Archaeology · Observations · Humour

An elderly woman picked up a potsherd from the ground, wet it with saliva and threw it away

Saw an old woman pick up a potsherd from the ground, lick it on both sides, look at it and throw it away. An antiquarian or a soil scientist?

NB! · Archive · Mores · Humour

Graffiti by the Vandals of Tsarist Russia

NB! · Archive · Museums · Society

A photograph from the Black Sea Fleet Museum

A photograph from the Black Sea Fleet Museum. Especially for those who tell us that the St George ribbon was invented by perfidious propagandists in 2009

A female figurine with a rough light brown surface photographed from four sides, with a scale bar below.

NB! · Art · Museums

Female figurine from the Zaraysk Museum shown from four sides

The Zaraysk Museum. A woman without make-up

Archaeology · Architecture · Faith

The Church with the Ark in Chersonesos, built in the 6th century on an amphitheatre site

The church is called the Basilica with the Ark at Chersonesos. It was built in the 6th century on top of an earlier amphitheatre, the tiers of which came to light beneath the floor of the church. There is even something allegorical in it: a temple raised on the site

Ruined stone masonry with a slab carved with fish set in the baptistery recess, with cypress trees above.

NB! · Archaeology · Faith · Museums · Saint Petersburg

Baptistery of a church with fish reliefs and the reliquary bearing Justinian I's seal

The interior baptistery of the church, with the early Christian symbol of fishes. A silver reliquary bearing the seal of the Emperor Justinian I was discovered here; it is now on display in the Hermitage

Moscow · Observations · Education

Listening to young people from Miass and Tyumen, the author values the chance to study in Moscow

Listening to lads from Miass and Tyumen, I realise what a stroke of fortune it is to study in Moscow under the best professors and leading specialists. I do not always remember it. No offence to those who were not so lucky

Archaeology · Faith · Ethnography

The Maya built pyramids over caves and underground lakes as gateways to the other world

Interestingly, a stepped altar of six to eight tiers was built beside the cave, and it survived until the later period of Chersonesos. A similar deification of caves is characteristic of the Maya, who raised pyramids over caves and subterranean lakes and regarded them as a link with the other

A dark opening in a broken stone surface beside a wall of pale limestone at an excavation site.

NB! · Archaeology · Architecture · Faith

Natural cave found beneath 9th-century housing in Chersonesos, linked by a corridor to a sanctuary

A natural cave has been found beneath the ninth-century residential quarter at Chersonesos, reached by a corridor from a sanctuary of the fifth to fourth century BC. The ancient Chersonesites, like many peoples of antiquity, endowed caves with sacred meaning

Archaeology · Observations · Humour

Burial of a young woman whose body was covered with cherry blossoms

Discussing the burial of a girl whose body was strewn with cherry blossom. I dare say many ladies would gladly die for the sake of such beauty.

NB! · Archaeology · Mores

Behind the wall of a city reservoir, a Roman lavatory has been found, with long benches pierced with holes for the relief of nature facing one another across the room

Archaeology · Mores · Humour

Water supply and sewers of Chersonesos and the account of its capture by Prince Vladimir

As is well known, lavatories in Rome were a place for public gatherings, and people came there not merely to crap, but also to discuss the main news of the city and pick up the gossip. The lavatories were situated near the baths or the aqueduct: beneath the stone bench-

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