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Hyginus mentions three facts in regard to the Mausoleum; he says that it was of Parian marble, 80 feet in height, 1,350 feet in circumference. In two of these statements he is certainly right. The marble of the Mausoleum is Parian, and the circuit of the sacred enclosure or peribolus is given by Newton as 1,348 English feet. But as to the height of the building Hyginus contradicts Pliny, and must probably be corrected by him.

Martial, in a curious line, speaks of the Mausoleum as suspended in the air. This phrase certainly implies that it did not appear to spectators a solid and massive structure, but light and aspiring. Mr. Oldfield contends that the phrase would well describe a building whereof the upper part rested mainly on pillars, and would certainly not apply to a building of which solidity is the most striking feature, as it is of Mr. Pullan's reconstruction.

The most important of ancient writers on the Mausoleum is Pliny, whose description we must transcribe at length, both in Latin and English.

Scopas habuit aemulos eadem aetate Bryaxim et Timotheum et Leocharen, de quibus simul dicendum est quoniam pariter caelauere Mausoleum. Sepulcrum hoc est ab uxore Artemisia factum Mausolo Cariae regulo, qui obiit Olympiadis cvii anno secundo. Opus id ut esset inter septem miracula hi maxime fecere artifices. Patet ab austro et septentrione sexagenos ternos pedes, breuius a frontibus, toto circumitu pedes ccccxi, attolitur in altitudinem xxv cubitis, cingitur columnis xxxvi. ?????? uocauere. Ab oriente caelauit Scopas, a septentrione Bryaxis, a meridie Timotheus, ab occasu Leochares, priusque quam peragerent regina obiit. Non tamen recesserunt nisi absoluto iam, id gloriae ipsorum artisque monumentum iudicantes, hodieque certant manus. Accessit et quintus artifex. Namque supra ?????? pyramis altitudine inferiorem aequauit, uiginti quatuor gradibus in metae cacumen se contrahens. In summo est quadriga marmorea quam fecit Pythis. Haec adiecta cxxxx pedum altitudine totum opus includit.

In this passage are several disputed readings, which I have marked in the notes. I have accepted Mr. Oldfield's version, which is that of the earlier edition of Sillig's Pliny. I will briefly sum up Pliny's evidence as to the form and dimensions of the building. His statement as to the circumstances of its erection needs no summing; it is clear, and no doubt correct.

It will be seen on referring to Figs. 78 and 79 that the acceptance of one or the other of these readings of Pliny makes a great difference in the principles of reconstruction. Mr. Pullan admitted no lower pyramid, and regarding the chariot on the summit as part of the original design, makes the twenty-four steps of the upper pyramid support it. Mr. Oldfield does admit a lower pyramid, and regarding the chariot as a later addition works into its basis six steps of the upper pyramid. Hence a great difference between the two restorers in the area covered by the base of the upper pyramid, which is far larger in Mr. Pullan's design: and this affects the whole form of the building, since the excavations determined the size of the area on which the whole stood. It is not easy to meet Mr. Oldfield's argument in favour of his design, that the phrase 'tapering to a point' applies far better to his pyramid, as originally intended, than to Mr. Pullan's flat-topped pyramid.

Such appears to be the testimony of Pliny. And in some points it is curiously supplemented by the very notable account, professing to come from an eye-witness, which is given us by Guichard of the proceedings of the Knights of St. John on the site of the Mausoleum. 'In the year 1522, when Sultan Solyman was preparing an expedition against the Rhodians, the Grand Master, knowing the importance of the Castle of St. Peter , and being aware that the Turk would seize it if he could at the first assault, sent some knights thither to repair the fortress and make all due preparations to resist the enemy. Among the number of those sent was the Commander de la Tourette, a Lyonnese knight, who was afterwards present at the taking of Rhodes, and came to France, where he related what I am now about to narrate to M. d'Alechamps, a person sufficiently known by his learned writings, and whose name I mention here only for the purpose of publishing my authority for so singular a story.

'When these knights had arrived at Mesy , they at once set about fortifying the castle; and looking about for stones wherewith to make lime, found none more suitable or more easily got at than certain steps of white marble, raised in the form of a staircase in the middle of a level field near the port, which had formerly been the great square of Halicarnassus. They therefore pulled down and took away these marble steps for their use, and finding the stone good, proceeded, after having destroyed the little masonry remaining above ground, to dig lower down, in the hope of finding more.

'In this attempt they had great success, for in a short time they perceived that the deeper they went the more the structure was enlarged at the base, supplying them not only with stone for making lime but also for building.

'Having at first admired these works, and entertained their fancy with the singularity of the sculpture, they pulled it to pieces, and broke up the whole of it, applying it to the same purpose as the rest.

'Besides this apartment, they found afterwards a very low door, which led into another apartment, like an ante-chamber, where was a tomb, with its urn and its cover of white marble, very beautiful and of marvellous lustre. This sepulchre, for want of time, they did not open, the retreat having already sounded.

'The day after, when they returned, they found the tomb opened, and the earth all round strewn with fragments of cloth of gold, and ornaments of the same metal, which made them suppose that the pirates who hovered on their coast, having some inkling of what had been discovered, had visited the place during the night, and had removed the lid of the tomb.'

Those who are acquainted with the Levant, with its wondrous tales of underground chambers and hidden treasures, will scarcely be disposed to accept, without a grain of salt, the details of this curious story. It may be true, or it may be in the main a work of the imagination. Many such stories, grounded or groundless, are flitting from mouth to mouth in Asia Minor, and rapidly growing in the process. Nevertheless it is probable that Mr. Oldfield is justified in saying that the earlier part of the tale affords a clear confirmation of the existence of a lower pyramid at the Mausoleum as well as that which surmounted the building. The knights found in the ground steps of white marble like a staircase, and as they dug downwards these steps spread outwards, just as would the steps of a pyramid. The solid mass of marble had escaped while most of the upper part of the building had been carried away as material for the castles of the knights. But it survived no longer; it was carried away by the companions of De la Tourette and built into the walls of the castle. As to what Guichard tells us in regard to the contents of the inner chamber, scepticism is more justifiable.

Of monuments mentioned in these pages, only two can fairly be used for comparison with the Mausoleum. These are the Lycian Nereid Monument and the Lion Tomb of Cnidus . The Nereid Monument consists, like the Mausoleum, of a pteron raised upon a base or podium; but no part of it is of pyramidal form. It is merely, if the restoration be correct, a building in the form of an ordinary Greek temple, on an unusually high podium. It may be used as proof that the Mausoleum also had a high podium, for the existence of which the existing remains furnish no direct evidence. The Lion Tomb may be suggestive from a constructional point of view, as the architectural problem involved in supporting a massive lion on the top was not unlike the problem which the architect of the Mausoleum had to solve. But its elevation was of a far simpler type than was that of the Mausoleum.

Other buildings are cited and engraved in the treatise of Mr. Oldfield, but unless we could examine them in detail it would be useless to mention them here. They are valuable rather as offering suggestions on points of construction than as affording us real parallels to the plan of the Mausoleum.

The only argument of importance on the other side arises from the fact that the statues and the fragments of the chariot were found together. But it must be observed that the course of discovery in the German excavations at Olympia proved that collocations of remains of ancient buildings have often a most fortuitous character. And not only were the statues of Mausolus and Artemisia found with the remains of the chariot, but also a variety of fragments of other statues which can have had nothing to do with that chariot.

We cannot yet venture to say to which of the Mausoleum artists the portrait of Mausolus is due. Quite lately Dr. J. Six has suggested Bryaxis and Dr. W. Amelung Praxiteles, who is said by Vitruvius to have had a share in the monument. But neither of these conjectures reaches beyond a probability.

We possess, besides the sculptured remains already mentioned, quite a wealth of fragments of statues and reliefs from the site. Some fragments of metopes, one of which seems to have represented an adventure of Theseus. A few figures from a most spirited frieze, representing a race of chariots. This frieze is generally accepted as the work of Scopas. Scanty vestiges of a frieze representing the battle of Lapiths and Centaurs. The well-known wonderful frieze of the Greeks and Amazons. A magnificent torso of a Persian rider on his horse. Portions of many statues of colossal size and of life size. These sculptural remains have never been properly published, nor are by any means all of them exhibited in the public rooms of the British Museum.

The Mausoleum was a wonder of the world, not so much on account of its size and costliness as because of its ingenious architecture and noble sculpture. Though it had not the magnificence of the Taj Mahal of Agra, nor the solidity of the Pyramids of Egypt, it is probably the noblest tomb ever erected for mortal man. It not only immortalized the name of Mausolus, but it is also a leading authority for the style of the second great school of Attic sculptors. Its poor remains are among the most precious possessions of the British Museum. Of the authors, we can still say, in the words of Pliny, 'hodie certant manus.'

GREEK SARCOPHAGI

The recent great discovery at Sidon of a number of beautiful sarcophagi executed by Greek artists, and belonging to the best period of sculpture, has been quite a revelation to archaeologists. Before, we had abundance of Roman sarcophagi, the sculpture of which showed various degrees of merit; and we had a few sarcophagi from Cyprus and Lycia and Etruria, which were interesting, but not very important in relation to Greek art or Greek religion. One or two of our most beautiful sarcophagi, notably the Amazon sarcophagus of Vienna, were Hellenic, and dated as far back as the fourth century; but these seem almost lost in the brilliancy of the recent discoveries.

The Greek custom was not to bury the dead in massive coffins of stone, but either to build a receptacle for the body out of slabs of terra cotta, or to enclose it in a light earthenware vessel. I speak of course of the cases when the body was buried: when it was burned, obviously only a small vase would be necessary to hold the ashes.

The terra-cotta coffins of the Greeks had seldom any notable adornment. But exception must be made of one great necropolis, that of Clazomenae in Ionia. In some of our great museums, notably those of London and Berlin, there are preserved several remarkable sarcophagi of the sixth century, which come from that site. They are of solid construction, made of terra-cotta, adorned with rich patterns painted on lids and on sides, and covered with scenes closely parallel to those familiar to us on black-figured vases, combats of warriors, hunting scenes, heraldic animals, and the like. A distinctly Oriental trait found on some of these coffins is found in the scenes where the hunters are pursuing in chariots stags and other game. The kings of Assyria are represented on the walls of their palaces as thus hunting in chariots; but the custom was probably quite foreign to all Greeks except a few wealthy inhabitants of Asia, who were influenced by Asiatic ways. These productions of Ionic potters are very interesting from many points of view, but are not quite in the line of our present investigation.

Let us then at once pass to the sarcophagi from Sidon, now the chief ornaments of the important museum formed by Hamdy Bey at Constantinople. They all come from one series of tombs discovered at Sidon. There was a central pit sunk in the rocky soil, off which branched in all directions a series of chambers cut at various times and opening one out of the other. The rooms contained a number of sarcophagi of various periods, the earlier showing the influence of Egypt, the later that of Hellas. There can be little doubt that we have discovered one of the chief burying-places of the royal race of the kings of Sidon. Unfortunately the coffins had been opened by robbers at some uncertain period, and their contents removed. Only the sarcophagi themselves remain, for the most part in an excellent state of preservation, and even retaining to some extent the colours with which their marble was stained when they were fashioned.

Until the end of the sixth century these royal coffins are of the Egyptian form, the body being plain, and the cover imitating the form of a mummy with the face exposed. But in the fifth century these faces show the dominance of Greek style. And as the rule of Greek art in the Levant becomes during that century more pronounced, the mummy-like sarcophagus gives place to forms better suited for offering a suitable field to the sculptor, and the flat surfaces are adorned with reliefs, which in style if not in subject are of pure Greek type. We will briefly describe the four principal sculptured sarcophagi under the names which have been for convenience assigned to them, and in chronological order: The Tomb of the Satrap, The Lycian Tomb, The Tomb of the Mourning Women, The Alexander Tomb.

The Tomb of the Satrap is assigned by Studniczka to the middle of the fifth century, and though the freedom of pose of some of the figures sculptured on it may make us hesitate before accepting quite so early a date, it certainly belongs to the century. Three of the four scenes which adorn the sides and ends of the tomb are clearly scenes from the history of one man, no doubt the hero contained in it, a personage represented as having a long beard, and usually wearing the conical hat of the Persians and Phrygians. The scene of one of the ends recalls the gable of the Nereid monument. The bearded man reclines on a couch at table, holding in his hand a winecup. His wife is seated at his feet; in attendance on him are two young men, one of whom fills a rhyton or drinking horn from a jug. We have here a scheme closely like that of the sepulchral banquet of Athens. And though the reference may be primarily to the family repast of the palace, yet considering that the sculptor was a Greek, it is scarcely likely that all reference to what was beyond the tomb was wholly absent from his mind. The wine which the hero drinks may very well be that poured in libation at his grave.

At the opposite end of the sarcophagus are represented four of the body-guard, conversing one with the other. On one of its sides is a scene of leave-taking. The hero sits on a throne, resting his arm Zeus-like on a sceptre, while behind him stand two of the women of his household. Before him is a young man, no doubt a son, stepping into a chariot to which four horses are already yoked, and of which he holds the reins. He turns to say a word of farewell to his father. Two other young men are present: one holds in the horses of the chariot, the other stands ready to mount a horse, and to ride beside it. Here again we have a scene to which abundant parallels may be found among the Attic grave-reliefs. The departure of a warrior or a horseman is, as we have already seen, an ordinary subject on the stelae of Athens and elsewhere. It may be that the son is setting out on a military expedition which brought his father fame and increase of territory.

On the fourth side of the tomb, father and son are again prominent. It is a hunting scene. In the midst is a panther turning to bay, which father and son charge at the same moment on horseback from one side and the other. On the left a young horseman has struck down a stag, and to balance him on the right is represented a horse galloping away in a panic, having thrown his rider, whom he drags with him. There can be little doubt that all these scenes are out of the life of the person to whom the tomb is devoted, and in all his son appears with him, very probably the successor who had the sarcophagus made. The subsidiary figures may be either younger sons or merely attendants. Unfortunately we have no historical data for the assignment of the tomb to any particular ruler of Sidon.

M. Reinach insists with justice on the importance of this tomb as a monument of the great art of Ionia of the fifth century, an art of which little has come down to us, but of the splendour of which we can judge from the statements of ancient writers. Our sarcophagus lies half-way between the reliefs of Assyria, recording the great deeds of the kings, in an exaggerated and ideal historical record, and the sculpture of purely Greek monuments such as the Mausoleum, where the battles of Greeks and Amazons, of Lapiths and Centaurs, take the place of the contests of ordinary men. The Lycian Tomb and that of the Mourning Women belong almost entirely to the idealizing tendency of Greek sculpture already spoken of, which translated the present into the past and the human into the heroic. With the age of Alexander the historic tendency once more prevails, since the deeds of Alexander and his contemporaries might well seem pitched at a level quite as high as the mythic exploits of Herakles and Theseus.

The Lycian Tomb may be dated about the year 420. It owes its name to its curious form, a form common in Lycia, the cover being set on in the shape of a Gothic arch. The conjecture has been hazarded that it was originally made for a Lycian chief and carried off by its Phoenician proprietor; but for this view there is not much evidence.

The two ends are adorned, with consummate taste and adaptation to space, with mythic subjects. Above, at one end, are a pair of griffins, at the other a pair of sphinxes, whose beautiful faces might be those of two angels of death . Below are Centaurs in carefully balanced groups. The sides of the tomb bear reliefs the subjects of which are taken from daily life, but daily life treated quite generally, and with a view to the laws of sculptural composition rather than with any intention to set forth the history of a life. On one side two Amazons, each in a four-horse chariot and attended by a female charioteer, attack a lion. On the other side five men on horseback close in upon a boar. The hunters are all young men of the type of the riders on the frieze of the Parthenon, to some of whom in fact they bear a very close resemblance. But the chariot used for lion-hunting savours rather of Assyria than of Greece. The reliefs were fully coloured, such accessories as reins and spears being filled in in metal.

As the Lycian Tomb carries an echo of the style of Pheidias, so the Tomb of the Mourning Women reminds us at once of the works of the second Attic school, and of Praxiteles in particular. We should date it about B.C. 370 or 360. I can only describe in detail the scenes of the one end of it which is selected for the illustration; of the rest of the sculptured reliefs a very summary description must suffice. Never was there a work of art in which death and mourning were represented in so varied and so exquisitely subdued a fashion. The sarcophagus is like an artistic lament, written in many verses, and composed in different keys, but still constantly returning to and hovering about the loss of some dignified and much-regretted person. In the engraving we see at the top two corresponding groups, in each of which is a bearded man seated in an attitude of dejection, while a younger man standing before him holds discourse with him. The subject of which he speaks is, we can scarcely doubt, the death of the ruler who was the master and protector of both, and whose departure causes widely spread sorrow in the land. Just below, in the gable, are three seated women, who also seem to talk on the same theme. They remind us of a fine passage in the dirge pronounced by David over Saul and Jonathan, 'Ye daughters of Israel, weep over Saul, who

clothed you in scarlet with other delights, who put on ornaments of gold on your apparel.' The main field is occupied by three women standing, separated one from the other by pillars of Ionic form. In the attitude of all there is something of pensiveness, as it would seem to us, but to a Greek eye it would mean more than thought,--sorrow. The poses are precisely those to which we are accustomed in the Attic family groups; and there can be little doubt that the artist who made this sarcophagus belonged to the school, Praxitelean in character, which produced the stelae of Athens. The lowest line of sculpture in the engraving is on a very small scale and in low relief; it represents scenes of hunting and the bringing home of the booty.

The remaining three faces of the sarcophagus correspond with that which we have described in subject and in style, the other end closely so. On each side we find--besides the lowest relief, which runs all round--above, a funeral procession, in which a hearse is convoyed to the grave by a chariot and led horses, and below, six more women in mourning attitudes standing between pillars. The number of these female figures is thus eighteen. It would puzzle many a modern artist to solve the artistic problem thus set, to produce eighteen figures of women, all young and of the same type, all standing in poses both in themselves elegant but yet suggestive of grief, and so different one from the other that there is no sameness or repetition. But artistic problems of this sort had a special attraction for Greek artists of the best period--for the artist who planned the Parthenon frieze as well as for the artists of the Mausoleum. And no solution could be found more perfect than that offered us in the present case. The eighteen women have been compared to a dirge of eighteen stanzas; and though to sustain the comparison the dirge would be somewhat monotonous, that fact perhaps would not make it less impressive.

M. Reinach well observes that the whole form of this monument is taken from that of a temple. The columns support an entablature, above which rises a pediment. Between the columns stand statues, as very often in Greek temples and in monuments such as the Lycian heroon . No doubt, morphologically, the sarcophagus is a miniature temple, as the temple itself is a beautified and idealized house; but in Greece every form of monument soon acquires a decoration specially suited to it; thus the form and decoration of this tomb are an able adaptation rather than a survival.

If our assignment of the date of the sarcophagus to about B.C. 370 or 360 be correct, we may almost venture to assign a name to its possessor. Though we do not know much of the history of Sidon, we do know that at this period the throne of the city was occupied by a king named Strato, in whose honour the people of Athens passed a decree, in return for favours done to their envoys. The text of this decree is extant. As Strato was thus on excellent terms with the people of Athens; what more natural than that Athens should lend an artist for the decoration of his sarcophagus either to him or to his successor?

But though the great sarcophagus never held the body of Alexander, yet its sculptures are an important artistic and even historical record of some of his achievements. Let us briefly consider them in order.

According to analogy, we should expect to find in the pedimental scenes of the sarcophagus the best clue to its attribution: with them therefore we will begin. In examining all the scenes, we must discriminate with the utmost care between the dress of Macedonians and Greeks on one side and that of the Persians, Phoenicians, and other Asiatic peoples on the other. Greeks appear here, as in all works of art, usually with body either bare or covered with a cuirass, at the bottom of which is a leather flap. Sometimes a chlamys floats from their shoulders. They carry sword and shield, or a lance, and wear helmets: the Macedonian helmet rises in a peak at the top and has cheek-pieces. The dress of the Asiatics is less varied: they wear a loose chiton, sleeves cover their arms to the wrist, and trousers reach to the ankle; on their heads is the Phrygian cap, the flaps of which often cover the mouth; a loose coat with sleeves, almost like the jacket of a hussar, is often attached to them at the neck and hangs behind. This is the candys, often mentioned by ancient writers. Xenophon says that soldiers put their arms through the sleeves when on parade.

In the first pediment we have a fighting scene. The fighting is between Macedonians on one side and Persians on the other. The most prominent figure, who occupies the midmost place, is an Asiatic cavalier, who strikes down at a Greek soldier. His Persian companions overthrow the Macedonians opposed to them. We have, in fact, a victory of Asiatics over Europeans. In the opposite pediment is a scene less easy to interpret. Here the combatants are all Greek or Macedonian. The most prominent figure is that of a fully armed foot-soldier, who drives his sword into the throat of a youth who kneels at his feet.

In the frieze below the pediment last mentioned , we again see an Asiatic horseman, apparently the hero of the first pediment, as central figure, victorious over a Greek opponent, whose helmet, of form not Macedonian, lies beside him. On either side of the horseman there charges fiercely a Macedonian soldier against Asiatics, who are clearly over-matched. In the corresponding frieze at the other end is a scene in which a party of Asiatics hunt the panther.

Before leaving these scenes, we may observe that it seems clear that the Asiatic chief already twice repeated is the tenant of the tomb. His dress is quite suitable for that of a ruler of Sidon: his position is marked as unique. The scenes in which he takes part are no doubt his hunting and his petty wars with neighbouring princes, whose armies, like all armies at the time, were mixed, consisting partly of Macedonians, partly of Greek mercenaries, and partly of native troops. In knowing so little of the history of the time, we lose the clue that we might otherwise possess as to the particular events portrayed.

If we accept this interpretation, we shall be able to explain one at least of the long friezes which adorn the sides of the sarcophagus . The subject of it is a lion-hunt. In the midst is a group, about which the whole scene is balanced. The lion has turned to bay, and flung himself upon the horse ridden by an Asiatic cavalier, who is doubtless the Sidonian monarch of previous scenes. He defends himself with energy; and help is approaching from both sides. On one side, galloping to his aid, Alexander himself, notable for his regal fillet or diadema, and the intense expression observable in most of his portraits. On the other side comes a Macedonian noble, perhaps Hephaestion, a beautiful figure, but without the diadema. At the two ends of the relief are other groups--a Persian drawing the bow, a servant running up armed with a pike, a Greek and a Persian striking down a stag. We can easily understand that to accompany Alexander in his hunting, and to be rescued by him from the attack of a lion, was enough to confer great distinction on any Asiatic potentate, and we cannot be surprised that he should think the event worthy of record on his tomb.

It is most probable that this tomb contained the remains of a king mentioned in history. About 350 B.C. Sidon had revolted against Persia under Artaxerxes Ochus, and the revolt had been mercilessly suppressed by the Persian king. As a natural result, the city regarded Alexander, when in his victorious course he reached Sidon, as a deliverer rather than as a foe. While Tyre resisted to the death, Sidon yielded at once. A King Strato was then ruling. For reasons of his own Alexander directed Hephaestion to depose him, and to set up in his place a member of the royal house named Abdalonymus. The latter, however, did not reign very long, as after this Phoenicia became a bone of contention between the Ptolemies and the Seleucidae. It seems a fair historical conjecture that the great sarcophagus is that of Abdalonymus, who seems to have been the last of the native royal race, and who records on his tomb alike his own exploits and those of his hero and protector Alexander.

The beauty of the whole sarcophagus cannot be judged from our representations, few in number and small in size. To be appreciated fully, the great monument must be seen in its place in the Museum at Constantinople: its beauty and preservation are alike overpowering. Much of the colouring still remains, but the accessories, swords, bits of horses, and the like, once filled in in bronze and silver, have disappeared. The style is a style of wonderful vigour of grouping and skill in execution. Altogether it is one of the world's masterpieces.

The artistic school of this great work of art remains yet to be determined. The names of Eutychides and Euthycrates, great sculptors of the end of the fourth century, have been suggested. But the truth is that in this sarcophagus we are face to face with a work of a character quite new to us, in some ways a more masterly work of the Greek chisel than we had before possessed. Hitherto we had been able to divide Greek reliefs into high relief, half relief, and bas relief. But the artist of these friezes mixes all these styles, in order to produce the desired effect, with masterful boldness. We must wait until time and fresh discoveries enable us to determine his artistic genealogy.

The nearest of Greek sarcophagi in date and style to the last of the Sidonian series is the great Amazon sarcophagus of Vienna, an admirable work of art, on the four sides of which are depicted with much spirit the battles of the Greeks and Amazons. But we have here regular mythologic scenes like those which adorn the great temples of Greece; nothing personal, and nothing which has reference to the future world. Any further consideration of Greek sarcophagi and of the Roman sarcophagi which succeeded them would take us into another province of the great empire of Hellenic antiquity.

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