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What's New at Arcadia

Historic Burial Grounds of the New Hampshire Seacoast By Glenn A. Knoblock

Arcadia Publishing has releases a new title in the Images of America series, the historic account of the cemeteries along the New Hampshire Seacoast. This collection is a must for anyone interested in local history, genealogy, or colonial-era art. Please visit Arcadia Publishing to purchase your copy of Historic Burial Grounds of the New Hampshire Seacoast and browse other cemetery books!

Green-Wood Cemetery By Alexandra Mosca

Arcadia Publishing announces the release of the historic account of one of New York's most famous cemeteries. Aracdia Publishing's Images of America series has an extensive catalog of many cemetery publications! Please visit Arcadia Publishing to purchase your copy of Green-Wood Cemetery.

Announcements

Quoting Death in Early Modern England: The Poetics of Epitaphs Beyond the Tomb By Scott L. Newstok

An innovative study of the Renaissance practice of making epitaphic gestures within other English genres. A poetics of quotation uncovers the ways in which writers including Shakespeare, Marlowe, Holinshed, Sidney, Jonson, Donne, and Elizabeth I have recited these texts within new contexts. Visit Palgrave Macmillan and purchase your copy today!

Living by the Dead By Ellen Ashdown with illustrations by Mary Liz Moody.

A memoir about living beside a cemetery--and about the members of my family who came to rest at Roselawn Cemetery in Tallahassee, Florida. Please visit Kitsune Books for more information.

Graveyards of Chicago: The People, History, Art, and Lore of Cook County Cemeteries By Matt Hucke And Ursula Bielski.

Discover a Chicago That Exists Just Beneath the Surface - About Six Feet Under! Take a tour of Chicago's permanent residents! Please visit the Lake Claremont Press website to purchase your copy of Graveyards of Chicago today!

Epitaphs: The Magazine for Cemetery Lovers By Cemetery Lovers

For information regarding subscriptions, single issues, submission guidelines, deadlines, classifieds or advertising for future issues, please visit The Cemetery Club.

Guardians of the Soul: Angels and Innocents, Mourners and Saints with photography by John Bower and foreword by Claude Cookman

Indiana's remarkable cemetery sculpture is now available. Please visit Studio Indiana for more information.

West Springfield Massachusetts: Stories Carved in Stone by Rusty Clark

Features information on early New England gravestone carvers with more than two hundred photos and illustrations. Please visit the Dog Pond Press website.

Smithsonian Refuses To Exhibit Ethiopia's Fragile "Lucy" Fossil PDF Print E-mail
Written by DeadGirl   
Sunday, 29 October 2006
Jacqueline Trescott
Washington Post Staff Writer
October 28, 2006
 
Plans for a six-year U.S. tour by "Lucy," one of humanity's earliest known ancestors, have hit a major snag. Earlier this week the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of Ethiopia and the Houston Museum of Natural Science announced an agreement to include Lucy in a tour of several hundred Ethiopian relics.

 But at least two major U.S. museums now say the bones should not be moved and they don't want to show them.

Rick Potts, the director of the Smithsonian's Human Origins Program and an influential paleoanthropologist, said he and many other scientists agree that Lucy is too fragile to travel. He said the Ethiopian artifacts would not come to the Smithsonian.

The International Association for the Study of Human Paleontology, a group affiliated with UNESCO, passed a resolution in 1998 saying such fossils shouldn't be moved outside the country of origin. The resolution, unanimously approved by representatives of 20 countries, including Ethiopia and the United States, said replicas should be used for public display.

Potts, who has led major excavations in East Africa for more than 25 years, said fossils should be moved from their vaults "only under the most compelling scientific reasons." (He keeps a cast of Lucy in his laboratory at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History.)

A spokesman for the American Museum of Natural History in New York also said that museum would not accept the 3.2-million-year-old fossilized remains.

Neil Shubin, provost of the Field Museum in Chicago, said the museum's officials hadn't discussed the possibility of exhibiting Lucy on the planned tour. "This is a hot potato because there are a lot of issues institutions have to confront. These are rare fossils, very fragile, and they can be damaged or lost," he said. Shubin said the scientific group's aversion to Lucy being moved "would be front and center" in the museum's discussions.

Potts said he also objected to the use of the fossil as a tourist attraction. "The value of these things to the scientific community comes first," said Potts.

Joel Bartsch, president of the Houston Museum of Natural Science, said there are no plans to cancel the tour. The museum is paying most of the costs and expects other museums will want to display the artifacts. The agreement calls for 11 venues, including Houston.

"I am quite confident all the slots will be filled," Bartsch said. "I respect the opinions of the scientists, but museums travel irreplaceable, rare objects every day."

He said his museum has shown the Dead Sea Scrolls, treasures from the Vatican and other fragile objects with no problems.

Details of the tour, which will start in Houston next September, are not final.

About 40 percent of a female skeleton was discovered near Hadar, Ethiopia, in 1974 by Donald Johanson and Tom Gray. Lucy stood roughly 3 feet 6 inches tall and weighed about 62 pounds. The bones are kept in a vault in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa. The fossil's name comes from the Beatles song "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds," which was playing during the party celebrating the discovery.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/27/AR2006102701753.html
 
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