RT Journal Article
T1 A discourse with deep time
A1 Alison Laurence
YR 2019
VO 11
IS Spring 2019
K1 Crystal Palace
K1  dinosaurs
K1  palaeontology
K1  extinct animals
K1  heritage
AB When the Crystal Palace at Sydenham opened in 1854, the extinct animal models and geological strata exhibited in its park grounds offered Victorians access to a reconstructed past – modelled there for the first time – and drastically transformed how they understood and engaged with the history of the Earth. The geological section, developed by British naturalists and modelled after and with local resources was, like the rest of the Crystal Palace, governed by a historical perspective meant to communicate the glory of Victorian Britain. The guidebook authored by Richard Owen, Geology and Inhabitants of the Ancient World, illustrates how Victorian naturalists placed nature in the service of the nation – even if those elements of nature, like the Iguanodon or the Megalosaurus, lived and died long before such human categories were established. The geological section of the Crystal Palace at Sydenham, which educated the public about the past while celebrating the scale and might of modernity, was a discursive site of exchange between past and present, but one that favoured the human present by intimating that deep time had been domesticated, corralled and commoditised by the nation’s naturalists. Initially, the claim that extinct animals were aligned with British national heritage was a construction that matched the agenda of the Crystal Palace Company. Over time, the extinct animal models themselves (rather than the animals they represented) became historical artefacts recognised as heritage assets.
NO Scholars in the history of science and science studies have written on this at length. Work particularly germane to this essay includes Haraway, Kohlstedt, Rossi, and Winner.
NO Here I rely on Martin Rudwick’s formulation of ‘deep time’ (2010: 1) and the artistic endeavours through which it was visualised. Rudwick argues that scenes depicting deep time must transform viewers into ‘virtual witnesses’, giving the illusion that they are privy to sights that no human has or could ever see.
NO The Crystal Palace at Sydenham was dedicated to public education and marketed itself as the ‘People’s Palace’, though the high rates charged for Saturday admission (a hefty five shillings) prohibited members of the working class from attending on their day of rest. For those visiting Monday through Thursday, admission cost one shilling. On Friday it cost half-a-crown (two and a half shillings). Initially the Crystal Palace was closed on Sundays as a show of respect to the Sabbath. By 1860, however, the profit-seeking Crystal Palace Company remained open seven days a week (Piggott, 2004: 57-59).
NO At 34 feet, nine inches long from nose to tail, Hawkins’ iguanodon conforms to twenty-first century scientific estimations. Its girth, however, was overestimated and its stance incorrectly conceived. Gideon Mantell, whose wife had discovered the creature, recognised that the animal’s forelimbs were shorter than its hind legs, suggesting that it might have been bipedal. But due to his ailing health, Mantell could not oversee the reconstructions and Owen was able to fulfil his vision of a bulky, rhinocerine quadruped (Owen, 1854: 17; Talairach-Vielmas 2013: 278).
NO Penge Park is an alternate name for Sydenham, the grounds on which the Crystal Palace was raised.
NO The Friends of the Crystal Palace Dinosaurs charity does not announce on its social media platforms which plants are ‘appropriate’, though such language is likely laden with meanings and assumptions and values, as literature in the history of science and science studies has demonstrated. A participant observation study of the Palaeo Planting volunteer initiative would surely yield valuable information to complement these literatures.
NO Similar signs appeared in the Crystal Palace Park as early as 2009. See http://www.badwitch.co.uk/2009/06/campaign-to-restore-ducking-stool.html. Its needling of government austerity and the implications of such policies resonated deeply on 14 June 2017 (the day this palimpsestic scene was photographed) as the air in London was still filled with smoke that testified to the previous evening’s tragedy at Grenfell Tower. In the aftermath of this disaster, popular discourse transformed austerity into a four-letter word, a curse hurled to condemn policies deemed not only callous but responsible for thoughtless loss of life.
NO Time will tell what Brexit means for the extinct animal models. If the imperial and Victorian nostalgia that has surged since mid-twentieth century decolonisation is any indication, Hawkins’ models will only grow in meaning and cultural value.
PB The Science Museum Group
SN 2054-5770
LA eng
DO 10.15180/191102
UL http://journal.sciencemuseum.org.uk/browse/issue-11/a-discourse-with-deep-time/
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WT Science Museum Group Journal
OL 30