- Moe Factz with Adam Curry for February 2nd 2021, Episode number 58
- Description
- Adam and Moe profile President Biden. He means what he says when he says it!
- Associate Executive Producers:
- "Sir McQueen of Blighttown
- Elvis "The Chef" Rosenberg
- Episode 58 Club Members
- "Sir McQueen of Blighttown
- ShowNotes
- Proposition Joe - Wikipedia
- Joseph Stewart, better known as "Proposition Joe" or "Prop Joe", is a fictional character on the HBO drama The Wire, played by actor Robert F. Chew. Joe was an Eastside drug lord who preferred a peaceful solution to business disputes when possible. He was responsible for creating the lucrative New Day Co-Op with Stringer Bell, supplying much of Baltimore with heroin brought into the city by "The Greeks". Displaying a cunning, business-oriented demeanor, Joe was often a match in wits for rival drug lords Avon Barksdale and Marlo Stanfield, and was able to manipulate most situations to his advantage.[1] His nickname stemmed from his trademark phrase, "I've got a proposition for you", going back to his days selling test answers on the schoolyard. Along with Poot Carr, Wee-Bey Brice, Omar Little, and Bubbles, he is one of the few characters from the drug trade to appear in every season.
- Biography [ edit ] Season 1 [ edit ] Joe first appears at an annual basketball game between the Eastside Projects' team and the Westside Projects'. Joe plays on Avon Barksdale's pride, goading him into doubling their wager on the outcome, then bringing in a ringer at the last minute to win the game.
- That same day, Joe is visited by stick-up-man Omar Little, who gives Joe some of the Barksdale Organization's stolen narcotics in exchange for Barksdale's pager number. Omar uses the information in an unsuccessful attempt on Barksdale's life, but Joe's role in Omar's attack is never revealed to Barksdale. Joe later serves as a neutral go-between, organizing a meeting between Barksdale's business partner Stringer Bell and Omar to discuss a truce.
- Season 2 [ edit ] In season 2, Joe's role is expanded, and it is revealed that Joe relies on the Greek's smuggling ring to supply him with heroin through the Baltimore ports. Joe says that he still has to source his cocaine from New York, as the Greeks only deal in heroin. Joe accommodates Nick Sobotka at the request of Sergei "Serge" Malatov to resolve a dispute over a bad drug deal between Ziggy Sobotka and Joe's nephew and lieutenant Calvin "Cheese" Wagstaff. Out of respect for Malatov, Joe resolves the dispute in Nick's favour by compensating him for Ziggy's destroyed car (minus the amount owed to Cheese), but warns him to stay away in the future.
- Joe's heroin supply is the purest in Baltimore, but he lacks the territory to maximize profits. Due to Avon Barksdale's arrest, the Barksdale Organization is cut off from their Dominican suppliers and is forced to sell weaker heroin. Joe offers Stringer Bell a portion of his product in exchange for the right to deal drugs in some of the Barksdale-controlled towers. Barksdale vehemently rejects the idea, but Bell secretly agrees, and Cheese's crew moves into part of what was exclusively Barksdale territory.
- Barksdale is unaware of Bell's move and brings in Brother Mouzone to protect the towers. Mouzone confronts Cheese and wounds him with a non-fatal gunshot. Joe fears Mouzone's reputation and knows it would be a mistake to attack him directly, so Joe sets up a meeting between Bell and Omar Little, and Bell tricks Omar into shooting Mouzone. This elaborate deception achieves Joe and Bell's shared goals: it drives Mouzone back to New York and forces Barksdale to grudgingly agree to the drugs-for-territory exchange with arch-rival Joe.
- Season 3 [ edit ] Joe insulates himself against police investigation by maintaining a strict policy of only meeting face to face. His nephew "Drac" is targeted as a potential inroad for an investigation by Lieutenant Cedric Daniels' Major Crimes Unit, due to Drac's propensity to talk business over the phone. Daniels' unit arrests Joe's lieutenant Lavelle Mann in an undercover bust operation, hoping Drac would be promoted to replace him. However, Joe chooses someone more reliable, thwarting the unit's efforts inadvertently.
- Daniels tips his hand when he arrests Cheese, believing he had Cheese on tape discussing a murder. Cheese realizes the tape is of him talking about shooting his injured pet dog, and the police are forced to release him.
- Cheese reports the incident to Joe who, now forewarned about the investigation and wiretap, passes the information on to Stringer Bell. The unit moves their investigation away from Joe and onto the more violent Kintel Williamson when they fail to make further progress.
- Joe extends the sharing of his supply to many other drug dealers in Baltimore, forming the New Day Co-Op with Bell, Ricardo "Fat-Face Rick" Hendrix and Kintell Williamson, among others. Joe supplies all of these drug dealers with his package, and they receive a discount for the bulk buying; they also agree to avoid attracting unnecessary police attention by limiting violence. As a result, Williamson stops killing people, and the police begin investigating a brewing turf war between Avon Barksdale and up-and-coming Marlo Stanfield.
- Joe and the rest of the Co-Op object to the police attention the war creates, as it interferes with their business. Joe meets with Stanfield's advisor Vinson to try to negotiate a settlement, but Stanfield is unwilling to back out of the war, believing that Barksdale is weak. Joe gives Bell an ultimatum: end the war, or he will be thrown out of the Co-Op. The ultimatum is defused when Bell is murdered and Barksdale is arrested, leaving Joe with complete control of the Co-Op.[2]
- Season 4 [ edit ] Joe recruits former Barksdale Organization soldier Slim Charles as his lieutenant to supply the independent dealers who have arisen to replace the Barksdale organization in Western Baltimore. However, problems arise; Marlo Stanfield has taken control of much of the Barksdales' prime territory, and the New York drug organizations are taking over territory in Eastern Baltimore. The co-op votes to negotiate with Stanfield and recruit him to strike back against the New York drug dealers.
- Joe contacts Stanfield, who turns down his first offer. Joe manipulates Omar Little again, inducing him to rob a card game which Stanfield attends, by pretending that he wanted to make amends for his involvement in the Stringer Bell/Brother Mouzone incident. After Omar robs the card game, Joe offers Stanfield another meeting and claims he could protect him against such surprises in the future.
- Joe also explains that he has contacts within the Baltimore police department and courts. Joe routinely shares information about police activity with other Co-Op members. Although much of his information is actually public record, Joe is also aware of the investigation of Kintel Williamson that was suspended and inconclusive.
- Stanfield agrees to work with the co-op, and with his help, the New York dealers are driven out of Baltimore. Joe also offers Stanfield advice on how to deal with a police surveillance camera, discovers the identity of the unit investigating Stanfield, and tries to encourage Stanfield's transition into being less violent and more business-minded.
- Stanfield frames Omar for murder and plans to have him killed while in prison. Omar escapes the charges and plots revenge on Stanfield. Omar forces Joe (at gunpoint) to agree to betray Stanfield, but Omar ultimately double-crosses Joe and steals an entire co-op shipment as it is delivered.
- The co-op decides that Joe should cover the expense of replacing it, and Joe threatens to cut them off from his supplier, forcing them to back down. Omar returns to sell the shipment back to Joe for 20 cents on the dollar; Joe, ever the opportunist, informs the Co-Op that the price is 30 cents on the dollar, allowing Joe to recoup some of his losses from the theft.
- Stanfield is perturbed by the robbery and suspects that Cheese, who was responsible for collecting the shipment, was involved. To protect his nephew Joe is forced to reveal his suppliers' identity and arrange for Stanfield to meet with Spiros "Vondas" Vondopoulos. At the end of the season, Joe and the rest of the New Day Co-Op resume business as usual, but have put a bounty on Omar's head.[3]
- Season 5 [ edit ] Season 5 opens over a year later. Joe's advice has allowed Marlo Stanfield to successfully avoid prosecution despite an ongoing Major Case Unit investigation. Joe finds that he is losing territory in the redevelopment and gentrification of Eastern Baltimore, and he proposes a division of new territory in Baltimore County to compensate the Eastside drug dealers. Stanfield objects and then sows the seed of dissent in Joe's organization by suggesting that Joe should allow Joe's lieutenants to manage the new territory.[4][5]
- Stanfield approaches Joe for assistance both with money laundering and obtaining literally clean bills. Joe claims that he is happy to help and puts Stanfield in touch with several of his contacts.
- Joe uses a pastor with charitable organizations abroad to launder money; Joe makes "donations" to the charities and then receives 10% of his funds back as cashier's checks. Joe introduces Stanfield to the pastor explains how the scheme works, and - since Stanfield wants to actually see his laundered money - offers to get Stanfield a passport, so he can check on the deposits in offshore accounts. But privately Joe describes "civilizing" Stanfield as an ongoing uphill struggle.
- Stanfield also requests clean bills from Joe and is accommodated, free of charge. Joe is unaware that Stanfield is using the money to pay tribute to The Greek and is plotting to usurp Joe's supply connection.
- Stanfield also hopes to get revenge on the elusive Omar Little. Joe believes that he has escaped further involvement with Omar, and despite Stanfield's offering a bounty on anyone connected to Omar, Joe does not reveal Omar's connection to Butchie. However, Cheese betrays Joe for the reward money, and Stanfield has his enforcers murder Butchie.[6][7]
- Joe fears reprisal from Omar and decides to leave town. He arranges for Slim Charles to watch Cheese closely, as he suspects his nephew's betrayal. Joe arranges flowers for Butchie's funeral both as a gesture to his friend and to signal to Omar his innocence in the murder.
- Cheese has created a feud with Co-Op kingpin Hungry Man over the new county territory, and Joe publicly reprimands his nephew. Stanfield gets the agreement of The Greek that he will consider him an insurance policy if Joe is unable to continue to handle their supply. Stanfield then seizes on Cheese's feud with Hungry Man to convince Cheese to betray his uncle. Cheese gives Joe up as Joe is packing to leave town. Stanfield corners Joe in his home, and Joe correctly guesses that Cheese betrayed him. Stanfield rejects Joe's final proposition to disappear quietly and has Chris Partlow shoot Joe while he watches.[8]
- Joe went to school at Dunbar High School with former Police Commissioner Ervin Burrell. Joe tells this to Herc, who is now working for Maury Levy, and that Burrell was "stone stupid" and was in the glee club.
- Production [ edit ] Actor Robert F. Chew appeared in David Simon's previous series Homicide: Life on the Street, in the three part episode "Blood Ties", playing Wilkie Collins, a drug kingpin who hates violence. Collins provides the police with key information about which drug dealer was shooting at them so that the police would not interfere with his business. Collins and his wife are subsequently murdered by the Mahoney drug cartel for his betrayal. His young son witnesses their deaths and helps the police arrest their murderer. Chew also had a small role in Simon's HBO mini-series The Corner in which he played a shoe salesman.
- Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation - InfluenceWatch
- Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation (BLM Global Network Foundation) is the national, organizing chapter of a network of 16 local Black Lives Matters chapters. [1] It is the primary organizational outgrowth of the more decentralized Black Lives Matter movement, and is a fiscally-sponsored project of the Tides Center, a subsidiary entity of the Tides Foundation, a major left-of-center donor-advised fund. [2]
- Mission and ActivitiesBLM Global Network Foundation was founded in 2013 by activists Patrisse Cullors, Alicia Garza, and Opal Tometi in response to the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the shooting death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida. [3] Cullors, Garza, and Tometi created and popularized the ''#blacklivesmatter'' hashtag on social media that was instrumental in the early growth of the Black Lives Matter movement. [4] BLM Global Network Foundation was under the fiscal sponsorship of Thousand Currents (formerly the International Development Exchange). [5] Thousand Currents officially transferred control of BLM Global Network Foundation to Tides Center in July 2020. [6] That same month, Cullors became the executive director of the Foundation. [7]
- BLM Global Network Foundation claims that its mission, and the mission of the Black Lives Matter movement generally, ''is to build local power and to intervene in violence inflicted on Black communities by the state and vigilantes.'' Advocating against the use of excessive force by law enforcement against African-Americans is central to the BLM Global Network Foundation mission,[8] and the movement as a whole gained national prominence after the shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, in which Black Lives Matters protestors played central roles in organizing demonstrations against police. [9] BLM Global Network Foundation co-founder Cullors wrote at the time that the Black Lives Matter movement was ''rooted in grief and rage but pointed towards vision and dreams.'' [10]
- BLM Global Network Foundation organizes protests against allegedly unjustified killings of African-Americans by police. In 2017, it organized protests and petition drives to demand that Los Angeles District Attorney Jackie Lacey prosecute five Inglewood, California, police officers involved in the shooting of two African-Americans who were sleeping in the officers' police car. [11] The officers were fired but not prosecuted, and eventually sued the city for discrimination and unlawful termination, settling out of court for $8.6 million. [12]
- In 2019, BLM Global Network Foundation unveiled its #WhatMatters2020 campaign, an effort to increase African-American turnout in the 2020 presidential election and ''build collective power and ensure candidates are held accountable for the issues that systematically and disproportionately impact Black and under-served communities across the nation.'' The campaign features voter registration drives in minority communities and especially among younger black voters. [13]
- In 2020, BLM Global Network Foundation began advocating for releasing inmates from prisons and local jails in response to the spread of COVID-19 in those institutions, as well as for limitations on arrests during the pandemic to prevent viral spread in jail populations. [14]
- BLM Global Network Foundation also sponsors ''Black Lives Matter Arts+Culture,'' which seeks to ''disrupt the status quo of the art world by uplifting emerging Black artists who speak audaciously, who are unafraid, and who stand in solidarity with the most marginalized among us.'' [15] In 2017, BLM Global Network Foundation sponsored ''The Provocateurs: A Master Series,'' where ''[a]rtists give 12-minute TED-style talks about their practice and journey as a provocative Black artist.'' [16]
- BLM Global Network Foundation has been noted for its links to communist ideology. In 2020, video of an interview from 2015 resurfaced in which BLM Global Network Foundation co-founder Patrisse Cullors declared that she and fellow co-founder Alicia Garza were ''trained Marxists.''[17] When Cuban dictator Fidel Castro died in 2016, the organization published an article on Medium that declared ''we must push back against the rhetoric of the right and come to the defense of El Comandante,'' and ended with ''Fidel Vive!''[18] Susan Rosenberg, the vice-char of the board of directors of BLM Global Network Foundation's former fiscal sponsor Thousand Currents, was a convicted member of the May 19th Communist Organization responsible for multiple bombings in the 1980s.[19]
- Several of BLM Global Network Foundation's affiliated local chapters make statements in opposition to capitalism on their official websites, including Black Lives Matter DC[20] and Black Lives Matter Chicago.[21]
- In October 2020, activists from St. Louis created the Black Lives Matter PAC, a political action committee designed to endorse progressive, left-wing candidates and mobilize black voters. [22] The Black Lives Matter movement leaders are not officially affiliated with Black Lives Matter PAC but the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation does advertise the PAC to its email list. [23]
- Organizational Structure and Internal DisagreementsBLM Global Network Foundation has asserted that it does not control the Black Lives Matter movement generally or even set the policy agenda for chapters within its network, claiming that it is a ''leaderful,'' not ''leaderless'' movement[24] that relies mostly on local leadership and activism as opposed to national leadership or policy advocacy. [25] The organization has been subject to internal disagreements between more moderate ''reform'' activists and more strident ''abolition'' activists who seek wholesale transformation of the criminal justice and political systems. [26] This dynamic has led some critics to argue that BLM Global Network Foundation and the Black Lives Matter movement generally disingenuously encourages radical and strident rhetoric, especially against police officers, and then disavows acts of violence against those officers committed by persons associated with or sympathetic to the movement. [27]
- One example of the split between reformist and abolitionist camps is the conflict between BLM Global Network Foundation co-founders Garza and Tometi. Garza has been described as advocating ''for staying outside of existing power structures'' and as ''not interested in playing ball with Democratic politicians for the sake of a few concessions here and there'--or, worse, being used as a photo op prop by politicians.'' By contrast, Tometi advocated working with the leadership of the Democratic party to enact legislative changes, especially in immigration policy. The relationship between the two founders deteriorated and Tometi has not been involved in the management of BLM Global Network Foundation since December 2015. [28]
- The Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation has been confused with the Black Lives Matter Foundation, a separate independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit based in Santa Clarita, California with which it has no affiliation.[29] Thousand Currents, the former fiscal sponsor of BLM Global Network Foundation, reported more than $90,000 in combined grants to the Santa Clarita-based Black Lives Matter Foundation in its 2017[30] and 2018[31] tax filings. Thousand Currents later explained that these tax filings were erroneous, that no money was actually provided to the Black Lives Matter Foundation, and that the money was sent to local Black Lives Matter chapters.[32]
- In audits covering fiscal years 2018[33] and 2019,[34] Thousand Currents reported $2,622,017 and $3,354,654, respectively, in donor-restricted assets for BLM Global Network Foundation. These audits also showed that 83.3 percent of BLM Global Network Foundation expenditures were for personnel, consultant, and travel costs during the three year period from 2017-2019, while about 6 percent were for grants to outside organizations, including to local Black Lives Matter Chapters.[35]
- DonorsAmong the largest donors to the group, at least indirectly, is the Ford Foundation, which in 2016 gave $100 million to the Black-Led Movement Fund, a fund administered by the philanthropic intermediary Borealis Philanthropy. [36] The Black-Led Movement Fund has in turn provided general operating funding to the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation several times since 2016. [37]
- Organizations that had donated to BLM Global Network Foundation through its former fiscal sponsor Thousand Currents between 2015 and 2019 include the NoVo Foundation ($1,525,000), the W.K. Kellogg Foundation ($900,000) and Borealis Philanthropy ($343,000).[38]
- In 2015, Politico reported that members of the Democracy Alliance, a network of left-leaning high-dollar donors and grant makers organized by billionaire financier George Soros and Taco Bell heir Rob McKay, were encouraged to consider making large-dollar grants to the Black Lives Matter movement. Left-leaning mega-donors Tom Steyer and Paul Egerman were also listed by Politico as invited participants. However, it is unclear how much money eventually went to BLM Global Network Foundation from this gathering. It has also been reported by the Washington Times that Soros has given groups associated with the Black Lives Matter movement more than $33 million from his Open Society Foundations (OSF), though it is again unclear if BLM Global Network Foundation directly received funding from OSF. [39] [40]
- On June 11, 2020, BLM Global Network Foundation acknowledged the ''generosity and support of donors'' when announcing a $6.5 million fund to support grassroots organizing work at any of its affiliated chapters.[41]
- Mulatto Accused Of Colorism After Calling Brown-Skinned Friend An "Orangutan"
- She was joking with her best friend, but people took to social media to share that they didn't believe her remarks were funny. Throughout her career, dating back to when she was an aspiring rap star on The Rap Game with Jermaine Dupri, Mulatto's stage name was cause for controversy. People have called out the biracial artist for using the term as her moniker, but although she continues to garner negative opinions, Mulatto, real name Alyssa Stephens, stands by her choice.
- On Tuesday (September 15), the XXL Freshman once again found herself fighting against accusations of colorism after a video surfaced online. The rap star was getting her hair done in the clip and she said, "This my assistant and my hairstylist and my best friend and my pet f*ckin' orangutan." Later in the video, her friend tells her to stop complaining because her hair is almost done. "Your p*ssy is well-done," Mulatto said with a laugh. Because her friend is brown-skinned, people accused Mulatto of being a colorist.
- As the controversy continues to build among fans and foes, Mulatto refused to acknowledge the naysayers and has continued to promote her music. Social media users have used Mulatto's stage name against her in their arguments, so check out a few responses and let us know if you think people are overreacting.
- Portland Protesters Meet Federal Tear Gas After Biden Inauguration - The New York Times
- As President Biden calls for unity and calmer rhetoric, his presidency began with burned flags and federal agents deployed once again into the streets.
- Chaos in Portland Hours After Biden's InaugurationFederal agents used tear gas in Portland, Ore., against protesters gathered on Wednesday outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement building near downtown.[crowd chanting] [shots fired] [explosions] [explosions] The men are '-- [shouting]
- Federal agents used tear gas in Portland, Ore., against protesters gathered on Wednesday outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement building near downtown. Credit Credit... Alisha Jucevic for The New York Times PORTLAND, Ore. '-- In the hours after President Biden's inauguration on Wednesday, hundreds of people gathered for a series of events across the liberal city of Portland, Ore. '-- not to celebrate, but to mobilize for the struggles to come.
- At one demonstration, speakers denounced Mr. Biden as a ''feckless puppet of the centrist Democratic establishment.'' At another, crowds of antifascist and racial justice protesters made their doubts about the new president even more explicit, burning a Biden flag in the street. At a third event, several people smashed the windows of the local Democratic Party headquarters. ''We are ungovernable,'' the group's banner declared.
- While Mr. Biden has vowed to try to unify the nation and urged Americans to ''stop the shouting'' after a bitter election campaign, a Capitol riot and a year of unrest over racial injustices and pandemic restrictions, the first day of his presidency concluded with a scene reminiscent of many under his predecessor: Federal agents in camouflage and riot gear moved into the streets of Portland, unleashing thick clouds of tear gas.
- If people were wondering whether Mr. Biden's presidency would ease the conflict, the opening hours of his tenure illustrated the daunting challenge he faces to bridge the lingering gulfs on both sides of the political spectrum '-- divisions stoked by Donald J. Trump during his presidency and, to the left, exacerbated by years of inaction over climate change, economic disparity and systemic racism.
- Image Demonstrators in Portland continued challenging immigration policies after President Biden took office. Credit... Alisha Jucevic for The New York Times Eric Schickler, co-director of the Institute of Governmental Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, said Mr. Biden was stepping into the White House at a time of such vitriol that opposing sides view each other as the enemy.
- ''He's fighting against some pretty strong forces,'' Dr. Schickler said.
- Many conservatives, such as those who stormed the U.S. Capitol in the final days of Mr. Trump's presidency, remain under the false belief that Mr. Biden won a rigged election and that his presidency is illegitimate. ''Not my president'' has become a common refrain on online message boards. Federal authorities have warned about the threats of far-right extremist groups.
- But the demonstrators who mounted protests against Mr. Biden in Portland on Wednesday hailed from the left '-- and their skepticism about what lies ahead reflects the degree to which the new administration will have to build bridges in many directions.
- In Charlottesville, Va., where a white supremacist rally offered a look at rising right-wing violence early in Mr. Trump's presidency, those who have fought for racial justice said Mr. Biden's unity effort also requires accountability for the perpetrators of racial violence, not just calls to come together in peace.
- In Minneapolis, the community organizer Marcia Howard said Mr. Biden's elevation to the presidency meant that those who have hoped to create a world without the police need to double down on their efforts.
- Image About 150 people chanted anti-Trump and anti-Biden slogans in Seattle. Credit... Grant Hindsley for the New York Times The president and his allies have paid ''lip service'' to issues of racial equity, police brutality and mass incarceration, she said. ''And now they must be pressed to put action where their mouths are.''
- In Seattle on Wednesday, a crowd of about 150 people marched through the streets chanting both anti-Trump and anti-Biden slogans. One member of the group handed out fliers that said: ''Biden won! And so did corporate elites!'' The fliers argued that a ''Democratic administration is not a victory for oppressed people'' and ''Biden will not save us.''
- ''I came out here because no matter what happens, Biden and Kamala aren't enough,'' said one of the protesters, Alejandro Quezada Brom, 28, referring to Vice President Kamala Harris. He said the new president needed to know that ''the pressure's not off'' for progress on immigration and policing reforms.
- Patrisse Cullors, a co-founder of the Black Lives Matter Global Network, said she had met with members of Mr. Biden's transition team and held initial conversations with Merrick Garland, the attorney general nominee, and Pete Buttigieg, the transportation secretary nominee. They agreed to sit with Black Lives Matter organizers for more formal meetings once the administration was in office, she said.
- She said she believed that Mr. Biden was off to a good start with the executive order he signed on racial equity, which included things her group had discussed with the transition team around eradicating white supremacy and discrimination in communities and government agencies.
- Image Protesters in Portland smashed windows and vandalized the local Democratic Party headquarters. Credit... Alisha Jucevic for The New York Times But that was hardly enough, Ms. Cullors said. She said Black Lives Matter would be pushing the administration hard in areas where some of Mr. Biden's past positions have not always aligned with the movement's goals.
- ''We're going to really push this administration to look at ending police terror and mass incarceration,'' she said. ''And that can't happen through body cameras. It can't happen through more training. We actually have to look at the budgets of police departments at the national level to the local level. And we have to look at the budgets of everything else, every other social aid program and social service program.''
- At one of the lower-key events on Wednesday in Portland, about 200 people gathered under the lights at Irving Park, sharing pizza and visions for the coming four years.
- Ray Austin, 25, was the one who described Mr. Biden to the crowd as a ''feckless puppet,'' declaring that he ''is only president because of his ties to corporate interests'' '-- a proclamation that brought clapping and cheers. ''My friends, the fight has just begun,'' he said.
- A series of speakers laid out urgent goals ahead where they said Mr. Biden seemed unlikely to lead the way: a Green New Deal to fight climate change, a ''Medicare for All''-style health insurance system, overhauls of police departments to address racial disparities.
- Image Law enforcement made arrests outside an ICE building in Portland. Credit... Alisha Jucevic for The New York Times Reese Monson, one of the leaders in Portland's Black Lives Matter movement, said he welcomed the inauguration and Mr. Biden's early promises. He also expressed hope about Ms. Harris, the first Black vice president. But he said activists would need to keep up the pressure to ensure that the changes enacted go far enough.
- ''No matter who is in political power, we're not going to stop until we get justice,'' Mr. Monson said. ''And even then we want to make sure it's real justice.''
- In the aftermath of George Floyd's death in Minneapolis last May, protesters in Portland mobilized on the streets nightly, much of their ire targeted at the mayor and the police force that repeatedly used tear gas to subdue them. The crowds swelled during the summer after Mr. Trump issued an executive order to protect federal property and agents wearing camouflage brought a crackdown to the city.
- On Wednesday night, one rowdy group of protesters gathered at a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement building in the city, targeting the harsh deportation and detention tactics that the agency had used against immigrants. Mr. Biden began his presidency with executive orders on immigration that made it clear he would chart a much different course than Mr. Trump, but the crowd wanted more, calling for abolition of the immigration-enforcement agency. Some protesters spray-painted graffiti on the building: ''Reunite families now.''
- Minutes later, a line of federal agents in camouflage and tactical gear emerged from the building and began firing tear gas and pepper balls into the crowd '-- a scene that had unfolded similarly on dozens of nights in Portland over the past year.
- The parallels were not lost on the crowd.
- As one person held a lighter below a Biden-for-president flag, another chanted a phrase often seen on conservative message boards: ''Not my president.''
- Mike Baker reported from Portland, and John Eligon from Kansas City, Mo. Hallie Golden contributed reporting from Seattle.
- Rahm Emanuel remains in line for a 'high level' Biden ambassador post: May be China or Japan Israel cabinet NBC - Chicago Sun-Times
- WASHINGTON '-- In December the Chicago Sun-Times reported ex-Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel was in play for a ''high level'' ambassadorship, and on Monday night, NBC news said it may be to China or Japan.
- Emanuel had made a push to be President Joe Biden's Transportation Secretary, with Pete Buttigieg getting the spot instead.
- Emanuel became too hot for Biden to handle for a Cabinet post after protests from leaders of public service unions, civil rights groups and progressive organizations.
- In the alternative, the Sun-Times learned from multiple sources Emanuel, the first chief of staff for former President Barack Obama, would be in line for ''high level ambassadorship jobs.''
- NBC News said options for Emanuel included China and Japan, with Israel briefly considered and then off the table because Emanuel had a ''rocky relationship'' with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Emanuel, whose late father, Benjamin, was born in Jerusalem, has worked on Israel peace issues in the Obama and Clinton administrations.
- Emanuel's record in the Laquan McDonald killing contributed to sidelining him for a Cabinet slot. McDonald is the Black 17-year-old youth who died in 2014 after being shot 16 times by a Chicago police officer, with Emanuel sitting on the release of a video of the incident until after he was reelected in 2015.
- Did U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris' Ancestor Own Slaves in Jamaica?
- In June and July 2019, social media users shared reports that claimed one of the ancestors of 2020 presidential Democratic primary candidate and U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) was a slave owner on the Caribbean island of Jamaica.
- Such claims were shared widely in the aftermath of the first round of Democratic primary debates, during which Harris brought racial issues to the fore by criticizing primary rival and former Vice President Joe Biden's legislative record on busing, which she called ''hurtful'' to her as a black woman.
- The focus on racial issues and Harris' racial identity intensified after Donald Trump, Jr., son of President Donald Trump, briefly shared a tweet that averred: ''Kamala Harris is *not* an American Black. She is half Indian and half Jamaican.'' The source of that tweet, the @ali account, has consistently promulgated the claim that Harris is descended from ''Jamaican Slave Owners.''
- Amid the renewed scrutiny of Harris' family history, the right-leaning website ''Big League Politics'' posted what it said were the names of the ''slaves Kamala Harris' ancestor owned,'' adding:
- ''Democrat presidential candidate Kamala Harris is descended from Irish slave owner Hamilton Brown, the namesake of Brown's Town in Jamaica, who recruited massive numbers of Irish migrants to Jamaica to work on his sugar plantations after the British empire abolished slavery.''
- The ''Red State'' website published a similar post, whose headline asked, ''When Will Race-Baiting Kamala Harris Acknowledge She is a Descendant of a Slave Owner?''
- Similar reports appeared on right-leaning blogs and websites in January and February 2019. All of them were based on an account written by Donald Harris, a retired Stanford University economics professor and the father of Sen. Harris.
- On Jan. 13, Jamaica Global, a website for the global Jamaican diaspora, published an article that Prof. Harris had written in September 2018 about his family's roots in Jamaica. He was born on the island, before immigrating to the United States in the 1960s, to pursue a career as an economist and university lecturer.
- While studying for his Ph.D. at the University of California at Berkeley, he met Shyamala Gopalan, an Indian cancer researcher. The couple were married, and their daughter, the future California Attorney General and U.S. Senator, was born in Berkeley in 1964. Harris and her sister, Maya, are therefore first-generation American citizens, born in the U.S. to a Jamaican father and Indian mother.
- In his Jamaica Global article, Harris claimed to be descended from the 19th-century planter and slave owner Hamilton Brown. He wrote:
- ''My roots go back, within my lifetime, to my paternal grandmother Miss Chrishy (n(C)e Christiana Brown, descendant of Hamilton Brown who is on record as plantation and slave owner and founder of Brown's Town) and to my maternal grandmother Miss Iris (n(C)e Iris Finegan, farmer and educator, from Aenon Town and Inverness, ancestry unknown to me). The Harris name comes from my paternal grandfather Joseph Alexander Harris, land-owner and agricultural 'produce' exporter (mostly pimento or all-spice), who died in 1939 one year after I was born and is buried in the church yard of the magnificent Anglican Church which Hamilton Brown built in Brown's Town (and where, as a child, I learned the catechism, was baptized and confirmed, and served as an acolyte).'' [Emphasis is added].
- There is no doubt that Hamilton Brown was a prominent plantation owner in Jamaica during the first half of the 19th century, owned slaves, and also advocated against the abolition of slavery and sought to downplay the difficult working and living conditions of slaves in Jamaica.
- However, we have been unable to verify that a line of descent exists between the modern-day Harris family and the 19th-century slave owner. As such, the claim that an ancestor of Sen. Harris owned slaves in Jamaica remains unproven. If evidence emerges that verifies that line of descent, we will update this fact check accordingly.
- Hamilton BrownThe slave owner at the heart of this controversy died in Jamaica on Sept. 18, 1843, ''in the sixty-eighth year of his age.'' His headstone is located in St. Mark's Anglican (Church of England) cemetery in Brown's Town and establishes that he was born, likely in 1776, in County Antrim, in what is now Northern Ireland.
- According to one contemporary news article, he died after he was ''thrown from his gig'' in a horse-and-carriage accident. Another contemporary news report indicated he first immigrated to Jamaica in or around 1795. According to a National Library of Jamaica entry, Brown ''started out humbly as an estate book-keeper and rose to become a large landowner.'' He was the founder of Brown's Town in St. Ann's parish, which he represented in the colonial House of Assembly for 22 years.
- He also owned many slaves. According to one document, held by the U.K. National Archives, Brown owned at least 121 slaves in 1826, comprising 74 females and 47 males. In 1817, he owned at least 124 slaves, made up of 74 females and 50 males. According to records held by the ''Legacies of British Slave-Ownership'' project at University College London (UCL), Brown was at various times the owner, manager, or executor of several dozen plantations and estates on the island of Jamaica.
- Brown was also a steadfast slavery apologist. In contributions to the colonial House of Assembly, he opposed efforts, emanating from mainland Britain (where slavery was by then widely opposed), to ''interfere'' in the slave trade in Jamaica. In one 1823 speech, he lashed out at the ''hypocrisy'' and ''cloven foot'' of William Wilberforce, a British M.P. widely regarded as the hero of the anti-slavery abolitionist movement.
- In 1832, a Methodist missionary named Henry Whiteley spent three months in Jamaica, touring the island and inspecting the conditions of life for slaves, and the practices of colonial settlers and slave owners, including Brown. In a pamphlet published the following year, Whiteley recalled that he and Brown discussed the concept of ''amelioration'' '-- a gradualist approach to slavery in the 1820s and 1830s which, as distinct from the outright prohibition and extinction of slavery that characterized abolitionism, instead proposed making slavery more humane and tolerable. Brown was opposed even to this, according to Whiteley:
- '... I was rather startled to hear that Gentleman [Brown] swear by his Maker that [amelioration] should never be adopted in Jamaica; nor would the planters of Jamaica, he said, permit the interference of the Home [London] Government with their slaves in any shape. A great deal was said by him and others present about the happiness and comfort enjoyed by the slaves, and of the many advantages possessed by them of which the poor in England were destitute.
- Among other circumstances mentioned in proof of this, Mr. Robinson, a wharfinger [wharf owner], stated that a slave in that town had sent out printed cards to invite a party of his negro acquaintance to a supper party. One of these cards was handed to Mr. Hamilton Brown, who said he would present it to the Governor [imperial viceroy of Jamaica] as proof of the comfortable condition of the slave population.
- Notwithstanding that dinner party, the conditions suffered by slaves in Jamaica were far from ''comfortable,'' and Whiteley's pamphlet went on to document, in disturbing detail, the punishments meted out to slaves by their owners, which he personally witnessed and described in some cases as ''inhumanly severe.''
- Whiteley saw slaves, some girls as young as 12 years old, flogged between 40 and 50 times with a horse whip, for supposed misconduct as trivial as over-sleeping or not meeting their assigned work targets. In one case, a man was whipped 39 times despite not having committed any discernible ''offense'' '-- rather, one planter had him flogged as a method of petty revenge against the slave's owner, for some unspecified sleight. Whiteley's findings about the conditions of life for slaves in Jamaica could not have been further from the outlandish claims made by Brown and his fellow colonial settlers.
- Uncertain linksWe discovered ample evidence of Brown's slave ownership and his political and business career on the island of Jamaica. However, details about his immediate family are lacking, by comparison. With the generous and expert assistance of Rachel Lang, a researcher at University College London's ''Legacies of British Slave-Ownership'' project, we have managed to piece together the following facts:
- A ''Hamilton Brown Jnr.'' (likely the Antrim slave owner) had a daughter named Mary Melvina Brown, born to an unnamed woman, and baptised on June 4, 1839. The father's residence was listed as Grier Park (an estate Brown once owned), and the father's occupation was listed as ''Planter.'' Mary Melvina later married a different Hamilton Brown. By him, she gave birth to several children, including Mabel Melvina (born 1879, died 1935); Edwin Hamilton (born 1877, died 1932); and Gilbert Charles Clement (born 1875, died 1948). (In these baptism records, Mary Melvina's last name and maiden name are both listed as Brown, which makes it highly likely she is the Mary Melvina born to Hamilton Brown in 1839). We have not yet found a record of a Christiana Brown being born to Mary Melvina Brown. Such a record would establish a link between Donald Harris' paternal grandmother Christiana and the Antrim slave owner Hamilton Brown. As a result of this absence, we are issuing a rating of ''unproven,'' until such evidence emerges.
- We did discover other notable details. Donald Harris wrote in his ''Jamaica Global'' article that his grandmother, Christiana, died in 1951, at the age of 62. We found a record of a woman named Christiana Brown having died in Brown's Town in June 1951. However, that woman's age was listed as 70, which would mean she was born in 1880 or 1881.
- We found a birth certificate for a Christiana Brown, born to Frances Brown and an unnamed man, in September 1881. We found no other details about either of these women, and a woman born in September 1881 would be 69, rather than 70 years old, in June 1951. However, it's possible that the June 1951 death certificate contained a small error about the deceased's age, and that Donald Harris made a larger error in recalling his grandmother's age at the time of her death, which took place several decades ago.
- We also found a baptismal record for a male child born to Hamilton and Mary Melvina Brown in April 1881. No name was provided for the child, and the birth year does not match any of the Brown's other children, as far as we are aware. It is possible that the child's gender was recorded in error, and a female child born to the Browns in April 1881 would indeed have been 70 years old by June 1951. However, we have so far not been able to reconcile these discrepancies.
- (Stanford University agreed to send Donald Harris our request for any evidence that might corroborate his claim that his grandmother was a descendant of the planter Hamilton Brown. Unfortunately, we did not receive a response of any kind).
- Complicated historiesFinally, it is worth noting that, even if it is true that the Harris family are descendants of the Antrim slave owner Hamilton Brown, they are also quite likely to be descendants of slaves. It is well-documented that British and Irish slave owners in the Caribbean (and their counterparts in the American colonies) routinely raped and engaged in illicit sex with female slaves, resulting in many ''illegitimate'' children of mixed racial heritage.
- If it is the case, for example, that Christiana Brown was the daughter of Hamilton and Mary Melvina Brown, this means that two of Christiana's siblings were Mabel Melvina and Edwin Hamilton Brown, both of whom were listed in their baptismal records as ''colored,'' that is of mixed race (as opposed to ''black'' or ''white,'' the other labels used in baptismal records at that time).
- This in turn would mean that Hamilton Brown, a man born on the island of Ireland in the late 18th century and a prominent and powerful slave owner, had racially mixed grandchildren, after fathering a daughter (Mary Melvina) with a woman whose name did not appear on the baptismal certificate. Although we don't have clear proof, that pattern strongly suggests that that particular branch of Brown's family tree derived just as much from an enslaved woman, whose identity may well be lost to history, as it did from Brown himself.
- Even if it is the case that the Harris family, by way of Christiana Brown, are descendants of Hamilton Brown, those who seek to attack or undermine Sen. Harris for the wrongdoing of a man who died almost 200 years ago should first gain a better understanding of the often complicated, traumatic histories of black families in the United States '-- and tread much more carefully.
- Uncle Luke: Kamala Harris Can't Count on Black Voters in 2020 | Miami New Times
- Kamala Harris U.S. Senate Office
- LocalCommunityJournalismSupport the independent voice of Miami and help keep the future of New Times free.
- Kamala Harris will have trouble persuading black voters to make her president in 2020. First, the U.S. senator from California must explain why Donald Trump has a better prison-reform record than she had as the Golden State's attorney general. Then she'll have to overcome the perception she'll do anything to climb to the top.
- On the street, many blue-collar African-Americans, especially men, have already made up their minds not to vote for her. Between 2004 and 2016, when Harris worked as San Francisco's district attorney and state attorney general, she supported legislation that sent kids who skipped school to jail. And she opposed federal supervision of California's prisons after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling declared the overcrowded facilities inflicted cruel and unusual punishment on inmates.
- When she appealed a court order to implement new parole programs, Harris cited the need to use prisoners as slave labor to fight wildfires and pick up highway trash.
- Though black voters want politicians who'll put away thugs and killers terrorizing the neighborhood, they don't support those who deny defendants rehabilitation and send them to prison for crimes they didn't commit to line private prison companies' pockets.
- Harris rose to prominence in California after an affair with married, but separated, former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, who recently wrote a column that mentioned their relationship. Brown said he influenced Harris' career by appointing her to two state commissions when he was California Assembly speaker. He also helped her in her first race for San Francisco district attorney.
- When Harris, whose mother is from India and father is from Jamaica, decided it was time to take her talents to Washington, D.C., she married Douglas Emhoff, a rich white lawyer. For better or worse, black men don't want to vote for a black woman who married a white man or was the mistress of a powerful black man.
- Like everyone else, black voters want help from one of their own. The Bushes made sure their people got oil money. Bill Clinton let the telecommunications industry gobble up small radio and TV stations. And Donald Trump is looking out for his developer buddies through a tax cut and opportunity zones that gentrify minority neighborhoods. Meanwhile, Harris has let black people know they can't count on her.
- Keep Miami New Times Free... Since we started Miami New Times, it has been defined as the free, independent voice of Miami, and we would like to keep it that way. Offering our readers free access to incisive coverage of local news, food and culture. Producing stories on everything from political scandals to the hottest new bands, with gutsy reporting, stylish writing, and staffers who've won everything from the Society of Professional Journalists' Sigma Delta Chi feature-writing award to the Casey Medal for Meritorious Journalism. But with local journalism's existence under siege and advertising revenue setbacks having a larger impact, it is important now more than ever for us to rally support behind funding our local journalism. You can help by participating in our "I Support" membership program, allowing us to keep covering Miami with no paywalls. Columns Opinion
- Should We Call Respected Black Women 'Auntie'? - Essence
- Photo by Bryan Bedder/Getty Images for THRWhen Ava DuVernay, Oprah Winfrey and Gayle King told the world not to call them ''auntie,'' the whole world of Black folks, who use the word as a term of endearment and respect, sighed a heavy sigh.
- Even though many Black people use ''auntie'' to show respect and reverence, women like DuVernay, who has gotten the title tagged onto her first name, said she feels the word ages them.
- ''Why?! Why?! Am I that old? Because I don't feel that old,'' DuVernay said in a recent interview.
- On the BET blue carpet held last month, ESSENCE asked other Black celebrities how they feel about the term ''auntie.''
- ''I don't want to be called auntie,'' Insecure star Amanda Seales admitted. ''I'm sis. I'm cousin.''
- R&B singer Elle Varner said it best.
- ''I think it's on a case by case basis,'' she explained, adding that you can't go around calling folks 'auntie' or assuming they're fine with the moniker.
- Power star Rotimi, however, said he ''doesn't see anything wrong with it.''
- Check out the video above to hear celebrities, including Method Man and Erica Campbell, weigh in on this new debate.
- Amanda Seales Auntie Ava DuVernay bet awards BET Awards 2019 Gayle King
- Urban Dictionary: Auntie
- auntie is that one person who's blessed to have a sibling who gave birth. These
- aunties tend to be better than
- the mom's because they can give them back anytime they'd like and have a magical bond that allows the niece/nephew to trust the auntie and tell them anything. These kids will become your life. One day you'll quickly realize that food and these kids are the main reasons you're living.
- "Auntie you're my best friend!!"
- "Auntie can we do this? No, I want to do this!"
- Hey sister I have to go, here are
- Get a Auntie mug for your coworker Jos(C).
- south asian) woman who has all of the following characteristics:
- 1) has a thick desi accent when talking in English
- 2) talks in English to be cool
- pinches your cheeks and calls you beta or glares at u and calls u batameez
- 4) chases people with chappals
- 6) asks you to marry her son the first time you meet her
- ass cream" .. it took me a whole 10
- mins to figure out she was referring to ice cream.
- After discovering I'm in my last year of medical school, this auntie declared I was going to marry her son.
- Get a auntie mug for your friend Manafort.
- Not your real Aunt, just your mom's best "friend" who is always over
- spilling tea about other people's children. This is someone who wishes your mom success, but less than her own or that of her own children. Also a woman who always has to
- one up anything your mom says. You
- don't really know why this woman is in your house all the time before you're awake but she always is.
- Get a Auntie mug for your grandma Beatrix.
- Colloquial and endearing term of reference for the BBC (British
- Broadcasting Corporation). Implies a friendly and trusted old relative who can always be relied upon to be there for you. Often used by newspapers and magazines in the UK to refer to the BBC and allow the creation of otherwise nonsensical national
- Get a Auntie mug for your sister Rihanna.
- Akhenaten - Wikipedia
- Akhenaten (pronounced ), also spelled Echnaton, Akhenaton, Ikhnaton, and Khuenaten (Ancient Egyptian: ê'£á¸-n-jtn, meaning "Effective for the Aten"), was an ancient Egyptian pharaoh reigning c. '1353''1336 or 1351''1334 BC, the tenth ruler of the Eighteenth Dynasty. Before the fifth year of his reign, he was known as Amenhotep IV (Ancient Egyptian: jmn-ḥtp, meaning "Amun is satisfied", Hellenized as Amenophis IV).
- Akhenaten is noted for abandoning Egypt's traditional polytheistic religion and introducing Atenism, worship centered on Aten. The views of Egyptologists differ whether Atenism should be considered as absolute monotheism, or whether it was monolatry, syncretism, or henotheism. This culture shift away from traditional religion was not widely accepted. After his death, Akhenaten's monuments were dismantled and hidden, his statues were destroyed, and his name excluded from lists of rulers compiled by later pharaohs. Traditional religious practice was gradually restored, notably under his close successor Tutankhamun, who changed his name from Tutankhaten early in his reign. When some dozen years later rulers without clear rights of succession from the Eighteenth Dynasty founded a new dynasty, they discredited Akhenaten and his immediate successors, referring to Akhenaten himself as "the enemy" or "that criminal" in archival records.
- Akhenaten was all but lost to history until the late 19th century discovery of Amarna, or Akhetaten, the new capital city he built for the worship of Aten. Furthermore, in 1907, a mummy that could be Akhenaten's was unearthed from the tomb KV55 in the Valley of the Kings by Edward R. Ayrton. Genetic testing has determined that the man buried in KV55 was Tutankhamun's father, but its identification as Akhenaten has since been questioned.
- Akhenaten's rediscovery and Flinders Petrie's early excavations at Amarna sparked great public interest in the pharaoh and his queen Nefertiti. He has been described as "enigmatic", "mysterious", "revolutionary", "the greatest idealist of the world", and "the first individual in history", but also as a "heretic", "fanatic", "possibly insane", and "mad". The interest comes from his connection with Tutankhamun, the unique style and high quality of the pictorial arts he patronized, and ongoing interest in the religion he attempted to establish.
- Family [ edit ] The future Akhenaten was born Amenhotep, a younger son of pharaoh Amenhotep III and his principal wife Tiye. Crown Prince Thutmose, Amenhotep III and Tiye's eldest son and Akhenaten's brother, was recognized as Amenhotep III's heir. Akhenaten also had four or five sisters, Sitamun, Henuttaneb, Iset, Nebetah, and possibly Beketaten. Thutmose's early death, perhaps around Amenhotep III's thirtieth regnal year, Akhenaten was next in line for Egypt's throne.
- Akhenaten was married to Nefertiti, his Great Royal Wife; the exact timing of their marriage is unknown, but evidence from the pharaoh's building projects suggests that this happened either shortly before or after Akhenaten took the throne. Egyptologist Dimitri Laboury suggested that the marriage took place in Akhenaten's fourth regnal year. A secondary wife of Akhenaten named Kiya is also known from inscriptions. Some have theorized that she gained her importance as the mother of Tutankhamun, Smenkhkare, or both. Some Egyptologists, such as William Murnane, proposed that Kiya is a colloqial name of the Mitanni princess Tadukhipa, daughter of the Mitanni king Tushratta, widow of Amenhotep III, and later wife of Akhenaten. Akhenaten's other attested consorts are the daughter of Å atiya, ruler of EniÅasi, and a daughter of Burna-Buriash II, king of Babylonia.
- Akhenaten could have had seven or eight children based on inscriptions. Egyptologists are fairly certain about his six daughters, who are well attested in contemporary depictions. Among his six daughters, Meritaten was born in regnal year one or five; Meketaten in year four or six; Ankhesenpaaten, later queen of Tutankhamun, before year five or eight; Neferneferuaten Tasherit in year eight or nine; Neferneferure in year nine or ten; and Setepenre in year ten or eleven. Tutankhamun, born Tutankhaten, was most likely Akhenaten's son, with Nefertiti or another wife. There is less certainty around Akhenaten's relationship with Smenkhkare, his coregent or successor, who could have been Akhenaten's eldest son with an unknown wife, and later married Meritaten, his own sister.
- Some historians, such as Edward Wente and James Allen, have proposed that Akhenaten took some of his daughters as wives or sexual consorts to father a male heir. While this is debated, some historical parallels exist: Akhenaten's father Amenhotep III married his daughter Sitamun, while Ramesses II married two or more of his daughters, even though their marriages might simply have been ceremonial. In Akhenaten's case, Meritaten, for example, recorded as Great Royal Wife to Smenkhkare, is listed on a box from Tutankhamun's tomb alongside pharaohs Akhenaten and Neferneferuaten as Great Royal Wife. Additionally, letters written to Akhenaten from foreign rulers make reference to Meritaten as "mistress of the house." Egyptologists in the early 20th century also believed that Akhenaten could have fathered a child with his daughter Meketaten. Meketaten's death, at perhaps age ten to twelve, is recorded in the royal tombs at Akhetaten from around regnal years thirteen or fourteen. Early Egyptologists attributed her death possibly to childbirth, because of a depiction of an infant in her tomb. Because no husband is known for Meketaten, the assumption had been that Akhenaten was the father. Aidan Dodson believed this to be unlikely, as no Egyptian tomb has been found that mentions or alludes to the cause of death of the tomb owner, and Jacobus van Dijk proposed that the child is a portrayal of Meketaten's soul. Finally, various monuments, originally for Kiya, were reinscribed for Akhenaten's daughters Meritaten and Ankhesenpaaten. The revised inscriptions list a Meritaten-tasherit ("junior") and an Ankhesenpaaten-tasherit. Some view this to indicate that Akhenaten fathered his own grandchildren. Others hold that, since these grandchildren are not attested to elsewhere, they are fictions invented to fill the space originally filled by Kiya's child.
- Early life [ edit ] Akhenaten's elder brother
- Thutmose, shown in his role as
- High Priest of Ptah. Akhenaten became heir to the throne after Thutmose died during their father's reign.
- Egyptologists know very little about Akhenaten's life as prince. Donald B. Redford dated his birth before his father Amenhotep III's 25th regnal year, c. '1363''1361 BC , based on the birth of Akhenaten's first daughter, which likely happened fairly early in his own reign. The only mention of his name, as "the King's Son Amenhotep," was found on a wine docket at Amenhotep III's Malkata palace, where some historians suggested Akhenaten was born. Others contended that he was born at Memphis, where growing up he was influenced by the worship of the sun god Ra practiced at nearby Heliopolis. Redford and James K. Hoffmeier stated, however, that Ra's cult was so widespread and established throughout Egypt that Akhenaten could have been influenced by solar worship even if he did not grow up around Heliopolis.
- Some historians have tried to determine who was Akhenaten's tutor during his youth, and have proposed scribes Heqareshu or Meryre II, the royal tutor Amenemotep, or the vizier Aperel. The only person we know for certain served the prince was Parennefer, whose tomb mentions this fact.
- Egyptologist Cyril Aldred suggested that prince Amenhotep might have been a High Priest of Ptah in Memphis, although no evidence supporting this had been found. It is known that Amenhotep's brother, crown prince Thutmose, served in this role before he died. If Amenhotep inherited his brother's roles in preparation for his accession to the throne, he might have become a high priest in Thutmose's stead. Aldred proposed that Akhenaten's unusual artistic inclinations might have been formed during his time serving Ptah, who was the patron god of craftsmen, and whose high priest were sometimes referred to as "The Greatest of the Directors of Craftsmanship."
- Reign [ edit ] Coregency with Amenhotep III [ edit ] There is much controversy around whether Amenhotep IV succeeded to the throne on the death of his father Amenhotep III or whether there was a coregency, lasting perhaps as long as 12 years. Eric Cline, Nicholas Reeves, Peter Dorman, and other scholars have argued strongly against the establishment of a long coregency between the two rulers and in favor of either no coregency or a brief one lasting at most two years. Donald Redford, William Murnane, Alan Gardiner, and Lawrence Berman contested the view of any coregency whatsoever between Akhenaten and his father.
- Most recently, in 2014, archeologists found both pharaohs' names inscribed on the wall of the Luxor tomb of vizier Amenhotep-Huy. The Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities called this "conclusive evidence" that Akhenaten shared power with his father for at least eight years, based on the dating of the tomb. This conclusion was called into question by other Egyptologists, according to whom the inscription only means that construction on Amenhotep-Huy's tomb commenced during Amenhotep III's reign and concluded under Akhenaten's, and Amenhotep-Huy thus simply wanted to pay his respects to both rulers.[60]
- Early reign as Amenhotep IV [ edit ] Akhenaten took Egypt's throne as Amenhotep IV, most likely in 1353 or 1351 BC. It is unknown how old Amenhotep IV was when he did this; estimates range from 10 to 23. He was most likely crowned in Thebes, or perhaps Memphis or Armant.
- The beginning of Amenhotep IV's reign followed established pharaonic traditions. He did not immediately start redirecting worship toward the Aten and distancing himself from other gods. Egyptologist Donald B. Redford believed this implied that Amenhotep IV's eventual religious policies were not conceived of before his reign, and he did not follow a pre-established plan or program. Redford pointed to three pieces of evidence to support this. First, surving inscriptions show Amenhotep IV worshipping several different gods, including Atum, Osiris, Anubis, Nekhbet, Hathor, and the Eye of Ra, and texts from this era refer to "the gods" and "every god and every goddess." Moreover, the High Priest of Amun was still active in the fourth year of Amenhotep IV's reign. Second, even though he later moved his capital from Thebes to Akhetaten, his initial royal titulary honored Thebes (for example, his nomen was "Amenhotep, god-ruler of Thebes"), and recognizing its importance, he called Thebes "Southern Heliopolis, the first great (seat) of Re (or) the Disc." Third, while his initial building program sought to build new places of worship to the Aten, he did not yet destroy temples to the other gods. Amenhotep IV continued his father's construction projects at Karnak's Precinct of Amun-Re. For example, he decorated the walls of the precinct's Third Pylon with images of himself worshipping Ra-Horakhty, portrayed in the god's traditional form of a falcon-headed man.
- Tombs built or completed early in Amenhotep IV's reign, such as those of Kheruef, Ramose, and Parennefer, show the pharaoh in the traditional artistic style. In Ramose's tomb, Amenhotep IV appears on the west wall, seated on a throne, with Ramose appearing before the pharaoh. On the other side of the doorway, Amenhotep IV and Nefertiti are shown in the window of appearances, with the Aten depicted as the sun disc. In Parennefer's tomb, Amenhotep IV and Nefertiti are seated on a throne with the sun disc depicted over the pharaoh and his queen.
- Early in his reign, Amenhotep IV ordered the construction of temples or shrines to the Aten in several cities across the country, such as Bubastis, Tell el-Borg, Heliopolis, Memphis, Nekhen, Kawa, and Kerma. Amenhotep IV also ordered the construction of a large temple complex dedicated to the Aten at Karnak in Thebes, northeast of the parts of the Karnak complex dedicated to Amun. The Aten temple complex, collectively known as the Per Aten ("House of the Aten"), consisted of several temples whose names survive: the Gempaaten ("The Aten is found in the estate of the Aten"), the Hwt benben ("House or Temple of the Benben"), the Rud-menu ("Enduring of monuments for Aten forever"), the Teni-menu ("Exalted are the monuments of the Aten forever"), and the Sekhen Aten ("booth of Aten").
- Amenhotep IV organized a Sed festival around regnal year two or three. Sed festivals were ritual rejuvenations of an aging pharaoh. They usually took place for the first time around the thirtieth year of a pharaoh's reign, then after every three or so years. Egyptologists only speculate as to why Amenhotep IV organized a Sed festival when he was likely still in his early twenties. Some historians see it as evidence for Amenhotep III and Amenhotep IV's coregency, and believe that Amenhotep IV's Sed festival coincided with one of his father's celebrations. Others speculate that Amenhotep IV chose to hold his festival three years after his father's death, aiming to proclaim his rule a continuation of his father's reign. Yet others believe that the festival was held to honor the Aten on whose behalf the pharaoh ruled Egypt, or, as Amenhotep III was considered to have become one with the Aten following his death, the Sed festival honored both the pharaoh and the god at the same time. It is also possible that the purpose of the ceremony was to figuratively fill Amenhotep IV with strength before his great enterprise: the introduction of the Aten cult and the founding of the new capital Akhetaten. Regardless of the celebration's aim, Egyptologists concluded that during the festivities, Amenhotep IV only made offerings to the Aten rather than the many gods and goddesses, as customary.
- Among the discovered documents that refer to Akhenaten as Amenhotep IV the latest in his reign are two copies of a letter to the pharaoh from Ipy, the high steward of Memphis. These letters, found in Gurob and informing the pharaoh that the royal estates in Memphis are "in good order" and the temple of Ptah is "prosperous and flourishing," are dated to regnal year five, day nineteen of the growing season's third month. About a month later, day thirteen of the growing season's fourth month, one of the boundary stela at Akhetaten already had the name Akhenaten carved on it, implying that Akhenaten changed his name between the two inscriptions.
- Name change [ edit ] In regnal year five, Amenhotep IV decided to show his devotion to the Aten by changing his royal titulary. No longer would he be known as Amenhotep IV and be associated with the god Amun, but rather he would completely shift his focus to the Aten. Egyptologists debate the exact meaning of Akhenaten, his new personal name. The word "akh" (Ancient Egyptian: ê'£á¸) could have different translations, such as "satisfied," "effective spirit," or "serviceable to," and thus Akhenaten's name could be translated to mean "Aten is satisfied," "Effective spirit of the Aten," or "Serviceable to the Aten," respectively. Gertie Englund and Florence Friedman arrived at the translation "Effective for the Aten" by analyzing contemporary texts and inscriptions, in which Akhenaten often described himself as being "effective for" the sun disc. Englund and Friedman concluded that the frequency with which Akhenaten used this term likely means that his own name meant "Effective for the Aten."
- Some historians, such as William F. Albright, Edel Elmar, and Gerhard Fecht, proposed that Akhenaten's name is misspelled and mispronounced. These historians believe "Aten" should rather be "JÄti," thus rendering the pharaoh's name AkhenjÄti or Aá¸anjÄti (pronounced ), as it could have been pronounced in Ancient Egypt.
- Amenhotep IVAkhenatenHorus nameKanakht-qai-Shuti
- "Strong Bull of the Double Plumes"
- Meryaten"Beloved of Aten"
- Nebty nameWer-nesut-em-Ipet-swt"Great of Kingship in Karnak"
- Wer-nesut-em-Akhetaten"Great of Kingship in Akhet-Aten"
- Golden Horus nameWetjes-khau-em-Iunu-Shemay"Crowned in Heliopolis of the South" (Thebes)
- Wetjes-ren-en-Aten"Exalter of the Name of Aten"
- Prenomen Neferkheperure-waenre "Beautiful are the Forms of Re, the Unique one of Re"Nomen Amenhotep Netjer-Heqa-Waset"Amenhotep god-ruler of Thebes"
- Akhenaten"Effective for the Aten"
- Founding Amarna [ edit ] One of the stele marking the boundary of the new capital Akhetaten.
- Around the same time he changed his royal titulary, on the thirteenth day of the growing season's fourth month, Akhenaten decreed that a new capital city be built: Akhetaten (Ancient Egyptian: ê'£á¸t-jtn, meaning "Horizon of the Aten"), better known today as Amarna. The event Egyptologists know the most about during Akhenaten's life are connected with founding Akhetaten, as several so-called boundary stelae were found around the city to mark its boundary. The pharaoh chose a site about halfway between Thebes, the capital at the time, and Memphis, on the east bank of the Nile, where a wadi and a natural dip in the surrounding cliffs form a silhouette similar to the "horizon" hieroglyph. Additionally, the site had previously been uninhabited. According to inscriptions on one boundary stela, the site was appropriate for Aten's city for "not being the property of a god, nor being the property of a goddess, nor being the property of a ruler, nor being the property of a female ruler, nor being the property of any people able to lay claim to it."
- Historians do not know for certain why Akhenaten established a new capital and left Thebes, the old capital. The boundary stelae detailing Akhetaten's founding is damaged where it likely explained the pharaoh's motives for the move. Surviving parts claim what happened to Akhenaten was "worse than those that I heard" previously in his reign and worse than those "heard by any kings who assumed the White Crown," and alludes to "offensive" speech against the Aten. Egyptologists believe that Akhenaten could be referring to conflict with the priesthood and followers of Amun, the patron god of Thebes. The great temples of Amun, such as Karnak, were all located in Thebes and the priests there achieved significant power earlier in the Eighteenth Dynasty, especially under Hatshepsut and Thutmose III, thanks to pharaohs offering large amounts of Egypt's growing wealth to the cult of Amun; historians, such as Donald B. Redford, therefore posited that by moving to a new capital, Akhenaten may have been trying to break with Amun's priests and the god.
- Akhetaten was a planned city with the Great Temple of the Aten, Small Aten Temple, royal residences, records office, and government buildings in the city center. Some of these buildings, such as the Aten temples, were ordered to be built by Akhenaten on the boundary stela decreeing the city's founding.
- The city was built quickly, thanks to a new construction method that used substantially smaller building blocks than under previous pharaohs. These blocks, called talatats, measured ' 1'2 by ' 1'2 by 1 ancient Egyptian cubits (c. '27 by 27 by 54 cm ), and because of the smaller weight and standardized size, using them during constructions was more efficient than using heavy building blocks of varying sizes. By regnal year eight, Akhetaten reached a state where it could be occupied by the royal family. Only his most loyal subjects followed Akhenaten and his family to the new city. While the city continued to be built, in years five through eight, construction work began to stop in Thebes. The Theban Aten temples that had begun were abandoned, and a village of those working on Valley of the Kings tombs was relocated to the workers' village at Akhetaten. However, construction work continued in the rest of the country, as larger cult centers, such as Heliopolis and Memphis, also had temples built for Aton.
- International relations [ edit ] Painted limestone miniature stela. It shows Akhenaten standing before 2 incense stands, Aten disc above. From Amarna, Egypt. 18th Dynasty. The Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, London
- The Amarna letters have provided important evidence about Akhenaten's reign and foreign policy. The letters are a cache of 382 diplomatic texts and literary and educational materials discovered between 1887 and 1979 and named after Amarna, the modern name for Akhenaten's capital Akhetaten. The diplomatic correspondence comprises clay tablet messages between Amenhotep III, Akhenaten, and Tutankhamun, various subjects through Egyptian military outposts, rulers of vassal states, and the foreign rulers of Babylonia, Assyria, Syria, Canaan, Alashiya, Arzawa, Mitanni, and the Hittites.
- The Amarna letters portray the international situation in the Eastern Mediterranean that Akhenaten inherited from his predecessors. The kingdom's influence and military might increased greatly before starting to wane in the 200 years preceding Akhenaten's reign, following the expulsion of the Hyksos from Lower Egypt at the end of the Second Intermediate Period. Egypt's power reached new heights under Thutmose III, who ruled approximately 100 years before Akhenaten and led several successful military campaigns into Nubia and Syria. Egypt's expansion led to confrontation with the Mitanni, but this rivalry ended with the two nations becoming allies. Amenhotep III aimed to maintain the balance of power through marriages'--such as his marriage to Tadukhipa, daughter of the Mitanni king Tushratta'--and vassal states. Yet under Amenhotep III and Akhenaten, Egypt was unable or unwilling to oppose the rise of the Hittites around Syria. The pharaohs seemed to eschew military confrontation at a time when the balance of power between Egypt's neighbors and rivals was shifting, and the Hittites, a confrontational state, overtook the Mitanni in influence.[94]
- Early in his reign, Akhenaten had conflicts with Tushratta, the king of Mitanni, who had courted favor with his father against the Hittites. Tushratta complains in numerous letters that Akhenaten had sent him gold-plated statues rather than statues made of solid gold; the statues formed part of the bride-price that Tushratta received for letting his daughter Tadukhepa marry Amenhotep III and then later marry Akhenaten. An Amarna letter preserves a complaint by Tushratta to Akhenaten about the situation:
- I...asked your father Mimmureya for statues of solid cast gold, ... and your father said, 'Don't talk of giving statues just of solid cast gold. I will give you ones made also of lapis lazuli. I will give you too, along with the statues, much additional gold and [other] goods beyond measure.' Every one of my messengers that were staying in Egypt saw the gold for the statues with their own eyes. ... But my brother [i.e., Akhenaten] has not sent the solid [gold] statues that your father was going to send. You have sent plated ones of wood. Nor have you sent me the goods that your father was going to send me, but you have reduced [them] greatly. Yet there is nothing I know of in which I have failed my brother. ... May my brother send me much gold. ... In my brother's country gold is as plentiful as dust. May my brother cause me no distress. May he send me much gold in order that my brother [with the gold and m]any [good]s may honor me.
- While Akhenaten was certainly not a close friend of Tushratta, he was evidently concerned at the expanding power of the Hittite Empire under its powerful ruler Suppiluliuma I. A successful Hittite attack on Mitanni and its ruler Tushratta would have disrupted the entire international balance of power in the Ancient Middle East at a time when Egypt had made peace with Mitanni; this would cause some of Egypt's vassals to switch their allegiances to the Hittites, as time would prove. A group of Egypt's allies who attempted to rebel against the Hittites were captured, and wrote letters begging Akhenaten for troops, but he did not respond to most of their pleas. Evidence suggests that the troubles on the northern frontier led to difficulties in Canaan, particularly in a struggle for power between Labaya of Shechem and Abdi-Heba of Jerusalem, which required the pharaoh to intervene in the area by dispatching Medjay troops northwards. Akhenaten pointedly refused to save his vassal Rib-Hadda of Byblos'--whose kingdom was being besieged by the expanding state of Amurru under Abdi-Ashirta and later Aziru, son of Abdi-Ashirta'--despite Rib-Hadda's numerous pleas for help from the pharaoh. Rib-Hadda wrote a total of 60 letters to Akhenaten pleading for aid from the pharaoh. Akhenaten wearied of Rib-Hadda's constant correspondences and once told Rib-Hadda: "You are the one that writes to me more than all the (other) mayors" or Egyptian vassals in EA 124. What Rib-Hadda did not comprehend was that the Egyptian king would not organize and dispatch an entire army north just to preserve the political status quo of several minor city states on the fringes of Egypt's Asiatic Empire. Rib-Hadda would pay the ultimate price; his exile from Byblos due to a coup led by his brother Ilirabih is mentioned in one letter. When Rib-Hadda appealed in vain for aid from Akhenaten and then turned to Aziru, his sworn enemy, to place him back on the throne of his city, Aziru promptly had him dispatched to the king of Sidon, where Rib-Hadda was almost certainly executed.
- Several Egyptologists in the late 19th and 20th centuries interpretated the Amarna letters to mean that Akhenaten neglected foreign policy and Egypt's foreign territories in favor of his internal reforms. For example, Henry Hall believed Akhenaten "succeeded by his obstinate doctrinaire love of peace in causing far more misery in his world than half a dozen elderly militarists could have done," while James Henry Breasted said Akhenaten "was not ¬t to cope with a situation demanding an aggressive man of affairs and a skilled military leader." Others noted that the Amarna letters counter the conventional view that Akhenaten neglected Egypt's foreign territories in favour of his internal reforms. For example, Norman de Garis Davies praised Akhenaten's emphasis on diplomacy over war, while James Baikie said that the fact "that there is no evidence of revolt within the borders of Egypt itself during the whole reign is surely ample proof that there was no such abandonment of his royal duties on the part of Akhenaten as has been assumed." Indeed, several letters from Egyptian vassals notified the pharaoh that they have followed his instructions, implying that the pharaoh sent such instructions:
- To the king, my lord, my god, my Sun, the Sun from the sky: Message of Yapahu, the ruler of Gazru, your servant, the dirt at your feet. I indeed prostrate myself at the feet of the king, my lord, my god, my Sun, the Sun from the sky, 7 times and 7 times, on the stomach and on the back. I am indeed guarding the place of the king, my lord, the Sun of the sky, where I am, and all the things the king, my lord, has written me, I am indeed carrying out'--everything! Who am I, a dog, and what is my house, and what is my ..., and what is anything I have, that the orders of the king, my lord, the Sun from the sky, should not obey constantly?
- The Amarna letters also show that vassal states were told repeatedly to expect the arrival of the Egyptian military on their lands, and provide evidence that these troops were dispatched and arrived at their destination. Dozens of letters detail that Akhenaten'--and Amenhotep III'--sent Egyptian and Nubian troops, armies, archers, chariots, horses, and ships.
- Additionally, when Rib-Hadda was killed at the instigation of Aziru, Akhenaten sent an angry letter to Aziru containing a barely veiled accusation of outright treachery on the latter's part. Akhenaten wrote:
- [Y]ou acted delinquently by taking [Rib-Hadda] whose brother had cast him away at the gate, from his city. He was residing in Sidon and, following your own judgment, you gave him to [some] mayors. Were you ignorant of the treacherousness of the men? If you really are the king's servant, why did you not denounce him before the king, your lord, saying, "This mayor has written to me saying, 'Take me to yourself and get me into my city'"? And if you did act loyally, still all the things you wrote were not true. In fact, the king has reflected on them as follows, "Everything you have said is not friendly."
- Now the king has heard as follows, "You are at peace with the ruler of Qidsa (Kadesh). The two of you take food and strong drink together." And it is true. Why do you act so? Why are you at peace with a ruler whom the king is fighting? And even if you did act loyally, you considered your own judgment, and his judgment did not count. You have paid no attention to the things that you did earlier. What happened to you among them that you are not on the side of the king, your lord? ... [I]f you plot evil, treacherous things, then you, together with your entire family, shall die by the axe of the king. So perform your service for the king, your lord, and you will live. You yourself know that the king does not fail when he rages against all of Canaan. And when you wrote saying, 'May the king, my Lord, give me leave this year, and then I will go next year to the king, my Lord. If this is impossible, I will send my son in my place''--the king, your lord, let you off this year in accordance with what you said. Come yourself, or send your son [now], and you will see the king at whose sight all lands live.
- This letter shows that Akhenaten paid close attention to the affairs of his vassals in Canaan and Syria. Akhenaten commanded Aziru to come to Egypt and proceeded to detain him there for at least one year. In the end, Akhenaten was forced to release Aziru back to his homeland when the Hittites advanced southwards into Amki, thereby threatening Egypt's series of Asiatic vassal states, including Amurru. Sometime after his return to Amurru, Aziru defected to the Hittite side with his kingdom. While it is known from an Amarna letter by Rib-Hadda that the Hittites "seized all the countries that were vassals of the king of Mitanni." Akhenaten managed to preserve Egypt's control over the core of her Near Eastern Empire (which consisted of present-day Israel as well as the Phoenician coast) while avoiding conflict with the increasingly powerful Hittite Empire of Suppiluliuma I. Only the Egyptian border province of Amurru in Syria around the Orontes river was permanently lost to the Hittites when its ruler Aziru defected to the Hittites.
- Only one military campaign is known for certain under Akhenaten's reign. In his second or twelfth year, Akhenaten ordered his Viceroy of Kush Tuthmose to lead a military expedition to quell a rebellion and raids on settlements on the Nile by Nubian nomadic tribes. The victory was commemorated on two stelae, one discovered at Amada and another at Buhen. Egyptologists differ on the size of the campaign: Wolfgang Helck considered it a small-scale police operation, while Alan Schulman considered it a "war of major proportions."
- Other Egyptologists suggested that Akhenaten could have waged war in Syria or the Levant, possibly against the Hittites. Cyril Aldred, based on Amarna letters describing Egyptian troop movements, proposed that Akhenaten launched an unsuccessful war around the city of Gezer, while Marc Gabolde argued for an unsuccessful campaign around Kadesh. Either of these could be the campaign referred to on Tutankhamun's Restoration Stela: "if an army was sent to Djahy [southern Canaan and Syria] to broaden the boundaries of Egypt, no success of their cause came to pass." John Coleman Darnell and Colleen Manassa also argued that Akhenaten fought with the Hittites for control of Kadesh, but was unsuccessful; the city was not recaptured until 60''70 years later, under Seti I.
- Later years [ edit ] In regnal year twelve, Akhenaten received tributes and offerings from allied countries and vassal states at
- Akhetaten, as depicted in the
- Egyptologists know little about the last five years of Akhenaten's reign, beginning in c. '1341 or 1339 BC. These years are poorly attested and only a few pieces of contemporary evidence survive; the lack of clarity makes reconstructing the latter part of the pharaoh's reign "a daunting task" and a controversial and contested topic of discussion among Egyptologists. Among the newest pieces of evidence is an inscription discovered in 2012 at a limestone quarry in Deir el-Bersha, just north of Akhetaten, from the pharaoh's sixteenth regnal year. The text refers to a building project in Amarna and establishes that Akhenaten and Nefertiti were still a royal couple just a year before Akhenaten's death. The inscription is dated to Year 16, month 3 of Akhet, day 15 of the reign of Akhenaten.
- Before the 2012 discovery of the Deir el-Bersha inscription, the last known fixed-date event in Akhenaten's reign was a royal reception in regnal year twelve, in which the pharaoh and the royal family received tributes and offerings from allied countries and vassal states at Akhetaten. Inscriptions show tributes from Nubia, the Land of Punt, Syria, the Kingdom of Hattusa, the islands in the Mediterranean Sea, and Libya. Egyptologists, such as Aidan Dodson, consider this year twelve celebration to be the zenith of Akhenaten's reign. Thanks to reliefs in the tomb of courtier Meryre II, historians know that the royal family, Akhenaten, Nefertiti, and their six daughters, were present at the royal reception in full. However, historians are uncertain about the reasons for the reception. Possibilities include the celebration of the marriage of future pharaoh Ay to Tey, celebration of Akhenaten's twelve years on the throne, the summons of king Aziru of Amurru to Egypt, a military victory at Sumur in the Levant, a successful military campaign in Nubia, Nefertiti's ascendancy to the throne as coregent, or the completion of the new capital city Akhetaten.
- Following year twelve, Donald B. Redford and other Egyptologists proposed that Egypt was struck by an epidemic, most likely a plague. Contemporary evidence suggests that a plague ravaged through the Middle East around this time, and historians suggested that ambassadors and delegations arriving to Akhenaten's year twelve reception might have brought the disease to Egypt. Alternatively, letters from the Hattians suggested that the epidemic originated in Egypt and was carried throughout the Middle East by Egyptian prisoners of war. Regardless of its origin, the epidemic might account for several deaths in the royal family that occurred in the last five years of Akhenaten's reign, including those of his daughters Meketaten, Neferneferure, and Setepenre.
- Coregency with Smenkhkare or Nefertiti [ edit ] Akhenaten could have ruled together with Smenkhkare and Nefertiti for several years before his death. Based on depictions and artifacts from the tombs of Meryre II and Tutankhamun, Smenkhkare could have been Akhenaten's coregent by regnal year thirteen or fourteen, but died a year or two later. Nefertiti might not have assumed the role of coregent until after year sixteen, when a stela still mentions her as Akhenaten's Great Royal Wife. While Nefertiti's familial relationship with Akhenaten is known, whether Akhenaten and Smenkhkare were related by blood is unclear. Smenkhkare could have been Akhenaten's son or brother, as the son of Amenhotep III with Tiye or Sitamun. Archeological evidence makes it clear, however, that Smenkhkare was married to Meritaten, Akhenaten's eldest daughter. For another, the so-called Coregency Stela, found in a tomb at Akhetaten, might show queen Nefertiti as Akhenaten's coregent, but this is uncertain as stela was recarved to show the names of Ankhesenpaaten and Neferneferuaten. Egyptologist Aidan Dodson proposed that both Smenkhkare and Neferiti were Akhenaten's coregents to ensure the Amarna family's continued rule when Egypt was confronted with an epidemic. Dodson suggested that the two were chosen to rule as Tutankhaten's coregent in case Akhenaten died and Tutankhaten took the throne at a young age, or rule in Tutankhaten's stead if the prince also died in the epidemic.
- Death and burial [ edit ] The desecrated royal coffin found in Tomb KV55
- Akhenaten died after seventeen years of rule and was initially buried in a tomb in the Royal Wadi east of Akhetaten. The order to construct the tomb and to bury the pharaoh there was commemorated on one of the boundary stela delineating the capital's borders: "Let a tomb be made for me in the eastern mountain [of Akhetaten]. Let my burial be made in it, in the millions of jubilees which the Aten, my father, decreed for me." In the years following the burial, Akhenaten's sarcophagus was destroyed and left in the Akhetaten necropolis; reconstructed in the 20th century, it is in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo as of 2019. Despite leaving the sarcophagus behind, Akhenaten's mummy was removed from the royal tombs after Tutankhamun abandoned Akhetaten and returned to Thebes. It was most likely moved to tomb KV55 in Valley of the Kings near Thebes. This tomb was later desecrated, likely during the Ramesside period.
- Whether Smenkhkare also enjoyed a brief independent reign after Akhenaten is unclear. If Smenkhkare outlived Akhenaten, and became sole pharaoh, he likely ruled Egypt for less than a year. The next successor was Nefertiti or Meritaten ruling as Neferneferuaten, reigning in Egypt for about two years. She was, in turn, probably succeeded by Tutankhaten, with the country being administered by the vizier and future pharaoh Ay.
- Profile view of the skull (thought to be Akhenaten) recovered from KV55
- While Akhenaten'--along with Smenkhkare'--was most likely reburied in tomb KV55, the identification of the mummy found in that tomb as Akhenaten remains controversial to this day. The mummy has repeatedly been examined since its discovery in 1907. Most recently, Egyptologist Zahi Hawass led a team of researchers to examine the mummy using medical and DNA analysis, with the results published in 2010. In releasing their test results, Hawass' team identified the mummy as the father of Tutankhamun and thus "most probably" Akhenaten. However, the study's validity has since been called into question. For instance, the discussion of the study results does not discuss that Tutankhamun's father and the father's siblings would share some genetic markers; if Tutankhamun's father was Akhenaten, the DNA results could indicate that the mummy is a brother of Akhenaten, possibly Smenkhkare.
- Legacy [ edit ] With Akhenaten's death, the Aten cult he had founded fell out of favor: at first gradually, and then with decisive finality. Tutankhaten changed his name to Tutankhamun in Year 2 of his reign (c. '1332 BC ) and abandoned the city of Akhetaten. Their successors then attempted to erase Akhenaten and his family from the historical record. During the reign of Horemheb, the last pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty and the first pharaoh after Akhenaten who was not related to Akhenaten's family, Egyptians started to destroy temples to the Aten and reuse the building blocks in new construction projects, including in temples for the newly restored god Amun. Horemheb's successor continued in this effort. Seti I restored monuments to Amun and had the god's name re-carved on inscriptions where it was removed by Akhenaten. Seti I also ordered that Akhenaten, Smenkhkare, Neferneferuaten, Tutankhamun, and Ay be excised from official lists of pharaohs to make it appear that Amenhotep III was immediately succeeded by Horemheb. Under the Ramessides, who succeeded Seti I, Akhetaten was gradually destroyed and the building material reused across the country, such as in constructions at Hermopolis. The negative attitudes toward Akhenaten were illustrated by, for example, inscriptions in the tomb of scribe Mose (or Mes), where Akhenaten's reign is referred to as "the time of the enemy of Akhet-Aten."
- Some Egyptologists, such as Jacobus van Dijk and Jan Assmann, believe that Akhenaten's reign and the Amarna period started a gradual decline in the Egyptian government's power and the pharaoh's standing in Egyptian's society and religious life. Akhenaten's religious reforms subverted the relationship ordinary Egyptians had with their gods and their pharaoh, as well as the role the pharaoh played in the relationship between the people and the gods. Before the Amarna period, the pharaoh was the representative of the gods on Earth, the son of the god Ra, and the living incarnation of the god Horus, and maintained the divine order through rituals and offerings and by sustaining the temples of the gods. Additionally, even though the pharaoh oversaw all religious activity, Egyptians could access their gods through regular public holidays, festivals, and processions. This led to a seemingly close connection between people and the gods, especially the patron deity of their respective towns and cities. Akhenaten, however, banned the worship of gods beside the Aten, including through festivals. He also declared himself to be the only one who could worship the Aten, and required that all religious devotion previously exhibited toward the gods be directed toward himself. After the Amarna period, during the Nineteenth and Twentieth Dynasties'--c. '270 years following Akhenaten's death'--the relationship between the people, the pharaoh, and the gods did not simply revert to pre-Amarna practices and beliefs. The worship of all gods returned, but the relationship between the gods and the worshipers became more direct and personal, circumventing the pharaoh. Rather than acting through the pharaoh, Egyptians started to believe that the gods intervened directly in their lives, protecting the pious and punishing criminals. The gods replaced the pharaoh as their own representatives on Earth. The god Amun once again became king among all gods. According to van Dijk, "the king was no longer a god, but god himself had become king. Once Amun had been recognized as the true king, the political power of the earthly rulers could be reduced to a minimum." Consequently, the influence and power of the Amun priesthood continued to grow until the Twenty-first Dynasty, c. '1077 BC , by which time the High Priests of Amun effectively became rulers over parts of Egypt.
- Akhenaten's reforms also had a longer-term impact on Ancient Egyptian language and hastened the spread of the spoken Late Egyptian language in official writings and speeches. Spoken and written Egyptian diverged early on in Egyptian history and stayed different over time. During the Amarna period, however, royal and religious texts and inscriptions, including the boundary stelae at Akhetaten or the Amarna letters, started to regularly include more vernacular linguistic elements, such as the definite article or a new possessive form. Even though they continued to diverge, these changes brought the spoken and written language closer to one another more systematically than under previous pharaohs of the New Kingdom. While Akhenaten's successors attempted to erase his religious, artistic, and even linguistic changes from history, the new linguistic elements remained a more common part of official texts following the Amarna years, starting with the Nineteenth Dynasty.
- Atenism [ edit ] Relief fragment showing a royal head, probably Akhenaten, and early Aten cartouches. Aten extends Ankh (sign of life) to the figure. Reign of Akhenaten. From Amarna, Egypt. The Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, London
- Pharaoh Akhenaten (center) and his family worshiping the
- Aten, with characteristic rays seen emanating from the solar disk. Later such imagery was prohibited.
- Egyptians worshipped a sun god under several names, and solar worship had been growing in popularity even before Akhenaten, especially during the Eighteenth Dynasty and the reign of Amenhotep III, Akhenaten's father. During the New Kingdom, the pharaoh started to be associated with the sun disc; for example, one inscriptions called the pharaoh Hatshepsut the "female Re shining like the Disc," while Amenhotep III was described as "he who rises over every foreign land, Nebmare, the dazzling disc." During the Eighteenth Dynasty, a religious hymn to the sun also appeared and became popular among Egyptians. However, Egyptologists question whether there is a causal relationship between the cult of the sun disc before Akhenaten and Akhenaten's religious policies.
- Implementation and development [ edit ] The implementation of Atenism can be traced through gradual changes in the Aten's iconography, and Egyptologist Donald B. Redford divided its development into three stages'--earliest, intermediate, and final'--in his studies of Akhenaten and Atenism. The earliest stage was associated with a growing number of depictions of the sun disc, though the disc is still seen resting on the head of the falcon-headed sun god Ra-Horakhty, as the god was traditionally represented. The god was only "unique but not exclusive." The intermediate stage was marked by the elevation of the Aten above other gods and the appearance of cartouches around his incribed name'--cartouches traditionally indicating that the enclosed text is a royal name. The final stage had the Aten represented as a sun disc with sunrays like long arms terminating in human hands and the introduction of a new epithet for the god: "the great living Disc which is in jubilee, lord of heaven and earth."
- In the early years of his reign, Amenhotep IV lived at Thebes, the old capital city, and permitted worship of Egypt's traditional deities to continue. However, some signs already pointed to the growing importance of the Aten. For example, inscriptions in the Theban tomb of Parennefer from the early rule of Amenhotep IV state that "one measures the payments to every (other) god with a level measure, but for the Aten one measures so that it overflows," indicating a more favorable attitude to the cult of Aten than the other gods. Additionally, near the Temple of Karnak, Amun-Ra's great cult center, Amenhotep IV erected several massive buildings including temples to the Aten. The new Aten temples had no roof and the god was thus worshipped in the sunlight, under the open sky, rather than in dark temple enclosures as had been the previous custom. The Theban buildings were later dismantled by his successors and used as infill for new constructions in the Temple of Karnak; when they were later dismantled by archaeologists, some 36,000 decorated blocks from the original Aton building here were revealed that preserve many elements of the original relief scenes and inscriptions.
- One of the most important turning points in the early reign of Amenhotep IV is a speech given by the pharaoh at the beginning of his second regnal year. A copy of the speech survives on one of the pylons at the Karnak Temple Complex near Thebes. Speaking to the royal court, scribes or the people, Amenhotep IV said that the gods were ineffective and had ceased their movements, and that their temples had collapsed. The pharaoh contrasted this with the only remaining god, the sun disc Aten, who continued to move and exist forever. Some Egyptologists, such as Donald B. Redford, compared this speech to a proclamation or manifesto, which foreshadowed and explained the pharaoh's later religious reforms centered around the Aten. In his speech, Akhenaten said:
- The temples of the gods fallen to ruin, their bodies do not endure. Since the time of the ancestors, it is the wise man that knows these things. Behold, I, the king, am speaking so that I might inform you concerning the appearances of the gods. I know their temples, and I am versed in the writings, specficially, the inventory of their primeval bodies. And I have watched as they [the gods] have ceased their appearances, one after the other. All of them have stopped, except the god who gave birth to himself. And no one knows the mystery of how he performs his tasks. This god goes where he pleases and no one else knows his going. I approach him, the things which he has made. How exalted they are.
- In Year Five of his reign, Amenhotep IV took decisive steps to establish the Aten as the sole god of Egypt. The pharaoh "disbanded the priesthoods of all the other gods ... and diverted the income from these [other] cults to support the Aten." To emphasize his complete allegiance to the Aten, the king officially changed his name from Amenhotep IV to Akhenaten (Ancient Egyptian: ê'£á¸-n-jtn, meaning "Effective for the Aten"). Meanwhile, the Aten was becoming a king itself. Artists started to depict him with the trappings of pharaos, placing his name in cartouches'--a rare, but not unique occurrence, as the names of Ra-Horakhty and Amun-Ra had also been found enclosed in cartouches'--and wearing a uraeus, a symbol of kingship. The Aten may also have been the subject of Akhenaten's royal Sed festival early in the pharaoh's reign. With Aten becoming a sole deity, Akhenaten started to proclaim himself as the only intermediary between Aten and his people and the subject of their personal worship and attention.
- Inscribed limestone fragment showing early Aten cartouches, "the Living Ra Horakhty". Reign of Akhenaten. From Amarna, Egypt. The Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, London
- Fragment of a stela, showing parts of 3 late cartouches of Aten. There is a rare intermediate form of god's name. Reign of Akhenaten. From Amarna, Egypt. The Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, London
- By Year Nine of his reign, Akhenaten declared that Aten was not merely the supreme god, but the only worshipable god. He ordered the defacing of Amun's temples throughout Egypt and, in a number of instances, inscriptions of the plural 'gods' were also removed. This emphasized the changes encouraged by the new regime, which included a ban on images, with the exception of a rayed solar disc, in which the rays appear to represent the unseen spirit of Aten, who by then was evidently considered not merely a sun god, but rather a universal deity. All life on Earth depended on the Aten and the visible sunlight. Representations of the Aten were always accompanied with a sort of hieroglyphic footnote, stating that the representation of the sun as all-encompassing creator was to be taken as just that: a representation of something that, by its very nature as something transcending creation, cannot be fully or adequately represented by any one part of that creation. Aten's name was also written differently starting as early as Year Eight or as late as Year Fourteen, according to some historians. From "Living Re-Horakhty, who rejoices in the horizon in his name Shu-Re who is in Aten," the god's name changed to "Living Re, ruler of the horizon, who rejoices in his name of Re the father who has returned as Aten," removing the Aten's connection to Re-Horakhty and Shu, two other solar deities. The Aten thus became an amalgamation that incorporated the attributes and beliefs around Re-Horakhty, universal sun god, and Shu, god of the sky and manifestation of the sunlight.
- Siliceous limestone fragment of a statue. There are late Aten cartouches on the draped right shoulder. Reign of Akhenaten. From Amarna, Egypt. The Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, London
- Akhenaten's Atenist beliefs are best distilled in the Great Hymn to the Aten. The hymn was discovered in the tomb of Ay, one of Akhenaten's successors, though Egyptologists believe that it could have been composed by Akhenaten himself. The hymn celebrates the sun and daylight and recounts the dangers that abound when the sun sets. It tells of the Aten as a sole god and the creator of all life, who recreates life every day at sunrise, and on whom everything on Earth depends, including the natural world, people's lives, and even trade and commerce. In one passage, the hymn declares: "O Sole God beside whom there is none! You made the earth as you wished, you alone." The hymn also states that Akhenaten is the only intermediary between the god and Egyptians, and the only one who can understand the Aten: "You are in my heart, and there is none who knows you except your son."
- Atenism and other gods [ edit ] Some debate has focused on the extent to which Akhenaten forced his religious reforms on his people. Certainly, as time drew on, he revised the names of the Aten, and other religious language, to increasingly exclude references to other gods; at some point, also, he embarked on the wide-scale erasure of traditional gods' names, especially those of Amun. Some of his court changed their names to remove them from the patronage of other gods and place them under that of Aten (or Ra, with whom Akhenaten equated the Aten). Yet, even at Amarna itself, some courtiers kept such names as Ahmose ("child of the moon god", the owner of tomb 3), and the sculptor's workshop where the famous Nefertiti Bust and other works of royal portraiture were found is associated with an artist known to have been called Thutmose ("child of Thoth"). An overwhelmingly large number of faience amulets at Amarna also show that talismans of the household-and-childbirth gods Bes and Taweret, the eye of Horus, and amulets of other traditional deities, were openly worn by its citizens. Indeed, a cache of royal jewelry found buried near the Amarna royal tombs (now in the National Museum of Scotland) includes a finger ring referring to Mut, the wife of Amun. Such evidence suggests that though Akhenaten shifted funding away from traditional temples, his policies were fairly tolerant until some point, perhaps a particular event as yet unknown, toward the end of the reign.
- Archaeological discoveries at Akhetaten show that many ordinary residents of this city chose to gouge or chisel out all references to the god Amun on even minor personal items that they owned, such as commemorative scarabs or make-up pots, perhaps for fear of being accused of having Amunist sympathies. References to Amenhotep III, Akhenaten's father, were partly erased since they contained the traditional Amun form of his name: Nebmaatre Amunhotep.
- After Akhenaten [ edit ] Following Akhenaten's death, Egypt gradually returned to its traditional polytheistic religion, partly because of how closely associated the Aten became with Akhenaten. Atenism likely stayed dominant through the reigns of Akhenaten's immediate successors, Smenkhkare and Neferneferuaten, as well as early in the reign of Tutankhaten. For a period of time the worship of Aten and a resurgent worship of Amun coexisted.
- Over time, however, Akhenaten's successors, starting with Tutankhaten, took steps to distance themselves from Atenism. Tutankhaten and his wife Ankhesenpaaten dropped the Aten from their names and changed them to Tutankhamun and Ankhesenamun, respectively. Amun was restored as the supreme deity. Tutankhamun reestablished the temples of the other gods, as the pharaoh propagated on his Restoration Stela: "He reorganized this land, restoring its customs to those of the time of Re. ... He renewed the gods' mansions and fashioned all their images. ... He raised up their temples and created their statues. ... When he had sought out the gods' precincts which were in ruins in this land, he refounded them just as they had been since the time of the first primeval age." Additionally, Tutankhamun's building projects at Thebes and Karnak used talatat's from Akhenaten's buildings, which implies that Tutankhamun might have started to demolish temples dedicated to the Aten. Aten temples continued to be torn down under Ay and Horemheb, Tutankhamun's successors and the last pharaohs of the Eighteenth Dynasty, too. Horemheb could also have ordered that Akhetaten, Akhenaten's capital city be demolished. To further underpin the break with Aten worship, Horemheb claimed to have been chosen to rule over Egypt by the god Horus. Finally, Seti I, the first pharaoh of the Nineteenth Dynasty, ordered that the name of Amun be restored on inscriptions on which it had been removed or replaced by the name of the Aten.
- Artistic depictions [ edit ] Akhenaten in the typical Amarna period style.
- Styles of art that flourished during the reigns of Akhenaten and his immediate successors, known as Amarna art, are markedly different from the traditional art of ancient Egypt. Representations are more realistic, expressionistic, and naturalistic, especially in depictions of animals, plants and people, and convey more action and movement for both non-royal and royal individuals than the traditionally static representations. In traditional art, a pharaoh's divine nature was expressed by repose, even immobility.
- The portrayals of Akhenaten himself greatly differ from the depictions of other pharaohs. Traditionally, the portrayal of pharaohs'--and the Egyptian ruling class'--was idealized, and they were shown in "stereotypically 'beautiful' fashion" as youthful and athletic. However, Akhenaten's portrayals are unconventional and "unflattering" with a sagging stomach; broad hips; thin legs; thick thighs; large, "almost feminine breasts;" a thin, "exaggeratedly long face;" and thick lips.
- Based on Akhenaten's and his family's unusual artistic representations, including potential depictions of gynecomastia and androgyny, some have argued that the pharaoh and his family have either suffered from aromatase excess syndrome and sagittal craniosynostosis syndrome, or Antley''Bixler syndrome. In 2010, results published from genetic studies on Akhenaten's purported mummy did not find signs of gynecomastia or Antley-Bixler syndrome, although these results have since been questioned.
- Arguing instead for a symbolic interpretation, Dominic Montserrat in Akhenaten: History, Fantasy and Ancient Egypt states that "there is now a broad consensus among Egyptologists that the exaggerated forms of Akhenaten's physical portrayal... are not to be read literally". Because the god Aten was referred to as "the mother and father of all humankind," Montserrat and others suggest that Akhenaten was made to look androgynous in artwork as a symbol of the androgyny of the Aten. This required "a symbolic gathering of all the attributes of the creator god into the physical body of the king himself", which will "display on earth the Aten's multiple life-giving functions". Akhenaten claimed the title "The Unique One of Re", and he may have directed his artists to contrast him with the common people through a radical departure from the idealized traditional pharaoh image.
- Depictions of other members of the court, especially members of the royal family, are also exaggerated, stylized, and overall different from traditional art. Significantly, and for the only time in the history of Egyptian royal art, the pharaoh's family life is depicted: the royal family is shown mid-action in relaxed, casual, and intimate situations, taking part in decidedly naturalistic activities, showing affection for each other, such as holding hands and kissing.
- Small statue of Akhenaten wearing the Egyptian Blue Crown of War
- Nefertiti also appears, both beside the king and alone, or with her daughters, in actions usually reserved for a pharaoh, such as "smiting the enemy," a traditional depiction of male pharaohs. This suggests that she enjoyed unusual status for a queen. Early artistic representations of her tend to be indistinguishable from her husband's except by her regalia, but soon after the move to the new capital, Nefertiti begins to be depicted with features specific to her. Questions remain whether the beauty of Nefertiti is portraiture or idealism.
- Speculative theories [ edit ] Sculptor's trial piece of Akhenaten.
- Akhenaten's status as a religious revolutionary has led to much speculation, ranging from scholarly hypotheses to non-academic fringe theories. Although some believe the religion he introduced was mostly monotheistic, many others see Akhenaten as a practitioner of an Aten monolatry, as he did not actively deny the existence of other gods; he simply refrained from worshiping any but the Aten.
- Akhenaten and monotheism in Abrahamic religions [ edit ] The idea that Akhenaten was the pioneer of a monotheistic religion that later became Judaism has been considered by various scholars. One of the first to mention this was Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, in his book Moses and Monotheism. Basing his arguments on his belief that the Exodus story was historical, Freud argued that Moses had been an Atenist priest who was forced to leave Egypt with his followers after Akhenaten's death. Freud argued that Akhenaten was striving to promote monotheism, something that the biblical Moses was able to achieve. Following the publication of his book, the concept entered popular consciousness and serious research.
- Freud commented on the connection between Adonai, the Egyptian Aten and the Syrian divine name of Adonis as the primeval unity of languages between the factions; in this he was following the argument of Egyptologist Arthur Weigall. Jan Assmann's opinion is that 'Aten' and 'Adonai' are not linguistically related.
- There are strong similarities between Akhenaten's Great Hymn to the Aten and the Biblical Psalm 104; however, there has been some debate as to whether the similarities reflect direct or indirect borrowing.[239][240]
- Others have likened some aspects of Akhenaten's relationship with the Aten to the relationship, in Christian tradition, between Jesus Christ and God, particularly interpretations that emphasize a more monotheistic interpretation of Atenism than a henotheistic one. Donald B. Redford has noted that some have viewed Akhenaten as a harbinger of Jesus. "After all, Akhenaten did call himself the son of the sole god: 'Thine only son that came forth from thy body'." James Henry Breasted likened him to Jesus, Arthur Weigall saw him as a failed precursor of Christ and Thomas Mann saw him "as right on the way and yet not the right one for the way".
- Redford argued that while Akhenaten called himself the son of the Sun-Disc and acted as the chief mediator between god and creation, kings had claimed the same relationship and priestly role for thousands of years before Akhenaten's time. However Akhenaten's case may be different through the emphasis that he placed on the heavenly father and son relationship. Akhenaten described himself as being "thy son who came forth from thy limbs", "thy child", "the eternal son that came forth from the Sun-Disc", and "thine only son that came forth from thy body". The close relationship between father and son is such that only the king truly knows the heart of "his father", and in return his father listens to his son's prayers. He is his father's image on earth, and as Akhenaten is king on earth, his father is king in heaven. As high priest, prophet, king and divine he claimed the central position in the new religious system. Because only he knew his father's mind and will, Akhenaten alone could interpret that will for all mankind with true teaching coming only from him.
- Before much of the archaeological evidence from Thebes and from Tell el-Amarna became available, wishful thinking sometimes turned Akhenaten into a humane teacher of the true God, a mentor of Moses, a christlike figure, a philosopher before his time. But these imaginary creatures are now fading away as the historical reality gradually emerges. There is little or no evidence to support the notion that Akhenaten was a progenitor of the full-blown monotheism that we find in the Bible. The monotheism of the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament had its own separate development'--one that began more than half a millennium after the pharaoh's death.
- Possible illness [ edit ] Hieratic inscription on a pottery fragment. It records year 17 of Akhenaten's reign and reference to wine of the house of Aten. From Amarna, Egypt. The Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, London
- Limestone trial piece of a king, probably Akhenaten, and a smaller head of uncertain gender. From Amarna, Egypt. 18th Dynasty. The Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, London
- The unconventional portrayals of Akhenaten'--different from the traditional athletic norm in the portrayal of pharaohs'--have led Egyptologists in the 19th and 20th centuries to suppose that Akhenaten suffered some kind of genetic abnormality. Various illnesses have been put forward, with Fr¶lich's syndrome or Marfan syndrome being mentioned most commonly.
- Cyril Aldred, following up earlier arguments of Grafton Elliot Smith and James Strachey, suggested that Akhenaten may have suffered from Fr¶lich's syndrome on the basis of his long jaw and his feminine appearance. However, this is unlikely, because this disorder results in sterility and Akhenaten is known to have fathered numerous children. His children are repeatedly portrayed through years of archaeological and iconographic evidence.
- Burridge suggested that Akhenaten may have suffered from Marfan syndrome, which, unlike Fr¶lich's, does not result in mental impairment or sterility. Marfan sufferers tend towards tallness, with a long, thin face, elongated skull, overgrown ribs, a funnel or pigeon chest, a high curved or slightly cleft palate, and larger pelvis, with enlarged thighs and spindly calves, symptoms that appear in some depictions of Akhenaten. Marfan syndrome is a dominant characteristic, which means sufferers have a 50% chance of passing it on to their children. However, DNA tests on Tutankhamun in 2010 proved negative for Marfan syndrome.
- By the early 21st century, most Egyptologists argued that Akhenaten's portrayals are not the results of a genetic or medical condition, but rather should be interpreted through the lens of Atenism. Akhenaten was made to look androgynous in artwork as a symbol of the androgyny of the Aten.
- Cultural depictions [ edit ] The life of Akhenaten has inspired many fictional representations.
- On page, Thomas Mann made Akhenaten the "dreaming pharaoh" of Joseph's story in the fictional biblical tetraology Joseph and His Brothers from 1933''1943. Akhenaten appears in Mika Waltari's The Egyptian, first published in Finnish (Sinuhe egyptil¤inen) in 1945, translated by Naomi Walford; David Stacton's On a Balcony from 1958; Gwendolyn MacEwen's King of Egypt, King of Dreams from 1971; Allen Drury's A God Against the Gods from 1976 and Return to Thebes from 1976; Naguib Mahfouz's Akhenaten, Dweller in Truth from 1985; Andree Chedid's Akhenaten and Nefertiti's Dream; and Moyra Caldecott's Akhenaten: Son of the Sun from 1989. Additionally, Pauline Gedge's 1984 novel The Twelfth Transforming is set in the reign of Akhenaten, details the construction of Akhetaten and includes accounts of his personal relationships with Nefertiti, Tiye and successor Smenkhkare. Akhenaten inspired the poetry collection Akhenaten by Dorothy Porter. And in comic books, Akhenaten is the major antagonist in the 2008 comic book series (reprinted as a graphic novel) "Marvel: The End" by Jim Starlin and Al Milgrom. In this series, Akhenaten gains unlimited power and, though his stated intentions are benevolent, is opposed by Thanos and essentially all of the other superheroes and supervillains in the Marvel comic book universe. Finally, Akhenaten provides much of the background in the comic book adventure story Blake et Mortimer: Le Myst¨re de la Grande Pyramide vol. 1+2 by Edgar P. Jacobs from 1950.
- On stage, the 1937 play Akhnaton by Agatha Christie explores the lives of Akhenaten, Nefertiti, and Tutankhaten. He was portrayed in the Greek play Pharaoh Akhenaton (Greek: Î...αÏÎ±Ï ÎÏεναÏÏν ) by Angelos Prokopiou. The pharaoh also inspired the 1983 opera Akhnaten by Philip Glass.
- In film, Akhenaten is played by Michael Wilding in The Egyptian from 1954 and Amedeo Nazzari in Nefertiti, Queen of the Nile from 1961. In the 2007 animated film La Reine Soleil, Akhenaten, Tutankhaten, Akhesa (Ankhesenepaten, later Ankhesenamun), Nefertiti, and Horemheb are depicted in a complex struggle pitting the priests of Amun against Atenism. Akhenaten also appears in several documentaries, including The Lost Pharaoh: The Search for Akhenaten, a 1980 National Film Board of Canada documentary based on Donald Redford's excavation of one Akhenaten's temples, and episodes of Ancient Aliens, which propose that Akhenaten may have been an extraterrestrial.
- In video games, for example, Akhenaten is the enemy in the Assassin's Creed Origins "The Curse of the Pharaohs" DLC, and must be defeated to remove his curse on Thebes. His afterlife takes the form of 'Aten', a location that draws heavily on the architecture of the city of Amarna. Additionally, a version of Akhenaten (incorporating elements of H. P. Lovecraft's Black Pharaoh) is the driving antagonist behind the Egypt chapters of The Secret World, where the player must stop a modern-day incarnation of the Atenist cult from unleashing the now-undead pharaoh and the influence of Aten (which is portrayed as a real and extremely powerful malevolent supernatural entity with the ability to strip followers of their free will) upon the world. He is explicitly stated to be the Pharaoh who opposed Moses in the Book of Exodus, diverging from the traditional Exodus narrative in that he retaliates against Moses's 10 Plagues with 10 plagues of his own before being sealed away by the combined forces of both Moses and Ptahmose, the High Priest of Amun. He is also shown to have been an anachronistic alliance with the Roman cult of Sol Invictus, who are strongly implied to be worshiping Aten under a different name.
- In music, Akhenaten is the subject of several compositions, including the jazz album Akhenaten Suite by Roy Campbell, Jr., the symphony Akhenaten (Eidetic Images) by Gene Gutch, the progressive metal song Cursing Akhenaten by After the Burial, and the technical death metal song Cast Down the Heretic by Nile.
- Ancestry [ edit ] See also [ edit ] Pharaoh of the ExodusOsarsephNotes and references [ edit ] Notes [ edit ] ^ Brand 2020, pp. 63''64. ^ Drioton & Vandier 1952, pp. 411''414. ^ Hoffmeier 2015, pp. 246''256: "...it seems best to conclude for the present that the ''parallels'' between Amarna hymns to Aten and Psalm 104 should be attributed to ''the common theology'' and the ''general pattern"..."; Hoffmeier 2005, p. 239: "...There has been some debate whether the similarities direct or indirect borrowing... it is unlikely that "the Israelite who composed Psalm 104 borrowed directly from the sublime Egyptian 'Hymn to the Aten'," as Stager has recently claimed."; Alter 2018, p. 54: "...I think there may be some likelihood, however unprovable, that our psalmist was familiar with at least an intermediate version of Akhenaton's hymn and adopted some elements from it."; Brown 2014, p. 61''73: "the question of the relationship between Egyptian hymns and the Psalms remains open"
- ^ Assmann 2020, pp. 40''43: "Verses 20''30 cannot be understood as anything other than a loose and abridged translation of the "Great Hymn":..."; Day 2014, pp. 22''23: "...a significant part of the rest Of Psalm 104 (esp. vv. 20''30) is dependent on... Akhenaten's Hymn to the Sun god Aten... these parallels almost all come in the same order:..."; Day 2013, pp. 223''224: "...this dependence is confined to vv. 20''30. Here the evidence is particularly impressive, since we have six parallels with Akhenaten's hymn... occurring in the identical order, with one exception."; Landes 2011, pp. 155, 178: "the hymn to Aten quoted as epigraph to this chapter'--replicates the intense religiosity and even the language of the Hebrew Psalm 104. Indeed, most Egyptologists argue that this hymn inspired the psalm...", "...For some, the relationship to Hebraic monotheism seems extremely close, including the nearly verbatim passages in Psalm 104 and the ''Hymn to Aten'' found in one of the tombs at Akhetaten..."; Shaw 2004, p. 19: "An intriguing direct literary (and perhaps religious) link between Egypt and the Bible is Psalm 104, which has strong similarities with a hymn to the Aten"
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Retrieved June 1, 2020 . Manniche, Lise (2010). Akhenaten Colossi of Karnak. Cairo: American University in Cairo Press. OCLC 938908123. Marchant, Jo (2011). "Ancient DNA: Curse of the Pharaoh's DNA". Nature. 472 (7344): 404''406. Bibcode:2011Natur.472..404M. doi:10.1038/472404a . PMID 21525906. "Marfan syndrome". Gaithersburg, Maryland: National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences. January 26, 2017. Archived from the original on November 5, 2018 . Retrieved May 21, 2020 . Mark, Joshua J. (April 22, 2014). "Horemheb". Ancient History Encyclopedia . Retrieved June 10, 2020 . Martn Valentn, Francesco J.; Bedman, Teresa (2014). "Proof of a 'Long Coregency' between Amenhotep III & Amenhotep IV Found in the Chapel of Vizier Amenhotep-Huy (Asasif Tomb 28) West Luxor". Kmt. Weaverville, North Carolina: Kmt Communications. 25 (2): 17''27. ISSN 1053-0827. Miller, Jared L. (2007). "Amarna Age Chronology and the Identity of Nibh Ìururiyain the Light of a Newly Reconstructed Hittite Text" (PDF) . Altorientalische Forschungen. De Gruyter. 34 (2): 252''293. Archived (PDF) from the original on February 12, 2020 . Retrieved June 9, 2020 . Montserrat, Dominic (2003) [2000]. Akhenaten: History, Fantasy and Ancient Egypt (1st paperback ed.). London; New York: Routledge. ISBN 0415301866. Moran, William Lambert, ed. (1992) [1987]. The Amarna Letters (English-language ed.). Baltimore; London: The Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 0-8018-4251-4. LCCN 91020570. Murnane, William J. (1995). Texts from the Amarna Period in Egypt. Society of Biblical Literature Writings from the Ancient World. 5. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature. ISBN 978-1555409661. Murnane, William J.; Van Siclen III, Charles C. (2011) [1993]. The Boundary Stelae Of Akhentaten. London; New York: Routledge. ISBN 978-0710304643. Najovits, Simson (2004). 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The History of Egypt Podcast (Podcast). Event occurs at 03:59 . Retrieved May 23, 2020 . Prokopiou, Aggelos G. (December 1993). Pharaoh Akhnaton: The First Prophet of Monotheism: Holy Drama (in Greek). Pyrinos Kosmos. ISBN 978-9607327666. O'Connor, David; Silverman, David P., eds. (1995). Ancient Egyptian Kingship. Probleme der gyptologie. 9. Leiden; New York; K¶ln: Brill. ISBN 90-04-10041-5. Ockinga, Boyo (2001). "Piety". In Redford, Donald (ed.). The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt. 3. Oxford University Press. pp. 44''47. ISBN 0-19-510234-7. Redford, Donald B. (1976). "The Sun-disc in Akhenaten's Program: Its Worship and Antecedents, I". Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt. San Antonio, Texas: American Research Center in Egypt. 13: 53''56. doi:10.2307/40001118. ISSN 0065-9991. JSTOR 40001118 . Redford, Donald B. (1984). Akhenaten: The Heretic King. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0691035673. OCLC 10099207. Redford, Donald B. (1987). "The Monotheism of the Heretic Pharaoh: Precursor of Mosaic monotheism or Egyptian anomaly?". Biblical Archaeology Review. 13 (3): 53''56. Redford, Donald B.; Shanks, Hershel; Meinhardt, Jack (1997). Aspects of Monotheism: How God is One (Conference paper and proceedings). Washington, D.C.: Biblical Archaeology Society. ISBN 978-1880317198. OCLC 37608180. Redford, Donald B. (May 2013). "Akhenaten: New Theories and Old Facts". Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research. American Schools of Oriental Research. 369 (369): 9''34. doi:10.5615/bullamerschoorie.369.0009. ISSN 0003-097X. JSTOR 10.5615/bullamerschoorie.369.000 . OCLC 05748058. Reeves, Nicholas (2019) [2001]. Akhenaten: Egypt's False Prophet (Electronic ed.). London; New York: Thames & Hudson. ISBN 978-0-500-29469-7. LCCN 00108868. Reeves, Nicholas; Wilkinson, Richard H. (2008) [1996]. The Complete Valley of the Kings: Tombs and Treasures of Egypt's Greatest Pharaohs (5th ed.). London: Thames & Hudson. ISBN 978-0-500284032. OCLC 635756751. Rogers, Robert William, ed. (1912). Cuneiform Parallels to the Old Testament. London; Toronto; Melbourne; and Bombay: Oxford University Press. Rose, Mark (2010). "Commentary: Who's the Real Tut?". Archaeology. Boston, Massachusetts: Archaeological Institute of America. 63 (3): 7''17. ISSN 0003-8113 . Retrieved June 22, 2020 . "The royal family at Amarna". University College London. 2001 . Retrieved June 10, 2020 . Ridley, Ronald Thomas (2019). Akhenaten: A Historian's View. The AUC History of Ancient Egypt. Cairo; New York: The American University in Cairo Press. ISBN 978-9774167935. Robins, G. (1993). Women in Ancient Egypt. Harvard University Press. Ross, Barbara (November''December 1999). "Akhenaten and Rib Hadda from Byblos". Saudi Aramco World. 50 (6): 30''35. Archived from the original on January 13, 2010 . Retrieved August 8, 2013 . Schemm, Paul (February 16, 2010). "A Frail King Tut Died From Malaria, Broken Leg". USA Today. Associated Press. Schulman, Alan R. (1982). "The Nubian War of Akhenaten". L'gyptologie en 1979: Axes prioritaires de recherches. Colloques internationaux du Centre national de la recherche scientifique. 2. Paris: Editions du Centre national de la recherche scientifique. pp. 299''316. ISBN 978-2222029298. Sethe, Kurt, ed. (1906''1909). Urkunden der 18. Dynastie [Documents of the 18th Dynasty] (PDF) . Urkunden des gyptischen Altertums (in German). 4. Leipzig, Germany: J.C. Hinrichs'sche Buchhandlung. Archived (PDF) from the original on June 6, 2020 . Retrieved June 12, 2020 . Shaw, Ian, ed. (2003) [2000]. The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt (New ed.). Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-280458-7. Shaw, Ian (2004). Ancient Egypt: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-157840-3. Shupak, Nili (1995). "The Monotheism of Moses and the Monotheism of Akhenaten". The Bible as a Meeting Point of Cultures through the Ages. Sevivoth. pp. 18''27. Silverman, David P.; Wegner, Josef W.; Wegner, Jennifer Houser (2006). Akhenaten and Tutankhamun: Revolution and Restoration (1st ed.). Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archeology and Anthropology. ISBN 978-1931707909. Smith, Elliot, ed. (1923). Tutankhamen and the discovery of his tomb by the late Earl of Canarvon and Mr Howard Carter. London: Routledge. Sooke, Alastair (January 9, 2014). "Akhenaten: mad, bad, or brilliant?". The Daily Telegraph. Telegraph Media Group . Retrieved May 10, 2020 . Sooke, Alastair (February 4, 2016). "How ancient Egypt shaped our idea of beauty". Culture. British Broadcasting Corporation . Retrieved May 25, 2020 . Spence, Kate (February 17, 2011). "Akhenaten and the Amarna Period". BBC.co.uk. BBC . Retrieved May 10, 2020 . Stent, Gunther Siegmund (2002). Paradoxes of Free Will. Transactions of the American Philosophical Society. 92. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: American Philosophical Society. ISBN 0-87169-926-5. OCLC 50773277. Strachey, James (1939). "Preliminary Notes Upon the Problem of Akhenaten" . International Journal of Psycho-Analysis. 20: 33''42. ISSN 0020-7578 . Retrieved June 12, 2020 . Strouhal, Eugen (2010). "Biological age of skeletonized mummy from Tomb KV 55 at Thebes". Anthropologie. Brno, Czech Republic: Moravian Museum. 48 (2): 97''112. JSTOR 26292898 . Takcs, Sarolta Anna; Cline, Eric H., eds. (2015) [2007]. "Akhenaten (also Akhenaton) (r. ca. 1353''1335 B.C.E.)". The Ancient World. 1''5. London; New York: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-7656-8082-2. LCCN 2006101384. Trigger, Bruce Graham; Kemp, Barry; O'Connor, David Bourke; Lloyd, Alan Brian (2001) [1983]. Ancient Egypt, A Social History. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521284279. LCCN 82-22196. Tyldesley, Joyce Ann (1998). Nefertiti: Egypt's Sun Queen. London: Viking. ISBN 978-0670869985. OCLC 1153684328. Tyldesley, Joyce A. (2005). Egypt: How a Lost Civilisation was Rediscovered. Berkeley, California: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0520250208. Tyldesley, Joyce A. (2006). Chronicle of the Queens of Egypt: From Early Dynastic Times to the Death of Cleopatra. New York: Thames & Hudson. ISBN 0-500-05145-3. OCLC 61189103. Van Dyke, John Charles (1887). Principles of Art: Pt. 1. Art in History; Pt. 2. Art in Theory. New York, New York: Fords, Howard, & Hulbert . Retrieved June 19, 2020 . Wilkinson, Richard H. (2003). The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt. London: Thames & Hudson. ISBN 0-500-05120-8. Wolf, Walther (1951). Die Stellung der ¤gyptischen Kunst zur antiken und abendl¤ndischen und Das Problem des K¼nstlers in der ¤gyptischen Kunst (in German). Hildesheim, Germany: Gerstenberg. Zaki, Mey (2008). The Legacy of Tutankhamun: Art and History. Photographs by Farid Atiya. Giza, Egypt: Farid Atiya Press. ISBN 978-977-17-4930-1. Further reading [ edit ] Aldred, Cyril (1973). Akhenaten and Nefertiti. London: Thames & Hudson. Aldred, Cyril (1984). The Egyptians . London: Thames & Hudson. Bilolo, Mubabinge (2004) [1988]. "Sect. I, vol. 2". Le Cr(C)ateur et la Cr(C)ation dans la pens(C)e memphite et amarnienne. Approche synoptique du Document Philosophique de Memphis et du Grand Hymne Th(C)ologique d'Echnaton (in French) (new ed.). Munich-Paris: Academy of African Thought. El Mahdy, Christine (1999). Tutankhamen: The Life and Death of a Boy King. Headline. Choi B, Pak A (2001). "Lessons for surveillance in the 21st century: a historical perspective from the past five millennia". Soz Praventivmed. 46 (6): 361''368. doi:10.1007/BF01321662. PMID 11851070. S2CID 12263035. Rita E. Freed; Yvonne J. Markowitz (1999). Sue H. D'Auria (ed.). Pharaohs of the Sun: Akhenaten '' Nefertiti '' Tutankhamen. Bulfinch Press. Gestoso Singer, Graciela (2008). El Intercambio de Bienes entre Egipto y Asia Anterior. Desde el reinado de Tuthmosis III hasta el de Akhenaton Free Access (in Spanish) Ancient Near East Monographs, Volume 2. Buenos Aires, Society of Biblical Literature '' CEHAO.Holland, Tom (1998). The Sleeper in the Sands (novel), Abacus '' a fictionalised adventure story based closely on the mysteries of Akhenaten's reignKozloff, Arielle (2006). "Bubonic Plague in the Reign of Amenhotep III?". KMT. 17 (3). McAvoy, S. (2007). "Mummy 61074: a Strange Case of Mistaken Identity". Antiguo Oriente. 5: 183''194. Najovits, Simson. Egypt, Trunk of the Tree, Volume I, The Contexts, Volume II, The Consequences, Algora Publishing, New York, 2003 and 2004. On Akhenaten: Vol. II, Chapter 11, pp. 117''73 and Chapter 12, pp. 205''13Redford, Donald B. (1984). Akhenaten: The Heretic King. Princeton University PressShortridge K (1992). "Pandemic influenza: a zoonosis?". Semin Respir Infect. 7 (1): 11''25. PMID 1609163. Stevens, Anna (2012). Akhenaten's workers : the Amarna Stone village survey, 2005''2009. Volume I, The survey, excavations and architecture. Egypt Exploration Society. External links [ edit ] Akhenaten on In Our Time at the BBCThe City of AkhetatenThe Great Hymn to the AtenM.A. Mansoor Amarna CollectionGrim secrets of Pharaoh's city BBCAncestry and Pathology in King Tutankhamun's Family HawassThe Long Coregency Revisited: the Tomb of Kheruef by Peter Dorman, University of ChicagoRoyal Relations, Tut's father is very likely Akhenaten. National Geographic 09. 2010
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- The Wire - Wikipedia
- The Wire is an American crime drama television series created and primarily written by author and former police reporter David Simon. The series was broadcast by the cable network HBO in the United States. The Wire premiered on June 2, 2002 and ended on March 9, 2008, comprising 60 episodes over five seasons. The idea for the show started out as a police drama loosely based on the experiences of his writing partner Ed Burns, a former homicide detective and public school teacher.[4]
- Set and produced in Baltimore, Maryland, The Wire introduces a different institution of the city and its relationship to law enforcement in each season, while retaining characters and advancing storylines from previous seasons. The five subjects are, in chronological order: the illegal drug trade, the seaport system, the city government and bureaucracy, education and schools, and the print news medium. Simon chose to set the show in Baltimore because of his familiarity with the city.[4] The large cast consists mainly of actors who are little known for their other roles, as well as numerous real-life Baltimore and Maryland figures in guest and recurring roles. Simon has said that despite its framing as a crime drama, the show is "really about the American city, and about how we live together. It's about how institutions have an effect on individuals. Whether one is a cop, a longshoreman, a drug dealer, a politician, a judge or a lawyer, all are ultimately compromised and must contend with whatever institution to which they are committed."[5]
- The Wire is lauded for its literary themes, its uncommonly accurate exploration of society and politics, and its realistic portrayal of urban life. Although during its original run, the series received only average ratings and never won any major television awards, it is now widely regarded as one of the greatest television shows of all time.[6]
- Production [ edit ] Conception [ edit ] Simon has stated that he originally set out to create a police drama loosely based on the experiences of his writing partner Ed Burns, a former homicide detective and public school teacher who had worked with Simon on projects including The Corner (2000). Burns, when working on protracted investigations of violent drug dealers using surveillance technology, had often been frustrated by the bureaucracy of the Baltimore Police Department; Simon saw similarities with his own ordeals as a police reporter for The Baltimore Sun.
- Simon chose to set the show in Baltimore because of his familiarity with the city. During his time as a writer and producer for the NBC program Homicide: Life on the Street, based on his book Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets (1991), also set in Baltimore, Simon had come into conflict with NBC network executives who were displeased by the show's pessimism. Simon wanted to avoid a repeat of these conflicts and chose to take The Wire to HBO, because of their working relationship from the miniseries The Corner. HBO was initially doubtful about including a police drama in its lineup but agreed to produce the pilot episode.[7][8] Simon approached the mayor of Baltimore, telling him that he wanted to give a bleak portrayal of certain aspects of the city; Simon was welcomed to work there again. He hoped the show would change the opinions of some viewers but said that it was unlikely to affect the issues it portrays.[7]
- Casting [ edit ] The casting of the show has been praised for avoiding big-name stars and using character actors who appear natural in their roles.[9] The looks of the cast as a whole have been described as defying TV expectations by presenting a true range of humanity on screen.[10] Most of the cast is African-American, consistent with the demographics of Baltimore.
- Wendell Pierce, who plays Detective Bunk Moreland, was the first actor to be cast. Dominic West, who won the ostensible lead role of Detective Jimmy McNulty, sent in a tape he recorded the night before the audition's deadline of him playing out a scene by himself.[11] Lance Reddick received the role of Cedric Daniels after auditioning for the roles of Bunk and heroin addict, Bubbles.[12] Michael K. Williams got the part of Omar Little after only a single audition.[13] Williams himself recommended Felicia Pearson for the role of Snoop after meeting her at a local Baltimore bar, shortly after she had served prison time for a second degree murder conviction.[14]
- Several prominent real-life Baltimore figures, including former Maryland Governor Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.; Rev. Frank M. Reid III; radio personality Marc Steiner; former police chief, and radio personality Ed Norris; Virginia Delegate Rob Bell; Baltimore Sun reporter and editor David Ettlin; Howard County Executive Ken Ulman; and former mayor Kurt Schmoke have appeared in minor roles despite not being professional actors.[15][16] "Little Melvin" Williams, a Baltimore drug lord arrested in the 1980s by an investigation that Burns had been part of, had a recurring role as a deacon beginning in the third season. Jay Landsman, a longtime police officer who inspired the character of the same name,[17] played Lieutenant Dennis Mello.[18] Baltimore police commander Gary D'Addario served as the series technical advisor for the first two seasons[19][20] and has a recurring role as prosecutor Gary DiPasquale.[21] Simon shadowed D'Addario's shift when researching his book Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets and both D'Addario and Landsman are subjects of the book.[22]
- More than a dozen cast members previously appeared on HBO's first hour-long drama Oz. J. D. Williams, Seth Gilliam, Lance Reddick, and Reg E. Cathey were featured in very prominent roles in Oz, while a number of other notable stars of The Wire, including Wood Harris, Frankie Faison, John Doman, Clarke Peters, Domenick Lombardozzi, Michael Hyatt, Michael Potts, and Method Man appeared in at least one episode of Oz.[23] Cast members Erik Dellums, Peter Gerety, Clark Johnson, Clayton LeBouef, Toni Lewis and Callie Thorne also appeared on Homicide: Life on the Street, the earlier and award-winning network television series also based on Simon's book; Lewis appeared on Oz as well.[24][25][26][27][28] A number of cast members, as well as crew members, also appeared in the preceding HBO miniseries The Corner including Clarke Peters, Reg E. Cathey, Lance Reddick, Corey Parker Robinson, Robert F. Chew, Delaney Williams, and Benay Berger.
- Crew [ edit ] Alongside Simon, the show's creator, head writer, showrunner, and executive producer, much of the creative team behind The Wire were alumni of Homicide and Primetime Emmy Award-winning miniseries The Corner. The Corner veteran, Robert F. Colesberry, was executive producer for the first two seasons and directed the season 2 finale before dying from complications from heart surgery in 2004. He is credited by the rest of the creative team as having a large creative role for a producer, and Simon credits him for achieving the show's realistic visual feel.[5] He also had a small recurring role as Detective Ray Cole.[29] Colesberry's wife Karen L. Thorson joined him on the production staff.[19] A third producer on The Corner, Nina Kostroff Noble also stayed with the production staff for The Wire rounding out the initial four-person team.[19] Following Colesberry's death, she became the show's second executive producer alongside Simon.[30]
- Stories for the show were often co-written by Burns, who also became a producer in the show's fourth season.[31] Other writers include three acclaimed crime fiction writers from outside of Baltimore: George Pelecanos from Washington, Richard Price from the Bronx and Dennis Lehane from Boston.[32] Reviewers drew comparisons between Price's works (particularly Clockers) and The Wire even before he joined.[33] In addition to writing, Pelecanos served as a producer for the third season.[34] Pelecanos has commented that he was attracted to the project because of the opportunity to work with Simon.[34] Staff writer Rafael Alvarez penned several episodes' scripts, as well as the series guidebook The Wire: Truth Be Told. Alvarez is a colleague of Simon's from The Baltimore Sun and a Baltimore native with working experience in the port area.[35] Another city native and independent filmmaker, Joy Lusco, also wrote for the show in each of its first three seasons.[36] Baltimore Sun writer and political journalist William F. Zorzi joined the writing staff in the third season and brought a wealth of experience to the show's examination of Baltimore politics.[35]
- Playwright and television writer/producer Eric Overmyer joined the crew of The Wire in the show's fourth season as a consulting producer and writer.[31] He had also previously worked on Homicide. Overmyer was brought into the full-time production staff to replace Pelecanos who scaled back his involvement to concentrate on his next book and worked on the fourth season solely as a writer.[37] Primetime Emmy Award winner, Homicide and The Corner, writer and college friend of Simon, David Mills also joined the writing staff in the fourth season.[31]
- Directors include Homicide alumnus Clark Johnson,[38] who directed several acclaimed episodes of The Shield,[39] and Tim Van Patten, a Primetime Emmy Award winner who has worked on every season of The Sopranos. The directing has been praised for its uncomplicated and subtle style.[9] Following the death of Colesberry, director Joe Chappelle joined the production staff as a co-executive producer and continued to regularly direct episodes.[40]
- Episode structure [ edit ] Each episode begins with a cold open that seldom contains a dramatic juncture. The screen then fades or cuts to black while the intro music fades in. The show's opening title sequence then plays; a series of shots, mainly close-ups, concerning the show's subject matter that changes from season to season, separated by fast cutting (a technique rarely used in the show itself). The opening credits are superimposed on the sequence, and consist only of actors' names without identifying which actors play which roles. In addition, actors' faces are rarely seen in the title sequence. At the end of the sequence, a quotation (epigraph) is shown on-screen that is spoken by a character during the episode. The three exceptions were the first season finale which uses the phrase "All in the game", attributed to "Traditional West Baltimore", a phrase used frequently throughout all five seasons including that episode; the fourth season finale which uses the words "If animal trapped call 410-844-6286" written on boarded up vacant homes attributed to "Baltimore, traditional" and the series finale, which started with a quote from H. L. Mencken that is shown on a wall at The Baltimore Sun in one scene, neither quote being spoken by a character. Progressive story arcs often unfold in different locations at the same time. Episodes rarely end with a cliffhanger, and close with a fade or cut to black with the closing music fading in.
- When broadcast on HBO and on some international networks, the episodes are preceded by a recap of events that have a bearing upon the upcoming narrative, using clips from previous episodes.
- Music [ edit ] Rather than overlaying songs on the soundtrack, or employing a score, The Wire primarily uses pieces of music that emanate from a source within the scene, such as a jukebox or car radio. This kind of music is known as diegetic or source cue. This practice is rarely breached, notably for the end-of-season montages and occasionally with a brief overlap of the closing theme and the final shot.[41]
- The opening theme is "Way Down in the Hole," a gospel-and-blues-inspired song, written by Tom Waits for his 1987 album Franks Wild Years. Each season uses a different recording and a different opening sequence, with the theme being performed by The Blind Boys of Alabama, Waits, The Neville Brothers, DoMaJe and Steve Earle. The season four version of "Way Down in the Hole" was arranged and recorded for the show and is performed by five Baltimore teenagers: Ivan Ashford, Markel Steele, Cameron Brown, Tariq Al-Sabir and Avery Bargasse.[42] Earle, who performed the fifth season version, is also a member of the cast, playing the recovering drug addict Walon.[43] The closing theme is "The Fall," composed by Blake Leyh, who is also the music supervisor of the show.
- During season finales, a song is played before the closing scene in a montage showing the lives of the protagonists in the aftermath of the narrative. The first season montage is played over "Step by Step" by Jesse Winchester, the second "I Feel Alright" by Steve Earle, the third "Fast Train" written by Van Morrison and performed by Solomon Burke, the fourth "I Walk on Gilded Splinters" written by Dr. John and performed by Paul Weller and the fifth uses an extended version of "Way Down In The Hole" by the Blind Boys of Alabama, the same version of the song used as the opening theme for the first season. While the songs reflect the mood of the sequence, their lyrics are usually only loosely tied to the visual shots. In the commentary track to episode 37, "Mission Accomplished", executive producer David Simon said: "I hate it when somebody purposely tries to have the lyrics match the visual. It brutalizes the visual in a way to have the lyrics dead on point. ... Yet at the same time it can't be totally off point. It has to glance at what you're trying to say."[33]
- Two soundtrack albums, called The Wire: And All the Pieces Matter'--Five Years of Music from The Wire and Beyond Hamsterdam, were released on January 8, 2008 on Nonesuch Records.[44] The former features music from all five seasons of the series and the latter includes local Baltimore artists exclusively.[44]
- Style [ edit ] Realism [ edit ] The writers strove to create a realistic vision of an American city based on their own experiences. Simon, originally a reporter for The Baltimore Sun, spent a year researching a Homicide Police Department for his book Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets, where he met Burns. Burns served in the Baltimore Police Department for 20 years and later became a teacher in an inner-city school. The two of them spent a year researching the drug culture and poverty in Baltimore for their book The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood. Their combined experiences were used in many storylines of The Wire.
- Central to the show's aim for realism was the creation of truthful characters. Simon has stated that most of them are composites of real-life Baltimore figures.[45] For instance, Donnie Andrews served as the main inspiration of Omar Little.[46] Martin O'Malley served as "one of the inspirations" for Tommy Carcetti.[47] The show often cast non-professional actors in minor roles, distinguishing itself from other television series by showing the "faces and voices of the real city" it depicts.[3] The writing also uses contemporary slang to enhance the immersive viewing experience.[3]
- In distinguishing the police characters from other television detectives, Simon makes the point that even the best police of The Wire are motivated not by a desire to protect and serve, but by the intellectual vanity of believing they are smarter than the criminals they are chasing. While many of the police do exhibit altruistic qualities, many officers portrayed on the show are incompetent, brutal, self-aggrandizing, or hamstrung by bureaucracy and politics. The criminals are not always motivated by profit or a desire to harm others; many are trapped in their existence and all have human qualities. Even so, The Wire does not minimize or gloss over the horrific effects of their actions.[5]
- The show is realistic in depicting the processes of both police work and criminal activity. There have even been reports of real-life criminals watching the show to learn how to counter police investigation techniques.[48][49] The fifth season portrayed a working newsroom at The Baltimore Sun and was described by Brian Lowry of Variety magazine in 2007 as the most realistic portrayal of the media in film and television.[50]
- In a December 2006 Washington Post article, local African-American students said that the show had "hit a nerve" with the black community and that they themselves knew real-life counterparts of many of the characters. The article expressed great sadness at the toll drugs and violence are taking on the black community.[51]
- Visual novel [ edit ] Many important events occur off-camera and there is no artificial exposition in the form of voice-over or flashbacks, with the exceptions of two flashbacks '' one at the end of the pilot episode that replays a moment from earlier in the same episode and one at the end of the fourth season finale that shows a short clip of a character tutoring his younger brother earlier in the season. Thus, the viewer needs to follow every conversation closely to understand the ongoing story arc and the relevance of each character to it. Salon has described the show as novelistic in structure, with a greater depth of writing and plotting than other crime shows.[32] Each season of The Wire consists of 10 to 13 episodes that form several multi-layered narratives. Simon chose this structure with an eye towards long story arcs that draw in viewers, resulting in a more satisfying payoff. He uses the metaphor of a visual novel in several interviews,[7][52] describing each episode as a chapter, and has also commented that this allows a fuller exploration of the show's themes in time not spent on plot development.[5]
- [ edit ] "Murderland Alley" is both realistically and bleakly portrayed.
- Simon described the second season as "a meditation on the death of work and the betrayal of the American working class ... it is a deliberate argument that unencumbered capitalism is not a substitute for social policy; that on its own, without a social compact, raw capitalism is destined to serve the few at the expense of the many."[45] He added that season 3 "reflects on the nature of reform and reformers, and whether there is any possibility that political processes, long calcified, can mitigate against the forces currently arrayed against individuals." The third season is also an allegory that draws explicit parallels between the Iraq War and drug prohibition,[45] which in Simon's view has failed in its aims[49] and has become a war against America's underclass.[53] This is portrayed by Major Colvin, imparting to Carver his view that policing has been allowed to become a war and thus will never succeed in its aims.
- Writer Ed Burns, who worked as a public school teacher after retiring from the Baltimore police force shortly before going to work with Simon, has called education the theme of the fourth season. Rather than focusing solely on the school system, the fourth season looks at schools as a porous part of the community that are affected by problems outside of their boundaries. Burns states that education comes from many sources other than schools and that children can be educated by other means, including contact with the drug dealers they work for.[54] Burns and Simon see the theme as an opportunity to explore how individuals end up like the show's criminal characters, and to dramatize the notion that hard work is not always justly rewarded.[55]
- Themes [ edit ] Institutional dysfunction [ edit ] Barack Obama and
- David Simon discuss Simon's inspiration for
- The Wire, including the breakdown of effective policing in the War on Drugs
- Simon has identified the organizations featured in the show'--the Baltimore Police Department, City Hall, the Baltimore public school system, the Barksdale drug trafficking operation, The Baltimore Sun, and the stevedores' union'--as comparable institutions. All are dysfunctional in some way, and the characters are typically betrayed by the institutions that they accept in their lives.[5] There is also a sentiment echoed by a detective in Narcotics'--"Shit rolls downhill"'--which describes how superiors, especially in the higher tiers of the Police Department in the series, will attempt to use subordinates as scapegoats for any major scandals. Simon described the show as "cynical about institutions"[49] while taking a humanistic approach toward its characters.[49]A central theme developed throughout the show is the struggle between individual desires and subordination to the group's goals.
- Surveillance [ edit ] Central to the structure and plot of the show is the use of electronic surveillance and wiretap technologies by the police'--hence the title The Wire. Salon described the title as a metaphor for the viewer's experience: the wiretaps provide the police with access to a secret world, just as the show does for the viewer.[32] Simon has discussed the use of camera shots of surveillance equipment, or shots that appear to be taken from the equipment itself, to emphasize the volume of surveillance in modern life and the characters' need to sift through this information.[5]
- Cast and characters [ edit ] The Wire employs a broad ensemble cast, supplemented by many recurring guest stars who populate the institutions featured in the show. The majority of the cast is black, which accurately reflects the demographics of Baltimore.
- The show's creators are also willing to kill off major characters, so that viewers cannot assume that a given character will survive simply because of a starring role or popularity among fans. In response to a question on why a certain character had to die, David Simon said,
- We are not selling hope, or audience gratification, or cheap victories with this show. The Wire is making an argument about what institutions'--bureaucracies, criminal enterprises, the cultures of addiction, raw capitalism even'--do to individuals. It is not designed purely as an entertainment. It is, I'm afraid, a somewhat angry show.[56]
- Main cast [ edit ] Dominic West (pictured here in 2014) starred throughout the series as
- The major characters of the first season were divided between those on the side of the law and those involved in drug-related crime. The investigating detail was launched by the actions of Detective Jimmy McNulty (Dominic West), whose insubordinate tendencies and personal problems played counterpoint to his ability as a criminal investigator. The detail was led by Lieutenant Cedric Daniels (Lance Reddick) who faced challenges balancing his career aspirations with his desire to produce a good case. Kima Greggs (Sonja Sohn) was a capable lead detective who faced jealousy from colleagues and worry about the dangers of her job from her domestic partner. Her investigative work was greatly helped by her confidential informant, a drug addict known as Bubbles (Andre Royo).
- Like Greggs, partners Thomas "Herc" Hauk (Domenick Lombardozzi) and Ellis Carver (Seth Gilliam) were reassigned to the detail from the narcotics unit. The duo's initially violent nature was eventually subdued as they proved useful in grunt work, and sometimes served as comic relief for the viewer.[32] Rounding out the temporary unit were detectives Lester Freamon (Clarke Peters) and Roland "Prez" Pryzbylewski (Jim True-Frost). Freamon, seen as a quiet "house cat", soon proved to be one of the unit's most methodical and experienced investigators, with a knack for noticing important details and a deep knowledge of public records and paper trails. Prez faced sanction early on and was forced into office duty, but this setback quickly became a boon as he demonstrated natural skill at deciphering the communication codes used by the Barksdale organization.
- These investigators were overseen by two commanding officers more concerned with politics and their own careers than the case, Deputy Commissioner Ervin Burrell (Frankie Faison) and Major William Rawls (John Doman). Assistant state's attorney Rhonda Pearlman (Deirdre Lovejoy) acted as the legal liaison between the detail and the courthouse and also had a sexual relationship with McNulty. In the homicide division, Bunk Moreland (Wendell Pierce) was a gifted, dry-witted, hard-drinking detective partnered with McNulty under Sergeant Jay Landsman (Delaney Williams), the sarcastic, sharp-tongued squad supervisor. Peter Gerety had a recurring role as Judge Phelan, the official who started the case moving.[32]
- On the other side of the investigation was Avon Barksdale's drug empire. The driven, ruthless Barksdale (Wood Harris) was aided by business-minded Stringer Bell (Idris Elba). Avon's nephew D'Angelo Barksdale (Larry Gilliard Jr.) ran some of his uncle's territory, but also possessed a guilty conscience, while loyal Wee-Bey Brice (Hassan Johnson) was responsible for multiple homicides carried out on Avon's orders. Working under D'Angelo were Poot (Tray Chaney), Bodie (J. D. Williams), and Wallace (Michael B. Jordan), all street-level drug dealers.[32] Wallace was an intelligent but naive youth trapped in the drug trade,[32] and Poot a randy young man happy to follow rather than lead. Omar Little (Michael K. Williams), a renowned Baltimore stick-up man robbing drug dealers for a living, was a frequent thorn in the side of the Barksdale clan.
- The second season introduced a new group of characters working in the Baltimore port area, including Spiros "Vondas" Vondopoulos (Paul Ben-Victor), Beadie Russell (Amy Ryan), and Frank Sobotka (Chris Bauer). Vondas was the underboss of a global smuggling operation, Russell an inexperienced port authority officer and single mother thrown in at the deep end of a multiple homicide investigation, and Frank Sobotka a union leader who turned to crime to raise funds to save his union. Also joining the show in season 2 were Nick Sobotka (Pablo Schreiber), Frank's nephew; Ziggy Sobotka (James Ransone), Frank's troubled son; and "The Greek" (Bill Raymond), Vondas' mysterious boss. As the second season ended, the focus shifted away from the ports, leaving the new characters behind.
- The third season saw several previously recurring characters assuming larger starring roles, including Detective Leander Sydnor (Corey Parker Robinson), Bodie (J.D. Williams), Omar (Michael K. Williams), Proposition Joe (Robert F. Chew), and Major Howard "Bunny" Colvin (Robert Wisdom). Colvin commanded the Western district where the Barksdale organization operated, and nearing retirement, he came up with a radical new method of dealing with the drug problem. Proposition Joe, the East Side's cautious drug kingpin, became more cooperative with the Barksdale Organization. Sydnor, a rising young star in the Police Department in season 1, returned to the cast as part of the major crimes unit. Bodie had been seen gradually rising in the Barksdale organization since the first episode; he was born to their trade and showed a fierce aptitude for it. Omar had a vendetta against the Barksdale organization and gave them all of his lethal attention.
- New additions in the third season included Tommy Carcetti (Aidan Gillen), an ambitious city councilman; Mayor Clarence Royce (Glynn Turman), the incumbent whom Carcetti planned to unseat; Marlo Stanfield (Jamie Hector), leader of an upstart gang seeking to challenge Avon's dominance; and Dennis "Cutty" Wise (Chad Coleman), a newly released convict uncertain of his future.
- In the fourth season, four young actors joined the cast: Jermaine Crawford as Duquan "Dukie" Weems; Maestro Harrell as Randy Wagstaff; Julito McCullum as Namond Brice; and Tristan Wilds as Michael Lee. The characters are friends from a West Baltimore middle school. Another newcomer was Norman Wilson (Reg E. Cathey), Carcetti's deputy campaign manager.
- The fifth season saw several actors join the starring cast. Gbenga Akinnagbe returns as the previously recurring Chris Partlow, chief enforcer of the now dominant Stanfield Organization. Neal Huff reprises his role as Mayoral chief of staff Michael Steintorf, having previously appeared as a guest star at the end of the fourth season. Two other actors also join the starring cast having previously portrayed their corrupt characters as guest stars'--Michael Kostroff as defense attorney Maurice Levy and Isiah Whitlock Jr. as State Senator Clay Davis. Crew member Clark Johnson appeared in front of the camera for the first time in the series to play Augustus Haynes, the principled editor of the city desk of The Baltimore Sun. He is joined in the newsroom by two other new stars; Michelle Paress and Tom McCarthy play young reporters Alma Gutierrez and Scott Templeton.
- Episodes [ edit ] Season 1 [ edit ] Map of Baltimore and its neighborhoods
- The first season introduces two major groups of characters: the Baltimore Police Department and a drug dealing organization run by the Barksdale family. The season follows the police investigation of the latter over its 13 episodes.
- The investigation is triggered when, following the acquittal of D'Angelo Barksdale for murder after a key witness changes her story, Detective Jimmy McNulty meets privately with Judge Daniel Phelan. McNulty tells Phelan that the witness has probably been intimidated by members of a drug trafficking empire run by D'Angelo's uncle, Avon Barksdale, having recognized several faces at the trial, most notably Avon's second-in-command, Stringer Bell. He also tells Phelan that no one is investigating Barksdale's criminal activity, which includes a significant portion of the city's drug trade and several unsolved homicides.
- Phelan reacts to McNulty's report by complaining to senior Police Department figures, embarrassing them into creating a detail dedicated to investigating Barksdale. However, owing to the department's dysfunction, the investigation is intended as a fa§ade to appease the judge. An intradepartmental struggle between the more motivated officers on the detail and their superiors spans the whole season, with interference by the higher-ups often threatening to ruin the investigation. The detail's commander, Cedric Daniels, acts as mediator between the two opposing groups of police.
- Meanwhile, the organized and cautious Barksdale gang is explored through characters at various levels within it. The organization is continually antagonized by a stick-up crew led by Omar Little, and the feud leads to several deaths. Throughout, D'Angelo struggles with his conscience over his life of crime and the people it affects.
- The police have little success with street-level arrests or with securing informants beyond Bubbles, a well known West Side drug addict. Eventually the investigation takes the direction of electronic surveillance, with wiretaps and pager clones to infiltrate the security measures taken by the Barksdale organization. This leads the investigation to areas the commanding officers had hoped to avoid, including political contributions. When an associate of Avon Barksdale is arrested by State Police and offers to cooperate, the commanding officers order the detail to undertake a sting operation to wrap up the case. Detective Kima Greggs is seriously hurt in the operation, triggering an overzealous response from the rest of the department. This causes the detail's targets to suspect that they are under investigation.
- Wallace is murdered by his childhood friends Bodie and Poot, on orders from Stringer Bell, after leaving his "secure" placement with relatives and returning to Baltimore. D'Angelo Barksdale is eventually arrested transporting a kilo of uncut heroin, and learning of Wallace's murder, is ready to turn in his uncle and Stringer. However, D'Angelo's mother convinces him to rescind the deal and take the charges for his family. The detail manages to arrest Avon on a minor charge and gets one of his soldiers, Wee-Bey, to confess to most of the murders, some of which he did not commit. Stringer escapes prosecution and is left running the Barksdale empire. For the officers, the consequences of antagonizing their superiors are severe, with Daniels passed over for promotion and McNulty assigned out of homicide and into the marine unit.
- Season 2 [ edit ] The second season, along with its ongoing examination of the drug problem and its effect on the urban poor, examines the plight of the blue-collar urban working class as exemplified by stevedores in the city port, as some of them get caught up in smuggling drugs and other contraband inside the shipping containers that pass through their port.[45] In a season-long subplot, the Barksdale organization continues its drug trafficking despite Avon's imprisonment, with Stringer Bell assuming greater power.
- McNulty harbors a grudge against his former commanders for reassigning him to the marine unit. When thirteen unidentified young women are found dead in a container at the docks, McNulty successfully makes a spiteful effort to place the murders within the jurisdiction of his former commander. Meanwhile, police Major Stan Valchek gets into a feud with Polish-American Frank Sobotka, a leader of the International Brotherhood of Stevedores, a fictional dockers' union, over competing donations to their old neighborhood church. Valchek demands a detail to investigate Sobotka. A detail is assigned, but staffed with "humps". Valcheck threatens Burrell with a disruption of Burrell's confirmation hearings and insists on Daniels. Cedric Daniels is interviewed, having been praised by Prez, Major Valchek's son-in-law, and also because of his work on the Barksdale case. He is eventually selected to lead the detail assigned just to investigate Sobotka; when the investigation is concluded Daniels is assured he will move up to head a special case unit with personnel of his choosing.
- Life for the blue-collar men of the port is increasingly hard and work is scarce. As union leader, Sobotka has taken it on himself to reinvigorate the port by lobbying politicians to support much-needed infrastructure improvement initiatives. Lacking the funds needed for this kind of influence, Sobotka has become involved with a smuggling ring. Around him, his son and nephew also turn to crime, as they have few other opportunities to earn money. It becomes clear to the Sobotka detail that the dead girls are related to their investigation, as they were in a container that was supposed to be smuggled through the port. They again use wiretaps to infiltrate the crime ring and slowly work their way up the chain towards The Greek, the mysterious man in charge. But Valchek, upset that their focus has moved beyond Sobotka, gets the FBI involved. The Greek has a mole inside the FBI and starts severing his ties to Baltimore when he learns about the investigation.
- After a dispute over stolen goods turns violent, Sobotka's wayward son Ziggy is charged with the murder of one of the Greek's underlings. Sobotka himself is arrested for smuggling; he agrees to work with the detail to help his son, finally seeing his actions as a mistake. The Greek learns about this through his mole inside the FBI and has Sobotka killed. The investigation ends with the fourteen homicides solved but the perpetrator already dead. Several drug dealers and mid-level smuggling figures tied to the Greek are arrested, but he and his second-in-command escape uncharged and unidentified. The Major is pleased that Sobotka was arrested; the case is seen as a success by the commanding officers, but is viewed as a failure by the detail.
- Across town, the Barksdale organization continues its business under Stringer while Avon and D'Angelo Barksdale serve prison time. D'Angelo decides to cut ties to his family after his uncle organizes the deaths of several inmates and blames it on a corrupt guard to shave time from his sentence. Eventually Stringer covertly orders D'Angelo killed, with the murder staged to look like a suicide. Avon is unaware of Stringer's duplicity and mourns the loss of his nephew.
- Stringer also struggles, having been cut off by Avon's drug suppliers in New York and left with increasingly poor-quality product. He again goes behind Avon's back, giving up half of Avon's most prized territory to a rival named Proposition Joe in exchange for a share of his supply, which is revealed to be coming from the Greek. Avon, unaware of the arrangement, assumes that Joe and other dealers are moving into his territory simply because the Barksdale organization has too few enforcers. He uses his New York connections to hire a feared assassin named Brother Mouzone. Stringer deals with this by tricking his old adversary Omar into believing that Mouzone was responsible for the vicious killing of his partner in their feud in season one. Seeking revenge, Omar shoots Mouzone but, realizing Stringer has lied to him, calls 9-1-1. Mouzone recovers and leaves Baltimore, and Stringer (now with Avon's consent) is able to continue his arrangement with Proposition Joe.
- Season 3 [ edit ] In the third season, the focus returns to the street and the Barksdale organization. The scope is expanded to include the city's political scene. A new subplot is introduced to explore the potential positive effects of de facto "legalizing" the illegal drug trade, and incidentally prostitution, within the limited boundaries of a few uninhabited city blocks'--referred to as Hamsterdam. The posited benefits, as in Amsterdam and other European cities, are reduced street crime city-wide and increased outreach of health and social services to vulnerable people. These are continuations of stories hinted at earlier.
- The demolition of the residential towers that had served as the Barksdale organization's prime territory pushes their dealers back out onto the streets of Baltimore. Stringer Bell continues his reform of the organization by cooperating with other drug lords, sharing with one another territory, product and profits. Stringer's proposal is met with a curt refusal from Marlo Stanfield, leader of a new, growing crew. Against Stringer's advice, Avon decides to take Marlo's territory by force and the two gangs become embroiled in a bitter turf war with multiple deaths. Omar Little continues to rob the Barksdale organization wherever possible. Working with his new boyfriend Dante and two women, he is once more a serious problem. The violence related to the drug trade makes it an obvious choice of investigation for Cedric Daniels' permanently established Major Crimes Unit.
- Councilman Tommy Carcetti begins to prepare himself for a mayoral race. He manipulates a colleague into running against the mayor to split the black vote, secures a capable campaign manager and starts making headlines for himself.
- Approaching the end of his career, Major Howard "Bunny" Colvin of Baltimore's Western District wants to effect some real change in the troubled neighborhoods for which he has long been responsible. Without the knowledge of central command, Colvin sets up areas where police would monitor, but not punish, the drug trade. The police crack down severely on violence in these areas and also on drug trafficking elsewhere in the city. For many weeks, Colvin's experiment works and crime is reduced in his district. Colvin' superiors, the media and city politicians eventually find out about the arrangement and the "Hamsterdam" experiment ends. With top brass outraged, Colvin is forced to cease his actions, accept a demotion and retire from the Police Department on a lower-grade pension. Tommy Carcetti uses the scandal to make a grandstanding speech at a weekly Baltimore city council meeting.
- In another strand, Dennis "Cutty" Wise, once a drug dealer's enforcer, is released from a fourteen-year prison term with a street contact from Avon. Cutty initially wishes to go straight partly to reignite his relationship with a former girlfriend. He tries to work as a manual laborer, but struggles to adapt to life as a free man. He then flirts with his former life, going to work for Avon. Finding he no longer has the heart for murder, he quits the Barksdale crew. Later, he uses funding from Avon to purchase new equipment for his nascent boxing gym.
- The Major Crimes Unit learns that Stringer has been buying real estate and developing it to fulfill his dream of being a successful legitimate businessman. Believing that the bloody turf war with Marlo is poised to destroy everything the Barksdale crew had worked for, Stringer gives Major Colvin information on Avon's weapons stash. Brother Mouzone returns to Baltimore and tracks down Omar to join forces. Mouzone tells Avon that his shooting must be avenged. Avon, remembering how Stringer disregarded his order which resulted in Stringer's attempt to have Brother Mouzone killed, furious over D'Angelo's murder to which Stringer had confessed, and fearing Mouzone's ability to harm his reputation outside of Baltimore, informs Mouzone of Stringer's upcoming visit to his construction site. Mouzone and Omar corner him and shoot him to death.
- Colvin tells McNulty about Avon's hideout and armed with the information gleaned from selling the Barksdale crew pre-wiretapped disposable cell phones, the detail stages a raid, arresting Avon and most of his underlings. Barksdale's criminal empire lies in ruins and Marlo's young crew simply moves into their territory. The drug trade in West Baltimore continues.
- Season 4 [ edit ] The fourth season concentrates on the school system and the mayoral race. It takes a closer look at Marlo Stanfield's drug gang, which has grown to control most of western Baltimore's trafficking, and Dukie, Randy, Michael, and Namond '' four boys from West Baltimore '' as they enter the eighth grade. Prez has begun a new career as a mathematics teacher at the same school. The cold-blooded Marlo has come to dominate the streets of the west side, using murder and intimidation to make up for his weak-quality drugs and lack of business acumen. His enforcers Chris Partlow and Snoop conceal their numerous victims in abandoned and boarded-up row houses where the bodies will not be readily discovered. The disappearances of so many known criminals come to mystify both the major crimes unit investigating Marlo and the homicide unit assigned to solve the presumed murders. Marlo coerces Bodie into working under him.
- McNulty is a patrolman and lives with Beadie Russell. He politely refuses offers from Daniels who is now a major and commanding the Western District. Detectives Kima Greggs and Lester Freamon, as part of the major crimes unit, investigate Avon Barksdale's political donations and serve several key figures with subpoenas. Their work is shut down by Commissioner Ervin Burrell at Mayor Clarence Royce's request, and after being placed under stricter supervision within their unit, both Greggs and Freamon request and receive transfer to the homicide division.
- Meanwhile, the city's mayoral primary race enters its closing weeks. Royce initially has a seemingly insurmountable lead over challengers Tommy Carcetti and Tony Gray, with a big war chest and major endorsements. Royce's lead begins to fray, as his own political machinations turn against him and Carcetti starts to highlight the city's crime problem. Carcetti is propelled to victory in the primary election.
- Howard "Bunny" Colvin joins a research group attempting to study potential future criminals in the middle school population. Dennis "Cutty" Wise continues to work with boys in his boxing gym, and accepts a job at the school rounding up truants. Prez has a few successes with his students, but some of them start to slip away. Disruptive Namond is removed from class and placed in the research group, where he gradually develops affection and respect for Colvin. Randy, in a moment of desperation, reveals knowledge of a murder to the assistant principal, leading to his being interrogated by police. When Bubbles takes Sherrod, a homeless teenager, under his wing, he fails in his attempts to encourage the boy to return to school.
- Proposition Joe tries to engineer conflict between Omar Little and Marlo to convince Marlo to join the co-op. Omar robs Marlo who, in turn, frames Omar for a murder and organises attempts to have him murdered in jail but Omar manages to beat the charge with the help of Bunk. Omar is told that Marlo set him up, so takes revenge on him by robbing the entire shipment of the co-op. Marlo is furious with Joe for allowing the shipment to be stolen. Marlo demands satisfaction, and as a result, Joe sets up a meeting between him and Spiros Vondas, who assuages Marlo's concerns. Having gotten a lead on Joe's connection to the Greeks, Marlo begins investigating them to learn more about their role in bringing narcotics into Baltimore.
- Freamon discovers the bodies Chris and Snoop had hidden. Bodie offers McNulty testimony against Marlo and his crew, but is shot dead on his corner by O-Dog, a member of Marlo's crew.[57] Sherrod dies after snorting a poisoned vial of heroin that, unbeknownst to him, Bubbles had prepared for their tormentor. Bubbles turns himself in to the police and tries to hang himself, but he survives and is taken to a detox facility. Michael has now joined the ranks of Marlo's killers and runs one of his corners, with Dukie leaving high school to work there. Randy's house is firebombed by school bullies for his cooperation with the police, leaving his caring foster mother hospitalized and sending him back to a group home. Namond is taken in by Colvin, who recognized the good in him. The major crimes unit from earlier seasons is largely reunited, and they resume their investigation of Marlo Stanfield.
- Season 5 [ edit ] The fifth season focuses on the media and media consumption.[58] The show features a fictional depiction of the newspaper The Baltimore Sun, and in fact elements of the plot are ripped-from-the-headlines events (such as the Jayson Blair New York Times scandal) and people at the Sun.[59] The season, according to David Simon, deals with "what stories get told and what don't and why it is that things stay the same."[58] Issues such as the quest for profit, the decrease in the number of reporters, and the end of aspiration for news quality would all be addressed, alongside the theme of homelessness. John Carroll of The Baltimore Sun was the model for the "craven, prize hungry" editor of the fictional newspaper.[60]
- Fifteen months after the fourth season concludes, Mayor Carcetti's cuts in the police budget to redress the education deficit force the Marlo Stanfield investigation to shut down. Cedric Daniels secures a detail to focus on the prosecution of Senator Davis for corruption. Detective McNulty returns to the Homicide unit and decides to divert resources back to the Police Department by faking evidence to make it appear that a serial killer is murdering homeless men.
- The Baltimore Sun also faces budget cuts and the newsroom struggles to adequately cover the city, omitting many important stories. Commissioner Burrell continues to falsify crime statistics and is fired by Carcetti, who positions Daniels to replace him.
- Marlo Stanfield lures his enemy Omar Little out of retirement by having Omar's mentor Butchie murdered. Proposition Joe teaches Stanfield how to launder money and evade investigation. Once Joe is no longer useful to him, Stanfield has Joe killed with the help of Joe's nephew Cheese Wagstaff and usurps his position with the Greeks and the New Day Co-Op. Michael Lee continues working as a Stanfield enforcer, providing a home for his friend Dukie and younger brother Bug.
- Omar returns to Baltimore seeking revenge, targeting Stanfield's organization, stealing and destroying money and drugs and killing Stanfield enforcers in an attempt to force Stanfield into the open. However, he is eventually shot and killed by Kenard, a young Stanfield dealer.
- Baltimore Sun reporter Scott Templeton claims to have been contacted by McNulty's fake serial killer. City Editor Gus Haynes becomes suspicious, but his superiors are enamored of Templeton. McNulty backs up Templeton's claim in order to further legitimize his fabricated serial killer. The story gains momentum and Carcetti spins the resulting attention on homelessness into a key issue in his imminent campaign for Governor and restores funding to the Police Department.
- Bubbles is recovering from his drug addiction while living in his sister's basement. He is befriended by Sun reporter Mike Fletcher, who eventually writes a profile of Bubbles.
- Bunk is disgusted with McNulty's serial killer scheme and tries to have Lester Freamon reason with McNulty. Instead, Freamon helps McNulty perpetuate the lie and uses resources earmarked for the case to fund an illegal wiretap on Stanfield. Bunk resumes working the vacant house murders, leading to a murder warrant against Partlow for killing Michael's stepfather.
- Freamon and Leander Sydnor gather enough evidence to arrest Stanfield and most of his top lieutenants, seizing a large quantity of drugs. Stanfield suspects that Michael is an informant, and orders him killed. Michael realizes he is being set up and kills Snoop instead. A wanted man, he leaves Bug with an aunt and begins a career as a stick-up man. With his support system gone, Dukie lives with drug addicts.
- McNulty tells Kima Greggs about his fabrications to prevent her wasting time on the case. Greggs tells Daniels, who, along with Rhonda Pearlman, takes this news to Carcetti, who orders a cover-up because of the issue's importance to his campaign.
- Davis is acquitted, but Freamon uses the threat of federal prosecution to blackmail him for information. Davis reveals Maurice Levy has a mole in the courthouse from whom he illegally purchases copies of sealed indictments. Herc tells Levy that the Stanfield case was probably based on an illegal wiretap, something which would jeopardize the entire case. After Levy reveals this to Pearlman, she uses Levy's espionage to blackmail him into agreeing to a plea bargain for his defendants. Levy ensures Stanfield's release on the condition that he permanently retires, while his subordinates will have to accept long sentences. Stanfield sells the connection to The Greeks back to the Co-Op and plans to become a businessman, although he appears unable or unwilling to stay off the corner.
- As the cover-up begins, a copy-cat killing occurs, but McNulty quickly identifies and arrests the culprit. Pearlman tells McNulty and Freamon that they can no longer be allowed to do investigative work and warns of criminal charges if the scandal becomes public. They opt to retire. Haynes attempts to expose Templeton but the managing editors ignore the fabrications and demote anyone critical of their star reporter. Carcetti pressures Daniels to falsify crime statistics to aid his campaign. Daniels refuses and then quietly resigns rather than have his FBI file leaked.
- In a final montage, McNulty gazes over the city; Freamon enjoys retirement; Templeton wins a Pulitzer; Carcetti becomes Governor; Haynes is sidelined to the copy desk and replaced by Fletcher; Campbell appoints Valchek as commissioner; Carcetti appoints Rawls as Superintendent of the Maryland State Police; Dukie continues to use heroin; Michael becomes a stickup boy; Pearlman becomes a judge and Daniels a defense attorney; Bubbles is allowed upstairs where he enjoys a family dinner; Chris serves his life sentence alongside Wee-Bey; the drug trade continues; and the people of Baltimore go on with their lives.
- Prequel shorts [ edit ] During the fifth season, HBO produced three shorts depicting moments in the history of characters in The Wire. The three prequels depict the first meeting between McNulty and Bunk; Proposition Joe as a slick business kid; and young Omar.[61] The shorts are available on the complete series DVD set.[62]
- Reception and legacy [ edit ] Critical response [ edit ] All seasons of The Wire have received positive reviews from many major television critics, several naming it the best contemporary show and one of the best drama series of all time. The first season received mainly positive reviews from critics,[68][69] some even calling it superior to HBO's better-known "flagship" drama series such as The Sopranos and Six Feet Under.[70][71][72] On the review aggregation website Metacritic, the first season scored 78 out of 100 based on 22 reviews.[63] One reviewer pointed to the retread of some themes from HBO and David Simon's earlier works, but still found it valuable viewing and particularly resonant because it parallels the war on terror through the chronicling of the war on drugs.[73] Another review postulated that the series might suffer because of its reliance on profanity and slowly drawn-out plot, but was largely positive about the show's characters and intrigue.[38]
- Despite the critical acclaim, The Wire received poor Nielsen ratings, which Simon attributed to the complexity of the plot; a poor time slot; heavy use of esoteric slang, particularly among the gangster characters; and a predominantly black cast.[74] Critics felt the show was testing the attention span of its audience and that it was mistimed in the wake of the launch of the successful crime drama The Shield on FX.[73] However, anticipation for a release of the first season on DVD was high at Entertainment Weekly.[75]
- After the first two shows of season two, Jim Shelley in The Guardian, called The Wire the best show on TV, praising the second season for its ability to detach from its former foundations in the first season.[39] Jon Garelick with the Boston Phoenix was of the opinion that the subculture of the docks (second season) was not as absorbing as that of the housing projects (first season), but he went on to praise the writers for creating a realistic world and populating it with an array of interesting characters.[76]
- The critical response to the third season remained positive. Entertainment Weekly named The Wire the best show of 2004, describing it as "the smartest, deepest and most resonant drama on TV." They credited the complexity of the show for its poor ratings.[77] The Baltimore City Paper was so concerned that the show might be cancelled that it published a list of ten reasons to keep it on the air, including strong characterization, Omar Little, and an unabashedly honest representation of real world problems. It also worried that the loss of the show would have a negative impact on Baltimore's economy.[78]
- At the close of the third season, The Wire was still struggling to maintain its ratings and the show faced possible cancellation.[79] Creator David Simon blamed the show's low ratings in part on its competition against Desperate Housewives and worried that expectations for HBO dramas had changed following the success of The Sopranos.[80]
- As the fourth season was about to begin, almost two years after the previous season's end, Tim Goodman of the San Francisco Chronicle wrote that The Wire "has tackled the drug war in this country as it simultaneously explores race, poverty and 'the death of the American working class,' the failure of political systems to help the people they serve, and the tyranny of lost hope. Few series in the history of television have explored the plight of inner-city African Americans and none'--not one'--has done it as well."[81] Brian Lowry of Variety wrote at the time, "When television history is written, little else will rival 'The Wire.'"[82] The New York Times called the fourth season of The Wire "its best season yet."[83] Doug Elfman of the Chicago Sun-Times was more reserved in his praise, calling it the "most ambitious" show on television, but faulting it for its complexity and the slow development of the plotline.[84] The Los Angeles Times took the rare step of devoting an editorial to the show, stating that "even in what is generally acknowledged to be something of a golden era for thoughtful and entertaining dramas'--both on cable channels and on network TV'--The Wire stands out."[85] TIME magazine especially praised the fourth season, stating that "no other TV show has ever loved a city so well, damned it so passionately, or sung it so searingly."[86] On review aggregation website Metacritic the fourth season received a weighted average score of 98%, the second highest score for any television season in Metacritic history (with the fifth season of Breaking Bad being the first).[66] Andrew Johnston of Time Out New York named The Wire the best TV series of 2006, and wrote, "The first three seasons of David Simon's epic meditations on urban America established The Wire as one of the best series of the decade, and with season four--centered on the heart-breaking tale of four eighth-graders whose prospects are limited by public-school bureaucracy--it officially became one for the ages."[87]
- Several reviewers have called it the best show on television, including TIME,[86] Entertainment Weekly,[77] the Chicago Tribune,[88] Slate,[58] the San Francisco Chronicle,[89] the Philadelphia Daily News[90] and the British newspaper The Guardian,[39] which ran a week-by-week blog following every episode,[91] also collected in a book, The Wire Re-up.[92] Charlie Brooker, a columnist for The Guardian, has been particularly enthusiastic in his praise of the show, both in his "Screen Burn" column and in his BBC Four television series Screenwipe, calling it possibly the greatest show of the last 20 years.[93][94] In 2007, TIME listed it among the one hundred best television series of all-time.[95] In 2013, the Writers Guild of America ranked The Wire as the ninth best written TV series.[96] In 2013, TV Guide ranked The Wire as the fifth greatest drama[97] and the sixth greatest show of all time.[98] In 2013, Entertainment Weekly listed the show at #6 in their list of the "26 Best Cult TV Shows Ever," describing it as "one of the most highly praised series in HBO history" and praising Michael K. Williams's acting as Omar Little.[99] Entertainment Weekly also named it the number one TV show of all-time in a special issue in 2013.[100] In 2016, Rolling Stone ranked it second on its list of 100 Greatest TV Shows of All Time. In September 2019, The Guardian, which ranked the show #2 on its list of the 100 best TV shows of the 21st century, described it as "polemical, panoramic, funny, tragic or all of those things at once", saying it was "beautifully written and performed" and was both "TV as high art and TV wrenched from the soul" and "an exemplar of a certain brand of intelligent, ambitious and uncompromising television".[101]
- Critics have often described the show in literary terms: the New York Times calls it "literary television;" TV Guide calls it "TV as great modern literature;" the San Francisco Chronicle says the series "must be considered alongside the best literature and filmmaking in the modern era;" and the Chicago Tribune says the show delivers "rewards not unlike those won by readers who conquer Joyce, Faulkner or Henry James."[81][83][102][103] 'The Wire Files', an online collection of articles published in darkmatter Journal, critically analyzes The Wire's racialized politics and aesthetics of representation.[104] Entertainment Weekly put it on its end-of-the-decade, "best-of" list, saying, "The deft writing'--which used the cop-genre format to give shape to creator David Simon's scathing social critiques'--was matched by one of the deepest benches of acting talent in TV history."[105]
- Former President of the United States Barack Obama has said that The Wire is his favorite television series.[106] The 2010 Nobel Prize in Literature Laureate, Mario Vargas Llosa, wrote a very positive critical review of the series in the Spanish newspaper El Pas.[107] The comedian turned mayor of Reykjavk, Iceland, J"n Gnarr, has gone so far as to say that he would not enter a coalition government with anyone who has not watched the series.[108]
- Robert Kirkman, creator of The Walking Dead, is a strong follower of The Wire; he has tried to cast as many actors from it into the television series of the same name as possible, so far having cast Chad Coleman, Lawrence Gilliard Jr., Seth Gilliam, and Merritt Wever.[109]
- Awards [ edit ] David Simon accepting the
- The Wire at the 63rd Annual Peabody Awards.
- The Wire was nominated for and won a wide variety of awards, including nominations for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series for "Middle Ground" (2005) and "''30''" (2008), NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Drama Series for each of its five seasons, Television Critics Association Awards (TCA), and Writers Guild of America Awards (WGA).
- Most of the awards the series won were for season 4 and season 5. These included the Directors Guild of America Award and TCA Heritage Award for season 5, and the Writers Guild of America Award for Television: Dramatic Series for season 4, plus the Crime Thriller Award, Eddie Award, Edgar Award, and Irish Film & Television Academy Award. The series also won the ASCAP Award, Artios Award, and Peabody Award for season 2.[110]
- The series won the Broadcasting & Cable Critics' Poll Award for Best Drama (season 4) and won TIME 's critics choice for top television show for season 1 and season 3.
- Despite the above mentioned awards and unanimous critical approval, The Wire never won a single Primetime Emmy Award nor received any major nominations, except for two writing nominations in 2005 and 2008. Several critics recognized its lack of recognition by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences.[111][112][113] According to a report by Variety, anonymous Emmy voters cited reasons such as the series' dense and multilayered plot, the grim subject matter, and the series' lack of connection with California, as it is set and filmed in Baltimore.[114]
- Academia [ edit ] In the years following the end of the series' run, several colleges and universities such as Johns Hopkins, Brown University, and Harvard College have offered classes on The Wire in disciplines ranging from law to sociology to film studies. Phillips Academy, a boarding high school in Massachusetts, offers a similar course as well.[115][116] University of Texas at San Antonio offers a course where the series is taught as a work of literary fiction.[117]
- In an article published in The Washington Post, Anmol Chaddha and William Julius Wilson explain why Harvard chose The Wire as curriculum material for their course on urban inequality: "Though scholars know that deindustrialization, crime and prison, and the education system are deeply intertwined, they must often give focused attention to just one subject in relative isolation, at the expense of others. With the freedom of artistic expression, The Wire can be more creative. It can weave together the range of forces that shape the lives of the urban poor."[118] University of York's Head of Sociology, Roger Burrows, said in The Independent that the show "makes a fantastic contribution to their understanding of contemporary urbanism", and is "a contrast to dry, dull, hugely expensive studies that people carry out on the same issues".[119] The series is also studied as part of a Master seminar series at the Paris West University Nanterre La D(C)fense.[120] In February 2012, Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek gave a lecture at Birkbeck, University of London titled The Wire or the clash of civilisations in one country.[121] In April 2012, Norwegian academic Erlend Lavik posted online a 36-minute video essay called "Style in The Wire" which analyzes the various visual techniques used by the show's directors over the course of its five seasons.[122]
- The Wire has also been the subject of growing numbers of academic articles by, amongst others, Fredric Jameson (who praised the series' ability to weave utopian thinking into its realist representation of society);[123] and Leigh Claire La Berge, who argues that although the less realistic character of season five was received negatively by critics, it gives the series a platform not only for representing reality, but for representing how realism is itself a construct of social forces like the media;[124] both commentators see in The Wire an impulse for progressive political change rare in mass media productions. While most academics have used The Wire as a cultural object or case study, Benjamin Leclair-Paquet has instead argued that the "creative methods behind HBO's The Wire evoke original ways to experiment with speculative work that reveal the merit of the imaginary as a pragmatic research device." This author posits that the methods behind The Wire are particularly relevant for contentious urban and architectural projects.[125]
- Broadcasters [ edit ] HBO aired the five seasons of the show in 2002, 2003, 2004, 2006, and 2008. New episodes were shown once a week, occasionally skipping one or two weeks in favor of other programming. Starting with the fourth season, subscribers to the HBO On Demand service were able to see each episode of the season six days earlier.[126] American basic cable network BET also aired the show. BET adds commercial breaks, blurs some nudity, and mutes some profanity. Much of the waterfront storyline from the second season is edited out from the BET broadcasts.[127]
- The series was remastered in 16:9 high-definition in late 2014. As the series was shot with a 16:9-safe area, the remastered series is an open matte of the original 4:3 framing.[128] Creator David Simon approved the new version, and worked with HBO to remove film equipment and crew members, and solve actor sync problems in the widened frame.[129] The remastered series debuted on HBO Signature, airing the entire series consecutively, and on HBO GO on December 26, 2014.
- In the United Kingdom, the show has been broadcast on FX until 2009 when the BBC bought terrestrial television rights to The Wire in 2008, when it was broadcast on BBC Two,[130] although controversially it was broadcast at 11:20 pm[131] and catchup was not available on BBC iPlayer.[132] In a world first, British newspaper The Guardian made the first episode of the first season available to stream on its website for a brief period[133] and all episodes were aired in Ireland on the public service channel TG4 approximately six months after the original air dates on HBO.[134]
- The series became available in Canada in a remastered 16:9 HD format on streaming service CraveTV in late 2014.[135]
- Home media [ edit ] Every season was released on DVD, and were favorably received, though some critics have faulted them for a lack of special features.[9][10][136][137]
- The remastered version is on iTunes, and was released as a complete series Blu-ray box set on June 2, 2015.[138][139][140]
- DVD releases [ edit ] SeasonRelease datesEpisodesSpecial featuresDiscsRegion 1Region 2Region 41October 12, 2004[141]April 18, 2005[142]May 11, 2005[143]13Three audio commentaries by crew members52January 25, 2005[144]October 10, 2005[145]May 3, 2006[146]12Two audio commentaries by cast and crew members53August 8, 2006[147]February 5, 2007[148]August 13, 2008[149]12Five audio commentaries by crew membersQ&A with David Simon and Creative Team, courtesy of the Museum of Television & RadioConversation with David Simon at Eugene Lang College, The New School for Liberal Arts[33]54December 4, 2007[150]March 10, 2008[151]August 13, 2008[152]13Six audio commentaries by cast and crew members"It's All Connected" featurette"The Game Is Real" featurette45August 12, 2008[153]September 22, 2008[154]February 2, 2010[155]10Six audio commentaries by cast and crew members"The Wire: The Last Word" '' A documentary exploring the role of the media"The Wire Odyssey" '' A retrospective of the first four seasonsThe Wire PrequelsFrom the Wrap Party Gag Reels ...4AllDecember 9, 2008[156]December 8, 2008[157]February 2, 2010[158]60Collects the previously released box-sets23See also [ edit ] References [ edit ] ^ " " The Wire": David Simon reflects on his modern Greek tragedy". Variety. March 8, 2008 . Retrieved January 28, 2019 . ^ Lynskey, Dorian (March 6, 2018). "The Wire, 10 years on: 'We tore the cover off a city and showed the American dream was dead ' ". The Guardian . Retrieved January 28, 2019 . ^ a b c Margaret Talbot (October 22, 2007). "Stealing Life". The New Yorker . Retrieved October 14, 2007 . ^ a b "Real Life Meets Reel Life With David Simon". The Washington Post. September 3, 2002 . Retrieved May 8, 2020 . ^ a b c d e f David Simon (2005). "The Target" commentary track (DVD). HBO. ^ Sources that refer to The Wire ' s being praised as one of the greatest television shows of all time include:Traister, Rebbeca (September 15, 2007). "The best TV show of all time". Salon.com . Retrieved March 7, 2008 . "The Wire: arguably the greatest television programme ever made". Telegraph. London. April 2, 2009 . Retrieved April 2, 2009 . Wilde, Jon (July 21, 2007). "The Wire is unmissable television". The Guardian. London . Retrieved September 7, 2009 . Carey, Kevin (February 13, 2007). "A show of honesty". The Guardian. London . Retrieved September 7, 2009 . "Charlie Brooker: The Wire". The Guardian. London. July 21, 2007 . Retrieved September 10, 2010 . Roush, Matt (February 25, 2013). "Showstoppers: The 60 Greatest Dramas of All Time". TV Guide. pp. 16''17."TV: 10 All-Time Greatest". Entertainment Weekly. June 27, 2013 . Retrieved January 9, 2017 . Sheffield, Rob (September 21, 2016). "100 Greatest TV Shows of All Time". Rolling Stone . Retrieved September 22, 2016 . Jones, Emma (April 12, 2018). "How The Wire became the greatest TV show ever made". BBC . Retrieved September 4, 2018 . ^ a b c Ian Rothkirch (2002). "What drugs have not destroyed, the war on them has". Salon.com. Archived from the original on March 13, 2007. ^ Alvarez, Rafael (2004). The Wire: Truth Be Told. New York: Pocket Books. pp. 18''19, 35''39. ^ a b c Barsanti, Chris (October 19, 2004). "Totally Wired". Slant Magazine . Retrieved July 25, 2018 . ^ a b Wyman, Bill (February 25, 2005). "The Wire The Complete Second Season". NPR . Retrieved July 25, 2018 . ^ Abrams, Jonathan (February 13, 2018). "How Every Character Was Cast on The Wire; excerpt from book, All the Pieces Matter: The Inside Story of The Wire". GQ . Retrieved July 25, 2018 . ^ Joel Murphy (2005). "One on one with ... Lance Reddick". Hobo Trashcan. ^ Murphy, Joel (August 23, 2005). "One on One With Michael K. Williams". Hobo Trashcan . Retrieved July 25, 2018 . ^ "Michael K. Williams on Playing Omar on 'The Wire,' Discovering Snoop, and How Janet Jackson Changed His Life". Vulture. January 2, 2008 . Retrieved July 25, 2018 . ^ Deford, Susan (February 14, 2008). "Despite Past With Bill Clinton, Ulman Switches Allegiance". The Washington Post . Retrieved May 13, 2010 . ^ David Zurawik (July 12, 2006). "Local figures, riveting drama put The Wire in a class by itself". The Baltimore Sun. ^ "Character profile '' Jay Landsman". HBO. 2006 . Retrieved December 19, 2007 . ^ "Character profile '' Dennis Mello". HBO. 2008 . Retrieved January 15, 2008 . ^ a b c "The Wire season 1 crew". HBO. 2007 . Retrieved October 14, 2007 . ^ "The Wire season 2 crew". HBO. 2007 . Retrieved October 14, 2007 . ^ "Character profile '' Grand Jury Prosecutor Gary DiPasquale". HBO. 2008 . Retrieved February 12, 2008 . ^ Simon, David (2006) [1991]. Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets. New York: Owl Books. ^ "The Wire + Oz". Cosmodrome Magazine. January 26, 2008 . Retrieved February 11, 2009 . ^ Erik Dellums filmography. Retrieved December 24, 2009. ^ Peter Gerety filmography. Retrieved November 11, 2009. ^ Clark Johnson filmography. Retrieved November 11, 2009. ^ Toni Lewis filmography. Retrieved December 24, 2009. ^ Callie Thorne filmography. Retrieved November 11, 2009. ^ "Org Chart '' The Law". HBO. 2004 . Retrieved October 16, 2007 . ^ "The Wire season 3 crew". HBO. 2007 . Retrieved October 14, 2007 . ^ a b c "The Wire season 4 crew". 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Jones (ed.): The Essential HBO Reader. University of Kentucky Press 2008, ISBN 978-0-8131-2452-0, pp. 82''91 (online copy, p. 82, at Google Books)Peter Dreier, John Atlas: The Wire''' Bush-Era Fable about America's Urban Poor?. City & Community Volume 8, Issue 3, pp. 329''340, September 2009 (online copy)Helena Sheehan, Sheamus Sweeney: The Wire and the World: Narrative and Metanarrative. Jump Cut, 51 (Spring 2009), ISSN 0146-5546 (online copy)Play or Get Played '' Exclusive interviews with David Simon and cast members.Ten Thousand Bullets '' An interview with George Pelecanos.George Pelecanos on The Wire and D.C. pulp fiction '' A supplement to "Ten Thousand Bullets.""The Rhetoric of The Wire" Movie: A Journal of Film Criticism, No.1, 2010Gang and Drug-Related Homicide: Baltimore's Successful Enforcement Strategy '' Ed Burns discusses some of the investigations and individuals which inspired The Wire.A collection of interviews with Wire cast members '' Interviews include Michael K. Williams, Lance Reddick, Robert Wisdom, Gbenga Akinnagbe, Isiah Whitlock Jr. and more.Reason Magazine Interview with Ed Burns '' The Wire co-creator talks about how Baltimore inspires and informs The Wire, and opinions on the "War on Drugs" from his and other co-creators' experiences.The New Yorker Profiles David Simon '' A long profile article about David Simon with info about season five as well as his next project.Maxim Interrogates the Makers and Stars of The Wire '' A large 2012 interview with David Simon, Ed Burns, other crew, and most of the principal cast members.Bill Moyers Journal: David Simon (on The Wire) part 1 on YouTube, part 2 on YouTubeExternal links [ edit ] Official website The Wire on IMDbThe Wire at TV.comLinks to related articles
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