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Expedition camp site
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Image by The Field Museum Library
Camp site. The kosso, Yews, the expedition cook, selected the site to make camp. 1927.

Name of Expedition: Daily News Abyssinian Expedition
Participants: Wilfred Osgood, Louis Agassiz Fuertes, C. Suydam Cutting, Jack Baum, Alfred M. Bailey
Expedition Start Date: September 7, 1926
Expedition End Date: May 20, 1927
Purpose or Aims: Zoology Mammals and Birds
Location: Africa, Ethiopia [Abyssinia], Arussi

Original material: 4x5 inch interpositive film
Digital Identifier: CSZ56387

Learn more about The Field Museum's Library Photo Archives.


Kyōto - Ginkaku-ji
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Image by wallyg
Ginkaku-ji (銀閣寺), or the "Temple of the Silver Pavilion”, located at the food of Kyoto’s eastern mountains, Higashiyama, was originally built by shogun Ashikaga Yoshimasa (足利 義政) in 1482 as a retirement villa. Yoshimasa, the 8th Ashikaga shogunate during the Muromachi period, modeled the Ginkaku-ji after Kinkaku-ji, the retirement villa commissioned by his grandfather, Ashikaga Yoshimitsu, the third Ashikaga shogunate. After Yoshimasa’s death in 1490, Ginkaku-ji was converted to a zen temple, Jishō-ji (慈照寺), or the "Temple of Shining Mercy," which, today, is associated with the Shokoku-ji branch of Rinzai Zen.

As the retirement villa of an art obsessed shogun, Ginkakuji became the center of Higashiyama Bunka (東山文化), or Higashiyama Culture or the Culture of the Eastern Mountain, which unlike the Kitayama Bunka (北山文化) of his grandfather’s times, had a broad impact on the entire country. Based largely on the ideals and aesthetics of Zen Buddhism and the concept of wabi-sabi (beauty in simplicity), it was during Higashiyama Bunka that much of what is commonly seen today as traditional Japanese culture originated and developed, including chadō (Japanese tea ceremony), ikebana (flower arranging), Noh drama, and sumi-e ink painting.

The two-storied Kannon-den (観音殿), or Kannon hall, is the temple’s main structure and lends its popular name, Ginkaku (銀角), or the Silver Pavilion, to the temple. This name dates back, only, to the early Edo period, and its origin is is disputed. Some believe it is owed to Yoshimasa's initial plans--halted during the Onion War--to cover the pavilion's exterior in silver foil; others claim its due to the silvery appearance created by moonlight reflecting on the formerly black lacquered exterior. It is one of only two buildings, along with the Tōgudō, on the grounds to have survived intact over the years. The two stories are constructed in two different architectural style and contain a satue of Kannon, the Buddhist goddess of mercy. The interior, though, is not open to the public.

The property also features wooded grounds, The a Japanese garden designed by the great landscape artist Sōami, and a meticulously manicured sand garden known as Ginshadan (銀沙灘), or the "Sea of Silver Sand."

Ginkaku-ji, along with 16 other locations across Kyōto, Uji and Ōtsu, comprise the UNESCO World Heritage Site, Historic Monuments of Ancient Kyoto (Kyoto, Uji and Otsu Cities), designated in 1994.

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