Page 14 - Archaeology - October 2017

FROM THE TRENCHES

Clay dolls, Gyeongju, Korea

DOLL STORY

t the palace of Wolseong in inches tall, include one wearing a people from the Middle East have
Gyeongju, several hundred turban and caftan believed to represent previously been found. Other clay
A miles south of Seoul, arch- a Sogdian, a member of an ancient figures found at Wolseong include one
aeologists have found a group of sixth- Iranian civilization. The Silla are known riding a horse, a man with exaggerated
century clay figures dating to the Silla to have had active exchanges with male genitals, and several dancers in
dynasty (57 b.c.–a.d. 935). The dolls, Central Asia, Europe, and the Middle lively, dynamic postures.
which measure between one and eight East, but few clay dolls resembling –Hyung-Eun KiM

FREEZE FRAME

conservator for the New Zealand Antarctic Heri- has begun to restore. A polymath, Wilson joined the Scott
tage Trust has uncovered, hidden among a stack of party as a doctor whose artistic talents aided his avocation as a
A papers caked with mold and penguin excrement, a naturalist. What remains a mystery is how his painting of a bird
well-preserved 118-year-old watercolor depicting a deceased native to the northern hemisphere ended up in Antarctica. “My
tree creeper. It was painted by the English artist and physi- theory is that it was completely accidental,” says Lizzie Meek,
cian Dr. Edward Wilson, the Trust’s program
who perished alongside Watercolor of a deceased tree creeper manager. “It seems
Captain Robert Falcon he was very prolific
Scott and three others and prone to leav-
while returning from the ing his drawings all
South Pole in 1912. The kinds of places. It’s
stack of papers was col- entirely possible that
lected, along with 1,500 the painting had been
other artifacts, from stored in amongst
the team’s base camp other drawing paper
at Cape Adare, a group and the whole stack
of huts first built by a was picked up and
Norwegian expedition taken to Antarctica.”
in 1899, which the Trust Dr. Edward Wilson –MArlEy Brown

12 ARCHAEOLOGY • September/October 2017