Royal Ontario Museum Blog

Monthly Archive: December

The Wildlife Photographer of Yesteryear

Posted: December 2, 2014 - 14:38 , by ROM
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The Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition is celebrating its 50th year, and the exhibition showing this year's outstanding images of the natural world opened at the ROM last week. Wildlife photography has a history nearly as long as the medium itself.

Remembering Allan Baker

Posted: December 2, 2014 - 12:29 , by Cathy Dutton
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Allan Baker

Allan John Baker (1943 - 2014) was hired by the ROM as Assistant Curator of Ornithology in 1972. He became Associate Curator and Head of the Ornithology Department in 1976, and was promoted to full Curator in 1981. In 1995, he became head of the ROM’s newly established Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation Biology, and subsequently became head of the Department of Natural History in 2004.

The Monastery of St Moses, Syria: The Prehistoric Remains

Posted: December 1, 2014 - 08:52 , by Robert Mason
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The largest corbelled structure, in fact a complex of three (Feature 56 - 58), with the Qalamoun mountains in the background.

Since 2004 I had walked the Qalamoun mountains around the monastery of Deir Mar Musa looking for archaeological features to record. In all that time I found one lithic, a stone tool from humanity’s prehistoric past. My colleagues back home that specialised in these objects would say that I just didn’t know what I was looking for. In the last days of the 2009 season, what turned out to be my last season at the monastery, I thought I would reconnoitre the southern part of the field area.

Modern Design for a Modern World: Art Deco in Paris

Posted: November 25, 2014 - 13:14 , by ROM
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In the years between the World Wars a new design style emerged  which embraced  the imagery of industrialization. This style, known as Art Deco, responded to the social and technological developments that had come out of the First World War, and celebrated all things modern.

Pacifist Males & Warrior Females

Posted: November 21, 2014 - 16:36 , by Deepali Dewan

About a hundred year ago, mass produced colour lithographs proliferated across the South Asian subcontinent creating new imaginary communities through a shared visual imagery. In this new kind of visual culture, hero images seemed to flip traditional gender roles by being dominated by warrior females and pacifist males. Written by Deepali Dewan

Photography in the Field: equal parts business & pleasure

Posted: November 19, 2014 - 09:10 , by ROM
A large white bird (a giant petrel) comes in for a landing on a rough, rocky ridge; another such bird sits nearby.

Guest blogger Thomas Cullen shares his thoughts on photography in the field.

Staying in Style: Books on Fashion

Posted: November 11, 2014 - 14:16 , by ROM
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Three headdresses, 1801

October saw another Fashion Week in Toronto come and go - one of many events that mark the seasons of the fashion calendar. 

Unfrozen in Time: From the Erebus and Terror to the ROM

Posted: November 7, 2014 - 09:09 , by ROM
Watercolor of the grave of G.S. Malcolm A.B., who died of frostbite during the search for Franklin. Photo by Dorea Reeser

Today’s blog post is a glimpse of a tale that is largely untold. It is the story of the exploration of the Canadian Arctic, as seen by Adam White in his botanical scrapbooks. These scrapbooks were donated to the University of Toronto, and came to the ROM together with what is now the ROM’s Green Plant Herbarium. What do these scrapbooks have to do with Franklin, the HMS Erebus and the HMS Terror? It’s a fantastic story! 

Weapon Wednesday: Bagh Nakh--making humans into tigers

Posted: November 5, 2014 - 12:56 , by Deepali Dewan

The blades, like the tiger claws they are named for, are made to slash though an opponent and, in modern history, is most often associated with the Hindu Marati warrior Shivaji. Written by Aruna Panday

 

Franklin Found! Clues in an Arctic Mystery

Posted: November 5, 2014 - 10:30 , by ROM
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The ship 'Fox' foundered on a rock off Buchan Island

The recent discovery of one of the Franklin expedition’s lost ships has provided new evidence in a mysterious chapter in early Arctic exploration.