A counterfactual history gem: Civilisations by Laurent Binet

Laurent Binet’s third novel, Civilisations (Vintage, 2021 – translated from the French by Sam Taylor) is an ambitious, witty and interesting experiment in counterfactual history, stemming from the question of what would have happened if Columbus expedition in 1492 failed and it was the Indigenous empires from the “Americas” the ones that ended up conquering Europe and changing history.

Blog revival and 2022 reading list

After leaving this blog on the side for way too long, I’ve decided to revive it.

Between the end of last year and the beginning of 2023 there were some big changes in my life. In late November I left Germany and came back to the UK, settling in Birmingham, where my partner and I rented a lovely little house to settle with our two cats. In February I started working for Birmingham Museums Trust in Aston Hall, a magnificent 17th-century Jacobean-style mansion which has been a public museum for over 150 years. In the last month I’ve started taking a printmaking course, which I’m enjoying immensely, and each day I’m discovering more of my new city, England’s second largest, meeting people, and making new friends. Life has been good and these changes have had a very positive impact in my life.

Starting my new job at Aston Hall back in February

New auction of Mesoamerican precolonial archeology, this time in New York

A new auction of art and archaeology from the Global South is taking place, in which 25 Mesoamerican archaeological pieces are currently being sold to the highest bidder, among other artifacts from other cultures in Latin America, Oceania and Africa. This time the sale is organized by Sotheby’s New York, and it is an online auction entitled “Art of Africa, Oceania & the Americas”, which happens every year. It began last Tuesday, May 11, and ends next Tuesday, May 18, 2021.

Poster of the auction, which shows the Mayan effigy hacha that was part of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery collection.

New auction of American pre-colonial art in Paris

Yesterday I found out about a new auction of American Pre-Colonial Art, which is organised by Christie’s and will take place in Paris on February 9th. Once again, archaeological artifacts from ancient American civilizations, in this case from Mexico, Chile and Ecuador, will be sold to the highest bidder.

Online board games against isolation

Due to the COVID-19 global pandemic, most countries have been in lockdown for a number of weeks now. Being stuck at home has raised a lot of challenges and, as the isolation period extends, anxiety, boredom and loneliness are most likely slowly creeping into our lives. So now more than ever, it is important to find things to entertain ourselves and stay in touch with the people we love to support each other. Online board games, I’ve found, are a great solution for this.

2019 recap. What I read, listened to and saw this year

As the year comes to an end, I wanted to write some closing thoughts of how it went, and once again share a list of the books I read during the year, something that I used to do in past blogs a number of years ago. Although this time I’ve decided to expand on that and use this blog post as a recapitulation of some of the memorable things that I read, listened and saw during 2019.

Auction of precolonial archaeology in Paris. Why was Guatemala’s claim fruitful while Mexico’s was not?

Last month, on 18 September 2019, more than a hundred archaeological artefacts of precolonial America were sold for a total value of 1.2 million euros in a controversial auction organized by the Millon house in Paris. The catalogue comprised pieces from the Manichak and Jean Aurance collection and consisted of sculptures, ceramics, masks and polychromatic artefacts produced by Mesoamerican peoples such as the Mexica, Maya or Teotihuacan, as well as ceramics and textiles from precolonial Peru, gold ornaments from precolonial Colombia and certain 19th and 20th century wooden masks.