LifeArtEarth

A decade ago, I suggested that a 10th century gripping beast pendant found widely across the Viking world (Campbell 2013) may represent a bound shapeshifter (reminiscent of Loki's fate as recounted in the "Lokasenna" of the Poetic Edda), perhaps functioning as an amulet for the 'containment of chaos' . The design of the pendant features a highly contorted quadruped with forward facing head and a ribbon body connecting thorax with hindquarters in lateral view. Two of the animal's limbs are bound to an encircling rim and a third grips the creature's own ribbon body. The circling ring is ornamented with four fanged beast heads in facing pairs on each side of the pendant. Two small paws reach over the long ears of the lower two beast heads to grasp on to the encircling ring. Details of the ornament on the  fore- and hind-quarters vary between examples and a distinctive variant from the Lake Ilmen region of Russia lacks the beast heads around the rim of the pen...

Skipwith (North Yorkshire), immediately to the north of Skipworth Common, where tradition held that the few remaining Norse warriors from the failed 1066 invasion had gathered and buried their dead (at 'Danes' Graves'), is the site of an ancient church containing a fascinating early medieval low relief sculpture. St. Helen's Church has been renovated several times over the past millennium, but still preserves a pre-conquest structure in the form of the tower with its original Anglo-Saxon windows. The ancient tower of Saint Helen's Church at Skipwith, showing original Anglo-Saxon windows Set low inside the tower wall (in the modern vestiary) is an ancient image carved into a stone. It's thought to be a re-used Roman stone (magnesian limestone) with a pre-conquest carved scene, later included at the base of the church tower wall. The timing of the block's incorporation in the wall is unknown, the carving not having been noticed until 1866 following lowering of...

Aragonite, is a common mineral in the skeletons of marine organisms (Cusack & Freer 2008), but is not typically well preserved in the fossil record due to its tendency to recrystallise as its more stable polymorph calcite. However, certain circumstances can enhance the preservation of the original aragonite, including reducing conditions, low temperatures (associated with limited burial depths), and burial in impermeable sediments (Hall 1967).  Four Middle to Lower Jurassic examples of preservation of aragonite shells, consisting of two belemnoids and two ammonites, are illustrated here below. Middle Jurassic Oxford Clay of Christian Malford The Middle Jurassic of Christian Malford (Wiltshire) is celebrated for the exceptionally preserved fauna it contains (Pearce 1842, Wilby et al. 2004, 2008). J. Chaning Pearce read his paper on the discovery at the Geological Society on 5th January 1842, stating that " his attention was first directed to this part of the railway by the impr...

A distinctive type of 19th/early 20th century pipe from Gabon (shown here below) is constructed of wood with an iron bowl, a brass stem and bindings of brass and copper wire. Dealers readily attribute this form to the Kota, without specifying if this is "Kota" in the sense of the Kota people (Guthrie code B25 in the Kele group) or the much broader careless ragbag and much criticised terms "Kuta"/"Kota" of the art world (e.g. Andersson (1953) and Perrois (1970); Perrois (1985) offered a weak defence on pg 37). But is this correct? Examination of 19th century texts and museum collections suggests not. A distinctive pipe from Gabon, made of wood, with brass stem and wrapping and an iron bowl, 44 cm long, offered as "Kota", but is it? Here below (at left) is a very similar example, but with more precise provenance, from the Ndasa village of Mapinda (Andersson 1953). Inspecting the Musée du Quai Branly collection online reveals 11 pieces in this style...

Replacement of fossils by silica can preserve fine-scale features (e.g. Roniewicz 1970, and see Butts 2014). Perhaps the most famous instance is that of the Permian Vidrio Formation in the Glass Mountains of West Texas (e.g. King 1930). Sowerby (1809, p. 181) provided an early illustration of another such case from the Jurassic of England (his TAB. CCXCI), shown below. Sowerby named the specimen ' S I L E X Quartzum coralliformis. Coralliform Flint. Div. 2. Imitative. ' and wrote: ' This is one of the most beautiful, and perhaps local, of the Flint Coral formations, and is found in tolerable abundance in a field near Tidsbury, Wiltshire , in pieces, sometimes as large as a quartern loaf. Some specimens show the remaining form of a real Coral most perfectly having at the same time little globular infiltrations, as if in the act of filling the spaces of the Coral with a whitish calcedony or cachalong-like substance, which more solidly pervades the Flint in other parts ; and a...