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Engraving by Jan Luyken from the frontispiece of Cornelis van Dyck's Osteology, 1680.

A tortoise, a hedgehog, a rabbit, a dog, a horse and a camel are leaving the frame. It is no accident that the almost biblical scene of Adam naming everything that lives on earth opens the largest study of animal bones of its day. At the very start of his scientific treatise the author asks questions drawn from the Book of Genesis. Among other things, he wonders how the first man could have made the first woman from his own flesh. He ponders whether the biblical account was a metaphor for parthenogenesis. And we are left to guess who this man is, keeping strict count of all the departed creatures. A naturalist, a prophet, the gatekeeper of Paradise, Adam himself, or perhaps Noah?

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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

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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