Sunday, September 15, 2024
Saturday, September 14, 2024
The Lion of Venice was made in China, mostly.
The winged lion that stands on the column in St. Mark’s Square in Venice that is an icon of the city was made in China. A new metallurgic study of the bronze has discovered a large part of it originated from 8th century China and after making its way to Venice, was mixed with other parts and reconstructed in to fit the standard iconography of the winged lion, symbol of Mark the Evangelist and of Venice itself.
Based on research done after a 1980s restoration, the statue was believed to have been made in Anatolia during the early Hellenistic era (4th century B.C.), but a study of the lead isotopes in the metal alloy found they came from mines in the lower basin of the Yangtze River in southeastern China. Armed with the hard science, researchers reexamined the lion’s design and found characteristic features of Tang Dynasty (618-907 A.D.) sculptures in the head, mane and chest.
This style of creature had a specific function in Tang Dynasty sculpture as tomb guardians. Known as zhenmushou figures, they were fantastical beasts ferocious in demeanor that were placed at tomb gates to scare away evil spirits and protect the spirits of the dead. By the 7th century, they were typically placed in pairs, one with a human-like face, one with a lion or beast-like face.
Some of the characteristic features shared by St. Mark’s lion and zhenmushou figures include wide nostrils with a moustache pointing up on each side, a wide open mouth with a pair of wide-set canines in the top jaw and more narrow set ones on the bottom, a flat plate of teeth between them and prominent orbital sockets in which horns were mounted. The orbitals are truncated in the lion, indicating that it too had once had horns or antlers, but they were amputated to make him look more lionine. His ears also appear to have been trimmed and rounded, as the original zhenmushou ears were higher and pointed.
The lion likely made its way west over the Silk Road through India and Afghanistan, which had a very active flow of trade during the Tang Dynasty.
Friday, September 13, 2024
A hoard of four Viking Age silver bangles has been unearthed on a mountainside at a farm in Årdal in Hjelmeland municipality, Norway.
The silver bangles were found under what was once the floor of a small house. The dwelling is so small and spare that archaeologists believe it probably housed enslaved workers, and there were no other artifacts discovered in the area. The excavation found evidence that the farm was burned down around the time the silver bracelets were buried. The people who lived at the farm may have therefore buried the hoard before they fled an attack, and chosen an unlikely location to deter looters.
According to Odin’s Law, as recorded in the Heimskringa saga, men were allowed to bring with them to Valhalla everything that was burned on the funeral pyre with them and anything they had personally buried in the ground.
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