Spot The Tip

Google Earth can be used for many things, including spotting Britain's worst fly-tipping site.

M4 Fly-Tipping Spotted From Space

Which was in Coedkernew, Newport Wales.

Colouring The Past Again

Some of my most popular posts are on the subject of the colourful past our ancestors lived in ...

'Alexander' Sarcophagus - Constantinople
(Not His, But Actually One Of His Generals)

It wasn't the white aesthete look, that the Renaissance artists sought to imitate, when they copied what they thought were original marble statues of antiquity .... they weren't aware of the fact that originally these were coloured. This view that white marble was the ideal condition, led to sculptures actually being cleaned of paint remnants when pulled from the ground.

Stonehenge Revisited

I know from the number of hits these posts receive, that people are interested in how things looked in the past ..... although at least one commenter on an earlier post believed that contrary to all the evidence and skills of archaeology etc "the idea of "repairing" ancient structures like this is hilariously dumb, for the simple reason that we have no idea what they would have looked like originally and any attempt to rebuild them will only ever end up imposing the style and taste of the current era on it." .....

 

Colouring The Past

I have posted before on the colour of the past. How we are completely wrong to think that the ancient world was a monochrome of white or dark marbles, but in fact was a riot of colours everywhere the ancients looked. Of course bronze was already around .......

Giant Bronze Statue Athena - Acropolis - Pheidias

But recent discoveries have show exactly how much colourising went on - not just of cult images, but of the statues seen daily on the streets and the buildings.

The Riddle Of The Sphinx

I am following on to an earlier post, in which I bemoaned this strange idea in current western archaeology, that ancient monuments such as Stonehenge, or Hadrian's Wall, should be left in disrepair, to somehow make them 'Authentic'. In fact of course they are only 'authentic' when they are as the makers intended them to be seen.

Take, the Sphinx ....... probably built by Pharoah Khufu in his likeness.

Sphinx Circa1893 .... Until Archaeologists Started Work

It was buried in the sands for millennia until the Victorians uncovered it again .... as they did the other Pharaonic ruins.

The Sphinx as Archaeologists like to see it

But even so, it's age, weathering, and vandalism, have left it a pale shadow of its original self. But instead of the Chinese model of repairing heritage sites, all we do is say, "what the heck, the damage is 'historical' so we'll leave it", and then strangely, we proceed to spend millions to keep the sites in exactly the current stage of disrepair that we found them in. How weird is this?

So how would the sphinx look repaired? Well I had a go at 'repairing it' (apologies for the poorness of my Photo-shop skills) ..... maybe something like this?

A Repaired, Brick Faced Version Of The Sphinx

Assuming that after it was carved from the bed rock, it was faced with shaped stones or shaped bricks (like the Great Pyramid of Giza was), then it would have been something like the image above. Or maybe if they just carved the rocks and left it, maybe more like the image below.

A Repaired, Rock Version Of The Sphinx

In either event how much more wondrous to see it as it was intended to be seen?

Added after visitor suggestion a 'human scale' image .... incidently, notice that the Victorian photo (which was in B&W before I coloured it), show that some 'repair' was done by archaeologists before the current vogue of 'not repairing' items (see top image for current state of 'repair').

Human Added To Show Scale

Some people suggest that it was actually more polished when originally completed .... something like this reconstruction I have created .....

How Great Sphinx May Have Looked ....

 

 

Update: The latest studies suggest that originally the Great Sphinx was painted with a red body and a full headdress ....

The Red Sphinx ......

Painted Headdress And Body .....

And at least a very strong suggestion from an image found in an early Old Kingdom tomb that it had painted wings on its side (as representative of its aspect as Horus) .....

Fully Painted With Godly Aspects Of The Pharaoh ....

Nefertiti - Eternal Beauty

I, like many people own a small copy of the statue of Nefertiti, the Queen of the Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten .....

 

Nefertiti Statue

 

..... its black, and shows her bust as whole and complete, with her ears and missing eye repaired. You can buy many representations of the original bust, some very gaudy indeed, but the best, are faithful copies, in colour etc, but to my eyes too faithful.

The Great (Underground) Wall Of Gaza

First there was the Chinese who had a Wall, then Hadrian built one, then the Germans had to have one and finally (or so we thought ) the Israelis had to have one.

Now however it appears that the Egyptians are building one as well, but with a difference, its wholly underground.

Yes, in order to stop smugglers arming the Hamas fighters in Gaza, the Egyptians (aided by the US ) have bulilt a wall thats 18meters 'high' but underground.

It's not expected to stop all smuggling (certainly not for weapons), but will certainly be a major deterrent against casual smuggling.