Category Archives: Photos

I vividly recall the first time I walked into the production line at Lockheed Burbank and saw a floor full of F-117s. I think the Lockheed engineers really enjoyed watching the reaction of people seeing the odd looking aircraft for the first time. Expectations for what it would look like had been carefully set by a very effective misinformation campaign around the concept of stealth. You were expecting to see something really sleek an low-profile; instead, there was this Buck Rogers 1950′s view of the space age thing that seemed to have the frontal area of a small house. How could that be invisible to radar? Those were fun days.

The F-117s are now all retired, declassified, and available to be photographed. This one is in the National Museum of the US Air Force, which has free admission and allows the use of tripods – essential because it’s dark in there.

Two years after the death of Julius Caesar, the Roman Senate officially deified Caesar, appointing him the title, Divi Iulius. Augustus, adopted son of Caesar and first emperor (more accurately, princeps) of Rome, then became Divi filius (son of a god, son of a divinity). Augustus used this label for himself as a propaganda device on coinage for much of his 41-year career as emperor.

Augustus was born in 63 BC. Suetonius in his Lives of the Caesars, writes that some believed his birth to have been predicted by a portent and that the senate, responding to the portent that a king of Rome would be born (Rome didn’t want to have a king), had just decreed that all male babies born that year should be killed.

According to Julius Marathus, a few months before Augustus was born a portent was generally observed at Rome, which gave warning that nature was pregnant with a king for the Roman people; thereupon the senate in consternation decreed that no male child born that year should be reared; but those whose wives were with child saw to it that the decree was not filed in the treasury since each one appropriated the prediction to his own family.

As the story went, Augustus’s birth, during this ban on male child rearing, was a virgin birth.

When Atia had come in the middle of the night to the solemn service of Apollo, she had her litter set down in the temple and fell asleep, while the rest of the matrons also slept. On a sudden a serpent glided up to her and shortly went away. When she awoke, she purified herself, as if after the embraces of her husband, and at once there appeared on her body a mark in colours like a serpent, and she could never get rid of it; so that presently she ceased ever to go to the public baths. In the tenth month after that Augustus was born and was therefore regarded as the son of Apollo.

After becoming emperor, Augustus settled many decades of civil war and unrest in Rome. Quintus Horatius Flaccus (Horace), in his Odes (Bk IV, Ch. XV) To Augustus heaped praise on Augustus, crediting Augustus for bringing peace as if he were the son of a god.

You have put reins on sin and keep the people within the boundaries of right. You have wiped away our sins and revived the ancient virtues which made Rome great, and the fame and majesty of our empire is spread from the sun’s bed in the west to the east…  And we, both on profane days and sacred days, amid the gifts of merry Bacchus, together with our wives and children, will first pray to the gods; and then we will sing songs, with accompaniment of Lydian flutes, to great leaders whose duty is done.

If the above translation sounds a bit too theocratic, substitute more “civil” terms, e.g., You have put reins on war and keep the people within the boundaries of right. You have driven out crime…”

Tacitus and Suetonius tell us that Augustus was ruthless, cruel and arrogant as a young man, but after establishing his power, as kind, wise and benevolent. What else would you expect from the son of a god.

Everyone knows what Jesus looks like. Sure there are variations; the Mormon Jesus looks a bit more Aryan and the Greek Orthodox Jesus is a bit darker. This was not always the case. You might not recognize Jesus in the oldest surviving depictions like the early 4th century seated “Teaching Jesus” below.

Teaching Jesus (Cristo Docente)

Jesus seems to have started out as a blue-eyed blonde boy in the earliest Christian imagery. He bore a striking similarity to Apollo. Several reasons for this have been proposed. Early Roman Christians, particularly the less educated ones, may have engaged in some degree of syncretism, equating Jesus and Apollo. It could also be that lacking any other basis for creating a likeness, they simply deferred to the appearance of another popular healing god. The craftsmen who produced Christian artworks and decorated sarcophagi also probably drew on a collection of stock images, and may have been working from crude instructions from their customers.

Some degree of equating Jesus and Apollo is certain. This is evident from the catacomb images of Jesus is the guise of Apollo, Helios (below), or Orpheus (left), surrounded by other standard Christian material. The Jesus-Orpheus parallel also appears on several 3rd-4rth century Christian sarcophagi, where Orpheus plays his lyre to the sheep. Whether these representations are evidence of syncretism as opposed to evidence of mere symbol conversion or appropriation can be debated. Composition of the scenes suggests that the latter is more likely in most cases, though not all.

The early Christian writer Clement of Alexandria refers to Jesus as “Sun of the Resurrection… who gives life with his rays.” Jesus of the gospels hints at such a connection. Matthew, citing Isaiah, calls Jesus “light of the world” and says “He causes his sun to rise.” Another ancient Christian, Tertullian, in Ad Nationes, defends Christians against the accusation that they worship the sun god. Parts of the sun imagery remain in modern Christian renderings of Jesus and saints, who wear a halo or aureole above their heads.

Modern viewers of ancient images of Jesus are often surprised by clearly intentional feminine characteristics (as in Teaching Jesus, at top) of the rendering, which contrast greatly with the rather butch depictions of the apostles. But Apollo, Orpheus and Dionysus were similarly effeminate. Orpheus and Dionysus were also dying-resurrecting gods who survived descent into the underworld, so it was natural that many would have assumed Jesus to have the same features.

Oddly, by the 4th century, Jesus had several radically different images that can’t be explained by geography or sectarian differences. In the mausoleum of Santa Costanza in Rome, two related mosaics show both a frail blonde Jesus (above) and a somber, manly, dark-haired Jesus (below). While it’s tempting to guess that the different appearances correspond to different theological constructs, this is unlikely with the Santa Costanza mosaics; dark Jesus gives the keys to Peter while blond Jesus gives the law to Paul.

In a 4th century sermon, Cyril of Jerusalem said that “The Savior comes in various forms to each person according to need.” In various ancient Christian texts not included in the canon (Acts of Peter, Acts of Andrew and Matthias), Jesus is fully polymorphic, appearing differently to different people or taking any form he wishes.

I prefer the boyish Apollo-esque Jesus, as in the below images from the sarcophagus of Junius Bassus, a Roman praefect who died in 359. Jesus simultaneously displays wisdom and youthful confidence. We need more of that sort of thing.

Jesus with soldier and wreath.

Jesus with Peter and Paul, his feet on the mantle of heaven held by Coelus,
Roman god of the sky.

Easter Special

Easter is a movable feast, meaning it doesn’t occur on a fixed day of the year. It can occur anywhere from March 22 to April 25. Roughly speaking, Easter is the first Sunday following the full moon that occurs after the Spring equinox. However, the ecclesiastical definitions of equinox and full moon are not the astronomical ones, and different sects of Christianity have used different definitions over the years, resulting in a squabble or two. Perhaps a bit more than a squabble. Factions invented names for rival factions; and, as Socrates Scholasticus tells it, Bishop John Chrysostom booted some of his Easter-calculation opponents out of the early Christian church. By the 6th century, the papal authorities had legislated the calculations for Easter, By the twelfth century, they had to face the fact that Easter had drifted badly.

 
Santa Maria degli Angeli – Baths of Diocletian

Fortunately, around that time, the ancient Greek mathematicians had just been translated to Latin (Ptolemy’s Almagest in particular), thanks to the learned and ever helpful Arabs. By the time of the Renaissance, travel arrangements and event catering meant that the popes needed to plan for Easter celebrations many years in advance. The popes understood that since the moon and sun revolved around the earth (God’s plan for astronomy) solar events would take place at different times around the world. So Easter could fall on a different date in London than in Ethiopia.

This was a mess. Science, something previously rather unwelcome in the church, was the only way to solve the messy problem of predicting Easter. And the popes happened to have money to throw at the problem. They suddenly became the world’s largest backer of scientific research – well, targeted research, one might say. As John Heilbron, author of “The Sun in the Church” puts it:

The Roman Catholic Church gave more financial support to the study of astronomy for over six centuries, from the recovery of ancient learning during the late Middle Ages into the Enlightenment, than any other, and, probably, all other, institutions. Those who infer the Church’s attitude from its persecution of Galileo may be reassured to know that the basis of its generosity to astronomy was not a love of science but a problem of administration. The problem was establishing and promulgating the date of Easter.

Sketch from Bianchini’s 1703 “De nummo”
A sun ray projects through the hole on the right.

The nasty part of the calculation was determining the exact time at which the sun returned to the same equinox. This measurement would require a large observatory with a small hole in the roof and a flat floor where one could draw a long north-south line. The scientists would mark a spot on the floor where the sun shone through ever day at noon. When the spot returned to the same point on the north-south line, you had the crux of the Easter calculation. 

 Coincidentally, the popes happened to have such observatories on hand. They called them churches. Poking a hole in the roof was a small price to pay for Easter date confidence. A handful of churches around Europe and Asia became solar observatories.

Fortunately for us, scientists are easily pulled off on tangents, and a few centuries of experimentation, trial and error was required to really nail down the Easter calculation. Matters of light diffraction and the distance from the center of the earth to the floor of the church had to be addressed. During this time Galileo and his ilk had stumbled onto a few interesting work products that the church was less than thrilled with.

The guy who finally mastered the Easter problem was Francesco Bianchini, who was allowed to build a meridian line diagonally across the floor of the giant church of Santa Maria degli Angeli in Rome. The church owed its size to the fact that it was actually built as a bath during the reign of Emperor Diocletian (284 – 305 AD) and was then converted to a church by Pope Pius IV in 1560 with the assistance of Michelangelo. Pius set about to avenge Diocletian’s Christian victims by converting a part of the huge pagan structure built “for the convenience and pleasure of idolaters by an impious tyrant” to “a temple of the virgin.”

Bianchini’s meridian is perhaps the major point of tourist interest within Santa Maria degli Angeli – science surrounded by faith. Charles Dickens once visited Italy and didn’t really care for it.  He did marvel at one such solar observatory in a church, noting how the sun beams slowly and accurately marked out time among the kneeling people.

My friend Petra Cross has the rare and wonderful trait of spontaneity. Sunday nightthere was a short break in the rain, so I sent her a text message noting that miracle and asked if she wanted to go shoot some pics any time in, say, the next half hour or so. Yes, she replied, and would pick me up in a few minutes.

Soon we arrived at Yerba Buena Island, a spot even colder and windier than San Francisco proper. Usually windy enough that you need to hang something heavy from the stem of your tripod for long exposures like these. We actually got a break from the wind, but not so much from the cold. Look at the sky in the last picture below and you’ll see what I mean. It makes me reach for my gloves.

By the way, that’s the construction work on the tower for the new bridge from Yerba Buena to Oakland in the first shot below.