Troops’ stand for freedom...
QUESTION A photograph from 1918 shows thousands of US soldiers forming a human Statue of Liberty. Was there a purpose to the stunt? ARTHUR S. MOLE was a Britishborn commercial photographer based in Zion, Illinois. In 1918, with his partner John D. Thomas, he posed thousands of soldiers to form gigantic patriotic symbols they photographed from a tower.
Formations depicted images such as the Statue of Liberty, the Liberty Bell, the Marine Corps emblem and a portrait of President Woodrow Wilson. The images were used to promote US war bonds.
Mole & Thomas used an 11x14 in view camera, positioned on a 25metre (80ft) tower. First, they put the outlay (wireframe) of a desired image on a glass plate in Mole’s camera. Then, with the help of assistants, the image trace that was seen from the camera was transferred to the ground by assistants beneath the tower using thousands of yards of white tape. Preparations for the shoot stretched over several weeks and positioning people within the tape took several hours.
In July 1918, some 18,000 officers and soldiers posed as Lady Liberty on the parade grounds at Camp Dodge, Des Moines, Iowa. Many men fainted during the shoot as they wore woollen uniforms and the temperature neared 40C. To create the correct perspective, the torch took in 16,000 men, while the rest of the statue was formed using only 2,000 people. The men at the top of the picture are half a mile from those at the bottom.
Other images were even larger: the Wilson portrait was formed using 21,000 men at Camp Sherman in Ohio. The Human Liberty Bell was composed from more than 25,000 soldiers, arranged with Mole’s characteristic attention to detail, even depicting the crack in the bell. Sara Williams, Chesterfield, Derbys.
QUESTION What is considered the world’s oldest board game? IT’S thought to be senet, played in pre-dynastic Egypt around 3500-3100 BC. Fragments of game boards thought to be for senet have been found in burials from that time. Art on a fresco resemgrave bling a senet board appears in the tomb of Merknera (3300–2700 BC).
The first unequivocal painting is from the tomb of Hesy (c.2686– 2613 BC). People are depicted playing in a painting in the tomb of Rashepes (c. 2500 BC).
Senet means passage or gateway, and the game board is composed of 30 squares arranged in three rows of ten. The purpose is a race where five pawns have to make it off the board before the opponents. The original rules are unknown, but there have been a number of reconstructions based on tomb drawings and hieroglyphic drawings on the board.
Because the game relies heavily on luck, it was thought the winner was under the protection of the gods and its name came to mean ‘the game of passing’. A depiction of the game is found in the Theban Book Of The Dead and senet boards were often placed in the to help the deceased through the afterlife. More than 40 boards have been discovered, some in very good condition.
The main rival to the title of oldest board game is the Royal Game of Ur, also thought to be a race game. Boards date from before 2600 BC. Like senet, its rules are uncertain, but based on fragmentary evidence, boards have been reconstructed. Both games may be predecessors of backgammon.
Arthur Carlson, by email.
QUESTION At Worcester Cathedral, there is a tomb of a Crusader knight with his legs crossed, right over left. Why is this? FURTHER to the earlier answer, the tomb at Worcester Cathedral is a monument to Robert de Harcourt, who died in 1205. It was erected some time in the mid-13th century. The House of Harcourt is a Norman family, descended from Bernard the Dane, who was given substantial territories in Normandy by the Viking chief Rollo when he became ruler of Normandy following the Treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte in 911.
In 1066, Errand of Harcourt and his brothers joined William, Duke of Normandy, in his invasion of England, and were granted substantial lands in England.
In 1191, Robert de Harcourt of Bosworth inherited lands from his father-in-law Richard de Camville in Oxfordshire, with the lands renamed Stanton Harcourt.
The manor remains in the Harcourt family to this day. Robert was sheriff of Warwick and Leicester in 1199, 1201 and 1202. Despite his martial looking effigy (he is dressed in chain mail with a sword, helmet and shield), he did not go on Crusade.
Ironically, it was the death of a man who did take part in the Crusades that led to Robert’s inheritance: Richard de Camville’s son William died at the siege of Damietta in Palestine in 1191. Jon Allen, Coventry.