Ship Brings Rocky Clues to Life’s Origins Up from Ocean’s "Lost City"

 

Scientists in an expedition to the Mid-Atlantic ocean ridge lifted almost a mile of precious rocks from beneath an exotic feature linked to life’s possible beginning. Researchers have long argued that regions deep in the Earth’s oceans may harbor sites from which all terrestrial life sprung. In the Atlantic, they gave the name “Lost City” to a jagged landscape of eerie spires under which they proposed that the life-preceding chemistry may have churned.

And now for the first time, specialists have succeeded in getting a glimpse of this potential Garden of Eden. A report in the journal Science on Thursday tells of a 30-person team drilling deep into a region of the Mid-Atlantic seabed and pulling up nearly a mile of extremely rare rocky material. Never before has a sample so massive and from such a great depth come to light. The material is central to a major theory on the origin of life.

“We did it,” said Frieder Klein, an expedition team member at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution on Cape Cod in Massachusetts. “We now have a treasure trove of rocks that will let us systematically study the processes that people believe are relevant to the emergence of life on the planet.”

The drilled region sits alongside one of the volcanic rifts that crisscross the global seabed like the seams of a baseball. Known as midocean ridges, the abyssal sites feature hot springs whose shimmering waters shed minerals into the icy seawater, slowly building up strange mounds and spires that sometimes host riots of bizarre creatures.

For decades, scientists have theorized that the hot springs or their underlying rocks nurtured geochemical reactions that billions of years ago begot terrestrial life. Recently, they’ve accelerated their hunt for supporting clues.

“A lot of people did lab work and paper studies and modeling on the origin of life,” said Deborah Kelley, an oceanographer at the University of Washington who has scrutinized such clues but is independent of the team. The new research, she said, “is really important.” She added, “It lays a foundation for new understanding.”

Early last year, the expedition, formally titled Building Blocks of Life, drilled deep into the rocky seabed adjacent to one of the largest known springs — a mid-Atlantic site some 1,400 miles east of Bermuda known as Lost City, which Dr. Kelley helped uncover in 2000. Its tallest spire rivals a 20-story building.

The core retrieved nearby has a length of 1,268 meters, or some four-fifths of a mile, far deeper and more substantial than any comparable sample from beneath the undersea springs. The operation has brought into scientists’ labs the first long section of rocks originating in the mantle — the inner layers between Earth’s crust on which we live and the planetary core. It is the largest region of the planet, but its inaccessibility makes it poorly understood. Over eons, hot mantle rocks flow like extraordinarily thick fluids that slowly rearrange the cool planetary crust, lifting mountains, moving continents and causing earthquakes.

Scientists expect years of scientific discovery to emerge from detailed analyses of the rocky bonanza, including how it bears on the origin-of-life question. “It’s too early to say anything really specific because the results are not yet in,” said C. Johan Lissenberg, the first author of the Science paper and a petrologist at Cardiff University in Wales. “But we’ll find out. That’s the excitement.”

The mantle breakthrough was part of the International Ocean Discovery Program, a research consortium of more than 20 countries using a giant ship to drill into the ocean floor and retrieve rocky samples that bare Earth’s secrets. The ship is a modified oil exploration platform, 470 feet long and with a 200-foot derrick that lowers a hollow drill that bores into the seabed and retrieves cylindrical samples of rocks and other deep materials.

“We were astounded” at how easily the rocky samples came to light, Dr. Lissenberg said. “They tend to fracture quite easily, and that jams the drill. We were like kids in a candy store seeing core after core coming up.” Lost City, like all deep springs, formed when water moving beneath the seabed gained enough heat to rise buoyantly and mix with icy seawater, prompting the precipitation of minerals that created its spires and towers.

Its discovery, however, marked the scientific debut of a new class of deep spring very different from those previously studied, in which rock chimneys spew extraordinarily hot water black with minerals, nicknamed black smokers. In contrast, Lost City was located not atop the Mid-Atlantic rift but off to one side, its fluids cooler and spires taller.

The discovery raised waves of excitement in the community that studies life precursors because Michael J. Russell, a geochemist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, had predicted the existence of such cooler springs. He saw them as ideal for nurturing life.

That history explains the current excitement to see what analyses of the expedition’s rocky samples bring to light. Dr. Klein said the findings could bear on the origin of life not only on Earth but also elsewhere in the solar system and the universe.

“The importance of this ship and the cores cannot be overestimated,” he said. “This is a basic resource for the future.”

NY Times: William J. Broad has reported on science at The Times since 1983. He is based in New York. More about William J. Broad

 

Melancholie by Albert György

                                   How the World Makes Me Feel These Days.

Kópakonan (The Seal Wife)

 

“In Mikladalur Harbor on Kalsoy, part of the Faroe Islands in Denmark, stands a striking 9 foot-tall statue made of bronze and stainless steel, depicting the mythical Kópakonan (The Seal Wife). Unveiled in August 2014, this sculpture was crafted by artist Hans Pauli Olsen and serves as a tribute to the selkie legends prevalent in this region. These tales, particularly two famous myths about the Seal Wife, are deeply rooted in Faroese folklore. The legend describes selkies as humans who chose the sea over life, transforming into seals. According to myth, once every year on Twelfth Night, they could shed their seal skins, assume human form, and revel in earthly pleasures for a short time.”

Cannot Let Go

 

Tong-Liang Hsieh's Bronze Sculpture, 2001

73 3/5 × 22 2/5 × 22 4/5 in | 187 × 57 × 58 cm

Winged Victory of Samothrace, Paris 1976

 

                                    (Photograph by Glen Brown)

“It's no secret that the Louvre has one of the world's most stunning collections of art. In addition to the Mona Lisa and an entire Michelangelo Gallery, the major museum also excels in antiquities, with gems that include a Great Sphinx, the Venus de Milo, and the Winged Victory of Samothrace. Though this marble masterpiece remains one of history's most famous sculptures, many people may not be aware of its history—including its ancient roots, 19th-century discovery, and soaring influence on modern and contemporary art.

Creation

“The exact origins of the Winged Victory of Samothrace are not known. However, archaeologists and art historians have extensively studied the sculpture in order to estimate its age, intention, and subject matter.

“According to the Louvre, the piece was likely crafted by the people of Rhodes, a Greek island, in the early second century BCE. This places its creation at the heart of the Hellenistic period (323 BCE-31 CE). This ancient art movement is particularly renowned for its expressive sculptures of mythological subjects in motion—an approach embodied by the Winged Victory.

“The 18-foot sculpture depicts Nike, the Greek goddess of victory. As wet and wind-blown drapery clings to her body, the winged figure triumphantly steps toward the front of a ship, leading historians to conclude that it was created to commemorate a successful sea battle.

“The statue was one of many marble pieces that adorned the Sanctuary of the Great Gods, an ancient temple complex on the island of Samothrace. This seaside shrine was dedicated to the Mystery religion, or secret cult, of the Great Mother.

“Given both the prevalence of naval battles during this time and its close proximity to the Aegean's widely-used maritime routes, the shrine featured several sea-inspired monuments. These included dedicated columns, important ships, and, of course, the Winged Victory, which was placed in a rock niche (possibly a grotto) that overlooked the shrine's theatre…”

https://mymodernmet.com/winged-victory-of-samothrace/

"The Dying Gaul"

"[A] sculpture which to me is intensely 'mournful and moving' is 'The Dying Gaul,' a Roman marble carving depicting a dying warrior. I saw and touched this piece for the first time in a museum in Rome in April, 2000. It has a facial and physical expression that is powerful and noble, but so evocative of the conscious realization and acceptance of the ultimate inevitable--I never forgot it and still think of it often . . . . And don't get me started on the 'Pieta'!" - Bob Borta

Thanks to the art historian Winckelmann, the Dying Gaul was formerly called a gladiator; but with his moustache and neck torque he is clearly what the Roman historian Diodorus called a “shaggy haired gaul”. The sculpture is a Roman copy of one of the Hellenistic bronze figures erected at Pergamon by King Attalos 1st (241-197 BCE) commemorating his victories. Despite celebrating triumph, the dignified pathos of the defeated “barbarians” is preserved.

The sculpture was a favourite amongst the dilettanti of the neo-classical era, and it often features prominently in paintings of wealthy collectors in front of their repositories of art. Its fame was boosted by the restoration of the right arm, by Michelangelo. In the ebb and flow of the Napoleonic wars the location of the original shifted between Rome and Paris, amid much celebration each time it was moved

Number: 

377

Material: 

Marble

Location of Original: 

Rome, Capitoline Museum, Stanza del Gladiatore 1

Size: 

0.73 x 0.93m

Accession: 

Purchased in 1884 from Brucciani of London

References: 

Lippold: Griechische Plastik, 342 (n.5), pl. 122.3
Stuart-Jones: Catalogue of the Capitoline Museum (1912), 338, no.1
Brunn-Bruckmann: Denkmäler Griechischer und Römischer Skulptur, pl. 421
Walston: Catalogue of Casts in the Museum of Classical Archaeology (1889), 101, no.546
Reporter: 19 June 1885, 894, no.494
Pollitt: Art in the Hellenistic Age, 85, pl. 85

Date: 

Roman. Original: c.200 BCE

Provenance: 

From the Villa Ludovisi, Rome

https://museum.classics.cam.ac.uk/collections/casts/dying-gaul

 

“The Lion of Lucerne is the most mournful and moving piece of stone in the world”

 

Carved in stone, yet deceptively alive – Lucerne’s world-famous Lion Monument has been impressing visitors from near and far for very many years. The imposing stone lion, however, is more than “just” a monument. Depending on your point of view, it can be seen as a commemoration, a work of art or a memorial. And as a proud landmark of the city of Lucerne.

The “Lion of Lucerne” is nestled in a rocky grotto in a charming park setting in Lucerne. Ten new interpretation panels outline the history and multilayered significance of the monument. The information is in German and English, while French and Italian versions are available by scanning a QR code. The same link provides more in-depth information surrounding the eight thematic areas outlined by the interpretation panels.

The Lion Monument is visited by around 1.4 million people every year, though few of them are aware of the tragic story behind this imposing work; this can be remedied by taking a journey back in time.

Paris in turmoil

The ten-by-six-metre work was created in honour of the Swiss Guards who died in the Storming of the Tuileries in Paris in 1792. But how did this come about? It’s 10th August 1792: on this day, some 1,000 Swiss guardsmen were protecting the life of King Louis XVI of France with unconditional loyalty and bravery. The revolutionaries stormed the King’s residence which the Swiss were defending, leading to the virtual annihilation of the Swiss Guard. The Lion Monument, a powerful memorial, pays homage to the selfless heroes of these men.

The man behind the vision

One of the guards, who happened to be on leave at home in Lucerne on that fateful day, was the officer Karl Pfyffer von Altishofen. He spent years brooding the tragic loss of his comrades-in-arms, then initiated the creation of a fitting monument to the fallen men, proposing the cliff below the Wesemlin as a suitable location and raising funds for this major project.

The sculpture of a larger-than-life lion, designed by the famous Danish artist Bertel Thorvaldsen, became a reality in a little over a year and was inaugurated in 1821 – a masterpiece that continues to exude worldwide appeal to this day. Or, as the American writer Mark Twain put it: “The Lion of Lucerne is the most mournful and moving piece of stone in the world.”

Löwendenkmal / Luzern Tourismus
Denkmalstrasse 4
6002 Luzern

https://www.luzern.com/en/highlights/sights/lion-monument/

 

Holodomor: Ukraine 1932-1933

 

At the entrance to the Kiev Memorial Park there is a sculpture of a very thin girl with an extremely sad look holding several classes of wheat in her hands. Behind her back is the Candle of Remembrance, a monument with details reminiscent of authentic embroidery that can be found on traditional Ukrainian costumes. This is a monument that marks the historical event known as Holodomor (Hladomor). But what is Holodomor and what crime doing this monument even symbolize?

At the end of World War I, Ukraine was an independent state, but it was governed by the Soviet Union in 1919. "sucked" into the community of Soviet states. Ukrainians, who then considered themselves a Central European nation like Poland, not an Eastern European like the Russians, were trying to restore Ukraine's independence.

Not wanting to lose control of Europe's main grain, Stalin in 1932. resorted to one of the most heinous forms of terror against a nation. In the process of nationalization, he took the grainy land from Ukrainian peasants, and all its yields, creating artificial hunger. The goal was to "teach Ukrainians" so that they would no longer oppose official Moscow.

Thus, the nation that produced the most wheat in Europe was left without a crumb of bread. The peak of the Holodomor was in the spring of 1933. In Ukraine, 17 people starved to death every minute, over 1000 every hour, and almost 24500 every day! People were literally starving to death on the streets.

In the emptied Ukrainian villages Stalin settled the Russian population. During the next census, there was a large population shortage. Therefore, the Soviet government abolished the census, destroyed the census documentation, and the censurers were shot or sent to gulag, to completely hide the truth.

It was in Holodomor during 1932-1933. hunger killed between seven and ten million people, more than Jews in World War II. Their toxic gas was hunger. Their Hitler was Stalin. Their holocaust was Gladomor. For them fascist Berlin was Soviet Moscow, and their concentration camp was the Soviet Union.

Today, 28 countries of the world classify the Holodomor as a genocide, and you could not teach about it in school because almost all evidence has been destroyed, and the victim was silenced for decades and had no say until recently.  The Holodomor may have temporarily broken the Ukrainian resistance, but it made the desire for Ukraine's independence from Russia eternal.   

Reprinted from a Facebook post by Boris Bacvic

 

This Civil War–Era Eagle Sculpture Was Made Out of Abraham Lincoln’s Hair by Jason Emerson

 

“The Hairy Eagle, as it was dubbed more than 150 years ago, stuns all who see it, probably because the wreath is made entirely from human hair. And not just any hair. It was woven with tresses provided by President Abraham Lincoln, his vice president and cabinet members, the speaker of the House of Representatives, and numerous United States senators, as well as First Lady Mary Lincoln and three cabinet members’ wives—37 people in all. Measuring roughly a foot in diameter, the eagle-adorned artwork is accompanied by an index showing exactly whose hair was used for each section of the sculpture.

“‘This piece is just astounding,’ says Robert Searing, a curator at the Onondaga Historical Association (OHA) in Syracuse, New York, which houses the relic. ‘The first time I saw it, my jaw hit the floor; I couldn’t believe it. First of all, the fact that it is human hair, and that it is so incredibly well-crafted. And then obviously, as a historian, as somebody who has a deep affection for Abraham Lincoln … words escape me. … There’s not another item like this anywhere as far as we know. And the provenance is indisputable.’

“Commissioned as a fundraising tool for the U.S. Sanitary Commission, a quasi-governmental agency run by volunteers seeking to ensure the health and safety of Union soldiers, the wreath was displayed prominently at the Metropolitan Fair, a charity event held in New York City in April 1864. Guests paid $1 for the opportunity to sign their names in a book accompanying the artifact. The goal was to raise $1,000. At the close of the fair, the wreath was to be presented to the Lincolns as a keepsake.

“But the Hairy Eagle never made its way to the White House. Instead, it hung in a Brooklyn shop window, then was displayed at another fair before disappearing for decades. In the 1920s, the family of the man who’d made the wreath donated it to the OHA; since then, this unique piece of history has only been displayed publicly three times. It remains a basically unknown Civil War relic that is, literally, priceless…” (Smithsonian Magazine).

Meister Eckhart, a 14th-century Dominican friar famous for his popular sermons on the direct experience of God, is finding popular appeal by Joel Harrington

A sculpture of Meister Eckhart in Germany. Lothar Spurzem, CC BY-SA

The percentage of Americans who do not identify with any religious tradition continues to rise annually. Not all of them, however, are atheists or agnostics. Many of these people believe in a higher power, if not organized religion, and their numbers too are steadily increasing.

The history of organized religion is full of schisms, heresies and other breakaways. What is different at this time is a seemingly indiscriminate mixing of diverse religious traditions to form a personalized spirituality, often referred to as “cafeteria spirituality.” This involves picking and choosing the religious ideas one likes best. 

At the heart of this trend is the general conviction that all world religions share a fundamental, common basis, a belief known as “perennialism.” And this is where the unlikely figure of Meister Eckhart, a 14th-century Dominican friar famous for his popular sermons on the direct experience of God, is finding popular appeal.


Who was Meister Eckhart?

I have studied Meister Eckhart and his ideas of mysticism. The creative power that people address as “God,” he explained, is already present within each individual and is best understood as the very force that infuses all living things. He believed this divinity to be genderless and completely “other” from humans, accessible not through images or words but through a direct encounter within each person. 

The method of direct access to the divine, according to Eckhart, depended on an individual letting go of all desires and images of God and becoming aware of the “divine spark” present within.

Seven centuries ago, Eckhart embraced meditation and what is now called mindfulness. Although he never questioned any of the doctrines of the Catholic Church, Eckhart’s preaching eventually resulted in an official investigation and papal condemnation. 

Significantly, it was not Eckhart’s overall approach to experiencing God that his superiors criticized, but rather his decision to teach his wisdom. His inquisitors believed the “unlearned and simple people” were likely to misunderstand him. Eckhart, on the other hand, insisted that the proper role of a preacher was to preach. He died before his trial was complete, but his writings were subsequently censured by a papal decree. 


The modern rediscovery of Eckhart:

Meister Eckhart thereafter remained relatively little known until his rediscovery by German romantics in the 19th century. Since then, he has attracted many religious and non-religious admirers. Among the latter were the 20th-century philosophers Martin Heidegger and Jean-Paul Sartre, who were inspired by Eckhart’s beliefs about the self as the sole basis for action. More recently, Pope John Paul II and the current Dalai Lama have expressed admiration for Eckhart’s portrayal of the intimate relationship between God and the individual soul.

During the second half of the 20th century, the overlap of his teachings to many Asian practices played an important role in making him popular with Western spiritual seekers. Thomas Merton, a monk from the Trappist monastic order, for example, who began an exploration of Zen Buddhism later in his life, discovered much of the same wisdom in his own Catholic tradition embodied in Eckhart. He called Eckhart “my life raft,” for opening up the wisdom about developing one’s inner life.

Richard Rohr, a friar from the Franciscan order and a contemporary spirituality writer, views Eckhart’s teachings as part of a long and ancient Christian contemplative tradition. Many in the past, not just monks and nuns have sought the internal experience of the divine through contemplation. Among them, as Rohr notes were the apostle Paul, the fifth-century theologian Augustine, and the 12th-century Benedictine abbess and composer Hildegard of Bingen.

In the tradition of Eckhart, Rohr has popularized the teaching that Jesus’ death and resurrection represents an individual’s movement from a “false self” to a “true self.” In other words, after stripping away all of the constructed ego, Eckhart guides individuals in finding the divine spark, which is their true identity. 


Eckhart and contemporary perennials:

This subjective approach to experiencing the divine was also embraced by Aldous Huxley, best known for his 1932 dystopia, “Brave New World,” and for his later embrace of LSD as a path to self-awareness. Meister Eckhart is frequently cited in Huxley’s best-selling 1945 spiritual compendium, “The Perennialist Philosophy.” 

More recently, the mega-best-selling New Age celebrity Eckhart Tolle, born Ulrich Tolle in 1948 in Germany and now based in Vancouver, has taken the perennial movement to a much larger audience. Tolle’s books, drawing from an eclectic mix of Western and Eastern philosophical and religious traditions, have sold millions. His teachings encapsulate the insights of his adopted namesake Meister Eckhart. 

While many Christian evangelicals are wary of Eckhart Tolle’s non-religious and unchurched approach, the teachings of the medieval mystic Eckhart have nonetheless found support among many contemporary Catholics and Protestants, both in North America and Europe. 


Fully understanding a new spiritual icon:

The cautionary note, however, is in too simplistic an understanding of Eckhart’s message. Eckhart, for instance, did not preach an individualistic, isolated kind of personal enlightenment, nor did he reject as much of his own faith tradition as many modern spiritual but not religious are wont to do. 

The truly enlightened person, Eckhart argued, naturally lives an active life of neighborly love, not isolation – an important social dimension sometimes lost today. Meister Eckhart has some important lessons for those of us trapped amid today’s materialism and selfishness, but understanding any spiritual guide –

especially one as obscure as Eckhart – requires a deeper understanding of the context.

---

Joel Harrington is the Centennial Professor of History, Vanderbilt University.

First published in The Conversation. Included in Vox Populi with permission.