Arts

Tutankhamun Tomb
100th Anniversary

Today, February 16, 2023, marks the 100th anniversary since 20th Century Archaeologist Howard Carter opened the inner tomb of the renowned Pharaoh Tutankhamun. The following is from Art Net

Despite discovering King Tutankhamun’s tomb in late 1922, it took several months for archaeologists to work their way through and catalogue the contents within the outer chambers. On February 16, 1923, Carter finally came face-to-face with the doorway leading to the tomb’s inner burial chamber and unsealed it. What he and his team were met with was the most well-preserved and intact pharaonic tombs ever found. Over the following eight years, the items and goods contained therein were carefully catalogued and removed, and today are held in the collection of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.

Damsel and I are interested in all things Ancient Egypt and we were able to see many of the King Tutankhamun artifacts in 2005 on display at the Los Angeles County Museum of Arts (LACMA).

From Wikipedia:

Tutankhamun was the antepenultimate pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty of ancient Egypt. He ascended to the throne around the age of nine and reigned until his death around the age of nineteen. Historically, Tutankhamun is primarily known for restoring the traditional polytheistic ancient Egyptian religion, after its suppression by Akhenaten in favor of the Atenist religion. Also, Tutankhamun was one of few kings worshipped as a deity during his lifetime; this was usually done posthumously for most pharaohs. In popular culture, he is known for his vastly opulent wealth found during the 1922 discovery of his tomb, KV62, the only such tomb to date to have been found in near-intact condition. The discovery of his tomb is widely considered one of the greatest archaeological discoveries of all time.

One might have thought that after Moses led the Hebrew Slaves out of Egypt that Pharaoh Rameses would get a clue about who Almighty God really is and should have passed it down to the masses in Egypt, but I guess I give Rameses too much credit; he remained clueless.

Wickenburg Chamber of Commerce Poster

Wickenburg PosterLast February, we bought a colorful poster from the town Chamber of Commerce for twenty bucks. We intended to get it mounted and framed, but as life events dictate (read procrastination), we put it off until last week when we took the poster to the shop in town that framed our bathroom mirrors; we asked them to mount it and frame it suitable for hanging.

The poster, itself, has a collage of notable events, people and other things that define our quaint old western town. Things like our founder, Henry Wickenburg, the Vulture Gold Mine that he discovered and a plethora of artistic and graphic depictions of local lore.

We got the call from the framers yesterday on our way back from grocery shopping, so we stopped in the shop and picked up the masterpiece. We both think it looks great and it is now proudly hanging on the south wall in the guest bedroom.

Click on the image to enlarge.

A Frog in Congress

Frog

Yesterday, Damsel and I hauled some canned goods up to Yarnell for the food bank there. We read in the on-line edition of the local newspaper that the food banks there were experiencing a shortage of non-perishable food, so we decided to head up there and drop off our collection of goods that have accumulated here one or two cans per grocery store visit for the express purpose of helping out those less fortunate.

As for the frog, the story goes back to the early 20th century when Sara Perkins, a resident of the area near Congress, AZ, decided to make a frog-shaped rock formation look more like a frog:

Originally, it was nothing more than a huge boulder perched on a hillside amid several other large rocks. Then along came Sara Perkins, a homesteader’s wife who observed that this particular rock, when viewed from the proper angle, resembled a frog.

She told her husband, Eli, about it, but he wasn’t as much of a visionary as his wife, so the story goes. He was also very busy with his work as a newspaperman – at various times, he owned both The Phoenix Gazette and The Wickenburg Sun – and as a state legislator. But he did suggest that a paint job would make the rock look more like a frog. His wife and their two sons hauled three large cans of paint and a ladder up the steep incline, and within weeks:

Voila! A rock became a frog.

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Image courtesy of Damsel’s camera. Click on the image to enlarge.

Mammoth on the Hill

Mammoth

While we were driving along SR 60 going through California on Monday, we passed this metallic mammoth adorning one of the Jarupa Hills near Riverside.

We see a lot of metallic sculpture when we’re in Arizona, some of it around town and some in the Arizona Outback between Wickenburg and Brenda just before getting on I-10 from US 60. We have seen dinosaurs, horses, a stagecoach and various other sculptures during our travels. Always entertaining. Click on the image to enlarge.

Cowboy and Saloon Girl

Cowboy and Saloon Girl

One of the nice things about living in our town is the tourist attractions here. This Cowboy and Saloon Girl bronze is one of about a dozen life-sized sculptures scattered around old downtown. Many of these are accompanied by a play-on-demand-audio narration describing the exhibits in context of their old-west setting. In addition to the statues of people, are sculptures of desert wildlife such as diamondback rattlesnakes, Gila monsters and tarantulas. Click on the image to enlarge.

Tree Cross-section

Tree Cross-section

Our dance card is pretty full these days, so blogging will be intermittent. We will post something here, just to keep the site alive.

I took a photo of a sawed-off tree stump I found near a parking lot a couple of days ago and thought it might make for an interesting still-life when rendered in sepia. Click on the image to enlarge.