Historical Highlights #019

This week’s historical highlights involve Aboriginal photo identification, anniversaries, archaeology, art,… and designing your own wig!

Evidence of a prosthesis found on a 6th century skeleton exhumed in Austria. 

Interested in a little detective work involving a 17th century painting and ledger? “An Expert Has Figured Out the Real-Life Location of Vermeer’s ‘Little Street’ Painting”

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More than 180,000 items in the New York Public Library’s Digital Collections are in the public domain, and high resolution images are free to download and use. This website includes tools and projects to inspire your own creations.

Lots of major anniversaries are coming up this year, including the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death and the 200th anniversary of Charlotte Bronte’s birth. If you want (and are able!) to plan a vacation around a milestone event, this Smithsonian article will help.

Here’s an invitation to participate in an Aboriginal photo identification project:  “Library and Archives Canada (LAC) is now expanding its popular photo identification project to all Aboriginal groups in Canada. Aboriginal Canadians, as well as non-Aboriginals, are invited to participate in the identification and description of thousands of photographs from LAC’s collection. This new phase of Project Naming allows people to identify individuals, locations and events in images, as well as correct spellings of names and improve nondescript captions. ‘In a sense, when we help identify the pictures we are reclaiming our heritage,’ said Deborah Webster, an Inuit from Baker Lake, Nunavut, who participated in the first phase of the initiative with the help of her mother. Start identifying images now by visiting the LAC website.”

And another major project seeking volunteers: “A Landmark African-American History Project Needs Your Help”

I’ll end with a fun, little activity you can find on the Victoria & Albert Museum website: designing your own 18th century wig, complete with decorations and coloured powders!

Be sure to share any historical highlights you’ve come across recently. I would love to read them!

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