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NB! · Archaeology · Museums · Observations · Mores · Humour
Roman bone dolls with movable limbs from the 3rd to 4th centuries AD
I thought Soviet baby dolls were creepy, and then I saw these Roman bone dolls with movable limbs, 3rd to 4th centuries AD. Shall we talk about the psyche of the children of Ancient Rome?
NB! · Faith · Observations · Humour
In the Christmas bustle I always find myself, for some reason, remembering the undeservedly forgotten little Mithras
In the Christmas bustle I always find myself, for some reason, remembering the undeservedly forgotten little Mithras. Though the bull really need not have been killed
Archive · Faith · Books · Observations
On St Nicholas's Day, a detail comes to mind
On St Nicholas's Day, a detail comes to mind. In the 1642 book "The Service and Life of Nicholas the Wonderworker" there is, in the margin of one page, a curious note dating from the eighteenth century: "If things go quite badly for you, pray
NB! · Architecture · Faith · Observations · Heritage · Rome
Do you see the empty niche in the upper part of the façade of Santa Maria in Aracoeli?
Do you see the empty niche in the upper part of the façade of Santa Maria in Aracoeli? It was here that the first public clock of Rome was installed, in 1412, 42 years after Paris. But in 1806 it was decided to move the clock to the tower of
Architecture · Faith · Observations · Rome
Saint Eustace's stag and the Roman church that gave its name to a square
In the very heart of Rome stands a small church with a most unusual crucifix: from its roof a stag gazes down upon the city, a cross between its antlers. This is the heraldic emblem of Saint Eustace, a Roman general who converted to Christianity after meeting, while out hunting,
NB! · Architecture · Observations · Rome
The second Roman clepsydra is hidden in the courtyard of the private Palazzo Berardi, out of sight of passers-by, and is built as a frontal fountain with caryatids and a shell-shaped basin in which an otter sits
The second Roman clepsydra is hidden in the courtyard of the private Palazzo Berardi, out of sight of passers-by, and is built as a frontal fountain with caryatids and a shell-shaped basin in which an otter sits. The clock works faithfully and chimes
Archive · Monarchies · Observations · People
The legend of Fyodor Kuzmich and the words about escaping to America attributed to Alexander I
The legend of the elder Fyodor Kuzmich, under whose name Alexander I supposedly lived in hiding in Siberia, is not the only evidence that the Emperor was terribly weighed down by the burden of the crown and longed to be rid of the duties of power, to run away. A
Faith · Books · Observations
The word petoglasheniye in Church Slavonic texts and midnight prayers
There is a lovely and rare word in Church Slavonic texts: petoglashenie (“cockcrow”). It denotes the time between midnight and morning and corresponds to the first crowing of the cock, when special prayers are said, the midnight offices, otherwise known as the “cock-crowing” prayers. Anyway, I make you a
Faith · The East · Observations · Science
Irina Vasilyevna Pozdeyeva used to say that Saint Nicholas of Japan taught the Japanese language to Academician Huber, but only 12 years passed between the birth of the latter and the death of the former
Irina Vasilyevna Pozdeyeva used to say that Saint Nicholas of Japan taught the Japanese language to Academician Huber, but only 12 years passed between the birth of the latter and the death of the former. That leaves the possibility that Huber studied Japanese as a child, given his noble origins;
Archaeology · Monarchies · Museums · Observations · Mores · New York · Humour
Couch from the villa of Lucius Verus near Rome in the Metropolitan Museum
This couch is assembled from fragments, some of which come from the imperial villa of Lucius Verus near Rome and date to the 1st-2nd centuries AD. It is kept at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The glass inlay may not correspond to the original, but the bone panels are
NB! · Art · Observations · Mores
Banner of the Saint Petersburg Hairdressers' and Barbers' Guild, Founded in 1785
The badge of the Russian Craft Board of the Hairdressers' and Barbers' Guild, established on 26 April 1785. Tell me, am I the only one who finds it slightly ghoulish that a hairdresser's dummy is rendered as a living body, which looks lopped off and mounted