Saturday, December 24, 2011

Fatehpur Sikri Fort Elephant Stables?








Historians are in disagreement whether this was a stable used to house 200 horses, camels, and elephants or simply the servants quarters. Some suggest it "was probably intended for housing the servicing maids of the ladies palaces, for which an entrance was provided in the north. For the sanitary needs of the staff lavatory blocks were also provided. The stone rings may have been used for fixing curtains for partitioning the space." Others site the stone rings, used to run restraints through as evidence that it was indeed an elephant stable. I think if the stone rings were used simply for "fixing curtains" it is indeed over kill. Below is a picture of a smaller confirmed elephant stable with the same kind of "stone ring" in place for securing the elephants, which would seem to suggest that the "it was an elephant stable" folk's are correct in their assumption and the "it's a servants quarters" folks are wrong.



Elephant stable, Ganesh Pol, Jaipur, Rajasthan, India

6 comments:

Phil Marion said...

Thanks for stealing my photo - http://www.flickr.com/photos/phil_marion/5002233616/in/set-72157601893655857/lightbox/

No permission, no credit. SHAME

Wade G. Burck said...

Another nitwit!!!! Credit for what? Building this magnificent structure? Maintaining it? Or taking a picture of someone else's labors?
I am reminded each time one of these cry babies appears, of the time my mother walked into a photographer's studio in Bismark, N.Dak. The Ringling show had played there two years prior. Hanging in the gallery was a beautiful 18 X 24 framed and matted of myself sitting on the tiger Khan with Ari jumping through the hoop over my head, for sale for the low, low price of $125.00. After the photographer finished his sale's pitch, and offered a 10% discount "today and today only," my mother replied, "I have a lot of pictures like this, because that's my oldest son sitting on the tiger. Did he give you permission to take his picture, and then sell it?"
Sheepishly the photographer took the picture down, and was nice enough to give it to my mother, no charge for the frame and matting.
How many pictures of folks in my profession or other lines of work have been for sale over the years on something like ebay, where the seller has watermarked "do not copy" or some such verbiage of disabled downloading. Those that can't photograph those that can, no permission or credit necessary. Matthew Brady deserves credit, that's it!!!!! I am posting your comment so that you may have the credit, that is so dear to you.

Come back again, when you can't stay so long.

Wade

PK said...

I found a web page once where some putz was selling photos of one of my grindshows.He never asked my permis- sion to photograph it, had no idea that I spent a solid year building it, didn't care that it cost me an enormous amount of money working with an artist to make my concept a reality or that I transported it a great distance to assemble it at the fair. He just clearly believed that he could take a crappy picture of my stuff and then sell it online as though it were his.
Some day I hope to kick him in the balls...

Anonymous said...

Hate to break it to PK, but there are thousands of photographs for sale on Ebay, and I'll bet not one in a thousand sellers owns the subject matter. It would suck if you could only photograph what you own. I'm not sure how taking a picture and selling it on Ebay diminishes the work he put into painting the bannerline. Hmmm...

Ian

PK said...

Ian:
So the copyright symbol on my artwork is meaningless?
I had no idea.

Anonymous said...

Your copyright symbol only means no one could use your art, I'm sure many people have photographed it, along with other attractions at the fairs you work.
If selling a picture of a public event were punishable, every photo, post card, flyer and advertising piece sold on Ebay would be illegal.
Copyrights don't mean a whole lot since all work of any kind is automatically copyrighted. If you have the 'C' in a circle, that means it is a registered copyright - registered with the US Copyright office, (and, strangely, if you use the 'C' and haven't paid to register your work, you are committing fraud) and even then you'd have to prove your own artwork was not copied from another source (very little artwork isn't copied from other people's pictures or photos). You would only have a case if another pit show copied every stroke of your artwork to use on their banner - similar doesn't count.
You can read more about it at the US copyright website.

Ian