Nicknames include the Granite City, the Grey City and the Silver City with the Golden Sands. During the mid-18th to mid-20th centuries, Aberdeen's buildings incorporated locally quarried grey granite, whose mica deposits sparkle like silver. The city has a long, sandy coastline. Since the discovery of North Sea oil in the 1970s, other nicknames have been the Oil Capital of Europe or the Energy Capital of Europe.
The area around Aberdeen has been settled for at least 8000 years, when prehistoric villages lay around the mouths of the rivers Dee and Don.
In 1319, Aberdeen received Royal Burgh status from Robert the Bruce, transforming the city economically. The city's two universities, the University of Aberdeen, founded in 1495, and the Robert Gordon University, which was awarded university status in 1992, make Aberdeen the educational centre of the north-east.
The traditional industries of fishing, paper-making, shipbuilding, and textiles have been overtaken by the oil industry and Aberdeen's seaport. Aberdeen Heliport is one of the busiest commercial heliports in the world and the seaport is the largest in the north-east of Scotland.
Aberdeen has won the Britain in Bloom competition a record breaking ten times, and hosts the Aberdeen International Youth Festival, a major international event which attracts up to 1000 of the most talented young performing arts companies.
"Do not spread false reports. Do not help a wicked man by being a malicious witness.
"Do not follow the crowd in doing wrong. When you give testimony in a lawsuit, do not pervert justice by siding with the crowd, and do not show favouritism to a poor man in his lawsuit.
"If you come across your enemy's ox or donkey wandering off, be sure to take it back to him. If you see the donkey of someone who hates you fallen down under its load, do not leave it there; be sure you help him with it.
"Do not deny justice to your poor people in their lawsuits. Have nothing to do with a false charge and do not put an innocent or honest person to death, for I will not acquit the guilty.
"Do not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds those who see and twists the words of the righteous.
"Do not oppress an alien; you yourselves know how it feels to be aliens, because you were aliens in Egypt.
"For six years you are to sow your fields and harvest the crops, but during the seventh year let the land lie unplowed and unused. Then the poor among your people may get food from it, and the wild animals may eat what they leave. Do the same with your vineyard and your olive grove.
"Six days do your work, but on the seventh day do not work, so that your ox and your donkey may rest and the slave born in your household, and the alien as well, may be refreshed.
"Be careful to do everything I have said to you. Do not invoke the names of other gods; do not let them be heard on your lips.
"Three times a year you are to celebrate a festival to me.
"Celebrate the Feast of Unleavened Bread; for seven days eat bread made without yeast, as I commanded you. Do this at the appointed time in the month of Abib, for in that month you came out of Egypt.
"No one is to appear before me empty-handed.
"Celebrate the Feast of Harvest with the firstfruits of the crops you sow in your field.
"Celebrate the Feast of Ingathering at the end of the year, when you gather in your crops from the field.
"Three times a year all the men are to appear before the Sovereign LORD.
"Do not offer the blood of a sacrifice to me along with anything containing yeast.
"The fat of my festival offerings must not be kept until morning.
"Bring the best of the firstfruits of your soil to the house of the LORD your God.
"Do not cook a young goat in its mother's milk. (Exodus 23.1-19)
Fair waved the golden corn,
In Canaan’s pleasant land,
When full of joy, some shining morn,
Went forth the reaper band.
To God so good and great
Their cheerful thanks they pour;
Then carry to His temple gate
The choicest of their store.
Like Israel, Lord, we give
Our earliest fruits to Thee,
And pray that, long as we shall live,
We may Thy children be.
Thine is our youthful prime,
And life and all its powers,
Be with us in our morning time,
And bless our evening hours.
In wisdom let us grow,
As years and strength are given,
That we may serve Thy Church below,
And join Thy saints in Heaven.
J Hampden Gurney 1802-1862
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