A native American appears to stare at a smartphone in a mural of colonial America that dates to 1937 sparking theories it could be proof of time travel.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
This baffling painting, Mr. Pynchon and the Settling of Springfield, shows a man in the foreground holding 21st century technology – yet it depicts a scene from the 17th century.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The intriguing figure has feathers in his hair and is wearing a white loin clothe – but is holding the mystery object just like modern people hold smartphones.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Mr William Pynchon, born in 1590, was a successful fur trader who founded Springfield, Massachusetts.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
He is pictured here surrounded by native Americans – in an event that happened nearly 400 years before the advent of smartphones.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The painting itself pre-dates the iPhone by nearly seven decades.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Italian artist Umberto Romano, who died in 1982, did not make any specific comments about this intriguing figure.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
‘It does bear a rather uncanny resemblance, both in the way it’s being held and the way it focuses his attention, to a smartphone,’ Dr Margaret Bruchac from the University of Pennsylvania told Motherboard.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
However, Dr Bruchac said it was more likely to be an iron blade, commenting that the painting was of a ‘romanticized artistic genre’ which made it hard to tell.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
It ‘says much about modern American fantasies and fictions of colonial White dominance vis-\u00e0-vis Indians’, she said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Although some believe this could be a sign that people could travel back in time historian Daniel Brown believes the mystery object is in fact a mirror – which was used widely after it was introduced in the 17th century.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
‘To put it in the kindliest possible terms, Romano’s so-called ‘abstract’ aesthetic was willfully ambiguous,’ Dr Crown told Motherboard.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
At the time, Americans were intrigued by the idea of the noble savage.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
‘Given the scene’s focus on the founding of Springfield, Romano, in reductive fashion, was probably trying to capture the introduction of modernity into a curious but technologically stunted community, which was instantly bewitched by Pynchon’s treasure trove of shiny objects’, he said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Another possibility is that the man is holding a religious texts.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Dr Crown believes it could be a one of the gospels.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
‘These did exist at the time and were roughly the same rectangular shape’, he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A native American appears to stare at a smartphone in a mural of colonial America that dates to 1937 sparking theories it could be proof of time travel. This baffling painting, Mr. Pynchon and the Settling of Springfield, shows a man in the foreground holding 21st century technology – yet it depicts a scene from the 17th century. The intriguing figure has feathers in his hair and is wearing a white loin clothe – but is holding the mystery object just like modern people hold smartphones. Mr<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":9636,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[25],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9635"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9635"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9635\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9637,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9635\/revisions\/9637"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}