You are currently browsing the monthly archive for May 2013.
Hordron Edge Stone Circle. Produced by terrybnd for Peak District TV
SmithsonianVideos
What’s possibly the most calming yet nerve-racking job in the world? Come behind the scenes of the Smithsonian’s Freer Gallery of Art to find out!
The conservation and scientific research of ancient Asian art takes a large team of experts from many fields. In order to bring thousands of treasures from the East to the galleries of the Smithsonian in downtown Washington, D.C., several critical and careful steps toward ensuring the objects’ continued longevity must be taken.
Learn more about the hard work taking place to keep these works alive and on display here.
A stag frontlet unearthed at Star Carr
The Scarborough News reports today that –
Some of the most remarkable and complete finds from Britain’s Stone Age, unearthed on the outskirts of Scarborough, will be assembled for the first time in a special exhibition. Eleven thousand-year-old deer skull head-dresses, bone harpoons and amber jewellery – amazingly preserved in peat – are just some of the highlights of the exhibiton at the Yorkshire Museum, in York, later this month. The objects, on loan from museums all over the country, all come from Star Carr, near Scarborough, where a number of Mesolithic settlements once stood on the shores of a huge lake.
Star Carr is noted internationally as the type-site for understanding hunter-gatherer communities of the Mesolithic period in Europe. It has been investigated by archaeologists since 1948, including by researchers from the University of York.
The ancient finds will be displayed alongside digital content giving visitors a taste of the sights and sounds of Yorkshire 11,000 years ago. The exhibition coincides with the publication of Star Carr: Life in Britain After the Ice Age, by the Council for British Archaeology, which tells the story of excavations at the site which was buried in a deep layer of peat on the edge of prehistoric Lake Flixton.
Full article here.
Another part of the jigsaw comes to light
Following my day at King Arthur’s Hall on King Arthur’s Down on Bodmin Moor helping out with the clearance of gorse, I (extreme right above) returned a couple of weeks later to have a closer look at the stone ‘revetment’ that had made its presence known when a lower section of the inner east bank fell away. This is quite a breakthrough and possible pours water on the general archaeological belief that this monument is simply a medieval animal pound. I’ve never believed that and hopefully now this apparent revetment wall has been exposed it will encourage the powers that be to carry out a full excavation of the bank at least and a dating of the site which sadly in this day and age is still missing.
Here is the video I shot on my revisit showing the revealed stone walling and my personal thoughts on both it and the site in general. Apologies for the wind rush which accompanies the video in parts but filming anywhere on Bodmin Moor always carries the risk of this when you only have a basic camcorder with no external mic.
Roy Goutté
Palygorskite. Image credit Wiki Commons
HeritageDaily reports on the 12 April that –
The recipe and process for preparing Maya Blue, a highly-resistant pigment used for centuries in Mesoamerica, were lost. We know that the ingredients are a plant dye, indigo, and a type of clay known as palygorskite, but scientists do not know how they were ‘cooked’ and combined together. Now, a team of chemists from the University of Valencia and the Polythecnic University of Valencia (Spain) have come up with a new hypothesis about how it was prepared.
Full article here.