Vulture Souls

Coptic textile from Egypt, 4th or 5th century AD/CE, depicting a female dancer. Now in the Louvre.

The Malabar was launched in 1798 as a fourth-rate ship of the line with 56 guns and was deployed in the Mediterranean. Shortly afterwards, she was used to transport convicts to New South Wales (1819) and Van Diemen’s Land (1821) in Australia. The logbook, which is the size of a ship’s chart, consists of two torn-out sections of a notebook that served as the training logbook of a Royal Navy Midshipman from 1814.

Rothschild Canticles, Flanders/Rhineland, ca. 1300 (Beinecke MS 404, f. 75r, 81r, 83r, 84r, 98r)

My favourites of the Lewis chessmen pieces, a set (or, technically, multiple incomplete sets) of 12th century ivory chess pieces. Though they were found on Scotland's Isle of Lewis in 1831, they were probably carved in Norway, and are largely made from walrus ivory. Look at their faces! What funky little guys!

source: St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. Sang. 602

Babies up front. Photo from my collection, 1895.

British Museum 1897,0401.1150

Museu Nacional Arqueológico de Tarragona MNAT P-12906

British Museum 1867,0510.1

Ancient Roman frescoes (c. 70-60 BC) at the Villa of Mysteries, Pompeii, Italy.