NB! · Archaeology · The East · Museums
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The East
Archaeology · The East · Museums · Paris
Neolithic settlement of Ain Ghazal in Jordan and its alabaster statues
In 1984, road builders in Jordan discovered Ain Ghazal, the largest Neolithic settlement yet found, which at its height, in the 8th millennium BC, was home to 3,000 people. The population of Jericho in the same period is estimated at around 2,000. Ain Ghazal also covered 15 hectares,
NB! · The East · Books · Society · Humour
A Mother Goose Rhyme for Jewish Children
A Mother Goose rhyme for Jewish children. A kitten visited Palestine in 1945 and saw camels and donkeys. In Israel in 1966 it saw an agrarian revival and industrialisation. Geopolitics for toddlers!
NB! · The East
Oriental tales, why are you making eyes at me
NB! · The East · Observations · Ethnography
Chinese child's shoe of 1926 with a cat face as a charm against evil spirits
A child's shoe from China, 1926. The cat fooled evil spirits and kept the child safe. It brings a lump to the throat: my grandmother sewed me just such shoes when I was little, as her own grandmother had sewn them for her in her day
NB! · Archaeology · Faith · The East · Art
A Theory of the Zoroastrian Origin of the Mithraic Tauroctony
There is a theory that the Mithraic tauroctony was borrowed from the eschatological slaying of the bull in Zoroastrianism. In the bas-relief, a scorpion bites off the slain bull's penis
Archaeology · Faith · The East
Mithra among Iranians, Indo-Aryans and Romans and parallels with the cult of Christ
A god named Mithra belonged to the Iranians, the Indo-Aryans and the Hellenes. Historians have reached no consensus on whether this is one deity or several. The Roman Mithras was seen at the beginning of our era as a serious rival to Jesus, with the worship of whom Mithraism
The East · Books · Observations · Pop Culture
Not only is "Aida" a family drama, but it is set in Ancient Egypt, and its scenario, however modest at just 4 pages, was written by the Egyptologist Mariette Bey
Not only is "Aida" a family drama, but it is set in Ancient Egypt, and its scenario, however modest at just 4 pages, was written by the Egyptologist Mariette Bey. Verdi had to labour over it, because there was little material to begin with: Mariette simply read the
NB! · Archaeology · Archive · The East · People · Humour
Why Haven't You Written Your Tablet or Done Your Homework? Serua-eterat, Sister of the 13-Year-Old Ashurbanipal, to His Wife, 672 BC
NB! · Archive · The East · Observations · Pop Culture · Humour
Britney Spears in Tel Aviv Tonight
Tonight Britney Spears is giving a concert in Tel Aviv. In her honour I have dug up a mention of a Spears from 1945, in a notice about the arrival in Israel of Sir Edward Spears, who was a prime minister and an ambassador in Syria and Lebanon
NB! · Aristocracy · Faith · The East · Monarchies · Observations
Wedding of the Georgian heirs at the Holy Trinity Cathedral of Tbilisi in 2008
One cannot, truth be told, say that the couple of Georgian heirs look particularly regal. Photograph from the wedding in 2008 at the Holy Trinity Cathedral of Tbilisi
Aristocracy · The East · Monarchies
Today the heir to the crown is said to be the child born of the marriage of David Bagration-Mukhransky and Anna Bagration-Gruzinskaya, whose family was precisely that of the Most Serene Princes and was reckoned to possess royal dignity
Today the heir to the crown is said to be the child born of the marriage of David Bagration-Mukhransky and Anna Bagration-Gruzinskaya, whose family was precisely that of the Most Serene Princes and was reckoned to possess royal dignity. It is the second time in two centuries that