Rock Art & Archaeology Archives - Page 4 of 13

by Marja-Leena

Ancient Britain: Old Sarum

After visiting Salisbury on the first stop of a guided day tour to several ancient sites of Britain, we moved on to nearby Old Sarum. This hilltop is surrounded by banks and ditches with layers of 5,000 years of human settlement from the Neolithic to Celtic, Roman, Saxon, Viking and Norman until New Sarum (Salisbury) was established lower down the valley. It’s a fascinating and beautiful spot where I could sense the history and spirits of the ancient peoples within the stone walls and verdant slopes and the far views of the valley.

You may find this interesting additional reading: Old Sarum: A Layer-Cake of History.

My first encounter with Sarum was many years ago when I read Edward Rutherfurd’s Sarum, a vast work of historical fiction. I still remember my feelings of excitement over the early parts of the story covering the prehistoric period. Now I feel like I could reread it again with fresh new eyes.

Previous and later posts about our Ancient Britain Tour:

Salisbury
Wiltshire Flint
Stonehenge
White Horses
Silbury & West Kennet
Avebury

July 6, 2009 in Culture, History, Rock Art & Archaeology, Travel by Marja-Leena 6 Comments »

by Marja-Leena

London: British Museum

The day after the art-filled visit with Natalie, and feeling a bit more confident with the transit system, my husband and I ventured out on our own on the double-decker bus. We sat up on top, front row and enjoyed the street scenes and variety of architecture. We had a map book and tried to follow the route, something that I like doing in new places, perhaps it gives me a sense of grounding and direction.

So we found our way to the British Museum. What a huge and impressive piece of classical architecture with its Greek columns and immense courtyard full of crowds of mostly students. Inside the glass-covered inner Great Court was a wonderful and bright and airy space.

We knew that it would be impossible to see everything so we tried to choose areas that were less known to us. The first thing we came upon with a bit of a feeling of surprise was the Rosetta Stone (above left). Covered in reflective glass and surrounded by masses of people all trying to take photos, it was hard to get a good image. (Here’s a reasonably good one).

Nearby was the Egyptian hall with its immense pillars and sculptures, like the one above right, some with hieroglyphics. Beyond were the Assyrian friezes or stone panels that I loved the most of what we did see, some favourites are shown in the photos below.

We visited the North-American native room and the Mexican one (with a photo below), rather small collections in comparison. We really enjoyed the Armenian, early-Turkish and Mesopotamian collections. Much as we wanted to see more of other cultures, by then we were tired and dazed and found ourselves just walking more quickly through some rooms, just skimming immense collections of precious objects in glass cases on our way to the exit.

Unfortunately, the card in our camera was full too quickly and I was very upset not to get more photos! We’d forgotten to erase photos from back home, plus new ones from our first three days. A lesson learned – we downloaded them at the end of each day after that, as well as recharging the batteries. I had hoped to get back to the Museum again but we ran out of time and energy. Another year hopefully.

What is it about museums of civilization, history, archaeology and antiquities that interest me almost more than art museums? Really, what we saw was art, VERY old art. Archaeology and art are very close, I think, and therein lie my passions.

Entry to the British Museum is free, except for the temporary traveling exhibitions and that to me is a model I wish we had in Canada. Of course, the museum has an immense collection that’s been donated by wealthy collectors since the mid 18th century, often from the spoils of war and empire building, something that kept niggling at the back of my mind even as I admired all of it.

By the way, I recently learned that the Royal BC Museum in Victoria is presenting the North American premiere of Treasures: The World’s Cultures from the British Museum, May 1st until September 30th. How cool is that?!

June 5, 2009 in Rock Art & Archaeology, Travel by Marja-Leena 14 Comments »

by Marja-Leena

Devonian Fossils

Imagine having ancient fossils in your own backyard. Henry Domke is the lucky person and has captured their variety and beauty in gorgeous photographs in his Devonian Fossils album. Do have a look, I think you will enjoy them.

The body of water that the fossils are found in is called Hiller’s Creek, in central Missouri, USA. He has kindly allowed me to feature a couple of his photos here. Learn more about this multi-talented man from his websites:
Henry Domke
Health Care Fine Art
Prairie Garden Trust

Thank you, Henry, for sharing these amazing images of nature’s art, what riches! A special thanks also to faithful reader Bill Knight for pointing me to Henry Domke’s photos, saying: “They’re Devonian. The most common fossil is a type of Hexagonia Coral, the same genera that makes up the fossils known as Petoskey stones.” Bill has frequently contributed blog ideas to me over the years, he really should be a blogger too!

April 21, 2009 in Other artists, Photography, Rock Art & Archaeology by Marja-Leena 11 Comments »

by Marja-Leena

touring Teotihuacán

Pyramid of the Sun, photo by Tjeerd Wiersma for Wikipedia

It’s been ages since I’ve blogged about anything to do with one of my interests and inspirations, archaeology. Just now I’ve been traveling, virtually that is, through the Teotihuacán in Mexico
.
Archaeologist Richard A. Diehl, professor emeritus at the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa, worked at the massive ruins of Teotihuacán when he was a student at Pennsylvania State University working with William T. Sanders. Recently, he assembled a walking tour of the site, sharing his accumulated knowledge and admiration for the site with us.

It’s like a personal guided tour by an expert using 42 gorgeous photos by several photographers. Plus more links and photos to keep one enraptured for a while. I’ve not had the pleasure, yet, to visit any of the many archaeological sites in Mexico in real life but this gives me a good idea what it might be like, though my poor knees would not manage all those steps!

Thanks to Kris Hurst for this!

March 4, 2009 in Rock Art & Archaeology by Marja-Leena 9 Comments »

by Marja-Leena

hands, still

detail from ARKEO #1

Dave Bonta’s The Animators is an amazing dream story of cavemen creating images of their hands on rock walls. It’s given me an inspirational push to finish a post that’s been on my mind for a while.

I keep thinking a lot about hands and what they do. Hunt, plant, gather and eat food. Cook, clean, sew, build. Touch, hold, caress, massage, love. Hold tools to make, write, create, play. And print and paint hands on rock walls.

As regular readers know, I’m fascinated and inspired by the art of early humans. I’ve written about how common hands in rock art are in many parts of the world, including in Borneo.

In recent weeks, I’ve been also astounded by images of disembodied puppet hands at the Marionettemuseum in Salzburg, Austria, hands of the puppeteer (scroll down the page to see Tina Modotti’s photo), some gloved mannequin’s hands and a digital stop sign with a hand.

In my own work, I’ve experimented with scans of my own hands and have made collagraphs of them to use in one of my prints. Eventually I even printed my own hands directly on prints. And finally, there are the most recent examples using my own hands again in ARKEO #1 and ARKEO #2.

September 22, 2008 in Arkeo, Being an Artist, Printmaking, Printworks, Rock Art & Archaeology by Marja-Leena 6 Comments »

by Marja-Leena

England’s Rock Art

GD8148027%40Baildon-Moor-Yorkshir-7897.jpg
Baildon Moor, Yorkshire – Photograph: B Kerr/English Heritage, via The Guardian, UK

Long time readers know that I’m passionately interested in ancient rock art (as can be seen under that category link on the side). It’s been a while since I’ve written about the many exciting discoveries I keep reading about on the net.

Last week, thanks to British Rock Art Blog I read about the launch of ERA: England’s Rock Art on the Web. The main page has a slide show of beautiful photographs, a bit slow so give it some time, then check out the other great links to information and more images.

Amongst the outcrops and boulders of northern England keen eyes may spot an array of mysterious symbols carved into the rock surfaces. These curious marks vary from simple, circular hollows known as ‘cups’ to more complex patterns with cups, rings, and intertwining grooves. Many are in spectacular, elevated locations with extensive views but some are also found on monuments such as standing stones and stone circles, or within burial mounds. The carvings were made by Neolithic and Early Bronze Age people between 3500 and 6000 years ago. The original meaning of the symbols is now lost but they provide a unique personal link with our prehistoric ancestors.

Concurrently while I was thinking about this blog post, blog pal A Mouse in France, knowing how I love great photos of rock art on the web, posted a link directed to me for the Guardian’s page and slide show of Britain’s prehistoric rock art and the same heritage site! Again, gorgeous slides plus an article by Jonathan Jones.

I recognized several images especially the above image of a rock on Baildon Moor, Yorkshire from a wonderful and authoritative book I bought secondhand several years ago: Jean McMann’s Riddles of the Stone Age – Rock Carving of Ancient Europe (Thames and Hudson 1980). It was the first in my small collection of books on rock art and is still a treasure.

I admire the work of the photographers for I know these subjects are not always easy to capture well, from my own experiences here in BC and Alberta. Like Mouse, I’d like to visit these petroglyphs and so many other rock art sites in the UK, and elsewhere… anywhere in the world! So, these kinds of websites are wonderful for armchair travellers like me.

August 4, 2008 in Rock Art & Archaeology by Marja-Leena 11 Comments »

by Marja-Leena

lines of age

The lines on the rock are like the lines on the face of an elder.
What events have created them?
Where have these rocks come from?
What tumultuous journeys have they suffered?
How old are they?

May 23, 2008 in History, Photoworks, Rock Art & Archaeology, Rocks by Marja-Leena 2 Comments »

by Marja-Leena

time traveller

a couple of my photos of Hornby Island petroglyphs were included in a book called In Search of Ancient British Columbia.

A while back, in one of those wonderful connections that blogging rewards us with, I received an email by one of the authors of that book, Heidi Henderson. We had an interesting conversation and I learned that she lives right here in Vancouver and also has a blog Archea, Musings in Natural History. Over a period of several days, I read through it all, finding it quite fascinating and making me recall a visit to the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Alberta where I was more excited by the beauty of the fossil collection than by the dinosaur specimens. The image above is one of many I took at that museum.

And Heidi herself sounds fascinating, being a passionate time traveller, amateur paleontologist and head of the Vancouver Paleontological Society and The British Columbia Paleontological Alliance. Her articles are well researched with cited sources; the stories about the group’s fossil hunting trips around BC and Washington made for enjoyable reading and almost tempt me to join some of their outings!

I wish we could see more and larger photos of these fabulous finds on the blog. The ever-changing slide shows near the bottom of the main page are an interesting supplement and another journey.

May 6, 2008 in Books, History, Photography, Rock Art & Archaeology by Marja-Leena 5 Comments »

by Marja-Leena

Elaine de Kooning

Elaine de Kooning: Torchlight Cave Drawing 4, 1985
from a portfolio of eight aquatints, Crown Point Press

I’ve written before about Crown Point Press and founder Kathan Brown and their importance in the printmaking field with its famed studio and book publications. In fact, I purchased the book Magical Secrets some time later and have enjoyed it, as well as the accompanying website and blog.

Recently I discovered Elaine de Kooning and some work she had done at Crown Point over 20 years ago. Two things immediately excited me – first I did not know that Willem de Kooning (whose work I love) had a wife who was also an artist. Secondly, this beautiful series of aquatint etchings called Torchlight Cave Drawings is inspired by the cave paintings in southern France. (And you know that’s a subject dear to me!)

The point of departure for Elaine de Kooning’s etchings is the cave paintings near Les Eyzies in the Dordogne region of southern France. The paintings date back to Paleolithic times (10,000 to 30,000 B.C.) and the caves are thought to have been necromantic sanctuaries for the worship of the hunt. The primary subject matter is animals –bulls, stags, mammoth, and bison of a variety that have been extinct for thousands of years. When de Kooning first visited the caves she was captivated by the phenomenally lifelike appearance of the animals and inspired by the aura of magic in the underground enclaves.

More about Elaine de Kooning at Magical Secrets and at wikipedia

March 6, 2008 in Books, Other artists, Printmaking, Rock Art & Archaeology by Marja-Leena 6 Comments »

by Marja-Leena

Vottovaara

– photo by Soren Andersson, via wikipedia

Browsing the latest posts at The Megalithic Portal a few weeks ago, an article with the name Vottovaara, caught my attention for it sounds Finnish and also sounded rather familiar to me. Of course, it’s about the flying stones of Lapland which I wrote about back in August 2004. I find it exciting when I come across these connections and new links, especially concerning the lesser known region of northern Europe, and particularly the Karelia area of the Finno-Ugric people.

Aluta, the author, kindly gave me permission to link to this. She wrote, in part:

Seids or seitas are objects or sites revered by the Saami people as representing nature or earth spirits. Found throughout the area once called Lapland, they were constructed and revered in the distant past by the Saamis’ pre-Christian ancestors. They can take many forms, including constructions of wood or just secluded pools or valleys, but in this case the word refers to seid stones, which are stones or boulders, often of unusual shapes or placed in unusual ways. These are the megaliths of the ancient northern peoples.
Usually these special stones are placed sparingly or singly, sometimes near stone rows or stone circles. But Vottovaara, a mountain in the Republic of Karelia, part of the Russian Republic, is host to a bewildering abundance of them, from 1000 to 1500 seids and other stone constructions all in one area.

Among the most striking features at Vottovaara are its propped boulders, sometimes called flying stones because of the way the boulders, often of interesting shapes, are elevated by smaller stones, making them seem as if they are lifting into flight.

Please read the rest of her interesting article and the links, as well as my article for all the details about this ancient Saami ‘place of power’.

The sad thing that Aluta brings up is that these sacred stones are being threatened by mining development. A Finnish group gathered names for a petition to save Vottovaara (sorry I write this too late for my readers, but I did sign it). They have had a reply and request to improve the petition. Let’s wish them better luck than so many other places around the world similarly threatened and damaged by resource and other developments.

Related links:
Heninen’s photos of Vottovaara
Voimakivet (Powerstones – vanishing Finnish cult structures) – a Finnish page with great art work! and more photos of these types of stones; the top is at Vottovaara, the bottom ones in USA.
Rockpiles on Vottovaara
A Swedish wikipedia article which calls these balanced megaliths ‘chicken and eggs’, the source of the image above in one of the links. (My article is also linked!) Here’s an auto-translation.

January 14, 2008 in Finland, Estonia & Finno-Ugric, Rock Art & Archaeology by Marja-Leena 6 Comments »

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Ancient Britain: Old Sarum

London: British Museum

Devonian Fossils

touring Teotihuacán

hands, still

England’s Rock Art

lines of age

time traveller

Elaine de Kooning

Vottovaara

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