HoodedHawk

A new exhibit at the National Gallery of Art opened yesterday: Pompeii and the Roman Villa. Preston and I went to see it. For an active two-year old, Preston was surprisingly well-behaved. He was most impressed by the large bronze sculptures of horses’ heads (whazzzaaaat???!!) and the dogs attacking a wild boar (whazzzaaaat???!!).

At one stop Preston did point and say “MOM!!!”. However I couldn’t tell if he was pointing to a statue of Aphrodite or the blonde standing next to it. So I covered both bases with “Yes, that looks like mom, but she’s not here right now”. (The picture at left is not Aphrodite; it’s the daughter of Marcus Nonius Balbus. You’ll have to go to the exhibit to see Aphrodite). :)

The exhibit is in the East building, and is on two floors. The exhibit is free, though I recommend the $5.00 audio tour. I found the sculptures particularly captivating. I hadn’t realized before that the blank eyes on a lot of ancient statues actually originally had inlays. Most of the time such inlays have not survived to the present, but in a number of the exhibit sculptures they do. This made the art even more striking and realistic. The frescoes were amazing; such color and detail. One piece (rather small, maybe 1.5ft on a side) appeared to be drawn in red pencil on marble. The detail on that piece was absolutely amazing. They definitely had some very talented artists 2000 years ago.

The opulence of Pompeii does show through in the sculptures and frescoes. The exhibit also contains paintings and sculptures from the 19th century (and later?) that show an artists’ recreation of Pompeii before the disaster. Wow. I think it was Augustus (Octavius) who was so captivated by the area around Naples that he bought an island.

[Read 1/14/2008] History/Science. 2007

The Archimedes Codex is the story of the Archimedes Palimpsest, formed when a medieval prayer book was created by taking parchment (sheepskin pages) from several ancient codexes, scraping off the old text and re-using the parchment. One of these ancient manuscripts happened to be the earliest surviving copy of Archimedes Codex C. An informative website is dedicated to the Archimedes Palimpsest.

The old prayer book/palimpsest was purchased in 1998 at auction for $2million. The new owner entrusted Noel, the curator of the Walters Museum in Baltimore, to unlock its secrets. Netz is a Stanford classicist; the two authors alternate chapters.

I was more interested in the technology used to uncover the Archimedes text than in the text itself however a majority of the book is on the text and how it contributes to our understanding of Greek mathematics (geometry, combinatorics, etc.). Only the last 20 pages focus on what caught my attention initially, namely the use of a beamline at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) to do X-ray absorption studies on the palimpsest. These studies reveal hidden text via the iron in the original Archimedes text’s ink. I’ve done X-ray absorption (EXAFS) studies myself at SLAC so I liked the tie-in.

I think Noel is either being tongue-in-cheek or is a new earth Creationist (ick!). He once says that sheepskin evolved “or was Intelligently designed” with more antibiotic properties on the side facing out. In another passage , when discussing dates in the codex, says the dates as written by the orthodox monk were from the origin of the earth – “which as everyone knows was 5500 BC”. He can’t possibly believe that the earth was created ~7000 years ago! Anyway, the Archimedes text was written ~6-900 AD, while the Prayer Book it was made into was written ~ 1200 AD.

Interestingly (and sadly), as described in the book, most of the damage and deterioration of the book took place not in the past, but in the 20th century! The book today was very brittle, moldy, and glued(!) together.

The boys and I went to see Kim MacQuarrie give a talk Thursday night about his new book, “The Last Days of the Incas” at Olsson’s Bookstore in Arlington, VA. MacQuarrie is a documentary filmmaker, and he spent some 4+ years in Peru. While there he spent some time living among a “newly discovered” Amazonian Indian tribe. His interest in the Inca was piqued, and he subsequently spent 3 years researching and writing this book. He goes over the story of how ~160 Spanish were able to “conquer” some 30,000 Incas (and eventually the entire Inca civilization of some 10 million). The Spanish killed the Inca ruler Atahualpa in a despicable double-cross (the Inca had filled a room with gold as a ransom; the Spanish took the gold and killed Atahualpa anyway). That story is well known. Turns out the Inca didn’t just lay down their arms quietly after that. The book goes on to tell about the ~40 year “guerrilla” war the Inca waged against the Spanish after the execution of the Inca ruler. He touched on the “discovery” in 1911 of Machu Picchu by Hiram Bingham, and also for the modern search for the lost Inca city of Vilcabamba ( the search is still underway).

Enjoyable talk, and the author inscribed a copy of the book to me afterwards. I believe he currently lives in the DC area. Interestingly, I saw him on the subway on the way home later in the evening (he was in another car); I wonder if he saw me reading his book. :)

The audio recording of the talk is available (from my Canon Powershot S3 IS).

I spent a relaxing afternoon yesterday at the Sackler Museum’s “In the Beginning: Bibles before the Year 1000” exhibit. As I was walking through the gates behind the Smithsonian Castle, I noticed the sign on the fence: WiFi @ SI. Nice! Turns out there are a few free wireless hotspots on the Mall now, this area (Haupt Garden behind the Smithsonian Castle) being one of them.

The exhibit at the Sackler was very interesting- they even have some fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls (from ~60AD) on display. My favorites were the illuminated manuscripts from the 10th century – especially the purple-stained vellum with real gold/silver lettering. The exhibit goes through Jan 7, so stop by if you get a chance – it’s free.