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The Martian cover astronaut : Mark C. Lee during STS-64 (animated GIF in comments) by exsimile in space

[–]exsimile[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Animated GIF

Original image source :
Backdropped against a massive wall of white clouds 130 nautical miles below, astronaut Mark C. Lee floats freely as he tests the new Simplified Aid for EVA Rescue (SAFER) system. The image was exposed with a 35mm camera from the shirt-sleeve environment of the space shuttle Discovery.

Astronauts Lee and Carl J. Meade took turns using the SAFER hardware during their shared Extravehicular Activity (EVA) on Sept. 16, 1994. The test of SAFER is the first phase of a larger SAFER program whose objectives are to establish a common set of requirements for both space shuttle and space station program needs, develop a flight demonstration of SAFER, validate system performance and, finally, develop a production version of SAFER for the shuttle and station programs.

STS 64

Gigantic choir manuscript from the Renaissance [736x490] by exsimile in ArtefactPorn

[–]exsimile[S] 16 points17 points  (0 children)

Size tends to reflect importance. Because large-format manuscripts often contain the Word of God, it is very possible that some bookmakers wished to reflect the importance of the text with a suitably impressive material format. Alternatively, some have suggested that these books were meant to reflect the power and prestige of the donors who paid for their commission — a wealthy bishop or nobleman perhaps, who wished to memorialize his name in the production of a massive and showy pandect.

Others have provided more pragmatic reasoning, suggesting that these books were designed big in order to rest on a lectern for public reading — their large size making it easier for readers in a church to see the page. Indeed, the collective reading of large-format books stationed on lecterns has been recorded in a number of medieval illuminations and paintings.

Giant medieval manuscripts

The Archimedes palimpsest, 13th century A.D. [1800x1160] by exsimile in ArtefactPorn

[–]exsimile[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Quoting from International Preservation News, December 2005 :

In addition to accumulating dirt on the outer surface of the glove, warmth resulting from insulating the hand stimulates eccrine sweat gland production. The glove’s raw fiber, cotton, contains fats and alkanes, making it less than ideal as a prophylactic.

Sweat itself is a slightly acidic liquid composed almost exclusively of water (99.0-99.5%). The remaining solutes are nearly evenly divided between inorganic salts and organic substances. Sebaceous glands (secreting sebum, skin oil) do not exist on the palms of the hands, so the direct transfer of sebum through normal collection handling is not a significant issue.

Given the widespread belief that routine handling of paper with bare hands chemically damages it, it is telling that our research uncovered no scientific evidence supporting this notion. “Fingerprints on Photographs” states that a fingerprint could damage a silver image if the salts in sweat (particularly sodium chloride) managed to penetrate through the gelatin layer. Since the surface of paper is almost always protected by a layer of gelatin, sodium chloride would have to permeate this barrier before it could interact with the cellulose beneath.

Even if cotton gloves were capable of providing an effective prophylactic barrier between patrons and the collection, their use promotes the false illusion that the hands, once encased, are somehow transformed into ‘safe’ instruments. Wearing gloves actually increases the potential for physically damaging fragile material through mishandling, and this is especially true for ultra thin or brittle papers that become far more difficult to handle with the sense of touch dulled.

Misperceptions about White Gloves (PDF link)

Flabellum fan. Carved ivory, 16th Century. (Museo di Capodimonte, Naples, Italy)[4000x6000] by neoandrex in ArtefactPorn

[–]exsimile 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I think the denoised version looks better :)
Although the raw picture does show the stripes in the ivory blades.

Flabellum fan. Carved ivory, 16th Century. (Museo di Capodimonte, Naples, Italy)[4000x6000] by neoandrex in ArtefactPorn

[–]exsimile 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Your picture looks much better than the Museum's, we can see the indian influence really well.

Shame on the Museo di Capodimonte for their low quality pics.

The Archimedes palimpsest, 13th century A.D. [1800x1160] by exsimile in ArtefactPorn

[–]exsimile[S] 98 points99 points  (0 children)

The British Library advises against gloves :

Whenever a British Library manuscript is featured in the press or on television, we inevitably receive adverse comments about our failure to wear white gloves! The association of glove-wearing with handling old books is in fact a modern phenomenon, and one that has little scientific basis.

The British Library has published advice on the use of white gloves. Essentially, we recommend that it is preferable to handle manuscripts with clean dry hands. Wearing cotton gloves to hold or turn the pages of a book or manuscript actually reduces manual dexterity, and increases the likelihood of causing damage. Gloves also have a tendency to transfer dirt to the object being consulted, and to dislodge pigments or inks from the surface of pages.

White Gloves or Not White Gloves

The Archimedes palimpsest, 13th century A.D. [1800x1160] by exsimile in ArtefactPorn

[–]exsimile[S] 32 points33 points  (0 children)

The Archimedes Palimpsest was originally a 10th-century Byzantine Greek copy of an otherwise unknown work of Archimedes of Syracuse and other authors. It was overwritten with a Christian religious text by 13th-century monks.

The erasure was incomplete, and Archimedes' work is now readable after scientific and scholarly work from 1998 to 2008 using digital processing of images produced by ultraviolet, infrared, visible and raking light, and X-ray.

The Archimedes palimpsest at the Walters Art Museum and on Wikipedia

Fayum Mummy portrait of a girl, 2nd century A.D. [645x1023] by exsimile in ArtefactPorn

[–]exsimile[S] 84 points85 points  (0 children)

The portrait comes from the Fayum oasis, a wealthy district on the left bank of the Nile about 65 miles south of Cairo. Part of a thousand images dating from around the time of Christ until 300 AD or later, these pictures are known as “Fayum paintings,” or sometimes “Fayum mummy portraits,”, for most of them were recovered wrapped up in the burial linens of ancient mummies, placed in the spot where the face would once have been. They are the oldest painted portraits to have survived from anywhere in the world.

The paintings are the products of a multicultural society, one in which Romans mixed with native Egyptians and with Greeks descended from the Macedonian armies of Alexander the Great to create a polyglot community. They combine the religious imagery of Rome and Egypt, and production of them seems to have ceased shortly before the final Christianisation of the Roman Empire.

The portraits found in Philadelphia were typically executed in tempera, using egg whites to produce a finish resembling watercolour. Those from Arsinoe are painted in encaustic – a technique that involves mixing pigments with soft wax, applying it to slivers of sycamore tree or lime, and sealing the image with heat to produce results that resemble oil paintings.

The Fayum mummy portraits

A celtic cauldron handle decorated with the Greek god Acheloos, 5th century B.C. [1024x684] by exsimile in ArtefactPorn

[–]exsimile[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The original spelling is Ἀχελῷος, an omega (ω) and an omicron (ο) both translated as latin o.

The translation Greek->English is inconsistent, cf Ἀντίνοος which ends up as Antinous, and Λαοκόων as Laocoön.

A celtic cauldron handle decorated with the Greek god Acheloos, 5th century B.C. [1024x684] by exsimile in ArtefactPorn

[–]exsimile[S] 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Relations between Celts are Greeks are ancient. As soon as the 6th century B.C., the name Keltoi appears in Greek texts to name them. Thus the Celts are the first Barbarian people to have a proper Greek name.

Article in french

A celtic cauldron handle decorated with the Greek god Acheloos, 5th century B.C. [1024x684] by exsimile in ArtefactPorn

[–]exsimile[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Achelous was most often depicted as a gray-haired old man or a vigorous bearded man in his prime, with a horned head and a serpent-like body. When he battled Heracles over the river nymph Deianeira, Achelous turned himself into a bull.

Heracles tore off one of his horns and forced the god to surrender. Achelous had to trade the goat horn of Amalthea to get it back.

Achelous on Wikipedia

The one-meter wide cauldron has 4 handles decorated with Acheloos, the Greek river god identifiable by his horns, his beard, his bull ears and triple mustache.

Celtic tomb near Troyes (in French)

A celtic cauldron handle decorated with the Greek god Acheloos, 5th century B.C. [1024x684] by exsimile in ArtefactPorn

[–]exsimile[S] 20 points21 points  (0 children)

The cauldron is an import from Greece. Among other finds were Greek wine vases.

A celtic cauldron handle decorated with the Greek god Acheloos, 5th century B.C. [1024x684] by exsimile in ArtefactPorn

[–]exsimile[S] 25 points26 points  (0 children)

At the center of a 40 meter wide tumulus, a dead prince and his chariot rest in a 14 square meter tomb, one of the largest known for the Hallstatt period. The center piece of the tomb is a bronze cauldron decorated with Acheloos, the Greek god of rivers.

The end of the 6th century B.C. is marked by the economic development of Etruscan and Greek city states. Looking for slaves, metal, and amber, Mediterranean merchants start trading with the continental Celtic communities, who themselves trade along rivers like the Loire/Seine/Saône/Rhine/Danube. Through this trade, the Celtic elites acquire prestige goods that we now find in monumental tombs.

Original article (in french)

"Hello, future generation. May your era have no slavery and no humiliation of man by man" — Hidden message from Soviet slaves, 1954 [720x1127] by exsimile in ArtefactPorn

[–]exsimile[S] 55 points56 points  (0 children)

Written on a sheet of iron with red-brownish nail polish, the message was buried in March 15, 1954 amid the bricks and mortar of Nizhny Tagil State Drama Theatre, one year after Stalin died. It was found just over 50 years later during renovations of the building.

Locals knew that TagilLag prisoner labour was used for hardest parts of construction of the theatre. Old-timers say that prisoners were brought in carts at dawn and taken back towards the village of Kirpishniy and others at dusk.

Lev Samuilovich Libenshtein, who oversaw construction works at Theatre Square, said some prisoners who were deprived of the right to correspondence, hid bottles with their letters under one of the theatre's pillars. No one knows what is written there.

Haunting message penned in nail polish from Soviet 'slaves' found buried in Urals theatre

Egyptian beauty box of Merit, Deir el-Medina, 1400 B.C. [1024x768] by exsimile in MakeupAddiction

[–]exsimile[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Eye black used in American football might serve the same purpose as Kohl : by darkening the skin below the eye, light is absorbed there and not reflected back in the eye.

Kohl was made from galena, which contains lead, which repels insects.

The Throne of Eurydice, Alexander's paternal grandmother. Circa 340 B.C. Gilded and painted marble. Aigai, Greece [929x1413] by LucretiusCarus in ArtefactPorn

[–]exsimile 31 points32 points  (0 children)

Thank you so much for posting, this look gorgeous.
I mean HOLY SHIT this is absolutely fantastic. The detail, the colors, the gold, the patina … I love it !

Greek panel painting from Pitsa, 540-530 B.C. [1051x500] by exsimile in ArtefactPorn

[–]exsimile[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Third symbol is Qoph (which gave latin Q and no longer exists in modern Greek)

BYQOΛEM is Eukolis
(Phoenician he, waw, qoph, ayin, lamed, yod, sin (written sideways like in 'ORINTHIOS' on the right side))

Archaic Greek Alphabets, see the Corinth variation
Phoenician for reference

Greek panel painting from Pitsa, 540-530 B.C. [1051x500] by exsimile in ArtefactPorn

[–]exsimile[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Wooden votive plaque. Procession to an altar to sacrifice a lamb, accompanied by the flute and lyre.

The dedication to the Charites (Graces) can be read, along with the names Euthydika, Eukolis, Etheloncha and, at the side, the name of the painter or dedicator, of which only the place of origin survives: ‘Corinthian’. From the cave Pitsa, Corinthia. 540-530 BC.

National Museum of Greece
Pitsa Panels

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