Weird & Wonderful – Treasures of the Natural World

Dodo postcard purchased at  Museum shop

Last Wednesday I took advantage of my fully vaccinated state and headed off to Melbourne Museum to see the current major exhibition Treasures of the Natural World, featuring a very odd collection of objects, both big and small, from London’s Natural History Museum.

This was my second attempt to get to the exhibition as I’d previously booked to attend on September 1st, but as whatever number lockdown came into effect on that date, the Museum was closed to visitors and only recently reopened.

As is the case in the new normal. you had to wear a mask and check in via QR Code to prove vaccination status, as only fully vaxxed persons were permitted in the museum.

I got there an hour before my scheduled exhibition entry time, so killed the hour by cruising through the main museum, naturally checking out Pharlap as I usually do when I go the museum, and watched the newsreel of him winning the 1930 Melbourne Cup yet again.

Pharlap display – horseshoes, saddle photo etc

As previously mentioned. the Treasures of the Natural World were a bizarre collection of curiosities, ranging from skeletons of extinct beasts such as a Moa and Sabre Tooth Tiger…

Moa skeleton

Sabre Tooth Tiger skeleton

…to a Cursed Amethyst and a Black Death flea (which you can’t actually see.

Cursed amethyst	Bubonic plague flea

Charles Darwin was naturally  featured with several items, a first edition of his Origin of the Species,  a page from his notebooks,  his tortoise and sketches of finches from his journal.

Origin of the Species First Edition

Page from Darwin’s notebook

Darwin’s Tortoise

Finches illustration from Charles Darwin’s Journey

Palaeontology appears to feature quite a few women, notably Mary Anning and Dorothea Bate who unearthed rare fossils in the 18th Century and early 19th Century.

Mary Anning information display

Mouse goat skull discovered by Dorothea Bate

There were extinct beasts such as this fish

and a giant crab

I was pleased to see a model of a dodo

And a reference to the Famous Piltdown Man fraud

Piltdown Man jawbone

In all it  is a fascinating exhibition if your tastes run to the weird and wonderful.

Various exhibits were accompanied by short films depicting digitally inserted extinct animals in action. For instance there is an impressive film of a Moa stalking through the Museum of Natural History and another of Dodos fighting and socialising.

A final photo is of an ostrich egg purportedly owned by T E Lawrence given to him by Charles Montagu Doughty, English poet, adventurer and explorer.

Ostrich egg owned by Lawrence of Arabia

It takes an hour or two to go through the exhibition, depending on how long you linger at the exhibits.

I must admit I enjoyed it quite a bit and highly recommend it  as a curiously interesting and enlightening experience.

Hibernation

Bingo – photographed today

I’ve been awfully slack on the blogging front, but truth to tell, there has not been much to write about.

With Covid 19 still being a big factor in our lives, there is limited opportunity to do something different or go on outings that do not involve shopping for provisions.

It being winter, a surprisingly mild one at that, the horse racing is not that interesting, but there’s not long to wait for the Spring racing season to start. Of  course Covid restrictions may stymie actual attendance, but hopefully I will get to witness the big races of the Spring Carnival.

I’m looking forward to finally being fully vaccinated in 10 days, which will ease some of the anxiety attendant on any kind of outing, as has been the case over the last year and a half.

The photo above is of Bingo who is thankfully in good health this year, after giving us a scare the last two winters by losing his appetite in early July of both years.

There’s nothing wrong with his appetite this year – he is ravenous – so we worry about him becoming overweight instead.

On the time killing front, I’ve not been doing much mostly replaying the Monkey Island games and reading the odd book. I’m mostly uninspired by the new literature available at present, but have recently enjoyed Ronan Hession’s (of Leonard and Hungry Paul fame) new novel Panenka, which I thought quite as good and as heart warming as the earlier novel. Ronan Hession is a brilliant writer that I’m delighted to have discovered.

Once fully vaccinated I intend to go and soak up some culture, by attending the French Impressionists Exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria and the Treasures of the Natural World at Melbourne Museum.

In the meantime I will continue my winter hibernation.

Vikings at Melbourne Museum

Replica Long Ship at Vikings Exhibition

Having read earlier this year Saga Land by Richard Fidler and Kari Gislanson, I was rather keen to go and look at the Vikings Exhibition at Melbourne Museum, so this week B and I braved the icy winds and ventured thence.

As exhibitions go, it was a tad disappointing, with most of the artifacts being on the small side in display cases. However, it was reasonably comprehensive, ranging from domestic articles to weapons of warfare.

There were pieces of jewellery like these necklaces…

 

… and a neat drinking horn

Incised stones

and this rather lovely little carving of a cat

Cats were associated with the Norse Goddess Freyja who is sometimes depicted in a chariot drawn by two cats.

It was interesting to learn that Freyja is also linked to the magic brooch Brisingamen, which in turn reminded me of a children’s book I read long ago called The Weirdstone of Brisingamen by Alan Garner.

 

It takes about an hour to get through the exhibition and of course you end up in the Museum Gift Shop where you can buy Viking themed t-shirts, beanies etc.

I insisted we go and visit Pharlap after emerging from the Vikings.

I’ve been visiting Pharlap for over 50 years, as a child first seeing him in the old Melbourne Museum when it was in Latrobe Street. I still have fond memories of the old museum, with its wonderful old machines, dioramas and cases of fossils. In a way I preferred the old museum hodgepodge layout to the new one with its tidy themed exhibits.

Anyway, seeing Pharlap was a pleasant reminder that the Spring Racing season is only a few weeks away. Watching Pharlap’s last race on the Movietone News, playing in a loop at his exhibit,  I saw similarities to the turf stars of today in his style of racing, running wide to overtake the leaders and win by a couple of lengths – doing a Winx, as I remarked to B as we watched it on Wednesday.

I can’t wait for winter to be over, this year seeming colder than previous years, but I shall venture to Caulfield on Saturday week to kick off my Spring racing season, and witness the running of the last Group race of the racing year, this being the Group 3 Bletchingly Stakes. Let’s hope it won’t be a repeat of last year, where the races were called off due to gale force winds.

Jupiter, Winter Chill & Aztecs

Statue of Aztec God of the dead -  Mictlante

I have noticed that there seems to have been a general malaise on blog posts across the sites I regularly visit, and I have been guilty of the same disinclination to write.

However, yesterday the sun moved into my birth sign Leo to accompany the recently arrived beneficent planet Jupiter, transiting Leo for the first time in twelve years.  Already I feel lighter and more enthusiastic than I have been of late mooching around under the influence of darker Astrological aspects. So welcome Jupiter!

Yesterday was one of the coldest days of the year, so rather than freeze at home, I decided to go to the Aztec Exhibition at Melbourne Museum. It turned out to be an excellent solution to the grim Melbourne day as the exhibition was both thoroughly engrossing and enlightening, and kept me warm for a couple of hours.

I won’t go into any great detail about the exhibition, but it covered the history of the Aztec settlement in Tenochtitlán in Mexico from the early 13th Century AD to the overthrow of their Empire by the Spanish conquistadors in the 15th Century. Many aspects of Aztec culture were covered, including their blood thirsty tributes to their gods. But overall the picture emerged of a quite sophisticated well ordered society that was fond of music and dance and revered and honoured animals.

Dog statue

Fortunately photos were permitted, so I snapped away at objects that took my fancy like this extraordinary Eagle soldier terracotta statue. The Aztec warriors must have been a sight to behold going into battle, all dressed in animal costumes. Apparently they were not really aiming to kill their enemies, but rather disable them and take them prisoner to be used in sacrifice.

 
Eagle soldier

The most famous of the gods for Westerners is Quetzalcoatl, the Rainbow Serpent.

A compact stone representation of Quetzalcoatl

Various goddesses were also represented.

 
River goddess, I think, whatever her name is…

I’ve forgotten (blame old age) what this  macabre figure is supposed to represent.

And finally a mask from an even earlier civilization – Teotihuacan which occupied Mexico 1000 years before the Aztecs

 

The exhibition will run to August 10, so if you haven’t yet got around to visiting it, I recommend you do so before it closes. It’s certainly worth the cost of admission and will keep you enthralled over the two hours it takes to see and read everything.

Ancient Bling: The Hidden Treasures of Afghanistan

Last week I went to the winter exhibition at Melbourne Museum, which this year features the hidden treasures of Afghanistan. Hidden, due to depredations of war, these artefacts were stashed for safety in the bank vaults of the Presidential Palace and rediscovered in 2003.

The exhibition was organised around  objects unearthed in four archaeological sites, Tepe Fullol, Ai Khanum, Begram and Tillya Tepe.

From Tepe Fullol there were a golden bowls and goblets.

From Ai Khanum the tops of two Corinthian columns and a wonderful ceremonial plate depicting Cybele being drawn by lions.

Begram was a major centre on the old Silk Road,  and diverse artefacts were discovered in a trader’s storage area that had lain undisturbed for centuries, covering Indian, Egyptian, Greek and Mesopotamian articles, like the painted glass beaker below.

The most gorgeous of the artefacts were those from Tillya Teke, the so called Bactrian Hoard, where Russian archaeologist Victor Sarianidi uncovered the ancient graves of six nomads together with over 21,000 gold artefacts.

Collapsible crown

 
Gold, turquoise, garnet & pyrite necklace or collar for a robe.

 
More treasure...

It was an interesting exhibition, not only for the exquisite objects, but also for learning something of the culture and history of that tragic, war torn area of the world.

Whilst I was at the Museum, I decided to go and revisit old favourite exhibit Pharlap. He looks grand in his glass case, not moth eaten at all.

This photo is pretty well an artefact itself having been acquired in the early 1960s.

In light of the recent Black Caviar phenomenon, it was interesting to note the similar scenes at the racetrack, that greeted Pharlap in his day as occurred more recently with the great mare. People came from miles around to see him race as they did for Black Caviar. 

No doubt, some time in the future, Black Caviar will have her own display at Melbourne Museum.

Frazzled

The Cat Politics household is tired and emotional at present, due to a very sick cat.

It is our old cat Lizzie, who this time last week was her usual sparkling self. Then, for no reason at all she went off her food last Wednesday. We managed to persuade her to eat a little on Thursday, but she was becoming stranger as the days went by – listless and pointlessly wandering around yowling and not with it at all.

Last Friday we took her to the vet, who checked her out thoroughly, took a blood test and reported that nothing was seriously wrong with her physically. But her condition continued to deteriorate over the weekend. She refused to eat anything for those two days, though was still drinking water. It is heartbreaking to see her as she is now  - a ghost of her former self.

We suspected that the problem was cerebral, rather than physical, caused by old age and possible dementia.

Lizzie was taken back to the vet today and was given an even more thorough examination. The vet could find nothing wrong with her physically and agreed it could be a mental problem.  He applied a saline drip to keep her moisture levels up, and also gave her a cortisone pill and an appetite stimulant injection. However, his prognosis was not optimistic.

Tonight, she did lap up some beaten egg but still refuses solid food and remains dull and unresponsive as well as appearing to have difficulty in walking. The vet assures us she is not in pain, but it is very distressing to witness your beloved cat slowly dying.

If she doesn’t improve tomorrow, we will have to make the big decision on euthanasia.

All this has been costing us sleep, and a sad gloominess has invaded the house.  Even Willy is affected, craving more attention from us.

Today I escaped for a couple of hours in Ur and Babylon, at the Melbourne Museum’s Wonders of Ancient Mesopotamia Exhibition. I’d pre booked a ticket months ago, so rather than waste it I decided to go. It did distract my  mind for a while, though the stone relief sculpture of The Dying Lion, brought me back to the present – that now familiar sadness that has haunted us for a week.  It is a very interesting exhibition, well worth attending and I’ll write more about it when my brain is functioning normally.