Hoax astronaut!
Posted by nickpelling on Mar 9th, 2010
I love this picture from the Porco Cane blog:-
During 1992 restoration work on the Cathedral of Salamanca, this astronaut ensnared by vines was added by Jeronimo Garcia, along with “a dragon eating ice cream, a lynx, a bull, and a crayfish“, all approved by the appropriate committee etc. Perhaps this will confuse archaeologists a millennium hence? Probably not.
Doubtless more than a few of our problems with the Voynich Manuscript arise from looking at it out of its original context: perhaps it too consists of ancient visual themes peppered with humorous contemporary additions, but we are too far removed in time to see the jokes, let alone get them?
March 10th, 2010 at 12:30 am
I’m sure we have some similar figures on the Winnett Center here at Caltech. I’ll try to get a photo tomorrow.
March 12th, 2010 at 10:03 am
“Perhaps this will confuse archaeologists a millennium hence?”
A similar situation obtains at, I believe, St. Ouen’s Pond in Jersey, Channel Islands. Just before the German Occupation a local garage-owner, whose hobby was collecting Zulu spears and masks, threw his entire collection into the pond because he had been told he wouldn’t be able to take the collection with him and he didn’t want it falling into German hands. I believe the spears and masks are still there on the pond-bed.
March 12th, 2010 at 10:46 am
Hopefully it will either be documented that it was a collection and the documentation kept throughout time, or recognized as a collection when eventually found by future archaeologists.