[Bonetools] Painted bone

Wed Jul 22 19:18:25 CEST 2015

Bone art

Very cool - and, of course, I especially like the Horse verts - I've always thought the cervical verts look like figures. Kind a pictured them as winged christmas angels.

An interesting idea for research, as you say! And there are also a large amount of contemporary examples of painted and/or carved bone elements which still retain their initial form... 

The pelvis seems to regularly strike a chord as a connection with the head/face -- the 19th C recreation of a "biblical giant" from mammoth bones which used the pelvis as the skull always brings a smile, and you can google it to see lots of current uses of the pelvis for a mask - with or without extra decoration. 

Similar to the exhibition, I recently saw some horse and cattle vertebra at a local 'new age' market - aside from being animal bones, the artist had no idea what they were, just considered them art from "found objects". Using bones as art material would be difficult to discriminate between something intended to have any ritual or spiritual meaning connected to the animal and simply an art medium. But I suppose that is always the nature of art...

cheers
Pam

Pamela J Cross
PhD researcher, Zoo/Bioarchaeology
Archaeological Sciences, University of Bradford,  BD7 1DP  UK
p.j.cross (at) student.bradford.ac.uk  / pajx(at) aol.com
http://www.barc.brad.ac.uk/resstud_Cross.php
http://bradford.academia.edu/PamCross

Life at the Edge  "liminality...enable[s] evolution and growth ... Boundaries and edges also characterize the dynamics of landscapes ... environments..[both intellectual and physical]." Andrews & Roberts 2012, Liminal Landscapes

-----Original Message-----
From: Salima Ikram <salimaikram at gmail.com>
To: Mailing list for archaeologists of the research group for the study of object and waste of bone, antler. ivory and horn. <bonetools at listserv.niif.hu>
Sent: Wed, Jul 22, 2015 5:27 am
Subject: Re: [Bonetools] Painted bone

What delight! 

Salima Ikram    

Professor of Egyptology    

Department of Sociology, Anthropology, Psychology and Egyptology     
American University in Cairo     
AUC Avenue, PO Box 74     
New Cairo 11835     
     salima at aucegypt.edu,      salimaikram at gmail.com     
tel: 20-2-2615-3779; fax: 20-2-2797-4903     

On 22 Jul 2015, at 13:26, Sonia O'Connor <    S.Oconnor at bradford.ac.uk> wrote:   

      <HULLMKINCM2005.2422bullacet (1).JPG>     

Dear All,     

      I have attached a photo I took in Hull Maritime Museum - a cetacean auditory bulla painted to form a face.        I was reminded of this when I received this Tweet this morning      

      https://twitter.com/PatHadley/status/622016063690121218       

Pat Hadley on Twitter: "New favourite artefact! @YorkCastle has a whole set of these horse vertebrae figures!                       http://t.co/Vbbae7lU6l                       http://t.co/H3Ch5yle21"          

“New favourite artefact! @YorkCastle has a whole set of these horse vertebrae figures!                       http://t.co/Vbbae7lU6l”          

           Read more...          

     I think these objects      qualify as 'worked'.      

      Both these objects       are relatively recent survivals (the preacher is possibly 18th C and the face 19th or even 20th C). Can anyone post other/earlier examples? What other species/skeletal elements were used and what were the subjects that these natural shapes inspired? I wonder how far back this traditions goes?  There are now many records of painted pebbles from sites, such as those from Shetland http://www.archaeologyreportsonline.com/PDF/ARO12_Painted_Pebbles.pdf for instance      .       Even if the paint is lost sometimes the bone       many have been       modified a little       to enhance the shape or add detail.            

      Unlike gaming pieces, t      hese objects are not necessarily       functional        but might still have been significant to their owners in other ways.       Perhaps just the pleasing shape of some  bones led to them being retained and handled (in the way that some fossils clearly were and still are by the finder). Humour is something that is difficult to detect through the study of bone finds but these two examples appear to me to be comical. P      ossibly       some bones were kept as lucky charms?      

      The evidence might be quite slight but I think this would be a fascinating area to investigate. Is anyone doing this?     

Sonia     

Dr Sonia O'Connor               PhD FSA FIIC ACR Honorary Visiting Fellow, University of York       
Post-doctoral Researcher       

Archaeological Sciences       

Division of AGES       

University of Bradford       

Bradford, West Yorkshire, BD7 1DP       

Tel 01274 236498       

    _______________________________________________    
    Bonetools mailing list    
    Bonetools at listserv.niif.hu    
    https://listserv.niif.hu/mailman/listinfo/bonetools   

_______________________________________________
Bonetools mailing
list
Bonetools at listserv.niif.hu
https://listserv.niif.hu/mailman/listinfo/bonetools

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://listserv.niif.hu/pipermail/bonetools/attachments/20150722/c3c8c80e/attachment-0001.html>