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"K Foundation Burn a Million Quid was a performance art action on 23 August 1994 in which the K Foundation (an art duo consisting of Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty) burned cash in the amount of one million pounds sterling in a disused boathouse on the Ardfin Estate on the Scottish island of Jura. The money represented the bulk of the K Foundation's funds, earned by Drummond and Cauty as The KLF, one of the United Kingdom's most successful pop groups of the early 1990s. The incineration was recorded on a Hi-8 video camera by K Foundation collaborator Gimpo. In August 1995, the film—Watch the K Foundation Burn a Million Quid—was toured around the UK, with Drummond and Cauty engaging each audience in debate about the burning and its meaning. In November 1995, the duo pledged to dissolve the K Foundation and to refrain from public discussion of the burning for a period of 23 years, but Drummond spoke about the burning in 2000 and 2004. Initially, he was unrepentant, but in 2004 he admitted that he regretted burning the money. The self-imposed moratorium officially ended on 23 August 2017, 23 years after the burning, when Cauty and Drummond hosted a debate asking "Why Did the K Foundation Burn a Million Quid?" during their "Welcome to the Dark Ages" event. Collaborator Chris Brook edited and compiled a book, K Foundation Burn A Million Quid, which was published by Ellipsis Books in 1997. It compiles stills from the film, accounts of events and viewer reactions, and an image of the brick that was manufactured from the fire's ashes. A film consisting of a three-minute shot of the brick - "This Brick" - was shown at London's Barbican Centre prior to Drummond and Cauty's performance as 2K in the same year. Background As The KLF, Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty were the biggest-selling singles act in the world for 1991. They had also enjoyed considerable success with their album The White Room and a number one hit single – "Doctorin' the Tardis" – as The Timelords. In February 1992, The KLF staged an incendiary performance at the BRIT Awards, and retired from the music industry shortly thereafter in typically enigmatic fashion. By their own account, neither Drummond nor Cauty kept any of the money they made as The KLF; it was all ploughed back into their extravagant productions. Cauty told an Australian Big Issue writer in 2003 that all the money they made as The KLF was spent, and that the royalties they accrued post-retirement amounted to approximately one million pounds: Initially The KLF's earnings were to be distributed by way of a fund for struggling artists managed by the K Foundation, Drummond and Cauty's new post- KLF art project, but, said Drummond, "We realised that struggling artists are meant to struggle, that's the whole point." Includes a full transcript of an interview by John Dower and Dave Greer with Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty and other guests on the "Everything You Know Is Wrong" show, Subcity Radio, Glasgow, 3 November 1995. Instead the duo decided to create art with the money. Nailed to the Wall was the first piece of art produced by the Foundation, and the major piece in their planned art exhibition, Money: A Major Body of Cash. Consisting of one million pounds in cash nailed to a pine frame, the piece was presented to the press on 23 November 1993 during the buildup to the Foundation's announcement of the "winner" of their "worst artist of the year award", the K Foundation art award. Decision and burning During the first half of 1994, the K Foundation attempted to interest galleries in staging Money: A Major Body of Cash, but even old friend Jayne Casey, director of the Liverpool Festival Trust, was unable to persuade a major gallery to participate. The Tate, in Liverpool, wanted to be part of the 21st Century Festival I'm involved with,' says Casey. 'I suggested they put on the K Foundation exhibition; at first they were encouraging, but they seemed nervous about the personalities involved.' A curt fax from... the gallery curator, informed Casey that the K Foundation's exhibition of money had been done before and more interestingly", leaving Drummond and Cauty obliged to pursue other options. The duo considered taking the exhibition across the former Soviet Union by train and on to the United States, but no insurer would touch the project. An exhibition at Kilmainham Jail in Dublin was then considered, but no sooner had a provisional August date been set for it than the duo changed their minds yet again. "Jimmy said: 'Why don't we just burn it?' remembers Drummond. 'He said it in a light-hearted way, I suppose, hoping I'd say: 'No, we can't do that, let's do this...' But it seemed the most powerful thing to do." Cauty: "We were just sitting in a cafe talking about what we were going to spend the money on and then we decided it would be better if we burned it. That was about six weeks before we did it. It was too long, it was a bit of a nightmare." The journey from deciding to burn the money to deciding how to burn the money to actually burning the money was a long one. Jim Reid, a freelance journalist and the only independent witness to the burning, reported the various schemes the K Foundation considered. The first was offering Nailed to the Wall to the Tate Gallery as the "1995 K Foundation Bequest to the Nation." The condition was that the gallery must agree to display the piece for at least 10 years. If they refused, the money would be burnt. A second idea was to hire Bankside Power Station, "the future site of the Tate Gallery extension and an imposing building downstream from the South Bank", as a bonfire venue. In typical KLF 'guerrilla communication' style, "posters were to appear on 15 August bearing the legend 'The 1995 K Foundation Bequest to the Nation', under which would have been an image of Nailed to the Wall on an easel and two flame-throwers lying on the floor. On 24 August a new poster would go up, exactly the same as the first except that this time the work would be burnt." The Boathouse on the Ardfin Estate where the K Foundation burnt £1 million The K Foundation's final solution for their one-million-pound "problem" was rather less showbiz, but dramatic nonetheless, the Foundation having decided that making a public spectacle of the event would lessen its impact. On 22 August, Reid, Drummond, Cauty and Gimpo touched down at Islay Airport in the Inner Hebrides and took a ferry to the island of Jura, previously the scene of a wicker man burning ceremony by The KLF. Early in the morning of 23 August 1994, in an abandoned boathouse on Jura, Drummond and Cauty incinerated the money. The burning was witnessed by Reid, who subsequently wrote an article about the act for The Observer, and it was filmed on a Hi-8 video camera by collaborator Gimpo. As the burning began Reid said he felt guilt and shock. These feelings, he reported, quickly turned to boredom. The money took well over an hour to burn as Drummond and Cauty fed £50 notes into the fire. According to Drummond, only about £900,000 of the money was actually burnt, with the remainder flying straight up the chimney. Two days later, according to Reid, Jimmy Cauty destroyed all film and photographic evidence of the burning. Ten months later, Gimpo revealed to them that he had secretly kept a copy. Film Watch the K Foundation Burn a Million Quid starts with a short description of the event, and then consists of Drummond and Cauty throwing £50 notes onto the fire. Burning the entire amount takes around 67 minutes. NME wrote: In November 1995, the BBC aired an edition of the Omnibus documentary series about The K Foundation entitled A Foundation Course in Art (usually mislabelled as The K Foundation Burn a Million Quid online). Amongst the footage broadcast were scenes from Watch the K Foundation Burn a Million Quid. Thomas Sutcliffe, reviewing the programme in The Independent, wrote: A still of the film from the book K Foundation Burn a Million Quid =Screening tour= The first public screening of Watch the K Foundation Burn a Million Quid was on Jura on 23 August 1995 – exactly one year after the burning. "We feel we should face them and answer their questions" said one of the duo. The words are attributed to the duo in general and not specifically attributed to Drummond or Cauty. Two weeks later an advert appeared in The Guardian, announcing a world tour of the film over the next 12 months at "relevant locations". The second screening was at In the City music industry convention on 5 September in Manchester. After the film was shown, Drummond and Cauty held a question-and-answer session with the theme "Is It Rock'n'Roll?". A week later, the pair travelled as guests of alternative radio station B92 to Belgrade, where the post-screening discussion was titled "Is it a crime against humanity?" An unauthorised screening at the BBC Television Centre was curtailed and Drummond and Cauty were escorted from the building. On the weekend of 3 November 1995, the film was screened at several locations in Glasgow, including at football matches involving Celtic and Rangers; a planned screening at Barlinnie prison was cancelled after the Scottish Prison Service withdrew permission. Glasgow's artistic community broadly seemed to welcome the screenings. A further public screening on Glasgow Green on 5 November was announced by various newspapers, but there is no record of the showing having ever occurred. The K Foundation disappeared from Glasgow; they later issued a statement that on 5 November 1995 they had signed a "contract" on the side of a Nissan Bluebird - which had then been pushed over the cliffs at Cape Wrath in northern Scotland agreeing to wind up the K Foundation and not to speak about the money burning for a period of 23 years. Despite the K Foundation's reported moratorium, further national screenings of the film organised by Chris Brook took place as planned. At each screening, Drummond and Cauty announced they would not answer questions after the film; instead, they would ask questions of the audience. These screenings were held in Bradford, Hull, Liverpool, Cheltenham Ladies College, Eton College, Bristol, Aberystwyth, Glastonbury Tor and Brick Lane, London. The Brick Lane screening – on 8 December 1995 – had been previewed in NME, and was chaotically busy. It was originally planned for a car park, but freezing conditions and snow forced a rethink and the screening was moved indoors, to the basement of the nearby Seven Stars pub. Hundreds of people crammed in to watch the screening, which was eventually abandoned partway through due to the cramped conditions. The NME preview had claimed that after the screening the film would be cut up and individual frames sold off to the public. Gimpo, the owner of the film, had no intention of doing so, but after the screening was nearly overwhelmed by a mob of people wanting to take home a piece of the film. End of the moratorium Drummond and Cauty ended their self-imposed moratorium on 23 August 2017, 23 years after the burning. "Why Did the K Foundation Burn a Million Quid?" was debated during "Welcome to the Dark Ages", a three-day festival celebrating the launch of their novel 2023: A Trilogy. Burning as a theme Ellipsis' K Foundation-style advert promoting the book K Foundation Burn A Million Quid Ritualistic burnings had already been a recurring aspect of Drummond and Cauty's work. In 1987, the duo disposed of copies of their copyright-breaching debut album—The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu's 1987 (What the Fuck Is Going On?)—by burning them in a Swedish field. This event was pictured on the back sleeve of their second album, Who Killed The JAMs?, and celebrated in the song "Burn the Bastards". During the 1991 summer solstice, they burnt a wicker man on Jura, as chronicled in the KLF movie The Rites of Mu. As the K Foundation, Drummond and Cauty threatened to burn the K Foundation art award prize money (Gimpo was fumbling with matches and lighter fluid when, at the last moment, Rachel Whiteread accepted the prize). In the seventh K Foundation press advert they asked "What would you do with a million pounds? Burn it?" Reaction and analysis Jim Reid's piece appeared in The Observer on 25 September 1994. This is "one of the most peculiar stories of the year", he cautioned readers. "Peculiar because pretty much everyone who comes across this magazine is going to have trouble believing a word of it. Peculiar because every last dot and comma of what is to come is the truth." "It took about two hours for that cash to go up in flames", he added. "I looked at it closely, it was real. It came from a bona fide security firm and was not swapped at any time on our journey. More importantly, perhaps, after working with the K Foundation I know they are capable of this." The Daily Express ran the story on 1 October 1994. They reported that charred £50 notes were being found by islanders, who did not doubt the burning had really taken place. Drummond and Cauty had been seen eating in a hotel bar on Jura before leaving with two suitcases, the newspaper reported. The Times followed with essentially the same story on 4 October 1994, adding that the burning "[had] left many on the island bewildered, incredulous and angry". £1,500 had been handed in by a local fisherman to Islay police: "Sergeant Lachlan Maclean checked the money with both banks on Islay and with Customs and Excise, who pronounced it genuine. 'I telephoned Mr Drummond in London and told him the money had been found. I asked him if it was his. He said he would get in touch with his partner, Mr Cauty. So far he has not telephoned back. The media returned to the story in earnest in October and November 1995, previewing and then reviewing Foundation Course in Art, and reporting on the K Foundation's tour screening Watch the K Foundation Burn a Million Quid. An October 1995 feature quoted Kevin Hull, the BBC documentary maker responsible for the Omnibus item, saying he had found "the boys rather depressed, and almost in a state of shock". "Every day I wake up and I think 'Oh God, I've burnt a million quid and everyone thinks it's wrong, Cauty told him. A piece in The Times on 5 November 1995, coinciding with the Glasgow screenings, reported that the K Foundation had no solid reason for burning the money or view of what, if anything, the act represented, but concluded "The K Foundation may not have changed or challenged much but they have certainly provoked thousands to question and analyse the power of money and the responsibilities of those who possess it. And what could be more artistic than that?" In the same issue, the newspaper's K Foundation art award witness, Robert Sandall, wrote that the Foundation's award, million-pound artwork and the burning were all "entertaining, and satirically quite sharp", but "the art world has chosen not to think [of it as art].... The general view remains that the K Foundation's preoccupation with money, though undoubtedly sincere, simply isn't very original. Although they didn't blow their entire life's savings along the way, other artists, notably Yves Klein and Chris Burden, have been here before." The Guardian TV reviewer was sceptical. "Snag is, the K men have always dealt in myth and sown a trail of confusion, so nobody quite believes they really burned the money. And if they did, they must be nuts." =Later reaction= In the following years, the burning was mentioned regularly in the press, with Drummond and Cauty often relegated to a cultural status of "the men who burnt a million quid". A February 2000 article in The Observer newspaper again insisted that the duo really had burnt one million pounds. "It wasn't a stunt. They really did it. If you want to rile Bill Drummond, you call him a hoaxer. 'I knew it was real,' a long-time friend and associate of his group The KLF tells me, 'because afterwards, Jimmy and Bill looked so harrowed and haunted. And to be honest, they've never really been the same since. A 2004 listener poll by BBC Radio 6 Music saw The KLF/K Foundation placed second after The Who in a list of "rock excesses". Drummond's former protegé Julian Cope was unimpressed, claiming that Drummond still owed him money. "He burned a million pounds which was not all his, and some of it was mine. People should pay off their creditors before they pull intellectual dry-wank stunts like that." Legacy On 17 September 1997, a new film, This Brick, was premiered. The film consisted of one three-minute shot of a brick made from the ashes of the money burnt at Jura. It was shown at the Barbican Centre prior to Drummond and Cauty's performance as 2K. On 27 September 1997, K Foundation Burn A Million Quid (, paperback) was published. The book, by Chris Brook and Gimpo, contains stills from the film and transcriptions of various Q&A; sessions from the tour. It also includes a timeline of K Foundation activity and sundry essays including one from Alan Moore. Publisher Ellipsis promoted the book with an advert modelled on those of the K Foundation – "Why did Ellipsis publish K Foundation Burn A Million Quid?" they asked. Initially, Drummond was unrepentant, telling The Observer in 2000 that he couldn't imagine ever feeling regret unless his child was ill and only "an expensive clinic" could cure him. By 2004, however, he had admitted to the BBC the difficulty of explaining his decision. "It's a hard one to explain to your kids and it doesn't get any easier. I wish I could explain why I did it so people would understand." Notes References External links * Category:1995 films Category:British non-fiction books Category:Culture jamming Category:Performance art Category:The KLF Category:Money Category:Fire Category:Jura, Scotland "
"Lubin () is a town in Lower Silesian Voivodeship in south-western Poland. From 1975-1998 it belonged to the former Legnica Voivodeship. Lubin is the administrative seat of Lubin County, and also of the rural district called Gmina Lubin, although it is not part of the territory of the latter, as the town forms a separate urban gmina. As of 2018, the town had a total population of 72,581. Geography Lubin is situated on the Zimnica river in the Lower Silesian historical region, about northwest of Wrocław and north of Legnica. The town is one of the major industrial locations in Lower Silesia, with the headquarters of the third-largest Polish corporation, the KGHM Polska Miedź mining company. History = Early Medieval History= The area of Lubin lies midway between the main settlements of two West Slavic Ślężanie tribes, the Dziadoszanie and the Trzebowianie, whose lands were both subdued by King Mieszko I of Poland about 990. It is unclear which of the two tribes, if either, founded the town. One legend states that the town derives its name from Luba, a young man credited with slaying a giant bear that had been terrifying the inhabitants. A papal bull dated to circa 1155 mentions Lubin as one of 13 Silesian castellanies. According to legend the Polish voivode Piotr Włostowic of Dunin (1080–1153) had a fieldstone church built on the hill in the west of Lubin, where about 1230 a castellany and a village arose that until today is called the Old Town (). The settlement in the Duchy of Głogów was first mentioned under the Old Polish name of Lubin in a 1267 deed by Pope Clement IV as a fiefdom of Trzebnica Abbey. = Founding of the town = Ruins of the Piast Castle The New Town of what is today Lubin was probably founded in the 1280s under the rule of Duke Przemko of Ścinawa by German settlers, maybe descending from Lower Lorraine or Franconia, in the course of the Ostsiedlung. It obtained its city rights about 1295. In 1329 Duke John of Ścinawa paid homage to King John of Bohemia, who upon the death of John's brother Duke Przemko II of Głogów in 1331 invaded the lands, which were incorporated into the Kingdom of Bohemia and shared the political fortunes of the Silesian crown land. Gothic Castle Chapel, built in the 14th century From 1348 Lubin Castle served as the residence of the Piast duke Louis I the Fair and his descendants. In the quarrel with his elder brother Duke Wenceslaus I of Legnica a 1359 judgement by Emperor Charles IV allotted Lubin along with Krzeczyn Wielki, Krzeczyn Mały, Osiek and Pieszków to Louis. About 1353 he had a manuscript on the life of Saint Hedwig of Andechs drawn up, later called Schlackenwerth (Ostrov) Codex, which today is kept at the J. Paul Getty Museum. In the late 15th century the Lubin parish church was rebuilt in its present-day Gothic style, its high altar was moved to Wrocław Cathedral in 1951. Under the rule of Duke George I of Brieg (d. 1521) and his widow Anna of Pomerania, the reformer Caspar Schwenckfeld, born in nearby Osiek, made the town a centre of the Protestant Reformation in Lower Silesia. With Bohemian Silesia, Lubin in 1526 fell under suzerainty of the Habsburg Monarchy. It was devastated several times during the Thirty Years' War. Lubin remained part of the Piast-ruled Duchy of Legnica until 1675, when it was incorporated to the Habsburg-ruled Bohemia. Conquered in the Silesian Wars by King Frederick II of Prussia in the mid-18th Century, the town became a part of Prussia and later, in 1871, Germany. In 1871, after creation of the German Empire, it was connected by rail to Legnica (Liegnitz) and Głogów (Glogau). In reports on their parishes at the end of the 18th century, local pastors wrote about native Poles, who spoke a local dialect of the Polish language. The native Polish population was subjected to planned Germanisation, which lasted until the 1930s. Street leading to the market square During World War II about 70% of the town's buildings were destroyed. In 1945 between the days of 8–10 February Red Army soldiers mass-murdered 150 German pensioners in an old- people's home and 500 psychiatric hospital patients in Lubin.Lubin's history As a result of border changes promulgated at the 1945 Potsdam Conference, the town, lying east of the Oder-Neisse line, became a part of the Republic of Poland. The totality of the town's population, being German, was either expelled, or prohibited from returning home by the new Polish Authorities. In 1982 the town saw significant demonstrations against the martial law declared by the Communist regime, which were put down by its death squads, resulting in the murder of three people.Defiance in the Streets - TIME Education * Uczelnia Zawodowa Zagłębia Miedziowego * I Liceum Ogólnokształcące im. Mikołaja Kopernika w Lubinie * II Liceum Ogólnokształcące w Lubinie * Technikum nr 1 im. Bolesława Krupińskiego w Lubinie Sports Stadium of Zagłębie Lubin * Zagłębie Lubin - men's Ekstraklasa football team, Polish champion in 1990-1991 and 2006-2007. * Interferie Zagłębie Lubin - men's handball team playing in Polish Ekstraklasa Men's Handball League (champion of Poland in season 2006/2007) and women's handball team playing in Polish Ekstraklasa Women's Handball League. * mks zaglebie lubin women soccer,(ekstraliga kobiet(2013/2014)),(ekstraliga). *kghm zaglebie lubin s.a. ,/(Ekstraliga Kobiet)-(ekstraliga),/(2014/2015),/(Level:1),(Poland),(POL),(women)-soccer). Transport Roads: S3 (International E65) – Jakuszyce-Legnica-Lubin-Zielona Góra-Gorzów Wielkopolski-Szczecin-Świnoujście No. 36 – Rawicz-Lubin- Prochowice(-Wrocław) Lubin has an international airport with a 1000m concrete/asphalt runway. Public Transport - Lubin currently has free public transport within the town, with the main busses running approximately every 20 minutes. Lubin also has the PKS station which offers affordable coach type buses. These buses run between several other towns such as Wroclaw, Legnica and several others. Currently the city has newly built train station which offers connection to many locations across the country. Notable people *William I of Württemberg (1781–1864), the second King of Württemberg from 1816 until his death, was born in Lüben, where his father Frederick I served as a commander in the Prussian Army *Dieter Collin (1893–1918), World War I flying ace *Gerd von Tresckow (1899–1944), Wehrmacht officer, resistance fighter 20 July plot, elder brother of Henning von Tresckow *Rudolf von Gersdorff (1905–1980), Wehrmacht officer, one of the few German military anti- Hitler plotters to survive the war *Tadeusz Maćkała (born 1962), politician *Kasia Wilk (born 1982), musician *Mariusz Jurkiewicz (born 1982), handball player *Natalia Czerwonka (born 1988), speed skater *Arkadiusz Woźniak (born 1990), football player *Adrian Błąd (born 1991), football player *Filip Jagiełło (born 1997), football player Twin towns – sister cities Lubin is twinned with: * Rhein-Lahn (district), Germany Gallery References External links *Official Lubin website *Photo Gallery - Lubin and Zaglebie *Lubin Iniquity 1982 *Zaglebie Lubin football club Category:Populated places established in the 12th century Category:Cities and towns in Lower Silesian Voivodeship Category:Lubin County Category:Cities in Silesia "
"Hendrick Goltzius, Cadmus fighting the Dragon Sowing the Dragon's teeth. Workshop of Rubens In Greek mythology, Cadmus (; Kadmos), was the founder and first king of Thebes.Alden, John B. (1883) The Greek Anthology, pp. 160–162. Cadmus was the first Greek hero and, alongside Perseus and Bellerophon, the greatest hero and slayer of monsters before the days of Heracles.Kerenyi, Karl, 1959. The Heroes of the Greeks (London: Thames and Hudson) p. 75. Commonly stated to be a Phoenician prince, son of king Agenor and queen Telephassa of Tyre and the brother of Phoenix, Cilix and Europa, he was originally sent by his royal parents to seek out and escort his sister Europa back to Tyre after she was abducted from the shores of Phoenicia by Zeus.A modern application of genealogy would make him the paternal grandfather of Dionysus, through his daughter by Harmonia, Semele. Plutarch once admitted that he would rather be assisted by Lamprias, his own grandfather, than by Dionysus' grandfather, i.e. Cadmus. (Symposiacs, Book IX, question II ) In early accounts, Cadmus and Europa were instead the children of Phoenix.Scholia on Homer, Iliad B, 494, p. 80, 43 ed. Bekk. as cited in Hellanicus' Boeotica Cadmus founded the Greek city of Thebes, the acropolis of which was originally named Cadmeia in his honour. Cadmus' homeland was the subject of significant disagreement among ancient authors. Apollodorus identifies it as Phoenicia, but Tyre, Sidon, and even Thebes in Egypt are referenced in different accounts. His parentage is sometimes modified to suit, e.g. claims of Theban origin name his mother as one of the daughters of Nilus, one of the Potamoi and deity of the Nile river. Overview Cadmus was credited by the ancient Greeks (such as HerodotusHerodotus' Histories, Book V, 58. 484 – 425 BC, one of the first Greek historians, but one who also wove standard myths and legends through his work) with introducing the original Phoenician alphabet to the Greeks, who adapted it to form their Greek alphabet. Herodotus estimates that Cadmus lived sixteen hundred years before his time, which would be around 2000 BC.Herodotus. Histories, Book II, 2.145.4. Herodotus had seen and described the Cadmean writing in the temple of Apollo at Thebes engraved on certain tripods. He estimated those tripods to date back to the time of Laius the great-grandson of Cadmus.Herodotus. Histories, Book V.59.1 On one of the tripods there was this inscription in Cadmean writing, which, as he attested, resembled Ionian letters: ("Amphitryon dedicated me [don't forget] the spoils of [the battle of] Teleboae."). Although Greeks like Herodotus dated Cadmus's role in the founding myth of Thebes to well before the Trojan War (or, in modern terms, during the Aegean Bronze Age), this chronology conflicts with most of what is now known or thought to be known about the origins and spread of both the Phoenician and Greek alphabets. The earliest Greek inscriptions match Phoenician letter forms from the late 9th or 8th centuries BC—in any case, the Phoenician alphabet properly speaking was not developed until around 1050 BC (or after the Bronze Age collapse). The Homeric picture of the Mycenaean age betrays extremely little awareness of writing, possibly reflecting the loss during the Dark Age of the earlier Linear B script. Indeed, the only Homeric reference to writingThere are several examples of written letters, such as in Nestor's narrative concerning Bellerophon and the "Bellerophontic letter", another description of a letter presumably sent to Palamedes from Priam but in fact written by Odysseus (Hyginus. Fabulae, 105), as well as the letters described by Plutarch in Parallel Lives, Theseus, which were presented to Ariadne, presumably sent from Theseus. Plutarch goes on to describe how Theseus erected a pillar on the Isthmus of Corinth, which bears an inscription of two lines. was in the phrase "γράμματα λυγρά", grámmata lygrá, literally "baneful drawings", when referring to the Bellerophontic letter. Linear B tablets have been found in abundance at Thebes, which might lead one to speculate that the legend of Cadmus as bringer of the alphabet could reflect earlier traditions about the origins of Linear B writing in Greece (as Frederick Ahl speculated in 1967F. M. Ahl. "Cadmus and the Palm- Leaf Tablets". American Journal of Philology 88.2, Apr. 1967, pp. 188–194.). But such a suggestion, however attractive, is by no means a certain conclusion in light of currently available evidence. The connection between the name of Cadmus and the historical origins of either the Linear B script or the later Phoenician alphabet, if any, remains elusive. However, in modern-day Lebanon, Cadmus is still revered and celebrated as the "carrier of the letter" to the world. According to Greek myth, Cadmus's descendants ruled at Thebes on and off for several generations, including the time of the Trojan War. Etymology The etymology of Cadmus' name remains uncertain.LSJ s.v. Κάδμος. Possible connected words include the Semitic triliteral root qdm () signifies "east", in Arabic, words derived from the root "qdm" include the verb “qdm” meaning “to come” as well as words meaning "primeval" and "forth" as well as "foot", (in Hebrew, qedem means "east","front" and "ancient"(primeval); the verb qadam () means "to be in front"),Compare: and the Greek kekasmai (<*kekadmai) "to shine". Therefore, the complete meaning of the name might be: "He who excels" or "from the east". Wanderings =Samothrace= Cadmus fighting the dragon. Painting from a krater in the Louvre Museum. Lee Lawrie, Cadmus (1939). Library of Congress John Adams Building, Washington, D.C. After his sister Europa had been carried off by Zeus from the shores of Phoenicia, Cadmus was sent out by his father to find her, and enjoined not to return without her. Unsuccessful in his search—or unwilling to go against Zeus—he came to Samothrace, the island sacred to the "Great Gods"The Megaloi theoi of the Mysteries of Samothrace. or the Kabeiroi, whose mysteries would be celebrated also at Thebes. Cadmus did not journey alone to Samothrace; he appeared with his mother TelephassaOr known by another lunar name, Argiope, "she of the white face" (Kerenyi 1959:27). in the company of his nephew (or brother) Thasus, son of Cilix, who gave his name to the island of Thasos nearby. An identically composed trio had other names at Samothrace, according to Diodorus Siculus:Diodorus Siculus, 5.48; Clement of Alexandria, to wit Proreptikos 2.13.3. Electra and her two sons, Dardanos and Eetion or Iasion. There was a fourth figure, Electra's daughter, Harmonia,Harmonia at Thebes was accounted the daughter of Ares and Aphrodite; all these figures appeared in sculptures on the pediment of the Hellenistic main temple in the Sanctuary of the Great Gods at Samothrace, the Hieron; the ancient sources on this family grouping were assembled by N. Lewis, Samothrace. I: The Ancient Literary Sources (New York) 1958:24-36. whom Cadmus took away as a bride, as Zeus had abducted Europa.Kerenyi (1959) notes that Cadmus in some sense found another Europa at Samothrace, according to an obscure scholium on Euripides' Rhesus 29. The wedding was the first celebrated on Earth to which the gods brought gifts, according to DiodorusDiodorus, 5.49.1; when the gods attended the later wedding of Peleus and Thetis, the harmony was shattered by the Apple of Discord. and dined with Cadmus and his bride.The full range of references in Antiquity to this wedding is presented by Matia Rocchi, Kadmos e Harmonia: un matrimonio problemmatico (Rome: Bretschneider) 1989. =Founder of Thebes= Cadmus Asks the Delphic Oracle Where He Can Find his Sister, Europa, Hendrick Goltzius Cadmus came in the course of his wanderings to Delphi, where he consulted the oracle. He was ordered to give up his quest and follow a special cow, with a half moon on her flank, which would meet him, and to build a town on the spot where she should lie down exhausted.http://mythology.stackexchange.com/a/2495/2892/ The cow was given to Cadmus by Pelagon, King of Phocis, and it guided him to Boeotia, where he founded the city of Thebes. Intending to sacrifice the cow to Athena, Cadmus sent some of his companions, Deioleon and Seriphus to the nearby Ismenian spring for water.John Tzetzes. Chiliades, 10.32 line 4 They were slain by the spring's guardian water-dragon (compare the Lernaean Hydra), which was in turn destroyed by Cadmus, the duty of a culture hero of the new order. Cadmus Sowing the Dragon's teeth, by Maxfield Parrish, 1908. He was then instructed by Athena to sow the dragon's teeth in the ground, from which there sprang a race of fierce armed men, called the Spartoi ("sown"). By throwing a stone among them, Cadmus caused them to fall upon one another until only five survived, who assisted him to build the Cadmeia or citadel of Thebes, and became the founders of the noblest families of that city. The dragon had been sacred to Ares, so the god made Cadmus do penance for eight years by serving him. According to Theban tellings, it was at the expiration of this period that the gods gave him Harmonia ("harmony", literally "putting or assembling together", "good assembly", or "good composition") as wife.Scholia on Homer, Iliad B, 494, p. 80, 43 ed. Bekk. as cited in Hellanicus' Boeotica At Thebes, Cadmus and Harmonia began a dynasty with a son Polydorus, and four daughters, Agave, Autonoë, Ino and Semele. At the wedding, whether celebrated at Samothrace or at Thebes, all the gods were present; Harmonia received as bridal gifts a peplos worked by Athena and a necklace made by Hephaestus. This necklace, commonly referred to as the Necklace of Harmonia, brought misfortune to all who possessed it. Notwithstanding the divinely ordained nature of his marriage and his kingdom, Cadmus lived to regret both: his family was overtaken by grievous misfortunes, and his city by civil unrest. Cadmus finally abdicated in favor of his grandson Pentheus, and went with Harmonia to Illyria, to fight on the sideApollodorus. Library and Epitome, 3.5.4. of the Enchelii.Pierre Grimal, Pierre, Maxwell-Hyslop, A. R. The Dictionary of Classical Mythology. Blackwell, 1996, , p. 83. Later, as king, he founded the city of Lychnidos and Bouthoe.Wilkes, J. J. The Illyrians. Blackwell Publishing, 1992, , p. 99. Nevertheless, Cadmus was deeply troubled by the ill-fortune which clung to him as a result of his having killed the sacred dragon, and one day he remarked that if the gods were so enamoured of the life of a serpent, he might as well wish that life for himself. Immediately he began to grow scales and change in form. Harmonia, seeing the transformation, thereupon begged the gods to share her husband's fate, which they granted (Hyginus). In another telling of the story, the bodies of Cadmus and his wife were changed after their deaths; the serpents watched their tomb while their souls were translated to the fields. In Euripides' The Bacchae, Cadmus is given a prophecy by Dionysus whereby both he and his wife will be turned into snakes for a period before eventually being brought to live among the blest. Samothracian connection In Phoenician, as well as Hebrew, the Semitic root qdm signifies "the east", the Levantine origin of "Kdm" himself, according to the Greek mythographers; the equation of Kadmos with the Semitic qdm was traced to a publication of 1646 by R. B. Edwards.Edwards, Kadmos the Phoenician: A Study in Greek Legends and the Mycenaean Age (Amsterdam 1979), noted by Walter Burkert, The Orientalizing Revolution: Near Eastern Influence on Greek Culture in the Early Bronze Age (Harvard University Press) 1992:2, and note), who remarks that the complementary connection of Europa with rb, "West" was an ancient one, made by Hesychius. The name Kadmos has been thoroughly Hellenised. The fact that Hermes was worshipped in Samothrace under the name of Cadmus or Cadmilus seems to show that the Theban Cadmus was interpreted as an ancestral Theban hero corresponding to the Samothracian. Another Samothracian connection for Cadmus is offered via his wife Harmonia, who is said by Diodorus Siculus to be daughter of Zeus and Electra and of Samothracian birth.Diodorus Siculus 5.48.2 The "Wedding of Cadmus and Harmonia" is considered as a conceptual symbolic coupling of Eastern (Phoenician) learning with Western (Greek) love of beauty. He died tragicallly by getting killed by Ares the God of war. Genealogy Cadmus was of ultimately divine ancestry, the grandson of the sea god Poseidon and Libya on his father's side, and of Nilus (the River Nile) on his mother's side; overall he was considered a member of the fifth generation of beings following the (mythological) creation of the world: Offspring With Harmonia, he was the father of Semele, Polydorus, Autonoe, Agave and Ino. Their youngest son was Illyrius.Pierre Grimal, Pierre, Maxwell-Hyslop, A. R. The Dictionary of Classical Mythology. Blackwell, 1996, , pp. 83, 230. According to Greek mythology, Cadmus is the ancestor of Illyrians and Theban royalty. Hittite records controversy It has been argued by various scholars, that in a letter from the King of Ahhiyawa to the Hittite King, written in the Hittite language in c. 1250 BC, a specific Cadmus was mentioned as a forefather of the Ahhijawa people. The latter term most probably referred to the Mycenaean world (Achaeans), or at least to a part of it. Nevertheless, this reading about a supposed Cadmus as historical person is rejected by most scholars. Trivia The Syrian city of Al-Qadmus is named after Cadmus. See also *Cadmium *Cadmus of Miletus *Cadmean victory *Cadmean vixen *Theban kings in Greek mythology Notes Citations References =Classical sources= *Hyginus. Fabulae, 178. *Pseudo-Apollodorus. Bibliotheke, III, i, 1-v, 4; *Ovid. Metamorphoses, III, 1-137; IV, 563-603. *Homer. The Odyssey, 5.333. =Secondary material= *Theoi Project *Kerenyi, Karl. The Heroes of the Greeks, 1959. *Vian, F. Les origines de Thébes: Cadmos et les Spartes. Paris, 1963. *R. B. Edwards. Kadmos, the Phoenician: A Study in Greek Legends and the Mycenaean Age. Amsterdam, 1979. *T. Gantz. Early Greek Myth., Volume 2, 467–73. *Matia Rocchi. Kadmos e Harmonia: un matrimonio problemmatico. Rome, Bretschneider, 1989. * Svetlana Janakieva, "Lе Mythe de Cadmos et l'aire ethnolinguistique paleobalkanique," Thracia, 11, 1995 (= Studia in honorem Alexandri Fol. Sofia, 1995). * Further reading * External links * Images of Cadmus in the Warburg Institute Iconographic Database Category:Agenorides Category:Dragonslayers Category:Founding monarchs Category:Greek mythological heroes Category:Kings in Greek mythology Category:Metamorphoses into animals in Greek mythology Category:Parents of demigods in Classical mythology Category:Phoenician characters in Greek mythology Category:Theban kings Category:Princes in Greek mythology Category:Mythological city founders "