Garry's Blog

Bronowski's Easter Island I was helping with clearing a house of old books and the Jacob Bronowski book The Ascent of Man (1973) fell into my hands and it opened at a picture of Easter Island moai, on an ahu with two pages of text about Easter Island. It is a book about the BBC TV series of the same name. shown the same year. I vaguely remembered watching it. You can read about Bronowski here: Jacob Bronowski - Wikipedia   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Bronowski . He was a scholar on the history of science. The series and the book are mostly about that. “ He is best known for developing a humanistic approach to science, and as the presenter and writer of the th irteen-part 1973  BBC  television  documentary  series, and accompanying book,  The Ascent of Man , which led to his regard as "one of the world's most celebrated intellectuals". ” This is the quote which I read with some astonishment. “…   Even so primitive a culture as Easter Island made one tremendou

Conspiracy Theories Over the course of my career and interests I must have been part of three conspiracies. Poisoning the population with Fluoride in water supplies Suppressing evidence of pre-Maori arrivals in New Zealand Creating a new world order by undermining the West with climate change advocacy. Funnily enough while deeply engaged in these issues I was totally unaware of there being any conspiracy. Of course to believers that would only indicate I was a dupe. In the past week I can add a fourth. Apparently the New Zealand Archaeological Association Site Recording Scheme (SRS) and its on-line system Archsite ( http://www.archsite.org.nz/ ) have some nefarious purpose in hiding information about sites / making it available only to an inner circle. What piffle - (and if there was a conspiracy I had to have had a large part in creating it - for I was involved in its evolution to its present form). The whole purpose of the SRS was to make the existence of sites public s

Not archaeology but: 1769 The detailed publication in the 1950s and 60s of the diaries of the British voyagers to New Zealand reduced the heroic version of James Cook to one having a stain of violence to M ā ori. Since then evaluations here have been more nuanced, but a great navigator and mapmaker certainly. The earliest European voyages to New Zealand were met by Māori warriors. There were frequent challenges: Come ashore and we will eat you, was one. With all male crews what were the Māori to make of the ships? –   they were not obviously peaceful. While many contacts resulted in a peaceful exchange many did not. Of the contacts up to and including Cook’s third voyage, of one Dutch, three British and two French expeditions, crew members were killed by Māori on three of them. Retaliation was undertaken in all cases though Māori loss of life is only certain for one. Cook arriving later to one incident had the opportunity for further retaliation. To the dismay of his crew h

Notre Dame A beautiful cathedral - sadly gravely damaged. Its glory was always its superb location and exterior. These survive and from photographs the vaulting is somewhat damaged but let's hope not too severely. The spire should be an easy rebuild. There must have been a lot of small timbers in the roof for it to have burned like that - large timbers char and burn very slowly. The reconstruction can use timber, but it must be wisely and have protections that modern buildings have. For visitors to France do not be deterred. Sainte Chapelle and Saint Denis are still in Paris, even  Sacré-Cœur if you like the style  or at least the view if you don't. The  rest of France is well endowed with cathedrals. Avoiding the tourist crush at Notre Dame is perhaps a small plus.

U3A Papers : "U3A Papers I am a member of the Howick University of the Third Age and contribute to the Art and Science Groups. Below are some of the powerpoint presentations I have used. Art Four British war artists part 1 Four British war artists part 2 Italian Maiolica Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres Margaret Preston and Margaret Olley - two Australian artists Science Earth history from the bottom of the ocean Genetics into history Lidar and archaeology Radiometric Dating Spillways for dams" 'via Blog this'

Some years ago I bought a copy of Peter Buck's printed Cawthron Lecture - The Coming of the Maori.Tucked inside it was a printed postcard of two Maori men. It was not the usual subject for a Maori postcard - usually they were tourist scenes. The two intrigued me - the sitting one clearly of higher status and unusually well dressed for the period. It seemed an unlikely subject. The card was tucked onto a bookcase shelf and has sat their occasionally attracting my attention ever since, until I recently watched a Shipwreck TV programme about the 1863 wreck of the Delaware near Nelson. It was the well known story of the rescue of most of the crew by the "New Zealand Grace Darling" Huria Matenga. You can read her story and more on the wreck here:    http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~nzbound/delaware.htm    http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/1966/matenga-huria-te-amoho-wikitoria      http://www.theprow.org.nz/maori/maori-rescues/    http://www.teara.gov