Egypt

Above:  because I have been ill this weekend I was not able to go to the seminar yesterday organised by the Egypt Exploration Society.  The seminar was about the excavations at Naukratis in the Nile delta.  Naukritis is important as it was a centre of Greek culture and influence in Egypt (supposedly this influence goes back to pre-Minoan times).

Above:  the Review Show on BBC 2 on Friday looked at the refurbished Egyptian galleries at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford.  One of the panellists, Sarfraz Manzoor, told us in all seriousness that the new galleries showed the influence ancient Egypt had on surrounding civilizations.  This sounded suspiciously as if he was advancing the discredited "Black Athena" theory (described by Professor Lefkowitz as incompetent). 

Above:  a few weeks ago I went round the Petrie Museum of Egyptology at University College London.  They currently have an exhibition of Flinders Petrie's work analyzing foreign influences in ancient Egypt.  Far from being some kind of "pure" well-spring of civilisation, it appears that ancient Egyptian society was a beneficiary of multiculturalism.

Above:  sculptured heads of different ethnic groups.  One of the things I love about the Petrie Museum is the way everything is crammed into a few small rooms so that you are intimately pushed up against this ancient culture.  Also the labels are either typed (on a real typewriter) or handwritten, adding to the "authentic" experience.

Above:  the famous "Hebrew head" is tiny, and you almost stumble across it.  In any other museum it would be given a room to itself, with acres of explanatory blurb and security guards warning you not to touch the cabinet.  Not sure how long the Petrie Museum is going to survive without a "makeover" - you should go and see it while it is still untouched.

Above:  the Greco-Romano mummy portraits discovered by Petrie were an influence on the painter Alma-Tadema.  You can see similar portraits at the British Museum.  They are important because not a great deal of ancient Greek painting survives (these are clearly examples of Greek culture, whatever Sarfraz Manzoor might tell you).

Above:  "identity politics" has blighted archaeological research in recent decades.  Bonnie Greer (who is a trustee of the British Museum and ought to know better than to make political statements) has publicly and provocatively told us that there are no indigenous inhabitants of the British Isles.  What the Petrie exhibition demonstrates is that there are no indigenous people anywhere if Ms Greer's strictly pedantic interpretation is to be applied. 

Baynards Castle

Interesting double-page feature in today's Observer about the new "floating park" planned for the north shore of the Thames.

I am particularly interested in whether it might give new perspectives of the site of Baynards Castle (now completely covered in concrete and brutalist buildings).

I once attended a lecture by Professor Caroline Barron in which she talked about this corner of London, and I have been fascinated by it ever since.  The idea that there was a building equivalent to the Tower of London, now almost completely forgotten, seems to encompass all the romantic elements of history and archaeology.  Eventually the site must be redeveloped, and when that happens the area must be thoroughly investigated.

I have attempted to walk round the area, but the castle was on the waterfront and access is very restricted.  So I am hoping the new park will allow me to see the area from the river.  More:  http://www.britannia.com/history/londonhistory/lon-pal2.html

Doggerland

Above:  I am totally mesmerised by the idea that the North Sea was once solid land ("Doggerland") and a mesolithic society stretched from Britain to Denmark, complete with villages, stone circles, and all the other attributes of the middle Stone Age.

















Above:  whenever I go over to the North Sea coast I look out for fossils that might emerge from the eroding shore.

Above:  I found this book a bit too technical.  Hardly any thought is given to protecting the archaeological remains that must lie on the seabed.  Would we allow dredging and gravel removal from Flag Fen?

Above:  this book was more accessible. 

Above:  recently I went to Kings Lynn Museum to look at the remains of Sea Henge, a wooden circle that was found on the Norfolk coast (although originally constructed on the tidal marshes, the site was subsequently covered with sand which preserved the circle).  I know Sea Henge is Bronze Age, not mesolithic, but it gives you an indication of the fabulous remains that must exist on the seabed of Doggerland.  I asked at the British Museum if they had any artifacts from the North Sea and they just looked at me blankly.

Above:  in the centre of Sea Henge was a massive upturned oak tree.  The museum didn't present the Sea Henge artifacts very well, and some of the museum staff were off-hand.  The captions to the items were sometimes bizarre - you got the impression that they had dumbed everything down for visiting school parties instead of concentrating on the academic aspects of the display. 

Above:  the History Channel showed a programme on Doggerland called Stone Age Atlantis, which is an excellent introduction to the subject - you can see it again on YouTube.

Above:  so when you are next on the North Sea coast, instead of straight-away plunging into the freezing cold water (although I know what a refreshing experience that can be) spend a few minutes considering what archaeological treasures lie at your feet, and how our mesolithic ancestors walked this land before us.

Thinking aloud

Above: on the front page of the Guardian last Thursday, and also filling pages 2 and 3, were in-depth reports about the archaeological discovery in Norfolk of artifacts left by the earliest "Britons" about 900,000 years ago. The excavation was part of the "Ancient Human Occupation of Britain" project. An article by (revisionist) archaeologist Mike Pitts suggested that these Early Pleistocene inhabitants were not nomads following herds, but settled inhabitants - a very controversial theory.


The reports were illustrated by images created by artist John Sibbick. They seemed curiously dated in style. The Stone Age inhabitants were depicted naked, using primitive tools, and with dark hair that seemed to incorporate blonde highlights.





Above: we have an old (dated 1963) guidebook to Grimes Graves in Norfolk, a Neolithic site dated to 2,600 BC. It includes illustrations by artist Alan Sorrell. As you can see, they are very similar to the Sibbick illustrations.





Above: a Thames & Hudson book about archaeological heresies. Every alternative idea you can think of is in this book. As you would expect from a Thames & Hudson book, the approach is scholarly and responsible.





Above: the book describes how official Ministry of Works publications portrayed an image of "ancient barbarism" - primitive, naked and uncivilised. This image was consistent with a darwinian view of continuous progress. It was also consistent with an imperial ideology of domination (the Romans were superior to the British tribes, the Normans were superior to the Saxons etc).


It's odd to see this type of illustration come back into fashion, and in the Guardian of all places.





Above: anyway, I began rereading the book, which I have not looked at for some years. And I reached the chapter on Wilhelm Teudt who was a mad German archaeologist whose work was largely discredited after the Second World War. One of his crazy theories was about the Externsteine rocks in central Germany, supposedly the centre of worship of the Irmensul, or sacred oak tree.

There is a carving on the rocks that is central to Teudt's theories of prehistoric nationalism, but has been dismissed as unimportant by post-war scholars.



Above: I kept looking at the illustration of the Externsteine carving. Something about it seemed familiar. Then the similarity "pinged" into my mind.



Above: at a remote village in the county there is a carving set in the wall of the church. Originally it was the shaft of a cross that stood in the churchyard. Pevsner describes it as early Norman on the evidence of the decoration on the sides, but admits it is Saxon in style.

Now I look at it again, I am struck by the resemblance to the Externsteine carving - the Christian imagery triumphing over the drooping Irmensuls.

Or am I imagining this?



Above: I also thought I was seeing things, when I saw this direction post put up by the National Cycle Network (a Sustrans initiative). Is this an Irmensul? And if it is, who decided to revive this pagan symbol?

Anyway, a rambling post. Not really sure what I am saying here. I am mainly just thinking aloud.

Am I being paranoid to suspect that there is a move to replace the narrative of post-Saxon Christian civilisation with pre-Saxon pagan prehistoric nationalism?

More on John Sibbick: http://www.johnsibbick.com/
More on Alan Sorrell: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Sorrell

I rashly said I would like to see inside the tower

Above: interesting article in the Guardian earlier this week about the discovery in Germany of the remains of Edith, an English Saxon princess who married a German Saxon king. On Friday was a much larger feature in a sort of pull-out-and-keep section about the discovery (I have pulled out and kept it). As well as a gushing article by Michael Wood there was also in the supplement a piece by someone called Mike Pitts who repeated the politically-correct (but wrong) line that there were no real Anglo-Saxons and that the British Isles has always been a multicultural society (ignorantly illustrating his argument with two pieces of evidence from the Roman period!).

Why is the Anglo-Saxon period being made a target in what seems to be an undeclared culture war?

Mike Pitts obviously doesn't do much fieldwork or he would realise you can't move in this country without coming across Anglo-Saxons.



Above: a few weeks back I visited a village in the north of the county where the church was holding an open day. I was interested in the building because although externally medieval the inner core was Saxon. The Saxon fabric includes the central tower (also note there is a blocked-up Saxon door just above the car).



Above: the dedication was to St Edmund, Saxon king and martyr. Just inside the door was this display of various Saxon attributes (flowers, the flag of St Edmund, a translation of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, postcards of Anglo-Saxon ruins etc). Although the flag was a later invention, the ladies who put this display together obviously think of themselves as Anglo-Saxons.



Above: this stained glass window of St Edmund was paid for by a local sheepfarmer who had been sitting in his farmhouse during a storm when a thunderbolt hit the fireplace in front of him, setting fire to the room and destroying everything around him, although he escaped untouched. In gratitude for his narrow escape he donated this window to the church. From the choice of subject, he also thought of himself as a modern Anglo-Saxon.



Above: I rashly said I would like to see inside the tower. The entrance was from outside the building, up a winding stone staircase (worn steps) in complete darkness. Emerging into the bellchamber the wind was hissing through the open latticework of the windows. I was shown the bells (but declined to go up a narrow ladder to look down on them properly). I was shown the ancient mechanism of the clock, which has to be wound every week. When I got down again I was completely caked in dust and white powder (the crumbling Saxon masonry?) and in the words of one of the church ladies I looked like a ghost.

£25 million Visitors Centre for Stonehenge

Among the cuts in proposed public expenditure yesterday was the new £25 million Visitors Centre for Stonehenge. On balance I am glad this project is not going ahead. There has been unease for some time at the quasi-political manipulation of historical "interpretation", particularly related to the pre-historic, Roman and early medieval periods (ie the scandal of Francis Pryor's Britain AD: England and the Anglo-Saxons – an extremely controversial television series that seems to have been publicly funded via a convoluted series of "diversity" front-companies). Probably if the Stonehenge Visitors Centre had gone ahead the "interpretation" would have told us that it was constructed by hard-working immigrants from Eastern Europe because most of the local population was on benefits and too lazy to get a job, and that therefore the Labour policy on unrestricted immigration was entirely justified. One of the most unforgivable aspects of the previous government was their perversion of science. Not just archaeological science, but statistical science, scientific advice on drugs policy etc. This interference was seldom done overtly, but via a series of official "nudges" that in an oppressive political climate were impossible to ignore.

Neanderthal

Very interesting item on Channel 4 News this evening about dna abstracted from Neanderthal bones.

Analysis and comparisions suggest that Neanderthals and Early Moderns interbred in Europe and the Middle East (but not in Africa apparently).

Neanderthals had a distinctive appearance - low forehead, boney ridge above the eyebrows, a boney bulge on the nape of the neck. Often on the tube I look at people and wonder whether they have the neanderthal gene. Now we know they do.

Despite their ferocious appearance neanderthals were quite sophisticated.

More:

http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2010/05/06/2295639.aspx

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/neanderthals.html

Mauern caves where neaderthals were found with spears and javelins:

http://www.panoramio.com/photo/1324768

Fabulous treasure

All the news bulletins today have led on the fabulous 7th century Anglo-Saxon treasure unearthed somewhere in "Mercia". Over one and a half thousand golden objects have been dug up in a muddy field, mostly military items including gold sword pommels and a gold processional cross with a Biblical inscription invoking divine wrath against the "enemy" (writing in the 7th century was regarded as a form of magic). The find is considered equal to the epoch-defining Sutton Hoo treasure dug up in 1939.

Michael Wood appeared on BBC Radio 4's PM almost hyperventilating and babbling on about burnt woods and the cult of St Chad based at Lichfield.

Sneering Jon Snow reported the item on Channel 4 News. Looking at part of a golden helmet, magnified many times over on a screen, he said: "It doesn't look very English." The British Museum expert sitting in the studio corrected him: "It's actually classically Anglo-Saxon."

And not a peep so far from Francis Pryor and the other Anglo-Saxon migration deniers.

How is Francis Pryor going to explain all this away!

More: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/staffordshire/8272058.stm