NB! · Archive · Faith · Art · Science

This tortoise from the Michael Mahzor (Jewish codex of the early fourteenth century) may, oddly enough, correspond to the astronomical scorpion, Akrav, and relates to the prayer for rain

A hand in a white glove holds a brass astrolabe in front of a wall of tiles painted with minarets and ornaments.

NB! · Art · Observations · Science · Education

Thousand-year-old astrolabe sold at Sotheby's for £680,750

A 1,000-year-old astrolabe sold at Sotheby's for £680,750; a pity that an instrument so popular in antiquity has been forgotten, along with the fundamentals of astronomy, though. How can one be educated without them?

NB! · Museums · Science · Humour

A Typical Sixteenth-Century Medical Kit: A Few Shells, Teeth, an Octopus and, of Course, a Mummy

NB! · Archive · Books · Science · Nature

Mandrake

Mandrake. Drawing from the Greek treatise "On Medicinal Substances". This copy dates from the 10th century, although the original was written by Pedanius Dioscorides in the 1st century AD and was copied for 1,500 years

Archive · Science · Education

Writing Large Numbers with Letters and Signs, from Tma and Legion to Tma Tem

Numbers above 1,000 were written by placing, before the letter denoting the number of thousands, an obliquely slanting line crossed twice. Large numbers were written thus: Az (the letter a) in a circle was a tma ("darkness"), or 10,000. Accordingly, Zemlya (the letter z) in a

Aristocracy · Archaeology · Monarchies · Science

Genetic analysis in 2013 did not confirm that the skull belonged to Henry IV

However, a genetic examination in 2013 refuted the attribution of the skull to the founder of the Bourbon dynasty. Neither by mitochondrial DNA nor by the Y chromosome was the genetic information extracted from the skull found to be related to the Bourbons living today, whether through the maternal or

On the left, a facial reconstruction of a man with a moustache and beard; on the right, a 3D scan of a skull overlaid on half of that face.

NB! · Archive · Monarchies · Science · People

2010 Examination Confirmed That the Skull Belonged to Henry IV

In 2010 an osteological examination proved that the famous skull really did belong to Henry IV. This was established from the traces of a mole on the nose of the mummified head and from a piercing in the right ear

NB! · Science · Palaeontology · Nature

The fossilised trunk of an ancient giant clubmoss, Lepidodendron, at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh; these trees reached 35 metres in height and a metre in girth

Archive · Science · Society · People

A paradoxical and terrible story of how, during the launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile at Baikonur, between 78 and 126 people died, among them the Commander-in-Chief of the Strategic Rocket Forces, Chief Marshal…

Nedelin is known for his keen interest in technology and rockets, and for often attending launches and tests in person: he flew out to watch the explosions of hydrogen and atomic bombs and visited the landing sites of spacecraft. News of his death was released almost at once, but with

Archive · Observations · Science

The subtractive rule in Roman numerals and older variants of their notation

At times one comes across original formats of Roman numerals that differ from the familiar ones. /For the sake of clarity, in the explanation below I shall separate the orders of magnitude with full stops; this is permissible/ As regards the notation we are accustomed to, 1899 ought to be

NB! · Archaeology · Heritage · Science

For several years now, scholars from the University of Leipzig have been working at this site, and only half a year ago they were telling of a newly discovered fresco in which Ramesses prays to some gods or other, and here we have an entire Colossus!

NB! · Archive · The East · Science