Thursday, May 12, 2022

Ancient

I grew up in Los Angeles, and I was always fascinated by the La Brea Tar Pits. Right in the middle of the city, in an area called the Miracle Mile, for crying out loud, we have these eldritch ponds of dark, bubbling goo. And down in the muck, there're all these amazing fossils: mammoth and saber tooth cat and dire wolf.
~Greg van Eekhout


I was trying to figure out what to post for Art Thursday and I kept seeing all this cool old stuff. When I say old, I mean old. Here we go...

Fossil of 37 million year old Whale Skeleton (65ft+ long)
Found in Wadi Al Hitan, Egyptian desert

The Hove amber cup
Dated to around 1250 BCE, the amber cup was found in a Wessex culture grave in a coffin made from a treetrunk. Also in the coffin were a skeleton, a Camerton (Wessex culture) type dagger, a whetstone and a small axe.
Photo credit: Royal Pavilion & Museums, Brighton & Hove

Collection of Scarabaeus
Scarabs were popular amulets and impression seals in ancient Egypt
photo by Siga

Terracotta figurine of a man grating cheese, 2,500 years old
Found at the ancient Boeotian city of Mykalissos, present-day Rhitsona in Greece
Thebes Archaeological Museum


1 comment:

HWY said...

ALL of these are fantastic finds....and all very different. I don't have a favorite but the cheese grater guy and the whale skeleton are really special.