The East · Archaeology · Archive · Heritage
Archaeologists working at Hattusa, the capital of the Hittite kingdom on the territory of present-day Turkey, have found a fragment of a clay tablet bearing cuneiform writing, which has turned out to be part of the Treaty of Kadesh. Cuneiform is a system of writing in which signs were
Cinema · The East
A still from the 1991 film Pour Sacha, in which the beautiful violinist Laura, played by Marceau, follows a French professor of philosophy to Israel in 1965. Then the Six-Day War begins… Recommended viewing, if only for Marceau.
Archaeology · The East · Science
Chinese historical texts repeatedly mention the cutting off of the nose as a judicial punishment, one of the so-called five punishments. Until now, archaeologists in China had found no skeletal confirmation of the practice. Now researchers describe the first probable case. The remains of a woman who lived some
Coming Up · Archive · The East · Art · Moscow · Museums
The State Museum of the East, at 12A Nikitsky Boulevard, presents an exhibition devoted to the artistic legacy of the Volkov-Rybnikov dynasty. The display runs until 8 November and comprises some one hundred and fifty works of painting, graphic art and sculpture by three generations of the family. The
Archaeology · The East · Science
Tiny stone points 80,000 years old have been found in Uzbekistan's Obi-Rakhmat cave, which by wear traces and mass can only have served as arrowheads: that is, the earliest evidence of ranged weapons in Eurasia. Such technology has hitherto been associated exclusively with Homo sapiens, so
Archaeology · Faith · The East · Art · Books · Museums · Observations · Heritage · Science · Society · Nature
Marcus Aurelius advised retreating into oneself, for nowhere does a man withdraw more quietly. In the digest, for my part, I try to gather what has been published over the month while the memories are still fresh. So, the main things on the channel for August. The section on archaeology
Archaeology · Faith · The East · Science
A cheap copper-alloy ring, dug up in the 1960s at Herodium, King Herod's fortress-palace in the Judaean Desert, bearing the image of a vessel and the Greek letters ΠΙΛΑΤΟ. Despite suggestions that the signet might have belonged to the most famous official in history, Pontius Pilate,
The East · Monarchies · Museums · Heritage
Two men bought tickets to the Museum of Applied Arts in Vienna, walked up to a display case and smashed the protective glass with a hammer. They pulled out a diamond necklace and vanished in an unknown direction. They made no attempt to hide their faces, so the surveillance cameras
NB! · The East · Society
Archaeology · Architecture · The East · Science
The site is being surveyed by means of geomagnetic mapping, ground-penetrating radar and lidar scanning. The head of the excavation reports that the new rectangular structures are concentrated chiefly in the eastern and southern parts of the hill and lie next to the already known circular monumental buildings with
Archaeology · The East · Science
The two-colour painted pottery of this region has long been known to specialists as "Midianite", and its origin remained a matter of dispute. The first batch of painted ware was made some 3,600 years ago, and its production continued uninterrupted for centuries, undergoing only modest change.
NB! · Archive · The East · Mores
A caravan of Soviet tourists makes its way to the pyramids. Cairo, 1958