Japanese swordsmith

Yoshindo Yoshihara is not looking forward to his trip to the United States this month. Ever since Sept. 11, Yoshihara, a master swordsmith, has had difficulty checking his baggage through U.S. airports. For security reasons, United Airlines has insisted that his chest of four swords, each one worth about 3.5 million yen [$29,600], remain unlocked. "I am afraid they will be stolen in transit," says Yoshihara, "but I obviously cannot take them on board." Sixty-year-old Yoshihara is reluctant to switch airlines because he has accumulated too many rewards with his frequent-flier program.

Read the full article in the Japan Times.

New York Times bias

Tom Gross has written a long and thorough dissection of how the Paper of Record spins the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This is no trivial matter, as the NY Times is no ordinary newspaper:

The Times's distorted presentation of events is especially troubling given the very high respect in which the paper is generally held by its readership, policymakers, and other members of the media. The Times's framing of the conflict has for years contributed to bad diplomacy at the State Department and elsewhere, and has fueled negative images of Israel among the public at large. As I know from personal experience working as a correspondent in the Middle East for both American and European papers, foreign news editors throughout the world often look to the Times for story ideas. Every evening, editors across America check the next day's front-page stories on the New York Times before altering their lineups. . .

Today the New York Times is held in as high regard as ever. (Last year it won a record seven Pulitzer Prizes.) But it isn't doing a very good job when it comes to the Middle East. The distortions of the media are depressing not only because they are untrue, but because they set back the day when there might be peace and coexistence between Israeli and Palestinian.

Liberals like myself want to see two democratic states coexisting in peace. But we have also followed the conflict closely enough to know that the Western media's misreporting has contributed to the failed policies of both American and European diplomats.

Preindustrial photography

Mirabilis has just pointed out a site that asks, "Why Didn't the Romans Invent Photography?" The site demonstrates how one can make photos using geranium leaves, alcohol, and tincture of iodine.

As far as I know, there is no evidence for premodern photography, but it is interesting that it was possible. Even simpler would have been construction of a basic sound recording device, however. Edison's recorder used a waxed cylinder and a stylus hooked up to a speaking trumpet -- a setup that could have been copied by skilled artisans almost anywhere in the ancient world.

Miracle of talking carp

Somehow I hadn't heard of this until picking up today's NY Times:

Whatever one calls it, the tale of the talking fish has spread in recent weeks throughout this tight-knit Rockland County community, populated by about 7,000 members of the Skver sect of Hasidim, and throughout the Hasidic world, inspiring heated debate, Talmudic discussions and derisive jokes.

The story goes that a 20-pound carp about to be slaughtered and made into gefilte fish for Sabbath dinner began speaking in Hebrew, shouting apocalyptic warnings and claiming to be the troubled soul of a revered community elder who recently died.

Many people here believe that it was God revealing himself that day to two fish cutters in the fish market, Zalmen Rosen, a 57-year-old Hasid with 11 children, and his co-worker Luis Nivelo, a 30-year-old Ecuadorean immigrant. . .

Whether hoax or historic event, it jibes with the belief of some Hasidic sects that righteous people can be reincarnated as fish. . .

Zev Brenner, who last week broadcast a show about the fish on "Talk Line," his talk radio show on Jewish issues. . . said the story is so well known that it has inspired a whole new genre of wedding jokes for Jewish comedians. "The station had an advertiser, a gefilte fish manufacturer, who considered changing his slogan to `Our fish speaks for itself,' but decided people would be offended," he said.

Baseball in ancient Egypt

Thutmose [III] ruled Egypt during the 15th century B.C., and is the first known pharaoh to have depicted himself in a ritual known as "seker-hemat," which Peter A. Piccione has loosely translated as "batting the ball." "The word they use is `sequer,' which literally means `to strike' or `to hit,' " said Mr. Piccione, 51, an Egyptologist and professor of comparative ancient history at the College of Charleston in South Carolina, "but in the context, he's there with the bat. I translated it as `batting the ball.' "

Read more in today's NY Times.

2 km Inca tunnel discovered

Haven't seen anything yet in English, but La Repubblica reports that a Spanish archeologist working in Cuzco has found an underground tunnel over 2 km long, that connects the temple of Koricancha with the fortress of Sacsahuaman. The tunnel is part of a complex of passages linking the Inca capital's principal public buildings, passages that have now been mapped using advanced techniques such as ground-penetrating radar. The alignment of the tunnel suggests that the placement of the buildings was determined astronomically.

Maastricht Art Fair time

I don't think I'll be able to attend this year, but there is a good discussion of the Maastricht fair and the state of the high-end art and antiques trade in the Spectator.

Make your own Gothic cathedral

Just ran across this nifty site devoted to a stonecarver's appreciation of Gothic architecture.

Saxon Norwich uncovered

Archaeologists working at Norwich's newest development have discovered some unexpected secrets about the city's past. The team have discovered signs of a Saxon settlement - the first in Norwich.

A former Nestlé chocolate factory inside the old city walls is being demolished to make way for shops, flats, cafés and bars. The archaeologists are working alongside demolition crews to reveal fascinating insights about Norwich's past.

David Whitemore, of Norfolk Archaeological Unit, said the team's finds were very exciting. "Up until now no-one has known where the early Saxon settlement of Norwich was located. We have found evidence now of three cellars from early Saxon buildings all of which we have dated from pottery which will potentially throw new light on the geography and topography of Norwich". . .

For the archaeologists it is a race against time - soon the land will be under tonnes of concrete, and the undiscovered secrets it holds about Norwich's history will disappear.

From the BBC.

Oldest sword

What is being described as the oldest sword known, dating back 5000 years, will be the subject of a presentation at the fourth Incontro nazionale di Archeologia Viva "La voce del passato, un messaggio per il futuro", at the Palacongressi in Florence on March 16. The sword was found at Arslantepe in Anatolia by an Italian team led by Marcella Frangipane. Their excavations have uncovered a group of nine swords, eleven spearheads, and a copper-arsenic plaque, all found in a large "palace" of c. 3350-3000 BC which appears to be a complex of regional administrative buildings. The swords were each cast in a single piece and then beautifully engraved; they are older than other arms of this type by a full millennium. Arslantepe is also being described as the location of the oldest known governmental building, in which were found over 2000 clay seals used to record transactions in a "bureaucracy without writing". From La Repubblica (in Italian).

UPDATE: It took a week and a half, but there's now a writeup in English at Discovery News, with photos.

Arnolfo's St. Peter vandalized

A hand clutching the symbolic keys to heaven was cut from a 13th-century marble statue of St. Peter, which stands at the entrance to the grottoes under St. Peter's Basilica where the saint was buried.

Officials said Thursday the hand vanished a few days ago. They said they first suspected vandals but now believe the hand was stolen. Italian and Vatican police were investigating.

The statue is believed to have been sculpted by Arnolfo di Cambio, who also did the bronze statue of St. Peter's upstairs in the basilica in the Vatican.

From the Guardian; more at La Repubblica.

Tyneside goes Latin

From the BBC:

Travellers on Tyneside's metro system are being given impromptu language lessons every time they step on a train. All the signs at Wallsend metro station - from 'mind the gap' to 'no smoking' have been translated into Latin - the language of the Romans who once lived in the area. A map of nearby Hadrian's Wall, based on the tube system, has also been produced.

The project, by artist Michael Pinsky, is part of the Newcastle Gateshead bid for European Capital of Culture status in 2008. . .

There were also hopes that the scheme - and the City of Culture bid in general - would help boost the region's fortunes.

One resident said he was happy: "As long as it brings tourists and trade into the town." But he we also less optimistic about his chances of mastering Latin. He said: "It's very poor, my Latin - it's alright when I've sat here and had a few beers."

I might well say the same.

Chryselephantine Apollo by Phidias found?

If this is what it purports to be, it must be one of the most important finds of all time:

The sensual lips, distinguished nose and strong chin of this ancient ivory god’s head, found in a London storeroom, could hold a secret to set the art world alight. It may have been carved by the greatest artist of antiquity, the genius who created the Parthenon, the immortal sculptor Phidias.

Historians believed that all 74 of the rare ivory and gold statues belonging to the Roman Empire vanished when Rome was sacked by Alaric, chief of the barbarian Visigoths, in AD 410. But this 22cm-high mask was dug up eight years ago by an Italian treasure hunter near a villa belonging to the family of the 1st-century Emperor, Claudius. It was smuggled out of the country and sold to a Munich-based dealer before coming into the possession of a British expert, Robin Symes, who stored it in a vault south of the Thames.

The head, believed to be the Greek sun god Apollo, was secretly handed over to the Italians in London last month after Mr Symes realised that it had been removed without permission. . .

As well as Apollo’s face, fragments of statue were also recovered: fingers, toes, an ear, some curls of hair. In antiquity it was the practice for exceptionally important statues to have ivory heads, hands and feet, with bodies of stone or wood covered in gold sheets.

The official unveiling is set for next week. Read the full article in the Times of London.

Look what we found at the flea market!

Workers renovating Jaffa's flea market just south of Tel Aviv yesterday discovered a 2 meter (6.5 feet) long, 30 centimeter (1 foot) wide cannon believed to have been used by Napoleon when he blasted Jaffa's city walls on March 7, 1799.

"This cannon is one of the largest found in Jaffa and maybe in all of Israel," said Amit Re'em, field manager of the excavation. "We know from history that Napoleon used a few really large cannons."

From Israel Insider.

Beware of Gehry

The NY Times reports on one of Frank Gehry's recent triumphs:

The shiny, swirling $62 million building that houses the business school at Case Western Reserve University here is a marvel to behold. But it is sometimes best admired from afar.

In its first winter, snow and ice have been sliding off the long, sloping stainless-steel roof, bombarding the sidewalk below. And in bright sun, the glint off the steel tiles is so powerful that standing next to the building is like lying on a beach with a tanning mirror.

Pulsar watch inventor obit

From the NY Times a few days back:

Peter Dimitroff Petroff, a NASA engineer and later an inventor whose enterprises developed heart-monitoring equipment and originated the digital wristwatch 30 years ago, died Feb. 27 at his home in Huntsville, Ala. He was 83. . .

He went into business on his own in 1968, founding Care Electrics, a high-technology company that developed a wireless heart monitor for hospital use. The venture evolved into Electro/Data, which created the prototype of the digital watch.

Marketed by the Hamilton Watch Company as the Pulsar, the odd-looking device sold for $2,100 in 1971.

Of course, there had been mechanical digital watches long before, but the Pulsar was electronic with a red LED readout.

British Air blows it

From the Evening Standard:

Like any two-year-old Marcello Ferrand is prone to the occasional tantrum. So when an aircraft crew tried to make him wear a seatbelt he panicked and sat under the seat - the kind of scene any parent will recognise.

However, for the staff of a British Airways flight from Milan to Heathrow it demanded immediate action - which resulted in the police being called and Marcello, along with his grandparents, being hauled off the plane.

The airline's ground staff then refused to let the elderly couple and Marcello, who lives in Kensal Rise, travel on a later flight. They then had to pay £300 for tickets with Alitalia to get home.

In this case the British press has come in on the side of the passengers, but it isn't always so. Some years back a fellow I know was publicly branded as a dangerous maniac after an incident on a BA flight that could have come right out of Collodi. The protagonist -- let's call him Alberto -- was a mild-mannered Italian antique dealer returning from the USA to London, where he then lived. During the flight, his seat was repeatedly kicked by the passenger sitting behind him. Alberto got up and asked him to stop, whereupon the other passenger became confrontational and drew a knife. Alberto recoiled, raising his arms, and backed right into a stewardess who was coming to see what the fuss is about. The stewardess cried bloody murder as she collided with Alberto; the knife man, thinking quickly, dropped his weapon and shouted, "he's got a knife!" Dogpile on poor Alberto, who was then trussed up, and on arrival, marched off by the police. Sorry to say, this story has no happy ending. Alberto ended up leaving England, a branded innocent.

ADDENDUM: And now another airline horror story, as a Northwest flight attendant is charged with attempting to drug a noisy infant.

Memorable pan

Thanks to a piece in Sunday's NY Times on savage reviews of recent movies, I ran across this zinger from the Portland Tribune (target: Gods and Generals):

This isn’t “Lord of the Rings” long, where you marvel at how quickly the hours fly by. This is waiting-at-the-DMV long, the sort of long that has you shifting in your seat like a restless 5-year-old, checking your watch furtively as 216 golden minutes of your life are slowly, painfully strangled.

Oldest footprints

The oldest human footprints have been found in volcanic ash in Italy. They were made by individuals scrambling down the flanks of an active volcano about 350,000 years ago.

Italian scientists, who identified three separate fossilised trackways, say the people that made them walked on two feet using their hands only to steady themselves on a difficult descent.

"They're the oldest footprints to be found of the genus Homo, the group that we belong to," the researchers told the BBC. Commentators say the prints were probably made by Homo heidelbergensis, a forerunner of Neanderthals, that dominated Europe at this time.

Paolo Mietto and colleagues from the University of Padua studied the trackways, known to locals as "devil's trails", and say they are particularly detailed.

The prints were found in the western margin of the Roccamonfina volcanic complex in southern Italy, in a pyroclastic flow dated between 385,000 and 325,000 years ago.

From the BBC.

Guards' bearskins endangered?

So much for British tradition:

For two centuries the Sovereign's Foot Guards have been distinguished by the foot-high bearskins that top their scarlet ceremonial uniforms. But now, to appease animal rights campaigners, defence officials are seeking an alternative to the traditional headgear, which dates back to the Battle of Waterloo.

Complaints to the Queen that her soldiers should switch to faux fur have resulted in a search for a synthetic bearskin - so far without success.

The bearskin, first worn by the Foot Guards in recognition of their 1815 defeat of the French Imperial Guard (who also wore bearskins), is made from the skins of Ursus Americanus, Canada's Black Bear. Currently around 2,500 are in service with the Grenadier, Welsh, Irish, Scots and Coldstream Guards regiments.

But letters to the Queen, imploring her to stop using real bearskin, have led to a rethink. "We have tried artificial fibres to try and get away from using bearskins," said Lt Col Peter Dick-Peter.

"But nothing works. It either doesn't hold its shape, or it cannot withstand the weather, or it fails to retain the right colour, or it stands up in a very surprised manner in the wrong electrical conditions". . .

He stressed that the bearskins were from culled bears. "Because the black bear is running a bit rife in Canada they have to cull them to keep the numbers down because they get too dangerous. We buy the culled pelts and use them for the caps. The industry is aware we are looking at alternatives to bearskin. There is no real reason why we shouldn't transfer to something which looked the same, did the same job, but wasn't made of bearskin."

The female bear's glossier, smoother pelt usually provides the officers' bearskin, while the male's rougher pelt is used for other ranks. Hollow, and therefore surprisingly light, each bearskin is moulded on a bamboo frame. Each cap is individual, and so durable that many are passed from father to son. In general the bearskin "should look like an apple in front, and a pear from the back".

From the Telegraph.

Russia's wartime art loot

From today's New York Times:

For more than 50 years the Soviet Union hid them in museum basements and secret repositories, one reportedly in a monastery wall. Now, reflecting increased glasnost, Russia's Ministry of Culture is posting images and descriptions of them on a new Web site.

They are thousands of paintings, archives and rare books looted by Soviet forces in Germany and Eastern Europe during and after World War II and taken to Russia as so-called trophy art. (Now the preferred term in Russia is "displaced cultural treasures.") Hitler's forces had previously pillaged many of the works from Jewish owners and other Nazi victims.

The site is also being used to search for what the ministry estimates as two million works of art that disappeared from Russian museums during the Nazi occupation. An unknown number were destroyed in the war, but some have turned up in Russian antiques shops or at auctions abroad; a few have been returned by Germany.

But the site, which has two Web addresses, www.lostart.ru and www.restitution.ru, has problems: it operates only in Russian and has no system for searching for a specific artist or title; someone investigating the site must usually read each museum's entire list.

As of this month, the site has 10,000 items, said Aleksandr V. Kibovsky, the culture ministry official in charge. "The plan is to have 500,000 by 2005," he added. Mr. Kibovsky said claimants would have 18 months from the time an item was posted to file a formal petition for restitution through their governments. Unclaimed items would then be declared Russian property.

Asked about the prospects for an English translation of the material on the site, he said that the culture ministry was always short of funds and that the priority was to make all the information public. He noted that the site provided color photographs and dimensions of paintings and rendered the titles of foreign books (but not artworks) in their original languages, approaches that could alleviate some of the difficulties.

The site includes lists from 19 museums, libraries and archives in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Nizhny Novgorod and several other cities. Most institutional links on the site are still empty. But the lists do include seven 17th-century German book collections now at the State Public Historical Library in Moscow, an extensive archive from the German colony in Bessarabia at the State Historical Museum, and several hundred paintings now in the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow.

Vatican car park construction reveals Neronian necropolis

Tombs from the time of the Roman emperor Nero have been unearthed as the Vatican tried to clear space for a multi-level underground car park. Digging for the 300-space car park began several months ago, but Vatican officials are now rethinking the project after the remains of the nearly 2,000-year-old necropolis were unearthed. Among the graves is the tombstone of Nero's secretary, along with well-preserved urns and amphorae.

Officials denied that the plans for the car park would threaten the discovery.

"Of course, no one will destroy any archaeological finds," said Monsignor Francesco Marchisano, the head of the Pontifical Commission for Sacred Archaeology.

Other Vatican officials, desperate to "decongest" the Vatican, told the newspaper la Repubblica that ancient ruins were uncovered every time digging began in Italy. In this case they "did not seem that important", they said, and should not prevent the car park from being built. . .

Before the 2000 Jubilee, the Pope blessed a 900-space car-and-coach park on the Janiculum Hill, next to the Vatican. Before it could be completed, the frescoed walls of a second-century villa had had to be removed by the Italian culture ministry.

Archaeological experts from the Vatican Museum were called in to advise on the new car park in late February, reportedly when security guards stopped a lorry leaving the building site loaded with amphorae and tombstones from the necropolis, inscribed in Latin.

From the Guardian.

The Vatican has not always had an admirable record when it comes to preservation of ancient sites, especially when non-Christian.

Ethiopians press for return of British plunder

The Ethiopian Orthodox Church in London is stepping up its campaign for the Queen and the British Museum to return sacred treasures plundered in the 19th century.

Carvings, manuscripts and jewels are among hundreds of objects looted by British troops who invaded Ethiopia in 1868 to free British subjects held by Emperor Tewodros.

Fifteen elephants and 200 mules carried away treasures which are divided between the Royal Library at Windsor Castle, the British Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum and the British Library.

Gebre Giorgis, a priest at the Ethiopian Orthodox Church in Battersea, South London, criticised the British Museum for holding on to ten “tabots” — small wooden and stone tablets that symbolise the Ark of the Covenant — even though they are too sacred to display or photograph.

From the Times.

UK's longest-lived light bulb?

“Old Faithful”, a Swan Edison bulb which illuminates the first-floor landing of Mo Richardson’s home in Cowes, Isle of Wight. . . is still glowing strong after 65 years. The bulb, made of hand-drawn glass with a carbon filament, was bought in Redhill, Surrey, in 1938 — since when it could have been switched on for up to 569,400 hours.

From the Times, via Ananova.

Political correctness Down Under

A children's book about a teddy bear who climbs Uluru has angered Aborigines. Aborigines living around the base of Uluru, formerly Ayers Rock, say it is deeply insulting to their traditions. They want it to be withdrawn from sale or rewritten, omitting any reference to climbing the rock, reports the South China Morning Post.

Authors Alan and Patricia Campbell argue they wrote Bromley Climbs Uluru in 1986, long before the introduction of legislation aimed at preventing the exploitation of the rock.

The book, one of a series of seven featuring Bromley the bear, has sold more than 40,000 copies. Mr Campbell wants to have it reprinted, but faces a fine of up to £20,000.

From Ananova.

"French" toast

OK, many of you may have wondered how eggy bread ended up being called "French toast" here in America. Geitner Simmons has at least some answers, including this link to a food history site.

Blackbeard's ship

Here is an article on the progress of conservation work on artifacts from the Queen Anne's Revenge, including a recalcitrant (and still loaded) cannon.

Bendo madness

I don't know exactly how this happened, but our house has suddenly been overrun by Bendos in an invasion led by dinosaurs. In case you haven't been hanging around the toy stores lately, Bendos are bendable rubbery plastic figures with an internal wire armature, with a distinctively skinny physiognomy and invariably cheery countenance. Latest arrival has been the apatasaurus. . .

BBC besieges Norman castle

The BBC has been pursuing the owner of a ruined 11th century Norman castle because it does not have a television licence.

Mileham in Norfolk is a motte and bailey castle that has not been occupied since 1250 and is now no more than a grassy mound topped by the crumbling masonry remains of the keep. It is a popular nesting place for birds and in the summer the castle's owner, Richard Butler-Stoney, allows cattle to graze amid the ruins. But enforcement officers from the BBC's TV Licensing believe that somewhere amid the rubble is an unlicensed television set.

Mr Butler-Stoney says he has now received his second reminder through the post pointing out that the castle has not got a licence.

The article in the Telegraph goes on to point out other problems with the BBC's attempts to collect their £112 annual pound of flesh.

It's Dino Week!

. . . over at National Geographic News, starting with today's feature on dinosaur tracks.

Iron Age finds in Scotland

Builders who were on the brink of using a JCB digger to lay the foundations of a new housing estate have unearthed what may be the richest archaeological find in Scotland. It includes the well-preserved skeleton, sword and valuable adornments of an Iron Age warrior buried with full honours.

Experts who announced the discovery of the site at Alloa, Clackmannanshire last night described the grave as one of the most "valuable and exciting" to have been found on these shores.

It is believed that only around 100 such ceremonial Iron Age burials took place in Scotland over 1000 years and, of those, only four had weapons lying alongside the skeleton. Ancient communities disposed of their dead in different ways and the majority of corpses in Iron Age Scotland were put in rivers, left on exposed platforms, or put up trees.

Building work was first halted last Tuesday when workmen uncovered a Bronze Age grave containing the skeleton of a woman along with an ornate food vessel and copper alloy items dating back to between 2500 and 1500BC. However, two days later, the digger uncovered the more important grave.

The Iron Age warrior whose head had been placed on a stone pillow is likely to have been a chief ruling the surrounding kingdom, and appeared to have been aged between 25 and 35 when he died around 200BC to 200AD.

His sword had been placed in his hand and surrounding him were valuable toe rings, an ornate copper pin and glass beads. The artefacts indicate that he was a high-ranking powerful individual who would have been able to display great wealth.

From the Glasgow Herald.

General Meade's horse head

Old Baldy, the trusted mount of Civil War General George Meade, is involved in a court battle to determine who owns his remains.

The battle for Old Baldy - or rather his stuffed and mounted head - is being waged between rival museums in the eastern city of Philadelphia.

The Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) Museum says it is the rightful owner of Old Baldy, despite lending him to the Civil War Library and Museum 25 years ago.

However the larger Civil War Library argues that Old Baldy has been in its possession for so long he belongs there, and that the other institution is unable to prove ownership anyway.

Read the whole story here.

Masterly restoration at Opificio delle Pietre Dure

Like puzzles? The restorers at Florence's Opificio delle Pietre Dure had their work cut out for them putting together the Sfera d'oro dell'Olivella, a masterpiece of 17th-century Sicilian goldsmithery, broken into some 300 pieces after a theft in 1870. It's on display from March 19th through April 2. Read all about it in italiano at La Repubblica.

UPDATE: There's more here, with pictures.

Paris museums evacuate flood-prone storage

From the Art Newspaper:

Paris’s museums situated along the Seine have been ordered by French Culture Minister, Jean-Jacques Aillagon, to empty their stores to a site in the north of the city because of the threat of flooding. The evacuation, estimated at €5.4 million, will put many museums out of action for a long time. Mr Aillagon described the move as “the most important movement of works of art since 1940”.

Recent disasters in Dresden and Prague, and high waters in southern France, have prompted new studies carried out by the government which show that flooding is possible despite flood barriers built in the 1980s. The situation is critical because of three consecutive years of heavy winter rains which have saturated the subsoil around Paris.

“The threat is real,” said Mr Aillagon last month. “We have to take it seriously and implement a plan to safeguard the national collections as quickly as possible.” On 13 February he outlined details of evacuation plans for institutions at risk which involve transporting an estimated 100,000 vulnerable works of art to a warehouse in north-east Paris, the exact location of which is being kept classified for security reasons, and 72-hour evacuation drills for all works of art remaining on low ground.

The measures spell the end of easy access to stored collections for scholars and curators. This exodus will involve 600 trips by unmarked trucks and is estimated to take until 7 April to complete.

The solution is only temporary,” said Mr Aillagon, who hopes that the situation will only last four years, “but it is impossible to fix a date when the collections will return to their museums”. . .

The current urgency is particularly unfortunate given that huge underground galleries and stores were built under the Louvre as recently as the 1980s as part of I.M. Pei’s Grand Louvre project. At the time no one was worried about floods.

Architect Michel Macary told French newspaper Le Monde that the Grand Louvre project, on which he worked, was carried out “on the basis of flooding estimates much lower than the great flood of 1910. We estimated that the works being carried out upstream were sufficient to prevent any major threat”

The same was said by Jean-Paul Phillipon, one of the architects of the Musée d’Orsay, inaugurated in 1986: “We calculated that the water could rise to 33 metres, just to the top of the river banks, but nobody expected levels like the 1910 flood, 33.62 metres”.

To think that institutions devoted to preserving objects for the ages could be so shortsighted. . . .

Argentina, Nazi haven

From today's New York Times:

Under fire because of a new book that documents for the first time how Juan Perón clandestinely maneuvered to bring Nazi and other war criminals to Argentina after World War II, the Peronist government here is resisting calls to release long-secret official records about the collaboration.

According to the Simon Wiesenthal Center here, both the Foreign Relations Ministry and the Interior Ministries have failed to respond to letters, sent to them shortly after the book was published here late last year, asking that the records be made public. In addition, seven members of Congress have now called for an investigation into how crucial immigration records were apparently destroyed six years ago in defiance of existing laws.

The book that ignited the controversy, published in the United States as The Real Odessa: Smuggling the Nazis to Perón's Argentina (Granta Books: 2002), has become a best seller here. Its author, Uki Goñi, is an Argentine journalist who had to do much of his research in European archives after encountering closed doors here. . .

According to records Mr. Goñi has uncovered here and abroad, Perón's government, which was in power from 1946 to 1955, shepherded nearly 300 war criminals into the country.

Besides such notorious figures as Adolf Eichmann, Josef Mengele and Klaus Barbie, dozens of French, Belgian, Italian, Croatian and Slovak fascists, many of them Nazi collaborators sought in their home nations, were also admitted, some under aliases, others under their real names. . .

During his research in Europe, Mr. Goñi also discovered a confidential Foreign Ministry circular from 1938 whose effect was to close Argentina to Jewish refugees seeking to flee Germany. . .

According to the documents Mr. Goñi uncovered, the Roman Catholic Church was also deeply involved in the secret network. The Perón government authorized the arrival of the first Nazi collaborators here, he said, as a result of a meeting in March 1946 between Antonio Caggiano, an Argentine cardinal, and Eugene Tisserant, a French cardinal attached to the Vatican.

Pope declares Scotland un-Christian

The Pope has declared that Scotland is no longer a Christian country and is in effect a spiritual wasteland.

The pontiff’s bleak assessment of Scotland as a benighted land whose people are largely unacquainted with God came in a key address to Scottish Catholic bishops visiting Rome last week. It is likely to upset many, including Jack McConnell, Scotland’s first minister, who last week insisted that life north of the border was not without Christian elements.

From today's Times; a shorter summary in the Glasgow Herald.

Last reunion for British WW1 vets

From today's Times of London:

Almost 85 years after the guns of the western front fell silent, British veterans who fought in the first world war are to gather in London next month for their last big reunion.

Aged between 102 and 108, up to 15 veterans who fought in bloody battles at Mons, Loos, the Somme and Ypres and those who served at sea will make the journey from across Britain to the Public Record Office in Kew.

Veterans hoping to attend include Albert Marshall, 105, the last survivor who fought on horseback with the British cavalry, Conrad Leonard, 102, the only commissioned officer now alive, and Jack Davis, who at 108 is thought to be Britain’s oldest man.

Davis fought at Ypres, in which more than 250,000 allied troops were killed during three battles around the small Belgian town. “It is a truly wonderful thing to be able to have the opportunity to share all those memories again and feel that you are still part of a team,” said Davis from his home in Buckinghamshire last week.

Such reunions are rare. There are thought to be only 37 British veterans alive today, and their numbers are dwindling rapidly. Most are wheelchair-bound and either live in nursing homes or with 24-hour care in their own homes. This year alone seven have died.

Last month the World War One Veterans Association sent letters to the surviving veterans saying: “We are about to ask you to fix bayonets and mount another attack . . . for the last big push. This is to be the final coming together of veterans of the first world war”. . .

The majority of the surviving veterans fought in rat-infested muddy trenches of the western front in France and Belgium, or served on the home front in London. Five served with the Royal Navy and a sole survivor remains who flew biplanes in the Royal Flying Corps.

Albert Marshall will travel from his home in Surrey. As a 17-year-old, he enlisted with the Essex Yeomanry in 1914 before fighting on horseback with the 19th Hussars in the battle of Loos in autumn 1915, when the British suffered more than 50,000 casualties.