SC - RE: [Pearls] Viking Exhibit

[Peters, Rise J.]

Greetings!

There is also an excellent exhibit catalogue for sale in the gift shop.

(And keep an eye on your local PBS station for "Leif Ericsson, the Man Who 
Almost Changed History", which is being shown in conjunction with this 
exhibit, with appearances by some folks from Bright Hills and Dun Carriag.)

On Friday April 28, several of the authors of the articles in the catalogue 
gave talks in the Baird auditorium.

One of the fascinating things I learned is that there is probably fairly 
good evidence of continued contact between the Greenland colony and the 
local Skraeling population--even into the late 13th century.  The woman who 
gave the talk had done some more research in the last few months, after she 
wrote her article, and discovered several Tule culture sites with Norse 
artifacts in them.  Neat!

Every weekend through August 13 (when the exhibit closes) there will be 
Viking reenactors doing crafts outside the entrance to the exhibit.  Some of 
these reenactors are SCAdians, some are Marklandi and some belong to the 
Longship Company (and some are all three!).

Karen Larsdottir has put the demonstration schedule up on the Atlantian A&S 
page.

If you go, pay attention to the SIZE of the artifacts.  Most of them are 
smaller or larger than I thought they were!

Also note that the 'reconstruction' of the Mammon find was NOT meant to be a 
reconstruction of the Mammon find.  It was meant to be a 'reconstruction' of 
an illustration of King Canute using the Mammon embroidery and things that 
were found in the Mammon grave.  That's important, because the placement of 
the embroidery and other details of the clothing don't match the original 
find.  (For example, the pink ties of the cloak on the model were probably 
originally some sort of stiff headgear worn as a kind of fillet or coronet.  
The original had whale bone stiffeners in.)

It's a great exhibit.  Give the Smithsonian lots of positive feedback and 
maybe they'll do more things like this.

Regards!

Terry L. Neill

President and Demo Coordinator
The Longship Company, Ltd.
LongshipCo at hotmail.com
http://www.wam.umd.edu/~eowyn/Longship

It takes a Viking to raze a village.


>All,
>I had an absolutely delightful experience yesterday at the Museum of
>Natural History in DC.  There is an exhibit on the Vikings there which >I 
>highly recommend to all of you, if there is any way you can get to >this 
>area.
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