Odessa, Ukraine: Just in time for the release of the latest “Star Wars” blockbuster, Ukrainians have transformed a statue of Lenin into one of Darth Vader, an oddly prominent figure in local politics.
Soviet founder Lenin — long despised by most in non-separatist parts of Ukraine — fell victim to a law adopted in April that ordered the removal of all symbols and insignia reminding the country of its communist past.
Darth Vader is also cast as the embodiment of evil in the George Lucas movies — a black-masked light sabre-wielding villain who is in permanent battle with the good Force.
But the Dark Lord of the Sith is a rather more popular figure in Ukraine, where Western culture is being embraced and the Soviet past erased from history — a transition that outrages Russia.
One masked villain tried joining last year’s presidential race, being denied registration only after he refused to disclose his real name and identity papers.
Later that year, Darth Vaders ran as candidates for mayors of Kiev and Odessa, the historic Black Sea port where the new statue was formally unveiled Friday.
“Star Wars” characters such as the grunting hairy giant Chewbacca, the Jedi Master Yoda and the courageous Princess Amidala also tried their luck in November’s parliamentary poll in full costume, all without success.
Most of these offbeat candidates represent the tiny Pirate Party of Ukraine — one of more than 40 groups that have sprung up worldwide in defense of Internet freedoms and limits on copyright laws.
This Sunday, another Darth Vader will run for Odessa mayor again as the crisis-torn east European country holds local elections across Kiev-controlled lands.
“After the de-communization law was adopted earlier this year, we had to decide what to do with the monument (of Lenin),” Oleksandr Milov, the new statue’s sculptor, told AFP.
“Honestly, I did not like the idea of destroying it, so we decided on a more flexible solution.”
Ukrainians transform famed Lenin statue into Darth Vader
Ukrainians transform famed Lenin statue into Darth Vader
Archeologists discover world’s oldest artwork in Indonesia’s Sulawesi
- Newly dated artworks are believed to have been created by ancestors of indigenous Australians
- Discovery shows Sulawesi as one of world’s oldest centers of artistic culture, researcher says
JAKARTA: Hand stencils found in a cave in Indonesia’s Sulawesi are the world’s oldest known artworks, Indonesian and Australian archeologists have said in a new study that dates the drawings back to at least 67,800 years ago.
Sulawesi hosts some of the world’s earliest cave art, including the oldest known example of visual storytelling — a cave painting depicting human-like figures interacting with a wild pig. Found in 2019, it dates back at least 51,200 years.
On Muna, an island off the province’s southeast, researchers have discovered new artworks which are faint and partially obscured by a more recent motif on the wall. They used a new dating technique to determine their age.
The cave art is of two faded hand stencils, one at least 60,900 years old and another dating back at least 67,800 years. This makes it the oldest art to be found on cave walls, authors of the study, which was published this week, said in the journal Nature.
Adhi Agus Oktaviana, a researcher at the National Research and Innovation Agency, or BRIN, and co-author, said this hand stencil was 16,600 years older than the rock art previously documented in the Maros-Pangkep caves in Sulawesi, and about 1,100 years older than stencils found in Spain believed to have been drawn by Neanderthals.
The discovery “places Indonesia as one of the most important centers in the early history of symbolic art and modern human seafaring. This discovery is the oldest reliably dated rock art and provides direct evidence that humans have been intentionally crossing the ocean since almost 70,000 years ago,” Oktaviana said on Wednesday.
The stencils are located in Liang Metanduno, a limestone cave on Muna that has been a tourist destination known for cave paintings that are about 4,000 years old.
“This discovery demonstrates that Sulawesi is one of the oldest and most continuous centers of artistic culture in the world, with roots dating back to the earliest phases of human habitation in the region,” said Prof. Maxime Aubert of Australia, another of the study’s co-authors.
To figure out the stencils’ ages, researchers used a technique called laser-ablation uranium-series dating, which allows for the accurate dating of ocher-based rock art. The method uses a laser to collect and analyze a tiny amount of mineral crusts that had formed on top of the art.
The study also explored how and when Australia first became settled, with the researchers saying the stencil was most likely created by the ancestors of indigenous Australians.
