The Perfume of Time

The Pando (I spread, in Latin) is the largest aspen / birch clone. The heaviest tree by dry weight and largest by land mass.
Pando trees are found in the Utah Fishlake National Park. They are from the last Ice Age, which is about 2,6 million years ago. The 40-hectare forest shares a single genome and there are 47 000 stems. A genome is the entire DNA in one cell. It contains all information for development and function. The trees are tall and grey birch-like trunks with black pock marks where the branches have fallen off during growth.

There are areas where there are adjacent forests with their own genome. The neighbouring forest can be at a different stage of development or season, and the leaves may vary from all yellow to pale green to deep green and red.

The Protea is 80 million years old. The protea is our national flower in South Africa and one of my favourite flowers to paint. It is complex and robust in its layered structure. Proteas require fire for regeneration. Without fire they would go extinct. They release seeds only after the plants are burnt.

The Jumping Bristletail is an evolutionary primitive from the Devonian Period, 3,2 million years ago. This creature is like a common fish moth. In a blog by Jimmy Whatmore, he described the Bristletail as wearing a sequined cocktail dress. They live in dark areas, amongst decaying leaves and assist with decomposition. This Bristletail is much larger than our fishmoth of today.

The Pangolin is 80 million years old. They are from the most ancient mammalian order, the Pholidota. They scarily go back nearly 64 million years in the fossil records.

Pangolin’s walk on their hind legs and forage with their front claws. Their tongues are long, sometimes as long as their body.

The candle is a representation of Fire. Fire may have been used in a controlled situations roughly one million years ago according to evidence of microscopic traces of wood ash.

The Baobab is 200 million years old. The baobab predates mankind and the splitting of the continents. This is a painting of my own bonsai baobab which currently, is 40 years old.

The Neanderthals lived 40 000 years ago. They were close-knit communities. They had a deep-seated sense of compassion. They were intelligent and empathetic. They cared for their elders and buried them with dignity when they died. There is evidence of deliberate burials and funerary rites. This indicates shared feelings. Some skeletons show some evidence of having had their injuries looked after.

Neanderthals manufactured tools to assist with their activities. They used simple language. It is suggested that they were sexually promiscuous.

The Neanderthals are considered sapient people, as per ongoing research. Sapient means wise.

 

Behind the Neanderthal is a hand outlined in red, it is a copy of Cave Art that has been discovered. They may have been the first human species to paint in caves. This handprint is in the Altamira cave in northern Spain.

The oldest living organisms of Neptune Grass are found off the Spanish island Formentera. They are 100 000 years old. This may be one of the largest and oldest clonal colonies on earth.
The Neptune or Poseidon grass absorbs massive quantities of carbon dioxide. Which may significantly retard climate change.

The Nautilus shell moves by jet propulsion. It has 90 tentacles outside the shell to manipulate their prey. They have a beak. They have an over-developed sense of smell to assist with hunting. They have poor eyesight. Nautiluses are living fossils they have been in existence for 500 million years with no change in their appearance.
They can copulate for up to 30 hours at a time.

 

Sanskrit is the oldest language. It is 5 000 years old.
Earliest written records are 3 500 years old.

 

The Ocean is 3,8 billion years old. The ocean developed with enormous basins of water on the Earth’s surface and eventually joined up to be a complete ocean. 50% of life-giving oxygen comes from the ocean. We literally need the ocean to survive.

The ocean affects our weather and warms our planet. The heat from the sun’s rays are absorbed by the ocean and transported around the world via warm currents.

Our freshwater cycle comes from the ocean. The sun shines on the sea, and the warm currents increase the ocean temperature. Water evaporates. Clouds form, increasing air temperature and humidity. The clouds blow over the land, and it rains. The rainwater is used by every living thing on the planet and makes its way back to the ocean in the rivers.

The ocean provides nutritional protein to billions of humans.

The ocean supports millions of mammals: whales and sealions, fish, and the smallest animals and plants, shells and coral. Scientists believe we have only explored 5 % of the ocean!

 

Water may even predate the Sun!

It took a 100 million years for oxygen to build up in the atmosphere and for the ocean to support life. Photosynthesis began more than 2,5 billion years ago.

Sponges were first to populate the ocean, fossils the age of 600 million years old have been found.

Life started in water.

Stonehenge is 5 000 years old. In the Stonehenge scene I have included the Sun. The sun burst into life 4,6 billion years ago. Stonehenge is a prehistoric megalithic rock formation on Salisbury Plain. It may have been a burial monument or a meeting place. Stonehenge is an incredible feat of engineering. It took over a thousand years to build. There are also acoustic properties noted.

This drawing of an Airscrew was by Leonardo Da Vinci. He was exploring the first helicopter design in the 1480’s. I have an affinity with him, he was left-handed. I am left-handed. And he mirror-wrote notes to prevent other artists from copying him. (I can mirror write with my right hand.)

The Pyramid was constructed 4 500 years ago. Young amongst these antiquities. In the pyramid display, I have included the Moon.
The moon is 4,53 billion years old.
It is believed that pyramids were burial monuments.

In this oil painting I feature items that are meaningful to me and important for humankind, fauna and flora’s existence. I endeavoured to explore, highlight and share some interesting facts regarding the age of our incredible planet, the sun, moon and past civilizations.

This is a brief journey in time around the collage of ideas in relation to the extraordinary archaeological age findings suggested by radiocarbon dating and fossilised evidence.

Savour my souvenirs of earth.

July 2024