Trafalgar Cemetery
The Trafalgar Cemetery is a cemetery in the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar. Known as the Southport Ditch Cemetery, it occupies a small area of land just to the south of the city walls, in what had been a defensive ditch during the period of Spanish rule of Gibraltar. Although it is named for the Battle of Trafalgar of 21 October 1805, only two victims of the battle are buried there; the remainder of the interments are of those killed in other sea battles or casualties of the yellow fever epidemics that swept Gibraltar between 1804 and 1814. In addition, tombstones were transferred to the Trafalgar Cemetery from St. Jago's Cemetery and Alameda Gardens; the cemetery is no longer used for burials and was abandoned for many years, but was restored in the 1980s. In 1992, a memorial to the Battle of Trafalgar was erected in the cemetery; the graveyard is the site of an annual commemorative ceremony on Trafalgar Day, the Sunday nearest to the anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar. Trafalgar Cemetery is listed with the Gibraltar Heritage Trust.
The Trafalgar Cemetery is in Gibraltar, the British Overseas Territory at the southern end of the Iberian Peninsula. It is a triangular parcel of land whose boundaries are formed by the Charles V Wall to the north, Prince Edward's Road to the east, Trafalgar Road to the southwest. Prince Edward's Gate is at the northeast corner of the cemetery; the cemetery is just outside the old city walls, in a section of the Southport Ditch, part of the southern defences of the city. The Southport Ditch was a large trench which extended on the south side of Charles V Wall from the South Bastion to the Flat Bastion, it was depicted in a 1627 map of Gibraltar by Spanish engineer Luis Bravo de Acuña. On the map held by the British Museum, it is labeled in Spanish as Fosso; the cemetery was known as the Southport Ditch Cemetery. It was consecrated in June 1798, seven years prior to the Battle of Trafalgar, which took place on 21 October 1805; the cemetery was sometimes considered to be part of St. Jago's Cemetery, the larger burial ground just to the north, on the opposite side of Charles V Wall.
St. Jago's known as Deadman's Cemetery, was the only cemetery within the walls of the city of Gibraltar. In addition, it may have represented Gibraltar's oldest known cemetery, it was incorporated into St. Jago's Barracks playground in 1929, repurposed as a rifle range and "ball alley." There exists little evidence of the former cemetery. The Southport Ditch Cemetery was used for interments between 1798 and 1814, after which it fell into disuse; the only exception was the grave from 1838 at the northeast corner of the cemetery, near Prince Edward's Gate. The renaming of the graveyard to commemorate the Battle of Trafalgar did not occur until many years after the victory. Only two of the interments are of those. One of the victims was Captain Thomas Norman of the Royal Marine Corps and HMS Mars, who died in the Naval Hospital on 6 December 1805 at the age of 36; the other was Lieutenant William Forster of HMS Colossus, who died of the wounds that he received in battle on 21 October 1805 at the age of 20.
A plaque mounted by the Southport Gates reads: "Trafalgar Cemetery - Here Lie The Remains Of Some Who Died Of Wounds At Gibraltar After Nelson's Great Victory In October, 1805, Those Killed During The Battle Having Been Buried At Sea. Other Graves Date From 1798."Most of those who were killed during the battle were buried at sea. HMS Victory, Horatio Nelson's former flagship, was towed into Rosia Bay on 28 October 1805. Nelson's remains were transported to England, where he was buried in a crypt in St Paul's Cathedral. Casualties of the battle were brought to Gibraltar. Many of the graves in Trafalgar Cemetery represent the victims of three yellow fever epidemics; those epidemics in Gibraltar had been most severe during the years 1804, 1813, 1814. Interred at Trafalgar Cemetery were the sailors who died in other battles of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, including the First Battle of Algeciras in 1801 and conflicts off Cádiz and Málaga in 1810 and 1812, respectively. In 1932, more than a century after the Trafalgar Cemetery fell into disuse, gravestones from St. Jago's Cemetery were mounted on the east wall of Trafalgar Cemetery.
The oldest tombstone on the wall dates to 1738. The transfer of headstones was undertaken on the order of General Sir Alexander Godley, the Governor of Gibraltar. In addition, over the years, several tombstones were transferred from the Alameda Gardens. For years, an annual ceremony has been held on the Sunday closest to 21 October. On that day, the ceremony in the cemetery commemorates those. A general restoration of the Trafalgar Cemetery was undertaken in the 1980s. In 1990, responsibility for the maintenance of the cemetery was transferred to the Gibraltar Heritage Trust, which completed repairs of the gates and walls. Gibraltar celebrated its tercentenary anniversary of British rule in 2004; that year, some veterans were invited to Gibraltar. The July 2004 schedule for the veterans included events at the Trafalgar Cemetery, Gibraltar Cross of Sacrifice, Gibraltar Museum, St. Michael's Cave. In 1992, a monument was unveiled at the cemetery by the Governor of Gibraltar, Admiral Sir Derek Reffell.
The memorial included an anchor donated by the Royal Navy, as well as an inscription. The quote was that of Admiral Cuthbert Collingwood, who reported both the victory at Trafalgar and the demise of Vice Admiral Horatio Nelson
Moorish Castle
The Moorish Castle is the name given to a medieval fortification in Gibraltar comprising various buildings and fortified walls, with the dominant features being the Tower of Homage and the Gate House. Part of the castle itself housed the prison of Gibraltar until it was relocated in 2010; the Tower of Homage is visible to all visitors to Gibraltar. Although sometimes compared to the nearby alcazars in Spain, the Moorish Castle in Gibraltar was constructed by the Marinid dynasty, making it unique in the Iberian Peninsula. Gibraltar has always been of special significance to the numerous peoples and civilizations that have visited or occupied it over the ages, from the Neanderthal period, through the Classical and on to Moorish and the current British rule; the Moorish occupation is by far the longest in Gibraltar's recorded history, having lasted from 711 to 1309 and again from 1350 to 1462, a total of 710 years. The Moorish conquest of Spain was led by Tarik ibn Ziyad and Musa ibn Nusayr, who may have landed in Europe at or near Gibraltar.
Gibraltar thus became the stepping-stone to the Moorish conquests of most of Spain and part of France. This spectacular feat of arms took a mere twenty-one years, no mean task considering the distances and terrain involved, the fact that mechanical transport on land was not in use; the strategic importance of Gibraltar rose in the last years of the Moorish rule, after the successful Spanish reconquest of the entire Guadalquivir valley, Gibraltar became one of the key elements in communication between the Kingdom of Granada and Moorish domains in northwestern Africa. Construction of the Moorish Castle commenced in the 8th century AD, its walls enclosed a considerable area, reaching down from the upper part of the Rock of Gibraltar to the sea. The most conspicuous remaining parts of the Castle are the upper tower, or Tower of Homage, together with various terraces and battlements below it, the massive Gate House, with its cupola roof; the Tower of Homage is the highest tower of the period of Islamic rule in the Iberian Peninsula, the Qasbah of the Castle is the largest in the area.
The Castle itself played a prominent part in the Muslim invasion of the Iberian Peninsula, with Muslim forces overrunning a large portion of it in two years - an invasion which led to Islamic domination of parts of western Europe for more than seven centuries. It is therefore of historic significance not only for Gibraltar and Iberia, but for all of western Europe; the present Tower of Homage, most of what is visible today of the Castle, was rebuilt during the second Moorish period of occupation in the early 14th century, after its near destruction during a reconquest of Gibraltar by the Moors following a re-occupation by Spanish forces from 1309 to 1333. Today the Moorish Castle is one of the major tourist attractions of Gibraltar, it is shown on the reverse of the 1995 design of the Gibraltar five-pound banknote; the name "Moorish Castle" is used locally when referring to the residential area surrounding the Castle, location of the Moorish Castle Estate. Part of the castle itself housed the prison of Gibraltar until the prison was relocated in 2010.
Moorish Gibraltar History of Gibraltar
Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, is a country in Western Asia constituting the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula. With a land area of 2,150,000 km2, Saudi Arabia is geographically the largest sovereign state in the Middle East, the second-largest in the Arab world, the fifth-largest in Asia, the 12th-largest in the world. Saudi Arabia is bordered by Jordan and Iraq to the north, Kuwait to the northeast, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates to the east, Oman to the southeast and Yemen to the south, it is the only nation with both a Red Sea coast and a Persian Gulf coast, most of its terrain consists of arid desert and mountains. As of October 2018, the Saudi economy was the largest in the Middle East and the 18th largest in the world. Saudi Arabia enjoys one of the world's youngest populations; the territory that now constitutes Saudi Arabia was the site of several ancient cultures and civilizations. The prehistory of Saudi Arabia shows some of the earliest traces of human activity in the world.
The world's second-largest religion, emerged in modern-day Saudi Arabia. In the early 7th century, the Islamic prophet Muhammad united the population of Arabia and created a single Islamic religious polity. Following his death in 632, his followers expanded the territory under Muslim rule beyond Arabia, conquering huge and unprecedented swathes of territory in a matter of decades. Arab dynasties originating from modern-day Saudi Arabia founded the Rashidun, Umayyad and Fatimid caliphates as well as numerous other dynasties in Asia and Europe; the area of modern-day Saudi Arabia consisted of four distinct regions: Hejaz and parts of Eastern Arabia and Southern Arabia. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was founded in 1932 by Ibn Saud, he united the four regions into a single state through a series of conquests beginning in 1902 with the capture of Riyadh, the ancestral home of his family, the House of Saud. Saudi Arabia has since been a totalitarian absolute monarchy a hereditary dictatorship governed along Islamist lines.
The ultraconservative Wahhabi religious movement within Sunni Islam has been called "the predominant feature of Saudi culture", with its global spread financed by the oil and gas trade. Saudi Arabia is sometimes called "the Land of the Two Holy Mosques" in reference to Al-Masjid al-Haram and Al-Masjid an-Nabawi, the two holiest places in Islam; the state's official language is Arabic. Petroleum was discovered on 3 March 1938 and followed up by several other finds in the Eastern Province. Saudi Arabia has since become the world's second largest oil producer and the world's largest largest oil exporter, controlling the world's second largest oil reserves and the sixth largest gas reserves; the kingdom is categorized as a World Bank high-income economy with a high Human Development Index and is the only Arab country to be part of the G-20 major economies. The state has attracted criticism for a multitude of reasons including but not limited to: its archaic treatment of women, its excessive and extrajudicial use of capital punishment, state-sponsored discrimination against religious minorities and atheists, its role in the Yemeni Civil War, sponsorship of Islamic terrorists, its strict interpretation of Sharia Law.
An autocratic monarchy, the kingdom has the world's third-highest military expenditure and, according to SIPRI, was the world's second largest arms importer from 2010 to 2014. Saudi Arabia is considered a middle power. In addition to the GCC, it is an active member of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation and OPEC. Following the unification of the Hejaz and Nejd kingdoms, the new state was named al-Mamlakah al-ʻArabīyah as-Suʻūdīyah by royal decree on 23 September 1932 by its founder, Abdulaziz Al Saud. Although this is translated as "the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia" in English, it means "the Saudi Arab kingdom", or "the Arab Saudi Kingdom"; the word "Saudi" is derived from the element as-Suʻūdīyah in the Arabic name of the country, a type of adjective known as a nisba, formed from the dynastic name of the Saudi royal family, the Al Saud. Its inclusion expresses the view. Al Saud is an Arabic name formed by adding the word Al, meaning "family of" or "House of", to the personal name of an ancestor.
In the case of the Al Saud, this is the father of the dynasty's 18th-century founder, Muhammad bin Saud. There is evidence that human habitation in the Arabian Peninsula dates back to about 125,000 years ago, it is now believed that the first modern humans to spread east across Asia left Africa about 75,000 years ago across the Bab-el-Mandeb connecting the Horn of Africa and Arabia. The Arabian peninsula is regarded as a central figure in our understanding of hominin evolution and dispersals. Arabia underwent an extreme environmental fluctuation in the Quaternary that led to profound evolutionary and demographic changes. Arabia has a rich Lower Paleolithic record, the quantity of Oldwan-like sites in the region indicate a significant role that Arabia had played in the early hominin colonization of Eurasia. In the Neolithic period, prominent cultures such as al-Magar whose epicenter lay in mod
Nun's Well, Gibraltar
Nun's Well is an ancient underground water reservoir in the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar. It is located at Europa Point, is thought to be of the Moorish period, it represents some of the earliest evidence of an artificial water supply in Gibraltar. The name of the cistern is thought to be derived from the nuns associated with the Shrine of Our Lady of Europe. In the eighteenth century, Nun's Well supplied the military with water. In the early nineteenth century, it provided water for the brewery, built next door. In 1988, the Royal Engineers constructed what is now the main building, which has a castle-like appearance. Nun's Well became the focus of controversy during the 2010-2011 restoration of the site. Nun's Well is an ancient subterranean water reservoir in Gibraltar, the British Overseas Territory at the southern end of the Iberian Peninsula, it is located at the southernmost portion of Gibraltar. The cistern is on Europa New Road at Europa Flats, across from the south entrance to Keightley Way Tunnel, just south of the Ibrahim-al-Ibrahim Mosque.
On the east side of the structure, the reservoir is accessed by stairs which lead to a door constructed at the underground level. The water reservoir includes a pair of large underground arched chambers into which ground water was permitted to drain. Nun's Well is thought to be of the Moorish period, represents some of the earliest evidence of the attempts to provide a water supply in Gibraltar, it is thought that the name of the cistern originated with the nuns who cared for the Shrine of Our Lady of Europe, another historic site at Europa Point. Nun's Well is in proximity to the Europa Point Lighthouse. In 1753, Governor of Gibraltar Humphrey Bland ordered. Afterwards, the reservoir supplied the military with water. Nun's Well was described in the second edition of the journal of British officer and military historian John Drinkwater Bethune, A history of the late siege of Gibraltar, published in 1786. "Towards Europa advance is a Moorish bath, called by the garrison, the Nuns well. It is sunk eight feet deep in the rock, is 72 feet long, 42 feet broad, and, to preserve the water, has an arched roof, supported by pillars."
Prince Edward, the Duke of Kent the father of Queen Victoria, arrived in Gibraltar for the second time in May 1802. His first arrival had been in 1790 as an officer. Prince Edward was ordered by his brother Prince Frederick, Duke of York to restore discipline at the garrison, as the soldiers spent much of their time inebriated. Before the prince's arrival, Gibraltar had ninety-two taverns which served its 7,000 civilians and soldiers. After his arrival, he closed down the majority of the wine houses, frequented by the soldiers. In addition, the Governor ordered that all the remaining taverns be off-limits for the soldiers except for three: The Three Light Infantrymen, The Halfway House, the Three Guns, he established a brewery at Europa Point, next to Nun's Well. His brewery was known as Brewery Yard or Brewers Yard, utilised water from Nun's Well, it was the source of “a wholesome supply of Beer for the Troops.” The Duke of Kent was recalled to England in the spring of 1803. In 1805, the brewery was converted into military barracks.
The Italian architect Giovanni Maria Boschetti has been credited with demolishing the brewery and constructing a barracks in its place. In the mid nineteenth century, Nun's Well was described by Spanish historian Ignacio López de Ayala in his History of Gibraltar, published in 1845."To the Eastward, near the Virgen de Europa, was an admirably constructed Cistern or tank for receiving water. Its shape is that of a Trapezium, seventy-eight feet long, forty-two and forty-eight in width, eight feet high. Twenty-two solid pillars support the roof, the descent is by steps, built of bricks; the whole exhibits the result of great perseverance and industry, for it is excavated in a solid rock, no other place near to it seems fit for such an undertaking. The water collected there is good, remains sweet throughout the year. In the early twentieth century, the military barracks next to the Nun's Well site, referred to as Brewery Barracks, was reported to be in an "insanitary" condition. Discussions at Parliament further indicated that large amounts of money had been spent on the barracks, that they were scheduled to be replaced.
In May 1987, the Royal Engineers conducted an investigation of the Nun's Well site. The following year, the Royal Engineers constructed, it has a castle-like appearance. The site of the previous brewery and barracks is now open ground, utilised by the military for target practice. While the reservoir had been thought to fill with water that drains along the fractures of the nearby Beefsteak Fault, recent investigation has led researchers to believe that it fills with a combination of rain, street flushing, sea spray during levanter winds. In 2010, the Government of Gibraltar requested that the Gibraltar Ornithological and Natural History Society make suggestions for the landscaping of Europa Point, as the government was intent on restoring the site. A report was completed and contractors transplanted vegetation to the area by Nun's Well to be tended while awaiting replanting. Howe
Napier of Magdala Battery
Napier of Magdala Battery is a former coastal artillery battery on the south-western cliffs of the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar, overlooking the Bay of Gibraltar. It overlooks Rosia Bay from the north, as does Parson's Lodge Battery from the south, it contains one of two surviving Armstrong 100-ton guns. In 1883 the British Government installed a single 100-ton gun: a 450 mm rifled muzzle-loading gun made by Armstrong Whitworth, at the battery by Rosia Bay that they named Napier of Magdala Battery after Field Marshal Robert Napier, 1st Baron Napier of Magdala, who had served as Governor of Gibraltar from 1876 to 1883. Earlier, in 1879, they had mounted another such gun in Gibraltar at Victoria Battery; these two batteries, together with two in Malta, were a response to the Italians having, in 1873, built the battleship Duilio, to receive four Armstrong Guns of the same design. The British authorised the construction of Victoria and Napier of Magdala batteries in December 1878; because the British viewed the two batteries as part of the one large fortress, the Rock of Gibraltar, the batteries lacked all-round protection and any of the close-in defences such as the dry moats with caponiers or counterscarp galleries that the British installed at Cambridge Battery and Fort Rinella, both of which were free-standing pentagonal forts.
The gun, now at Napier of Magdala Battery armed Victoria Battery, but the British moved it to Napier when the original gun there split during firing practice. The gun at Napier Battery received the nickname, "The Rockbuster". During World War II, the British Army stationed a battery of four 3.7" and two Bofors quick-firing anti-aircraft guns at the site. In 1945 they fired upon an Iberia Airlines Junkers Ju 88 that had wandered into Gibraltar's airspace while on a flight from Málaga to Tetouan; the "Rockbuster" was last fired in 2002 to mark the 2002 Calpe Conference between Gibraltar and Malta. In 2010 Gibraltar and Malta jointly issued a four-stamp set of stamps featuring the two countries' 100-ton guns. Two stamps show the gun at Napier of Magdala Battery, two the gun at Fort Rinella. One of each pair is a view from 1882, the other is a view from 2010; the stamps from Gibraltar bear a denomination of 75 pence, while those from Malta bear a denomination of 0.75 euros. Fa, Darren; the Fortifications of Gibraltar 1068-1945.
Gibraltar Museum. P. 64. ISBN 9781846030161. Paco Galliano. History of Galliano's Bank: The Smallest Bank in the World. Gibraltar: Gibraltar Books. Gibraltar.gov's site on the Napier of Magdala Battery
Devil's Tower (Gibraltar)
The Devil's Tower was an ancient watchtower in the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar close to a rock shelter where fossil remains of a Neanderthal child were discovered, together with palaeolithic tools. The Tower and remains, were unrelated; the tower was constructed in limestone. It was demolished in 1940 during World War II on the orders of Governor General Sir Noel Mason-Macfarlane on the grounds that it was in the line of fire of one of Gibraltar's many guns; the Devil's Tower skull was that of a Neanderthal child. The remains were excavated by Dorothy Garrod in a Mousterian shelter on the site. There is evidence of an injury to the mouth, the teeth show developmental disorders consistent with seasonal starvation; the classic Neanderthal large brain case is evident and the brow ridges have started to develop. The skull reinforced the evidence of the Neanderthals of Gibraltar. Most of the lower jaw has survived, along with the frontal bone, most of the right side of the face and the left parietal bone.
The tower gave its name to the Devil's Tower Camp, the Devils Tower Emplacement, Devil's Tower Road and other nearby places. Media related to Devil's Tower at Wikimedia Commons Reconstruction of the Neanderthal child's head and face
Dome
A dome is an architectural element that resembles the hollow upper half of a sphere. The precise definition has been a matter of controversy. There are a wide variety of forms and specialized terms to describe them. A dome can rest upon a rotunda or drum, can be supported by columns or piers that transition to the dome through squinches or pendentives. A lantern may itself have another dome. Domes have a long architectural lineage that extends back into prehistory and they have been constructed from mud, stone, brick, metal and plastic over the centuries; the symbolism associated with domes includes mortuary and governmental traditions that have developed over time. Domes have been found from early Mesopotamia, they are found in Persian, Hellenistic and Chinese architecture in the Ancient world, as well as among a number of contemporary indigenous building traditions. Dome structures were popular in Byzantine and medieval Islamic architecture, there are numerous examples from Western Europe in the Middle Ages.
The Renaissance architectural style spread from Italy in the Early modern period. Advancements in mathematics and production techniques since that time resulted in new dome types; the domes of the modern world can be found over religious buildings, legislative chambers, sports stadiums, a variety of functional structures. The English word "dome" derives from the Latin domus from ancient Greek δόμος, which, up through the Renaissance, labeled a revered house, such as a Domus Dei, or "House of God", regardless of the shape of its roof; this is reflected in the uses of the Italian word duomo, the German/Icelandic/Danish word dom, the English word dome as late as 1656, when it meant a "Town-House, Guild-Hall, State-House, Meeting-House in a city." The French word dosme came to acquire the meaning of a cupola vault by 1660. This French definition became the standard usage of the English dome in the eighteenth century as many of the most impressive Houses of God were built with monumental domes, in response to the scientific need for more technical terms.
A dome is a rounded vault made of either curved segments or a shell of revolution, meaning an arch rotated around its central vertical axis. The terminology used has been a source of controversy, with inconsistency between scholars and within individual texts, but the term "dome" may be considered a "blanket-word to describe an hemispherical or similar spanning element." A half-dome or semi-dome is a semi-circular shape used in apses. Sometimes called "false" domes, corbel domes achieve their shape by extending each horizontal layer of stones inward farther than the lower one until they meet at the top. A "false" dome may refer to a wooden dome. "True" domes are said to be those whose structure is in a state of compression, with constituent elements of wedge-shaped voussoirs, the joints of which align with a central point. The validity of this is unclear, as domes built underground with corbelled stone layers are in compression from the surrounding earth; the Italian use of the term finto, meaning "false", can be traced back to the 17th century in the use of vaulting made of reed mats and gypsum mortar.
As with arches, the "springing" of a dome is the level. The top of a dome is the "crown"; the inner side of a dome is called the "intrados" and the outer side is called the "extrados". The "haunch" is the part of an arch that lies halfway between the base and the top; the word "cupola" is another word for "dome", is used for a small dome upon a roof or turret. "Cupola" has been used to describe the inner side of a dome. Drums called tholobates, are cylindrical or polygonal walls with or without windows that support a dome. A tambour or lantern is the equivalent structure over a dome's oculus. A masonry dome outward, they are thought of in terms of two kinds of forces at right angles from one another. Meridional forces are compressive only, increase towards the base, while hoop forces are in compression at the top and tension at the base, with the transition in a hemispherical dome occurring at an angle of 51.8 degrees from the top. The thrusts generated by a dome are directly proportional to the weight of its materials.
Grounded hemispherical domes generate significant horizontal thrusts at their haunches. Unlike voussoir arches, which require support for each element until the keystone is in place, domes are stable during construction as each level is made a complete and self-supporting ring; the upper portion of a masonry dome is always in compression and is supported laterally, so it does not collapse except as a whole unit and a range of deviations from the ideal in this shallow upper cap are stable. Because voussoir domes have lateral support, they can be made much thinner than corresponding arches of the same span. For example, a hemispherical dome can be 2.5 times thinner than a semicircular arch, a dome with the profile of an equilateral arch can be thinner still. The optimal shape for a masonry dome of equal thickness provides for perfect compression, with none of the tension or bending forces against which masonry is weak. For a particular material, the optimal dome geometry is called the funicular surface, the comparable shape in three dimensions to a catenary curve for a two-dimensional arch.
The pointed profiles of many Gothic domes more approximate this optimal shape than do hemispheres, which were favored by Roman and Byza
