The Parnassian (Page 17)

Art · Observations · Heritage · Ethnography

I have read two items in the official information bulletin of the Haida people, who live on the archipelago of Haida Gwaii in British Columbia, Canada, devoted to the return of totem poles

One article tells how the village of Sgaang Gwaay Llnagaay, which was emptied in the 1880s by epidemics, still has more than thirty ceremonial poles with figures of bears and killer whales, carved from cedar in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The poles marked families and served as memorials to

NB! · Archive · Faith · Mores

Summoning sorcerers to work spells to a man's harm is equated by the Nomocanon with murder

NB! · Observations · Society · Humour

Should we worry that tension between France and Italy is rising as sharply as during the Second World War, given both countries' highly dubious military achievements in those years?

Archaeology · Museums · Education

Archaeologists find older mound beneath Grønhaug barrow containing ninth-century ship burial

In Norway, beneath the Grønhaug mound, 30 metres across and 4 metres high, on the island of Karmøy, an oak ship some 15 metres long was buried. This has been known since the excavations of 1902. In August of this year, archaeologists of the Museum of Archaeology at the University

Art · Cinema · London · Science · Society

Channel 4 ADHD documentary prompts open letter of protest from British ADHD organisation

The British television channel Channel 4 has released a documentary, The Great ADHD Myth? In it, the NHS psychiatrist Max Pemberton tries to establish whether ADHD is a genuine developmental disorder or a social construct, and whether children should be given psychiatric medication at all. Perhaps the best illustration of

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From the Life of a Pedagogue

Art · Museums · Heritage · New York

Picasso painting missing since 1961 found, Guggenheim Museum files lawsuit

In February 1961, the loss of Picasso's Femme dans un fauteuil of 1918 was discovered at the student union building of the University of Pittsburgh. Painted by Picasso on his honeymoon with Olga Khokhlova near Biarritz, the picture had been lent to the university by the Guggenheim Museum

Geography · Monarchies · Observations · Society

A reminder that, purely hypothetically, had Catherine II's plans for "armed neutrality" and war against Great Britain been realised, Russia could have bought or leased the Faroe Islands from Denmark, then an ally, to…

A reminder that, purely hypothetically, had Catherine II's plans for "armed neutrality" and war against Great Britain been realised, Russia could have bought or leased the Faroe Islands from Denmark, then an ally, as a year-round base for the Russian fleet. What prevented it was

Archaeology · Museums

HER HVILUR

A stone bearing a runic inscription, set into the floor of a building around the year 1000 in the Faroe Islands. The inscription is poorly legible; all that can be made out is "her hvilur", "here lies", which is to say that it is most probably

Archaeology · Observations · Science · Humour

Bones from the Penghu Strait seabed attributed to Denisovans up to 190 cm tall

Call Drobyshevsky! Just joking, he has known all this for ages. A Japanese-Taiwanese research group has analysed a femur and a tibia from the bed of the Penghu Channel off Taiwan and determined that they belonged to Denisovans who lived about 45,000 years ago. But judging by the

Archaeology · Observations · Science · Humour

I read a funny item in the newsletter of the Prehistoric Society of Great Britain: for forty years Ireland believed that the oldest bones of a domestic cow, dated to before…

I read a funny item in the newsletter of the Prehistoric Society of Great Britain: for forty years Ireland believed that the oldest bones of a domestic cow, dated to before 4000 BC, had been found at the Ferriter's Cove site in County Kerry, and that this was

Photograph of an old newspaper page in pre-reform spelling, with an Observations section about fruit blessed in churches and given to the poor.

NB! · Faith · Mores · Ethnography

Apple Feast and the Russian tradition of giving fruit to the poor and the sick

On the Feast of the Apple Saviour we not only have the fruit blessed in church and prepare treats from apples, but also do charitable deeds. In keeping with old Russian tradition

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