Tea at Trianon: Centuries-old Christian Nubian Murals

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Monday, May 11, 2026

Centuries-old Christian Nubian Murals

From Live Science:

Lavish clothes worn by royalty and clergy in medieval Christian Nubia have been re-created based on 1,200-year-old murals of these elite people painted in a cathedral. These costumes were made using only fabrics and dyes that were available in medieval, northeastern Africa; Nubia was located in what are now parts of Egypt and Sudan. The clothing then donned by models and presented in performances that brought onlookers to tears.
The live portrayals of these elite individuals — two kings, two royal mothers and one bishop — are a "powerful means of communication," Karel Innemée, an archaeologist at the University of Warsaw who co-authored a study about the re-created Nubian costumes, told Live Science in an email. The work was published March 30 in the journal Antiquity. He recalled how, at a photo shoot at a church in The Hague, Netherlands, Sudanese models "assumed an aristocratic demeanour when they put on the costumes, while we, the audience, were literally moved to tears when we saw them. The reactions of the audiences of the shows in Paris, Berlin, and London only confirmed this result."
Researchers learned about the Nubian murals decades ago and by happy accident. In 1960, when construction of the Aswan High Dam started in Egypt, UNESCO launched an international campaign to find and rescue archaeological works that would soon be under the waters of the new artificial Lake Nasser. (Read more.)