Utu

Utu (Akkadian rendition of Sumerian ^dUD 𒀭𒌓 "Sun", Assyro-Babylonian Shamash "Sun") is the Sun god in Sumerian mythology, the son of the moon god Nanna and the goddess Ningal. His brother and sisters are Ishkur, Ereshkigal, and his twin sister Inanna. His center cult was located in the city of Larsa.

Utu is the god of the sun, justice, application of law, and the lord of truth. He is usually depicted as wearing a horned helmet and carrying a saw-edged weapon not unlike a pruning saw. It is thought that every day, Utu emerges from a mountain in the east, symbolizing dawn, and travels either via chariot or boat across the Earth, returning to a hole in a mountain in the west, symbolizing sunset. Every night, Utu descends into the underworld to decide the fate of the dead. He is also depicted as carrying a mace, and standing with one foot on a mountain. Its symbol is "sun rays from the shoulders, and or sun disk or a saw".

The sun god is only modestly mentioned in Sumerian mythology with one of the notable exceptions being the Epic of Gilgamesh. In the myth, Gilgamesh seeks to establish his name with the assistance of Utu, because of his connection with the cedar mountain. Gilgamesh and his father, Lugalbanda were kings of the first dynasty of Uruk, a lineage that Jeffrey H. Tigay suggested could be traced back to Utu himself. He further suggested that Lugalbanda's association with the sun-god in the Old Babylonian version of the epic strengthened "the impression that at one point in the history of the tradition the sun-god was also invoked as an ancestor".

Utu (film)

Utu is a 1983 New Zealand movie directed and co-written by Geoff Murphy. Anzac Wallace, who had done little acting up until that point, takes the starring role of Te Wheke, a warrior who sets out to get vengeance after British forces kill his people. The cast also includes Bruno Lawrence and Kelly Johnson. Sometimes described as "a Maori Western", Utu was reputed to have one of the largest budgets for a New Zealand film up until that time.

The film screened out of competition at the 1983 Cannes Film Festival, and became the second most successful local movie released in New Zealand to that date. Positive reviews in America, including a rave review from Pauline Kael, helped win Murphy directing work in Hollywood.

Partly inspired by events from Te Kooti's War, the film tells of a Māori soldier setting out to get utu, or vengeance, on his former allies after the British army destroys his home village and kills his uncle. The film is set in the 1870s.

In 2013, partly thanks to the longtime existence of an alternative cut of the film aimed at international audiences, which Geoff Murphy had never been happy with, he completed work on a restored and recut version. Utu Redux, as it is known, premiered at the Wellington International Film Festival on 26 July 2013.

Utu (disambiguation)

Utu can refer to the following things:

Plastic explosive

Plastic explosive is a soft and hand moldable solid form of explosive material. Within the field of explosives engineering, plastic explosives are also known as putty explosives.

Plastic explosives are especially suited for explosive demolition. Common plastic explosives include Semtex and C-4.

Usage

Plastic explosives are especially suited for explosive demolition of obstacles and fortifications by engineers and combat engineers as they can be easily formed into the best shapes for cutting structural members and have a high enough velocity of detonation and density for metal cutting work.

An early use of plastic explosives was in the warhead of the British Armoured Vehicle Royal Engineers's (AVRE)'s Petard demolition mortar, used to destroy concrete fortifications encountered during Operation Overlord (D-Day). The original use of Nobel 808 supplied by the SOE was for sabotage of German installations and railways in Occupied Europe.

They are generally not used for ordinary blasting as they tend to be significantly more expensive than other materials that perform just as well in this application. A common commercial use of plastic explosives is for shock hardening high manganese percentage steel, a material typically used for train rail components and earth digging implements.

Plastique (disambiguation)

Plastique may refer to:

Plastique (comics)

Plastique is a fictional supervillain appearing in comics published by DC Comics. She first appeared in Fury of Firestorm #7 (December 1982), and was created by Gerry Conway and Pat Broderick. She is an enemy and love interest of Captain Atom.

Fictional character biography

Bette Sans Souci was introduced as a terrorist attempting to coerce the separation of Quebec from the rest of Canada. First appearing in Fury of Firestorm # 7 (December 1982), she subsequently made several appearances during Conway's tenure as writer of that series. She then began appearing in DC Comics' first Captain Atom series from 1986 onwards, at first depicted as an adversary, though that relationship eventually evolved toward the romantic.

Firestorm

In her first appearance, Plastique attempted a suicide bombing against the New York Herald-Express (a fictitious newspaper appearing within the DC Universe) using a set of bombs attached to her costume, only to have Firestorm disarm her by vaporizing her clothing, leaving her naked and humiliated in public while Firestorm took the bombs to explode in a safer area. Later, via genetic engineering, she gained the power to project explosive force outward from her body.