Crossroads Roundup: Ed Sheeran's Painting Career, Extraordinary Maya Burial, and Egypt's First Ruler
This month's news in art, archaeology, culture, and more.
It’s been a busy month for art and archaeology news—Maya ruins, fairytale castles, medieval mysteries, and British pop stars all make appearances.
A royal tomb discovered at Caracol:
Our first story takes us to Belize, where the tomb of a Maya ruler was unearthed at Caracol. This is the first royal burial to be found at the site, which houses the largest Maya ruins in the country of Belize.
The 1700-year-old tomb was discovered by a husband-and-wife team of archaeologists from the University of Houston, Arlan and Diane Chase. Thanks to hieroglyphics found within the tomb, they were able to identify the ruler as Te K’ab Chak, who took the throne in 331 AD. This represents a very early ruler of the Caracol site, which would eventually grow into a major Maya city of 100,000 inhabitants before the Maya mysteriously abandoned it in 900.
What makes this an especially important find is the fact that Te K’ab Chak’s remains were well-preserved (often tricky in such a humid climate), and he was accompanied by a wealth of grave goods similar to those found in other burials at Caracol dating from 350 AD. The goods in those burials came from other parts of what is now Mexico, leading the Chases to believe that there was greater communication between Maya cities earlier than previously believed.
Ed Sheeran launches his painting career…
Earlier this month, pop star Ed Sheeran announced that he would be partnering with Heni Gallery in London to sell his art, which is already being scrutinized for its suspicious similarity to Jackson Pollock’s drip paintings. Admittedly, I saw this image, and the very first thing I thought was that it was a Pollock rip-off. (It’s a common phenomenon that when people become too famous, those around them start viewing their work with rose-tinted glasses. As a result, they don’t receive honest feedback.)
To Sheeran’s credit, the exhibition is for a good cause. Prints of his work, titled “Cosmic Carpark Paintings,” will sell for £900 (about $1190); half of the proceeds will go to the Ed Sheeran Foundation, which supports music education in public schools across the UK.
Could this be Egypt’s earliest ruler?
A recent study in the journal Antiquity analyzed the above carving of a boat that was found along the West Bank of the Nile in Aswan. The research team led by Dorian Vanhulle (the director and curator of the Musée du Malgré-Tout in Belgium) found in their investigation that the carving is over 5,000 years old, meaning that it predates the First Dynasty of Ancient Egypt—and, possibly, depicts one of Egypt’s earliest rulers.
The carving includes seven figures: five people to the right tugging what appears to be a rope tied to the boat, one person rowing the boat, and one person sitting on a palanquin. A palanquin is a portable bed or sofa used for thousands of years to carry rulers (heaven forbid their feet touch the ground).
Preciously little is known about Predynastic Egypt. As Vanhulle said in a statement, “State formation in ancient Egypt and the processes that led to it are still difficult to conceptualize. The rock art of the Lower Nile Valley has the potential to help identify and analyze the earliest forms of political power in this region, and how the landscape was exploited to express and consolidate authority.”
A mystery from medieval pop culture:
During the late medieval period in England, a popular romantic poem called “The Song of Wade” captured the imaginations of listeners. No copies of this poem survive, but we know of its existence thanks to references from other medieval authors, including the writing of Geoffrey Chaucer, who mentions “The Song of Wade” in The Canterbury Tales, specifically in “The Merchant’s Tale.”
One tiny fragment of the poem was discovered in 1896 by Cambridge scholar M. R. James, who found a few lines referenced in a sermon by a 12th-century priest. (It seems that the priest wished to include a fresh cultural reference in his sermon.) However, the scribe who recorded the sermon had very poor hand-writing. Translated from Middle English, researchers have believed for a hundred years that the line read: “Some are elves and some are adders; some are sprites that dwell by waters.”
But Seb Falk and James Wade, literary scholars from Cambridge, have recently published a paper arguing that the scribe’s writing contained a typo. Based on later allusions to the poem in Chaucer’s work, they argue that the correct translation should read: “Some are wolves and some are adders; some are sea-snakes that dwell by the water.” Falk noted in a statement that changing elves and sprites to wolves and sea-snakes “shifts this legend away from monsters and giants into the human battles of chivalric rivals,” which better matches Chaucer’s allusions to the poem.
A few more stories…
The palaces of King Ludwig II of Bavaria (Neuschwanstein, Linderhof, Schachen, and Herrenchiemsee) have been added to the list of UNESCO World Heritage sites. You may recognize Schloss Neuschwanstein as the palace that inspired the castle in Walt Disney’s Sleeping Beauty. Ludwig’s palaces were constructed during the 1800s and are representative of 19th-century romanticization of the medieval period. In other words, they are the stuff of whimsical fantasy; Ludwig himself was known as the Fairytale King.
For the first time in nearly a thousand years, the Bayeux Tapestry is returning to England for a temporary exhibition. The tapestry is famous for being the earliest known depiction of the Battle of Hastings (1066 AD), a decisive victory in the Norman Conquest against the Anglo-Saxons. For the next two years, the Bayeux Museum in Normandy will be closed for renovations, so the tapestry will be on display in the British Museum starting this September. If you live near London, be sure to see it while you have the chance!
A rare fresco by early Renaissance master Fra Angelico has been gorgeously restored. Crucifixion, painted around the year 1420, resides in the Convent of San Domenico about four miles from Florence. Fra Angelico was a Dominican friar who bridged the gap between the Gothic art of the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance, and Crucifixion is one of his earliest works, painted when he was in his twenties.
And by the way, if you happen to be a fabulous architect, the Louvre is currently taking submissions for a $316 million expansion, which will include a new viewing wing for the Mona Lisa aimed at solving the issue of insane crowding around Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece.
And finally, a sneak peek inside the Grand Egyptian Museum:
Here is a look inside the Grand Egyptian Museum in Giza, including interviews with curators, conservationists, and visitors. While most of the museum is open to the public, the official grand opening is set for this fall.
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