I’m going to start a regular Sunday feature on this blog that will collect some of the news around the inter webs related to current events in: history, museums, public history, historic preservation, and other similar topics. Sometimes there might even be the occasional goat or popular culture reference.
Here is the first attempt at a news round-up, but please let me know if you have any suggestions or heard anything else exciting, scary, weird, or awesome during the week! Also, if you know of any website feeds with similar information, let me know.
“Museums Join U.S. Tribe to Oppose Paris Artifact Sale” from Naharnet.com — Kachina spirit figures are fundamental to the faith and heritage of the more than 18,000 members of the federally recognized Hopi tribe who mainly live in northeastern Arizona. A French auction house says “it will be putting 70 kachina visages — mask-like representations of spirit characters used in Hopi ceremonies — on the block. One of them is valued as high as 50,000 euros (more than $64,000). Robert Bruenig, director of the Museum of Northern Arizona, appealed for the objects’ return to Arizona, in an open letter to the auctioneers posted on the Flagstaff institution’s Facebook page. He said, “For them, katsina friends are living beings. … To be displayed disembodied in your catalog, and on the Internet, is sacrilegious and offensive.”
“April Fools’ Tour at Stone-Tolan” from Landmark Society of Western New York — Now this sounds like fun!! This historic site has special tours for April Fool’s day. Their website says, “For one day only, The Stone-Tolan House Historic Site will once again be forced to suffer the indignities of sushi, lava lamps, and a number of other inappropriate items on display in its venerable rooms. On Saturday April 6th come to Stone-Tolan, and see what you can find that is out of place in the tavern room, kitchen, parlor bedroom, hallway and pantry. Some may be obvious – like the sushi. Others will be a bit more challenging (hint: what is the date on that coin?) There will be prizes!” This sounds like a fun way to get new visitors out to a site for something new.
“University Museum at SF State preserves ancient artifacts” by Nena H. Farrell for the Golden Gate Xpress — Two of my favorite things: ancient stuff and museums. The San Francisco State University Museum has the only mummy in the Bay area, and students were behind this exhibit on campus. The article says, “Tucked away on the fifth floor of the Humanities Building is the University Museum. Students from various classes put together the museum exhibits, oversee volunteers and field trips, catalog objects and take on other tasks that maintain the museum. The whole operation is run completely by students, under the direction of the museum studies faculty. The current exhibit in the museum is called “Fearless Women Voyagers: Women Who Challenged the Middle East, 1870-1940.” The exhibit, put together by the museum curatorship class in the fall, was created with the help of Linda Ellis, curator of the museum.”
“Pluto’s Gate Uncovered in Turkey” by ROSSELLA LORENZI for Discovery News — A “gate to hell” has been found, and surprising to all MTSU students, it wasn’t in Peck Hall. “Known as Pluto’s Gate — Ploutonion in Greek, Plutonium in Latin — the cave was celebrated as the portal to the underworld in Greco-Roman mythology and tradition. Historic sources located the site in the ancient Phrygian city of Hierapolis, now called Pamukkale, and described the opening as filled with lethal mephitic vapors.” According to the Greek geographer Strabo (64/63 BC — about 24 AD): “This space is full of a vapor so misty and dense that one can scarcely see the ground. Any animal that passes inside meets instant death.” Early tourism was even at work at the site: “According to the archaeologist, there was a sort of touristic organization at the site. Small birds were given to pilgrims to test the deadly effects of the cave, while hallucinated priests sacrificed bulls to Pluto.”
What interesting news did you read in the past week?
Katie Stringer Clary, PhD 