Comments on: The Art of Onfim: Medieval Novgorod Through the Eyes of a Child

The Art of Onfim: Medieval Novgorod Through the Eyes of a Child

sidartha — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 08:37:42 -0800

Amazing collection of sketches and doodles, drawn on birch bark, created by a child in Medieval Novgorod.

By: davemee

davemee — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 08:50:09 -0800

Anyone can edit wikipedia, did you say?

By: nasreddin

nasreddin — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 08:53:01 -0800

Awesome, thanks! I was at a dig near Old Ryazan a few summers, but all the birchbark stuff we ever found were boring merchants' letters and the like. This is really cool. (I can't read the writing, though. Languagehat probably knows more about this, but these letters don't resemble either contemporary Russian or Old Church Slavonic.)

By: DU

DU — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 08:54:22 -0800

By the estimate of the archaeologists who unearthed his works, he was around seven years old at the time that he made these drawings. I would estimate the same, but not from archaeological methods. Child development has specific art milestones. Onfim draws pretty primitive humans, but they are mostly complete. That would seem to be put him at the low end of the 7-9 stage by this link. Also: Awesome.

By: nasreddin

nasreddin — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 08:54:53 -0800

Oh, I see it's Old Novgorodese. No wonder.

By: digaman

digaman — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 08:54:55 -0800

Very cool.

By: Abiezer

Abiezer — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 08:58:36 -0800

Fantastic! Apparently medieval Novgorod was sorted for Es and whizz.

By: lostburner

lostburner — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 08:58:55 -0800

Fascinating. Fantastic! Thanks!

By: East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94

East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 09:03:29 -0800

By: DU

DU — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 09:07:30 -0800

Actually, looking closer and comparing to my own 7 year old, I'd say Onfim is probably 5 or 6. A real seven year old is less likely to draw 15 fingers in a broom-like arrangement.

By: sidartha

sidartha — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 09:09:35 -0800

@East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 more on flickr Thanks! I didn't even think to look there.

By: barnacles

barnacles — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 09:34:46 -0800

DU: I imagine it's up for some debate to what extent the art milestones are culturally specific. Those might be the milestones for American children, sure (or even contemporary first world children), but I wouldn't use them 100% to analyze old drawings. That said: These are great. This is the sort of awesome stuff that makes archaeology cool. Big sites and monuments are nice, but these things are awesome.

By: From Bklyn

From Bklyn — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 09:37:46 -0800

In my youth, that's where I'm a Viking!

By: LarryC

LarryC — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 09:40:37 -0800

Wonderful! Thank you for posting this.

By: The Light Fantastic

The Light Fantastic — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 09:50:10 -0800

I remember all the little boys in my elementary school classes endlessly drawing tanks and planes shooting bullets (imagined as a dotted line from the gun to the enemy). It's interesting to see that little boys never change. Awesome and charming - thanks!

By: 1f2frfbf

1f2frfbf — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 09:55:28 -0800

I just spent fifteen minutes I should have been working in Photoshop reading up on these and looking at all the Flickr pics. Now I'm looking askance at my Wacom tablet and wondering if there's any loose bark on the sycamore trees I can see out my window... Excellent post.

By: batmonkey

batmonkey — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 10:11:42 -0800

I love how he does eyebrows. Very expressive. The one with the person in the background and the wide-eyed person more forward gave me a giggle, for some reason. Really nifty stuff. Archaeology rocks.

By: East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94

East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 10:13:19 -0800

novgorod clown will eat you

By: languagehat

languagehat — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 11:01:42 -0800

Oh, I see it's Old Novgorodese. Well, not so much specifically that as Old Russian. There's a nice closeup of his alphabet chart here; it's basically a form of the standard Old Slavic alphabet. For anyone who reads Russian, there's a nice Wikipedia page on Onfim. The main researcher on the language of the birch-bark documents has been historical linguist Andrey Zaliznyak. One interesting thing is that Onfim practices reading "by syllables," an ancient tradition I wrote about here: "The practice was to 'spell' a word by breaking it up into syllables and reading each with the old names of the Cyrillic letters, so that, e.g., великъ [velikъ] would be read 'веди езь, ве; люди иже, ли, вели; како еркъ, великъ' [vedi + ez' = ve; lyudi + izhe = li > veli; kako + yerkъ > velikъ], where vedi, ez', lyudi, izhe, kako are the names of the Cyrillic letters v, e, l, i, and k, but the hard sign, called yer, is read with the preceding consonant following it: yerkъ, pronounced 'yerk.'" Nice post!

By: blue_beetle

blue_beetle — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 11:31:54 -0800

This sounds like an Onion headline: "Man becomes despondent when his artwork described as 'wonderful, for a 7 year old medival peasant with no education or skill'."

By: jimmythefish

jimmythefish — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 11:39:54 -0800

...and they say hands haven't evolved much. this is awesome. thanks.

By: iSimone

iSimone — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 13:48:43 -0800

Beauty. I love medieval landscapes (pictures of Novgorod in Wikipedia).

By: Michael Roberts

Michael Roberts — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 15:47:54 -0800

His horses! They have rune heads! These are so awesome!

By: JHarris

JHarris — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 16:59:32 -0800

So, does these documents predate Beowulf, and if so, could we please start studying them in class instead?

By: Countess Elena

Countess Elena — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 17:16:46 -0800

This is one of the few archaeological discoveries that has actually made me choke up. The very first picture did it. I wonder whatever became of Onfim?

By: Megami

Megami — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 20:57:17 -0800

This is fantastic, thanks. His artwork is very reminiscent of the stuff my son is currently drawing (he is aged 4). And my son is into beasts, knights (warriors) and monsters. Funny how things are so similar across the ages.

By: serazin

serazin — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 21:08:08 -0800

So cool! This is the metafilter I love!