Friday, April 13, 2007
A few days after starting the last article that got picked up as a "Did You Know", I did a piece on Ankhhaf, a prince of the 4th dynasty. The inspiration came from the famous bust of him that I saw at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, several pictures of which I added to Wikimedia. He was a son of the Great Pyramid builder Khufu and likely oversaw the construction of the sphinx, depicting a likeness of his brother the pharaoh Khafre.
The article is mainly about the bust, which is a very striking object in person. When I was in the room where the early dynasty pieces from the Giza plateau, I had the distinct feeling that piece was changing expression. A closer look at it revealed the reason why: the mouth has been sculpted, either deliberately or not, so that the expression appears to be slightly different depending on one's orientation to it. A striking effect, and in the dim light of an enclosed mastaba who knows how this affect would have been enhanced by torchlight.
Anyways, I was able to pull together a short and relatively comprehensive article on the man and particularly his statuary bust, and someone noticed it and nominated it for another "Did You Know" piece. I only got word about it immediately prior to it being posted, otherwise I might have missed it.
It's a a nice "thank you" and to some degree an acknowledgment of the quality of the piece.
Labels: Ankhhaf, Boston, Did You Know, Museum of Fine Arts, Wikipedia
Thursday, April 05, 2007
The other day I started writing a new article on Wikipedia about reserve heads, those enigmatic sculptures from the time of the Pyramid builders. The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, had several of them on display, and I managed to take pictures of all that they had, which I then uploaded to Wikimedia Commons.
Turns out that the "Did You Know?" section on Wikipedia is aimed at new articles created within the past five days, and someone spotted my article in the list and nominated it for inclusion. I got a notice today that it had been accepted, and appears as the top-most article reference (along with a picture of one of the heads) in today's DYK section.
Was rather chuffed to find in one of the articles I referenced from my personal library that very few published views exist of the heads other than face-on views -- I took at least a couple of shots of each head, (primarily in order to defeat glare from overhead lighting), and am happy if they end up proving useful to somebody.
It's not a Feature article, but it's still nice to get some sort of recognition.
Labels: Boston, Did You Know, Museum of Fine Arts, reserve heads, Wikipedia
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