#artifact replicas

[krindor]

Would you buy replicas of artifacts?

Hey Tumblr, I’ve been bouncing an idea around my head for some time of a store that sells replicas of artifacts (ancient style bowls, cups, etc) with the express point being that nothing in the store is an original piece: everything would be based on real artifacts, but with a guarantee that they’re fakes, for ethical archaeological reasons.

The problem is I have no idea how niche that is, seeing as I’m an archaeologist and all.

All that to say: would you buy a replica of an artifact with the guarantee that it is inauthentic?

Please reblog for science, I want to get as broad a sample size as possible for this

[mtg-cards-hourly]

Wizard Replica

It responds with unnatural precision.

Artist: Carl Critchlow TCG Player Link Scryfall Link EDHREC Link

[viciousnoodles]

Feeling like this guy in the heatwave...

This replica mummified head is handmade from polymerised plaster and painted for a realistic weathered finish. International shipping from UK, Etsy shop link under photo.

[heyclickadee]

Someone drop Phee in the middle of the Smithsonian or the British Museum and let her go to town.

[rainbowchewynuggets]

Hellboy and the Gatekeeper Pt. 1

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(next part in a few days!)

Index

[phoenix-joy]

Author: Meilan Solly (Associate Editor, History) Publication: Smithsonian Magazine Time-stamp: May 3, 2024 Word count: 1048 Estimated reading time: between 3 to 6 mins.

Extract (385 words - 1 to 2 mins):

[An] exhibition in Washington, D.C. is recreating Tutankhamun’s tomb [...]. [The exhibition features] more than 1,000 reproductions crafted by Egyptian artisans, [and is titled] “Tutankhamun: His Tomb and His Treasures” [...]. [It shows] a clear argument for the value of replicas as educational tools, particularly when the originals are largely inaccessible to the public. The Grand Egyptian Museum in Cairo [the] artifacts found in the tomb, but its opening [...] has [...] been delayed.

Melinda Hartwig, an Egyptologist [...] and a special adviser to the exhibition, says the show allows visitors to “follow in Carter’s footsteps” by drawing directly on the archaeologist’s excavation notes and photographs. Early on, the exhibition transports visitors into recreations of the pharaoh’s burial chamber, antechamber and treasury, all presented as they [were originally discovered]. Later sections focus on the artifacts themselves, grouping replicas of Tutankhamun’s shabtis (funerary figurines), nested coffins, canopic jars and more.

Tutanchamun Ausstellung - YouTube (3:42)

According to Hartwig, Egyptian craftspeople, lapidaries and sculptors spent around four years recreating the artifacts found in the pharaoh’s tomb [...]. [They cast the objects in plaster, [...] covered the models in resin, [then] used alloys and glass appliques to add color and depth.

[The] artisans had access to extensive primary source material, as well as 3D scans of the original artifacts. [...]

Reviewing a Czech staging of the exhibition in January 2009, Egyptologist Jaromír Málek praised the artisans’ attention to detail as “astounding,” writing that “there are few things with which one would seriously like to quarrel.”

[...] Málek wrote [...], “The Egyptians point out that these [original objects] are antiquities of their own past, and … it is only appropriate that they remain on display in Cairo where they can be seen by ordinary Egyptian visitors, such as schoolchildren.”

[...] As Hartwig explains, [the exhibition] blends entertainment and education; the exhibition’s wall panels are changed with each iteration of the show, reflecting updated understandings of the pharaoh’s life and legacy. For instance, recent research suggests he was a warrior king, rather than a sickly, infirm ruler. Initially a skeptic [...], Málek admitted, “somewhat reluctantly,” that he had “become a convert,” adding, “This exhibition can do things which no other, perhaps with the exception of future virtual reality shows, is able to.”

Hartwig, for her part, says she loves the exhibition “because you experience the objects. They’re not behind glass. They’re not separated from context.” [...]

/end of extract

[ladyofpasargadae]

A way to my heart? Cylinder seals!

Cylinder Seal. Late Lydian (Persian).

agate and gold

image from sardisexpedition.org

Cylinder seals were used in the Achaemenid Empire on administrative documents, business agreements, and more on clay tablets. Clay tablets usually have the imprints of cylinders to signify some kind of approval or permission of the person who owns the seal.

These seals would hang on the neck like a pendant. Need to approve an agreement between you and another person? Roll the seal on the wet clay tablet! And there you get a cool image!

This one has no attempted imprint of it, but there is this cool description of its image!

Agate cylinder seal in a gold mounting consisting of a pin held in place by two gold plates, with a gold loop on top set with granulations. The seal shows a crowned hero-king figure controlling two rampant lion-griffins, with two winged, crowned sphinxes as pedestal figures crouching on a ground line. Total height 3 cm, height of stone 1.85 cm, diameter 7.5 mm.

Note: While cylinder seals were certainly convenient, stamp seals were also still in use as well.

[teecupangel]

It's for a fic I'm writing, which is basically an AC×HP crossover, where Harry goes looking for the Room of Requirement and ends up summoning a door that leads to an Assassin Hideout that's a mix of Masyaf and Tiber Island, with touches of Devenport Manor and the English Brotherhood Hideout. It's heavily inspired by Relentless, We Survive by Araceil, which has unfortunately been discontinued.

There's a lot of bullshit from the magical Animus - cough cough Pensieve cough - and Isu crap.

And teenage Desmond fresh off the Farm, because by my (questionable) calculations, Harry and co. may or may not end up adopting the kid lmao

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6vvUC1UvkKamDJJnJXknDw?si=zf3Jh-VATvuT5nm58hDlBA&dd=1

Does it have AC vibes? I hope it has AC vibes

If you’re basing this during Harry’s 5th year, that would make it around the year 1995 so that would actually make Desmond around 8 years old. Unless you want to add in some kind of timey-wimey to the idea and a plot point is actually Desmond not knowing the year Harry and everyone are. Harry and the others can’t even check since they’re in Hogwarts (and, if this story is meant to push further than their fifth year, by the end they had more pressing problems in their hands that they may have forgotten to look for Desmond in the end).

If the idea is that Desmond gets yanked as his 16-year-old self fresh from the Farm into Harry’s time because of magic and Isu bullshit, you’d be able to write shenanigans of the trio just doing everything they can to keep people from noticing Desmond or realizing Desmond isn’t an actual student.

And it’s quite easy to incorporate magic into AC lore. Just say that wizards and witches are a subset of humans that were created to have ‘magic’. If you want to bitchslap the whole ‘wizards and witches are better than muggles’, you can add it that they were created during the Isu-Human war as soldiers to fight off the humans, making them another ‘slave’ race.

And yeah, I do think the playlist has an AC vibe to it. To be exact, it has a teenager Desmond vibe to it :) although I feel like Syndicate’s Family (the game's version of Ezio Family) would work better than Rogue’s? Or maybe that’s because Syndicate is the ‘British’ one XD

[cosmic-waltz]

hrggmmm... 3 am rune thoughts.

[maydaydoodles]

I went to a museum yesterday and saw a beautiful 1810’s or 1820’s wedding dress. Here it is drawn from memory.

[commanderfloppy]

oc group ask: who’d be down to go to museums, and who wouldn’t—and what type of museum would they go to? :) @kerra-and-company

1. Rococcus

My man is a huge nerd and would be very happy to go to a museum, he’d take time walking though and reading the different plaques and descriptions. He’s that old guy you see at the museum with his hands clasped behind his back staring at one singular thing for ages. Just don’t ask him to go to any war museums, that might get him stressed or sad.

2.Link

Also a nerd with a delightful whimsy for most things, only behind Roco because while he likes looking at stuff he prefers to experience firsthand. He’ll tend to ‘rush’ through museums, still making sure to look at everything and read descriptions, but at a much quicker pace.

3.Floppy

Provably wouldn’t mind going to a museum but probably wouldn’t be the most into it, looking at stuff is a nice change of pace though! Also she would be excited if it was a museum of natural history or a botanical garden (does that count as a museum?) or something.

4. Laurence

Could definitely spend a bit of time appreciating different things in a museum, but personally I think he usually feels he has better things to spend his time doing. (He also might just be burnt out from constant noble parading of ‘rare artifacts’)

5. Kalliope

Wow so many cool things!! Wow this looks so cool!! Wow!!! She’d be excited and look around for a while, but she’d probably not understand the relevance of anything there. Also she will probably get kicked out for being too loud or touching the artifacts or something.

6. Tori

Ouuuughhh she’s so Booooreeeeed, he doesn’t give a shit about some painting of an asshole noble who’s dead. The only chance you’d have at getting them to pay attention is maybe if you took them to a museum of mechanical engineering or runes or something. And even then It’d probably result in her seeing a few cool things, taking mental or physical notes, and then running home to his workshop to make some bullshit with these new ideas.

7. Damia

She does not care, she does not want to go. Trahearne I know you’re a scholar, but I’m not and also I have like 30 different ghosts here who won’t stop yelling at me.

[ltwilliammowett]

The replica of the galleon San Salvado. The real galleon from 1542 was the first European ship to explore the Californian coast

[mtg-cards-hourly]

Neurok Replica

All the curiosity of the Neurok with only a trace of their duplicity.

Artist: Zoltan Boros & Gabor Szikszai TCG Player Link Scryfall Link EDHREC Link

[egirl-vrissy]

replicas are a memorial of the past we can't return to

Agreed. Representative of a prior time but its not to say it is exactly that piece of time concerning variables that you can call genuine artifacts. Its the same thing but simultaneously not since it was remade so its going to be different inevitably and any sense of novelty is lost while maintaining a shell of its former spirit.

[frida--y]

September 2022

[niteshade925]

April 13, Xi'an, China, Shaanxi Archaeology Museum/陕西考古博物馆 (Part 2 - Shang and Zhou dynasty):

A 1:1 replica of a Warring States period (476 - 221 BC) horse chariot that was unearthed in an ancient tomb in Gansu province. The original artifact was made of lacquered wood, decorated with gold, silver, bronze, turquoise, and other semi-precious stones; it's basically the "Lamborghini" of its time. This replica was just sitting in the hallway in between exhibition halls, and it's very big:

Another one of my favorites, which is also one of the stars of the museum. These are called xizun/牺尊, which are animal-shaped bronze wine vessels (notice the lid on its back). This particular pair is "deer-shaped", but also has patterns on the sides that look like bird wings and paws that look like those of predators. Ugh they are so cute...🥺

A Western Zhou dynasty (1046 - 771 BC) "lunch box" made of bronze, called a luxu/录盨. It was found inside of a Western Han dynasty (202 BC - 8 AD) tomb, indicating that even Chinese people from 2000 years ago had an interest in collecting artifacts from earlier times

More bronze food/wine vessels from Shang dynasty (1600 - 1046 BC) and Zhou dynasty (1046 - 256 BC). Top one is called a gui/簋, bottom left is a gu/觚, and bottom right is a jue/爵. The tall-footed wine vessels can be used to warm up wine before drinking, by heating it with a small flame placed between the feet.

This is what a complete set of bronze vessels from Shang/Zhou dynasties looks like. This particular set, called "fanjin and thirteen vessels"/柉禁十三器 (translated as "Altar Set") is currently at the Met. This diagram below gives the name of each vessel:

Bronze chariot decorations with turquoise inlays. The bronze would have looked golden back then

A little bronze dragon. Cute.

Late Western Zhou dynasty pendant made of jade and agate beads called a yupei/玉佩, and from what I can gather, this one should be part of a necklace, which would be one heavy necklace indeed. I feel like a lighter modern replica might go well with sweaters though:

Left: necklaces, bracelets, and armlets from Spring and Autumn period (770 - 476 BC). Right: another jade and agate yupei from Spring and Autumn period, but this one was probably supposed to be hung from the waist.

This one is known as the Rui Gong ding/芮公鼎 or "Cauldron of Duke Rui", which is a bronze tripod ritual vessel (known as ding/鼎). It is inscribed with the text "内(芮)公乍(作)铸口宫宝鼎，万年子孙永宝用", which roughly translates as "Duke Rui cast this treasured ding, may his descendants use it for ten thousand years to come".

More bronze vessels. The top two are ding/鼎 vessels. Sidenote: notice the right one......does it look familiar? I'm pretty sure the rectangular ding is one of the inspirations for the design of TotK's temple of time. Also note the design patterns...I'm fairly certain these are the inspiration for TotK's aesthetics. TotK's Zonai script is also clearly inspired by Seal script/篆书 (I do want to make a post on this but my hands are pretty full atm)

Gold decorations on accessories:

An (incomplete?) bianzhong/编钟 (bronze bell set) and bianqing/编磬 set. The pentagonal stone chimes on the bottom are part of the bianqing.

A paper that studied the oldest face cream found in China (link to the article on Nature for those who have access).

Wadang/瓦当 (decorative roof edges) from Warring States period featuring various animals and mythical creatures, and their moulds: