Mount Nemrut Statues could be moved to a Museum in Kahta (Turkey)

Discovered in 1881 during excavations done by German engineer Charles Sester, who was assessing transport routes for the Ottomans and tried without success to find the tomb of Antiochus I, the gigantic sculptures atop Mount Nemrut (Turkish: Nemrut Dağı ; Armenian: Նեմրութ լեռ), which are on the UNESCO World Heritage List, could be moved to a museum in Kahta, Adıyaman province, according to a proposal of Culture and Tourism Minister Ertuğrul Günay.

Dated from the Commagene-era, 1st century BC, the sculptures have for long sustained the erosion caused by the elements and their low relief carved surfaces are prone to laminating. Plans are now underway to restore some of the more damaged pieces and to protect them from erosion.

There's controverse however concerning the best way to protect and conserve these statues.
While Günay proposes that the sculptures could be brought down from the mountain by helicopter, the ODTÜ's Commagene Nemrut Conservation and Development Program, lead by Professor Neriman Şahin Güçhan, maintains that there is no scientific evidence that the heads need to be moved in order to be preserved.

Professor Güçhan said that her team has already produced a chemical mix to protect the sculptures and that they did submit it to the Mount Nemrut Scientific Consultation Board, established on Günay's orders. She said the council has already approved the proposal. According to Culture and Tourism Minister Ertuğrul Günay, he still hasn't been shown the chemical mix.
Other proposals included covering the statues with a tent or glass, but weren't approved for now.

However, other archeologists, namely Necmi Karul, from the Association of Archeologists, shares the opinion that moving the sculptures might be the best option, since they have been sustaining damage for a long time and chemicals will not be enough to protect them from the elements.

The sculpters are located near the village of Karadut in the district of Kahta, 66 kilometers from Adıyaman, at an altitude of 2,206 meters. The Commagene-era figures and constructions are known variously as the "eighth wonder of the world" and "the throne of the gods." The Commagene sanctuary on Mount Nemrut Dağ was built 2,000 years ago and features colossal toppled heads of kings and gods.

Both Scrolls of "Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains" by Huang Gongwang (黃公望) at the National Palace Museum

The National Palace Museum (Taipei, Taiwan) has announced plans for a major exhibition where for the first time in centuries the two parts of the handscroll 'Dwelling in the Fu-ch'un Mountains' (Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains) will be reunited after the unique work had been torned in two.

Painted by Huang Gongwang (黃公望, 1269-1354), original name Lu Jian (陸堅) between the years of 1347 and 1350, the handscroll depicts an idealized panorama of the Fuchun Mountains, west of Hangzhou.

At 82 years of age, Huang presented it to Taoist Master Wuyong (無用師)) as a gift in 1350.

A century later the scroll is acquired by Ming Dynasty painter Shen Zhou (沈周, 1427–1509) who sent the painting to a calligrapher for inscription. However the calligrapher's son seized the painting which, after a few changes of hands, reemerged on the market at a much higher price. Unable to afford the price, there was nothing Shen Zhou could do except to make a copy of the painting himself.
The imitation was given by Shen Zhou to his friend Fan Shunju (樊舜舉) who began to search for the authentic.

When he found it, he bought it at a hefty price and invited Shen Zhou to inscribe on it. Shen Zhou then noted down at the end of the scroll the story of how the painting was lost and found.
A copy that is also well acclaimed and is now in the Palace Museum in Beijing.

Over the following centuries, the painting had come to know several owners, including Wu Zhengzhi (吳正志) who left it to his third son Wu Hongyu (吳洪裕).
Wu Honyu cherished the painting so much that when he went on refuge during the invasion of the Manchu, he only brought the painting and a copy of the Thousand Character Classic (千字文) by Master Zhiyong (智永法師), leaving all other valuables behind.

Hongyu decided to have the two works burned, so that he could bring them to the netherworld.
Fortunately his nephew Wu Jing'an (吳靜庵) rescued the painting, which was however already aflame and torn into two.

The first and smaller piece, measuring 51.4 cm, was subsequently renamed The Remaining Mountain or Shenshan Mountain (剩山圖) and after passing through the hands of numerous collectors is now in Zhejiang Provincial Museum in Hangzhou.



The second, comprised of 6 pages totaling 636.9 cm in length, went through the hands of several high-level Qing Dynasty officials, including Gao Shiqi (高士奇) and Wang Hongxu (王鴻緒), before landing in the Imperial Palace.



Named the Master Wuyong Scroll (無用師卷), was in the opinion of Emperor Qianlong, who prided himself in his connoisseurship, a conterfeit. A mistake that was only corrected in 1816, during the reign of Emperor Jiaqing.
This piece was eventually brought to Taiwan after the Kuomintang lost the civil war and is now kept in the National Palace Museum in Taipei.

The "Landscape Reunified: Huang Kung-Wang and the 'Dwelling in the Fu-ch'un Mountains' Scrolls" special exhibition will also include other works by Huang, works by his mentors and works that he influenced in the National Palace Museum collection, as well as the "Shenshan Mountain" scroll held by the Zhejiang Museum, and other calligraphy and paintings borrowed from the Beijing Palace Museum, the National Museum of China, Shanghai Museum, Nanjing Museum and the Yunnan Provincial Museum.

Included in a series of educational activities, calligraphers and painters from China and Taiwan will be invited to visit the birthplace of this painting-Fuyang City, Hanzhou of Zhejiang Province-to create new water and ink paintings on the theme of "Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains."

The "Landscape Reunified: Huang Kung-Wang and the 'Dwelling in the Fu-ch'un Mountains' Scrolls" exhibition is an historical event not to be missed and a chance to know more about the artist who was orphaned at an early age and exceptionally gifted as a youth, mastering the Chinese classics at an early age.

12000 Years Old Carved Faces in Lene Hara Cave

While on a search for fossils of extinct giant rats, inside the Lene Hara cave, located on the northeast tip of East Timor, a group of archaeologists and palaeontologists discovered engraved prehistoric human faces on the wall of the limestone cave.

According to their description, the petroglyphs are frontal stylised faces, each with eyes, a nose and a mouth.

Uranium isotope dating revealed that one of the faces, framed by a circular headdress with rays, is around 10,000 to 12,000 years old, placing it in the late Pleistocene. The other face carvings could not be dated but are likely to be equally ancient.

These petroglyphs found in the Lene Hara cave are the only known carvings of faces on the island of Timor that have been dated to the Pleistocene.

Archaeologists and rock art specialists have been visiting the cave since the early 1960s to study its rock paintings, which include hand stencils, animals, human figures, boats and linear decorative motifs. The age of the pigment art in Lene Hara is currently unknown but a fragment of limestone with traces of embedded red ochre was dated previously by Professor Sue O’Connor of The Australian National University to over 30,000 years ago.

Photo by John Brush