tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6841519543602476352024-03-13T05:00:20.356+00:00Letters from Li DongniLi Dongnihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12001542844322197719noreply@blogger.comBlogger193125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-684151954360247635.post-13714600183444565822014-11-01T21:27:00.002+00:002014-11-01T21:27:53.160+00:00A second 'Tale of Roman Lincoln'<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Last year I entertained myself during the quiet evenings by writing a short story about Roman Lincoln. Earlier this year the bug bit me again and I penned a follow up story. I confess I actually finished it some months ago but have only now got around to tidying it up and putting it on the blog.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So, if anyone is interested, you can now download the second exciting story of Caradoc the blacksmith by <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/lidongnifilestorage/Surreptio.pdf?attredirects=0&d=1" target="_blank">clicking here</a>. The 'writing' tab at the top of the page has a little bit more detail, and a link to both stories.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This second story features a series of major grain thefts blighting Lindum Colonia, and sees our hero going on a journey to try and discover the culprit, and ending up getting himself and a new young friend in some hot water as the repercussions go right to the top of the social order.</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06801166930755750087noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-684151954360247635.post-544148682777653612014-10-19T14:16:00.000+01:002014-10-19T14:20:13.613+01:00Travels with Li Dongni - Fiesole, Italy (September 2014)<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">During a trip to the wonderful Renaissance city of Florence (other elements of which I'll no doubt be blogging about in due course), we took the chance to head out into the Tuscan countryside to see some other sites. In this instance, it also allowed me to see some of the more ancient landscape around Florence, as the city's own Roman past is now quite hard to see.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Fiesole is roughly a thirty minute bus ride northeast of Florence and sits in a wonderful position, rising up into the mountains away from the valley that Florence sits in, and offering superb views. The bus ride itself was fascinating as it winded its way up the narrow, curving roads, as we started chatting with a friendly Australian chap who had moved to Fiesole a few years earlier and clearly loved his new home. We actually went in the later afternoon, as we'd been on the train to Pisa that day already, but intended to catch the sunset after seeing the town and its Roman remains.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The origins of the town lie with the Etruscans, and it was probably founded in the 9th-8th Century BC. Only sections of the walls of this original settlement exist, which we'd almost given up on seeing until we stumbled across them while exploring the hillside.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The town came under the control of the expanding Roman republic in 283BC, and became known as Faesulae. It was made a colony by the infamous general and dictator Lucius Cornelius Sulla.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The visible Roman remains today are contained within an archaeological park, which includes a lovely museum, which is where we'll begin the tour...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The museum sits just inside the entrance to the park, and is deceptively large inside. Situated on higher land than the main remains, there are also some nice teaser views of the ancient remains, particularly the theatre, from the windows. The collections are varied, encompassing finds from the town from the Etruscan, Roman and Lombardic (Early Medieval) periods. The collections of Roman bronzes and stone carving are particularly fine, if a little old fashioned in their presentation.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The Lombardic material isn't usually my cup of tea, so I confess I didn't spend as much time looking at it, but the presentation of a single warrior burial, combined with the fabulous quality of the weaponry and belt fittings on show, certainly made it memorable.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">An unexpected surprise was a large selection of Greek ceramics. Their origins weren't clear, but the quality and variety certainly was. Sadly my old nemesis - display case reflections - stopped me taking as many photos of these as I might have done.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Before we leave the museum and head out into the remains themselves, I have to mention the interactive tablet the museum had available (they didn't have a catchy name for it though, sadly). I confess I don't usually go for these, but this one was very well done and provided a good overview of the development of the site, and had some nice animations showing the development of key structures</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In the archaeological park itself, there are three main structures to be seen - a theatre, a temple and a bath house. The theatre is by far the most visible and the easiest to interpret of all the remains, and is a remarkably impressive and well preserved example.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Just around the corner sits the remains of the temple. The earliest temple on the site was Etruscan, but the Romans were to later enlarge this structure. The site interpretation suggested that the temple was dedicated to Minerva, but I confess I don't remember seeing any finds or inscriptions in the museum that confirmed this attribution. The steps up to what would have been the entrance survive to a good degree, and I found them very evocative. Although not very clearly labelled for the casual visitor, it was wonderful to be able to wander into the cella and imagine what the structure was once originally like. In front of the steps stands a large altar, again a striking reminder of the activity that once took place here.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">No Roman site is complete without the ubiquitous baths. The Fiesole baths contain the usual suites of rooms and pools, with some nice pilae from a hot room and a set of three arches from the frigidarium still standing.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">To finish our visit, we wandered up to a viewing point recommended to us by our new Australian friend, close to the monastery of San Francesco and watched the sun setting over Florence. The photos below, then, are some of these more general shots of the town and its setting.</span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06801166930755750087noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-684151954360247635.post-52937395673790534982014-07-28T20:37:00.004+01:002014-07-28T20:37:46.464+01:00Tutmania at the Ashmolean<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I was very pleased to be able to pay a quick visit this weekend to the new 'Discovering Tutankhamun' exhibition at Oxford's Ashmolean museum, especially since (swanky showoff alert) I'd been invited to the preview event but not been able to go.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The really nice thing about the exhibition is that the focus, as the title suggests, is on the discovery, recording and analysis of the tomb rather than the bling that was recovered. Admittedly this is slightly risky considering that the average tourist will have a very specific set of expectations when hearing the name 'Tutankhamun' - but this reaction is exactly what the exhibition plays upon so well. Just how did this discovery lead to the creation of a worldwide phenomenon and a flood of interest in everything Egypt? Why does the name have such international recognition ahead of Pharaohs such as Rameses II or Thutmose III?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The early rooms of the exhibition focus on Carter and his colleagues, and its nice to see that characters such as the photographer Harry Burton get as much attention as the more famous Carter. I was particularly pleased as Burton is a native of Stamford, in Lincolnshire. The photographs and drawings on show beautifully illustrate that posterity hasn't given the team anywhere near enough credit for their attempts to carefully and scientifically record their findings. In particular, Carter's drawings show his skill as an artist and draughtsman, and the guache paintings of artefacts by Winifred Brunton are genuinely stunning artworks in their own right.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The exhibition moves on to examine the public reaction to the discovery and the emergence of 'Tutmania', through a series of displays focussing on music, fashion and music influenced, and attempting to cash in on, the find of the century. Its an interesting subject, though perhaps a little too much of the exhibition space was taken up with this material for my taste.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">One thing I did find very interesting was the display with letters received by Carter after the discovery. Some were simply congratulatory, others seeking to buy the artefacts. Sadly, even today some people seem unable to appreciate history unless they personally own a piece of it, as this letter from an Australian to Carter demonstrates:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"Please could you send me a souvenir from the tomb of King Tutankhamun. I am intensely interested in history and would like very much like to see and handle a relic of ancient times. I am enclosing a postal order to cover costs."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I sincerely hope the request was never acted on!</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06801166930755750087noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-684151954360247635.post-2100399592717592572014-07-11T00:03:00.001+01:002014-07-11T00:03:33.452+01:00A trip to Coventry - 'Roman Empire: Power and People'<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The latest British Museum touring exhibition doing the rounds is currently residing at the Herbert in Coventry, and having failed to make it down to Norwich to see it at its previous venue, I was very pleased to be able to head across this evening to not only look around the exhibition, but also attend a very good lecture on Roman numismatics, of which more later.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I have to start with a tiny grumble, though not one that the Herbert has any control over. Its something that afflicts every BM touring exhibition - a ban on gallery photography. I get why some exhibitions have copyright problems, but the archaeology in this show doesn't suffer from this hindrance. Likewise, some material is susceptible to light damage, but only allowing non-flash photography is now standard in most institutions. </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">There are no photographic restrictions when the objects are on display in the BM or in their local galleries, so why the change in policy when they are part of a formal exhibition like this? It feels like such a backward step when we should be encouraging people to share their gallery experiences and promote the subject in the process.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">But enough with the grumbles as the exhibition is very good, and strikes a lovely balance between BM material (British and international in nature) and local material. This is a nice parallel with the study of Roman archaeology in general, which can vary hugely in scale between the truly classical and international and the incredibly local picture encountered in the different parts of Roman Britain. A particularly nice example of this was the film of the Herbert's archaeology curator, Paul Thompson, teleporting around the Midlands to talk about local sites, which I really enjoyed.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Some of the objects on show are wonderful, and the selection for a touring show is adventurous. Items like the gilded bronze Hercules from Birdoswald, the stone carving of Horus in armour, the flourite 'Crawford Cup', and the variety of fine marble tomb monuments and altars are objects of the highest quality and benefit from the detailed attention they are given. Also to be lauded is the decision to place so many of them on open display. The lack of a pane of glass between viewer and object, as we all know, enhances the experience immensely.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">On a more local level, it was an unexpected thrill to see items such as the Mars rider figurine from Norton Disney and a votive plaque with Vulcan from the famous B</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">arkway hoard - both items I only knew from photographs and had not expected to come face to face with during my visit. I was also very happy to see the coins and pot from the Selby coin hoard, which I have <a href="http://lettersfromlidongni.blogspot.co.uk/2011/12/sexy-science-of-coin-hoards.html" target="_blank">previously blogged about because of the funky science used to examine it</a>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">One area where photography was allowed was a neat section where visitors can step into a Roman coin and become the Imperial portrait of Constantius Chlorus, father of Constantine the Great.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The second element of the trip was a very enjoyable evening lecture by Dr Clare Rowan of Warwick University. Her topic was 'Coinage and Communication in the Roman Empire', which she tackled with palpable enthusiasm, keeping a good balance between the development of Roman coinage and its myriad imagery and social contexts. Her blog on Roman numismatics <a href="http://blogs.warwick.ac.uk/numismatics/" target="_blank">can be seen here</a>, and is well worth checking out.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06801166930755750087noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-684151954360247635.post-15083983446409517232014-07-07T18:01:00.002+01:002014-07-07T18:01:32.596+01:00Derbyshire's Corieltavian cave coin cache<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">There has been a lot of media buzz recently over the discovery of a small hoard of 26 coins at Reynard's Cave at Dovedale in Derbyshire. The excitement has even spread to Lincolnshire (part of the Corieltavian heartlands) and I spent a while on the phone with the Lincolnshire Echo this afternoon discussing the finer points of our understanding of the Iron Age and why this find is significant to us.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Leaving aside the rather unusual find spot for the moment, the first thing that makes the hoard significant is the fact that of the 26 coins, 23 are examples of the later Iron Age inscribed coins of the Corieltavi, but 3 are Roman Republican silver denarii. One of the holy grails of late Iron Age archaeology is concrete evidence of material and cultural relationships between Britain and the Roman Empire prior to the invasion of AD43. The presence of pre-invasion coinage included with material of Iron Age date (as was discovered at the incredible shrine site at Hallaton in Leicestershire) always offers this exciting possibility. The problem lies in the fact that Republican denarii, due to their silver content, circulated for a long time and can still be found in 2nd Century AD contexts. It will therefore be interesting to see when these coins were minted (denarii began to be produced in 211BC) and how worn they are. Iron Age coins fell out of production very soon after the Roman invasion, however, so there does seem to be a good chance that the hoard dates at the very least to the time of the invasion.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The second thing of interest is that the coins are Corieltavian, when Derbyshire was part of the tribal area of the neighbouring Brigantes. This in itself shouldn't surprise us too much, as Corieltavian coins are often found in Yorkshire - indeed, it used to be thought that they were made by the Brigantes, with only 20th Century scholarship proving their East Midlands manufacture. Nevertheless, the hoard is indicative of the fact that this group of Corieltavian coins had been obtained by a Brigantian, perhaps as part of a trade agreement, as payment for a service or as part of a gift exchange to seal an alliance.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Finally, we turn to the cave itself. The finder apparently was sheltering from the rain in the cave and happened to have a small metal detector with him, which he used on the floor and found the first few coins. This then led to an excavation which uncovered the rest. The excavation is worth noting, as it was carried out using personnel from Operation Nightingale - a wonderful scheme to get wounded servicemen and women into archaeological fieldwork. Its a great scheme and it seems like the thrill of archaeological discovery will long remain with those involved. But why were the coins buried in a cave in the first place? It may simply have been seen as a safe location, but there remains the possibility that the cave was a sanctuary of some sort, and the protection of more spiritual inhabitants of that dark and secluded place may have been sought. Of course, 'ritual' is a dirty word in archaeology and such theories of sacred caves remain completely baseless without more evidence to support them.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The hoard is currently going through the treasure process, and will hopefully be acquired by Buxton Museum. I for one can't wait to head across for a look at them in due course, and to see the results of the identification work on them which is only just beginning, and will hopefully begin to answer some of the questions we still have about how and when the hoard was constructed and deposited.</span><br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06801166930755750087noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-684151954360247635.post-10856329108096717122014-06-30T22:15:00.003+01:002014-06-30T22:22:30.088+01:00A mythological interpretation puzzle - a Greek mirror with the Judgement of Paris?<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In the archaeological collections I curate is a Greek bronze mirror. Its provenance is sadly unknown, it simply being brought back from journeys to Greece and Italy by its collector along with numerous other relatively minor antiquities in the later 19th Century.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It is of interest for the image engraved on its surface. Traditionally interpreted as the 'Judgement of Paris', a closer look at the imagery makes me question that interpretation, but I'm at a loss as to what another interpretation might be.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The story of the 'Judgement of Paris' is a well known one. It occurs at the wedding feast of Peleus and Thetis (the parents of Achilles), to which all of the Olympian deities had been invited except Eris, Goddess of Discord. True to her name, to gain revenge she cast a golden apple into the crowd addressed 'to the fairest'. This of course caused havoc among the assembled deities, with Hera, Aphrodite and Athena all claiming the apple and the title that came with it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Zeus was asked to mediate and, in a somewhat cowardly move, delegated the impossible task to Paris, prince of Troy. Each of the goddesses appeared before Paris, who was tending sheep at the time, and offered him a bribe in return for naming her the victor. Hera promised him an empire, while Athena offered him victory in battle and supreme wisdom. Aphrodite's bribe was to give him the most beautiful woman in the world, and it was this promise that swayed Paris to proclaim Aphrodite the winner. Of course, the woman in question was Helen, wife of Menelaos, and Paris' subsequent abduction of her ended rather badly for Troy.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The famous scene of judgement, with each of the goddesses standing before Paris, has been depicted in art many times, and has been an extremely popular subject with painters from the Renaissance to the modern day.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The classic depiction is as seen on the Athenian jar below, in the collections of the British Museum and dating to c.470BC. In it, Paris is seated on the right and the three Goddesses line up to offer him their bribes. Nearest to him is Hera, then Athena, and finally a veiled and modest-looking Aphrodite. Each goddess is identifiable via their attributes.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So what is the image on our mirror, and how does it differ from this typical depiction? Here is the mirror with the image outlined.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The medium - engraving onto bronze - means that a certain amount of subtlety in the design is lost, but the four figures are clearly shown. The central figure is female, and has a small amount of drapery wrapped around her legs. To the right is a seated male figure, naked apart from a Phrygian cap. The the left are two more figures, one seated and one standing with only head visible. The seated figure appears to be male and both wear the same Phrygian caps as the figure on the right.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The Phrygian cap is often associated with Paris, but he is more usually depicted as a shepherd, with animals beside him, and wearing a baggy tunic and trousers.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So what scene do we actually have here? Three males with Phrygian caps surrounding and all paying attention to the central female figure. She has her body turned towards the right hand seated figure, but her head turned towards the two left hand figures.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Is this a version of the Judgement of Paris after all? If so who are the other two figures in place of Aphrodite and Athena? Or is this actually a representation of a completely different mythological episode - if so, all suggestions gratefully received!</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06801166930755750087noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-684151954360247635.post-24604967304764530112014-06-29T14:04:00.002+01:002014-06-29T14:04:37.249+01:00A mosaic montage part 3 - Lullingstone Roman villa<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The third and final instalment of Roman mosaic related goodness from my recent trip down south takes us to Lullingstone villa, just south east of London. You can catch up with my previous looks at <a href="http://lettersfromlidongni.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/a-mosaic-montage-part-1-fishbourne.html" target="_blank">Fishbourne Palace</a> and <a href="http://lettersfromlidongni.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/a-mosaic-montage-part-2-bignor-roman.html" target="_blank">Bignor villa</a> by following</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> these links.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Lullingstone is an English Heritage site, discovered during excavations beginning in 1949, and located down one of the longest, windiest and most poorly signposted roads I have ever encountered. Still, good archaeology is rarely located in the most convenient locations.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The villa is contained within a large building, just as Fishbourne and Bignor are. While this is undoubtedly a vital element of the site conservation, I have to admit that it does serve to detach the site from its landscape somewhat and serves to disorientate the visitor as to which direction they are facing, and how the original structures relate to each other. On the flip side, however, it does allow for museum displays to be positioned around the edges of the actual remains and related to them, and for a wonderful high level view of the remains to be obtained. Swings and roundabouts I suppose.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Lullingstone is a very compact villa, with a tightly packed suite of rooms clustered together, and which developed from its origins between c.AD100-150 to its heyday in the years following AD360. One thing I have to say about the images below is that its amazing how overpowering the green lighting on the remains appears. I don't remember it looking that strong on site!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The displays surrounding the physical remains are well set out in terms of explaining the development of the villa, its wider context and displaying a nice variety of finds from the site. There are also a very neat and colourful selection of cartoons to accompany the displays. Although aimed at kids, I confessed I enjoyed looking at them too!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I haven't mentioned mosaics yet, of course, and truth be told, Lullingstone only has one surviving pavement. Thankfully, its a fantastic one! Located in a central position in the house, the pavement covers both a reception room and an apsidal dining room. The element of the mosaic in the reception room features a large and slightly random assemblage of geometric borders and panels, but centres around a square with the four seasons and a feature image of the hero Bellerophon. In the image, Bellerophon is riding Pegasus, and is spearing a fire breathing Chimaera.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The dining room apse contains the most famous element of the pavement - the image of Europa being abducted by Jupiter in the guise of a bull. This element of the pavement is also a fine example of a mosaic clearly designed to sit in the centre of a triclinium - the classical Roman dining furniture.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In the myth, Europa was a Phoenician woman with whom Jupiter became infatuated. To ensnare her, he (rather bizarrely) turned himself into a white bull and hid with her father's herd. When tending the cows she noticed the fine, white bull, and as she stroked it, it picked her up on its back and whisked her away to Crete. There Jupiter revealed his true identity and Europa became Queen of Crete. Honestly, what's the point of being the universe's most powerful deity if you have to go to such lengths just to get some mortal girl? The mosaic shows the pair as they are flying across the ocean (yep, it was a flying bull), its hooves dipping into the water, and the near naked Europa clearly enjoying the ride and the sea wind whistling through her hair.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The scene is enhanced by the Latin script above it, which reads:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">'INVIDA SI TA[VRI] VIDISSET IVNO NATATVS</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">IVSTIVS AEOLIAS ISSET ADVSQVE DOMOS'</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This translates as 'If jealous Juno had seen the swimming of the bull more justly would she had gone to the halls of Aeolus'. This is an allusion to Virgil's Aeneid, when Juno went to Aeolus (the ruler of the winds) to get him to hinder Aeneas on his travels. The reference here is that she should have been more concerned with her husband's ludicrous schemes to abduct mortal women! Its a lovely classical reference, and clearly designed to be a talking point for the well-educated diners reclining around the pavement.</span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06801166930755750087noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-684151954360247635.post-18945445111263006692014-06-28T20:18:00.004+01:002014-06-28T20:18:48.676+01:00A mosaic montage part 2 - Bignor Roman villa<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This is the second of three posts looking at the mosaics at some of the sites I visited on a recent trip to southern England. The first was about Fishbourne Palace and <a href="http://lettersfromlidongni.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/a-mosaic-montage-part-1-fishbourne.html" target="_blank">can be seen here</a>. This time, its Bignor Roman villa in the spotlight.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Bignor is an independently managed site, fascinatingly still owned and operated by the descendants of the man who discovered the villa in 1811 - George Tupper, who began showing visitors around the site as early as 1814. Bignor, then, is as old a heritage attraction as you'll find anywhere.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The development of the site is fairly typical for this type of rural complex. There is some evidence of later 1st Century occupation, but the first substantial stone building on the site wasn't constructed until the 3rd Century. This was rebuilt and expanded upon during the later 3rd and 4th Centuries until it reached its peak as a full courtyard villa - a central garden enclosed by suites of rooms on all sides.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The first mosaic that George Tupper discovered was one of the finest in the entire complex, and one of two tessellated pavements that Bignor is now most famous for - the Ganymede pavement. Believed to be the floor of a dining room, the pavement features a roundel with the boy Ganymede being abducted by Jupiter in the guise of an eagle (more of that story in a moment), with a hexagonal piscina to the side, itself surrounded by 6 maenads.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Ganymede was a Trojan shepherd who, because of his beauty, was abducted by Jupiter to become the cup bearer of the gods. Jupiter did this in the form of an eagle (just one of Jupiter's many animal disguises), and the scene here shows Ganymede being lifted away, and he almost seems to be waving goodbye to his mortal life. Ganymede has become a symbol for homosexual love, particularly that between an older man and a younger boy - something rather preva</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">lent in the classical world. The reference to drinking and merriment is continued with the inclusion of the dancing maenads around the piscina - they were the female followers of Bacchus, god of wine and revelry. The subject of the mosaic would definitely suggest that the room was intended to be used for eating, drinking and the entertaining of guests.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Ganymede is a common and easily identifiable character in classical art. Just for the sake of it, here he is in a photo I took at Naples Museum, sharing an intimate gaze with Jupiter.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSlSnVvFKeum6XzoRcLpwDyiTY5V_cYBJlenquU1IqUENgMr_jGTcwGJUfY9bWAaOyuc8T7gfH-c_UM2McaYGixIbOaCxHxvbtWiP9DqJm1X3B8OYszi6QKGi_iYzYk2FbXD1eRFTqZxE/s1600/DSC_0238.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSlSnVvFKeum6XzoRcLpwDyiTY5V_cYBJlenquU1IqUENgMr_jGTcwGJUfY9bWAaOyuc8T7gfH-c_UM2McaYGixIbOaCxHxvbtWiP9DqJm1X3B8OYszi6QKGi_iYzYk2FbXD1eRFTqZxE/s1600/DSC_0238.JPG" height="400" width="266" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Bignor's other superstar mosaic is the 'Venus and the Gladiators' pavement, probably the floor of a winter dining room, built as it was over a hypocaust. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The collapse of the main section of the mosaic, which provides a wonderful view of the hypocaust structure, has sadly made it difficult to interpret the floor as a whole, as the crucial central image has been completely lost.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The mosaic contains a great variety of imagery, but it is the apse at one end that gives it its name, bearing as it does a portrait of a female in a roundel, with a long panel beneath featuring cupids acting as gladiators. The female portrait is most commonly associated with Venus, but the identification is not entirely secure, and definite attributes of the goddess are lacking. It remains a possibility that the figure is in fact mortal.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaYg_klHMKnGA1PPHlFAa1FnNFoFQN-x_HZ-Lk8VDsIkBFjB9Kqygir3HrZhLjFmr-37xQNsW1vy84g-uTH9c8e6N8bmFD6L9NUnGRgv1GSDZWBrP2IDIzqkwr_e_3fjEcTuFo7LLX1d0/s1600/DSC_9385.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaYg_klHMKnGA1PPHlFAa1FnNFoFQN-x_HZ-Lk8VDsIkBFjB9Kqygir3HrZhLjFmr-37xQNsW1vy84g-uTH9c8e6N8bmFD6L9NUnGRgv1GSDZWBrP2IDIzqkwr_e_3fjEcTuFo7LLX1d0/s1600/DSC_9385.JPG" height="400" width="266" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The panel with the cupids stands as one of the most recognisable and characterful elements of any surviving mosaic in Britain. A series of scenes portray the story of a gladiatorial contest between a retiarius (a net man) and a heavily armoured secutor. The final scene shows that the secutor emerged the victor.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Aside from these two outstanding keynotes, the villa possesses a wonderful array of other pavements, including one that may possibly bear a maker's name (the letters 'TER' above a dolphin perhaps being short for Terentius) and an amazingly long corridor mosaic, currently the longest on display in Britain (though the now lost corridor from Greetwell villa, just east of Lincoln is just one that is believed from drawings to have been even longer).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Away from the main building, though originally part of another wing of the house, can be seen the slight remains of the bath house and yet another mosaic, this time a Medusa with wonderfully wavy snakes in her hair. As this was situated in the changing rooms, I wonder if people avoided treading on her to avoid bad luck?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06801166930755750087noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-684151954360247635.post-21391310709743765362014-06-27T17:15:00.001+01:002014-06-27T17:15:46.138+01:00A mosaic montage part 1 - Fishbourne Roman Palace<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">During a recent getaway to the south coast, I managed to visit three iconic Romano-British sites that have been on my list for a long time, and I'm actually a little ashamed to say I haven't ever been to before. Still, I took the opportunity this time with both hands and, as always, a camera.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The stars of the show at any villa are of course the mosaics, and the three villas in question - Fishbourne, Lullingstone and Bignor - feature some of the best that Romano-British (or continental in the case of Fishbourne) mosaicists could offer. </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In order to not make things unmanageable and to give them all their due, I'll cover them in three separate posts. First up...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>Fishbourne Roman Palace</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I have of course been cruel to Fishbourne above by referring to it as a mere villa, when of course it feels itself entitled to use the epithet 'Palace'. On scale and grandeur, it must certainly have been a contender in its heyday in the late 1st Century. A graphic in the museum comparing the site with scale drawings of the Flavian palace on the Palatine and Nero's Domus Aurea demonstrate that Fishbourne was on a par with the grandest homes in the Empire. The museum itself is in need of a little TLC in some areas, and I believe that money is currently being raised to improve it. The displays are a good introduction to the development of the site, and include some iconic objects from the excavations, which are a pleasure to see.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The visible archaeology of the building is contained within a large open structure and accessed via raised walkways, which wind their way around and provide views from various angles of the most important mosaics. It is mind boggling to think that the remains on view constitute only a single wing of the massive complex.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Of all the wonderful mosaics on show, two particularly piqued my interest. The first is unsurprising as it is one of the finest mosaics anywhere - the 'cupid on a dolphin' mosaic, which features the chubby winged chap surrounded by sea creatures, elaborate cups and borders ofguilloche and floral designs, all contained within a chequerboard.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The second mosaic is one that demonstrates the development of the house, as it shows a 2nd Century Medusa laid directly over an earlier, late 1st Century, black and white geometric floor. Sadly the Medusa roundel has half disappeared, but its a wonderful example of archaeological stratigraphy in action.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">One of the highlights of the original palace would have been the formal gardens - perhaps the only place in Britain where such formal horticulture could have been seen in the late 1st Century. Now sadly reduced in size to about half of the original scale, on a sunny day the gardens are still a pleasant place to wander.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I can't leave Fishbourne without giving mention to a building on the site that I fear most visitors won't venture into - the Collections Discovery Centre. This is effectively a storage and conservation facility which has a public focus. Although sadly there was nothing to be seen happening while I was there, it was still nice to peer through windows into their stone store and read some of the wall panels about their work and some of the individuals who have been at (and found love at!) Fishbourne over the years. Overall, the ambition to have the importance of such unglamorous behind the scenes work highlighted to the public is laudable and I hope that there is a suitable programme of activities to make best use of it. The corporate sponsorship was also an interesting angle, and one that, love it or hate it, seems to be something that we will need to see a lot more of in future if the current political attitude towards heritage funding continues.</span><br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06801166930755750087noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-684151954360247635.post-66506806758640412652014-06-06T19:14:00.000+01:002014-06-06T19:14:41.568+01:008 stunning mummies at the British Museum<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Cutting edge technology and archaeology go together extremely well these days, but it's fair to say that when it comes to museums, displays tend to be a little behind the curve for a whole host of reasons. The British Museum's 'Ancient Lives New Discoveries' exhibition, more commonly being referred to as '8 mummies', raises the bar substantially on a number of levels. It's also fair to say that it marks a spectacular return to form for our national flagship institution after the lukewarm reception to the Vikings.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">The concept of the exhibition is simple. 8 Egyptian mummies from the BM's collections which have never before been unwrapped have been intensively studied through the use of non-destructive CT scanning, and the results of this analysis presented. The experience is therefore twofold - one is the story of the people themselves, the other a demonstration of the power of modern scientific investigation.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">The ethics surrounding the storage and display of human remains are dealt with succinctly at the start of the exhibition, and I've heard that images of the displays are available at the ticketing desk for those unsure if the content will be suitable for them or their little ones. I'm pleased but not at all surprised that I didn't hear a word of objection to the display of the remains while in the gallery.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">The individuals being highlighted cover a long period of time, and a variety of mummification processes, from a body naturally preserved in the desert in c.3500BC through the heydays of 'proper' mummification, some unusual practices from Roman Egypt and ending with a Christian Sudanese mummy dating to c.AD700.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Each mummy is presented in a clean, simple and respectful manner, with labels about the individual placed near to, but outside of the display case. This approach of not directly labelling an individual (as one might a an object such as a pot) proves to be a subtle but effective technique in retaining the humanity of the person and not reducing them to the status of 'museum object'. It's a good method and one that should be considered by any museum displaying human remains.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Close to each body is a large scale animation of the full CT scan, displayed on high quality screens. In most cases, as the body is unwrapped, this is the time that the actual person is revealed, hidden and huddled within their bindings. The animations cycle through the layers of the body, showing how the body relates to the outer casing and clearly demonstrating surviving organic matter such as organs, and various amulets and the like. Even the way the animations work is super slick - the fluidity of the layers appearing and disappearing means that it's easy to get mesmerised and watch a few complete cycles before turning away.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Alongside this are interactive versions of the CT scans. Using a very neat touch-operated wheel visitors can rotate or zoom in on the scan as appropriate to discover a certain feature for themselves. What's particularly good about this is that the CT scans aren't something produced for the sake of the exhibition - they're the real thing, as used by the specialists and scientists. Having visitors engage with real material this way is a masterstroke, and evidence of how science doesn't need to be dumbed down for public consumption.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222;">Alongside the body and the scans were cases of material illustrative of the life or occupation of that individual, but these also used technology to great effect, for example through the CT scans of the contents of a canopic jar and through 3D prints of body parts and amulets taken directly from the CT scans. This latter approach feels revolutionary in a museum context - not only can the existence of an object be identified through non-invasive scanning, but an exact replica can be created in 3D and placed in a display case next to it. We're definitely through the looking glass now, people!</span></span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">The fact that the bodies haven't been unwrapped is of course wonderful for their future preservation, but more than that, it actually adds to the experience. Being able to see the digital version of the body in some way actually enhances the experience as the relationship between the body and it's 'container' is preserved. By comparison, having a body lying flat next to that container somehow wouldn't have the same impact. Not being able to see the body for real actually makes it feel more special and more of a privilege.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">The final body on display has an unusual twist. The c.AD700 body of a woman from Sudan has a tattoo showing a monogram of St Michael. This unexpected survival (though sadly I failed to see it on the actual body) is a great story, as it was the rise of Christianity that brought an end to the practice of mummification. A suitable way to round off the journey indeed.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">If I have the tiniest grumble, it was that sometimes the layout meant that the dividing lines between one mummy's accompanying material and the next were blurred, and a feeling of a new chapter opening with each new individual was diminished. As I said, though, it's an incredibly minor point.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Overall, the exhibition breaks new ground in the presentation of cutting edge scientific research to the public, but also in displaying human remains in a way that is respectful, personal and touching. Absolutely superb.</span></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06801166930755750087noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-684151954360247635.post-40257962133538463182014-06-03T22:02:00.001+01:002014-06-04T22:48:01.391+01:00A new lease of life for Lincoln's Newport Arch<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Lincoln's most famous Roman relic has just been reopened following months of repair and restoration. Newport Arch, the 3rd Century northern gateway into Roman Lincoln, is renowned for being the only Roman archway in Britain still used by traffic - despite a few vehicles trying to end its long life over the years. In fact, it hasn't just been clumsy driving that has threatened the arch's existence. At certain points, certain people seem to have cared very little about it. I'm reminded of a quote from 1774:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>'Sir Cecil Wray, the Solomon of these parts, I much fear is doing all he can to pull down the finest Roman antiquity in the Island, a Roman arch belonging to the old Roman station Lindum, near Lincoln, and all this to break apieces to mend the turnpike roads.'</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Despite some minor grumbles from local businesses over the time the work has taken and the complete closure of the arch being required, it can't be denied that the restoration was urgently needed. The arch had already been placed on the English Heritage Buildings at Risk register in 2012 and the City Council deserve credit for making the long term stability of the arch a priority and getting the work done. Despite generous grants from WREN, the project still cost a not inconsiderable £140,000.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So now that the arch is completely open again, let's hope its still standing and continuing to be one of Lincoln's treasures in another 1,700 years.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06801166930755750087noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-684151954360247635.post-31495844914641814472014-05-30T22:40:00.002+01:002014-05-31T15:47:04.488+01:00A new lease of life at Conisbrough Castle<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Having loaned some items from our collections to a new exhibition, a colleague and I were delighted to be invited to take the short trip across from Lincoln to Doncaster to attend the official opening of the newly re-interpreted Conisbrough Castle this afternoon.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Consibrough Castle is an English Heritage property, and one of those sites that dominates its surroundings both physically and culturally. I had been to the site before, but about ten years ago, so had forgotten most of the detail about the site and its history.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The new visitor centre (where the obligatory speeches and nibbles were hosted) is very neat and tidy, but most importantly home to the new museum displays telling the story of the site. The displays are lovely, with a strong visual theme and some great playful use of colour and custom drawn cartoons. Even the ceramics displays were lively, with mounts displaying them at angles, and even with fake water coming out! Overall, its a bright and informative display that I'm certain will be very engaging to visitors. I was most impressed with how the story of the castle had been clearly laid out, with careful removal of much of the fog and confusion that can hamper historic building interpretation. I'm sure that visitors will appreciate being able to cut to the heart of the story and will take away a clear picture of personalities, the groundbreaking architecture, and the castle's wider historic context. I also liked the way the building had been used to best effect, such as through interpretation on the inside of the window blinds - a very clever touch!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">One highlight of the display is the large cutaway model of the keep, showing the internal floor layout. As useful as that would be on its own, an additional treat is the video projection cleverly integrated into it, showing little characters carrying out daily tasks inside the keep, as you can see in the images below.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The event continued with a fascinating tour around the site, providing more of the castle's history and a look at the new interpretation inside the keep itself. When seen close up, the masonry of the keep is awe-inspiring, and few castle keeps can boast such neatly constructed masonry - the walls look as if they were made yesterday. It was fascinating to learn that the keep was an architectural oddity in its day, and a structure built to be a talking point and a statement of ambition by the owners. The huge walls of the keep contain four floors, though the basement is something of an unknown entity, accessed via a hole in the floor and containing a well.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Each of the upper three floors contains a large room, around which the thickness of the walls is palpable, and various side rooms and garderobes exist depending on the status of the original inhabitants, and finely carved fireplaces and basins exist on each floor.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A highlight of the new interpretation is the projections on the walls of each floor, featuring an illustrated character from the castle talking about their life. These are excellently executed and enjoyable features, and even the little hour glass images between 'performances' don't jar with the atmosphere of the rooms.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Finally, the cartoons encountered in the museum display follow through into the site graphics, and continue to provide a lighthearted touch to the interpretation.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And what was the best way to cap of a very enjoyable and educational afternoon? Why, a very generous and tasty free gift of course! Sometimes my job is just so difficult...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06801166930755750087noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-684151954360247635.post-17743866939563870382014-05-29T23:32:00.001+01:002014-05-29T23:34:57.417+01:00Roman Silchester and Reading Museum<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">On the one hot day we had this Bank Holiday weekend my wife and I headed out on the short trip from Oxford to a Roman site that I'm ashamed to say I'd never managed to get to before - the famous remains of Calleva Atrebatum, otherwise known as Roman Silchester.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The site is best known because, unlike every other major Roman town in Britain, it was entirely abandoned after the Roman period and now exists as a greenfield site, making it one of the best places in the country for the study of Romano-British urban archaeology. I was happy to discover <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/calleva/id838283911?mt=8" target="_blank">a wonderful free app produced by the University of Reading</a> before we went. The GPS mapping it provided, with both modern and Roman map overlays, and succinct and interesting audio commentaries at key points in the town were invaluable for understanding the site on the ground. I'd heartily recommend it to anyone visiting the site.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The walls are the most obvious remains, and the only things visible above ground, but what walls they are! Strikingly made with nodules of flint, they still stand to over 4.5m high in places and, particularly on the southern side of the town, offer an impression of Roman defences that perhaps only some of the Saxon Shore forts (such as Burgh Castle) can match in this country.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Roman walls invariably have gates in them too, of course, although sadly no traces of the towers themselves now survive. The format of the gates is interesting, as they were set back into the walls, the walls themselves curving inwards to provide a form of tunnel. The excellent reconstruction drawings on site demonstrate the system beautifully.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Another famous survival is the amphitheatre, nestled in a small woodland outside of the town, and now separated from it by a country lane. As with most amphitheatres, the small niches at the sides of the arena are not fully understood, most commonly being interpreted as some form of refuge or holding area for combatants or a shrine to a suitable deity such as Nemesis.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Following our look around the Roman remains, we took the opportunity to have a wander around the wider area, where of course we encountered some lovely scenery and the usual array of local wildlife.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">What better way to follow up such a visit then by spending the next day heading across to Reading to see the gallery dedicated to Roman Silchester at Reading Museum? This was my first visit to Reading Museum and I was very impressed overall. I'm not going to go into their general displays here (maybe in another post sometime), but they definitely have a love of dioramas, and before I get to the Roman displays I have to show an image of this fantastic reconstruction of the Medieval Abbey and waterfront.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The Roman Silchester gallery looks at the development of the town from its Iron Age origins and the role the town probably played as an important centre of the Atrebates tribe under historically attested rulers such as Eppillus and Tincomarus. For the Roman town, the focus is on everyday life as told through a number of themed cases such as houses, dress, bathing, religion, the water supply and various trades and industries. Also of interest is the nature of the excavations over the years, from the Victorian investigations through the University of Reading's ongoing work.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The highlight of the gallery is of course the famous Silchester Eagle, inspiration for <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Eagle-Ninth-Rosemary-Sutcliff/dp/0192753924/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1401402466&sr=8-1&keywords=eagle+of+the+ninth" target="_blank">Rosemary Sutcliffe's classic novel ' The Eagle of the Ninth'</a>. I had to laugh whilst in the gallery on overhearing a man say to his young son that he liked the eagle, but was disappointed to find out that it wasn't really the Ninth Legion's standard! In reality the eagle still had an important role, most likely originally part of an Imperial sculpture, perhaps once stood astride a globe, its now missing wings outstretched.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I mentioned before about the museum's love of dioramas and reconstructions, and the Silchester gallery is no exception. Most of the displays are brought to life by some form of isometric illustration, colour reconstruction or even a 3D model, and they really help to bring the town to life. The wonderfully detailed model of the whole town is a worthy centrepiece for the gallery.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Some Roman displays sit outside of the Silchester gallery. A large glass display of Roman ceramics on a staircase landing is beautifully presented and expertly balances between archaeological interpretation and artistic display.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The large scale tessellated pavemen</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">ts from Silchester are displayed in an atrium - I imagine that due to their size the location pretty much chose itself! Although geometric rather than figurative, they are attractive survivals.</span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06801166930755750087noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-684151954360247635.post-81753635518697627942014-05-21T00:13:00.002+01:002014-05-21T07:53:39.432+01:00Vikings at the British Museum - warrior or wimp?<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Having finally had chance to visit the British Museum's latest archaeological blockbuster, I couldn't help but share my thoughts on an exhibition that has divided viewers. </span></span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I confess that, after hearing the views of various colleagues and reading less than congratulatory reviews in both the mainstream media and the museum / archaeology press, it was with some trepidation that I entered the British Museum's new Sainsbury Wing to explore the world of the Vikings.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Exhibitions often win or lose their audience at the very first hurdle and the Vikings didn't get off to an auspicious start for me. The location of the introductory interpretation wasn't clear and the chance to clearly set out the geographical and temporal constraints of the exhibition and the key curatorial messages lost. The content of the first room didn't help with this either. The first few display cases seemed to talk more about the Slavs, Balts and Franks than the Vikings, and overhearing comments from other visitors reinforced my own feelings of confusion about how this early content fitted into the story of the Vikings, and what the message of the exhibition actually was.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Equally confusing was the labelling, which made it difficult to match individual objects to their interpretation. In fact, many objects simply weren't interpreted individually at all - instead existing as groups of objects displayed as grave assemblages, hoards or thematic groups. Without some prior knowledge of the terminology being used, I can imagine that many visitors simply failed to understand what they were looking at. One good point was that at least the captions were produced twice, avoiding a problem encountered in previous BM exhibitions of low level captions being hidden from most of the people viewing the case.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Another issue which struck me like a hammer on first entry was just what an endless sea of grey everything was. I can almost imagine the design conversation - Walls? Grey. Ceiling? Grey. Case interiors? Grey. Interpretation panels? Pink. Just kidding, make them grey too. I'm sure the idea was to make the gold, silver and amber look vibrant in contrast, but it really didn't work for me, and the monochrome expanse actually became quite depressing. Combined with the fact that many cases contained near identical material, it made the experience feel repetitive. Seriously - visit the exhibition and count how many pairs of tortoise brooches there are in different cases!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Before you start to feel that this review is full of nothing but negativity, let me reassure you that the assembled objects really are special. For a people that didn't leave us a huge amount of distinct material culture, the object selection is first rate. Part of the problem seemed to me to be one of the fundamental difficulties when presenting archaeological objects - many of them are small. </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The detail, and the wonder of so many of these items is undeniably in the detail, is lost behind glass and crowds. There are no enlargements or graphics to enable the visitor to easily marvel at the tiny decoration and discover each object's personality. Instead, every small gold, silver, copper alloy or bone item looks vaguely the same, which is a huge shame as the objects are genuinely wonderful and many of them worthy of lengthy and detailed examination. Such objects need to be displayed in a way that promotes</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> patience from visitors, especially since many will have been so recently wowed by the large scale and easily appreciable splendour of the Pompeii exhibition.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The exhibition feels like the proverbial game of two halves. The first half is confined within tighter corridors, but the second opens into a single large, open plan area, centred around the star of the show - one of the Roskilde boats. I had been disappointed before visiting to learn that the boat was actually more frame than object and was almost ready to criticise it before even seeing it. On standing before it, however, I confess I was very impressed. The frame is a work of art in its own right, showing the sinuous beauty of the craft to great effect, and positioned cleverly within the gallery, allowing it to be seen from many angles and different heights. The displays surrounding it are equally good, effortlessly explaining the manufacture and use of these sleek icons with some wonderfully surviving and evocative organic remains and neat video presentations. They feel like they have been created by a different curator than the earlier displays, and almost as if they belong to a different exhibition.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This large space also contains the more traditional part of the Viking story - that of warfare and raiding. I was excited to see elements of the Viking mass grave excavated in Dorset a few years ago, having recently read about it in Current Archaeology. However, I completely agree with <a href="http://mikepitts.wordpress.com/2014/03/07/is-british-museum-vikings-show-a-disaster/" target="_blank">Mike Pitts in his exhibition review</a> - it would have been great to have this example of Anglo Saxons killing Vikings elevated to a position near the start of the exhibition to turn the stereotypes of who was the butcher and who the butchered on its head and engage visitors right from the first room.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So, despite the criticisms, how did the exhibition make me feel? As a Romanist, the </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Vikings have never held me in total thrall as a culture, but I hoped that this exhibition would open my eyes to the complex social and cultural world of the 8th, 9th and 10th centuries and give me a greater understanding of a time period so often oversimplified to raids and monastery burnings. Sadly, the overall narrative was lost on me and I'm not sure I could tell someone much more about the Vikings than I could when I walked in. However, a number of the objects, not least the Roskilde boat, were truly stunning and very memorable. Despite my reservations over some of the display choices, the sheer quality of them stays with me and makes it difficult for me to look back on my time in the exhibition entirely negatively. It was certainly an exhibition that started slowly but ended on a high.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">As for the new exhibition gallery itself, I'm not the first to say that it feels like a characterless modern box, and it certainly lacks the charm and personality of the Reading Room. Hopefully its versatility will come to the fore in future exhibitions and its probably unfair to judge its success (or otherwise) so soon and on only one exhibition. However, a greater injection of vibrancy in future would be welcome to make the displays more of a celebration of the past than a mausoleum.</span></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06801166930755750087noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-684151954360247635.post-51387112148641342882014-03-10T18:55:00.000+00:002014-03-10T19:00:34.017+00:00Play a card game, loot a tomb?<span style="orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; widows: 2;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">While I was in Oxford this weekend I spent some time relaxing in the wonderful <a href="http://www.thirstymeeples.co.uk/" target="_blank">Thirsty Meeples</a> board game cafe. While browsing through their shelves I came across an archaeology-related card game. 'Excellent!' I thought. Then I read the back of the box and my heart sank. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Digging up pyramids to hunt for stashes of treasure? Trading your finds at the marketplace? Picking the right moment to sell your finds to the museum for maximum profit? In fact, after this description the 'cunning thieves' lurking around the dig site would actually appear to be better called 'other archaeologists!'
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Is this really the way archaeology is still seen by some people? I certainly hope not. Needless to say the game went back on the shelf unplayed...</span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06801166930755750087noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-684151954360247635.post-730241420153260832013-11-30T16:12:00.000+00:002013-11-30T16:15:05.360+00:00Lincolnshire's archaeology - now in 3D...<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">When it comes to movies, I confess I'm not a big fan of 3D. Paying extra for the right to wear uncomfortable and silly glasses isn't something the effect is worth, for me. But archaeology in 3D? Well that's a different story.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">3D scanning of collections is taking off in in a big way across the museum world, and I'm pleased to say that the project my own museum is working on puts us right there on the cutting edge. The project is actually a result of us winning the prestigious Contemporary Art Society prize - leading to us being able to purchase a top quality 3D scanner and employ an intern to spend some intensive time using it to digitize selected items from our collections. The focus of the project is contemporary art - a German artist called Oliver Laric will be using the scans to produce a new artwork for the collections - but the spin off benefits for the collections involved are worth highlighting.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The website developed especially for the project can be found <a href="http://lincoln3dscans.co.uk/" target="_blank">here</a>, and from there you can download the proper stl files for each scan and play with it fully in a 3D environment. </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The images on the website and presented here are simple gifs rotating on one axis, but its only when you import them into some 3D software (such as the great free Meshlab app for iPhone) that they really come to life. </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">People are even starting to use the scans to create new artworks, and these can be seen in the growing 'gallery' section. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Its the implications for enabling greater digital engagement with archaeological objects that excites me most, however, as the technology has two main benefits - firstly that people not able to visit the museum can access an entire object in one file and play with it to their heart's content and secondly that the scanning process can actually make the objects easier to understand. </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">As the scans are greyscale, they remove colour differences from corrosion and weathering which can trick the eye, and can make small details such as text and carving on stone much clearer. The gifs below show some of the archaeological items scanned so far and hopefully demonstrate what I mean. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">There is a third benefit too, actually. If you look at the medieval font scan below, you'll see its nicely placed on its stand. The font and stand are two sepa</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">rate objects and this digital trickery is the first time I've been able to see them together as their physical reconstruction is a weighty problem to overcome. The potential to reconstruct objects in a digital environment is something we've only just begun to experiment with.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Its early days and there's still a lot of experimenting to do with the technology and how we present it, such as issues with authenticity when the reverse of an object can't be scanned. Otherwise, enjoy the spinniest post ever made on this blog! Weeeeeeeeee!</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Cast of Roman altar from Bordeaux</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Medieval font from Lincolnshire</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxY01bT8wBS6AmnfsyWHoL0014gjLicB6_CEgbqSbrab2-qUN8Kuc2XG2qD2aj89lG8MTc4b9XIqmhxiZy5ShAVvuwmu6VE2Km-xHSLB1Eu5LZpoa8owMv5BWmaE32KT8tqGaFdFjmfuE/s1600/Gaius+Valerius.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxY01bT8wBS6AmnfsyWHoL0014gjLicB6_CEgbqSbrab2-qUN8Kuc2XG2qD2aj89lG8MTc4b9XIqmhxiZy5ShAVvuwmu6VE2Km-xHSLB1Eu5LZpoa8owMv5BWmaE32KT8tqGaFdFjmfuE/s320/Gaius+Valerius.gif" width="284" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Tombstone of Gaius Valerius (IX Legion), Lincoln</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Medieval grave cover from the Malandry, Lincoln</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzbvbPni4zJLRsHiVVCnPqiASAlWYFzuPeYLU5mBXXc-SaorYrqYgrjgshfZ2Ki3-IsT72wOoukUdnlIjIW3GvZOUZZB6u0CxKbV-_vcOY98n2JB1a2dtP7KfLQ8BUdFxG3-rAOHs9CRs/s1600/Newland+Column+Base.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzbvbPni4zJLRsHiVVCnPqiASAlWYFzuPeYLU5mBXXc-SaorYrqYgrjgshfZ2Ki3-IsT72wOoukUdnlIjIW3GvZOUZZB6u0CxKbV-_vcOY98n2JB1a2dtP7KfLQ8BUdFxG3-rAOHs9CRs/s320/Newland+Column+Base.gif" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Roman carving (column base?) from Newland, Lincoln</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Roman Tyche pilaster from Lincoln</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoxOcF4M1Rg0Dy0seBRkcwPwd5z6PskjK8fXCx03nzKMpFbCSqI2IfBsWD34kxtXo2pP1Fw4qe4AWV6KqHMyLqUAAhWBcG8MljbR_KnUkJxCjKmSav10OZTBe3aOtk61YukksQ8sKcJMc/s1600/Stone+Torso.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoxOcF4M1Rg0Dy0seBRkcwPwd5z6PskjK8fXCx03nzKMpFbCSqI2IfBsWD34kxtXo2pP1Fw4qe4AWV6KqHMyLqUAAhWBcG8MljbR_KnUkJxCjKmSav10OZTBe3aOtk61YukksQ8sKcJMc/s320/Stone+Torso.gif" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Roman stone torso from Ancaster, Lincs</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik1wxpkUk5GRh9hd7KwcDZbgYoa1lUcCaIKRA9E59fKpq1_lwwOTk3-2ryT4_mOLoB_k4Rk1DP5hoIRLnrk7iPF_9B-1WbMlwCbc_TIxfxhsL_x6eJmG2ucMNvkNtkoLer6SiqNXChQ5o/s1600/Tombstone+boy+with+hare.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik1wxpkUk5GRh9hd7KwcDZbgYoa1lUcCaIKRA9E59fKpq1_lwwOTk3-2ryT4_mOLoB_k4Rk1DP5hoIRLnrk7iPF_9B-1WbMlwCbc_TIxfxhsL_x6eJmG2ucMNvkNtkoLer6SiqNXChQ5o/s320/Tombstone+boy+with+hare.gif" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Roman tombstone from lincoln</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYRvdmvgKi7bQ8JLWTtS6DnaHEa_eXqZKkfXmZrE0Y4PodQk6O7kh5Wkf9L01jEQ2t38pgT1znRtGvEuNATgruimr5jWZfglBKR8JaawdjvDvCzoWlUGNfBfTiJxnwpTHf7LsZ-UerWEk/s1600/Tombstone+Flavius+Helius.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYRvdmvgKi7bQ8JLWTtS6DnaHEa_eXqZKkfXmZrE0Y4PodQk6O7kh5Wkf9L01jEQ2t38pgT1znRtGvEuNATgruimr5jWZfglBKR8JaawdjvDvCzoWlUGNfBfTiJxnwpTHf7LsZ-UerWEk/s320/Tombstone+Flavius+Helius.gif" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Tombstone of Flavius Helius, Lincoln</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06801166930755750087noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-684151954360247635.post-71823786487866023752013-11-07T21:24:00.001+00:002013-11-07T21:26:49.809+00:00Travels with Li Dongni - Natural and Historic Orkney (July 2012)<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This is the second post looking at our long road trip to the beautiful Orkney Islands. <a href="http://lettersfromlidongni.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/travels-with-li-dongni-neolithic-orkney.html" target="_blank">The first post looked at the islands' unique Neolithic heritage</a>. This post will look at some of the more recent historic sites we visited, and some of the natural beauty on offer.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">One of the most unusual sites on Orkney is the 'Italian Chapel' near the Churchill Barriers. Built by Italian POWs in 1943 from Nissen Huts to serve their nearby POW camp, the chapel is both an amazing survival and the interior a wonderful piece of artwork in its own right - particularly the painted 'stonework'.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The capital of Orkney, Kirkwall, contains a number of interesting historical sights, as well as being a very nice place to explore and do a bit of shopping in. The cathedral is the star attraction, with its solid red sandstone Romanesque architecture.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A particularly unusual feature of the cathedral was the sheer number of 17th Century tombstones lined up inside featuring variations on a skull and crossbones motif. While no doubt intended to carry a form of 'as I am, so you shall be' message, it was striking to see so many in one building and so many with such wonderful quality carvings. Here are just a small selection.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Kirkwall also boasts two historic palaces - the Bishop's Palace and the Earl's Palace. We actually arrived quite late in the day and just got inside before last entry so didn't have as long to explore as we might have liked.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Essentially, the Bishop's Palace is the older of the two, and dates to the 12th Century. The adjacent Earl's Palace was begun in the early 17th Century and was the replacement for the Bishop's Palace, by then seen to be too small and old fashioned. The Earl's Palace was built in French Renaissance style and the grandeur it once had is still clear to see.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Of course, one of the great joys of Orkney is simply enjoying its natural beauty, be it on the endless coastline at Yesnaby or at the top of a viewing point like Wideford Hill. To finish, here are some of my favourite images taken while travelling around.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06801166930755750087noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-684151954360247635.post-40911961514518637272013-11-01T23:41:00.000+00:002013-11-01T23:46:37.501+00:00Travels with Li Dongni - Sichuan Provincial Museum, Chengdu, China (September 2013)<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Its rather odd that, despite blogging about a few different Chinese museums I've visited, I've never yet posted anything about one of the many visits I've made to my favourite one - the Jinsha Site Museum in Chengdu. Of course, if you've read the title of this post, you might have realised that this post isn't about that museum either! One day, folks, I promise I will...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Most Chinese provincial capitals seem to contain a museum telling the story of their wider province and Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province, is no exception. Of course, with a population of over 80 million people, its rather a large area to cover in one museum so the approach is to look at things by large 'subject' halls rather than by trying to tell a chronological story. Architecturally the museum ticks all the boxes of the modern Chinese museum design book. A large, clean stone and glass building with a sweeping roofline, inside which is a large central atrium with circular walkways on each floor, and exhibition halls projecting off symmetrically.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Before heading inside the museum, though, something definitely caught my eye outside - a large lorry. Although I initially wondered why on earth someone had been allowed to park a lorry right outside the front door, all soon became clear. In a great example of how progressive Chinese museums can be, and clearly in response to the question of how you relate to a province-wide audience, the lorry is in fact a wonderfully branded mobile museum. The design of the lorry was particularly good, with expanding sides to create a walkway when parked. Sadly, it was locked up and I couldn't get inside to see what stories were being told, how the objects were being secured and indeed what the object selection had been from a security and environment point of view.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Inside the museum the displays are divided into a number of halls, which I'll now explore one at a time:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>Gallery of Bronze ware</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This gallery examines bronzework (mainly in the form of vessels and weaponry) from the Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties. The galleries contain a minimal number of objects, displayed in well lit cases and with small but neat and bilingual object labels. As seems normal for Chinese museums, there is no visible environmental monitoring within cases. The quality of the objects is first rate, however, and there are some neat display solutions such as the use of magnifying glasses and mirrors to see both sides of seals.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>Gallery of Ceramics</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Just like it says on the tin, this gallery looks at the development of ceramics in the province, mainly in the Han and Song dynasties. The focus is very much on the more unusual and decorative vessels and tomb figurines here, rather than the everyday vessels used by the majority of people. There is a nice section on changing kiln technology, however, that most Chinese museums would ignore entirely.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>Zhang Daqian's Art Gallery</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The most unusual gallery in the museum is one dedicated to the works of a single artist. Zhang Daqian (1899 - 1983) comes across as something of an eccentric character. He was a Buddhist monk in his early life, but would later move abroad and exhibited his paintings in New York in the 1950s. Of particular interest, though, is his time spent recording the Buddhist frescoes in the caves at Dunhuang in the 1940s. These frescoes were damaged and stolen before and after then, and his paintings serve as a valuable historic record alongside being works of art. His work is much more varied than that, however, as the images below show. One thing I liked was the quote that he buried all of his used brushes in his garden as he formed an attachment with them. He even erected a monument to his 'tomb of brushes'!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>Gallery of Tibetan Buddhism</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Given that Sichuan borders Tibet, and many thousands of people of Tibetan ethnicity live well within the boundaries of Sichuan, it is understandable that a gallery is dedicated to Buddhist art. Despite the wealth of interesting objects, sadly I think this is one gallery that underwhelms, as it doesn't really attempt to provide a deeper understanding of Buddhism. Also, not at all surprising in a Chinese museum, social issues are avoided at all costs...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>Gallery of Sichuan Crafts</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This mixed gallery definitely contains everything that wouldn't fit in any other gallery! A strange but fascinating mix of glassware, rhino horn cups, bamboo carvings, shadow puppets and embroidery is displayed, some of which are fascinating in their scale, and some of the bamboo carving in particular is of wonderful quality and detail.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>Pottery and Stone Carvings Gallery of Han Dynasty in Sichuan</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This ponderously-titled gallery does at least let you know what's contained within - a selection of ceramic tomb models and stone carvings from the Han Dynasty. I confess I was starting to get gallery fatigue by this point, but some of the ceramic tiles were fun, and displayed nicely with rubbings so the design could be better seen. Look out for the one with the voyeur enjoying himself behind a tree - that one would even make the Romans blush!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06801166930755750087noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-684151954360247635.post-20195393347745194442013-10-06T16:02:00.004+01:002013-10-06T16:02:37.970+01:00Cotswolds walking, sunsets, goats and donkeys<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Keep it under your hat, but my wife turned 30 yesterday. Its officially a secret and we're definitely not allowed to mention it, so don't tell anyone, OK? To celebrate this completely nondescript day, I headed down to Oxford where my extremely-late-20-something wife is currently studying for her PhD, and we decided to enjoy the beautiful autumn weather with a ramble in the Oxfordshire side of the Cotswolds.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Looking at a few online routes, we settled on one around the villages of Stonesfield and Combe, just northwest of Oxford. Of course, as always seems to happen, we somehow managed to get off track, this time in the parklands around Blenheim Palace, and took far longer than planned to get back to the car. This time, it was the large stone walls around the edge of the park that caused the problem, and I'm still yet to be convinced that the steps over it that the route claims exist actually do. It led to us spending an hour in the growing dark clambering through increasingly dense woodland in the hope of stumbling across a gap. Thankfully, we eventually reached one of the park's formal gates and were able to escape. We did then have to spend an hour walking down a B road in the complete pitch black, however. Still, despite our rambles seeming to never quite go to plan, it was a lovely afternoon and something of an adventure. The beautiful meal at the Woodstock Arms in Woodstock that evening certainly helped the day be a success.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">As always, I had my trusty camera in hand throughout, and on this walk we did particularly well, encountering some beautiful scenery, a lovely sunset, the remains of North Leigh Roman villa (<a href="http://lettersfromlidongni.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/some-recent-roman-ramblings.html" target="_blank">which I've been to a few times before</a>, but even so its always a nice place to visit) and even a friendly donkey and a slightly wonky goat! </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Enjoy...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06801166930755750087noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-684151954360247635.post-78824282393678620562013-09-23T19:41:00.002+01:002013-09-23T19:44:16.523+01:00Nemi at Nottingham Castle<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This weekend, I finally managed to make the short trip across to Nottingham to see 'The Treasure of Nemi' exhibition at Nottingham Castle Museum before it closes. Its scary just how quickly exhibitions fly past, and before you know it they're in their final week and you still haven't been!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The subject material is wonderful, and a great idea for an exhibition. The sanctuary of the goddess Diana at Lake Nemi, southeast of Rome, is a very famous archaeological site and was a renowned shrine through its long life between the 5th Century BC and the 2nd Century AD.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Ovid, in his 'Fasti' (his partially surviving tour through the religious festivals of the Roman calendar), mentions Nemi for the month of March:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"Teach me, nymph, servant of Diana's grove and pool;</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Come, nymph, Numa's wife, witness your deeds.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In Aricia's valley, circled by a shady wood </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Is a lake, hallowed by an ancient cult.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Here Hippolytus hides, unfleshed by horses' reins;</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Hence no horses may enter the grove.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The long hedgerows are covered with hanging threads;</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Many placards give thanks to the goddess.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Often a woman is granted her prayer, wreathes her brow</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And bears shimmering torches from the city.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The grove is ruled by runaways with strong hands and feet,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; text-align: -webkit-auto;">Who later perish by their own example.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="text-align: -webkit-auto;">A pebbly rivulet spills down with shifting sounds:</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; text-align: -webkit-auto;">I have often drunk from there in small sips.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="text-align: -webkit-auto;">Egeria supplies the water, the Camenae's</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; text-align: -webkit-auto;">Darling goddess, Numa's wife and council.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="text-align: -webkit-auto;">At first the Quirites were too eager for war;</span></span></div>
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</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; text-align: -webkit-auto;">Numa tamed them with law and fear of gods.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="text-align: -webkit-auto;">Laws were made to cabin the power of the strong,</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; text-align: -webkit-auto;">And ancient rites were observed exactly.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; text-align: -webkit-auto;">Barbarism is peeled off, justice surpasses arms,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; text-align: -webkit-auto;">And civil violence becomes shameful.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; text-align: -webkit-auto;">An altar's sight induces recent brutes to offer</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; text-align: -webkit-auto;">Wine and salted spelt on glowing hearths."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">One of the most fascinating (and downright mad) elements of the Nemi site is the priest that presided over it. Known as the 'Rex Nemorensis' ('King of the Grove'), the priest was a runaway slave who held his position until another runaway slave took a bough from a tree at the site and killed him! Suffice it to say, this was not normal procedure for Roman priesthood succession planning!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The site was excavated in 1885 by Lord Savile, then British Minister in Rome. He had an agreement with Prince Orsini, the landowner, that they would share the finds 50-50. Thankfully, though Orsini let his collection be scattered, Savile donated his collection to Nottingham Castle on his return to England.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So, what was the exhibition like? Overall, it has to be said that the quality of the collection makes it a success, though there are certain little things that jarred me while I was looking round, and I need to get them off my chest first before telling you what I really liked!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Firstly, I actually had trouble finding the exhibition within the museum and found myself wandering a bit randomly through various galleries trying to find generic 'temporary exhibition' signage. It would have been nice to have had some bespoke signage throughout the museum to help locate the galleries and promote the existence of the exhibition. When I eventually found the galleries, I entered by one of a number of entrances, but not one that provided me with an introduction, leaving me wandering through the experience effectively backwards, which wasn't critical but was a little frustrating.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The exhibition was neat and tidy but felt a little staid and old fashioned, an opinion also shared by the two people I visited with. For example the rooms seemed to me to be begging for some large scale vinyls of the beautiful lake setting to transport visitors into the environment and inject some vibrancy and colour. A sense of place was lacking from the interpretation in general, as although certain panels did discuss the setting of the shrine perfectly adequately, it wasn't particularly brought to life. This seemed a shame when the location of the shrine is one of its most appealing and significant aspects.</span><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9afBjNPPWCvgZFGqL_pgylFg3O-VAn2y9BWViN9b2HtZ7K_2B0AZitN_OkNco1ow1TJgq5eMexwfgj-x9Wru9ysIiUnkV3SuxiQqwQJnvqZDlNOabP06xFPqkg4crezM9eNuEYFmHhCg/s1600/Diana_s+Mirror.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9afBjNPPWCvgZFGqL_pgylFg3O-VAn2y9BWViN9b2HtZ7K_2B0AZitN_OkNco1ow1TJgq5eMexwfgj-x9Wru9ysIiUnkV3SuxiQqwQJnvqZDlNOabP06xFPqkg4crezM9eNuEYFmHhCg/s400/Diana_s+Mirror.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Image from <a href="http://www.romanroadwalks.com/">www.romanroadwalks.com</a></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Linked to this previous comment, and perhaps reflecting the budgeting realities of modern museums, was the interpretation for the display cases of votive offerings. I really loved how the offerings had been arranged in chronological groupings to demonstrate the changing nature of the offerings over time, and the displays themselves were attractive and eye-catching, but why oh why did they decide to use laminated sheets of A4 for the interpretation? I don't have a problem with using a numbering system to avoid cluttering an attractive and object-rich display with text-heavy labels, but to use laminated sheets (tearing apart at the edges) seems cheap to me and isn't worthy of the quality of the objects. This was compounded by the fact that there was only one set of interpretation for each display case, and the text often ran over multiple sheets, sometimes cutting halfway through a single object's interpretation. I'm afraid it lets down the quality of the display immensely. Oh, and some of the sheets had even become mixed up between display cases as they weren't graphically distinguished in any way. Grrr...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">With those gripes out of the way, let me get on with telling you what I liked, because overall, as I said at the outset, the quality of the material is wonderful and the interpretation is very good. Nottingham Castle is extremely fortunate to have such a collection from this wonderful site and its great to see it being placed in the spotlight.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I always find votive objects fascinating, and the collection on show is second to none. The fact that there are so many from the same site makes them especially interesting, and means that changes in fashions can be traced through time. A whole range of anatomical models (hands, feet, pregnant women etc); full and partial statuettes of animals, deities (namely Diana and Minerva); busts of unidentified people in both bronze and terracotta and miniature versions of various pots and jars are all on display, and I spent a long time peering into the neat displays looking at the tiny details - absolutely wonderful!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The use of 'broken' columns as display cases in the centre of one room was a neat touch, as were the mirrors at the bottom of them, no doubt a device designed to carry the idea of the mirror-like qualities of the lake, sometimes known as 'speculum Dianae' - the mirror of Diana. </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It was also nice to see a variety of architectural material on wall-mounted open display. The mounting was well done and the arrangement attractive.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The 'Fundilia Room' was arranged to represent a single room at the shrine, built around 50BC and partially excavated by Savile. The objects in this room, including images of objects now in Copenhagen, provide the personal touch to the displays, containing as they do the names and faces of people involved with patronising and worshipping at the shrine. This includes the fabulous herm of Fundilia Rufa, who has become the 'face' of the exhibition, and the character through which the social media was focussed. The quality of the objects is wonderful and the arrangement a great success. I confess I got very much caught up moving from object to object and revealing the details of people who had had such personal involvement in the site. The contemporary video presentation fitted the content well, and the large tree for people to add their own votive wishes was very sweet.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">At this point, I should certainly make mention of the website and blog which were created around the exhibition. The <a href="http://www.speculum-dianae.nottingham.ac.uk/" target="_blank">website</a> provides a background to the site and finds and the excellent <a href="http://nemitonottingham.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">blog</a> has articles from museum staff and wider university experts which explore a variety of issues about the shrine, the archaeological questions it raises and the project to digitise and 3D scan the collections. I hope the blog in particular remains live for a long time to come, as the article archive they have created is first rate, and has some stimulating content. Ironically, the online content provides some of the imagery and sense of place that I felt was lacking in the exhibition itself. You should definitely check them out!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">As a final touch, I very much liked that the gardens which surround the museum building had had one of the flowerbeds specially turned into a representation of one of the terracotta male heads from the site. Oh to be able to go back in time and tell the original depositor what his offering would one day be turned into!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06801166930755750087noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-684151954360247635.post-91807462294607589022013-09-10T20:06:00.002+01:002013-09-10T20:07:13.084+01:00Panda power<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">No trip to Chengdu would be complete without a trip to the city's panda breeding centre, though having been four times on different trips now, I think I'm running out of people willing to go with me. Nevertheless, here, for your viewing pleasure, are my latest batch of giant and red panda photos from the centre. My favourite ones from here will also be added to the main panda page. Enjoy!</span><br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06801166930755750087noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-684151954360247635.post-45122168561772616292013-09-08T13:25:00.002+01:002013-09-08T13:25:52.686+01:00Bike helmet - you're doing it wrong...<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">One of the things about travelling in any country, especially China it seems, are the unusual things you see. Of course, I have no desire to be cruel here and stupid things can be seen on the streets of Britain on a daily basis too, but just for fun, here are some of the things I saw on my recent trip back to China that made me chuckle.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The first is definitely my favourite, and the best version of a meme that I've ever happened across in my own life. Taken out of the window of a moving car on my phone, which explains the slightly bad photo, but I'll let you spot the glaring gaff yourselves...</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3ONeLSzGHRueUdYA2m7SL3T_0vs6I20_j2ExnHPJ4gGO_JtOGg5loUzOHYPf1T7NMyUPfaqYMwEnNovZHxtIwE4Om1k75wrMhhXuB-iHI9Cc0ejhJ40raYmR0OHEWQMpWaoBMQApTwYE/s1600/Chengdu+bike+helmet+meme.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="bike helmet meme doing it wrong china" border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3ONeLSzGHRueUdYA2m7SL3T_0vs6I20_j2ExnHPJ4gGO_JtOGg5loUzOHYPf1T7NMyUPfaqYMwEnNovZHxtIwE4Om1k75wrMhhXuB-iHI9Cc0ejhJ40raYmR0OHEWQMpWaoBMQApTwYE/s400/Chengdu+bike+helmet+meme.jpg" title="" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Of course, motorbikes are a constant source of wonder for foreigners in China, with babies crammed in between multiple adults and amazing loads balanced on the back of small and knackered machines. Whilst up on the Tibetan plateau I did come across this little party out for an afternoon ride.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCUbPmHR0C8QIN5JoR2tQVXb1iVnHNGdcl0dI1TwNooEGJ-EaPw5JdIkxVgOMq7lHgQfyn26b3Tn3v35IQYk1TrH_qwGdibi4GTKhTKSz9_ba5qGS7WcRT2TIIGxgf2ZUAGqHJvTEQ6_I/s1600/bike.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="bike people crammed" border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCUbPmHR0C8QIN5JoR2tQVXb1iVnHNGdcl0dI1TwNooEGJ-EaPw5JdIkxVgOMq7lHgQfyn26b3Tn3v35IQYk1TrH_qwGdibi4GTKhTKSz9_ba5qGS7WcRT2TIIGxgf2ZUAGqHJvTEQ6_I/s400/bike.JPG" title="" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The use of the English language is a constant source of amusement for travellers in Asia (check out the very funny <a href="http://www.engrish.com/">www.engrish.com</a> if you don't know it already), though equally Chinese characters are abused horribly in the west, so we can't exactly claim any moral superiority here. Still, it's always funny to come across some mangled language, though in the case below it was less a case of garbled grammar and more one of simply not caring how to put a graphic on a car!</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBq0tDbBEl9qzMX0_a5PMLD8_6bg8AUvbLUGB2lDCkLNrM1ytxERm_v69T5OqrLwzprXeZSb-i7oLG5s4oT9eKhWt-CcqD1BJQR-Y-Ad6pryxL1V5B1kkhKz3Ua2ZnO0P1CUCnMyvUpik/s1600/car+graphic.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="car china graphics backwards mistake" border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBq0tDbBEl9qzMX0_a5PMLD8_6bg8AUvbLUGB2lDCkLNrM1ytxERm_v69T5OqrLwzprXeZSb-i7oLG5s4oT9eKhWt-CcqD1BJQR-Y-Ad6pryxL1V5B1kkhKz3Ua2ZnO0P1CUCnMyvUpik/s400/car+graphic.JPG" title="" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Shops in China are funny beasts. Chinese cities contain a huge variety of establishments, from grubby backstreet family run places to gleaming luxury emporia. Its actually the latter group that seem to promote the most weirdness, as many seem to compete to be the most 'western', albeit in ways that westerners find rather odd. Shops names are a particularly great source of fun. My favourite ever was a fashion store in Beijing called 'Valued Squirrel.'</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A recent fashion seems to be to take English words and combine them to create brands. Two that really caught my eye in Chengdu are 'Prich' (combining 'Pride' and 'Rich') and 'Plory' ('Pride' and 'Glory') - who could fail to be impressed with such values!</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7MeFvdrRZrMA3OX68QURrLf1qE4ELJIeNcT4QRCNFh9NwkFNlnmUhmJfvPfSg7W6drA6vKq297hG9dpYyjRp4l3BjMh21A92pH6CSnY4RVDFe_sU-Fd7XCLPb5B7PqkOIXI9lSmv3qyQ/s1600/plory.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7MeFvdrRZrMA3OX68QURrLf1qE4ELJIeNcT4QRCNFh9NwkFNlnmUhmJfvPfSg7W6drA6vKq297hG9dpYyjRp4l3BjMh21A92pH6CSnY4RVDFe_sU-Fd7XCLPb5B7PqkOIXI9lSmv3qyQ/s400/plory.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Another one I found rather odd, if not even a little disturbing was a women's underwear brand (I swear I didn't spend my time looking at women's underwear), called 'Diana', with the tagline, and I quote directly, spelling mistake and all, 'Diana the Romance of Bbritish'. *shudder*</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Staying with the English language, while picking up some last minute food and drink to bring home with me I was rather startled by the jumper a staff member was wearing. It proved rather difficult to get a good photo on my phone without the wearer thinking I was some weirdo stalker, but hopefully I got a good enough one. Despite being nonsensical and containing seemingly random words, look out for the words that are rather inappropriate for a family supermarket!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Finally, while browsing in a very small shop in a little town we stopped off at in the Sichuan mountains, I saw this particularly good example of garbled English. I realise I'm running the risk here of you all thinking that I'm obsessed with women's clothing so I promise that my next post about my Chinese travels will be more high-brow and cultural than this one!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06801166930755750087noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-684151954360247635.post-60940920329137644532013-09-06T22:12:00.001+01:002013-09-08T11:44:27.958+01:00Living life the Chengdu way<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I'm safely back home after spending a few weeks basking in the wonderfully warm welcome my wife's family never fail to offer in her home city of Chengdu. Unlike a lot of trips where we've packed the schedule so full of sightseeing there's barely been time to draw breath, this trip was designed to be at a more leisurely pace, meaning lots more time strolling around the city, exploring its shopping areas and a few new historic sites such as Wenshu Monastery and the Sichuan Provincial Museum. Of course, being Chengdu it also meant a fair amount of drinking tea, eating copious amounts of delicious food and brushing up on my mahjong skills too!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We did manage to slip in a few notable visits though - namely a drive up onto the Tibetan plateau and a day at the ancient dams at nearby Dujiangyan - both things I've wanted to do for a very long time.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">No visit to Chengdu would be complete without seeing the city's famous furry black and white residents, so expect some more panda photos for the panda page very soon, as well as posts about my other experiences.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The lengthy travelling involved is always a bugbear when going back to China, especially if, like me, flying isn't exactly your favourite activity. Thankfully more and more airlines are offering international flights directly into Chengdu without having to fly right across China to Beijing or Shanghai only to fly right back across it again. It's about time they realised that Chengdu should be the hub for international flights into western China. Sadly our outward journey turned into something of an unwanted epic. What should have been a journey of 16 hours from Heathrow via Abu Dhabi turned into a 36 hour marathon - the knock on effect of a single earlier flight having a minor technical problem in the UAE.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The delay of our first flight from London led to a 13 hour wait in Abu Dhabi airport, followed by a diversion via Beijing - the flights to Chengdu are only every two days. To cap it all, a cocked-up booking by Air China meant that even the unplanned-for Beijing to Chengdu flight was missed and we had to wait another 3 hours in Beijing. Nightmare! Thankfully the return flight went to plan and 16 hours almost seemed short by comparison...</span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06801166930755750087noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-684151954360247635.post-47576973642429165652013-08-18T11:34:00.000+01:002013-09-08T14:04:29.227+01:00A return to China<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I will once again be taking a little break from blogging as I head back to China with my wife to visit family and friends in beautiful Chengdu. The only thing that bothers me about it at the moment is that fact that the weather there at present is about 36 degrees and very humid. Gulp...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">My previous trips to China have often involved a great deal of travelling across the country, and while this has been wonderful (and added each time to my goal of seeing every single province in China), this time the plan is to be more relaxed, and to see more in Chengdu and in the nearby towns and cities.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It would of course be rude to go to Chengdu and not say hello to a panda or two, so I hope that my in-laws won't roll their eyes too much when I ask to go back to the Panda Breeding Centre yet again!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">See you all in a few weeks when I return with new experiences and photos to blog about.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">As I don't think I've posted them before, here are a few of my favourite photos from Chengdu's People's Park</span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06801166930755750087noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-684151954360247635.post-85788950999542466022013-08-16T21:25:00.001+01:002013-08-16T21:25:19.254+01:00Travels with Li Dongni - Kaymakli underground city, Turkey (September 2010)<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">During our honeymoon trip to Turkey, one of the most unusual places my wife and I visited was the underground city of Kaymakli, in Cappadocia. This is just one of a number of similar subterranean settlements in the region.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The city consists of a maze of tunnels and rooms carved out of the tufa rock apparently between the 5th and 10th Centuries (though the site interpretation seemed rather hazy about the exact dating of the site). Of the approximately 100 tunnels on 8 levels, four levels can be visited today, the site having been opened to the public since 1964.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The site is understandably very claustrophobic, and it was difficult to work out on site whether the tunnels were in constant use, or just seen as a place of refuge in times of trouble. One thing is certain - they were very well equipped, with living rooms, storage rooms, wineries, churches and even stables included. The efficient ventilation system also meant that the occupants could remain underground for a considerable time.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Unfortunately, due to the dark conditions it was very difficult to take photographs (and tripods would have been impossible in the close confines of the tunnels, so the photos below are not up to my usual standards. Hopefully they still convey something of the nature of a rather unusual heritage attraction. The large 'wheels' to roll across and close off passages are particularly 'Indiana Jones'!</span><br />
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