The Holtermann Nugget, found in Australia in 1872, and its photomontage

When you are the largest gold nugget in the world and your only virtue is to shine.

ps The so-called Holtermann Nugget was found in Australia in 1872. The 285-kilogram behemoth contained 83 kg of pure gold, which is to say that it was still 70% slag. The nugget was soon melted down. The first images show the nugget with its former partner, Bernhard Otto Holtermann, who for some reason built a house with the money from the sale of the gold. This is a photomontage: the boulder was photographed separately, the happy miner separately, and the craftsmen of Victorian Photoshop reunited the pair in the picture. In the last photo, an even less enviable suitor has sidled up to the nugget with the words "never mind the looks, look at the experience": Ross Pogson, a researcher at an Australian museum. Happily, this is only a replica, and the old fellow at least has a sense of humour

Report a translation error

September digest: archaeological finds, exhibitions, museums, theatre and the Church

In the finale of the Strugatskys' Roadside Picnic, the Golden Ball is told: "Happiness for everybody, free, and let nobody go away unsatisfied!" I do not promise to offend nobody, but the digest really does come free of charge. So, here is the main business of the

Frederic Leighton

Frederic Leighton. “Daedalus and Icarus”, 1869 Daedalus warns his son not to climb too high: the heat of the sun may melt the wax, but Icarus is already gazing into the distance, and the lamentations of a foolish old man interest him not in the least

The Holtermann Nugget, found in Australia in 1872, and its photomontage

Read more

September digest: archaeological finds, exhibitions, museums, theatre and the Church

Frederic Leighton

Attempts to resolve the problems of many years of uncontrolled mass migration

Characters from Gogol's "Petersburg Tales" on the pedestal of the monument to Nikolai Gogol on Nikitsky Boulevard, photograph of the 1960s