Jumbo's Hide, Elvis's Ride, and the Tooth of Buddha: More Marvelous Tales of Historical Artifacts

410 Pages·2000·6 MB·English

by  Harvey Rachlin

JUMBO’S HIDE,
ELVIS’S RIDE,
AND THE
TOOTH OF BUDDHA
More
Marvelous
Tales of
Historical
Artifacts
JUMBOS HIDE,
ELVIS’S RIDE,
AND THE
TOOTH OF BUDDHA
HARVEY RACHLIN
Garrett County Press
Garrett County Press Digital for more information, please
address:
www.gcpress.com
Cover design by Kevin Stone (kstonedesign.com)
Copyright © 2000 by Harvey Rachlin
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-939430-09-0
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
THE TOOTH OF THE BUDDHA
THE GOLD LARNAX OF KING PHILIP II
THE MAGNA CARTA
THE STONE OF SCONE
THE ESSEX RING
GALILEO’S MIDDLE FINGER
GEORGE WASHINGTON’S SCHOOLBOY COPYBOOKS
JOHN HARRISON’S FOURTH MARINE TIMEKEEPER
THE VIRGINIA DECLARATION OF RIGHTS
THE RISING SUN CHAIR
THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE TREATY
THE LEWIS AND CLARK JOURNALS
BEETHOVEN’S EAR TRUMPETS
HARRISON’S PEACE PIPES
JOHN ADAMS’S PIGTAIL
THE DOUBLEDAY BALL
VENDOVI’S HEAD
THE BATTLE SWORD OF COLONEL NAJERA
CHARLES DICKENS’S PROMPT-COPY OF A CHRISTMAS CAROL
THE FIRST AMERICAN FLAG RAISED IN JAPAN
THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION
SLICES OF TOM THUMB’S WEDDING CAKE
THOMAS EDISON’S ORIGINAL TINFOIL PHONOGRAPH
JESSE JAMES’S STICKPIN
ULYSSES S. GRANT’S SMOKING STAND
JUMBO THE ELEPHANT
FREUD’S COUCH
THE HOOF OF FIRE HORSE NUMBER TWELVE
“TAKE ME OUT TO THE BALL GAME”
MARK TWAIN’S ORCHESTRELLE
THE ZIMMERMANN TELEGRAM
THE FOURTEEN POINTS
THE TRUCE FLAG THAT ENDED WORLD WAR I
WYATT EARP’S DRAWING OF THE O.K. CORRAL GUNFIGHT
THE MALTESE FALCON
MONTY’S BATTLE CARAVANS
THE WORLD WAR II JAPANESE SURRENDER TABLE
ENIAC
MARILYN MONROE’S BILLOWING DRESS FROM THE SEVEN YEAR ITCH
ELVIS PRESLEY’S PURPLE CADILLAC
ABLE THE SPACE MONKEY
ODYSSEY
THE GUN THAT KILLED JOHN LENNON
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
SOURCES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY
SEARCH WORDS
ILLUSTRATION CREDITS
INTRODUCTION
From our lifetime of reading and learning, we may wonder what great artifacts
of history have survived the ages. The annals of human experience are filled
with objects that figured prominently or obliquely in manifold triumphs and
calamities, and we may imagine a vast catalog of these objects spread around the
earth, reposing in locations anywhere from obscure mountain hideaways to great
metropolitan museums, testifying to natural disasters, wars, feats of heroism,
tragedies, explorations, crimes, inventions, artistic creations, religious
ceremonies, affairs of state, weddings, celebrations, and uncounted other events
of record. We may be curious about whether objects ranging from the biblical
Noah’s Ark and Ark of the Covenant to later items such as the three caravels in
which Christopher Columbus and his men sailed to the New World in 1492 and
James Hargreaves’s original spinning jenny still exist, and if so, where they are
today.
My own insatiable desire to seek out these treasures—and the stories behind
them—led me to write my first book on the subject, Lucy’s Bones, Sacred
Stones, and Einstein’s Brain. I continue in this volume with a new collection of
stories based on actual objects that exist today, which I hope will intrigue and
inspire you, as they have me, to contemplate their role in shaping civilization
and what they ultimately tell us about ourselves.
It is not difficult to wax romantic about artifacts. They are the props of
history, portals to the past that afford the beholder a glimpse back in time. They
offer edifying excursions that reveal as much as the eye—and imagination—is
willing to see. Not only do they evoke insight into a particular era or event, but
they carry the imprint of the individuals associated with them.
For many, artifacts associated with legendary figures of the past offer the
greatest thrill. If you see or touch an object that was beheld by Newton,
Washington, Lincoln, or Darwin, for example, you have formed a common bond
with that icon of human history. Observe the Rosetta Stone at the British
Museum, and you and Napoleon, centuries apart, have both examined the same
object, and perhaps experienced the same awe.
It is terrifically interesting to research existing artifacts and discover their
underlying history, which is not always apparent at first. It is like reaching into
the drawers of history and rummaging through them. Sifting through a plethora
of historical riches, I have pulled out a number of items that fascinated me, and
which I thought readers would likewise find absorbing.
which I thought readers would likewise find absorbing.
Why do we have such an avid interest in history? Clearly, history enables us
to learn from the mistakes of our ancestors so we are not condemned to repeat
them, and understanding the themes that animated past eras illuminates the
present. But perhaps there is something more.
History is important, I believe, for identity and perspective. Not having
knowledge of our roots would be like going through life with amnesia; history
provides us with the emotional context of where we came from and how we
came to be who we are. History also gives us the intellectual perspective to
guide our own journey through life. It lets us know where we’re going in relation
to where our predecessors have been. Without that identity and perspective, we
are aimless wanderers.
Not only is the future carved out of the past, but we ourselves are the direct
result of history. Each of us is a product of the deeds, machinations, habits,
policies, discoveries, humanitarian efforts, religious commitments, and much
more, of all past peoples from peasants and slaves to nobles and kings, all trying
to establish themselves securely in their worlds.
In our human ancestral chain, if but one link, just one person, had been
different—no matter how far back—we might never have been born! Now, that
is truly amazing, considering the countless factors that drew our ancestors
together to meet and mate exactly as they did to produce the genetic sequence
that led eventually to ourselves. You—every one of us—came into this world
against truly incalculable odds: not just those of one individual sperm among
300 million winning the competition for a single egg in your unique conception,
but of billions upon trillions of events and actions and decisions of the past that
in precise concert resulted in the remarkable occasion of your birth. In one sense,
your being here to read these words is vanishingly, stupefyingly unlikely.
Paradoxically, in another and far deeper sense, it is inevitable.
I hope this book will be a voyage of discovery for the reader. Some of the
artifacts may be familiar, but there is always more to learn about them, always
the opportunity to move beyond the familiar and be surprised by history. Perhaps
some readers may be inspired to undertake their own quests after objects of
special interest. But one shouldn’t be disappointed to find that some objects that
played a major role in an important event of history do not survive. Alas,
Columbus’s 1492 fleet—the Niña, Pinta, and Santa María—and James
Hargreaves’s original spinning jenny no longer exist; and despite some claims to
the contrary, to the best of scholars’ knowledge, neither do Noah’s Ark or the
Ark of the Covenant.
So feast your mind on the tales of the trials and victories of humankind that
yielded the artifacts we may see, touch, and savor for their rich historical value
yielded the artifacts we may see, touch, and savor for their rich historical value
today. From the Magna Carta to the Emancipation Proclamation, from John
Harrison’s fourth marine timekeeper to ENIAC, from a horse’s hoof to a
tablecloth fragment, a pigtail to a smoking stand, they are all part of the stuff of
history—the stuff of which you yourself are made.