Latest news with #SmithsonianInstitution
Sydney Morning Herald
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
‘Grave robber' posed for cameras as he pillaged human remains
The collecting of human remains on an almost industrial scale began in the 19th century and continued long into the 20th. One of the museums most active in collecting human remains was the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC, and it was a partner in the expedition to Arnhem Land, along with the National Geographic Society. Frank Setzler was constitutionally incapable of entering an Aboriginal burial ground without thinking about how to rob it. He had form on this front, having collected many remains of Native American people earlier in his career. They were all accessioned into the Smithsonian's physical anthropology collection, one of the largest collections of human bones in the world. It is a sign of his brashness that he allowed a colleague to film his 'grave robbing', as other scientists on the expedition called it. Captured on celluloid, Setzler's actions are repellent yet compelling. Watching it in the 21st century, with the old 16-millimetre footage converted into a digital file, it is easy to stop and start the film, or to magnify it until the image dissolves into a pixelated blur. In making the film, Setzler transformed the fleetingness of the theft into something that would last forever. His handwritten diary is as brutally candid as the film. He frankly acknowledges his duplicity towards the Bininj, as the people of west Arnhem Land call themselves. In an entry some weeks earlier, he recorded the moment he first spotted the bones. At that stage he was still getting his bearings on the hill. When a Bininj guide showed him around, he could hardly believe the abundance of human remains. But he kept his thoughts to himself: 'I paid no attention to these bones as long as the native was with me'. By the time he was ready to take the bones, he knew the site well, having spent some weeks on the plateau excavating for stone tools. Before he took the bones, he liaised with the expedition's American photographer Howell Walker, who agreed to join him on the plateau and shoot both still and moving footage of their acquisition. The film shows how they tried to make the theft a pedagogical performance, presumably to give it scientific credibility. Setzler at one point can be seen lifting and handling a skull. He points out distinctive features and then slots its jaw in place before presenting to the camera its largely toothless grin. The final seconds of the bone stealing show a glimpse of distant scenery. There is a strip of land, the grass yellow-brown. Further away lies the gleaming billabong and beyond it the mission dwellings. The sequence ends when Setzler and the expedition Australian guide Bill Harney (who suddenly appears from nowhere) cross the frame. Manhandling the now-lidded crate, they disappear from the picture. The film is jarringly out of time. It stinks of the body-snatching of the 19th century. Yet we see it through the medium of cinema, that most 20th-century of art forms, and in colour no less. Another disconnect is the lack of soundtrack. We tend to expect that a colour film will have audio, but without the lecture that once accompanied it, there is nothing but deadly silence. No voice. No birdsong. Everything is mute. This sequence is part of the National Geographic Society documentary film Aboriginal Australia. Exhibited only in the US at conferences and in lecture halls, it communicates the story of the 1948 expedition to Americans. Outtakes – often disposed of by production houses – have in this case survived and they tell a most fascinating tale. Not only did Setzler perform the theft for Walker's camera, but he re-performed it in various ways, actively experimenting with his presentation. In the footage intended for public exhibition, he assumes the role of a serious field scientist making a significant discovery. That is very different from a take in which he hams it up as a madcap explorer. In that sequence, he marches into frame and feigns astonishment as he 'discovers' the very bones that he first saw weeks earlier. With cartoonish gesticulations, he signals to the out-of-frame Harney to come and look. Not until Harney is fully in view and enacting his own surprise does Setzler begin to reap his grim harvest. Amidst the jumble of takes and retakes, we see him at one point returning a skull to its crevice so he can perform the theft in a different way. Sixty years later, having recently obtained copies of the film from the National Geographic Society, I sat with the eminent elder Jacob Nayinggul on his veranda in the Banyan Camp at Gunbalanya, watching this material on a laptop. He, too, was silent – silent with rage. As the film reveals, Setzler became brasher and bolder as the expedition neared the end. His personal diary reveals pride in the ruses he went to in avoiding the scrutiny of locals. To provide manpower on his digs for stone tools, which occurred in rock shelters on Injalak (conveniently close to the ossuaries), two teenagers from the mission were assigned to him as archaeological assistants. One was Jimmy Bungaroo, who would become a well-known community leader in Maningrida later in life. The other man was Mickey (whose full name never appears in the expedition records). The pair can be seen in expedition films and photos, sifting soil that throws up great clouds of dust. Setzler supervises, wearing a protective mask. But there were no masks for the two youngsters who were actually performing the hard labour. The heat of those days was crippling. Setzler estimated that inside the tents, the temperature reached 110 degrees Fahrenheit (43.3 degrees Celsius) during the day. Outside, the air was thick and stagnant. The period known to Territorians as 'the build-up' had begun. High temperatures are matched with high humidity, a sure signal that the wet season is on its way. In these conditions, it is little wonder that Setzler's workers required a siesta after a morning spent shifting and inhaling dirt. This provided the opportunity to acquire another cache of bones, as Setzler explained. 'During the lunch period, while the two native boys were asleep, I gathered the two skeletons which had been placed in crevices outside the caves. These were disarticulated ... and only skull and long bones. One had been painted with red ochre. These I carried down to the camp in burlap sacks and later packed in ammunition boxes.' On November 1 it rained. The wet season was nigh. Setzler had discovered more bones that he would have stolen, but he had nothing to pack them in. Even so, he had garnered a rich harvest. He carefully 'painted the ammunition boxes containing skeletal material and numbered them consecutively after my personal box numbers'. He screwed them shut and noted: 'These will go to US without opening in Sydney'. They were ready for transportation to their eventual destination, the Smithsonian Institution in Washington. There they would remain for the next 60 years. Martin Thomas is a professor of history at the Australian National University and has been researching the expedition since 2006. The collection of Aboriginal bones taken during this expedition
NDTV
2 days ago
- Science
- NDTV
Scientists Can Tell When A Volcano Is About To Erupt Using This 'Green' Cue
Scientists can predict when a volcano is about to erupt by looking at the vegetation nearby. A new study collaboration between NASA and the Smithsonian Institution claims that the greenness of the trees around a volcano can indicate a potential imminent blast. As volcanoes get charged up to explode, they push magma close to the surface, releasing higher levels of carbon dioxide. In turn, the health of the surrounding trees is boosted with the leaves becoming greener by consuming the excess CO2. "The remote detection of carbon dioxide greening of vegetation potentially gives scientists another tool - along with seismic waves and changes in ground height-to get a clear idea of what's going on underneath the volcano," read a NASA statement. Up until recently, scientists had to trek to volcanoes if they wanted to measure the CO2 levels, as a volcano emitting modest amounts of carbon dioxide does not show up in satellite imagery. However, with a number of volcanoes located in remote areas, assessing the greenery could help scientists avoid the trouble of trekking through the dangerous terrains. "There are plenty of satellites we can use to do this kind of analysis," study lead author Nicole Guinn, a doctoral student in volcanology at the University of Houston in Texas, said in the statement. Researchers analysed images collected by Landsat 8, NASA's Terra satellite, ESA's (European Space Agency) Sentinel-2, and other Earth-observing satellites to monitor trees around the Mount Etna volcano on the coast of Sicily. Results showed 16 clear spikes in both the amount of CO2 and vegetation's greenness, which coincided with upward migrations of magma from the volcano. The findings could have important real-life implications as 10 per cent of the world's population lives in areas susceptible to volcanic hazards. Predicting a volcanic eruption in advance could help move out people who live or work within a few miles of the volcano and face dangers that include ejected rock, dust, and surges of hot, toxic gases.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Trump says he fired National Portrait Gallery chief in latest conflict with arts
Donald Trump says he is firing the first female director of the National Portrait Gallery, which contained a caption that referenced the attack on the US Capitol that his supporters carried out in early 2021. The president announced the termination on Friday in a post on his social media platform that accused Sajet – born in Nigeria, raised in Australia and a citizen of the Netherlands – of being 'a strong supporter' of diversity initiatives that his administration opposes as well as 'highly partisan'. He cited no evidence for either claim. Legal experts, including Eric Columbus, a former litigator for the January 6 select committee, suggested Trump does not have the power to fire Sajet, since the gallery is part of the Smithsonian, which is not run by the executive branch. In its collection of portraits of American presidents, the gallery had this text about Trump: 'Impeached twice, on charges of abuse of power and incitement of insurrection after supporters attacked the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, he was acquitted by the Senate in both trials. After losing to Joe Biden in 2020, Trump mounted a historic comeback in the 2024 election. He is the only president aside from Grover Cleveland (1837-1908) to have won a nonconsecutive second term.' Sajet arrived in the US with her family in 1997, held positions at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, and was appointed director of the National Portrait Gallery in 2013, according to a Guardian profile of her. Related: 'It reminds you of a fascist state': Smithsonian Institution braces for Trump rewrite of US history The National Portrait Gallery is an art museum in Washington DC that opened in 1968 and is part of the Smithsonian Institution. It boasts the only complete collection of presidential portraits outside the White House. After beginning his second presidency in January, Trump issued an executive order directing the removal of 'improper, divisive or anti-American ideology' from the institution's storied museums. Sajet had said the gallery under her leadership tried 'very hard to be even-handed when we talk about people and that's the key'. 'Everyone has an opinion about American presidents, good, bad and indifferent,' Sajet said. 'We hear it all, but generally I think we've done pretty well.'
Sydney Morning Herald
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
‘Grave robber' posed for the cameras as he pillaged human remains
The collecting of human remains on an almost industrial scale began in the 19th century and continued long into the 20th. One of the museums most active in collecting human remains was the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC, and it was a partner in the expedition to Arnhem Land, along with the National Geographic Society. Frank Setzler was constitutionally incapable of entering an Aboriginal burial ground without thinking about how to rob it. He had form on this front, having collected many remains of Native American people earlier in his career. They were all accessioned into the Smithsonian's physical anthropology collection, one of the largest collections of human bones in the world. It is a sign of his brashness that he allowed a colleague to film his 'grave robbing', as other scientists on the expedition called it. Captured on celluloid, Setzler's actions are repellent yet compelling. Watching it now in the 21st century, with the old 16-millimetre footage converted into a digital file, it is easy to stop and start the film, or to magnify it until the image dissolves into a pixelated blur. In making the film, Setzler transformed the fleetingness of the theft into something that would last forever. His handwritten diary is as brutally candid as the film. He frankly acknowledges his duplicity towards the Bininj, as the people of west Arnhem Land call themselves. In an entry some weeks earlier, he recorded the moment he first spotted the bones. At that stage he was still getting his bearings on the hill. When a Bininj guide showed him around, he could hardly believe the abundance of human remains. But he kept his thoughts to himself: 'I paid no attention to these bones as long as the native was with me'. By the time he was ready to take the bones, he knew the site well, having spent some weeks on the plateau excavating for stone tools. Before he took the bones, he liaised with the expedition's American photographer Howell Walker, who agreed to join him on the plateau and shoot both still and moving footage of their acquisition. The film shows how they tried to make the theft a pedagogical performance, presumably to give it scientific credibility. Setzler at one point can be seen lifting and handling a skull. He points out distinctive features and then slots its jaw in place before presenting to the camera its largely toothless grin. The final seconds of the bone stealing show a glimpse of distant scenery. There is a strip of land, the grass yellow-brown. Further away lies the gleaming billabong and beyond it the mission dwellings. The sequence ends when Setzler and the expedition Australian guide Bill Harney (who suddenly appears from nowhere) cross the frame. Manhandling the now lidded crate, they disappear from the picture. The film is jarringly out of time. It stinks of the body-snatching of the 19th century. Yet we see it through the medium of cinema, that most 20th-century of art forms, and in colour no less. Another disconnect is the lack of soundtrack. We tend to expect that a colour film will have audio, but without the lecture that once accompanied it, there is nothing but deadly silence. No voice. No birdsong. Everything is mute. This sequence is part of the National Geographic Society documentary film Aboriginal Australia. Exhibited only in the US at conferences and in lecture halls, it communicates the story of the 1948 expedition to Americans. Outtakes – often disposed of by production houses – have in this case survived and they tell a most fascinating tale. Not only did Setzler perform the theft for Walker's camera, but he re-performed it in various ways, actively experimenting with his presentation. In the footage intended for public exhibition, he assumes the role of a serious field scientist making a significant discovery. That is very different from a take in which he hams it up as a madcap explorer. In that sequence, he marches into frame and feigns astonishment as he 'discovers' the very bones that he first saw weeks earlier. With cartoonish gesticulations, he signals to the out-of-frame Harney to come and look. Not until Harney is fully in view and enacting his own surprise does Setzler begin to reap his grim harvest. Amidst the jumble of takes and retakes, we see him at one point returning a skull to its crevice so he can perform the theft in a different way. Sixty years later, having recently obtained copies of the film from the National Geographic Society, I sat with the eminent elder Jacob Nayinggul on his veranda in the Banyan Camp at Gunbalanya, watching this material on a laptop. He, too, was silent – silent with rage. As the film reveals, Setzler became brasher and bolder as the expedition neared the end. His personal diary reveals pride in the ruses he went to in avoiding the scrutiny of locals. To provide manpower on his digs for stone tools, which occurred in rock shelters on Injalak (conveniently close to the ossuaries), two teenagers from the mission were assigned to him as archaeological assistants. One was Jimmy Bungaroo, who would become a well-known community leader in Maningrida later in life. The other man was Mickey (whose full name never appears in the expedition records). The pair can be seen in expedition films and photos, sifting soil that throws up great clouds of dust. Setzler supervises, wearing a protective mask. But there were no masks for the two youngsters who were actually performing the hard labour. The heat of those days was crippling. Setzler estimated that inside the tents, the temperature reached 110 degrees Fahrenheit (43.3 degrees Celsius) during the day. Outside, the air was thick and stagnant. The period known to Territorians as 'the build-up' had begun. High temperatures are matched with high humidity, a sure signal that the wet season is on its way. In these conditions, it is little wonder that Setzler's workers required a siesta after a morning spent shifting and inhaling dirt. This provided the opportunity to acquire another cache of bones, as Setzler explained. 'During the lunch period, while the two native boys were asleep, I gathered the two skeletons which had been placed in crevices outside the caves. These were disarticulated ... and only skull and long bones. One had been painted with red ochre. These I carried down to the camp in burlap sacks and later packed in ammunition boxes.' On November 1 it rained. The wet season was nigh. Setzler had discovered more bones that he would have stolen, but he had nothing to pack them in. Even so, he had garnered a rich harvest. He carefully 'painted the ammunition boxes containing skeletal material and numbered them consecutively after my personal box numbers'. He screwed them shut and noted: 'These will go to US without opening in Sydney'. They were ready for transportation to their eventual destination, the Smithsonian Institution in Washington. There they would remain for the next 60 years.
The Age
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Age
‘Grave robber' posed for the cameras as he pillaged human remains
The collecting of human remains on an almost industrial scale began in the 19th century and continued long into the 20th. One of the museums most active in collecting human remains was the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC, and it was a partner in the expedition to Arnhem Land, along with the National Geographic Society. Frank Setzler was constitutionally incapable of entering an Aboriginal burial ground without thinking about how to rob it. He had form on this front, having collected many remains of Native American people earlier in his career. They were all accessioned into the Smithsonian's physical anthropology collection, one of the largest collections of human bones in the world. It is a sign of his brashness that he allowed a colleague to film his 'grave robbing', as other scientists on the expedition called it. Captured on celluloid, Setzler's actions are repellent yet compelling. Watching it now in the 21st century, with the old 16-millimetre footage converted into a digital file, it is easy to stop and start the film, or to magnify it until the image dissolves into a pixelated blur. In making the film, Setzler transformed the fleetingness of the theft into something that would last forever. His handwritten diary is as brutally candid as the film. He frankly acknowledges his duplicity towards the Bininj, as the people of west Arnhem Land call themselves. In an entry some weeks earlier, he recorded the moment he first spotted the bones. At that stage he was still getting his bearings on the hill. When a Bininj guide showed him around, he could hardly believe the abundance of human remains. But he kept his thoughts to himself: 'I paid no attention to these bones as long as the native was with me'. By the time he was ready to take the bones, he knew the site well, having spent some weeks on the plateau excavating for stone tools. Before he took the bones, he liaised with the expedition's American photographer Howell Walker, who agreed to join him on the plateau and shoot both still and moving footage of their acquisition. The film shows how they tried to make the theft a pedagogical performance, presumably to give it scientific credibility. Setzler at one point can be seen lifting and handling a skull. He points out distinctive features and then slots its jaw in place before presenting to the camera its largely toothless grin. The final seconds of the bone stealing show a glimpse of distant scenery. There is a strip of land, the grass yellow-brown. Further away lies the gleaming billabong and beyond it the mission dwellings. The sequence ends when Setzler and the expedition Australian guide Bill Harney (who suddenly appears from nowhere) cross the frame. Manhandling the now lidded crate, they disappear from the picture. The film is jarringly out of time. It stinks of the body-snatching of the 19th century. Yet we see it through the medium of cinema, that most 20th-century of art forms, and in colour no less. Another disconnect is the lack of soundtrack. We tend to expect that a colour film will have audio, but without the lecture that once accompanied it, there is nothing but deadly silence. No voice. No birdsong. Everything is mute. This sequence is part of the National Geographic Society documentary film Aboriginal Australia. Exhibited only in the US at conferences and in lecture halls, it communicates the story of the 1948 expedition to Americans. Outtakes – often disposed of by production houses – have in this case survived and they tell a most fascinating tale. Not only did Setzler perform the theft for Walker's camera, but he re-performed it in various ways, actively experimenting with his presentation. In the footage intended for public exhibition, he assumes the role of a serious field scientist making a significant discovery. That is very different from a take in which he hams it up as a madcap explorer. In that sequence, he marches into frame and feigns astonishment as he 'discovers' the very bones that he first saw weeks earlier. With cartoonish gesticulations, he signals to the out-of-frame Harney to come and look. Not until Harney is fully in view and enacting his own surprise does Setzler begin to reap his grim harvest. Amidst the jumble of takes and retakes, we see him at one point returning a skull to its crevice so he can perform the theft in a different way. Sixty years later, having recently obtained copies of the film from the National Geographic Society, I sat with the eminent elder Jacob Nayinggul on his veranda in the Banyan Camp at Gunbalanya, watching this material on a laptop. He, too, was silent – silent with rage. As the film reveals, Setzler became brasher and bolder as the expedition neared the end. His personal diary reveals pride in the ruses he went to in avoiding the scrutiny of locals. To provide manpower on his digs for stone tools, which occurred in rock shelters on Injalak (conveniently close to the ossuaries), two teenagers from the mission were assigned to him as archaeological assistants. One was Jimmy Bungaroo, who would become a well-known community leader in Maningrida later in life. The other man was Mickey (whose full name never appears in the expedition records). The pair can be seen in expedition films and photos, sifting soil that throws up great clouds of dust. Setzler supervises, wearing a protective mask. But there were no masks for the two youngsters who were actually performing the hard labour. The heat of those days was crippling. Setzler estimated that inside the tents, the temperature reached 110 degrees Fahrenheit (43.3 degrees Celsius) during the day. Outside, the air was thick and stagnant. The period known to Territorians as 'the build-up' had begun. High temperatures are matched with high humidity, a sure signal that the wet season is on its way. In these conditions, it is little wonder that Setzler's workers required a siesta after a morning spent shifting and inhaling dirt. This provided the opportunity to acquire another cache of bones, as Setzler explained. 'During the lunch period, while the two native boys were asleep, I gathered the two skeletons which had been placed in crevices outside the caves. These were disarticulated ... and only skull and long bones. One had been painted with red ochre. These I carried down to the camp in burlap sacks and later packed in ammunition boxes.' On November 1 it rained. The wet season was nigh. Setzler had discovered more bones that he would have stolen, but he had nothing to pack them in. Even so, he had garnered a rich harvest. He carefully 'painted the ammunition boxes containing skeletal material and numbered them consecutively after my personal box numbers'. He screwed them shut and noted: 'These will go to US without opening in Sydney'. They were ready for transportation to their eventual destination, the Smithsonian Institution in Washington. There they would remain for the next 60 years.
