More Pictures of Titanic

The good people at National Geographic have released a series of photo's of the Titanic including optical mosaics which the viewer can get close up views of the ship.

Robbing the Officials Tomb

This article from China is on the robbery of a tomb of an official buried in 1882. The tomb was robbed once before however at that time the mummy in the tomb was respected .

In this case the mummy is left lying on the ground in a disheveled state, very sad. Hopefully he can be reburied in his tomb and forgotten.

The article comes with a number of good pictures.

Confirming Van Gogh

Here we have a historically disputed painting from the collection of the Kroeller-Mueller Museum some believe was painted by Vincent Van Gogh while other critics have long disagreed saying that the canvas was too big and that there were too many flowers in the painting to be Van Gogh.

An Xray of the painting clearly shows another painting underneath of two wrestlers which coincides with a letter Vincent wrote to his brother Theo that he was pleased with a large canvas of two wrestlers he had painted.

The Man Who Cried "Van Gogh"

Dirk Hannema was a well known museum curator and an art collector of the 20th century who was mocked  by his peers for his grandiose opinions of his art collection. Mr. Hannema believed at one time that he owned seven unidentified paintings by Vermeer and a number of unknown works by Van Gogh.

Mr. Hannema was almost always wrong but in the case of this Van Gogh "Le-Bute-Fin-Windmill" which he donated to the Zwolle's Museum de Fundatie in 1984 has been proven by the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam to be authentic and painted by Van Gogh while visiting his brother Theo in Paris in 1886.

Airship Auiction

Here we have a wonderful set of photo's of Zeppelins and views from them of various European sites. The article is based on a huge collection of Zeppelin artifacts going to a series auctions.

The British businessman who owns the collection has put it together for the last 40 years and had the intention of opening a museum. The collection will be broken up into a series of sales with the funds from the sales to go to charity.

Picture: BNPS.co.uk

"James Son of Joseph, Brother of Jesus" Verdict

As it arrived in Toronto the staff at the Royal Ontario Museum opened the crate and to the horror of those present realized that the ossuary had broken on it's journey from Israel. The ossuary inscribed "James son of Joseph, brother of Jesus" is believed by some to be the only archaeological evidence of Jesus of Nazarath though the three names in the inscription are common.

Back in Israel the police were investigating the ossuary's owner artifacts collector Oded Golan until in 2004 then the police layed their charges and seized the ossuary which they found on a toilet in Mr. Golan's home. Experts are at odds with the ossuary with some claiming it's inscription as a forgery while other point to a patina within the inscription that proves it is old still others believe that part of the inscription is new.


After a turbulent decade Mr. Golan has been found not guilty of forging the inscriptions on the ossuary and the 3000 year old Jehoash tablet which records restorations to the first temple by king Jehoash. Mr. Golan has long held that he had purchased the pieces from Arab dealers and that he did not forge the inscriptions.

Photo:Paradiso, The James ossuary was at the Royal Ontario museum from November 15 2002 to January 5 2003

Fragments of Mosaics

A recent article on a study by Bowling Green State University of mosaics in it's collection has the Turkish Antiquities authority asking for the mosaics to be returned. The find spot has been assumed to be Zeugma Turkey though no proof has come to light.

The University recently had the mosaics restored and place under glass in the floor of the new Wolfe Center of the Arts. The New York art dealer who sold the mosaics to Bowling Green University in 1965 for $35,000, said that they had come from the ancient site of Antioch.

That the mosaics have been chopped up into manageable fragments points to the work of smugglers as a mosaic of this magnificence would have either been left whole at the site of it's discovery or brought whole to a local museum, not butchered up and passed on to the New York art market?

The archaeological site of Zeugma was heavily looted in the 1960's and excavated in the early years of the 21rst century before a hydroelectric damn submerged the site. In these excavations archaeologists excavated dozens of stunning mosaics which are now in the Gaziantep Zeugma Mosaic Museum.

Bowling Green State University officials are looking into their collection and the legal issues to see if the origins of the mosaics can be proved and where their collection legally belongs.

Photo: Roberto Nardi

The Titanic Cemetery

This is an article on the ethics of removing artifacts from the Titanic and selling them. The issue is hot as an auction of Titanic artifacts estimated worth $200 million is about to take place on the 100th anniversary of the ships sinking.

The article refers to R.M.S. Titanic as a grave when in reality it is not but rather it is a cemetery. However the cemetery is two and a half miles under the Atlantic ocean.

Certainly the ships 1985 discovery was the worst thing that could have happened to the Titanic cemetery and ever since hundreds of objects have been removed. The ethics to excavating a modern cemetery and removing it's monuments for sale are obvious.

Others might say since the cemetery is inaccessible to the public that in fact they are preserving the artifacts as well as the memory of the ship and her occupants. The wreck of the Titanic is of course more of an exception in that the ships fame will probably always make artifacts from it valuable commodities.

How safe can the wreck of the Titanic really be even though it is a cemetery it is still much like most other cemetery's and will eventually be emptied for profit, intellectual and/or monetary reward.

In the last chapter of Paul Brunton's 1936 book "A Search in Secret Egypt" we are presented with "An Adept's solemn message" which is a warning about the opening of graves and the dark forces which release diseases upon the world.

This is perhaps an exaggeration for what much of society feels about disturbing modern graves, which by nature arouses primitive instincts and offends our own desires to be left undisturbed after death.

Archaeology is all about opening graves so at what date do we establish the no touch line? Clearly in this case no government had the right to say as the ship is in international waters.

The Titanic is mythical in it's scale and as a result the proper time to excavate(?) has been taken on by those there with the technology to take it on at the time. To my knowledge no intrinsically valuable object has come from the cemetery?

The rapid decay of the ship over the last 27 years since it's discovery may be the result of these visits for artifacts and limited knowledge.

As a boy of the 1970,s the Titanic was just as mythical as it is today except back them we wondered if she would ever be found? More than forty years later that answer is old news but the great ship is no less mythical in proportions.

Nothing has dimmed the mystery's of the Titanic thus it must be acknowledged that these artifacts from the Titanic are probably good investments. Though the attempt is to sell the collection whole.