NB! · Palaeontology · Nature · Ethnography

The shells of the bivalve mollusc Gryphaea are known as devil's toenails, and it is the toenails that are meant; in antiquity these valves were a common amulet and were used as a remedy for the joints

NB! · Observations · Education · Humour

I can't put my finger on what exactly bothers me about this Latin crib sheet; perhaps it is that the child's abs are better than mine?

NB! · Pop Culture · Nature · Ethnography

The root of the mandrake really does resemble a human body, which may be why it was credited with magical properties (think of Harry Potter); there are also mentions that it helps against female infertility

NB! · Archive · Books · Science · Nature

Mandrake

Mandrake. Drawing from the Greek treatise "On Medicinal Substances". This copy dates from the 10th century, although the original was written by Pedanius Dioscorides in the 1st century AD and was copied for 1,500 years

Monarchies · Mores · People · Humour

Queen Victoria and the Fashion for Jewellery Made from Teeth and Hair

Queen Victoria had a strange fondness for teeth. Whether it began when her mother commissioned a gold brooch containing a milk tooth of her eldest daughter, Princess Vicky, or earlier still, the passion grew into an impressive collection of jewellery set with teeth. Among Victoria's best-known pieces

NB! · Art · London · Monarchies · Mores · Humour

A necklace of the teeth of stags slain by Prince Albert, presented to Queen Victoria

Two yellow heraldic figures on a blue field: a stylised toad on the left and a fleur-de-lis on the right.

NB! · Monarchies · Observations

Theories on the Origin of the Fleur-de-Lis from a Toad or Water Iris

There is a version that the king eventually tired of the toads and replaced them with the fleur-de-lis. The flower may be a heraldic adaptation of the shape of a frog, and its origin is sometimes linked to the water iris

NB! · Faith · Monarchies · People

Clovis I (466-511) chose as his emblem a shield with three toads; according to legend, after Clovis's baptism an angel replaced it with a shield bearing golden lilies, which for many centuries would symbolise royal power in France

NB! · Faith · Observations · Humour

Silver reliquary with a fragment of a garment of Saint Anne, grandmother of Jesus, 18th century, wax seal with threads

Silver reliquary with a fragment of a garment of Saint Anne, grandmother of Jesus, 18th century, wax seal with threads. FOR SALE ON EBAY for $399.9. It raises a good many questions, of course

Archive · The East · Books · Observations · People

The Case of the Noulens Couple in China and the Fate of Spy Tatyana Moiseenko-Velikaya

The book about the intelligence officer Ruth Werner contains an episode on the exposure of Comintern agents in China. In 1931 the exposures of the Far Eastern Bureau of the Comintern began. Arrested were the "director of internal communications" of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of

NB! · Art · Humour

Portrait of a Russian Nationalist, Bartholomeus van der Helst, 1642

In a painted portrait, two men in white garments, turbans, pearl necklaces and earrings sit before a standing figure in red.

NB! · The East · Art · Monarchies · Observations

Madhav Rao II and Minister Nana Farnavis in a portrait with 18th-century jewellery

Madhav Rao II, head of the Hindu Maratha state, who would take his own life at twenty-one, and his moustachioed minister Nana Phadnavis, who stood against the English. Good jewellery for the eighteenth century, especially the earrings

Alexandr Radayev