Art · Books
According to Virgil, for warning the Trojans not to bring the gigantic horse into the city, the gods sent two serpents to strangle the prophet Laocoön and his sons. Sophocles' version ties the punishment to the breaking of a prohibition on marriage and the desecration of the temple of
NB! · Archive · The East · Society · People
The Mongolian Stalin, Khorloogiin Choibalsan (1895-1952), took a matronymic because he was the illegitimate son of a shepherdess named Khorloo. In the photograph from the parade marking the 26th anniversary of the October Revolution he stands at the microphone
Aristocracy · Monarchies · Mores
History knows cases in which children were given a matronymic instead of a patronymic, that is, a name derived from the mother's line, both in Rus' and in Europe. For example, when the mother was of nobler stock, or when the child was illegitimate. So it was
In the Press · The East · Mores · Ethnography
In Ancient Rome, the tears of hired mourners were collected in vessels of grief, and the filled vessels were carried to the tomb as a kind of tribute to the deceased. The Victorian era, too, had its fashion for gathering tears: grieving women used special tear bottles, small flasks that
NB! · Art · Observations · Humour
Frans van der Mijn. Allegory of Touch. Couldn't have put it better
NB! · Archaeology · Art · Science
NB! · Archaeology · Art · Museums
The lower tier of the gold pectoral (weight 1.1 kg) shows animal scenes, in one of which griffins kill a horse. The necklace is an exhibit of the Ukrainian Museum of Historical Treasures
NB! · Archaeology · Art · Museums
Archive · Books · Society · People
Ever since the ancient Scythians, our forebears have yielded more reluctantly than any other people to classical civilisation, and if they distinguished themselves by anything, in the words of Herodotus, it was only by a bent for drunkenness and internecine strife. The father of history says plainly that the Scythians,
Archaeology · Museums · Heritage · People
Continuing my series of notes on the feats of scholars, museum staff and cultural workers during the war, today I shall tell the story of a unique collection of historical treasures in the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra. In the second week of September 1941 the front line came right up to
NB! · Archaeology · Art · Museums
Two Scythian warriors in conversation on a bowl with a spherical base and ram's-head handles. Silver, gilt. 4th century BC.
NB! · Art · Museums
An eighteenth-century invention you will want to own today. A magnificent desk by Italian craftsmen, made for working with documents