Vessel for the Dead

During the Hiberno-Saxon period in England and the Vendel era on mainland Europe, a simple grave wouldn't cut it.  A common practice for the burial of Kings and other important figures, normally connected to the 'military' at the time, was to pack a ship with all the gold and other valuables they could find and send it off to sea or bury it.  The picture to the left is a painting of a funeral of a Russian noble by Henryk Siemiradzki.  If you were lucky, they maybe set it on fire.  Obviously this waste of gold is the main source of our current hike in gold prices.

Used all across the Baltic Sea, the most famous burial site is Sutton Hoo near Woodbridge, Suffolk, England.  Scholars often draw connections between this burial and the one described in the English poem Beowulf.  This find is significant for a couple reasons. Though many other burial sites in this area have been found, all of them have been looted.  The burial ship at Sutton Hoo had remained untouched by looters, so the find has left us with a plethora of artifacts from the time.  Because this was an age where history was not recorded as diligently as others and most of it was passed on through myths, the hard evidence from this discovery is critical to the understanding of this period.

The site at Sutton Hoo is composed of both  burial mounds and the more famous ship burial.  The ship used has long disintegrated but the outline was left in the sand.  Archaeologist believe that it measured 90ft long, 14ft at its widest point and about 5ft deep.  However, the buriers were feeling 'hipster' that day and decided that burying a boat on land would be cool.  Most the artifacts are held in the burial chamber, which was a very heavy oak container that was set in the middle of the boat.  It was originally thought that there was no body, but modern day tests have shown that the is a very high probability one existed.  Buried with the ship were helmets, silver bowls and spoons, swords, spears, purse, shoulder clasp, great buckle and many other thing like textiles.  The ship was then covered by a large earthen mound that finally put this ship to rest.

The Hermitage Hotel

 A masterpiece of Beaux-Arts architecture, The Hermitage Hotel makes its place at the intersection of Union Street and 6th Avenue in downtown Nashville.  Commissioned in 1908 by 250 Nashvillians and first opened on September 17, 1910, The Hermitage's construction puts it in the middle of a Beaux-Arts era that swept the nation between 1880 and 1920.  Now the last commercial building remaining in this style in Tennessee, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1975.

The Beaux-Arts, which is a wild mix of Baroque, Rococo, Imperial Roman, and Italian Renaissance architecture, is the perfect style to represent the people who stayed at The Hermitage Hotel.  Playing host to six US Presidents and a long list of other celebrities, The Hermitage was a hot spot for the powerful and elite of Nashville and beyond.  The first of these was President Taft who came to be entertained in the Hermitage's lavish dining room, followed by Woodrow Wilson the next year.  The Hermitage also served as the campaign headquarters for Democrats Edward H. Crump and, later, John F. Kennedy.  Franklin D. Roosevelt and his wife also made a visit there on his campaign promoting the "New Deal" policies; this drew an enormous crowd of people trying to get a glimpse of the famous couple.

Beaux-Arts, which literally translates as 'Fine-Arts', is characterized by a symmetrical facade and flat, low-pitched roofs.  These are contrasted by elaborate wall designs composed of decorative garlands, floral patterns, and cartouches. The outside ground floor is rusticated, which means that there is masonry cut in large blocks separated by deep joints which emboldens the wall.  The exterior of the mezzanine (second floor from the outside) pulls from the Ancient Greek realm.  It is composed of seven pairs of ionic columns holding up a small two foot rectangular pediment.  The ornate facade is what composes the eclectic style of the Beaux-Arts school.

 
This mezzanine, which sits level up from the lobby is characterized by its painted ceilings.  The style of painting ceilings alludes to the Italian Renaissance and the phenomenal frescoes that came of that era.  The Imperial Roman architecture can be seen in the Italian sienna marble used on the wall panels in the entrance and the lobby seen above.  In the expansive dining room, the walls are lined floor to ceiling with ornate panels made of Russian walnut.  The stained glass ceiling is placed in the vaulted roof of the lobby, a style credited to the English and Middle Ages Gothic architects.

  Following with the helter-skelter decoration of the Hotel, the famous men's bathroom at the Grille is done in a curious art deco style.  Voted the best bathroom in the nation, it features lime green and black leaded-glass tiles, lime green fixtures, authentic terrazzo floors, and a shoeshine station.  It has four stools, three urinals, four sinks, spotless mirrors and a Sultan telephone that connects to the front desk.  Occasionally the ladies are allowed in for a peak of the world famous restroom.