It starts with a single drop of water. As visible light passes through the drop, the light is refracted as through a prism, split into its component wavelengths and reflected back to the eye. Multiplied by thousands of drops in the sky, an arc of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and purple emerges as if by magic. Rainbows…mystical, splendiferous, mind-bending. Continue reading
Category Archives: Art
Remembering the 75th Anniversary of The Wizard of Oz: The Ancient Voice of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”
Posted in Art, Blog, Culture, Literature, Music, Natural Disasters, Public Life, Religion, Science and Technology
Tagged ancient history, ancient rainbows, AntiquityNOW, Australian Aboriginal Rainbow Serpent, Cree Rainbow Serpent, Epic of Gilgamesh, Greek mythology, Iris, Somewhere Over the Rainbow, The Wizard of Oz
AntiquityNOW Celebrates Shark Week!
Strong, agile, mysterious, beautiful, ancient. Sharks have embodied our terrors and captured our imaginations for thousands of years. Today we celebrate and study sharks, even dedicating an entire week of television and social media to these denizens of the deep. Before popular culture caught on to the shark frenzy, however, ancient civilizations revered, respected, feared and even worshipped the shark. Below you’ll find a collection of images showing how some long ago cultures represented this iconic creature.
KIDS’ BLOG! Seeing Ancient Invisible Ink Through Modern Eyes
Image by Noel Hidalgo Tan, Antiquity Publications.
Invisible ink, such a simple and yet crafty way to keep secrets. You may know that it was used in wars such as the American Civil War, the American Revolutionary War and both World Wars, but did you know it was being used thousands of years ago by ancient civilizations? In the first century AD, Pliny the Elder wrote in his Natural History, an early encyclopedia, about how the milk of the tithymallus plant could be adapted as an invisible ink. Ovid spoke about secret ink in his Art of Love. Ahmed Qalqashandi, a medieval Egyptian writer and mathematician, described several types of invisible ink.[1] And recently an article published in LiveScience explored a startling new discovery at Cambodia’s famous Angkor Wat temple regarding invisible ink.[2] Ancient invisible ink didn’t always start out as invisible and in this case the ancient artists probably had no idea that their stunning works would one day be hidden to the naked eye. Continue reading
Graffiti From Ancient to Modern Times: Memorialization, Human Expression and the Art That Will Not Die
Credit: Lincolnshire Medieval Graffiti Project
Graffiti has been around since time immemorial. From ancient caves to carved mountainsides to splendiferous murals, pictures have been splashed and carved on walls and surfaces throughout time and across cultures. Self-expression, political agitation, vendettas, advertisements—all reasons for some to bring out the paint and depict what moves them most. There is something inherently primal in the need to memorialize one’s self and time. Indeed, graffiti’s immediacy and rawness of expression can astonish, whether found deep in the caves of Lascaux or in the modern day artistic gyrations of the anonymous British artist Banksy. Continue reading
Posted in Ancient Origins, Art, Blog, Communications, Culture, Public Life
Tagged ancient graffiti, ancient history, Ancient Origins, AntiquityNOW, education, Lincolnshire, medieval graffiti
AntiquityNOW Celebrates National Pet Month
For thousands of years humans have had a complex relationship with animals. Food, protection, companionship–animals have been an inextricable component of society from its earliest formations.
We’ve been celebrating AntiquityNOW Month in May. But we are proud to share this special time with National Pet Month. What better way to celebrate how antiquity lives today than to show the importance of our animal companions through time?
Posted in Art, Blog, Culture, Holidays, Public Life, Recreation, Sports
Tagged ancient animals, ancient history, ancient pets, AntiquityNOW, Argos, Caspian horse, falconry, mummified animals, National Pet Month, Pekingnese, Shih Tzu
The Knossos Dolphin: Create Your Own Piece of Art Inspired by Antiquity with Dan Fenelon
In honor of AntiquityNOW Month, our Artist-in-Residence Dan Fenelon has created a paint by number activity using one of his paintings inspired by the Minoan “Fresco of the Dolphins” on the island of Knossos. The fresco is from the Palace of Knossos located just south of modern-day Heraklion near the north coast of Crete. The palace was built by the Minoans around 1950 BCE, but was damaged by an earthquake in 1700 BCE and had to be rebuilt.[1] Commissioned by King Minos, the palace was the creation of the ancient architect Dedalos and was said to have been so complex in its design that no one placed inside its walls could ever find its exit.[2] The second palace built on the remains of the first continued this labyrinthine structure, but included several changes. In his book “Architecture of Minoan Crete”, John McEnroe writes,
In the second Palace, much of the monumental bulk of the earlier building would be lightened through structural innovations and intricate details, and the taste for colored stone would be partly replaced by representational wall paintings.[3] Continue reading
Posted in Art, Blog, Culture, Education, Kids Blog, Kids: Art, Kids: Culture, Public Life
Tagged ancient history, AntiquityNOW, AntiquityNOW month, art history, Crete, Dan Fenelon, Dedalos, Knossos, Minoans
Science Fiction or Uncovered Truth: The Enigmatic Origins of Crystal Skulls
The crystal skull. Collection of the British Museum in London. Image courtesy of Rafał Chałgasiewicz
Another entry in AntiquityNOW’s new Science Fiction section is a story that has bedeviled skeptics and believers alike. The origins and purpose of the crystal skulls have been debated for years, but Eric Vassalo, who submitted portions from his blog post on the subject to AntiquityNOW, is a cynic regarding traditional inquiry. He wanted to analyze for himself what these crystal skulls were all about. As part of a group exploring sites containing these artifacts in Mexico, he mused:
Like a group of mutant X-men we all shared our fascinating and surreal stories of how we came to be in this place doing what so few dare to do, challenge our spoon-fed history and attempt to get at the truth.
A Place Called Home: Earth Day, Ecopsychology and an Urban Legend
What is this connection with the earth that we humans cling to so tenaciously? As a species we obviously are dependent on the air to breathe, the water and soil that nurture us, the sun whose fiery presence holds us in its eternal circle. But the earth is more than the elements that give us life. The earth holds millions of memories in the folds of its mountains, across the tapestry of its lands and in the rhythmic singing of its seas. For we as humans attach ourselves to this earth, not just for nurturance, but by the profound evocations of time, memory and place. Continue reading
Tattoos and the Body as Canvas
UPDATE! This post was originally published on March 14, 2013. One year later and ancient tattoos are back in the news due to a fascinating find and an exciting exhibit at the British Museum. Eight mummies from Egypt and Sudan have been subjected to CAT scanning, infra-red “reflectography” and carbon dating in an effort to develop a more complete picture of their ancient lives for the new exhibit called Ancient Lives: New Discoveries. The scanning has revealed previously unseen features from beneath their wrappings. One of the most interesting discoveries is a tattoo on the inner thigh of a 1,300 year old female mummy. The tattoo represents the symbol of the Archangel Michael and spells out in ancient Greek M-I-X-A-H-A (Michael). According to an article by Robert Mendick in The Telegraph, the woman was 20-35 years of age, died in about 700 CE and “lived in a Christian community on the banks of the Nile.”[1] Continue reading
The Disneyfication of Pocahontas and the True Story of Uleleh
The story of Pocahontas has all the elements of a good drama: danger, the threat of great cruelty, bravery, a hint of romance and prevailing mercy. Who doesn’t like to imagine a beautiful young Native American princess shielding a handsome English soldier just as a warrior’s club is raised to deliver a deadly blow? Continue reading
Posted in Art, Blog, Celebrities, Culture, Human Rights, Public Life, Recreation
Tagged ancient history, AntiquityNOW, Disney, Hernando DeSoto, John Smith, Juan Ortiz, native american, Pocahontas, Uleleh
AntiquityNOW 