Crown Of Thorns Research Articles

A non‐monophyly of ‘crowned’ Daphnia (Ctenodaphnia) Dybowski et Grochowski, 1895 (Cladocera: Daphniidae): From genomes to morphology

AbstractDaphnia (Crustacea: Cladocera) has been frequently used as a model taxon for studying prey antipredator defences. Among numerous representatives of this genus, there are several taxa within the subgenus Daphnia (Ctenodaphnia) with a morphological innovation unique for these cladocerans, a head plate. In some populations, the margin of this anterior projection of carapace into the head shield is adorned with a remarkable ‘crown of thorns’, which has been shown to be an antipredator adaptation against tadpole shrimps (Notostraca). This structure is phenotypically plastic, dependent on the presence of these omnivorous crustaceans in the respective water bodies. We aimed to evaluate the monophyly of Eurasian ‘crowned’ Daphnia species (i.e., those forming the ‘crown of thorns’ under some circumstance) based on genomic phylogenies and morphology. For this study, we have individually sequenced the genomes of five daphniids, four representing taxa able to form ‘crowns’ (two specimens of different clades of the D. (C.) atkinsoni complex and two specimens of D. (C.) triquetra from distant populations), and D. (C.) mediterranea distantly related to D. (C.) atkinsoni that lacks the head plate. We analysed them along with genomes obtained from GenBank, focusing on either full mitochondrial or partial nuclear datasets (BUSCO). Our main hypothesis on a monophyly of all ‘crowned’ daphnids was rejected. Genomic analyses confirmed existence of two independent lineages able to express this phenotypic trait in the Palaearctic: (1) a monophyletic D. (C.) atkinsoni s. lat. and (2) D. (C.) triquetra, formally redescribed here. These lineages form a well‐supported clade together with several other species lacking a head plate (including D. (C.) mediterranea). Genomic analyses indicate that D. (C.) atkinsoni s. lat. is closely related to D. (C.) tibetana; mitochondrial markers also suggest a close relationship of D. (D.) triquetra with D. (C.) studeri, both D. (C.) tibetana and D. (C.) studeri, are lacking this morphological feature. Molecular clock estimated the time of the differentiation of the major clade containing both ‘crowned Daphnia’ to the Late Mesozoic, confirming an antiquity of the head plate as antipredator defence.

Isolation and Identification of Flavonoid Compounds from Euphorbia Milii Plant Cultivated in Iraq and Evaluation of its Genetic Effects on Two Types of Cancer Cell Line

يعتبر "تاج الأشواك" أو نبات شوكة المسيح، وهو من نباتات الزينة الطبية ، ينتمي إلى جنس يوفوربيا. E. milii يحتوي كميات وفيرة من المركبات الفينولية ، التربينات، الستيرويدات والقلويدات. كانت الأهداف الرئيسية لهذه الدراسة هي فحص مستخلصات الفلافونويد والنانو فلافونويد ضد نوعين من خطوط الخلايا السرطانية. تم تصنيع مركبات الفلافونويد النانوية عن طريق تفاعل مركب الكيتوسان والماليك اسد. تم تحليل مركبات الفلافونويد النانوية بواسطة مقياس الطيف الضوئي UV-sp -8001 بطول موجي 200-1000 نانومتر ، تم استخدام المجهر الإلكتروني (TEM) والمجهري الإلكتروني الماسح(SEM) لتحديد الخصائص المورفولوجية لمركبات الفلافونويد النانوية. يعتبر الفلافونويد والنانوفلافونويدعقار قوي ومتطور ضد خلايا سرطان الثدي (MCF-7) وخلايا سرطان البروستات(PC3) . تم فحص الفعالية المضادة للسرطان من مركبات الفلافونويد والنانوفلافونويد على خطين مختلفين من الخلايا السرطانية وكذلك خطوط الخلايا السليمة باستخدام اختبار MTT. تم استخدام تجزئة الحمض النووي وتقنية تلوين الخلايا بالصبغة المزدوجة AO / EtBr لفحص علامات موت الخلايا المبرمج. لتحديد تشتت دورة الخلية ، تم استخدام قياس التدفق الخلوي ، وأظهرت النتائج أن كميات الفلافونويد والنانوفلافونويد لها نشاطا ساما وفعالا ضد خطوط خلايا سرطان الثدي والبروستات. بالإضافة إلى ذلك ، تم ربط إيقاف دورة الخلية في مرحلة G0 / G1 بموت الخلايا المبرمج لخطوط الخلايا التي يسببها الفلافونويد والنانوفلافونويد. وفقًا لهذه النتائج ، تمنع مركبات الفلافونويد والنانوفلافونويد من تكاثر خطوط الخلايا السرطانية ، مما يؤدي إلى توقف دورة الخلية وتحفيز موت الخلايا المبرمج. تشير النتائج المتاحة إلى أن مركب الفلافونويد والنانوفلافونويد سيمثل نهجًا علاجيًا واعدًا لعلاج الخلايا السرطانية من الأنواع الأخرى.

On the margins of Beirut’s cultural modernism: aesthetics and politics in the inter-artistic works of Laure Ghorayeb

ABSTRACT Known for her black-and-white miniatures embedded with Arabic writing, Laure Ghorayeb is a fascinating if understudied figure of Beirut’s cultural modernism. Her work occupied a liminal position between French and Arabic and intersected literature and visual art. This article argues that it is precisely this marginality, manifested in Ghorayeb’s multifaceted cultural identity, that allowed her to move deftly across mediums, practices, languages, and genres, resulting in a uniquely inter-semiotic oeuvre. Close reading selections from her collections of poems, Noir … les bleus (Black … the Blues), 1960 and prose, Iklīl shawk ḥawla qadamayhi (A Crown of Thorns Around His Feet), 1965, in relation to her civil war drawings Témoignages (Testimonies), 1985, this article reveals an inter-semiotic exchange on the page. It offers an interdisciplinary rereading of the modern cultural history of Beirut, revealing an interplay between literature and visual art, which allowed Ghorayeb to maneuver between aesthetic experimentation and political engagement at a time when nationalist and ideological divisions were being sown.

Why Did Cyprian Norwid Wear the konfederatka?: The Crime of Wearing a Black Dress

After the partitions of Poland between Russia, Prussia and Austria, Poland disappeared from the maps of Europe. The failure of the November Uprising of 1830 against the Russian occupiers led to harsh repressions imposed by the tzarist rule on the Polish people. Many insurgents were imprisoned, or sentenced to death, or forcibly deported to Siberia, their manors and estates were confiscated, and family members were persecuted. As a result, the revival of patriotic attitudes among the subsequent generation in the Kingdom of Poland led to outburst of opposition to the imposed Russian authorities. On the 30th anniversary of the Battle of Grochów, the citizens of Warsaw organized a demonstration in the Castle Square. The Russian soldiers attacked the protesters and killed five. Around that time, a national mourning was secretly announced, and women decided to wear black dresses and silver or bone jewellery in the form of a cross or a crown of thorns, thus sending a hidden message to compatriots and to the Russians. As a result, the decree was issued against the black garments, stating that only personal mourning was allowed based on an official certificate of a family member’s death, otherwise the mourners could be imprisoned. Therefore, other colours, white and violet were introduced as a sign of resistance as well. Black dresses and the konfederatka caps meant not just fashion during the years of the January Uprising; they gained recognition as a hidden patriotic code among Poles living both in the occupied country and in emigration. Poet-emigrant Cyprian Norwid explained the importance of wearing the special type of men’s headgear, referring to the great history of his enslaved country and arguing that symbols and power of thought are powerful weapons in the modern world.

The long lost Ebionites. A relook at the Ibo region of West Africa

The Ebionites were a Jewish sect that knew Jesus intimately; had their own Nazarene Gospel; but held immovable beliefs that challenged key tenets of Christianity. They disappeared in the fourth century leaving a vacuum physically and ideologically. About a millennium later, the Portuguese reported of a people in West Africa with a Pope and Papacy similar in structure and veneration as the Roman Catholic Pope. Towards the end of the nineteenth century, missionaries and anthropologists scouring the region confirmed those reports, as well as the presence of other Levitical influences amongst the Igbos of Nigeria. This paper researches those similarities with a focus on the religious cosmology of the Ibo people of Asaba. It applies ethnographic qualitative research, then places the findings over the tenets of Catholicism with respect to their organizational structure; sacraments; rites; and steps to becoming sons of God. The results show that the ideologies of the Ibo and the Romans were deeply intertwined in every area of the study. The paper posits that the only way the religious ideologies of the Romans and the Ibos could have so closely mirrored each other, is if they were both in the same place at the same time. Thus, concludes that the Ibos [Eboe, Igbo] are the Ebionites. The paper offers hypotheses to explain the role of the ego in creating the core tenet of this unifying cosmology, and possibly how the convergence occurred. The paper could form the basis for renewed research in Hebraic-African studies; Black-American dispersion; Mary Magdalene; Jesus’ crown of thorns; the sequence of biblical gospel events; and even a template for future religion in this ego-driven civilization.

Art Notes: A Haven for Grief in William Dyce’s St. John Leading Home his Adopted Mother

Art NotesA Haven for Grief in William Dyce’s St. John Leading Home his Adopted Mother Kathryn Wehr, Managing Editor Key Words Painter William Dyce, Tate, Burial of Jesus, Virgin Mary in art, Nazarenes, Pre-Raphaelites This issue’s cover shows a scene that is rarely depicted: the moments after the burial of Jesus Christ. Scottish artist William Dyce (1806–1864) develops his subject from John 19:26–27 where, from the cross, Jesus entrusts his mother to the care of John the beloved disciple: “Woman, behold, your son,” and to the disciple, “Behold, your mother.” The Evange-list then comments, “And from that hour the disciple took her into his home.” Here we are shown the imagined first act of that loving attention. Click for larger view View full resolution William Dyce was one of the most significant artists of mid-nineteenth-century Britain1 and is associated with both the Nazarene and Pre-Raphaelite movements; yet he is not a true member of either school. In his early sojourns in Rome to study, Dyce met several German Nazarene painters who lived a semimonastic communal life and eschewed the neoclassical style of the eighteenth century in favor of natural poses and landscapes. This influence along with an admiration for Renaissance artist Pinturicchio (1454–1513), inspired Dyce with a [End Page 161] lifelong sense of vocation to religious art, interest in fresco technique, attention to local natural detail and a preference for open air painting to emulate natural light.2 After his return to Britain, he introduced the younger Pre-Raphaelites to art critic John Ruskin, and there was reciprocal influence with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in terms of rich colors, open air technique, and subjects, particularly landscapes and Arthurian legend (see Dyce’s last great series of frescoes at the Palace of Westminster). Many of Dyce’s paintings focus on rugged British landscapes: notably Scene from Aran (1860) and Pegwell Bay, Kent—a Recollection of October 5th, 1858 (1860), which both feature meticulously detailed natural beauty combined with people amid the everyday activities of doing laundry or shell-seeking. The landscapes of his religious art were sometimes critiqued as too British, notably The Man of Sorrows (1859) and The Good Shepherd (1859), which appeared to place Jesus in the Scottish highlands (a critique that shows how the medieval tradition of depicting sacred scenes in local landscapes had given way in the Age of Reason). In St. John Leading Home his Adopted Mother, however, the Scottish scrublands give way to a more sparse but accurate inclusion of Palestine plants. The dark, low clouds set a hushed, somber tone with the city of Jerusalem brooding in the far-left background.3 The three pairs of figures are isolated from each other: Mary Magdalene and Mary Cleophas at the tomb’s entrance, Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea (carrying a soiled winding sheet?), and in the foreground, St. John and Our Lady. The soft purples and greens of the background make the red of the Virgin Mary’s dress a vivid reminder of her Son’s passion, as does Dyce’s choice of her keeping the crown of thorns as a memento. Her dark navy cloak deepens our sense of the sorrow washing over her and the turned-over gold of the hood suggests a halo. When we compare the completed version with an earlier sketch, we can see more of Dyce’s choices at work. Dyce was clearly dissatisfied with the sketch’s background and scraped it all away, but the changes in clothing and figure placement that we can see from this to the final painting are striking. In the sketch, [End Page 162] St. John is taking charge and supporting the Virgin Mary from behind, while in the final version they are connected only by their hands and with space between them, emphasizing the sense of helpless isolation from each other in their grief. Again, Dyce changed the Virgin Mary’s cloak to be darker, more fully enveloping, and closing her off from view, further emphasizing her unique grief as Our Lord’s Mother. In the sketch, it is St. John who leads the Virgin, while in...

Louis IX and the Triumphal Cross of Constantine

AbstractThis article examines the material and ideological meaning of the three relics of the True Cross acquired by Louis IX in 1241 and 1242, which were venerated, along with the Crown of Thorns, in the Sainte-Chapelle, as part of the broader project of building Capetian sacral kingship in the High Middle Ages. Although cross relics flooded Western Christendom after 1204, these three relics, acquired directly from the Byzantine emperor, were specifically associated with Constantine and Heraclius and their historic military victories against enemies of Christian empire. The article identifies one of the three relics, known to contemporaries as the crux triumphalis in Latin and the croix de victoire in French, which Byzantine emperors were said to have carried into battle, as a relic that Louis IX then brought with him on his crusade of 1249–50 to Egypt, in hopes of martialing its historic power against the infidel in battle.

ОБРАЗ ТАРАСА ШЕВЧЕНКА В ЗАКАРПАТСЬКІЙ ПРЕСІ 20–30-х рр. XX ст. У БІБЛІЙНОМУ ТА ЛІТЕРАТУРНОМУ КОНТЕКСТІ

A wide range of publications about the life and work of Taras Shevchenko in the Transcarpathian press of the 1920s-1930s have been analyzed, focusing on the biblical and literary context. The study reveals that among the vivid indirect and direct biblical images, allusions, and comparisons, the following conditional groups are present: 1) comparisons of Shevchenko with Jesus Christ, Moses, apostles, prophets, and martyrs; 2) comparisons of Shevchenko’s Ukraine with the Promised Land; 3) comparisons of Shevchenko’s earthly path with the crown of thorns; 4) comparisons of the collection “Kobzar” with the Bible (the second Bible) and the Gospel (the second Gospel) of the Ukrainian people. Among the vivid indirect and direct comparisons of Shevchenko with world writers, the following conditional poetic pairs are distinguished: 1) Shevchenko and ancient authors (Homer and Horace); 2) Shevchenko and J. W. von Goethe; 3) Shevchenko and A. Mickiewicz; 4) Shevchenko and A. Pushkin; as well as 5) Shevchenko and O. Dukhnovych. Leading Transcarpathian journals such as «Vinochok dlia Podkarpatskykh Ditochok», «Karpatska Pravda», «Narodnia Syla», «Nash Put», «Nasha Zemlia», «Nasha Oborona», «Nedelia Rusyna», «Podkarpatska Rus», «Prosvita – Shevchenkovi», «Rusyn», «Ruska Niva», «Svoboda», «Ukrainske Slovo», «Uchytelskyi Holos» dedicated over twenty articles to Taras Shevchenko, incorporating biblical and literary context. In their publications, M. Brashchaiko, A. Divnych, I. Nevytska, I. Pankevych, A. Shtefan, P. Yatsko, and others actively used biblical imagery and literary parallels to interpret the creative heritage of Taras Shevchenko and his significance for the national revival of Transcarpathian Ukrainians. Keywords: Transcarpathian press, Taras Shevchenko, Subcarpathian Rus, biblical images, poetic pairs, Alexander Pushkin, Alexander Dukhnovych.

The Medieval Dominicans: Books, Buildings, Music, and Liturgy ed. by Eleanor J. Giraud and Christian Thomas Leitmeir

Reviewed by: The Medieval Dominicans: Books, Buildings, Music, and Liturgy ed. by Eleanor J. Giraud and Christian Thomas Leitmeir Julia A. Schneider The Medieval Dominicans: Books, Buildings, Music, and Liturgy. Edited by Eleanor J. Giraud and Christian Thomas Leitmeir. [Medieval Monastic Studies, 7.] (Turnhout: Brepols, 2021. Pp. 405. € 100,00. ISBN: 978-2-503-56903-1.) A product of one of several conferences celebrating the eight hundredth anniversary of the founding of the Order of Friars Preachers, this collection “. . . examines the material, liturgical, and cultural (in music and art) aspects of Dominican life which rarely come to the fore in studies of the Dominican Order” (p. 15). These thirteen essays expand current scholarly views of Dominican cultural influence, both internal and external, by including fresh investigations into topics where new evidence augments or alters established perspectives alongside studies of subjects that had not been fully fleshed out by previous scholars. These authors rely on theological reflection and devotional practice as they seek to cement the Dominican character of the influences. Although collections of essays exist for this purpose, the essays in this volume manage to connect to and build on each other across traditional disciplinary lines [End Page 189] in a manner that grants the reader a truly multivalent understanding of the subject. To wit: Mary and Richard Rouse dive into Dominican influences on book culture, including Dominican education and the methods of knowledge production and dissemination, a topic which connects to Laura Albiero’s essay, “The Spread and Circulation of the Dominican Pocket Breviary,” since the two show that the increased need for portable books, including pocket breviaries and bibles (with their companion interpretive tools for voracious, scientific study of the scriptures), is linked to the mendicant life in the thirteenth century, especially at Paris. These discussions connect to Alison Stone’s essay on illustrated books, focusing on Dominican devotional life, in turn joining well together with aspects of Emily Guerry’s contribution on Louis IX, the Crown of Thorns, and the two friars who brought the relics from the East to Paris. Panayota Volti’s essay on Dominicans’ work as seen in the remnants of their life in the Eastern Mediterranean helps expand on some mutual influences within the Eastern networks covered briefly in Guerry’s essay, but also resonates with the topic of Haude Morvan’s discussion of architectural influences in Italy through the Reformation. Barbara Walters’ essay, “Reading Eschatology in the Feast of Corpus Christi,” builds interpretation onto the historical-theological depth of source analysis in “Thomas Aquinas, Dominican Theology and the Feast of Corpus Christi,” by M. Michèle Mulcahey. Two essays on Jerome of Moravia’s Tractatus de Musica seek to determine its character and its intended use: Christian Thomas Leitmeir’s work provides historical source analysis to determine the Dominican antecedents of De musica, while Blazej Matusiak elaborates Jerome’s interpretation. Finally, Innocent Smith’s contributions, “The Orations of the Medieval Dominican Liturgy” and his essay on Dominican liturgy and pastoral care of Dominican nuns, bookend Eleanor Giraud’s “Dominican Mass Books before Humbert of Romans.” Giraud and Smith move beyond established narratives concerning the early Dominican liturgy and the rationale for its reform, showing that the consistency of uniformity would have benefitted both friars and the nuns in their pastoral care. Or further, that the reform allowed the friars to tailor some prayers to fit their charism, privileging both prayer and study, rather than the monastic privileging of prayer over study. Although some overlap exists between several of the essays, these relative connections are not redundant, nor do they offer competing visions. Rather, taken together, the connection between the essays and the breadth of the source material allows the reader to experience some of the richness of the influence of the Dominican Order on medieval culture. Julia A. Schneider University of Notre Dame Copyright © 2023 The Catholic University of America Press ...

A Comprehensive Literature Review on Pharmacological effects of Euphorbia milii (Crown of Thorns)

A Comprehensive Literature Review on Pharmacological effects of Euphorbia milii (Crown of Thorns)

Butea monosperma, crown of thorns, red lantana camara and royal poinciana flowers extract as natural dyes for dye sensitized solar cells with improved efficiency

The cost-effective and eco-friendly natural dyes are sustainable alternatives to synthetically prepared ruthenium-based dyes. This study aims to explore the effect of natural dyes extracted from four different flowers on improving solar cell efficiency. The natural dyes are extracted from butea monosperma (BM), crown of thorns (CT), red lantana camara (RL) and royal poinciana flowers (RP). The dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) were constructed using TiO2 nanorods (NRs) and light-harvesting natural dyes. Highly ordered and vertically oriented TiO2 NRs arrays were synthesized on FTO substrate and used as photoanode to fabricate natural dye based DSSCs. TiO2 NRs facilitate the infiltration of the liquid-state electrolyte and good binding with dye molecules; their one-dimensional structural feature provides effective charge transport. A significant improvement in the photo conversion efficiency (PCE) of TiO2 NRs sensitized and light-harvesting natural dye-based DSSCs has been observed. The structural, morphological, and optical properties of the TiO2 photoanode as well as the optical properties of the extracted dyes were studied using characterization techniques. The PCE of DSSCs based on natural dye extracts from BM, CT, RL and RP flowers were observed to be 2.89%, 1.20%, 1.02% and 0.72%, respectively. This work reports the highest PCE (2.89%) to date for DSSC fabricated using BM flower-based natural dyes; therefore, it can be a sustainable alternative to synthetic dyes.

Laura J. Hunt. Jesus Caesar: A Roman Reading of the Johannine Trial Narrative

Laura J. Hunt. <i>Jesus Caesar: A Roman Reading of the Johannine Trial Narrative</i>

Greater Horn of Africa's crown of thorns

Abdia is a 20-year old mother of two girls aged 1 and 3 years. Abdia lives as a pastoralist in a remote rural area of the Somali region of Ethiopia, where her family often have to move around in search of better pastures for their livestock. “Livestock rearing is the only work that we know best and have been working on year after year,” explains Abdia in a Save the Children case report. She belongs to one of the 500 families in the region who depend on livestock rearing for their livelihood: aside from a source of income, they obtain the meat and dairy from the livestock for food.

Passion Relics and the Medieval Imagination: Art, Architecture, and Society

Passion Relics and the Medieval Imagination: Art, Architecture, and Society

The Visual Representation of the Crown of Thorns Motif in Irish Stained Glass: A Symbol of Universal Suffering for the Catholic Revival in France and Ireland in the Early Twentieth Century

The fire that broke out on 15 April 2019 in Notre Dame Cathedral, Paris was devastating for the French nation, as the cathedral had long been regarded as a symbol of French religious and cultural patrimony, described by the Washington Post as “the spiritual heart of France”. The heroic rescue of the relic of the crown of thorns by the chaplain of the Paris Fire Department, Père Jean-Marc Fournier, offered some consolation in a night of national trauma. World attention was focused on the relic, its history, and what its loss would signify to the people of France, and to the world. This paper will examine the importance of the relic to the people of France, and its enduring legacy as a symbol of universal suffering. It will demonstrate how the motif of the crown of thorns, as attested to in three of the canonical gospels, has acted as a powerful source of inspiration for the proponents of the French Catholic Revival of the early twentieth century. It will also examine the appearance of the motif in the earliest stained-glass windows produced for Loughrea Cathedral, Co. Galway at the beginning of the twentieth century, during a period of extensive building of churches and cathedrals following Catholic Emancipation in Ireland in 1829. Finally, it will reveal the largely undocumented link between the French Catholic Revival (le renouveau Catholique) and the sacrificial politics of early-twentieth-century Ireland.

Butea Monosperma, Crown of Thorns, Red Lantana Camara and Royal Poinciana Flowers Extract as Natural Dyes for Dye Sensitized Solar Cells with Improved Efficiency

Butea Monosperma, Crown of Thorns, Red Lantana Camara and Royal Poinciana Flowers Extract as Natural Dyes for Dye Sensitized Solar Cells with Improved Efficiency

Author's interpretation the crown of thorns in Tetyana Duman’s icons

Author's interpretation the crown of thorns in Tetyana Duman’s icons

An Early-16th-Century Prayer Roll and the Holy Rood of Bromholm

This article gives notice of an important illuminated prayer roll linked to Bromholm Priory in Norfolk, a popular pilgrimage destination during the Middle Ages thanks to its miraculous relic of the Cross. Known hitherto only from its brief appearance on the market in the 1960s and 1970s, the roll has never before been closely examined or published in its entirety. Identification with John, bishop of Chalcedon, fixes a date for the roll between 1505 and 1535. It includes two images of the relic, and another with Christ nailed to the Cross. A fourth miniature shows the Three Nails to scale, the Crown of Thorns and the Five Wounds, and thus relates the Bromholm roll to Arma Christi rolls. Votive antiphons in Latin and English separate the illuminations, together with papal and episcopal indulgences and the amuletic Seven Gifts. The roll sheds new light on late medieval devotion, pilgrimage and the cult of the Cross at Bromholm.

Injuries that May Have Been Caused by a Crown of Thorns

The article is the attempt to answer the question: what physical injury could cause the Crown of Thorns, which was placed on the head of Jesus. Analysis of this event and its effects, was carried out on the basis of the study of the Shroud of Turin, Sudarium of Oviedo, Sainte Coiffe. In addition, there has been included information on Jewish funeral procedures and the study of plant species, which served the soldiers to make the crown of thorns for Jesus.

The Effect of Dye Extract Purification on the Performance of Dye Sensitized Solar Cells

Anthocynanins and anthocyanidins have been widely applied in various fields such as sensitizers in dye sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). DSSCs provide an alternative to the present photovoltaic technology due to its numerous advantages such as flexibility, easy fabrication, semitransparency and colour tunability. In this study, comparative analysis between crude and purified extracts obtained from withered leaves and flowers of Euphorbia mili (crown of thorns) as organic sensitisers in DSSCs. The optical and photovoltaic properties of the extracts was examined using an ultraviolet (UV) spectroscope and solar simulator respectively. There were observed shifts in the wavelength of the absorptions at (350 – 380 nm) for both extracts (crude and purified). The results from the photovoltaic parameters indicate an improved power conversion efficiency (PCE) for the crude extract of the flower at 2.72%.