What perfect timing, I thought, to come across this article about the discovery of the oldest known brain in Britain, just as the days for An Archaeology of Wonder are dwindling away.
One of the most beautiful things about the discovery, at least as far as I can tell from the articles I read, is that it's of no neurological import. This will yield no significant information about the human brain, itself remaining essentially unchanged, they claim, in the last 2,000 years. So then, it's an object of auratic wonder - that thing which has somehow (and here's what they're trying to figure out) bent the rules of time and decay.
No other soft organs but it.
It was Randy who suggested, when I enthusiastically declared that I was "SO going to write a poem about this," that I make it a sestina. Good advice. I'm in the midst of mapping it out. How appropriate.
My notes...
2 comments:
This is fascinating...makes me think of the "bog prince" they discovered in the uk in the 80s. Did you ever read about that? They had archaeologists working with police forensics people to figure out what happened to him. A very gruesome three-point execution. I'll spare you the details, but they finally thought it was a done for druidic magical warfare against the romans. The Celts just kept fighting, baffled as to why the gods had abandoned them; no prophecy to convince them to lay down their weapons like the Maya had when Cortez rolled in...I want to see that poem when you finish. You owe me words! (wink)
fantastic sketches.
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