Vila Wolf's Dyslexic Folklorist Ranting

On an uninhabited Caribbean island, archaeologists were amazed to discover a series of cave drawings pre-dating European contact. This was a surprise because the drawings are so well-preserved. Over 70 winding caves on the island of Mona, between the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, contain art. Some are scratches on the rock. Others are more sophisticated, with paint made from sophisticated organic materials such as bat droppings, plant gums, minerals like iron, and materials from native trees like turpentine trees. The islanders were putting a lot of work into their art, deep where the light of day could not illuminate their creations.

The researchers noted that the indigenous people of Mona Island believed that the sun and moon emerged from beneath the ground. So exploring deep into the expansive network of subterranean caves, and making art there, is interpreted by today’s archaeologists as a highly spiritual act. 

Seated Figure Wearing Serpent Mask

Mexico, Oaxaca, Monte Alban IIIb (?), A.D. 550-900

LACMA

Bridge and Spouted Double Vessel with Monkey

Peru, Chimú, A.D. 900-1430

LACMA

Censer of Fire God Quetzalpapalotl

Mexico, Teotihuacan, Teotihuacán, A.D. 200-700

LACMA

Mask

Mexico, Teotihuacan, Teotihuacán, A.D. 200-700

LACMA

Seated Male Figure

Mexico, Colima, shaft tomb culture, 200 B.C. - A.D. 500

LACMA

Western Iowa has such a unique archaeological past, with incredible art and culture. This clay effigy is another find from a Glenwood culture earthlodge excavation in Mills County. It is described as the effigy of a male figure. It is part of the Keyes Collection, on display at the University of Iowa Museum of Natural History.

the Three Dead

Bible, England ca. 1260

Baltimore, Walters Art Museum, W.51, fol. 2r

lost among the words

Rabanus Maurus, De laudibus sanctae crucis (part of the ‘Mettener Armenbibel’), Metten Abbey 1414-1415

München, BSB, Clm 8201, fol. 68v

Very Rare Bactrian Jar with Figural Scene, 2nd ML BC

A carved chlorite(?) jar with high-relief image of two oxen tied to a tree, inverted nude male between them. 222 grams, 64mm (2 ½"). 

Vessels made from steatite or chlorite have frequently been found at early to mid-third millennium BC sites in Mesopotamia, Iran, and along the southern shore of the Persian Gulf. On the island of Sarut, in the Gulf, sites have been discovered where large quantities of the raw material, unfinished and completed vessels, which would indicate that this was the center of manufacture and from where they would eventually be disseminated through international trade.

Motif on these vessels vary from scenes of animals, mythological creatures and deities, to representations of textiles and wool - important commodities to the emerging Empires at the time. Important animals, apart from sheep and goats, were bulls who were associated with important deities associated with rain and fertility. The nature of the representations would suggest that these vessels were used in religious ceremonies.

Roman Red Jasper Gemstone Depicting Mēn, 2nd-3rd Century AD

Mēn was a lunar god worshipped in the western interior parts of Anatolia. He is attested in various localised variants, such as Mēn Askaenos in Antioch in Pisidia, or Mēn Pharnakou at Ameria in Pontus.

Mēn is often found in association with Persianate elements, especially with the goddess Anahita. Lunar symbolism dominates his iconography. The god is usually shown with the horns of a crescent emerging from behind his shoulders, and he is described as the god presiding over the (lunar) months. Strabo describes Mēn as a local god of the Phrygians. Mēn may be influenced by the (feminine) Zoroastrian lunar divinity Mah, but his male sex is apparently due to the Mesopotamian moon god Sin.

Selection of portraits by Polish artist Michał Maksymilian Rekucki (1884-1971),

Source: rempex.com.pl, ostoya.pl, artinfo.pl

An Unusual Roman Mosaic Glass Bottle, 1st Century AD

Formed from slices of a cane with an opaque white circle in a translucent light amber-colored matrix to form a squat unguentarium with a short cylindrical neck and pear-shaped body.

This small bottle is an unusual mixture of ancient glass making techniques with sections from a cast mosaic cane that were fused together and then blown to create the final shape. Usually such vessels are formed from layers or opaque white and blue or purple glass or four to six larger sections as with gold-band vessels.

Gustav von Mardefeld

Portrait of Peter the Great and a Black Page

Russia (c. 1720)

This vibrant portrait was a part of the inspiration for P. Djèlí Clark’s “The Mouser of Peter the Great”, one of the stories from the anthology Hidden Youth, out this week from Crossed Genres!

It’s the sequel to the outstanding Long Hidden anthology, and edited by the illustrious duo of Mikki Kendall and Chesya Burke!

You can see the table of contents at this link, and purchase a print copy here:

Or get the ebook here:

© Bibliothèque Municipale de Douai, MS 711, Folio 2r 

Etruscan Bronze Mirror, 4th-3rd Century BC

Engraved with two nude male figures, the figure on the right standing wearing a helmet and mantle, leaning on a shield with his left hand and holding a spear in his right hand, and the figure on the left, a satyr wearing a fillet tied around his head, leaning on a thyrsus in his right hand and holding a bone in his left hand, with foliate decoration on either side and below,