Game Of Thrones Pdf Download
Kenneth Calimlim
According to Matthew Bunson, the corresponding order of angels in Judaism is called the abalim or erelim,[4] but this opinion is far from universal. The Hebrew word erelim is usually not translated "thrones", but rather "valiant ones", "heroes", or "warriors".[citation needed] The function ascribed to erelim in Isaiah 33:7 and in Jewish folklore[5] is not consistent with the lore surrounding the thrones.
Thrones are sometimes equated with ophanim since the throne of God is usually depicted as being moved by wheels, as in the vision of Daniel 7:9 (Old Testament). Rosemary Ellen Guiley (1996: p. 37) states that:
The 'thrones'; also known as 'ophanim' (offanim) and 'galgallin', are creatures that function as the actual chariots of God driven by the cherubs. They are characterized by peace and submission; God rests upon them. Thrones are depicted as great wheels containing many eyes, and reside in the area of the cosmos where material form begins to take shape. They chant glorias to God and remain forever in His presence. They mete out divine justice and maintain the cosmic harmony of all universal laws.[6].
Thrones communicate the authority and grandeur of their owners. Created in the early 1900s while India was under British colonial rule, these silver thrones and their regalia reveal complex histories of cultural exchange and the representation of political power
A former Dungarpur king brought the thrones to Europe in 1969 and the Nelson-Atkins acquired them in 2013. Since then, the museum, with local and international partners, restored these objects, using a combination of advanced technologies and traditional Indian art forms to give a sense of their original appearance.
For groups interested in learning more about the artwork on view in this exhibition, please request a Decorative Arts Collection tour and request in the notes that the exhibition be included as part of the tour.
The tumultuous chain of events that unfolded after the death of Alexander the Great was the original Game of Thrones, with more riches, bloody intrigue, and larger-than-life characters than George Martin or the HBO series could have invented. A vigorous young king, by sheer force of personality and some very shrewd politicking, managed to take his army from Macedonia through Asia Minor, across the Near East, through the Khyber Pass, and to the Hindu Kush with great dreams of unifying a vast empire.
After succumbing to a 10-day fever (perhaps brought on by malaria or by less "natural" causes), Alexander the Great died unexpectedly in Babylon in June 323 B.C., leaving a freshly conquered empire of unprecedented breadth and complexity but no designated heir. To understand the bloody struggle that ensued, one must look west to the origins of Alexander and his successors, the kingdom of Macedonia, where just north of Greece a small, restless hereditary monarchy had been growing in stability, territory, and power under the reign of King Philip II, Alexander's father. Philip consolidated control over his notoriously turbulent lords and enlarged his kingdom by arranging a series of marriages with princesses from surrounding territories for himself and further subduing hostile neighbors through sheer military might.
Macedonian kingship was predicated on the acclamation of the army, a factor that shaped the policies of Philip, Alexander, and those who came after them. Along with a crack cavalry, Philip developed a unit of infantrymen armed with long pikes (sarissas) that were easily able to repel forces armed with much shorter spears and heavier shields. He swept south through Greece in a series of stunning military victories, inflaming Athenian orators (most notably the long-suffering Demosthenes), and prepared to venture east, to challenge the Persian Empire.
Adored by his army and with no further impediments to his succession, Alexander was declared king and set about realizing and enlarging his father's ambitions by crossing the Hellespont, famously engaging the Persian king Darius III at Issus and Gaugamela, securing Babylon and Susa and the immense treasure there, and reaching northern India. It was here that the army first saw war elephants in what must have been a terrifying encounter that, along with the punishing monsoon season, likely prompted their refusal to continue further into the subcontinent and beyond.
Although Alexander was a brilliant tactician, his success was due in large part to his charisma and immense self-confidence, which bordered on megalomania. He had himself proclaimed as the son of Zeus in the Egyptian desert and might have come to believe it. As important was his astute handling of the populations he conquered: absorbing their militaries, maintaining existing satrapies (local governing bodies), and organizing marriages for himself and his soldiers with local noblewomen (most famously at a mass-marriage ceremony at Susa). His foreign queen, the Bactrian princess Roxanne, was pregnant when Alexander succumbed to the mysterious fever in 323 B.C.
The stakes, compounded by confusion, were high. Distrust among his generals made it impossible to reach consensus, and discussions were moved to the throne room, where the king's regalia and crown were placed on his throne. Even after death, he presided over the ensuing power struggle and acted as a "ghost on the throne."
Alexander had given Perdiccas, his top-ranking officer, his signet ring, and with it, evidently, the wherewithal to organize the situation to his advantage. Perdiccas was quick to promote Alexander's feeble-minded half brother Arrhidaeus (later rebranded Philip Arrhidaeus) as the rightful heir to the throne until Roxanne's child came of age. The precise nature of Arrhidaeus' mental handicap remains unclear, but it allowed Perdiccas to rule as regent. Perdiccas entrenched himself in Babylon with his puppet king, while the rest of the empire was carved up with regions assigned to other generals, most notably Ptolemy in Egypt, Antigonos "The One Eyed" in Cilicia, and Eumenes in Cappadocia. Far to the west, the formerly independent Greek city-states seethed and attempted (unsuccessfully) to gain back autonomy from an aged Antipater, the Macedonian nobleman who served as regent in the royal capital of Pella.
Several years later this royal couple made their way back to the Macedonian capital, luring Olympias back from Epirus to promote the claim of her young grandson Alexander IV, Alexander's son with Roxanne. Adea turned out to be an ambitious and formidable opponent, and Olympias smelled trouble. The two women met on the battlefield. Olympias led her forces to the beat of drums, dressed as a maenad with ivy crown and fawn-skin cloak. Adea led her own army, dressed in the full armor of a Macedonian infantryman. Olympias' appearance and reputation so cowed Adea's troops, most abandoned her and joined the dowager queen, who in short order captured Adea and Arrhidaeus and ostentatiously imprisoned them in Pella. No longer able to discreetly kill them (the Macedonian norm), she hired a band of Thracian women to stab Arrhidaeus to death and awarded Adea the option of suicide, sending a sword, a noose, and a dagger to her prison cell. Ever defiant, the young queen hung herself with her own scarf. Olympias hid their bodies and denied them proper burial.
Her reign of terror in Macedonia continued as she went after the family of Antipater, who she believed poisoned Alexander, opening graves and scattering the ashes of deceased relatives and quickly eliminating living ones. But Olympias would have her comeuppance. She had gone too far in her flamboyant revenge, and Cassander (Antipater's only living son) returned to Macedonia and rapidly had Olympias killed, meting out a final revenge by casting her corpse outside the city to be ravaged by beasts. Cassander had Alexander IV, the boy who would be king, and his mother quietly killed several years later and buried them in Vergina, in a manner befitting royalty.
Ptolemy, who had quietly relocated to rule Egypt, had a different tactic for linking himself to Alexander: he stole his body. In a brilliant and bold move, his forces hijacked the funeral train and luxurious hearse containing Alexander's mummy as it made its way from Babylon to Macedonia, bringing it first to Memphis and then to his new Egyptian capital, Alexandria. There, Alexander's mummified corpse was displayed in an elaborate mausoleum.
In a famous encounter several centuries later, the Roman emperor Augustus visited the mausoleum to pay homage to the legendary Alexander. Bending down to kiss the corpse, he inadvertently knocked off the mummy's nose to the dismay of onlookers. It was Augustus' arrival in Egypt, after his decisive naval victory over the forces of Kleopatra VII's and Marc Antony in 31 B.C., that marked the decisive end of the Wars of Alexander's Successors. The bloody game of thrones that characterized the Hellenistic world for nearly three centuries was over.
7fc3f7cf58