Article Response

[Forrest Pass]

Hi all,

 

The article that immediately caught my attention as a scanned the bibliography was Randall C. Brooks, "A Problem of Provenance: A Technical Analysis of the 'Champlain' Astrolabe."  My academic background is in Canadian cultural history and I am fascinated by the way in which certain artifacts take on a status akin to religious relics when associated in the popular imagination with significant historical figures.  The Champlain astrolabe is one such artifact; for those of you visiting Ottawa, you can see it (or a replica?) on display at the Museum of Civilization, and it is also display (albeit held incorrectly) in the hand of the Samuel de Champlain statue overlooking the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau Canal from a hill behind the National Gallery.  I work at the Canadian Heraldic Authority, and we recently included a representation of the astrolabe in our coat of arms design for Governor-General David Johnston (http://archive.gg.ca/heraldry/pub-reg/project-pic.asp?lang=e&ProjectID=2033&ProjectElementID=7104) as a general reference to exploration and innovation, and a more specific reference to Johnston's interest in Champlain.

 

I was fascinated by Brooks' skillful synthesis of three complementary types of evidence: textual (accounts of the discovery and custodial history of the astrolabe, as well as Champlain's own accounts of his explorations), material (a metallurgical analysis of the astrolabe itself), and practical or experiential (experimenting to determine whether manufacturer's errors in scale or calibration in the astrolabe match errors in Champlain's recorded measurements of his latitude).  As an historian, I am both very familiar and very comfortable with first of these three, and am hoping over the course of next week to learn more about the latter two.  Brooks' article clearly demonstrates that relying on only one of the three results in an incomplete picture of the past (e.g. metallurgical analysis revealed nineteenth-century alterations to the astrolabe that were previously unknown).

 

Brooks concludes (*spoiler alert*) that the evidence is, well, inconclusive: none of the evidence proves definitely that the astrolabe was Champlain's, but neither is it inconsistent with the Champlain association.  As a cultural historian, my question is whether a conclusion that the astrolabe was a nineteenth-century replica would convince those who have imbued it with a cultural significance.  Is myth stronger than the science?

 

One final point that intrigued me was the association of the astrolabe with another artifact that might have "proven" its provenance, a silver cup possibly engraved with a crest, melted down for its precious metal content before it had been examined.  In my office we are called upon several times a year to assist in identifying artifacts engraved or otherwise decorated with coats of arms.  Most recently, I had the opportunity to examine a lead plaque from a ruined seventeenth-century manor house near Quebec City which appeared to display a coat of arms.  In the end, the markings proved not to be a coat of arms, but it was yet another case in which interdisciplinary analysis revealed something new about the artifact.  I'm looking forward to making more of these connections next week!

 

Cheers,

Forrest Pass