Misbehaving at the British Museum

A pair of sniggering schoolboys grope the breasts of a 3,500-year-old bust of an Egyptian queen, while a sarcophagus dating from 1500BC is used as a makeshift rubbish bin and a climbing frame.

It sounds like a scene from Carry On Cleo, but it's just another day at the British Museum.

The boorishness and schoolboy antics frequently witnessed in the museum, have forced curators to put the bulk of their precious Egyptian collection behind glass. Documents reveal that staff fear deteriorating public behaviour is putting exhibits at risk.

The papers also show that curators have pleaded in vain with management to put "Do Not Touch" signs in Gallery 4, which houses much of the Egyptian collection.

In a letter in February, Jeffrey Spencer, the deputy keeper of the collection, sympathises with an outraged member of the public who witnessed 17 inappropriate incidents on a single visit.

This is completely consistent with what I've seen pretty much every time I visit the Egyptian galleries. That curators have been protesting so energetically yet to so little effect is disturbing, to say the least. The Telegraph article also notes that it isn't just the Egyptian collection:

Other papers reveal friction between staff members working in the neo-classical King's Library, at the museum. One female member of staff complained to a warder about people touching sculptures and other treasures but his reaction left her bemused and angry. According to an email she sent to a senior colleague last year, the warder "pretty much told me to bog off as [the visitors] were allowed to touch everything in the King's Library." Her colleague admits to being "a bit worried" by the warder's response.

Companion article with further descriptions of bad behavior here.

Cruise ship of the desert

Swiss researchers have discovered the 100,000-year-old remains of a previously unknown giant camel species in central Syria.

"This is a big discovery, a revolution in science", Professor Jean-Marie Le Tensorer of the University of Basel told Reuters. "It was not known that the dromedary was present in the Middle East more than 10,000 years ago."

"Can you imagine? The camel's shoulders stood three metres (yards) high and it was around four metres tall

From the Scotsman.

Peruvian "cloud warrior" burial cave found

Archaeologists in Peru have discovered an underground burial vault that could unlock the mystery of a pre-Colombian tribe known as the "warriors of the clouds".

The Chachapoyas commanded a vast kingdom stretching across the Andes to the fringe of Peru's northern Amazon jungle until they were conquered by the Incas in the 15th century.

The Incan empire was itself overrun soon after by the Spanish, and details of the Chachapoyas and their way of life were lost or destroyed in the widespread pillaging that followed.

Now a team of archaeologists, working on a tip-off from a local farmer, have uncovered a burial site in a 820ft-deep cave. The researchers have so far found five mummies, two of which are intact with skin and hair, as well as ceramics, textiles and wall paintings . . .

Full article here.

Limbo in limbo?

For centuries many Roman Catholics have believed that the souls of babies who die before baptism remain in limbo.

But the concept has never been part of official Church teaching, and it is thought Pope Benedict may be keen to do away with it.

The Pope has been quoted as dismissing the notion as a mere "hypothesis". . .

The theory of limbo was expounded in the Middle Ages as a solution to the theological question over what happened to the souls of babies who had not been cleansed by baptism of the "original sin" Catholics believe is inherent in all humanity, but were too young to have committed any sins of their own.

Limbo has also been held to be the final destination for people who lived virtuous lives before the time of Christ. It is not certain whether this teaching is likely to be changed.

The matter is under the consideration of the Church's international Theological Commission, whose annual meeting ends on Friday.

From the BBC.

Roman finds in Kent and Somerset

Archaeologists working on the Quantock Hills in Somerset have uncovered evidence of a substantial Roman villa with a mosaic floor in the main room. . .

The dig team said the villa at Yarford is one of the most westerly villas with mosaic floors found in Roman Britain.

From the BBC, as is this:

A digger being used by workmen on a building site in Kent has unearthed 3,600 bronze Roman coins dating from AD330 to AD348.

Archaeologists from Kent County Council (KCC) were called to the site in the Medway Valley after the digger arm overturned a pot containing the coins.

"The workmen saw all these coins come pouring out of the digger bucket," said Maidstone Museum's Laura McLean.

Aztec altar found in Mexico City

Mexican archaeologists have found what may be the most significant Aztec ruin in decades, with the unearthing of an altar and a monolith in the busy heart of Mexico City, Mayor Alejandro Encinas said on Wednesday.

The 15th century altar, part of the Aztec empire's main temple, was uncovered last weekend near the city's main Zocalo square along with the 11-foot (3.5-m) stone slab, most of which is still buried under earth.

Full story here.

8800 BC building with wall paintings found in Syria

Archaeologists said Tuesday that they have discovered an 11-millennium-old building on the banks of the Euphrates River in northern Syria.

"A remarkable discovery has just been uncovered of a large circular building dating back to 8,800 BC near [the locality of] Ja'de," the head of the French archaeological team that made the find said.

The building, much larger than normal houses, "had a collective use, probably for all of the village or a group," Eric Coqueugniot said. "A part of this community building takes the shape of the head of a bull and retains painted decorations, the oldest known in the Middle East," he said.

From Middle East Online.

Old falsies

A 200-year-old pair of French false teeth are going on display for the first time at the British Museum.

The 18th century teeth, which belonged to the Archbishop of Narbonne, who died in 1806, were found in his coffin after an archaeologists' dig in London. . .

The porcelain dentures, which were still sitting in Arthur Richard Dillon's mouth, feature gold springs.

From the BBC, which also notes:

The teeth are being put on display from Friday to coincide with World Smile Day.

Giant Jurassic pliosaur

Remains of an enormous Jurassic Period marine reptile, nicknamed "The Monster," were found 800 miles from the North Pole, along with a treasure trove of other unusual dinosaur-era fossils, according to the University of Oslo Natural History Museum.

With a skeleton length of 33 feet or more, the monster reptile is one of the largest pliosaurs ever discovered. Pliosaurs were marine giants that had short necks, massive heads and numerous banana-sized teeth.

Full story here; more details now at the BBC.

USS Grunion found?

Underwater sonar images of a black shape against a background of grainy monochrome are safely stored on two computer hard drives at Bruce Abele's home in Newton, Mass.

Blurred by odd shadows and striations, the silhouettes are the biggest clues in more than 60 years to the fate of his father's World War II submarine, the USS Grunion, which sank nearly 5,000 miles west of Massachusetts, near the obscure islands at the tip of Alaska's Aleutian chain.

From Discovery News. More on the Grunion, and the search, here.

Ancient nanotechnology? Not!

Another grossly misleading headline: "Ancient Hair Dye Used Nanotechnology", referring to a quite serious article available in full here.

The Discovery News headline is much better: "Ancient Hair Dye Worked at Nano-Level". Excerpt:

The authors of a study in the current issue of the journal Nano Letters not only found that ancient hair dyes actually work, but that they are comparable to products, such as Grecian Formula, available today.

Since nanocrystals form within hair during the blackening, the findings also suggest quantum physicists could use hair, or hair-like fibers, to grow quantum dots — tiny controlled atoms — for use in high-tech lasers, sensors, computers and other devices.

Don't rush out to mix up a batch, though: the key ingredient is lead. This study also raises questions about other historical concoctions' ability to impregnate hair with heavy metals -- which could call into question past studies' use of hair samples as evidence of heavy metal ingestion.

Megananopolygraphy

Thomas Jefferson famously used a device called a polygraph that held multiple pens in parallel, allowing him to make simultaneous multiple copies of letters and other documents. What would he make of this?

Researchers have developed a device that uses 55,000 perfectly aligned, microscopic pens to write patterns with features the size of viruses. . .

The device builds on a technique called dip-pen nanolithography, which was first developed in 1999 . . .

In that system, the tip of a single atomic force microscope (AFM) probe is dipped in selected molecules, much as a quill pen would be dipped in ink. Then the molecules slip from the tip of the probe onto a surface, forming lines or dots less than 100 nanometers wide. Their size is controlled by the speed of the pen.

Found via FuturePundit. Read more about the original polygraph in Thomas Jefferson and His Copying Machines.

Nazi kleptocracy

Throughout history, conquering leaders have been popular. It's not just la gloire, either: conquest is enriching -- at least, as long as it lasts.

In modern times the Nazis top off the list of plunderers, as is detailed in a forthcoming book, Hitler's Beneficiaries: Plunder, Racial War, and the Nazi Welfare State; Tyler Cowen comments:

. . . the Nazi regime lived off the resources it stole from conquered nations, forced labor, Jews, and refugees.

The magnitude of the theft was much larger than I had thought. In the fiscal year 1938-9, "Aryanization" increased government revenue by 9 percent. At its peak, Nazi theft was able to finance 70 percent of war revenues, noting that "war revenues" is a flow but the concept does not measure the real resource costs of fighting the war. . .

The good news, if you could call it that, is simply that the wartime Nazi regime was less stable than believed and it would have encountered very serious economic and military difficulties once the full plunder was extracted from abroad.

Small comfort indeed, but history does suggest that most conqueror nations do not adapt well once the conquests stop and the tribute is all spent.

North Korea's announced nuclear test

Am I the only one thinking this, at least aloud? If Pyongyang announces a bomb test and the thing fizzles, North Korea will be in a world of trouble.

Of course, if no specific date is announced, any such failure wouldn't be quite so dramatic. But if the weeks drag on into months with no blast and no convincing climbdown, things could get very interesting.

Preserving the Valley of the Kings

Even as historians and archeologists bemoan the public's lack of interest, that same public manages to be interested enough that many sites are seriously threatened by the sheer volume of visitors. The Valley of the Kings is a prominent example, and a management plan for its preservation has now been posted at the Theban Mapping Project website -- which also has much else of interest on Thebes and the Valley of the Kings.

Thanks to Nigel Hetherington, the Project's Conservation Manager, for bringing this to our attention.

Ink documentary

A friend recently tipped us off to a documentary to air tomorrow evening on the History Channel, as part of their Modern Marvels series. There is reportedly a section on illuminated manuscripts, and coverage of the analysis of the Archimedes Palimpsest via XRF imaging.

Mobile phone theft countermeasure

A UK firm is hoping a cell phones security system it has developed which sets off a high pitch scream, permanently locks the handset and wipes all data if stolen, will halt the spiraling rise in phone theft.

The Remote XT technology, designed to make phones unusable, and therefore worthless if they are stolen, works by installing software onto the operating system of the phone which is then activated via a call to a call center once users realize their phone has been snatched or lost.

From Reuters, via Boston.com. Clever as this is, at 120 pounds per year I don't know how much demand there will be outside of places where phone theft is a serious problem -- like the UK:

According to the latest UK government statistics, mobile phone theft has risen 190 per cent in recent years, with one third of all UK robberies now solely involving mobile phones.

Insurer Halifax estimates a mobile handset is stolen every 12 seconds in Britain costing UK consumers around 390 million pounds ($735 million) every year.

And where phone theft has become such an industry, those in the industry will quickly learn how to cope -- which apparently would entail nothing more than pulling the battery until the phone can be reflashed with new firmware.

Teaching smoke alarms to speak

"Johnny! Johnny! Wake up! Get out of bed! Leave the room!"

Smoke alarms equipped with this personalized recording of a worried mother's voice were significantly better at waking up children in a deep sleep and enabling them to perform a simulated escape procedure than standard residential tone alarms, a new study found.

"The bad news is that the study confirms early reports that children do not respond adequately to conventional residential smoke alarms," said study author Dr. Gary A. Smith, director of the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Children's Hospital, in Columbus, Ohio.

"The good news is that the study showed children do respond to their parent's voice smoke alarm," he added.

Full article here. I am curious how much a difference it makes whether the voice is a child's own mother; how much less effective would another woman's voice be -- or is it possible that it might be more effective? Sometimes kids heed their teachers more than their parents, so why not try a teacher's voice, too? And, of course, what about the voice of the father?

Cultural suicide at Karlsruhe

This story has remained essentially invisible outside Germany, and I'm not sure why. It's been headline news there: a proposed selloff of 3500 of the 4200 medieval manuscripts -- many of them of the highest importance -- in the Badische Landesbibliothek of Karlsruhe. Worse, the money wouldn't even go to the library, or even to any public entity:

The Counts of Baden are broke and need 70 million euros to fix up their castle (which is the old Cistercian monastery at Salem, which they use as a boarding school [charging fees] and which is open for public tours [for which they charge fees]).

The Badische Landesbiliothek (BLB) manuscript holdings include all of the mss that survived the bombings of WWII, the holdings of the monastery of Reichenau (due to the 1803 secularization of the monasteries, that gave the counts of Baden the buildings at Salem), and several other monastic collections. It also includes the oldest complete ms of the *Nibelungenlied*, known as Manuscript C, a priceless literary treasure. [NOTE: This particular MS does not happen to be in danger; see the comments -- D.]

There seems to be some legal questions as to who owns the mss: the Baden family or the State, which means that the lawyers will make money. . .

Nonetheless, the Baden family is laying claim to *all* of the mss in the BLB. . .

Soooooo, the State of Baden is going to *GIVE* the mss back to the family so they can auction them! Since the mss don't appear on any list of cultural monuments, the State believes that they are of little value, and that no one will care about some moldy old documents.

Much more collected at Archivalia, especially here and here; most entries are in German, but not all. Protest letters in various languages have already been sent; the English version, published in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, is signed by a virtual Who's Who of American manuscript scholars and historians. A petition was also being circulated, to be sent out last Friday; if you want to add your name, instructions are here.

Takahashi Market centennial

Meant to post this beforehand, but the Takahashi Market in San Mateo, California, celebrated its 100th anniversary this past weekend. There aren't a lot of Asian grocery stores in the USA anywhere near this old (speak up if you know any!), and I only wish it weren't on the other side of the country from me. Most of the Asian grocery stores around here are stronger on Chinese and Southeast Asian items than on Japanese, and none of them seem to have the Hawaiian goodies the Takahashi Market stocks.

PS They do ship!

Another contemporary arts center for Paris?

France's richest man has unveiled plans to build a major contemporary arts centre in Paris.

Luxury goods tycoon Bernard Arnault wants to open the Louis Vuitton Foundation for Creation in 2010.

The 6,000 square metre space will be designed by Frank Gehry, the architect behind the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao.

"The goal of this foundation is to spread the influence of culture, and the influence of France," Mr Arnault told a press conference.

From the BBC.

British Museum & eBay accord on antiquities

The British Museum is joining forces with the online auctioneer Ebay to prevent valuable antiquities being sold illegally on the internet.

The London-based museum, one of the world’s pre-eminent cultural institutions, has set up a team to monitor all antiquities sold on Ebay, and to make sure their sellers have a right to trade them.

From the Financial Times (subscription only, alas). The BM has taken an interest in online trading of antiquities for some time; per the abstract of a NY Times article from two years ago:

British Museum's head of treasure Roger Bland, during news conference in London, calls on eBay to agree to halt auctioning of artifacts when British authorities identify them as potential national treasures; tens of thousands of items from Roman Britain to medieval and Elizabethan times are being recovered by Britons scouring country with metal detectors, hundreds of which are auctioned on eBay, perhaps at fraction of their worth, undermining museum's chances of acquiring or cataloging them

ADDENDUM: Clarification here. Note that the plan will cover only eBay UK, and that the governmental partner agency will be the already-existing Portable Antiquities Scheme:

Members of the public who sell archaeological items on the internet auction site eBay.co.uk could soon find themselves on the wrong side of the law after a scheme to stem the flow of internet sales of antiquities was launched by the Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS).

Working in partnership with eBay.co.uk a team from PAS, which is the government funded scheme that records archaeological objects found by the public, will be monitoring sales of antiquities on the auction website to ensure that sellers have the right to trade them . . .

Every year thousands of objects are discovered in England, Wales and Northern Ireland - mostly by metal detector users. PAS, which is managed by the British Museum on behalf of the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council, offers the only proactive method for systematically logging and recording them for the public benefit.

MFA returns antiquities to Italy

After months of negotiations, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, on Thursday formally turned over 13 archaeological treasures to Italy that cultural officials here say were looted from Italian soil.

At a signing ceremony at the Italian Cultural Ministry, Malcolm Rogers, the Boston museum’s director, pledged his institution’s cooperation in halting plunder in archaeological source countries. . .

Although there had been signs in recent weeks that an accord was imminent, the objects involved had not been disclosed. Among them are a majestic statue of Sabina, the wife of the second-century Emperor Hadrian; a marble fragment depicting Hermes from the first century A.D.; and 11 ancient painted vases.

Most of the items passed through some rather familiar hands, including those of Robert Hecht, Giacomo Medici, and Shelby White. This appears to be another case of the Italians offering a bit of a carrot -- as they did with the MMA -- as opposed to the stick they took to the Getty.

Thursday’s accord closely resembles a pact reached last February with the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York providing for the handover of 21 artifacts. As with the Met, the Italian government will lend “significant works” for exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts and collaborate on other projects like archaeological digs.

By all indications, the Italians are still being quite careful not to show how much evidence they actually have. But as noted before, the cascading effect of seizures of business records up and down the illegal antiquities food chain, leading inexorably from one player to another, has demonstrably tipped the balance.

Mr. Rogers said the museum had acquired the works in “good faith.” But he said “the balance of evidence” presented by Italy “favored the return of the objects.” He declined to provide details on the evidence.

From the NY Times.

ADDENDUM: Not really news, but Cleveland is also on the Italians' list. The Cleveland Museum's director is quoted as stating that the Italians have not been in touch; from Boston's example, however, it would seem prudent for Cleveland to take the initiative here.

A family reunion at the V & A

A husband, wife and their children, separated for more than 400 years, have been reunited for a spectacular exhibition on the art and culture of domestic life in Renaissance Italy.

Paulo Veronese, one of 16th century Venice's greatest artists, painted a pair of double portraits of the wealthy da Porte Thiene family, of nearby Vicenza, in 1551. They were to hang in the hallway of their new palazzo, built for them by Andrea Palladio to demonstrate their importance.

From the Telegraph. The V & A's exhibition website is here (the title is "At Home in Renaissance Italy").

Treasures in the barnyard

DILAPIDATED outbuildings in the Welsh countryside may be hiding architectural treasures beneath their faded exteriors, experts have warned. . .

The situation has been highlighted by a series of amazing discoveries, including that made by Anthony and Helen Rose who bought a farm four years ago. They assumed the ramshackle building on one side of the yard was just a run-of-the-mill barn.

But when a local architect looked inside he was astonished to find he was looking at a 15th-century hall house. . .

Architects are convinced there are other historic buildings waiting to be discovered beneath rusting corrugated sheets.

But those important buildings are being neglected by owners who are unaware of their significance, experts fear.

Farming has changed so much in the last 50 years that barns which were carefully maintained for centuries are now surplus to requirements.

Full story here.

ADDENDUM: More on the story, with pictures, at the BBC.

Ian Goodall obit

THE archaeologist Ian Goodall was a pioneering expert on the iron artefacts of the Middle Ages, and a notable scholar of the English country house. . .

Throughout his life he maintained a steady flow of reports on ferrous objects found on excavations throughout Britain. They included contributions to Professor Martin Biddle’s 1990 publication on the finds from medieval Winchester and a long-standing commitment to the excavations at the settlement of Wharram Percy on the Yorkshire Wolds. In 1982 Goodall was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries.

From the Times of London.