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Fitzroy Island on the Great Barrier Reef.

New research into early Aboriginal stories set along Australia's coast has detected evidence of dramatically rising shoreline waters over several thousand years. It seems that sea level about 20,000 years ago was 120 meters below its current level, rising 13,000 years ago to about 70 meters below current sea level.

It seems today's sea level was finally reached only about 6,000 years ago. Linguists have also uncovered ancient Aboriginal tales about living where the Great Barrier Reef now stands.
"In the beginning, as far back as we remember, our home islands were not islands at all as they are today. They were part of a peninsula that jutted out from the mainland and we roamed freely throughout the land without having to get in a boat like we do today. Then Garnguur, the seagull woman, took her raft and dragged it back and forth across the neck of the peninsula letting the sea pour in and making our homes into islands."

This is part of an Aboriginal story about the origin of the Wellesley Islands in the southern Gulf of Carpentaria.  It's a story that can be found along every part of the coast of Australia.  But these stories are not part of the "Great Flood" tales found all over the world, the difference being in the Aboriginal stories, the water does not recede and the land does not regenerate.  The sea levels changed around Australia after the ice ages and it's well known scientifically.  The source of the legends seems to be based on observations of events and preserved through oral traditions as the sea level rose all around the world but only here do the stories exist.

They may have existed elsewhere but scholars had the view that oral traditions rarely survive more than a millennium so probably never looked for them.  Australian Aboriginal storytelling is for preserving information, handing down from generation to generation with accuracy. Of course you have to try to make a distinction from the 'fact' story and the story for entertainment.

One of the comments on this article said that "Socrates was concerned that the switch to written language would mean a decline in people's cognitive abilities." "The skills required to remember a complex narrative are allowed to atrophy when you have that narrative available in written form."

I could not read Chaucer in the original old English. I have trouble with HipHop language.  I have trouble with some parts of Shakespeare although four hundred years separate his language from english now, we are still using phrases he invented.  But we could not repeat his plays word for word without printing.  I must admit I got a bit lost in the comments after a while, my brain went walkabout but when we read the laments about the burning of the great library of Alexandria, that is something that we, who rely on the written word, can relate to.  Can we relate to the loss of an oral tradition of a catastrophe if we never knew there was one?

I still have a Sony Walkman, tapes, vinyl records but I can't watch the 16mm films of the family made in the 70s unless I go to great expense of having them put on dvds.  I can tell you the family stories but with no-one to follow me, they'll die out.  So with all the blogs, tweets, facebooks or instagrams of the electronic age, we're still behind, way behind, the Aboriginal tradition of the Dreamtime storyteller.

But we still have our storytellers, bless Parliament and its contingent of accomplished liars.

(All that waffling to make that one point.  Don't you love language.)

Out of disaster, great ideas.

I was reading a small item in the paper last week when a dingdong went off in my brain and I went searching through my huge file under the inspiring title of "Blog Fodder". I knew the article I wanted was there, after all I'd just spent a day going through the pages, throwing out anything I'd lost interest in or technology had raced by it.

What started my 'Indianna' search was reading that New York city officials are still cleaning up debris from the World Trade Centre.  They had another 560 cubic metres of material including some found after the demolition of the former Deutsche Bank Building.  Since 2006, the remains of 34 additional victims have been identified, mostly from DNA analysis.

I had kept an interview from 2008 given by anthropologist Professor Richard Gould.  His wife was working near the Twin Towers on the day of the planes and three weeks after the towers came down Richard Gould, walked to Ground Zero.  In the grey ashy residue lying everywhere in lower Manhatten, he found fragmented human remains even a piece of human scapula.

He realized then that remains would be found a great distance away.  He wrote and pestered those in charge to listen to him and go further afield but already the washing down hoses were at work and he knew what was being lost.

In 2002 he was finally invited by the medical examiner's office to do a trial excavation outside Ground Zero and this was the start of his Forensic Archaeology Recovery Group, a team of volunteers who help recover human remains after disasters.

Work was finally stopped at Ground Zero early March, 2008 but human remains were still being found way outside the immediate area.  Paper containing human blood stains was found in Brooklyn, several miles from Manhatten.  Professor Gould thinks they will still be finding material for years as it works its way underground even now remains have been found in underground pipes.

Nearly 3000 lives were lost but around 1,100 to 1,200 people remained unidentified in 2008 but in 2013, victims identified have gone up to 1,634.  Disaster archaeology is an outgrowth of archaeology, using the same methods to find and identify remains of recent disasters as they do find physical data of ancient disasters.  The team cleans up the human remains and physical effects left behind so they can be identified for forensic and legal purposes.  The team must record exactly where, when and how they were found as this is important for the court proceedings following any disaster.  Their archaeological skills such as surveying, site recording, sieving material and DNA collection are all important as is their ability to work as a team. This team ethic is important for their mental health,  recovering humans remains will never be easy, it's stressful and counsellors are often needed.

One man's good idea has helped survivors of many disasters over the years.  

Tutanhkamun Online

We're all familiar with the golden mask of the boy Pharoah, Tutankhamun, but it was only one of the thousands of objects found by Haward Carter.
In the Sackler Library at Oxford, there is a room where the humidity and temperature are controlled in order to preserve things not as durable as gold. The Griffith Institute houses the notes, photographs and diaries of the English archaeologist who discovered Tutankhamun's tomb in 1922. For 10 years, Carter catalogued the thousands of treasures stacked inside the chambers, but the majority of his work has never been published.
In 1993, Jaromir Malek started his work when he realized that of a total of 5,398 artefacts found, only a third had been properly studied and published. He decided to put all of Carter's notes online, the entire archive available for study.



When Carter died in 1939, he had no collaborators left to continue his work. While the artefacts themselves are held in the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities in Cairo, the Griffith Institute has all of Carter's written records. He recorded his finds on more than 3,500 cards with additional notes by Carter's chemist and conservator, Alfred Lucas. There are also more than 1,000 photographs by Harry Burton, plus hundreds of fragile pages from Carter's journals and diaries and 60 maps and plans of the excavation site, one of which has the valley's contours with Carter's black-ink lines showing the dig site located in the deepest point of the valley where the floodwater dumps debris when it rains. This plus the fact that the later tomb of RamsesVI was built almost on top of it, kept the smaller tomb (after the first break-in) undisturbed.
Malek and his staff had to work in their spare time due to a lack of funding but in 1995, "Tutankhamun: Anatomy of an Excavation" became one of the first websites dedicated to Egyptology. 98% of the material is online with the last pages available within the next 3 months.

Carter, funded by Lord Carnavon, had been searching the Valley of the Kings for 7 years but only a few objects had been found with Tutankhamun's name but it was enough to keep the two of them searching. Years later, there were rumours that Carter had discovered the tomb early in the search but had kept quiet in order to explore the rest of the Valley, with Carnavon's money.

On Saturday, November, 1922, stairs leading to a walled up doorway were uncovered. A diary entry for the next day says "seals intact", a sign that the tomb was undisturbed. Carter's first look through a hole into the tomb was on Sunday, 26 November and by the light of a flickering candle he made out the images of statues, gilded couches, painted caskets, chairs and chariots.

Harry Burtonphotographed the team's progress, as Carter, worked slowly and methodically to catalogue the position of every artefact before removing them. The photos show a jumble of objects due to the burial of the boy king in a smaller tomb than he should have had plus the tomb had been robbed shortly after his death and the contents were shoved back in any old way before the door was resealed. The photographs on the database reveal treasures from a leopardskin cloak with a golden head and silver claws to a collection of green and blue draughtsmen. Burtan also photographed the stages of unwrapping the mummy.

Malek hopes that Egyptologists will begin to study in detail all of the artefacts, not just the luxury items but the everyday items to find out, not only what they were made of but how they were made and the techniques involved. Not only did Carter records exactly where each item was found but they were recorded and photographed almost immediately the tomb was opened, before any deterioration had begun. Museums at the beginning of the last century did not have the technology for preserving organic items which is standard now. If other Egyptian digs are entered into the data bank then cross referencing will make research easier.

http://www.griffith.ox.ac.uk/gri/4tut.html will take you there.

This is one of the treasures, a pectoral scarab ornament belonging to the Pharoah. It has at its centre, another mystery. To the west of the Nile, there is a patch of desert where Libyan desert glass is found. It sits on the sandy surface but is much older than the sand and is almost pure silica. The scarab in the middle of the ornament is the only piece of the glass ever found in Egyptian jewellery.

SPECTROSCOPY AND PIGMENTS

I've blogged about using RAMAN spectroscopy to analyze ancient Mayan paint pigments here .

Professor Vandenabeele also used this method at another Mayan site in Yucatan. The little know temple complex of Ek'Balam which variously translates as 'Black Jaguar', Bright Star Jaguar' or 'Star Jaguar' is near the more famous Chichen Itza.

Thirty three samples were studied from room 23 of the acropolis, the brilliantly carved facade is shown in the image below.


These samples were analyzed using RAMAN spectroscopy and several pigments were identified.
Haematite (reddish brown), Calcite (white), Carbon (black), Cinnabar (red) and Indigo (blue).


Indigo is an inorganic dye obtained from the plant of the same name and combined with Palygorskite clay makes the famous "Maya Blue" pigment which was sacred to the Mayans and I'll bore you to tears about it in another post.

CRACKING THE MAYAN CODE

A very interesting program to watch especially after seeing "Angels and Demons". That Church aligned with State could think of wiping out a culture by burning not only their written and illustrated books but also the thousands of Maya in what was ethnic cleansing was not just a vision of the Catholic missionaries, all conquering nations did it. The Maya had a good go at knocking themselves off in the name of religion. The miracle is that from fragments saved and temples uncovered, researchers have opened up the Mayan world for us to appreciate the wonders worked without the aid of the wheel, or it seems, 'peace in our time'.

The image above was shown in the program. It's of a high-born lady piercing her tongue with a stingray barb then pulling a thorny vine through to give her blood as an offering. David Stuart was interviewed for the show but while it made mention of one of his major breakthroughs in translating the glyphs, another wasn't mentioned.

He re-interpreted a particular symbol at Copan which had been believed to mean "blood" to mean "clouds". As the program pointed out, many symbols could mean the same but here was a

subtle refinement in regards to the offerings to the Gods.

Bloodletting, usually by the Mayan nobility or elite was regarded as the most valuable gift they could give. This aspect of Mayan culture coincided with the evolution of a highly stratified class system. It was the express duty of the nobility to perform the rituals that kept the natural and supernatural worlds in balance. The Gods bestowed life, humans returned acknowledgment of the gift.

They pierced not only tongues but earlobes and in the case of males, genitals. After the piercing, the blood dripped onto sheets of bark paper which was then burned, transformed into clouds of smoke that the Gods took in as sustenance and returned as life-giving rain. Now you can see that subtle refinement of meaning.

And if you think I would take pleasure in the thought of some bloke shoving a stingray barb through his crown jewells followed by a thorny vine, well, shame on you.

bwahahahahhahahha.

Ripper.

CONSERVATION OF THE TOMB

Researchers found that at least three major previous conservation treatments were inside the chapel. In 1913, Ernest MacKay replaced a number of plaster fragments and fittled the ceiling with three light iron girders.

In 1914-1915 shows the plaster fragments set into the black muna (bottom pic from Griffith Institute, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford). The top photo from 1966 shows the white repair plaster over the muna substrate to stabilize the fragments. In the 1980s/90s, polyvinyl acetate (a synthetic binder) was mixed with sand and clay to form a mortar in the existing white plaster areas. B72 (Paraloid) was also introduced to stabilize the paintings.

Over the years, the plaster and pinkish PVA had cracked becoming unstable and visually distracting. The previous fills also resulted in the creation of 'haloes' or yellow tidemarks around the losses. Samples of sand and sandstone powders were analyzed to see if they would produce adverse chemical changes in the lime plaster or with the original black muna plaster. After testing and examination with polarized light microscopy they were found safe to use. The colours of different sands were tested and a mixture of lime putty, local sandstone powder, light building sand and a local pinkish sandstone were decided on. The top photo shows the previous repairs being removed.

The loose materials of the fill have to be removed and the surface wetted with a brush to aid adhesion and to slow the drying rate. The sand and limestone putty mixture had to be applied quickly, taking care to avoid contact with the original edges.

The repairs were then cut back under light to ensure an even surface and that the mortar followed the plane of the wall. Then mortar was pushed into the edges of the original plaster to ensure good contact and mimic the original plaster surface.

It could be that in another 40 or 50 years or even less, these repairs will be removed to make way for a better conservation project. It's certain not to last the 3 thousand years the paintings have. All this stuff is probably copyright but sueing me will do you no good but since thousands read this blog, I won't charge you for the publicity.

ARCHAEOMETRY IN MENNA'S TOMB

Monash University will be hosting the 5th International Conference on Advanced Vibrational Spectroscopy in Melbourne, July 12th to 17th. One of the invited speakers is Peter Vandenabeele who is Research Professor in Archaeometry at Ghent University.

Archaeometry is the science of archaeology, using analytic chemistry, spectroscopy, (bio) organic chemistry, electrochemistry, physics, conservation science, museology, anthropology, history, history of art and archaeology. In other words all the post-Indiana Jones stuff.

The analysis of precious artefacts or art works which cannot be taken apart or damaged or even moved and micro samples of pottery and paint flakes are being undertaken by scientists using several non-invasive methods.

In 2007, Professor Vandenabeele worked on the Menna Tomb Project. Menna was a high official who served as an overseer of the Cadastral surveys during the reigns of Tuthmosis IV and Amenhotem III between 1419 - 1370 BC. His tomb at Thebes is one of the finest painted, non-Royal Egyptian tombs open to the public and the paintings decorating the walls are marvellous examples of what Egyptians could do with pigments and plaster.

The research team of scientists involved in the archeaometry phase used visual analysis techniques of colorimetry (visible, ultra-violet and near infra-red) x-ray fluorescence (XRF) and RAMAN spectroscopy. The aim was to provide a complete analysis of the organic and inorganic materials, that is, the paint pigments, varnishes, binders and plaster in the tomb. The results would show not only the ancient materials but later repairs by conservators that may be degrading the paintings.

This is the XRF machine built especially for this project. After a visual examination of the painting, points were selected for study and analysis. As all archaeometric processes work by using the effect of light wave lengths converted to spectral troughs and peaks, nothing touches the painted walls so pigments or matrix remain intact.

The x-ray fluorescence here has identified the elemental components of the sample of yellow and it's inorganic concentration. The highest peak is As (Arsenic) and the next is Ca (Calcium) with smaller concentrations of Fe(Iron) Sr (Strontium) which indicates the pigment is almost pure orpiment, an arsenic sesquisulphide (As2S3). ( don't ask what sesquisulphide is or you'll be made to google it yourself)

Preliminary findings show that the Egyptian artists worked with combinations of pigments in different mixtures, either mixed together and then applied to the wall, or laid on in washes to create transparency.

And in true Lord Hughes style, I'll be posting about the conservation of the tomb next, with photos.