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Posts Tagged ‘archaeology’

Scavenging in Waste Sites

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 23, 2014| 2 Comments »

In her comment at my post about artists returning a discarded museum to life, KerryCan wondered if all the old, weird museum collections ended up at the dump. All is not lost if they did, as dumps seem to attract amateur archaeologists with a nose for uncovering treasures.

Eve Kahn wrote recently in the NY Times about collectors who look for terra cotta shards in the Staten Island landfill and poke around promising demolition sites.

“This summer, true shard collectors [led] me into the weedier parts of the Northeast, where slag heaps and demolition debris survive from the long vanished factories that once thrived.

“These particular experts are interested in manufacturers of windowpanes and architectural ornament. They write books and lead tours, but they also pack their homes and workplaces with excavated artifacts from what seems to be a limitless supply. Anyone can follow in their trail and gain an understanding of American ingenuity as well as accumulate booty for gardens and windowsills or even more ambitious art projects.

“You must stay off private property, of course, but I also recommend that you avoid the comical errors that I made on my early expeditions. … I was so bedazzled by glass that I was about to sit down with shards in my front pockets.”

More on Kahn’s scavenging adventures, here. You might also like the blog “Tiles in New York,” here.

Photo: Agaton Strom for The New York Times
Tina Kaasman-Dunn searching for terra cotta shards on Staten Island.

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Roman Concrete Is Better for the Planet

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on June 27, 2013| 3 Comments »

The concrete that the ancient Romans created is so durable that it may hold lessons for those who want to reduce carbon emissions.

Paul Preuss, from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, explains.

“The chemical secrets of a concrete Roman breakwater that has spent the last 2,000 years submerged in the Mediterranean Sea have been uncovered by an international team of researchers led by Paulo Monteiro of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of California, Berkeley.

“Analysis of samples provided by team member Marie Jackson pinpointed why the best Roman concrete was superior to most modern concrete in durability, why its manufacture was less environmentally damaging – and how these improvements could be adopted in the modern world.

“ ‘It’s not that modern concrete isn’t good – it’s so good we use 19 billion tons of it a year,’ says Monteiro. ‘The problem is that manufacturing Portland cement accounts for seven percent of the carbon dioxide that industry puts into the air.’ …

“The Romans made concrete by mixing lime and volcanic rock. For underwater structures, lime and volcanic ash were mixed to form mortar, and this mortar and volcanic tuff were packed into wooden forms. The seawater instantly triggered a hot chemical reaction. The lime was hydrated – incorporating water molecules into its structure – and reacted with the ash to cement the whole mixture together.”

Apparently the key ingredients are found all over the world, enough to make a big difference in construction — and carbon emissions.

There’s more at the Berkeley Lab site for readers who can follow a technical explanation.

Photo: Berkeley Lab

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Two of Shakespeare’s Theaters Found

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 16, 2013| Leave a Comment »

If you are going to London, try to see where archaeologists have recently located theaters used by Shakespeare.

Matt Trueman writes at the Guardian, “The sites of two Jacobean theatres in London, both used by William Shakespeare, could host drama once again, following planning applications for new theatres.

“The Curtain theatre in Shoreditch, once home turf for the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, was discovered last year after an extensive archeological dig. Under plans submitted to Hackney council, it would be transformed into a 250-seat open-air amphitheatre …

“Meanwhile, just around the corner, it could soon be joined by a six-storey theatre with a 235-seat auditorium, on the site of a performance space known simply as the Theatre.

“Launched a year before the Curtain, this was only the second permanent theatre built in England and hosted the Lord Chamberlain’s Men when its proprietor Richard Burbage joined the company. The Theatre’s remains were uncovered five years ago  …

“Alan Taylor of the Belvedere Trust, the organisation behind the plans, said, ‘We expect to have a Shakespearian piece to what we are offering, but it will by no means be all Shakespeare.’

“Meanwhile, planners at The Curtain, to be called The Stage, have reportedly approached Shakespeare’s Globe about jointly programming the space, but is aiming for similar plurality. Architect John Drew said: ‘It would be great if the performance space was used for all sorts of purposes, such as music as well as theatre.’ ” More.

Can’t help wondering what the characters in my favorite recent TV show, Slings and Arrows (who are completely real in my imagination), would think about adding the non-Shakespeare entertainments.

(By the way, if you rent Slings and Arrows from Netflix, skip the first episode. Not a good introduction.)

Photograph: The Guardian
Excavations at the Curtain theatre in London

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Hair Stylist’s Discoveries in Scholarly Journal

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on February 13, 2013| 2 Comments »

I don’t know what it is about stories like this, but they really float my boat.

Here is an ordinary woman, a hairdresser who loves hairdressing, who tried to recreate an ancient hairstyle and ended up making a discovery that got published in a scholarly journal. What it took was being openminded, curious, and persistent.

As Abigail Pesta writes in the Wall Street Journal, Janet Stephens tried to re-create on a mannequin a hairdo she had seen on a bust of the Roman empress Julia Domna at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore.

” ‘I couldn’t get it to hold together,’ she says. Turning to the history books for clues, she learned that scholars widely believed the elaborately teased, towering and braided styles of the day were wigs.

“She didn’t buy that. Through trial and error she found that she could achieve the hairstyle by sewing the braids and bits together, using a needle. She dug deeper into art and fashion history books, looking for references to stitching.

“In 2005, she had a breakthrough. Studying translations of Roman literature, Ms. Stephens says, she realized the Latin term ‘acus’ was probably being misunderstood in the context of hairdressing. Acus has several meanings including a ‘single-prong hairpin’ or ‘needle and thread,’ she says. Translators generally went with ‘hairpin.’

“The single-prong pins couldn’t have held the intricate styles in place. But a needle and thread could. It backed up her hair hypothesis.

“In 2007, she sent her findings to the Journal of Roman Archaeology. ‘It’s amazing how much chutzpah you have when you have no idea what you’re doing,’ she says. ‘I don’t write scholarly material. I’m a hairdresser.’

“John Humphrey, the journal’s editor, was intrigued. ‘I could tell even from the first version that it was a very serious piece of experimental archaeology which no scholar who was not a hairdresser—in other words, no scholar—would have been able to write,’ he says.

“He showed it to an expert, who found the needle-and-thread theory ‘entirely original,’ says Mr. Humphrey, whose own scholarly work has examined arenas for Roman chariot racing.

“Ms. Stephens’ article was edited and published in 2008, under the headline ‘Ancient Roman Hairdressing: On (Hair)Pins and Needles.’ ”

More.

Photographs: Janet Stephens

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