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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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The French Casket
Many words have been wasted on the Franks Casket. These were not.
| Mick Harper wrote: | | It’s a fake, made in France around 1850. Augustus Franks was a mountebank and crook of epic proportions. The vast preponderance of the 20,000 exhibits he inveigled onto the plinths in the British Museum are fakes. |
| Wiley wrote: | | That's the important bit. Made in France. |
| Mick Harper wrote: | You're very kind but I cannot say for sure the Casket was made in France. When it comes to undiagnosed historical criminal activity you might be able to establish that it is criminal--and I believe I have done that in RevHist-- you are unlikely to be able to pinpoint times, places and names with much success. Only the.. um... end-user is identifiable.
Mid-nineteenth century France is the home of legitimate 'gewgaw' manufactory, their Welsh dressers are full of the stuff. [We preferred china plates.] So it is a reasonable assumption that a lot of the illegitimate stuff comes from there too. Most of the sales certainly were.
Since the known history of the Casket takes place entirely in France and Belgium, it is unlikely anyone else was involved. The evidence, for what it's worth, is that Lyon is the chief centre of the illicit trade.
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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| Wiley wrote: | Once you start from that premise that it is French, and there are no Anglo Saxon/Germanic scenes.
Then an entirely different perspective comes into being.
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A French perspective.
Let's take a look.
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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| British Museum wrote: | | Lidded rectangular box made of whale-bone, carved on the sides and top in relief with scenes from Roman, Jewish, Christian and Germanic tradition. The base is constructed from four sides slotted and pegged into corner uprights, the bottom plates fitted into grooves at the base of the sides. It possibly stood on four low feet. Only one decorative panel now survives in the lid, the remaining elements being almost certainly replacements. |
Wiley is not accepting that the casket is Anglo Saxon, or portrays a Germanic tradition at all.
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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Here are the bits thought to be Germanic/poorly understood.
| British Museum wrote: |
The front panel is divided in two. The left half shows a composite scene from the legend of Weland the Smith, in which Weland stands in his forge, holding a skull in a pair of tongs. The right half depicts the Adoration of the Magi, with the label 'mægi' carved above the kings. The main inscription around the panel's edges comprises a riddling alliterative verse in runic writing, about the whale whose bone was used to make the casket. |
The left hand Weland bit is thought of as Germanic or Nordic.
| British Museum wrote: |
The right-hand end poses special problems of interpretation. The apparently episodic scene is evidently from Germanic legend but has not been satisfactorily identified. Three labels read: 'risci' = 'rush', 'wudu' = 'wood' and 'bita' = 'biter'. The main runic text is in alliterative verse partly encoded by substituting cryptic forms for most of its vowels and perhaps certain other letters.
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Germanic/Founding of Britain is the ortho theory
| British museum wrote: | | The lid appears to depict an episode relating to the Germanic hero Egil and has the single label 'aegili' = 'Egil'. |
Germanic again is the theory.
The bits that they understand the least or not at all (dark age) are labelled Germanic.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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This whole business started right here on the AEL, on page 84 of the Inventing History: A Great British Tradition thread
https://www.applied-epistemology.com/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?t=5&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=1245
It goes on over the page, and over the page and... well, it was still going strong twenty pages later when I gave up looking. Ever widening, ever more skewering. Just having a quick shufti at a post every now again I kept saying, "Who are these people?" even though one of them was me.
| And a fat lot of good it did to man or beast. |
We lost our chief British Museum correspondent on the first post when I managed to put up a picture of the wrong casket. I can only guess at the chortlement that must have evoked in the halls of academe. We have certainly not heard a peep out of anyone officially responsible for the entire fandangle.
| But, by God, it was exhilarating. |
Something our opponents rarely experience. And, speaking for myself, I understood far better the epic nature of scholarly artefact faking at the end than I did at the beginning.
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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The Link to the British museum is here.
https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/H_1867-0120-1
The various slides of lid are situated at the bottom.
Thie first thing is the lid.
https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/H_1867-0120-1?selectedImageId=105465001
We are seeing probably a third of what was on top. Two thirds having been lost.
What do we see?
To the right is an archer, this is a bit mysterious if it was an Anglo-Saxon casket, as ortho tells us that Anglo-Saxons rarely used archers in war.
Wiley thinks of Hastings 1066, Harold's army unlike the Normans did not have archers, they protected themseves from Norman arrows using a shield wall, and if you look to the left you see exactly that tactic of the knights defending themselves with their raised shields. The arrows get stuck in the shields.
To the right of the archer is a woman. Ortho has it that it is his wife. It looks to Wiley (hey what do I know) the woman is working on a loom. Maybe she is working on a tapestry?
The second Knight (Giant) looks to be wearing a helmet with what appears a noseguard These nasal helmets feature on the Bayeux tapestry, where William the Conqueror is portrayed as lifting his helmet to show his troops that he was still alive in one scene.
If I was thinking the casket as French, it doesn't look like a proto-Germanic archer called Egil defending his wife, it looks more like a take on a Norman battle scene, inspired by the very famous Bayeux tapestry to Wiley.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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| We are seeing probably a third of what was on top. Two thirds having been lost. |
Lost how? I'd be interested in both your and orthodoxy's explanation.
| What do we see? To the right is an archer, this is a bit mysterious if it was an Anglo-Saxon casket, as ortho tells us that Anglo-Saxons rarely used archers in war. |
Good spot. And pretty odd in a different, more general, way.
| Wiley thinks of Hastings 1066, Harold's army unlike the Normans did not have archers, they protected themseves from Norman arrows using a shield wall, and if you look to the left you see exactly that tactic of the knights defending themselves with their raised shields. The arrows get stuck in the shields. |
And yet them arrers did for the knights, according to Larry Olivier and Kenny Branagh, when the Anglo-Saxons had got rid of the Normans and set up shop on their own account.
| To the right of the archer is a woman. Ortho has it that it is his wife. It looks to Wiley (hey what do I know) the woman is working on a loom. Maybe she is working on a tapestry? |
Very valuable, tapestries. I'm not surprised they've hired in protection.
| The second Knight (Giant) looks to be wearing a helmet with what appears a noseguard These nasal helmets feature on the Bayeux tapestry, where William the Conqueror is portrayed as lifting his helmet to show his troops that he was still alive in one scene. |
Another good spot. "Put in un nose-guard, Alphonse. Zat will go down bien on either side of ze Channel."
| If I was thinking the casket as French, it doesn't look like a proto-Germanic archer called Egil defending his wife, it looks more like a take on a Norman battle scene, inspired by the very famous Bayeux tapestry to Wiley. |
I still think you're overthinking it. Even though this would be a dazzler.
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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| Mick Harper wrote: | | I still think you're overthinking it. |
Is the proto-Germanic Egil really a more obvious solution.
"It's for you"
" What is it?" " It's.....It's a beautiful casket, with figures on it" "I can see the Three Wise men, and Romulus and Remus"
"Yes and look at the top"
"Oh yes, it's William Tell"
"Not quite, he is yet to be born"
"Robin Hood"
"Nope, still not early enough" "You must not get ahead of yourself, young Bearwulfstan"
"It's Egil"
" eh?"
"I just consulted an ancient seer, it's Egil"
Egil is a legendary hero of the Völundarkviða and the Thidreks saga. The name is from Proto-Germanic *Agilaz,[1] and the same legend is reflected in Old English Ægil [ˈæɡil] of the Franks Casket and Alamannic Aigil of the Pforzen buckle.
The Proto-Germanic form of the legend may only be guessed at, but it appears likely that Egil was a renowned archer who defended a keep together with his wife Aliruna, against numerous attackers. The testimony of the Pforzen buckle is uncertain beyond naming Aigil and Ailrun, possibly adding that they fought a battle at the Ilz river. The Franks Casket shows the scene of Aegil and his wife enclosed in the keep, with Aegil shooting arrows against attacking troops. |
"There you go, I didn't think you would get that"
"Such fun".......
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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You've got it! The fakers just threw anything they could think of into the pot, trusting to the experts' determination to see whatever it was they wanted to see.
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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Maybe, but on this thread we are arguing that it is created in France for a French audience.
So if it's a late date (as Wiley suspects), it could be William Tell, as French Republicans were for Tell (as they hated Marie Antoinette, a Habsburg) it could not be Hood or Egil.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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| Maybe, but on this thread we are arguing that it is created in France |
Check.
Slovak. Or a collector of any nationality who goes in for high price bric à brac. When you are faking something you do not precisely have an audience in mind. But see my treatment in RevHist of the way the Louvre faked Persian Achaemenid treasure.
| So if it's a late date (as Wiley suspects) |
1850, Mick suggests.
| it could be William Tell, as French Republicans were for Tell |
Do French Republicans collect religious caskets with runes on them?
| (as they hated Marie Antoinette, a Habsburg) |
Long memories, those French Republicans.
| it could not be Hood or Egil. |
Like I say, it could be anyone/it couldn't be anyone. I speculate in RevHist that Franks himself may have designed it. But, hey, this is your thread. The Wiley Casket, that fits much better.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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We need some volunteers to make a YouTube bringing together all the clips of important people telling us who is doing what to whom and why, and why it's important. The Casket always features heavily in prestige BBC series with titles like The Story of Britain or The History of Western Art. Look out for the episode that starts with
| The Dark Ages were not nearly as dark as many people think. |
They'll be a lot darker when the AEL's children or their children's children march into power. I need some volunteers on this aspect as well.
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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The Front Panel
https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/H_1867-0120-1?selectedImageId=98117001
| British Museum wrote: | The front panel is divided in two. The left half shows a composite scene from the legend of Weland the Smith, in which Weland stands in his forge, holding a skull in a pair of tongs. The right half depicts the Adoration of the Magi, with the label 'mægi' carved above the kings. The main inscription around the panel's edges comprises a riddling alliterative verse in runic writing, about the whale whose bone was used to make the casket.
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Why are Balthasar, Melchior, and Caspar being led by a duck/goose/swan?
I looked it up in the bible, it's on page 199-202.
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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| British Museum wrote: | | Word and image enter here a new and important Anglo-Saxon life together, in an iconographic programme which seems to be based on parallels rather in the manner of Biblical types (a form of exegesis certainly known at Monkwearmouth/Jarrow). |
We disagree
| British Museum wrote: | | The Adoration of the Magi, for example is juxtaposed with the Weland legend, in which the birth of a hero also makes good sin and suffering, while the adjacent sides symbolising the founding of Rome and destruction of Jerusalem draw an obvious contrast |
It is a Knight, equipping himself and heading off to the crusades to reclaim Christian relics. The left and right images are best understood as complementary. The Crusader Knight arms himself, sword, shield etc, and is undertaking a Christological pilgrimage, he renouces his status and wealth,, like the kings/ wise men, to visit the Christ birthplace. The Knight's spiritual guide is the pure Holy Spirit, it's an animal guide (Goose, swan, duck). These birds are markers (guides) along megalithic pilgrimage routes.
The First Crusade (Peter the Hermit) was led by a Goose, well, so they say. These crusader knights were motivated by a desire to reclaim sacred sites, demonstrate their devotion, and so secure their personal salvation. The Magi offered the inspiration to those embarking on this journey.
From the 12th Century the image of the Magi switches away from The Wise Men riding camels to Chivalrous Knights riding horses. The Knights are often accompanied by a squire or are seen sharing a single blanket.
The relics of the Magi were indeed found by the Knights and transferred to Cologne Cathedral.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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This is good stuff. If Christianity is itself post-1000 AD we can expect all sorts of transposed anachronistic semiotics.
| The First Crusade (Peter the Hermit) was led by a Goose, well, so they say. |
Geese were designed, according to Megalithic Empire, to accompany drovers as a convenient way of rewarding folk who assisted along the way. In the charge of 'the little goose girl'. Mmm... if she was my daughter I would give her a good talking to before setting out. 'It's only Jerusalem, dad, I'll be back before you know it.'
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