June 2011 – Page 4 – The History Blog

Cumbria museum cheered up by beautiful helmet loan

June 15, 2011

The Tullie House museum in Carlisle, Cumbria, the small local museum that against all odds raised £1.7 million to purchase the Crosby Garrett helmet at auction only to be outbid by an anonymous private collector, is getting a beautiful if temporary consolation prize. The Het Valkhof museum in Nijmegen, the Netherlands will loan them their own prize possession, the Nijmegen helmet, for the opening of Tullie House’s new Roman gallery on June 25th.

The Nijmegen helmet is a cavalry display helmet that was found in the gravel on the left bank of the Waal river south of Nijmegen in 1915. Like the Crosby Garrett helmet, it has an elegant face mask visor topped with a head piece. It also features a diadem with five busts in high relief, two male figures and three female. It dates to the 1st century A.D., probably the latter half; the busts are Flavian in style, so from between 69 and 96 A.D.

The visor connects to the diadem via a single hinge in the middle of the forehead. It’s rare that the hinging mechanism survives intact. You can see exactly how, with the mask raised, the helmet could be fit on the head and then the visor lowered. Straps would then have been fitted over studs beneath the ears and tied around the head piece in the back to ensure the whole get-up stayed comfortably (?) in place.

The head piece is made of iron and was designed to contour closely to the wearer’s head. The visor and diadem are brass overlaid with silver. The lips and eyelids of the mask are gilded, as are the beaded borders of the diadem and the drapery, lips, eyelids, and hair of its busts. Again, this is a special feature. Most of the surviving helmets have corroded so the gold and silver are gone leaving just the bronze, brass or iron behind.

The visage on the mask is that of a beardless youth, otherworldly beautiful and androgynous. According to Arrian, these visored helmets were used in cavalry parades and sporting mock battles. They would have come with elaborate plumage and the horsemen would enhance the look by wearing brightly colored clothing, thus appearing to the audience as godlike figures.

That’s going to make a beautiful guest star at the Roman Frontier: Stories beyond Hadrian’s Wall exhibit which opens at Tullie House museum in Carlisle on June 25th. The Nijmegen helmet will remain on display until October.

Tullie House has gotten a great deal of support from other museums and even from private collectors in the wake of the Crosby Garrett disappointment.

“I didn’t have to persuade Nijmegen, they showed me their collection and when I chose this, the most beautiful, they didn’t blink,” Andrew Mackay, collections manager at Tullie House, said. “When this has to go home, we have another coming. We have managed to arrange some stunning loans for the new gallery, and there is no doubt that this saga has helped us.”

That’s a heartwarming unintended consequence, and Tullie House can certainly use some heart warming since the anonymous private collector who bought the Crosby Garrett helmet has thus far refused to make himself known or even to respond to multiple attempts to contact him through the auction house. The museum hoped there was a chance they could negotiate a private purchase with the buyer, but when they got silence in response, they wrote asking if they could at least take some measurements so they could create a replica to display in the new Roman gallery. No answer. Rat fink.

750 bags of Roman poop reveal ancient life

June 14, 2011

Ancient, Roma, Caput Mundi

Archaeologists excavating the Vesuvius-blighted town of Herculaneum were thrilled to find a septic tank full of compacted ancient feces. When Vesuvius erupted in 79 A.D., the pyroclastic surge (fluidized volcanic gas and debris) that swept through the city carbonized organic materials in an instant, thus preserving things like wood and food which would otherwise have rotted. Then, once the surges cooled, they hardened, burying the town under 50-60 feet of volcanic rock. The organic materials continued to be protected from the elements for almost 2000 more years.

Herculaneum has thus been a unique source of information about Roman life. Human excrement provides a particularly thorough snapshot of how people lived: what they ate and what sort of illnesses and parasites they were prone to. The city sewers are small, though. One of the main ones that is thought to have served the public baths and several wealthy private homes is a mere 24 inches (60 centimeters) wide and 3.3 feet (1 meter) high. There’s another of similar dimensions running under one of the north-south streets. In order for archaeologists to explore them and to make them usable again for water drainage, those slender sewers were cleared with pressure hoses.

Under a third street, however, they found a far larger tunnel, this one almost 12 feet high (3.6 meters) and 282 feet (86 meters) long. That meant the team could clear that sewer by hand instead of by hose, and archaeologists love nothing more than tunneling through 12 feet of ancient poop. There was over a foot and a half of organic waste deposited along the full 282-foot length of the tunnel. It’s not so much a sewer — it didn’t drain into the sea like the small tunnels did — as a septic tank that collected refuse dropped from garbage chutes connected to the sewer from the apartment buildings, homes and shops on the street above.

The residents would drop all their common household waste, from the contents of commodes to food scraps to broken pottery, down the shaft into the sewer. Archaeologists were immediately able to get an idea of some of the foods eaten by the residents of Herculaneum in the days right before the disaster by looking at the identifiable detritus — like cherry pits and fig seeds — in the top layer of excrement. They eventually collected over 750 bags of excrement from the walls of that septic tank, and have spent the past few years analyzing it.

Close scrutiny of the composted human waste has revealed that the estimated 150 middle- and lower-class inhabitants of the three-storey block of flats had a much more varied diet than previously thought.

They regularly feasted on fish, spiky sea urchins, figs, walnuts, eggs and olives, using the olive pips as fuel in their homes.
Each apartment’s kitchen and latrines was linked to the septic tank via waste disposal chutes, down which households would chuck broken plates, cups and other everyday items. […]

“What we’ve found is a fantastically good snap shot of what the Romans were using in their kitchens, from pots and pans to glass ware and broken cups,” said Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, the director of the Herculaneum Conservation Project.

They found 170 crates of artifacts including pottery, jewelry and coins, but it’s the poop that’s the greatest treasure of them all, indicating that even the commoners of ancient Herculaneum ate an exceptionally varied diet rich in fiber, seafood, fruit and vegetables.

For an entertaining jaunt through Herculaneum past and present, check out PBS’ Secrets of the Dead: Herculaneum Uncovered. At around the 35 minute mark there are some amazing shots of the organic items that survived, like a beautifully inlaid wooden bed and a loaf of bread that looks like you could dust it off and eat it right now, followed by a glimpse into the sewer that has provided archaeologists with so much lovely crap to sift through.

Canada returns 21,000 stolen Bulgarian artifacts

June 13, 2011

Ancient, Modern(ish), Social policy, Treasures

The Canadian government returned 21,000 looted ancient artifacts to Bulgaria‘s culture minister in a formal ceremony at the Canadian Museum of Civilizations in Ottawa. The objects range over 2,600 years of Bulgarian history from many different cultures — Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Ottoman, etc. — that have had a presence in the region. They include jewelry, coins, belt buckles, crosses, amulets, bronze eagles and everyday items like bone sewing needles, arrows and spearheads.

Bulgarian Minister of Culture Vejdi Rashidov received the artifacts from Canada’s Heritage Minister, James Moore. Moore noted that the ceremony marked “Canada’s largest-ever return of illegally imported cultural property.” Minister Rashidov described the event as “highly emotional” and awarded the Canadian Cultural Heritage Department with the Golden Century, the highest insignia of Bulgaria’s Ministry of Culture.

It’s been a long time in coming. The first two imports of illegally excavated Bulgarian cultural property were discovered in 2007 by the Canada Border Services Agency. They were mailed from Bulgaria to an unnamed dealer who authorities believed planned to sell the artifacts on the Internet. The Border Services agents referred the confiscated objects to the Canadian Cultural Heritage Department which in turn called in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police for further investigation. The Mounties kept seizing Bulgarian shipments until by November 2008, they had confiscated 21,000 coins, jewels and assorted artifacts.

No charges were filed against the importer, and he only formally abandoned the items in January of this year, thus finally clearing the way for the Court of Quebec to rule under the Cultural Property Export and Import Act that the seized artifacts should be returned to the Republic of Bulgaria.

It’s great news that such a large trove of priceless Bulgarian cultural property is on its way home, but I’m disturbed by the lack of legal repercussions here. You know who is receiving these stolen goods. You have the goods themselves in custody for three to four years, but you can’t make an arrest and instead have to wait until he lets go before you return the artifacts? That’s not much of a deterrent.

Minister Rashidov says the Bulgarian government plans a repatriation ceremony on the receiving end. Most of the artifacts will then be placed in a variety of Bulgarian museums.

When Zeppelins ruled the skies

June 12, 2011

Modern(ish), Museums

On July 2, 1900, the first rigid airship designed by Count Ferdinand Adolf Heinrich August Graf von Zeppelin took to the air from a floating hangar on Lake Constance near the factory where it was built in Friedrichshafen, southern Germany. The LZ1 (LZ stood for Luftschiff Zeppelin or Airship Zeppelin) carried five people and flew for 20 minutes until the wind forced it to land in the water, damaging the craft. Count Zeppelin just kept on working on new LZ models until by 1909, Zeppelins were used both in German military and civilian aviation.

Zeppelin died in 1917, before the end of World War I and the Treaty of Versailles which dismantled the Zeppelin program. His successor at the metaphoric helm of the Zeppelin company and later at the literal helm of the record-breaking Graf Zeppelin, the most successful rigid airship of all time, was Dr. Hugo Eckener. He cleverly overcame the Versailles prohibition by building the LZ-126 and offering it to the U.S. Navy as part of Germany’s war reparations. It was commissioned the USS Los Angeles in 1924. Its lifting hydrogen gas replaced with blissfully inert helium, the Los Angeles would go on to become the longest serving airship in the Navy.

It was tough, too, unlike its famous sibling the Hindenburg. Many of the naval airships ended in flaming disaster, but the Los Angeles was decommissioned and dismantled in 1939 after a decade-long tour of duty. It even survived a scary encounter with the elements at the Lakehurst, New Jersey airfield that saw the Hindenburg‘s destruction. On August 25, 1927, a strong wind lifted the tail of the Los Angeles into a current of cold air that lifted the tail even higher. It reached an angle of 85 degrees before going back down, and despite having been basically vertical it was hardly damaged at all. The next day it went happily back to work.

Eckener followed up his successful revival of the Zeppelin airship program by going on a lecture tour to raise money for his next dirigible. The Weimar government was broke as a joke, so Eckener appealed directly to the German people. It worked, and in 1928 the Graf Zeppelin, piloted by Eckener himself, made the first intercontinental passenger airship flight from Friedrichshafen to Lakehurst.

The Graf Zeppelin became a symbol of German engineering, and Eckener was wildly popular as its courageous and skilled pilot and CEO. In 1932 he planned to run for President of Germany against Hitler, but decided not to when President Paul von Hindenburg declared himself a candidate for re-election. The Nazis hated Eckener and the feeling was profoundly mutual. It was only an intervention from Hindenburg himself that kept Eckener from getting thrown in jail.

The Nazis got to him in another way: by nationalizing the Zeppelin company, dumping Eckener and many of his safety protocols, then enlisting the airships as propaganda tools for the regime. Before the Nazi takeover, the company had a perfect safety record under Hugo Eckener’s management. There were zero serious injuries sustained by Zeppelin passengers over more than 1 million air miles traveled. It was the nationalized, propagandized, slapdash Nazi operation that brought about the fiery end of the Zeppelin era on May 6th, 1937, when the Hindenburg burst into flames at the Lakehurst Naval Station. The explosion killed 35 of the 97 people on board and one person on the ground.

That disaster has become cultural vernacular now, thanks to WLS radio reporter Herbert Morrison’s famously emotional “Oh the humanity!” commentary on the explosion. Had the Nazis had their way, we wouldn’t have ever heard it. It wasn’t broadcast live. Morrison and his sound engineer Charley Nehlsen had recorded it on acetate discs. The SS on site knew of the recordings and followed Morrison and Nehlsen to seize them before the bad publicity got out. The radio men had to hide for several hours before making a break for it and bringing the precious records to Chicago where they aired the next day on WLS.

Today’s entry is brought to you by this outstanding CNET article on the Zeppelin Museum in Friedrichshafen. There’s a magnificent slide show of the Zeppelin displays at the museum which is full of information and really underscores the hugeness of these airships.

Here, for instance, on the left is the original construction ladder used to build the Hindenburg. On the right is a scale model of the Hindenburg‘s hangar. That little toy on the bottom left is the construction ladder.

Construction ladder used on the Hindenburg

Check the rest of the article and pictures out because they are awesome. I’ll leave you with Morrison’s broadcast attached to some beautiful footage of the Hindenburg flying over New York City and the tragic footage taken at Lakehurst on the day of the disaster.

Debbie Reynolds sells movie memorabilia collection

June 11, 2011

Modern(ish), Treasures

Debbie Reynolds, star of one of my favorite movies of all time Singin’ in the Rain, was fortunate and forward-thinking enough to purchase an enormous collection of movie memorabilia when the big studios starting selling off their historic costumes, props, art work, cameras, lights, everything but the bare walls, basically, in the early 1970s.

Reynolds explains the studios’ fire sales thus:

“Well, they [the major studios] just weren’t interested. These are real estate developers, and they’re not interested in motion pictures or the ‘history of.’ They’re not preservationists. They’re not people who are interested in preserving. They’re interested in liquidation, and people that are interested in liquidation are interested in money, and not interested in museums or in saving costumes. To them it’s a lot of junk and a lot of nothing to bother with, so they didn’t bother with it, and many people that cared purchased it.”

Her passion for collecting was born when she was but a teenager under contract to MGM. She was fascinated by the process of movie-making and spent hours in the costume department observing the designers make magic from a few words in the script. It wasn’t until MGM liquidated its inventory in 1970, with Fox following in their footsteps in 1972, however, that Reynolds found herself with the world’s largest collection of movie memorabilia, including many of the most memorable costumes worn by iconic stars like Judy Garland’s ruby slippers and pinafore dress as Dorothy, Marilyn Monroe’s halter dress blown up by the wind from the subway grating in The Seven Year Itch, Claudette Colbert’s gold lamé gown with emerald trim from Cleopatra, Charlie Chaplin’s Tramp bowler hat, and so much more.

Her dream was to create a museum to house all these marvels, and in 1972 created a non-profit corporation, the Hollywood Motion Picture Museum, to make her dream come true. In 1993, the Debbie Reynolds Hollywood Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas opened. The collection was on display in the casino. Sadly, the casino soon encountered insurmountable financial problems, closing in 1997 and sending Reynolds’ collection into storage.

In 2001, it seemed like her dream might finally come true. The Museum corporation secured 20,000 square feet in a new real estate development in the heart of downtown Hollywood. There was a ground-breaking ceremony and everything. The financing fell through, however, and in 2004 Reynolds announced that the Hollywood Motion Picture Museum would not open in Hollywood, but rather in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, near Dolly Parton’s “Dollywood.” That too fell through, leaving Reynolds in a great deal of debt.

And so we come to this very sorry pass. Debbie Reynolds’ magnificent memorabilia collection, lovingly stored and displayed through many ups and downs by the star for 40 years, will be sold at auction on June 18.

Do yourself a favor and download the pdf catalog. It’s page after page of Hollywood history, some of it a great revelation because you see iconic costumes and props in color for the first time. Such a heartbreaking loss for Miz Reynolds and for the rest of us who will never have a chance to see this incredible labor of collecting love in a museum where it belongs. Where is the selfless philanthropist to swoop in and save the day when you need him?

Claudette Colbert's gold lamé 'Cleopatra' gown