Browse Items (72 total)

MedievalLolCatzOnTheBeach.jpg
What a non-medievalist knows about medieval beaches... King, cat, and cock in a lobster trap? Can't be good for the body politic, can it?

stranded IT.png
I beachcombed the Web, using the search term “Stranded Objects” and taking screen shots. Found poems.


PS. You might want to start with the last bit of the collection, which I intended to be the first, but Omeka prevailed.

It's out of my…

Humans aren’t the only ones who interact/intra-act with dead whales and their parts.

Whale fall is the term given to the complex ecosystem that develops when a dead whale body sinks to the sea floor at depths of 6600 feet or more. Whale falls are…

Fisc flodu ahof on fergen-berig
Warþ gas-ric grorn þær he on greut giswom
Hronæs ban.

Note: one could also begin with hronæs ban. It’s an infinite loop.

Anticipating eighteenth-century “thing” narratives, the casket-once-a-whale tells…

runes franks.png
The runic inscription on the front of the Franks Casket, transcribed

franks_casket-front.jpg
The Franks Casket is a small whalebone casket (9” l x 5” h x 7” d) carved with scenes taken from Christian lore and Roman and Germanic mythology. Running around the front panel is an alliterating runic inscription that most scholars describe as a…

A dead cetacean not only provided food and fuel for medieval people, but bones and teeth could be fashioned into useful and decorative objects—even the ribs could be used as beams for houses.

kk c. 1980 model mvm  morgan.JPG
For the past year, in anticipation of this session, I’ve been collecting random examples of decorative ivory (including elephant ivory) and whale parts. Here’s where I’ve taken photographs:

• American Museum of Natural History, New York: exhibit,…

kk whale in shop.jpg
Another June day on the Vineyard, I walked into an antique shop in Menemsha and was immediately drawn to two carved whale’s teeth in the shape of penguins. I bought them.

According to the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972, antique teeth can be…

2 whale painting after.jpg
However, after conservator Shan Kuang took a scalpel to the painting (its varnish was terribly yellowed), the reason for the beachcomber’s interest was revealed. A stranded whale.

Why cover it up? Kuang, who thinks the whale was painted over in…
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