Robert-Goldwater-Library

More Recent Returns: Sitting Bull Relics

Ernie LaPointe at Deer Medicine Rocks, Montana  near  where his great grandfather had his vision of soldiers falling upside down into camp  -- photo courtesy Serle Chapman [Link]


via NYTimes:

Smithsonian Returns Sitting Bull Relics
in: Arts, Briefly, 9/18/07
Compiled by LAWRENCE VAN GELDER

A lock of hair and wool leggings belonging to Sitting Bull, leader of the Hunkpapa Lakota Sioux, are to be returned by the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History to his closest living relatives. In an announcement yesterday, the museum said that after Sitting Bull was killed in 1890 while being arrested by tribal police, his body was in temporary possession of Horace Deeble, an Army doctor at the Fort Yates military post in North Dakota, who obtained the hair and leggings from the body and sent them to the museum in 1896. The return of the hair and leggings was requested by Ernie LaPointe, Sitting Bull’s great-grandson and a representative of the four known living great-grandchildren. The museum's Repatriation Office operates under legislation that requires the return of certain remains and objects to lineal descendants and federally recognized Indian tribes.

The Inca: Bridging Gaps

An Inca suspension bridge in 1877 and the George Washington Bridge over the Hudson. Engraving, from “Peru: Incidents of Travel and Exploration in the Land of the Incas” by E. George Squier (Harper and Brothers); Angel Franco/The New York Times

via NYTimes:

How the Inca Leapt Canyons
By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD
Published: May 8, 2007

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Conquistadors from Spain came, they saw and they were astonished. They had never seen anything in Europe like the bridges of Peru. Chroniclers wrote that the Spanish soldiers stood in awe and fear before the spans of braided fiber cables suspended across deep gorges in the Andes, narrow walkways sagging and swaying and looking so frail.

Yet the suspension bridges were familiar and vital links in the vast empire of the Inca, as they had been to Andean cultures for hundreds of years before the arrival of the Spanish in 1532. The people had not developed the stone arch or wheeled vehicles, but they were accomplished in the use of natural fibers for textiles, boats, sling weapons — even keeping inventories by a prewriting system of knots.

So bridges made of fiber ropes, some as thick as a man’s torso, were the technological solution to the problem of road building in rugged terrain. By some estimates, at least 200 such suspension bridges spanned river gorges in the 16th century. One of the last of these, over the Apurimac River, inspired Thornton Wilder’s novel “The Bridge of San Luis Rey.”

Although scholars have studied the Inca road system’s importance in forging and controlling the pre-Columbian empire, John A.Ochsendorf of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology here said, “Historians and archaeologists have neglected the role of bridges.”

Dr. Ochsendorf’s research on Inca suspension bridges, begun while he was an undergraduate at Cornell University, illustrates an engineering university’s approach to archaeology, combining materials science and experimentation with the traditional fieldwork of observing and dating artifacts. Other universities conduct research in archaeological materials, but it has long been a specialty at M.I.T.

Photos: Carl T. Gossett Jr./The New York Times, left; Adriana von Hagen, center; and Robert Spencer for The New York Times

The first steel section, top, being installed on the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge in 1963. The last remaining Inca bridge in Peru, center, was the model for the M.I.T. bridge project. John A. Ochsendorf of M.I.T., above, showing cable made in Peru.

Students here are introduced to the multidisciplinary investigation of ancient technologies as applied in transforming resources into cultural hallmarks from household pottery to grand pyramids. In a course called “materials in human experience,” students are making a 60-foot-long fiber bridge in the Peruvian style. On Saturday, they plan to stretch the bridge across a dry basin between two campus buildings.

In recent years, M.I.T. archaeologists and scientists have joined forces in studies of early Peruvian ceramics, balsa rafts and metal alloys; Egyptian glass and Roman concrete; and also the casting of bronze bells in Mexico. They discovered that Ecuadoreans, traveling by sea, introduced metallurgy to western Mexico. They even found how Mexicans added bits of morning-glory plants, which contain sulfur, in processing natural rubber into bouncing balls.

“Mexicans discovered vulcanization 3,500 years before Goodyear,” said Dorothy Hosler, an M.I.T. professor of archaeology and ancient technology. “The Spanish had never seen anything that bounced like the rubber balls of Mexico.”

Heather Lechtman, an archaeologist of ancient technology who helped develop the M.I.T. program, said that in learning “how objects were made, what they were made of and how they were used, we see people making decisions at various stages, and the choices involve engineering as well as culture.”

From this perspective, she said, the choices are not always based only on what works well, but also are guided by ideological and aesthetic criteria. In the casting of early Mexican bells, attention was given to their ringing tone and their color; an unusually large amount of arsenic was added to copper to make the bronze shine like silver.

“If people use materials in different ways in different societies, that tells you something about those people,” Professor Lechtman said.

In the case of the Peruvian bridges, the builders relied on a technology well suited to the problem and their resources. The Spanish themselves demonstrated how appropriate the Peruvian technique was.

Dr. Ochsendorf, a specialist in early architecture and engineering, said the colonial government tried many times to erect European arch bridges across the canyons, and each attempt ended in fiasco until iron and steel were applied to bridge building. The Peruvians, knowing nothing of the arch or iron metallurgy, instead relied on what they knew best, fibers from cotton, grasses and saplings, and llama and alpaca wool.

The Inca suspension bridges achieved clear spans of at least 150 feet, probably much greater. This was a longer span than any European masonry bridges at the time. The longest Roman bridge in Spain had a maximum span between supports of 95 feet. And none of these European bridges had to stretch across deep canyons. [read on...]

International Symposium: Benin – Kings and Rituals

Benin – Kings and Rituals
Court Arts from Nigeria
International Symposium

May 9th-10th 2007

Organized by the
Museum für Völkerkunde
1010 Wien, Austria
Neue Burg
Vortragssaal/Lecture hall

Information:
Tel.: 0043 1 53430-212/270 or 53430-5002/5003
[email protected]

Conference language is English

The exhibition Benin — Kings and Rituals, Court Arts from Nigeria marks the first time that masterpieces from Benin dispersed in European and American collections since the late nineteenth century are reunited. Over 300 carefully selected objects offer a broad survey of the royal arts and culture of the Kingdom of Benin from its inception in the fourteenth century to its overthrow by British forces in the late nineteenth century. The exhibition further documents the kingdom’s reconstitution during the colonial period and its continuity into the twenty-first century.

On the occasion of the opening of this important Benin-exhibition the Museum für Völkerkunde Wien organizes an international symposium to highlight the latest research results on art and cultural history of the Benin kingdom from a broad perspective. For the symposium the most well-known experts from Nigeria, Europe and the United States are invited to present the latest results of historical, anthropological and iconographic research.

This offers the singular opportunity for the researchers with differing disciplinary backgrounds to exchange and discuss their research results in the context of a scholarly meeting open to the public. Members of the Benin royal family and representatives of the artists' guilds in Benin will contribute with their important inside view.

Program

Wednesday May 9, 2007

Benin Art and its Turbulent History.

From 08:30 on Registration

09:45 Official Welcome and Opening Session

10:00 Barbara Plankensteiner, Curator, Museum für Völkerkunde Wien
Benin Art. The Causes and Routes of its Dispersal Worldwide

10:30 Prince G.I. Akenzua, Benin City
The Loss of the Benin Artworks and their Original Function

11:00 Coffee Break

11:30 Joseph Eboreime, Director General, National Commission for Museums and Monuments of Nigeria
Benin Art in the Future Scheme of Nigerian Museums

12:00 Christian Feest, Director, Museum für Völkerkunde Wien
Observations on the Restitution of Cultural Property in a Global Perspective

12:30 Lunch Break

The State of Research on Benin Art and History

History

14:00 Patrick Darling, Bournemouth University, UK
Re-Writing Benin’s History: The Conflicting Roles of Archaeologists, Historians, Ethnographers and Traditional Politics over time

14:30 Adam Jones, Institut für Afrikanistik, Universität Leipzig
European Sources for Benin and its Art in the 17th and 18th Centuries

15:00 Benson Osarhieme Osadolor, University of Benin, Benin City
Benin History Studies. The State of the Discipline and the Flowering of Local History

15:30 Stefan Eisenhofer, Staatliches Museum für Völkerkunde München
Local Histories in Benin and their Problematic

16:00 Coffee Break

Art

16:30 Kathy Curnow, Philadelphia, USA
Benin Art and its Position and Relations in a larger Regional Perspective

17:00 Barbara Blackmun, Las Mesa College San Diego, California, USA
State of Research on the Interpretation of Benin Iconography

Thursday May 10, 2007

Continuation : The State of Research on Benin Art and History

Memory

08:30 Flora Edouwaye Kaplan, New York University
Photography in Benin. A Source of Memories

09:00 Peju Layiwola, Lagos University
New Forms of Commemoration and Remembrance: Commemorative Textiles in Benin

09:30 Charles Gore, SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies) London
Memory-Making in Art, Ritual and Performance of Benin

10:00 Coffee Break

Collection Histories

10:30 Gisela Völger, Köln
Felix von Luschan and his Relevance for Contemporary Research on Benin

11:00 Silvia Dolz, Museum für Völkerkunde Dresden
History and Relevance of the Fairly Known Dresden Benin Collection

11:30 Kay Heymer, Essen
Benin Art and Modernism

Benin Art today and the Quest for Authenticity

12:00 Daniel Inneh, Benin City
Surviving Guilds in Benin. Their Function in Society and Relation to the Royal Palace

12:30 Chief K. Osarhenhen Inneh, Benin City, Ine of the Bronzecasters Guild
Prospects for the Bronzecasters Guild in Benin

13:00 Lunch Break

14:30 Joseph Nevadomsky, Fullerton University California, USA
Contemporary Brass-Casting Production and Styles in Benin

15:00 Paula Ben-Amos Girshick, Indiana University, USA
Benin Art in the Global Market: Circulating across the African Continent

15:30 Chika Okeke-Agulu, Philadelphia
The Burden of Tradition: Modern Edo Artists and the Legacy of "Benin" Art

16:00 Coffee Break

16:30 Thomas Fillitz, Universität Wien
The Issue of Authenticity in Relation to African Art

17:00 Peter Junge, Ethnologisches Museum Berlin
The Chronology of Benin Art. Limitations of Stylistic and Scientific Methods of Dating

17:30 Break

Benin as Trademark. The Production and Market of Fake Benin Bronzes

18:00 Roundtable Discussion with:
Barbara Blackmun, Alexander von Berswordt-Wallrabe, Joseph Nevadomsky, Peter
Junge, Peter Krejsa
Moderation/Chair: Barbara Plankensteiner

+++

Participation Fee: € 40,-
Reduction (Students, Friends of the Museum): €15,-

Roundtable Discussion: Benin as Trademark: Free Admission
Limited number of participants

Information and Registration:
Tel.: 0043 1 53430-212/270 or 53430-5002/5003
[email protected]

Registration and Payment will be closed by 27th April 2007.

Maya Meetings @ UT Austin

via petiteMort.org:

  Friday March 9th - Wed May 14th:

Maya Meet 2007
The River Cities: Yaxchilan, Piedras Negras, Pomona

University of Texas at Austin
Department of Art and Art History
Austin, TX 78712

Maya Meet at UT in Austin

Times: Check website for details. Friday, Sat, Sun, presentations and forums; Mon, Tues, Wed reserved for specialized Workshops.

Admission: Per event, check website for details. The Mayan Glyphs Workshops run from Monday through Wednesday, are offered per course registration fee.

Every year scholars and students of Meso-American culture meet in Austin to discuss new findings in the field. In addition to the presentations and forums specialized workshops are offered as a crash course to the deciphering Mayan writing. Beginners to advanced classes are available.

The focus of the 2007 Maya Meetings at Texas is the Usumacinta River region (Southern Mexico, Western Guatemala), looking at both ancient sites and contemporary issues.

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."

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.

When Blobgects Are the Object...

reblogged via Material World, February 7, 2007:

Blobgects: an Experiment in the Discursive Museum

"By situating a catalogue, the definitive universal description, into a discursive idiom, the Weblog, we are drawing attention to the fact that this is but one way of narrating these objects. Through the ability of users to tag, comment, and order these accounts in their way, we hope that the provisional and local nature of the catalogue itself will become clear."

The Museum of Archaeology & Anthropology at the University of Cambridge has a new weblog: http://museum.archanth.cam.ac.uk/blobgects/

I grant you that this is not particularly earthshaking, but this Blog is a little different. It is only a little different, and that is the point. Though it is a weblog, the entries are not curatorial statements, nor academic discourses, nor even the contributions from the public -- they are objects. Or, rather, they are the catalogue entries and, eventually, the images of objects.

The goal of Blobgects is simple, What might happen if rather than just being able to search a museum's on-line catalogue, and being forced into the idiom of the catalogue, users could engage with the catalogue as they would a Blog? Engagement that would include all the features of a Blog: commenting, tagging, RSS feeds of individual records or searches, etc. In other words, what might happen if we extended the principles of Social Computing, in one small way, into the privileged world of the museum catalogue? Hence, Blobgects.

I imagine that I do not have to state on this forum that knowledge is embodied, it is situated and requires sets of social relations between people. However, I feel that I do have to state, or restate, that knowledge also requires things. Just like people, things are not outside of knowledge but are part of its embodiment. It is true that you cannot have knowledge with just things, things are not knowledge, but knowledge is not simply conceptual -- I would argue that it is not conceptual at all, but that is another matter. Objects, even digital objects, embody surrogate practices, surrogate social practices. They do this so they can be knowledge objects, or, more accurately, can participate in situated knowledge production and reproduction.

So why Blobgects? [read full article]

Recovered: 650 ancient artefacts smuggled from Mali

Some of the artefacts confiscated may be up to one million years old


via BBC News [thanks Nicole!]:

Mali relics recovered in France
French customs officials say they have seized more than 650 ancient artefacts smuggled from Mali in one of the largest such finds at a Paris airport.

Described as an "archaeological treasure", the objects were thought to be on their way to private US buyers.

Experts say most of the items are from the Neolithic period, but some may be up to one million years old.

The artefacts are thought to have been taken from archaeological sites on the edge of the Sahara desert.

The 669 items - 601 stones and 68 bracelets - were confiscated on 19 January at Charles de Gaulle airport and included axe heads, flintstones and stone rings.

Most of the artefacts date from a few thousand years BC. But others are from the Acheulean period, between one million years and 200,000 years old, and from the Middle Stone Age (200,000 years BC to 20,000 years BC).

The artefacts were shipped in nine parcels from the Malian capital, Bamako, which the accompanying paperwork described as handcrafted objects.

Customs officials look out for artefacts being exported from specific countries such as Mali which may be smuggled, a customs spokeswoman told the BBC News website.

If they have a doubt, they then seize the objects and have them assessed by experts to establish their age - in this case an expert from the Department of Prehistory at the Natural History Museum in Paris, she said.

Growing traffic
This type of traffic was unheard of a few years ago, an airport customs official told the AFP news agency.

"Since 2004 we have observed regular traffic in this kind of contraband. There is a big market and we are pretty sure that these items, which had been neatly sorted and were of very high quality, had been pre-sold," Eric Cailheton said.

French customs officials made two similarly large finds of archaeological items from Niger in March 2004 and December 2005.

The 2005 haul included more than 5,000 stone arrowheads and 90 carved stone artefacts, dating back 5,000 years.

The items were found in the baggage of a passenger who arrived on a flight from Niger's capital, Niamey.