Month: June 2008

Vatican to Tom Hanks: Bitch, please

Modern(ish), Multimedia

The Catholic Church has refused to grant the Da Vinci Code sequel permission to shoot scenes in two Roman churches.

A spokesperson for the Catholic Church said they had immediately declined the requests to film in Santa Maria del Popolo and Santa Maria della Vittoria churches because the movies challenge Catholic beliefs.

Church official Monsignor Marco Fibbi said: “It’s a film that treats religious issues in a way that contrasts with common religious sentiment. We would be helping them create a work that might well be beautiful but that does not conform to our views.”

Hey, the Church is throwing them a bone already by suggesting that the stupid sequel to a stupid movie of a stupid book might turn out to be a thing of beauty.

I can think of only one draw Santa Maria della Vittoria holds for this production: Bernini’s The Ecstasy of St. Teresa. It’s a famously sensual representation of St. Teresa’s vision of being pierced by an angel’s lance. Then there are the guys in the opera boxes on both sides of the chapel watching her.

Doubtless the folks who brought you the theory that Mary Magdalene and Jesus were married and the Church supressed it to keep women down would find Teresa’s ecstasy all sorts of relevant.

Santa Maria del Popolo is one of my favorite churches. I used to hang out in it often waiting for my friends who were always, always late meeting up at Piazza del Popolo. It has 2 Caravaggi (The conversion on the way to Damascus and the Crucifixion of Saint Peter), Pinturicchio frescoes, and a really cool tomb with a shrouded skeleton welcoming you when you first walk in.

I knew it!

Ancient

Former director general of the Jordanian Department of Antiquities calls the “oldest church in the world” claim “ridiculous”. According to him, the guy who found the cave is something of a fabulist, and there is no evidence to support the sensationalism.

Israeli archaeologist Stephen Pfann isn’t quite so blunt, but he too thinks the cave=church theory is shaky at best.

“It sounds rather anachronistic,” he said, adding that during the first century, the term “church” or “ekklesia” was used for the assembled body of believers—not the building or catacombs where they were assembling.

“If they are talking about a cave, it could have been a hiding place. In time—if there were martyrs there or something significant that took place there or a well-known individual who was among the disciples of Jesus—then you would have had reason to commemorate the site, which could later be used by the church’s monks.”

“But the cave that’s there is one that doesn’t necessarily commemorate anything … I don’t know how you can take an underground cave and say it could present itself as a first-century church.”

Ainorite?! I love it when supersmart people agree with me and they lay out the case in a thoughtful manner I can just quote as if I’d done the work. :boogie:

1780 British warship found in Lake Ontario

Treasures

The 22-gun British warship HMS Ontario sank during a storm on Lake Ontario in 1780, and divers have been looking for her ever since. Now they’ve found her, and she’s apparently in great shape.

“Usually when ships go down in big storms, they get beat up quite a bit,” Mr. Scoville said. “They don’t sink nice and square. This went down in a huge storm, and it still managed to stay intact. There are even two windows that aren’t broken. Just going down, the pressure difference, can break the windows. It’s a beautiful ship.”

Mr. Smith, who was shown underwater video of the discovery, said, “If it wasn’t for the zebra mussels, she looks like she only sunk last week.”

The dark, cold water acts as a perfect preservative, Mr. Smith said. At that depth, there is no light and no oxygen to hasten decomposition, and little marine life to feed on the wood.

They’re not releasing the location to keep her safe from looters, and she won’t be raised. She was carrying 130 British troops when she went down, so the site is a de facto war cemetary.

Roman horse skeletons, chariot found in Greece

Ancient

Archaeologists working in north-eastern Greece have uncovered 16 horse skeletons and a two-wheeled chariot buried in a grave dating to the Roman Empire.

Near to the remains of six of the horses archaeologists found a shield, weapons and various other accessories.

Ten of the horse skeletons were complete, and in addition to the horses, diggers found a grave and four tombs covered with a ceramic lid, which contained four bronze coins dating back to the fourth century AD.

The chariot, dating from the first or second century AD, was “undoubtedly designed to be used in war or hunting”, the ministry said.

The chariot was decorated with a frieze relief in bronze, depicting three of Hercules’ labours: namely, the Cerberus dog, the wild boar of Erymanthian, and the Stymphalian birds.

No pictures yet, dammit, but it’s too cool a find not to post about it.

Harvard returns bells to Danilov Monastery

Modern(ish)

American philanthropist Charles Crane purchased the 18 bells in 1929 at one of Stalin’s cultural patrimony fire sales in 1929. Crane donated them to Harvard, where they have been merrily sounding the time of day ever since.

They would have most likely been destroyed had he not snapped them up. As it is, they are the only full set of pre-revolutionary bells to have survived Stalin.

The first request from the monastery to return the 25-ton bells was made in 2002, and since then, one bell has already been returned. The other 17 are on their way now.

For the Danilov Monastery, now the home of the patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, the homecoming of the bells is a matter of spiritual significance. “[The bells] are described as singing icons – that they have voices and tongues that are singing to God as they are ringing,” says Professor Campos. “There is no way to replace these bells. They are an organic set and they have their own history from the place they were hung. They were very much a part of the religious community.”

Hierodeacon Roman, the chief bell ringer at the Danilov Monastery, had only seen and heard the bells on the Internet until he visited Harvard in 2004, where he had a chance to ring them for the first time. “We’ve been anticipating [this] for a long long time in our monastery,” he said, describing the event as being of “miraculous” importance and praising Harvard’s cooperation.

Unlike all the other recent restitutions that have made the news, this one was entirely guilt and recriminations-free. Harvard was delighted to have them all these years, and the Danilov is delighted they survived.

All 18 bells are being replaced by new ones made in Russia specifically for Harvard, and financed by Russian billionaire Viktor Vekselberg.