Symbol
A symbol is a mark, sign or word that indicates, signifies, or is understood as representing an idea, object, or relationship. Symbols allow people to go beyond what is known or seen by creating linkages between otherwise different concepts and experiences. All communication is achieved through the use of symbols. Symbols take the form of words, gestures, ideas or visual images and are used to convey other ideas and beliefs. For example, a red octagon may be a symbol for "STOP". On a map, a blue line might represent a river. Numerals are symbols for numbers. Alphabetic letters may be symbols for sounds. Personal names are symbols representing individuals. A red rose may symbolize compassion; the variable'x', in a mathematical equation, may symbolize the position of a particle in space. In cartography, an organized collection of symbols forms a legend for a map; the word symbol derives from the Greek σύμβολον symbolon, meaning "token, watchword" from σύν syn "together" and βάλλω bállō " "I throw, put."
The sense evolution in Greek is from "throwing things together" to "contrasting" to "comparing" to "token used in comparisons to determine if something is genuine." Hence, "outward sign" of something. The meaning "something which stands for something else" was first recorded in 1590, in Edmund Spenser's Faerie Queene. Symbols are a means of complex communication that can have multiple levels of meaning. Symbols are the basis of all human understanding and serve as vehicles of conception for all human knowledge. Symbols facilitate understanding of the world in which we live, thus serving as the grounds upon which we make judgments. In this way, people use symbols not only to make sense of the world around them, but to identify and cooperate in society through constitutive rhetoric. Human cultures use symbols to express specific ideologies and social structures and to represent aspects of their specific culture. Thus, symbols carry meanings. In considering the effect of a symbol on the psyche, in his seminal essay The Symbol without Meaning Joseph Campbell proposes the following definition: A symbol is an energy evoking, directing, agent.
Expanding on what he means by this definition Campbell says: a symbol, like everything else, shows a double aspect. We must distinguish, therefore between the ` meaning' of the symbol, it seems to me clear that all the great and little symbolical systems of the past functioned on three levels: the corporeal of waking consciousness, the spiritual of dream, the ineffable of the unknowable. The term'meaning' can refer only to the first two but these, are in the charge of science –, the province as we have said, not of symbols but of signs; the ineffable, the unknowable, can be only sensed. It is the province of art, not'expression' or primarily, but a quest for, formulation of, experience evoking, energy-waking images: yielding what Sir Herbert Read has aptly termed a'sensuous apprehension of being'. Heinrich Zimmer gives a concise overview of the nature, perennial relevance, of symbols. Concepts and words are symbols, just as visions and images are. Through all of these a transcendent reality is mirrored.
There are so many metaphors reflecting and implying something which, though thus variously expressed, is ineffable, though thus rendered multiform, remains inscrutable. Symbols hold the mind to truth but are not themselves the truth, hence it is delusory to borrow them; each civilisation, every age, must bring forth its own." In the book Signs and Symbols, it is stated that A symbol... is a visual image or sign representing an idea -- a deeper indicator of a universal truth. Semiotics is the study of signs and signification as communicative behavior. Semiotics studies focus on the relationship of the signifier and the signified taking into account interpretation of visual cues, body language and other contextual clues. Semiotics is linked with psychology. Semioticians thus not only study what a symbol implies, but how it got its meaning and how it functions to make meaning in society. Symbols allow the human brain continuously to create meaning using sensory input and decode symbols through both denotation and connotation.
An alternative definition of symbol, distinguishing it from the term sign was proposed by Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Jung. In his studies on what is now called Jungian archetypes, a sign stands for something known, as a word stands for its referent, he contrasted a sign with a symbol: something, unknown and that cannot be made clear or precise. An example of a symbol in this sense is Christ. Kenneth Burke described Homo sapiens as a "symbol-using, symbol making, symbol misusing animal" to suggest that a person creates symbols as well as misuses them. One example he uses to indicate what he means by the misuse of symbol is the story of a man who, when told that a particular food item was whale blubber, could keep from throwing it up, his friend discovered it was just a dumpling. But the man's reaction was a direct consequence of the symbol of "blubber" representing something inedible in his mind. In addition, the symbol of "blubber" was created by the man through various kinds of learning. Burke goes on to describe symbols as being derived from Sigmund Freud's work on condensation and displacement, further stating that symbols are not just relevant to the theory of dreams but to "normal symbol systems".
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Centralia mine fire
The Centralia mine fire is a coal seam fire, burning underneath the borough of Centralia, United States, since at least May 27, 1962. The fire is suspected to be from deliberate burning of trash in a former strip mine, igniting a coal seam; the fire is burning in underground coal mines at depths of up to 300 feet over an 8-mile stretch of 3,700 acres. At its current rate, it could continue to burn for over 250 years; the fire caused most of the town to be abandoned. The population dwindled from around 1,400 at the time the fire started to 10 in 2017, most of the buildings have been levelled. On May 7, 1962, the Centralia Council met to discuss the approaching Memorial Day and how the town would go about cleaning up the Centralia landfill, introduced earlier that year; the 300-foot-wide, 75-foot-long pit was made up of a 50-foot-deep strip mine, cleared by Edward Whitney in 1935, came close to the northeast corner of Odd Fellows Cemetery. There were eight illegal dumps spread about Centralia, the council's intention in creating the landfill was to stop the illegal dumping, as new state regulations had forced the town to close an earlier dump west of St. Ignatius Cemetery.
Trustees at the cemetery were opposed to the landfill's proximity to the cemetery, but recognized the illegal dumping elsewhere as a serious issue and envisioned that the new pit would resolve it. Pennsylvania had passed a precautionary law in 1956 to regulate landfill use in strip mines, as landfills were known to cause destructive mine fires; the law required a permit and regular inspection for a municipality to use such a pit. George Segaritus, a regional landfill inspector who worked for the Department of Mines and Mineral Industries, became concerned about the pit when he noticed holes in the walls and floor, as such mines cut through older mines underneath. Segaritus informed Joseph Tighe, a Centralia councilman, that the pit would require filling with an incombustible material; this was a world where no human could live, hotter than the planet Mercury, its atmosphere as poisonous as Saturn's. At the heart of the fire, temperatures exceeded 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Lethal clouds of carbon monoxide and other gases swirled through the rock chambers.
The town council arranged for cleanup of the strip mine dump, but council minutes do not describe the proposed procedure. It is speculated that the process—setting it on fire—was not specified because state law prohibited dump fires. Nonetheless, the Centralia council set a date and hired five members of the volunteer firefighter company to clean up the landfill. A fire was ignited to clean the dump on May 27, 1962, water was used to douse the visible flames that night. However, flames were seen once more on May 29. Using hoses hooked up from Locust Avenue, another attempt was made to douse the fire that night. Another flare-up in the following week caused the Centralia Fire Company to once again douse it with hoses. A bulldozer stirred up the garbage so that firemen could douse concealed layers of the burning waste. A few days a hole as wide as 15 feet and several feet high was found in the base of the north wall of the pit. Garbage had prevented it from being filled with incombustible material.
It is possible that this hole led to the mine fire, as it provided a pathway to the labyrinth of old mines under the borough. Evidence indicates; the Centralia council still allowed the dumping of garbage into the pit. A member of the council contacted Clarence "Mooch" Kashner, the president of the Independent Miners and Truckers union, to inspect the situation in Centralia. Kashner called Gordon Smith, an engineer of the DMMI office in Pottsville. Smith told the town that he could dig out the smoldering material using a steam shovel for $175. A call was placed to Art Joyce, a mine inspector from Mount Carmel, who brought gas detection equipment for use on the swirling wisps of smoke now emanating from fissures in the north wall of the landfill pit. Tests concluded that the gases seeping from the large hole in the pit wall and from cracks in the north wall contained carbon monoxide concentrations typical of coal-mine fires. A letter was sent to the Lehigh Valley Coal Company as formal notice of the fire.
The town council decided that hiding the true origin of the fire would serve better than alerting the LVCC of the truth, which would most end in receiving no help from them. In the letter, the borough described the starting of a fire "of unknown origin... during a period of unusually hot weather."Preceding an August 6 meeting at the fire site which would include officials from the LVCC and the Susquehanna Coal Company, Deputy Secretary of Mines James Shober Sr. expected that the representatives would inform him they could not afford mounting a project that would stop the mine fire. Therefore, Shober announced that he expected the state to finance the cost of digging out the fire, at that time around $30,000. Another offer was made at the meeting, proposed by Centralia strip mine operator Alonzo Sanchez, who told members of council that he would dig out the mine fire free of charge as long as he could claim any coal he recovered without paying royalties to the Lehigh Valley Coal Company. Part of Sanchez's plan was to do exploratory drilling to estimate the scope of the mine fire, most why Sanchez's offer was rejected at the meeting
Shepherd
A shepherd or sheepherder is a person who tends, feeds, or guards herds of sheep. Shepherd derives from Old English sceaphierde. Shepherding is among the oldest occupations, beginning some 5,000 years ago in Asia Minor. Sheep were kept for their milk and their wool. Over the next thousand years and shepherding spread throughout Eurasia. Henri Fleisch tentatively suggested the Shepherd Neolithic industry of Lebanon may date to the Epipaleolithic and that it may have been used by one of the first cultures of nomadic shepherds in the Beqaa Valley; some sheep were integrated in the family farm along with other animals such as pigs. To maintain a large flock, the sheep must be able to move from pasture to pasture; this required the development of an occupation separate from that of the farmer. The duty of shepherds was to keep their flock intact, protect it from predators and guide it to market areas in time for shearing. In ancient times, shepherds commonly milked their sheep, made cheese from this milk.
In many societies, shepherds were an important part of the economy. Unlike farmers, shepherds were wage earners, being paid to watch the sheep of others. Shepherds lived apart from society, being nomadic, it was a job of solitary males without children, new shepherds thus needed to be recruited externally. Shepherds were most the younger sons of farming peasants who did not inherit any land. In other societies, each family would have a family member to shepherd its flock a child, youth or an elder who couldn't help much with harder work. Shepherds would work in groups either looking after one large flock, or each bringing their own and merging their responsibilities, they would live in small cabins shared with their sheep, would buy food from local communities. Less shepherds lived in covered wagons that traveled with their flocks. Shepherding developed only in certain areas. In the lowlands and river valleys, it was far more efficient to grow grain and cereals than to allow sheep to graze, thus the raising of sheep was confined to rugged and mountainous areas.
In pre-modern times shepherding was thus centered on regions such as the Middle East, the Pyrenees, the Carpathian Mountains and Northern England. The shepherd's crook is a strong multi-purpose stick or staff fashioned with a hooked end. In modern times, shepherding has changed dramatically; the abolition of common lands in Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth century moved shepherding from independent nomads to employees of massive estates. Some families in Africa and Asia have their wealth in sheep, so a young son is sent out to guard them while the rest of the family tend to other chores. In the USA, many sheep herds are flocked over public BLM lands. Wages are higher. Keeping a shepherd in constant attendance can be costly; the eradication of sheep predators in parts of the world have lessened the need for shepherds. In places like Britain, hardy breeds of sheep are left alone without a shepherd for long periods of time. More productive breeds of sheep can be left in fields and moved periodically to fresh pasture when necessary.
Hardier breeds of sheep can be left on hillsides. The sheep farmer will attend to the sheep when necessary at times like shearing. First Shepherd's Fair was announced to take place in the Cyprus Village of Pachna, on August 31, 2014, in the printed editions of Cyprus Weekly and in the Greek language daily, Phileleftheros. European exploration led to the spread of sheep around the world, shepherding became important in Australia and New Zealand where there was great pastoral expansion. In Australia squatters spread beyond the Nineteen Counties of New South Wales to elsewhere, taking over vast holdings called properties and now stations. Once driven overland to these properties, sheep were pastured in large unfenced runs. There, they required constant supervision. Shepherds were employed to keep the sheep from straying too far, to keep the mobs as healthy as possible and to prevent attacks from dingoes and introduced predators such as feral dogs and foxes. Lambing time further increased the shepherd's responsibilities.
Shepherding was an isolated, lonely job, firstly given to assigned convict servants. The accommodation was poor and the food was lacking in nutrition, leading to dysentery and scurvy; when free labour was more available others took up this occupation. Some shepherds were additionally brought to Australia on the ships that carried sheep and were contracted to caring for them on their arrival in the colony. Sheep owners complained about the inefficiency of shepherds and the shepherds' fears of getting lost in the bush. Sheep were watched by shepherds during the day, by a hut-keeper during the night. Shepherds took the sheep out to graze before sunrise and returned them to brush-timber yards at sunset; the hut-keeper slept in a movable shepherd's watch box placed near the yard in order to deter attacks on the sheep. Dogs were often chained close by to warn of any impending danger to the sheep or shepherd by dingoes or natives. In 1839 the usual wage for a shepherd was about AU₤50 per year, plus weekly rations of 12 pounds meat, 10 pounds flour, 2 pounds sugar and 4 ounces tea.
The wage during the depression of the 1840s dropped to ₤20 a year. During the 1850s many shepherds left to try their luck on the goldfields causing acute labour shortages in the pastoral industry; this labour shortage leads to the widespread practice of fencing properties, which in turn reduced the dema
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego
Shadrach and Abednego are figures from chapter 3 of the Book of Daniel, three Hebrew men thrown into a fiery furnace by Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, when they refuse to bow down to the king's image. Like a son of God"; the first six chapters of Daniel are stories dating from the late Persian/early Hellenistic period, Daniel's absence from the story of the Hebrew children in the fiery furnace suggests that it may have been independent. It forms a pair with the story of Daniel in the lions' den, both making the point that the God of the Jews will deliver those who are faithful to him. King Nebuchadnezzar set up a golden image in the plain of Dura and commanded that all his officials bow down before it. All who failed to do so would be thrown into a blazing furnace. Certain officials informed the king that the three Jewish youths Hanania and Azaria, who bore the Babylonian names Shadrach and Abednego, whom the king had appointed to high office in Babylon, were refusing to worship the golden statue.
The three were brought before Nebuchadnezzar, where they informed the king that their god would be with them. Nebuchadnezzar commanded that they be thrown into the fiery furnace, heated seven times hotter than normal, but when the king looked he saw four figures walking unharmed in the flames, the fourth "like a son of God." Seeing this, Nebuchadnezzar brought the youths out of the flames and promoted them to high office, decreeing that anyone who spoke against their god should be torn limb from limb. It is accepted that the Book of Daniel originated as a collection of folktales among the Jewish community in Babylon and Mesopotamia in the Persian and early Hellenistic periods, expanded by the visions of chapters 7–12 in the Maccabean era. Modern scholarship agrees, it is possible that the name was chosen for the hero of the book because of his reputation as a wise seer in Hebrew tradition. The tales are in the voice of an anonymous narrator, except for chapter 4, in the form of a letter from king Nebuchadnezzar.
Chapter 3 is unique in. Daniel 3 forms part of a chiasmus within Daniel 2–7, paired with Daniel 6, the story of Daniel in the lions' den: A. – A dream of four kingdoms replaced by a fifth B. – Daniel's three friends in the fiery furnace C. – Daniel interprets a dream for Nebuchadnezzar C'. – Daniel interprets the handwriting on the wall for Belshazzar B'. – Daniel in the lions' den A'. – A vision of four world kingdoms replaced by a fifthChapters 3 and 6 contain significant differences. The story of the fiery furnace does not include Daniel, while the story of the lions' den does not include Daniel's friends; the stories thus supplement each other to make the point that the God of the Jews will deliver those who are faithful to him. The legendary nature of the story is revealed by the liberal use of hyperbole - the size of the statue, the use of every kind of music, the destruction of the executioners, the king's rage followed by his confession of the superiority of the God of Israel; the plot is a type known in folklore as "the disgrace and rehabilitation of a minister," the plot of which involves a man in a state of prosperity, sentenced to death or prison by the plots of his enemies but vindicated and restored to honour.
When Nebuchadnezzar confronts the defiant Jewish youths who refuse to submit to his will he asks them what god will deliver them from his hands. Their reply is the theological high point of the story: without addressing the king by his title, they tell him that the question is not whether they are willing to bow before the king's image, but whether God is present and willing to save; when the three are thrown into the furnace the king sees four men walking in the flames, the fourth like "a son of god," a divine being. Daniel's absence from the tale of Shadrach and Abednego suggests that it may have been an independent story; the Hebrew names of Daniel's friends were Hananiah, "Yah is gracious", Mishael, "Who is what El is?" and Azariah, "Yah has helped", but by the king’s decree they were assigned Chaldean names, so that Daniel became Beltheshazzar, Hananiah became Shadrach, Mishael became Meshach and Azariah became Abednego. Shadrach's name is derived from Shudur Aku "Command of Aku", Meshach is a variation of Mi-sha-aku, meaning "Who is as Aku is?", Abednego is either "Slave of the god Nebo/Nabu" or a variation of Abednergal, "Slave of the god Nergal."
The Chaldean names are related to the Hebrew names, but the name of a heathen god has replaced that of Yahweh. The word "Dura" means "plain" or "fortress" and is not any specific place; the statue's dimensions are linked intertextually with those of Ezra-Nehemiah's Second Temple, suggesting that the king's image is contrasted with the post-exilic place of wor
Nebuchadnezzar II
Nebuchadnezzar II, king of Babylon c. 605 BC – c. 562 BC, was the longest-reigning and most powerful monarch of the Neo-Babylonian Empire. His father Nabopolassar was an official of the Neo-Assyrian Empire who rebelled in 620 BCE and established himself as the king of Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar ascended the throne in 605 BCE and subsequently fought several campaigns in the West, where Egypt was trying to organise a coalition against him, his conquest of Judah is described in the Bible's Books of Kings and Book of Jeremiah. His capital, Babylon, is the largest archaeological site in the Middle East; the Bible remembers him as the destroyer of Solomon's Temple and the initiator of the Babylonian captivity. He is an important character in the Book of Daniel, a collection of legendary tales and visions dating from the 2nd century BC. Nebuchadnezzar was the eldest son and successor of Nabopolassar, an Assyrian official who rebelled against the Assyrian Empire and established himself as the king of Babylon in 620 BC.
Nebuchadnezzar is first mentioned in 607 BC, during the destruction of Babylon's arch-enemy Assyria, at which point he was crown prince. In 605 BC he and his ally Cyaxares, ruler of the Medes, led an army against the Assyrians and Egyptians, who were occupying Syria, in the ensuing Battle of Carchemish, Pharaoh Necho II was defeated and Syria and Phoenicia were brought under the control of Babylon. Nabopolassar died in August 605 BC, Nebuchadnezzar returned to Babylon to ascend the throne. For the next few years, his attention was devoted to subduing his eastern and northern borders, in 595/4 BC there was a serious but brief rebellion in Babylon itself. In 594/3 BC, the army was sent again to the west in reaction to the elevation of Psamtik II to the throne of Egypt. King Zedekiah of Judah attempted to organize opposition among the small states in the region but his capital, was taken in 587 BC. In the following years, Nebuchadnezzar incorporated Phoenicia and the former Assyrian provinces of Cilicia into his empire and may have campaigned in Egypt.
In his last years he seems to have begun behaving irrationally, "pay no heed to son or daughter," and was suspicious of his sons. The kings who came after him ruled only and Nabonidus not of the royal family, was overthrown by the Persian conqueror Cyrus the Great less than twenty-five years after Nebuchadnezzar's death; the ruins of Nebuchadnezzar's Babylon are spread over two thousand acres, forming the largest archaeological site in the Middle East. He enlarged the royal palace and repaired temples, built a bridge over the Euphrates, constructed a grand processional boulevard and gateway lavishly decorated with glazed brick; each spring equinox, the god Marduk would leave his city temple for a temple outside the walls, returning through the Ishtar Gate and down the Processional Way, paved with colored stone and lined with molded lions, amidst rejoicing crowds. The Babylonian king's two sieges of Jerusalem are depicted in 2 Kings 24–25; the Book of Jeremiah calls Nebuchadnezzar the "destroyer of nations" and gives an account of the second siege of Jerusalem and the looting and destruction of the First Temple.
Nebuchadnezzar is an important character in the Old Testament Book of Daniel. Daniel 1 introduces Nebuchadnezzar as the king who takes Daniel and other Hebrew youths into captivity in Babylon, to be trained in "the learning and the tongue of the Chaldeans". In Nebuchadnezzar's second year, Daniel interprets the king's dream of a huge image as God's prediction of the rise and fall of world powers, starting with Nebuchadnezzar's kingdom. Nebuchadnezzar twice admits the power of the God of the Hebrews: first after Hashem saves three of Daniel's companions from a fiery furnace and secondly after Nebuchadnezzar himself suffers a humiliating period of madness, as Daniel predicted; the consensus among critical scholars is. His name is sometimes recorded in the Bible as "Nebuchadrezzar", but as "Nebuchadnezzar"; the form Nebuchadrezzar is more consistent with the original Akkadian, some scholars believe that Nebuchadnezzar may be a derogatory pun used by the Israelites, meaning "Nabu, protect my jackass".
Babylonia Book of Daniel Kings of Babylonia List of biblical figures identified in extra-biblical sources Nabucco Neo-Babylonian Empire Inscription of Nabuchadnezzar. Babylonian and Assyrian Literature – old translation Nabuchadnezzar Ishtar gate Inscription Jewish Encyclopedia on Nebuchadnezzar Nebuchadnezzar II on Ancient History Encyclopedia
Petroleum
Petroleum is a occurring, yellowish-black liquid found in geological formations beneath the Earth's surface. It is refined into various types of fuels. Components of petroleum are separated using a technique called fractional distillation, i.e. separation of a liquid mixture into fractions differing in boiling point by means of distillation using a fractionating column. It consists of occurring hydrocarbons of various molecular weights and may contain miscellaneous organic compounds; the name petroleum covers both occurring unprocessed crude oil and petroleum products that are made up of refined crude oil. A fossil fuel, petroleum is formed when large quantities of dead organisms zooplankton and algae, are buried underneath sedimentary rock and subjected to both intense heat and pressure. Petroleum has been recovered by oil drilling. Drilling is carried out after studies of structural geology, sedimentary basin analysis, reservoir characterisation have been completed, it is refined and separated, most by distillation, into a large number of consumer products, from gasoline and kerosene to asphalt and chemical reagents used to make plastics and pharmaceuticals.
Petroleum is used in manufacturing a wide variety of materials, it is estimated that the world consumes about 95 million barrels each day. The use of petroleum as fuel is controversial due to its impact on global warming and ocean acidification. Fossil fuels, including petroleum, need to be phased out by the end of 21st century to avoid "severe and irreversable impacts for people and ecosystems", according to the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change; the word petroleum comes from Medieval Latin petroleum, which comes from Latin petra', "rock", Latin oleum, "oil". The term was used in the treatise De Natura Fossilium, published in 1546 by the German mineralogist Georg Bauer known as Georgius Agricola. In the 19th century, the term petroleum was used to refer to mineral oils produced by distillation from mined organic solids such as cannel coal, refined oils produced from them. Petroleum, in one form or another, has been used since ancient times, is now important across society, including in economy and technology.
The rise in importance was due to the invention of the internal combustion engine, the rise in commercial aviation, the importance of petroleum to industrial organic chemistry the synthesis of plastics, solvents and pesticides. More than 4000 years ago, according to Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus, asphalt was used in the construction of the walls and towers of Babylon. Great quantities of it were found on the banks of the river Issus, one of the tributaries of the Euphrates. Ancient Persian tablets indicate the medicinal and lighting uses of petroleum in the upper levels of their society; the use of petroleum in ancient China dates back to more than 2000 years ago. In I Ching, one of the earliest Chinese writings cites that oil in its raw state, without refining, was first discovered and used in China in the first century BCE. In addition, the Chinese were the first to use petroleum as fuel as early as the fourth century BCE. By 347 AD, oil was produced from bamboo-drilled wells in China. Crude oil was distilled by Arabic chemists, with clear descriptions given in Arabic handbooks such as those of Muhammad ibn Zakarīya Rāzi.
The streets of Baghdad were paved with tar, derived from petroleum that became accessible from natural fields in the region. In the 9th century, oil fields were exploited in the area around Azerbaijan; these fields were described by the Arab geographer Abu al-Hasan'Alī al-Mas'ūdī in the 10th century, by Marco Polo in the 13th century, who described the output of those wells as hundreds of shiploads. Arab and Persian chemists distilled crude oil in order to produce flammable products for military purposes. Through Islamic Spain, distillation became available in Western Europe by the 12th century, it has been present in Romania since the 13th century, being recorded as păcură. Early British explorers to Myanmar documented a flourishing oil extraction industry based in Yenangyaung that, in 1795, had hundreds of hand-dug wells under production. Pechelbronn is said to be the first European site where petroleum has been used; the still active Erdpechquelle, a spring where petroleum appears mixed with water has been used since 1498, notably for medical purposes.
Oil sands have been mined since the 18th century. In Wietze in lower Saxony, natural asphalt/bitumen has been explored since the 18th century. Both in Pechelbronn as in the coal industry dominated the petroleum technologies. Chemist James Young noticed a natural petroleum seepage in the Riddings colliery at Alfreton, Derbyshire from which he distilled a light thin oil suitable for use as lamp oil, at the same time obtaining a more viscous oil suitable for lubricating machinery. In 1848, Young set up a small business refining the crude oil. Young succeeded, by distilling cannel coal at a low heat, in creating a fluid resembling petroleum, which when treated in the same way as the seep oil gave similar products. Young found that by sl
Iraq Petroleum Company
The Iraq Petroleum Company, known prior to 1929 as the Turkish Petroleum Company, is an oil company which, between 1925 and 1961, had a virtual monopoly on all oil exploration and production in Iraq. Today, it is jointly owned by some of the world's largest oil companies and is headquartered in London, England. In June 1972, the Ba'athist government in Iraq nationalised the IPC and its operations were taken over by the Iraq National Oil Company; the company "Iraq Petroleum Company" still remains extant, however, on paper and one associated company – the Abu Dhabi Petroleum Company – continues with its original shareholding intact. The related Iraq Petroleum Group was an association of companies that played a major role in the discovery and development of oil resources in areas of the Middle East outside Iraq; the forerunner of the Iraq Petroleum Company was the Turkish Petroleum Company, which grew out of the growing belief, in the late 19th century, that Mesopotamia contained substantial reservoirs of oil.
Since Mesopotamia was part of the Ottoman Empire, early negotiations for an oil concession centered on the capital of the empire, İstanbul, known in the West as Constantinople, where the Ottoman sultan and his government resided. The first interest was shown by Imperial German banks and companies involved in the building of the Berlin-Baghdad railway, followed by British interests. In 1911, in an attempt to bring together competing British and German interests in the region, a British company known as African and Eastern Concession Ltd, was formed. In 1912, this company became the Turkish Petroleum Company, formed with the purpose of acquiring concessions from the Ottoman Empire to explore for oil in Mesopotamia; the owners were a group of large European companies – Deutsche Bank, the Anglo Saxon Oil Company, the National Bank of Turkey –and Armenian businessman Calouste Gulbenkian. The driving force behind its creation was Gulbenkian, the largest single shareholder was the British government-controlled Anglo-Persian Oil Company, which by 1914 held 50% of the shares.
TPC received a promise of a concession from the Ottoman government, but the outbreak of World War I in 1914 put a stop to all exploration plans. Deutsche Bank brought with it a concession granted to the Anatolian Railway Company to explore for minerals and oil along a 40 km -wide strip either side of its proposed railway in Mesopotamia. On 28 June 1914, the Turkish grand vizier confirmed the promise of a concession to TPC, but the outbreak of World War I ended TPC's plans; when the Ottoman Empire was broken up in the aftermath of the war, the question of shareholding in TPC became a major issue at the 1920 San Remo conference, where the future of all non-Turkish and Arab-majority areas of the former Ottoman Empire were decided. A rising demand for petroleum during the war had demonstrated to the big powers the importance of having their own sources of oil. Since one of the original partners of TPC had been German, the French demanded this share as the spoils of war; this was agreed by the San Remo Oil Agreement, much to the annoyance of the Americans who felt excluded from Middle Eastern oil and demanded an "open door".
After prolonged and sometimes sharp diplomatic exchanges, U. S. oil companies were permitted to buy into the TPC, but it would take several years until the negotiations were completed. TPC obtained a concession to explore for oil in 1925, in return for a promise that the Iraqi government would receive a royalty for every ton of oil extracted, but linked to the oil companies' profits and not payable for the first 20 years; the concession required the company to select 24 rectangular plots of 8 square miles each for drilling operations. During the 1925/6 season, an international geological party, comprising representatives of the shareholding companies together with an American contingent, conducted a wide-ranging survey of Iraq. Two wells were selected for drilling at Pulkanah and one each at Khashm al Ahmar and Qaiyarah. Kirkuk was included as the sixth location; the well at Baba Gurgur was located by geologist J. M. Muir just north of Kirkuk. Drilling started, in the early hours of 14 October 1927 oil was struck.
Many tons of oil were spilled before the gushing well was brought under control, the oil field soon proved to be extensive. The discovery hastened the negotiations over the composition of TPC, on 31 July 1928 the shareholders signed a formal partnership agreement to include the Near East Development Corporation, an American consortium of five large US oil companies that included Standard Oil of New Jersey, Standard Oil Company of New York, Gulf Oil, the Pan-American Petroleum and Transport Company, Atlantic Richfield Co.. Shares were held in the following proportions: 23.75% each to the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, Royal Dutch/Shell, the Compagnie Française des Pétroles, the NEDC. TPC was to be organized as a nonprofit company, registered in Britain, that produced crude oil for a fee for its parent companies, based on their shares; the company itself was only allowed to refine and sell to Iraq's internal market, in order to prevent any competition with the parent companies. The agreement, known as Red Line Agreement after a red line was drawn around the former boundaries of the Ottoman Empire bound the partners to act together within the red line.
The writer Stephen Hemsley Longrigg, a former IPC employee, noted, "he Red Line Agreement, variously assessed as a sad case of wrongful cartelization or as an enlightened example of international co‑ope
Iraq
