Month: December 2010

Germany donates $80 million to Auschwitz fund

Modern(ish), Social policy

Auschwitz main gate, AP file photoAlmost 2 years after the International Auschwitz Council started the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation to raise the $120 million needed to fund a major renovation of the crumbling structures at Auschwitz, Germany has pledged to donate $80 million to the foundation over the next year. That’s fully half the $160 million dollar goal, an endowment that would support not only the emergency restoration work but would also generate enough yearly interest to provide steady maintenance funds.

The United States has donated $15 million, Austria $8 million, and smaller sums have been pledged from a variety of European countries. Germany’s donation puts the goal, still distant, in sight. Up until now the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum has been financed almost entirely by its own revenues — proceeds from Holocaust survivor memoirs, documentaries and visitor’s fees — and by the Polish government. Donations from foreign governments and organizations provided only 5% of the museum’s budget in 2008.

The $10 million or so in yearly revenue from those combined sources hasn’t been sufficient to maintain a death camp that wasn’t exactly built to last in the first place. Add the stresses from constant tourism and from thieving bastards, and you have invaluable history on the brink.

Most urgently in need of repair are the 45 brick barracks of the women’s camp in the Birkenau section of the camp, Mensfelt said.

“They are in tragic condition due to the method of their construction and due to the ground water that is washing away the ground where they were built,” he said.

“They are crumbling away and could collapse at any time,” he added.

The barracks were built during the winter of 1941-42 by Soviet inmates, captured Red Army prisoners who were cruelly treated by the Germans and then executed, Mensfelt said.

Wooden barracks and the ruins of the gas chambers at Birkenau also need urgent repair, as they are crumbling because of harsh weather and sinking due to unstable ground.

Germany wants to ensure that this symbol of the Holocaust remain ever present, and that is why they’ve stepped up to the plate in such a large way. In the statement announcing the donation, German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said “Germany acknowledges its historic responsibility to keep the memory of the Holocaust alive and to pass it on to future generations. Auschwitz-Birkenau is synonymous with the crimes of the Nazis. Today’s memorial recalls these crimes.”

Head of France’s King Henry IV identified

Modern(ish), Renaissance

Mummified head of Henry IVA mummified head that’s been floating through private collections for a few hundred years has been identified as the head of King Henry IV of France.

Henry, the Protestant king of Navarre who converted to Catholicism so he could claim his throne after the assassination of Henry III by a monk, was himself assassinated in 1610 by François Ravaillac, a Catholic fanatic/nutjob who had seen in a vision that Henry’s preparation for war with Spain was really a war against the Pope.

Assassination of Henry IV, engraving by Gaspar BouttatsIn 1793 after the execution of King Louis XVI, French revolutionaries desecrated the royal tombs in the Basilica of Saint-Denis, decapitating them and dumping the bodies in mass graves. It was a symbolic extension of the guillotine going back through time to sever the connection between France and its monarchs, even the once-beloved ones like Henry IV, who had ended 30 years of religious civil war by reinstating the civil rights of Protestants and general freedom of conscience in the Edict of Nantes in 1598.

After the revolutionary upheaval, the head disappeared only to turn up at an auction in 1919 where an antiques dealer bought it for three francs. It’s been in private collections since then and was widely reputed to be the head of King Henry, but until now there was no proof, only rumor.

Led by Philippe Charlier, a forensic medical examiner at Poincaré University Hospital in Garches, France, a 19-person multidisciplinary team composed of forensic anthropologists, archaeologists, geneticists and even perfumers examined the head, using a variety of techniques to determine its identity. Unfortunately they were not able to compare its DNA to living descendants of the first Bourbon king because they couldn’t extract any uncontaminated mitochondrial DNA from the mummified head, but the physical evidence is extensive and so overwhelmingly points to Henry that we can say the head has been positively identified.

Details of the different facial characteristics: (A) mole, (B) pierced ear, (C) bone lesion from knife wound, (D) grey scalp deposit, (E) red moustache, (F) red hairsThe head displays a variety of distinguishing characteristics matching extant portraits and the medical history of the king. There’s an unevenly shaped mole above the right nostril and a pierced right ear. The piercing is quite large and the lobe has a patina developed from years of earring use, a fashion adopted by many men in the Valois court.

There’s a lesion in the upper left maxilla (aka the mustache bone or the top of the jaw) corresponding to a stab wound inflicted by would-be regicide Jean Châtel in 1594. There are red and white hairs on the head and face, but none on the pate. Henry had ginger tresses and goatee but was bald on the top of his head. He had horrible teeth according to contemporary witnesses, and so does the mummified head.

Radiocarbon dating returned a date range of between 1450 and 1650; Henry was assassinated in 1610. Gray deposits on the head matched three different moulds of the head, one done right after the king’s death before embalming, one on the mummified head in 1793 right after it was so rudely separated from its body, and the last done in the early 20th century by one of its owners. The head also mutely testifies to its removal from the body. Three postmortem cutting wounds at the base of the neck indicate deliberate decapitation.

Overlay of skull with a sculpture of Henry IVOverlays of the skull and sculptures of the king done near the end of his life match perfectly, as does a facial reconstruction. Also, the embalming method matched the very specific technique used at Henry’s request.

The autopsy report of King Henri IV, published in the complete works of the surgeon Guillemeau (1549-1613), showed that the brain was not examined. Such an examination was not systematically performed when the cause of death was known (which for Henri IV was two knife wounds made in the thorax by Ravaillac). Another practitioner, Pigray (1532-1613), was in charge of the embalming process, and he took into account the king’s wish to be embalmed “in the style of the Italians.” This form of embalming minimises the mutilating aspect of the embalming procedure by not opening the skull—the brain and all internal structures remain in the skull (no vault sawing, no evacuating trepanation, no ethmoidal perforation). Computed tomography of the head confirmed that no sign of skull base or vault trauma (except for the old maxilla lesion), sawing, or opening of the cerebral cavity was present.

A circumferential band of black pigment was seen on the skin at the base of the neck. Using Raman spectroscopy, it was identified as ivory black, a variety of amorphous carbon. This charcoal, obtained by anaerobic calcination of animal bones, corresponds to that deposited by the surgeon Pigray on the surface of the cadaver to absorb decomposition fluids and putrefactive gases; the precise upper limit of the cervical deposit may be explained by the head being protected by strips of cloth so that it was not blackened during the process.

Now that the head has been conclusively identified, it will be reburied at Saint-Denis in a ceremony next year. I wish I could be there. I’m sure it will be lovely and moving and Henry IV was totally my favorite king.

Reconstruction from the skull Henri IV

Leaning Tower of Pisa cleaned and stabilized

Medieval, Treasures

The Leaning Tower of Pisa in 1992 (left) and today (right)The 8-year restoration of the famed Leaning Tower of Pisa is finally complete. The medieval bell tower is now stabilized and clean for the first time in centuries. It needed a lot of work, thanks to tourists and their endless need to mark their presence, plus their pawing the walls to climb the wonky staircases, pollution, pigeon guano and corrosive sea salt. When the tower was built Pisa was on the coast. Then its port silted over and today the city is 7 miles from the sea, but salt is still blown by the wind and rain and the lean has made efficient drainage impossible.

Restorer cleans a figure with a syringe and gauzeRestorers cleaned every single stone in the structure with chisels, lasers and syringes. Yes, syringes. When you realize 10 people had 24,424 blocks of stone to clean with syringes, all of a sudden 8 years and 3 months doesn’t seem like all that long a time. The lean also made restoration extremely physically challenging since restorers had to work at an angle all day and sometimes at night too. They even invented a new kind of scaffolding to get it done.

The building’s circular structure and the unstable surrounding terrain meant traditional scaffolding for the restoration was not an option, so engineers designed a unique aluminium framework that compensated for the tower’s lean.

“We get a team of mountaineers in to move the scaffolding from floor to floor,” said head engineer Giuseppe Carluccio, from BCD Progetti in Rome.

“They’re fantastic, these kids are passionate about climbing, know how to use their ropes, but most importantly, aren’t afraid of heights!” he said.

The mountaineers moved the scaffolding gradually up the tower to the last floor and will return one more time to take it down for good.

The last scaffolding layer is due to be taken down early next year.

The stabilization part of the project was finished in 2008. Engineers removed 70 metric tons of earth from underneath the taller northern side of the tower, stopping its movement for the first time since 1178. It is now 19″ straighter, and leans at a 3.99 degree angle instead of the 5.5 degree angle it was leaning at before it was closed to tourism for 11 years in 1990.

Construction on the tower began in 1173. By the time the 3rd story was built in 1178, the tower was beginning to sink due to a flimsy 3-feet-deep foundation set in soggy subsoil. A series of wars stopped construction at that time and no further work was done on the tower for another 100 years, which turned out to be a blessing in disguise because if they had kept going chances are the tower would have collapsed. The century of rest gave the subsoil time to compact and stabilize itself enough to support 4 more floors and a belfry. When construction resumed in 1272, engineers compensated for the lean by building one side of each floor taller than the other.

So to recap: it leans, most of the floors are taller on one side than on the other, it’s covered in pigeon crap and human effluvia, and the arches leave it entirely open to the elements, from driving salty rain to beating summer sun. Those restorers deserve a medal.

Chinese archaeologists find 2,400-year-old soup

Ancient, Treasures

Archaeologists excavating a tomb near the ancient capital of Xian have discovered what they think are the remains of bone soup sealed in a bronze tripod vessel. The bones and liquid have turned green from the oxidation of the bronze, but amazingly the liquid is still actually liquid. It hasn’t dried or evaporated. It appears the soup was cooked in the bronze tripod pot, then sealed and placed in the tomb. Although other ancient foodstuffs have been discovered, this the first time bone soup has been found in Chinese archaeological history.

The remains still have to be tested to prove conclusively that they were once bone soup. Chemical analysis will also help determine the ingredients of the soup. The finds haven’t been radiocarbon dated yet so they’ll do that in the lab just to confirm, but the artifacts and style of the tomb in which they were found dates it to 2,400 years ago during the Warring States Period (475-221 BC).

Another small bronze pot was found which also contains an odorless liquid that archaeologists think was probably wine. A third vessel, a lacquer-ware container, was found in the tomb but it was decayed. Burying the dead with food and drink they would need in the afterlife was a customary practice in ancient China.

A tomb adjacent to this one, in fact, held the same combination of pots: a bronze tripod, a bronze pot and a piece of lacquer-ware, but all three of them were broken. They might have held similar victuals at one point, though, since the left ribs of a cow were found next to the broken vessels.

We don’t know who the tomb belongs to, but perhaps someone of some wealth and status. The tomb is less than a thousand feet away from the Qin king’s mausoleum, so the proximity suggests that the occupants of these tombs would have been high-ranking officials or maybe even members of the extended royal family.

Archaeologist Liu Daiyun picks up a piece of bone from bronze tripod vessel Liu Daiyun examines a bone Liu Daiyun examines liquid thought to be wine

Basketball rules break sports memorabilia record

Modern(ish), Treasures

James Naismith's Founding Rules of BasketballThe original rules of basketball, invented, typed and annotated by YMCA PE teacher Dr. James Naismith in 1891, sold at Sotheby’s New York on Friday for $4,338,500 including the buyer’s premium, a record price for sports memorabilia. (That was the same auction where the Little Bighorn flag sold for half the sum and Robert Kennedy’s copy of the Emancipation Proclamation sold for $3.7 million.)

The winning bidders were David and Suzanne Booth. David is a Kansas University alumn who has donated large sums to his alma mater and whose family funded the Booth Family Hall of Athletics at KU. As a boy he and his family lived at 1931 Naismith Drive in Lawrence.

First KU basketball team, 1899, Naismith back row rightJames Naismith founded KU’s basketball program in 1898 and was Athletic Director at the university for 40 years. He wasn’t a great coach, as fate would have it — he was the only coach in the school’s history to retire with a losing record — but he did coach Forrest “Phog” Allen who would one day follow in his mentor’s footsteps as KU head coach and would not only win a lot more, but would go on to found the National Association of Basketball Coaches and become known as the Father of Basketball Coaching. Both men are in the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts, the city where Naismith invented the game.

Given Kansas University’s connection to the dawn of the sport, Naismith’s decades of contributions to the school program and Phog Allen’s prominent role in the development of basketball, Booth felt strongly that the original rules should get pride of place at KU.

“We’re very excited about it,” David Booth said from his office in Austin, Texas. “I think they need to figure out an appropriate venue for them. I don’t know what that is. Maybe in a (new) museum. Maybe with the statue of Naismith looking back at Phog (Allen). I think it’s a little bigger than the Booth Family Hall of Athletics. This is serious stuff.” […]

Booth said he spoke with KU basketball coach Bill Self on Thursday and again Friday, after making the winning bid.

“He’s fired-up,” Booth said. “He looks forward to creating the right venue for them and we’ll work with them. He’s fabulous. He was a factor in us doing this, just his enthusiasm and the way he’s made me feel over the years. He’s amazing how he can make people feel great.”

Also a factor in Booth’s decision to bid aggressively was Phog’s grandson, Mark Allen, who researched the rules to be sure they were authentic and who helped persuade Suzanne Booth that they were worth the inevitably huge expenditure.

The seller Ian Naismith, James’ grandson, will give the proceeds (about $3.8 million after expenses) of the sale to the Naismith International Basketball Foundation, a non-profit organization that promotes sportsmanship, integrity and fair play and provides services to underprivileged children.