Alberto Ballocca x Medjehu Project
Painting ‘Mitoscopio-m4’, explained
As official donor of the archaeological project Medjehu, ‘Investigating Woodcrafts along the Nile’ and being passionate about ancient Egyptian culture, I realized two works inspired by part of their field research and a particular source related to the ancient hieroglyphic language.
In this article, I will include the entire description of ‘Mitoscopio-m4’, 80 x 60 cm mixedmedia work that I performed on a wood panel.
Oil, acrylics, pigments, Charcoal, manual collages, and Dyes.
Radiocarbon dating, meaning of a specific hieroglyph and Art.
Let’s dive through this mixed compendium of elements.
Short Excerpt about Medjehu Project, ‘Investigating Woodcraft along the Nile’. Extract from the official website.
“Unlike other regions of the Mediterranean, environmental conditions at many sites in Egypt offer ideal conditions for the exceptional preservation of many wooden objects. Yet, despite this abundance of archaeological material, surprisingly little is known about the socio-economic networks associated with the craft of woodworking. The aim of the Medjehu project is to trace these important networks through a multidisciplinary approach that includes systematic analysis of wood species (both Egyptian and imported), detailed technological examination, and stylistic and epigraphic study of each object.
By bringing together the expertise of an international team of specialists and dissemination of our research through international conferences, exhibitions and publications, the Medjehu project proposes to redraw the economic and social history of woodcraft along the Nile.”
https://www.medjehuproject.com/
Painting’s description.
Starting from the title: — scopio, from greek ‘-scopeo’ -English- ‘Scope’ (meaning to have something in front of you) is integrated into the word mito (myth), because, in this painting, I have elaborated scientific characteristics that present potential of symbolic aggregation within the technical functioning of carbon-14 dating.
This connection exists because the microscope is the right symbolic optimization that can be sublimated in relation to the precise observer of myths’ meanings, whiches, once connected one to each other, may detect, determine, a logical function.
M-4 is an hieroglyph, where m is the category (vegetals and plants) a palm branch with notches, which serves to indicate the passage of time. (Hieroglyphs classification by Alan H. Gardiner).
As you can see below, I placed the glyph on the right side near others two extracted it exactly from the Gardiner volume.
Meaning and Mediums’ connections:
To *resume, Carbon-14 is affected by solar cosmic rays, rapidly oxidizes becoming carbon dioxide, enter the atmospheric carbon cycle; plants and animals absorb it with carbon dioxide, and when they die, they stop exchanging it with the biosphere so carbon decays within times determined by the radioactive decay law, thus, a historical chronology of the artifact is obtained.
From sun rays to time perception to hieroglyphic writing, and how the meaning of some symbols exists in the scientific contexts, ‘Mitoscopio-m4’ identifies a connection point between very distant dimensions; the hieroglyphic language, a scientific method for the analysis as well as dating of a specific artifact, defining time counting schemes as the connection point of everything. Specifically, timing.
As an official donor and with great pleasure and honor in having been free to create two works in relation to the work conducted by the official team, and to have described one without veils, I hope this will give you the curiosity to delve deeper into their incredible and necessary work, from the field to the museum to history and memory restoration.
Culture is research and research is found memory, so visit their website to take a trip back into the ancient Egyptian world and become a new donor!
Credits: https://www.medjehuproject.com/, Hieroglyphs classification by Alan H. Gardiner, Alberto Ballocca ©️
