figure in a landscape

The Field Marshal, the artist, and an old edition of Walter Scott

Scott-Turner-Bemersyde-2

Matters of the presence of the past — haunting presences. A couple of editions of Walter Scott’s poetry have arrived from my favorite bookseller – Barter Books of Alnwick, Northumberland UK. The first is an 1866 edition of Scott’s poem, Marmion, about the days before the disaster of Flodden Field in 1513. It is illustrated [...]


this happened here – presence and authenticity in an archaeological sensibility

Auschwitz-Birkenau

Gary (Devore) has brought my attention to a remarkable new publication from the Panstwowe Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau [Link] “The Auschwitz Album” or “Lili Jacob Album” comprises about 200 photographs taken by the German SS and depicting the arrival of a transport of Hungarian Jews at the Auschwitz II-Birkenau camp in 1944. This new collection takes 31 [...]


landscape aesthetics – tactics (continued)

From a conversation in the Dun Cow, Durham (with Bianca Carpeneti and Chris Witmore). Topic – archaeology, ruins and the picturesque landscape. The allure, the ideology, the challenge to avoid cliché. How do we deal with archaeological landscapes today? Should I just give up photography? As a tainted medium? This is too simple a response [...]


landscape aesthetics – the politics (continued)

A conversation in the Dun Cow, Durham. To continue with the concern that I shared yesterday – the ideology of land, property and labor transformed into aesthetic form – landscape. Images that disguise history? (guilty pleasures of the sublime picturesque) [Link] It is not difficult to identify various components of this aesthetic. (I recall dealing with [...]


landscape aesthetics and the ideology of pleasure

The Dun Cow, Durham. Early evening. In conversation with Bianca (Carpeneti). My early morning runs are troubling me deeply … these encounters with a sublime picturesque [Link] [Link] [Link] Photo – dawn on Holy Island. Watercolor – J.M.W. Turner (exhibited 1829) (the castle in the background) Turner’s figures in the landscape (they are on the [...]


Binchester 2011 – the team

A week into the field season at Binchester – a field trip to the central section of Hadrian’s Wall. Here is the team – click on the image for a bigger version.


Montana

Jeff Dexter. Rocking C’s Ranch, Montana. Cattle country. Looking for Cooler Cave: full of bison bones. Petroglyph. Dry Range, Rocking C’s. My first visit to this vast landscape of the American sublime. Faint and evocative traces of the Native American past everywhere.


antiquarians at the Getty

See my previous entry – [Link]


haunted media

Some years ago Sam (Schillace) put me onto a Russian photographer, Sergey Larenkov, who combines old and new photographs of Leningrad/St Petersburg, then – WWII, and now. They have haunted me ever since. It’s not difficult to find the photos on the web; it only took me a few moments to find them again – [...]


Boonville CA

The old apple tree today. Last year – [Link] Also – [Link] More – archaeographer.com


Boonville

Abbey, Welsh, Black Labrador Retriever, nearly 15, at home in northern California


Big Sur CA

Molly and Emma. Site of several scenes in “The Sandpiper” – Vincente Minnelli 1965 – [Link] Ben and Josephine


Yosemite Falls


more fantasy archaeology

– the never-ending search for the Holy Grail … The BBC is reporting what looks like another publicity scam Fascination with the Holy Grail has lasted for centuries, and now the Bletchley Park code-breakers have joined the hunt. But what is it that’s made the grail the definition of something humans are always searching for [...]