Tag Archives: Museums

SciCoMove Training Session:  La experiencia de participar

By Emilia Mac Donagh, UNLP

Del 4 al 8 de Julio en el Museo de La Plata, se desarrolló el curso de posgrado “HISTORIA NATURAL, COLECCIONES, ARCHIVOS Y MUSEOS. SIGLOS XIX Y XX”. Como estudiante del doctorado en Ciencias Naturales de la Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo, me inscribí al curso, honestamente impulsada sólo por lo llamativo del título y la afinidad con mi tema de estudio. Ignoraba, al momento, que partía de la propuesta de un taller y un curso de formación de SciCoMove con título homónimo. Pero la sorpresa no pudo haber sido más grata.  La fusión de ambas instancias permitió a abrir las puertas de SciCoMove, y que personas con diferentes formaciones y de diferentes puntos de la Argentina pudiéramos dar un vistazo al trabajo que están realizando actualmente desde el proyecto.

Fue una ardua semana de trabajo e intercambios. El curso brindó exposiciones y testimonios de profesionales de diferentes lugares, como Suiza, Francia y Argentina.  Pero, sobre todo, estuvo marcado el fomento del diálogo y el intercambio, entre todas las personas que participan. Y esto incluye a las personas que lo estábamos tomando como curso de posgrado, a las docentes a cargo y a los doctorandos de SciCoMove. Debatir, compartir ideas y construir con personas de otras formaciones, de otros lugares representa una gran oportunidad para el crecimiento personal y profesional.

A lo largo de los encuentros las docentes del curso nos invitaron a revisar la historia de los museos, en general, y tomando como caso particular el Museo de La Plata, donde además nos encontrábamos físicamente. Estar allí no resultó menor a la hora de desglosar el relato del surgimiento de este espacio, y comprender que no es tan lineal y fluido como a veces se lo presenta.

Pudimos recorrer el museo, las muestras, los depósitos y el archivo. Para algunos implicaba conocer por primera vez el Museo y sus entrañas, aunque para otros representaba un espacio ya conocido, cotidiano, o hasta nuestro espacio de trabajo, develando nuevas connotaciones y posibilidades. El estudio y análisis de colecciones, los archivos y los objetos que forman o han formado pate de museos permite rever y repensar cómo se construyen hoy en día, y cómo se han construido históricamente las fronteras del campo científico. Desde allí el curso nos proponía una guía para ver qué (y quiénes) se conciben dentro de estos límites, pero también cómo estos últimos se reformulan constantemente.

Uno de los aspectos que más me fascinó del curso fue la propuesta de concebir a los objetos, que se hallan en los museos, como artefactos. Este es uno de los pilares del Proyecto SciCoMove para el estudio del movimiento de estos objetos. Por mi formación de gado, estaba familiarizada con la aplicación más tradicional que el concepto artefacto posee para la arqueología. “Artefacto” suele usarse en oposición a lo que se piensa prístino e intacto. Así, cualquier cosa que presente signos de haber estado expuesto a algún tipo de trabajo -acción- humano, se convierte en artefacto. Las herramientas halladas en un contexto arqueológico, por supuesto que encajan fácilmente en esta clasificación. Ahora, la parte más interesante llega cuando intentamos definir qué es “acción humana”, y cómo impacta en los objetos.

Algún tiempo atrás, un amigo arqueólogo me había revelado que este concepto posee muchas más posibilidades, el mismo insinuaba en un trabajo que los suelos y los estratos donde se hallan los restos arqueológicos pueden ser vistos como artefactos también. Encuentro esto de alguna forma relacionado con lo que se planteaba en el curso. Como los suelos, los “objetos naturales” que comúnmente encontramos en los museos, suelen concebirse como una parte de la naturaleza expuestas en las muestras, o salvaguardadas en las colecciones. Podríamos, por ejemplo, pesar en un fragmento de hueso de dinosaurio entonces. Probablemente fue excavado, extraído, reacondicionado, colocado en una posición particular de a cuerdo a una estructura ósea particular, y presentado en una habitación, cargada con conjeturas sobre el mismo. Todos esos procedimientos involucran cambios en los objetos, incluso si persiguen fines de preservación. Al pensarlo, clasificar, ordenar cronológicamente, restaurar, reconstruir, y todo el resto de las acciones que se llevan a cabo con el trabajo en museos y con colecciones, son acciones puramente humanas. Y lo mismo aplica apara cualquier tipo de objeto, sin importar que tan “natural” o “cultural” creamos que sea, desde el momento en el que un objeto pasa a ser algo recolectado, categorizado, guardado, etc. pasa a estar conceptualizado. Y esa es la clave para empezar a hablar de artefactos, porque dar significado es una de las acciones humanas más básicas.

Desde una perspectiva histórica, con ejemplos de estudios de caso, y en línea con los objetivos del proyecto SciCoMove, el curso pretendía dejar, en evidencia que a la hora de construir conocimiento científico ningún hombre o mujer de ciencia actúa sólo. Ni en el pasado, ni hoy en día.

Al empezar la semana, Irina Podgorny (una de las docentes a cargo del curso) nos insistió en que dejáramos de lado las barreras idiomáticas y aprovecháramos la ocasión para conocer a otras personas y hasta incluso “hacernos amigos”. Siguiendo su consejo, vimos como lo largo de la semana, las charlas conceptuales y teóricas terminaban filtrándose fuera del aula y seguían en los bares. No hay mejor comprobante empírico que este del rol que juega lo colectivo, la compañía y el encuentro para la generación de conocimiento.

Mi relación con los museos se remonta ya a un tiempo atrás. Estudie la licenciatura en antropología en la Facultad de Ciencias Naturales de la UNLP, que está asociada al Museo de La Plata. Mi especialización en comunicación pública de la ciencia, influyó en que actualmente para mi doctorado me centre en y considere a los museos como espacios de comunicación de ciencia, además de salvaguarda del patrimonio, y sobre como problematizar esto en el marco de la construcción de conocimiento científico. Entendiendo esto, fue una experiencia muy valiosa y gratificante haber participado del curso, con la oportunidad de entrar en contacto del proyecto SciCoMove.

Estudié Antropología en la Facultad de Ciencias Naturales de la Universidad Nacional de La Plata, donde actualmente soy docente. En 2022 terminé una Diplomatura universitaria en Comunicación Pública de la Ciencia, en la UniCen. Actualmente cuento con una beca doctoral de la UNLP, con lugar de trabajo en el Laboratorio de Investigaciones Etnográficas Aplicadas, bajo la dirección de Gabriela Morgante (LINEA UNLP-CIC) y la co-dirección de Mariano Bonomo (Diisión Arqueología, Museo de La Plata). Mi tesis se centra en los museos como espacios para comunicación y construcción colectiva de conocimiento, así como para la puesta en valor del patrimonio, en la localidad de Molinos (Valles Calchaquíes, Salta).

Poster Award 2022: “Natural history, collections, archives and museums in 19-20th centuries”

During the Training Session in La Plata in July 2022, its participants took part in a poster competition. Divided into five groups and given exciting topics to explore, as well as some guidelines on what constitutes a visually appealing poster, they embarked on the journey of concise writing and visual communication.

The results were varied and reflected vividly the creativity and imagination of each group. The same stands true for the discussions that followed the presentations of the posters. Choosing the winner was not easy and the elaborations lasted for much longer than the planned one hour. It was so difficult that it led to the jury renouncing on the idea of selecting only one winner so each poster was celebrated for its qualities and each group received congratulations from the teaching staff.

La moda de los canastos de armadillo

Por Susana V. García, CONICET-Museo de La Plata

Entre las colecciones zoológicas del Museo de Ciencias Naturales de Barcelona se encuentra una canasta de armadillo, inventariada con el número MZB 99-1252. Fue donada en 1999, junto con otros especímenes zoológicos, y había sido comprada una década antes en un mercadillo de la ciudad. Este tipo de objeto, más frecuente en museos de curiosidades o de etnografía, fue aceptado en donación como un reservorio de datos genéticos. La canasta esta confeccionada con la coraza, la cabeza y la cola de un animal propio de Sudamérica: el llamado “peludo” en las pampas argentinas o “quirquincho grande” en las regiones andinas (Chaetophractus villosus). Este animal, se encuentra en Argentina, el “Gran Chaco” de Paraguay y Bolivia, y sur de Chile, y es una de las 22 especies que forman el orden de mamíferos conocidos como armadillos o tatúes (Cingulata) (Gallo, Superina y Abba, 2022). Los ejemplares disecados de armadillos o sus corazas y colas secas, fáciles de conservar y transportar, tienen una larga historia en los gabinetes y museos europeos desde principios del siglo XVI (Egmond y Mason, 1994, Podgorny, 2012). Recordemos, por ejemplo, que sesenta años después del arribo de Colón a América, se podían encontrar ejemplares en el mercado de Constantinopla según observó el naturalista francés Pierre Belon (Belon, 1588). La historia de estos ejemplares en diversas colecciones privadas – y luego museos estatales – remite, en gran medida, a las redes comerciales, las prácticas coleccionistas y las modas por nuevos objetos curiosos y coleccionables. Las “canastas de armadillo” ilustran estas interacciones.

Hacia el 1900 se generó una nueva industria alrededor de los armadillos: la confección de canastos que se vendieron como “curiosidades” y circularon alrededor del mundo. El negocio fue comenzado por inmigrantes europeos familiarizados en la preparación de cestos o pieles, buscando aplicar sus saberes a las materias primas que encontraban en América y tal vez inspirados en artefactos indígenas. En Texas se desarrolló una floreciente industria alrededor del armadillo de nueve bandas (Dasypus novemcinctus), un animal relativamente nuevo para la fauna texana, ya que comenzó a llegar al territorio norteamericano en la segunda mitad del siglo XIX ligado a la acción humana. La empresa más conocida fue la iniciada hacia 1898 por el migrante alemán, Charles Apelt, una década después de radicarse en Comfort, Texas (Smith y Doughty, 1984). Aplicando su experiencia en la manufactura de cestos, Apelt abrió una fábrica de canastas de armadillo en 1898, vendiendo más de 40.000 cestas en sus primeros 6 años en Estados Unidos y otras partes del mundo. Campesinos e indígenas de la frontera con México proveyeron miles de ejemplares para la fabricación de canastos y también para vender como mascotas (Newman, 1913). Tiempo después, la empresa pudo mantener y reproducir estos animales en cautiverio y formar una granja de armadillo. El negocio se extendió a la producción de lámparas y otros objetos decorativos con estos animales, así como a la provisión de ejemplares vivos para jardines zoológicos y laboratorios científicos (Smith y Doughty, 1984). La Apelt Armadillo Company and Farm, continuada por miembros de la familia estuvo activa por siete décadas. El negocio declinó a inicios de la década de 1970, aunque los cestos de armadillo siguieron circulando en las casas de objetos de arte, anticuarios y mercadillos.

Propaganda de la compañía Apelt Armadillo

El cesto conservado en el Museo de Ciencias Naturales de Barcelona, fabricado con una especie particular de Sudamérica que no se encuentra naturalmente en México ni Texas, nos muestra que este tipo de emprendimientos estuvo presente en otras partes del continente americano. En Buenos Aires, por ejemplo, un taxidermista italiano que arribó a la Argentina en 1894, se presentaba unos años después como “inventor y fabricante de canastos de armadillo”. Su negocio, al igual que el de otros taxidermistas de la época, abarcaba la preparación de las pieles de otros animales para distintos fines: alfombras, peletería, adornos y ejemplares embalsamados para las colecciones de estancieros, coleccionistas, colegios y museos. En esa época, la carne de armadillo, al igual que en otras partes de América, era un plato muy popular lo que era muy fácil conseguir cientos de ejemplares en el mercado de Buenos Aires (García, 2008). Hacia 1910, los canastos de armadillo junto con fotografías, pieles de jaguar y mates de calabaza, eran los pocos souvenirs locales que podían adquirir los turistas como recuerdo de la visita a la capital argentina, tal como relató el naturalista norteamericano William Jacob Holland, director del Museo Carnegie de Pittsburgh. Holland visitó la Argentina en 1912 para armar el calco del Diplodocus carneggi en el Museo de La Plata y se volvió con varios de esos canastos, después de varios días de buscar recuerdos locales:

“Pasé cierto tiempo tratando de reunir souvenirs. Al igual que en Bahía, en Buenos Aires eso me resultó difícil. Aunque en las tiendas se exhibía una gran cantidad de hermosos objetos de plata, bronce, cristalería, porcelana y artículos de lujo, que eran a la vez útiles y atractivos a la vista, todos ellos eran cosas hechas en Europa o Norteamérica, y podían comprarse mucho más baratos en Pittsburgh, o incluso en Nueva York. Un amigo que estaba empeñado en la misma tarea, me informó que todo lo que había logrado encontrar, que en cualquier sentido podría considerarse como característico del país, y por lo tanto adecuado para ser recuerdos de un viaje, eran fotografías, mates de calabazas, cestas de armadillo y pieles de jaguar. Había descubierto un lugar donde se vendían estas cosas y me guió hasta el lugar. Los pobres armadillos […] se venden en los mercados como alimento. […] El uso más curioso que se le da a estas pobres criaturas es convertir sus corazas en cestas. La boca es abierta y el extremo de la cola se introduce en ella, formando así el asa de la cesta, mientras que el caparazón hueco sirve de receptáculo. El caparazón está forrado de seda. Compré varios como recuerdo.”(Holland,1913).

Cesta de armadillo que se vendía en Buenos Aires en 1912 (Holland, 1913)

El comercio de canastos de armadillo continuó muy activo en la década de 1920, constituyendo parte de la industria “nacional” o regional de souvenirs de varios países americanos. Por esa época, cientos de armadillos eran capturados y preparados por indígenas del Chaco y los canastos se vendían en casas de taxidermia y de objetos de arte de Buenos Aires. También se producían en el Estado de São Paulo (Brasil), mientras abundaban en mercadillos de Berlín.  Queda para futuras investigaciones determinar hasta qué punto la moda por estos objetos promocionados en las exposiciones internacionales y catálogos, cuya fabricación a gran escala fue emprendida por inmigrantes europeos en América, fomentó una nueva artesanía entre las comunidades indígenas, vendida como recuerdo a los turistas o como objetos etnográficos para los museos de la segunda parte del siglo XX. Actualmente estos canastos se pueden adquirir en internet como objetos vintage o curiosidades con un valor que puede llegar a ser cien veces más alto que en la década de 1920, cuando se ofrecían como regalos para navidad o souvenirs para viajeros.  Los canastos de armadillos constituyen un ejemplo más de las distintas capas de historias entrecruzadas, emprendimientos comerciales, circulación y modas que esconden las piezas de muchos museos.

Agradecimientos

Agradezco a Eulalia García Franquesa, Jefa de colecciones, y a Javier Quesada, Conservador de Vertebrados, del Museo Ciencias Naturales de Barcelona por la consulta y datos de cesta de armadillo. También a Agustín M. Abba, especialista en armadillos e investigador del CONICET (Argentina) por la determinación y la información sobre esta especie.

Referencias bibliográficas

BELON, Pierre, Les observations de plusieurs singularitez & choses memorables, trouuées en Grece, Asie, Iudée, Egypte, Arabie, & autres pays estranges, redigées en trois liures, Par Pierre Belon du Mans. Reueuz de nouueau & augmentez de figures. Paris : Guillaume Cauellat, 1588.

FLORIKE, Egmond  y MASON, Peter, “Armadillos in Unlikely Places. Some Unpublished Sixteenth-Century Sources for New World “Rezeptionsgeschichte” in Northern Europe”, Ibero-amerikanisches Archiv, vol. 20, n° 1/2 ,1994, pp. 3-52.

GALLO, Jorge A., SUPERINA, Mariella y ABBA, Agustín M., Chaetophractus villosus (Xenarthra, Chlamyphoridae), Mammalian Species, vol. 54, n° 1014, 2022, pp:186–201.

GARCÍA, Susana V. “Especies locales, mercado y transporte en las investigaciones embriológicas: el estudio de la poliembrionía en armadillos a principios del siglo XX”,  História, Ciências, Saúde – Manguinhos, vol.15, n° 3, 2008, pp.697-717.

HOLLAND, W. To the River Plate and back: the narrative of a scientific mission to South America, with observations upon things seen and suggested, New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1913.

NEWMAN, Horatio H. “The natural history of the nine-banded armadillo de Tejas”, American Naturalist, vol.47, n° 561, 1913, pp.513- 546.

PODGORNY, Irina. “Los conejos de calabaza”, en: El mundo atlántico y la modernidad americana, México: RGM. 2012, p. 222 – 237.

naturalis.fcnym.unlp.edu.ar/repositorio/_documentos/sipcyt/bfa004253.pdf

SMITH, Larry L. y DOUGHTY, Robin W., The Amazing Armadillo: Geography of a Folk Critter, University of Texas Press, 1984.

Armadillo basket fashion

By Susana V. García, CONICET-Museo de La Plata

Among the zoological collections of the Museum of Natural Sciences of Barcelona, there is an armadillo basket, inventoried with the number MZB 99-1252. It was donated in 1999, along with other zoological specimens, and had been purchased a decade earlier at a street market in the city. This type of object, more frequently found in ethnographic, antiquities or curiosity museums, was accepted as a donation as a reservoir of genetic data. This basket is made from the armour, head and tail of an animal native to South America: the large hairy armadillo (Chaetophractus villosus),  called “peludo” in the Argentine pampas or “quirquincho grande” in other regions. This animal is found in Argentina (with a wide distribution), the “Gran Chaco” of Bolivia and Paraguay, and southern Chile.  It is one of 22 species of the order of mammals known as armadillos or tatúes(Cingulata) (Gallo, Superina y Abba, 2022). Dried armadillo carapaces and tails or stuffed specimens, easy to preserve and transport, have a long history in European cabinets and museums since the early 16th century (Egmond y Mason, 1994, Podgorny, 2012). It is interesting to mention, for example, that sixty years after Columbus’ arrival in America, armadillos could be found in the Constantinople market, as the French naturalist Pierre Belon observed (Belon, 1588). The history of these specimens in various private collections – and later state museums – is in large part a reflection of trade networks, collecting practices and fashions for new curiosities and collectibles. The “armadillo baskets” illustrate these interactions.

Around 1900 a new industry was generated around armadillos: the making of baskets. These were sold as “curiosities” or souvenirs and circulated around the world. The business was started by European immigrants with experience in the preparation of baskets or skins, seeking to apply their knowledge to the raw materials they found in America and perhaps inspired by indigenous artefacts. In Texas, a flourishing industry has developed around the nine-banded armadillo (Dasypus novemcinctus), a relatively new animal to the Texas fauna, which began to arrive in North America in the second half of the 19th century linked to human activity. The best-known enterprise was started by German immigrant Charles Apelt, a decade after he settled in Comfort, Texas. Applying his knowledge of basket making, Charles Apelt opened an armadillo basket factory in 1898, selling over 40,000 baskets in his first 6 years in the United States and other parts of the world (Smith y Doughty, 1984). Farmers and indigenous people from the Mexican border provided thousands of specimens for basket making and also for sale as pets (Newman, 1913). Some time later, the Apelt company was able to keep and breed these animals in captivity and form an armadillo farm. The business extended to the production of lamps and other decorative objects with these animals, as well as the supply of live specimens for zoological gardens and scientific laboratories (Smith y Doughty, 1984). The Apelt Armadillo Company and Farm, continued by family members, was active for around seven decades. The business declined in the early 1970s, although armadillo baskets continued to circulate in antique and curiosity shops and street markets.

Advertising of Apelt Armadillo Company

The basket preserved in the Museum of Natural Sciences of Barcelona, made from a particular South American species not found naturally in Mexico or Texas, shows that this type of enterprise was present in other parts of the American continent. In Buenos Aires, for example, an Italian taxidermist who arrived in Argentina in 1894, presented himself a few years later as “inventor and manufacturer of armadillo baskets”. His business, like that of other taxidermists of the time, included the preparation of animal skins for various purposes: carpets, fur, ornaments for ladies and gentlemen, and embalmed specimens for the collections of wealthy landowners, schools and museums. At that time, armadillo meat, as in other parts of America, was a very popular dish and hundreds of specimens were readily available in the Buenos Aires market (García, 2008). By 1910, armadillo baskets, along with photographs, jaguar skins and mate-gourds, were the few local souvenirs that travellers could buy in Buenos Aires, as American naturalist William Jacob Holland, director of the Carnegie Museum of Pittsburgh, recounted. Holland visited Argentina in 1912 to assemble the Diplodocus carneggi cast in the La Plata Museum and returned with several armadillo baskets, after several days of searching for local souvenirs:

“A certain amount of time was spent in endeavouring to pick up souvenirs. As at Bahia, so in Buenos Aires, I found this difficult. While there was displayed in the shops an abundance of beautiful silverware, bronzes, glassware, porcelain, and articles de luxe, which were at once useful and attractive to the eye, all of these were things made in Europe or North America, and could be purchased far more cheaply in Pittsburgh, or even in New York. A friend bent upon the same errand, who had the same thought, informed me that all which he had succeeded in finding, which in any sense might be regarded as characteristic of the country, and therefore fit to be souvenirs of a visit, were photographs, mate-gourds, armadillo-baskets, and jaguar-skins. He had discovered a place where these things were for sale, and he guided me to the spot. The poor little armadillos […] are sold in the markets as food. […] The most curious use to which these poor creatures are put is to convert their carapaces into baskets. The mouth is opened and the end of the tail is inserted into it, thus forming the handle of the basket, while the hollow carapace serves as a receptacle. The carapace is lined with silk. I bought several as souvenirs” (Holland,1913).

Hairy Armadillo basket sold in Buenos Aires in 1912 (Holland, 1913)

The trade in armadillo baskets continued to be very active in the 1920s, constituting part of the “national” or regional souvenir industry of several American countries. At that time, hundreds of armadillos were captured and prepared by indigenous people from the Chaco and the baskets were sold in taxidermy and art object shops in Buenos Aires. They were also produced in the state of São Paulo, Brazil, while they were also offered at street markets in Berlin.  It remains for future research to determine to what extent the fashion for these objects promoted in international exhibitions and catalogues, whose large-scale manufacture was undertaken by European immigrants in America, fostered a new craftsmanship among indigenous communities, sold as souvenirs to tourists or as ethnographic objects for museums in the second part of the 20th century. Today these baskets can be purchased on the internet as vintage objects or curiosities with a value that can be a hundred times higher than in the 1920s, when they were offered as Christmas gifts or as souvenirs to travellers.  Armadillo baskets are an example of the many layers of intertwined stories, commercial ventures, movements and fashions that lie behind the objects of many museums.

Acknowledgments

I am gratful to Eulalia García Franquesa, Head of Collections, and Javier Quesada, Curator of Vertebrates, of the Natural Sciences Museum of Barcelona for the consultation and data on this piece. I thank Agustín M. Abba, Armadillo specialist and researcher at CONICET (Argentina), for this determination and the information on this species.

Bibliographic references

BELON, Pierre, Les observations de plusieurs singularitez & choses memorables, trouuées en Grece, Asie, Iudée, Egypte, Arabie, & autres pays estranges, redigées en trois liures, Par Pierre Belon du Mans. Reueuz de nouueau & augmentez de figures. Paris : Guillaume Cauellat, 1588.

FLORIKE, Egmond and MASON, Peter, “Armadillos in Unlikely Places. Some Unpublished Sixteenth-Century Sources for New World “Rezeptionsgeschichte” in Northern Europe”, Ibero-amerikanisches Archiv, vol. 20, n° 1/2, 1994, pp. 3-52.

GALLO, Jorge A., SUPERINA, Mariella and ABBA, Agustín M., Chaetophractus villosus (Xenarthra, Chlamyphoridae), Mammalian Species, vol. 54, n° 1014, 2022, pp:186–201.

GARCÍA, Susana V. “Especies locales, mercado y transporte en las investigaciones embriológicas: el estudio de la poliembrionía en armadillos a principios del siglo XX”,  História, Ciências, Saúde – Manguinhos, vol.15, n°3, 2008, pp.697-717.

HOLLAND, W. To the River Plate and back: the narrative of a scientific mission to South America, with observations upon things seen and suggested, New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1913.

NEWMAN, Horatio H. “The natural history of the nine-banded armadillo de Tejas”,.American Naturalist, vol. 47, n° 561, 1913, pp.513- 546..

PODGORNY,  Irina. “Los conejos de calabaza”, en: El mundo atlántico y la modernidad americana, México: RGM. 2012, p. 222 – 237.

naturalis.fcnym.unlp.edu.ar/repositorio/documentos/sipcyt/bfa004253.pdf

SMITH, Larry L. and DOUGHTY, Robin W., The Amazing Armadillo: Geography of a Folk Critter, University of Texas Press, 1984.

An iridescent pendant made with beetle’s elytra

By Adriana E. MarvaldiCONICET/División Entomología del Museo de La Plata, Argentina

The beetles, insects of the Order Coleoptera, are distinguished by the presence of elytra. This is the fundamental feature that defines the largest and most diverse group of animals on Earth (Lawrence and Newton 1982). The elytra (singular, elytron) are the hardened, sclerotized fore wings, evolutionarily modified as a protective case that covers the hind wings (those used to fly) and dorsum of the abdomen when at rest. The beetles and their elytra come in all sorts of shapes, sizes, textures, and colors. Many species of beetles, from several different families, look like jewels because of their iridescent structural colors, a visual phenomenon resulting from the interaction of light with the nanostructures of the integument that changes color according to the viewing angle (Seago et al. 2009; Saranathan et al. 2015). No wonder that in so many cultures, of all times and all around the world, iridescent beetles and their parts are integrated into ornaments full of beauty and symbolism.

For an entomologist, with a special interest in beetles, a set of dozens of sparkling, green elytra assembled into a strip immediately catches the eye. An object like this was noticed, rather unexpectedly, leaning on a shelf of the archaeological-ethnographic collection of the Americas at BASA-Museum of Bonn. The cultural and natural environments from which it comes were intriguing and to figure them out would require some research. At first sight, it had no tag attached, but a closer look revealed the inventory information written in the underside of one elytron (BASA Inv.-No. 5724). In the Museum´s inventory Book the number led to a succinct description of the object: “Ketteanhänger aus Insekten Panzern mit Federn (rot/gelb) am Ende” [Chain pendant made of insect armor with feathers (red/yellow) at the end]. In the last column, the object is attributed, with doubts, to the collection “Jankausky (?)”.

Located on another shelf, a few steps away from the drawer holding the pendant made of beetle’s elytra, there it was an entire beetle exemplar, exhibited as an object with an inventory tag attached to one of its legs (BASA Inv. –No. Hm35). A giant insect of more than 60 mm long and 25 mm wide, with iridescent integument showing hues from green to purple particularly in the elytra. Its shape and general aspect indicated with certainty its membership to the Buprestids, a family of Coleoptera which are commonly called “jewel beetles”. Observation of additional details suggests it is the species Euchroma gigantean (Linnaeus), a wood borer beetle inhabiting the Neotropical rain forests, and considered the largest buprestid of South America. Without further collection data, a direct link of this “object” with the previous one could not be established. But it was tempting to do an association because, as it will be explained later, beetles of this species are among the main sources of the gleaming elements that people from the Amazonian lowlands use to create ornaments.

The characteristics observed in object No. 5724 indicate it is one of the typical ear pendants made by the Jivaroan people (e.g., Shuar and Achuar) from the Amazon lowlands between Ecuador and Peru (Rivers 2003; AMNH 2017). People from the Amazon Basin are known for their variety of personal ornaments that they wear for special occasions, made with materials taken from their natural environment, like colorful bird feathers, little stones, seeds, plant fibers, and iridescent beetle elytra. The wing covers (elytra) of two different beetles have been documented to be used in the elaboration of their ornaments: Euchroma gigantean (Linnaeus) from the family Buprestidae and Chrysophora chysochlora (Latreille) from the Scarabaeidae. In object No. 5724 from BASA, the elytra from its upper part are longitudinally striate, greenish shimmering purple and gold, and longer and more flat than the elytra strung on the rest of the pendant, which are shorter, apically more curved, and strikingly sparkling green colored with a thickly punctuated texture. The former elytra are most likely from buprestids, and the latter, from scarabs.

This was a short story about a lucky day for a coleopterist visiting an ethnographic collection. In the end, it looks like the elytra are meant to provide beauty and protection, not only to the beetles.

References

AMNH. 2017. Beetle-Wing Body Art: Shuar Ear Ornaments. https://www.amnh.org/explore/news-blogs/from-the-collections-posts/beetle-wing-body-art-shuar-ear-ornaments.

Lawrence, J F & Newton, Jr. AF. 1982. Evolution and Classification of Beetles. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics, 13 (1): 261-290.

Rivers, VZ. 2003. Emeralds on wings: Jewel beetles in textiles and adornment. Pp. 163-174. In Motte-Florace, E. and Thomas, J. M. C. (Eds.) Les ‘insectes’ dans la tradition orale/ Insects in oral literature and traditions. Paris: Peeters.

Saranathan V, Seago AE, Sandy A, Narayanan S, Mochrie SGJ, Dufresne ER, Cao H, Osuji CO, Prum RO. 2015. Structural diversity of arthropod biophotonic nanostructures spans amphiphilic phase-space. Nano Lett. 15, 3735-3742 (doi:10.1021/acs.nanolett.5b00201).

Seago AE, Brady P, Vigneron J-P, Schultz TD. 2009. Gold bugs and beyond: a review of iridescence and structural colour mechanisms in beetles (Coleoptera). J. R. Soc. Interface 6, S165-S184 (doi:10.1098/rsif.2008.0354.focus).

Irina Podgorny, Silvano Montaldo and Nathalie Richard at the museums of Luján

On 10 December 2021, the three researchers went to present SciCoMove at the Historical Museum and the Ameghino House in Luján.

The Complejo Museográfico Provincial Enrique Udaondo incorporates the Museo Colonial e Histórico, which has a very interesting history. Founded by Enrique Udaondo (1880–1962) in 1918, this museum grew out of the transformation of its founder’s private collection into a public one; later its collections have been expanded through numerous donations and purchases of other private collections gathered by national history amateurs. Udaondo himself is quite a representative of amateur scholars, who collected the past often in a troubled political context and with partisan intentions. Belonging to the conservative circles, he collected traces of Argentina’s “colonial” past and did not radically oppose this past to the history of Argentina after its independence (María Elida Blasco, Un museo para la colonia. El Museo Histórico y Colonial de Luján, Rosario, Prohistoria ediciones, 2011). This scholar can be compared to his French counterparts who collected traces of France’s pre-revolutionary past after 1789 and whose private collections often enriched national or local public museums, such as the Musée Carnavalet in Paris (see Tom Stammers, The Purchase of the Past: Collecting Culture in Post-Revolutionary Paris c.1790–1890, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2020). Exchanges with the museum’s management team were very productive and allowed to widen the reach of the SciCoMove project. The Historical Museum might be interested in the virtual exhibition prototype that will be produced at the end of the project, as well as in the MOOC for its staff.

From left to right: Mauricio Cano, Viviana Melloni de Mallol, Irina Podgorny, Nathalie Richard and Silvano Montaldo

Luján is also the city where the family of the naturalist Florentino Ameghino (1853–1911), coming from Italy, settled when he was still an infant. This paleontologist, author of a theory that made Argentina the cradle of the human species, was transformed into an Argentine national hero (Irina Podgorny, “Florentino Ameghino entre Luján et Moscou (1911–1954)”, Revue d’histoire des sciences humaines, 36/2020, 79-102, https://doi.org/10.4000/rhsh.4654; Irina Podgorny, Florentino Ameghino y Hermanos, Buenos Aires, Edhasa, 2021). His family home has become a small museum. The SciCoMove researchers met the museum team, and Irina Podgorny and Nathalie Richard were interviewed for a video dedicated to Ameghino on the city’s website. This visit was an opportunity to present the SciCoMove project and the local press reported on it.

Irina Podgorny at the Maison Ameghino

Irina Podgorny, Silvano Montaldo et Nathalie Richard aux musées de Luján

Le 10 décembre, les trois chercheurs sont allés présenter SciCoMove au Musée historique et à la Maison Ameghino de Luján.

De gauche à droite : Mauricio Cano, Viviana Melloni de Mallol, Irina Podgorny, Nathalie Richard et Silvano Montaldo

Le Complejo Museográfico Provincial Enrique Udaondo intègre un Museo Colonial e Histórico dont l’histoire est très intéressante. Fondé par Enrique Udaondo (1880-1962) en 1918, ce musée historique est issu de la transformation de la collection privée de son fondateur en collection publique et ses collections se sont accrues grâce à de nombreux dons ou achats de collections privées rassemblées par des amateurs d’histoire nationale. Udaondo lui-même est tout à fait représentation des érudits amateurs, qui collectionnent le passé, souvent dans un contexte politique troublé et avec des intentions partisanes. Appartenant aux milieux conservateurs, il collectionne les traces du passé « colonial » de l’Argentine et n’oppose pas radicalement ce passé à l’histoire de l’Argentine après son indépendance (María Elida Blasco, Un museo para la colonia. El Museo Histórico y Colonial de Luján, Rosario, Prohistoria ediciones, 2011). Cet érudit conservateur peut être comparés à ceux qui, en France, ont collecté les traces du passé prérévolutionnaire après 1789 et dont les collections privées sont venues enrichir souvent les musées publics nationaux ou locaux, tel le Musée Carnavalet à Paris (voir Tom Stammers, The Purchase of the Past: Collecting Culture in Post-Revolutionary Paris c. 1790–1890, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2020). Les échanges avec l’équipe de direction du Musée ont été très enrichissant et ont permis de faire connaître SciCoMove à ce musée qui pourrait être intéressé par le prototype d’exposition virtuelle qui sera produit en fin de projet, et par le Mooc pour son personnel.

Luján est aussi la ville où la famille du naturaliste Florentino Ameghino (1853-1911), venue d’Italie, s’est établie alors qu’il était encore un nourrisson. Ce paléontologue, auteur d’une théorie qui fait de l’Argentine le berceau de l’espèce humaine, a été érigé en héros national argentin (Irina Podgorny, « Florentino Ameghino entre Luján et Moscou (1911-1954) », Revue d’histoire des sciences humaines [En ligne], 36 | 2020, 79-102, https://doi.org/10.4000/rhsh.4654 ; Florentino Ameghino y Hermanos, Buenos Aires, Edhasa, 2021). Sa maison famille a été transformée en petit musée. Les chercheurs du projet ont été reçu par l’équipe en charge de cette structure, et Irina Podgorny et Nathalie Richard ont été interviewées afin d’intégrer leurs propos dans une vidéo consacrée à Ameghino qui sera valorisée sur le site de la ville. Cette visite a été l’occasion de présenter le projet SciCoMove et la presse locale en a rendu compte.

Irina Podgorny à la Maison Ameghino

Museo de La Plata as the centerpiece of the SciCoMove

Museo de La Plata as an affiliated entity of the Universidad Nacional de La Plata is an important partner of the SciCoMove project. It holds an important collection of around 4 million pieces and specimens, most of them from Argentina and other South American countries. Moreover, the Museo is also a home to an archive that preserves the documents helping in research on the history of science.

Francisco P. Moreno, the founder and the first director of the Museo de La Plata. Photograph by Nathalie Richard.

On 7 December 2021, the team of the Museo de La Plata and the co-coordinators of the SciCoMove project, Nathalie Richard and Irina Podgorny, discussed the work to be done, research to be carried and the secondments to be implemented both to and from the museum.

Researchers Susana V. García, Alejandro Martínez, Ana Carolina Arias, Adriana Marvaldi, Guadalupe del Río, Sara Montemayor, as well as Analía Lanteri (Director of the Museo), Mariela Amor (architect qnd photographer) et Abogada Agostina Curcio (Directora of the Department of International Relations of the Universidad Nacional de La Plata) were present at the meeting which took place in a magnificent Council Chamber of the museum.

First SciCoMove secondments to La Plata (November-December 2021)

Nathalie Richard (Le Mans University), and Silvano Montaldo (Lombroso Museum, University of Turin) are now in La Plata.

Cast Skeleton of Diplodocus Carnegii, Museo De La Plata, Argentina (photograph by S. Montaldo).

Silvano Montaldo is working, with the help of the anthropology and Museum Archive teams at La Plata, on the circulation of Cesare Lombroso’s ideas on physical anthropology and criminology in Argentina (case study). He discovered some interesting archives in the La Plata Police Museum. This museum keeps the archives of Juan Vucetich, who devised a system of fingerprint identification in the 1890’s, and was in contact with Lombroso.

Nathalie Richard is working with the La Plata Museum team and the team at the Museum Archive, on communication and dissemination. She helps planning the training session on “archives and collections”, designed for PhD students (July 4-8 2022). Together with the La Plata teams, she is selecting interesting specimens and archive files, attesting to the circulation of collections between Europe and Argentina, which could be included in the mooc and the digital exhibition.

Sweating pots

By Irina Podgorny, CONICET/Archivo Histórico del Museo de La Plata, Argentina

This story begins in a warehouse of the FAMILLE Association, SOLIDARITÉ ET CULTURES located on the Boulevard de la Liberación in the city of Marseille. Or a little earlier, it is true, on a morning of torrential rain, impossible for a walk without a raincoat or protection of any kind, on a pause on that excursion that went in the direction of the Natural History Museum of the city. A journey – it was not known yet – marked by the administration of water.

Glazed container with the handle and the two holes in the upper section; the mouth to carry and the python – smaller – to drink. Photography: Adela Schäffner.

The Natural History Museum is located in the north wing of the magnificent Longchamps Palace, the twin wing of the one where, opposite, is the Museum of Fine Arts. It is a mansion that was inaugurated in 1869 to celebrate the end of the problems derived from the drought that devastated this Provençal port. Thanks to an engineering work that made it possible to transport the water from the Durance River to the homes of the people of Marseille, after more than 30 years of work, a complex network made up of 85 kilometers of channels and underground pipes managed to supply water to this city, where the sea ​​reigns but drinking water is lacking. For this reason, to commemorate this milestone, it was decided to build the Longchamps Palace at the end of the avenue of the same name in the upper reaches of the Les Cinq Avenues neighborhood. It was commissioned by the architect Henri-Jacques Espérandieu (1829 – 1874) who designed it as a true ode to water, as reflected in the allegorical sculptures of fertility and abundance. This Baroque-inspired complex is made up of a majestic colonnade and a central fountain known as the Chateau d’eau or Water Castle. The fountain depicts a cart drawn by bulls that carries grapes and wheat and above it three female figures stand, a symbol of life, with falls and waterfalls whose noise made the rain of that day sound more terrible than it really was. Although by then, it did not matter much either: in Liberación, the solidarity association sold umbrellas for a couple of coins and, for the same price, a little further inside, you could get toys, clothes, antiques, books, pots and glassware. There were also many shelves full of ceramics, earthenware and porcelain of all kinds, colors and tastes, one of the many human perditions, a sign of sedentary life and a declared enemy of suitcases and air travel. Among the tidal wave of objects given to charity and awaiting their new owners, a jug stood out, a cylindrical vase, with a glazed finish, marbled in shades of creams and browns. Probably Provençal, apparently a bit old. With that vintage consisting of an umbrella and a jug under our arms, we returned to Cassis.

“What is this called in English?” – the English-speaking colleagues from the Camargo Foundation asked the next day. “Botijo” – answered the Wikipedia version in that language, confirming the Spanish origin of the object. (1) But, nevertheless, to the Francophones he said something else: “gargoulette”, a name that ratified, instead, its Mediterranean and Provençal stamp. The encyclopedia also called them cachucho, piporro, pirulo, peche and rallo, forgetting about “glass and ceramic”, a word that is now in disuse and invented in 1809 by Jean Fourmy, a potter from Paris. A word that is linked to the studies and experiments carried out in the early nineteenth century where the physics and chemistry of materials were combined with the large-scale production of earthenware and the possibility of mastering the technologies that guaranteed the cooling of liquids.

“YDROCÉRAME”, Fourmy’s neologism, was composed of two words of Greek origin: “Ydros” which referred to sweat, and keramos, to clay pots. This designated the family of glasses that sweated and any container of earth whose permeability enabled it to cool its contents thanks to the property of cooling by means of the transudation mechanism.

When the mineralogist and chemist Alexandre Brongniart (1770-1847) in 1844 published his Traité des arts céramiques ou Des poteries considérées dans leur histoire, leur pratique et leur théorie, he took up Fourmy’s classification but added an H and an explanation reminiscent of the distribution of plants according to the climatic zones of the globe: a Hydrocerame was a type of ceramic that could be found in climates where the lowest temperature oscillated by an average of 15 degrees but also where it could rise well beyond 30. This type of glasses had the property of lowering the temperature of the liquids stored there to about 8 degrees with respect to the environment. The name given by Fourmy served, as in geology and mineralogy, to summarize in a single word all the regional names and, in this way, show that it was a technology shared by different regions dominated by the same problem. From India to Andalusia, passing through Egypt and the torrid area of ​​the American continent, with details in the manufacture that marked its origin, all, however, shared one characteristic: they presented a large surface that favored rapid evaporation that cooled the water while avoiding to go to the gaseous state. The secret: the porosity of the paste, achieved by the addition of fine sand, fired ceramics, clay loams, low-temperature firing, the incorporation of substances later destroyed by firing. Among them, the salt that, when dissolved, left the paste full of small vesicles. The forms were as varied as the names used in the most distant geographies; singular in more than one case but always respecting the principle of extending the surface to achieve rapid evaporation of the water.

Spanish botijo. In Description méthodique du Musée Cerámique de la Manufacture Royale de Porcelaine de Sèvres. Pair MM. A. Brongniart et D. Riocreux. Paris. 1845. Pl. XXII, Fig. 2.

One of the first to break down the manufacture of these vessels had been the citizen Louis Lasteyrie who in 1797 published a memoir on the Spanish alcarrazas in the Journal des Mines, previously read in the French Philomatic Society. It was about those vessels that were manufactured in various regions of the neighboring country, mostly characterized by their grayish bank. Madrid supplied itself with them in Anduxar, Andalusia, a town that obtained the land to model them in the Tamasuro stream. According to Lasteyrie, it was a form imported by the Arabs and was still used in Egypt and other parts of Africa and Asia, the East Indies, Syria, Persia, China. On the other hand, they were unknown in Sicily and also in France. Lasteyre said:

“Despite the neighborhood and relations with Spain, no traveler has so far been in charge of spreading the procedures used in its manufacture of this element, the introduction of which would be extremely useful for our country, not only to cool off in hot weather but also for a health issue”.

As a result, Lasteyrie had been informed about the exact way used to make the alcazarras (2), he had also brought a few to exhibit them to his compatriots together with the samples of the land used, examples that Citizen Darcet analyzed chemically . As a result, it was found that the materials existed on French soil and that producing them would not be onerous.

Lasteyrie was not the only one to propose the import into France of the cooling methods used in other Mediterranean countries. The historian of science Patrice Bret, one of the scholars of Napoleon’s expedition to Egypt (1798-1801), has shown that one of the technologies most observed by the French in that territory was precisely the one that allowed the locals to maintain fresh water in a climate as overwhelming as that of the African desert thanks to its storage in “bardaks” or “qollehs”. In Egypt, the mathematician and geometer Louis Costaz (1767-1842) devoted himself to studying its thermal characteristics, which he later presented in Paris in a debate at the Society for the promotion of national industry created in 1801. For his part, Pierre Rouyer ( 1769-1831), the expedition’s chief pharmacist, published a historical and chemical study of Egyptian ceramic arts highlighting “the advantages that the adoption of ceramics destined to cool water would bring for France”. Shortly after, in 1802, a naturalist would once again exhibit a Spanish alcazarra and an Egyptian bardaca for analysis by Parisian scientists. It would be in this context that Fourmy would invent the name “ydroceramics” to bring together all known forms of refrigerant glasses, launching into the manufacture of them.

Brongniart, meanwhile, with an applied geologist’s eye, dedicated himself to promoting the creation of the ceramic museum of the Sèvres porcelain factory by publishing his catalog in 1845 that included various shapes of sweating vessels from, in this case, Spain. Portugal and Egypt.

At the end of the 19th century the gargoulette was already part of the material culture of Provence, and although some claim it from local roots, this story that began on a rainy day seems to indicate that its spread coincides with the period of the great works of hydraulic engineering held by the Palais de Longchamps. Those that brought water to the houses of Marseille.

Notes:

1. Botijo: Porous clay pot used to hold water and drink from it. It has a handle at the top and has a mouth where it fills on one side and a drinking spout on the other side. The glazed jug, also called winter jug, is used today preferably as an object of decoration. (We have respected the words in italics as they were in the original) In Alfares y alfareros de España. By José Guerrero Martín. Ediciones del Serbal, Madrid, 1988, p. 279.

2. Alcazarra: Porous clay pot that, thanks to the evaporation of the water that seeps, cools the one that remains inside. José Guerrero Martín: ob. cit. 1988, p. 277.