Gold quartz and garnet dress cane with ebony shaft, 36 inches, circa 1900. Estimate: $12,000-$14,000. Kimball M. Sterling Inc. image. JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. – Kimball M. Sterling Inc, the world’s largest auction house dealing with antique and collectable canes, is proud to team up with LiveAuctioneers.com to present the summer antique and collectable 2012 collection live on the Internet. The auction will be held in Kimball Sterling’s gallery at 125 W. Market St. on Saturday, July 28, beginning at 11 a.m. EDT.
This summer’s collection consists of over 200 canes from five collections. The offering in system sticks includes five antique gun canes, a group of sword and daggers, erotic ivory canes and one exceptional ivory balance toy. For the discerning collector is a gold quartz dress cane form the early 20th century. Categories in ivory include horses, bulldogs, and many other collectable animals. Of special interest is a folk-art carved and India inked Missouri prison cane with various portraits of important politicians at the turn of the century. A good number of ivory nudes for Art Nouveau collector will also be offered.
The collection will date from the 18th century to the present day. There will be canes in the price range of $200 to $12,000.
Canes are unique in the collecting world because they cross over to many collecting fields. There are canes that deal with occupations, professional, sports, hobbies, and just about anything you can imagine.
Kimball M. Sterling Inc. conducts four or more cane auctions a year and also prints a full catalog, which can be ordered by mail. For details on this auction visit www.auctionauction.com or contact Kimball Sterling directly at 423-773-4073.
At 1,017 feet tall, The Shard in London is the tallest building in Europe. Image by Bjmullan. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
LONDON (AFP) – Europe’s tallest skyscraper the Shard will be inaugurated in London with a spectacular laser show Thursday, as critics debate whether it is an architectural triumph or a blot on the skyline.
The dramatic glass and steel structure, which stands 310 metres (1,017 feet) tall, will be launched by Qatari Prime Minister Hamad bin Jassem al-Thani, whose country has funded it, and Queen Elizabeth II’s son Prince Andrew at 2 p.m. GMT.
When night falls, a laser show will be projected from the building, connecting it up to other major London landmarks, with the London Philharmonic Orchestra providing the soundtrack.
The inauguration marks the completion of the exterior of the building, located on the south bank of the River Thames at London Bridge, while work on the inside is expected to continue into 2013.
The Shard, whose name was coined by its Italian architect Renzo Piano, is still significantly shorter than Dubai’s 828-metre Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world.
It takes over from Capital City Moscow Tower as the highest in Europe.
With capacity for 12,000 people, the 95-floor building will contain a five-star hotel, 600,000 square metres of office space, luxury restaurants and shops.
The jagged-tipped skyscraper will also house 10 apartments, reportedly costing up to £50 million ($78 million, 62 million euros) each, which on floors 53 to 65 will be the highest residential properties in Britain.
Developer Sellar Property hopes the Shard’s viewing decks, offering 360-degree panoramas, will become a major tourist attraction.
“It will become as essential a part of a visit to London as going to the top of the Empire State Building is for visitors to New York,” said Irvine Sellar, the company’s chairman.
The building will open as a tourist attraction in February and more than 17,500 people have already registered interest online. Advance tickets are available from Friday.
The £450 million ($705.4 million, 560.70 million euro) project was 95 percent funded by Qatar.
The tiny, oil-rich Gulf state has a growing London property portfolio that also includes the famous Harrods department store and the Olympic Village.
Ken Livingstone, who was mayor of London when the project started 12 years ago, said the Shard was a beautiful building that would “define London.”
“It brought 10,000 jobs to one of the most run-down and deprived areas of London,” he told BBC radio Thursday.
“Unlike a lot of the other tall buildings, Londoners will have access to this one.”
But the building’s futuristic silhouette has angered traditionalists who say it has dwarfed older landmarks such as St Paul’s Cathedral and the Houses of Parliament.
English Heritage, the body responsible for protecting historic sites, says the skyscraper taints a view of St Paul’s, while UNESCO has said it compromises the “visual integrity” of the Tower of London, one of its World Heritage sites.
One commentator even compared the Shard’s impact on the London skyline to the recent destruction of ancient tombs and mosques in the fabled city of Timbuktu in Mali.
“Timbuktu’s shrines can and surely will be rebuilt,” Simon Hughes wrote in the Guardian on Wednesday. “The Shard has slashed the face of London forever.”
But Piano, who also designed the Pompidou Centre in Paris, has defended the building against claims that it is an overbearing presence on the skyline.
“This building is not arrogant,” he told AFP during a tour of the construction site in February.
“When you’re making a building like this, that’s so important for the city, you have to be absolutely sure that it’s the right thing to do… as an architect, if you make a mistake it stays there for a long time.”
ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE
At 1,017 feet tall, The Shard in London is the tallest building in Europe. Image by Bjmullan. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
Barn quilts on the side of the U.S. 23 Country Music Highway Museum in Paintsville, Ky. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
PITTSFIELD, Ill. (AP) – Sue Cox thought the quilt was beautiful and couldn’t resist buying it.
But she didn’t put it on her bed. She put it on her barn.
Barn quilts—quilt patterns painted on wood and displayed on barns and other buildings—are growing in popularity across the area.
Cox, who has done traditional quilting in the past and enjoys the art, said the patriotic colors of the Father’s Choice barn quilt appealed to her.
“I just like the look of it,” she said.
So do people driving by her home on U.S. 54 near Pittsfield.
“I do get lots of compliments on it,” Cox said. “People do notice it. Their heads do turn.”
Cox bought one of the first barn quilts painted by Diane Brown, who lives in New Hartford. Brown’s late husband would draw out the patterns, and she would paint them to display at Ackles Farm Market, which she co-owns.
Seeing the many barn quilts while “holler hopping” in Calhoun County inspired Brown, who would like to see even more of the designs on some of Pike County’s “really neat” barns.
“It’s a way to pay homage to your heritage, to decorate, and in many cases, restore old buildings,” said Robbie Strauch, who works with the Calhoun County Quilt Tour and Barn Quilt Trail. “Most people who get one decide to paint their barn, paint the roof, do some repair. That was the case with us.”
The choice of a pattern can add an even stronger historical connection.
“Many people who put a quilt up used a family pattern,” Strauch said. “We chose a pattern that was a quilt made by my husband’s grandmother Polly Campbell Crader.”
Creating the quilts “is really pretty easy to do, just kind of time-consuming,” Brown said. “Right now I’m not making them, but it was fun. Who knows? Maybe I’ll get back into doing it.”
Barb Thiele from Perry, Ill., recently got into painting the quilts. A storage building at her home sports a Navy Star quilt in honor of her grandson Keegan Bixler.
“I just thought it sounded neat,” said the longtime quilter and avid painter.
Thiele is working on an Ohio Star barn quilt for someone in Perry, and she did a quilt in the Corn and Beans pattern in shades of blue, yellow and green for local farmer Lance Wiese. She can take her pick of a pattern for another quilt going to Jacksonville.
Thiele painted her first barn quilts on exterior grade plywood but plans to switch to a different material for her next ones.
“I had to put a sealer on them and ended up putting two coats on both sides and the edges to make sure it was sealed good,” she said. “I base-coated the colors that were dark with a darker base coat, then put colors over the top. There’s probably five layers of paint on most of it.
“It just takes lots of time and patience, like quilting or painting … but you don’t have all the pieces to cut out or put together, and you don’t have to have it quilted.”
Thiele has more barn quilts in mind, including a Marine Star if Keegan opts for the Marine Corps instead of the Navy, and more traditional quilts.
“I’ve probably got seven or eight started,” she said. “If I had started the day I was born, I could not use up all the fabric and all the quilt kits I have in my closet.”
Avid quilter Judy Logsdon has four barn quilts, one for each season, on her barn near Mount Sterling.
“I thought it was kind of cool to get them started around here,” Logsdon said.
“A lady that I quilt for has them on her barn. We bartered. She did the painting, and my husband, Jim, made the frames, then he put them up on the barn. I just think they look nice. I love barns. I love quilting. It’s a nice combination.”
Copyright 2012 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
AP-WF-07-04-12 0904GMT
ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE
Barn quilts on the side of the U.S. 23 Country Music Highway Museum in Paintsville, Ky. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
A genuine Athenian tetradrachm from after 499 B.C. Image courtesy Classical Numismatic Group Inc. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
NEW YORK (AP) – A prominent coin collector thought he had some valuable, ancient pieces with a problem: They shouldn’t have been taken out of Italy.
The coins turned out to be fakes, but they led to very real trouble for the collector, noted Rhode Island hand surgeon Dr. Arnold-Peter Weiss. He pleaded guilty Tuesday to criminal charges in a case that set the numismatic world abuzz.
It also added to a string of court cases and disputes over collecting and trading in objects that Italy and other countries consider looted pieces of their cultural patrimony.
An orthopedics professor at Brown University’s Alpert Medical School and author of a hand-surgery textbook, Weiss is no less accomplished in the coin world.
A collector and investor for 35 years, he’s been on leadership boards of the American Numismatic Society and the Rhode Island School of Design’s art museum, according to a biography on Brown’s website. The coin society said no one was available to comment Tuesday on Weiss’ history with the organization; a RISD spokeswoman didn’t immediately return a call.
Weiss was arrested in January amid a coin auction at the posh Waldorf-Astoria hotel, planning to sell what was listed as a silver tetradrachm, a Greek coin from the fourth century B.C., according to a criminal complaint. Weiss expected it to net about $350,000, according to the complaint.
Under Italian law, antiquities found there after 1909 can’t be removed from the country. But Weiss said in a secretly recorded conversation: “I know this is a fresh coin. This was dug up a few years ago,” according to the complaint.
Modern metal detectors have turned up long-buried coins, often obvious because of the way they have been cleaned, among other signs, Weiss told a Manhattan court Monday.
He acknowledged that he knew what to look for, was aware of Italy’s antiquities rules and believed that two other coins that he had in his possession at the auction had been found after the 1909 deadline. All three coins were described as having been found in Sicily.
The other two coins were similarly ancient decadrachms, worth about $1.2 million apiece—or so Weiss thought at the time.
“I believed that the coin was authentic” in each instance, he said.
But after his arrest, an expert examined them and found they “were, in fact, forgeries—exquisite, extraordinary forgeries, but forgeries nonetheless,” Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Matthew Bogdanos said.
Still, Weiss was criminally implicated because he believed what he had were illegally obtained coins.
Under his plea deal, Weiss must forfeit his interest in 23 coins seized from him when he was arrested, perform 70 hours of community service and write an article about the problem of trading in unprovenanced coins—those of uncertain origin—and “the continuing threat of this practice to the archaeological record.” He also must try to get it published in the numismatic society’s magazine or a similar venue.
The article “will raise needed awareness about unprovenanced coins and will promote responsible collecting among numismatists,” district attorney’s office spokeswoman Joan Vollero said.
Weiss and his lawyers declined to comment after court.
Italy has aggressively campaigned in the last decade to get back ancient Roman, Greek and Etruscan artifacts the government says were looted or stolen. Institutions including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles have agreed to return various items.
There have been some criminal prosecutions, including a Rome trial of a former Getty assistant curator. It ended in 2010 with a judge saying the statute of limitations had expired.
In April, federal prosecutors in Manhattan announced that a Renaissance painting and a Roman sculpture from about the first century were being returned to Italy after turning up at auction houses in New York.
Other countries, including Turkey and Greece, also have taken action in recent years to reclaim antiquities.
___
Follow Jennifer Peltz at http://twitter.com/jennpeltz
Copyright 2012 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
AP-WF-07-04-12 0044GMT
ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE
A genuine Athenian tetradrachm from after 499 B.C. Image courtesy Classical Numismatic Group Inc. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
The main barn at Cedar Hill Farm was built in 1865. Image courtesy The Barn at Harvest Moon Pond.
POYNETTE, Wis. (AP) – The old bell on top of the well house would clang each time supper was ready. It was a signal to family members in the fields to come in.
The farm stretched past a hilly highway all the way to the horizon, making the bell a faint whisper to anyone working up a good day’s sweat.
As horses pulled the plow, cutting the earth for another year’s crops, the faint sound of that bell would make them halt.
“My dad and uncle said my great-grandmother would always go out and ring that bell,” Renee Whirry said. “My grandfather didn’t hear the bell because of the distance, but (the horses) would stop. And he would know it’s lunch time.”
For five generations this farm along State Highway 22 near Poynette has been in the family. And the colossal barn on the property—at the close of the Civil War—has been a landmark for travelers.
Living off this land, generations of the Stevens and Porter family found a self-sufficient way of life. There were crops, an icehouse, even an apple orchard. Everything they would need, including a pond.
“It would be interesting to see it back in the 1800s or early 1900s, being that self-sufficient,” Renee said.
While not all the buildings are left on the farm, the one thing that has remained constant is the old barn. And last year, Renee and her husband Gary decided to restore the 147-year-old structure.
Their idea was to turn the barn into a place for weddings, conventions and gatherings. Their idea was to give new life and purpose to the ultimate family heirloom.
“It was at the point it was either going to be taken down or had to be restored,” Renee said.
After an extensive year-long project, The Barn at Harvest Moon Pond opened with a wedding May 12, and summer weekends here are already filling up.
But work on the barn is never complete. There are always a few more things that can be done.
“We finished last night, I think,” Gary joked. “One hundred and fifty years and it’s not done yet.”
The old barn was dark, with few windows and a lot of rooms. The place had become an attic of sorts—five generations worth of stuff stored for later use.
When Gary and Renee set out to clean the old barn to see what they had, months of work lay ahead.
“It looked like a big project, and was everything we imagined and more,” Gary said.
The barn was built in 1865 by Renee’s three-times great-grandfather George Stevens. An addition was put on near the turn of the 20th century by her great-grandfather William J. Porter.
Renee said she remembers when they milked cows in the lower level that now houses bathrooms and an office.
“(This) was kind of a very beautiful historical building,” she said. “People always talked about the Porter farm.”
There was a lot of hay to remove, and memories within each object—like old horse bridles that were no longer in good shape to save.
The fieldstone and sandstone foundation was structurally sound, but needed some care.
With the help of General Engineering in Portage, a plan was put together to save this old barn and even bring back one family member’s pride and joy.
The cupola on the roof of the barn, often a place for a weather vane, was the one item always taken care of.
While the rest of the barn would be in need of paint, Renee said her great-grandfather Porter would only paint the cupola. But the original needed too much repair, she said, so they built their own.
The idea to restore a barn is nothing new to Renee and Gary. About four years ago they restored a smaller barn at Gary’s family farm near Marquette. Tornadoes had struck the property in the past, but left a sturdy foundation.
It was a project that would bring their children back home to help. The couple rebuilt the barn with the only intention of using the place for holidays and family parties.
Gary’s sister was the first to ask to use the barn at Cedar Hill Farm, then neighbors soon followed. The first year they held six weddings there. Last year they held 28.
Inside the old Porter barn the 1800s feel alive again.
The power-washed barn boards look new and the wood plank flooring and giant stage are ready for a dance.
Antique chandeliers hang from the ceiling and plenty of windows have been added. There’s even a loft where wedding ceremonies are held, with stained glass cascading light to the altar.
Restoring the barn was a big investment for Renee and Gary, who hope eventually to retire from their jobs in Madison and run the barn as a business.
A metal facade and 4 inches of foam were placed on the outside to make the facility year-round. Five furnaces, air conditioning and indoor plumbing are the only modern amenities for the structure, which seats 240.
There’s also 5 acres outside that lead up to the pond that was nameless until now.
“We go to a lot of weddings and we get tired of the very small dance floors, the very stale hotel rooms,” Renee said.
The barn has old-world charm unlike anything you may ever see. You can feel the history within the walls. There’s a long bar, wood fireplace and plenty of tables, with a feeling like you’re in an Old West town like Deadwood.
The place couldn’t have looked any better on that day in 1865 when it was completed.
“We have been meeting a lot of people who have stopped in and are curious about (the barn),” Gary said.
One of the issues the couple faces is lodging. They encourage people to stay nearby in Lodi, Portage and DeForest, and use a bus to transport people who may live outside the area.
The next project the couple is working on is marketing the facility for conferences and banquets.
Walking through the barn to hang up a coat, people may notice an old John Deere plow, the same one that was there from the days when horses tilled the land.
Renee said they also found the old bell and have plans to make it new again—letting that familiar clang echo off the landscape once again.
“I hope (the barn) lives forever now,” she said.
___
Information from: Portage Daily Register, http://www.portagedailyregister.com
Copyright 2012 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
AP-WF-06-28-12 2124GMT
ADDITIONAL IMAGES OF NOTE
The main barn at Cedar Hill Farm was built in 1865. Image courtesy The Barn at Harvest Moon Pond.A view of the barn’s interior shows the wooden post-and-beam construction. Image courtesy The Barn at Harvest Moon Pond.Image courtesy The Barn at Harvest Moon Pond.Image courtesy The Barn at Harvest Moon Pond.
Yellowstone National Park souvenir photo-lithograph of ‘Chief Broken Arm’ by Heyn, 1899. Image courtesy LiveAuctioneers.com Archive and Wiederseim Associates Inc.
JACKSON, Wyo. (AP) – Rubber tomahawks have played a part in preserving our national parks.
The classic child’s toy souvenir—and countless other manufactured items such as postcards, pennants, teaspoons and coffee mugs offer protection for national parks, a professor said.
“Souvenirs prevent people from collecting natural objects, such as feathers and rocks,” Ken Barrick said.
“It’s a way of taking home a piece of the park,” the University of Alaska-Fairbanks associate professor of geography said.
People also use keepsakes to trigger pleasant memories of long-ago vacations to parks, Barrick said. Doing so makes them lifelong advocates of the park system.
“We remember the park when we’re at home, vicariously, through souvenirs,” Barrick said. “This tradition has allowed people to appreciate parks from a distance their entire lives.”
These treasured possessions often occupy pride of place on a prominent wall, a mantel or in a curio cabinet, and aren’t disposed of during ordinary spring cleaning or downsizing, Barrick tells the Jackson Hole News & Guide.
“People tend to keep these things in their lives until they die,” Barrick said. “They never edit these things from their lives.”
Barrick is scheduled to talk about national park souvenirs at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday in the Craig Thomas Discovery and Visitor Center auditorium in Moose, Wyo.
He will show slides of hundreds of park keepsakes dating back to the 19th century.
Antique souvenirs sold in or near the national parks were often quite well-made and “wonderfully artful,” Barrick said.
He will show off porcelain plates fired in the ceramics capital of Limoge, France, silver lapel pins, letter openers and lithographs. For decades, Barrick has built his own collection of national park souvenirs, and he is now writing a book about the topic, set to be released in 2016, the centennial of the National Park Service Organic Act.
About 20 years ago, Barrick met antique shop owners Susan and Jack Davis of Bozeman, Mont. They sold a huge collection of souvenirs in 2001 to the Yellowstone Park Foundation.
The Davises turned Barrick on to William Henry Jackson’s photochrome lithograph prints, produced from 1898 to 1906 by the Detroit Photographic Co. About 65 of the 400-some images featured Yellowstone.
Last winter, Barrick found the last one and purchased it, completing his collection.
“I’m the only one, I think, who has ever done that,” Barrick said. “It took me 20 years. I’m hopeful that eventually that will be in Yellowstone Park’s collection.”
___
Information from: Jackson Hole News And Guide, http://www.jhnewsandguide.com
Copyright 2012 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
AP-WF-07-01-12 1513GMT
ADDITIONAL IMAGES OF NOTE
Yellowstone National Park souvenir photo-lithograph of ‘Chief Broken Arm’ by Heyn, 1899. Image courtesy LiveAuctioneers.com Archive and Wiederseim Associates Inc.Yellowstone National Park souvenir silver-plated napkin ring. Image courtesy LiveAuctioneers.com Archive and Stephenson’s Auctions.
The replica Ishtar Gate in Babylon in 2004. The original gate to the inner city was constructed in about 575 B.C. by order of King Nebuchadnezzer II. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
BABYLON, Iraq (AP) – Nowadays it seems that Babylon just can’t catch a break.
Once the center of the ancient world, it has been despoiled in modern times by Saddam Hussein’s fantasies of grandeur, invading armies and village sprawl.
Now come two more setbacks for the city famous for its Hanging Gardens and Tower of Babel: Parts of its grounds have been torn up for an oil pipeline, and a diplomatic spat is hampering its bid for coveted UNESCO heritage status.
The pipeline was laid in March by Iraq’s Oil Ministry, overriding outraged Iraqi archaeologists and drawing a rebuke from UNESCO, the global guardian of cultural heritage.
Then Iraq’s tourism minister blocked official visits to the site by the World Monuments Fund, a New York-based group that is helping Babylon secure a World Heritage site designation after three rejections.
It’s payback for an unrelated dispute with the U.S. over the fate of Iraq’s Jewish archives, rescued from a waterlogged basement after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion and taken to the U.S.
“I will make Babylon a desolate place of owls, filled with swamps and marshes. I will sweep the land with the broom of destruction,” God warns in Isaiah 14:22-23.
Today desolation and destruction are all too evident.
Uncontrolled digging, paving and building have resulted from Saddam Hussein’s heavy-handed attempt to replicate the splendor of a city dating back nearly 4,000 years.
Since his downfall foreign troops have camped in parts of Babylon’s 10 square kilometers (four square miles). Growing villages are spilling onto its grounds and rising groundwater threatens the ancient mud brick ruins in the roughly 20 percent of its area that has been excavated over the past century.
“It’s a mess and there are a load of problems,” said Jeffrey Allen, a consultant for the World Monuments Fund. “A lot of this feeling you get from a major archaeological site is missing from Babylon.”
Babylon, straddling the Euphrates River some 55 miles south of Baghdad, was both a testament to human ingenuity and a symbol of false pride and materialism.
It produced two of the major kings of antiquity—Hammurabi, author of one of the world’s oldest written legal codes, and Nebuchadnezzar II, conqueror of Jerusalem in 597 B.C.
With towering temples and luxurious palaces, Babylon was transformed by Nebuchadnezzar into the largest city of its time. His Hanging Gardens, according to legend a multilevel horticultural gift to his homesick wife, was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.
Babylon is mentioned dozens of times in the Bible, which tells the story of Nebuchadnezzar’s destruction of the Jewish temple and enslavement of the Jews. Pop lyrics were inspired by the verse capturing the Jews’ pain of exile: “By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down and wept, when we remembered Zion” (Psalms 37-1).
Visitors would have to struggle to imagine the ancient city once nestled among date plantations.
There are still palms, but otherwise Saddam’s works overpower the scene—modern brick and mortar on brittle ruins, a wide thoroughfare and a new palace for the latter-day despot.
After he was toppled, coalition forces camped on the grounds for 20 months, according to a 2009 UNESCO report. It said they dug trenches, spread gravel and damaged parts of Babylon’s famed Ishtar Gate and the Processional Way.
The new oil pipeline runs 6 feet under Babylon for about a mile, alongside two other pipelines dug in the Saddam era.
The Oil Ministry says no artifacts were found during the digging, and that the new pipeline is needed to ease energy. Spokesman Assem Jihad said the ministry is looking for an alternative route, but needs time. “I think this issue was blown out of proportion,” he said.
The antiquities department has nonetheless sued the ministry, demanding it remove the pipeline. UNESCO said it wrote to the Iraqi authorities, expressing concern.
Meanwhile, the World Monuments Fund is trying to help authorities protect the ruins from rising groundwater caused by the government’s irrigation policies, said Allen, the group’s Babylon site manager.
The WMF is training Iraqi staff and helping to prepare Babylon’s bid for UNESCO recognition. Previously, the Saddam-era reconstructions were a major obstacle to getting the nod.
Allen said one option is to embrace some of Babylon’s flaws and nominate the site as a “cultural landscape,” which would include some of Saddam’s additions, such as his hilltop palace.
But now the WMF itself has fallen foul of officialdom. Iraq’s government decided several months ago to suspend ties with U.S. universities and institutions involved in archaeology in Iraq.
It’s part of a long-running dispute over the fate of the Iraqi Jewish archives. The trove of books, photos and religious items were found in Baghdad by U.S. troops and taken to the U.S. for study and preservation under an agreement with Iraqi authorities that stipulated they would be returned.
But Iraqi authorities grew impatient to get them back, and now Tourism Minister Liwa Smaysin alleges that the U.S. sent some of the artifacts to Israel for an exhibition, a claim denied both by the U.S. State Department and Israel’s Antiquities Authority. The U.S. says the archives will eventually be returned to Iraq.
Allen said he was recently prevented from visiting the site. WMF officials expressed hope the measures are temporary and that the group can continue some of its work.
Qais Rashid, head of Iraq’s State Board of Antiquities and Heritage, said the government also called off a U.S. training course for employees of the antiquities department.
“This is a big loss for us, the frozen relations,” he said.
But he also argued that Babylon will remain a top archaeological attraction, regardless of its formal designation.
“If it’s not listed, it’s not a big deal,” he said. “Babylon can survive on its own.”
___
Associated Press writers Sameer N. Yacoub and Mazin Yahya in Baghdad contributed reporting.
Copyright 2012 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
AP-WF-07-01-12 2210GMT
ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE
The replica Ishtar Gate in Babylon in 2004. The original gate to the inner city was constructed in about 575 B.C. by order of King Nebuchadnezzer II. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
Hemp rope was widely used in the age of sailing ships.This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported, 2.5 Generic, 2.0 Generic and 1.0 Generic license.
HOPKINSVILLE, Ky. (AP) – A private collection of equipment and memorabilia devoted to industrial hemp could someday be housed in a museum in Hopkinsville.
The president of the Kentucky Hemp Museum tells WKMS in Murray that she hopes to bring the collection to the far western Kentucky region known as the Jackson Purchase from its current home in Lexington.
Katie Moyer says the collection consists of various agricultural equipment and memorabilia. Kentucky once supplied 96 percent of the nation’s industrial hemp.
Moyer says industrial hemp is as much a part of Kentucky history as horses and Bluegrass.
___
Information from: WKMS-FM, http://www.wkms.org
Copyright 2012 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
AP-WF-07-02-12 0804GMT
ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE
Hemp rope was widely used in the age of sailing ships.This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported, 2.5 Generic, 2.0 Generic and 1.0 Generic license.
Dave Morrison in his 1944 Army tank retriever built by Pacific Foundry. Image submitted.
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. (AP) – When Dave Morrison started shopping around for a 1940s-era vehicle back in 2005, he knew he would need a place to keep it. So he built a 40-by-60-foot structure, with 14-foot-high ceilings, to park it in. A giant garage.
Two years later, leafing through a military magazine, the Bloomington man saw the vehicle of his dreams: a 38,000-pound 1944 tank retriever with a 1,090-cubic-inch motor and two 100-gallon gas tanks. It was 11 feet wide, 28 feet long and 12 feet high, counting the machine gun—it’s not real—mounted on top.
It had two transmissions, hydraulic brakes and was one of the first vehicles ever built with power steering.
Morrison fell in love, then traveled to Topeka, Kan., to buy it. When he pulled into the driveway at his house, the M26 tank retriever on a trailer, his wife had the same reaction he did when he saw the vehicle the first time in person.
“Wow, it’s big. What in the world have I done?”
He had purchased one of the three M26s—the largest vehicle the U.S. Army built during World War II—known to exist in the United States. Most of the others were left on battlefields in France and Germany during World War II, where their job was to haul Sherman tanks out of the mire.
Its top speed is 28 mph. It gets one mile per gallon.
Before building the garage at his property on Handy Road, Morrison drove to a military museum in Auburn, Ind., where a tank retriever like his is on display. He measured the giant thing, to make sure to build a big enough structure for parking, just in case he ever got one of his own.
Then he did.
In 2000, Morrison was on the sidelines at Bloomington’s Fourth of July parade. He was disheartened when he saw not one military vehicle go by. His father served in World War and his uncle died in the Battle of the Bulge. Morrison’s son Nick, a sergeant in the Marine Corps, served in Faluja, Iraq.
So Morrison started seeking out military vehicles, and has purchased a few. But the tank retriever is his favorite. He spent a few years restoring it, and had a friend take it out for a test drive.
“I’m the only guy who can drive it,” said semi truck driver Doug Banks.
The vehicle takes up more than its share of the roadway.
Look for Morrison’s tank retriever during Wednesday’s Independence Day parade in downtown Bloomington. It steps off at 10 a.m.
___
Information from: The Herald Times, http://www.heraldtimesonline.com
Copyright 2012 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
AP-WF-06-30-12 1952GMT
ADDITIONAL IMAGES OF NOTE
Dave Morrison in his 1944 Army tank retriever built by Pacific Foundry. Image submitted.Dave Morrison, in the passenger seat, leaves the driving to truck driver friend Doug Banks. The 11-foot-wide M26 tank retriever extends over the center line. Image submitted.Loading an M47 tank in Korea. Image submitted.
Emilio Sanchez Perrier (1855-1907), oil on board, 6 3/4 by 11 1/2 inches. Estimate: $15,000-$25,000. Slawinski Auction Co. image. SCOTTS VALLEY, Calif. – Slawinski Auction Co. will conduct a two-part Summer Estates Auction on Saturday, July 14. The sale will begin at 11 a.m. PDT at the Green Hills Event Center and will feature over 750 lots with an emphasis on fine art and Chinese antiques. LiveAuctioneers.com will provide Internet live bidding.
Highlighted in the auction is a selection of European painters including an Emilio Sanchez Perrier (1855-1907) oil on board landscape of a river, which is estimated $15,000-$25,000. Perrier was known for painting idyllic landscapes and particularly noted for his scenes of Venice.
Another highlighted painting is Jean Desire-Gustave Courbet’s (1819-1877) oil on canvas portrait. The unsigned painting is accompanied by the original purchase receipt from 1889 in the amount of $6,000 from M. Knoedler & Co., Fifth Avenue, New York, with a notation of Courbet on the sales slip. It is estimated at $8,000-$12,000.
Also noteworthy is a Henri Weigele (1858- 1927) carved marble figure of a seated nude with a height of 29 inches and an estimate of $12,000-$18,000. Weigele was a noteworthy sculptor of both bronze and marble. His bronze work is on display in the Musée d’Orsay in Paris.
Also to be sold in the first part of the estate sale is a large collection of American fine art, and decorative items including California painters such as Si Chen Yuan (1911-1974) oil on board, estimated at $5,000-$7,000; Astley David Middleton Cooper (1856-1924) oil on canvas of a landscape, estimated at $1,200-$1,800; and Carmel, Calif., painter Donald Teague (1897-1991) watercolor of boats, estimated at $4,000-$6,000.
There will also be sold some solid, 14-karat gold purses including a Tiffany and Co., French and American furniture, 18th century Georgian furniture, and a stunning early 20th century palace-size Persian rug measuring 14 feet by 24 feet.
The second half of the July 14 sale will feature a collection of Chinese art largely contributed by a single estate out of Carmel, Calif. The consignor amassed a collection from her world travels in the 1930s and ’40s through the Middle East and China aboard steamship liners.
Particularly beautiful is a pair of carved rosewood Chinese cabinets with stands, circa 19th century, estimated at $6,000-$9,000 for the pair. Another contribution to the Asian art sale comes from a consignor whose father served on Gen. Douglas McCarthy’s staff during World War II. The Chinese glazed bowel with figures, circa early 20th century and estimated at $1,200-$1,800 was brought back after the war and has remained in the consignor’s family until now.
Additionally, the auction house will be open for preview on Friday, July 13, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and before the auction Saturday, July 14, starting at 9 a.m. For more information about these pieces and others in the two-part Summer Estate and Asian Art auction visit www.slawinski.com or call 831-335-9000.
Emilio Sanchez Perrier (1855-1907), oil on board, 6 3/4 by 11 1/2 inches. Estimate: $15,000-$25,000. Slawinski Auction Co. image.
European oil on canvas attributed to Jean Desire-Gustave Courbet (1819-1877), accompanied by original purchase receipt from 1889 of $6,000 with notation of G. Courbet. Estimate $8,000-$12,000. Slawinski Auction Co. image.
