title: Celtic Christianity

text: However, modern scholars have identified problems with all of these claims, and find the term "Celtic Christianity" problematic in and of itself. Modern scholarship roundly rejects the idea of a "Celtic Church" due to the lack of substantiating evidence. Indeed, distinct Irish and British church traditions existed, each with their own practices, and there was significant local variation even within the individual Irish and British spheres. While the Irish and British churches had some traditions in common, these were relatively few. Even these commonalities did not exist due to the "Celticity" of the regions, but due to other historical and geographical factors. Additionally, the Christians of Ireland and Britain were not "anti-Roman"; Celtic areas respected the authority of Rome and the papacy as strongly as any other region of Europe. Caitlin Corning further notes that the "Irish and British were no more pro-women, pro-environment, or even more spiritual than the rest of the Church."


title: Celtic Christianity

text: Corning writes that scholars have identified three major strands of thought that have influenced the popular conceptions of Celtic Christianity:


title: Celtic Christianity

text: Some associate the early Christians of Celtic-speaking Galatia (purportedly recipients of Paul's Epistle to the Galatians) with later Christians of north-western Europe's Celtic fringe.


title: Celtic Christianity

text: According to medieval traditions, Christianity arrived in Britain in the 1st century. Gildas's 6th-century account dated its arrival to the latter part of the reign of the Roman emperor Tiberius: an account of the seventy disciples discovered at Mount Athos in 1854 lists Aristobulus as "bishop of Britain". Medieval accounts of King Lucius, Fagan and Deruvian, and Joseph of Arimathea, however, are now usually accounted as pious frauds.


title: Celtic Christianity

text: The earliest certain historical evidence of Christianity among the Britons is found in the writings of such early Christian Fathers as Tertullian and Origen in the first years of the 3rd century, although the first Christian communities probably were established at least some decades earlier.


title: Celtic Christianity

text: Initially, Christianity was but one of a number of religions: in addition to the native and syncretic local forms of paganism, Roman legionaries and immigrants introduced other cults such as Mithraism. At various times, the Christians risked persecution, although the earliest known Christian martyrs in Britain – Saint Alban and "Amphibalus" – probably lived in the early 4th century. Julius and Aaron, citizens of Caerleon, were said to have been martyred during the Diocletianic Persecution, although there is no textual or archaeological evidence to support the folk etymology of Lichfield as deriving from another thousand martyrs during the same years.


title: Celtic Christianity

text: Christianization intensified with the legalisation of the Christian religion under Constantine the Great in the early 4th century and its promotion by subsequent Christian emperors. Three Romano-British bishops, including Archbishop Restitutus of London, are known to have been present at the Synod of Arles in 314. Others attended the Council of Serdica in 347 and the Council of Ariminum in 360. A number of references to the church in Roman Britain are also found in the writings of 4th-century Christian fathers. Britain was the home of Pelagius, who opposed Augustine of Hippo's doctrine of original sin; St Germanus was said to have visited the island in part to oppose the bishops who advocated his heresy.


title: Celtic Christianity

text: Around 367, the Great Conspiracy saw the troops along Hadrian's Wall mutiny, allowing the Picts to overrun the northern areas of Roman Britain (in some cases joining in), in concert with Irish and Saxon attacks on the coast. The Roman provinces seem to have been retaken by Theodosius the Elder the next year, but many Romano-Britons had already been killed or taken as slaves. In 407, Constantine III declared himself "emperor of the West" and withdrew his legions to Gaul. The Byzantine historian Zosimus () stated that Constantine's neglect of the area's defense against Irish and Saxon raids and invasions caused the Britons and Gauls to fully revolt from the Roman Empire, rejecting Roman law and reverting to their native customs. In any case, Roman authority was greatly weakened following the Visigoths' sack of Rome in 410. Medieval legend attributed widespread Saxon immigration to mercenaries hired by the British king Vortigern. The Saxon communities followed a form of Germanic paganism, driving Christian Britons back to Wales, Cornwall, and Brittany or subjugating them under kingdoms with no formal church presence.


title: Celtic Christianity

text: Fifth and sixth century Britain, although poorly attested, saw the "Age of Saints" among the Welsh. Saint Dubric, Saint Illtud, and others first completed the Christianization of Wales. Unwilling or unable to missionize among the Saxons in England, Briton refugees and missionaries such as Saint Patrick and Finnian of Clonard were then responsible for the Christianization of Ireland and made up the Seven Founder Saints of Brittany. The Irish in turn made Christians of the Picts and English. Saint Columba then began the conversion of the Dál Riata and the other peoples of Scotland, although native saints such as Mungo also arose. The history of Christianity in Cornwall is more obscure, but the native church seems to have been greatly strengthened by Welsh and Irish missionaries such as Saints Petroc, Piran, and Breaca. Extreme weather (as around 535) and the attendant famines and disease, particularly the arrival of the Plague of Justinian in Wales around 547 and Ireland around 548, may have contributed to these missionary efforts.


title: Celtic Christianity

text: The title of "saint" was used quite broadly by British, Irish, and English Christians. Extreme cases are Irish accounts of Gerald of Mayo's presiding over 3,300 saints and Welsh claims that Bardsey Island held the remains of 20,000. More often, the title was given to the founder of any ecclesiastical settlement, which would thenceforth be known as their "llan". Such communities were organized on tribal models: founding saints were almost invariably lesser members of local dynasties, they were not infrequently married, and their successors were often chosen from among their kin. In the 6th century, the "Three Saintly Families of Wales" – those of the invading Irish Brychan and Hen Ogledd's Cunedda Wledig and Caw of Strathclyde – displaced many of the local Silurian rulers in favor of their own families and clans. By some estimates, these traditions produced over 800 pre-congregational saints that were venerated locally in Wales, but invasions by Saxons, Irishmen, Vikings, Normans, and others destroyed many ecclesiastical records. Similarly, the distance from Rome, hostility to native practices and cults, and relative unimportance of the local sees has left only two local Welsh saints in the General Roman Calendar: Saints David and Winifred.


title: Celtic Christianity

text: Insular Christianity developed distinct traditions and practices, most pointedly concerning the "computus" of Easter, as it produced the most obvious signs of disunity: the old and new methods did not usually agree, causing Christians following one system to begin celebrating the feast of the Resurrection while others continued to solemnly observe Lent. Monasticism spread widely; the Llandaff Charters record over fifty religious foundations in southeast Wales alone. Although the "clasau" were rather modest affairs, great monasteries and monastic schools also developed at Llantwit Major (""), Bangor, and Iona. The tonsure differed from that elsewhere and also became a point of contention. A distinction that became increasingly important was the nature of church organisation: some monasteries were led by married clergy, inheritance of religious offices was common (in Wales, as late as the 12th century), and illegitimacy was treated much more leniently with fathers simply needing to acknowledge the child for him to inherit an equal share with his brothers. Prior to their conquest by England, most churches have records of bishops and priests but not an established parish system. Pre-conquest, most Christians would not attend regular services but relied on members of the monastic communities who would occasionally make preaching tours through the area.


title: Celtic Christianity

text: At the end of the 6th century, Pope Gregory I dispatched a mission under Augustine of Canterbury to convert the Anglo-Saxons, establish new sees and churches throughout their territories, and reassert papal authority over the native church. Gregory intended for Augustine to become the metropolitan bishop over all of southern Britain, including the existing dioceses under Welsh and Cornish control. Augustine met with British bishops in a series of conferences – known as the Synod of Chester – that attempted to assert his authority and to compel them to abandon aspects of their service that had fallen out of line with Roman practice. The Northumbrian cleric Bede's "Ecclesiastical History of the English People" is the only surviving account of these meetings: according to it, some of the clerics of the nearest British province met Augustine at a site on the border of the Kingdom of Kent that was known thereafter as Augustine's Oak. Augustine focused on seeking assistance for his work among the Saxons and reforming the Britons' obsolete method for calculating Easter; the clerics responded that they would need to confer with their people and await a larger assembly. Bede relates that the bishops particularly consulted a hermit on how to respond. He told them to respond based on Augustine's conduct: were he to rise to greet them, they would know him for a humble servant of Christ and should submit to his authority but, were he to remain seated, they would know him to be arrogant and prideful and should reject him. As it happened, Augustine did keep his seat, provoking outrage. In the negotiations that followed, he offered to allow the Britons to maintain all their native customs but three: they should adopt Rome's more advanced method of calculating the date of Easter, reform their baptismal ritual, and join the missionary efforts among the Saxons. The British clerics rejected all of these, as well as Augustine's authority over them. John Edward Lloyd argues that the primary reason for the British bishops' rejection of Augustine – and especially his call for them to join his missionary effort – was his claim to sovereignty over them, given that his see would be so deeply entwined with Anglo-Saxon Kent.


title: Celtic Christianity

text: The death of hundreds of British clerics to the pagan king Æthelfrith of the Kingdom of Northumbria around 616 at the Battle of Chester was taken by Bede as fulfillment of the prophecy made by Augustine of Canterbury following the Synod of Chester. The prophecy stated that the British church would receive war and death from the Saxons if they refused to proselytise. Despite the inaccuracies of their system, the Britons did not adopt the Roman and Saxon until induced to do so around 768 by "Archbishop" Elfodd of "Gwynedd". The Norman invasion of Wales finally brought Welsh dioceses under England's control. The development of legends about the mission of Fagan and Deruvian and Philip the Apostle's dispatch of Joseph of Arimathea in part aimed to preserve the priority and authority of the native establishments at St David's, Llandaff, and Glastonbury. It was not until the death of Bishop Bernard () that St Davids finally abandoned its claims to metropolitan status and submitted to the Province of Canterbury, by which point the popularity of Geoffrey of Monmouth's pseudohistorical "Historia Regum Britanniae" had begun spreading these inventions further afield. Such ideas were used by mediaeval anti-Roman movements such as the Lollards and followers of John Wycliffe, as well as by English Catholics during the English Reformation. The legend that Jesus himself visited Britain is referred to in William Blake's 1804 poem "And did those feet in ancient time". The words of Blake's poem were set to music in 1916 by Hubert Parry as the well-known song "Jerusalem".


title: Celtic Christianity

text: According to Bede, Saint Ninian was born about 360 in what is present day Galloway, the son of a chief of the Novantae, apparently a Christian. He studied under Martin of Tours before returning to his own land about 397. He established himself at Whithorn where he built a church of stone, "Candida Casa". Tradition holds that Ninian established an episcopal see at the Candida Casa in Whithorn, and named the see for Saint Martin of Tours. He converted the southern Picts to Christianity, and died around 432. Many Irish saints trained at the "Candida Casa", such as Tigernach of Clones, Ciarán of Clonmacnoise, and Finnian of Movilla. Ninian's work was carried on by Palladius, who left Ireland to work among the Picts. The mission to the southern Picts apparently met with some setbacks, as Patrick charged Coroticus and the "apostate Picts" with conducting raids on the Irish coast and seizing Christians as slaves. Ternan and Saint Serf followed Palladius. Serf was the teacher of Saint Mungo, the apostle of Strathclyde, and patron saint of Glasgow.


title: Celtic Christianity

text: A Welshman of noble birth, Saint Petroc was educated in Ireland. He set out in a small boat with a few followers. In a type of "peregrinatio", they let God determine their course. The winds and tides brought them to the Padstow estuary. Kevin of Glendalough was a student of Petroc. Saint Endelienta was the daughter of the Welsh king Brychan. She also travelled to Cornwall – that is ancient Dumnonia – to evangelize the locals as did St Nonna mother of St David who travelled on to Brittany. Her brother Nectan of Hartland worked in Devon. Saint Piran is the patron saint of tin miners. An Irishman, Ciaran, he is said to have 'floated' across to Cornwall after being thrown into the sea tied to a millstone. He has been identified on occasion with Ciarán of Saigir.


title: Celtic Christianity

text: By the early fifth century the religion had spread to Ireland, which had never been part of the Roman Empire. There were Christians in Ireland before Palladius arrived in 431 as the first missionary bishop sent by Rome. His mission does not seem to have been entirely successful. The subsequent mission of Saint Patrick, traditionally starting in 432,


title: Celtic Christianity

text: established churches in conjunction with "civitates" like his own in Armagh; small enclosures in which groups of Christians, often of both sexes and including the married, lived together, served in various roles and ministered to the local population. Patrick set up diocesan structures with a hierarchy of bishops, priests, and deacons. During the late 5th and 6th centuries true monasteries became the most important centres: in Patrick's own see of Armagh the change seems to have happened before the end of the 5th century, thereafter the bishop was the abbot also. Within a few generations of the arrival of the first missionaries the monastic and clerical class of the isle had become fully integrated with the culture of Latin letters. Besides Latin, Irish ecclesiastics developed a written form of Old Irish. Others who influenced the development of Christianity in Ireland include Brigid ( 451 – 525), Saint Moluag ( 510 – 592, who evangelised in the area of present-day Scotland) and Saint Caillín (fl. ).


title: Celtic Christianity

text: Connections with the greater Latin West brought the nations of Britain and Ireland into closer contact with the orthodoxy of the councils. The customs and traditions particular to Insular Christianity became a matter of dispute, especially the matter of the proper calculation of Easter. In addition to Easter dating, Irish scholars and cleric-scholars in continental Europe found themselves implicated in theological controversies but it is not always possible to distinguish when a controversy was based on matters of substance or on political grounds or xenophobic sentiments. Synods were held in Ireland, Gaul, and England (e.g. the Synod of Whitby) at which Irish and British religious rites were rejected but a degree of variation continued in Britain after the Ionan church accepted the Roman date.


title: Celtic Christianity

text: The Easter question was settled at various times in different places. The following dates are derived from Haddan and Stubbs: southern Ireland, 626–628; northern Ireland, 692; Northumbria (converted by Irish missions), 664; East Devon and Somerset, the Britons under Wessex, 705; the Picts, 710; Iona, 716–718; Strathclyde, 721; North Wales, 768; South Wales, 777. Cornwall held out the longest of any, perhaps even, in parts, to the time of Bishop Aedwulf of Crediton (909).


title: Celtic Christianity

text: A uniquely Irish penitential system was eventually adopted as a universal practice of the Church by the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215.


title: Celtic Christianity

text: Caitlin Corning identifies four customs that were common to both the Irish and British churches but not used elsewhere in the Christian world.


title: Celtic Christianity

text: Easter was originally dated according to Hebrew calendar, which tried to place Passover on the first full moon following the Spring equinox but did not always succeed. In his "Life of Constantine", Eusebius records that the First Council of Nicaea (325) decided that all Christians should observe a common date for Easter separate from the Jewish calculations, according to the practice of the bishops of Rome and Alexandria. Calculating the proper date of Easter ("computus") then became a complicated process involving a lunisolar calendar, finding the first Sunday after an idealized Passover on the first full moon after the equinox.


title: Celtic Christianity

text: Various tables were drawn up, aiming to produce the necessary alignment between the solar year and the phases of the calendrical moon. The less exact 8-year cycle was replaced by (or by the time of) Augustalis's treatise "On the measurement of Easter", which includes an 84-year cycle based on Meton. This was introduced to Britain, whose clerics at some point modified it to use the Julian calendar's original equinox on 25 March instead of the Nicaean equinox, which had already drifted to 21 March. This calendar was conserved by the Britons and Irish while the Romans and French began to use the Victorian cycle of 532 years. The Romans (but not the French) then adopted the still-better work of Dionysius in 525, which brought them into harmony with the Church of Alexandria.


title: Celtic Christianity

text: In the early 600s Christians in Ireland and Britain became aware of the divergence in dating between them and those in Europe. The first clash came in 602 when a synod of French bishops opposed the practices of the monasteries established by St Columbanus; Columbanus appealed to Pope Gregory I but received no answer and finally moved from their jurisdiction. It was a primary concern for St Augustine and his mission, although Oswald's flight to Dál Riata and eventual restoration to his throne meant that Celtic practice was introduced to Northumbria until the 664 synod in Whitby. The groups furthest away from the Gregorian mission were generally the readiest to acknowledge the superiority of the new tables: the bishops of southern Ireland adopted the continental system at the Synod of Mag Léne (); the Council of Birr saw the northern Irish bishops follow suit. The abbey at Iona and its satellites held out until 716, while the Welsh did not adopt the Roman and Saxon "computus" until induced to do so around 768 by Elfodd, "archbishop" of Bangor.


title: Celtic Christianity

text: All monks of the period, and apparently most or all clergy, kept a distinct tonsure, or method of cutting one's hair, to distinguish their social identity as men of the cloth. In Ireland men otherwise wore longish hair, and a shaved head was worn by slaves.


title: Celtic Christianity

text: The prevailing Roman custom was to shave a circle at the top of the head, leaving a halo of hair or "corona"; this was eventually associated with the imagery of Christ's crown of thorns. The early material referring to the Celtic tonsure emphasizes its distinctiveness from the Roman alternative and invariably connects its use to the Celtic dating of Easter. Those preferring the Roman tonsure considered the Celtic custom extremely unorthodox, and associated it with the form of tonsure worn by the heresiarch Simon Magus. This association appears in a 672 letter from Saint Aldhelm to King Geraint of Dumnonia, but it may have been circulating since the Synod of Whitby. The tonsure is also mentioned in a passage, probably of the 7th century but attributed wrongly to Gildas: ""Britones toti mundo contrarii, moribus Romanis inimici, non solum in missa sed in tonsura etiam"" ("Britons are contrary to the whole world, enemies of Roman customs, not only in the Mass but also in regard to the tonsure").


title: Celtic Christianity

text: The exact shape of the Irish tonsure is unclear from the early sources, although they agree that the hair was in some way shorn over the head from ear to ear. In 1639 James Ussher suggested a semi-circular shape, rounded in the front and culminating at a line between the ears. This suggestion was accepted by many subsequent writers, but in 1703 Jean Mabillon put forth a new hypothesis, claiming that the entire forehead was shaven back to the ears. Mabillon's version was widely accepted, but contradicts the early sources. In 2003 Daniel McCarthy suggested a triangular shape, with one side between the ears and a vertex towards the front of the head. The "Collectio canonum Hibernensis" cites the authority of Saint Patrick as indicating that the custom originated with the swineherd of Lóegaire mac Néill, the king who opposed Patrick.


title: Celtic Christianity

text: In Christian Ireland – as well as Pictish and English peoples they Christianised – a distinctive form of penance developed, where confession was made privately to a priest, under the seal of secrecy, and where penance was given privately and ordinarily performed privately as well. Certain handbooks were made, called "penitentials", designed as a guide for confessors and as a means of regularising the penance given for each particular sin.


title: Celtic Christianity

text: In antiquity, penance had been a public ritual. Penitents were divided into a separate part of the church during liturgical worship, and they came to Mass wearing sackcloth and ashes in a process known as "exomologesis" that often involved some form of general confession. There is evidence that this public penance was preceded by a private confession to a bishop or priest ("sacerdos"), and it seems that, for some sins, private penance was allowed instead. Nonetheless, penance and reconciliation was prevailingly a public rite (sometimes unrepeatable), which included absolution at its conclusion.


title: Celtic Christianity

text: The Irish penitential practice spread throughout the continent, where the form of public penance had fallen into disuse. Saint Columbanus was credited with introducing the "medicamenta paentitentiae", the "medicines of penance", to Gaul at a time when they had come to be neglected. Though the process met some resistance, by 1215 the practice had become established as the norm, with the Fourth Lateran Council establishing a canonical statute requiring confession at a minimum of once per year.


title: Celtic Christianity

text: A final distinctive tradition common across Britain and Ireland was the popularity of "peregrinatio pro Christo" ("exile for Christ"). The term "peregrinatio" is Latin, and referred to the state of living or sojourning away from one's homeland in Roman law. It was later used by the Church Fathers, in particular Saint Augustine of Hippo, who wrote that Christians should live a life of "peregrinatio" in the present world while awaiting the Kingdom of God. Augustine's version of "peregrinatio" spread widely throughout the Christian church, but it took two additional unique meanings in Celtic countries.


title: Celtic Christianity

text: In the first sense, the penitentials prescribed permanent or temporary "peregrinatio" as penance for certain infractions. Additionally, there was a tradition of undertaking a voluntary "peregrinatio pro Christo", in which individuals permanently left their homes and put themselves entirely in God's hands. In the Irish tradition there were two types of such "peregrinatio", the "lesser" peregrinatio, involving leaving one's home area but not the island, and the "superior" peregrinatio, which meant leaving Ireland for good. This voluntary exile to spend one's life in a foreign land far from friends and family came to be termed the "white martyrdom".


title: Celtic Christianity

text: Most "peregrini" or exiles of this type were seeking personal spiritual fulfilment, but many became involved in missionary endeavours. The Briton Saint Patrick became the evangelist of Ireland during what he called his "peregrinatio" there, while Saint Samson left his home to ultimately become bishop in Brittany. The Irishmen Columba and Columbanus similarly founded highly important religious communities after leaving their homes. Irish-educated English Christians such as Gerald of Mayo, the Two Ewalds, Willehad, Willibrord, Wilfrid, Ceolfrith, and other English all followed these Irish traditions.


title: Celtic Christianity

text: A number of other distinctive traditions and practices existed (or are taken to have existed) in Britain or Ireland, but are not known to have been in use across the entire region. Different writers and commenters have identified different traditions as representative of so-called Celtic Christianity.


title: Celtic Christianity

text: Monastic spirituality came to Britain and then Ireland from Gaul, by way of Lérins, Tours, and Auxerre. Its spirituality was heavily influenced by the Desert Fathers. According to Richard Woods, the familial, democratic, and decentralized aspects of Egyptian Christianity were better suited to structures and values of Celtic culture than was a legalistic diocesan form. Monasteries tended to be cenobitical in that monks lived in separate cells but came together for common prayer, meals, and other functions. Some more austere ascetics became hermits living in remote locations in what came to be called the "green martyrdom". An example of this would be Kevin of Glendalough and Cuthbert of Lindisfarne.


title: Celtic Christianity

text: One controversial belief is that the true ecclesiastical power in the Celtic world lay in the hands of abbots of monasteries, rather than bishops of dioceses. While this may have been the case for centuries in most of Ireland, it was never the rule throughout the Celtic world at large. It is certain that the ideal of monasticism was universally esteemed in Celtic Christianity. This was especially true in Ireland and areas evangelised by Irish missionaries, where monasteries and their abbots came to be vested with a great deal of ecclesiastical and secular power. Following the growth of the monastic movement in the 6th century, abbots controlled not only individual monasteries, but also expansive estates and the secular communities that tended them. As monastics, abbots were not necessarily ordained (i.e. they were not necessarily priests or bishops). They were usually descended from one of the many Irish royal families, and the founding regulations of the abbey sometimes specified that the abbotcy should if possible be kept within one family lineage.


title: Celtic Christianity

text: This focus on the monastery has led some scholars, most notably Kathleen Hughes, to argue that the monastic system came to be the dominant ecclesiastical structure in the Irish church, essentially replacing the earlier episcopal structure of the type found in most of the rest of the Christian world. Hughes argued that the "paruchia", or network of monasteries attached to an abbey, replaced the diocese as the chief administrative unit of the church, and the position of Abbot largely replaced that of bishop in authority and prominence. According to this model, bishops were still needed, since certain sacramental functions were reserved only for the ordained, but they had little authority in the ecclesiastical structure.


title: Celtic Christianity

text: However, more recent scholarship, particularly the work of Donnchadh Ó Corráin and Richard Sharpe, has offered a more nuanced view of the interrelationships between the monastic system and the traditional Church structures. Sharpe argues that there is no evidence that the "paruchia" overrode the diocese, or that the abbot replaced the Bishop; Bishops still exercised ultimate spiritual authority and remained in charge of the diocesan clergy. But either way, the monastic ideal was regarded as the utmost expression of the Christian life.


title: Celtic Christianity

text: The focus on powerful abbots and monasteries was limited to the Irish Church, however, and not in Britain. The British church employed an episcopal structure corresponding closely to the model used elsewhere in the Christian world.


title: Celtic Christianity

text: Irish monasticism was notable for its permeability. In permeable monasticism, people were able to move freely in and out of the monastic system at different points of life. Young boys and girls would enter the system to pursue Latin scholarship. Students would sometimes travel from faraway lands to enter the Irish monasteries. When these students became adults, they would leave the monastery to live out their lives. Eventually, these people would retire back to secure community provided by the monastery and stay until their death. However, some would stay within the monastery and become leaders. Since most of the clergy were Irish, native traditions were well-respected. Permeable monasticism popularised the use of vernacular and helped mesh the norms of secular and monastic element in Ireland, unlike other parts of Europe where monasteries were more isolated. Examples of these intertwining motifs can be seen in the hagiographies of St. Brigid and St. Columba.


title: Celtic Christianity

text: This willingness to learn, and also to teach, was a hallmark of the "permeable monasticism" that so characterised the Irish monastery. While a hermitage was still the highest form of dedication, the monasteries were very open to allowing students and children within the walls for an education, without requiring them to become monks. These students were then allowed to leave and live within the community, and were welcomed back in their old age to retire in peace. This style of monasticism allowed for the monastery to connect with, and become a part of, the community at large. The availability of the monks to the people was instrumental in converting Ireland from paganism to Christianity, allowing a blend of the two cultures.


title: Celtic Christianity

text: According to hagiographies written some centuries later, Illtud and his pupils Saint David, Gildas, and Deiniol were leading figures in 6th-century Britain.


title: Celtic Christianity

text: Not far from Llantwit Fawr stood Cadoc's foundation of Llancarfan, founded in the latter part of the fifth century. The son of Gwynllyw, a prince of South Wales, who before his death renounced the world to lead an eremitical life, Cadoc followed his father's example and received the religious habit from St. Tathai, an Irish monk, superior of a small community at Swent near Chepstow, in Monmouthshire. Returning to his native county, Cadoc built a church and monastery, which was called Llancarfan, or the "Church of the Stags". Here he established a monastery, college and hospital. The spot at first seemed an impossible one, and an almost inaccessible marsh, but he and his monks drained and cultivated it, transforming it into one of the most famous religious houses in South Wales. His legend recounts that he daily fed a hundred clergy and a hundred soldiers, a hundred workmen, a hundred poor men, and the same number of widows. When thousands left the world and became monks, they very often did so as clansmen, dutifully following the example of their chief. Bishoprics, canonries, and parochial benefices passed from one to another member of the same family, and frequently from father to son. Their tribal character is a feature which Irish and Welsh monasteries had in common.


title: Celtic Christianity

text: Illtud, said to have been an Armorican by descent, spent the first period of his religious life as a disciple of St. Cadoc at Llancarvan. He founded the monastery at Llantwit Major. The monastery stressed learning as well as devotion. One of his fellow students was Paul Aurelian, a key figure in Cornish monasticism. Gildas the Wise was invited by Cadoc to deliver lectures in the monastery and spent a year there, during which he made a copy of a book of the Gospels, long treasured in the church of St. Cadoc. One of the most notable pupils of Illtyd was St. Samson of Dol, who lived for a time the life of a hermit in a cave near the river Severn before founding a monastery in Brittany.


title: Celtic Christianity

text: St David established his monastery on a promontory on the western sea. It was well placed to be a centre of Insular Christianity. When Alfred the Great sought a scholar for his court, he summoned Asser of Saint David's. Contemporary with David were Saint Teilo, Cadoc, Padarn, Beuno and Tysilio among them. It was from Illtud and his successors that the Irish sought guidance on matters of ritual and discipline. Finnian of Clonard studied under Cadoc at Llancarfan in Glamorgan.


title: Celtic Christianity

text: The achievements of insular art, in illuminated manuscripts like the Book of Kells, high crosses, and metalwork like the Ardagh Chalice remain very well known, and in the case of manuscript decoration had a profound influence on Western medieval art. The manuscripts were certainly produced by and for monasteries, and the evidence suggests that metalwork was produced in both monastic and royal workshops, perhaps as well as secular commercial ones.


title: Celtic Christianity

text: In the 6th and 7th centuries, Irish monks established monastic institutions in parts of modern-day Scotland (especially Columba, also known as "Colmcille" or, in Old Irish, "Colum Cille"), and on the continent, particularly in Gaul (especially Columbanus). Monks from Iona Abbey under St. Aidan founded the See of Lindisfarne in Anglo-Saxon Northumbria in 635, whence Gaelic-Irish practice heavily influenced northern England.


title: Celtic Christianity

text: Irish monks also founded monasteries across the continent, exerting influence greater than many more ancient continental centres. The first issuance of a papal privilege granting a monastery freedom from episcopal oversight was that of Pope Honorius I to Bobbio Abbey, one of Columbanus's institutions.


title: Celtic Christianity

text: At least in Ireland, the monastic system became increasingly secularised from the 8th century, as close ties between ruling families and monasteries became apparent. The major monasteries were now wealthy in land and had political importance. On occasion they made war either upon each other or took part in secular wars – a battle in 764 is supposed to have killed 200 from Durrow Abbey when they were defeated by Clonmacnoise. From early periods the kin nature of many monasteries had meant that some married men were part of the community, supplying labour and with some rights, including in the election of abbots (but obliged to abstain from sex during fasting periods). Some abbacies passed from father to son, and then even grandsons. A revival of the ascetic tradition came in the second half of the century, with the culdee or "clients (vassals) of God" movement founding new monasteries detached from family groupings.


title: Celtic Christianity

text: The monasteries of the Irish missions, and many at home, adopted the Rule of Saint Columbanus, which was stricter than the Rule of Saint Benedict, the main alternative in the West. In particular there was more fasting and an emphasis on corporal punishment. For some generations monks trained by Irish missionaries continued to use the Rule and to found new monasteries using it, but most converted to the Benedictine Rule over the 8th and 9th centuries.


title: Celtic Christianity

text: Bede implies that in the time of Augustine of Canterbury, British churches used a baptismal rite that was in some way at variance with the Roman practice. According to Bede, the British Christians' failure to "complete" the sacrament of baptism was one of the three specific issues with British practice that Augustine could not overlook. There is no indication as to how the baptism was "incomplete" according to the Roman custom. It may be that there was some difference in the confirmation rite, or that there was no confirmation at all. At any rate, it is unlikely to have caused as much discord as the Easter controversy or the tonsure, as no other source mentions it. As such there is no evidence that heterodox baptism figured into the practice of the Irish church.


title: Celtic Christianity

text: A recurrent accusation levelled against the Irish throughout the Middle Ages is that they were Judaizers, which is to say that they observed certain religious rites after the manner of the Jews. The belief that Irish Christians were Judaizers can be observed in three main areas: the Easter Controversy, the notion that the Irish practised obsolete laws from the Old Testament and (not unrelated to this) the view that they adhered too closely to the Old Testament. Quite apart from the intricate theological concerns that underpinned the debate over Easter in early 7th-century Gaul, Columbanus also found himself accused of Quartodecimanism, a heresy whose central tenet was observing Easter on the same date as the eve of the Jewish Passover, namely the fourteenth day of the Jewish lunar month of Nisan. Although this accusation was raised at a time of heightened political tensions between Columbanus and the Gallic bishops, some historians have cautioned that it ought not be dismissed as a mere ruse because the Gauls may have been genuinely worried about blurring the boundaries between Gallic Christians and their Jewish neighbours. That the Irish practised obsolete Old Testament laws is another accusation that repeats itself a number of times in the early Middle Ages, most famously in the case of the 8th-century Irish charismatic preacher, Clement Scotus I (fl. 745), who was condemned as a heretic, in part for urging followers to follow Old Testament law in such controversial matters as obliging a man to marry his widowed sister-in-law upon his brother's death. One example for the Irish tendency to adhere closely to the Old Testament is the "Collectio canonum Hibernensis", a late 7th- or early 8th-century Irish canon law collection which was the first text of church law to draw heavily on the Bible, and in particular the Old Testament. In Scotland similar accusations surround the supposed cultural taboo concerning pork. The Celtic Church is also thought to have observed the seventh day as the Sabbath.


title: Celtic Christianity

text: According to John Bowden, "the singing of metrical psalms, many of them set to old Celtic Christianity Scottish traditional and folk tunes" is a feature that remains a "distinctive part of Scottish Presbyterian worship".


title: Celtic Christianity

text: Ian Bradley notes that the recurrent interest in medieval insular Christianity has led to successive revival movements he terms "Celtic Christian revivalism". He notes the establishment of the Celtic Orthodox Church, which maintains a relationship with the Syriac Orthodox Church, as an effort to maintain the "distinctive tenets of Celtic Christianity" in an autocephalous Christian denomination.


title: Celtic Christianity

text: According to Bradley, most, though not all, revivalists are non-Celts for whom Celtic Christianity has an "exotic and peripheral" appeal. Adherents typically claim their revivals restore authentic practices and traits, though Bradley notes they reflect contemporary concerns and prejudices much more closely, and most are "at least partially inspired and driven by denominational and national rivalries, ecclesiastical and secular power politics, and an anti-Roman Catholic agenda." Though often inaccurate or distorted, the beliefs of these movements have greatly influenced popular conceptions of historical Celtic Christianity.


title: Celtic Christianity

text: Bradley traces the origins of Celtic Christian revivalism to the Middle Ages. In the 8th and 9th century, authors wrote idealised hagiographies of earlier saints, whose "golden age" of extraordinary holiness contrasted with the perceived corruption of later times. Similarly, the 12th- and 13th-century literary revival popularised and romanticised older Celtic traditions such as the Arthurian legend. These ideas were expanded during the English Reformation, as Protestant authors appropriated the concept of a "Celtic Church" as a native, anti-Roman predecessor to their own movement. Nevertheless, despite his scholarly deconstruction of much of the popular view of "Celtic Christianity", in work such as his "Celtic Christian Communities: Live The Tradition" Bradley argues that historically well-founded insights can be applied to re-imagine life and ministry in contemporary churches.


title: Celtic Christianity

text: In the 18th and 19th centuries, antiquarianism, the Romantic movement, and growing nationalism influenced ideas about what was becoming known as "Celtic Christianity". Beginning in the early 20th century, a full-fledged revival movement began, centred on the island of Iona and influenced by the Irish Literary Revival and more general Christian revivals. By the end of the 20th century, another wave of enthusiasm began, this time influenced by New Age ideals. Today, a self-identification with and use of "Celtic Christianity" is common in countries such as Ireland, both among participants in established churches and independent groups.


title: Boyapati Srinu

text: Boyapati Srinivas, commonly known as Boyapati Srinu or Boyapati Sreenu, is an Indian film director and screenwriter. Best known for directing mass action films in Telugu cinema, Boyapati has garnered two state Nandi Awards.


title: Boyapati Srinu

text: Boyapati Srinivas was born in Pedakakani in Guntur district, Andhra Pradesh. He obtained his degree from JKC College in Guntur and attended Nagarjuna University for post-graduation. His family runs a photo studio. Boyapati was interested in photography and worked as a part-time reporter for the Eenadu newspaper. To pusue a career in films, he moved to Hyderabad and his cousin Posani Krishna Murali recommended Boyapati to work in the direction department of Muthyala Subbaiah studio in 1997. Boyapati worked with Subbaiah for films like "Oka Chinna Maata", "Gokulamlo Seeta", "Pelli Chesukundam", "Pavitra Prema", "Annayya" and "Manasunna Maaraju".


title: Boyapati Srinu

text: In 2005, Boyapati made his directorial debut with "Bhadra", which starred Ravi Teja, Meera Jasmine, and Prakash Raj. "Tulasi" was his second film. In 2010, Boyapati's third release was "Simha", starring Nandamuri Balakrishna in a dual role alongside Nayanthara and Sneha Ullal. In 2012, he made his fourth film "Dammu", starring Jr NTR, Trisha and Karthika Nair. Later in 2014, Boyapati reunited with Balakrishna for "Legend" which opened to positive reviews with critics opining that he has delivered a "mass, masala entertainer with some sentimental touch that will appeal to both the classes and the masses."


title: Dayanara Torres

text: Dayanara Torres Delgado (born October 28, 1974) is a Puerto Rican actress, singer, model, writer and beauty queen who won Miss Universe 1993.


title: Dayanara Torres

text: Torres was discovered at age 17 while walking through the Plaza de Toa Alta in her hometown, and was invited to represent Toa Alta in the annual Miss Puerto Rico pageant. She won the pageant and the right to represent Puerto Rico in the 1993 Miss Universe pageant. In 1992, she participated in the Miss International pageant and became a semi-finalist. The same year, she earned second place at the Queen of the World contest.


title: Dayanara Torres

text: Torres won the crown in the Miss Universe pageant held in Mexico in May 1993. Torres' victory in the pageant caused some controversy because of the claim that she was still a minor; however, Torres had turned 18 several months before the contest. Her victory also raised some eyebrows, as she did not top any of the pageant's segments. When Torres returned home to Puerto Rico, she was received with a parade.


title: Dayanara Torres

text: During and after her reign as Miss Universe, she became an ambassador for UNICEF, traveling through Asia and Latin America in support of the organization. She created the Dayanara Torres Foundation which has provided scholarships to poor students in Puerto Rico and the Philippines. In 1994, she went to Manila to crown the new Miss Universe and during the ceremony, she sang "A Whole New World" as a duet with Peabo Bryson.


title: Dayanara Torres

text: After the 1994 Miss Universe pageant, Torres landed several movie roles, made television appearances, and received offers to endorse products. She became a celebrity in the Philippines and lived in the country for five years. During her time in the Philippines, Torres learned to speak Filipino, the national language of the country.


title: Dayanara Torres

text: She appeared in more than 10 movies, including "Hataw Na", a film with Filipino actor and singer Gary Valenciano (who is half-Puerto Rican). During that time, she also filmed "Linda Sara" (1994), a Puerto Rican film directed by Jacobo Morales in which she was paired with fellow Puerto Rican singer, Chayanne. She also became a staple figure on Philippine television every Sunday on the show "ASAP Mania", where her dancing skills gained her the informal title "Dancing Queen."


title: Dayanara Torres

text: Torres returned to Puerto Rico in 1998 and as a singer released her only album called "Antifaz". It reached the top of "Billboard" charts in Latin America and the Philippines. She also starred in several theater productions on the island. That same year, a "Dayanara" doll was released and sold out in both Puerto Rico and the Philippines.


title: Dayanara Torres

text: On September 1, 2005, Torres debuted in an American soap opera, playing a small role in "The Young and the Restless". The program's producers expressed an interest in future appearances. To date, Torres has not made any other appearances on the show. Torres later starred in "Watch Over Me", a MyNetworkTV primetime drama.


title: Dayanara Torres

text: In 2008, Torres was included in "People" magazine's "Most Beautiful People" list. During the celebration ceremony, Torres stated she authored the self-help book "Married to Me" when she failed to find a book to help her with her 2003 separation from Marc Anthony in bookstores.


title: Dayanara Torres

text: In 2017, Torres made a return to the country as a judge for Miss Universe 2016, along with various guest appearances on Philippine television.


title: Dayanara Torres

text: In February 2017, Torres was asked whether or not she would be willing to do a romantic TV series with her former boyfriend and leading man Aga Muhlach; she said she was more than willing to do so.


title: Dayanara Torres

text: Torres has two older brothers, José and Joey, and a younger sister, Jeannette. She finished her studies in Colegio Santa Rosa in Bayamón, Puerto Rico, with the intention of going to college to become an orthodontist.


title: Dayanara Torres

text: While she was in the Philippines, Torres had a four-year relationship with Filipino actor Aga Muhlach, now married to Charlene Gonzalez, a Miss Universe 1994 top six finalist. Torres and Muhlach first met on the set of her first Philippine movie, "Basta't Kasama Kita" (""As Long As I'm with You"").


title: Dayanara Torres

text: Torres married singer Marc Anthony on May 9, 2000, in Las Vegas. They have two sons, Cristian Anthony Muñiz (5 February 2001) and Ryan Anthony Muñiz (16 August 2003). Their marriage was rocky, and they separated in the summer of 2002. They later reconciled and renewed their vows in a ceremony held in Puerto Rico in December 2002.


title: Dayanara Torres

text: The couple's final separation was in October 2003 and Torres filed for divorce in January 2004. The divorce was finalized June 1, 2004.


title: Dayanara Torres

text: In June 2014, a divorce court approved an increase from $13,400 to $26,800 in monthly child support payments; Torres had originally asked for monthly payments of $123,426 alleging Marc Anthony had spent only 35 days with their two children in 2012 but the Court found he had spent 71 days.


title: Malaysian identity card

text: The Malaysian identity card (), is the compulsory identity card for Malaysian citizens aged 12 and above. The current identity card, known as MyKad, was introduced by the "National Registration Department of Malaysia" on 5 September 2001 as one of four MSC Malaysia flagship applications and a replacement for the High Quality Identity Card ("Kad Pengenalan Bermutu Tinggi"), Malaysia became the first country in the world to use an identification card that incorporates both photo identification and fingerprint biometric data on an in-built computer chip embedded in a piece of plastic.


title: Malaysian identity card

text: Besides the main purpose of the card as a validation tool and proof of citizenship other than the birth certificate, MyKad may also serve as a valid driver's license, an ATM card, an electronic purse, and a public key, among other applications, as part of the Malaysian Government Multipurpose Card (GMPC) initiative, if the bearer chooses to activate the functions.


title: Malaysian identity card

text: Other cards which are currently in use or soon to be introduced in the GMPC initiative and share similar features are:


title: Malaysian identity card

text: The initial MyKad was a contact card solution developed and manufactured by IRIS Corporation. Made of PC with the dimensions in the ISO/IEC 7816 ID-1 format (standard credit card format), the initial card had a 32kb EEPROM (Electronically Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory) embedded chip running on M-COS (MyKad Chip Operating System). In November 2002, the capacity was increased to 64kb.


title: Malaysian identity card

text: The upgraded and current version of the MyKad is a hybrid card containing two chips for both contact and contactless interfaces. Currently, this hybrid type MyKad is only issued in Malaysian states that employ the Touch 'n Go application.


title: Malaysian identity card

text: The MyKad chip has a data retention up to 20 years, while the card itself has a lifespan of 10 years and has been tested according to the ISO 10373 standard.


title: Malaysian identity card

text: All Malaysian citizens and permanent residents 12 years old or above are eligible for a MyKad. From 2001, it gradually replaced an older Malaysian Identity Card system, that had been in use since 1949 under British colonial rule, with the intention of becoming ubiquitous by 2007. Children are issued with a MyKid after birth. This card is "upgraded" to a MyKad on the 12th birthday. The MyKad must be replaced when a person reaches 18 years old, as it is a requirement that the photograph be "current".


title: Malaysian identity card

text: Adoption was optional but was spurred by the waiving of the application fee of between RM20 and RM50 until 31 December 2005. As of 27 December 2005, 1,180,208 Malaysians still held an old identity card. After the waiving period ended on 31 December 2005, each new first-time application comes with a fee of RM10.


title: Malaysian identity card

text: The current format of the Malaysian identity card number, introduced in 1990, features 12 digits separated into three block by hyphens, as illustrated below:


title: Malaysian identity card

text: The above format is the official format as printed on the official identity documents e.g. MyKad. However, for database purposes (e.g. sorting), the NRIC Number may have its hyphens omitted, hence:


title: Malaysian identity card

text: The first six digits YYMMDD signify the person's date of birth in the format; for example, a person born on 16 September 1963, would have 630916 as the first six digits of their identity card. A person born on 1 January 1900 would have 000101 as the first digits, same with a person born on 1 January 2000. In cases where the person's actual date of birth according to the Gregorian calendar is uncertain, the date on which the person first applied for a MyKad is used (which becomes the person's birthday for official purposes), noted by an asterisk (*).


title: Malaysian identity card

text: PB, the seventh and eighth digit, based on the place of birth of the person, which will be referred from the birth certificate upon application of the MyKad.


title: Malaysian identity card

text: <nowiki>###</nowiki>, the ninth through eleventh digit is the generic special number generated by the National Registration Department of Malaysia's computer system. Usually, a person born prior and in the year 1999 will have the number started with 5## or 6## or 7## while a person born after and in the year 2000 will have the number started with 0##. Sometimes, the number reaches 1##, 2## and even 3## for high birth rate areas.


title: Malaysian identity card

text: G, the 12th digit represents the gender of the person. The odd numbers 1 / 3 / 5 / 7 / 9 denote male while the even numbers 2 / 4 / 6 / 8 / 0 denote female. This is a myth that has been debunked by the home minister of Malaysia in 2017. The last 4-digits are computer generated and not indicative of gender. Many Malaysians received the ID number that is not represented by the format above.


title: Malaysian identity card

text: On the back of the card, there is an additional 2-digit number after the 12-digit number to indicate the number of MyKad which a person previously held.


title: Malaysian identity card

text: Prior to 2001, originally, any person who was born abroad used digit 71 or 72 in their identity card number (High Quality Identity Card), regardless with or without at least one legal ascendant with Malaysian citizenship. It is estimated that about 171,023 registered voters who born abroad and used digit 71 or 72 in MyKad.


title: Malaysian identity card

text: However, since 2001, any baby who was born abroad after 2001 is referred according to their place of birth rather than general digit 71 or 72 in their MyKad. It also affected any person (including citizen or non-citizen) who was born abroad regardless of their year of birth; who applying MyKad without holding High Quality Identity Card after 2001. Despite that, if any person born abroad who already had High Quality Identity Card which means they registered their identity card before 2001, they still retain digit 71 or 72 to be used in their MyKad identity card number. High Quality Identity Card was in use as the Malaysia's identity card from 1990 to 2001. After 2001, a person with High Quality Identity Card is expected to renew their High Quality Identity Card with new MyKad.


title: Malaysian identity card

text: The extensible design of the card may be leading to functionality creep. Further applications envisaged by the government include:


title: Malaysian identity card

text: MyKad must be carried at all times. Failure to do so may incur a fine of between RM3,000 and RM20,000 or jail term of up to three years.


title: Malaysian identity card

text: No unauthorised people, including security guards, are allowed to retain the MyKads of other people. Only those authorised by the National Registration Department, like the police and immigration officers, can do so.


title: Malaysian identity card

text: For Muslim citizens, "Islam" is printed on the card below the picture of the holder. This is to help the enforcement of Shariah law which is only applicable to Muslims.


title: Malaysian identity card

text: As the state of Sabah and Sarawak maintain separate immigration controls, citizens who have permanent residency in the state of Sabah and Sarawak are denoted by the letters "H" and "K" respectively on the bottom right corner of the card.


title: Malaysian identity card

text: MyKad's Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) application allows for two digital certificates to be inserted. MyKad holders can apply and purchase the digital certificates from two of Malaysia's certification authority, MSCTrustgate.com Sdn. Bhd. and DigiCert Sdn. Bhd..


title: Malaysian identity card

text: PKI allows for easy securing of private data over public telecommunications networks, thus allowing, secure electronic transactions over the Internet which include:


title: Malaysian identity card

text: Citizens from Peninsular Malaysia travelling to Sabah , Sarawak and Labuan can produce a MyKad on arrival to obtain a Document in Lieu of Internal Travel Document (IMM.114) for social and business visits not more than three months. Sabah and Sarawak each maintains a separate immigration control system, and Peninsular Malaysians are subject to immigration control in the two states and Federal Territories.


title: Malaysian identity card

text: Malaysia and Brunei signed a frequent travellers cards (FTC) agreement on 10 September 2007, allowing Malaysian and Bruneian frequent travellers to register to use their national identity cards for travel between Malaysia and Brunei.


title: Malaysian identity card

text: As Malaysia stopped issuing and renewing Restricted Passports for citizens from Peninsular Malaysia to travel to Singapore beginning 1 January 2005, Malaysia considered negotiating with Singapore to allow frequent Malaysian travellers to enter Singapore using MyKad. However, Singapore rejected the use of MyKad by frequent Malaysian travellers to enter the country, citing security concerns.


title: Malaysian identity card

text: The MyID is a Malaysian Government initiative that implements the National Registration Identity Card Number as the sole reference number for Malaysians in their transactions as an individual with the government agencies.


title: Malaysian identity card

text: MyKid is a chip-based children identity card or personal identification document issued to children under the age of 12. Introduced on 1 January 2003, MyKid contains features similar to MyKad except that it does not include a photograph and thumbprint biometric data. For registration of new birth, MyKid will be processed during the application for registration of birth. Children born before 2003 do not get a MyKid.


title: Malaysian identity card

text: MyKid is issued in pink instead of blue (colour of MyKad). Visible data for MyKid in block letters include:


title: Malaysian identity card

text: MyPR is an identity card or personal identification issued to residents of Malaysia with permanent resident status. All residents of Malaysia with permanent resident status are required to change their identity card to MyPR with effect from 1 June 2006. The MyPR is red and visible data include:


title: Malaysian identity card

text: MyKAS is a temporary resident identity card issued under Regulation 5 (3) of the National Registration Regulations 1990. It is green with expiry date indicated on the card.


title: Malaysian identity card

text: The MyTentera will replace the current BAT C 10 document (Malay: "Borang Angkatan Tentera C 10") (Armed Forces Form C 10).


title: Malaysian identity card

text: The MyTentera will be silver and feature the Malaysian Armed Forces logo at the back top-right corner. It will also contain a 12-digit military identification number similar to the NRIC Number.


title: Artemisia (plant)

text: Artemisia () is a large, diverse genus of plants with between 200 and 400 species belonging to the daisy family Asteraceae. Common names for various species in the genus include mugwort, wormwood, and sagebrush.


title: Artemisia (plant)

text: "Artemisia" comprises hardy herbaceous plants and shrubs, which are known for the powerful chemical constituents in their essential oils. "Artemisia" species grow in temperate climates of both hemispheres, usually in dry or semiarid habitats. Notable species include "A. vulgaris" (common mugwort), "A. tridentata" (big sagebrush), "A. annua" (sagewort), "A. absinthium" (wormwood), "A. dracunculus" (tarragon), and "A. abrotanum" (southernwood). The leaves of many species are covered with white hairs.


title: Artemisia (plant)

text: Most species have strong aromas and bitter tastes from terpenoids and sesquiterpene lactones, which discourage herbivory, and may have had a selective advantage. The small flowers are wind-pollinated. "Artemisia" species are used as food plants by the larvae of a number of Lepidoptera species.


title: Artemisia (plant)

text: Some botanists split the genus into several genera, but DNA analysis does not support the maintenance of the genera "Crossostephium", "Filifolium", "Neopallasia", "Seriphidium", and "Sphaeromeria"; three other segregate genera — "Stilnolepis", "Elachanthemum", and "Kaschgaria" — are maintained by this evidence. Occasionally, some of the species are called sages, causing confusion with the "Salvia" sages in the family Lamiaceae.


title: Artemisia (plant)

text: The genus was erected by Carl Linnaeus in 1753. The name "Artemisia" derives from the Greek goddess Artemis (Roman Diana), the namesake of Greek Queens Artemisia I and II. A more specific reference may be to Artemisia II of Caria, a botanist and medical researcher (also a queen and naval commander), who died in 350 BC.


title: Artemisia (plant)

text: Classification of "Artemisia" is difficult. Divisions of "Artemisia" prior to 2000 into subgenera or sections have not been backed up by molecular data, but much of the molecular data, as of 2006, are not especially strong. The following identified groups do not include all the species in the genus.


title: Artemisia (plant)

text: Subgenera "Artemisia" and "Absinthium" are sometimes, but not always, considered the same. Subgenus "Artemisia" (originally "Abrotanum" Besser) is characterized by a heterogamous flower head with female outer florets and hermaphrodite central florets, and a fertile, glabrous receptacle. "Absinthium" DC, though sometimes merged with subgenus "Artemisia" is characterized by heterogamous flower head with female outer florets and hermaphrodite central florets, and a fertile, hairy receptacle. Generally, previously proposed monotypic and non-monophyletic subgenera have been merged with the subgenus "Artemesia" due to molecular evidence. For example, in 2011 using ribosomal DNA analysis of their own and a review of molecular data (such as ITS sequence analysis) of others, S. Garcia and colleagues argued that it was logical to rename several "Sphaeromeria" and "Picrothamnus" (formerly designated sister genera to "Artemisia") species as "Artemisia", as well as to revert some "Sphaeromeria" species back to "Artemisia", where they had been categorized previously. Part of this was due to research by Watson and colleagues, who found that the four subgenera were not monophyletic except for "Dracunculus," after analyzing and matching the internal transcribed spacers of nuclear ribosomal DNA from many "Seriphidium" and "Artemisia" species, and the related genera "Arctanthemum" and "Dendranthema". The authors concluded that inflorescence morphology is not alone reliable for categorizing the genus or some subgenera, as qualities that previously demarcated them (such as homogamous, discoid, ray-less inflorescences) seemed to have undergone paralleled evolution up to seven times. "Picrothamnus" Nutt. (“bud sage”), now considered "Artemisia spinescens" and "Sphaeromeria" Nutt. (“chicken sage”) are some examples, both endemic to North America.


title: Artemisia (plant)

text: Section "Tridentatae" consists of eleven to thirteen species of coarse shrubs often known colloquially as "sagebrushes", which are very prominent parts of the flora in western North America. In some classifications, they have previously been considered part of the genus or subgenus "Seriphidium", although recent studies have contested this lineage to Old World species. "Tridentatae" was first articulated as a section by Rydberg in 1916, and it was not until McArthur et al. in 1981 that "Tridentatae" was elevated to a separate subgenus from "Seriphidium". The principal motive for their separation was geographical distribution, chemical makeup, and karyotype. Much of the debate surrounding Tridentatae is phytogeographic, thus habitat and geography are frequently cited when understanding the evolution of this endemic North American subgenus. Evolutionary cycles of wet and dry climates encouraged “diploid and polyploid races which are morphologically similar if not indistinguishable” (McArthur 598).


title: Artemisia (plant)

text: Autopolyploidy among plants is not uncommon, however "Tridentatae" exhibits a remarkable amount of chromosomal differences at the population level, rather than the taxon level. This contributes to the difficulty in determining "Tridentatae's" phylogeny. The subgenus’ relative homogeneity within ploidies has enabled it to habitually hybridize and backcross, resulting in a high degree of genetic variation at the population level rather than the taxon level. For instance, some articles suggest that to be monophyletic, section "Tridentatae" should exclude "Artemisia bigelovii" and "Artemisia palmeri". and include "Artemisia pygmaea" and "Artemisia rigida". These results were supported by extensive chloroplast DNA (cpDNA) and nrDNA sequencing which departed from prior morphological, anatomical, and behavioral data.


title: Artemisia (plant)

text: Traditional lineages within "Tridentatae" were proposed on the basis of leaf morphology, habitat preference, and the ability to leaf-sprout, among other morphological and behavioral characteristics. For instance, sagebrush in the "Artemisia tridentata" lineage have tridentate leaves, live in especially arid habitats, and are unable to root-sprout. This method of delimitation is problematic for species that do not fully adhere to the characteristics of a given lineage. The dry habitat and the presence of interxylary cork has often made the case for "Tridentatae" as a subgenus of its own, and there is some ribosomal molecular evidence of a “"Tridentatae" core” group for the subgenus. In 2011, Garcia and colleagues proposed enlarging "Tridentatae" and organized it into the sections "Tridentatae", "Nebulosae", and "Filifoliae" based on previous research establishing relationships via ribosomal and nuclear DNA.


title: Artemisia (plant)

text: Intergrading forms are particularly common in recently radiated subgenera such as "Tridentatae", given their frequent reversals and convergent evolution. Global reviews of "Artemisia" using ITS analysis support the hypothesis that "Tridentatae" has independent origins from Old World "Seriphidium" These findings were compared with capitula morphology, challenging past assumptions based on floral characteristics. To better understand the rapid diversification and radiation relative to Old World "Artemisia", a closer study of Beriginian or Arctic species may provide missing links.


title: Artemisia (plant)

text: Section "Tridentatae" includes above species with exception of "Artemisia longiloba", which is treated as a subspecies of "Artemisia arbuscula". Section "Nebulae" includes "Artemisia californica", "Artemisia nesiotica", and "Artemisia filifolia".


title: Artemisia (plant)

text: The Old World species which different classifications put into the genus or subgenus "Seriphidium" consist of about 125 species native to Europe and temperate Asia, with the largest number of species in Central Asia. Some classifications, such as that of the Flora of North America, exclude any New World plants from "Seriphidium". They are herbaceous plants or small shrubs.


title: Artemisia (plant)

text: "Seriphidium" Besser was morphologically categorized by a homogamous flower head with all hermaphrodite florets and fertile and glabrous receptacle. "Tridentatae" was originally categorized as within "Seriphidium" due to floral, inflorescence, and leaf morphological similarities, until McArthur et al.’s analysis in 1981, which explained these similarities as convergent evolution. Old World "Seriphidium", with 125 species native to Europe and temperate Asia, was a previous classification of "Seriphidium. North American or "New World" Seriphidium and Old World Seriphidium." North American "Seriphidium" were later placed into "Tridentatae" Rydb due to geographical distribution, growth habit, and karyotypic and chemotaxonomic similarities (such as presence of certain terpenols).


title: Artemisia (plant)

text: One group which is well-supported by molecular data is subgenus "Dracunculus". It consists of 80 species found in both North America and Eurasia, of which the best-known is perhaps "Artemisia dracunculus", the spice tarragon.


title: Artemisia (plant)

text: "Dracunculus" Besser. has historically been characterized morphologically by a heterogamous flower head with female outer florets and hermaphrodite central florets, but with a female-sterile, glabrous receptacle. "Dracunculus" is the most supported and resolved subgenus of "Artemisia", which includes "Artemisia" "dracunculus" L., known as the cooking spice tarragon. Chloroplast and ribosomal DNA sequence analysis in 2011 supported monophyly with two clades, one of which includes some North American endemic species as well as most species of Europe and Asia, while the second clade includes just "A. salsoloides" and "A. Tanaitica", found in Eastern Europe and Siberia to the Western Himalayas. This study places "Dracunculus" as one of the more recent subgenera within Artemisia, situating "A. Salisoides" more basally on the tree, with North American endemic groups such as the sagebrushes having derived on the other end of a split from a common ancestor with "Dracunculus". Formerly proposed genera "Mausolea", "Neopallasia" and "Turaniphytum" are now argued to be within the subgenus "Dracunculus" due to ribosomal and chloroplast DNA evidence, with further species resolved as sister groups to "Dracunculus" due to phytochemical relationships.


title: Artemisia (plant)

text: The aromatic leaves of some species are used for flavouring. Most species have an extremely bitter taste. "A. dracunculus" (tarragon) is widely used as a culinary herb, particularly important in French cuisine.


title: Artemisia (plant)

text: "Artemisia vulgaris" (mugwort) was used to repel midges (mug > midge), fleas and moths, intestinal worms, and in brewing (mugwort beer, mugwort wine) as a remedy against hangovers and nightmares.


title: Artemisia (plant)

text: "Artemisia absinthium" is used to make the highly potent spirits absinthe. Malört also contains wormwood. The aperitif vermouth (derived from the German word "Wermut", "wormwood") is a wine flavored with aromatic herbs, but originally with wormwood.


title: Artemisia (plant)

text: "Artemisia arborescens" (tree wormwood, or "sheeba" in Arabic) is an aromatic herb indigenous to the Middle East used in tea, usually with mint.


title: Artemisia (plant)

text: A few species are grown as ornamental plants, the fine-textured ones used for clipped bordering. All grow best in free-draining sandy soil, unfertilized, and in full sun.


title: Artemisia (plant)

text: "Artemisia stelleriana" is known as Dusty Miller, but several other species bear that name, including "Jacobaea maritima" (syn. "Senecio cineraria"), "Silene coronaria" (syn. "Lychnis coronaria"), and "Centaurea cineraria".


title: Artemisia (plant)

text: The largest collection of living Artemisia species, subspecies and cultivars is held in the National Collection of Artemisia in Sidmouth, Devon, UK , which holds about 400 taxa. The National Collection scheme is administered by Plant Heritage (formerly National Council for Conservation of Plants and Gardens, NCCPG) in the British Isles.


title: Artemisia (plant)

text: Artemisinin (from "Artemisia annua") and derivatives are a group of compounds used to treat malaria. Treatments containing an artemisinin derivative (artemisinin-combination therapies) are now standard treatment worldwide for malaria caused by "Plasmodium falciparum". Administering "Artemisia annua" as dried whole leaves may cause resistance to develop more slowly than if it is administered as pure artemisenin.


title: Artemisia (plant)

text: The World Health Organization does not support the promotion or use of "Artemisia" plant material in any form for the prevention or treatment of malaria. They note that the plant form of medication has several problems. These include a lack of consistent "Artemisia" content, the content being low enough that recurrence of malaria often occurs, that the use of the plant may contribute to widespread artemisinin resistance, and that the plant form is not effective in malaria prevention.


title: Artemisia (plant)

text: "Artemisia" species are found on every continent except Antarctica, and have become part of many ecosystems around the world as a result. Below is currently a partial view of the importance of "Artemisia" species in ecosystems around the world.


title: Artemisia (plant)

text: In North America, several species of "Artemisia" have become important parts of local environments, with wide adaptability. "Artemisia papposa" described by S.F.Blake & Arthur Cronquist can grow in the harsh, dry expanses of alkali flats, but also adapts to meadowlands.


title: Artemisia (plant)

text: Sagebrushes like "A. papposa" (of the "Tridenteae" subgenus) in general are found in the north and southwest areas of the North American continent. In the Intermountain West, in a habitat known as Sagebrush Steppe, "A. tridentata", "A. tripartite", and "A. arbuscula" grow alongside various grasses and species of bitter bush, creating an important environment for mule deer, pygmy rabbits, antelopes, and the sage grouse. Understanding the phylogenetic relationships among the sagebrushes has been helpful in understanding the relationships among these plants and their environments, as well as learning more about how these plants formed these communities over long stretches of time. Sagebrushes, which include "A." "ludoviciana" and "A. Tridentata" among others, can often also be found growing near junipers, particularly in the Elkhorn Mountain region, where the Juniper Woodlands form an ecosystem which provide cover for many animal species in both summer and winter months and storms. Because the habitat should burn only every 400–600 years, with sagebrush shrubs living as long as 200 years (though potentially typically 88), this particular combination of "Artemisia" with other flora form an enduring habitat. As it often goes, however, governments and farming businesses have often cleared sagebrush-juniper communities to create land for cow and domestic animal feedcrops, and Artemisia species may be declining due to this and invasive species such as cheatgrass. Destabilization of the vegetation creates higher risk of fires, causing concern among the local conservation and wildlife groups.


title: Artemisia (plant)

text: Due to their often extensive rhizome systems and other potential characteristics, however, some Artemisia species are often resilient to mowing or pulling, giving some species of Artemisia the ability to easily become invasive if introduced to comfortable, though non-native habitats.


title: Seashell

text: A seashell or sea shell, also known simply as a shell, is a hard, protective outer layer usually created by an animal or organism that lives in the sea. The shell is part of the body of the animal. Empty seashells are often found washed up on beaches by beachcombers. The shells are empty because the animal has died and the soft parts have decomposed or been eaten by another animal.


title: Seashell

text: A seashell is usually the exoskeleton of an invertebrate (an animal without a backbone), and is typically composed of calcium carbonate or chitin. Most shells that are found on beaches are the shells of marine mollusks, partly because these shells are usually made of calcium carbonate, and endure better than shells made of chitin.


title: Seashell

text: Apart from mollusk shells, other shells that can be found on beaches are those of barnacles, horseshoe crabs and brachiopods. Marine annelid worms in the family Serpulidae create shells which are tubes made of calcium carbonate cemented onto other surfaces. The shells of sea urchins are called "tests", and the moulted shells of crabs and lobsters are exuviae. While most seashells are external, some cephalopods have internal shells.


title: Seashell

text: Seashells have been used by humans for many different purposes throughout history and prehistory. However, seashells are not the only kind of shells; in various habitats, there are shells from freshwater animals such as freshwater mussels and freshwater snails, and shells of land snails.


title: Seashell

text: When the word "seashells" refers only to the shells of marine mollusks, then studying seashells is part of conchology. Conchologists or serious collectors who have a scientific bias are in general careful not to disturb living populations and habitats: even though they may collect a few live animals, most responsible collectors do not often over-collect or otherwise disturb ecosystems.


title: Seashell

text: The study of the entire molluscan animal (as well as the shell) is known as malacology; a person who studies mollusks is known as a malacologist.


title: Seashell

text: Seashells are commonly found in beach drift, which is natural detritus deposited along strandlines on beaches by the waves and the tides. Shells are very often washed up onto a beach empty and clean, the animal having already died.


title: Seashell

text: Empty seashells are often picked up by beachcombers. However, the majority of seashells which are offered for sale commercially have been collected alive (often in bulk) and then killed and cleaned, specifically for the commercial trade. This type of large-scale exploitation can sometimes have a strong negative impact on local ecosystems, and sometimes can significantly reduce the distribution of rare species.


title: Seashell

text: Seashells are created by the molluscs that use them for protection. Molluscs have an outside layer of tissues on their bodies the mantle which creates the shell material and which connects the shell to the mollusc. The specialized cells in the mantle form the shell using different minerals and proteins. The proteins are then used to create the framework that supports the growing shell. Calcium carbonate is the main compound of shell structure, aiding in adhesion.


title: Seashell

text: The word "seashell" is often used to mean only the shell of a marine mollusk. Marine mollusk shells that are familiar to beachcombers and thus most likely to be called "seashells" are the shells of marine species of bivalves (or clams), gastropods (or snails), scaphopods (or tusk shells), polyplacophorans (or chitons), and cephalopods (such as nautilus and spirula). These shells are very often the most commonly encountered, both in the wild, and for sale as decorative objects.


title: Seashell

text: Marine species of gastropods and bivalves are more numerous than land and freshwater species, and the shells are often larger and more robust. The shells of marine species also often have more sculpture and more color, although this is by no means always the case.


title: Seashell

text: In the tropical and sub-tropical areas of the planet, there are far more species of colorful, large, shallow water shelled marine mollusks than there are in the temperate zones and the regions closer to the poles.


title: Seashell

text: Although there are a number of species of shelled mollusks that are quite large, there are vast numbers of extremely small species too, see micromollusks.


title: Seashell

text: Not all mollusks are marine. There are numerous land and freshwater mollusks, see for example snail and freshwater bivalves. In addition, not all mollusks have an external shell: some mollusks such as some cephalopods (squid and octopuses) have an internal shell, and many mollusks have no shell, see for example slug and nudibranch.


title: Seashell

text: Bivalves are often the most common seashells that wash up on large sandy beaches or in sheltered lagoons. They can sometimes be extremely numerous. Very often the two valves become separated.


title: Seashell

text: There are more than 15,000 species of bivalves that live in both marine and freshwater. Examples of bivalves are clams, scallops, mussels, and oysters. The majority of bivalves consist of two identical shells that are held together by a flexible hinge. The animal's body is held protectively inside these two shells. Bivalves that do not have two shells either have one shell or they lack a shell altogether. The shells are made of calcium carbonate and are formed in layers by secretions from the mantle. Bivalves, also known as pelecypods, are mostly filter feeders; through their gills, they draw in water, in which is trapped tiny food particles. Some bivalves have eyes and an open circulatory system. Bivalves are used all over the world as food and as a source of pearls. The larvae of some freshwater mussels can be dangerous to fish and can bore through wood.


title: Seashell

text: Shell Beach, Western Australia, is a beach which is entirely made up of the shells of the cockle "Fragum erugatum".


title: Seashell

text: Certain species of gastropod seashells (the shells of sea snails) can sometimes be common, washed up on sandy beaches, and also on beaches that are surrounded by rocky marine habitat.


title: Seashell

text: Chiton plates or valves often wash up on beaches in rocky areas where chitons are common. Chiton shells, which are composed of eight separate plates and a girdle, usually come apart not long after death, so they are almost always found as disarticulated plates. Plates from larger species of chitons are sometimes known as "butterfly shells" because of their shape.


title: Seashell

text: Only a few species of cephalopods have shells (either internal or external) that are sometimes found washed up on beaches.


title: Seashell

text: Some cephalopods such as "Sepia", the cuttlefish, have a large internal shell, the cuttlefish bone, and this often washes up on beaches in parts of the world where cuttlefish are common.


title: Seashell

text: "Spirula spirula" is a deep water squid-like cephalopod. It has an internal shell which is small (about 1 in or 24 mm) but very light and buoyant. This chambered shell floats very well and therefore washes up easily and is familiar to beachcombers in the tropics.


title: Seashell

text: "Nautilus" is the only genus of cephalopod that has a well-developed external shell. Females of the cephalopod genus "Argonauta" create a papery egg case which sometimes washes up on tropical beaches and is referred to as a "paper nautilus".


title: Seashell

text: The largest group of shelled cephalopods, the ammonites, are extinct, but their shells are very common in certain areas as fossils.


title: Seashell

text: Empty molluscan seashells are a sturdy, and usually readily available, "free" resource which is often easily found on beaches, in the intertidal zone, and in the shallow subtidal zone. As such they are sometimes used second-hand by animals other than humans for various purposes, including for protection (as in hermit crabs) and for construction.


title: Seashell

text: There are numerous popular books and field guides on the subject of shell-collecting. Although there are a number of books about land and freshwater mollusks, the majority of popular books emphasize, or focus exclusively on, the shells of marine mollusks. Both the science of studying mollusk shells and the hobby of collecting and classifying them are known as conchology. The line between professionals and amateur enthusiasts is often not well defined in this subject, because many amateurs have contributed to, and continue to contribute to, conchology and the larger science of malacology. Many shell collectors belong to "shell clubs" where they can meet others who share their interests. A large number of amateurs collect the shells of marine mollusks, and this is partly because many shells wash up empty on beaches, or live in the intertidal or sub-tidal zones, and are therefore easily found and preserved without much in the way of specialized equipment or expensive supplies. Some shell collectors find their own material and keep careful records, or buy only "specimen shells", which means shells which have full collecting data: information including how, when, where, in what habitat, and by whom, the shells were collected. On the other hand, some collectors buy the more widely available commercially imported exotic shells, the majority of which have very little data, or none at all. To museum scientists, having full collecting data (when, where, and by whom it was collected) with a specimen is far more important than having the shell correctly identified. Some owners of shell collections hope to be able to donate their collection to a major natural history or zoology museum at some point, however, shells with little or no collecting data are usually of no value to science, and are likely not to be accepted by a major museum. Apart from any damage to the shell that may have happened "before" it was collected, shells can also suffer damage when they are stored or displayed. For an example of one rather serious kind of damage see Byne's disease.


title: Seashell

text: There are a number of clubs or societies which consist of people who are united by a shared interest in shells. In the US, these clubs are more common in southerly coastal areas, such as Florida and California, where the marine fauna is rich in species.


title: Seashell

text: Seashells are usually identified by consulting general or regional shell-collecting field guides, and specific scientific books on different taxa of shell-bearing mollusks (monographs) or "iconographies" (limited text – mainly photographs or other illustrations). (For a few titles on this subject in the US, see the list of books at the foot of this article.) Identifications to the species level are generally achieved by examining illustrations and written descriptions, rather than by the use of Identification keys, as is often the case in identifying plants and other phyla of invertebrates. The construction of functional keys for the identification of the shells of marine mollusks to the species level can be very difficult, because of the great variability within many species and families. The identification of certain individual species is often very difficult, even for a specialist in that particular family. Some species cannot be differentiated on the basis of shell character alone.


title: Seashell

text: Numerous smaller and more obscure mollusk species (see micromollusk) are yet to be discovered and named. In other words, they have not yet been differentiated from similar species and assigned scientific (binomial) names in articles in journals recognized by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN). Large numbers of new species are published in the scientific literature each year. There are currently an estimated 100,000 species of mollusks worldwide.


title: Seashell

text: The term "seashell" is also applied loosely to mollusk shells that are not of marine origin, for example by people walking the shores of lakes and rivers using the term for the freshwater mollusk shells they encounter. Seashells purchased from tourist shops or dealers may include various freshwater and terrestrial shells as well. Non-marine items offered may include large and colorful tropical land snail shells, freshwater apple snail shells, and pearly freshwater unionid mussel shells. This can be confusing to collectors, as non-marine shells are often not included in their reference books.


title: Seashell

text: Seashells have been used as a medium of exchange in various places, including many Indian Ocean and Pacific Ocean islands, also in North America, Africa and the Caribbean.


title: Seashell

text: Because seashells are in some areas a readily available bulk source of calcium carbonate, shells such as oyster shells are sometimes used as soil conditioners in horticulture. The shells are broken or ground into small pieces in order to have the desired effect of raising the pH and increasing the calcium content in the soil.


title: Seashell

text: Seashells have been used as musical instruments, wind instruments for many hundreds if not thousands of years. Most often the shells of large sea snails are used, as trumpets, by cutting a hole in the spire of the shell or cutting off the tip of the spire altogether. Various different kinds of large marine gastropod shells can be turned into "blowing shells", however the most commonly encountered species used as "conch" trumpets are:


title: Seashell

text: Children in some cultures are often told the myth that you can hear the sound of the ocean by holding a seashell to ones ear. This is due to the effect of seashell resonance.


title: Seashell

text: Whole seashells or parts of sea shells have been used as jewelry or in other forms of adornment since prehistoric times. Mother of pearl was historically primarily a seashell product, although more recently some mother of pearl comes from freshwater mussels. Also see pearl.


title: Seashell

text: "Sailor's Valentines" were late 19th-century decorative keepsakes which were made from the Caribbean, and which were often purchased by sailors to give to their loved ones back home for example in England. These valentines consisted of elaborate arrangements of small seashells glued into attractive symmetrical designs, which were encased on a wooden (usually octagonal) hinged box-frame. The patterns used often featured heart-shaped designs, or included a sentimental expression of love spelled out in small shells.


title: Seashell

text: The making of shell work artifacts is a practice of Aboriginal women from La Perouse in Sydney, dating back to the 19th century. Shell work objects include baby shoes, jewelry boxes and replicas of famous landmarks, including the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Sydney Opera House. The shellwork tradition began as an Aboriginal women's craft which was adapted and tailored to suit the tourist souvenir market, and which is now considered high art.


title: Seashell

text: Small pieces of colored and iridescent shell have been used to create mosaics and inlays, which have been used to decorate walls, furniture and boxes. Large numbers of whole seashells, arranged to form patterns, have been used to decorate mirror frames, furniture and man-made shell grottos.


title: Seashell

text: A very large outdoor sculpture at Akkulam of a gastropod seashell is a reference to the sacred chank shell "Turbinella pyrum" of India. In 2003, Maggi Hambling designed a striking 13 ft (4 m) high sculpture of a scallop shell which stands on the beach at Aldeburgh, in England. The goddess of love, Venus or Aphrodite, is often traditionally depicted rising from the sea on a seashell. In "The Birth of Venus", Botticelli depicted the goddess Venus rising from the ocean on a scallop shell.


title: Seashell

text: Sea shells found in the creek and backwater of the coast of west India are used as an additive to poultry feed. They are crushed and mixed with jowar maize and dry fish.


title: Seashell

text: Seashells, namely from bivalves and gastropods, are fundamentally composed of calcium carbonate. In this sense, they have potential to be used as raw material in the production of lime.


title: Seashell

text: Many arthropods have sclerites, or hardened body parts, which form a stiff exoskeleton made up mostly of chitin. In crustaceans, especially those of the class Malacostraca (crabs, shrimps and lobsters, for instance), the plates of the exoskeleton may be fused to form a more or less rigid carapace. Moulted carapaces of a variety of marine malacostraceans often wash up on beaches. The horseshoe crab is an arthropod of the family Limulidae. The shells or exuviae of these arachnid relatives are common in beach drift in certain areas of the world.


title: Seashell

text: Some echinoderms such as sea urchins, including heart urchins and sand dollars, have a hard "test" or shell. After the animal dies, the flesh rots out and the spines fall off, and then fairly often the empty test washes up whole onto a beach, where it can be found by a beachcomber. These tests are fragile and easily broken into pieces.


title: Seashell

text: The brachiopods, or lamp shells, superficially resemble clams, but the phylum is not closely related to mollusks. Most lines of brachiopods ended during the Permian-Triassic extinction event, and their ecological niche was filled by bivalves. A few of the remaining species of brachiopods occur in the low intertidal zone and thus can be found live by beachcombers.


title: Seashell

text: Some polychaetes, marine annelid worms in the family Serpulidae, secrete a hard tube made of calcium carbonate, adhering to stones or other shells. This tube resembles, and can be confused with, the shell of marine gastropod mollusks in the family Vermetidae, the worm snails.


title: Seashell

text: A few other categories of marine animals leave remains which might be considered "seashells" in the widest possible sense of the word.


title: Seashell

text: Sea turtles have a carapace and plastron of bone and cartilage which is developed from their ribs. Infrequently a turtle "shell" will wash up on a beach.


title: Seashell

text: The construction of the shell-like structures of corals are aided by a symbiotic relationship with a class of algae, zooxanthellae. Typically a coral polyp will harbor particular species of algae, which will photosynthesise and thereby provide energy for the coral and aid in calcification, while living in a safe environment and using the carbon dioxide and nitrogenous waste produced by the polyp. Coral bleaching is a disruption of the balance between polyps and algae, and can lead to the breakdown and death of coral reefs.


title: Seashell

text: The skeletons of soft corals such as gorgonians, also known as sea fans and sea whips, commonly wash ashore in the tropics after storms.


title: Seashell

text: Plant-like diatoms and animal-like radiolarians are two forms of plankton which form hard silicate shells. Foraminifera and coccolithophores create shells known as "tests" which are made of calcium carbonate. These shells and tests are usually microscopic in size, though in the case of foraminifera, they are sometimes visible to the naked eye, often resembling miniature mollusk shells.


title: Kareem Hunt

text: Kareem AJ Hunt (born August 6, 1995) is an American football running back for the Cleveland Browns of the National Football League (NFL). He played college football at Toledo and was drafted by the Kansas City Chiefs in the third round of the 2017 NFL Draft. As a rookie in 2017, he led the NFL in rushing yards and was selected to the Pro Bowl.


title: Kareem Hunt

text: Hunt attended South High School in Willoughby, Ohio, where he played for the Rebels football team. He rushed for 2,519 yards and 39 touchdowns as a junior and 2,685 yards and 44 touchdowns as a senior. Hunt was rated by Rivals.com as a three-star recruit and committed to the University of Toledo to play college football.


title: Kareem Hunt

text: As a freshman at Toledo in 2013, Hunt played in 12 games with three starts and rushed for 866 yards on 137 carries with six touchdowns. He had a strong four-game stretch in the season with 127 rushing yards and two touchdowns against Navy, 114 rushing yards and a touchdown against Bowling Green, 168 rushing yards and two rushing touchdowns against Eastern Michigan, and 186 rushing yards and a touchdown against Buffalo. As a sophomore, he played in 10 games, missing three due to an injury. In the 10 games that he appeared in, he rushed for at least 101 yards in all of them. He rushed for 1,631 yards on 205 carries with 16 touchdowns. He was the MVP of the 2015 GoDaddy Bowl victory over Arkansas State after rushing for 271 yards and five touchdowns, which tied an NCAA record with Barry Sanders.


title: Kareem Hunt

text: Hunt was suspended for the first two games of his junior year in 2015 due to a violation of team rules. He returned for the third game, but was injured during the game and missed the next two games. Overall, in the 2015 season, he finished with 973 rushing yards and 12 rushing touchdowns. In 2016, Hunt played all 13 games, leading the MAC in both rush attempts (262) and yards (1,475), including 200 rushing yards in the loss at #14 Western Michigan. His 4,945 career rushing yards broke Chester Taylor's school record, and was third all time in MAC conference history. In addition, he holds career school records for yards per rush (6.3, with a minimum of 100 rushes), and total yards from scrimmage (5,500).


title: Kareem Hunt

text: Hunt was drafted by the Kansas City Chiefs in the third round (86th overall) of the 2017 NFL Draft. He was the sixth running back to be selected in the draft. In addition, he was the first of three Toledo Rockets to be selected that year.


title: Kareem Hunt

text: Following a knee injury to starting running back Spencer Ware in the Chiefs' third preseason game against the Seattle Seahawks, Hunt was named starting running back for the Chiefs on August 27, 2017.