Historical Artifacts

Currently on display at the Royal Ontario Museum.

A painted ceramic vessel in the Codex Style. It depicts a wayob', the companion spirit of a Mayan ruler. This one is a toad which is wearing a jade bead necklace (there are two different animals, not visible, located around the back of the cup). There is also writing in Mayan glyphs, some of which declare the vessels purpose: drinking cacao.

The painter is also known by style from other pieces of work, and in the absence of an actual name is referred to as "The Metropolitan Master". You can see the original image and some other details here.

(Originally posted to Reddit by me in 2023)

The area of Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire is one of the great gold-producing regions of the world, and from roughly 1400 CE it was a primary producer of gold dust for much of Africa and Europe -- Europeans called the region the Gold Coast and the British guinea coin was minted from gold obtained there. The Akan peoples who lived there made weights called abammuo or mrammou (among others, depending on which Akan language) for use when trading the dust. Originally geometric in form, by about 1700 they started to be cast in the shape of many different animals and objects.

Whale-like appearance notwithstanding this is a sankofa bird perched on a stepped pyramid. The sankofa is a symbol for learning from the past in Akan culture, which is why the bird has its head turned backwards as if looking behind it. Abammuo are generally small, and this one is 3.8 by 2.2 by 2.2 cm.

This image is copyright to the Smithsonian Institution, and used with permission. You can see the original on their website.

(Originally posted by me to Reddit a couple years ago)

This is a season's ticket for the 1931 New York Giants baseball club made out of 14 carat gold. It was given to Franklin Delano Roosevelt in his capacity as Governor of New York. The picture on the front is a reproduction of a 1909 image by Charles Dana Gibson (more famous as creator of the "Gibson Girl"), while the back has Roosevelt's name and "one party" as those covered by presenting the ticket at the Giants' home field, the Polo Grounds. The reverse also shows a 14K gold stamp from Lambert Brothers, the jewellers once located at 58th Street and 3rd Avenue in New York City which produced the ticket for the Giants.

The original image can be seen here on the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library and Museum's website.

(Originally posted by me to Reddit here but I thought I'd revisit some of my favourites since I switched to Lemmy)

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/archaeology/engraved-ring-found-in-sweden-suggests-contact-between-viking-age-scandinavians-and-islamic-civilisation-10118283.html

Heard you could buy Roman glass bottles for like under $50, while browsing I found . . . this.