Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Mysterious Sculpture At Vancouver Museum Goes On Display

Possibly predating dynastic Egypt, a strange sculpture with indecipherable inscriptions has finally gone on public display at a Vancouver museum after decades behind closed doors. The two opposing figures feature bulbous heads and thin limbs. A rare find? A hoax? Or something even more spectacular?

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4 comments:

Julie Ferguson said...

Hum,interesting...

Sharon Day said...

Hmm.. I saw on Ancient Aliens an episode that discussed the Egyptians and one dynasty of a ruler who was portrayed with an elongated face, slender body and bulging belly. This reminds me of that. Supposedly it influenced art of that particular time period because of their leader's features. Very intriguing. It seems like experts should be able to decipher that language. Uncovering a hoax should be easy, but uncovering a new culture/language could be ground-breaking. Cool find!

Cullan Hudson said...

The ruler you speak of is Akhenaten (also known as Amenhotep IV and Amenophis IV), famous for eschewing the polytheism of preceding dynasties for the sole worship of the god, Aten, of whom he was incarnated. Not much is known about his reign because of the backlash to his ideals that left his image and record stricken from many temples. He did have an enlongated face, which he passed along to his son, Tutankhamun (Tut).

However, the carving in question predates Akhenaten's reign of 1353 to 1336 BCE.

MARILYN A. HUDSON, MLIS said...

I think these are interesting due to the similarities to some New World artistic values. The head shape is seen in the art and skulls of some new world peoples. Recent verification of early New world and Old world interactions via presence of tobacco and hemp in Egyptian tombs lend potential credence.