Robert-Goldwater-Library

ARTstor: New Collaborations and more...

NEWS via ARTstor Feb 07 Newsletter (v.8):
Collections: New Collaborations

Pre-Columbian and World Archeology from the Peabody Museum of Archeology and Ethnology, Harvard University

ARTstor has reached an agreement with the Peabody Museum of Archeology and Ethnology, Harvard University, through which ARTstor will distribute digital images related to Pre-Columbian archaeology, as well as images  of Pre-Columbian, African, Native North American, and Oceanic objects from the museum's collections. Approximately 55,000 images are from the photographic archives of the Carnegie Institution of Washington (CIW) which document early archaeological excavations throughout Central America. ARTstor will also distribute up to 90,000 digital images of the Peabody Museum's remarkable collections of archaeological artifacts and art objects.

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Native American Ledger Drawings

Now available to ARTstor users are approximately 2,000 Plains Indian ledger drawings from the National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution. Mostly produced in the middle to late decades of the 19th century, these drawings represent an important indigenous artistic tradition of great and increasing interest to art historians and other scholars.

via ARTstor: Upcoming Collaborations

Collaborative Agreement Reached Between the Art and Art History Department of the University of Texas at Austin, and ARTstor: Ferguson/Royce Archive of Pre-Columbian Photography

ARTstor and the Art and Art History Department at The University of Texas at Austin are pleased to announce that they will collaborate to digitize and distribute the Ferguson/Royce Archive. The Ferguson/Royce Archive consists of approximately 5,200 negatives, created by William Ferguson and John Q. Royce and depicting views of Mesoamerican and Southwest United States sites. William Ferguson and John Q. Royce were amateur archaeologists and aviators who devoted themselves to documenting from the air the major Pre-Columbian ruins. Their photography is best known from publications they authored, together or individually. These books include: Maya Ruins in Central America in color: Tikal, Copan, and Quirigua, 1984; Maya ruins of Mexico in color: Palenque, Uxmal, Kabah, Sayil, Xlapak, Labná, Chichén Itzá, Cobá, Tulum, 1977; Anasazi ruins of the Southwest in Color, 1991; The Anasazi of Mesa Verde and the Four Corners, 1996; and Mesoamerica's Ancient Cities: Aerial Views of Pre-Columbian Ruins in Mexico, Guatemala, Belize and Honduras, 1990.

The Ferguson/Royce Archive represents a photographic portrayal of many of the major Pre-Columbian sites in Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, and Honduras. Magnificent aerial views, as well as ground photographs, provide glimpses of these ancient cities rarely seen by most visitors, often capturing vistas that preserve specific moments in the history of the discovery and excavation of these sites.

Dr. Julia Guernsey, who teaches Pre-Columbian Mesoamerican Art at UT Austin and is a frequent user of the Ferguson/Royce Archive, attests to the importance of this collaboration. "The Ferguson/Royce archive is a rich resource for students and scholars, as it provides rare views of sites and monuments, many of which would be impossible to duplicate today. Having the resource available online in a digitized form through ARTstor will be invaluable for both research and teaching." Max Marmor, ARTstor's Director of Collection Development, adds: "Our partnership with the Art and Art History Department at The University of Texas at Austin will significantly advance ARTstor's effort to provide a rich body of images of Pre-Columbian art and archaeology, for use by teachers, students and scholars. This is one of several important ARTstor projects involving the rich collections of The University of Texas at Austin.

Thirteen Towers of Chankillo Decoded

Photo: Ivan Ghezzi; National Aerial Service, Peru
Scientists say that this ancient toothed horizon served as part solar observatory at a ceremonial complex, right.

via NYTimes:
Stone Towers Are Decoded as Earliest Solar Observatory in the Americas
By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD
Published: March 6, 2007

Early people in Peru, like others in antiquity, went to great lengths to track the rising and setting of the sun through the seasons as a guide for agriculture, an object of worship and a mystical demonstration of a ruler's power.

Archaeologists have now discovered that a line of elaborate stone towers erected on a low ridge by Peruvians 2,300 years ago formed an artificial toothed horizon with narrow gaps at regular intervals for making alignments almost exactly spanning the annual arc of the sun.

This is the earliest known solar observatory in the Americas. The site precedes by several centuries similar monuments by the Maya in Central America and by almost two millenniums solar observatories of the Inca civilization in Peru.

In a report in the current issue of the journal Science, a Peruvian archaeologist and a British archaeoastronomer wrote that the 13 towers, varying in height from 6 to 20 feet and extending 1,000 feet, are clearly visible from an imposing complex of concentric circles of relatively well-preserved walls enclosing ceremonial buildings. They said the position of the towers in relation to observation points inside the walled complex was firm evidence that this was a place for solar study in calendar-making and ritual ceremonies and feasts of sun cults.

The observatory, known as the Thirteen Towers of Chankillo, is in the Casma-Sechin River Basin of the coastal Peruvian desert, 240 miles north of Lima. Since the 19th century, archaeologists have speculated on the function of the walls and towers, whether the complex was a temple, the setting for ceremonial battles or a fort, the most common explanation.

Ivan Ghezzi, a doctoral student at Yale University who is studying ancient Peruvian warfare, visited Chankillo to investigate its battlements. Part of the complex did appear to be fortifications.

"In the first hours of measurements," Mr. Ghezzi said in a telephone interview from Lima, "we realized the nature and importance of the towers."

Clive Ruggles, an archaeoastronomer at the University of Leicester in England, joined Mr. Ghezzi, who is also director of the National Institute of Culture, in Peru, in the investigation. They concluded that Chankillo provided "evidence of early solar horizon observations and of the existence of sophisticated sun cults," beginning in the fourth century B. C.

Clark Erickson, an Andean archaeologist at the University of Pennsylvania who was not involved in the research, said he was convinced by the new findings. They are important, he said, because they reveal "what was going on in the heads of these people."

Native Peoples

In the latest issue of Native Peoples, vol. XX, no. 2 (March/April 2007): 

Little Windows on the World: Classic Native American Postcards
At the turn of the 20th century, postcards were a huge worldwide fad. Now, these once-transitory cards have become valuable and fascinating collectibles, as we see in this overview of the collection of Erich Erdoes. With cards portraying Ute, Osage, Musquakie, Apache (Geronimo), Kiowa, Maricopa and Hopi people. By Daniel Gibson.

RGL call no. A N2795

Access issues of Native Peoples, 1997 to current, via WATSONLINE.

Obituary: William C. Sturtevant

The field of anthropology lost a leading figure with the passing, on Friday, March 2nd, of William C. Sturtevant, Curator of Ethnology at the National Museum of Natural History of the Smithsonian Institution ...

Jason Baird Jackson writes an obituary of William C. Sturtevant in the blog Museum Anthropology. Of no small interest to this library was his contribution as editor-in-chief of the compendious Handbook of North American Indians:

Published by the Smithsonian, the handbook is a major multi-volume reference work summarizing anthropological, linguistic and historical knowledge about native peoples north of Mexico. Bearing the imprint of its editor, the thoroughness of the handbook has made it the essential resource for those interested in Native American societies. 

Andy Warhol's 15 minutes of repatriation

From salon.com, posted Feb. 22, 2007:

Warhol and the war god
Even in death, the artist was way ahead of his time

by Susan Mulcahy

The return of looted art is a 21st century trend. Works stolen by the Nazis have recently been restored to rightful owners or their heirs, while antiquities of questionable provenance have been sent back to Italy and Greece by the Metropolitan Museum in New York, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and the Getty in Los Angeles. Still unknown is whether collector Shelby White will bow to pressure to repatriate ancient artifacts she owns that Italy says were illegally excavated.

In this, as with so many other trends in art, Andy Warhol, even after his death, was way ahead of the times.

Warhol died 20 years ago, on Feb. 22, 1987. A year later, as a collection of art and other objects owned by Warhol was about to be auctioned by Sotheby's, I received a call from one of my sisters, who had a friend working with the Zuni Indian tribe. E. Richard Hart, then director of the Institute of the North American West, had been helping the Zunis contact Sotheby's and the Warhol estate about an item listed in the auction catalog -- a Zuni war god, appraised at $2,500 to $3,500. Because I had been a friend of Warhol's, I placed a call to the estate as well ...

N.B. Accessing the free salon.com site -- navigating the siren calls to pony up for access or enter contests -- takes courage and some trial-and-error.