antiminke's museums/archaeology archives

Improving Aphrodite - grotesque reproductions

From the interweb: Improving Aphrodite

See this? It's not just the supermodels on the cover of Cosmo, it's not just Oprah, it's not just Kira Knightly or whatever her name is, being stretched and elongated on her movie posters. Oh, no! Even Botticelli's Venus and the Thorvaldsen Aphrodite are "too fat" and not bobble-headed enough to sell in today's market. They've been Slim-fasted and Photoshopped (or had ribs removed) because in someone's opinion, even neo-classic art lovers who would be looking to decorate their homes with reproductions of their favorite pieces would not want to look at such chubby women as artists like Botticelli chose, as models.

Can you BELIEVE this? The catalog is full of these, the "Three Graces", Rodin's women, and a poor "Hebe, Cupbearer of the Gods" who looks like she's been given silicon breast implants.

This is hilarious: it's revisionist art history, as done by the Photoshop-happy editors of Vogue.

Now go read the original so you can see the pictures, they're really, really disturbing.

Boris hypocrisy in cultural provision and access?

Boris Johnson's 'Cultural Metropolis: The Mayor's Priorities for Culture 2009 - 2012 (pdf link, front page showing one of those despicable central London cultural venues)' states that:

"there are physical and sensory barriers that can reduce access for disabled and older people, as well as those with young children. There is real potential for cultural organisations to build new audiences by removing such barriers"

but at the same time he's letting Transport for London "scrap an upgrade scheme to offer step-free access at South Kensington station"?

And if it's so hard for 'outer borough' Londoners to get in to central London, how much harder would it be for outer Londoners on the other side of London to get to something held in an outer borough? Let alone for a tourist. So is he going to magically multiply the funding available so events can be held in the north, south, east and west, or do most people just miss out?

But hey, maybe it's all part of his 'donut' strategy - suck up to London's outer suburbs (the poor neglected waifs) and ignore the inner suburbs who were rude enough not to vote for him.

Yep, London still needs Boris Watch.

Cool animated Bayeux Tapestry

Just to show that I'm not all about the rants, check out this animated Bayeux Tapestry.

Maybe they were gay homosexuals

Saxon grave 'couple' may have been two men, says the Telegraph.

The amazing discovery shows the "couple" lying side by side in the grave with one's arm across the other.

But the discovery has left experts with a 1,000-year-old mystery.

They know that the body pictured on the right is that of a man, over 6ft tall but they believe that the body on the left is also that of a man as well.

First they thought the couple were a man and wife united in death. But now they believe they could be two men who were 'brothers in arms', possibly warriors, who died together and were buried in the one grave.

...
"There were no artefacts buried with them to give us any clues. It is a bit of a mystery really."

Is it really so difficult to countenance the idea that they might just have been a couple? Gay men aren't an invention of the modern era. If they looked like lovers, maybe they were lovers.

I do love the bit where they say 'They are exceptionally tall - both over 6ft. The one on the left has got some female traits to it but it does seem to be male'.

Women had power in ancient Greece, but you'd never know...

A very real and interesting example of the ways in which assumptions made by archaeologists determine how they view the evidence. The implications, if anyone ever had time (and the guts) to go back and review the documentary records from previous digs, could be huge.

DNA reveals sister power in Ancient Greece

University of Manchester researchers have revealed how women, as well as men, held positions of power in ancient Greece by right of birth.

Women were thought to have had little power in ancient Greece, unless they married a powerful man and were able to influence him. But a team of researchers testing ancient DNA from a high status, male-dominated cemetery at Mycenae in Greece believe they have identified a brother and sister buried together in a richly endowed grave, suggesting that she had as much power as him.
...
Professor Brown recalled: We were surprised to discover what appears to be a sister buried beside her brother in the high status, male-dominated grave circle. The implication is that she was buried in Grave Circle B not because of a marital connection but because she held a position of authority by right of birth.

DNA explodes Greek myth about women

British researchers have unearthed evidence that proves Helen was much more than a chattel

Women in Ancient Greece were major power brokers in their own right, researchers have discovered, and often played key roles in running affairs of state. Until now it was thought they were treated little better than servants.

The discovery is part of an investigation by Manchester researchers into the founders of Mycenae, Europe's first great city-state and capital of King Agamemnon's domains.

'It was thought that in those days women were rated as little more than chattels in Ancient Greece,' said Professor Terry Brown, of the faculty of life sciences at Manchester University. 'Our work now suggests that notion is wrong.'
...

The critical point, he said, was that the woman was thought to have been buried in a richly endowed grave because she was the wife of a powerful man. That was in keeping with previous ideas about Ancient Greece - that women had little power and could only exert influence through their husbands.

'But this discovery shows both the man and the woman were of equal status and had equal power,' he said. 'Women in Ancient Greece held positions of power by right of birth, it now appears.

'The problem has been that up until recently our interpretation of life in Ancient Greece has been the work of a previous generations of archaeologists, then a male-oriented profession and who interpreted their findings in a male-oriented way. That is changing now and women in Ancient Greece are being seen in a new light.'

Boris arts spin - or does Boris have the ability to go back in time?

I was so annoyed and bemused by something I read in today's Urban Junkies London newsletter that I wrote to them.

I am really curious about today's mailout, which says "Boris has temporarily come to the rescue. His launch of "Lates "" - but UJ have been promoting Lates at various venues for months, so you must know that the Lates initiative was already up and running when Ken was mayor.

I'm really disappointed - I know spin is everything and the truth means little in politics these days but I didn't expect to see it in Urban Junkies.

It's hugely ironic because Boris is probably going to have a huge negative impact on the arts in London. How dare his office try to claim an existing and well-established program started by the previous mayor as "Boris' Lates"?

I'll take everything I read in Urban Junkies with a pinch of salt now. I already did, to an extent, because their editorial direction was so clearly influenced by their advertisers, but at least it was obvious - when there was a huge ad banner followed by a big push in the text, you knew how to read between the lines. And Urban Junkies ran Lates ad campaigns before Boris was mayor, so I don't see how they could claim ignorance of the prior existence of the Lates program.

artslice: art thing of the day

I randomly came across artslice, a "place to learn a new "art word" or artist a day. There will be fun facts to know and tell taken from the pages of art history as well as current working artists". Cool!

Roppongi Crossing

I meant to write about this exhibition, having seen it in Tokyo recently, but I haven't had a chance. So in the meantime here's 'we make money not art' on Japanese-ness in Japanese Contemporary Art: 'Roppongi Crossing: Future Beats in Japanese Contemporary Culture'.

Foxy!

I have a fascination with London's urban foxes, so this film, Nightwatch, which shows a fox let loose in the National Gallery and recorded on surveillance cameras is lovely - like having a little fox in your computer.

I would watch Big Brother if it was about foxes.

I'm off for two weeks

I'll be out in Turkey, leaving very, very early this morning, and back August 3rd.

I hope I'm not tempting fate by saying I shouldn't be anywhere near bits that might have bombs around the election (July 22) - we're so far from anything that I can't imagine anyone bothering, and I'm only passing through Istanbul.

BBC: 'Find of century' for Egyptology

Egyptologists say they have identified the 3,000-year-old mummy of Hatshepsut, Egypt's most powerful female ruler. ... Hatshepsut was an important 18th Dynasty ruler in the 15th Century BC, having usurped her stepson, Thutmosis III.

She was known for dressing like a man and wearing a false beard, and was more powerful than either of her more famous female successors, Nefertiti and Cleopatra.

Hatshepsut's funerary temple is one of the most visited monuments around the pharaonic necropolis of the Valley of the Kings in Upper Egypt.

The National Gallery is "hanging 44 full-size recreations on walls ranging from Hamleys toy shop (a Seurat) to a sex shop in Soho (a Caravaggio) to give Londoners a taste of what it offers." (more)

Neither one has really worked for me...

"But perhaps the biggest advantages of being an archaeologist are that you get a tan, and are able to meet and impress girls ..." How to succeed in archaeology

For the big kid in your life...

More dinosaurs!

A quick catch-up on things around London:

A few Sundays ago I went on a trek to see Jake and Dinos Chapman's Two Legs Good, Four Legs Bad at
Paradise Row. Last Sunday I wandered around Shoreditch looking for open galleries. Not much luck at first, except scaffolding pillars outside the Foundary were decorated in different styles, no idea who by.

The final gallery was Flowers East, where I really liked 'The Person Who.......' by Jiro Osuga - mostly paintings but there was a room with a table of toys and small paintings that folded out to show a different side.

I also saw Tim Berners-Lee speak (leave a comment or email me for my notes) on Tuesday, and saw Orfeo at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, both of which were really rather fabulous.

I went to see Kylie at the V&A today. It's hard to believe they've devoted a whole exhibition to her, but it was actually surprisingly interesting to see the costumes. The early ones were a strange nostalgia trip and the later ones made me want to camp it up as a showgirl in a shiny outfit with a corset.

Update: after thinking about it more - I guess I expect to learn or have my thinking challenged in an exhibition, and I'm not sure that happened. So I hate to say it but overall it was more a display of pretty clothes than an exhibition.

Last night I went to see Self-sufficient at Foster Art, and the opening of the Kinetica Museum at Spitalfields. The Amorphic Robot Works wasn't working last night but should be today. Some of the pieces in the Upper Gallery were fantastic.

Just found a report about Sudak from someone who was here earlier this month at archaeology.org with an interesting perspective.

The Natural History Museum's Antarctic conservation blog "is written by Sarah Clayton, Nicola Dunn and Ainslie Greiner, and tells what it's like spending the winter in Antarctica conserving artefacts from the explorer's hut left behind by Ernest Shackleton in 1908."

Ickle dinosaurs!

"Archaeologists studying an ancient mosaic found by workers laying cable south of Rome have been astonished to discover that it is an optical illusion.

Viewed one way up it is a bald old man with a beard, but turned the other way round it is a beardless youth." (Guardian)

"British Museum Explores Same Sex Desire In Ancient World" at 24 Hour Museum, and if you're in London you can see a small exhibition on the Warren Cup at the BM. Also on display is "a terracotta lamp featuring a female lovemaking scene".

24HR Museum on Australians in London.

Museums with outside bits in London, just in time for summer.

"The original Bagpuss. A dollop of medieval poo. A fingerprint machine. A skeleton or two. While national institutions grab all the attention, much of the UK's regional identity is enshrined in small museums." (BBC)

'Brazilian Stonehenge' discovered

"A religious ruling condemning the display of statues has angered Egyptian liberals and intellectuals who fear it could encourage religious zealots to attack the country's pharaonic heritage." BBC

I really wish I had my camera. I've just walked past a table piled with wooden stakes.

I've never thought about it before but if vampires attack your city, try and end up near any surveyors or geomatics people.

"Many archaeologists believe they are a vital part of their work, while some dismiss them as mere treasure hunters. Now a new code of conduct is recognising the role of metal detector enthusiasts in mapping the UK's history." BBC

I wonder how many comments the editors had to deal with. The detectorist/archaeologist debate is extremely passionate.

"UK's museums have pulling power" claims BBC, though they're referring to a survey that claims museums are great places to take dates, rather than actually meet people.

According to the story on the 24 Hour Museum, "10% of people also confessed to having chatted someone up whilst on a museum or gallery visit."

I was at Tate Britain for the Noise of Art and late view of the Tate Triennial last night and I'd hope that at least one person managed to pull a stranger.

"In one of the few critical accounts of the Bosnian pyramid story, which appeared in the Art Newspaper, the University of Sarejevo's Enver Imamovic, a former director of the National Museum in Sarjevo, is quoted as saying, "This is the equivalent of letting me, an archaeologist, perform surgery in hospitals."" archaeology.org

"A circumcision mask from western Kenya and a headdress made from human hair from Uganda are among 140 artefacts from the British Museum that have gone on show in Nairobi - the first time the museum has lent objects to Africa.

But the exhibition has sparked debate about whether such objects should be returned to their home countries for good.
...
'Repatriation is yesterday's question. Questions of ownership depend on the thought that an object can only be in one place'". (Guardian)

Oh, really? Then why not give objects back to the countries from which they were originally taken?

A new museum blog 'on the latest trends in the world of museum informatics and technology'.

I came across two good archaeology blogs today, Past Thinking, and archaeoblog (because it listed April Fools stories).

"The British Museum said yesterday that it would return the cremated ashes of Australian Aborigines, more than 160 years after they were taken." (Guardian)

Mobile phone tours in museums have enough mainstream awareness to merit an article in The Age, but as the article points out, there are issues with roaming and mobile call costs. There's no mention of implementation at any Australian museums, but I don't know if that's because there aren't any, or because the article was bought from overseas.

I think podcasts are also a viable alternative. I'd love to see links between city tourism and museums so that people can hear museum content over a whole city.

I love the idea of the Ubiquitous Museum.

"This is a system that allows us to use our mobile phone like a magnifying glass as a tool to discover hidden history and stories, as we stroll around town."

And it gets cooler:

"What makes this system unique is its participatory approach. Users are encouraged to be providers of information, not just to be receivers."

I've always had a fascination with uncovering and presenting the layers of history hidden under the city streets. It's the kind of content that museums have unique access to and unique resources to develop, but at the same time it's difficult to find the resources. Hopefully as standards develop, it'll be easier to produce re-usable content.

"One of the biggest and most complete giant squids ever found is on display at London's Natural History Museum." BBC

"A fairly nondescript piece of stone could have an impact on the future of the Parthenon Marbles dispute. Last month Heidelberg University decided to return its small fragment of the frieze to Greece." (Art Newspaper). I wonder if the British Museum is watching.

And a very belated post, a comment from the Turner Prize 2006 at Tate Britain: "My cat could draw better than this lot and I haven't even got one."

"Archaeologists in Greece say they are examining the largest underground tomb ever found in the country." (BBC)

I really wish I could have been in Melbourne to see the Margaret Preston exhibition at the NGV.

I'll just have to make do with the exhibitions available in London instead and this education kit instead. The same page also lists some resources for one of my other favourite Australian artists, Grace Cossington Smith.

"It sounds like the stuff of nightmares – imagine you are walking along a deserted shopping street at night and a face appears in your shadow.
...
Portraits will be projected onto the ground appearing in their shadow as they pass by. Pedestrians can make the portraits come alive by stopping and using their shadow to reveal the image."

(24 Hour Museum).

I'd really love to see this for myself.

Even a bit of art is good for you.

Virtual tour of Africa's heritage

"Africans will soon be able to take an online tour of the continent's major world heritage sites like Great Zimbabwe, the rock-hewn St Giyorgis church at Lalibella in Ethiopia and the great mosque of Djenne in Mali."

"The British Council is making its entire art collection available to view on the internet." BBC article and the collection itself.

Do you think any of these are the 'Greatest Painting in Britain'?

Ancient Egyptian gossip discovered.

"Plans are under way to excavate the wreckage of a Chinese ship that sunk in the Indian Ocean, off Siyu Island, about six centuries ago.
...
"A lot has been said about the ship that is believed to have been in the fleet of the legendary Chinese mariner Zheng He, but it is still not clear where exactly it sunk and what other relevant information is buried with it" (AllAfrica.com)

Renegade museum audio guides - very cool idea.

What a panic - I checked the itinerary the travel agent sent me for my flight to Turkey tomorrow, and the times were different to those discussed! Instead of flying out at 2130 tomorrow night, I'm flying at 10am, with no time to come into the office in the morning. Still, hopefully I've got everything now, and can go home and pack, and it's really my fault for not checking the tickets when I got them.

So, I'll be here for the next two weeks (ok, not here, but just down the hill):

I'm not particularly looking forward to living in a tent for the next two weeks, but it'll give me more privacy than sleeping in a tiny dorm with five others and I'll probably be very glad of that at the end of a long day. If the politics and game-playing aren't too bad, the whole thing will be quite enjoyable - hard work, but really challenging. I don't know why archaeologists are so nice but some specialists can be so difficult.

The weather's looking good - up to mid 30s, and dry, of course. I bought an absolutely fantastic present for myself - a travel pack of Trivial Pursuit. I'm stupidly excited by this, even though it's basically just a set of question cards and a dice, cos I can take it on lots of holidays, like Eastnor and Wales. Whether I can find people to play me is another question.

Italians discover hoard of Roman statues

An Italian team of archaeologists has discovered 76 intact Roman statues at Cyrene in Libya. The discovery is remarkable because the site, once a thriving Greek and then Roman settlement, has been under excavation for the last 150 years. (Art Newsletter)

Banksy does a cave art hoax at the British Museum.

Interesting article on Catalhoyuk.