became necessary in order to keep the original forms. This probably influenced the theory of numbers of Pythagoras, who believed that behind the appearance of things there was the permanent principle of mathematics.
The Doric order dominated during the 6th and the 5th century BC but there was a mathematical problem regarding the position of the triglyphs, which couldn't be solved without changing the original forms. The order was almost abandoned for the Ionic order, but the Ionic capital also posed an insoluble problem at the corner of a temple. Both orders were abandoned for the Corinthian order gradually during the Hellenistic age and under Rome.
The most important temples are
Greek temples
Thebes, Greece The oldest temple probably dedicated to Apollo Ismenius was built |
in the 9th century B.C. It seems that it was a curvilinear building. The Doric temple was built in the early 7th century B.C., but only some small parts have been found A festival called Daphnephoria was celebrated every ninth year in honour of Apollo Ismenius or Galaxius. The people held laurel branches daphnai, and at the head of the procession walked a youth chosen priest of Apollo, who was called "daphnephoros".
Eretria According to the Homeric hymn to Apollo, the god arrived to the plain, seeking for a location to establish its oracle. The first temple of Apollo Daphnephoros, "Apollo, laurelbearer", or "carrying off Daphne", is dated to 800 B.C. The temple was curvilinear hecatombedon a hundred feet. In a smaller building were kept the bases of the laurel branches which were used for the first building. Another temple probably peripteral was built in the 7th century B.C., with an inner row of wooden columns over its Geometric predecessor. It was rebuilt peripteral around 510 B.C., with the stylobate mea |
suring 21,00 x 43,00 m. The number of pteron column was 6 x 14.
Dreros Crete. The temple of Apollo Delphinios dates from the 7th century B.C., or probably from the middle of the 8th century B.C. According to the legend, Apollo appeared as a dolphin, and carried Cretan priests to the port of Delphi. The dimensions of the plan are 10,70 x 24,00 m and the building was not peripteral. It contains columnbases of the Minoan type, which may be considered as the predecessors of the Doric columns.
Gortyn Crete. A temple of Pythian Apollo, was built in the 7th century B.C. The plan measured 19,00 x 16,70 m and it was not peripteral. The walls were solid, made from limestone, and there was single door on the east side.
Thermon West Greece The Doric temple of Apollo Thermios, was built in the middle of the 7th century B.C. It was built on an older curvilinear building dating perhaps from the 10th century B.C., on which a peristyle was added. The temple was narrow, and the number of pteron columns probably wooden was 5 x |
15. There was a single row of inner columns. It measures 12.13 x 38.23 m at the stylobate, which was made from stones.
Corinth A Doric temple was built in the 6th century B.C. The temple's stylobate measures 21.36 x 53.30 m, and the number of pteron columns was 6 x 15. There was a double row of inner columns. The style is similar with the Temple of Alcmeonidae at Delphi. The Corinthians were considered to be the inventors of the Doric order.
Napes Lesbos An Aeolic temple probably of Apollo Napaios was built in the 7th century B.C. Some special capitals with floral ornament have been found, which are called Aeolic, and it seems that they were borrowed from the East.
Cyrene, Libya The oldest Doric temple of Apollo was built in c. 600 B.C. The number of pteron columns was 6 x 11, and it measures 16.75 x 30.05 m at the stylobate. There was a double row of sixteen inner columns on stylobates. The capitals were made from stone.
Naukratis An Ionic temple was built in the early 6th century B.C. Only some fragm |
ents have been found and the earlier, made from limestone, are identified among the oldest of the Ionic order.
Syracuse, Sicily A Doric temple was built at the beginning of the 6th century B.C. The temple's stylobate measures 21.47 x 55.36 m and the number of pteron columns was 6 x 17. It was the first temple in Greek west built completely out of stone. A second row of columns were added, obtaining the effect of an inner porch.
Selinus SicilyThe Doric Temple C dates from 550 B.C., and it was probably dedicated to Apollo. The temple's stylobate measures 10.48 x 41.63 m and the number of pteron columns was 6 x 17. There was portico with a second row of columns, which is also attested for the temple at Syracuse.
Delphi The first temple dedicated to Apollo, was built in the 7th century B.C. According to the legend, it was wooden made of laurel branches. The "Temple of Alcmeonidae" was built in c. 513 B.C. and it is the oldest Doric temple with significant marble elements. The temple's stylobate measures 21.65 x |
58.00 m, and the number of pteron columns as 6 x 15. A fest similar with Apollo's fest at Thebes, Greece was celebrated every nine years. A boy was sent to the temple, who walked on the sacred road and returned carrying a laurel branch dopnephoros. The maidens participated with joyful songs.
Chios An Ionic temple of Apollo Phanaios was built at the end of the 6th century B.C. Only some small parts have been found and the capitals had floral ornament.
Abae Phocis. The temple was destroyed by the Persians in the invasion of Xerxes in 480 B.C., and later by the Boeotians. It was rebuilt by Hadrian. The oracle was in use from early Mycenaean times to the Roman period, and shows the continuity of Mycenaean and Classical Greek religion.
Bassae PeloponnesusA temple dedicated to Apollo Epikourios "Apollo the helper", was built in 430 B.C. and it was designed by Iktinos.It combined Doric and Ionic elements, and the earliest use of column with a Corinthian capital in the middle. The temple is of a relatively mode |
st size, with the stylobate measuring 14.5 x 38.3 metres containing a Doric peristyle of 6 x 15 columns. The roof left a central space open to admit light and air.
Delos A temple probably dedicated to Apollo and not peripteral, was built in the late 7th century B.C., with a plan measuring 10,00 x 15,60 m. The Doric Great temple of Apollo, was built in c. 475 B.C. The temple's stylobate measures 13.72 x 29.78 m, and the number of pteron columns as 6 x 13. Marble was extensively used.
Ambracia A Doric peripteral temple dedicated to Apollo Pythios Sotir was built in 500 B.C., and It is lying at the centre of the Greek city Arta. Only some parts have been found, and it seems that the temple was built on earlier sanctuaries dedicated to Apollo. The temple measures 20,75 x 44,00 m at the stylobate. The foundation which supported the statue of the god, still exists.
Didyma near Miletus The gigantic Ionic temple of Apollo Didymaios started around 540 B.C. The construction ceased and then it was restarted in 330 B.C. |
The temple is dipteral, with an outer row of 10 x 21 columns, and it measures 28.90 x 80.75 m at the stylobate.
Clarus near ancient Colophon According to the legend, the famous seer Calchas, on his return from Troy, came to Clarus. He challenged the seer Mopsus, and died when he lost. The Doric temple of Apollo Clarius was probably built in the 3rd century B.C., and it was peripteral with 6 x 11 columns. It was reconstructed at the end of the Hellenistic period, and later from the emperor Hadrian but Pausanias claims that it was still incomplete in the 2nd century B.C.
Hamaxitus Troad In Iliad, Chryses the priest of Apollo, addresses the god with the epithet Smintheus Lord of Mice, related with the god's ancient role as bringer of the disease plague. Recent excavations indicate that the Hellenistic temple of Apollo Smintheus was constructed at 150125 B.C., but the symbol of the mouse god was used on coinage probably from the 4th century B.C. The temple measures 40,00 x 23,00 m at the stylobate, and the numbe |
r of pteron columns was 8 x 14.
Pythion , this was the name of a shrine of Apollo at Athens near the Ilisos river. It was created by Peisistratos, and tripods placed there by those who had won in the cyclic chorus at the Thargelia.
Setae Lydia The temple of Apollo Aksyros located in the city.
Apollonia Pontica There were two temples of Apollo Healer in the city. One from the Late Archaic period and the other from the Early Classical period.
Ikaros island in the Persian Gulf modern Failaka Island There was a temple of Apollo on the island.
Etruscan and Roman temples
Veii Etruria The temple of Apollo was built in the late 6th century B.C. and it indicates the spread of Apollo's culture Aplu in Etruria. There was a prostyle porch, which is called Tuscan, and a triple cella 18,50 m wide.
Falerii Veteres Etruria A temple of Apollo was built probably in the 4th3rd century B.C. Parts of a teraccotta capital, and a teraccotta base have been found. It seems that the Etruscan columns were derived from the archaic Dori |
c. A cult of Apollo Soranus is attested by one inscription found near Falerii.
Pompeii Italy The cult of Apollo was widespread in the region of Campania since the 6th century B.C. The temple was built in 120 B.V, but its beginnings lie in the 6th century B.C. It was reconstructed after an earthquake in A.D. 63. It demonstrates a mixing of styles which formed the basis of Roman architecture. The columns in front of the cella formed a Tuscan prostyle porch, and the cella is situated unusually far back. The peripteral colonnade of 48 Ionic columns was placed in such a way that the emphasis was given to the front side.
Rome The temple of Apollo Sosianus and the temple of Apollo Medicus. The first temple building dates to 431 B.C., and was dedicated to Apollo Medicus the doctor, after a plague of 433 B.C. It was rebuilt by Gaius Sosius, probably in 34 B.C. Only three columns with Corinthian capitals exist today. It seems that the cult of Apollo had existed in this area since at least to the mid5th century B.C.
R |
omeThe temple of Apollo Palatinus was located on the Palatine hill within the sacred boundary of the city. It was dedicated by Augustus on 28 B.C. The faade of the original temple was Ionic and it was constructed from solid blocks of marble. Many famous statues by Greek masters were on display in and around the temple, including a marble statue of the god at the entrance and a statue of Apollo in the cella.
Melite modern Mdina, Malta A Temple of Apollo was built in the city in the 2nd century A.D. Its remains were discovered in the 18th century, and many of its architectural fragments were dispersed among private collections or reworked into new sculptures. Parts of the temple's podium were rediscovered in 2002.
Mythology
Apollo appears often in the myths, plays and hymns. As Zeus' favorite son, Apollo had direct access to the mind of Zeus and was willing to reveal this knowledge to humans. A divinity beyond human comprehension, he appears both as a beneficial and a wrathful god.
Birth
Apollo was the son |
of Zeus, the king of the gods, and Leto, his previous wife or one of his mistresses. Growing up, Apollo was nursed by the nymphs Korythalia and Aletheia, the personification of truth.
When Zeus' wife Hera discovered that Leto was pregnant, she banned Leto from giving birth on terra firma. Leto sought shelter in many lands, only to be rejected by them. Finally, the voice of unborn Apollo informed his mother about a floating island named Delos that had once been Asteria, Leto's own sister. Since it was neither a mainland nor an island, Leto was readily welcomed there and gave birth to her children under a palm tree. All the goddesses except Hera were present to witness the event. It is also stated that Hera kidnapped Eileithyia, the goddess of childbirth, to prevent Leto from going into labor. The other gods tricked Hera into letting her go by offering her a necklace of amber 9 yards 8.2 m long.
When Apollo was born, clutching a golden sword, everything on Delos turned into gold and the island was filled with |
ambrosial fragrance. Swans circled the island seven times and the nymphs sang in delight. He was washed clean by the goddesses who then covered him in white garment and fastened golden bands around him. Since Leto was unable to feed him, Themis, the goddess of divine law, fed him with nectar, or ambrosia. Upon tasting the divine food, Apollo broke free of the bands fastened onto him and declared that he would be the master of lyre and archery, and interpret the will of Zeus to humankind. Zeus, who had calmed Hera by then, came and adorned his son with a golden headband.
Apollo's birth fixed the floating Delos to the earth. Leto promised that her son would be always favorable towards the Delians. According to some, Apollo secured Delos to the bottom of the ocean after some time. This island became sacred to Apollo and was one of the major cult centres of the god.
Apollo was born on the seventh day , hebdomagenes of the month Thargelionaccording to Delian traditionor of the month Bysiosaccording to Delphian |
tradition. The seventh and twentieth, the days of the new and full moon, were ever afterwards held sacred to him. Mythographers agree that Artemis was born first and subsequently assisted with the birth of Apollo or was born on the island of Ortygia then helped Leto cross the sea to Delos the next day to give birth to Apollo.
Hyperborea
Hyperborea, the mystical land of eternal spring, venerated Apollo above all the gods. The Hyperboreans always sang and danced in his honor and hosted Pythian games. There, a vast forest of beautiful trees was called "the garden of Apollo". Apollo spent the winter months among the Hyperboreans. His absence from the world caused coldness and this was marked as his annual death. No prophecies were issued during this time. He returned to the world during the beginning of the spring. The Theophania festival was held in Delphi to celebrate his return.
It is said that Leto came to Delos from Hyperborea accompanied by a pack of wolves. Henceforth, Hyperborea became Apollo's winter |
home and wolves became sacred to him. His intimate connection to wolves is evident from his epithet Lyceus, meaning wolflike. But Apollo was also the wolfslayer in his role as the god who protected flocks from predators. The Hyperborean worship of Apollo bears the strongest marks of Apollo being worshipped as the sun god. Shamanistic elements in Apollo's cult are often liked to his Hyperborean origin, and he is likewise speculated to have originated as a solar shaman. Shamans like Abaris and Aristeas were also the followers of Apollo, who hailed from Hyperborea.
In myths, the tears of amber Apollo shed when his son Asclepius died became the waters of the river Eridanos, which surrounded Hyperborea. Apollo also buried in Hyperborea the arrow which he had used to kill the Cyclopes. He later gave this arrow to Abaris.
Childhood and youth
As a child, Apollo is said to have built a foundation and an altar on Delos using the horns of the goats that his sister Artemis hunted. Since he learnt the art of building w |