Art · Museums · Observations · Humour
"Smell", Jan Miense Molenaer, 1637. Collection of the Mauritshuis I do, of course, understand that with his series of the five senses the Dutch master, with his characteristic humour and earthy realism, invites us to forget about lofty allegories and maidens with bouquets of flowers, but even so,
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Art · Observations · Heritage · Ethnography
One article tells how the village of Sgaang Gwaay Llnagaay, which was emptied in the 1880s by epidemics, still has more than thirty ceremonial poles with figures of bears and killer whales, carved from cedar in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The poles marked families and served as memorials to
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Archaeology · Museums · Education
In Norway, beneath the Grønhaug mound, 30 metres across and 4 metres high, on the island of Karmøy, an oak ship some 15 metres long was buried. This has been known since the excavations of 1902. In August of this year, archaeologists of the Museum of Archaeology at the University
Art · Cinema · London · Science · Society
The British television channel Channel 4 has released a documentary, The Great ADHD Myth? In it, the NHS psychiatrist Max Pemberton tries to establish whether ADHD is a genuine developmental disorder or a social construct, and whether children should be given psychiatric medication at all. Perhaps the best illustration of
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Art · Museums · Heritage · New York
In February 1961, the loss of Picasso's Femme dans un fauteuil of 1918 was discovered at the student union building of the University of Pittsburgh. Painted by Picasso on his honeymoon with Olga Khokhlova near Biarritz, the picture had been lent to the university by the Guggenheim Museum
Geography · Monarchies · Observations · Society
A reminder that, purely hypothetically, had Catherine II's plans for "armed neutrality" and war against Great Britain been realised, Russia could have bought or leased the Faroe Islands from Denmark, then an ally, as a year-round base for the Russian fleet. What prevented it was
Archaeology · Museums
A stone bearing a runic inscription, set into the floor of a building around the year 1000 in the Faroe Islands. The inscription is poorly legible; all that can be made out is "her hvilur", "here lies", which is to say that it is most probably
Archaeology · Observations · Science · Humour
Call Drobyshevsky! Just joking, he has known all this for ages. A Japanese-Taiwanese research group has analysed a femur and a tibia from the bed of the Penghu Channel off Taiwan and determined that they belonged to Denisovans who lived about 45,000 years ago. But judging by the