An exceedingly rare cotton printed scarf mourning the death of Alexander Hamilton in 1804 will be coming up for auction on May 15th. The scarf is unusually large – 24″ x 20 1/2″ framed to 30 1/2″ x 27″ — and features two portraits of the Founding Father, one in portrait miniature style at the top in his Revolutionary War uniform, and one marble bust in Roman style in the central roundel. The bust is perched atop his tomb (a fantasy version, not his actual tomb) where women weep for the fallen hero. To their left is a small hut with palm trees, symbolizing Hamilton’s birth and childhood in Nevis. To the right is a tree with a cut limb, symbolizing his life cut short.

The portrait miniature hangs from the center of a ribbon held by an eagle on the left and cherubs on the right. Written on the banner is “IN MEMORY OF THE LAMENTED HAMILTON.” In the bottom left is a women with three children sitting under a tree, likely a representation of his wife, Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton, and family, as the panegyric extolls him as “honourably united in marriage” and laments that “he has left behind him a numerous family to deplore the loss of his protecting arm and directive talents.” In the bottom right, a Black woman mourns at an effigied tomb or bier.

Among the text on the scarf is an encomium (middle left) that studiously avoids the words “duel,” “Aaron” or “Burr” even as it praises his life and recounts its loss.

Endowed with many noble qualities, high in rank as an Officer; enlightened and ardent as a Statesman; preeminent as a Lawyer; rever’d as a Citizen; beloved as a friend; affectionate as a Husband and Father. To the regret of all the great and good, this distinguished Character fell, in an unhappy rencounter, July 11th, 1804; in the 48th year of his AGE.

On the right side is an appeal to legislators to take action against the deadly practice of dueling. Again, the word “duel” does not appear.

Health and Honour to the Senator who shall devise the most effectual means of abolishing that fatal practice which deprived AMERICA prematurely of the talents and virtues of her much lamented HAMILTON!

The scarf has intersecting diagonal lines of stitching that indicate it was once incorporated into a quilt or bedspread. That only adds to its character as the sewing is discrete and does not interfere with the print which is in excellent condition. The only other known example of this scarf, now part of the collection of the Hamilton Grange National Memorial in Manhattan, has no stitching, but it has suffered significant fading and staining.

The pre-sale estimate is $20,000, but Hamilton memorabilia is insanely desirable due to the explosion of interest in the wake of the musical about his life. The Alexander Hamilton powder horn which bears his name and family iconography but is otherwise entirely devoid of any proven connection to the man himself, sold at auction in January 2016 for $115,620, including buyer’s premium.

I can’t let mention of the Hamilton Grange National Memorial pass without paying homage to the amazing feat of conservatorial skill that has saved and revitalized it. When Alexander Hamilton had his handsome Federal-style home built in 1802, it was on 32 bucolic acres in upper Manhattan. They didn’t remain bucolic, needless to say, and in 1889 the house was slated for demolition because it jutted into the street and was in the way of the development of the Manhattan’s street grid. Its neighbor, the Episcopal Church of St. Luke in the Fields bought the house and moved it two blocks away where it no longer impeded the grid.

It became a museum in 1933 and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1960, but, hemmed in by an apartment building on one side and St. Luke’s on the other, many features of the home were obscured and it was in dire need of major restoration. So they moved it again. They jacked the whole house up, building Jenga-like wood block cribbing underneath it as it rose to sustain its weight. On June 7th, 2008, the Grange was moved at a snail’s pace one block east and one block south to its new location on St. Nicholas Park where it was once again in bucolic surroundings.

It was a much-covered event and I watched it in real time, but the blog was in its dormant phase before I would resurrect it in December of that year, so there was no post about the great move of the only house Alexander Hamilton ever owned. Now I right that wrong.

Here is a time-lapse video of Hamilton Grange 30 feet in the air being moved from its tight quarters between the apartments and church onto the street:

The six-hour move in 39 seconds:

Its installation on new foundations at St. Nicholas Park:

Thank you all for reading, for your comments, for all the kindness and appreciation you’ve shown me this year. As 2020 took on its increasingly bubonic 1347 tinge, I tried as much as possible to keep the blog as unchanged in focus and consistency as it has been since I began posting daily 12 years ago. My wish was The History Blog could be for you (and me!) what Philosophy was for Boethius, who dealt with quite the lockdown of his own. I hope 2021 is a renaissance year for cultural heritage and that this blog, in its fractionally tiny way, can help support the revival of endeavours  that have been laid waste in 2020.

Happy New Year! Now let’s the get hell out of this one.

New plaster casts have been made of two victims of the eruption of Vesuvius in a villa on the outskirts of Pompeii. The skeletal remains of two adult men were found in a side room of the cryptoporticus at the suburban villa at Civita Giuliana about half a mile northwest of Pompeii’s city walls. This is the same villa where the remains of a purebred horse dressed with a bronze-plated saddle and tack, were found in the stables in 2018. A graffito discovered earlier this year suggests the estate may have belonged to a member of the wealthy and influential Mummius family.

The room where the two bodies were found is in the northwest residence where the family and guests lived. It’s next to the cryptoporticus below the terrace peristyle garden overlooking the Bay of Naples. A vaulted opening led from the cryptoporticus to a rectangular room that allowed access to the upper floor. The room was seven feet wide and of undetermined length. It had a wooden floor and was destroyed when the first stories of the house collapsed when it was slammed by the pyroclastic flow. Archaeologists first found the tell-tale hollows in the layers of hardened ash that were left behind after the soft tissues of the bodied decayed. Digging down through a small hole to preserve as much of the void as possible, archaeologists found the bones. Most of them were removed for analysis. Plaster was then poured into the voids to capture the shape of the bodies.

They were both in supine position. One was a young man between 18 and 25. He was approximately 5’1″ tall and evidence of compression of his vertebrae, unusual in someone so young, indicates he had carried out manual labour for a long time. The imprint of his clothing was left in the ash hollow and therefore on the cast. He was wearing a short tunic of heavy fabric, likely wool.  The tunic and bone damage suggests he may have been a slave. The other victim was found with his head turned, cheek in the hardened ash, his arms folded, hands on his chest, legs spread wide apart. He was older than the first victim, between 30 and 40, and an inch taller. He was more elaborately attired in a tunic topped with a woollen mantle.

Both died in the second pyroclastic flow. They and the other Pompeiians had survived the pumice rain that fell for 19 hours an the first pyroclastic flow that struck the town when the eruptive column collapsed. Vesuvius then tricked them by quieting down for about half an hour, just long enough to encourage the survivors to leave their hiding places and attempt to flee with their lives. The second pyroclastic flow hit with sudden fury, faster and far more powerful than the first, blowing through vertical walls, pancaking the tops of buildings into the bottoms and killing the people who had hoped to escape their fate. The flow appears to have flooded the room in the Civita Giuliana villa through multiple points of entry, engulfing the men in hot ash that would harden into their tomb. Their entire bodies were encased in a gray ash layer 6.5 feet deep created by the second flow.

Other voids were discovered in this room three or so feet from the victims. The hollows were manually examined and plaster poured into them revealing items that may have been lost during the attempted escape, mainly heaps of heavy, draped cloth. The wool clothes they were wearing and carrying are additional evidence that the eruption took place October 24-25, not the traditional August date that may be the result of a medieval translation error.

This video shows the process of opening the voids, pouring the plaster and excavating the casts.

A marble bust of the Hermes, messenger of the gods, has been discovered during sewer construction in Athens, Greece. It is estimated to date from the end of the 4th century or early 3rd century B.C., when it was originally part of a herm, a rectangular pillar with a sculpted bust on top and genitalia at the base. Crews found the head on Friday, November 13th, built into the south wall of a modern drainage duct.

The newly-discovered bust is typical of the Hermes Propylaeus (Hermes of the Gateways) type created by ancient Greek sculptor Alcamenes in the mid-5th century B.C. and frequently copied throughout the Greco-Roman world. Alcamenes was known for blending elements of Archaic style from the 6th century B.C. with the greater expressive naturalism of Classical period. His Hermes couples the stylized curly hair and beard of an Archaic kore with the differentiated facial features of the Classical. Also typical of the Archaic style, Hermes is depicted in mature age. His iconography would shift in the later Classical and Hellenistic periods to depictions of the deity as a lissome young man.

Because Hermes with his winged sandals was the god who protected travelers on their journeys, herms were erected at boundaries, crossroads, gateways and graves. This herm was originally a crossroads or gateway marker in Athens and was recycled for use in the sewer drains many centuries later.

The work is in good condition despite its checkered past, and is now in the care of the Ephorate of Antiquities.

Many thanks to everyone who left such thoughtful and supportive comments on Tuesday’s Programming Note, and to everyone who waited with quiet patience for my return to history blogging.

Even in the midst of the on-going maelstrom, I can say without reservation that I loved working the polls on election day. It was nothing but good vibes from my fellow workers and from the voters. The youngest volunteer was just 16! He did a great job managing the lines.

Quite a few voters brought their children who were so excited to see how the process works. Some got to slide the ballot into the box for their parents and I made sure they got as many “I Voted” stickers, which were particularly cool and varied this year, as they wanted.

After the polls closed, I witnessed and signed the vote count along with two other members of the team, and I removed all the paper ballots from the ballot box for delivery to city hall. I found it genuinely affecting to be literally elbows deep in the physical manifestations of democracy. And here’s a cool discovery I never expected or even entered the antechamber of my mind: thousands of paper ballots smell wonderful. You know how some coffee table books with thick paper and fine ink smell amazing? It was like that but a hundred times stronger.