With all this talk of HF21 I thought I'd slip this one in under the radar. It was carved in the remaining time I had after I finished my Athena sculpture at the 2006 Brighton sand sculpture festival. I was asked along with Jeroen Van Der Vlag to make something representing Romulus and Remus, the two brothers who were hoping to found a new city.
A Wee Wiki
First a little background history. The two brothers were the sons of Rhea Silvia a Vestal virgin (I think that should be a Post vestal virgin) She was the daughter of Numitor a former king that had been displace by his brother Amulius. When Amulius got wind of the newborns he ordered that they should be killed and so they were abandon on the banks of the river Tiber to protect them (Yes I know, not a very likely story). Luckily they were save by a she wolf that suckled them. The image of the breast feeding pair is still the symbol of the city. Having been rescued by the God Tiberius. and raised by a Shepard the lads decided that they would found their own city and in the disagreement of where to place it Romulus killed his brought. That is why they call it Rome and not Reme. This is an abridged version just to get you up to speed.
Rome if you want to
Based on the way the sand pile was we decided to display the brothers as they scouted for locations. I carved Remus blissfully unaware of his brother treachery. He was made very fast and it shows, I think we had around 4 days to make the whole scene including the landscape at the back, The horses were really just to fill space and give support.
I don't remember why we thought to make them naked, maybe it was the dress of the time but for me, with my good catholic upbringing I at least wanted to give him a fig leaf to hide his naughty bits.
Honestly I did try to carve the leaf bigger but some of the sand broke away and I couldn't be arsed trying to fix it. I also thought it would get a bit of a laugh from the public. Looking at it now I think I understand why Romulus decided to kill his brother. I will have to watch out for my less endowed brothers.
Alternative Pitchfork
Looking at the composition of the piece now I am surprised I didn't try to make some sort of story in this post about how it relates to Hard fork 21. About how the two characters are seemingly at a fork in the road as are we. One way leads to Rome, the other to certain death but really I am not that clever and I will leave the posting about the fallout of these big changes in Steem to others who know better than I. So,,,,,
Here's another picture of that willy.
Happy Hardforking to one and all.
Ps
Thanks for reading. I use Steem to document my work as an ephemeral Sculptor of sand, snow and ice, among other things. This will hopefully give it a new life on the Steem blockchain. Below you will find some of my recent posts.
Athena - sand sculpture
Birds and fishes (What happens when it rains) - sand sculpture
Jinny Joe - sand sculpture
I hope you'll join me again soon
@ammonite