Month: June 2019

Conserving the bibliographic patrimony of the Americas

Modern(ish)

The Fray Ignacio de Quezada library in the San Augustin Monastery in Quito, Ecuador, is the only library in the Americas housed in its original late 16th century building. It contains 33,500 rare books, manuscripts and incunabula ranging in date from the 15th century through the 20th covering the sciences, literature, music and religion.

There are 26 extremely rare incunabula — publications created between 1450 and 1500, the first decades after the invention of the printing press in Europe — in the collection. This is the largest number of incunabula in Ecuador, which is one of the reasons the San Augustin library is the most important center of bibliographic heritage in the country.

The oldest book in the collection is an incunabula published in Venice in 1482. Another jewel in the incunabula collection is even more important because of a handwritten inscription that says it belonged to Fray Pedro Bedón (1551-1621), a renown muralist and one of the first artists of the Quiteña School of colonial art.

It also contains other books of immense historical significance, including the polyglot Bible of Paris (1645), a seven-volume Pentateuch written in the oldest known variants of Hebrew, Greek, Samaritan Aramaic, Syriac Aramaic, Targum Aramaic, Latin and Arabic. That’s not the only polyglot Bible in the library. There’s one published in England which features two additional languages: Persian and Ethiopian.

The monastery of San Augustin was damaged in the 7.8 magnitude earthquake that struck off the coast of Ecuador in April 2016. While the epicenter was 110 miles from Quito, some structures collapsed in the quake and there were widespread power failures.

The monastery was already in need of repairs before the earthquake, so it and the literary treasures it guards were highly vulnerable. The ceilings, walls and shelving of the archives were damaged. Leaking water and skyrocketing humidity levels put the books at great risk of destruction, and one strong aftershock could well have caused catastrophic loss. Attempts to restore the roof after the quake put the volumes at even more risk as dirt and debris fell into the monastery interior.

In 2017, the Fundacion Conservartecuador (FC), an NGO dedicated to the conservation of Ecuador’s cultural heritage, requested the aid of the Prince Claus Fund for Culture and Development’s Cultural Emergency Response (CER) program. With their financial support, FC was able to triage the collection. They selected the works in most urgent need of attention based on their importance, condition, age, content, author, printer and connection to the culture of the Americas and removed them to a workshop where they were documented, photographed and their immediate conservation needs assessed.

The first step in the ongoing conservation of the books was cleaning them, removing the accumulated dust of centuries and the recent additions in the aftermath of the earthquake. The books were placed in a plastic chamber connected to a filter hoses that gently absorbs particle matter. Working with their hands inside the chamber, conservators used soft, small brushes to carefully clean remaining dust from the pages. That step alone adds decades of life to the books.

Thornier issues can then be addressed. Some books have fungi contamination. Some, like 17th century choral books written on vellum and decorated with gold leaf, are highly susceptible to changes in temperature and must have specialized treatment to stabilize their supports. It’s an extremely expensive proposition. Restoring a single choral book, for example, costs around $30,000.

The project has generated unexpected benefits beyond the preservation of these priceless documents. The library’s contents were little known. Having to go through every single holding page by page gave researchers far more insight into and detailed knowledge of the vast resource. They discovered how much historic information was at their fingertips, and the publicity generated by the conservation has drawn international attention to largely forgotten writings documenting the colonization of Ecuador and the cultural practices of indigenous peoples before the Spanish conquest.

The publicity also gave the library access to more funding for the long-term management of the its assets, and has become a model for cultural heritage preservation in the country. Universities, museums, government entities and even the military, have all sent personnel to the Monastery to be trained in the latest methods and technologies in the conservation of documentary heritage.

Dugout canoe found in Maine

Ex Cathedra

A dugout canoe believed to be the oldest ever discovered in Maine has been unearthed in Cape Porpoise Harbor on the state’s southern coast. The canoe was found late last year by archaeologist Tim Spahr during a survey of the intertidal zone of the beach. The remains of the canoe had been exposed on the surface by shifting sands. The canoe, dug out of a birch tree trunk, has been radiocarbon dated to 1280-1380 A.D.

There’s an Algonquin fishing weir complex off Cape Porpoise’s Redin Island.  Spahr, who has written a paper about the weir complex, believes the dugout canoe is likely of Algonquin origin, used in the community’s fishing and trading activities.

The waterlogged sand had preserved the wood, but once it was exposed, the canoe was endangered. Spahr, principal archaeologist and investigator of the Cape Porpoise Archaeological Alliance, assembled a team of archaeologists and students from the University of New England in Biddeford and the University of New Brunswick to excavate the canoe.

“We started a few days before, building a custom crate to carry the canoe,” Spahr said. On Saturday morning, while they waited for the tide, the team conducted training and practiced how they would move the canoe.

“A few of us went in with wetsuits and snorkeling gear to move the sand before the tide subsided,” he said.

At around 2 p.m. the tide was low enough for crews to get handmade straps under the canoe, and they were able to lift it out and into the crate.

“It was incredibly volatile. It did suffer a few cracks in the wood, but we were able to get it into the crate in one piece,” Spahr said.

The canoe was transported to the Clement Clark Boathouse for the first phase of a long conservation process. It will be fully immersed in fresh water for a year to keep it from drying out and to gradually remove the salt content. It will have to be moved before winter to a location with climate control so the water bath won’t freeze.

Allectus aureus sells for $700K

Ancient, Treasures

The gold coin of Allectus found by a metal detectorist in a freshly-plowed field near Dover, Kent, has sold for £552,000 ($703,000), far above its pre-sale estimate of £70,000-100,000. The auction at Dix Noonan Webb (DNW) in London on June 6th saw fierce bidding on the extremely rare coin, minted by the usurper Allectus between 293 and 296 A.D., driving the price way up until it finally went to a private collector bidding over the phone.

As Christopher Webb, Director and Head of DNW’s Coin Department noted: “I am delighted with the phenomenal price achieved in today’s sale. This is the most expensive coin that we have ever sold at Dix Noonan Webb – as well as being one of the world’s most expensive Roman coins, it is the most money ever paid for a coin of Allectus and it is now the most valuable Roman coin minted in Britain to have been sold at auction. It was a unique opportunity to acquire a stunning coin and the only other one known struck from the same pair of dies is in the British Museum.”

He continued: “There are only 24 aurei of Allectus known worldwide. Gold coins were initially produced to pay an accession donation in AD 293 but continued to be issued throughout his reign and were probably demonetized after his death in AD 296, as no coins of Carausius or Allectus are found in later hoards.”

The next time someone finds an ancient Roman aureus, they won’t be allowed to sell it to the highest bidder. Revisions to the Treasure Act of 1996 will plug the loophole that allows single coins, even ones of unquestionable museum quality due to their age, precious metal content, rarity and historical importance, to be kept or sold by finders at their whim so they can disappear into anonymous private collections like this one now has.

Video recreates earliest Pictish fort

Ex Cathedra

A Pictish fort that once occupied the Dunnicaer sea stack off the coast of Aberdeenshire, Scotland, has been reconstructed on video. Located near the site of Dunnottar Castle, which was built on top of a later Pictish fort, Dunnicaer is today disconnected from the mainland at high tide but is believed to have been a much larger and connected outcropping before erosion from the crashing surf whittled it into a sea stack.

Pictish symbol stones had been discovered there by adventurous young men in 1832, but because it’s so difficult to access, Dunnicaer has barely been examined by archaeologists. In 2015, a team from the University of Aberdeen enlisted the aid of mountain climbers to reach the summit of the sheer cliff face and excavate the surface. They discovered evidence of a hill fort with stone ramparts framed with wood timbers, floors and stone hearths. Some of the hearths were built on top of each other, indicating space was extremely limited and dwellings were constructed on top of old ones.

Radiocarbon dating of the timber placed its construction between the 2nd and 4th century A.D. That makes it the oldest Pictish fort ever discovered in Scotland.

“Dunnicaer appears to have been home to a significant fort, even at this early date,” Dr Noble added. “We can see there were ramparts, particularly on the south side, constructed of timber and stone. This is consistent with the style of later Pictish forts.

“The stone is not from the local area so it must have been quite a feat to get it, and the heavy oak timbers, up to such an inaccessible site.

“It is likely that the sea stack was greater in size than it is today as the fort appears to extend over a large area. Dunnicaer was likely to have been a high status site for a structure of this scale and complexity to have been present as early as the 3rd century.” […]

Aberdeenshire Council archaeologist Bruce Mann said “The dates for this site are truly amazing, and hugely important for Scottish archaeology. Towards the end of the 3rd century AD evidence of how and where people were living largely disappears, leading to all sorts of speculation over what happened during the next 200 years. This discovery now starts to not only fill in that missing story, but also helps us to understand the early origins of the Picts in the north east.”

It was hard to access even in back then, and the radiocarbon evidence indicates it was inhabited for a short time, likely abandoned in favor of Dunnottar when erosion made the sea stack dangerous. Unfortunately the heavy erosion has continued, taking significant portions of any archaeological materials crashing into the sea along with the cliffs.

Now a new virtual reconstruction of what the fort might have looked like in the 4th century has been created using information from the University of Aberdeen’s excavation. It’s fascinating to see how intimately the archaeology is linked to the geology of this unique environment.

Dracula’s cannonballs found

Medieval

Archaeologists excavating the Zishtova Fortress in Svishtov, Bulgaria, have unearthed cannonballs likely used by Wallacian Voivode Vlad III Dracula, aka Vlas Tepes, aka Vlad the Impaler, during his assault on the fortress in 1461. The balls were shot from culverins, early cannons that evolved from hand-held weapons (ancestors of the musket) to field artillery. They were in use just up to the beginning of the 16th century. The balls were discovered in the layer dating to the 15th-16th century.

“What’s really interesting is that from the [early] Ottoman period we have found cannonballs. We rejoice at those small cannonballs because they are from culverins. These were the earliest cannons which were for the 15th century, up until the 16th century, they weren’t in use after that. These were still very imperfect cannons. That was precisely the time of Vlad Dracula, there is no doubt that they are connected with the siege [and conquest of the Zishtova Fortress] by Vlad Dracula in 1461,” [Prof. Nikolay Ovcharov from the National Institute and Museum of Archaeology in Sofia] says.

The fortress is on a hill in the center of the town. It dates to the 13th-14th century, but the hill’s strategic location with clear views to the east, west and north has ensured its constant occupation since the Romans built the first fortress there in the 4th century. In 1389 it was besieged by the Ottoman forces of Sultan Murad I commanded by Grand Vizier Çandarlızade Ali Pasha, only falling when the last of its supplies ran out. Pasha’s campaign forced Bulgarian tsar Ivan Shisman to surrender to the Ottoman Turks and while fighting would continue in some areas for another five years, Bulgaria would remain largely under Ottoman control from that point until the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78.

Ottoman chronicles record Vlad Dracula’s capture of Zishtova Fortress, and in a letter Vlad wrote to the King of Hungary Matthias Corvinus in February of 1462 he boasts of having killed 410 Turks during the siege.  It seems he lived in the fortress for a few months that winter as well.

The fortress didn’t make it the Liberation of Bulgaria in 1878. It was partially destroyed during the Russo-Turkish war of 1806-1812 after the surrender of the Ottoman garrison. Russian General Kamensky ordered it burned down so that the Turks could never reoccupy it.  Sturdily built, the fortress held up quite well to the fire. Significant parts of it were still standing until 1850 when the stones were pillaged to build a new barracks for the Turkish army.

Even so, the ruins of the fortress are in better shape than you might think. Professor Ovcharov notes that Zishtova Fortress has high sections of wall still standing making one of the best preserved in Bulgaria.