Month: August 2008

Update: Peru wants them tons of gold and silver too

Renaissance, Social policy, Treasures

Way back in December I posted about a huge fortune of 17 tons of silver and gold a private treasure hunting firm found on a shipwreck presumed to be the Spanish. Spain is taking the company to court over ownership rights to the salvage.

Now Peru wants in on that.

Peru filed a claim Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Tampa to determine where the coins originated, entering the fray over the $500 million loot found on a sunken ship by Tampa-based Odyssey Marine Exploration. Odyssey has been fighting the Spanish government for ownership of the ship and its contents.

Peruvian consumer rights advocates contend the coins were made with Peruvian metals and minted in Lima. When Nuestra Senora de las Mercedes y las Animas sank west of Portugal with more than 200 people on board in 1804, Peru was still a Spanish colony.

Bold move. There isn’t a Spanish gold ship which crossed the Atlantic without Peruvian specie. If they pull this off, Peru will have a claim to billions of dollars worth of discovered and undiscovered treasure.

The legal tangle is immense. I don’t see this being resolved any time soon, or possibly at all. Meanwhile, Odyssey has possession of $500 million worth of gold and silver coins. If they can pop it all into an interest-bearing account somewhere, they’ll be billionaires by the time the case/s is/are decided.

Etruscan Masterpieces from the Hermitage

Ancient, Museums

I didn’t even remember that the Hermitage had a significant Etruscan collection, but it sure does, and it’s going on display at a Tuscan museum this September.

One of the most notable artifacts on display is a unique bronze funerary urn in the shape of a reclining youth. It is literally the only known bronze Etruscan funerary urn, and it is a beauty:

It was discovered in Perugia in 1842 and purchased by Tsar Alexander II in 1861. Many of the other pieces in he exhibit were also bought by Alexander II.

This is sure to bring all kinds of fresh attention to a hidden gem of a museum. The Etruscan Academy Museum has really gone all out for the exhibit.

The MAEC is opening seven new rooms for the occasion and also starting a major new archaeological project with the Hermitage Foundation Italy to uncover more of the ancient glory dotted around the city.

The Cortona museum boasts one of Italy’s most interesting Etruscan collections including one of the longest inscriptions in Etruscan, which is still largely undeciphered.

They don’t have much of a web presence — an all too common problem I’ve encountered with historical sites — but you can still get a sense of what an amazing collection the museum hosts, not to mention the associated archaeological park. Etruscan Academy Museum.

Save the Delta Queen!

Modern(ish), Social policy

Commissioned in 1927, the Delta Queen is the last all-wood overnight paddlewheel steamboat still in operation on the Mississippi river. She looks just like her earlier brethren who carried Mark Twain and has a remarkable history including service as a troop carrier in World War II.

Because of her wood superstructure, the Delta Queen needs an operating exemption from the Safety of Life and Sea Act, an exemption every Congress since 1968 has gladly provided. Until now.

I’m not sure what’s behind the hesitation. Rep. Jim Oberstar of Minnesota made a floor speech claiming the Delta Queen is unsafe because of the wood structure, but the examples of dangerous incidents he cites are either from the 19th century or from contemporary steel ships. The one boiler problem he mentions on the Queen herself was a model of efficient safety procedures, so hardly supports the contention that the Queen is inherently dangerous.

She has passed every yearly Coast Guard inspection. She’s been retrofitted and secured in every possible way. There is nothing at all wrong with her. She is a registered historic treasure of the Department of the Interior and the National Trust for Historic Preservation, a National Historic Landmark and a member of the National Maritime Hall of Fame.

Save the Delta Queen!

Creepy cool

Ex Cathedra

I don’t know why this Russian brain research facility was abandoned, but they were in some kind of rush. Look at the wealth of creepiness they left behind.

There’s no information I could find on the web about the exact name and location of this facility. This site claims it was a secret Red Army lab closed under Gorbachev.

That awesome picture of him sans birthmark underneath a jar of brains supports the claim that the research ended along with the Soviet system.

How great is it that they just left the place as is, specimens floating bloatedly in yellow fluid and perched on boxes of what look like chocolate covered hazelnuts?

Click here for more cool pictures of Russian urban decay from the same photographer.

Puccini, you dirty dog, you

Modern(ish), Multimedia

The New York Times has a great story about the life and art of Giacomo Puccini.

It’s coming up on the 150th anniversary of his birth, and there’s a new movie about his raucous love life being released to coincide with the anniversary.

Puccini proudly called himself a “mighty hunter of wild fowl, opera librettos and attractive woman.” Mr. Benvenuti’s film, “Puccini e la Fanciulla” (“Puccini and the Girl”), presents a newly uncovered strand in Puccini’s messy biography. It asserts that he has another living granddaughter, Nadia Manfredi, the child of another son, also named Antonio, born of an affair with Giulia Manfredi, a feisty woman of humble background who ran a hostelry in Torre del Lago popular with local farmers and transient hunters. Personal letters and other documents that Mr. Benvenuti was shown by Nadia Manfredi in early 2007 present what seems a persuasive case.

And that’s after he had a 17 year affair with a married piano student of his who bore him a son and lived with him in raunchy sin until her husband finally died and Puccini’s family browbeat him into marrying her despite the fact that he was porking half the town as he had been pretty much non-stop from day one.

Juicy gossip aside, the article covers some interesting musical ground as well. Puccini was apparently fascinated by modern musical approaches and included them in his operas.

Puccini was intrigued by the experiments of Arnold Schoenberg and the Second Viennese School. He took the 60-mile trip from Torre del Lago to Florence just to hear an early performance of Schoenberg’s landmark “Pierrot Lunaire” (1912), an experience that made a deep impression. And Anton Webern, no less, Schoenberg’s student, who would become the master of the radically compact and elusive gesture in 12-tone composition, once wrote to Schoenberg of his enthusiasm for Puccini’s “Fanciulla del West” (1910). “A score with an original sound throughout, splendid, every bar a surprise,” Webern wrote, with “not a trace of kitsch.”

The aggressive opening chords of “Turandot” present Puccini in his tough-guy modernist mode. Yet think of the Act II scene for Ping, Pang and Pong, three ministers at the court of the ancient emperor in Beijing. It’s easy to treat it as a comic/nostalgic interlude in an otherwise intense opera. But to listen closely to this elaborate trio is to marvel at the intricate, pungent orchestral harmonies, spiked with piercing dissonance.

I never thought of it that way on account of I was too busy cringing at the racist coolie aspect. Time to listen to “Turandot” again. The non-Nessum Dorma bits, that is.