Sarcophagus of King Ahiram found in Paris, buried under junk: it serves as a storeroom for brooms and mops in a littered utility room of an administrative building

The sarcophagus discovered in a Franco-Lebanese house is a cast of the original kept in the National Museum of Beirut, incidentally one of its chief treasures.

The magnificent sarcophagus of Ahiram, found by the French archaeologist Pierre Montet in 1923, is considered a symbol of Franco-Lebanese friendship: that, in fact, is how its copy came to stand in Paris on the Rue d’Ulm, but, it seems, nowadays this symbol is in demand only among caretakers and cleaners.

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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

Sarcophagus of King Ahiram found in Paris, buried under junk: it serves as a storeroom for brooms and mops in a littered utility room of an administrative building

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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