The Voyage to Saint Helena

For this week's blog I decided to write about an object I found while I was in the Maps Library. Last week while I was working with my intern advisor, Karl, I was shown an interesting discovery. We were preparing for an open house of the library featuring islands and our task was to find interesting and unique maps of islands throughout the world. Karl, who as it seems knows everything about every map in the library, decided to show me an interesting map of an island that he had found in the recent past as the atlas was a new acquisition. He pulled out a very old atlas. He told me it was by an English cartographer, engraver, globemaker and publisher named, John Cary. The atlas was named, the "Universal Atlas" and it was created in 1808.

He opened the atlas to its index and explained that while he was looking over the atlas, he noticed that somebody had curiously written in, "Saint Helena."

He then opened up the atlas, and there in the middle, somebody had pasted in a beautiful map of an island labeled, "Saint Helena." This map was added in later, as it was created in October of 1815. Everything about this map is intriguing.

My favorite part, however, are some of the names of locations labeled on the island. One in particular is a region labeled, "good shooting grounds." There's a valley named, "Old Woman's Valley," as well as "Break Neck Valley." If you head over to "Old Woman's Valley," you may stumble upon "Granny Mary's House," which is right next to the lemon garden.

Karl told me that Saint Helena was famous because Napoleon was exiled there. I don't know a ton about European history, so I did a little research afterwards about the island and found out that Napoleon was exiled to Saint Helena after losing in the battle of Waterloo, and would spend the rest of his life there. The battle of Waterloo was in June of 1815, and Napoleon was transported to Saint Helena in August of that year, which means that this map was created only two months after the beginning of his exile!

While research Saint Helena I found out some geographic information as well as some current information about the island, which i equally as intriguing. It is basically in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean in between Brazil and South Africa. I will be honest in saying that I never even knew that there were islands in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, but apparently there are a few. According the the CIA's World Factbook, 4,255 people live on this island and there isn't even an airport. In fact the only means of transportation I could find to the island is an old British Mail ship, called the RMS Saint Helena that leaves from Cape Town, South Africa, and it takes three days to get there.

This makes Saint Helena the most remote inhabited island in the world!

Jamestown, which is the only city on the island is a large port city and is a common stop for ships on trans-Atlantic trips. If you're interested in voyaging to Saint Helena you better be ready to take at least a one-month vacation, and while $4000 dollars may not seem too expensive for a one-month voyage, you have to factor in the price of getting to South Africa! Maybe one day you can venture to this remote tiny island, but until then you make your way up to the 8th floor of the Hatcher Graduate Library and introduce yourself to Karl. He'll gladly take you on an adventure through the historic artifacts we have in our extensive collection, and if you ask, he'll bring out this map and you can see for yourself.

Walk like an Egyptian?

My first day at the Kelsey Museum was pretty awesome. Unlike other internships I've had in the past, they actually had relevant work for me to do. I told them about my idea to write a blog and asked them if they had any recommendations for topics to write about. They told me that the Kelsey museum was famous for its large collection of every day objects in Egypt. This is quite unusual as early excavations considered objects of great value such as jewelry and other elaborate objects that weren't already stolen by tomb raiders "great discoveries." When they told me this, I immediately thought that these objects would be more valuable as they are less common. they told me that they were probably less valuable monetarily, but as far as informational value goes they rank above many objects that come from this area.

I think most people have an idea of Egypt as being an exquisite culture where people only ate from golden plates and were commemorated through elaborate burial customs. We come up with these representation because we often don't hear about cultural discoveries outside of the burial traditions. Check out the fancy picture of Elizabeth Taylor playing her role as Cleopatra in the 1963 film. If you're feeling ambitious, search for the music video of "Walk like an Egyptian" by the Bangles.

There was an exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston that I visited called, "The Secrets of tomb 10a" and it was notable not only for the sarcophagi and human remains, but a majority of its contents were wooden figures performing every day activities such as farming, herding, and making beer. (This exhibit is running until May 16th if you're ever in the Boston area). you don't have to travel all the way to Boston the get an idea of everyday Egyptian life! The next time you have a break between classes or you're a little early to meet somebody and you're looking for some time to kill, just walk inside the Kelsey Museum and check out some of these objects. When I checked them out I was pretty amazed.

Within the collection displayed at the Kelsey, these types of objects are numerous. There are wooden doors, boxes, seats, and sandals. There's even a small wooden horse and rag doll found within the tomb of a child: very interesting. One particular object that I found of interest is a broken glass conical lamp and a set of dice. What's interesting about these objects, however, is how they were discovered. The dice were found inside the conical lamp, which has lead experts to believe that this lamp was actually used as a dice cup.

Egyptian tombs were created to bring souls into the after life, and every object placed within a tomb was put there for a particular reason and purposely arranged. It's as if the Egyptians wanted to be discovered (well, at least those who could afford proper burial). So, obviously, tombs have been a good resource of information, but rather a skewed resource of information. These discoveries of everyday objects give us insight into another whole component of Egyptian life, and for this they are extremely valuable.

Collections

As a class assignment we are required to write a blog. I brainstormed on some of the potential topics I could write on, and it wasn't an easy decision. My friends tell me that I'm funny (they could just be being nice), and I guess I can see that. I considered a topic that would be humorous as in a collection of humerous things I find online. I also considered writing a blog on music, as I'm very interested in finding new music and sharing it. I love to travel, and I'm always interested in finding new places to go, so the idea of writing a travel blog was also intriguing. Then I started thinking about a topic relating to my major (Art History) and I came up with a decision.

As an Art History major, my long-term goal is to apply to graduate school to become an art conservator. This semester I lucked out in getting two pretty awesome internships. One of the internships is working directly with the conservators at the Kelsey Archaeological Museum on campus to start getting some training in the field. My other internship is working at the Maps Library within the graduate library, where I'm working to put together some exhibits.

Before working at the Maps Library I had no idea that there were even exhibits! (Check out some of the current and upcoming exhibits and events) My director showed me the current exhibit and I started to get excited. One thing that really ignited my interest was that they were displaying the oldest known print in the world, here, in our own collection, in an obscure gallery space in the basement of the graduate library. Who knows what other hidden things there are within our collections at school? It struck me that these hidden gems are most likely unknown by a grand majority of people on or around campus. I decided to make some of these objects more apparent and work to promote the exhibitions so that they are not simply overlooked.

One idea that I had was to create some sort of daily calendar that would highlight different objects that can be found in collections throughout the museums and libraries on campus. I really hope that most people have visited the UMMA, Kelsey Museum, Exhibit Museum, and Botanical Gardens, as they are free and full of wonderful things. Maybe this is just me being a museum nerd, but as a person that has visited many museums, I can honestly say that the collections housed within these buildings are extraordinary. I'm hoping that by my research into these little known treasures, I will inspire people to pay closer attention to the resources we have on campus, and to be more interested in the exhibitions put on to highlight them.

When deciding a topic for my blog, I thought about the actual purposes of a blog. A blog is an efficient way to share thoughts and ideas. Blogs are continually added to, and old blogs will remain archived. In essence, a blog is a "collection" of thoughts. Why not use a blog to highlight different objects I find within the University's "collections?"