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# “What is our life?
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/chto-nasha-zhizn/
- Published: 2026-05-31T09:53:21.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-01T05:25:58.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: Archaeology, Art, Books, Monarchies, Museums, Observations, Heritage, Science, Society

“What is our life? A tale we shall not recall twice, once it has been told,” runs the thought from Byron’s “Don Juan”, and so at the end of every month we reassemble the key publications that can be reread and kept in memory.

**Archaeology and the origins of man** 🧑🏻‍🔬 were the main line of May. In Georgia, the world’s oldest specimen of [bread wheat](https://theparnassian.com/v-gruzii-naideno-samoe-rannee-fizicheskoe-dokazatelstvo-sushchestvovaniia-khlebnoi-pshenitsy-v-mire/?ref=theparnassian.com) was found, eight thousand years old. In Kakadu, Australia, what may be the oldest [heat treatment of flint](https://theparnassian.com/v-avstralii-na-stoianke-nauvalambila-i-v-natsionalnom-parke-kakadu-na-severe-strany-nashli-vozmozhno-drevneishee-v-mire-svidetelstvo-termoobrabotki-kremnia/?ref=theparnassian.com) was discovered, dating to 45,000-60,000 years ago. In Chagyrskaya Cave in the Altai, it was established that a Neanderthal drilled his own diseased tooth with a [jasper drill](https://theparnassian.com/samoe-rannee-stomatologicheskoe-vmeshatelstvo-v-istorii-chelovechestva-vypolnili-neandertaltsy/?ref=theparnassian.com) 59,000 years ago. And at the Bété I site in Côte d’Ivoire, human presence in the dense [tropical forest](https://theparnassian.com/vot-eshchio-odno-iz-nedavnikh-issledovanii-pretenduiushchee-na-izmenenie-predstavlenii-o-proiskhozhdenii-cheloveka/?ref=theparnassian.com) was dated to 150,000 years ago, overturning the textbook dogma that early humans never ventured there.

In our traditional **art** section 🖼️ we gazed at the [veiled Christ](https://theparnassian.com/khristos-pod-plashchanitsei-1753-god/?ref=theparnassian.com) of 1753 in the Neapolitan Sansevero Chapel and examined the details of Brueghel and Rubens’s “[Allegory of Hearing](https://theparnassian.com/interesno-chto-na-kartine-allegoriia-slukha-napisannoi-v-1617-1618-gody-flamandskimi-khudozhnikami-ianom-breigelem-starshim-i-piterom-paulem-rubensom-ne-prosto-zapechatlena-kollektsiia-/?ref=theparnassian.com)”, where genuine scores of the period are painted out note by note.

**Monarchs and aristocracy 👸🏼** We work out why Olga Konstantinovna Romanova, granddaughter of Nicholas I, bore the title “[Queen of the Hellenes](https://theparnassian.com/kto-takaia-olga-koroleva-ellinov/?ref=theparnassian.com)” rather than “Queen of Greece”. And we learn of Matveyev’s painting of 1896, in which Frederick William III of Prussia thanks Moscow [on his knees](https://theparnassian.com/korol-prusskii-fridrikh-vilgelm-iii-s-synoviami-blagodarit-moskvu-za-spasenie-ego-gosudarstva/?ref=theparnassian.com) for saving his state.

**Museums, restitution and colonial heritage** 🦃 is a subject that has long refused to let me go. France unanimously passed a [restitution law](https://theparnassian.com/natsionalnoe-sobranie-frantsii-edinoglasno-prinialo-zakon-o-restitutsii-kulturnykh-artefaktov-vyvezennykh-iz-byvshikh-kolonii-mezhdu-1815-i-1972-godami/?ref=theparnassian.com) for artefacts removed from the colonies between 1815 and 1972\. [And the Dutch royal house](https://theparnassian.com/gollandskii-korolevskii-dom-proveril-sobstvennuiu-kollektsiiu-i-obnaruzhil-v-fondakh-korony-kradenoe/?ref=theparnassian.com) checked its own holdings and found stolen Indonesian gold there.

**Money 💰** In April 1917 the whole of Moscow held rallies around the Provisional Government’s war loan, trying to understand why it was [not a loan of freedom](https://theparnassian.com/v-aprele-1917-goda-nakanune-aprelskogo-krizisa-kotoryi-iz-za-noty-miliukova-snesiot-pervoe-vremennoe-pravitelstvo-glavnoi-politicheskoi-tema-v-moskve-byl-zaiom-svobody-to-est-voennyi-za/?ref=theparnassian.com) but a loan of war and capital. In our own day we discover that the [repainting of the pool](https://theparnassian.com/rebiat-nu-ne-mozhet-pokraska-dazhe-samogo-bolshogo-basseina-v-mire-stoit-13-mln-dollarov/?ref=theparnassian.com) at the memorial in Washington cost the US treasury 13 million dollars.

**Power and science 🏰** With a single letter the Trump administration dismissed the entire [National Science Board of the USA](https://theparnassian.com/28-aprelia-administratsiia-trampa-uvolila-odnim-pismom-ves-natsionalnyi-nauchnyi-sovet-ssha-22-uchionykh-upravliavshikh-natsionalnym-nauchnym-fondom-s-biudzhetom-9-milliardov-dollarov-v/?ref=theparnassian.com), 22 scientists who ran a foundation with a budget of nine billion. Pope Leo XIV issued the first [encyclical](https://theparnassian.com/papa-rimskii-lev-xiv-vypustil-pervuiu-entsikliku-pro-iskusstvennyi-intellekt/?ref=theparnassian.com) in history on artificial intelligence, asking whether we are building the Tower of Babel or rebuilding Jerusalem.

**Academic forgeries 🦸🏽** The Swiss programmer Solal Pirelli exposed systematic [citation inflation](https://theparnassian.com/v-2022-godu-shveitsarskii-programmist-iz-lozanny-solial-pirelli-razbiraias-v-materialakh-konferentsii-pod-egidoi-assotsiatsii-vychislitelnoi-tekhniki-obnaruzhil-sistematicheskie-anomali/?ref=theparnassian.com) in the prefaces of proceedings and articles, and is now in court with the fixer. Vietnam has announced that the fabrication of scientific data will now be [severely punished](https://theparnassian.com/vo-vetname-fabrikatsiiu-nauchnykh-dannykh-i-plagiat-budut-karat-pozhiznennym-zapretom-na-nauku/?ref=theparnassian.com).

**History and ideas 📝** Near Xi’an, back in 1625, the Jesuits dug up a stele of 781 [on Nestorian Christianity](https://theparnassian.com/v-1625-godu-v-okrestnostiakh-siania-drevnei-stolitsy-tanskogo-kitaia-monakhi-iezuity-obnaruzhili-pod-lianami-i-sloem-zemli-kamennuiu-stelu-vysotoi-pochti-tri-metra-s-tekstom-na-kitaisko/?ref=theparnassian.com), which flourished for two centuries in Tang China. In Russia, Tolstoy’s “[social network](https://theparnassian.com/bibliotekar-rumiantsevskogo-muzeia-i-filosof-obshchego-dela-nikolai-fiodorov-govoril-chto-chelovechestvo-obiazano-voskresit-bukvalno-vsekh-umershikh-predkov/?ref=theparnassian.com)” was launched, made up of 13,000 names he ever mentioned.

**Literature 📖** The Guardian published a [list of the hundred best books](https://theparnassian.com/gardian-predstavili-spisok-sta-luchshikh-knig-kogda-libo-opublikovannykh-na-angliiskom-iazyke/?ref=theparnassian.com) in English, in which five Russian authors took eight places: Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Nabokov, Bulgakov and Grossman. Christie’s put up for auction the Clermont-Tonnerre Grail, an illuminated manuscript of the [Lancelot cycle](https://theparnassian.com/8-iiulia-na-torgakh-christies-razygraiut-redchaishuiu-illiustrirovannuiu-rukopis-nachala-xiv-veka-graal-klermon-tonner-vkliuchaiushchuiu-tri-pervykh-teksta-lanselotova-tsikla/?ref=theparnassian.com) from the early fourteenth century, which lay for seven hundred years in private hands and was never seriously studied. At IMLI RAS a [monumental study](https://theparnassian.com/imli-ran-vypustil-dvukhtomnik-roman-f-m/?ref=theparnassian.com) of “Crime and Punishment” has appeared.

Such was May: man turned out to be older than we thought, money remained money, power quarrelled with science once more, and museums went on slowly settling their colonial accounts.