[Bonetools] Painted bone

Wed Jul 22 19:24:53 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/20150722/97ebec4e/attachment-0001.html>