Month: March 2020

“Squatting mantis man” petroglyph found in Iran

Ancient

An unusual praying mantis petroglyph has been found at the Teymareh rock art site in central Iran. The carved image 5.5 inches long and 4.3 inches wide was discovered during a 2017-2018 survey by archaeologists. Its precise age is unknown because radiocarbon dating cannot be performed in Iran due to international sanctions, but the rock art at the site ranges in age from 40,000 to 4,000 years old.

Rock art imagery can be challenging to decipher, a process the team charmingly describes as “similar to a game of Pictionary, albeit without the artist on hand to say whose guess is correct.” Invertebrates are rarely depicted in petroglyphs, so the archaeologists collaborated with entomologists to identify the creature from its morphological features. Its six legs, large triangular head with extended vertex, curved hind legs and bent forelimbs marked it as a mantid. Iran’s Empusa genus, which inhabits hot, dry environments like the Teymareh Region, have the expanded vertex seen in the petroglyph.

There are two elements that suggest this may not be just a mantis, however. The middle pair of legs have circles at the ends.

The closest parallel to this in archaeology is the ‘Squatter Man,’ a petroglyph figure found around the world depicting a person flanked by circles. While they could represent a person holding circular objects, an alternative hypothesis is that the circles represent auroras caused by atmospheric plasma discharges.

Squatter or Squatting Man figures have been found all over the world, including Arizona, Spain, Italy, Venezuela and the United Arab Emirates. The team believes the Iranian petroglyph is a combination of a praying mantis and a Squatting Man figure, thus they have dubbed him “squatting mantis man.” Sounds like a superhero from Mystery Men.

The study has been published in the Journal of Orthoptera Research. It’s an interesting and entertaining light read. Two enthusiastic forelimbs up.

#UffiziDecameron

Medieval, Modern(ish), Multimedia, Museums

More than once over the past few weeks I have thought about the Decameron, the early Italian-language masterpiece written by Giovanni Boccaccio in the mid-14th century as the Black Death ravaged Tuscany, the peninsula, the continent. In it, 10 youths, seven women and three men, flee plague-ridden Florence and hole up in a villa in the countryside for two weeks. To alleviate the boredom of their self-quarantine, they tell each other stories for 10 nights of the 14 (with exceptions for the two Sundays, and one day per week dedicated to chores which is rather impressive roommating considering the circumstances, actually). By the end of their stay, they’ve told 100 stories.

With all of Italy on lockdown, museums and heritage sites closed, people stuck in their abodes for days at a time, the Uffizi Gallery has launched a digital Decameron to entertain and console the shut-in with photographs, videos and stories shared on all its social media platforms — Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and Instagram — under #UffiziDecameron.

The Uffizi picks from the immense wealth of artworks in its Gallery of Statues and Paintings, in the Palazzo Pitti and the Boboli Gardens, posts a photo or clip, and their social media curators explain the background and meaning of each piece. The first video posted was a wordless tour of the Boboli gardens with aerial and terrestrial footage that is just breathtakingly beautiful. The second is a tour by museum assistant Cristina De Caro of the Uffizi’s Contini Bonacossi collection, something I knew not a single thing about before today.

The portrait by Bronzino of Eleonora di Toledo, wife of Cosimo I de Medici, wearing an exquisitely brocaded gown, her arm draped around the shoulders of their son and heir, is world-famous. Less well-known is the ring Cosimo gave her for their wedding: a Roman intaglio stone with matrimonial motifs (cornucopias, intertwined hands) he had set by Florentine goldsmiths. It is one of very few surviving examples of secular gold work from the early Medici dukes in Florence today because the family treasure was so widely dispersed. The reason it’s in the Uffizi today is that Eleonora was buried with it. It was found when the remains of the 50 Medici family members buried in tombs in the walls of San Lorenzo were moved to the crypt under the church in 1857.

Over on Instagram the quarantine festivities kicked off with a 19th century painting by Vincenzo Cabianca of a scene from the Decameron. More recently they posted a riveting explanation of the complex imagery in a section of the Siena Duomo’s unbelievable inlaid marble mosaic floor designed by Pinturicchio in 1504. 

As a companion to the Uffizi Decameron initiative, the museum will also publish images, video and content dedicated to Raphael. It’s the 500th anniversary of his death this year, and the Scuderie del Quirinale museum in Rome was hosting an unprecedented exhibition dedicated to the Renaissance master. My plans to write about the show were derailed by horror, so it warms the cockles of my broken heart that the Uffizi, which loaned 50 of its works out of the 200 or so on display, will be sharing online what cannot be shared in person right now.

“Even if museums have had to close their doors, art doesn’t stop,” explained Uffizi director Eike Schmidt. “This is why from now on we will address our public also through Facebook. The treasures of the Uffizi, Palazzo Pitta and the Boboli Gardens will keep you company in these weeks of the common commitment against the spread of the virus. Today we begin Uffizi Decameron: as in the masterpiece by Boccaccio, every day we will tell stories, the works, the personages of our most beautiful museums, uniting us in the name of culture, of art, and — why not — of amusement. The Uffizi will be with you, in your homes, to overcome all together the current moment of difficulty. We avoid all contagion, except that of beauty.”

So much lump in throat right now. Hai tutto il mio amore, Italia.

Fossilized skin of extinct penguin found

Ancient

Argentine paleontologists have discovered the fossilized skin of Palaeeudyptes gunnari, a 43-million-year-old extinct large penguin. The whole wing was found during a 2014 excavation in the middle Eocene sediment layer on Seymour Island, Antarctica, the same place where the only known articulated skeleton of a Palaeeudyptes gunnari was unearthed in 2008.

The entire wing was found and so much of it had been mineralized that researchers were able to study connective tissues, the feather follicles and a pattern left by the feathers on the skin. This is the only articulated wing of Palaeeudyptes gunnari ever found, the first skin from an extinct penguin ever found and the earliest example of mineralized skin from a neornithine bird (the more advanced avian species that survived the Cretaceous mass extinction event to become modern birds) whose skin was preserved.

“The skin has been preserved as a fossil on both surfaces of the wing, packing the bones that have been articulated in their original position, including the elements that ossify from the tendons,” said paleontologist Acosta Hospitaleche.

She added: “This has given us the opportunity to analyze the connective tissue of the wing, and the morphology and density of the skin follicles where the feathers are inserted.”

This unique opportunity allowed researchers to establish that compared to the larger penguin species alive today like the emperor penguin, Palaeeudyptes gunnari had less dense plumage, an adaptation that would have helped insulate against the cold. Antarctica was not covered in ice in the Eocene (56 – 34 million years ago); it was a woodland environment rich with fauna. The adaptability of their plumage to extreme cold likely played a role in their success as a species during the Eocene and in the success of their descendants in the cold seas of the southern hemisphere.

V&A acquires rare Medieval cluster brooch

Medieval, Museums

The Victoria & Albert Museum has acquired a medieval brooch that is the only one of its kind ever discovered in the UK. Only seven of them are known to exist in the world. It was discovered by metal detectorist Justin Owens at a 2017 rally on a farm that was once a royal hunting grounds near Brigstock, Northamptonshire. It was only four inches under the surface and so caked with mud that Owens at first thought it was a bottle cap or some other piece of trash. Cleaning revealed it was an extremely rare late medieval brooch of gold and jewels.

The front face of the brooch is a triangular setting outlined by three gold bars with a central rectangular gemstone, almost certainly a spinel, in a four-prong mount. Around the stone are alternating flower and bow shapes with twisted gold wires filling gaps. At the three corners of the triangle are are box bezels topped with a pointed gemstone giving them a pyramidical shape. One of the three is missing its gem point. The surviving two are diamonds. White enamel balls accent the piece and there would originally have been pearls, now lost.

The front face is mounted to a roughly circular gold back plate divided into six pie slices. At the center of the outer edge of each wedge is a rivet keeping the setting elements in place, mounted to the back plate. There’s another rivet in the middle where the six divides meet. It holds the central gem in place. The pin is intact, hinged to the back plate. The style of design dates it to between 1420 and 1600.

James Robinson, Keeper of Sculpture, Metalwork, Ceramics and Glass at the V&A, said: “This intriguing and exquisite late medieval cluster brooch is a rare survivor with a tantalising story to tell.

“It’s sculptural design, exceptionally fine gold and enamel work, stunning diamonds, central cabochon spinel and pearls (now lost), all express burgeoning opulence and extreme wealth.

“It would have been made for someone from the highest echelons of society. The loss of some diamonds and the brooch’s severely bent pin belie the visible trauma it would have suffered when it was likely ripped off its wearer during the thrill of a hunt.

“It makes a truly captivating and unique addition to our world-class jewellery collection, which traces the story of jewellery in Europe from ancient times to the present day.”

After a painstaking conservation using the most delicate of tools including pheasant and ostrich feathers, the brooch will go on display in the V&A’s Judith Bollinger Jewellery Gallery alongside the silver, sapphire and diamond coronet Prince Albert had made as wedding gift for Queen Victoria.

Victory model acquired by designer’s descendant

Modern(ish)

A cross-section model of HMS Victory, Admiral Nelson’s valiant flagship at the Battle of Trafalgar, has been acquired by a descendant of the man who originally designed the warship. Sir Benjamin Slade, 7th Baronet, bought the model at auction on January 8th for £450 (plus buyers premium) and took it home to Maunsel House, the family estate in Bridgwater, Somerset, where it joins two other models of Victory on display there.

Thomas Slade, Surveyor of the Navy, designed HMS Victory in 1759. The hull was completed in 1760 but the ship wasn’t launched until 1765, giving the wood of its hull years to season when usually ships only got a few months. That may have played a role in its longevity. Victory is the most successful first-rate ship of the line ever built. Slade died in 1771, decades before the ship he’d designed would rise to international fame at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805.

Victory was an inauspicious name, to put it mildly. The previous HMS Victory sank in a storm off the Channel Islands in 1744, only seven years after its launch. All 1,150 crewmen were lost. The Victory before that one had burned down in an accidental fire in 1721. Still, for whatever reason, likely because it was the only proposed name not in use, the 104-gun first-rate ship of the line was dubbed Victory and in the course of a most illustrious naval career redeemed the name for all time.

The Napoleonic Wars also advanced the fortunes of the Slade family. The 1st Baronet, Sir John “Black Jack” Slade, was given the title in 1831 in honor of his military accomplishments primarily during the Peninsular War, although he was held in active contempt by the Duke of Wellington and many of his subordinates.

The current Baronet is pretty much the Platonic form of that most deferential of euphemisms, the “eccentric millionaire.” Earlier this year the 73-year-old went on a matchmaking reality TV series to find a wife who “must be able to breed two sons” in exchange for him “showering [her] in jewels” and giving her £50,000 a month “pocket money.” Absolutely no Scorpios allowed. The year before that he featured on another reality show when bailiffs showed up at his door demanding payment on an unpaid £4,700 bill owed to, ironically, a wedding planner. Also he owns a peacock that attacked a Lexus because, Slade thinks, the peacock is gay and was attracted to the blue of the vehicle, thus forcing Slade to ban peacock blue Lexuses from Maunsel House and inspiring the truly great headline: Baronet Claims Peacock Sexually Attacked Car.

On the plus side, last year he offered to donate 50 old growth oak trees from his estate for the reconstruction of Notre Dame after the devastating fire of April 2019, a gesture that he hoped would make ammends for all the generations of Slades who went at the French with such deadly gusto.

Apparently he didn’t realize he was buying a cross-section model of HMS Victory and thought it was a full version to scale like the one five feet long that was gifted to his family by the Royal Navy in the 19th century. The dimensions are clearly stated on the catalogue page and it’s not like you can’t tell it’s a section from the picture. You literally see through it. That’s a large part of its charm, in fact, that you can see all the wee cannons and barrels and ballast and whatnot.

“It is a bit like ordering a birthday cake online and then only getting a slice. To think that I was worried that it would not fit in my car. Well, the joke is on me, that’s for sure.

“To be honest I was prepared to pay a lot more – I got a bit of a bargain in the end. It was much smaller than I thought it would be. It’s pretty tiny. Online it looked bigger.

“It one of those small models which lets you actually see a cross section and everything that went on inside the ship. I might put it on my bar.”

As long as he keeps the peacock away from it.