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Hoover Highlights: Hoover Museum brings kites, Rosetta Stone exhibit in April
by Thomas Schwartz, Hoover Library Director · Op-Ed · April 04, 2019
As the sun continues to melt Mt. Hoover, the large pile of snow created by the harsh winter, staff are gearing up for our peak visitation by school groups.
The first two weeks of March witnessed more than 3,100 students to see the Bright Star Theatre Troupe perform Heroes of the Underground Railroad.
This is the third year of a collaborative effort of the Herbert Hoover Historic Site, the library, and the Hoover Presidential Foundation to provide free performances of historic topics meeting school curriculum standards.
On Saturday, April 27, we will sponsor our annual Kites Over Hoover Park event from 10 am to 3 p.m. on the bluff at 1 Tidewater Drive.
This event is free to all and celebrates the joys of childhood embraced by Herbert Hoover. There will be the 180 Go! Kite stunt flying team, Main Street Sweets food, a kite vendor if you wish to purchase a kite and other kites that anyone can use for free if you don’t have a kite to fly. It is a great family event.
Volunteers from various Robotics teams that received a STEM Award from us will be available to help folks fly their kites. The rain date is Sunday, April 28 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Beginning on Saturday, April 13, and running through Oct. 27, will be a unique temporary exhibit at the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum entitled Written In Stone: The Rosetta Stone Exhibit. The exhibit will feature an exact replica made from a cast of the original Rosetta Stone at the British Museum. Just as the most viewed item in the Louvre is Leonardo Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, the Rosetta Stone is the most viewed item in the British Museum.
The obvious question is what does an exhibit centered on the Rosetta Stone have to do with Herbert and Lou Hoover? Undoubtedly, they frequented the British Museum during their residency in England and saw the Rosetta Stone many times.
Just as the Rosetta Stone was the key in solving the translation problem of hieroglyphs, the Hoovers discovered translating De Re Metallica that it involved more than a fluency of Latin.
Rather, translation also involves understanding the larger cultural context of a work and the influences and references available to the original creator of a work. What De Re Metallica taught both Hoovers was an appreciation of the larger professional guild of which they were a part.
Because the academic offering of geology and mining in the United States gave the appearance that it was a new and young profession with both Herbert and Lou as pioneers in the field, their partnership in translating De Re Metallica taught them that they were part of a profession going back many millennia.
The Hoovers traveled throughout Egypt and the Middle East region and always harbored an interest in archeology. Lou’s father owned a copy of Charles Rollin’s The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Medes and Persians, Macedonians, and Grecians which is now in the Hoover Library collections.
Written in the Eighteenth Century, the book is an assemblage of historical facts that served as a standard reference work. The Hoovers were both voracious readers, especially of history, providing them context for the regions and cultures they encountered in their world travels.
Written In Stone: The Rosetta Stone Exhibit is more than an example of influencing the Hoovers in their translation efforts.
The exhibit explores ancient civilizations that arose in the region we now refer to as the Middle East. Numerous examples of sculpture, writing, pottery, jewelry, and ordinary household items reflect how each ancient empire mined and forged metals for their own purposes and created ways of documenting legal transactions in pottery, cylinder seals, cuneiform tablets, and papyrus.
Belief systems were expressed in the creation of idols and figurines representing different gods. To geologists such as Herbert and Lou Hoover, the use of bronze and other metals and gemstones by the ancients was of great interest. All of the artifacts created by the ancient world convey significant and important stories of creativity, innovation, and values that mattered to different people, at different times, and in different places. The more that the Hoovers traveled, the more they realized the importance of knowing the history and culture of the places they visited.
To contact Herbert Hoover Presidential Library-Museum Director Thomas Schwartz, you may reach him at 319-643-5301 or Thomas.Schwartz@nara.gov.
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