Archaeology · Art · Observations · Heritage · Science · Nature
John Keats feared he might cease to be before his pen had gleaned his teeming brain, «before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain». Our concern is rather that, amid the informational din, the important things of the month should not get lost. Hence the regular digest: the
Art · Museums · Heritage · Society · Paris
Kallmann insists that he remembers it from childhood on the wall of his grandfather's villa, and that the Nazis plundered the family collection, which means the canvas belongs to him. The plaintiff's grandfather, Felix Kallmann, was a Berlin lawyer and collector who ran a lamp company
Moscow · Observations · Heritage · Society · Nature
You know, when they started digging up all of Kolomenskoye in 2024 under the reserve's "improvement" programme, I made a private wager: would they, I wondered, tackle the matters that genuinely call for intervention? The destruction, for instance, of the thickets of an invasive species, Sakhalin
Faith · Art · Museums · Heritage · Rome
This is the first serious cleaning in more than 500 years of the frescoes of the glazed corridor on the second floor of the Apostolic Palace, overlooking the Cortile di San Damaso. The budget for the works is 5.5 million dollars. In addition to restoration, the paintings will be
Archaeology · Heritage · Science
Ancient human DNA has been extracted from cave walls in Spain and Portugal for the first time. Quite so: no bones, teeth or cultural layer were needed to obtain the DNA. From 24 panels in 11 caves, 54 samples were taken, and 5 of them yielded human mitochondrial DNA. The
Architecture · Cinema · Observations · Heritage · Paris
Perhaps some will recall one of the most beautiful interiors in Paris from Kieślowski's "Three Colours: Blue" with Juliette Binoche, and from "Amélie". This canary yellow belongs to the Piscine de la Butte-aux-Cailles... or rather, to the Pontoise swimming pool. The landmark
Museums · Heritage · Palaeontology · Nature
The inscription on the pedestal reads: This extraordinary rarity was discovered in the presence of the proprietor, Chief Chamberlain Count Yu. A. Golovkin The memorial commemorates a mammoth skeleton found on this spot in 1839. The skeleton was dug out of a riverbank cliff on the estate of Count Yury
Architecture · Moscow · Observations · Heritage · Society
To the cautiously floated question "what is so important about the Electrozavod?", one might reply, so as to avoid explaining oneself to the valued fools, with a question of one's own: "is the city really in such need of new square metres of offices and
Heritage · Science · Palaeontology · Nature
Sophia is a juvenile, that is, an individual incapable of reproduction at the time of death. Her skull, about two metres long from snout to frill, was recovered five years ago from the Hell Creek Formation in North Dakota. The same site yielded the skull of a pachycephalosaurus, recently bought
Architecture · Geography · Heritage
The Acropolis Restoration Service has announced that it has completed the western pediment of the Parthenon. The external scaffolding has been removed from the western façade for good, for the first time in several decades. The Minister of Culture, Lina Mendoni, says that the façade now stands in its full
Archive · Architecture · Moscow · Heritage
The Dovecote Dacha, or simply the dacha behind the Donskoy Monastery, is one of the unusual and enigmatic buildings of old Moscow. A great deal is known about it, but just as much has been invented, as so often happens, by city tour guides and mere lovers of historical sensations.
NB! · Faith · Observations · Heritage · Society
Vandalism in Venice. The damage done to a sacred aedicule with an image of the Virgin Mary, not far from the Papadopoli Hotel, is the thanks of Christian Europe from the hordes of Afro-Arab "doctors and engineers". The Reconquista is inevitable