Botafumeiro: The Most Famous Thurible in The World
Kaushik Patowary
Sep 8, 2023
In the Santiago de Compostela Archcathedral Basilica in Galicia, Spain, hangs a very special thurible. It is so special that it has a name o...
Showing posts with the label Curious Objects
Nimrud Lens: A 2,700-Year-Old Magnifying Glass
Kaushik Patowary
Oct 14, 2022
During excavations of the ancient Assyrian capital of Kalkhu (better known as Nimrud, in Iraq) in 1850, archaeologist Austen Henry Layard fo...
The Wicked Bible
Kaushik Patowary
Oct 12, 2022
A scandalous printing mistake in a 17th century King James Bible caused it’s printers to lose their license, and a vast majority of the bibl...
Insectothopter: CIA’s Dragonfly-Shaped Bug
Kaushik Patowary
Sep 23, 2022
Is that buzz above your head an insect, or is it a miniature flying machine? With current technology and progress in mechanical miniaturiz...
Cross Writing: A Peculiar Way to Save Paper And Postage
Kaushik Patowary
Sep 22, 2022
Back in the 1800s, when both paper and postage were expensive (the cost of posting a letter depended on how many sheets of paper you used), ...
Hannah Beswick: The Manchester Mummy
Kaushik Patowary
Aug 26, 2022
Hannah Beswick had a morbid fear of being buried alive, and this dread was not entirely irrational. Her young brother John almost had his co...
Rohonc Codex
Kaushik Patowary
Apr 26, 2022
The Rohonc Codex is a 448-page illustrated manuscript book written by an unknown author in an unknown language that has baffled scholars and...
Kugelpanzer: The Mysterious Nazi Ball Tank
Kaushik Patowary
Apr 25, 2022
When the Soviet Union invaded Manchuria in 1945 after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, the Red Army recovered a strange vehicle from the pos...
The Oldest Name in The World
Kaushik Patowary
Apr 12, 2022
Humans have been calling each other by names probably for hundreds of thousands of years ever since the first human beings evolved from Homo...
The Mysterious Phaistos Disc
Kaushik Patowary
Apr 7, 2022
The Phaistos Disc is an enigmatic disk of fired clay discovered in the Minoan palace of Phaistos on the Greek island of Crete, possibly dati...
‘Meldeman Plan’: The First Siege of Vienna
Kaushik Patowary
Mar 25, 2022
One of the oldest topographical maps of Vienna is the so-called “Meldeman-Plan’’ published by the Austrian painter and printer Nikolaus Meld...
Giuseppe Fieschi’s Infernal Machine
Kaushik Patowary
Feb 24, 2022
On July 28, 1835, Giuseppe Marco Fieschi positioned himself in front of an open window on the third floor of N. 50 Boulevard du Temple in Pa...
The Eagle Made Out of Lincoln's Hair
Kaushik Patowary
Feb 23, 2022
In a small dimly lit back room of the Onondaga Historical Association in Syracuse, New York, is a unique and priceless treasure—a civil-war ...
How to Color The World
Kaushik Patowary
Feb 7, 2022
In addition to classifying thousands of animals and plants, early naturalists faced an enormous challenge: accurately describing their color...
The Lion of Gripsholm Castle
Kaushik Patowary
Jan 18, 2022
There is much more to taxidermy then stuffing straw into the hide of a dead animal and sewing it up. It requires the taxidermist to possess ...
The Giant of Castelnau
Kaushik Patowary
Jan 14, 2022
Legends of giants permeate folklore of cultures around the world. The ancient Greeks had Gigantes who were born of Gaia (Earth) when blood f...
The Florescence of Lignum Nephriticum
Kaushik Patowary
Dec 13, 2021
The Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand III once received a gift from Athanasius Kircher, a German Jesuit scholar, sometime in the middle of the 17...
King Henry VIII’s Horned Helmet
Kaushik Patowary
Dec 9, 2021
The Royal Armouries Museum in Leeds hold in their possession a peculiar helmet, believed to have belonged to the infamous English King Henry...
Codex Gigas, The Devil's Bible
Kaushik Patowary
Nov 15, 2021
At the National Library of Sweden in Stockholm, there is on display a gigantic bible, 36 inches long, 20 inches wide and nearly 9 inches thi...
Leonardo da Vinci’s Ostrich Egg Globe
Kaushik Patowary
Nov 8, 2021
If the first map to represent the American continent is that of Juan de la Cosa, made in the year 1500, and the first in which the name Amer...
