
British Museum realises 'vase' is in fact an ancient mace-head upside down - ohaikbai
https://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/british-museum-goes-belly-up
======
hetman
This reminds me of a tour I was once on, by one of the resident archaeologists
in the open-air museum in Biskupin, Poland. It's the site of an iron age
fortified settlement and there is both ongoing archaeological excavation and a
reconstruction of sections of the settlement for visitors.

Anyway, the archaeologist showed me a shallow elongated oval wooden vessel
with a slight depression in it, that had been on display. She explained that
for a very long time it had been believed it was used for offerings as part of
religious ceremonies. Only when she first began working there as a student
this struck her as odd since she remembered her grandma had used an almost
identical vessel for kneading dough for bread. Needless to say, its purpose
has since been relabeled.

Her observation to me was that in archaeology, any time researchers are
uncertain of the purpose of an object they tend to ascribe a religious meaning
to it and so any time an object is described as having a religious
significance one should always take that assessment with a grain of salt.

~~~
2arrs2ells
David Macaulay's "Motel of the Mysteries"
([https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/108831.Motel_of_the_Myst...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/108831.Motel_of_the_Mysteries))
satirizes this bias, with archeologists from 4022 inspecting a modern day
motel room and uncovering the "holy" toilet. It's a gem.

~~~
Cthulhu_
Thanks for that, I was just thinking about how people years from now would
interpret stuff like our erm, sacred thrones used in the daily cleansing
rituals.

~~~
UncleSlacky
Check out "Body Ritual Among the Nacerima":
[https://msu.edu/~jdowell/miner.html](https://msu.edu/~jdowell/miner.html)

~~~
d4rti
And in the same vein, The Sacred Rac :
[http://www.drabruzzi.com/sacred_rac.html](http://www.drabruzzi.com/sacred_rac.html)

------
Balgair
Man, archeology is _hard_ , but this one, with all the upside-down writing, is
a bit of a face-palm.

My favorite examples in archeology is the Chaco Canyon Cultures. If you are in
the western US, have a 4 wheel drive car, and a free few days, I'd go no where
else. Those people are an astonishing mystery. You know how with some places,
going on the journey is kinda the point? Sometimes with archeology, that's
kinda true too. You find out things along the way, you get a feel for the
peoples, you get in their heads, you empathize.

The Chacoans are the rare exception to that process. Chaco is a place of
questions and not much more. Despite decades of work on the canyon, we know
nearly nothing about them. Nothing makes any sense, getting into their heads
has proven nearly impossible; it's very difficult to empathize with them
across the centuries. The only plan right now is to rebury all the pueblos and
wait for new technology to come out, really.

Cool thing is, though, you can go right up to the ruins and interact with them
any way you please. Not that you should, but you can. Since it's a bit hard to
get to, the rangers pretty much let any visitor roam free. If you are looking
a very 'Indiana Jones' kinda vacation, Chaco Canyon should be #1 on your list.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pueblo_Bonito](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pueblo_Bonito)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaco_Culture_National_Histori...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaco_Culture_National_Historical_Park)

~~~
staplers
After a decade of telling people about my favorite places around Portland
(where I grew up) and watching them get absolutely destroyed by Instagram-
tourists, I would highly advise against this sort of promotion of fragile
amazing places.

~~~
Balgair
Thanks for the tips!

Chaco Canyon is not very close to any large-ish city to begin with. Just
driving from Albuquerque is about 3 hours to get to the 4-wheel-drive-only
road into the park. That road is generously described as 'washboard' in the
best of conditions, which are rare. Once there, there is only tent camping.
Water and toilets are available, but not any food or drink though, 'amenities'
are sparse. It's difficult to get to and stay at, so you really have to want
to be there. Though I may not know too much about the current zeitgeist of
Insta' , I'd imagine that Chaco is not 'worth' the trip if you are just there
for the photos and likes. However, if you are there to experience the
archeology, the people, and the astounding mystery of the Chacoans, the effort
is very much worth it. Besides, the stars at night are some of the clearest
I've ever seen, and those show up terribly on a phone camera.

------
ergothus
A fired-clay headed mace? I'm the daft one now, but how does this work? What
fired-clay is sturdy enough to whack someone with more than once? Clearly
there is some, but if someone can point to a modern example I might know I
will get over this disbelief more easily.

~~~
gus_massa
If they thought it was a vase, I guess it is empty and it has a hole at the
"top"/"bottom". It doesn't look like a good design for a real weapon.

~~~
cronix
I imagine the hole is where the wooden club was inserted/attached, which has
probably since disintegrated long ago.

~~~
SideburnsOfDoom
Quite. An axe head would also have a similar hole after the wooden handle
disintegrates.

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logfromblammo
The king's weapon combined the best qualities of the two bashing weapons that
had previously been available to elite soldiers of the 22nd century BC: bricks
and sticks.

This photo caption makes more sense if you are inscribing your gripe against
the city you are warring with on your weapon:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:This_cuneiform_text_gives...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:This_cuneiform_text_gives_the_city_of_Umma%27s_account_of_its_long-
running_border_dispute_with_Lagash._Circa_2350_BCE._From_Umma,_Iraq._The_British_Museum,_London.jpg)

~~~
CobrastanJorji
You may just be joking, but just in case, the Mesopotamian early dynastic
period was very familiar with metalworking. Metal swords were common, and
there are several examples of fine gold and silver-decorated weapons.

~~~
logfromblammo
I was joking. But because it was the bronze age, I figured I'd make it a
little clearer by specifying "bashing" weapons. As far as I know, metal would
have been expensive, and limited specifically to the purposes where it would
be strictly advantageous: spearheads, axe heads, sword blades, forge tools,
helmets, shields, maybe torso-only armor. And if you're rich: mirrors, cups,
jewelry, and artwork. The king of Umma would have likely owned a lot of bronze
stuff, commanding soldiers with bronze arms and armor.

It is possible that a mace head with cuneiform inscriptions served a
ceremonial purpose. Executions of captured prisoners, maybe? I imagine it
would have been like Negan from the Walking Dead, except barbed wire hadn't
been invented yet.

------
Libbum
A pretty embarrassing oversight!

If the picture in this article is the mace, it's clear from the cuneiform that
the 'object' would be upside down if it were in a vase orientation. Rarely
ever do you start an impression from the left and trail off to the right.

~~~
minikites
There are a lot of wild writing styles:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boustrophedon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boustrophedon)

~~~
titanix2
No, there are not. Top-down right-left, right-left top-down, left-right top-
down, boustrophedon, "filling the available space (hieroglyph)" and that's it.
I never heard of a writing system going bottom to top.

~~~
waterhouse
The case that comes to mind is some road writings:
[https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/publications/research/safety/08043/...](https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/publications/research/safety/08043/images/fig1.jpg)

I find it rather confusing that way, though; I think I've read it as "AHEAD
STOP" and mentally scratched my head every time I've seen text like that
(which isn't too often).

------
whoopdedo
Reminds me of the story of the Matisse painting that was hung upside-down.

[https://news.masterworksfineart.com/2018/09/19/moma-hung-
mat...](https://news.masterworksfineart.com/2018/09/19/moma-hung-matisse-
gouache-upside-down-for-47-days)

------
titanix2
I hate this kind of article where you have no source and no reference to
anything related to the object presented in it. As a learner of Sumerian
language, I would have loved a link to the transcription of the text on the
object or a link to an academic paper about it.

------
mikeash
A biological example of this phenomenon:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallucigenia](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallucigenia)

This bizarre creature was discovered that walked on spikes. Then it was
realized that it was just upside down, and in fact was just a worm with spines
sticking out the top.

------
zer00eyz
When I was a kid we went to the Peabody museum in CT.

The docent giving us a tour told us about the mixup of a dinosaur head, and
this story sprung to mind when reading this.

[https://www.nytimes.com/1981/10/26/nyregion/yale-
brontosauru...](https://www.nytimes.com/1981/10/26/nyregion/yale-brontosaurus-
gets-head-on-right-at-last.html)

The story was amazing to me as a kid, adults were wrong sometimes and they
could fix their mistakes.

------
PhasmaFelis
What am I actually looking at here? I see a rough, pitted, badly damaged
surface with smooth, white stuff showing where it's cracked away. Is the
smooth inner layer part of the original, a solid object with a decorated
exterior? Or is the inner part a modern reconstruction, and the outer all that
remains of a hollow original?

~~~
wyattpeak
The smooth surfaces are modern filler to make the object whole. The pitted and
damaged surfaces are pieces of the original.

It'll be hollow since they thought it was a vase.

It's unlikely the filler is solid, these reconstructions are generally made as
faithfully as possible to the original without too much synthesis. So it
should be the same shape as the original is presumed to have, but no
engravings or anything which might be unreasonably speculative.

~~~
PhasmaFelis
Thanks!

------
b_tterc_p
The last part talks about a net used for executions... was their idea of a
Public execution trapping someone in a net and beating them to death with a
blunt mace?

~~~
mcguire
There is an image from the Stele of the Vultures
([https://www.thoughtco.com/oldest-peace-treaties-from-
ancient...](https://www.thoughtco.com/oldest-peace-treaties-from-ancient-
world-4045108)) of captives in a net. No idea if there is anything to the
execution part.

------
kraig
considering how some museums seem like they are 75% ancient vases and cups, it
makes you wonder what else is out there

~~~
rjf72
Also makes you wonder about the mistakes we're making when things get truly
ancient, but cannot be proved to be wrong. This vase is only 4,000-5,000 years
old and the mistake was ostensibly very obvious. By contrast we have made a
variety of statements, generally taken as true fact, about prehistoric humans
tens of thousands of years past.

Funny to think that one day we'll be that 4,000-5,000 year old ancient
civilization. Modern 'archaeologists' will be quite lucky in this regard.
Digital records don't leave much room for ambiguity, and there are already
countless organizations working on preservation as a purpose in and of itself,
and other organizations working on data preservation for less idealistic
reasons.

There will probably 4 tiers of history. Prehistory, glyphic history, written
history, and finally digitized history. Well that's making the probably bad
assumption that there's no tech beyond digital that we cannot even yet
conceive of. Even to the smartest man of the pre-electric era, the notion of
digital data storage and transmission would just be literally inconceivable.

~~~
SmellyGeekBoy
> Digital records don't leave much room for ambiguity, and there are already
> countless organizations working on preservation as a purpose in and of
> itself, and other organizations working on data preservation for less
> idealistic reasons.

You say that, but there's data on media from 40 years ago that can't be
accessed either because of bit rot or because the technology no longer exists.
Hell, most of the content on the internet from _20 years ago_ has since
vanished forever.

~~~
Tor3
Indeed. I've been searching for stuff that I could easily find even as little
as 10-15 years ago, and it's gone. Nothing on archive.org (even though it
started in 1996), mirrors are gone, it's just not there. Heck, even some more
recent stuff can't be found anymore, by any search engine.

As for digital storage in general.. magnetic storage is quite good. Leave your
harddrive on the shelf for a few decades and it'll probably still be ok. At
least the magnetically stored data. Spin up the disk every two years and the
rest is taken care of too. But Flash storage gradually lose data, it's not
permanent. Come back in twenty and it's gone.

To keep digital data you'll have to implement a scheme of regularly refresh +
copy/convert to newer media. That's a Herculean task if you want to keep all
that we currently have of digital records.

Whereas a stone tablet will keep nicely.

------
dankohn1
Did they check whether the clay of the mace is a narrow shell around a
vibranium core?

Reference:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2KJxdvckEk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2KJxdvckEk)

------
muthdra
The Debate Over Europe’s Stolen African Art:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOlmXQihow8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOlmXQihow8)

------
niuzeta
Isn't vase supposed to be hollow? Mace is a blunt weapon that you whack people
with... Why did they think a filled object as a vase?

~~~
randallsquared
Possibly it had a hole for the handle part of it.

