Botten uit een poot van een oeros before 1869

This image, titled "Botten uit een poot van een oeros", meaning "Bones from a leg of an aurochs" in Dutch, is by an anonymous artist. The image captures the radius and ulna of an aurochs, an extinct species of wild cattle. Photography in the 19th century developed alongside scientific advancement. Images like this served as crucial documents in fields like paleontology and comparative anatomy. This photograph exists at the intersection of science and visual representation, where the desire to classify and document the natural world through a lens echoes a colonial mindset, where the act of naming and cataloging becomes a form of claiming power and knowledge. Think about the aurochs itself. Once a vital part of the European landscape, it was hunted to extinction. The image serves as a ghostly remnant, a reminder of loss and the impact of human actions on the natural world. Consider that the image, while presenting itself as a neutral record, carries embedded narratives of extinction and human dominance.