Piotr Kołodziejczyk, Mohammad Tarawneh, Bellal Abuhelaleh
et al.
Jordan’s rich archaeological heritage, encapsulating crucial chapters of human history, faces unprecedented threats from both natural and anthropogenic factors. This article elucidates the various challenges besieging Jordan’s historical sites, ranging from climatic alterations to uninhibited urban expansion and intensified agricultural activities. Furthermore, it casts a spotlight on the detrimental impacts of mining activities, underscoring the urgent need for integrated conservation strategies. By fostering a symbiotic relationship between scientific research and practical conservation efforts, we advocate for a proactive approach to safeguard Jordan’s irreplaceable treasures for future generations, thereby fostering sustainable tourism and empowering local communities. The article also posits that community education and the promotion of sustainable tourism stand as vital tools in this pressing endeavour, beckoning a wider appreciation for Jordan’s affluent history and vibrant culture, while ensuring the endurance of its monumental legacy for ensuing generations.In the face of escalating threats for a large number of archaeological sites, fostering international collaboration is paramount. The article explores the potential of forging ties with Polish researchers, who bring a rich background of experience in the meticulous conservation and management of archaeological heritage. By engaging in a vibrant exchange of experiences and knowledge as well as innovative protective methodologies, there is an avenue to enhance the robustness of preservation strategies in place. This collaborative discourse not only promises fresh perspectives and solutions but also opens doors to capacity building through training and educational programmes dedicated to fragile archaeological relicts.
Aleko Zavradashvili, Levan Losaberidze, Mariam Kokhreidze
et al.
The Mghvimevi engravings represent the oldest known rock art in Georgia, dating to the Upper Palaeolithic. Fieldwork campaigns revealed 30 grooves consisting of parallel and intersecting lines. The nature of these grooves raises questions about whether they represent intentionally produced symbolic art or incidental traces of utilitarian activity. To address this issue, an experimental archaeology project funded by EXARC was undertaken. Activities included flintknapping, scraping, cutting, and deliberate incision-making using locally sourced flint from Chiatura. This study presents the results of the experimentation and offers a classification of the Mghvimevi grooves into several distinct groups.
José de Ribera (1591-1652), conocido como el Spagnoletto, fue bautizado en 1591 en Játiva, Valencia. Dado que la documentación sobre sus primeros veintiún años se limita a su partida de bautismo, la mayoría de los autores han considerado que su formación
artística comenzó en Roma. Sin embargo, existen indicios de una formación temprana en los ambientes culturales y sociales valencianos de la época, en los que el arzobispo de Valencia Juan de Ribera adquirió obras procedentes de Italia y los Países Bajos, y el
pintor oficial de la ciudad, el aragonés Juan Sariñena (1545-1619), ejecutó encargos de las autoridades eclesiásticas y seculares. En este
artículo se argumenta que el joven Ribera aprendió a pintar con Sariñena y que su maestro tenía las llaves de Roma en virtud de una
estancia anterior y de sus conexiones con la iglesia nacional aragonesa en la Ciudad Eterna.
Jusepe de Ribera, known as lo Spagnoletto, was christened in 1591 in Játiva, Valencia. With documentation from his first
twenty-one years solely consisting of his baptismal record, most writers assumed that his artistic formation began in Rome. Clues to
his early training exist within the Valencian cultural and social milieus of the period, where the Archbishop of Valencia, Juan de Ribera,
acquired works from Italy and the Low Countries, and the city’s official painter, the Aragonese Juan Sariñena (1545-1619), fulfilled
commissions for the ecclesiastical and civic authorities. The article argues that the young Ribera learned to paint from Sariñena and
that his master held the keys to Rome by virtue of his stay there and his connections with the Aragonese national church in that city.
A new species of spider crab of the genus Leptomithrax Miers, 1876, is described from New Caledonia. Leptomithrax lowryi sp. nov. belongs to a group species that includes L. bifidus (Ortmann, 1893) and L. sinensis Rathbun, 1916, but differs in the structure of the carapace spines and teeth, ischium of the third maxilliped, male thoracic sternal structure, shape of the male telson and the first gonopod.
Albert Koch was one of those fascinating characters who burst upon the American scene in the early nineteenth century. He was a fossil collector who has been lauded and ridiculed by both scientists and laymen alike. After collecting natural history specimens in Pennsylvania and Michigan, he opened a museum in St. Louis, an amalgam of natural history objects, curiosities, and theatrical performances. He is best known for his famous Missourium, a grossly misassembled American mastodon skeleton that ended up in the British Museum. Because of the hokum he peddled, many scientists considered his exaggerated and misassembled skeleton a hoax. Albert Koch created additional controversy when he observed that he had uncovered evidence that the extinct megafauna and early man were contemporaneous, a debate that remained unsettled for several decades. This essay critically examines Koch’s fossil collecting pursuits, his claims of human-megafauna associations, as well as his contributions to science and natural history. This is the first of a two-part paper, the second focusing on Koch’s discovery and exhibition of an early archaeocete whale that he called Hydrarchos, an exaggerated skeleton that created significantly more controversy than his Missourium.
In 1939, the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) became the beneficiary of a rich private collecting legacy—the bequest of Mr Howard Spensley (1870–1938) of Westoning Manor, Bedfordshire. Howard Spensley was born in Melbourne in 1870, the son of the Hon. Howard Spensley (1834–1902), solicitor general of Victoria in 1871–72, commissioner for Victoria to the London exhibition of 1873, and MP for Finsbury Central in 1885–86. The younger Spensley was educated at Harrow and Trinity College, Cambridge, and became a barrister, with chambers in the Inner Temple. Before moving to Westoning in 1905, when he bought Westoning Manor, he lived in London and travelled widely, particularly to Egypt and Australia, where he had business interests. He was an avid collector, with wide-ranging tastes, and he assembled an impressive collection of paintings, drawings, sculptures, antiquities, bronzes, ceramics, glass, and furniture, the details of which, including date and place of purchase and the amount paid, he meticulously recorded in a handwritten catalogue. Those records are held in the rare books collection of the Shaw Research Library at the NGV, in Melbourne. Spensley died on 3 March 1938, bequeathing his art collection to the NGV. This group of nearly 800 artworks was transformative in a number of areas of the Melbourne art museum’s collection, especially the small group of Italian Renaissance maiolica works and the large group of Renaissance bronzes, mortars, and plaquettes. Among the bequeathed works was a collection of some sixteen ivory objects of various dates and places of origin, including a 1714 portrait bust of Isaac Newton by David le Marchand (4118-D3), perhaps the most significant work in this group. But it is another of these ivory works that concerns us here (fig. 1). Spensley’s catalogue entry describes the work thus:
According to the information-axiological approach of Yu.A. Vedenin and M.E. Kuleshova, spiritual and intellectual values transmitted in the form of information from generation to generation play a significant role in the formation of the cultural landscape. The comprehensive study and actualization of cultural heritage as part of the cultural landscape reveals the role of traditional culture values in the modern socio-cultural situation. There is a close connection between the cultural landscape and local self-awareness through recognizable and meaningful images, concepts and symbols. Associative meanings and meanings of the cultural landscape of the territory affect the socio-cultural potential of the local society, the identification of its place in the external environment. At the turn of the 19–20th centuries the inhabitants of the Staritsky region were actively engaged in research in the field of local history, archiving, sought to preserve the local cultural heritage in collective practices, collecting, in publications in historical periodicals. Historical and cultural landscape served as inspiration for research of I.P. Krylov, A.N. Vershinsky, S.I. Pokrovsky, A.D. Ushakov. The clergy played a huge role in preserving regional culture. The clergy of the Staritsky Upper Volga region were members of the Tver Scientific Archival Commission, subscribers of historical journals, collectors of local folklore and archivists. The old manors, being at a distance from the provincial center, and possessing a powerful cultural and historical potential, had a great influence on the culture of the county as a whole, their artistic values served as the core of the collection of the county museum.
Between the inter-war years and 1960s, there was a radical shift in the art market status of modern art in the United States. This was not simply a matter of time. This article argues that there was a re-gendering of the discourse of art patronage in America, with modern art being re-presented—as never before—to the potential collector as being if not masculine then ‘not feminine’. It is argued that the Museum of Modern Art, New York, explicitly set out to re-gender collecting discourse as part of its overall aim of enhancing the status of modern art in America.
Débora Sonlleva Jiménez, Estrella Martín Castellano, Susana de Luis Mariño
et al.
Cada mes de junio se celebran las Jornadas Europeas de Arqueología, un evento cultural
que promueve la difusión del patrimonio arqueológico que se inició en Francia pero se ha extendido por todo el viejo continente. En 2020, debido al contexto de pandemia mundial por COVID-19, el Museo Arqueológico Nacional ha tenido que modificar la programación de sus actividades en un corto espacio de tiempo. Las propuestas iniciales, que incluían talleres, visitas y seminarios especializados, presenciales se readaptaron a formato digital.
History of the arts, Museums. Collectors and collecting
The Norwegian Forum of Experimental Archaeology (NFEA) 2020 was held between the 18-20th of September at Midgard Viking Centre in Horten, Vestfold and Telemark County in Norway. Midgard Viking centre, one of the museums falling under Vestfoldmuseene, has a strong emphasis on living history and collaboration with volunteer groups, using living history as a tool to create an immersive experience.
This opinion piece discusses National Museums Scotland’s first responses to collecting COVID-19. Drawing on perspectives from social history, biomedical science and military history, this short paper contextualizes COVID-related collecting within the contexts of the organization’s programme of contemporary collecting and the nation’s ongoing socio-political journey.
Mammals are under threat worldwide due to deforestation, hunting, and other human activities. In Iraq, a total of 93 species of wild mammals have been recorded including species with global conservation concern. Bamo Mountain is situated within the Zagros Mountains in northern Iraq which is a suitable habitat for wild mammals. Due to scarcity of the field survey efforts and cryptic behavior, monitoring of the wild mammals fauna in Zagros Mountain seems challenging. Therefore, we used a camera trap which seems to be an ideal way to determine species diversity of wild mammals in Bamo Mountain. Moreover, interviews with local villagers were performed. The mammalian diversity of Bamo Mountain is not fully explored but seemed threatened by local extinction due to poaching and wildlife trafficking, minefields, and annual fires.
In this study, a total of eight species of wild mammals were recorded for the first time in Bamo Mountain using camera trap method including the Persian leopard Panthera pardus saxicolor Pocock, 1927, and the Wild goat Capra aegagrus Erxleben, 1777, flagship and key species of conservation concern. As far as it is concerned, the major threats on the wild mammals were discussed and some important points were highlighted towards the establishment of the protected area in Bamo Mountain.
Museums. Collectors and collecting, Natural history (General)
The activity of Herbert Horne, an art collector, is regarded in the article due to his great significance as an italianist scolar. Hence, the emphasis is made on the Horne’s work starting from the 1880-s when he dedicated himself to studying different aspects of the Italien Renaissance art and culture. His role in the study of Trecento and Quatrocento art (his articles and his monograph on Sandro Botticelli) is shown, as well as his leadership in the art and antique sphere and his participation as an expert in the creation of new museums, while the stress is put on Horne’s figure as an outstanding art collector. The aim of the collecting was to acquire Renaissance art objects for interior decoration of the palazzo Quatrocento that he purchased in Florence and restored himself in the style of that epoch. Despite the fact that the palazzo Corsi-Horne shares common features with the Florence and Fiesole museums , founded in the same time period, the Horne Museum, that the great scholar designed and created , is particularly noted for its scientific forethought and highquality composition. В статье рассматривается деятельность коллекционера Герберта Хорна в контексте его высокой значимости как ученого-итальяниста. Поэтому акцент сделан на его работе начиная с конца 1880-х годов, когда он глубоко погрузился в исследование разных аспектов искусства и культуры итальянского Ренессанса. Показана его роль в изучении живописи Треченто и Кватроченто (статьи, монография о творчестве Сандро Боттичелли), дилерство в области искусства и антиквариата, участие в создании новых музеев в качестве эксперта, а главное внимание уделено Хорну как выдающемуся коллекционеру. Его собирание было направлено на приобретение ренессансных художественных предметов для оформления интерьера палаццо Кватроченто, который он приобрел во Флоренции и сам отреставрировал в стиле той эпохи. Несмотря на то, что палаццо Корси-Хорн имеет общие черты с музеями Флоренции и Фьезоле, образованными примерно в тот же период, Музей Хорна, целиком замысленный и осуществленный этим большим ученым, особо отмечен своей научной продуманностью и качественным составом.
The museum is a permanent, non-profit institution in the service of society and its development, open to the public. It collects, preserves, researches, communicates and exhibits material testimonies of man and his environment, for the purpose of study, education and entertainment. In recent times, museums are primarily communication centres that retain and develop all other functions of a traditional museum. The main form of communication is an exhibition, although any transmission of information is considered as communication. However, the museum is not the only institution where objects of this purpose can be found. Namely, there are many alternative types of collecting and storing things from the past, although not enough attention has been paid to them or real significance attributed. A true collector is a special type of collector, their purpose being to put together a collection of related items as complete, unique and as representative as possible. A collector is a person who is passionate about collecting specific items for his own pleasure. There are a large number of people like this, because in fact it is very difficult to think of any object that nobody would collect. Some of the typical examples vary from the collectors of works of art and precious vases, to the collectors of the most ordinary, trivial, useless, discarded items that are searched for in attics and basements, sometimes even in the landfills... In search of at least one such unusual collector, I came across a small heritage museum created based on geographical affiliation: the objects collected in this collection are all representative of the past of Banat.
The British Lower and Middle Palaeolithic record makes an important contribution to understanding the early occupation of northern Europe, in particular, through the detailed, systematic and multidisciplinary excavations of key sites. However, it is the historic collections, amassed by a large number of collectors over a 100-year period from the 1860s to the 1960s, that contribute the majority of the artefact record accounting for almost 80% of the handaxes and over 85% of finds locations. Although much of this material lacks the contextual details of excavated assemblages, it still forms an important and large body of data for the British early Palaeolithic. This paper explores the collecting practices of the individuals responsible for the majority of the old collections and demonstrates that through a study of collection history, from discovery to museum curation, the material provides a dataset that can be used in a critical way to address broad-scale questions concerning changes in material culture, demography and landscape use. Such studies also have implications for the interpretation of the Palaeolithic record, beyond the sharp focus of modern excavation.